LUSTY LADY

So much spanking erotica now in audio form too!

2012-02-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Now you can listen to all the spanking erotica you want from my books Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica and Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories on Audible! Click on images below to buy the audio from Amazon and more information below, because I love spanking erotica. More details soon on my next spanking erotica book!

Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica

Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories

Buy Spanked from:

Amazon

Kindle

Bn.com

Nook

Powell's

Indiebound

Audible audio version

Cleis Press

Table of Contents

Introduction: “A Fantastic Kind of Pain”

Spanking You Rick Roberts
Perfect Bound Shanna Germain
Betty Crocker Gone Bad Alison Tyler
Laser Tag Madeline Glass
A Rare Find Donna George Storey
Game, Set, Match Sage Vivant
Tied Down Andy Ohio
Through a Glass, Sharply Elizabeth Coldwell
Reunion Madlyn March
Riding the Storm Thomas Christopher
The Breeding Barn L. Elise Bland
Pink Cheeks Fiona Locke
Page by Page Laura Bacchi
Fiscal Discipline Simon Sheppard
Pre-Party Thomas S. Roche
Still Life with Infidels #56 M. David Hornbuckle
Indulgences Tenille Brown
Logan Rosalind Christine Lloyd
Daddy’s Girl Teresa Noelle Roberts
The Depths of Despair Rachel Kramer Bussel

Introduction: “A Fantastic Kind of Pain”

Just as I have a seemingly endless capacity to bare my ass and get it smacked soundly or make a squirming bottom hover on the edge of erotic oblivion with loud, ringing, stinging whack after whack, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of reading stories about spanking. There was a time when I wasn’t sure I could say that; after all, just how much is there to say about bending over and letting a firm hand connect with a pertly offered-up bottom? Or striking a pretty pair of buttcheeks so well the person beneath you moans in ecstatic agony? Well, as I’ve learned while editing this collection, there are an infinite number of ways to talk about the pleasures of getting spanked or spanking someone. While the actions may look alike, we all experience them differently and have different motives for indulging in this beloved kinky activity.

Me? I get off on just thinking about bending over for that special someone. Maybe I’m wearing panties, and only part of my bottom is visible. Maybe I’m not, and my spanker can see everything, including my wetness. I get wet at the mere idea of offering up my entire body to a lover to play with, tease, spank, and arouse. I’ve also had plenty of eager bottoms spread before me, offering asses that just begged to be spanked, whether they speak words to that effect or not. But for me, and for many others, spanking is about much more than just the physical. It’s about what that sensation creates inside of us. Spanking breaks down our barriers in ways even sex sometimes doesn’t; it stirs up emotions; it makes us whimper or cry, or be proud of just how much we can take. It’s primal and powerful, not to mention incredibly popular. I was thrilled to see spanking make an appearance on Showtime’s Californication, where the bratty, bossy bottom of a secretary demands that her boss spank her for any office infraction. “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” indeed.

And those who bestow spankings, whether with hands, paddles, hairbrushes, or other devices, relish that power to bring pleasure and pain mixed together, to completely undo the person they are spanking with just a few (or possibly many) whacks.

The authors included here get just how intense spanking can be. Reading these stories took my breath away, and, even more so than my previous collections (Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2), made me instantly horny. They’ve tapped into the beauty of spanking in a way that newbies, seasoned spankophiles, and those who are simply curious will be able to understand in an instant.

Rick Roberts opens this anthology with “Spanking You,” a story I’ve read and reread numerous times, mesmerized by its rendering of a man so entranced by the vision he makes when he spanks his girlfriend, you imagine he could do it all night, every night, and never tire of it. He even offers up a little bit of a how-to for those would-be spankers looking for the courage to simply turn him or her over and begin this sensual process:

I used to tease you at the beginning of every spanking. As you’d kneel before me on the bed, not a stitch of clothing on your tan body, I’d fake the first blow—stopping just short of your ass, letting the air kiss your skin—and then place an affectionate caress onto your behind. By removing the certainty of whether the next sensation would be soft or a stinging slap, I’d keep you centered in the moment, keep you waiting and vulnerable, and your anticipation for the spanking grew. I would look down at you and smile, knowing that your desire for the first slap on your ass was growing unbearable by the moment.

Part of the thrill of spanking someone is being able to dangle what they most desire before them, to see them there waiting, panting, asking for it with body and soul, to know (or at least, fantasize) that they can’t get off any other way than by the “punishment” you are about to deliver. Elizabeth Coldwell paints a portrait of a true top in “Through a Glass, Sharply,” when she writes, “You have never really known power until the man you love is at your feet, naked or very nearly so, helpless and vulnerable, while you remain fully dressed and completely in control.”

Madlyn March describes a first-time spanking in a way that will be familiar to any who have gasped, trembling, as they realized they not only can take, but crave, a whole lot more spanking than they’d initially expected:

I remembered how it felt when Mimi did it to me. At first, you’re surprised someone’s hitting you, even if you’ve asked her to. Then you’re excited. Then you’re in pain, but it’s a fantastic kind of pain. Each slap makes you want more, as much as you can take, until you can’t take any more, and you’re shaking, more than ready to have an orgasm, the kind that can only be gotten from a woman diving headfirst into you with her wet tongue licking rapidly.

Any time an author can make me hot for something that in real life actually unnerves me, I’m sold. I’m not usually a fan of Daddy/girl stories, but in Teresa Noelle Roberts’ excellent story, simply entitled “Daddy’s Girl,” she renders that role-playing relationship and its spanking potential perfectly, dissecting her characters’ motivations while maintaining the magic they each hold so dear about their arrangement.

For some people, spanking is playful, almost silly--sexy in a way that makes you laugh as you come. This spirit is alive and well in L. Elise Bland’s “The Breeding Barn,” where a cheese paddle does double duty on the ass of an unsuspecting but happy boy bottom. And for the woman who goes by the name “Pink Cheeks” in the story of the same title, her fantasy comes true, to the letter, though in a setting she’d never have expected.

