PUBLIC SEX
The Culture of Radical Sex
Second Edition
Pat Califia
Also by Pat Califia
SEX CHANGES:
The Politics of Transgenderism
Copyright 1994, 2000 by Pat Califia
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press Inc., P.O. Box 14684, San Francisco, California 94114.
Printed in the United States.
Cover photograph: Phyllis Christopher
Cover design: Scott Idleman
Text design: Karen Quigg
Cleis Press logo art: Juana Alicia
Second Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
eISBN: 978-1-57344-629-7
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following publications in which these essays originally appeared in slightly different form:
Public Sex:The Advocate, September 30, 1982, pp. 18-21, 24.
Victims Without a Voice: High Times, December 1985, pp. 32-36, 66, 68-69.
The Obscene, Disgusting and Vile Meese Commission Report: The Advocate, October 14, 1986, pp. 42-46, 108-109.
Among Us, Against UsThe New Puritans: The Advocate, April 17, 1980, pp. 14-18. Translated into the Danish and reprinted in Umoralske Opstd, Dorte-Maria Bjarnov, ed., Forlaget Juvelen, 1986. Revised and reprinted in Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography And Censorship, published by the Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force, New York, 1986.
See No Evil: An Update on the Feminist Antipornography Movement: The Advocate, September 3, 1985, pp. 35-39.
When Sex Is a Job, Out, April 1999, pp. 54, 56.
Antidote to Shame, Out, September 1999, pp. 70, 74.
A Secret Side of Lesbian Sexuality: The Advocate, December 27, 1979, pp. 19-23. Unauthorized reprint in ZG80, No. 2, special issue on Sadomasochism: Its Expression and Style, Great Britain. Reprinted with permission in S and M: Studies in Sadomasochism, Thomas Weinberg and G. W. Levi Kamel, eds., Prometheus Books, 1981, pp. 129-136. Also reprinted in Skin Two, Issue No. 6, 1986, as The Power Exchange, pp. 21-22, 33.
Feminism and Sadomasochism: Heresies, Sex Issue, No. 12, 1981, pp. 30-34. Reprinted in CoEvolution Quarterly, Spring 1982, pp. 33-40. Reprinted in News That Stayed News: 10 Years Of Coevolution Quarterly, Stewart Brand and Art Kleiner (eds.), North Point Press, Jan. 1986.
Genderbending: Playing with Roles and Reversals: The Advocate, September 15, 1983, pp. 24-27. Translated by Betty Paerl into Dutch and reprinted in Slechte Meiden #1, 1983.
Gay Men, Lesbians, and Sex: Doing It Together: The Advocate, July 7, 1983, pp. 24-27.
Beyond Leather: Expanding the Realm of the Senses to Latex: The Advocate, May 29, 1984, pp. 26-28, 52.
Unmonogamy: Loving Tricks and Tricking Lovers: The Advocate, November 13, 1984, pp. 26-27.
The City of Desire: Its Anatomy and Destiny: Invert: The Journal Of Gay And Lesbian Sensibility, Vol. 2, No. 4, Winter, 1991, pp. 13-16.
Girls Go for the Gloves: The Advocate, August 13, 1992, Issue 609.
Love and the Perfect Sadist: Skin Two, 1992, pp. 42-47. Reprinted as Love & SM in The Spectator, Vol. 29, No. 23, Issue 752, 2/26-3/4/93
Modern Primitives, Latex Shamans, and Ritual S/M: The Spectator, Vol. 30, No. 16. Issue 771, 7/9-15/93, pp. 3, 12. Reprinted in Skin Two, January 1994, pp. 90-92. Also reprinted in The Masquerade Erotic Newsletter, January/February 1994, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 2-5.
Whoring In Utopia: Gauntlet, Vol. I, 1994.
The Necessity of Excess, Poz, October 1998, p. 70.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Califia, Pat
Public sex: the culture of radical sex. 2nd ed. p. cm.
Includes bibliographic references. ISBN: 1-57344-096-5 (pbk.) : $16.95
1. HomosexualityUnited States. 2. Sex customsUnited States. 3. PornographyUnited States. I. Title.
HQ76.3.U5C354 1994 306.7'0973dc20 94-21652 CIP
This book is for
S. Bryn Austin
(Amazon Copy Editor, Bluestocking, and Killer Cartoonist)
because she waded through a very tall pile
of Xeroxed articles and got excited
and
Gayle S. Rubin
because its time
because of what she went through
because shes still standing
with my deepest love and gratitude
Acknowledgments
I want to thank several people (despite the fact that some of them are no longer living) for their invaluable help and inspiration. Some of them assisted me with research, some engaged in lively debate with me, others were willing to share intimate parts of their experience which hopefully infused my politics with some compassion, some are my heroes because of their choice to live as sexual outlaws, despite the penalties for being out on the erotic frontier, others gave me work that allowed me to keep on writing, and some of them simply loved me (albeit for varying amounts of time). If I have left anyone out, it is because of poor memory, not a lack of gratitude. All conclusions, opinions, and errors in the book remain my own responsibility.
Their names are: Skip Aiken, Dorothy Allison, Sasha Alyson, Jo Arnone, Noreen Barnes, Kate Bornstein, Tala Brandeis, Beth Carr, the Bad Boys with Big Hearts and Bigger Buttholes of the Catacombs, Wendy Chapkis, Mark Chester, J. C. Collins, John P. De Cecco, Ph.D., Jack Fertig, Peter Fiske, Janine Fuller, Jack Fritscher, Fred Goss, Chris Gutierrez, William Henkin, Ph.D., Mike Hernandez, Amber Hollibaugh, Jim Kane, Richard Kasak, Stuart Kellogg, the founders, volunteers and staff of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, Teddy Matthews, V. K. Mamselle McCarty, Robert McQueen, Steve McEachern, Laura Miller, John Mitzel, Fakir Musafar, Joan Nestle, Scott OHara, Jim Olander, Ph.D., Marcia Pally, Pam Parker, N. Drew Parkin, Ph.D., John Preston, Mark Pritchard, Carol Queen, Tom Reeves, Sky Renfro, Wendell Ricketts, John Rowberry, Gayle Rubin, Joanna Russ, Terry Sapp, Marjan Sax, Amy Scholder, Mikal Shively, Cynthia Slater, Bob Smolin, Annie Sprinkle, Wickie Stamps, Lawrence Stanley, David Stein, Sam Steward, Thor Stockman, Kat Sunlove, Robin Scott Sweeney, Abby Tallmer, Morgan Tharan, Zoriah Tharan, Mark Thompson, David Thorstad, Daniel Tsang, Carole S. Vance, Ph.D., Lamar Van Dyke, Anne Williams, Stormy Williams, Layne Winklebeck, Marcus Wonacott, Carla Wood, Tim Woodward, and Sid Zweibel.
I also want to single out Matt Rice and Ian Philips for special thanks. Their help in preparing the second edition of Public Sex was invaluable. Id also like to thank Walter Armostrong and the editorial staff at Poz, as well as Tom Beers and the pre-PlanetOut coup staff of Out magazine.
Foreword to the Second Edition
[2000]
Since the 1994 publication of the first edition of Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex, Ive continued to study the political issues that arise around human sexuality and gender, and (of course) write about them. Ive also had the pleasure of seeing my own thinking about some of these topics grow and change. Whether to revise the present volume or simply wait to compile a second collection of essays was a real dilemma. Given the popularity of this book and its frequent use in womens studies and queer studies classrooms, it seemed important to update