In 1991, a sharp, attractive, good-natured "feminist pornographer" named Lisa Palac was hired as the editor-in-chief of the world's first cyber-porn magazine, the now-legendary Future Sex.
Though she'd never evinced any particular interest in technoculture, Palac was a fast learner. She was soon online and up to speed, or at least able to sling a good line at reporters from the likes of The New York Times. Within months of publication, Palac had made a name for herself as the "high-tech sex chick." Her release of the "virtual audio" CDs Cyborgasm and Cyborgasm 2, pornography in 3-D sound, enhanced that public perception.
Future Sex is long gone, but the myth of Palac will surely grow larger with the release of The Edge of the Bed: How Dirty Pictures Changed My Life. Palac's book, thankfully, is not an attempt to milk what slim kicks are to be had from fantasies of touch-sensitive Virtual Reality palaces, humanoid sex robots, and orgasmatrons. Rather, Palac dishes up her personal history of erotic self-exploration.
The book opens with a left-behind sex toy falling on Palac's head as she's cleaning up an apartment she's just moved into. From there, we ride along with her as she tries to lose her virginity, becomes a collegiate anti-porn feminist, discovers the pleasures of pornography, has an intense sexual relationship via the Internet, and eventually marries the man she loves while not knowing whether this means eternal monogamy or not.
Largely through a poignant story about a relationship that evolved online, the book explores digitally enhanced erotica. But what is most extraordinary about The Edge of the Bed is that it's essentially a tome in support of sexual libertinism that somehow makes it all seem very wholesome. Palac rummages through the taboo – she deals with the religious repression of sexuality, masochistic daddy fantasies, her experience performing as an extra in a porn flick – in a voice that is sweet, honest, and funny. This book might be the last nail in the coffin of vanilla sex.
WIRED NEWS: Did you feel pressured to make this book more futuristic, more cybersex-oriented, or did you know from the start that it would be a more personal look at sex and love and your own evolution?
LISA PALAC: I never felt like it needed to be any more cyber. Initially, I pressured myself to make it an academic book. And so I started writing crap like, "When one looks at the sexual representations in popular culture..." until I put myself to sleep. I went on like that for about 18 months until I finally threw it all away and started over again.
The problem was that I didn't trust that my own experiences were valuable enough to fill a book. Eventually, when I came to write the "future sex" part of the book, I didn't feel the need to make grandiose societal predictions about how technology is going to change the world! Because it already had, in some small, yet significant, ways. I think the chapter titled "The Net Effect," where I fall in love online and develop an intense sexual relationship with a guy who, at one point, weighs in at 350, exemplifies the power of the medium.
WN: Yes. That was a very affecting example of the power an erotic relationship that is developed online can have. Is there a take-home lesson from this?
LP: Please, try this at home! The Net can open us to experiences we might otherwise have written off. It introduces us to people about whom, had we met them in person initially, we might have said to ourselves, "Oh she's not my type." And I'm not just talking about sex here. Everyday we make dismissive judgments about all kinds of people by their looks. This sometimes serves as a way to protect us from dangerous situations. But on the other hand, it also prevents us from engaging with people and ideas that might turn out to be really, really amazing.
WN: Do you look for pornography on the Web?
LP: I recently checked out this X-rated "X Files" site, hoping to see some hardcore nudie pix of David Duchovny. Anyway, I found some lame, coy shots of Duchovny but I [also] found some totally pornographic photos of Scully and Mulder getting it on. These images were Photoshopped by fans who dream of seeing their favorite TV characters doing it, and they were clearly labeled as fantasy images. To me, it didn't matter that they were fakes, in fact I loved the idea that people out there are spending their spare time posing Scully and Mulder the same way kids pose their naked Barbie dolls. The pictures were quite imaginative.
Oh... here's my big shameful secret: I, the high-tech sex chick, have never been able to download porn – much less upload it – from Usenet on my own. There's always some glitch and I have to put out a distress call. If anyone out there would like to give me step-by-step instructions on how to do this, please contact me now! We all know that Usenet is where the good stuff is.
WN: When you first became a feminist pornographer most feminists were very anti-porn. Do you think the situation has reversed?
LP: I can safely say that we've come a long way, baby, from the anti-porn days of the early to mid-1980s. When I started writing about my positive experiences with porn, it was nearly impossible to find other women who were doing the same thing. Today, I can't pick up a women's mag without some article trumpeting the joys of porn.... In 1988, there was no "Women's Erotica." The genre didn't exist!
WN: Are you surprised when you hear about women who are still enraged by porn or who equate bawdiness with harassment?
LP: I'm not surprised.... I'm so used to people having very hostile reactions to sexually explicit images and ideas. Generally speaking, most people talk about what turns them off, not on.
But speaking of surprises, I was surprised by the verdict of the Jovanovic case, the so-called Internet Torture Case, where this older guy met a Barnard college co-ed online, they had some hot correspondence and eventually got together for some S/M sex.
Afterwards, she claimed he raped and tortured her. He was found guilty and will spend a minimum of 15 years in prison. What's surprising is how much public support there's been for the guy. I mean, five years ago the public sentiment would have been, "He poured hot wax on her nipples? Who would ever consent to that! It must be rape." Today, more people at least are willing to acknowledge that women – smart, independent, feminist women – can choose, of their own volition, to have any kind of sex they want. The real question here is choice: Did this woman willingly choose it?
WN: Is this perhaps an example of virtual sex damage, in the sense that the woman was indulging in masochistic fantasies that she wasn't really prepared to experience in real life and he mistook her genuine distress as role-playing? The confusion between fantasy, media, and reality is undoubtedly a problem for some unhinged people.
LP: Of course, we'll never really know what happened but certainly one possibility is what you just said. That there was some serious miscommunication about what was transpiring. Or maybe the guy was a rapist. As far as the confusion between fantasy, media, and reality being a problem for some unhinged people, that's true, too. It reminds of the time you told me, "We can't reduce the discourse to a level where everything has to be safe for children, psychopaths and retards" – and we can't. Freedom requires responsibility and life is difficult. Those are two of my favorite truths.
WN: As "the high-tech sex chick," which of the following are you most looking forward to (if at all): robot sex, full-sensory VR suits, technologically enhanced perfect sex objects, reversible gender switching, or something of your own imagining?
LP: Vaginal rejunevation, baby. That's where I'm headed. I just got back from Los Angeles. In the LA Weekly on the second or third page was this huge age for the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Center of Los Angeles. The headline read, "The 1st medical advance of the new millennium is here now!" They claim they can completely "resculpt and rejuvenate the vagina" in one hour using a laser. What does that mean? I couldn't stop laughing.
This Wired News interview was conducted by correspondent R.U. Sirius, who had hoped to interview Lisa Palac naked on a surfboard, but had to settle for email.
