Susie Bright's Journal

Christian Porn, Female Chauvinist Pigs, and the Ultimate BITCH

 

Susie Talks with:

Ill-Equipped for a Life of Sex, with Jennifer Lehr, whose marriage almost broke up from non-sex

Modern Love with Ian Kerne, the author of "She Comes First"

Bending with Greta Christina, the story of a woman who ONLY wanted to be bent over

Straight Girls' Guide to Lesbian Sex with the hilarious Jen Sincero

Female Chauvinist Pigs with Ariel Levy— Has Sex-Positive Feminism Devolved into Girls Gone Wild?

Andi Zeisler, founder of BITCH magazine, talks about how the media is spinning women's "sexual problems" today

 

Season 5 also features:

45 episodes, 22+ hours of audio, $21.95

Listen to all 45 episodes of the fifth season of In Bed with Susie Bright.

 

Susie Also Dissects:

 

Forbidden Porn— Why Do We Have On-Camera Taboos? What Are They?

Car Porn— The X-Rated Automobile

Porn University— how do scholars teach the history of sexual cinema?

Yes, Virginia, There is Christian Porn

Porn Addicts— Sorry Excuse or Serious Disease?

The Little Soldier's Porn Fight— Straight from Baghdad and Afghanistan

Plus Our Listener Questions:

How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do

Peep Show Diaries

Virginity or Death.. How Long Can A Girl Hang On?

The Female Orgasm-- Not for Debate

How to Enlarge Your Penis... Seriously!

The Trouble with Masturbation, as well as the happy ending

 

You can hear more, or purchase Season 5 here.

Want more In Bed with Susie Bright? Audible® invites you to:

Subscribe for one or 12 months. (!2 months is just pennies a show!)

Get the latest episode.

Check out the complete archive.

 

Susie's Post-Mortem on Craig's List Sex Ads

Was it a case of Flight?— or Fight?

Craig's List has removed its Adult Services section from their bulletin board, under  pressure from a McCarthyist collection of "non-profits" (cough cough) and ambitious law enforcement magistrates.

I think their decision was a tactical retreat—  with the swipe of a claw. I have no professional interest or investment in CL, nor am I privy to their private discussions. But I have a sense of "deju vu" from previous witchhunts, and a clear memory of CL's origins.

In one keystroke, CL removed themselves as the "Target du Jour" of the Professional Right, the Prig Patrol. In doing so, CL relieves themselves of the Mother of All Nuisance Suits, and simultaneously delivers a big "Fuck You" to their persecutors, a band of opportunists who truly have no motive other than extortion and ego.

CL wants to get out of the script; they are no longer willing to play "Whore of Babylon" to the Kaped Krusaders.

A casual observer may wonder, "Isn't CraigsList worried about women and children ensnared in a web of crime and violence? Don't they care?  Aren't the Trafficking-Fighters just decent people trying to save the vulnerable and innocent?"

Uh, no.

CL was founded by progressive, feminist, "Isn't-the-Internet-wonderful" Left Coast-type of idealists. Craig Newmark told me that when he was a student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, he heard me give my lecture on "The Sexual State of the Union," and whispered to himself, "I have GOT to move out to San Francisco."

When he started the CL bulletin board in 1995, (as those of you "back in the day" may remember) it was wide-open. Everything was discussed; nothing was forbidden. Erotic liasons and services were discussed as civilly as selling a refrigerator or planning a group hike up Telegraph Hill to see the wild parrots.

There must've been millions of sexual encounters that started with a CL ad. Grown men and women— fancy that! You could  express yourself; people would discuss each ad with amusement, argument, and occasional applause. They were free. They were liberating.

Professional sex workers, male and female, discovered CL as a way to cut through the middleman (the pimp, the madam, the brothel) and deal directly with potential customers. CL ads offered privacy, screening, and real-time editing.

Meanwhile, the newspapers and Yellow Pages continued to sell and offer escort ads, but their benefits paled by comparison.

