LOS ANGELES—TEA Con, the Saturday afternoon gathering of trans porn stars and their fans sponsored by Transgender Erotica Awards' founder Steve Grooby, took a pass this year, for reasons yet to be explained—but in its place was a seminar, "Real Fucking Sex Ed," moderated by adult stars Siouxsie Q and Morgan Bailey. The event took place at Boardner's Bar in Hollywood.
"With sex work, no matter how you're engaging with it as a consumer, as a performer, as a bystander, it comes with some stigma, and that's super-shitty," Siouxsie began. "So I ask everyone here today to err on the side of not shouting, 'Hey, Siouxsie, loved what you taught me about butt sex last Saturday' if you see me at the farmers market or anywhere else. That goes for photos or Instagramming as well. Please ask first and make sure you're not capturing anyone's image that doesn't want it captured."
That was Lesson #1: Consent—without which a lot of sex ed would just fall by the wayside. For example, as Stormy Daniels and Jessica Drake have recently found out, the relative anonymity of being a porn star, once shattered, can have massive consequences for the porn star/sex worker's private, personal life.
Siouxsie then introduced Morgan Bailey, who identified herself as a "TS adult performer, in the business for ten years, so I guess I know a little bit about it."
Siouxsie stated that "Something that sex workers are often tasked with is sex education, because people are not learning sex ed in school so they're learning sex ed from porn—and that's terrible! Which is true. You don't want to learn to drive by watching The Fast and The Furious. I understand." She then opened a discussion about how many in the audience of about 30 had had sex ed in school, and what they learned? That led to audience members telling how they first learned about lesbian sex, bondage, etc.
"I learned sex education in the back seat of a car," Morgan chimed in. "What an awful place to make a mistake, though..."
"Oh, my goodness, what I would have given as a young queer person to have a femmes-to-the-front, sex professional-led, trans-inclusive, queer sex ed class," Siouxsie added. "That would have changed my life."
Siouxsie announced that the class would cover "every hole, from top to bottom, the ins and outs of topping, bottoming, the whole gamut, and we're going to start with what everybody wants to know, which is how you fuck like a porn star."
The first major point the pair made about being a porn star was the necessity of testing every 14 days, though Morgan added that testing was important for everyone, since knowing one's sexual health would impact many of their decisions about sex and life in general.
Siouxsie listed the seven diseases that porn performers regularly test for—she called them the "seven dwarves" as a mnemonic—but noted that testing isn't everything.
"It's very important, when we're getting to our first hole ... your eyes; your eyes are technically holes, right?" she said. "And when you use them, you can see things that may not be things that we test for in the adult industry. So like herpes, HPV, ringworm, the common cold..."
Both moderators noted that it's always up to the performer themself if they want to work with someone who may be showing signs of a cold or other disease. Siouxsie also warned that sexually transmitted diseases shouldn't be stigmatized, in the same way that we don't stigmatize someone with a cold—or cancer.
This led to a lively audience discussion, during which Bella Bathory announced, "I fuck everyone like they have ebola."
Continuing the discussion of holes, Siouxsie noted that the eyes are also erogenous zones, and that porn had taught her that how sex looks can be important.
"Eyes and visual, non-verbal communication is the only communication that travels at the speed of light," she said. "They are an important part of consent, and an important part of getting free porn while you get fucked."
The pair then covered the rest of the body's holes, including the nose holes ("Scent is very important, right? ... Sex should smell like sex."), the ear holes ("You guys have to talk dirty; you have to. If you're scared, get over it and learn how to do it."), the mouth hole (besides kissing, b.j.s and pussy-licking, "The most important thing about your mouth hole is communication, making sure you have someone's consent before you take a picture of them, and you want to have an active conversation about consent before you're about to fuck: What you're going to do, what your limits are." Also, "Hydration is very important. ... Your mouth, your eyes, your nose, they all need moisture to be working correctly."), genitals ("It's important to remember that all of our genitals are essentially the same; it's just in different hormone baths. Labia and scrotums like to be tickled, and clits and heads of penises like to be sucked and licked and all those things, and it's all a little bit smaller, a little bit bigger, a hole here, whatever. It's all essentially the same"—though a lively discussion followed about what people call their various holes), and the butthole ("There's not enough education about anal sex, so since we have anal sex for a living, we're gonna start at the very beginning"—and they did, explaining how to get that ass really clean).
"Remember that to get something into your butthole, it's counter-intuitive," Siouxsie warned as the seminar drew to an end. "To get something really big into your butthole, you have to push out, so once you're confident that you're clean, you won't be worried about pushing out and that means you can get more in. Use your butthole—and remember that genitals in general are both stronger and more sensitive than we give them credit for, ever. Genitals are in charge of making life. Like, they're actual god, they can do a lot, but also, we have a ton of nerve endings, a ton of sensation and information and therefore trauma in our genitals, and buttholes and our sex organs, so remember that, and have a fucking blast. Sex is great, it's what adults do for fun, and you shouldn't be ashamed of anything you desire. Have a blast, and have sex!"
The above only scratches the surface of the free-wheeling discussion that took place during the 50-minute talk, but it was clear that the audience learned a lot about sex that they didn't know—and one lucky attendee walked away with a gift bag of sex toys, courtesy of Buck Angel.
