This is all because my first self-published book, Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, has been acquired by a “real” German publisher. The German translation of Confessions will soon be available in many German-language stores.

Perhaps oddly, this is my first deal with a traditional publisher. I started out as an obscure subculture blogger/activist, and then people started calling me an expert, and then I started selling articles and getting speaking engagements, but all my books have been 100% self-published and self-promoted until now. I certainly did not expect my self-published book to captivate the German media. I don’t even speak German!

I am handling such complicated feelings. It is taking me forever to write this. But my first TV interview just aired — the channel is Taff on Pro7, and the German translation of my words has occasioned much discussion on my Facebook wall. Unfortunately the interview cannot be viewed from the USA, but there was also a recent article in a well-respected German newspaper, Zeit. (I hear that Zeit is analogous to the Sunday Times.)

There’s been other coverage too, plus a lot more on the way. So I guess now is the time to put this out into the world.

* * *

Where to begin?

The translation deal began with a piece of fan mail last year, early 2012. The message came from Jennifer Kroll, who bought Confessions on Amazon after the book hit #1 in two categories. She found me on Facebook and wrote: “I don’t think I have ever recommended a book that frequently to anyone before, and I work in publishing.”

We talked, and then we talked more. She flew me to Berlin, and then she flew me to Berlin again.

Jenny and I had lunch on my final day in Berlin, two weeks ago. I like her a lot. She’s cool and down-to-earth and she has a strong vision for her imprint, Eden Books. I like her so much, and she’s taking a risk on me. I don’t want to let her down.

I told her so, and she smiled. She said that she thinks my book is one of the smartest, most nuanced things she’s ever read about how people relate to each other romantically. She said that I shouldn’t worry about the money, that my trip was already worth it to her, that she was already thinking about reasons to bring me back.

No one gets anywhere in this world without a support network. I get so anxious — I feel like, when I thank the people who read and advocate for my work, it comes off as nauseating or insincere. I’m not sure I have the right words to thank someone like Jenny.

* * *

Where else to begin?

I have always been willing to take risks, yet I have always researched and calculated my risks. When I began writing about alternative sexuality, I calculated the risks and I chose to write under a pseudonym.

Fame, in itself, is a risk. It’s a destabilizing force. My regular readers know that I got a call from Oprah’s office in 2009, and when they asked if I would consider going on the show, I said no. At the time, I wasn’t sure what my career would become, and I had recently been accepted as a volunteer in the U.S. Peace Corps. I’d wanted to serve in the Peace Corps for years. I knew that if I were publicly known as an advocate for sexual tolerance, then my service would be at risk.

I’ve often thought that the same emotional needs that drove me to serve in the Peace Corps also drove me towards the writing and activism that I’ve done. In fact, I was assigned to the Peace Corps HIV/AIDS program, and I worked with sex & gender minorities during my service. Is it ironic that the Peace Corps would have rejected me for my history, when my history made me passionate about my service?

* * *

Where else to begin?

Regular readers know that I broke my neck in 2011 and was in recovery for a long time. I should say that I’m still in recovery. The emotional impact of the accident itself, and the long-term changes to my body, have been a lot to handle.

I am so lucky — I can walk, and talk, and my mental capacity is unaffected. But I am still discovering some long-term effects. I live with fear now — a deep-rooted and all-encompassing fear — in a way that I did not live with it before. This fear has affected everything.

I can’t separate the changes caused by my accident from the changes of getting older. What I can tell you is that stability has been much on my mind lately. I always knew that someday I might want to engage in the sequence of activities we call “settling down.” I’ve realized lately that “someday” appears to be now.

At the same time, I always knew that coming out as Clarisse Thorn might risk my future stability. In 2009, I chose not to risk a TV appearance. But in 2013, I chose to take that risk.

I think it’s the right thing to do. For one thing, the redoubtable Miss Thorn is now a respected expert in the field of sex & gender; she’s not just a counterculture blogger anymore. And global culture is in a different place now, in 2013, from where it was in 2009. Sexual tolerance is much more widely accepted; mainstream commentators covered Fifty Shades. Plus, I moved to San Francisco, legendary for intellectual liberalism, and I work in a field where talent and results are the highest priorities.

No one can control fame. Fame is unstable and it can destroy lives. I will confess to you that I am afraid. On the other hand, I honestly wonder if a high profile in Germany will affect my life here at all.

* * *

And then there’s this guy.

“This guy.” I’m pretty into him. He has his own reasons to be wary of fame, and he asked me not to write about him from the beginning — but I can convince him to make exceptions.

He didn’t meet me as Clarisse Thorn, so I had to explain that whole thing on the third date. These conversations can be awkward. “I guess I’m kind of semi-famous, actually,” I said.

“You’re famous?” he said.

“Semi-famous. Semi-famous,” I said. “And most people don’t know what I look like.”

He wanted to read my books and I begged him not to. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“People form a strong image of me, based on my writing,” I said. “I don’t even like everything I’ve written. And I really like you. I just want you to get to know me first.”

He’d read a few of my articles — not many — by the time I left for Berlin months later. But he still, thankfully, has not read my books.

“It’s strange to think that you’re an internationally famous BDSM writer,” he said, the night before I boarded the plane.

“I’m not famous,” I said, and he laughed.

The next day, he emailed me the Wikipedia entry on BDSM in culture and media, which lists my book The S&M Feminist.

“You’re sooooo faamous!” he wrote. “I still like you, though.”

* * *

All these beginnings, and not a single ending. Here’s where I am now:

These days, I’m a marketing consultant. I know that many people see “marketing” as a dirty word, but I must admit that I love it. Two common phrases for what I do are “content strategy” and “social media marketing” — I personally think that these are fun, fascinating, creative endeavors. Much of my time lately has gone towards learning how to do this stuff better, especially in the world of startup tech.

Also, I pulled together the courage to move from Chicago to my favorite city: my beautiful hallucinatory heartbreak city of San Francisco.

And also, this guy.

I had to put this blog on hiatus while figuring out what my new life looks like. Then suddenly, in the middle of a new life: Berlin.

