Email: rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com



 

Lusty Lady

BLOG OF RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
Watch my first and favorite book trailer for Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica. Get Spanked in print and ebook

Thursday, June 29, 2006

KinkyJews reading August 9th

(Okay, I lied about not being online anymore this weekend cause the fabulous C.Co got my laptop working from my hotel room so now it's not such a mad dash.) Wanted to share the details about a cool reading I'm doing in August:

KinkyJews / Novel Jews Jewish Lit-Erotica Reading Night

Date: Wednesday August 9
Time: 7:00-9:00 PM
Location: KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th St. at 2nd Ave., New York, NY
http://www.kgbbar.com/
Cost: Free
Open to: All

Line Up: Rachel Shukert, Kimbery Warner Cohen, Andy Horwitz, Laura Antoniou, Rachel Kramer Bussel and Karen Taylor.

For more information visit http://www.kinkyjews.com, http://www.14streety.org/section.php?pages_id=82 and http://www.forward.com/noveljews/ or email contact@kinkyjews.com.

KINKYJEWS is the Next Generation of Jewish Kinksters. KinkyJews brings together hundreds of young Jewish kinksters from across the USA and around the world. They welcome from the curious to newbies to the experienced. Similarly they welcome all sexual orientations and all streams of Judaism. Hip, funky, open minded, interesting and otherwise different genres of Jews are encouraged to expand their horizons with KinkyJews as well. If you are young, Jewish and interested in kink or other alternative sexuality scenes, visit KinkyJews’ website at http://www.kinkyjews.com.

NOVEL JEWS is a critically acclaimed downtown reading series that presents provocative and enlightening new fiction and literary nonfiction by both today's literary superstars and the emerging voices of tomorrow.

More about the readers:

1) Rachel Shukert is a playwright, performer and author of Jewish-American descent, born in Omaha, Nebraska. Beyond the stage she has been published by Nerve.com, Culturebot.org, HEEB and Critical Moment.

2) Native New Yorker Kimberly Warner-Cohen's novel, Sex, Blood and Rock'n'Roll, was recently published by Ig. She enjoys long walks on the beach, puppies, and writing gruesome murder scenes. http://kwarnercohen.com/.

3) Andy Horwitz is a writer/performer in NYC. He has performed his comic monologues throughout New York and his writing has appeared in Nerve.com, HEEB, Lodestar Quarterly and various anthologies. http://www.andyhorwitz.com.

4) Laura Antoniou has been writing erotica for over 20 years, and is best known these days for her Marketplace series of novels about a secret underworld of Owners and slaves. http://www.iron-rose.com/marketplace/

5) Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, writes the “Lusty Lady” column for The Village Voice, and hosts “In The Flesh Erotic Reading Series”. She's edited or co-edited 9 erotica anthologies. http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com.

6) Karen Taylor's short stories have appeared in Leatherwomen III, Friday the Rabbi Wore Lace, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Transgender Erotica and other places.

Greetings from Costa Rica

After last night's mad running around, meeting all sort of folks including Diana "Topless Professor" Blaine, attending Kathy Finney's How To Be a Budget Fashionista book party (with kick-ass goody bags), traversing half of SoHo and the LES in search of gold shoes and a bathing suit, seeing umpteen comics chilling at Mo Pitkin's post How To Kick People, then staying up all night to catch my 6:40 am flight, I am now in the lovely paradise of Los Sueños Marriott relaxing by the pool, playing Scrabble, Boggle, and magnetic hangman, reading, relaxing, and hanging out with friends old and new. Won't be checking/answernig email until I get back on Tuesday though.

My new Lusty Lady column, "Suburban Smutmongers' Audio Porn," just went live, about audio erotica CD makers Sounds Erotic.

Toe sucking. Tightly laced corsets. Sex on a motorcycle. Double penetration at a sex club. None of these things are what I anticipated when I met Brian and Catherine OliverSmith at Book Expo America. Wearing pastels and holding their sleeping baby, they looked like they'd landed in D.C. from suburbia—and they had. Incongruously, their Sounds Erotic line of audio CDs (soundserotic.com) features some of the raciest content at the publishing convention.

Read the whole column

Tell me about your panties


Yes, that's me in the photo, taken by the fabulous Paul Sarkis - I've been itching to do some more modeling so expect some new photos this fall

I'm working on a Lusty Lady column about panties, panty fetishes, underwear (men's and women's), lingerie, etc. - about the sexual element of them. Some people wear underwear, and some don't - if you do, what's erotic about your underwear? Is there a particular pair of panties that always turn you on when wearing them? I'd especially like to hear from men who like to wear women's panties (as well as women who like to wear men's underwear) - why is it a turn-on? Or does your girlfriend/boyfriend/lover/partner/etc. have a particular item of underwear/lingerie that you are particularly obsessed with? Anything along those lines is what I'd like to hear about ASAP (by July 7th) - also give me your name (or pseudonym), gender, sexual orientation, age, and anything else that's relevant to rachelkb at gmail.com - as always, not promising I can use your thoughts, but would like to hear about your panty play. See also the fabulous Hottpants

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Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Lynne Segal talks sense about Female Chauvinist Pigs

Once again, we have to go overseas (to The Guardian in this case) for some decent coverage of this book:

Levy calls for "sexual lives that are genuinely liberated, responsible and pleasurable": Yes please! Who on earth would say no? (Well, I'll leave that to your imagination.). But try unpacking those terms seriously and you're in very messy waters, a fact this book fails to even remotely acknowledge. Here, good sex is somehow "doing what comes naturally (or perhaps, just a little, socio-culturally); expressing your own true self".

Let me share a little secret with you, something that hampers any attempt to rectify sexual behaviour: sex is all about wanting to be objectified, wanting to be the object of another's desire, another's gaze (even if, like a traditional straight man, we pretend that this is not the case). However, it is about wanting to gain this attention in ways that are reasonably safe from risk, harm or hurt - except, perhaps, for when these are the very things that turn us on.

Responsible sexual behaviour is difficult enough, at times, to practice, if easier to try to specify and talk about. But "liberated sexuality"? What have we here? There is a very short step, as so many have noticed before, between talking of liberated sex and coercively prescribing one's own norms and tastes.

Repeatedly labelling teenage girls "bimbos" and "trashy" for baring midriffs, thighs and knickers, or for trying out a spot of pole dancing, is hardly a good start for avoiding smug, class-ridden, self-satisfaction.


Also, Ariel Levy wrote the introduction to the 20th anniversary edition of Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse. and apparently tackles the question that I Blame The Patriarchy et al. were just lookiing at. Personally, I think that debate should be left in the 80's, but that's just me. Once again, I'm gonna be all myopic and focus on my book and the hopefully narrowed-down scope of it, otherwise I'll be 80 or dead without having written a word except on this stupid blog.

From Amazon:

In her introduction to this twentieth-anniversary edition of Intercourse, Ariel Levy, the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, discusses the circumstances of Dworkin's untimely death in the spring of 2005, and the enormous impact of her life and work. Dworkin's argument, she points out, is the stickiest question of feminism: Can a woman fight the power when he shares her bed?

I've been likened to Carrie Bradshaw before . . .

. . . but never like this. (If anyone sees this NBC cupcake news clip and could tape it, I will send you any book of mine you want in exchange for a DVD or VHS copy.) Still haven't seen it but it's so exciting! Go Cupcakes Take the Cake!

Stress and panties

Once again, a trip is inducing utter panic into my already stressed-out life. I leave tomorrow morning and have a dress but no shoes, don't know where my bathing suit is, am going to have to spend a chunk of time banging away on the laptop, but at least I'll be doing so away from evil New York. I'm honestly starting to think about getting out of here, which is crazy, cause I love New York, it's just starting to really try my patience. I don't know how to force myself to sit down and work and not drift off, I don't know how to actually steer myself in the direction I want to go, and then I worry that I will never actually realize my vision cause I'm too busy chasing after random stupid things and letting other people's visions guide me. But I hope a few days away, with friends and sun and beach and my book on writing a book proposal will help. And away from the drama of email and texts and all of that. In reality, there's lots of great stuff I'm doing I just feel like I'm stagnating, spinning my wheels for pennies and just not going anywhere, or at least, anywhere I want to be going. Individually it's all cool but I treat so much of this like I'm a little girl with a fun hobby, like I'm collecting stickers or playing chess or whatever, rather than my actual livelihood. Well, some of it anyway. I do need a vacation, but sometimes I think I should just toss everything in a dumpster (I know that'd take a few weeks anyway) and get far away from here, but it's mostly I just want to get far away from ME.

So anyway, in lieu of being productive when I finally got home last night, I worked on my Amazon list all about panties and lingerie to promote Ultimate Undies, and they told me that "ass" was an inappopriate word, so I had to change it to "bum." This from a site that sells vibrating panties, vibrators, floggers, and more! I did find some pretty pictures and discovered they sell Betsey Johnson clothes:



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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

if you're here cause you want to be entertained...

