A Wet and Wild Reading at Wall Street Bath & Spa 88

An eclectic mix of artists, socialites and full-time eccentrics are mingling inside the slippery, cavernous halls of Wall Street Bath & Spa 88.

All are gathered for a “A Night of Desire” — a reading hosted by Camille Sojit Pejcha, the writer behind the buzzy sex and culture-focused newsletter, Pleasure Seeking, and Substack, the platform that powers it. The night’s readers include some of Substack and culture’s best and brightest writers, all of whom have availed the evening’s offerings exclusively to their subscribers. Demand was high; the reading sold out in minutes and the waitlist to attend was over 300 people.

Inside, attendees are all either scantily clad or in white robes, lending the affair the coy feeling of a “middle school pool party,” according to one writer in attendance. I feel the awkward jitters myself, but once I imbibe in some of the bathhouse’s fresh squeezed orange juice and house vodka, the jitters give way to giddiness. I take in the spa’s offerings (sauna, steam room, cold plunge and the leafy, semi-painful Platza treatment) and feel open to anything. And even though my vibe is momentarily thrown off by the man pitching his crypto company beside me (this occurs as gruff Russian hands are whacking my body with oak leaves), nothing can truly phase me. The night has the feeling of a niche game of Mad Libs: anything goes.

This kind of chaotic energy is by design, according to Sojit Pejcha. “We kind of broke the fourth wall between performer and audience,” she shares. “Suddenly, people are interacting with the comedians and writers they admire in a different context: doing shots of horseradish vodka, hanging out in the hot tub, or sweating it out in the steam room.”

As the spa portion of the evening gives way to the official reading, attendees gather in and around the bath to point their attention to the readers standing proudly at the water’s mouth. The featured writers are a diverse crew, representative of Substack’s own sprawling scene; Brontez Purnell, J Wortham, Jaboukie Young-White, Cat Cohen, Mary H.K. Choi, Liara Roux, Old Jewish Men, Sherry Ning and Sojit Pejcha all offer their take on the night’s theme: desire.

Worthham waxes poetic on the expansive properties of psychedelics, Choi reads deeply cathartic, highly politicized smut on Luigi Mangione and, maybe most shockingly, comedian and former Twitter-savant, Jaboukie Young-White, shares a piece of genuinely moving fanfic about Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao — a story which he posted on his own Substack.

“It was Inauguration day, the cold brew was hitting and I was like, ‘I’m just going to write a Mitch McConnell fanfic,’” says Young-White, who now has written three installments of the saga. He used to offer up such deliciously insane bits on his X/Twitter, but since the site has careened into a right wing hellscape, the comedian now publishes his madman creations on Substack. “[On X now], people are coming across your shit where I’m like, ‘I’m not talking to you,’” he says.“But it feels like if you’re subscribed [to me on Substack], you really fuck with what I have to say and I love that aspect of it.”

The crowd of subscribers is, indeed, bought in. They’re giggly as comedian Cat Cohen harps on her male gynecologist and relatable aspirations. “I want to be so thin I could skate on creme brulee,” she hums. Similarly, the audience is leaning forward as Noah Rinsky of Old Jewish Men tells the epic saga of his beef with a local ice cream sandwich purveyor, their trendy prices an affront to good manners. Other readings include Sojit Pejcha’s own reflection on the thrill of workplace crushes, a thoughtful piece by Roux about Robert Mapplethorpe and AIDS-era art and an ode to beauty by Ning.

The fact that these readers were convened by Substack is notable. All of them have had to contend with the at times tough strictures of legacy media and publishing. Substack, for these writers, has offered an alternative to the traditional writerly life. “As a writer covering taboo topics, self-publishing on Substack has allowed me to build my own audience outside the constraints of mainstream media,” says Sojit Pejcha, a sentiment echoed by Sophia Efthimiatou, head of writer relations and events at Substack. “Part of our aim with a Night of Desire was to honor a wish we hear a lot from people on Substack: to keep Substack weird, a home where literary subcultures don’t just exist, but thrive,” shares Efthimiatou. “Substack [is cultivating] a space where writers and creators, together with their audiences, can explore the edges of culture and creativity, beyond the expected.”

Purnell, the writer behind contemporary touchstones like 100 Boyfriends and a standout reader of the night, recently started his own Substack. Per Efthimiatou’s intention, Purnell always takes things to the thrilling edge, but the transition to Substack has brought its own challenges. “A lot of writers I know can’t even really afford to just wait for their books to come out,” Purnell shares from the bubbling hot tub after his ecstatically received reading. “I do feel like people put a quarter in me and I’m a content machine now, but it also keeps me on my toes, because writing is a practice. It’s like a gym: you have to go to it every day.”

Indeed, writing is “a muscle” that can turn sore from neglect or direct engagement. Any writer will tell you practice is always better, but the effort can still be painful. It’s convenient, though, that a good cure for sore bones is a hot soak in a tub.