J e n n i e Kdein

hen s with
B e t h Step
prinkd e&
Annie S
M I N G
ASSU A L
S E X U
E E C O
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T I O N
POSI R
S L O VE
A R T H A
THE E
 ASSUMING THE
ECOSEXUAL POSITION
 ASSUMING THE
ECOSEXUAL POSITION

THE EARTH A S LOVER

Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens

with Jennie Klein

Foreplay by Una Chaudhuri

Afterword by Paul B. Preciado
Postscript by Linda Mary Montano

University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis
London
This project was supported in part by a grant from the Arts
Research Institute at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Copyright 2021 by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle

Foreplay, Afterword, and Postscript copyright 2021 by the
Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission
of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-­2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
ISBN 978-1-5179-0018-2 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5179-0019-9 (pb)
Library of Congress record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053622.
Printed in Canada on acid-­free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-­opportunity educator
and employer.
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to two beloveds. Madison Young is like a daughter to us. She
produced five exhibitions of our work in her gallery Femina Potens, performed for
us many times, and has been a fantastic collaborator, plus she gave us the gift of being
witness to our first baby birth, that of her daughter Emma. Our incredibly inspiring
friend Paul B. Preciado, a brilliant thinker and curator, has shared his art world with
us and gave us so many great opportunities that resulted in our learning, growing as
artists, achieving our wildest dreams, and inspiring our lives and work into the future.
 CONTENTS

Foreplay ix
Una Chaudhuri

Hello, Earthlings! Welcome to Our Book  xiii

Introduction: Rolling around on the Theoretical Ground  1

Dirty Words: An Ecosexual Glossary  25

1.   Our Ecosex Herstories  29

2.   First Comes Art, Then Comes Marriage  41

3.   The Miraculous Conception of the Love Art Lab  53

4.   Nascent Ecosexuals: Hello, Green!  75

5.   Happy Trails and the Climax of the Love Art Lab  103

6.   Off the Beaten Path  127

7.   E.A.R.T.H. Lab Experiments  147

8.   An Old Whore and a Hillbilly Make a Splash at documenta 14  171

 Conclusion: Sincerely Yours  189

Afterword 207
Paul B. Preciado

Postscript 215
Linda Mary Montano

Field Guides:
Acknowledgments from Beth and Annie  217

Notes 221

Between the Covers:

Related and Recommended Books and Movies  235

Index 241
 F O R E P L AY

Una Chaudhuri

At Annie and Beth’s Green Wedding to the Earth, each guest was given a bag of soil.
When the brides took their vows, guests were asked to open their bags and smell the
earth inside.
Thanks to a synesthetic ecosexual miracle typical of Annie and Beth, this book is
suffused with the same satisfying aroma. Go ahead, smell it. Open the pages wide and
press your nose into their cleavage. Breathe in, and then breathe out, slowly. In be-
tween breaths, caress the book with your cheeks, the tip of your nose, your lips, your
fingertips, your palms, your kneecaps . . . . Caress the pages, the edges, the spine, the
cover. With the tip of your tongue, taste the pages, their edges, the book’s spine, its
cover. Then caress it all some more. Then breathe and smell again. Feel free to add
sounds: sighs, titters, yelps, soft humming, deep Oms. Feel free to add words: fanciful
descriptors of the smells and tastes, or wild associations, poetic or profane, ancient
truths or fresh fantasies. Feel free to add sentences: tell stories of the way the book
came into being, what woods and mulches and processes made its pages, or what met-
als and chemicals made your e-­reader. Consider all the bodies and machines whose
interactions, imaginations, exploitation, labor, and knowledge birthed this thing in
your hands. Finally, breathe deeply, smell fully, and plunge in.
You’re going to stay a while. You’ll want to never leave.
Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens offer a vital new ingredient to the recipe for the
now-­venerable practice of Durational Art: sheer joy. The years they have devoted to
the work of the Love Art Lab and the ecoweddings, to teasing out and revealing all the
shapes, sounds, forms, and possibilities of ecosexual performance, have been years
not of duration as endurance but rather of duration as bodied discovery: a bawdy, bouncy,
flouncy, full-­body, sensual, sensory, sense-­making expedition. With this book,
x F o r e p l ay
our bodies get to share that ride. Read any of the book’s accounts of the ecosexual
weddings—­any of the sections describing the artists, performers, and activists who
participated in the celebration, and the chock-­filled details about costumes, props,
histories, and shenanigans—­and you’ll find a grin spreading across your face, a chor-
tle rising in your throat, a pleasing tingle warming all your favorite body parts. Your
pulse will quicken, your mood will lighten, you’ll notice you’re en-­joy-­ing yourself.
The joy of Assuming the Ecosexual Position arises from the way it gets you to do
just what its title promises. Even more than all the fabulous stories, scenes, images,
and ideas that enliven this book, its unique kind of joyfulness arises from the atti-
tude to art-­making that it conveys. A phrase that occurs frequently in these pages
is: “[x] turned out to be the perfect ___,” the word completing the phrase being
some variation of “place,” or “time,” or “opportunity.” The phrase usually comes
at the conclusion of an account in which Annie and Beth have had to deal with
unexpected—­often challenging, even daunting—­circumstances or turns of events
and have had to improvise. As the phrase suggests, the outcomes are surprisingly bet-
ter than could have been predicted. Disaster looms but is averted; chaos threatens but
is dispelled. Cumulatively, these instances of prevailing, or getting through, begin
to read as something more: a transformation of the logic of performance itself. In-
stead of being shaped mainly by the intentionality of planning and preparation, the
ecosexual project appears to activate the gift of serendipitous collaboration and spon-
taneous kindness.
In each of their performances, Annie and Beth work to create memorable mo-
ments and lasting meanings, but also, in each of them, the alchemy of Ecosexuality
generates something far in excess of all that. The story this book tells is about an art–­
life–­love practice that winds up turning the surrounding reality into an ally, a helpful
partner, a sweet friend. For me, no work exemplifies the stakes of this practice more
clearly than Cuddle, an early work that Annie and Beth revived for their brilliant open-
ing for documenta 14 as Cuddling Athens. While works like the Weddings and Dirt-­Bed
and the Eco-­Sex Clinics churn up carnivalesque energies and astonishing utopias, Cud-
dle is Beckettian in its simplicity: two bodies onstage, joined by one or two others for a
few minutes at a time. As with Beckett, nothing much happens, yet the space pulsates
with life. Cuddle takes Annie and Beth’s principle of collaboration-­as-­enjoyment to its
logical extreme, putting the artists’ creativity at the disposal and service of the creativ-
ity and willingness of anyone and everyone. Revealing the bedrock of Ecosexuality to
be a capacity for radical lovingness—­a capacity anyone and everyone can manifest—­
Cuddle performs a fearlessly affirmative biopolitics.
 F oreplay xi
There’s a Duchampian element to Annie and Beth’s logic of performance: an em-
brace of chance, a tolerance of accident. But the growing impression that Annie and
Beth’s ecosexual project conveys—­the impression that many things will “turn out to
be perfect”—­is much more than that. Particularly in the context of ecology, particu-
larly today—­when the concept of change is so frighteningly yoked to planet-­altering
phenomena—­this transformation of the world, site by site, wedding by wedding, into
a joyful companion is an amazing achievement. Seeking, making, and celebrating alli-
ances with one after another of earth’s elements, landscapes, geographies—­the sea, the
forest, ice, gold, coal, dirt—­the Ecosexuals perform an ongoing revolution, a joyful
resistance to what their friend and curator Paul Preciado calls the “pharmacopor-
nographic” regime of our time. Ecosexuality is an inspired and joyful practice of the
“countersexuality” Preciado calls for, and Annie and Beth’s Pollination Pod is a wel-
coming home for the dildo-­ontologies with which to dismantle that regime. Preciado
describes the somatic colonization of our species by the medicalization of sexuality
and the pornification of information and entertainment; Ecosexuality offers somatic
liberation through indiscriminate cuddling, compulsive marrying, durational kiss-
ing, and repeated stumbling into perfection.
Coupling ecology and enjoyment is the most radical thing one can do today. The
everyday associations with ecology—­“nature,” “the environment,” “climate change,”
“global warming”—­are all steeped in fear, guilt, loss, mourning. Today, to think of
the ocean is to think of flooded coasts, drowned cities, continents of plastic waste;
to think of air is to wonder where we currently are with the “parts per million” and
the predicted degrees of temperature rise; to think of land is to see burning forests,
parched fields, countless species nearing extinction. The most compelling climate
movement today—­Extinction Rebellion—­expresses rage and impatience, and who
can disagree with that? We—­especially those of us who’ve been in the environmen-
tal movement all our lives—­can’t help feeling angry and frustrated and resentful.
(Thanks for finally waking up, Jane and all y’all other celebs.)
Yet there’s a groundswell of something else, a gathering force that I call ecospheric
consciousness. It is a reckoning with the future that is as capacious as the planet we
are all finally, actually, thinking about. It is in fact a result of listening to the Earth
with as much interest as we’ve been listening to ourselves for several centuries. It in-
volves actual, active listening, rather than looking, probing, cutting open, labeling,
and displaying. It also involves (an inevitable result of actual listening) getting inter-
ested, getting involved, liking, loving, caring. It involves relating to the earthy things:
wanting to be their friends, lovers, spouses—­perhaps even coworkers, colleagues,
xii F o r e p l ay
frenemies, rivals, evil twins, mommie dearests, fairy godmothers, and evil stepmoth-
ers. When we learn to relate to them in all the complicated ways that have made all
our human relationships so engrossing, we’ll be on our way to actually inhabiting—­
instead of distractedly hovering above—­our amazing planet. It involves becoming
porous, becoming fungible, becoming curious, becoming desirous.
Assuming the Ecosexual Position is one of the great manifestos of ecospheric con-
sciousness (others are Amitabh Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, Donna Haraway’s
Staying with the Trouble, Pope Francis’s Laudato Si, Bruno Latour’s Down to Earth). It is
the one that pursues love and enjoyment, and asks how various bodies—­human and
more-­than-­human—­can come together to revitalize the world.
Having said that, I catch myself: it sounds crazily grandiose, very far from Annie
and Beth’s relaxed and rollicking way of getting people together to play. Maybe I
should just say what I really, really feel: cuddle this book.
 HELLO, EARTHLINGS!

Welcome to Our Book

We are two ecosexual artists in love, in a relationship with each other as well as with
the Sky, Sea, Appalachian Mountains, Lake Kallavesi in Finland, the soil in Austria,
the Sun, the Moon, Coal, our late dog Bob and our current dog Butch, and other
nonhuman and human entities. Our relationship with these ecological bodies is
multigenerational. While we have been around only for a few decades, some of these
entities are approximately four and a half billion years old. Our relationships with
nature entities are simultaneously pure, sweet, and innocent, as well as complicated,
messy, and taboo. Sometimes they are long distance, such as our love affair with the
Moon. Sometimes they are very close, like when we walk barefoot in the grass or
breathe the Sky deep inside our bodies.
What if we imagined the Earth as our lover instead of our mother? Or both? What
if our bodies didn’t stop at our skin but were much, much more expansive? What if we
are the Earth, not separate? Since 2008, when we married the Earth, the two of us have
been doing life and art experiments that explore these and other questions. This has
been and continues to be an exciting expedition. Many people have joined us along
the way. Our love for the Earth has also been rejected, misunderstood, and critiqued.
Now, after many years of this ecosex adventure, we desire to share our stories, polli-
nate the results of our research, and proclaim our love for this magnificent home.
This is the story of how the two of us got together as a couple and became full-­
time, long-­term collaborators, followed our muses, one experiment leading to the
next until we fully embraced the ecosexual position. This book weaves together our
experiences with field notes, ideas, discoveries, and various theories that we have cre-
ated and explored. We begin by sharing a bit about ourselves, our backgrounds, and
how we got together, became pollen-­amorous, helped to grow the ecosex movement,
xiv H e l l o , E a r t h l i n g s !
and officially added the E for ecosexual to the LGBTQIA+E moniker. We’ll share some
real-­life dramas, like when we were protested by anti-­porn feminists, tagged by a neo-­
Nazi in a balaclava, and had a SWAT team surveil our wedding. We will describe how
we turned our breast cancer treatments into romantic, sexy theater and performance.
We will weave tales of our travels around the planet to present our work at various
places, including sex toy shops, a laundromat, churches, and off-­grid activist camps.
We’ve also done work at some of the best museums, galleries, and art exhibitions in
the world, including the Venice Biennale, documenta 14, and New York’s Museum of
Modern Art.
Our journey has included thousands of collaborators and supporters, and we
could include only a sampling of their names in this book. If you worked with us and
your name was left out, we apologize in advance. It doesn’t mean we don’t appreci-
ate everything you did, because we do. Our websites have full detailed credits for all
of our symposiums, performances, and events, and we intend to keep those websites
functioning for years to come.
This book is an invitation to collaborate and a call to deepen our relationship with
the Earth. It certainly has been an adventure for us to write. We hope that you enjoy it.
Perhaps you may discover you are just a little bit or a whole helluva lot ecosexual. In
any case, we hope that one day our paths will cross with yours, and we can further dis-
cuss loving the Earth and cross-­pollinate with you.
 INTRODUCTION

Rolling around on the Theoretical Ground

Nineteen years ago, we fell in love and immediately began making art projects to-
gether about our relationship, love, and pleasure. We could not have imagined that
one day we would call ourselves ecosexuals and take the Earth as our lover, or that we
would make work about environmental issues. Yet here we are, ecosexuals, follow-
ing our muse, our desire, imaginations, and our conscience as we engage in the daily
practices of living ecosexually. After we did a performance where we married the
Earth, we started using the word ecosex, because it sounded like what we were doing.
Then we adapted it to fit our needs. When we first used ecosex to describe what we
were doing and ecosexual to describe our sexual identity and our work, we were being
a little tongue in cheek. But then after a while we saw that there really was something
to it. Suddenly things got serious. We started asking ourselves: What is ecosex? Who
are the ecosexuals and what do they do exactly? Where did the concepts behind eco-
sexuality develop? How can ecosex art and activism help bring about much needed
change? And what inspired us to assume the ecosexual position?
Becoming ecosexual was an unexpected move for us back in 2008. Ecosex and eco-
sexual were words that were floating around on a few dating sites. We couldn’t put
our fingers on a genuinely good definition, one that we could really get behind. For
example, Wiktionary defines an ecosexual as “an environmentally conscious person
whose adherence to green living extends to their romantic and/or sexual life (partic-
ularly their choice of partner).”1 Being ecosexual could mean anything from being a
nature lover or vegan to refusing to wear leather clothes or use leather sex toys. Both
of us came of age during third-­wave, sex-­positive feminism. We thought these defini-
tions were inadequate and decided they needed to be expanded in order to create the
2 Introduction
deeper meanings that interested us. We eventually created a definition of our own,
which we published in 2011 in our Journal of EcoSex Research:

ecosexual \ ˈɛːkəʊ ˈsɛkʃ(əw)əl : eco from ancient Greek oikos; sexual from
Latin, sexuales. 1. A person who finds nature2 romantic, sensual, erotic, or sexy, which
can include humans or not. 2. A new sexual identity (self-­identified). 3. A person
who takes the Earth as their lover. 4. A term used in dating advertisements. 5. An en-
vironmental activist strategy. 6. A grassroots movement. 7. A person who has a more
expanded concept of what sex and orgasm are beyond mainstream definitions. 8. A per-
son who imagines sex as an ecology that extends beyond the physical body. 9. Other
definitions as yet to be determined.3

For many people, ecosex and ecosexual immediately conjure images of Birkenstocks,
tree-­hugging hippies, and New Age Californians. We were very conscious about the
negative perceptions of New Age environmentalism as a mostly white, middle-­class
endeavor. Granted, Annie was a hippie for a couple of years in the sixties, and Beth
had some older hippie cousins she loved and admired, and we do live in California.
But for us, ecosexuality is more of a punk-­rock, queer, drag, pinup grrrl version of
environmental activism rather than the New Age stereotype that often gets hurled
our way. We align ourselves with the AIDS activist organization ACT UP, sex-­positive
feminism, ecofeminism, Fluxus performance art, and, sometimes, the hippie move-
ment. We recognize that hippie culture was problematic, especially in terms of its
habitual patriarchal treatment of women and neocolonial appropriation of Indian
and Indigenous American cultures. But we also recognize that the hippie movement
challenged the status quo and rebelled against capitalism, sexual repression, impe-
rialism, war, and the destruction of the environment. Hippies embraced a collective
utopian future, and we too aim to create a better society for all!

Performance Memories
beth  So let’s look back at some of our inspirations and give credit where credit is
due. While we have always been, and still are, multimedia artists, a large part of
our work has been performative in nature. Let’s start there.
Growing up in West Virginia, I didn’t have access to the same kinds of cul-
tural events as kids who lived in major cities. My mother taught piano and had
briefly studied at the Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan as well as at the
music conservatory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, so music was always in our house.
 In troduc tion 3
I vaguely remember going to see Hello, Dolly! with my mother in Charleston,
West Virginia, in the midsixties. Family lore has it that I was too scared to go
backstage after the play to meet the lead actress. The music ended when my
mother died in 1968, the year I turned seven. My dad wasn’t a theater, art, or
classical music kind of guy, but he loved his sports. So I swapped out the piano
for the playing fields.
We went to a lot of ball games together: high school basketball, farm league
baseball, and college football games. Having spent my summers on my grand-
parents’ farm, I was attracted to horses and learned to ride at a young age. I
loved to compete in small-­town rodeos. I roped calves and did pole bending
and barrel racing, as well as keyhole and pickup racing. I can’t even remember
how many times I’ve been bucked off a horse, not to mention being kicked.
Attending a livestock auction or county fair was high performance art in my
youth. Being physically present in my body and hyperaware of what my body
could and couldn’t do turned out to be wonderful training for becoming a per-
formance artist. I never felt I was missing anything.
When I started college at Alfred University in upstate New York, a lecture by
Vito Acconci was the first artist’s talk I remember attending. He talked for three
hours, and most of the other students and professors left before he finished.
But I stayed, and by the end I understood that he was wild in a way that really
turned me on to performance art. At Alfred, I met my first female lover, Mary,
and the following year moved with her to Boston.
Eventually I enrolled in the Museum School, where I attended lectures by
Marina Abramović and Ulay, Holly Hughes, and Robert Irwin. I lived right
around the corner from Mobius, founded by Marilyn Arsem in 1977 as one of
the first spaces dedicated to performance art in the United States. I loved learn-
ing about performance art there, and I was enamored with Marilyn Arsem’s
work. I particularly remember a piece called Dreams (breathe/don’t breathe) of
Home from the series Pig Baby that she did with her husband, Bob Raymond.
The Pig Baby series inspired my first performance art piece, Fish Anger, at Mo-
bius in 1986.
While in Boston, I attended concerts and performances by artists such
as Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Lily Tomlin, and even the
Boston Symphony conducted by Seiji Ozawa. At heart I was still a kid from West
Virginia, so I always loved going to Red Sox games in Fenway Park with my dad,
who would visit from time to time.
4 Introduction

Beth Stephens’s first public performance was Fish Anger in 1986 at Mobius, a performance art
space in Boston, Massachusetts. Beth sat in a wheelbarrow full of fish to explore the derogatory
comparison between the odor of fish and the odor of women. Photograph by Diane Bonder.
Authors’ collection.

annie  Growing up mostly in Los Angeles, my family went to a lot of museums,

Renaissance Fairs, and plays. I saw a lot of good shows. Dad was a playwright,
singer, tap dancer, and a huge fan of musicals when not doing his day job as a
community development social worker. My parents were open-­minded, so they
even took me and my three siblings to see Hair at the Aquarius Theater when I
was fourteen. I was shocked by the nudity! By the time I was sixteen, everyone in
my family had acted in plays, except me. I was excruciatingly shy and I couldn’t
imagine getting onstage—­ever!
Fast forward: I became a porn starlet at eighteen, surprising everyone, espe-
cially myself. At that time, many porn movie scripts had actual parts, but I was
really uncomfortable with acting. I was excited by the creative possibilities of
combining real sex and filmmaking. By my early thirties, porn stars had become
a popular feature in burlesque theaters, and I was getting lucrative offers to go
onstage. I was hesitant to accept because I wasn’t a very good dancer, and I didn’t
have the courage to do it anyway. I was tempted by the money because I wanted
 In troduc tion 5
to pay for tuition to go to the School of Visual Arts (SVA) near where I lived in
Manhattan and study photography.
Luckily for me, Willem de Ridder came to my rescue. Willem was a Dutch
Fluxus artist and the European chairman of the Fluxus art movement. He had
been my boyfriend for a couple of years when I was in my midtwenties. He was
a masterful storyteller and radio personality. He helped me create a new genre
of burlesque he coined “strip speak,” which was stripping while telling sexy sto-
ries, dirty talking, and vocalizing orgasms. This gave me the courage to tour the
bumpy burlesque trail around the USA for four years during my college breaks.
That’s how I got my stage chops and my BFA in fine arts.
While I was attending SVA, Kathy O’Dell’s history of performance art class
blew my mind the most. She covered the Fluxus artists, which I already knew a
lot about thanks to Willem, but also introduced me to many other great artists.
It was my favorite class, and I became enthralled with performance art. Living
in Manhattan, I was able to see the great performance artists at work, such as
Karen Finley, Laurie Anderson, Martha Wilson, Lydia Lunch, Pauline Oliveros,
the Kipper Kids, Carolee Schneemann, and Marina Abramović and Ulay. By the
time Beth and I got together, I had been touring one-­woman theater pieces that
I had made about working in the sex industry for twelve years. My theater pieces
included Annie Sprinkle: Post-­Porn Modernist, Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn, and
Hardcore from the Heart.4
After touring these shows very successfully for many years, I was tired of
mostly traveling and performing alone. In December 1995, I did a week-­long
collaborative theater piece, Metamorphosex—­The Arts of Love, a sacred sex
workshop that climaxed with a sex magic ritual performance on three consec-
utive nights. I co-­created the piece with my friend Barbara Carrellas at Bonnie
Cullum’s Vortex Repertory Theatre in Austin, Texas. Barbara was a Broadway
theater manager when I had met her during the AIDS crisis, and she became my
manager for a few years. Barbara later became an internationally acclaimed sex
educator, teaching what she called Urban Tantra.
Performance artist Linda M. Montano, who at the time was a professor of
performance art at the University of Texas at Austin, was our spiritual advisor
and also performed with us. That’s when I knew that I loved working collabora-
tively with others onstage. So when Beth came along, I was very open to the idea
of collaboration with the right person.
6 Introduction

Annie Sprinkle performs “Public Cervix Announcement” in her first one-­woman show, Post-­Porn
Modernist, in 1990 at the Kitchen in Manhattan. Photograph by Ephrain John Gonzales.

Wrestling as Performance Collaboration

beth  From the start of our romantic relationship, we began to work together on
various performances and actions that addressed radical constructions of love
and embodied affect. Gradually our work shifted to incorporate love for the en-
vironment, celebrated by a series of weddings to nonhuman entities. When we
started doing ecosexual art projects, we turned to identity politics, science, and
ecological thinking to inform our work. Our collaborative work was informed
by our engagement with each other and our previous work.
At first collaborating wasn’t easy. When we became romantically involved,
we were already established artists with our own careers. Doing performances
together was awkward and scary. We got into heated, emotional, and pain-
ful arguments to the point where we reconsidered working together on any
project. We could argue for days simply about what to name a performance or
exhibition. After a performance had ended, we processed the work differently.
Annie immediately liked to critique what didn’t work, and I wanted to stay in
the afterglow of whatever worked for a little while. While Annie had performed
before, I was best known as a sculptor and photographer. Because Annie’s
 In troduc tion 7
name was more widely recognized, she would often receive most of the credit
for the performance from the press, while my name was often misspelled or
simply omitted.
The Earth never received any credit either—­this frustrated both of us.
Nevertheless, we persisted, and it has paid off. Together with the Earth we have
created something unique. But first, let’s go back to how we got here at all.

Finding Our Glamping Spot

annie  When Beth became the chair of the University of California, Santa Cruz
(UCSC) art department, the two of us moved to the lush, green redwood forest
in the Santa Cruz mountains. Living in the redwood forest, we gradually felt
more and more connected to the Earth, and it became important for us to
express our immense gratitude and love for our planet in a way that reflected
our queer, feminist, and sex-­positive identities and our love for experimental
art. Our home in the redwoods shifted our work toward an engagement with
environmental causes.
beth  In 2008, we held our first wedding ritual performance where we married
the Earth, and it changed our worldview! The day after our Green Wedding to
the Earth, we knew that we were on to something that felt fresh and different
from anything that either of us had done before. We wanted a way to describe
what we were doing. Given our previous work about queer sex positivity and
our growing interest in environmentalism, calling ourselves ecosexual made a
lot of sense. Once we came out as ecosexual and began exploring this idea, we
gradually realized that ecosexuality could be an expanded experience of love
and sensual pleasure.
After making vows at our Green Wedding “to love, honor, and cherish the
Earth until death brings us closer together forever,” we felt a more universal,
enormous love for each other and for the Earth and even the cosmos. Engaging
in an ecosexual vision of the world expanded our notion of sex and eroticism
way beyond genital contact, beyond corporeal sex, and even beyond erotic
energy exchange.
In the past, Annie had studied and practiced Tantric and Taoist sexual
practices (the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that in the West
are seen as having a relationship to sexual union), while I grew up appreciating
the randy Pentecostal, snake-­handling, revivalist spirituality of nature in rural
Appalachia. Being close to nature and God in West Virginia included energetic
8 Introduction
exchanges with the air, rocks, water, soil, minerals, animals, the Earth, and the
universe. We came to see ecosex as a conceptual art practice and a way of think-
ing beyond individual identity, and even beyond human beings, to envision a
larger system—­an ecology of relationships.
I started a practice-­as-­research PhD in performance studies at University
of California, Davis, the year after our Green Wedding. Annie and I were now
interested in thinking about variant kinds of love that extend beyond humans.
I began researching and cultivating relationships with artists working on
the environment. Since my undergraduate years, I had been intrigued by the
German artist Joseph Beuys’s concept of social sculpture—­the idea that anyone
can participate in shaping society, just as a sculptor manipulates raw materials
to produce a work of art. This concept is useful in thinking about how artistic
practices can produce social change. Beuys used social sculpture as a method to
think about how to rebuild Germany after World War II. He believed that this
interaction could suggest different modes of knowing and addressing social
issues.5 As ecosexuals, and as artists who collaborate with all kinds of people on
our projects, we embraced Beuys’s famous slogan “Everyone Is an Artist.”6
In the 1960s, Beuys was a noted participant in the art movement Fluxus, an
international, interdisciplinary community of artists, designers, composers,
and dancers that eschewed heroic artmaking for work that emphasized the
process over the product. Fluxus had many members (including Yoko Ono and
Annie’s ex-­boyfriend Willem), and the emphasis on collaboration, international
community, and actions/happenings appealed to us.
Another reason we love Fluxus so much is due to our long-­standing rela-
tionship with the Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks. He had been my professor
at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University when I was earning
my MFA. He was closely involved with Fluxus artists such as Yoko Ono, Allan
Kaprow, Jill Johnston, Robert Watts, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Joe Jones,
and John Cage during the sixties and seventies. Geoff, who was gay, had di-
vorced his wife Bici Forbes (now known as Nye Ffarrabas), who was a lesbian.
Geoff was best known for his performative headstands and his paintings
of the sky, which earned him the moniker Cloudsmith. He painted clouds on
traditional surfaces (such as canvas) as well as on everyday objects, including
his VW Bug and a pair of bronzed work boots. For Geoff, art and life were not
separate: everything was art.7 There was no separation between art and life in
his subsequent relationships with performance artist Stephen Varble, painter
 In troduc tion 9
Brian Buczak (who passed away in 1987 from AIDS-­related illnesses), and writer,
archivist, and artist Sur Rodney (Sur), to whom he was still married at the time
of his death.
annie  I have been hugely inspired by Linda M. Montano’s approach to life as
art, which had a lot in common with Fluxus.8 Linda’s book Art in Everyday Life
covered her performances from 1964 to 1981. Each performance had an image,
then a description based in Art and a description based on Life. Everything that
Linda Montano did in life was also art.
I first met Linda when I attended her Sister Rosita’s Summer Saint Camp with
my best friend Veronica Vera in summer 1987.9 Veronica was a writer who docu-
mented her sexual evolution along with the sexual culture(s) of New York City.
Sister Rosita’s Summer Saint Camp was part of Linda’s durational 7 Years of Living
Art (which subsequently became 14 Years of Living Art and then Another 21 Years of
Living Art), based on the seven chakras, or energy centers, in the subtle body that
correspond to the physical body but originate within the context of mental and
spiritual fields. The seven chakras correspond to seven colors and seven points
on the body, as well as seven different types of energy.
When Linda used the seven chakras as a structure for her piece 14 Years of
Living Art, 1984–­1998, she was enthusiastic about her interest in Hindu theology
as taught by her guru, Dr. Ramamurti Mishra. For her first seven-­year-­long
performance, Linda committed to spending a number of hours in a colored
space (the color corresponding to the chakra), listening to one pitch each day,
speaking in a different accent each year, and wearing clothes of a single color.
She visited the New Museum of Contemporary Art once a month throughout
all seven years; she read palms and tarot cards and performed Art/Life Counseling
in a colored space that the museum repainted each year to correspond to the
chakra that Linda was exploring at the time.
I loved that piece, and I got some Art/Life Counseling there. In the gift
shop of the museum, Linda sold her signed used clothing as art. Each year she
invited an artist or two to the Art/Life Institute in Kingston, New York, near the
house where she grew up. Artists would come to live with her there for a week
for the Summer Saint Camp. In 1987, the third (yellow) year, Veronica Vera and I
responded to Linda’s invitation after Veronica saw a flyer advertising the camp
in the bathroom stall at Franklin Furnace, an avant-­garde performance art space
and gallery in New York City. The following day Veronica sent our application.
One week later, Linda accepted us.
10 I n t r o d u c t i o n
At Summer Saint Camp, Linda introduced Veronica and me to a number of
performance exercises, some of which were inspired by her two years as a nun.
Linda’s art/life was about conserving resources and avoiding unnecessary waste,
and many of our performance exercises were also exercises in ecofriendly living.
We were instructed to flush toilets sparingly, use very little toilet paper, take very
short showers, and consume every bit of food on our plate. For the entire week,
the three of us wore only yellow clothes. Summer Saint Camp was a lesson in
sanctity and conservation! Fifteen years later Beth and I would launch our proj-
ect the Love Art Laboratory, which would become a satellite project to Linda’s
Another Twenty-­One Years of Living Art, 1998–­2019.
beth  Other influences were Newton Harrison (born 1932) and Helen Mayer Harri-
son (1927–­2018), pioneers of ecological art and longtime collaborators with each
other. In 2007, I hired Newton as a consultant for creating a master’s of fine arts
(MFA) program at UCSC. In 2008, Newton and I came up with the idea to write
a proposal for a PhD program titled Art Practices: A Whole Systems Approach
with a Global Reach, which unfortunately was not implemented by the UC
Santa Cruz art department.
We spent a lot of time with the Harrisons and became friends.10 Beginning
with the premise that their client was always the Earth, the Harrisons would
collaborate with a broad spectrum of experts in order to propose solutions to
environmental problems. Our work, which is about being in a better relation-
ship with the Earth and helping others to achieve this as well, is very different
from that of the Harrisons, but we were inspired by their collaborative practice
and their lifelong commitment to addressing ecological issues.
annie  We were also intrigued by earlier and contemporary queer, sex-­positive en-
vironmentalists. We have numerous friends who were and are Radical Faeries.
This community was founded in 1979 by Harry Hay, Mitch Walker, Don Kilhef-
ner, and John Burnside. The Radical Faeries were a pagan counterculture group
of gay men who wanted to resist the assimilationist attitude of the mainstream
gay community.11 We also met some of the radical community-­building lesbi-
ans who had lived in rural enclaves with cheap real estate and plenty of land.
One day we would love to have a co-­housing community farm where we could
all make art together with our loved ones, friends, and collaborators.
Another group, Fuck for Forest (FFF), a nonprofit environmental orga-
nization founded in Norway in 2004 by Leona Johansson and Tommy Hol
Ellingsen, has a website of sexually explicit videos and photographs for which
 In troduc tion 11
they charge access. A portion of the funds raised are donated to saving the
rainforest. As far as we know, they were the first eco-­porn organization created
specifically to raise money for environmental causes. When we were in Ger-
many giving a talk at a symposium, they came to see us. They credited me and
my one-­woman show Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn as their early inspiration
for creating Fuck for Forest!
beth  We were excited to learn that other people out there were making sexually
explicit environmental activist art.

Sex-­Positive Feminism
annie  Beth and I came of age during the third-­wave, sex-­positive feminist move-
ment. Third-­wave feminists embraced radical sexuality and alternative gender
identities. Sex was a way of embracing life and love. Sex was liberating, fun, and
creative. A great adventure! Carol Queen, writer and founder of the Center for
Sex and Culture, and the longtime resident sexologist for the adult toy store
company Good Vibrations, defined sex positivity as “a simple yet radical affir-
mation that we each grow our own passions on a different medium, that instead
of having two or three or even half a dozen sexual orientations, we should be
thinking in terms of millions. ‘Sex-­positive’ respects each of our unique sexual
profiles, even as we acknowledge that some of us have been damaged by a cul-
ture that tries to eradicate sexual difference and possibility.”12
Any kind of work about sex can be controversial, especially in the United
States, which has been so heavily influenced by religious conservatives who
preach that any sex outside a heterosexual marriage is a mortal sin and any per-
son who is not modest or monogamous should be expelled from the flock. Our
work pushes up against those kinds of ideologies, and we get plenty of blow-
back, as evidenced by the stories and critiques included in this book. We would
not have had the courage or opportunities to do the things that we have done
and are still doing without the brave feminists and queer-­positive theorists who
challenged these ideologies with their work.
beth  I have to admit that I learned most of what I know about sex-­positive femi-
nism from the women I dated. My first big love, Mary, turned me on to Carol S.
Vance, who edited the anthology Pleasure and Danger, one of the most exciting
feminist anthologies I encountered.13 Gayle Rubin’s essay “Thinking Sex” blew
my mind because it so clearly critiqued the binary between acceptable and
nonacceptable sex.14 Who knew? Then there was Judith, who turned me on to
12 I n t r o d u c t i o n
Monique Wittig’s novels The Lesbian Body and Les Guérillères, both of which
mixed white hot anger with French erotica.15
Around my Boston years I also started reading the Semiotext(e) books and
was particularly struck by the issue on polysexuality16 as well as later issues
edited by Eileen Myles17 and Michelle Tea.18 Other influences include the art
and writings of Deborah Bright, whom I first met at Rutgers.19 I had obvious
interests and connections to the work of Dorothy Allison, especially her book
Bastard Out of Carolina.20 I had read Angela Davis and bell hooks. Working at
UCSC, an institution where Davis taught and hooks attended for her doctorate,
has always made me feel closer to their writing. Davis has been writing about
prison abolition,21 and bell hooks moved back to Appalachia. Her book Belong-
ing: A Culture of Place inspired me to reconsider my relationship to where I was
born and grew up.22
I have been lucky to have been able to read and attend the lectures of so many
brilliant feminists. I have also been lucky to have known and worked with so
many sex-­positive feminists, including my beloved sex radical and post-­porn
activist, Annie Sprinkle.
annie  Perhaps my greatest inspirations have been the women I’ve met whom I
count as friends, women who have worked to help decriminalize prostitution,
fought for the freedom to make and see sexually explicit art and pornogra-
phies, created new genres of sexually explicit media, and fearlessly delved into
the low brow.
I met Margo St. James in 1975 when I was working in a Manhattan massage
parlor. She started the Prostitutes’ Rights movement in the United States. She
said prostitution should be decriminalized! That idea was unheard of at that
time. She put out a newsletter, COYOTE Howls, which was about the politics of
prostitution and published work by sex workers. I was smitten.
Then there were two of my brilliant porn star friends who were two of my
closest friends: Candida Royalle started her own company, Femme Produc-
tions, and became a producer, director, and the mother of feminist erotica; and
Gloria Leonard, a fierce feminist porn star who became director of the Free
Speech Coalition and debated Women Against Porn on college campuses in the
1980s. They, along with badass sex educator and artist Betty Dodson, were on
the front lines of the Culture Wars of the eighties.
I also owe a debt to two women scholars who were the pioneers of porn stud-
ies: UC Berkeley film professor Linda Williams, the author of Hard Core: Power,
 In troduc tion 13
Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible,23 and Constance Penley, professor of film
and media studies at UC Santa Barbara who taught the first class on the culture
of pornography in 1993 and has been teaching it ever since. She coedited The
Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure in 2013.24 These two profes-
sors made me think in new ways about the porn I was making. They embraced
my work and invited me to lecture in their classes over many years.
These six women have been brave, insightful, innovative sex-­positive sheroes
who fought for our freedom to express our individuality and true sexual desires
without being shunned, shot, put in jail, or burned at the stake.

Manifesto Destiny
both  We needed a manifesto! We learned in art school that any self-­respecting
movement needs a manifesto.25 With brainstorming help from Natalie Love-
less and Sha LaBare, we wrote an Ecosex Manifesto and officially launched the
ecosex movement in 2011. By the power vested in ourselves, we announced that
the Earth was our lover, that ecosexual was a new sexual and gender identity,
and that ecosex could be an environmental activist strategy. We described the
different kinds of human ecosexuals there are, what we do, and how we operate
as activists. Figuring that the Manifesto would grow, change, and evolve over
time, we called the first iteration Manifesto 1.0. In June 2015 we wrote a shorter,
more poetic Manifesto 2.0 in collaboration with artist Guillermo Gómez-­Peña
for a performance, and most recently in May 2020 we wrote a Manifesto 3.0 to
recognize the COVID-­19 pandemic.
Over the years, we have pollinated the Ecosex Manifesto widely around the
world. It has been published in books26 and journals,27 exhibited in art galler-
ies,28 displayed in a Manhattan storefront window,29 printed two stories tall in
Spanish on the exterior wall of a community art center in Costa Rica,30 and dis-
tributed as flyers at various art events. It has been translated into at least seven
languages that we know of.
ECOSEX MANIFESTO 1.0 Wh
( I ) W E A R E T H E E C O S E X UA L S .
The Earth is our lover. We are madly, passionately, and
fiercely in love, and we are grateful for this relationship
each and every day. In order to create a more mutual and
sustainable relationship with the Earth, we collaborate
with nature. We treat the Earth with kindness, respect,
and affection.

( I I ) W E M A K E L OV E W I T H T H E E A RT H .
We are aquaphiles, terraphiles, pyrophiles, and aerophiles.
We shamelessly hug trees, massage the Earth with our
feet, and talk erotically to plants. We are skinny dippers,
sun worshippers, and stargazers. We caress rocks, are
pleasured by waterfalls, and admire the Earth’s curves
often. We make love to the Earth through our senses.
We celebrate our E-­spots. We are very dirty.

( I I I ) W E A R E A R A P I D LY G R O W I N G G L O B A L
C O M M U N I T Y O F E C O S E X UA L S .
This community includes artists, academics, sex workers,
sexologists, healers, environmental activists, nature fetish-
ists, gardeners, businesspeople, therapists, lawyers, peace
activists, ecofeminists, scientists, educators, revolution-
aries, critters, and other entities from diverse walks of life.
Some of us are sexecologists, researching and exploring
the places where sexology and ecology intersect in our
culture. As consumers we aim to buy less. When we can,
we buy green, organic, and local. Whether on farms, at sea,
in the woods, or in small towns or large cities, we connect
and empathize with nature.
( I V ) W E A R E E C O S E X A C T I V I S TS .
We will save the mountains, waters, and skies by any
means necessary, especially through love, joy, and our
powers of seduction. We will stop the rape, abuse, and
the poisoning of the Earth. We do not condone the use
of violence, although we recognize that some ecosexuals
may choose to fight those most guilty of destroying the
Earth with public disobedience and with anarchist and
radical environmental activist strategies. We embrace the
revolutionary tactics of art, music, poetry, humor, and sex.
We work and play tirelessly for Earth justice and global
peace. Bombs hurt.

( V ) E C O S E X UA L I S A N I D E N T I T Y.
For some of us, being ecosexual is our primary (sexual)
identity, whereas for others it is not. Ecosexuals can be
LGBTQIA+, heterosexual, asexual, and/or Other. We invite
and encourage ecosexuals to come out. We are everywhere.
We are polymorphous and pollen-­amorous. We educate
people about ecosex culture, community, and practices. We
hold these truths to be self-­evident: that we are all part of,
not separate from, nature. Thus all sex is ecosex.

(VI) THE ECOSEX PLEDGE

I promise to love, honor, and cherish you, Earth, until
death brings us closer together forever.

¡ V I VA L A E C O S E X R E V O LU C I Ó N !
16 I n t r o d u c t i o n
Earth as Lover, Earth as Mother
We respect the Indigenous and Aboriginal cultures, as well as ancient western and
eastern civilizations that have embraced, and still embrace, Earth as mother. We both
learned from these traditions. These knowledges have influenced our practices for
much of our lives. We have and sometimes still do embrace the Earth as mother: the
Earth does give us life and takes incredible care of us, giving us what we need to sur-
vive. Our manifesto, however, boldly states that we see the Earth as our lover, that we
love the Earth and find erotic potential in nature, and we are turning our love for the
Earth into revolutionary actions. Even as we move to embrace the Earth as lover rather
than Earth as mother, we do so with respect.
But we don’t relate to the Earth only as a lover or mother. The Earth can morph and
be imagined as any archetype interchangeably or in combination with other arche-
types: friend, host, caregiver, sister, empress, magician, crone, patient. . . . The Earth
lover can also be imagined as a sexy Earth mother—­after all, many women have sex to
become mothers. Given the virgin–­whore dichotomy that still pervades western cul-
ture, many people find it abhorrent to think of mothers as sexual beings. Someone on
one of our Ecosex Walking Tours commented that the Earth could be imagined as a
MILF (Mother I’d Like to Fuck). Given that MILF is not about incest, and in the porn
lexicon an “older” woman can be in her late twenties or beyond, we see this as a term
that eroticizes women beyond a certain age. Some folks don’t want to think of the
Earth as anything but Mother Earth, and we respect everyone’s choices in this regard.
Our version of ecosexuality has quite a bit in common with ecofeminism, even
though we don’t always see eye to eye with ecofeminists. The ecofeminism movement
emerged in the 1970s as a critique of both the oppression of women and the destruc-
tion of the Earth as mutually reinforcing systems of patriarchal oppression.31 For
ecofeminists, embracing the construction of Earth as Mother was a means by which
nature could be anthropomorphized and thus understood as something that should
not be harmed. We are in agreement with that ideal.
After coming out as ecosexuals, we began thinking about how the Earth had
been described as female and mother in the stories and spiritual traditions of con-
temporary and ancient cultures. In western literature the “Earth” has always been
constructed as feminine, a trope that was not challenged by second-­wave feminist
theory, which posited the idea of Earth as mother as an alternative to patriarchy. We
wanted to go beyond the gender binary when it came to thinking about the Earth. As
bad grrrl feminists, we were skeptical of binary constructions of the Earth as Mother/
Other. As queers, we were eager to embrace the concept of the Earth as nonbinary or
 In troduc tion 17

We imagine our Earth lover

as all genders, transgender,
gender fluid, gender bending,
and sometimes male or
female. Authors’ collection.

trans. Mothers (including Mother Earth) have not been treated terribly well in popular
culture, which tends to construct the ideal mother as either asexual or heterosexual,
self-­sacrificing, white, and Christian. As feminists, we have a great deal of empathy
and respect for the first generation of ecofeminists who promoted the idea of Earth as
Mother to bring attention to the need for environmental activism. As queers and eco-
sexuals we wanted to expand the idea of environmentalism by combining it with the
sex-­positive feminism of the nineties, the cultural context from which our art careers
were nourished. Today, as aging women whose bodies are no longer taut, we want to
acknowledge the materiality of nature, a materiality that doesn’t always conform to
patriarchal anthropomorphizing fantasies of nubile, beautiful, fertile women or of
dangerous vagina dentatas ready to do away with humanity at the drop of a hat. To
counter these stereotypes, we adopted the metaphor of the lover instead.
An important event for us was Joanna Macy’s workshop The Work That Recon-
nects. Macy basically argues that all of our connections to the Earth are intimate and
ancient. Attending her workshop brought us together with like-­minded participants
who were also thinking about more profound, more loving connections with the
Earth.32 We love the queerness of the idea of Earth as lover, and we align our practice
18 I n t r o d u c t i o n
with ecofeminist scholar Greta Gaard, who has explored the connection between
ecofeminism and queer theory and called for both movements to learn from each
other.33 Gaard writes:

A queer ecofeminist perspective would argue that liberating the erotic requires con-
ceptualizing humans as equal participants in culture and in nature, able to explore the
eroticism of reason and the unique rationality of the erotic. Ecofeminists must be con-
cerned with queer liberation, just as queers must be concerned with the liberation of
women and of nature; our parallel oppressions have stemmed from our perceived asso-
ciations. It is time to build our common liberation on more concrete coalitions.34

Embracing the Earth as our lover, rather than our mother, radically changed our
relationship to the planet that we share with billions and trillions of living and non-
living material entities. To be someone’s lover is more open-­ended than being their
mother. The lover assumes a relationship based on romance, sexual attraction, and
sensual pleasure. The lover’s relationship does not assume identities that conform to
the gender binary and power dynamics of male and female. The category of the lover
is more slippery than that of parent and avoids heteronormative family ideology.
Our metaphorical and material shift to Earth as lover holds the potential to create
relationships between humans and nonhumans that might lessen destructive and
controlling practices such as taking resources (mining) or domesticating (damming
rivers and streams). The lover archetype evokes pleasure or jouissance based on mutual
needs and desires. Earth as lover has the potential to inspire humans to give as well as
receive both love and support from the Earth.
Furthermore, the category of Mother represents an ideological construction that
has been used to police the excess of pleasure and ecstasy, whereas the lover rep-
resents the promise of the as-­yet-­unknown. A lover is someone we want to get to
know better, treat well, pamper, romance, and pleasure. Most to the point, if one does
not treat a lover well, the lover can leave for someone else who will treat them better.
While the Earth can’t actually leave us, it can become so inhospitable that we have to
live in radically different ways on it—­or leave it. Mars, anyone?
We understand that “Earth as lover” is a metaphor that anthropomorphizes our
planet. We feel it can be a useful and fun strategy to help both ourselves and others
connect with that which extends beyond human understanding. French philosopher
Bruno Latour has recognized that refusing to anthropomorphize a nonhuman is the
height of human arrogance because it makes the nonhuman lesser than the human.35
 In troduc tion 19
As Latour states, “To enforce the gap between human subjects and nonhuman objects
is the most anthropocentric of all modes of relation invented.”36 Or, as Colette Guil-
laumin pointedly writes, “As soon as people want to legitimize the power that they
exercise, they call on nature—­on the nature of this difference.”37 Both Latour and Guil-
laumin point out how humans use the idea of nature to justify their domination over it.
Ecosexuals, on the other hand, anthropomorphize the Earth to help examine
and hopefully help heal the human–­nature binary embedded in western epistemol-
ogy. This binary erases our connection to nature by elevating humans above all else.
Jane Bennett, in her book Vibrant Matter, suggests that as scholars and human beings
we take seriously all things human and nonhuman. The vitality and agency of these
more-­than-­human things wield influence on how we navigate, feel, understand, and
are in the world.38 Anthropomorphism can be used to take seriously the agency of na-
ture and to position it as an active participant in the ongoing development of life on
this planet, but it also means that we seek to understand nature on our own terms, yet
again. We ask, as humans, what other terms can we employ given that the Earth is so
much more than simply human?

Ecosexuality, the Anthropocene, New Materialisms, and Posthumanism

Our definition of ecosexuality deliberately reflects current ideas about posthumanism
and new materialism, in which the human is understood to be one of many sentient
and nonsentient beings that exist on this planet. Some people assume that sex has
to be genital, or that ecosexuals primarily engage in physical sexual acts with non-
humans, but physical contact is not mandatory in the evolving field of ecosexuality,
although it can be a part of it. In terms of engaging with nonhumans, many ecosex-
uals take a more conceptual, playful approach. This allows humans to connect with
and derive pleasure from nature and ideally to be inspired to give something back to
it. Ecosexuality provides alternative ways of thinking about sexuality that go beyond
human reproduction, genital sex, and human exceptionalism (the belief that humans
are different from and superior to all other forms of life). Since humans are part of
nature, ecosexual practices can include human-­to-­human sexual contact, including
genital sex. Ecosexuals, however, consider all parts of the body to be potential sites of
sexual pleasure. We see the body as expanding beyond its own skin, in forms such as
biome clouds, the unique clouds of bacteria and microbes that surround the bodies
of all organic beings, animals, and plants.39 Ecosex is a paradigm shift: we don’t have
sex with just another person, but instead we have sex with their water, minerals, bacte-
ria, biomes, and even stardust!
20 I n t r o d u c t i o n
We are influenced by the work of Donna Haraway, whose book Staying with the
Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene calls for humans and nonhumans to stay with
the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged Earth. Haraway was one
of Beth’s colleagues at UC–­Santa Cruz before she retired, and we are intimately fa-
miliar with her work. Less dystopian than the idea of the Anthropocene, Haraway’s
alternative construction of a Chthulucene era (with a name based on the Greek word
for Earth) suggests that postindustrial ecologies will be radically different from what
they are today. Haraway’s ideas about science, posthumanism, new materialism, and
contemporary ecofeminism have been tremendously influential for us as we have
formulated ecosexuality and sexecology. She is critical of the theory of anthropo-
centrism and has instead advocated for the self-­organizing powers of nonhuman
processes. Her work has guided our understanding of the theoretical underpinnings
and the consequences embedded in the human and nonhuman relationships that
make up the material and political worlds in which we all live and die. The knowl-
edge we have gained from her work has helped us understand how religion, science,
and other secular practices have constructed the human exceptionalism that drives
culture, politics, and religion in western culture.40 Human exceptionalism, global
capitalism, and Darwinian ideologies justify the right to use or destroy other humans
and nonhumans to serve one’s own self-­interest and guarantee one’s own survival
above and beyond other creatures. This is the root of much of the environmental
degradation that affects our whole planet as well as the cause of other social justice
inequalities.
Even as Haraway deconstructs human exceptionalism, she opens new possibilities
for human beings to act with ethical responsibility. She does this in part by critiquing
the destructive consequences that binary thinking such as nature/culture or human/
animal has created in order to set some humans apart. Exceptionalism generates
deadly real and conceptual technologies for segregating the world into what/who is,
and is not, killable.41 Ecosexuality creates a new series of inclusive and intersectional
relationships that change the conversation and the stories regarding who deserves to
live well. As Haraway reminds us, we are all messmates at the table, and we are mu-
tually engaged in an ongoing meal of life and death.42 Much of our work has been
concerned with creating the kinds of mobile communities knit together by kinship
and affinities of which Haraway writes.
Kim TallBear has also been generative to our formulating our theories of ecosex-
uality. Her work examines the historical and ongoing roles of technoscience in the
 In troduc tion 21
colonizing and subjugation of Indigenous peoples.43 We acknowledge that ecosex-
uality is still problematic in that it largely reflects a white, middle-­class perspective
toward environmental interventions. Kim, who was one of Beth’s professors when she
was pursuing a PhD in performance studies and is now a friend, makes it clear that
for Indigenous populations ecosexuality is a hard sell:

There are occasional references in ecosex literature to Native American knowledges in

ways that are what I would classify as “New Age,” and I would advise caution around the
appropriation of Native American knowledges and motifs to the ecosexual ceremonial
and artistic repertoire. . . . There are no easy, literal translations between indigenous
ontologies and ecosexuality, at least among the indigenous people I run with. Rather,
there are careful conversations with much careful thought to be had.44

We appreciate Kim’s willingness to have these careful conversations with us and to

engage material she doesn’t necessarily identify with. Looking beyond our differ-
ences, Kim was able to see places of connection: “Beth and Annie want to diversify the
environmental movement, its actors, discourses, and strategies for change. I also in-
creasingly embrace laughter as a response to the absurdly hateful politics of our time.
Laughter sustains me when anger wears me down and feels unproductive.”45
Kim’s discussions with us about relations with humans and nonhumans, Earth as
lover, and our deployment of humor have helped us examine our assumptions (or
white privilege) when it has come to hippie or New Age strategies. We have come to
recognize that settler colonialist ideology was present in these movements, and we
resolved to eschew this ideology and embrace an anticolonial position. Kim was the
keynote speaker at Environmentalism Outside the Box—­An Ecosex Symposium, an
event we held at UCSC in 2017. In her talk she noted that many Native Americans’
concept of “all our relations” is similar to and could even influence ecosexual prac-
tices that acknowledge the vibrancy of all entities. She spoke eloquently about the
urgent need to decolonize and undo settler sexuality in relation to “making kin.” De-
colonization is essential to begin to help heal the damage colonization has caused. We
must do this work in order to build new kinds of relationships based on reciprocity
rather than ownership and other forms of power that objectify life. If our ecosexual
ideas and practices help create new, more open ways of thinking about sexual rela-
tionships, then we have accomplished hopeful work toward creating worlds where we
can all live for the betterment of the Earth.
22 I n t r o d u c t i o n
LGBTQIA+E Unite!
For us, ecosexuality is a new and expanded identity construct that can change the idea
of relationships between humans and the more-­than-­human world. We proudly add
an E to the growing list of letters that now expand the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
and Trans) acronym from the eighties and nineties. We strive toward radical inclu-
sivity and see that as being foundational to our version of this concept. A person can
identify as an ecosexual and still claim and maintain any of their other sexual identi-
ties. From our point of view, all humans are already engaged and intertwined in any
number of long-­term, intimate relationships, ecological and otherwise. Ecosexuality
can be a framework for understanding ourselves within the context of larger systems.
Being ecosexual can be akin to embracing identities such as pomosexual (the post-
modern challenge to the assumptions of gender and sexuality), pansexual (enjoying
love and sex with people of multiple genders), queer (outside heteronormativity),
and metamorphosexual (experiencing sexuality as always being in a state of change
and evolving from one sexual preference to the next, also called fluid). We view eco-
sexuality as an identity capable of including or complementing all sexual identities,
orientations, and identifying terms.
Queer theorist and curator Paul B. Preciado, with whom we have worked on mult­­
iple projects over many years (and to whom this book is co-­dedicated), guided us
toward the realization that our work held possibilities for radical political activism
through joining together queerness, sex positivity, and environmental activism. He
introduced us to the work of the Argentinian social activist and conceptual artist Ro-
berto Jacoby, who advocated for what he called “strategies of joy”: small actions that
face down and confront the fear in people’s minds.46 Jacoby, who is gay, lived through
the brutal Argentinian dictatorship sometimes called the “Dirty War,” which lasted
from 1976 until 1983. In these worst of times he organized celebratory gatherings such
as dance parties that provided a reason for survival when all seemed lost. His idea and
practice of strategies of joy resonate with us. We love his idea of navigating times of
struggle through art, dance, music, and sexy fun. We believe that pleasure activism can
be a path that empowers many of us who are outside the mainstream to enact change.
Just as violence is powerful, pleasure can be powerful, too. Perhaps even more.

Ecosexuality in Challenging Times

We finished writing this book in the winter of 2020, against the backdrop of the
COVID-­19 crisis and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the
Minneapolis police. This pandemic has seriously damaged any facade of equality in
 In troduc tion 23
the United States, revealing grotesque underlying inequalities such as the historic ef-
fects of genocide and slavery. The physical reality of navigating police violence and
white supremacy in a society that brutally constructs difference through skin color
and other physical norms can result in physical, mental, and spiritual brutality, as
we are seeing during the uprisings against systemic state violence in 2020. In our
developed country, many people—­prisoners, people without money, immigrants in
detention—­are at particularly high risk of contracting COVID-­19, and politicians at
the highest levels of government today don’t care, as evident by the death toll.
As a Jew and a Hillbilly, we are familiar with the category of being not quite white
enough, although we try to be aware of our own white privilege and do antiracist
work to bring about systemic change. Ecosexuality calls out how we have abused our
more-­than-­human companions (microbes, trees, pollinators, soil, insects, water, and
so many more) who do the increasingly difficult and invisible work of maintaining
ecological systems so that life can exist. For years, scientists have been warning of
more killer viruses and diseases emerging from destruction of the environment.47 We
pay attention to the daily news that covers the elevated numbers of Indigenous, Afri-
can American, Hispanic, and Asian people who get COVID-­19 and die at rates vastly
disproportionate to those who control most of the world’s wealth. The fact that a gro-
tesque percentage of COVID-­19–­related deaths have been elderly, vulnerable people
is heartbreaking. Certainly, it is not the end they deserved. We humbly propose ecosex
as one of many pathways to healing the pain of both the present moment and the
horrific injustices of the past by encouraging people to love the Earth (including each
other) more and to consider that we are all part of the Earth’s ecosystems—­and we can
aim to have a good time along the way.
 DIRTY WORDS

An Ecosexual Glossary

This is an introduction to our ecosexual vocabulary. We love to create new words and to infuse
old ones with new meanings. These terms are just a few of what we have gathered while facili-
tating ecosex workshops and leading Ecosex Walking Tours, and some have been gifted to us by
other people. These definitions are malleable, not fixed, and we invite you to reinterpret, redefine,
and play with them. Please chew on these words, roll them around on your tongue, and savor
them as organic food for thought.

eco: ˈɛkoʊ/ —­from the Greek, oikos. Home.

Arboreal frottage: Tree humping. Pole dancing

with a tree.
Big bang: A huge cosmic orgasm.
Biodegrading: Getting excited by being called filthy
compost.
Biosexual: Someone who gets turned on by more
than one life form.
Bushwacker: Someone who takes pleasure in trim-
ming bush.
Clayphilia: Love of smearing clay all over your own
or someone else’s body.
Ecobation: Making love with the Earth by mastur-
bating and knowing our bodies are part of the Earth,
not separate.
Ecobondage: Getting tied to a tree with natural fiber
rope, such as hemp rope.
26 D i r t y Wo r d s
Ecocurious: Being interested in ecosexuality but not
self-­identified as ecosexual.
Ecodrag: Wearing costumes made from branches,
leaves, flowers, sticks, mud . . .
Ecoputa: A person who offers ecosexual experiences
for money or trade.
Ecoromantic: A person who has a romantic, heart-
felt connection with the Earth.
Ecosensual: A person who enjoys connecting with
nature sensually—­through smelling, looking, listen-
ing, tasting, touching, and sensing in other ways. A
person can identify as ecosensual and not necessarily
be ecosexual.
Ecosex activist: Uses ecosex strategies for social
change and environmental protection. A sex educator
who teaches ecosex to expand on knowledge about
sex and the body.
Ecosexting: Texting a photo of a plant’s reproduc-
tive bits, i.e., flower close-­ups with petals spread.
Ecosexual gaze: Looking at the world with the
awareness that sex is happening everywhere, and all
the time, in nature.
Ecosinning: Doing something that’s bad for the
environment.
Ecoslut: Someone who enjoys all kinds of ecosexual
experiences, and who never met a tree they didn’t
want to hug.
Ecosub: Someone who enjoys being flagellated with
wet oak leaves.
Ecovirgin: Someone who believes, thinks, or says
they have never, ever had an ecosexual encounter.
E-­s pot: Something one finds ecosexy, which can be a
sight, smell, sound, texture, or anything. Also it can
be a place in nature that makes you feel really good.
Grassalingus: Pleasuring the Earth by licking her
green grass with great passion.
 Dirty Words 27
Greendar: An intuitive sense used to identify other
ecosexuals.
Hortisexual: Someone who gets off on gardening.
Lumbersexual: A person who enjoys the scent of
freshly cut wood.
Pollen-­a morous: Someone who gives, receives,
and spreads love to and from all manner of things,
human and nonhuman.
Sandsexual: Exfoliation can be fun, especially on
the beach.
Seadomasochist: Someone who enjoys getting
rolled around and spanked by ocean waves.
Sexecologist: A person who researches sexecology
and what ecosexuals do, think, make, and feel.
Sexecology: A new field of research and scholarly
discipline that explores the intersections of sexology
and ecology.
Snowballing: Getting excited by a big snowball
fight.
Snowjob: Licking fresh snow and letting some melt
on the tip of the tongue.
Tornado chaser: A person who gets off on big
strong winds.
Treebadism: Likes to give trees full body hugs with
their pelvis pressing against the trunk.
Treegasm: What a cherry tree has when it’s in
full bloom.
Vegisexual: A person who gets turned on in the
produce section of the grocery store. Uses phallic
vegetables as adult toys.
Windplay: Enjoying the wind blowing on your body,
such as a gentle wind blowing through your hair
on a spring day, or enjoying a windbath on a fast
motorcycle.

Please invent more!

 one

OUR ECOSEX HERSTORIES

In 2010, writers Michelle Tea, Ali Liebegott, and Beth Pickens invited the two of us to join them
at their fabulous, annual queer writers’ retreat, at Radar Lab in Akamal, Mexico. While there
in paradise, we swam in cenotes, watched turtles lay eggs, and wrote about our first memories
of feeling a special connection with the Earth. These are our recollections, ideally to be read out
loud around a bonfire.

When I Knew: Beth

Long before the Internet had colonized our minds, the mountains and woods in-
spired my ecosexual desires. The hills were the commons where food was free if you
could find it and the water was so clean you could count the fish for dinner while they
were still swimming. Playing in these places provided solace and fertile conditions
for countless flights of fancy. Growing up in Appalachia made me an ecosexual, but
like many young queers before me, I left for college. I studied in upstate New York,
Boston, and then Rutgers University in New Jersey. From there I took a left turn for
California, and I didn’t look back.