Okay, so Sleater-Kinney are breaking up. Or going on "hiatus" or whatever. More to the point, I am completely out of any kind of musical loop and had no idea they were playing August 2nd at Webster Hall. If anyone has an extra ticket they can sell me, I'd even throw in a free book. write me at rachelkb at gmail.com

"Gay Under Penetration" letter

Village Voice letters to the editor

Undetected

I totally relate to Rachel Kramer Bussel's "Gay Until Penetration" [Lusty Lady, June 21–27], but as a gay woman who is consistently mistaken for being straight. In fact, it took me a long time to realize that I really don't like men on a more than a case-by-case basis because I didn't fit my own assumptions about what a lesbian is. It's still difficult to convince my family that I'm not going through a phase. They expect me to be a Birkenstock-wearing, short-haired typical dyke, but I'm just a girl who likes girls, even though I don't set off most people's gaydar. I think it's unfortunate that people don't realize that sexuality isn't necessarily about how you dress and do your hair.

Janet Werther

Buffalo, New York

Where I'll be in 2 more days...


MarriotLosSuenos1
Originally uploaded by Very Clever.
If I survive. Which I will, I'm sure.

just because I love this photo


just one lick
Originally uploaded by rkb1.
The gorgeous and talented Justine Joli (NSFW) about to take a lick of her homemade cupcake.

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Spank me baby one more time!

Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2 is finally coming out in September!

Last night at bingo, this girl won a copy of Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage and got spanked with it (but not by me) - see what you get when you go to bingo at Mo's? It's every Monday and highly recommended.

Anyway, finally, finally, Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2 is coming out in September! I truly can't wait, it's gonna be a STUNNING book. More when it gets closer, but here's the TOC:

Foreword by Laura Antoniou
"After Hours" by Marilyn Jaye Lewis
"Break" by Cheryl B.
"Chippendale Library Chair" by Ashley Lister
"Disciplinary Action" by Thomas S. Roche
"Exact Expectations" by Debra Hyde
"Five Bucks a Swat" by Christopher Pierce
"Going Postal" by Sacchi Green
"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Nichelle
"In Perfect Time" by Saskia Walker
"Janelle's Spankology 101" by Michelle Houston
"Karen Leaves Her Husband for the Very First Time" by Catherine Lundoff
"Longevity" by Gwen Masters
"Most Unexpected" by Marina Saint
"Night Before (The)" by Simon Sheppard
"O" by Alison Tyler
"Perks of the Job" by Kristina Wright
"Queuing Up" by Rachel Kramer Bussel
"Ruler" by Lisabet Sarai
"Solemate" by Stan Kent
"This Week" by Greta Christina
"Underwater Surprise" by Bette Taylor
"Violet, Scarlet, Crimson" by Michele Zipp
"Waiting for a Spanking" by Shanna Germain
"X-Rated Exes" by L. Elise Bland
"You Know You Want It" by Tsaurah Litzky
"Zocalo Dare" by Radclyffe

Bonus Stories:

"Alma Mater" by Brooke Stern
"The Proper Incentive" by Kate Dominic
"Spank and Run" by Tara Alton
"Wages of Pride" by Jen Cross

Lisa Loeb interview in August 2006 Penthouse

My Girl Talk column in Penthouse has ended, but in the August 2006 issue, you can read my interview with the fabulous (and cupcake-loving) Lisa Loeb.





Mediabistro From the Editors interview, Marian Lizzi, Perigee/Putnam

Mediabistro From the Editors interview, Marian Lizzi, Perigee/Putnam

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Monday, June 26, 2006

Sex-positive feminism on Wikipedia

Someone started a Wikipedia entry on sex-positive feminism and I'm honored to be included. I made my first Wikipedia entry and correced the spelling of my name and look forward to check it out further when I have a chance. I was looking over my book notes this weekend (really all I've done on my book proposal in a while cause I want to really dig into it and know I haven't had time) and what I walk away with each time is that I'm really less interested in feminism and women per se, divorced from any larger implications, and want to look at sexual freedom FOR ALL. Really for all - not just for people with a certain political perspective, or slutty perverts like me, or whatever, but the bigger picture. The sexual revolution that happened and the ones that are happening now. The girls gone mild, the girls gone wild, and the men who want them, because to me, it's just not enough to look only at women. It's lopsided and unfair and leaves us with a very unbalanced picture, not to mention puts the entire burden of sex onto women and our actions/decisions.

After July 4th, I'll be trying to do more hibernating and making sense of all my notes, which cover topics I've looked at in my Voice column - casual sex, reproductive/sexual freedom, the limits of labels, the choice to be chaste, teens' sexual rights, and all the dirty stuff - threesomes, blowjobs, boobies, etc. It's taking a long time but it's getting there, bit by bit, and I thank everyone who's responded and linked to my blog posts and posted ones of your own for helping me clarify my ideas. This whole feminist blowjob brouhaha has been quite informative.

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Back to the shoe porn


Clear platforms
Originally uploaded by SweetSindee.
To celebrate the release of Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories About Feet and Shoes, I'm going to be doing some sort of contest where I give away a copy of the book to someone who sends me sexy photos of their feet and/or shoes. I'll figure out the details - probably I will post one a day for a given period of time and at the end randomly award one of the senders a free book. So get your photos ready, I'll notify you when I want my inbox flooded with feet photos (I'll probably do the same for Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Underwear and Lingerie too).

“97% of American Prostitutes surveyed said they used to sell Girl Scout Cookies"

From the pitch for THE HAPPY COOKER: Xavier Hollander Sexes Up The Kitchen

Another reason I love Publishers Marketplace, where I also have a blog, though the content is pretty much the same as here, just trying to make myself visible so publishers will want to buy my work. Fingers crossed on that one.

Blowjobs, lip gloss, and lipgloss blowjobs

Not much time to really delve into this but I just had to sing the praises of Chelsea Girl's fabulous post that I think would even do the Truth or Dare-era Madonna proud: what it feels like for a deep-throating girl - seriously, this is the missing piece from all the blowjob drama of last week (hello, the girl says "elaborate underwater ballet with my mouth" to describe cocksucking!!!). I'm tempted to quote it all but please go read the whole thing for yourself, here's a snippet:

I’ve almost always considered fellatio deeply satisfying. I find that taking a man’s cock in my mouth gives me an enormous sense of power and pleasure. I like reducing the guy to bad grammar, if not complete pre-verbalism, with my mouth (and my hands. Hands help). However, I have to say that my pleasure in sucking a man’s cock rises in direct proportion to how into the guy I am...

When I’m in control, I feel like I’m choreographing an elaborate underwater ballet with my mouth, my hands, and the dick at hand and mouth. The slurpy noises, the imagined visual, the occasional eye contact, the hushed bated breath, the timely exhale, the fingers sliding the mix of saliva and pre-cum, the cock that pauses, filling my mouth and my throat, my throat fluttering little swallows around its tip. I love the feel of having my mouth full. If I’m really into it, it makes me wish that the guy had two or three other dicks to fill me with simultaneously. This strange feral compulsion washes over me and I wish I could take him into me everywhere all at once, even as I’m trying to keep my head while I’m giving head.

When I’m being face-fucked, however, the sense of control is lost and in its place comes a wild ride. When face-fucked, I feel like I have to keep a delicate balance between my breathing, my relaxed throat, and this relentless pneumatic cock that is drilling my mouth.


Also well worth reading: My Amusement Park's take on the topic

All this blowjob talk reminds me of this article Allison sent me from the New York Times about the allure of lip gloss:

"Gloss is like lingerie for the lips."

and

"Lipstick is about decorum, whereas there is something slightly debauched about lip gloss."

Looks like the Times is hinting at the real reason lip gloss is so popular: "lip gloss should look like you've just given someone a blowjob."

But don't tell that to Caitlin Moran, who'd rather, apparently, look "tuna-y" than sexy. Because feminists can't be sexy, and shouldn't want to be, damnit! Also (please note my sarcasm), my favorite way of showing how feminist I am is knocking other women's choices. Way to go revolution!

Really tight jeans cut you in half if you sit down. Long nails render you semi-paraplegic. Lipgloss sticks your hair right across your mouth and eyes, and is an exercise little more refined than rubbing a lollipop on your lips, anyway. False eyelashes fall off and make you freak out because you think a spider has just run into your bra. Hair extensions are an unwitting marker of who will be first up against the wall come the revolution. And high-heeled shoes — the thing women are supposed to fetishise above all else — just don’t work.

I think the article linked above speaks for itself. I'm SO FUCKING SICK of the idea that feminists, and really, all women, should utterly eschew any hint of sex. Just because we can acknowledge that sex is automatically imparted onto us doesn't mean that the proper response is to pretend we're asexual, hate sex, and don't play into that dynamic.

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Watch us on NBC News today!