Of course, there were unhappy consequences too, as with all "classifieds." People got ripped off, misled. I myself bought a freezer that DIDN'T WORK AND THEN THEY NEVER CALLED ME BACK.

You'd show up for a CL-inspired date and Prince Charming would be Butt-Ugly and Flea-Bitten. A friend of mine fell off the wagon responding to a thinly veiled cocaine sales offer. Many ads became spammy and obviously the work of con-artists— just like everywhere else.

None of us, however, blamed Craigs List, per se, but rather the flaws of human nature and the inevitable consequences of "getting too big." Duh. You learned to read carefully.

But the Hooverites who have called for the disembowelment of CL are a different breed. They do not give a rat's ass about children's rights, women's victimization, or anything else. They are the same companies who sponsor "Palin-esque" candidates, Christian Lunacy funds, forced-birthers, racist smear campaigns, gay-hating crusades. What's worse, their leaders are  indifferent to their stated "issues"— they believe themselves to be a personal elite, so close to God and Money that what the "little people do" is not relevant to them. 

You won't find the anti-Porn, anti-Trafficking Activists in the domestic abuse shelter, the rape crisis hotline, the emergency room, the orphanage, the refugee camps. Heavens, no. They have no interest or knowledge of what goes on in the trenches. They are actively fighting sex workers all over the world who have articulated their needs and rights. They don't want anyone to have any kind of sex they don't sanction. They are FRAUDS.

I don't know if I would've followed CL's strategy, though I symphathize. It was never a matter of money for them, it was the principle— to not be bullied and scapegoated by sleazebags. Should they have continued the fight? They certainly had the law on their side.

The Elecronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU of the Internet, worries that CL's persecutors will just keep hounding them, like a dog who won't let go of their chew toy. They'll want another pound of flesh, and another, until there's nothing left. 

Meanwhile, The Web entrepeneurs who have taken Internet adult ads to another level, the private "members only" sites— they're not idealists— and they won't play in the public eye. They have no interest in a political cause. No one wants to fight for sexual speech, even though it's inevitably the cutting edge of the First Amendment.

When I was in London this summer, I was asked at a public event, "How can we make sex work okay?"

I think my questioner longed for a detailed answer to all the injustices, all the frustrations and perils.

But there's only a two-word answer to this question, really: Legalize it. If a pro can't show his or her face in the light of day and say, "This is what I do, I'm a valuable and lawful member of society, I want respect and fairness" — s/he doesn't have a starting place. 

The exploiters, whatever costume they're wearing— be it fake savoir or slaver— rely on religion, superstition, and illegality to make their buck. The only way to expose them, truly, is to take away their ax.

 

The Real Penthouse Letters Files, Chinese Confucian Sex History, and the Hipster Facial

 

Susie Interviews:

Tristan Taormino, as the famous sexual impresario began her first women-led anal sex videos

Finishing School for Cross Dressers, Professor Veronica Vera

Breath-taking (never wanted him to shut up) "Sex Among the Lotus" with Chinese erotic history expert John Vollmer

Okay, who REALLY wrote the infamous Penthouse Letters? Susie's candid interview with the original Penthouse Letters Editor, Lavada Nahon

Clown Sex, and Clown Sex Parties, with burlesque performer and sex teacher Ducky Doolittle

Cara Bruce On the Secret Meaning of Fetishes

The Avant Garde Facial Shot--  thoughts from radical photographer Ashkan Sahihi

 

Season 4 Features:

43 episodes, 21+ hours of audio, $21.95

Listen to all 43 episodes of the second season of In Bed with Susie Bright.

This 2004 collection features the San Francisco Interview Series, where Susie invited some of the most influential people in the Bay Area sex business talk about their lives.

 

Our Listeners' Questions:

The Best Oral Sex Any of Our Listeners Ever Had

The History of the Dildo, seriously

Down With The Prudes.. Why "NSFW" Doesn't Make ANY Sense

The Controversial Erotic Tourist... Taking a Sex Vacation this Summer?

