See the complete, true, and full bio for Violet Blue.
Forbes: “Violet Blue is (…) nearly omnipresent on the Web”
Webnation: “Violet Blue is the leading sex educator for the Internet generation.”
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies: “America’s leading (very) public intellectual sexologist, Violet Blue.”
* Named: Wired’s Faces of Innovation 2008
* Awarded: SFBG’s Best of the Bay 2008
* Named: Forbes Web Celeb Top 25 2007
Salient facts: The best way to reach me is email: violet at tinynibbles dot com. For media appearances, I am represented by ICM. My literary agent is Kate Lee at ICM New York. To see my video and TV appearances, watch this demo video.
Bio: Violet Blue is a blogger, award-winning and best-selling author, podcaster, long-running web TV show GETV reporter, technology futurist, and sex-positive pundit in mainstream media (such as CNN and The Tyra Banks Show). Violet is the sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle with a weekly column titled Open Source Sex, and has a podcast of the same name that frequents iTunes’ top ten. Blue is also a 12-year SRL vet and robotic artist since 1996, and a Forbes Web Celeb. With a sex ed and media career spanning a decade, she writes about sexuality for media outlets such as Forbes, O: The Oprah Magazine and UN sponsored international health organization, RH Reality Check — while being a best-selling, award-winning author/editor of over two dozen books with many translations.
Violet lectures to cyberlaw classes at UC Berkeley, human sexuality programs at UCSF, tech conferences (ETech and SXSW), in addition to sex crisis counselors at community teaching institutions and Google Tech Talks. Her podcast is notorious and the most popular, most-downloaded sex podcast in the world: Open Source Sex, seen in Wired, Newsweek (MSNBC), The Wall Street Journal and more. Blue’s tech blog is techyum. She self-publishes DRM-free audio and ebooks at Digita Publications.
Blue has been a professional sex educator and tech futurist for a decade. She is a highly respected online sexual privacy expert; see also Google Tech Talk: Sexual Privacy, with over a million views. Her training includes over 80 hours of sex ed training courses, extensive reading and viewing curriculum, over 1000 hours of client counseling, and for over seven years she worked closely with women-run adult retailer Good Vibrations’ Education Department to write and develop their training and outreach materials (GV’s education staff trains a range of health care professionals including Planned Parenthood). Violet lectures to human sexuality students at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley and to trainees at national sex crisis and information hotline San Francisco Sex Information.
The Erotica Reader’s and Writer’s Association: “The majority of readers will know that Violet Blue is an icon in the world of erotic fiction; being a sex educator, columnist, editor and authoress, as well as having many other roles and accomplishments to her credit. She even reviews books, so the lady must be incredibly gifted.”
Of the above print titles, I have edited: Sweet Life: Erotic Fantasies for Couples (also in Italian), Sweet Life 2: More Erotic Fantasies for Couples (also in Italian), Taboo: Forbidden Fantasies for Couples, Best Sex Writing 2005, Best Women’s Erotica 2006, Lips Like Sugar, and Best Women’s Erotica 2007, Best Women’s Erotica 2008, Best Women’s Erotica 2009 (also in a Kindle Edition), Lust: Erotic Fantasies for Women and the upcoming title Girls On Top: Explicit Erotica for Women (all with Cleis Press).
Of the above print titles, I am the author of: The Smart Girl’s Guide to the G-Spot, The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn, The Ultimate Guide to Cunnilingus (Spanish, French, Russian, Turkish), The Ultimate Guide to Fellatio (Spanish, French, Russian, Turkish), The Ultimate Guide to Adult Videos and The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy, The Adventurous Couple’s Guide to Sex Toys, The Adventurous Couple’s Guide to Strap-On Sex (all Cleis Press) and Fetish Sex: An Erotic Guide for Couples (Daedalus Press). Awards and honors: Best Women’s Erotica 2006 (2006 Gold IPPY winner for Erotica); Best Women’s Erotica 2007 (2007 Gold IPPY winner for Erotica); The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn (2007 Bronze IPPY winner for Erotica).
