Knock You Out

She's got a mean right hook

Image credit: Dina Litovsky

In this week’s edition of The Reverse Cowgirl Roundup: a dominatrix slips on her boxing gloves, a new board game posits players as strippers, a famous actress shares a secret about her private parts, meditation goes orgasmic, and more.

1. The knockout photograph featured at the top of this newsletter is the work of Ukrainian-born, New York City-based photographer Dina Litovsky, whose subculture-exploring and social gathering-focused photos have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker, among other outlets. This image of a dominatrix is part of her Submission project, for which she spent time in a New York dungeon to investigate the power dynamics behind BDSM relationships. Subscribe to her newsletter here and follow her on Instagram here.

2. Do you like board games? Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a stripper? A Kickstarter-backed board game called Nightshift could be for you. Created by former dancer Exotic Cancer, the thematic board game’s playing pieces are strippers and the goal is to “charm customers into emptying their wallets.” The project is fully funded at $1,159,272 in AUD and should be shipping soon, it seems.

3. Apparently, author and actress Brooke Shields had a labiaplasty. In her new book, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman, Shields, 59, shares that she went under the knife for labia-reduction surgery and unexpectedly got “vaginal rejuvenation surgery” in the process. Per NPR:

   “‘I was horrified, but also at a loss,’ Shields writes in the memoir. ‘I didn’t want to sue this man—or maybe I did want to, but I didn’t feel I could—because I didn’t particularly want talk of my lady parts, once again, on the front page of every paper.’”

   And yet here we are.

4. Hellmann’s Mayonnaise surely paid Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal an astronomical sum to recreate the orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally… for a Super Bowl LIX commercial. Photographer and Friend of The Reverse Cowgirl Noah Kalina didn’t like it, but he doesn’t like mayo. I thought it was fun. Bonus cameo by smokin’ Sydney Sweeney.

5. Speaking of orgasms, The Wall Street Journal has a profile of Nicole Daedone, who is in legal trouble over her orgasmic meditation business venture (via Marta Peirano). The story begins:

   “For over a decade, Nicole Daedone presided over an unusual wellness empire that transformed sexual stimulation into a meditation practice meant to empower women. Through the 2010s, as the founder of the company OneTaste, she spread her philosophy on stage at TEDx and as a guest on the Goop podcast. ‘What the internet did for computers, female orgasm can do for human connection,’ she promised in 2013 at South by Southwest.”

6. One more reason to not live in Oklahoma: A senator is seeking to ban porn. The Oklahoman reports Republican senator Dusty Deevers—which, let’s face it, is a great nom de porn—has introduced no less than eight legislative measures “aimed at restoring moral sanity in Oklahoma.” Watch porn in the Sooner State, and you might do a ten-year bid. Thankfully, I live in California, where porn is legal.

   

   It’s Tomato Head

7. Last weekend I went to go see Paul McCarthy’s Tomato Head at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles. Basically, if Mr. Potato Head were life size and a tomato and had removable parts, some of which were sex-themed, that were scattered around him on the floor, that would be Tomato Head. Detachable thumbs up.

8. Recently, I stumbled on Muscle Mommiez. Forget regular MILFs. These moms are ripped. Pumping iron when they’re not raising kiddos, these mamas could bench press you. The account has nearly 750,000 worshipful followers.

9. I dig Fashion Neurosis, an on-the-couch, pseudo-psychoanalytic interview series in which fashion designer, Sigmund Freud great-granddaughter, and Lucian Freud daughter Bella Freud interviews her fabulous friends about their fashion fetishes. Guests include Nick Cave, Kate Moss, and Stefano Pilati.

10. Lastly, later this week I’ll be publishing a newsletter about what happened when I went to a life drawing class (think: nude model), even though I can’t draw.

Thanks for reading The Reverse Cowgirl! If you enjoyed this, please subscribe, like, or share my newsletter. You can learn more about me, work with me through The Fixer, or buy my book. Let’s connect on X, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, and LinkedIn.