As reported on Gawker and in my inbox, the spraycan huffing editors at the Village Voice have suddenly axed one of my favorite (and in my opinion, one of the best American) sex columns: Rachel Kramer Bussel‘s Lusty Lady. I’ve always been able to count on her column for the latest sex trends, excellent writing, fierce sex-positive and grrrl-positive opinion and — might I say — some damn good sex column competition from the east coast. But no longer, and we should all be very, very sad. The Voice clearly has its head past its prostate. I mean, just read Rachel’s Fucking and Feminism: Blowjobs, Casual Sex and Rape Fantasies are Under Attack to see what a good thing they’re losing.
Here’s the thing: there are not all that many sex columns around the nation, and certainly few with, ahem, balls. To have a writer like Rachel on staff writing about sex is to have something enviable: who she is and what she brings as a writer and culture critic makes her a *valuable property* — especially on the internet, a tool she seriously know how to mix, bake and frost into delicious viral marketing cupcakes that everyone always seems to want. And unlike many other sex column writers (print or web) she knows a fuck of a lot about sex and sex culture (up to the minute), and importantly, she knows how to *talk about it*.
Evidently the Voice doesn’t get a lot of what’s going on here, which is so sadly typical of le MSM. On monday I did a three-hour taped interview with a big technology research and development company: they wanted to see what technology I used, how I used it, and to show them how I move information and ideas on the Internet. The interviewer had a great quote afterward, saying about MSM trying to understand blogs: “It’s like they’re renaissance critics trying to review street art. They’re jealous, and they don’t get it.”
The Voice doesn’t get it. So who will? Who should snap up Rachel for a sex column? Not Playboy or Hustler — tired, yawn. Spin tried to have Joanna Angel do a column, but that lasted a month: maybe Spin could get it right with an *actual sex writer*. Seems to me that one of these men’s or women’s magazines ought to have a real, hip sex writer working for them instead of the usual debutante biddies they have cranking out the same old, same old articles about how the ladies can “get a fella” or the dudes can “get her to [watch porn, blowjob, anal sex, threesome] with you”.
This is a sad day for the rest of us, who loved the Lusty Lady column and looked forward to it. Rachel — let them eat cupcakes.
