• ABOUT
• CONTACT
• SUBSCRIBE
• HOME

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Sexerati Interviews: Rachel Kramer Bussel

filed under: Erotic Elite, Sexerati Interviews by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

Rachel Kramer Bussel may just be one of the hardest working women I know. In addition to a full time job as an editor at Penthouse, she somehow manages to find time to write stories, edit anthologies, host a reading series, and blog about sex and cupcakes. I had the good fortune to find Rachel during one of her rare free minutes, and get her opinions on writing, sex writing, and how blogs (and the Internet) are changing our culture.

Back when I met you, you’d just left law school. How’d you go from being an aspiring lawyer to a sex writer?
Well, it certainly wasn’t a planned career change. At the end of law school, I realized I just couldn’t hack it and didn’t want to be a lawyer. In a move I now regret, I never got my degree and wound up “taking a year off” which became a permanent break, and started temping. I temped/did administrative work for five years and over that time just began writing everything I could, including erotica. Then, through luck and good timing, Penthouse Variations had an opening for a Senior Editor job, and they called me, and I started there in March 2004, then later that year the Village Voice asked me to become a columnist. Most of my work has come about kind of like that⎯someone asking me to do something, versus me pursuing projects, though I’m starting to do more of the latter. I also spent a lot of time writing for free or very little pay for various sites and publications like Lesbianation.com and then did a column for the New York Blade. I was always working on something, whether essays or book reviews or pitches and through making contacts, people started to get to know my work. And before I knew it was a “sex writer,” though I much prefer “writer.”

Where did you get your start in sex writing? Did you have any big breaks?
I would say I really just worked gradually up to where I am now. I never envisioned getting to do all of this stuff for a living, especially when I had some really awful day jobs. I’ve also always pursued projects I was naturally enthusiastic about, and people have asked me to work on things, like editing Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2 for Pretty Things Press, because they knew I already had an interest in the topic. Things developed slowly but surely, one book here, one book there, various articles, and now I’ve got a balance of projects I’ve pitched (like She’s on Top and He’s on Top, and the sequels, Yes, Ma’am and Yes, Sir, which are coming out next February) and ones people have approached me about.

Sometimes I feel like it’s all been big breaks, even though I’ve worked really hard. I do think there’s some level where you can’t predict or plan for the work that’ll come your way, you just have to put yourself out there and work on things you believe in and go after what you want. That’s advice I don’t always take but that seems to have panned out for me. The hardest thing right now is figuring out “what I want to do next” because sometimes I want to do everything all at once, so I have to pace myself and slow down a bit and work on one (or, okay, three) thing at a time.

Read more

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Sexerati Interviews: Danielle E. Sucher

filed under: Erotic Elite, Sexerati Interviews by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

Danielle E. Sucher is a brilliant lawyer, fabulous food blogger, and a good friend. She also happens to be one half of a heterosexual domestic partnership. Given that domestic partnerships are often viewed as a back door into same-sex marriages — a way of obtaining the benefits of marriage for a relationship shut out of the institution — I found it interesting that a couple that could get married opted for a domestic partnership instead. We sat down recently to discuss love, the law, and (of course) smart sex.

How long were you with your partner before you got a domestic partnership?
My partner and I dated for about a year and a half and lived together for about five months before we registered as domestic partners.

What was the attraction of a domestic partnership? Why not just move in together, with no legal status to your relationship, or get married instead?
I am partnered with one of the most idealistic, caring, and stubborn men I have ever met. Dave Turner, formerly of the Free Software Foundation, currently a programmer for the Open Planning Project, absolutely refuses to marry me in any jurisdiction that doesn’t also allow same-sex marriage. Much as it may frustrate my mother, I have come to share his views on the matter. It would be unethical for us to take advantage of the right to marry when it is denied to so many other people.

My partner and I both identify as bisexual and queer, and the fact that we ended up in an opposite-sex relationship with each other does not change our orientation or sense of involvement in the community. We have volunteered and catered events for the Fresh Fruit Festival, and I provide pro bono legal services through LeGaL: the LGBT Law Association of Greater New York. As members of the LGBT community, we consider it particularly important to stand by those who may not be able to pass as heterosexual as easily we currently can.

Our primary motivation for registering as domestic partners, rather than just living together without giving our relationship any legal status, was based on the health insurance benefits. At the time, I was employed as a Court Attorney for the Criminal Court of the City of New York, and Dave was in the process of transitioning between jobs. We wanted to register so that I could share my health insurance with him if necessary. Now, as I prepare to open my own solo law practice, our partnership will permit him to share his health insurance with me.

Read more

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Sexerati Interviews: Molly Crabapple

filed under: Erotic Elite, We Make Art Not Sex, Sexerati Interviews by Lux Nightmare | 1 Comment

Heads up!  Sexerati Interviews is now on Tuesday, and The Future of Sex has been moved to Thursdays.  Subscribe to Sexerati and never worry about missing a feature!

