Soft Core: The Novel Taking Us Inside San Francisco’s Erotic Underground

Brittany Newell’s new novel, Soft Core, is not a mystery or a thriller. The San Francisco author is fairly adamant about that. At its heart, it could be read as a love story, but there is also something more spectral – and intangible – lurking in its pages. As a writer, Newell may be one of the finest contemporary purveyors of “vibes”, and in Soft Core, this sensory poeticism transports us to the depths of San Francisco’s erotic underground. It is a ghostly world of make-believe, of sex dungeons and strip clubs, where danger looms like “asbestos” and no one is quite what they seem. “It is not a mystery, but is mysterious,” Newell says, speaking to me over Zoom. “Critics might say it was all vibes, no plot. And yeah, I love it: all vibes, no plot.”

That said, there is still a page-turning plot: Soft Core follows the story of 27-year-old Ruth, a dancer and newbie dominatrix, who goes on a hunt for her missing ex-boyfriend Dino. Dino is a man of multitudes: a cross-dresser who sells grade-A ketamine, loves Dolly Parton, and regularly kisses his three gentle rescue dogs on the lips. His disappearance sends Ruth into an existential spiral of loneliness and longing (a “love-shaped lunacy”), splitting the very foundation of her reality. To fix it, she goes further underground, on a fever dream quest to fill the void – she meets men with “tremendous BO”, human furniture fetishes, and mysterious carcasses in their kitchen. Some want to live inside her tummy, others want to drink her piss from a pint glass.

Newell is a prodigal talent, and Soft Core is her second book. Her first, Oola, was published in 2017 when she was just 21 and fresh out of Stanford University. However, despite building a fervent cult following as writer (she had an early column in Dazed, and has been published in Granta, N+1 and The New York Times), she opted for a path more like Ruth’s, working as a professional dominatrix and performer in the years that followed. But Newell insists that’s where the similarities stop. “I see a lot of people calling the book a memoir or autofiction, which it certainly is not,” she says, reclining on her bed, a wave of soft toys framing her head. Of course, she adds, “there’s always a slippage between the author’s own life and the main character of their book.”

DS: Most people, when they come out of Stanford and get their first book published, would probably slide into a staff writer role somewhere. Was it a conscious decision to reject that path?

BN: Yeah, it was very conscious. There were many motivations for getting into domming and all the weird jobs that I’ve had in that intervening period between Oola and Soft Core. Curiosity is always going to be a strong motivation for anything that I do, and wanting adventure. But I think probably the most guiding motivation was that I wanted freedom and control over my days. And maybe there was a little bit of a rebel in me, or something that was just like, ‘fuck Stanford’. It was such a bizarre and alienating experience to even go there. Much more of my early education was through gay bars than through Stanford. I wanted to pave my own path and do something different, or out of left field.

DS: You’ve drawn comparisons between being a writer and dominatrix before.

BN: There’s a long, storied tradition of writers who are also deeply steeped in these sexual underworlds, whether they’re practitioners of it or clients who partake in it. There are so many perverted writers in our literary landscape. I always say that what makes a good writer is also what makes a good dominatrix, which is curiosity, bravery and an ability to empathise with whoever is in front of you. I also think a lot of writers are fucking nosy, you know? Like always wondering what goes on in people’s private worlds. And as a sex worker, but most poignantly as a dom, people are handing over their secrets to you. As a person, it’s very intense, gratifying and scary, but as a writer, it just really lights up my brain. Having an imagination is a huge part of it, too: it would be hard to be successful as a dominatrix if you didn’t have a pretty boundless and dark imagination. Even at the dungeon I work at now, I saw an ice roller in the freezer the other day, and I was like, ‘Oh, this will be perfect for the next time I have a ball-busting session and someone’s tied up, blindfolded. I’ll just roll it on their balls.’

“I always say that what makes a good writer is also what makes a good dominatrix, which is curiosity, bravery and an ability to empathise with whoever is in front of you” – Brittany Newell

DS: You describe San Francisco’s erotic underground as a “smoky world of make-believe”, but at the same time it’s so intensely real; you’re being confronted with the bare truth of people’s innermost desires. What does Soft Core say about the struggle of negotiating fantasy and reality?

