Carol Queen

Last updated
Carol Queen
Carol Queen after speaking at Woodhull Freedom Foundation event.jpg
Born1957 (age 6667)
Nationality American
Alma mater University of Oregon
Occupations
Employer Good Vibrations
Website carolqueen.com

Carol Queen (born 1957) is an American feminist author, editor, and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. [1] Queen is a two time Grand Marshal of San Francisco LGBTQ Pride. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture. She has written a sex tutorial, Exhibitionism for the Shy: Show Off, Dress Up and Talk Hot, as well as erotica, such as the novel The Leather Daddy and the Femme. Queen has produced adult movies, events, workshops and lectures. Queen was featured as an instructor and star in both installments of the Bend Over Boyfriend series about female-to-male anal sex, or pegging. She has also served as editor for compilations and anthologies. She is a sex-positive sex educator in the United States. [2]

Contents

Good Vibrations

Queen serves as staff sexologist to Good Vibrations, a San Francisco sex toy retailer. [3] In this function, she designed an education program which has trained many other current and past Good Vibrations-based sex educators, including Violet Blue, Charlie Glickman, and Staci Haines.[ citation needed ] She is currently still working for GV as The Staff Sexologist, Chief Cultural Officer, curator, and historian. [4]

Writing

Queen is known as a professional editor, writer, and commentator of works such as Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture, Pomosexuals, and Exhibitionism for the Shy. She has written for juried journals and compendiums such as The Journal of Bisexuality [5] and The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. She contributed the piece "The Queer in Me" to the anthology Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out . [6]

Absexual

The neologism absexual has also been introduced by Queen, although it was coined by her partner. [7] Based on its prefix ab- (as in "abhor" or in "abreaction"), it represents a form of sexuality where someone is stimulated by moving away from sexuality or is moralistically opposed to sex. [8] Betty Dodson defined the term as describing "folks who get off complaining about sex and trying to censor porn." [9] As of 2010 absexuality is not an official psychiatric term.[ citation needed ] Queen proposed inclusion of the concept in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5. [10] Darrell Hamamoto sees Queen's view of absexuality as playfully broad: "the current 'absexuality' embraced by many progressive and conservative critics of pornographic literature is itself a kind of 'kink' stemming from a compulsive need to impose their own sexual mores upon those whom they self-righteously condemn as benighted reprobates." [11]

Development of SHARP

In 2000, Queen together with her partner Robert Morgan Lawrence published a jointly written essay in the Journal of Bisexuality detailing the role of San Francisco bisexuals in the development of safe sex strategies in response to the emerging AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Queen detailed her and Lawrence's development of a safe sex version of the SAR or Sexual Attitude Reassessment training, which they termed Sexual Health Attitude Restructuring Process or SHARP. Originally a program started by the IASHS, SHARP is described as a combination of "lectures, films, videos, slides, and personal sharing", as well as "massage techniques, condom relay races, a blindfolded ritual known as the Sensorium which emphasized transformation and sensate focus, and much more." [5] In 2007, Queen expressed the intention to revive the SHARP training, now referred to as SARP or Sexual Attitude Reassessment Process.'

Personal life

Queen is a Wiccan. [12] She is bisexual. [13]

Works

Author

  • Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture (Cleis Press, 1997) ISBN   1-57344-073-6 - reissued 2002 with new introduction and updated Recommended Reading list.
  • Exhibitionism for the Shy: Show Off, Dress Up and Talk Hot (Down There Press, 1995; Quality Paperback Book Club Edition, 1997) ISBN   0-940208-16-4 - excerpted in the German book Dirty Talking (Schwarzkopf und Schwarzkopf, 2002); also translated into Chinese (Hsin-Lin Books, 2003)
  • The Leather Daddy and the Femme (Cleis Press, 1998) ISBN   0-940208-31-8 — winner of the 1999 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Fiction [14]

Editor

Film

  • Carol Queen's Great Vibrations: An Explicit Guide to Vibrators, Blank Tapes, ~1997.

See also

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References

  1. Hawley, John Charles (30 November 2008). LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 977. ISBN   978-0-313-08730-1 . Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  2. "Center of Sex and Culture closes — but Dr. Carol Queen looks to the future". 48 Hills. January 19, 2019.
  3. "Greetings from Dr. Carol Queen, Ph.D". goodvibes.com. Barnaby Ltd. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
  4. "Presentation: Healthy Sexual Relationships with Dr. Carol Queen". San Francisco Public Library.
  5. 1 2 RM Lawrence, C Queen, Bisexuals Help Create the Standards for Safer Sex: San Francisco, 1981–1987, Journal of Bisexuality, 2000.
  6. "b i · a n y · o t h e r · n a m e".
  7. Whisnant, Rebecca; Stark, Christine (December 24, 2004). Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. Spinifex Press. ISBN   9781876756499 via Google Books.
  8. Annie Sprinkle (2005). Dr. Sprinkle's spectacular sex. Penguin Books. ISBN   1-58542-412-9. Cultural sexologist Carol Queen invented the term absexual for people ...
  9. An interview with the Mother of Masturbation, Betty Dodson Archived 2013-01-24 at the Wayback Machine by Diane Walsh of Xtra! in Vancouver. Monday, April 30, 2007
  10. Brian Alexander (May 22, 2008). "What's 'normal' sex? Shrinks seek definition. Controversy erupts over creation of psychiatric rule book's new edition". MSNBC . Archived from the original on May 30, 2008. Retrieved 2010-06-06. She also proposes an addition, a diagnosis of "absexual" ("ab" meaning "away from"). This would include those who appear to be "turned on by fulminating against it." Examples could include state governors who crusade against prostitution even while paying hookers for sex, and religious leaders who wind up trying to explain engaging in the sex acts they preach against.
  11. Hamamoto, Darrell Y. (2000), "The Joy Fuck Club: Prolegomenon to an Asian American Porno Practice", in Hamamoto, Darrell Y.; Liu, Sandra (eds.), Countervisions: Asian American film criticism, Asian American history and culture AK-Sg Series, Temple University Press, pp. 59–89 [78], ISBN   978-1-56639-776-6, Queen jokingly argues that the current 'absexuality' embraced by many progressive and conservative critics of pornographic literature is itself a kind of 'kink' stemming from a compulsive need to impose their own sexual mores upon those whom they self-righteously condemn as benighted reprobates.
  12. Sulak, John and V. Vale. (2001). Modern Pagans: an Investigation of Contemporary Ritual. Re/Search. ISBN   1-889307-10-6
  13. Tucker, Naomi; Dececco, John P.; Kaplan, Rebecca (1995-09-19). Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, and Visions - Naomi Tucker - Google Books. Haworth Press. ISBN   9781560249504 . Retrieved 2012-06-12.
  14. "Firecracker Alternative Book Awards". ReadersRead.com. Archived from the original on Mar 4, 2009.