A year ago, you all joined me in a Russian Bathhouse, stripped down to your skivvies, and listened to readings on desire. Many of you made friends that night; some even fucked.

It was the first time I met the Pleasure-Seeking community in real life, and it won’t be the last. Our next event is on Saturday, April 25th in a giant warehouse building in Chelsea.

This time, I’m teaming up with Queer Punk Outlaws and the most talented artists, writers, and performers in New York City for an all-night variety show. Expect over-the-top performance art, punk bands, live music, and knock-down, drag-out showdown in the ring.

There will be live readings from Caroline Calloway, , , , , , Anika Jade Levy and more—plus, a VIP afterparty with outrageous and intimate burlesque performances you’ll be talking about for years.

We’ve set aside a limited number of tickets for Pleasure-Seeking’s paid subscribers. They start at $50, and they’re selling fast.

Once this drop sells out, we raise the price and open it up to the public—which means you should get them now, or risk missing out.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS
Saturday, April 25th - 6:30-late
530 W 27th St, New York, NY

There’s a ticket link below, but you need to be a paid subscriber to access it. Upgrade here.

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On Saturday, April 25th, I’m teaming up with some of the most exciting creatives in New York to stage Pleasure-Seeking’s next event: an all-night takeover an iconic Manhattan venue that was once home to Sleep No More, and before that, legendary nightclubs like Twilo and The Sound Factory.

Taking place across multiple floors, Enemies to Lovers is a night of burlesque, brawls, and risqué readings. It’s nine hours of nonstop entertainment—a full night’s sleep, I’m told, though I haven’t had one since I started planning this event!

My friends at Queer Punk Outlaws throw the best underground events in Brooklyn, and we’re teaming up to put on a show you won’t soon forget. You will laugh, you will cry, you will tell your friends about it for months to come.

Here’s a preview of what you can expect:

Pleasure-Seeking & Queer Punk Outlaws present
“Enemies to Lovers”
Saturday, April 25th, 6:30PM-late
530 West 27th Street, New York NY

Readings & Burlesque

We’ll start off at 6:30 with cocktails in The Red Room, a dimly-lit lounge where you’ll be treated to titillating burlesque acts and steamy readings from writers like , , , , and . I’m keeping the full lineup secret for now, but expect writing on romantic rivalry, sexual tension, and spectacular public feuds—including a special dispatch from .

Brawls & Bands

From 8:30 onward, things get physical. Downstairs in the ring, enemies (and lovers) will go toe-to-toe in a series of over-the-top performances that will leave you ready to kiss, fight, or both.

During the show, you’ll be free to explore, breaking away from the action to talk, flirt, and drink. Meet new friends, lovers, or maybe your next nemesis.

Midnight Show + VIP Afterparty

We’re saving our sexiest and most scandalous acts for last. After 11, we’ll come together in the Red Room for a late show with even more intimate, boundary-pushing performances—from Shibari to sword-swallowing and sideshow spectacles. There will be rope play (inside and outside the ring) ad things that I can personally guarantee many of you have never seen.

This is a special offering for those who want the chance to mingle with some of New York’s coolest (and hottest) writers, creatives, and performers til 4 AM. VIP tickets get you access to the full night’s programming and the afterparty—plus a mezzanine view and other special perks.

More importantly, they’re a great way to support our communities. If you’re a true patron of the arts, you might even consider getting a table.

🎟️ TICKET LINK BELOW THE PAYWALL.

As a paid subscriber to Pleasure-Seeking, you get early access to tickets. So if you want to reserve your spot (and get preferred pricing!) before our first release sells out, upgrade your subscription now and secure a ticket at the link below.

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On Saturday, April 25th, we’re taking over a sprawling performance space in Chelsea and transforming it into a world of desire, sensuality, and spectacle. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure style journey across multiple floors—inside the former home of New York’s most legendary immersive theater show.

But instead of donning masks and wandering quietly through scenes, you’ll be turned loose inside Enemies to Lovers: a night of burlesque, brawls, and risqué readings on desire.

Upstairs in the Pleasure-Seeking lounge, burlesque royalty will entertain and titillate with boundary-pushing performances—in between steamy stories of sexual tension from our favorite writers in New York. I’m even teaming up with my friend Tom Frazier of Queer Punk Outlaws to stage real rivalries in the ring (yes, there will be a ring.)

Afterward, we’ll have an intimate late-night show with even more salacious acts. And all night, our hospitality partners at the Oberon Group will keep the drinks flowing and serve up an array of aphrodisiac-inspired eats.

Tickets drop Wednesday, April 1st at 3pm EST.

Enemies to Lovers
Saturday, April 25th, 6:30pm-late
530 W 27th St, New York, NY

Paid subscribers will be the first to receive the lineup and ticket link—so upgrade now to make sure you don’t miss it!

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Pleasure-Seeking events have always sold out, with a 400-person waitlist for the bathhouse reading that Page Six called “the hottest spot in town.” The next one—an intimate literary salon at Hotel Chelsea—was just as unforgettable, and sold out even quicker.

Which means that you should set an alarm to check your inbox, and start sending this poster to your friends, enemies, and soon-to-be-lovers.

Thank you for being part of the Pleasure-Seeking community. I can’t wait to see you there.

xx Camille

All January, I’ve been asking people about their New Year’s resolutions—specifically, whether any of them involve sex. It’s the kind of question that throws people—both because it’s personal, and because so many resolutions are designed to be self-punishing, hinging on discipline and goal-setting rather than pleasure or connection. But to my delight, quite a few people I asked did have some sexy resolutions! From embracing mutual masturbation to finally getting pegged, strangers have been expounding on the sexual futures they imagine for 2026—and I can’t help but wonder whether these fantasies reflect broader trends and cultural undercurrents shaping our desires.

This year, Feeld has once again asked me to cast my eye on the horizon, drawing from their 2025 Feeld Raw report, popular porn searches, social media trends, and the insights of those around me to divine what this year has in store. You loved it when I did this last year, and to my genuine delight, many of the predictions were right on the money—from the rise of romantasy and supernatural smut to a notable increase in work-themed porn.

For Pleasure-Seeking’s second collaboration with Feeld, I’m reprising my role as sexual trend forecaster and dreaming up six takeaways from 2025, and six predictions for where the zeitgeist is headed in 2026. You can read the full story below, or check it out here on Feeld’s website.

Gen Z is hot for sports content—even before Heated Rivalry

According to the data, 2025 was a big year for sports, with Gen Z’s interest in tennis, soccer, basketball, and fitness rising 300-600%—even before a certain gay hockey show became a global sensation. Originally produced for a small streaming platform on a shoestring budget, Heated Rivalry has since become a word-of-mouth hit, spurring lookalike contests, reality TV spinoffs, and a cultural obsession bordering on collective psychosis.

I predict…

Increasing interest not just in sports-related porn, but also in erotica, fanfiction, and audio porn. Yaoi, enemies to lovers, slow burn—all these tropes were beloved by the fanfiction community long before Heated Rivalry came along and pushed guy-on-guy erotica into the mainstream. Now that new audiences are discovering the appeal, I predict growing demand across new content categories and mediums, and a broader resurgence of smutty entertainment.

We’ve already seen this in recent years, with erotically charged movies like Challengers (a sexy sports-related romp) and Babygirl (a kinky co-worker romance) scandalizing box offices worldwide. It’s no wonder Heated Rivalry—which combines both of these things, in a forbidden romance between teammates—was such a hit!

It’s catnip for modern audiences, not just because we’re starved for actually sexy, real-life dynamics, but because it romanticizes the struggles of situationships—making the familiar ache of a doomed romance feel more noble because it’s the result of societal conditions, not personal failings. Incidentally, I think we’re going to see a lot of people crawling back to their toxic exes… But remember that, unlike gay hockey players in the 2010s, your sneaky link probably isn’t battling the stigma of coming out as queer; they just have attachment issues. Stay strong, soldiers, and do not text them!

Apparently, everyone wants to get pegged now

Well, not everyone, but a lot of people. Specifically straight men. According to Feeld’s data, interest in pegging has surged 200+%. Anecdotally, a few straight men told me it was on their sexual bucket list this year, framing it as a way to embrace vulnerability and overcome shame.

The term pegging was originally coined by Dan Savage to reference a heterosexual woman penetrating her male partner with a strap-on. But no matter who you’re penetrating, this trend involves toys, which just so happens to be among Feeld members’ top 3 growing interests. As Dr. Luke Brunning suggests in their official analysis, this could be seen as a sign of normalized pleasure, broadening definitions of masculinity, and the fact that these activities are finally destigmatized, nudging the culture gradually toward a healthier model of masculinity. Or maybe people are just horny. Either way, it’s clear more men are willing to admit that, as Shane Hollander says in Heated Rivalry, “they’d rather be the hole than the peg.”

I predict…

Rising numbers of men identifying as a submissive, switches, bottoms, or even femboys, which was one of Pornhub’s top searches last year. Healthy masculinity is in, and—not to keep bringing it back to Heated Rivalry—we’ve seen a massive response to videos where men embrace their feminine side, express affection for one another, or otherwise model warmth and vulnerability.

Speaking of which…

Femdom is on the rise

Maybe it’s just my For You Page (telling!) but recently, I’ve been seeing a shift from women seeking a “high value man” and “provider archetype” to those craving a service sub, or simply a golden retriever boyfriend willing to give them the world. Last year, we saw an embrace of female submission à la Babygirl; now, I’m seeing an increasing number of videos where women are calling the shots. First, it was the old clip from Jerry Springer where a hot, very short woman tells her extremely tall, masc-looking counterpart to “Stay,” almost growling the word; he immediately drops to one knee in an act of reflexive submission, suggesting an established dynamic between them. Then, it was a woman walking her clown down the street, or spitting water on her (thrilled) sub as they debated what constitutes “bare minimum” or “princess treatment.”

Okay, yes, I may be in an algorithmic rabbit hole. But judging from the comments on these videos, many people find the dynamics at play appealing, and after years of tradwifery, I’m excited to see universal desires—like being cared for and supported by a partner—channeled into less heteronormative, politically regressive frameworks. There are many ways for people to demonstrate devotion, so instead of defaulting to the established norm, one might ask: Do I want a high-value man to provide for me as his stay-at-home girlfriend, or do I want a service sub who gets off on cleaning my kitchen?

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The queer community has always led the charge when it comes to embracing desires outside the cultural norm—and lacking the expectation that all sex should culminate in penis-in-vagina intercourse, it naturally follows that both parties will need to discuss what they like and what they want. Which is why I think it’s exciting that, among male-female couples, we’re finally witnessing a cultural sea change from the tradwife fixation of the past. It’s about time: While “just a girl,” “girl math,” and “girl dinner” seemed harmless during the U.S. Biden administration, the increasing infantilization of women—even in joking ways, like those videos where they’re baby-talking and acting helpless around their boyfriends—doesn’t sit well with me as our reproductive rights are gradually stripped away. You know what does sit well with me? Partners making my life easier, and anticipating my needs. Hot!

I predict…

More “female-led” relationships and heterosexual or male-female couples experimenting with gender roles, along with increasing interest in other consensual, transactional erotic dynamics.

A return to analog dating, IRL meet-cutes, and personal matchmaking

Will Feeld kill me if I mention dating app fatigue? Well, I’m doing it anyway! We all know people are fed up with the apps, which is why companies like Feeld are investing in in-person events. Of course, people will still be swiping. But while dating apps provide an easy way to find, as they say, hot singles in your area, I think that digital burnout and an influx of ChatGPT-assisted flirtation will herald a resurgence of more analog methods, from The Cut’s recently launched personals section to simply setting up your friends. Recently, I helped to orchestrate not one but two successful meet-cutes, and I must report that getting your friends laid is an amazing feeling, second only to getting laid yourself.