Montgomery, West Virginia

I was born in 1960 in Montgomery, West Virginia, on the steep, green banks of the
Kanawha River, straddling the border between Fayette and Kanawha counties.
Kanawha County is the home of Charleston, the capital of West Virginia. Fayette
County is rougher terrain, layered with horizontal black coal seams like a carbonifer-
ous wedding cake. This was an extraordinary decade. John F. Kennedy, a progressive
Catholic Democrat, won the presidential election against all odds only to be assas-
sinated three years later. The United States was entangled in a civil war taking place
30 O u r E c o s e x H e r s t o r i e s
halfway around the world in Vietnam. The civil rights movement was in full swing.
Throughout my childhood, the Greensboro lunch-­counter sit-­in, which started at a
segregated lunch counter in Woolworth’s the year I was born, was reenacted again and
again in college towns across the South.
Meanwhile, West Virginia remained relatively untouched by the social turmoil
that unfolded all around it. King Coal owned the economy and unions were the only
force that could counter the companies’ corporate greed. Miners relied on the United
Mine Workers of America to ensure that they were fairly treated. In those days, miners
made good money with benefits. Their salaries justified the risk of contracting black
lung disease, which killed them in droves. I often heard people say that coal runs
through the miners’ veins. Many died by slow suffocation to provide better lives for
their kids. And it wasn’t just the miners who got lung disease. My father died of pul-
monary fibrosis even though he had never mined a lump of coal in his life. Just living
in a place where coal dust permeated the air 24/7 was enough to literally take your
breath away.

Puddle Jumping
I exhibited early ecosexual tendencies the first time I jumped smack-­dab into the
middle of a mud puddle. I loved to hit the dirty water feet first just to feel the warm
mud and chocolate-­brown liquid splash up against my legs and then run back down.
I especially loved to do this right after church, sullying my Sunday School clothes that
I had to put on to impress Jesus, my family, and the congregation. Jumping in mud
puddles was pushback against the mountain culture that dictated I get dressed up for
church. It was also a way of embodying my belief that dirtiness was next to godliness.

Skinny-­d ipping
I loved going camping with Aileen and Mattie, old family friends and neighbors.
They would hook up their camping trailer in the early morning hours, and we’d make
the thirty-­mile trip up to Summersville Lake. This lake was created by damming the
Gauley River. Even though the distance was short, it was so exciting that it felt like we
were driving all the way to Canada. In the middle of the hottest afternoons Aileen and
Mattie would let me go skinny-­dipping in the lake. Skinny-­dipping is a great way to
cool down. Knowing that it was naughty to swim naked made skinny-­dipping in the
lake more delicious than any swimming pool. I joyfully peed in the water while the
minnows nibbled at my toes. I was becoming water and the water was becoming me.
 Our Ec os ex H ers tories 31
Baptism
My dad and I got baptized together at Calvary Baptist Church in Charleston, West
Virginia. We both figured that if we got saved, our lives would improve. Being saved,
Baptist style, generally means being dunked in a river. However, our church only had
an indoor baptistry. We went down in the water together to have our sins washed
away. I’m not quite certain whether I found this so exciting because of my love for
Jesus or because of feeling the preacher’s hands holding me down. I just remember
going under and being convinced that this was going to change everything. I was
underwater for what seemed like eternity, and it was a transformative experience. Sal-
vation underwater is hot, hotter even than losing my virginity.
The Vietnam War was in full swing, and so was war resistance. One of my cousins,
Patricia, led a protest right up to the state Capitol. Antiwar activism made most of my
family fit to be tied, because the Stephens clan was a staunchly conservative, patriar-
chal, and patriotic family. The men ran the show and they didn’t like hippies. They
frowned upon activism, and particularly activism led by women. However, I found ac-
tivism terribly exciting. I bought a copy of the Whole Earth Catalog, the how-­to Foxfire
series, and Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book. In my late teens I embarked on my own
back-­to-­the-­land adventure on my grandparents’ farm.
My maternal grandfather Marshall had been fired from the Koppers Company
Store because of his drinking. My father bought that farm to put my mother’s father
out to pasture. Somehow, in spite of their drinking, my father and his brothers were
able to keep the family business, Marathon Coal Bit Company, going strong. All of
the Stephens brothers worked together, and true to the nature of a clan, they had each
other’s backs. The company stayed afloat, no matter which individual brother was
sinking under the pressure of life and which was coming back to the surface. They
took turns bobbing up and down, in a well-­choreographed alcoholic ballet, like ice
cubes in their beloved whiskey on the rocks. I learned the importance of collabora-
tion growing up in the midst of this in-­flux family landscape. Some things are just too
painful, and too complex to do alone.

Tomatoes
I loved to sneak down to my grandmother’s tomato patch in the afternoon while she
was napping. She had forbidden us to pick any of her tomatoes unless specifically in-
structed to do so. I knew that if I got caught with red seedy stains on my shirt or sticky
fingers, I would get a lickin’. I had to be careful sneaking through the tomato patch
Beth playing baseball
on the farm with
Grandmother’s garden
in the background, 1967.
Authors’ collection.

Beth on the pony Big

Red in the apple orchard
at the farm in Hillsville,
Virginia, 1967. Authors’
collection.
 Our Ec os ex H ers tories 33
in the hot Appalachian sun, carefully selecting the one ripe tomato that was ready to
burst its own skin and spill its magical nectar all over me. I would take my time mak-
ing my way over to the plumpest, juiciest fruit, mindful not to disturb other plants or
leave any trace. I’d pick my tomato and stealthily make an invisible exit, like a hunter.
Upon exiting the garden, I’d run to the hay barn where I had stashed a shaker of salt,
and I’d have my way with the sweetest, reddest, most succulent Big Girl around.

Galloping
I knew I was ecosexual when I had an out-­of-­body experience galloping through the
mountains on a fast, sweaty, sure-­footed pony. I was one with the animal beneath me.
I just egged that pony on and she went faster than the wind. Wrapping myself around
her animal body, hanging on for dear life—­hands in mane, reins let loose, legs grip-
ping for all I was worth. My heart was in my throat in rhythm with the drumming
of hooves on the ground, and the world was a watery blur of sweat and tears. The
slowdown, the cooldown, was a bit of a haze, and when I came back to my body I was
surprised to get off and walk away as a separate creature.

Nurturing
My dad was in his fifties when I was born. He knew how to make only two types of
food: milkshakes and chili. After my mother died, in 1968, we’d go to the farm, and
he would make us one big pot of beans, canned tomatoes, onions, and sautéed ham-
burger plus as many milkshakes as we could handle. On Sundays we went to the
little white wood-­frame Fairview Church, which was snuggled into the bend of Snake
Creek Road. The church was about twenty yards from where the farm’s dirt road inter-
sected the paved county road. I loved walking to and from the service on the dirt road
to our farm. There was a lot to do along the way. Returning home we’d wade in the
creek, pick blackberries, and throw rocks at each other. I can’t remember if Fairview
Church was Presbyterian or Methodist, but it wasn’t Baptist. The Baptist Church we
sometimes attended was all hellfire and brimstone, and when the service was over I
was always a little excited that I was probably going to hell.
The important thing about the Fairview Church wasn’t God. It wasn’t the music
either, given that the church members all sang out of rhythm and off-­key. The im-
portant thing about this church was the food that followed the service. Each Sunday,
as long as the weather held, there was a harvest feast with so much homegrown food
laid out that the long table boards would sway under the weight of the competing
apple pies, rhubarb pies, strawberry shortcake, fried chicken, fresh tomatoes, onions,
34 O u r E c o s e x H e r s t o r i e s
ramps in the spring, cornbread, watermelon, watermelon rind preserves, peach cob-
blers, blackberry and cherry jellies, apple butter, biscuits, and white bread.
Taking us to this little church was my father’s way of feeding his babies something
more than milkshakes and chili. Not that we weren’t happy with his culinary gifts, but
we weren’t getting a balanced diet. These people had all known my grandparents and
my mother, too. They were not certain about what to do with this widowed old man
and his two young motherless children. They did the only thing that they knew how
to do. They shared their food. That generosity influenced me deeply. Enjoying their
gifts provided me with a deep appreciation of what the Earth could provide, and that
was sublime.

Gardening
I planted my first garden after my maternal grandparents had become too elderly
to manage the hard, day-­to-­day labor of farm work. They moved to Kentucky to live
with their son, my Uncle Bob. I spent that winter/early spring on the farm, carefully
planning out my vegetable beds, just like my grandmother had taught me. I also con-
sulted the Farmers’ Almanac before I ordered seeds from the Burpee Seed catalog. Old
Man Dalton, our neighbor, drove over on his tractor and plowed a big garden plot in
a sunny field by the house. I’ve always loved getting my hands dirty and digging in the
ground. I happily cleaned out horse barns and used that manure to enrich the clumpy
red clay soil in my garden where I planted my seeds and watched those veggies grow.
Four big red geraniums, one at each corner of the garden for good luck, kept the bugs
away. I had bountiful crops that year with plenty to share with neighbors plus some
left over to preserve.
After living on the farm alone for a couple of years, I realized that loving West Vir-
ginia wasn’t enough to make West Virginia love me. My father desperately wanted me
to go to college, so I went to Alfred University in upstate New York. They say you can
take a girl out of West Virginia but you can’t take the West Virginia out of a girl. The
Appalachian Mountains would shape my future in ways I could not have imagined.

When I Knew: Annie

My ecosexuality could be traced all the way back to when I was floating in my mother’s
womb. However, my first actual memory of deriving sensual pleasure from nature was
when I was five, and my family moved from cold Pennsylvania to sunny California.
My parents bought us a house with a sparkling blue swimming pool in LA’s San Fer-
nando Valley. The first time I jumped into our pool and felt the rush of cold water,
 Our Ec os ex H ers tories 35
my heart beat fast, my lips tingled, toes curled—­it was pure body pleasure. The light
twinkled on the top of the water like fairy glitter. I took in the sound of the splash and
then the silence of being underwater. I became one with the water. I was a ballerina,
beautiful, graceful, and at peace. I loved the taste and scent of the chlorinated water.
I became renewed and refreshed. Even though I knew it was naughty, I peed in the
pool. It felt so good. They don’t call me Sprinkle for nothing.

Virgin Territory
When I was seven, my dad, Raymond Steinberg, discovered Yosemite and he fell in
love. Looking back, my dad and my mom, Lucille, must have been ecosexual too, even
if they didn’t know it. Every summer our family rented a cabin or pitched a tent at Yo-
semite’s Lake Tenaya for a week. That’s when the affair between me and the redwood
trees began. I liked them big, and they were huge! They were my tall, dark, and hard
yet very gentle giants. I loved their scent. I have a strong memory of coming across a
redwood tree that had fallen over in a storm. I walked around and peeked at its freshly
exposed, moist, soil-­encrusted roots. The roots were so soft and furry that I just had to
touch them.
When we camped, my family gathered wood together and made a fire. The flames
would start slowly, then build and dance and become raging hot and dance faster.
I loved to feel the heat on my skin, and I melted at the smell of the burning wood
and smoke. When I stared into the flames I would find so many pretty colors: reds,
oranges, yellows, blues, greens, even purples. The flames licked the wood with great
intensity. The logs glowed with embers, looking like a painting on black velvet. I
stared until the fire went completely out, then crawled into my flannel sleeping bag
on the ground and marveled at the stars.
When I was age thirteen to seventeen, my parents, three siblings, and I lived in
Panama, Central America. My dad worked for the U.S. Agency for International De-
velopment in Panama City. My mom was a teacher. Panama was a lush, emerald-­green
jungle paradise filled with fecund, sensual delights. My parents had trusted me and
gave me a lot of freedom. In my last semester of high school in Panama, I met my
first real boyfriend, Van Howell II. Van was a sweet, loving man who was twenty-­three
years old to my sweet sixteen. He owned the Golden Frog, a hippie coffee shop and
gathering place for young international travelers.
On our first date, I rode on the back of his motorcycle for an hour up the coast
to what the surfers called Tits Beach to spend the night with him in his parents’
beach house. The wind in my hair felt heavenly. We did what most young people
36 O u r E c o s e x H e r s t o r i e s

Every summer
Annie went camping
with her family
at Lake Tenaya in
Yosemite—­where
her ecosexuality
likely took root.
Authors’ collection.

did in 1969—­a hit of mescaline. The sky held just a sliver of a moon. But stars over
a beach on the equator can be abundant, and that night shooting stars lit the sky like
fireworks. The plankton-­filled waves glowed in the dark with phosphorescent glit-
ter, and they rhythmically massaged the sand. Nature was at her most glamorous
and seductive—­dripping in diamonds. My heart was open and pumping, my senses
aroused. We kissed, and I was in love for the first time. No one was around and I let
my heels dig into the warm wet sand. Van lifted my skirt and I let my knees fall open
like butterfly wings to welcome Van’s sweet, hungry tongue. He gave me head for the
first time, and it was nice, yet unfamiliar and strange. A wave spit on my belly, and the
Universe and I made an exquisite cosmic erotic connection. After a year of being to-
gether, Van and I went our separate ways, but my relationship with the Earth, Sky, and
Sea has remained strong to this day.
 Our Ec os ex H ers tories 37
Trance Plants
From the age of fourteen to eighteen, like millions of other people in the late six-
ties and early seventies, I experimented quite a bit with ingesting psychotropic plants.
Those were the times when I had very powerful interactions with the nonhuman
worlds. The psychotropic plants took me behind the scenes of everyday reality, into
alternate realities, which made it easier to see the invisible, and to sense the connec-
tion of all things. With psilocybin mushrooms I could see the auras of plants and
trees. When I chewed peyote buttons in an Arizona desert I could sense the spirit of
a saguaro cactus. Once I stood by a camping stove and watched water boil for an eter-
nity, and my mind was completely blown. Water was just amazing, and boiling water
seemed a miracle! These psychotropic plants taught me a variety of ways to feel ec-
stasy and pleasure, thereby teaching me more about my sexuality.
Just before turning nineteen, I moved to midtown Manhattan. For many years
the Big Apple satisfied all my needs. I didn’t have much use for spending time out-
side the city. Manhattan’s tall buildings were my majestic Grand Canyon. For more
than two decades, I had an exciting, creative, and mostly happy life in the mainstream
sex industry, working in fancy massage parlors as a prostitute, making adult movies,
working as a pinup model for sex magazines, and more. Looking back, I can see how I
really enjoyed the porn movie scenes that were shot outdoors. I loved splashing in the
mud during the occasional mud-­wrestling shoot. In my personal life, having sex in
the great outdoors was a rare treat. However, these kinds of activities were not about
making love with the nonhuman realms, but about using the nonhuman to enhance
the sex with another human—­or several.
On the occasions I did venture out of Manhattan into the country, it was mostly to
a private women’s retreat center near Woodstock to take or teach a workshop. Women
would gather there in summers to learn wise woman traditions. World-­famous herb-
alists, green goddesses, authors, midwives, witches, and natural healers came from hill
and dale to teach there. The center was a rustic old house with a barn at the edge of an
old rock quarry, surrounded by acres of woods, rivers, and waterfalls. There was a lake
that had a thick blanket of green algae across the top, but you could still swim in it.
Gardens, goats, geese, pet spiders, insects, and fairies were all part of the curriculum.
Women sang old songs around a blazing campfire about the goddess, fields of wheat,
poppies, and menstrual blood. We sang songs about rivers flowing into the sea, hoofs
and horns, death and rebirth. As a big-­city slut, singing these songs felt awkward and
silly; however, it was also wonderful to sing together about nature and the circle of
life. No one could deny that happy plants and organic food grew in wild abundance all
38 O u r E c o s e x H e r s t o r i e s
around the center, some of which we ate for meals and made into healing salves, teas,
and tinctures.
Every summer for ten years in a row (1990–­1999) I taught a four-­day Sacred Sex
workshop at the center. I was joined by my two sex goddess friends: Jwala, an inter-
national Tantra teacher, and Barbara Carrellas. The three of us were a really great
team. We taught the usual stuff about erotic massage, sex magic, G-­spots, and ecstatic
breathing. We also did a unique Sluts and Goddesses dress-­up and performance night.
Plus each year on day three, Linda M. Montano would join us as our special guest and
guide us all in a creative healing ceremony of some sort, which was always stunning.
On morning four of our workshop, when the attendees were ripe and ready, I’d
give them a special assignment to go out into the woods alone and have sex with
something in nature like a tree, rock, cloud, or a waterfall. Before they went off, I
coached them to use all of their senses: smell, touch, taste, lick, kiss, rub, or hump.
Sometimes I would do a little demo in which I’d lie across a hot granite boulder, kiss
it, lick and taste it, sniff it, hug it, hump it, and breathe it in. We’d all have a good
laugh, then off into the woods they would go. Two hours later, we gathered again in
a circle for the kiss-­and-­tell session. Most of the ladies were thrilled and excited to
share their stories and said things like:

“I made love with a waterfall, and it was the best sex I ever had.”

“It was amazing. I got totally into this lavender bush.”

“I never thought of doing this before but I had a great experience with some moss on
the rocks, and I can’t wait to do it again.”

“I fell asleep by the river and when I woke up there were ladybugs all over my body. It
was so beautiful I cried.”

There were usually a few women who couldn’t go there because sex with some-
thing nonhuman was way too weird and they were just not into it. Or they had
particularly bad allergies. Those who gave themselves permission to actually do the
assignment agreed that nature was one hell of a hot lover. I gave this same assignment
to a mixed-­gender group at the Body Electric School of Massage’s Cosmic Orgasm
Awareness Week workshop at Wildwood in northern California, which I co-­facilitated
with my beloved sacred intimate, Joseph Kramer.
 Our Ec os ex H ers tories 39
Exploring Inner and Outer Space
In the ’80s and early ’90s, I wrote articles and shot photos for hundreds of sex mag-
azines. I proposed a story about Harley SwiftDeer, a sex educator and shaman, for
Penthouse.1 Penthouse sent me to Michigan to attend his five-­day Quodoushka Work-
shop. Harley taught me the best-­ever sex technique of all sex techniques—­the fire
breath orgasm, also called the FBO. It’s a circular breathing technique to build, move
ecstasy energy into and up one’s body, and then out into an electric, pleasurable
energy-­orgasm release, explosion, or stream. The FBO can be utilized in many ways:
for hotter partner sex, physical healing, emotional clearing, spiritual nourishment,
meditation, and relaxation.
When I saw Harley’s more advanced students demonstrate the FBO, I knew I had
to learn it. I practiced the FBO at home in my bedroom for a couple of years. But
it wasn’t until the day that I practiced the FBO in Central Park by the lake that I re-
ally got it, and had my first big energy orgasm. It’s a nongenital orgasm so it can be
done with clothes on in public places. Watching the light on the water, breathing
in the scent of the soil, and hearing the sounds of the pigeons around me were just
the inspiration I needed to get me over the energy orgasm hump. Learning the FBO
resulted in a paradigm shift for me. I learned to feel sexual excitement on a more en-
ergetic level. Over the years that followed, I taught Fun with Ecstasy Breathing and
Energy Orgasms workshops to thousands of people around the world and always
tried to teach it outdoors. It was always better outside. Having learned the FBO defi-
nitely influenced my later years of ecosexual practices.
Central Park wasn’t the only place a girl could get ecosexy in Manhattan. In fact,
I could do it right from my eleventh floor high-­rise apartment at Lexington and
Twenty-­seventh Street. One morning I was lying on my living room couch mastur-
bating with my Hitachi magic wand when I looked out my window and spotted a big,
white, puffy cloud. I found myself fantasizing that the cloud was a lover, and it was
watching me, coming closer to me, then enveloping me in its pillowy puffs. Why limit
fantasies to being only about people? This triggered a series of intense clitoral or-
gasms accompanied by a burst of deep emotion and tears (crygasms). As I came out of
my glow, I decided to ask the cloud, without words, Is this for real? Am I totally nuts?
In that moment a red helium balloon floated up into the sky and pierced the cloud,
like Cupid’s arrow. I took this to be a sign that indeed our love was real. For a while I
didn’t speak to anyone about this experience, but then my friend Loraine Hutchins
asked me to write something for her anthology Bi Any Other Name, the first anthology
about bisexuality.2 My piece was called “Beyond Bisexual,” and I told the story of the
40 O u r E c o s e x H e r s t o r i e s
cloud. Mine was a love that dared not speak its name, because there wasn’t a name for
it then. Now there is. Ecosex.

Come to Me, Said the Sea

In the summer of my fortieth birthday, Mary Dorman, a lover at the time, took me to
her beach house in Orient Point on Long Island several times. One sunny day I was in
the ocean, floating on my back when I heard the Sea whisper into my ear, “You can’t
resist me. Come to me. We need each other.” The voice was so strong that I went back
to Manhattan, packed up my life, and went to live by the Sea. I ended up in Province­
town where I rented a house right on the beach. It was heavenly. I often went whale
watching and fell in love with the humpback whales. To this day, one of my favorite
things is when a whale swims alongside the boat and blows air out of its blowhole
and I get a big whiff of its stinky breath. Breathing whale breath bonds me with these
magnificent beings.
After a couple of years the Pacific Ocean beckoned me, so I moved west and rented
a delightful two-­story wooden floating home in Sausalito, which moved up and down
with the tides. The multicolored sunsets that reflected on the water were my greatest
source of spiritual inspiration. I bought a rowboat so I could get up close and per-
sonal with the harbor seals, great blue heron, and snowy egrets. I swore I’d never live
on land again, but sadly I lost the houseboat (and most all that I owned) in a fire when
I was out of town.

Early Bug Abuse

Not all of my ecosexual experiences have been positive. Between the ages of seven and
nine my younger sister chased me with beetles, praying mantises, caterpillars, and
other creepy crawlers. I’d run screaming into the relative safety of the bathroom and
slam and lock the door. She would then put the bugs under the door and they would
crawl toward me while she laughed and taunted me. This created some trauma. My
sister has since apologized and I’m healing slowly. I’m still afraid of bugs, particu-
larly palmetto water bugs (gigantic cockroaches), and sadly I have never been able to
garden other than to water the plants. I’m an ardent sprinkler. In the meantime I’ll
glamp instead of camp.
 t wo

F I R S T COM E S A R T,
THEN COMES MARRIAGE

This is the story of how the two of us met, fell in love, and started to work together. It was collab-
oration at first sight. In this chapter we have chosen to each tell our own side of this love story, to
represent the time before our voices become one, plus one.

beth  The seeds of our future together were sown when, as curator, I included one
of Annie’s tit prints in Outrageous Desire: The Aesthetics and Politics of Rep-
resentation in Recent Works by Gay and Lesbian Artists (October 21–­November
8, 1991), a show of queer visual art at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New
Jersey. Tit prints are Fluxus-­inspired monoprints that Annie made using her
breasts as paint brushes and printing plates. While I had not yet met her, I had
seen Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle and read Andrea Juno and V. Vale’s interview with
her in the Angry Women issue of the RE/Search Publications series.1
Annie had been touring her one-­woman show Post-­Porn Modernist and
recently published her autobiographical book with the same title. I loved how
Annie talked about sex and sexuality at that particular moment during the
Culture Wars, when sex had become highly political.2 The U.S. government’s
dismissal of the HIV/AIDS health crisis was killing gay men and heavily im-
pacting the art world. This fueled many gay and lesbian artists and activists to
use their art as a form of protest.
As a queer artist I was excited to be part of this art scene. The curatorial
committee, including my professor Geoffrey Hendricks, knew Annie’s work
and agreed that she had queered her own sexuality through her celebration of
sex in her public performance art works and her years of sex work. Additionally,
I wanted to include Annie because she reminded me of the tool-­girl calendars
42 F i r s t C o m e s A r t
in my family’s machine shop. I thought that she was hot, and I wanted her to be
in this show.
I drove to Manhattan to pick up Annie’s artwork at her apartment, and we met
for the first time. Upon arriving at 90 Lexington Avenue, I was introduced to the
Sprinkle Salon, a sort of kinky Andy Warhol Factory–­esque center for sex-­related
art and activism. Annie handed me her tit print, and I took it back to Rutgers.
When the exhibition closed, I drove back to Manhattan to return Annie’s tit
print, and she invited me in for tea. By the time we had emptied our cups, Annie
had graciously given me the tit print that I was trying to return to her. That tit
print had been made with her former boyfriend, artist Willem de Ridder, who
had cosigned it. It was a real treasure.
Annie’s willingness to participate in the exhibit emboldened me to ask her
to model for photographs for my graduate thesis exhibition. She was in the
process of moving out of the sex industry and making more art projects, which
were gaining recognition during this time. She already had gallery representa-
tion in Amsterdam at Torch Gallery and in Brussels at the Aeroplastics Gallery.3
Annie consented to model for my interactive photo installation Who’s Zoomin’
Who? Lessons in Photography (1992).
On the day of the shoot, I picked up Annie in Manhattan, and we got to know
each other better during the drive to Rutgers, followed by several hours work-
ing in the photo studio. Annie and I posed together while my fellow classmates
Michael Longford and Diane Bonder assisted while we improvised the queer
pinup look that I desired. As an experienced model and photographer, Annie
was able to help direct the shoot.4 Over the course of many years she had mod-
eled professionally for numerous sex magazines, art publications, and artists.
Annie loved creating for the camera, and cameras loved her back.
I might not have made this work if I hadn’t gone to Rutgers for my MFA.
Rutgers was a hotbed of Fluxus activity, especially throughout the sixties and
seventies. It was a great place to be experimental and to take risks. Geoffrey was
the only out gay member of the Fluxus movement. There was also Martha
Rosler, an amazing artist and critical thinker, who taught me how to think
about films and images critically and with their political implications in
mind. My classmates included Diane Bonder, filmmaker Cheryl Dunye,
artist-­theoretician Tina Takemoto, and intermedia performance artist
Angela Ellsworth.5
 F irs t C om es Art 43

Annie made this tit print in collaboration with her boyfriend, Dutch Fluxus artist Willem de
Ridder. Beth included it in the art exhibition Outrageous Desire she curated at Rutgers University.
It was through this tit print that we first met. Authors’ collection.

It was an extraordinary moment, place, and time to be coming of age as a

queer artist. I knew that my MFA exhibition was controversial. Ironically, I was
offered a professorship at UC Santa Cruz because of this work.
annie  When Beth called me to pose for Who’s Zoomin’ Who? in 1991, I had been
on the road doing Post-­Porn Modernist, which toured for five years in sixteen
countries. I was jet-­lagged and cranky and not up for doing anything, but she
44 F i r s t C o m e s A r t
charmed me over the phone. Plus, I really did love collaborating with artists, so
how could I say no?
During the shoot she was flirty, but at the time she was in a serious relation-
ship with a woman sculptor, and I wasn’t particularly interested in being with a
woman—­I had boyfriends and trans lovers. The only sex we had that day was for
the camera: softcore, stop and go, and prop heavy. Nevertheless, it was a bond-
ing experience, and over the following years we stayed in touch.

Peekaboo Theory with Tailpipes

beth  The final images were composed of Annie posing with me on my shiny
black Harley 883. In the early nineties everyone was reading poststructuralist,
psychoanalytic feminist film theory. My queering of the male gaze was a spoof
on Laura Mulvey’s theorization of the male gaze in cinema, which placed the
spectator in the position of the heterosexual male who looked at and objec-
tified women.6 Mulvey didn’t leave much room for the lesbian, so I thought I
would create some room for myself. As a young dyke who had been raised in
the patriarchal culture of West Virginia, I identified with and even embraced
certain aspects of that male gaze—­hence using Annie to reference the tool-­girl
calendars of my youth.
My Rutgers exhibition at Mason Gross Gallery consisted of five large (48x48
inch) color photographs and a dozen or so smaller (24x24 inch) black-­and-­white
photos of Annie posing as a tool girl and me posing with her as the photogra-
pher. They were displayed on the walls while my motorcycle rotated slowly atop
a large, round, mechanized platform in the center of the gallery floor, accompa-
nied by a tongue-­in-­cheek video that provided instructions for the audience to
make their own tool-­girl photos.
The exhibition celebrated butch lesbian desire and the sexualized lesbian
body at a time when queer critics were reinterrogating what a female/lesbian gaze
might be. It is significant that I didn’t actually take the pictures but was equally
objectified. In the early ’90s, the butch, who had been alternately ignored and
vilified, was finally seen as really hot. Ironically, Annie, in her traditional femme
pinup-­girl glory was enticing, but it was the leather dyke with her bike and dildo-­
like camera that made the shoot erotic and controversial, even for Rutgers.
Senator Jesse Helms, best known for his attack on the NEA Four, also
attacked the Kitchen, a black-­box performance, film, and music art space in
Manhattan that used its NEA funding to partially support Annie’s Post-­Porn
 F irs t C om es Art 45

For Beth’s thesis at Rutgers, she produced a photo shoot with us posing on her Harley. Who’s
Zoomin’ Who? explored the female gaze. The photographs became a gallery installation along with
video and performance; Beth’s Harley was a centerpiece on a rotating pedestal. Photograph by
Diane Bonder. Authors’ collection.

Modernist show.7 Once Annie transitioned out of the sex industry and became
an artist, it was suddenly open season on her work. Dana Rohrabacher, the
Republican congressman from California’s 48th district, jumped on the moral
panic bandwagon and went after Annie, claiming that taxpayer dollars were
being “flushed into the sewer of fetishism, depravity and pornography.”8
Annie, who was accustomed to controversy, looked on the bright side of this
attack and credited Helms and Rohrabacher for actually helping her career by
46 F i r s t C o m e s A r t
calling attention to her work in the mass media. And she was right! Ironically,
if Helms hadn’t targeted NEA funding for the arts, I might not have met Annie,
who became more famous as a result of their attempt to censor her work. In the
Battle of Love versus Hate, Love wins again.
Who’s Zoomin’ Who? was made at a time when disobedient bodies embracing
nonnormative sexualities were seen as the antidote to the homophobia that
accompanied the AIDS pandemic. Art was one of the best ways to counter the
moral panic and homophobia that had taken over the United States in the wake
of AIDS. The iconic presence of Annie, who by that time was easily recognized,
signified that pro-­porn stance. Pro-­pleasure desire was political, a reaction
against the Republican right-­wing discourse of hygiene and moral laxity that
was leveled against queers and other marginalized communities. My work used
the codes of patriarchal desire to reveal marginalized lesbian desire, a nonhet-
ero identity that was virtually invisible in popular culture.9 This use of visual
and sexual pleasure would eventually inform our construction of ecosexuality
and the ecosexual gaze, which is premised on looking and physically experienc-
ing the Earth through an embodied vision and with desire.

Westward Hoes
annie  Perhaps it was destiny that we both ended up moving to San Francisco after
we had known each other on the East Coast. In the fall of 1994, Beth moved
west when she was hired at UCSC. I moved to a houseboat in Sausalito shortly
after to be closer to my family in Los Angeles. We had stayed in touch, so I went
to some of her gallery openings. She invited me to speak in her sculpture class.
As part of my artist talk, I demonstrated a breath and energy orgasm with my
clothes on. Afterwards, I invited students to ask questions by writing them down
on little scraps of paper and placing them in a hat. I didn’t want anyone to be
embarrassed. The question that stood out to me was, “How could you have ever
been a prostitute?” I responded, “Everyone needs and deserves to be touched.”
My visit to campus became controversial when a crew from 60 Minutes
filmed a formal public lecture I gave about my life and work. They were on cam-
pus documenting sex week and filmed my lecture (unbeknownst to me). The
possibility of having me, a prostitute and porn star, as somehow representative
of UCSC on national television caused concern with the administration. Beth
pointed out that my book Post-­Porn Modernist was in the school library.10 She
 F irs t C om es Art 47
weathered the controversy well. I was impressed by her courage and willingness
to take risks at her job, even before she was tenured.
Beth and I remained casual friends and colleagues for a few more years until
the fateful night I attended an Eileen Myles poetry reading the evening of my
graduation, when I earned my PhD in human sexuality.11 I became the first
porn star to receive a doctorate of philosophy in the United States. My good
friend Joe Kramer was my date that night.12 I had just been telling Joe that I felt
ready for a new lover relationship when we ran into Beth and she chatted us
up. Later, he pointed out that Beth had been flirting with me. I thought she was
simply being friendly. Joe liked her and suggested I call her for a date, which I
did. For the first time in the ten years we’d known each other, Beth and I were
both single at the same time.
On our first date at my house in Marin County, I offered to do a tarot reading
for her. She picked some cards, we discussed them, then she started sharing
some intimate details about herself. Suddenly, she kissed me long and hard. In
that kiss I felt her power, her experience, her joy, and her creativity. It was love at
first kiss. The kiss turned into three days and nights of hot, creative sex.
We left the house only once, when I invited her to join me for my therapy
appointment. We had a couples therapy session in the middle of our first date.
I learned that her mother passed away when she was seven, so she had aban-
donment issues. She learned that I had a tendency toward co-­dependence and
compulsive overeating. From our first date we began collaborating as creative
partners. Everything we did together turned into photos, video, love poems, and
projects. Sex became our private performance art, and many ideas and public
performances were inseminated during pillow talk.

Easy Riders
beth  Annie and I hooked up just as we were going in two different directions in
pursuit of our separate careers. I was just about to hop into an old VW camper
and drive across the country for a road trip/adventure performance Wish You
Were Here (2002). Annie was booked to do a weeklong run of her one-­woman
show Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn at the Center for Contemporary Arts in the
Glasgay! Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. Annie invited me to join her in Scotland.
How could I say no? I decided to go with Annie in the middle of Wish You Were
Here and finish the trip after I returned.
48 F i r s t C o m e s A r t
Wish You Were Here was a conceptual web-­based project where armchair
travelers requested site-­specific personalized performances in public spaces
as I passed through. First, I sent out an explanation of the project and a call for
people to send me requests for projects they wanted me to accomplish while
traveling. The project’s website had three main parts: the Project page described
requests, the Collectania page had maps of my location and the places where
I fulfilled the requests, and the Fulfillment page showed the results of each
completed project.13
For example, Angela Ellsworth, my fellow grad at Rutgers, charged me
with addressing people who had been segregated from mainstream society by
making a sound and a movement that would represent this state of separation.
Angela sent me to Palmyra, New York, where Mormonism was founded, in
order to perform the piece. On the way to Palmyra I was to think about an inci-
dent that made me feel separate from society and prepare a sound and a gesture
to make when I arrived.
In Palmyra I lay down at the foot of a statue of the Angel Moroni (the angel
who had presented the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith on tablets). I made
a bowl-­shaped marble sculpture that fit on my belly while I lay on my back. I
lifted it toward Moroni by breathing and arching my back, while whistling on
the exhale. Annie stealthily documented my performance for Angela in Palmyra
with a video camera while trying not to offend the passing Mormons who might
take exception to our performance-­art happening at their sacred site. We com-
pleted the performance and had a blast doing this piece without getting caught.
All in all, I had fourteen requests that I worked on simultaneously as I drove
across the United States. I finally made it to Hamilton College in upstate New
York, where Annie was staying as a visiting artist. We then drove to Linda M.
Montano’s Art/Life Institute in Kingston, where I attended Annie’s Club 90
feminist porn-­star support group gathering. Club 90 was a group that started
in 1985 and continues today. The core members were Annie’s close friends:
Veronica Vera, Candida Royalle, Veronica Hart, and Gloria Leonard. In later
years Barbara Carrellas and Linda became part of this friendship network. I
really enjoyed meeting Annie’s old friends, and they seemed to approve of me,
too. Then we jumped in the van and traveled together back through upstate
New York and then to New England, continuing to work on Wish You Were Here
along the way.
 F irs t C om es Art 49
Somewhere in a rural area near Portland, Maine, my Volkswagen camper van
started to sputter, and then it broke down. Annie took it in stride as we gazed at
the moon and stars, thoroughly enjoying the hours-­long wait for AAA. We each
liked how the other handled this unanticipated problem. Eventually, the van got
fixed, we visited more friends, had more sex in the van, and then Annie had to
go back to work. It was hard to tear ourselves apart, but we did so in New York
City. Fortunately it was only for a week.
Annie sent me a ticket to come to Glasgow, Scotland, to join her. We stayed
together in a cozy artist apartment right above the theater. What a happy, lusty
trip that was, with hours of juicy sex before and after Annie’s shows. It was fun
to hang out with her in the theater. I had not imagined being in a theater piece
before, but that trip planted the seed that maybe one day I would find myself on
the stage, too.
We were heels over head (at least in Annie’s case—­I was more boots than
heels) in love and wanted to spend as much time as possible together. There was
a desire to perform together, but we had some concerns. We knew that it could
change or even ruin our solo careers. I was an assistant professor and Annie
worried that her reputation as porn-­star-­turned-­performance-­artist could im-
pact my academic career. Annie’s income at the time came from her one-­woman
theater work based on her former sex worker self, and that wasn’t going to
change any time soon. Annie was a seasoned, relatively well-­known performer,
while I had absolutely no theater experience except for performance art. Annie
also had reservations about collaboration because she had traveled with a previ-
ous girlfriend who was also her production manager, and that had ended badly.
I had reservations too because I feared I might be getting in over my head. We
decided to go for it anyway.

Renting the U-­Haul

annie  Several months into our relationship my landlady told me that she had sold
my Marin rental so I had to move. A day later, Beth’s housemate Tim told her
he was going to move into his own place. Suddenly, I needed a home and Beth
needed a housemate. We decided to try living together. It all happened fast, like
the old joke about lesbian and gay men dating.
What does a lesbian bring on her second date?
A U-­Haul.
50 F i r s t C o m e s A r t
What does a gay man bring on his second date?
What second date?
One cold winter day, after we were already shacked up, we received an email
announcing that Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, would host a gala
domestic partner commitment ceremony at city hall in March 2003 for any
couples who wanted to become legal domestic partners. Mayor Brown would
officiate. We definitely weren’t the marrying types. We had issues with legal mar-
riage, especially since the current legal system discriminated against unmarried
people. However, the U.S. war in Afghanistan had just started, and we wanted
to do something. Becoming domestic partners was an assertion of Love in the
face of the war and a gesture of defiance against the patriarchal system that had
resulted in that conflict.
Plus, I would get Beth’s health insurance benefits from her university,
which were wasted by not being used. As a freelance artist, I never had health
insurance. With so many uninsured people in the United States, it was a
political act for Beth to give me that excellent coverage. So along with thirty-­
three other couples of various orientations—­mostly same-­sex couples, some
trans, and a few hetero couples—­we signed up and embarked on our first
performance as a couple.
Piedmont Boutique, my favorite clothing store on Haight Street at Ash-
bury, made our wedding costumes. They had made most of my costumes and
clothing for years—­and still do to this day. I wore a white and silver floor-­length
turkey feather–­trimmed stripper-­style duster over a shiny silver holographic
disco dress with slits, and Beth had an extravagantly sparkly silver tuxedo with a
white satin collar made to match. We looked fabulous.

Sowing the Seeds for Future Wedding Collaborations

beth  On March 25, 2003, Annie and I became legal domestic partners. The group
wedding was a gala affair that included performances by the San Francisco Gay
Men’s Chorus, the Believers (the world’s first transgender choir), a five-­tiered
wedding cake, friends and families of the brides and grooms, and city hall. Each
couple said “I do” in the rotunda and then walked hand in hand down the grand
marble staircase, produced their IDs, and signed legal documents. It was a
glorious, magical night. A city hall janitor was assigned to follow Annie around
with a broom and dustpan because she was leaving a trail of white turkey feath-
ers on the marble floor.
 F irs t C om es Art 51
This experience led us to recognize the power that large-­scale ceremonies
have to generate feelings of connectedness, not only between the parties directly
involved but with communities at large. We realized how the wedding ritual
could be used as a platform from which we could speak about political issues
and transmit different kinds of messages regarding Love to our audiences. This
was especially relevant because of the mystique of the wedding in just about
every culture on Earth. We were surprised by how much the domestic partner
ceremony meant to the participating queers and nonqueers alike.
During the reception, it became clear that we did not exactly share the same
agenda as the same-­sex marriage movement. While most of the other couples
were discussing the legalization of same-­sex marriage over cake, we were speak-
ing with print journalists and TV news reporters regarding the need for peace
and better communication in the face of the recent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
in a misguided retaliation for 9/11. A newscaster asked us about our partnership.
We chose to speak about how love can heal wounds and how our expressions of
love should be extended to the conflict in Afghanistan.
In their quest for equal rights, the queer community chose to rally around
two primary fronts: the legal recognition of same-­sex marriage and the oppor-
tunity for gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Significantly, the
LGBTQIA+ community was fighting to be given the same rights that cisgender
humans enjoyed. We saw parallels between the othering of queers and of Mus-
lims. By participating in the group civil ceremony and speaking with the media,
we hoped to draw attention to the way that contemporary society continued to
marginalize and discriminate against those viewed as different and less than
human. We made the national news, all the way back to West Virginia, where my
family happened to catch us on TV.
Several months after the ceremony things began moving fast on the same-­
sex marriage front. Massachusetts gave the green light for same-­sex marriage
in November.14 In response, Gavin Newsom, the newly elected mayor of San
Francisco, announced that same-­sex couples could get married in his city as
well. Between February and March 2004, four hundred couples legally mar-
ried, only to be halted by the California Supreme Court, which invalidated the
marriages later that year. All of this activity inspired a flurry of other states to
declare that the ban on same-­sex marriage was unconstitutional, and eventually
the Supreme Court would agree. Still, Annie and I wouldn’t get legally married
in the United States until many years later.
52 F i r s t C o m e s A r t
Rather than basking in the security afforded by our legal domestic partner-
ship, we realized that we could mobilize the wedding ceremony itself to bring
groups of people together to performatively explore broader political issues
while garnering media attention for the messages we valued and wanted to
spread. Instead of our ceremony being a means to a happily-­ever-­after ending,
it was a means to engage further political conversation, build community, and
generate love. Performing weddings became the heart of our work for the next
seven years.
 three

THE MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION

OF THE LOVE ART LAB

Soon after our March 2003 domestic partner ceremony, Linda M. Montano issued
an invitation through the Franklin Furnace newsletter. She was seeking collaborators
for her ongoing project Another Twenty-­One Years of Living Art (1998–­2019), a continu-
ation of Seven Years of Living Art (1991–­98).1 We both loved Linda’s piece so we eagerly
applied. We proposed to do a series of projects about love, and a big wedding perfor-
mance each year for the duration of the seven years. Each year would revolve around
the theme and color of a chakra. Linda accepted about a dozen other artists, who each
did various versions of Linda’s seven-­year piece.
Linda accepted our project as a satellite project instead of being part of the main
group of collaborators. The Catholic Church was not in favor of same-­sex marriage,
so Linda was uncomfortable with making us collaborators. Linda had been raised
Catholic. As a young woman, for two years she had even been a novice with the Mary-
knoll Sisters community, dedicated to overseas missions to help the poor, ailing,
and marginalized. To this day, she still attends Catholic services routinely. We loved
and respected Linda and wanted to collaborate with her regardless. We were not the
only satellite artists; there were two others. Given the nature of our work, we realized
that operating as satellites on the periphery of her project provided us with more
freedom while still maintaining a close association with her project. Thankfully we
worked it out.
Linda’s chakra framework provided a template for organizing our collaborative
weddings and related projects. Engaging with her structure meant that we would be
practicing life-­as-­art for a long time! We named our project the Love Art Laboratory
(aka the Love Art Lab) as an homage to Linda’s Art/Life Institute (where Annie and
Veronica Vera had attended Summer Saint Camp). As a professor at a major research
54 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
institution, Beth was encouraged to follow the scientific model and frame her art as
research to give it academic legitimacy. Calling our project the Love Art Lab worked
for us, especially since those seven years of work helped Beth get promoted to full
professor!
At the beginning of the project we launched our website, loveartlab.org.2 As we
went along, we would post our upcoming plans, event dates, invitations, and calls for
collaborators. It was incredibly useful for producing our events and posting our an-
nual artist statements, and it still exists as an online archive.

The Love Art Laboratory Structure Wh

YEAR ONE Red Perineum Security, survival

YEAR TWO Orange Genital area Sexuality, creativity

YEAR THREE Yellow Solar plexus Power, courage

YEAR FOUR Green Heart Love, compassion

YEAR FIVE Blue Throat Communication

YEAR SIX Purple Third eye Intuition

YEAR SEVEN White Crown of the head Transcendence

We Do!
The inaugural launch of the Love Art Laboratory and our first wedding, the Red Wed-
ding, took place on December 18, 2004, at the Collective Unconscious Theater in
Lower Manhattan. Previously this space had been the Harmony Burlesque, where
Annie had performed Post-­Porn Modernist for the first time in 1988. Around the corner
Annie did her first performances at the Franklin Furnace. Beth was familiar with the
neighborhood as one of her former lovers lived right down the street, and she had
frequented the local art venues and clubs during and after her graduate studies at Rut-
gers. The space had good memories for both of us, and we were thrilled to perform
the Red Wedding there. The Collective Unconscious had red lights, red chairs, and red
flocked wallpaper, which also made it perfect for the occasion.
Unlike our domestic partnership ceremony where a legal commitment was rec-
ognized, the Red Wedding was not a binding ceremony. Same-­sex marriage would
not be made legal in New York until 2011. We had actually booked an appointment
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 55
to be legally married after San Francisco Love Art Lab Artist
Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized the Statement Wh
city clerk to issue marriage licenses in
2004, but our appointment was canceled We, Elizabeth M. Stephens and Annie M.
when the California Supreme Court an- Sprinkle, are an artist couple committed
nulled the first marriages. Denied our to doing projects that explore, generate,
legal wedding, we had the Red Wedding and celebrate love. We utilize visual art,
instead. Even though the Red Wedding installation, theater pieces, interventions,
was a performance, we took it very seri- live art, exhibitions, lectures, printed
ously on a personal level. It was the first matter, and activism. Each year we
time either of us would commit to be in a orchestrate one or more interactive
relationship that would last at least seven performance art weddings in collaboration
years. For us it was a big commitment! with various national and international
Of course, it did cross our minds that at communities, then display the ephemera
any point we might stop getting along and documentation in art galleries and
and want to escape the seven-­year com- museums. Our projects utilize a seven-­year
mitment. But we didn’t spend very much structure created by Linda M. Montano,
time or energy on that. We figured that if as per her Twenty-­One Years of Living Art,
we ended our personal relationship, we where each year explores a different theme
could still collaborate on art projects and and color. The Love Art Laboratory grew
make some good work about breaking out of our response to the violence of war,
up, along the lines of Geoff Hendricks the anti–­gay marriage movement, and our
and Nye Ffarrabas or Marina Abramović prevailing culture of greed. Our projects are
and Ulay.3 In the meantime, we made our symbolic gestures intended to help make
Red Wedding very romantic. the world a more tolerant, generative, and
Red Wedding was by invitation only, peaceful place.
as the theater had only ninety seats, al-
though we managed to squeeze in 120
people! The guest list was eclectic: a mix of academics, artists, and porn stars. Ve-
ronica and Candida, Annie’s close friends from Club 90, were her maids of honor.
Beth’s bridal groomsdyke party consisted of three of her ex-­lovers and Best Dyke
Diane Bonder. Geoff served as our Flux Priest, requesting that we provide him with
a dirty altar boy, played by artist Anthony Viti. In lieu of gifts, we invited our guests to
collaborate on the creation of the wedding and dress in red for the occasion. Angela
Ellsworth created a pearl-­encrusted red wedding bouquet sculpture for Annie and a
matching bling necklace for Beth.4
56 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
During the ceremony, Geoff per-
formed his signature headstand wearing
bells and displaying messages of love
dangling from his feet. Tina Takamoto
was the ring bearer. Sheila Pepe, who
described our wedding as “Fluxus meets
Broadway in a whorehouse,” made a Red
Wedding chuppah, the traditional Jewish
wedding canopy, out of woven and knot-
ted red tennis-­shoe strings. Transgender
activist and writer Kate Bornstein served
as our deejay. Bornstein is Barbara Car-
rellas’s partner, but Barbara had to be
persuaded to attend. A longtime foe of
weddings, she agreed to join us only after
we suggested that she do an antiwedding
performance for the fair witnessing,
when the officiant asks, “Does anyone
object to this wedding? Speak now or for-
ever hold your peace.” Barbara Carrellas’s
Top Ten Reasons Why Marriage Should Be
Abolished turned out to be a highlight of
the ceremony.
We liked Barbara objecting to the
wedding so much that we incorporated
the fair witness section into our subse-
quent weddings. Sometimes we handed
out Barbara’s text as a flyer, and some-
times we planted an objector to speak
out. Giving voice to the objections always
created some drama and gave voice to the
criticisms that a lot of people, including
ourselves, are thinking.
Red Wedding Artist
Statement Wh
when the war broke out two years
ago we became legal domestic partners
to propose love as an alternative vision
to the war. Then there was the flurry of
gay weddings across the country. This
incited the right wing to propose an
antigay marriage amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which was a thinly disguised
and hateful proposition, intended to
discriminate against Americans seeking
alternative family structures. We were angry
and disappointed when the California
Supreme Court stopped these weddings
just one day before our scheduled marriage
appointment at city hall.
our seven years of love as art is
intended to share our love with our friends,
family, community, and beyond. Through
generating and celebrating love we hope to
bring about positive change.
on a more personal note, both of
us are excited to make a longer and more
meaningful commitment to each other.
We want to explore the deepest realms of
romantic, sexual, and familial love that we
are capable of exploring.
 Barbara Carrellas ’ s Top Ten
Reasons Why Marriage Should
Be Abolished !!! Wh
1. Weddings are too expensive. The billions of dollars
spent on weddings could be put to better use.
2. Weddings take too much planning and are too
stressful. Imagine what social miracles we could create
if we channeled all that energy and brainpower into
efforts for world peace.
3. Divorce is expensive, messy, and painful. Without
marriage, people wouldn’t need divorce. They could
simply break up and get on with their lives.
4. Marriage once managed important legal and social
issues, such as the perpetuation of the species, the
granting of property rights, and the protection of
bloodlines. Our legal system now handles these
issues. Women no longer need marriage for monetary
support, and most men know how to cook and do
laundry.
5. Marriage is too limiting. You can only be married to
one person at a time.
6. Marriage is unnecessary for effective child rearing.
Raising a child can be done by one or two or more
committed people in any form of relationship.
7. Marriage glorifies the romantic myth, an unrealistic
and impossible idealization of relationships.
8. Married people are allowed more than 2,700 financial
and social benefits that unmarried people are denied.
The elimination of marriage would help create a more
fair, more just society.
9. The separation of church and state is a good thing.
The separation of relationships and state is an even
better thing.
10. On a spiritual level all relationships are eternal;
therefore marriage is redundant.
58 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
An Art Gallery Finds Us!
In 2005, as we were nearing the end of the Love Art Lab’s Red Year, Madison Young
invited us to exhibit our work at her gallery Femina Potens, located in a tucked-­away
industrial space in San Francisco’s Mission District. It was a recently opened Do It
Yourself (DIY) space, relatively small and modest. Madison, in her early twenties at
the time, was fairly inexperienced. When we received the invitation, we weren’t even
sure if it was a serious invitation or not. We couldn’t say no, though, especially when
we found out that Madison paid the rent for the gallery by working as a porn star who
specialized in extreme bondage and anal sex scenes. We liked her a lot and respected
her efforts to create a feminist, queer community space, so we accepted her offer.
Having a show lined up every year or two would be a good opportunity to get
visual artwork made, as we tend to be most productive on a deadline. These exhibi-
tions inspired us to create new visual works and test new performances in addition
to exhibiting our wedding ephemera. During the seven years of the Love Art Lab,
Madison mounted five exhibitions of our work organized around our wedding years
and ephemera.

Cuddle: An Interspecies Collaboration

Our first exhibit at Femina Potens was called I Do and featured our Red Wedding
ephemera. During the month-­long exhibition, we premiered Cuddle, which would be-
come one of our most popular performances. We did it once a week. At the time, we
had a rescued black Labrador retriever named Bob. Bob loved to cuddle between us in
bed, and that made us so happy that we wanted to share this joy and experience with
others. We installed a double bed, a sign-­up sheet, instructions, and a timer in the
middle of the space. In honor of the Red Year theme of security we made a bedspread
with the word security printed on it, thereby creating a security blanket.
Once each week we donned red fleece cuddle outfits that we had made special at
Haight Ashbury’s Piedmont Boutique and spent five hours cuddling gallery visitors,
who were invited to remove their shoes and socks and snuggle between us under our
security blanket. We then set the timer for seven minutes.
Sometimes the person wanted to talk, or spoon, or play footsies. Sometimes they
simply wanted to be held in silence. All kinds of people would come for a cuddle—­
even some of Annie’s old porn fans. We never turned anyone away. Bob would join
in the puppy pile, unless the person didn’t want him in bed. Bob loved it, and he may
have had the most fun of all.
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 59
Cuddle was subsequently performed at the Center for Contemporary Art in
Glasgow, Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, and the Vortex Theatre in
Austin, Texas. Once we did Cuddle at a fundraising event for the Center for Sex and
Culture in San Francisco. Our cuddling proved to be the most popular and lucra-
tive of the evening’s offerings, surpassing lap dances, spankings, and peep shows.
We retired Cuddle after a couple of years. (Bob died in 2014.) In 2017, we would revive
Cuddle to protest closing borders and immigrant/refugee detention centers in the
age of Trump.

Pregnancy and Panties

Included in our I Do exhibit were Maybe Baby, as well as the Porn Star/Academic
Bronzed Panty Collection. During the Red Year we were so in love and excited about the
possibilities of Life as Art that we decided to try to have a baby. We went to a San Fran-
cisco sperm bank to do research. The receptionist handed us a catalog full of donor
profiles whose frozen sperm was available for purchase. When we realized how ex-
pensive it would be, we shuddered to think of all the free sperm we had squandered
over the years. There were so many choices that picking a sperm donor became over-
whelming. We decided to do a performance and let our audience help us choose. We
read the descriptions of ten possible sperm donors out loud. Then we asked ten vol-
unteers from the audience to each represent one of the donors. We played Peaches’
signature song “Fuck the Pain Away” and held a sperm dance-­off contest. The most
experimental and energetic dancer’s donor profile was the sperm we chose. After a
year of inseminating with frozen sperm, we collaborated with the dancer Keith Hen-
nessy and his artist boyfriend Seth Eisen for a fresh donation. Live sperm worked, but
we ended up miscarrying. After a year of trying, we gave up. With some photos and
ephemera of the process, we created Maybe Baby.
For the Porn Star/Academic Bronzed Panty Collection, Beth solicited panties from
well-­known porn stars and academics and made casts using the lost-­wax casting tech-
nique. On the exhibit wall, porn star panties alternated with academic ones, with the
bronzed undies serving as a synecdoche for the person to whom they had originally
belonged. The exhibit included panties of porn stars Vanessa Del Rio, Ron Jeremy,
Candida Royalle, and academics Carla Freccero, Erica Rand, Constance Penley, and
Linda Williams. Beth gathered and cast the panties from 2005 until 2015. Luckily, the
most sellable of the bronzed panties turned out to be Annie’s, whose panties were very
easy to obtain. As Beth noted, she even lifted several from the laundry basket.
60 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b

At our first Sidewalk Sex Clinic: Free Sex Advice from Sex Experts, held in front of Manhattan’s Museum
of Sex in 2004, we offered advice to passersby. Three of our experts were porn stars, one was a
professor, and one was a sex psychic. Left to right: Candida Royalle, Veronica Vera, Beth, Annie,
and Barbara Carrellas. Authors’ collection.

Femina Potens turned out to be an important space for us. Madison became the
daughter that we had always wanted. We were present at the birth of her first baby,
Emma. A few years later we officiated at her wedding to her husband, James, and to
the trees near Napa, California, in October 2014.

Sidewalk Sex Clinics

We were on fire in the Red Year. During that period we developed our Sidewalk Sex
Clinics, which we continued to perform for many years. Our first Sidewalk Sex Clinic:
Free Sex Advice from Sex Experts took place in front of the Museum of Sex (MoSEX) on
June 6, 2005, on Fifth Avenue a few blocks from the Empire State Building. Annie had
just published her book Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex—­Make Over Your Sex Life.5 MoSEX
hosted a book launch event. The following day we performed our first Sex Clinic. We
sat on one side of the conference tables with our backs to the museum. On the other
side of the tables were chairs that passersby could use to sit down and talk with us.
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 61
Along with sexperts Veronica Vera, Candida Royalle, and Barbara Carrellas, we offered
information about sex of all kinds, love, and relationships.
We spoke to many strangers, including a woman whose husband had just admit-
ted to an extramarital affair, an older gentleman whose wife was no longer interested
in sex, a lesbian couple that wanted to become polyamorous, and a woman who had
tested positive for cervical cancer and was completely distraught about how to pro-
ceed with treatment. We counseled a young Mormon man who wanted to come out as
gay and asked about how to have safe sex, a married couple having desire discrepancy,
a group of tourists from India who just wanted to chat about what we were doing and
why, and a group of eighteen-­year-­old students on a field trip who wanted tips about
how to make their sex lives more interesting. We gave free advice to everyone who
wanted some, with no agenda other than advancing sex education. Our first Sidewalk
Sex Clinic was a big success.

Adventures in Breast Cancer

The generosity that the Red Wedding generated energized us, as did creating the new
and experimental work for Femina Potens, and we couldn’t wait to make more work
about Love. We were already planning for our next wedding, when life took an unex-
pected turn and our commitment to each other received its first test. On April Fool’s
Day 2005, Annie was diagnosed with breast cancer. The diagnosis was scary. We re-
sponded to this health challenge with art. We decided we would take the breast cancer
on together as part of the Love Art Lab project. After all, what better way to explore the
Red Year themes of security and survival?

annie  Hearing the C-­word for the first time was a shock. I had just turned
fifty, and Beth was forty-­four. I found the lump when I was adjusting my
bra. It felt like a bumpy pea-­sized thing. Even after I found it, it did not
show up on a mammogram. A huge percentage of cancer tumors don’t
show up on mammograms. This is why it is important to know your
breasts and examine them yourself.
beth  Annie got a needle biopsy. I was at UCSC working when she called to tell me
her test results showed cancer. It was frightening because we didn’t know what
we were dealing with exactly, whether the cancer had spread to lymph nodes,
or what. The news knocked the wind out of my sails. I was in a meeting and
struggled to make it through without crying. I drove right home, bawling all
the way. When I arrived, we started making appointments. It was lucky that we
62 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
had become domestic partners a few months earlier. Annie had excellent health
insurance through my job, and I could participate in her health care decisions.
annie  If I had to get a life-­threatening illness, I was glad it was breast related, as it
fit into my past body of work. I chose to get a lumpectomy and not a mastec-
tomy. We immediately started documenting the process. Beth photographed
me flashing my breasts pinup style in front of the hospital sign when we arrived
for surgery. Making pinup photos is always a good coping mechanism.
As they rolled me into surgery on the gurney, Beth handed the anesthesiol-
ogist our camera and asked him to please take some photos. Luckily he owned
the exact same camera himself so he knew how to use it. We took inspiration
from the artist ORLAN, who had multiple plastic surgeries to redesign her face
to match the features of women in famous paintings. She broadcast her surger-
ies live into art venues as part of her practice.
beth  When we got home that night we looked at the photos, and they were fabu-
lously gory and dramatic. Annie’s tumor as well as her nipple had turned bright
turquoise from the dye the surgeon injected into her lymph nodes; the image of
the bloody forceps pulling out the tumor was ghastly and great at the same time.
The lighting was perfect. We ended up using those surgery photos in various art
shows and performances in multiple ways.
The following week, we went to get the pathology results. Thankfully, there
was no cancer in her lymph nodes so Annie’s cancer was diagnosed as Stage 1.
Our wonderful woman surgeon told us that her operating room assistants were
fighting over the paper towels they had used to blot off the excess iodine from
Annie’s breast. Annie’s reputation preceded her. She was busy creating tit prints
even while under anesthesia!
annie  I’m all for mixing humor with medical stuff and illness. The pathology also
showed that I had to have another lumpectomy, because the tumor margins
weren’t totally clear of cancer. The second surgery was a piece of cake. We had
a big dinner party that night for Geoff and his partner, Sur Rodney (Sur), who
were in town for one night. I was happy to have friends visiting and enjoying
themselves, even if I had an ice pack on my breast and nodded off during part of
the meal.

Chemo or Bust!
beth  We found the best oncologist ever: Dr. Garrett Smith, a charming, smart,
holistic, handsome MD with the most wonderful bedside manner. His
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 63
magnificent office has a panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay, and his office
is full of art, including his own paintings of women and abstract nude figures
with various kinds of breast shapes, sizes, asymmetries, and mastectomies. He
let us bring our dog Bob along on office visits and allowed us to make photo-
graphs during treatments.
We decided to do chemotherapy because a genetic test showed that Annie’s
breast cancer had a high likelihood of recurrence. At each of the eight infusion
sessions, Dr. Smith allowed us to gently disrupt the office to make fun photos
dressed up in various costumes. Sometimes his nurses and office staff would
take the photos for us, or sometimes the other patients would take them. Some
patients wanted to join in and wear our costumes and asked us to take photos of
them, too. Everyone in the doctor’s office became part of our creative process.
annie  Every two weeks for four months we went to chemotherapy infusions
together. I tolerated the chemo really well. It felt healing to make work about
chemo, and it was crazy fun, too. We turned the photos into a slideshow with
live narration and called it our Chemo Fashion Show.

