Tristan Taormino

Palm Springs: Imagine if the courtyard from Melrose Place were relocated to the desert, decorated with slings and spanking benches, and populated by leatherwomen. That's pretty much where I hung out over the weekend. I've been to hundreds of BDSM events, but I've never been to one quite like Desire......

I spent Memorial Day weekend reading submissions for the latest edition of Best Lesbian Erotica, the annual anthology I edit. Each year, I like to spot the trends in storytelling; it's like taking an informal poll of what queer women (and others who write about them) are jerking off to......

Recently, I wrote about Brian Lilla's independent film, A Tale of Two Bondage Models, which profiled BDSM performers Lorelei Lee and Princess Donna. The latter has been webmistress for WiredPussy.com (part of the Kink.com network of sites) for almost four years, and has directed and appeared in about 300 scenes......

I just got back from a weekend at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where I attended "Console-ing Passions: An International Conference on Television, Audio, Video, New Media, and Feminism" (filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/cpt v/cptv.html). It was three days of geeking out with academics about TV, the Internet, and various kinds of......

I spent my weekend watching transpeople fuck on film. A lot. OK, a lot is a relative term. I mean it took up a chunk of time, but there's not exactly an abundance of independently produced tranny porn around. In fact, there's a big disparity within the genre that breaks......

When news of Eliot Spitzer's link to a prostitution agency first broke, "Why Do Powerful Men Cheat?" stories sprang up all around us, from morning shows to the nightly news. Within the framework of the cheating-husband narrative, no one made the distinction between employing a sex worker and having an......

Brothers Jim and Artie Mitchell are sex-industry legends. They're best known for producing several porn films (including Behind the Green Door) and running the infamous strip club, the O'Farrell Theater. Opened in 1969, the O'Farrell occupied a unique place at the center of a burgeoning San Francisco sexual subculture. It......