Love Art Lab: Annie gets her sexy dyke playboy

The Spectator made a gift of itself to me the other day – how sweet – and now Scarlet donates itself to my comprehension.

To be honest sex mags don’t much interest me – why read about what you do or have done in just about every conceivable situation within legal limits? Chicken shouldn't be re-heated, as a rule. Glossy mags exist to whet one’s aspirations – ie to make you feel like shit – but my aspirations were neither whetted nor wetted by Scarlet, not until, that is, I had cruised my way past the slurping tongues of troilists, the Cliterature section (the editor of that looks like someone out of the Carpenters or Waco - kinky!), the sex ads (I particularly liked the ad for the Adults Only Show scheduled for The NIA Birmingham October 5-7 at which one will have the opportunity to “ride the rodeo penis” and meet movie sex stars – “Oh, hi Jodie!”) and arrived at the last page and discovered someone quite fascinating: former porn star Annie Sprinkle.

Annie has had sex – or “slept” – with 3,500 men. Now, considering that Joan Collins “dated” twelve men in one night in her younger years, according to Graham Lord’s new biography of the neo-rejuvenated-quasi-intellectual who’s going to appear in Doctor Who, apparently, I don’t think 3,500 excessive. Probably most of these fucks were for movie purposes so they don’t really count, so let’s say she’s had sex properly with about 10 men in her whole life – I made that figure up, but I’m quite intuitive – so she’s a virtual virgo intacta case. But 10 fucks is 10 fucks and they were sufficient to send her in another direction – into the arms of a woman called Elizabeth Stephens, once known as Don Juanita and the “sexy dyke playboy”. They are very much in love. If my eyes could well with tears they would do a Trevi Fountain job, but as it is they don’t; but it’s the thought that counts, innit?

Beth and Annie’s life is so gloriously singular, so counter-cultural in just about every way, and yet so terribly suburban in its mainstream expectations (love 'n' security etc), that one spectates at them, mouth open - don’t stare, bitch! Annie relates how they met and then she gets to the topic of their Love Art Lab, “a seven- year project in which we explore love as art”. In their current show they have sex on stage – and if you want to watch, see them at the Chelsea Theatre, London (Sept 19-22. Bookings: 020 7091 9666).

Interested to know more I visited their website at www.LoveArtLab.org. I won’t spoil your enjoyment by reporting too much, but I just love how they get married every 12 months – you can read the vows per year (each year has its own colour). “In the academic world the brightest intellectuals are fetishized in a manner that bears certain similarities to the ways in which porn fans adore their stars. Both are sexy, powerful and compelling”: isn’t that a wonderful observation? – and soooooo true. Just ask Christopher Hitchens who has gone one stage further and fetishised himself as a clever bisexual Word God.

The Lab offers all sorts of things – Cuddle Performances (something that the NHS should consider for old dears abandoned by their selfish cunting PAYE progeny), Extreme Kissing Workshops (I crave a good snog sometimes; and I’m sooooo good at it), Free Sidewalk Sex Clinics, and many other things besides. I’m most interested in the Porn Star/Academic Collection – “Stephens gathered the pairs of panties from various well-known porn stars and academics and bronzed them using the ancient lost wax process. She then juxtaposed them together, with the name identifying the original wearers.” Most original. The Tate will come a-callin' any minute now.

So I am most grateful to the minxes of Scarlet for bringing Beth and Annie into my life – I may ask them for an interview. Or I may not.