Hairotica
beth  The thought of Annie’s beautiful thick red hair falling out in the bathtub or
on a pillow was almost more than we could bear. So when Annie’s long, leonine
mane and pubic hair started coming out, we invited San Francisco photographer
David Steinberg to photograph us making scissorly love. We stripped naked, I
cut Annie’s hair, and then I used a straight edge razor to shave Annie bald.
annie  Next I shaved Beth’s head. It was exciting. Everything—­the straight edge, the
intensity, the exhibitionism, creativity—­made for very hot sex. The resulting
photographs were published in the lesbian sex magazine On Our Backs, and we
coined a new genre of photography: cancer erotica. Our motto is to eroticize
everything!
beth  Classic cancer move: to shave your head when your partner’s hair falls out.
Of course, we queered this traditional display of support for cancer patients by
adding hot sex with a straight edge into the mix. We have since displayed the
photos in several galleries along with the pile of our shorn hair.
annie  I had documented my sex life from eighteen years old on. I feel like this
was the most romantic and sexy photo shoot I’d ever done. When On Our Backs
came out, I was also really aware of coming out publicly as having cancer and
having an aging body. It seemed like an activist move.
When Annie’s hair started falling out from
breast cancer treatment in 2005, we wanted to
explore the eroticism of lovemaking in the face
of death while documenting the experience.
David Steinberg came into our boudoir and
photographed us shaving each other’s heads.
Photographs copyright David Steinberg.
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 65
One of our favorite displays of our breast cancer photo series took place in
Arsenal, a gallery in Pozen, Poland. Our images were displayed inside a 1905
Warsaw Fotoplastikon, which is a round wooden booth that viewers look into
from the outside. There were twenty-­four seats around the outside for the
audience, which felt like the old Times Square peep-­show booths. Inside this
stereoscopic viewing device, our breast cancer images appeared to be 3D. The
Fotoplastikon was the perfect way to view sexy cancer pics.
beth  We were inspired by Intra Venus (1992), a photographic series that Hannah
Wilke made with her husband Donald Goddard when she was dying from
lymphoma. Wilke was one of the pioneer feminist body artists working in
the seventies and eighties. She had first photographed herself with vulva-­like
chewing gum sculptures attached to her torso when she was young and clas-
sically beautiful. Her final series of photographs of her aging and cancerous
body were incredibly moving. Following Wilke’s lead, Annie did not want to
shy away from what her body could eventually become. Our photos went one
step further, however. Whereas Wilke’s partner was nowhere to be seen (and is
often not credited), we wanted our sexuality and love for each other to remain
front and center. Our photographs were sexually explicit, with both of us in
the frame.

Breast Cancer Ballet

beth  When Annie did radiation treatments, we noticed these beautiful color
graphs and charts on the doctor’s computer. We asked her to print them for us.
At home, we juxtaposed old pinup photos of Annie with the new topless scans,
MRI images, and other ephemera to create a series of collages. We have exhib-
ited these collages in numerous galleries and museums.
annie  Chemo put me into menopause overnight. I discovered that chemo and
menopause can change one’s sexuality—­a lot. It was an interesting time. The
Bosom Ballet was my signature performance piece.6 So we called the two collages
the Breast Cancer Ballet and made an edition of three prints each. We gave one
of the prints to our beloved Dr. Smith, and he has had it hanging in his private
office ever since.
beth  By making the breast cancer experience sexy and fun, and doing projects
about it, we sailed through the experience easily. Annie has been breast cancer–­
free since 2005. When the Orange Year began, Annie was still recovering from
treatments, but we forged ahead and again began planning our next wedding
66 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
where we had left off to deal with this breast cancer. In fact, we were happy to be
done with the Red Year themes of security and survival. We survived!

Extreme Kiss
Just before Annie started chemo, Madison Young invited us to perform for an event
she was curating called Private vs. Public on May 19, 2005, at Artist Television Access in
the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District. We loved how pleasurable, transcenden-
tal, and even creative a long kiss could be and decided we would do a public kiss for
three hours straight, as gallery goers milled about. We had agreed with each other that
we wouldn’t go beyond kissing, which turned out to be quite challenging. We liked
how minimal and meditative this performance piece turned out to be. We called it Ex-
treme Kiss and performed it many times in different contexts and countries.
One of our favorite Extreme Kiss performances took place in December 2008 at
the Museum Kunstpalast, near the end of the Green Year in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Our Kiss was part of Diana and Actaeon: The Forbidden Glimpse of the Naked Body, an
art exhibition.7 With a title like that it seemed only fitting to get naked, even though
neither of us is a nudist. On opening night, we sat on two chairs facing each other and
did a one-­hour long Naked Kiss, among nude etchings, drawings, and paintings by Jo-
seph Beuys, Picasso, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Emile Nolde, Rodin, Rembrandt,
and many other famous male artists. We loved being a “mistresspiece” surrounded
by masterpieces. In order for the audience to see the etchings on the wall, they had
to gaze across us kissing. People could also look over the balconies and see us. Our
Rubenesque bodies resembled living Boteros, Titians, or the Venus of Willendorf of
yore. No little Barbie bodies for them!

Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death, and Art

During our Orange Year of creativity and sexuality (2006), we made our first two-­
person theater piece, Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death, and Art. It was a response
to Annie’s breast cancer diagnosis, and the subsequent adventures that we went
through together during treatment and recovery. When cancer happens, let’s put on
a show!
The director we chose for this production was our friend Neon Weiss. With a BFA
in theater and an MA in counseling psychology with a focus on drama therapy, she
turned out to be the perfect choice. Neon helped us work with all of the emotional
baggage and drama that cancer brought up. She was also able to deal with Beth, who
true to her hillbilly roots, could be stubborn and sometimes resisted taking direction
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 67
even though this was her first venture into theater. Beth finally submitted to Neon’s
guidance, and the three of us became a great team.
Exposed told our love story. It included a reenactment of our domestic partner
ceremony and an audience participation scene where we demonstrated our sperm
dance-­off contest. In another scene we asked audience members if we could take Po-
laroids of their breasts for an art project. Many were happy to collaborate. At the end
of the show, we projected the digitized artwork created from all the Polaroids. The
dramatic high point occurred when we shaved each other’s heads with a straight razor
while reciting poetic phrases that described how we felt during breast cancer treat-
ments. For the finale, we made a witchy love potion with dry ice, juice, and grapes and
served it to the audience communion style, while looking into each person’s eyes, and
telling them, “One of the things I love about you is . . . [fill in the blank]” as they came
to the stage to receive their elixir. It was a feel-­good show about how love hurts.
We toured this show for two romantic and healing years. Each time we performed,
it got better and tighter. We returned to Glasgow’s Center for Contemporary Art to do
the show for the Glasgay! Festival (August 8–­10, 2005) where Annie had performed in
2002. We particularly enjoyed performing Exposed at the Collective Unconscious The-
ater (April 26–­May 13, 2007) in Manhattan, where we had had our Red Wedding.8 But by
now the dressing room had become horribly rundown, buckets of water leaked from
the pipes, and palmetto water bugs crawled up and down the walls—­triggering An-
nie’s worst fear. That discomfort was mitigated, at least for Beth, by the glowing review
in the New York Times. Charles Isherwood wrote that “Ms. Sprinkle and Ms. Stephens
are convincing proselytizers for the healthy idea that life is more enjoyable—­and its
horrors are less overwhelming—­if you can treat all its twists and turns as fodder for
aesthetic inspiration.”9 Isherwood gave Beth a particularly good review for her perfor-
mance. We ended on a high note. This was the last time we would do the show, as we
were done with the subject of breast cancer and were tired of shaving our heads long
after the effects of the chemo had worn off. We were definitely ready to explore other
material, make new work, and let our hair grow. And we were committed to creating
our next wedding.

50+50 Shades of Orange

When our Orange Year commenced at the end of 2005, another wedding about the two
of us felt far too self-­indulgent, so we decided to marry our community. This wedding
and year were based on the second chakra, located in the pelvic area, and in the sacral
area of the spine. This chakra is about enjoying pleasurable activities such as sex, being
68 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
creative, and eating. The Orange Wedding Orange Wedding Artist
took place at the Center for Sex and Cul- Statement Wh
ture, a nonprofit community center in
San Francisco that had been cofounded the war is still raging, and so
by our good friends Carol Queen and is the love art laboratory. In our
Robert Lawrence. It had the perfect ambi- second year we are exploring creativity and
ance for the sex chakra’s wedding venue. sexuality in some new, exciting ways.
Serendipitously, the interior of the center we completed our first year
glowed with orangeish bricks and light of survival and security by facing
peach paint, plus there was a huge library death together. What could have potentially
filled with books and magazines about destroyed our relationship ended up making
love and sex. And we knew that no one us stronger, more secure and ambitious.
would have to censor themselves or any- We are less afraid of death and even happier
one else at this wedding. to be alive.
On July 2, 2006, we marched down this year for our second wedding we
the aisle for the second time (third if you will marry our community and make one
count our domestic partner ceremony). hundred vows.
Carol Queen graciously agreed to of-
ficiate the wedding. The event was by
invitation only and guests were requested to wear orange. We asked for no material
gifts but invited people to help co-­create the wedding. Madison transformed herself
into an orange-­juicing machine by wearing a bra and panties with hand citrus juic-
ers attached to them. We squished oranges on her juicers and sipped the orange juice
through straws. We had a blessing that included a sage smudge and culminated in an
energy orgasm generated by our Tantra teacher friend Jwala, who had co-­taught many
Sluts and Goddesses workshops with Annie. Joseph Kramer led everyone in rhythmic
deep breathing. Beth’s colleague Lisa Rofel emceed and performed the homily. Even
our carpenter friend Bob Cantello, who had helped Beth renovate her house in prepa-
ration for Annie’s move-­in, came dressed as a giant carrot.
Our Orange Year was full of sexy fun and creativity. We learned that sex and creativ-
ity are virtually one and the same thing. Our Yellow Year rolled around fast and, ready
or not, we moved on.

Yellow Power!
Six months before we entered the Yellow Year of courage and power, Beth’s colleagues
voted for her to be chair of the UCSC art department (2006–­2009). What better way to
Excerpts from Our Orange Wedding
Vows Script Wh
carol queen  Beth and Annie have stated their desire
to marry you, their community. They have written
the vows they wish to make to you—­their friends,
lovers, and peers—­on fifty oranges each, which have
been attached to their wedding trains. If you’d like
to receive one of their vows, they invite you to come
up and pluck an orange. Beth and Annie, do you
want to make your vows to your community now?
beth and annie (alternately)  We do!! We vow
to . . . . Kiss you, Make you laugh, Entertain you,
Respect you, Listen to you, Forgive you, Massage
you, Let you go, Protest with you, Tell you the truth,
Feel you, Laugh with you, Cry with you, Humor you,
Cuddle you, Surprise you, Experiment with you,
Grow with you, Nurture you, Include you, Accept
you just the way you are, Tease you, Titillate you,
Dream with you, Fuck with you, Learn with you,
Hang out with you, Experience with you, Need you,
Encourage you, Fart with you, Change the world
with you, Be confused with you, Create magic with
you, Mourn with you, Be vulnerable with you, Be
ecstatic with you, Be angry with you, Get lost with
you, Walk with you, Get old with you, Dance with
you, Prosper with you, Make the world a sexier place
with you, Learn with you, Journey with you . . .
carol  I now pronounce you unlawfully wedded wives
married to your community! You may now kiss! [The
two of us then did a seven-­point kiss, kissing each
other’s seven chakras from crown to root.]
70 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
explore power? Annie had recovered and
her breast cancer was in remission. The
Love Art Laboratory was well underway
and gaining momentum. Out of the blue
we got a call from One Yellow Rabbit, a
nonprofit art organization in Calgary,
Canada. Michael Greene, a cofounder
and co-­artistic director there, had cu-
rated a High Performance Rodeo every year
since 1987. He had heard about our Love
Art Laboratory and invited us to have
our Yellow Wedding in One Yellow Rab-
bit’s theater, which he would produce.
The black box had a great raised stage, a
full production crew, theater lighting,
and 250 seats. For the first time we would
not have to pay for anything. Plus, we got
paid an artist’s fee of $7,000. To top it off,
we could get legally married! Michael
proposed and we said yes!
To witness the performances, hear us
say “I do,” and legally tie the knot cost at-
tendees only $25 a ticket. The theater sold
out quickly. We wrote up a call for col-
laborators, which Michael sent around
and posted on their website. Sixty people
volunteered to decorate, create special
effects, make rings, bake cakes, be flower
girls and boys, and to perform in the
wedding. One woman signed up to play
the mother of the brides. She took her
role very seriously. Garbed in a fifties-­
style hat and mink stole, she pampered
us before, during, and after the ceremony.
On January 14, 2007, we legally be-
came wife and wife before 250 witnesses.
Yellow Wedding Artist
Statement Wh
we are delighted to enter into the
third year of our Love Art Laboratory
project with a big fat queer legal wedding
in Calgary, Canada. We are told that while
Calgary has gay marriage rights, there are
still a lot of people against gay marriage and
who want to abolish it. So we will make our
wedding into a public relations fest and a
unique event to celebrate our queerness and
generate more love for each other and with
the Calgary community.
our themes will be courage
and power. We’ll wear glittery, gold lamé
wedding attire, with a Samurai, Mad Max,
superhero theme, hand-­created by artist
Victoria May, complete with deer antler
crowns, veils, football shoulder pads, and
shit-­kicker gold platform boots. Move over,
Wonder Woman!
one yellow rabbit, a well-­
established arts organization, is having
the twentieth anniversary of their High
Performance Rodeo. While our first two
weddings were relatively small private affairs
with our friends, this time our wedding and
reception will be open to the public as part
of the Rodeo program. Anyone can attend
and/or collaborate with us to co-­create the
wedding. We can hardly wait to see who will
end up in our legal wedding.
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 71
Michael had suggested that Nomi Whalen, an actor and the official wedding commis-
sioner of Alberta, officiate at the ceremony. Nomi requested that we meet her prior to
the wedding and prove to her that we actually did want to be married for real, which
we did, and she agreed to marry us.
The Yellow Wedding was exciting, with thirty-­five people performing in all sorts
of ways. This time we only knew three of the performers, but it felt like family. Our
emcee was poet Sheri-­D Wilson, also known as the Mama of Dada. The Fake Mus-
tache Drag King Troupe rocked out in tuxedos. A dozen elegant sashaying royals
from the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Chinook Arch stood in as our bridal party.
There was a mixed-­gender country-­western band. Artist and professor Liss Platt
rigged a hidden mustard dispenser between her legs and pissed a heart-­shaped draw-
ing using watered-­down mustard into a galvanized garden tub full of snow. An artist
collective that included Cindy Baker, Anthea Black, and Harley (Megan) Morman, all
wearing vintage aprons, served two giant lemon-­frosted, breast-­shaped wedding cakes
surrounded by dozens of titty torte cupcakes with nipples and sprinkles. At the recep-
tion, male stripper Andrew Roesler did a very sexy lap dance on Beth’s lap. There was
also a belly dancer and an acrobatics performance using silk fabric hanging from the
ceiling. A dramatic highlight of the ritual was when Nomi told us we could kiss. The
two of us did a four-­minute endurance kiss to a CocoRosie song, with curly streamers
falling down around us, confetti guns shooting off confetti, and big firework sound
effects. Nomi said that of all the six thousand couples she had married over the years,
ours was definitely the longest kiss she had witnessed.

We Made Love with Marcel Duchamp

The year 2007 continued to be an auspicious and powerful one for us. Shortly after
our wedding we were invited to install a gallery exhibition at Emmetrop in Bourges,
France. Emmetrop was an interesting space founded by punk musicians and artists
who squatted in a factory and put on a concert in 1992. It was a thriving and well-­funded
cultural center with a full schedule, multiple theaters, galleries, and all kinds of events.
Emmetrop’s director, Erik Noulette, also known as King Erik or Dr. Papito, invited us
for a ten-­day residency on the advice of Paul B. Preciado. At that time Paul was a guest
curator there and organized our one-­couple show Faire l’amour avec Marcel D. (We Made
Love with Marcel D.). Marcel Duchamp appeared in the title because we both admired
his work, and we wanted to get to know him better even though he was long dead.
Within an hour of our arrival we had shed our clothing and made a video in one
take. Big Nudes Descending a Staircase showed us walking naked down the gallery’s
72 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b

We performed a séance to make love with Marcel Duchamp’s spirit at Emmetrop in Bourges,
France. Fluxus artist Willem de Ridder was the medium. Emmetrop’s creative director, Erik
Noulette, is wearing the white coat (center). Paul B. Preciado curated an exhibition of our work and
is standing to Beth’s left. Photograph courtesy of Julien Guezennec.

majestic three-­story wrought iron industrial staircase with the sound of our bare feet
hitting the cold metal stairs. The building was cavernous, allowing us to project Big
Nudes Descending a Staircase as a continuously running video loop on a two-­story wall.
We riffed on Duchamp’s famous readymade sculpture Fountain, a sideways urinal that
he had signed R. Mutt, by signing our electric vibrator R. Muff and hanging it from
the ceiling with a three-­story-­long extension cord. We devised a séance to commu-
nicate with Duchamp and created an erotic spiritual experience. Dutch Fluxus artist
Willem de Ridder came to join us and agreed to be our medium.
With eighty or so spectators looking on, Duchamp’s arrival was signaled by King
Erik’s bulldog K-­bull snoring loudly from somewhere in the space. Duchamp an-
swered questions via Willem and at one point started giggling and said that he was
being tickled by the spirit of Andy Warhol. We closed with wonderful group erotic
energy building and then an exchange with Marcel’s spirit, which brought many of us
to an energetic climax! Sex with spirits (spectrophilia) could be pretty darned exciting,
especially in a group.
 The M i r ac ulous Con c eption of th e Love Art Lab 73
Teaching Together for the First Time and Extreme Kissing in London
On September 22, 2007, in the autumn of our Yellow Year, we were invited by theater
director and author Luke Dixon to give a workshop in London for his tenth annual In-
ternational Workshop Festival. Luke had seen us perform Exposed at Glasgay! in 2005.
This was the first, but not the last, time that Luke would invite us to perform. We loved
doing our Extreme Kiss so much that we wanted others to experience it, so we decided
to do a workshop on extreme kissing. The workshop was advertised as follows:

Extreme Kissing Workshop: The Pleasures, Politics, and Art of the Kiss
September 22, 2007
12 pm until 4 pm

Stephens and Sprinkle will lead this unique workshop exploring kissing as conversa-
tion, as political intervention, as altered state, as erotic meditation, and as performance
art. Bring a buddy to kiss for two hours straight—­a friend, lover, or any willing col-
laborator. Or come solo and take a chance that you will find a kiss collaborator at the
workshop, or even out on King’s Road. The first hour of the workshop will be in the
Chelsea Theatre where you’ll receive instruction, and we’ll set intentions. Then Ste-
phens, Sprinkle, and all participants will emerge onto King’s Road for a two-­hour-­long
public Kiss-­in. The last hour of the workshop will be back at the theater for feedback
and a closing. Extreme kissing can make you highly euphoric, so don’t plan to drive
right after the kiss.

Thirty people attended. Twenty had a kissing partner, and ten people arrived solo.
Luckily, the solo participants were surprisingly easy to pair up for this intimate event.
Luke had a team of eight assistants to help and hold the space as monitors, since the
kissing was going to be in a public space. We began the kissing outside in front of
the theater on King’s Road where anything could happen, and it did. The fifteen pairs
of participants and the two of us had been kissing for about twenty minutes when
we were approached by a local mob of mothers with their children in tow trailed by
their baseball bat–­wielding husbands. They were angry and told us to leave. Luke
intercepted them and intervened on our behalf. Although the request seemed unrea-
sonable—­as there was nothing more than kissing, after all—­Luke agreed to move us
inside because the folks at the Chelsea Theatre were concerned about maintaining
good relations with their neighbors, and it wasn’t worth getting our heads bashed in.
We marveled at how threatening the act of kissing could become.
74 T h e M i r a c u l o u s C o n c e p t i o n o f t h e L o v e A r t L a b
Once inside, everyone continued kissing. We felt safe and we knew that our assis-
tants/monitors could keep an eye on the workshop participants to make sure that
they were safe, too. The two of us could close our eyes and add to the group energy
by engaging with each other and going into a transcendental state. One woman did
live sketching of the scene. When time was up, our timer rang a bell. The two of us
pulled out of our kiss. It’s actually hard to stop because the longer you kiss the more
euphoric you feel. We facilitated a gentle decoupling of each couple’s lips to end the
group kiss. We grounded the energy, closed the ritual, then all shared our individual
experiences with each other. Participants were amazed at how much they enjoyed the
extreme kissing and how euphoric they had become.
After the workshop ended, we discovered that two of the singles who paired up at
the beginning of the workshop were an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man. They
had a great time kissing for the full two hours and didn’t discover each other’s na-
tionality until after the workshop ended. Even though their countries were in conflict,
they both demonstrated and experienced how an act as simple as kissing can bridge
the distance between two people who stand on opposite sides in a long-­running dis-
pute. Kissing can be political! Could extreme kissing help create peace?

Our Yellow Year Powers Down

At the close of the Yellow Year, Madison debuted Faire l’amour avec Marcel D. in
Femina Potens’s fantastic new space in San Francisco’s Castro District, with large
storefront windows facing right onto Market Street. Things were going well for Mad-
ison, and things were going well for us, too. We had weathered breast cancer, finally
become legally married, and celebrated Beth’s promotion to chair of the art de-
partment. We had a wonderful gallerist in Madison, and we had begun what would
become a longtime collaboration with Paul B. Preciado. We had made love with Du-
champ and even met Warhol for a minute or two. We had developed Extreme Kiss and
survived the potentially violent situation that occurred during our kiss workshop.
We had gone from producing our weddings to having them produced for us. We had
used the weddings as platforms to speak out against war and hate. By revealing kin-
ship within difference and eclectic communities, we promoted love.
Our experiences during the first three years of our Love Art Lab project showed
us the importance of care and maintenance for all forms of sentient and nonsentient
beings. In the following year, we would make a big leap, shifting our focus from our
human-­centered world to the nonhuman as well and expand and shift our entire
worldview.
 four

NASCENT ECOSEXUALS

Hello, Green!

When our Green Year began in 2008, the year of the heart and compassion, we had
moved to a rundown two-­story cabin in the little town of Boulder Creek, Califor-
nia, nestled in the cleavage of the lush green Santa Cruz Mountains. We needed to
be closer to UC Santa Cruz while Beth served as chair of the art department. Boul-
der Creek’s population of 4,923 includes hippies, rednecks, intellectuals, outlaws, New
Agers, witches, liberals, Latinos, confederate flag wavers, marijuana growers, tweakers,
techies, queers, city slickers, and assorted mountain folk.1
Boulder Creek had been a logging town during the gold rush, consisting mostly
of loggers, prostitutes, and churchgoers. The church ladies insisted a church be built
for every brothel. The brothels have been repurposed into restaurants and hotels now,
but the churches and some logging outfits remain. In the center of town, a historical
cement marker with a bronze plaque commemorates a bygone brothel, the Swamp
House, as a den of “intiquity.” We weren’t sure exactly what the misspelling meant, but
we took it as a good sign that Boulder was sex-­positive.
The verdant environment in Boulder Creek inspired us to extend our love to sen-
tient and nonsentient beings alike. As we settled into the area, we met and began a
beautiful interspecies love affair with our neighbor, a wild white peacock named Al-
bert. For us, an interspecies love affair simply means being in love with a nonhuman
creature. While not exactly a physical relationship (we practice social distancing with
wild animals), we always long to see Albert. And when we do, it makes us very happy.
We feel connected to him. Neighborhood legend has it that Albert’s peahen mate had
been eaten by a fox while sitting on her nest. Others said she was hit by a car. Regard-
less, Albert seemed to be in mourning (or maybe he was hungry) and started hanging
around our place.
76 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
We felt like he wanted to be in a relationship with us, he wanted us to admire him,
and he would call out to us to come see him. He always seemed to know when we were
leaving on a trip or when we returned home. Sixteen years later, we still have our cabin
and Albert is still in the neighborhood, and we are even more madly in love with him.
We seek him out, and when we find him we sweet-­talk and feed him seeds and dried
fruits. In the summer he puts on incredible fan dances, shaking his tail feathers for
us in ways that would put most burlesque fan dancers to shame. Albert has been our
muse since we first met, and our relationship with him is magical.

Earth Engagement
We fell deeply in love with the Santa Cruz mountains and the redwood forest. In a
moment of passion, we decided to marry the Earth! It was an aha moment for us. We
were so caught up in the excitement of creative possibilities that we literally got down
on our knees and proposed to the Earth, who responded with what we understood
was a resounding Yes!
Serendipitously, we were thinking about when and where to have our wedding to
the Earth while Beth and some of her Santa Cruz colleagues were planning Intervene!
Interrupt! Rethinking Art as Social Practice, a festival and conference.2 Beth proposed
to the planning committee that they add our wedding as a kind of celebratory grand
finale for the conference. The committee accepted her proposal and scheduled our
wedding performance for the climax of the conference. For us, there was no better
place for a green-­themed wedding than on the UC Santa Cruz campus at the breath-
taking Shakespeare Glen, with its huge outdoor wooden stage nestled within gentle
hills and surrounded by a grove of majestic coastal redwood trees. Quite a few of our
artist friends would be there for the conference. It would be a win-­win.
Just after the conference program was announced, the interim dean of the UCSC
arts division called Beth and told her that there would be repercussions if the Green
Wedding to the Earth was performed in solidarity with a tree-­sit happening on Science
Hill. The activists had been protesting against the expansion plan of the university,
which included felling several giant redwood trees to make way for a new biomed-
ical facility. The protest began on November 7, 2007, when several activists climbed
seventy-­five feet to occupy platforms in a cluster of redwood trees. The protest, which
wasn’t resolved until the end of 2008, was ongoing at the time of our planned wed-
ding.3 The dean told Beth that if this festival or the wedding were connected to the
tree-­sit, then Beth, who by this time was fortunately tenured, would be disciplined
and the university would not allow the Green Wedding to the Earth to proceed. Our
Green Wedding to the Earth Artist Statement
Wh
on may 17, 2008, we will take vows to love, honor, and cherish the Earth, in our fourth
wedding. We invite you to take vows with us.
why vows to the earth, and why now? People often think of the Earth
as Mother Earth. But these days the Earth is so battered, abused, exploited, polluted,
blown up, and ripped apart that she can’t handle the burden of being a full-­time Mother
anymore. Perhaps it would be better to imagine the Earth as a lover, because we tend to
take care of our lovers instead of expecting them to take care of us. It’s a more mutual
and sustainable relationship. Mother Earth is probably in menopause and very tired.
the earth is our lover! With her abundant sensual delights, breathtaking
beauty, her delicious scents, tastes, and occasional temper tantrums. She’s magical,
mysterious, curvaceous, exciting, and unpredictable. We love to nestle in her woods, walk
barefoot on her skin, circulate erotic energy with her, and float in her luscious waters.
She’s a fantastic lover, and we simply can’t live without her. It’s painful to watch her
suffer—­to witness the unbelievable pollution of her oceans, her mountaintops brutally
sliced off, deadly chemicals thrown at her, piles of electronic waste dumped all over her,
her premature global warming, the pollution of her air, the holocaust of her trees . . .
need we go on?
we are inspired by people that we know who are actively loving
the earth, such as the pioneers of environmental art Newton and Helen Mayer
Harrison. We are honored that they will do our wedding homily. We are inspired by the
work of artist and activist Guillermo Gómez-­Peña, who will be so generous as to facilitate
our vows. Ecoeducators Julia Butterfly Hill, Kutira Décosterd, bell hooks, and Kaytea
Petro are all teaching us new ways to love our Earth.
so we will enter into a deeper, more committed relationship with our Earth.
We will vow to make more of an effort to be biodegradable, sustainable, to spend more
time cleaning the beach, drive less, walk more, and we will install a greywater system in
our house. We will vow to help make the environmental movement more fun and sexy.
You’re invited.
78 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
wedding wasn’t directly related to the tree-­sitters, however both of us felt a great deal
of solidarity with them and admired their willingness to remain on their platforms
for months on end. The Green Wedding honored what the tree-­sitters stood for, and
while we didn’t reference them directly, we hoped that our nearby presence added
weight and significance to their actions. The wedding proceeded as planned.
We put out a call for collaborators and invited everyone who wanted to help co-­
create the wedding to join; we mailed beautifully printed invitations and announced
our plans on the conference website as well as on social and print media. Creative
offerings came pouring in to perform, make boutonnieres, usher, create party fa-
vors, decorate, bake the cake, clean up, and dog sit. We requested that guests bring
no material gifts. The two of us would play the lead brides with the Earth, but every-
one who wanted to could be brides and grooms too and make vows along with us to
marry the Earth.

Going to the Redwoods and We’re Gonna Get Married

The morning of the Green Wedding dawned bright and hot, with record-­high tem-
peratures predicted by the afternoon. When the two of us arrived at the Shakespeare
Glen, we were completely stunned by how breathtakingly beautiful the stage looked.
Realizing how many people had generously given their time and talents, we were
deeply moved and started to cry. A host of talented theater students had created an
extraordinary set.4 A huge, green canopy made from a surplus parachute protected the
bridal party from the hot sun. A green carpet was laid across the stage, with forty green
garden chairs set out on it for our performers and bridal parties to sit facing the au-
dience. Basketball-­sized plaster orbs with broken green-­glass mosaics were hanging
from the trees, and the stage was edged with festive bicycle wheels with green fab-
ric and ribbons woven into the spokes. The Sun outdid itself, sending rays streaming
through the trees that created halos around everyone onstage. Our wedding photos
were stellar!
As we requested in the wedding invitations, the audience wore green. The event
was free and about 350 people showed up: students, faculty, Santa Cruz and Bay Area
residents, and friends from our various communities came from all over. Adult film
star Veronica Hart emceed the lavish two-­hour ceremony wearing a green minidress
with butterfly wings. Our dog Bob wore a costume matching our wedding attire and
led the procession down the aisle. Afterwards, he led the recession out of the glen.
Dogs were not normally allowed on campus, but fortunately Annie was able to ob-
tain a letter from her doctor that testified that Bob was an emotional support animal,
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 79
which he certainly was that day. Other animals were in attendance as well. A pet boa
constrictor bound artists Isabel Reichert and Sean Fletcher together by slithering
around their shoulders as they stood back-­to-­back and performed their spoken word
offering Love and Taxes.
Geoff performed his signature Fluxus headstand in our honor, recalling his Red
Wedding performance. He kicked off his piece by holding up the previous day’s front
page of the San Francisco Chronicle with the headline announcing that the Califor-
nia Supreme Court had decreed that same-­sex couples in California had the right to
legally marry. George Blumenthal, the chancellor of UCSC, attended with his part-
ner, Kelly Weisberg, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law. As a staunch
champion of social justice, she had authored the amicus brief in favor of same-­sex
marriage after Prop 8, the California ballot proposition against same-­sex marriage,
passed in 2008. Fortunately, this proposition was overturned in 2010.
Linda Montano led the crowd in her sing-­along version of the classic Dean Mar-
tin song “That’s Amore,” which would become a fixture of many of our subsequent
weddings, whether Linda was physically present or not. Professor Jennifer Gonzalez
recited an Emily Dickinson poem. Sex worker Sadie Lune did an Earth-­as-­dominatrix
spanking performance with bodylicious burlesque queen Lady Monster using two
dozen long-­stemmed roses with thorns. Sex educator Joseph Kramer led everyone in
some deep breathing. The African American Jewish artist Danielle Abrams dunked
her head in a tub of red borscht/beet soup while wearing a tuxedo. Madison Young
performed an homage to Carolee Schneemann. We smeared mud all over her body
while she pulled an interior scroll with a love poem out of her vagina and read it. So-
prano Emma McNairy sang opera as she did a striptease down to her green sequin
pasties and G-­string. We even had a champion yogini, Cynthia Wehr, who performed
a series of Bikram poses that wowed everyone with her incredible flexibility and grace.
Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison performed their homily “Making Earth” as a
spoken-­word duet. Newton called on us to “go to the mountains.”5 Our wedding of-
ficiant was Guillermo Gómez-­Peña, who performed as a High Neo Aztec priest.6
Gómez-­Peña’s performance was partially in Robo-­Nahuatl, the updated language of
pre-­Columbian Mesoamerica. Our wedding to the Earth took place on land that was
formerly Mexico but had been ceded to the United States in 1848, following the U.S.
victory in the Mexican War. Gómez-­Peña’s reference to Nahuatl, the language used by
the Aztecs and Mixtecs prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, emphasized the legacy of
settler colonialism, which obliterated the customs and traditions of indigenous peo-
ple by forcing them to be reeducated according to white colonial settler standards.
80 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
Just as the Green Wedding honored the Science Hill tree-­sitters without specifically
naming them during the performance, Gómez-­Peña’s performance honored the un-
acknowledged indigenous Amah Mutsun Tribal Band who, among others, had lived
on the land presently occupied by the Santa Cruz campus.
When Gómez-­Peña asked the audience if they would practice their vows to the
Earth, the audience enthusiastically responded, “Sí lo haré! I do!” This was a powerful
and joyous moment. Those who were there say that they still remember the feeling of
love and connection with the Earth in that moment.

Everything Changed
The day after our Green Wedding to the Earth we were on cloud nine and absolutely
thrilled with our success in bringing together a queer challenge to the institution of
marriage and a queer spin on environmental art. Counting the names credited on the
wedding program, 150 people had collaborated on the creation of the wedding. They
collaborated not only with us but also with the Earth. It felt like we were on to some-
thing powerful! Overnight our relationship with the Earth changed. Suddenly we
were so excited about loving the Earth. We felt the love and hoped the Earth did, too.
Our sense was that the Earth was pleased and happy with us and enjoyed the wedding
a whole lot. We were romantically, sensually, and erotically attracted and connected
to the Earth. We knew of no other existing framework or word that adequately de-
scribed how we felt after the Green Wedding. For the first time we conceptualized
ourselves as ecosexual.

Drama in Norway: A Controversial Sidewalk Sex Clinic and Our First

Walking Tour
Less than a month after our Green Wedding we boarded a plane and headed to Nor-
way to do two performances for Tao Scene’s multimedia arts festival June 8–­15, 2008.
Johanna Tuukkanen and Anne Marti Rygh, the curators for the festival, invited us to
create a guided walking tour of Pedersgata Street, the main street in the old part of
Stavanger, Norway.7 In keeping with our Love Art Lab mission to create art about love,
we chose to make our walk a Lover’s Guide to Pedersgata and to call attention to the
sensual, erotic, and romantic aspects of the street as well as the places that were dan-
gerous for queers, sex workers, and women who walked the street alone at night.
About forty Norwegians showed up for what became a two-­hour walk and our first
ever walking tour piece. We told factual stories about the sexual history of Peders-
gata Street, and then we used artistic license to create tales of jealous lovers, cuckolds,
Green Wedding Vows Script
( Excerpts ) Wh
guillermo  Annie and Beth, are you ready to take
your vows?
annie and beth  Sí!
guillermo  What is your gift to the Earth?
beth  We would like to massage the Earth with our feet.
annie  First we want to take some moments to get into
contact with the Earth. We’d like to invite those who
are able to please stand and join us in connecting
with the Earth. Together let’s massage our Earth
with our feet. Take off your shoes if you want.
beth  Step right, left, right, left.
annie  Let’s feel ourselves standing on this beautiful
planet. The Earth loves getting your massage.
beth  Did everyone get a bag of Earth? Please take your
Earth in your hands and smell it while you massage
the Earth. Now let’s generate some love to send
down to the Earth. Tap your chest, then send it
down from your heart through your hands and
down to the Earth.
annie  Feel your consciousness in your feet . . .
beth  You may be seated.
guillermo  Now make your vows.
(Annie and Beth recite their vows while
fondling and breaking up specially pre-
pared round balls of dirt in their loving
hands, as Guillermo smears green clay
all over his face.)
Hw Vows for Marrying the Earth Wh
Earth, we vow to become your lover.
With these steps, let us reach your love.
Through our senses we will become your lover.

Every day we promise to breathe in your fragrance.

And be opened by you.
Let us not be severed from your love.

Every day we promise to enjoy your colors.

And be surprised.
Let us not be severed from your love.

Every day we promise to taste you

And be moved.
Let us not be severed from your love.

Every day, ears to the ground, we listen and are changed.

We promise to love you until death brings us closer together forever.

We are consecrated to you, Earth, through this dirt that we will become.

(For the audience’s individual vows to the Earth, Guillermo led a call
and response, “I vow to______. I vow to______.” The audience yelled
out vows that they wanted to make.)
guillermo  (to Annie and Beth) Will you practice these vows every day to become a
better lover to the Earth?
annie and beth  Sí lo haré! I do!
guillermo  (to audience) Will you practice your vows every day to become a better lover
to the Earth?
audience  Sí lo haré! I do!
guillermo  To remind you of your vows each day you will have rings. May we have the
rings, please?
(Ring bearer Tina Takemoto walks to center stage and performatively
presents the rings to Annie and Beth.)
guillermo  (to everyone) You may now kiss the Earth! I now pronounce you GREEN!
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 83

In June 2008, we presented our Sidewalk Sex Clinic at the Tao Scene art festival in Stavanger,
Norway. Anti-­porn feminists protested, and our clinic space was tagged with a Jewish star by a neo-­
Nazi in a balaclava. On the right is our friend Tom Garretson. He was the only person in Norway
brave enough to join us as a sex educator for the clinic after the media uproar that greeted our
arrival. Authors’ collection.

secret lesbian romances, and gay cruising spots. In a nod to our nascent ecosexuality,
we pointed out voluptuous clouds, trees in bondage, and sexy pink flowers. We un-
derscored phallic and vulva-­like shapes everywhere. As our tourgoers caught on, they
chimed in as well. Beth slowly traced a moist erotic crack in an ancient stone wall with
her finger. We pointed out a bad replica of Michelangelo’s David in a shop window with
the price tag stuck to his penis. We highlighted the best places to kiss and demonstrated
an oral sex position at 69 Pedersgata Street. We invited participants to sniff and lick a
grassy knoll, to savor an apricot from a Lebanese food shop, and to take in the musky
scent of an ancient public toilet, which had been closed for decades but was temporarily
opened for this occasion. We shared a somber moment of silence when someone in our
group showed us the spot where a violent rape had recently taken place.
One of the highlights was the Love Shop, the city’s only adult film and sex toy
shop, which was owned by a sweet, rather shy guy who had been in business for more
84 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
than twenty years. Many of the participants on the walking tour told us later that they
had never found the courage to enter this shop before. There were the usual blow-­up
dolls, dildos, and porn DVDs. We also found some romantic Chinese vases, hand-­
carved African masks, and kitschy Latvian clay statuettes of masturbating elves. The
Love Shop had been a bone of contention for many of the townspeople, and we felt
that it was underappreciated. We presented to the owner a special signed and framed
Aphrodite Award for sexual service to the community to hang in his shop, in spite of
the unreasonable, misguided anti-­porn attacks he had consistently endured for hav-
ing the only adult entertainment shop in town.8 He was visibly touched by the award
and round of applause. During the last leg of the tour it rained. We were prepared and
handed out white hooded rain ponchos to everyone, which made us look like a load of
sperm swimming down the street.
Johanna and Anne Marti asked us to do an additional performance piece of our
choice, and we chose to present our Sidewalk Sex Clinic—­Free Advice from Sex Experts.
Our plan for the Sidewalk Sex Clinic was to have at least five sex educators sitting with
us at a table on Pedersgata Street offering the public various kinds of free advice.
Somehow, we unwittingly landed in the middle of the town’s heated anti-­porn and
anti-­prostitution battle being waged by OTTAR, a small but very vocal group of local
anti-­porn, anti­–­sex work feminists.9
The local press, sensing an opportunity to create a moral panic, printed a num-
ber of sensationalist stories about our upcoming performance, which basically said
we were offering free sex.10 Rogalands Avis, the daily newspaper, tried to undermine
Annie, calling her a fallen porn star and a Jew.11 Leaving aside the anti-­Semitic slur, if
a fallen porn star means having a PhD, enjoying an international art career, and being
a sought-­after sex educator traveling the world with the partner of her dreams, so be
it. Unrepentant was more like it. We were scheduled to hold our clinic in front of the
Love Shop. OTTAR opposed our clinic project because it was funded by an art orga-
nization, which they felt gave cultural credibility to the Love Shop. OTTAR claimed
the shop sold porn that exploits and victimizes women, some of whom they asserted
(without any proof ) were trafficked.
Along with Johanna and Anne Marti, we invited OTTAR to meet with us for tea,
and OTTAR agreed. The day before our clinic we met with them and some concerned
members from a local church. They urged us to cancel our Sidewalk Sex Clinic—­or at
least move it away from the Love Shop. Otherwise, they threatened that their pro-
testers would make it a target and halt the performance. Johanna and Anne Marti
were worried. We thought long and hard about how to relocate our clinic without
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 85
appearing to cave in to OTTAR’s unreasonable demands. Luckily, the festival organiz-
ers came up with an acceptable solution: we agreed to move our clinic a block away to
the former location of the Love Shop, which was an empty storefront with the origi-
nal sign still hanging above the door. Although we were told that we would have to do
our clinic indoors so we wouldn’t block the sidewalk, the former location seemed a
reasonable compromise.
Due to all the sensationalist press, we could not find a single Stavanger sex edu-
cator or sex worker who would sit with us to offer sex advice. We had done dozens
of clinics, and this had never happened before or since. Thankfully, our artist friend
Tom Garretson flew in from Oslo on the morning of the event and saved the day. It
felt safer than just having the two of us. About an hour after we opened our doors and
had doled out some free advice to a few curious (and courageous) people, thirty or
so angry anti-­porn feminists and OTTAR members marched up the street carrying
picket signs and shouting into bullhorns. At first we tried to ignore them. A few brave
souls passed through the picketers and came inside to greet us and pose questions.
More people stopped by just to lend us some support, while others wanted to discuss
the controversy.
Eventually we decided to try an experiment. Beth, Annie, and Tom went outside
wearing our white lab coats and offered OTTAR protesters flowers from our table. We
stood together as if in solidarity with the angry anti-­porn feminists while they were
protesting against us. This confused the protestors who acted like we had cooties.
They quickly dispersed, and we continued our Sidewalk Sex Clinic inside the shop.
We were feeling pretty good about how we had dealt with that challenge when a
creepy, tall, thin man wearing a black balaclava that covered most of his face walked
up to our storefront window and graffitied a big star of David and the word JUDE
(Jew) in blood-­red spray paint. Clearly this act was directed toward Annie. It happened
so fast that the man was able to run away before anyone could react. The police, when
called, couldn’t be bothered to come investigate, which made us feel even more un-
safe. Thankfully nothing else happened.
The next night, Tao Scene hosted a gala party to wrap up the festival. It featured
a gourmet feast for all the artists who had installed art on Pedersgata Street and the
community members who helped and supported the festival. In our honor, the chef
created a dripping-­wet-­chocolate-­with-­strawberry compote, made to be eaten out of
a parfait glass with the fingers. It was absolutely orgasmic, and we were delighted to
have inspired one of the best desserts we had ever tasted. During dessert, Johanna and
Anne Marti dedicated the Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love” to us, which was very
86 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
moving. After being attacked by the media, shunned by local sex educators, protested
by anti-­porn feminists, tagged by an anti-­Semitic neo-­Nazi, and then ignored by the
police, we needed some love. Throughout the meal, people came up to us to apologize
for the rude, judgmental behavior of their fellow townspeople. We said that there was
no need to apologize: it was all part of the work.

Green Wedding Zagreb

A few months after the drama and excitement in Norway we received an invitation
from Zvonimir Dobrović, the director and producer of Queer Zagreb, a Croatian art
festival, to perform a second Green Wedding to the Earth. Dobrović informed us that
there was a lot of homophobia and religious conservatism in Croatia. He warned us
that as far as he knew, ours would be the first public wedding that was openly queer in
the Balkans. Because of this we might be violently attacked!
We felt strongly that we had to perform this wedding, even though there was a risk
that we would be the targets of homophobia. How could we say no? A month prior to
our wedding, an outbreak of homophobic violence occurred in conjunction with the
Bosnian Queer Festival. Posters displaying the names of the LBGTQIA+ organizers
were posted all around the streets of Sarajevo calling for death to homosexuals; some
had gotten bashed. Hosting and performing a queer wedding in a public space would
be an act of courage.
Again, we sent out a call that invited collaboration in creating the wedding, which
would take place in a student center at a university on November 10, 2008. The very
real danger to the organizers, the audience, and us was not overexaggerated. Our
wedding director, Mario Kovac, who was heterosexual (and an Elvis impersonator),
received a death threat for simply agreeing to work with us.
The wedding venue was packed with more than two hundred brave people. It was
a fabulous, festive, ribald event. Miss Angelique, who billed herself as Zagreb’s only
drag queen, delighted the crowd by singing “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song
from the movie Titanic. There was a green ecofashion show that highlighted recycled
materials, a two-­woman modern dance piece, a marching band, and a rock ’n’ roll
group called Šta ima? that kicked ass. Nada Miljkovic, acting as our cultural emissary
and translator, queered the wedding by performing as our kum (godfather). Nada also
sang a sevda, a traditional Balkan love song. There was a boylesque striptease that in-
volved green ostrich feathers. Our vows were officiated by the Croatian sex goddess
Biljana Kosmogina. When it came time to say, “You may now kiss the brides,” Biljana,
who was a little drunk, inserted her tongue into each of our mouths. We were shocked
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 87
but not in the least upset. Her French kiss fit perfectly with the wildness of the whole
event, especially since the bar started serving booze in the middle of the ritual. A flo-
rist made really beautiful rings for us out of plants and flowers, which our flower girl
presented in a sensuous moss-­covered box. The evening culminated with the cutting
of a green-­tiered cake, which we hand-­fed to each other, and a green garter toss. It was
a lot of fun, and luckily no one got hurt.
The day after the wedding we walked to the government office that issued marriage
licenses. About six couples were there in their wedding finery. We considered trying
to register as a form of protest but ultimately decided against it; we were satisfied with
the activism of our wedding, and we hoped that we had opened the door for many
more queer weddings to take place in the Balkans. (Today, same-­sex couples can get
openly and legally married in Croatia. Zvonimir would end up getting legally married
to his boyfriend, Bruno Isaković.) Instead, we spent the day wandering the city of Za-
greb and shopping for a 230-­volt honeymoon vibrator.

Becoming Dirty Sexecologists

In early December 2008, we were invited to travel to Bern, Switzerland, to participate
in the annual performance art festival Bone II—­A Performance Saga: Encounters
with Women Pioneers of Performance Art. It was a small yet well-­funded festival that
also brought Fluxus icons Alison Knowles and Carolee Schneemann to perform, as
well as a young queer artist named Sands. Our first night there, Sands performed an
homage to Annie’s Public Cervix Announcement by inserting a speculum into his rec-
tum, which his boyfriend filmed live, and then projected his pink insides using closed
circuit video projection. It was a beautiful, well-­done performance and homage.
We had created a new piece for this festival titled Dirty Sexecology, an exploration of
our romantic and sensual relationship with the Earth, directed by UCSC theater pro-
fessor and brilliant stage actor Patty Gallagher. Our stage set was two big breast-­like
mounds of soil with pink flowers on the peaks to look like nipples.12 During the piece,
we talked dirty to plants, Beth sang John Prine’s “Paradise,” a song about strip mining
for coal, while Annie did a humorously clumsy ballet striptease for the Earth, ending
with Beth pulling an Earth flag out of Annie’s vagina. Then we got down in the big piles
of earth and had sex in and with the soil and each other. In closing, two stagehands
shoveled dirt on top of us, burying us as we recited our Green Wedding vows.
We found that what worked best for us was that we were two older, full-­bodied
women rolling around making love with each other onstage. Older, big bodies
are not supposed to be sexual, especially in public, and we were breaking a cultural
88 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
taboo by enjoying our bodies and exhibiting our sexuality. Annie noted that when she
made porn in her twenties and thirties, she could do any kind of wild sex act and it
was pretty acceptable because she was young. Nothing would be or feel as taboo as
being in an older woman’s body having sex in public naked. Beth noted that being
a butch dyke in the nude was also taboo and transgressive. It felt good to try and fix
these taboos. Or at least confront the audience with imagery that was outside of their
prescribed sphere of youthful, trim, and heterosexual. We certainly gave audiences
a glimpse of the impermanence of youth. We hoped that our work would provoke
thought and conversation about how some bodies are acceptable and matter while
others are and do not. Plus, we enjoyed how the soil felt and smelled as we rolled
around in it, so much so that we ended up doing this action several more times over
the next couple of years.
Dirty Sexecology emboldened us to become more out as environmental activists
and inspired us to make more performances that took an activist stance on environ-
mental issues. We had the feeling that friends and colleagues were rather perplexed
at our seemingly sudden interest in environmentalism. We did our Dirty Sexecology
performance several more times. Spain’s minister of culture invited us to be part of a
festival called El Arte In Acción, with some of our favorite artists including Ron Athey,
Guillermo Gómez-­Peña, Cuco Suárez, Tania Bruguera, and Franko B.13 After we per-
formed, Guillermo told us that we were like two wild beasts, which we took as a great
compliment.
We developed Dirty Sexecology from a performance art piece into a full-­scale theater
production, which we premiered at Boston’s Theater Offensive at the invitation of
Abe Rybeck. We weren’t thrilled with our performance there. We wished that we had
workshopped the piece first, because it wasn’t really ready. What did thrill us was our
first ever Ecosexual Walking Tour, which we premiered the day after our performance
closed at the Theater Offensive.
Before the walk, the two of us scoped out the Boston Commons and planned a
route by finding the best E-­spots, which were places where we could offer ecosensual
delights, perform environmental actions, and invite audience participation.14 When it
was time to start the tour, Abe showed up with two bull horns for us to use. We needed
them since fifty people participated—­more than we expected! We kicked off the tour
by reciting our “25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth,” which we had written for Dirty
Sexecology. We then handed out a copy of our “25 Ways” for people to use as a trail
guide. The early version, which we recited for our audience in Boston, used all female
pronouns. Later, we switched to gender-­fluid and inclusive pronouns.
 25 Ways to Make Love
to the Earth Wh
1. Tell the Earth, “I love you. I can’t live without you.”
2. At first you may feel embarrassed to be lovers with the
Earth. Relax. Let it go. It’s OK.
3. Spend time with her.
4. Ask her what she likes, wants, and needs—­then try to
give it to her.
5. Massage the Earth with your feet.
6. Admire her views often.
7. Circulate erotic energy with him.
8. Smell her.
9. Taste her.
10. Touch her all over.
11. Hug and stroke his trees.
12. Talk dirty to her plants.
13. Swim naked in their waters.
14. Lay on top of her, or let her get on top of you.
15. Do a nude dance for her.
16. Sing to her.
17. Kiss and lick him.
18. Bury parts of your body deep inside his soil.
19. Plant your seeds in her.
20. Love her unconditionally even when she’s angry
or cruel.
21. Keep him clean. Please recycle.
22. Work for peace. Bombs really hurt.
23. If you see her being abused, raped, or exploited,
protect her as best you can.
24. Protect their mountains, waters, and sky.
25. Vow to love, honor, and cherish the Earth until death
brings you closer together forever.
90 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
We improvised along the way, pointing out phallic tree limbs, bees pollinating
flowers (live ecosex shows), and a wet spot made by an enthusiastic water fountain.
Gradually people started getting their ecosexual gaze on and appreciating ecoerotic
things they were seeing through this new lens. We gathered around the Ether Mon-
ument, a statue dedicated to the first use of ether as an anesthetic, which gave us an
opportunity to talk about ecosexual breathing techniques to generate endorphins
and create altered states. We sometimes say that we have intercourse with the air we
breathe. Other than losing part of our audience when it started to rain, the walking
tour went well. We ended the walk by officiating a simple wedding to the Earth using
our Green Wedding vows and gave everyone who wanted a wedding ring in the form of
a green string tied around their wrist.
We did a similar Ecosex Walking Tour a few months later, on a sunny weekend af-
ternoon in San Francisco’s Castro District. It was the closing event for our art exhibit
Dirty Sexecology: Making Love with the Earth, Sky, and the Sea,15 which featured our Green
and Blue Year projects and ephemera at Femina Potens, where the tour would start.
After that we did a few more Ecosex Walking Tours but found ourselves arguing about
what direction to go in, what to do, and who was leading which part next. The energy
between us would sometimes sour, and it was not good for our audience to see and
hear us disagreeing. Two Eves fighting in the Garden of Eden was just not cool. When
this happened, the tours were frustrating and emotionally painful. We admitted to
each other that we had a problem. It was not good for our relationship and uncom-
fortable for our audience. We retired the unscripted version of our Ecosex Walking
Tour. Later we would revive it as a scripted outdoor theater piece.
We also ended up retiring Dirty Sexecology after trying one more time to make it
work, taking it to one of our favorite performance spaces, the Kosmos Theater in
March 2010. Kosmos was founded and directed by Barbara Klein and was Europe’s
only all-­feminist theater at the time. It began as a squat and became a safe space for
women to express themselves through performance. Klein had previously presented
Annie’s Herstory of Porn and our show Exposed; Experiments in Love, Sex, Death, and Art.
Dirty Sexecology never felt quite as finished or as resolved as Exposed, so we decided to
let it go. However, we were able to recycle some of the better material we used in Dirty
Sexecology and add it to our new walking tour script.

