Sex column: "Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Open Relationships and Our Public & Private Sex Lives"
My latest sex column: "Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Open Relationships and Our Public & Private Sex Lives".
BLOG OF RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
Watch my first and favorite book trailer for Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica. Get Spanked in print and ebook
"Why I Love Greenpoint, Brooklyn indie bookstore WORD! It's not just for the pencils, I promise:
Labels: bookstores, essays, indie bookstore, Jennifer Hayden, Open Salon, Underwire, Word
Hope to see you at our fantabulous party on Monday! Get your tickets at Eventbrite - the sponsor list is growing by the day!
Labels: Learning to Breathe, Priscilla Warner
Join us December 7th from 7-8 pm on Twitter with the hashtag #sexinbooks - I'll be moderating, so if you have questions for these authors, email me at rachelkb at gmail.com with "#sexinbooks" in the subject line. See you there!
Labels: Anna David, Beth Griffenhagen, Can't Think Straight, Falling for Me, Haiku for the Single Girl, How Not to Date, Judy McGuire, Kiri Blakeley, memoir, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Sascha Rothchild, sex, sexuality, Twitter
I'd like to think I'm not high-maintenance, at least when it comes to fashion and money. Emotions, perhaps. Anyway, I usually wear lipstick, if anything, and I like dresses in part because they're easy. I never learned how to properly put on makeup and it's something that trips me up repeatedly. So last night I went to Sephora and had a man whose name I've already forgotten at Make Up For Ever do me up. I got the 20 minute option, which required me to buy $40 worth of products. So now I have a good mascara, a black eyeliner, a deeper-than-my-usual red lipstick and Smashbox's Tease lip gloss. Not sure I'll be able to replicate his work, but I love the result:
More like the sex diary I'm blogging on Thanksgiving: "The Single Bicoastal Lesbian Smoking Lots of Weed With Two Gal Pals". I'm incredibly thankful to have this fun editing gig, and I hope you enjoy the weekly sex diaries. And if you know anyone who'd make a good diarist (they don't have to be in NYC, though that is preferred), have them email me at sexdiaries at nymag.com with a few sentences about their current sex life and their age, location, occupation, gender, sexual orientation and relationship status (info that's in each diary).
Labels: bicoastal, Daily Intel, lesbian, pot, Sex Diary, sex toys, sexuality, weed
I must admit I'm more of a sucker for Billy Bragg's love songs (check out Mary Lou Lord's gorgeous cover of "Ontario, Quebec and Me," which always gives me chills), and he picks some amazing collaborators (Wilco, Kirsty MacColl, etc.), but I truly love that he doesn't make a distinction. Well, maybe that's not quite right, but more that there are his political songs and his love songs and his brain and heart and talent all are there, in all of them (see "Sexuality, below"). And there's something so deceptively simple, or maybe just simple, about a man and a guitar.
I would then say that I am Mr. Love and Justice, and to check out the love songs. That’s how I capture people. People do say to me, “I love your songs, but I just can’t stand your politics.” And I say, “Well, Republicans are always welcome. Come on over!” I would hate to stand at the door, saying to people, “Do you agree with these positions? If not, you can’t come in.”
Labels: Billy Bragg, love songs, politics
Yes, Cupcakes Take the Cake is coming up on its 7th anniversary, and 15,000 posts later, we're throwing a party. Hard to believe, but totally awesome, especially with our 2012 Cupcake Cruise coming up in August. Do join us, and if you can't make it, I'd love it if you'd tell a friend. There are always more cupcakes than the eyes and stomach can possibly take in at our big parties and this one will be no exception, plus there are lots of awesome prizes! December 5th, 7-10 pm, SoHo Gallery of Digital Art, 138 Sullivan Street, NYC, $10 (buy tickets at Eventbrite).
I haven't read Best Women's Erotica 2012 yet but I think it's pretty safe to say it's going to be as hot as all of Violet Blue's collections, and, hello, there's a story called "Tweetup." For all the geeky erotica readers!
Labels: anthology, Best Women's Erotica 2012, Cleis Press, erotica, hotness, One Night Only, tweetup, Violet Blue
Working on pieces on my new tattoo, my trip to Portland, Maine, cupcake judging, panic attacks, another article for The Fix, erotica and much more. So keep up at Tumblr and @raquelita on Twitter if you want more frequent updates. Otherwise, as the tent at Occupy Maine says, I'm trying to make my life a Drama Free Zone, or at least, a bad drama free zone. See the rest of my Occupy Maine photos here and general Portland, Maine photos here. I'm going back in the spring and so glad I have part of Portland permanently on me.
