A stranger wanted to pay me $3,500 to sleep with him - you won't believe what happened next

I learned a lot about myself, sex work, money, labor and value while writing my latest DAME column, "I Was Offered $3,500 to Have Sex with a Stranger. Thanks to Melissa Petro and Kimberlee Cline for sharing their thoughts for the column. Check it out now, and I welcome suggestions on future topics to cover at rachelcitypaper at gmail.com - you can also read my entire DAME Shameless Sex column archives.

Duke porn star Belle Knox talks breaking into XXX, sex workers rights, Catholic school sex education and more

I interviewed Duke University freshman and porn star Belle Knox at Elle.com - we discussed how she got into porn, sex workers rights, her Catholic school education, her porn role models, her relationship status and more. If you like it, I'd love it if you'd pass the link on in some way. I had a tight word count so didn't get to include every interesting thing she said, but she was very articulate, passionate and, in my opinion, fascinating. I know I certainly was not as eloquent at 18.

6 free copies of BDSM book Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission for Amazon reviewers, plus a kinky excerpt

On Wednesday I'm sending out another round of autographed copies of Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission to U.S. Amazon.com reviewers and I have 6 left. Want one? Email me at femalesubantho at gmail.com with "Amazon" in the subject line and your name and mailing address in the body. You MUST have an Amazon.com account you've made a purchase from at some point and by emailing, you agree to post your review within 6 weeks of receiving the book. Thank you!



One of the things I'm most proud of in my story "Subbing" is pushing some of my own boundaries; you can read the first two paragraphs here and a kinkier excerpt below. I've written erotica about sex work in "Lap Dance Lust," but from the perspective of the dancer. I've written about a bachelor party lap dance (even one for a gay erotica anthology!) but am not sure I've ever written from the perspective of a sex worker before, which I did with this story, and certainly plan to do again. Many of the stories in Serving Him push boundaries and I love that about the book. It takes kink to the dark place it sometimes is, and I think it's one of my hottest books. Pushing boundaries is something I'm working to achieve with my solo short story collection, to go beyond where I initially wanted to take a story into somewhere with more depth and complexity, which in turn, I hope, makes the stories even hotter. So I hope readers enjoy it; if you have, I'd love it if you'd post a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. And if you like this excerpt, I'd love it if you'd take a moment to click "like" on the upper right hand side of my Amazon.com profile. This lets Amazon know people want to read my books! The introduction and more Serving Him excerpt links can be found here.

From "Subbing" by Rachel Kramer Bussel (©Rachel Kramer Bussel; all rights reserved)

“Hello, Tina, sweetheart,” he said, his smile both sweet and sadistic at once. She glanced immediately at his crotch, a bad habit she’d picked up somewhere along the way with guys she was hot for. She could see the outline of his cock against his jeans. “Daddy wants to have a word with you.” He took the chair and ragged it across the room, resting his hand on his cock. She looked up at him, grateful he wasn’t overly polite, wasn’t polluting their time with niceties that would do nothing for her pussy. He knew what he wanted, and so did she. “I have your allowance right here,” he said, holding up what she could see was at least a hundred dollars more than her fee. “Crawl to me, pretty girl,” he said. “Crawl to Daddy.” She did, wondering if he could tell how wet she was, wondering if he knew this was her first time, wondering if any of that mattered.

He kept talking as she reached him, seamlessly sliding the bills into the waistband of her skirt. “I know it was really Janet who stole the car, but since you told me you did it, you’re going to get punished for it. You understand, don’t you?” Somehow, his voice was soothing, deep and sexy, like he was trying to seduce her, yet the power behind his words vibrated through the air. “Janet will get punished even worse,” he said, “but you need to learn not to cover for her. You never lie to your Daddy again, do you hear me?” He didn’t yell, but it was the quiet roar in his voice that cued her in. She knew she could back away if she wanted to, but she had no desire to escape; instead, she was irresistibly drawn to that cruel yet sweet voice, its roughness promising pain as well as tender understanding. “Now get me my whip,” he said, pointing to a riding crop sticking up out of his briefcase. “Bring it to me between those pretty lips.”

