The Pleasure-Seeking Gift Guide
Featuring Ottessa Moshfegh, Natasha Stagg, Marissa Zappas, Sophia Giovannitti, Matt Starr, Eliza McLamb, Molly Crabapple, Biz Sherbert, Joan of Arca and more
A good gift reflects your ability to divine another person’s desires—and whether it’s a material object, an experience, or simply the close attention of a loved one, what we want can reveal a lot about who we are. So in the spirit of the season, I’ve asked friends and creatives I admire to share their thoughts on gift-giving—from what they think makes a gift special to the items on their personal wishlist and the most memorable gift they’ve ever received. There are no rules and no affiliate links; it’s more like a choose-your-own adventure, peppered with ideas and insights from some of my favorite writers, artists, musicians, perfumers, poets, and perverts. Enjoy!
For the artist—or someone who should be an artist—my friend Molly Crabapple recommends “a really, honest-to-God beautiful sketchbook.” “Get something with thick, high-quality paper so their drawings won't bleed through,” she says. “And make sure to leave something—mash note, magical incantation, lipstick kiss, or half-dressed portrait of your darling—on the title page.”
Molly gifted me one such sketchbook for my birthday last year, and inside the front cover was a portrait of me—which, as you might recognize, later became the art for the Pleasure-Seeking podcast!
Molly is an award-winning artist, animator, author, activist, journalist and all-around creative powerhouse; she’s been called a “punk Joan Didion,” “a young Patti Smith with paint on her hands,” “a twenty-first century Sylvia Plath,” and “the Millennial generation’s first great radical artist.” You can subscribe to her Substack here or buy her beautiful prints online. Oh, and gift her memoir Drawing Blood to the young rebel in your life.
My friend Shanti Escalante-De Mattei, who wrote Pleasure-Seeking’s first guest post, says that gifts should come in threes, perfectly presented. “The three gifts should be of different types: One big gift, and the other two are usually a book and a fancy grocery store item,” she says. “For the latter, basically anything you could put in a cocktail or on a charcuterie board—a jar of maraschino cherries, celery bitters, little pickle situation. The point is to create a sense of abundance and surprise without spending too much.”
She says it’s important to wrap everything up nicely; her friend Lydia Starke—who she credits for imparting this gift-giving wisdom, and who runs this shop of vintage treasures—uses brown paper and twine, but Shanti tends to save bags from other purchases and do a bait and switch: “Just make sure it’s appropriately absurd and not verging on mean. For example, once I gifted my friend a leaf from Jackson Pollock’s house wrapped in a box for Microsoft Word. You get the idea.”
For something even more unexpected, she recommends dolls, though you should avoid any that are cursed. “An ancient doll from a thrift store will be cheaper, but you’re playing with fire,” she says. Size matters: “Diminutive is safer,” she says, when it comes to avoiding the creep factor.
Among her favorites are “gorgeous handmade doll-creatures made by artisans like Lizzie Pearce that are really special” and “gorgeous, gimp-y, punk dolls” from Brandon Morris. If you’re interested in dolls and the community that surrounds them, you should read Shanti’s incredible piece on the subject. But if you’re not eager to study up, don’t fret: “A good eye and a pure heart will guide you to a not-life-threatening but beautiful folk object for your goth girlfriend.”
She also recommends love letters (“the vulnerability, my God!”), handmade gifts, and Annie Ernaux’s Simple Passion. In her words: “In the age of situationships, Simple Passion recalibrates. Sex is not bait to bring the guy you want to make your boyfriend closer to you. Sex is sex. If the sex isn’t pleasurable, if the waiting isn’t agony, and the guy doesn’t give a fuck about you? What’re you doing? End the situationship, look for a lover. Center the passion—it’s the most luxurious waste of time we can experience in this life.”
Magdalene Taylor—a friend, fellow sex writer, and publisher of Many Such Cases—says that “a true gift to your lover would be to give them nothing material and free them from the burden of stuff. Take them out for a steak dinner and tongue each other between courses… Actually, sorry, I love stuff. I love giving and receiving things that will take up space and psychically torment me.”
