Bathroom Interview: Tristan Taormino

Tristan Taormino should be the patron saint of anal sex. Seriously, someone call the pope. She’s built her own little empire – including her Village Voice sex column, several books, and two pornos – on the premise that more people should be taking it up the ass. She just released the newly revised second edition of her first book, The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, and has returned to the world of porn with her new DVD, Tristan Taormino’s House of Ass. I found Taormino in the bathroom of Crash Mansion where we were celebrating the release of both the book and DVD.

John: It's been five years since The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women 2. Why so long between DVDs?
Tristan Taormino: The thing is, truthfully, there’s so much that I do. Things just come into focus. There are some years where the focus is on teaching and some years where the focus is on writing. And I just felt this year, in 2005, newly inspired to make cool porn. I’m not a fulltime pornographer and I don’t want to just do it to do it, or do it to cash the check. I only want to do it when I feel really jazzed about it.

J: How is House of Ass different from every other porno out there?
TT: Well, my whole thing is that I want to see a different kind of gonzo. Gonzo is porn without a plot, where the camera is acknowledged. Like cinema verite, sort of. I want to see gonzo where there isn’t stupid degradation, of both women and men. And I want to see porn where there’s no circus stunts. Cause that’s the thing. There are great things about gonzo, but then a lot of the stuff in gonzo is crappy. So, can you capture the spirit of gonzo, which is spontaneity and just raw hot sex? But can you take out some of these things that sort of dominate the genre?

J: Did you get to sample any of the talent before filming?
TT: (laughs) No.

J: During filming?
TT: Yes. In the video, you’ll see, Justine [Jolie] played with my boobs a little bit and pinched my nipples. There may be some lost footage, not on the DVD, of me with Mr. Marcus’s cock in my mouth. Enough said!

J: What is the best soundtrack for anal sex?
TT: The best soundtrack for anal sex…See that’s the thing. There is no one soundtrack. People make these assumptions, like it has to be rough and down and dirty. You can have anal sex to “fuck me like and animal” or you can have anal sex to, like, Everything But the Girl. It can be sweet and tender and intimate and really nice, or it can be rough and dirty and nasty and raunchy, and everything in between.

J: So what’s your favorite song to have anal sex to?
TT: I’m gonna go with anything on “Disintegration” by the Cure.

J: Who do you think is having anal sex tonight?
TT: I think that Rachel Kramer Bussel is gonna have anal sex tonight. I think that Bridget Everett is gonna have anal sex tonight. There were just so many couples who I don’t even really know, but who came up to me and were like, “You changed our sex life.” Which, you know, is my favorite thing in the whole world. So all those people, whose names I probably can’t even remember now, all those people are gonna have anal sex.