By Thom Fowler
An Intimate look at Annie Sprinkle - Sex Guru
By Thom Fowler
Annie Sprinkle, sex activist, pleasure seeker and Doctor of Human Sexuality has been pioneering great sex, sexual tolerance and sexual exploration as a performer, sex worker and therapist for over 30 years. She has been featured on HBO, over one thousand magazines and numerous films, porn and otherwise. She continues to perform her one woman show HERSTORY OF PORN and will be in New York to open the Museum of Sex on September 16. And then she'll be heading to Europe to lecture and perform.
Before she moved to San Francisco, she lived in Manhattan where she was at the center of the notorious Sprinkle Salon. While the scene around her has calmed down a bit, Annie is as active as ever. She was in Los Angeles recently as a last minute performer at the Platinum Oasis in Los Angeles, a 36 hour art show that transformed a seedy motel into an interactive performance space as part of the Outfest 2002 festivities.
I was very excited to sit down with the woman who Francesca DeGrandis, best selling Goddess spirituality author, has called the linchpin of the universe. "Annie is one of the seven people in the world who hold the whole universe together." I could have asked Annie how deep her vaginal canal was and I'm sure she'd answer. After all, she traveled around showing people her cervix as part of a public education campaign. Instead we talked about the importance of sex and a healthy relationship with one's sexuality.
Annie Sprinkle has crossed a lot of lines most of us would never venture over and her experience has made her an invaluable sex educator. Her outspoken stance on the legalization of prostitution and advocacy for sex workers has made her a controversial public figure.
"What I'm really about is sex research, ultimately. It's always been to learn as much about sex as I could and its taken so many forms. When I do a performance in a theatre they always say, "My god, you have such a wide variety of people in your audience." I have S/M people, I have the spiritual tantra people, I have students, I have academics, I have the raincoat crowd, I have the suburban types who've seen the HBO specials. So I just covered a lot of different territory. I'm 48 now and I started at 18 in prostitution. It's been an amazing journey. I don't recommend it for everyone but for girls after my own heart, I would consider it a great way to go."
There is a deeper aspect to her work as a prostitute and sexual performer. One which is so wrapped up in who she is that you can't really know Annie until you understand what sex work has become for her.
"The bottom line is, sex and sexuality is basically my religion in the way that meditation can be a religion. My most spiritual experiences have started with sex . I can't say sex, because that just doesn't describe it, it's truly making love. 31 years of wanting to spread my Gospel has taken me everywhere from live sex shows on 42nd street to Ashrams in the mountains to tantra and its always this desire to get to this spiritual place."
Thom: What is tantra exactly?
Annie: There is a lot of different definitions. Basically, its connecting to the web, to the oneness. It's the Yoga of making love. Turning making love into a spiritual practice. Sex can be a path to enlightenment. I traveled around the world performing a ritual called the Legend of the Ancient Sacred Prostitute.
It was a theatre performance, it was part of my first one woman show called POST-PORN MODERNIST and it was the climax of the show literally. It was a really amazing experience masturbating on stage in 15 different countries night after night.
I was raised Unitarian and they said "god is within you, it's not a big man in the sky with a white beard." There is a god and it's in the wind, the blade of grass, the hearts of everyone. But we also weren't a very physical family, so when I finally got that physical connection it was just so needed. It became a really big deal. Different people resonate with different things.
Thom: How do you go about achieving enlightenment through making love?
Annie: The beauty of sexuality is so different for each person. There is no one right way, there is your way. Its just like if you are practicing Catholicism. You make mistakes and you take two steps forward and one step back. Whatever you are practicing, whether its Karate or some other martial art, you are going to maybe break your ankle. Its like it's a whole process of evolution, of learning. What works for you may not work for me.
Some people aren't interested. It's just not their thing and that's fine. After 30 years it's what interests me the most. It's what feeds me the most. I've been through all kinds of ins and outs and ups and downs. And made my so called mistakes. And I had my periods of celibacy and monogamy and getting down and dirty sleazy. I've been through a lot of stuff. I don't claim to be the world's best lover but I do claim to have a hell of a lot of experience in a lot of area.
Thom: Do you think American society is sexually repressed in general?
