New articles on breakup sex and open marriage

I'm a little behind on blogging because I've dipped my toes back into freelance writing, with an article on breakup sex in The Washington Post's Solo-ish section and an as told to interview profiling a week in the life of a woman in an open marriage for Redbook. Regarding the latter, I was thrilled that they asked me to cover polyamory in a total non-judgmental way that highlights the experience of the polyamorous person. These assignments were also great because when I have a lot of time I tend to agonize and overthink, but with only a few days and a little over a week to complete them, I had to hustle and get busy. In my forties, I'm finally learning the ways I work best and trying to use them to my advantage and I'm very grateful to these two editors for being great to work with and giving me these opportunities.

It's felt wonderful to get back to writing; I really couldn't muster any ideas or focus right after the election, thinking everything I considered was pointless, but now I realize that life goes on and that I have to continue to learn and grow and push myself so I'm working on new pitches and pieces that I will share once they are finalized.

I've got more articles coming up, so stay tuned to my Twitter and Facebook pages, and if you like free erotica books, subscribe to my newsletter on the left side of my blog or on my website. I meant to send April's last week but didn't get to it so it'll be going out soon with a giveaway of my new anal sex erotica audiobook.

What it's like to be married and having an affair with an ex

That's the subject of one of my recent Elle.com Love, Actually interviews.



I'm sharing this because I'm looking for more women to interview anonymously about your sex and dating lives. If that's you or someone you know, please get in touch or pass along the above link or this post. I would especially like to talk to a woman who's dating someone at least 15 years younger or older than her, but as you can see from the topics below, I'm looking for all sorts of women to profile for this series, and I will repeat again that you can be completely anonymous. I've changed everyone's name except one who allowed me to keep her first name. Who am I looking to talk to? You can be a virgin or a woman who has sex with someone different every night, as long as you're willing to let me ask you some very personal questions about what that experience is like; I'm looking to interview women from age 18 into their eighties and nineties of all sexual orientations, those in relationships and those who aren't. Email me at ellesexstories at gmail.com and tell me a little about yourself and what you'd want to discuss. Here are the interviews I've done so far:

How sexual assault affected a married woman's sex life

A wife having an affair with her more well-endowed ex

Three weeks after giving birth, she's ready for sex

Life as a disabled single woman who's actively dating

A wife confesses to her husband that she's a BDSM submissive and wants him to dominate her

What it's like to have a spouse who's transitioning

Sex in an open marriage

How to have an open marriage

Is the subject of my latest DAME sex column. I'd love to hear any other topics related to sex and women you'd like to see me cover (or sex in general). Truly, I would! Email me at rachelcitypaper at gmail dot com with your ideas: could be about dating, relationships, sex practices, fetishes, fantasies, events, etc. I'm open, to be punny for a moment.



Here's a snippet of the new column:

Skye, a writer in her fifties, began her 20-year marriage monogamous. But eight years into her marriage, her husband told Skye that he was interested in exploring his bisexuality, and they decided to open their relationship. He’d stopped seeing other people once they started dating, but she wasn’t surprised or threatened when he brought it up. Skye believes this is because, at the time, he was interested exclusively in seeing men at the time (he’s since gone on to date other women), so Skye was less threatened by the prospect than she would have been if he’d wanted to see another woman, because "clearly, in my case, I could not be a man." But he has suffered more pangs of jealousy over the years than she has, she explained. “In the long run, as long as I’m being treated well by my partners, he’s okay,” she said. “I make it a habit to tell him that no one else could ever be what he is to me.”

Keep reading

On polyamory and writing what you don't know

The introduction to my ebook essay collection Sex & Cupcakes is called "Writing What You Know When You Write About Sex." That I think does apply to personal essays, which make up the bulk of the book, but in my work as a sex columnist, I'm primarily writing about other people's sex lives.

