Rachel Kramer Bussel's Blog, page 114

6 Awesome Women I Met at Catalyst

I was in Long Beach, California for the first time this weekend at CatalystCon and a full summary will have to wait because I have 3 days to get ready to go to Dubai. But I met some amazing women, who totally inspired me. A few I'd met before, but I was so impressed with these ladies and highly encourage you to follow them. Catalyst will now be hosting Catalyst East and Catalyst West conferences, the former taking place March 15-17 in the Washington, DC area and the latter I believe in fall of 2013, so check their site and follow for details.

Megan Andelloux (@HiOhMegan) - Megan is a sexologist and sex educator and runs the The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in Rhode Island. She told a story at Bawdy Storytelling involving her first fisting, gone very, very wrong, and did it so flawlessly that she had the whole room agog. I can't even do it justice by summarizing it because it was just one of those brilliant live moments where nobody could figure out what was going on and the room was utterly silent waiting to find out.

Jessica Drake (@thejessicadrake) - Jessica is a porn star with Wicked Pictures and sex educator and this was the first time at one of Dee Dennis's conferences a porn company was a sponsor. Apparently, some people didn't love this idea, but I thought it was great and I caught Jessica on a sex education panel and she talked about how her audience has changed from mostly men to lots of women and couples. She is the force behind the Guide to Wicked Sex line of educational DVDs and was also incredibly nice. If you are going to CatalystCon East, I highly recommend you go to any panel she's on and if you want to know what a smart, sex-positive porn star actually thinks, ask her.

Amanda Hess (@amandahess) - Amanda was covering Catalyst as a journalist (check her out on Slate) and we had lunch and talked books and freelancing. I've been impressed with her writing since she was blogging at Washington City Paper; she writes smartly about sex and current events and porn; one of her more famous pieces profiled porn star James Deen for GOOD.

Lidia-Anain (@SexLoveJoy) - I met Lidia-Anain at Bookshop Santa Cruz earlier this year when I read there with Susie Bright, but had no idea she was such a powerhouse and awesome person. She runs the show Sex With Others with Jamye Waxman, is involved with Bawdy Storytelling, and I look forward to reading more of her work and meting her again. She also, I must add, had on a killer black and white dress and amazing heels at Bawdy Storytelling. I'm not saying you should go to Catalyst East for the fashion, but there was a lot of awesomeness inthat regard.

Allison Moon (@TalesofthePack) - Allison is the author of the lesbian werewolf novel Tales of the Pack and is working on a sequel. We'd met briefly before and I'd heard her tell a story at a Bawdy Storytelling event in San Francisco, but we got to actually chat about the ins and outs of self-publishing, which was fascinating and she told a story about a furry lesbian orgy that was utterly hilarious. Also, she was wearing, and is selling on her site, "Eat Fuck Howl" t-shirts!

Sex Nerd Sandra (@SexNerdSandra) - Sandra produces a podcast called, yes, Sex Nerd Sandra. She also spoke on the sex education panel and told a hilarious story about oral sex, dental dams, and the pressure to live up to society's, and her own, expectations at Bawdy Storytelling that was brave and wonderful.

Fifty Shades of E L James and Katie Couric live tweeting!

Follow #50ShadesKatie where I'm in the front row live tweeting as @raquelita along with @marymac as Katie Couric interviews Fifty Shades of Grey author E L James on her new ABC show Katie!, airing today at 3 on ABC. People are here from Australia (Brisbane), Seattle, and Salt Lake City! Katie Couric is all over social media, find out more at katiecouric.com and coming later today, an article I wrote there about Fifty Shades. Here we go! And yes, I know you can see my bra in the second photo. Trying not to have a wardrobe malfunction.

On being at a sex conference without your significant other

I was spoiled at Momentum this year, because my boyfriend was with me, doing a public art project. I kept walking by and saying hi and kissing him and if people asked me about my dating life I'd tell them that's who I'm dating. It was our first little adventure out of the tri state area, and since most of my travel is on my own, it was nice to unwind after a long day with him. While I will probably never not enjoy a hotel stay. I would be lying if I said seeing couples just being couply at Catalyst didn't make me a little jealous, and I don't get jealous very easily.