What I love most about this book is that while there are plenty of naughty boys and girls, that potentially clichéd setup never gets boring, because the authors take you right there, into the heart of a punishment spanking, letting you know that, on some level, each of these naughty boys or girls doesn’t just deserve but needs to be spanked for his or her own reasons. The authors play around with these tropes, recreating the act of spanking until it morphs into something endlessly entertaining, just as a good top can keep a bottom on the edge, smacking harder and harder, then backing off, drawing out the play.

While I’ve subtitled this book, “Red-Cheeked Erotica,” what happens on the surface of the skin is just the beginning when it comes to spanking. There’s an elegance, a poetry, a beauty to spanking that is much more akin to making love than fucking. It’s a rhythm, a beat, a gracefulness, a way two people can connect without saying a word. These elements come together in M. David Hornbuckle’s simple yet powerful “Still Life with Infidels #56,” in which a planned kidnapping is set against the sparse backdrop of a steel mill as two recently reunited lovers attempt to recover what they’d lost.

The thrill of erotic spanking is nothing new, even if each time can make even the most experienced bottom feel like a blushing virgin all over again. James Joyce wrote a series of spanking-loving letters to his beloved wife Nora in December 1909 (and for a lesson in the art of sensual, utterly kinky yet romantic erotica, look up Joyce’s naughty letters online). I cannot legally quote him here, though believe me, Joyce was a full-on spankophile according to these missives, understanding precisely what it means to submit (and to willingly struggle).

As I already told you, when it comes to spanking, I simply can’t get enough. I hope these stories turn you on, inspire you, and spark your own imagination about just how hot a spanking from someone who knows exactly what he’s doing can make you.

Rachel Kramer BusselNew York City

Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories

Introduction: Getting Spanked Again (and Again)

A Thousand Words by Donna George Storey
The Hardest Part by Alison Tyler
A Firm Understanding by Elizabeth Coldwell
Prime Time by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Ass Worship by Jerry Arthur
The Purple Balloon by Tess Danesi
Sorority Sister by Dominique Dunbar
Days by Simon Sheppard
Bossy by Sommer Marsden
Oscar and Holly by Bill Kte’pi
Lonnie’s Licks by Tenille Brown
The Swinging Spankers Club by Stan Kent
Reenactment by Zille Defeu
Confessor by Craig J. Sorensen
The Spanking Machine by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Stuffing the Ballot Box by Andrea Dale
Tease for Two by Maddy Stuart
I’m Going to Grab Your Hair by N. T. Morley
Flaming by Jean Roberta
Helping Those in Need by Gwen Masters

Introduction: Getting Spanked Again (and Again)

This being my fourth book on the subject, by now it should be clear that I love spanking: giving, receiving, fantasizing about, and watching it.

So what’s different about this collection? For one thing, there are more male authors represented, a trend I fully support. For another, the tales are more imaginative; yes, there are first-timers and dedicated spankophiles, but there are also swingers and Renaissance Fair attendees living out long-held fantasies in highly unusual ways (see Tess Danesi’s “The Purple Balloon” for details). There are spankings here that aren’t all good or all bad, just as ones in real life don’t always conform so easily. Is the narrator of Dominique Dunbar’s “Sorority Sister” grateful for the spanking she got from Claire Spencer back in the day? Was that a pleasurable experience or one that teetered on confusion? Dunbar mixes things up so we’re not totally sure.

Alison Tyler also alludes to the push/pull of spanking, even for the most die-hard fan. “But now that I’m here, I’d rather be anywhere else. Name the place, and I’d rather be there: in line at the DMV; waiting in the doctor’s office; sitting at the back of coach on a packed flight. I’m scared, more scared than usual, because he’s taking his time…” She perfectly captures the way many submissives want what they know will hurt, want it and don’t want it at the very same time—something that good tops play into.

The same thing happens in Teresa Noelle Roberts’ kinky math nerd tale, “Prime Time,” in which the narrator finds herself tongue-tied as she’s given a challenging assignment. “My stomach flip-flopped. The bedroom spun. My heart raced in panic that I couldn’t convince myself was pointless. I fought back the urge to cry, fought it so hard that I started trembling.” You might think, upon reading that sentence, that she doesn’t really want to be spanked, that she doesn’t fantasize and obsess over her need, but you’d be wrong.

I’m also very glad this book has a fairly even mix of spankers and spankees, though of course some people can manage to be both at different times. The rush of delivering a spanking to one who wants and needs it is explored here in many scenarios, from Simon Sheppard’s wistful “Days” to the age-variant relationship in Bill Kte’pi’s intriguing “Oscar and Holly.” And in Maddy Stuart’s “Tease for Two,” two women get off on sharing the power of delivery, and learning from each other, as well as mutual delight in a job well done: “George’s technique was that of someone who had spanked a thousand exposed asses, but the overflowing smile and the sparkle in her eyes belonged to someone who was discovering it for the first time.”

Whatever kind of spankings you’re into--even if, like the characters in Donna George Storey’s “A Thousand Words” and Jerry Arthur’s “Ass Worship,” you’re not sure what you’re intoæI hope you’ll find it within these pages.

And spank you very much for reading.

Rachel Kramer BusselNew York City

This Best Bondage Erotica 2012 review captures much of what I love about the kinky story editing process

2012-01-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

This Best Bondage Erotica 2012 review was posted by Tousled Elegance on Amazon - I'm reposting it (just correcting my name) because I really like what it says and it may even guide you in writing your stories for Best Bondage Erotica 2013 (May 1 is the very very very firm deadline, but earlier is always better, I'm reading as they come in!). And in separate book news, Best Sex Writing 2012 got a great review at EDGE. Honored and thrilled to see reviewers getting what I want to do with the series. Hope that translates into more kickass, amazing submissions for Best Sex Writing 2013 - with that one, I'm making it easier on myself by breaking the process into chunks so earlier submissions get priority in a big big big big way. Soon as I get back, I'm going into editing mode. Just a heads up. I'm trying to make "rolling submissions" a meaningful part of my editing life from now on or else I might be tempted to quit editing altogether.

