about

“Porn is the elephant in the middle of the Web’s room. Susannah knows more about the subject than anybody else, I suspect. Including: why it's there; and why most of us don't listen to it, even when it's our most secret companion.” — Doc Searls

I’m an investigative journalist, an author, and a consultant. I’m best known for creating one of the Internet’s first sex blogs. In my newsletter, The Reverse Cowgirl, I cover the business of sex. I’m the author of an acclaimed memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, and a short story collection, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You? Currently, I’m writing Tripp, a novel about a day in the life of a male porn star; The Valley, a series of interlinked short stories about love, sex, and work in the San Fernando Valley; and Porn Valley, USA: Life and Death in America’s Most Notorious Business, an unprecedented, three-decades-in-the-making investigation of the global adult movie industry. My strategic communications consultancy is The Fixer. I’m on X, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Contact me here. I’m represented by CAA.

My investigative journalism and personal essays have been published in over 100 media outlets, including The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Harper's Bazaar, Salon, Slate, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Forbes.com, Marie Claire, Esquire, The LA Weekly, Variety, The San Francisco Chronicle, Details, Topic, Gay Magazine, Esquire, The Guardian, FourTwoNine, Men's Health, Glamour UK, The Billfold, Women's Health, The A.V. Club, Inc., The Telegraph, BlackBook, Movieline, The Vancouver Sun, Radar, The Virginian-Pilot, Wired, The New York Post, Detour, The San Francisco Examiner, Arena, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The East Bay Express, HILOBROW, The Good Men Project, and in the anthologies Lost Objects: 50 Stories About the Things We Miss and Why They Matter, edited by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker and published by Hat & Beard Press, and Hurricane Katrina: Perspective on Modern World History, edited by Ebonie Ledbetter and published by Greenhaven Press.

My groundbreaking longform investigation of the devastating impact of the Great Recession on the pornographic film business, “They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?”, was featured by Slate in "Seven Great Stories About Paying for Sex and Being Paid to Have It” and lauded by Longform as “unflinching and devastating.” An essay I wrote about it, "The Numbers On Self-Publishing Long-Form Journalism," has been taught in Media, Politics & Power in the Digital Age at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Studio 20 at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. In “Extreme Porn Crackdown,” I exposed the Los Angeles Police Department’s attempts to prosecute pornographers. For five years, I ran The Letters Project, a controversial social experiment in which strangers confessed their secret sex lives—from prostitution to strip clubs to porn addiction—to me in anonymous letters. It was covered by Salon, Newsweek, and CBC Radio.

My investigative memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, is about my 30-year tenure as a research subject in a pioneering University of California, Berkeley longitudinal study of personality development that sought to predict who over 100 Berkeley kids, including me, would grow up to be. Emma Roberts’ Belletrist book club chose Data Baby as its December 2023 pick. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praised my book as “a fascinating debut memoir” and “gripping stuff.” Kirkus Reviews called it “An intelligently provocative memoir and investigation.” The Globe and Mail hailed it as “a thought-provoking, ridiculously propulsive book.” More about Data Baby here.

For my short story collection, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?, I was deemed “literature’s dominatrix, with a heart where her whip should be.” My fiction has appeared in the anthologies Significant Objects: 100 Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things, edited by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn and published by Fantagraphics; Best Sex Writing: 2009, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and published by Cleis Press; Smut: Volume 1, edited by the Editors of Nerve.com and published by Chronicle Books; Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, edited by Daphne Gottlieb and published by Soft Skull Press; Sudden Stories: The Mammoth Book of Miniscule Fiction, edited by Dinty W. Moore and published by Mammoth Books; and Chick-Lit 2: No Chick Vics, edited by Cris Mazza and published by Fiction Collective 2. My short stories have been or will be published in failbetter, Bending Genres, HILOBROW, Ghost Town, Construction, PANK Magazine, Clackamas Literary Review, Contrary Magazine, Sycamore Review, Nerve, Identity Theory, 3:AM Magazine, Born Magazine, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Opium, A Shaded View on Fashion Fiction, Word Riot, Elimae, and 2 Gyrlz Quarterly.

My erotic art comics are included in the anthologies Best Erotic Comics: 2008, edited by Greta Christina and published by Last Gasp, and Dirty Stories: Volume 3, edited by Eric Randolph and published by Eros Comix/Fantagraphics, and in Headpress 23: Funhouse, edited by David Kerekes and published by Headpress Press, and Artbomb. My photographs have been or will be published in failbetter, Known Unknowns by Charles Saatchi, Men's Health, Forbes.com, mashKULTURE, Le Journale de la Photographie, Thought Catalog, Nerve, Cloud King, and Arthur, among other publications.