Reporters keep asking me about my next book. I have some sex & gender projects in the works, but I want my next long-form book to be about something else. Would you believe that there are many things that matter to me and have nothing to do with sex? I was a writer before I had coherent thoughts on these topics, and long before I created the pseudonym Clarisse Thorn.

I’ve been thinking lately that I want to write an exploration of Silicon Valley and San Francisco culture. These days, there are so many media portrayals of this hallucinatory world, and none of them feel complete or nuanced. Some articles capture facets like the gentrification juggernaut or the much-discussed behavior of rich young tech employees, but there is so much more to this place.

I’ve realized that few people can move within “new” San Francisco (i.e., high tech) and “old” San Francisco (by which I mean artsy activists). I’d love to document the intersections and oppositions of these “two worlds” (an oversimplified distinction). I may seek a traditional book deal in order to do this, or I may go through other channels. We’ll see.

I will continue to publish occasional articles and books as Clarisse Thorn. (Also: you can still hire me to speak!) But I doubt that I will regularly blog again. I may cross-post articles that I publish elsewhere, but that means I’ll only update this blog once every month or two.

Still, I will ensure that my archives remain available. And no one gets anywhere without a support network. My mixed feelings include a lot of gratitude. Thank you for reading and feel free, always, to get in touch.

* * *

But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Plus, my new site is beside the point. The point is: I’m in Berlin. If you’re in Berlin, then you should totally meet me at the Liberate, 7pm Wednesday evening (April 24th). And the news gets bigger: I have a translation deal with a real German publisher, and I’m in Berlin on a real promotional tour.

Yes indeed — my little self-published book has been picked up by a real German publisher, and my publisher has flown me to Berlin! Check out the German-language cover for Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser:

I laugh with excitement whenever I look at that cover. It is soooo European and amazing! The title is not a direct translation of Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser — it translates instead as Evil Guys?: Out And About With Pickup Artists. A Close Encounter / Experiment.

I’ve only been here in Berlin for a couple days so far, but I have already interviewed at BILD — Europe’s largest newspaper — and I guess that article is going live soon. There’s another interview with me in the April 15th issue of NEON Magazine — I don’t know what the interview actually says because they translated it into German, but my publisher told me it came out great. I’ve also interviewed at FluxFM, an alternative radio station — the sound clip starts with the host introducing me in German, but the interview is in English because I don’t speak German. I have a ton of other interviews this week, including TV appearances. I am both terrified and thrilled.

I’m sharing my terror and thrills on Twitter, as always. If you’re in Berlin, then again, please come meet me at 7pm on Wednesday the 24th. And I’ll write more when I’m less jetlagged. I have a lot to share. I can’t believe I didn’t write about this sooner. It’s just that I was so busy at home, and then I’ve been so busy in Berlin. And this didn’t feel real until now.

Remember how four months ago, I said that I was doing a site redesign? Well, it’s done now, and I’m still fixing it up. I apologize in advance for hiccups while the site transitions. Doesn’t it look awesome, though?

If you find problems on the site after Saturday April 27, please feel free to leave a comment here or contact me directly!

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

Hi everyone!

I surface from my blogging-break to let you all know that I am redesigning clarissethorn.com. Right now, you’re looking at the old site; I’m asking for feedback about the old site because if anyone has strong opinions about the old site, I can fix those problems when I unveil the new site.

Most of the big stuff is done, but if you have strong preferences or pet peeves about the current site, please let me know in the comments or contact me otherwise.

Thank you! I hope you all had wonderful holidays.

You still have some of that anonymous identity-playing, especially in gaming, but it’s not the norm anymore. Using a fake name on Facebook or Google+ actually violates their Terms of Service. People increasingly tell me that it’s “weird” for me not to post a photograph of myself on my blog. The Real Name Standard is even starting to encroach on gaming: one of the biggest game companies, Blizzard, attempted to require forum users to go by real names in 2010. The backlash forced Blizzard to back down, but a writer in The Guardian suggested that real names on online fora are becoming “necessary.”

Necessary? Really? It’s all so bizarre to me.

Maybe it was inevitable. In “real life,” subcultures where people often go by fake names are considered marginal or at least “weird” — even the relatively non-oppressed and upper-class subcultures like BDSM and Burning Man. When I was younger, I was positive that certain types of stigma would die as the Internet became more popular, because it has become so hard to control the flow of information and there are so many nigh-permanent records of what we do. I thought Internet culture would inevitably influence “real world” culture towards itself. Some of that is happening, but what’s also happening is that “real life” is bringing itself onto the Internet and demanding that Internet denizens behave by “real life” standards.

And little by little, we are.

This has not been un-profitable for people like me. I’ve sold thousands of copies of my books, and I don’t even have a “real” publisher (yet). Social media is birthing jobs that didn’t exist five years ago, and I’m starting to occasionally get paid actual money for consulting. (Shameless self-promotional parenthesis: if you want to hire me for social media, feel free to get in touch. Plus, you can read my free guide to self-publishing here. Part 2 is on its way!)

It’s nice, of course. But it’s an odd feeling. Partly, it’s odd because I’ve always felt uneasy about my knack for marketing, like it makes me somehow impure. I think that unease is shared by a lot of people in my demographic, which is why hip startups always come wrapped in a save-the-world message, and Facebook keeps trying to convince us they’re all about social justice.

(Though we seem to be “growing out of” that, for better or for worse. Google — our cult leader — has long since dropped the “Don’t Be Evil” slogan. Businesspeople want us to believe that information should not be free, that such an idea is irrational, that data is just “an asset like everything else.” And of course I don’t deny that data can be an asset; yet I get so creeped out by aggressively “rational” economists who insist that their paradigm is the truth rather than a truth. I guess everyone does this. A lot of hard-line feminists, my own tribal leaders, demand paradigm dominance too. Could it be that philosophical bright lines are more important in the Internet age? When information is the ascendant currency, paradigms are kingmakers.)

It’s also odd to see us hone social media’s psychological exploitations and profitable feedback loops. When you work in social media, you get used to the new economy of people who are paid to create viral content, who are then paid to distribute it, and sometimes even paid to read it before they go back to the drawing board to create yet another top-5 list. I recently discovered a Facebook app that allows you to automatically “Like” every status a given person posts. (“There is always someone special, who’s status we don’t want to miss to like, and moreover, we want to be the first to like that status.” Grammar errors in original.)

