The Pleasure Principle

"Let there be pleasure on earth and let it begin with me."

with Annie Sprinkle

Annie Sprinkle is mostly known as the porn star/prostitute who became a performance artist/sex guru. She spent many years exploring a multitude of. sexual possibilities in Manhattan's kinky sex clubs and through her roles in hundreds of hard-core XXX films, where she achieved legendary status and such earned titles as "the queen of Kink, " "the Mother Teresa of Sex, " "the Shirley MacLaine of Smut, " and "the Renaissance Woman of Porn. " As an exhibitionist who liked to do it all, she posed for every major, minor sex and fetish magazine there is, and she was a "Photo Funny Girl "for National Lampoon for two years. All along Annie has been a very creative individual, but recently she has emerged as what she describes as a "post-porn modernist, " creating her own eclectic brand of feminist, sexually explicit media. Her latest one-woman show is part autobiography, part parody of the porn industry, part sex education, and part sex-magic ecstasy ritual. It is controversial, powerful, and popular

After twenty-two years of devoting her life to learning and experiencing all she could about sex and doing sex work, Annie has become a unique kind of expert. She has authored three hundred articles on the topic, as well as an autobiographical book entitled Annie Sprinkle: Post-Porn Modernist. She produced and directed several videos, including the lesbian classic The Sluts and Goddesses Video Workshop, or How To Be a Sex Goddess in 101 Easy Steps. She has been invited to teach and lecture at many museums, universities, and holistic: healing centers, including such prestigious institutions as Columbia University, the Museum of Modern Art, the Wise Woman 's Center New York University, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Some of the topics she 's presented are the "Pleasures, Profits, and Politics of Women’s- Sexualities in the '90s, " "Sacred Sex Technologies, " "Cosmic Orgasm Awareness, " and the "Secrets of Sacred Slutism. " HBO ran two specials on her work. She 's such a "character" that someone has even created a comic-book series about her:

Midway through Annie’s career her views about sexuality changed radically when the AIDS crisis hit and Anni 's lover was infected (although Annie never was). Through having to practice totally safe sex, she learned that sex is not just about bodies coming together and the electric embrace of genitalia, but also about the exchange of energy. Consequently, her work merged with the long tradition of achieving health, well-being, and spiritual growth through meditative sexual union. Annie metamorphosed into the more multidimensional incarnation Anya, whose goal is to get a handle on the source of orgasmic energy, and who is inspired by the archetypes of the sacred prostitute and the Goddess.

At present, Annie is half-finished with a feature documentary about orgasm, Orgasm Scrapbook. She is also making a deck of "Pleasure Activist Playing Cards" from photographs of women she has taken over the years, and marketing her own designer dildo, the Sacred Sex Tool. She is experimenting with monogamy, "Zen sex, " gender play, and training her girlfriend's dog, Hillary, to give her cunnilingus.

Annie has a big, warm heart and a very sweet spirit. She seems to completely lack any inhibition or guilt regarding sexuality, yet she is actually kind of shy. She 's optimistic, funny, sensuous, and she appears to be a genuinely happy person, often hovering, it seems, on the verge of orgasm. Rebecca and / interviewed Annie on November 1, 1992 at her parent's house in Granada Hills, the Southern California home in which she grew up and where she was visiting at the time. The house was quite ordinary, rather conservative, and nothing gave the slightest hint that this place would have produced an Annie Sprinkle. We conducted the interview in the back yard by the pool. When her mom walked by, Annie whispered "Sh ... I don 't want her to hear us talking about my sex life. It makes me nervous, " We interviewed her again in Maul, Hawaii, on July 26, 1993. Just as we began the interview, Annie said that she had to stop because she needed to orgasm. So I switched off the tape recorder; and she went into the other room and turned on her vibrator. She returned five minutes later with a smile on he rface. "Okay, " she said, "now we can begin. "

DJB

David: Annie, how did you become interested you in sex and how did your early development influence your later career choices?

Annie: You're at Granada Hills, the place where I grew up. This place is very white bred and straight and I wasn't aware of any sexuality when I was young. The only thing that really turned me on was the swimming pool, but I wasn't a sensual, sexual child because it was such a great mystery. I feel kind of sad that all that time was wasted. I could really have being enjoying myself. (laughter)

David: Can you see what it was that inspired your interest?

Annie: What clearly inspired my interest was the ignorance and fear. I used to wake up in the morning having to pee. I was having orgasms, I think. The full bladder pressed against my clitoris, or something, so I've connected peeing with eroticism a lot. (You know, the clitoris is much bigger now. According to the feminist view, the clitoris is a huge structure - it's almost as big as a penis) And then there was a big nothing period in my life. What I was more focused on was menstruation. That was the big, scary thing. All my questions were about that and I didn't even know about sex. I heard a little bit in the playground at school, but that was it.

Rebecca: So there wasn't any sex education to speak of?

Annie: There wasn't, no. There was the egg and the ovum - the biology of sex, but nothing practical at all! When I discovered how great sex was that made me mad. I lost my virginity at seventeen and I thought, "this is great, everyone should know about this. How come nothing is being done about this?" (laughter)

I think that losing my virginity was one of the happiest days of my life up to that point.(laughter) A year later I moved into prostitution and that was another really happy transition for me. When I discovered sex, I thought, "I've got to learn more about this, this is the greatest thing." And that's really been my focus in life.

Rebecca: Why do you think sex has become so distorted? Do you think it's just the effect of Christianity or are there other factors?

Annie: I think that had a lot to do with it. And also the idea that sex was dangerous for women and also a source of power. I think when women express their sexual power, it freaks men out a lot. So I think it was suppressed partly because of that. Also there's disease - it's a very dangerous thing. (laughter) It's dangerous on the one hand, and it's total liberation and freedom and joy and ecstasy on the other.

Rebecca: What do you think are some of the worst social consequences of a culture which denies the body and sexual freedom?