She shuddered as she did it, realizing it had been three months since she’d last been beaten, and two more since she’d had someone talk to her like this. Well, not like this, exactly; she’d only played at being a “bad girl,” but never Daddy’s bad girl. This was different, doubly, even triply hot for all the taboos they were breaking. “You’re keep your panties on, but I want you to show me how wet you are, Tina, show me how much you need to be punished.” She pulled down her panties and bent over with the crop between her teeth, her ass in the air. Taylor spread her legs just enough to show the stranger, her new insta-Daddy, how slick her sex was. She started to inch backward, and stopped. Her punishment wasn’t going to be a beating there, nor would there be a reward of his fingers or tongue or cock, as she was used to. Her real punishment was that she’d have to wait until later to touch herself there, where she most wanted it.

Read or listen to the whole story in Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission!

Jonathan Lethem article kicks off Best Sex Writing 2013

Best Sex Writing 2013 will be here in, fittingly, 2013, January, to be exact. Stay tuned for a special pre-Christmas promotion I'm running, and if you like the sound of this lineup, please show the book some online love and click "like" on Amazon. Thank you! I'm very proud of and excited about this book and will be posting lots more about it soon. The book features several original pieces, as well as reprints from Playboy, The Atlantic, New York, East Bay Express, Jacobin, Salon, and elsewhere. It touches on nude models, sex toys, polyamory, aging and sex, public sex, BDSM, role-playing, AIDS, sex work, sexual identity, the porn industry and Jean Harlow, among other topics. See my next post for a free book offer related to this one and again, if you want to support this series, a "like" on Amazon and/or rating on Goodreads goes a long way and is very much appreciated. Bloggers and reviewers interested in covering the book, please email bestsexwriting2013 at gmail.com with your publication and mailing address. Thank you!



Best Sex Writing 2013 table of contents

Foreword by Carol Queen
Introduction by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Live Nude Models Jonathan Lethem
Can a Better Vibrator Inspire an Age of Great American Sex? Andy Isaacson
Sex by Numbers Rachel Swan
Very Legal: Sex and Love in Retirement Alex Morris
Notes from a Unicorn Seth Fischer
Rest Stop Confidential Conner Habib
When On Fire Island…A Polyamorous Disaster Nicholas Garnett
Cherry Picking Julia Serano
Holy Fuck Jon Pressick
Baby Talk Rachel Kramer Bussel
Dear John Lori Selke
Sex by Any Other Name Insiya Ansari
Enhancing Masochism Patrick Califia
Ghosts: All My Men Are Dead Carol Queen
Happy Hookers Melissa Gira Grant
Christian Conservatives vs. Sex: The Long War Over Reproductive Freedom Rob Boston
Porn Defends the Money Shot Dennis Romero
Lost Boys Kristen Hinman
The Original Blonde Neil Gabler

Purchase Best Sex Writing 2013 from:

Amazon

Kindle (ebook)

Bn.com

Nook (ebook)

Books a Million

Indiebound (independent bookstores)

Cleis Press

Some Girls kiss and tell very, very well

I know that was a cheesy rhyme, but I will have to write at another time about how amazing Jillian Lauren is. You should go read her book, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, right now. And catch her on her book tour (this Thursday in NYC at Sex Worker Literati at Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street, 8 pm, for a start). I'll be there, bearing cupcakes (for Jillian, but she will probably share). Follow her @jillylauren on Twitter. Currently #98 on Amazon!!

FYI, I'd never heard of her before about a month ago when I picked up Bust (which has a great review of Best Sex Writing 2010 which I will post soon) and saw an interview with her by Shira Tarrant. I was intrigued, but the book wasn't out yet. Then that Monday, two days later, I got a copy in the mail, like magic, and was riveted, and emailed her to tell her how much I loved and was moved by the book, and we got to meet at the LA Times Festival of Books.

You can watch her appearance on The View here and read an interview with her at The Gloss here. There was a fabulous profile of her in LA Weekly and I will be blogging on a related note (about what happened when I went to Digg that piece) in "I Don't Care About Your Husband" (an homage to Julie Klausner in the title) soon.



