Me and Howard Stern: duped by Katie Spades

I don’t give much credence to anonymous comments because, well, they’re anonymous. But I did get a comment about my book tour that Katie Spades (who apparently has trademarked the name “Katie Spades”), who I wrote about in my Village Voice “Spanker’s Delight” column. Mr. or Ms. Anonymous wrote:

Katie admits that she isn't even into spanking and finds it 'foul'. Her whole goal was to manipulate the spanking world for her own financial gain. Bad choice to interview for the village voice, interviewing a spankee who isn't even in to spanking!!

Now, at first I took offense to this because of course, nobody wants to be ripped off and I felt like Anonymous was saying I did my job poorly. But then I realized that if I was duped, so was Howard Stern. (And for the record, yes, I would SO go on Howard Stern in a heartbeat and get spanked. As hard as he wants, I can take it. We've sent him copies of both Naughty Spanking Stories books and I sent He's on Top and She's on Top too so if any bookers for the show see this, call me!)

American Spanking Society transcribes parts of her recent beer.com interview here. (And to Todd and Suzy, I'd love to send you a copy of Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2 but couldn't find an email address for you and don't have yahoo messenger - email me at rachelkramerbussel at yahoo.com if yu're interested).

I wasn’t the only one drawn in by this deception. Sugasm used photos of her several times to promote their weekly voting. This interview looks suspiciously similar to the answers she gave me. The Punishment Book was taken in as well. And on and on. So I feel a little less alone.

I conducted the interviews with Katie and Jake Spades via email, and they were fairly lengthy. Much of it was them trying to plug their video clips online but there was a fair bit that I quoted about their D/s relationship. I realize that I had no way of knowing whether they were telling the truth, and several posters have said they smelled something fishy from the beginning. But it does bring up a question I face when writing about sex, which is that I have no way of proving whether what someone tells me about their sex life is true or not. This might be a lesson to be more cautious, but if Anonymous was implying that I was derelict in my journalistic duties, then so was Howard Stern.

I also think that anyone writing anonymously or under their real name in a sex blog or other kind of blog⎯OF COURSE they can be making it all up. It’s not that I’m not aware of that and I often wonder what’s real and what’s not. From some of the sex bloggers I’ve gotten to know, I know their posts are real, but it also brings up the question of whether it really matters to the average reader. If readers are simply using those blogs as a voyeuristic look into someone else’s life, what’s the difference? I’m not saying that we should all start fake sex blogs or try to cash in, but it does raise some interesting points.

I was taken in by the Save Katie site (katiespades.com if you want to go look it up) as well but then kept noticing her MySpace postings saying that she was auditioning for this and that, not to mention the fact that after sending her a copy of He’s on Top I never heard a word back. So there you go, just a little heads up. Thankfully, there are plenty of other spanking blogs you can go peruse!