Email: rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com



 

Lusty Lady

BLOG OF RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
Watch my first and favorite book trailer for Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica. Get Spanked in print and ebook

Monday, March 31, 2008

The Pregnancy Pickle Contest

(I feel like I need to preface this by saying I'm not pregnant. Hopefully, there will be a contest like this going on in the future when I am knocked up, because we all know I love a good contest.)

SMITH and artisanal pickle crafters Rick’s Picks are asking anyone with an amazing, unusual, or simply memorable pregnancy story to tell it in 100 words or less. You don’t need a bun in the oven at this moment, just at some point in your life (and a photo to prove it). We don’t care how or with whom you had and/or raised your baby, we just want to hear your story.

Three grand prize winners will be featured on a nationally distributed line of pickles, the aptly named Slices of Life—“the pickle of pregnancy.”


By now I'm sure you've heard about Thomas Beattie, the pregnant man who will soon be on Oprah.



What I think is interesting is how quickly this went from a story by him I read in The Advocate's Transgender issue, (it's online and well worth reading) to national headlines. Hopefully, beyond the shock headlines, it will provoke some discussion about child-rearing, gender, and gender roles. Sadly, I think it has already started to devolve into name-calling (just check the Daily News link above for some evil comments) and simplistic assumptions of binary gender that fail to conceive of the whole "love makes a family" notion. It's actually probably good that I can't enter the contest above; I'm too mouth for just 100 words.

Clip from The Martha Stewart Show

For those who didn't get to see me on Martha Stewart today, you can now watch the clip on Gawker.

Thanks to everyone (and their moms!) who watched. And yes, Martha's coconut cupcakes were crazy good - meringue yumminess.

What's amusing is how many people who've told me recently they don't have a TV. I do but I don't - I have a TV (thanks, Heidi!) but I don't get any reception, so I just use it to watch movies.

Labels:

Sunday, March 30, 2008

I heart Sara Benincasa


Sara Benincasa photo by Anya Garrett via Flickr

What's up with this? Sara Benincasa runs the wonderful Family Hour With Auntie Sara, blogs for Nerve, and is super funny. She also does interviews in the bathtub.



Read the enlarged version

From Sara's latest newsletter:

Ooh! Interested in Internet controversies?

Last week, I noted the disturbing similarities between SuperDeluxe's new bathtub talk show, "Bathing with Bierko" (starring actor Craig Bieko of TV's "Unhitched") and my own show, Nerve.com's "Tub Talk with Sara B." (http://www.nerve.com/video/Video.aspx?VideoItemId=244&PageIndex=0).

SuperDeluxe showed good humor and great form in interviewing me about the controversy for their blog at SuperDeluxeBlog.com. But then the suits took that blog post down not 6 hours after it had first gone up! The given reason was "Artist Relations," which I think means that Craig Bierko cried when he found out I knew how much he adored me.

But guess what? Turns out I'd already printed it out, and my boyfriend has a scanner! Enjoy the censored (and hilarious) interview here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarabenincasa/sets/72157604318142339/

(And check out Bierko's shameless effort to incur my wrath/desire at http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/contentDetail.do?id=D81F2344BF5AC7BBA570AF3E867D7ACCBB1D9B08C9E9F4CC)

Watch me on The Martha Stewart Show on Monday, 3/31

Cross-posted from Cupcakes Take the Cake

Martha Stewart Q&A

We rock The Martha Stewart Show
Nichelle, Rachel, and Allison backstage at The Martha Stewart Show

See more photos from the set

Don't forget to watch us on The Martha Stewart Show on Monday, March 31st to kick off Cupcake Week! Click here to watch a preview of tomorrow's show.

Tune in for Cupcake Week and learn a new, delicious recipe every day from some of the best bakeries in the country each day! First, Martha is kicking off the festivities with her favorite recipe for a coconut cupcake piled high with fluffy frosting and fresh coconut. Then, learn how to choose the right jeans for your body type when Scott Morrison, the designer and founder of fashion phenomenon Earnest Sewn Jeans, shares some valuable tips for finding the perfect pair to fit your frame. Plus, plant expert Bill Cullina of the New England Wild Flower Society shows you how to add to the beauty of your garden with vibrant mosses and ornamental ferns. And, be sure to enter our first-ever Cutest Cupcake Photo Contest -- your picture just might end up on the show.

And here's what the rest of the week's got lined up, from the Martha Stewart email newsletter:

On Tuesday, celebrate April Fools' Day with a unique cupcake from cookbook author and baker Karen Tack. On Wednesday, make the Meyer lemon raspberry cupcake. On Thursday, learn a recipe for chocolate graham cracker cupcakes with toasted marshmallows and adorable cupcake pops. On Friday, learn how to make Mexican chocolate-pudding-filled cupcakes.

Here's a photo of her amazing coconut cupcake that we got to sample (yes, it was as delicious as it looks):



Click here for the recipe.

Have you heard? I'm a "Hyperactive New Yorker"

I mean, obviously...I also run a reading series, but any money I make from that goes into paying my photographer and videographer. And while I rarely talk about it here because it's just not done, as a recent dismal First-Timers royalty check receiver, I can attest that to someone who didn't interview me, it may look like I make "a very good living" but I actually have a full-time job. Also, what's a "very good living?" Clearly that is such a subjective term as to almost be ludicrous to compare. I don't make as much as I would have as a lawyer, but I couldn't hack that. I wish I made more money, certainly, and hopefully with my future books I will. With Alyson, I won't. With Cleis and hopefully Seal, I will start seeing some decent royalties, and I do agree that the market for erotica has totally exploded.

But you have to pay a bit closer attention and really be on top of things to earn a living from this. I work my ass off to promote my events, plug myself, buy postcards to promote my books, etc. I don't think being an author is a part-time job. At the same time, I abhor the notion that "all" I am is a sex writer. I will quit writing about sex if that's what I have to be pigeonholed as (okay, I probably wouldn't go that far).

But I despite the pink ghetto and all it stands for. I shudder when that's what I'm reduced to, because I actually want to write about books and babies and cupcakes. And really, sex doesn't sell all that much. For me, anyway. Every time I was ever booked for a TV thing - be it Jane's New York or The Joe Buck Show, it didn't pan out, but I'm going to be on The Martha Stewart Show tomorrow. I'm so excited, and in part, it's because cupcakes have a social acceptance, as a topic, that sex just doesn't. I'm not going to urge my whole family to rush out and buy the May issue of Cosmopolitan to see my article on sex advice (but I will urge you all to). I'm just not. And maybe I'm weak and needy, but I like that approval. I like doing something that doesn't involve that annoying three-letter word.

At the same time, I love my work. I love editing my books, I love having the creative freedom I have, but one quick glance at this blog or my Huffington Post contributions should hopefully tell you I don't want to just be a sex writer. It kindof makes my skin crawl, because I"m a has-been in that regard. I got fired from my sex column, and if that's my only legacy, then I'd rather focus on something else.

