The contributors to Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys come from all walks of life, myriad geographic locations, different levels of academic achievement and the types of life experience that people write books and make movies about. Their contributions to the anthology are as varied as the lives they have lived.
Jodi Sh. Doff, writing as Scarlett Fever. Scarlett Fever was born with the first issue of BUST and has gone on to publish in Penthouse, Playgirl , Bust, Tear (Italy), Olive Tree Literary Review, Cosmopolitan, Stim.com and CommonTies.com; been anthologized in Best American Erotica ‘95, Bearing Life (Feminist Press – as Jodi Sh. Doff), Between the Sheets (Penthouse Anthology), and The Bust Guide to a New Girl Order . She has been active in prostitutes rights, harm reduction and outreach. Scarlett has been working on a memoirs of her ten years in the pre-Disney Times Square topless business for what seems like forever. She is proud to have been a chapter of “historical reference” in Lily Burana’s Strip City. There is also a serial killer love story, with some rather disturbing parallels to her own life, in the works. That said, Ms. Doff grew up in the suburbs as someone else entirely.
Alvin Orloff (Al Eros) is the author of two novels, I Married An Earthling, a queer sci-fi spoof, and Gutter Boys, a new wave love story with ghosts, both available from Manic D Press. He also appears in the anthologies Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients and Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartbreak: Adventures in The First Person. He lives in San Francisco where he is hard at work on yet another novel.
Sadie Lune is a multimedia artist, sex worker, absurdist and pleasure activist. She has won awards for her films, performed explicit whore work in museums and shown her cervix internationally. She is looking for patrons and a wife. Sadie lives in San Francisco with her three snakes and beloved roommate Irene.
Kirk Read is the author of How I Learned to Snap and the forthcoming essay collection “This is the Thing.” He curates events around San Francisco and co-hosts the open mics series K’vetsh and Smack Dab. He has worn many hats at St. James Infirmary, San Francisco’s free clinic for sex workers, including HIV counselor and phlebotomist. He is working on a novel as well as two anthologies — a book of male sex worker essays and a collection about the intersections between gay male and transmale communities. His website is kirkread.com
Scott Upper currently splits his time between San Francisco and Big Sur, where he is furiously penning a scandalous book about his semi-scandalous life as an Olympic hopeful turned dot com drone turned traveling escort.
Candye Kane may still be a well-kept mainstream secret but in most underground circles, her diva status is legendary. She has been making music professionally for over two decades and toured worldwide since 1992, performing for amazingly diverse audiences. She played at the French Embassy in Rome for the President of Italy, headlined the Rhythm Riot, a rockabilly and R&B festival in the UK, and belted it out alongside Ray Charles at the Cognac Blues Festival. She slayed em’ at the Cannes Film Festival, kept them enthralled at New York Gay Pride and most recently, helped organize a thirteen city tour of the Netherlands for special needs kids. Learn more and hear her sing on her website.
Melissa Petro is a writer currently living in New York City. As an undergraduate, she conducted ethnographic research on women’s participation in the sex industry. This research was presented at Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides, a conference for scholars, activists and analysts involved in issues surrounding sex work, and published in the August 2006 issue of Research on Sex Work. In 2007, she earned her Masters in Fine Arts degree from The New School University. She is currently writing a memoir.
Mariko Passion is a writer, poet, singer, artist and activist passionate about sex worker rights, art and bringing our voices and struggles to the forefront through creative activism. Originally from San Francisco, she has been in the sex industry for 9 years. She is the director of Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles, where she lives and works as an escort and activist.