I’ve appeared on TV, radio, and podcasts over 100 times, including CNN, Politically Incorrect on ABC (six times), FX, the UK’s Channel 4, CBC Radio, and NPR. For five years, I was an on-camera reporter for Playboy TV’s Sexcetera, traveling around the world to report on sex-related stories. My work has been covered by The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Post, NPR, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, The New York Times, Wired, Salon, The Atlantic, MSNBC, The New Yorker, Slate, TIME, Family Secrets, The Morning News, BBC Radio, The Globe and Mail, CNN, Bustle, The Village Voice, Alta Journal, The Los Angeles Times, CBC Radio, The Daily Beast, Playboy, The San Francisco Chronicle, Glamour, The Telegraph, High Times, Five Books, The Chicago Tribune, Wisconsin Public Radio, Lifehacker, The Huffington Post, Southern Living, The Mercury News, Daily Blast Live, The Kansas City Star, Shondaland, Next Big Idea Club, Maclean’s, Eater, KATU, Book Riot, Air/Light, XBIZ, Cybernews, Publishers Weekly, AVN, The Sun, PRINT, ABC Radio National (Australia), Library Journal, Gambit, Channel 4 (UK), Zibby Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and Naked Capitalism.

I’ve spoken at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the University of Southern California; the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley; the Crossroads Writers Conference; Techweek Chicago; Electronic Orphanage; Berkeley Public Library; Book Soup; Writers with Drinks at the Make-Out Room; Roar Shack at 826LA; Vermin on the Mount at Book Show; The Encyclopedia Show at the Vittum Theater; The North Door; the 215 Festival; the New Orleans Book Fair; Hustler Hollywood; Spoken Interludes; Sit 'n' Spin, produced by Joey Soloway, at the Comedy Central Stage; The F-Word Project at the San Francisco Art Institute; and Fake Fiction at The Fake Gallery.

In 2020, I was a Grantee of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists. In 2019, I was a Participant at the Social Science Summer Institute for Journalists at the Russell Sage Foundation. From 2018 to 2019, I was the Lawrence Grauman Jr. Post-graduate Fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016, I was a Resident at the Noepe Center for Literary Arts on Martha’s Vineyard. In 2015, I was a Fellow at the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a Storyteller at Thread at Yale at Yale University.

My strategic communications consultancy is The Fixer. As an experienced communications consultant, I advise my clients on strategic and crisis communications, ghostwrite books and speeches, and help clients shape their stories and brands through publicity and media relations. My services include strategic and crisis communications, ghostwriting, branding, publicity and marketing, and content creation. My clients are CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives, as well as WarnerMedia, Playboy Enterprises, FX Networks, Procter & Gamble, and Weber Shandwick.

From 2018 to 2019, I was the founding editor of Forbes Vices. I helped build out a new digital vertical and managed a team of global contributors covering the vice beat, including gambling, cannabis, sex, drugs, guns, and alcohol, generating millions of views for the website. As a TV producer, I’ve developed scripted and unscripted series, including true crime, outdoor adventure, and limited series. I’ve produced field segments for and appeared on FX and Playboy TV. I was a consultant on Steven Soderbergh's 2009 film, The Girlfriend Experience.

As a copywriter, I’ve worked with Publicis Groupe's MSLGROUP and Weber Shandwick, growing digital engagement and writing commercial scripts for the world's biggest brands. I’ve ghost-tweeted for celebrities and voiced Pepto-Bismol on Facebook, increasing social engagement by 500% as market share grew 11%. I’ve created social content for Scope, Oscar Mayer, Crest, and Swiffer. From 2011 to 2012, I was the Digital Manager for Conan O'Brien's Conan on TBS and Emmy-winning Team Coco. From 2008 to 2011, I was a senior editor at WarnerMedia, where I edited The Frisky, a popular digital vertical for 18-to-34-year-old women. I wrote nearly 1,400 posts, managed a team of contributors, and directed the digital outreach program, growing the audience from startup to over 4M unique visitors and 22M page views a month.

I hold a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in English from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois Chicago. My personal interests include Pilates, yoga, and riding horses. I was born in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and live in Los Angeles.

(Photo credit: Clayton Cubitt)