Journeying into San Francisco’s Underbelly with Novelist Brittany Newell
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. You know, one of the things that makes a city a city is that on any given block, you don't really know what's going on behind every door. There's the official business of a place like San Francisco, and then there's what happens in the dark, in the shadows, in the underworld. Writer and performer Brittany Newell's new novel, Softcore, is a trip into the Bay Area's soft underbelly where the men are tender and the women are tough.

What do you learn in the wee hours and the hidden places? And can that knowledge survive being brought into the light? It's coming up next after this news. Alexis Madrigal here. We've got a pledge break going right now, so you get a little bonus on the pledge-free stream, podcast, or on a replay at night. I'm writing these mini essays, and we're calling this series One Good Thing.

Where I grew up, there was one great bookstore. Powell's Books in Portland advertises itself as a city of books, and indeed it takes up a city block and it's five stories tall. More than any force outside my parents, that building has shaped my path in life.

The Bay Area doesn't have one single building like that. Instead, we have so, so, so many great independent bookstores. We have a rich ecosystem of booksellers, each of whom has their own distinct taste and approach, and they're scattered across the whole region. The single best indicator that our area hasn't been swallowed up by tech and money.

Up in Marin, Point Reyes Books curates this remarkable collection of books that center the nature that their little store is surrounded by. Down in the peninsula, Kepler's is a shining light as an outpost of the literary world. In the East Bay, there's Pegasus and East Bay Booksellers and Mrs. Dalloway's and the New Book Society, and that's just on College Avenue.

Marcus Books in Oakland is the oldest Black-owned bookstore in the nation and has played an active role in the history of activism around here. Or perhaps you're interested in feminist books. The new spot, Womb House in Temescal, has an ultra-curated selection, a place where you can pick up a vintage book of Virginia Woolf essays or the latest Sheila Hetty. And of course, there's Walden Pond Books, Jenny O'Dell's favorite spot. But of course, then there is San Francisco.

In another place, City Lights alone, both as publisher and store, would suck all the bookish energy into itself. But here, there's Green Apple right there, the other of the twin pillars. Then there are the stranger creatures, the tiny and perfect 34 Trinity Arts and News, the poetry-heavy Medicine for Nightmares in the Mission, the radical weirdos of Balarium, the genre specialist at Borderlands, the ultra-hip Blackbird in the Sunset, Book Passage holding down the Ferry Building.

So yeah, I could go on reciting this embarrassment of riches, but I won't. Just next time you're scooting past a Waymo under the Salesforce tower, just remember we are also this, our legion of independent bookstores. That's your one good thing today. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.

In Brittany Newell's new novel, Softcore, we are embedded deep inside the narrator Ruth's life. She's involved with a ketamine dealer with whom she has an edifying and befuddling relationship. She dances at a strip club, engages in some sex work, and serves as a dominatrix inside a tiny little BDSM club in an El Cerrito house.

Desperately lonely, smart and observant, she's also increasingly, as the novel goes on, observing her own mind dissolve into fog as she tries to make sense of her boyfriend's disappearance, her core relationships and our society's radical power gradients.

It all adds up to a novel that's fun and weird and deliciously alive to the possibilities of San Francisco beyond the dumb stereotypes and real estate prices. It's a novel that makes you believe this place still has the juice. Brittany Little-Newell joins us this morning. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. So as I was thinking about how to describe what this book is about, I was thinking about kind of three different words, you know, that are all really like...

Underworld, Underbelly, and I forgot the last one. The Unders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Underground. Oh, perfect. Yeah. And when we think about those three words, they all seem to describe kind of the same thing, but kind of different. Like, how do you think of this book? Like, where is it taking place? I had someone ask me a similar question of like, what three words would you use to describe the book? And my answer was, do you believe? Because I feel like there is so much about like,

fantasy and belief. And yeah, as for like the question of the underground, I think as a writer and probably also as a person, I've always been drawn to those like edges or those darker corners. And again, as both a person and a writer, I feel like there's so much there that is exciting and

offers a more interesting or dynamic perspective on the so-called mainstream or, you know, it's like there's a ability to get out of whatever is happening, the fray, and then observe it from these edges. And I think as a writer, that's like my point of view that I feel most comfortable with and also most like,

jazzed up by. I mean, one thing that's really interesting, too, in this book and in real life is that underground exists like right alongside, you know, the business world and real estate. At the same time, you could live your whole life in the Bay Area and never once encounter the world that Ruth is sort of engaged in. How did you find yourself sort of getting there, coming to understand that world?

