The orgy I forgot I got mostly naked for

A reporter who was interviewing me for a story wrote and asked if I could comment on this orgy I wrote about for The Village Voice (link NSFW because of boobs)...in 2006. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I would probably have forgotten it even happened if she hadn't asked. Here's a snippet from that very old column:

I reached for Shira while Dan massaged me, and soon the three of us were entangled—I on top of her, he grinding against me—still with our underwear on. I lost track of where everyone else was, intent on rubbing against her soft, wet skin (she'd taken a quick shower earlier). I asked if I could spank her and she graciously accepted, though with various couplings in a small space, it was a challenge to find the proper angle.

This incident taught me two things: 1) I have a horrible memory. 2) My life is so much different these days, in all kinds of ways. My two current sex columns are far more heavily journalism based than me getting naked. I don't go to orgies, unexpected or otherwise. I'm focused on improving my life in gradual increments, rather than just me-me-me now-now-now, as I was until very recently.

I know saying I forgot I attended an orgy may sound like I'm jaded or blasé about sex, but I actually think it's more a function of my writing career. I don't know exactly how many pieces I got published last year, or will this year, but the pace of one weekly column and one column every other week means I'm constantly planning ahead, trying to time them to current events or movie or book releases. I'm bombarded with research for various articles and essays, have stacks of books to read for work or pleasure, spend way too much time reading online rather than digging in to substantive writing. So I consider my forgotten orgy my brain's attempt to stay focused on the here and now, rather than live in the past.

For far too long, I lived in not the past, but the what-if. I was so focused on what I lacked, my every flaw, that those were all I saw. I'm talking years this went on, the depths of which I haven't quite gotten myself to lay bare on the page yet. So having come out the other side of that, I still marvel every day that I fell for someone who loves me for me, gigantic flaws and all. Who puts up with my being disorganized and overprotective and away from home so often. Who has seen me at my absolute worst and never once judged me. Who goes out of his way to build me up, to remind me that I'm on the right path, to work with me rather than against me. I've gotten used to it after over three years, but there are moments when it's still a shock to my system, when how I live now awes me with its adultness.

That's not to say my twenties and early thirties lacked fun; they had plenty of it, along with the dropping out of law school and bankruptcy and volatile relationships and crappy jobs and self-sabotage. It was a mix, but it was mainly focused on the immediacy of daily life. There wasn't a thought to the future. I don't think I ever really considered that my Village Voice column might end as abruptly as it did. Now, I wouldn't say I expect each column to be my last, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if one day I got an email or phone call saying as much. I'm prepared for those eventualities, even though I'd be disappointed.

I'm almost 40 and trying to be a mom and because of that, and because I want some of the safety and protection of not always living in the moment, of robbing tomorrow to do everything-all-at-once today, I am far more careful. I don't focus on the past, save for when I think it can teach me a lesson about the present or future. So I'm all forgetting anything, orgies included, that will help me live my best life now, sans FOMO (I'm in full FOGO mode these days). Part of me actually hopes, much as I adore my town, to move farther from New York so I am less tempted to go into the city, because this is where my work and my home and my love is. I'm actually purging belongings, as much as this hoarder is capable of, in case I do need to relocate. So maybe my brain is doing the equivalent, putting memories somewhere hard to reach, or even impossible to access, to protect me and keep me living for today, not what might have been, or what was.

Tristan Taormino's 200th column

From the Village Voice press release (looks like they have a new publicist!):

VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA HAS 200 REASON TO "PUCKER UP"

New York, NY

— On January 16, 2008, Village Voice Media (VVM) will publish the 200th installment of Tristan Taormino’s popular sex column "Pucker Up." To celebrate this milestone, VVM has recently expanded Taormino’s reach and is now syndicating "Pucker Up" to LA Weekly, SF Weekly, and Seattle Weekly. "Pucker Up" debuted in The Village Voice.

Said Taormino, "It’s a dream job: I get to eat, sleep, think, and write about my favorite topic: sex. It never gets boring!"

In her eight and a half years with The Village Voice, Taormino has written about diverse trends in sexuality from pubic hair grooming and anal bleaching to water sports and human pony play. She has traveled the world to give first-hand reports from fascinating and unique events like the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, an annual swinger convention in New Orleans, the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, a porn star vacation in Jamaica, an SM conference in Berlin, and the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto. She has covered the adult film industry extensively with intimate profiles of performers, producers, and directors as well as honest discussions about the 2004 HIV outbreak, safer sex practices, and STD rates among performers. Through her column, Taormino has also given readers an honest, uncensored window into her own life, including tales of teaching anal sex workshops, hosting sex parties and kinky summer camps, making porn, and being protested on college campuses.

Taormino has covered such newsworthy stories as the sex toy ban in Texas, the first union for exotic dancers, the release of the HPV vaccine, and the state of genital surgery options for transgendered men. She was the first to break the story about a new plastic surgery craze—The G-Shot, a collagen shot given to help women "find" their G-spots—in 2004, years before other writers covered it and sex experts decried it. After the publication of her two-part column "Dangerous Dildos," about the potential dangers of phthalates in sex toys, several major sex toy companies announced they would stop selling toys that contain those chemicals. Her annual Sexy Gift Guide and The Best and Worst of Sex yearly round-up are must-reads for readers and sex industry movers and shakers.

Sex: Is That All There Is?

Denver Post writer Doug Brown's JUST DO IT: How One Couple Screwed Their Life and Love Back Together, about the 101 days the author and his wife committed to have sex every day, no matter what, and exploring how anyone can strengthen a relationship, and fall back in love with their spouse even after a decade together, to Allison McCabe at Crown, in a good deal, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House. (From me - This has also recently been optioned for film to 20th Century Fox by Kassie Evashevski, also known as James Frey's agent).

Charla Muller with Betsy Thorpe's 365 NIGHTS: A Memoir of Intimacy, about a wife who gives her husband the 40th birthday gift of 365 days of sex, in an effort to rejuvenate their marriage after 10 years together and the exhaustion of two young children; their efforts to plan and execute (and try to enjoy) sex every day for an entire year reveal unexpected results about the nature of intimacy, to Andie Avila at Berkley, for publication in July 2008, by Sharon Bowers at The Miller Agency (World).

