Sarah Palin Erotica

As the carnal inspiration for schoolgirl action figures, naughty Halloween costumes, and an upcoming Hustler porn, Sarah Palin is the first overt sex symbol to run for The White House. It’s not just her gender: few people were forwarding PhotoShop jobs of Hillary Clinton, with her shapeless pants suits and distant gruffness, in a stars-and-stripes bikini. Palin, however, has won attention not only with her everyman attitude, folksy patois, and run-on sentences, but also with her unapologetic sex appeal. At least, that’s how author and sex expert Rachel Kramer Bussel sees it—and why she's working on a web site that'll be a place where Joe Sixpack can stop quietly ogling the ex-beauty queen and start writing dirty stories about her himself.

Bussel's about to launch SarahPalinErotica.com, a collection of tales from the minds of professional writers and amateur smut lovers alike—and all of them about Palin. “This kind of fiction allows people to use both facts and their own imagination,” Bussel—whose work has appeared in more than 100 erotica collections—explains over the phone. “I don’t think people are going to go to the site and jerk off to it. It’s less expressly political and more about giving people something fun to do until we know the outcome of the election.” She adds, “Still, I’m glad it’s all covered by the first amendment.” Yeah, we bet you are.

Why a Sarah Palin erotica site?

Since the first day her candidacy was announced, Palin has been sexualized in the mainstream media. Her looks and her sex life—in terms of her pregnancy and her marriage—were the center of what was reported about her. It just seemed like a natural thing to see what people might come up with. The idea of analyzing her based on her sexuality is already in the air. The site will take that and make it explicit. For some of the authors, it’s a way to satirize her and her politics through sexuality.

Me, I’m a democrat. I’m voting for Obama. But I’d love to see pro-Palin or Republican stories.

Is it possible for right-wing writers to express their admiration of Palin through erotica, the way television or videogame lovers do when they write fan fiction?

She does seem to inspire extreme fandom. There was the blog, Draft Sarah Palin for VP, that the kid was writing for a year and a half. A lot of [her appeal] is the cult of personality we’re not seeing around Joe Biden, though I think Obama’s sexuality and looks have also played into this election… Sex and sexuality are part of Palin’s story, between her kids and her daughter’s pregnancy. Some of the erotica about her that’s already out there plays on her real traits, like her ambitions. In one of the stories ambition is what makes sex hot for her.

In the stories you’ve seen—and the ones you expect to see—does Palin play a role that’s sexually empowered? Or is this an excuse to strip her down and humiliate her?

You know, I’ve mentioned the site to people who’ve said, “You should have Palin have a threesome with Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama.” Some people have said she should be the dom and some people have said she should be in a dungeon getting punished. Either of those roles would be sexually exciting. We don’t know what she’s into, so it’s about speculating about what we know about this public figure and does her personal sexuality match what we know of her political persona. You could ask that question of anyone in power: do they want to give up that power in the bedroom or do they want more power?

Where does this erotica fit in with the Palin sexism debate? You’re clearly a feminist yourself. Isn’t there something hypocritical there?

I do think there’s a tension. If I was starting a Hillary Clinton erotica website that would be trickier. I feel like it’s more okay with Palin because she’s brought more of her sexuality into the public arena. That’s why I’d love to see stories in support of her or from her point of view.

Someone suggested writing about Todd Palin. What do we know about him? What do we know about their marriage? Also, because she has some radical views around sex—birth control and abortion, for example—people are wondering about the intersection of Palin’s politics with her sex life . . . Those Photoshopped images that have come out with her in sexy clothes—they’re a reaction to the way she’s presented herself.

But what about the feminist idea that eroticizing Palin is really just an attempt to put a woman in power down?

Any woman in a position of authority is going to be sexualized… We’re probably going to launch with five or six stories, which will hopefully show a range of fetishes, since we don’t really know what her personal life is like. I don’t think that’s even really relevant. It’s more about what her candidacy says to erotica writers. There’s one story where a married mom is having a lesbian sex fantasy about her. What does that say? I’m also hoping some people will take it as an opportunity. I teach an erotic 101 class. I tell them, 'Write an erotica story about George Bush.' If you can do that, and do it well, you can write erotica about anything.