I'm a fan in general of projects associated with Rachel Kramer Bussel's name, so in an attempt to be as unbiased as possible, as I sat down to read Bondage Erotica 2012, I tried to keep in mind the reasons readers might choose the genre... What are their expectations and how well does the work meet them?

Erotic fiction tends to get shafted [pun intended?] when it comes to literary recognition and awards. However, I can't sing the praises of those that wind up on Rachel Kramer Bussel's radar enough! Typically overused porn vocabulary is kept to a minimum; this titillating collection is more than just a bunch of dirty stories - some fact, some fiction. There's quite a bit beautiful prose herein. Standouts like Craig J. Sorensen's "Worth Redemption," Elizabeth Coldwell's "A Night At The Opera" and Teresa Noelle Roberts' "Suffer For Me" have an almost poetic flow, without sacrificing an ounce of horniness. Pieces like "Trophy Boyfriend" from Lucy Felthouse, "As Long As You Don't Wake Me" by Neil Gavriel and "Knot Alone" by Kathleen Tudor have a real conversational and conspiratorial tone that draws you in.

While tastes vary, there's enough variety to interest the merely curious, the novice and the initiated kinkster. Straight, gay, bisexual, voyeurism, exhibitionism, the physical aspect, the psychological aspect, couples, strangers and even the taboo topic of self bondage - Best Bondage Erotica 2012 delivers it all, complete with a foreward from rope bondage guru Midori. I was particularly pleased to see both male and female writers represented. Also, as another reviewer said, as a nice change from the oft penned age play and cross dressing themes, quite a bit of Femme Domme tales featured, yet each still manages to incorporate some other kinky elements as well, thereby keeping it intriguing to those who aren't necessarily into that particular scene. You'll likely find yourself speculating about how the characters got onto this path, what they will do next and what happens to them after their tales have been told. That kind of connection, folks, is one of the hallmarks of a good book! Whether you're looking for masturbation material, some ideas to spice up your sex life or simply enjoy reading erotic fiction, Best Bondage Erotica 2012 meets expectations and then some!

Quick hi from Hawaii!

2012-01-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

Aloha! I'm loving Hawaii so far, and am excited about tomorrow night's cupcake meetup (much as I've tried to give it up, event organizing is in my blood, which is good since there are a ton of them coming up over the next 4 months). I've been driven around to gorgeous lookouts in a Tesla Roadster Sport, eaten malasadas at Leonard's Bakery, hung out at Ala Moana Center, gotten a manicure, a bathing suit and cupcakes in Waikiki, saw a former Miss Hawaii do a hula dance at House Without a Key, soaked in a hot tub and watched a gorgeous sunset, among other things. Giant shoutout to AirBNB for making this trip affordable. I'm balancing writing (one piece for a very exciting new venue), cupcake blogging and fun creative writing with soaking up the sun, as it goes. Posting, as always, is more frequent at Tumblr and non-cupcake photos are in my personal Flickr account.

from one of my three flights here

I actually loved being driven around in this, even when I closed my eyes and felt my stomach flip over and over

my comfy Hawaiian slippers

Scarf love

2012-01-26T22:20:00.000-08:00

I bought a scarf today. I had seen one like it on someone earlier this week and thought, That looks so warm. It was raining today and I am going to Milwaukee soon but the real reason I bought it wasn't warmth so much as comfort. It's the kind of scarf that I will want to sleep with, and very likely will, the kind I wish I could transform into a blanket or sweater. It's comforting, and that is worth the price alone. It's also big, so even I will be hard pressed to lose it.

I was sitting in Housing Works Bookstore Cafe when I started this post (and am super excited about my Best Sex Writing 2012 panel here April 25th, details of which are being finalized) but got sidetracked by a deluge of to dos. I had a huge list of errands to run and stopped there to browse and realized I needed to sit down, not even for tea or coffee, but just to sit. I will be sitting for a lot of hours tomorrow; my first of three flights leaves at 6:30 am and I arrive in Honolulu at 8:16 pm, which is 1:16 am New York time, that sitting felt right. I scrapped most of the to dos, like my nails, got toothpaste and sunscreen, and now have the scarf around me in my living room. My bedroom is warmer but I'm afraid it will make me sleep, and that will have to wait for the plane. I kindof want to take the scarf with me but you don't take a scarf to the beach, do you?

I would say more but I literally don't even know what to say at the moment. I can see that I get stuck in patterns of thinking that seem so real I have to shake myself out of them and remind myself I made them up, remind myself that I don't have to be holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop when things go well. I don't want to be the kind of person who can only find solace in escape, but realizing how ill-equipped I am for that word, vacation, how little I know what it means, is unsettling. "I can call you next week to go over this," I wrote to someone I'm working on a project with. "No, I will not call you while you're on vacation. I wouldn't talk about work if I was on vacation, so you shouldn't have to." She's totally right, and yet...I wanted to tell her no, I would talk to her. It feels like it might be the only quiet time I have to do it. Some days I like that pace, but I don't want being busy to only work because it takes my mind off of darker topics.

I almost started crying today at Waffle and Wolf, over a Groupon. I could feel my grasp on the day, and my sanity, drifting away like quicksand. I almost stepped outside because I felt so dumb for not being able to find a piece of paper that I predicted just yesterday I would likely lose. What is it with me and paper? But the man who runs Waffle and Wolf is very nice and knows me now because I'm there so much and wrote out my credit and my friend and I got our waffles and ate and I was not the greatest friend because I kept frantically checking my email but this is a friend who's seen me throw up, who's known me over half my life, who's seen a lot of versions of me other people haven't, so it was okay.

And then I wounded up my errands at FedEx Office, printing $18.99 worth of very valuable papers. I sent my photo to an editor to use for art. I mailed those papers and they are one less thing to deal with when I'm on vacation, or "vacation," as it may be. I don't know what's waiting for me all the way across the country, pretty much I like I clearly have no clue what's waiting for me right here. I guess I'll find out.

Want to read: Anne of Hollywood by Carol Wolper

2012-01-26T17:32:00.000-08:00

A new Carol Wolper novel is a reason to celebrate! I'm looking forward to reading Anne of Hollywood soon. A little birdie is getting me a signed copy. Stay tuned for my review!

