Rachel Kramer Bussel's Blog, page 98

Happiness is writing about Hello Kitty travel

This Hello Kitty travel article for The Frisky is one of my favorite things I've ever written. Hopefully someone will want my report on the Hello Kitty Cafe in South Korea I plan to check out this summer. A little bright spot amidst moving mania.

Truth, fiction, and our fascination and indifference to the murky area in between them

I'm supposed to be purging books, getting rid of them like every other object weighing me down. I know, I know, and I am—I have donated probably close to 1,000 books to Housing Works in the last few months. And yet, it's the hardest part of this moving process, because each one I haven't read that I still want to read calls out to me. So even though I own several books by Paul Monette I haven't read, and some were slated to go in the giveaway pile, this morning I picked up his memoir Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise . I skipped ahead and got sucked into reading his scathing words about the attempts to unmask young child abuse victim and, later, AIDS patient Tony Johnson. So powerful was the writing that I wanted to perhaps read Tony's memoir, A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story, published the year I graduated high school, 1993.

The first thing I did was go to Amazon, where I found multiple one-star reviews, and learned that Armistead Maupin wrote The Night Listener about just this story. But on Amazon, the reactions are a fascinating exploration, pre-James Frey, about whether truth in memoir matters. One review title: "This is an amazing book... SO WHAT IF IT'S NOT TRUE." Another writes: "I was so sad to learn that Tony wasn't a real person, that I had shared my fears with someone who wasn't living with AIDS at all. I hope that Victoria, or whatever her name is who masquerades as Tony, gets the help she obviously needs. She very likely isn't a bad person and probably was a source of support and encouragement for a lot of people, particularly for abused and neglected children, but she could have done that without misleading people and without writing a supposed autobiography and making dishonest money off of unsuspecting people." New York drew parallels between Tony's story and JT LeRoy's:

Johnson was supposedly a teenager with AIDS who had endured an incredibly abusive childhood until he was adopted, at 11, by a “social worker” named Vicki. In the early nineties, he contacted the writer Paul Monette, who was himself dying of AIDS and who connected Tony to editors. After reading Tony’s memoir, Maupin asked to be put in touch with Tony and began a long telephone friendship. But nobody had ever met Tony in person, and it was noted how similar his voice was to that of his adoptive mother, Vicki, the only person who would claim to have seen him. Like LeRoy, Tony built a network of writers and celebrities, created a Website, and touched the hearts of an adoring public.

What I also found interesting is that even Snopes sites Amazon reviews in its piece, which seems...a little fishy. Opinions are, after all, opinions. I don't have time to research everything written about this topic today but ultimately I was left with this awe of the written word. Since I read Monette first, and he was so fierce and outraged at this attempt by Newsweek to debunk Johnson, and basically made it sound like only horrible people would question the story, it's mentally jarring to then read that probably (or perhaps, definitely) Monette was wrong. It all left me thinking about the power of the written word. Is Monette's writing less powerful even if he was wrong, if that ire was misplaced? I have to conclude, based on my own experience as a reader, no. It's a reminder that no matter how stirring the written (or spoken) word, the job of the reader or listener is never to be so seduced by it that we turn off our brains. We are all reporters, in a sense, and especially when veracity is in doubt, if we want to be informed readers, we have to think and dissect and analyze. Or, we have to be like that first Amazon reviewer I quoted, and accept that we read for different reasons, that perhaps overly relying on the "truth" of memoir, when of course it's constructed and massaged and always full of the frailty of memory and the fact that "truth " is subjective, means that we lose out on the humanity of what we are reading. And maybe we as a culture crave stories about those who would go out of their way to create fake sensational stories; I will cop to being fascinated by the lengths one would have to go to to create a fake person. I will read that story every time, because it speaks to something dark and twisted and outrageous.

In my case, it means I will keep the Monette book, because it did what I think a good book is supposed to do: it made me think. And perhaps that's more important than "right" or "wrong." At the end of the Newsweek story, Michele Ingrassia writes: "Charlotte, the spider in Charlotte's Web, knew what she was talking about when she said that humans were gullible, that they believed anything they saw in print." I am 100% gullible, in that good writing will always pull me in. But I also am grateful for the reminders, like today's, that I need to check my gullibility after the last word. That I, as a reader, always have a duty to not simply accept what's in print, but to press forward, to do my due diligence, and to question why I want or don't want to believe an author, whether of fiction or nonfiction, or some amalgamation of the two.

