My new BFF, and some Crossdressing reviews

This red pen is my new BFF. Seriously. I have been on crazed writing and editing/proofreading duty and there is still way more to do. It's amazing how you can read a piece 2, 3, 4 times and still find errors. It's a happy day when I can hit "send" and turn that duty over to someone else. The good things is...books! Out next year, lots of them.

The interview with Tristan was almost two hours of awesome, all about anal sex, gonzo porn, reality porn, educational porn, cunnilingus, open relationships, Dark Odyssey, fucked up sexual standards, and more. Only bad part was afterwards this guy says to us, "Just out of curiousity, why'd you pick this place to do the interview?" I wanted to say something witty and rude, but I told him the truth: "Because Think Coffee was too crowded." Then he tried to blabber about some reality show that showed he'd been listening to our whole conversation. Whatever. It's a public cafe. Also, NYU student Joey was filming Tristan and the interview for a documentary he's working on. If there's a public screening, I'll post details here.






Speaking of books, Crossdressing: Erotic Stories, for which we're having a book release party in NYC at the LGBT Center on November 29th, just got 2 great reviews. The first is at Erotica Revealed:

In the daring Beefeater, by Lisabet Sarai, a heterosexual English girl fulfills her lifelong desire to wear the historic uniform of her uncle, a Yeoman of the Guard, by promising to give her cousin Phil the sex he wants in exchange for his help. The invasion of Uncle Geoff's closet for several illicit purposes excites both young lovers to fever pitch.

The stories about men who dress in feminine frills range from light and sunny (Rachel Kramer Bussel's A Cute Idea, in which a young man agrees to wear his girlfriend's silky underwear) to poignant (Higher and Higher by T. Hitman, in which a frustrated man in a dead-end job and similar marriage finds the "dudette" of his dreams) to tragic (The Sweetheart of Sigma Queer by Simon Sheppard, in which a crossdressing young gay man is sexually used by a succession of men who regard him as a joke).

The theme of sneaking into forbidden places wearing "inappropriate" garb continues in stories about men, since "women's" clothing is generally more taboo for men than vice versa. In More Than Meets the Eye by Stephen Albrow, a businessman loves wearing women's lingerie under a suit. After defeating his corporate rival in a ruthless takeover bid, the character shows his alter ego, "Suzy," by taking off his masculine business armor in the men's lavatory, where the rival is allowed to "win" sexually.

Also at Erotica Revealed, Lisabet Sarai reviews Alison Tyler's bondage anthology Love at First Sting and praises my story:

Silence is Golden is perhaps the best story I've ever read by the prolific Rachel Kramer Bussel. When she is bound and gagged, a talkative woman learns to really pay attention:

"The silence rang in my ears as I came, the absence of sound coaxing me over the edge as saliva pooled in my mouth, my burning wrists took the imprints of the rope, and I reveled in his fast, hard, hammering thrusts. When we were done, there was no need to speak."

At the Erotica Readers and Writers Association, Ashley Lister had this to say:

The innovative tales of cross-dressing and role subversion in these stories are what makes this anthology such a positive delight. The eclectic content of these stories is perfectly balanced and, whether you're randomly dipping in and out of the stories, or going through them chronologically, each author's distinctive take on the subject matter presents a different, fun and insightful tale on the theme of cross-dressing.

After a thoughtful foreword by Veronica Vera, and an erudite introduction by the inimitable Ms Bussel, the anthology begins properly with Tulsa Brown's Temporary. Temporary is the story of a drag queen and a dishwasher. Powerfully told, as Tulsa Brown's fiction is always powerfully told, Temporary is a story that smudges the thin black line between straight and gay and reminds the reader that arousal can seldom be pigeonholed or compartmentalised.

And then we're into Debra Hyde (metaphorically, obviously – let's not be rude here, not while I'm wearing a frock) with Just Like a Boy. Like Tulsa Brown, like all the authors in this anthology, Debra Hyde is an accomplished writer who knows how to make a narrative develop. Debra writes sex that is sultry, steamy and singularly exciting, and Just Like a Boy explores the phenomena of a woman dressing like a man (well, a boy) with a passionately arousing tale.

And, once again, that blurry line that is drawn between the clearly defined categories of straight and gay becomes even more smudged.

By the time the reader is enjoying Helen Boyd's excellent Halloween, a tale of a cross dressing couple attending a party as a foursome, the line has become so blurry that it's easy to forget what that line was delineating in the first instance.

Speaking of crossdressing, yes, post-Oscar de la Hoya, it's in the news again:

State Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, admitted to having sex with a man he met at an adult video store in Spokane last week, according to a police report released Tuesday afternoon.

The police report offers a far different version of events from the brief account Curtis gave Monday to The Columbian, one that seems likely to threaten Curtis' political future.

The report is filled with graphic details of an encounter that began at a porn store on a Spokane Valley strip and concluded miles away in Curtis' room at the city's poshest hotel.

The police report contains an account of how Curtis allegedly donned women's clothing, red stockings and a black sequined lingerie top before engaging in a sex act at the store. He then continued to wear them throughout the night under his clothing, the report says.