Description:

Skirts may be shorter now, and messages sent by iPhone, but passion, intrigue, and a lust for power don’t change. National bestselling author Carol Wolper spins a mesmerizing tale of a twenty-first-century Anne Boleyn.

Wily, intelligent, and seductive, with a dark beauty that stands out among the curvy California beach blondes, Anne attracts the attention of Henry Tudor, the handsome corporate mogul who reigns in Hollywood. Every starlet, socialite, and shark wants a piece of Henry, but he only wants Anne. The question is: can she keep him?

Welcome to a privileged world where hidden motives abound, everyone has something to sell, and safe havens don’t exist. With her older sister Mary, a pathetic example of a royal has-been, Anne schemes to win her beloved Henry in the only way that gives a promise of forever—marriage. Success will mean contending with backstabbing “friends,” Henry’s furious ex-wife, and the machinations of her own ambitious family, and staying married to a man who has more options than most and less guilt than is good for either of them will take all her skill. Anne will do anything to hold on to the man—and the lifestyle—she adores, however, even if sticking your neck out in Hollywood means risking far worse than a broken heart. With Henry’s closest confidante scheming against her, and another beautiful contender waiting in the wings, Anne is fighting for her life. Can she muster the charm and wit to pull off her very own Hollywood ending?

Get your orgasm on with audio erotica!

2012-01-24T12:54:00.000-08:00

Like to listen? Check out 25 stories of female orgasm narrated by Lucy Malone, available now for your listening pleasure from Audible.com. Want a taste of what's in the book? Read my story "Belted" for free (that one is very kinky, but the stories truly range all over the place).

Introduction: Let Me Count the Ways…

The Waiting Game Elizabeth Coldwell
What’s in a Name? Jacqueline Applebee
Chemistry Velvet Moore
The Chair Lolita Lopez
Fixing the Pipes Susie Hara
Share Dusty Horn
Hurdles Rowan Elizabeth
Seeing Stars Louisa Harte
Old Faithful Sylvia Lowry
Paying It Forward Kendra Wayne
The Big O Donna George Storey
Moon Tantra Teresa Noelle Roberts
Feet on the Dashboard Rachel Green
Frosting First Lana Fox
All She Wanted Andrea Dale
Making Shapes Lily Harlem
Rapture Angela Caperton
Belted Rachel Kramer Bussel
Rise and Shine Heidi Champa
Taking the Reins Vanessa Vaughn
First Date with the Dom Noelle Keely
Animal Inside Neve Black
The London O Justine Elyot
Fight Charlotte Stein
Switch Jade Melisande

Introduction

Let Me Count The Ways...

Orgasm: like sex, it’s one word that means many different things to many different people. For many women, it’s the center of their sexual life, a daily occurrence; something to look forward to, experiment with. For some it means a gushing rush of pleasure, for others it’s a little wave they delight in cresting.

Every woman who orgasms may describe it differently.

Yet there are many women, myself included, who find orgasm not so easy to achieve much of the time (yes, it’s true--I love sex, and get turned on, but coming is a bit more complex for me). In “Hurdles,” Rowan Elizabeth writes of such a character: “I can’t win this. And it’s my hang-up, too. I feel like there’s something I’m just not doing right. Maybe if I tighten my legs a little more or squeeze my eyes shut harder, then we’d get there together.”

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines orgasm as “intense or paroxysmal excitement; especially: an explosive discharge of neuromuscular tensions at the height of sexual arousal that is usually accompanied by the ejaculation of semen in the male and by vaginal contractions in the female.” It comes from the Latin and Greek (orgasmus/orgasmos), from organ “to grow ripe, be lustful.” I like that description, though what it leaves out is that for women, orgasm can stretch beyond the boundaries of ejaculation, can continue on and on, can be drawn out for as long as the woman (or her partner) wants to indulge in the experience.

In Lolita Lopez’s perfectly kinky story, “The Chair,” sex toys and submission go hand in hand with orgasm for the protagonist. “Lily’s orgasms changed from separate events to one long and unending oscillation of bliss.” Her “punishment” at the hands of Cal is one she’s very, very happy to absorb.

There are countless articles and books telling you how to have a bigger, better orgasm. I don’t want to add to the clamor of the voices saying, You must orgasm now. Instead, I want Orgasmic to be a fictional showcase of some of the reasons, methods and delights women bring to their orgasms. I want these red-hot stories to help get you warmed up, primed, aroused. I want them to make you squirm with desire, identification, curiosity. I want you to read these stories aloud to a lover…or someone you wish were your lover.

I did my best to capture an array of big (and little) Os, moments where the world feels like it’s exploding in your body, orgasms that rock more than just your world. These stories capture the ferocity, intensity and power of women’s orgasms, however they’re achieved. I couldn’t include every way women come in this book, or it would be much longer than it is now, but I wanted to include a varied look at what gets women off, which means it’s not always a man or another woman, or even a machine that does the trick. Vanessa Vaughn taps into a classic route with “Taking the Reins:”

As I straddle the seat and slowly lower myself down, I feel a familiar tingle of excitement deep inside. I can sense the monstrous size of the body between my thighs, the large chest expanding and contracting broadly with each breath. The smell of fresh, conditioned leather smothers my sensesæwell, that, and also the slight musky tinge of sweat. It is a raw smell mixed with rich, dark dirt.

Speaking of orgasm how-tos, in “The Big O” by Donna George Storey, she both skewers the omnipresent women’s magazine sex advice and adds a saucy twist as her protagonist puts into practice “The Sexercise Prescription: A Stronger Secret You in Six Weeks.”

The women in Orgasmic climax from tantric sex, role-playing, piercing, G-spot play, sex toys and even chemistry--the scientific kind. They delight in food, God and handymen. They create their own objects of pleasure; they spy, tease, obey, command, argue, submit. Some are shy about their orgasms and some are bold as can be.