If moving is making me sick, in 23 days I'll be well

I'm pretty sure I'm sicker than I was in Toronto, where I was pretty delirious, then got better and apparently yesterday my body decided it despises me and moving and just stopped working. I had fun in Central Park watching my cousins scamper up giant rocks but by the time I came home, I had to buy a box of tissues that were already gone today. That's the state of my body right now as I face the usual work deadlines and getting ready to go to Kansas City for the RT Convention. So I'm just taking Mucinex and DayQuil and NyQuil and will likely buy a few more meds to make myself feel like I'm trying to help, and tell myself that in 23 days it will be over, and this New York life and dust and moving hell will be behind me and even though I still don't think I quite deserve it, I get this chance to start over.

I realized last night and this morning in my feverish haze that New Jersey and our new apartment is where I want to be when I knew that I just wanted to sink into a bath and have my boyfriend tuck me in and take care of me. He's good at that. Usually I'm pretty stoic but lately I've been softening a bit, trying to not be quite so stubborn. I still am, a little; I scoffed at his suggestion I go to a doctor tomorrow because that seems to require a level of energy I just don't have on top of everything else I have to do. Maybe moving making me sick is a way of making me be totally ready to leave what's been my home for 13 years and two months. If I could move tomorrow, I would, but I can deal with 23 days, especially considering I need every single one. We are not getting married, unless, you know, hell freezes over or something, but I do believe in "in sickness or in health," and that goes both ways. I want us to take care of each other and help us build new lives that we couldn't have done on our own. And yes, that is scary as fuck because what if it falls apart? Where will I go? What will I do? I don't know, but I know that it's better to take that risk than stay with the status quo just for the sake of familiarity. Look where that's gotten me. Ha.

I think the weirdest part is how lonely this time is, the ripping up papers and bundling magazines and hauling books and dismantling bookcases and tripping over things and wanting to set fire to it all in my lowest moments. It's hard work, and even the joys of discovering a stray memory or forgotten book or old photo are mitigated by the sheer enormity of the task. It will be jarring to go from this time to living with someone, especially since I haven't had a roommate in 7 years and have never lived with a partner. So I think this time of dust and coughing and stress is a reminder that I'm doing the right thing, that by some grace of who knows who, I am getting this chance, one I clearly never could have done on my own. That is tough for me to accept--that alone, I would probably live forever amidst the dust and the clutter--but again, I'm trying to soften, to be more open, less brusque and stubborn. I hate being needy, but, whether I hate it or not, I am. So, 23 days. I am counting them, because what's on the other side is so different from what I've come to accept, from this lowest common denominator life. I have no idea, exactly, what that new life will be like, only that it has to be better.

30 is the magic number, so will you help me by reviewing my books on Amazon?

According to "People Who Know" (in quotes because that's what author friend Megan Frampton, author of Vanity Fare, posted on Facebook), Amazon pays more attention to your book if you have 30 or more reviews. I don't know exactly what "pays more attention to" means but presumably it means better placement and more people seeing your book. I have a lot of anthologies so can't focus on them all at once BUT I would like to target some of my recent and most popular books. The better my books do, the more books I get to edit (no, there's no quota hanging over my head or anything, but it seems pretty intuitive that any company would want to work with people who are doing well for them). So if you've read and enjoyed any of my books, I'd love it if you'd review it on Amazon. And if you'd like a Kindle or hard copy of any of the following books, I'd be happy to send you one IF you a) are in the U.S., b) have an Amazon.com account you've made a purchase from and c.) promise to review it within one month. I'll send one book per person (though if you review one and want another, you can email me), and this offer is good until I get to 30 review on the following titles. Email rachelkb at gmail.com with "Amazon" in the subject line and tell me which book you want and whether Kindle or hard copy. Kindle is faster (I will gift it to you today); for print copies, I'll send them out via media mail in two weeks, because I have to order them. And thank you! I'm incredibly lucky to get to work for myself and edit more anthologies (like these 3 upcoming ones, deadlines are June 1 and July 1!). Available titles: Best Sex Writing 2013; Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission; Please, Sir: Erotic Stories of Female Submission; Anything for You: Erotica for Kinky Couples; Only You: Erotic Romance for Women; Twice the Pleasure: Bisexual Women's Erotica; Orgasmic; Women in Lust; Suite Encounters: Hotel Sex Stories; Fast Girls; Cheeky Spanking Stories; Spanked.