From Identity Politics to Environmental Concerns: Goodbye Gauley Mountain

Green Wedding paved the way for our shift to ecosexuality and environmental activ-
ism, which was made more urgent by Annie’s cancer and Beth’s discovery that the
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 91
Appalachian Mountains that she loved were being blasted apart in order to obtain
cheap coal. Since moving away as a teenager, Beth had regularly traveled back to West
Virginia to relax and visit her family, who had been involved in mining for a long
time. Her father’s side had been miners in the seventeenth century, originally living
in Cornwall, England, where they mined tin and eventually immigrated to the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan to mine copper. In 1941, her grandfather Stephens moved the
family to West Virginia and started the business Marathon Coal Bit Company in the
little town of Smithers.
During a trip home in 2008, she looked out of the plane window and noticed that
large swaths of the mountains appeared as if their green skin had been scraped off
by a dull-­edged knife. Beth’s family had kept her informed about what was happen-
ing in West Virginia. But seeing the landscape for the first time from the air, she was
completely floored that such large areas of the state had been so brutally affected by
mountaintop removal (MTR), a violent form of strip mining for coal that uses ex-
plosives and heavy equipment to quickly remove the displaced earth and expose thin
seams of coal lying close to the surface of the mountain. MTR provides easy access to
coal that is used to generate electricity. This form of mining literally blasts the top of
the mountains to smithereens, leaving dead trees, plants, animals (including hiber-
nating bears), soil, and rocks strewn about in piles of debris. The overburden, as it is
called by the mining industry, is bulldozed into the valleys below.
More than five hundred mountains in Appalachia have had their tops blown off,
and many more are threatened. At nearly five hundred million years old, these are
some of the oldest mountains in the world and have the second most biodiversity
in the western hemisphere after the Amazon. The mountain springs form the head-
waters for large portions of both the Eastern seaboard and the Ohio River Valley.
Thousands of miles of streams have been buried beneath the overburden that gets
dumped into these waterways. The streams that are still running are poisoned by the
toxic acid runoff that contains chemical elements such as arsenic, selenium, and mer-
cury.16 Entire communities have had their water poisoned far beyond safe levels of
human, and animal, potability. Cancer and other serious health issues are prevalent
among people living near MTR operations.
We were outraged and dismayed at what was happening to southern West Virginia.
We were even more outraged at the coal corporations that continued to get away with
inflicting severe harm to the land and all life forms living there.
92 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
Knowledge Is Power
beth  In 2009 I decided to pursue a doctorate at UC Davis in performance stud-
ies, following the advice of environmental artists Newton and Helen Mayer
Harrison to go back to the Appalachian Mountains to conduct field research
in West Virginia. A friend of the family owned a reclamation company, which
rehabilitated mined land to its approximate original state. He offered to show
me around a few of the sites that his company was reclaiming. Together we went
to the MTR site, which was located right behind the majestic Kanawha State
Forest where I had played as a child.
I could never have imagined so much environmental wreckage was possible
right beside the magical forest that nurtured my imagination. Lush green hill-
sides were ripped up, blown apart, and flattened. The sounds of the woods had
been replaced by the sound of machines, and when the workers went home it
was dead quiet. No birds were singing, no leaves rustled in the wind, no animals
could be seen moving about the terrain. Aside from human beings, there were
no other living creatures on the vast tract of the mine site.
Instead of the verdant biodiverse green hills that I knew, there was only
a jagged moonscape of gray geologic material, compressed by the constant
back-­and-­forth of heavy equipment pushing piles of displaced material around.
Beautiful hardwood trees that had been clear-­cut from the slopes were piled up
and burned. Soil and rocks were pushed into the streams by house-­sized dump
trucks. There was so much toxic airborne material that vehicles leaving the
site had to exit through a washing station. Devastated by seeing the profound
damage up close, I struggled to think of something meaningful that I could do
to counter this terrible destruction.
Shortly after I returned home from West Virginia I happened across an
article in the New York Times that was part of a series about water. There was
a big photo of a little kid with his mouth wide open. His teeth were full of
fillings. The child, named Ryan Massey, was from West Virginia. To my sur-
prise, Ryan lived in a white middle-­class neighborhood seventeen miles outside
Charleston, the state capitol. In spite of the fact that I am from the same area, I
immediately and incorrectly assumed that he was poor and that his parents had
fed him too much Mountain Dew, popular in the rural areas where I grew up.
We used to call this “dew mouth,” which referred to the damage caused by
the massive quantity of sugar in Mountain Dew that ruined plenty of teeth.
What made Ryan’s situation especially horrifying was that his tooth decay was
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 93
caused by toxic mountain water—­not by dew mouth. This water contained lead,
nickel, and other heavy metals from mine runoff.17 This article spurred me to
do something concrete about MTR. I proposed making a documentary film for
my PhD. This film also would fulfill my activist desire to spread the word about
what was going down in the coalfields of West Virginia.
As I began researching the history of mining for the film, I realized that I
had my own biases about Appalachia that went beyond the dew mouth quip.
What really tipped the scale was when I realized how many Appalachian stereo-
types I had internalized. I noticed how effectively these stereotypes demean the
people and places to which they are applied. If my first impulse upon reading
the Times was to poke fun at my own people, no wonder others have so little
empathy for them.
This lack of caring is in large part why Appalachia’s beautiful mountains,
forests, and streams have been allowed to be ruined in the process of being, in
the words of Rebecca Scott, an “energy extraction sacrifice zone, a place that
is written off for environmental destruction in the name of a higher purpose,
such as the national interest.”18 The term hillbilly marks people as being un-
naturally close to nature, sexually out of control, incestuous, and consequently
inbred, and differentiates them as being less than human. As the 2016 presi-
dential election showed, this difference fuels popular disdain for the rural poor,
which makes it easy to dismiss whole categories of people who are (or used to
be) defined by their deep ties to the land on which they live.19
Hillbillies are considered disposable, which in turn makes it easier to ignore
the areas where MTR has destroyed the land on which they live. Disposability
works well to create and maintain sacrifice zones. If no one is living on the land
to fight mining’s environmental damage, then energy corporations can do as
they please.20 The coal mining industry has done just that by manipulating eco-
nomics to mobilize rural miners and their families; in turn, their communities,
which are sick of being stereotyped as violent and uneducated, are persuaded to
support conservative political movements.
Even though my family had long been involved in mining, I was not about
to stand by and do nothing while the animals, plants, and beautiful mountains,
streams, and lakes of West Virginia were being destroyed.
annie  When Beth started her PhD program while working her full-­time job, she
was so busy that I felt abandoned. But then gradually through osmosis I started
learning about things she was learning, which was great—­two for the price of
94 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
one. I got with the program. But when Beth told me she was going to be making
a film about MTR, I was less than enthusiastic. “Do you have any idea what you’re
getting into?” I asked. It would be Beth’s first feature film, so no, she didn’t.
I had had quite a lot of experience with filmmaking. Having worked on more
than a hundred feature films, some golden-­era mainstream adult films, some B
movies, I wrote and produced some of my own post-­porn videos and had been
in dozens of documentaries by other directors. Making movies was and still is
my favorite medium. But I intentionally hadn’t made a feature film in well over
a decade due to the downsides: high costs, boring distribution tasks, lack of
profit, etc.
However, I do understand the activist impulse, so I quickly surrendered
and gave Beth my blessing. Nothing would have stopped her anyway. It would
be Beth’s story. She would direct the film, and I would co-­produce and assist
however I could. She decided to name the film Goodbye Gauley Mountain—­An
Ecosexual Love Story, because she grew up in Gauley Mountain’s shadow and had
always loved that place.
beth  Right from the start, it made sense for me to be the narrator of the film in
spite of the fact that my biggest on-­camera movie role up to that point had been
appearing as a dog in a tutu in a short Peggy Awash film. I had only made one
short film of my own, Do You Mind? which had shown in several gay and lesbian
film festivals in the early nineties. Annie was right, I had no idea what I was
getting into with a feature film.
Luckily, not knowing was kind of a blessing. I charged right in. As I began to
figure out what I wanted to shoot, I knew what we didn’t want to do. We didn’t
want to create more drama for the environmental activists than they already had
from fighting MTR. Many of them were not from West Virginia, but they were
living in rural coal mining areas, which was already controversial. We didn’t
want to get the people in trouble, those helping us make the film. Plus, we also
didn’t want to come off as being self-­righteous California filmmakers making
West Virginians look bad. Plenty of documentaries and pop culture shows
have already done that. Because I was born and raised there, I figured we would
instead have a shot at interviewing local residents for a film with coal mining
at its heart. I took the lead in front of the camera while wild-­child Annie put on
her best behavior and played my femme sidekick.
We decided to weave several historical and personal story lines together to
depict the complex connections that make up the world where this violent form
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 95
of resource extraction is a daily reality. These threads included my upbringing
in a family whose machining business was deeply tied to coal mining, and to
the environmental and social devastation of MTR. Of course, we added the
potential of ecosexuality to both critique environmental injustice and to envi-
sion possible ways to heal some of the damage that mining has caused to our
relationship with the Earth.
We also wanted to bring together our interests in performance,
environmentalism, sexuality, queer and gender politics, and our colorful,
flamboyant, sex-­positive worlds with ecofeminism and activism. And even
in the face of one of the most exploitative extraction industries on the planet,
we wanted to practice strategies of joy to celebrate the mountains and
everything living there.
Appalachia is queer in the sense that identities are very fluid in that part
of the country. There have always been queers in the mountains, and oddly
enough, these queers have been allowed to exist in ways that generally would
not be tolerated in an urban setting. Many of the people there are poor, and it
seemed as though everyone outside of Appalachia either made fun of or feared
us. Beverly Hillbillies or Deliverance, take your pick.
But queerness in Appalachia runs deeper than the Hollywood stereotypes.
God is always present, and you can suddenly be overtaken by the Holy Spirit to
talk in tongues or go down to the river and get baptized. You can wrestle with
Satan, drink poison, and handle venomous snakes, emerging from those expe-
riences a stronger person who had faced evil and survived. If that’s not queer, I
don’t know what is.21
But one of the most significant things I remember is that that if you grew
up in Appalachia, you were allowed to roam freely through acres and acres of
mountain forests with their rivers, streams, and rock formations. I was free to
be a tomboy and I was free to be a bit feral, too, as I roamed through a world
filled with critters, ghosts, cliffs, and trees. I loved growing up there.
The film started to take shape. Making it was my creative effort to be respon-
sible to the place where I was born, where my parents are buried, and where my
siblings and oldest friends continue to live. I was hoping the film would serve
as a warning against extractive industries that leave behind so much death,
destruction, and heartbreak. I looked at MTR through the lens of ecosexuality
to try to understand and communicate this environmental tragedy to the rest of
the world.
96 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
At the same time, the film’s campy attitude and celebration of the beauty
of the mountains reflect some of the ribald hillbilly humor with which I grew
up. That humor is embedded in my DNA, and sometimes it comes out in ways
that only a fellow West Virginian would understand. We wanted to mobilize
ecosexuality to help make environmentalism a little more sexy, fun, and diverse.
Additionally, Annie and I wanted to play around with the traditional docu-
mentary format consisting of talking heads, dire warnings, and an overarching
narrative of doom and gloom. Instead of accepting fate, we wanted to use queer
tactics, including humor and camp, to inject an element of hope into the whole
apocalyptic scene. We also wanted our film to be different from the many other
documentaries about Appalachia coal mining.22
When I started making our film in 2009, the coal industry was the second
largest employer and contributor to the economy in West Virginia, providing
more than thirty thousand jobs and $3.5 billion in economic impact.23 As a West
Virginian, I am sensitive to the fact that coal mining has provided much needed
income, although often under brutal conditions, since the beginning of the
industrial revolution. For many West Virginians, working in the coal industry
has traditionally been the most economically viable option available to pursue
whatever version of the American dream that could be mustered. While the fi-
nancial gains of coal mining have plummeted since 2009, coal remains a highly
charged issue often used to manipulate people.24 The mythological status of the
glory days when King Coal employed the majority of West Virginians makes it
difficult to create a cohesive movement of local resistance.
Most of our footage in West Virginia was shot during July and August 2010.
One of the first people I met with was Larry Gibson, a pivotal figure who had
generously agreed to show me around back in September 2008, the Green Year.
He was the founding director of the Keeper of the Mountains Foundation and a
legendary figure in the anti-­MTR coalition. Larry’s family had lived in the Kay-
ford Mountain area since the beginning of the eighteenth century, making him
a West Virginian through and through. As he stated so eloquently in the film, he
had very little formal education—­staying in school through the fifth grade.
An autodidact, Larry was unafraid to speak his mind to defend the land that
he loved. He was open-­minded in terms of his relationships with activists, and
he welcomed everyone. His motto for the mountains was, “Love ’em or leave
’em but just don’t destroy ’em.” He had no trouble with appearing in our film.
In fact, he supported us in every aspect of the film’s creation. Larry claimed that
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 97
he related to ecosexuality because of his love of the land and the plants and ani-
mals that lived there. In fact he once told me that he loved Kayford Mountain as
much as he loved his wife, Carol. He was not squeamish about Annie’s porn past
either. It was just the opposite. He was delighted when I told him about Annie,
her herstory, and her community of sex workers. Larry felt that Annie’s reputa-
tion could bring some media attention to the horrors of MTR mining, and like
Andy Warhol, Larry believed that it wasn’t what the media said: it was how much
they said that was important.25
Larry first appears in our film sitting with us on the front porch of his cabin
on Kayford Mountain, all singing the West Virginia state song. Larry’s dog, Dog,
joined in, howling away. Larry drove us up to the top of the mountain in his big
white Ford truck to show us the MTR site adjacent to his land. “Larry Gibson”
was hated by King Coal’s minions because of his outspoken politics and anti-­
MTR activism. The pro–­coal faction saw Larry as an active threat to their way of
life, and they wanted to stop him. Several times armed men had shown up at his
place and threatened him with harm if he didn’t stop speaking up against MTR.
He refused to be intimidated. However, Larry did keep a pistol in his glove com-
partment and had a camera attached to his dashboard to record any incident that
might occur while he was driving in the area. This made me a little nervous as we
drove up the narrow-­rutted dirt road to his cabin on Kayford Mountain.
When we arrived at his family’s home, he walked us past his cousins’ cabins
and the gate installed by the mining company to stop us from getting near the
mine’s high wall, which Larry dubbed Hell’s Gate.26 When we crested the final
ridge to reach the edge of the mine, we surveyed the gaping dusty pit below.
This blasted area had once been a proud mountain rising a hundred feet above
our vantage point.
Larry introduced us to the photographer and West Virginia native Vivian
Stockman, whose compelling interview about forest biodiversity appears in the
first part of our film. We met Jordan Freeman, our cinematographer, through
a recommendation from Stockman. It turned out that Jordan had recently
graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in community studies. He ended
up working on our film and later projects. Jordan was really plugged into the
environmental activist scene. He took us to some of the places where significant
actions occurred, and he introduced us to some of the other activists in the film.
We toured the exhibition mine together, a tourist attraction and one of the
few places that the public can legally go inside an old mine, in Beckley. There
98 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
we interviewed a retired miner and tour guide named Leroy, who told us how
he could no longer harvest ginseng or hunt on corporate land without being
fined, even though he had enjoyed those activities throughout his entire life.
The big coal mining corporations, on the other hand, just blow off the tops of
mountains and destroy all of the ginseng, kill the wildlife, and decimate vast,
irreplaceable ecosystems. In a devastating indictment of the power of the coal
industry, Leroy told us that “the little man, he can’t do it, but the big man can.
They step on you from every direction.”27
Many of the scenes in the movie were shot along Route 3, a winding two-­
lane road that runs from Beckley through Rock Creek and Whitesville, roughly
parallel to the Coal River. This is where many of the anti-­MTR activists lived
and where some of the most egregious mining activities in modern times
have occurred. Route 3 passes through Montcoal, the site of the catastrophic
mine explosion at the Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine that killed
twenty-­nine miners on April 5, 2010.
About fifteen miles outside Beckley, Annie and I met several activists who
lived in Rock Creek, including Mike Roselle (who started Earth First!) and
Grumble (aka Michael Bowersox), a veteran cook for activist groups from Seeds
of Peace. While we were there, Grumble showed us around the equipment sup-
ply room and taught me how to climb a tree in case I ever needed to do forest
protection.
In typical documentary style, we interviewed Paul Corbit Brown, who had
been introduced to me by my cousin Jennifer Dusic. Paul had witnessed and
photographed the demise of his beloved West Virginia hills since mountaintop
removal explosions began resounding in the early 1980s. He began his pho-
tographic career documenting human rights abuses in Russia, Kenya, Laos,
Rwanda, and Indonesia before returning home to document the destruction
of his immediate environment. Paul characterized the coal industry’s creation
and maintenance of a mono-­economy in West Virginia as “a protracted form of
genocide.”
I also included other family members, such as my cousin Patricia Spangler,
author of The Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster, as well as many in the anti-­MTR
movement such as former mining inspector Jack Spadero.28 We interviewed
Joe Hamsher and Sarah “Seeds” Willner while they were chained to a barrel to
protest the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s refusal
to enforce the Clean Water Act. The state police showed up at this protest, so
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 99
I spontaneously began singing the West Virginia state anthem to them. They
became increasingly uncomfortable when I asked them if they knew the words.
The officers said they did not, but it was unclear whether they were telling the
truth. The “West Virginia Hills” was a song we all learned in sixth grade, and
if they had grown up in West Virginia they would have known the words. This
scene became a humorous as well as a dramatic high point in the film.
We were fortunate to obtain footage of MTR explosions, which the mining
companies can make nearly impossible to obtain. Don Blankenship, the former
CEO of Massey Energy, is shown wearing an American flag baseball hat and
matching short-­sleeved flag shirt at a pro–­coal rally. He accused the anti-­MTR
environmentalists of being un-­American and said that they were taking away
people’s jobs. This speech was given shortly before the 2010 Upper Big Branch
coal mine explosion. Blankenship was disgraced when he was convicted of
conspiring to violate mine safety standards related to the explosion. He ended
up serving a year in prison in Taft, California. Right after he got out, he had the
audacity to run for the U.S. Senate in 2018, and thankfully he lost.
The score for the film was based on the musical legacy of Appalachia. Joan
Jeanrenaud, the original cellist of the Kronos Quartet, was responsible for the
mournful cello rifts that accompanied the images of MTR devastation. We
also incorporated some old-­timey banjo music and Hazel Dickens’s classic
“West Virginia, My Home.” Appropriately, Dickens grew up in Mercer County,
which is in the heart of southern West Virginia’s coal country. Annie’s brother,
David B. Steinberg, a professional composer for movies and television, super-
vised the musical score and also composed several pieces for us.
In making this film, we wanted to repudiate the heteronormative narrative
of poverty and economic distress that is typical of most documentaries that deal
with Appalachia. As scholar Lauran Whitworth comments, the “interspecies
ethics espoused by Stephens, Sprinkle and other ecosexuals have the potential
to queer how we think about human/nonhuman relations. . . . The packaging
of these ethics in a campy performativity that is a far cry from conventional
environmentalism challenges us to consider the possibility of alternative mode
of environmental activism.”29 We liked it that our desire to discuss the entire
scope of life that was affected, not just that of humans, was being recognized by
writers and thinkers across several fields.
Humor, as well as a little nudity, helps the medicine go down, so we inter-
spersed those things among the tragedy of MTR. In the beginning of the film,
100 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s

To help halt mountaintop removal coal mining on Blair Mountain in West Virginia, we
participated in the re-creation in 2011 of the fifty-mile march that miners walked in 1921 to the
mountain. We filmed some of the march for our film Goodbye Gauley Mountain. Photograph by
Jordan Freeman. Authors’ collection.

there is a scene where I am walking around my childhood neighborhood with

my sister Anne, who points out the house and the room where I was conceived.
That inspired me to playfully reenact a sperm and egg conception dance for the
camera. Shortly after, the viewers see two dogs start humping each other on the
hill above us while we are talking and we don’t even notice them.
There are also scenes of Annie and me frolicking in the river in the nude.
At one point our dog, Bob, takes a dump, and we encourage Jordan to get the
shot on camera. When we decide to marry the Appalachian Mountains, I flub
my lines as I practice my vows. Annie flashes her tits in front of a sign that
says mountaintop removal. We also attend an LGBTQIA+ outdoor picnic in
Charleston, in order to show support and to hand out promotional material for
ecosexuality. We visit my grade-­school friend Cindy, who is against MTR, and
her husband, Roger, who is pro–­MTR, and they argue about it on camera. The
 Nas c ent Ec os exuals 101
film ends on a note of love and hope at our celebratory wedding with my family,
Larry Gibson, and the MTR activists we met on our journey.

Postproduction
We met film editor and director Keith Wilson in January 2012 and showed him our
rough, rough cut. He promised that he could make our film sing and dance if we
paid enough. We worked with Keith from February through March to finish up the
film and make the trailer. It seemed that every step of the process cost more than we
thought it would, but luckily we were always able to find the money we needed either
through grants, gifts, or with crazy events such as our Dive-­in Theater fundraiser, which,
in true Appalachian fashion, was held at Beth’s cousin Damon’s home in Charleston.
The Dive-­in part had to do with the fact that we watched the film from Damon’s pool.
Larry and his wife, Carol, attended the fundraiser, and Larry grinned from ear to ear as
he handed us a nice crisp $100 bill to help defray our postproduction costs.
In 2013, we set up a screening at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, to give the
courageous people in it the first crack at attending the film’s world premiere. The
house was packed! Little did we know that anti-­environmentalist pro–­coal people
would be in the audience. In reaction to a provocative anti-­MTR activist, they almost
started a fist fight during the Q&A. Luckily the situation was defused, but it made for
a memorable premiere.
The film then showed at the QDoc Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, to a rousing
standing ovation. The film went on to play the Santa Cruz Film Festival, San Francisco
Doc Fest, Montreal Film Festival, Pink Screens in Brussels, Belgium, and many oth-
ers. It screened at the highly selective, industry-­focused Sheffield Doc Fest in England,
which we happily attended. Magically, at the last minute we were offered an opportu-
nity to do a two-­minute pitch to a room full of film industry people. Goodbye Gauley
Mountain was acquired by Manhattan-­based distributor Kino Lorber, which then
placed our film on Netflix, iTunes, and YouTube. It has been purchased by universities
and public libraries and screened in a number of other venues, nationally and inter-
nationally, including two women’s prisons in Mexico, the Reina Sophia in Madrid,
and at Art Market Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts. We are lucky campers.
One of the most meaningful acknowledgments for the film came a few years later
from Donna Haraway. In “The Camille Stories—­Children of the Compost” section
of her book Staying with the Trouble, she discusses a speculative fiction system of child
raising that involves inserting the DNA of an extinct species from the specific region
where the child is born into the human newborn’s genetic sequence. A group of three
102 Na s c e n t E c o s e x ua l s
adults are then charged with raising each individual child. Haraway told us she was
influenced by Goodbye Gauley Mountain. “They named the settlement New Gauley to
honor the lands and waters devastated by mountaintop removal coal mining.”30 Her
earlier work had inspired Beth to apply to UC Santa Cruz in 1993 for a job in the first
place. Now her writings about speculative fiction within the field of science and tech-
nology studies are helping us imagine how to both exist in and make worlds now and
in the future. Her acknowledgment and support of our work are very meaningful to us.
As far as we know, Goodbye Gauley Mountain was the first openly queer environ-
mental activist feature documentary, and it was definitely the first ecosexual one. Our
film won a John Michael Award at Big Muddy Film Festival 2014, the Spirit of Action
Award at the Santa Cruz Film Festival, plus it was nominated for the Green Envi-
ronmental Award at the Sheffield Film Festival. Best of all, it informed thousands of
people in several countries about the environmental destruction of MTR and the ef-
fects of mining on communities. Many people, including a shocking number of West
Virginians, said they had absolutely no knowledge of the extent of the coal mining
destruction going on, as sadly it is still an incredibly well-­kept secret.
 five

HAPPY TRAILS AND THE CLIMAX

OF THE LOVE ART LAB

The day after our Green Wedding to the Earth, we were over the Moon—­which we
would eventually marry, too—­with our success in combining a queer challenge to the
institution of marriage plus beginning a more seductive relationship with the envi-
ronment. As a performance art concept, clearly marrying an entity that everyone in
attendance also cherished was a meaningful way to spread our message of love. We es-
pecially enjoyed the fact that a wedding (usually a traditional ceremony that reaffirms
heterosexual institutions) could create a relationship between environmentalism and
sex positivity. We felt like we were on to something powerful. Overnight our rela-
tionship with the Earth underwent a paradigm shift, and we were curious about what
could happen if we pursued it. The formalization of our commitment to the Earth
deepened our resolution to research and champion environmental causes.
Over the next three years we would go on to marry the Appalachian Mountains, the
Sea, the Sky, the Rocks, Coal, a lake in Finland, and even the Sun at sunrise on Bernal
Hill, where we lived. We would also take on large industries that were responsible for
destroying the Earth. We made new and unlikely alliances with environmental activ-
ists as we became more committed to environmental art in the spirit of love, camp,
burlesque, and Fluxus with which we started the Love Art Lab.
Our Green Wedding to the Earth and the related conference Intervene! Interrupt! Re-
thinking Art as Social Practice included a number of speakers, two art exhibitions,
and Low Footprints, a performance festival organized by Natalie Loveless, Lindsay
Kelly, and Jamie McMurry. These events featured the biggest and most diverse audi-
ence so far, including Lee Wen from Singapore and Adina Bar-­On from Israel. The
word about the new direction that our work had taken quickly got around, and inter-
national art organizations started inviting us to produce more weddings. Marrying
104 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
the Earth resonated with a lot of people! Quite a few folks traveled far and wide to
three, four, or five of our wedding events, arriving as witnesses (audience members) or
active collaborators. At the heart of the weddings, our goal was to inform and remind
people why they should care about our environment.

Our Love Is Blue

The theme of our Blue Year was communication, inspired by the fifth (throat) chakra.
Social media was still in its infancy, but through word of mouth, paper invitations,
and tentative use of social media we managed to reach numerous potential collabora-
tors, with great results. We ended up doing two Blue Weddings in 2009. Our first took
place in Oxford, England, where we married the Sky. This was the year that we dis-
covered our talented costume designer Sarah Stolar. A mutual friend saw our call for
collaborators and told Sarah about our work. An animal rights activist, vegan, and a
painter, Sarah was intrigued and wanted to design our costumes. She showed us some
sketches and we said yes to the dress! We fell in love with her designs and with Sarah.
Over the next several years she would create several of our phantasmagorical vegan
wedding couture and accessories. It was a match made in heaven.
Our producer was none other than Luke Dixon, who had produced our Extreme
Kissing Workshop some years before. Besides being a theater director, Luke had be-
come a professional urban beekeeper so he embraced our ecosexual ambitions with
open arms. At Luke’s urging, we decided to offer a weeklong prewedding workshop,
Making Art into Love and Love into Art, so that participants could develop perfor-
mances, props, a printed program, and costumes. Thirty enthusiastic people signed
up for the workshop and collaborated on the creation of the wedding. The venue was
Grove House, a villa where Vivien Greene, the jilted wife of writer Graham Greene,
had lived. Vivien had been an avid collector of dollhouses and the villa included a spe-
cial rotunda to exhibit her collection. Luke used this odd round space for his Yves
Klein–­inspired cobalt-­blue body print workshop. The prints doubled as wedding dec-
orations. We were all happily making art for the Sky, surrounded by lush, manicured
grounds and a garden featuring huge blue hydrangea plants, coincidentally Annie’s
favorite flower.
On June 14, 2009, the morning of our Wedding to the Sky, it was completely gray and
drizzly—­a typical British day. Miraculously, just as the guests began to arrive, the sun
started to shine through huge marshmallow clouds. From the window of our dress-
ing room we could see a heart-­shaped cloud floating in the distance. We took this as a
sign that the Sky was ready to join us in (un)holy matrimony. Veronica Hart, who had
Vows to the Sky with
Carbon-­C apture Kisses Wh
luke  Annie and Beth, are you ready to take your vows to the Sky?
annie  Sky! i would die without you! Today I vow to learn more about you, about
sky pollution and climate change. I promise to love, appreciate, and listen to you
more each day, for the rest of my life. i love you!
beth  Sky! I vow to work toward becoming a vegetarian because I know the meat
industry creates a lot of methane gas, which is not good for your health. I vow
to thank you, Sky, every day for providing me with oxygen, wind, rain, sunlight,
starlight, moonlight, and blue.
luke to audience  Do any of you wish to make vows to the Sky?
audience  (Open mic. Audience members and collaborators offer their individual vows to
the Sky.)
luke  (to audience) Do you promise to love, honor, and breathe in the Sky for as long as
you shall live?
everyone who chooses  I do!
luke  To remind you of your vows each day you will have rings!
(Claire Cochrane, our ring bearer dressed as an angel with wings, scoots out of
the second-­story window, and holding on to a rope she rappels down the side of
the mansion to present us, the brides, with two rings.)1
clare  New scientific research shows that there might be ways to capture unwanted
carbon and help stop global warming. We can all do our part with a carbon-­capture
kiss. Let me demonstrate.
(Claire breathes tenderly in and out of her girlfriend’s mouth.)
luke  You may now carbon-­capture kiss the brides.
(Annie and Beth carbon-­capture kiss. Then a sandstone ring sculpture, created
over several days by a workshop participant, was offered up to the Sky.)
I now pronounce you married to the sky! You may all now kiss
the Sky!
106 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
emceed our Green Wedding, happened to be directing some sex films in London, so
she emceed for us again. Violetta Storm performed a burlesque spoken-­word strip-
tease in a powder-­blue corset and silk stockings. Performance artist Rolf Baltromejus
performed an astonishing deep-­throat demonstration with a string of blueberries.
At our show’s reception there was a rollicking Instant Showgirl Workshop by Lexi
Bradburn, and a mystical ritual by German feminist author Mithu Sundahl in a
wood-­heated hot tub, titled The Oracle. Our celebrity wedding photographer was
none other than Del LaGrace Volcano, the trans* photographer, whose pictures of the
queer community have become iconic.
After the rings, kisses, and proclamation were finished, we all recessed by dancing
back down the aisle to Jimi Hendrix’s sexy “Purple Haze,” played at full blast. “Purple
Haze . . . Excuse me while I kiss the sky . . .”

Mamma Mia Che Tettone at the Venice Biennale

When Paul Preciado invited us to perform a wedding as part of the Venice Biennale,
we immediately accepted his proposal. Without any discussion we both sponta-
neously knew we wanted to marry the Adriatic Sea. In our artist statement, we pointed
out that we wanted to marry the Sea because during the Renaissance, the Doge of
Venice would ceremoniously marry the Sea in order to become her lord. As two global
queer citizens who care deeply about the industrial destruction of the world’s oceans,
we wanted to marry the Sea in order to have a deeper connection and union with her,
especially since our bodies are made primarily of water. Paul approved our plan and
approached Jota Castro, former Biennale artist and the curator of the Fear Society—­
Pavilion of Urgency, a project by the Region of Murcia, Spain, about staging a Blue
Wedding at the Arsenale Novissimo, Tese di San Cristoforo.2 Jota was intrigued and in-
vited us to stage a wedding at the pavilion. The date was set for August 28, 2009, which
turned out to be the hottest day of the summer.
Forty people from nineteen countries enthusiastically answered our call for col-
laborators while others participated remotely. Geoff Hendricks offered to perform
a blue headstand for us on his farm in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, sending us the
ephemera afterward. Linda Montano gave us instructions to begin the wedding with
singing her Italian father’s favorite song, “That’s Amore.”
One week prior to our wedding day, we arrived in Venice to prepare. Organizing
our collaborators proved to be a daunting task, especially since the administrative staff
at the Fear Society pavilion wasn’t very helpful and did little more than provide our
dressing room. Phone service was spotty, so no one’s cell phone worked well, and the
Blue Wedding to the Sea:
Artist Statement Wh
why marry the sea in venice? During the
Renaissance, the Doge (chief magistrate) of Venice
decreed that “Venice must marry the sea as a man marries
a woman and thus become her Lord.” Once each year the
Doge would go out on a boat and drop a ring into the
water. But we asked, can people really Lord over the Sea?
What is perfectly clear is that people do have the power
to destroy the Sea and her creatures, and we are rapidly
doing so. The Sea is filled with a fast-­growing cancer
made of plastic islands larger than the state of Texas and
growing continuously. The Sea is suffocating from gases
caused by our pollution. Globally, 90 percent of her large
fish have been wiped out. She’s overheating. Her reefs and
many of her sea creatures have been brutally destroyed.
Need we go on?
we will follow in the tradition of
marrying the sea in Venice—­as two women who have
moved beyond the normative male (dominant) and female
(submissive) dynamic, and instead presenting as seductive
ecosexual artists, and as global citizens who care deeply
about the welfare of our planet.
loving the sea erotically takes us all deliciously
deep inside our primordial selves. Our bodies are made
largely of water, so in fact we are each the Sea. We hope
that you, our guests and collaborators, will take vows to
love, honor, and protect the Sea along with us. Now let’s
get wet!
108 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
Americans didn’t have European calling plans. Communication was virtually impos-
sible. At times the production was total chaos. We didn’t have a central meeting place,
we had no contact information for our collaborators, and there was no ground trans-
portation to the gallery so we had to carry everything by hand on foot or on vaporetti
(public waterbuses). Venice was in the midst of a heat wave—­but still the city was stun-
ningly beautiful. We had rented a sweet vacation apartment with Paul Preciado, King
Erik from the Emmetrop Art Center, and his partner, Cecile Jamet, whom everyone
calls Mamita. When we had performed at Emmetrop during the Yellow Year, we stayed
with Mamita, who is an extraordinary cook. She kept us nourished and hydrated
throughout the ordeal. Thanks to Mamita we never once turned into bridezillas.
The Fear Society pavilion was located in a huge art gallery inside the Arsenale (the
cluster of former shipyards and armories in Venice). Paul and Jota did everything they
could to help us, but we ended up being production managers as well as brides. Logis-
tics were chaotic, stressful, and frustrating. We persevered, took things in stride, and
trusted that it would all work out. Our wonderful international cadre of collaborators
were incredibly generous, talented, and totally thrilled to help marry us to the Adriatic
Sea.3 We all bonded as we dealt with the chaos of the day as the sizzling temperatures
drenched us in sweat. We decided that we didn’t want to be inside the gallery. Instead,
we wanted to be close to the water, where it was cooler, and we moved the ceremony
outside to the waterfront. This location was right next to the ruins of an ancient public
pissoir, where sailors infamously fornicated with prostitutes who greeted their incom-
ing ships. We loved the pissoir and felt that it was an appropriate place for us to gather.
Blue Wedding to the Sea lasted for approximately eight hours, from its start to when
we finally made our vows to the Sea in traditional Venetian fashion. The performance
began with a Fellini-­esque procession led from the Gallery dressing area by Paul, who
was wearing a blue rabbit-­eared Viking helmet. Natalie Loveless knelt to the side of
the wedding party while slowly wrapping nylon fishing line tightly around her face.
Periodically she would pause to dunk her head in a bucket of blue water and scream
each time she resurfaced. The fishing line made her face look completely deformed,
which spoke to the suffering of the polluted Sea animals and plants that depended on
the water. Her endurance performance lasted four hours.
Carol Queen, resident sexologist of Good Vibrations and the officiant for the
Orange Wedding, came all the way from San Francisco. She called the directions of
North, East, South, and West to invoke a circle of power and protection. Italian artists
Kyrahm + Julius Kaiser performed a romantic body-­piercing duet with needles dec-
orated with strands of blue pearls. Zvonimir Dobrović, the director of Queer Zagreb
 Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 109
who had produced our Green Wedding in Croatia, performed as our kum (godfather).
King Erik and Mamita sat beside us in our wedding party as French royalty wearing
Venetian masks. Timi Stüttgen performed an act of conceptual castration by throw-
ing a dildo into the canal, then diving into the water to retrieve it. We worried that
Timi might contract typhoid, cholera, or worse from the polluted waters, but he never
did. Margarita Tsomou, Stüttgen’s partner at the time, did a Sappho-­inspired femi-
nist menstruation ritual dance.
Harry Ruhé did a Fluxus reading of a poem while wearing a pair of tight under-
wear briefs printed with a blue Delft pattern that he had designed in a nod to his
nationality. Lady Monster, who had performed a burlesque dance for the Green Wed-
ding, did a sultry striptease for the Sea while clad in seven blue veils twirling tassels
that squirted water from her nipples. David Bowie–­doppelgänger Graham Bell and
his muse, Ana Marie Staiano, performed a rock song while decked out in skimpy
seashell and dildo costumes. The Spanish poet Diana Torres, better known as Diana
Pornoterrorista, wearing nothing but blue body paint, attempted to transform her-
self into a water fountain by getting on hands and knees and squirting blue water out
of her anus. It was so hot outside that all the preinserted liquid was absorbed by her
body, so nothing came out. Paul, our jack of all trades, tried to help her out by insert-
ing his finger into her anus, but to no avail. Fortunately, Pornoterrorista had a backup
plan, a flamingo dance where she pulled blue tulle out of her pussy.
The very serious gallery director at Murcia’s Fear Society didn’t expect our wedding
to turn into an endurance event. Neither did we. Even though Jota was the curator,
and a guest at the wedding, the director politely made it clear that the gallery had to
close promptly at 6 p.m. Our ceremony was not finished, but the sound system and
the chairs were repossessed at six on the dot and we were locked out of the gallery. We
realized that we would have to find another location to proclaim our vows to the Sea.
Our Fellini-­esque wedding party, unable to take a shortcut through the locked gallery,
was forced to parade over a mile around the entire exterior wall of Arsenale and then
through the streets of Venice to a café for much-­needed nourishment and hydration.
A male passerby complimented (or sexually harassed) Annie by calling out “Mamma
mia che tettone!” (What tits!). Annie, who was wearing a Sarah Stolar–­designed wed-
ding dress with a plunging neckline that displayed her voluptuous cleavage, took this
in stride. It turned out that “Mamma mia che tettone” was a line in a bawdy Italian
pop song about a man who is seduced by a buxom transsexual woman. Paul knew
the song’s refrain, taught it to us, and we all spontaneously sang the catchy tune as we
wandered through the streets of Venice.
Paul Preciado ’ s Homily for Blue Wedding
to the Sea Wh
We welcome you all, humans and animals, cis and trans men and women, transgender
bodies, mutants and survivors, invited by Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens to celebrate
the Blue Year of their love and together, forming a liquid community, to marry the Sea.
We are here today to marry the Mediterranean Sea, stage of human traffic,
colonization, war, anti-­migrant violence, but also travel and communication.
To marry the Sea today, in 2009, is to embrace a sick being.
The Sea we are going to marry is, as ourselves, polluted, sick, but alive and
history-­ charged.
During the past two hundred years the human species has contributed to poisoning
the water, killing fish and water mammals, threatening the health of the Sea, and
therefore putting at risk the survival of the planet.
For this, we come here today, to Venice, a city made of water, to ask the Sea for
forgiveness. And to give back love to the Sea.
I thank Annie and Beth for making me, and all of us, enter into their seven-­year
chronology of love and for inviting me to be the Anti-­Priest for this wedding.
In their love chronology this is the year of the Vishuddha chakra, the chakra of the
throat. Let us all now touch our throat and feel the Vishuddha chakra.
This is the chakra of communication.
But communication is not just talking and hearing. It is not only a matter of
exchanging information, a practice transformed now into a consumer commodity.
The Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito has underlined that the word communication
comes from the Latin root munus, meaning “a gift that is given by someone to whom
it doesn’t belong,” a gift that nevertheless doesn’t belong to the one who gives.
Communication is a gift, something given, never a property.
Comunicare is “making common,” sharing the gift. This is the same root of the words
community, immunity, and meaning. To communicate is to build community. But, as
Esposito reminds us, the political risk is to think that community can only be achieved
through immunity.
The anxiety to be immune comes from the fear of the other. From the fear of not to
be and not to have in common. The other here seems to threaten the community. But an
immune community is a community of Fear.
As we marry the sick Sea today, let us get rid of fear of the other, fear of queerness,
fear of sickness, fear of ugliness, fear of the grotesque, fear of the virus, fear of death.
 As we marry the sick Sea today, let us remember to construct community, as Judith
Butler suggests, “on the social and biological vulnerability of the body,” rather than on
immunity and fear of the other.
For those of us who come from the civil rights fight concerning racial equality, for
those of us who come from feminism and from the fight for gender and sexual freedom,
for those of us who come from queer and crip politics, we feel the need to ask anew
the question of community, of what is common to all of us, of what can we live without
fearing the other.
Let’s take this occasion to ask ourselves, How do we want to live together? What is the
community that we want to build?
I propose to you to think of community as water. The most expanded chemical
substance of the planet, present in every living being, though never having the same
form: water is changing constantly through a cycle of evaporation, becoming steam,
and then becoming liquid, solidifying and becoming ice, the sky being just the sea in an
altered form.
To get married to the water means to abandon identity and nationality and to become
a liquid community able to permeate different soils and to cross political and moral
frontiers without fear.
Let us communicate, build community, and live together with all living human and
nonhuman organisms.
As we marry the sick Sea today, let us be bound by a love bigger than human love,
reaching nonhuman animals, the elements, the Earth.
As we marry the Sea today, let us make love to water, have nonhuman sex with
the elements.
As we marry the Sea today, we invite you to open your mouth, your hands, your
vaginas, urethras, and anuses to nonhuman love.
Annie and Beth, I will now ask you to say your vows.
112 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
Eventually we arrived at the Compi Santa Margherita Square, where we all gath-
ered at an outdoor pizza parlor in the shadow of a Renaissance church. Our guests
and collaborators sat around enjoying pizza and drinks while we exchanged our
rings and people shouted out toasts exclaiming what they loved about the Sea. We
had a dramatic interruption when several armed policemen suddenly appeared to
interrogate us about what we were doing sitting so close to a church while dressed
inappropriately. Fortunately, Paul and Jota were able to diplomatically intercede and
convince the police that it was art. The ceremony was permitted to continue.
Our wedding vows to the Sea finally took place after dark at the end of a very
long, crazy day. We hailed two gondolas to ferry a dozen of us to the mouth of the
Grand Canal where we met up with Paul and more of our artists and guests who had
somehow managed to find us. We exited the gondolas via the canal stairs, then stood
together at the edge of the water where Paul read his homily. Then we threw the two
blue rhinestone rings we had brought from Piedmont Boutique into the water. Ac-
cording to Michelle Tea, who wrote a lengthy, detailed piece about the wedding day
in The Believer magazine, “Annie and Beth’s rings to the sea will stay here, lodged in
the muck beneath the canal’s water, somewhere beneath the Arsenale bridge and Eolo,
a restaurant on a boat serving only fried fish and wine.”4 Blue Wedding to the Sea was
absolutely intense, durational, and full of love for the Sea. We learned that communi-
cation can happen even when even all communications are down.

Over the Moon, Standing Up for Ecosexual Rights, and Going to the Mountains
After our Blue Year, we moved into year six of our journey, our Purple Year. The pur-
ple chakra is associated with the third eye and intuition. The Purple Weddings included
healers, shamans, a reverend, sex workers, activists, queers, coal miners, and gender-­
diverse folks. There was also a miracle.
We decided to have our Purple Wedding to the Moon in Los Angeles so that Annie’s
family could attend. Serendipitously, Reverend Billy Talen was available to marry us.
Reverend Billy, who portrays a preacher wearing a white suit and bucks, is best known
for his work with the Church of Stop Shopping, an activist performance group and a
church choir. Reverend Billy and the members of the Stop Shopping Choir (led by his
partner and director of the choir, Savitri D.) perform stage shows and do guerilla ac-
tions. For example, in April 2020 Reverend Billy wearing a black bandanna/face mask,
pink suit, and white bucks was arrested after planting a rainbow flag at a Central Park
tent hospital funded by an antigay group.5 Billy was in LA for a visiting teaching ap-
pointment at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) during the same week that our
wedding was scheduled.
Purple Weddings
Artist Statement Wh
we will celebrate two purple weddings this
fall 2010. First, Purple Wedding to the Moon will be held
in an outdoor amphitheater at the foot of the San Gabriel
Mountains in Altadena, California (Los Angeles), under
the full moon. Then two weeks later Purple Wedding to the
Appalachian Mountains will be produced at Ohio University
and will take place in the Galbreath Chapel in Athens,
at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. We invite
everyone to join us in taking vows to love, honor, and
cherish the Moon and the Mountains. Or to simply come
bear witness.
in october 2009, nasa bombed the moon
with explosives to prospect for water. We
thought of the more than 1,500 miles of Appalachian
creeks and streams that have been forever destroyed by
mountaintop removal coal-­mining corporations, which
use three million pounds of explosives per day and poison
the water with toxic waste. Domestic terrorism now seems
to have become intergalactic terrorism. We will stand
up to protect and enjoy what still remains of our planet’s
mountains and waters while working toward the creation
of effective structures for a healthier environment. Life
cannot exist without clean water, and it is quickly running
out. Let us gather together to explore ideas and inspire
some changes that will enable future generations of
humans, animals, and plants to coexist and enjoy the
sensual pleasures and abundance of our magnificent
lover Earth.
join us in holy and irreverent matrimony.
Please wear purple and keep your third eye open.
114 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
In the nineties, Billy had coproduced some of Annie’s solo theater shows in San
Francisco.6 He and Beth bonded when Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir performed
their Mountaintop Revival concert in Charleston, West Virginia, in 2007, to protest
coal mining. Billy enthusiastically agreed to be our wedding officiant. Plus, Savitri
D. and the choir would all be traveling from the East Coast to perform their show
EarthaLujah at the Redcat Disney/CalArts Theater. We were over the Moon that Billy,
Savitri D., the choir, and the CalArts theater students were all on board to help co-­
create the wedding.
We didn’t have to look far to discover the perfect location for the Purple Wedding to
the Moon: a stone amphitheater that had been built in the 1930s located in Farnsworth
Park in the foothills of Altadena, just north of Pasadena. The facilities at the amphi-
theater and its reception hall were perfect. The best part was that the outdoor venue
was open to the sky. It seated more than seven hundred people, had a huge stage, and
plenty of dressing rooms for dozens of collaborators. We went into the office, and the
young man working there coincidentally was a UCSC alumnus who had attended our
Green Wedding. He was excited about the possibility of another wedding and quickly
provided us with a contract. We took it home, filled it out, and mailed it back to the LA
County Parks and Recreation Department (LACPRD). Soon after, our reservation was
confirmed. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
Two weeks before the ceremony, LACPRD Deputy Director Kathleen Ritner called
to inform us that she was rescinding the contract and that our wedding would have
to be canceled. Ritner justified her decision by citing an anonymous complaint made
to the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department (LACSD) that claimed that our wed-
ding was not legitimate. The person who complained posted a response to an event
announcement on the now-­defunct altadenablog.7 The blog had picked up on the press
release we had sent around to announce our event and to invite the public to attend.
Ritner told us that the LACSD had concerns about public safety, because the event
might draw a crowd that would be too large for them to handle and that things would
get out of control. Ritner’s concerns seemed pretty farfetched to us, since we had
clearly stated in our application that the expected number of people attending would
be around five hundred based on the attendance of our previous weddings. We had
hired the stipulated number of security guards for five hundred guests, even though
there was a good possibility the event would not reach that number. We suspected that
this attempted cancellation was the result of homophobia mixed with old-­fashioned
moral panic due to Annie’s sex worker past, along with the standard dismissal of en-
vironmental activists. The anonymous comment on altadenablog, posted below the
 Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 115

On the night of October 23, 2010, we married the Moon under a full harvest moon in the
Farnsworth Amphitheater in Los Angeles. Reverend Billy served as our officiant. The Los Angeles
Parks and Recreation Department tried to stop our wedding, but love ultimately prevailed.
Costumes designed by Sarah Stolar. Photograph by Leon Mostovoy.

announcement for our wedding “‘Ecosexual Wedding’ Planned at Farnsworth Park,

October 23,” was not reassuring. Posted under the name I Have Morals, they wrote,
“Can’t they just say that two lesbians are getting married? I don’t care what the cause
is, it is still an abomination to GOD using the rite of marriage for an unintended
purpose . . . . btw, I voted YES on 8.”8 Proposition 8 in California declared same-­sex
marriage illegal.
We were pretty distraught when we called Reverend Billy to tell him that the con-
tract had been revoked and our guests might have to cancel their travel plans and lose
money on their flights and hotel reservations. In full reverend mode, Billy exclaimed
loudly, “This is a miracle!” Billy reassured us that the cancellation wasn’t the end of
the world and that we could fight back by making the obstacles thrown up in our way
part of the performance.
Fortunately, Reverend Billy was right about the miracle, and with help from him
and all our friends, we caused one to actually happen. Ten days before the wedding was
to take place, altadenablog posted a follow-­up to our press release with an article titled
116 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
“Dear Moon: The Wedding’s Off.”9 The article summarized the objections raised by
the LACPRD and the LACSD against our wedding and then went on to quote Savitri
D., identified as a producer, who stated that the cancellation was due to the fact that it
was a same-­sex wedding. “This is just outright discriminatory—­had it been a wedding
of John and Susan from Pasadena—­we would at the very least have been offered a ne-
gotiation . . . . We understand we’re pushing boundaries, we’re artists, but the state isn’t
allowed to [cancel] that based on content.” The article also cited our press release in re-
sponse to the cancellation, in which we accused both departments of discrimination.
Santería priestess and body piercer Raelyn Gallina did a magical ritual with us in
her backyard garden to help us get the Farnsworth Amphitheater back. Next, Rever-
end Billy and Savitri D. took the case to their lawyer and friend, Terry Gross. Gross is
the longtime lawyer for the Burning Man Festival, so he knew how to negotiate with
hostile and uncooperative government officials. He sent a letter to Ritner demand-
ing that the cancellation be rescinded, as it was based on discriminatory grounds and
subjected the county and the parks and rec department to charges of substantial lia-
bility.10 That got their attention! Encouraged by the letter, we thought that this might
become the first ecosexual discrimination case to go to court.
While that did not happen, we did get the amphitheater back. The LACPRD offi-
cials and the sheriff ’s department met with us and agreed to negotiate a reinstatement
of the contract. The negotiations made clear the extent of homophobia and misogyny
that had driven them to rescind the contract in the first place. Representatives of the
two organizations suggested that they were afraid of a flash mob showing up, and that
they were also concerned that we would make a porn movie at their venue based on
Annie’s past history. We had seen a lot, but this was our first encounter with ecosex
phobia! By the end of this very tense meeting, we (reluctantly) agreed that there would
be no nudity, that our $650 deposit would be forfeited if there was nudity, that we
had to make a guest list that had no more than five hundred people, that the wedding
was not open to the public, that we would pay for additional security guards, and that
the wedding would be “family friendly.” Billy, who was at the meeting with us, could
barely contain his outrage.
On Monday, October 18, 2010, the altadenablog informed its readers that “County
Gets Mooned: Big Gay Lunar Wedding Is Back on Sat.”11 Of course the fears ex-
pressed by the LACPRD and LACSD were unfounded. A SWAT team had shown up
in armored vehicles wearing full-­body protection and brandishing automatic weap-
ons. Thankfully, our witchy friend Bonnie Cullum had cast a magic circle of protection
around the amphitheater, which must have kept them outside our venue.
 Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 117
There were two hours of terrific per- Moon Ring
formances: Larry Bogad performed as Ceremony Wh
a Russian cosmonaut finding his way
back to Earth, and Mariko Passion did reverend billy  (to audience) For your
a burlesque number that included tam- wedding rings, reach up, put your
pons dipped in purple wine, a reference hands up to the Moon. See or feel
to the moon cycle. Lian Amaris recited the rings around the Moon and
all the Shakespeare passages contain- draw them down around you. Every
ing the word moon. Blues singer Candye time you look at the Moon, you’ll
Kane belted out her song “I Deserve remember your vows and your love
Love.” Joegh Bullock decorated the stage for the Moon.
with giant cones of light. Lunapads In- I now pronounce you married to
ternational donated dozens of their the Moon!
fashionable, washable panty liners as Luna, Lunacy! Luna, Lunacy!
Wedding to the Moon favors. Earth-­a-­lujha! Moon-­a-­lujha!
After the wedding the altadenablog all  Earth-­a-­lujha! Moon-­a-­lujha!
published an article saying that the cer-
emony “went off with nary a hitch.” In
the end we were a peaceful, family-­friendly crowd, even as we howled at the Moon
and Lady Monster did a kick-­ass burlesque dance to Madonna’s “Ray of Light” wear-
ing LED nipple coverings that looked like moons. We regretted that we had to censor
ourselves and that we didn’t all get to moon the Moon as we had planned.

Ecosex Symposium I at Highways

The day after our Purple Wedding to the Moon we gathered together at Highways Per-
formance Space in Santa Monica for a luna de miel (honeymoon) Ecosex Symposium.
Since many friends and colleagues had come to LA for the wedding, we thought it
would be a great way to get to spend more time together and to explore each other’s
thoughts and feelings about ecosex, which was still a very shiny new thing. We were
happy to be in a favorite art venue directed by the ever-­hospitable Leo Garcia, where
we could meet, talk, and perform freely without the anxieties we experienced at the
amphitheater in Altadena.
Over the course of the day, about 150 people attended, most of whom had been
at the Purple Wedding to the Moon. We filled the day with juicy, ecosexual inquiry. The
stage was set with tables, chairs, microphones, and the beautiful ecosexual pride flags
made by Cindy Baker and Harley (Megan) Morman, whom we had met when they
118 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
served homemade titty cupcakes for our Yellow Wedding. We had excellent food and
a roster of interesting speakers, including Deborah Anapol, SerenaGaia Anderlini-­
D’Onofrio (who edited Ecosexuality: When Nature Inspires the Arts of Love, an anthology
that included some of our writings), Veronica Hart (the emcee at our Green and Blue
Weddings), Jiz Lee (genderqueer porn star), April Flores (aka porn actress Fatty Deli-
cious), and Carol Queen and her partner and fellow sexologist, Robert Lawrence.
Performances included Tania Hamidi’s olive tree dance on April’s lap and a grand fi-
nale sparked by Lady Monster, who stripped while twirling nipple tassels that burst
into flame.

Becoming Mountain Mamas

Two weeks after marrying the Moon and our first Ecosex Symposium, we married
the Appalachian Mountains in Ohio. It was an extraordinarily busy time, and we had
some production angst, but the show must go on.
The Purple Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains was organized by Jennie Klein,
who has helped us write this book. We had met Jennie at the College Art Association
and invited her to attend the Green Wedding at UCSC. We all hit it off; Jennie liked our
work and invited us to her campus, Ohio University. Originally we had planned to
have this wedding in West Virginia but were warned off by the anti-­MTR activist Judy
Bonds, who thought it would be too dangerous. In West Virginia, coal mining con-
tinued to provide desirable high-­paying jobs in a region with high unemployment.
There was a lot of anger toward environmental activists in spite of the recent Upper
Big Branch mining disaster. Outsiders were not welcome, and an activist wedding
there may have turned ugly. Fortunately, Ohio University, located in Athens, is situ-
ated in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and they were more than happy
to host us. Plus we could do it in the Galbreath Chapel, a picturesque, nondenomina-
tional chapel in the center of the college green, with great vibes and an old pipe organ.
About 150 guests came from the surrounding Appalachian region. Beth’s sister,
brother, brother-­in-­law, and two cousins drove in from her home state. Since this
wedding took place on a college campus, a number of students collaborated to create
the performance. They decorated the chapel with braided tree branches from which
dangled glitter-­coated purple pine cones, creating a beautiful arbor altar. Joe Kramer
flew in from Oakland to officiate our vows and double as our best man. Tony’s Circus,
a group of three performers who dress as life-­size furry animals, flew in from Oakland
as well. They performed a rousing anti-­MTR song they wrote themselves, “Let’s All Be
 Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 119
Keepers of the Mountains.” Ecochaplain Sarah Vekasi, whom we met at a Mountain
Justice event, provided us with prewedding marriage counseling.
We loved our two Blue Wedding costumes so much that we asked Sarah Stolar to
make our Purple Wedding costumes as well. Due to time and money constraints on our
part, she cleverly figured out how to make costumes we could wear for both the Moon
Wedding and the Mountain Wedding. Annie had a bra with two moons surrounded by
LED lights for stars, and two mountains with snow covered, nipple-­like mountain
peaks on her skirt. Beth’s costume had a moon rock cod piece, a Barbarella-­like bra
top, and a jacket with a phallic squirting volcano applique on the back. We both had
headpieces with orbiting planets on our heads. With this get up, we didn’t look all
that out of place in LA but in Athens, Ohio, we looked bizarre! Fortunately, Ohio Uni-
versity has a reputation for being an alternative campus, and we could get away with
being weird. Intrigued passersby actually joined the ceremony, and there was plenty
of room for all.
We processed down the aisle to the strains of the “Wedding March” played on the
very off-­key chapel organ. Kris Grey aka Justin Credible, a big-­hearted trans* artist
who was completing their MFA in ceramics at the university, served as the master of
ceremonies. There was an erotic acrobatic dance by a heterosexual couple who had just
started dating, John Stazel and Erin Paun. They were wearing only sexy underwear,
which many in the audience really appreciated even if eyebrows were raised. (They
ended up falling in love, getting married, and having a baby, and they credit our wed-
ding as very important to their love story.) Michael Morris performed a Butoh dance to
express what a mountain would feel as it was being blown up. To bear witness, Joseph
Kramer asked guests to “speak now or forever hold your peace.” A man in a business
suit (Damon Cater) stood up and praised the money that could be made from coal,
stating that some blown-­up mountaintops, dead animals, and polluted streams were a
small price to pay for cash benefits. The outraged audience booed and hissed, until he
confessed, “I’m just kidding: I’m Beth’s cousin.” He was our plant, and his rant added a
lot of drama to the proceedings and helped to heighten awareness of the issues.
The highlight of the Purple Wedding to the Mountains was Larry Gibson’s impas-
sioned homily. The last time we saw Larry was in early September 2012 in Kanawha
City, West Virginia, when we took him out to breakfast. Less than a week later on
September 9, Jordan Freeman called to let us know that Larry had suffered a mas-
sive heart attack and died at the age of sixty-­six. We were devastated. We, along with
the anti-­MTR community, blamed the coal industry for his death. Footage from the
120 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
wedding and Larry’s homily were in-
cluded in Goodbye Gauley Mountain, our
tribute to his fight to save the moun-
tains. Had Larry been able to be present
at the world premiere in West Virginia
in 2013, he would have loved the movie
and we would have given him a seat of
great honor.
White Wedding to the Snow
Our final year of the Love Art Laboratory
was 2011, the year of the crown chakra,
represented by purplish white. The
crown chakra stands for transcendence
and the universal. A wedding based on
these themes was a wonderful way to fin-
ish this project.
As luck would have it, we were invited
to do a winter performance in Canada.
We decided to marry the Snow. The White
Wedding to the Snow was produced by Gal-
erie SAW, in Ottawa. In a country where
the arts receive generous financial sup-
port, Galerie SAW actually had a surplus
in their budget at the year’s end. They
needed to use it or lose it. Luckily for us,
they decided to shower this surplus on
our wedding, which was their final event
of the year. They rented a stunningly
beautiful neo-­medieval cathedral that
had been deconsecrated in the 1990s
due to a decrease in the Irish Catholic
population there. The church had clas-
sical architectural elements including
ornate white columns and a fan-­vaulted
roof that echoed the style of Westminster
Appalachian Mountain Vows
( Excerpts ) Wh
joe kramer  I have a T-­shirt at home
that says, “I am not a lesbian, but my
two wives are.” Brides, please come
forward. We are gathered here today
because we love the Appalachian
Mountains.
(To audience)  What do you love
about the Appalachian Mountains?
(Microphone gets passed around and
people give their responses.)
joe  Are you ready to make your vows?
Do you promise to educate
yourselves and others about
environmental issues?
beth, annie, and audience members
who choose to speak  We do.
joe  Do you promise to speak out, act up,
and raise hell about mountaintop
removal?
beth, annie, and audience members
who choose to speak  We do!
(Loud)
joe  Do you promise to lower your
electricity consumption in order to
use less coal?
all  We do!
joe  I now pronounce you married to the
Appalachian Mountains! You may now
kiss the mountains!
 Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 121
Abbey. Much of the liturgical furniture was still in place, including the pews, pul-
pit, altar, and choir screens. A life-­size Crucifixion of Jesus hung on one pillar near the
altar. It was a magnificent setting with plenty of space. The many Catholic elements,
so familiar to Linda Montano, would have made her happy had she been able to at-
tend. Since this wedding was our last year of participation in Linda’s Another 21 Years
of Living Art, we dedicated the Wedding to the Snow to her in gratitude for her wisdom,
guidance, and inspiration.
The wedding was held on March 26, 2011, after a huge snowstorm, making Snow
the most glittery bride of the day. Our production crew carried two piles of snow
(shaped like two mountain breasts) on an army stretcher inside the church and placed
the stretcher of snow at the front of the stage. Linda was not physically present but
was certainly with us in spirit. She designed our snow-­themed bridal costumes:
hooded white capes with snowflake appliqués, which Sarah Stolar constructed. Linda
suggested we request that all guests bring ten pieces of recycled scrap paper to crum-
ple and throw for a snowball fight, which they did. She also suggested that we each
have seven people in our bridal parties, each wearing one of the seven chakra colors,
which looked rainbow-­licious.
After the dazzling, color-­drenched rainbow procession of our bridal parties down
the cathedral’s center aisle, the ceremony began with an acknowledgment recogniz-
ing past and present Indigenous relationships with the land, followed by a traditional
Mi’kmaq dance performed by Thomas Henry Clair. During the ceremony, artist Kate
Berry made a series of small paintings using melting snow as invisible paint, which she
gave away at the reception. Cantor Tobaron Waxman sang a genderqueer Jewish mar-
riage blessing. Natalie Loveless, who had performed at our Blue Wedding to the Sea and
who, along with her partner, Sha LaBare, helped us write our first Ecosexual Manifesto,
held her new baby Orion in her arms while handing out scores for her performance
Snow Wedding Instruction Piece. Stefan St-­Laurent, the curator of Galerie SAW, was the
dapper master of ceremonies dressed all in white, including white contact lenses.
The many performances continued the theme. Tommy Toxic was a fey snowflake
dressed in a tutu. In full drag, wearing a costume made of balloons, body-­based per-
formance artist Mikiki pierced their buttocks with needles, ate a huge raw onion
shedding many tears, then popped the balloons using their needled butt. Andréane
Leclerc did a breathtaking contortionist performance clad only in white, satin, elbow-­
length gloves.
To seal our vows, we exchanged rings set with giant diamond-­shaped ice cubes that
eventually melted. A snow machine blasted fresh snow while we performed a long
122 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
wedding kiss. Our vows included promising to keep the world cold enough for snow,
our nod to fighting climate change. After the kiss, we pulled up our white wedding
dresses and consummated our union with six-­inch handmade icicles, which had been
kept frozen in a small ice box until just the right moment. The frosty ice rings and
icicle dildos were created for us by Cindy Baker, the Canadian artist who had helped
make cupcakes for our Yellow Wedding. We then tossed the rainbow garter (made by
Anthea Black) and our wedding bouquet (designed by Angela Ellsworth) into the
eager crowd of those seeking more lovers. A tattoo artist collaborator who answered
our call inked her snowflakes on our ankles as permanent signs of our commitment.
Then the brides cut the cake.

An Exhibit Plus an Ecosex Symposium

After the White Wedding, we returned to San Francisco, where we mounted an exhi-
bition titled Ecosex Manifesto, which opened on June 17, 2011, and would be up for
a month. We displayed various new projects, such as eight large collages and the Pur-
ple and White Wedding ephemera. The exhibition’s opening night would double as the
first night of our Ecosex Symposium II, which would run June 18–­19, produced by
Madison Young’s Femina Potens. Rising San Francisco rents had forced Madison to
relinquish her Market Street space to a cell phone store, so she rented the Center for
Sex and Culture to exhibit our work.12
The Friday night opening was packed. We formally unveiled our Ecosex Manifesto
1.0, which was printed big and with a gilded ornate frame, and the audience was in-
vited to sign this larger-­than-­life proclamation. Gallerygoers were invited to wear
fantabulous hats and clothing creations by Paul Wurum, all made from plastic he
found washed up on the beach.
Saturday and Sunday were devoted to symposium panels and performances.
Becka Shertzer and her catering company, Brazen Nectar, created an organic ecosex-­
elicious vegan food fest for the weekend. Speakers on Saturday included Michael
Morris, Jennifer Reed, Jiz Lee, Sha LaBare, Tania Hamidi, Madison, Carol Queen,
and Robert Lawrence. Professor and author SerenaGaia Anderlini-­D’Onofrio gave
the keynote address.
Highlights of this symposium included an ecosexy poetry reading by Dona Nieto
aka LaTigressa, who once read her poetry topless on a logging road to stop log-
ging trucks in order to save an old-­growth redwood forest. Ecofarmer and pioneer
philanthropist Lori Grace, wrapped in an American flag with corporate logos as stars,
delivered a passionate rant against corporate greed. Dragonfly Diva participated on
 Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 123
the panel Making Your Love Life Sustainable while sitting in the nude on her boy-
friend’s lap. Her talk was called “NYC Ecosexual.”13 Other panels of interest were Can
Ecosexuality Help Reintegrate the Human Environment Rift? and Environmental
Justice in Silicon Valley. The finale of the weekend was a high-­energy virtuoso twirl-
ing of flaming-­nipple tassels by our own eco-­burlesque queen Lady Monster, who
brought the camp to the fire.

Golden Climax of the Love Art Lab

To mark the last day of the Love Art Lab project, we self-­produced a Gold Wedding to
the Sun. There was no reason under the sun to do all the work necessary to create a
Gold Wedding to the Sun, as it was not on our chakra target list. But we really wanted to
do something special with our friends, something local, and we do love the Sun. So at
6 a.m., an hour before sunrise, on December 11, 2011, we gathered together with our
beloved San Francisco community on top of Bernal Hill.
We hate getting up early, and so do most of our friends. Fortunately for us, Katy
Bell, the producer of San Francisco’s Dada Festival and a porn clown, volunteered to
be our production manager. Katy somehow managed to cajole sleep-­deprived but en-
thusiastic volunteers to help transport all the stuff we needed for the wedding from
our house up four steep blocks to the top of Bernal Hill before the sun had risen. She
then herded us, our friends, and collaborators to the hill and into place in the pre-
dawn darkness. Once we were awake, we unfurled a very long silk ribbon and asked
everyone to hold on to it as we led a procession around Bernal Hill. We watched the
Sun rise over the East Bay. Then we all climbed up to the crest of the hill and reveled
in the stunning 360-­degree view of San Francisco. We sometimes affectionately call
Bernal Hill the Planetary Clitoris because it is a small and energetically charged place.
The two of us were the brides, masters of ceremonies, and the officiants. Joseph
Kramer was our lead groom. Many of our friends who had stuck with us throughout
our seven-­year Love Art Lab project attended this wedding as witnesses, performers,
and supporters. Even Linda Montano, who was still in upstate New York, joined us
by astral projection. As the ritual began, we stood in a circle and ritualistically applied
thick, white sunscreen to everyone’s noses.
This was a guerrilla-­style wedding in that we didn’t bother with permits but in-
stead just occupied public space. Neighbors exercised, strolled, and walked their dogs
nearby while we performed. Some came over to join us and watch the show. Sadie
Lune, who had been trying to get pregnant, laid a raw egg on the ground, which she
then cracked to display a golden yellow yolk, glittering in the morning sun. Tony’s
124 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
Circus, which had performed in the Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains, dressed
as circus animals and played live and sang “Here Comes the Sun.” Mariko Passion’s
Conscientious Objector performance was a reenactment of the 2011 UC Davis police
tear-­gassing of peaceful student protesters. Lady Monster performed a sunrise bur-
lesque routine in a glittery beaded costume, and she roasted marshmallows on sticks
with her flaming tassels, which she then fed to wedding guests. It was her yummiest
routine yet! The ritual closed with Good Vibrations CEO Jack Strano’s moving rendi-
tion of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
After the vows, we invited everyone to kiss the ground, which many of us did. Pho-
tographer Charles Gatewood and others took many great photos for us throughout
the morning. Theater director Rudy Ramirez flew in from Austin, Texas, to pay hom-
age to the Love Art Lab. He had attended quite a few of our events over the years and
told us that the Lab had lifted his spirits at a low point in his life. For this, he volun-
teered to do our homily, a piece he wrote and performed called “Happy Endings.” And
so our seven-­year project officially ended happily.