Annie: War, drug abuse, suicide, loneliness, skin diseases, cancers, violence, rape.

Rebecca: Zits.(laughter) So you regard sex as fundamental to a healthy life?

Annie: Yes. And suppressing it makes people crazy. All the fear and ignorance around it is amazing. But then, that's part of the fun.

Rebecca: Part of the fun? (laughter)

Annie: It's such a huge subject, you know. It's really enormous.

Rebecca: It seems that sex was beginning to be viewed with more openness in the sixties. Then AIDS came along and alarm bells went off again with this whole fundamentalist exclusiveness against homosexuality. Do you think AIDS has polarized the issue of sexual freedom so much that there is little hope for constructive understanding between the two sides?

Annie: I think it's normal. There's this pendulum of freedom and repression that goes back and forth in relation to sex as well as to many other things. And now, because of AIDS, sex is considered dangerous again. But it's not going away. Sex cannot be repressed. On the whole it's spurring everyone on. I always look on the positive side of everything. Of course there are many sides, but there is a lot of great stuff happening in terms of sex. You have more freedom to be gay and lesbian than there ever were before. You go to high school and there are all these little baby dykes.

David: You see that in California quite a bit, but this doesn't necessarily reflect what's going on in the rest of the country.

Annie: Well, I have no idea. (laughter)

Rebecca: You haven't been affected by the fundamentalist backlash?

Annie: There is this backlash, but for example, because of Jesse Helms, there's more sexually explicit art being made than ever. Look at Madonna. She wouldn't have made that book unless there was this backlash happening. Backlash makes things interesting - I'm all for it.

David: What are some of the positive aspects of the phenomena of AIDS; you've talked about more people being openly gay, what are some other things?

Annie: You get free condoms. (laughter) I think there are a lot more family values. I think there is more love and caring and intimacy. People are expanding their concept of what sex is and that's really my job now. I think this is crucial to get through this AIDS crisis and still enjoy our sexuality.

Rebecca: What other aspects of sexual awareness do you teach?

Annie: Mostly I teach that sex is more about energy - getting over guilt and shame and learning to focus more on energy and intimacy rather than on body parts. Then, how to keep that energy moving without getting frustrated.

Rebecca: You've said that just thinking about sex can strengthen your immune system. Have you had experience of this yourself?

Annie: Oh, totally. I'm completely into using sex as a healing tool. In scientific tests it was proven that just thinking about sex creates disease-fighting neuro-peptides.

Rebecca: How do you experience the healing powers of sex? There's a great story in the Research interview about how you saved someone's life who was having an asthma attack by giving him a blow-job.

Annie: It was something I knew about subconsciously, from the very beginning. Certainly in my early days of prostitution I know I was healing people in a big way. I use it in all kinds of ways. For example, when I had gum surgery a couple of years ago, the pain killers weren't working and my gums were throbbing. I felt like shit and I looked like shit; sex was the last thing I cared about in the world. And I had this transsexual lover who would go down under the sheets and give me clitoral orgasms and it would totally help. It would take the pain away and make me smile. It worked better than any pain killers.

David: Right after an orgasm the production of endorphins are increased in the body - it's like a heroin rush.

Annie: I was in Tijuanna teaching a workshop. This woman came to me who had a pounding headache, she had a horrible migraine. I got the vibrator and I sat her in a room. She put the vibrator on her clit and relaxed and breathed the sexual energy up to her head. She had this orgasm and let it shoot out the top of her head and it cleared the headache out. So this woman came to take a workshop on sex and she learned how to cure her migraine! I gave her the vibrator as a present. (laughter)

Rebecca: Do you think this is the same kind of healing that occurs with practices such as T'ai Chi and Xi Gung?

Annie: Yeah, but it has to be conscious. People are totally unconscious about sex.

David: Well, most people are unconscious about everything. (laughter)

Annie: It's like drawing a picture. Anyone can draw a picture, but you can get trained and skilled and know that if you draw this way, the picture will appear like this.

Rebecca: Do you discriminate between Chi, Kundalini, Prana - or do you regard them as simply aspects of sexual energy?

Annie: Well, I like using all the different names. (laughter) I think there are subtle differences, but I'm not too sure about how to define them. The Taoists would have orgasms in their womb or their heart. Wherever they needed healing they could actually have an orgasm there. When I had that five minute orgasm, it was six months of therapy right there.

So now I'm really interested in this subject and I'm always aware of it. It's a total attitude adjustment. I was in New York for one day and I was really frazzled. I had this really beautiful lover but I was really tired and not in the mood. We ended up having sex anyway, and after getting through ten minutes of feeling tired and icky, I was healed. That's real healing, but sex has such a bad rap, people can't believe it.

David: What are your feelings and thoughts about why there's such a connection between sex and death, in music and art?

Annie: I think it has to do with surrendering and letting go - losing control. I think of death in a positive way, because to me death is almost like another sexual thrill. I'm actually looking forward to it. Another part of it is because sex is about the body and death is about the body, it's not something you can control. We're supposed to be sophisticated, intellectual, in control people, and sex is about losing control, it's about surrender, it's about dying in a way so....I'm all for it. (laughter)

Rebecca: You were a self professed `sacred prostitute' for twenty-one years. Many people would have a problem digesting those two words used together. How did you see your profession differing from the usual prostitute stereotype?

Annie: I think in some ways all prostitutes are sacred, but for me, being a sacred prostitute meant that I was aware of the healing aspects of sex. I had a lot of respect for myself, my work and my clients. I felt I was a teacher and a mother and a lover and a healer.

Rebecca: We're you initially naive about these possibilities?

Annie: Sure. But from the very beginning I knew about it. The term `sacred prostitute' is now being incorporated into the world of prostitution in a big way which is wonderful. The new generation of prostitutes is using this idea and really taking the ball and going with it. We're starting to see these really beautiful, sacred spaces being created by prostitutes doing healing sex work.

