A girl got herself an intrepid beau, but she'd long owned a vibrating dildo. "That thing has three speeds to exceed her base needs I'll need four, none too quick nor too slow."
Four on the Floor [Limerick]
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Tag Archives: sex
Monogamous Geometer [Limerick]
There once was a monogamous Geometer who could angle in inches or kilometers. "I do love triangles, except love triangles," At orgies he was a nervous vomiter.
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Horny Musings [Common Meter]
I've thought about the ideal horn. Should it be straight or curved? Or by a spectacular rack would one be better served? Maybe one would be better off being a unicorn. With just way too many options, I confess I am torn. A huge rack would most certainly wreak hell upon the spine, but a unicorn must get foes to form a single line. I once saw a wandering oryx; its horns were a stumper. They seemed optimized to stabbing off course para-jumpers.
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BOOK REVIEW: Money Shot, Vol. 1 by Tim Seeley and Sarah Beattie
Money Shot, Vol. 1 by Tim Seeley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This graphic novel weds a serious look at a serious problem with a raunchy romp into extraterrestrial porn. [Warning: If the latter part of that statement didn’t clue you in, this book is sexually graphic both pictorially and in terms of dialogue. While I don’t think there is anything in it that your average adult can’t handle, I wouldn’t recommend it for the puritanically-inclined or as a gift for one’s eight-year-old nephew – i.e. “because it’s a comic book.”]
At the center of the story is Dr. Christine Ocampos, the inventor of a Star Gate-like faster than light travel portal, a brilliant technology that is far too expensive to operate to get grant funding, money she needs to finance a multi-disciplinary team of researchers. The title, “Money Shot,” is used in two senses in the book. First, the portal was marketed as “Star Shot,” but because it is so expensive to run, it earned its “money shot” nickname, implying it was a good way to shoot a mass of cash into the dark void of space. The second sense of the word is as it’s used in the porn industry, the highly-visible climactic moment of a sex scene.
Ocampos, tired of spending her life writing enormous grant proposals that ultimately get rejected on the grounds of cost, stumbles upon an idea for an alternative approach while “decompressing” with pornography. The harried lab director realizes that people seem to be disproportionately interested in outlandish fetish porn, presumably because they are bored with the usual “meat-and-potato” varieties of sexual activity. Ocampos concludes that there can’t be anything wilder and more outlandish to catch the attention of the porn-viewing world than sex with extraterrestrials. She pitches her plan to the other four members of her research team, and –fortunately for her – they are all photogenic / attractive and surprisingly sexually liberated. [Meaning it’s not particularly difficult to convince them all to participate.]
I won’t go into the story in great detail, except in as much as to say there is one and it’s entertaining. The story uses a common science fiction idea of being drawn into the center of a dysfunctional alien society’s troubles. The five scientists / porn stars find themselves on an environmentally-depleted planet run by an authoritarian warlord who uses the ‘bread and circuses’ approach to keeping the population in check, thus resulting in gladiatorial battles and a groundswell of revolutionary sentiment.
While the book takes a light tone, it does convey a couple serious messages in the process. The most obvious of these messages is that science is expensive and, perhaps, the mainstream funding approach (applying to large government-run grant agencies) curtails some good science. A secondary message is that less sexual repression and shame could be a good thing for the world, overall.
The art is well-drawn and clear. The scenes are depicted in a clean and easy to follow fashion. Color palette changes are used to make it easy to follow between flashback and the present moment. While I made a comment about the team all being attractive, I suspect there was a conscious effort to include a range of body types – within some bounds at least. While Ocampos is the perfectly-proportioned Disney princess-type — on the whole, the team displays a mix of size and shape.
While this is unquestionably a bizarre premise for a comic book, I found it to be readable and compelling. If you like sci-fi comics, and aren’t put off by graphic sexuality, you’ll probably enjoy this book.