Sorry if I sound grouchy or worn down. I am, and I'm not. I'm just taking everything one day at a time, but I feel like David Blum gave me a blessing in disguise. I may have to prove myself a bit more, but I'm so grateful for the editors like the ones at Zink and Mediabistro who give me a chance to break out of that horrid categorization. Mind you, I"m totally gung-ho to be editing Best Sex Writing 2009 (with MSNBC columnist Brian Alexander as guest judge!). I'm honored by that opportunity and can't wait to see what we come up with. I had a fabulous time last weekend teaching erotica and look forward to doing so again in Atlanta at Sex 2.0. But not only am I not exactly rolling in cash, I want to be a writer first, a "sex writer," uh, never? I saw that when I wrote that column, instead of being someone who "wrote a sex column," I was a sex columnist, and I got confused about my role in all that way too often. I think I was trying to live up to my own notions of what that meant instead of figuring out who I want to be. I have a better handle on that now, and am just trying to become that person, rather than whatever mythical ideas anyone else might have about it.

And I realize maybe that sounds hypocritical, because by nature of publishing so many books, I have to promote them, here and elsewhere. Otherwise, people won't know about them, and I like doing the promotion end of things. I just wonder sometimes if you are too focused on selling, on passing out postcards, on running silly little events, the great aspects of life pass you by. If along the way lose yourself a little too much. I hope not, in my case.

Oh, and recent New York Times Magazine subject Lena Chen has some great stuff to say about this. In part, she wrote:

I don’t want to be a martyr, because frankly, it sucks to be told over and over that “most guys out there would rather end up with a girl like Janie,” that for some reason my writing about sex makes me less deserving of love.

Indeed.

"Dirty, sexy money: The writer Rupert Smith on his lucrative porn-lit sideline," The Independent

The internet is largely to thank for the rise of erotic literature; it's easier, and less potentially embarrassing, to buy dirty books from Amazon than from your local Waterstone's (who don't stock them anyway). Thanks to networking sites like MySpace, writers can market their work to its target audience – and, if you can't find a publisher, who cares? You can publish it yourself, either in print or online. A lively blogging community reviews and discusses the latest releases with a healthy lack of pigeonholing. In the world of literary fiction, an author's sexual preference has a massive impact on the way his or her books are marketed, reviewed and sold; in porn nobody cares much. Women read about men, men read about women, everyone gets off on everyone else and nobody cares about categories. As one (straight, female) James Lear fan wrote, "I like reading about sex, and I like men. One man is good, two men are better." Another woman recounted how she enjoyed my books at bedtime, and then, when the lights went out, pounced on her (presumably grateful) husband to put her reading into practice.

If the readers are diverse, the writers are even more so. It's a field dominated by women, who approach any and every kink with gusto. There are Surrey housewives turning out explicit male homosexual porn. There are specialists in sub-genres like crime porn, horror porn, fetish and historical. In America, there are writers who make a very good living out of nothing but erotic literature. Hyperactive New Yorker Rachel Kramer Bussel, a Penthouse contributing editor, has edited 20 erotic anthologies, contributed to about 100 more, and writes a regular sex column for the Village Voice. Like her, a growing number of writers are creating one-person porno cottage industries.

Labels: ,

Friday, March 28, 2008

See this movie: Hats Off

Hats Off is an amazing, feel-good documentary that's not to be missed; it opens today at The Quad in New York. It stars Mimi Widdell, a 93-year-old actress who is still working and just incredibly inspirational. Take your parents/grandparents/cool older people you know. I am. Some press:

New York Times profile and movie review

New York Daily News

New York Sun

I went to a screening recently and got my photo taken with her - also, she outlasted me and my friend at the afterparty:

:

The official movie site is here. Below is the trailer; click here to see more clips.

Books!

So pretty...unfortunately I didn't get a shot of me sitting with my books. Next time...



And here's one of Tristan Taormino reading from "The Ant Queen" (one of the most bizarre erotica stories I've ever seen) from Best Lesbian Erotica 2008

Thursday, March 27, 2008

San Francisco Best Sex Writing 2008 reading tonight and MUST READ "Ugly Violet" column



Best Sex Writing 2008 Reading
Thursday, March 27, 7 pm
Best Sex Writing 2008 features the best writing from across the sexual spectrum. Hear contributors talk about sex in academia, mainstream porn reporting, hiring a professional submissive, sexual abuse and butch/femme, circumcision, and working in the field of sex. Hosted by Carol Queen, with contributors Amy Andre ("The Study of Sex"), Violet Blue ("Kink.com and Porn Hysteria"), Jen Cross ("Surface Tensions"), Paul Festa ("How Insensitive"), and Melissa Gira ("The Pink Ghetto"). Read more about the book and interviews with contributors at http://bestsexwriting2008.wordpress.com
At the Center for Sex and Culture (http://www.sexandculture.org), 1519 Mission St. (between 11th and South Van Ness), San Francisco
Free (donation requested)




I interviewed the amazing Violet Blue for the Best Sex Writing 2008 blog. Also, you MUST read her latest San Francisco Chronicle column "Ugly Violet," about how women are treated (and denigrated and sexualized and all that bullshit) online. It's brilliant.

What prompted your piece "Kink.com and Porn Hysteria: The Lie of Unbiased Reporting?" I know you were reacting to articles about Kink.com specifically, but how long had you been noticing this trend of unbiased reporting?

I write for the SF Chronicle; I'm their sex columnist. and on the same day my column ran "Open Source Sex" I had an interview with sex-positive alt porn director Eon McKai up. it was a great interview that showed the breaking down of porn's redundant gender and physical stereotypes, the sex-positivity and inclusiveness of modern sex attitudes into the mainstream (which had been going on for a while, I was just drawing attention to the newest wave of it). porn from the POV of the makers, not the critics who don't know what's really going on. that week, local BDSM empire (and all-inclusive, sex-positive, politically minded local porn company) Kink.com had purchased the SF Armory for its new studio location. the Chron's website bumped my column to the bottom of the page and ran a totally anti-porn, completely biased piece about a staged "protest" in front of the Armory -- many have said that even the number of protesters stated in the piece was incorrect and more than the few who showed up. the website showed photos of Kink employees who were there to wash the building and called them "protesters" (though later corrected their mistakes).

the piece was so anti-porn, and especially anti-kink, I saw red. especially since Kink is one of the most incredible places to work -- they threat their employees better than any company I've seen (except for Google), the performers are treated with respect, paid really well, have hair and makeup people and are regarded as Olympic athletes. the cleanliness standards should be envied by every restaurant in San Francisco and copied by every porn company in the world. and the owner's mission is to demystify kinky sex, normalize it, and make the world a better place for all sexual outsiders for doing do. the Chron's hit piece disgusted me, the rest of mainstream media predictably followed suit, and I wrote a powerful response.

Read the whole interview

Labels:

Monday, March 24, 2008

Join us tonight for some hot erotica!

Fresh from Dark Odyssey (well, Tristan and I are), please come out to this reading. Unlike at DO, I will not be spanking anyone during the reading (sorry to disappoint). If I have time, I might stop at How Sweet It Is for cupcakes! (Speaking of spanking, peep the cover of Spanked. More on that soon.)



March 24, 7:00 pm
BEST LESBIAN EROTICA & BEST GAY EROTICA
THIRD ANNUAL JOINT READING!
Get a double shot of hot smart queer erotica from some of New York City's most provocative lesbian and gay writers. For the third year running, NYC-based contributors to the Cleis Press anthologies Best Lesbian Erotica 2008 and Best Gay Erotica 2008 will unite for a dynamic joint reading at the fabulous Bluestockings Books. Hosted by BLE editor & Village Voice sex columnist Tristan Taormino.
Readers include: Charlie Vazquez, L. Elise Bland, Lee Houck, Sam J. Miller, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Taylor Siluwe, Andrew McCarthy, DL King and Tom Cardamone.
Location: Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street (btwn Stanton and Rivington), New York NY
Admission: Free!!

