Slutever Interview by Megan Christiansen

Karley Sciortino is the vixen behind the cult sex blog Slutever.  Growing up in upstate New York with religious parents, she moved to London where she squatted with a group of friends that ultimately inspired the blog. She hones her literary skills writing for the likes of Dazed and Confused and Vice to name a few……

You should probably read this. Karley Sciortino interview by Megan Christiansen of Post-New, photos by Clement Pascal.

MC: How did Slutever actually come about?
KS: Well I started it in 2007, but I would post really sporadically and at the time I was living in South East London in this squat. I had been squatting for a couple of years at that time, I had this kind of crew of people with me and we would move from place to place. But sometimes we would break up because we would move out of a building and find one that was kind of small, finally we found this dis-used hostel that had about 12 bedrooms in it. We were all in our late teens-early twenties and imagine there were no rules…there was all of these young kids, no-one had anything to do, no-one was at college, no-one had any responsibilities…which is kind of embarrassing! But we had all the time in the world and no rules, so it was just this breeding ground for all of this crazy stuff and stories. So we thought we should document it, but nobody takes any pictures, nobody can get it together to get a camera. So I ended up starting the blog mainly writing stories about what happened in the house and I guess I just enjoyed the process of writing because I was vaguely deciding at the time that I wanted to be a writer but not actually doing anything..so I just used the blog to practice writing. Then really slowly I just got really into it..that was about 5 years ago.

MC: When did you go from writing about living in the squat and writing about your friends to writing about sex and dating?
KS: From the beginning it was really sexual, I guess Im just a sexual person..at the time we were all kind of young and we were wasted all the time, so there were always these weird hook ups in the house and I would write about that. I was talking to someone about this the other day and they were like “Slutever is the best name, where did it come from?”…I actually stole it from my friend in high school who used to say “Slutever” instead or “whatever.” When I was trying to think of a name for my blog I was at an internet cafe because I didn’t have a computer and it was when my time that I had paid for was running out. In my head I was just thinking of my highschool friend but in hindsight I was the perfect thing because at the time I was just really slutty and very whatever about everything, so it really suited…So I was talking about sex in the beginning, then it was just a natural progression. I was writing for Vice more, interviewing people more and I found that I was just really interested in interviewing people about sex related things. I just kept going with it because for me sex just feels endless, its different for everybody and you can interview any person on earth about their sex life and it’s interesting. It never gets boring because its a unique experience for every person, then there are so many fetishes and it’s this secret part of everyone. The more I have interviewed people and even started working as a dominatrix, you actually do not know. Like you think your weird and then you are like, “no I am completely normal compared to all of these weirdos!”

MC: [Laughs] What are your first memories of sex?
KS: Ok I lost my virginity (I wrote about this on my blog once) in the most normal American teenage girl way because it was like any story from an American teen movie. I went to the most standard high school and I lost my virginity on the football field. My boyfriend who was about 2 years younger then me, I was always into the younger guys when I was in high school which is really funny because it meant that I slept with quite a few virgins. I was dating this guy who was 14 and he worked at McDonalds and he was really tall and skinny (everyone called him Stringbean) and I had a car and he didn’t yet. So it’s this thing where you can’t really have sex at your houses because your parents are there and we didn’t really know what to do, so we were driving around one night and drove up to the school parking lot. We had sex outside on the football field then went back to my car and had sex again. I guess the other cliche place to lose your virginity would be at a high school party..which is probably where I had sex the second time!

MC: How has you attitude towards sex changed since then?
KS: I dunno, I feel quite similar, I’ve never felt any guilt towards it which I think is a good thing. Especially growing up with religious parents because that’s something that boys and girls have to deal with. When I was young my mom used to tape shows on the God Channel about the importance of chastity. She really drilled it into my head that I should be married to have sex. There was all that stuff recently about Slut Shaming and thankfully I seem to have avoided that. Even when I was in highschool and I had sex for the first time I was like OMG that was amazing, I want to do this a lot. So I had sex with quite a few people, but I never felt guilty about it because I was consciously doing it and wanted to do it. Even now I try not to prescribe any guilt or feelings of shame towards it and ultimately that is the idea behind the blog, I want to inspire people to not feel that either.

MC: I think people often feel shame when they can’t separate having sex from being in love. Do you think that sex and love are separate or do you think they are always interlinked?
KS: I don’t know, I think some people can separate the two and I think that’s why people can enjoy sex with strangers, but I also think it’s not necessary. If you don’t enjoy having sex with people you don’t have a close connection with or your not in love with, that’s fine as well. Everyone relates to sex differently. That’s the other thing if you don’t go around sleeping with people you meet at parties, it doesn’t mean your sexually repressed, its about figuring out what feels good for you.

MC: I heard in an interview with you that you get some pretty mean comments on some of your columns, do you think people criticize because they don’t really understand you or do you just think it’s just funny?
KS: I actually do think it’s funny, but the thing is I’ve always really thrived on the hate comments even when I first started writing as an intern at Vice. If there is anywhere on earth that there are hate comments for the sake of just being an asshole, it’s on the Vice blog. I just think it’s funny because if someone writes a really intelligent comment that is some sort of a criticism and it makes sense, I definitely take it into consideration. Like recently I wrote one of the Ask Slutever posts where a younger girl was asking about how you deflect unwanted older male attention, but I made a vaguely flipid comment about how older men are better in bed. I was obviously joking but a lot of people came back and were like I think what you said was a bit irresponsible because I think she was genuinely asking for help. So I took that into consideration, but when people blindly say things like “your shit, your nose is huge,”…I mean what causes people to say things like that? Either your dumb, or bored, or you have no life, or your jealous…and every word is spelt wrong!