The "L" Word-- Behind the Scenes of the Money Dyke Factory

Presidential Sex Appeal— Who Really Had It, Seriously?

The Porn Industry and HIV-- A Surprising Story for Civilians

 

You can learn more, or purchase Season 4 here.

Want more In Bed with Susie Bright? Audible® invites you to:

Subscribe for one or 12 months. (!2 months is just a few pennies a show!)

Get the latest episode.

Check out the complete archive.

 

Susie Gets The Money Shot

A has-been porn star named Angel Dare gets tied up and thrown in the trunk of burnt-out sedan — left in a San Fernando Valley parking lot to die.

What gives? All Miss Angel did was to show up for a film shoot where everything went very, very wrong.

But Miss Dare's enemies are in for a surprise. Our plucky heroine gets out of that Honda boot like Houdini, determined to find WHO screwed her over and MAKE THEM PAY.

That's the premise of a new audiobook, Money Shot, that I just recorded for Audible.com.

It was my first time as a voice actor for a novel— this one by the Edgar-nominee Christa Faust.

It was fun to play all the characters, from mobsters to anorexic crackheads-- with feeling!

Now YOU can do me the great favor of listening and telling me how I performed.

Here's an excerpt, where Angel describes her favorite porn director, which I have to say sounds like an homage to Sam Weston, aka Anthony Spinelli. It takes about ten seconds to start, be patient...

 

Money_Shot_Audio_Excerpt

 

And here's the full audiobook if you want to hear the whole caper! — LINK

After my three-day recording session in London, I did an interview with AudibleUK to talk about the "behind-the-scenes" of voice actors and "playing porn star."

 

1. What do you like about Money Shot?

It's about an ex-porn star turned Avenging Aphrodite... all without the help of a plastic surgeon. What's not to like?

2. What do you think of Angel Dare as a heroine?

She's part of a lively scene of new pulp-noir protagonists who shake up the usual scenario of private-dicks-with-a-chip-on-their-shoulders... in this case, setting the mystery in the San Fernando Valley porn biz, with a woman who both calls and delivers the shots.

3. What do you think you bring to the narration?

I'm an honoured member in the elite "X-Rated Hall of Fame, 4th Estate Division"-- seriously, I have the plaque! I covered the porn business since its pre-VHS, 35mm days, so I know the turf well.

4. What is it that you love about hard boiled/ noir crime fiction?

My audiobook dream would be to recreate "Red Harvest" by Dashiel Hammett with all the bells and whistles - one of the most devastating portraits of American violence and perverted justice ever written. It's our bloody version of existential angst, and I was raised on it!

5. As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

Movie star, ballerina, Joan of Arc, Studs Terkel, braless hussy!

6. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Both my parents happily quoted poetry on long car rides, sang every lyric ever written, edited and taught languages all their lives. The apple fell real close!

7. How did you find the narrating experience different from your own shows?

I had to discipline myself - I wanted to go off the reservation! I'm going to host one of my own In Bed With Susie Bright shows next month, where I'll talk about my own experiences with "true crime" in the porn biz, and how they stack up with Angel Dare's! That will be fun.

8. Do you do any exercises to warm up your voice before a reading?

Ha! When I was a teenager and got my first acting job, we had a director who made us enunciate, at the top of our lungs: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul, Lo-Leeee-TAAAA!"

Seriously, I just do everything I can to prepare the text beforehand, and then protect my vocal cords. My secret weapons: ibuprofen and pear juice.

9. What do you like about listening to books rather than reading?

Oh, the theatre of it! In the right hands, it's as much of a creative production as any stage show. I worked with producer Stefan Rudnicki on 15 editions of The Best American Erotica series, and we went over every story and actor like it was our Oscar moment... I know how much goes into these productions when you're working with the best people.

10. What are you listening to on your iPod right now?

Books? "Hardtime," Jean Smart reading one of Sara Paretsky's "V.I. Warshawski" novels.

Music: Tune-yards!