Labels: ,

Emails from crazies

I wouldn't normally deign to post about the psycho emails I used to get (funny how getting fired from being a sex columnist pretty much puts a halt to that), but since my friend Michael Malice has launched his excellent site Worst Email Ever, I've let him do it for me. Here's a snippet:

I think that fine chocolate is for women, candy is for kids; cupcakes are for birthdays, and while light spanking during some forms of sex, doggie-style of course, is de rigueur, doesn’t the spanking shit cross the line to punishment and abuse? I think it just might. I dated a hot fashionista, and all she wanted was the spanking, right from the get-go. Turned out she had been horribly sexually abused as a child. I’ve played every game and fantasy and had all the porn sex you can imagine, a threesome with a blonde and a brunette remains a classic, along with a couple of superstars in the boudoir, and they were great outside of it as well, but among all the women the past twenty years or so in this wonderful, hateful city the only times I’ve been turned off have been these: if she’s heavier than me, she’ll crush me when she’s on top, and why do I have to hit you to turn you on, and please, shaved pussies are for pedophiles. That’s just my take on it. Ask yourself (or tell me): Why does a man have to hit you? Why do you have to be hit? We men love to toss you around in the sack, tug on your hair, tell you what to do, bring you to orgasm, take our own. But with the shaving and the candy and the cupcakes and the babyfat and the spanking, I mean…does that sound childlike? I could be wrong.

read the rest of my worst email ever

Thursday, March 20, 2008

"Thanks for Sticking It In Me" by Shayna Ferm

Another insanely funny and catchy tune from Shayna Ferm, who you can catch performing around New York; check her site for details.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

In The Flesh special guests; Sebastian Horsley refused entry to U.S.

I've never gotten an email quite like the one I did from Sebastian Horsley's publicist on Tuesday:

Sebastian arrived at Newark Airport today and wore his top-hat through customs and they pulled him aside. Immigration then googled him about the book and all of the stuff about his drug addiction, pro-prostitution, etc. came up. The bottom line is they've detained him for the last 5 hours and are now sending him back to London. It's ridiculous and stupid but true.

This also got some play on Gawker. And in The New York Times.

Also big thanks to the NYT's UrbanEye newsletter for listing In The Flesh!

(Maybe this was actually a big publicity coup for them? I am just waiting for some scandal over my nipple-baring book cover - speaking of which, be the first to get a copy of Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women at In The Flesh directly from me. Books just came in and they are gorgeous.)

See also: Sebastian's blog

Choire Sicha's NYT review of Dandy



Thankfully, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, who did a memorable turn at an early In The Flesh and blurbed Sebastian's book Dandy in the Underworld, and who is an amazing writer himself (go read his memoir I Am Not Myself These Days and prepare for the 80s-tastic queer deliciousness of his first novel, Candy Everybody Wants), has agreed to fill in and read from Dandy.

Here's a photo of Josh with The Washingtonienne author Jessica Cutler at an infamous In The Flesh. Who knows what could happen on Thursday?


I also had to replace another author, Kevin Keck, and we now have the fabulous Chelsea Summers of the blog Pretty Dumb Things reading from her very hot secretary spanking story "Stuck at Work and Late for a Date" from my new book Yes, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission.


Yes, Sir: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance


see the website with TOC and info here

I'm not sure if the lesson for me is to only book local readers (that can't be right because we have Sarah Thyre - !!! - coming in April and Andrea Askowitz in May) or just be prepared and know awesome writers who are willing to step in that the last minute.

The rest of the lineup (sexy mysteries from Megan Abbott Charles Ardai, actors performing Cheri Magid's Hide and Seek story and me) remains the same. We'll be taping most readers for YouTube too. Plus plenty of free snacks, candy, mini cupcakes, and book and magazine giveaways, as always.

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
THURSDAY, MARCH 20th at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com


In The Flesh welcomes a range of authors from the sexy mysteries of Hard Case Crime authors Megan Abbott (Queenpin) and Charles Ardai (Songs of Innocence) to Josh Kilmer-Purcell reading from Sebastian Horsley's memoir Dandy in the Underworld, erotic memoirist Sebastian Horsley (Dandy in the Underworld) all the way from the UK, as well as Chelsea Summers (Pretty Dumb Things blogger, contributor, Yes, Sir) Kevin Keck (Oedipus Wrecked, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Kevin) and Cheri Magid (contributor to Hide and Seek). Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Best Sex Writing 2008). Free candy and cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.



Megan Abbott is the Edgar-nominated author of the novels, Queenpin, The Song Is You and Die a Little. Her stories have appeared in Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir, Wall Street Noir, Detroit Noir and Queens Noir. Her nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2003. She is the editor of A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir, featuring original tales by 25 mystery and crime authors, which was published in December 2007.
www.meganabbott.com



Charles Ardai is the Edgar Award-winning author of the novels Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence ("an instant classic"--Washington Post), both written under the pen name "Richard Aleas." He is also founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of paperback crime novels in the style of the sexy pulp paperbacks of the 1940s and 50s that Neal Pollack called "the best new American publisher to appear in the last decade." Also an entrepreneur, Ardai created and for seven years ran the Internet company Juno. He lives in New York with his wife, best-selling fantasy novelist Naomi Novik.
www.hardcasecrime.com



Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Dirty Girls, and Best Sex Writing 2008. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com



Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of New York Times bestselling memoir I Am Not Myself These Days and the insanely funny forthcoming novel Candy Everybody Wants, will read from Sebastian Horsley's memoir Dandy in the Underworld.

Cheri Magid wrote a popular erotic blog and a column under various and sundry pseudonyms. She is also a playwright whose work has been seen in New York, California, Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan. Lydia, or "The Girl at the Wheel, "Cheri’s radio play about the earliest days of burlesque, aired on National Public Radio in 2001 and her short story "Yeah, We Got That," aired on Playboy Radio. She is currently writing a screenplay, The Story of D, about the real story behind the writing of The Story of O for Dan Wigutow Productions. Her short film Carnophobia is now in post.
http://www.sassybean.com/index.php/blog/article/cheri_magid_author/Marie

Finding herself uninspired to write her doctoral dissertation, Chelsea Summers began writing her award-winning blog, pretty dumb things, in March 2005. Since then, her work has appeared in Penthouse, GQ, Scarlet and New Woman magazines, as well as in erotic anthologies edited by Susie Bright and Rachel Kramer Bussel. Currently, Chelsea is writing memoir and really might actually have a publisher ready to pay to publish it. Chelsea lives and writes in glamorous New York City, NY. She has gleefully abandoned the world of academia for the writing life.

Labels:

Annalee Newitz on Spitzer

Techsploitation columnist (and io9 editor) Annalee Newitz on Spitzer:

Every possible kind of human act has been commodified and turned into a job under capitalism. That means people are legally paid to clean up one another's poop, paid to wash one another's naked bodies, paid to fry food all day, paid to work in toxic mines, paid to clean toilets, paid to wash and dress dead naked bodies, and paid to clean the brains off walls in crime scenes. My point is, you can earn money doing every possible degrading or disgusting thing on earth.

And yet, most people don't think it's immoral to wipe somebody else's bum or to fry food all day, even though both jobs could truthfully be described as inherently degrading. They say, "Gee that's a tough job." And then they pay the people who do those jobs minimum wage.

