The Reverse Cowgirl Diaries #1: Recent Perversions
Plus: "Is that the one with just her boobs?"
Le Sex Shoppe, shot by me in Los Angeles, late ’90s
Welcome to The Reverse Cowgirl Diaries, a behind-the-scenes look at my life as a sex writer and all the weird shit that entails. From my recent sexplorations to my current obsessions, this weekly newsletter takes you into the mind of someone who has seen too many porn movies. In RCD #1: Can Playboy Magazine stage a comeback? Why is Charli XCX singing about her underwear? Is an AI maple syrup stripper sexy if she comes with a stack of pancakes? Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share!
All the Sex News That’s Fit to Publish
This week, I published two stories on Forbes.com, where I cover the business of sex. In the first, “Etsy Banned Sex Toys, But It Can’t Ban Sex,” I looked at the e-commerce platform’s recent banning of adult toys from its listings. What remains for sale when you prohibit the average dildo? Of the adult wares I discovered, my favorites were this Dickolas Cage penis figurine that resembles Nicolas Cage and this fetish hood with a vagina where the mouth would be (how do you breathe in that thing?). After I published the story, I posted a link to it on LinkedIn. Shortly thereafter, my LinkedIn post was “removed for adult nudity and sexual activity.” [Link]
According to Etsy’s updated policy on adult content, pornography (including Playboy magazine) is prohibited, human models cannot expose their private parts (which includes their “gluteal clefts”), and the sale of sexual services and custom “content that sexualizes a specific body part” (“‘e.g. foot pics’”) are not allowed.
The other Forbes.com story I wrote was “Playboy To Bring Back Its Print Magazine With Annual Edition.” Yes, you heard it right, you will be able to buy Playboy in print and read it for the articles again. There’s a caveat, though. It’s only going to come out once a year. The first issue will be released in February 2025 in conjunction with Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. Also, they’re bringing back Playmates and Bunnies! Before halting publication of the print magazine altogether in 2020, the Playboy folks had flip-flopped between nudes and no nudes and back to nudes again. It remains to be seen if we’ll get nudes or not this time. [Link]
But the big question is not whether consumers will read still Playboy for the articles or the pictorials but whether or not it’s too little too late for an iconic brand that’s taken a beating in the marketplace and in the town square.
Yesterday, I went to my favorite Los Angeles newsstand and spotted a copy of Playboy that I assumed was not produced in America. It was a German issue. For a while, the woman working at the newsstand and I chatted. I told her Playboy was coming back in print, and she reminded me that towards the end, it was only coming out quarterly. We tried to remember who was on the cover of the final issue. I thought it might be the one with Kylie Jenner on the cover (it wasn’t—it was this one). “Is that the one with just her boobs?” the newsstand woman asked about the Jenner cover. Anyway, she said the last incarnation was too expensive and hadn’t sold. We’ll see what happens next time around. After all, analog is back, baby.
Me and Playboy magazine, a drone shot by Clayton Cubitt in Los Angeles, a few years ago
Recent Peversions
On a recent trip to one of my favorite used bookstores in Los Angeles, The Iliad Bookshop in North Hollywood, I picked up a copy of Robert J. Stoller’s Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred. If you’ve never read Stoller, I recommend Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century and Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-Rated Video.
From the description for Coming Attractions:
A psychiatrist and a screen-writer interview performers, writers, directors, producers, and technicians to reveal the technical aspects of making a porn video, the motivations and backgrounds of the people involved, and their view of the intended audience.
Because we’re all perverts, really
Next book on my to-be-read list: Neil LaBute’s The Money Shot: A Play.
In Medias Sexus
What am I working on? I’m glad you asked. The answer: so many things. For starters, I’m writing a novel set in the porn industry and a nonfiction book about the porn business. As far as upcoming stories, here are a few subjects into which I’m digging: the politics of forniphilia, YouTube nudity, a BDSM-themed alcoholic beverage, what sex toys and fast fashion have in common, breakfast daddies, and honest women. If you’ve got a story idea or a suggestion for The Porn Library, email me here.
Dirty Pitches
Because I write about sex, I get pitches from publicists. This week, I received two. One was from a company “integrating AI and tech to close the pleasure gap.” I did a Google search for the company. “Welcome to the sextech revolution,” the website told me. Basically, they produce high-tech sex toys. There was a masturbator for men that connected to your mobile phone and promised to be a “sophisticated automated masturbation machine for all humans with a penis.” I passed.
The other pitch came through my website’s contact form. The header suggested it had to do with butts. There was a new ad campaign, the email related, designed to “dispel taboos and fear of the derriere and encourage people to discover the dark side of their moon.” There was no link to the ad itself, so I had to track it down myself. The commercial had jokes about buttholes and space and astronauts and a frenetic montage of ass-focused visual double entendres. I passed.
Remember that time I had raunchy American Apparel ads on my blog? The digital ads starred the lovely Sasha Grey and showed nipples and pubes. You can see the original ads on Fleshbot (NSFW). Here they are censored.
Sasha Grey, forever
What I’m Obsessed With
I really like this hot track and new video: Charli XCX’s “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish. It’s about underpants. Yours, hers, everyone’s. Directed by Aidan Zamiri.
You wanna guess the color of my underwear
You wanna know what I got going on down there
Is it pretty in pink or all see-through?
Is it showing off my brand new lower back tattoo?
Quickies
“There’s a special place in my heart for a woman who wants to lovingly feed me creampies.” — some guy on Feeld
Pussy Island was a better title
“My boyfriend saw me through the eyes of a customer, the kind who doesn’t understand stripping as a performance of hypersexuality and hyper-femininity, and as professional entertainment.” — Edie Montana
You’ll never look at pancakes the same way again
“Mäkelä said that he wasn’t interested in creating yet another sex worker drama focused on trauma” — NPR
One more reason not to go to Texas
“Prosthetic penises were once used mainly for exaggerated effect – remember Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights? Now they’ve become the norm, with experts estimating that 80%-90% of screen penises are now prosthetics.” — The Guardian
Be careful out there, people
“I’m just like a man’s fantasy of the ideal woman, and I always get what I want.” — Amanda Lepore
Must-have-of-the-week: a blow up doll crossbody bag
From the Archives
Adult actress Houston, photographed by me in Las Vegas, 2013
I took this photograph of the adult actress Houston in a bathroom during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas in 2013. I had met her years earlier, watched her on the set of a movie in which she starred, wrote about her for Detour magazine. A few years later, I wrote another story about her, this one about her and the young man she was dating at the time, for Arena magazine: “The Graduate of Porn Star High.” I don’t remember what we said to each other in Vegas, but I always liked Houston. She seemed tough, like nothing could hurt her, as if she was invincible.
That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share this newsletter.
xox
The Reverse Cowgirl
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