Nicholson Baker, author of Vox and The Fermata, left a 15-minute message in the middle of the night, thrilled to talk about it. Feminist Naomi Wolf called up and raved. For "literate smut" site Nerve, the subject of "sex" has attracted an impressive retinue of writers, photographers, and public figures all willing to go public with their most private - and peculiar - obsessions. As oversexed as the Web may be, Nerve still manages to strike one.
If sex is all about body chemistry, then Nerve has mixed a potent combination. The site, launching Friday, boasts work by Norman Mailer, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, novelist Rick Moody, William T. Vollman, and infamous Piss Christ photographer Andres Serrano. Baited by what Nerve editor Genevieve Field calls the "challenge to write as honestly about sex as possible," the writers and artists were "fired up" to turn over their work. As Field explains, "sex is good fodder for good writing."
Nerve features work tailored to every taste, from candid interviews (in which Mailer admits his youthful predilection for Spicy Detective magazine), book reviews, and healthy doses of skin. But the scope of the subject matter is remarkably wide-ranging, with first-person accounts about sex in prison to a forthcoming dispatch about the sexual dynamics of the homeless. Seventy-two-year-old writer John Hawkes, who doesn't even own a computer, published a highly charged fiction excerpt in Nerve precisely because the magazine "stresses the diversity of sexual interest."
Started by late-twentysomething couple Rufus Griscom and Genevieve Field, the site has been a labor of love from the beginning. Griscom and Field, self-described "garden-variety sex enthusiasts," ditched jobs at the same publishing house to start the site dedicated to sex as "more than a popular sport and a marketing tool."
Griscom said the site hopes to fill a void in the media for discussions about sex. "Magazines about sex have tended to be blockheadedly male and unreflective," Griscom says, "and literary erotica [has been] gauzy and unwilling to be more forceful and direct." On the Web, the distinction may not even exist - sex zines barely run the gamut from raw to hard-core.
While Nerve doesn't exactly "show you the money," it comes pretty close. Richard Kern's photo series "Other New York Girls" showcases "glam girl" models posing confidently for the camera. Though they might be naked, the female subjects are clearly calling the shots. In Barbara Nitke's exposé on capturing stills from porn-film sets for video boxes, the soft-focus portraits and half-hearted gymnastics border on the comedic.
The Net has become a refuge for provocative work because it has "created a place to be more private and discreet," says author and sexpert Susie Bright, who launched a new column for Salon. Released from public scrutiny, viewers can "peek" without the threat of "mommy slapping me and getting me in trouble," adds Bright. Though she critiques Moody's piece in Nerve as a "real turn-off," the magazine does have "real moments of truth," specifically in Mailer's "blunt and forthcoming review."
The site is also a testament to the endurance of that endangered species of Web ventures: the "two people in a garage" (or, in this case bedroom) operation. To build the content of the site, Griscom and Field went begging for it. "We just started writing letters to all our favorite authors," says Griscom. "We offered them a combination of heartfelt adoration and cold, hard cash." Griscom adds that authors were seduced to write because "there just aren't the opportunities to write about sex" in the traditional media.
They plan to create by September a "ridiculously low"-priced subscription service for access to the most revealing photographs. By September, Nerve will also offer an extensive conference site, moderated by NY BBS Echo, and instant messaging software.
Like the traditional media, Nerve has already confronted the sometimes touchy relationship between advertisers and controversial content. Currently, Nerve runs off the support of one angel investor, and has four advertisers like Cyberian Outpost lined-up for the site. For the launch, Nerve acquired exclusive rights to publish work from Andres Serrano's incendiary History of Sex portfolio, but they delayed them because an advertiser threatened to pull out.
Serrano's photographs, which include explicit scenes with midgets and animals, will run eventually, say the Nerve editors. "We just want to legitimize our content first," says Griscom. "We didn't want people to think of us as the horse-dick magazine."
From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