Cupcake Bloggers
Originally uploaded by candiedyams.
I don't know exactly what time it'll air, but at some point today on NBC News you should be able to get a glimpse of the cupcake bloggers extolling the wonders of cupcakes (and even eating some) at Buttercup Bake Shop for an NBC news report on the cupcake craze - they also interviewed Buttercup owner Jennifer Appel and visited Sprinkles in LA. And if you do catch it and could tape it, we'd love you forever. We plan to put it on Youtube...if we can get a copy. Sorry to be so vague - please email me if you catch it. Also, it's national (being sent to all NBC stations, apparently).

lots of link love

Spent a very rare weekend doing not too much of anything, not that that's good, but the alone time was much needed especially with the various trips and events coming up. I just couldn't muster up the energy to be social and needed to catch up on sleep, though I did engage in some dirty talk with the boy. Still scrambling and stressed but also excited to head off to Costa Rica Thursday morning. Anyway, some links:

Baby Mermaids from Alice Ayers! - This is the cutest thing I've seen in so long. LOVE it.

Awesome Australian writer Rachel Hills

Wendy Shalit (A Return to Modesty) is back - she also runs ModestyZone.net and has a new book, Girls Gone Mild coming out next year

Sign My Boobs - Lili VonSchtupp's big boobs with celebrity autographs!

Delightful Blogs

by all rights, I should win this contest (sponsored by diet coke!)

Saturday, June 24, 2006

ruban rose


ruban rose
Originally uploaded by msdeedee49.
I found a shoe photo group on Flickr, but of course.

This one's of a Bruno Frisoni sandal.

More shoes


highest at the shack
Originally uploaded by girlynyc.
These worn by Cheryl B

glittery shoes



Originally uploaded by xxPhoebexx.
HOT!

how about those shoes?


lane10
Originally uploaded by Thomas Roche.
My friend Thomas Roche isn't just an amazing (and filthy, nasty) erotica writer, he also takes sexy photos like this one. Check out his Flickr pics for more.

And, of course, if you're a shoe fetishist, check out Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stores About Feet and Shoes for stories about foot worship, shoe licking, shoefucking, and much more.

Model: Lane
Photo: Thomas Roche
Mid-City, New Orleans, late 2004

Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories About Feet and Shoes


Photo by GirlyNYC

Calling all foot fetishists and shoe fetishists...this is the book for you!

Sexiest Soles is probably the most visually appealing of the three books, which is probably why one of my favorite stories in the book is soon going to be played out in photographs - more details on that when I have them. Again, please let me know of any shoe and/or feet blogs that should know about the book - I know about foot fetish blog Feet on the Ground, Shoewawa, Manolo's Shoe Blog and my friend and The Perfect Fit author Miss Meghan but welcome any good leads. Clearly, I am trying to spread the word about these books since I'll be away when they come out and pretty busy with writing/editing projects and various events when I get back. Plus this one gives me the chance to post photos of sexy shoes.



Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes

Delight in that delicious touch of steely stilettos...delicate arches...black motorcycle boots...sweaty size twelves. Whether it's the gentle massage of a foot rub, the suckling of tempting toes, or a very private pedicure, this naughty collection of fetish erotica has no trouble putting its best foot forward. Both risky and risque, Secret Soles will make more than an imprint on your desires.


Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories About Feet and Shoes
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and Christopher Pierce

Discovering the Shoe Slut Within, by Audacia Ray
To Soothe the Savaged Feet, by Cynderella
Hot Foot'in, by T. Hitman
Bastinado, by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Magic, by Donna George Storey
Black Motorcycle Boots, by Shane Allison
How I Got My Wings, by Jean Roberta
Spykes, by Stan Kent
After the Coda, by Debra Hyde
Footing the Bill, by N.T. Morley
Size 12s and Longing, by Simon Sheppard
Dirty Boots, by Elizabeth Dunn
These Feet, by M. Christian
A Pedicure Money Can't Buy, by Ben Winters
Hooked, by Diane Thibault
Worship at His Feet, by Bob Condron
Stella and the Silver Stilletos, by Tenille Brown
Sister Teresa's Bondage Ballet Shoes, by Lucretia Mieriflessione
Can I Help You? by Maddy Stuart
Skate Shop, by Joel A. Nichols
That's Why You Wear Fuckshoes, by Violetta Cutrero
True Love, Says the Cartopedist, by Steve Berman
The Shoe Store, by Eva Hore
Toe Job, by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Tomboy Blues, by Jason Rubis
Between the Toes, by Tara Alton
Cordy, by Michael Rhodes
A Very Personalized Fitting, by Teresa Joseph
Easy Steps to a Perfect Pedicure, by Jonathan W. Harnisch
Eat My Toes, Sit on My Foot! by Jay Starre
A Sensitive Sole, by Andrea Dale

Pedal Pleasures (Introduction)
by Rachel Kramer Bussel


Some of us think of our feet as simple conveniences, allowing us to walk unimpeded. They’re a necessary vehicle for getting around, but not a body part to covet or caress. For a long time, that was my opinion, too, and the erotic appeal of my precious peds never really occurred to me. It took someone else's feet lust to show me the way. While other women lusted after the highest of heels, I was content in my Converse or Skechers sneakers, which allowed me to walk the streets of New York as quickly as I wanted to.

But all that change the day I tried on my first pair of stripper shoes. I was at a local fetish store (buying a gorgeous French maid's outfit, if you must know), and my friend encouraged me to try the heels. They were incredibly tall and narrow, with an open toe and were totally shiny. The heel, probably five inches tall, frightened me, and I wondered if I'd ever be able to squeeze my size eight and a half feet into them, let alone walk in them. But somehow, without even wearing stockings, my foot slid right into what seemed more like a slipper than a teetering, shiny black shoe. Immediately, I felt not only taller, but sexier as the shoes cradled my feet, arching them so my calves were extend, my ass raised, my breasts pushed forward. From that moment on, I was in love with high heels.

Owning shoes I knew I couldn’t walk in, shoes that practically screamed sex, made me feel naughty. I carried them to lovers’ houses, slipping them on as I stood in front of the sink to wash their dishes, or letting them give me an extra boost while we got down and dirty. I highly recommend keeping one pair of shoes in your arsenal the way you might keep a favored sex toy or pair of underwear—a little secret only imparted to that special someone or someones. My shiny black stripper shoes took on a whole new life as I worked them into my erotic repertoire, and they opened a world of feet and shoes pleasures that I’m happy to be able to share with you with this collection.

Soon after this initial purchase, I saw another pair that made me want to kneel down and lick the wearer’s feet. A local performer was onstage in a bikini top, short skirt, and shoes with a clear jelly strap adorned with multicolored glitter. While everyone stared at her exposed flesh up top, my eyes were fixated down below, watching the glitter sparkle against her painted toenails.

Just this week, I had some time to kill and dipped into a salon for a most luxurious treat—a pedicure. They were overbooked, so I got to splash my feet in the warm water and catch up on the tabloids before a stranger came and soaked, smoothed, filed and massaged my feet and legs, before painting my toenails a gleaming, shiny red. I walked out with my newly painted toes peeking out through the front of my newest acquisition, a pair of burgundy open-toed heels. That combination, with the shoes raising my calves, giving me extra height, and even more, a sense of power as I stroll along the sidewalk, is simply priceless. It’s not about a specific pair of shoes or foot fashion or style so much as an attitude—I know my feet are worth worshipping, and I’m going to make sure you know it too.

Reading these stories brought back all of my favorite memories of having my feet squeezed, massaged, licked, worshiped and appreciated. They also reminded me of feet I have loved and lusted after. These authors understand the precipice of ticklishness and arousal brought about when our feet are met with eager hands and hungry mouths, when we get to indulge our beleaguered peds and give them a break from bearing our entire weight all day. Audacia Ray's "Discovering the Shoe Slut Within" chronicles the process of a new convert to shoe lust, while Stan Kent’s “Spykes” takes shoe lust to a whole new level as his protagonist enters a club and is surrounded by sexy shoes at every turn.

Some of the feet you’ll read about here are small and petite, others are big and smelly. You’ll find jocks, friends, mistresses and lovers, all bound together by their mutual feet and shoe passion. Sometimes it takes them by surprise, and sometimes they seek out people who they know will be able to fulfill their most cherished dream.

I highly recommend reading The Sexiest Soles either in bed, or better yet, while getting a footrub or soaking your feet. You can read aloud to your lover, and get some suggestions on what to do with your dirty soaks, favorite stilettos or at-home pedicure. All the authors here have gone above and beyond simply fetishizing the body part I’ve once scorned, raising feet onto a pedestal of their very own. From ballet dancers to black motorcycle boots to a cartopedist (you’ll have to read Steve Berman’s story to find out what that is), we’ve got it all, even a shoe store where the customer takes home much more than a rectangular box.

Let these authors take you on a journey that begins with the first step—or at the very least, the first mouthful of a tasty sole or heel.

On a Pedestal (an Introduction)
by Christopher Pierce

One of my favorite Tom of Finland drawings depicts a handsome, muscular, naked man lying on the ground, surrounded by a forest of black leather boots. The man is smiling, happy to be at the feet of the many men that stand around him. One of the men even has his booted foot planted firmly on the prostrate man’s ass.