MC: Do your parents know about the blog?
KS: I actually don’t think my Dad does because it doesn’t make me any money so it’s not something he would ask about and he’s also potentially the kind of person who doesn’t know what the word blog means! My Mom used to read it but we used to get into the most extreme arguments about it so we just agreed to disagree. The last time she got angry about it was because she watched the Purple video where I’m in a bathtub for some reason and she sent me this really crazy email being like “Karley you didn’t tell me you were going to be in the nude.” IN THE NUDE! Who say’s that! I think she worries about the implications on my life for me to be naked on the internet more then anything…

MC: You have been doing a bit of Domme work right? Can you tell me a little bit about how it first came about and what your first session involved?
KS: It was a series of things. I’ve always been interested in fetish, and I spent a lot of time on fetish forums chatting to people, and reading stories about people’s personal BDSM experiences. Then about a year ago I made friends with a sub guy through one of those forums, and he told me that he was a “cash pig”. A cash pig is the BDSM term for someone who’s into financial domination. They can also be called ‘money slaves’ or ‘human ATMs’ – LOL! So basically, a cash pig is a person who gets turned on by being forced to give other people their money for no reason…I thought, “Jackpot!”

Over the following months we became pretty close. Our relationship consisted mainly of him buying me books on Amazon (which is how he earned the nickname Book Bitch) and Paypaling me money in exchange for degrading emails. For a while Book Bitch even started paying my rent! It was a pretty good deal. Soon after that I I wrote an article for Vice where I followed around a dominatrix for a few days and acted as her “assistant” of sorts during many of her sessions (she does things like bondage, humiliation, sissifcation, cock and ball torture, watersports, etc) and that’s when I realized being a dominatrix was something I could actually envision myself doing in a “real life” way, rather than just an online way. I then started doing some double-Domme sessions with her, and she was nice enough to train me a bit. I was basically working as her side-kick, so she got all the clients and controlled the sessions, and then I’d just follow her lead. Like if she started whipping someone I’d join in, or if she was peeing on an old man’s head I’d hop on and start peeing too! I then slowly started getting some of my own clients, and now I do it occasionally. Probably like twice a month or something. Although I’m considering devoting more time to it, because it’s good money!

MC: Do you personally get off on dominating men or is it “just a job?”
KS: I don’t find many of my Domme adventures sexually arousing. Sometimes I do, because it’s hard not to be turned on when you are in such a sexually charged situation like that, and seeing someone else turned on can be really hot. But I’m a naturally submissive person sexually. When I’m in bed I prefer to be the one being tied up and spanked rather than the other way around. So the Domme stuff is more an arousal of the ego. It’s like an adrenaline rush. Having so much control over someone like that makes you feel powerful, and that feeling is very intoxicating. Also the sessions make good writing material, because they’re all so different and weird and funny, so that’s a plus for my blog. Also I just always like the chance to talk to people about their fetishes and weird sex lives, so I enjoy the Domme stuff because it allows me to meet new and interesting people. (aka freaks!)

MC: What advice would you give to girls that might want to be a little bit more dominant with their partners?
KS: I say just go for it and don’t overthink it. Mild BSDM is something most people can relate to. Wanting to be tied up or thrown around is so common, if you bring it up with whoever you’re dating it would be stranger for them to be against it then it would be for them to say, “Cool, I’m down!” It’s just like anything – start slow, test the boundaries, and see how much you both like. Tying his wrists to the headboard is always a good starting point. Or hair pulling – start small and work your way up. Also, the 5th episode of the Vice Slutever show is about “BDSM for the bedroom”, so we are talking about how to do all this stuff in a casual “at home with my boyfriend” kind of way, since normally people think of BDSM as something that is practiced mainly in dark, dank dungeons by scary leather-clad sex maniacs. But no, normal couples can abuse each other too!

MC: Tell me a bit more about the Vice series..How did the concept come about?
KS: I make the show with my friend Adri Murguia, who is a director/producer at Vice. When we were originally talking about the concept for the show we said we wanted to make a show for girls, by girls. A lot of the content Vice make is very male oriented, so we wanted to make a funny, girly show about sex and dating, but also kind of simultaneously make fun of all of all those sex and dating shows, because they tend to be pretty cheesy and watered down.

MC: What has been the thing or person that has shocked or effected you the most so far during the course of creating the series?
KS: One of my favorite people that I’ve met through the series so far is a 54 year old cross dresser named Sissy Sarah. We went to London to interview him, and he has an alter ego named “Sarah” which comes out whenever he’s alone. He talked to us very candidly about how wanting to wear women’s lingerie has nothing to do with being straight or gay, and about how for him it’s more of a lifestyle fixation. He also has a pee fetish so when I met him I made him a cocktail out of my pee and some random spices we found lying around his house. It was very glamorous!

MC: 5 minutes alone in a closet with any guy in the world, who is it?
KS: Oh I think about this a lot. Louis Gurrel is so amazing! Particularly in The Dreamers time, he’s still actually the hottest guy on earth. Also you know who I only recently caught on to that was really hot when they were younger is Steve Buscemi. Also Adrian Brody is incredible. And do you know someone who is so not my type but he’s just so charming is Ewan Mcgreggor!

MC: How about any girl?
KS: Umm Eva Green and Paz De La Huerta, she would be insane. Wait! I’m just googling pictures of Adrian Brody and he dresses like a fake gangster! Don’t you hate it when you find actors hot and then you see them in their casual clothes and you are like “eww you wearing a V-neck and a Fedora!”

http://slutever.com/