Yeah, I mean, these worlds run alongside each other, like, parallel, but then the ways that they intersect are also, like, super interesting. Like, I think, like, a sex work cliche, especially with, like, BDSM or pro-doming is one of the cliches that's true is that most of your clients, not all, but a lot of them in their real lives will have, like, very high-powered jobs and be, like, lawyers or executives who obviously have a disposable income, but also in their real lives, like,

operate at this level of like making such decisions all the time and being in control and then that's what leads them to seek out like the ecstasy of surrender in a dungeon and so like yeah there's more intersection than we would realize and I think that's part of what makes it exciting is it's like this like a secret is always exciting especially when it's a secret in plain sight and I will say that

All the dungeons that I've worked at in the Bay Area have all been like beautiful houses. They're never actually underground. They're never literally dungeons in someone's cellar. It's always like a beautiful, well-appointed Victorian in a nice neighborhood. You know, so it's like this public secret where if you know, you know. And creates that sort of like you feel like you're part of something if you know what's up or what the password is to get in. Yeah, and I think...

In some places, the sort of the distance between or the ties between these places can be much closer than in others. And I think San Francisco, you know, all the way back in its history has been one of those places. I want people to hear a little bit of Ruth's voice in this and also kind of Ruth's San Francisco. So maybe we can read the passage mark there, page 114. You want to set it up at all?

Yeah, so this is Ruth reflecting on the early days of her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Dino. At the start of the book, she's still living with Dino, even though they've broken up, and the sort of inciting...

incident in the book's plot is she comes home from the club one night and he disappears and that sends her on this sort of like foggy quest into as has been described as sort of like netherworlds of San Francisco and kind of like leads to her mental undoing but so this is a passage where she's reflecting on the beginning the sort of like early days of her and Dino's relationship

In the early days of our love affair, we walked a lot. We walked from Russian Hill to Land's End, from Marshall Beach to Chinatown, from bar to bar to bar. We went to cafes at the tops of hills so steep they had stairs cut into the sidewalk. We sat on the steps of Grace Cathedral, looking down at the city, the lacy Victorians and SROs blanched in light, the fire escapes draped with blouses and bedsheets and strips of dried meat.

I remembered my love for this city with Dino. Together, we visited the kissing spots of Frisco, the secret gardens and blue bars where old men watched us smooch. One man offered us $100 to have sex in front of him. No thank you, we told him. But in truth, we were flattered. We drank tequila pineapples and continued to kiss. My bare thighs stuck to the vinyl stool. It was so much fun to fall in love.

On hot days, we rode our bikes to China Beach, stopping at little Russian delis for herring. We picked through the big bins of imported candy, choosing the ones with the strangest wrappers. I still have one today, black and white checkerboard. I'd put it in my special things box, alongside a drink token from Aunt Charlie's lounge and a scrunched-up bar napkin on which Charlie had written his home address and the words, Be Discreet.

After a day at the beach, we would bike back to Dino's place. The light was swollen, amber, casting ghoulish shadows on the hot concrete. Cruising past mansions with their geometric lawns, our bodies browned and warm to the touch. I felt so happy I could die. I felt bright and full and chosen. I thought, remember this.

Remember the barbecue smell in the air, my gingham bikini. Remember Dino swerving to grab a fistful of rosemary, how he rubbed it on his pressure points, then tucked it behind one ear. That was Brittany Newell reading from her new novel, Softcore. I'd love to hear from you. You know, we're talking about

San Francisco and sort of the romance that still inheres here. Give us your sense of like one of those kind of moments in your life where you were moving through the city and you thought to yourself, like, remember this. Give us a call. Number is 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. Forum at KQED.org. Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord. We're KQED Forum.

I know you grew up in the North Bay, went to college in the South Bay, and there's a piece of that passage where it just feels like, oh man, this is the romance of the city. This is where your life was pointed. It feels like...

What do you think? I mean, like, is San Francisco still, it's still that for you? Yeah. I mean, I think San Francisco is such a, like, achingly poetic city. And we talked about it a little bit before recording, but I get so frustrated with the way that San Francisco can be portrayed in, like, contemporary literature. Yeah.