As I often do when I look at Tom’s pictures, I want to be in it. I want to be that man on the floor, adrift in a sea of boots. Boots, like facial hair, uniforms and cigars, are things that are quintessentially masculine for me, automatically raising a man’s hotness factor into the danger level. Hiking boots, Army boots, cowboy boots, police boots, firemen’s boots, Navy SEAL boots, clam-digging boots, fly-fishing boots, Marine boots, all these and more get my blood pumping faster and stir in me a desire to drop to my knees and worship them.

I also like wearing them, enjoying the sense of power and confidence they give me. I’ve found that boys respond to me more quickly when I’m wearing boots than otherwise.

What a joy now to explore a world of stories about boots, shoes and the feet that inhabit them. As with the previous book in this series, Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Underwear and Lingerie, I have found here in this collection a treasure-trove of experiences and fantasies that run the gamut from familiar to surprising to mind-blowing.

I love the decadence of Stan Kent’s “Spykes.” “Hot Foot’n” by T. Hitman plunges me into a world of basketball so authentic I can smell the sweat and hear the crash of the ball on the floor as I read it. “Cordy” by Michael Rhodes reminds me that sometimes our fetishes are thrust upon us, and we become enslaved to them even if they’re initially repellant. Teresa Joseph’s “A Very Personalized Fitting” is a fantasia of feet in all their glory, and “The Shoe Store” by Eva Hore is a dazzling depiction of sex in public. “Stella and the Silver Stilettos” by Tenille Brown is a masterpiece of wistful desire and aching tenderness with its story of a man, a woman and a very special pair of shoes.

There is something primal, almost mystical, about feet. An old Peanuts cartoon I remember shows Snoopy the Beagle having conversations with his various body parts. (It’s more charming than it sounds.) Snoopy discovers that of all his body parts, his feet are the most difficult, being irritable, surly, and always complaining. I understood it then as I do now. Our feet are literally the hardest working parts of our bodies, our load-bearers, as they spend each day supporting the rest of the body. Our other body parts are rewarded frequently for their efforts but our poor feet are too often neglected.

When my partner massages my feet the sensations are always surprising in their intensity. I frequently lose control of my feet as he works them, and they shiver and quiver in bliss. A character in the before-mentioned “Hot Foot’n” claims that the nerve ending configurations in a man’s feet are identical to those in his penis. I have no idea if that is accurate or not, but I believe it – even if it’s not true, it feels true.

My co-editor and I are hereby giving feet their due. We are elevating them onto a pedestal where they can be appreciated, adored, even worshipped. Men’s feet, women’s feet, and the shoes and boots that adorn them, are our focus here. We hope you enjoy this journey as much as we have, and learn, as we did, that feet are as diverse as the people they belong to, as exciting and mysterious and powerful and humbling.

And finally, if you’ll forgive me a moment of pure fanboy geekiness I just have to say the following. It is an honor to not only be included in, but to be co-editing, an anthology that features work by M. Christian and Simon Sheppard. Together these two geniuses edited my favorite anthology ever, Alyson’s Rough Stuff: Tales of Gay Men, Sex and Power. Their work is amazing, together and separately. They have shown me what’s possible with erotic writing, inspiring me to try to do the best work that I can.

Gentlemen, I worship at your feet and kiss your boots!

Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage

All three Fetish Chest books are pretty fucking amazing, if I do say so myself, but I think the bondage one holds a special place in my heart - it's extra kinky, and the authors really understand the nuances of wanting to be tied up and tie someone else up (it also has my favorite cover of the three). Here's the table of contents and my introduction. So many of the stories, like Zaedryn Meade's "Unlocking" and Riain Grey's "Prix Fixe" are just so powerfully hot (fyi: Zaedryn is reading at In The Flesh on July 19th, and Riain is reading there on August 16th), I almost can't stand it. I think bondage, kindof like spanking, is one of those acts that you can look at on the surface, whether in photos or watching people doing it, and see that visual element, but that in practice can be infinitely more intense and erotic, and these stories capture the ways the mental and physical combine with bondage, the teasing, the seduction, the frustration, the temptation, the power play, all it really. I quote from Riain's story below and just that snippet is enough to show exactly what I'm talking about.



Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage

Want to be tied up with tantalizing tales of beautiful bondage? Do handcuffs have a trusty place next to your bed? Does a coil of rope or the crack of a whip make you quiver with desire? Here are thirty sizzling stories to satisfy your desires.


Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and Christopher Pierce

1. Unlocking by Zaedryn Meade
2. Enzo's Wish by Jay Starre
3. Giving a RatsAss by Debra Hyde
4. Heartbound by MinaRose
5. The Man Who Tied Himself Up by Simon Sheppard
6. The Interview by Tara Alton
7. A New Side of Billy by Max Southern
8. Stewardship by Dominic Santi
9. A Tooth for a Tooth by L. Elise Bland
10. The Kidnapping of Gio by Christopher Pierce
11. Better Late Than Never by Mark O'Neal
12. Subtle by Andrea Dale
13. Opposite Attraction by William Holden
14. The Center of Power by Sage Vivant
15. Trading Places by Teresa Noelle Roberts
16. The Night Visitor by Lew Bull
17. Prixe Fixe by Riain Grey
18. Knit One and Tie Me Up, Too by Kristina Wright
19. Absolutely Helpless by Jason Rubis
20. A Man in a Blindfold by Kate Dominic
21. Finishing School by Maddy Stuart
22. Introducing Daniel by Sean Michael
23. Far From View by J.Z. Sharpe
24. Dancing Queen by Rachel Kramer Bussel
25. Captive by Jeff Mann
26. Two Mistresses Are Better Than One by Marina Saint
27. Stolen Treasure by Cynthia Rayne
28. Shackled by T. Hitman
29. Obedience by Tanya Turner
30. The Surprise Game by Wade Johnson

Roping You In
by Rachel Kramer Bussel


Bound. Tied Up. Immobilized. Trapped. Caught. All these words conjure up the mere beginnings of the overwhelming desires many of us have to offer ourselves up to a lover, wholly and completely, to be at their mercy, waiting, hoping, wondering. Or that same thrill, reversed--seeing one we adore giving themselves whole to us, entrusting our hands and rope, handcuffs, scarves or just the sound of our voice to pull and stretch their limbs.

Bondage can be light, but it can also take us to some of the most extreme places we can go. Whether with tape, rope, or even our own clothing, anything can be used to capture someone who secretly, or even not so secretly, wants to be captured. Someone for whom fingers wrapping around their wrist and lightly caressing its delicate center can send shivers up their spine. Someone for whom a tug on a collar around their neck makes them whimper with pleasure. Someone who itches with desire every time they even see a four poster bed. Someone who knows that sometimes the best lovers are ones who will let you conquer and use them.

You can do things to someone who's tied up that often either can't be done or don't have as much meaning attached without the bindings. Fucking someone's mouth with a dildo or cock is one thing, but doing so when they're helpless and can't escape is quite another. The rush of being given that gift—a fully conscious, powerful adult, offering up their body for you to do with as you please—is enough to make some of us go mad with desire, naughty thoughts we'd kept buried in the backs of our minds rushing to the surface at the sight of that spreadeagled special someone lying across your bed, waiting for you to bring their fantasies to life.

Bottoms, submissives, or just plain kinky horny sluts who enjoy being "forced" to take their master's, mistress's, lover's or playmate's delicious torments will see themselves reflected in these pages. That gasp of breath, the tightening of one's body, the swelling of our genitals, the dread and anticipation and desire all rolled into one—it's all here, so real you can almost feel the pressure against your limbs, the dawning realization that you're not going anywhere for a good long while. The feeling of seeing something coming toward you, whether a knife, cock, pussy, flogger, paddle or hand, and not being able to escape its path, even though you might never want to, can be terrifying and exhilarating at once. You know you want it, and have let yourself be put in a position where you have to take it-no excuses, no escaping.

These bondage fans, men and women alike, get to their immobilization by very different means. Sometimes, they already know what they're in for, because their kinky lover has been tying them up and having his or her way with them for years. For others, such as the title character in Max Southern's "A New Side of Billy" or the protagonist of Kristina Wright's "Knit One and Tie Me Up, too," being on the receiving end of some nifty knotwork is a surprise delight. Those who've always thought they were tops and suddenly discover the thrill of giving it up to their lover offer us a glimpse into the wide-eyed wonder of the first-time bondage fan.

Riain Grey perfectly captures both sides of the bondage equation "Prix Fixe," where a slave and her master show how perfectly in sync they are. "When you open the door I am kneeling with your drink between my chained hands. My fingers and toes are tingling, my ass full and hot," says her horny slave as she scurries to do his bidding, turning herself on unbearably in the process. Her master does not take this woman's raw need lightly, either—it's not a power trip for the sake of exerting power, it's much stronger, and when he says, "The trust in her electric eyes feeds me," you know they've made a kinky love match. Others would do almost anything to be strung up at the hands of someone who cares, such as Simon Sheppard's "The Man Who Tied Himself Up," or even someone who, in every way that counts, doesn't care, such as the naive yet brave hero of my co-editor's powerfully erotic "The Kidnapping of Gio."

