Photo by Amy Audrey, Art Direction by Leslie Barany
Annie Sprinkle requires no introduction. She's been the queen of adult entertainment since the term was coined. From live sex shows in Times Square to her current incarnation as a "Love Artist," Ms. Sprinkle has been on the forefront of erotica, pioneering every exciting new permutation of porn -- feminist porn, educational porn, female-to-male transsexual porn, art porn -- and with her most recent contribution: "cancer porn." She has charmed and alarmed and basically done her damnedest to wake people up to the thrill of their own sexual powers. In between her art projects, educational lectures and extensive travels, Annie had a few moments to fill us in on what she's up to these days.
Eros Zine: You've had just about the longest career in adult entertainment of anyone. Do you still consider yourself to be in the biz?
Annie Sprinkle: Yes, I'm still in the biz. Basically I make my living as an artist. But my art projects are often about sex and I still promote some of my old sex films, recycled and redone. I have a new release of my Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn DVD. It's my film diary of thirty years of making sex films, and it's one of a kind. I've added new features, like a chat with film scholar Linda Williams about porn, and some clips from my performances. Plus a film I made which no one has seen before called Art of the Loop. It's clips from old 8mm loops -- all kinds of loops -- which I just love. Our erotic heritage! In spades. It's quite nice.
Eros Zine: You've got a Ph.D. now! What was that journey like for you?
Annie Sprinkle: I like having a Ph.D. It makes me feel a little more accomplished. But I don't think it has changed much, if at all, in terms of my work or life. It just made me feel good to get it. And I liked learning more about sexuality. There's always more to learn about sex. It's the best topic in the world. My parents were both educators. I believe in education -- teaching and learning -- especially about sex.
Eros Zine: You've also got a recent book out,
Dr. Sprinkle's Spectactular Sex. I suppose the answer is obvious, but how is it different from all the other sex books out there?
Annie Sprinkle: My book is a sex life makeover book. It's for anyone who wants to make changes in their sex lives. Transform themselves. I help people find what works best for them and teach them how to create it. It's my life's work in a book. There are two excellent chapters on orgasm, as well. I'm all about learning and teaching about orgasm.
Eros Zine: You're calling yourself a "love artist" these days. How did you come up with that?
Annie Sprinkle: I fell madly in love. Suddenly I was really fascinated with love. Sex is under the larger umbrella of love. When the war broke out, amid seeing how much violence and hatred and prejudice there is in the world, my partner and I wanted to do something. So we decided to generate lots of love. We have committed to doing seven years of art projects about love. It's a wonderful project, which I'm really enjoying. People can go to our web site and see the documentation of our projects.
Eros Zine: And how does that differ or improve upon your previous incarnation as a Post Porn Modernist?
Annie Sprinkle: "Post Porn Modernist" was really about moving from porn to art, in my life, and trying to create a genre of sexually explicit stuff that was arty and provocative in new ways. That was then; Love Artist is now. Love Artist can certainly include Post Porn Modernist. I'm still a post porn modernist, and still make porn and erotica. On loveartlab.org there are some new photos of me with my lover, called Hairotica 1 and Hairotica 2 . When I got breast cancer nine months ago, we eroticized the experience of losing my hair when I started chemo. As far as I know, it's the first and only cancer porn out there. I like starting new genres and expanding ideas of what porn and erotica is. Fun, fun, fun! And needed. I helped pioneer feminist porn, edu-porn, F2M transsexual porn, art porn... and I'm proud of that.
By the way, I'm all through with the breast cancer treatments. I did chemo and radiation and am now good as new, with short hair for the moment. It was quite an adventure. I got to keep my boobs, thankfully. If I had to get cancer, I was very happy it was breast cancer, because that ties in with all the boob-oriented projects I've done for decades.
Eros Zine: It's pretty fucking brave to put a visual diary of your chemo online. You even look like, well, like you're having a good time. Which is inspiring as hell. At the very least, you're making the best of a bad situation and possibly taking some of the scariness out of it for other women. How have you been doing it?
Annie Sprinkle: Yes, we did actually have fun with it. It was a very interesting and exciting experience, the whole cancer thing. Fortunately I had great doctors, great friends, great support and a great partner. Health insurance was good, too, as well as a shaman, therapist, acupuncturist, herbalist, etc.
Eros Zine: And putting up photos of your actual surgery! I gotta say, you have an uncanny ability to make just about everything happy and fun!
AZ: Yes, why not? Everything can be fun if you let it be. Sometimes it was difficult being so chemically altered with chemo, but still it was interesting. And making art projects out of difficult things really helps make it fun and much more doable.
Eros Zine: How is year two going of your project going so far? I've been loving ORANGE these days myself!
Annie Sprinkle: We will be doing an all-orange wedding in San Francisco on July 2nd. It will be telecast live online at our site, so people can tune in. I sort of feel like that's when the orange year really starts. We're doing a wedding once a year in a different color. We've been very focused on a theater piece called Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art. We tour it. There's a hot scene of us under the covers in a bed onstage where we use a special camera to film in the dark.
Eros Zine: How do you come up with all those art projects? You must be incubating new ideas every second!
Annie Sprinkle: Funny you think so. The trick is finding
time to do all the things I want to do. Ideas are many. I also
try and go see other artists and performers I like. I saw an
amazing porn art film by one of my favorite artists, Marina
Abramovic. There are great people out there doing great
things. I get inspired by others too.
Eros Zine: Your Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic is a great idea! Do you plan to keep doing it in other cities?
Annie Sprinkle: Yes, we will do it in more cities. Next stop Austin, Texas. People can go to anniesprinkle.org and check my calendar to see if I'm coming to their town. The clinics are really fun. We love to do them. People really enjoy them and benefit from them. There are photos of two clinics on loveartlab.org. All kinds of people off the street come, sit down and ask us all kinds of questions.
Eros Zine: What new art pieces and projects do you have in mind for the Creativity & Sexuality year?
Annie Sprinkle: We are pretty focused on the show Exposed, and on our wedding. Both have sex and creative elements.
Eros Zine: Anything you're feeling particularly passionate about today?
Annie Sprinkle: I'm most passionate about Exposed. It's basically our love story. I also love to cook and clean, and make love for hours. I'm all about making love. It's a classic case of a porn star/prostitute having a secret fantasy of being madly in love and being a full-time housewife, doing nothing but pleasing her beloved. That's the fantasy I'm living. I've been very happy with my life along the way and I'm extremely happy and fulfilled right now. Living all my dreams. I just wish I had more hours in a day. Life is going just a bit too fast.
I invite all readers of this to visit my two web sites and check out what I'm up to. If you're interested, please invite me to your town! I'm always up for new gigs. Meanwhile, check out my new book and new DVD. And spread the love.
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EROTICA
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. I suppose the answer is obvious, but how is it different from all the other sex books out there?
