Mayhem

The dashing man that I am seen seated beside is a young and rising expert in Art Deco aesthetics. At this point in time we’re living theory but hardly understanding it. We aspire to live and breathe in vintage. We both liked the wardrobe selection but it is interesting to see where our minds went. In that moment I’m young and Hollywood is at my finger tips. We dressed to the nines, we climbed into pre -’65 American automobiles and we had adventures. Sometimes “the gang” consisting of greasers and other anachronistic misfits met up at the 1-800-AUTOPSY headquarters because someone’s friend’s Dad owned it. It’s a morgue that never got the permits to open way back in the day. Sometimes we would reach for chips and find a liver in a jar which is a good reminder when Miller High Life (The Champagne of Beers) is the drink of the night. Sometimes when we felt like being especially stunning we would head out to Bricktops at the Parlor Club.

Bricktops was a queer speakeasy artistic anarchy meeting place night club. The martinis were cold, the jazz was hot, there was always someone handsome to teach you a Charleston step. Vaginal Davis was our host always stupendous. I didn’t have words for any of it. Just awe and humility. I was already looking behind the popular 1920s images and discovering stories of the Black and Tan clubs and radical art films by Bruce La Bruce .

I went to bondage clubs for the first time, shyly at 18. I was blown away by the artistry of hardcore goths and the meticulous attention they put towards costuming. Look–I had been in a strict uniform for 13 years of school. Being around people that weren’t wearing a grey pleated skirt and oxford blouse did get some latent neurotransmitters firing. These people, these places, and these times were massively have all had incredible influence on the way that I define sex positivity and many elements of my public performances today despite the fact that there is no way I can list them out in any coherent fashion. I edited my High School Literary magazine, I came out publicly as queer to my senior class at our religious 3 day retreat in the desert, and I was the only person on campus to participate in The National Day Of Silence. I had nebulous ideas but they were primarily expressed with angst and discontent without structure.

My university studies were a period of incredible growth and development in and outside of the classroom.  Between 2003-2007 I:

* Attended the Western Regional UCLGBTQIA Conference 2004 & 2005

* Performer: Queer Fashion Show 2004, 2005, & 2007 (Featured performer “Dawn of the Dykes”)

* Resident Advisor 2005-2006

* Student Life and University Guide: 2004-2007 (University and College System tour guide, University Orientation leader (2004-2006), College System Orientation (2004), University Orientation Coordinator (2005-2006), University Panelist, Composed orientation curriculum for first generation college students and their families.

*President “The Glee Club” 2004-2005: University BDSM education and leadership organization housed through the LGBT center.

*Volunteer HIV Test Counselor 2004-2008: University Free and Anonymous HIV Test Counseling

*Coordinator Free and Anonymous HIV Testing 2006-2007:  Health Outreach and Promotion Internship

*University of California Long Range Development Plan 15 year Projection Caucus Coordinator 2004-2005: Mandate student representation on all formal decision making groups formulation the direction, expansion, and funding of all university growth.

*University College Senate Officer 2004-2005: Vote on student programming and arts funding; successfully argued for university funds to be directed for workshops and education on alternative sexualities including BDSM.

*Chancellor’s Undergraduate Internship Program 2006-2007: Mentorship for undergraduate emerging leaders with the University Chancellor

*Awarded for Community Activism 2007: Porter College

*Slug Love Presenter 2004-2007: Sex education and harm reduction for university students

*Bondage and Female Dominance Presenter 2006-2007: Camouflage, Inc Santa Cruz

*Pleasure educator 2006-2007: Camouflage, Inc Santa Cruz

*Performed as Columbia in “Slugs in Fishnets” RHPS cast: 2005-2006

*Intensive queer studies course load

*Assistant Stage Manager “Kinetic Poetics Project” 2004: Featuring Buddy Wakefield, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

*Safer Sexcapades Performer & Organizer 2004, 2005, 2006: 300+ person sex positive dance, burlesque, and outreach event.

