Smutty Smarty of Sex: Allison Moon

Girl Sex 101 originated in 2007 as an workshop by the same name at Burning Man’s queer women’s camp, Camp Beaverton. Since then I’ve taught the workshop around the country and realized that people without access to the feminist sex toy stores where I usually taught could also use the information. So I translated the workshop into a book, added an erotic storyline and hired kd diamond to do the art.

 I think many people still don’t know what women even do together in bed, which to me shows a real lack of imagination, and implies a lot of folks aren’t really having as good of a time as they should be.

The book publishing industry needs sure things, and lesbians aren’t often considered a big-spending demographic. When it comes to sex, many books play it safe. Either they go for the largest market share by talking only to straight people, or they go the serious-face PhD route which may offer great info but often sacrifices humor and entertainment. I wanted to play it both ways: offering a book that was educational while still being fun to read.

Many people get their sex-ed cues from porn and erotica. Especially with the kerfuffle around 50 Shades of Gray teaching people bad BDSM, I noticed that many people use fiction as a means of education. On the flip side, a how-to book may be informative, but if it lacks context– if it doesn’t teach you how and when to talk about things– it may not end up imparting any good lessons. I wanted to not only tell people how to talk about sex, I wanted to role model what that conversation can look like when things are getting hot and heavy.

Kd and I have been great friends for years. I love her work– she too is an artist with a keen eye for savvy education, as demonstrated by her magazine Salacious. I knew we’d make a great team.

Compared to writing two novels, Girl Sex 101 was a breeeeeeze!  The information was already solidified through my years of teaching the workshop. All it required was expanding, editing, organizing, and collaborating with guest writers. Maybe I’m making it sound too easy. It took a while, and some effort, but it was tons of fun.

Like many folks I’m sure you know, I was one of those precocious kids who all her friends sought sex talk from. My father was an R.N., so I picked up his passion for accurate, shame-free body talk.  So I was the first kid in my Catholic kindergarten who knew all the anatomically-correct terms for genitals. As I got older, I relished the role of providing information like that. I explained to my peers how to masturbate, how babies were made, how to put in tampons, all the stuff my peers weren’t getting in school or often from their parents. That never really stopped for me.

I don’t use the term spirit animal. I will say that Michael Cunningham is my favorite novelist, bell hooks is my favorite essayist, and Li Young Lee and Adrienne Rich are tied as my favorite poets. I learn something from everything I read.

Give yourself permission. Permission to suck, to soar, to wax poetic, to write in circles, to have bad grammar and spelling, and to not make any sense. Just give yourself permission to write.

Thanks!  I love teaching writing and creativity classes. I’ll gladly teach whatever people want me to! I’m for hire!

 

About Allison Moon:

Allison Moon is the author of the sex memoir Bad Dyke, the queer sex-ed comic Girl Sex 101, and the lesbian werewolf novels Lunatic Fringe and Hungry Ghost. Learn more about her at BadDyke.com or follow on Twitter @TheAllisonMoon & @GirlSex101