Heroine Sheik is Bonnie Ruberg’s Village Voice blog about sex, gender, and video games. It’s also about cultural criticism, artistic analysis, and occasionally delicious game cakes.
At Heroine Sheik, we (that’s the royal “we”) believe there’s a heck of a lot we can learn by looking at tech entertainment as art. We also believe that sexual and intellectual openness and acceptance are crucial to talking about… well, just about anything. People of all orientations, backgrounds, and opinions are welcome on the site. Heroine Sheik prides itself on being sex positive.
Bonnie Ruberg (shown below proudly sporting sequined pasties) is the resident sex, games, and tech expert. A professional sex writer, she recently moved to San Francisco–where she blogs about video games for the Voice, writes her weekly cybersex column, Click Me, and takes breaks from freelancing for publications like Forbes.com and Gamasutra–in her pajamas, no less–to frolic through her new city. In her spare time, she researches online sex culture, daydreams about game design, and dorks-out to academia. She graduated in 2007 from Bard College with a degree in creative writing, literature, and gender & sexuality studies.
Before writing for the Voice, Bonnie spent three years as a video game journalist, columnist, and reviewer for a number of lovely publications that her mother has never heard of. Occasionally, you can still find her musing on virtual worlds at Terra Nova, or drooling over baked goods at GameCakes.com. In the past, she has written for Joystiq, The Onion A. V. Club, Wired.com, The Escapist, Gaming Age, and Planet GameCube. She has also done work for Slashdot Games, GamesIndustry.biz, American Sexuality Magazine, X360 Magazine, Gamegal, Women Gamers, and Killer Betties.
You can find a full list of Bonnie’s articles here. If you’re looking for the Cliffs Notes, she recommends the following selection:
“I’m the Pink One: Women on Xbox Live,” GameGal, 8/15/05
“Women Monsters and Monsterous Women,” The Escapist, 11/1/05
“Cyberporn Sells in Virtual World,” Wired.com, 12/22/05
“Naked in a Lawn Chair, LOL,” Terra Nova, 6/2/06
“Dracula Wear Eyeliner (Playing Dirty),” Joystiq, 12/14/06
“Venus in Furs,” American Sexuality, 1/26/07
“Night Elves on Their Knees (Playing Dirty),” Joystiq, 3/2/07
“Sex Advice for the Digital Age (Click Me),” The Village Voice Online, 5/10/07
“Defying Dick Expectations (Click Me),” The Village Voice Online, 11/18/07
Things Bonnie likes (an ongoing list compiled for her own sanity): Video games, analyzing video games, over-analyzing video games; water, water sports, drinking water; sleep, bed, the groove in her mattress; stuffed animals, kitties, various adorable and/or fluffy things with faces; British humor, Hugh Laurie, British men, British accents; caves and small spaces; psychoanalysis; BDSM, sadomasochism as a literary trope, Story of O, defying expectations about pleasure, showing off her bruises; Kate Blanchette, girls with red hair; French, French literature, the weather in the south of France; glitter, men in make-up, Glam Rock, Oscar Wilde, that time Oscar Wilde kissed Walt Whitman…
