Some Of My Old Books In PDF (2012)
'The S&M Feminist' and 'Confessions Of A Pickup Artist Chaser,' written under the name Clarisse Thorn, plus one more
I used to be a sex writer. I wrote about feminism and gender, too, but really what I found most interesting was sexuality, and sexual identity. I wrote under the name Clarisse Thorn.
I had a blog. The blog got semi-famous. I traveled and gave talks. I published some books. Sometimes people still read and buy the books.
All of this was only 10-15 years ago, but it feels like a lifetime ago. When people read and buy those books, it’s always interesting to see their responses to the younger me.
Someone recently pirated one of my books in PDF. After he read the book, he found me on Paypal and sent me $20, and he also sent me a fan email. I thought that was really sweet. It was a nice reminder that some people still get a lot out of these books.
Here are two three of my Clarisse Thorn books in PDF. If you would prefer to buy them (in electronic or hard copy), they are also available on Amazon and some other places.
• The S&M Feminist (2012) •
This is an essay collection, containing many posts I wrote as Clarisse.
Download and read for free in PDF • Buy on Amazon
• Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser: Long Interviews with Hideous Men (2012) •
This is a chronicle of some time I spent in the pickup artist scene.
Download and read for free in PDF • Buy on Amazon
Update: After the publication of this post, I added one more book —
• Violation: Rape in Gaming, an anthology I edited with Julian Dibbell (2012) •
I edited and wrote the introduction for this collection of perspectives about sexual assault in games, LARPs, and virtual worlds.
Download and read for free in PDF • Buy on Amazon
If you don’t want to buy my books but you still want to support my writing, you can subscribe here.
I came across a photo of Mystery and it reminded me of how different that first decade of the century was than the one we're currently in. Kind of made me feel old. Anyway, I never followed the PUA subculture, but I was thinking I should study it and then dress up as a PUA for Halloween this year. So I was reading about Neil Strauss and Ross Jeffries and all these guys in Wikipedia and I came across a mention of your book. Thank you for providing it for download as a PDF, I look forward to reading it
Hi Lydia/Clarisse,
I found your content here after that comment thread on Ozy's most recent post. I read Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser in one sitting (minus a few footnotes). It was a very good book, even if there were some things in it that were incongruent with my life experiences and some opinions I didn't agree on, but I am sure you could say the same about me if I ever wrote a book. It was a good enough book, in fact, that it almost made me miss an appointment I had at 3 PM, but that is more on me for having poor time management skills and self-control than anything else. And if you think this is all hot air, I purchased an e-copy of the book on Amazon right before typing this comment, so at least I'm putting my money where my hot air is.
For various reasons, I imagine that is a part of yourself you've left behind, and I won't push you to talk about what if anything you think has changed in the intervening years in regards to the state of heteronormative dating and mating. I can only speak for myself: in my view, every political and social faction of society agrees that we need (and have needed) a better way to answer the question "how can a man be a good man". And then everyone tries to answer it in the most self-serving, smarmy, and self-destructive way possible. It is kind of similar to the sense that most people agree that men should open up and be more willing to share their emotions, but only if those emotions validate the political biases of the people encouraging men to share their emotions.
Also, I suppose part of why I'm writing this comment is that I'm currently seeing a dating coach, so it was interesting to see how things have changed in the past 10 years. Before you block and report me, I want to say up front that to my knowledge, this guy has not referred to women as fatties or farm animals, or encouraged me to insult a woman to make her feel needy, or made any offensive jokes about the most important part of a woman being the genitalia. He has mostly told me to be less nervous, stand up straighter and speak louder, make eye contact, be funnier, and try not to feel hurt about rejection. Oh, and to get better dating profile photos. The most politically incorrect thing he has ever told me is that I should be cautious dating women of certain races...because in his experience where he's coached clients who share my ethnicity, women of those races are often likely to have quite racist assumptions about the likelihood of men of my ethnicity to be good partners and men. (I'm non-white.)
At the risk of sharing some extremely embarrassing personal information about myself on the internet in case anyone from any other substack finds this comment, I struggled with extreme social anxiety growing up in an immigrant household that was simultaneously very sheltered and very abusive, and had very few positive older male role models in my life growing up, unless you count the kid that kept molesting me on the school bus because he thought it was funny. (It was totally hilarious.) This wasn't a recipe for social extroversion or fluency, and I more or less became the stereotype of the nerd who retreats into books and tries to succeed in school if for no other reason than it offered an escape. Not surprisingly, I also was one of those kids who spent a lot of time on the internet. Hilariously enough, I ended up spending around half of my time on edgy extreme rightwing Newgrounds/SomethingAwful/4chan type forums, and the other half on extreme leftwing Tumblr/Livejournal/fandom/fanfiction spaces. Talk about cognitive dissonance, but if nothing else, at least it was good for improving my precocious vocabulary. Anyway, I only bring all this up to say that while I have no affection for the PUA movement (as a man, I have very little desire to support things that make people think misandry is justified), I am in no position to throw stones. Resentment is certainly not a justification to increase the net amount of pain in the world, but I can really only say that from a "there but for the grace of God go I" perspective. Reading your book was like a sharp, cold drink of seltzer water- sometimes a little uncomfortable, but sometimes a little discomfort is what people need. And yes, I cried a little during some parts. Sometimes men need to cry. It's just that they don't want anyone to want them to cry. If that makes sense.
Anyway, all of that was too long for a throwaway comment on the internet. I hope you are doing well in your life. Your political sensibilities and reorientation from 2016-2020 mirror mine in a lot of ways (though not all), and I share some of your experiences (though not all) in Blue Tribe heavy areas. I was saddened to read of your experiences with Curtis- if it is indeed the same Curtis I'm thinking of, although I can't really think of any other Curtis it could be, and while I knew of his reputation on the internet long before all of this, if I am frank, I think his behavior on this score makes me revise my opinion of him more than anything he's ever written politically. (Yes, I realize he has his own side of the story too, but I'll wait to pass judgment on that.)
Given geographic and time constraints, I realize it's unlikely we'll ever meet. That being said, I wanted to state for the record that your writing has brought at least one person (me) value and reflection, even if it was a part of yourself that's in the past, and for that much, I am grateful. That may not be much in the grand scheme of things, but I hope it brings you a tiny bit of the happiness that good people deserve.