I wrote this review on Amazon:

Some Girls is about, on the surface, Lauren's time spent in a harem in Brunei, but dig just marginally beneath that surface and you will see that this is a memoir that tackles major moments in both her life and one's that many women struggle with. Lauren leaves home at 16 to head out on her own at NYU, but soon finds the life of the theater and, later, escorting, more her style. She is young, brash and carefree, but Lauren never makes it as easy as "I was rebelling." She transposes her freewheeling time against her search for meaning--and her birth mother. Her descriptions of life in the palace, the over-the-top, almost sickening shopping sprees, and encounters with Prince Jefri vividly, including rivalry, jealousy, desire and boredom.

Some of the most moving scenes here, though, having nothing to do with the harem, even if they were informed by her time there. Her quest, and eventual success, in finding her birth mother is at the core of what it means to find oneself, and the ways that meeting falls short of Lauren's expectations are poignant. When she writes of her accidental pregnancy, the boyfriend who wasn't interested, and how she chose to deal with that, she starkly highlights the humanity within the debate around abortion in a way we truly need to see more of in our society. And when Lauren finds tattoo culture (fun fact: Ed Hardy once had a magazine called Tattootime, which becomes Lauren's bible), she writes of having found her people, and promptly gets a major tattoo that even her tattoo artist advises her against.

I found myself repeatedly marveling that the protagonist is only, at most, 19 or 20 when most of the scenes here take place. Lauren displays a maturity beyond her years in her self-assurance (though, again, beneath the surface much more than toughness bubbles up) as well as in the writing and self-reflection. This is a memoir in the truest sense of the word, not a dashed-off "I did this for a year" but a piece that flashes back and reveals her childhood piece by piece, showing why she had this restless yearning to travel so far and get involved with the Prince, even dreaming of having his child at one point. She complicates prostitution and her role in it, while never disowning or disavowing that word or the reality of what she did, and in doing so, has written an outstanding story that is both a fast, at times glamorous read, and one that is very likely to make you cry which, in my book, makes it a winner.

This is how she signed my book in LA:

Peep Show author interview with Donna George Storey

Rachel's note: Donna George Storey is one of my favorite writers and is such a huge inspiration. Her plots are always creative and blow me away with their detail and heat. Her story "Clean and Pretty" is so realistic, and plays a role in the Peep Show book trailer.


Donna George Storey

How did you come up with the idea for your story “Clean and Pretty” in Peep Show?

When I was in Tokyo in the spring of 2008, my partner and I stayed in boutique Japanese-style inn right in the middle of Ginza. It was a bargain at $400 a night, but every detail was just right, including the shower stall which was a floor-to-ceiling glass cubicle set in the corner of an elegant bathroom. The golden wood paneling and romantic lighting made showering a special experience—in Japan the bathing ritual is elevated to a religion. The possibilities for an erotic story dawned on me when I caught my husband admiring me through the steamy glass.

I’ve also always been intrigued by Japan’s commercial sex industry and was especially inspired by a book of photographs called Pink Box: Inside Japan’s Sex Clubs by American lawyer Joan Sinclair, whose patience and sincerity gained her access to this hidden side of Japanese culture. I knew from friends’ reports and my own research that new clubs come and go in Japan’s red light districts, but they all rely on a creative gimmick. Peeping into the woman’s bath is a common sexual fantasy in Japan, if porn comics are any indication, so I put that peeping Toshi proclivity together with the fancy shower to make up a pink box of my own.

The details of my “masturbation in the shower” club are based on what really goes on, but there aren’t any clubs exactly like this as far as I know. However, if any sex industry entrepreneurs are interested in developing the idea, please get in touch!


photo by Joan Sinclair from Pink Box


cover of Pink Box

Did the story change as you were writing it from your original conception of it?