I predict…

We’ll keep using the apps, but there will be a blurring of the boundaries between apps intended for dating, and those slated for professional and social use—from people seeking jobs on dating apps to asking each other out on Facebook Marketplace, which actually happened to me the other day (flattering, especially since he bought my bed frame for full price).

A merging of sensual and spiritual

In the chaotic landscape of modern life, it’s understandable to crave a higher power. To divine meaning from our lives, some of us turn to astrology or organized religion; others achieve a sense of agency through techniques like manifestation, a process of retraining the brain to achieve goals. There’s some scientific backing for this, but it has, in recent years, been applied in a series of increasingly non-scientific ways, from TikTokers touting the benefits of “lucky girl syndrome”—adopting the mindset that the universe conspires for your success—to orgasmic manifestation, which purportedly harnesses the power of orgasm to achieve your dream life.

I dove headfirst into this world when reporting a piece on orgasmic manifestation for Bustle, and while I’m not sold on the magick side of things, I do think there’s something to be said for taking an intentional, ritualistic approach to sex—even if the end result isn’t one million dollars, but simply getting honest about what you want.

I predict…

With the world in turmoil, I think we’re going to see more of an intersection between sex, manifestation, and spirituality—the good, the bad, the delulu. After all, if everything from your job to your apartment to your savings account feels like it’s hanging in the balance, and secular solutions just aren’t cutting it, maybe it’s time to turn to unholy means.

New York is making everyone bisexual

According to Feeld’s data, New York City has the fastest-growing bi population, and increasing numbers of people are identifying as heteroflexible—a term I don’t love, but one that feels accurate for many. Sexuality is a spectrum, baby, and the only reason to be certain you’re heterosexual in 2026 is if you’re a Republican. Just try it! I didn’t sleep with a woman until my early 20s, and I’m still making up for lost time.

I predict…

Bisexuals are going to become more visible, and in general, we’re going to see more queer representation in media, art, fashion, and, hopefully, real life. Now more than ever, as they say, we need spaces to be ourselves—and amid the political upheaval of the past month, I’ve found real joy in the free-spirited revelry of underground queer wrestling matches and burlesque shows, where moments of joy and self-expression intermixed with heartfelt acknowledgements of the situation we’re all facing. We’ve also seen numerous instances where sluts, sex workers, and sex educators lead the charge on mutual aid, like the Minneapolis sex shop that became a community hub and resource for those affected by ICE raids.

As Audre Lorde writes in Uses of the Erotic, the power of eroticism goes beyond simply personal pleasure—it’s the ability to awaken ourselves to what actually feels good, and to notice how often the systems we move within aren’t designed to support a more embodied, sensual way of life. She describes the erotic not as mere sexuality, but as a creative and spiritual force for self-knowledge, joy, and political action. Why, then, shouldn’t our New Year be full of sex? Sensuality connects us to ourselves and to others. It builds intimacy. It’s life-affirming, and it helps us push back against our own feelings of powerlessness, isolation, and disconnection.

It’s at least as important as waking up early, journaling, or going to the gym—and, arguably, great sex is even more rewarding. So this year, arrange a meet-cute for your friend. Kiss a bisexual. Tell a man to kneel—and quite possibly bend over. Grab a sex toy. Manifest your next win. And above all, have fun.

XOXO

Camille

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This piece is part of a special collaboration with Feeld. You can read last year’s predictions here on Pleasure-Seeking, or on their website.

Stay safe out there, and I’ll be back to you tomorrow with more Pleasure-Seeking.

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My power didn’t surge during NYC’s snow storm, but thanks to the Mayor’s endorsement, downloads of Heated Rivalry did. “I can think of no better excuse for New Yorkers to stay home, take a long nap, or take advantage of our public library’s offer of free access to Heated Rivalry on e-book or audiobook,” Mamdani said during a winter storm briefing; afterwards, downloads of the gay hockey show soared 1057 percent, and applications for NYC library cards doubled compared to this time last year.

In Minneapolis, a sex shop called the Smitten Kitten is stepping up to provide mutual aid for neighbors targeted by ICE. As Tess Garcia reports for Playboy, the small business has provided goods like food and diapers to countless immigrant neighbors who can’t risk leaving their homes after two Minneapolis residents, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by ICE. (You can read my friend ’s call to action, and check out her anti-ICE posters and drawings here.)

At first blush, a sex shop seems an unlikely place to seek refuge, but marginalized groups are often experts in mutual aid and community building. As content creator Jess Olivia Fox put it in the piece, “The witches and the atheists and the sluts and the strippers and the sex workers are the ones that are stepping up, and making sure everyone’s involved, not just people who look like them.”

Pornhub is taking a stand against age verification law, and restricting access to new UK users starting today. This act of protest comes in response to new laws that took effect last July, requiring users to submit personal data to verify they’re not minors—including age-estimating face scans, ID document uploads, and credit card checks.

“This is a totally egregious government overreach, and with this type of data collection, a breach isn’t a matter of if but when,” says porn historian —noting that these online ID checks “not only fail to prevent porn consumption, but actively make it harder for people to consume porn responsibly, pushing people away from good-faith, legal porn sites (like Pornhub) and towards platforms that have no intention to follow rules and regulations of any kind.”

It’s not that Pornhub doesn’t care about child safety. Recently, its parent company Aylo partnered with sex writer to produce “a crash course in talking to kids about the internet” and prevent kids from accessing age-inappropriate materials. And before pulling access, they proposed a device-based solution where personal data wouldn’t be stored and submitted to a third-party site. But as Noelle argues here, the rhetoric of “child safety” is often used by legislators to mask more sinister motivations for unconstitutional surveillance.

If you didn’t get enough gay sex from Heated Rivalry, have no fear—Grindr’s got you covered. To their surprise and delight, attendees of designer Willy Chavarria’s recent runway show were treated to an unexpected opener: a screen displaying the play-by-play of a Grindr chat conversation, setting the tone for a collection that centers queer desire. One model even hit the runway in mesh boxer from Willy’s upcoming BIG WILLY line, carrying his phone with Grindr open.

If you’re shocked, don’t be: Grindr’s had a foot in fashion for a while, including collaborations with CHRISHABANA and Rainbow Wool, whose collaborative collection “I Wool Survive” featured 37 items knit from the wool of gay sheep. This show was not only a blast—I was there, and it culminated in a raucous dance party—but also an animal rights win: As I learned, about eight percent of rams exhibit same-sex attraction, which is viewed unfavorably by farmers who use them for breeding; as a result, these gay sheep are often sent to the slaughterhouse. Rainbow Wool’s solution has been to buy gay rams from farmers directly, outbidding the price they might receive from a slaughterhouse, harvest their wool, and use it to create some truly creative knitwear.

You might be wondering: But how do you know the sheep are gay? Well apparently (and I am just now learning this) aroused sheep exhibit what’s called a Flehmen response: curling their lips back, tipping their heads, and taking a deep breath to flood the sensory organ on the roof of their mouth with sex pheromones.

“They do this all the time,” said farmer Michael Stücke of his 35 male sheep, in an article for The Guardian. “It’s undeniable that they’re attracted to each other.”

You learn something new every day. Like for instance, did you know that Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams once starred in a freaky short film called Dogging, where he played a human man who pretends to be a dog for cash? It was the first thing I watched when I woke up this morning, and I just know I’m going to have a good day.

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On a separate note: I’ve been sick for the better part of this month (boo!) but have a lot of content planned for the coming weeks, so now is as good a time as ever to upgrade. You get the full Pleasure-Seeking experience—including exclusive stories and first access to event tickets—while also donating to a good cause.

If you’d prefer to donate directly, here’s a Minneapolis-based community kitchen, and some GoFundMes raising money to support families and construction workers targeted by ICE.

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XOXO

Camille

An essential part of this project has been a curiosity about how desire manifests in real life—and the more time I spend in these spaces, the more convinced I am that the pursuit of pleasure is a lens into so many bigger questions: loneliness, power, gender, technology, capitalism, intimacy. I’ve found myself in rooms I couldn’t have imagined a year ago, but somewhere between the flights, deadlines, and late-night debriefs with friends, I forgot to post about a lot of it.

So in the spirit of the new year (and accountability), I’m sharing the moments that defined 2025 for me—many of which will become stories here in the year ahead. Consider this a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what I’ve been up to, and a preview of what to expect from Pleasure-Seeking in 2026.

2025 was the year Pleasure-Seeking became real—taking on a life of its own and pulling new people, opportunities, and experiences into my orbit. It’s also the year we went from a newsletter to a real-life community, with IRL events that have been called “both vulnerable and fun” (Dazed), “buzzy” (PAPER), “unforgettable” (Office Magazine), and “the hottest spot in town” (Page Six).

With the help of Substack, I hosted a sexy, steamy literary reading in a Russian bathhouse, which also meant MC’ing a 100-person event in a swimsuit (thank you, beta-blockers). It required vulnerability from me, but also from the audience—all of whom stripped down on a Tuesday night to listen to readings about desire in a room full of strangers. The energy in the room was magnetic, and notably, almost no one was on their phone.

Our next Pleasure-Seeking event—a literary salon–meets–burlesque show at the historic Chelsea Hotel—was just as thrilling. It showed me that this isn’t just a newsletter, but a community of cool, sexy people who are willing to get out of their comfort zone, take a risk, and push the boundaries of their social world. I’m told multiple people got laid as a result of these events, and am now cooking up some plans for Valentine’s Day—so if you want to sponsor/collab, hit my line.

I started 2025 with a fire ceremony at the Chelsea Hotel—burning a note with the things I want to let go, and writing down what I want to hold onto—and ended it with another kind of fire ceremony: an act by my friend Lydia Lux, one of several fabulous people who gifted me performances at my 31st birthday party.

Somewhere in between, I spent a weekend at a legal brothel in Nevada and interviewed the courtesans. I partied with Ottessa Moshfegh at the Chelsea Hotel, and danced my ass off at the one-night revival of Studio 54. I went to fetish fashion parades and queer gangbangs, BDSM workshops and erotic hypnosis demonstrations. I even spent a week at sea, reporting a story I truly can’t wait to share with you.

I participated in a BDSM speed dating event at a Parisian dungeon, shadowed Erika Lust on a porn set in Spain, and attended more than a dozen sex parties—from international fetish events to upscale New York soirées and an erotic brunch at a polyamorous commune. I also spoke with male virgins at stoplight-style singles mixers, interviewed 70-year-old swingers, and spent time at a “girlfriend experience” video game cafe, where a kinky “play party” turned, instead, into a pop-punk dance party. Here’s the only documentation I have:

Back in New York, I got splashed with trash water at an underground queer wrestling match (worth it), went to the nude sauna with people I love, and narrowly avoided riding the Cyclone at Coney Island after my friend told me he rode it eight times in a row to get over heartbreak.

There were plenty of misadventures too: ending up in a Miami ER right before an important travel assignment, getting stuck in an elevator at an immersive theater event with ten other people, and getting pepper-sprayed in the face by a complete stranger that same week. I lost my favorite beret in Montreal, found it on a French girl’s head, then lost it again on the Paris Metro. I cried a not-insignificant amount, avoided emails I owe people (sorry), and became briefly, unhealthily obsessed with finding the perfect apartment (hmu if you have any leads.)