There are so many online games these days that aren’t about narrative or strategy; they’re just snakes eating their own tails. Their parent companies are constantly fine-tuning the program’s psychological tricks to keep people clicking endlessly on shiny buttons. One of my acquaintances in game design calls players of these games “victims.” Another friend is making a webseries based on the time she was paid to write fake blogs. And another friend recently told me: “I always wanted to throw a protest with no cause. Just have a bunch of people holding signs that say ‘no’ standing outside buildings, and then build a campaign around it.”

“I wonder how long it would take the audience to figure out that there was no issue,” I said. “I bet we could get a good 10k Twitter followers before they noticed. You wouldn’t even need the people standing outside the buildings with the signs.”

That’s not the oddest thing, though. (I wasn’t there to see other media revolutions, but I know all media has always been similarly co-opted. Plus, it’s not like the data revolution is limited to the Internet; Target now knows you’re pregnant before you do, so as to better sell you things for babykins.)

For me, personally, the oddest thing is how the ascendance of geek culture makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land.

I actually meet people in the “real world” nowadays who insist on proving their knowledge about Dungeons and Dragons, or who accuse me of overplaying my geek cred, like I have great incentive to fake a history of being miserably awkward in public school. When did the leaders of software companies become international celebrities, panted after by the paparazzi? When did geek culture start regularly getting multimillion-dollar film deals, and regularly dominating the Oscars?

The other day, I went to the park with some friends and noticed a clean brushed-steel sculpture of pi, which I swear wasn’t there a year ago. A quick search revealed that there’s been a surprising number of awesome pi sculptures created in the last decade or so. It reminds me of the techier Burning Man art, the engineered stainless-steel feel of it: this mathematical programmer-influenced geek art that is becoming High Culture as we watch. One of my many friends at San Francisco startups told me recently that his boss met the head curator of the Museum of Modern Art on vacation, and she wants to make an exhibit about his website’s design.

When my friends and I got back from the pi sculpture and the park, we walked into my living room and found a gentleman who’s getting his Masters from divinity school. He was declaiming about the lives of the saints. Historically, saints have often been individuals who created their own “brand identities” and built followings among the populace. Locals had the choice between seeking guidance from a person who had local holy status or a representative of the official Church. If a holy individual had personality and ideas that fit with the Church, then they stood a good chance of being canonized (often only after they died, since death converted them from a potentially-unruly live human into an easy-to-control icon).

“Saints were like startups,” said this gentleman. “They got acquired, and the Church was like Google.”

These are our ideals and our metaphors. We’re making a whole new religion.

* * *

I’ve never had much patience for doomsaying about how the Internet Will Warp Our Brains. People have always liked to make up reasons why new media forms are bad for you; they said it about novels in the 1800s, and about TV in the 1900s. In my teens, my mother would scream at me about the time I spent online, and say she was worried. It took years to convince her that online communities were helping me stay sane. I don’t think she calmed down fully until I got my first job in new media. (P.S.: I’m pretty sure she now spends more time on Facebook than I do.)

I still think people are usually wrong when they speak of the Horrors of New Media. But not always. I’m far more open to the critiques when they come from my siblings of the Internet tribe, people who can talk with reasonable nuance about both positives and negatives of “virtual” culture — such as this guy, who compared Twitter to an “intellectual auto-immune disorder” and thereby cracked me up.

I’m trying to write this, now, less as a critique or diatribe, and more as a description of the slight bemusement I feel about this cultural moment. (I don’t like writing diatribes. They make me feel a little sick the morning after, like I ate too many low-quality sweets. I can’t help knowing that my distaste for them makes me less marketable.)

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with new media, exactly. It’s just strange, that’s all: strange that an age of the imaginary could yet be hard on dreamers.

* * *

I admit that I’ve been sucked into the Geek Ascendance. My geek chic is real, I swear — but sometimes I’m sure I overplay it. And there is something so compelling about all these shiny buttons, the get-rich-quick fool’s gold that we’re seeing more and more often around social media spheres.

Two years ago, a friend asked if I was going to the South By Southwest Interactive media convention. I said no, and added (somewhat arrogantly) that I didn’t see much point in a “social media strategy” (I emphasized the air quotes). I said I was doing just fine writing awesomely and getting readers through my awesomeness. Then the next year I was invited to be on a panel at SXSWi 2012, and I went, and spoke, and met lots of people in social media, and realized that I was already better at social media strategy than many people I was meeting.

Somehow this knowledge was not enough to protect me from getting drawn into the vapid vortex of 10-step “how to do social media” articles; feeling epically anxious about my marketability. I started worrying about my Twitter followers and stressing about traffic numbers in ways that I never have before. Some say that social media usage correlates both with narcissism and social anxiety. The scholarly evidence is flimsy enough that I won’t bother linking, but I suspect they did those studies because they make such intuitive sense.

For a while I felt the need to keep writing even though I wasn’t sure what I was writing for. Yet I’ve been snapping out of that anxiety recently, especially as I look more at marketing-for-pay. Snapping out of it because I’ve been snapping into an awareness of why I did it in the first place.

Of course my writing is partly sheer narcissism. Of course. We’re in the age of ultimate self-consciousness, perfectly-calibrated personal brands. Designing ourselves for consumption. Besides, show me a semi-successful writer who is not narcissistic, and I will show you a rare spotted owl. On the other hand, as much as I know these things are true, even I am kind of over myself at this point.

Anyway, the real reason I wrote here was to explore ideas, some about social justice and some about myself. In 2008, in a navel-gazing age, a social media age, as a gamer and science fiction reader, using a medium that once assumed anonymity — I created a character to explore sexuality and sex-positive culture; and she does it by telling the audience about herself. I’ve made characters-as-exploration many times before. I daresay I will do it again. I don’t quite think of Clarisse Thorn as different from me, but she is — she has to be — if only because I’ve offered such particular moments and left so many out. (In general, I’m uncertain whether I’m more enraptured by concealment or revelation.)

