Sex Blogger Calendar Officially Launched!

And support Sex Work Awareness with your purchase!

It's official: The 2009 Sex Blogger Calendar has officially launched! And if success can be measured by crowd size, we had a spectacularly successful launch party on Friday. And I understand that in just a few hours we raised nearly $2000 for Sex Work Awareness.

My only regret about the party? So many wonderful people and not nearly enough time -- or space! -- to talk to so many of them. I especially regret that, while I was called to join in a group photo with Candida Royale - a woman whose work I have admired for years - that I never had a chance to say more than a brief hello. In addition to being a pioneer in woman-produced porn, Candida and her companies, Femme Productions and Natural Contours, helped sponsor the calendar. And I don't think I even said "thank you" in person! How did I let that happen?!? Click here to read more about the party, the sponsors and the calendar.

On the other hand, I did have time for a lovely conversation with Melissa Hope Ditmore, a member of the board of directors of Sex Work Awareness and a researcher for the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center. She talked to me about the kinds of projects that SWA will use the money to fund. One project will be to continue the media workshops for sex workers that SWA has been so successful at providing. The other is a new project: an alternative audio tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 19th and 20th century European paintings. Imagine walking through the Met's galleries with this alternative guide on your iPod, a voice in your ear pointing out representations of sex work that the official audioguides leave out. (These projects are also outlined briefly on the "About Sex Work Awareness" page of the calendar site.)

I also want to remind everyone that the entire purchase price of the calendar goes directly to SWA. This is because Tess and Diva did such an incredible job of recruiting sponsors who were the amazingly generous. In particular, njoy stepped in when we had sudden troubles with arranging for the calendar to be printed and not only paid for the entire cost of printing the calendar but also paid to have the calendars shipped express from halfway around the world so they'd be here in time for the party. When Tess said that of course we would cover the extra shipping cost out of the calendar sales Greg from njoy refused saying that he believed in the cause and that his company would pay the cost. Period. End of story.

I will be running a profile piece on one of our other sponsors soon: Jessica Resler, of Vergenza, was generous not only with money to support the project but also with her time, letting me interview her by email so that I could tell you more about one of the companies without whom we'd have been unable to pull this off.

I am very encouraged by the existance of sex-positive companies that believe in what we are doing. Click here for the full list of sponsors.

And please note that where I used to have PayPal buttons on my sidebar for you to click to order a calendar I now have links to Audacia Ray's online store (while you're there browse her books and videos and t-shirts!). Last night I learned that we would not be selling the calendars through PayPal any more because that company does not so clearly support what we are doing. They initiated an investigation of our account, sparked by the word 'sex' in the title of the calendar apparently, and temporarily froze the account. While Diva tells me that PayPal has temporarily reinstated our account we immediately sought another way to manage the transactions and Audacia stepped in right away to offer us a corner of her site.

The calendar is gorgeous. If you haven't ordered one yet, it isn't too late. Click the appropriate link below and know that your $20 will go entirely to support a wonderful sex worker advocacy organization. Oh, yeah, and you'll have twelve months worth of beautiful women to get you through 2009!

NYC Sex Bloggers Calender - $20 (US Shipping)

NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar - $20 (Canada Shipping)

NYC Sex Bloggers Calendar - $20 (Overseas Shipping)

ps: You can get a preview of the calendar photos - not the full calendar photos, that would hardly be fair! - by visiting Time Out New York's announcement about the party (I'm December). Given the press the calendar has been getting since the launch party (click here for Steph Auteri's Nerve.com write up, just for starters) you won't want to wait too long before ordering yours!

Technorati Tags: NYC Sex Blogger Calendar, sex work, Sex Work Awareness

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...because public space really matters!

Elizabeth