Annie Sprinkle

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Annie Sprinkle
Annie headshot 300.jpg
Annie Sprinkle in 2005
Born
Ellen F. Steinberg

(1954-07-23) July 23, 1954 (age 71) [1]
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Spouse
​
(m. 2007)​
Website sprinklestephens.org

Annie M. Sprinkle (born Ellen F. Steinberg on July 23, 1954) is an American certified sexologist, [2] performance artist, former sex worker, filmmaker, and advocate for the decriminalization of sex work. [3]

Contents

Sprinkle has worked as a prostitute, sex educator, feminist stripper, pornographic film actress, sex film producer and director, and documentary film director. [4] [5] In 1996, she became the first known porn star to get a doctoral degree, [2] earning a Doctor of Philosophy in human sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. [6] [7]

Identifying as ecosexual, Sprinkle is best known for her experimental pornography style, teaching individuals about pleasure, and for her mainstream pornographic film Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981). [8] Through the production of feminist and queer pornographic content, include understanding of female genitalia and pornography based on women's desires, Sprinkle has contributed to feminist pornography and the larger social movement of feminism; she is also known for contributing to the rise of the post-porn movement and LGBTQ+ pornography. [9] [4] Sprinkle, a ecosexual woman and member of the LGBTQ+ community, married her long-time partner Beth Stephens in Canada on January 14, 2007.

Life and career

Sprinkle was born Ellen F. Steinberg on July 23, 1954, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, [1] to a Russian-Jewish mother and a Polish-Jewish father. [10] Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, when she was five years old, and she lived in Panama City, Panama from age thirteen to seventeen. [7] At eighteen, she began working at the ticket booth at the Cine-Plaza Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, when Deep Throat (1972) was playing. [11] The film was busted, and when Steinberg had to appear in court as a witness, she met and began a relationship with Deep Throat's director, Gerard Damiano, becoming his mistress. She followed him to New York City, where she lived for twenty-two years. [11]

Not long after becoming Damiano's mistress, Steinberg began working in porn herself and, at that time, started calling herself "Annie." As her career continued, she says that one night, "as if from the goddess herself," the name "Annie Sprinkle" came to her. [12] She later changed her name legally to Annie Sprinkle. [13] Her first porn movie was Teenage Deviate released in 1975. Perhaps her best known mainstream porn featured role was in Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (co-directed by Sprinkle and sexploitation veteran Joseph W. Sarno) which was the No. 2 grossing porn film of 1981. [8]

In 1991, Sprinkle created the Sluts and Goddesses workshop, which became the basis for her 1992 production The Sluts and Goddesses Video Workshop – Or How To Be A Sex Goddess in 101 Easy Steps. The film was co-produced and co-directed with videographer Maria Beatty, and it featured music by composer Pauline Oliveros. Sprinkle pioneered new genres of sexually explicit film and video such as edu-porn, gonzo, post porn, xxx docudrama, art porn, and feminist erotica. [14] Sprinkle has also presented many sex workshops with fellow sex facilitator Barbara Carrellas, with whom she presented the stage production Metamorphosex. [15]

Sprinkle has appeared in almost 200 films, including hard- and softcore pornography, B movies, loops, and numerous documentaries. She starred in Nick Zedd's experimental films War Is Menstrual Envy (1992), Ecstasy in Entropy (1999), and Electra Elf: The Beginning (2005). She also appeared in various television shows including four HBO Real Sex programs. She has also produced, directed, and starred in several of her own films, such as Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn, Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World of Orgasm, and Linda/Les & Annie—The First Female to Male Transsexual Love Story. Her work in adult films earned her a spot on the Adult Star Path of Fame in Edison, New Jersey, and she was inducted to both the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame in 1999. For three decades, she has presented her work as a visiting artist at many major universities and colleges in the US and Europe.