Hw Happy Endings Wh
Written and performed by Rudy Ramirez to mark the end of the Love Art Laboratory

Ladies and gentlemen and the nonbinary of all ages,

The Love Art Lab has come to an end.
Now, I know ends can be hard.
But as a radical queer faerie diva turbo slut
I also know that there is tremendous pleasure
To be found in an end.
I embrace my end
And the ends of others
And I invite you all to embrace this end
Or your end
Or my end, if you feel like it.
Because I say, why come to an end
When you can come in it
On it
Around it.
Hap p y Tr ai ls an d th e C lim ax of th e Love Art Lab 125
Ends can carry a lot of weight
And really big ends can seem unwieldy.
But honey, let me tell you,
Don’t shy away from a big end.
After all, it’s good to end with a bang.
And the bigger the end, the bigger the bang.
And if the bang gets big enough
It can begin a whole universe.
Small ends also have their charms
And nothing satisfies like a tight end.
But writers and power bottoms both know
That no matter how tight you make your end
It will never be perfect
And that’s okay.
The older we get
The looser our ends.
But even when an end
Has an unexpected wrinkle
It can still be a great end
To come to.
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
Ends can get hairy
Ends can stink
Ends can get messy
And yes, messy ends . . .
Are not for the faint of heart.
But a good clean end is something to dive into,
Head first, if you prefer.
And if I have learned anything in life
It’s that the deeper you go into an end
The better and better and better it gets.
I thank Annie and Beth for letting me into their end.
But as big as I want this end to be
I have to thank them for decreasing the size
Of my but.
I had a big but once.
126 H a p p y T r a i l s a n d th e C l i m a x o f th e L o v e A r t L a b
I want to be an artist
But I am afraid of failing.
I want to be a sex goddess
But I am not what many call beautiful.
I want to live the life I dreamed of
But I don’t have the right to do it.
I visited the Love Art Lab when these buts were the biggest
And just by watching these two incredible women
My but got smaller
And over weeks and months and years
My but got smaller and smaller and smaller
And we all know that a but never really goes away.
But with diligence, and patience, and a whole lotta love
A but can get so small you barely notice it.
So as the Love Art Lab ends
I invite you to decrease your buts
And embrace your ends,
And when it comes time to end this show
Let’s end with a bang
And heck
Let’s make it a big one.
 six

O F F T H E B E AT E N PAT H

A few months before the Love Art Lab ended in 2011, we made a special journey to two
cities in Spain, Barcelona and Gijón, by invitation of Diana Pornoterrorista. This trip
would prove pivotal and inspire the next phase of our work. We were about to collab-
orate with uncensored, anarchic, sex-­radical Spanish punk artists who would give our
environmental work a bit more of an edge. Two of the wedding projects in this chap-
ter fall within the timeframe of the Love Art Laboratory, but conceptually they are a
better fit with our post–­Love Art Lab adventures, which would include the founding
of the E.A.R.T.H. Lab (Environmental Art Research Theory Happenings Lab), de-
scribed in the next chapter, as well as to other future projects.
After Diana had collaborated with us on Blue Wedding to the Sea in Venice, she asked
us if she could organize some projects for us in her home country of Spain. La Porno-
terrorista is a queer post-­pornographer, poet, activist, and bad­ass performance artist.
Diana had admired Annie’s earlier post-­porn work, had enjoyed performing with us
in Italy, and wanted us to come to Spain and introduce her community to Ecosexu-
ality. She pitched our many offerings to her great network, organizing an ambitious,
month-­long program with three different ecosex workshops, a theater performance
of Dirty Sexecology, several lectures, and two ecosex weddings. She also produced a
performance art night as a fundraiser for her annual Muestra Marrana post-­porn
arts festival, for which we were booked to do a rare performance of a Public Cervix
Announcement.
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) wanted to host one of
our weddings in their public open-­air courtyard, which has two hundred seats. Diana
had sent us photographs of the site. It was stunning, with a modern structure nes-
tled against a nineteenth-­century almshouse, the Casa de Caritat, which held an old
128 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
theater. We had already performed White Wedding to the Snow in Canada that year,
but Diana’s offer was too good to refuse. We decided to create a Silver Wedding and to
marry the Rocks.
Rocks tell us a great deal about the Earth’s history. Rocks contain traces of meteors
and stardust, extinct animals and early humans. Rocks have also played a central role
in the development of art. The earliest recognized artwork, the Makapansgat peb-
ble, a cobblestone-­sized jasperite, was found with the bones of an Australopithecus
africanus ape. Natural wear and chipping had carved the rock into what looks like a
human face. It was found many miles from where it would have occurred naturally,
perhaps carried by this early ancestor. Rocks are gorgeous and mysterious, although
so common that they are often underappreciated and undervalued by most people.
But who doesn’t love rocks, whether they are igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic?
We arrived in Barcelona just one day before our Silver Wedding to the Rocks. Thor-
oughly jet-­lagged and with no time to rehearse or to meet anyone involved in the
production, there was only time for a quick costume fitting. Diana had arranged for
artists Aviv Kruglanski and Vahida Ramujkic to make two wedding costumes for
us, which we didn’t lay eyes on until the day before the big day. We hoped we would
like them because as brides we love to look good. Annie had mailed them a bra to be
sure the top of her dress would work. Everything fit and we loved our costumes: two
granite-­gray canvas dresses decorated with big soft-­sculpture rocks with patches of
bright-­green moss in strategic areas.
After our costume fitting Diana told us of a tragedy that happened just a couple of
weeks before. Diana was part of a close-­knit community of alternative, genderqueer,
punk rock artists who looked out for each other. In response to being unfairly treated
and illegally jailed, her housemate and best friend, Patricia, had taken her own life
in the courtyard of the house they shared. This was a horrible blow to Diana and her
community. In the midst of this sadness they all wanted to go on with the Rock Wed-
ding as a means to fortify themselves with love and hope.
The invitation for the Rock Wedding, which was open to the public, requested that
attendees bring a rock to marry. For those who came empty-­handed, we supplied
small, polished rocks for them to choose from. Diana had cast an all-­star lineup of
collaborators from her radical queer, punk, and post-­porn communities. On June 29,
2011, we lined up to rock down the aisle. We didn’t know anyone except for Diana and
had no idea what would unfold. We needn’t have worried: everyone looked fabulous
and silvery. Our ring bearers were two hardcore punk guys, whose mouths were sealed
with silver duct tape, heads buzzed on the side with huge straight-­up punk manes,
 Of f th e Beaten Path 129
tight plaid pants, chains, and kick-­ass combat boots. Only Diana could have con-
vinced this unlikely pair to serve as our ring bearers.
The wedding was officiated in both English and Spanish. There were spectacular
performances. Maria Dolores, wearing a skimpy gray-­pebble costume, performed as
a rolling stone on the beach. Jonathan Kemp, being a mad scientist, melted elements
from old computer parts and made a silver potion for us to drink. We didn’t know if
it would kill us or cause long-­term health problems, but the energy of this wedding
was so high that we would have imbibed anything at that moment. Quimera Rosa, a
trans post-­porn punk performance artist duo, gave us Ofrenda Lunar: el punto zero G,
a silver-­clad, futuristic live anal sex show. Helen Torres, a writer and translator, wrote
and performed a powerful homily and officiated the vows. We recited our promises,
to our surrogate rock, a black marble Botero knockoff we had named Señor Roca.
We ritualistically cut a three-­tiered rock-­inspired cake and distributed it to all. Ev-
eryone agreed: we had all succeeded in creating a wedding that lifted the community’s
spirits. To this day, Señor Roca stands erect on our mantle and is overseeing us writ-
ing this book at this very moment.

Talleres de Trabajo en Barcelona

Diana had arranged for us to conduct two Exosex workshops, each with about thirty
people. Ecosex Workshop I occurred on July 9–­10, 2011, and Ecosex Workshop II
ran July 16–­17. The first was the beginner’s workshop and started at the Hangar Vi-
sual Arts Center, a nonprofit art space in an industrial warehouse. We began with
introductions, and then our participants, who were mostly punk performance artists,
progressive sex educators, and queer sex workers, wanted to go outside.
We walked to the Parc del Centre del Poblenou, built in 2008. The park’s French
architect, Jean Nouvel, designed it to be sustainable as well as pleasurable. The lush
gardens were watered by a special underground drip system fed by groundwater. This
set the ecological stage for our adventure. As we walked in the park, participants or-
ganically invited each other to get tickled on the neck by weeping willow branches, to
walk barefoot in a fountain, and to lick the grass erotically. They were ripe and ready
to enjoy all the many ecosensual delights within easy reach. We explored ideas such as
how to ask nonhuman beings for consent before making a physical connection. We
invited participants to find and share their E-­spots with each other while we all en-
joyed the sun penetrating our skin.
At the end of the first day we gave a homework assignment: to masturbate, let an
ecosexy fantasy come into your mind’s eye, and let it unfold. Then use the fantasy as
Silver Wedding Homily and Vows Wh
helen torres  Monsters and bitches, cyborgs and minors, dreadful and fearsome,
hated and loved, welcome to the Ecosex wedding of Annie Sprinkle and Beth
Stephens, the bond between them, and between everybody here and the rocks, the
very material of the Earth.
We have the honor of having Annie and Beth celebrating here in Barcelona one
of their last weddings. They are the honorable brides today, but everybody who
wants it can be a bride too, so we invite you to celebrate your love to the Earth, to
the rocks, to animals, humans, cyborgs, laptops, raindrops, cockroaches, tongues,
and everything and everybody you consider to deserve love. We are gathered here
to love each other, to do art, and to have sex, so let’s start!
This community has recently been shocked by the loss of one of our dearest
friends. Some of us have lost faith in humanity. It’s difficult to accept the
helplessness, the unconcern of humans for injustice. So we feel very grateful to
Beth and Annie for the opportunity of gathering us together in this act of deep
love, the love you have for each other and for everything that makes us alive.
Because love is one of the only reasons that makes us be here together. And by love
we mean companionship, reunion, making the way together, sharing our bread
and our fluids, respecting and sexing, sexing up everything we touch.
We are also here today to marry the rocks. Rocks are memory, the memory of
the Earth; the whole Earth is made of rocks. Rocks are a symbol of the everlasting
that never stops changing, becoming, resisting, protecting, giving, and receiving.
Changing shape, accepting what this-­thing-­called-­Nature gives them, accepting
storms as part of their being. But it takes thousands and millions of years for rocks
to change. Rocks do not complain about it; they just become.
Rocks are as well a metaphor for refuge, for what the Bible calls salvation and I
call asylum. Asylum comes from the Greek and means “what cannot be captured.”
So let us all marry the impossibility of being caught.
Let us all marry the becoming, the metamorphoses, the transformation.
Let us all marry change, memory, and resistance.
Let us all marry the rocks!
The wedding guests were all asked to bring a rock to marry.
We are ready to make vows to the rocks with Annie and Beth!
Does anyone object to this union? Speak now or forever hold your peace.
diana pornoterrorista I OBJECT! . . . (Diana does an angry rant objecting on the
grounds that we shouldn’t have to do what the state and museums want us to do. She then
pulls out her menstrual cup from her vagina and pours her menstrual blood on the stage/altar
steps. Then with a change of heart she signals her OK to proceed with the vows.)
helen  (To Annie and Beth) Do you promise to love, honor, and cherish rocks for as long
as you shall live? (While looking into each other’s eyes, we both hold the Botero knockoff we
named Señor Roca, the rock we intend to marry.)
beth and annie  Sí, ¡prometo! You are my rock. Tú eres mi piedra.
helen  I now pronounce you MARRIED TO THE ROCKS! Annie and Beth, you may now
consummate the marriage with Señor Roca.
(Beth pulls up Annie’s dress and inserts Señor Roca’s cool marble head into
her vagina.)
helen  (To audience) Do you promise to love, honor, and cherish rocks for as long as you
shall live? You may now kiss your rocks!
132 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
the basis for a video, a drawing, photos, or performance and bring the result back to
the group the next day for show-­and-­tell.
In the morning everyone shared their fantasies of erotic connections with non-
human entities. They were super sexy, imaginative, and phantasmagorical. This
honest sharing bonded our group. We were all inspired by the diverse, fascinating
videos, pictures, and drawings that the workshop participants offered. One woman
drew a picture of herself lying naked under the full moon while ants crawled all over
her body. She loved being tickled by the ants’ little legs as they climbed up her inner
thighs. Another drawing involved being licked to cosmic orgasm by a huge waterfall.
A genderqueer post-­pornographer made an ecosexy video of nothing but their fin-
gers sensually running through blades of bright green grass. It was surprisingly hot.
Of course, one person’s fantasy is another person’s worst nightmare, and that is part
of what makes exploring ecosex fascinating. One attendee had a scary fantasy where
she was deep in the jungle tied to a tree, and maggots were eating her rotting, tortured
flesh. The range of fantasies depicted was a perfect illustration of how sexual desire is
full of surprises and variations. Every person is an entire erotic universe.
Next we walked to the huge beautiful fountain in Parc de la Ciutadella. With the
sound of rushing water drifting into our ears, we led the group in a series of ecosex-
ercises, building and moving excitement and pleasure in our bodies using circular
breathing, undulating, and shaking, while stretching our imaginations. Then we gave
everyone a blindfold to wear while they cuddled the Earth. Lying on our bellies with
arms outstretched we touched, sniffed, and licked the thick green grass below us.
When the exercise was over, Diana said, “That’s the first time I had sex with some-
thing other than a human—­and I loved it.” It blew her mind.
As we continued to walk around the park, we became conscious of the scent of
flowers, lavender, and honeysuckle. Annie demonstrated how to breathe and undu-
late into full-­body energy orgasm(s), which she always loves to do and never fails to
impress workshop participants. Beth held the space during Annie’s energy building
and release.
Public space can be full of surprises. People passing by joined us for an exercise or
two, tried to sell us drugs, offered us a beer, or laughed at us. Since our work embodies
humor, being interrupted, asked questions, or being laughed at are all just part of the
fun. By the end of the first workshop, everyone was jazzed about the erotic and cre-
ative possibilities of ecosex. The weekend ended with a graduation ceremony where
we gave everybody a signed diploma with a gold seal, stating that they had made love
with the Earth and were now an official ecosexual.
 Of f th e Beaten Path 133
Ecosex Workshop Level II was the following weekend. On the first day we asked
participants to think about an ecosexy performance, activity, or gesture they could do
on the beach, and to come prepared the next day with costumes, props, objects, or
whatever they might want to make their offering. On the morning of the second day,
we took the train an hour north of Barcelona to Sant Pau de Mar and walked along
the coast until we found a deserted beach where we could be free to explore budding
ecosexualities. Upon arrival, our participants all spontaneously took off their clothes.
They were more used to being naked than the two of us were (we’re not nudists). In
Spain, nudity on public beaches is legal and normal.
Throughout the day, participants took turns sharing their performance offerings.
The group was amazingly open-­minded, enthusiastic, creative, willing, and daring.
One young man had brought a backpack full of all kinds of fruit and did a messy,
solo splosh fest where he demonstrated how to get down and dirty with fruits. At
the end, a spontaneous and giggly watermelon fight broke out. Another participant
offered sandalwood-­scented clay for everyone to rub all over their bodies and other
people’s bodies, too. Another person brought a giant can of honey, which we spread
luxuriously all over our bodies before rolling in the sand, then we washed the sandy
stickiness off by swimming in the ocean.
Two participants offered a really hot eco-­BDSM scene with tall grass flagel-
lation and a spanking using an aloe vera cactus. Then came bondage by quicksand
and cantaloupe eroticism. They said their performance was “sea-­do-­masochistic.” An
Argentinian journalist asked us to bury her up to the top of her neck, re-­creating an
ancient Pachamama ritual to merge with the Earth. One woman had us sit in a circle
around her, as she cried tears for the Earth and asked us all to spray her with streams
of water from our mouths to wash away her sorrow. The final participant invited us to
become a floating orifice. On his instruction we waded into the Mediterranean Sea,
linked arms, and floated together on our backs in a circle. We all stared out into the
universe and felt our watery bodies become one with each other and with the Sea.
The highlight of the day for us was when we all got down into doggy position,
butts facing out to sea. Waves rolled in at just the right height to slap our asses and
toss us like pebbles on the beach. This stirred our ecosexual brains, bodies, and libi-
dos! We became pebbles! We squealed with delight, laughing hysterically.
There was no human-­centric genital focus or contact during the whole workshop.
We explored deep play in ways that felt new, innocent, and childlike. Experiencing
ecosensual performances in a community of like-­minded, adventurous people
was surprising in that it brought us to a new kind of ecstasy. The love we generated
134 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
together with and for the Earth was profound. This magical workshop day was truly
one of the most blissful, relaxing, fun, and joyous days we have ever experienced in
our lives. We marveled at how we had the best job in the galaxy.

Boda Negra con El Carbón

The next day, we headed 550 miles north to Gijón, in an area called Asturias. This
was Spain’s coal country. Our Black Wedding to Coal was to be held at midnight, on
July 23, 2011, which was coincidentally Annie’s birthday. Black Wedding to Coal was pro-
duced in collaboration with LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial (Art and
Industrial Creation Center). General Francisco Franco’s fascist regime had originally
built the huge complex to be an orphanage and school, but it had been remade into a
cutting-­edge contemporary art center.
We spent our first several days in Gijón researching the region’s history of coal
mining in order to address this history in our wedding. We drove around with Pedro
Soler, the head curator at LABoral and our co-­producer, Diana. We visited a range
of sites from a thriving organic farm to a devastated beach where coal tailings were
dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. Between these two extremes we also visited Pozo
Fortuna, a small exhibition mining camp, where we were given a tour of the tunnel
where mining explosives had been stored. We viewed the Fortuna Well monument,
designed by Juan Luis Varela and erected to commemorate the three hundred to four
hundred anti-­fascists killed in that region during the Franco regime and buried to-
gether in the Fortuna Well.
The next day, a retired miner gave us a tour of the Mining Museum in Langreo.
This miner handed Beth a piece of scrip, which is a private currency system that coal
miners received as pay. The coin was exactly the same kind of company scrip that West
Virginia miners were forced to use to purchase necessities at inflated prices from the
coal company store. We learned that by the time we were visiting, the Spanish govern-
ment had shut down the coal mining industry in Asturias. By 2018, it would be shut
down in the entire country. This was due to the dominance of cheap international im-
ports and a growing awareness of the environmental problems caused by coal mining.
We were struck by two things. First, that the violent fascist history of Spain was still
very present, and second, that the scars left by the coal mining industry were not con-
fined to Appalachia. We returned to our apartment determined to consider these two
themes.
Pedro had set up Ecosexuality: Understanding Space through the Body, a work-
shop with our wedding collaborators from July 20–­23, during which we could all work
 Of f th e Beaten Path 135
together to prepare for the wedding performance. His talented group of collaborators
included dancers, ecologists, healers, performance artists, writers, psycho-­magicians,
and sex workers—­a dynamic mix of punk, porn, and conceptual art. The workshop
allowed us to bond as a team, create performances, and make costumes, props, and
other Coal-­themed accoutrements. The wedding was scheduled to take place at
midnight during Semana Negra, a literary festival that celebrates crime novels and
mysteries. The festival was situated in a huge public fairground with thirty to forty big
white tents that displayed books and hosted related literary events.
On the night of the wedding, everyone excitedly got into their costumes in our
workshop space and then off we went to the venue. Adorable bad boy Spanish artist
Cuco Suárez, whom we had met at a theater festival in Madrid, chose to play Volcán,
the god of fire, and he planned to barbecue Coal onstage. He donned a provocative
costume fabricated from a recycled black plastic trash bag, with a hole for his head
and two holes for his arms, and ending in the middle of his pubic area, leaving his
genitals partially exposed. He also attached two stacked twelve-­inch-­long blocks of
wood to his left foot with blood-­soaked bandages.
The LABoral driver deposited Cuco and the two of us at the entrance to the Sem-
ana Negra Tent City. Garbed in his peekaboo trash bag and toting a bucket full of pig’s
blood from a local butcher, Cuco assured the staff that he knew the way and could
guide us to the designated tent on time. Of course, we got terribly lost and wandered
around the huge fairground maze, becoming later and later for our own wedding.
The blood in Cuco’s bucket was spilling and it smelled horrible. We were in our Coal
bride costumes (which were our Rock costumes slightly modified) and were attract-
ing unwanted attention as we stumbled along, trying not to get blood splattered. The
three of us were laughing hysterically, largely because we couldn’t believe that we were
going to be so late for our own wedding performance. Luckily, one of our organizers
found us and escorted us to the wedding tent before we got into any real trouble.
Given that we were marrying Coal, it was fitting that the wedding was performed
in front of the most populist audience that we ever had: mainly retired, working-­class
locals from around Gijón who had no clue what they were about to see. This was defi-
nitely not an art crowd. Thankfully, we had made a printed program with an artist
statement translated into Spanish, which our ushers handed out to audience mem-
bers. Seated in the front row were six elderly widows, a couple of whom we were
told had lost their husbands in the coal mines. We hoped our wedding performance
wouldn’t offend them, as we knew that quite a few of our performers were going to be
naked, and who knew what Diana Pornoterrorista might do? We already knew from
136 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
our beach workshop that nudity was more or less okay in Spain. But we didn’t know
how it would play in this context.
On the front center stage, our team placed several big baskets of coal. Graham Bell,
who had performed at the Blue Wedding to the Sea, was our fey master of ceremonies.
We proceeded down the aisle to the tune of a raucous gypsy band with loud brass
instruments and big drums, which was customary for weddings in that area. Monica
Cofiño Arena and Paula Pin performed an erotic rendition of the Black Swan ballet,
teetering on their toes while balanced on lumps of carbón. Cuco, as Vulcán, tried to
abduct Annie but Beth thwarted his attempts. Diana performed a fierce spoken-­word
piece about how the coal mine is like a woman’s pussy: “Dark, black, wet, and very
dangerous.” She then pulled some chunks of coal out of her vagina.
Amber McBride had traveled from Australia to join us. During the workshop she
had injured her leg, so during the wedding she was in a wheelchair, from which she
suddenly lunged and poured thick black paint all over her big voluptuous breasts
as she hopped around wildly on one foot. She punctuated her performance with
screams of agony, reminding us of coal mining disasters. Our audience definitely got
their money’s worth.
After saying “I do,” we two brides kissed each other between the buttocks with a
“black kiss.” We consummated our marriage to Coal by stripping out of our dresses
and lying down face to face on a bed of coal while four women dipped pieces of coal
into the bucket of blood graciously provided by Cuco. Slowly, ritualistically, and in
recognition of the suffering caused by mining, the four women placed the bloody
coal on our nude bodies. We thought of this as a form of psycho-­magic healing. As
we lay there, it did cross our minds that we might be pelted with tomatoes, arrested,
or that Beth might be disciplined by her university. But none of that happened—­just
the opposite.
Everyone in the wedding left the stage, recessed down the aisle, and stood together
just outside the tent under the summer’s night sky. Spontaneously we came together
with our audience and huddled arms around each other in a circle. Some of us were
completely naked except for being smeared with coal dust and dried pig’s blood.
Someone broke into an enthusiastic rendition of “Santa Bárbara,” a beautiful song
honoring the patron saint of mining and explosives. Instead of being pelted with veg-
etables, everyone sang along, including the elderly coal widows who had been sitting
in the front row. We all felt joyful, open, and raw. It was a powerful ending to our time
in Spain and, for Annie, a hell of a birthday party to remember.
 Of f th e Beaten Path 137
Making Love with Lake Kallavesi
After we ended the Love Art Lab with our Gold Wedding to the Sun on Bernal Hill,
we thought, and hoped, we were done with weddings and looked forward to doing
something new. Perhaps we’d produce some funerals for species that had gone ex-
tinct? However, our ecosexual weddings had become known and popular, and we
continued to receive invitations to perform them. There were two great offers from
two excellent arts festivals in Europe that proved irresistible. One was curated by
Johanna Tuukkanen, who had been one of the curators who brought us to Stavan-
ger, Norway, when we performed our controversial Sidewalk Sex Clinic. Her annual
ANTI—­Contemporary Art Festival has presented some of the world’s most exciting
artists, plus it is surrounded by primeval forests growing on mountains carved by gla-
ciers and pristine lakes, including Lake Kallavesi. In talking with Johanna about site
possibilities, we hatched a plan to have a Wedding to Lake Kallavesi on a boat.
The wedding took place on September 30, 2012, on the Queen R, an old wooden
tour boat that could hold only 125 people. Attendees had to make advanced res-
ervations, and it filled up quickly. Our ceremony took place inside the boat’s cabin,
officiated by Emma McNairy, our gorgeous, gifted, and beloved opera singer friend.
As usual, we asked for no material gifts but invited people to help create the wedding.
Even so, as part of the ceremony we received two material gifts that we still cherish. A
group of textile art students presented us with a traditional Finnish wedding rug that
resembled a waterfall. They had woven it from men’s ties. Another group caught a big
fish in Lake Kallavesi, which they ate. They then dried the head, which had incredibly
sharp teeth, making it look like a kind of prehistoric creature, and gifted us this fish
skull. Our wedding planner curated other performances, including one about how
much water it takes to make a piece of paper. There were traditional wedding dances
and songs. Emma sang our vows as an aria.
To consummate this wedding we jumped from the side of the boat into the
frigid waters of the lake wearing nothing but our custom airbrushed shorty wetsuits
designed by Sarah Stolar. When we jumped in, goldfish crackers floated out of net
pouches attached to Annie’s bra to feed the fish, a suggestion from Linda Montano.
After enjoying a few minutes in our Lake-­lover’s wet arms, we swam around to the
ladder on the back of the boat. We were pulled aboard and were given mouth-­to-­
mouth resuscitation by Justin Credible, who had served as our master of ceremonies
for the Purple Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains, and Cassils, one of our favorite
artists, who was performing their own work at the festival. Boats are so romantic! We
138 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
still feel forever bonded and connected to Lake Kallavesi, in spite of its being a long-­
distance relationship.

Earthy—­An Ecosex Boot Camp

In 2012, we got a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission and a Theatre Bay
Area CA$H Grant, which helped us make a new show, Earthy—­An Ecosex Boot Camp.1
Inspired by our time with our punk friends in Spain, this new theater piece was more
focused on radical, militant environmental activism and infused with an edgier
aesthetic than Dirty Sexecology. Patty Gallagher agreed to direct us again. Earthy was
framed as a queer boot camp, with our leading a rotating bevy of ecosexy, hardcore
boot-­camp counselors made up of some actors, a few of Beth’s students, one of whom
was a fabulous drag queen, friends, friends of friends, and amateurs who answered
our call for collaborators.
Earthy premiered in Queer Cultural Center’s National Queer Arts Festival and was
presented at the Center for Sex and Culture. Our budget was relatively tight, so we
had to rely on some generous in-­kind support from our collaborators, all of whom
we paid but less than they deserved.2 The premise of Earthy was that we were using
ecosexual activist strategies to train fun-­loving, queer punk Earth lovers in the fight
against Global Energy Corp (our fictional nemesis). The costume maker for Shake-
speare Santa Cruz, Christina Dinkel, was between shows, so we hired her to design
some costumes. She found Annie some sexy and funny brown suede hiking boots
with 6-­inch heels and a black PVC minidress. For Beth she made brown suede leder-
hosen and blue leather overalls. We gathered a group of about fifteen performers to
be a part of the show; we rehearsed a couple of days with them and ran eight shows
over about two weeks (June 13–­23, 2013).
As fun as it was to do, and some bits worked, and our cool costumes aside, we
weren’t satisfied with this theater piece. We know we are not actors, nor do we want to
be. Pretending to get arrested for doing a sleeping dragon protest where protestors
lock themselves to a strategically placed barrel of cement felt disingenuous. Stag-
ing an arrest did demonstrate to audiences what environmental activists actually go
through, but it felt like we were doing fake activism. We were acting out our fantasy of
being brave activists without really risking anything. Besides, getting arrested is not
really our calling.
We also realized that a show about being outdoors and helping the environment
that requires a lot of electricity for theater lighting was counterproductive. We no
longer wanted to act like we were outdoors—­we wanted to be outdoors. We decided
 Of f th e Beaten Path 139
to quit using projectors, sound systems, and electric lights in our theatrical perfor-
mances from that point forward. What better way to walk our talk than to actually
talk and walk in the great outdoors? As with Dirty Sexecology, we stopped performing
Earthy in order to return to our Ecosex Walking Tours, remembering to use a script
this time so that we wouldn’t argue in front of our audiences.

Ecosex Walking Tour Revisited

To develop our Ecosex Walking Tour into a scripted outdoor theater piece, we hired
Joy Brooke Fairfield, who had been our stage manager for Earthy, to be our director
and dramaturg. Together we created a script with nine different scenes, which could
be adapted to any site, performed by just the two of us for a small group, or staged to
include a bigger cast. After just one rehearsal we felt that our goals and personalities
were much more aligned with this new piece than with either Dirty Sexecology or Earthy.
Our tours now start with a rousing performance of 25 Ways to Make Love to the
Earth, followed by an Ecosex orientation. Then we walk through a magical portal and
begin to imagine the Earth as lover to stimulate our ecosexual gaze. Continuing along
a path people find their E-­spots. There’s an homage to water and an acknowledgment
of how much water we waste, then a demonstration of ecosexercises to connect ener-
getically with the Earth through movement and deep breathing. Then the walk turns
into a protest march with political chants. The finale usually involves finding the local
planetary clitoris and rubbing it ecstatically.
Performing outdoors in public space means that anything might happen. At the
2016 OUTsider Fest in Austin, Texas, a big white guy in a big white pickup truck
threw a beer bottle at our group, which exploded into many flying shards when it hit
the sidewalk beside us. Fortunately, no one was hurt. We successfully performed the
scripted Ecosex Walking Tour a number of times, including in Manhattan’s Central
Park as part of the Queer New York International Arts Festival,3 and inside the Walker
Art Center in Minneapolis on Valentine’s Day in 2016. Although we prefer not to use
energy produced by coal, we had no choice in this latter case, as Minnesota in Feb-
ruary is very cold and snowy. It wasn’t safe to have a group of people outdoors for
an hour or two, because they might get frostbite. Surprisingly, our piece worked well
inside the museum, even with a packed crowd. We had managed to work out the per-
formance earlier in the day to fit the script that we had devised with Joy. We found
ecosexy sculptures, noted the sensuality of the building’s marble and wood, and high-
lighted potted flowers and plants. As luck would have it, Newton and Helen Mayer
Harrison’s Portable Orchard (1972–­73) was installed in the museum. It was part of the
 Promotional image and
postcard for our show Earthy
(2013), directed by Patty
Gallagher. Designed by Kern
Toy with Annie Sprinkle.
Authors’ collection.

In Earthy—­An Ecosex Boot Camp we joke that, as self-­respecting ecosexuals, we never, ever wear
Birkenstocks. The show was staged at the Center for Sex and Culture, San Francisco. Costumes by
Christina Dinkel. Photograph by Elliot Longstreet Taylor.
 Of f th e Beaten Path 141
same exhibit, Hippie Modernism, that featured our walking tour, so we were able to
incorporate it into our piece as well.

Dirt Is the Shit

Finally, we had our last wedding, which took place in Krems, Austria, on May Day
2014. Dirty Wedding to the Soil was produced by Donau Fest, a multimedia arts festival.
The wedding party included local artists who responded to our call for collaborators,
artists invited by the festival organizers, and artists who were already part of the festi-
val, including our very favorite rock star Peaches, and Keith Hennessy, our neighbor
friend and sperm donor for Maybe Baby. Keith and Peaches, who met for the first time
in our dressing room that morning, decided to improvise together, which became a
highlight of the wedding. Keith did movements to a spoken-­word piece called “Dirt,”
which Peaches had written for the occasion.

Dirt
by Peaches

Dirt
dirt dirt dirty dirt dirt
stay away from the dirt
you’ll get dirty
it’s a mess
yes! yes!

we wanna get down and dirty

hit the dirt
dig in the dirt

dirt is a wonder
dirt is real

dirt is precious
dirt gives us breath
dirt will sustain us
dirt makes life
142 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
dirt is life
we need to be dirty
we need dirt

break it down earthworm

break it down
break it down

fungi love me
humble humus
all hail bacteria
the criteria

release the nutrients

release us
fertilize us
treat us like dirt
give us dirt

we wanna be soiled
richly soiled
in sand, silt, and clay
we will lay, we will lay

let’s get dirt on our hands

cover us in dirt
make us dirty
dirt is the shit
dirt is the shit

Thank goodness Joy Brooke Fairfield came with us to Krems, and she directed
what turned out to be a fantastically dirty wedding. The tone was celebratory, but we
also did not gloss over Austria’s Nazi past. Tobaron Waxman (our cantor for White
Wedding to the Snow) reminded all of us to think about whose blood had been spilled
on the soil where this wedding was taking place, recalling World War II atrocities as
well as highlighting recent incidents of anti-­Semitism. We invited everyone to make
 Of f th e Beaten Path 143

The 2015 premiere of our Ecosex Walking Tour, directed by Joy Brooke Fairfield, took place on and
around San Francisco’s Bernal Hill. In this production, our team assistants were Maria Ramirez
and Bronwyn McCleod. Our Pollination Pod functioned as a stage, backstage, dressing room, prop
room, and post-­show café. Costume design by Sarah Stolar. Photograph by Seth Temple Andrews.

vows to the Soil with us and passed around two hundred rings our Boulder Creek
neighbor had made for us from brown fired clay.
The Soil Wedding reception was in a garden a few blocks away from the wedding
venue. A fantastic, tall maypole, constructed for us by the festival team, was festooned
with colored ribbons and attached to the head of a double bed filled with soil. Three
women playfully hugged the maypole as they were bound to it with ribbons. Our
guests wove these ribbons together in the maypole dance. It was delightfully kinky,
colorful, and fun all at once. We consummated our vows to the Soil by rolling around
naked kissing the dirt and each other. We got real dirty.

Twelve Stepping Stones to Ecosexual Wedded Bliss

Over the years, people who had attended our weddings, or saw our documentation,
would sometimes ask us if they could do an ecosexual wedding of their own. Of
course, we were delighted and encouraged and supported their creative endeavors
however we could. Just as we were doing our final draft of this book, the artist col-
lective Futurefarmers, directed by Amy Franceschini, invited us to help her create a
144 O f f t h e B e at e n Pat h
Wedding to the Fog at UCSC. We married the Fog, on February 29, during 2020’s leap
year just ahead of the first cases of COVID-­19, which forced us all to shelter in place.
We created the following advice to share our process, which can be adapted to in-
corporate social distancing. We invite and encourage everyone to use, recycle, and
reimagine the following ideas for their own weddings to nonhumans, for a good
cause, and to spread love far and wide in the grand ecosex wedding tradition.

1. Make a Wedding Proposal

Choose a nature entity that you feel needs some love and attention, ideally
something that others are passionate about too and that is site specific to your
location. Proposals to your chosen entity can be made standing up, sitting, lying
down, or on bended knee.
2. Make and Distribute a Wedding Invitation
It’s all in the invitation! Set the tone and intention with a beautiful invite. Include
a call for collaborators and RSVP cards for people to create a written response as
to how they want to participate. Post online if appropriate.
3. Get Some Money Together
You can produce a wedding without a penny: if there’s a will there’s a way.
However, it’s good to get some money together to help with funding; make
proposals to art organizations, try grants, crowd fundraising, ticket sales, and so
on. If you can only pay one person, make it your production manager, aka the
wedding planner.
4. Create Props and Costumes
Artistic bouquets and boutonnieres are what make your wedding costumes and
photographs look different from pictures from Burning Man or a normal party.
Better not to use fresh-­cut flowers so that no plants are harmed. All that glitters is
not gold. Sadly, glitter is not environmentally friendly.
5. Plan a Sequins of Events
There is always a place for everybody who wants to help create a wedding. With
some pre-­planning careful attention, everything and everyone will fall into place
as if by magic.
6. Have Production Meetings
Your wedding planner will need to know about everything that will happen, and
who is responsible for what. Meet with them and go over all the details. On the
day of the wedding, try to also add a director to help guide the performers and do
the staging. It’s theater!
 Of f th e Beaten Path 145
7. Gather Documentation
Documentation is an important part of your project, as you might want to turn
it into a gallery exhibit, video, or a book like this one. Make a printed program
with exact times and the order of the performances so everyone co-­creating the
wedding is on the same page. Credit absolutely everyone! Programs also function
as souvenirs, party favors, and material for your archive.
8. Set the Stage
It’s always best to do an ecosexual wedding outside, but they also work amazingly
well inside. Just be sure that whatever you are marrying is onstage with you,
literally or figuratively. Don’t ever forget that the nonhuman entity is the lead
bride/groom/actor.
9. Rehearse If You Can
If you have just an hour or two on the day of the wedding to rehearse, then
practice the procession and the recession with all the key players. If the ritual has
a strong beginning and a strong ending, then anything can happen in between,
and it will.
1 0. Perform the Ritual
Our weddings all followed the basic script of the classic wedding ritual:
gathering, procession of bridal parties with the emcees and officiants, a
statement of intention by the emcee, performance offerings, homily, fair
witnessing (objections), vows, ring ceremony, proclamation, the kiss, a
recession, followed by a reception with a cake-­cutting ceremony, group photos,
bouquet toss, garter toss, and some toasts and more performances. Be radically
traditional.
11. Have a Reception
Receptions give further options for more creativity and performances and are
a chance to celebrate. For the bouquet toss, queer it up by inviting absolutely
anyone who is looking for a new or additional lover (of any kind) to catch the
bouquet.
12. Consummate the Marriage
At the end of the vows, or at the reception, it’s a beautiful and conceptually
important thing to interact with the entity you married. Remember, it’s
ultimately about your beloved nature entity!
 seven

E . A . R .T. H . L A B E X P E R I M E N T S

In 2013, UCSC’s Dean of the Arts issued a call for the creation of “centers” as a way
to foster more cutting-­edge research in the arts division. Spearheaded by professors,
these centers would foster collaborative teams of researchers from multiple disci-
plines to work together on projects and on new research without uprooting faculty
from their departmental homes. An added incentive was that centers, as opposed to
the creation of new schools or colleges, had a minimal impact on the budget. Faculty
were invited to apply for seed funding to create a new center. Beth was tempted to
start one, and we thought about the possibilities. We reflected on how lucky we felt for
the opportunities we’d had to explore environmental art in the ways that we wanted.
We had a strong urge to pay it forward and lend support to other like-­minded artists,
particularly those artists who are underserved by the art world. We were interested in
creating a place where they could expand on theories, aesthetics, and different kinds
of environmentalisms and their intersection with art and the issues of the day. Beth
came up with the name E.A.R.T.H. Lab, which stood for Environmental Art, Re-
search, Theory, and Happenings.
It took us a year to think through the logistics of establishing the center and then
successfully apply for funding to launch the E.A.R.T.H. Lab. Meanwhile, during that
yearlong gestation, we were invited by multiple producers and curators in France,
England, and Spain (this time in Madrid) during the summer of 2013 to do Ecosex
symposiums, workshops, walking tours, performances, and film screenings of Good-
bye Gauley Mountain. They were great offers and we accepted.
We wove these trips together and framed them as the First International Ecosex
Symposium. We were just a little concerned that this time we had really managed to
overdo things and wondered how we would manage to give each project the attention
148 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
it required. We justified our decision to accept all of these engagements with the fact
that they were linked together, and we were able to produce several events each time
we traveled, thus reducing our carbon footprint.

First International Ecosex Symposium

We kicked off our First International Symposium in May 2013 with our participation
in Paul B. Preciado’s symposium Living and Resisting in the Neoliberal Condition
in the Somateca Program for Advanced Studies in Critical Practices workshop series,
held at La Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, Spain.1 Paul invited us to give a performa-
tive lecture and workshop titled Ecosex in the Age of Neoliberalism, plus an Ecosex
Walking Tour. We were also invited to screen Goodbye Gauley Mountain in the muse-
um’s state-­of-­the-­art auditorium.
Paul described his symposium as an exploration of the “implications of the neo-
liberal condition, by introducing new forms of activism and critical languages as
responses to the collapse of disciplinary institutions and the revision of medical,
socio-­political, and audiovisual discourses centered around the body.”2 He asked us
to discuss ecosex as a way to counter the policies of austerity that were being forced on
the Spanish by their government. Spain, along with the other three southern Euro-
pean Union countries Portugal, Italy, and Greece, had received loans from the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These institutions provided this funding
with the stipulation that if the loans were not repaid in a timely manner, the funds
would be collected by taking other resources. International lenders make huge profits
by holding national resources as collateral in cases of default. These publicly held as-
sets include property, mineral rights, and national pension funds. Losing these assets
severely impacted the quality of life for ordinary people, as the governments of Portu-
gal, Italy, Greece, and Spain were forced to impose austerity policies on their citizenry
in order to repay the loans that they could not afford.
We had experience with similar issues right in our own neighborhood. Part of the
fallout of the 2008 financial crisis was the epidemic of foreclosures. It was largely cen-
tered on families taking out loans that they could not afford. When they could not
pay back their loans, lenders took their homes. Beth started Occupy Bernal during
a meeting that took place around our kitchen table. Occupy Bernal saved more than
one hundred of our neighbors and families from foreclosure and evictions. But that
is another story.3
Paul invited us to present because he saw our focus on love and respect for the nat-
ural environment as a way to be in the world celebrating the Earth for reasons other
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 149
than instrumental profit or gain. We gave a workshop and could not have asked for
a more committed group. The Somateca participants were seasoned activists, pro-
fessional community organizers, NGO workers, and intellectuals who were living
through the economic deterioration of southern Europe. They were extremely critical
of neoliberalism and interested in resisting the system.
For our Ecosex Walking Tour, we took the group on an unscripted, spontaneous
walk to Parque del Retiro. We gave each participant a copy of our “25 Ways to Make
Love to the Earth” as a sort of trail guide, and we encouraged them to experience
ecosex in a variety of ways, using all their senses. When we reached the park’s high-
est knoll, we invited the participants to repeat our wedding vows “to love, honor,
and cherish the Earth.” We noticed some of the more serious intellectuals rolling
their eyes, as they obviously thought we were going completely off track. But others
seemed engaged as we all practiced moving through the park using the ecosexual
gaze. Later at the museum’s workshop space we formed breakout groups, which we
asked to explore possibilities for ecosexual activism using drawing and map making.
We received some very interesting comments, including that of one group who sug-
gested that the slowing down of experience and movement during our walking tour
was a powerful way to remove oneself from the constant demand for productivity.
We also got some interesting feedback from a few folks who were not quite ready to
embrace our vision. Overall, we felt our talk, workshop, and film screening were a
big success.
After Madrid, we traveled to Emmetrop in Bourges, France, the wonderful exhi-
bition space where we had mounted our art exhibition Faire l’amour avec Marcel D. in
2007. We spent five glorious days working, playing, and exploring ecosexual ideas and
practices while luxuriating in the incredibly generous hospitality of King Eric, Ma-
mita, and their two adorable French bulldogs, Egonne and K-­bull.
While at Emmetrop, we hosted the First International Ecosex Film Festival.
We screened Goodbye Gauley Mountain—­An Ecosexual Love Story, A. L. Steiner and
A. K. Burns’s 2010 film Community Action Center, and Fuck for Forest, directed by Mi-
chal Marczak (2012). We also screened several short films and videos that we found on
Vimeo and YouTube. These included Mating Leopard Slugs, narrated by Sir David At-
tenborough, Forest Love, a light-­hearted tango of lusty trees produced by Greenpeace
in 2008, and the initial short film of Green Porno, starring and written by Isabella Ros-
sellini dressed as a praying mantis who, in the process of fertilizing the female (played
by a life-­sized puppet), has her head bitten off.4 This Ecosexual film festival was likely
the world’s first!
150 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s

In Bourges, France, the art

organization Emmetrop
presented our Ecosex
workshop on an organic
farm. We divided the
participants into four
groups, and each group did
a performance that explored
a theme of Earth, Air, Fire,
or Water. Here, participants
hug a tree right before doing
an aerial dance in the tree
to explore the theme of Air.
Authors’ collection.

Our Ecosex Workshop weekend in Bourges took place at an organic farm with a
gentle winding river. The fabulous staff at Emmetrop took care of everything, ensur-
ing that the event would run smoothly. We had a total of forty participants. On the
first day of the workshop, our group met in an old barn that smelled of animals and
stayed cool even during the hottest time of the day. After a productive meeting where
we sat in a circle on hay bales and discussed ecosexual ideas, we improvised an Eco-
sexual Walk along a beautiful country road that ended at the home/studio of Michaël
and Sylvie Monziès, water whisperers who make swirly-­shaped ceramic bowl sculp-
tures that purify water. Michaël gave our group a short lecture followed by a tour of
his lush gardens that ended up in his little gift shop, where we could buy postcards
and sculptures.
On the way back to the farm the sun was beating down, and one of the participants
discovered an enticing lake surrounded by trees and reeds. With water on the brain,
everyone, including us, took off their clothes and jumped in. Suddenly, Annie spotted
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 151
a water snake and exited the lake at the speed of light. Annie is not great with bugs
and slithery things, and to make it worse, she discovered that tiny leech-­like creatures
were clinging to her body. That was more than Annie could handle, but the rest of the
group didn’t seem to mind and kept swimming. That night we roasted mountains of
home-­grown potatoes over a huge bonfire. It was a fantastic dinner, and then we all
camped under the stars.
The following day, participants were invited to join an affinity group—­Earth,
Air, Fire, or Water. Each group worked together to devise a performance inspired by
their element. The largest group was Water, and they collaborated with the river; the
Earth group played in the mud at the river’s edge; the Fire group consisted of just one
guy, the one who had built the bonfire the night before, and he used the firepit fire
and ashes. The Air group performed an aerial piece around the trunk and within the
branches of an ancient oak tree. These embodied actions encouraged participants to
deepen their experience with the human and nonhuman world through performance.

Farewell Feast
Our final adventure at Emmetrop was an artist feast. Luke Dixon, the producer of Ex-
treme Kiss and Blue Wedding to the Sky, joined us from London. We wrote the following
invitation to entice people to come, which had been posted on the Emmetrop website:

Le Grande Eco-­Bouffe
Experience an eco-­gasmic feast that will delight all your senses. Indulge in foreplay
with the whores d’oeuvres. Make love with the fruits of lover Earth as you taste every
delight. Frottage with root vegetables before pounding them into a soup. Stroke every
drop of juice from fresh figs and orgasmic oranges. Throw out the cookbook and have
consensual inter-­courses with your foodstuffs. This feast promises to be a night of
culinary-­lingus.5

Four talented art students from the École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges
created an outdoor feast using pedestals made from wooden shipping pallets
and produce crates to hold an array of fresh vegetables, homemade breads, French
cheeses, and yummy vegetable soups. They had made videos about where they got
each ingredient and combined this footage with interviews of the famers who grew
the food. The videos were projected on the wall so that we could watch them as we ate.
Meanwhile, Rémi Voche, holding an apple in his mouth and garbed in nothing other
than cornhusks that were wrapped around his head, wriggled across the courtyard on
152 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
his belly performing as an earthworm. The ground was covered in gravel, so it was an
endurance piece, and it took him more than an hour to travel from where he started
to the stacked pallets of food where he ended his piece, which was only about a hun-
dred feet. We checked in on Rémi in the dressing room, and he admitted that he was
very sore, especially in the vicinity of the family jewels.
For dessert, we served up a Dirt Bed performance. The Emmetrop fabrication
team had created a plush rendition of the dirt bed in the style of Louis XIV, with a
powder-­blue velvet headboard and a bed frame filled with soil, garnished with two
big juicy tomatoes and fresh flowers. We had planned to get naked and roll around
in the soil while the audience partook of the feast and milled about the courtyard. To
our complete surprise, the audience stopped eating and pulled up chairs around the
bed. Suddenly, industrial music started to play loudly on speakers, and colored lights
came on, illuminating the bed and us. Our technical team wanted to surprise us. We
realized that everyone expected something more than us merely lying quietly under a
blanket of soil. What were we to do? The pressure was on! So we undressed each other
to the music, got into the soil, and slowly got hot and heavy. Our ambient Dirt Bed
piece unintentionally turned into a middle-­aged, full-­figured, soil-­laden, full-­on live
ecosex show.

Naked in the Nettles

The next morning we had to literally run to catch a series of trains, the last of which
would take us to England where we had planned a weeklong Ecosex Workshop in
Colchester with Luke Dixon. We were late for the train because we forgot that we had
to go through customs. With six suitcases and a student intern in tow, running wasn’t
easy. But just as it was pulling out of the station we made the train, which would take
us under the English Channel to Luke.
Our workshop venue was Prested Hall, a fifteenth-­century manor house with a
moat, that specialized in indoor tennis and fancy weddings. Our participants were a
diverse group. We housed them in a less fancy wing on the other side of the adjacent
sports club. The owner, Mike, was Luke’s friend. He was torn between supporting our
workshop and hanging out with us, and being afraid that we would offend his wealthy
Prested Hall clientele who were there to play tennis or have a wedding. His solution
was to try and hide our ecosexy shenanigans in the woods and fields far away from the
main buildings. We were sympathetic to Mike because he had a business to run.
During the week, we made performances, explored ecosexuality through breath,
meditation, art, and we photographed ourselves and each other in front of the old
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 153
barns and stables, by the pool and in the fields around Prested Hall. On the last day
there, our plan was to co-­create a small unplugged graduation ceremony with a Wed-
ding to the Earth in a field far away and out of sight of the manor house. Just before
the wedding, Helena May, a sex worker who specialized in English-­style spanking,
decided to initiate a kinky bachelorette party by inviting participants to run naked
with her through a field full of stinging nettles. No one volunteered to join her, so
Beth graciously offered. Beth and Helena stripped down to their tennis shoes and
sunglasses and ran through the nettles screaming, with our group standing by at the
finish line with dock leaves (a herb that cuts the sting of nettles) to rub on their naked
bodies. It is no wonder that poor Mike wanted to hide us.
The workshop was followed by an Ecosex Symposium at the nearby Colchester
Arts Center, which was mainly attended by our workshop participants and included
many good talks from folks who came in to present. Along with Luke, we took the
train back to London and had a birthday party for Annie at the Black and Tan Club.
The next day we then donned pastel pink beekeeping suits to meet Luke’s bees. A
photograph taken by Grace Geldner shows the two of us flanking Luke in our bee-
keeping costumes looking like James Bond and two Bond girls gone green.

E.A.R.T.H. Lab Is Born

With the First International Ecosex Symposium behind us, Beth’s application for
three years of seed funding to establish the E.A.R.T.H. Lab was approved. The lab was
launched in 2014 with its main headquarters in Beth’s studio at UCSC’s Digital Art
Research Center. The E.A.R.T.H. Lab’s mission was to create new forms of environ-
mental art while developing theoretically and scientifically informed practices that
allowed us to interact with the Earth with fresh eyes and open minds. We would pro-
duce research that encompassed more inclusive, diverse, and imaginative possibilities
for being in relationship with the Earth.
The E.A.R.T.H. Lab’s first project was to build the Pollination Pod, a sculptural,
multipurpose mobile art unit. Beth purchased an adorable, egg-­shaped 1974 Per-
ris Pacer camper named Herbie from her cousin in Arizona. Then she spearheaded
the project to turn funky, dusty, beige Herbie into a glamourous, fancy, sparkly
bright-­blue gem. After the extreme makeover, we renamed Herbie Polly (short for
Pollination Pod).
Several talented friends and UCSC students had helped renovate Herbie. They
cut a big hole in the top and literally raised the roof, by adding a wooden structure
so that it could open up to reveal the sky. A redwood throne and what we jokingly
154 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
call a stripper pole was added to help hold up the now heavier roof. An art student
made a clever plexiglass tabletop that could be filled with water. At the bottom of the
tank/table, the word Ecosex lit up in different colors. Polly’s exterior was profession-
ally painted in royal blue glitter paint. The ugly fiberglass walls were covered with
rouged, creamy, champagne-­colored velvet fabric. Polly looked like a steampunk
jewel-­box theater on wheels and functioned as a performance space, dressing room,
movie theater, teahouse, hangout spot, sculpture, public address system, installation,
concession stand, Exquisite Corpse (surrealist writing game) poetry writing pod, rit-
ual space, propaganda machine, video installation, human-­powered parade float, and
pop-­up art gallery. She has been a great and very functional mobile space, and we have
enjoyed working with her over the years.

Lights! Camera! Activism!

After finishing Goodbye Gauley Mountain in 2013, there was no question that we
wanted to make another environmental documentary, common sense be damned.
Beth had taken to feature filmmaking like a duck to water, and by the end of the Good-
bye Gauley Mountain experience, Annie was happy to return to her film roots.
For our next film, we turned our attention to California, where Annie had grown
up and where we both now live. At that time Californians were experiencing a historic
drought with some of the driest years on record. Having married Water in various
forms, we took our vows seriously to love, honor, cherish, and protect Water, in pol-
lution or in health. Our beloved life partner was drying up before our very eyes. It was
truly scary. Many Californians, including us, were adjusting to water-­usage restric-
tions, the fear of running out of water, the need to move to some other state, or the
loss of everything to drought-­induced wildfires.
As aquaphiles, we knew we wanted to do a film about water. Spending time by and
in the water is our favorite activity, be it hot tubbing, swimming in pools, rivers, and
lakes, getting pummeled by waterfalls, soaking in bathtubs, or being baptized in a
creek in West Virginia. A film about California’s water issues could serve as a micro-
cosm for critical water issues in many places around the world. Water has long been
a powerful player in the history of the Golden State, and we were curious to learn
more about that history. More than one million Californians, mainly poor rural pop-
ulations, lack access to clean drinking water and have to wash their hands and dishes
using bottled water as the only alternative to polluted water. In early 2014, the Flint,
Michigan, water contamination crisis was exposed. At the same time, California’s
water problems affected ten times as many people, yet this story wasn’t as well known
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 155
as the story of Flint. How was this that we didn’t fully know about or understand the
California water crises? Because, like mountaintop removal in West Virginia, it wasn’t
well publicized. We decided to make a documentary with an ecosexual focus that
would inform the larger public and help everyone understand the drought.
In July 2014, the two of us hit the road with our cameras and our black Labrador,
Butch (Bob’s successor), in a 1993 Roadtrek camper that we called the E.A.R.T.H. Lab
Mobile Unit. Our initial film shoots took place in and around four of the Univer-
sity of California’s iconic nature reserves that are used for scientific research by the
UC system. We shot interviews with scientists, biologists, and land and water stewards
at Sagehen Creek near Truckee, California, on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Neva-
das, in Yosemite Valley, and at Landels-­Hill Big Creek Reserve near Big Sur. For these
initial shoots we were accompanied by Seth Temple Andrews (Beth’s former student),
who was our cinematographer that summer. We were living the dream and having a
blast working on a new film together.
When the UCSC semester started, we returned to the Bay Area and Santa Cruz so
Beth could resume teaching. We continued to shoot more scenes over time. We had
seen Wim Wenders’s film Pina, about the choreographer Pina Bausch, and loved the
way he incorporated dance performances to tell the story. We decided we wanted to
include performance artists and cultural thinkers as central figures in our new film,
too. We shot our first scene with Reverend Billy during his visiting artist gig at the
E.A.R.T.H. Lab. We interviewed him under a big old oak tree while we massaged his
feet. When Sandy Stone was visiting E.A.R.T.H. Lab, we asked her about water and
she spontaneously did an impromptu performance for us. Sandy is a trans* icon and
elder who is a founder of transgender studies. We interviewed Donna Haraway at her
home in Santa Cruz and filmed her feeding her chickens in her backyard. When we
started talking with her about water, it began to rain, which seemed more than co­
incidental, given the drought. We went with the flow, gave Donna an umbrella, and
kept talking. We were tickled that she came out on camera as ecosexual.
The next scene we shot was initiated by two students we had worked with be-
fore, who came by the E.A.R.T.H. Lab and proposed that we produce and organize
an ecosexual pride contingent for the upcoming 2015 Santa Cruz Pride Parade.
Jamie Joy Wonderpig and Hannah Honeyheart Reiter had taught the world’s first
student-­directed college campus Ecosex class, Ecosexuality: Queering the Path to
Sustainability, at UCSC the year before. They also taught the first Ecosex workshops at
Burning Man. We discussed ideas and decided that our contingent could have a Water
theme. Plus we had been wanting to have a ribbon-­cutting ceremony to officially add
156 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s

Donna Haraway, Beth’s

colleague at University of
California, Santa Cruz, is
always an inspiring and
supportive collaborator.
She is a shining star in our
film Water Makes Us Wet.
Here Donna is at Seedbed:
A Soil Symposium.
Authors’ collection.

the E to the LGBTQIA+ moniker. So we said yes to their proposal. Hannah enlisted
her two dance troupes, Santa Cruz’s Do-­Right Burlesque Troupe and the Serpent
Sanctum, a group of kundalini power goddesses that dance with snakes. Beth invited
her art students to participate and quite a few did. We held our planning meetings at
the E.A.R.T.H. Lab, where our team made props, practiced choreography, and wrote
and rehearsed chants together. Everyone got interviewed by the campus newspaper,
and we posed together for a group photo for social media.6
Our Santa Cruz contingent would not be the very first ecosexual presence in a
pride parade. In 2010, just the two of us marched in the San Francisco Dyke March
with signs that had ecosexual hand-­painted on them. Two years later, in 2012, we
marched in the SF Dyke March holding signs saying ecosexual on one side and Earth
is our lover on the other. Kim TallBear and Bonnie Cullum happened to be visiting us
that day, so the four of us spontaneously formed a mini-­contingent. Our signs got a
lot of attention, and a lot of people asked about them. Dykes who resonated with our
sign gave us big smiles and knowing thumbs-­ups.
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 157
On the morning of June 7, 2015, a few minutes before the Santa Cruz parade began,
we had our ribbon-­cutting ceremony, marking the auspicious occasion of officially
adding the E to the LGBTQIA+ moniker. Seventy people had signed up to be in our
contingent and more folks jumped in along the route. Sandy Stone was our contin-
gent’s fairy godmother and marched with us through downtown to the end of the
route, which was six blocks long. The entire Santa Cruz LGBTQIA+E parade was
just a few hundred people, so our contingent and its messages really stood out. Seth
filmed the affair and we used the ribbon-­cutting footage in our film.
Three weeks later on June 28, 2015, we staged a much larger, bolder durational per-
formance in San Francisco’s much bigger and more established Pride Parade. This
was the biggest film shoot we had produced to date, and it took a lot of energy and
planning. We hired three film crews to document that day.
When we started the San Francisco parade contingent production, we issued a
call for collaborators, which brought together a group of co-­performers: burlesque
queens, academics, sex workers, dancers, performance artists, students, friends, en-
vironmental activists, plus anyone else who wanted to join us, including people we
didn’t yet know. In all, 120 people signed up. We needed a director to wrangle and di-
rect our cast so that the two of us could focus on the film production as well as our
own performances. We consulted with Guillermo Gómez-­Peña, who suggested we
hire his La Pocha Nostra co-­director, Saúl García-­López aka La Saula. Saúl came down
from Canada and moved in with us for a couple of weeks. He was a masterful and
creative director who took the work seriously. The parade shoot became a fruitful col-
laboration between our people and La Pocha Nostra troupe—­overseen by Guillermo.
Becka Shertzer, of Brazen Nectar Catering, had a lot of friends in the food biz and ar-
ranged for thousands of dollars’ worth of donated food and drinks to be available for
our whole team.7 Among many others, Amy’s gave us a few weeks’ worth of frozen bur-
ritos and pizzas, Pepples Donut Farm sent dozens of divine vegan fresh donuts, and
GT’s Kombucha gave us fifty cases of rainbow kombucha to hand out at the parade.
Our parade contingent was included as a Queer Cultural Center (QCC) perfor-
mance in the annual International Queer Arts Festival. Their catalogue included a call
for others to march with us. We asked only that participants dress in the colors (blues
and black) and themes of Water. The Center for Sex and Culture was our nonprofit
umbrella sponsor, so Carol Queen, Robert Lawrence, and the CSC librarians, looking
fabulous, marched along with us carrying their banner.
The weeks leading up to the San Francisco parade shoot were stressful and cha-
otic, with Beth simultaneously writing grant applications, finishing up her teaching
158 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
duties, and finishing her doctorate. Annie was busy hosting Saúl and the nine or ten
collaborators who were staying at our house with us prior to the parade. We even had
two people sleeping outside in front of our house in our E.A.R.T.H. Lab camper van.
The day before the parade, we held our one and only rehearsal on the Bernal Heights
Recreation Center’s basketball courts across the street from our house. We broke into
affinity groups: the green gnomes led by Kaytea Petro (who had made our Green Wed-
ding to the Earth costumes), the sexecologists wearing white lab coats with the word
sexecologist spray-­painted across the back, and the Pollination Pod–­pushers wearing
punk rock–­style lingerie. Our favorite eco-­burlesque queen, Lady Monster, was cos-
tumed as a sexy Lover Earth. Puppeteers danced inside a forty-­foot-­long steelhead
salmon puppet crafted by puppet master Heidi Cremer. Hannah Honeyheart Reiter
marched in her belly dancer best. An eco-­core drum squad, the Traveling Ills, and
their lead singer, Cassandra La Bruja Cronin, called out Water-­themed chants. Our
contingent marched holding ecosexy Water-­themed protest-­style signs we made, as
well as an edition of signs designed by Guillermo featuring a drippy blue hand print
on one side (like ACT UP) and a QR code on the other, which sent people to our Eco-
sex Manifesto 2.0 online. Sarah Stolar made Water-­themed black and blue costumes
for us that (punk) rocked.8
On the morning of the big event, we hauled the Pollination Pod to the designated
staging spot at the corner of Main and Market Streets. Beth outfitted the pod with
four boat oars so that it could be human powered and pushed down the street. The
Pollination Pod would be our sparkling, campy, Water drop effigy. The parade was
way behind schedule, so we had to wait for more than four hours to kick off and join
the march up Market Street. To make the time pass more quickly, our press agent
Kate Fritz serenaded us with bluegrass music. Daniel Nicoletta (who took the Harvey
Milk photo that’s on the U.S. postage stamp) hung out with us and took great pho-
tos of our contingent, which he generously let us use for our movie promotion stills.
After a while, the Porta Potties provided by the parade organizers had long lines and
were starting to overflow, plus the last of the toilet paper was long gone, so we made
human shields around those in our group who had to pee. We offered our golden
showers to the Sea via the storm drain. Our neighborhood shaman, Jorge Molina,
performed a Water ritual with an incantation, a blessing, using a conch shell call and
rattle shaking. It set a spiritual tone and made a great scene for the film. Right before
it was time to march, Guillermo, holding a bullhorn, performed our new, co-­written,
streamlined, more poetic Ecosex Manifesto 2.0, which we felt helped counter the com-
mercialization of the Pride Parade, which featured corporations including Walmart,
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 159
Google, Uber, Yahoo, and Chase Bank, all Ecosexual Manifesto 2.0
of whom were handing out promotional Wh
materials and free plastic bottles of water
to the thousands of marchers. We are Ecosexuals: the Earth is our lover.
Two of Beth’s students energetically Fiercely in love, we are permanently
led us down Market Street, carrying grateful for this relationship. To create a
our fifteen-­foot banner that read “Here more mutual and sustainable union with
Come the Ecosexuals!” We followed as our lover, we collaborate with nature. We
the ecosexual pride flag bearers, with treat the Earth with respect, affection, and
our flag poles inserted into crotch-­level, sensuality.
black leather strap-­on holsters. Flanking We are aquaphiles, terraphiles,
us were Paul Corbit Brown (the envi- pyrophiles, and aerophiles.
ronmentalist interviewed in Goodbye We are skinny-­dippers, sun worshippers,
Gauley Mountain) and Amanda Starbuck and stargazers.
(another environmental activist who has We are artists, sex workers, sexologists,
been a leader within groups like Green- academics, environmental and peace
peace and Rainforest Action Network). activists, feminists, eco-­immigrants, putos
We gave them a big wooden letter E to y putas, trans/humanistas, nature fetishists,
carry. Guillermo came next, escorted by gender-­bending gardeners, therapists,
two sexy Phantom Mariachis, played by scientists and educators, revolutionaries,
his wife, Balitronica, and friend Jadelynn dandies, pollen-­amorous cultural monsters
Stahl in zentai suits, sequined som- with dogs and other entities from radical
breros, and very high heels. Zen Cohen ecologies . . . .
followed as an H2O police officer, inter- Whether LGBTQI, hetero, asexual,
rogating people if they had wasted water. or Other, our primary drive and identity
The Pollination Pod was in the center, is being Ecosexual! Viva la ECOSEX
and then came the sexecologists dancing REVOLUTION!
with water-­filled condoms and the giant
salmon puppet and gnomes.
We flowed like water along the seemingly never-­ending parade route with our
three video crews weaving in and out in their attempt to document it accurately. A
million people watched this San Francisco Pride Parade, which was our largest
performance audience to date. Peter Holley, reporting on the parade for the Wash-
ington Post, mentioned just a few contingents, and he included the ecosexuals!9 We
wondered why there haven’t been more Pride contingents calling attention to envi-
ronmental issues.
160 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
After the parade was over we went back to our house, our production headquarters,
and our core team decompressed. Dragonfly Diva came in from Brooklyn to march
with us and was staying with us. She disappeared for a few minutes, then came back
with something she wrote about her parade experience and read it to us out loud:

Despite the parade being almost fully corporate-­co-­opted (f *cking WalMart!!!)—­the

streets were packed with the utter joy of rainbows and weirdos and queerdos and
bulldaggers and fags and some naked people and loads of fabulosity and lovers and
couples and children and old people and clowns and ninjas and ganja and sodomites
and hairy armpits and saggy boobs and great asses and gender-­benders and more
damn joy and black people and white people and brown people and yellow peo-
ple and red people and orange people and olive people and purple people and even
straight people all dancing in the streets . . . . I may be black. I may be wearing
blue. But today I am the rainbow.10

The day after the parade we shot a few more scenes for our water movie. Dragonfly
did a performance in San Francisco’s Mission District. We filmed her performing as
her activist character, Miss Justice Jester, bringing Water’s message to the people on
the streets. We added her performance to our documentary.