(both listings from Publishers Marketplace, Amazon link mine)

It seems that there are many books coming out, and there are always plenty of articles and cultural prompts, telling us that the more sex we have, the better. Granted, the above examples are about couples, but whether we're talking about individuals or couples, the assumption that sex is always better than no sex needs examining, because I think it's a dangerous one.

Assuming that sex is always best means that we prioritize it above all else, and don't leave room for both other ways of creating intimacy, or for the space some of us may need in our lives with out. Joan Sewell covers some of this territory in her memoir I'd Rather Eat Chocolate, about living with a low libido, and while these "just do it" type books appear, we're also seeing things like two forthcoming memoirs, Kerry Cohen's Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity and Rachel Resnick's Love Junkie. And it's not just women who get caught in this web of pursuing sex at all costs. I sense that a lot of men feel pressure to live up to certain mythologies about their manlihood, about what success means in the sack (usually in terms of a numbers game).

Call me crazy, and I will fully admit here that my longest, and best, relationship only lasted just under a year, and I've never lived with someone, but there are plenty of days, like today, when the idea of doing anything sexual makes me want to vomit, and I'm not really exaggerating. This is me in the past few days I've been home: jet-lagged, with a throbbing headache that doesn't quite seem to go away, snot practically pouring out of me, alternately freezing cold and grossly sweaty, and I have my period. It's an effort to even get up, let alone make myself take aspirin or go outside. I'm certainly not at death's door, and have been sicker, but my whole body seems to be begging me to rest. I can write and have been going to work and I can even talk on the phone, but the idea of doing anything more than simply resting my head against someone else's body is just not appealing. And I'm sure we all have days when we are not in the mood for various reasons. I'm not saying that there aren't times when we can get over that and make an effort just because - whether for our partner's sake, or because we know that once we get over our reluctance, we will enjoy sex. But again, pursuing sex just to "do it," whether in the name of a book deal or to feel like a stud or feel "sexy" isn't always the best option.

Sometimes, when we choose sex over no sex, especially if we're only doing it because we've succumbed to this idea that "more is better," we may lose something in the bargain. There's often a tradeoff, and it's not always easy to know which door to open. For me, I find that often I've chosen to be sexual with people because I didn't know how to be close to them otherwise, and I wanted the whole package, but all too often, I got half the package, at best. Because I don't think sex instantly breeds intimacy, and in fact, can sometimes do the opposite. It can bring you to the brink of that, break down certain barriers we hold onto in our daily lives, but not all of them. It's not always easy to predict beforehand, either, and there've been plenty of times I've chosen sex and am glad I did, and other times, not so much.

So when Newsweek touts the health benefits of weekly sex, I can't help thinking it rings a false note. Not because it focuses only on sex as heterosxual intercourse, but simply because none of the reasons listed are reasons why anyone I've ever known actually has sex. It's laughable that if we're otherwise not really feeling it, we'll rouse ourselves simply because it would make our doctor happy. It's disingenuous, in that way.

Another problem with this imperative to have sex is that for many of us, aside from having sex with ourselves, it's simply not an option, or at least, not as simple as rolling over and pouncing on the person next to you. I know when I read these types of things and I'm single, which is pretty much all of the time, it makes me feel like there is something wrong with me for not being in a relationship. These types of articles, like Newsweek's, assume that weekly sex is something we can conjure out of thin air and instantly reap its rewards, when that simply is not so.

I fear that now perhaps I've made sex sound like it's all doom and gloom, and that's not my intention. I am not against casual sex, nor am I denying that daily sex might be useful to some people. But I doubt that we need someone else telling us to "have sex tonight." The meaning of sex is so individual, so complex, so vast, that it simply cannot be summed up so easily, and we do sexuality, and ourselves, a disservice by trying to do so. It's because I do believe in the transformative power of sex that I don't think it can be so easily scheduled and slotted in, held up as a magical cure-all for whatever ails you, inside or out.

If researchers last year found 237 reasons why people have sex (you can read the entire study as a PDF via researcher Cindy Meston, Ph.D.'s website), it's got to be a lot more complex than that. It goes infinitely deeper than getting off (though it doesn't necessarily have to) and, for me, is so often as much about the mind and the heart as the body.

The number one reason given by men and women in that study for having sex with someone was attraction to the person, which I think is a mighty fine reason for sleeping with them. I just don't think that it ends there at all. Sex isn't so much a do it or don't outcome as about the process. I know I've certainly been with people I was wildly attracted to and once we got into bed, a lot of that attraction fizzled. Alternately, and what's happened more in the last year or so, is that I've had some really amazing sex with people, the kind that makes me wonder what I'd been doing up until that point. And yet, afterwards, there's something off about it, because it ends right there, at the bedroom door. It is not about building something greater to draw from during sex, and using that incredible sex to empower a relationship. It's not about getting to know someone better than you know yourself. It's not what I would call "casual" either, but for me, it's not a perfect fit.

A year ago, I got fired from the best writing job of my life, and in that time I feel I've hardly lived up to that legacy. I had thought I would continue with that kind of writing, but without deadlines and paychecks, it's a little tough to force yourself to do that. I did write on this blog something I think is worth repeating:

Sex, I've learned, is saying yes, and saying no. It's getting turned on by the sound of someone's voice when they have no idea their tone is making you touch yourself. It's getting slapped across the face and being so completely aroused you want more and more and more. It's watching a madly-in-love couple screw themselves silly right next to you and looking on proudly. It's watching your lover sleep and debating whether to wake them with kisses or just admire their resting form. It's lusting after bulging breasts even when all you want to do is bury your head between them. It's ordering someone to jerk off in front of you and having them instantly leap into action. It's making out on the street and getting catcalled. It's figuring out just how far you'll have to go to get that person into your bed. It's wrestling with the fantasies running amok in your head, the ones that are scorchingly hot precisely because they don't make sense. It's crushing out in a way that makes your whole body come alive. It's dirty emails that promise so much more than they can deliver, except then they do.

But it's also the downside - it's being told not to talk in bed, it's being told not to write about the things happening in your life, it's discovering your lover's been cheating on you through the most rudimentary uses of technology, it's people not wanting to use condoms, it's "dates" that may or may not be, it's lovers who don't reciprocate, it's the growing threats to reproductive rights, it's getting carried away and trying to bring yourself back to the brink.