Annie Sprinkle is known as the "prostitute and porn star turned sex educator and artist." [16] Her best known theater and performance art piece is her Public Cervix Announcement, in which she invites the audience to "celebrate the female body" by viewing her cervix with a speculum and flashlight. [17] She also performed The Legend of the Ancient Sacred Prostitute, in which she did a "sex magic" masturbation ritual on stage. [18] She has toured one-woman shows internationally for 17 years, some of which were titled Post Porn Modernist, [19] [4] Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn, [6] [15] and Hardcore from the Heart. She then performed two-woman shows with Beth Stephens titled Exposed; Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art, Dirty Sex Ecology, Earthly: An Ecosex Bootcamp, and Ecosex Walking Tour. [20]

Her work and publications, spanning over five decades, are studied in courses at numerous universities, in theater history, women's studies, performance studies, LGBTQ studies and film studies courses. Through The New School of Erotic Touch, she has released several video classes, including Female Genital Massage and Amazing World of Orgasm. [21] Her most popular lecture was called "My Life and Work as a Feminist Porn Activist, Radical Sex Educator, and Ecosexual". She has also presented dozens of "Free Sidewalk Sex Clinics", offering free sex education to the public in public space.

Sprinkle's work has always been about sexuality, with a political, spiritual and artistic bent. In December 2005, she committed to doing a seven year long art project about love with her art collaborator and eventual wife, Beth Stephens. They called this their Love Art Laboratory. Part of their project was to do an experimental art wedding each year, and each year had a different theme and color. The seven-year structure was adapted to their project by invitation of artist Linda M. Montano. [22] Sprinkle and Stephens have done twenty-one art weddings, eighteen with ecosexual themes. They married the Earth, Sky, Sea, Moon, Appalachian Mountains, the Sun, and other non-human entities in nine different countries including at Montreal's Edgy Women Festival in 2011. [23]

She was featured in Maya Gallus's 1997 documentary film Erotica: A Journey Into Female Sexuality . [24]

Sprinkle and her partner Beth Stephens became pioneers of ecosexuality, a kind of earth-loving sexual identity, which states, "The Earth is our lover". Their Ecosex Manifesto proclaims that anyone can identify as an ecosexual along with being "GLBTQI, heterosexual, asexual, and/or Other." [25]

Sprinkle (right) with Beth Stephens in 2006 Beth-n-Annie.JPG
Sprinkle (right) with Beth Stephens in 2006

Sprinkle identifies as a sex-positive feminist, and much of her activist and sex education work reflects this philosophy. In 2009, she appeared in the French documentary film Mutantes: Punk, Porn, Feminism, speaking about the beginnings of the movement as well as her own contributions to it. [26]

In 2017, Sprinkle and Stephens were official artists in Documenta 14. They presented performances and visual art, lectured, and previewed their new film documentary, Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure. [27] [28]

Harvard's Schlesinger Library acquired her papers from 1967-2010, including those covering work with her partner Elizabeth Stephens. [29]

Feminism and environmental activism

Sprinkle is known as a contributor to the development of pornography that intends to be feminist [4] and is known for her disagreement with women against pornography, feminists who do not believe that the creation of feminist porn is possible and argue that porn is a means of hyper sexualization of women, that it is inherently harmful, promotes violence, and objectifies women. [30] In contrast Sprinkle is known for arguing that women should contribute to the production of pornography or other erotic media and that censorship or restrictions on pornography will not cease its production. [31] [32]

As a porn actress, Sprinkle drew greater attention to the female orgasm. [33] A stated aim of her performance art and other works has been to expand and deconstruct mainstream ideals of sexuality.

Sprinkle and her wife Beth Stephens are known for promoting a combination of environmental activism and sexuality called ecosexuality, and launching the ecosex movement with their Ecosex Manifesto. They state ecosexuality involves imagining nature as a lover. [34] [35] Ecosexuality combines sexuality and ecology and opposes sexual dynamics of dominance and exploitation, placing it adjacent to ecofeminism, which highlights how women and nature are treated similarly in a patriarchal society. [36]

Post-porn movement

Annie Sprinkled coined the term "post-porn" to describe sexually explicit media that is experimental, conceptual, humorous, feminist, artsy, punk, and outside of mainstream porn aesthetics.

In her one-woman touring show "Post-Porn Modernist" (1989-95), she performed Public Cervix Announcement, Sprinkle inserted a speculum into her vaginal canal to display her cervix to the audience in a playful, satirical celebration of the female body. Sprinkle has characterized her own art involving erotic and explicit imagery of the vulva and internal female anatomy as feminist activism. [17] Sprinkle continued this medical discourse later in her career as well. After receiving her breast cancer diagnosis in 2005, Sprinkle made a collage with her radiation treatment plans, surgery photos, and old pin-up photos, juxtaposing the erotic breast with the medicalized breast. [14]