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BOOK REVIEW: Kink ed. by R.O. Kwon & Garth Greenwell
Kink: Stories by R.O. Kwon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Out: February 9, 2021
This is a collection of fourteen erotic short stories with a common theme of asymmetric power dynamics. [That’s an excessively syllabic way of saying Dominant / submissive, top / bottom, or Sadist / masochist relationships.] As is common with anthologies, a meaningful overall rating isn’t really possible. I found a couple of the included stories to be highly evocative or engaging, many were good, while others were just okay – plagued by the usual suspects that impair erotica such as characters without depth / intrigue or thin story. That said, none of the stories were poorly written.
To be fair, a broadly appealing erotica collection is a tall order. For one thing, erotica is the most idiosyncratic of genres. Like Horror, if it’s too tame for one’s tastes, it’s boring; if it’s too wild, it grosses one out — or otherwise become unreadable. [I suspect few (if any) readers will have the latter problem with this collection; some might have the former. (That is, given the likely readership demographic.) If you are picking up a book on kinky erotica, you are unlikely to be triggered or otherwise shocked or offended by anything contained herein.] In addition to the varied levels of intensity readers look for in erotica, there is the question of whether varied sexual orientations and identities are of interest to a given reader. This book covers a lot of ground in this regard, including heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender characters.
Because the anthology is so qualitatively and topically varied, I’ll say a little about each story.
1.) “The Cure” by Melissa Febos: I found this to be a strange choice for the collection and – particularly – for opening the collection. It’s about a lesbian who decides to have sex with straight men because she’s having trouble in her customary dating pool, but since she likes sex, she decides to pursue it in the form least laden with complication. So far, it could be fine, but it devolves into a laundry list of what she finds disgusting about intimacy with men. Now, one would expect a lesbian to find having sex with a man unappealing; just as anyone might when having sex outside their preferred orientation. However, it does raise the question: Why am I supposed to enjoy reading about this in a book of erotica? I think it’s fair to say that reading about people enjoying having sex is more erotic than hearing about people who aren’t enjoying their experience.
2.) “Best Friendster Date Ever” by Alexander Chee: This is a story about a hookup between two gay men who meet via a dating site, and who find themselves in a mutually appealing top / bottom sexual experience. While it’s not a story with a great deal of depth, it would have made a better opening because at least if features two people who are having intercourse because they like having sex with each other [as opposed to because there’s nothing on Netflix and each is the best the other can do on short notice.]
3.) “Trust” by Larissa Pham: As the name suggests, this story revolves around the issue of trust and the challenges that subject presents in a relationship of dominance and submission. When the couple goes on a getaway, the story mirrors the experience of trust-building in sexual encounters with the non-sexual circumstance of the male (dominant) driving off for the day without telling the female (submissive) that he’s leaving — or when / if he’ll be back. There’s some interesting insight into submissive psychology to be seen in this story.
4.) “Safeword” by R.O. Kwon: In this story, we see an issue that was touched upon in the previous on (and which later recurs,) which is what happens when one member of an intimate relationship is more into the kinky aspect than is the other. In this case, it’s a sadomasochistic relationship in which the female masochist is more desirous of the sadomasochistic aspect of the relation than is her male partner. The couple goes to a dominatrix so that the masochist can get what she desires and the man can learn to better pleasure [i.e. pain-ify?] his partner.
5.) “Canada” by Callum Angus: This atmospheric piece describes a girl’s relationship with a female to male transgender. It’s one of the shorter pieces, and – as the title suggests – it plays heavily on the setting, Canada, to create ambiance.
6.) “Oh, Youth” by Brandon Taylor: The story centers on an attractive young man named Grisha, and the appeal he has for some middle-aged people – particularly the infatuation that develops between the husband in a married couple that he is staying with temporarily during a college break.
7.) “Impact Play” by Peter Mountford: A recently divorced man enters into a serious relationship with the woman he was having an affair with when his marriage ended. He and this woman share an interest in kink and fetish sexuality that his previous wife apparently did not. We don’t learn much about his ex-wife, but we do learn quite a bit about his cousin, Betsy, whom he treats as a confidant and with whom he has a special relationship.