The sex worker Spitzer visited, on the other hand, was paid handsomely for her tough job. The New York Times, in its mission to invade this woman's privacy (though in what one must suppose is a nonexploitative way), reported that she was a midrange worker at her agency who pulled in between $1000-$2000 per job. She wasn't working for minimum wage; she wasn't forced to inhale toxic fumes that would destroy her chances of having a nonmutant baby. She was being paid a middle-class salary to have sex.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Natalie Krinsky at The Frisky

"So whatever happened to Natalie Krinsky?" people sometimes ask me. And by "people,"I mean fellow former sex columnists. You may remember her as the former Yale Daily News columnist, Chloe Does Yale author, and, briefly, Village Voice blogger.

It turns out she, along with many former Jane staffers, Maxim Sirius radio show co-host John DeVore and Harvard blogger Lena "She likes her men the way she likes her university: well-endowed" Chen are writing for new site The Frisky, which bills itself as "a daily romp on the sexy side." Krinsky writes that dating a Manorexic is a dealbreaker. It's a funny piece, and while I tend to share her view...I wonder if a man or woman wrote about dating a female anorexic, could they get away with being so jokey? Then again, I still think big bellies are sexy, so I'm probably not the right audience for that piece.

Haven't explored the site yet but it looks promising. Let's hope it lasts longer than The PEEQ did!

Not sure who's funding The Frisky; Conde Nast launched Daily Bedpost last year, which has been doing some great interviews and general sex news blogging. I'm also a huge fan of Viviane's Sex Carnival and Boinkology for straightforward, up-to-date, personal and insightful commentary on sex with a political edge to it. It's funny because I really wanted to include some blog writing in Best Sex Writing 2008, but while there was a lot I loved, only the Sexerati Pink Ghetto piece made it in, largely due to the nature of blogs. Posts are shorter, which is great for online, not as great when editing a book. Then again, Lauren Berlant's (who will always be known to me as the co-editor of one of my favorite books, Our Monica, Ourselves) short but amazing piece in The Nation, "Against Sexual Scandal," is a contender for the 2009 edition. Here's a counterargument at Popmatters.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Dirty Girls is here + special free book offer!




Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women
has just arrived at my publisher, Seal Press, so copies should be in bookstores any day. Special offer for U.S. addresses only: Buy
Dirty Girls
from Amazon by March 31st, and I'll send you a copy of my book Sex and Candy free! Just forward your Amazon.com receipt to rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com with "Dirty Girls" in subject line. Pre-order now to save 5% off Amazon's $10.17 price.

Stay tuned to dirtygirlsbook.wordpress.com for author interviews and other fun stuff.

Save these dates:

NYC book party: Thursday, April 10th, 7-9 pm, Sutra Lounge, 16 First Avenue (at First Street), NYC, with readings and a boob cake from Moist and Tasty - with readers Tsaurah Litzky, Lillian Ann Slugocki, Sofia Quintero and Suki Bishop

San Francisco book party: Monday, April 28th, 7-9 pm, Cafe Royale,800 Post Street (at Leavenworth), San Francisco, with Rachel Kramer Bussel, Carol Queen, Donna George Storey, Melissa Gira, and other local contributors

Also, on Thursday, April 17th at 8 pm, I will be reading along with contributors Sofia Quintero and Marie Lyn Bernard at my reading series In The Flesh, at Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street. Free, 21+, with free candy and cupcakes - click here for full lineup. And if you're not in New York, don't worry, we'll be taping it and I'll post the readings here - they're going to be fabulous and in fact, Marie Lyn Bernard's piece, "Fucking Around," I first heard read at In The Flesh and loved it so much I knew I had to have it for Dirty Girls.

Acclaimed erotica writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel knows: They want it all. They want to be worshiped, ordered around, sent blindly into ecstasy, and made hot in front of a mirror. They want strangers bearing ice cubes on a hot day and to be the party favor passed around among guests. They want sex at the office and in the great outdoors and on trains and airplanes. They want sex with the whole United States of America (or, at least, part of it). They want to be wooed, seduced, flirted with, taken. They want to handpick their lovers and make them do their bidding. They want men, women, and sometimes both at the same time.



In Dirty Girls, the country's best erotic writers explore their sexual psyches. With contributions from Carol Queen, Alison Tyler, Sofia Quintero, Shanna Germain, Lillian Ann Slugocki, Tsaurah Litzky, and many others, this collection will set your heart racing as you savor these intimate, shocking, and passionate female fantasies.

Blurbs:

"Finally⎯a book about what girls REALLY think about. Well, maybe not
every one, but the dirty ones...and those are the ones who really
count." -- Joanna Angel, CEO, BurningAngel Entertainment

"Dirty Girls is the post-feminist generation's answer to Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden, a collection of erotically charged short stories that reveal that, in the 21st century, good girls are dead and dirty girls are the new black."
-- Susannah Breslin, author of You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?

"A spanking good collection of smart erotica assembled by always exciting ringleader Rachel Kramer Bussel, Dirty Girls begs the question 'What are those dirty girls thinking?' and answers with insight not just to how women want it, but why."
-- Lisa Beth Kovetz, author of The Tuesday Erotica Club

"This is an outstanding collection of hot women's stories. That's hot stories by women and stories by hot women. The table of contents reads like a who's who in the best erotica writers around, an All Star team who deliver the raunch and punch the reader deserves. Rawr."
-- Cecilia Tan, author of Black Feathers and White Flames: Erotic Dreams

Table of Contents

Introduction - Dirty and Sweet Wrapped Up in One

1. Fucking Around by Marie Lyn Bernard
2. Live Tonight by Saskia Walker
3. Just Another Girl on the Train by Catherine Lundoff
4. Beautiful Creature by Kristina Wright
5. In the Name Of… by Isabelle Gray
6. Cheesy Boots by L. Elise Bland
7. Truck Stop Cinderella by Lillian Ann Slugocki
8. The Dream of Life by Tenille Brown
9. The Mile High Club by Kate Dominic
10. Like a Good Girl by Alison Tyler
11. The Garden of Sinn by Darklady
12. Bag and Baggage by Teresa Noelle Roberts
13. Icy Hot by Rachel Kramer Bussel
14. Dreams by Marilyn Jaye Lewis
15. Shocking Expose! Secrets Revealed! by Carol Queen
16. To Dance at the Fair by Donna George Storey
17. The First Deadly Sin by Gwen Masters
18. El Mar de Encanto by Sofia Quintero
19. Flight by Suki Bishop
20. Lily by Tsaurah Litzky
21. Opera Gloves by Maddy Stuart
22. Party Favor by Andrea Dale
23. Carn Euny by Madelynne Ellis
24. A Prayer to Be Made Cocksure by Melissa Gira
25. All About Hearts by Sage Vivant
26. The Next Thing by Gina de Vries
27. Until It’s Gone by Shanna Germain

Introduction: Dirty and Sweet Wrapped Up in One

“I can be dirty and sweet at the same time” reads my self-proclaimed motto on my MySpace page. When I wrote that, I meant that not so deep inside me lurks the soul of a highly perverted, kinky, dirty girl who can get aroused often by a single word whispered in my ear or a solid smack across my ass. Once someone gets me into that zone, I’ll do anything, no matter how depraved, to be with them. I’ll find myself fantasizing about all the wicked things we can do together throughout the day and night, waking from wild dreams with the wish that they were beside me. I’ll see their name in my inbox and get instantly wet. I’ll tell them in public exactly what I want them to do to me, and vice versa. Yes, that’s what I mean by “dirty.”