The post-porn movement is a counterculture body of scholarship and ideals that were developed within Europe and the USA. Within the post-porn movement there is a critical lens applied to corporations producing pornography and non-corporate pornographic content is instead valued. The post-porn movement also values the production of pornography which centers queer and gender diverse folks and questions the racialization and reliance on stereotypes found in the pornography industry. [9] Sprinkle has contributed to the post-porn movement explicitly in her now retired show Post-Porn Modernist and implicitly through her artistic body of work which engages in critical reflection and parody. [9] Sprinkle has also contributed to this movement by challenging who can be represented in porn and which bodies are seen as sexual. [14]

Publications

Sprinkle as pictured on cover of her book Spectacular Sex (2005) Annie sprinkle spectacular sex book cover.jpg
Sprinkle as pictured on cover of her book Spectacular Sex (2005)

Filmography

Film and TV credits
YearTitleRoleNotes
1975Blow Some My WayB.J.
1975Sue Prentiss R.N.First Nurse (uncredited)
1975My Master My LoveMargaret's Brunette Client (as Annie Sands)
1975The American Andventures of Surelick HolmesStewardess (uncredited)
1975Teenage Masseuse(as Annie Sprinkles)
1975Kathy's Graduation PresentAnita (uncredited)
1975Sherlick Holmes
1975Too Hot to HandleEllen (as Annie Sands)
1975French Shampoo (Homage to W. B.)Little Mary
1975Wild Pussycats
1975Satan Was a LadyTerry (as Anny Sands)Directed by Doris Wishman
1975FannyJune (uncredited)
1976Pornocopia SensualSusan
1976Honey PieBlow Job Annie (as Ann Sprinkle)
1976Teenage DeviateElla (as Annie Sprinkles)
1976Ecstasy in BlueHentai
1976Expose Me, LovelyRobin (as Annie Sprinkles)
1976M*A*S*H'dGail
1976Once Over Nightly
1976Teenage Cover GirlsAnne Sands (as Anne Sands)
1976The Night of SubmissionEditor's Mistress
1976SeductionGirl at bridge party No. 1
1976My Erotic FantasiesRussian Porn Actress
1976Bang Bang You Got It!Rhoda Thomas
1976Slippery When WetStella Wilkins (as Annie Sprinkles)
1976The Double Exposure of HollyMuff (as Annie Sprinkles)
1976Call Me Angel, SirTracy Dixon
1976The Affairs of JaniceSusan (uncredited)
1976Come with Me My LoveTess Albertino
1976Funk
1976Wet-X-Mas
1977The Devil Inside HerOrgy Girl (as Annie Sprinkles)
1977Cherry HustlersSprink (uncredited)
1977 Unwilling Lovers Hooker with Stole (as Annie Sprinkles)
1978The Ganja ExpressSherry Herring
1979Jack n' JillFirst Caller
1979For Richer for PoorerParty Guest (uncredited)
1980The Satisfiers of Alpha BlueSatisfier
1980Midnight Blue 2
1981Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle
1981Twilite PinkProstitute (as Annie Sprinkles)
1981Centerfold FeverAnnie
1981Pandora's MirrorThe Queen of the club (as Miss Annie Sprinkle)
1981Bizarre StylesAnnie
1982Night on the Town
1983Oriental Techniques in Pain and PleasureAnnie (as Annie Sprinkles)
1983Kneel Before MeWife / Justine (as Annie Sprinkles)
1983Big Busty 3 (Video)
1984Throat... 12 Years AfterThe Sewer Mother
1984Electric Blue 12 (Video)Shelly
1985SpitfireLulu
1986Wimps (Video)Head Stripper
1986Sweet Revenge
1987The Lingerie Shop
1987She-Male Encounters 5: Orgy at the Poysinberry Bar
1987She Comes in Colors
1987Rites of Passion
1988Tattoo Vampire (Video)
1988The Horneymooners (Video)Jane Norris
1988Hotter Than July
1988Dreams of Desire
1988Bazooka County (Video)
1989Young Nurses in LoveTwin Falls
1990The Golden BoatWaitress
1990Fantasy Salon
1991My Father Is ComingAnnieDirected by Monika Treut [38]
1991Shadows in the CityEx-GirlfriendDirected by Ari Roussimoff
1991Mature Women 2 (Video)
199225 Year Old Gay Man Loses His Virginity to a WomanSelfDirected by Philip B. Roth
1992Linda/Les and AnnieSelfDirected by Johnny Armstrong, Albert Jaccoma, Annie Sprinkle [39]
1992War Is Menstrual Envy
1992Pinned and Smothered (Video)
1996 Bubbles Galore God
1997The Fanny (Video)
1999Ecstasy in Entropy (Short)
2005The Keep (Short)
2005Electra Elf: The Beginning Parts One & Two
2005H.C.E.Various
2009Mutantes: Punk, Porn, Feminism
2011 Kenny Hotz's Triumph of the Will SelfEpisode 4
2012Lesbian Sex Education: Female Ejaculation (Video)
2013Goodbye Gauley Mountain: an Ecosexual Love Story (Video)
2017Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual AdventureLead, Director
2025Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual EmergencyDirector, Producer, Actor

