The first is Ti Chang, designer of INCOQNITO (who made the Vibrating Droplet Necklace I wore to my first appearance at the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto, and the Blade Necklace I gifted to Courtney Trouble for the next trip). Ti’s designs are simply gorgeous and it really impressed me to have her company supporting queer porn and my work!

The next two are given favorites of mine: gadgets and crowd-sourced funding. Ti’s newest project is CRAVE, a design-centered brand devoted to creating discreet, modern toys is doing a crowd-sourcing project through CKIE to fund their luxury USB-vibe DUET. I might be wrong, but I think this is the first time a sex toy company has embraced crowdfunding towards production. I dig it. It’s a beautifully transparent effort seeped in community building, and participating early insures a great deal and first dibbs on the toy! Join the movement!

Purchase a DUET on CKIE for yourself or a loved one at a great deal, and be the first to own one!

Share and spread the word about the project. You can also like Crave on Facebook and followcrave it on Twitter.

Here’s Ti, with more about the DUET:

UPDATE: The project initially sought $15,000 fundings via pledges and rewards, but found that an overwhelming response in the first 48-hours led to full fundings, and it currently stands at $86,628 with 767 backers – 578% funded. Amazing! It’s not too late to contribute for the discounted vibe AND a Founders Card which grants you 20% off all the company’s future products.

“As a gesture of appreciation for the unconditional support that CKIE backers have shown, all folks who have pledged $75 or more, automatically gain membership to the Crave Founders Card! A card that will entitle you to a lifetime discount of 20% on all future purchases of Crave products, made directly from them.” – YankDesign.com

Anyhow, the few weeks around my period are a bit low energy for me. I’m usually emotionally drained, and often have a low libido. So it’s helpful for me to track my period when I plan porn shoots so that I can anticipate if I might be bleeding, or at the very least so I can try to avoid PMS.

In addition, it’s helpful to track my sex activities too. I get tested regularly and have more than one partner, so it’s important for me to keep good records. When was my last test date? When is my next one scheduled? Who were my last sexual partners? Even though I practice safer sex, it’s always good information to have on hand. There’s not many sex journal apps out there. so I’ve found it helpful to use iPeriod’s “notes” to journal sexual activities. If you have an iPhone, check it out. It’s free and you can export data too.

Also available on iPad. Snicker…

Many of the porn companies I work for require AIM Tests. Specifically, an “AIM Panel” which tests for HIV, Chlamydia, and Gonorrhea. (Of course some of the companies do not, but instead encourage ‘risk-based assessment’ ie: having performers make the best decision based on what is the safest for them, such as Shine Louise Houston’s Pink & White Productions (See their Safer Sex Resources for Queer Porn Performers).

I’ll occasionally post a tweet about testing at SF’s AIM draw center, because I’m scared of needles — so much so that the late twincest (RIP) performance art duo Syd and I did incorporated needles into our work). When I do tweet about the experience, I inevitably get a question from someone who is not familiar with AIM (Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation — yes, it’s a non-profit)  or someone who doesn’t know that porn performers get tested.

Testing for porn has not only helped me overcome (mostly) my nervousness around needles, it’s also helped me learn how to pee in a cup. I recently had a “false positive” result for Gonorrhea, due to not following instructions. This was pretty annoying and a good lesson to learn. I decided to look into it more and make sure to do the sample correctly from now on. There are many tips online for giving a urine sample. The most important one for me is to make certain the area is wiped clean and to make sure to catch the urine ‘mid-stream’. Wikihow.com has instructions which are very detailed in the process and also which pertains to helping a younger female bodied person do it, though I am sure it could also be relevant to any one who needs assistance taking a urine sample. Some helpful points include:

With the first of the three wipes, wipe slowly from front to back over the middle of the exposed area. Be sure to wipe the ending of the clitoral hood and the area between the inner labia minora passing slowly and directly over your meatus (opening where the urine comes out), using one stroke from top to bottom. Discard the wipe. Then repeat this wiping using a new wipe just to one side of your urinary meatus. Using the last wipe, wipe just to the other side of your meatus. (God that’s a hot word, “meatus”, isn’t it?)

After you’ve urinated a small amount, position the cup under the stream. Continue to urinate (not stop and/or restart the stream). Do not to touch the cup’s rim to your skin. Moving the cup into the stream while peeing is a bit messy and your fingers will get wet if this is done correctly.

Take the cup away when it’s about 1/3 full to 2/3 full. Do not over flow. Again you should continue to pee while the cup is taken out of the stream. If the cup is even a 1/4 full and the force of the stream lets up, remove the cup before you stop peeing. (I always wondered how much pee was enough.)

My own note: don’t worry if the pee is crazy orange/yellow (meaning you need to drink more water). The lab technicians are not going to be embarrassed by your hydration issues. Just hand over the cup and try not to forget about your water bottle.

Of course there are also ways NOT to pee in a cup, and ways NOT to assist others in the process.

Just today I saw that porn star cutie Wolf Hudson posted a video of his trip to AIM, so you can see the process from start to finish.

When’s the last time you were tested?

Coming from the sexiest geek herself, Violet Blue, it’s a real honor to be included on this list! I’m flattered — particularly being so new to it all. Around 2006 I started teaching myself how to build basic websites, inspired by a project I was working on with a friend for a non-profit arts organization. My odd jobs throughout the years vary, yet through each one I strive to advocate for empowering marginalized voices. Most visibly, this has included providing accessibility for arts and technology. One of my main passions is to help artists, non-profits, and small/minority-owned businesses create web presence and maintain/build their own websites.

So Thank You Violet, for supporting my work — be it sex, technology, or a combination!

I’ll be starting a few new projects in 2010 that are geeky, gender-fluid, and socially-minded — and so I’m thrilled to add “Top Ten Sexy Geeks 2010″ to my bio. This is the perfect spark to a banging new year!

Many of you may be familiar with VB.ly, the URL shortener provided by Violet Blue. It is a sex-positive shortener, and is also pretty fantastic in that it creates the same URL if the same link is shortened multiple times. No waste!

For those of us on Twitter, we see that there are a few URL shorteners to choose from (Bit.ly is one), and many applications use one by default. Examples of aps include Power Twitter, which Belladonna showed me!), Seesmic, etc…

Well I just downloaded Tweetie 2, which I highly recommend. I like the layout and love the multiple account options. AND the fact that you can customize the URL shortener!

Want to use VB.ly as your automatic shortener? Here’s how:

1. Download Tweetie if you haven’t already.

2. Copy & Paste this code into the custom URL section in settings:

http://vb.ly/api/?action=shorturl&url=%@

3. Save and spread the sex-positive NSFW goodness.

Thank you Violet Blue, yourls.org, and Laughing Squid for making the web an open and sexy place.

Besides, now you can comment, and RSS to your heart’s content. Weeeeeee.

Here we go. Putting the site up, regardless of a few missing sections. It is vain and fun. I’m most excited about linking to folks, and starting up affiliate programs. And glad to finally have a site that can be about the adult aspects of my life, where I have complete control.

And for those of you who are saying “hey! this isn’t a BLOG!” Hush. I’m working on it.

You want to comment me? Well until I get this shit figured out, be my friend on myspace: myspace.com/XXXXXXX [edited 2009]