This is a particularly fun interview and probably one of our first. Written in 2002 (yup, you read that right), even the terminology is different as the web was a very different place at the time. In fact, we didn't call it the "Internet", it was the "World Wide Web" (that's what the "www" is in front of website URLs). The internet was young and we had been online since 1994, in one incarnation or another. Internet Explorer was the browser of choice and Jimmy Wales just launched Wikipedia...how things have changed.

4) You say your website is “by women, for women.” Does this perspective change the content of Sssh.com from other erotic journals for women? If so, how?

We don’t really compare Sssh.com to other websites for women. We’ve always been determined to do our own thing based upon what our members want. Most businesses say they listen to their customers, but we’re very proactive in that regard. Listening is not just soliciting input. You must show you honestly care by acting on what you heard. Otherwise, the pact between the company and the consumer feels awfully hollow to everyone involved.

We have 3 years plus of member feedback. Eighty percent of our members were first-time buyers of this type of content when they joined Sssh.com. Women aren’t statics, and they want their entertainment to be as vibrant and as diverse, and as compelling as they are.

Sssh.com is largely what it is because of our members. They’re extraordinarily forthcoming with their opinions and desires—in a good way—and we consider it a privilege and a responsibility to respond with the entertaining, intelligent, and very sexy features, movies, discussions, and advice they’ve told us they want.

5) What do you think of the media's portrayal of female sexuality?

In recent years, TV has gotten more risqué while movies have become more conservative. There are all sorts of social, political, and economic reasons for that dichotomy, and in large part, the reasons don’t matter. What does matter is that women are feeling confused and frustrated by the ways in which popular media portrays women’s sexuality. Stereotypes are rampant, and women can feel pressured to live up to some pretty unattainable ideals…or live down to them. Very little of what we see—celebutantes, reality TV, even advertising and the news—reflects what we see in ourselves, and we wonder if we’re somehow defective.

What I wish every woman could know is that her personal sexuality does not make her weird or depraved or any of a thousand other judgmental adjectives. She doesn’t need to follow anyone else’s example to be a whole, healthy, happy, worthwhile person. Sexuality is as individual as each human being. Sssh.com exists to help women find their individual comfort zones and expand their horizons in ways they may never have considered. And to help them realize they don’t need to be ashamed or embarrassed because whoever they are, they’re as normal as anyone else.