Last Thursday night at Portland, Maine’s SPACE Gallery, Annie Sprinkle guided guests on a slideshow tour of her monumental career, which was a rollercoaster ride to say the least: First a prude. Then a prostitute. Porn star. Filmmaker. Trained photographer. Sex educator. Performance artist. PhD in human sexuality. Author. And through and through, a sex positive feminist who loves her body and isn’t afraid to show it (yes, all who attended are now nipple eyewitnesses of the “bosom ballet”). Sprinkle’s current era is one of ecosexology—a motion to raise awareness about our sexual relationship with Mother Lover Earth and environmentally friendly sexual practices. Seeing her in the flesh, I noticed the glow of a prophet—an activist prophet who continues to herald our unrestrained and humane exploration of sexuality (that behavioral jungle which may never cease to escape its mapmakers).

It’s important to recognize that this San Franciscan prophet of history (or in Sprinkles’ parlance, herstory) was sponsored by the Portland-based sexuality boutique called Nomia, our local torchbearer of Sprinkles’ same mission to “promote sexual literacy.” With sincerest thanks to Nomia, Portland witnessed a biography ranging from Public Cervix Announcements to lavishly nude marriages of Sprinkle and the Earth, Sky, Sun, Sea, Snow and the Sea again for a second time…

I first stumbled upon this hidden gem of a shop last fall in the heart of Exchange Street. To get there, you ascend a staircase to the second floor, a perch that helps ensure customer anonymity. Since opening in 2004, the store has responsibly offered an array of academic and erotic literature, lingerie, hosiery, and first-rate adult sex toys and accessories that cater to all sexes and sexualities. I remember after about an hour poking through their book selection, I felt something in the air heighten my sexual curiosity… Wow, I thought to myself holding a shopping bag in the street, I really just bought a leather riding crop! This purchase (which has been quite a hit—) nicely exemplifies why Nomia is here. Yes, it’s a retail store, but it’s also a resource center, an education initiative, and a progressive sexuality movement helping people realize that they owe it to themselves to explore bodily pleasure on a truly individual-specific level.

Gina Rourke is the magician behind Nomia, and she approaches her work from a background in community organizing and time spent studying in an American Civilization PhD program (particularly, women’s labor history and critical theory) at Brown University. Having “gone from public organizing to private organizing,” Rourke keeps a strict a one-on-one approach to the educational side of things. “Sex is a practice through which you express your sexuality,” she said. “And when you think of sex as a language, you understand that there’s a remarkable diversity in terms of people’s experience, and the staff is trained to work with customers very much on an individual level because everyone’s coming at it from a different place.”

Rourke’s work does not end with the store and the training of an extremely informative, judgment-free, and friendly staff. Taking Nomia beyond Exchange Street, she often consults medical practitioners on various topics. In one recent workshop, Rourke helped therapists find the vocabulary they need to speak effectively about the myth-laden subject of pornography with clients who have porn-related issues. Rourke also works to adapt sex toys for therapeutic use by individuals who are physically disabled. As Nomia’s success shows, progressive businesses will find loyal support on the Portland peninsula.

You can explore virtual Nomia here, and to learn more about ecosexologist Annie Sprinkle, take a gander at “www.AnnieSprinkle.org(asm)”

Photo of Annie Sprinkle by Julian Cash

Chris Kast is a true Portland character. A veteran of advertising agencies small and large, national, regional and in-house as an account manager, copywriter and creative director, he has stayed in Portland long after the point he thought he would have moved back to New York. What’s kept him here? Well, love for one (see handsome man above) and, of course, work. He has found that he can do the quality of work that he demands of himself, for Maine Magazine, Maine Home and Design and his other clients and have the quality of life that he has become used to and live in Portland. Chris is social media personified. He loves to bring Portland’s different communities together, which he now has even more incentive to do. I asked Chris our standard set of questions and told him not to hold back. He didn’t!

Can you tell me what you like about living and working in the Portland?
The coolest thing about living and working here is that it’s easy. What I mean by that is that this is an enriching city that makes it easy for me to thrive as a creative/brand builder/social media wonk. The creative vibe and energy is palpable. Over the years I’ve developed a network of friends, acquaintances and colleagues that, not matter the so-called “competitive” environment always stand ready to help solve a problem or move a project forward. The restaurant scene here is stellar, the music scene is unbelievable… Port-Vegas—as a bunch of us call it—is buzzing. Of course I do tend to get grumpy and grumble sometime around April 1 when I am ready for the foolishness of winter to be gone. But that’s part of life in northern New England.

Why and when did you move here, how things have changed during that time and what do you see ahead for Portland and for yourself.
I moved to Maine in 1988 and while the city has changed and grown, I really grew. During the time I separated from my wife (who is still a dear friend) and came out of the proverbial closet. At the time I was partner in a buzzing “creative services joint” called Crank and was concerned over the impact my new “status” would have on my business. Well the impact was nil, nada, zilch. Portland is a VERY gay & lesbian friendly place to live and work. Yeah, the Equal Marriage thing got voted down in November of 2009 but not with Cumberland County Voters. And for the record I do believe that even the people who voted against Question 1 didn’t do so because they were or are intolerant… they did so because they do not see the need. For the most part Maine is a live and let live state. And it really is just a matter of time before Equal Marriage is here.

