My Sex Writing 101 workshop September 12th in LA at CatalystCon and examples from The Village Voice, The Fix, Salon, The Daily Beast, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar

I'm gearing up to teach my Sex Writing 101 workshop ahead of CatalystCon on September 12th, which so far is the only place I've taught it because I think it's the best venue for a 3-hour, intense workshop where people are already generally in the sexuality field in some capacity and have a framework for the types of issues and ideas being discussed. This is a companion post to "How to make money writing about your sex life and 5 times I did." That one was about writing about your personal life, which will be covered in the workshop, but this post is about sex journalism, which will also be covered.



There is also room to overlap both of those in one piece or book, and I'll be highlighting the work of CatalystCon speakers like Joan Price (who's on my September 14th panel on Envelope-Pushing Erotica), Carol Queen (who's excellently blended both personal experience and journalism/advocacy pieces), Conner Habib, a prolific writer about sexuality topics and past Best Sex Writing contributor, Cunning Minx with her podcast Polyamory Weekly and ebook on polyamory (we are on a panel on September 13th on Shameless Self-Promotion: Marketing 101 for Activists). See the full CatalystCon schedule here.

I'll also be highlighting the work of many other people who write sex articles, such as Jillian Keenan, who wrote a Modern Love essay about spanking in The New York Times (yes, that's more of a personal essay, but since then she's gone on to write a lot about related topics in a more journalistic fashion) and a recent piece for Slate about kink as a sexual orientation, my friend Twanna Hines, who parlayed her blog Funky Brown Chick into a column for Metro, and much more.

In a nutshell, just as I think everyone has a personal sex essay in them they can publish and sell, I feel the same about other forms of nonfiction sex writing. I'm not saying everyone should do it, but if you want to, there are ways to mine your own life and the news and craft great pitches. I'll be teaching you how and getting you writing and pitching, and I hope you'll attend this workshop if you're at CatalystCon. Here are 8 examples of my own nonfiction sex writing over the years (please note they aren't all about how people have sex, but also about sexuality and culture and how our sexuality affects the rest of our lives), that I hope give a bit of breadth to the topics you can cover (which are vast, and new ones pop up every day, like the leaked nude Jennifer Lawrence photos):

"A Revolutionary Relationship", The Village Voice - one of my favorite of my columns, which I wrote almost 10 years ago (!!). Here's the opening:

I'm a little nervous when I pick up the phone to call Betty Dodson. After all, I had sex with her live-in partner, Eric, only a few weeks ago. While I know they have a long-term open relationship, that doesn't mean she'll exactly welcome me with open arms, even though she's agreed to the interview.

"Kinky, Sober and Free: BDSM in Recovery", The Fix

"Guybrators! Prostate massagers! Fleshlights! “Louie” and the expanding male sex toy market", Salon

'50 Shades of Grey' is The Subject of a Course at American University", The Daily Beast

"Erotic Lit Your Grandmother Will Like," The Daily Beast

"How to Talk Sexy (and Not Sound Stupid)", Glamour

"The O-Shot", Harper's Bazaar

Ready to write your own, CatalystCon attendees? Sign up for Sex Writing 101 on September 12th!

Sex at the movies: Twanna Hines and I review Orgasm Inc.

Even though she didn't believe me that Quad Cinema, one of NYC's independent movie theaters, existed (really), Twanna Hines and I finally made it over to 13th Street to check out Liz Canner's documentary Orgasmic, Inc.. We did a relatively short review below, and you can see Tracy Quan's interesting take on it at MyDaily. You can also follow @Orgasm_Inc on Twitter and like the film on Facebook. Apologies for being so slow to get this posted; let's blame it on technical difficulties.

I definitely encourage you to see it; if anything, it will make you look at the pharmaceutical industry with a bit more skepticism (if you don't already), and the idea of what women "should" be doing when it comes to orgasms is something I will be exploring in a future SexIs Magazine column, both related to this film and in general, because in my personal experience there is a lot of pressure on women (okay, me) to have orgasms in ways that feel unrelated to my personal pleasure, and in fact impede that pleasure by putting so much focus on it, but that's another discussion.

The BlogHer panel I'd totally attend if I weren't going to Martha's Vineyard: "Bringing Sex Out of the Closet"

I'm gonna try to start posting here more often...emphasis on "try" as I'm behind on multiple books and have lots of, well, life going on.

