Annie Sprinkle
Lesbian-Feminist Performance Artist, ex-Porn Star, Actor, Tantra
Practitioner, Photographer, Writer, Lecturer, Pagan Love/Sex Goddess
"As I don't feel sex is bad, I don't think that promiscuity is bad. I'm not that tied into good and
bad anyway. "Make no judgments, make no comparisons and do what you need to understand." I
think that fits really well with sex. Make no judgments about what you want to do, don't compare
yourself with where other people are at, and delete your need to understand. Why do you want to go
with this person? It doesn't matter - go for it!" -- Annie Sprinkle.
astrology chart, profile, links
Libra Ascendant, Leo Sun, Taurus Moon, Neptune-Saturn T-Square
ASTRODATA Born:
Ellen Steinberg, 23 July 1954, 11:34 (11:34 AM) EDT (4hW), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. (39n57 75w10). RR: A. (Sy Scholfield [copyright] quotes date, place, year & time of birth from Sprinkle via email).
FEATURES: PERSONALIZED PLANETS:
Scorpio SATURN (opposite Moon, Square Sun); Cancer Mercury (conjunct Zenith; sextile Moon);
Cancer JUPITER (conjunct Zenith; sextile Moon), Taurus MOON (quincunx Ascendant; square Sun;
disposits Cancer Stellium and rules MC). FINAL DISPOSITOR: SUN in LEO.
PATTERNS: T-SQUARE (Saturn opposite Moon, both square Sun);
T-SQUARE (Chiron opposite Uranus/Sun, both square Neptune/Saturn). CANCER STELLIUM
(Mercury, South Node, Jupiter, Uranus).
SHAPE: SPLAY/HORSESHOE. CHINESE SIGN: WOOD HORSE. NUMEROLOGY: MAGICAL "22" LIFEPATH.
Annie Sprinkle was born Ellen Steinberg in Philadelphia and raised in Southern California. She started making porn movies at 19 when her progressed Pluto conjunct
her natal Venus, the ruler of her 8th House (the domain of the sex/porn industry).
She would leave porn work behind her at age 34 as progressed Moon (ruler of her
10th House of career) squared Venus (ruler of her 8th House of the
sex industry). Sprinkle then became a sex-positive feminist performance artist.
Uranus in Cancer Stellium: Champion of Women's Sexuality
The ultra-feminine sign Cancer is associated with women's bodies
and female erogenous zones. With the South Node and three planets in this sign in her
10th House (of public reputation and exposure) ruled by her prominent Moon in earthy Taurus in the
8th House (of eroticism), Sprinkle has become famous
for exposing her body -- firstly in porn films, and secondly as a "Post-Porn Modernist"
performance artist who valorises female sexuality. Her performance art
is an especially interesting expression of her Cancer Uranus (women's liberation). In her
Bosom Ballet
performance she makes delicious designs with her breasts to the sounds of the
Blue Danube, while in her polaroid
Uterus she re-presents a medical diagram
of the womb for the viewer's scrutiny. Again, in her on-line
A Public Cervix
Announcement she demystifies another body part by simply revealing it for all
to see.
"Welcome
to my intervaginal superhighway, where the wonderful world of cervix
awaits you ...anytime. A cervix is such a beautiful creation, yet most people go through life having
missed the chance to see one. Over the years, I've given thousands of people that rare opportunity, by
showing my cervix with the aid of a speculum and a flashlight to individual members of theater
audiences who stood in line by the hundreds in over a dozen countries. My "Public Cervix
Announcment" has given me great satisfaction and brought enlightenment to many all around the
globe"
Sprinkle first performed her A Public Cervix Announcement as part of her "herstorical performance,
Post Porn Modernist." Her Taurus Moon
is trined and disposited by Venus in Virgo in her 12th House (of photography) which also
rules her Libran Ascendant (beauty, balance). Venus is
associated with the vulva/vagina, beauty and mirrors. The astrological symbol for
this planet represents both the vagina and a hand mirror, and so gorgeous vaginal motifs
frequently appear in her works (such as the
"cervical mirror" entrance to her Post
Porn Modernist website & the vintage photo of her
emerging/birthing from
a giant vaginal canal). Indeed, in this imagery Sprinkle comes to
personify the very beautiful powers of the
yOni, herself.
With Venus in her 12th House (of imagery) Sprinkle
has assumed the Venus Porn archetype in over 150 X-rated films. She is also an accomplished
photographer with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from the School of Visual Arts (NYC).
Sprinkle is currently putting her 8th House Moon to work by studying for a PhD to become
a sexologist.
A prominent placement of the Moon and its sign Cancer also suggests a motherly figure: Sprinkle
is reportedly an excellent cook, who, "if she had not devoted the past 25 years to sex,
sex and more sex, ...would have made a wonderful Jewish mother." And
Sprinkle has readily admitted that "I never really fit the [preconceived notion
of the porn star]. I could play the part, but I always had a nurturing
home and my house was always a haven...the truth is, among my friends,
I'm really known for my chicken soup."
