Hot Goth Writer and Gwyneth Giller get into latex, lore, and lost archives for Girl Talk.
Hot Goth Writer is a woman of multitudes: fetish consultant, archivist, writer, porn hunter, latex entrepreneur, WNBA stylist, God-fearing Catholic, and decidedly kinky, but not horny. She’s just returned from a roadtrip through rural America in search of rare erotica and endangered adult-store ephemera. She seems to build a beautiful life around high heels and chaos. Carefully straddling the destiny of a nomadic woman and the psychic burden of holding on to everything.
Our conversation is effortless, and our editing process consists of her texting a 46-year-old man named Brian from Kansas. They first met at a bar, and the next night she drove him home from his friend’s funeral. He bestowed upon her the perfect nickname: Wildflower. Beautiful, untamed, ever-growing, and popping up everywhere. What emerges is a portrait of someone equal parts preservationist and provocateur—drawn to the strange poetry of American decay.
(She asked Brian if we could keep his name in the transcript, to which he replied, “I’m definitely okay with it.”)
Gwyneth Giller: What have you been up to today?
Hot Goth Writer: I’ve been trying to organize my apartment. While I was in Kansas, I came across this incredible collection of Black erotica. I feel like it’s both rare and really special, so I’m trying to find another Black cultural figure or archivist to partner with on a larger public release around it. I’m also trying to write, but not actually writing.
GG: For readers who might not know what you do, can you describe your career in a nutshell?
HGW: I work as a fashion and fetish consultant. I also work as a consultant in the sports and cultural intersection. I have a background as a journalist and an archivist. I first started out in rare book buying and dealing. I always loved sexy art and fashion books, but something about social media made it a little bit too accessible. I live for a good hunt and it pushed me to start buying vintage pornography.
GG: What does your day-to-day look like?
HGW: I spend a lot of my time traveling around rural America, literally hunting for vintage pornography. I don’t really buy any of my collections off the internet. Most of it is very happenstance or word of mouth. I’ll go to a random city and meet somebody who refers me to somebody else, or I’ll be emailing some old magazine founder from the 80s or 90s, or befriending an old legend in the fetish scene who offers me access to their collections.
GG: And you were just in Kansas? Whereabouts?
HGW: I was in Central Western Kansas. I flew into Wichita, and I drove 4 1/2 hours west. I was like on the tip of Kansas, next to Denver.
GG: I saw on your Instagram story that you were working with a small business owner named Larry?
HGW: Um, that’s like two different things.
GG: Elaborate.
HGW: I’m obsessed with just meeting old American characters and hearing about their life story. Going to Larry’s store was like the last task in this big three year quest that I put myself on. Um, so that was just like jokes. I actually bought this lot of vintage 80s Black and other categories of porn from a separate person.
GG: So you didn’t buy anything from Larry, you were just getting to know him.
HGW: I bought some gimmicks from Larry, but I was at the store with him for like half the day, fake working a shift, just hearing about his crazy lore.
GG: So cool. What’s your favorite part about an experience like that?
HGW: I spend a lot of time going to meet these adult store owners across America. I definitely get really worried with the contemporary moment and the internet and the way that the sex and adult industries are changing. What happens to these stores? I find that a lot of stores, say, in New York City, they’re all kind of the same contemporary, no identity, personality, no soul, with the same merchandise from big national chain corporations.
GG: Right. Niche porn is dead.
HGW: There’s something about an old dilapidated adult store that just has a really special place in my heart.
GG: X-rated stores, each a national treasure. You travel a lot and you’ve been to so many gems, I imagine. Which, out of all your travels, were your favorite stores or stories?
HGW: I’m trying to think. I can’t really talk about that right now because I have some projects with these specific stores. I also forgot to say, in terms of what I do professionally, in addition to all the consulting, a big part of what I do is I’m a big latex collector and artist. I just recently launched a rental latex business. So I spend a lot of my time meeting with latex designers or acquiring new pieces of latex, cataloging them, and making custom latex garments for clients.
GG: What is it called?
HGW: Latex to the World.
GG: You sound like you’re super busy, and I feel like the work you do can be emotionally and spiritually exhausting. Is there something that you do to protect your aura?
HGW: I find that I go on these crazy road trip adventures whenever I feel really overwhelmed from being in the city. I feel like half of my life is also being a cool downtown fashion girl, and I get really exhausted from being perceived a lot. So anytime I wrap a big work stint, I like to fuck off in the middle of nowhere. I went to Kansas, after working at the NADA art fair all week for a client.