I have more to say on the topic, especially about an amazing quote I saw in an exhibit the other day, one that speaks far more to quality over quantity when it comes to sex. I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers. Sometimes I opt to live in the moment, and sometimes I try to step back and look at the bigger picture, to make like my friend Baser Instincts and vow to "hold off longer." She writes:

I know this sounds counterproductive because the idea is to have more sex but I’m focusing on quality not quantity. Sex is better when you really want a particular person and it is less so when you just cave in to biology and hop on the first available thing around.

It's not always clearcut, and I often waver between fulfilling one desire at the expense of another, with being attracted to people who are all wrong for me in some ways and all right for me in others. But I do know that simply holding up sex, sex, and more sex is not a universal answer, and that sometimes it's the very opposite we need.

What happens when you're away

While I was navigating the wonders of taking the tube to Heathrow, I got name checked by Gawker. Funnily enough, the one-year anniversary of my firing (January 10th) is fast approaching. I've tried to feel calm or grateful or any number of "above it all" things, but I still think it was pretty fucked up, especially that I didn't get to write a farewell column. That and the whole S. fiasco will probably both always make me feel like failures on some level, and while I know that's not totally accurate, in someone's eyes, I did fail, as a columnist, as a girlfriend, and I have tried my best in the last year or so to see where I went wrong, what I could have done differently, how I can both live my life the way I want to live it and not be so overly headstrong that I alienate people. I haven't totally sorted that one out, but I'm working on it.

I also thought that on the personal front, not being a sex columnist would free me from some of the judgment that comes along with that, which didn't really happen. But good things are in the air, and while I don't have another column, I have plenty of freelance work in addition to my full-time job to keep me busy. No, it's not the same, but I also have realized that there are umpteen sex bloggers out there who can and do chronicle the moment-by-moment minutiae of their sex lives better than I ever could if I even wanted to. But that's not what I'm interested in and why I am, in a sense, grateful not to have to write about my own life unless I want to. It's something that I can often only sort out in retrospect.

I certainly plan to write about my London adventures, but I think in a way that allows for a little more poetic license, because, for me, anyway, it wasn't all fun and games. I tried hard to simply go with the flow and what felt right, to not think beyond the moment, because the moment I did, I stumbled, withdrew. It was a mix of instant intimacy and true tenderness against a backdrop of BDSM that went places neither of us had expected. I don't regret a thing but I also don't know what will happen with that in the future, wonder if I'm selling myself short to continue to choose partners who are not fully available in the ways I'd like them to be. I often tell myself that's the best I'll ever get. I fell asleep with tears in my eyes last night, due to some extended mix of PMS, exhaustion, stress, sadness and jealousy. That's infinitely more fascinating to me as a topic of discussion than caning or cocksucking. Okay, maybe it's all interesting, but I guess I feel like I've reached a point where I want my sexual relationships to be building toward something, not just an end goal amongst themselves.

Sorry if this is a little incoherent, I blame jet lag and not having fully sorted out my thoughts yet. Just wanted to somehow address this. Not really sure what to say about Kreth. I think the whole fucking Eric Schaeffer thing speaks for itself. I'd had her on my list of people to invite to read at May's True Sex Confessions at In The Flesh, which I'm booking now, so may still extend that invite.

Where's my Tony Ortega rejection letter?

Thanks to Gawker, I get to keep reading about how everyone hears back from Village Voice Tony Ortega. I guess two-plus years of writing a column without ever taking a vacation means...nothing, but I already knew that, right? Glad to know that everyone else in the world gets a response. Whatever. I emailed him soon after he became editor with the note below, then, not hearing back, snail mailed two sample columns, one of which is below. The other was called "Bare Hipster Breasts" and had interviews with Bronques of Lastnightsparty.com and Richard Blakeley of Fleshbot as well as Lux Nightmare and others. That one I will try to pitch around. I guess the topic of "No Regrets" is applicable here too. Someday I still hope to publish a book of my Voice columns, but for now, the world is clearly telling me that fiction is where I need to focus.

Dear Mr. Ortega:

I'm writing to introduce myself. My name is Rachel Kramer Bussel and I wrote the Lusty Lady sex column for the Voice
(http://www.villagevoice.com/home/index.php?page=columnpage&column=Lusty%20Lady) from October 2004 through January 2007, when David Blum replaced my column with the Married, Not Dead column. You probably already have
plans for the sex column position, but I wanted to see if it would be possible to schedule a meeting to discuss the possibility of either writing that column or another kind of sex column for the Voice again, as it was a position I greatly enjoyed and believe I had a large audience of steady readers.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Rachel Kramer Bussel


Hed: No Regrets

Dek: Even bad sex can be a good learning experience

“Abstinence is my choice . . . because I don’t want to have any regrets,” reads a poster on Ichoosemyfuture.com, a site sponsored by the New Mexico Department of Health to promote teen abstinence. Other reasons for making this choice (and do note the cooptation of the word “choice” from a site geared toward pushing not independent thinking, but one true way) include “Because I don’t want warts” (like I do?) and “Because my little sister looks up to me.”

The first answer brought up issues for me far beyond the ins and outs of modern sex education. None of us set out to have regrets, sexual or otherwise, but if we were to truly live a life of no regrets, not only would our daily existence be incredibly boring, it would mean we’d have no room to grow into our true sexual selves. In every other area of our lives we’re encouraged to find things out by trial and error, but sex, above even drugs, is supposed to be so sacred that we should strive never to make a mistake. That’s ridiculous. How else would I know how I feel about ice cubes up my ass (yea) or having my feet tickled while in bondage (nay)?

I would love to be able to tell you that I have no sexual regrets, that in my many years of fucking around, everything’s been fun and hot and enjoyable, but if I did, I’d be lying. I’ve had weird sex, awkward sex, uncomfortable sex and confusing sex. I’ve had sex to feel less lonely, to make a person like me, and because I felt I owed it to someone after they’d bought me dinner. I’ve slept with people only to discover how incompatible we really were: the guy who refused to go down on me after I’d done the same, the one who wouldn’t shut up about baseball only moments after he came, the girl who made me feel so nervous and inexperienced I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted, the guy who banished all talking⎯even saying his name⎯in bed. I brought a guy back to my dorm room once who desperately wanted his nipples clamped. I’d bought tweezer clamps, thinking they’d be used on me, but was intrigued enough to slide the silver tongs over his erect buds, only to find myself too squeamish to continue. Back then, I wasn’t quite the sadistic chick I am today. I felt stupid, though, like I’d lured him home under false pretenses, but I also learned that being a mean girl, at least at that point in my life, was a no-no.

