We have a new calendar for 2010 coming and with it a brand new site.
Go visit and see who will be in the next NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar
We are still looking for sponsors for the 2010 calendar. If you are interested in supporting Sex Work Awareness while also promoting your business please email us at nycsexblogscal [at] gmail.com
NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar – $10 (US Shipping)
NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar – $10 (Canada Shipping)
NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar – $10 (Overseas Shipping)
100% of your $10.00 donation will go to Sex Work Awareness
I just got this exciting email from Audacia Ray:
Last fall a group of NYC based sex bloggers got their brains (and boobs) together to make a gorgeous pin-up calendar. Sales of the calendar benefit Sex Work Awareness (SWA), a young advocacy organization that I co-founded with several former $pread staffers. SWA works to do public education around sex workers’ issues and to support sex workers in speaking for themselves. To this end, we developed a media training workshop called Speak Up! Media Training for the Empowered Sex Worker, which has been taught in abbreviated forms in Las Vegas and Chicago at the Desiree Alliance conferences. Using funds raised from sales of the calendar, we’ve been able to grow the workshop into a day long session, and the first one is taking place on this Saturday, April 18th.
The participants of the workshop went through an application process and we’ve found a really great first crop of 10 present and former sex workers from all corners of the industry. Most of the participants are New Yorkers, but we’ve also got people coming from Virginia, Toronto, and Rhode Island. After we’re done with them, the group will be ready to take on the world both as media-makers and savvy interviewees. We’ll be releasing them into the wild with Flip video cameras and a bunch of new skills, plus ongoing support from the staff of Sex Work Awareness and each other.
Join us this Saturday evening at a cocktail reception to meet and greet this group of extraordinary sex workers. Immediately after the wrap-up of the training, we’ll be convening at XES in Chelsea, 157 West 24th Street between 6th and 7th avenues. We plan to be at the bar around 5:30. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, the event is open to the public.
This makes me so happy. I am delighted to have headed a project that can actually help make a difference in the way we view sex and sex workers. The time for change is here and now, and thanks to brilliant, committed and fearless people like Audacia, perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to see sex workers given the rights that are their due as humans and as workers.
This morning on twitter I made a comment about wanting an all male sex blogger calendar which then led to me asking the people who follow me on twitter what they would like to see in the 2010 NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar.
Would you like to see all men, all women, six men, six women or both in each month?
We strongly feel that this calendar is a CommUNITY calendar with all of you who blog or just read our blogs who supported us on the 2009 calendar. We would now like to have you tell us what you would like to see in the 2010 NYC Sex Blogger Calendar.
Leave us a comment.
Thanks,
Diva
It has been quite some time since our last update and much has happened. The big news is that as of February 1st the price of the calendar is now $10. The full 100% of the sale price still all goes to Sex Work Awareness.
Speaking of SWA, Audacia just announced this week the first Speak Up! for April in New York City. If you read about SWA you know this was one of several things SWA planned to do with the money raised from the sale of these calendars. This Speak Up! in New York City will be the first of what they hope to be several held around the country.
Next has been the recent media about the calendar. In January we were featured on both the Village Voice and Nerve.
Our last bit of news is that due to the overwhelming support we had we are now in the planning stages for the 2010 NYC Sex Blogger calendar and are looking for people to help work on it. If you would like to be part of the next sex blogger calendar please contact us at nycsexbloggerscal@gmail.com.
Join some of the NYC Sex Blogger Calendar Pin Ups on January 9th at a benefit show for Sex Work Awareness.
For more information please visit www.runnylove.com or http://myspace.com/runny.
The International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers is an annual event that occurs on December 17th. This year the national Sex Workers Outreach Project has organized a march in Washington DC. Check out their informative web page for more information. There are also smaller vigils happening in other cities for those who can’t make the trip. Here in NYC, there will be a candlelight vigil from 7 to 8 pm on Wednesday, December 17th in Washington Square Park. The event is co-sponsored by the Sex Workers Outreach Project, Sex Work Awareness, $pread Magazine, and Sex Workers Action New York.
I’m MCing the event and giving a short speech, and there will be a reading of the names of sex workers murdered in the past year.
It’s always a pretty somber and kind of difficult event to be present at, but I do think it’s worth our time and energy to bring attention to the volume of sex workers murdered every year, while also looking forward to a future where less of that happens.
I found myself at the Oyster Bar last night, talking to young man and the conversation somehow steered to sex work. He found this an odd turn of events since I first introduced myself as a boring accounting person, then mentioned sex toys which led to this discussion of sex workers and the very basic rights that they as workers, as human beings, deserve but do not get.
As I spoke, I realized how much I had learned about sex work since getting involved with the calendar project. In my tunnel vision, I had really only considered the sex workers I know. All of whom are educated, smart, middle to upper class women doing what they do because they enjoy doing it. It’s a choice and one, because of their relatively comfortable life styles, support systems and education, they can leave at anytime. Of course, I knew that there were others in different and dire circumstances, but until doing my research it didn’t seem to effect me.
But it does. The way we treat sex workers affects us all. As thinking, caring and compassionate human beings we need to realize that when we marginalize anyone, we marginalize ourselves.
The fact that the US ties HIV prevention funds to the signing of an “anti-prostitution” pledge has had a profound effect on the poorest people on this planet, those with the least resources have seen what little they had to rely on simply vanish. For some, the world’s neediest nations, a bed to sleep in, a place to bathe and use a toilet, medical attention and condoms, as well as places to feel a sense of community, these all have gone away due to lack of funding. Watch the video “Taking the Pledge” to learn more about the impact of that policy.