The title of the story refers to the English translation of the Japanese word kirei, which means both “clean” and “pretty.” I’d always been fascinated by the dual meanings—they’re not mutually exclusive, but certainly suggestive of Japanese cultural values. So I thought it would be a good title, but as I wrote the story I discovered lots of new possibilities for the meaning of that word, both in English and Japanese, culminating in the story’s climax. I came away feeling I’d learned something about language, Japan and sex—three of my favorite topics.

What’s your favorite line or paragraph from your story?

I enjoy layers in clothes, cookies and stories, so this moment of “layered voyeurism” is a favorite in “Clean and Pretty”:

“For a moment I feel dizzy, disoriented. There are too many eyes here. I’m watching Hiro watch a stranger watch me slide my soapy genitals over the glass. Only then do I notice his right arm jerking in an odd motion. I step closer and peer over his shoulder. Hiro’s fly is open, his ruddy erection pokes up through his jeans, nestled in his clenched fist. His other hand holds a wad of tissues at the ready. Suddenly he stops. I freeze. I’ve been caught spying and will surely pay a price.”

Is your Peep Show story similar to or different from your usual erotic writing style?

For some reason, my stories that are set in Japan like “Clean and Pretty” have a special magic for me. The erotic element is always heightened, perhaps because my own thirty-year relationship with the country involves an unsatisfied yearning. No matter how far I’ve penetrated into the culture, I remain an outsider peering through the paper screen. I can definitely feel that passion in this story, which ranks among my very favorites!

What do you think is sexy about exhibitionism and/or voyeurism?

Well, whatever it is, I have to say, every single story in Peep Show really pushes all the right buttons for me. Sex is supposed to be private and hidden, so there’s that delicious sense of breaking a taboo inherent in a public display. It’s also supposed to be shameful, so to have that “dark” side of ourselves seen, accepted, and ultimately shared by the viewer feels satisfying on a deep level. It also occurs to me that we don’t spend all that much of our erotic lives actually having sex. A much greater percentage is spent thinking about it and responding to visual provocation of all sorts whether it’s a sexy media image or a smile from an attractive stranger. Peep Show takes that teasing gap in the raincoat and pulls it all the way open to bare all.

If you care to answer, are you more of a voyeur, exhibitionist, or neither? Do you think there’s something inherently exhibitionistic about writing, especially writing erotica?

I confess I’m both a voyeur and an exhibitionist. It’s impossible to write erotica and not expose a great deal about my fantasies and turn-ons, even if my characters don’t exactly mirror me in every way. Readers are obviously voyeurs, but I think a writer needs to be a voyeur as well. Watching people gives me my material and I’m certainly there in the corner spying on my characters as they do their dirty deeds, scribbling notes all the way.

What are you working on next?

I have a novel simmering, which will peep into the sex lives of famous Americans in past centuries. It’s a very voyeuristic project, and I’m having lots of fun with the research.

Donna George Storey "Clean and Pretty" (www.donnageorgestorey.com) is the author of Amorous Woman (Neon/Orion). Her fiction has been published in numerous anthologies, including Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories and X: The Erotic Treasury. She writes a column, “Cooking up a Storey,” for the Erotica Readers and Writers Association.

Below is an excerpt from "Clean and Pretty" by Donna George Storey. To read the whole story, check out Peep Show: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists. Read excerpts from all 18 stories in Peep Show by clicking here.

Is Hiro watching now?

My nipples tingle, and I feel a gush of wetness between my thighs. It’s not water, no, and it’s not for the man jerking off outside the stall. It’s for Hiro gazing at me through the hidden surveillance camera.

I squeeze out more soap, rub it over my breasts and push them together as if I’m wearing some obscene bargirl’s bustier. It’s time to move on to the “Breast Soap Show.” I lean forward and press my upper body against the glass. In spite of the heat and steam, the wall itself is cool. Yet, as I rub my nipples against it, the mild sting sends sharper pangs of arousal to my cunt. I shake my shoulders slowly, sliding myself along the hard, slick surface. This is no act. I am genuinely turned on.

And Hiro? Does he feel that chilly fire in his body, too?

