My CNN essay about why Bill Clinton owes Monica Lewinsky a personal apology

For CNN, I wrote about why Bill Clinton owes Monica Lewinsky an apology, and offer one of my own.

Fictional sex with Rob Gronkowski and Monica Lewinsky

Yes, I went there in my new Philadelphia City Paper sex column which is up online two days ahead of its newsstand version. In "Sex with celebrities, and other fantasies," I wrote about celebrity erotica and fan fiction, which of course is how I got my start, and why I loved the lesbian Secretary of State story "Madam Secretary" by Jaye Markham that I published in my anthology Hungry for More. Like the column? I'd love if you'd click "like" at the top and/or share it in any other ways; it makes a big difference to the longevity of the column. Missed my previous columns? Here's the archives.

5 new articles on sex and shame, fisting, adult preschool, Mariel Hemingway and Woody Allen and Becoming Steve Jobs

I've been writing a lot, with more on the way. Usually I post them separately, but this week is crunch time so here are 5 very different pieces I published this week:

"Why Do We Feel So Ashamed About Sex?" at DAME, touching on Monica Lewinsky's TED Talk and the recent documentary Inside Her Sex



Fisting for beginners in Philadelphia City Paper

Why I totally understand the appeal of adult preschool at Thought Catalog

And two topics outside my usual wheelhouse, for Salon (one more is coming for them that's about a topic I've been following for a while):

On Mariel Hemingway and Woody Allen and age and consent

Why Apple executives are wrong to insist Becoming Steve Jobs is a definitive biography

My first erotica story "Monica and Me" is now available for your listening pleasure

The wonderful Rose Caraway, who narrated my books Gotta Have It and The Big Book of Orgasms and turned them into amazing successes that have surpassed my wildest dreams (and will narrate the 69-story The Big Book of Submission), and who I'm reading with September 15 at Booksmith in San Francisco, has now recorded my very first erotica story, "Monica and Me." I wrote it in 1999 when Monica Lewinsky was a household name, for a book called Starf*cker edited by Shar Rednour, while in the process of leaving law school; I recall trying to get into the NYU Law library but no longer being able to once I wasn't enrolled, and that it was on the kind of disk you never see these days. In other words, half a lifetime ago. Many lifetimes ago, it feels like. I had absolutely no clue then that that story would bring into my life one of the most important relationships I've ever had, or would set me on a path that I could even contemplate having freelance writer problems. I almost wrote, "I look back now and think..." but I'm not really sure what I'd do differently.

"So What If Monica Lewinsky Is Single? An Open Letter to the Daily Mail"

I wrote "So What If Monica Lewinsky Is Single? An Open Letter to the Daily Mail" at Huffington Post. And yes, people like Perez Hilton and others picked it up, but it's a tabloid story, and a dumb one at that.

Dear The Daily Mail,

I understand that you need to sell newspapers, but I read your article on Monica Lewinsky twice and, after coming away with no new information about her each time, am puzzled over why you would print this. Is her single status really news?

While you thoroughly rehashed the fact that Bill Clinton basically had an affair with her then threw her under the bus, we already knew that. You quote her extensively from 2004... seven years ago. The only new quotes come from a "friend" of hers in the National Enquirer.

Read the whole thing