Somewhere amidst all this, I wrote nearly 50 stories—for Pleasure-Seeking, and for magazines like Playboy, ArtReview, Hyperallergic, and Elephant, where I launched a column called Figure Study. Some of the most exciting pieces aren’t even out yet, but here are a few favorites I haven’t mentioned yet:

• A deep dive into the unspoken etiquette of apartment sex—told through my own dispute with a prudish neighbor, interviews with Pleasure-Seeking readers, and some truly hilarious 311 calls. This one was so popular that Substack stats are telling me it was shared multiple times in ~drumroll please~ Slack.

• A feature on how economic pressures are shaping sugar dating in 2025, from so-called “salt daddies” to the men skipping meals to keep up.

• A very personal essay on desire, emotional labor, and the quiet cost of performative sex in Babygirl.

• An essay for ArtReview on fetish, capitalism, and sex as a way of seeing—and subverting—the consumerist imagination.

• A reported feature on how people are using AI to explore taboo kinks—from chatbot dominatrixes to alien fantasies. This one’s in the latest issue of Playboy, edited by the genius .

I was profiled for the first time in Byline, a magazine I love—and couldn’t have chosen a better person for the job than fellow sex writer , who you should follow on Substack here.

My work was also written about in places like Dazed, PAPER, Page Six, Office, Autre Magazine, and Marie Claire, which called Pleasure-Seeking “the hottest reading material” and me “the modern-day Carrie Bradshaw.” TBH, the experience of being perceived on this level always throws me for a loop—but that visibility has also led directly to new opportunities. So if you’re one of the people who’s taken the time to shout out my work, support me directly, or pull me into an exciting project, THANK YOU.

I’m giving you the highlights reel, but there was also grief and loss on a scale I can’t quite describe. If 2024 was a series of hard knocks, then 2025 was about the all-encompassing, harrowing, and ultimately rewarding work of self-reinvention—something that wouldn’t have been possible without all the wonderful people in my life. Sometimes, it’s the little gestures that stand out, like how when a painful anniversary aligned with Easter, my friends staged an egg hunt at the Chelsea Hotel to cheer me up.

I interviewed somewhere between fifty and one hundred people this year—sexologists and sugar daddies, porn directors and virgins, orgasmic manifestation experts, incels, and everything in between. I walked into so many rooms (and in one case, onto a literal ship) having no idea what to expect, and for the first time, felt that my work reflects who I am and the very particular way my brain is wired. I’ve felt very burnt out, and very lucky, often at the same time.

I’ve been surprised and overjoyed to find that desire thrives in rooms few people are talking about—that, in traveling the world to find them, I’ve been exposed to communities and subcultures I didn’t know existed, that are more interesting to me than the sexual discourse that’s mediated through our screens. I feel like I’ve just barely scratched the surface, and I can’t wait to keep hunting for the most exciting stories no one’s telling in 2026.

This year, I’m manifesting an abundance of opportunity—plus the time and money to make good on the projects I’ve started. I’m relaunching the Pleasure-Seeking video podcast soon (watch this space), and continuing to work on numerous somewhat-secret projects across events, writing, and film.

Every paid subscriber makes it possible for me to get into the kinds of rooms where the best stories are born, and to write about them with the time and care they deserve—so if you want more Pleasure-Seeking in your life this year, now is a great time to upgrade.

Thank you, truly, for being part of this community. I can’t wait to share 2026 with you.

XOXO,
Camille

This entry follows a black-tie, Eyes Wide Shut-style party in Manhattan; an unexpected run-in with an ex; and what happens when you go from observing an exclusive sex party to participating in it. If you’re a family member, please skip this one. And if you’re a casual reader who enjoys these more diaristic pieces, upgrading your subscription for $6/month or $60/year is the best way to keep them coming!

At the same-day tux rental on 36th and Broadway, the attendant, Wayne, doesn’t know what to make of my boyfriend. In a sea of hedge fund guys and finance bros getting fitted for weddings, Devin—with his long hair, sleeveless Smashing Pumpkins tee, and visible tattoos—sticks out like a sore thumb.

“You know this tux is $260, right?” Wayne asks, clearly profiling Devin as someone who would be surprised and dissuaded by learning this information.

“Yes,” Devin says. Wayne, disappointed, makes a note on his clipboard.

“What’s the occasion?” he asks.

“A party,” Devin says.

“What kind of party?”

“A masquerade party.”

“Like a gala?”

“No, like an Eyes Wide Shut–style masquerade party.”

“Okay, so a gala.”

Wayne has clearly never seen Eyes Wide Shut.

Three hours later, we’re boarding the L train in full black tie. “I bet we’re the only people taking public transit to this sex party,” I remark, lifting my floor-length Norma Kamali gown to step over a rogue pizza box. On the train, the carabiner lesbians and avoidantly attached Bushwick boys eye us with distrust.

This is my second time attending one of these events, and Devin’s first; having heard about it a few years ago, he’s eager to see what all the fuss is about. Over the familiar droning voice of the MTA—and the buzz of a Saturday night out—I explain that he should temper his expectations; I’m going to this sex party for work, after all. “Sure,” he says good-naturedly, adjusting his mandatory bowtie.

The party is in an unmarked event space in lower Manhattan, so unassuming that I almost think we’re in the wrong place. Until I see the bouncers dressed in all black, and a handful of couples in formalwear chugging coffee from styrofoam cups. The bouncer, an imposing man with a large clipboard, turns to address Devin. “Name?”

“Actually, it’s under my name,” I say. He’s visibly surprised. Not a lot of women pay to attend sex parties, and especially not this sex party.

“Oh, so you’re her +1?” he says, bemused. “Lucky man.”

Inside, we strip off our masquerade-style masks and check our phones, a requirement for entry. The attendant tells us the night’s theme is “Wall Street in the 80s,” which explains the sunglasses indoors—and why my heels skid as I duck under the velvet curtain, failing to gain traction on a floor slippery with fake hundred-dollar bills.

We make our way to the bar. Near the drink line, I spot a silver bar cart full of dildos, sunglasses, and condoms emblazoned with the party’s illuminati-like logo. Sunglasses in one hand, I accept champagne with the other. It’s served off a silver platter, but in a plastic glass.

In the main room, barely-dressed women gyrate on a circular stage. We crowd in close as a femdom in black latex teases her female submissive, glancing performatively at the crowd. Then she takes out a slip of paper, places it on the woman’s chest, and writes something in black Sharpie. She lets it fall to the ground like a mic drop; I spot the words “GOOD GIRL” in all caps.

“I’m going to go change,” I tell Devin, and disappear to the bathroom, where I eavesdrop while wrestling with my impossibly complicated lingerie set. “I’m so glad you’re here and not asleep!” one woman exclaims to another outside the stall. “Are you just, like, so horny because you’re pregnant?” They swap details of their third-trimester sex lives; then another girl appears, adopting the singsong voice used by women complimenting each other in bathrooms: “That’s so cute,” she coos. “Where did you get it?” “Oh, Amazon. It’s like 34 dollars, and I’m pretty sure it all comes from the same place.”

Afterward, I rejoin Devin and make a lap around the space. It’s populated by people in various states of undress, but there aren’t many beds, and for a sex party, surprisingly few people are fucking on them. Seeking the center of the action, I pull some strings to get into the VIP area, where things finally start to get interesting.

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Happy Halloweekend!

In the spirit of the season, I’m writing to you with a spooky special edition of Figure Study, the art column I co-publish with Elephant Magazine. It’s an intimate conversation with my friend Tony Notarberardino about the erotic history of New York’s Chelsea Hotel, which he’s been living at and documenting for 25+ years.

From famous basketball players jerking off to Helmut Newton to twincest, sex parties, and rooftop burlesque shows, Tony regales us with the true stories behind his wildest portraits—and what it was actually like to live in the Chelsea during its illustrious heydey, with Dee Dee Ramone as a roommate. I recommend clicking through to read this post on the website, as it’s too long for email and you don’t want to miss even one of these photos.

On the sixth floor of the Chelsea Hotel is a door like no other. With its brass lion knocker and technicolor paint, it stands out among its neatly renovated neighbours: a relic of another era, when the hotel housed artists and eccentrics of all stripes.

Painted by the Australian artist Vali Myers—who could be found wandering the halls with her pet fox on her shoulder—it often prompts curiosity from the hotel’s current guests, who pay top dollar to stay in a building steeped in history. “There’s not a day that goes by when someone doesn’t take a picture, or knock and ask me about it,” says Tony Notarberardino, the Australian photographer who took over the apartment from Vali in the mid-nineties. “I always try to be generous, to take them in and show them around. People are curious about the hotel’s original residents, and now, there aren’t many of us left.”

The Chelsea still attracts artists and creatives, serving as a destination for parties, book launches, and runway shows. But it’s residents like Tony—the hotel’s unofficial photographer, and unsung hero of New York nightlife—who keep its legacy alive, carrying forward the spirit of radical creativity that made the hotel a haven for artists exploring the outer limits of sexuality.

From Robert Mapplethorpe’s groundbreaking, sexually-explicit nudes to Leonard Cohen’s famous Chelsea Hotel No. 2, many of the works of art created at the Chelsea were inspired by desire. And when Tony moved in, the Chelsea still served as an erotic underground—a space where individuality reigned, and queer sexuality was celebrated long before it made it into the mainstream.

In his series ‘Chelsea Hotel Portraits’, Tony captures the spirit of the era, taking bold, black-and-white portraits of the people he encountered using a large-format, 8×10 film camera. The series features legends like Dee Dee Ramone, Arthur C. Clarke, and Debbie Harry, alongside a revolving cast of characters less talked about in the history books: dominatrixes, burlesque dancers, and escorts, who Tony photographed with as much care as the hotel’s celebrity guests.

For this special edition of Figure Study—a column co-published by Pleasure-Seeking and Elephant Magazine—Tony joins Camille Sojit Pejcha to discuss the erotic history of the Chelsea, the ghosts haunting the hotel, and how he’s keeping its subversive spirit alive after all these years.

Camille Sojit Pejcha: You’ve been documenting the Chelsea for over twenty-five years. What was it like when you moved in?

Tony Notarberardino: Back in those days, there was such a great community of artists here that was really inspiring. It’s impossible to quantify what the hotel has given the world on so many levels—different artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers. And it was like that for the last fifty years, right through the Beat Generation, the rock and roll of the sixties, punk rock in the seventies and eighties, and then the nineties.

When I moved in, there were constantly things going on—creatives living here, community discussions in the lobby, people getting together and having dinner parties. I just stepped into this world. Then I started photographing them, and that’s when the Chelsea opened up to me. Because then, you know, I’d get people over here and hear their stories, and I’d find out a lot more about the Chelsea than I ever knew.

You documented the hotel through the people, not their surroundings. Why did you choose that artistically?

Shooting in that section of the apartment, you can see it’s the Chelsea Hotel, but you don’t get any clue what my apartment’s like. That was the intention: I wanted to focus on the people who make the hotel what it is, so they were the heroes of the story.

In that spirit, I think it would be great to hear a little about the people in these photos. Right now I’m looking at Bonnie, shot on Thursday, February 23, 2006, at 9:30 PM. How did you two meet?

Bonnie was the night receptionist; she lived here, and that’s how she paid her rent. Every day, she put on a big redheaded wig and spent all day getting dolled up before her shift. She was a showgirl from the 1950s, and that’s how that picture came about—it was one of her old costumes. We found it after her room caught fire. I helped her wash and dry-clean what was left of her clothes, found that old showgirl outfit, and said, “Bonnie, we have to!” To get her like that was a real coup—you never saw her without her wig.

I love that you photographed not only the celebrities and famous artists, but the staff. You also have a lot of photos of the dominatrixes, drag queens, and escorts who worked here, as well as queer icons and burlesque performers some people might recognize.