Yet I don’t think my sexual interests make me any less of a well-rounded, kind-hearted intelligent person. I’m “sweet” in the sense that I care about my friends and family, like sending cards and random gifts, strive to be a good person (also, I run a blog about cupcakes). I’m as likely to kiss a lover’s forehead tenderly and offer to tuck them into bed as I am to throw them down on the floor and strip them naked. For me, the sweet and tender and down-and-dirty go hand in hand; I’m most turned on, and most slutty, when I’m partnered with someone who brings out my sweet side. Once, I visited a boyfriend who was sick with a fever, and did the one thing I could think of to make him feel better: sank down on his bed and took his cock in my mouth. Playing the slutty nurse, horny yet doting, is another aspect to my dirty/sweet motto.

I’d originally meant the phrase as a throwaway line, but more and more I’m realizing that everyone (or almost everyone) has a dirty and a sweet side. All too often we denigrate the dirty girls⎯the ones who dare to publicly show their naughty sides⎯as incorrigible sluts, rather than realizing just how much exciting it is to tap into our lustiest selves. Once you crack the surface of those who are seemingly prim and proper (the demure suburban housewife, the suited-up banker, the quiet secretary, the curious bookworm, the shy computer nerd), you’ll very likely find that the simplicity of the word “dirty” doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to describe the kinks that lurk within them.

The women writing here don’t apologize for being dirty. They know who and what they want and they go after the objects of their affection in all kinds of different ways. Reading this collection⎯whether from start to finish or skipping around to your favorite authors or the most eye-catching titles⎯will give you a glimpse into what makes women wet, what makes us feel and act dirty, what makes us slick our lips and spread our legs. Maybe, just maybe, their stories attempt to answer Freud’s infamously infuriating query: “What do women want?” To judge by the twenty-seven tales you hold in your hand, they want to be worshiped, they want to be ordered around, they want to be sent spinning into ecstasy and then come crashing back down. They want strangers bearing ice cubes on a hot day, and to be a party favor passed around among guests. They want hot vacation sex, visits to peep shows, and a man who’ll lick stinky cheese off their boots. They want power, and they want to give up power. They want sex at the office and in the great outdoors and on trains and airplanes. They want sex with the whole United States of America (or, at least, part of it). They want to be wooed, seduced, flirted with, taken. They want men, women, and sometimes both at the same time.

Of course, there’s more to what women want out of sex than any one book could possibly capture. What I’ve done with this anthology is highlight some of the best erotic writing I’ve found from authors who show you exactly what makes their hearts beat and their clits stand at attention. What they’re up to is, as Marie Lyn Bernard so aptly puts it, “Fucking Around” (which I briefly considered as a very fitting alternative title to this book). When I first heard Bernard read this story tag-team style at my reading series “In The Flesh,” I was blown away. She captures so much of the drama of sex⎯the high highs, the low lows, the awkwardness and the intensity⎯in a playful yet totally hot way. And when she writes about the Big Apple, it’ll make you want to hop the first plane or train to get here: “New York fucks me. New York fucks me so hard that I cry. My pussy opens like the long throat of a flame-swallower. Her fingers make love to the inside of my bellybutton. I am sweating so much that our bodies glide against each other like fish underwater.” You’ll find yourself drawing a map of your own sexual conquests, marking your territory right along with Bernard.

But for every feisty babe here, there’s another just in the process of discovering what turns her on. “Dirty” can be a state of mind just as much as it can be a description of one’s bedroom antics. Carol Queen’s peepshow virgin protagonist Abby doesn’t quite know what she’s getting into with her new friends Daniel and Lila, but she desperately wants to find out. “Lila’s lips covered hers right away, soft and wet, licking and nibbling in one of the most arousing kisses Abby had ever experienced,” writes Queen. “Dirty” doesn’t always mean depraved, either; these stories aren’t all wham-bam-thank-you-sir (or ma’am) quickies. Many of them evoke the intensity of emotion sex can bring with it, the ways having a lover know you literally inside and out can throw your life completely off balance, as if they can read your soul like a map, using fingers, toys, tongues, and cocks to navigate you until they own your internal compass. The thrill of giving yourself over to someone, of giving up control for that deliciously delirious sensation of pure erotic adrenaline, surfaces throughout this collection.

The women you’ll find here are complex; they’re by turns playful and bashful, horny and haughty. They want to share much more with you than just the details of their latest screw. They want you to know what makes them tick, who haunts their dreams, why they can’t quite forget the man who fucked them senseless, even when they’re with someone new. They like to watch and be watched, to take risks, to live out their long-held fantasies. Some are in loving, committed relationships, ones that allow them room to get their freak on with the person who knows just how to push their every button. Others, like my “Icy Hot” protagonist, don’t even want to know their bedmate’s name: “I forgot about the fact that I didn’t really know him at all. Sometimes, in a city of millions of strangers, you just have to take a chance and let your body make the decisions for you, as I’ve learned over the years. And my body was saying yes, please, more, harder.”

“Dirty” doesn’t preclude poetry, the kind where the words roll off the page, roll from your tongue, so beautifully it’s like they themselves are making love to you. Writers like Marilyn Jaye Lewis, Suki Bishop, and Melissa Gira probe the twisted places women go in search of sex⎯and themselves. In “A Prayer to Be Made Cocksure,” Gira elevates the art of the blowjob to new heights: “I sucked your cock as if it was the last cock. I trusted you to let me keep breathing, to never take that final bit from me, to tell me that getting any air at all was your choice just by reaching your hand down the length of your chest to me, to cradle the back of my neck, to run your fingers across my lips, softly, as you plunged suddenly and held me at the edge.” She takes you right into that moment, where this intimate act is dissected, treasured, hoarded, and missed.

You’ll find a range of motivations here, from women looking to spice up a lackluster relationship to single girls on the prowl to kinky couples, daring dommes, and sultry sirens intent on performing on a sexual stage of their own creation. You may read their stories and ask yourself: Would you ever write your name across your lover’s cock? What about pick up a stranger at a rock concert or screw a doctor in a hospital? Get fingered at the opera? Go to a bondage club? These characters do all this and more, always making sure their wanting, lusting, panting, and perversions are met with equal fervor.

Take a hot and steamy trip with these writers as they unlock your deepest desires, or perhaps give you some new ideas to try out next time you shut your eyes and part your legs. From tender to tempting, sweet to sadistic, loving to lascivious, there’s something for every reader who wants to go to bed with images that’ll surely make you blush and just may spark some brand-new, unique fantasies of your very own.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City
July 2007

Labels: , ,

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Sexy cupcakes

How hot are these photos? From the Death by Cupcakes photo shoot, styled by Amithyst, photos by Duckfive







Do check out all the photos

Labels:

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Shayna Ferm rocks "Walk of Shame"

Comedian Shayna Ferm pays tribute to the walk of shame:

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Hear me read six words tonight

And then I'm out of there cause I got about two hours of sleep last night! Also, my baby fever has waned as I realize I can barely take care of myself. Oh well.



Looks like it's the sex writers edition of this anthology (apparently there are 832 authors in the book). Check out the New Yorker Talk of the Town piece on the book and other press (I also reviewed the book in Penthouse.)

