Laci Green walks in with a giant backpack, the staple accessory for any Cal alumni. Unzipping the bag, she says, “So, I brought props…” unveiling a large plastic container of multicolored condoms, a slightly crooked dildo and her vlogging camera. Just another day on the job.
Any subscriber to Laci’s YouTube channel knows that a teal dildo and a few condoms are probably the tamest toys in her collection. She has rabbit vibrators, buttplugs, masturbation sleeves, prostate massagers and her own DIY clay vagina – all for educational purposes, of course.
Laci is the host of Sex+, an educational series that tells viewers everything they should’ve learned in health class. Since starting on YouTube in 2010, Laci’s channel boasts over 760,000 subscribers and more than 160 videos, packaged with titles like “MAGICAL MULTIPLE ORGASMS” and “You Can’t POP Your Cherry! (HYMEN 101).” Her bite-sized clips on love, sex and healthy relationships reveal everything a parent would be too embarrassed to teach their child (or probably wouldn’t know about in the first place).
AT BERKELEY
“My career came out of a creative project that I made time for when I was at Berkeley,” says the 2011 graduate. Green reminisces on her undergraduate days with a marked twinge of nostalgia. “I miss it all the time, I really do,” she says. As a transfer student, the transition to a university came with an environmental shift. “I had been living at home in a much more conservative area and I was really ready to be out on my own. So when I came to Cal it was like, [gasps] adulthood!”
By the time she started at Berkeley, Green was already making some revenue from her YouTube videos, allowing her to live on her own. “I had a studio in my apartment,” she says. “It was a little more isolating, I think. Not only was I a transfer but I wasn’t living with anyone.” But this isolation pushed Green out of her comfort zone, forcing her to get involved by pursuing her interests on and off campus. “It was sort of a coming-of-age, in the best way.”
So how does Laci Green get started talking about sex in front of millions of people on the Internet? “I start doing video production stuff when I was in seventh grade,” Laci says, recalling her days of putting together her middle school’s newscast. “I genuinely enjoy video production—I like the editing process and writing.” Which is why when YouTube came on the scene, it was an obvious choice. “It was just an interesting creative outlet that I wanted to try.” Green admits that she started making videos in secret, and then eventually shared them with her circle of friends. “I didn’t tell anyone at first. And after my videos started to get a few thousand views on them, I would share them on MySpace,” she laughs. “It’s so old school, but I would share them with my friends. And that’s how it got started.”
However, Green’s YouTube channel wasn’t always the digital den for knowing how to get down and dirty. In fact, her earliest vlogs were tackling a much touchier topic. “[The first videos] were about religion, and my critiques of Mormonism, specifically,” she says. Having her “super Mormon” parents and peers discover her videos proved to be both beneficial and problematic. “People either pretended it didn’t exist or they had a bad reaction. Or they were like, ‘Oh my god, I secretly feel the same way!’ And so we got closer over it. But the vast majority of them ignored it.”
TALK DIRTY TO ME?
In addition to her online content, Green travels all over the country to different universities, offering live programs in sex education, dating and sexual violence prevention. “It was about a year after I graduated, and my videos were getting around 100,000 [views] each at that time. And schools just asked me to become. Then it was like, ‘Okay, better write something!’ It evolved throughout the past couple of years, and it’s still evolving,” Green says.
The audiences of her programs are a mix between her online viewership and students who are intrigued when they see provocative titles like, “Best Sex Ever!” on a poster. “We draw them in!” she laughs. When Green gave her “Best Sex Ever!” talk at UC Berkeley last November, many unsuspecting students were drawn in and surprised by the explicitness of the presentation’s video aides. In a society where sexual education is veiled behind textbooks and masked with scientific terms and anatomically correct animations, students are often surprised to see pictures of actual genitalia on the big screen. “I’ve also had students who were really overwhelmed by it,” she says, thinking back to her experiences at various universities. “At one school I visited, someone passed out because of the vulva pictures,” referring to the visual aides she uses to teach students to distinguish between the vulva and the vagina. “She was just so unaccustomed to seeing vulvas that she just . . . I don’t know, was overwhelmed . . . I found out about the passing out thing, like, two years later when I went back to visit the school again. They were like, ‘Did you know someone passed out last time?’ ”
While some students are left in shock, others have extremely strong opinions on her teachings. “It was my first time ever having been heckled by an audience,” Green says, recalling a recent experience regarding a particularly radical group of college students. “Although, I don’t know if I would call it heckling. Heckling implies that it’s like giving you a hard time just for the sake of giving you a hard time. This group of students was particularly radical, I guess you could say. [They] criticized me, essentially, for being too conservative. And when I’m telling people this they’re like, ‘For [being] too conservative?’ ”
To most, Laci Green’s presentations are very freeing—a breath of fresh air that can sometimes be a little shocking. But criticisms on being too “conservative” often come from the radical feminist community. “They give me a hard time about how I talk about things and that kind of stuff,” she mentions. “I think what those groups don’t understand is I’m trying to speak to a mainstream audience. I’m trying to speak to where I was at when I was 17, 18—not someone who’s immersed in feminist theory every single day.”
