Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20, 10am-6pm
$300 – RSVP to carol@sexandculture.org
(We will be able to take credit cards for this one!)

 The Man for a Day Workshop is a unique experience. Diane has been teaching it since 1990 in a variety of venues throughout N. America, Europe and Asia. Since its inception, the workshop gathered much media attention, and brought Diane’s work into the public eye. The workshop also pioneered a drag king performance culture in theatres and clubs in several of the cities in which it was taught. Women have taken it for many reasons, according to their situation.

Maybe during a lifetime of observing men in your neighborhood, on the subway, in the office, in cars, in your home, etc., you have a curiosity about how men “get away” with certain behaviors that would be considered undesirable or socially unacceptable in women. You might want to experience the transformation from female to male as a way to intercept your so-called “normal” behavior as a woman, and discover new responses. Other women have attended the workshop and then met with a lover (male or female) for a night of role-play thrills. Some participants are actresses and opera singers who had "trouser" roles and wanted to make their characters more authentic. Occasionally, a woman has attended the workshop who wanted to explore a desire to become a man permanently, and then the workshop was a catalyst for making that decision.

For most participants, the reason to commit to being a man for a day was to have fun, to be outrageous. By exploring familiar situations, like going to a bar or restaurant and interacting with others in a new identity, there’s a chance to play with ideas that are taken seriously on a daily basis. Of course, women have cross-dressed throughout history and used the guise to their advantage. An important distinction to the workshop is that the intention is not to “pass”, but rather to question what is considered a given. In the course of constructing another identity, one instantly sees other possibilities of being. In becoming a man you learn how to “walk the walk” and “talk the talk” without having to wear a testosterone patch! This is a chance to escape for one day from the social construction of the identity of “woman” and to literally discover a new YOU!!

During the workshop, either Diane or a make-up artist will give each person an individual makeover and will provide facial hair, 5 o’clock shadow, etc. Each person is responsible for the male clothes they will need for their male identity. Please also bring: a wide elasticised bandage (6inches minimum) to bind breasts, and a fake penis  (condom stuffed with cotton wool, for example). We will learn how to take up space, walk, eat, drink, pick up objects, smile, etc. as men. We will interact with each other, in scene studies and in character development exercises, and create our new identities. Then we will make a visit to a public place such as café, restaurant, bar, strip club, pool hall, dance club, where we will test out our new identities.

The beginning of the following day is spent in a feedback session and then each participant learns to do their make-up by themselves. We continue to develop our characters and we have the opportunity to go out to a new location. We each take from the workshop what is useful to us, but we all leave with the shared experience (and the kick) of going beyond our “regular” selves and expanding our gender repertoire. The workshop culminates in a feedback session.

Diane Torr is an artist, director, writer and educator working in performance, film and installation. She has been making performances in New York for over 25 years. In 2003, Diane re-situated her art practice in Glasgow, where she has a studio at WASPS (Workshop and Studio Provision Scotland) Studios and is a Visiting Lecturer at Glasgow School of Art. Her performance work explores notions of gender and the erotic, and focuses on strategies to reinvent the narratives of sex and gender. Her solo drag performances have been seen around New York since 1982. Diane’s art performances and installations are presented in galleries, performance venues and festivals throughout N. America, Europe, and Eurasia. She has taught Man for a Day Workshops in over 20 cities, including London, Istanbul, Helsinki, Berlin, Lisbon, Zurich, New York and Chicago. In Feb/March 2006, Diane brought her unique workshop to India for the first time in a residency at Khoj Arts Workshop in New Delhi. In February 2011, Diane taught her first Man for a Day workshop in Brasilia at the Novadanca Festival. Her work has been the subject of profiles on BBC2 Q.E.D., HBO’s Reel Sex, in the Washington Post, Village Voice, London Independent, El Pais, German Vogue, etc. She was also one of the protagonists in Gabriel Baur’s feature film, Venus Boyz (2002). Diane’s book, Sex, Drag and Male Roles; Investigating Gender as Performance and co-authored by Stephen Bottoms has been released by University of Michigan Press. A feature film on her work, Man for a Day, by Berlin filmmaker, Katarina Peters, premiered at the Berlinale Film Festival on February 10, 2012.

photo: nakedeyephotography.com

Cost: Sliding scale $10-$20 (more if you can, less if you can't, **nobody turned away** -- if you're broke you should still come write with us! - 2nd Saturday of Every Month)

Workshop facilitated by Gina de Vries.

This is a writing workshop for current and former sex workers to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback. Workshop participants are not obligated to write exclusively about sex work, but writing about work in the sex industry (as well as writing about other topics) will be welcomed. This is a place where people can write and share about their sex work experiences without having to censor themselves or explain every detail. Beginning writers are encouraged to attend along with more seasoned wordsmiths.

Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop is all-genders. We define the term “sex worker” broadly, as people who have exchanged erotic labor for money/food/shelter, including but not limited to:

+Street and Survival Sex Workers
+Escorts and Personal Companions
+Sensual Massage and Sensual Body Work Providers
+BDSM workers; pro-dommes, subs, and switches
+Adult Film Actors; Porn Models and Performers; Nude Models; Cam Girls and Boys
+Exotic Dancers; Strippers; and Peep Show Workers
+Phone Sex Operators
+And many other Sex Workers and Adult Entertainers!
(If we’re forgetting your area of the industry in this definition, tell us!)

