Column

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published by the Pittsburgh City Paper At my husband’s appointment last week, his doctor turned to us and said, “Do you plan on having any more kids?” We both kind of stumbled. The fact of the matter is that while we haven’t planned on having more kids, we also hadn’t […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published by the Pittsburgh City Paper. During a wild storm on the evening of Halloween, a tree snapped in half in my front yard and fell on my house, taking out my electrical meter and box, my awning, roof shingles, the gutter, and a few other things. The fact that […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published in the Pittsburgh City Paper. Several years ago, I had a brief, albeit steamy, romance with a man I met on OkCupid. At the time, he was writing a dissertation on religious symbolism in medieval Europe. After several days of texts exclusively about our research interests, I invited him […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published by the Pittsburgh City Paper. Recently, I was asked what sort of natural aphrodisiacs, such as specific foods or scents, work to heighten sexual arousal and increase libido. I had to admit that I really don’t know because, other than passing cultural references to things like oysters and chocolate, […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published in the Pittsburgh City Paper. A few years ago, after a well-attended academic talk on the porn industry at the Adult Video Network Convention in Las Vegas, I was chit-chatting with several porn scholars. One said, with a great deal of confidence, “The phone sex industry died because of free […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published in the Pittsburgh City Paper. When I was first starting to have sex as a teenager in the mid-90s, Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” was like a generational anthem. I have vivid memories of having sex in a car in a park-and-ride, the bass of that song reverberating throughout the vehicle. […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published in the Pittsburgh City Paper. Given that I am very open about both working in the sex industry and being married, I am often asked by journalists, podcasters, non-sex working friends, and (sometimes) clients how my husband feels about my work. I find these questions difficult because he is integrated […]

Written by Jessie Sage, originally published in Pittsburgh City Paper. The [Ancient] Greeks […] originated the term stigma to refer to bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier. The signs were cut or burnt into the body and advertised that the bearer was a slave, a criminal, […]