Polly Pandemonium San Francisco Memoir Kickstarter

I’m in Vegas, so I’ll keep my words brief and let Polly tell you her story in her own words. She’d like to tell you the whole story and today is the last day to pledge to her Kickstarter for publishing Polly: Sex Culture Revolutionary by Polly Whittaker. Forrest Black and I photographed a bunch of Polly Pandemonium rubber on various cool San Francisco folks and I expect that her story will be an interesting one.

Polly Whittaker has lived three lives: A rebellious latex fashion designer with a penchant for dancing on tables, an irrepressibly optimistic social innovator with a mad plan to save the world, and a lonely girl defined by the death of her father. This powerful memoir, told with great honesty and humor, vividly captures the failures and triumphs of a young woman struggling to understand the meaning of her own existence, while pursuing her dreams to change culture.

My Three Lives

I’ve been born three times in this lifetime so far. The first was pretty standard. Pink and screaming I entered the world confused, bald and cross-eyed in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London, England. I still have the hospital wristband they wrapped around my tiny wrist when I emerged from my mother’s belly. It fits around two of my fingers. I keep it because it reminds me of where I came from. It says “Whittaker, Girl.”

The only notable difference with my delivery was that my father flirted with the pretty midwife. She slipped her hand under the blankets between contractions, to feel the bump in my mother’s belly. My father saw his opportunity and his hand went up the other side, meeting hers in the middle at the top of the bump. “We must stop meeting like this.” He said, with a charming smile. My mother laughed.

When I was a child, my parents recounted this story of my birth repeatedly. That might give you a little insight into my upbringing. “Daddy, Daddy, tell me the story again of how you flirted with the midwife when I was born.”

My second birth happened when I moved to San Francisco. I left behind my family name and became Polly Pandemonium. Re-naming myself was a rite of passage. It felt empowering to be in charge of my identity, to create a name for myself. I took control of who I wanted to be, and in one bold gesture I wrote my own future, and left all the baggage of my past behind. I became a new person.

My third birth? It had complications.

Polly Whittaker is a 21st century sex culture revolutionary. She has dedicated her life to sexually progressive community, as an acclaimed latex fashion designer, a creator of arty, sexy parties, and a spokesperson for sex culture. Born in London, England, in 1974, she is the daughter of a hot air balloon pilot and a sex therapist. She relocated to San Francisco—home of the sexual revolution—in 1999. Her award-winning event, Kinky Salon, takes place in a dozen cities across Europe and North America. She recently joined forces with Christopher Ryan, Author of NYT Bestselling Book Sex at Dawn to create Kotango.com—a social network for global sex culture.

This is a significant time in the story of San Francisco, where big businesses are moving in and alternative communities are being pushed out. Now more than ever it’s important to share and document our experiences of sex positive culture, and San Francisco counterculture. By supporting this project, you can make sure that this important slice of SF history isn’t lost.

Kinky Salon fell victim to this pattern when we were recently evicted from the space we’ve been hosting in for the last 13 years.

I’ve done a lot of research regarding traditional versus self publishing and there are a lot of reasons why self publishing is the right choice for me. Of course traditional publishing takes a huge percent of the profits, but I also want control over the final product like the final print, the editing process, and my voice as a writer.

The mere gesture of donating—at any amount—means you are casting a vote saying that you support smaller DIY publishing. It’s your vote saying that you believe alternative communities are an important part of our social ecosystem. And finally, it says that you see value in this story, and that it should be brought into the world.

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Posted by Amelia G on February 20, 2014. Filed under Headline, Personalities, Sex, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry