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Bawdy Storytelling
Episode 98: ‘Tinkle’ (Annie Sprinkle)
00:39:03
Sex-positive Feminism, hells yeah! This episode is all about the legendary Annie Sprinkle, a groundbreaking Ecosexual, sexologist, sex educator, former sex worker, , pornographic actress, editor, writer, sex film producer, and performance artist...
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- [00:01]
Dixie Delator
The podcast you're about to listen to is explicit and graphic and for adults only. Oh, and thanks for listening.
- [00:16]
Annie Sprinkle
All of my life I've never fit But I won't complain and I won't quit I.
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Poetry or Performance Artist
Am enormous get used to it.
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Annie Sprinkle
Everyone tells me I'm too much maybe it's just you're not enough for me.
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Poetry or Performance Artist
Can'T you see I'm the kind of woman I'm supposed to be?
- [00:46]
Annie Sprinkle
Hey, my vagina is eight miles wide. Absolutely everyone can come inside. If you're ever frightened, just run and hide. My vagina is eight miles.
- [01:09]
Dixie Delator
Hello, I am sexual folklorist Dixie delator, and this is episode 98 of the Body Storytelling Podcast. I made it to the end of the tour. Oh, my God. I did not think I was gonna make it. Got a little scary with ending up in the emergency room and then the hospital a couple weeks, and the last show was at home in San Francisco. Show 11 in 10 weeks, even though I missed one because I was in the emergency room. But show 11, I was like, this is the end. I get to celebrate at home. I got to have a great show. And at the very last minute, Ethical Slut co author Dawsey Easton decided she was in town and she wanted to tell a story. So it was one of those great nights that just came together. So many new people who showed up in the audience and throughout the night. I was just kind of riding on adrenaline. And by the time I got home, I noticed that, you know, my feet hurt. And when you bounce and you're a fat girl, sometimes your feet hurt. I do wear bouncy shoes, but I noticed they were hurting more than normal. I got Crystal, my assistant, and I stopped and got a big burrito mojado to split and came home, sat in the recliner, shared it, and then I passed out hard in the recliner. You know, burrito coma. And when I Woke up at 3am Crystal was gone. I went to get out of the recliner, and it felt like my foot was broke. I was really freaked out. I was like, how the hell can you possibly break your foot and not notice it until after you eat a burrito? How is that possible? I kind of limped to bed and fell asleep, and the next morning it hurt more. So my partner Bent, had shattered his leg a few years ago. We still had the stuff. So I borrowed his crutches and I borrowed his boot, and we wrapped it up in a compression bandage and we put it inside a boot and tried to keep it immobile because I was not going back to the hospital, that was not gonna happen. Even though it kept getting worse, I stayed off it, figuring that's what you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed to stay off it. If your foot is maybe possibly broke, my toes would wiggle. So I'm like, it's not broke. Maybe it's fractured though, because I've done that before to my other foot. End of tour, I finally had time to just kind of spread out and relax, and I sat on the couch and worried and went, really? Really? You did this at the very end. This is the time you're supposed to be decompressing and having a little downtime. And this is not the kind of downtime I had in mind. And it kept hurting, and it kept hurting, and people were going, go to the hospital. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to. I'm not going to. But I kept thinking, I think I'm gonna have to go to the hospital with this thing because it's getting worse. And then I got a text from my podcast producer, Marty Garcia, and he said, you know, my wife's a nurse. Would you like to FaceTime with her? So his wife and I FaceTimed, and she took a look at it, she made me unwrap it, she made me poke it, and I answered a bunch of questions. And eventually she went, mmm, I think you have a bad case of tendonitis. Well, I'd never had tendonitis, so I didn't know to recognize tendinitis. So I was really glad that she told me that. She said, what you're doing is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. Take it out of that compression bandage, take it out of that boot. Stop walking on crutches. You need to keep the tendon moving. So she told me to get a really good pair of support shoes, put them on and start using it. And it really hurt at first, but I iced it and I started walking around on it. And she was absolutely right. Less than 24 hours later, I was only hobbling just the tiniest little bit. And I was so grateful to not only have smart people in my world, but that I didn't break anything. Because, you know, mobility is something we take advantage of. After walking around in crutches in my house with 165 pound St Bernard worried about me and banging up against me all the time, it felt so good to put the boot and the crutches away and just go, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be Fine. So thank you to April, thank you to Marty for texting me and saying, let's take care of you, and thank you to everybody else who was so concerned. A lot of