Not a metaphor! Behold the sad, strange tale of sexpert Susan Crain Bakos, the author of such titles as Best Sex Ever and The Sex Bible, who has a troubled history of tricking aspiring writers and photographers into paying for her meals in order to punish them for networking. Most recently it was Kyria Abrahams, who says that Bakos contacted her with “a possible job opportunity,” only to rip her off. Abrahams says she declined to order anything at their meeting, but that Bakos insisted, “It’s on me,” before dashing without paying. (Abrahams had to explain to the restaurant that she couldn’t afford the check.) But it gets weirder: Bakos has admitted to repeatedly pulling this exact stunt.
In a blog post that she’s since deleted (but that lives on in Google’s cache), Bakos attempted to justify her bizarre behavior by slamming overly ambitious “girls” in the language of a con artist, admitting that what she does is “mean,” but putting her targets and critics down as “Anonymous internet trolls and mean girls, snarky jealous people and the poor little marks who didn’t get all that free help they wanted? Time-wasters.”
Bakos mentioned the possibility that she’s mentally ill, but with evil glee. She carries out the same stunt over and over again, she said, “for the high and out of contempt” for those who see her as an “old achiever on [her] way out.”
Ladies, be warned: An invite from Bakos isn’t a big break, it’s a big bill.
Never have dinner with Susan Crain Bakos [Kyria Abrahams]
How (and a bit of why)I Stuck So Many Women With The Check [Open Salon]