McNally Robinson, 52 Prince Street, NYC

Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous And Obscure


Tuesday, Mar 11th - 7:00 PM



Rachel FershleiserLarry SmithRachel Kramer BusselNell CaseyAmy SohnWith editors Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith

And contributors Rachel Kramer Bussel, Nell Casey, Amy Sohn, Anthony Swofford, and others


Legend has it that Hemingway once wrote a novel in six words—“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” In the 21st century, the six-word story has evolved into the six-word memoir, a form explored in myriad ways in the collection Not Quite What I Was Planning (Harper Perennial). The book began as a contest on www.SMITHmag.net, an online magazine about personal storytelling, and contains over 800 memoirs from regular folks from around the country and the world; as well as from celebrity contributors both literary and otherwise. The collection’s editors and several of its contributors will show a video of the variety of memoirs collected, and read from their six-word memoirs this evening, and audience members will be invited to create their own version of this addictive literary form.

Sebastian Horsley on whores



You know how sometimes you read something and it just catches your brain's attention and never really leaves? You don't think about it every day, or even every month or anything, but when the topic comes up, you go back to it and just think, Wow. That's how I feel about Sebastian Horsley's "The Brother Creeper." He's now got a memoir out, Dandy in the Underworld, which he'll be reading from next Thursday March 20th at In The Flesh.

You know what's refreshing about his piece? You almost never publicly hear johns using their real names owning up to liking hookers. Sure, there are blogs, sure, we all know people who've done it, but I think there's something horrifying yet riveting about what he's written. And then I have to ask myself, why is it horrifying? And I realize it's not, it's just the very opposite of how I personally want to live. But parts of it I get, totally. And I think he's one of the rare few who can go there so boldly. Obviously, Eliot Spitzer can't, and we will likely never know the whole story from his end. It's all, "I'm so sorry." But for what? Getting caught?

My friend said she felt bad for him, and I guess I just feel like if you're a politician, especially one with an anti-prostitution track record, there's something profoundly either stupid, or secretly wanting-to-be-caught, about doing what he did. Bottom line. I may not have aced my way through political science, but I think in an age where we're all under scrutiny to some extent, politicians who fail to realize that secrets, well, don't really exist, are politically foolish. Save that till you're out of office. I feel the same way about Bill Clinton. And my real point is that whatever buttons Horsley may push, with me or with you, I give him more credit for his honesty than the pseudo-remorse-see-I-have-a-well-dressed-proper-wife-by-my-side inanity of the politicians who maybe wish they could say something like this. Or maybe they don't; maybe it's the very secrecy they get off on. I don't know, but I am curious. In my world, at least, I know plenty of sex workers, and I hear and read their stories (though I realize mainstream media only tells one very heavily slanted side). I think hearing from the other side, not necessarily the hooker connoisseur like Horsley, but the "average" (if there is an average?) john would be nice once in a while.

Just so it's clear, I don't admire Horsley's essay because I agree with it; I admire it precisely because I don't. Because what I want out of sex and what he wants seem to be so completely opposite as to make me wonder how we even co-exist in the same world. I look forward to meeting him and maybe he'll talk about this more next week. I don't aspire to be like him, but I do admire his honesty. I have trouble writing so honestly lately. The more you think about who might read x or y, the more you just keep it all to yourself. I know it's a leap, but I think writing honestly about sx is as important as writing honestly about anything else, something we're clearly confused about as a culture. Check out Evan Handler (crazy hot "Harry" from Sex and the City, "Charlie Runkle" - David Duchovny's agent - on Californication and memoirist) on why "Truth Matters."

The great thing about sex with whores is the excitement and variety. If you say you're enjoying sex with the same person after a couple of years you're either a liar or on something. Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural. Most of our affairs run the usual course. Fever. Boredom. Trapped. This explains much of the friction in our lives - love being the delusion that one woman differs from another. But with brothels there is always the exhilaration of not knowing what you're going to get.

The problem with normal sex is that it leads to kissing and pretty soon you've got to talk to them. Once you know someone well the last thing you want to do is screw them. I like to give, never to receive; to have the power of the host, not the obligation of the guest. I can stop writing this and within two minutes I can be chained, in the arms of a whore. I know I am going to score and I know they don't really want me. And within 10 minutes I am back writing. What I hate are meaningless and heartless one-night stands where you tell all sorts of lies to get into bed with a woman you don't care for.

The worst things in life are free. Value seems to need a price tag. How can we respect a woman who doesn't value herself? When I was young I used to think it wasn't who you wanted to have sex with that was important, but who you were comfortable with socially and spiritually. Now I know that's rubbish. It's who you want to have sex with that's important. In the past I have deceived the women I have been with. You lie to two people in your life; your partner and the police. Everyone else gets the truth...

Hookers and drunks instinctively understand that common sense is the enemy of romance. Will the bureaucrats and politicians please leave us some unreality. I know what you are thinking. That it's all very well for people like me to idealise whores and thieves; to think that the street is somehow noble and picturesque; I have never had to live there. But so what? One day I will. Until such time, I have to pay for it. How else would someone young, rich and handsome get sex in this city? Yes, yes, I know. Prostitution is obscene, debasing and disgraceful. The point is, so am I.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Adventures in book covers: Don't You Forget About Me



Jancee Dunn's first novel, Don't You Forget About Me, out July 29th from Villard

Labels:

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Cupcake Sunday

Today's cupcake meetup (next one is April 23rd from 5-7 at the M&M store, a cupcake demo and cupcake bar with the authors of Hello, Cupcake! - sign up at dessert.meetup.com/3 to get details).

Me with Allison and a peanut butter cupcake; see the rest of my photos here.

Labels: ,

Friday, March 07, 2008

Good times


Photo from Emma Rose Cakes, Denver

It's been a long week, though actually, overall, a pretty good one - I feel like the anticipation of the funeral far outweighed the funeral itself in negativity. I feel much more focused and ready for what's ahead than I have been. I am looking forward to some quality time with my laptop and my friends this weekend (not at the same time!). If you're the cupcake-loving sort, do join us on Sunday at 2 pm at Martha's Country Bakery, 3621 Ditmars Boulevard, Astoria, Queens - join the NYC Cupcake Meetup for updates on future events, including an April 23rd cupcake decorating/cupcake bar party at the M&M store. Not in New York? Check out our nationwide Cupcake Alliance and/or this post.

Two photos from last weekend by Stacie Joy

With Coming Out Spanko director Tanya Bezreh and a cupcake

At CineKink, with filmmaker Tanya Bezreh, director of Coming Out Spanko, which won Best Documentary Short. As if from a cupcake angel, mini cupcakes were there too.

I've been so busy I've barely had time to do anything other than unpack my boxes of new books and give a few to friends. They're so pretty and I'm thrilled with how they turned out. I've gotten some criticism of both covers featuring women and will respond to that soon, but even if you are bothered by that, do check out what's inside. See more at yessirbook.wordpress.com/about and
yesmaam.wordpress.com/about.

New books, woo-hoo!

Labels: ,

Thursday, March 06, 2008

The good thing(s) about funerals

Yesterday was actually a lovely day, funeral and all. I mean, how sad can you be with this in front of you?

