SAN FRANCISCO—Two organizations that promote sex education and lively, sophisticated discussions about sex and culture will join forces next month to entertain, inform and raise funds. CatalystCon, a wide-ranging conference on sexuality, welcomes San Francisco's Center for Sex & Culture to the East Coast and hosts a benefit evening of performance and more on behalf of the West Coast nonprofit. This event is open to the public (18+), not only attendees of the conference.
CatalystCon, marking its second year at the Crystal City Hilton, brings sex educators, bloggers, academics, students and community activists together March 14-16 for three days of panels, keynotes and passionate conversation and networking. The CSC benefit, "Center for Sex & Culture: Traveling," launches the conference on March 13. Featuring performances by sex educator Ducky DooLittle and CSC founder Dr. Carol Queen, and hosted by CSC co-founder Dr. Robert Morgan Lawrence, the event also offers an opportunity for attendees to peruse or purchase Safe Sex Bang, CSC's first publication: a full-color catalog of the center's recent show of HIV/AIDS safer sex posters from the '80s and beyond, collected and produced by artist/activist Buzz Bense during the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Carol Queen will present an excerpt of her solo performance, "Peep Show," about her time working as a "real live nude girl" at San Francisco's notorious Lusty Lady theater. In it, she brings her audience backstage and into the "talk booth" of the historic peep show, which closed last year after several years as a union house and later as a worker-owned cooperative. Meet her co-workers and customers in this intimate and funny tour. Queen is the author of Exhibitionism for the Shy, Real Live Nude Girl, and The Leather Daddy and the Femme; she has edited many other books about sex and eroticism.
Ducky Doolittle will perform her own peep show tales; while Carol Queen held down the fort in San Francisco, Doolittle, at the tender age of 19, was having adventures at Show Follies on the other side of the continent. Her insights about the thousands of men she saw there—and the way the other peep show girls helped her learn the ropes and grow up—will amaze the civilians and make other former sex workers nod in recognition. Doolittle is the author of Sex With The Lights On: 200 Illuminating Sex Questions Answered and is currently the education coordinator for the New York Academy of Sex Education. She is also the education coordinator for adult retailer Tantus Inc.
In addition to the performances showcased at "CSC: Traveling," the Center for Sex & Culture will have a strong presence at CatalystCon. Founders Carol Queen, Ph.D. and Robert Morgan Lawrence, D.C., Ed.D. will participate in several panels. Carol will present "Consent: It Takes a Village," "Promiscuity: Virtue or Vice?", and "Real to Reel Sex." Robert joins her for "Consent: It Takes A Village."
CSC board member Metis Black will present "Creating Change in the Sex Toy Industry." Many others who have presented at the Center for Sex & Culture will also participate in CatalystCon, including Annie Sprinkle, Betty Dodson, Jackie Strano and Shar Rednour, Melissa Gira Grant and Siouxsie Q.
Queen will also host an evening of readings as part of CatalystCon's Saturday night program, "Off the Page: Sex Talk with Carol Queen and Friends." Its theme: Exceptional conversations about sex happen in many forms—face to face, in bed, on the 'Net, and coloring our cultural representations. Writers have them all the time, alone with their laptops—and it's a treat to bring them off the page and into a room full of engaged listeners. Join Carol Queen and some of Catalyst's erotic writers, memoirists, essayists, and sex pundits for a night of conversation-sparking readings to remember.
"Thinking about curating a literary night for CatalystCon," said Queen, "I wanted to extend the focus of the panels and events, but also—especially—of the many hot and heavy conversations about all things sexual that the conference inspires. I've invited some of my favorite writers to participate, and I'm sure that together they'll create one terrific reading. This also gives me a chance to bring some of the energy of the Center for Sex & Culture to share with CatalystCon, since many of our readers are friends of CSC, have appeared there, and create the kind of discourse that CSC exists to promote." "Off the Page" showcases the literary talents and unique perspectives of Robert Morgan Lawrence, Twanna Hines, Lilith Grey, Gram Ponante, Tina Horn, Annie Sprinkle, and Veronica Vera.
Additionally, Carol Queen helps close CatalystCon with an historic conversation with "the Mother of Masturbation," Betty Dodson.
Carol Queen appears at CatalystCon courtesy of Good Vibrations.
