"What does it mean to be sex positive?"Panel Discussion
Featuring Jillian Lauren, Ashleigh Klein, Siel Ju, Amy Lee, moderated by Dr. Shira TarrantMonday, October 6, 2008 at 1:00pm
Jillian LaurenAuthor and performer Jillian Lauren grew up in suburban New Jersey and fled across the water to New York City. She attended New York University for three minutes but promptly dropped out to work with Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theater and with The Wooster Group, among others.
Jillian 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.
Her memoir will be published by Plume/Penguin in the Spring of 2010. Jillian Lauren's memoir, Some Girls, is a coming-of-age story about identity, adoption, tattooing and the two years the author spent in the harem of Prince Jefri of Brunei.
She 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 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.
Ashleigh KleinAshleigh Klein started volunteering as a rape crisis counselor at the Sexual Assault Crisis Agency in 2005. She was hired on as part of the SACA staff in 2007 and is now the Director of Outreach & Education. Her responsibilities at SACA include planning community events, working with 4th grade through college students on sexual violence prevention education, conducting self-defense classes and training professionals in the public service sector. She has received specialized training in working with survivors of sex trafficking and the LGBTQQI community. She also works closely with the Women’s Resource Center at CSULB on Project Safe: A Campus Response to Eliminating Violence.
In May 2008, Ashleigh received her BA in Women’s Studies from CSULB and plans on pursuing a graduate degree in Public Policy and Administration in the spring.
Siel JuSiel Ju is an environmental writer and activist. She's a contributing editor at BlogHer, a regular blogger for Lime.com, and a contributing writer to both SCI FI Channel's How You Can Save the World blog and to Whole Life Times magazine. Siel also blogs at green LA girl (greenlagirl.com) about eco-happenings in the L.A.-area. Previously, Siel headed up the Los Angeles Times' environmental blog, Emerald City. Siel also writes poetry and holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. She lives in Santa Monica, Calif., and rides her pink Townie bicycle to the beach almost every day.
Amy LeeAmy Lee was born in Nonsan, South Korea. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1991. Amy is 26 years old, and has been educated in Korea and the U.S. She graduated from CSULB in 2008. Currently, Amy is doing demonstrations for natural skin care companies, and she is also working at Mother's Market. Mother’s Market is “dedicated to manifesting truth, beauty and goodness in the context of a natural products store, offering a selection of high-quality natural foods, health and related life-style products and information.”
Shira Tarrant Shira Tarrant is the author of When Sex Became Gender (Routledge), a book connecting generations of feminist thought. Her recent anthology, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power (Routledge), is a lively collection of first-person perspectives on sexuality, identity and positive change. This one-of-a-kind anthology is hailed for asking sharp questions about negotiating the masculinity trap.
Shira Tarrant's work has appeared in Bitch magazine, Genre, Women's Studies Quarterly, off our backs, the UCLA Historical Journal, Girlistic.com, The International Encyclopedia of Political Science, The Women's Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third-Wave Feminism, the Journal of Intercultural Studies, and Barnard College's Scholar & Feminist Online. Her next book, Men and Feminism (Seal Press) will be on the shelves in Spring 2009. She is currently at work on a co-edited anthology, Feminism, Fashion and Flair: Confronting Hegemony With Style.
Shira Tarrant grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and lives in Southern California, where she teaches in the women's studies department at California State University, Long Beach. She has a PhD in political science from UCLA and fond memories of lounging on the grass in the campus sculpture garden. (http://www.redroom.com/author/shira-tarrant/bio)
