Want to Hire Me?

I'm a journalist, blogger, editor, copywriter, and consultant.

Looking to hire an experienced, savvy word-person?

Here are a few of the things that I do:

I'm a journalist.

My writing has appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Details, Newsweek, Salon, Slate, The Daily Beast, Marie Claire, Esquire, The Guardian, Men's Health, The Atlantic, Glamour UK, The Billfold, Women's Health, Inc., The Telegraph, Movieline, The Vancouver Sun, Radar, The Virginian-Pilot, Nerve, Wired, The New York Post, Arena, Variety, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The LA Weekly, and many other publications.

I'm a blogger.

On my Forbes blog, SIN INC, I cover the vice beat. I've uncovered how much strippers make, test drove a bra gun holster, and attended porn conventions. The blog has been mentioned by the Wall Street Journal, AdAge, ESPN, BuzzFeed, and Katie Couric. In 2002, I created one of the internet's first sex blogs, The Reverse Cowgirl. In 2008, TIME.com named me one of the top 25 bloggers of the year. I've guest-blogged for Kottke and was a blogger for Slate's Double X.

I'm an editor.

From 2008 to 2011, I was an editor for Time Warner's The Frisky, a digital vertical for women, where I covered everything from fashion to celebrities to relationships. I wrote nearly 1,400 posts and led the site's online outreach program, helping grow the site's traffic to 4M unique visitors and 22M page views a month through my network of blogger influencers. From 2011 to 2012, I was the Digital Outreach Manager for Conan O'Brien's "Conan" on TBS, teaming up with Emmy-winning Team Coco Digital to create compelling content and increase engagement.

I'm a copywriter.

As a copywriter, I've worked with Publicis Groupe's MSLGROUP and Weber Shandwick, creating social media content, commercial scripts, and celebrity ghost-tweets for multi-billion-dollar brands. In 2008, I partnered with American Apparel to debut a series of controversial banners on my blog that provoked widespread debate and were covered on BuzzFeed, Fleshbot, and Nerve.

I'm a consultant.

I consulted on Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" movie about a high-class call girl and on "E! True Hollywood Story: Child Star to Porn Star: The Scotty Schwartz Story."

Want to hire me? Email me.

Continued

My guest blogging stint at Kottke continues. I'm not gonna lie. This one's my fav of the day.

Guestblogging

I'm guestblogging on Kottke this week. Check it out.

Spread it, man

Here's a fun one on how to cook prison spread, starring Chef Lemundo.

Recently, I was doing some research on food in prison, specifically prison spread. According to Urban Dictionary: "Typically spread is a Top Ramen base that can be augmented to a specific flavor by using chips, canned meat, or other foods that are also available in the prison store." According to Prison Culture, it's also a social ritual: "Spread provides inmates with an opportunity to 'create community' within the jail as they share their food with others."

Transparency

I binge watched the second season of "Transparent" a few days ago. It was really, really lovely. A lot of feels, and a lot of nodding to the imperfection of everything, and an homage to crazy LA.

Watch it.

The Internet Is Jolie Laide

I keep following and unfollowing Farhad Manjoo on Twitter. For one, he posts too much, and for another, there's something ... treacly about his sentiments. In the latest installment of his "State of the Art" tech column for the New York Times, "The Internet's Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening," he asserts that the internet has become a terrible, dangerous thing. "The Internet wasn't supposed to be this ugly," he bellyaches, bemoaning the various ways the web has gone bad: hot takes, social media sparring, the Islamic State.

It's all very disappointing, he whines, pointing to John Perry Barlow's vision of a kinder, gentler internet, circa 1996: a cyberspace place better than meat space, "more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.” How ... optimistic. Instead, we've got beheading videos, Twitter faux-rage, and "2 Girls 1 Cup."

The idea that the internet would offer up something superior to reality was the first misguided thought. The next wrong turn was that if it offered up the the opposite instead, something had gone wrong. In fact, the violent, tumultuous, deeply conflicted world spewed across the screens of our desktops, iPads, and mobile devices mirror us exactly how we are, which, of course, is exactly what we want to see. The war doesn't exist overseas, it exists within. Humanity's perversions aren't born on PornTube sites, they're expressions of our own twisted minds. The internet of 2015 reflects us truly: tortured and deluded, in denial and agape, salivating for something that makes us feel like something other than what we are -- slabs of tissue parked like inanimate objects in front of a pixel otherworld that dances in front of us -- and makes us feel, a little, for a moment: afraid, awestruck, consumed by the horror, the horror that, in the end, is us.

Drinking Tea with the Taliban

I read Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario's memoir, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War, and liked it very much. Is it an extraordinary work of masterful nonfiction? No. Is it the riveting account of a woman who has bigger balls than you do? Yes. There may be too much love story in this war story for man readers, but ladies looking to live boldly in a world that isn't made of pixels will be inspired by Addario's fearless approach to love and war.