A person who didn’t like my book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser recently wrote, “I could get passed the author’s personality if she only had some good content,” (grammar error in original). I had to laugh when I read that, because if I hadn’t written Confessions myself, I’d probably hate the main character too. I created her, but I couldn’t always choose who she is.

Miss Clarisse really is a bit of an airhead self-centered child, isn’t she? And her ramblings are so half-baked. Who does she think she’s fooling?

(Sometimes I suspect that I hate my writing the most shortly after I produce it. Perhaps that’s when I’m far enough that I’m no longer the person who wrote it anymore, yet close enough to feel a violent need to differentiate myself.)

In my best writing, I see a glint and elegance of inspiration that has become less common, of late. Bloggers have a life cycle, I’ve noticed. Some never get off the ground. Those of us who gather an audience or community often last about three to five years. Those who last longer tend to reinvent themselves.

I need some time off to figure out how to do that. I’m not sure what place Miss Thorn occupies in who I’d like to be. But I’m not done. I’m just deciding what’s next.

I continue to be available for speaking engagements, if you want to bring me in. You are welcome to get in touch if you want to interview me or ask any particular questions. Of course, I would be really excited if you bought any of my books. (You can even buy signed copies sealed with a kiss!)

I’ve got some projects in progress. I’ll announce those, most likely, in January. I’m writing some articles for other websites; I’ll keep doing that and I’ll announce them on Twitter as they’re published. I will certainly continue to moderate comments around this website and answer as necessary.

I hope you all take care of yourselves through the holidays.

* * *

The picture at the top of this post is a sculpture called “My Pi” by John Adduci, currently at Promontory Point Park in Chicago.

* * *

~ a friend of mine in the S&M community

* * *

Back in 2008, I had just started writing this blog and curating my sex-positive film series, and I met the seminal S&M writer Gayle Rubin while volunteering at the Leather Archives. I was really excited to meet her. I remember trying to explain that I thought we were at a cultural tipping point about S&M and maybe sexuality in general. She asked where my film series was hosted, and I said I was working with Jane Addams Hull-House Museum — a famous and historic feminist site — at which point Ms. Rubin choked on her coffee. (I don’t know if she remembers this the way I do; maybe she doesn’t remember meeting me at all.)

I thought I was riding a wave, and at this point, I know I was right. My film series was only supposed to go nine months, but it succeeded massively and lasted four years (the final screening will be next Tuesday!). I’ve had other professional success too (buy my book The S&M Feminist!) … but what’s more important is that my topics become more legit every day, and there are lots of other people exploring them too.

Firstly, almost nobody is trying to ignore S&M or shut down public S&M discussions anymore. Secondly, the idea that S&M should be integrated with feminism and other gender/sex subcultures is not very controversial anymore. Not only did Fifty Shades of Grey grab massive sales this year; mainstream feminist speakers actually defended S&M when the commentary rolled around, and Bitch Media ran a series on S&M. There is surprisingly sophisticated knowledge of consent tactics in the mainstream; in late 2009, I even saw an article where the author said that she associated safewords with “humorless third wave feminists.” If I had been drinking coffee, I would have choked on it. Safewords? Humorless feminists? Wow.

The early battles with S&M focused on getting good information out into the world — information about health, safety, best practices, and so on. (You can see my resources list here.) Later battles focused on fighting negative stereotypes about S&M — and people like me focused on feminism. (An example from 2009: my post Evidence That The BDSM Community Does Not Enable Abuse.) These are still important topics, but I think those of us who write and speak publicly about these matters should start thinking concretely about future messages.

A few years ago, Alan from Polyamory In The News posted his thoughts about this topic for polyamorous people. I’ll adapt his first four points to S&M, because they’re both basic and important:

A. Keep stressing that successful S&M requires high standards of communication, ethics, integrity, generosity, and concern for every person affected;

B. Emphasize that S&M is not for everyone, and that many people will have a better time avoiding S&M;

C. Insist on the part of the definition that stresses respect for everyone and the “full knowledge and consent of all involved”;

D. Expand that to not just “knowledge and consent,” but well-wishing and good intention for all involved.

So, yeah, definitely those. I’ve written about those. A lot. And my own pace of production has already slowed down, because I’ve figured out a lot of the basic stuff for myself, and because I’ve got a lot going on in other spheres.

But even so, I remain committed to serious thinking about this topic. I do have further ideas about the future, and maybe I’m totally out of this world, but I think these are worth thinking about:

1. Intelligent frameworks that show how S&M theory is relevant to other topics. And I don’t just mean the usual suspects. Those of us who know a lot about S&M and feminism already know that tons of recent “groundbreaking” work among anti-rape educators actually originated in the S&M community. That’s important, and I certainly believe that S&M practice can offer crucial insights into discussions about abuse. But we can think more broadly, and we can even break out of gender discourse altogether. This, for example, was one goal of my introduction for Violation: Rape In Gaming — to situate S&M as something that can give us insights about other types of play.

Of course, I don’t think we should talk about all-S&M-all-the-time. That gets boring for everyone. So let’s be smart about this. But when S&M is genuinely relevant, there’s nothing wrong with showing its relevance.

2. Public emphasis on the S&M community that includes public sponsorship, outreach, etc. An ex-boyfriend of mine used to joke that he wanted to see us sponsoring Little League teams. Right now, S&M groups tend to have very little money, and when they have money, they tend to keep it in the S&M community by supporting other S&M projects. That’s cool, but can we do more? Can we make ourselves more publicly available, and make positive contributions to our larger communities?

The S&M social networking site FetLife supports two great S&M organizations, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and the Leather Archives. But what if they took up a holiday season charity collection for at-risk youth or something like that? That would be awesome.

As a side note, this may include more people coming out of the closet. And oh yes, I know how complicated that is.

3. More precise legal and pictorial standards. What, exactly, should happen if an S&M rape case goes to court? How, exactly, can we differentiate between photos of S&M and photos of abuse? This will be extremely difficult, and the S&M community won’t have central agreement on it, but if we don’t start thinking precisely about this then it will be imposed on us from outside. (To some extent, it is already being imposed on us from outside, because S&Mers don’t usually trust the established court system to handle our business.)