At the same time, when I haven't been conferencing, I've been working trying to cupcake blog and sex diary edit and basically do a lot in advance of my trip to Dubai and an utterly unexpected opportunity came up Monday (yes, I do know it's Rosh Hasahanah, but I'm a far better media whore than I am a Jew, sorry, not to mention, I don't want to have to atone for not doing everything I possibly can to sustain this haphazard so often feels crazy career) that meant I went to Nordstrom rack to buy a brightly colored dress and the shoes seen below. I never want to jinx things (learned that lesson long ago) so if it happens, I will let you know tomorrow, but anyway, I've had a lot to occupy my mind and my time and am not sure how much alone time we would have actually had, but still. What's funny is that for the most part I enjoy being alone and that's how I spend most of my time when I'm in NYC or traveling, and I love the freedom to change plans at the last minute and rearrange and follow whims, which you can't do as much with someone else by your side. It's how it is, but I definitely miss my guy and maybe if he hadn't gone to Momentum his absence wouldn't have seemed so prominent. I know, I should get used to it, like the heat, as I prepare for my 10-day trip, but still, I am looking forward to seeing him and being utterly boring and suburban as we go get my eyes checked at Costco. And in all honesty, he would've detested the heat, not to mention the plane ride, and I wouldn't want to subject him to those, but that doesn't mean I can't miss him.


my utterly cozy if a little lonely hotel bed


Hot tub!!


I don't know why palm trees make me happy but they do


public art also makes me happy


and foundtains!


I've eaten several huge and delicious meals at Potholder Cafe Too




Catalyst does NOT mess around. They fed us fried ravioli and made-to-order pasta on Friday night, and at my erotic writing workshop, which gave me lots of ideas and I hope people enjoyed, there were notepads and pens at every seat! That's a sign of a well organized conference.


my new shoes that I broke in at Bawdy Storytelling (catch them October 25th in NYC and regularly in the Bay Area) last night, where I told the story of how writing my first erotica story, "Monica and Me," way back in 1999, led me to one of the best relationships of my life. You truly never know where writing something down will lead, and that's part of writing's magic, in my opinion. Catalyst, baby!

One of the most beautiful cupcakes I've ever seen

It's a Swarovski cupcake from Magnolia Bakery in Bloomingdale's in New York (I will soon have a report on the Dubai one!) and it sparkled and was gorgeous, though the edible jewel was more like a sucking candy and more pretty to look at than tasty to me. Read my review of the bakery, including their exclusive Bloomingdale's cupcake.

Women in Lust Kindle ebook on sale for only $1.99

I don't set prices on my ebooks or paperbacks, so I have no idea how long this Kindle ebook sale will last, but as of this posting, at 7:24 a.m. PST on Saturday, September 15th, my anthology with the super hot cover Women in Lust ">is only $1.99 in Kindle ebook form! I've included the table of contents and a teaser from my back to school spanking story "Hot for Teacher" below; read more at womeninlust.wordpress.com. And for the record, anywhere you buy my books from as long as they're not used gives me royalties, so I don't care if it's an ebook or a print book per se, but when I notice these sales, I like to let people know who might try a book for $1.99 they wouldn't for more. Also, you don't need a Kindle to read books on Kindle; you can read them on your computer or phone. Click for details on Kindle for Mac and Kindle for PC and Kindle for iPhone.



Table of Contents

Introduction: Ladies Who Lust

Naughty Thoughts Portia Da Costa
Guess Charlotte Stein
Her, Him, and Them Aimee Pearl
Bayou Clancy Nacht
Smoke Elizabeth Coldwell
Bite Me Lucy Hughes
Ride a Cowboy Del Carmen
Queen of Sheba Jen Cross
Hot for Teacher Rachel Kramer Bussel
Unbidden Brandy Fox
Something to Ruin Amelia Thornton
Guitar Hero Kin Fallon
Ode to a Masturbator Aimee Herman
Orchid Jacqueline Applebee
Cherry Blossom Kayar Silkenvoice
Rain Olivia Archer
The Hard Way Justine Elyot
Strapped K D Grace
Beneath My Skin Shanna Germain
Comfort Food Donna George Storey

From "Hot for Teacher" by Rachel Kramer Bussel:

When she reached Professor Arthur’s office, she knocked on the closed door, while looking around the quiet hallway. The school took on a different tone in the early evening, without the rush of students to and fro, their newly freed hormones practically bouncing off the walls. She could pause and look at the actual building, appreciate its history and her place in it. Meredith rounded her shoulders, feeling, for just a moment, like she was heading to the principal’s office. Just then the door opened and a tall, slim blonde girl walked out, giving her a shy smile. Professor Arthur looked up at her and smiled. For a second, her mind went to the two of them; had they been in there enacting the scenarios she’d conjured in her head? “Meredith, welcome.”