Lost at Sea
After we had shot about half of our film’s footage we were suddenly forced to change
course. The drought in California suddenly ended, and the winter of 2016–­17 became
one of the wettest years on record. Water restrictions were repealed as floods wiped
out roads, dams burst, and people were forced to retreat to high ground. We decided
to broaden our film’s focus to issues beyond the drought. We were all set to do this
when fate interceded.
We were headed south on Highway 5 on our way to Loyola Marymount Univer-
sity to give a talk in October 2016, just outside Bakersfield, when we were rear-­ended
by a young man looking at his cell phone driving at 80 mph. Our camper was
knocked completely out of control, cannonballing across the grassy divider and into
oncoming traffic. Annie was driving and somehow avoided smashing into the semi-
trailers barreling toward us. We crash-­landed on the north side of the highway against
a barbed wire fence that probably prevented the camper from rolling over again. The
top of the van had been completely ripped open like a sardine can and our vehicle was
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 161
lying on its side. According to the police report, we had rolled over three times. We
were knocked unconscious, but amazingly we were still alive.

annie  Beth came to first and asked me, “Honey, are you okay?” Then I came
to and said, “I think so.” We were on our side and the seat belt was choking
me. I tried to unhook it, but my body was putting so much pressure on
the latch that I couldn’t. Beth somehow slid her entire body under mine,
lifted me up, and set me free. We scanned our bodies: we weren’t blinded,
our limbs were still attached, spines and necks didn’t seem to be broken.
We were able to crawl out of the camper through the roof that had been
torn off.
A woman appeared out of nowhere and repeatedly said, “I can’t believe you’re
alive!” The first thing we asked her was if we had hurt or killed anyone as we
barreled across the highway. We couldn’t tell. Thank goodness we had not. The
guy who hit us had landed in the median. He walked over to us and was freaked
out but okay. Police and ambulances arrived quickly. He admitted to the police
that he had looked down at his cell phone GPS just before he hit us. Our camper
van was completely totaled. It was the first time that either of us had been in a
serious crash.
beth  Annie asked me to go inside the camper to look for our dog, Butch. I could
not find him in the wreckage. All of the cabinets had come completely off the
interior walls and our possessions were tossed about helter-­skelter, some cov-
ered in pancake syrup, coffee, and raw oatmeal. Butch was nowhere to be found.
He must have been thrown from the van, and we were afraid that he was severely
wounded or dead.
We didn’t want to get into the ambulance without knowing what happened
to him, but the ambulance wouldn’t wait, and blood was oozing out of Annie’s
head wound and dripping down her face. Annie asked me to go in and look for
her laptop, reminding me that we would need it for the artist talk we were on
our way to do in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount, and that was supposed to
begin in just three hours. Clearly, she was out of her mind: this time, the show
would not go on.
I must have been out of my mind too, because I went back into the wreckage
and managed to retrieve Annie’s laptop and her purse. Then we were whisked
away to Kern County Trauma Center in Bakersfield. Marveling about how lucky
162 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
we were, we had the luxury of making our ambulance ride really romantic and
discussed what a tragedy it would have been if we couldn’t have finished our
film—­or this book!
annie  In the trauma unit the medical team stitched up my bloody hand and stapled
the gash in my scalp closed. Morphine helped. A CAT scan showed that I had
fractured my sternum, so I had to stay in the hospital in case it might punc-
ture my heart. Beth had a big gash across her forehead, and we both had nasty
concussions. As we came out of shock, we noticed that we seemed to be the only
patients in the trauma unit who were not accompanied by armed prison guards:
there had been a local prison riot earlier that evening, and several prisoners had
gotten injured.
After my condition stabilized, my sister Lora drove up from LA and took
Beth to the junkyard where the van had been towed to hopefully find her laptop
and try to salvage some of the camera and sound equipment from the wreckage,
which amazingly she did. Beth checked again for signs of Butch, but the only
blood she could find was on the roof above the van’s front seats where our heads
must have hit. Beth drove around looking for Butch in the vicinity of the scene
of the accident but to no avail. Eventually she checked into a Bakersfield hotel
for the night while I stayed in the hospital for observation.
The next day, buoyed by being alive and taking pain meds, I checked out of
the hospital. Our friends, and some helpful strangers, helped post our missing
dog info on Facebook and other social networks. The outpouring of sympathy
for Butch and concern that came our way were heartwarming.
The next day Beth went hunting for Butch in the many Bakersfield animal
shelters and posted lost dog flyers. Five days later, just as we were about to
return to San Francisco in a rental car, an amateur doggie detective called us.
She had seen our flyers around and matched our info with a Facebook post of a
black Lab someone had seen running down a country road. We met the doggie
detective near the road where he had been sighted and indeed spotted a black
Lab with a blue collar running through irrigation sprinklers on a tomato farm
about seven miles from where we had crashed.
beth  We sped off to see if it was Butch. When we saw the dog, it looked like Butch,
but when we called him, he ran in the opposite direction. We worried that it
wasn’t him. The farm workers told us that the dog was probably headed toward
a greenhouse where he had been hanging out eating the barn cats’ food, and
that no one had been able to touch him for days as he was so scared.
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 163

In 2016, our camper was rear-­

ended, and we rolled across
Interstate 5. We thought we
were going to die. Our dog,
Butch, was thrown from the
camper and went missing for
five days. We found Butch,
turned the crash into a
dramatic scene for our film
Water Makes Us Wet, and
the trauma ward doctors
discovered that Annie had a
lung cancer tumor. This early
detection may have saved her
life. We came out winners.
Photograph copyright
David B. Steinberg.

I drove to the greenhouse quickly, and there was Butch getting ready to bolt
across the road. I called his name and he started to run in the opposite direc-
tion. I couldn’t believe it, so I got out of the vehicle, lay down in the road, and
coaxed him to me in my sweetest West Virginia drawl. “Butchie, do you want
some treats? Butchie, do you want to go for a walk?” He slowed down, turned
around, and approached me warily, coming closer, then backed off several times
until his desire for the treats overcame his fear. Finally he jumped on my belly,
whimpering and crying. I cried too, hugging him and giving him all the treats I
had. I texted Annie, “I got him!” Miraculously he had no injuries. No one could
believe we found Butch!
annie  Our concussions, doctor visits, and time spent filling out insurance claim
forms kept us from working on the film for a while. In the trauma unit, Beth
had shot some footage of me with my iPhone that was in my purse she had sal-
vaged and later got some footage of the wreckage in the junkyard. We decided
164 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
we would turn the crash and Butch’s vision quest into a dramatic scene in Water
Makes Us Wet. We re-­created some parts, like the ambulance arriving at the hos-
pital and finding Butch on the tomato farm. It’s a wondrous thing when a nasty
accident can become art.

Goin’ with the Flow

Facing death gave us the sense of urgency we needed to finish the film. We loved
working with Keith Wilson so much on Goodbye Gauley Mountain that we convinced
him to help us finish our production, and we made him a co-­producer. Keith helped
us plan a ten-­day road trip shoot to get the final footage we needed to finish the film.
For continuity, we had to buy another camper just like the one that got wrecked. Luck-
ily, our insurance gave us enough money to get another slightly newer (1996) model.
During Beth’s spring break in March 2017, we hit the road again. Keith came with
us as director of photography. Jordan Freeman, who shot Goodbye Gauley Mountain,
joined us as the second camera, plus he brought along his drone camera, which we
ended up using a lot, capturing some incredible land and waterscapes that made the
film more visually textured.
We drove around California. Knowing very little about the science of water treat-
ment, we took tours of two treatment plants and interviewed our wonderful guides.
As we traveled down the coast we stopped at the Elephant Seal Rookery near Hearst
Castle and interviewed the elephant seals. We also stopped at the Kenneth Norris
Rancho Marino Reserve run by Don Canestro near Cambria, where Don gave us a
heartfelt and informative interview about the sea; we had a great time with him. Sadly,
Don passed away on November 9, 2018, a few weeks after he came to see the film at
our California premiere in Beverly Hills with his daughter.
Farther along the journey we took an intense hike (made more intense by Annie’s
cute but inappropriate shoes) with retired forest service biologist Steve Lowe, who
showed us how the Nestlé Corporation was using an expired permit to take millions
of gallons of water a year from the San Bernardino Mountains. This water extraction
wreaks havoc on the local ecosystems, especially on the endangered species of ani-
mals and people living nearby. Nestlé is directly responsible for the decrease in the
area’s water table, and it will keep dropping until Nestlé stops extracting water. Next
we went to Salvation Mountain, a huge visionary art project by Leonard Knight out in
the middle of the desert. Across the road, we interviewed local residents from the Slab
City encampment about living off the grid without running water in the intense heat.
And finally we visited the Salton Sea. We had been on our way to the Salton Sea via
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 165
our guest lecture at Loyola Marymount when we had our accident. Instead of our first
destination, it was our final destination and well worth it.
The Salton Sea, located near Palm Springs, is a historically dry lakebed that was
accidently flooded to form the current body of water. In the 1950s and 1960s, the area
around the lake was turned into a resort area. Since there was no egress for the water
in the lake, it eventually became oversalinated and toxic from agricultural runoff.
Adjacent to the lake is the Salton Sea Test Site, a former military installation where
bombs were tested and, for a period of time, was designated as a federal Superfund
site. Overall, the whole area is a very strange place that looks and feels like an aban-
doned ghost town in the desert.
Once there, we filmed a scene with Xandra Coe, Beth’s high school friend and
our executive producer, who had survived sinus cancer and taught Beth how to use
a neti pot to clean the sinuses with salinated healing water. We also gathered shots of
us walking along the shore of the Salton Sea, which was covered with fish skeletons.
On our way back through Los Angeles, we stopped and interviewed Annie’s ninety-­
two-­year-­old mother and Annie’s younger sister Lora about the family pool. We also
filmed Annie sprinkling her dad’s ashes into Lake Tenaya in Yosemite, where her fam-
ily had spent some of their happiest summers together.

Postproduction
For this film, we used a form similar to Goodbye Gauley Mountain: weaving our per-
sonal narratives together with animation and interviews with artists, activists,
scholars, workers, and family members. We also remained true to our vision of in-
corporating performance art. Our film needed a narrator. At first we tried using both
of our voices separately, speaking back and forth, but this didn’t work very well. We
then decided it would be interesting to have the Earth be the narrator. Since we con-
sider the Earth transgender (all genders and beyond gender), we asked Sandy Stone to
narrate. She had the perfect voice to be the Earth, deep yet soft with a bit of an edge,
gender ambiguity, and a healthy dose of sarcasm.
Annie’s brother David supervised the music and composed most of it, as he had
done for Goodbye Gauley Mountain. Xandra wrote the film’s theme song “Water Makes
Us Wet.” Sandy, who had recorded Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, and Van Morri-
son as a young sound engineer, volunteered to do the same for Xandra, who had never
had a song professionally recorded before. Her theme song was perfect. Annie, being
a design snob, insisted we hire a moving graphics design professional who made all
the titles. We began to imagine film blurbs for film festival catalogues.
166 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
From redwood-­lined creeks to the brine of the Salton Sea, ecosexual artists Beth Ste-
phens and Annie Sprinkle—­and a dog named Butch—­dive into the politics and
pleasures of water. With curiosity, playfulness, and a poetic reverence, these aqua-
philes mind-­tryst with scientists, plunge into water rights issues, flush out the truth
of water-­capitalism, and shower viewers with a myriad of ways to make love with—­and
to—­H-­2-­O Oh Oh!

After several months of editing, we held two test screenings, one at the Santa Cruz
Film Festival and one at San Francisco Doc Fest. We handed out questionnaires ask-
ing audiences to rate their favorite and least favorite scenes, then scrapped several of
the unpopular scenes. The part with Annie’s mother, Lucille, was consistently cited as
the favorite scene. The biggest laugh in the film comes when Annie is heading out the
door to sprinkle her father’s ashes in Lake Tenaya, and she asks her mom where she’d
like her ashes sprinkled. “I don’t know. Surprise me.”

Silver Screens
We completely finished Water Makes Us Wet just in the nick of time for its dazzling
world premiere at documenta 14. (In chapter 8, you’ll learn much more about our peak
experience at this brilliant international arts festival based in Kassel, Germany.) Then it
started playing in film festivals, from the prestigious British Film Institute’s Flare Fes-
tival to the smaller fabulous San Francisco Trans Film Festival. As luck would have it,
the curator of Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) documentary film festi-
val, Kathy Brew, saw our film and curated it for the prestigious museum film screening
program. Plus, she scheduled us on MoMA’s Modern Monday, a once-­a-­month night
that is a film screening with an added bonus of a performance. MoMA invited us to do
a performance, screen our film, and stay in a fancy New York hotel. Our flight was paid
for, we had special billing in the program catalogue and on the website, and our film
was screened in a great theater. Since we identify as artists more than filmmakers, this
experience was even more delicious than if it had been screened at Sundance.11
MoMA had already sold out all four hundred seats for our event a week before we
arrived. Excitement was in the air. We had a stellar audience filled with performance
art royalty. Karen Finley brought her class from New York University. Richard Schech-
ner, Kate Bornstein, and Barbara Carrellas were in the audience. Una Chaudhuri,
who wrote the “Foreplay” to this book, came. In the weeks leading up to the event,
we couldn’t resist inviting more and more of our friends to join us to perform. We
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 167
wanted to share the experience. Fortunately, Joy Brooke Fairfield was available to pro-
vide direction for the overall performance.
Our film got an enthusiastic reception during the Q&A, after which we did a per-
formative reading of our “25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth” text accompanied by our
ensemble of seventeen friends and fellow artists. While the two of us read “25 Ways,”
our collaborators pantomimed, performed, or did some kind of action expressing
each of the twenty-­five ways. Annie’s brother, David, played a tom-­tom to accompany
Judy Dunaway’s balloon-­rubbing experimental soundings. Our cameraman Jordan
Freeman did his first ever performance piece dressed as a fisherman running through
the aisles after a woman dressed as a giant squid. Dragonfly Diva led the audience in
a few of our Water-­themed Ecosex Pride Parade chants. Australian performance artist
Betty Grumble helped us create a rousing ending to our piece when she stripped and
did a split while in a headstand. We pulled an Earth flag from Annie’s bra and held it
above Betty’s crotch. Linda M. Montano, who came as our special guest artist, sang
“Earth You Are P.R.E.C.I.O.U.S.,” an acapella song she wrote. Linda had us all clucking
like chickens as we left the stage. We wonder if MoMA will ever invite us back.

Environmentalism Outside the Box: An Ecosex Symposium

E.A.R.T.H. Lab was created in part so that we could produce symposiums. Our first
symposium was Environmentalism Outside the Box—­An Ecosex Symposium, which
took place May 18–­20, 2017, at UCSC’s Digital Arts Research Center. Participants in-
cluded pioneers in the fields of feminist materialism, science and technology studies,
and environmental humanities as well as science. Kim TallBear gave the first keynote
address, “Decolonizing Settler Sexuality” with Melissa K. Nelson as respondent. We
screened the U.S. premiere of Fabrizio Terranova’s film Donna Haraway: Story Telling
for Earthly Survival, and Donna attended. Ecofeminist scholar Chris Cuomo presented
the second keynote, “Love and Struggle: Grounding against Environmental Fatalism.”
Loren Kronemyer presented work from her collaboration (with Ian Sinclair), Pony
Express, the live-­art duo that created the Ecosexual Bathhouse.12 The evenings were re-
served for performance art. Betty Grumble presented Kookaburra Ritual, in which she
jogged and did nude gymnastics while singing the “Kookaburra Song.” Tessa Wills
performed Hermit wearing a big red pom-­pom costume. Annie and Luke Dixon per-
formed Ecosexy Shakespeare, a dirty reading of a Shakespeare sonnet. Lady Monster
ended the night with her new Birth of Venus burlesque routine with water tassels that
malfunctioned, spraying water everywhere.
168 E . A . R . T. H . L a b E x p er i m e n t s
Seedbed: A Soil Symposium
Our second symposium at the UCSC campus was Seedbed: A Soil Symposium, which
occurred April 26–­27, 2018. It was cohosted by E.A.R.T.H. Lab and the UCSC Farm and
Garden and Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. The UCSC com-
munity and the public were invited to attend for free. The first day took place at the
farm and was primarily outdoors. Day two occurred at the Cowell Hay Barn. Both days
featured twelve hours of programming, delicious free meals, and socializing. It was an
immersive event focused on the ground beneath our feet in all of its dirt(y) glory.
The title was an homage to Vito Acconci’s seminal performance Seedbed. In this no-
torious piece, Acconci masturbated hidden under a specially built ramp at Sonnabend
Gallery in Manhattan in 1972. We were both influenced by Acconci’s work, and we
wanted to pay homage to him. As it turned out, many who attended the conference
didn’t know who or what Vito Acconci or Seedbed were, so we were pleased to intro-
duce this important artist to others.
We opened by acknowledging the Ohlone people on whose land we were gathered.
Our first keynote address was a Seder ritual, Tu BiShvat (Birthday of the Trees), with
the Hebrew interpretation of Adamah (which means soil and was the derivation of
the name Adam) led by queer Rabbi Sydney Mintz. Brooklyn-­based Shawn Shafner
aka the Puru (and director of the POOP Project) did a performative mud-­pie perfor-
mance/installation outside the barn. Dragonfly Diva’s ode to the ancestors offered
everyone a big red wiggler worm to hold in their hands and then place into a bin full
of earthworms. Kevin O’Connor organized Soil Times in which dancers simultane-
ously performed three different traditional dances while mixing some of their fourth
collaborator’s ashes into the soil.
Inside, panels included T. J. Demos, who chaired “The Generosity of Soil.” Artist
Amy Franceschini chaired Composting and Waste Management. She began with a
critique of the title, which was hilarious and completely accurate: the title was bor-
ing! The symposium also included three visual art exhibitions curated by Martabel
Wasserman. Karin Bolender of the Rural Alchemy Workshop (R.A.W.) offered the Ass-­
Kissing Workshop, a special walking treasure hunt. Bendito the donkey was the prize
of Karin’s treasure hunt. If participants could find him, they could kiss and pet him.
Karin says that petting and kissing donkeys helps our health and well-­being through
commingling with their biome clouds. Needless to say, we are huge fans of Bolender
and her fantasstic work at R.A.W.13
Our keynote speaker was soil expert and organic farmer Fred Kirschenmann, who
also moderated the panel “So(i)lidarity: Farming and Labor.” Elisa Oceguera spoke of
 E. A. R. T. H . Lab Experim en ts 169
queer migrant labor, Dragonfly Diva talked about the connections of justice and en-
vironmentalism in the Black Lives Matter movement, Rick Flores presented on the
Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UCSC Arboretum, and Jane Komori pre-
sented work on farming as community repair about Japanese Americans who were
imprisoned in World War II internment camps. Berlin-­based Daniel Cremer, aka
Gaiaboi, served mud porridge topped with a divine cacao sauce and cocoa nibs that
he brought from Ecuador for breakfast that was meant to be eaten sensually. It was
totally blissful and ecoerotic. To end this symposium, Linda M. Montano joined us
remotely. She created a special ten-­minute video, A Song for Ana Mendieta—­Woman of
Seed, for us to play for a closing dance ritual.

The E.A.R.T.H. Lab Legacy

At the time of this writing, we were planning our next symposium, Deep Inside the
Experimental Forest, which was to be held at Sagehen Reserve Station in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. Due to COVID-­19 it was put on hold. Hopefully our eclectic group
of invitees will soon be gathering to connect with the nonhuman worlds through art,
science, ritual, and activism, and addressing the deadly forest fires, their causes, and
practical solutions to work on the problem. The work of the E.A.R.T.H. Lab will con-
tinue, one way or another. Thankfully, we have learned well to go with the flow.
Once Beth asked an interim dean at her school (who shall remain nameless) if he
thought that our E.A.R.T.H. Lab would have a lasting legacy at UCSC. He paused for a
minute and then answered, “No.” He went on to explain that if the E.A.R.T.H. Lab was
doing something serious, like particle theory, then a lasting legacy would be secure.
When Beth told her cousin Damon about this conversation, without missing a beat,
Damon replied, “I thought what you are doing is part-­tickle theory.” We accept the
fact that tickle theory isn’t as important as particle theory. But we do think that it is
way more fun.
 eight

A N O L D W H O R E A N D A H I L L B I L LY M A K E
A S P L A S H AT D O C U M E N TA 1 4

By 2016, we had collaborated with Paul B. Preciado for more than a decade on seven
different substantial projects. The events and gatherings he hosted were always mag-
ical and fruitful for us, and we were hoping we would one day get the chance to do
something with him again.
Paul had to leave his position at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
(MACBA) during an exhibition titled La bestia y el soberano (The Beast and the Ruler),
which included Haute couture 04 Transport, a sculpture by Ines Doujak that depicted
Spain’s former king, Juan Carlos, crouching on Nazi helmets and being mounted by
Domitila Barrios de Chúngara, a Bolivian labor leader, who in turn was being sod-
omized by a dog. The sculpture caused a great deal of controversy. MACBA’s director
Bartomeu Marí had insisted that Paul and chief curator Valentín Roma remove the
sculpture. Both Paul and Roma courageously refused to do so. This resulted in the
resignation of Marí. Marí’s final act prior to his resignation was to fire Paul and
Roma. Paul was immediately tapped by Adam Szymczyk, the Polish curator and direc-
tor of one of the world’s most important and prestigious art exhibitions, documenta 14.
He wanted Paul to create and present a series of public programs for the prestigious
quintennial exhibition. Paul accepted Szymczyk’s offer and left Spain.
Documenta 14 would span nine months, employ 1,500 workers, attract 1.2 million
visitors, have a budget of more than 40 million euros, and be sited across seventy ven-
ues. Approximately 150 artists from around the world would be chosen to be official
documenta artists. The first documenta had taken place in Kassel, Germany in 1955.1 The
theme of documenta 14 was Learning from Athens. Szymczyk’s curatorial concept was
to create the exhibition in two overlapping iterations: the first in Athens (representing
the Global South) and the second in Kassel (the Global North).
172 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
After Paul settled into his new job, he mentioned to us that he would love to in-
vite the two of us to do a little something at documenta 14, but we had absolutely no
expectations. Being a documenta artist is by invitation of the director only, and it is an
incredible honor. Paul told us he was discussing the idea with Szymczyk. Given the
themes of the exhibit—­Global North and South, neoliberalism, refugees, and coloni-
zation—­it was a very long shot that our ecosexual work would be included, and Paul
said Szymczyk couldn’t quite imagine how our work would fit into the exhibition.

Parliament of Bodies
Some months went by and one evening, out of the blue, Paul called and wanted to
know if we could come to Athens in three weeks to give a visiting artist lecture and
do a performance prior to the opening of documenta 14 next year. Paul explained that
he was curating a series of public programs called the Parliament of Bodies, which
would take place at the Athens Municipality Arts Center at Parko Eleftherias (Free-
dom Park). The series was designed to speak to the failure of governing bodies
through their lack of ethical hospitality in the face of grotesque violations of human
rights. Paul’s public programs sought to create a space for cultural activism, especially
with a focus on the undocumented and unrepresented bodies resisting austerity poli-
cies and xenophobia.
Paul curated 34 Exercises of Freedom as a public program, which was a prelude, as
it were, to the opening of documenta 14. Three weeks was very short notice for us, but
we were excited to be included in his curatorial program, so we dropped everything
and prepared to go. Our contribution would be Exercise #25: Post-­Porn Activism
and Ecosexual Freedom and An Evening with Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens and a Wet
Dreams Water Ritual.2
Just one week before our presentation, documenta approved our proposal to do a rit-
ual honoring Water. Since we were also working on our film Water Makes Us Wet, water
was foremost on our minds. Quickly we wrote up a call for collaborators to join us in
creating a performance ritual, which documenta 14 posted on their website. To gather
enough volunteer collaborators in just one week seemed virtually impossible. We were
fairly confident we could give a great talk, but the water ritual was something we had
never done before, and such short notice made for some serious performance anxiety.
When we arrived at the Municipality Arts Center in Parko Eleftherias, we were in-
trigued to learn that the nineteenth-­century building where the center was housed
had been the police station for the Greek military junta of 1967–­74. During this time
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 173
Greece was ruled by a group of far-­right officers who gained power after a successful
coup d’état. Behind the police station was another building, which housed the Mu-
seum of Anti-­Dictatorial and Democratic Resistance operated by the Association of
Imprisoned and Exiled Resistance Fighters. These activists were jailed and severely
tortured in that building during the junta. Clearly, this place had a very heavy history.
Paul commissioned Greek architect Andreas Angelidakis to transform the interior
of the building, which had recently been used as an art gallery. Angelidakis cut slits in
the sheetrock to expose the stone walls of the police station and reopened the back
door in the middle of the space, allowing access to the detention and torture facil-
ity across the backyard. The structure was redesigned to reference the history of the
military dictatorship, yet to also be deliberately antihierarchical, with an absence of
fixed chairs, changing the audience relationship from a traditionally passive spectator
model to something more active. Angelidakis furnished the space with his installa-
tion DEMOS, soft blocks resembling concrete ruins. Artists, organizers, and audience
members could move around and reconfigure these blocks depending on their seat-
ing needs and desires. It was a provocative, historically charged and powerful space
for the lectures and performances that comprised phase one of Paul’s Parliament of
Bodies program.
The day before our ritual and Exercise of Freedom, we were invited to tour the
Museum of Anti-­Dictatorial and Democratic Resistance with two other Parliament
presenters: Chief Robert Joseph and documenta 14 curator Candice Hopkins. Chief
Robert Joseph is a hereditary chief of the Gwawaenuk First Nation, ambassador for
Reconciliation Canada, and a member of the National Assembly of First Nations
Elders Council. A survivor of the Canadian Indian residential schools, he was the
ambassador for the International Federation for World Peace. Candice Hopkins is a
member of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation and focuses her work on the intersec-
tions among history, art, and indigeneity.
Our tour guides were three men who had been imprisoned and tortured in the
building. The tour featured photographs and documentation about the student up-
rising against the military junta and the subsequent torture of those who fought
against the dictatorship. As we toured the museum, we learned about the extreme
acts of violence that occurred there. Young people, primarily college students, had
been arrested while demonstrating, imprisoned, and beaten so harshly that many of
them died. The building’s interior felt damp and dank, as though the suffering that
happened there was still present. The history of the museum, along with our fellow
174 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
documenta 14 presenters and our own queerness, underscored Preciado’s contention
that we had come together to “queer the ruins of democratic intuitions.”3
The tour put our own performance anxieties into perspective and fueled our
desire to seek justice not only for Earth’s abused waters but for all of those people
denied access to it. Much to our relief, within just a few days of our call for collabo-
rators being posted, two dozen people signed up to help co-­create our water ritual
performance. The only person whom we knew was Margarita Tsomou, who had mar-
ried the Adriatic Sea with us in Venice. She is a brilliant journalist and was presenting
documenta lectures of her own. Working with a group of otherwise complete strangers
on such an important performance was risky, and we worried that it might become
an exercise in total embarrassment. We requested that our collaborators wear Water-­
inspired costumes, bring water from their home, contemplate what they wanted to
express about Water, and create a Water gesture to perform during the ritual. We
called our collaborators the Wet Dreamers, and even though not everyone followed,
much less, read these instructions, we went with the flow.
On the day of the ritual, September 23, 2016, we met our performers, as they met
each other, for the first time. We discussed what we hoped to do that night and then
held a short two-­hour rehearsal. Luckily, we had a seasoned witch in our group, jaz,
who was skilled at facilitating rituals and able to help keep the collaborators on point.
We passed around a clipboard and asked everyone to write their name and a brief
description of themselves. Our performers hailed from Greece, England, Canada,
Brazil, Turkey, the United States, and one performer was from Planet Queer. They
were scholars, transgender activists, heterosexuals; there was an astronaut, a mother, a
drag queen, a sex educator, a publisher, and a homeopathic doctor. We emailed the list
of collaborators to our excellent graphic designer in Croatia, Little Shiva, who added
the info to a beautiful program with our intention and performance instructions in
the form of a score. We were ready for anything to happen, and it did.
Our intention was to show Water our love, address issues of the day, and to re-
spectfully bathe the performance space, where horrendous torture had taken place.
Water was, and still is, used to torture prisoners, either by exposing them to too much
water or withholding access to water. Lack of water, or too much of it, can kill us. Our
bodies are approximately 70 percent water. Water commands our respect. Our lives
depend on it. Water can also be a tremendous source of sensual pleasure, medicine,
happiness, and transformation.
The printed program listed activities for the audience members during the ritual,
some using props we had handed out: rub a balloon with your wet fingers to make
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 175
sounds, shake a water rattle, shed some tears, dribble some spit, sprinkle water from
wet leaves, move your body like water, tell Water what you love about it, blow bubbles,
drink some water, clean the floor, or carry out some other activity as long as it would
be respectful of the history of the space we were in.
The time had come to begin. The space was packed full of all kinds of people. All
of the Wet Dreamers were dressed in shades of blue and black and ranged from our
own sailor costumes with sequins, to weird draping fabric costumes, raincoats, and
gardening outfits, while quite a few were sans costume—­naked. After forming a circle,
we stood in silence for a moment. Then one by one, each of us walked to the center
of the circle and poured water from the places where we had come from into a big
container. Then everyone broke into simultaneously doing a water-­based activity of
their choice, accompanied by a mesmerizing soundscape by Andrew McKenzie of the
Hafler Trio.
Margarita served water in paper cups from a platter, as if we were in a very fancy
but slightly warped museum party, which we were. Two people erotically soaked each
other with high-­powered squirt guns. There were people sliding around on the floor.
The two of us were making squeaky water music with our long, skinny, pink balloons.
Annie went into an energy orgasm and Beth was rubbing her balloon harder and
harder until she got off energetically, too. We then faced each other, looked into each
other’s eyes, and swapped saliva. The whole thing was chaotic, weird, and also visually
quite beautiful. Our group of freedom-­loving, weird aquaphiles worked together to
wash away the horrible order imposed by the former dictators who would never allow
the kind of freedom with which we performed. After closing the ritual with a moment
of silence and three claps of our hands, we opened the circle, and most of us ran out-
side onto the grass. Right on cue, the janitor turned on the lawn sprinklers. We played
and celebrated in our makeshift public fountain as the audience members trickled
out and enjoyed watching us enjoy getting soaked.

When Wet Dreams Come True

After the performance ritual, the two of us were tired, hungry, and slightly dazed. We
dried off, packed up, got dressed, and walked next door to the Greek restaurant, which
had become our favorite place to eat. Plus, if we showed our documenta artist badges
we could get a discount. Our waiter, Poppy, was happy to choose Greek specialties
from the menu for us to enjoy. The two of us were dizzy from the weirdness and in-
tensity of our Wet Dream Ritual. We wondered what the hell had just happened. Did it
work? Or was it a complete failure? Why did we feel so strange? Was it creative chaos,
176 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
or were we completely out of control? The only thing we were sure about was that we
were relieved it was over.
Just after Poppy took our drink order, Paul, Adam, and Adam’s wife, Alexandra
Bachzetsis (a documenta artist), along with some other documenta 14 people came into
the restaurant. They invited us to join them at their table, which we did even though
we felt a bit embarrassed about our crazy Water ritual. Adam looked over to Paul and
said, “Paul, ask them.” Paul’s face flushed a little. “You mean ask them to come back?”
“Yes,” Adam said. Then and there, Paul invited us to return and be official documenta
14 artists. We were stunned, then so ecstatic that we jumped up and down together
with Paul! This was beyond any of our expectations.
What could have been a horrible embarrassment turned into a wet dream come
true. Even though we knew how much hard work lay ahead and how much time being
documenta artists would take, and that we would miss our deadline for this book
(again), this was one opportunity that we couldn’t pass up. Documenta 14 gave us an
unprecedented platform for our work and to promote love for the Earth. Of course,
we said yes.
Over the following year and a half, documenta would bring us to Athens twice and
to Kassel twice. The exhibition was intellectually, emotionally, theoretically, and visu-
ally stunning. The curators and production team were deeply committed to making
a compelling large-­scale exhibition and cultural experiment. Everyone on the team
cared about the state of the world and the incredible amount of human suffering that
regularly occurs across the planet. For us, the overall exhibition was truly a multiple
art-­gasm! By the end of documenta 14, we had given lectures, performances, premiered
our new film Water Makes Us Wet, and exhibited our visual art. We attended every Par-
liament of Bodies event that Paul organized that we could, each one better than the
previous one.

Cuddling Athens
Paul asked us if we could (re)do our piece Cuddle during the first few days of the doc-
umenta 14 official opening in Athens. Although we had not performed Cuddle in over
a decade, we were game to revive the piece. Given the current state of the world, a lot
of humans and nonhumans could use a good cuddle. A queen-­sized bed was installed
in the lobby of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, April 8–­10, 2017. The mat-
tress and three pillows were covered with dark blue cotton sheets and pillowcases,
an insider reference to the deep blue sea. Paul wrote a curatorial statement that was
posted by our bed:
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 177
Cuddling Athens
They say: close the borders.
We say: cuddle.
They say: build a wall.
We say: cuddle.
They say: fear the foreigner, watch the stranger.
They say: praise the individual, compete, win.
We say: cuddle.
Artists Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens have installed a bed within the museum
lobby where they propose to cuddle every visitor who would like to participate for
seven minutes.4 An active answer to the increasingly aggressive political measures taken
globally against the survival of vulnerable bodies, the piece questions also the relation-
ship between labor and sex, interrogating the exclusion of certain gestures and affects
within the neoliberal regime.

In preparation for Cuddle we had some glamorous, silky cuddle couture made by
Christina Dinkel, black stretch velvet pajamas with handcrafted sparkly blue and
silver fish appliqué accents in keeping with our love for Water. Annie’s 1950s-­style
baby-­doll minidress cuddle costume was low cut and framed her breasts with bright-­
blue fun fur. Beth wore butch-­style pajamas with a button-­down top and long loose
pants. A few days before we were set to fly to Athens for Cuddle, we had a problem. On
a walk in Boulder Creek, Annie had gotten poison oak and a rash had broken out all
over her legs. We brainstormed how we’d revise the piece if Annie was contagious and
unable to cuddle. Luckily, Annie got an emergency doctor’s appointment and was al-
most symptom free by the opening afternoon of our Cuddle performance on April 8,
2017. She wore leggings to cover the last of the rash to ensure safe cuddling.
We did Cuddle for three days. That’s a lot of cuddling, and with no canine com-
panion to help. We worked together with a host/timekeeper who would stand nearby
with a signup sheet on a pedestal. When it was the next person’s turn, the host would
ask the cuddler to take off their shoes. Once the cuddler was in bed with us, a timer
was set for seven minutes. Over the course of the performance we cuddled curators,
artists, locals, tourists, sex workers, young people, old people, naked people, and any-
one who wanted to cuddle. Sometimes we cuddled couples or friends together. We
cuddled journalists who interviewed us as they snuggled between our bodies. We even
cuddled a transvestite wearing a niqab. We wanted to embody the ethical hospitality
that Paul had called for, so no one was turned away. Sometimes people wanted to talk,
178 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
sometimes stay silent; some wanted to spoon, some to lay on their backs. Lying down
in a bed with a total stranger has its own special magic.
Twelve years after our first Cuddle at Femina Potens, the performance still held up.
There was always a queue as people were eager to get in bed between us. The piece
referenced Annie’s twenty-­two years in prostitution and Beth’s hillbilly past, of her
childhood sleeping arrangements where she sometimes shared her bed with cousins,
nephews, and younger siblings. Also, as we were performing Cuddle, the President of
the United States was threatening to build a border wall that was bigger and more
extreme than anything that had ever existed before. Simultaneously, his administra-
tion was working to expel undocumented migrants from within U.S. borders. Cuddle
embodied our interest in existing beside others, no matter how problematic, rather
than dominating those people who seem different from oneself. Using the platform
provided by documenta 14, we cuddled as an artistic and political act of visible and em-
bodied resistance.

Multilingual Sex Advice

Paul asked us to do a series of three Sidewalk Sex Clinics in and around Athens, and
one in Kassel as part of the public programs of documenta 14. Christina Dinkel deco-
rated two white lab coats for us: Annie’s with pink sequined hearts and red tassels, and
Beth’s with an Earth flag across her back. Documenta printed our Sidewalk Sex Clinic—­
Free Sex Advice from Sex Experts banners in English, Greek, and German to hang over
our tables and chairs. We prepared plexiglass standing placards to put on our tables
with our neatly typed names, bios, and sex education offerings, which read like scores
sprinkled with a dose of Fluxus absurdity.5 Ours was not your usual sex education,
although it did include some practical sex advice.
The documenta 14 production team had selected three tentative performance lo-
cations. Paul had suggested that we might want to do one clinic in Metaxourgeio,
the red-­light district, so we checked it out, but it didn’t feel right. Metaxourgeio was
already being gentrified with art galleries and tourists. The location where many pros-
titutes worked was run down and there were a number of hardcore junkies shooting
up in the middle of the street. We didn’t want to disrupt the sex workers or their cli-
ents, and it felt exploitative to bring art-­world attention to addicts getting their fix.
Plus, sex workers are also sex educators, so having our sex clinic there was unneces-
sary, redundant, and even insulting, because the sex workers in that location already
knew plenty. We eventually agreed on the following three locations for Athens: Psyrri
Square, a busy square with lots of cafes; Sygrou Avenue, a major boulevard near the
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 179
National Museum of Contemporary Art and a subway entrance; and Parko Elefthe-
rias, in front of the Municipality Arts Center.
The documenta 14 team helped us enlist some local sex educators for the perfor-
mance. We felt that it was important to have Greek citizens join us, in addition to our
friends from France and the United States. Paul brought onboard Activista, a gen-
derqueer safe-­sex expert and an amazing drag performer, as well as Dr. Bubuke aka
Bubu, a trans woman with a PhD who offered advice in transgender and queer issues
and counterhegemonic sexual practices. For Activista and Dr. Bubuke, two nonnor-
mative, overtly queer activists, participating as part of our sidewalk sex clinic was a
brave move. There had been quite a bit of anti-­LGBTQIA+ violence in Athens, as evi-
dent by the brutal murder of gay activist Zak Kostopoulos in late 2018.6 Veronica Vera,
who was a sex advisor for our first Sidewalk Sex Clinic in New York City, joined us from
New York. Veronica, who is Greek on her father’s side, had cousins in Athens whom
she had always wanted to meet. She was happy for an excuse to come to Greece for
the first time. Our French friends from Emmetrop, King Erik and his wife, Mamita,
joined us as well. The documenta 14 production team members, including our main
handler for the clinics project, Maria Dolores (who had performed as a rolling stone
in our Wedding to the Rocks), were all extremely helpful when scouting and reserving
our sites and setting up the tables, chairs, and signs. We couldn’t have done the Side-
walk Sex Clinics without them.
Many local Athenians were critical of this massive German cultural event taking
place in their city, especially since Greece was still feeling the effects of the global eco-
nomic crisis. One of our cab drivers explained that many Greek citizens felt that their
most severe economic hardships were caused by austerity measures imposed on them
by the European Union. The relationship between Germany, one of the most econom-
ically powerful nations in the European Union, and Greece, one of the least powerful,
was tense. Additionally, Athens is a complex city that embraces ideals of freedom while
also being home to fascist groups such as the Golden Dawn. We have similar groups,
such as the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. As artists we were excited to be in Ath-
ens as part of documenta 14. However, we understood why many Athenians would be
angered by this exhibition taking place in their city, especially since Greece, consid-
ered by many to be the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, and art, was symbolizing
the Global South in Adam Szymczyk’s curatorial vision. The organizers wanted to
make sure that we would be safe for all three clinic events, so they assigned a body-
guard to protect us. We remembered the encounters with the neo-­Nazi and anti-­porn
feminists during the Sidewalk Sex Clinic in Norway, and we were ready for anything.
180 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
Our Clinic that had initially been proposed to take place in Metaxourgeio was
moved to Parko Eleftherias in front of the former police station. As radical queer sex
advisor artists, we all would have likely been categorized as deviant and degenerate
during Greece’s military dictatorship and landed in the jail behind the police station.
However, since it was 2017 and not 1967–­1974, and we were artists participating in a
major international exhibition, we were privileged and relatively safe. A lot of people
came to us for advice, which we gave freely, and most seemed to enjoy their experience
with us.
Our second foray into the streets of Athens was to Sygrou Avenue several blocks
down the street from the National Museum. There we felt like outsiders who had
dropped into a foreign land (which we were) to dole out sex advice to people who might
not want or need it. We asked ourselves, Were we simply replicating the same old tired
colonialist strategies and tactics of the Global North over the Global South? Our final
Clinic was in Psyrri Square, a small crowded triangular square with cafés, a health clinic,
and shops. We were all trying to be careful not to offend those who worked in the
neighborhood, but we didn’t shy away from being a little flamboyant either.
In the end, there was a lot of interest in our Clinic, and we did not encounter any
hostility even though we were out about our queerness. Instead, public interest was an
indicator of the goodwill of the Athenians, who during this time of stressful austerity
measures compounded by the migrant crises were willing to tolerate and even partic-
ipate in our project. The people of Athens were generous with us, and hopefully our
Sidewalk Sex Clinic, which documenta 14 described as a nomadic performance, helped
open up more space for queer and marginalized people there as it opened more
minds to sex positivity.

Our Naughty Neue Galerie Exhibition

In addition to performing at documenta, we were given an exhibition in the Neue Gal-
lerie in Kassel, where Joseph Beuys’s The Pack (1969) is on permanent display. This
work is an elaborate installation with a sculpture of twenty-­four sleds tumbling from
the back of a VW van. The exhibition presented our work to an international audience
of artists, art lovers, writers, collectors, museum professionals, and gallerists. The
carefully curated display of our visual work laid out the historical groundwork of our
collaborations with each other.
For the Neue exhibition, Paul chose our gender-­inclusive “25 Ways to Make Love
to the Earth” banner, Beth’s Porn Star/Academic Bronzed Panty Collection, and a Breast
Cancer Ballet collage. Paul also chose two of Annie’s older pinup Polaroid pieces,
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 181
Why Whores Are My Heroes and The Transformation Salon. Beth’s speculum sculpture,
which invites the viewer to look through the speculum in order to watch a video of
Annie performing her Public Cervix Announcement, was included, as was our Ecosex
Wedding Project, a looped ten-­minute video compilation of our ecosexual wedding
highlights. The pièce de résistance were the two formal vitrines full of our ephemera,
one holding wedding invitations, posters, and other items from our Love Art Lab
project. Another held zines, publications, and the Post-­Modern Pinup Pleasure Ac-
tivist Playing Cards that Annie published in 1998 before we got together.7 Our room
in the Neue Galerie was always full to overflowing with visitors, and this pleased us a
great deal.

Ecosex Walking Tour of Kassel

When Paul began the curatorial process to present our work at documenta 14, he asked
what we would most like to do, and we both instantly said the Ecosex Walking Tour.
After the Outsider Fest Walking Tour sponsored by the Vortex Theatre in Austin, we
were finally happy with the piece. Joy Brooke Fairfield had done a great job helping us
script the tour, and then she directed us to turn it into a much more theatrical piece.8
Plus, by removing our unscripted drama queen interactions with each other, we made
it much more pleasant for us and our audiences. We hoped to share it with more peo-
ple and thought we could make it even bigger and better. Paul gave us the green light
to do the Walking Tour in Kassel.
Piedmont Boutique made us flashy new costumes in collaboration with Christina
Dinkel, thankfully paid for by documenta. Our look was punk rock/BDSM/disco chic,
with no hippie or New Age references whatsoever. Our theme was black with silver
studs and rhinestone bling. We even made some matching costume bits for our team.
We packed up our props, our ecosexual pride flags, and the sexy leather flag holsters
we had used in the pride parade. We added some big platform faux-­leather boots that
Christina decorated with rhinestones and paint. Those boots took up half a suit-
case. Somehow we fit our entire show, including our fancy new costumes, into two
suitcases.
Using email and social networking, we issued a call for collaborators to perform as
tour guides; so many wonderful artists responded it was hard to choose. Most of them
were dancers from various countries. Documenta paid artist fees and supplied nice
places to stay. We were scheduled to perform five afternoon tours, June 14–­18, 2017.
Joy joined us from Memphis, Tennessee, to direct the production. For two days,
the three of us were able to explore our walking path options and figure out what
 As part of documenta 14, we were thrilled
to present our visual artwork in our own
gallery space within the Neue Gallery.
Authors’ collection.

Our book Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm was published a few weeks before documenta 14. We were
tickled to have it in the documenta bookstore alongside the hefty catalogues of world-­renowned
artists. Authors’ collection.
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 183
scenes would go where. We chose a route that would begin between the first and
last of the trees that Joseph Beuys planted for documenta 7, called 7,000 Oaks (7,000
Eichen). Beuys proposed planting seven thousand oak trees throughout the city of
Kassel. In 1982, at the opening of documenta 7, seven thousand basalt pillars were piled
in front of the Museum Fridericianum in the shape of an arrow pointing south, in-
structing that one of the stones would be placed upright beside each tree planted.
Beuys planted the first tree in 1982 and the last was planted after his death by his son
during documenta 8 in 1987. It was exciting to stand between those trees that were also
right at the base of Marta Minujín’s huge Parthenon of Books, a re-­creation of the Greek
landmark constructed of banned books and the centerpiece of documenta 14.
We were given a rehearsal space in the press building that functioned as our en-
semble’s staging area and dressing room. We had just one day to rehearse the tour
with our performers. First, we read through our thirteen-­page script together, then
walked the route. We were really pleased with our team, most of whom we had not
met before that day. When we arrived to give our first tour, we were shocked to find
around two hundred people awaiting us and a mob of news photographers and jour-
nalists. Luckily we had a powerful mobile sound system to amplify our voices over the
crowd. We began by performing our “25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth,” followed
by tour guide introductions, and an Ecosex primer illustrated with charts and graphs
such as our Nature Fetishes chart and our Sprinkle/Stephens Scale.

annie  We have identified four main categories of ecosexual fetishes: Earth,

Air, Fire, and Water.
beth  Earth fetishes include things like the erotic love of trees—­arboreal frottage.
How many of you have used vegetables as dildos? I hope you washed off the
pesticides first.
annie  Air fetishes include things like getting excited by strong winds or imagining
you are being penetrated by the air you breathe.
beth  Some fire fetishes would be nude sunbathing or getting hot beeswax dripped
all over your body.
annie  Water fetishes would be deriving erotic pleasure getting pummeled by a
beautiful waterfall or enjoying the sensations of skinny-­dipping in the ocean.
Who here has straddled a hot tub’s jets?
beth  We have developed the Sprinkle/Stephens Scale to measure the degree to
which a person might identify as ecosexual. It’s modeled after the Kinsey Scale.
A zero is not sexual at all.
184 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
annie  A one is ecoromantic or ecocurious.
beth  A two is ecosensual only, meaning you find nature very sensuous but not
erotic or sexual.
annie  A three is a little bit ecosexual.
beth  A four is a little more ecosexual.
annie  A five is predominantly ecosexual.
beth  And six is extremely ecosexual. We started out as threes and fours, but now we
are both sixes—­because we have come to realize that we are part of, not separate
from, nature. Sex with people is sex with the Earth, too.
annie  Let’s get going! Everyone, please follow the Ecosex Pride flag!

We led our tour group over to the Karlsaue Park, the map of which looks remark-
ably like a vulva, complete with labia, clitoris, vaginal opening, and an anus. Our tour
wove through major documenta sculptural works, through water fountains, and down
flower-­lined stone steps. We talked about our ecosexual herstories and invited our au-
dience to share theirs. Our group then assembled at a semi-­private spot where Annie
led our team in a Jane Fonda–­esque ecosexercise workout—­breathing, undulating,
building, and circulating erotic energy—­which the audience could follow along with
if they wanted, and many did. Someone in the park harassed our group with an in-
timidating drone, but we didn’t let that rain on our parade. We built the energy into a
fabulous climax.
Next, we walked to the park’s trash cans, and our team picked up trash as we
opined about pollution. Sitting on a nearby bench were a group of men, refugees
from Africa, that wanted to share their thoughts. They each took the microphone and
with great pride told us about how in their countries people didn’t leave trash around.
They also mentioned how much they loved the land. Then we invited the audience to
step up to the mic and share their environmental concerns, which they did, illustrat-
ing the seriousness of environmental crises. It’s spontaneous moments like these that
make working in public space so exciting.
Previously hidden behind the trash cans were dozens of our ecosexual protest
signs, which we then passed out to our audience, thereby turning our walking tour
into a theatrical protest march.

beth  What can we do about all this destruction?

annie  Yeah, this is depressing. We can’t just sit by and let this happen. We have to
do something! Let’s march!
 Paying homage to Alfred
Kinsey and his Kinsey Scale
(which measured a person’s
sexual orientation), our
Sprinkle/Stephens Scale
measures how ecosexual
a person might or might
not be. Design by Virginie
Corominas. Authors’
collection.

As sexecologists, we explore the places where sexology and ecology intersect in our culture. As
part of our Dirty Sexecology performance, we presented this chart to help illustrate the range of
ecosexual fetishes. Graphic design by Virginie Corominas. Authors’ collection.
186 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
beth  Yes, a protest! Come on! Grab a sign! We have to take to the streets before
things get worse!
annie  Let’s think globally, and act locally! Chant along with us!
all  No fracking, no drilling, my lover isn’t willing.
Hey, hey, ho, ho! I’m a ho that likes to hoe!
Fuck don’t frack! Fuck don’t frack! Fuck don’t frack!
1, 2, 3, 4, I’m an ecosexual whore! 5, 6, 7, 8, ecosex is really great!
¡Agua! ¡Agua! ¡Agua es vida! ¡Agua! ¡Agua! ¡Agua es vida!

The dramatic high point of our show was at the park’s war memorial, where we
gave a rousing antiwar speech flanked by our fabulous tour guide team posing with
the protest signs.

beth  Here we are at Kassel’s memorial to the lives lost in World War I and
World War II. Kassel was severely destroyed by bombs. This park was
built on top of the city’s ruins. More than ten thousand people were killed
during just one night of Allied bombing.
annie  Wars aren’t just killing people. War assaults the Earth and many other living
things.
beth  The military industrial complex, and the neoliberal system that depends on
it, is the greatest threat to our planet.
annie  War machines demand to be fed oil and gas. Kassel was known for the pro-
duction of Nazi tanks. These days the United States is the leading producer of
weapons.
beth  This memorial behind us recognizes not only the fallen soldiers of war but
also resisters of war. Could some have possibly been ecosexual martyrs defend-
ing our lover Earth?
annie  Maybe the Earth can feel our love right now! Let’s have some ecosexy fun.
Let’s pleasure the Earth! As the Earth receives pleasure, so do we!
beth  Now let’s walk in silence to the planetary clitoris! Let’s lie down at the base
of the Idee di Pietra (Ideas of Stone) sculpture (2010) by Giuseppe Penone in the
center of the park in silence.

After a few minutes of peaceful silence, we ended the tour, handing everyone a
special card for their wallets, stating that they had made love to the Earth and were
now officially ecosexuals. While our performance piece seemed very festive and gay
 An Old W ho r e an d a Hillbilly M ak e a S plash 187
on the surface (which it was), we also explored serious issues. Foremost, we showed
others how to find more love and pleasure in the midst of our overextended, stress-
ful, resource-­heavy, screen-­obsessed lives. We called attention to migration caused by
climate change and displacement caused by war. Our many years of ecosex research
and performances all culminated in these five walking tours. After doing this perfor-
mance for five days, with all the ecosex they entailed, we felt satisfied.

Sidewalk Sex Clinic Goes to Parliament

We were scheduled to present just one Sidewalk Sex Clinic in Kassel, not three as we
did in Athens, so we wanted it to be our biggest and best one ever. Again, we put out a
call for collaborators through word of mouth and on our social media networks. Our
friend Kristina Marlen, a professional Tantric dominatrix, author, and sex-­positive
blogger living in Berlin, enlisted some of her German sex worker friends. King Erik
and Mamita had enjoyed doing the three clinics in Athens so much that they drove
in from France and joined us again. Japanese friend and colleague Hiroko Kikuchi
showed up just as we were setting up the Clinic, and we invited her to join us.9 She
wasn’t exactly a sex expert, but we had plenty of those: what we needed was a concep-
tual artist, plus she spoke Japanese. There were thirteen of us, and collectively we
spoke six languages—­English, Spanish, German, French, Greek, and Japanese.
On the afternoon of our Kassel Clinic, we set up our tables, chairs, and props in the
city’s main square, the Friedrichsplatz, again next to the Beuys trees. Just as we were
set up and ready to start, a fierce lightning storm rolled into Kassel. We were firmly
instructed to move inside to the ground floor rotunda of the Museum Fridericianum
for everyone’s safety. In spite of the fact that we were no longer outside, we still had
an interested and curious crowd who were excited to participate. Our Clinic in the ro-
tunda filled up with a diverse mix of people who lined up in front of their chosen sex
educators, eagerly seeking advice and conversation. Our event was hopping, as people
are not used to free sex advice in public, and many were hungry to talk about sex in
ways that were not shameful or secretive.
Participants asked us all sorts of questions. We did our best to provide practical
information while also being creative sexperts.10 The two of us offered sex-­life tarot
readings, and usually the cards provided just the right guidance. Drawing on our
combined personal experience, our group gave radical, queer, and punk rock sex ad-
vice that eschewed traditional morality. Our clinicians offered tips on topics such as
FluxSex, Chthulu compost love attitude, Naughty karma, Amazon play, rosebud reiki,
queer celibacy, sex in performance art, sensual presence, activist-­humanist ethics,
188 A n O l d W h o r e a n d a H i l l b i l ly M a k e a S p l as h
sexological bodywork, pollen-­amory, sophisticated surrender, food-­porn addiction,
sexual alchemy, sex and psychedelics, and more.11 We stressed the importance of
talking about sex openly and in public.
This Sex Clinic presented at documenta was a parliament of embodied sexual
knowledge. Some of our sex workers who had not seen themselves as sex educators
previously did now: they were elated and empowered. A good time was had by all, and
certainly we opened up some minds and performed a sex clinic as art.

It’s a Wrap!
The world premiere of our film Water Makes Us Wet was the culmination of our
participation in documenta 14. It screened September 6, 2017, in the plush, 1950s-­era
moss-­green jewel box theater Gloria Kino to a packed house. We requested a blue car-
pet runway (for Water) into the theater, and a water bar with free water infused with
fruits or cucumber slices in nice glasses, and documenta 14 delivered. Our new film was
very well received, and we held a Q&A with Paul onstage. Many of our friends and col-
laborators were there, including King Erik, Mamita, Jordan Freeman, Guillermo and
Balitronica, and many others from all corners of the globe.
This film premiere was a fairy tale ending to all of the hard work we did for and at
documenta 14. We expressed ourselves freely and in a big, fabulous way while we min-
gled with some of the world’s coolest artists and arts producers. Our experience at
documenta surpassed our wildest dreams.
 CONCLUSION

Sincerely Yours

For the two of us, exploring the ecosexual position has been mind-­expanding. It has
redefined how we see and experience ourselves, our bodies, other living things, and
the world around us. Developing ecosex theories and practices has led us to ask ques-
tions about where the body begins and ends. What inanimate or nonhuman materials
and creatures make up our bodies? Are our bodies connected to everything on Earth?
If so, how? If not, why? Do our bodies stop at our skin, or do they end at the edges of
our biome cloud or beyond? If our biome clouds are mingling and reproducing with
the biome clouds of others, are we having some kind of sex? When our biome clouds
interconnect with those of our animal companions, does that have an effect on us,
and if so, what kind? If our bodies are part of the Earth, is masturbation making love
to the Earth? Is smelling a rose’s reproductive organs making love to the Earth? What
is sex anyway?
As one can gather from the history of sex and pornography, definitions and at-
titudes toward sex and gender change from century to century, decade to decade,
and year to year. As sexologists, sex educators, and artists, we like to envision fu-
ture possibilities and new styles of sexual pleasure. Our work offers people an
opportunity to expand their minds and create room for more sensual pleasure, ex-
perimentation, and satisfaction. With ecosex, we are in part trying to move toward
an increasingly experiential way of being in our multidimensional bodies. This is
in direct opposition to thinking of bodies as merely physical instruments meant
to reproduce or provide labor for a handful of billionaires, their corporations, and
their stockholders—­bodies that go to work, return home, and consume products.
It’s about coming together, finding our shared humanity when power brokers and
money grubbers try to divide us. Ecosexuality is a liberatory way of thinking about
190 C o n c l u s i o n
and being in one’s body. It is, as Michel Foucault would have said, an ars erotica, or
erotic art, rather than a science of sexuality.1
Since we became lovers almost two decades ago, a lot has changed. On a personal
note, menopause was no small part of our change, and we wonder if we could have
come to see and experience sex in the way we do now in our more youthful years. We
enjoy thinking about how we can have sex from various perspectives. We imagine how
to have sex in ways that put our internal bodily systems into play with our external
ecological environments. Ecosystems are unfixed; they move and change. Physical
systems are interconnected; that’s how they thrive. When people think of themselves
as independent, autonomous beings, exclusive and fixed, they become rigid. Ecosex-
uality is an extremely fluid sexuality. When you are an ecosexual, you always have a
potential lover, or many, such as the Earth, Sky, and Sea. This is especially relevant
during times when people have to be alone or are social distancing from others.

We Are Organisms That Enjoy Orgasms

For us, orgasms are an important part of ecosexuality. Our experiences have led us
to question, what is an orgasm? In fact, we delved deeply into that question when we
wrote the book Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm—­For Every Body published in 2017.2
While marketed as a pop culture sex education manual, which is all about orgasm, it
is also subliminally an ecosex handbook as well.3 Our editor and designer was Janet
Hardy, who coauthored the classic The Ethical Slut. We had it illustrated by YuDori,
a young Korean artist whose imaginative drawings depict sex outdoors and even in
outer space. In our book we redefined what orgasm could be, expanding the defi-
nition of an orgasm to include experiences that could be profoundly moving and
extremely pleasurable with or without genital contact. We wanted a definition that
reflected our various orgasm experiences, that went beyond simply the genitally fo-
cused, physiological things that happen.

Common definition of orgasm: A buildup of muscular tension in

the genitals, called myotonia, with engorgement of blood called tumescence or
vasocongestion. With increasingly intensifying sensations this leads to a grand
release of the muscular tension called orgasm.
Our ecosexual definition of orgasm: The pleasurable release, explosion,
or streaming of built-­up erotic or sexual excitement (energy) in its broadest sense,
which can originate and occur in diverse areas of the body or flow through the whole
body in a range of ways.
 C on clus ion 191

We created a diploma for everyone who completes one of our Ecosex workshops. Feel free to
make a copy of this page and write your name on it if you’d like. Designed by Katharine Gates.
Photos by Annie Sprinkle. Authors’ collection.

One of our missions has been to make the world a more orgasmic place, in which
moregasms can be taught. Many other sex educators are teaching these expanded kinds
of orgasms around the world with great results. Our niche is that we like to combine
orgasms with connecting to the Earth, Sky, or Sea; some folks have found that is just
what they need to get over the edge. We hope that moregasms are good for the Earth
as well.

Weathering Critiques and Controversies

Looking toward the future we sometimes wonder if it is time to end our ecosexual art
project and move on to something else. Maybe we’ve done enough and the ecosexual
movement can pollinate on its own, or not, and come (literally) to an end.
Preconceived notions and stereotypes about what ecosexuals do abound. Eco-
sex sounds silly (or worse) to a lot of people and, at times, even to us. As we have said
192 C o n c l u s i o n
before, our work clearly pushes against a sex-­negative culture. Over the years, we have
weathered the many critiques and controversies that have been thrown our way. We see
them as part of the larger project, opportunities to improve on our work, and we try to
think of them as part of the fun. Ecosexuality can be a target of criticism from both so-
cial conservatives and progressives. Generally, the critiques fall under these categories:

It’s perverted and sick.

Ecosexuals are not part of God’s plan.
It’s not real sex.
Anything eco is boring.
It’s too hippie.
It’s too New Age.
They’re weird Californians.
Ecosexuals make the LGBTQIA+ movement look bad.
If there is no consent, it’s eco-­rape.