This year, she’d love to give and/or receive this ringer tee from Nu-Metal Agenda that reads: “A.D.I.D.A.S: all day I dream about sex,” referencing the 1997 Korn song of the same name. “This has always been one of my favorite songs because first of all, it’s true, and second of all, it’s an honest depiction of one of our most base instincts that still manages to highlight the neuroticism of it all,” she says. “It emphasizes what a brainless urge it is and yet how consuming it can be.”
For the same reason, Magdalene would gift a Criterion edition of the 1997 film Crash by David Cronenberg, noting that it’s nearly impossible to find or watch elsewhere. “My endorsement of the Korn song is essentially the same as the endorsement I’d offer of the film. Coincidentally, Crash and the music video for ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ were both released in March 1997. Both are about sex, car crashes, and the violent mediation of our desires.”
Katie Rex, a DJ, cultural strategist and producer who runs the kink event Bound, suggests you purchase a sexy postcard set from “up-and-coming art star” Marf Summers, featuring their work TOOLbelt. “It’s the perfect gift for your high-brow Sapphic utilitarian,” she says. “Pen a love letter on the back nestled in a picture frame and give one to each person in your polycule—or prove yourself a lazy bottom and gift the set in standard condition.”
For those with a “dinner at 7, a reading at 9, and a play party at 11,” she recommends the Atsuko Kudo latex collar: “the only piece that stays on for all 3 affairs.” “The brand is best known for their revolutions in latex tailoring and designs, leaving bookish Miu Miu femmes reveling in the little bit of shine rubber adds to their allure.”
Her last recommendation is The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions. “This premiere antiestablishment queer manifesto will be a standout on any recent liberal arts grad’s night stand (or next to their mattress on the floor),” she says. “Perfect for a transplant in community-seeking phases and for soothing self-actualization epiphanies.”
The perfumer Marissa Zappas, who I recently interviewed for W, recommends an astrological reading by Annabel Gat, her close friend and the muse behind her cult favorite perfume “Annabel’s Birthday Cake.” “She’s an incredibly talented astrologer and tarot reader,” she says. “I would gift a reading with her to anyone.”
I could say the same of Marissa’s perfumes. Beloved by New York’s creative community, Marissa often collaborates with writers and sex workers to design bespoke scents based on literary works, such as Liara Roux’s memoir Whore of New York or Rachel Rabbit White’s poetry collection Porn Carnival. She’s also created custom scents for exhibitions at the Museum of Sex, and been described as “an underground cult sensation” by Miranda July.
Her latest scent, Carnival of Souls, is based on a horror movie of the same name; when I sprayed it on like twenty different people at a bar last week, each of them loved it, but they all guessed a different list of ingredients—a testament to her knack for combining elements in such a way that no single note becomes overpowering, instead conveying a vibe, mood, and a feeling. Since she gifted me an array of samples last summer, I’ve had her scents on constant rotation; my favorites right now are Maggie the Cat Is Alive, Ching Shih, and Flaming Creature, which you can buy here.
Matt Starr—poet, Substack’s event producer, and the co-founder of Dream Baby Press and the erotic reading series Perverted Book Club—has an aversion to buying things, but he made an exception after stumbling upon Mandy Aftel’s backyard museum and discovered she’d made a perfume based on her friend, the little-known musician Leonard Cohen. “I bought it immediately—I’m obsessed with Leonard Cohen and now I know what he smelled like. It makes me feel more connected to him,” he says. “I smell it for good luck constantly and it smells exactly like you’d expect it to: ancient, smoky, dark, woody.”
Matt also recommends the below:
A Romantic Date On The Upper West Side
Take someone of interest to the Upper West Side. Start at Zabar’s and pick up some snacks. Walk down to the entrance of the famous Apthorp Apartment and tell your date this is where Nora Ephron used to live and where Cindy Lauper still resides. Then walk to 328 West 89th Street and tell your date this is where Meg Ryan lived in You've Got Mail. Then walk to Riverside Park (the 91st Street garden) and tell them this is where the final scene of You’ve Got Mail was filmed (where Meg Ryan realizes the person she's been romancing over email was Tom Hanks). Then go to the Museum of Natural History, proceed to the big Blue Whale room, make your way under the stairs where it’s dark and out of sight. This is where you can touch and kiss a little. xoxo
It makes sense that Matt’s more into experiences than material possessions—he’s made a career of throwing events, and imbues everything he does with a sense of fun and whimsy. For example, the launch party for his erotic poetry book Mouthful—which took place at an underground boxing gym—featured not only the usual poetry readings, but a live marching band and a Drake impersonator, who he booked to perform Hotline Bling as a “gift to himself.” And Perverted Book Club, which he runs together with Zack Roif, has been known to set up shop in unexpected locations around the city, from the old porn shop Blue Door Video to the midtown Sbarro.
