The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
Writer, performer, educator, and activist David Henry Sterry talks about the deep cultural roots of shame associated with the American sex industry, and how freeing it can be to bleed out the truth about our lives as buyers and sellers of sex.
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Antonia Crane sits down with sex blogger and erotica writer Lady Cheeky for an interview about her journey to passion, positive body image, and orgasm via True Blood.
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Her first feature film “Afternoon Delight” takes the cake. The film was a Sundance favorite this year and earned her the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award.
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Years later, Bombay is still fresh in my mind and in my bones. As a visitor, I was naïve and lost. When I hear bells, I still see statues of Ganesh in a cool, stone temple and smell sandalwood incense.
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Daphne Gottlieb talks about Dear Dawn, a collection of letters written by Aileen Wuornos to her childhood friend from prison prior to her execution in 2002 .
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I was dying to interview Oriana Small about her porno memoir Girlvert.
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Every Halloween, the ghost of my 11 year-old self haunts me. She’s in the candy aisle at Rite Aid gorging on fun-size Twix bars. She’s wrapping candy corn lights around her neck. She’s trying on a vampire costume grinning through plastic fangs with a scraggly black wig in her eyes.
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I didn’t analyze production levels or consider marketing strategies. I didn’t say to myself, “Tonight you’re going to get with the jack-off program.” I was a dime-a-dozen girl doing a customer service job, and that job demanded more and more of me whether I liked it or not.
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To use a tennis analogy, I played all four corners in an attempt to interview clients. I hit up escort friends of mine with long-terms regulars, old clients who were articulate and thoughtful and guys I’d never met who had contacted me with sex work-related questions.
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The Polk Inn stood out in the tenderloin because of all the beige and glass next to junkies selling stolen bicycles and gizmos out front.
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The following interview may not be safe for some workplaces.
In 2010, in New Orleans, thousands of Saints fans danced wildly in the streets in black and gold jerseys and ribbons, blowing horns and smacking tambourines. I commuted from LA to New Orleans to dance at Penthouse Club during the playoffs and arrived to work early to watch the game at the bar with the other dancers.
Warmed and Bound, an anthology of neo-noir fiction, offers 38 dark and beautiful stories from Matt Bell, Blake Butler, and others.
Mardi Gras was uncharacteristically dismal in 2010. I met a group of curvaceous, saucy strippers at 10 a.m. on Bourbon Street, where the air was thick with pizza and Red Bull vomit, 24-hour margarita shops and hot dog stands.
[Editor's note: Some photos NSFW.]
I write between clients. There’s a yellow wall behind me, and fuzzy leopard print pillows on the floor.
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“Poetry never sleeps.”
-John Sinclair
The best music and art erupts from immense suffering and revolutionaries are guided by great feelings of love.
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The Rumpus Interview with artist Julie Bolene.
Julie Bolene’s nudes appear shiny and dead. There are finger bones protruding from hands and bluish white faces.
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This is a response for Bedelia, who commented profusely about sex work, house moms, and her experience as a hooker for ten years on an earlier piece I wrote for The Rumpus.
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New Orleans has a textured and macabre history when it comes to the sex industry, particularly regarding house moms–that hybrid of manager, referee and babysitter.
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Angela Eve and I work together at a topless joint on Bourbon Street. We spoke in the locker room while she brushed her hair and I applied gloppy eyelash glue.
Angela Eve’s the hardest working stripper at Rick’s. She lures convention goers and Saints fans from their seats with the ease of a seasoned pro and marches them into the $60 dance area all night long.
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Marc McAndrews visited twenty-nine brothels in Nevada over five years to photograph the women who worked as legal prostitutes in their environment.
It was 11:30 on a Tuesday night and the bar at Jumbo’s Clown Room was packed. I was instantly moved by the spirit of Ramona, a tall black stripper in a tutu with pink wings attached to her back, gliding across the stage to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” in ratty toe shoes.
I was dumped over the phone by the man I’ve been dating for several months. I’d never had such an abrupt, hostile break up.
The Romanian is an enthralling memoir about Benderson’s consuming affair with a male hustler he encountered in Budapest, while doing research. I wondered about that timeless troll, desire, and how it has the power to dunk one’s entire world into chaos or turn a hillside into a sublime, electric lightshow.
When you have a gender, you enjoy certain privileges. You don’t get stared at, laughed at, egged or beat up on the street because of how you appear.
“The early messages in my family were that women are the source of power. They made the household decisions, held the purse strings, and if the woman of the house was not happy, no one was happy. “
Courtney Trouble’s no pedestrian pornographer. She’s a pale, femme, riot girl with squiggly tattoos and rocker bangs.
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