Annie Sprinkle Comes to Talk it Over, post-Drag

Porn Intellectual Brings Unique View

She was a nice Jewish girl from New York named Ellen Steinberg. When she became a hooker and a porn star, Steinberg realized her name was not suitable to her lifestyle and while lying in bed, Ellen heard the name "Annie Sprinkle" whispered in her ear.

The rest was history. "I knew I was attracted to the sugar in the sprinkles on ice cream cones; I'm a sugarholic," said Sprinkle. "I was also attracted to the sound of wetness. I like waterfalls, piss, vaginal fluid, sweat, cum - anything wet. I love rain, and I practically grew up in a swimming pool. So 'Annie Sprinkle' seemed perfect!"

Annie Sprinkle's latest video is Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn: Reel to Real. In this artistic exploration, Sprinkle takes the audience through her metamorphosis. And Sprinkle, world-renowned sex goddess, is coming to Oberlin next Tuesday.

She's the kind of woman that will make your pheromones go nuts while talking to her on the phone. She's nice, she's modest, she's sexy, she's creative and she's incredibly nurturing.

Sprinkle performs, names and engages in the blur of identity. In her 25 years of pendulating from masseuse to whore to porn star to sex educator, Sprinkle has explored her sexuality through multiple identities, sexualities and a wide array of fluids. After following Deep Throat's director, Gerard Damiano, to New York she made over 100 porn flicks. Once in New York, Sprinkle tired of making porn for men. So she wrote, directed and starred in Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, a film that challenged traditional pornography with its narrative style, representation of female orgasm and homo-eroticism.

To begin her evolution from porn star to artist, Sprinkle attended art workshops with Linda Montano, an ex-nun turned performance artist, who helped Annie complete the transition from whore to artist.

Soon Sprinkle was discovered at a burlesque sex show titled Nurse Sprinkle Sex Education Class and the head of Performance Studies at New York University invited her to perform in the show, The Prometheus Project at the Performing Garage.

In this show, Sprinkle deconstructed her years of sex work. She realized that she could use her breasts in a variety of artistic means, including as paintbrush and canvas and as the bosom ballet.

While in New York, Sprinkle attended the School of Visual Arts, supporting her education with sexual tricks. She became a photographer for sex magazines, which led her to "pinup therapy," in which she transformed ordinary women into sexy sluts at her Transformation Salon.

When a friend offered use of her theater space, Emilio Cuberio agreed to direct the show, and Post-Porn Modernist hit the stage. The show ran for five years, toured the U.S. and Europe, went through many script changes and received critical attention. In Post-Porn Modernist, Sprinkle explored her sexual metamorphosis. She discussed her shift from Ellen Steinberg to Annie Sprinkle, the benefits and drawbacks of sex work, made the Public Cervix Announcement - she opened her vagina with a speculum and invited the audience to look at her cervix - and performed ritual masturbation.

Come join "An Intimate Show and Tell Evening with Annie Sprinkle" on Tuesday, April 11 at 8 p.m. in King 106. Your mother would be proud.