I first met Molly Crabapple at a mutual friend’s party. We bonded over cupcakes, gossiping about altporn, nude modeling, and trying to make it in New York City. Two and a half years later, Molly’s tenacity and whipsmart business sense has brought her a bunch of fancypants clients, an awesome book, and the coolest lifedrawing class since, well, ever. Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School – a cross between cabaret and life drawing class – meets every other Saturday in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and has spawned spinoff events all around the country (and internationally!), as well as Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Coloring Book. I recently sat down with Molly to pick her brains about art, sex, and hot naked men.

So what’s the history of Dr. Sketchy’s? How’d that get started?
During college, I worked as an artists’ model. Going into it, I was under the delusion that modeling was a glamorous profession, tied in with Paris and absinthe and all that la-di-da. Not so. And boy was it low paid. I started Dr. Sketchy’s to bring to life some of my fantasies. And to give models a nice wage.

There’s some really great antecedents to Dr. Sketchy’s in bohemian culture of times yore. What would your biggest inspirations, in the history of sexy art scenes and eras, be?
While I have my inspirations, I’m sure that, looked upon in the harsh light of fact, they’re pretty a-historical. That said, Kiki de Montparnasse, the Bal des Quaz’arts, the Zutistes, and all that crazy bohemian Parisian stuff was a big inspiration.

Dr. Sketchy’s has made a point to have male models as well as female models. How has your audience reacted to that? Are hot naked men received as well as hot naked women?
Unfortunately not. It seems like, unless you tap into a gay male audience, it’s much harder to make a buck off of guys than girls. Straight women seem more inclined to shell out cash to ogle other women than to men, which makes me kind of sad for society.

Several of your male models have come from the burlesque scene: is the burlesque world more accommodating of hot naked men than the art world?
Male burlesque perfomers have been enthusiastically welcomed into the burlesque community. There’s ever a special category for them at Miss Exotic World (Miss America for peelers). Frankly, I love the fact that there are men- especially hot, macho ones- performing. Sometimes, doing burlesque feels like working in a harem.

In your opinion, who’s more fun to draw: naked men or naked women?
For me… naked men. Though I’m better at naked women, mostly because I practiced drawing myself.

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to aspiring young artists?
If you want to make money, develop a consistent style. Art directors and gallery owners have very little imagination, and versatility confuses them.

Here’s the one thing we’re all dying to know: do you have any debauched Dr. Sketchy’s hookup tales? Has love (or at least, lust) been found after the pencils go down?
Every single man, and a significant minority of women, is in love with Lady J [a Dr. Sketchy’s model].

What one thing do you consider to be most essential to a good, healthy sex life?
Twisted, unhealthy sex is more my speed.

And lastly: any plans for the future that our readers should know about?
Dr. Sketchy’s is coming to a city near you! In March, I’m doing a national book tour (which means lugging bags and sleeping on floors in ten cities across the country). So, if you live in LA, SF, PHX, Norfolk, Boston, Durham, DC, Baltimore, Richmond or Greensboro, come to my signings. I will love you and shower you in free buttons. Deets at www.drsketchy.com/tour.php.

Need more Molly? Check out her website. Learn more about Dr. Sketchy’s here.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Sexerati Interviews: Gina de Vries

filed under: Erotic Elite, Sexerati Interviews by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Gina de Vries is a queer writer from San Francisco, but in true bicoastal perversion, we met back East when we were both calling the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts ‘home’ and making trouble in its woods, cafes, and dorms. At the time, she was co-editing, with Diane Anderson-Minshall, [Becoming]: young ideas on gender, identity, and sexuality, and was in the middle of her 7 year tenure as a columnist for Curve magazine. Look for her in Tough Girls 2: Down and Dirty Dyke Erotica, Transforming Communities, Baby, Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing, First-Timers, That’s Revolting!: Queer Resistances to Assimilation and The On Our Backs Guide to Lesbian Sex. I interviewed Gina this afternoon, passing a laptop back and forth as we listened to the street cars roll by, back in our real home now, San Francisco.

Finish the following sentence: Gina de Vries is…

A queer writer, activist, and sex nerd from San Francisco who blogs at queershoulder and dreams of one day having a lofty writing job and a clawfoot bathtub.

When did you first know you were a sex nerd?

In my early teens. I was one of those precocious early-nineties sex-positive baby queers raised on Susie Bright and Carol Queen. I’d been doing queer activism forever – mostly around safer school issues – and because of my queer political work, I’d had a lot of interactions with older folks in the bi and trans and leather communities, and gone to riot grrrl conventions, etc. It was those early interactions with older LGBT and leather folks and my involvement in the mid-nineties grrrl scene that really shaped both my sexual and political outlook today… Anyway, I’ve always collected writing and historical memorabilia about sexual minority communities – I’ve got a huge collection of grrrl zines, I still read everything I can get my hands on about queer history, I’m perversely fascinated by bad lesbian separatist books and records – and I had this kind of insane collection of queer and sex books for a teenager. I had a new year’s eve party when I was around sixteen, and a straight girl friend of mine (who has since then become both a dyke and a sex nerd herself) discovered my copy of Sexual State of the Union and started reading sections of it to all of us dramatically. I sort of snatched the book away from her defensively, and said it was really good and earnestly encouraged her to read Susie Bright. And then all these friends of mine started borrowing my Susie Bright books…!
Read more

« go back — keep looking »