FEMINIST SEX AT HUSTLER HOLLYWOOD - You've Come A Long Way Baby ...

It is almost 31 years to the day that Hustler Magazine released it's June 1978 issue that was to cause such a stir. It was the infamous "Meat Grinder" cover on which Larry Flynt pronounced that Hustler would no longer hang women up as pieces of meat. Much controversy surrounded the issue and a lot of the satire and point of the cover was lost in the outrage of those times. Now, all these years later, thanks to the growing involvement of women taking charge of their portrayal in erotica, that pronouncement has come true with women dominating the industry and the marketplace. The porn paradigm shift will be celebrated at the next In The Flesh, Wednesday May 13 at 8pm at Hustler Hollywood, where the subject is Feminist Sex.

In The Flesh has assembled a stellar line-up of authors and performers to present a modern view of Feminist Sex that proves sexiness and feminism can go hand-in-hand and is empowering to men and women alike. Come and experience Shira Tarrant, Michele Matheson, Jillian Lauren, Jessica Pauline and Elan with a mystery phone sex event with Michelle Tea plus our regular Erotica Revealed Review of the month featuring Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Vol. 8 edited by Maxim Jakubowski Reviewed by Jean Roberta - and while we're speaking of milestones in Feminist Sex let's congratulate Erotica Revealed on their second anniversary of opening our eyes and libidos to all that's new in the wonderful world of erotica.

Shira Tarrant will be reading a surprising excerpt about pornography from her newest book, Men and Feminism (Seal Press). She is also the editor of Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power and author of When Sex Became Gender. Shira is column editor of “The Man Files” at the blog Girl With Pen. She’s published in Bitch, off our backs, and more delicately titled magazines. Her next book is Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style. Shira loves talking about sex, porn, masculinity, modesty, and other ideas with her students at California State University, Long Beach. She has a PhD in Political Science from UCLA. Read more about her work at http://shiratarrant.com/.

Michele Matheson, a Los Angeles native, is the author of Saving Angelfish, published by TinHouse Books and will be reading from Saving Angelfish. She is a recovering child actor, and is somewhat remembered for roles in Mr. Belvedere and Life Goes On. Michele plays in a band called The Black Tales. The EP can be found at Amoeba Records. Her second novel, The Failed Suicide of Cooper Tin, is in progress.

Jillian Lauren will be reading an excerpt from her upcoming memoir Some Girls which will be published by Plume/Penguin in the Spring of 2010. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her writing has appeared in Flaunt Magazine, Pindeldyboz Magazine, Opium Magazine,The Chiron Review, Society, Pale House: A Collective and in the anthology My First Time: A Collection of First Punk Show Stories. Jillian has read at spoken word events in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, including Tongue and Groove, Talk, Talk, Talk and Words like Sugar. She is also a performer and has recently worked with directors as diverse as Steve Balderson, Lynne Breedlove and Margaret Cho. She is married to Weezer bass player Scott Shriner. They live in Los Angeles.

Jessica Pauline is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, a former stripper and a permanent - if sometimes begrudging - feminist. An NYU graduate with a degree in music, her writing on sex and relationships, health and wellness has appeared in various local publications. She is the Health Editor for LAist, and can also be found online at ShadySadie.com. She is currently working on a book about her experiences as a feminist stripper.

Elan is a San Francisco-based performer, writer and lover living in a fantastical pit of hedonist dreams dubbed, "The Glorious Hole." With pleasure, she makes mayhem with several deviant troupes known variously asBangs of Hunger, Mazeltov Cocktail & Heticide.As a solo artist, she works primarily with images, themes and characters extracted from the underbelly of history and folklore. The method massages these ghosts and golems into horrifyingly sensual landscapes populated with contemporary queer longings and musculature.Past projects include "Peri Pascha on the Passover Presents: Museum of anExtinct Race OR On the Jews and Their Lies" and a role as Ursula the SeaWitch as Orpheus in Marc Arthur's, "The UnDead." Currently, Elan is gearing up to direct an experimental Oz-as-end-days themed queer porn.Elan has performed nationally and locally for the ivy-league, in the night-life, and of the seedy, pornographic and practically-regrettable moment. At present, she works a day job as the Lead Madam of the LustyLady.

Michelle Tea writes books and hosts readings for other people who write books, to be listened to by people who like reading books. Her last novel is called Rose of No Man's Land and is about a teenage genderqueer loner who gets mixed up with a speed freak mall rat and falls in love. Or something. Her last anthology is called It's So You and it's full of essays by stylish people about how they came to look so great, such as Eileen Myles, Kim Gordon, Jenny Shimizu, Kate Bornstein, Ali Liebegott, Tara Jepsen, Beth Lisick and other modern role models. She runs the Radar Reading + Salon series in San Francisco, and every so often piles a bunch of bitches in a van and sets off across the country under the guise of Sister Spit: The Next Generation. Billed as an all-girl spoken word road show, it's truly an excuse to sing karaoke at dive bars across America. She'll be performing a mystery phone sex piece for us.

Stan Kent will be hosting and DJing the evening with music before and after the event and there will be giveaways of Hustler Merchandise and tasty samples of sweet things from the Hustler Cafe. See you there - and remember - as always - there's free parking in the rear of the store at 8920 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069, (310) 860-9009.