Bio

Melissa Gira (“jee-rha”) Grant is a freelance writer and sex worker.

An early sex blogger and one of the last remaining webcam girls, she has been writing about sex on the web since 1998. In 2005, she launched Sexerati, the award-winning blog about smart sex. In 2007, at the height of the “DC Madam” prostitution scandal, she and the Desiree Alliance founded the sex worker group blog Bound, Not Gagged, recognized as one of the best sources of coverage on former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s relations with high-priced escorts hired over the internet. Currently she reports daily on sex and the internet for Valleywag.

Her work has appeared in print in $pread magazine, in the forthcoming WHORE! magazine, and in the anthologies Best Sex Writing 2008 (Cleis Press) and Dirty Girls (Seal Press).

Melissa has been a consultant with the Soros Foundation’s Sexual Health and Rights’ Project and the St. James Infirmary on using blogging, podcasting, videoblogging, and online social networks for advocacy and movement building among sex workers. Other sex/tech notorieties include having been one of the first webcam girl performance artists, delivering the first podcasted orgasm, and promoting “prostitution hacks” from Silicon Valley to Scandinavia as part of The Aphrodite Project. She guest lectures to public health, sexuality, political science and sociology students on sex, media, technology, and human rights, and teaches hands-on media making skills for community-based organizations around the world.

Melissa (melissa @ melissagira dot com) is based in San Francisco.