“Hi, Professor,” she said.

“Ralph, please,” he corrected her, and before she could say anything, he added, “I just want you to know I’m glad you’re in my class. I think it’s wonderful that you’re coming back to school. Too many people think that once they’ve hit a certain age there’s no point, or that it’s too hard.”

She was tempted to ask what age, exactly, that would be, but she didn’t. Instead she smiled, trying to beat back the nerves, aware that her outfit was a far cry from her classmate’s casual pink T-shirt and jeans. “It’s definitely challenging. I’m finding that some of the concepts are over my head. Supply and demand I get…” She trailed off, her throat caught as she watched him watching her, watched his eyes behind his glasses, watched him fidgeting with the pencil in his hand. Who used pencils, anyway? She waited for him to say something, but he just walked closer to her until he was right in front of her. “You get supply and demand, Meredith?” he asked, looking down at her. She stood, and they were right in front of each other. “Like you’re here to supply something to me, like your pussy, and I’m here to demand that you give me more?”

Oh, god. The words were crazy, over-the-top⎯and they made her instantly, achingly wet. She suddenly didn’t care that he was younger, that she was his student, that she wasn’t in some preppy uniform or casual chic, but instead, basically naked, save for a dress that did little to hide the nipples pressing against its red fabric, threatening to spill over the purple edges.

“Yes, like that. I want to give you…whatever you want.” As she said it, she realized it was true, because in giving to him, she was gaining so much. She’d been giving and giving and giving ever since she gave birth and now, finally, it was her time to take. Taking orders, taking spankings, taking cock⎯that’s what she wanted. “I’ve had my eye on you, Meredith. The way you sit there in class, so attentive when almost everyone else has their heads in their phones or computers. The way you look at me. I want to give you everything you deserve. But first I think you need a spanking. Put your hands on the desk,” he said, sounding far older than whatever his actual age was. When he lifted the dress and saw her she wasn’t wearing panties, he whistled.

Order Women in Lust from:

Amazon

Kindle edition (ebook)

Barnes & Noble

Nook (ebook)

Powells

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (search for your local indie bookstore)

Cleis Press

Spoiler alert: I'm not pregnant

But I did recently take a pregnancy test and wrote about it at The Frisky.

[image error]

Why I'm Pro Life but Not "Pro-Life"

I saw a sonogram on an iPhone for the first time the other night. My friend fiddled with her screen and then slid the phone, complete with cracked case and leopard print cover, across the table in between our frozen banana and chocolate desserts at Soft Serve Fruit. She told me about what I was seeing, one part of which was, I think, the placenta, but I don't totally remember because I was listening to her voice, filled with so much bubbly excitement, it made me excited.

It's not my place to talk about someone else's body, but I am here, a little, because I wish I could convey how different, how animated, how happy my friend looked. Everything about her was lightened, from her hair to her skin. We talked about the comparison of fetus size to fruit, about whether she's finding out the gender, about how we both want to be moms. It was such a joyous conversation, and so full of life and passion and excitement.

I know plenty of people who've been faced with unwanted pregnancies. I've seen the way the carrying of that literal and figurative weight can drain, drown, overwhelm a woman. I've seen an unwanted pregnancy wreak havoc, threaten to utterly undo someone's life.

I just read an excellent YA novel, My Life as a Rhombus by Varian Johnson, about two teenagers faced with unexpected pregnancies who deal with them differently, and become friends. In one case, the woman's mother does everything she can to try to force her daughter to get an abortion. The mother had one when she was a teenager, and thinks any other choice will derail her daughter's future. Said daughter has other plans and doesn't care what anyone else thinks, and while I could tell that for her that would be a hard road, I couldn't help but cheer for her because she was strong, even when she was scared. She knew what was the right choice for her.