To research my recent polyamory and metamour column, "Love the one you're with - and the one they're with, too," I posted a question on a polyamory forum and someone asked me if I identify as poly. It's complicated, and there's more on that in my essay "Monogamishmash" (in Sex & Cupcakes) but the short answer would be no. I'm in a monogamous relationship right now, although I wouldn't say I truly identify with the word "monogamous" as a way to describe me. But that's part of why I was all the more interested in exploring polyamory. I may be doing monogamy right now, but I still hate the way monogamy is shoved down our thoughts from the youngest of ages as the one and only way to go about love, the biggest goal, the most glittering trophy. Metamours seemed like a way to link that to Valentine's Day to keep it timely and offer some different POVs on the topic.

There's a gap between my experiences and those of the people I profiled, and I value that. I learn from that. Always. I don't think I could bring myself to write essays about myself and my sex life every day, or even every week. part of what keeps my mind alive and alert is talking to other people, being professionally nosy, and then, on a personal level, processing that information back into my life, figuring out what I can learn from people who are different me.

Certainly, when I finally get around to zeroing in on my biggest experience as a metamour, it will be nothing like that column. It will be dark, ugly and messy. It will be about my lowest, in a way, moment, a rock bottom that I think about often as a way to stabilize myself and remember how I do not want to behave. It's something I'm not sure I'd say I'm ashamed of, or even regret, but that was deeply impactful in all aspects of my life. I remember it like yesterday, which is probably why I feel this need to write about it three years later.

It calls to me because I'm often dark, ugly and messy, and always deeply, deeply imperfect. I will never be otherwise. But I think what I try my hardest to do is both write about my own experiences when a piece calls for it, but also look beyond my own experiences, because they will always be a narrow, singular, strictly subjective view. I'm honored and grateful to have the opportunity to write these sex columns, and if they end tomorrow, I will have been proud of the work I've done on them. So with that, Happy Valentine's Day, one day early.

My polyamory metamour sex column for Valentine's Day in Philadelphia City Paper

Sometimes I fall for a title first, as is the case with "Love the one you’re with — and the one they’re with, too," my Philadelphia City Paper column this week on polyamory and how metamour relationships can unfold. Special thanks to Cunning Minx (pictured below) and her podcast Polyamory Weekly for being such a wonderful source of information on this topic.



Yes, I will be reviewing Fifty Shades of Grey this weekend, but I wanted to remember other aspects of Valentine's Day than Ana and Christian, and wanted to use a Valentine's Day sex column to highlight an aspect of polyamorous relationships I haven't seen as much written about in more mainstream venues (even though I'm tasked with writing edgy, alternative sex for my alt weekly column, I still consider it "mainstream" in the sense that most readers probably haven't heard the word "metamour," and apparently neither has the spell checker on Blogger).

And yes, I'm aware that polyamorous people are often portrayed as rich and white. Not everyone I interviewed is white, and my aim with all my columns and writing is to showcase a diversity of sexual experiences, sexual identities, ages, races and genders. I am working especially on trying to cover topics that aren't being covered elsewhere, to the best of my ability, and to that end, I highly welcome pitches. In Philadelphia City Paper Let's Get It On is a short weekly print and online column about almost anything related to sex; my DAME Shameless Sex column runs every other week and focuses on issues around women and sex, and I also freelance widely for places like Salon about assorted other topics. Hence, I always am on the lookout for new ideas, people, events, kinks to cover. You can reach me at rachelkb at gmail.com with "Column" in the subject line.

Bisexual male swinger Cooper Beckett on life as a swinger

For my latest Philadelphia City Paper column I wrote about swinging. Official title: "Swingers are speaking out and changing the traditional rules" (this column is definitely the one where I'm given the longest titles I've ever had!). If you're in Philadelphia, check it out in print every week. I profiled Cooper Beckett of Life on the Swingset and his new book My Life on the Swingset, and we discussed negotiating, jealousy, how the TV show Hannibal is part of his relationship rules, swinger stereotypes and more. He will also be on my CatalystCon panel Sharing Your Sex Life on the Page and the Stage on March 28th from 9:30- a.m. in Arlington, Virginia. As always, I welcome your suggestions for future columns! Email rachelkb at gmail.com with "City Paper" in the subject line.