Yes—Rose Wood, for example. She lived on the seventh floor, next to Susanne Bartsch and Stormé DeLarverie. Back then, I knew Rose by another name—she was an art restorer, one of the top in her field, and mostly kept to herself. But one day, during a big drag event, she came out of the elevator with this huge wig and sparkly miniskirt. I didn’t even know who she was! I followed her out and asked for a portrait, introducing myself. She looked down and said, “You know me.” I went, “That’s you? Holy fuck!” And then she became Rose, and for the next twenty years, I documented her transition.

Didn’t you have a similar experience with Susanne Bartsch, where you knew each other but didn’t recognize her?

Yeah. When we met, she was raising her son, not doing much nightlife. Then one night, I saw her dressed up—I was in the lobby, and Susanne came out of the lift with an entourage, looking incredible. I nearly fell over backward! But to be fair, I don’t think Susanne recognized me for the first five or ten years we knew each other. Now, of course, we’re very good friends.

Except when you’re having parties.

Oh yeah—she’s the only one who complains about the noise. Her bedroom is above mine, and you know what my bedroom can be like at five in the morning…

What does she even say to you?

It’s like, “Tony, who the fuck’s your DJ? They’re playing shit music. Your bass is too loud. Can you turn it the fuck down? I’m trying to get some sleep.” I’d always get these texts and show people, and they’d be like, “Are you fucking kidding me? She’s throwing the biggest parties in town and she’s complaining about your noise?” It’s hysterical. But you know, it was all in good fun—I’d meet her in the street and she’d laugh and say, “If you’re gonna play music that loud, play some good music at least.”

We have the original floors—they didn’t replace them like in the new hotel rooms—and the walls are so thick that they actually retain a lot of the sound. Back in the sixties, the musicians used to love it here because they could play all night and no one would hear them. When I moved in, Dee Dee Ramone was living in the room next door. He called it the Australian Wing because Vali Myers was from Australia, and then I moved in.

How was Dee Dee as a roommate?

We were friends as much as anyone was—you couldn’t really get close to him because he was living this crazy life. I’d come home some nights and find him asleep outside on the doorstep, and we could get on each other’s nerves. Back then, I had a record player, and if he was making noise at three in the morning, I’d put the Ramones on really loud. I’d count down from ten, and sure enough, he’d be yelling at the door, like, “Turn that shit off!” It was a funny party trick.

The room we’re in now used to be Dee Dee’s, and before that, it was Vali’s. Do you know much about what happened here in Vali’s time?

Vali had her own universe. She attracted so many interesting people—Salvador Dali, Tennessee Williams, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithfull all hung out here. Patti Smith really idolised Vali; she wrote about it in Just Kids, and it was when she was living in my room that she tattooed that lightning bolt on Patti’s leg.

These days, there’s a whole new generation of people fascinated with the place because of Patti Smith, I guess, and stories and nostalgia in general. And the people who are fascinated with it are fanatics—it’s a real obsession. Not a day goes by that I don’t find someone outside my door, taking pictures of it.

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I mean, that was painted by Vali, right?

The door, the murals—it was all there when I moved in. And in the elevator a couple of weeks ago, I met an old woman who said that she and her husband had walked around the hotel and were fascinated by the history. They were looking for the original apartments, and seeing doors like mine really meant something to them.

It’s a portal to that whole history.

Yes. It’s one of the oldest pieces of art created at the Chelsea that is still at the Chelsea, since so much of it was destroyed or renovated.

The Chelsea was also the home of a lot of queer icons, like Candy Darling and Stormé DeLarverie, who’s said to have thrown the first punch at Stonewall. You have a picture of Stormé here, with a black eye—do you know how that happened?

Well, Stormé’s story was that five guys jumped her, and they all came off worse—three ended up in the hospital, one punched her in the eye, the others ran off. You didn’t mess with Stormé; she carried a snub-nose revolver strapped to her leg. That was her nickname, Snub Nose 38.

You know, I’ve done a lot of interviews, and no one’s ever asked me: “Has your life ever been threatened while taking these portraits?”

Well, was it?

Yeah! Once, in the middle of the night, my door was broken down by two guys with baseball bats looking for negatives. I’d shot their girlfriend earlier that evening—an erotic portrait—and when she got home that night, she regretted doing a nude. She told her boyfriend, and these guys literally kicked the door down and threatened to bash the shit outta me unless I gave them the negatives.

It wasn’t the first time. Once I took a picture of a guy smoking crack. Turns out he was a famous baseball player, then retired. But it was known that he was a crossdresser, even while he was playing. He was here with some friends partying, and one guy pulled out a gun. He’s like, “What are you gonna do with these pictures? You’re not gonna fuck up my boy, right?” I told him, “No, this is an art project.” He said, “You’ve gotta get a release form from him.” I’m like, “Well, he’s locked in the bathroom smoking crack.” I knocked, and he’s yelling out asking if I had any porn magazines ’cause he wanted to jerk off. He opens the door asking me for something, and I don’t have anything—just a Helmut Newton book. I thought, “Oh well,” and gave it to him, which seemed to be enough.

A real art appreciator! Speaking of porn, how did you meet Buck Angel?

I met Buck when they were filming a porn movie at the hotel. I didn’t know much about him until we sat down and talked, and he told me his life story—showing me pictures from when he was a supermodel in his early twenties. And now, to look at Buck, it’s just phenomenal.

Some of these portraits were years in the making, and some took ten minutes. There’s no rhyme or reason to how it happens. Sometimes, you have to get to know someone and gain their confidence, and other times Ie just meet someone spontaneously and go, “This is what I’m doing. You interested?”

Tell me about the portrait of Grace Jones.

Abel Ferrara had moved into the hotel and made Chelsea on the Rocks with cameos of the famous stories—Sid and Nancy and all that. Grace Jones played the nurse who came to help Nancy. Back then, paramedics were often nurses, I guess.

It’s like a meta Chelsea portrait.

Exactly—like a Russian nesting doll. Grace was there because of Sid and Nancy’s story. She finished shooting at 5:00 AM and came up to my room, and as soon as I saw her in that costume, I already had the picture in my mind.

What about the Porcelain Twinz? Are they actually sisters?

Yes, they’re identical twins from Portland, Oregon. They were a big deal when they hit New York, performing at The Box and doing hardcore sex acts with each other on stage. They’ve got a fascinating story: separated young, lived apart for years, and both independently went into sex work. When they met again, they realized how much they had in common and started performing together.

I met them at a fetish party at the hotel, then shot them again around 5:30 AM. Those were pretty normal Chelsea hours. The artist community lived at night, ‘cause that’s when artists work best. And sex workers too—they all worked at night. Most of my portraits were taken between midnight and 6:00 AM. That’s why I include the timestamp, because it’s part of the story.

What’s the story for Franco and Manuela?

That’s one of my favorites—the stripper and the pimp. They were from Berlin and ran this club, Lesvos Vampirious, that did sixties soft-porn–inspired nights with go-go dancers, projecting old movies on Super 8 onto the girls in the cages.

Now burlesque girls get tipped with dollars, but back then it was rare. When I saw Manuela with all that money in her G-string, it stuck with me. I told her to come back to the Chelsea and leave the dollars in, because I’d never seen that before. Even now, when I see it, it reminds me of that portrait.

You also shot a lot of early burlesque icons, like James Tigger! Ferguson.

Yes, Tigger was a huge burlesque star, and he used to do sex parties at the Chelsea. I met him through Norman, who lived in the pyramid apartment on the roof and opened the Slipper Room downtown in the nineties. That was the start of the burlesque resurgence, and a lot of them lived at the Chelsea. Norman would have burlesque shows on the roof in summer, in his garden, and I met everyone through him.

What about Damien, the one with the sword through his cheeks?

I met Damien at the Slipper Room. One night, James called and said, “Oh, you gotta come down and see this new act.” I knew it was gonna be good, ’cause James doesn’t often say that, so I went down to the Slipper Room, and it was really one of the first times I’d ever seen someone put a sword through their face. He’s lying there with fifteen-inch syringes through his arms, and I’m standing on the side of the stage looking, like, “Are you fucking kidding?” I just transcended watching his whole performance. When you first see it, it’s almost like you can’t watch it, but you want to.

And next thing I know, James is standing next to me, and he’s like, “Tony, I need to ask you a favour.” And I’m like, “What?” He goes, “That guy on stage has been staying with me for four or five days, and if he comes home with me tonight, my wife’s gonna divorce me. Can he stay at your place?” And I’m like, “That guy?The one that’s on stage putting these needles through himself?” Damien ended up staying about a week, and we became really good friends. But he was, you know, pretty crazy. He literally didn’t get outta that clown makeup. He came back from the Slipper Room all bloodied, and these guys don’t even shower. They’ve got blood on their face from the performance and clown makeup, and they wake up the next day and do it again.

That was your first time seeing that kind of sideshow act, but now you host them all the time in your living room.

Yeah, because it was through Damien that I met Anna Monoxide. Through her, I was kind of introduced to the whole world of sideshow—the Coney Island connection—which started to interest me a lot more than burlesque, because by that point, it was becoming saturated. Sideshow’s much more photogenic too; I mean, it’s so visceral.

It provokes a response.

You see it in my shows. I mean, Anna always gets such a reaction when she performs a pincushion act—some people leave the room, some pass out. It’s really confronting. Burlesque is great, but it doesn’t make you pass out, you know?

It’s one of the things that feels so true to the Chelsea’s history—that you would still have this boundary-pushing, avant-garde sexual performance art taking place here, after all these years.

That’s the spirit of the Chelsea: always pushing art, no matter what medium. This kind of performance pushes my work too, because then I photograph these people. It works hand in hand, which is the way musicians used to work. I mean, Leonard Cohen wrote that song about Janis Joplin at the Chelsea; her work pushed his along. Chelsea No. 2 was born out of that.

If they hadn’t met and fucked, that song wouldn’t exist. There’s a similar thing that happens at your parties, with so many creatives mixing and mingling. I can’t even count how many collaborations, and affairs, have started in your apartment.

You know, it’s everyone that comes there that really creates it. I just open my door and let it happen.

You really are keeping the spirit of the Chelsea alive. And on that note—and since it’s Halloween—I have to ask: do you think the hotel’s haunted?

Definitely. We always said that they can change the rooms during the construction, but they can’t get rid of the ghosts—you can’t evict them. I feel like I’ll still be here even after I die. It’s such a fabulous place that you’d wanna come back and keep hanging out.

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I went to two other “elite” sex parties the night before this, and plan to write about them too, so there’s lots more where this came from!

When I picture brunch, I think of bottomless mimosas, avocado toast, and blonde influencers with crest-bright smiles. I don’t necessarily picture a Brooklyn sex party—which is why, when I get the invite, I can’t help but go see for myself.

It’s my third play party in 24 hours, and I’m brutally hungover. This feels especially apparent when, upon descending the steps of the L train, I find myself surrounded by tiny dogs in immaculately chic Halloween costumes. As I later learn, it’s the Halloween dog parade, and Williamsburg is mecca. On the train, I sip my extra-strong coffee and make eye contact with a caramel-colored chihuahua who, like me, is wearing tinted sunglasses and a beleaguered expression.

Unlike last night’s soirees—housed in private mansions and penthouse suites—this one is in deep Brooklyn, inside a sprawling private home that feels more commune than club. The event copy promises a mix of creativity, enlightenment, and spontaneity, the kind of language you might find on the flier for a meditation retreat or an ecstatic dance class: it’s not an orgy, but a “petri dish of playful abandon.” Upon arriving, guests are checked in and briefed on the protocol—then encouraged to avail themselves of the “full-service BYOB bar,” which seems like an oxymoron, and a dance floor where DJs encourage you to “shake out your second chakra.”