GG: Ugh, scary.
HGW: Yeah, then I guess the other emotional toll that all the collecting and archiving takes on me is that I get a lot of anxiety because I feel this crazy responsibility or guilt over trying to acquire or save certain objects, locations, and stories. Because if I don’t go and try to document everything and save it and archive it, then it’s just lost forever. Something about that will never sit right with me. I also don’t really work as a vintage pornography dealer.
GG: Why is that?
HGW: I’m trying to be better about offering my collections up for sale, and sometimes I tell myself that I’m going to sell this or whatever, and I feel like I am an object fetishist. I really struggle to let go of things.
GG: Are there any other collections that you have going alongside your fetish collection?
HGW: I collect latex, high heels, vintage pornography, dominatrix archives, fetish photographer archives, and old sex toys. I also have a really rad gas station sex pill collection in my kitchen.
GG: And this all lives in your house?
HGW: Yeah. My apartment is just high heels and porn everywhere.
GG: Tell me about what you do as a sports consultant.
HGW: I used to work for the WNBA for a number of years, doing a lot of fashion editing, journalism, broadcasting around the intersection of style and women’s sports. It’s something that I still do now. It’s a balance because the sports industry can be quite conservative, or just designed for families and kids. Meanwhile I’m also doing creative directing and styling for a professional dominatrix right now.
GG: Are you able to share who the Dominatrix is?
HGW: Her name is Mx Tomie. She’s pretty big online, but what’s awesome is that she also has a YouTube channel and a podcast. So it’s not just an individual client, it’s a whole media platform. It’s a dream job for me, because we can do things like acquire a medieval torture headpiece. I think it’s called a scold’s bridle. I was at a nautical antique store in Miami when I found that. I was so tempted to buy it for myself, but ultimately, it would have been just a display item, but now I have my dream client who can use it in other contexts.
GG: What is your go-to style tip for some of your Dominatrix clients?
HGW: A guiding philosophy is that I don’t always believe in sticking to the conventional or traditional public image of what a dominatrix is supposed to look like. I understand that there are certain times or there are certain merits in wearing the typical dominatrix visual codes so that people automatically understand what you do. But Tomie and I are also really passionate about showing different sides. A dominatrix could wear a turtleneck, and still have the same nasty energy.
GG: Love that. So you go by “hot goth writer”. What is the most goth thing about you that has nothing to do with your physical appearance?
HGW: I think goth has nothing to do with physical appearance. I think it’s in the heart, it’s a state of mind. I’m a pretty dark person in general. I also don’t really care for small children or animals.
GG: Don’t bring your small kids around! What are you currently reading, watching, and listening to? What’s been on your mind in the cultural zeitgeist outside of pornography?
HGW: I was watching this fucked up comedy TV show last night, South of Sanity, about a methhead in Alabama. It was written really well. It was written by Shy Pilgreen, and she also plays the protagonist, and it’s just funny. I’m also reading that classic French novel Girl on a Motorcycle right now. I don’t have as much time as I would like to read. I feel like a lot of my time is spent driving or just sitting around, trying to have conversations with people.
GG: That’s life. What’s the horniest piece of literature you’ve ever read?
HGW: You know, funnily enough, I don’t really identify with the word “horny”, and something that I came to terms with recently was that I’m actually not. There’s a difference between being horny and being kinky, and a lot of my friends and I say that we’re post-sex, so I don’t really think I identify with being a horny person. I feel like I’m just a kinky person.
GG: That’s so interesting, but you wouldn’t identify as like asexual? Or would you?
HGW: Um, sometimes, I think so. But also not, because I have a sexual relationship with inanimate objects—like I have a sexual relationship with high heels.
GG: What’s your favorite pair in your closet?
HGW: I have a pair of extended-toe Martine Rose heels that make me very happy. I actually have two pairs of these heels. One pair for wearing outside and the other pair just for the bedroom. I also bought a new pair of Gucci heels that are only for the bed.
GG: Fair, outside shoes don’t have a place in the bedroom so I appreciate that.
HGW: Totally. But in terms of horny writing like, I don’t know, Eve Babitz, I guess.
GG: I love her. What’s the most glamorous thing that you own?
HGW: That’s a good question. I feel like my life overall is a glam scene. I can’t really attribute it to a single object, you know?