David: That was one of the original orientations of prostitution in the Far East. The sacred art of erotic pleasure.

Annie: Right. Well one thing I can see clearly is that not everyone can be a prostitute. You do need a special talent. There is a certain quality of female sexuality. I'm separating out from crack-addicted prostitutes who aren't interested in sex.

Rebecca: Do you find you're meeting women who got into prostitution because of sexual guilt or just for the money or whatever and were hating it, who are getting inspired by your message and turning it into something positive.

Annie: Well, after they meet me, a lot of women who were thinking about getting involved in the sex business end up getting into it. And they feel really good about it. I'm all for someone getting out of it if they don't like it. So you do need this special talent, to open up this private part to the public. This takes a certain amount of generosity and love and trust.

David: Wouldn't it also take a certain amount of dissociation and detachment?

Annie: That's the way most people look at it. But I'm saying that it's not that way at all. Sometimes, out of desperation for money, it can be different.

Rebecca: Many would be cynical upon a hearing a prostitute saying, "I love what I do," and think, "there's no way, she must be covering something up."

Annie: It's definitely a hell of a hard, fucking job. You need enormous amounts of patience, enormous amounts of compassion. You have to put up with a lot of shit. It's like being in a war - you're in a war zone. You're in a society which is misogynistic and full of sexual guilt, and you take that shit on. You have to be really strong, and if you're not - yes, you are miserable. It can get to you. I compare it a lot to being a nurse. You see a lot of sad, horrible things. You deal with people who have no respect for you and who are treating you like shit.

For me, about one in four was pretty lousy, one in a hundred sucked and maybe five in a thousand were a nightmare. But hundreds were wonderful, mutually beneficial experiences. I really liked the immediate intimacy; I liked the sex. Even the lousy sex I liked a lot - it was intriguing to me. I was lucky, I don't claim that all prostitutes are like me at all. Most of them absolutely hate it, and I think that they love that they hate it. I think everyone creates what they want in some way.

David: What's the relationship that you see between spirituality and sexuality and how would you describe your spiritual belief system?

Annie: When my lover got AIDS we started exploring the spiritual side of sex. We started doing meditation, affirmations, hands on healing - all of these tools we started incorporating into our sexuality. Basically, when I'm in a state of sexual ecstasy I feel the most spiritual, I feel the most oneness, I feel the most high, I feel the most in touch with who I feel I really am - my God Self. I feel the most peace and the most love. I've been to a dozen Ashrams, I've done a dozen different types of spiritual disciplines and I never felt as spiritual as when I'm in a really high sexual ecstasy. Even drugs haven't got me to that.

David: When you feel a connection to everything else in the Universe.

Annie: Yeah. In touch with the supreme consciousness or other dimensions or other ways of being, or going way beyond my body. I start to get glimpses of what else is in the world besides telephone calls and jobs and pieces of paper. It goes way beyond the physical into the magical - into timelessness. I'm not an expert on this. I don't really know what I'm doing, I just know what I'm feeling. I don't have too many guides on this journey, I just experiment. I don't really know what spirituality is. If I studied theology I would probably have more of a grasp of it. I'm just describing what I think it is, and I might be wrong. I know I have a lot more to learn.

David: What about ancient systems: shamanism, paganism, tantra, the archetype of the Goddess? How have you incorporated these into your work?

Annie: What I'm realizing is that the more I train myself to go into sexual ecstasy, (a bit like Pavlov's dogs) my body is becoming more and more in touch with what it is to be in that state, so I can go into it at a moment's notice. That's why my sex life is better than ever before, because I've built up my capacity for pleasure. I can jump from A,B and C right up to Q. I feel like it's in my blood and I'm also more aware that the sexual energy is pulsing through my body at every moment and the sexuality of everything in the world.

David: It sounds like you're always on the verge of orgasm.

Annie: On a good day I feel like I'm making love all the time.

Rebecca: Most New-Age thinking tends to disregard the body, yet you combine sexuality with many aspects of popular New Age consciousness and have been referred to as the `Shirley MacLaine of porn.' Do you see it as part of your mission to act as a bridge between this movement and the earthier aspects of spirituality?

Annie: I see myself trying to inspire people to let go of their old ideas of what sex is and be avant-garde and experimental and playful. Like, let's fuck angels, okay? Just to try it, and see what happens. I like the New-Age because it's fun. I like to act strange and wierd and do unusual, odd things. A lot of people are so uptight about what people are going to think of them sexually that they're not willing to act wild and stupid and crazy.

Rebecca: Have you found much resistance to your message?

Annie: Well, they don't tell me directly. After the Learning Annex workshops there were four phone-calls complaining that it was a little too much for them.

David: What were they complaining about?

Annie: I was demonstrating energy orgasms on the floor. I happened to not have underwear on. I thought, "hell, it's an X workshop, it's all women, what's the problem?" So I'm undulating without underwear. (laughter) I'm teaching them how to find their G-Spot and so I said, "okay, who wants to try?" So someone puts on a latex glove and is poking around inside another woman. No one says anything, I didn't pick up any negative reactions, but people called to complain and I can't do that anymore.

Rebecca: What kinds of positive changes have you seen in women as a result of your work?

Annie: A lot. I get letters saying that I helped them to realize that sex is so much more than they thought or thanking me for helping them reclaim their womanhood. I think it freaks some people totally out and some are totally inspired. Some people come up to me afterwards and are so grateful.

Rebecca: Do you think that not only confronting but celebrating a woman's sexuality can empower her to realize she can not only take control of her own life but also make changes in the world?

Annie: People who free up their sexuality know best what they want in life. I was working in this massage parlor in Manhattan. This woman comes in who is Hassidic Jewish, with four children. She'd been working in the garment district and had enormous breasts. She was really out of place and it was my job to train her and show her around. She was really scared.