We have often heard the critique that ecosexuality is too overtly sexual, especially
when we are attending environmental conferences. We have been told to “Be re-
spectful” in various ways many times. During one anti-­MTR environmental justice
gathering we attended in Kentucky, we were warned to tone down our enthusiasm
about ecosexuality, lest we provoke or alienate the local people of Whitesburg, Ken-
tucky. For activists to say that locals can’t handle sex is patronizing, because folks
living in Appalachia enjoy sex as much as people living in California do. It is closed-­
minded to imagine that they don’t. At least my (Beth’s) experience growing up there
would point to the fact that people like sex. Some activists obviously think that eroti-
cizing the Earth is disrespectful. We believe that acknowledging Earth’s eroticism and
sensuality respects our world, our bodies, and ourselves.
The sex-­positive community that we have belonged to for decades is also some-
times divided over ecosexuality. Some folks totally get us and view us as sexual
explorers. They support what we are doing. Other people in this community don’t
understand or like what we are doing and roll their eyes. We just figure that we are
ahead of our time, and they will come around one day. Our work has mostly been sup-
ported/accepted in the communities we consider our own, including the sex worker,
artist, and academic communities. Not everyone likes what we have been doing, and
we’re fine with that. We are after all experimental artists.
 C on clus ion 193
Our work is out there, and we have been targets of the right-­wing media. Milo
Yiannopoulos posted a snarky sarcastic piece about us on his blog. The College Fix
published a piece titled “‘Ecosexual’ Professor Spurs Movement: Have Sex with the
Earth to Save It,” which focused on Beth’s job as a professor at UC Santa Cruz.4 A
disturbing number of the comments suggested that the ecosexual “problem” is our
educational system, and one comment suggested that all colleges and universities
should be carpet bombed. Being a professor has become more controversial than
being a porn star! We didn’t see that one coming.
After a ridiculous Breitbart article about us, Beth received several calls from the Fox
News host Tucker Carlson asking her to appear on his show. Beth declined. Right-­
wing journalists never even entertain the idea that our work could be art. One of
Beth’s colleagues told her that he heard Glenn Beck on the radio discussing us and
ecosex with another right-­wing pundit when Beck asked, “If I stick my toe into the
ocean, am I committing adultery and cheating on my wife?” We had a good chuckle.
Once again, we embrace the adage that any publicity is good publicity, and negative
publicity from someone like Glenn Beck is a career boost for us. And that was the
case: our work gained wider recognition after Beck targeted it.
Carolee Schneemann once advised Annie to “guard your meanings.” With ecosex
projects, we have found our attempts to guard our meanings to be virtually impos-
sible, especially in the mainstream press. However, we appreciate all of our haters,
because they give us more visibility and spur us on.
We have also had plenty of positive feedback and intelligent press. Our San Fran-
cisco NPR station, KQED, produced a beautiful video about our art projects in 2016.5
In 2017, Mary Katherine Tramontana wrote a terrific article about our work for Teen
Vogue, titled “Ecosexuals Are Queering Environmentalism.”6 Lisa Bonos of the Wash-
ington Post came out with a thoughtful piece for Earth Day in April 2019 that was
included in the love and relationship section.7 We liked being in that section.
But what about consent? As ecosexuals who try not to privilege humans above the
rest of nature, we take this seriously. For example, how do we know if a tree really
wants to be hugged? We understand that we can never know for sure. We do know that
snow doesn’t ask us if it is okay to fall, and fire doesn’t ask if it is okay to burn. Snow
falls, fire burns, and things happen that are beyond our control. What is important is
how we respond. And we are discovering more and more how our actions affect the
world around us. Scientific studies have shown that plants, and even the molecules
that constitute water, respond positively to human love.8 We do try to connect with
194 C o n c l u s i o n
trees by asking them what they want, silently or aloud. Then we try listening to them
by using our bodies, intuition, and imagination. Of course, these things could be mis-
guided, but we try our best to be aware, respectful, and loving in the ways we approach
and interact with all beings, human and nonhuman.
Despite numerous assumptions and accusations, we don’t have genital sex with
trees or even hug them all that often. Having genital sex with trees is the most com-
mon go-­to thing people hurl at us when they hear the word ecosex. On social media
we’ve been asked, “What about the splinters?” When we were protesting mountaintop
removal in West Virginia, “Go Home, Tree Huggers” was the most visible anti-­activist
poster held up by the mining families who were heckling the protestors. Tree hugger is
intended as an insult. We find it remarkable that killing a tree, or whole forests, is con-
sidered fine and normal, but loving a tree and trying to defend a forest are considered
abnormal and perverse. We are proud to be tree huggers.
Often people tell us that they feel an affinity for the concept of ecosexual identity,
but they don’t want to take on any labels. We agree that labels can be problematic.
Yet we find that they can also be useful for staking out positions about issues such
as environmentalism or identity politics. Given all this, we were taken aback when
a queer-­identified student who had taken Beth’s Ecosex Art class at UC Santa Cruz
told her that ecosexuality undermined the LGBTQIA+ movement. They thought we
were making fun of queers because of how we deployed humor in our work. We lis-
tened to this critique thoughtfully. We agreed to disagree. Instead of undermining
the environmental or LGBTQIA+ movements, we feel we are making them more
intersectional, rich, diverse, and, as Donna Haraway says in Water Makes Us Wet,
“shimmery.” In Goodbye Gauley Mountain, Annie asks why queers should care about
environmental issues. Beth responds that “if queers don’t have water, they are not
going to survive.” Some queers are going to like us and some aren’t. Over the decades,
some of the more flamboyant queers have been urged to tone it down by other queers
who want to fit in. Thankfully many have refused to do so. As ecosexuals, we stand
with those who refuse to tone it down.
Our naysayers have suggested that we do this work for the money, to promote our-
selves, and to get attention. They argue that we are two privileged white women taking
up too much space. We basically agree with this critique. As artists, we do need and
want to promote our work and ideas, we do need to make some money, and yes, we are
two white females who are well aware that we have privilege.9 But on the other hand,
Annie is a Jew and Beth is a Hillbilly. We constantly create space, offering support and
opportunities for everyone and everything with whom we share this planet Earth.
 C on clus ion 195
Ongoing and Current Art Inspirations
When we first got together, we were both inspired by Fluxus artists and groundbreak-
ing feminist women artists and scholars. The latter made “the personal political” as
they interrogated sexuality and theorized the female gaze. After more than fifteen
years of ecosex projects, we have an even greater appreciation for past artists who
worked directly with earth as material, such as Ana Mendieta with her stunning Silu-
etas series; Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who created “maintenance art” in collaboration
with the NYC Sanitation Department to explore the necessity of caring for the Earth;
and Betsy Damon with her 7,000 Year Woman. These days, we are also inspired by the
Earth, which is the ultimate brilliant artist as well as lover that creates endless magnif-
icent art on a daily basis. We look toward artists who work in creative ways to promote
more love and care for the environment, some of whom are good friends or those
whom we have personally interviewed for our film projects.
When Beth was awarded a major University of California grant in 2017 to create an
online course, Environmental Art 80E, the two of us hit the road for two and a half
months in the summer and early fall of 2018 in our E.A.R.T.H. Lab Mobile Unit. We
drove across the United States and back, logging more than ten thousand miles and
recording interviews with sixty-­four environmental artists and art professionals, which
comprised the core part of Beth’s curriculum. Throughout the interviews, we found
many who inspired us in our artistic and ecosexual pursuits. Here are some of them.
Ronald Feldman, the visionary art dealer who has represented artists from Joseph
Beuys to the Harrisons to Cassils, met with us in his office at Feldman Gallery in New
York City. Brandon Ballengée, a biologist and visual artist who explores and photo-
graphs deformities in amphibians caused by environmental pollutants, spoke with us
at his education center, which was also his family home outside Baton Rouge. Lucy
Lippard, art critic, author, and activist, spoke with us from her desert home in Santa
Fe. Mel Chin created a piece titled Revival Field, which used hyperaccumulator plants
to address the lead problems of the Pig’s Eye landfill in St. Paul, Minnesota. His work
addressed other lead issues in cities such as New Orleans and Flint. He also made
wearable, sexy French-­lace turtle-­shaped lingerie that calls attention to a soft-­shell
turtle on the verge of extinction because of war. Mel was awarded a MacArthur genius
grant the week after we interviewed him at his home in North Carolina.
Diné music composer Raven Chacon, who was in documenta 14, wowed us with
both his classical music school for Indigenous children and his experimental music
happenings. Ron Finley, the Gangsta Gardener from South Central Los Angeles,
makes growing gardens more sexy, fun, and diverse. His work speaks to gardening
196 C o n c l u s i o n
as an essential and liberatory form of social justice. Another fellow documenta 14 vi-
sual artist and musician, Guillermo Galindo, who is based in Oakland, creates sound
works that address the refugee crisis with haunting music emanating from instru-
ments he creates using items left behind at border crossings.
We interviewed Angela Ellsworth, Beth’s grad school colleague, who made our
wedding bouquets and boutonnieres. She cofounded the amazing Museum of Walk-
ing. We also interviewed Kathy High, the cinematographer for Annie’s 1991 feminist
porn classic Sluts and Goddesses, who has become well known for her BioArt and is
working on a project about a dating site to find one’s fecal implant donors.
We drove to upstate New York to interview Jill McDermid and Erik “Hoke” Hokan-
son, of Rosekill Farm, where they live, grow, support, and nurture performance
artists. They also created and direct Grace Exhibition Space in Manhattan, dedicated
to performance art. At the Vortex Theatre, in Austin, Texas, we interviewed Bonnie
Cullum and Chad Salvata about their spectacular puppet opera Atlantis. In New Mex-
ico we stopped by Synergia Ranch and interviewed the entrepreneurs and artists who
created the Biosphere 2 in Arizona, including John Allen.10 In Reno we interviewed
the Nevada Museum’s director of the Center for Art and Environment, Bill Fox, and
its archivist Sarah Franz. UC Natural Reserve directors Jeff Brown and Faerthen Felix
spoke with us about why scientists can benefit from working with artists. We also in-
terviewed Teri Ciacchi, a witch and a therapist, and radical faeries Jack Waters and
Peter Cramer. For the finale of Environmental Art in the Expanded Field, we filmed
Linda M. Montano performing a song she wrote, “Earth You Are P.R.E.C.I.O.U.S.”
By the end of this trip, we were so excited by what all these artists were doing that
they became our current inspirations. Jordan Freeman (our cinematographer for
Goodbye Gauley Mountain), who came along in our camper with us and shot the inter-
views, was also inspired. At the end of the trip, he entered a master’s degree program
at UCSC in social documentation. Hundreds of University of California students
from all disciplines have taken this online class (Environmental Art 80E), and many
really loved it. We hope that we can make the online class available to anyone in the
world. Our goal was to expand the field of environmental art, which we have.
In 2021, the UCSC art department initiated its long-­awaited MFA in Environmen-
tal Art and Social Practice. This is in part the product of the program I (Beth) tried to
start with Newton Harrison in 2009, and in part the effort of other art department
faculty who were more interested in social practice. It could not be launched at a more
perfect moment, given the precarious state of the environment and social justice in
the United States of America.
 C on clus ion 197
Where Are They Now
Many artists who have collaborated with us throughout the years are still a part of
our lives and are among our most treasured friends. Our beloved, generous Linda M.
Montano continues her fantastic work and has a devoted following. She recently com-
mitted to a new durational piece, 7 Years of Honoring Nursing Home Certified Nursing
Assistants and Those Devoted to Nursing Mother Earth.11 Guillermo Gómez-­Peña’s work
is as potent as ever. He just received a Guggenheim grant. COVID-­19 pushed him to
perform and teach online. Currently, he’s quarantining and working remotely with
his troupe Pocha Nostra creating new texts, films, and books.We live a few blocks
from each other and get together whenever we can to check in about our lives and dis-
cuss the state of the world. Paul B. Preciado has become a leading thinker on gender
and sexuality, an influential author, and a highly respected theorist and curator. He is
now based in Paris, lecturing, conducting Somatica symposiums, and writing about
the COVID-­19 epidemic for Art Forum and Libération (France’s daily newspaper) and
working at the Pompidou Museum. He was our first friend to get COVID-­19, and it
was scary.
Diana Pornoterrorista left Spain due to political oppression, and she opened a
queer bar and restaurant in Mexico City, which became very popular. In 2019, she and
her employees were gay-­bashed by violent homophobic haters who also busted up the
bar. Her many friends rallied to help Diana and her bar workers recover. Just before
the COVID-­19 quarantine, Lady Monster had developed a new burlesque act twirling
fire tassels on both her nipples and her buttocks. She billed herself as the Quadra-
flame Twirlinator. We hope she will be able to perform it live soon.
Our wedding costume maker, Sarah Stolar, left California for New Mexico, where
she became an art star and the chair of the art department at the University of New
Mexico at Taos. She is much happier than when she was in California. She made
and donated hundreds of beautiful face masks for health care workers who needed
them badly.
Luke Dixon is definitely the coolest urban beekeeper in London, and he’s still
directing theater. He recently wrote and published The Little Book of Pollinators
for kids. Luke loves to visit us in California, and we continue to have a close, cross-­
continental collaborative friendship. Our director, Joy Brooke Fairfield, finished her
PhD at Stanford and currently teaches theater at Rhodes College in Memphis. She
saved our asses multiple times, and we sure hope to collaborate with her again one
day. Dragonfly Diva was a Green Party candidate for the New York Senate in the 2016
election. She found love with an English sword-­swallowing busker and is earning her
198 C o n c l u s i o n
master’s degree in applied theater at the CUNY School of Professional Studies. She
is currently creating brilliant solo performance art works. Veronica Vera founded the
world’s first transgender academy, Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want
to Be Girls, in 1992. Students have enrolled from around the world. She has written
three books about gender and teaches online.
Kim TallBear is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience,
and the Environment at the University of Alberta at Edmonton. Her Tipi Confessions
events are groundbreaking and wildly popular. Porn star and Femina Potens galler-
ist Madison Young toured for a year with an adaptation of Annie Sprinkle’s Post-­Porn
Modernist theater piece, called Reveal All Fear Nothing. Young’s show included a Public
Cervix Announcement and an ecosex magic ritual finale, like Post-­Porn Modernist had.
Her older daughter Emma, whose birth we attended, is growing up quickly and at-
tends forest school. Emma and Madison co-­created their first book together during
quarantine. To Emma, we are Grandma Sprinkle and Grandma Stephens. Madison
and her husband, James, named their second child Maple after the tree. We plan to go
camping together soon.
Joseph Kramer created the field of Sexological Bodywork and traveled the
world internationally teaching it, often with an ecosex component. Because of the
COVID-­19 epidemic, he currently teaches on Zoom and focuses on his home-­study
course in sexological bodywork.12 Our relationship with Joe is very close. We consider
him our husband, or as Joe would say, our sacred intimate. Perhaps one day we’ll all
start that co-­housing project with an artist retreat that today we dream about.

We’ve Come a Long Way: Ecosex in Sex-­Positive Culture

The sex-­positive feminist media that was so influential in our early careers still en-
gages and inspires us. We continue to keep our fingers and toes in the sex worlds.
Our ecosex movement has cross-­pollinated with the realms of adult entertainment
media, sex workers, and sex education, which means messages about environmental-
ism are being distributed to millions of people. This is heartening, as these realms
hold enormous potential for social change. They are influencers. Ecosex has joined
with sexually explicit media (at least its fringe) as evidenced by how one of the world’s
biggest porn tube websites, with literally billions of visits a year, now has ecosex-
ual and beesexual categories. Carol Queen and Shar Rednour’s The Sex and Pleasure
Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone has a section on “Ecosexual and
Ecoerotic,” which includes our definition of ecosex and our “Vows for Marrying the
Earth.”13 Ecosex is now part of some excellent sex education curriculums.
 C on clus ion 199

One of our longest, closest relationships is with Joseph Kramer. We consider him our husband: we
love him dearly and enjoy date nights together. He is so sweet to us and endlessly supportive. Here
he is our best man in our Wedding to the Sun, leading us in a deep rhythmic breathing meditation
on Bernal Hill in 2011. Photograph by Lydia Daniller.

It is heartening for us to see the greening of the sex industries. These days there
are solar-­powered sex toys, fair-­trade condoms, vegan aphrodisiacs, and ecoerotic lu-
bricants. There is the Bike Smut Film Festival and a sex toy recycling program. Kim
Marks, a longtime environmental activist who for many years worked as a trainer for
Greenpeace, founded As You Like It Pleasure Shop in Eugene, Oregon, in 2015, and
opened a second shop in Ashland in 2019. Her stores and website are the premiere
outlets for environmentally friendly and ecosexual products, for which she is now the
world’s expert. She attended our Ecosex Symposium at UCSC in May 2017, where she
sold her wares. She has also hosted our events at her store.
200 C o n c l u s i o n
Internationally a growing number of sex workers are identifying as ecosexual and
offer ecosexy experiences to their clients and fans. Australian sex worker Helena May
came to our Ecosex Workshop and Symposium in Colchester, England, in July 2013.
She ran naked through the field of nettles with Beth—­remember? Helena made this
tantalizing ad for her services on a previous version of her website:

[Does] the sun and the air on your naked flesh get you hard or wet? Do you want to feel
the grass and the earth against your back as we get off? Do you want to feel exposed and
vulnerable in the outdoors, or totally free and liberated? Do you enjoy sensation play
and would like to experience the joys of being tied to a tree while I use tree branches
and flowers, water and mud to stimulate and arouse your senses?

As of this writing she is pursuing a degree with a focus on humanitarian and devel-
opment studies while doing research about climate change, climate refugees, and
disaster relief.14

Are We There Yet?

After nineteen years together, we are happy to report that we are still very much in
love, inspired by each other, and we remain each other’s number-­one muses. The two
of us are still lovers and committed collaborators, and we don’t see that changing
anytime soon. We are also in love with our black Labrador retriever, Butch, and with
Albert, our wild white peacock in Boulder Creek, not to mention the Sun, the Moon,
the Earth, and all the stars. After the many hours sitting and snacking while working
on this book, we are a bit less punk rock and a bit more plump rock.
People ask us how we have managed to work together so intensely while also liv-
ing and traveling together constantly. We wonder about that ourselves. We still like to
spend as much time together as we can. And we do sometimes get into heated argu-
ments, mostly about little things, like how to write, or how many treats to feed Butch.
Perhaps the secret to our relationship is how different and yet how complementary
we are. That we agree on all things political is no small thing. As queer feminists, we
would love to be nonbinary, but butch/femme is just who we are. We like to say that
we are radically traditional. We never take our relationship for granted. We are grate-
ful every day, and we are privileged to have a place to shelter and some income as the
COVID-­19 pandemic changes the world.
For the next phase of our ecosex practice, we plan to explore a vital ecosex tenet: to
slow down. We work too hard. The speed at which we live our lives is unsustainable and
 C on clus ion 201
leaves very little room for deep pleasure or other critical activities like nurturing our
friendships, taking care of our bodies, and doing volunteer work. We want time to not
only smell the roses but to become one with their magnificent scent, to enjoy gazing
upon them, to gently lick them, nibble them, and feel the softness of their petals on
our lips and tongues. While we don’t always walk our talk, we certainly aspire to do so.
We thought we were finished with the ecosexual weddings; however, we got an offer
we couldn’t refuse: at the behest of the brilliant artist Amy Franceschini and the Fu-
turefarmers, we married the Fog on leap year at UCSC, on February 29, 2020. In the
early planning phases, we considered holding the Fog Wedding at UCSC’s Shakespeare
Glen, where we had performed the Green Wedding. That idea shifted as Amy decided on
a pilgrimage instead, from the great meadow at the base of the campus to the top of
the hill near the E.A.R.T.H. Lab. Amy and her collaborators did all the hard production
work, and we got to enjoy being brides and officiants once again. We really thought that
wedding would be the last. Alas, then all of UC’s classes went online, and we were in-
vited to be guest lecturers in an art class at UCSC. So there we officiated what was likely
the world’s first Zoom Wedding to the Earth. We also officiated another Zoom Wedding
to the Earth in a class that UC Santa Barbara’s professor and porn historian Constance
Penley taught called Learning from Porn in the Pandemic. The beat goes on.

Sexy, Fun, and Diverse

Because we needed a space outside the environmental activist mainstream where we
could fully be ourselves, we built an ecosex community and movement. We wanted
to create a tributary alongside the mainstream where people of color, drag kings and
queens, sex workers, freaks, queers, experimental artists, punk rockers, genderqueers,
trans people, and others could be part of a creative, fun, friendly, environmental jus-
tice activism community and movement together. And so we have.
We need all hands on deck. Corporations are gaining unfettered access to our nat-
ural resources, national parks, world’s oceans, the polar ice caps, the Amazon, and
most of the planet’s great life sources. We see how weak and flimsy environmental
laws are and how easily they can be ignored and undone. The fires in Australia have
burned swaths of land the size of West Virginia, killing almost everything in their
wake. The fires in California almost burned down our town of Boulder Creek. The
world’s environmental forecast is alarming. Huge oil spills keep happening, causing
major destruction to our oceans. Scientists are warning of another mass extinction.15
But we try not to mirror the fear and anger that accompany thinking about the
future as an already done deal. In our performances and films, we always try to have
202 C o n c l u s i o n
our version of environmentalism include some hope for the future. Our backgrounds
and combined communities in performance art, sex, and academia have brought to-
gether a unique group of people who have been willing to explore ecosexuality and
environmental activism with us. Our ecosex theories have developed organically from
creating our work and then letting it inspire our research and thinking. Stacy Alaimo
has described us correctly when she writes that

their playful, sexy performances make environmentalism a bit less dour, offering
abundant pleasure rather than what we expect from environmentalism—­virtuous self
deprivation within a horizon of impending doom. But Stephens and Sprinkle also
counter the tendency within queer theory to oppose naturalized reprosexuality of het-
eronormativity by grimly embracing the negation of futurity.16

There is still much work to be done to understand the relationship between eco-
sexuality and the configuration of relation between humans and the rest of nature.
We need to further theorize relationships and practice connections among ecosex
and Native American and Indigenous studies, Black Lives Matter, queer theory, ma-
terialist feminism, decolonialism, ecofeminism, posthumanism, biology, and deep
ecology. We hope that as these potential connections, alignments, and even pos-
sible disagreements are articulated, ecosexuality continues to develop as a radically
inclusive practice of pleasure activism and critical field of study. As individuals, or-
ganizations, and even some world powers begin to acknowledge climate change and
the need to immediately address environmental crises and ecological destruction at
global scales, now is the time to act. We believe that ecosexuality can offer valuable
ways to address the condition of the Earth now and in the future by creating collabo-
rations that bring hope to our communities. We want to provide alternative ideas of
how to live rather than thinking of our current situations as being inevitable.
Ecosexuality as a term, an identity construct, a theoretical stance, and a set of prac-
tices is still relatively new: as of this writing it is less than twenty years old. As such, its
practice and theory evolve within the work, lives, and ideas of the artists, academics,
and others who are exploring ecosex as a subject. While we love to think about ecosex,
it is more important to experience it in our bodies, share it with other bodies, take it
in with our senses, and enjoy life while we are alive, when we have that luxury.
 C on clus ion 203
Field Notes from Annie
Sharing my life with Beth for the past nineteen years has been an incredible adven-
ture. I found the love I was searching for all my life. Beth is my Earth, my Sky, my Sea,
and my cosmos. It sounds cliché, but the two of us are one Universe while also being
separate orbiting planets. Gravity pulls us together. I never take our relationship
for granted. I’m so grateful for every minute we have together. We’ve had a dazzling
journey of creative fun with plenty of challenges and drama to keep it interesting. To
assume the ecosexual position with Beth has been a great blessing.
In 2019, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. A thoracic surgeon went into my right
lung using a DaVinci robot, cut out a small tumor, and then stapled and glued me
shut. The recovery has been a big ouchie, and at the same time, because my lungs are
momentarily cancer free, it is as good as it gets. Recently I learned that I am a BRCA2
(genetically cancer prone) mutant, so I had my ovaries and tubes surgically removed
to avoid ovarian cancer. Since I started working on this book, I have four fewer of my
natural teeth.
Soon I hope to turn my attention toward longer walks, preferably on the beach
with Beth, Butch, friends, and family. I especially want to see more of my ninety-­five-­
year-­old mother, Lucille. Perhaps one day Beth and I can take a real vacation where
we at least try not to work for two, three, or more weeks. We have never taken a real
vacation, other than going to West Virginia, where Beth’s wonderful sister Anne takes
loving care of us. When we are there, we usually are working on projects. I’d like to
spend less time on the computer and more time around, in, and on bodies of water.
Maybe Beth and I can spend some time living on a boat.
These past four-­plus decades I have worked very hard. It’s time to rest and to
support the next generation. I also sincerely want to learn more about how I can do
antiracist work and be a better ally. I will keep doing environmental work as much as
I can. The COVID-­19 epidemic has been shocking, to say the least, and the future is
more of a mystery than ever. As I heard a professional dominatrix once say, “Nature is
a cruel mistress and there is no safe word.”
Next up, I will clean my closet, organize my data, maybe learn to paint, perhaps
read a book instead of writing one, and pay it forward. And if I should die before I
wake, I’ll die a very happy camper. Or maybe the best is yet to come.

Field Notes from Beth

The roads I traveled from rural West Virginia to “assuming the ecosexual position”
were navigated without a roadmap of any kind. All I know is that growing up when
204 C o n c l u s i o n
I did in those mountains gave me the tenacity to explore the opportunities that pre-
sented themselves along the way. I’ve done so with great curiosity and wonder as I
have embraced life with gusto. I have also been lucky enough to follow my muse,
even as I am acutely aware of the massive amounts of suffering and inequality in
the world around me. I could have never imagined, even in my wildest dreams, how
deeply life-­affirming it would be to share my past two decades with Annie. While we
are two very different beings, we somehow manage to delight each other by dreaming
up ideas, schemes, projects, and performances, which we discuss after sex, during
our dog walks, and while sharing meals together. Ours is a creative relationship that
I hope will never end. I cannot imagine loving anyone or anything as much as I love
Annie. Maybe when we do become compost, we’ll hatch a beautiful, magnificent red-
wood tree.
Our whirlwind relationship filled with travel, friendships, and art has been a blast,
and we haven’t focused on being organized or really even on putting away the many
materials and supplies that have allowed us to make the work we’ve made. We’ve left
a big mess in our wake, after all of our running around, and we now need to clean
house. We look forward to getting rid of a lot of stuff that we’ve accumulated and or-
ganizing our archives. Today, we’re going to begin to turn cleaning into art. I’m sure
that Linda Montano would be proud of our newfound “less is more” attitude. We’ve
put the Pollination Pod up for sale.
I have no regrets, only gratitude. I certainly know how lucky we have been to enjoy
our work and life that we have had together. I’m with Annie on slowing down, but
then we always say that. Otherwise I wouldn’t change a thing.

Field Notes from the Two of Us

While we have sometimes critiqued the environmental movement, we want to say a
deep, heartfelt thank you to all the environmental activists in the world, past, present,
and future. So many are completely unsupported, are suffering greatly, are viciously
attacked, and many have been murdered. Some are in the jungles, others are on farms,
in the coalfields, on the borders, and some are working from within the big corpora-
tion worlds. We owe all environmental activists a huge debt of gratitude. We can only
imagine what a toxic, deadly mess the world would be now if it had not been for the
protectors of our Earth’s environments everywhere.
Our mission is not to save the Earth. That is way beyond our capabilities. Saving
anything is definitely not our forte! We would have to become politicians, power bro-
kers, or psycho-­magicians, work from inside the system, or throw our naked bodies in
 C on clus ion 205
front of lumbering mining equipment and die for the cause, which probably wouldn’t
change anything anyway. Instead, we see ourselves as yentas (matchmakers), helping
people develop more loving relationships with each other and with the nonhuman
world. We also hope to offer some pleasure and comfort in what can be depressing,
anxiety-­ridden times. We embrace Roberto Jacoby’s strategies of joy: to make humans
fall in love again and again with the Earth.
Of course, we could not have assumed the ecosexual position alone. It takes a
brothel, a university, a community of artists, activists, friends, dogs, peacocks, Earth,
Wind, Fire, Water, bacteria, biomes, mycelia, and worms. In other words, it takes an
ecosystem. Thanks for following the story of our ecosexual love adventure. Soilidar-
ity forever!
 AFTERWORD

Paul B. Preciado

Dear Annie and Beth, dear Love Art Lab’s network of lovers and researchers,

When you invited me almost a year ago to do an afterword for the book you
were writing together, I accepted, as I would welcome any proposal coming
from you. Then your book arrived to my mailbox, every month a different chap-
ter: reading them was as revealing for me as it should be for a cyborg to read the
programming manual with which it was created. As I was progressing through
your journey, I became aware that I had grown up with you, in the queer and
fertile soil you had cultivated during the past twenty years. Looking at your art
production I came to this uncanny conclusion: I could consider myself as one
of your living works. It felt right, to be one of your works. Until now all modern
writers had boasted of being art creators. Now I wanted to boast of being one of
your works, part of a living network that you had created through hundreds of
journeys, weddings, conversations, rituals, meals, walks, exhibitions . . . made in
the Love Art Lab. That’s what I am and that’s what I want to continue to be.
I met Annie Sprinkle in Paris at the beginning of the new millennium. I
was twenty-­nine years old, had just moved to the city after living in New York,
and was in love with Paris’s streets like someone falls in love with a skin. Annie
wanted us to go up to the Eiffel Tower together. And we went up. I was skeptical
because I thought the experience was too touristy. But I hadn’t understood that
Annie was not looking for tourism, but for an erotic encounter between her
body and that iconic object of modern architecture. Her empowered body and
that iron tower. Measuring oneself against it, like when King Kong climbs the
skyscraper. A confrontation between two powers: capitalism and life, iron and
208 A f t e r wo r d
flesh, modernity and the new era to come. And we went up. And you were right,
Annie, it was unforgettable. Unforgettable also were Annie’s hugs so I wouldn’t
get dizzy. Annie, I’ve never told you that if I felt immediately in your arms as if I
had come home, it was because your arms reminded me of those of my grand-
mother who had died in 1993. My grandma had been a prostitute in the 1950s
to round out my grandfather’s small blue-­collar salary. I got to know she had
been a sex worker only when she died, because that was a secret and an embar-
rassment to my family. What I had felt before, however, was the freedom with
which she inhabited her woman’s body, her refusal to submit to the imperatives
of Spanish hetero-­patriarchal society. I thought that if my grandmother had
been able to free herself from the yoke of motherhood and Catholic marriage,
she might have been like you. It was looking at you, watching your films, that
I stopped thinking that sex work was a shame and it became my pride, my
heritage. I honored her by loving you and by loving my own sexual and gender
abnormality. And I let myself be adopted into your arms. Since then, not a year
has passed without us doing something together, something small, a trip, a call,
or something apparently bigger, an exhibition, a wedding, a book.
The next time we met, a year later, it was at the Post-­Porn Marathon at the
Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona that I had organized using as a
theoretical and political basis the work you had done as a sex activist with the
Club 90s and at the Post-­Porn Modernist performance, which you had staged
with Emilio Cubeiro in New York. There, in Barcelona, I first saw Beth with you.
Soon, I was no longer alone in Annie’s arms but was cuddled between the two
of you. I’ve learned in queer culture that a good butch is, after a dog, the best
companion one could wish for in life. And Beth was the best thing that could
happen to you. Beth was solar, smart, and pure affection. And Annie was the
best thing that could happen to you, too, Beth. That could be called a historical
stroke of luck, that something as complex as the hitching of two spaceships in
midflight could be done so easily.
Your book is a love biography, perhaps the most beautiful and generous ever
written; at the same time, it is a treatise on transfeminist political ecology for
future generations. Constructing this emotionally moving narrative, you have
challenged the tradition of the male artist in modernity who must be a solitary
hero who creates individually. You have imagined and built yourselves up as
a loving artistic couple, a couple that paradoxically has always had less than
two components because you immediately began to become an “ensemble,”
 Af terword 209
atomizing individual experience in an endless flow; and more than two compo-
nents because you have been growing as a multiplicity, distributing authorship
and agency among various links and relationships, a dimension of which many
of us have become a part.
And you are right about writing your artistic record as a love biography, be-
cause your meeting is a major political event of feminist and queer history. Your
relationship is not just the meeting of two people or the coming together of
two personal paths, but and above all the cross-­pollination of two political and
artistic traditions. There would be no ecosexuality without your love as a project
of collective transformation. Your individual backgrounds, before your artistic
and love collaboration, reflect two lines of force within what Lucy Lippard and
Laura Cottingham have called (when this term was not in fashion) Feminist Art.
Annie brought with her radical pro–­sex feminism, the connection to Fluxus via
Willem de Ridder, eroticism understood as an anarcho-­libertarian project, and
the use of experimental workshops as places of invention of love practices alter-
native to the norm. Already in the late 1980s, against a pro–­censure feminism,
articulated by authors such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon,
Sprinkle (anticipating Gayle Rubin and Judith Butler’s de-­ontologization
of gender) had started to unveil the performative technologies that produce
and normalize sexuality within the dominant regimes of representation of
pornography. Her use of the term post-­porn to refer to the critical turn within
sexual politics and pornography and the strategies of agency that derive from it
became a prophecy and an artistic and political program for the queer genera-
tion to which I belong. For her part, Beth brought the underground politics of
the body, the critical coming out of queer politics within the art of the ’90s, the
knowledge of the traditions of feminist pedagogy, video art, political ecology,
and land art. Ecosexuality as a political position and as an artistic practice arises
from the critical hybridization of these fields that had previously been sepa-
rated by disciplinary and political boundaries.
The dirty and wet road that led to ecosexuality began with the seven-­year
public wedding project inspired by the work of your friend Linda Montano.
You did the unforgettable Red Wedding in 2005, and then, too quickly, came what
Kathy Acker called “the gift of disease.” And you transformed your life-­with-­
cancer into art. I say your life, because, although it might seem that it was Annie’s
body that had been touched, it was your “ensemble” that faced all its conse-
quences and that healed. This was also the concrete and material way through
210 A f t e r wo r d
which the toxicity of patriarchal-­colonial capitalism passed through you as
a vulnerable living body. And you took the sexiest pictures in hospitals, you
continued making workshops, the Sidewalk Sex Clinics, the films . . . . During this
time, we did two exhibitions and many performances together. Meanwhile, you
married the Earth, the mountains, the forest, water, the sea, the moon, rocks, the
sun . . . more than fifty times and with more than three thousand people. And
your love relationship became a collective movement. And your love became
environmental.
During all these years, you have managed to do together what for me defines
the activity of the artist: to modify the field of perception and feeling, to create
a position from which to be in the world differently, and, as a result, to create
a place from which dissident social practices (against cancer, against AIDS,
against mining extraction, against racism, homophobia, whorephobia . . .) can
be invented. And you do this by completely dissolving the modern position of
the “spectator” who observes and consumes the work of art from a male, white,
vertical, visual, and external position. To do this, you do not transform the
spectator into a participant, as has become fashionable in contemporary artistic
practices. More brazenly, you transform the spectator into a lover: you invite
them to enter into a relationship of care and love with you and with all the other
living beings on the planet, with the very totality of the planet as a living entity.
You create practices of healing and transformation of subjectivity alternative to
those proposed by psychiatry or psychoanalysis. You invent also a social archi-
tecture of cooperation and love alternative to traditional democratic political
practice with its logic of representation and parties. In this sense, your practices
exceed not only the functional and condescending category of “art therapy,”
but also even the postmodern notion of performance. Your practices belong to
the lingua franca of revolution. Art is more extensive and more powerful than
politics. Care is more radical and more perennial than anger.
In the middle of these adventures, while I was going to your ecosexual school
to unlearn the culture of violence and hate, I began my gender transition and
became Paul. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t just me who was mutating: the
planet itself was in transition. We are in a moment of deep epistemological and
political transformation, a moment perhaps only comparable to the sixteenth
century when capitalist expansion, colonization, and the slave trade began,
with the invention of the printing press and the establishment of the central
political fictions of the West: heterosexuality and homosexuality as medical and
 Af terword 211
psychiatric categories and race as a scientific category—­which would legitimize
colonization. It was then that patriarchal-­colonial capitalism was set in motion
as a system of production and reproduction of life, as a practice of extraction,
expropriation, and destruction of the planet.
Today changes of a similar magnitude as those of the sixteenth century
are taking place: we are not only moving from a written culture to a cyber-­oral
culture, from a Fordist production regime to a digital economy; it is also the
patriarchal-­colonial logic that founded the capitalist destruction of the planet
that is currently being questioned. We find ourselves in a shifting historical
moment in which new technologies and new relations of power are recodifying
immaterial labor (the production of signs) and biopolitical production (social
relations, reproduction of life, affective work). The meaning of things, what we
understand by human subjectivity (as opposed to animal or machine), is chang-
ing; the sense of citizenship, the ways of producing and reproducing ourselves
are also mutating.
I am now writing this afterword in the middle of the COVID-­19 pandemics,
a few days after George Floyd has been killed by police brutality in Minneapolis,
hundreds of protests erupting all over the country, being followed by antiracist
demonstrations in solidarity in dozens of cities around the world. I write these
words after having come from a demonstration of more than twenty-­five thou-
sand people in Paris that has been illegalized by the government. I am writing
this during the days in which the United States of America is slowly but firmly
slipping into a state of civil war maybe, a state Trump is intentionally provoking
to instigate a context of total ungovernability that will allow him to extend the
“state of exception” and perpetuate his authoritarian mandate, canceling the
forthcoming elections. Interestingly enough, the only measure that Trump has
spoken about these days is the illegalization of antifascist movements as if they
were “terrorists.”
I would like to look at what is happening in topographic and ecosexual
terms. Look at humanity as a human would look at a community of ants. This is
what another eye would see, another ear would hear: Trump, the authoritarian
political leader, is hidden in his bunker under the earth. While those who have
been for so long forced to hide in their urban and political “ghettos” of blacks,
migrants, homosexuals, sex workers, transsexuals . . . are outside, demonstrat-
ing. We are no longer fighting simply for our rights, we are not fighting for
recognition, we are saying “we are full political subjects,” we don’t need your
212 A f t e r wo r d
recognition, we don’t need your patriarchal-­colonial-­humanist rights, we want
to define the conditions of production and reproduction of life by ourselves.
We are living a revolutionary moment—­nobody can deny it now. Black Lives
Matter, MeToo, NiUnaMenos, migrant movements, ecofeminism, Indigenous
movements, queer and trans collectives, crip, intersex and nonbinary gender
movements are the many names of this ongoing revolution. In this global
transfeminist antiracist revolution for the redefinition of the practices of
production and reproduction of life, against the background of the economic
crisis, the tensions between the “conservative naturalists” and those who are
fighting to invent practices for social emancipation are exasperated further.
Now, it becomes even clearer the centrality of the ecosexual practices that you
have been organizing during the past twenty years as a way of fighting neo-­
nationalist and white supremacist, homophobic, transphobic, and racist norms
and practices.
What is at stake here is what we understand by “nature” and how this un-
derstanding might shape political practices and legitimize or unravel forms of
violence. Schematically, we could speak of two ways of understanding the polit-
ical fiction of “nature,” as well as two diverging agendas for organizing the fields
of production and of reproduction of life. On the one hand, the patriarchal-­
colonial anthropocentric tradition (the epistemological and political model
central to Western colonial capitalism) according to which the white male
heterosexual human is “by nature” the only sovereign subject who must have
access to planetary energy resources and technologies of government. On the
other hand, there is the working out of a dissident political project that seeks
to redistribute access to the technologies of government between all those who
together form a living ecosystem, putting the vulnerability of life at the center
of the political and artistic project.
While the 1980s were marked by the tensions between pro–­censure femi-
nisms and pro–­sex feminisms, the first two decades of the current century have
been characterized by the emergence of a network of political and aesthetic
strategies of de-­identification with the violent categories of gender, sex, sexuality,
and race of patriarchal-­colonial modernity. These practices come to destabilize
sexual and colonial conventions and the biopolitical norms for the production
of the body, gender, race, and sexuality. Here the term ecosexuality becomes
a concept-­map that, rather than determining a fixed theory or a particular
aesthetic, allows connections to be made between a plurality of strategies of
 Af terword 213
intervention and representations of sexual, gender, racial, and nonhuman
political minorities. Ecosexual practices attempt, as Félix Guattari wanted, to
provoke a revolution of “the molecular dominion of the sensible, intelligence
and desire.” They are laboratories for the transformation of social subjectivity,
investigations in the structure of consciousness and desire, in which the partici-
pants modify their perceptions and feelings, construct relations and affiliations
that go further than the segmentations of identity politics since it is their con-
dition of living beings opposing power and violence that brings them together.
These somatopolitical alliances (alliances of living bodies) will become crucial
in the current war of patriarchal-­colonial capitalism against the Earth.
Reading your book while this war is taking place is like hearing the sound of
a new world being born. A new grammar, a new body, a new social contract. Love
is the central political concept of this ecosexual book. But not love the way it has
been captured by the patriarchal-­colonial language: not couple love, not family
love, not love of the nation, not love of purity, not love of property, but love as
experimental collective practice extended to the totality of the planet. I say to
myself that this might be the best way to protest against extreme right and white
supremacist movements right now: to join with you and the Black Lives Matter
movement in an ecosexual embrace. And this is what I wish the most and what I
would like also to do with this text.

Your artwork and lover,

Paul B. Preciado
 POSTSCRIPT

Linda Mary Montano

The Glands and Chakras Are Grateful to Annie and Beth

Chakra 1: Muladhara. Gland 1: Ovaries/Testes. Intimacy. 

annie and beth  Gratitude to you both! There are now 455,072,324 young, old,
straight, bi, transgender, and celibate folks who comfortably and ecstatically
celebrate their sensuality because of you, and in doing so they generate more
love for this hungry, hurting planet.
Chakra 2: Svadhisthana. Gland 2: Pancreas. Money. 
beth and annie  Gratitude to you both! As penultimate Earth stewards you both
fearlessly generate props, costumes, magical objects, and millions of glittery
accoutrements that transform environments. With gusto and without shyness,
you seek funding to finance these spectacles that ritually and positively change
group consciousness.
Chakra 3: Manipura. Gland 3: Adrenals. Courage.
annie and beth  Gratitude to you both! Prophets have no limits, and your
aesthetic message that everyone and everything has a soul has allowed you to
fearlessly, courageously, and radically do everything possible to protect all souls.
Chakra 4: Anahata. Gland 4: Thymus. Love.
beth and annie  Gratitude to you both! You have performed enough autobio­
graphical work so that you both feel healed enough to become bigger than
your individual selves. Now you can focus on the Earth as a living, organic being
in need of attention, transformation, and performative respect.
216 P o s t s c r i p t
Chakra 5: Vishuddha. Gland 5: Thyroid. Communication.
annie and beth  Gratitude to you both! You walk your talk in simple inclusiv-
ity. It is obvious that both of you are secret, private, hidden intellectuals who
easily speak the language of the academy, but you both insist on connecting
and speaking with and not at all so that the message and people benefit. What a
wonderful strategy for activists of love who sidestep away from self-­
aggrandizing power so that the Earth and others can shine.
Chakra 6: Ajna. Gland 6: Pineal. Intuition.
beth and annie  Gratitude to you both! You see what needs to be done and seed
your vision to pioneer a path that will positively change the entire universe. 
Chakra 7: Sahasrara. Gland 7: Pituitary. Joy. 
annie and beth  Gratitude to you both! Keep leading us into the waters so we
splash around again like we did before. Keep leading us to nonjudgmental
collaborations. Keep leading us to the information that opens our minds to
the real truth. Keep leading us to healthy ways to convert pain/evil/distress into
fabulous flowers of beauty and light. Keep leading us back to the garden.
 FIELD GUIDES

Acknowledgments from Beth and Annie

Much of our work has been created at the University of California Santa Cruz. The
UCSC campus is located on Awaswas-­speaking Uypi Tribal land within the occupied
territories of the Ohlone peoples, and in particular of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.
We acknowledge this and honor these people, their past, present, and future connec-
tions to this magnificent land.
While writing this book we have witnessed the growing power of the Black Lives
Matter movement in the tradition of the Black Panthers and other civil rights ac-
tivists who came before to work to achieve much-­needed social justice. We stand in
solidarity with all those working to dismantle systemic white supremacy. We recog-
nize the struggles of our Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other colleagues, friends, and
fellow humans. We acknowledge the unearned privilege afforded to us and commit to
learning how to create a better world where all are free from discrimination, fear, bias,
and harm, and where all have equal access to education, a living wage, housing, medi-
cal care, visibility, power, healthy food, and beautiful parks to enjoy.
In addition to thanking the Earth’s ecosystems, there are some special humans,
organizations, animal companions, ancestors, and others that we are enormously
grateful to as we worked on this book. For working with us on this book from the pro-
posal stage to the printed page, our friend, colleague, and collaborator Jennie Klein
deserves a ginormous thank you! Jennie’s knowledge about art history and perfor-
mance art, her sharp editing skills, patience, and good humor were huge gifts that she
shared generously over the course of writing and shaping this book. Eternal gratitude
to Linda M. Montano for the many years of inspiration and support. Her influence
can be found in every chapter. Two palms together and a bow for her closing blessing.
218 F i e l d G u i d e s
Heartfelt thanks to Una Chaudhuri for her generous introduction and for all of her
support in good and difficult times. We deeply appreciate her willingness to play with
us. And big thanks to Paul B. Preciado for his Afterword and for being in our lives. He
invited us to participate in some of the world’s most prestigious exhibitions as well as
some of the most outrageous events that we will never forget. Our time together over
the years has helped to make this book thick and juicy.

People We Love Who Have Supported and Helped Us

Our friends and collaborators have inspired the words and ideas in this book. Some
of those who have most directly influenced, supported, loved, and helped us on this
particular journey are Joseph Kramer, Anne Harless, Xandra Coe, Judy Meath, Donna
Haraway, Clare Bolduc, Kimball Barton aka Ms Fit Barton, Becka Shertzer, Sarah
Stolar, Jane Cirigliano and Stan Clawson, Kat Sunlove, Ruby Barnett, Daniel Wasko,
Joy Brooke Fairfield, Dalia Anani, Mel Preston, Joan Jeanrenaud, Ragi Dindial, Jenny
Hubbard, Christina Dinkel, Joe Riley and Dan Festa of the Redwood Resort, Martina,
Maureen O’Malley, C. Stanton, Cindy Lilly, Zvonimir Dobrović, Uti, Sahaj and Dot-
tie of Piedmont Boutique, Dr. Garrett Smith, Dr. Erica Brode, Betty Dodson, Susun
Weed, Wendi Raw, Tristan Taormino, Constance Penley, Maggie Nelson, Newton and
Helen Harrison, Paul Corbit Brown, Larry and Carol Gibson, Janet Hardy, Leslie
Barany, Robin Laverne Wilson aka Dragonfly, Stefanie Iris Weiss, Hoshi Hana, Little
Shiva, Saul Villegas, Kern Toy, Club 90, Diana Pornoterrorista, Guillermo Gómez-­
Peña and La Pocha Nostra, Balitronica, Saúl García-­López and Emma Trompash,
Reverend Billy aka Billy Talen, Savitri D. and the Church of Stop Shopping Choir,
Scarlot Harlot, Amy Franceschini and the Futurefarmers, and Guillermo Galindo.
We are grateful to our film distributors, Kino Lorber and Elizabeth Sheldon of Juno
Films. Big thanks to our core filmmaking team, Keith Wilson, Jordan Freeman, Ver-
non Legakis, Isabelle Carlier, and David B. Steinberg.

Select Art Organizations

Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence and the Center for Sex and Culture, Madison
Young and Femina Potens, Bonnie Cullum and the Vortex Theatre, Leo Garcia and
Highways Performance Space, Jill McDermid and Erik Hokanson and Grace Exhibi-
tion Space, Jeff Jones, Pam Penniston, Rudy Lemcke and the Queer Cultural Center,
Erik Noulette and Cecile Jamet of Emmetrop, Barbara Klein and the Kosmos Theater,
the San Francisco Arts Commission, Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship,
the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
 F ield Guides 219
Agents, Gallerists, Curators
Our three galleries: Jerome Jacobs and Aeroplastics Gallery (Brussels); Thomas Jancar
and Jancar Gallery (Los Angeles); and Adriane and Mo van der Have of Torch Gallery
(Amsterdam). Annie’s former theater agents and beloved friends Barbara Carrellas
and Emily Woods. Our literary agent, Scott Mendel of Mendel Media. Big gratitude
to everyone at documenta 14 for the time of our lives, especially head curator Adam
Szymczyk for crowning us documenta artists. Thanks to Luke Dixon and the Theatre
Nomad; Debbie Nadolney at Art Market Provincetown; Bill Arning of Bill Arning Ex-
hibitions Gallery in Houston; and Peter Huttinger and Robert Schiffler of Bob’s Art.
Undying love to Martha Wilson, Harley Spiller, and Franklin Furnace for making the
world safe for the avant-­garde.

University of California
Many of our projects, including this book, have received generous support from UC
Santa Cruz’s Arts Research Institute and from the Academic Senate’s Committee on
Research. We are deeply grateful for their funding. Thanks to former dean David
Yager for his support of the E.A.R.T.H. Lab. We also give a special thanks to the Arts
Division’s interim dean Ted Warburton, associate dean Stephanie Moore, and chief
of staff Alison Lucas. The Arts Dean’s Excellence Fund award provided by Susan
Solt allowed us to hire a graduate student researcher who helped us stay on a writing
schedule. Big thanks to Beth’s UCSC office staff Hannah Pederson, Jude Pipes, and
Jason Greenberg for their assistance and support while Beth was chair of the art de-
partment and we finished this manuscript.
Having access to the UC Natural Reserve System provided inspiration, film con-
tent, and space for thinking. We would particularly like to give a shout out to Jeff
Brown and Faerthen Felix, who were the director team of the Sagehen Creek Field
Station, and Don Canestro, the former director of the Kenneth S. Norris Rancho
Marino Reserve. Beth’s UC Davis dissertation committee—­Lynette Hunter (main ad-
visor), Larry Bogad, and Jon Rossini—­were all fantastic and pushed us to think harder
than we could have imagined possible. Beth’s outside dissertation reader Kim Tall-
Bear is now a friend with whom we can bandy about our ideas and who challenges our
settler colonialist ideas when they rear their ugly little white horns.

Editing Help and Reader Feedback over the Years

Special thanks to Margaret Wade, who helped us wade through a ton of our material
and helped us organize an early draft of this book. Our gratitude to everyone who
220 F i e l d G u i d e s
read various drafts along the way: Veronica Vera, Natalie Loveless, Sha LaBare, Jordan
Reznick, Martabel Wasserman, Joshua Weinberg, Ron Broglio, Loraine Hutchins, and
Lindsey Kelly. Thanks to Avery Plummer for help with indexing.

Nonhuman Supporters and Collaborators

Bob our first black lab, Butch our current black lab, Albert the magical white Boul-
der Creek peacock, the bees of London, Otto the handsome scruffy terrier neighbor,
Buster our favorite chihuahua cuddle buddy, and Butch’s black lab girlfriend Maisey.
Gratitude to the entities we married, such as Lake Kallavesi, Señor Roca, the Moon,
and many more. We hardly deserve you.

University of Minnesota Press Collaborators

Richard Morrison was the first person we proposed this book to while he was the ed-
itorial director of the University of Minnesota Press. He accepted our proposal and
initiated our writing process. We then worked with editor Danielle Kasprzak, who
cheered us on through our middle writing. Then in 2020 we were blessed to work
with editor Pieter Martin to bring our manuscript over the finish line. We greatly ap-
preciated all his patience and great advice in the final stages.
Thanks to everyone else at the University of Minnesota Press. In addition to our
editors, we have so enjoyed working with editorial assistant Anne Carter, cover and
book designer Sandra Friesen, copy editor Louisa Castner, publicist Heather Skinner,
production coordinator Rachel Moeller, and managing editor Laura Westlund.

Thank You to Every Single One of Our Collaborators

Our enormous gratitude to everyone with whom we have had the privilege of collab-
orating. We could never have assumed the ecosexual position, or enjoyed it so much,
without you.
 NOTES

introduction
1. The post was first created in 2012, according to its history. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
ecosexual.
2. When we use the word nature we are referring to the material Earth and all of the entities
it holds, including humans. We also use this word to mean something other than cul-
ture. We understand that the definition of nature has changed a great deal over the years
and has varied meanings within different cultures, societies, and groups. We recognize as
well that the idea, or understanding, of nature has been used to benefit some folks at the
expense of others.
3. This definition is a revised version of the one written by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie
Sprinkle published in Journal of EcoSex Research 1, no. 1 (2011): 20. https://cpb-us-e1.wp
mucdn.com/sites.ucsc.edu/dist/3/101/files/2016/06/Journalecosex.pdf.
4. Post-­Porn Modernist was performed from 1990 until 1995, first directed by Emilio Cubeiro
and later by Willem de Ridder. Hardcore from the Heart (1996–­97) was directed by Daniel
Banks. Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn (1997–­2000) was directed by Emilio Cubeiro.
5. Elizabeth Stephens, “Critical and Aesthetic Research in Environmental Art,” University
of California, Davis, 2015 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: ProQuest, 2016), 72.
6. Joseph Beuys, Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man (New York: Four
Walls Eight Windows Press, 1993), 19.
7. See Hendricks’s obituary in the New York Times: Neil Genzlinger, “Geoffrey Hendricks,
86, Attention Getting Fluxus Artist, Dies,” New York Times, May 22, 2018. https://www
.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/obituaries/geoffrey-hendricks-86-attention-getting-fluxus
-artist-dies.html.
8. Linda Montano, Art in Everyday Life (Los Angeles: Astro Artz Press, 1981).
222 N o t e s t o i n t r o d u c t i o n
9. Linda Montano, “Summer Saint Camp 1987, with Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera,”
TDR The Drama Review 33, no.1 (Spring 1989): 94–­119. Rosita was Montano’s nickname,
based on Sister Rose.
10. We interviewed Newton Harrison for our Sexecology.org website; we also interviewed
Montano and Hendricks. See Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, “The Harrisons,
with an introduction by Elizabeth Stephens,” July 2010, SexEcology: Where Art Meets Theory
Meets Practice Meets Activism. http://sexecology.org/research-writing/the-harrisons/.
11. The Radical Faeries, forty years old, are still going strong. http://www.radfae.org/.
12. Carol Queen, Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-­Positive Culture (Pittsburgh: Cleis Press,
1997), xxiv.
13. Carol S. Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (London: Pandora,
1984; reprint, 1992).
14. Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in
ibid., 267–­93.
15. The Lesbian Body was published in 1973 in French and in 1975 in English by Beacon Press.
Les Guérillères was published in 1969 in French by Les Éditions de Minuit and in English
in 1971 by Viking.
16. François Peraldi, ed., Semiotext(e): Polysexuality (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981).
17. The poet Eileen Myles has published a number of books with Semiotext(e), including
Street Retreat (2014), The Importance of Being Iceland (2009), The New Fuck You (edited with
Liz Kotz, 1995), and Not Me (1991).
18. Michelle Tea, The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America, Semi-
otext(e) (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998).
19. Deborah Bright, ed., The Passionate Camera: Photography and Objects of Desire (New York:
Routledge, 1998).
20. Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina (New York: Dutton, 1992).
21. Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003).
22. bell hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place (London and New York: Routledge, 2008).
23. Linda Williams, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1989).
24. Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-­
Young, eds., The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (New York: Feminist
Press at CUNY, 2013).
25. A few of the manifestos we love are the Surrealist Manifesto, the Dada Manifesto, the
SCUM Manifesto, and the Maintenance Manifesto.
 Notes to i n t r o d u c t i o n 223
26. Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, “Ecosexuality,” in Gender: Nature, ed. Iris van der
Tuin (Farmington Hills, Mich.: Macmillan, 2016), 313–­30.
27. Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, “Ecosexual Manifesto,” Brooklyn Rail: Critical
Perspectives on Arts, Politics, and Culture (September 2014): 77.
28. The manifesto was featured in the exhibition of our work in the Neue Gallery in 2017
as part of documenta 14, curated by Paul B. Preciado. The show ran from June through
September.
29. Our manifesto graced the storefront at Art in Odd Places, Fourteenth Street in Manhat-
tan, New York, in October 2017.
30. Our manifesto mural was in the exhibition Leé mis labias (Read My Lips), curated by Mi-
guel Lopez for the Fundación ARS TEOR/éTica, San José, Costa Rica.
31. For thorough accounts of the emergence and development of ecofeminism, see Karen J.
Warren, ed., Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1997); Catriona Sandilands, The Good-­Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for
Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Val Plumwood, “Ecofem-
inism: An Overview and Discussion of Positions and Arguments,” Australasian Journal of
Philosophy 64 (June 1986).
32. Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal
(Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax Press, 2007).
33. Greta Gaard, “Toward a Queer Ecofeminism,” Hypatia 12, no. 1 (1997): 114–­37.
34. Ibid., 133.
35. Bruno Latour, “An Attempt at a ‘Compositionist Manifesto,’ ”  New Literary History 41,
no. 53 (Summer 2010): 481.
36. Ibid., 483.
37. Colette Guillaumin, Racism, Sexism, Power, and Ideology (London and New York: Rout-
ledge, 2004), 224.
38. Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 2010).
39. Bacterial cells conjugate using the pilus of biome clouds.
40. We have been most influenced by these essays and books by Donna Haraway: “A Cyborg
Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,”
in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 149–­
81; When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007); Staying with the
Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2016).
41. Haraway, When Species Meet, 80.
224 N o t e s t o i n t r o d u c t i o n
42. Ibid., 15.
43. See Kim TallBear, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic
Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013).
44. See Kim TallBear’s blog post. https://indigenoussts.com/whats-in-ecosexuality-for-an
-indigenous-scholar-of-nature.
45. Ibid.
46. Syd Krochmalny, “The Dematerializer: Media, Ways of Life, and Politics in the Work of
Roberto Jacoby,” Guggenheim USB (blog), December 14, 2014. https://www.guggenheim
.org/blogs/map/the-dematerializer-media-ways-of-life-and-politics-in-the-work-of
-roberto-jacoby.
47. Jim Robbins, “The Ecology of Disease,” New York Times, July 14, 2012. https://www.ny
times.com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-ecology-of-disease.html.

1. OUR ECOSEX HERSTORIES

1. Annie Sprinkle, “Sex Secrets of the Phoenix Fire Women,” Penthouse Forum, special issue
“See God and Come,” guest edited by Annie Sprinkle (November 1988): 22–26.
2. Annie Sprinkle, “Beyond Bisexual,” in Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out, ed.
Lani Ka’ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins (New York: Alyson Books, 1991), 103–­107.

2. FIRST COMES ART, THEN COMES MARRIAGE

1. Andrea Juno and V. Vale, “Annie Sprinkle,” in Angry Women, no. 13 (San Francisco:
RE/Search Publications, 1991), 25–­40.
2. The culture wars in the late ’80s and early ’90s pitted conservative, evangelical Repub-
licans against more liberal political factions, including Democrats. As outlined in
James Davidson Hunter’s book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York:
Basic Books, 1991), the main issues included abortion, gun laws, immigration, privacy,
separation of church and state, LGBT rights, and censorship. Artists working during this
period reacted to the culture wars by embracing queer, sex-­positive images.
3. Annie’s first European visual art exhibition, Sluts and Goddesses (with Veronica Vera),
was at Torch Gallery in Amsterdam in 1991. It was curated by Adrianne van der Have.
Aeroplastics, a gallery in Brussels, Belgium, also began representing her work in 1999,
in a group show titled Sheros. Annie had a solo exhibition at Aeroplastics at the FIAC
International Contemporary Art Fair in October 2000.
4. Annie was awarded a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, in Manhattan, in 1987. At the
time of the photo shoot, she had been working as a photographer for a number of men’s
magazines and the lesbian porn magazine On Our Backs.
 Notes to Ch apter 2 225
5. Dunye was a cinema professor at San Francisco State University and is a well-­recognized
black lesbian filmmaker who has opened up the field of film to other queer artists of
color. Takemoto is an artist and theoretician who is the dean of humanities at California
College of Art, and Ellsworth is a professor of art at Arizona State University and directs
the Museum of Walking.
6. Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975):
6–­18.
7. The NEA Four were Holly Hughes, Karen Finley, Tim Miller, and John Fleck, all of
whom explored sex and sexuality in their work. The artists eventually won a legal battle
to regain the equivalent amount of funding the NEA would have granted them.
8. Rohrabacher is quoted in Kim Masters, “Some Might Call It Art, But Annie Sprinkle’s Act
Is an Open Question,” Washington Post, February 9, 1992. https://www.washingtonpost
.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1992/02/09/some-might-call-it-artbut-annie-sprinkles-act
-is-an-open-question/dfce8e8e-cfba-4469-93a3-71012f6be129/?utm_term=.e8caa61ad2a2.
9. Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Lessons in Photography was reproduced in two publications on lesbian
art: The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, ed. Deborah Bright (London
and New York: Routledge, 1998); and Harmony Hammond’s Lesbian Art in America: A
Contemporary History (New York: Random House, 2000).
10. Annie Sprinkle, Post-­Porn Modernist, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1998).
11. Annie graduated from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality on
February 6, 2002.
12. Joe was a very special person for me and still is. Joe is a gay man, a Kinsey 6 (as gay as it
gets), and a visionary sex educator who founded and directed the Body Electric School of
Massage. He has been my teacher and confidant for years.
13. Diane Bonder designed and set up the website so that I could collaborate with Wish You
Were Here participants and document the trip across the country.
14. The Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts released a decision that the state’s ban on
same-­sex marriage was unconstitutional on November 18, 2003.