8.) “Mirror, Mirror” by Vanessa Clark: Diary entry of a well-endowed transgender escort. The story explores the fetishized nature of the main character’s occupation.
9.) “Reach” by Roxane Gay: A man and wife enjoy the former tormenting the latter with a steady stream of indignities as a fetish in their romantic life. It’s one of the more sensual pieces of writing in the anthology.
10.) “Gospodar” by Garth Greenwell: I would rate this as one of the two strongest entries in terms of story. It’s not the typical erotica in which the character comes out the other side of the story completely unchanged except for being momentarily spent. A submissive gay man meets up with a dominant in Romania that he learned about through the internet. The interaction starts off swimmingly, but it takes a hard turn south. The story is quite visceral, but provokes thought on the nature of consent where power dynamics are in play.
11.) “Scissors” by Kim Fu: This story is set amid a stage show in which sharp objects are used to undress a performer in motion. Attendees aren’t just after the prurient appeal of the striptease, but the vicarious visceral fear.
12.) “The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror” by Carman Maria Machado: This story has some superficial commonalities with the previous one – i.e. it largely takes place in a theater in which frightening shows are put on that feature a damsel-esque central character. However, it’s also quite distinct from the previous story. It’s the longest story and is the other entry that I consider strongest in terms of narrative qualities. The central character is a young girl [called “Bess” though that isn’t her real name] who becomes the protégé of the main character of the aforementioned horror show. The story is all about the changing nature of their relationship as the protégé grows from girl to woman.
13.) “Retouch / Switch” by Cara Hoffman: This ethereal piece is about fluctuation in sexuality and identity. It’s one of the shorter pieces, and features a dreamlike quality.
14.) “Emotional Technologies” by Chris Kraus: This piece frames the dominant / submissive relationship in artistic and philosophical terms. It’s erudite and among the most thought-provoking pieces in the collection. In particular, it discusses the role of an acting “technology” (most people would call it a “method”) that uses somewhat cruel and savage tactics to achieve the desired outcome. Because I’m a nerd who likes thinking about things that are “out there,” I really enjoyed this story. Others may find that the erotic adventure is undone by the philosophizing.
If you’re intrigued by what you’ve read so far, you should definitely give this one a read. While it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, it’s well-written and has broad appeal. It takes chances in some ways, but stays inside the lines of most readers.
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BOOK REVIEW: Adventures of a Tantra Girl by Liberty Storm
Adventures of Tantra Girl by Liberty Storm
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Let me begin by addressing the standout titular word: Tantra. Please forgive this diversion, but I do so because tantra means different things in different contexts, and I review a lot of books on yoga – a domain in which it has a vastly different meaning than it does in the book under review (particularly in India, where I currently reside.) What is meant in the context of this book is what is called “neotantra” or “Western neotantra.” (The author uses “neotantra” at various points for clarification.)
Before moving on with the review, let me clarify the connection. The original Tantra was (and is) a ritual- and practice-centric (versus scriptural-centric) system that is said to predate (and serve as basis for much of) yoga. In old school tantra, there are right- and left-handed practices. The latter involve activities that had the potential to be addictive distractions but which, practiced mindfully and conscientiously, were also seen to be routes to an elevated state of consciousness (i.e. activities normally prohibited and / or frowned upon by mainstream religion.) The left-handed practices include, but are not limited to, sexual practices that build bodily and mental control as part of the act of sex. Having been around for over a millennium, Tantra has experienced a number of break-away schisms (e.g. Buddhism has a set of Tantric practices that began from Tantra and was adapted to the uniquely Buddhist needs.) The most recent of these schisms is neotantra, which took the sex-based practices from among a much broader body of practices, and then added to them (both from other systems, e.g. Taoism, and by way of practices invented by present-day practitioners.) While Tantra isn’t well-known in the West at all, when it’s spoken of it’s almost entirely in the context of this sex-centric collection of practices – hence the fact that it’s often called “Western Neotantra.”