Georgina Spelvin was born in the bowels of Lower Manhattan in 1972. She was 36 years old at the time – rather long in the tooth for a porn actress. The daughter of George Adversity Spelvin, the noted Shakespearean actor, and Stark Necessity, an inventive mother, she became the darling of Porn Chic with the release of Gerard Damiano’s epochal film, The Devil In Miss Jones. Her portrayal of the virginal Miss Jones earned a very complimentary review from the leading film critic of the day, Judith Crist. This unprecedented acceptance of a sex actress by the mainstream media led to numerous film assignments for her over the next ten years. There were even two films, Police Academy I and Police Academy III, which had no explicit sex scenes in them at all. In a former life, Ms Spelvin danced on Broadway and in many, many, many summer stock and industrial productions. Just prior to her New York debut at Lou Walters’ famous bistro, The Latin Quarter, she danced in the chorus of the State Fair Summer Musicals in Dallas, Texas in 1954 – her first professional gig. Between the time of Devil’s filming and release, she participated in an average of two hard-core films a month. Footage from these endeavors have been cut and re-cut into so many various and sundry films, that it is impossible to catalogue them accurately, but most of her more structured efforts are listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com). Retired from films since 1979, Ms Spelvin agreed to do the non-sex cameo role in the remake of The Devil in Miss Jones because the director, her good friend Paul Taylor, asked her to. Aside from that brief foray back into the porn world, she has devoted her time and efforts to writing – a secret passion from her earliest memory. Ms Spelvin and her husband are living happily ever after in a small bungalow in Hollywood. They have a cat and several tropical fish.
Juliana Piccillo is a mother, writer and filmmaker who lives in the space between soccer mom and whore. Her film, I was a Teenage Prostitute, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and received national attention. She’s currently finishing a memoir, tentatively titled, Homemaker Hooker, and editing a documentary, Whores on Film, about Hollywood’s love affair with sex workers. Read her blog here.
Annie Sprinkle is the prostitute (worked 20 years) and porn star (about 200 films of all sorts) turned artist and sexologist. She has passionately researched and explored sexuality in all of its glorious and inglorious forms for thirty six years, and shared her findings all along the way through producing and starring in her own unique brand of “post porn” sex films, photographic work, teaching workshops, and doing college lectures. She is now an internationally acclaimed artist who tours theater pieces about her life. Annie has long championed sex worker rights and health care. She was one of the pivotal players in the 80’s “sex positive feminist movement”. In 2002 Annie earned her Ph.D. in Human Sexuality, making her the first porn star to get a Ph.D Her autobiography, Post Porn Modernist is a pioneering cult classic. Hardcore from the Heart: The Pleasures, Profits and Politics of Sex in Performance , won the Firecracker Alternative Book Award (2002). Sprinkle’s last book, “Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex– Makeover Your Love Life” was her first mainstream how-to self-help book. Currently Sprinkle’s main on going project is The Love Art Laboratory, loveartlab.org, in which she collaborates with her partner Elizabeth Stephens. Her newest DVD, Annie Sprinkle’s Amazing World of Orgasm is a poetic homage to the diversity of the orgasm experience. Sprinkle is based out of San Francisco. See www.annniesprinkle.org for more.
“I, Selena Anne Shephard, am a fanciful, neurotic transvestite residing in the hills (in Apartmentville, across from the rich homes) of Greenbrae, California, who makes fun XXX-rated videos and occasionally plays for pay. I like Dylan and trains and Barbie Dolls and satin slips and whimsical humor and heated erotic explorations, from tasty little kisses to up against the wall forced feedings (both ways) to surprising encounters not yet imagined. I am not of the transsexual persuasion, but did experience a sexchange in a surreal scene a few months ago. I have acquired this crazy quilt of a thrift store wardrobe that lends itself to a multitude of femme personifications. Oh, I am also a hypochondrically-inclined narcissist…”
Sam Formo wasn’t a very good ho but he was excellent at taking care of hos. His days in a New York brothel have become no end of inspiration and thanks to the women who worked there; Sam has the utmost respect for sex workers of every level. Sam hails from the armpit of the San Francisco Bay Area: Vallejo or as he like to call it, Fellatio, and took off on a punk rock pilgrimage to New York in the early 80’s. Twelve years were spent in various fringe culture personas such as club kid, junkie, sweater queen, poet, performance artist, panhandler, counterfeit watch peddler, and thief. His works can be read in Jennifer Blowdryer’s Advice to Trendy People of All Ages, Persiflage and the ancient scrolls from the ABC No Rio Open Mic Anthology. Sam is currently working on a one-man show based on his memoirs. After spending many years in the thankless world of non-profit, Sam decided to attend California College of the Arts to finish his fashion design degree, because no one really cares how you feel, it’s all about how you look. He resides in San Francisco and has lousy neighbors.