Other people’s books: Of the above print titles, I wrote the introduction to Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z (Rachel Kramer Bussel). I am a featured contributor in Naked Ambition (Carly Milne), Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong (Russ Kick), Whipped: 20 Erotic Stories of Female Dominance (Carol Queen), and She’s Such A Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff (Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders), Best Sex Writing 2008 and upcoming Best Sex Writing 2009 edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, and 101 Sexy Dares by Laura Corn.
Digital publishing is an area in which I have several releases in audio books, e-books and Kindle Editions (Digita Publications and Cleis Press). My complete list of e-book titles include Open Source Sex Ed: The Complete Ebook Guide to Sex (ISBN 978-0-9799019-0-4), Sweet Heat: Explicit Erotica For Couples (ISBN 978-0-9799019-6-6), Erotic Role Play: A Guide for Couples (ISBN 978-0-9799019-5-9), The Modern Safer Sex Guide (ISBN 978-0-9799019-4-2), Creatures of the Night: Halloween Erotica (ISBN 978-0-9799019-3-5), and How to Kiss (ISBN 978-0-9799019-2-8). My complete list of audio book titles include Sweet Heat: Explicit Erotica For Couples, Erotic Role Play: A Guide for Couples, How to Kiss, Creatures of the Night: Halloween Erotica, and Open Source Sex Ed Audio: Pleasure Zone Basics (ISBN 978-0-9799019-1-1). Kindle Editions include Sweet Heat: Erotica for Couples, How to Kiss , Creatures of the Night (erotica), The Modern Safer Sex Guide, and Erotic Role-Play: A Guide for Couples.
* Forbes: Violet Blue: Forbes The Web Celeb 25. “From penniless bloggers to geek entrepreneurs, these are the biggest and brightest stars on the Web.” About Violet Blue, Forbes writes, Sex educator Violet Blue is the best-selling, award-winning author of over a dozen books on sex and sexuality, as well as the sex columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. She’s also nearly omnipresent on the Web, whether she’s writing for Metroblogging San Francisco, reporting for Geek Entertainment Television, contributing to Fleshbot.com or hosting Open Source Sex, one of the Internet’s most popular podcasts.”
* Feature in July 2007 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine — “Eyes Wide Open”, two-page article plus sidebar about porn for women, and celebrity contributor profile with photo side-by-side with Queen Latifah.
* Popular Open Source Sex podcast has been in and out of the iTunes top ten since inception; profiled in Wired, Newsweek/MSNBC (print + web) and featured on cover of business section of The Wall Street Journal with color photo. Average audience per show: 86,000. Total downloads, December 2008: 6,377,217. As of July 7, 2007, the podcast was ranked 9th in the iTunes directory.
* Columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate. Blue’s weekly column Open Source Sex appears on a weekly basis on SFGate.com,the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, a well-respected and long-running daily newspaper having a significant daily national and international distribution. SFGate.com is the sixth most popular newspaper website in the US, with a monthly audience of over four million unique visitors (according to Nielsen//Net Ratings).
* Website Tiny Nibbles and Violet Blue blog: over six million unique visitors yearly (over 1.5 million pageviews a month). Former editor and contributor to Gawker Media’s Fleshbot for three years (approx. 45 million pageviews a month).
* Blue’s video blog: About a quarter million downloads to date. She is also a video blog correspondent for long-running internet show, Geek Entertainment Television.
Assorted press highlights:
Playboy’s Hottest Female Bloggers 2008, Forbes 25 Web Celebs, PBS: Mediashift – The Week’s Top Five “People, Trends And Tech On Our Radar” (also,feature here); Cinematical: Podcast interview on Zack and Miri Make A Porno; Vloggies 2006 judge; Technorati Featured Favorite Celebrity; Wired News’ “2005’s 10 Sexiest Geeks“; Newsweek (print + MSNBC web) “Podcasting: Talking Dirty on Your iPod”; O (Oprah) Magazine interview/pull quote in 10/04 issue; Wired (print and web) “Adam Curry Wants to Make You an iPod Radio Star” by Annalee Newitz; The Wall Street Journal “Now Playing on Apple’s iTunes: Adult-Oriented Podcasts”; Web MD “Prescriptions for Sexual Frustrations” by Martin Downs, “Is Pornography Addictive?”; BBC Podcast (8/05 interview by Chris Vallance).
