"I had a hard time publishing my books in the beginning of my career, because editors were afraid what people would think of THEM, personally, if their name was associated with me." -- Susie Bright
Susannah "Susie" Bright (also known as Susie Sexpert) (born March 25, 1958, Arlington, Virginia) is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality.
She is one of the first writers/activists referred to as a sex-positive feminist.
She has a weekly program entitled In Bed with Susie Bright distributed through audible.com, where she discusses a variety of social, freedom of speech and sex-related topics. Interviews, book and movie reviews are common, as are letters from listeners. The show generally begins with a monologue on current events. The show concludes with a letters-segment and the catch-phrase "Clits up!" Her website has operated since March 1997, and she began her blog in 2004.
Susie Bright was active in the 1970s in various left-wing progressive causes, in particular the feminist and anti-war movements. She was also one of the founding members of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, and wrote under the pseudonym Sue Daniels. The WELL: Susie Bright: How to Read/Write a Dirty Story
Bright co-founded and edited the first women's sex-magazine, On Our Backs, "entertainment for the adventurous lesbian," from 1984 to 1991. From 1992 to 1994 she was a columnist for San Francisco Review of Books. She founded the first women's erotica book-series, Herotica, and edited the first three volumes. She started The Best American Erotica series in 1993, which she publishes to this day. She was the choreographer/consultant for the Wachowski Brothers film, Bound (in which she also had a cameo appearance). Bright also appeared as herself in an episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under.
Bright was the first female critic of the X-Rated Critics Organization in 1986, and wrote feminist reviews of erotic films for Penthouse Forum from 1986—1989. Her film-reviews of mainstream movies are widely published, and her comments on gay film history are featured in the documentary film The Celluloid Closet.
She has one daughter, Aretha Bright, and lives with her partner, Jon Bailiff. She currently resides in Santa Cruz, California. Her father was the linguist William Bright.
"Doing the right thing for someone else was like a tonic for me; it was like some magic ointment that made a wound disappear.""Familiarity with your lover is what initially makes sex really good.""Finding people who get enormous pleasure from reading books is a more and more unusual experience, and so writers just so much want to be heard.""Human beings like variety, and they also like partnership... these are scientific values we can point to.""I got introduced to audiobooks because of having a baby.""I got more and more politically active and just followed the course of feminism and sexual liberation.""I had no idea that mothering my own child would be so healing to my own sadness from my childhood.""I love turning my daughter on to old movies.""I see the effects of sexual and gender liberation all around me, just like you do, but I don't have a sense of being in the majority.""I think moms need to share information on a regular, intimate basis.""I think that you have to do everything you can do to empower girls when they are young, from their education, to their successful independence, to their sexual self-knowledge.""I'm a Mommy's Girl - the strongest influence in my young life was my mom.""I'm like the kid in kindergarten; I really do send valentines to everyone.""I'm writing a new book right now that is like an erotica manifesto.""In fact, I think for a lot of writers, it's so hard to be read.""It's not that sexual liberation or feminist messages are dead.""My idea of the ideal sex education site doesn't exist.""Now I have to have the biggest P.O. box in the entire post office to get all the manuscripts coming in.""People who love science fiction really do love sex.""So that would be a classic mixed message to young women: you should look a certain way that's going to destroy your reproductive system and your sexual appetite, but at the same time, you should be interested in sex!""There are also just as many, if not more, women who are anxious to hold down the status quo.""There is more criticism of puritanism, and more distance from Christian morality, than there has been before.""You have to calendar time for yourself even if you have no idea what you're going to do with it.""You name the demonstration; I was at it."