CarnalNation

I started Karma Pervs in March 2010. It's a membership website—an experiment really—in which people sign up to view exclusive photosets that I post each month. Every month has a different benefactor, a non-profit organization within my community whom I raise money for. 100% of the proceeds are donated by me at the end of each month, and I announce the contribution on my website. It's a project I'm passionate about, through my years in the non-profit sector as an arts administrator, as a board director. If I had the financial resources myself to donate to these charities, I would! So why not volunteer my time to spend taking pervy photos and use them as a fundraiser to raise the money? It's a great time spent volunteering, and I enlist the help of my friends who are photographers and models, and also business owners, to join me. 

My initial goal was to raise at least $300 each month. The first month, March, raised $115.43 for Stop AIDS Project; April saw $156.61. I'm hoping that the amount will continue to grow, and have gotten a lot of support from people on social network sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as great write-ups on Fleshbot.com. The hardest part has been finding time to promote the fundraiser—it's one thing to promote a pornsite that is paying your rent, and quite another thing to spend time on a site when all the income will be turned around and donated. The shoots take a few hours and the photo editing (done by the photographer) and web updates (done by myself) take a few hours as well. I've had some great feedback from friends about thoughts on how to structure the site for fundraising because it's actually really difficult to try to make a membership site for donations—I'm still looking for porn-friendly versions of Paypal for those who don't have credit cards. I'm also thinking about enlisting a sort of online "street team"—where supporters who want to volunteer can help me get the word out. It's an evolving project.

I've been having a lot of fun with it— it feels great to donate, and to have such incredible support. I also have found an artistic outlet through coordinating the photoshoots, and it's given me the excuse to work with photographer friends of mine. (We always say, let's do a photoshoot sometime... now we have a reason!) It's also a great way for me to feel like I'm contributing to my community—in a level that I couldn't afford to do before. I try to match the theme of the shoot each month to the benefiting non-profit's focus. It's been a philanthropic porn experiment and I hope it's success will allow me to continue to play with it. Keeping the sets small and monthly has allowed me to spend the time to run Karma Pervs. I hope that members will enjoy the sets, knowing that their money is put to good use, helping me support the fantastic, small, sex-positive, kink and queer-friendly non-profit businesses in my life. 

Karma Pervs Raises Money for St. James Infirmary

In the month of May, my philanthropic porn fundraiser Karma Pervs will raise money for the St. James Infirmary, a health clinic by and for sex workers (sex workers who are women, trans, male, and all genders). Located in San Francisco, the clinic recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary as a terrific resource. This shoot is special because it is the first time Karma Pervs features more than just myself in front of the camera. Courtney Trouble and Dylan Ryan joined me in the shoot, and guest photographer Nic took some amazing photos, playing with my idea of "illuminating" safer sex—with stark lighting and lots of latex costumes and latex barriers as props.

Courtney, Dylan and myself also picked up the camera and photographed images in the set, contributing to my second idea of a non-barrier "fluid" exchange between model and photographer for a photo set about showing barriers of latex and light/dark. I speak a little more on this in the post for the members. I hope you'll sign up!