Cracked

In lieu of scissors, which seem to disappear the moment I let them out of my hands, I've been using cracked CD cases and, in one case, a CD, to break off my packing tape. Yes, I have a handheld dispenser but that too often vanishes from my sight amidst the chaos that is packing up the last 13 years of my life. One particular CD had cracked in a spectacular way--in half, and then splintered in all sorts of ways. CDs, in case you're wondering, are not great tools for ripping tape, but will do in a pinch.

I wish I had a photo of that one, which later fully broke apart in two, but hopefully my description is enough to let you know that when I looked at the other night, it seemed a perfect metaphor for my life, which feels cracked and splintered and in limbo right now as I try to uproot myself and start a new life. I have a scratch on my wrist and bruises on my leg and arms and left shoulder seems to have developed a permanent crick. I have stopped counting how many boxes I've packed and am now wondering if the 75 boxes I've purchased from Uline are enough. I've had other mishaps which I've written about in an essay that I hope I will get to share soon. But mostly what I wanted to say is that I think sometimes it's good to be broken, cracked, destroyed, in order to rebuild. We haven't even started living together yet and already I see the tensions, our different approaches to life, his more practical, mine more impulsive. I've had to concede, despite myself, that my boyfriend was right that last weekend was a bad time to take a trip to Austin, much as I wanted to (thank you, JetBlue, for being such an awesome airline and my absolute favorite, and only charging $100 to cancel a flight the day before). More than I hated canceling that trip, I hated admitting to being wrong, but now that each day is one of my last in New York, I know I have to focus on the important things.

This process is daunting, and lonely. I will likely hire someone to help me, but even that feels like admitting defeat. There are so many things I'd do differently but those would require me to be a different person, and, much to my chagrin, I'm just me, with my good points and bad points. I joke about showing up with nothing, canceling the movers, tossing it all, and there is a part of me that loves that fantasy, that wishes I were that person who could live on nothing, live with nothing, but I am too vain or materialistic or nerdy to live without clothes and shoes and books. Those are the bulk of my belongings, and though I'm tossing most magazines, all those old issues of Index and Talk and Jane and George are ones I want to paw through. I find gems like an interview with A.M. Homes about a book I've never read that I then find on a bookcase. I read that she was inspired to write a whole book based on a conversation she overheard at Dean & DeLuca and that gives me some renewed hope for myself.

There is a part of me, a pretty large part, that hates being cracked. I want to be whole, together, perfect. I want to look and feel and be someone who knows what she's doing and where she's going, who doesn't have moments of doubt, who doesn't get tripped up with nostalgia by the most minute reminders. I want to be a girl who carries the flimsiest of purses, who doesn't have split ends or chipped nails or chapped lips. I want to always have a pen at the ready and never have my iPhone battery die. I want to have neatly organized files like I did once upon a time, all labeled and filled with the right papers, not with random ones just shoved any which way. But I also know that wanting to be a certain way is a useless emotion. You do it, or you don't, and each one serves a purpose. I don't want to be cracked, but I am, and this move is part of my efforts to uncrack myself, to figure out how to be more whole, more holistic, to take deeper breaths, literally and figuratively. Probably the thing that scares me most, the thing I hate most about being in a relationship, is having to show someone my cracks, up close, where there's no hiding them or glossing over them or pretending they don't exist. I write about my cracks so often in part as a way to go on the offensive, to say, in the words of Heavens to Betsy, i'm just fucked up and so are you. There isn't Hello Kitty tape to put people back together, but that's okay. I know that quest for being completely together is a myth, and that probably in my new home I'll discover new kinds of cracks in my armor. I'm ready--or at least, as ready as I'll ever be. 25 days. I'm counting.

RT Convention virgin

I'm very excited to be attending my first RT (Romantic Times) Convention in Kansas City next week, along with pretty much every romance writer ever, it seems. The conference agenda is overwhelming, to say the least, so if you're going or have been and have suggestions, please let me know in the comments or at rachelkb at gmail.com - I arrive Tuesday night and am honored to be on Kristina Wright's panel Thursday at 10 a.m.