Firenze Heat, Pierre Bonnard, Hard Pear

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Jon Bailiff, Florence, August 2010

 

The Original Snuff Hoax, Secrets of WWII Queer Pulp Fiction, Times Square When It Was Dirty

 

Susie Interviews:

Sexual pioneer Betty Dodson, the author of the seminal Sex for One and Orgasms for Two.

Candida Royalle, makes and directs award-winning erotic videos that appeals to women who never thought they'd like blue movies.

Former Times Square stripper Scarlett Fever gives tips on how to spot a man with money and hustle him out of that cash before the night is over.

Dr. Jack Murnighan, the editor of The Naughty Bits and Classic Nasty.

Gay cultural critic Michael Bronski talks about gay characters in Fifties pulp fiction novels.

Cecilia Tan, the original "Telepaths Don't Need Safe Words" Sci-Fi Wunderkind

Lesbian scholar and activist Karla Jay, Ph.D. author of Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation Dyke Life, is one of the founders of the original lesbian liberation movement— back when it was anything but fashionable and a lot more controversial.

 

Eithne Johnson and Eric Schafer on the history of the snuff film hoax and the relationship between porn and exploitation movie-making.

Porn director/screenwriter Tony Lovett, a.k.a. Antonio Passolini, the man behind the best selling films The Ozporns, Bliss, Cafe Flesh 2, Raw, and Stiff Competition. This is the man who wrote "Bizarro LA" and knows where ALL the bodies are buried, as well as that Jesus-on-a-taco you can't forget.

 

Season 3 Features:

43 episodes, 21+ hours of audio, $21.95

Listen to all 43 episodes of the third season of In Bed with Susie Bright.

This 2003 collection features the NYC and Boston Interview Series, that features outstanding intimate conversations with people who use sex to make a living:

 

You can learn more, or purchase Season 3 here.

Want more In Bed with Susie Bright? Audible® invites you to:

Subscribe for one or 12 months. (!2 months is just pennies a show!)

Get the latest episode.

Check out the complete archive.

 

Your Favorite Sex Topics: Feel Free to Psychoanalyze

I just scrutinized my latest sales report from Audible. My most popular audio shows on Audible this year, so far, are:

 

1. Susie Interviews Dan Savage

Of course, Dan is a love/hate-magnet, but I think the reason this show's popularity spreads by word of mouth is because he and I have known each other for so many decades, back when we were esoteric. I should really call this show"You Don't Know Dan Savage!"

 

2. Herpes Made Simplex and its sequel sister, Big News About Herpes and Sex

I'm afraid these shows are monster-popular because sadly, there is so LITTLE information and self-help about herpes that isn't just preaching and screaming about damnation. I am so sick of the medical profession not sharing what they KNOW about herpes I just had to blow the whistle.

 

3.  Penetrating Gay Porn -- Susie Interviews Jeffrey Escoffier on his new history book

This is the big surprise for me on my Audible sales sheet. I think they have more gay men listeners than they know, or at least publicize.  I wish they had a special gay section where I could anthologize all the great gay sex interviews I've done in one place.

 

4.  G-Spot Special

If I put the word "g-spot" in every one of my titles, I could up my sales considerably, but it just makes me annoyed that everyone is so titillated by the idea that there's an Elevator Express Button to Female Orgasm Without the Bother. Nevertheless, I am eager to let people in on the state-of-the-art information about the G-spot and its relationship to Our CLIT, and so this is the Magna Carta!

 

5.  The Anatomy of Sexual Disgust: "2 Girls, One Cup" and the Dirtiest Motel in America

Ha ha! This is a very intellectual and very explicit discussion of some of the most freakazoid smut in America. Rubberneckers, step this way!

 

6.  Can Masturbation Save Men From Prostate Cancer?

Every guy over 38 is thinking about this topic and that describes a great deal of Audible's membership. I know the title is titillating, but we really do get into every nook and cranny. It's a national scandal that it's such a hush-hush topic.