Now, to the point: This book consists mostly of exposé style stories about the author’s life as a tantric masseuse, with a few poems and artworks peppered in here and there. I gradually warmed to the book over the course of reading it. My early feeling was that, for an exposé meant to show one a behind-the-scenes look at an environment most of us have no interaction with, it felt guarded. In part, this might have been because the book goes from more to less idyllic events, but it also felt like there was an attempt to give the reader more of what they wanted to hear rather than to expose them to reality. For example, there is a scene involving one scantily (or un-) dressed girl feeding another a banana, and one thinks, “I see what you’re trying to do here, and it’s more an attempt to appeal to what a horny man-child thinks beautiful women do in each other’s company than what they actually do.”
That said, it did feel that the author opened up gradually over the course of the book. The last few chapters deal more with the author’s personal relationships than with her work and these parts seem to be both more emotionally open as well as more sexually adventuresome (as the limits of activity in her relationships presumably surpass those in her work.) There are few places in which the author seems judgmental for someone for whom one might be inclined to think should “judge not lest she be judged,” but there is an intriguing insight in which she is going to tell a co-worker about her own (daddy issue-related quasi-taboo kink) when she is mortified to find herself shut-down by said co-worker [who thinks it’s over-the-line.]
The core of the book tells stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the author’s clientele. She starts with clients she enjoyed working with, then those that she didn’t, and then those with whom the experience was some form of waking nightmare.
The drawings and poetry I will leave be as expressions of author’s personality. The inclusion of them is a bold choice, and I don’t know whether they are meant advance the impression that one is reading a diary or not, but add to an amateurish feel. That said, they also don’t account for much of the page space and may offer some psychological insight that is beyond me.
If you’re curious about what the life of a sensual masseuse is like, you’ll certainly get a taste of it from this book. I found it interesting and educational.
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5 Historical Figures You May Not Realize Were Super-Freaky
5.) Jean-Jacques Rousseau: This French philosopher is probably best known for his ideas about social contract in governance. At least that’s what I knew him for when I was a student of the social sciences.
Unlike the Marquis de Sade, whose philosophy and sexual proclivities were intimately intertwined, one wouldn’t necessarily guess that Rousseau was a masochist into getting spanked by dominant women from his political theories. Although, all interest in governance is about who holds the whip and what the whipee gets in exchange for being subjected to it — figuratively speaking, of course.
4.) Peggy Guggenheim: This heiress to an 
artistic empire had a legendary libido — and not just in her youth. What interests people is not so much that she was sexually promiscuous, but that age didn’t seem to curb her desire for sexual conquest.
Even though her memoir is filled with discussion of her sexual dalliances, she is still more well known for discovering important 20th century artists and saving art from thieving Nazis.
3.) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: One of the all-time greatest musical minds, his genius for composition may have helped to keep him from being known for his scatological obsession.
This may seem far-fetched (not to mention grosser than the other proclivities discussed herein) but there’s even a Wikipedia page about it — so it must be true.
I knew from discussion of the movie “Amadeus” (which I, sadly, haven’t seen) that there was something unexpectedly scandalous about Mozart, but I never would have guess this was it.
2.) King Edward VII: It may be well-established that King Edward had some wild times, but the fact that he had custom sex furniture made tells you just how all-consuming his passions were.
1.) H.G. Wells: The author of “War of the Worlds,” “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” and “The Time Machine,” Wells was all for free love, long before there was a free love movement. He is said to have had sex atop bad reviews. While I knew him as an early sci-fi author who famously predicted the atomic bomb (Physicist, Leo Szilard, cited Wells’ “The World Set Free” as an inspiration), he was — unknown to me — legendarily promiscuous.
