i'm back// review of RKB's he's on top
Friends, bloggers, countrymen: lend me your eyes.
For after writing over forty pages worth of material this week, I’ve renounced my junior year and am now free as a jaybird to blog away! I’m finished like Britney Spears’ career, Don Imus’ reputation, and Katie Holmes’ sanity. It’s good to be back to blogs.
But first, some unfinished business. You see, in the midst of paper writing and hand wringing, I had scheduled myself a stop on the fabulous Rachel Kramer Bussel’s kinky book tour for her new releases, the erotica story compilations He’s On Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission. (This coincides with the release of She’s On Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission).
Um, oops.
April is far behind us, it’s true, but I think this He’s On Top review will serve as a deliciously erotic mea culpa.
“Dominant men get a bad rap in our society,” begins RKB in He’s On Top, and boy, is Kramer Bussel ever spot on! Although hot sex abounds between male tops and female bottoms, there is nary a good story out there that doesn’t equate male dominance with some antiquated spaghetti Western version of masculinity, or female submission with the Stepford-esque compliance of a brainless bimbo.
Thankfully, the artful stories in this compilation dispel any fears that He’s On Top will be some sort of misogyny fest before you can say “nipple clamps.” Consider this passage from “On The Twelfth Day,” a story in the compilation from Andrea Dale:
“For twelve days, I promised you gifts,” he said. “And for twelve days, you promised to accept them.”
She put her hand to her throat. “Have I not…?”
“No,” he said quickly, taking both her hands in his. “You’ve been amazing. Perfect.”
He took a deep breath. “Our agreement was twelve days. On this, the twelfth day, this is the gift I give you: me. Everything I’ve shown you, everywhere I’ve tried to take you. Understand this—I will always love you, always be with you, no matter what you decide, no matter if you decide that what we’ve explored isn’t how you want to be.” ...
“Her answer was simple. A sweet dazzling smile, before she bowed her head and held out her collar to him.”
Awww. Ain’t that sweet? Nora Ephron herself probably couldn’t make it sweeter.
Yet lest you think that Bussel’s put together some kind of Harlequin cheese fest, the depictions of loving, tender sex between considerate male tops and their female submissive is deeply intertwined with good ol’ raw sadomasochistic fucking. I particularly reveled at this cocksucking scene, which throws PC and propriety out the window:
“Your chest swells with the possibility of it, because you can do anything together. You can push her over the edge and catch her at the bottom, soft and safe in your arms. You can watch her dance and be inside her all at the same time, because you are the music she’s dancing to now, faster, and faster.
She cries out a response, but you know it’s the answer to another question, the one that matters more than anything. Because it’s the sweetest sound a man can hear, a woman you love coming around your cock, moaning, sobbing, sighing, and whispering that one magic word.
Yes.”
In a societal landscape which fears making too much out of the male top, this literary foray into his mind is an all-too-sparse treat in the world of erotica. With her thoughtful selections and clear enthusiasm for the subject matter, Bussel’s paean to the man on the “D” side of the D/s divide delivers.
Beyonce Knowles, Latex Goddess
Beyonce’s new video, “Green Light”:
Who knew Beyonce was such a kinky minx? I love it!
thoughts on the "true love revolution"
I suppose it was inevitable.
After years of the Ancient Eight and their siblings flaunting their sexuality—H-Bomb, Boink, Squirm, Quake, Chloe does Yale, SexandtheIvy, KissandtellKate, Porn ‘n Chicken, Yale Sex Week, and the occasional naked party—we now have backlash in the form of True Love Revolution, the Harvard group promoting abstinence as a “positive alternative for personal and health reasons.”
Now, gentle reader, before you paint me a brazen hussy demanding nookie from every National Honor Society joinin’, soup kitchen volunteerin’, Speech and Debate winnin’, perfect SAT scorin’ guy and gal out there—I’m down with virginity. Really. Truly. Honestly.
