The first time I saw the duo that is Courtney and Tamara was last winter in Toronto for the launch of their event series and soon to be publication branch, Smutburger. Courtney and Tamara have described Smutburger as a combination of “consciousness raising and a town hall.” Thier first event’s theme was Adult Sex Ed. Set on a stage in a dark wooded bar, Tamara and Courtney invited a panel of writers, artists, and Sex Education experts of various kinds to present in whatever way they chose, engage in a Q&A with the moderators, and then the audience. They also asked audience members to share personal experiences, if they dared. A total revelation of intimacy and exchange, I was awed by how the chemistry of the room was shifting, growing tighter. The sweet stench of palpable excitement the room was giving off, like collective pheromones. Not ones to limit or siphon, Tamara and Courtney have continued to evolve their form of exchange as the pandemic hit. I spoke with them during a brief bright window of sociability. 

What were you both like as teenagers? Did you have any experiences during that time with reading smut or erotica that dipped you into that world?

Tamara - I first encountered smut when I was younger than a teenager through books, notably. I remember reading Xaviera Hollander’s The Happy Hooker, she was a Dutch swinger and sex worker writing about her life. Piercing of the bubble - totally exciting to read it and to read about a world and life beyond what I knew. That is still consistently what I look for in books. I had a lot of thwarted longing as a teenager.

Courtney - I remember finding my Dad’s porn - guys would tape things and pass them around on unlabeled VHS tapes, and he would hide them around our house. I always had a close relationship with my dad, so I would watch them in secret and thought it was fine, though it was pretty rugged stuff. I was always comfortable with porn. I would also babysit and the Moms would all have Harlequin romances, what they’d call “bodice rippers,” and I’d put the kids to bed then masturbate reading them. Both of those things are basically what Smutburger is working against, the more mainstream representations of sex. As you get older you define what you actually find arousing or where your desires lie, and that’s how I found things that spoke more to me. Diverse, fun, real and raw. I don’t even want to say not-vanilla, because I love when I have vanilla sex. It’s the best and like the new kinky sex, do you know what I mean? But it’s exciting that you can start out from a traditional, safe place and you can have the space to move.

How did you two come to know each other?

Courtney - I read Tamara’s books and I was obsessed. Being a young feminist woman interested in CanLit [Canadian Literature] there’s not a lot of work like hers going on. It was very exciting to find, and I think we have a real kinship. On Instagram I wrote we were both fascinated by sex - to see another woman who is really focused on that exploration makes me feel good and normal and in community with someone else. I had all her books, was very into her. I was asked to run an event series at a local store in Toronto and I was tasked with curating a Valentine’s day event. Tamara was the natural first thought that I had because it gave me an excuse to talk to her. It went quite well, and then I took a sex writing class with her very shortly after through Flying Books, a Toronto publishing house, and that was a really great opportunity, and it slowly, naturally became this. Is that accurate?

Tamara - Yeah. And thanks, that’s nice what you say. That class was small and it was good, it was the first class I’d ever taught of sex writing, and it felt really intimate. The texts that were generated by the class were great. I read one of Courtney’s pieces and it really fit in with this idea I had about publishing and wanting to replace Harlequin as the main source of sex people were reading. So that’s where Smutburger the speaking series came from: wanting to read dirty womens’ voices. So it was a publishing idea, then speaking, and now we’re back to publishing.

Where is Smutburger going with this new publishing branch?

Tamara - Our idea is to have two separate writers in one booklet, and for them to be writing pulp, porn, quick and dirty work. I’m not a huge fan of the word erotica, it’s just an industry word that has a buzz to it. This is going to be a dirty little book that we mail out in brown paper bags.

Courtney - Tying back to the history of circulating materials and bound pages, everything about it is quick and dirty. A small booklet that’s maybe just for masturbatory purposes, but really is going to be deeper and have levels to it. I think of it as a great object as well as exciting writing. We keep coming back to the idea of challenging what we associate with CanCon [Canadian Content]. There will be some great art in it too. I’m excited to have it by my bedside next to a box of tissues. 

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on Toronto as a city to be running this kind of programming in, whether you felt like there was a need for something like this that was maybe less tied to the normative literary industry, or didn’t feel censored?

Tamara - Yes, I think there is a need. Courtney and I want to offer writers the opportunity to experiment, or branch out, on a panel with people from other other disciplines. The text that we ask all our panelists to prepare and to present for our events are short. We want to privilege the discussion and we want to privilege the audience participation. At first, we were really into this idea of a bell or a gong to ring if something went awry in the Q & A. We didn’t really have to do that - but we were so focused on the ethics of it. Of course no question is bad, but there is bad conversation. Dull, dry, bad conversation. We really wanted this series to inspire intimacy, provocative conversation, sharing. That intimacy was created in that freezing cold bar at our first event. 