They come, and come and come again, and they do it in some of the hottest, most creative ways you can think of. Visit me at orgasmicbook.wordpress.com if you just can’t get enough…orgasms, that is.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City

If you're not an audio person, here's some other ways to purchase it:

Amazon.com.

Kindle edition

Barnes & Noble (Bn.com)

Borders

IndieBound (search for your local independent bookstore!)

Cleis Press

Happy National Peanut Butter Day!

2012-01-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm a whirlwind of writing, editing, blogging and trying not to have a panic attack as I get ready to escape for 9 days. For anyone jealous of my Hawaii trip, after that I head to Milwaukee, where I'm hosting an erotic writing workshop February 9th, appearing on live TV, and attending Iron Cupcake Milwaukee, not to mention trying to stay warm, so, you know, hot then cold.

Today is National Peanut Butter Day! Celebrate with some cupcake photos I took (all these were absolutely delicious) and click through for more. Food holidays are now my life. Not sure I'd give up erotica entirely if I could cupcake blog full time, but I would totally do it (hint hint, rich patrons!). Just kidding...I love the mix of things I get to do, but these days cupcakes are taking priority. Hoping to rekindle my love of writing for the pure satisfaction of it while on vacation. I truly love writing but these days every time I sit down to do it I think things like: No one will ever want this. You won't finish, you know it, don't fucking bother. You suck. This is a dumb idea. You don't have time to get to the end, so don't start. This idea's been done before. You get the idea. I've missed out on endless opportunities by listening to those awful voices, so I'm trying to set them on fire and kill them for real, finally, but it's not an overnight process. I have my wishlists, and am gonna keep trying until my writing wishes come true, or I make new wishes.

maybe I've been too corrupted, but the inside cupcake shot always looks way too food porn-like to me

Loved this tweet

2012-01-23T18:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for reading me @raquelita and here and anywhere else. There are a million reasons to have doubts and I so often have let and continue to let those doubts derail me from writing, but I'm trying to put a stop to that!

What happens when I crack under pressure, birthday and live TV edition

2012-01-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

Here's an essay, "Thoughts About Panic Attaking" at The Frisky, about my pre-birthday, pre-live TV panic attack week in November. There's a related essay in the works, because I'm still working on figuring out how not to collapse under pressure. This week, it's getting through until Friday and getting on a plane and going far away. Sometimes that's the only answer. And at least I now know how to get to Cherry Lane Theatre! Hopefully the Erin Courtney reading I missed will happen again.

Two days before my birthday last November, I got a facial at my favorite spa. I lay down on the bed, with the paper gown tucked around me, and the technician went about working her magic on my pores. She put a mask on my face and left me to relax for 10 minutes, with cucumbers resting gently over my eyes, the lights dimmed, and soothing music playing. The setting should’ve been everything I needed to stay calm, and it was … for about two minutes. Then my phone beeped, and I saw a text from a friend telling me to check her Twitter stream ASAP. Of course, I was curious, but I couldn’t get a signal, and spent the rest of the “rest period” feeling antsy, continually picking up my phone to see if suddenly service had been restored. The serenity that I look for when I go to the spa, the chance to shut off my mind while getting my skin rejuvenated, wasn’t there, because all I could think about was when I could get out of the room to check my phone.

Later that afternoon, I decided to see a free play reading at a theater in the West Village. The playwright and I have mutual friends and I loved the idea of getting to do something for free that I couldn’t have done at my day job. I was running late, as usual, and chose the subway stop nearest where I thought the theater was. Then I found myself walking this way and that way, cursing to myself and then to anyone in the street as I realized I wasn’t going to be able to find the theater. I felt so stupid, because I’ve lived in New York since 1996; I should know where I’m going. Even though the West Village is notorious for its winding, hard to navigate streets, I was sure it was my fault. I took my iPhone and slapped it hard against my inner arm, the sting a reminder of my error, a physical manifestation of my anger at myself.

Read the whole thing

Want to read: by Meredith Maran

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

You don't know how hard I'm resisting, and might still fail to resist, ordering the paperback version of A Theory of Small Earthquakes, the first novel by Meredith Maran, whose nonfiction I've been so impressed by over the years. It's available now from Amazon, or waiting til next week to get the Nook version, which will save me money and something to pack. Will probably wait so it's one less thing I own, which is always a good thing (I know, who invaded my brain and wrote that?).

Official description:

In her ten previous nonfiction books, Meredith Maran has trained her journalistic eye on the subtle dance between the political and the personal. Now Maran brings her provocative gaze to her debut novel – a family story spanning two decades, set against the social, political, and geological upheavals of the Bay Area. Eager to escape her damaging past and chart her own future, Alison Rose is drawn to Zoe, a free-spirited artist who offers emotional stability and a love outside the norm. After many happy years together, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake deepens fissures in the two women’s relationship, and Alison leaves Zoe for a new, “normal” life with a man. Alison’s son is the outcome of both of these complicated relationships, and the three parents strive to create a life together that will test the boundaries of love and family in changing times.

Fair warning: not replying for 9 days starting Friday!

2012-01-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

I won't be responding to email too much from January 27th-February 6th though it will be checked and if something is urgent you can put "Urgent" in the subject line and it will be answered as soon as I can. I am learning a new vocabulary word: VACATION! I'll still be doing daily cupcake blogging and am doing a meetup with free cupcakes Tuesday, January 31st in Honolulu (details ASAP) but am otherwise "off." If I can manage it. Big fucking if. But this year is all about embracing the new and leaving behind the old. I truly cannot remember the last time I took a proper vacation, despite my incessant travel. The next 6 or so trips are all either work or family - Milwaukee, Austin, Chicago, Virginia, Portland (reading at Powell's April 6th), Seattle (reading at Elliott Bay April 7th), San Francisco (dates TBA). And, of course, Bermuda. We'll be making lots of announcements soon but tickets are on sale for our Cupcake Cruise August 19th-26th (cupcake party on the beach, anyone?). But I'm pretty overwhelmed and flailing already, so I need this break very badly. I mistreated myself and my career horrifically and it's time I remind myself that I want to be a writer, not just pretend I do.