There is a lot to learn about sex work and sex workers and I suggest you do what I did, educate yourselves by going to the following sources.
The Sex Workers Project
And, you can do more to help. If you’re in New York, you can join us in Washington Square Park on Wednesday, December 17th, from 7PM to 8PM for a vigil to end violence against sex workers. Wear red. Go here to find where you can participate in your own city.
Of course, you can buy our awesome calendar. Every cent of profit goes directly to Sex Work Awareness.
You can help us in our efforts to make December Sex Work Awareness month by asking two friends to write something that enlightens us about the realities of sex work and the issues sex workers face. Let’s spread the word, we have a voice here on the internet and we can use it for more than sex toy reviews and erotica writing. We can use our voices to make a difference, to spread hope and love and enlightenment.
Alas, the proper time to give thanks to the many people who contributed to making our release party so successful has come and gone and all has been quiet here on this blog. Personal issues have interfered with my ability to actually do more than think the thanks, while I haven’t written the post acknowledging all of you, you’ve been in my thoughts constantly (aided by the constant nagging of one debauched Diva).
There are so many people to thank that I am going to do this in no particular order.
First, there’s Lorraine who manned the calendar sales table all evening and each time I saw her always had a lovely smile on her beautiful face. Thank you, Lorraine. It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope I get to see more of you (and not in a pervy way, well…).
Thanks to Will, who helped sell calendars all night and safe guarded our funds and who contributes to making Elizabeth so happy. And thanks to Elizabeth who signed calendars, sold calendars and was always ready to pitch in wherever needed, including texting me reminders that Will had money we needed to retrieve.
Thank you, Amanda, for keeping a watchful eye on all the sexy, raffle items all evening. Amanda never left her post once. I even saw her shifting her gaze to the prize table while men tried to chat her up. That’s dedication. You rock, Amanda.
Many thanks to BadBadGirl, Dangerous Lily and That Toy Chick for helping to get more items into the gift bags that Catalina, Rebecca and I spent the prior evening stuffing. One hundred gift bags takes up a lot of room, let me tell you. They made sure we got the last of the goodies into those bags and handed them all out for us in record time. 100 gift bags were gone in less than twenty minutes. Thank you, ladies, for making the trip, BBG all the way from the west coast, and sharing our special night with us.
Thanks to the amazing, sexy Jezebel Express for her help with the raffle. Jezebel’s unique brand of crowd control should be patented…when the crowd gets wild show them your ass! Thanks, Jez, I only wish I had actually seen the burlesque acts. From the crowd’s reaction, I’d say Weirdee Girl, The Luvely Rae, Darlinda Just Darlinda and of course, Jezebel, did a spectacular job. I need a private show, ladies! Thank you all so very much.
Thanks also have to go out to Desiree and Mariella who came early and helped set up, stuffed bags and generally helped to make order out of chaos. Mariella wheeled the FYN’s Rolling Toy Trunk, generously donated by Vera, which was stuffed with goodie bags from the hotel to the White Rabbit, carefully navigating her way through the streets of the LES.
Match was a huge help. Not only was he a sponsor on our calendar, he was also responsible for that lovely shower photo idea that got our pre-party started and then he got some awesome photos of Diva’s cleavage. He helped throughout the night whenever we needed him whether it was tightening our corsets, stuffing goody bags or schlepping boxes to and from the White Rabbit and even made sure the Impatient NYC cab driver didn’t take off without Diva. Thank you, Match, for all that and helping make both our pre-party and after-party so much fun.
To Jessica of Vergenza who was one of our first supporters and we were so happy that she was able to share our special night with us looking adorable as ever in her cute but oh so sexy outfit.
Thanks to the Thompson LES Hotel for making our stay there really wonderful. They gave us some great rates and extended the same rates to our sponsors. They safely held onto our many boxes and deliveries and even supplied us with a helpful bellman and a luggage cart to get all those boxes over to the White Rabbit. The staff at the Thompson always had a smile for us, got us the best cheese platter I have ever had and removed the erroneous charge for the Kiki DM intimacy kit (as if we needed MORE sex toys when we had not only boxes of some of the most stellar toys on the planet but also the creative genius behind Njoy toys, our main sponsor, the generous and wonderful Greg Delong, and all his crew, Chris, Jason and Dee) that was missing from the second room we got when we realized we needed much more space.
Thanks to Axe who gladly offered his services to us that night. Without him working so hard selling raffle tickets and delivering the prizes for us our raffle would not have been the success it was. We already have you on the list for next year.
The lovely Gem, who we found online and generously worked her hair and make-up magic on Diva, Elizabeth and me for the party and under the crazy pre-party conditions in our hotel suite. Gem is truly a gem.
Natt Nightly for those badly needed foot massages after standing all night long in our sexy high heel shoes. Don’t be surprised if Diva takes off her shoes next time you see her.
Thanks to our amazing photographer and friend Stacie Joy who along with her friend Norman Blake captured some of the most memorable moments of the evening.
Thank you to all our sponsors who donated prizes for our raffle and gift bags and to those of you who also attended our party.
A special thanks to Njoy who not only paid for the printing of our calendars but then personally delivered them along with the raffle’s grand prize – The Njoy Eleven.
A final thank you for all of the people who attended our party helping so generously to support Sex Work Awareness and making the night a huge success.
We would now like to share some of our good fortune and sponsor love with all of you. The first 50 people who order a calendar will receive Level Two memberships to CrashPadSeries.com valid for the entire month of December courtesy of Pink & White Productions.
100% of your $10.00 donation will go to Sex Work Awareness.
New York City Sex Bloggers 2009 Calendar 