Annie: Its not that we are repressed, its that we are sex-negative. I think in general, sex is seen as this bad dirty thing. If you aren't married and you aren't heterosexual and you are not just doing missionary position then you are bad, dirty, wrong. The fact that prostitution is illegal right there just shows what kind of negative attitudes people have about sex. There should be no reason why, if someone doesn't have a lover, if you want to have sex you should be able to just pay someone to have a good time.
Thom: What are the steps involved in decriminalizing prostitution. What needs to happen in our culture?
Annie: I would think it would be done by now. People need to have a healthier, more positive attitude towards sex. [Sex] is many people's source of great happiness and its also many people's source of suffering for a lot of people. Compare sex to fire. Fire can be this healing, beautiful thing. We cook our food and make our tools, but fire can also burn your house down. And make you miserable. So sex is like that. It's this force of great joy, it makes life so much more bearable and happy and fun. On the other hand, a lot of people suffer over it or are confused by it.
We just need to get better attitudes towards sexuality and have more compassion towards each other. It is legal in Nevada, parts of Nevada it's no problem.
Thom: I guess it's less a question of prudishness and more, where we expect sex to be in our society, in the center of heterosexual relationships.
Annie: Yeah, people have an idea in their minds. We grow up with these wonderful fairy tales, the prince and princess and they live happily ever after and the first kiss is the big shebang, it's all very romantic. The fact is, for most people it's not like SLEEPING BEAUTY. So there is an ideal and a fantasy of how it should be, or a moral high ground and then there is the reality. The reality is that people are constantly thinking about sex, they are having politically incorrect thoughts or fantasies, they aren't always thinking about their husband or wife, etc.
Thom: Like pornography is so present in our culture. It exists in a shadow, behind a curtain, even though its totally omnipresent. How do you feel about pornography?
Annie: I think people need to be free to express their sexuality, artistically or creatively and what better subject to explore through the media or art or pictures or film making than sex. I think we are in the baby beginnings. It's a pretty new genre. It could get a lot better. It will.
Pornography has only really been a part of the mainstream since DEEP THROAT. 1973 is considered the beginning of the mainstream pornography industry. When Hollywood first started, they made silent films and some of them were pretty bad. They had to develop to get to the George Lucas phase. We are just in the first 25 years of the history of the mainstream porn industry. It's sometimes considered the other Hollywood and it is.
For a long time [porn film makers] were copying Hollywood film-making, then that wasn't really working, so now its kind of wall to wall sex without any pretense of copying Hollywood but still there is a long way to go.
I've never even come close to capturing on film my best sexual experiences. The closest I came was in [the video] SLUTS AND GODDESSES where I have a five minute long orgasm. I just now have a new lover and she said, "What do you like?" I said I like taking a long time, taking all night doing things. I just get warmed up after 2, 3 hours. Its after 3 hours that I start getting really ... Its like the difference between smoking a joint and really tripping. To really go into the real depth and to really stop time and to really get into the space where you feel like ... [I think she means that feeling of oneness and connectedness - ed]
Thom: Have you had any encounters with celebrities?
Annie: I had sex with Wilt Chamberlin. He came out with an autobiography and said he had sex with ten thousand women. I was one of them. I was working at a massage parlor. I didn't even know it was him until after he left. One of the other girls told me. I've had my share. I lived in Manhattan for twenty five years, so there's a lot of celebrities that like to hang on the fringes of the porn scene. There were some other Johns but I don't feel like dropping their names. Mickey Rooney was around a bit. There's a lot of that kind of thing in Manhattan. Some of the men like to hang out, not too many women celebrities.
Thom: What made you decide to leave Manhattan?
Annie:I wanted to be near the ocean, closer to nature. My apartment became a real vortex of activity. I had transgendered meetings. I had Prostitutes of New York meetings there. I had a tattoo parlor, we shot porn movies there. It was called the Sprinkle Salon and everyone knew where I lived and had my phone number and I had constant traffic. I wanted to be by nature and I've turned into a mermaid - an ocean lover.
I lived in East Hampton, I lived in Cape Cod and Provincetown and then moved to Sausalito and lived in a houseboat. The ocean is very erotic, very sensual to me. And also to start a new phase of my life, less party girl, more .. well, I gave up party girl at 30, when I turned 40 it was just another level for me. It's been quite a journey, I've lived nine lives already.