It's often I feel like it's a bit of a trend to conflate it with Silicon Valley, which anyone who lives here knows that they're like literally 40 minutes away and also just completely different places with completely different histories. Like the history of San Francisco has always been a place where people come to bottom out. Like it has this deep enmeshment with debauchery and debasement in so many ways from like the

you know, history of the leather neighborhood in Soma or, you know, Carol Doda in North Beach. And I guess I maybe see some romance in that, in the city's relationship to edges and personal edges and just kind of like wilding out in that way. But also just like the city itself, like geographically, like on a tactile level, like with the cherry blossoms in the air. And I just think it's such a,

a dynamic and complicated place, but one that at the heart of it is so poetic. Is there like a particular neighborhood you go for that old San Francisco? Well, I'm lucky enough. I moved during COVID and got a COVID deal. And so I live right on the border of Chinatown and Knob Hill. Yeah. And I live like, yeah, I live near one of those like

monumental views and you can hear the cable cars clattering and yeah I feel like Judy Garland living the dream yeah we're talking about San Francisco and Brittany Newell's new book Softcore set here love to hear from you and your places where you go to find that old San Francisco 866-733-6786 we'll be back with more right after the break

Xfinity Mobile was designed to save you money. So you get high speeds for low prices. Better than getting low speeds for high prices. Jealous? Xfinity Internet customers, get a free unlimited line for a year when you buy one unlimited line. Bring on the good stuff. Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking with Brittany Newell, San Francisco writer and performer, author of the novel Softcore. One of the things that I found fascinating about this book, especially in the context of kind of like

All Fours and Miranda July and a lot of the books that came out last year about sort of middle-aged life and romance. This book almost feels like...

An inverse or something like in those books, the men are kind of sketches and they're oftentimes very distant. And in this book, you're kind of in this underworld. You're with this ketamine dealer, but it's also like so tender. And there's a there's a tenderness to the descriptions of men in here. Were you how do you sort of read your book against some of that other literature?

Yeah, well, I think when writing characters, even characters who act in reprehensible ways or questionable ways, by the end of the book, I think one as the writer, but also the reader should have empathy for all of them. And I think empathy maybe was like a huge part of like channeling that into creating these searching moments.

lonely middle-aged characters. I mean, I think loneliness, as you mentioned, is like a strong through line in the book. And, you know, like Ruth is a sex worker, so so much of sex work is like assuaging male loneliness. And we sort of contrast how they process their different forms of longing and their different forms of loneliness. And so the men that she sees at the strip club or, you know, as a sugar baby, like

She becomes kind of like an expert in like male loneliness eventually. And I think rather than become jaded or frustrated by the ways, the sort of sometimes childish ways the men try to make themselves feel better or make themselves feel less alone, she develops empathy for them and sees herself in their longing as she gets to know them more. Yeah.

Because she too is pretty desperately lonely. And I found myself wondering through the book, like, why is Ruth so lonely? Like, do you think it's, is it her condition? Is it the human condition? Like, why is she so lonely? I might be the wrong person to ask because doing all these interviews has made me reflect on my own writing and like the sort of like

pressure points that I always come back to as a writer and I think that loneliness and longing are like these things that I'm always going to be like circling around as a writer and finding new ways to unpack and break into these ideas so I kind of think like

In a way, she's lonely because I wrote her. I guess I'm stuck with these lonely, full-hearted, but also broken-hearted characters. But also on a more personal level to Ruth as a character, I think she's someone who puts up a lot of walls, which is part of what led her and Dino's relationship to fall apart in the beginning of the novel. And part of the, I would say, the sort of motivating moments

like narrative throughout the book. You know, she goes on all these side quests into the underworlds, but the main like engine propelling the story is the love story between her and Dino. It's like her finding her way back to him, like literally, but also like

emotionally like finding her way out of this sort of like fog that this lonely fog that she thinks is like her lot in life and and realizing that she can like open herself to love and be deserving of it and maybe she has to do all these like crazy things and run around the city and meet all these desperately lonely men with contrasting desires and needs from her like she has to engage with all of them to to realize like

that she is like ready to love and be loved. I mean, in your own life, you've worked as a dominatrix and some of the stories in this book draw on sort of that experience.

What do you think you have learned about power and gender in this society as a result of that work? Yeah. I remember someone asking me, like, has doing that sort of work made you – has it changed your opinion of men or your relationship of men? And if anything, it's really like –

deepened this sense of empathy towards men and the ways that toxic masculinity really harms and is this heavy burden to carry. Because, of course, I'm already deeply aware of the ways that toxic masculinity harms and hinders femme and femme people, non-binary people. But when you're confronted in this very private space with the sort of like...

real, like embodied results of toxic masculinity. And there's people who are just like men really. I mean, like 99% of my clients as a pro-dom are men. And what they're seeking is just like the ability to like be soft and feel safe in being soft. And they're seeking like a witness to this softness. Um,

And in ways that they're not able or they don't feel able or they don't feel invited to let their guard down and be vulnerable in their regular lives. As I said, like a lot of them, you know, high powered positions and this stuff.

need to perform this very limited vision of masculinity. And so when they're in a private space such as a dungeon and they're able to sort of play around with other forms of masculinity or other forms of

gendered embodiment like it it's really like can be really like a marvel to behold because it's you just see someone completely transform and sometimes all they want to do is like dance around to like Abba and be told that they're pretty or whatever you know and sometimes they want to be like beaten up but you know it definitely like spans the gamut of how they achieve that hallowed um

position of vulnerability. It's fascinating because right now in the tech world, I think you see this gender performance of the chain has become like the thing, right? Everyone has to wear this particular kind of t-shirt, particular kind of chain. And you look at it and it is almost as absurd as any other gender performance, I suppose. But it's like, it is...