Walking in to the sound of tribal beats, it’s clear the chakra-shaking is already in full swing—and I only need to peer around the corner to the first bedroom to see that the fucking is, too.

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I’ve been so busy that I keep sitting down to write a Quick & Dirty, getting halfway through, and then returning to it too late. Not today, though! From OpenAI embracing erotica to the Kardashians’ viral merkin thong and a series of bizarre heists, here’s the horniest news that’s fit to print—exclusively for my paid subs, who I’ve been feeling extra grateful for lately as I zoom around the world working on some big, soon-to-be-announced projects.

I’ll be back soon with more behind-the-scenes dispatches from the front lines of sexual culture, like the brunch sex party I hit this weekend in Brooklyn, or my nights out at a Parisian BDSM dungeon. I’m planning to experiment with more personal, diaristic reports, sent exclusively to paid subs—so if you don’t want to miss the next one, now’s the perfect time to upgrade.

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Today’s post also includes a (true) story from the time I was accused of an art heist, so do with that what you will…

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You can expect lots of fun exclusive content in the next two weeks, but I am currently extremely jetlagged (and somehow sick for the second time this month.) So while I recover, I’m sharing something a little different: a piece on the history of sex dolls that I wrote for a print issue of CR Fashion Book.

Thanks for sticking with me; I’ll be back later this week with fresh writing (and something special for my paid subscribers, who make this all possible!)

The Perennial Fantasy of Synthetic Love

Behind every statue of a beautiful woman is a man eager to fuck her—at least, if the history books are to be believed. From copulating with statues of Cupid in Ancient Greece to the gardener who was allegedly found attempting to get it on with a replica of Venus de Milo in 1877, history is littered with examples of men using inanimate objects to enact their fantasies. The Dutch created hand-sewn masturbation puppets; Spanish sailors constructed fornicatory sex dolls made of cloth, known as the dama de viaje; in the late nineteenth century, life-size “rubber women” were sold in France.

Made of inflatable vulcanized rubber, these rubber wives—which were painted and modeled off of real women, and sold for high prices—were a precursor to modern-day counterparts like the RealDoll, which were introduced in the late 90s and skyrocketed into the public eye following the release of Lars and the Real Girl in 2007. The romantic comedy depicts a lonely, isolated young man (Ryan Gosling) who copes with his unprocessed grief by developing a romantic relationship with Bianca, an anatomically correct RealDoll that he introduces to the local community as his wheelchair-bound girlfriend. With her steel joints and silicone flesh, Bianca is hyper-realistic yet fully inanimate: a blank slate onto which Lars projects a rich inner world, imbuing his inanimate lover with desires, interests, and a mind of her own.

This is not an uncommon practice for sex doll owners. Take a scroll through Reddit, and you will encounter an active community of iDollators: people who see their dolls not as sex toys, but life partners. “There was never a moment when Shi-chan—or any Doll, for that matter—was merely an object to me,” Davecat, a high-profile advocate of “synthetic love,” told The Atlantic in 2013, pushing back on the idea that sex dolls encourage objectification of women and arguing that, in contrast, “it’s more a case of personifying an object.”

The human tendency to anthropomorphize even the simplest technology is well-documented. In computer science, this is called The ELIZA Effect, and dates back to the world’s first chatbot: a simple computer program named after a character from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, a play fittingly based on a Greek myth about a man who fell in love with his own creation. Designed to simulate natural dialogue using pattern-matching methodology, the chatbot possessed only rudimentary conversational ability. But despite these limitations, her creator Joseph Weizenbaum was startled to find that users confessed their deepest secrets to ELIZA, attributing humanlike empathy and intelligence to the program, though it essentially reflected their own statements back to them.

If male iDollators are Pygmalion’s modern-day heir, ELIZA finds her contemporary counterpart in Replika, an AI-powered chatbot designed to mirror the personality and conversational style of whoever it’s talking to. Though the app was originally intended as a platonic companion, its creators were surprised to find that these conversations often elicited romantic and sexual advances from users and soon rolled out NSFW options for paid subscribers, many of whom considered themselves in relationships with or even married to their chatbots—a future predicted in the prescient 2013 romantic drama Her, in which a socially isolated divorcee falls in love with his AI-powered virtual assistant.

Amid simultaneous advances in AI and a boom in the global sex doll market, companies are now racing to create next-generation dolls that can simulate realistic human interaction and even perform housework. These innovations promise a future in which dolls are all but indistinguishable from the real thing—meaning your synthetic paramour may not just pass the Turing test, but convincingly fake an orgasm, too. But while the prospect of hyper-intelligent sex dolls stokes age-old cultural anxieties about replacement by robot, history shows that centuries before state-of-the-art production techniques gave rise to the RealDoll, men have suspended their disbelief to indulge their desires, just as people have been seduced by chatbots long before they possessed advanced conversational ability.

Like many female sex symbols, the love doll is a blank slate onto which to project your fantasies—so to focus on imbuing these synthetic women with minds and personalities of their own is, in a sense, missing the point. Many men turn to sex dolls not despite their lack of personhood, but because of it: According to a 2022 study in the Journal of Sex Research, male sex doll owners tend to have insecure attachment styles, low levels of social trust, poor sexual self-esteem, and view real women as “fundamentally unknowable.” It’s true that many iDollators instill their paramours with personalities and backstories, insisting that their connection is more than just skin deep—but isn’t the idea of falling in love with your own creation essentially just a form of psychological masturbation?

Like Narcissus catching sight of himself in the pond, the man who falls in love with a sex doll is enamored with his own reflection. Perhaps the fantasy of the male sex doll owner derives from a desire to subjugate women, as the narrative around sex dolls so often goes. Or maybe he’s just doing what men have been socialized to do all along, avoiding emotional vulnerability. After all, to choose a sex doll is to choose what is knowable: the self, absent the surprise and danger of another.

This piece originally appeared in CR Fashion Book’s 25th print issue with a photoshoot featuring sex dolls; check out the full editorial here on their website!

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It was 9 p.m. in San Francisco, and Jackson, a 29-year-old tennis coach, was scrolling through Chinese takeout on Grubhub. Just as he was about to click “order,” a text came in: Daddy, can you send me money to get my nails done? He sent about $100, closed the app, and went to bed hungry. “In that moment, I decided not to eat,” he says. “I only have so much cash.”

Jackson had never planned on becoming a sugar daddy. Until one day earlier this year, when a female friend texted him a picture of herself trying on dresses in a store and asked which one to get. “I said, ‘Oh, I’ll buy you whichever one you want,’” he recalls. She didn’t believe him — until her phone lit up with the Venmo “ka-ching.” Soon their conversations turned steamy. “The first time, it was extraordinarily hot,” says Jackson, who, like the others interviewed for this story, spoke to me on the condition of using a pseudonym. “There was something about her excitement and responsiveness. I found myself eager to give more and to get more. It was evident to me that capitalism has created such dire conditions that the power of money was sexual in nature.”

From there, he fostered multiple sugar relationships, sometimes seeing as many as four women at once. Compared to the time-intensive hassle of modern dating, it was an efficient way to get his needs met. “I’m ultimately this successful because I work 10 to 14 hours a day,” he says. “I’m saving time by just being able to be like, I need you to send me a picture of your butt. And then when I want your emotional support, we can schedule a time to talk.”

But soon, his income took a hit. Amid layoffs, industry slowdowns, and a tense economic backdrop, tennis clients started to tell him they couldn’t afford his coaching anymore. Meanwhile, requests from his sugar babies kept adding up: nails, shoes, flights, $3,000 Ariana Grande tickets. He describes the dynamic as “unethical nonmonogamy” — not because they wanted sexual exclusivity, but because he often felt forced to choose between whom to send money to. Too tired to cook on account of his long hours, he started skipping his frequent DoorDash habit to keep up. “I was like, ‘Why am I starving myself for this?’” he says. “Sex is important in my life, but it shouldn’t take precedence over me eating.”

“It’s like, yeah, I want the G6 lifestyle, but I can afford, you know, Delta Economy Class.”

When we hear the term “sugar daddy,” the collective imagination conjures images of penthouses, caviar, and private jets. But in 2025, many are actually men like Jackson: mid-career professionals with some disposable income, but not so much that money is no object. And between inflation, skyrocketing rents, and a seemingly perpetually looming recession, even men who once seemed financially secure have had to cut back.

Morgan, a mid-20s escort and former sugar baby, says she’s seen a shift in what clients expect. “They want the full girlfriend experience, but for less,” she tells me, noting that for the first time, she had to offer a client a payment plan. Another cited the cost-of-living crisis when he tried to negotiate. Yet another asked for a discounted rate, then sulked when she had to leave his chosen date — an ecstatic dance class soundtracked by Khia’s “My Neck, My Back” — to see another client.

“He said he should have gotten more for his money because he’s not, like, a rich finance bro. But I’m not doing it on a sliding scale!” she says, exasperated. “He calls himself an anti-capitalist writer, but I think he really just means he doesn’t have a lot of money.”

On Reddit forums like r/SugarRelationship, babies commiserate about clients who fail to value their time — dubbing them “Splenda daddies” and “salt daddies.” “It’s embarrassing to talk about,” says John, a sugar daddy who follows these discussions; he got into sugaring to find satisfaction outside his marriage after his sex life with his wife went cold. “It’s like, yeah, I want the G6 lifestyle, but I can afford, you know, Delta Economy Class.”

You read the rest here. Thanks to everyone who spoke with me for this story, and to Nolan Feeney for the genius edits. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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The first time I dabbled in Shibari-style bondage, I lost sensation in my left thumb for months. This is, for practitioners of the craft, a known risk: one wrong move by the rigger, and you can sustain permanent nerve damage. That’s why Shibari isn’t just about rope; it’s about trust, technique, and a deep understanding of the body. And for Marie Sauvage and Hajime Kinoko—two of the world’s most sought-after riggers—it’s also about pushing rope bondage beyond the bedroom and into high art.

They’re performing at a mansion in lower Manhattan, and as spacious as it is, the place is packed with voyeurs. A hush falls over the crowd as Sauvage—one of the first women to publicly perform Shibari—emerges in a kimono and Tabi slippers, ready to inhabit the opposite role for an evening. Kinoko, her former mentor, binds and suspends Sauvage from the steel rig in the ceiling, using a complex and ever-evolving series of ties to twist her body into a series of exaggerated silhouettes, the intensity progressing in step with the music’s tempo.

Sauvage makes it look easy, but suspension isn’t for the faint of heart—which I learn firsthand a few weeks later, experiencing suspension for the first time under her watchful eye. Walking into the Chelsea Hotel, I find Sauvage lounging in the lobby, looking impossibly chic in a fur hat (she is French, after all.) We scale the stairs to my friend’s historic apartment, where she pulls seemingly endless coils of jute rope from her Louis Vuitton bag like kinky Mary Poppins. Then she gets to work, guiding my partner and I through the process like it’s just another Tuesday. Which, for her, it is.

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An hour or so later, I’m gently swinging from the steel ceiling rig, the rope guiding me in slow circles like the string of a marionette. The feeling is, to my surprise, almost exactly what I imagined: an experience of acute embodiment, the intensity of which is emphasized by the sharp bite of jute around my limbs and the inevitable feeling of surrender.

Being suspended in rope is, above all, an exercise in trust: “When you’re tied, either you panic, or you let go,” Sauvage says. “In the beginning, you think, This is scary, I’m out of control—but when you trust your rigger and realize you’re afraid for no reason, there’s an endorphin rush and your muscles relax. By the end, it’s like you’re floating on a cloud.”

