Why Are People Into That?!

Please enjoy this exciting preview of an audio project I’ve been working on with the Hacking//Hustling collective! It's called: "Let Us Survive: An oral history of sex worker movements before and after FOSTA-SESTA."

If you’re here for the weird sex stuff hello hi, and don’t know about the significance of the fight against United States law FOSTA SESTA, keep listening and allow us to enlighten you beyond your wildest fantasies.

Longtime collaborator Mickey Mod, and I, interviewed thirteen sex work activists about labor and technology and policy and grassroots organizing and so much more. 

Visit youtube.com/@hackinghustling1451, or hackinghustling.org, or search and subscribe to let Us Survive wherever you pod.

Let Us Survive, an oral history project by sex workers for everyone, covers a decade of American sex worker justice movements, roughly 2013 to 2023. It also gazes towards the future: of the industry, and of our labor organizing.  

This podcast does something that US Congress didn’t do: we listen to sex worker voices. Voices along the Choice-Circumstance-Coercion spectrum. We explore how sex workers use technology to keep ourselves safe, to build community and culture, to not only survive but thrive. We listen to our fellow sex workers and survivors as we talk about our movements, how we’ve responded to FOSTA-SESTA and other policies. How we feel about federal raids on internet platforms like RentBoy and Backpage. How we feel about the Communications Decency Act and freedom of speech. What we believe reproductive justice activists and others can learn from sex worker organizing. Why we’re fighting for the decriminalization of sex work, and how that will only be the beginning of the changes we need to see. 

Over the course of four episodes, you’ll be hearing the voices of full service workers, strippers, pro-doms, cam models, and pornographers. People who work in hotels and on the street, in clubs and in their homes. People who sell digital content online, and people who use the internet to market their services. 

Workers, survivors, activists, and allies from all over the United States who have built solidarity and collapsed binaries. 

People whose political identity as sex workers intersects with other identities both marginalized and privileged, as experts in harm reduction and tech privacy, as lawyers, as advocates, as parents, as drug users, as doulas, as bloggers, and so much more.

Let Us Survive interviews Lakeesha Harris of Chicago Volunteer Doulas; Desiree Collins of the Colorado Entertainer Coalition; Jared Trujillo of CUNY Law School; Chibundo Egwuatu of HIPS (Honoring Individual Power and Strength) in DC, Elizabeth Ricks of the Trans Life Care Program at Chicago House; Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the Whore, Marla Cruz, a sex worker and writer from Texas, Caty Simon of Whose Corner Is it Anyway in Massachusetts; Kate D’Adamo of Reframe Health and Justice, and M of APAC (Adult Performer Advocacy Committee) in Los Angeles, along with Danielle Blunt, Red, and zara raven of Hacking//Hustling.

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Why Are People Into Being Hunted: the greatest audience question of all time?!

"Why Are People Into That?: A Cultural Investigation of Kink" THE BOOK IS OUT NOW wherever books are sold in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook read by me!

The episode you’re listening to now was recorded in July of 2021 at Junior High gallery in Los Angeles. It was one of the first in-person events I did after getting vaccinated. I’ve been sitting on this footage and other footage from the other live shows I’ve done over the past few years because I was honestly waiting for a special occasion. I don't think anything more special than the book release is likely to happen any time soon, so here it is! 

Friend of the pod and returning guest Nea Ching aka "The Gay Chingy" and I answer audience questions and discuss an alternate dimension where Chingy is a top.

Tickets are still available to Junior High gallery on June 11th for a cabaret celebration of the book rel

"Why Are People Into That?: A Cultural Investigation of Kink" THE BOOK IS OUT TODAY June 4th, 2024. Happy birthday baby!

The episode you’re listening to now was recorded in July of 2021 at Junior High gallery in Los Angeles. It was one of the first in-person events I did after getting vaccinated. I’ve been sitting on this footage and other footage from the other live shows I’ve done over the past few years because I was honestly waiting for a special occasion. I don't think anything more special than the book release is likely to happen any time soon, so here it is! 