Whether they're the ones holding the ropes, or handcuffs, or wielding some other instrument of power, or the ones splaying themselves out and offering up their arms, legs, and whole bodies to be trussed up, these characters show a true passion and understanding for the deeper nuances of bondage. I hope you'll let them take you on a journey—on many journeys—through the thrills of being bound, tied up, immobilized, trapped, caught, as well as binding, tying up, immobilizing, trapping and catching.

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Friday, June 23, 2006

a bathing suit but hot anyway


LNP rooftop
Originally uploaded by girlynyc.
Can you believe it's almost July 4th again? More rooftop hotness surely awaits.

panties on fire - literally


burning panties
Originally uploaded by nicolettelefaye.
I don't know what is going on here but I like it - the caption says "we wanted to burn something. luckily i had some panties in my glove compartment."

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more pantyblogging


panties
Originally uploaded by Bea the Playa.

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Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Underwear and Lingerie is here!



Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories about Underwear and Lingerie

Does her teddy make you want to do anything but sleep? Do his boxer briefs bulge in all the right places and tell a story about what he'll do to you in bed? Is her lingerie enough to land her any girl in the room? Here are thirty sexy panty play stories that won't disappoint.


Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Underwear and Lingerie
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and Christopher Pierce

Introduction: What Lies Beneath, by Rachel Kramer Bussel
The Magnificent Tease (an Introduction), by Christopher Pierce

Panty of the Month Club, by Mila Whiteley
Sniff Test, by Jay Starre
Choices, by Rachel Kramer Bussel
The Elephant Jock, by Neal Plakcy
White Tee by Carmen Hayes
Crossdressing Confession, by Zach Addams
Your Gift to Me, by Andrea Dale
A Storm of Me, by Joel Nichols
Practice Makes Perfect, by Kristie Helms
Brief Encounter, by William Holden
Things Between, by Tenille Brown
Burlesque and Answered Prayers, by Teresa Noelle Roberts
9 to 5, by Stan Kent
Student Body, by Kristina Wright
Surprise Package, by Radclyffe
The Wash Line, by Lew Bull
Designer Fantasies, by MinaRose
Thong Appeal, by Paul Chambers
The Banana Dash, by T. Hitman
Signet and Silk, by JJ Massa
Dirty Little Boxer Boy, by Ryan Field
Never Take It Off, by Lynne Jamneck
The Politics of Grey, by Marcus James
Whose Panties? by Alison Tyler
French Cut, by Thomas Roche
On the Bias, by Julian Tirhma
Fate and Gravity, by Justin Tyler
Panty Play, by Tanya Turner
The Ole' Bada Bing, by Simon Sheppard
A Graceful Revelation, by Rashelle Brown
Jock Bait: A Spike the Skaterpunk Story, by Christopher Pierce

My 3 Fetish Chest books, Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Lingerie and Underwear, Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories About Feet and Shoes, and Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage come out officially on July 1st (when I'll be in Costa Rica), but early copies just arrived and they look beautiful! There is something so delicious about holding a copy of an actual book you've spent countless hours poring over, moving commas and editing and rearranging until the words bleed before your eyes. And now there are 3 of them, all shiny and new and perfect.

To get you excited about these super hot anthologies, I'll be posting some relevant photos, so send me your favorite photos of lingerie, underwear, feet, shoes, and bondage of all kinds. These photos I'm stealing from the dearly departed blog Hottpants, run by my fabulous friend GirlyNYC, who rocked the town with a killer rooftop birthday party this weekend that got shut down by the cops, and gave me adorable hot pink panties that say "CUPCAKE" on the back. Photo TK.

And here is my introduction to Ultimate Undies:

What Lies Beneath
by Rachel Kramer Bussel

When it comes to underwear, I just can’t get enough. I have so many bras and panties to fill several drawers, and am always on the prowl for more. There’s just something so alluring about clothes you put on by yourself, that nobody else will see unless you choose to share your private treasures with them. Underwear and lingerie cling to our most private parts, and can be our naughty little secret under a business suit, or a bold statement when worn provocatively. They can taunt, tease, stroke and caress. Sometime a glimpse is all you need to reel you in, to make you want to feel what’s happening right below the surface of those boxers or that camisole.

Our underwear goes places no other item can reach, curving, bending, moistening, as we do. It feels our arousal before anyone else, knows precisely when we start to get wet or our cocks swell. Our underwear is a barometer for our lust, enhancing our pleasure by teasing us with its presence. For some, it’s a cornucopia of underwear that we love, diving into a pile of soft, sensuous materials. For others, we have one specific passion, one kind of frilly plaything that always turns our heads and we, or our lovers, must wear that item before we can get off. The fabulous Panties: A brief history by Sarah Tomczak and Rachel Pask gives a history of the rise and breadth of these playthings.

Underwear can be a private luxury for you to treasure alone, or something that you let peep out from your jeans or shirt, luring the viewer in, making them picture you naked . . . almost. A puckered nipple pressing against the sheerest of fabric, or a stiff cock barely contained by the fabric trapping it.

The authors in this volume understand that what goes on inside our underwear is something to be valued. Stroking a hard dick or a wet pussy through someone’s underwear is a tease—you’re so near, yet so far. You can pinch and stroke, fondle and jiggle, offering the promise of fingers slipping beneath a fold but still holding out. Our underwear moves with us, and is usually the last thing we remove before getting totally naked—if we even do at all. Characters like those in Lynne Jamneck’s “Never Take It Off” understand the allure of keeping our undies on, even during sex.

With the stories we’ve collected for you, we strived to offer a range of undergarments, from boxers to thongs, silk to strap-ons, these writers know that sometimes almost-nude is the hottest look going on. “Better than bare,” Teresa Noelle Roberts writes in “Burlesque and Answered Prayers” as she describes the twirl of a tassel as a dancer teases her audience into a frenzy. These characters use their underwear to tease their lovers, and sometimes to surprise them, whether it’s the confident crossdresser in Alison Tyler’s “Whose Panties?” as he saunters around in her favorite black pair or the athletes who have their own secret winning tactic in “The Sniff Test.” Sometimes, the person doesn’t even have to be wearing the given object for it to insight the most rapturous of lust. For the “Dirty Little Boxer Boy” in Ryan Field’s story, shorts speak louder than words, and actions.

These men and women know that underwear can be our signature style, our trademark, the thing that our lovers will remember us by all those years later. The last item we take off before bed (sometimes) and the first we put on to get dressed. There are so many kinds of underwear—boxers, briefs, crotchless panties, thongs, and add in lingerie you’ve got even more to choose from. So many of us rip our underwear off in the heat of the moment without taking the time to appreciate just how many secrets your underwear has heard, how much panting, writhing, and just plain lusting it’s seen.

For me, underwear simply says sex. I have friends who walk around every day without panties, whereas for me, I’d feel simply naked, and not in a good way. Wearing my little secret close to me all day, knowing that someone special may get the chance to run their fingers up, up, all the glorious way up to press them against my panties, to ask permission to go inside, or to simply press them against my sex until I can’t stand it anymore, is one of the most divine rituals I know of. Sometimes my whole day’s mood is set based on what bra I’m wearing. We try to decode our lovers’ personalities by the undies they were, and sometimes we’re right. Getting there, where you’re almost naked, where your desire can be seen through the most intimate of apparel, is a journey worth taking. Read on, and take that journey with us again and again.