Matt was recently named one of the “freaks who rule New York” in this recent New York Times story, something I am incredibly jealous of—but I will forgive him because he also gifted me this hat for my birthday:
Meme queen Joan of Arca—dubbed “Instagram’s favorite feminist shitposter” by Interview—recommends you gift your loved one a ticket to Life and Trust, a new immersive show in the financial district from the creators behind Sleep No More. “It’s based on Goethe’s Faust and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey, with a hint of The Red Shoes. Life and Trust feels like wandering through a dream set in the Gilded Age, and I cannot recommend this life-changing experience enough,” she says. Failing that, “gifting something ephemeral is always a safe bet, like a basket of holiday sweets. Knowing a person’s favorite treats is a very intimate thing and shows that you pay attention.” She also recommends “putting a little bit of yourself in it—maybe include some of your favorites with a handwritten note explaining why each is special to you.” She personally loves Choward’s Violet Mints, Goetze’s Old-Fashioned Caramel Creams, and Terry’s Chocolate Orange (“the popping candy version, of course.”)
Sophia Giovannitti—artist, writer, and author of Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex—says that the best gifts are, of course, “incredibly specific and tailored to the obscure desire(s) of the receiver, which you’ve ideally learned through close observation and adoration”—but the next best gift is a pet. “I wish people gave them more!!! Otherwise, flowers.”
And for someone who can’t quite manage all the responsibilities of a pet, you can get a set of chocolates shaped like one. “These chocolate hedgehogs are a very sweet little gift,” says Biz Sherbert, a writer who co-hosts my all-time favorite fashion podcast Nymphet Alumni. “They come in a charming illustrated matchbox that’s ready to be given. Also available in frog, tortoise, ladybug and mouse.”
In a similar vein, culture critic Natasha Stagg recommends embracing ephemerality and gifting “potables and disposables: a basket of treats, such as the makings of a favorite cocktail; a flower bouquet or coffee subscription; a box of dinner candles in a rare color (I like British Colour Standard); ballet tickets; or, perhaps the best option, dinner at a restaurant she’s always wanted to try, something unmistakably more her taste than yours.”
If your girl’s taste skews esoteric, Safy-Hallan Farah—who publishes Princess Babygirl on Substack, and founded 1991 Zine—has just the thing: the Daily Guidance From Your Angels Oracle Deck from Doreen Virtue. “I learned about Doreen Virtue through an unexpected source: Ottessa Moshfegh, who was selling one of Virtue’s old board games via Depop,” she says, noting that Virtue was a once-prominent figure in the New Age spiritual community who was renowned for her angel card decks—that is, until she converted to Christianity in 2017. “Her conversion brought about a complete denouncement of her earlier work, viewing her involvement in New Age and occult practices as demonic. This drastic shift marked the beginning of her rebrand, which I am here for, but I love that all of her old work is available on eBay. They make a perfect gift for the woo-woo girl in your life.”
She also says We Have Never Been Woke by Musa al-Gharbi and Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò are required reading. In her words: “I am glad we are moving away from the social differences identity framework. It was originally intended to counter biological essentialism and center marginalized voices, but instead it resulted in a deference politics that corporations, the media-fluent class and performative activists exploited. I need everyone to read these two books on the subject.”
Oh, and she'd love for you buy a copy of Say Everything, the debut memoir from her friend and “spiritual mom” Ione Skye. The two bonded when Safy was recovering from surgery at her place in Laurel Canyon, and “everything—‘reality,’ ‘gender,’ ‘career,’ even the very concept of ‘self’—lost its grip. Skye was the perfect person to ego-dissolve and unravel in front of.”