What happened was that she had decided to leave her husband because he was treating her like shit. She ends up loving being a prostitute. She's making tons of money, she has a fabulous apartment and loves sex. She's never had sex with anyone besides her husband. She got her whole life together and she didn't take any shit from men anymore. And for me, knowing I have some knowledge of my sexuality and other people's sexuality, getting rid of the fear and shame has made me a much happier, stronger person.

Rebecca: The social tradition, like what this woman you were talking about was experiencing, of the woman being there to simply please the man during lovemaking, is gradually changing. Do you think a lot of men are feeling threatened by the implications of this?

Annie: Some are and some enjoy it. Women are insisting on their orgasms now, and if a guy's not into doing that, it's a pain in the ass. Other men totally enjoy being with a woman who knows and asks for what she wants. Inevitably though, whenever I teach my workshop, every time the question comes up - how do you give the men a good time?

Rebecca: Do you think many women feel that in some way they don't deserve to be sexually satisfied?

Annie: Of course, and also I'm constantly amazed how little people know. I didn't know how much I knew until I started teaching. And the fear that comes up. I woke up last week trembling, I was so full of fear. I realized that I had taught four workshops recently and the amount of fear that had come up was scaring me.

We had done a lot of breathing, working with sexual energy which brings up the emotions to clear the blocks. And then there are all the judgments people have about their bodies and all their insecurities of not knowing. Sex is a highly emotional thing, but that's what makes it interesting. I love teaching these workshops, because when you're working with sexual energy you get to this place where there's a bunch of women sitting around who are feeling so much, and who are all open-hearted.

Rebecca: You talk about dispelling the "good girl, bad girl" myths. What does this entail?

Annie: As I don't feel sex is bad, I don't think that promiscuity is bad. I'm not that tied into good and bad anyway. "Make no judgments, make no comparisons and do what you need to understand." I think that fits really well with sex. Make no judgments about what you want to do, don't compare yourself with where other people are at, and delete your need to understand. Why do you want to go with this person? It doesn't matter - go for it!

David: You had a transsexual, hermaphroditic lover for a while. As a result of your experimentation with gender, what are your thoughts about the value of androgyny?

Annie: My lover was a female to male, transsexual, surgically made hermaphrodite. A new option for people. That's one of the great things about living in the nineties. Androgyny - I'm all for it. My new lover is totally androgynous. I think it's beautiful.

Rebecca: Do you see this as a trend that's building - more diversity in sexual gender and less boundaries between them?

Annie: Yeah, more diversity. You see men dressing as women wearing monkey boots, and women dressing as men but with false eyelashes. Now, everything's getting mixed together which I really like. And strap-on dildos, of course, are really being used a lot to play with gender. Women are getting these big dicks - it's great. And they really know how to use them. (laughter) It's so real. And of course it never gets soft.

My friend Trash is really good at thrusting. Women aren't generally as good at thrusting, but she has really got it down. Her dick is totally real to her and I suck it like it's real and I feel like she feels everything that I do. It's just beautiful. The technology has vastly improved. When I first got into porno movies they were tied on with pieces of elastic and were really flimsy. These were invented by men, but now women are designing these fabulously beautiful leather strap-on things.

Rebecca: What have your relationships with the various sexes taught you about the differences between women and men?

Annie: Well, I was only into men for a long time. I only had sex with women in movies and a little bit in non-paying situations. It just didn't really interest me until suddenly I fell in love with a woman and my heart got involved. This leads me to believe that people aren't necessarily gay or straight. You can be one for a while and totally switch. Now, I totally adore women.

The other thing it took for me to get into women was that I met a really great lover who really knew how to do lesbian sex. There's a lot to lesbian sex that I didn't know about. Sometimes, when I'm with a woman, it really brings out the masculine in me and sometimes it really brings out the feminine.

Women are much softer, which is exactly what I didn't like about them at first - then it was exactly what I loved about them. Women are much more cunningly seductive, they really know how to do that dance whereas men are much simpler. Women are more multi-faceted - you can't pin them down. But I don't think I can generalize about the differences between men and women because there are so many kinds of men and so many kinds of women.

Rebecca: Is that a large part of what these relationships are about - to encourage these different personas inside yourself to come out and have their time on the stage?

Annie: Yeah. I don't want to be monogamous because when I'm with each different person it brings out some totally different aspect of myself. I tried it once and it was nice, I have nothing against it. But if my goal is to find out everything I can about my own sexuality and sex out in the world - I can't. I've had one relationship for seventeen years, so I do have a sense of what a long-term relationship is, but I also love short-term ones and get a lot out of them.

David: How do you see technology influencing sex in the future?

Annie: Vibrator technology is fascinating. Every woman ought to have a good vibrator in my opinion, especially women who are pre-orgasmic - it's crucial for learning. Certainly phone-sex has had an enormous impact. The right-wing backlash has a lot to do with phone-sex. For the first time in history, millions of people a day were discussing their sexual fantasies totally honestly and totally openly because it was anonymous. I think there are exciting new worlds popping up.

But I've been with guys who are really into phone-sex and when you have sex with them it's like you're talking on the phone - this is a trick, a client - and I was just amazed because they are more into the phone-sex thing than the reality. They were totally dissociating from the physical aspects of sucking and fucking. So I'm sure that in some ways the technology will take us away or distract us from some beautiful aspects of sexuality and it will also probably add.

I experienced this vibrasound machine which has the blinking lights and which vibrates to music. It felt like a vibrator for the whole body and I ended up having this really beautiful, tantric, sexual experience on this machine. I went into this huge all-body, energy orgasm - total surrender, total ecstasy, total deliciousness. It was one of the best sexual experiences I've ever had. It put me in a deep meditative trance state which you can get into through sex but which takes a long time. It might have taken me a couple of days but I got into that and beyond that in an hour and a half.