Cousin cuteness
My cousins Adam and Alexandra

I joked that the good thing about funerals for me is that since so much of my wardrobe already consists of black dresses, it makes selecting an outfit really easy. But in truth, the good thing about funerals is family. Sometimes, because some members of my family easily drive me crazy, I forget how really awesome they are. There were lots of people I’d either never met or knew when I was little, old family friends, and some of the people who are most important to me in the world. I sat with Adam, pictured above, and his dad I the back and sacrificed my eyeliner and lipliner, which I don’t wear anyway, to trace his little hand again and again on some blank paper. That little boy melts my heart and is just so adorable. I saw my LA family members, who I'm gonna see in May, and it actually felt, in many ways, less stressful for me than usual family gatherings. There was plenty of food, but of course, and while I won't say it was joyous, it was far more a celebration of her life than a mourning of her death, though that was mixed in. My stepfather, who's a rabbi, conducted the service, and said that death is a haven for the weary. In this case, he was certainly right, and knowing she is no longer suffering I think was comforting to all of us.

It was actually a really nice day, and good to reconnect with my cousin/former roommate, who witness how tired I was when I said, “Wow, Baskin-Robbins has ice cream now.” I saw how much of my hometown (Teaneck, New Jersey) is totally different than it was when I was growing up. I feel so much like New York is my true home that I forget that that small place was once the center of my world.

I even made it back in time to laugh so, so hard at my awesome comedian friends, who didn’t care, like I did, that they were playing to a crowd the size of them. They made even the unintentionally funny parts totally hilarious and just seemed so happy to be there. I was fretting about turnout but as it turned out (ha ha), it didn’t matter, and those who were there were actually really lucky to hear such awesome comics reading comics. I think we’ll do that again at some future date, and this time, we will all properly pimp it out.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

March 20th and April 17th In The Flesh lineups

Speaking of In The Flesh, some upcoming lineups. Also March May 15th for more True Sex Confessions and June 19th for GLBT Night.

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
THURSDAY, MARCH 20th at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com


In The Flesh welcomes a range of authors from the sexy mysteries of Hard Case Crime authors Megan Abbott (Queenpin) and Charles Ardai (Songs of Innocence) to erotic memoirist Sebastian Horsley (Dandy in the Underworld) all the way from the UK, as well as Kevin Keck (Oedipus Wrecked, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Kevin) and Cheri Magid (contributor to Hide and Seek). Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Best Sex Writing 2008). Free candy and cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.



Megan Abbott is the Edgar-nominated author of the novels, Queenpin, The Song Is You and Die a Little. Her stories have appeared in Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir, Wall Street Noir, Detroit Noir and Queens Noir. Her nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2003. She is the editor of A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir, featuring original tales by 25 mystery and crime authors, which was published in December 2007.
www.meganabbott.com



Charles Ardai is the Edgar Award-winning author of the novels Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence ("an instant classic"--Washington Post), both written under the pen name "Richard Aleas." He is also founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of paperback crime novels in the style of the sexy pulp paperbacks of the 1940s and 50s that Neal Pollack called "the best new American publisher to appear in the last decade." Also an entrepreneur, Ardai created and for seven years ran the Internet company Juno. He lives in New York with his wife, best-selling fantasy novelist Naomi Novik.
www.hardcasecrime.com



Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Dirty Girls, and Best Sex Writing 2008. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com



Sebastian Horsley lives in Soho, London and has written for The Observer, New Statesmen, The Independent, The Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times, The Loaded and he ran a monthly column for The Erotic Review. His memoir, Dandy in the Underworld, will be published in the United States by Harper Perennial on March 11, 2007.
sebastianhorsley.typepad.com



Kevin Keck is the author of Oedipus Wrecked, a collection of essays which features work first published on Nerve.com, and Are You There, God? It's Me, Kevin. He is also the father of three children who should be sufficiently embarrassed later in life by what he writes.
www.thekeck.com



Cheri Magid wrote a popular erotic blog and a column under various and sundry pseudonyms. She is also a playwright whose work has been seen in New York, California, Ohio, Iowa, and Michigan. Lydia, or "The Girl at the Wheel, "Cheri’s radio play about the earliest days of burlesque, aired on National Public Radio in 2001 and her short story "Yeah, We Got That," aired on Playboy Radio. She is currently writing a screenplay, The Story of D, about the real story behind the writing of The Story of O for Dan Wigutow Productions. Her short film Carnophobia is now in post.
http://www.sassybean.com/index.php/blog/article/cheri_magid_author/Marie

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
THURSDAY, APRIL 17th at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com


the cleavage and cupcakes In The Flesh logo

Logo by Molly Crabapple


A night of fabulous female authors from across the sexual spectrum (and world). Let Honey B., author of Sexcapades, seduce you before memoirists Sarah Thyre (Dark at the Roots) and Suzanne Portnoy (The Not So Invisible Woman) share their real life sex stories. Marie Lyn Bernard and Sofia Quintero, contributors to Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women, edited by In The Flesh host and curator Rachel Kramer Bussel, will read from their stories in this brand-new collection. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Dirty Girls, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am). Celebrate the release of Rachel’s new book Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women, which will be available for sale and signing, along with work by other contributors from Mobile Libris. Free candy and cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.



HoneyB, HoneyB, aka Mary Morrison, is a happily single mother, a poet and lecturer and a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and an Essence best-selling author. Just as every woman has an inner child, every woman also has an inner woman. The HoneyB, through her explicit writings, wants to pollinate every woman with knowledge about sexuality and self-love and her objective is to help women blossom into goddesses. Sexiness is an attitude HoneyB wants every woman to embrace and express openly. HoneyB lives and loves as much as she possibly can in Oakland, California. Sexcapades is her first erotica title. Single Husbands is the second in the HoneyB series, due out in Spring 2009.
www.marymorrison.com

Marie "Riese" Lyn Bernard is a half-Jewish, half-Midwestern Farmer's-Daughter freelance aspirant. She blogs at This Girl Called Automatic Win (marielynbernard.blogspot.com) and recaps homosexy television at Automatic Straddle (>theroadbeststraddled.blogspot.com) and for The L Word Online. Her work has appeared in The Bigger the Better, the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women On Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female, Best Women's Erotica 2005, Best American Erotica 2007, the Lambda Literary Award-winning Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments, Marie Claire magazine, Curve Magazine, OurChart.com, Suspect Thoughts, nerve.com, Clean Sheets, Fresh Off the Vine, Conversely, Desdmona.com, and The Sarah Lawrence Review. She's currently writing a memoir about her super fascinating life on earth.
www.marielynbernard.com



Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Dirty Girls, and Best Sex Writing 2008. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmopolitan UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com



Suzanne Portnoy has been an entertainment publicist for twelve years. Divorced and with two children, aged 13 and 15, she is formerly from New York and now lives in London, UK. Attractive and finally a size 8 after twenty years of yo-yo dieting, she is happily single and spends her spare time writing, having sex and acting as a one-woman car pool service. She is the author of The Not So Invisible Woman and Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir, both published by Virgin Books.
www.suzanneportnoy.com

Sofía Quintero is the author of several novels and short stories that cross genres. Under the pen name Black Artemis, she wrote the hip hop novels Explicit Content, Picture Me Rollin’ and Burn. She is also a contributor to two other erotica collections: Juicy Mangos, an anthology of short stories by Latina writers, and Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica.Sofía is also the author of the novel Divas Don’t Yield and contributed novellas to the “chica lit” anthologies Friday Night Chicas and Names I Call My Sister. As an activist, she co-founded Chica Luna Productions (chicaluna.com), a nonprofit organization that seeks to identify, develop and support women of color who wish to create socially conscious entertainment. She is also a founding creative partner of Sister Outsider Entertainment, a multimedia production company that aims to create edgy but quality entertainment for urban audiences. To stay in touch with Sofía and learn about her works-in-progress, public appearances and latest rants and raves by visit her at blackartemis.com, sisteroutsider.biz or myspace.com/sofiaquintero.