Green’s videos are no stranger to criticism, especially in her efforts to support organizations that don’t have the most positive portrayal in the media. “There are groups that really hate Planned Parenthood, which is why I wanna support [Planned Parenthood],” she laughs. Green began her partnership with Planned Parenthood in 2012, hosting and producing a web series called “A Naked Notion,” that is “dedicated to frank, open conversations about sexuality.”
“We made this video about this young woman who had emailed us about this kink relationship she was in with her boyfriend, and it was actually abusive,” she recalls. “And we were really concerned about young people practicing BDSM without really knowing how to do it. So, we made this video.” The video outlines the difference between a relationship in which the practice of BDSM is consensual and a relationship that is violently abusive. But many conservative viewers took the video—and Planned Parenthood’s message—the wrong way. “I’ve been getting a ton of hits from it, all these random Tea Party blogs. All these blogs are embedding it like, ‘Planned Parenthood wants to practice sadomasochism! And they want teens to have BDSM! And it’s the downfall of family values!’ ”
OFFSTAGE AND OFF-CAMERA
Before and after every presentation, Laci Green can be found off the stage, chatting it up with her viewers. “My goal is to connect with people personally. It’s part of what I’m trying to do with the channel,” Green says. “You know, sex and relationships and identity . . . it’s very personal to people.”
In order to connect with people on a personal level, Green uses her experiences from her past and personal life to offer perspective on certain topics. But even with all her talk about private parts, she manages to keep her private life off camera. “My rule is that I will talk about things that happened,” she states. “I won’t say when it happened, who it happened with, any identifying specifics.” Green has found that the rule is the best way to make the viewing experience both personal and beneficial. “[I’m] stripping away the sort of personal details of it just to give the most important ‘meat’ that someone can take something away from. It helps me to have some privacy and also be able to share with people.”
As for the realm of fandom, Green admits that she’s had her fair share of awkward encounters. “I’ve had people come up and actually touch me without asking, which is like, ‘Okay, who are you? What are you doing? I’m on the street right now, do you realize it’s kind of uncomfortable for me?’ ” she laughs. “I know they do it with the best intention, they’re just really excited. My hope is that people—especially when I talk about consent and stuff—think, ‘Hey, maybe you shouldn’t just go up to people and touch strangers on the street even if you do enjoy their videos!’ ” Overall, her fan interactions have nevertheless been overwhelmingly positive. “They’re all very cute and special. Each moment is just like, a warm little thing to take with you the rest of the day.”
BEYOND YOUTUBE
When it comes to YouTube, Laci Green doesn’t see herself pulling out anytime soon. “I think I will always be a YouTuber,” she says confidently, as she plans to avoid the possible detour into television that many big-name ‘Tubers are making. “It’s a different medium. My home is on YouTube. And I think that the idea that you should move to TV devalues the power that is YouTube.”
Although TV is not in her own plans, Green understands why many of her peers are looking to make the transition. “A lot of it is in YouTube as a company, in their court. They have done a lot of stuff that has really been a big [negative] hit for the content creators—the way people can find videos, the way your subscription box work—they make it really hard for content creators to get their stuff out there,” she explains. “I think that’s why people who get big enough want to go to TV. Hopefully, if YouTube maintains some degree of ability for content creators to continue growing, it will stay around. But, who knows? It’s hard to say.”
TWO THINGS THAT MAKE FOR GREAT SEX: TIME AND PASSION
Sex, much like life, is best when it’s passionate. Passion drives you to new heights and causes you to discover further aspects of the things you already enjoy. And although we all love the idea of a quickie, making time for the things we’re passionate about will certainly leave us more satisfied. “I strongly encourage people that have something that they’re passionate about that makes them happy, to put in the time—because it becomes something,” Green states in her final remarks.
Laci Green is living proof that passion and time will yield success. She exudes an electric brand of confidence with every motion, whether it’s talking to a room of rowdy students or brandishing a plastic blue boner for a photo shoot. “I just think people should feel more licensed to pursue things that interest them, unapologetically.” And as she sits under a wide rainbow umbrella, admiring the man-made condom shower from the photo room in Kroeber, she smiles—and is not the least bit ashamed.
The print edition of this article can be found in the Issue 9 of Caliber Magazine.
All photos taken by Olivia Crawford.