*Completed San Francisco Sex Information Hotline Training 2007

All good times come to an end. I completed my B.A. Modern Literary Studies with an emphasis critical theory in 2007 one class shy of completing an additional B.A. in cultural anthropology. I did a lot of writing and reading in this period, often maintaining a 20 unit course load.

Coffee is a food group.

After college, I backpacked through Europe visiting Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Paris, and Dublin over a summer before settling into life in Oakland, CA in the fall. In Fall of 2008, MissMaggieMayhem.Com was formally launched! I began exploring my new sex positive scene and started appearing at local hot spots (awarded “Miss Bettie Page” and “Miss Bondage a Go Go” in 2009) performing at the Exotic Erotic Ball in 2008 with artist Nancy Peach. Nancy Peach has painted me in  her piece “Maggie Through Zille’s Lens“. I have performed for the Oakland Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in 09-10. My first published articles about sex appeared at Carnal Nation in 2008 and has been published in a growing number of web magazines and sex positive projects.

I  made my debut at Kink.Com in 2009 while simultaneously working at the front lines of harm reduction in San Francisco’s youth homeless shelters. As HIV Senior Specialist at a large non-profit agency, I was skilled at conducting street based outreach, clinic rotations, group facilitation, HIV prevention strategy, motivational interviewing, de-escalation, clinical data management and analysis, and harm reduction training for working professionals. Additional training, workshops, and conferences have resulted in my certification as an opiate overdose responder, rational drug policy advocate, and syringe access supporter. I have also been an education resource at the Dimension’s Clinic “X” Conference in 2008 focusing on the needs of queer and transgender youth and a presence at the 2009  Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. My commitment to social justice was hardened by my 2009 travels to Tanzania, Africa where I worked with HIV Prevention and AIDS care (including but not limited to assisting at the Bagamoyo District Hospital, local NGO’s, HIV+ individuals requiring homecare, HIV Prevention Education presented at secondary schools, and collaborative outreach with local spiritual leaders and witchdoctors) and response efforts as a recipient of an “Ambassador of Change” grant.

I also volunteered in Haiti in summer 2010 helping to clear the debris of the Jan 2010 earthquake that still remains an insurmountable barrier to moving people out of the camps for internally displaced people. Aside from learning de-construction skills like how to throw a 16lb sledge hammer in 110* F, shovel rocks, and wheelbarrow through fields I began collaborating with international organizations to construct transitional shelters alongside local Haitian volunteers.

In Feb 2011 I was honored to receive recognition from the University of California Berkeley for my work as a “Vagina Warrior” and  I was proud to appear in their docu-short about the immediate need to not only stop violence against women but to support pleasure and to support sex workers. My 2011 exploration of porn and virginity was highly syndicated on the internet and debated hotly on the blogosphere. Frankly I found the entire thing terrifying. I was suddenly in an unexpected limelight and I was very pleased to see my concerns heard by Kink.Com and see more sex positive marketing changes implemented.

My politics are fairly radical. I am deeply concerned by the intersectionality of all movements in opposition to oppression. The social architecture of the state is so deeply flawed it is unrepairable. I welcome the rise of niche movements as people become self-aware of their relationship to the state. I have been deeply inspired by people’s revolutions and their history. I do want to talk radical politics with other activists. The discourse is a fetish of mine. Sex work was a gateway for me to reconsider what “the law” and “criminality” meant but anti-oppression activism usually leads in the same direction. It’s taken me some time to become comfortable with how it feels to have a spine in my back but I’m getting used to it.

In 2011, my partner and I founded PSIgasm.Net to conduct a study of the human orgasm. Eioght years of studying sex from many contexts and exploring my own sexuality created questions in my mind about orgasms and the way that we legitimize sexuality. My direction with the PSIgasm project is to quantifiably measure sexual arousal and climax in real world sexual environments. The best and most documented research we have has been limited to small testing samples and gross underfunding. Sex research has not yet had the option to benefit from the leaps and bounds of technology. As a result, we have strikingly little academic research about the diversity of human experience.