If you like the column, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd share it/like it/etc. It helps let them know people want to read about sex!

Very queer, very polyamorous romance Bound to Be a Groom by Megan Mulry

I wrote about how author Megan Mulry balances the multiple relationships in her new historical romance Bound to be a Groom at Heroes and Heartbreakers. I recommend the book even if you're only used to reading straight one man/one woman romances, because it captures all sorts of longing, and how love and desire can change and grow. And has lots of BDSM, voyeurism and hot sex as well as tender moments. And I wrote "polyamorous" but considering it's set in 1808 that's not the word they used, but loving multiple people is indeed what happens.

The last sex diary

The last sex diary went up today, and it's kinky and poly: The Portland Woman Masturbating With Clothespins on Her Nipples. Thanks for supporting the series!

Free Best Sex Writing 2012 reading tonight: polyamory, why atheist sex is better, female orgasm and more

Tonight at 7:30 pm come enjoy free cupcakes and some of the smartest thinkers and writers about sex at the Best Sex Writing 2012 reading at Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco. Facebook invite here and below find excerpts from all of your readers: Susie Bright, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Greta Christina Tracy Clark-Flory and Thomas S. Roche. And yes, of course I want you to buy the book, and come to the reading, and get your book signed, but I am also linking to the pieces so you can read them in full (and then buy the book for all the pieces you can't read online and to support the series). If you like any/all of these, please let someone know about the reading, tweet about it (@bestsexwriting or I'm @raquelita), give it as a gift, let your San Francisco and Santa Cruz and NYC friends know about tonight, April 12th, April 25th; anything you can do to support this series is wonderful. And a reminder: I am in search of submissions for Best Sex Writing 2013. Original pieces, reprints, suggestions are all welcome as long as they arrive by May 1 and I will be announcing which San Francisco writer is our guest judge very soon! Thanks for reading and see you at Booksmith and Bookshop Santa Cruz and Housing Works. For my full event schedule, visit my website.



"Why Lying About Monogamy Matters" by Susie Bright

It must make Ross pout that unrelenting evidence proves abstinence programs are not only "ineffective," they actually cause higher pregnancy rates than in places where young people have info and access to birth control. Eww!

It can turn a smiley-face upside-down, if you're a Christian religious fanatic, but sometimes the truth is... proof-y.

As for women having an infantile essential nature, which desires innocence and vacuity above all other sexual traits, leading to an unparalleled state of happy brainlessness -- gosh, how do you even begin to document that, outside of scripture and tattered Catholic catechism pamphlets?

Douthat's faith is based on the tenets of unapologetic misogyny, sexism, gender determinism, and an all-around "Daddy Knows Best" approach. I'm sure you've heard how well the Catholic clergy has led in this regard.

In Christianity, men are the natural leaders, and must stand guard against their carnality. Grrr!

Women must follow man, doting on him, caring for the hearth. Women have a lot to atone for, because they're the reason human beans got tossed out of the Garden of Eden. That's where God created everything in Seven Days and there was a Magic Apple and it really tasted good... which was premature and ill-advised. To say the least

"Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth about Kinky Sexting" by Rachel Kramer Bussel

“You don’t want to gag a woman with your penis unless you have some serious issues with the way you see women.” So says Kirsten Powers, ex-girlfriend of sex-scandal star Congressman Anthony Weiner, in a piece for The Daily Beast. She is referencing his sexting relationship with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. The transcript of their texts was posted by Radar Online, including one bit that prompted Powers’ musing: “You will gag on me before you c** with me in you” and “[I’m] thinking about gagging your hot mouth with my c***.”

This column is not about Weiner. I’m pretty over political sex scandals and am inclined to think that someone like Weiner wanted to get caught, consciously or unconsciously. The only positive thing I can say about such scandals is that they do help shed light on just how unenlightened we are about topics like monogamy and BDSM. Here we have an example of a woman making a blanket statement about something she clearly doesn’t know the first thing about, simply because it offends her.