A face emerges from the steam, inches from the glass, eyes fixed and bulging. I shimmy faster. A tongue darts out, desperately flicking at the glass. I moan. Hiro’s tongue would be just like this, cool and unyielding. He’s a cool man in every sense of the word. He never touches his girls, he told me. Mixing work and pleasure dirties things.

But I want to be dirty. I want to be touched.

For more on Donna George Storey, see her Bottoms Up guest blog post, "Spanking for Soccer Moms" and my interview with her about The Mile High Club anthology

Top 10 Reasons I Love Kirk Read's essay "It's a Shame About Ray"

I'm a longtime fan of writer Kirk Read. His memoir How I Learned to Snap is brilliant. He is this amazing performer, so of course I turned to his essay "It's a Shame About Ray" in the new Soft Skull Press anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex and was expecting something good. What I got was something that is genius. Trust me. The price of the book is worth it for this essay alone (even though there are some other amazing pieces in it too).



1. The title. He had me at “It’s a Shame About Ray” because I am a Lemonheads fan and loved that song.

2. He references a Burger King commercial to describe his escorting Internet personal add:

I used phrases like “non-judgmental” and “open to the fantasies that grip you.” Remember that Burger King commercial? The one with the jingle “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce; special orders don’t upset us…” It was kind of like that.

3. He is a word nerd.

At the risk of being overly simplistic, I’ll say that all I did was use complete sentences. We live in an age of fission. All around us, the language is being split into tiny, marketable pieces. Here-second chunks of information--visual media is edited in such a way that we’re all careening toward epilepsy. Meanwhile, the sentence is an old friend. The sentence is a familiar revolution. I trust the sentence.

4. He debunks stereotypes while invoking the military industrial complex:

You know that stereotype about how clients want to tell you all their problems, so much so that you don’t spend very much time having sex? The sex worker as talk therapist? It’s complete bullshit. It makes non sex workers feel less threatened by the concept of sex for pay. Like when the government invades a country and launches a media disinformation campaign so people think the troops are just there keeping the peace, when really they’re carrying out midnight raids and razing apartment buildings and shooting civilians point blank. I grew up in a military family. I know that’s what really happens because the men in my family are all emotionally unavailable.

5. He likes guys who aren’t traditionally attractive, and claims that:

For me it’s a deeper practice to arrive with very little to go on. The clients who don’t give you any hints at all--no phone voice, no age, nothing. Those are the guys I end up learning the most from. Especially if they’re not traditionally handsome. Maybe they’ve got some extra weight, maybe their skin has red patches, maybe they have a micropenis. If there’s some characteristic that renders them defective in the eyes of the culture, it makes me more excited to play with them. Like when a firefighter gets a call for a five-alarm blaze. It’s exciting. It’s a challenge.

6. He’s from the South and proud, and explains the politeness of accepting a drink, even in the context of a sex work client.

7. He honors his client, Ray, sharing Ray’s fetish with readers in a way that never vacates his trust, that takes someone who is very likely misunderstood by the general populationæat one point, even by Read--and shows his humanity in the guise of a very specific interest.

8. He’s damn funny. He works in his own fantasies, experiences, and sex worker maxims while also telling a story about a specific client.

9. He’s wistful that he didn’t have more intimate contact with his client, thus debunking another stereotype: that it’s always only about money. Clearly, it wasn’t, so when getting to leave after two hours after being paid for an overnight visit, he’s disappointed.

10. He simply owns this piece. I wish I could carry it around and thrust it upon everyone I meet to read, immediately. It’s that good. It’s funny but never in a way that makes fun of sex. It’s unapologetic in its tone, forthright that he is all these things: a sex worker, queer, Southern, smart. It’s fierce and wistful and horny and forthright. It references Fahrenheit 451 and puts forth a vision of a world where people used full sentences and didn’t beat around the bush when speaking up about their desires. At one point, he writes, “Erotic freedom by any means necessary.” Exactly.

I also happen to think he's drop-dead sexy, so I'm gonna share some photos I found at his site:


photo by Lynnly Labowitz
via Kirkread.com


via Kirkread.com

And if you want to see him naked, covered in money (to be on the safe side, probably NSFW), click here