The 2026 Tournament of Books Championship
Read my final verdict in The 2026 Tournament of Books Championship, featuring The Passenger Seat v. Flesh.
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Filtering by Tag: JOURNALISM
The Catch v. Flesh
The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living
“If, as Socrates contended, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living,’ then Breslin is living hers to the fullest. Lucky for us, she’s written a thought-provoking, ridiculously propulsive book about it.” — an excerpt from The Globe and Mail review of my investigative memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment.
Porn Blind: Part 1
Adult movie set, Canoga Park, Calif., 2009 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
In my newsletter, I’m publishing “Porn Blind,” a 10-part series about what I learned writing about the adult movie industry for nearly 30 years, how the business changed, and how it changed me. The series starts here. Subscribe to my newsletter here. If you want to support my work, please share a link to it online. Thanks!
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Data Baby Dedication
The dedication for my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, via X’s @dedication_bot.
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Me and My Oeuvre
“Recently, I’ve been updating my website, and as part of the process I went through some of my past journalism stories. Quite a few are about the adult movie industry.” — read the rest and subscribe
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I'm So Happy
What If?
What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you’re a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are? Find out in my memoir: Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment.
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These Interstitial Spaces
“Later it occurred to me that I’m only really happy when I’m in these interstitial spaces, where I’ve kind of slipped behind the curtain to see what people are really about, and it’s like living in the place that everyone wants to visit but is too afraid to talk about.” — from my newsletter, “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”
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Operation Me
AVN Awards, Las Vegas, Nev., 2013 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
“Because the narrative is filtered through me, covers a vast expanse of time, and includes not only what I witnessed but how what I witnessed shaped the person I became, the essay had to feature me as a central character. In the past, I’ve avoided this angle; on the set of an adult movie, I am the least interesting thing in the room.” Read my latest newsletter, “How to Perform a Literary Auto-vivisection,” and subscribe.
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My 2026 Journal: Day 1
Today I’m working on a 10,000-word personal essay about how the adult movie industry has changed since I first found myself on the set of an adult movie over 25 years ago and how what I saw there changed me. The working title is of the story is “When Pornographers Were Kings.” “Scenes From My Life in Porn Valley.”
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It's Gripping Stuff
“Fascinating. […] Unpacking thorny questions about determinism and the ethics of human experimentation, Breslin attacks her subject with verve and wit, resisting woe-is-me solipsism without defanging her critiques of the study that rocked her life. It’s gripping stuff.” — buy Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment
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The Hardest Working Director
Adult movie set, Los Angeles, 2024 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
“High production value is something of a Greenwood signature. Unlike the low-budget, lo-fi ‘gonzo porn’ of yesteryear, his productions are saturated in deep colors, preoccupied with story, and look more like a movie produced by A24 than garden variety smut.” — How the Hardest Working Director in Porn Gets the Job Done
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The Other Uncanny Valley
“‘It’s a phantom-limb penis syndrome,’ said a tall, British man who goes by the name Adam Sutra. Adam is the CEO of CamasutraVR, a company that makes, among other products, virtual-reality pornography. He was trying to explain to me what it’s like when you’re a man, you’re immersed in virtual reality, and you look down at yourself.” — from “Porn’s Uncanny Valley,” The Atlantic, 2018
How Do I Become a Male Porn Star?
“It is unclear if they know who I am. One addressed his email to ‘Sir.’ For the record, I am a woman. I am a journalist. I download their emails in a home office with a desk, a filing cabinet and a garbage can for recycling. I am not who they think I am. I do not have a magic wand that can turn them into male porn stars. I don’t know what to tell them. Truth be told, it is very difficult for men to break into the porn business (unless one rides on the coattails of a female who wants to be a porn star, a scenario with its own set of complications); many of the men who work in porn do not make a lot of money ($150 to $300 for a scene is not uncommon); and what it takes to be a male porn star (to wit: get up, get in, get off) is, for lack of a better word, hard.” — an excerpt from my 2013 Salon personal essay: “How Do I Become a Male Porn Star?”
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This Is Dedicated
The front-of-the-book dedication of my investigative memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment.
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Mirror in the Bathroom
“People think The English Beat’s ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’ is about doing cocaine off a mirror, but it’s not.”
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Petit Mort
Petit Mort is … “The only magazine bridging art, fashion, and philosophy through the lense of sex workers.”
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The Real Scene
An excerpt from my 2009 investigation of the Great Recession’s impact on the adult movie industry, “They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?”, a longform piece praised by Longform as “unflinching and devastating.”
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Anton Chigurh: An Appreciation
For HILOBROW, I wrote a short personal essay about my affection for No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
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