3. The Miraculous Conception of the Love Art Lab

1. Franklin Furnace (FF) is an influential nonprofit space that was located in Lower Man-
hattan where Annie and Linda had done performance works in the past. Its founding
director is Martha Wilson, champion of the avant garde.
2. The site was designed by Michael Lane and Jim Crotty (the creators of Monk magazine,)
inspired by the design that Diane Bonder created for our wedding invitation. The site is
now archived, and we keep it up for view online.
226 N o t e s t o C h a p t e r 3
3. Geoff and Nye created the Flux Divorce in 1972, in which they literally cut everything they
owned in half and equally distributed their possessions. Abramović and Ulay made The
Lovers in 1988, in which they walked toward each other on the Great Wall of China for
2,500 kilometers to say goodbye.
4. Angela Ellsworth sent us new bouquets and boutonnieres for each of the seven years. In
2012 we created an installation with them all for an exhibition titled Saints and Sinners, at
the Visual Aids Gallery in San Francisco.
5. Annie Sprinkle, Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex—­Make Over Your Sex Life (New York: Penguin/
Tarcher, 2005).
6. Bosom Ballet was performed for the first time on Al Goldstein’s Manhattan cable TV
show Midnight Blue in 1975. It was then performed many times at places like Franklin
Furnace and in Post-­Porn Modernist. It was also performed on a Berlin soccer field at half
time with Ufa Fabrik’s samba band.
7. The exhibit Diana and Actaeon: The Forbidden Glimpse of the Naked Body was premised on
Ovid’s telling of the story of the goddess Diana and the hunter Actaeon, who surprised
Diana at her bath. The show included more than two hundred works that addressed
vision and desire, sexuality and prohibition. For more information on this exhibition,
see “Diana and Actaeon: The Forbidden Glimpse of the Naked Body opens in Dusseldorf,”
ArtDaily, August 25, 2008. http://artdaily.com/news/26830/Diana-and-Actaeon-The
-Forbidden-Glimpse-of-the-Naked-Body-Opens-in-Dusseldorf#.XNR5bNNKgTE.
8. Exposed also played at the Vortex Theatre in Austin, Texas (March 28–­April 1), the
New Conservatory Theater in San Francisco (August 10–­27), the Kosmos Theater in
Vienna (October 19–­22), then in 2007 at the ARGE Kultur in Salzburg (March 8–­9), at
Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto (June 19–­20), and at the Chelsea Theater in London
(September 19–­22).
9. Charles Isherwood, “Amid Bare Breasts and Love Stories, Audience Participation,” New
York Times, May 1, 2007. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/theater/reviews/01expo.html.

4. Nascent Ecosexuals
1. This was Boulder Creek’s population according to the 2010 census.
2. Jennie Klein, “Intervene! Interrupt! Rethinking Art as Social Practice,” Art Papers 32, no. 4
(July–­August 2008): 18–­21.
3. For more information on the tree sitters, see Jennifer Squiers, “Tree Sitters, UCSC Offi-
cials Enter Mediation to End 13 Month Protest,” Mercury News, December 3, 2008. https://
www.mercurynews.com/2008/12/03/tree-sitters-ucsc-officials-enter-mediation-to-end
-13-month-protest/.
 Notes to Ch apter 4 227
4. Alan Tollefson, a graduate student and artist, worked with Shannon Walsh, a set design
student, to oversee the student volunteers who decorated the glen.
5. Newton and Helen Harrison, “Homily: Making Earth,” in Viz. Inter-­Arts: Interventions, a
Trans-­Genre Anthology, ed. Roxanne Power (Santa Cruz, Calif.: Viz. Inter-­Arts, 2016), 135.
6. Guillermo had a special green costume made for the occasion and told us it was his first
time in his life he had ever worn green.
7. The curator of the ANTI –­Contemporary Art Festival in Finland, Johanna would
subsequently commission our Wedding to Lake Kallavesi to take place on a boat on that
lake in 2012.
8. The Aphrodite Award was created by Annie for her show Post-­Porn Modernist, which she
gave to sex workers who came onstage to receive it.
9. OTTAR is named after feminist Elise Ottesen Jensen. https://kvinnegruppa-ottar.square
space.com/english/.
10. Press articles that our friend and ally Tom Garretson could find and translate for us were
written in Stavanger Aftenblad, Dagsavisen, Kunstkritikk, and NRK.
11. Lars Fisketjøn, “Porno-­Annie in Clutch with Ottar,” Da Rogalands Avis, June 13, 2008.
https://www.dagsavisen.no/rogalandsavis/porno-annie-i-klinsj-med-ottar-1.543016.
12. This breast-­like double-­mound image later became one of our logos that we printed on
our ecosexual T-­shirt graphic, drawn by Dalia Anani.
13. El Arte In Acción took place at Theatre Valle Inclán, July 3–­5, 2009.
14. E-­spots are special spots, plants, textures, sounds, sights, smells, or spaces that a person
finds ecosexy. They can range from a tiny stamen to the sight of a huge mountain range.
15. We used the title Dirty Sexecology for the visual art exhibit but didn’t include the theater
piece by the same name.
16. M. A. Palmer et al., “Mountaintop Mining Consequences,” Science 327 (January 8, 2010): 148.
17. Charles Duhig, “Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering,” New York Times,
September 12, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html.
18. Rebecca R. Scott, Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian
Coalfields (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 50–­52.
19. Ibid, 63.
20. Helen Lewis, Colonialism in Modern America: The Appalachian Case (Boone, N.C.: Appala-
chian Consortium Press, 1978).
21. The art/activist group Queer Appalachia has done amazing projects such as Electric Dirt.
See their website for examples of their projects. https://www.queerappalachia.com/.
22. In the category of documentaries, we love Harlan County U.S.A. by Barbara Kopple (1976)
and Matewan by John Sayles (1987).
228 N o t e s t o C h a p t e r 4
23. West Virginia Office of Miners Health, Safety, and Training, “West Virginia Coal Mining
Facts,” West Virginia Mine Safety. https://minesafety.wv.gov/historical-statistical-data/
wv-coal-facts/.
24. Hiroko Tabuchi, “Coal Mining Jobs That Trump Would Bring Back No Longer
Exist,” New York Times, March 29, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/
coal-jobs-trump-appalachia.html.
25. As an interesting footnote to the making of this movie, Larry introduced us to former
West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Heckler, who was an adamant opponent of strip
mining. We interviewed him, and he was initially in favor of our project. Later, upon
considering Annie’s porn-­star past and Beth’s queerness, he asked that the interview
be removed from the film, as he was concerned that it would adversely affect his
reputation. We honored his request; however, we also realized the vast chasm that existed
between environmental activists who identified as heteronormative and us, queers who
didn’t necessarily fit with the hippie stereotype, even though Annie had been a hippie
in her youthful days. Beth was both an insider and an outsider in West Virginia, but
Annie was a complete outsider, except everyone somehow knew who she was. Heckler’s
decision to pull out of our film motivated us to continue our ecosexual activist approach,
since we reasoned it would be impossible to hide who we were, nor did we want to hide.
26. A mine’s high wall is a dangerous sheer cliff that demarcates the edge of the excavated,
mined land and where unmined land begins. It is as high as the mine is deep.
27. This quotation is from Goodbye Gauley Mountain and was also quoted in Nicole Seymour,
Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the Ecological Age (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2018), 218.
28. Patricia Spangler, The Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster: An Unabridged History (U.S.: Wythe-­
North Publishing, 2008).
29. Lauran Whitworth, “Goodbye Gauley Mountain, Hello Eco-­Camp: Queer Environmen-
talism in the Anthropocene,” Feminist Theory 20, no. 1 (2019): 76.
30. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, 144.

5. Happy Trails and the Climax of the Love Art Lab

1. During the workshop environmental activists doing tree-sit protests taught Claire how
to rappel. We loved this serendipitous connection to the previous UCSC Science Build-
ing Tree-­Sitters, whose presence we were unable to acknowledge during the
Green Wedding.
2. The Region of Murcia, Spain, was the forthcoming venue in fall 2010 of Manifesta 8, the
European Biennial of Contemporary Art.
 Notes to Ch apter 5 229
3. Our collaborators came from Italy, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, England, the United
States, Germany, France, Croatia, Norway, France, Switzerland, Canada, Peru, Mexico,
Russia, Australia, Argentina, and Belgium.
4. Michelle Tea, “The Fifth Wedding,” The Believer, no. 67 (November 1, 2009), 20.
5. Reverend Billy has been arrested dozens of times for such actions. To read about this
event, see Jake Offenhartz, “Rev. Billy Arrested for Planting Rainbow Flag at Central Park
Tent Hospital Run by Anti-­Gay Group,” gothamist, April 6, 2020. https://gothamist.com/
news/rev-billy-arrested-planting-rainbow-flag-central-park-tent-hospital.
6. Billy Talen had coproduced Annie Sprinkle’s shows in his performance series Solo Mio
Festival. He and his collaborators produced Annie Sprinkle Post-­Porn Modernist at the
beautiful Cowell Theater in San Francisco’s Fort Mason to sold-­out crowds. This festival
also later produced Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn at the Magic Theater in Fort Mason.
7. Altadenablog became Altadenapoint but then finally shut down on April 10, 2015. The
announcement was “Ecosexual Wedding Planned at Farnsworth Park, October 23,”
altadenablog. http://altadenablog.altadenahistoricalsociety.org/archive/www.altadenablog
.com/2010/09/ecosexual-wedding-planned-at-farnsworth-park-oct-23.html.
8. I Have Morals (signed name of commenter), comment on “Ecosexual wedding planned
at Farnsworth Park, October 23,” altadenablog, September 23, 2010.
9. “Dear Moon: The Wedding’s Off,” altadenablog, October 13, 2010. http://altadenablog
.altadenahistoricalsociety.org/archive/www.altadenablog.com/2010/10/dear-moon-the
-weddings-off.html.
10. Terry Gross, letter to Kathleen Ritner, deputy director of County of Los Angeles Depart-
ment of Parks and Recreation, October 12, 2010. Unpublished.
11. http://altadenablog.altadenahistoricalsociety.org/archive/www.altadenablog.com/2010/
10/big-gay-lunar-wedding-is-back-on.html.
12. Many nonprofits and art spaces in the city have had to leave since the housing crash of
2008 combined with the influx of tech companies, which raised the cost of everything.
Sadly, the Center for Sex and Culture also closed its brick and mortar in 2019.
13. We had first met Dragonfly Diva, aka Robin Laverne Wilson, in West Virginia when she
was protesting MTR with Reverend Billy’s Church of Stop Shopping Choir, of which
she was a member. We loved her at first sight and knew she would be a great addition to
our symposium, so we flew her out from New York.

6. Off the Beaten Path

1. The CA$H Grant is Creative Assistance for the Small (Organization) and Hungry (Artist),
founded in 1999. https://www.theatrebayarea.org/page/cashgrants.
230 N o t e s t o C h a p t e r 7
2. For instance, Sheila Malone, a professional lighting designer, used her own personal
theater lights to complete her design, and Luke Wilson built a beautiful stage set featur-
ing an outdoor compost toilet. Designer Kern Toy created computer graphics for us.
3. This festival (QNYI) is produced by Zvonimir Dobrović, who also produced our Green
Wedding to the Earth during his annual Queer Zagreb festival.

7. E.A.R.T.H. Lab Experiments

1. For more information on our International Ecosex Symposium, see the webpage (http://
ecosexlab.org). Regarding Paul’s symposium, see Museo National Centro de Arte Reina
Sofía, “Beatriz Preciado: The Death of the Clinic,” Somateca Program for Advanced
Studies in Critical Practices, March 9, 2019 (https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/activities/
beatriz-preciado-death-clinic). For more information on the Somateca Program, see the
website (https://www.museoreinasofia.es/actividades/somateca-presentacion-programa
-practicas-criticas).
2. Paul B. Preciado, “Somateca Presentation of the Critical Practices Program.” https://
www.museoreinasofia.es/actividades/somateca-presentacion-programa-practicas-criticas.
3. On Occupy Bernal, see website (http://occupybernal.org/wordpress/). Also see
“Petaluma Zero in on Foreclosures,” sfgate.com, Monday, February 6, 2012. https://
www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Occupy-Bernal-Petaluma-zero-in-on-foreclosures
-3059384.php.
4. Mating Leopard Slugs was originally aired on BBC Two’s program Nature’s Weirdest Events
in 2015. It is available on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/16731697). Forest Love is available on
Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/1429618). Green Porno: Praying Mantis, co-­directed by Jody
Shapiro and Rossellini and written by Rossellini, was produced in 2008 in association
with Sundance TV. It is available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK
yg7pYEAoY.
5. Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, “Bourges, France,” First International Ecosex
Symposium, Emmetrop Cultural Center, July 4–­6, 2013. http://ecosexlab.org/schedule/
france/.
6. Collaborator credits for our contingent in the Santa Cruz Pride Parade can be found
online. https://theecosexuals.ucsc.edu/santa-cruz-pride/.
7. Food and drink sponsors are all listed on our website. https://theecosexuals.ucsc.edu/
our-sponsors/food-drink-sponsors/.
8. Parade credits can be found online. https://theecosexuals.ucsc.edu/sf-pride/.
9. Peter Holley, “Millions Flood New York City and San Francisco Streets to Celebrate
Pride,” Washington Post, June 28, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post
 Notes to Ch apter 8 231
-nation/wp/2015/06/28/millions-flood-new-york-city-and-san-francisco-streets-to
-celebrate-gay-pride/.
10. Dragonfly Diva, “Email to Saul Garcia Lopez,” June 30, 2015. Reprinted by permission.
11. We did not apply to Sundance.
12. For more information, see Pony Express and their Ecosexual Bathhouse project, online.
http://helloponyexpress.com/ecosexual-bathhouse-home.
13. Karin Bolender has a donkey farm in Oregon. Her umbrella project is the Rural Alchemy
Workshop. www.ruralalchemy.com.

8. An Old Whore and a Hillbilly Make a Splash at documenta 14

1. Documenta was founded by Arnold Bode to help Germany move beyond the period of
cultural fascism left over from the Nazis and to elevate the spirit of this war-­torn city,
which had 95 percent of its center destroyed by Allied bombing raids during World War
II. Bode remained the exhibition’s artistic director through documenta 4. Since 1972, each
consecutive exhibition has been guided by a different artistic director, which gives each
documenta a different focus and feel. Because this is not a commercial exhibition, artists
are able to take risks and be experimental with the work that they exhibit.
2. For more information on the Parliament of Bodies, see the documenta 14 webpage.
https://www.documenta14.de/en/public-programs/927/the-parliament-of-bodies.
3. Ibid.
4. The number seven referenced Linda M. Montano’s seven-­year piece and seemed a nice
amount of time.
5. Think Zen for Head by Nam June Paik or Yoko Ono’s film No. 4, which consists entirely of
famous people’s bottoms.
6. Sofia Lotto Persio, “Gay Activist Zak Kostopoulos lynched to death in Greece,” Pink News
(September 24, 2018) https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/09/24/gay-activist-zak-kosto
poulos-lynched-to-death-in-greece/.
7. Published by Gates of Heck, 1998. Features Annie’s photographs of sex workers and
artists, co-­created with Katharine Gates.
8. Joy directed our walking tour of Bernal Heights for the International Queer Arts Festi-
val, our walking tour for the Outsider Festival sponsored by Vortex in Austin, and our
Wedding to the Soil for the Donaufest in Krems, Austria.
9. We met Hiroko in 2008 during the Intervene! Interrupt! Rethinking Art as Social Prac-
tice conference in Santa Cruz. She is also a curator and brought our work to Japan for the
Saitama Triennale in 2020 as an installation, How to Be Better Lovers with the Earth—­An
Ecosex Clinic.
232 N o t e s t o C h a p t e r 8
10. We have used this term throughout the book, and we would be remiss if we did not
recognize the contributions of sex expert Susie Bright, who popularized the word.
11. We made a printed program with all our clinician’s names, backgrounds, and topic offer-
ings. The programs were handed out as people entered the Clinic.

Conclusion
1. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).
2. Annie Sprinkle, with Beth Stephens, The Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm—­For Every
Body (Emeryville, Calif.: Greenery Press, 2017).
3. The book launched the day after our Ecosex Symposium in Santa Cruz, at Pure Pleasure,
a mother-­daughter-­owned sex toy shop (currently online). People from the symposium
gave readings from the book, including Kim TallBear and Betty Grumble.
4. William Nardi, “ ‘Ecosexual’ Professor Spurs Movement: Have Sex with the Earth to Save
It,” The College Fix, September 5, 2017. https://www.thecollegefix.com/ecosexual-professor
-spurs-movement-sex-earth-save/.
5. Peter Ruocco, “Eco Artists Transform ‘Mother Earth’ into ‘Lover Earth,’ ” KQED Arts,
June 21, 2016. https://www.kqed.org/arts/11662657/ecosex-artists-transform-mother
-earth-into-lover-earth.
6. Mary Katherine Tramontana, “Ecosexuals Are Queering Environmentalism,” Teen Vogue,
June 30, 2017. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/ecosexual.
7. Lisa Bonos, “‘How Ecosexual Are You?’: Why Some Prefer Lover Earth to Mother Earth,”
Washington Post, April 22, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/04/22/
how-ecosexual-are-you-why-some-prefer-lover-earth-mother-earth/?utm_term=.45
665710f24f.
8. Regarding plants, see Peter Tomkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants: A
Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man
(New York: Harper, 2018); Michael Pollen, “The Intelligent Plant,” New Yorker, Decem-
ber 15, 2013 (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant).
Regarding water, see Masaru Emoto, who did quite a bit of research on this topic that
he published in his book The Secret Life of Water (New York: Atria, 2011). Many scientists
criticized his findings.
9. For a nuanced perspective on this critique of the movement, see Megan Wallace, “A
Future World—­Eco-­porn: The Movement That Says Sex Can Save the Planet,” Dazed,
May 14, 2019. https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/44391/1/ecosexuals
-eco-porn-sex-environmentalism-elizabeth-stephens-annie-sprinkle.
 Notes to Con c lus ion 233
10. There’s a fantastic new documentary film about the Biospherians and their projects, titled
Spaceship Earth. See further resources in our Between the Covers section of this book.
11. Quoted from an email to Annie, January 10, 2020. The seven years are January 1, 2020 to
December 31, 2027. Her video Nurse! Nurse! is not to be missed. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=EctbZtb79_k.
12. For more on Joe’s work and his home-­study course, see his websites (www.eroticmassage
.com and www.orgasmicyoga.com).
13. Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens, “Vows for Marrying the Earth,” The Sex and
Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone, ed. Carol Queen and Shar
Rednour (Concord, Calif.: Barnaby, 2015), 258–­61.
14. Email from Helena May, July 11, 2019.
15. Damian Carrington, “Sixth Mass Extinction of Wildlife Accelerating, Scientists Warn,”
The Guardian, June 1, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/
sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn.
16. Stacy Alaimo, “Nature,” Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, ed. Lisa Disch and Mary
Hawkesworth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 21.
 BETWEEN THE COVERS

Related and Recommended Books and Movies

Ahmed, Sarah. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univer-
sity Press, 2006.
Alaimo, Stacy. Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
Alaimo, Stacy. “Nature.” Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Lisa Disch and Mary
Hawkesworth, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Anderlini-­D’Onofrio, SerenaGaia, and Lindsay Hagamen, eds. Ecosexuality: Creating Sustain-
able Partnerships and Loving This Sacred, Orgasmic Earth. Puerto Rico: 3WK, 2015.
Barad, Karen Michelle. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of
Matter and Meaning. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006.
Barker, Joanne. Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 2017.
Beuys, Joseph. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man: Writings by and Interviews
with the Artist. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1990.
Biehl, Janet, and Peter Staudenmaier. Ecofascism Revisited: Lessons from the German Experience.
Porsgrunn, Norway: New Compass Press, 2011.
Bogad, L. M. Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements. New York and
London: Routledge, 2005.
Bright, Deborah. The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire, 276–87. London and
New York: Routledge, 1998.
Chapadjiev, Sabrina, ed. “Double Trouble in the Love Art Lab: Our Breast Cancer Experi-
ments.” Interview by Sabrina Chapadjiev with Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle.
In Live through This: On Creativity and Self-­Destruction, 105–17. New York: Seven Stories
Press, 2012.
236 B e t w e e n t h e C o v e r s
Code, Lorraine. Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location. Studies in Feminist Phi-
losophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Goto Collins, Reiko, and Timothy Martin Collins. “Imagination and Empathy: Artists with
Trees.” In Participatory Research in More-­Than-­Human Worlds, ed. Michelle Bastian, Owain
Jones, Niamh Moore, and Emma Roe. London: Taylor and Francis, 2016.
Davis, Angela. Women, Race, and Class. New York: Random House, 1989.
Dees, Janet, and Joanne Lefrak, eds. Linda Mary Montano: You Too Are a Performance Artist: Art
and Everyday Life. Santa Fe, N.M.: Site Santa Fe, 2013.
Deloria, Vine. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. New York: Macmillan, 1988.
Demos, T. J., ed. The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate
Change. Forthcoming.
Freeman, Elizabeth. The Wedding Complex: Forms of Belonging in Modern American Culture.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002.
Gaard, Greta. “Toward a Queer Ecofeminism.” Hypatia 12, no. 1 (1997): 114–­37.
Green, Charles. The Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism. Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. New York and London:
Rizzoli, Troika, 2000.
Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Rout-
ledge, 1991.
———. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 2016.
———. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Harrison, Helen Mayer, and Newton Harrison. The Time of the Force Majeure: After 45 Years,
Counterforce Is on the Horizon. Munich: Prestel, 2016.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Hendricks, Geoffrey. Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia, and Rutgers
University, 1958–­1972. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
hooks, bell. Belonging: A Culture of Place. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Hunter, Lynette. Disunified Aesthetics: Situated Textuality, Performativity, Collaboration. Montreal:
McGill-­Queen’s University Press, 2014.
Independent Female Filmmakers. “A Conversation with Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens.”
In A Chronicle through Interviews, Profiles, and Manifestos. Michelle Meeks, ed., 271–­91. New
York and London: Focal Press/Routledge, 2019.
Klein, Jennie. “Intervene! Interrupt! Rethinking Art as Social Practice.” Art Papers 32, no. 8
(2008): 18–­21.
 Between th e C overs 237
Klein, Jennie, and Natalie Loveless, eds. Responding to Site: The Performance Work of Marilyn
Arsem. Bristol, UK, and Chicago, Ill.: Intellect Ltd., 2020.
Latour, Bruno. “An Attempt at Writing a ‘Compositionist Manifesto.’ ” New Literary History 41,
no. 3 (Summer 2010): 471–­90.
Lewis, Helen Matthews, Linda Johnson, and Donald Askins. Colonialism in Modern America:
The Appalachian Case. Boone, N.C.: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1984.
Macy, Joanna. World as Lover, World as Self. Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax Press, 1991.
McSpadden, Russ. “Sex, Art, and Ecology in Coal Country: An Interview with Beth Stephens
and Annie Sprinkle.” Earth First! The Journal of Ecological Resistance 33, no.1 (2013): 61–­65.
Montano, Linda. Art in Everyday Life. Los Angeles: Astro Artz Press, 1981.
———. Letters from Linda M. Montano. Jennie Klein, ed. London: Routledge, 2005.
Morris, Michael J. “Orientations as Materializations: The Love Art Laboratory’s Eco-­Sexual
Blue Wedding to the Sea.” In Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. Nadine George-­Graves,
ed., 480–­503. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Mortimer-­Sandilands, Catriona, and Bruce Erickson. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics,
Desire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
Pollan, Michael. “The Intelligent Plant: Scientists Debate a New Way of Understanding
Flora.” New Yorker. December 16, 2013. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/
the-intelligent-plant.
Preciado, Paul B. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. New
York: Feminist Press, 2013.
Ruhé, Harry, and Jeannette Dekeukeleire. The Adventures of Willem de Ridder. Amsterdam:
Cultclub, 2017.
Santos, Nelson, ed. DUETS: Ben Cuevas and Annie Sprinkle in Conversation. New York: Visual
AIDS for the Arts, 2016.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, and Adam Frank. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003.
Seymour, Nicole. Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the Ecological Age. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
Sprinkle, Annie. Annie Sprinkle’s Post-­Porn Modernist. Amsterdam: Torch Gallery, 1991. Rev. ed.
New York: Art Unlimited, 1993. Rev. ed. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1998.
Sprinkle, Annie, and Gabrielle Cody. Hardcore from the Heart—­The Pleasures, Profits and Politics
of Sex in Performance. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001.
Sprinkle, Annie, and Elizabeth Stephens. “Ecosexuality.” In Gender: Nature. Iris van der Tuin,
ed., 313–­30. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2016.
238 B e t w e e n t h e C o v e r s
Sprinkle, Annie, with Beth Stephens. The Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm: For Every Body. San
Francisco: Greenery Press, 2017.
Stephens, Elizabeth. “Becoming Eco-­Sexual.” Canadian Theater Review 144, no. 1 (Fall 2010):
13–­19.
———. “Critical and Aesthetic Research in Environmental Art.” Ph.D. diss. University of Cali-
fornia, Davis, 2015. Ann Arbor ProQuest (10036184).
———. “On Becoming Appalachian Moonshine.” Performance Research: A Journal of Performing
Arts 17, no. 4 (2012): 61–­66.
Stephens, Elizabeth, and Annie Sprinkle. “Beth and Annie in Conversation, Part One: Inter-
view with Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison.” Total Art Journal (2011). http://
totalartjournal.com/archives/1940/beth-and-annie-in-conversation-part-one/.
———. “Love Art Lab.” https://loveartlab.ucsc.edu/.
Stüttgen, Timi. “Post Porn Politics; Queer Feminist Perspective on the Politics of Porn Per-
formance and Sex Work as Culture Production.” In Post Porn Brunch, Elizabeth M. Stephens,
Annie M. Sprinkle and Cosey Fanni Tutti, 88–­115. Berlin: B Books, 2010.
TallBear, Kimberly. Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic
Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Taormino, Tristan, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-­Young,
eds. Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure. New York: Feminist Press at
CUNY, 2013.
Tola, Miriam. “Planetary Lovers: On Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens’ Sexecology.” Other
Globes, Past and Peripheral Imaginations of Globalization. Simon Ferdinand, Esther Pereen,
and Irene Villaescusa, eds., 231–­48. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Toland, Alexandra, Jay Stratton Noller, and Gerd Wessolek, eds. Field to Palette—­Dialogues on
Soil and Art in the Anthropocene. New York: CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, 2018.
Tompkins, Peter, and Christopher Bird. The Secret Life of Plants. 1st ed. New York: Harper and
Row, 1973.
Tramposch, Emma, and Balitrónica Gómez. Guest eds., Elaine A. Peña and William Stark, eds.
Gómez-­Peña Unplugged: Texts on Live Art, Social Practice and Imaginary Activism (2008—­2019).
New York: Routledge, 2020.
van den Hengel, Louis. “For Love of the World: Material Entanglements in Ecosexual Perfor-
mance.” In Entanglements and Weavings: Diffractive Approaches to Gender and Love. Marianne
Schleicher and Deirdre Byrne, eds. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
Vance, Carol, ed. Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1984.
Weiss, Stephanie Iris. Ecosex—­Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable.
Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press, 2010.
 Between th e C overs 239
Whitworth, Lauran. “Goodbye Gauley Mountain, Hello Eco Camp: Queer Environmentalism
in the Anthropocene.” Feminist Theory 20, no. 1 (July 2018): 73–­92.
Williams, Linda. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999.

Selected Feature Films

Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn. Directed by Annie Sprinkle and Scarlot Harlot, based on a
show directed by Emilio Cubeiro. 1999. www.anniesprinkle.org.
Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story. Directed by Elizabeth Stephens with Annie
Sprinkle. Kino Lorber, 2013.
Spaceship Earth. Directed by Matt Wolf. RadicalMedia, 2020.
Water Makes Us Wet—­An Ecosexual Love Story. Directed by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie
Sprinkle. Juno Films, 2017.
What Would Jesus Buy? The Movie That Santa Doesn’t Want You to See. Directed by Rob VanAlke-
made. Arts Alliance America, 2008.

Selected Short Films

Ecosexual Weddings. Directed by Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle. Vimeo. 10 minutes.
Imagine the Earth Is Your Lover. Curated by Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. The One Min-
utes, Holland. 23 minutes.
How Dogs Vote 2020—­Fur Babies Fur Biden. Directed by Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, and
Keith Wilson. YouTube. 54 seconds.

Our Websites
Sprinklestephens.org
Goodbyegauleymountain.org
Watermakesuswet.org
Sexecology.org (archived)
Loveartlab.org (archived)
Elizabethstephens.org (archived)
Anniesprinkle.org (archived)
Theecosexuals.org (summer projects 2015–­16, archived)
Ecosexlab.org (First International Ecosex Symposium, archived)
 INDEX

Abramović, Marina and Ulay, 3, 5, 55, 226n3 Appalachian Mountains, xiii, 34, 91, 92, 100,
Abrams, Danielle, 79 103, 113, 118, 120, 124, 137
Acconci, Vito, 3, 168 aquaphiles, 14, 154, 159, 175
actions, 6, 8, 16, 22, 78, 88, 97, 151, 193, 229 Aquarius Theater, 4
Activista, 179 Arsem, Marilyn, and Bob Raymond, 3, 237;
ACT UP, 2, 158 Mobius, 3, 4; Pig Baby (series), 3
aerophiles, 14, 159 Art Practices: A Whole Systems Approach
Aeroplastics Gallery, 42, 219, 224n3 (PhD program), 10
AIDS, 2, 5, 9, 41, 46, 210, 226n4, 237 Athey, Ron, 88
Albert (peacock), 75–76, 200, 220 Attenborough, Sir David: Mating Leopard
Allen, John, 196 Slugs, 149, 230n4
Allison, Dorothy: Bastard Out of Carolina, 12,
222n20 Bachzetsis, Alexandra, 176
Anapol, Deborah, 118 Baker, Cindy, 71, 117, 122
Anderlini-D’Onofrio, Serena Gaia, 118, 122, Balitronica (Gómez), 159, 188, 218, 238
235 Ballengee, Brandon, 195
Anderson, Laurie, 3, 5 Baltromejus, Rolf, 106
Andrews, Seth Temple, 143, 155 Bar-On, Adina, 103
Angelidakis, Andreas, 173 Bausch, Pina, 155
Anthropocene, 19, 20, 228n29, 238, 239; Beck, Glenn, 193
anthropocentric, 19, 212 beesexual, 198
anti-porn feminists, xiv, 83, 84–86, 179 Beuys, Joseph, 8, 66, 183, 187, 195, 221n6, 235
Appalachia, 7, 12, 29, 91, 93, 95–96, 99, 134, 192, Bi Any Other Name (book), 39, 224n2
227n21, 228n24 Big Nudes Descending a Staircase, 71–72
242 I n d e x
Bike Smut Film Festival, 199 Carrellas, Barbara, 5, 38, 48, 56, 57, 60, 61, 166,
Black Lives Matter, 169, 202, 212, 213, 217, 231 219
Black Wedding to Coal, 134 Castro, Jota, 106, 109, 109, 112
Blue Weddings, 104, 118, 119; to the Sea, 107, Center for Sex and Culture, 11, 59, 68, 122, 138,
108, 110, 112, 121, 127, 136, 237; to the Sky, 140, 157, 218, 229n12
151 Chacon, Raven, 195
Bob (dog), xiii, 58–59, 63, 78, 100, 220 chakra, 9, 53, 67, 68, 69, 104, 110, 112, 120, 121,
Body Electric School, 38, 225n12 123, 215–16
Bolender, Karin: Rural Alchemy Workshop, Chaudhuri, Una, 166, 218, 240
168, 231n13 Chemo Fashion Show, 63
Bonder, Diane, 4, 42, 45, 55, 225n2, 225n13 Ciacchi, Teri, 196
Bonds, Judy, 118 Chief Robert Joseph, 173
Bone II—A Performance Saga (performance Chin, Mel, 195
art festival), 87 Chthulucene, 20, 223n40, 228n30, 236
Bornstein, Kate, 36, 166 Club 90: 48, 55, 208, 218
Bosom Ballet, 65, 226n6 Coe, Xandra, 165, 218
Bradburn, Lexi, 106 Cohen, Zen, 159
Breast Cancer Ballet (collage), 65 180 conceptual art, 8, 135
Brew, Kathy, 106 corporeal sex, 7
Bright, Deborah, 12, 222n19, 225n9, 235 cosmic orgasm, 25, 132
Bronzed Panty Collection, 59, 180 Cosmic Orgasm Awareness Week (work-
Brown, Paul Corbit, 98, 159, 218 shop), 38
Bruguera, Tania, 88 COVID-19, 13, 22, 23, 144, 169, 197, 198, 200,
Buczak, Brian, 9 203, 211
bulldaggers, 160 COYOTE Howls (newsletter), 12
Burning Man Festival, 116, 144, 155 Cremer, Daniel, 169
Butch (dog), xiii, 155, 161–64, 166, 200, 203, Cremer, Heidi, 158
220 crip politics, 111, 212
butch (lesbian/dyke), 44, 88, 177, 200, 208 Cronin, Cassandra (aka La Bruja), 158
Butterfly, Julia, 77 Cuddle, x, 58–59, 69, 176–78
Cullum, Bonnie, 5, 116, 156, 196, 218
Cage, John, 8 culture wars, 12, 41, 224n2
cancer, xiv, 61–70, 64, 74, 90, 91, 107, 163, 165,
203, 209, 210, 235 Damon, Betsy, 195
cancer erotica, 63 Davis, Angela, 12, 222n21, 236
Canestro, Don, 164, 219 Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, 41

Demos, T. J., 168, 236
de Ridder, Willem, 5, 42, 43, 72, 209, 221n4, 237
Diana and Actaeon: The Forbidden Glimpse of
the Naked Body, 66, 226n7
Dinkel, Christina, 138, 140, 177, 178, 181, 218
Dirt Bed, x, 152
Dirty Sexecology, 87–88, 90, 127, 138–39, 185,
227n15
Dirty Wedding to the Soil, 141
Dixon, Luke, 73, 104, 151, 152, 167, 197, 219
Dobrovic, Zvonimir, 86, 87, 108, 218, 230
documenta 14 (art exhibition), x, xiv, 166,
171–88, 195, 196, 219, 223n28, 231n1, 231n2
Dolores, Maria, 129, 179
Dona Nieto (aka LaTigressa), 122
Do-Right Burlesque Troupe, 156
Doujak, Ines, 171
Do You Mind? (film), 94
Dragonfly Diva, 122, 160, 167, 168, 169, 197,
218, 229n13, 231n10
drag queen/king, 86, 138, 174, 179, 201
Dr. Bubuke (aka Bubu), 179,
Dreams (breathe/don’t breathe) of Home, 3
Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex—Make Over Your
Sex Life (book), 60, 226n5
Duchamp, Marcel, 71–72, 74
Dunaway, Judy, 167
Dunye, Cheryl, 42, 225n5
Earth as lover, 16–18, 21, 139
Earth First, 98, 237
E.A.R.T.H. Lab, 127, 147, 153–56, 167, 169, 195,
201, 219, 240
Earthy—An Ecosex Boot Camp, 138, 140
Ecosex/ecosexual: eco-BDSM, 133;
ecofeminism, 2, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 95, 202,
In dex 243
212, 223n31, 223n33, 236; eco-gasmic, 151;
ecological art, 10; ecological thinking, 6,
236; ecosex activists, 15, 26; ecosex art, 1 194;
ecosexercises, 132, 139; Ecosex Manifesto,
13, 14, 122, 158; ecosex movement, xiii,
13, 198; ecosex phobia, 116; Ecosex
Symposium, 21, 117–18, 122, 147–48, 153, 167,
199, 230n1, 230n5, 232n3, 239; ecosexual art
projects, 6, 191; ecosexual gaze, 26, 46, 90,
139, 149; Ecosex Walking Tour(s), 16, 25, 90,
139, 143, 148, 149, 181; Ecosex workshops,
25, 127, 129, 133, 150, 152, 155, 191, 200
Ecstasy Breathing and Energy Orgasms
workshop, 39
Ellingsen, Tommy Hol, 10
Ellsworth, Angela, 42, 48, 55, 122, 196, 225n5,
226n4; Museum of Walking, 196, 225n5
Emmetrop, 71, 72, 108, 149, 150, 151, 152, 179,
218, 230n5; Erik Noulette/King Erik/Dr.
Papito 71, 72, 108–9, 149, 179, 187, 188, 218;
Mamita/Cecile Jamet 108–9, 149, 179, 187,
188
Environmentalism Outside the Box—An
Ecosex Symposium, 21, 167
Esposito, Roberto, 110
Ethical Slut, The (book), 190
Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm—For Every
Body (book), 182, 190, 232n2
Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death, and
Art, 66–67, 73, 90, 226n8
Extreme Kiss, 66, 73–4, 151
Extreme Kissing Workshop, 73–74, 104
Faire l’amour avec Marcel D., 71, 74, 149
Fairfield, Joy Brooke, 139, 142, 143, 167, 181,
197, 218
244 I n d e x
Fake Mustache Drag King Troupe, the, 71 Galindo, Guillermo, 196, 218
Fear Society, 106–9 Gallagher, Patty, 87, 138, 140
Feldman, Ronald, 195 Gallina, Raelyn, 116
Femina Potens, v, 58–61, 74, 90, 122, 178, 198, García-Lopez, Saul, 157, 218, 231n10
218 Geldner, Grace, 153
Feminist Porn Book, The: The Politics of genderqueer, 118, 121, 128, 132, 179, 201
Producing Pleasure, 13, 222n24, 238 Glasgay! Festival, 47 67, 73
Ffarrabas, Nye/Bici Forbes, 8, 55 Golden Dawn, the 179
Finley, Karen, 5, 166, 225n7 Gold Wedding to the Sun, 123, 137
Finley, Ron, 195 Gomez-Peña, Guillermo, 13, 77, 79, 80–82, 88,
First International Ecosex Symposium, 157–59, 188, 197, 218, 227n6, 238
147–48, 153, 230n1, 230n5, 239 Goodbye Gauley Mountain (film), 90–101, 120,
Flare Festival, 166 147, 148, 149, 154, 159, 164, 165, 194, 196,
Fletcher, Sean, 79 228n27, 228n29, 239
Flores, April, 118 Good Vibrations, 11, 108, 124, 198
Flores, Rick, 169 Grace, Lori, 122
Flux Priest, 55 Greene, Graham, 104
FluxSex, 187 Greene, Michael, 70
Fluxus, 2, 5, 8–9, 41–43, 56, 72, 79, 87, 103, 109, Greene, Vivien, 104
178, 195, 209, 221n7, 236 Greenpeace, 149, 159, 199
Fog Wedding, 144, 201 Green Wedding to the Earth, ix, 7, 76–80, 86, 103,
food-porn addiction, 188 158, 230n3
Forest Love, 149, 230n4 Grey, Kris (aka Justin Credible), 119, 137
Foucault, Michel de, 190, 232n1 Grumble, Betty, 167, 232n3
Franceschini, Amy, 143, 168, 201, 218 Grumble (aka Michael Bowersox), 98
Franklin Furnace, 9, 53, 54, 219, 225n1, Gwawaenuk First Nation, 173
226n6
Franko B., 88 Hafler Trio, 175
Freeman, Jordan, 97, 119, 164, 167, 188, 196, Hamidi, Tania, 118, 122
218 Haraway, Donna, xii, 20, 101, 155, 156, 167, 194,
Fritz, Kate, 158 218, 223n40, 223n41, 228n30; Staying with
Fuck for Forest, 10–11, 149 the Trouble, xii, 20, 101, 223n40, 223n41,
Futurefarmers, 143, 201, 218 228n30
Hardcore from the Heart (book), 5, 221n4
Gaard, Greta 18, 223n33, 236 Hardy, Janet, 190, 218
Gaiaboi, 169 Harrison, Newton, 196
 In dex 245
Harrison, Newton, and Helen Mayer, 10, 77, Johnston, Jill, 8
79, 92, 139, 196, 218, 222n10, 227n5, 236, Jones, Joe, 8
238; “Homily: Making Earth,” 79, 227n5 Journal of EcoSex Research, 2, 221n3
Hart, Veronica, 48, 78, 104, 118 Jwala, 38, 68
Hay, Harry, 10
Helms, Jesse, 44, 45, 46 Kaprow, Allan, 8
Hendricks, Geoffrey/Cloudsmith, 8, 41, 55, Karlsaue Park, 184
106, 221n7, 222n10, 236 Kayford Mountain, 96, 97
Hennessy, Keith, 59, 141 Kelly, Lindsay, 103, 220
herstories, 184 Kemp, Jonathan, 129
Herstory of Porn (film), 5, 11, 47, 90, 221n4, Kikuchi, Hiroko, 187
229n6, 239 Kipper Kids, 5
Higgins, Dick, 8 Kirschenmann, Fred, 168
High, Kathy, 196 Klein, Barbara, 90, 218
High Performance Rodeo, 70 Klein, Jennie, 118, 217, 226n2, 236, 237, 240
Highways Performance Space, 59, 117, 218 Knowles, Alison, 8, 87
hillbilly, 23, 66, 93–96, 178, 194 Komori, Jane, 169
hippies, 2, 21, 31, 35, 75, 141, 181, 192, 228n25 Kosmos Theater, 90, 218, 226n8
Hoffman, Abbie: Steal this Book, 31 Kostopoulos, Zak, 179, 231n6
Honeyheart Reiter, Hannah, 155, 158 Kramer, Joseph, 38, 47, 68, 79, 118, 119, 120,
hooks, bell, 12, 77, 222n22, 236 123, 198, 199, 218
Hopkins, Candice, 173 Kruglanski, Aviv, 128
Hughs, Holly, 3, 225n7
Hutchins, Loraine, 39, 220, 224n2 LaBare, Sha 13, 121, 122, 220
La bestia y el soberano (The Beast and the
I Do (exhibition at Femina Potens), 58–59 Ruler, exhibition), 171
Instant Showgirl Workshop, 106 Lady Monster, 79, 109, 117, 118, 123, 124, 158,
International Queer Arts Festival, 157, 231n8 167, 197
International Workshop Festival, 73 Lake Kallavesi, xiii, 137–38, 220, 227n7
Intervene! Interrupt! Rethinking Art as La Reina Sofía Museum, 101, 148, 230n1
Social Practice (conference), 76, 103, Lawrence, Robert, 68, 118, 122, 157, 218
226n2, 231n9, 236 Learning from Athens (documenta 14 theme),
Irwin, Robert, 3 171
Leclerc, Andréane, 121
jaz, 174 Lee, Jiz, 118, 122
Johansson, Leona, 10 Le Grande Eco-Bouffe, 151
246 I n d e x
lesbian gaze, 44 Mintz, Sydney, 168
“Let’s All Be Keepers of the Mountains” Molina, Jorge, 158
(song), 119 Monk, Meredith, 3
LGBTQIA+, xiv, 15, 51, 100, 170, 157, 179, 192, Montano, Linda M., 5, 9, 38, 53, 55, 79, 106, 121,
194 123, 137, 167, 169, 196, 197, 204, 209, 217,
LGBTQIA+E, xiv, 22, 157 221n8, 222n9, 222n10, 231n4, 236, 237, 240;
Liebegott, Ali, 29 Art in Everyday Life, 9, 221n8, 237; Art/Life
Lippard, Lucy, 195, 209 Counseling, 9, 10; Art/Life Institute, 48, 53;
Little Shiva, 174, 218 Sister Rosita’s Summer Saint Camp, 9, 10, 53,
Living Art project: Another Twenty-One Years of 222n9
Living Art, 9, 10, 53, 55, 121; 14 Years of Living Montreal Film Festival, 100
Art, 9; 7 Years of Living Art, 9 Monziès, Michael and Sylvie, 150
Love and Taxes, 79 moregasms, 191
Love Art Lab(oratory), ix, 10, 53–55, 58, 61, 68, Morman, Harley (Megan), 71, 117
70, 74, 80, 103, 120, 123–26, 127, 137, 181, 207, Morris, Michael, 119, 122, 237
235, 237, 238 Mother Earth, 16, 17, 77, 197, 232n5, 232n7
Loveless, Natalie, 13, 103, 108, 121, 220, 237 mountaintop removal, 91, 98, 100, 101, 113,
Lover’s Guide to Pedersgata, 80–85 120, 155, 194
Lunch, Lydia, 5 Mulvey, Laura, 44, 225n6
Lune, Sadie, 79, 123 Museum of Modern Art, xiv, 166
Museum School, 3
Making Art into Love and Love into Art Myles, Eileen, 12, 47, 222n17
(workshop), 104
Marks, Kim, 199 Nature Fetishes chart, 183
Marlen, Kristina, 187 neoliberal/neoliberalism, 148, 149, 172, 177,
Mason Gross School of the Arts, 8, 44 186, 236
May, Helena, 153, 200, 233n14 neo-Nazi, xiv, 83, 86, 179
Maybe Baby, 59, 141 New Age environmentalism, 2
McBride, Ambery, 136 New Museum of Contemporary Art, 9
McKenzie, Andrew, 175 Nicoletta, Daniel, 158
McMurry, Jamie, 103 nonbinary, 16, 124, 200, 212
McNairy, Emma, 79, 137 nonhuman, xiii, 6, 18–21, 27, 37–38, 74–75, 99,
Mendieta, Ana, 169, 195 111, 129, 132, 144, 145, 151, 169, 176, 189, 194,
Metamorphosex—The Arts of Love, 5 205, 213, 220
Mikiki, 121 Nouvel, Jean, 129
 In dex 247
Oceguera, Elisa, 168 Preciado, Paul B., v, xi, 22, 71, 72, 74, 106,
O’Connor, Kevin 168 108–9, 112, 148, 171–88, 197, 218, 223n28,
O’Dell, Kathy 5 230n1, 230n2
Ofrenda Lunar: el punto zero G, 129 Private vs. Public, 66
Ohlone people, 168, 217 progressive sex educators, 129
Oliveros, Pauline, 5 Prostitutes’ Rights movement, 12
Ono, Yoko, 8, 231n5 psychoanalytic feminist film theory, 44
On Our Backs (magazine), 63, 133, 224n4 psycho-magician/magic, 135, 136, 204
Orange Wedding, 68–69, 108 Public Cervix Announcement, 6, 87, 127, 181, 198
ORLAN, 62 punk, 2, 71, 127, 128, 129, 135, 138, 158, 181, 187,
Outrageous Desire, 41, 43 200, 201
Ozawa, Seji, 3 Purple Wedding to the Appalachian Mountains,
113, 118–19, 137,
pandemic(s), 13, 22, 46, 200, 201, 211 Purple Wedding to the Moon, 112–17
Parliament of Bodies (public program), pyrophiles 14, 159
172–76, 187, 188, 231n2
Peaches, 59, 141 QDoc Film Festival, 100
Penley, Constance, 13, 59, 201, 218, 222n24, Queen, Carol, 11, 68, 69, 108, 118, 122, 157, 198,
238 218, 222n12, 233n13
Penthouse (magazine), 39, 224n1 Queer Cultural Center (QCC), 138, 157, 218
performance studies, 8, 21, 92 queerdos, 160
Petro, Kaytea, 91, 158 Queer Zagreb festival, 100, 108, 230n3
Pickens, Beth, 29
Pink Screens, 100 Radar Lab, 29
pollen-amorous, xiii, 15, 27, 159 Radical Faeries (Mitch Walker, Don
pollination pod, xi, 143, 153, 158–59, 204 Kilhefner, and John Burnside, founders),
polysexuality, 12, 222n16 10, 196, 222n11
Pornoterrorista, Diana (Torres), 109, 127–29, Ramujkic, Vahida, 128
131–36, 197, 218 rednecks, 75
porn starlet, 4 Rednour, Shar, 198, 233n13
Post-Modern Pinup Pleasure Activist Playing Red Wedding, 54–58, 61, 67, 79, 209
Cards, 181 Reed, Jennifer, 122
Post Porn Modernist (book and performance) Reichert, Isabel, 79
5, 6, 41, 43, 46, 54, 198, 208, 221n4, 225n10, Roma, Valentin, 171
226n6, 227n8, 229n6 Rosa, Quimera, 129
248 I n d e x
rosebud reiki, 187 Sluts and Goddesses, 38, 68, 196, 224n3
Rosekill Farm, 196; Eric “Hoke” Hokanson Smith, Patti, 3
and Jill McDermid, 196, 218 Snow Wedding Instruction Piece, 121
Roselle, Mike, 98 social sculpture, 8
Rossellini, Isabella: Green Porno, 149, 230n4 Somateca Program for Advanced Studies
Royalle, Candida, 12, 48, 55, 59, 60, 61 in Critical Practices (workshop series),
Rubin, Gayle: “Thinking Sex,” 11, 209, 222n14 148–49, 230n1, 230n2
Rutgers University, 8, 12, 29, 41–45, 48, 54, 236 spectrophilia, 72
Rybeck, Abe, 88 Sprinkle/Stephens Scale, 183–85
Stahl, Jadelynn, 159
Sacred Sex workshop, 38 Staiano, Ana Marie, 109
Salvata, Chad, 196 Starbuck, Amanda, 159
San Francisco Doc Fest, 100, 166 St. James, Margo, 12
San Francisco Trans Film Festival, 166 Stolar, Sarah, 104, 109, 115, 119, 121, 137, 143,
Santa Cruz Film Festival, 100, 101, 166 158, 197, 218
Santa Cruz Mountains, 7, 75, 76 Stone, Sandy, 155, 157, 165
Savitri D., 112–16, 218 Stop Shopping Choir, 112, 114, 218, 229n13
Schechner, Richard, 166 Storm, Violetta, 106
Schneemann, Carolee, 5, 79, 87, 193 “strip speak,” 5
School of Visual Arts (SVA), 5, 224n4 Stüttgen, Timi, 109, 238
seadomasochist, 27 Suarez, Cuco, 88, 135–36
Serpent Sanctum, 156 Sundahl, Mithu, 106
7,000 Oaks (7,000 Eichen), 183 Sur Rodney (Sur), 9, 62
sex industry, 5, 37, 42, 45, 199 SWAT team, xiv, 116
sex magic ritual, 5 SwiftDeer, Harley, 39
sexological bodywork, 188, 198 Szymczyk, Adam, 171–72, 179, 219
sexologists, 11, 14, 108, 118, 159, 189
sexperts, 61, 187 Takemoto, Tina 42, 82, 225n5
sexual alchemy, 188 Talen, (Reverend) Billy, 112–17, 115, 155, 218,
Shafner, Shawn, 168 229n5, 229n6
Sheffield Doc Fest, 101 TallBear, Kim, 20, 156, 167, 198, 224n43, 232n3,
shero(e)s, 13, 224n3 238
Shertzer, Becka: Brazen Nectar, 122, 157, 218 Tea, Michelle, 12, 29, 112, 222n18, 229n4
Sidewalk Sex Clinics, 60–61, 80–86, 137, 178–80, Terranova, Fabrizio, 167
187, 210 terraphiles, 14, 159
Silver Wedding to the Rocks, 128, 130 third-wave feminists, 11
 In dex 249
34 Exercises of Freedom, 172 Watts, Robert, 8
tit prints, 41–43, 62 Waxman, Tobaron, 121, 142
Tomlin, Lily, 3 Wehr, Cynthia, 79
Torch Gallery, 42, 219, 224n3, 237 Weiss, Neon, 66
Torres, Helen, 129, 130 Weiss, Stephanie Iris, 218, 238
Toxic, Tommy, 121 Wen, Lee, 103
trans*, transgender, 17, 22, 44, 50, 56, 106, 110, Wender, Wim, 155
119, 129, 155, 165, 159, 166, 174, 177, 179, 198, Wet Dreamers, 174–75
201, 212, 215 Wet Dreams Water Ritual, 172
Transformation Salon, The, 181 White Wedding to the Snow, 120–22, 128, 142
tree hugger, 194 Whole Earth Catalog, 31
tree hugging, 2, Who’s Zoomin’ Who?, 42–46, 225n9
Tsomou, Margarita, 109, 174 Why Whores are My Heroes, 181
“25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth,” 88, 89, Wilke, Hannah and Don Goddard: Intra
139, 149, 167, 180, 183 Venus, 65
Williams, Linda, 12, 59, 239; Hard Core: Power,
University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible, 13,
7, 156, 217, 240 222n23
Urban Tantra, 5 Wills, Tessa, 167
Wilson, Keith, 100, 164, 218, 239
Vance, Carol S.: Pleasure and Danger, 11, Wilson, Martha, 5, 219, 225n1
222n13, 238 Wish You Were Here, 47–48, 225n13
Varble, Stephen, 8 witch(es), 37, 75, 174, 196
Vekasi, Sarah, 119 Wittig, Monique, 12, 222n15; The Lesbian
Venice Biennale, xiv, 106 Body, 12; Les Guérillères, 12
Vera, Veronica, 9–10, 48, 53, 55, 60, 61, 179, 198, Women Against Porn, 12
220, 222n9, 224n3 Wonderpig, Jamie Joy, 155
Voche, Rémi, 151 Wurum, Paul, 122
Volcano, Del LaGrace, 106
Vortex Theatre, 5, 59, 181, 196, 218, 226n8, Yellow Wedding, 70–71, 118–22
231n8 Young, Madison, v, 58, 60, 66–68, 74, 79, 122,
198, 218
Wasserman, Martabel, 168, 220 YuDori, 190
Water Makes Us Wet (film), 156, 163–66, 172,
176, 188, 194, 239 Zoom Wedding to the Earth, 201
Annie Sprinkle is a filmmaker, photographer, performance artist, theater maker,
and visual artist. Her books include Annie Sprinkle: Post-­Porn Modernist; Hardcore from
the Heart: The Pleasures, Profits, and Politics of Sex in Performance; and The Explorer’s Guide
to Planet Orgasm.

Beth Stephens is a filmmaker, performance artist, and environmental activist.

She is professor of art and founding director of the E.A.R.T.H. Lab at the University
of California, Santa Cruz.

Jennie Klein is professor of art history at Ohio University School of Art + Design.

Una Chaudhuri is Collegiate Professor and professor of English, drama, and

environmental studies at New York University. She is coeditor of Animal Acts: Perform-
ing Species Today and coauthor of Ecocide: Research Theatre and Climate Change.

Paul B. Preciado is a philosopher and curator. His books include Testo Junkie:
Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era and Countersexual Manifesto.

Linda Mary Montano is a performance artist, teacher, seeker, and lifeist. Her
videos, writings, and books are available for research.
In 2005, Annie was diagnosed with breast cancer, and we transformed her cancer treatments into
collaborative art projects, such as our Breast Cancer Ballet A & B. Authors’ collection.
For our weddings, we created limited editions of invitations, with RSVP cards inviting guests’
collaborations. After each wedding, we made collages that were exhibited in galleries with the
wedding ephemera. Invitation design by Diane Bonder. Authors’ collection.
During our Orange Wedding, Madison Young wore her orange-­
juicing underwear and made juice for the brides to sip. Costume
design by Piedmont Boutique. Photograph by Fakir Musafar.

Curator Michael Green invited us to do our Yellow Wedding in the

High Performance Rodeo that he produced annually with One
Yellow Rabbit in Calgary, Canada. Artist Victoria Singh was our
Ganeshini of Honor. Photograph courtesy of Yarko Yopyk.
Our publicist Ron Lasko took this publicity photo in 2007 for our performance Exposed:
Experiments in Love, Sex, Death, and Art at Collective Unconscious in New York City, directed by
Neon Weiss. We were assisted on stage by Scout Durwood and Morty Diamond. Photograph
courtesy of Ron Lasko.
In 2008 photographer Julian Cash shot some of our favorite portraits as we experimented with
what ecosexuals would look like and do for the camera. Photograph by Julian Cash.
Our Green Wedding to the Earth was held on May 17, 2008, in the redwood forest on the University
of California, Santa Cruz campus. Photograph courtesy of Lydia Daniller.

Performing as a High Aztec

Priest, artist Guillermo
Gómez-­Peña officiated
our vows for the Green
Wedding. We were assisted
by Beth’s student Nina
Chase. Photograph courtesy
of Lydia Daniller.
 Soprano Emma McNairy
performed an operatic
striptease at the Green Wedding
to the Earth. Photograph
courtesy of Lydia Daniller.

An exhibition of materials from the Green Wedding was at Ohio University’s Trisolini Gallery in
2010, curated by Petra Kralickova. Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Dobson.
Dirty Sexecology was our second two-­woman show. It was directed by Patty Gallagher. We perform
as sexecologists presenting our research and concerns about mountaintop removal coal mining.
Photographs copyright Bettina Frenzel.
We wrote 25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth for a scene in Dirty Sexecology, directed by
Patty Gallagher. This poster was designed by Hoshi Hana in 2018. Authors’ collection.
A promotional image from 2011 for our award-­winning documentary film Goodbye
Gauley Mountain—­An Ecosexual Love Story. Photograph by Julian Cash. Montage by
Daniel Wasko. Authors’ collection.

Just before walking down the aisle to make vows to love, honor, and cherish the
Appalachian Mountains in 2010, we posed for a Purple Wedding portrait while being
styled by our costume maker Sarah Stolar. Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Dobson.
When curator Jota Castro invited us to create a wedding performance for the Venice Biennale, we
decided to marry the Sea. Our wedding day was August 28, 2009, during a heat wave. Photograph
courtesy of Gigi Gatewood.
Our White Wedding to Snow in Ottawa, Canada, was produced by SAW Gallery in a
decommissioned Catholic cathedral. Photograph courtesy of Benoit Aubrey (Ottawa, Canada).
White Wedding to Snow opened with a traditional Mi’kmaq dance by Indigenous artist Thomas
(Starwalker) Clair. Photograph courtesy of Benoit Aubrey (Ottawa, Canada).

Andréane Leclerc, a lovely contortionist wearing only white satin gloves, wowed our guests and us
at White Wedding to Snow. Photograph courtesy of Benoit Aubrey (Ottawa, Canada).
At our Wedding to the Sun on Bernal Hill in 2011, we applied thick white sunscreen on everyone’s
noses as part of the ritual. As the sun came up, Tony’s Circus performed “Here Comes the Sun.”
Photograph courtesy of Lydia Daniller.

Eco-­burlesque queen Lady Monster became an ongoing collaborator at many of our events.
At Wedding to the Sun she lit and spun her fire tassels, then roasted marshmallows for us to eat.
Photographer Charles Gatewood gave us his photographs as a wedding present.
Two of our favorite artists, Peaches and Keith Hennessy, perform together at our Dirty
Ecosexual Wedding to Soil, held at the 2014 Donaufestival in Krems, Austria. Photograph
courtesy of Iris Ranziner.

In 2011, we held our Silver Wedding to the Rocks in the plaza of the Centre de Cultura
Contemporània de Barcelona. Left to right: Nipple Muse Anna Marie, Marikarmen Free
Obispa (our pope and language translator), our officiant Helen Torres, Annie, Graham
Bell Tornado, and Beth. Photograph courtesy of Verónica Perales Blanco.
For Silver Wedding to the
Rocks, we found this Botero
knockoff and named him
Señor Roca. He is our punk
rock groom and our rock-­
solid husband on our big
day. Photograph courtesy of
Strangelfreak aka Luis Pedro
de Castro.

We brides cut the rock cake at the Silver

Wedding to the Rocks, which was produced
by poet and performance artist Diana
Pornoterrorista. Photograph courtesy of
Strangelfreak aka Luis Pedro de Castro.
We get dirty onstage at Bonnie Cullum’s Vortex Theatre in Austin, Texas, where
we perform regularly. Courtesy of Errich Petersen Photography.

Mónica Cofiño Arena performs a Black Swan dance on lumps of coal at our Black
Wedding to Coal. Photograph “Black Swan, Black Wedding” courtesy of Cristina
Ferrández Box.
On a summer afternoon we performed Talking Dirty to Plants with beloved performance
photographer Manuel Vason on top of Bernal Hill, our neighborhood park in San Francisco.
Photographs courtesy of Manuel Vason.
For a performance at SF MoMA and our theater piece Earthy—­An Ecosex
Bootcamp, we imagined ecosexy protest signs that became stage props. Designs
by Kern Toy with Annie Sprinkle. Authors’ collection.
Fluxus artist Geoffrey Hendricks came to our first Dirt Bed performance at Grace Exhibition
Space in Brooklyn in 2012. Without hesitation, he took off his clothes and dug himself into the
soil between us, inspiring others to join in the earthly delight. Photograph by Les Barany.
Our collaborator Luke Dixon is a theater director as well as a renowned urban beekeeper
in London. In 2013, he gave us a tour of the hives he cares for on the roof of the Three
Stags pub in South London. Photograph courtesy of Grace Geldner.
The art organization Emmetrop in Bourges, France, produced an Ecosex Workshop in May 2013
on an organic farm where we all camped in tents for several days. Authors’ collection.
During a severe California drought in June 2015 we produced a water-­themed
performance for the San Francisco Pride Parade. From left to right: Annie, the Phantom
Mariachi (aka Balitronica), Jadalyn Stahl, Robin LaVerne Wilson (aka Dragonfly), Beth,
and Kayla Kemper. Photograph courtesy of Seth Temple Andrews.

Our neighborhood shaman Jorge Molina did a ritual and blessing to launch our
contingent’s march in the San Francisco Pride parade. Photograph courtesy of Seth
Temple Andrews.
Our Ecosex Walking Tour (shown here in 2015) climaxes with a scene when the tour becomes
an environmental activist protest with raucous ecosex chants. Photograph courtesy of Seth
Temple Andrews.
In this scene from Water Makes Us Wet, we baptized Xandra Coe to wash away
her eco-­sins in Desert Hot Springs, California, in 2016. Photograph courtesy
of Keith Wilson.

After Water Makes Us Wet screened at MoMA in New York in 2019, we created an ecosexual
happening for the Q&A with thirteen friends, including artists Judy Dunaway, Dragonfly,
Barbikat, Veronica Vera, and Betty Grumble. Photograph courtesy of Lev Rukhin.
For Water Makes Us Wet we worked with graphic designer Julie Rogge on this movie
poster. Photograph by R. R. Jones. Authors’ collection.
When our friend and longtime colleague Paul B. Preciado became the public
programs curator for documenta 14, he invited us to perform. We presented
Wet Dreams, a Water ritual happening. Authors’ collection.

During documenta 14 in Greece, we performed Cuddle in the lobby of the

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens. Costume design by Christina
Dinkel. Authors’ collection.
At documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany, in 2017, we had close to two hundred people attend each of
our five Ecosex Walking Tours. Authors’ collection.
During an Ecosex Walking Tour for documenta 14, we stopped in front of the
Kassel Peace Monument to underscore war’s harmful effects on the environment.
Authors’ collection.

Our Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic at documenta 14 was our biggest one ever, with thirteen sex
educator artists offering all kinds of sex advice in eight languages. It was performed in
the lobby of the historic Museum Fridericianum. Authors’ collection.
When COVID-­19 hit, our costume maker Sarah Stolar leapt into action and sewed hundreds of
masks for health care workers. We posed in her masks in our garden in April 2020 to illustrate
our E.A.R.T.H. Lab newsletter. Authors’ collection.