Free cupcakes tonight!

2012-01-22T10:56:00.001-08:00

Free cupcakes tonight 6-8 at Madame X for our cupcake cruise talk! Details here, hope to see you there. And announcement ASAP about free cupcakes with me in Honolulu!

here but not here

2012-01-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

Last year, upon reading about her in Mistresses: A History of The Other Woman by Elizabeth Abbott, I bought Lillian Ross's memoir Here But Not Here: My Life With William Shawn and The New Yorker. I thought that perhaps I could learn from Ross how to go about loving a brilliant, powerful, larger-than-life man, to live in a parallel world to the official, recognized, lauded, recognized one, and to do so without resenting anyone or anything. I thought that Ross could teach me some secret that seemed to be eluding me, some way of existing in that crazy world that would allow me to live in that privileged space, to welcome its unconventional nature, to revel in it, even.

I wound up putting the book down, now somewhere buried alongside other book carcasses I've abandoned but that phrase, "here but not here," is one that makes sense to me. I so wanted to be there, to be wanted, desired, special, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't as certain points. I was, and that feeling was even better than being high. It was its own high, one that, indeed, made me hallucinate. I would look out a window and swear I could see us there, the images so vivid in my head, so bright and alive, I actually experienced disorientation.

The "here" part I didn't have trouble with, when it applied to me, when I got the full force of that attention, got swallowed up in it, at whatever hour, wherever and however it happened. I love it when I was "here," or rather "there," with him. It was the "but not" that tripped me up, that still does, the but not of walking through the cherry blossoms, such an extreme blaring of nature's beauty, the ones I was told were waiting for me. If they were, they were the only ones who were, and the emptiness of that "but not" pulled at me.

I think I put Ross's book down in part because I realized early on that while she may have had things to teach me, none of them were an exact roadmap on how to live that life, how to live with all the "but not"s, the silences, the empty spaces, literal and figurative. The gap between fantasy and reality, between greed and selflessness, between me and her. I was so hyperaware of their "here"s, which assaulted me at every turn, so bright and bold and in my face. So oppressively omnipresent that they couldn't help but overshadow any momentary claim I could make, any foolish, fleeting notions I had about what I could offer. The answer, it turned out, was nothing, and it's taken me a while, and I won't say I'm even all the way there yet, to realize that maybe I couldn't offer a single thing to that relationship, but that doesn't mean I can't offer anything to another one. I kept trying to retrace my steps, to figure out my fatal flaws, the things I could work on to become more solid, more real, more "here."

I will return to Ross's book, to her defiance of all that we're taught to believe we should want, in favor of something so pure it becomes its own kind of "here." What I did take away is her pride, her power, her insistence that they shared something no propriety or judgment could deny. I still want to learn from her example, because I got the loudest possible wakeup call that if I don't grapple with that, if I let the "but not"s crush me, they will. They will make any scrap of momentary comfort, the beautiful devils waiting to welcome me into their open arms, so tempting, so inviting, I will be useless to resist.

The other night I was so over winter that I wore one of my favorite summer dresses, one that ties around my neck, dips low in the front, bares my entire back. I covered it with a sweater that I bought to ward off the chill of another "but not" time, a night when I needed some kind of armor to wrap around me, something warm and soft to play with as I entered into the unknown. Now I wear it because I like the way it hangs along my arm, its edge ending mid-ink so if I angle it right, I can see "art" on my arm. I wear it and try to infuse it with new memories, new meanings, which is what I'm being forced to do with so many aspects of my life in order to move them forward into the future, into the here, away from the "but not." It slipped down my back while I maneuvered around in the passenger seat, the warm air greeting my bare skin for a moment before I pulled it up and I was so grateful to be only there, completely present, no "but"s.

My life seems to be a constant grappling, balancing, weighing of the "here"s and the "but not"s and some days are easier than others. Some days the latter wins out, fills me up with that sense of loss, until that is what I hallucinate, and when I let that loss overpower me, I really am not here, I'm nowhere, in some space that I only wish existed. The good days, though, or rather, the good moments, are the ones I'm trying to focus on, the "here"s so strong and intense and real and solid.

Call for submissions: Best Sex Writing 2013

2012-01-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Note: Earlier submissions stand a better chance as I will be selecting pieces as I go (but all final responses will happen by August). This doesn't mean that I won't consider everything submitted by deadline, but it does mean that you shouldn't wait until May 2nd and hope you can still get in. Trust me, earlier is better for you and better for me and I'm excited to start digging in thisverysecond. For the most part I scout and hunt and read for this series but I welcome any and all submissions, especially the unexpected. That's my most helpful hint aside from writing something heartfelt, beautiful, novel and unique to you, and reading the past editions, especially this years, aka, my very favorite book of all my 42 books, Best Sex Writing 2012. It's also the most varied in terms of types of stories from the literary fiction world, journalism, sex-positive world, etc. And follow the guidelines. Thanks! Feel free to circulate the below wide and far, aka, everywhere.

Call for submissions: Best Sex Writing 2013
To be edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
guest judge TBA
Publication date: December 2012
Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2012

Editor Rachel Kramer Bussel is looking for personal essays and reportage for inclusion in the 2013 edition of the Cleis Press series Best Sex Writing, which will hit stores in December 2012. Seeking articles from across the sexual spectrum, covering (in no particular order) alternative sexuality, asexuality, reproductive rights and sexuality, sex education, sex and technology, sex work, sex and aging, sex and parenting, sex and politics, sex and religion, sex and race, sex and class, sex and disability, scientific research about sex, marriage, GLBT rights, BDSM, polyamory, transgender issues, gender roles, etc. Media criticism is also especially welcome; for excellent examples, see "The Careless Language of Sexual Violence" by Roxane Gay and "Men Who 'Buy Sex' Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies" by Thomas Roche in Best Sex Writing 2012. These topics are just starting points; any writings covering the topic of sex will be considered. Personal essays will also be considered. I like work that looks at sex in new and unusual ways (see Stacey D'Erasmo's "Silver-Balling" in Best Sex Writing 2009 for a prime example), that challenges us to think about sex and our own sexuality, is thought-provoking and possibly disturbing. I want sex journalism that's found in the most unexpected places and is as topical as possible. No fiction or poetry will be considered.