Friend of the pod and returning guest Nea Ching aka "The Gay Chingy" is so fucking funny, at one point she literally says, "I’m a hole not an engineer!" This episode was actually really a treat for me to return to and edit. The audience was super cute as my audiences tend to be. I hope you laugh and get turned on listening as much as I did making it. We talk about how fucking machines are obje

Welcome back to the first new feed drop in three years. I appreciate that you’re still subscribed, and I hope this was a nice treat in your podcast updates today. People tell me all the time they still listen to back episodes. I’m so grateful for that, and for all the listener support over the years. The major reason I haven’t been actively doing the show is that I got a major book deal to write Why Are People Into That A Cultural Investigation of Kink. It’s been a long process – sometimes arduous, sometimes glorious, and now the book is about to be unleashed upon the world, that’s you! That pub day is June 4th, 2024. 

Why Are People Into That A Cultural Investigation of Kink isn’t an adaptation or like novelization of the pod so much as a book based on the same premise that this podcast is based on: a queer as fuck, whore-centric, slut positive, pervert celebrating deep dives into fetish sex. Which is to say, if you’ve enjoyed listening, you’re gonna enjoy reading. 

Disassociation, complicity, power play, control, forgiveness.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yapit.

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“They have no stakes. We have all of the stakes.”

In the latest episode of my special series on WE TOO: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, I interviewed Selena the Stripper, who wrote the book's introduction.

Discussed: FKA Twigs' pole dance appropriation; who gets to use the word Heaux: sugar dating; the status value of a Birkin bag; Strippers United //

Selena The Stripper is a sex worker, writer, podcaster, and community organizer. After graduating from MICA in 2015, fae felt out of place in the elitist world of institutional art. Through stripping fae found financial stability and a community of incredibly strong, radically free thinking artists. Faer Instagram (@prettyboygirl) highlights faer writing and photography, but weekly exclusive content can be found on Patreon (@therealprettyboygirl). Fae is a resident author with Berlinable, a Berlin-based erotica publication. Faer podcast, Heaux in the Kneaux, is available on all platforms. //

ABOUT WE TOO

For the first episode of a special series celebrating the release of We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, I chatted with the book's editor Natalie West. (I associate edited and contributed to the anthology!) //

"You have to be ok with ambiguity to grapple with what the book presents and what sex work is."//

Natalie reflects on her choice to market herself as the Lesbian Dominatrix of Los Angeles. Then we get into the long history of how we came to co-edit this anthology of sex workers responding to the Me Too movement. Stay tuned for more episodes featuring other contributors to the book. And snag your copy, out 2.9.21 from Feminist Press! //

Natalie West is a Los Angeles based writer and educator. She worked as a professional Dominatrix while obtaining her PhD in Gender Studies. These days, she is a professor who moonlights as a sex work, BDSM, and queer community authenticity consultant for film and television. //

We Too is

Hey YAPIT fans! I'm focusing my energy on SfSx Volume 2, the hustle, and work/life balance in these turbulent times. Listen for a few words on my hiatus, and what to expect in 2021. xoxoxo TH

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yapit.

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“No amount of assimilation or pride has shaken this sense of myself as an inverted dark predatory lesbian.” //

Certified lesbian vampire Annie Rose Malamet joins me to explain the appeal of darkness, finesse, predation, the night, immortal codependency, two little wounds in the neck, ejaculating blood, obsession, morbidity, the shadow self, and performance; with nods to Octavia Butler, Anne Rice, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, Phantom of the motherfuckin Opera, Xenomorphs, Ovi positors, slutty Halloween werewolves, tentacles, and evil computers. //

Annie Rose Malamet is a writer, teaching artist, and podcast producer. As the creator of the podcast "Girls, Guts, & Giallo," she examines subversive and controversial films from a femme leather dyke perspective. In her writing, she blends personal narrative and film theory.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yapit.