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BOOK REVIEW: The Coitus Chronicles by Olive Persimmon
The Coitus Chronicles: My Quest for Sex, Love, and Orgasms by Olive B. Persimmon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In the midst of a five-year dry spell of sexlessness, Olive Persimmon decides not only to put an end to her inadvertent celibacy, but to turn her sex life around in a big and bold way. Besides a confessional of her varied adventures with boyfriends, ex’s, friends with benefits, and one-night stands gone awry, Persimmon describes a broader sexual education. Said education included workshops in bondage and domination as well as squirting (an eruptive glandular discharge that a small percentage of women experience naturally and that some others – apparently — go to workshops to learn to coax out.) Persimmon also learned one-on-one from an expert pickup artist as well as from a foot fetishist. She engaged in new-age sexual practices, including OMing (orgasmic meditation) and Western Neo-tantrism, and she even gave platonic cuddling a try (sexless cuddling between individuals who aren’t in an intimate relationship.)
Besides humorous and amusing sex stories, the book shines a light on the psychology that exists around sex and sexuality. The reader is granted access to both Persimmon’s therapy sessions and her internal monologue as she experiences these uncommon practices. Her pursuit of therapy resulted from a phobia about venereal diseases that was stifling her ability to have sex even with someone she trusted and while using protection. But what was more intriguing (not to mention being a source of much of the book’s humor) was the disconnect between how the reader is likely to see Persimmon, and how she sees herself. Many readers will feel that a person who would have an OM practitioner over to diddle her nethers, or who would hire a stranger to cuddle her, would be fearless and without boundaries. However, Persimmon presents herself as an endearingly awkward young woman, nervous and thinking that nervousness is apparent to all. In the process of presenting her adventures, Persimmon offers some insight into the differences between the way men and women see the world and how they communicate, and how those differences can cause tensions.
I found the book to be humorous and informative. I didn’t think that – by this point in my life — I was particularly unworldly or naïve, but there were a few things I learned about in this book that I hadn’t known existed [e.g. OMing and careers in cuddling.] With sexual subject matter (especially with such strange practices) there is plenty of room for humor, but it’s also nice to read books that challenge the generally uptight view of sex. I’d recommend the book for readers who read humor, memoirs, and who aren’t disturbed by discussion of sexual activity.
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BOOK REVIEW: Bonk by Mary Roach
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Mary Roach specializes in nonfiction on quirky topics that offer plenty of opportunities for humor – if of an uncomfortable variety of humor. Few topics hit those marks better than sex, especially when it is juxtaposed with science. Sex has a long history of being on the fringes of scientific study because the value judgments society applies to the topic makes it hard to attract both scientists and subjects, and when neither are lacking there is the matter of convincing agencies and institutions to fund one’s work. On the other hand, there is both demand for better information about sex and a great deal of potential for earnings to be gained by making both the experience and result of sex better or more reliable (more or less fertility as is desired.) All this has led to sex and science becoming strange bedfellows — that have sometimes let in pseudo-science for an awkward threesome.
Roach presents a wide variety of studies from famous early scholars like Kinsey and Masters & Johnson to obscure present-day scientists like the Egyptian researcher who has to find prostitutes to have intercourse with inflated condoms in order to study nerve reflexes in the female nether regions. Sometimes, the research involves animals, as in the case of researchers trying to determine whether the female orgasm draws semen up further toward the Fallopian tubes by studying pigs, or studies of mating rituals of monkeys and how they compare and contrast to those of humans. Though most often the studies are human-centric and ask questions such as: why do a few women orgasm with excessive (and, unfortunately, embarrassing) ease, while too many others have difficulty achieving that result at all? And, why aren’t sex toys better designed to achieve their objective?
I give Roach bonus points on a couple of grounds. First, there is the plentiful combination of humor and fun facts that make the book extremely readable. Second, Roach takes some personal risk when, for example, taking part in an imaging study with her husband that involved intimacy in an MRI. That is not even to mention the many things she must have seen that she can never unsee on her global tour that took her to places like Taiwan and Egypt as well as to conventions and research parks across the US.