Lectures and panels:
* Panelist: The Erotic of the Machine, Arse Elektronika 2008 (international sex and technology conference, MP3)
* South by Southwest Interactive 2008 (SXSWi) moderator and panelist, “Sexual Privacy Online”
* Speaker: ETech 2008, “Sexual Identity Online”
* Speaker: Google Tech Talks 2008, “Abstinence Does Not Make The Heart Grow Fonder”
* Speaker: Google Tech Talks 2007, “Sexual Privacy Online” (1,397,088 downloads and counting)
* Panelist: Forbes Internet Leadership Forum 2007, “Web Disruptors”
* Speaker: UC Berkeley Law, Boalt – cyberlawyer and Professor Jason Schultz‘s Internet Law: “Indecent Speech on the Internet”. I spoke about cyberlaw and obscenity, 2257 and sex blogging (and sex in other Internet media).
* Panelist: South by Southwest Interactive 2007 (SXSWi) panelist, “Sex and Computational Technology”
* Panelist: South by Southwest Interactive 2007 (SXSWi) panelist, “Show Me The Money! Making Money From Independent Video Content?”
* Panelist: The Future of Sex, Arse Elektronika 2007 (international sex and technology conference)
* Speaker: Sexual Privacy Online, Arse Elektronika 2007 (international sex and technology conference)
* Panelist: Los Angeles Erotic Film Festival 2007, “Altporn, Demystified”
* Panelist: Sex In Video Games Conference 2006, “Turning On The Player”
* Webzine 2005 Panel “18 or Over Only: A Look at the Laws, Technology, and Style of Adult Sites”
* Panelist: Webzine 2005, “What is Podcasting?”
* UC Berkeley, talking to lit students about being a sex writer
* Panel: Women Who Make Pornography, moderator, The San Francisco Film Arts Foundation
* For six years, ongoing lectures at San Francisco Sex Information sex crisis hotline counselors on a variety of topics, several times a semester
* Dorkbot presentations “Bizzare But True Tales of Sex and Electricity with demonstration“; “Teledildonics with live demo” (BoingBoing link now dead)
* Electronic Frontier Foundation “BayFF Panel on Bloggers’ Rights” (7/05)
* Oral Sex for SF State’s Human Sexuality class
* Sex and Electricity: Bizzare But True Tales of Sex and Electricity, Dorkbot SF
* 9/11 Sex: One Year Later, panel discussion, First Freakin’ Fridays panel series
* The Girl’s Guide to Humping and Fisting, discussion panel, Harvey Milk Foundation
* The Women of SRL panel for the Tentacle Sessions’ Living Artists series — not sex-related, but I think it’s really cool
* Co-hosted with Carol Queen (for the SF Sex Worker Film Festival) MST3K-style clip show called Good Vibrations’ Midnight Sexsational Show
Online Video:
* South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2008 Studio Sx interview by About.com’s Cory Silverberg
* Webnation #9: Violet Blue and Andy Samberg (feature/interview)
* Sarah Meyers: Pop 17 episode about web celebrity (interview)
* Internet Superstar: Violet Blue (feature / interview)
* Speaker: Google Tech Talks 2008, “Abstinence Does Not Make The Heart Grow Fonder”
* Speaker: Google Tech Talks 2007, “Sexual Privacy Online” (1,397,088 downloads and counting)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Escape From Berkeley (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Inside the Musee Mechanique – Mechanical Amusements From the Past (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Twitterdildonic Stimulation (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Computer History Museum Interview with Leonard Tramiel (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Computer History Museum Interview with Commodore Computers founder and former CEO Jack Tramiel (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Sex Blogger Audacia Ray Gets Naked (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Violet Blue tells us what 2257 means to Tribe.net (interview)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Violet Blue probes Timothy Archibald over the sex machine (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Teledildonicist Allen Stein nails it with his Thrillhammer (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Graham Leggat Talks Film; Citizen Media (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Nerd Salon and Roomba Cockfights (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: RoboGames: Monty Reed Shall Walk (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: RoboGames 2006 WrapUp (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: Roboexotica 2006 in Vienna (host/reporter)
* Geek Entertainment TV: More Cocktail Robot Madness from Roboexotica 2006 (host/reporter)
* Make: Podcast: Survival Research Labs Walkthrough (guest appearance / interview)
TV:
* CNN (interview as precursor for upcoming “Point: Counterpoint” on women watching porn)
* The History Channel’s “Sex in History” series; comments on the state of vibrators today.