"How can brands do more for social justice movements? Give people pleasure! Give people a reason to have a wet a$s p#ssy! Uplifting difficult conversations about Black Lives Matter: that’s what makes p#ssy wet! Loving relationships and care starts with pleasure and understanding your needs. And guess what? Social and political justice are needs like orgasms are needs.” — SX Noir /

Who better than thot leader SX Noir to weave together BLM, COVID, and pleasure principles? In this special episode, sponsored by LELO, SX and Tina explore: privacy and persona in digital space, the Black Sex Worker Liberation March, mutual aid, sex tech, remote control vibrators, why we need to stop and erotically appreciate the flowers, the importance of masturbation during quarantine, and W.A.P. /

Don’t forget! You can get 15% off your self-love routine with the code SEXTECH on https://lelo.to/WhyArePeopleIntoT

“Kink is an arena where I find tidiness.” //

In Part 2 of my talk with Juno Mac, co-author of Revolting Prostitutes, we discuss: great books about sex work, rational thoughts in an irrational world, whether there's such a thing as the sex worker gaze, what the Hustlers of prostitution will look like, why it’s imperative that sex work activism centers mutual aid and the experience of migrants, and how Juno is trying not to be the movement’s mother so she can be a @FeralMommy in her personal life. //

“Our fangs are so fucking sharp." //

Juno Mac is a professional leg spreader and opinion haver; a sex worker, activist, author, and photographer based in London, UK. She is an organizer with Sex Workers’ Advocacy and Resistance Movement, a collective of sex workers based in different cities around the UK. She is one of the co-authors of the book Revolution Prostitutes: The Fight For Sex Workers’ Rights released in 2018, and is currently working on a part documentary/part memoir photogr

“Is it ok for 'Juno Mac' to be an anxious hooker and an advocate for sex worker rights? Am I allowed to be a messy, complicated person?” //

The co-author of the indispensable book Revolting Prostitutes join me over the phone from her quarantine in England to discuss: the unfair pressure of compartmentalizing our own sex lives and whoreientations, why doing sex work digitally feels like Buffy losing her super-strength and not being able to open a jar of pickles, dinner party Decrim talking points, and “calling in” the analogy "sex is to rape as sex work is to trafficking." //

Juno Mac is a professional leg spreader and opinion haver; a sex worker, activist, author, and photographer based in London, UK. She is an organizer with Sex Workers’ Advocacy and Resistance Movement, a collective of sex workers based in different cities around the UK. She is one of the co-authors of the book Revolution Prostitutes: The Fight For Sex Workers’ Rights released in 2018, and is curre

“The push and pull between clarity and imagination is something I think about a lot in visual storytelling.” //

I called up SfSx series artist Jen Hickman to celebrate the release of our SfSx: Volume 1: Protection trade paperback on July 22nd!

Jen and I discuss our collaborative process, and Jen gives some insight into how they think about formatting sequential art, color as music, and an art school game that’s like exquisite corpse but with dicks. We also touch on Jen’s talent for “character acting” and one of my favorite examples of this from SfSx, how they made an air duct scene sex charged and hilarious, the role of time in comics especially smutty comics, and what kind of sex robot we'd want to fuck. // Jen Hickman is a visual storyteller and a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design's Sequential Art program. Past work includes TEST, Moth & Whisper, Jem and the Holograms, the Femme Magnifique anthology, and more. They get really excited ab

“The funny thing about Crash Pad is: you know that I know that you know that I know that there’s cameras in there." //

In Part 2 of my interview with Shine, we focus in on Why Are People Into Voyeurism. //

Shine tells a legendary tale of how seeing herself in the mirrors at the Lusty Lady inspired Crash Pad Series. We discuss how the voyeurism themes of CPS means she’s both removed her queer woman of color gaze and inserted that gaze into every single scene; how CPS has changed over 15 years of queer p*rn production; why you should pay for your porn; why asking first is necessary. We also explore: Why is voyeurism considered so creepy? Is the voyeur a top? When is looking like touching? There's also some nerdy camera talk and Shine's conspiracy theory about P*rn Hub. //

Shine Louise Houston is the founding producer and director of Pink and White Productions (CrashPadSeries.com, http://pinklabel.tv/

On May 11th, I recorded an episode remotely with Shine, about 15 years of Crash Pad Series, and a second part about voyeurism. On June 24th, I called her back to get her perspective on the Movement for Black Lives. This is part one, including our talks about BLM and CPS. Voyeurism coming soon. //

