Heather Corinna
Encyclopedia
Heather Corinna is an author, activist, and Internet publisher with a focus on progressive, affirming sexuality. She is a self-described "queer polymath
: feminist activist, writer, photographer, artist, educator, Internet publisher, and community organizer."' She was one of the pioneers of positive human sexuality
on the Internet
.
during its time in Waukegan, where she majored in Humanities. During her twenties, Corinna worked for several years as an early childhood educator, having trained at the Midwest Montessori Teacher Training Center from 1997 through 1999. After working in education with developmentally disabled adults and in a Montessori elementary classroom, she founded an alternative kindergarten/pre-kindergarten in Chicago.
Corinna has written about the role that an experience with sexual assault and other violence in her youth have played in motivating her art and activism.
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
: feminist activist, writer, photographer, artist, educator, Internet publisher, and community organizer."' She was one of the pioneers of positive human sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
Biography
Heather Corinna was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Chicago and Pennsylvania. Corinna is a graduate of the Chicago Academy of the Arts, where she studied music, creative writing, and art. She also attended Shimer CollegeShimer College
Shimer College is a very small, private, undergraduate liberal arts college in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Founded by Frances Wood Shimer in 1853 in the frontier town of Mt. Carroll, Illinois, it was a women's school for most of its first century. It joined with the University of...
during its time in Waukegan, where she majored in Humanities. During her twenties, Corinna worked for several years as an early childhood educator, having trained at the Midwest Montessori Teacher Training Center from 1997 through 1999. After working in education with developmentally disabled adults and in a Montessori elementary classroom, she founded an alternative kindergarten/pre-kindergarten in Chicago.
Corinna has written about the role that an experience with sexual assault and other violence in her youth have played in motivating her art and activism.
Art
- Founded in 1998 by Corinna and co-editor Hanne BlankHanne BlankHanne Blank Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S., Hanne Blank is a historian, writer, editor and public speaker. She has also edited and written erotica but is retired from that genre....
, Scarlet Letters was one of the earliest adult erotica online magazines and was the first woman-owned, woman-run, and women-centered sexuality website. It initially featured erotic fiction, poetry, photography, and visual art and has since expanded to include non-erotic content that promotes progressive sexuality. The website is currently on hiatus.
- Corinna's personal website, Femmerotic, contains samples of her photography, writing, and journal entries.
- Corinna's work has also appeared in The Guardian, Issues Magazine, PIF Magazine, Maxi Magazine, CleanSheets, LeisureSuit.Net, Other Rooms, Cherrybomb, Sexilicious, Blood Moon, BAACHOR Magazine (in which her essay "The Door Into One Moment, Eternal" was nominated for a Pushcart PrizePushcart PrizeThe Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....
) and Batteries Not Included. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have also appeared in the anthologies Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape, Viscera, The Adventures of Food, Aqua Erotica, Zaftig: Well-Rounded Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 1 & 2, Shameless: An Intimate Erotica, and Penthouse and will appear in the forthcoming anthologies Breakthrough Bleeding: Essays on the Thing Women Spend a Quarter of Their Time Doing, but No One’s Supposed To Talk About and What We Think: Gender Roles, Women's Issues and Feminism in the 21st Century.
- Her photography and visual art have been shown at/in 555 Gallery, Sex Worker Visions (New York), Babes in Toyland, Jane's Guide, Michelle 7, On Our Backs, the Bryant-Lake Bowl, Trixx (to benefit the GLBT youth center, District 202), The Independent, The Mammoth Book of Erotic Women, SEAF 2004, and other venues.
Sexual education
- Corinna founded Scarleteen, an "inclusive, healthy, and sex-positive sex ed resource for teens," in 1998. Staffed by Corinna and a group of volunteers, Scarleteen is viewed by tens of thousands of readers each day.
- According to Scarleteen, "Heather is currently also a sexuality, contraception and abortion educator and counselor for the Cedar River Clinics/Feminist Women's Health Center, and the director of the CONNECT teen outreach and education program. In addition, she has recently completed the facilitator training for Teen Talking Circles. She is a sexuality consultant for the health department of New MoonNew Moon (magazine)New Moon is a magazine intended for girls aged 8–12 years old. It is published in Duluth, Minnesota, United States on a bi-monthly basis by New Moon Girl Media. -Background:...
, a magazine for girls ages 8-12; and her young adults sexuality advice at Scarleteen is now syndicated weekly at the United Nations Foundation supported reproductive health hub RH Reality Check."
- Corinna's book, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide To Get You Through High School and College, was published by Da Capo Press in 2007.
Reviews of S.E.X.
In the media
- Interview with Rachel Kramer Bussel at WireTap Magazine, 4 July 2007
- Interview with Amanda Bruening at PaperDoll Magazine, August 2008
- "Taking Sex Ed to School," The Utne Reader/Colorlines, 2 September 2008
- "Sexual Healing," City on a Hill Press, 20 November 2008
- "Sex ed for teens leaves LGBTQ out of the discussion," Medil Reports, March 2009
- "Feministing Five: Heather Corinna," profile and interview, Feministing.com, February 27, 2010