The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #126: Christopher Zeischegg
“Being thrust into forced ritualistic closeness does break the ice, but doesn’t guarantee closeness.”
...more
Posts by: Antonia Crane
The Truth About Lying
My gut is a red, fiery drum, a beacon of rosy light. My instinct to run is a bright radioactive pink arrow, a bloody blade. I was correct.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Jessica Valenti
Jessica Valenti discusses her memoir, Sex Object, how the experiences she touches on in her book shaped her, and how she discovered herself outside of those experiences.
...more
Growing Up: The Rumpus Interview with Michelle Tea
Michelle Tea discusses life in recovery, the meaning of family, motherhood, and her new memoir How to Grow Up.
...more
Beautiful Things That Happen in the Dark: A Conversation with Eon McKai
Antonia Crane talks to Vivid Alt’s Eon McKai about stigma, sex, and becoming a porn auteur.
...more
Ice, Ice Baby: A Cool Conversation with Bobby J. Robby, Stripper by Day, Drag King by Night
Bobby J. Robby talks about labor issues, gender identity, and the perils of dating other dancers.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Jacob Tomsky
Writer and former hotel employee Jacob Tomsky sits down to chat about his hospitality memoir Heads in Beds, the impetus for opening up about the service industry, and his literary nonprofit.
...more
The Last Book I Loved: Tradition
Antonia Crane explains why TRADITION by Marci Blackman is the last book she loved.
...moreLosing the Lusty
The women who danced at the Lusty Lady Theatre were pierced and collared and well-read. When they weren’t breathing fire or taking writing classes, they stripped.
...more
Admit You’ve Paid For It: The Savage Honesty of David Henry Sterry
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.
...more
Lady Cheeky’s Sex Satori
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.
...more
Saturday Rumpus Interview with Jill Soloway
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.
...more
Holy Orange
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.
...more
Death of A Bad Girl – A Life in Letters: The Rumpus Interview with Daphne Gottlieb
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 .
...more
The “Most Beautiful Thing That Ever Fucked”: The Rumpus Interview with Oriana Small
I was dying to interview Oriana Small about her porno memoir Girlvert.
...more
Halloween is Waiting
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. She’s concerned about extra roll […]
...more
Here Comes the Girl
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.
...more
Facing Sex Addiction: A John Comes Clean
“Mike” contacted me for advice about the stripper he was seeing after he’d read my column on The Rumpus. He told me that when his wife was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he flung himself at sex workers as a way to escape his own loneliness and grief.
...morePaying to Play: Interview with a John
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.
...moreNight of the Lilies
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.
...moreNaked All the Time: The Rumpus Interview with Sex Cammer Milcah Orbacedo
The following interview may not be safe for some workplaces.
...moreRECESSION SEX WORKERS #14: Phoenix Rising, An Interview with Nadia Payne
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 […]
...moreWhat Began As a Love Letter…
Warmed and Bound, an anthology of neo-noir fiction, offers 38 dark and beautiful stories from Matt Bell, Blake Butler, and others.
...moreRECESSION SEX WORKERS #13: Bella Blue’s School of Three: Burlesque, Boys and Polyamorous Love
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.
...moreThe Rumpus Original Combo with Jesus Angel Garcia: In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Rape Fantasy
In badbadbad, Jesus Angel Garcia blows religion up blimp-size and lights taboos like Molotov cocktails tossed on a manicured, Christian lawn in his biblical, technologically charged landscape. Good and evil have a face-off in every scene in his erotic, binary world. In contrast, the protagonist JAG is duplicitous:
...moreWHERE I WRITE #7: Between Clients
I write between clients. There’s a yellow wall behind me, and fuzzy leopard print pillows on the floor.
...moreTrans-Love Energies and the MC5: The Blazing Revolution According to John Sinclair
“Poetry never sleeps.” -John Sinclair The best music and art erupts from immense suffering and revolutionaries are guided by great feelings of love.
...moreHysteria Revisited: Ridden Hard and Put Away Wet
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.
...more