people on social media were thinking, how the hell can you be ending up back in the hospital again two weeks later? I didn't go to the hospital. I didn't need to go to the hospital. I have a down week this week and I'm getting ready to go back to shows in early December. But yeah, this break, end of tour break, this, this is exactly what I needed. And Thanksgiving's next week and my partner's out of town, so I am going to be going to Friendsgivings. And I got invited last year to this amazing kink family friendsgiving that happens down in the Mission in San Francisco. And it just blew me away. People who were completely outside my orbit, people I'd never met before. I had some of the best conversations I've ever had sitting there eating turkey and mashed potatoes with like these kinksters who've been part of the seen these legends that I'd never met in person. It was one of those things you walk out of and go, how the did that just happen? How did I get that lucky to be invited to that? I should probably ask to be invited again this year because they said they wanted to include me on their Thanksgiving list every year. And I haven't got my invite yet. So I think I'm gonna work on making that happen. Maybe I'll have another story about spanxgiving again this year. I'll work on that for next week's show. The holidays are the perfect time to go to manscaped.com they support the Body storytelling podcast. And you know, I love it when you support our sponsors. And Manscaped offers precision engineer tools for you or your partner's family jewels. They're number one in men's below the belt grooming. I love Mia Schlong. I think you know that about me. And if you love schlongs or if you have a schlong, you need to check out Manscaped. They love to protect your balls. They love to protect the balls of a loved one. And MANSCAPED Sexy Lawnmower 2.0 has proprietary skin safe technology. It won't nick your nuts. With winter here, you're spending more time indoors. And those sweatpants you've been wearing nonstop, they're getting kind of muggy, you guys. Manscaped can help you defeat ball sweat with the crop preserver. Their anti chafing deodorant and moisturizer. These are the perfect holiday gifts. You can single handedly make untrimmed pubes a thing of the past. You can make your basket of tricks smell fresh and clean and more. And if you go to manscaped.com and use the promo code Dixie, you'll get 20% off and free shipping. Let Manscaped help you keep little Billy and the twins at their best. Go to manscaped.com, use the promo code Dixie to get 20% off and free shipping. I'm really excited about this week's story and especially about this week's Storyteller. Let me tell you about her. She is someone that I adore and who shaped who I am as a person. And I want to make sure you know about this little piece of history because she really changed the world. Annie Sprinkle is an American certified sexologist, sex sex educator, former sex worker, feminist, stripper, pornographic actress, cable television host, porn magazine editor, writer, sex film producer, and sex positive feminist. Here's something that I learned that I never knew even though I've known Annie for years. Here's how she got to work in porn. She was working in the ticket Booth at the Tucson's Plaza Cinema at the age of 18 while Deep Throat was playing in the theater. The film got busted and she had to go to court to appear as a witness because she was the theater's popcorn girl. In court. She met and fell in love with the director of Deep Throat, Gerard Damiano, and she followed him to New York City, became his mistress and lived there for 22 years. And not long after she became Damiano's mistress, she began to work in porn herself and started calling herself Annie. She made her first porn movie, teenage deviant, in 1975. Perhaps her best known mainstream porn featured role was in Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, which was the number two grossing porn film of 1981. So in the south we didn't really have much sex education. I learned about a movie called Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle. It was playing in the bad side of town because and this was in Atlanta at the time, this is when you had to buy a ticket, go into a theater and sit with a bunch of people in a theater to watch porn. It was a scary experience because it's always scary walking into a porn theater. This is probably mid-80s. To walk into a theater with pretty much nothing but men in there and they're going to assume you're there for sex. And really what I was there for was. She seemed so different. I'd seen a preview for one of her films and I really wanted to see this movie. Drove across town, did something ballsy, sat in the theater audience. It changed my life watching her joy. This was clearly her decision. She wanted to be there. I didn't know the term sex positive at the time, but it really affected me and it clearly has affected me to this day. I don't think I'd be doing what I do if not for Annie Sprinkle. She's known as the prostitute and porn star turned sex educator and artist. Her films, her performances, she lectures, she teaches at universities, she's in college curriculum courses. Her writing is everywhere. She's produced, directed and starred in several of her own films, including Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn and Linda Les and Annie the First Female to Male Transsexual Love Story. They play in hundreds of film festivals, museums, galleries, and