Previous editions of the annual series have featured authors such as Brian Alexander, Violet Blue, Susannah Breslin, Susie Bright, Stephen Elliott, Gael Greene, Michael Musto, Scott Poulson-Bryant, Tracy Quan, Mary Roach, Tristan Taormino, Virginia Vitzhum, and others. The series has reprinted work from national magazines and newspapers, college newapapers, independent magazines, zines, websites, literary journals, memoirs and more. See Best Sex Writing 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 for examples of the types of writing being sought. I'm especially looking for reported pieces that are political, timely, intelligent, surprising, and insightful about sex in American culture (and its many subcultures).

Requirements: Story must have been published (or slated to be published) between August 1, 2011 and September 30, 2012, online and/or in print (book, magazine, zine or newspaper) in the United States. No unpublished work; reprints only.

Instructions: Please send your double-spaced submission (up to 5,000 words) as a Word document or RTF attachment to bestsexwriting2013 at gmail.com – you may submit a maximum of TWO pieces for consideration. You MUST include your full contact information, a bio, and previous publication details as per below. Early submissions are preferred and encouraged as the selection process is rolling.

If for some reason you are unable to send a Word document or RTF, send your submission in the body of an email. Put "Submission" in the subject line. Electronic submissions only. Include your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and exact publication details (title of publication, date of publication, and any other relevant information). ONLY SEND WORK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REPRINT.

Editors may submit up to three submissions from their publication, following the guidelines above. Please make it clear that you are the editor submitting work for consideration from your publication, and have the author's contact information available upon request.

Email address (for queries and submissions): bestsexwriting2013 at gmail.com
Payment: $100 and 2 copies of the book on publication
Deadline: May 1, 2012
Expect to hear back from me by September 1, 2012 at the latest

Irresistible BOGO offer: Buy the book, get a free signed book from me, through January 31st

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

A new promotion for the New Year and a perfect Valentine's Day gift! Pre-order Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples in ebook or print form, from any seller, and I'll send you any of my in print Cleis Press books free (and autographed!). All you have to do is have a U.S. mailing address. Want to see if you'd like what's inside Irresistible? It has 16 longer-than-usual hot sexy romantic stories, and you can read excerpts from all of them at the Irresistible blog.

To get your free book (books will be sent by mid-February), email your receipt or a snapshot of it to irresistibleantho at gmail.com with "BOGO" in the subject line, your choice of the books below, and your name and US mailing address (sorry, US only). And thank you for your support!

Pick from: Best Bondage Erotica 2011, Best Bondage Erotica 2012, Best Sex Writing 2008, Best Sex Writing 2009, Best Sex Writing 2010, Best Sex Writing 2012, Caught Looking, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Fast Girls, Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex, He's on Top, Hide & Seek, The Mile High Club, Obsessed, Orgasmic, Passion, Peep Show, Please, Ma'am, Please, Sir, Rubber Sex, She's on Top, Smooth, Spanked, Surrender, Tasting Her, Tasting Him, Women in Lust, Yes, Ma'am or Yes, Sir. See all the covers at Cleis Press.

Coming in January: Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, published by Cleis Press.

This Irresistible read features loving couples turning their deepest fantasies into reality, resulting in uninhibited, imaginative sex they can only enjoy together. You’ll delight in discovering all the exciting erotic possibilities, from serving tea naked to a very intimate massage to a reminder that sometimes best friends make the best lovers. Engage in a little sexting in A.M. Hartnett’s sizzling “Safe for Work” office tryst, and follow a kinky candidate for public office—and his lusty wife—in "Hypocrites." Cole Riley’s moving “Same As It Ever Was” shows that makeup sex can be worth fighting for. Dirty talk leads to lustful surprises and inspiration for the neighbors in “The Mitzvah” by Tiffany Reisz. As editor Rachel Kramer Bussel notes, the lovers in this daringly romantic anthology are “able to open up in the ways they do is precisely because they have another person to rely on, coax them, challenge them, tease them and seduce them into traveling down a new sexual path. Whether that means outdoor sex, kink, a trip to a strip club or a very sensual massage, we get to see how the layers of trust that have been built up get used to stoke the fire that burns between them.”

Pre-order Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples:

Amazon

Kindle (ebook) (out February 2012, link TK)

BN.com

Nook (ebook) available February 13

Powell's

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

Introduction (see below)

Twice Shy Heidi Champa

Safe for Work A. M. Hartnett

Repaint the Night Janine Ashbless

Same As It Ever Was Cole Riley

Out of Control Karenna Colcroft

Warrior Kate Pearce

Hypocrites Alyssa Turner

The Pact Elizabeth Coldwell

Exposing Calvin Rachel Kramer Bussel

Six Eyes, Two Ears Kris Adams

Renewal Delilah Night

The Netherlands Justine Elyot

Predatory Tree Craig J. Sorensen

The Mitzvah Tiffany Reisz

After The Massage Kay Jaybee

Pink Satin Purse Donna George Storey

Introduction

A lot of the erotica that comes across my desk focuses on the spark of attraction when strangers meet, the cataclysmic sensation of falling, hard, for someone new and exciting. That makes sense, because there’s built-in drama and erotic tension when two people discover there’s intense chemistry between them. With this anthology, though, I wanted to explore what happens after that, once those people have been together a while (even a short while). I wanted to see what sparks fictional couples could produce on the page, and the results are, well, scorching.

The couples in this book explore all sorts of exciting sexual possibilities, and one of the main reasons they’re able to open up in the ways they do is precisely because they have another person to rely on, coax them, challenge them, tease them and seduce them into traveling down a new sexual path. Whether that means outdoor sex, kink, a trip to a strip club or a very sensual massage, we get to see the ways the layers of trust that have been built up get used to stoke the fire that burns between them.

