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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Sexerati Interviews: Rachel Kramer Bussel

filed under: Erotic Elite, Sexerati Interviews by Lux Nightmare

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.

You’ve written (and edited) erotica, you’ve also written some nonfiction sex columns. Which is harder?
They each tap into a different part of my brain. The nonfiction comes much easier to me because it’s more organized and logical and there’s usually more of a clear starting and ending point, especially when I was writing my Voice column, which had a limited word count. With erotica, I often don’t know when I’m done or where to start, but once I get an idea, I’m usually driven by it to put it down on paper. There’s more freedom with fiction to be fantastical and elaborate, but it’s definitely more of a challenge. I keep telling myself I’ll run out of erotica stories, but then I’ll see a call for submissions and it’ll spark and idea, whether it’s about a cowboy or a stranger or a certain fetish, and I’m off and running.

Does your personal life effect your writing? Does your writing effect your personal life?
They’re both very intertwined. Even when I try to truly separate them, I can’t, and I think my honesty about my personal life has been beneficial to my writing and my career, probably more so than vice versa, but writing is the best way for me to make sense of things that are going in my life, personally and professionally. Often things are just too jumbled in my head for me to properly sort them out and writing them down, whether on my blog or just in my computer or in a journal, helps me see things that I might not have were I just mentally pondering them. It’s a purging process that I find very cathartic, and it’s very selfish in a sense. I know that but I feel compelled to do it.

It’s complicated and every time I tell myself I’m going to just focus on nonfiction topics I can cover in a very objective, journalistic way, I see my personal viewpoints creeping in. I like to take something that’s happened to me and see where it fits in with other people’s experiences, because I almost always learn something new. I love to interview people and just listen to them talk about their turn-ons and sexual stories, because we all have them, and we’re all so different. People often tell me I’m “brave” to write about these things but writing about sex comes so naturally, it doesn’t feel like oversharing. The benefit to me is that then I do get people who want to tell me about their lives and that enriches my life so much. I learn a lot from hearing about what other people are going through, whether I can directly relate or not.

There are other things I’m much shyer about disclosing than my sexual fetishes. That being said, though, when I do have sex with someone, it doesn’t feel like work or like I’m in any professional capacity. It still feels really special and private and new and I’m so grateful for that. It’s funny because I’m pretty outspoken with my writing but I get embarrassed and shy with lovers sometimes, and I kind of like that. Invariably I say something during sex that makes me blush and when I’m with someone who can tap into that shyness and play on it and make me feel dirty about it (in the good way), I’m thrilled. But I know some people can’t handle the level of public disclosure I’ve set up, even if it’s in the past tense. I think they have the sense that if I were their girlfriend, their friends and family could easily find out all sorts of racy things about me and that freaks them out, which is totally understandable, but to me, when it comes to that level, that’s my work. Yes, I put myself into my work, but it has its place and in my daily life I’m so far from any images “lusty lady” might conjure up, it’s not even funny, so people who can’t really make that distinction I don’t need to hang around with.

You maintain a blog. How did you get into blogging? Has blogging shaped your attitudes towards writing? How about self promotion?
I’d been “blogging” on my old tripod site before I even knew what blogging was. I was posting manual updates there and then I later got into Livejournal and blogger in 2004 (I had a mini freakout in 2005 and deleted my Lusty Lady archives and started over so those archives only go back to that time, but I think it’s all cached in Google if someone really wanted to read my tortured 2004 blatherings).

But in its current blogspot incarnation, blogging has been such a tremendous boon for me. It’s meant that I can easily let people know about events and new articles, share links to friends’ projects, rant, vent, and simply purge. My blog is all over the map, from really dark, sad, emotional posts to more professional types of analysis, and I like it that way. To me, it’s my space to say whatever I want and find it really cathartic. I forget sometimes who might be reading until someone tells me they keep up with it and that can freak me out a bit, but I never sit down and write “to” a single person.

Blogging has definitely become addictive, because it’s so immediate. Whenever I’ve asked for feedback, whether about what kind of computer to buy or some other advice I’ve sought or for interviewees, I’ve heard from people almost instantaneously. I like it because it allows me to comment on people writing about my writing or things going on in the news and the way I see it, those who want to read will, those who don’t, won’t. I’m not emailing it to anyone or shoving it in their faces and so I feel entitled to be as self-absorbed and self-promotional as I want to be. That being said, I also read a ton of blogs. I don’t know exactly how many, but hundreds, not all every day, but I do try to keep up and I love that interactive nature of blogging. It makes me feel connected to all these different people, many of whom I don’t actually know, but I feel like I do.

There’s been talk lately about how the Internet — and, specifically, sites like MySpace — have changed notions of privacy (particularly around things relating to sex). Do you think people’s attitudes about sex have changed with the rise of the Internet? Are we more comfortable with our sexuality these days, or is it the same stuff just presented differently?
I think we’re more comfortable in the sense that we can easily see that other people are very likely doing and thinking about the same things we are. There’s less awkwardness and shame, and people with like-minded interests are easier to find. So in that sense I think we’re more comfortable but that doesn’t mean everything is so simple. For instance, several friends have suggested I try Craigslist or Nerve for dating, and that would be great…if I were just looking for a fuck buddy or a really casual relationship. I’m not saying you can’t find true romance online but for me that doesn’t seem like such a feasible option. I don’t think the Internet has solved all of our sexual hang-ups by any means but it does give us places to look for entertainment, porn, curiosity, and hookups and relationships.

I think it’s also made us much more of a confessional culture, between blogs and sites like MySpace. It seems to me like we’re in the age of un-privacy, where so many of us want to share so much, myself included, and figuring out what’s public and what’s private isn’t so easy to do.

Any upcoming projects our readers should know about?
Lots of projects! I’m wrapping up a few books that’ll be out in the fall⎯a pansexual anthology about Crossdressing, Hide and Seek, a sequel to Caught Looking, again co-edited by Alison Tyler, about exhibitionism and voyeurism. An erotica anthology for Carroll & Graf, and in the nonfiction realm, I’m editing Best Sex Writing and am currently on the hunt for fabulous first-person essays or articles about sex in all its variety. And I’m hoping to put together a collection of my Village Voice columns to come out next year. Stay tuned for details on that.

I’m still hosting In The Flesh Reading Series every third Wednesday of the month (the next one is March 21st), and I love doing that.

I’m speaking at SXSW Interactive on March 12th on a panel called “Do You Blog on the First Date?” and reading at Powell’s in Portland, Oregon for He’s on Top and She’s on Top on March 26th.

I’m writing my first novel, Everything But…, and that’ll be out next summer, hopefully a hot book to take to the beach.

Who knows what’ll come next? I’d love to write another column or something steady like that, but for now I’m blogging and freelancing about some non-sex topics and have my job, along with being the new Books Editor for Penthouse, which is great cause I’m a total bookworm.

Lastly: in your opinion, what one thing is most important to a healthy sex life?
This is probably the toughest question you’ve asked! I would say being true to yourself. I feel like so many people are guided by what their peers think or what their partner thinks or the what the media’s telling them is “hot” that they lose sight of what makes them tick. And that doesn’t have to just be one thing; you might be into spanking and public sex and talking dirty or whatever (not necessarily all at once). I’m into all sorts of things, many of which depend on the person I’m with, but I’m also very easily swayed and sometimes forget that just because I do get off on pleasing and servicing a lover doesn’t mean that I don’t also have needs of my own. So that’s my advice to readers and to myself.

Want to know more about Rachel? Visit her website and blog.

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