Thursday, August 20th In The Flesh - be there!

This Thursday. Be there. We have free lip gloss to give away, along with sex toys, cupcakes and more. Unfortunately, Desiree can't make it but she will be joining us at a future date. Don't miss the hotness. I just may read one of my extra-dirty stories written under my secret male pseudonym.


In The Flesh reading series logo by Molly Crabapple

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
August 20th at 8 PM (doors at 7; we recommend arriving by 7:30 for a seat)
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)
Between Forsyth & Eldridge. Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://www.inthefleshreadingseries.com

In The Flesh makes August even hotter with these real-life sex stories and steamy erotica tales. Featuring art star Reverend Jen, author of Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen, D.L. King, editor of the lesbian erotica anthology Where the Girls Are, Lisa Beth Kovetz, author of the new novel Lux’s Practical Erotica Adventures, Ravenous Romance author Sèphera Girónand David Henry Sterry, editor of the Soft Skull Press anthology Hos, Hustlers, Callgirls and Rentboys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex, along with contributors Jennifer Blowdryer, Zoe Hansen and Audacia Ray. Hosted and curated by Rachel Kramer Bussel (The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, Spanked). Authors' books will be available for sale from Mobile Libris. Free candy and cupcakes by Baked by Melissa will be served and free lip gloss from Topco as well as sex toys will be given away.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the country'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, Susie Bright, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Mike Daisey, 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, Zane 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, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, Gothamist, Jezebel.com, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Jennifer Blowdryer was delighted to meet other people with funny names when she moved to NYC in 1985. Spider Webb and Annie Sprinkle introduced her to the mutual exploitation hack erotica circuit, and she proudly launched Smut Fests at a lap dancing parlour in 1988, forcing performance art patrons to pass through a metered turnstile, and mix with the strangely open minded perverts of the greater new york area. Find her online at jenniferblowdryer.com, www.86edstories.com, jenniferblowdryer.blogspot.com and on Twitter as @valfreedom


photo by Stacy Lanyon

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, two of which (Up All Night and Glamour Girls) have been Lambda Literary Award finalists, most recently The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com


photo by Hilary McHone

Sèphera Girón is the author of over 15 published novels, both fiction and non-fiction. Her fiction ranges from erotic horror to erotic romance. Her non-fiction books include House Magic: The Good Witch's Guide to Bringing Grace to Your Space as well as the Kama Sutra Seductions Deck. Sèphera is working on an occult series for Ravenous Romance as well as writing the daily horoscopes. When Sèphera isn't writing or reading tarot, she's involved in community theatre with her teenaged dancer son.
www.sepheragiron.com



Zoe Hansen grew up in London, where she befriended Boy George, who put her in his “It’s a Miracle” video. In 1984, armed with $200, she left London for New York City’s Lower East Side. She started in sex work answering phones for an escort service and eventually doing out calls. In 1999, she opened her own brothel, Sterling Ladies, which was the first of five brothels she opened during the next three years. She is now working on her first book, a memoir entitled My American Dream - Going Down in Gotham, and living in the East Village.



D. L. King is the editor of Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica and the up-coming anthology, The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica, both from Cleis Press, she is also the publisher and editor of the erotica review site, Erotica Revealed. Some of her most recent work can be found in anthologies such as Girl Crazy, Swing!, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, Frenzy, Best Women’s Erotica, Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica and Best Lesbian Erotica. You can find her also in the soon-to-be-released anthologies, Like a Sacred Desire: Tales of Sex Magick, from Circlet Press and Broadly Bound, from Phaze. She is also the author of two novels, The Melinoe Project and The Art of Melinoe.
www.dlkingerotica.com


photo by Stacie Joy

Lisa Beth Kovetz is an award winning writer and producer. Her first novel, The Tuesday Erotica Club, was published by Sourcebooks, Inc. in April ’06. By 2008 the novel has been translated into 17 languages, with the sequel to be published in April 2009. The feature film rights to the book have recently been optioned by Cinergi Pictures Entertainment. Her second novel is Lux’s Practical Erotica Adventures. Currently, Ms. Kovetz is a senior producer/writer at CUNY-TV, the cable television station of The City University of New York where she creates documentaries and short form episodic magazine format segments. Kovetz is currently working on a half hour documentary on anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising and a documentary about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
www.lisabethkovetz.com



Audacia Ray is a media maker and activist who is passionate about sexual rights. She is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration (Seal Press, 2007) and is the award-winning director and producer of the porn feature The Bi Apple as well as the producer and star of the comedic film short Dacia’s Love Machine. Audacia is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at $pread magazine for three years and is a co-founder of advocacy organization Sex Work Awareness. Dacia has been writing her personal blog, Waking Vixen, since 2004.
www.audaciaray.com



Reverend Jen is a performer, painter, playwright, columnist, underground movie star, open mike host, ASS Magazine founder and elf. She lives in the world's only Troll Museum above a shoe store on New York City's Lower East Side with her Chihuahua, Reverend Jen Junior. She is a columnist for www.artnet.com and a former sex columnist for Nerve.com. Her books include Live Nude Elf: the Sexperiments of Reverend Jen, Sex Symbol for the Insane and Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood.
www.revjen.com



David Henry Sterry is a bestselling author, Huffington Post regular, award winning actor/comic, book doctor, teacher, activist, and a man who hasn’t worn matching socks in years. He is writer of and performer in the one-man show "Chicken", based on his bestselling memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent (ReganBooks: 2002), which has been translated into nine languages, and is being made into a series by Showtime. He is an editor of a new anthology by Soft Skull Press: Hos, Hustlers, Callgirls and Rentboys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex. www.davidhenrysterry.com



You will hear from the following books:


Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex


Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen


Lux's Practical Erotica Adventures


The Mile High Club: Plane Sex Stories


Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica


Teacher's Pet by Sèphera Girón

Book review: Live Nude Elf by Reverend Jen

I wrote this on Amazon.com, hence some of the blanked-out words. More info at publisher Soft Skull Press.

