* Greatest Hits

I’m just what I say I am.

I can always be reached at [ clarisse.thorn at gmail dot com ]. Here are some of my available lectures, workshops and events. You can navigate my posts by subject if you look for the “tag” box on the right-hand side of this page.

If you like my work, please consider buying my awesome book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser. It’s gotten really great reviews — for more info and reviews, click here.

And here are some of my greatest hits …

My Top 3 Posts

A Unified Theory of Orgasm

Love Bites: An S&M Coming-Out Story

Towards My Personal Sex-Positive Feminist 101

If You’re In Chicago

Come to my pro-sex, pro-kink, pro-queer FREE documentary film series and discussion group!

And As A Side Note

I broke my neck one time.

* * *

Table of Contents

Okay, so at first this page was supposed to be just my best work, but it turned into a list of all the posts I’ve written that I liked, which most of them. I’ve tried to organize them into categories (though, realistically, most posts are in more than one category). My favorites in each category are at the top of that category.

Categories:
* Storytime and Personal Experience
* BDSM Theory
* Polyamory and/or Monogamy Theory
* Manliness, also Pickup Artists
* Sex Work and Pornography
* Feminism and Other Activism
* Et Cetera

* * *

Storytime and Personal Experience

Chemistry

The Strange Binary of Dominance and Submission

I’m Not Your Sex-Crazy Nympho Dreamgirl

Orgasms Aren’t My Favorite Part of Sex, and My Chastity Urge

Fear, Loathing, and S&M Sluthood in San Francisco

Anger, Fear and Pain

There It Is

Mr. Inferno

How To Break Up and Take It Like a Champ

The Tell-Tale Ring

A 16-Year-Old Kinkster Who Wants “A Sense Of Personal Integrity”

Guilt, Failure and a Pre-Orgasmic Feminist

Switching: Have I Always Been a Domme?

Predicament Bondage

Sexual Openness: 2 Ways To Encourage It

How my life wasn’t always Happy Fun Boundaries Are Perfect Land

My Advice

* * *

BDSM Theory

The Annotated Safeword (with Thomas MacAulay Millar)

BDSM As A Sexual Orientation, and Complications of the Orientation Model

BDSM Can Be “Love Sex” Too

BDSM versus Sex, Part 1: Political Concerns and Part 2: How Does It Feel?

Sex Communication Case Studies

Sex Communication Tactic Derived from S&M #1: Checklists

S&M Superpowers

Thinking Clearly About BDSM versus Abuse

The Alt Sex Anti-Abuse Dream Team

BDSM Roles, “Topping from the Bottom”, and “Service Top”

What Happens After An S&M Encounter “Gone Wrong”

Submissive Skills

Start From A Position of Strength

Why I Pretend I Don’t Date Vanilla-But-Questioning Men

Body Chemistry and S&M

Going Under

5 Sources of Assumptions and Biases About S&M

(The First of Several Posts On) BDSM-Related Relationship Screwups

BDSM-dar

Vanilla: Dissection of a Term

* * *

Polyamory and/or Monogamy Theory

In Praise of Monogamy

My Top Questions about Dealing with Multiple Lovers

Relationship Tools: Monogamy, Polyamory, Competition, and Jealousy

* * *

Manliness, also Pickup Artists

Buy my awesome book, Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser

“50 Shades of Grey,” “Fight Club” and the Complications of Male Dominance

Feminist S&M Lessons from the Seduction Community

Ethical Pick-Up Artistry

Guest Post: Detrimental Attitudes of the Pickup Artist Community

Men Don’t Deserve the Word “Creep”

(The First Post From) The Series on Masculinity that Kicked Up Such A Fuss

* * *

Sex Work and Pornography

Whore Stigma Makes No Sense

Sympathy for the Anti-Porn Feminists

One Blurred Edge of Sex Work: Interview with a Sugar Baby, Part 1 and Part 2

A Lone Villain [Pornographer] Working Within an Evil Empire

The Lone Villain Rides Again

* * *

Feminism and Other Activism

Liberal, Sex-Positive Sex Education: What’s Missing

“Inherent Female Submission”: The Wrong Question

Can We Make This More Complicated?