It should be pointed out that there are important and serious topics being addressed by the science in the book, issues like: erectile dysfunction, sexual dissatisfaction (and its adverse effects upon relationships), and fertility difficulties. So, it’s not all jokes and quirky facts. Solutions to problems (surgical, pharmaceutical, and even psychological) are discussed, though there is a lot of basic science to consider as well. (For the less scientifically oriented, basic science is that which doesn’t have a specific objective, but is rather to enhance understanding so that further down the road economically and practically viable solutions can be achieved. The lack of specific objective means this type of science can be particularly tricky to get funded. It also makes for some of the more amusing anecdotes because – unlike painful issues of persistent genital arousal disorder or erectile dysfunction – its easier to form jokes about penis cameras and romancing a sow.)
The book consists of fifteen chapters. As is common in Roach’s book, there’s not an obvious organizational schema – except the first chapter which is a bit more general and the last which answers the old question, “who has more fun, and why?” [except the answer isn’t “blondes or redheads” but rather heterosexual or homosexual couples.] That said, there is a grouping of male genitalia (ch. 6-8) versus female genitalia (ch. 9-12) studies. There are some photos (not particularly graphic) as well as endnotes and references.
I found this book to be fascinating and highly readable, and would recommend it for anyone with an interest in anatomy and physiology, or in sex for that matter.
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BOOK REVIEW: Lila Says by Anonymous
Lila Says by Chimo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Lila Says is the tale of a star-crossed odd couple. The lead, Chimo, is an unemployed, 19-year-old, Arab man living in a Parisian government housing complex. Chimo’s life revolves around writing stories and getting by however he can. A fair amount of the book is about living a life of poverty in the ghettos of one of the world’s most expensive cities, but the core of it is about Chimo’s relationship with Lila.
While Chimo is awkward with girls and uncomfortable in sexual matters, Lila is an exhibitionist and – it seems at first – a nymphomaniac. She is a pretty blonde girl being raised by a Catholic aunt. Over the course of the novel, it becomes less clear that Lila is a nymphomaniac, and it’s possible that she just gets excited by causing arousal in others – particularly Chimo. In other words, it’s not so clear to what degree she is having sex, versus telling erotic tall tales. At any rate, the interplay between Chimo’s repressed nature and Lila’s unrestrained nature is at the center of the story. It soon becomes clear that part of the reason Lila has chosen Chimo is because he’s simultaneously safe and interested. That is, he can control his libido but doesn’t reject Lila’s flirtations. Chimo is surprised to find that Lila doesn’t talk to any of his friends the way she does to him, and – in fact – she doesn’t talk to them much at all.
This book is hard to rate. It’s definitely rough around the edges. However, as it’s presented as the journal of a young, unemployed man with minimal education that roughness contributes to an authentic feel. I have no idea whether it’s really a case like Go Ask Alice. (Go Ask Alice was presented as an anonymous manuscript written by a teen-aged girl whose life fell apart due to drug use, but it turned out to be written by a middle-aged woman whose life experience was nothing akin to Alice’s – though she was a therapist and youth counselor and thus had access to stories of those like Alice.) However, the text feels like it could have been hand-scrawled in the ruins of an abandoned building by candle light as described. (That is, if one discounts the British slang which takes one away from the “Arab man in a Parisian housing project,” but the book was originally published in French and so the English edition translation was made to invoke the same class level in its readership.) There are even a few footnotes about the state of the pre-edited manuscript that sell the meta-story of the book.
It’s also a great oversimplification to classify the book as erotica. It’s true that there is a great deal of sexual content in the book, and most of what Lila says, except toward the book’s end, is intended to be titillating. However, the book is also about living in poverty, selling blood to get grocery money and such. Furthermore, the book’s end ventures away from eroticism and into the realm of tragedy.
I found this book to be incredibly and surprisingly engaging. I might say I liked it warts and all, but I think it’s truer to say its warts contributed to making it more engrossing. I would highly recommend it for readers who don’t mind adult themes and who aren’t attached to happy endings (no pun intended.) I don’t mean to give anything away or to beat a dead horse. It’s just that if one picks the book up thinking of it as romance or erotica, one might feel betrayed. Better to think of it as a gritty work of fiction.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 