Thom: What advice do you have for people who decide they want to explore their sexuality and learn what's out there for them?
Annie: Learn as much as you can. I like to say, don't do anything you don't want to do and do everything you really do want to do. Don't worry about it, just do it. Or just don't do it. Whatever you choose. And being honest with yourself and your partners is so important. There are some great teachers. I recommend classes or workshops. Get to know your body real well, masturbate, its good for you. It's a great way to learn about your sexuality. And find what works for you and what you like and don't worry about what other people think, because its worth it to do it your way. Whether that means celibate or monogamous or swinger or whatever. Be yourself. To thine own self be true.
Joe Kramer, founder of ErosSpirit has several instructional videos for men and women and Dr. Betty Dodson has some great books for women.
Thom: How can people start to feel sexy?
Annie: Everybody is sometimes critical of themselves or have body image issues. You have to work from the inside out. Learn to love yourself. Therapy is good. Feeling sexy is just feeling good about yourself.
Thom: Why is it important to take the steps to have a healthy relationship with your sexuality?
Annie: It's the same thing as saying, "Why is it important to have a good life?" Why is it important to learn about yourself. Its so much a part of our human nature. That's like saying, "Why is it important to learn about emotions, or why is it important to learn to take care of yourself financially or spiritually. Why is it important to take care of your body. It's the same thing with sexuality. Its something you can't ignore and if you try to totally ignore it, its going to come rearing its head.
Thom: What happens if you are very repressed?
Annie: Everyone is starting at different places. If you are comfortable with that, fine. It depends if you are happy or unhappy. If you are unhappy about something regarding your sexuality, take care of it. Heal yourself. Do whatever needs to be done to make it better. If it doesn't bother you that don't have sex or that you are a prude or whatever, or if you have a foot fetish but you are too freaked out to act on it, that's fine, don't act it. But if its this compelling thing, this urge to worship feet or suck toes, its going to become an issue. Its not going to go away. The amazing thing is, it changes it all the time. So once you solve one problem or issue there is going to be another one. When you find a treasure or have this incredible experience, you are going to hunger for me. Or you may have this partner and for 12 years you have incredible sex and then one day you discover its just not working anymore. So it's always going to be changing. It's something you have to be aware of your whole life.
Thom: What about safe sex?
Annie: That's such an individual thing also. People have to make their own decision. It's like with food. How do you decide what to eat. We all know what's really good for us but we don't always eat it. We could end AIDS if everybody was super well-educated about it. It could just be over. The problem is people won't do that educating or there is not the funding because you have to talk about sex. It's wiping out Africa, it's wiping out India. Its devastating but people won't do the necessary educating because they have to talk about sex and cum and rubbers.
Thom: Why won't we talk about sex publicly?
Annie: We have that ideal - you should be married, you should be monogamous, you should be doing the missionary position. You should only be doing it to have children. So there is this moral high ground. It reflects our animal nature. We want to be civilized. So people don't want to acknowledge their urges. You need to be very aware of safer sex and who you are with and assess that situation and you have to practice how to have safe sex. It's not something that comes naturally like fucking does. It's awkward and you have to get used to it.
Thom: What's the big deal about masturbation? Why do we all do it but talk about it like its not something you should be doing?
Annie: I think Jocelyn Elders said "96% of all people masturbate and the other 4 percent lie about it." Throughout history attitudes have been different about it. If shame comes up, that's good, that's something to look at. If you have shame or disgust about say sperm, here's an opportunity to learn to love your sperm. You can have an amazing self-sexual healing through masturbation. It can be like having a hiccup, this little quickie thing just focusing on the genitals or can be like really making love with yourself.
Thom: How do you know if you even need sexual healing. Is it just getting some? Or is there more to it than that?
Annie: There is one little exercise you can do. Which area of your body do you hate the most? Describe what it is you hate about that part. Now pick one of those things that sticks out the most. That's your core issue that you need to work on. When we find out our core issue, that's something we can work on.
Annie Sprinkle maintains a website with more information about her schedule of appearances. When I left her, she was going off to interview Xaviera Hollander, the Happy Hooker for a column she writes about women over 50 for the men who love them.
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