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Sprinkle, Annie (1998). Annie Sprinkle [Post-Porn Modernist: My 25 Years as a Multi-Media Whore]. San Francisco: Cleis Press. p. 12. ISBN   978-1-57344-039-4. I was born Ellen F. Steinberg on July 23, 1954, 11:34 a.m. in Philadelphia, the first of four children.
  2. 1 2 Garretson, Tom (2006). "Sprinkle, Annie". In Ditmore, Melissa Hope (ed.). Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. pp. 458–459. ISBN   978-0-313-32968-5.
  3. ↑ Bell, Shannon (1994). "Writing the prostitute body: feminist reproductions" . In Bell, Shannon (ed.). Reading, writing, and rewriting the prostitute body. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 79–80; note 24, p. 203. ISBN   978-0-253-20859-0. Citing:
  4. 1 2 3 4 Williams, Linda (Winter 1993). "A provoking agent: the pornography and performance art of Annie Sprinkle". Social Text. 37 (37): 117–133. doi:10.2307/466263. JSTOR   466263. Beginning her professional performance career as a masseuse, soon after becoming a whore, Sprinkle next expanded into burlesque and live sex shows, then to writing for sex magazines and performing in pornographic films and videos, where she eventually became a director. Reprinted in:
    Church Gibson, Pamela; Gibson, Roma, eds. (1993). Dirty looks: women, pornography, power. London: BFI Pub. pp. 176–192. ISBN   978-0-85170-403-6.
  5. ↑ Brown, David J.; Novick, Rebecca McClen (1995). "The Pleasure Principle with Annie Sprinkle" . Voices From the Edge: Conversations With Jerry Garcia, Ram Dass, Annie Sprinkle, Matthew Fox, Jaron Lanier, & Others. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press. pp. 26–53. ISBN   978-0-89594-732-1.
  6. 1 2 Smith, Tyler Stoddard (2012). "Hustling for a higher cause". In Smith, Tyler Stoddard (ed.). Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession. Avon, Mass.: Adams Media. pp. 98–99. ISBN   978-1-4405-3605-2.
  7. 1 2 "Annie's Ecosex Herstory". Sexecology.org. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  8. 1 2 Little, Reg (June 18, 2009). "Iffley and the former porn star". Oxford Times. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 Jacobs, Katrien (2014). "Internationalizing porn studies". Porn Studies. 1 (1–2): 114–119. doi:10.1080/23268743.2014.882178. ISSN   2326-8743.
  10. ↑ Kramer, Tamara (February 18, 2011). "Annie Sprinkle". Shtetl on the Shortwave (podcast). Montreal: CKUT-FM. Event occurs at 6:32 – via Shtetl: Your Alternative Jewish Magazine.
  11. 1 2 "Annie Sprinkle: The Early Years – Podcast 05". The Rialto Report. April 7, 2013.[ self-published source? ]
  12. ↑ Reyes, Dean Luis. "Annie Sprinkle". Miradas: Revista del Audiovisual (in Spanish). Havana: Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión. Archived from the original on May 1, 2008.
  13. ↑ Turner, Jen (April 24, 2006). "Famed sexologist doesn't beat around the bush with sex lectures". The Eagle. Washington, D.C.: American University. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  14. 1 2 3 Chandler, Meghan (October 2014). "The erotic anatomies of Charles Estienne and Annie Sprinkle". Porn Studies. 1 (4): 391–401. doi:10.1080/23268743.2014.958385. ISSN   2326-8743.
  15. 1 2 Rees, Emma L. E. (2013). The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History . A & C Black. pp. 249–253. ISBN   978-1-6235-6871-9.
  16. ↑ Menon, Rekha (2010). Seductive aesthetics of postcolonialism. Hampton Press. p. 51. ISBN   978-1-57273-973-4. How can one miss, the Sex Goddess, Annie Sprinkle (the postporn modern artist), Tantric inspired cosmic Kali, Sprinkle as the Neo Sacred Prostitute / Goddess. She is known as the prostitute and porn star turned sex educator and artist. Sprinkle's work has always been about sexuality, with a political, spiritual, and artistic bent.
  17. 1 2 Kapsalis, Terri (1997). Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum. Duke University Press. pp. 113–134. ISBN   978-0-8223-1928-3.