It’s easy to look back on bad relationships and say, “Well, life would’ve been so much easier if I hadn’t slept with them.” Sure, but how are we to know this in advance? I’ve beaten myself up countless times over a guy I dated last year who I envisioned myself having babies with. As it turned out, he was more interested in hiring hookers off Craigslist than having a relationship with me. “I should’ve seen the signs, I shouldn’t have fallen so hard, why am I such an idiot?” are just the mildest versions of my self-flagellation. Those are probably natural thoughts to have in my situation, but can I truly say I regret starting up with him? No, because while we were together, I was blissfully happy. It’s tempting to forget about the hot sex, but we had that too before things went sour.

Sex can be a learning experience, and to expect every time to be perfect is to give sex too much power over us. Sex is messy, both physically and emotionally. It changes us, for better or worse, just as changes in our circumstances affect what we want out of sex. What turned us on when we were 20 may be very different from what us you on at 40, or 60. Does this mean we must regret what went before? It'd be easy to disavow our past sexual lives, but the same could be said for anything we did in the past. I no more want to fuck like I did at 18 than dress like I did at 18.

Abstinence is a valid choice for many, but it shouldn't be treated as the one and only answer. There’s value, too, in fumbling, stumbling, doing something that might embarrass you later, or might rock your world. Chances are, good sex and feeling comfortable being naked with another person will take time. Knowing what your kinks (and your turn-offs) are is an important part of your sexual self-awareness, but hard to assess in advance. That image of you getting tied up and fucked by some anonymous stud may not be so hot in real life⎯or maybe it’ll be more explosive than you could’ve imagined. I’m not suggesting you run out and act on every sexual whim you’ve ever had, but I’d rather live with a few regrets than think wistfully about who I might have fucked, if only I’d been bold enough.

I’ve made tactical errors when it comes to sex, misjudging lovers⎯and myself. I’ve been lax about using condoms simply because my boyfriend was so persistent in his disdain for them and I wanted to trust and please him. I’ve ditched late-night deadlines in favor of booty calls only to be dropped like a hot potato when the situation was reversed. I’ve assumed a level of commitment that simply wasn’t there, only to find myself miserable when the object of my affection suddenly stopped calling. I’ve read and reread ex’s emails searching for clues about what I could’ve done better. I’ve felt self-conscious when my orgasms took too long⎯or didn’t come at all. But for every erotic moment I feel regret or embarrassment or anger or sadness over, at the end of the day, they make me who I am. Unlike some of my sex column writing peers, I’m not an expert in anything but sluttiness (and I say that with infinite fondness for that particular epithet). More often than not, I don’t know what I’m doing and feel completely uncertain about what my lovers are thinking about me⎯and that’s okay.

Women and girls, especially, are taught that sex is of such paramount importance that one misstep can send us down a path of doom, forever marked as bad girls and sluts. This either/or thinking only serves to shame those who wind up going all the way, when they’d planned on remaining “pure,” making them think that any instance of sexual impropriety dooms them completely. The big myth we hype with the allure of abstinence is that when we finally find “the one,” sex will be so perfect it’ll make us forget about the frustration of holding out. There are plenty of good reasons to put off sex, and for some people, that might work, but promising that waiting until marriage will mean no regrets is foolish. Imagine if we applied this policy to other areas of our lives: Would we ever get in planes, bungee jump, or take any kind of life-changing risks? You can play it safe, sure, but then you’re also missing out on the sexual shock and awe you might unlock inside yourself.

Along with my sexual regrets are many more sexual memories I treasure dearly. The threesome in San Francisco where a woman fucked me in the ass with a dildo while I had sex with her husband. Beating my girlfriend’s ass with a belt at a sex party, knowing she’d proudly show off the marks I’d left. Letting someone I barely knew slap me across the face⎯and liking it. Realizing the depths of my own kinkiness and rock bottom sexual needs feels like part of growing up to me, like learning to balance my checkbook (still working on that one) and cook a decent dinner (that too). I hope sex is always a learning process for me; I never want to feel like I’m so “been there, done that” about it that there’s nothing new to discover or enjoy. By that I don’t mean new lovers per se, but new feelings, new perspectives. In so many ways, sex is a high risk, high reward activity. I have some regrets, but I wouldn’t trade them in even if I could.

Oh, the irony

"Formerly at Voice, Editor Takes a Job at the Competion," New York Times

Anyone who has ever been fired abruptly from a high-profile job can perhaps relate to the revenge fantasy that David Blum seems to be living out — and the retaliation he may have in mind for his former employer.

Mr. Blum was one of a half-dozen top editors who have revolved through the door at The Village Voice over the last few years. For those keeping score, he served for six months ending in early March, only to be sacked quite publicly after he argued with staff members over their concerns that the paper lacked racial diversity...

“I want to make The Press as fresh and unpredictable as possible,” he said in a telephone interview. “I tried to do that at The Village Voice, but I didn’t have enough time at The Voice to achieve the goals that I had at the paper. But here I will.”

Because nothing says "fresh and unpredictable" quite like this. Maybe I should write a letter to the Times?

What's also ironic is that right before Adario Strange left New York Press (like a week before), he emailed me aout doing a podcast with Stephanie Sellars. I don't think the time is right for me to start podcasting, but maybe in the fall if I can find some of that elusive free time. Ha ha.

Alt Weekly Death Watch, anyone?

Me and Howard Stern: duped by Katie Spades

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panel feedback

I certainly would never, ever want to be one of "America's hottest, and most feared, dates," as my fellow panelists were termed by a Times Online reporter, but...I was on this panel, too. I realize this blog is not all or even all that much about dating but still. Way to be thorough.