The current “answer” (such as it is) has involved a lot of ideas about intentions and personal ethics. To be sure, some really awesome and careful work has been done on those questions, like Thomas MacAulay Millar’s series about abuse in the community, and obviously I’ve written about it lots. There has also been some work done by porn companies, as for instance with the post-scene processing videos that are packaged with some S&M porn. Is it possible for us to give more precise standards for measuring this stuff? I actually don’t know, but it’s worth thinking about.

At the very least, we should know how to explain the difficulties with legal and pictorial issues, clearly and concisely. I kind of tried to warn about this in my science-fiction story “Victory“; I don’t know how successful I was.

4. Speak publicly about the messy stuff. That includes the work about abuse in the community, and also essays like my recent piece I Can Be A Kinky Feminist And A Messy Human Being. It also includes the very edgy stuff, like Mollena Williams’s courageous work on playing with race. By “messy,” I’m not saying we should write without caution or control or compassion. But for a lot of people, S&M can get to some pretty dark places and can sometimes be harmful, and we should acknowledge that.

Can we talk about this without doing gross trauma-porn? Without putting ourselves on display for exploitation? While keeping faith and keeping the other truths of S&M — the beauties and benefits — front-and-center? If so, then let’s.

* * *

And then last week I heard about a fiction contest, and I thought Why not?, and I cleaned up the story and sacrificed it upon the uncertain altar of popular demand.

* * *

A hazy image of a woman, viewed through a screen. This is how I think of the story’s main character, Serena.

* * *

If you like “Victory,” please do me a favor and click “Recommend” at the bottom (you need a Twitter account). Also, send it to your friends! Again, you can read the story here.

Commentary is, as always, welcome.

There are other stories in the contest! You can read them here. If you’d like to enter the contest yourself, the rules are here.

Image credit to freedigitalphotos.net.

* * *

* * *

A few years ago ….

Today, in 2012, I avoid him as much as I can. But my friend (?) Richard used to joke (?) that I only called him when I broke up with my boyfriends. Kinda true, kinda false. Regardless — a few years ago — I don’t even call him this time, I just end up at his apartment for some small party.

He scents the pain in me, and suddenly we’re in a back room, alone. One of the reasons he’s so good at this is that he smells vulnerability like a shark smells blood. I don’t remember whether I ask him to hurt me, or he just grabs me. “Something’s close to the surface,” I tell him, while he leaves bite-shaped bruises on my upper arm. He knows me; he doesn’t leave bruises in places I can’t cover with a t-shirt.

“What is it?” he asks, and I choke on it. I’m already starting to cry. We’ve only been doing this for a moment.

“Red,” I say. The safeword. I’m sobbing. “Red.” Richard stops immediately. “Tears,” I say. “Tears were close to the surface.”

We’re on the floor now. I’m curled up in his lap. I tell Richard that the guy I broke up with last year — the worst breakup in my life — I tell Richard that this other guy met me two nights ago, specifically to tell me that he never cared about me. Almost a year after the breakup, my ex decided to inform me that he lied every time he said “I love you.” He could not have chosen a better way to re-break my heart. Why did he have to do that? Maybe he was doing it defensively, to mess with me … and the thought that he would go to the trouble leads me towards perverse, momentary relief. Then it starts hurting again.

“There are other fish in the sea,” says Richard.

“Thanks,” I say. I’m too devastated to say it with the sarcasm I intend. Yet I’m grateful for the attempt.

Richard’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I really enjoy doing S&M with you. Your reactions are so familiar.”

“Even when I break so quickly? Even when I safeword in less than a minute?” I ask. I’m feeling the masochist’s insecurity: I thought I could hold out. I’m so pathetic.

“Even then,” Richard says gently.

It’s these moments that make me think it might be safe to trust him, but the moment never lasts. For years I’m relieved that I never made the mistake of actually dating him, that I don’t rely on him for anything. Every time he stomps on some girl’s heart I shrug and say, “That’s how he is,” with a secret and shameful tinge of pride. And then one day I will realize that I do expect his support, when I’m almost killed in an accident and he outright ignores me. I will feel betrayed and simultaneously blame myself. I’ll decide that we are just fucking done.

But on this night, that hasn’t happened yet, and I’m surprised by how close I feel to Richard. I wipe the tears from my cheeks, then go to the bathroom and wash my face. Pull myself together so I can return to the party. My eyes meet my reflection’s; I’m not sure what I see.

I think I feel better than I did before Richard broke me down, but I don’t have time for genuine emotional processing right now. My chest feels heavy. Did he do me a favor?

* * *

The S&M novel Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James, is full of bad messages about romance and S&M. The drugs-and-beauty writer Cat Marnell had a recent and spectacular public breakdown, which has been profiled all over the media. You might think that I’m cynically exploiting Hot Google Trends by bringing the two together — and okay, maybe I am. But for me, they’re similar because they both make me jealous.

Sure, I’m jealous of Marnell’s fragile beauty and James’s million bucks. But that’s the least of it. The writer Sarah Hepola says she’s jealous of Marnell’s writing skill, but me, I’m jealous of what those two get to write. They get to write about a self-destructive edge; about putting oneself in danger.

For the last few years, I have written mostly about S&M. I write about other things, too, but I’ve focused on S&M because I know it well. Because it’s important to me. Because I believe that S&M can be life-affirming and intimacy-building and can coexist with feminism, with justice. Indeed, the available psychological research shows clearly that consensual S&M is not, in itself, harmful.

But as I’ve written about feminism and S&M, I’ve also known the rules about what I get to write. I’m not sure how I internalized these rules, but I know them like I know my face in the mirror. When I write, I’m supposed to emphasize the emotional health of my relationships — both with my lovers, and (separately) with my parents. I’m supposed to emphasize my physical health, decent diet, and relatively new exercise habits — although it’s okay to mention it if I’m injured, because that’s not my fault. I’m allowed to mention being an outcast in high school, but God forbid I talk too much about the emotional impact. I must stress excellent communication with my partners. I always, always have to mention safewords.