Thoughts as I edit Best Bondage Erotica 2014

I'm reading submissions for Best Bondage Erotica 2014, which will be out in December, and realizing yet again that balance is one of the biggest challenges to me as an anthology editor. Especially in a themed kinky book like this, I have plotlines to balance—men being tied up, women being tied up, transgender people being tied up, and all of those doing the tying up, as well as which implements are used, motivations, newbies verses seasoned pros and settings. Then there's style—ideally, I'd like a mix of present and past tense, the POVs of the person tying someone (or several someones) up and the person being tied up. Anyone who can pull off the second person will almost always stand out since it's such a rarity in the submissions I get. Of course, this is all presuming I have any control over what comes into my inbox—I'm always at the mercy of writers. If nobody sends stories, I have no book to edit.

There are many other ways I hope to add balance and diversity to my books, and sometimes it's a struggle because there are elements I'd like to see but they don't land in my inbox, but for the most part, I've been lucky to get a range of varied stories each time. For my upcoming book of female fantasy erotica, I hope to go even further in terms of plot diversity, including usual suspect fantasies as well as ones I've never heard of or considered. I'm looking forward to wrapping up this book so I can move on to selecting 69 short short stories about submission, but for now, I'm reading bondage erotica and trying, as I select, to always think about "What's missing?" That pro-active aspect of editing books, not to mention trying to guess what readers will want or not want, is the most challenging. With a series like this, though, I have reviews and feedback and sales figures to try to guide me in terms of figuring out what readers want to see. I don't know that it's that helpful when facing a limited pool of submissions, but I like seeing what works and doesn't with readers, because they are the ultimate arbiters of my work.

The hardest and easiest part of writing

The more I write—and, more importantly, the more I don't write—the more I realize that for me the best and worst thing, the hardest and easiest thing, about writing, for me, is the realization that nobody else will write exactly the same thing I will (or would), and vice versa. Ideally, this should be liberating; my voice is unique and special and what I have to say is something only I can do.

The converse, though, is what almost always keeps me from writing. I think: someone else would write it differently, which therefore means someone else would write it better. And then I stop. Or I "research," which is really just another way of saying "procrastinate." Or I wait so long that the idea is no longer timely. Or I purchase a research study with the hope that by investing in my writing, I will therefore push myself to actually write, and then let it expire. I don't trust in that uniqueness, that vision, those glimmers of ideas. I don't trust them because I don't trust myself. I imagine how easy it would be if I were any of those other writers, any of those other people. If I were anyone else.

I am combing through all my belongings as I prepare to move in 31 days, and I see so many examples of dreams I never imagined being fulfilled that have now come true. I used to subscribe to Penthouse, and then I got a job and kept it for seven years at Penthouse Variations. Yes, I still have those magazines from 2000 and 2001. I used to want to see my books on shelves, and now, while I haven't written them, my name is on the spine and cover; my choices make up the contents, and while they may not be that easy to find at Barnes & Noble, they are there. In high school, back when The Village Voice was free, my friend A. used to bring it back to Teaneck when she went into Manhattan for music school, and we'd look at the ads on the back page. Never ever back in high school did I think I'd write for that paper, or that if I did, it would be read by international audiences, or that many years later when that seems almost like a dream, people I greatly admire would know who I am because of it.

I meet so many people with brilliant ideas, read writers whose work I want to devour. In that same ideal world, their words should inspire me to create some of my own. Instead, I keep going back to that scared place where I'm so afraid of rejection that I only let myself write those words in the wee hours or frantically type notes into my phone or scrawl them on random pieces of paper I will lose. Part of why I'm moving is the hope that I will banish some of those fears, that with someone else relying on me I will be forced to step up, if only to not let my partner down by not being able to make rent. More so, I want to feel like I did everything I could, that I pushed myself, that I saw the ideas that come to me fairly frequently through to fruition. This unexpected weekend at home, which I chose rather than going away somewhere much sunnier and more fun, is my chance to start over. Not in 31 days. Now. Hardness and all.

BDSM and sobriety article at The Fix

I wrote about BDSM and recovery for The Fix in "Kinky, Sober and Free: BDSM and Recovery." Thank you to everyone who spoke to me for the piece, and Google for coming through with some fascinating resources (linked in the piece). If you like the piece, I'd love it if you'd pass it on. I have a few more pieces in the works for The Fix, including one on the DSM and sex/addiction, and love writing for them.

Buy one get one free Kindle and Nook sale for Best Sex Writing 2013 ends at 11:59 p.m. EST

It's BOGO time! For 24 hours only on its official publication day, April 16th from midnight EST to 11:59 p.m. EST, I am offering you a special deal: buy Best Sex Writing 2013 in Kindle or Nook form, and I will send you any of my other Cleis Press ebooks, Kindle or Nook, totally free! Just forward your Best Sex Writing 2013 ebook receipt to bestsexwriting2013 at gmail.com with "BOGO" in the subject line and tell me which book you'd like of the following, and which format, and I'll send it as a gift! Important: This offer is ONLY good for ebooks purchased during that 24 hour period (if you're wondering why, as far as I know, bestseller lists are calculated based on the momentum of a book's sales in a given time period, so many people purchasing the book in the same day actually boosts the effectiveness of each sale and has the potential to let many more people see that this book exists). This book is one I'm extremely proud of--just look at the table of contents to see why. And stay tuned for the virtual book tour next month! I feel grateful and humbled and honored that all the people involved allowed me to print and reprint their work, and want to send that energy back into the world by making sure as many people as I possibly can convince read this book. This series has been a labor of love in many ways, but I believe in labors of love and in being passionate about what I do, so I hope you will take advantage of this deal if you plan to read this in ebook form. Book pick options: Twice the Pleasure: Bisexual Women's Erotica, Anything for You: Erotica for Kinky Couples, Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission, Instruments of Pleasure: Sex Toy Erotica, Caught Looking, Crossdressing, He's on Top, She's on Top, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma'am, Please, Sir, Please, Ma'am, Rubber Sex, Spanked, Bottoms Up, Cheeky Spanking Stories, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Going Down, Do Not Disturb, Suite Encounters, The Mile High Club, Peep Show, Fast Girls, Orgasmic, Smooth, Passion, Irresistible, Gotta Have It; 69 Stories of Sudden Sex, Surrender, Obsessed, Women in Lust, Hide and Seek Only You, Best Bondage Erotica 2001, Best Bondage Erotica 2012, Best Bondage Erotica 2013, Best Sex Writing 2008, Best Sex Writing 2009, Best Sex Writing 2010, Best Sex Writing 2012.



About the book (aka, why I'm so giddy about it and want you to read it):



Foreword Carol Queen
Introduction: A Different Kind of Sexual Education

Live Nude Models Jonathan Lethem
Can a Better Vibrator Inspire an Age of Great American Sex? Andy Isaacson
Sex by Numbers Rachel Swan
Very Legal: Sex and Love in Retirement Alex Morris
Notes from a Unicorn Seth Fischer
Rest Stop Confidential Conner Habib
When on Fire Island… A Polyamorous Disaster Nicholas Garnett
Cherry Picking Julia Serano
Holy Fuck: The Fourth-and-Long Virgin Jon Pressick
Baby Talk Rachel Kramer Bussel
Dear John Lori Selke
Sex by Any Other Name Insiya Ansari
Enhancing Masochism Patrick Califia
Submissive: A Personal Manifesto Madison Young
Ghosts: All My Men Are Dead Carol Queen
Happy Hookers Melissa Gira Grant
Christian Conservatives vs. Sex: The Long War Over Reproductive Freedom Rob Boston
Porn Defends the Money Shot Dennis Romero
Lost Boys Kristen Hinman
The Original Blonde Neal Gabler

Introduction: A Different Kind of Sexual Education

As editor of the Best Sex Writing series, and a writer about sex in both fiction and nonfiction forms, I’m privileged to hear from lots of people about sexuality, whether asking for advice or wanting to talk about the big issues of the day, whether that means attacks on birth control or Fifty Shades of Grey. The biggest thing I’ve learned, though, is pretty basic: we are all always learning. You can indeed get a PhD in sexology, like foreword author and contributor Carol Queen did, but that doesn’t mean you simply give up and assume you know everything about the wide world of sexuality and sexual variation. You can’t; it’s impossible.

Part of why sex writing is so vital is because we all have things to learn—about ourselves, and about others. While this book will not teach you how to have sex, you will learn about what motivates others in their sexual desires, whether to engage in multiple relationships, perform sex work, come out as bisexual, build increasingly advanced vibrators, or more.

I think it’s safe to say that whether this is the first book about sex you’ve ever read or the thousandth, you will learn something about what makes people tick, about sexual desire and sexual community. The latter is as important to me as the former, because it’s within the community of sex writers, educators and activists that I’ve carved out a place for myself as a bisexual, feminist, kinky sex writer. Lori Selke writes in her open letter, “Dear John,” about feeling disillusioned by the judgments being passed around her local leather community. “See, my kinky leather identity grew firmly out of my queerness and my feminism. All three of those elements are important and in some ways inseparable. It’s important to me to pursue the sort of social justice that ensures that our consensual relationships are someday entered into from a place of roughly equal societal power. Without that aim, we’re simply perpetuating oppression.” I suspect many people aren’t aware of just how committed to their ideals those in the kink and leather communities are. To assume it’s all about whips, chains, bondage and spanking is to miss the point—of course it’s about those things, but it’s also about much more.

The educational lessons here are often much more personal. When Conner Habib opens his essay “Rest Stop Confidential” with, “I was fifteen the first time I found out that men have sex in public,” I must admit that, at thirty-seven, I have only seen men having sex in public at parties specifically designed for sex. The first of many firsts Julia Serano details in “Cherry Picking” begins, “The first time I learned about sex was in fifth grade.” We are all both capable of learning more, and impacted by what we did—or didn’t—learn about sex at a young age.

Some of what you’re about to read is sad or scary or disheartening; I cannot promise you a book of shiny happy sex bouncing off every page, because that is not the world we live in. There are laws to fight against, AIDS plaguing the gay community, internalized oppression, questions that may have no answers, or multiple answers. I didn’t select these essays and articles because they purport to have all the answers.

Last year’s guest judge, the noted sexual commentator Susie Bright, when asked about The Guardian’s Bad Sex award, responded, “There is no art without sex.” I think the same could be said for the news; sex is not a topic squirreled away on the back page of the paper; it’s on the front page, in the sports section, the business section, the editorials. It’s covered in fashion magazines and newsweeklies. In Best Sex Writing 2013, hot topics include New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow’s virginity and the laws governing condom use in porn.

Sex education remains at the forefront of the news and continues to be “controversial,” though, like birth control, another political battleground of late in the United States, I would think it would be a no-brainer. Yet I can still read articles like one in Time about the Mississippi county, Tunica, with the highest teen pregnancy that is only recently getting on board with sex ed, via a law mandating it do so. “During the four years Ashley McKay attended Rosa Fort High School in Tunica, Miss., her sex education consisted mainly of an instructor listing different sexually transmitted diseases. ‘There was no curriculum,’ she says. ‘The teacher, an older gentleman who was also the football coach, would tell us, “If you get AIDS, you’re gonna die. Pick out your casket, because you’re gonna die.”’”

We should not be reading articles like this any longer, but we are, and it’s not just youths who are in dire need of sex education. Just today, I received an email from an acquaintance asking if I could chat because, “I have found a wonderful woman with whom i have begun to explore areas of my sexuality i really have never followed through on or even verbally fantasized about.” He has questions. So do many people, but they don’t know where to turn.

This book doesn’t purport to have all the answers, and is likely to raise many discussions and propose multiple answers to questions about open relationships, prostitution, sexual orientation and other topics. It cannot take the place of talking about sex—with your lovers, friends, parents, children, neighbors and coworkers. Those shouldn’t be the same conversations, but they can exist, and by making sex a topic we don’t shy away from, we start to educate ourselves about what others are thinking, feeling and doing. So I hope that you won’t read this book and keep it tucked away on your bookshelf (or e-reader); while you are more than welcome to do so, I hope you will introduce some part of what you’ve read into a conversation, take it off the page and into real life. You will very likely learn something, and that is a process that can easily snowball; there’s never an end, because it’s a lifelong process, one that I look forward to every day.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City