Susie Bright Is Guestblogging On Boing Boing!

Well, the headline kind of said it all, didn't it? See and enjoy the woman who is surely in some part responsible for whatever the hell it is I am today. Last time I interviewed her is here.

Susie Bright Does Letters from Johns

Earlier today, I was happy to discover that Susie Bright's latest episode of "In Bed with Susie Bright" on Audible looks at Letters from Johns and Letters from Working Girls. She deems the projects "riveting reading." Bright's been an inspiration to me since I was coming up in the Bay Area back in the day, so this was kind of like a cardinal being blessed by the Pope. Contributions to both Letters sites have slowed since Spitzergate, but if you'd like to contribute, email me.

The Story of X

Rachel Kramer Bussel points to a new Chronicle book forthcoming from Susie Bright, X: The Erotic Treasury, a collection of erotica that includes stories by Robert Olen Butler and Carol Queen.

I love the cover.

"Designed in a 'gotta-touch-it' slipcase with a cloth-covered book, the package cultivates the quality and taboo satisfaction of the ­stories themselves."

Sex Writers Speak

So, as I noted last night, my "Sex and the City: The Movie"-related story, "Those Dirty Girls," is online on Salon. I think the most interesting part of the piece is pretty much everything that Susie Bright, the original sexpert, said.

Bright: "[Y]ou know what I feel like? I feel like Trotsky when Stalin airbrushed him out of all the pictures of the Russian Revolution. I feel like the revisionist version of the sexual liberation movement is so stupid and shallow."

I was born and raised in the Bay Area, and Susie Bright was a huge influence on me. She was the reigning sexual intellectual, and I can't imagine that I'd do what I do the way I do it if it weren't for her. When I interviewed her for the story, she talked about how "Sex and the City" had commodified the Sex Revolution 3.0. And she's right. But if we've come a long way, baby, when it comes to sex, Bright has played no small part in that.

Working on a story like this is always interesting. I had a great time talking to Jamye Waxman, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Lena Chen, and Tracie Egan. Egan, I think, is really somebody to watch out for because she doesn't hold back, and that's what this racket is all about, isn't it?

I interviewed one another person for the story, but I ended up not including her in the final piece. That was Emily Gould, whose image spent last weekend spread across the cover of the New York Times Magazine. Since then, everybody's picked apart her anti-paean on blogging. When I talked to her, I asked her if she regretted blogging about her personal life.

"Didn't you read my story?" she retorted in a tone that sounded a lot like, "Don't you know who I am?"

I pointed out that it was hard to know what to think when she had exposed herself all over again by writing the Times story.

She said she guessed I had a point.

My "Sex and the City" Story for Salon Is Online

My "Sex and the City" story, "Those Dirty Girls," for Salon is now online. I've got more to say about the piece, but it's late, and I'm tired. I'll write more on this, and what it was like to talk to Susie Bright, who was a big influence on me when I was coming of age in the Bay Area, on Friday.

"To make her point, Bright references a recent New Yorker essay, 'The Fall of Conservatism' by George Packer, in which Pat Buchanan paraphrased social theorist Eric Hoffer: 'Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.' Comments Bright: '"Sex and the City"' is the racket part of what once was recognizable as the sexual self-emancipation of the feminist movement.' For her, the commodification of the 21st century female sexual revolution hits too close to home."

Gawkakke

At 1:01 AM, Gawker night editor Ryan Tate ran a post entitled: "The Internet: Worst Overshare Anywhere Ever." The entry features a photo of Sex and the Ivy author and Harvard junior Lena Chen, who, at all of 20, has achieved a fair amount of virtual notoriety for writing explicitly about her sex life online. The photo was taken from Chen's Tumblr, The Ch!cktionary, which Chen created as an alternative to SATI after an ex-boyfriend spread naked photos of her across the Web.

The original photo is here. In it, Chen has an unidentified male's money shot on her face. As part of his Gawker post, Tate ran the photo. Apparently, Fleshbot isn't the only Gawker Media site in the business of posting graphic sexual photos in pursuit of revenue-generating traffic. Tate concluded Chen's post "advanced the art of narcissistic self exposure."

I don't quite get how reposting a photo declared an overshare on a high-profile blog doesn't square the original overshare by exactly how many Gawker eyeballs will ogle Chen's photo. So far, commenters have deemed it boring, gross, and lacking in self-respect.

In response, Chen wrote a spirited defense of what she'd done: "Quit Gawking: It's Just Sex." Yesterday, I interviewed Chen for a story I'm writing on "Sex and the City: The Movie" for Salon. Chen was thoughtful, articulate, and unlike another woman I interviewed yesterday, pretty unconflicted about who she is and what she's done. And she's 20. I mean, she's not even old enough to drink. Legally, at least.

Anyway, it made me sad to see her called out on the rug like that on Gawker. Frankly, I was surprised the post was still up this morning. I guess I thought Denton would have pulled it. But I guess he didn't. I also interviewed the legendary Susie Bright yesterday. I grew up in the Bay Area, and Susie was the original sexpert. At some point, many, many years ago, I went to a book signing of hers and had her sign my left breast. I didn't post a photo of it to the internet, but that was in the days before blogs. During our interview, Bright referred to something that she called "slut-baiting," and while I wasn't sure exactly what she meant when she said it, what Gawker did with Chen is sure it.

The fact of the matter is that writing about sex isn't easy. Chen is a human being. And while I won't be posting photos of myself with a pop shot on my face anytime soon, you gotta respect the girls who have the balls to do it. Why? Because you don't.