Book Review: Intersex

Audacia Ray — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:17:13 +0000

Intersex by Thea Hillman

This reviewed was originally posted on Goodreads
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thea Hillman’s book is thoroughly beautiful, written in a way that makes you feel like you’re her one and only confidant, not just a reader. The book is structured as a series of short essays, some of which are obviously based on talks she has given in her career as an activist, performer, public speaker, and educator.

I think a bigger, more mainstream publisher (the book is published by Manic D Press) would have really pushed Thea to stick more strictly to the theme of growing up and coping as intersex. As the book it is, it’s a slightly messy piece of writing about the intersections of class, gender, biological sex, sexual orientation, desire, and the anxieties of self. That complexity is interesting and wonderful – I don’t really see how it would be possible for her to write her story along one of those lines without the others. That said, I personally would’ve given the book a different title. Thea’s struggle with being intersex is a core theme of the book, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s what the book is *about*.

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

Good porn, bad porn

Audacia Ray — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:22:59 +0000

Since I wrote about them in my December Hot Movies for Her column, I’ve been keeping tabs on the Sharing is Sexy collective. To refresh your memory and save you the effort of clicking around – they’re a San Diego based collective that is making open source, Creative Commons-licensed porn. That means it’s free and you can spread it around the internet as long as you’re not making a buck off of it. The site is also hosted on the servers of the University of California at San Diego servers (!) and is actually part of the thesis project of Lotu5, one of the collective members whose blog is called Techno Tranny Slut. The blog is well worth checking out if you’re a gender and sex nerd, especially if you’re of an academic and radical persuasion.

As I write in the column, I’m a little bit on the fence about Sharing is Sexy. On one hand, it’s a cool thing and I like to see queers experimenting with and being empowered by sex media. On the other hand, I am suspicious of people who are anti-capitalist and make porn purely for empowerment and as a way to challenge the dominant paradigm.

Today I read an interview with the collective at .dpi called On How Porn Can Teach Us All to Share. In response to the question … what is porn? And what would you qualify as “good porn”? Also, you make it clear that one of your aims is to inspire positive attitudes and actions. Could you detail how this can be achieved via SiS? … collective member Scruffy Eudora (link is to nudity, because the goodness of this response made me immediately look for the noodz) replies in part

I don’t think the categories of good and bad can be applied to porn because in so doing, you silence certain stories, you exclude certain perspectives. I think you can ask how porn functions in society and you can ask if it is ethical. The things that come up for me in terms of it being ethical deal with the way it was produced. To me, something done ethically has to be done with justice and oppression in mind.

Though I do think that the categories of good and bad can be applied to porn, I definitely agree that this can create a value judgment – similar to the erotica vs porn thing – at least when it comes to the content or aesthetic of the porn. When it comes to production, however, the good/bad is a little bit clearer – decent pay, good working conditions, the ability of a performer to say no once on set, etc, make for good porn.

Waking Vixen » queer

Book Review: Intersex

Good porn, bad porn