Not ready for making the beast with two backs? Religiously committed to saving your maidenhead for matrimony? Simply wanting to take a break from the heady emotional rush that comes from flagrante delicto? Then I support you. How could a sex-positive person not support someone waiting for one of the best pleasures of life until they are emotionally ready? Sex ain’t sweet unless you’re all there, right?
However, no matter what the Crimson-ed pedigree, I am not down with emotional manipulation—or with tying virginity into some way medieval idea about female “worth”. When I hear stories about True Love Revolution doing this:
Harvard student Rebecca Singh said she was offended by a valentine the group sent to the dormitory mailboxes of all freshmen. It read: “Why wait? Because you’re worth it.“
“I think they thought that we might not be ‘ruined’ yet,” Singh said. “It’s a symptom of that culture we have that values a woman on her purity. It’s a relic.”
Or, like TLR member Janie Fredell, writing editorials in The Harvard Crimson opining like this:
“The woman who succeeds in resisting this temptation is she whose sex appeal transcends her sexual aptitude. Such women boast the intelligence necessary to make healthy life decisions, the charm to win the attention of men without promise of physical compensation, the maturity to acknowledge the difference between love and lust, and the confidence to demand the former in situations where they are pressured to compromise themselves for the latter.”
I have to wonder what the real agenda of the “True Love Revolution” is, and how sex-positive the group really isn’t.So, Janie—women (and where are the men—are they a lost cause?) who don’t choose abstinence are unintelligent, immature, and insecure? Really?
Interestingly enough, Janie points out at the beginning of her op-ed that virginity “is a much simpler means of garnishing male attention.” Yet later on in the article, she claims that “true sexiness” comes from understanding she does not need male affirmation. Erm, say what? Even the title of her op-ed, “Abstinence: The New Pink?” suggests an argument for abstinence expressly tied to image. The subtext of Janie’s message is that “girls who don’t” will get the right man, and “girls who do” are destined for a life of spinsterism and an apartment full of cats. Just a teensy scratch on that pro-woman veneer and it’s evident that some Ozzie and Harriet ideas about women having sex are still alive and kicking, even amongst the Cambridge set. Quite frankly, that’s pretty darned troubling.
I hope, for TLR’s sake, that they aren’t promoting an ideology that implicitly puts down people who make different—but valid—decisions about their personal sex lives. It would be awfully archaic, and heaven knows that we sex-positives have enough trouble combating the crap spewed by Focus on the Family.
Can’t acceptance, not abstinence, be the new pink?
requisite self promotion
The always cool self proclaimed “Blog Mommy” Viviane, of Viviane’s Sex Carnival, is interviewing sex bloggers about their relationships with blogs, and I was one of the interviewees!
You can check out my answers to her way insightful questions right here.
Actually, let me just put in a shameless plug for the Carnival while I’m at it… written by Viviane, a roundtable of sex bloggers, and little ol’ me, it’s a great resource for up-to-date, of the moment sex news and commentary. So check it out!
Comment [1] - posted Mar 23, 00:47 in jessica8217s-self-promotion sex-sex-sex
la ronde, and around, and around
My friend and fellow sex blogger Mikey Mongol attended the iNtuitons student production La Ronde with me last night—we were there to rah-rah (and ogle) a mutual friend, who was fabulous and genuine in her performance. The play is a 19th century German send-up about sex, lies, and syphilis, complete with poignant social commentary and more than a little simulated rumpy-pumpy. Yet as awesome as La Ronde was, Mikey and I found ourselves de-constructing the “fourth wall”—the tittering audience.
Mikey, a Penn outsider, was fascinated by the laughter during the sex scenes—the porn-like cartoonish Reverse Cowgirl scenes, the tender lovemaking, the (super hot, may I say) full frontal action – all of which were met by a cacophony of giggles and guffaws from our fellow observers. He theorizes that we laugh because we recognize our fellow jiggly, awkward sex selves—it’s the dawning realization that real sex ain’t glamorous that produces the cognitive dissonance of laughter. As they say, I’m down wit dat. Who can re-create Debbie Does Dallas in the privacy of their own homes? Heck, you could be Gisele Bundchen and still do this totally weird thing with your upper lip when you orgasm. It happens, it’s embarrassing, and embarrassing happens to be funny.