I'm loving all the posts on the Women in Lust virtual book tour, and this one by author Shanna Germain really stands out. I know I'm rarely one to post about rejected stories, because I'd rather tell you about the ones that made it, the little story that could, the story that you can read, rather than one living only on my computer. So I think that's brave, and bold, and powerful. And, I hope, encouraging (have I mentioned that I very much need stories for my female submission anthology? Like, ASAP, and I truly need stories just like this: bold, powerful, take no prisoners, daring, creative, unlike anything else in my submissions inbox, which may or may not be helpful, but that's the thing - don't write it for me, write it for you, and make it an amazing, startlingly new and creative take on the topic, and it'll find a home). She writes:
Wouldn’t you like to know my real kinks? My real interest in sex and writing?
This story actually answers that. All of my stories answer that, if you read them carefully. Don’t look at the small truths. Not at the knife. Not at the kiss. Not at the way his hand moves across her skin.
Look at the emotional truths.
Here are some hints: No, it’s not about knife-play. No, it’s not about getting fucked while having a blade at my back. No, it’s not about having an orgasm.
It’s about opening ourselves to something greater than us. It’s about pushing past our safe places and seeing what lies beyond. It’s about taking the ‘real’ and turning it into something more, something that allows us to see the larger essence of our hearts and minds. It’s about touch and connection and those rare, precious moments where life splits us open and lets us be free
Labels: bdsm, Cleis Press, erotic writing, erotica, sexuality, Shanna Germain, virtual book tour, Women in Lust
Do yourself a favor and check out The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler. It's billed as YA but anyone who uses Facebook/social media will appreciate it, and, as I say below, especially if you remember a time before the internet was a part of our daily lives. If my review sounds vague, it's because I tried hard not to give anything major away. You should read it for yourself, it's that good.
Because I'm me, there will of course be a tattoo essay forthcoming. I've thought so much about this tattoo, why I need it, what I hope to do differently, and, well, Adele captures it so perfectly in "Turning Tables:"
Labels: Adele, inspiration
I'm not an addict, and I'm not an alcoholic. But as offensive as this may sound, I sometimes I wish I were, if only so I could have a language and a community to help me deal with what often seem like out of control urges—a structure surrounding me to help me cope with, well, life. But there are no 12-step meetings for people who simply have trouble getting up every day, who feel hollow and weak and unworthy, but who don't gloss over those feelings with a single, predictable vice. Over the course of my life, I've certainly used alcohol, sex, shopping and food to help quell those feelings, and they've each worked, in limited doses, but eventually their effects wore off.
The thing is, though, my rock bottom moments don't revolve around alcohol, though I've consumed my share, or drugs (I've attempted to smoke pot twice, and basically failed each time); sometimes it's food, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's shopping, but I fundamentally believe that the core part of me that hates myself in those moments when I'm eating an entire box of cereal, screwing someone I'm not that into, or buying a pair of shoes I don't need and can't afford, is the same impulse that drove, say, my father or grandfather to drink (both are recovering alcoholics).
Labels: 12 step, alcoholism, essay, essay writing, essays, Recovery Envy, sobriety, The Fix
My last reading of 2011 is tonight at KGB Bar at 7 for Drunken! Careening! Writers! It's free. And fun! KGB Bar 85 E. 4th Street NYC Drunken Careening Writers KGB Bar, 85 East 4th StreetNew York City, NY November 17, 2011 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Sally Bellerose is author of The Girls Club. She was awarded a Fellowship in Literature from the National Endowment for the Arts based on an excerpt from this novel. The manuscript won the Bywater Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the James Jones Fellowship, the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, and the Bellwether Endowment. Sally is also a poet who loves rhythm, story, and language. Her poems and prose usually involve themes of sexuality, illness, and class. In writing, she is interested in messy, confusing, complicated relationships. She is also drawn to humor and transcendence. Sally is old and tired of ageism. The title story of her next book Fishwives won the Saints and Sinners Fiction Award. Fishwives features old women behaving badly. Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and event organizer. She is the editor of over 40 anthologies, most recently Obsessed, Women in Lust and Best Bondage Erotica 2012. She writes the Secrets of a Sex Writer column for SexIs Magazine and writes widely on sex, dating, books and pop culture. She blogs at Lusty Lady and Cupcakes Take the Cake. Meri Weiss was born and raised in New York. She has a BA in English from the University of Michigan, an MFA in Creative Writing from Southampton College, an MA in Literature from SUNY New Paltz and a boatload of student loans someone really ought to pay back. She teaches full-time at the South Bronx campus of the College of New Rochelle and part-time at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University. Her debut novel, Closer to Fine, was published by Kensington Books in 2008 and nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. She is currently working on her second novel.