I used to worry that, as I told Viviane, "my blog's not slutty enough." But now I don't mind. If this blog were only about my dating life it'd be blank most of the time. I just don't date "recreationally." Either I'm not that into the person from the get-go or...my heart gets involved in a big way. I'm working on being the bigger person, trying to realize that people aren't all good or all bad, so when, say, I see their name in my inbox, I don't want to vomit.

Sure, I may never get asked to be on Howard Stern and may not get some of the big corporate gigs, but that's okay. I find it all a bit surreal anyway, and the mags I want to write for are ones like Babble and Cookie. And Cosmo and Glamour. All in good time, though, all in good time (at least, I hope so!). For now I have plenty on my plate, like, oh, a novel (I have to keep telling myself that I can do it cause it still seems so beyond surreal). Some of it's well-paying, some not so much, but all of it interesting. I actually spent a while this afternoon writing a story and had forgotten that feeling of getting lost in a story, of just letting it take me wherever it was going, of letting go of the pressure to make it perfect. The good thing about submitting to anthologies is that you don't have to. It's a voluntary thing and you're free to flake out on them. Nobody will ever know if you get rejected if you don't tell anyone. But you do have to force yourself when you reach that point of laziness/fear/writer's block, if you want to get the story done, to just work past it. I bailed on a few anthologies I'd wanted to submit to in the last few months, ones I'm 95% sure I could've been accepted into, not because of lack of time but because of procrastination and fear. That worry that what I'm writing is crap, when really, that's for the editor to decide (more on rejections later, because as an editor, I absolutely hate having to reject people's work. So much so that sometimes I don't want to do any more anthologies, but the rewards outweight the ickiness of writing rejections.) I had to learn early on (though am still learning) not to compare myself to other bloggers or writers, to not judge what I want to put out there by what they do. I think I've become a lot more private, a lot more protective of my alone time. I think there are a lot of reasons I'm single, and it's in part because I've chosen it, and in part because I've gone for the UFC fans wrong people over and over again. I'm working on learning from those experiences and being grateful for all the people I do have in my life.

When I said "bring on the sexless marriage," I was of course being facetious (at least in part). I will also throw out there that while I do still resent the fact that Natalie Krinsky got to say goodbye to her readers and I didn't, I would write my Lusty Lady column again in a heartbeat. I would make it a little (or even a lot) less personal and more about other topics, of which I have plenty to discuss. I'll just publicly throw that out there since I've also privately thrown it out there.

The Voice's firing procedures: Corina Zappia

Corina Zappia is out at The Village Voice - see this Eat the Press post. The last part about her not having a negative performance review nor being given any warning seems to be the standard m.o. there from several people I've talked to who no longer work at The Village Voice. I was just a freelancer but that's how it went down with me and that single phone call from Blum, my only contact with him.

Zappia worked for the internet division and reported directly to Bill Jensen. Reached this morning by phone, Zappia confirmed the news and said that Jensen sent her an email Wednesday night asking her to meet with him the following afternoon. Prior to that email, said Zappia, she had not had any contact with Jensen, nor did they have an email relationship (according to Zappia, he misspelled her name in the email). "It was the first time I'd ever heard of anything," Zappia said. Zappia brought the paper's diversity representative Keisha Franklin and other union representatives Tom Robbins and Lynn Yaeger to the meeting with Jensen the next afternoon where he laid her off. According to Zappia, who wrote the Voice's "Eye of the Potato" television blog as well as contributing pieces on fashion, nightlife and pop culture to the website, she had not had a negative performance review nor been given any sort of warning.

More on David Blum's firing from the Village Voice

Blum's firing in The New York Times

Eat the Press

Editor & Publisher

Interesting to note that...my name remains on the online masthead. (circa 1:15 a.m. Saturday morning) Go team.

At least his legacy there will live on. (You've really gotta love the juxtaposition of the alternating unfuckable pseudonymous wives with Tristan Taormino's column on choking. Or not.)

Blum out at the Voice

Gawked

(Could I be a politician or what?)

Big Boston Phoenix story on Village Voice Media and L Magazine sex issue

I was interviewed for this Boston Phoenix story on the New Times/Village Voice Media merger. My quotes didn't make it in, but definitely well worth reading, and I think the following bit summarizes my replacements Nora and Essie pretty well:

It’s no surprise that the ex–New Times brass who now lead VVM — including CEO Jim Larkin and, as executive editor, the famously irascible Mike Lacey — want the Voice and its fellow papers to conform to their standardized, apolitical, SunBelt–baked vision of what alternative journalism should be. What is striking, though, is how quickly and decisively defenders of the old left-leaning, decentralized VVM ethos have been routed. The battle just began — and it’s already over.

Also, congratulations to my friend Audrey Ference, the new sex columnist for The L Magazine. Her column is called "The Natural Redhead."

My favorite line? Blowjob administration is a skillset that’s acquired through practice.

According to Fishbowl, they're dropping my name:

The L magazine, the not-really-but-they-like-to-call-themselves pocket-sized street guide, introduced a new sex column, "The Natural Redhead," which they are touting as filling "the void left by the Voice's dropping of Rachel Kramer Bussel in favor of the celibate bourgeoisie.



I'm also quoted in The L Magazine's sex issue, dishing about losing my virginity, so check it out. Also, love the fishnets on the cover. I heart fishnets. (print only)

Whoops, found out the "Losin' It" feature is online, with me and various New York hotties, three of whom I've written about.

I'm not too slutty anymore, but I do love writing about sex

So, you know, if anyone wanted to hire me to do that, I'm game (write me at rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com). I think I can write well about sex even when I'm not having it (and since that's most of the time, hopefully it's true as I'm madly writing all kinds of super filthy erotica lately).

From this week's letters to the editors, The Village Voice

MURDER SHE WROTE
Honestly, we've had three installments of "Married, Not Dead," and it's killing me. It's been basically the same column three times running, and it's probably the most benign, vanilla writing that the Voice has ever seen. As a longtime reader and admirer of the paper, I'm utterly disappointed by this column and wish things would go back to the way they were: anal exploits from Taormino, snarky but insightful sexual commentary from Savage, and the totally slutty exploits of the Lusty Lady. This "I'm a sexually frustrated/conflicted married gal" column is killing me.
Nate Brown
Madison, West Virginia

SXSW plans and "Super Glossy!" opens March 9th

I'll be going to Courtney McLean's solo show "Super Glossy!" on March 9th, before heading off to Austin for SXSW Interactive on March 10th. The one productive thing I did last week was book my plane ticket, so I'm in Austin March 10-13, my panel "Do You Blog on the First Date?" is Monday, March 12th at 5 pm. Full Interactive schedule is posting tomorrow night. Also, my friend Rachel Fershleiser of SMITH is looking for a place to crash during SXSW Interactive - if you have space on your hotel room floor or something like that, email her at rachelfershleiser at gmail.com - thank you!