You know the phrase, “Taken out of context, I must seem so strange?” That goes double for pulling random bits of erotic conversation, texted or otherwise, and analyzing them as if they told a whole story. Without the motivation of the person sending and receiving them, you really don’t know anything, and yet it seems that a default anti-BDSM reaction is acceptable. Our public squeamishness over the fact that some people can eroticize pain, degradation, and being ordered around, safely, consensually and pleasurably, is nothing more than a prejudice that needs to be eradicated.

"Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better" by Greta Christina

And sexual guilt doesn't just go up with more conservative religions. It goes up with more religiosity, period. The more religious your upbringing is, the worse your sexual guilt is likely to be. Of people raised in very religious homes, 22.5% said they were shamed or ridiculed for masturbating (to give just one example)... compared to only 5.5% of people brought up in the least religious homes. And of people raised in very religious homes, 79.9% felt guilty about a specific sexual activity or desire... while among people raised in the least religious and most secular homes, that number drops to 26.3%. That's a huge, huge difference.

But one of the most surprising conclusions of this research? Sexual guilt from religion doesn't wreck people's sex lives forever.

Guilt According to conventional wisdom -- and I will freely admit that I held this conventional wisdom myself -- religious guilt about sex continues to torment people long after the religion itself has lost its hold. But according to the "Sex and Secularism" report, that's rarely the case. Once people let go of religion, people's positive experiences of sex, and their relative lack of guilt, happen at about the same rate as people who were never religious in the first place.

Ray was surprised by this result as well. (Surprising results -- a sign of good science!) "We did think that religion would have residual effects in people after they left," he told me, "but our data did not show this. That was a very pleasant surprise. That is not to say that some people don't continue to experience problems, but the vast majority seem to shake it off and get on with their sexual lives pretty well." So letting go of religion means a rebound to a sex life that's as satisfying, and as guilt-free, as a sex life that was never touched by religion in the first place.

"The Worship of Female Pleasure" by Tracy Clark-Flory

Nicole Daedone pulls her long dirty-blond locks into a bun, rolls up the sleeves of her crisp white dress shirt and readies her lube. On the table in front of her there is a woman, naked only from the waist down, with her knees spread wide. The 40-something founder of OneTaste, a center dedicated to “mindful sexuality,” is about to give a live and impromptu demonstration of orgasmic meditation (“OMing” for short) in a conference room at the sophisticated Le Meridien hotel in San Francisco. She takes a long look between the volunteer’s legs and enthuses to the audience of roughly 40 women: “Oh my god, it’s beautiful. It’s an electric rose color. The swelling is already beginning.”

Before long, Daedone is hunched over and vigorously stroking the woman’s most sensitive “spot” — the “upper left quadrant” of the clitoris — with just her forefinger. The recipient moans wildly as though she is being taken over by a spirit and Daedone urges her on: “Good girl. Good, good. Reach, reach, reach, reach.” As the woman’s groans peak, Daedone lets out a throaty exhalation that sounds like it belongs in a Lamaze class. Two audience members overcome by the intensity of the performance are silently crying. The demonstration, which is part of a weekend-long women’s retreat, continues for 15 minutes.

It is both arousing and deeply bizarre.

It isn’t every weekend that I find myself watching a woman being repeatedly brought to orgasm in front of a live audience — but I hardly expected normality when I asked to sit in on the workshop.

"Men Who “Buy Sex” Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies" by Thomas S. Roche

Are they joking? Buying sex is already illegal most places — and it also exists almost everywhere. But this group is actually claiming that it must be “criminalized”? How far out of the world we live in do you have to be before you can believe that prostitution hasn’t been criminalized?

The answer? You just have to be a radical anti-sex feminist, apparently…in which case male-dominated society looks like just one big blur…at least, that’s what I, as a man, take away. Equating a law enforcement structure that can’t manage to stamp out street prostitution with men who frequent call girls and politicians who don’t pass stronger laws is only possible if men aren’t people.