The Magnificent Tease
by Christopher Pierce

The Magnificent Tease (an Introduction)
When I was about fifteen years old I was still having sleepovers with my best buddy. We’d been spending the night at each other’s houses since kindergarten, it didn’t occur to us to stop—even though we were now horny teenagers. We would watch movies and play Atari (yes, it was the eighties) and then fall asleep side by side on the hide-a-bed hidden within the couch. There seemed nothing odd about this to either one of us.
Very early one morning, with the sun streaming through the window, the unimaginable happened. As I lay there, eyes closed, floating between asleep and awake, I felt my buddy’s hand between my legs. Frozen with shock, I kept my eyes closed and hoped I had imagined it.
But I hadn’t.
Taking my lack of reaction as a sign I was still asleep, my friend got braver and felt my cock through my underwear (tighty-whitey briefs). My penis stirred awake, seemingly of its own volition, and hardened under his touch. My buddy began to experiment with different ways of touching me, first cupping my balls in his hand, then gently rubbing the length of my stiffening dick, and squeezing them gently, all through my underwear.
My Christian upbringing would have been dialing 911 if it hadn’t been for the simple fact that it felt so fucking good to be touched by him in this way. Encouraged by my cock’s rigidity and the rest of my body’s apparent slumber, my friend grew even more brazen. He lifted the waistband of my underwear and slipped his hand inside it to actually touch my cock and balls, skin on skin. Figuring I wouldn’t stay asleep for long, he jerked me off until I came.
It took about five seconds.
After I’d squirted my load, my buddy slid his hand out and tucked my cock and balls back snug and tight in my underwear. Then he rolled over, facing away from me, and went to sleep. Do I have to tell you that we had many more sleepovers, until we turned seventeen and our parents put their collective feet down and said no more?
Needless to say, my erotic fascination with underwear (my own and other men’s) began that morning. Although the sight of a handsome naked man is as hot to me as to any red-blooded American gay boy, there’s something about a dude in his underwear. We’re all fiercely protective of our “family jewels,” and for me the first step of protection is underwear. I hate having my cock and balls flopping around inside my pants, I like them snug and tight inside my briefs, trapped between skin and fabric.
There, I know they’re safe.
When I see another man in shorts, boxers, briefs, bikini bottoms, the shape of his cock and balls under the covering is a magnificent tease – a hint, a taste, a preview perhaps—of a real or imagined sexual encounter with their owner. So of course I jumped at the chance to co-edit a collection of stories about that magnificent tease, and have been richly rewarded by the stories that came pouring in from the submission call. I was also taken on a further frontier’s journey as I learned from my co-editor and the many female contributors the secrets and pleasures hidden within a woman’s undergarments.
I hope that the assemblage of tales in these pages will be as exciting, rewarding and eye-opening as it has been for me. The pleasures that await you include the following . . .
Breathtaking erotic sincerity in Justin Tyler’s “Fate and Gravity”. Jay Starre’s “Sniff Test” and Neal Plakcy’s “Elephant Jock” bringing every frustrated boy’s locker room fantasies to vivid life. A flash of stocking on a windy city street is hotter than any steamy bedroom in “Practice Makes Perfect” by Kristie Helms. Tenille Brown’s “Things Between” and Julian Tirhma’s “On the Bias” show that intimacy can be a powerful aphrodisiac. Aching nostalgia flavors “The Wash Line” by Lew Bull and just plain raw fucking heat makes “The Banana Dash” a certified one-hander.
Enjoy the stories!




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Gothamist interview with Jean Godfrey-June, Author, Free Gift With Purchase, Beauty Editor, Lucky

2006_06_jeangodfrey.jpgJean Godfrey-June has carved out a name for herself as not just a beauty expert, but someone readers turn to for a highly individual, irreverent approach to deciphering the ever-expanding maze of products available to color, highlight, firm, and enhance. The long-time Elle columnist turned Lucky Beauty Editor dishes about her unlikely path toward a desk full of products in her new memoir Free Gift with Purchase : My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup, taking readers behind the scenes at both magazines, as well as through celebrity encounters, a stint at Beautyscene.com, and into her present dual life as working woman and Westchester mom of two. Extolling her love of yoga and its beauty-enhancing properties, Godfrey-June also shares makeup tips and favorite products and shortcuts. She describes a perfume by Lev Glazman as being “like Le Cirque versus McDonald’s: The inside of one person’s mind versus something a stadium full of people can agree on.” During a busy day, she took the time to tell Gothamist about her love for the word "operative," the shampoo and mascara she swears by, sorting through hundreds of beauty products each week, dry nail polish, and her ideal perfume container.



When did you decide to write the book, and what were the most fun and most challenging parts?

The book is very much in the same voice as my column at Lucky for six years and at Elle for six years before that. Ever since I started doing the column people would say, you should write a book. That voice is easy to read. It just didn’t seem possible for whatever reason to me. About a year and a half ago, my friend Hilton Als, who’s written for The New Yorker, said “You should write a book.” He gave me a list of agents. Somebody giving me that extra push made me feel like it was a possible thing to do.



The most challenging part to write was about my very crunchy weird town. I live there and I didn’t want to offend anybody with my gentle ribbing. It was a little more challenging writing about the people I live with and trying to disguise them so I wouldn’t offend a specific person. I wish I knew who said this, but some author said in an interview I read, “I didn’t want anyone to cry when they read my book.” I tried to keep that in mind in writing about both the business and personal aspects of my life. I didn’t want anybody to be hurt.



I had a lot of fun, especially with the parts about my kids and how hilarious they are with my friend Adam the photographer just because they’re so silly. The other thing I really enjoyed was the tips that I have in the book. Those are the things that stick out in my mind. I have an evangelical side, I think everyone does—you have to use this thing—and I get to do that in my column every month. My book wasn’t about products so much, but it brings out that evangelical aspect.



Read the whole interview here and if you like it, click the Recommend button at the bottom

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Thursday, June 22, 2006

A male response to the feminist blowjob debate

From a male friend - I've been getting some really interesting responses from guys about the feminist blowjob post. Feel free to write if you have something to share (I won't blog it unless you give me the okay):

I just finished reading your blog entry about “I Blame the Patriarchy” and had to write you to say “Huzzah!” I’m extremely irritated by the notion that blowjobs must always be characterized as one thing, and that that thing is usually “anti-feminist”. I can certainly appreciate that there are numerous blowjobs being dispensed by less-than-willing providers who do the deed for reasons that would make Andrea Dworkin rise from her grave and start shouting women down. But the problem isn’t blowjobs. It’s that men and women often do things for the wrong reasons. The one element that these writers seem to universally overlook is the fact that there are some people who genuinely get off on providing pleasure to others. As a bi dude who enjoys both sucking a cock and licking a pussy, I can say that I pursue both activities because I get off on getting other people off. I don’t distinguish this from, say, the pleasure I get from preparing a delicious meal for other people. I love to spend hours cooking and then watch as a meal is hungrily consumed because I enjoy knowing that I’ve given people a pleasant sensual experience. Similarly, when I’m with my partner or a new playmate, my instinct is to put my mouth on them. I get off on giving head because I’m providing someone with a pleasant sensual experience. And whether a guy is throat-fucking me or my girl is grinding her pussy onto my face, I’ve never felt degraded or exploited because I’m both giving and receiving pleasure from the act. If I wasn’t a fully willing participant, that would be different. But the fact that a man or woman might give someone a blow job because they feel that they have to doesn’t indict the act, it indicts the persons involved. The argument that we live in a patriarchal society that leaves women no choice in the matter, or that women who give blow jobs have resigned themselves to the patriarchy, rings hollow. To equate an act in all circumstances with exploitation by the patriarchy is demeaning and infantalizing to women. There assuredly are numerous ways that women are sexually exploited by this “patriarchal shithole world.” But to deny the fact that a sexual act can ever be pleasurable does nothing to solve those problems.

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and a closeup


_DSC8204
Originally uploaded by brianvan.

how to wish someone a happy birthday


_DSC8206
Originally uploaded by brianvan.
For the record, there was chocolate frosting on her finger. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GirlyNYC!!

Shades of Kaavya?

From Publishers Marketplace

Jamie Michaels's KISS MY BOOK, story of a teen writing sensation who gets caught plagiarizing her debut novel, but finds redemption and romance when she escapes to a small town, to Krista Marino at Delacorte, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).

Blowfish Radio podcast interview

Listen to me on Blowfish Radio's podcast talking to the lovely Diana Cage about Glamour Girls, First-Timers my Lusty Lady column, femmes, smut and sex! (And probably other stuff I just can't remember)

Gothamist interview with Kate Bornstein, Author, Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws

I interviewed the pioneering, amazing Kate Bornstein at Gothamist about her new book, Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws (Yes, I got a little carried away with the intro, it's hard to condense such a powerful book and I suck at condensing.)

2006_06_bornsein.jpgKate Bornstein wants you to stay alive—whether you’re a “freak,” a teen, an outlaw, or President Bush (if only to give him a piece of her mind). The 58-year-old transgendered writer, who's best known for her works on gender theory such as Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us and My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely, was spurred into action by the events of 9/11. Having encountered many teens on the verge of suicide, she wanted to find a way to reach out to them without being condescending, cruel, or clueless. The result is Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws, a book that’s part fired-up anti-status quo manifesto, part warm, cozy self-help book, urging readers to do everything from take drugs to bake cakes to moisturize, citing the works of such diverse people as George Lakoff, Judy Garland, Douglas Rushkoff, and Betty Dodson. With an introduction by Sara Quinn of Tegan and Sara, and a bold setup indicting President Bush as "the archetypical American bully asking bully questions that aren't really questions at all," Bornstein goes on to offer alternatives ranging from the immediacy of "Make a wish" to the provocative "Shatter some family values" to the more complex "Deal with the dead and gone."