“If you tell professionals what to do they won’t riff. If you tell amateurs what to do they ignore you. What I found was that the more I took myself out, the more organic the scene could be… The only thing I needed to control was the cameras…” //

In which I call Crash Pad Series the Law and Order of Queer P*rn, Shine explains the origin story of the CPS themes and production values, and her take on the narratives of a sex scene. //

Shine Louise Houston is the founding producer and director of Pink and White Productions (CrashPadSeries.com, PinkLabel.tv). During a five-year position at the women-owned sx toy purveyor Good Vibrations, Shine recognized an underserved demand for an alternative to mai

What is the Whorearchy? How can understanding it help us to combat whorephobia? This portmanteau meaning Whore-Hierarchy is a term originating from and used within the sex worker rights movement describing social stratification within the industry. In honor of International Whores Day on June 2nd, here's my lecture from a 10.26.17 Stigma Unbound event at Catland Books in Brooklyn. Check out patreon.com/TinaHorn for a video and my slideshow from the lecture.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“There’s a part of me that’s going to enact a sadism on you from the inside.” //

It’s YAPIT: COVID-19 Lightning Round Edition, recorded live on Instagram May 2nd 2020. //

In which I really try my best to game-ify YAPIT even though I don’t have a game brain and cannot follow my own rules. //

We cover: masks, medical fetishism, nano-objects, virtual reality, bug-chasing, spit, and breath play. //

Death ethics, Zoom fart trolls, Thomas the Tank Engine lead recalls, how the crisis will change porn, the question “if you had a clone how would you fuck it?”, ovipositors, and sourdough starters also come up because how could they not? //

“You’re a femme fatale, the fluids from your body have the power to destroy me.” //

Empress Wu is an NYC-based dominatrix and cultural activist, primarily operating via performance, curation, writing, and production to explore the semiotics of sex work, and its effect on the body politic. In her spare time, she can be found loudl

"That’s the sex appeal of fascism: the desire to be violated. To be cut through like butter and spread... Fascism is sexy because it’s dangerous, confident, and... leather! It’s scary and comforting at the same time, because you don’t have to make any decisions. We’re afraid of it because our power is taken away, and we want it because we want our power to be taken away." //

CW: two Jewish anti-fascist leftist queers in Brooklyn talking about the history, aesthetics, and complicated erotic allegories of fascism.

In Part Two: The empty symbolism of punk / Derek Jarman’s Jubilee, / Adam Ant’s "Deutscher Girls" / Are people jerking off to Mel Brook’s "Hitler Rap"? / Are gay skinheads fascist? / Yukio Mishima / Forced breeding and medical experiments / Adrienne Rich’s response to Susan Sontag’s NYRB essay / Slave Play //

"Unless you contend with desire, you’re never gonna get anywhere.” //

JB Brager is a writer and cartoonist living in Brooklyn NY, Lenape-ho-king. They are

“What does our desire endorse?” //

Content Warning: This episode features two Jewish leftist queers in Brooklyn talking about the history, aesthetics, and complicated erotic allegories of fascism. Some graphic references to torture from fictional films including Salò and The Night Porter. //

In the first YAPIT recorded during the COVID-19 quarantine, JB Brager joins me remotely from their home to discuss the spectacle of fascism. Discussed: shiny shiny shiny boots of leather, Nazisploitation, the fashion inspirations of Night Porter, why Salò isn’t actually a BDSM film but could spark scene material, Cate Blanchett's Soviet jodhpurs, why the Borg don't understand dating, the gender politics of Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, and this entire fucking 1975 Sontag quote: “Fascist aesthetics… flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain... They endorse two seemingly oppos

“I really like people to cry at my titty show!” //

In part 2, Fancy and I get to the bottom of that age old debate: is burlesque stripping? Fancy recounts the plastic bag routine that won her Miss Coney Island 2016, as well as some of her favorite acts by Tiger Bay, Julie Atlas Muz & Mat Fraser, and Darlinda Just Darlinda (including an apocalyptic one that’s almost too prescient...) //

Fancy Feast is a burlesque performer, sex educator, and writer. She holds the title of Miss Coney Island 2016 and is the recipient of the Revolutionary Award at the 2017 New York Burlesque Festival. She is a 2018 New Jewish Culture fellow. She has performed nationwide at venues including the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. She is the subject of the 2016 documentary “Fancy Feast: the Fat Burlesque Performer”, by Leon Chase. 