It is hyper masculine as opposed to the one that you're describing where people are able to like take off that armor instead. Even the tech nerds have to like do jujitsu and wear chains now. You know, they have to rock climb. Yeah. Like what do you have? You noticed changes? If this is sort of the reverse of people's sort of life out there. Have you noticed in your time as a dom changes in the way that people come to you and and present because of the outer world is changing, too?

I've noticed that I get younger clients like

When I first started working, I worked at a dungeon that is very similar to the one that I write about in the book. And most of the clients there were older and there were like some who were like, oh, yeah, like I found this dungeon because I saw like like the number for the headmistress was like scratched into the side of like a phone booth in like 1989 or whatever. But now like I get like younger people who are

are some who go in kind of not knowing what they want I think there's more nebulousness whereas before it was like harder to find these underworlds and you had to put in the work and you had to like come in like really knowing what you wanted maybe having like

paid your dues somehow and recently yeah in like the last few years I've noticed it's like kind of just people who are curious you know people who tell me or they email me like I don't exactly know like what I'm looking for I don't exactly know what my like fetish would be but I'm just like I feel drawn to you and I feel drawn to this experience and like maybe we could like figure it out together and like play around and see what what fantasy suits them yeah

How do you see your book and your work sort of relationship both to the sort of literary history of this kind of kink in San Francisco, which does have a long history, as well as its actual history, like the people who have been here doing this work before you? Yeah.

Well, I think there was like a small part of me that was like, oh, like, I don't want to be like giving away the secrets because, you know, these underworlds are, you know, out of sight. And there's like, you know, a sort of barrier to entry for, you know, good reason. Like there's sort of like a protectiveness around these things.

sort of special, strange little worlds. So I guess I was torn between a desire to continue protecting them, but also to...

to explore them in a way that, you know, literally that felt like empathetic and validating and was coming from someone who, you know, with, with a place from experience, you know, was coming from a place of experience rather than a fetishistic, you know, like writer just trying to pick up on like what's edgy or whatever. Like I would never want any of the

that are explored in this book to come across as voyeuristic. Yeah, I think I wanted to somehow write these worlds in a way that if you're in them, you feel represented and you feel seen. And it feels like, for me as a writer, it always feels exciting when I read that and have that burst of empathy, like, oh my God, I can't believe someone else also experienced that. And they're writing about it

so beautifully and expressing it in ways that I couldn't like finding words for people for people's experiences like doing that labor for them of like finding the words so that they can recognize themselves in something but then yeah but then also if you're not in those worlds you're

wanting someone to read it and also feel that empathy and be like, oh yeah, like all jobs feel violating at a certain point in time or whatever. Yeah, so that there would be, that it would be like accessible, but not too accessible. Whereas like to the point that these worlds have been like flattened into caricatures. Yeah.

Well, you've also been very adamant that this like isn't memoir. So much of like contemporary fiction has that auto fictional component where it's sort of like, is this the person's life? Is this not? And you have been like, no, that's not what's going on. Just because I got it so much, you know, like people saying like, oh, yeah, like it's auto fiction. And I feel very different from Ruth as a character. But someone sort of I was getting frustrated with just like this assumption that it's a memoir. I mean, of course, like.

all writers like bring their own life and their own relationships into their work. Like it's impossible to, to unbraid those two strands, like the fiction and the reality. And sometimes like you don't even realize like the memories that are being like, you know, like,

folded into the book. Yeah, exactly. But someone did say like, oh, I think that that impulse to conflate the main character and the author is a sort of misguided attempt at intimacy with the author. Like you feel so intimate with the book and the book is this object that you feel close to and that maybe that that's just an urge to feel close to the author too. And that kind of made me soften towards it and

feel less defensive when everyone just assumes that I'm Ruth. But also I'm like, I'm a writer. I have an imagination. Like I can make things up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, you mentioned earlier, you know, like, oh, all work can feel exploitative. And one of the other historical components of this or like the history of sex work organizing here is