The alternatives Bornstein's crafted are far from what you'd expect to find in your high school counselor's office. Several that are sure to raise ire and eyebrows include "Get laid. Please," "Eroticize the pain," "Go completely batty," and "Make it bleed." To understand the context of these suggestions, Bornstein offers a scale of safety (from one to four skulls), and effectiveness (from one to four umbrellas), along with keywords such as "if you must," "mind game" "thrill ride" and "clean slate." To read only the seven pages of alternatives is to receive a whiplash-inducing jolt to the system—where else will you find advice that includes "Experiment on animals and small children" and "Tell a lie" and "Give up nouns for a day?" When Bornstein elaborates on these suggestions, her brilliance in dissecting the drama of daily life shines through. In a scant two pages dedicated to "act[ing] your gender or any other," she manages to break down the sexual binary system into its simplest form, offering up the fulfillment of our sexual fantasies as a reason to stay alive. This is a book to be read, and read again, for maximum impact.



The end result takes readers on a tour of the mind’s darkest places by revealing Bornstein’s battles with anorexia, depression, murderous thoughts, flirting with death, and cutting. Don't worry, there's fun here too: making believe, making art, geeking out and going stealth. Ultimately, Bornstein is offering up an entirely new world-view for the living. From finding a new way to say hello to finding the love of your life, this is a hopeful, compassionate, kind, yet ass-kicking book, as befitting Bornstein's roots in 1960's radicalism. The title’s only misleading in so much that anyone who cares about their own future could learn from these all-over-the-map alternatives.



Speaking to Bornstein by phone, the one word that comes through to describe her is “feisty.” Whether protesting over being misquoted, defending phone sex, or arguing that whatever one has to do to stay alive, as long as you’re not being mean (Hello, Cruel World’s one ironclad rule) is a-okay, Bornstein brings a sense of humor, heart, and radical vision to the everyday business of survival. When I run into the tall, eloquent, and surprisingly gentle and soft-spoken playwright and author the next day, she jubilantly hands me a Get Out of Hell free card (you can get yours here). It's clear, though, that Bornstein cares much more about the quality of our lives in the here and now, and keeping every last freak alive for as long as possible, then any fiery underground we may face.



Read the whole interview here

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Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Everything an author's website should be: mommieswhodrink.net

Brett Paesel just announced the launch of her site www.mommieswhodrink.net and I encourage every single one of you to check it out, especially authors. It's easy to navigate and has everything an author site should have: fun graphics, great author photos (in this case of Brett pregnant and later with her family), book information and excerpt, blurbs, publicity materials (including possible story angles, a sample interview, and a press release, plenty of publicity contats, and a sense of playfulness. Most of all, it reflects the book and helps give a sense of what she's all about. She already has the fabulous cover with its takeoff on the cover of Goodnight Moon and a killer title, but Brett really went all out and I'm so impressed with her site (and not only cause it links to my "MILFs Gone Wild" column). You can pre-order the book too (out August 10th):

Mommies Who Drink

Mommies Who Drink

Feminist blowjobs and other oxymorons

(A work in progress, but wanted to respond with some initial thoughts)

There’s been a lot of talk about blowjobs lately. Not just from the supposed high-brow sources, but on various feminist blogs. Talk of the sort like that found at I Blame The Patriarchy:

no woman, since the dawn of the patriarchal co-option of human sexuality, has ever actually enjoyed this submissive sexbot drudgery. There’s a reason that deep-throating a funk-filled bratwurst makes a person retch.*

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Women want to be valued and appreciated by men. Men like their dicks sucked. So, women engage in sucking dick and those who do not consider their mouths to be an erogenous zones convince themselves it’s pleasurable because it gives them so much “power.” And sadly, in this Patriarchal shithole world of ours, blow jobs
are the equivalent of power for many women.

But that doesn’t mean you have to swallow cum and tell us all it’s caviar. At best it’s something nice to do for a guy whom you care about. At worst, it’s another humiliating compromise of dignity that women do to please men and then tell each other how much they fucking love it and how damned empowering/pleasurable it is.


Some of the posters questioned the vehement defense of blowjobs, and I think that happens because nobody likes being told that what they do sexually is wrong. End of story. Instead of commenting on what they see as the inequities or imbalances inherent in blowjob-giving, some of these posters simply excoriate every single person who may think otherwise. Though some posters displayed a bit of common sense:

The only DISGUSTING thing about giving head is giving head to someone you don’t WANT to give head to.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as a feminist blowjob. Because to say there’s a “feminist” way of performing any sex act is automatically saying there’s a “wrong” way too, an “unfeminist” way, and you can’t have one without the other. The problem I have with certain books trying to dictate women’s sexual behavior (because it’s almost always women’s behavior that needs to be controlled–at the very least, I will say that many of the Christian books coming out have his and hers versions–and there are a lot of them aimed at those grappling with sexual issues) just tell us what we shouldn’t do, rarely what we should. There’s this idea, whether explicitly stated or implied, that if you were to “strip away” all our cultural conditioning, we’d be left with the “real” way to fuck. And it probably wouldn’t have the word “fuck” in it and would be “equal” and probably not that hot, in my opinion.

It’s funny because I think a lot of men read my “Long Live Blowjob Nation” column and just thought “hey, cool, a girl who likes giving blowjobs and gives them to everyone.” First of all, plenty of girls like giving blowjobs. I don’t have statistics, but there’s a lot of us. Secondly, I feel like culturally we see/her “blowjob” and just think “girl sucking guy’s cock.” What about men giving blowjobs? When it’s people of the same gender, is it still inherently degrading and all of that? What about women sucking their partners’ dildos? Thirdly, it’s all about the context. Who is that cock attached to? I like giving blowjobs to guys I’m attracted to. I think that’s pretty straightforward. But it’s so personal and about the moment and the context and everything else going on. It’s not that I wake up in the morning thinking “Wow, I wish there were someone I could give a blowjob to,” sometimes it’s more “I wish ___ were here so I could ____” (do various sexual acts with them). I think the problem is when we talk about any of these individual acts in isolation, the words get twisted. You say you like blowjobs, spanking, bondage, hair-pulling—pretty much anything outside missionary position sex—and not only are you automatically held to the “so you’re saying I should like it too?” standard, but it’s as if liking that one thing precludes liking anything else, or being able to make judgments about when we want to do those things and when we don’t. Anyone trying to speak about their individual preferences is taking as a representative of their entire gender's desires.

At its heart, not only is the sheer contempt for the very idea of blowjobs anti-male, anti-penis, and anti-sex, it’s judgmental and hypocritical. I agree that sex is political, but that doesn’t mean that there’s a superior way to have sex. Because if we’re gonna say blowjobs are inherently degrading, what’s empowering? Women topping men? I’d be very wary of making some kind of argument that picking up a paddle to whack a guy’s ass furthers feminism in any way, and would not want to be the guy on the receiving end of a “punishment” where he’s taking the rap for all of men’s bad behavior.

The more I think about this, the more I realize it ties into so much more than just opening our lips. It ties into the idea of whether there can be feminist porn. So much of it is in the eye and intent of the beholder. The whole idea of “do-me feminism,” of that famous Lisa Palac quote, “Degrade me when I ask you to,” is all about context and claiming our desires. It’s saying that we know what the playig field is outside the bedroom door, and we’re going to play with it. We know, and we’re still turned on by all sorts of dirty, naughty, perverted things. We don’t want to chuck them all out the bedroom door, and we may in fact want to play them up. I don’t think we can or should censor our sexual desires.

That being said, I don’t think blowjobs or any other sexual act should be mandatory. I do understand both the feminist position of being annoyed with their ubiquity in pop culture and some women’s aversion to blowjobs. That’s fine—my only problem comes when those who want to give or receive blowjobs are maligned. What inspired my column was Caitlin Flanagan’s hierarchy of the handjob over the blowjob. "[W]hy would girls voluntarily turn to giving blowjobs? Whatever happened to the hand job? Whither the dry hump? Why do girls prefer the far more debasing, uncomfortable, and messy blowjob?" She just assumes it’s that way for everyone. It’s not. Once again, I will only speak for myself, but it’s not just about the satisfaction of pleasing someone else. I get off on sucking other things as well, like fingers, I find my tongue and mouth to be sites of erotic pleasure, and I think if I didn’t get so turned on from giving blowjobs (not every single time, but hopefully most of the time), I would not be writing about this topic yet again.

Contrast all of this with Heather Fink’s excellent essay at Sirens Mag “How I Learned To Love the Cock,” about the meaning of female and male nudity and her experiences working at a gay porn company:

Cock, sweet cock! I am exposed to beautiful images of you all day long. Of course I love you! For it is you, cock, that gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It is you, cock, that covers my health insurance and provides prescription drug coverage. Thank you, cock, for copay. But even moreso, thank you, cock, for looking great in a well-lit portrait. . .

It all makes sense. Boobies mean sex. But that's when your psyche is dominated by pop culture. As my daily life is now decorated in wieners galore, boobies don't mean sex any more. No. Now cock means sex. Now, when prurient interests dominate, I think about a man's sparkling jewels more readily than I think about feeding a guy my sticky kitty. In fact, I've grown to love the cock, and I think about it all the time.