Can you believe I've been cupcake blogging for 7 years? I can, and I can't. I mean, it's such a huge part of my life, and I have a glimmer of having the idea, back in the days of comedy and contest blogging, but still, it seems surreal. So we are having a party and there will be probably more cupcakes than you can imagine. We'll be updating the sponsors as they come in, but it's a great list. Get your ticket now! December 5th, 7-10 pm, SoHo Gallery of Digital Art, 138 Sullivan Street, NYC.
One thing I like about new Blogger: tags.
Today's stop on the Women in Lust virtual book tour is at The Smutketeers, where I wrote a little about the book and they've got an excerpt from Shanna Germain's very edgy knife play story "Beneath My Skin," probably the kinkiest story in the book! And a contest to win a copy. Enjoy!
My latest sex column for SexIs Magazine is "Dear Redheads: I'll Take Your Sperm!", responding to the fact that the world's largest sperm bank no longer accepts donations from redheads.
I'm going to Portland, Maine for the first time this weekend, and have lots of plans, including visiting one of my oldest friends (who sent me a birthday car asking if I wanted to take a burlesque class or a pole-dancing class!), getting a tattoo at Sanctuary Tattoo, tasting the local cupcakes, sampling food (still making lists), meeting Fury author Elizabeth Miles and seeing art. A few things I plan to see are:
My friend Hitha Prabhakar, Bloomberg reporter and retail fashion expert, just wrote a book I highly recommend (full disclosure: I'm still reading it, but I can say it's fascinating and eye-opening) called Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Terrorists
Labels: Black Market Billions, books, crime, fashion, Hitha Prabhakar, terrorism
This week's sex diary (I'm the editor): "The 53-Year-Old Man With Trouble Climaxing" - Personally I appreciate when people portray their struggles with sex, especially in a relationship, where I think there's the tendency to paint everything as perfect.
OVER THERE: Comedy Is His Best Weapon
Winner ”Best Of Fringe” Hollywood & San Francisco Fringe Festivals 2011
Sat. Nov. 12th. @9PM & Sun. Nov. 20th. @9PM
Theatre 80 St. Marks - 80 St. Marks (just west of 1st ave) New York, NY 10003
Tickets: $20.00 (Portion of proceeds will go to Veterans) Buy tickets online HERE
As I posted on Twitter, when you pre-order a book, you're both buying your single copy and signaling to the store that there's so much interest in the book that they should stock up. Whether that's Amazon or your local indie bookstore or wherever, every little bit helps, and more than any of my other books, this is the one that I'm most proudest of and that I think will hold up in ten or twenty years. As timely as some of the pieces are, unless our entire culture changes into a sex-positive one, we will be facing dealing with "sluts," homophobia, insane sex scandals and more well into the future, and these thinkers have some profound things to say about these topics. Also, I'll link to the Kindle and Nook editions as soon as they're for sale (probably January 10th), but this book will be in stock by the end of December at stores, probably a little sooner. Basically, this is my 42nd book, and I'd say, if you've never read any of them, read this one. (Love the rest, but this feels like my best work and the book of mine I'd most want to take to a desert island.) A quick and easy way to help the book? Click "like" on its Amazon page!
Labels: Best Sex Writing 2012, book publishing, books, books to watch out for, Cleis Press, nonfiction, Rachel Kramer Bussel, sex, sexuality, Susie Bright, Twitter, you know you want it
A very easy way to help my books is to "like" them on Amazon - links are below. If you can take a few minutes (don't need to do them all, the more recent ones are the more important), I'd really appreciate it. And stay tuned for big launch of Best Sex Writing 2012 plus events in (hopefully) NYC, the Bay Area and Seattle, and all the luscious 2012 anthologies! It's the little thumbs up logo at the top (see image below). Also a great way to show support for any author you like! Thank you if you can do it, and I'm just including all the relevant links here cause they also make great holiday gifts or so you can complete your RKB collection. In the works are my first solo short story collection, my first German translation of my books Fast Girls and Please, Sir and lots of other exciting projects.
From yesterday's birthday/National Vanilla Cupcake Day appearance on The Gayle King Show. The actual segment was about 4 minutes and a lot of fun!