I am a politician. The arenas for debate are both my mind and my body. The personal is political, indeed.

I didn’t know I was waiting for it until it came, in Cat Marnell’s most recent column: doing S&M and then blaming it on drugs and self-destruction. She writes:

This is amphetamine logic: I am eroticized by pain. And that’s a lie. How turned on could I have actually been?

Marnell describes being hit in the jaw until she saw stars (and by the way, folks, there are safe ways to slap people and then there are unsafe ones; if a person is seeing stars, that’s a bad sign). In Fifty Shades, it’s a similar dangerous narrative: the dominant guy is scarily stalkerish, the relationship is packed with bad communication. It’s notable that in Fifty Shades, the series ends when the dominant sadist is “cured” of his S&M desires. Oh yes, readers want to have their cake and eat it too. The hot parts are the S&M — yet Christian Grey needs a “cure” for his trauma in the form of a sufficiently pure and pretty girl. Once he loves her, he supposedly “doesn’t need S&M anymore,” but then the series also has no reason to continue.

Fifty Shades was written to let people enjoy the hotness without taking responsibility for emotional safety. Without asking the dangerous question of whether S&M might be part of a loving relationship.

These are messages I hate, about S&M. It doesn’t have to be this way. S&M can be enjoyable; S&M can be love. I’ve been there. I’ve felt it. And yet. Sometimes S&M is … something else.

In one recent blog post, I pointed out that S&M is no longer fighting so hard for acceptance within feminism. There’s a troubled history between S&M and feminism, but it’s so much better than it used to be. Not long ago, feminist S&Mers were frozen out of feminist media and feminist conferences. I owe this progress partly to pioneering S&M-feminists; one of my favorites is the outspoken genius Pat Califia, and yet even Califia …. I once volunteered as an archivist at the Leather Archives & Museum and found a brilliant essay written by Califia. Yet at the essay’s beginning, Califia noted that the essay should only be distributed within the S&M community. Because Califia, like me, knew that there are limits to what we can say aloud.

In his book High Fidelity, Nick Hornby wrote that “you’re allowed to feel horny and fucked-up at the same time.” But are you allowed to want S&M and feel fucked-up at the same time?

I resent it: I resent that Marnell and James get to write about S&M that is also destructive, while my ethics urge me to be cautious. I resent that I’ve always felt like I must measure every moment of emotional imperfection. I’m not good at this measurement, because I resent it so much. I’ve always pushed back against the invisible expectations, at least a little. Like now.

* * *

Later. A different man.

A time in my life when I’m fucked up — for several reasons. I am so anxious and erratic that my friends treat me like porcelain. My laughter is shaky. Some nights, I sleep 16 hours because I can’t face the morning. I make “jokes” about throwing myself off bridges. I have a long conversation with another artist, about how we’re both kinda interested in addicting ourselves to heroin; we wonder whether it would improve our art.

One way I can tell my self-esteem is crushed is that it feels dangerous to do S&M. Not exciting, and not exhilarating; it’s panic-inducing and a little sickening: dangerous.

Tonight, earlier, I tried to warn my partner that I’m in a lot of pain, but I don’t know that he understood. Maybe I’m hiding the actual pain from him too well? On the other hand, he’s got that instinct: the blood-scenting shark instinct. I know he smells pain on me. I wonder how conscious it is.

We’re in bed. We’re clothed; I’m straddling him, kissing him. He’s having trouble making sense of my reactions, which is understandable, because I am too. “Are you okay?” he asks.

I sit up and look away, out the window. My heart is a bleeding wound. I can feel the chasm within me. I know that he could throw me off the edge. I crave that catharsis, with a kind of desperation. I’m afraid of it, too. Terrified of him.

I’m in love with this man, and he knows it, and I’m sure he won’t return it. I remind myself: He doesn’t love me. But I trust him. I trust him so much. I don’t know if I should do S&M right now — if I should go so deep — with someone who doesn’t love me. But something in me is driven. Starving.

“I think so,” I tell the window. Then I force myself to look back at him. “I’m really messy right now,” I say. “I mean, I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” Am I telling the truth? “I want to do this with you,” I say. “But I feel … fragmented. It’s …” I pause.

“Hot,” he says, with conviction. I can’t help laughing. I give him a hug.

He’s told me before that he doesn’t understand this, doesn’t understand the chemistry of it, that sometimes he’s afraid I cannot truly consent to the things I want him to do. These self-fragmentations are hot, but they scare him more than they scare me.

On that night, he’s tentative and I’m fucked up and we don’t really get anywhere. He, too, tells me that my reactions are familiar; it makes me think of Richard. But tonight my partner doesn’t break me, which is maybe a good thing?– yet I’m desolate because he didn’t. The next day we both decide that we need to stop doing this, at least for now. He tells me that his number one priority is my mental health, and I agree. The rational facets of my brain are grateful.

This is part of why I carelessly allowed myself to care. I love him because he can see the fracture lines and he’s drawn to them, the same way I am — yet I am simultaneously 100% certain that he will be cautious with me. I am so relieved that he won’t push me further. And so disappointed.

I’ve been doing S&M for so long. Years. I believe that I’ve learned how to do it better, more carefully; how to set boundaries, how to keep myself intact. I know myself well enough to know that a single ill-placed blow could shatter me. So why am I seeking that killing blow?

After that night, I decide I can’t date for a while. I hook up with a different guy, who I definitely won’t see regularly because he lives on another continent. I feel safe because he’s so distant; I feel safer because he has no experience with S&M: I’m pretty sure he won’t touch me deeply. He can only give me orgasms. Afterwards, he sends me a sweet letter. He asks: “Do you ever feel like you have trouble expressing your emotions?”

Actually, I want to tell him, I express them too much. I decide that I should stop having sex for a while, too. I don’t trust myself and I need a break. I don’t know what I need a break from; I just know that I do.

* * *

As I type these words, now, late 2012, I’m much better than I was in the moments above. I took time off and I got some work done. I exercised; I vented to my friends. I try not to write overmuch about bad emotional states when I am in those bad emotional states. I would probably be a more successful writer if I were willing to serialize my despair moment-by-moment, in the moment. I mean, Cat Marnell does it, and she’s been profiled in the New York Times Magazine. (God, I’m so jealous.)