But could we also laugh because we’re uncomfortable seeing our Penn colleagues in flagrante delicto?
I mean, I’ve got no problems objectifying the cast members (and hoo boy, were they sexy mofos!) but I know it’s gonna be awkward if we’re, say, in line to make copies at Van Pelt and I can’t stop thinking about how pretty _____ looked in her Cosabella lingerie, or about how expertly _____ executed that reverse pile driver. I’m OK with ogling, all right with lusting—but to transfer that to the people who sleepwalk through 10 AM classes with me? Like, totally weird!
Call it a mother/whore complex, if you will. Or an experimental student theater/plain old Penn student complex. How do you reconcile campaigning for free sexual personhood and then getting all weird when you run into those totally free sexual people at Starbucks? Is this just a product of living in a compartmentalized society, or is it deeper than that—something more intrinsic in the human psyche?
quickies: SAAB Day
Happy Steak and a Blowjob Day, everyone! For those not in the know, March 14th is designated as a special apres Valentine’s Day treat for the men in your life. The title explains itself. Hope you’ve had a day filled with lots of juicy meat, and, uh… juicy meat!
anonymity, or lack thereof, in "the pink ghetto"
“When I reason it out I don’t feel guilty about what I’ve done. I was having lots of casual sex before anyway. I would go out on a date and hook up with some guy and not even enjoy it that much. So why not get paid for what I was doing anyway? And I do feel like it’s an honest living like any other, a service provided. The only thing that bothers me, when I think about it, is that now I have a secret so deep that I can never tell anyone. That someday I may have a lover or a soulmate, someone I want to share my life with. And I will never, ever be able to tell him.”
Confessions of a College Callgirl
I’ve been thinking about sex writing, sex work, and the intersection of the two in the blog world lately, after reading the wonderful new-ish blog Confessions of a College Call Girl, Lux Nightmare’s Sexerati essay series, “The Pink Ghetto,” and Audacia Ray’s thought provoking post about her ambivalent relationship with academia and sex work. For those not in the know, the “pink ghetto” is the new catchall for employment at the periphery or sexual respectability—the ambiguous, stigma-filled position one experiences when their work is pigeonholed as “NSFW” and is marginalized or dismissed as a result. As Audacia playfully notes, some of us “waltz” into the Pink Ghetto, with nary a second thought about the lost political opportunities we’ve left behind, conservative relatives we’ve embarrassed, and sexually vanilla acquaintances we’ve alienated. As I’ve never particularly cared for having “Senator” accompany my name or dreamed of a spot on The 700 Club, I gleefully hopped, skipped, and jumped into the world of sex writing and sex editing myself.
Yet even a ghetto amenable to waltzing is still a ghetto. And as a privileged middle class white girl, I can get away with pushing the envelope in a way that others maybe couldn’t. And this probably fucks up the metaphor a little bit, but this is a ghetto with layers. Heck, this blog is eponymous, and I’ve always been “out”—and so has Lena Chen, Miriam Datskovsky, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Jessica Cutler, and Julia Baugher Allison. But are any of us call girls? Some of us pose nude online and have cameos in porn movies featuring cleavage ‘n cupcakes, but none of these broads have ever (as far as I know!) schtupped dudes for cash. In other words, it’s Generally OK and Accepted™ to write about sex (even though it sucks when yet another blind date assumes you’ll blow him because you blog). But to actually attach your name, in public, to the world’s oldest profession? I can’t recall a blog in which someone attached their Real Name™ to sex work—even Belle de Jour, the fabulous author who has become famous for writing about her johns, is famously attached to her anonymity.