What’s more, places where sex work is most illegal (Saudi Arabia and other Sharia-governed states) are without exception where it’s most dysfunctional (e.g., trafficked women). The nations that have the harshest anti-prostitution laws are the places where there are the greatest social strictures against consensual sexual encounters between men and women. Those countries are also — and this isn’t an accident — the nations where there’s the greatest difference between rich and poor, and the places where women have the lowest status. Oppressive laws disproportionately affect the poor, women, and racial, ethnic and religious minorities, no matter what they’re passed to do.

But it gets way worse. The “hooker-free Utopia” Farley wants to see take root in the U.S. is even more extreme than she’d let you know. In the case of Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, those nations have a documented constancy of homosexual rape in both social and penal circumstances, as well as anti-gay murders for anyone who isn’t “discreet” about same-sex contacts.

PB&J jalapeño popppers and other deliciousness at Seattle's Shelter Lounge

Today is my last day in Seattle and I'm going to the Nirvana exhibit at Experience Music Project (my first time) and doing more walking - that has been the biggest blessing of this trip, the several miles of walking I go to do each day. I so wish I had the time for that in New York. Another issue in New York is that unless you are walking on a bridge or some sort of park or path, you're stopping so often for lights it almost makes the walk not worth it.





I hung out in Ballard yesterday for CupcakeCamp Seattle - see Cupcakes Take the Cake for photos of that, but the views were stunning and water was lovely. I highly recommend The Locks and the botanical garden on a nice day, and there were some cute shops as I walked from there up toward 22nd.

Food highlight of the day was eating appetizers afterward at The Shelter Lounge. Whoa. We ordered everything except the corn off the menu and all of it was delicious and at happy hour prices only $4-5 each. YES. Here's some food porn for you from there:






Above: outside and inside the PB&J jalapeño popppers




(note: we at first got the plain flatbread, and then when we got this with cheese, someone remarked that it looked like the chef just came all over it - don't think all cupcake people are prudish, they're so not!)


ahi tuna is big in Seattle, I have found

Then I got to see Cunning Minx, who does the excellent Polyamory Weekly podcast, which you can follow on Facebook and Twitter too (follow @cunningminx too).

Me: "So what are you in town for?"

Cunning Minx: "I live here."

We had a fabulous catchup session and I will get to see her when I'm back in Seattle in late June!

Bonus food porn:



Yesterday's breakfast at my new favorite place, Sweet Iron Waffles: turkey, havarti and raspberry preserves waffle!

"My Favorite Sexual Outlaws" in Best Sex Writing 2010

To say the process of wrapping up the contents of Best Sex Writing 2010 (available for pre-order now!) is a relief would be way too huge of an understatement, so I won't go there. We're launching bestsexwriting.com very soon, and I had a brainstorm this weekend about busting out my flipcam and doing a very DIY, in-my-budget (aka FREE) book trailer and just getting some behind-the-scenes info. For now, though, I am just hoping this book does better than the previous years so I can justify keeping working on it because it's my favorite out of everything. Editing erotica is fun but...when you've been doing so much of it, it can get a little tedious. Plus I'm just naturally geared more toward nonfiction, but I also know that I can't go where my heart leads me, but where book buyers lead me.

So, you know, shoutout to the universe that I hope people recognize the genius in this book. Since I've been editing the series, I've published the likes of Gael Greene, Michael Musto, Tristan Taormino, Violet Blue, Mary Roach and others, and it's been a huge honor. Now it's time for sales to pick up already because it's too much of a shame to see these books go unread.

Okay, off my sad royalty statement soapbox and onto the good stuff...we will have review copies in December and if you are a long lead publication, we can get you a PDF, just drop me a line (rachel at bestsexwriting.com doesn't work yet so use whatever address you have for me or rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com - I'm really hoping to do a big push on this one). I'd love to see those interested in BDSM, non-monogamy, race, moms (there are two mom-specific pieces, Diana Joseph's and Rachel Sarah's - maybe next year I can get some dads to fess up about sex??), sexual orientation, safer sex, sex worker - aka, all the topics covered here - really get behind this book and explore it/review it/spread the word. And when the new site launches I'll have guidelines up about next year's edition; we're going more for stellar personal essays like Mollena Williams' and Michelle Perrot's and Kirk Read's going forward. Plus readings! Definitely New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis, other cities if I have any potential readers there and can swing the time.