But I don’t want to link my self-destructive moments to my social media addiction. The Internet loves navel-gazing trauma-porn tell-alls; the Internet loves it so much that you can build a career on it, and you might even believe that your readers love you for yourself. The thing is, as you run low on trauma, you need new trauma to feed the beast. A recent commenter on Marnell’s column told her: “Girl, you need to either shit or get off the toilet… either die, or get clean, because this intermezzo shit is getting dull.” I won’t put myself in that position.

Still. I need to say this, just once. I need to say that, sometimes, I straddle lines within S&M that scare me. I can see the fracture lines in myself, sometimes — and I can empathize with them in others. I can even empathize with angry people who comment on my website to tell me that S&M is pathological, wrong, that it genuinely harms people. Because sometimes, it can.

An S&M-feminist writer who greatly influenced me, Trinity, once wrote:

I don’t think that SM is wonderful for everyone at every point in their lives. I do believe that some people use SM to self harm. I do believe that some people bottom or submit because they believe that they are inferior or unworthy. I also believe that some people use sex and sexual pleasure, whether from SM or from non SM sex, in ways that are unhealthy for them.

… Yes, for some people SM is a maladaptive coping strategy. But this does not mean that SM sex is fundamentally about self-harm, any more than sex, as a whole, for all humans is about self-harm. I’m sure we’ve all met someone who we at some point thought was using his sexuality in a way that was ultimately damaging to him. But very few people would say that he needs to give up sexuality. That therapy designed to make him asexual is wise.

And I once wrote a piece called “Start From A Position Of Strength,” in which I said that the best way to do S&M is to start from strength and seek strength in the end. I stand by that. There have been so many times I’ve done S&M and felt stronger afterwards.

Some of my friends say that I’m the most stable person they know. One of my friends talked me through some stuff earlier this year, when I was feeling really awful. Told me: “I know some very unstable people. And you’re the only person I know who thinks that you’re less stable than you truly are. You see yourself in unstable people, and you think it means that you’re like them. But you actually see yourself in so many people because you’re so balanced.”

Is it balanced to see myself in Fifty Shades and Cat Marnell? I hope so.

One of the reasons I believe feminists have to talk about S&M is that S&M gives a framework to interrogate facts about abuse and self-destruction that no one wants to talk about: not even feminists. Once again — because I have to say this ten million times — I believe that S&M is often consensual and intimate and safe. But there are also moments when S&M desires get tangled up in danger. Usually emotional. Sometimes physical. Sometimes it is even danger that the victim sought out. That the victim craves. But that doesn’t make it the victim’s fault. And we shouldn’t sweep this under the rug.

I’m an expert on BDSM — or so I hear. I have done so very much research. I have spoken at conferences. I’ve run lectures and workshops. University professors assign my writing to their classes.

I’m an expert, so I can tell you my professional opinion. It’s possible to have all the information about S&M and sex and relationships, but it barely helps if you don’t feel good about yourself; you just create more complicated rationalizations. Sometimes it’s okay to do S&M for catharsis. Sometimes it’s okay to do S&M when you’re sad or scared or anxious. Sometimes S&M can even have therapeutic applications.

But sometimes there really is no positive way to get what you think you want. Sometimes expertise just means that you know when to cut yourself off.

* * *

But now that I’ve said all that ….

I need to defend S&M, in the end. I need to show you how it is when it’s beautiful. Like one man I dated recently. He hurts me, and then he takes me in his arms and says: “I just want to take care of you.”

Or a man I dated a few years ago: our first real date is on a Thursday night and I hurt him until he’s almost in tears. He has so many fracture lines. I see his mental flaws, the insecurities, and I savagely exploit them. I make him afraid and I break his heart. Then I kiss him and make it better. We stay up until 5 AM, talking and making out, though we both have to work on Friday.

Next morning, I kiss him desperately through our mutual exhaustion, and I make him promise to call me every day until I see him again. It’s ridiculous; I never do that. And I can’t even wait until he calls — I send him an email two hours later. “I’m in a bit of a daze, and I don’t think it’s just the lack of sleep,” I write. “Still a few traces of blood under my nails. Craving.”

He writes back: “When I walked outside I felt invincible. That’s what I’ve been feeling all day. I can’t thank you enough. I’m thinking of you.”

Or….

Or.

The man I fell for before that.

I remember, so clearly, one night where he pours hot wax all over me. It’s mild, as our encounters go. Halfway through, I find myself laughing hysterically: apparently my endorphins have shot through the roof. I’m not getting catharsis. I’m getting a different kind of roller-coaster ride. He stops and looks at me in confusion, and I tell him between giggles, “Don’t stop.” I think we both anticipated something more hardcore — more tears and desperation — but this is fun, too.

After a while, he stops. My laughter slowly subsides, though stray giggles ripple through me like aftershocks. My hands are tied, so my lover brushes my hair out of my face for me. “What are you thinking?” he asks. I give a sweet-nothing answer and we lie together for a while. We’re both exhausted, but in the romantic cliché, we won’t sleep: we don’t want to miss a thing.

“I love you,” I say suddenly. “That’s what I’m really thinking. All the time.”

He sucks in his breath. Sits up, looks at me. “I love you,” he says softly. “Oh my God, I love you.” I smile. We’ve never spoken these words aloud, but as I said it, I had absolute confidence that he’d say it back. I am completely self-assured; my strength is at its peak. I have never felt such faith in a lover before.

“Could you untie me?” I suggest. “So I can put my arms around you?” He does. There’s wax all over my sheets, but I can’t be annoyed about it. My lover made me cry several times in the past months, and held me afterwards. Pain has primed me, somehow, to feel safe in his arms.

I don’t know how that’s possible or why it works. I can’t always reach for this transcendence; it’s not always safe to try. And ultimately, this relationship won’t last. But now, tonight — it’s perfect.

* * *

* Signed copies of my books. WITH KISSES! *
Like, lipstick kisses.

