About

Hi! Nice to meet you! My name is Andrea Zanin, otherwise known as the Sex Geek. I’m a gender-fluid queer-kinky-poly gal living in Toronto, Canada, and I spend a lot of time travelling around to other places too, most notably my former hometown, Montreal. I have a stupidly long CV of all the community activism, consulting, studying, reading, writing and teaching I’ve done on a wide range of topics related to alternative sexuality over the past eight years or so – among other things I’ve given over 70 workshops on a wide range of topics – but I’ll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that sex-geekiness is my passion, my life, and the most frequent fodder for my excessive and overflowing desire to write. I’m glad you found me. Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to get my monthly newsletter,  sign up by sending an e-mail to SexGeekNews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You’ll get the coming month’s list of my workshops and speaking gigs, links to all the past month’s published writing, plus a few zippy one-sentence book and film reviews… and maybe a few other surprises. It’s 100% spam-free and sex-positive, with guaranteed high-quality verbiage and zero Viagra. It’s short and sweet and maybe a little sexy, and I will not, under any circumstances, share your e-mail address.

You can reach me by leaving a comment here or writing to me at veryqueer3 at yahoo dot ca.

(…)

Okay, you really want the CV? Here are some choice bits of it. Seriously, the whole thing is waaay too long to post here.

Brief bio

Andrea Zanin, a.k.a. Sex Geek, pretty much writes and talks about sex all the time unless she’s eating, sleeping or having it. She lives in Toronto and is an organizer, educator and writer within the queer, polyamory and BDSM/leather communities, as well as being an active trans ally. She frequently speaks about alternative sexuality for universities, colleges, sex shops, community groups and conferences in Canada, the States and internationally. Andrea also writes alternative-sexuality news and commentary for the Montreal Mirror, the Toronto Xtra! and Outlooks Magazine, as well as blogging at http://sexgeek.wordpress.com. She has a background in women’s studies and sexuality studies from Concordia University, and is pursuing an MA in those same fields at York University with a focus on Canadian leatherdyke history. Andrea has judged a number of leather title contests, including GLLA Bootblack 2008, International Ms. Leather 2009 and Mr. Leather Toronto 2010. She co-organizes the Canadian leatherdyke weekend An Unholy Harvest, enjoys spending as much time as possible with her two partners, and occasionally writes erotic fiction on the side. She can be reached at veryqueer3 at yahoo dot ca.

Current and recent stuff

• Judge for the Great Lakes Leather Alliance Bootblacking Competition (Indianapolis, August 2008), for International Ms. Leather (San Francisco, March 2009) and for the Mr. Leatherman Toronto Competition 2010 (Toronto, November 2009).
• Founder and facilitator of the Leather Bindings Society, Toronto’s book club for kinksters (as of June 2008).
• Co-founder and co-organizer of An Unholy Harvest, Canada’s weekend for women and transfolk of leather, which takes place annually on Thanksgiving weekend (mid-October) in Ottawa. Workshops, play parties, film screenings and more! (Annually as of 2007. More info here.)
• Speaker, guest lecturer and workshop facilitator on various sexuality-related topics at colleges and universities (including McGill University in Montreal, University of Toronto, University of Ottawa and more), at alternative sex shops (such as Venus Envy in Ottawa and Halifax, Come As You Are and Good For Her in Toronto, and Joy Toyz in Montreal), at conferences (including International Ms. Leather, the 9th International Conference on Bisexuality, the inaugural Sexual Diversity Studies conference at University of Toronto and more), for service providers (including the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society in Montreal, the Sherbourne Health Centre in Toronto, the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy in Montreal and others), and elsewhere. Check out my Workshops page for more info.
• Founding member and Board of Governors member emeritus for the Unholy Army of the Night, Montreal’s leatherdyke group (2003-present). (More info here.)
• Film writer for Image+Nation, Montreal’s international queer film festival (as of 2007), and for Inside Out, Toronto’s gay and lesbian film festival (as of 2008).
• Occasional guest host and interview subject with Dykes on Mikes radio show in Montreal, CKUT 90.3 (2005-present).
• Contributor of queer news articles to the Montreal Mirror (2005-present). A couple of my favourite articles are here and here.
• Contributor of news articles to Xtra!, Toronto’s queer newspaper. A couple of my favourite articles are here and here.
• Writer of short fiction and magazine articles. Publications include “The Spawn, the Spawnlet and the Birth of a Queer Family” co-authored with four other queer family members (in And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents And Our Unexpected Families, eds. Susan Goldberg and Chloë Brushwood-Rose, forthcoming), “Where Is It Safe2Pee? An Irreverent Interview with Bailey Stevens of Safe2Pee.org” (in Women & Environments International Magazine, winter 2008 issue), “Eroticizing vs Exoticizing: Sex with Trans People” on AlterNet.org (July 2008), the article “Notes from Outside the Gender Spectrum” in Other Magazine (issue #12, summer 2007) and erotic short story “The Butch, the Boy and Me” in Violet Blue’s anthology Lust: Women’s Erotica, from Cleis Press (spring 2007).
• Occasional book reviewer for CanadianLesbianLiterature.ca (here) and NoMorePotlucks.org (here).

Recent past stuff

• 2006-2007: Consultant for GRIS (Groupe de recherche et d’intervention sociale), a group which provides anti-homophobia talks in schools; my mandate was to advise them during their process of expanding their mandate to include bisexual people and bisexuality.
• 2006: Organizer of Gay Line’s 30th anniversary event, “30 Years of Queer,” (June 8), a catered eight-member panel presentation featuring queer community historians and activists giving an overview of Montreal’s queer history. Attended by over 200 community members and covered by the Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Mirror and CTV.
• 2005-2007: Founder and co-organizer of CinéKink, Montreal’s monthly BDSM/fetish film and discussion series.
• 2003 onward: Volunteer and safety monitor at Toronto’s Pussy Palace women and trans bathhouse event (occasionally since 2006), San Francisco’s Bang 4 the Buck women and trans play party (2007 – 2008), and Unholy Army of the Night events in Montreal (2003-2007).
• 2001-2004: President of Gay Line, Montreal’s listening and information service for LGBT people and others. Served as a past-president executive board member for the two following years (2004-2006) and as a hotline listener from 2000-2006.
• 2000-2007: Organizer and facilitator of Montreal’s Queer Ladies’ Reading Society (for the bent and bookish), a reading group for dykes and other queers of the female (or thereabouts) persuasion.
• 2000-2006: Senior organizer of Tip of the Tongue, Montreal’s social group for lesbian and bi women.

If you’re interested in my workshops and speaking gigs (past, present and possible), take a look at the Workshops page!