 

7. The History of Black and Inter-racial Porn

I'm thrilled this is popular, although it probably attracts a lot of looky-loos who normally wouldn't give a hoot about my show. It's one of the strangest weirdest tales in Show Business, it ought to be part of Black History month, but I won't go holding my breath.

 

8. Best Sex Positions for Lesbians 

LOL. I have a feeling that SOME of the sales of this title are not to Lesbians! ;-) But I don't  care, 'cause anyone could learn from this.

9.  Three Ways for Real People

This is one of my favorite "names" for a show and I'm glad people responded to it. I know the 3-Way fantasy is very hot in Hollywood right now, but their depiction is so absurd and unrealistic SOMEONE had to step up to the bat and say, "here's how it really goes down."

10. Iceland Bans Striptease - Are They Feminists or Prigs?

Ya gotta love Iceland.

 

 

Best-Selling Compilations

My Daughter the Porn Star

This is actually an anthology of all my best interviews and shows that concern personal stories about women (myself included) and the porn biz. It's a great compilation, so I'm glad people are finding it, even if the title is pure camp.

 

The Sex Remedy: Sex Experts Who Solve Sex Problems

Another compilation, this time my interviews with the MD's, shrinks, and lab researchers I most respect in sex science. I love this one, too.

 

 

 

The Frugal Nymphomaniac

12 month subscription  -- In Bed With Susie Bright, weekly audioshow/podcast

This is always a big seller, it's obvious. It's by far, hands-down, the cheapest way to get my show, weekly. You pay, like, 70 CENTS a show instead of SIX DOLLARS per show.  Frugal Sex Fiends, take note!

 

AudioBooks, the Meat & Potatoes

Over in my book area... all my books are more popular than my shows, because most people have no idea Audible has been broadcasting my weekly sex/culture/poltics show for over ten years. They don't know Audible does original programming.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to see the book hits too. The two most popular are a couple of the last Best American Erotica anthologies that I published for Simon and Schuster. It was a fifteen year series.

I would LOVE to change the titles of these gems, because they are all numbered by YEAR, and people think, "What do I care, reading stories from, 1996? Not to mention, 1993? 

Well, I'll tell you why. Regardless of year, they're simply the best erotic literary fiction (killer writers, stories you won't forget easily) ever published. I could read you a story from 2000 or 1998, and you'd never know it wasn't written yesterday.

What can I say?— we were ahead of our time. I would suggest if you got one, and loved it, don't hesitate to grab them all. I produced them all with Stefan Rudnicki and his great cast of actors (I read some stories, myself) and we knocked ourselves out!

To get you started, here's what everyone else is buying:

Best American Erotica 2005: Includes Jane Smiley, Mary Gaitskill, Steve Almond and more...

"Best Of" Best American Erotica: The last of the series, it's half new authors, and half of my old favorites.

That's it! I'd love to hear your insights as well, whether you're a regular Audible listener, or you never heard of such a thing!

 

Photo Credits:

Top; Cookie Hunt, Susie at Seattle National Leather Association Conference. I loved this t-shirt.

Middle; Jill Posener from the original Stormy Leather catalog. Jill Posener and Honey Lee Cottrell did all the photography for Kathy Andrews leather designs. She was the first, the only tailor/designer to do sexy and fetish leather for women.Lulu Belliveau styled Ulrike (seated) and I, which is why we look so good. Seriously.

Bottom; BAE cover, 2005. Everyone likes this cover, I think because it's like a little suspenseful story all to itself.

It's Sister Jenny's Turn to Throw the Bomb

I was once a teenage pinko— but did you know I was a SINGING punk-folkie-adolescent-Marxist, to boot?

My old picket-line buddy, Joel Levine, sent me a copy of a little mimeographed book I treasure: The Socialist Songboook.

This is a  piece of Berkeley ephemera you have to love.

Here's your very own PDF edition.

Sure, it's handy to quote The Internationale or La Marseillaise— but the fun really begins with some of the Old and New Left Parodies that are rampant in this slim volume.

