In between writing her new Vogue.com column, jetting back and forth from filming in L.A. and chronicling her unique New York existence on her must-read blog Slutever, Karley Sciortino sat down with Galore to help us figure out how to live and love in the Digital Age.
Interview by Kate Allen
The theme of this issue of Galore is friendship… But you’re a sex writer and the editors wanted me to ask you about a mix of the two. But do friendship and sex even go together?
I suppose some people have sex with their friends but I’m definitely not that kind of person. I think we’re lucky enough to live in a time where even if you don’t live in a major city, there’s just so much access to people so that we don’t need to sleep with our friends. Having sex with someone just does change your relationship with them. I cannot be friends with anyone that I’ve dated.
Is being friends with an ex actually possible?
For some people it is and I’m like, “How do you do that?” My friend and her ex, who she was with for like three years, comes over and she makes dinner, and she brings her new girlfriend too. I was like, “Eww, what is happening?”
What do you think about social media’s impact on human relationships? Do all those channels make friendships and romantic relationships easier?
It’s interesting because I do use them but largely as a media tool. I would delete Facebook if it wasn’t just a really great way to speak to a large group of people at once. Either in terms of promoting something, like linking to my blog, but also in terms of crowd sourcing. I’ll only scroll through my feed like once month because I just don’t really care.
How about online dating – is there still a stigma attached?
In the past few years I feel that it’s changed so much. When I first moved back to New York, which was about three years ago, and I remember people saying they had OkCupid profiles and I thought it was really embarrassing. But they thought it was embarrassing too. But now that everyone’s doing it its different. But with Tinder I think there is still a bit of a stigma because it’s sort of for hook ups.
You’re starring in a new web series called Be Here Nowish that centres on a couple of friends. Can you tell me about it?
I’m acting in it but I’m not really behind it. It’s these two girls – Natalia Leite and Alexandra Roxo who are friends of mine from Brooklyn. It’s a web series about two girls who are not doing very much in New York with their lives and have bad relationships so they decide to go to L.A. and find themselves through New Age culture and spiritual awakening. They’re thrown from grungy New York into this complete opposite environment. I’m one of the people in L.A. that they meet. It’s really funny.
You tend to work and collaborate with your friendship group, right?
I feel like my friendships – my best friendships – are with people that I work with. I enjoy collaborating because being a writer is actually such a solitary experience; it’s just sitting alone in front of a computer without any communication with anyone. It gets lonely and depressing and it drives you crazy. Plus I really don’t enjoy just hanging. I wish I did. But then I’m glad I don’t too. I get anxiety and I feel like I should be doing something. So my best friendships are obviously with people who I feel like when we get together that part of our bonding comes from our creating something. Working friendships are awesome. My closest friends just tend to be the people that I work with most often.
Anyone in particular you like working with?
Petra Collins – I’ve been doing video stuff with her. She’s just moved to New York from Toronto. We hang out a lot because we’ve been making these short videos together. She’s only 20 which my mom thinks is really weird. She’s like, “Why are friends with someone who’s 20? What do you talk about?” I also like working with Sandy Kim who’s a photographer and video director here in New York. She’s so manic.
Do you ever make lasting connections with people that you interview?
One of my best friends is this girl who works as an escort who I interviewed on my blog. We’ve become good friends because she is just like the most un-boring person ever. There’s also this dominatrix who I shadowed for a week for Vice like three years ago and we’ve since become good friends too. They’re both girls living in New York who are roughly the same age as me so we have other things in common.
Is living in New York integral to your writing as well as your social life?
I think it’s just convenient. This is so cheesy, but when I was in Paris earlier this year you can’t eat food at any time. You have to eat between 12 and 3. And at 10pm everything is shut. Recently I’ve been spending half of my time in L.A. It is kind of like, wow, there’s this place in America where 365 days a year its perfect weather and everyone lives in a big house. And for the same amount of money I’m living in a jail cell in New York. Like, I could live there and have a house where I could have a garden and grow food. It is tempting and I like the idea of spending some time out of the year there but there’s no struggle. I feel like there needs to be some sort of struggle in order to make people creative. New York and London really have that. It’s just hard to live here sometimes. There’s so much happening and it really gets you going.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I want to invite Joan Didion. Camille Paglia would be good. She talks a lot and starts arguments – that’s good for parties. And Louis Garrel because he’s hot and it’s good to have a French person. And Richard Prince – he would talk about something sexy and perverted.