I was at that one. I remember when you opened it up to the audience, the people that got up to the mic emanated a strong sense of -- almost relief. I don’t know if you sensed that, or what your perception was, but to me it felt like everyone was really grateful. It’s rare to really feel the energy in an event feel actually collective. On the same wavelength. What were the feelings of the first event for you?

Courtney - There’s always the concern that while you see something that you feel there is a lack of or a need for, it might not resonate with other people. So I think the feeling that you felt is exactly what I had hoped for. I was really concerned that no one would come up to the microphone and speak openly. No matter what you may personally lay bare or share with people, there still is a barrier and I was very conscious of that. Opening people up involves developing trust, maybe coming to a few of the events over time. Having people share their experiences publicly is a lot to ask. I don’t expect that all to happen in only one evening.

As moderators of this experience, how are you thinking about the energy of the room? 

Courtney - I default into personal narrative to make people feel comfortable. I am definitely willing to tell a bunch of dumb, potentially embarrassing, risqué stories about myself to cultivate comfort in these situations, make it light and a bit jokey. 

Tamara - We’ve been really careful of and concerned about our panel guests. We’ve been making sure our participants are happy and feel safe and respected, just taking the extra time with people. Asking them what they need, what they want, making sure that they feel supported to do the best presentation that they can, that as a first step went a long way in creating that being held, intimacy, connection. That in itself is subversive to the CanLit industry. This has nothing to do with reputation, furthering careers, selling anything. It’s about sharing, baring, experimenting, taking a risk.

Something I’ve been thinking about even more since life has moved online, is the idea of parasocial relationships. It’s a term I came across recently that’s used to describe being an audience member. For example with celebrities - you feel that you know them because you’re given all this information about them, but it’s a one-sided relationship, there’s no reciprocity. Now that term has been newly applied to social media and the way we operate it. Getting to know people through observing, without a direct exchange or conversation. Watching each other watch. It even happens with people you live in the same city with, or who could potentially be in your real life. I wonder if that’s something either of you ever think about? Is Smutburger a way of dispelling that? A conduit for a different way of knowing one another?

Courtney - This really resonates with me. Lately I’ve started using Instagram a bit more again, and I’ve put some photos where you can kind of see part of my boobs or something. As a result I have had an influx of messages from men who absolutely think they have my number. They see the word ‘sex’ in my bio and they ask me ridiculous questions, expecting my time and that I’ll discuss things of this nature with them just because I put up some public content. They are ignoring the wider context in which I frame sex and represent sex within my work. So I think that’s a frustrating thing that’s put on me. Within the realm of Smutburger and doing that work it feels more legitimized, like I have a clear voice. It’s another outlet for something that’s on my mind all the time, sex, but it’s much more fulfilling and reciprocal and ultimately a deeper connection that all participants are active in.

Tamara - I definitely think we want to bring people closer. Or, the people who come to see the readings are just as important as the people who are on stage. It’s like when we talked about online dating at our second event - the real and the cyber, what was real? Wanting to bring the real world in, and have it linger. Having it linger is helpful. You want to discuss these events with other people in your life. Having these moments seem more real than what is available sometimes online. Which can really be a fantasy. We’re cutting a little bit of fantasy out of it. Even though I love fantasy, and it’s a massive outlet, I don’t think of Smutburger in that way. 

Have either of you read My Meteorite by Harry Dodge? 

Courtney - Yes!

Tamara - No, but I love Harry Dodge from reading The Argonauts. 

He has this concept that he develops over the course of the book, that socializing and hanging out with people is “a way to crack open a renewed connection to awesome flows of unexplainable cosmogonic reason, cosmic correspondence.” And he also calls it “being on the beam.” I wonder if this idea of hanging out with people, sharing experience, relates to a cosmic or coincidental meaning is something you relate to?

Courtney - That general idea is very much at the forefront of my mind right now in the pandemic as we’re lacking that so severely. I’m not being nourished. I identify as someone who wants to get to that, and finds it easy to get to that with exchanges, comfortable with the personal and closeness. That’s what it’s all about. With Smutburger I hope we only get to that more and more. I hope that with the introduction of our publishing program and the booklets we put out that we create these little pockets. Little pockets that we don’t even get to see, that Tamara and I don’t even get to experience personally. Tamara was talking about the aftermath, the lingering. That’s always been so important to us. I’ve had this sort of sitcom vision of the aftermath, people lying in bed talking about the event - that’s what’s always in my mind after it. I love that. This leading to people fucking, or people talking through something, getting to a different place once they leave us. 

You can order a copy of Worms Issue #3 here.