During a suspension session, Kinoko and Sauvage are attuned to dozens of tiny details: from the model’s movements to the temperature of their skin, which can indicate their body’s limits even before they’re aware of them. I experienced this myself when—after hanging upside down for several minutes at the Chelsea—Sauvage detected a spike in my body temperature and swiftly untied the ropes just before I began to experience a faint ringing in my ears. It’s a common physical response for first-timers—and after a few minutes horizontal, I was back in the saddle, having also experienced the potent cocktail of endorphins that keeps people coming back again and again.

“In the beginning, you think, This is scary, I’m out of control. By the end, it’s like you’re floating on a cloud.”

The word Shibari—meaning “binding” or “tying”—came into common use in the West in the ’90s to describe Japanese-style bondage, also known as Kinbaku. Though now used to describe a practice that focuses on the aesthetics and display of the body, many of the rope patterns associated with Shibari derive from hojōjutsu, a tying technique originally used in the Edo period to arrest, restrain, and torture prisoners of war. Though these ties have since been modified for greater comfort and safety, rope bondage is often still associated with elements of BDSM, namely erotic humiliation and dom/sub dynamics.

Artists like Sauvage bring a different tenor to the practice: “There is a subcategory of Shibari that is about sadism, really pushing the limits of the body. But I think what a lot of people want is to learn how to be vulnerable,” she says. “I see Shibari going in a direction that is more artistic, a bit more spiritual.”

Kinoko agrees. When he first started performing, Shibari was associated primarily with kinksters—but now, it’s been featured in art museums and fashion editorials, pushing the practice into the mainstream. He got his start tying at the request of his then-girlfriend; then, he channeled his chiropractic training toward the development of new tying techniques, including his signature web-style rope installations.

Sauvage, for her part, was drawn to rope as an act of rebellion. “My whole life, I was always just slightly sexually obsessed. And I felt it wasn’t fair that women were not allowed to embody this natural impulse,” she says. But it wasn’t til she witnessed the burlesque legend Dita Von Teese perform that she realized she, too, wanted to be onstage. “I didn’t feel like burlesque was my thing, and I love Shibari because it’s about trust. It’s about connecting with other people. It’s a really meaningful life to inspire people, especially in a world that’s so sex-negative.”

As Shibari’s visibility grows, so does the threat of censorship. Social media platforms frequently flag their work as “sensitive,” but Sauvage and Kinoko are determined to keep rope bondage in the public eye. The response speaks for itself: At a recent performance, 700 people crammed into a venue to watch the pair at work. “We needed a big screen so everyone could see, like a concert,” Kinoko says.

“There is a subcategory of Shibari that is about sadism, really pushing the limits of the body. But I think what a lot of people want is to learn how to be vulnerable.”

Witnessing the world’s response to these performances, it’s clear that the desire to be bound—to let go completely—is universal. And whether for sexual gratification or emotional catharsis, rope can be a powerful tool of self-discovery. This is what keeps Sauvage and Kinoko practicing, year after year: “I was inspired to adopt an art practice that has to do with the body that makes people feel so empowered and liberated, even healed,” Sauvage says. “It’s not just sexy and beautiful. It’s also really meaningful for people.”

This is true, too, when Shibari is applied toward kink. The boundary between pain and pleasure is, for many, as thin as the rope that binds them—and in their performances and workshops, Sauvage and Kinoko create a safe space for first-timers to surrender their defenses.

Often, the experience unlocks something inside of them, Sauvage says; the intense physical sensation of being bound, coupled with the heightened emotional vulnerability that comes with it, can make some people feel drunk afterward, or push them toward emotional breakthroughs.

“Their reactions can be so visceral and moving. Sometimes, people will cry, because there’s this sense of catharsis. At one event I did a week ago, a woman came up to me and said, You changed my life,” Sauvage recounts. “At the end of the day, everyone wants to connect and be vulnerable—and the way we do Shibari, it’s about learning to trust.”

You can follow Marie Suavage (marie.sauvage) and Hajime Kinoko (@hajime_shibari) on Instagram for more photos + tour updates. If you’ve ever experimented with Shibari, I’d love to hear about your experience, so sound off in the comments!

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“I mean, my paintings aren’t necessarily about desire, but I think I’m painting what I desire,” says the artist Tali Lennox. We’re sitting in a quiet garden in Brooklyn, surrounded by spotted lanternflies that neither of us has the heart to kill, and talking about her latest solo exhibition, Sulis & The Wreck, at Galerie Sebastien Bertrand.

Like much of Tali’s work, the show explores themes of transformation, spirituality, and catharsis. Her paintings are dreamlike and surreal, full of evocative symbolism that’s hard to pin down. But it hasn’t always been this way; for years, Tali painted portraits before a near-death experience changed her orientation toward life. Her work, too, transformed—channelling inspiration from mythology and folklore, and inviting viewers into a space between realms.

Tali’s work isn’t explicitly about sex, though it is about pleasure-seeking and the ways we find ourselves through it. Like creativity and spirituality, eroticism allows us to inhabit a space outside the ordinary: between the known and unknown, body and spirit, self and other. Sex is a way of bridging the inner and outer worlds, of experiencing transcendent pleasure, and surrendering the ego—or, as the French call it, la petite mort: the little death.

Desire can also drive us toward a deeper understanding of ourselves. In her seminal essay The Uses of the Erotic, Audre Lorde frames eroticism as a lens through which to interpret other aspects of our lives—a tool of self-knowledge—evaluating, honestly, what brings us meaning. In other words, the transcendent joy we experience through sex can disrupt the status quo, drawing awareness back to the intrinsic pleasures that make us feel whole.

“As humans, we’re always chasing euphoria, always seeking a release. We want to experience something greater than the body, greater than the mind,” says Tali. “Of course, those states aren’t sustainable; you can’t live there. But it’s the time we feel most alive.”

Camille Sojit Pejcha: Your work seems to continuously deal with these themes of inner and outer selves, and the space between. How did the visual iconography evolve?

Tali Lennox: It’s interesting what comes out in my work, because I don’t preconceive the ideas—I work from intuition and allow this whole tapestry of motifs, visions, and feelings to emerge. Afterwards, there’s this process of unpacking what I might have collected externally, sometimes from years ago.

I noticed portraits of women’s insides in your older work—the organs, guts, viscera. They felt erotic in a strange way.

I was inspired by the anatomical wax Venuses created by medical pioneers in the eighteenth century. They would have their stomachs open, revealing wax organs to teach medical students about anatomy. They were beautiful, like Sleeping Beauty. I was struck by the combination of morbidity and eroticism. I like thinking about the inner world as a treasure chest, or a jewellery box. That’s why, in my paintings, the organs are iridescent and alive, almost twinkling. I wanted it to feel full of energy and beauty, to show what a miracle the body can be.

In this new show, there are paintings of figures in animal masks. They seem a little devilish, almost fetishistic, like they’re beckoning you into an alternate reality. What do they mean to you?

When I began these paintings, the words ‘Carnival of the Mind’ kept echoing in my head: all the characters, monsters, and figures inside us since childhood. Masks symbolise escapism and transformation, hiding and escape, but also the wonder of creating worlds inside and outside ourselves.

It reminds me how, through sexual roleplay, people use objects as tools to channel a cultural archetype—they become a mother, an authority figure, a worshipper.

Yes. Through sexuality, people enter this place of “fantasy,” but what it really means is that you can perform as somebody else, acting in an alternate energetic field. Healers, like shamans and witch doctors, have also used masks historically. They’ve always been a medium for accessing archetypes and spirits.

I was just talking to a woman who doesn’t drink. She told me, “Alcohol is called ‘spirits’ for a reason—you’re ingesting another force. When you go to parties, don’t think about yourself. Be curious and look around, and you’ll see people transform into these archetypes: a mermaid, a jackal, a devil.” That’s also what I was thinking about with the mask paintings: They’re sort of submerged, seductive, a bit frightening—there’s a sense of giving into these darker temptations and how, in bringing another spirit into us, we transform.

What’s another experience or object that found its way into your work?

A couple of years ago I visited the Roman baths in Bath, England—the only natural hot spring. The ruins are incredible, and when you learn about the functions, it was basically a bathhouse. And in the museum, they had this big gold head of Sulis Minerva, the goddess of the spring. The head was once part of a massive statue, placed in the baths with candles lit around it 24/7. People prayed to her. Then, in the 1700s or 1800s, someone found the head in a ditch. That journey of an object—that’s why I love relics. They carry potency and meaning through time. Sulis was both the goddess of the spring and curser of dreams.

That’s fitting, given what you told me about yourself as a child—that you used to find yourself stuck in the state between waking and dreaming. What did that feel like?

Similar to what it feels like to go mad, really. You know, when you see someone on the street who’s in another realm, I’m always curious: What are they seeing?

When I’m working, there’s a lot of isolation. There’s such an interesting energy one can tap into when you’re not exposed to distraction, and you let the imagination illuminate itself. There are frequencies you feel you can almost touch yourself and hold, yet they might not exist at all. It’s this moment of breaking down—or breaking through—into another dimension. Because that’s the question: Are you breaking down, or breaking through?

I think a lot about William Blake. He was seen by most as a madman in his lifetime because, as a child, he began to experience visions. Once after a solitary walk in South London, he told his dad he had seen a tree full of angels, and he wanted to beat Blake because it sounded so offensively far-fetched and loaded within his religion. But maybe it’s an opening to something else, something far beyond religion.

It’s no coincidence that a lot of great artists and thinkers were thought to be mad.

Yes. I also read a book about Blake recently, and learned that he created a large collection of erotic and sexual artworks that tragically are believed to be destroyed. His connection to free love and nature—that may have been influenced by his mother, who was part of the Moravian Church sect. They believed access to God came through sex and ejaculation. When initiated, you’d have sex with your partner on the altar, surrounded by the congregation. It was seen as a divine connection.

It’s so interesting how some spiritual traditions see orgasm as a release of energy that fuels creativity, and others believe in keeping the power within. To you, what’s the relationship between desire, art, and spirituality?

With painting, you often want to depict your desires. For me, that includes images of higher powers in the sky—eyes, tears, symbols of being held. It’s about digesting a time where so many feel powerless, and acknowledging that across history, there’s always been something greater than us. It’s a confusing time; even from a safe place in the West, you can open your phone and see images that are unspeakably tragic. I think what one can do as an artist, in a small way, is transmute empathy—tap into something deeper than the surface.

The first time we talked, you described painting almost as a riddle, something that provokes feelings people don’t fully understand. It reminds me of how good art, like good sex, has that transformative quality—the ability to unlock something in you.

Yes. The paintings, for me, are often attempts to return to those openings, those feelings of something greater than words. That’s why I love painting tears. To me, tears aren’t about sadness. They’re expressions beyond language — they literally expel from us. They can hold joy or sorrow. They’re these breakages where emotion exceeds what can be said.

Can you recall a moment of breakage or rupture in your own life that pushed you in a different direction?

I was in a river accident where I almost drowned. After that near-death experience, my paintings completely transformed. Before that happened, I was always painting portraits, which, you know, it’s fun—there’s a lot you can get from somebody’s face, but it is literally surface. Now I’m in this different role; I started painting imagination, painting symbols. And so that experience quite literally allowed me to take from a space that was deeper into the psyche, from that experience of breaking open.

Like most people, I’ve had experiences through tragedy or ecstasy that have shaped my time on this planet. I’m always trying to return to those states. As humans, we’re always chasing euphoria, always seeking a release. We’re also trying to leave reality, to have these moments of rupture that open into something greater than the body, greater than the mind. That’s not sustainable; you can’t live there. But it’s the time we feel most alive.