she has presented her work as a visiting artist at many major universities and colleges in the US And Europe. She travels a lot. Another thing that you should know, and she was very groundbreaking in this work. Her work's always been about sexuality, but sexuality with a political, spiritual and artistic bent. Sprinkle and her partner, Beth Stevens became pioneers in ecosexuality, a kind of earth loving sexual identity which states the earth is our lover. They do experimental art weddings each year and They've done over 21 art weddings and have married the earth, sky, sea, moon, Appalachian mountains, the sun, and other non human entities in nine different countries. She worked as a prostitute from 1973 to 1992 and has long championed sex worker rights and health care. She identifies as a sex positive feminist and much of her activist and sex education work reflects this philosophy. Here it comes, you guys. Do you know how long I waited to have her on my stage? And I tried for years before I finally got this story from her. This storyteller is performance artist, visual artist, filmmaker, author, ecosexual, and groundbreaking sex positive feminist. This storyteller is Annie Sprinkle.
- [13:34]
Annie Sprinkle
Thank you. Thank you so much. What an amazing thing here. I'm in awe of Dixie, of the other storytellers, of all of you, and the love in this room. Thank you. Wow, it's. I'm really very shy. I'm super shy. But oddly enough, in 1973, that's 40 years ago, I ended up in the porn business in Manhattan and I was interested in filmmaking and I really liked sex and it just kind of, God led me to it and I just did my first Movie. I needed a sexy name because Ellen Steinberg just wasn't going to cut it. And I thought about it. I really liked wet things, you know, water and swimming and waterfalls and hot tubs. And I liked body fluids like sweat and tears and spit and cum and peeing. Golden showers. You all like golden showers. It was before, you know, it was a long time ago. So that's why I chose the name Annie Sprinkle. So fast forward 20 years. It's 1993, and I had kind of transitioned and bridged over into performance art. I was doing some body based performance stuff, like showing my cervix to people on stage. And it was really fun. And so, gosh, I'm nervous. I'm a story, I'm a body. Thank you. I'm a body storytelling. Virginia. It's nice to know I can still have firsts. So I get invited to do a performance art piece in Washington, D.C. in 1993 on this mega big march, Gay, lesbian, Bisexual March on Washington for equal rights. And I was for that. And so I said yes, I would do this benefit to help bus some more people to the march. A million people showed up that year to march on Washington. And the energy was amazing. And the whole march sort of happened around the dupont Fountain. That's where people met up. We didn't have cell phones. If you got lost, you know, you'd find your friend at the dupont Fountain. And the march went by there. So I decided for my performance after the march, I would turn myself into the dupont Fountain. And I went to this venue after it was late afternoon, everybody was super happy with the successful march. And there was some wonderful drag and singers and dancers. And then it was my turn to get on stage. And I said, this has been a great march. I'm going to turn myself into the dupont Fountain, symbol of this amazing march. So I turned around and I laid down on the stage and did a very erect back bend, shoulder stand. I was very yogic at that time, very tall, and I was wearing a black corset, white crinoline, and I had very high heel shoes like these. And I went into the shoulder stand, ceremoniously opened up my legs slowly, and my assistant hung 20 birds on my body, rubber birds. You know, the rings flapped and then I adjusted the crinoline. It looked like water all around me. And I peed, squeezed, you know, I'd been drinking water all day, my bladder was exploding. And I peed like 2ft, 3ft, 5ft, 8ft, 10ft, 12ft up into the air and the audience loved it. And they. They gave me a standing ovation. And it was really fun and good, innocent fun, you know, and it was fabulous. So a month later, my friend Lily Barana, AKA Lily Braindrop, came out with this new magazine called Taste of latex. Any of you remember Taste of Latex? Charles, you had photos in. Charles Gatewood, amazing mentor, photographer. Taste of Lakes just came out. Lily wanted to do a benefit to raise money to pay her printing bill. And it was a really breakthrough magazine. Very queer, very mixed, really cool. So, of course I said yes. And it was going to be at the amazing Clit club, which was the happening place in the meatpacking district of Manhattan, just a block down the road from the Hellfire club. Remember Jennifer? Jennifer? Blow dryer was there. And so I had prepared for my performance that day. I rested, I didn't answer the phone, I meditated, and I drank lots of water. I really was trying to stretch out my bladder and fulfill it. And I took an enema because I was a little bit constipated and wanted to feel good and energized and knock them alive that night. So I get to the club, and I wore my black corset merry widow with my yellow crinoline, this time in my high heels. And I kind of recycled the piece. And I had my assistant hold Taste of Latex magazine. Oh. Oh, my God. It was packed, packed that night. Were you there, Jennifer? Maybe. And Charles, you were there. Charles was there, Charles, Gary.