I don’t mean to come down on Confessions for not revealing herself. Christ, the Internet is scary enough to blog on without putting out personal info, and there are a lot of wackos out there who would love to get their hands on a loquacious former call girl. Yet what’s fascinating about Confessions is that contrary to Lifetime portrayals and the annals of Jerry Springer, this chica is not some down-on-her-luck tenement squatter with track marks on her arm and a jonesing for blow. After all, most people think whores couldn’t possibly be doing what they’re doing without drugs, homelessness, or a wailing baby to coerce them. Instead, she’s a regular co-ed who is frustrated that she can’t afford the Good Life like her rich friends, who took on sex work because “giving head is something I’m really good at.” She lists her reasons so breezily I can imagine her post as a brothel cover letter. Jeeze, it’s almost like sex work is… just like any other profession. There are pros, cons, and – guess what! – gals who ain’t from the wrong side of the tracks won’t go loco if they partake in it. What’s so scary about that? Everything, according to some.
I suppose I’m intrigued because of Audacia recounting her experiences at Columbia recently. Apparently, a prof shot down her thesis about sex workers in the middle class because she just couldn’t believe that some whores could possibly be educated, independent women who also happen to be prostitutes. And many of us believe this precisely because these sex workers are pressured to silence themselves, to keep their means of income a secret because of the incredible social stigma they will endure as a result! It’s fascinating, isn’t it? It’s yet another example of how we “cook the data”; tamper with evidence so that our prejudices are confirmed and reinforced. I’m glad that voices out there like College Call Girl can prove these memes wrong, even if we’ll never know the face attached to the lovely writing. Maybe we will, someday.
the internet is crazy, and some quickies
So, uh, it looks like my uber-professional “commentary” about naked parties at Penn isn’t dying anytime soon.
CBS picked up the story, and I’ve been deluged with hits from people discussing it on Fark.com and (not very flatteringly) on Crewcial. Hey, folks! I promise my life does not consist in chugging kegs and running around sans underclothes with frat boys. Really.
Someone at Fark uploaded this picture. The caption kills me:
Hey, anything for publicity, right?
In the meantime, check out these Valentine’s Day quickies:
- Zoos all over America are holding “Woo at the Zoo” tours for couples to watch some hot animal fucking. Quick, somebody alert Daniel Radcliffe!
- Having trouble deciding between a Hitachi and a Rabbit Pearl this V-Day? Fleshbot has you covered with their Valentine’s Day sex toy gift guide.
- Modern Love, the splendid New York Times sex column, has a special V-Day list of romantic bon mots this week.
- My super friend and coworker Maria Tessa Sciarrino is doing a “Lovers Rock” show tomorrow, 4-6 PM Eastern time, on the famazing University of Pennsylvania independent station WQHS.org. Listen to it!
- And for you Valentine’s Day haters out there, NPR put together a “Songs for the Dumped” playlist.
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Coming soon I’ll have a post up about this new blog I’ve been checking out, Confessions of a College Call Girl, and Sexerati’s latest series about the marginalization of sex workers, “The Pink Ghetto”. Oh, and SexandtheIvy, aka Lena Chen, is living it up in Manhattan with me this summer. Cue requisite Carrie Bradshaw theme music, except unlike Ms. B, hopefully we won’t suck.
Happy V-Day, folks! On this amorous holiday, please love (and fuck) responsibly.
morning after malarky
A confession: I’ve never watched a full episode of Veronica Mars.
I know, I know. It’s the show all the cool kids are watching these days. Kristen Bell, whom I admire from Reefer Madness, is supposed to be this super-cute amalgamation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Nancy Drew, and OMG-why-isn’t-it-Emmy-nominated-?
and yada yada yada. My only contact with this product of the tween zeitgeist? The “sex” Google Alert I have set up on my GMail. (Hint: college students and amateur sex editors don’t have as much TV watching time as you’d think.)
However, I’m gonna comment on Veronica Mars because from what I understand, the writers, producers, and anyone who allowed the show to air as is last Tuesday is a dolt of the highest order. Their uninformed mistake may not have been malicious, but it is still hurtful to the young audience of the show nonetheless.
