Publication Date: November 28, 2007 | Series: Best Sex Writing
Captures the heart and soul of what’s happening behind the bedroom door, where lust, desire, gender, identity, sex work, and politics collide.
The best sex journalism of the year in one unforgettable book.
Do Jewish girls give better blowjobs? What does it mean to be a modern-day eunuch? Does abstinence-only sex education work? Would you want to work in the pink ghetto or live in the glass closet? How “hung” are African-American men? What happens to a celebrity sex tape star in Iran? Best Sex Writing 2008 answers these questions (and raises many more) as it probes the inner lives of those on the front lines — political, personal, and cultural — of lust.
From dangerous dildos to professional submissives, the erotic appeal of twins, sex work, pornography and much more, these authors delve into the underbelly of eroticism. Probing stereotypes, truths, and the tricky areas in between, Best Sex Writing 2008 opens the bedroom door and explores the complexity of modern sexuality with thought-provoking, cutting-edge essays and articles.
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I'm a writer, editor, and blogger - basically, I do a little bit of everything, from erotic fiction to book reviews to conducting interviews to writing articles and essays. I got started writing erotica while attending law school (which I left to pursue my writing), and my first story, "Monica and Me" was published in an anthology called Starf* cker, edited by Shar Rednour. Since then, I've gone on to pen dozens of stories, which are published or slated to be published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006 and Best Women's Erotica 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007.
NOTE: You can see the real, full titles below, but Amazon will not let me put in the word "s e x" spelled out, so I've had to improvise, even though it IS in the title of some of my books!
I've edited over 20 anthologies, most recently Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Spanked, Rubber S-x, Dirty Girls, Best S-x Writing 2008, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma'am, Crossdressing, and more.
I used to write the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice and now write about relationships, books, and pop culture for a variety of publications. I conduct interviews for Gothamist.com, where I've interviewed various artists, authors, and other interesting folks including Augusten Burroughs, Jessica Coen, Clare Crespo, Eve Ensler, Christian Finnegan, Nadine Haobsh, Molly Jong-Fast, Anya Kamenetz, Stephanie Lessing, Susan Polgar, Julie Powell, M.J. Rose, Susan Shapiro, Tucker Shaw, John Stossel, Tristan Taormino, Ned Vizzini, Jeannette Walls, and Koren Zailckas, Victoria Zdrok, and Mediabistro.com, where I conduct the "From the Editors" series and have done 3 Citizen Media Critic essays, on the magazines Lucky, his and hers, and Violet. I have also written for various publications, including Alternative Press, AVN, The Black Table, Bust, Cleansheets.com, Curve, Diva, Girlfriends, Metro, New York Post, Penthouse, Penthouse Forum, Playgirl, Rockrgrl, On Our Backs, Oxygen.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Zink. I've been interviewed by Bookmouth, Lippy Imp, New York magazine, Playboy's Night Calls, and Suicide Girls, and have appeared on The Derek and Romaine Show, The Joey Reynolds Show, KS E X Radio, Showtime's Family Business, and The Berman and Berman Show.
I host a monthly erotic reading series called In The Flesh (http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com) every 3rd Thursday of the month at a bar called Happy Ending. We've had some amazing readers, including Jessica Cutler, Maxim Jakubowski, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Tsaurah Litzky, M.J. Rose, Danyel Smith, Carol Taylor, Zane and others.
"If I had my way," says a professor in the Human Sexuality Department at San Francisco State University, "sexuality studies would take over the entire university, because everything relates to sexuality." You might accuse her of special pleading coming from a particular professional viewpoint, but she is quoted within the book _Best Sex Writing 2008_ (Cleis Press), edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Bussel says in the introduction that the 21 chapters included here, all by different authors on different subjects, "... taken as a whole, give a broader view of sex than you've likely ever considered, dealing as they do with biology, gender, crime, politics, the environment, health, religion, race, and much more." Indeed, everything relates to sex! Be warned that this is a collection of sex reporting and essays; it may have an erotic black-and-white photo on the front involving high heels and a thong, but these aren't bawdy stories, and unless you have a sexual kink for expressive and well-written reportage, you will find little titillation here. What you will find is plenty to think about, and if some of your fun in sexual issues is thinking deeply about them, this will be a very satisfying book for you.