- [19:58]
Poetry or Performance Artist
And I'm there.
- [19:59]
Annie Sprinkle
And the energy was palpable. The room was packed. It was unbelievable and amazing performance artist. And I would be the climax of the evening. It was my turn to get on stage. I had been drinking so much water, I was about to explode. And I got up on stage, I said, wow, latex. Taste of latex. What a hot, sexy magazine. Oh, my God, I love it. Look at the pictures. And my assistant was holding the magazine, and I started kind of getting burlesque. And I was good at talking dirty back then. And I was, oh, my God, look at that picture, you know, it's so hot. Oh, my God. I took my breast out and rubbed my nipple, and I start, like, getting sexy. And then I said, oh, taste of latex just makes me so wet. I'm trying to sell the magazine, you know, and help Lily out. And then I turn, get into my shoulder stand position, ceremoniously, slowly open up my legs. And the assistant comes over, and I coached her to hold the magazine between my legs, and I started to squirt nice, clear fluid. You know, there was no urine in at that point. It was just pure water squirted all over the magazine. And then she moved out of the way, and I squirted. 3, 4, 6ft, 8ft, 10ft, 15ft. I hit the ceiling, and it started to sprinkle. And right on cue, I was really relieved, believe me. So I come down off my shoulders, 10. I take a little bow, and the audience is looking kind of stunned. I didn't expect that from this crowd at all. They've been around the block. I mean, these were hardcore sex people at the clique club. So I go onto the dance floor and I dance the rest of the night away, go home to bed, and had a great time. It was a great night. And I get up early, and Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence are coming to my apartment for tea. Two amazing sex educators from San Francisco came to the benefit. New York, Y' all know Carol and Robert, center for Sex and Culture. Old friends. So we had a nice tea and talked about what was happening, showed each other our projects and what was going on, and gossiped a little. And Carol and Robert had to leave. And they're at the door, and Carol looks at me and says, andy, that was quite a performance you did last night. And I can't help it. I just got to ask you one question before I go. Did you plan to poop? And I said, carol, no, I didn't. I didn't poop. I just squirted. I just peed, you know. She says, no, Annie, you pooped. I mean, we saw. Everybody saw. I mean, there was like this little soft serve thing, and, you know, the press was there. Everybody saw it. I'm like, no. I'm thinking, could that have happened? Did I really. Could I have done that? And I thought back at the stunned reaction of the audience. And then I thought, how Tracy Mossevoy, now Trace Leon Mossavoy, said, let's get that stool off the stage. And everybody laughed. And then I thought about how I was dancing all night and having fun, and the clique club was. Smelled so bad. I thought maybe. Maybe the toilet had overflown or something. It was so stinky. It had never been like that before. And maybe that was me and my crinoline and a wave of absolute horror and embarrassment and disgust. And, oh, my God, what did I do? I couldn't hardly take that in. And I remembered back to when I was 13 and had to poop in a little cup for medical tests, you know, stool sample. It took me well over A week to do that. I mean, I don't like to poop. I don't. I am very uncomfortable and I'm often constipated because of that. And I just really, I got. That's my hang up. Don't tell anybody. That's where I draw the line.
- [25:14]
Poetry or Performance Artist
So.