So far being 36 rocks. I had fun on TV, walked for a bit in the sun, admired pretty leaves, bought a very trashy guilty pleasure novel I hope to write about, ate spicy pizza, got some new prescriptions, and met a week-old baby.
A simple, happy moment from 35. More happy moments of the year, now that I'm 36 and can savor them. I know I have to be careful with thinking that my life will magically improve overnight but I really do feel like something in my universe shifted with this added number on my age. Yes, fertility, new age bracket, etc., but I also hope I've learned a lot...and keep learning. Also, I love this dress. It makes me so happy when I put it on. I want to only retain clothes that make me happy (not ecstatic, cause that's asking a lot for a wardrobe, but any clothes that make me feel gross in any way are going). This year was full of big dramas but also small revelations, and I can't wait to see what 36 has in store. Especially right now, I don't know where it will take me, literally and figuratively, and while part of me wishes I knew, I'm trying to just be patient and let it unfold.
Not sure why I got fewer than usual submissions to this book, but I definitely need more stories! I know I say it every single time, but the number of authors who don't conform to the guidelines seems to be increasing and all it does is make more work for me. Please read them and follow them. I actually hate extending deadlines but in this case it's necessary, but earlier stories are, as stated below, very strongly preferred so I can get this book out the door and make it as hot as He's on Top, Please, Sir and Yes, Sir (all great books to look to for the types of stories I enjoy!). Thank you!
Labels: anthologies, anthology, bdsm, call for submissions, female submission
Yesterday was hard. Violin Monster made me laugh after I'd literally been crying, and the bottom, a page from the opening of the yoga memoir Poser by Claire Dederer, I found true. I'm excited about being on TV, and grateful for every lesson I learned from being 35. And profoundly, profoundly grateful to finally being 36! Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Hope you get to catch me live on OWN today 10-11 EST on The Gayle King Show!
Labels: birthday, finally 36, happy birthday to me, it gets better, violin monster
FYI the book is obviously edited by me (more info at bestbondageerotica.com) but we're having issues with Amazon credited contributors as the editor, so it says contributor Kay Jaybee.
Giveaway ends November 30, 2011.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Labels: Best Bondage Erotica 2012, books, contest, Goodreads
I keep wanting to write these elaborate, or at least, complete posts or essays or thoughts, about so many topics that I wind up not writing anything. Lately my life is in total flux and I blame a lot of it on being 35, but really it's about adjusting to that constant flux, going with the flow, and figuring out how to maximize my happiness. I mean, that sounds easier than it is, but maybe it's not as hard as I sometimes make it.
Labels: almost there, happy birthday to me, self-love
This week's sex diary (details at the bottom on how to apply to be a diarist): "The Queer San Francisco Woman Having Group Sex in New York"
Labels: Daily Intel, queer, sex, Sex Diaries, Sex Diary
Join me tomorrow night from 7-8 pm EST for a Twitter chat in which you can ask me anything! Follow me @raquelita as well as @EdenFantasys and @cleispress to see what we're up to, or just look up the hashtag #womeninlust.
Labels: Cleis Press, EdenFantasys, free vibrator, raquelita, Twitter, Twitter party, Women in Lust
Whether you know that or not, I took a walk down exhibitionist memory lane for xoJane in It Happened to Me: I Was on HBO's Real Sex". Ah, youth...and if you like it, I'd love it if you'd somehow like it on there (there's a thumbs up button at the bottom) or pass it on. Appreciated! Also, my original vision for my photo was me in my leopard print dress holding my Hitachi high above my head like a trophy but I couldn't really figure out how to politely ask someone to take that (note: this was taken by me before I used it, a vibrator is a self-employment necessity imo, all the more so cause I'm not having sex for the next year, but that's another story). Self-portraits are tough, so my next xoJane piece will have a picture of the topic in question. Stay tuned!
Once again, if my photos are all a mess, SORRY, but blog fixing is last on my priority list. Working for myself full-time is still a gigantic adjustment in every way and means, literally, day and night, because I'm trying to cram so much in and keep track of my thoughts. Would that I had some Vyvanse but I don't so it's just me but I am doing my best and...well, I cannot wait until I'm 36. Life will surely be better then (next week, cool plans for that day that I will share when I can!) but in the meantime, hustlemania. Now that I am taking a break from dating until November 2012, I will hopefully have a little more mental space and time to focus on what I should be doing, rather than what I shouldn't.
I'm reading tonight at One and One Bar, home of a funny story by comedian Andrea Rosen. I'll be wearing the dress below if you want to check it out in person, not sure yet what I'll read. I'm doing extremely limited readings these days, so come check it out if you're so inclined and/or want to rock the open mic. Click here for the Eventbrite details.