Does it feel like sex work generates kind of a natural politics? Like, you know, I know a lot of longshoremen. There's kind of a natural politics to the to the dock workers. Right. Do you think the same is true for sex workers? Yeah, I think there's definitely like a little world with its own set of dynamics that is created with anything that is, you know, underground and self-protecting, like with the dungeon that the

The dungeon in the book is modeled after the one that I used to work at. Like there were like very intricate systems put into place because it had been around since the 80s. So I was kind of coming in at the tail end and like learning about the rules and the systems and the regulations that had been put into place by the headmistresses. And a lot of it is like, you know, for ways to protect.

the girls, but also just like sort of standards and norms that are formed whenever a group of people comes together. We're talking about San Francisco. We're talking about its kind of history of literary sex work with Brittany Newell, writer and performer living here in the city, author of the new novel, Softcore.

We'd love to hear from you. What do you learn in the wee hours and kind of hidden places in the shadows? And can that knowledge survive being brought into the light? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email your comments, questions to forum at kqed.org. On social media, we're on Blue Sky on Instagram. We're kqedforum.com.

You know, one listener writes in to say, Perry on Discord says, the street parties are San Francisco vibes. The street parties and fests, Halloween, pink party, the days the streets used to be just a mass of human beings and jubilation. The city just used to feel so alive then. Mm-hmm.

Another listener writes, you know, the roof of the San Francisco Arts Institute. If you've ever been there, you know, it's a breathtaking view from bridge to bridge and so much history in the building. Sigh. Hopefully it will be open again for all to see. I mean, have there you're pretty young. Have you already seen pieces of the city that you love disappear?

Yeah. Let's see. I think in the book, I mentioned the Silvercrest Diner. Tell us more about it. Oh, my God. The most, like, iconically bizarre, very Lynchian place. It was this 24-hour diner. I think kind of on the edge of the Bayview, like near the freeway, run by these two, I think, Greek, this elderly Greek couple. And it was just never closed. And there was, like, the most...

dank sort of like moody bar with like never cleaned like velvet carpeting on one side and then the diner on the other and I wrote in a scene where um the like Ruth and a dancer that she meets at the club named Emmeline go to Silvercrest and I know that since writing that that has closed which is devastating because it really had this sort of like otherworldly quality of like

you know, everything else might melt down, but like, Silvercrest Diner. Yeah, like, yeah, it was permanent. Yeah, and the Greek couple will always be there. Like, I feel like they must have just been sleeping in the back and then when someone would come in at 3 a.m., like, they would just wake up and be like, what do you want? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For folks who might be interested in learning more about that place, Chris Collin wrote a piece about the Silvercrest. I think it was for Alta magazine. So, such a...

Such a loss, I feel like, to people's kind of memories of this place. And the sort of nocturnal life of the city, which has been pretty impacted by COVID and everything closing earlier. Like, as a...

You know, in my earlier 20s, like being a party dog, like I felt very attuned to the nocturnal life of San Francisco. And yeah, in these 24 hour places that are charged with such a strange energy that you only get between the hours of like 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. Yeah. Are you not? Have you given it up? Are you now just you wake up at 6 a.m., go for a swim and ride? No, I barely made it here. I'm definitely still a party dog. I don't know why I said that. It definitely lives in me.

Yeah. We have another couple. We have another bit for you to read there. I thought maybe you could read us probably close into the break. Right now? Yeah, go ahead. All right. OK, so this is Ruth describing the types of people that come to the dungeon that she works at.

Sometimes the men bring bottles of wine. Sometimes they bring standard-sized envelopes stuffed with 20s, forgetting that their business address is printed on the front. Most men will call themselves Michael or John. They are everyone. Teachers, lawyers, junkies, techies, bodybuilders, gentlemen, bisexuals, creeps, the underemployed, the clinically depressed, the barely legal, the newly betrothed, fathers, brothers, lovers, losers, always someone's son.

They come in Porsches and beat-up sedans. They come in Ubers from the city that cost them a fortune. The lucky few get a ride from their wife. Some men will be flashy, and some will be coy. Some will act like they hate me, while others beg to kiss the space between my toes. To some, I really am a goddess. The old sex work cliche will prove true here, too. Many of my clients just want to talk.

They want to talk about their sissification fantasy, their unfinished novellas. They want to talk about ponytails and being pimped out. They speak of relationship woes and new medications with weird side effects. They speak of dry mouth, speckly vision, unexpected weight gain. One man told me during a session that it was his 40th birthday.

That was Brittany Newell reading from her new novel, Softcore, set here in the city. Kind of a mysterious book about searching for a lost love.

