Nerve.com has a book out documenting their first 10 years which is a series of their best erotica. I have liked Nerve for years and although I haven't agreed with every single story they have put out and I am definitely not turned on by all their stories, I applaud their effort.
As Tracy says at Salon,
Beyond just bringing legitimacy to sex writing and online photography, Nerve has turned the sex-segregated worlds of erotica and pornography into one coed Brooklyn-hip orgy -- and the nauseating clichés and mechanical in-and-out of either genre are not welcome. (Neither are the trite Carrie Bradshaws or Julia Allisons of the world.) The site has given birth to Nerve Personals, a matchmaking service for urban singles that helped make online dating cool, and the über-hip parenting site Babble. The magazine has also launched several media careers, like those of former sex and relationship columnists Em & Lo and writer Grant Stoddard (whose memoir "Working Stiff" is based on his popular sexual guinea-pig column "I Did It for Science").
In the rest of her piece she has an interview with co-founder Rufus Griscom that speaks to this art of balancing writing about sex that is also meaningful and smart, not just to turn men on. I don't always agree with Nerve's content and am a little over the "shock" factor of hipster culture, but I do think they are creative and some of the best sex writing out there that doesn't just hinge on degrading women.
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I started reading nerve at the tender age of fourteen, and nothing has contributed more to my sex-positive attitude. Nerve isn't perfect, but it's fun, light, or sensitive approach to sex writing was so new and different for me, it literally changed the way I thought about sex.
Thanks for the post.
Where are Feministing's articles on Obama's male-dominated cabinet. Men outnumber women 4:1 thus far. Why aren't you reporting this??!!! Obama is not a feminist. In fact, he is sexist. He is doing worse than George W. Bush in the area of gender equity. Why aren't you stomping your feet and getting angry at Obama for shutting out women from the power structure!! Are you faux feminists?
http://tinyurl.com/5a8cq2
1)Obama stands poised to sign to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, much to the chagrin of terrifed NY Post columnists. I'll pick him over George Bush.
2)I have seen posts on here about Obama's cabinet appointments, particularly when Larry Summers was up for consideration. This happens to be a post about something else. Are feminists only supposed to talk about one thing?
3)On to what this post is really about--I haven't looked at Nerve recently, but I do remember liking it, or at the very least not seeing anything I actively disliked. Like Obama, it's not perfect, and some could say that like most sites it too caters to a specific audience(the "Brooklyn-hip"), but I'm glad sites such as this are around.
4)No one can see me over the internet. I could be stomping my feet right this moment. ;)
Why aren't you sending this to the proper place?
http://www.feministing.com/contact.html
Stay on topic.
I started reading Nerve my sophomore year of college. It was a lot to take in for my repressed self. It didn't help keep me from thinking sex was something cool and hip--something I perceived as out of reach for me at that time. But I think this was my baggage. Lisa Carver's essays were disturbing in their psycho-sexual way, though part of this was how compelling they were, likely due to her writing. To me, founder Rufus Griscom came off in the early days of Nerve as having a tiny twinge of paternalism and being precious about sexuality--the starry-eyed "isn't it woooonderful in its complexity?" Then again, I guess Nerve needed someone of this stripe to co-found it. I found the most to identify with in Em and Lo's "big sister" approach to talking about sex--down to earth, not putting it on the pedestal of NYC hipness--and I started to feel more okay with where I was. It didn't hurt that they referenced "Free to be You and Me" once in a while! I really appreciate the fact Nerve gave a platform for what they called "literate smut" and how much of a range there was/is on the site, the best of which made me think while also turning me on. I read it far less after Em and Lo went solo. Or duo.