For me, painting is always that space where realms meet. Some of the paintings in this series feel like fever dreams. And personally, I love having a fever.

Why? Because it’s psychedelics-lite?

Yeah. I was recently really sick, and afterwards, I felt this pure bliss. It’s why people go to bathhouses or saunas or cold plunges—these are catalysts that bring you into heightened states.

That’s also what we seek through sex.

Exactly. You can’t live in climax, in eruption. But everyone’s chasing that peak. The aftermath can be chaotic, but those euphoric moments are the essential human experience—they’ve been with us through all time, in cycles.

Within myth—or even in these places we go, like bathhouses—we seek internal realms that can feel so dreamlike and expansive, where we can merge the interior with the exterior. It’s a transformational, in-between place, like being between worlds. For me, painting is a way of staying close to wonderment. It’s a flow state, where something reveals itself to you.

I used to be obsessed with flow state. There are studies that show that thinking about yourself and how you look can block flow, which is something you want to retain during sex.

Exactly. That’s why I love painting—nobody’s looking at you.

Sulis & The Wreck is on view in Geneva through September 11th, 2025. You can read the first edition of Figure Study—an interview with the legendary porn star, parliamentarian, and cultural icon Cicciolina—here.

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The performative male drinks matcha iced lattes, wears Birkenstocks, listens to Clairo on his wired headphones, and reads feminist literature, like All About Love by bell hooks, or else books written by women, such as Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, or Sally Rooney. He can easily be spotted in a cafe, performatively writing in a notebook, or in the street, performatively taking a photograph. He typically sports a mustache and a taper fade mullet. There’s a Labubu dangling off of his tote bag. Maybe he wears nail polish. He is said to live in Silver Lake or in Bushwick.

All of these signs of male performativity can be found in “starter pack” format memes that barely differ from one another but have reached a kind of critical mass that resulted in a New York Times trend piece about this new “social media archetype.” The Times defined this type as a man who “curates his aesthetic in a way that he thinks might render him more likeable to progressive women,” with one interviewee comparing them to the posers of the 1990s and early 2000s. Another name for the performative male is the “manipulative male.” He is overly estrogenic, but in the name of getting pussy. As yahoo! news put it, “Gen-Z has created a new kind of man to avoid.” If it’s not kind of obvious where this is going, a recent Instagram Reel shows us what the anti-performative male looks like: he watches sports, drinks beer, and has a Zyn tucked between his gum and cheek at all times.

It occurs to me that we are living in exceptional times. Throughout modernity, young women were typically the object of controversy. How they spoke or danced or dressed—these things were all seen as concrete signs of societal degeneration. For example, anthropologists like Miyako Inoue and Laura Miller have traced how women’s speech and slang in Japan has been torn apart by commenters in mainstream press since the late 1800s up until the present. With each new change in how women could enter the workforce or manage their sex lives, their lifestyles and especially their language were taken up as proof of cultural loss, discontinuity, and moral corruption. But it seems to me that in the past ten years, the real subjects of scrutiny are now men. Headlines on the male loneliness crisis, incels, the conservative voting patterns of Gen-Z men abound while trend reports and online commentary obsess over their fashion choices, reading material, and facial hair. Now men, too, can be picked apart for signs of societal collapse.

With each new change in how women could enter the workforce or manage their sex lives, their lifestyles and especially their language were taken up as proof of cultural loss, discontinuity, and moral corruption.

This is not, of course, the first time the young men have been representatives of crises. The 1990s brought a cruel focus on “super-predators,” a concept developed by the conservative political scientist John J. DiIulio Jr, who served as director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush. He claimed that an explosion of violent “urban” (read: black) youth were going to take over the country in endless riots and robberies like some kind of domestic, ethnic sleeper cell that could be activated at any moment, a theory that fueled a moral panic and subsequent “tough on crime” policies that exposed a generation of children to adults sentences. Yet, while moral panics around young men have tended to focus on myths of violence this now seems to be changing slightly. Because of the internet, men have been exposed to the pressures of performance in a way that is quite novel.

Anthropologist dana boyd in an early ethnography of Myspace wrote that because our bodies cannot be read for signs of class/race/gender/etc online, young people have to learn how “express salient aspects of their identity for others to see and interpret,” with the Myspace profile representing a “digital body” where individuals must “write themselves into being.” I imagine that the conscious effort to represent signs of the self, such as the signs which denote one’s gender, probably incited a new kind of uncomfortable awareness of the realities of gender performance for young men.

The consequences of this new awareness started to become clear to me when I was 15. One day I decided to go on 4chan to better understand this incel phenomenon that I had begun hearing about. I heard incels hated women, but when I went on this forum I saw how much they hated themselves. Most of the posts I saw that day featured pictures of “undesirable” physical features like recessed chins or skinny torsos. The poster would anonymously upload these photos asking other incels to confirm if these body parts made them unloveable. The answer was always, “Yes.” The culture on these incel forums affirmed again and again that genetics had doomed these individuals to a lonely life. I remember so clearly staring at a picture of someone’s thin wrist and all the horrible comments he received about how, because of that wrist, no one would ever love him. This abuse stood in such stark contrast to the feminist culture that was raising me on Tumblr, which for all of its issues affirmed to me that I was deserving of love and respect no matter what I looked like or what kind of lifestyle choices I made. I wondered why men didn’t have what I had.

Women and queer people have produced and absorbed an enormous amount of theory on gender and performance which has diffused into popular culture and have perhaps provided some buffer or options for young people flailing in the radioactive flare of the non-stop Internet panopticon. I can’t help but think that the extreme swing to the right among Gen-Z men has to do with the fact that men raised on the Internet came to the horror of performance without any culture that could possible affirm to them that they had options outside of trying to achieve some kind of totally defensible traditional masculinity built on muscle, domination, and mockery.

Aesthetics mean nothing at all, yet somehow they’ve become political texts. They mean nothing because they have come to stand in for politics.

Why is the “performative male” performative? Because he takes on signs that exist outside of “natural” masculinity. And it’s not that I don’t understand that the word performative is meant to denote that these signs are taken up “inauthentically” : these men don’t actually like to read or drink matcha lattes, they just pretend because they want girls to like them. But we all perform a self we think could be loveable! If dana boyd saw in the early 2000s that the internet made people distill the self into a set of blunt signs that indexed certain affiliations that make up “identity,” we are now experiencing the inverse, where the oversimplification of political affiliation, gender, etc. into literal objects (book, shoe, drink) seeps into our lived performances, creating a kind of flatness that is identifiable and feels “inauthentic” —you can see it in a person’s fashion how much time they spend on the internet. But being a looksmaxxing, Andrew Tate listening, raw-meat-eating Twitter bro is just as performative as anything else. That we only call men who take on “feminine” traits as performative affirms to me that the problem isn’t inauthenticity; we are just replicating that same old mockery that punishes men for not falling into a stupidly narrow set of behaviors that apparently make up manhood.

Aesthetics mean nothing at all, yet somehow they’ve become political texts. They mean nothing because they have come to stand in for politics. After all this defensiveness I’ve expressed on behalf of men I am only left with the feeling that I am compensating for a silence. There is a gap that is waiting to be filled, there is a voice that should have responded to that kid who posted his wrist on the incel forums asking if he could ever be loved. It should have been one of you.

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Hot, but a total momma’s boy.

That was the description of my ex-boyfriend on Lulu, a female-only network where women could leave Yelp-like reviews of men. The app was launched in 2013, and discontinued a few years later—but not before it caused a stir by letting women rate suitors on sex appeal, personality, and what they’re like to date. Critics called it “sexist and objectifying”; the founder called it ground-breaking and, most importantly, safe.

The same idea re-emerged over a decade later with Tea, an app for women to crowdsource red flags about men. But Tea’s recent data breach—leaking thousands of selfies and ID photos—landed it in class-action lawsuits, exposing how a platform designed to protect women can end up putting them at risk. These kinds of whisper networks have always existed, from sex workers’ black books to the “Shitty Media Men” spreadsheet post-#MeToo. But in an era of big tech, the stakes—and the risks—are higher.

Hedging against the risks of love

“People are afraid of being duped, ghosted, or worse, and apps like Tea offer a kind of insurance policy,” my friend told Newsweek, describing this as “defensive dating”: a cultural attitude born of women’s frustrations and fears about heterosexual dating culture.

It’s no secret that heteropessimism is on the rise. From the #boysober movement to the short-lived US resurgence of 4B, trends point to a growing animosity—or apathy—between men and women. As Magdalene pointed out in an article on the subject, some men online claim that aside from sex, “90% of women have nothing to offer men,” while without money, “90% of women won’t stay.”

I see similar cynicism from women: TikToks claim men don’t experience romantic love the way women do, or encourage women to “make more money and discover how mediocre men are.” The shared implication is that what keeps men and women interested in each are the material, tangible benefits—not love, trust, or emotional connection.

Pop culture reflects these anxieties. In Celine Song’s Materialists, cynical high-end matchmaker Lucy must choose between her wealthy would-be client, Harry, and her broke actor ex. In the end, Lucy chooses love over luxury—an ending framed as a “love conquers all” narrative, but one that sparked feverish debate online, with many women describing it as “broke man propaganda” and a “recession indicator.”

How heteropessimism made the “high value woman”

These days, many women are not afraid to openly date for wealth. Amid a sea of trad wives and “stay at home girlfriends,” social media personalities like SheraSeven are reclaiming the “gold digger” archetype in the name of economic empowerment—and framing it as appropriate compensation for entertaining men’s affections. In viral videos, she shares tips on how to elicit lavish spending from suitors, in the comments, women lament men’s emotional inadequacies and encourage each other to at least “get their bag” if they’re going to date.

As a friend of mine put it, luxury gifts are a kind of mating ritual: a signal of the ability to care for someone long-term, or, if the relationship ends, a way to value their time so they’re “not left with nothing.” Of course, one would hope that a relationship would enrich your life in other ways, even if it doesn’t last forever. But for many women dating men, that’s simply not the case. At least according to a slew of viral TikToks where women chronicle their post-breakup #glowup—showcasing not just tears shed over an ex-lover, but the former acne, “cortisol face,” and weight gain many women attribute to unhealthy relationships.

Women aren’t just worried that men will leave. They’re worried that dating them will leave them worse off—financially, emotionally, or socially. And faced with growing economic pressures, many would rather pursue a man with a “provider mentality,” figuring that if a man’s going to make them miserable, they might as well invest in one who will strengthen their portfolio in the meantime.

In an increasingly adversarial dating environment, women are adopting new, increasingly strategies to cope—and seeking refuge in same-sex spaces, where they can share intel and advice. We see this at work in “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook groups, where women post photos of their partners or prospective dates and ask for “the tea,” which can be anything from serious allegations to screenshots of an awkward Hinge convo. Like the viral “boyfriend tests” on TikTok, this could read as a sign of insecurity, or a form of self-defense. Women trust their own peers more than their intimate partners—and by opening their relationships up to an audience, they hope other women will spot the red flags they miss.

On a privacy level, it’s troubling to see a budding romance subject to such extreme surveillance. But if you doubt the need for women to seek protection from the men they date, look no further than the TeaOnHer app, a gender-flipped version of Tea. Like the original, it was billed as a place for men to share red flags—and like the original, it was swiftly hacked. But unlike the app geared toward women, TeaOnHer—purportedly designed to “help men date safe”—quickly became a hotbed for slut-shaming and misogyny. As the saying goes: men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them.