I'd love to hear from you. What's a narrative of the city not being told? You know, what's one you're tired of hearing? Numbers 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can go over to the Discord, Blue Sky, Instagram, or KQEDforum.com.

there. Or, of course, you can email your best prose poem about a street, park, place, or a site in San Francisco to us at forum at kqed.org. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned. ... ... ... ... ...

Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We've got the novelist Brittany Newell here. New book is Softcore. Here's a question from the Discord. Martina says, I'm curious if there are other writers or literary scenes that you feel in sync with in terms of creating the kind of books you want to read and representing a worldview you find exciting. I saw you were lined up for readings with Melrose Botanical Garden in L.A. and with Light Jacket in San Francisco, for instance. Mm-hmm.

Oh, I love that question. I mean, I will always be a fangirl of Mary Gapes Gill, who is kind of like, in my opinion, like the queen of writing about San Francisco and sex work, particularly her short story collections, Bad Behavior and Because They Wanted To. Because They Wanted To is my favorite. And yeah, and so she writes in this sort of like,

erotic, strange 90s San Francisco. And then I also love the, well, the art, but also specifically the books of Brontes Pernell, who I literally am always shouting out. Bay Area legend. Exactly, Bay Area icon. And just like these works, I think one of the hardest things to do as a writer is to be funny.

And so when I find a writer who gently makes me laugh... Very easy for Brontës, though. Exactly! And that book is just such a... My favorite of his books is called A Hundred Boyfriends. And that's also set in the Bay. It's sort of like this...

rambly, like it's like the, the diary, the philosophical diary of like an, of a Bay area slut basically. And it's so funny, but also so beautiful. And like genre wise, it's pretty exciting to me. And this hybrid genre of like moving between poetry and more memoiristic bits and, and they're sold as short stories, but to me it's almost like poetry. So yeah, those, those are the,

the patron saints of sort of like more rambly poetic vibes over plot sex work writers for me.

One listener on the Discord also says, I think the guest has really identified a sea change from the era where everyone paid their dues to a more open and exploratory period of self-discovery. And one of the things that I've been wondering about that is whether that is the impact of the internet or of like the current pornography industry or like what it is necessarily that's kind of that's bringing a new population in.

Yeah, I think it's definitely the internet. You know, back in the day, my understanding is it was very much you had to know someone to get in to even know how to call a dungeon to get the number. There's all these protocols set into place, like with the dungeon that I used to work at.

Like a new person would call and we would pick up the phone and say, this is Lorraine. And never to say like, oh, this is a dungeon or whatever to keep it more hidden. And then that was sort of like a code word. And then we would if that person like passed the test or whatever on the phone, then they'd be told to meet at this like like random location that wasn't the dungeon. And then once they went to that random location, I think it was like a like a coffee shop or something. Then they would call back.

call Lorraine, this mysterious disembodied Lorraine back. And then if you had followed the directions well enough to go to the coffee shop, then you would get the address of the department. This seems way better than Googling. Yeah, right. Just like on a pure vibes kind of romance level. Yeah, you have to put in the work and it sort of weeds out the people who are curious but don't have any follow through. And yeah, there's more investment that way. I mean, I'm not so... I...

am open to people who are curious and wanting to figure things out but it can also be a bit you know like people emailing and having all these questions or maybe you can tell that they're like literally getting off by writing the email and then that can be frustrating because they don't understand all of that as labor you know they're already like

looking to you through this email to, you know, witness them and explain things to them and guide them, which, of course, is something you can do in a session. But, you know, wanting to get this, like, free labor and, yeah, like, wanting to wedge their way in without an actual, like, investment. What about, like, just the more...

I don't know, commercial changes that the internet has brought to this, right? Like this sort of growth of this whole kind of individual performance world of only fans and all these things. Do you think, what do you think that has done to this world?

Well, I think in some ways there's so much more of an ability to be your own boss. And I don't mean that in like a tacky girl boss way. I mean, it's just like literally that they cut out the middlemen and, you know, you can make pornography on your iPhone. And, you know, OnlyFans still like takes like a, you know, relatively like large cut. But, you know, I guess it cuts out the middlemen.

um studios and all of the like potential um like discomfort that might come from that and yeah and like with the internet like it's easier to be like an independent dom which is what I do I now am independent and so people find me through various websites and you know it's all just me and there's like a dungeon that's sort of like a collective but

We literally have a Google calendar and we'll put in our name and be like, okay, Mistress Angel, two to three, ball busting session or whatever. And then try to, yeah, in a way it can be a little bureaucratic in that way. Yeah, right. There's some emailing.

