Inside Pleasure-Seeking’s Steamy Bathhouse Reading

What happens when you ask your favorite writers to strip down and talk about desire

Me reading. Photo by August Houston

“A fever dream. Surreal. Chaotic. Downright fun.” These are just a few ways writers described Pleasure-Seeking’s first event: a midnight literary reading on desire inside a Russian bathhouse, hosted by me and Substack. According to Page Six, it was “the hottest spot in town.”

In a scene report for Dazed,

Magdalene J. Taylor

chronicles the night, from taking cheeky shots of horseradish vodka to being whipped with oak branches in the sauna—part of the infamous Venik Platza ritual. “It’s hard to be on your phone too much when you’re either taking a shot, swimming in the pool or having buckets of cold water thrown at you,” she writes, concluding that the event was “undoubtedly both vulnerable and fun.”

Photo by Anna Maria Lopez

Photo by Rea Brayshaw

Me by Anna Maria Lopez

Harry Hill and Sasha Faith Mutchnik. Photo by Rea Brayshaw

Cat Cohen reading. Photo by Anna Maria Lopez

Guests canoodling in the pool. Photo by Anna Maria Lopez

The vibe was flirty, with guests sitting on each other’s laps in the hot tub and making out in the pool—which makes sense, since we got a ton of sexy people to get naked on a Tuesday night and talk about desire. I was half-joking when I said that people should DM me if they met someone and went home together, but as I learned, that was most definitely happening!

Writing for Office Magazine, Rea Brayshaw called it “an unforgettable evening that can’t be captured in words—the best Tuesday night I’ve had in New York City, and without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve had to describe to the office the next morning.” Sam Falb of Elephant describes us as “New York’s hottest literary stars,” and the event as “a pulsing, warmly lit sanctuary for literary indulgence.” (I read this and I was like, wait, now I’m turned on.)

Photo by Anna Maria Lopez

Matt Starr and Brontez Purnell. Photo by Anna Maria Lopez

Molly Crabapple drawing the event. Photo by Anna Maria Lopez

Sherry Ning, one of the night’s readers, being SO cute

I’ve been hustling for months to pull this off, and it couldn’t have happened without

Matt Starr

,

Sophia Efthimiatou

, and our incredibly talented readers Cat Cohen, Brontez Purnell, jaboukie, J Wortham, Liara Roux, Mary H.K. Choi, Old Jewish Men, and Sherry Ning. I also want to thank you—my lovely subscribers—for making this possible. Without you, there is no Pleasure-Seeking—and by paying $60/year to support my work, you make events like this possible and get first dibs on future tickets.

If you missed this one, don’t worry—it’s only the beginning. The response to this event was overwhelmingly positive, which simply means we must do more of them!!As Karly wrote for Autre Magazine, “if the event’s near instant ticket sell out and 300 person waitlist is any indicator, the appetite for spaces that are sultry and silly isn’t just existent—it’s ravenous.”

Pleasure-Seeking’s events are available exclusively to paid subscribers—so upgrade your subscription now if you don’t wanna miss out on the next one!

Photo by Rea Brayshaw

Thank you guys, from the bottom of my heart, for making this event such a success. And if you were there, I’d love to hear about your experience of the night! You can DM me or chime in on this anonymous form (like I said, I heard some people went home together, and I’m nosy!!)

Love,

Camille