BN: I think having strong and clearly defined boundaries is so important. It prevents any spiritual leakage, or emotional spillover, that can happen when you’re working with people in this way that’s so intimate. But then you also need to remember that they are strangers, and I think a lot of clients – intentionally or not – will try to take advantage of someone who has more porous boundaries. They just want more and more of you. I feel like a common thing with Johns, in any type of sex work scenario, is that they want to encroach on those boundaries; it’s really common for them to ask your real name, as this grabby urge to have a piece of you that the other clients don’t get. But I do think it’s inevitable that there will be some slippage between reality and fantasy. That slippage is inevitable in romance too, and it can be really fun but also damaging in the long run, which is what we see with Ruth. I think she’s struggling with the dissolving line between fantasy and reality in all aspects of her life. My one critique of Anora is that I wish more attention had been paid to that: it was such a missed opportunity as a character study, to show her struggling with the dissolution of that boundary.

DS: There’s a lot of empathy in this book, particularly towards Ruth’s clients, who probably don’t deserve it. What has your experience as a dominatrix taught you about men and masculinity?

BN: One might assume that it might have made me more jaded or impatient, having to deal with them in this very raw and vulnerable state. Maybe there's a hint of that, but it was very shocking to realise, as you said, how much empathy it made me feel for them. You’re getting this front-row seat to all of their wounds, and how much toxic masculinity has damaged, hurt or just exhausted them. You see how guarded and tired so many cis white straight men are: they’re just so tired from carrying around these secrets, and the vigilance that comes with having to hide them. No one can know they want to crossdress, or that they feel weak and lonely sometimes, in case they’re seen as a beta cuck. There is a sex work cliche that is pretty true, which is that a majority of the clients I see at the dungeon have very stressful, demanding, high-powered jobs where they have to be in control and dominant. What they seek in the dungeon is this special and rare opportunity to sample some of the softness of the feminine experience. It’s the ecstasy of surrender, which they don’t tend to allow themselves in their everyday lives – not even with their wives or partners, and certainly not their friends. 

DS: There’s a line in the book: “Heterosexuality is defined by a longing for wholeness. Terror undergirds desire.” It feels topical right now, to consider masculinity in this way. Men are back…

BN: … And they’re bitter! It makes me wonder what would happen if someone who has all this anger and resentment towards women were able to work through that resentment in a dungeon space. I wonder if that would help them work through these feelings. 

“You see how guarded and tired so many cis white straight men are: they’re just so tired from carrying around these secrets, and the vigilance that comes with having to hide them”

DS: Loneliness is a huge part of Soft Core, too. What’s your relationship with loneliness? 

BN: Writing is definitely an experience that has to be done 80 per cent in solitude, but I do feel that reading is an antidote to loneliness, as cheesy as that sounds. I’ve found so much solace and companionship in books. The ecstatic experience of seeing your feelings refracted back at you is so precious. A book can be a really mystical companion.

DS: When you’re going through something like grief or heartbreak, they can feel like a kind of divine intervention.

BN: 100 per cent. If you’re going through heartbreak, the government should give you a stuffed animal and a stack of books about heartache and loneliness, because my god, it hits so hard. Heartbreak is so inherently solipsistic, you feel like you’re the only one who has ever felt this broken, and it’s like you’ll never feel better. When a book manages to break through that solipsistic haze? It feels so amazing.

DS: Finally, Ruth grapples a lot with her sense of purpose, as do many of the characters, and Soft Core feels like a study of this aimlessness. Was that something you were thinking about while writing the book?

BN: One of the most important things you need as a writer is self-sustaining delusion. You have to believe in yourself even when it doesn’t seem logical or rational. I remember when I split up with my original agents over Soft Core, I felt that self-sustaining delusion start to flicker, it was one of the lowest points in my life. Ruth is an interesting character because I feel like she is risking making men and love her purpose. I don’t know if that is good or bad, I’m kind of on the fence about that, but you see her working through the desire to make another person her purpose, whoever that person is – be they a John or sugar daddy, or her really close female friends, or Dino. Maybe that’s the reason Dino has to go away, to force her to rediscover her own independence.

Soft Core is published by 4th Estate, and is out now.