If you know someone who really likes my writing — or if you know someone who would definitely love my writing if they got the chance — now you can buy them the perfect gift. Also, my signature has magic powers. I know, because I recently signed an up-and-coming blogger’s book and she asked me to give her my blessing, and I did, and then she got a gig at Free Thought Blogs, so obviously it works!

I have three books available in paperback. So far, the others are only available electronically. (As a side note: if you were thinking of buying someone an Amazon gift card, then you could do me a huge favor if you bought it by clicking here — then I’ll get a commission!)

Here are the books you can buy with a kiss. I’m adding $5 to the Amazon paperback price for the signature. If you want to buy a bunch of books and get a deal, contact me directly! I am happy to bundle shipping, for example. (And yes — I do ship overseas, though it can be pricy.)

* * *

Clarisse Thorn is a sex-positive activist who has been writing about love, S&M, sex, gender, and relationships since 2008. Her writing has appeared across the Internet in places like The Guardian, AlterNet, Feministe, Jezebel, The Good Men Project, and Time Out Chicago — and this is a selection of her best articles. Also included is Clarisse’s commentary on the context in which she wrote each piece, the process of writing it, and how she’s changed since then. Plus, there are “study guides” to help readers get the maximum mileage from each section!

“I wish we could make it so everyone buying a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey would buy Clarisse Thorn’s The S&M Feminist.” ~ A.V. Flox, editor of BlogHer’s Love & Sex section

“This book is such a vast resource.” ~ from a glowing review at Autostraddle

* * *

There’s a huge subculture of men who trade tips, tricks, and tactics for seducing women. Clarisse Thorn spent years researching these guys. She observed their discussions, watched them in action, and learned their strategies. By the end of it all, she’d given a lecture at a seduction convention and decided against becoming the next great dating coach. In Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, Clarisse tells the story of her time among these Casanovas, as well as her own unorthodox experiences with sex and relationships. She examines the conflicts and harmonies of feminism, pickup artistry, and the S&M community. Most of all, she deconstructs and reconstructs our views on sex, love, and ethics — and develops her own grand theory of the game.

“Insightful, thoughtful, engaging, and very well-balanced. Clarisse talks about all sides of the community — the positive, negative, and horrendous — and she draws larger lessons about society and human nature.” ~ from a Psychology Today interview with Clarisse by cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman

* * *

How does it feel to be virtually raped? Who would decide to commit rape in a game? Should we, as a society, worry about people who pretend to rape software? What does “rape in gaming” even mean, and why does it happen? In this groundbreaking volume, the technology writer Julian Dibbell and the feminist S&M writer Clarisse Thorn collaborate with ten others to explore the concept of virtual rape.

* * *

I’m visiting my dad in New York for Thanksgiving. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Like this garage sale at the Museum of Modern Art, which is apparently “not a ‘garage sale,’” but is still kind of contrived, and I’m not actually sure I’m thankful for it because the best shirt at the garage sale was $80 so I could only stare at it longingly. (The shirt is from this exhibit by the artist Barbara Kruger, and it says MOISTURIZERS, CELLPHONES, LIPSTICKS, SNEAKERS: PLENTY SHOULD BE ENOUGH.) On the bright side, the curator recognized my ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE shirt, which may be why she was at all willing to sell me the Kruger shirt, even at $80, and she chatted with me about it so I got to feel kind of like a Real New York Art World Person for a minute. I assume that Real New York Art World People are always recognizing each other’s feminist artist shirts, in between clinking their beautifully-designed wine glasses and going out the back door to evade the paparazzi. Not that I’m jealous or anything.

Anyway that’s beside the point. The point is, I really do have a lot to be thankful for. So thank you, everyone. Happy holidays!

* * *

Lately, I’ve been featuring postcards from PostSecret, an online community art project to which people send postcards featuring a secret they’ve never told anyone. Last month, I posted a bunch of PostSecret snippets about what it’s like to cheat. There were a lot of interesting comments on last month’s post, so I decided to do a followup: postcards that hint at the complex stories of folks whose partners cheated.

* * *

(Picture of a baby, then text): “I hate that one day I’ll have to tell him that fucking other women was more important to you than we were.”

At first glance, this strikes me as the archetypal narrative of a woman who was cheated on. But I have a lot of experience with polyamory — that is, open relationships — and I wonder whether there’s a different story here. Maybe this woman’s partner was faithful to a monogamous standard, but tried asking for an open relationship. Perhaps they discussed it, disagreed, and then broke up.

Either way, I have sympathy for the person who wrote this postcard. Breakups are hard. I just can’t help wondering whether they broke up over a betrayal or a disagreement.

* * *

“For a scary, intoxicating moment I thought you were telling me you’re leaving your wife. But you meant you are moving away with her.”

This, on the other hand, is the archetypal story of the “mistress.” And as I said in the previous post, I’ve always maintained that it’s almost as bad to be the “cheating facilitator” — i.e. the person who a cheater hooks up with — as to be the cheater themselves.

Yet sometimes I think that the best argument against being a cheating facilitator has nothing to do with the pain you cause other people. Sometimes I think that the best argument against being that person is the amount of pain you can open yourself up to. Especially if you want the cheater to eventually commit to you … despite the fact that they are, of course, already a cheater.

It’s also clear that, for some people, being the cheating facilitator is a painful pattern:

“Always a bridesmaid mistress, never a bride …”

* * *

Aaaand finally:

“I feel guilty for making my husband break up with his mistresses.”

I assume that this writer is female. (If the writer isn’t female, then there’s a ton of other potential stories wrapped up in the card!) The postcard talks about how she feels guilty for making her husband break up with his “mistresses,” which leads me to wonder how long she knew about the situation, and whether her guilt is due to breaking some kind of relationship agreement.

Did they basically have an open relationship for a while — where she overlooked the situation deliberately? And does she feel guilty because she suddenly rescinded that tacit permission?

This is one of the most complicated postcards I’ve seen. I can think of several other readings off the top of my head, but if you folks have thoughts, I’d rather hear them in comments.

* * *

(Please note that there are many PostSecret books available for purchase, including A Lifetime of Secrets, and Extraordinary Confessions From Ordinary Lives, and Confessions on Life, Death and God, and others.)

* * *