Have you made Portland and/or Maine part of your personal “brand story”?
That’s a really good question. For the longest time I always had one foot mentally out the door. As soon as my kids were grown and on their own (which they are) I was moving back to NYC. It didn’t happen. I fell into an incredible working situation with the people who publish Maine Home+Design & Maine Magazine and met the man who became my husband. It was and remains the one/two punch to my face that woke me up to the fact that I am, proudly, a business person doing amazing things and in this incredible little city.

Who are the people in the creative economy here that you admire?
Kevin Thomas and Susan Grisanti are two… Louise Philbrick, Meredith Alex, Scott Nash, Eva Rose Goetz… there are so very many artists, writers and creative people living and working here that they ALL inspire me. Not being trite or evasive, just telling the truth.

How about any favorite places, things, edibles?
My favorite place is anywhere I am with Byron Bartlett. That and The State Theater, Space Gallery, Port City Music Hall, Boda, Fuji, Nosh, Bayou Kitchen, Live at 5 Concerts at Monument Square… the MadHouse…

Ed Corley is a writer who moved to Portland last year from Provincetown to become Director of Development for the Frannie Peabody Center, Maine’s largest HIV/AIDS service organization. Ed is now focusing on poetry, and also writes about reading, writing and books on his (very nicely designed) blog, EdGetsRead. The role of the writer as reader is often overlooked, but Corley has made it part of his mission to remind people that “It makes a difference when what gets written gets read.” Ed is himself a voracious reader, and to underscore his commitment to reading the works of other writers, he has posted his A-to-Z  favorite books of 2010, illustrated by a towering jenga tower of tomes perched atop a red Radio Flyer wagon. It’s a wide ranging list from naturalism to poetry, biography to fiction, but all share a delight in life and language in all it’s variety of forms. We are literary creatures for what we read as well as what we write, and if Ed is any indication, Portland is a good place to do both.

Gay marriage is a hot-button topic in Maine, but to Chicago-based performance artists Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger, it is an everyday lens through which to explore what it means to be a person in our society. The husband and husband team’s durational and repetitive performances focus “on simple materials and actions pushed to almost Sisyphean extremes.” In brief, they show what a committed relationship looks like, lest anyone still doubt the veracity of gay marriage. They will give an artists’ talk this afternoon, Sept. 2, at 4:30pm in Osher Hall at the Maine College of Art. The duo will also perform on First Friday, Sept. 3, at the artists’ reception at the ICA at MECA for Mind-bending with the Mundane curated by MECA professor and renegade printmaker, Adriane Herman. The ICA show features “a wide variety of media such as photography, performance, performance residue, engravings, bureaucratic documents and installation,” and includes works by Miller & Shellabarger as well as Alix Lambert, Allison Smith and Andrew Raftery.

The just-released Gay/Lesbian Index’s metro-area rankings provide another bit of recognition that will please both the LGBT community and creative economy watchers in Portland. The index, “developed by Gary Gates, a demographer at UCLA’s Williams Institute, the Gay/Lesbian Index value tells you how the proportion of same-sex couples among all households of a given metro area compares to the average for the entire U.S.” Portland, Maine, comes in an at impressive third place with 7.4  same-sex couples per thousand households. San Francisco comes in first, of course, but some cities you might expect, like Atlanta, Austin and Boulder, don’t even make the top 20 list. Richard Florida writes about the findings (that he analyzed with Garry Gates) in the Daily Beast, “Research I conducted with Charlotta Mellander revealed that metro areas with higher proportions of gay men and lesbians also have higher housing values—a finding that landed me on The Colbert Report. A study I conducted with Gates in 2001 discerned a close association between regions with higher proportions of same-sex couples and concentrations of high-tech businesses.” He goes on to cite, “Soul of the Community, a study conducted by the Gallup Organization, found that more open and tolerant attitudes toward LGBT people (as well as to other groups) was one of two key factors, along with natural beauty and environmental quality, that corresponded with higher levels of satisfaction with and emotional attachment to a community.” Open, tolerant, high-tech, natural beauty, environmental quality: sounds just like the Portland this blog was born to describe.

photo courtesy GayPortlandMaine.com

Saturday was gay pride day, and the Portland GLBT community was clearly proud and visible. The size and vibrancy of the gay community is a good news for the creative economy, and not just because Portland has become a very attractive city for gays and lesbians to visit and relocate to. As Richard Florida has theorized, “metropolitan regions with high concentrations of high-tech workers, artists, musicians, lesbians and gay men, … correlate with a higher level of economic development.” Not only are many gays part of the creative economy, but the same conditions of openness, dynamism and tolerance that, according to gayportlandmaine.com, has made Portland, per capita, “one of the biggest and most active GLBT populations on the east coast,” also foster the kind of business environment that creative individuals need to thrive. Another reason to be proud of Portland.

photo courtesy of gayportlandmaine.com