Everyone needs the kind of friend they can turn to in these moments—the person “who knows what kind of tea is best for which situation,” as musician, writer, and podcaster Eliza McLamb puts it. “I am not that person, but I do know that this supplement is a gift to any modern woman without health insurance: D-mannose,” she says. “Pop one at the FIRST sign of urinary discomfort and watch your life be forever changed.”
Eliza—who is one ½ of the podcast Binchtopia, as well as a musician, writer, and all-around renaissance woman—notes that d-Mannose will not adequately treat a UTI in full swing, but it has been known to stop many in its tracks. “It’s boring and the bottle is ugly, but I have been recommending this for years with rave reviews.”
If packaging is important to you, perhaps a beautiful vessel from Kindred Black would be up your alley. “This looks much better on a nightstand,” says my friend Maraya Fisher of The Gamine of Greenwich Village Personal Lubricant.
She also suggests the Aquirax Uno Tarot Deck: “If she has a Yoshitomo Nara profile pic, subscribes to the Chani App, or listens to Mazzy Star—this is the gift for her. She probably already has a few of the illustrations moodboarded on Pinterest.” Or, if you’re looking for something creative, make a bunch of Incense Holders Out of Instant Dry Clay: “Something like this would be a super easy, batchable holiday gift, and you could match different incense scents to your various recipients.”
Maraya is a DJ, frontwoman of the band My Transparent Eye, and a girl bassist—one of the coolest things you can be. This is what’s on her personal wishlist, which I am passing along to the masses because I love to watch women win!
Cherry Red Gibson SG Bass
“This one is for any finsubs that might be lurking in Camille’s subscriber pool,” she says. “First, you better be shelling out $6 a month for her paid subscription. Second, my Fender was simp-funded and now I want a Gibson.” (On this note, if anyone wants to make me really, really happy, I’m obsessed with this bag from Chopova Lowena that costs more than. my rent—I actually groaned when I saw it.)
I’m also really into soft-solder jewelry right now, which you can buy from independent artisans on Etsy. I’m perpetually hunting for art books by the Japanese erotic illustrator Toshio Saeki; I have his perverse, playful artwork tattooed on my body, much to the chagrin of my family members. Ren Hang prints (which are also randomly impossible to find?) are top of my list, and when attending the Erotic Art Fair in Brooklyn, I found myself captivated by the work of London-based artist Anna Sampson—especially this print and her book Other Intimacies, which “explores the boundaries of erotica as a genre.”
For the sexy spiritualists in your life, The Holy Hour: An Anthology on Sex Work, Magic, and the Divine is a multi-media collection of art and writing by sex workers that straddles the sacred and subversive. It includes gorgeous works by one of my favorite photographers Maria La Sangre, among many other talented contributors. I also love vintage issues of Playboy; I picked this one up at a vintage shop recently and it has an interview with Timothy Leary.
It’s always fun vintage shopping in person. But even if you’re hunting for treasures online, Ottessa Moshfegh—the award-winning novelist and author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation—recommends you “abstain from the Amazons and Temus and Targets and Pottery Barns of this world.” “eBay is always a great source for (kind of) one of a kind items,” she says. She likes to search terms like “vintage MCM desk lamp…” and “deadstock vintage gloves.”
“Nothing beats a lamp,” Ottessa says. “And you can’t go wrong with ‘Black Scottie Westie Scottish Terrier Dog Bookends Cast Iron 5.’”
Here are a few more selections she’s curated for you:
Ottessa is enamored by the history of objects, and hunting for special trinkets is part of her family culture. When I interviewed her earlier this year, I was struck by the uniqueness of her collection. There were antique toy cars, vintage photographs, jackets with special lettering, and vintage silk chiffon scarves—one of which she sent me as a gift in the mail, along with a vintage postcard of a naked baby. “As a writer, there’s no reason not to stop into a yard sale,” she told me. “I’m obsessed with things and where they come from.”
You can reap the benefits of Ottessa’s obsessions on her Depop, where she sells vintage items, writing prompts, and more. And subscribe to her Substack, where she publishes writing advice, original prose, and recently, a gift guide on what to give your least favorite family members. On this point, she cites gift guide guru Kaitlin Phillips, a pioneer of the genre who claims that books make bad gifts—an especially brave thing for a novelist to say.