David: What role do you think psychedelics play in the evolution of sexuality?

Annie: Well, I mostly did psychedelics when I was a virgin. When I was a young hippie in Tucson I was doing it, but I wasn't as conscious about my sexuality. I'm gearing up to do some psychedelic drugs. I shot heroin recently as part of my sexual explorations. I know the sacred prostitutes used a lot of drugs. I haven't done this so much because it's a little hard on the body and I'm hesitant to do things that will drain my energy.

David: Did you find any similarity between the peak of an LSD trip and the height of a sexual experience, in terms of the consciousness level?

Annie: Yeah. There is some connection. When I'm in a state of sexual ecstasy and I get up and look at the moon, I have a psychedelic experience of the moon. I don't know if it works the other way around, I would imagine it does.

David: That was how Timothy Leary popularized LSD, through the sexual connection in terms of opening up the senses.

Annie: That's true. Sex is about the senses. By my bed I have an altar with all kinds of sensual things. I have expanded my concept of sex to include any kind of sensuous thing. Swimming is unbelievably sexual to me.

David: What general future possibilities do you see in the evolution of sexual awareness?

Annie: Ideally I'd like to see it being used in hospitals and I'd like to see people being trained to use sex for emotional therapy. Now, it's really taboo for a therapist to put his fingers inside a woman and clear out her blocks - but I would like to see that. I see sex with extraterrestrials, more sex with angels. I see a lot of sexually enlightened people coming around. I've seen these young, sexual prodigies - a group of people who are really highly sexually evolved. Definitely lots of technology. Virtual Reality sounds really interesting and also holographic sound. Birth control technology is going to help a lot.

Rebecca: Do you have a definition of pornography? Is this a meaningless term to you in the sense most people use it?

Annie: I don't have a definition. Pornography is such a huge subject.

Rebecca: Do you see any value at all in censorship?

Annie: Well, I don't think sex is for everyone. I've been talking about a subculture of sexually highly evolved people, but there are also highly evolved scientists and not everyone is going to be a highly evolved scientist. I do see value in censorship in the sense that it adds to the excitement, it adds to the passion. When I go to a college and I show my video and everyone's ho hum about it, it's boring. I prefer when there's some controversy. I'm starting to get a sense of the value of the imperfections in the world.

Rebecca: Do you think that censorship can help to protect people?

Annie: No. I don't see it that way. I can only go by my own experience. I've liberated my sexuality, I've been promiscuous, I've broken every societal sexual tabboo you can break, and I feel I've come out a winner. I've never been raped, I've never got any deadly disease and I'm free from the problems that many people have with sex.

Rebecca: What about people who have had problems with sex?

Annie: I think that all sexual abuse and rape is because our society sees sex so negatively; it's just a reflection of where people are at sexually. I see rape as a sexual thing. The way people express their sexuality is full of guilt and shame and violence and hate.

Rebecca: Do you feel that there is any connection between the way sex is portrayed in the media and sexual acts, like rape?

Annie: Well, I think that everyone in the world wants to be healthier, have more fun, more ecstasy, have some laughs, be loved, be touched. Isn't that what everyone wants? So my work is to be that example, but inevitably what happens is that by being that person, I'm constantly being asked: What about rape? What about abuse? What about child pornography? I'm getting asked about all this shit, and here I am, just trying to be in ecstasy. Why is that? I'm just fascinated by that. Wherever I go, people talk about pain and suffering.

Rebecca: Perhaps people talk about what they know.

Annie: Why don't they want to talk about ecstasy and orgasms? I know that violence on TV can cause violence, but I would like to see more porn pictures on television which cause pleasure. Most people don't enjoy sex.

What's really terrifying about child abuse is not so much the actual abuse but the fact that, as a teacher, you cannot touch a thirteen year old girl on the shoulder any more. To keep talking about child abuse is to continue the abuse and create more abuse, it gives people ideas. In my book, child abuse is not teaching children to masturbate.

David: That's something that's hardly ever talked about - teaching children to enjoy their sexuality.

Annie: I'm not very sympathetic about some things because I don't see sex as bad. In the Native American tradition, when a child was interested in sex, they sent that child to learn about it from an adult and the child had sex with that person when they were ready. People are horrified by the idea of having sex with animals. I wouldn't want to hurt a dog, but I don't see anything wrong with having sex with dogs.

Rebecca: Of course the pivotal phrase in what you just said is, "when they're ready." It makes a difference if somebody or some animal is being forced to engage in a sexual act, against their will.

Annie: I went to therapy, I got angry, I cried, and now looking back, I enjoyed the things I cried about. I'm for taking all the worst sexual experiences and making them learning experiences.

Rebecca: You enjoyed them at the time or you enjoyed them in retrospect?

Annie: I enjoyed them at the time. There are no mistakes in sex, I think it's a great tool for learning - even the lousiest, worst, nightmarish sexual experiences. But then I think that about everything in life too. I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid of getting fat. (laughter) That's my worst fear.

I never had to be a prostitute. I was always aware that I had a lot of other options. Some prostitutes have no choice, but there are as many types of prostitutes as there are people. I think in my early twenties I wanted to live dangerously. I hitch-hiked a lot and put myself in a lot of vulnerable situations.

And I was always aware that I didn't have to. I was never forced into it. If I was at a party I would go off with the guy who seemed the most likely to murder me, (laughter) and just see what that was like - if I could get out of it. It was an adventure. I don't do it anymore because I don't need to.

Also, I don't know for sure about reincarnation, but I've had an idea that I may have been a man in a past life who had taken advantage and raped and violated a lot of women and that I was paying off a lot of karmic debt. If you work as a prostitute in a massage parlor and you see four or five guys a day, a third of them are going to be less than respectful. They're going to be clumsy and rough and somewhat abusive. But I found the danger erotic.

David: I'm having a little bit of a hard time understanding that because to me the whole thing about eroticism is trust.