The truth is, no matter what choice a woman makes about a pregnancy, there will very likely be someone—friend, family, stranger—to tell them what they are doing is wrong. Kindof like there is always someone out there to tell us that so many of the things we are doing are wrong, whether it's what we're eating, who we're dating, how we're dressing, how much time we spend online, what career choices we're making. I shouldn't be shocked, but I continually am, how instinctive it seems to be to believe that whatever way you've chosen to live your life is, for many people, a default model for how others should live theirs. I have that instinct in me too, but I fight it with everything in me, because I abhor it. I have enough trouble trying to figure out my own life; I would be hypocritical in the extreme to try to pretend I know what's best for someone else. I don't, and neither do you.

And that to me is at the heart of what shouldn't even be an "issue." I hate that anyone would tell a woman she is "wrong" for choosing to terminate a pregnancy, or to keep one, yet both happen, all the time. "Fuck them," I said, losing any semblance of eloquence at the idea that someone would tell my friend not to go forward with her pregnancy. It's not that I don't think other people are entitled to an opinion; of course they are. But to profess to care about someone and not respect their decision to do something that so clearly is what they want to do baffles me.

What also baffles me is the idea that because I believe women should be able to make their own decisions about their reproductive lives I'm somehow out of the group who cares about "life." Fuck that too. I care deeply. I don't think you have to love babies or children or even your fellow humans to be pro-choice, but I do, and I am. In my head, I am already bringing my friend's child toys and I've offered to babysit as much as I can. I don't think it'll be an easy road, but the joy I saw on my friend's face, radiating out of her, was so beautiful, I know it will be worth whatever hardships she has to face, and I know she knows exactly what she's doing.

I believe life is like my friend's iPhone, with its splintering cracks and fashionable case, messy and beautiful all at once. Sometimes it's hard to know where one stops and the other begins. Sometimes there are catastrophes, and sometimes they feel insurmountable. But I don't think they ever truly are; we make decisions and we learn from them and maybe, if we're lucky, help other people in making their own. I forget sometimes to appreciate the messy alongside the beautiful, the lows along with the highs, the cracks amidst even the most serene transcendent experiences.

I think sometimes about what I want to teach my own kids, should I be lucky enough to have them, and while of course I'd love to say I never want them to experience any cracks, ever, that's unrealistic, unreal. That's not what life is about. Life is about finding the beauty amid the messiness, or making beauty happen, by any means necessary. In my opinion, that's what my friend is doing, and I couldn't be happier for her. That's not to say I wouldn't have supported her had she made a different choice; that would have been a different kind of beauty, and that would have been okay. Life is about self-determination, about forward motion, about knowing that we wake up every single day with, well, a whole day ahead of us to make, or remake, ourselves.

We adults don't grow in increments of fruit like my friend's fetus, but we do, hopefully, grow. I've done things this year I never would've imagined I could, or would, and some have been messy, some have been beautiful, some have simply been lessons that I'm still learning from. And I'm so incredibly grateful I get to keep on learning, every single messy, beautiful, life-filled day.

Fifty Shades of Grey: A XXX Adaptation porn parody trailer, to be released September 20th

Yes, it's true: on September 20th, Smash Pictures will release Fifty Shades of Grey: A XXX Adaptation starring Allie Haze, Alexis Ford, Julia Ann, and Jaslene Jade. To me it begs the question of how the mainstream version of the film about a bondage and BDSM-themed novel will approach sex once it's all out there and on the table, though something tells me the hardcore (pun intended) E.L. James fans won't necessarily be watching the XXX parody version. A while back, I'd wanted to write about porn parodies vs. theatrical parodies in light of David Adjmi's play 3-C and its legal woes, but I didn't get all the answers I need to properly write about it, but it is an interesting comparison, in my mind, anyway. My review of the parody DVD is coming (another pun, ha!) as soon as I watch it!




Allie Haze starring as Anastasia Steele, via Porn Valley News

And the official trailer with its own take on Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey and "kinky fuckery:"

Incorporating the catastrophe of my personality

As I approach the one-year mark of my layoff and introduction to full-time freelancing, I'm finding that I am learning so much, yet there is so much more to learn. I often feel like I'm flailing, crouched behind the staid projects I've been doing for years, the ones that are almost rote, even when they are frustrating, the ones that make a little bit but not too much money, the ones that are fine but not moving me to the next level. I forget that sometimes you have to get accustomed to one thing before you leapfrog to the next. Or maybe I just need to take more risks.