Anyone wanting to meet up or join me for probably a Sunday trip to Babycakes, please get in touch. Sex blog types I know are going are Violet Blue, Cory Silverberg, and Seska Lee, and my fellow panelists, Alyssa Shelasky, Emily Listfield, and Melanie Boyer, though I'm not sure all would call themselves "sex bloggers." I guess Tucker Max too, but my one interview with him was probably more than enough to suffice, though I do want to check out his panel on turning blogs into books, especially since we need to bust our collective asses ASAP to get out cupcake blog a book deal. I'm also very excited to get to meet Rebecca Woolf of Girl's Gone Child, go to one of Neal Pollack's panels, and hang with Annalee Newitz for more than five seconds. I'm really hoping some of the Happy Corp. crowd will be out there as well. They are everywhere, including showing up at Sexytime Comedy on Friday night and being some of the most enthusiastic audience members.

I will definitely be blogging my way through my first SXSW. Anyway, do check out Cory's (he's the co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability and also a co-owner of Canadian sex toy store Come As You Are) response to this week's Village Voice cover story "Something In The Way He Moves." (I'll join Cory in not even llinking to it, I'm sure you can easily find it yourselves.)

Here's Courtney's show info:

Get tickets for "Super Glossy!" here

And here are the dates/times:
Friday, March 9 @ 9pm
Saturday, March 10 @ 2:30pm
Sunday, March 11 @ 8:30pm
Thursday, March 15 @ 6pm
Saturday, March 17 @ 8:30pm

Tickets are a measley $10. TELL EVERYONE!!

Cosmopolitan (the magazine and the drink – 3 or 4 of them) meets The
Stepford Wives meets The Venture Bros in this science fiction satire on
women’s magazines. “Super Glossy!” is the story of Jane Fuller, a
self-proclaimed adversary of the beauty industry who finds herself in a
downward spiral after a “chance” meeting with the extremely famous
husband of Melinda D’Alteo, uber-celebrity and Jane’s middle school
best friend. Inspired by Heather Woodbury’s living novel plays, “Super
Glossy!” is told through the context of a women’s magazine, complete
with Reader’s Letters, advice columns, and advertisements for useless
beauty products.

blah blah boring old news

I'm generally pretty over talking about that column I used to write for New Times New York I mean The Village Voice (though my little made-up title seems more fitting, no?). So just passing this along from this week's letters to the editor.

Are you really trying to pander to the middle? That's all I can assume considering the fact that you replaced Rachel Kramer Bussel with two whiny upper-middle-class sexless women. Their columns are going to get old very fast. This is my final straw with the Voice. It's no wonder you guys can't entice quality journalists anymore. The writing community knows you're lame. The rest of your readers will find out soon.
Matthew Schuck
Manhattan

Eat the Press/Village Voice managing editor position

In a post entitled "This Week's Voice Much, Much Sexier Than Last Week's," Rachel Sklar at Eat The Press praised Michael Musto's Village Voice cover story interview with Sarah Silverman and gives a sampling of the letters to the editor about their new sex columnists.

One she chose to quote asks:

"Is there an editor actually working here in New York? What is this crap?"

And then, wouldn't you know, at the bottom of the latest letters page, a job opportunity for all of you job seekers:

Managing Editor
The Village Voice has an immediate opening for a managing editor. This position requires writing, editing, and management skills. The managing editor must be able to guide both experienced and beginning staff writers in producing superior magazine-style stories as well as help supervise the day-to-day operations of the editorial department. The ideal candidate will have a solid background in news. The most promising applicants will be asked to take an extensive editing test. The Voice offers competitive salaries and benefits. Qualified candidates should send a cover letter, résumé, and clips to the address below.

Click through for the address and the other ad for staff writers.

"It's a New Times thing; we wouldn't understand."

This is not going to be the ongoing blog about me getting fired from my sex column, I promise, but because of the incredible support and laugh out loud humor readers have been providing of late, I feel I should do another roundup. As for me, I'm focused on my future and the many writing assignments I'm currently juggling, not so much this, but thank you all for sharing your thoughts with me/the Internet/the Voice. I just wanted to say: I noticed.

It's been interesting to note that the Voice announced their new sex columnists on their blog (with no mention of getting rid of me), then lured readers from the front page, first with "Readers revolt over new sex column," later changed to "Readers react to new sex column" (now gone). Comments there continue to pile up.

Emrecom wins my own personal version of Gawker’s Gold Star Motel commenter awards, which I’ll just call the Vanilla Cupcake awards, for this one.

Maura has been posting about the new Voice sex column and it prompted this totally perfect comment from Emrecom:

It's a New Times thing; we wouldn't understand.

I’ve also been very impressed with how many people in non-sex media, some of it of the very mainstream variety, have reached out to me, showing me that they get what I was doing with the column, or trying to do. Thank you to everyone who's written me personally and those who have posted, which I'll try to round up below. I'm busier than I've ever been and definitely have plenty I plan to post about here.

Eros Zine roundup of sex news of the week

"Sex Columnist Gets Heave Ho," Perversely Poly

"I think we need some Team Rachel t-shirts made.," Blogishness

"The 'Voice" of the Affluent, not the Alternative," Sex in the Public Square

Is there any reason in the world we should care what kind of desk chair Essie Carmichael’s husband sits in to do his online “printer research?” And even worse, in the litany of product endorsements, the only item named that helped either woman achieve sexual satisfaction does not get its brand identified or promoted! What kind of sex column tells you exactly where to buy a dress that you don’t look good in, and a lunch that spoils your diet but then doesn’t name the amazing showerhead that is reportedly the best gift Essie has ever been given and the only thing with which Nora has had sex in years?