Some of the reports here made me extremely uncomfortable. Take "Battle of the Sexless" by Ashlea Halpern. It starts with a description of how much blood a fellow lost the first time he tried to castrate himself. The first time. Further discomfort can be found in Kevin Keck's "Double Your Panic", wherein he describes how karma has returned for his adolescent fantasies of sexual liaisons with identical twins: his wife is now expecting twins. In "Dangerous Dildos", Tristan Taormino investigates the problem of the toxins called phthalates, often found in soft plastics, but banned from kids' toys or dogs' toys, not adults' toys. Trixie Fontaine in "Menstruation: Porn's Last Taboo" tells the difficulties of breaking boundaries by including menstrual blood in her on-line shows ("I'm just going to keep on offending in whatever ways sound like fun.") All is not darkness and fretting. Rachel Shukert has a funny chapter, "Big Mouth Strikes Again: An Oral Report", about society's view of the oral skills of Jewish women. Kelly Rouba in "Tough Love" reports good news for handicapped people who are interested in sex; a spinal injury doctor says, "There's always a way around the disability," and rehab centers are counting sexual needs as important. Especially remarkable is the chapter "Sex in Iran" by Pari Esfandiari and Richard Buskin, which has to do with fallout from a notorious celebrity sex tape released into that fundamentalist society. Non-procreative sex and the man's need to satisfy his sex drive are acknowledged by Islam, but the film shows a woman obviously enjoying herself. It has changed minds, has hit the governmental status quo, and has broken Iranian film profit records.
Readers who look for good articles on sexual topics may recall some of these, as most are reprints from newspapers, magazines, or websites. It is a stimulating collection, however, with evaluations of unexpected aspects of sexuality that are surprising, shocking, and funny.
This book was nothing like I thought it was going to be! (I know, can't judge a book by its cover...) I am used to the erotica collections that Rachel Kramer Bussel edits and I assumed this book would be no different.
But it is different -- very different. It's more of a compendium of the best in writings about sex and human sexuality. This could easily be used in the syllabus at any top-notch university, and should be given to everyone you know as a basis for conversation about sexuality. This collection of writings is meant to stimulate the thought-process, and assist in discussion and dialog about themes and topics on sex. Each and every piece that was selected and included in this terrific work is a masterpiece in its own right. Some made me squirm -- see Ashlea Halpern's "The Battle of the Sexless," and some made me angry -- see Tristan Taormino's "Dangerous Dildos," but all made me think. This really is the best in sex writings for the year.
I thoroughly enjoyed Rachel Kramer Bussel's collection of essays and other works that make up 2008's Best Sex Writing anthology, though it wasn't quite what I was expecting. With cover artwork displaying a black stiletto heel hooked around a thong pulled from a taut derriere, I was thinking Best Sex Writing 2008 would be more Penthouse Letters, only less...retarded.
The subject matter is certainly diverse, running the gamut from the sexual appeal of twins to the behind closed (and veiled) door sex parties of Iranian youth to the politics of porn's messiest taboo, menstruation porn. While the writing is probing and stimulates my favorite sex organ, the brain, masturbation fodder this ain't. What you get instead is a well-researched, albeit brief, peek into a fascinating array of topics that your average sex book tends to ignore.
I've worked in the sex industry for the past 5 years and consider myself pretty well-educated when it comes to sexuality. It was exciting to find myself voraciously reading with the joy of discovering something new. This book is an education in all walks of sexual life and left me wanting to research several topics further. Castration that doesn't involve gender reassignment? Hiring a professional submissive? As Rachel Kramer Bussel hoped for in the introduction, Best Sex Writing 2008 definitely succeeded in leaving me wanting more.