“I don’t experience my naked body as inherently erotic. It’s my body, and I like it. It has so much more to do for me with the glamour and the transgression. That’s the part where I’m comfortable and excited. Burlesque was the first time I ever saw an exalted fat body.” 

Fancy Feast joins me for a talk about the art of burlesque. But first we discuss her Jewish Currents piece about identity fetishism and what kind of Jewish-themed porn she would make. Her act called 50 Shades of Oy Vey is a great segue into a discussion of the money she’s put into big rhinestone, why she’s not body positive, and whether good girls can do burlesque. Pt 2 coming soon! //

Fancy Feast is a burlesque performer, sex educator, and writer. She holds the title of Miss Coney Island 2016 and is the recipient of the Revolutionary Award at the 2017 New York Burlesque Festival. She is a 2018 New Jewish Culture fellow. She has performed nationwide at venues including the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Op

“All subcultures use aesthetics to establish community." // Fetish artist and aesthete Lanee Bird joined me the day after her film Laboratory was screened as part of Kink Out: Spaces at MOMA PS1. We talked fetish as: obsession, reverence, precision, perfectionism, discomfort, fashion... and how being a bottom contributes to Lanee's talents. //

Lanee Bird is an indigenous queer photographer, cinematographer and video editor based in Brooklyn, NY. Through her personal work of both photo and film she reveals the intersections of fashion and fetishism. She is also experienced in commercial video production as an editor and colorist primarily working within the beauty industry. 

"Riding someone while biting them is like consuming them from both ends.” /

“The esophagus is the thinking man’s rectum.” /

Worship, biting, vampirism, feeding frenzies, body farms, eating pubes, menstrual blood, ripping into each other, the act of service of giving someone your life force, the Cannibal cop, Der Metzgermeister, eating the placenta of someone you love, what part of her own body Wu would like to eat, what Yu-Gi-Oh! fan fiction has to do with all this, and how Wu would prepare you. /

Empress Wu is an NYC-based dominatrix and cultural activist, primarily operating via performance, curation, writing, and production to explore the semiotics of sex work, and its effect on the body politic. In her spare time, she can be found loudly preaching conspiracy theories about slime videos.

“While my mouth is open, he gets lost among my teeth, sliding down my throat, not being able to escape my mouth.” //

In truly one of the most deranged episodes in the history of this podcast, Empress Wu and I speculate about the thrall of cannibalism, figurative and in some cases literal. Mukbang videos, a client called Mental Dental, vore, giantess fetishists, vomiting fetishists, eating each other out, drinking cum and piss, the romance of only having so much meat to give, the moment in sex when you're so close you never want to leave, and how cannibalism flips consumption inside out. //

Empress Wu is an NYC-based dominatrix and cultural activist, primarily operating via performance, curation, writing, and production to explore the semiotics of sex work, and its effect on the body politic. In her spare time, she can be found loudly preaching conspiracy theories about slime videos.

“I’ll chain you to the bed and put a pretty bow on you” //

This live show, recorded at the NYC Pleasure Chest in December 2019, is all about balance: silk ties and heavy metal shackles, being juicy and muscular, being a genderqueer parent and glamorous pro-domme. Amazon Maddox aka BrujaPxssy tells their kink origin story, explores topics of fat positivity and exotification, and gives advice for parents navigating biases against sexual identity. And then there's a pretty detailed exploration of Why Are People Into Blackmail?! //

BrujaPxssy is an AfroLatin GenderFluid New Yorker and SP. Through their work as a 'Pro-Dominant Life Coach, they strive to make BDSM and alternative lifestyles a more inclusive and well represented community, as well as make meaningful connections with those they encounter on their own journey into The Arts. Parent, Activist, and aspiring model, there is not much they can't handle.