In 2004 April Daisy White wrote and performed SUGAR a one-woman show about her life. SUGAR explores Miss. White’s entire life; born in France to American parents, leading us up through her journey and healing from her time as an international call girl. SUGAR was produced in L.A. at Edgemar Center for the Arts under the direction of Larry Moss. Having been an actor for many years internationally in film, television and theatre, Daisy is now an acting coach and has worked with actors on numerous productions. She is co-founder of RADIANT PRODUCTIONS, which focuses on producing and directing projects promoting social advocacy for minority groups, focusing on the homeless community and Bosnia rape camps. Daisy also worked on a documentary about sex-workers, which explores the human side of prostitution, THE OTHER SIDE OF NIGHT. Miss. White holds a B.A in Theatre/Literature from Bennington College. Currently she is writing her memoir LOVE FOR SALE. Daisy works as a private Life Coach while also teaching a writing class, ‘Right Your Life by Writing Your Life’ facilitating other artists to tell their true-life stories by providing them the coaching and support they need.
Diana Morgaine is a writer, tarot reader, freelance editor and Improv performer. Formerly, she was the editor-in-chief of a Bay Area arts and culture magazine, and she holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. With her cats Sweet Pea and Sasha, she lives in a communal household in Oakland.
Audacia Ray is a new media professional whose medium is sex. Over the past seven years, she has worked as a curator, blogger, writer, magazine editor, adjunct professor, public speaker, video producer and video editor. Presently, Audacia is the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Women’s Health Coalition and an adjunct professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University. She also maintains her five year old personal blog, Waking Vixen. Audacia has a BA in Cultural Studies from Eugene Lang College at the New School and a MA in American Studies from Columbia University.
In 1978, at 17, Jennifer Blowdryer began to sing with her very own punk band, The Blowdryers. In 1983 – 84, she put together her first book, Modern English: A Photo Illustrated Trendy Slang Dictionary. In 1984, she was singing in a party band, White Trash Debutante and got a fellowship to the Writing Division of Columbia U. At Columbia, she put together White Trash Debutante, a photo illustrated lower middle class autobiography, and The Laziest Secretary in the World, an adventure novel about an overweight temp. In the late 80s, Blowdryer began to run shows called Smut Fests with the initial help of Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera. The first were in a lap dancing parlor in NYC, and they expanded to Hamburg, Baltimore, San Francisco, and London. HBO produced a half hour special on them, for which she was paid a total sum of $3500.In 2002 the first major production (well, perhaps major is a relative term) of her plays was produced at Theater Rhino in San Francisco: White Trash Debutante and Behind the Candelabra.
Surgeon is an acclaimed multimedia performance artist, writer, musician, chef, and mother. She has worked in many facets of the sex industry since 1999 and currently focuses on purposeful BDSM and tantra. Her work is experimental in nature, and centers around themes of raceclassgender, family, tradition, sex workers’ rights, science, borderlands and liminal space. Recent exploits include a residency at the Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art with Pocha Nostra and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Surgeon is a radical hapa who loves all things organic, medical, mechanical, yogic, and sacreligious.
Melinda Adams (Lilycat) came to San Francisco from New Orleans in 1988 to study Communications Arts/ Broadcasting and fell in love with the arts scene in SF. Since 1988, she has worked a bit in radio, television, theater, publications, and series of short and odd jobs. She has been a hostess for Popcorn Anti Theater, and made a documentary film, “Why Should I Live?” She has written erotica writing, horoscopes, and dark and twisted tales. One of her true loves is event production and she has produced and stage-managed over 100 events for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag queen and drag king groups, burlesque troupes, sex workers, film screenings and underground art. She has never met a creative person she didn’t like.