Remember Britney Spears? Men’s Visual Sexuality and Women’s Presentation

“There Is No ‘Should’” and the Sex-Positive “Agenda”

Grassroots Organizing for Feminism, S&M, HIV, and everything else

Social Responsibility, Activism, and Giving Thanks

On Change and Accountability

I Know I Can Fight Rape Culture By … (on Feministe)

Sex-Positive Women Aren’t Out To Steal Your Man

The Archives of Everything I’ve Posted to Feministe

* * *

Et Cetera

Some of My Experiences in Africa

The Ongoing Sex-Positive Film Series I Founded at Chicago’s Own Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

How To Start Your Own Sex-Positive Film Series

My Interviews

My Activities & Featured Ephemera from the Leather Archives

The Archives of My Former Sex & Gender Linkblog at Time Out Chicago

One Response to “* Greatest Hits”

Brittany October 7, 2010 at 9:09 am #

Hi there,

I was wondering if you’d like to review a product for our site! Give me a shout if you’re interested :)

Thanks!

Buy My Book!

There's an enormous subculture of men who trade tips, tricks, and tactics for seducing women. Within the last half-decade or so, these underground "pickup artists" have burst into the popular consciousness, aided by Neil Strauss’s bestselling book The Game and VH1’s hit reality show The Pick-Up Artist. Some men in the seduction community are sleazy misogynists who want nothing more than power and control. Some are shy wallflowers who don't know how to say hi to a girl. The one thing they all have in common is a driving need to attract women.

Clarisse Thorn, a feminist S&M writer and activist, spent years researching these guys. She observed their discussions, watched them in action, and learned their strategies. By the end of it all, she'd given a lecture at a seduction convention and decided against becoming the next great dating coach. In Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, Clarisse tells the story of her time among these Casanovas, as well as her own unorthodox experiences with sex and relationships. She examines the conflicts and harmonies of feminism, pickup artistry, and the S&M community. Most of all, she deconstructs and reconstructs our views on sex, love, and ethics -- and develops her own grand theory of the game.

I've gotten some amazing reviews and testimonials -- read them by clicking here!

* You can click here to buy it now on Smashwords in any ebook format....

* Or click here to buy it now for Amazon Kindle!

* Or, if you want a physical copy, click here to buy a paperback on CreateSpace.

There She Is

A Chicago-based, feminist, pro-BDSM sex-positive activist. If you're curious about where I'm coming from, try reading my S&M coming-out story or my extensive tale of reaching orgasm. If you're a more theoretical type, try my post on Sex-Positive Feminist 101.

BDSM is a 6-for-4 deal of an acronym: Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism. Here is my list of basic BDSM resources.

As of December 15, 2011, I edit the Sex + Relationships Section at the gender-lens website Role/Reboot. If you've got something to say about sex, relationships, and modern gender roles, feel free to pitch me your writing!

My presence in Bloglandia is often spotty. In the past I have posted at the group blog Feministe; here's the archive of my Feministe posts. I used to disseminate sex & gender news for Time Out Chicago; the archive of my Time Out Chicago "Love Bites" blog is still available.

If you're in Chicago, come to my pro-sex, pro-queer, pro-kink documentary film series! If you want me to come and do an event for you, here's a list of lectures, workshops and events I've done before -- also, I'm flexible and I'd be happy to think about developing a new presentation.

I'm available by email at clarisse dot thorn at gmail dot com.

Comments Policy

Thanks for reading my site. I love comments and I encourage you to contribute, but sometimes things can get pretty intense around here. So, in the interest of transparency, I want to explain my comments policy.

* If your comment looks like spam or advertising, I'll delete it.

* If your comment is extremely difficult to read (for example, 1000 words with no line breaks), then I'll delete it and leave a comment explaining why I deleted it.

* If you start pissing me off or disrupting an existing conversation in some other way, then I will explain what you're doing that bothers me; at that point, you have a chance to convince me that I'm being unfair, but you might not get more than one chance. People who are consistently annoying or disruptive will be put on moderation.

* If a given conversation becomes stressful for me, then I will close that conversation entirely.

* If your comments are consistently not appearing, and I'm not commenting to explain why, then you might be getting accidentally caught in my spam filter. Feel free to email me and ask!

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