- [25:16]
Annie Sprinkle
After being horribly humiliated, I suddenly felt a rush of pride. I was like, wow. I pooped on stage. Oh my gosh. And you know, I knew Gigi Allen. I admired all those people, those rock stars that could actually poop and the artists who'd work with poop. I figured I could never do that. And I did it. I entered that, that group of artists that has had no holds barred. And I then realized that, you know, doing body based performance art and making porn and all that, you put your body out there and really we don't have full control over what our bodies can do. And that's what makes it so interesting and kind of edgy and exciting. Exciting and yeah, being a risk and doing that kind of thing in public. It does have its perks though. We get to come and be here with you and we get to be kind of infamous. So that's a theme. Thank you.
- [27:02]
Poetry or Performance Artist
Twinkle twinkle Annie Sprinkle sold her tinkle in a jar. Fame soon found her Porno bound her, christened her a porno star. Years of triple X films kept her locked inside the underworld until one day a theater found her sending her off off Broadway. I thank God it was, it was me. Just so happened to be one of the lucky people to see the most spectacular show on earth any sprinkle.
- [27:57]
Annie Sprinkle
Post.
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Poetry or Performance Artist
Post porn modernist live on stage. She talked about sex with respect and grace and ease. Imagine that. She shared herself totally. I mean, like, no kidding. I stood in line with hundreds of people to take a peek at her cervix. I call this generous. I mean, where else in the world would I see such a glorious sight? She's awesome. So after the show, I approached my newfound hero to thank her and to ask her, how do you do it, Annie? And in her sweet, sexy, mellifluous, goddess like voice, Annie said strip. Annie said grind. Annie said all of my body is mine. Annie said undulate. Annie said masturbate. Annie said sex is to cherish and celebrate. Annie said sacred. Annie said safe. Annie said when you pleasure yourself, you pleasure the world. Tetric massage, mermaid magic toys, vibrators, dildos. I never knew that life could be so orgasmic, so ecstatic. Annie said sex is to cherish and celebrate. Annie said sacred. Annie said Safe Annie said When you pleasure yourself, you pleasure the world Annie changed my life a lot. Annie helped me find my G spot. Annie introduced me to my goddess and slut. You have them too inside of you Annie said Love Annie said Joy Annie said who said a girl needs a boy? Annie said Undulate Annie said Masturbate Annie said Sex isn't only to procreate Annie said Sacred Annie said Safe Annie said When you pleasure yourself you pleasure the world Strip grind All of my body is mine Annie said Playing my inner drum Sweet as chrysanthemum tingles from head to toe Hours of afterglow My one.
- [31:04]
Dixie Delator
Woman Jo and he said.
- [31:09]
Poetry or Performance Artist
When I pleasure myself I pleasure the world.
- [31:25]
Dixie Delator
I can't stop singing that song. It just came out this song was performed by Jillian Lewis and it's part of a cycle of 12 new musical films created for Michael and Dan's amazing queer songbook. It's a living memoir celebrating Michael biello and Dan Martin's 40 plus years together as life partners, creative collaborators, and LGBTQ cultural activists. Watch the video. There's a link to it in the show notes. You'll get to watch Jillian Lewis sing and you'll get to see the photo collection from Annie Sprinkle's career. Plus there's a photo of Annie with Michael and Dan, the Songbook's authors. Thank you to Michael and Dan for giving me permission to use this amazing song about Annie Sprinkle on this podcast. I am so grateful. This week Patreon is doing a campaign that they call thank you Patrons and yesterday was thank you Patrons Day. It's coming out a day late because the podcast comes out on Wednesday, but I want to say thank you to everyone who's made this podcast possible by supporting us on Patreon. Patreon is a way to support the things that you want to see in the world. I don't think NPR is going to call anytime soon, you guys, because I say butthole a lot. But you guys are letting me know that you want this thing and you're showing me that you want it by supporting us on Patreon. If you don't want to do the ongoing support, there are other ways. I've had people contact me to ask how to support the Patreon in one off style with PayPal or Zelle or Venmo or any of those things. Anything you do helps us keep cranking this thing out and we're almost to 100 and I'm really, really proud of that. Thank you for helping us get to 100. Thank you to our patrons and thank you to you for listening. Our tour has been sponsored by Open, the sex positive dating app for the open minded. Whether you're looking for new friends, for dates, for relationships, for hookups, Open is unique. You can even create a solo