Speaking of which, I met with my accountant, who recommend that I incorporate. I get all the reasons that makes sense, but it unnerves me, even though I saw the numbers. I get the logic behind it but it feels like turning myself into a corporation means I'll be selling out my emotions in some way, that rather than help me make money, it will hinder me in the actual act of doing the work I need to do to earn money. Ultimately, that process of paperwork and making up a name and all of that feels so serious and adult, which seems at odds for someone who is about to visit a Hello Kitty Spa. More so, it feels like the antithesis of creativity, even though I know creativity alone does not pay my rent. Sometimes I'm not even sure what does, yet according to those numbers, I did well, better than I would have guessed.

I picked up Katie Roiphe's new book of essays, In Praise of Messy Lives, at the library, and skipped ahead to her Mad Men essay, "The Allure of Messy Lives." In it, she quotes Don Draper quoting Frank O'Hara's poem "Mayakovsky."



Don quotes this part:

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.


The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

That led me to reading more about the man, Vladimir Mayakovsky, O'Hara's friend and a Russian poet and playwright who committed suicide. Here's a little from that Wikipedia entry:

In 1938 the Mayakovskaya Metro Station was opened to the public. In 1974 the Russian State Museum of Mayakovsky was opened in the center of Moscow in the building where Mayakovsky resided from 1919 to 1930.[12]

Frank O'Hara wrote a poem named after him, "Mayakovsky" in which the speaker is standing in a bathtub, a probable reference to his play "The Bathhouse".

In 1986 English singer and songwriter Billy Bragg recorded the album Talking with the Taxman about Poetry, named after a namesake Mayakovsky's poem.

In 2007 Craig Volk's stage bio-drama "Mayakovsky Takes The Stage" (based on his screenplay "At The Top Of My Voice") won the PEN-USA Literary Award for Best Stage Drama.[13]

The poem I found so beautiful, so stunning, so striking, that made me relate, like Don, to the catastrophe of my personality that seems to get me in trouble with its impulsivity, seemed trite after I read more about Mayakovsky, but still powerful. I am now carrying O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency in my bag, a slim, potent volume. Maybe there will be more revelations.

So back to me. At the same time as I feel a little bit odd about turning myself into a business, it's exciting, and the fact of the matter is, it already is a business. I just submitted an essay on spec about something that's extremely personal, but it helped to get it out, to write about it. It feels as surreal as anything that's happened in the last year. I feel like the least business-minded person ever and now I'm going to be a business, just by existing. That's probably the wrong way to think about it, but it's how it feels. The work I do, rather than me, the human being, is my business, and yet almost everything I do winds up as fodder for my work, sometimes in ways I could never have predicted. I don't know how to separate them, and I think if I were try to separate the "real" me from the "writing" me, I would fail at being both.

That is the real "issue," if it's an issue at all. The writing about my life part comes naturally; it's how I sort out the good and the bad and the confusing and the in between. It's a good reminder as I wonder whether to pitch an essay about one of the craziest things I've ever done to a new editor; my first instinct was, "What will she think of me?" And yet...I want to share it, to get it out there and make it seem, even marginally, a little less crazy, because I wrote it down, because I contextualized it.

I'm not going to pretend I have a thing in common with Frank O'Hara, save for the fact that words, trite as they are, are how I cope. I hope it all means more than writing off the cost of the O'Hara book, because that is precisely what I don't want to become, someone reduced to figures, numbers, facts that don't mean anything without feelings.

Free erotic writing workshop, Babeland SoHo NYC October 17th

I'm back at Babeland October 17th! No RSVP necessary but be on time; last time people were late and missed it. Short and sweet and free!

Easy Erotica Writing with Rachel Kramer Bussel
Wednesday, October 17, 7pm, Free
Babeland SoHo, 43 Mercer Street
Want to write your own sexy stories just like E.L James? In this mini-workshop, Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories and Best Bondage Erotica 2012 will teach you her top ten tricks for getting your readers' knickers in a twist. You’ll be banging out your own book in no time!
http://rachelkramerbussel.com/
http://easyeroticawriting.eventbrite.com/

Photos from last time: