My interview with Susie Bright!
I'm bummed that I wasn't able to be at either of Susie's readings this week, but I'm really looking forward to reading her book.
rkb:
I interviewed Big Sex Little Death author Susie Bright for SexIs Magazine (didn't write the headline though) - please check it out and if you like it, pass it on, and do check out her book and book tour, happening now - Sunday's closing Momentumcon event with Susie Bright and Tristan Taormino in Silver Spring, MD is now open to the public! If this link gives you problems, just go to sexismagazine.com.
The vitriol you faced seemed, at first, more unexpected than some of the opposition you got as a socialist organizer and like it took you by surprise. Was it more painful to face that kind of hostility from women you'd expected to be on your side?
I had never had a reasonable expectation that the monied, court-side feminist establishment would be on my side. Since when, historically, has there ever been any illusions about peace, love, and harmony in feminist movement? As a group, we've been fighting about "free love" since DAY ONE.
But, yes, it was still shocking to be the target of their infantry's violence. The sex war scene was all very "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," where the charismatic professor gins her "special girls" up into a frenzy to go off and join Mussolini.
I wouldn't compare it as being worse or less than what I faced in the labor movement, or as a red. There were too many guns, knives, heavy objects and red-faced freakouts all the way around. I remember well the psycho in Kentucky who pulled up in his car as I handed out a flyer about frickin "maternity leave contract issues"?so wholesome!?in front of an auto plant employee parking lot. He pulled up close, lowered the window, and I drew near, 'cause he had a big grin in his face. When I was right up next to him, he drew a pistol, stuck it in my stomach, and said, "Get your nigger-loving communist ass off this lot."
Different style than the bomb-making, knife-wielding women's studies students. Everybody's got their personal nut on.