But if you are going to give someone a novel, might I recommend one with psychosexual, possibly Sapphic undertones? To really rock the boat and make someone think twice about their sexuality—or the state of their marriage—I’d gift Miranda July’s The First Bad Man, Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss, Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen, or Lisa Taddeo’s Animal, with a note about how the main character “reminds them of you.” (To be clear, I love all of these books… I just think you could really use them to send a message!!)
Speaking of messages, my friend Caroline Caldwell—an artist, tattoo artist, and girl on the internet™—recommends writing your own. “I think looking at the handwriting of someone you care about is deeply romantic,” she says. “I once made my ex a mini book that was like, the size of a quarter. It was really tiny, and it was like a choose-your-own-adventure story that took one piece of paper to make. I just spent a day writing really, really small.”
Caroline’s a master of creative gift-giving, and routinely blows me away with customized dresses and gloves like the ones shown below. But you don’t need to be an artist to pull off a personalized gift; her advice is to get a pair of leather gloves and paint something simple on it with leather paint—whether it’s the date you met, someone’s initials, or an inside joke. “I think customizations make things really special—and even if it doesn’t turn out perfect, they’ll love the fact that it was from your hand.” She also says a gift card for a tattoo makes a great gift: “It’s an invitation for adventure, and they’ll think of you every time they look at it.”
For those who are confident in their taste, but not their drawing skills, I personally love customizing bags with charms and chains like the one below; searching for unique tchotchkes activates my hunter-gatherer instinct and is really fun, especially if you’re doing it with a specific person in mind. You can also get a similar handmade vibe by sewing a bunch of unique patches onto a jacket; it does take about a thousand hours though.
Handmade gifts are high-risk, high reward. “The thing is that you link up labor and love in a way that is very powerful and can misfire,” Shanti observes. “Resentment is close by exactly because the exchange rate of gift to love cannot be set. As someone who enjoys making gifts I’ve had to learn who will appreciate those gifts and won’t. Appreciation is a token of recognition but not necessarily love, so don’t take it personally.”
When I talk to my friends about the most memorable gifts they’ve received, they’re not so much objects but gestures. “The best gifts are the ones that come from being really, truly seen,” Molly says. “This is why the most expensive gift can flop if it’s bought not for the recipient themselves, but for whatever imaginary person you imagine her to be. This is also why the perfect gift can cost nothing.”
For example, when Molly was evicted from her apartment—which had a legendary selfie spot in the bathroom, a wall covered in blue brocade that everyone posed in front of—her friend Max Fractal tracked down the infamous blue brocade wallpaper and bound a book in it: “a little piece of home.” Shanti still remembers when our friend Annie gifted her a six-pack of Ensure for Valentine’s Day after finding out she was addicted to as a child: “I was truly and honestly touched,” she recalls. The same was true of me when my boyfriend surprised my with a custom-made replica of an item I had loved and lost.
These days, there’s a lot of discourse about gift guides, which can function as a thinly-disguised vehicle to express our personal taste. This is true, of course—but as the gift guide industrial complex booms, it’s become fashionable to critique gift guides for the same reason it was once fashionable to write them: It’s a way to signal that you’re culturally relevant and in-the-know, differentiating yourself in a saturated market while also demonstrating your unique perspective. The whole thing is a bit of an uroboros, because even criticizing gift guides—or putting your own creative, self-aware twist on the format—can quickly become an exercise in personal branding.
My guide is no different, but instead of expressing taste through objects, I’ve decided to do it through the people in my life. Their recommendations gravitated toward the personal, the handmade, and the ephemeral—all of which are expressions of the most precious commodity of all: attention. In a time when affiliate links and advertisements are constantly begging for our clicks, it means something to invest your time and energy in another person—to notice their likes and dislikes, to think of a clever gift that might express your care.
In Natasha’s words, “People don’t really want things anymore. We’ve almost moved beyond that inclination as a species, doing away with the items that clutter by consolidating them in computers and making personalized shopping so easy, it’s a violation when someone else does that for you,” she says. “And yet, we do want symbols of devotion.”
You can gift a paid subscription to Pleasure-Seeking here.
P.S. I’m not earning money through affiliate links, which means I didn’t get compensated for making this guide—so if you feel moved to gift me something, I suggest money. My Venmo is camille-sojit.
Happy holidays!!
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Best gift guide ever!