GG: Real.
HGW: I think there’s something about seeing the chaos of my place. Like the laundry piles everywhere and all these heels, books, porn, and all toys scattered everywhere. I love that contrast. It’s so chaotic and messy, but everything is expensive and rare and chic.
GG: I think every hot girl is very messy. I’m curious what’s in your bag right now?
HGW: Um, nothing too interesting probably. My daily bag is this 1960s Kansas bank bag. I love the bank bag as a clutch. [Looks through bag] There’s lip liner, my cobbler repair tickets, some cash, a bunch of bobby pins, a rosary.
GG: Does the rosary have any weighted meaning relating to Catholicism for you?
HGW: I grew up very Catholic, and I am a deeply devout, God-fearing Catholic woman, believe it or not. And I find that as I get older, I’m becoming even more conservative and prudish.
I think Catholicism is so beautiful. I love to see boys kneel. I love the words that they use in the Catholic church. I love the idea of being able to pray for people.
GG: I went to an all-girls Catholic high school, and when I was 16, I decided I wanted to convert and become baptized. So that’s what I did. Since then—it ebbs and flows for me—but I just find the imagery around Catholicism to be so sexy. Thoughts on the Virgin Mary?
HGW: I love all the jokes that society makes about becoming a born-again virgin. I always talk to people about how I wish I could be a New York City virgin again. I’ve lived here for 10 years and my friends and I feel so jaded about everything. You know, when somebody just moves to New York and everything is magical to them?
GG: What was it like when you were a New York Virgin? What was your go-to circuit of places?
HGW: Oh my god, it was so weird cuz at the time I was interning at that legendary 90s publication Visionaire. I think that really shaped a lot of what I did and gave me a high level of taste and appreciation for printed projects. But I was also running around in Queens with these really punk rocker kids! We were so far out in Queens, going to all these DIY shows that, like some kids’ parents, had pools in their backyard.
GG: I would die for a pool. What’s your most toxic trait?
HGW: I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately because whenever I meet somebody who’s single and seems like a catch, especially in New York City, I’m like, “Okay, you must have a fatal flaw.” I feel like fatal flaw and toxic trait are interchangeable terms.
GG: And your fatal flaw is?
HGW: I like to live my life a little gnarly. I think that can be hard for another person to accept.
You know my tailor—who has been serving as my therapist of sorts— we have a Fashion Neurosis vibe going on in Chinatown when he works on my clients’ clothes. He thinks that I need to find somebody who shares the same kind of sense of urgency that I do.
GG: [Laughs] What’s your sign?
HGW: I’m a double cancer. I was born on the 4th of July.
GG: Americana double cancer, damn. What is your ideal last date?
HGW: Wow, that’s a good one. I’m a very strong willed girl. So, you know, the moment that somebody is dead to me, they’re dead to me. An ex-boyfriend and I had this conversation where we were like, maybe one day in the middle of nowhere, we’re going to see each other at a gas station, and we’re just going to make eye contact and not say a word.
GG: That is beautiful. If you were to hypothetically get a boyfriend and move in together, how would you divide up closet space?
HGW: Well, a man does not need closet space.
GG: [Laughter] One drawer.
HGW: Men can go back to washing their car rims once a week. My man does not need closet space.
GG: What is the best compliment you personally can receive from a man?
HGW: A really beautiful compliment that I got in Kansas was from this divorced dad, Brian, who was like 46, and I was driving him home from the bar one night. We had just left his friend’s funeral wake. He looked over to me because we had met the night before, and he called me a “wildflower”. You know, I always identify with being a cowboy but also a very beautiful woman, but I had never thought of the word “wildflower” before. I felt like that was a really accurate way to describe who I am and how I operate.
GG: What are some qualities that you’re looking for in a man?
HGW: I think it’s really important for men to be a good sport. If shorty wants to do something, if shorty’s feeling something, you just got to go along with it.
GG: Yeah, that’s literally their only job.
HGW: And I don’t really have any physical traits that I’m attracted to. I’ve dated really ugly guys, I’ve dated really fat guys, I’ve dated really short guys. I don’t have a type. I love a man with lore.
I love somebody who’s a sick fuck in the head. Not in an evil or harmful way, but when the inside of your head is kind of gnarly cuz I’m a real sick fuck in the head too.
GG: I hope you find that. I really do.
