CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif.—Actor/director Trenton Ducati has what gay-centric journal The Advocate is calling "a brilliant idea": Throw a party at the Cathedral City Boys Club (CCBC) Resort Hotel near Palm Springs over three days in early March and pack that weekend with at least four parties, live "erotic" shows, strippers, go-go dancers and more!
And so Porn Disco was born.
"I love this idea because it brings us back to a time when sex was celebrated and the music idea obviously has been a hit for decades," Ducati told The Advocate. "Oh, and the outfit ideas and costume possibilities were just too good to pass up. I was thinking, what would it be like if we took Studio 54 one step further? What would people be doing? That is where the idea of Porn Disco was born."
The "disco" part will mainly be taken care of by two well-known, popular DJs: Polyglamorous, a duo DJ set with a worldwide following, and DJ Pacifico, a popular DJ and event producer for years, who'll be spinning during the pool party event.
"Besides our great music we have boys, boys, boys and more boys," Ducati assured. "On the stage, we will have live erotic shows with some of the adult industry's most popular stars. They will be getting naked right in front of you."
According to performer Arad Winwin, some of those stars will come from sponsoring studios including FalconStudios.com, JustFor.Fans, Hothouse.com and NastyDaddy.com.
And if they aren't enough, Ducati will be importing strippers from the Adonis Lounge L.A., who'll not only be doing strip shows all night, but Porn Disco will have an "Adonis Lounge" tent set up for the boys to do "private dancing."
But if all that sounds like too much fun, don't worry: Free Speech Coalition and the Desert AIDS Project will be right there on the scene, and they've got a big announcement scheduled for Saturday afternoon, March 2—and yes, there'll be food and drinks there as well.
"We're looking at doing a big announcement over the weekend of the 1st through the 3rd in Palm Springs," said Eric Paul Leue, executive director of Free Speech Coalition. "Trenton and various studios are organizing this thing called Porn Disco and so we figured there's a large group of performers who will be in town. So since the program is focused around Palm Springs right now because it's a pilot program, a first step in hopefully building a national network of these kind of services for performers and sex workers, we figured that this would be an ideal place to launch it and have a broader conversation around it and educate performers about the services that will be available to them."
And what services might those be?
"When we talk about HIV and sexual health in general, we talk about populations that could most benefit from services and support and access to services, so one of those populations is sex worker populations because they have a lot of sex," Leue explained. "That's mostly where Desert AIDS Project (DAP) comes in, as an organization that provides those services to those populations. So when we started talking to Desert AIDS, they started talking about PrEP, PEP, HIV treatment, and Trenton brought in, 'What about mental health? What about housing assistance? What if they need to see a primary care physician because they have some other ailment that needs to be dealt with?' So the project really grew around that and I think what's really positive about it is that it's the first time that we're in such an official capacity able to partner with a non-profit organization that works in this space to provide community-aware services.
"Oftentimes, for many people, whether it's a sex worker or someone else, when we get into a situation where we need help, nothing is more frustrating than when you call a number that you think is the right one, and they go, 'Oh, no, you have to call over there for this part and over there for this part'," he continued. "So the idea was, how do we build a one-stop-shop approach for sex workers where they know that the person who picks up the phone or talks with them is somebody that's culturally competent and is not somebody that will misunderstand or judge them for the work that they do, and that was really important to us. So DAP has incredibly well-trained staff around those and they absolutely do provide services far beyond PrEP and PEP. So the idea is, if I'm a performer and I'm in Palm Springs and I need help with this, then I can call them but I can also talk with them about other stuff. So that one-stop-shop approach is a very interesting one to address that."
The DAP/FSC program that's reaching out to adult industry members is called the "Next Steps" program, and according to Leue, "The Next Steps program focuses on connecting members of the sex work industry to affordable healthcare and/or social support services. The Desert AIDS Project Department of Community Health PrEP Navigation Program will serve as the bridge between the partner agencies to connect members of the Next Steps program to the appropriate services as deemed necessary. This may include primary medical care, behavioral/mental health services, HIV pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis and more as needed."
So, guys and gals (well, mostly guys), Porn Disco is the place to be the first weekend in March. Go for the fun and games, and come away a little bit more knowledgeable about health, HIV prevention and the services available to talent through FSC and DAP.