Labels: erotica, Mike Geffner, new dress happiness, New York, NYC, One and One Bar, reading, readings, Titillating Tongues
Big changes in my personal life, all for the better. Let's just say, I will hopefully actually turn into a book author and a dream realizer by the time I get to 37, in a year and a week. Clearly, realizing dreams and being true to myself is antithetical to dating. Finally learned that lesson, go me! Not to worry, I'll still be writing my column, just will try as best I can not to write about my very thankfully non-existent personal life, and I think everyone will be better off. Birthdays are big times for change, and I'm grateful to be at a place when I'm genuinely open to change, unlike I was this year, where I just spouted utter bullshit to myself and believed it and kept running back to the safety of poor decision making because it was easier than facing the mess that is my life. Now that I have all this time to myself to figure out "what I want to do with my life" it's made me realize how awful I treat myself, and I want to do better. I'd rather be self-actualized than vulnerable any fucking day, but I am still getting "heart" tattooed on my arm in just 16 days! Not burying my heart, just helping it not be idiotic. I'll save the balancing act for the BOSU ball, where it belongs.
Labels: 36, dating, middle age, Rachel Kramer Bussel, relationships, resolutions, sex, sexis, Sexis Magazine, wisdom
There's a chapter called "How to Open" in Priscilla Long's excellent (and that is an understatement of a word, it's a must-read) The Writer's Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life. I'm in high observation mode, in part because I'm determined to succeed at NaNoWriMo, but more because I'm determined to succeed at life and meet many goals that are as yet unrealized. So I couldn't help but be awed by this first paragraph, and page, quoted below, of Wayne Koestenbaum's Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon, from the chapter "Jackie's Death."
I began to write about the allure of icon Jackie in May 1993, while the real Jacqueline Onassis was alive and well. I addressed my sentences toward her, in tranced apostrophe: Dear Jackie, for a long time I have wanted to tell you about your frequent appearances in my dreams. I had a mad notion that she would read my book and understand my desire; that she would acknowledge the legitimacy of public curiosity; that we might become friends. It was a hopeless quest, doomed to fail. Brashly, I wanted to effect a truce between Jacqueline Onassis and icon Jackie. I wanted to find—to liberate—my "inner Jackie"; somewhere in my body was trapped a mimic Jackie O, and I wanted to afford her some room to breathe. But my plans to scale Mount Jackie—to give voice to Jackie's charisma—were foiled. Her cancer was announced; with sad suddenness, she died. I can't address Jacqueline Onassis anymore. But icon Jackie remains, a baffling array of images still requiring interpretation—not because interpretation is a panacea for loss, but because Jackie darkly captivates, and captivation fumbles for a foothold in speech. Dare I find words for why Jackie mesmerizes? Even while Jacqueline Onassis was alive, icon Jackie had a life of her own, obeying comic-book laws; we could no more explain the icon than we could avert war, bewitch our neighbors, or reverse time. blockquote>
More on Jackie Under My Skin:
The New York Times review:
Initially, the results are amusing: Mr. Koestenbaum possesses a sharp and nimble wit, and his first few chapters seem like both a playful exercise in cultural commentary and a campy, tongue-in-cheek send-up of deconstructive pedantry. As the book progresses, however, the reader begins to suspect that Mr. Koestenbaum is actually completely serious about his undertaking, that he really believes he can decipher the hidden meaning of Jackie changing hairdos and clothes. In fact, by the end of the book, he has effectively turned her into a blank slate for his own theorizing, an approach that allows him to completely ignore the facts of her existence. It's this approach that enables him to write such ludicrous sentences as "Doom came to her, in Dallas, and it may have seemed retribution for hubris." Or to ask the reader to think of her father "in the dark night" and "imagine Jackie's love for him, and wonder if he pushed that love too far." blockquote>
Interview with Wayne KoestenbaumLabels: fame, how to open, idols, Jackie O, Jackie Under My Skin, Jacqueline Onassis, NaNoWriMo, opening paragraph, Priscilla Long, Wayne Koestenbaum, writing
November is one of my favorite months, not just because the 10th is my birthday (and National Vanilla Cupcake Day), but because, in this case, it's auguring good things. Like the ebook release of Women in Lust for Kindle and Nook and the kickoff of the virtual book tour! It's also National Novel Writing Month, which I encourage you to participate in. I'm doing it this year and extra determined to finish.
Labels: ebook, ebooks, Kindle, Nook, November, virtual book tour, Women in Lust