* Playboy’s Sexcetera (#60)
* The Tyra Banks Show (2007; women watch porn; I was the show “expert”) Video here; link to site is NSFW.
Print Media:
I can’t keep track of all this…
Print magazines: Blender (June ’04; quoted twice as Ult. Videos author and porn journalist) * Cosmopolitan (1. interview comments; 2. 7/03 editorial endorsement of Sweet Life) * Cosmopolitan (UK) * Esquire, many times including (1. porn recommendations in Answer Fella 8/03; 2. cunnilingus tips in 07/04; Lance Armstong issue featured my fellatio book in Amazon.com spoof of then-new Clinton book) * Forum (UK) * For Women First * Glamour (twice, cited as sex expert) * GQ * Grace Woman (Nov/Dec 2003 issue; Sweet Life featured in sex column) * Jane (March 2006) consulted and thanked for nine porn recommendations in Kate Torgovnick’s “How to Build a Sex Library” * Marie Claire (April 2006: “Sex by iPod, editorial plug for my Open Source Sex podcast in “Sex Confessions” article; also many featured comments over the past seven years in various sex articles. One feature included my photo.) * Maxim * Men’s Fitness * Men’s Health (1. interview comments for “Sex Taboos” article 03/03; 2. more comments re: Ult. Videos 01/04; 3. sex tips to “Jump Start Your Sex Life” April ’05) * Newsweek: (print + MSNBC web) “Podcasting: Talking Dirty on Your iPod” * On Our Backs * O (Oprah) Magazine (feature pull quote in 10/04 issue re: women’s and couples’ sexual fantasies and featuring my fantasy anthos/guides) * Penthouse (UK) huge 5-page interview with me on porn for couples * Penthouse Forum February 2006, featured heavily in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s article on adult podcasts, “Adult Podcasts: the XXX Wave of the Future” (no link for such a great article, so sad) * Redbook * Scarlet UK: January 2006; positive book reviews of Best Sex Writing 2005 and Best Women’s Erotica 2006 * Squirm * Venus Spring 2006: feature on my podcast with color photo * Wired (print and web) many times, including “Adam Curry Wants to Make You an iPod Radio Star” by Annalee Newitz.
Local Bay Area weeklies: The East Bay Express (paper bought by New Times, link defunct) * The Berkeley Daily Planet (before they thought links were important) * The San Francisco Bay Guardian, many times like a full interview, plus “By the numbers: Our top 20 favorite things about sex this year” and named Best of the Bay 2008; San Francisco Bay Guardian “Pod People: SF’s Podcasters” (article, interview, print version with lead photo in color).