Like this weekend, I'll be taking the SeaStreak boat for the first time to spend 36 hours with my family on Martha's Vineyard and attend my aunt's memorial service. And maybe swim and eat cupcakes and chill with the fam. So I will sadly not be able to attend any of the official BlogHer conference. I'm especially bummed to miss this panel tomorrow:

Bringing Sex Out of the Closet
August 6, 2:45-4 pm
Sponsored by EdenFantasys

Did you take sex ed in high school? Did your parents give you "the talk" when you were a kid? You're an adult now, and it's time to take matters into your own hands. (Sometimes literally!) Being a better businesswoman, partner and mother is easier when you have an emotionally healthy sex life. This session discusses how to engage the Internet to its fullest potential to meet your sexual needs. Join moderator Twanna Hines, who blogs at FunkyBrownChick.com;  AV Flox, who writes at Sex and the 405; Genia Stevens, who produces Sister Talk Radio;  Mominatrix sex advice columnist, Kristen Chase; and BDSM blogger Tess Danesi, who blogs at Urban Gypsy, for a rousing and frank discussion about sex for smart women who want to improve their lives. Takeaways include but are not limited to:

How can I safely and/or anonymously experiment with my sexual identity online?
Where are the best Web resources for sexual health information?
Can the Internet save my relationship?

Read more about the panelists here.

Speaking of bringing sex out of the closet, be sure to read Yes Means Yes co-editor Jaclyn Friedman's very brave, honest post "My Sluthood, Myself at Jezebel.

Belated birthday wishes to my favorite Funky Brown Chick

photo by Stacie Joy

I'm too tired to be more coherent, so I will just say that Twanna A. Hines, better known to many as Funky Brown Chick, is one of my favorite people in the world. She's like my sister in crime, and cupcakes, and art, and lateness, and misadventures, and sex, and SXSW, and on and on...seriously. Kindof hard to explain but just try to get in the middle of the two of us when we are having a conversation, or when we are, I don't know, being driven around Atlanta totally lost, and you'll see. It's funny because we have many differences (like babies - I want, she doesn't) but also so many similarities (see above).

Tuesday was her birthday and she went to celebrate her Senator's inauguration! (She lives here now but is a Chicago girl at heart, I think, though I think we now have a pact not to talk about moving out of New York and making the other person sad.)

Happy Birthday Twanna! I shall feed you a cupcake next time I see you.

And if you're going to SXSW Interactive, don't miss her panel, "How to Protect Your Brand Without Being a Jerk!" on Monday, March 16th.

What's going on

Me with two of my closest friends, Twanna and Nichelle. The three of us are going to Martha's Vineyard over Labor Day weekend. Me, to visit my grandmother (who grew up there) and they to have fun. I can only imagine the troubleadventures we will have!



I'm in Minneapolis this weekend, visiting friends, seeing Fringe Festival shows (tonight I have many options, so if you have a great suggestion, let me know!), eating cupcakes, and doing a booksigning and reading (today at 5:30: Amazon Bookstore, tomorrow, reading and open mic 7-8:30 at Smitten Kitten)

And cupcakes! Do go check out Miel y Leche's FANTASTIC cupcakes at Letterbox Creative if you're in town today at noon. I am gonna try to hit them up, then am going to the inaugural Minneapolis/St. Paul Cupcake Meetup at Cupcake, home of the best S'mores cupcake I've ever had.

I'm staying with friends in this really cool apartment building in the Elliot Park neighborhood:



I went for lunch with my super-awesome publicist Buzzy Porter for Bedding Down, my December Avon Red novella anthology of winter erotica, and this is the dessert we had (I forget exactly what it was called but it was delicious!):



And now, the food that has captured my taste buds and won't let go - the shawafel from Chickpea, which just opened on Houston Street on the Lower East Side (after being on 3rd Avenue off St. Marks). Twanna can tell you; I devoured it in about two minutes!



This is the shawafel from Chickpea, which just opened on Houston (near the Sunshine theater) after being on Third Avenue off St. Marks. They are the felafel restaurant that had a reader contest to name them. Anyway, they make a felafel and shwarma combo sandwich called the shawafel that is so amazing. There's also hummus and salad and (if you want) hot sauce in it. Omg! They also have flavored felafel which I had never seen before (3 flavors of felafel, 3 flavors of shwarma). I chose spinach and broccoli felafel and was not disappointed. The felafel is baked, not fried, too.

It was so good I went back the next night and had another! And I also cannot recommend enough the side of roasted eggplant- I could eat a giant bowl of it! It's mushy and tasty and yummy. Getting hungry now just thinking about it.