Sarah Thyre is the author of the memoir Dark at the Roots, which she is currently developing for television with Warner Brothers. An actress and writer, she has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, TV Funhouse, Upright Citizens Brigade, and as the gender-compromised Coach Cherry Wolf on Strangers with Candy. She has performed her own work at the UCB Theatres in New York and Los Angeles, Sit 'n' Spin at the Comedy Central Stage, and on Public Radio International. She is the voice of Mary Frances on The Mighty B!, a cartoon premiering on Nickelodeon this April. Sarah lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two kids.
www.sarahthyre.com

Labels:

Sympathy thanks and Sex for America on YouTube

A truly heartfelt thank you to all of you who have reached out with your sympathies. I appreciate that so much. Thank you.

Some reading from last month's In The Flesh, all from Stephen Elliott's excellent anthology Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica. (More including Stephen coming soon)



In order: Me reading the BRILLIANT "An Open Letter to the Bush Administration" by Mistress Morgana, then Jonathan Ames reading "Womb Shelter," and Nick Flyn reading "A Crystal Formed Entirely of Holes." Do check out the book, it's excellent and perfect for this election year.





Labels: ,

Monday, March 03, 2008

Family, death and life

I’m lucky in that I haven’t been to too many funerals in my life. I think I may have gone to one when I was very littleæmy friend’s mom died of, I believe, breast cancer. Then at around age 8, my great-grandmother, Mae Cronig, died, and that’s one of the few, if not the only, time I’ve been to Martha’s Vineyard in the winter. I’ve been to my grandmother on my dad’s side’s funeral, and my other grandmother’s third husband.

My great-aunt’s death makes me think about the other older relatives I have who I am very close with, in addition to the end of her life. I went to visit her recently in her rehab and it was almost like she was already half gone, at least at that moment. She hardly seemed to recognize us, and while the other residents were vigorously playing bingo (and if you think you can’t vigorously play bingo, you are so wrong), she was lying in her bed or moving around aimlessly. I had no idea how to behave, what to do, and the truth is, I just wanted to leave. It was so hard to see someone in that state and not know how to help. I’m glad that she is no longer suffering. I didn’t know her all that well, other than the way you know relatives you see a few times a year, not on a real personal level, but she was an integral part of our family, made up at its core largely by three very strong-willed, close sisters who all have/had fascinating stories to tell, I’m sure.

I’m grateful that I do have my grandparents, who, as each of theirs first grandchild, I have very special relationships with. My dad’s dad and my mom’s mom are not only still alive, but extremely active. My grandmother is constantly on the go--at the mall, at peace protests, visiting friends. She is hard to get a hold of, though lately she has had to slow down. Whereas I’m afraid of cars, she thinks nothing of zipping along the highway.

My grandfather, as I told you, has a memoir coming out…in November! I will let you know the minute it’s available on Amazon. He too is quite busy; he travels around the country and the world visiting relatives as well as attending ex-POW-related events. He certainly does not look anywhere near his age. I’m lucky, again, in that as I’ve gotten older I’ve developed stronger relationships with both them, and my two other great-aunts. I’ve come to realize that my relationships with them don’t have to be governed by the ones I have with my parents, and in many ways, I think I can talk to all of them in ways I can’t with my parents, and perhaps they don’t with their kids, and I really appreciate that so much. I’ve grown so curious about what their lives were like, the relatives I missed out on knowing, and just enjoy spending time, whether in person or by phone or email, with them. My aunt Carole (aka Cabbie) and I totally bond over her grandson, Adam, and are pretty much both big dorks about him, and I don’t mind her saying, “Did you hear what Adam said yesterday?” It’s cute and fun and I guess what surprises me sometimes is how non-judgmental they are.

Maybe they can be less so than one’s parents, because they’re not as attached in the same way. I love my parents and am close with them each but they also drive me crazy in ways other people don’t. I have so many traits of my mom and my dad, and since they are largely complete opposites, I can see those traits so clearly, some for the better, some for the worse.

Anyway, not much else to say, this is probably pointless, and lately I feel like a lot of what I do is pointless, or at the very least, needs to be rethought, because making the same mistakes over and over only means you are choosing to live with things you don’t want in your life, right? And for me when confronted with death, it reminds me that I need to both appreciate the people I love and make my life as much about what I want as I can. The last funeral I went to brought home a lot of lessons, and I’m not going to speak ill of the dead, at least, not here, but it made a huge impact on me, both what was said at that funeral and the relationship drama that went down that evening, coinciding in an almost fictional perfect way and reminding me that people can have not just one or two but many faces. They may act one way towards some people and the opposite toward another, or keep themselves closed off from emotions for whatever reasons, and that’s fine for them, but stay the hell away from me with that, you know? I don’t understand that way of being and I don’t want to.

I just remember thinking that I don’t want people to be confused at my funeral; I don’t want there to be a disconnect between the niceties people say at funerals and how I’ve actually lived my life. Some people might not mind that—they’re dead by then, after all—but I really value what others think of me. Perhaps to a fault, but I do, but I also know when I am not living up to my potential, when I am letting life happen to me, a subpar life, at that, rather than trying to change it. Most days I don’t think I have it in me to make changes, and I know how much easier stagnation is, infinitely so.

I don’t quite know how to make those changes or even how to envision them most of the time, but I also know I don’t have forever on this earth, even though it may seem that way. I have no idea what the future holds but I want to be an active part of it, not some stupid bystander.

p.s. Thanks to everyone who's sent condolences. I really, really appreciate it. I'm okay, just restless.

A quickie YouTube video



Here's me from January's In The Flesh reading "Your Little Secret" from Carol Queen's anthology More Five Minute Erotica (more YouTube coming soon). Am dealing with a death in the family, funeral's on Wednesday so Rachael Parenta is replacing me at the awesome Best Erotic Comics 2008 party which will be SO FUNNY. Needless to say, I'm slammed more than usual but also kindof calm in a strange way.

Labels: ,

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Today at 5, I'm moderating the "Women Behind the Lens" panel

Come check it out as well as the rest of the awesome CineKink lineup. (Really, some great, great stuff, including "Coming Out Spanko" by the fabulous Tanya Bezreh, who I met during a storm-filled weekend in Boston a few years ago. There's some great stuff tomorrow, too, including a Maria Beatty film, Silken Sleeves, featuring Midori, pictured below.

Saturday, March 1st – 5 pm




“Women Behind The Lens” - Panel Discussion

Smut NYCWhether they call their work erotica, pornography or adult entertainment, a growing number of female directors have been carving out key positions for
themselves in the adult sector of the film production world.


A panel of these directors will discuss their roles within the industry and the individual approach each takes in depicting sexuality on screen. How does each reconcile the creative work they do with a feminist viewpoint? What are the ingredients of a truly hot sex scene? Is spit really an effective form of lubricant? Additional questions from the audience will be encouraged and film clips will be shown!


Moderated by Rachel Kramer Bussel, panelists to date include Shine L. Houston, Audacia Ray, Candida Royalle and Julie Simone.

Sunday, March 2nd – 5 pm





US Premiere!

Silken Sleeves

O Maria Beatty, 2006, USA, 50 minutes.


In a journey through four seasons of domination and submission, Midori, by turns playful and cruel, captures and binds the delicate Mayan, whose
struggles avail her nothing in the presence of such rope-wielding expertise.