Iris Apfel told Karley Sciortino she had bad style

Some say it’s the third, but Riposte magazine say that the fifth time’s a charm. Launching tomorrow – on newstands Friday – Riposte issue 5 will be unveiled with a fresh cover design, and feature interviews with some of the most exciting names working in the creative industry right now, like Isamaya Ffrench and Karley Sciortino, aka the New York-based founder of sex blog Slutever. The latter, whose interview focuses on cutting out the media-trained bs and getting real about religion, masturbation and being told by 94-year-old style icon Iris Apfel that she wasn’t elegant. Ahead of issue 5's unveiling, Riposte allowed us to share an excerpt from Sciortino’s interview with the magazine’s editor, Danielle Pender, accompanied by images from photographer Ryan Lowry, who shot the author at her home in Gramercy.

A while ago you talked about meeting Iris Apfel and how she made you change your mind about the way you dress – she persuaded you to be more elegant with your style. Why did her comments affect you so much?

Karley Sciortino: Yeah, that’s true! OMG, I just interviewed her again the other day – she’s fucking 94, and I asked her if she remembered telling me that I wasn’t elegant, and she did! Her memory is insane. She asked me if I still showed my midriff. But anyway, when I was younger I used to dress really slutty, like in PVC mini dresses, and I found it fun to be sexually provocative. When I met Iris I was about to turn 27, and it was a time in my life when I was suddenly concerned with being taken seriously. Turning 27 felt “adult,” and I didn’t just want to be the lol, self-aware, bimbo slut blogger any more. So Iris telling me I looked trashy triggered something. In hindsight, I think my desire to be seen as a more sophisticated writer was being manifested through my clothing. I threw out all my Rainbow lycra mini-dresses and started dressing like the First Lady, basically. I started buying all of these Escada power suits and twinsets and dresses from this really chic but grandma-ish label called Adolfo that Nancy Reagan used to wear a lot. But it’s been a couple of years since then, and I’ve actually phased out of that “elegant” moment. Now I’m having a different crisis: I’m 29 and scared of getting old, so now I feel like I’m making efforts to dress “younger.” I’ve been wearing these denim booty shorts all summer, I’m buying a lot of really tacky 90s D&G and Versus Versace animal print dresses from eBay and I’ve started to wear sneakers, which I something I never, ever did. So it’s a swinging pendulum, really.

Why are you scared of getting older? We interviewed Françoise Mouly from The New Yorker and Paola Antonelli of MoMA for past issues (of Riposte) – they’re both over 50 but they’re badasses, and they look so powerful. Apart from my face not looking great first thing in the morning, I’m looking forward to becoming an older woman.

Karley Sciortino: No, you’re right. So far getting older has been amazing – each year means more independence, more career goals achieved, more friends and more confidence. As you get older you feel better in your body and in your mind – you know what you want, and you feel more confident cutting out the things you don’t want in your life; be it people, parties or certain jobs. I think I’m just worried about conforming, weirdly. I don’t want to be one of those people who hits 30 or 35 and suddenly becomes “a normal” with a lawyer husband and a baby on the way, consulting for brands or something.

“I asked her if she remembered telling me that I wasn’t elegant, and she did! Her memory is insane. She asked me if I still showed my midriff” – Karley Sciortino

Has your own sex life changed as you’ve got older and been in a longer-term relationship?

Karley Sciortino: It actually hasn’t changed that much. I’m in a three-year relationship now, but it’s an open relationship so I sleep with other people. I’m very curious and need a lot of sexual novelty; I can’t see a long-term monogamous relationship ever working for me. Who knows, maybe that will change with time, but it’s been this way since I started having sex at 16. The types of people I sleep with have changed over the years, though. I used to sleep pretty exclusively with very thin guys, who would usually fall into the category of a “hipster” or like an “artist-type”. Now I’m more all over the place. I sleep with women, some older men. I’ve come to like a more muscular male body type, rather than just the super skinny dudes. I’ve also become obsessed with Tinder, and love that I can fuck the most RANDOM guys through it, who I’d never meet in my regular life. Like for some reason I recently became curious about what it would be like to fuck a super normal dude accountant-type who uses hair gel and lifts weights and lives on the Upper East Side, and so I found a guy on Tinder who fit the profile. It was funny – I never need to fuck him again, but it was fun to have sex with someone who’s completely different than my usual type, who has none of the same references as me. Tinder is like anthropology.

