Audacia Ray

Mon., June 18, 7 p.m., free, Wooden Shoe Books, 508 S. Fifth St., Fri., June 22, 6 p.m., Passional, 704 S. 5th St.

by Ashlea Halpern

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Published: Jun 12, 2007

reading/signing

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The first time I had sex online, it was in a chat room with a guy named BigDickNick. I was 14. He was 19 — or so he said. In butchered English, he told me all the nasty, naughty things he'd like to do to me: lick this, tap that, and make the sort of pixilated mess that lands rap stars in jail. The session lasted six hours. I giggled and blushed for most of it, then printed out the conversation and shared it with half of my homeroom the following morning. Such are the ways of young feminists weaned on Internet porn.

Audacia Ray, executive editor of $pread magazine and a Fleshbot regular, has penned a book all about me. And you. And every other person who thinks Google is just grand for looking up pics of hardcore gang bangs. Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration (Seal Press, $15.95) is enlightening in its thoroughness and provocatively insightful. From sex blogs and menstruation porn to fucking machines and cyberdildonics, virtually no subject in the last 20 years of digital coitus goes unexplored. Thick with interviews and pedagogic commentary, much of which is funny and deeply personal, Naked gives its readers the distinct impression that Ray's been around the block — as an academic, as a sex-positive woman, as a consumer of porn, even as a streetwalker. All the dough in the Dow couldn't buy a better escort. And for keyboard-tappy feminists like me, it's easy to forget just how far we've come. And, ohhh, how often. BigDicked boys notwithstanding.

Mon., June 18, 7 p.m., free, Wooden Shoe Books, 508 S. Fifth St., 215-413-0999, www.woodenshoebooks.com; Wed., June 20, 6 p.m., free, Robin's Bookstore, 108 S. 13th St., 215-735-9600, www.robinsbookstore.com. Fri., June 22, 6 p.m., Passional, 704 S. 5th St., 215-829-4986, www.passional.net.

 

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