profile, a partner profile, or both. If you identify as lgbtqia, as monogamous, as polyamorous, as a swinger, straight, disabled, kinky, body positive, you name it, Open is the place for you. You can truly be yourself there. If you're gender, non conforming, hetero, flexible, Open has more than 20 options for gender and sexual orientation to choose from. And if you don't feel covered there, you can even write in your own they want you to be you and I love that. Open donates a dollar to purchase Planned Parenthood for every new profile created on their site go to open.com b a w d y download the app today and create your profile. I really really love this site. I worked in trying to create a sex positive dating site, an open kinky dating site and we didn't pull it off. But I believe open got it right. So please go to open.com body and start making authentic connections today. So this is a podcast, but these stories are recorded at a live Body Storytelling. Body Storytelling's live events are life changing. You can watch strangers get on stage to tell their own well crafted curated true story. You can get inspired to share your own, and you can share your own with strangers. Bango makes that possible. Everybody in that room is open and accepting. They're all there to kind of celebrate this thing we've made together. It's about fostering tolerance and empathy and to help you find that thing you're looking for, whatever it is, during the holidays, our show dates move around a little bit. So let me tell you about what's coming up in December for Body storytelling on Wednesday, December 4th in Seattle. The theme is the Naughty Bits Creature Holes Coming back. I'm getting a bunch of story pitches, but I don't think I have yours yet. Send me your story pitch, an audio recording of you telling it to dixieawdystorytelling.com and I'd love to have it this week because I'm starting to put that show together that's going to be at the Rebar Seattle, and That's on Wednesday, December 4th. Then on Wednesday, December 18th in San Francisco. The theme is the Best Gift Ever. I don't know what the best gift is, but if you have a story for it, I've gotten a few, but the Lineup is not full yet, so send me your story for Wednesday, December 8th. The best gift ever. Tickets for all of these shows are on our website, bawdistorytelling.com B, A W D Y and links are in the show notes of this episode. We're coming up on the end, but before we go, I want to say thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing it. Thank you to the team that makes this podcast possible. They are also, in part the part of the live team who makes live body storytellings happen. At our live shows, we have Joe Moore, who records every video for the show. He is there in person and it's the only time I ever get to see him because he's crazy busy in the theater. But thank you, Joe, for making time to be part of Bodi every single month and for helping us get these videos out online. Thank you to David Grossoff, who comes and records the audio at our San Francisco show. He helps us with audio for all our shows. He is a rock star. Thank you to sound engineer David Grosso.
- [37:16]
Annie Sprinkle
Stuff.
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Dixie Delator
Thank you to project manager Dana Hannah, who is trying to help us organize years and years of audio and video. And you know, when I did this on my own for a long time, I was pretty much cranking out the shows and that means there's a lot of disorganization with our back catalog. So Dana is helping us get it together. Most of all, thank you to podcast producer Marty Garcia. Marty is making this thing happen. He's a joy to work with. He has such skills when it comes to making the audio sound good, the sound effects. He's creative. I love collaborating with him. Thank you, Marty, for what you do and how you're making this possible. And again, thank you to you. Thanks for listening. I would love it if you would write me a review. Apple Podcast is pretty much the main place that I'm seeing the reviews, but do it wherever you are and let people know about this because they trust you. They want to hear from you. I am Sexual Folklorist Dixie Delator and you've been listening to episode 98, we're almost 100, y', all, of the body Storytelling Podcast. Here's a peek of what's next.
- [38:29]
Poetry or Performance Artist
And we touched each other and we.
- [38:31]
Annie Sprinkle
Kissed each other and we masturbated each.
- [38:33]
Poetry or Performance Artist
Other into We Came and it was amazing. It felt like I had touched foot on an entirely new planet after 21.
- [38:43]
Annie Sprinkle
Years on this one.
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Dixie Delator
And you know what?
- [38:45]
Annie Sprinkle
There was a lot to explore on Planet Sex.
- [38:49]
Poetry or Performance Artist
And holy fuck, I wanted to do that.
- [38:52]
Annie Sprinkle
Thank you.
- [38:53]
Poetry or Performance Artist
That's how I felt.