Annie: Well, it gets your adrenaline going. It's like going to see a movie that puts you on edge. It's a challenge and there's also the intrigue.

Rebecca: So you think that the reason people want to talk about the negative stuff is because they get turned on by it, a reversal of the pleasure principle?

Annie: Maybe it's the same reason that people go to horror movies.

David: Perhaps part of the pleasure comes from being scared out of your wits and knowing that you're safe - which is the thrill of watching a horror movie or being at an amusement park.

Annie: That's interesting. Well, as I learn that sex is more about energy than anything else, when you add that violent aspect or fear aspect, it raises a lot of energy. And I think that people don't know how to raise their sexual energy...

Rebecca: Without that.

Annie: Right. Unless they're in a violent relationship or engaged in a violent fantasy. That's why S & M is so popular now.

Rebecca: S & M can be very therapeutic. Using the symbolism of violence without having to hurt anybody.

Annie: I admire people who can go into those violent fantasies and surrender to them. But we barely have a language for discussing pleasure and ecstasy - we know how to talk about violence.

David: It's very difficult to write a book that doesn't have some element of violence - it's hard to stay on the topic of pure pleasure if you want to keep people's attention.

Annie: People get bored. Most people can't sustain happiness for very long.

David: Have you noticed that there's an inverse relationship in cultures between and openness towards sex and the frequency of violent behaviour?

Annie: Well, the aborigines had a good idea. They had a system where everyone was sexually taken care of. Everyone had a mate, everyone had a lover, and they also engaged in ritualistic rapes. I'm just questioning that maybe there's more to it than we think. I realize that it's scary to do that.

Rebecca: What do you think about rape?

Annie: Camille Paglia's book Sexual Personae is my answer to that. I don't know about rape, I know about pleasure. If I'm getting a root canal, I go into pleasure. So I'm just wondering if instead of focusing on the horrible garbage and shit that happens, we can reframe our thinking about those things. I created this in my life to learn the next lesson, for example. In prostitution, there were the same people always getting arrested, the same people always getting raped. Why was I never raped and my friend was raped several times?

I believe that our society generally mixes sex and violence, and this is one style of sex. A lot of people use their rape experiences, or the fear of rape, to keep them in a cage. Because they were raped or abused at five years old, that means they don't have to enjoy sex as an adult - how convenient! They're so afraid of their sexuality that they'll use any excuse not to enjoy it.

People are terrified of pleasure because they're hung up on pain and suffering. Well, if they want to choose this, they can have it - it's an option. All I'm saying is that you don't have to choose pain and suffering and agony, you can have pleasure and joy and ecstasy.

Rebecca: Even when you're being raped?

David: I know a woman who was raped and she enjoyed it very much.

Annie: I've talked to a lot of men who were in the war and killing people and getting erections and totally getting off on it. Some people choose that. Some people stay in violent relationships with their husband who beats them up all the time because they're enjoying that kind of sex and they don't know how to have another kind. I'm trying to teach them another kind.

Rebecca: What are the most common problems you come across as a sexual counselor and workshop leader?

Annie: Well, certainly women who are hung up on something horrible that happened to them and they can't get past it. I just say, oh, forget about that, go to therapy and work on it there, but let's go, let's have a good time. I show them that you don't have to dwell on that. We're a pleasure-negative culture. The average length of intercourse is two minutes. I go to a college, and I'm talking about

how to have a gold orgasm, and they want to talk about rape and child abuse and child pornography - it's their favorite subject!

Look at the news. No one wants to watch people having a good time, they want to see blood and guts and gore. Rape is not the fault of porn, the fault of rape is that people on some level choose that. If you get your nipples ripped off in the Bible, you're a saint, but if you're having pleasure, you're a hedonist. You're no good if you're always having fun. Pleasure-seeker, nymphomaniac - the terms are all negative.

David: Why are we pleasure-negative, do you think?

Annie: I think people get off on it.

David: But everyone's drawn towards pleasure and recoils at pain from animals to the simplest living mechanisms.

Annie: No, it's not true. I think vacations are as close to ecstasy as most people get, and our society is set up so you only get about one week a year. I think there's a lot of thrill and excitement in pain. I was a dominatrix for a couple of years. I explored my weight fantasies and went totally into it for a couple of years without a lot of judgment.

I was in situations where I thought I'd be killed. I was hitchhiking and got picked up by five guys. They gave me some drugs and took me out into the desert and we had a big orgy and I knew, if I didn't enjoy this, I was going to have a terrible time. So I got off on the adventure. So it's always interesting. Here we are talking about my worst sexual experiences, but no one ever asks me about the best. People don't want to know. How much ecstasy have you had?

David: Hey, I'd like to know. What was your greatest sexual experience?

Annie: Two days ago. (laughter)

David: What do you think about the importance of keeping a sense of humor in regard to sexuality.

Annie: I use humor a lot. A good, hard belly-laugh is orgasmic. But also, sex is really scary to a lot of people and one way of dealing with fear is through humor, so a lot of my work is kind of funny. I had a lover who liked his food stepped on before he ate it - it really turned him on. I really like the humor in that.

As an erotic photographer, I'm often having to say to people, stop laughing because it doesn't look erotic. Then again, I've used a lot of humor in my work because I find it makes the medicine go down easier. But there's beauty in being serious as well

.David: Tell us something about Post-Porn-Modernism.

Annie: Post-Porn-Modernism is a term that an artist in Holland came up with and I borrowed it. It implies something after porn, it implies something artistic. To me it implies something more intellectual or creative or experimental. Sexually explicit rather than just erotic. Erotic is just one aspect of sex. Generally my work hasn't been about eroticism.

David: What has it been about?