I'd love to know the melody line to this little number that is reminiscent of Cole Porter:

I'm a dialectic dope;

How does Marx explain romance and devotion?

Do I need a purgin' for this anti-virgin urgin'?

What's the Party Line on Love?

 

Other titles you have to crack an octave to believe include:

"Stalin— Why I Did It,"

"It's Sister Jenny's Turn to Throw the Bomb," and,

"That Trotskyite Mammy of Mine." 

 

I get choked up reading some of Joe Hill's* lyrics, such as his homage to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn:

There are women of many descriptions

In this queer world, as everyone knows

Some are living in beautiful mansions, and wearing the finest of clothes.

There are blue-blooded queens and princesses

Who have charms made of diamonds and pearl

But the only and throughbred Lady

is the Rebel Girl

Oh, this is no fun if you can't hear what I'm talking about... Here's Greg Brown, Gillian Welch, and Ani DiFranco singing harmony on "Dump the Bosses Off Your Back!"  Goose bumps...

 

Dump the Bosses Off Your Back

Are you poor, forlorn, and hungry

Are there lots of things you lack?

Is your life made up of misery?

Then dump the bosses off your back.

 

Are your clothes all patched and tattered?

Are you living in a shack?

Would you like your troubles scattered?

Then dump the bosses off your back.

 

Are you almost split asunder?

Loaded like a long-eared jack?

Boob!— why don't you buck like thunder?

And dump the bosses off your back.

 

All the agonies you suffer...

You can end with one good whack!

Stiffen up, you orn'ry duffer,

And dump the bosses off your back.

 

Those are lyrics by Wobbly John Brill, having fun with the old gospel song, "Take it to the Lord in Prayer."

 

 

*Hill's wiki biography ends thusly:

"Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915, and his last word was "Fire!"

Just prior to his execution, he wrote  to Bill Haywood, an IWW leader, saying,

"Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize... Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

 

Photo: by Joel Levine.

I can't find one single photo of my old gang, The Red Tide newspaper staff, actually singing. But here we are, ON THE WAY to a picket line where we sang until we were hoarse. One of the people in this photo is now one of the most crazy right-wing Republicans you've ever seen... but I will shut up right there.

Sex Doctors on Incest, Sandman Slim Speaks Out, Carol Queen Anatomizes the Orgasm

 

Susie Interviews:

Veronica Monet, a feminist prostitute and loving wife, talks about how she got into hooking, why she stays in it, and what she's learned about herself and her clients.

Jack Boulware, author of Sex American Style and San Francisco Bizzaro.

Phyllis Chesler, feminist and author of Women and Madness and Woman's Inhumanity to Woman explores the dark side of sisterhood: how women treat each other badly.

Richard Kadrey, author of the cyberpunk novels, Sandman Slim and Kamakazi L'Amourtalks about the history of getting into S/M and advice for expressing your fantasies to your lover.

Staci Haines, the author of A Survivor's Guide to Sex: How to Have a Great Sex Life after Sexual Abuse. Susie talks with Staci about the process of sexual healing for incest survivors. The best interview you'll ever hear on incest and sexual recovery.

Carol Queen, author of Exhibitionism for the Shy and Real Life Nude Girl talks about the anatomy of an orgasm, including the elusive g-spot and what Viagra does to women.

 

Season 2 Features:

47 episodes, 23+ hours of audio, $21.95

Listen to all 47 episodes of the second season of In Bed with Susie Bright.

This 2002 collection features the San Francisco Interview Series, where Susie invited some of the most influential people in the Bay Area sex business talk about their lives.

 

Plus, Susie Dissects:

How to Plug In and Get Off
Incredible Sex Machines
Sex at 69
The Nitty Gritty Guide to Open Relationships
How to Get Laid 101
Are You Inexperienced?
The Lengths we Go To Protect Corporate Porn

 

You can learn more, or purchase Season 2 here.

Want more In Bed with Susie Bright? Audible® invites you to:

Subscribe for one or 12 months. (!2 months is just pennies a show!)

Get the latest episode.

Check out the complete archive.