I can't wait to get my camera out and start filming the New Yorkers like Betty Dodson and John DeVore, if I get their permission, and, say, Diana Joseph while she's in New York, and whoever else I can find. I'm aware that I'm probably more enthusiastic than the reality actually calls for, but fuck it - that's been my MO from the start and I can't turn back now. I know nothing, literally, about making videos, but for this one, I'll learn. Am hoping I have the cash/time to make a real video, burlesque-sexy-style, for Peep Show, which comes out just in time for my birthday, but all that is just icing on the cupcake, as it were, first I need to get my ass in gear and actually finish the three anthologies I'm scrambling to turn in. Then I can be all video crazy.



Introduction: My Favorite Sexual Outlaws by Rachel Kramer Bussel

The Girl Who Only Sometimes Said No Diana Joseph
Secrets of the Phallus: Why is the Penis Shaped Like That? Jesse Bering
The Vagina Dialogues Johanna Gohmann
Sex Laws That Can Really Screw You Ellen Friedrichs
What Really Turns Men On John DeVore
It’s a Shame About Ray by Kirk Read
BDSM and Playing with Race Mollena Williams
Remembering Pubic Hair Paul Krassner
Sexual Outlaw Betty Dodson
Go Thin or Bust: How Berkeley’s Mayer Laboratories won the battle of the thin condoms Rachel Swan
‘Sex Surrogates’ put personal touch on therapy Brian Alexander
What’s The Matter With Teen Sexting? Judith Levine
The Anatomy of An Affair Michelle Perrot
The Portal Janet Hardy
Bite Me! (Or Don’t) Christine Seifert
Hot. Digital. Sexual. Underground. David Black
Loving Lesbians by William Georgiades
Lust and Lechery in Eight Pages: The Story of the Tijuana Bibles Chris Hall
The Trouble With Safe Sex Seth Michael Donsky
Piece of Ass Monica Shores
The Future of Sex Ed Violet Blue
A Cunning Linguist John Thursday
SWL(actating) F Seeks Sex With No Strings Attached Rachel Sarah
Toward a Performance Model of Sex Thomas MacAulay Millar
The Client Voyeur debauchette


Best Sex Writing 2010 Introduction: "My Favorite Sexual Outlaws"

If there is a theme to this year’s anthology, I’d like to think it’s one of being a sexual outlaw, echoing the title of Betty Dodson’s essay. Because it’s the outlaws who, I’d like to think, are getting the most out of sex. That’s not to say that we should all be off having unconventional sex for the sake of being an outlaw, but rather that instead of listening to and blindly adhering to the conventional wisdom about sex, we need to create our own.

We see this theme in the pieces here about sex work, which defy the “sex worker as victim” trope to evoke new ideas about sex work and the people who engage in it as well as those who purchase sex. In “It’s a Shame About Ray,” Kirk Read is actually the one left wanting, when his client, Ray, knows exactly what he wants, and gets it. Read is left a bit wistful, wishing Ray had occupied him for a full evening rather than a mere two hours. In many ways, debauchette experiences the same thing when she’s hired by a voyeur. “The intensity reminded me what it felt like to want, and not have. He hadn’t touched me, but in all the silence and focused attention, I’d slowly let go of my resistance, transformed from defensive affectation to open, raw lust,” she writes.

John DeVore, one of the few straight men writing a regular sex column (for TheFrisky.com), challenges his fellow males to fess up to not necessarily lusting after Megan Fox—or at least, not exclusively lusting after Megan Fox. Paul Krassner takes us back in time to an era when Brazilian bikini waxes weren’t the norm, lamenting the loss of pubic hair. For William Georgiades, stepping out of the straight male norm and into Northampton, Massachusetts, where “I soon found that the only people who were making sense to me were the die-hard gay grrrls.” He navigates the tension between being a straight man, a breeder, and falling for women who sometimes, maybe, wanted him, in “Loving Lesbians,” one of several essays here that defy our need to put labels neatly around sexuality. (Betty Dodson says it much more emphatically, giving herself this advice when it came to the dreaded “S/M” label: “Embrace the label to destroy its power over you.”)

