More videos from True Sex Confessions Night

More In The Flesh True Sex Confessions, this time from the fabulous playwright Courtney McLean (watch her make out with herself is hilarious!) and novelist Valerie Frankel who opens with a Woody Allen quote as she reads from her essay in Paula Derrow's forthcoming anthology Behind the Bedroom Door. And who can forget comedian and former 30-year-old virgin Lianne Stokes's "What's up, bitches?" greeting.

You really need only look at the expression on Courtney's face below to want to watch her talk about "the s word." I think I will do another True Sex Confessions later this year, because it's such a crowd pleaser. More video sex confessions coming soon.

My True Sex Confessions reading

Me reading on April 18th, 2007 at True Sex Confessions Night at In The Flesh. I will soon post the text of some of the anonymous audience True Sex Confessions and have more video from that night for you soon. This is part of an essay called "Where Sluts Fear to Tread" that will be published in Lisa Solod's forthcoming Seal Press anthology Desire: Women Write About Wanting.

In The Flesh on YouTube

Coming soon (like, hopefully, this weekend) are videos from True Sex Confessions Night at In The Flesh! (You will be able to hear what comes after "On my 31st birthday, I gave my boyfriend two blowjobs..." from my essay in Lisa Solod's forthcoming anthology Desire: Women Write About Wanting.) In the meantime, here's me and a few other readers from a very early In The Flesh, as well as Marcy Dermansky reading from her novel Twins on October 19, 2006 at In The Flesh. Enjoy!

Veronica Vera reads at In The Flesh

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Originally uploaded by brianvan.

Crossdressing academy guru and all-around awesome woman Veronica Vera wowing the crowd at True Sex Confessions Night at In The Flesh.

Chelseagirl and Dan Goldman have posted the stories they read at True Sex Confessions Night.

Photo by Brian Van - see the rest of his Flickr set from that night.


Technorati Profile

What happens at In The Flesh...

Obviously gets blogged about ad nauseam.

Here are a few photos from April 18th's True Sex Confessions Night by Stacie Joy, namely Courtney McLean making out, Lianne Stokes getting laid, and me giving a blowjob. Figuratively of course. I don't know about the other two ladies but I don't have any photos of me doing that.

Uncoolkids reviews In The Flesh

Tim from Uncoolkids came to In The Flesh last night and, I'm happy to report, had a great time:

All the writers who read were good or great. From stories of accidentally winding up in a porn with Annie Sprinkles, to “the time I banged a clown,” nearly everything had me either crying with laughter or honestly touched. Stories of sloppy sex elicited goofy grins, while hearfelt examinations of ones own sluttiness had me sighing with sympathy. Rachel really does a fabulous job of bringing together a solid group of erotic readers without ever dipping into the seediness or fakey cheese-factor I tend to associate with all things porn.

The crowd was packed into the space, seemed fixated on the speakers the entire time, and were obviously having a good time. If you’re cruising for swingers or someone to give you a different sort of happy ending, you might find a few freaks (I mean that in the nicest possible way) in the crowd, but most people just seemed like highly-literate, normal, geeky people who happen to enjoy sex and fun.

Click on the link about for Chelseagirl's take on the reading and the text of her clown-fucking story.

It was a fabulous night, if I do say so myself, and I just might have to schedule another True Sex Confessions night in the fall since it's such a big hit with the crowd. I will also be posting audience members' anonymous true confessions here soon, so look out for that. I didn't have time to read them all but we got some great ones. We'll also have videos up soon on the site and on YouTube of most of the readers for those who missed it (or just want to relive it).