The economics of intimacy

In Materialists, Lucy often talks about “doing math,” treating romantic compatibility like an equation where the numbers need to add up. These days, women are running a different kind of calculus: assessing the risks and rewards of engaging with men. In an increasingly hostile dating culture, expectations of emotional consideration have been gradually lowered. And whether through gossip groups, guarding our hearts, or getting expensive gifts, we’re turning to other factors for a sense of stability and protection.

Apps like Tea are marketed as safe, private spaces. And in an online world dominated by surveillance and shaming, it’s no wonder women would flock to them. But where we see protection, companies see opportunity. And as apps cash in on the gender war, they remain bound to the same market forces they claim to shield us from, including the “move fast and break things” mentality of big tech. The data breach isn’t a fluke; it’s a symptom of the business model: getting users to input personal info in exchange for a simulacrum of the safety, intimacy, and community we seek—while, in the process, we keep the wheels of the gossip mill spinning with high-engagement content.

For thousands of years, gossip has carried a dual purpose: blowing off steam and enforcing social norms. In today’s attention economy, the incentive tilts toward exposure and spectacle. Yet women’s whisper networks have always existed, not for profit but for survival. Behind closed doors, women share stories not for likes, but to warn, vent, and validate one another. And as tech platforms race to monetize these bonds, it’s worth remembering: real privacy isn’t found on an app. It’s built offline, with people you trust—and, if you’re lucky, love.

On a different but related note, I’m working on a story on how the current economic climate is impacting sugar daddies and the dynamics of sugar dating arrangements. If you’re on either side of this dynamic—or know someone who is—I’d love to interview you. It can be anonymous, so just leave your info on this Google Form.

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Lena Dunham’s new TV show Too Much presents itself as a modern rom-com—but really, it’s a ghost story. Not in the supernatural sense, but in the way past relationships haunt us: the lovers who leave but still linger, and the versions of ourselves we can’t quite shake.

The show follows Jessica, a 30-something producer who moves to London to reinvent herself after a bad breakup. Almost immediately, she stumbles into a meet-cute with Felix, an indie musician who seems tailor-made to fuel her expat fantasies. The two fall into a whirlwind romance. But as she tries to rebuild her life, she’s haunted by the ghosts of her past—visions of her ex, Zeb, who intrudes on intimate moments with barbed commentary.

His new partner, Wendy, also takes up residence in Jessica’s imagination, becoming not just a rival, but an unlikely confidant. From her private finsta, Jessica addresses Wendy in a series of unfiltered vlogs: desperate confessions from a bathroom stall, veiled threats, and one particularly memorable dispatch in which she accidentally sets herself on fire. It’s a kind of reverse haunting: Jessica is haunted by the idea of their life together, so she decides to haunt Wendy back, issuing dispatches from the other side of the pond—and the breakup—that force her to confront what it means to be left behind.

Jessica is infuriated by Wendy, but she’s also enamored with her: “The worst thing is, I can’t even hate her.” This mix of jealousy and admiration is complicated by the fact that, on social media, her gaslighting ex appears to be showering Wendy with the affection she never received. In one video, Wendy poses a silly question—“Would you love me if I was a worm?”—and gets a heartwarming answer. In a flashback, we see Jessica ask the same question and instantly get shut down.

To make matters worse, Wendy’s a knitting influencer with exotic pets who looks like (and is played by) Emily Ratajkowski. But the real problem isn’t just that she’s beautiful and adorably quirky. It’s that her relationship with Zeb throws Jessica’s experience into question, making her doubt the emotional abuse she’s only just begun to unpack. Watching her toxic ex become someone else’s perfect partner, she’s forced to wonder: Was he really such an asshole, or was I just not worthy of his affection?

The real problem isn’t just that she’s beautiful and adorably quirky. It’s that her relationship with Zeb throws Jessica’s experience into question, making her doubt the emotional abuse she’s only just begun to unpack.

I recognized the illusion instantly. I’ve been Jessica—only instead of my ex’s new girlfriend, I was obsessed with the one who came before me. Not just because I feared he loved her more, but because their seemingly perfect life destabilized my sense of reality at a time when our relationship was beginning to feel less like a dream, and more like a nightmare. Late at night, I’d scroll through her feed, comparing the inside of my relationship to the outside of theirs: vibrant, Valencia-filtered, and frozen in amber on social media. If she loved him, I thought, he couldn’t be that bad.

As Jessica watches Zeb’s new relationship blossom on Instagram, we watch theirs unravel in flashbacks. He belittles her taste in fashion and music, or talks down to her in front of his friends, who favor Lacanian theory and Ivy League name-dropping over unpacking the latest season of Vanderpump Rules. But even as these micro-critiques become more pointed, his image of himself as the consummate martyr—a loving man who dotes on women who just don’t love themselves—remains intact.

In him, I recognize a type of man I’ve dated: One who identifies as feminist, but subtly undermines the women he dates. He’s drawn to Jessica’s adventurous spirit and over-the-top personality… until he isn’t. And instead of celebrating their differences, he starts paring down the parts of her that are—forgive me—too much, trying to reshape her into someone easier to love.

Like a frog in boiling water, it can be hard to recognize this dynamic until it’s too late. And after exiting my own toxic relationship, I was on red alert, scanning future partners for red flags from miles away. We see this in Jessica’s relationship with Felix, as she faces off with the specter of abuses real and imagined: “I feel like you’re fighting with someone who isn’t even here,” he tells her—repeating, verbatim, a phrase a different boyfriend once said to me.

That’s not the only uncanny echo I found in the show. In the end, Jessica makes contact with Wendy—an interaction that directly mirrors my own encounter with my ex’s ex. Ours came about when, years after the shared ex moved out, I discovered a carefully concealed box of old photos and love letters—not from our relationship, but theirs. Later that week, his ex followed me on Instagram. It felt like a cosmic gesture, so I messaged her.

We talked for hours, trading notes on our shared ex and discovering that our experiences, anxieties, and arguments were eerily similar. We’d both felt gaslit and manipulated by the same man, and we’d both fantasized that the other woman had it better. Seeking evidence that he was capable of a healthy relationship, I’d latched onto social media posts from years ago: A digital shrine of a relationship that had long since soured. Meanwhile, he’d been scrolling through my Instagram, wondering if he’d actually changed, or if I was privately facing the same struggles.

Dunham’s latest project may not be a generation-defining saga, but it captures something essential about modern dating: the impulse to reinvent yourself through a new relationship—and how we use other people, and social media, to rewrite our stories.

For me, the show’s emotional engine wasn’t romance. It was fantasy, and the ways our relationships force us to face our delusions about ourselves and others—and ourselves with others.

We live in an era where abandonment is literally called ghosting, and our exes live on as curated images on our feeds. At the same time, we’ve been equipped with fresh terminology to describe our experiences. Your ex isn’t a well-meaning but flawed person; they’re a lovebomber, a gaslighter, a narcissist—all words that could be applied to the show’s leading man, Felix.

He, too, is haunted by a history he can’t seem to outrun: old friends who question whether this time is “really different,” unresolved sexual trauma, and a dysfunctional family that fuel his addictions—both to partying and to people. In meeting his exes, Jessica is forced to reckon with the fact that her new love might be the villain in someone else’s story. But does that mean he can’t be the hero in hers?

Too Much is far more rose-tinted than Girls, and offers a more forgiving take on life and love; it’s billed as a rom-com. But for me, the show’s emotional engine wasn’t romance. It was fantasy, and the ways our relationships force us to face our delusions about ourselves and others—and ourselves with others.

We’ll do anything to outrun the past, but as the old trope goes: wherever you go, there you are. And in the Instagram era, well… all your exes are there, too.

Ever been obsessed with someone who dated the same person as you? I’m reporting a story on this, and I’d love to interview you about your experience. If you relate, leave your story (and contact info) on this anonymous form.

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Picture yourself in a penthouse apartment, calling to pay off your student loans in one large lump sum. Or on a beach in Morocco, face to face with your handsome lover. Or playing a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, a cheering crowd chanting your name.

Such fantasies aren’t idle daydreams; they’re central to “the O Method,” a masturbation-cum-manifestation technique that centers on visualizing your goals the moment you climax. At its core, the practice embraces sexual pleasure as a generative force — an idea that’s central to tantra, and has appeared in texts on sex magick dating back to the 19th century. But these days, you’re most likely to come across it on TikTok, where droves of women share videos about how the technique helped them “level up” their finances, careers, and relationships. This kind of content racks up millions of views, with creators promising “instant results” and women comparing notes in the comments.

“A lot of people are talking about orgasm manifestation online,” says content creator Venus O’Hara, “but I’m not sure they know what it actually is.”

O’Hara came upon the concept in 2018 when she was working as a freelance sex writer in Barcelona. At the time, she was struggling to make ends meet. “I lived in a tiny walk-up apartment, with no heat, no pillow, no table, no sofa,” she says. “And 300 sex toys.”

One particularly dreary night, O’Hara was forced to walk home in a downpour, not having money for a cab or umbrella. It was a rock bottom moment — and the next day she decided something had to change. She started looking into self-help and picked up a copy of Think and Grow Rich, a 2007 bestseller by Napoleon Hill (who, I later learn, was accused of numerous counts of financial fraud). His book introduced O’Hara to the concept of channeling sexual energy, leading her down an Internet rabbit hole that culminated in a YouTube video titled “How to Manifest With Orgasm.”

Galvanized, O’Hara put those sex toys to work. “At first, I was just thinking about graphs going up, exponential growth, and emails with collaboration proposals,” she says. Then she started merging sexual fantasies with visions of her ideal lifestyle: “Imagining being in my dream apartment, but also receiving cunnilingus in that apartment. Any type of desire that I had, I made it erotic.”

Read the rest of the article on Bustle’s website.

Thank you to the Pleasure-Seeking readers who shared their stories, and to my lovely editor Chloe Joe. Have a great weekend!

XOXO
Camille

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Last month, I hosted an intimate, late-night literary salon at the Chelsea Hotel, featuring drag, burlesque, and readings on desire from legends like & . It was a dream to meet so many Pleasure-Seeking readers and to share a space and community that’s so near and dear to my heart—and now, I’m finally able to share photos and videos from the night, taken by my friend Michael O’Donohue and Slated New York (this is too long for email, so open it on web for the full experience.)

Endless thanks to Tony Notarberardino for welcoming us into his historic apartment—the former home of Dee Dee Ramone, and one of the city’s last true bastions of bohemia. Thank you to our brilliant writers and performers, and to all of you for making this event possible through your support of Pleasure-Seeking.

If you missed this one, don’t worry; more salons are on the way. The only way to get into them is by becoming a paid subscriber, so upgrade now to be the first to know.

Xoxo,
Camille

This Thursday, July 10th at 4pm, we’ll be answering your questions on sex and relationships—but are especially interested in questions involving porn, fetish, and your relationship with your own desires. Noelle is a self-proclaimed “craigslist pervert,” and nothing is off limits, so hit us with your wildest questions.

Got a question for me and Noelle? Submit it HERE by Thursday July 10th at 3pm, and we’ll answer it on a 4pm livestream.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who joined last month’s livestream with the wonderful. We loved advising you on everything from foot fetishes to sex dreams, and were wowed to have over 400 of you watching. Since then, I’ve upgraded my live podcasting setup, which means you’ll now get hi-def video and audio streamed directly from the studio.

Here’s a preview from the last episode with Magdalene, in case you missed our witty repartee and matching outfits.

Right now, joining live is the only way to watch the Pleasure-Seeking podcast—but soon, I’ll be rolling out professionally edited and produced episodes with Cat Cohen, Ottessa Moshfegh, and other amazing guests. Til then, I’ll livestream our podcast tapings on Substack, so you can get answers to your questions in real time.

Can’t wait to share the new season with you!

Xoxo,
Camille