“Madam,” Haleem said, “the commander’s men are worried you can’t drink your tea through your veil. They would really like for you to drink your tea.” The whispers continued, and if it weren’t for the veil, I would have had a difficult time concealing my smile. Only among Muslims is the hospitality so great that they cannot bear the notion that someone’s tea will be left untouched.

Haleem had another brilliant idea: “I know! You can stand in the corner of the room, with your back facing all of us, and lift your veil to the wall and drink your tea. Once you finish, you can replace your veil.”

And so, in a room full of some of the most vicious fighters against the United States and everything it stood for, I stood in the corner and faced the wall as I drank my tea.

Don't Work for Free, Unless You Work for Free

Image via Inked

In a post about freelancing and writing for free, Poynter quoted a Forbes post I wrote awhile back about freelance writing.

“These days, it’s not enough to be a good writer online,” notes Breslin in a Forbes post. “You have to be a smart marketer, your own content factory, your own publicist. If you can do it all, you are golden. If you cannot, you are screwed.”

#DONUTRAT

I scored the world exclusive interview with the guy who shot that video of that rat dragging a donut.

SB: It’s hard to tell from the video if that’s a donut or a bagel.

DS: It was a donut from Dough, an artisanal [donut] place in Brooklyn. I’ve seen that donut before. Not in a rat’s mouth.

My Life in Playboy

I wrote about how my life path has intersected with Playboy, and how I feel about the fact that the magazine will no longer be publishing nudes. I guess I'm disappointed, for some reason.

Growing up, I never expected to work for Playboy. I grew up in Berkeley, California, where feminism is what’s for breakfast, Columbus Day has been replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day, and I was an undergrad at the University of California at Berkeley at the same time as the Naked Guy. According to my feminist film studies class, the patriarchy was something to wage a war against, women’s bodies were a battleground, and sexual objectification was the tool of the enemy. To posit oneself as an object of sexual desire, to relish scopophilia, was an act of political betrayal.

At least in theory, Playboy was the opposite of all that.

SNEAKS

Can't catch me. #newbalance

"Can't catch me. #newbalance"

Letters from Men Who Want to Be Porn Stars

I'm back posting the emails I get from men who want to be porn stars, which I get because I wrote this. I've got over 500 emails at this point, so I figure I might as well keep posting them.

Perhaps these actresses were simply matchless in their craft, but I chose to believe that the majority of them (if not all) were truly enjoying themselves at the hands of their well-selected masculine counterparts. The smiles I saw from these women as they approached such visceral climaxes were sublime, as if Himeros was dripping sweat from exhaustion and each drop of sweat was a divine note that played a melody on each fair lady's skin. The shakes of their glowing feminine bodies as every little sensory impulse went through their electrified minds, all firing back messages to the tiny control muscles of the face to create those heavenly facial expressions and smiles, were a joy to witness.

["I Don't Think I Could Have Been a Male Pornstar, but James Deen Is My Spirit Animal"]

I Got 500 Emails From Men Who Wanted To Be Porn Stars. You'll Never Believe What Happened Next

My latest on Forbes explores why I keep getting emails from men in India who want to become porn stars:

According to Harjant Gill, a documentary filmmaker and anthropology professor at Towson University who focuses on masculinity in India, the Internet’s swift delivery of pornography across India has transformed the perception of masculinity in India. “I suspect that before internet became so readily available, most men aspired to be like Bollywood superstars because they consumed a lot more Bollywood/Hollywood films,” Gill emailed me. “Now their desires (and sense of masculine achievement) is driven by the form of media they consume most frequently, which is free porn on the internet.” The problem for these men, as Gill sees it, isn’t porn: It’s that “there’s a complete lack of discussion or sex-positive sex-education being offered in families and educational institutions” in India.

Let's Get Lean

Better view

"Better view"

Here's a quote I left out of my profile of a young entrepreneur making a cup for getting high:

Me: Who's your hero in business?

Him: Bernie Madoff. He sold dreams and thin air. That has to be applauded on some level.

Fury the Road

"Mad Max: Fury Road"! What a joy and a pleasure! Not a lot here to not like. Sure, it's little more than a high-speed road trip, but who cares with visuals like these! Also: It's not a story about Mad Max or the future. It's a story about women. Women warriors, really. It made me want to chop off half my arm and cut off almost all my hair, so I, too, can be a Charlizeian. I loved: water is the new oil, the world hath forsaken us, ladies as slaves to their bodies, unabashed head-smashing violence, the coolest cars you'll ever see, and tumorish diseases. In a way, "Fury Road" is a lot like a porn movie: Men? Yeah, well, they're kind of irrelevant.