Do you ever self-censor?

Karley Sciortino: I’ve learned to self-censor when I think what I’m considering sharing could hurt or offend someone. I learned the hard way that not everyone wants the intimate details of their sex and love life written about online. When I started Slutever I was in a long-term relationship with a guy, and we broke up because he couldn’t deal with me blogging about us. So now I’m more conscious of asking people before I get TMI. Other than that… yeah, sure I censor some things. No one is totally transparent. There are a lot of personal things that I don’t write about for the sake of my parents’ sanity, and because if I want to survive I need magazines and brands to keep paying me; I can’t be too much of a pariah :)

You wrote about your break-up with your girlfriend online, was that weird for her?

Karley Sciortino: Actually, she was flattered. I mean, all I was writing about was how heartbroken and desperate I was, and how much I missed her, and I think she took it as a very heartfelt, very public love letter. She’s a chill person, and is totally cool with me writing about whatever I want, her included.

In a recent study, a large proportion of the women questioned said they didn’t masturbate because they thought it was dirty. Some of the same women were quoted saying they didn’t feel in control of their own sexuality. Why do you think so many women are still out of touch with their own sexuality?

Karley Sciortino: That’s sad. I think a lack of proper sex ed. is a big problem, especially in America. I also think that some women probably masturbate – or watch porn or have sex, or whatever – more than they will admit, because we still live in a culture with a sexual double standard and the lingering effects of a boring and oppressive Madonna-whore complex, so women don’t feel they can be as honest about their desires as men can.

What do you think about religion and sex? It seems that abstinence and piety don’t stamp out people’s sexual desires, but can force those feelings underground or create huge feelings of shame and guilt.

Karley Sciortino: Totally. I experienced this firsthand when I worked as a dominatrix and almost all of my clients were sexually-repressed Hasidic Jews who wanted me to pee on them. Also, I grew up in a really strict Catholic family where I was told from a young age that having pre-marital sex was a sin. This had an adverse affect on my horny teenage self and made me want to have sex with everyone, all the time. So, while religion sometimes restricts people’s sexual behaviour, other times it can push people to be more rebellious or perverse. One of my favorite quotes from Camille Paglia (who grew up in an Italian Catholic family like me!) is: “Subversion requires limits to violate.”

Are your parents still super religious? What do they think of what you do?

Karley Sciortino: They have become slightly less religious than they were when I was young, but they still go to church every week, and my dad is a leading member of my town’s church organisation. But they’ve become more liberal in certain ways, like they don’t hate gay people now – progress! Although they’re not chill with me dating a girl, so there’s still a deep-seated conservatism there. They basically ignore my work. It’s this weird don’t ask, don’t tell situation where they know I’m a writer but we don’t ever discuss what exactly it is that I’m writing. It’s weird.

We’re apparently living in a hyper-sexualised society – where Miley Cyrus presents the VMAs in some strategically-positioned M&Ms and hookup apps reign supreme. Do you think we’re living more enlightened sex lives as a result, or is it all for show?

Karley Sciortino: I think some of it’s for show, but I think it’s largely a reflection of certain aspects of sexuality becoming more accepted – things like gay marriage, bisexuality, sexual fluidity, BDSM, casual sex, open relationships. I would hope this growing acceptance leads to people being more free and informed, and therefore more enlightened. I think as society becomes more liberal and open, people feel more comfortable being themselves and experimenting.

If you were devising a sex education curriculum, what would be the most important issues you’d deal with?

Karley Sciortino: My first lesson would be to teach women that sex is not something you do for a guy. Sex is an experience shared by two people that is about getting pleasure and giving it in return. There’s a tragic, out-of-date stereotype that, by having sex, men are getting something and women are giving up something, and it’s about time we moved past that for good. We all get something out of sex.

My second lesson would be to teach people that, while porn is great, it’s entertainment, not reality. If you want to make a girl come, you’re better off asking her what feels good than taking lessons from porn.

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