You don't think about like the amount of time you devote to talking about emailing and sex work is. Oh, yeah. It's hilarious. The real like high powered doms will have like a sub answer the emails for them, like a service sub who's like delighted to be of use. Let's bring in Richard in Union City. Hey, Richard. Welcome. Hello. Welcome to you.

Oh, go ahead. You're on. So, yeah. So I used to do the love act on Broadway at the Condor. I came down off a piano out of the ceiling and it would land on the thing and the woman would, you know, kind of slavishly crawl up the piano. We'd fake make love on stage. It was hilarious. And Carol Dota owned the Condor at the time. So we had to know what you were doing. A lot of fun. Richard, you've given it up, though.

Oh, my God, I'm 73. There's no way I'm doing that now. There's a market for that, too, Richard. Definitely. Well, you know, I love being with women, and doing the love act at the Condor was an interesting aspect of my life, to say the least. Actually, all the clubs on Broadway...

Had people, had women and men doing love acts. Yeah. And Carol Doda on the Condor show.

Yeah, but it came down off the piano on the ceiling. Wow. Richard, thanks so much for sharing that memory. For those who don't know, Carol Doda, do you want to talk a little bit about her? She was the world's first topless dancer. That's my understanding. At least billed as in San Francisco. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And danced at the Condor Club in North Beach. Yeah.

I mean, one of the things, you know, long ago I did a project like looking at North Beach in 1930s. And you find that there was already like queer club there on Broadway. And there's this kind of beautiful thing that you've woven into the book, which is in addition to the relationship that, you know, men and women are having and the power dynamics and all these things, there's also a queerness, especially to like the stripper culture that you're describing of people who are

And end up in relationships that are intimate and maybe a little undefined. Yes, I love that you say that. Yeah, I think that while the driving romance of the book is the relationship between Ruth and Dino and her like quest to make her way back to him.

I think the book overall is just like all about the different intimacies of her life, specifically the ones that are maybe harder to put into words or are less legible to the people outside of the relationship. And we see that in a lot of her like female friendships throughout the book. These very like entangled, enmeshed, like complicated relationships with a woman that she meets at the dungeon named Ophelia and this sort of like

mysterious new dancer at the club named Emmeline who may or may not be obsessed with Ruth and maybe Ruth may or may not be obsessed with her as well as the intimacies that she forms with these like Johns and these sugar daddies where you know

You know, like maybe she doesn't she certainly doesn't love them. Maybe she doesn't even like them. But there is still this intimacy born of knowing someone's secrets and spending so much one on one time with someone and someone showing you sides of themselves that they don't show to other people like that will breed intimacy. And there's even like intimacy like between like her and Dino's dogs, like the dogs are sort of like her little pets.

familiars like throughout the book. And, and I think there as to kind of tie back to what we were speaking about earlier, like the intimacy that she feels with San Francisco as the city that she has a complicated, but romantic relationship with. Yeah. I love that. We've got a couple great San Francisco comments here. Jeff writes this sort of a love letter to Tosca on Columbus in North beach. He,

And Jeff says, still living on as a restaurant, but it used to be the smokiest, quietest, eeriest cathedral-like hall to duck into and have a cocktail late at night. Faded frescoes on the wall, battered and beer-sticky red leather booths, a single cocktail waitress and sometimes cigarette girl, and a tall, skinny man with slicked-back black hair wearing a snakeskin jacket and matching boots guarding the entrance to a private back room.

One time, my little brother and I ducked in and found ourselves alone in the entirety of Tosca at a cocktail table staring directly across from us at Sean Penn and Tom Waits. Whoa. Come on. That's so beautiful. Come on, Jeff. Yeah. Snake skin boots. I might steal that detail. Yeah. Yeah.

That's incredible. You know, it's interesting. The producers would make fun of me because I talk about North Beach all the time. But I actually feel like there are places like this, you know, in the sunset, in the Richmond. They don't quite have maybe the romance of that, but they have that tucked away. There's something special and a little bit unknown going on. And a little unhidden.

A little unhinged. Yeah, right? Don't you think? Definitely. Yeah, Tuck is still another one of those places for you. Well, I guess, I mean, now people that know me would make fun of me because I just always talk about Ann Charlie's Lounge and how obsessed I am with it. But that place really is like the architectural equivalent of a K-hole. You just get lost in there and it's narrow and pink and it's the most like,

unhinged combination of people like all like grooving together I think it's such a special and beautiful place yeah what is the event? it's called Angels and it's the continuation of this Tuesday very iconic Tuesday night party that Miles Cooper threw for I think over nine or ten years called High Fantasy which is such a beautiful name it's kind of like something like I would love if someone described soft core as like a high fantasy um

Yeah, and that's kind of like how I...

