My Marie Claire interview with feminist pornographer Erika Lust is online

While I highly recommend the print edition of November's Marie Claire (Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein has a guide to Portland, Oregon a few pages past my porn articles), I'm happy to share that my interview with feminist pornographer Erika Lust is now online. It's part of the issue's women and porn package.

3 bylines, including my first in Marie Claire

I'm heading to Maine today, to visit an old friend, and will be there for most of next week to teach erotica writing Wednesday in Portland at Nomia. Therefore, I'm going to quickly link to and mention my latest writings. First and most exciting: I have two short pieces in the new November issue of Marie Claire, with Lea Michele on the cover. It's part of a porn package with articles by Amanda de Cadenet and Cindy Gallop (founder of Make Love Not Porn), and there's a piece I tore out by Carrie Brownstein about fun things to do in Portland. See pages 236 and 237 for my interview with feminist porn director Erika Lust and my porn picks. After you read my interview, if you're in Chicago, you can hear Erika Lust speak at the Chicago International Film Festival. I don't know if my pieces will run on their website, but if they do, I'll share them.





In the online world, this week I wrote about Playboy's decision to stop publishing nude photos for Salon, with musings by a Playboy contributor, the former executive editor of Penthouse and others.

Lastly, I got personal at Lady Smut, musing about my "vanilla" sex life and my very much not vanilla, kinky book of BDSM erotica, Dirty Dates: Erotic Fantasies for Couples, which pubs on my 40th birthday, November 10th. Yes, I love dropping that tidbit because over 50 books in, I've never had one come out on my birthday!

Join me at Swedish feminist porn screening of Dirty Diaries tonight in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!

I'll be in my old neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn tonight for the screening of feminist porn Dirty Diaries: Twelve Shorts of Feminist Porn and will be speaking after.



Official description:

DIRTY DIARIES
Various Directors, 2009
Sweden, 98 min.
Silent/In Swedish with English subtitles

SATURDAY, MARCH 14 – 8 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Tired of airbrushed, male gaze porn with no personality, no panache, no pizzazz? Spectacle’s got you covered. For one night only, Spectacle presents DIRTY DIARIES, a collection of Swedish feminist porn shorts sure to put the vim and vigor back into your love life!

Put together by director Mia Engberg, DIRTY DIARIES is a collection of 12 short films, each directed by a woman, and each dealing with a different aspect of sexuality. These shorts are raw, with every day people as performers, and nearly every proclivity and orientation represented. From an exploration of online sexuality, to lovers cutting each other out of body suits, to an animated short, DIRTY DIARIES likely has something you’re looking for — and just as likely, will make you reconsider what porn is, and what porn can be. Joining us for the night is Rachel Kramer Bussel, sex columnist, editor, and expert on sex and pop culture, to discuss the films and the issues they raise. With a manifesto that includes such points as “Fight for your right to be horny” and “Smash capitalism and patriarchy,” DIRTY DIARIES is porn with a message (don’t be scared away, it’s still hot, too).

Rachel Kramer Bussel is the author of Sex & Cupcakes: A Juicy Collection of Essays and the editor of over 50 anthologies, including Come Again: Sex Toy Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica 2015, The Big Book of Orgasms, The Big Book of Submission, Fast Girls, Gotta Have It and Cheeky Spanking Stories. She is a sex columnist for Philadelphia City Paper and DAME, teaches erotic writing workshops, writes widely about sex, dating, books and pop culture and Tweets @raquelita.

[Trigger Warning: This is hardcore pornography, including bondage, exhibitionism, fisting, and pretty much everything else you can think of.]

This is my last NYC event for a long while, since I'm choosing to focus my time and money on doing things like sending you free books and other travel, like my upcoming events in Richmond, Charlottesville, Baltimore and Arlington. I love New York, but right now my heart and my business are in New Jersey. See you tonight if you can make it!

10 favorite things I wrote in 2013

Or rather, my 10 favorite pieces I wrote that got published in 2013. I'm starting off the new year with a new print publication credit, and I hope many more! In no particular order:

"Why Every Day Is No-Pants Day For Me" at Refinery29

"Welcome to 'Fun Home,' The Queerest Musical Ever Made About Growing Up In A Funeral Home" at BuzzFeed LGBT

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

Interview with Carry On, Warrior author and Momastery blogger Glennon Doyle Melton at The Fix

"Hoarding Isn't Fashionable or Glamorous" at The Toast

"James Gandolfini Was My Celebrity Crush" at Medium

"Dear Mrs. Hall: Boys and Men Can See Sexy Selfies and Still Respect Women" at Boinkology 101 at Medium (should have added "And Girls" to the title though)

"Organic, Fair Trade Porn: On The Hunt for Ethical Smut" at The Daily Beast

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

"What I Learned From My Stalker" at TueNight

Meet Kathleen Hanna and Joan Jett tonight in New York City and support feminist publishing

Tonight you can meet Kathleen Hanna and Joan Jett and support feminist publishing at The Feminist Press Annual Gala Dinner. If I weren't in Albuquerque, I'd so be there. They've published many wonderful books, including The Feminist Porn Book, which I reviewed earlier this year at The Hairpin.

And please keep sending your New York City events for Eight-Day Week in The New York Observer with ALL the details (date/time/location/phone/price/description) to 8dayweek at observer.com with at least 2 weeks' notice!

My Feminist Porn Awards and Feminist Porn Conference report

My report on the Feminist Porn Awards and Feminist Porn Conference is up at The Daily Beast! I'm so glad I attended. I learned so much and am very proud of this piece, and grateful to all my sources, including those I didn't get to include. And my apologies; I misquoted Tristan Taormino who calls her porn "fair trade," not "free trade." If any editors are reading this, I'd love to go back next year and write about it again. Hope you like the piece, and thank you to Good for Her and Tristan Taormino for putting on thought-provoking, wonderful events.

My review of The Feminist Porn Book

My review of The Feminist Porn Book, edited by Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young, is up at The Hairpin, and I will be covering next month's Feminist Porn Awards and Conference, so stay tuned!