Tristan Taormino

 
 

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, columnist, editor, filmmaker, and sex educator. She is the author of seven books and the editor of 23 anthologies. She’s written for a multitude of publications from Yale Journal of Law and Feminism to Penthouse. She lives in New York City.

50 Shades of Kink

"A gentle guide. You'll be an expert quicker than you can say 'horse-hair butt-plug."
HuffPost Lifestyle

"This slim volume is a guide to BDSM for newcomers, written by an expert—Tristan Taormino—and packed with useful advice about the practices and products."
Erotic Trade Only

"After the international phenomenon of Fifty Shades of Grey, this is the book the world needed—a quality how-to guide and overview on the basics of BDSM"
—Aerie's Room

"Whatever your level in the world of BDSM, this book should be on your shelf."
—Cara Sutra

"I can’t stress enough the importance of being educated on the terms, toys, gear and how to play safely when it comes to kinky sex, and 50 Shades of Kink covers it all."
—A Good Woman's Dirty Mind

 
Q&A
 

"The first time someone put a finger in my butt, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," writes Tristan Taormino in her best-selling sex guide The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. Since its debut on The Howard Stern Show in 1997, Taormino's guide has helped thousands of women—and many men—unlock their own backdoors to paradise. The book also launched Taormino's career as America's "go-to girl on anal sex" (Time Out New York). She has spread her message of anal pleasure far and wide, conducting countless workshops and producing two adult video versions of her book (with a third video on the way). Now Taormino has completely revised and updated her classic guide to anal sex. Cleis's Chris Fox caught up with her to talk about the new edition of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women.

Chris Fox: The first edition of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women sold an amazing 75,000 copies. That's a lot of women interested in anal sex. Were you surprised by the book's success?

Tristan Taormino: Well, yes and no. I knew that there was a need for the book. I believed in it, and Cleis believed in it. But the distributor was nervous and scared that no one would want to buy a book about having anal sex. Felice Newman, one of the publishers at Cleis, jokes that when she first presented the title to their distributor, the topic made the sales reps so uncomfortable you would have thought she was asking them to go out and have anal sex with booksellers.

CF: Why did you decide to write a new edition?

TT: I have learned so much since the first edition—through teaching workshops around the world, getting asked questions I haven't known the answer to, and meeting so many amazing people, and having lots more anal sex, of course! I wanted to update the book to share all that new information, as well as tips and techniques, I had gathered.

CF: Is there one thing every woman should know about her ass but probably doesn't?

TT: The ass is an intensely sensitive erogenous zone, but that is not the first thing people think when they think about their butts.

CF: Is it just that they just don’t think about their asses as erogenous zones, or is there a sense that the butt is off limits?
Tristan Taormino's Love of All Things Anal



"The first time someone put a finger in my butt, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," writes Tristan Taormino in her best-selling sex guide The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. Since its debut on The Howard Stern Show in 1997, Taormino's guide has helped thousands of women—and many men—unlock their own backdoors to paradise. The book also launched Taormino's career as America's "go-to girl on anal sex" (Time Out New York). She has spread her message of anal pleasure far and wide, conducting countless workshops and producing two adult video versions of her book (with a third video on the way). Now Taormino has completely revised and updated her classic guide to anal sex. Cleis's Chris Fox caught up with her to talk about the new edition of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women.

Chris Fox: The first edition of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women sold an amazing 75,000 copies. That's a lot of women interested in anal sex. Were you surprised by the book's success?

Tristan Taormino: Well, yes and no. I knew that there was a need for the book. I believed in it, and Cleis believed in it. But the distributor was nervous and scared that no one would want to buy a book about having anal sex. Felice Newman, one of the publishers at Cleis, jokes that when she first presented the title to their distributor, the topic made the sales reps so uncomfortable you would have thought she was asking them to go out and have anal sex with booksellers.

CF: Why did you decide to write a new edition?

TT: I have learned so much since the first edition—through teaching workshops around the world, getting asked questions I haven't known the answer to, and meeting so many amazing people, and having lots more anal sex, of course! I wanted to update the book to share all that new information, as well as tips and techniques, I had gathered.

CF: Is there one thing every woman should know about her ass but probably doesn't?

TT: The ass is an intensely sensitive erogenous zone, but that is not the first thing people think when they think about their butts.

CF: Is it just that they just don’t think about their asses as erogenous zones, or is there a sense that the butt is off limits?

TT: It’s both really. Some women are just all about their pussies and don’t consider that there is another sensitive spot just next door. Others consider the butt off limits because they think about its role in our bodily functions and that’s all.

CF: Is there one aspect of anal sex that seems to especially attract women?

TT: I think that both the naughtiness of anal sex and the intensity of it attract women most. It can be very psychologically and emotionally charged, as well as physically intense—combine all those elements, and the results are orgasmic.

CF: Do you encounter a lot of women who are interested in strapping on a cock to penetrate their male partners, like in the Bend Over Boyfriend videos?

TT: Absolutely! I cannot tell you how many straight couples who want to switch roles write to me and come to my workshops. There really has been a major shift in people’s willingness to consider it, to talk about, and to do it. I just think it’s amazing, and it reflects how gender roles have shifted and become more fluid in the last decade. That’s why I added a chapter on anal pleasure and men to the second edition.

CF: I understand that you have a butt plug named after you.

TT: I have two actually. The Tristan and the Tristan 2. I approached Vixen Creations and told them I had an idea for a design. We worked together and came up with a great toy. Lots of people complain that when they get turned on, their butt plugs slip out. The Tristan plug is designed to go in and stay in.

CF: When you were promoting the first edition of your book, you said that there was a silent response from the mainstream media, that it was hard to get the book reviewed because of its taboo subject matter. Do you think it’s easier to have a public discussion about anal sex today or does the silence still exist?

TT: It is absolutely easier today to publicly talk about anal sex than it was when I wrote the first edition. There is just more anal sex out in the world—in magazines, in other books, on Sex and the City, etc. Certainly, the stigma is still there. However, the media is more willing to consider covering the topic, rather than just dismissing it outright.

CF: Have you said your final word on anal sex?

TT: Of course I haven’t! My new adult video, Tristan Taormino’s House of Ass, will be released by Adam & Eve in early 2006. Hopefully, I will shoot House of Ass 2 and 3 in the next year, so I will have another creative outlet for my love of all things anal.