Next In The Flesh: May 16th

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16TH at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676

A diverse mix of authors and styles take erotica to a whole new level, from fiction to romance to letter-writing, mystery, and more. Featuring Sarah Iverson (Iris, Messenger), Jackie Kessler (Hell’s Belles), Min Jin Lee (Free Food for Millionaires), Samara O’Shea (For the Love of Letters, letterlover.net), Jerry Rodriguez (The Devil’s Mambo) and Dana Vachon (Mergers and Acquisitions), along with host and curator Rachel Kramer Bussel (She’s on Top, He’s on Top, Caught Looking). Free candy and mini cupcakes will be served. Authors’ books will be available for sale by Mobile Libris.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Andy Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from Escape (Hong Kong), The L Magazine, New York Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited 13 erotica anthologies, most recently He’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Male dominance and Female Submission, She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmo UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Sarah Iverson writes comic essays about vibrators, Buddhism, and duck confit. She also writes novels for children under the name Sarah Deming. Her first novel, Iris, Messenger, will be published in May by Harcourt. It tells the story of Iris, a twelve-year-old girl who meets the Greek gods in suburban Philadelphia. Before she was a writer, Sarah was a Golden Gloves boxing champion, a chef, and a yoga teacher. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Ethan.

Jackie Kessler is the author of Hell’s Belles, a story about a succubus who runs away from Hell, hides on Earth as an exotic dancer, and learns the hard way about true love. Sex, strippers, and demons⎯what's not to like? Contrary to popular belief, Jackie did not work her way through college by stripping. She did, however, offer to buy her husband a lap dance, all in the name of research. Jackie lives in upstate New York with her husband, two sons, two cats, and 9,000 comic books.
www.jackiekessler.com



Min Jin Lee went to Yale College where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She then attended law school at Georgetown University and worked as a lawyer for several years in New York before leaving to write full time. She has received the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Her work has also been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and anthologized in To Be Real (Doubleday, 1995) and Breeder (Seal Press, 2001). She lives in New York with her husband and son. Free Food for Millionaires, her first novel, will be published by Warner Books on May 22, 2007.



Samara O'Shea has been writing letters since the restless age of seven. She launched LetterLover.net in April 2005 to save the art from extinction. The website led to her first book For the Love of Letters: A 21st-Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing from the Elegant to the Erotic (HarperCollins, May 2007). Her work has also appeared in Woman's Day, Country Living, All You, and Pittsburgh magazine as well as the online magazines HappenMag.com and Hackwriters.com. She has appeared on Today in New York and on National Public Radio's the Kojo Nnambi Show.
www.letterlover.net



Jerry A. Rodriguez is writer and director whose plays have been staged Off-Broadway at the Actor’s Studio, The Nuyorican Poet’s Café and The Village Gate, among others. Rodriguez’s groundbreaking short film, El Deseo/The Desire, was produced under the sponsorship of Columbia Pictures and premiered at the prestigious Film Society of Lincoln Center. Rodriguez has a three-book deal with Kensington Books. His debut novel The Devil’s Mambo, is the first in the Nicholas Esperanza crime thriller series. He also has short stories appearing in the upcoming anthologies Darker Mask and Bronx Biannual 2.
www.jerryarodriguez.com



Dana Vachon was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, and raised in Chappaqua, New York. His first novel, Mergers and Acquisitions, was published in April by Riverhead. He attended Duke University, graduating, as he claims, "cum nihilo" in 2002. Following graduation, Vachon landed a job at J. P. Morgan as an analyst and began work on this novel. His writing has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, Men's Vogue, The New York Times, and Salon.
www.jsspenser.com

Tonight is True Sex Confessions Night!

I'll be reading from my oh-so-2006 essay "Where Sluts Fear to Tread" from Lisa Solod's forthcoming anthology Desire: Women Write About Wanting, to be published this fall by Seal Press. Audience members can also share their true anonymous sex confessions, to be read aloud by me between readers.

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
TRUE SEX CONFESSIONS NIGHT
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18 at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

The second annual True Sex Confessions night features an all-star roster of artists, bloggers, and writers, including Chelseagirl (Pretty Dumb Things blog), Valerie Frankel (The Accidental Virgin, Hex and the Single Girl), Dan Goldman (“KELLY,” Shooting War), Peter Hyman (The Reluctant Metrosexual, “Group Therapy” show), Logan Levkoff (Third Base Ain’t What It Used To Be), Courtney McLean (“Normal-C, “Super Glossy!”), and Veronica Vera (founder and author of Miss Vera’s Cross-Dress for Success, Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to be Girls). Hosted by erotica writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel (He’s on Top, She’s on Top, Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2). Audience members will have the chance to share their anonymous true confessions throughout the night. Free candy and mini cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Andy Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from Escape (Hong Kong), The L Magazine, New York Magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.



Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited 13 erotica anthologies, most recently He’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission, She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmo UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark.
www.rachelkramerbussel.com



Chelsea Girl began her blog, Pretty Dumb things, in March of 2005. Her writing has been featured in the UK magazines Scarlet and Modern Woman and on Audible.co.uk. She won the Best Female Sexblogger 2006 award from Dirtyspoke.com. While Chelsea Girl maintains that she is a writer of a blog with sex, not of it, the world seems to disagree. She, rather predictably, lives in Chelsea, where she is working on several long and overwhelming writing projects.
Prettydumbthings.typepad.com



Valerie Frankel has written thirteen novels, including The Accidental Virgin, The Girlfriend Curse, Hex and the Single Girl, and, for teens, the Fringe Girl series. Her new novel, I Take This Man, was released in March 2007. She also writes a lot about sex and dieting (sometimes at the same time) for magazines such as Self, Glamour and Allure. She's lived in Brooklyn for nearly twenty years, has two daughters, three cats and one husband, the opera singer Stephen Quint.
www.valeriefrankel.com



Dan Goldman is a writer, illustrator and designer of mostly comics. The artist behind Shooting War, the upcoming graphic novel from Warner Books, Dan is also a founding member of the daily comics anthology ACT-I-VATE, where he writes and draws the damaged romance Craigslist thriller "KELLY". While known primarily for his work in the comics medium, writing prose is his first love. He lives in New York City.
dangoldman.net



Peter Hyman is an author and journalist who happens to do some comedic performing on occasion. He is a contributing writer for Radar magazine and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Details, New York Magazine and Slate.com, among others. He is the author of The Reluctant Metrosexual: Dispatches From An Almost Hip Life and is at work on a satiric novel about post-war Iraq.
www.pdhyman.com



Logan Levkoff always hoped to become the voice of the next generation of sexually healthy young women. She began her career in sexology as a peer AIDS educator in high school and she hasn't stopped since. Today, Logan frequently appears on television, including Oprah, VH1, Fox News Channel, and The Today Show. She also serves as the sexual advice columnist for many magazines and websites. Logan is the spokesperson for Trojan , and is the author of The Espresso Dating Guide, a project created by Starbucks and Yahoo!Personals. Her first book, Third Base Ain't What it Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today and What They Can Still Learn to be Sexually Heathy Adults will be published by NAL in October 2007.
www.loganlevkoff.com



Courtney McLean's solo performance work 'accomplishes the highest moral function of theater: to promote understanding' as well as totally nerding out on stage. Courtney's first show, "Normal-C" debuted in San Diego to sold-out houses in 2002 (after the discovery that auditioning for other people's stupid plays sucks) and was toured to Washington, DC and Minneapolis, MN last summer after a stint at the Triad in NYC. The new show, "Super Glossy!" a sci-fi satire on women's magazines, just debuted at the NYC Frigid Fest and is preparing for flight across the nation this summer. Courtney lives in East Harlem with her cat and her vibrator.
www.courtneymclean.com

Lianne Stokes has a really hard time with numbers. She was always awful at math. Which means that she's constantly overdrawn in her "WAMU" checking account. A budding quirky creative type, she’s been doing stand-up on the New York indie scene for five years. Known for her high-energy style, she appreciates that "Dudes think she's funny." Most recently Lianne's had the pleasure to write and workshop her solo show, "Unrequited," around town. Oh! She's also got a blog. Yes! And, she's super proud that said blog is often linked by Gawker.com.
Liannestokes.blogspot.com



Veronica Vera is the author of Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls: Tips, Tales and Teachings from the Dean of the World’s First Crossdressing Academy (Doubleday) and Miss Vera’s Crossdress for Success, A Resource Guide for Boys Who Want to Be Girls (Villard). Miss Vera’s Academy is in New York City. Brochure and application upon request. (212-242-6449).
Missvera.com