I made friends and made my way into, like, the whatever you want to call it. Like, San Francisco Underground was going to Miles' Tuesday night party, you know, using my, like, fake ID to get in and just being so wowed by this world that, you know, I felt like I was, like, on the, you know, on the brink of. Just about to join you. Yeah. We're talking with Brittany Newell, writer in San Francisco, about her book Softcore High Fantasy. This is Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Just felt like I could make your dream come true just right away. Yeah, a very high fantasy. We've got another comment here. Alana writes in to say, I love Michelle T's book, Valencia. Best book about the 1990s mission with a girl on everything scene. I love Michelle T. So,

Samuel writes in to say, Yeah.

You also, I mean, the book does spend a lot of time in the East Bay, in particular, kind of in between Berkeley and Richmond. Do you have a special feeling about that place too? Or was that just kind of more like where you went to the office and San Francisco is really what contains the romance? Well,

I mean, if you're asking about like the dungeon, in the book it's called Dream House and it's set in El Cerrito, this like, you know, suburban like cul-de-sac in El Cerrito. And yeah, I mean, that place is such a like,

It feels so like mythical and otherworldly in my mind, like, especially now that it's closed and I look back on the things that happened there. And that was, you know, that was how I first got into professional doming. And so I was just like so mystified and like intrigued by like we were speaking about like this, like this open secret that, you know, we would just come.

come and go from this house. And I was really happy to be able to work it into the book and write about it and sort of be able to like hold those memories in amber, you know, through the act of writing about Ruth going to a place that's very much based on it. Yeah. And yeah, I just remember writing

walking through like the warm the suburb the suburb aspect of it was very like nostalgic for me and almost had like a sort of like childhood quality but then of course I'm like walking up to like a dungeon right riding your bike yeah it felt like that yeah a nice balmy day yeah yeah um I feel you know maybe one last place um to to take this it's just to the sort of

What you have learned about being a woman in taking on these different guises of performance. Again, we've talked about kind of friendship between women. We've talked about the performances that men are making. What do you think you've learned about your own sort of gender in taking on all these different roles? Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like.

Ruth speaks to it a little bit. Like she, she reminisces on when she first started doing sex work and she's like, Oh, I thought it would be hard, but actually like the performance of femininity and the performance of desirability was like a test I didn't realize I'd been studying for. And it just like, she was like almost like shocked by how easy it was to shape shift into the dream girl that her Johns needed her to be. And I think that shape shifting quality of like,

Feminine embodiment can be taxing, but can also, there can be like a magic to it too, as long as you form like strong boundaries. And I think part of Ruth's sort of undoing is

the boundary getting like thinner and thinner as she goes along between like the fantasy and the reality not just in her performance of who she is but kind of just like in her perception of the world like she sort of starts becoming

which is the name of, it's her stripper name. And she, yeah. So the lack of those like firm boundaries, I think is sort of what leads to her mental breakdown, sort of, if that's what you want to call it. I mean, do you yourself feel empowered by this work? I don't know. I,

I feel the word empowered is hard for me because it's just so like charged. I thought you might object. Yeah. Um, and like a little like girl bossy or something, but, um, I feel really, I feel really excited by the work. And I mean, having people message me on Instagram and just tell me like how much it spoke to them is, is like the, the best high ever. And it's just so like gratifying because as you know, like as a writer, you just like labor in, um,

solitude and hope that maybe someday we'll someone will read it and care about it um so for me like the relational aspect of having a book uh and being involved with the like with readers is is maybe what would come the closest to like empowering me or making me feel powerful yeah

And if people, do you think this will get made into a movie at some point? It is actually optioned by MUBI, like M-U-B-I. Yeah, yeah. So I'm working on the script. Fingers crossed. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We have been talking with Brittany Newell, writer and performer living in San Francisco. The new novel is Softcore. Thank you so much for joining us, Brittany. Thank you.

The 9 o'clock hour forum is produced by Grace Wan, Blanca Torres, Dan Zoll, and just for today, Caroline Smith. Our interns are Brian Vo and Jesse Fisher. Ashley Ng, Emiko Oda, and Jennifer Ng were our engagement producers. Francesca Fenzi is our digital community producer. Judy Campbell is lead producer. Danny Bringer is our engineer. Katie Springer is the operations manager of KQED Podcasts.

Our vice president of news is Ethan Tov and Lindsay, and our chief content officer is Holly Kernan. Special shout out to Jeff with that incredible description of Tosca, as well as everyone else who sent in comments. Have a great weekend. I'm Alexis Madrill. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim. Singing of a fever stream Our own turn of love above the long gone beam Like it's a heavy load of speakers

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.