Flakka Fever

#TeaTime There's a new drug taking the country by storm and turning people into #Zombies. It's called #Flakka (expect to hear about it in rap songs) It's the chemical #AlphaPVP or #Cathinone which are components of #BathSalts but 10x's as powerful. It's rapidly spreading in South #Florida, #Texas and #Ohio. They swallow, inject, smoke or #vape the crystals, causing an erratic high. Users experience a heightened paranoia, fearing persecution, elevated body temperature which causes them to strip and almost super-human strength, making addicts difficult to subdue. There have been over 30 deaths in a 10 month span in one county alone and usage accounts for 90% of emergency room visits with the other 10 for #Cocaine, #Heroin and #Meth. Why on earth would anyone want to feel this way? What's wrong with good ole #Weed? Mellow, chilled and #Munchies! We hope this is stymied before it gets out of hand. Make wise choices people! #Drugs #DEA #DrugAbuse #Epidemic #TheTeapot #Gossip #Shade #Bloghive #Teabaggers

"#TeaTime There's a new drug taking the country by storm and turning people into #Zombies. It's called #Flakka (expect to hear about it in rap songs) It's..."

This is the first time I've written about flakka, but, rest assured, it won't be the last. I'm super fascinated by it -- mostly because of the name. Also because Florida. In other parts of the country, it's referred to as "gravel." Florida is no slouch when it comes to the branding game.

Since flakka burst on the scene in 2013, the media’s gone crazy for the street drug that makes folks go nuts. Gawker’s Sam Biddle has a handy guide to all things flakka, aka Alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone, a synthetic cathinone. It runs in the neighborhood of $5 a pop and purportedly makes those high on it act like superhuman zombies. The drug’s ground zero is Broward County, Florida, although its presence is slowly creeping across the country. In Ohio and Texas, flakka’s known as “gravel.” The drug can be swallowed, smoked, snorted, or shot, and flakka fiends have been known to attempt to kick in police headquarters’ glass doors and accidentally impale themselves on fences.

Can I Have Another?

Pig.

"Pig."

My favorite part of "Is This Burger Obscene?" is the comment: "Obscene and immoral is right, and nothing to be proud of having eaten. Disgusting: you and the burger."

I'm disgusting, that's right!

"I ate half the burger at a high rate of speed. I’ve never smoked crack, but this, I imagined, is what smoking crack is like. You’re barely coming off your high when you realize what you really want in life is more crack."

Take It Off

PLANET TOOTSIES....leave work and come and play!!! #playtime #sexy #girls #tootsies #miami #booty

"PLANET TOOTSIES....leave work and come and play!!! #playtime #sexy #girls #tootsies #miami #booty"

Always a surprise when you write a post about going to the biggest strip club in America and people want to read it. Who knew!

I'm disappointed I didn't get one of the T-shirts.

"What I’m trying to get Anakar to tell me is what he’s doing to bring in a whole new generation of young men who may be more inclined to turn to their screens to get turned on than to head to the strip club. But he’s not in the porn business, and these aren’t cam girls demanding tokens. For better or for worse, he’s in the flesh business. I ask him if one day virtual reality or some future tech device we can’t yet envision could threaten his livelihood. 'I don’t think it beats reality,' he says. He leans forward to drive home his point to me and underscore what he’s selling. In the case of you and your machine, 'You don’t have the true fantasy, which is reality.'"

Say Hello to My Fully-Automatic Friend

I shot machine guns in Miami. It was fun. Here's how that happened:

“Now you get to the shoot the Big Daddy,” Paul announced. “This is the SAW.”

Camming Isn't Everything, It's The Only Thing

http://t.co/o4gO1Or6um Email nikki@cam4.com or DM @cam4 or myself for coaching password http://t.co/2DHEZBwR8w pic.twitter.com/voR9HlRgKC

— Nikki Night (18+) (@Nikki_Night) August 11, 2015

I've got a new post up on Forbes, this one on cam girls and $, "Meet the Vince Lombardi of Cam Girls."

Here's a quote from Nikki Night that didn't make it into the piece:

"It makes you feel empowered to have people look at you and say, 'You're gorgeous, you’re interesting.' We’re told we have to be this, we have to be that at work. Especially women. You have to look a certain way. As soon as you start camming, you see the real me. Me being myself. Me being me is not a size two. I might have cellulite, but people think I’m beautiful. They value my friendship. They value my time. I am interesting. People want to listen to me. It's very empowering that way. It takes a lot of balls to do it at first, but once you do have that, there’s this unbelievable feeling you have of being free, and once you're free, you're free. I own it. I don’t have a stigma about my job. I own it."

Broadly with Vice

Broadly is Vice's new lady vertical. I'm intrigued. You can get your nails done by the manicurist to the porn stars, go shooting with Ann Coulter, or get high while doing yoga. I suppose it's a bit heavy on the hipster, but with no aggregation, no comments, and no hot takes, what's not to like?