Catch Reverend Jen reading from Live Nude Elf on August 20th at In The Flesh Reading Series!



My review:

Live Nude Elf breaks the mold of sex writing and sex columns, not only because its author dons elf ears, lives on the Lower East Side, and is a self-proclaimed "art star," but because her wit, sense of humor, offbeat friends and mix of earnestness sans materialism are something we've seen unfortunately little of when it comes to sex writing. Based on her "I Did It For Science" columns for Nerve.com, Reverend Jen Miller gives her life story, as a misfit, artist, New Yorker and lover, without devolving into the same old clichés we've seen a million times.

Miller can get away with saying something like her a--hole is "smiling," because she's already walked us through all the research she's done to get to that point. She tackles her assignments not like they are acts from another planet, but with genuine curiosity, whether it's working as a nude housecleaner or doing a stint on a porn set. The people she meets along the way are more than just "subjects" or fodder for her writing; they are given room, here, to be as crazy, funny, obnoxious, and sexy as they want to be.

One of the most tender moments here happens when Jen is trapped inside a balloon at a fetish party. First, she's alone, then she's joined by a young man. "We stared at each other like we'd just climbed through a wardrobe and found Narnia. It was hard to believe the real world lay just outside the latex."

What I liked best about this book is that Miller doesn't have an agenda. Though she certainly gains sexual skills along the way, she's not looking to offer sex advice or flaunt anything. She admits to being just as messed up about love as anyone else. After a breakup, she writes in a chapter entitled "I'll Never Wash This Vagina Again," about her broken heart. "I was lonely and he was a good lover. And a good lover, no matter how cruel, is hard to give up. I needed rehab for my addiction to Nick's penis."

She dates musicians, enters her very own Sex Toy Olympics, hunts for rich older men and fresh young ones, watches the entirety of Sex and the City (the TV show), and learns to squirt. For much of the book, she has an affair with a bisexual couple (who both are into her, not so much each other). Love is as much as a part of Live Nude Elf as sex, and her artistic passion extends into the bedroom.

This is an excellent, funny, wild, yet also heartfelt book. It's a far cry from Carrie Bradshaw and company, who I highly doubt would ever want to associate herself with being an "art fag." Reverend Jen is a sex columnist for all the freaks, misfits, and artists who don't give a ___ about Manolo Blahniks, who wouldn't buy them even if they could afford them (which they can't). Her humor is intelligent, rather than simply playing sex for laughs. Take this book to bed and you're sure to get off, in more ways than one.

What I'm reading: Live Nude Elf by Reverend Jen

It's truly a shame that every sex columnist ever now has to be compared to Carrie Bradshaw, even though I slip into it too sometimes. I just gave a blurb to a novel and since there were four female friends who all talked about sex, I felt compelled to call it hotter than SATC, but I try not to. So I will ignore the Carrie reference in the official description of NYC art star Reverend Jen's new book Live Nude Elf and just share this little excerpt of an excerpt:

After a moment's deliberation, I typed: Adorable nude housecleaner will clean your pad spic-and-span for a reasonable fee. Available immediately.

I thought that "adorable" sounded less conceited than "hot" or "sexy." Plus, I figured men who were seeking nude housekeepers were probably looking more for June Cleaver than Jenna Jameson. Moments later, a deluge of e-mails appeared in my inbox. Posting my ad on the coldest weekend of the year had been a stroke of genius. No one was planning to leave his or her apartment. The very idea that someone, anyone, was willing to go outside, let alone take off their clothes, was a phenomenon — a marketing blitz.

"Do you do bathtubs?" "What is your rate?" and "Can you send me a picture?" were the most common requests. Not knowing how much to charge, I looked to the other ads on Craigslist, but all of the nude housecleaners simply wrote, "e-mail me for rates," with the exception of one nude housecleaner who was offering his services for free.

"Ew!" exclaimed my coworker, Angie, who'd been hovering over my shoulder, reading the various ads. The going rate for clothed housekeepers was between ten and twenty dollars per hour. "If they just took their clothes off, they could make a lot more money," I surmised. "Maybe they need a manager." Fifty dollars an hour seemed to be a fair price, if not a bit on the cheap side. But because my endeavor was really a science project, I didn't believe it was ethical to charge premium rates.

She's having a book party this Saturday and other events are planned, and is reading August 20th at In The Flesh Reading Series. All I can say right now is that Carrie Bradshaw never would've had a chapter in her book called "Art Fag."

Live Nude Elf: The Sexperiments of Reverend Jen

Official Launch Party:

Saturday, May 2nd 8pm

Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery)

with Reverend Jen

The Trachtenburg Slide Show Family Players,

The Electric Mess, Brer Brian, go-go elves and more!