One of the most cherished tropes about sex is that monogamy, and marriage, are what will make us happy. That the two are intertwined is a given even in an era when acts like BDSM and alternative sexualities are more accepted. That’s why a piece like “The Anatomy of an Affair” by Michelle Perrot (a pseudonym) is so powerful. She’s claiming her marriage and her sexual autonomy, stating:

I don’t want 1950s-style advice about “date nights” and lingerie and role-playing. I don’t want to “spice up my marriage.” I want rough sex. Dirty, spit in his mouth sex. Wet, disgusting, nasty talk about pussies and cum and fuck-me sex. The kind of hate fucking where afterward you can’t move. And the bottom line is that I don’t want that kind of sex with my husband, this man I love.

Each of these authors has inspired me to think about sex in a new way, to not accept the norms, whether it’s Diana Joseph defending her slutty self to both herself and her son, Judith Levine reassuring us that sexting is not the evil of teenage life it’s thought to be, or Rachel Sarah weighing in on the erotic allure of breastfeeding. Noted sex and tech expert Violet Blue schools us on where our country needs to go if our sex education is truly going to serve the people it needs to, while Jesse Bering giving us a science lesson all about cock (okay, he calls it the phallus or the penis, but cock is my personal favorite word for that particular body part).

Some of the pieces here may unnerve you: Mollena Williams’s extended meditation on “BDSM and Playing with Race” is thoughtful, honest, brave and at times, disturbing. I’ve included it because this is one of the most taboo topics, along with the realities of safer sex that Seth Michael Donsky uncovers. Williams calls humiliation a “delicate balancing act,” and while the specific type of race-based play she’s talking about takes that to an extreme, I think sex itself, and sexual fantasy, are so often very delicate balancing acts where we are trying to make sense of the insensible, or perhaps, the opposite, letting ourselves lose our senses only to find something that defies logic, sense, smarts, and instead stems from the body. “For me, humiliation is a broad-brush full-bore way for me to feel the worst of how I feel about myself, give it away to someone, and have them hold it. Once someone else holds it up for me, mirrors it back, shows me the depth of my own feelings, my self-deprecation, I can see it for what it is,” writes Williams.

Each of these writers brings a powerful way of looking at sex to this book. I’d love to hear what you think and welcome your suggestions for future editions of Best Sex Writing—feel free to contact me at rachel@bestsexwriting.com and read more about the series and my guidelines at bestsexwriting.com.

I’d also like to add that some people have commented that the erotic covers on these books trick people into thinking there will be more arousing material than what’s actually inside. To me, though, as an ultimate voyeur, reading about other people’s turn-ons, unearthing their sexual secrets, seeing how the other halves live, is not just educational or entertainment. It enhances my sex life because it leads me to new possibilities. These authors, the smart, daring, provocative sexual outlaws, have taught me about biology, nonmonogamy, cybersex, and so much more. I hope these essays and articles speak to your brain, as well as other organs, and at the very least, clue you in that sex is a lot bigger, broader and more complicated than you ever expected.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City

Hear Trisan Taormino today at Bluestockings for Poly Pride Weekend

I will have more to say about Tristan being laid off from The Village Voice. Horrible news, but not that surprising to me. But for now, go hear her at Bluestockings during Poly Pride weekend, though most of you probably already know about this:

October 5, 12:30 pm
POLY AUTHORS: READ + SIGN
Join us for a reading of some of the best and newest poly authors read form their work! This event is part of the Eighth Annual Poly Pride weekend celebration. Confirmed readers include Serena Anderlini (Eros), Pete Benson (The Polyamory Handbook), Leanna Wolfe, and anchored by Tristan Taormino who will be reading from her new book, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. (free)
Location: Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street bet. Stanton and Rivington, NYC
Info: 212-777-6028