Leo Sun as Final Dispositor: An Education in Pleasure
"I always knew I'd be some kind of artist. I thought I'd be an art
teacher. In fact, I am an art teacher." -- Annie Sprinkle
Sprinkle's Leo Sun acts as Final Dispositor. The chain of disposition can be traced as
follows: Leo Sun disposits Pluto (in Leo) which rules Saturn (in Scorpio) which disposits
Chiron (in Capricorn) which rules Venus (in Virgo) which disposits
Neptune (in Libra) & Moon (in Taurus)
which rules Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus (all in Cancer).
It's through this powerful and empowering Leo Sun (conjunct the freedom-loving Uranus
which rules
her 5th House) that Sprinkle seems to
express her mantra: that sex should be a creative
outlet for unrestrained pleasure:
"There's a lot of pain and suffering out there. I think there needs to be more joy, and
love, and
orgasms in the world. We are a pleasure negative society. Suffering is
much more acceptable. And I want to tell women that they are sexually
powerful beings, but they often don't get in touch with it because they are
socialised to please men." Touché.
Another of her statements also echoes her Leo-Sun/Cancer-Uranus
conjunction in the 10th House: "I am not an actress--I am my own creation. My goal
is self-empowerment. Through my shows I want to teach it, impart it to women."
With her 10th House Leo Sun and
8th House Taurus Moon at each end of the chain of disposition of her planets,
Sprinkle is thus a popular teacher of erotic-spiritual workshops for women, including "The
Secrets of Sacred Slutism" & "Sex for Healing, Meditation and as a Path
to Enlightenment."
Sprinkle has especially come to the realisation that
"when I look back at my early films, they are so misogynistic. The whole
story centered around the male orgasm." She has reversed this position in her
performance art and teachings: subverting male sexual standards (Leo Sun in 10th)
by putting female sexual pleasure (Taurus Moon in 8th) at the forefront of her work.
With the Moon ruling her Cancerian Uranus (which rules her 5th House and conjuncts her
Sun), Sprinkle explains her motivation as a performance artist:
"I am not up there because I get off on it. I perform because I think it's important for
audiences to meet a woman who has no hang-ups, guilt or shame about sex. For a
lot of people that's very inspiring."
However -- with typical Libra-rising diplomacy and a Saturn-in-Scorpio matter-of-factness
about sexuality -- Sprinkle tactfully says of her audiences:
"Everyone is at their own stage of sexual evolution. I'm not trying to make
everyone over like me. I always say to people, if you ... feel uncomfortable
with a show that is really sexually explicit, please don't come."
Libra Rising: Finding Love, Peace & Balance
"In the future, everybody will be so sexually satisfied, there'll be an end to violence,
rape, and war." -- Annie Sprinkle.
The picture (at left) that Sprinkle uses to symbolise herself on her website, is a neat
expression of her Libran Ascendant and the angular Moon's Nodes by which it is T-squared.
In this symmetrical image of Sprinkle -- seated Kali-like -- her limbs form the shapes
of the glyphs for the Moon's Nodes that correspond with
her MC-IC axis. With both breasts and phallic candle exposed,
Sprinkle appears androgynous -- an encapsulation of Mercury on her Midheaven
and South Node. (She has also tapped into the Mercury archetype through other
gender-bending works: her polaroid of
Katherine Gates
as Jesus presents a wonderous feminist re-gendering of crucifictional imagery,
an image of Sprinkle shows her in
Pluto-pose with moustache & goatee,
while her film Linda/Les and Annie: The First Female To Male
Transsexual Love Story documents life with her then F2M transsexual
partner).
Besides finding their own mirror imagery, those with Libra Rising often require personal
growth through intimate partnerships in order to become psychologically whole. And so
Sprinkle has experienced a variety of
relationships including one with F2M Linda/Les and her current partnership with a
female lover. Sprinkle's Libra Ascendant has also been resolved through fusing what
she sees as the two sides of herself, the two sides to her own story. As she says,
"I didn't like "Ellen",
so I decided to recreate myself as Annie Sprinkle." She continually weighed up the
differences between her identities as suburban Ellen and porn star Annie.
Ellen is "excruciatingly
shy" while Annie is "an exhibitionist." Ellen is "fat and ugly, and nobody
seems to want her" while Annie is "voluptuous and sexy and lots of people
want her." Ellen is "afraid of men and sex [and] boring" while Annie "is
fearless [and] exciting." In the end, Annie/Ellen has solved this
riddle posed by her Libran Ascendant: "After all these years, as hard as it is for me to believe, I've realized that Ellen
Steinberg really must be Annie Sprinkle. And the truth is, Annie Sprinkle still is
very much Ellen Steinberg."
|
|
more lesbian stars
anniesprinkle.org(asm)
Annie's Books
Annie's DVDs
Annie's VHS video tapes
|