  18. ↑ Ksander, Yael (September 16, 2015). "The Ecosexuals: Tree-Hugging And Then Some". Indiana Public Media. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
  19. ↑ Czekay, Angelika (Spring 1993). "Distance and empathy: constructing the spectator of Annie Sprinkle's post-Post Porn Modernist – still in search of the ultimate sexual experience". Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. 7 (2): 177–192. Today, after seventeen years in the porn industry, ex-sex worker Annie Sprinkle is a performance artist. In her recent performance piece Post-Post Porn Modernist Still in Search of the Ultimate Sexual Experience, Sprinkle talks about her life as a former porn star and ex-prostitute. PDF.
  20. ↑ Hopman, Ellen Evert; Bond, Lawrence (1996). People of the Earth: The New Pagans Speak Out . Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books. pp. 146–151. ISBN   978-0-89281-559-3. Reissued as:
    Being a Pagan: Druids, Wiccans & Witches Today. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books. 2002. ISBN   978-0-89281-904-1
  21. ↑ "Annie Sprinkle Ph.D. | New School". csb.eroticmassage.com. Retrieved December 16, 2020.[ dead link ]
  22. ↑ Benn, D. (2006). "Annie Sprinkle on the Adult Star Path of Fame: 43 Stars Laid in New Jersey". Porno News Network.[ permanent dead link ]
  23. ↑ Johns, Merryn (March 1, 2011). "Top Ten Reasons We Love...: Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens". Curve. Vol. 21, no. 2. p. 80. ISSN   1087-867X.
  24. ↑ Kennedy, Janice (February 10, 1999). "Exploring female sexuality: Documentary a revealing look at women's erotica". Ottawa Citizen. ISSN   0839-3222.
  25. ↑ "Ecosex Manifesto". Sexecology.org. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  26. ↑ "Mutantes at IMDb". IMDb . Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  27. ↑ Theobald, Stephanie (May 15, 2017). "Nature is your lover, not your mother: meet ecosexual pioneer Annie Sprinkle". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved January 14, 2018.
  28. ↑ "Documenta 14: Annie Sprinkle ('Ecosexual Walking Tour' of female porn activist in Kassel)" (video). Kunst und Film. July 12, 2017. Retrieved January 14, 2018– via YouTube. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine
  29. ↑ Sprinkle, Annie. "Papers of Annie Sprinkle, 1967-2010". Schlesinger Library. Harvard Library. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
  30. ↑ Long, Julia (2012). Anti-porn: the resurgence of anti-pornography feminism. London: Zed Books. ISBN   978-1-78032-026-7.[ page needed ]
  31. ↑ McKee, Alan (2008). The Porn Report . Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press. p. 113. ISBN   978-0-522-85340-7.
  32. ↑ Taormino, Tristan; et al., eds. (2013). The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure . New York: The Feminist Press. p. 122. ISBN   978-1-55861-818-3.
  33. ↑ Sayej, Nadja (September 30, 2019). "Sexologist Annie Sprinkle Isn't Covering Anything Up". Interview Magazine. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  34. ↑ "EcoSexuality: 7 Things You Need To Know About This Sexual Identity". HuffPost UK. July 3, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2020.
  35. ↑ Richter, Nicole (March 2018). "Review: SerenaGaia Anderlini-D'Onofrio and Lindsay Hagamen (eds), Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love". Sexualities. 21 (3). doi:10.1177/1363460717737490. ISSN   1363-4607. S2CID   148905993.
  36. ↑ Miles, Kathryn (November 14, 2013). "Ecofeminism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved December 17, 2020.
  37. ↑ "Firecracker Alternative Book Awards". ReadersRead.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2009.
  38. ↑ "My Father Is Coming (1991)". IMDb. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  39. ↑ "Linda/Les and Annie (1992)". IMDb. Retrieved June 21, 2022.

Further reading

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