"Married with children equals no sex?," Jolie du Pre

Shelley, if you're too dumpy for Forever 21 than utilize that nanny of yours and take your lazy ass to the health club. Trust me, once you get in shape you'll feel confident shopping wherever you fucking please. And you'll have SEX, lots of it.

As a married woman with children who has always had a vibrant sex life, if this is the new sex talk for the Village Voice , I'll pass.

"LOVE those stereotypes," Stories, Sex, and Silliness (Sage Vivant)

So my primary objection to this new Village Voice column is simply this: I fail to see how it advances the idea of open-minded sex philosophies and sex acts. To hear the whining and complaints of women who aren't getting any sex may feel just great to the women doing the whining, but the rest of us -- those who have healthy sex lives, with or without children -- are not enhanced, educated, or otherwise enlightened by anything this new column would spew out.

"*runs around nervous*," Having Read the Fine Print.....

The Village Voice has strapped on the skis and leather jacket and is sailing over the shark with an EH! in it's heart…

Look it's not that I have any more than my usual objections to the materialistic helpless white woman syndrome but I do have a problem with the phasing out of open source sex.

Open source sex meaning , you didn't have to like Lusty Lady ( personally i just wanted to spank her a bit, yes I'm bi if you've been reading you knew and if you didn't you do now!) , but if you liked spanking, or sex, or a perspective on sex that you couldn't find in the NYT it was useful.


I’m also just going to throw out a few links without comment except to say they might be of interest:

Over 40 Married Sex

Cookie magazine’s Mrs. Young Sex Tips for Moms

Update: Letters to the editor in this week's Village Voice

Media catchup (cliff notes: I'm "reliably ho-y")

More catching up this weekend but for now:

Check Phillyist later today for a link-happy interview with me about the future of my writing, sexual community, exhibitionism, and cupcakes, by the fabulous Jessica Gold Haralson.

Proper In The Flesh recap TK this weekend and February/March/April lineup announcements coming soon. I think there were 80 people or so, it was packed but fabulous and I crammed 10 readers, including myself, in and they all rose ably to their jobs. Especially Gael Greene, whose book Insatiable sold out from Mobile Libris. A magical night and I thank everyone who came (even Lena Chen of Sex and the Ivy who couldn't get in cause she's 19. (Harvard Class of '09 if you want to feel really old!) See Brian Van's awesome photo gallery from Wednesday's reading. (and check out his www.485i.com for much more.)

The Village Voice Power Plays blog announces their new sex columnists (check the comments especially from the reader who didn't even like my column!)

The L Magazine iChat about the new Voice sex column might win funniest coverage:

Asch: but, you know, they fired someone who's very involved in the sex-writing community and alternative sex cultures so they could run jokey stuff that is, implicitly, punking the whole nature of a sex column
Asch: also, people who talk about sex using locker-room metaphors like "climb back on that horse" should be shot, in the brain, with a bullet

My girl Jessica Cutler, the much-missed former New Yorker, says "Everybody Loves Rachel." Again, someone I never would've become friends with if it weren't for my Voice column and that would've been a shame. Never underestimate the power of a thank you note. The Jessica I've gotten to know since I wrote about her is, I suspect, not the Jessica people bandy around to mean some sort of filler for slut/skank/ho of the day. I've learned so much about not giving a shit what people think of me from Jessica, and she never fails to entertain me whether via e-mail or when I see her out (last time notably at Madame X for Nina Hartley's book party where the first thing she told us about the guy she was with is that he had a big cock). "Spanking Jessica Cutler" remains my favorite column from my Voice tenure (perhaps because it, in some small way, made those three ultra expensive, largely pointless years of law school seem at least somewhat useful) and you can bet that no matter what, if that case goes to trial, I will be covering it even if it's just for this blog. Here's Jessica:

I can't help but feel that losing a sex column is not so much Rachel's loss as it it is ours. The Voice has two married mommies writing about their sex lives, and it's almost as if being single is somehow passé now. So where does that leave us Lusty Lady fans? Waiting for her first book! (More on this tk.)

Viviane's Sex Carnival, "It Takes TWO Columnists"

Yep. It takes TWO married sex columnists to replace ONE Rachel Kramer Bussel. I was married for over a decade and had little or no sex, much less good sex. I'm not going to read about two married columnists not getting any. In Yoda speak I say, break me a fucking give.

Fishbowl NY Media Minutiae roundup

Flora Fling, most dedicated In The Flesh attendee ever, writes an open letter to the Voice - Okay, Flora is really the most dedicated blogger ever - she dug up the Time magazine cover featuring the two Hollywood actors Gael Green slept with tha she read about at the reading! That is so fucking cool - Flora, you rock my world

Can "reliably ho-y" be my new tagline? Professionally, I guess I am. Maybe I can make a t-shirt.

Who Needs The Village Voice When You've Got Gawker Link Love?

Apparently, not me (or my reading series).

New 'Voice' Sex Columnists Make Us Nostalgic for Rachel Kramer Bussel's Cleavage, Gawker

I swear I had that title picked out when I saw that Gawker had put In The Flesh on their To Do list. I am staying out of the fray on this one but suffice it to say, I'm moving onward and upward. And darlings, my cleavage is right here, anytime you want it.

Also thanks to my sister in column axing (hers from New York Press), Judy McGuire, who takes a break from her meta L Word analysis to weigh in on the new Voice sex columnists. But not to fear, she still writes her fabulous Dategirl column for Seattle Weekly

Voice over

I wanted to say that I'm truly touched by the support and encouragement so many people have shown me in the last few days. You are all right - I'll be much better off in the long run. I shouldn't have been surprised (but I was), because last year was the first year I didn't get invited to the Voice holiday party, was never included in any of the meetings with Blum, even though I was encouraged to come to the big, pointless meeting with Erik Wemple, and did, and never got a thanks or apology or anything after that whole debacle unfolded. So that's fine.

I don't even mind that much, even though I loved writing that column, but I think I deserved the courtesy of writing an official last column, a proper good-bye. I mean, even Natalie Krinsky got to say good-bye and I'd like to think even my critics would agree that my worst column was better than her best blog post for the Voice. But that's neither here nor there. I'm still honored that I got the chance to write for a paper I've been reading since high school. I was honored the first time I got mentioned in it (my first lap dance immortalized by Tristan Taormino), and the first tiny piece I did, and my very favorite part of writing for them, the Best Of issues, so wonderfully edited by Chuck Eddy and later by Lynn Yaeger and Joy Press. I was edited truly skillfully by Elizabeth Zimmer, then Darren Reidy, then later Elizabeth again and finally by Adamma Ince.