Newspapers: San Francisco Chronicle “Hot, steamy and now downloadable: Aural sex shimmies into the podcast as ‘podnography’ trend takes off” (featured in article); “MORSE CODE
Filmmaker’s podcasts tap people’s urge to talk about their sex lives” (celebrity mention in awful article)
* San Jose Mercury News (cited as expert re: feature on women watching porn, July 2005, link now dead — what is *with* these dailies that they can’t maintain a website!?); “Smut goes wireless; critics sound alarm” (March 06)
* The Wall Street Journal: “Now Playing on Apple’s iTunes: Adult-Oriented Podcasts”
Web:
Really too numerous to be complete…
* Cinematical: James Rocchi – Podcast interview on Zack and Miri Make A Porno
* Nerve’s Em and Lo: The Bedpost Interview: Violet Blue
* CBS Healthwatch.com (quoted in women and online porn article, link expired)
* Eros Zine Interview With Violet Blue by Thomas S. Roche
* Fleshbot/Valleywag/Gawker (many posts)
* Forbes 25 Web Celebs 2007
* PBS: Mediashift – The Week’s Top Five “People, Trends And Tech On Our Radar”
* PBS: Mediashift – Google Search Snafu Can Have Huge Impact on Niche Blogs
* Salon.com (quotes, “Battlebots in the Bedroom“), positive review of my book, Best Sex Writing 2005, “The Joy of Sex Writing”
* Men’s Health “32 Ways to Jump Start Your Sex Life”
* MSNBC/Newsweek “Podcasting: Talking Dirty on Your iPod”
* National Public Radio (NPR) “Eyeing Robots at Survival Research Labs” by Xeni Jardin
* San Francisco Bay Guardian “Pod People: SF’s Podcasters” (article, interview, print version with lead photo in color)
* San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) “Hot, steamy and now downloadable: Aural sex shimmies into the podcast as ‘podnography’ trend takes off” (featured in article); “Morse Code:
Filmmaker’s podcasts tap people’s urge to talk about their sex lives” (celebrity mention in really awful article) — I am now the Chronicle’s sex columnist.
* San Francisco Examiner, PJ Corkery’s gossip column, entry “Auld acquaintance cheer lazy last days”
* San Jose Mercury News (feature quotes in large print article on women and porn July 2005, link now dead — what is *with* these dailies that they can’t maintain a website!?); “Smut goes wireless; critics sound alarm” (March 06)
* Savage Love – multiple appearances including a feature on one of my books, a guest advice appearance, and judging, “Winners of the masturbation horror story contest”
* Technorati Featured Favorite Celebrity
* The Wall Street Journal “Now Playing on Apple’s iTunes: Adult-Oriented Podcasts”
* Too Beautiful, The Blog “What Are You Working On” interview
* Village Voice, multiple times, such as “Threesome Mania” by Rachel Kramer Bussel
* Web MD multiple times, “Prescriptions for Sexual Frustrations” by Martin Downs; “Is Pornography Addictive?”
* Wired (print and web, many times in US and UK versions) “Adam Curry Wants to Make You an iPod Radio Star” by Annalee Newitz; “Tech Heads Drop Trou for a Friend” by Danit Lidor; “It’s All in a Name“, “Just Between Us Girls” by Regina Lynn; Wired News’ “2005’s 10 Sexiest Geeks“; cited and quoted numerous times in their “Hard Drive” column/feature
* Yahoo! News “Kids’ Ability To Access iPod Porn Raises Concerns” (February 06)
* Adult Friend Finder “Ultimate Sex Tipper”
* BoingBoing [Violet Blue’s] “Guide to unsafe sex products“(*post deleted*), [Violet Blue’s] “HOWTO surf adult material online safely” (*post deleted), “Xeni Tech on NPR: SRL’s robotic mayhem” (*post deleted), “Lego Abu Ghraib” (*post deleted), “Violet Blue’s Teledildonics show-‘n’-tell photoblogged” (over 100 more as of July 2007, all posts deleted for unknown reasons)
Radio:
* BBC Podcast interview (8/05; interview by Chris Vallance); also SXSW 2008 sexual privacy feature interview
* National Public Radio (NPR) “Eyeing Robots at Survival Research Labs” by Xeni Jardin
* Sirius OutQ Radio: The Derek and Romaine Show. Numerous times including live studio appearance; former regular monthly appearances as the show’s “official porn reviewer.”