L Z Hansen grew up in London England. She quit school at fifteen: expelled from numerous schools, and eventually diagnosed as dyslexic. She studied fashion design at Kings-way Princeton, where she lasted a year, more interested in clubs and the streets than the classroom. At sixteen she got a job at a hair salon called Antenna known for their ‘hair extensions’, and musician clientele. Here, she befriended Boy George who put her in his ‘It’s a Miracle’ video.
In 1984, armed with $200 she left London for New York City, and began styling hair and living on the Lower East Side. She started in sex work by answering the phones for an escort service and eventually going on out calls. She began writing every day, and moved into The Chelsea Hotel, where she wrestled with heroin addiction. In 1999, she achieved stability through methadone maintenance and felt it was time to open her own brothel, which she did on Park Ave. South and Twenty First Streets. She named it Sterling Ladies. It was the first of five brothels she opened during the next three years.
Zoe closed her businesses just before the birth of her son. She feels it time to hand the torch on to a younger generation of female, who can endure the busts the raids, and the outrageous women, but who are ready to learn about themselves while enjoying the sex industry and making a lot of money. Zoe is now working on her first book and living in the East Village of Manhattan.
Tod Jackson was born in New Jersey, but has spent his life wandering. After spending three years between Los Angeles and San Francisco doing sex work, he has retired to Portland, Oregon where he takes humble classes at Portland Community College. He edited Andrea Lambert’s upcoming novel, Jet Set Desolate, and has appeared in many CalArts students’ audiovisual experiments as a silent and sometimes nude actor.
Anastasia Krylov was born in Moscow, Russia, and left when the Soviet Union fell. She spent five years in Jerusalem, Israel, and then moved to Oakland, California. She now lives and works in Los Angeles, and is looking forward to her next move. She is a graduate of the Sushi Chef Institute, and currently attends community college. She is working on her transfer to UC Santa Cruz, where she hopes to major in Astrophysics and Linguistics. In her free time, she paints, sews, models, slacklines, writes, performs, stalks midnight movie theatres and lurks on the Internet.
Lauri Shaw was born in Forest Hills, N.Y. , and raised in West Egg, Long Island. Lauri remembers West Egg as an idyllic pastiche of bulimia, Prozac, nose jobs and nose candy. Lauri was an insufferable problem child. She left home at fifteen, disappeared into the New York night life shortly thereafter, and emerged in her twenties with a terrible hangover. Lauri has written articles and web copy for lifestyle magazines, fitness publications, and various clients, including Warner Bros. Television. She serializes Servicing the Pole, an online novel about stripping, at www.laurishaw.com. Lauri’s hobbies include torturing well-meaning, innocent men.
Damien Decker’s writing has appeared in $pread magazine and the anthology Unhoused Voices. He has been featured on The Daily Beast and is currently working on a memoir. Damien was born in Zambia but moved as a young child to Scandinavia to become one of the first black people in northern Europe. He recived his degree in USA and is a former college, semi-pro, and national team athlete. Damien is a multilingual jack-of-all-trades who speaks fluent Swedish, Norwegian, English, plus enough French to not starve when in Paris and enough Swahili to know when mother was angry. He currently resides in New York.
Berta Avila is a Chicana from El Segundo Barrio of El Paso, Texas. Some of her work can still be found splashed in loud colors on many an abandoned building in the barrio she grew up in. Graffiti, true, but there are some truths that must be said, especially when oppression, compression, and depression is the daily bread. Her present occupation as a translator pales in comparison to her past occupations, which include exotic dancer, escoert service worker, brothel worker, waitress, medical-legal assistant, and instructional assistant for elementary school children. She considers herself a spiritual warrior, a survivor, who long ago found salvation by passionately expressing her rage, her despair, her resilience, and her hope through her poetry and her artwork.