I'm proud of the columns I wrote, and I never took a vacation, and feel like I did what I set out to do. I promised myself at the start I'd never do something sexual just for the sake of the column, and I didn't. You have to learn to set your own boundaries and really figure out who you are while navigating some of these topics, and that's not easy. I don't know that I've truly figured it all out and I will say that it's damn hard to write about your personal life when sex writing, especially, is so easily misunderstood. I'm so grateful for those of you who get it, cause I don't think it's that complicated, but there are still some people who just assume I want to fuck them because I wrote a sex column. In a word: no. But as aggravating as those assumptions could be and as much as I vowed to myself to limit the writing about me and focus on other people, I did notice that when I wrote about myself and especially my struggles iwth sex and relationships, I got the most interesting responses. I feel like we all struggle with and confront and enjoy so many of the same things, albeit often in different forms, and exploring those topics continues to interest me. I have much more up my sleeve, many topics in my various notebooks I've scribbled down that I do plan to tackle, not to worry. Who I'll be tackling them for remains to be seen, but I'm not going away. Stay tuned here for the moment.

To anyone who's asked what they plan to do, really, WHY on earth would I know? I haven't been privy to anything going on there since publicist Jessica Bellucci left. I found things out by reading Gawker and, as a freelancer, most of it didn't affect me. There were plenty of times I was worried about the future of my column, but now wasn't one of them, but at this point, I'm ready to move on. Better (and more lucrative, surely) things await. Yet another reminder that I need to focus on the serenity prayer and work to better myself and seek out new opportunities, and that nothing is ever stable. I think ultimately, as crappy as it may feel right now, because who likes rejection, after all, I really will look back on this, as everyone's been telling me, as a blessing.


Here's what a few wonderful folks have had to say about the demise of my column:

Violet Blue, "please don't take our lusty lady away"

As reported on Gawker and in my inbox, the spraycan huffing editors at the Village Voice have suddenly axed one of my favorite (and in my opinion, one of the best American) sex columns: Rachel Kramer Bussel's Lusty Lady. I've always been able to count on her column for the latest sex trends, excellent writing, fierce sex-positive and grrrl-positive opinion and -- might I say -- some damn good sex column competition from the east coast. But no longer, and we should all be very, very sad. The Voice clearly has its head past its prostate. I mean, just read Rachel's Fucking and Feminism: Blowjobs, Casual Sex and Rape Fantasies are Under Attack to see what a good thing they're losing.

Here's the thing: there are not all that many sex columns around the nation, and certainly few with, ahem, balls. To have a writer like Rachel on staff writing about sex is to have something enviable: who she is and what she brings as a writer and culture critic makes her a *valuable property* -- especially on the internet, a tool she seriously know how to mix, bake and frost into delicious viral marketing cupcakes that everyone always seems to want. And unlike many other sex column writers (print or web) she knows a fuck of a lot about sex and sex culture (up to the minute), and importantly, she knows how to *talk about it*.

She closed with my favorite line ever: "let them eat cupcakes." Ah, Violet, cupcakes are for US! Why let them have that much fun?

Fleshbot, "Lusty Lady's Last Hurrah in 'The Village Voice'"

If you haven't already heard, New York's Village Voice newspaper has axed the "Lusty Lady" column penned by official Friend O' Fleshbot and spanking enthusiast Rachel Kramer Bussel. This move deprives their audience of one of the few reasons left to actually read the Voice, so obviously we think they made the wrong call.

Gawker, "'Voice' Spanks Rachel Kramer Bussel to the Curb"

We wish her the best in her search for a new column-writing gig, but we're mostly curious about who those meritocrats at the famously Ivy-obsessed free paper will be hiring to fill Bussel's fetishy Fleuvogs.

Thomas Roche

Rachel Kramer Bussel just got unceremoniously booted from her column for the Village Voice. This makes me very sad. Granted I am not entirely objective, but Rachel is one of the best sex writers working, or ever to write. I bought a (fiction, or semi-fiction) story from her relatively early in her career and continued to read her stuff, and have seen her work go from that of a bright and promising newcomer to some of the most thoughtful, polished and insightful writing about sex I've ever read, often bravely tackling issues of feminism and politics that I can't or won't even begin to address in my work because it would make my head hurt. She's an original.

Babeland blog, "Voice Columnist Ousted"

Columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel has been let go from her position at the Village Voice. Her next column will be her last. Rachel has written about fancy sex toys, spanking, fetish video shoots, boy toys, and how to keep married sex hot. I've loved reading her columns and have occasionally mentioned them here. It will be sad not to read her anymore. I certainly hope that the Voice finds someone at least halfway decent to replace her.

Posters on Tristan Taormino's message board

Rachel just announced at her blog that the Village Voice has -- without any warning or explanation -- decided to pull her original "Lusty Lady" column. The final column is scheduled for the next issue.

To put it simply, this is horrific....not only because Rachel is, in my opinion, one of the best female sex-positive columnists ever; but it sends a message that any female who dares to directly project a genuine, straight-forward approach to sex and sexual pleasure will no longer be allowed a legitimate "mainstream" spotlight.

Rachel wasn't the problem, the new ownership (er censorship) at the Voice is the culprit in my opinion. A LOT of people internally have been fired, and now they are adding some of their core writers to the chopping block.
I don't know what they are hoping to become by all their firings...
What the Voice once symbolized is hardly recognizable in the new image of the Voice. I hope that someone smarter and hipper snatches Rachel up quick!

Viviane's Sex Carnival, "Another Reason Not to Read the Village Voice: the Lusty Lady column is no more!"

I don't know how many years Rachel has written the column, but she was always one of the first things I read in the Voice, way before I ever got into anything like blogging. Later when I met her, she said to me, 'my blog isn't as slutty as yours', which wasn't really the point. She's one of my blog heroes (and now part of the gang that calls itself the Perverts' Saloon) and writes about sex in a clear and thoughtful voice.