Heather gets to the heart of several issues around sex, especially the at-first-glance backwards idea that men’s dicks aren’t fetishized in this culture. Well, they are and they aren’t. They aren’t in the same way that women’s bodies are. When we say “sex sells,” we mean female nudity, and only very rarely, when it’s, say, Calvin Klein ads, men’s. She looks at what that means for women who are attracted to men, and how that can warp one’s sense of desire; you may like to look at/touch/have sex with individual men, but where can you ogle men in all their glory?

I am as loathe as the next person to further stereotypes, and I honestly don’t care about whether I’m considered “feminist enough” (or feminist at all) or not—we spend so much time playing word games when there’s real life going on—but it seems to me that if you see feminism as being a battle of women vs. men, then yes, anything that praises men or gives them pleasure might be seen as a negative. But if we step back a moment and realize how our highly judgmental sexual culture actually makes many people feel guilty, confused, and ashamed of their sexuality, we see that it’s not just women who are bombarded by messages about how to be sexual. Why I think there’s something to Tucker Max’s defense of being a “man’s man” is that I do see a trend where women are allowed to go on and on and on about our every sexual fantasy, but when guys do it it’s sleazy. But we can’t defend sex work and still be judgmental about those who patronize sex workers.

This is about much more than celebrating or even defending cocksucking. It’s part of a larger idea that there’s only certain “right” ways to be sexual. Maybe there’s a right way for each person, but there is no right way for everyone as a whole. Part of why sex does sell, why it continues to enthrall us both as an act and a topic, is because it’s so varied. Just when you think you’ve seen and done it all, you encounter someone with a fetish so bizarre, so unique, so minute, it boggles the mind. Creating hierarchies and telling other people what to do in bed, especially in the name of “feminism,” is not helping build a more sexually fulfilled world, it’s just making more people defensive, guilt-ridden, ashamed, and angry.

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Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Dueling how to write chick lit books

I think I'm going to take Elizabeth Merrick's This Is Not Chick Lit and Lauren Baratz-Logsted's This Is Not Chick Lit with me on the plane to Costa Rica. As if those dueling books weren't enough, I just saw two more, both on how to write chick lit: Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs's See Jane Write and Cathy Yardley's Will Write for Shoes. What's interesting to note is that while that See Jane Write is paperback, while Will Write for Shoes is hardcover, and that both Mlynowski and Yardley write for Harlequin's Red Dress Ink imprint, but neither how-to book is publisher by Harlequin - See Jane Write is coming out from Chronicle's Quirk imprint, and Will Write is from Thomas Dunne Books.

I can only speak for the one I've read, See Jane Write, and tell you I learned a LOT from it. I got a copy at BEA and thought it would just be one of those how-to-write books I've let languish around my apartment, but I got sucked in and learned a ton about plot structure, conflict, etc. Fingers crossed as to whether I've put it to good use - hopefully I have. I'm trying to have a new, pro-active attitude, so really, all I care about is whether I learned something and can sell a book. Not really ALL I care about, but it's so so so easy for me to just pooh-pooh my own work in favor of everyone else's, especially as interesting books come in every day, events arise to distract me to the point that I am contemplating hoping on planes any chance I get to get the hell out of here. That's not good - I need to learn how to live in this crazy city and still be the writer I want to be.

Here are the covers and descriptions culled from Amazon/author pages:


See Jane Write: A Girl's Guide to Writing Chick Lit

See Jane Write: A Girl's Guide to Writing Chick Lit

With chick lit novels popping up on every bestseller list, millions of readers are all thinking the same thing: I could write this stuff and never go back to the office again! And here's the guide that will show you how. Bestselling novelist Sarah Mlynowski and veteran chick lit editor Farrin Jacobs cover every stage of developing and selling your novel, with chapters on: • Developing an idea • Deciding on a point of view • Making your characters likable • Learning the basics of plotting, pacing, and conflict • Finding an agent This book also features humorous tips and advice from scores of established writers (including Meg Cabot, Melissa Senate, and Sophie Kinsella). If you've got stories to tell, See Jane Write will take care of the rest!



vs.

Will Write for Shoes : How to Write a Chick Lit Novel

Will Write for Shoes : How to Write a Chick Lit Novel

Based on years of teaching about how to plan, plot, write and market commercial women’s fiction, romance and Chick Lit novels, this non-fiction book is designed to help you get that novel started, keep it going, and sell it once it’s finished. It also includes a list of agents and publishers who publish Chick Lit, as well as online resources.

Tomorrow! GLBT Night at In The Flesh!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER (GLBT) EROTICA NIGHT

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

This Gay Pride month, come celebrate queerness in all its rainbow of colors with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender erotica at In The Flesh! Delight in these lusty tales by Cheryl B. (Coming Out of the Closet Again, Small Spiral Notebook), Trebor Healey (Through It Came Bright Colors, Sweet Son of Pan), Gena Hymowech (Afterellen.com, First-Timers, Black Table), Sam J. Miller (Best Gay Erotica 2006, Velvet Mafia), Scott Pomfret (Romentics, Hot Sauce), Scott Whittier (Romentics, Honcho, Friction 7), and Jane Vincent (Educated Slut blog, Everything You Know About Sex Is Wrong), and host Rachel Kramer Bussel. Rachel will be celebrating and signing copies of her latest anthologies, First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakening and Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica. Books will be given away as door prizes and free candy and mini cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city's best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by Village Voice sex columnist and acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Future themed nights include “Revenge of the Sex Columnists” (September 2006) and erotic memoirs.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a New York City-based author and editor. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a Contributing Editor and columnist for Penthouse, writes the Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice, and conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and Mediabistro.com. Her erotic stories have appeared in over 60 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited her own collections, including Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2, Up All Night, First-Timers, Glamour Girls, and the forthcoming Ultimate Undies, Sexiest Soles, Secret Slaves, and Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com

Cheryl B. is an award-winning poet and writer. Her work appears in dozens of print and online publications including; BLOOM, Small Spiral Notebook, The Guardian, Reactions 5, and Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache. She has received a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and has been a resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She curates and hosts the monthly ATOMIC Reading Series and she is the creator and producer of PVC: The Poetry vs. Comedy Variety Show. Cheryl is the editor of the forthcoming anthology Coming Out of the Closet Again: Queer Women on Loving Men (2007, Suspect Thoughts Press). She lives in Brooklyn and online at http://www.cherylb.com.

Trebor Healey is the author of a novel, Through It Came Bright Colors (Harrington Park Press, 2003), and a book of erotic poems, Sweet Son of Pan (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2006). His work has appeared in Best Gay Erotic 2003, 2004, 2006 and Best of Best Gay Erotic; the Bad Boy Book of Erotic Poetry; Queer Dharma; Holy Titclamps; Van Go’s Ear; and dozens of other anthologies and journals. He wrote the hit single “Denny” for the Queercore band, Pansy Division.
http://www.treborhealey.com

Gena Hymowech is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in over 20 venues, including the New York Post, Time Out New York Kids, Complete Woman, Black Table and AfterEllen.com. Her first anthology work will be appearing (under a pseudonym) in First-Timers: True Stories of Lesbian Awakening. She used a pseudonym for that essay because the event happened at one of her last jobs and she really doesn’t want to be sued. If you get her drunk enough at the In the Flesh event though, she might tell you where it occurred, among other things. She lives in Brooklyn.

Sam J. Miller is a community organizer. His writing has been published in Velvet Mafia, Smut!, In The Fray, and Best Gay Erotica 2006, among others. He lives in the Bronx with his partner of four years. When he's not writing or organizing poor people to fight for social justice, he's binging on old movies and punk rock. Drop him a line at samjmiller79@yahoo.com.

Scott Pomfret puts fun and romance back into gay erotica with his funny, tender yet still smokin' hot stories. Together with his real-life boyfriend (also named Scott), he writes the Romentics series of romance novels for gay men (www.romentics.com). His stories have appeared in Best Gay Erotica, Playguy, Honcho, In Touch for Men, Hot Gay Erotica, Alyson Books' Friction series, Best Gay Love Stories 2005 and 2006, and numerous other anthologies. For more information, see http://www.scottpomfret.com.

Jane Vincent is a sexuality educator, smut writer, and certified sex coach who holds a BS in human sexuality. She has published diverse works ranging from A Baby Dyke Learns to Score to Gonorrhea – Questions & Answers. As the educated slut, she takes it to the streets and the sheets and lives to blog the tale at http://educatedslut.blogspot.com. She currently practices her unique blend of sexual activism in Houston, TX.

Scott Whittier, 31, a native of Poland, Maine, is an advertising copywriter. His commercial work has appeared on radio, billboards, TV and in print media internationally and has won top honors in the Healthcare Advertising Awards and Admission Advertising Awards. He has published fiction in Children Churches and Daddies, Playguy, In Touch, Honcho and Alyson’s anthologies Just the Sex, Ultimate Gay Erotica and Friction 7. With his boyfriend Scott Pomfret, he is co-author of the Romentics series of gay romance novels. http://www.romentics.com