You see, according to the good folks over at Think Progress and Voices of American Sexuality (and the trusty powers of the “Print Screen” command on my keyboard) the ep featured a gal pal of Veronica’s, Bonnie, having an accidental miscarriage after being slipped “the morning after pill”. While Veronica did her mystery solvin’, crime fightin’ thing, powerful debates about abortion, choice, and sexuality for today’s youth took place on the show. I’m all for those debates. Too many snake-oil salesmen and self-righteous demagogues make out these ethical issues to be far less complex than they are, and anything that can get the Kids of Today™ thinking about and negotiating their sexual mores is seriously awesome.
I’m not, however, all for the minor yet seriously harmful factual error that Mars is promoting. The morning after pill, also known as Plan B, does not “cause a miscarriage”—rather, it prevents the ovary from releasing an egg, just like normal contraception. RU-486, on the other hand, does cause a medical abortion—but it’s not the emergency contraception that you would take 72 hours after unprotected sex.
To the show’s credit, this week’s episode featured a correction, and it was revealed that Bonnie did, in fact, take RU-486. Yet last week’s episode called the drug “the morning after pill”, as did the websites’ episode synopsis (see above). I’m glad that the Mars team took action to correct their mistake.
Yet think of all of the casual viewers of the show—many of them young girls on the cusp of puberty, and new to all of the exciting and sometimes scary aspects of sexuality—being given the message that emergency contraception is a capital-a Abortion. Think I underestimate today’s bobby-soxers? Check out this BBC poll that just revealed that some UK adults thought exercise or urinating after intercourse prevented pregnancy. Even though no scientific evidence has proven abstinence education to be effective, Uncle Sam has poured over 1 billion into scare-tactic sex-ed. What’s a guy or gal to do if even a popular show on national television written by presumably intelligent, educated adults can’t get their facts straight?
I don’t claim to have the answers, but I am glad that Internet communities like the ones on Think Progress can fact-check the media on this level, and stop plain out wrong cultural memes before they get accepted as truth. That way, we can cut out the BS and get back to the real debates about sexuality, unclogged by the haze of ignorance and hearsay that so often clouds any attempts at a frank, honest dialogue.
At Yale, Getting Clean Was Never This Dirty
When it comes to hanky panky in the Ivy League, Yale’s got the rest of the Ancient Eight beat. Look at the evidence: compared to the rest of us with our pithy little erotica mags, they’ve got Chloe does Yale, nude calendars, Porn ‘n Chicken, Sex Week, pasty-studded screenings of mainstream porno Pirates. Their housing of Adonis-in-his-own-mind Aleksey Vayner certainly ruins their cred, but I’ve always thought of Yale as a “New Haven” for sex. (I hereby apologize for any more bad puns in this article.)
Which is why I’m more than a little surprised to read about Yale College Master Jon Holloway penning a rather prude-y missive, alerting Calhoun College dorm residents about a 90 minute sex sesh that took place in the community showers the morning before. Calhoun warns the students thusly:
“Several times since the start of the spring term some Hounies have come across a couple having the time of their lives in a shower stall. Last night the shower flooded and the bathroom could not be used for over 90 minutes. To the as yet unidentified couple, this may be pleasureable and exciting for you but it is a violation of community standards.”
I’ve gotta say, I can’t completely disagree with Calhoun here. As much as the idea of the old in-and-out in the school showers sounds hot, flooding the bathroom for your fellow students sounds about as sexy as a pap smear at Student Health. (Which is to say, not.) Fucking in plain sight of other students—also not cool. As the BDSM community is wont to say, exposing other unwilling individuals to your kink is the manners equivalent of punching Emily Post. Bottom line—in this situation, the kids screwed up their screwing.
My question, though, is this—if the Calhoun couple kept it in their stall and didn’t necessitate a plumber to clean up after them, would they still have been wrist-slapped? Do dorm officials get to go all en loco parentis on these frolicking fornicators? Yale’s a private school and can do whatever they want, but why not focus on, uh, research, instead of policing what goes on in your undergrads’ pants?
I’m sure the blogosphere will weigh in over the next few days, but I’m curious—in college and out, where and when is sex OK outside the bedroom?
