Shine So Bright

We gotta wear shades

Image credit: Clayton Cubitt

In this week’s edition of The Reverse Cowgirl: Stoya gets spotted on a rooftop by a voyeuristic drone, feminist AI art gets pretty naked and really weird, an abortion clinic gets blessings bestowed upon it, Matt Gaetz’s sexts get revealed, and more.

1. The above image of actress, author, and activist Stoya was taken by my dear friend and brilliant photographer Clayton Cubitt using a drone. In fact, this is part of a drone’s-eye-view series he’s done featuring happy-to-be-seen sunbathers (he even shot me). For more of his work, from smokin’ bikini babes to his iconic onanistic Hysterical Literature videos, follow him on Instagram or visit his website.

2. Did you know Playboy used to publish in braille? According to welcome.jpeg:

   “In 1970, Playboy made history by publishing a Braille edition for blind readers. It was the first mainstream magazine to create a special version for the visually impaired. The Braille Playboy contained the same content, including interviews and articles, though without pictorials. It became the 6th most read publication by blind readers. While short-lived, running just a few years, it increased accessibility and set an important precedent for other magazines to follow.”

   If you’re looking for a copy, Mate Gallery has the September 1989 issue for $495. Or, thanks to the Internet Archive, you can read it (well, sort of) online for free.

3. Recently, I picked up the latest issue of Art in America and read an interesting essay by Emily Watlington about feminist artists who have adopted AI to create sometimes hideously sexy images of women, including uncanny valley nudes. I was particularly intrigued by the work of Swedish artist Arvida Byström, who uses nudifying apps to manufacture new versions of her body with, say, her boobs on her back or an arm that is also a leg or “In one image, her vulva is contiguous with her loud pink unitard, making her whole body vulval.”

4. Behold, “The Still Life of a Peach.” From set designer Shona Heath. I have no idea what's going on in this video or if it’s even sexy, but I find the rotting fruits divine.

5. The Reverse Cowgirl, who is me, was absolutely delighted that Susie Bright is now a reader of this newsletter. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and when I was in college, I encountered Susie’s work for the first time. A sex writer, a woman who lives life on her own terms, a sex worker advocate, and an all around bad ass—this is the kind of person I want to be, I thought. Years ago, at a book reading at a bookstore in Berkeley, she graciously agreed to autograph my breasts and a friend’s breasts when we asked. Subscribe to Susie Bright’s Journal.

6. The New York Times has an interesting text-and-photographs story about a rural Western Maryland abortion clinic that was ritually blessed by a Baptist minister, a Presbyterian pastor, and a Jewish cantor. “They blessed the exam tables and their stirrups, the boxes of disposable gowns and the cushioned chairs in the recovery room, where women are moved after their abortions.” The purpose was to demonstrate “religion could be a source of support for abortion rights.”

7. Director David Lynch has done something new and weird with nudes, reports Dazed. Apparently, he’s taken vintage nude photographs and distorted them digitally. The result is textbook Lynchian: freaky, haunting, and surrealistic. “Described as ‘peep shows for the psyche,’ the photos in Distorted Nude Photogravures also speak to Lynch’s obsession with darkness and liminality.”

   

8. Sometimes I get emails about casting calls. Newly down the transom is “A NEW DATING SHOW NOW CASTING SINGLE MEN & WOMEN open to AGE GAP LOVE!” Do you wish you were the next Leonardo DiCaprio and Vittoria Ceretti? Do you dream of being the new Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall II? If either of those sound like you, apply to be a reality TV sugar daddy or cougar.

9. Pseudo-politician Matt Gaetz is in trouble. What started out as a simple probing turned into a House Ethics probe. How did it go so wrong for this guy who looks like I would not even buy a used car from him? To everyone’s embarrassment, his maybe sex-related-ish texts with women (girls?) have been made public. They are awkward and weird. The Daily Beast has shared them. Purportedly, he paid one female student $1,500 so she could take an online class. She responded: “You are the best human to walk the earth.” I guess that’s what $1,500 buys you, Matt.

10. On a personal note, I have learned that an approximately 5,000-word short story I wrote about a sexagenarian who discovers an adult movie is being filmed in the house behind his has been accepted for publication by an online magazine. I look forward to sharing a link to the story when it’s available. It’s based on my personal experiences standing around on real-life porn movie sets.

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