**Email questions, volunteer inquiries, etc, to queershoulder@gmail.com.
**If wheelchair access is needed, please contact mail@sexandculture.org in advance of workshop.
**While we can’t guarantee a scent-free space, we ask that all attendees please refrain from wearing scented products to ensure that workshop members with chemical sensitivities can attend.
**We ask that our non-sex worker friends, lovers, partners, allies, and clients respect that this space is FOR SEX WORKERS ONLY.

She has performed, taught, and lectured everywhere from chapels to leatherbar backrooms, and recent university appearances include Harvard University and Yale University. Gina regularly presents on issues ranging from sex work to intersex activism for the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program of the Reproductive Rights Activist Service Corps, and works a day job fundraising for St. James Infirmary, the nation’s only clinic run by and for current & former sex workers.

 A $5-$10 donation to our host, the CSC, is requested.

Generally meets on the third Monday of each month, from 7:30 to 9:30pm.
Doors open at 7:00pm; meeting starts at 7:30pm

For a directed discussion--held in a spirit of fellowship and mutual respect, on matters pertaining to Mastery, slavery, Dominance and submission, with an emphasis on our M/s and D/s lives--among persons of a variety of backgrounds, views, sensibilities, and philosophies.

The meeting is open to adults having a sincere, positive, personal interest in M/s or D/s, and who agree to keep confidential, within their own dynamic, what transpires at the meeting. All roles, gender identifications, and orientations are welcome.

Please RSVVEP(*) in the week preceding the meeting to either of these addresses:
Eric Arkouda < EArkouda@mailworks.org>
SF D/s Discussion Group mailing list < SFDsDG@yahoogroups.com>

* RSVVEP: Repondez si vous voudriez être présente, "respond if you'd like to attend", a statement of desire to attend. Please send this in if there's a 50% chance of your being able to attend; for my gathering of rough numbers, and saying hello. 

SF Jacks - now in our 27th year of Pubic Service!

* Just dik... desire... and lots of naked guys in a room!

* SF Jacks meat the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month.

* Doors: 7:30 - 8:30 PM only, play until you're finished.

* $7 Donation Suggested; no one turned away for lack of funds.

* 13th Jacks Virgin is our guest!

* For more info, call: 415 267-6999

sfjacks.com

Film/Reception: June 3rd • 7PM • $8 – $20
Month-long Archival Exhibition: June 1st -30th
By appointment or during scheduled events at CSC

Co-presented by Periwinkle Cinema and Queer Cultural Center for the 2012 Queer Arts Festival

BUY TICKETS to the ADULT ONLY film screening:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/246402

Proceeds from this fundraiser will go directly to the Bob Mizer Foundation to help offset the cost of material used to archive the collection and preserve the films.

This exhibit showcases Athletic Model Guild’s output from 1968 through 1972. After the interpretation of laws regarding male frontal nudity were revised, AMG’s work provided the bridge between earlier non-nude physique films and the full hardcore films which found their way into adult theaters a few years later. L.A.’s Park Theatre became a haven for AMG films, and each weekend a new batch would feature there. The month-long exhibit includes vintage posters from Park Theatre, AMG movie scripts, rarely seen movie stills, as well as other ephemera. The exhibit is accompanied by a fundraiser/screening of rare hardcore AMG films at Center for Sex & Culture on June 3rd – an adults only event.

Curated by Dennis Bell – the current proprietor of the AMG estate and brand. The Athletic Model Guild was founded in 1945 by photographer-filmmaker-publisher Bob Mizer and over the years has been the primary vehicle of expression for Mizer’s photography and films – as well as an outlet for a variety of other artists, including: David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, John Waters and others, most recently AMG Brasil and other productions.

Co-curated with Christopher Carroll (Periwinkle Cinema/Periwinkle Journal) – Photographer, video artist, and sometimes curator Christopher Carroll attempts to forge new narratives of queer identity through his collaborative work. With filmmaker Lorin Murphy, he currently oversees the queer film series Periwinkle Cinema, at Artists’ Television Access and other venues in SF.

(CQ is back with the cast!)

Tickets on sale now...
http://www.fanfueled.com/nakedgirlsgonewilde

SO YOU WANNA KNOW ABOUT THE NAKED GIRLS, HUH?
Naked Girls Reading is a group of beautiful ladies who love to read…naked. That’s really it. There’s not a whole lot more to it. Should there be?

I mean, sure, we also like to do it in front all of you voyeurs via photos, videos and very special live events, but you don’t have to look for something larger here – something pretentious or even seedy. Once you experience it, you’ll stop asking so many questions and just let the concept take you.

There’s something beautiful, something altogether more intimate, about a woman reading pretty much anything in her, well, altogether. It’s just that simple. So why are we still talking about it? Because people can’t seem to accept its simplicity.

Naked Girls. Reading. or Girls Reading. Naked.

However you need to explain it to yourself is fine. And while you do, we’ll be over here… reading.
Naked.

http://nakedgirlsreading.com/sanfrancisco/