Annie: All the things I've mentioned. Ideas, exploration, feminism, politics, experimenting with life, creating life. Sex isn't always erotic. It can be funny, for example. I would like to find an environment where I can really focus on sexual exploration, just like a scientist in a laboratory. We did this unconsciously at the Hellfire club for a few years. I want to make a video on orgasm. I'm totally fascinated by this subject. There's so little about it and it's the most pleasure most people ever know in their lives.

David: Why is it that you live in New York city when California is so much more pleasure-orientated?

Annie: I think because it's a communications center. It's the throat chakra of the world. It's kind of like the Grand Canyon, the buildings are erotic. Also, I like the feeling of hundreds of thousands of people very close together - it's very intimate. I think New York is sexy. I also really appreciate the eroticism of nature but to me buildings are nature, cement is nature. I can have an erotic experience with a piece of granite. But I'm scared of bugs. To me, a horrifying sexual experience would be to have a thousand cockroaches on me. That would be the ultimate rape.

David: Salvador Dali said that the most erotic experience he could imagine was to cover himself with honey and have a million flies crawl all over him.

Annie: Oh God! I like that kind of thinking though. Why limit ourselves?

Rebecca: Do you think that women often become addicted to playing the victim?

Annie: Yeah, totally. With this Jesse Helms thing, everyone was saying, "oh, you must feel horrible!" but I don't let this guy victimize me in any way!

Rebecca: Have you had much experience of censorship?

Annie: Every day. I was arrested for conspiracy to commit sodomy because of a magazine I was publishing.

Rebecca: (laughter) That's such a weird thing to be arrested for.

Annie: I choose not to be a victim. If everyone's trying to fight victimization, why are they becoming more victimized?

Rebecca: You don't seem to have much anger in you at all.

Annie: That's funny because I do get angry. I really love it, it's totally orgasmic. I really appreciate it when someone makes me angry. I think women need to express their anger. I walk down the street and I get angry when I'm harassed; "Hey, baby I like those big tits!" or whatever. I'm not totally in another world although I try to be.

Rebecca: You're doing a good job. (laughter)

Annie: I'm trying to create the world I want. In the world I want I'd like to be able to walk down the street naked. I'd like to see people fucking everywhere, I love seeing people kissing in public. A lot of people don't like it because it confronts their own sexuality. The word on censorship is that pornography makes people look at their own sexuality. Me being who I am makes things come up for people.

But I still have so much to learn. I don't claim to be the world's greatest lover. I claim to have learned as much as I can and worked as much as I can with what I have to be the best lover that I can be. I'm not a prodigy. There's a lot sexually that I lack, just natural born talents that I don't have. Certain types of energy, certain body types, a certain sense of rhythm, an ability to thrust. (laughter)

But I'm so grateful for my sexuality, I don't know what I'd do without it. I'm just amazed that everyone doesn't want to do pornography, or everyone doesn't want to be a prostitute or learn more about their sexuality - but they don't. I'm glad, because it makes me more unique. Except for that bitch Madonna - she's stepping into my territory. (laughter) My energy feels good today and I feel erotic energy pulsing through my body and I feel sexual connections between all of us.

Rebecca: How does it feel conducting this interview in the house where you grew up?

Annie: I feel good about it. It's funny because I used to keep my family pictures totally separate from my porno pictures and then they got all mushed up together and kind of finally grew over each other. And I think that's kind of symbolic of what's happened in my life. I used to pay my brother a nickel or a quarter to sleep in his bed. I wonder if that's why I became a prostitute, to make back all that money? (laughter)

Rebecca: The interview so far has mainly been with Annie Sprinkle, but I'm interested in talking to Anya. So as Anya could you tell us how you experience sexuality and what some of your fantasies are and how they differ from Annie's.

Annie: My first thought is to just go get my vibrator now, it'll make my head clear. Let's stop this.....

Rebecca: (half an hour later) So, I was asking about how Annie's sexuality differs from Anya's.

Annie: (laughter) Sex and orgasm - it makes me happy. It brings me back to who I am. It helps me clear out blocked energy, blocked emotions. I use it as a tool to be more balanced, more content, more relaxed. That's on a basic day to day level. But I use it in a 101 different ways - literally. (laughter) I use it to be spiritual, to connect with people, to reconnect with myself, to go into deep meditation. It's a gift and it's as important as eating or sleeping.

Annie's fantasies are everything from being hooked up to torture machines by the Nazis and having a hundred dogs lick my body. (laughter) I'm done with that. I went into the depths of my kinkymost self. I fantasized rape for about a year and then it was done. Then there were the Nazi torture machines for a year and that was done.

I, as Anya, don't fantasize, I visualize. Now, I focus more on breath, I let my mind go. If I visualize something I visualize something way more cosmic or much bigger and more expanded than myself or my body. Annie still fantasizes occasionally about body parts, particularly pussies.

If I want to have a quick orgasm I just think of a beautiful pussy, but Anya would never really think that way, Anya would let the mind go, let the ego go, focus on the breath I find that fantasizing takes me away from the person I'm with and Anya's more interested in more intimate connections.

Rebecca: Are you becoming Anya or will they both always share the stage together?

Annie: I think I'll jump back and forth. I imagine I'll move more and more into Anya, but I still enjoy being Annie. My neighbour's a call-girl and every so often she'll give me a call and say, "Come on down and turn a trick with me," and I'll put on my Annie Sprinkle gear and go turn a trick. And I really enjoy that - it's kind of a hobby.

The more and more I become Anya, it's sometimes refreshing to be Annie for a night. I really do feel very strongly connected to the sacred prostitute image and I feel like a vehicle or a vessel, a devoted servant to the spirit of ecstasy. To learn about it, to let people bounce their guilt and shame off me - receive to take on people's fears.

David: Do you feel that you're plugging into an archetype?

Annie: Someone said I was the Boddhisatva of the first chakra. (laughter) Maybe half of the time I'm in a state of bliss, but my goal is to be there all the time. In New York City I can walk down the street and make love with the buildings and sidewalks and everyone that passes by and have orgasmic waves fluttering through my body on an average day walking to the delicatessen. Even anger can be very orgasmic, or fear too. It's noticing the ecstasy in everything. My motto is erotisize everything.'

