Books

Taormino is the author of seven books, including the Firecracker Book Award-winning The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women.

She has edited anthologies including the Lambda Literary Award-winning annual anthology series she created and edited from 1996 to 2009, Best Lesbian Erotica, published by Cleis Press.

She was a regular columnist for The Village Voice from 1999 to 2008, where she wrote the bi-weekly sex column "Pucker Up."^[6] In print, her column appeared opposite Dan Savage's column Savage Love. She popularized and re-defined the term "queer heterosexual," in her 1995 column "The Queer Heterosexual." She wrote: "In some cases, it's based on either one or both partners having non-traditional gender expressions...or they actively work against their assigned gender roles. Some queer heterosexuals are strongly aligned with queer community, culture, politics, and activism but happen to love and lust after people of a different gender. I also consider folks who embrace alternative models of sexuality and relationships (polyamory, non-monogamy, BDSM, cross-dressing) to be queer, since labeling them "straight," considering their lifestyle choices, seems inappropriate."^[7] She was laid off from The Village Voice in 2008.^[8] She has written "The Anal Advisor" column for Hustler's Taboo magazine since 1999, and she is a former columnist for Velvetpark. She is the former editor of On Our Backs, the US's oldest lesbian-produced lesbian sex magazine.

Lectures and controversy

Taormino has lectured at many colleges and universities, where she speaks on gay and lesbian issues, sexuality and gender, and feminism.^[9] Some of her college appearances have stirred controversy, as at University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2004,^[10] Princeton,^[11] and, most famously, Oregon State University in 2011, where administrators un-invited her as keynote speaker at the Modern Sex Conference.^[12] There was a huge uproar on the internet, and many accused OSU of anti-sex bias. The incident received national media attention. Eventually, students raised the funds and re-invited her themselves.^[13]

Film and television

Taormino hosted the television show Sexology 101 on The Burly Bear Network in 2001, a college cable network owned by Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video.^[14] She was a regular expert and panelist on Ricki Lake for two seasons in 2002 and 2003.^[15] In 2003, she signed a development deal with MTV Networks. She served as host and executive producer on the pilot for The Naughty Show, but the series was never picked up.^[16][17] She has appeared as an expert on sex, relationships, feminism, pornography, non-monogamy, and LGBT issues on Melissa Harris-Perry, Joy Behar: Say Anything,^[18] HBO's Real Sex, The Howard Stern Show, Ricki Lake, MTV, and other television shows.^[1]

Taormino worked with Spike Lee as a script consultant and with the cast on the set of his 2004 movie She Hate Me.^[19] In 2006, she appeared as a so-called "sextra" in John Cameron Mitchell's film, Shortbus, participating in an unsimulated orgy that was filmed for the movie. (Her presence is confirmed by the director on the DVD commentary.) She also appeared in Becky Goldberg's 2003 documentary Hot and Bothered: Feminist Pornography and in Mr. Angel, the documentary about Buck Angel (2013).^[1]

Taormino holding a Feminist Porn Award for her work Chemistry (2007)

In addition to writing, speaking and sex education, she considers herself a feminist pornographer.^[20] She made two videos based on her book The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. The first (1999) was co-directed by Buttman (John Stagliano) and Ernest Greene. The second (2001) was directed by Tristan herself. In both videos, she takes part in the on-screen sexual activities. Subsequently, she directed Tristan Taormino's House of Ass for Adam & Eve, which shows a number of "porn stars" (from famous to unknown) interacting without a script. In 2006, she directed Tristan Taormino's Chemistry,^[21] which is the first in a series of full-length "behind the scenes" movies for Vivid Entertainment where the performers choose who they have sex with, what they do, where and when.^[22] She directed four volumes of the Chemistry series as well as sex education films for Vivid Ed, Vivid Entertainment's sex education line that she was instrumental in creating.^[23]

Criticism

Rebecca Whisnant argues that Taormino work's represents a profit-based ‘‘feminist porn’’ within the mainstream pornography industry based upon thin conceptions of feminism and sexual ethics.^[24]

As editor

• Pucker Up: the zine with a mouth that's not afraid to use it (Black Dog Productions, 1995–?) publisher and editor
• Best Lesbian Erotica (Cleis Press, 1996–2009) as Series Editor
• Ritual Sex (Rhinoceros Books, 1996) co-editor
• A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution (St. Martin's Press, 1997) co-editor
• Hot Lesbian Erotica (Cleis Press, 2005) editor
• Best Lesbian Bondage Erotica (Cleis Press, 2007) editor
• Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica (Cleis Press, 2010) editor
• Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica (Cleis Press, 2011) editor ISBN 978-1-57344-720-1
• The Ultimate Guide To Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge (Cleis Press, 2012) editor ISBN 978-1-57344-779-9
• Stripped Down: Lesbian Sex Stories (Cleis Press, 2012) editor ISBN 978-1-57344-794-2
• The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (Feminist Press, 2013) co-editor ISBN 978-1-55861-818-3
• When She Was Good: Best Lesbian Erotica (Cleis Press, 2014) editor ISBN 978-1-62778-069-8

Journal articles

• Taormino, Tristan (2006). "The danger of protecting our children: government porn regulation threatens alternative representations and doesn't save kids". Yale Journal of Law and Feminism. Yale Law School. 18 (1): 277–282. Pdf.
• Voss, Georgina (January 2014). "Tristan Taormino interviewed by Georgina Voss". Porn Studies. 1 (1–2): 203–205. doi:10.1080/23268743.2014.888257.