When I was swimming with a group of people the other day in Hawaii we said, "Let's do some sex magic." We were snorkeling and we did some breathing and then we were all going to dive down deep and undulate and come up. We didn't see one fish and we were out in the water for maybe two hours.

I had never swum out in the ocean before and I was really scared. We dive down and all of a sudden, there's a shark - my worst fear! I was so scared. But it was so beautiful, and as soon as I got out I noticed the eroticism of the fear and the aliveness I felt. Whenever I go to visit someone in a hospital who's sick I get turned on. (laughter)

Rebecca: Camille Paglia claims that the feminist movement sees female sexuality as something that has been exploited by men and has encouraged women to abandon their sexual power. One of the things I found liberating about your show was that it used that sexuality in a multitude of forms as a form of self-expression. What reaction have you had from feminists, and what would you say to women who claim that you're simply buying into a male-dominator fantasy and betraying women?

Annie: I've found that there are many different kinds of feminists. There feminists who see sex in a positive light and those who don't. I haven't had much opportunity to connect with the Women Against Porn. When I've seen them on the street they've been too violent to approach.

I met a woman at a funeral who was in Women Against Porn and we went for tea together. She was totally miserable. She was living with her mother, she hadn't had sex in four years, she didn't know if she was a lesbian or a heterosexual - she was a wreck. Here she had been touring round the country, supposedly protecting young women like me from the evils of pornography! It was clear that that was a joke. There are women who are exploited by pornography who don't come out of it ahead, but they wouldn't come out of anything ahead.

David: You're talking about a woman who's life was geared to trying to stop eroticism but you're saying she was so miserable because of a lack of eroticism.

Annie: I don't know that she was out to stop eroticism. She was out to stop the evils of pornography that cause rape and violence. She had worked in rape crisis centers for years - somebody has to do that work. Anyway, that same woman just came to one of my workshops. She's started to see things differently.

Just as Camille says, women's sexuality can be exploited by men, but it can also be exploited, and certainly repressed, by the so-called `feminist' movement. But mostly my contacts have been with really sex-positive feminists. Obviously I'm a little bit on the radical, more outrageous side, and I'm sure that to many of them I'm an embarrassment. Just like if I march in the gay pride parade topless, most other people in the parade would probably disapprove.

I'm doing this Tantra Congress tonight with some of the greatest Tantric teachers in the world and I know that many of them really don't like a lot of my work because there's not the same aesthetic. Sex is a lot like painting. There are people who use pastel watercolors and people who paint big, black squares - everyone has their own style of sexual expression. Some are very sexually spiritual and then there are the sexual-traditionalists. There are styles that are quite ugly but are somehow beautiful in their ugliness. It's like being in a museum. I can usually get a good sense of a person's sexual style on first meeting them.

My style is experimental. I see myself as avant-garde. I'm the one trying to make a painting without a canvas, or going way off the canvas. (laughter) Just as with artists who paint, there's not a lot of understanding about the radical sexual artists, especially by the traditionalists. At this Tantric Congress, for example, there are poeple who've been initiated into the Tantric lineage with dogma and specific exercises.

David: You've been talking about the way they look at you, but how does this traditionalism seem from your perspective? Too serious, too stoic or not loose enough?

Annie: No. I totally accept it and I think it's really beautiful and necessary. I admire it, but I feel that they can be really judgmental and prejudice. But they don't like my style - and that's okay.

Rebecca: I found your live performance to be a very powerful experience. What kinds of responses have you gotten from your audience - positive or negative?

Annie: Mostly I've received positive responses because at the end of the performance that I've been doing for the past three years (which is called Post-Post-Porn-Modernist) is a ritual, and if people are uncomfortable they usually leave right away. So it's the people who really like it come up at the end.

Once I did the ritual where I masturbate with the vibrator and there's this one woman who yells out, "Stop that fake shit!" She was really angry. I was just going at it and I was having really good orgasms! (laughter) People sometimes expect to come to my show and be turned on and I've had people say, "well, I really enjoyed your show, but it wasn't erotic." And it's not meant to be erotic.

David: What are you trying to get across in your shows?

Annie: What it looks like to not have any shame or guilt about your sexuality and your body. I'm trying to let people get to know a little bit about a sex-worker and maybe try to help them get over some prejudices about women who are promiscuous and women in the sex business.

In the first part of the show I'm trying to deconstruct, demystify sex. Take a look at it and show that it's no big deal. And in the second half I try to make it sacred again.

David: You're trying dissolve some of the superficial mystery so that you can get to a deeper level of mystery?

Annie: Yeah. Like when I show my cervix to the audience. What's inside? It's a big mystery. So let's shine a flashlight on it and take a casual look. But you can never demystify a cervix, because it's fathomless.

David: What in your opinion is the key to really good sex?

Annie: Learning about breathing is the key for one person and getting down on your hands and knees and worshipping at somebody's feet can be a really great key for another person. For me, getting over any kind of guilt and shame is the primary thing, which I more or less did about ten years ago.

The next thing for me is time. Really good sex takes hours and hours. I can't really go into that depth and intensity and adventure in altered states without time. I really love group energy. I don't like casual orgies, but I like structured group-sex rituals very much. Good sex has to do with going beyond me, beyond my body, beyond my mind.

For really good sex I don't have to be with someone who I have an erotic connection with because ultimately I feel I'm the source of my own sexual pleasure. But if I am with someone who really sparks my energy, my sexuality or my love or my cosmic consciousness that can be a powerful key. Also, I can't have good sex unless I shave my legs. (laughter)

David: If you were to sum up the basic message of your life's work, what would it be?

Annie: Let there be pleasure on earth and let it begin with me.

Bibliography