In addition to enjoying naughty, wild adventures, the couples here also work out differences between one another and handle issues like infidelity in ways that ultimately strengthen, rather than destroy, their relationships' longevity. In Cole Riley’s “Same As It Ever Was,” Joanne suspects her husband of cheating, but with a little help from her best friend, manages to recapture the sensual spirit and passion that’s been missing as both husband and wife make amends and move on, knowing what it was they almost lost. Rekindling a romance that’s threatened to go stale is also the theme of “Renewal” by Delilah Night, where she writes, “That touch sent a long-missing ripple through my body. I hesitated, hoping he’d remember what I love.”

In “The Pact” by Elizabeth Coldwell, a woman rediscovers a man she’d once passed over, only to find that the years they’ve spent apart have made him someone she’s sorry she overlooked. How a couple deals with a death in the family, as well as religious tradition, is the subject of “The Mitzvah” by Tiffany Reisz, as Grace and Zachary find that embracing desire can be healing. Kris Adams takes us into an African village and some complicated relationship dynamics, along with a lot of voyeurism, in “Six Eyes, Two Ears.” Kay Jaybee takes a common fantasy, that of a man watching two women make love, and breathes new life into it by showing both halves of a couple as they live out this dream.

Individual characters work through their own issues with the help of their partners, getting support, love and, of course, very hot sex. “Repaint the Night,” by Janine Ashbless, is about public sex, but, even more, a woman who is conquering a fear of the dark after being mugged ten years before. The erotic power of that story is heightened by Leah’s awe at being able to enjoy what she and Callum are sharing, as she recovers a part of herself she lost and deepens the level of trust between them.

For those who likes things a bit spicier, there’s "The Netherlands” by Justine Elyot, in which a nude Loveday serves guests tea and takes orders, while fulfilling a longtime fantasy of being “used,” with her true love there to watch.

Make no mistake: though these are stories about couples, they are not light or fluffy. They are full of joy, lust and kink, as well as realistic elements of mistrust, uncertainty and confusion, which the couples work through in ways that don’t gloss over or ignore their differences.

These couples, however long they’ve been a team, push the envelope by pushing themselves to try something new, even when they’re not sure where it will lead them. They go to those exotic, erotic places, to those recurring fantasies, because they know they have someone who will travel there with them. I hope this book will inspire nighttime reading--out loud--and erotic adventures, as well as conversations that have been bubbling under the surface, waiting to be exposed, just like the fantasies in the tales you’re about to read.

Rachel Kramer Bussel

New York City

The Advocate calls Best Sex Writing 2012 a "must-read book"

2012-01-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

Look what The Advocate said about Best Sex Writing 2012! I'm finalizing the West Coast tour dates very soon. Excited!

Best Sex Writing 2012Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, selected and introduced by Susie BrightThis is no collection of erotic fiction but rather a presentation of year's most challenging and provocative nonfiction essays on all things sex. Bright writes in the foreword, "We're here to reveal the well-sharpened pitchforks of sexual hypocrisy," and the book does just that with sources as diverse as Salon, The Village Voice, Newsweek, and The Chronology of Water. Nearly every piece is excellent, but some are clearly heads above others: Thomas Roche's look at the biased science around anti–sex work studies, Camille Dodero's "Guys Who Like Fat Chicks," and gay former soldier Tim Elhajj's "An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career" chief among them. A must-read book, regardless of what kind of sex you like. ($16, Cleis Press)

"Why I'll Never Date Another Guy Named 'Tom'"

2012-01-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

My latest essay at The Frisky is entitled "Why I'll Never Date Another Guy Named 'Tom'" and looks at exes and names and how they affect our perceptions of future people we encounter with the same name. Name as dealbreaker? Yes...probably.

Relatively recently, I dated two men in a row with the same first name—I’ll call them both Tom for the sake of this essay. One I fell in love with, and while I’m mostly over him, I’m not there all the way. Both are guys I was friends with before dating them, and I considered the possibility that the name thing would get weird with Tom 2.0, but I’d had a crush on him, so I overlooked it. They’re fairly different in personality, but the fact that in addition to sharing a name, both Toms have similar body types and professions adds to my sense that men with this name are not my type. Not to mention the fact that after I dated Tom 1.0, I had to keep calling Tom 2.0 by his full name when telling my friends about him, lest anyone get confused.

Dating men who share a name is not the same as, say, dating one guy who’s the spitting image of another, but it’s close.

Read the whole thing

Call for submissions: Best Bondage Erotica 2013

2012-01-18T08:26:00.001-08:00

A little personal note: Best Bondage Erotica 2012 authors really pushed the envelope for me as an editor with self-bondage such as in opener "Melting Ice" by Shoshanna Evers and incredibly creative twists and turns, as did Best Bondage Erotica 2011 authors with an office computer cable-as-bondage-equipment scenario in Lisabet Sarai's "Wired". That's what I look for: not those specifics, exactly, but ingenuity, creativity, plots that pull me in from word one and never let go. The trickiest part of editing a themed anthology is balancing all the things a good editor has to balance: types of bondage, motivations for bondage, bondage and sexuality, language, bondage and other types of BDSM, gender, POV, tense, setting, pacing, etc. I need a wide, wide range of stories, which doesn't mean you can't use a familiar setting or familiar kink, you just need to make it stand out from the other stories I'm reading all about the very same topic.

Good luck, and early stories are strongly encouraged but I'll read anything that arrives by May 1st! If you're not sure what I like, I do recommend reading either or both of the previous volumes (but I recommend that anywhere cause they're HOT!). The above was meant to motivate you, not intimidate you - write the best bondage story you can, and it will be considered, that's the best advice I can give you other than to follow the directions. I cannot even tell you how many people don't - and if you have any questions, just ask. Another way to think about your stories in general is to visualize/storyboard them. Note: I don't do this, but when I had my Best Bondage Erotica 2011 story turned into a comic by Seth Kushner at CulturePOP it forced me to be very, very aware of every word, every image, every sentiment.

Call for Submissions

Best Bondage Erotica 2013
To be published by Cleis Press in late 2012
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Best Bondage Erotica 2013 will collect the best bondage erotica stories around, focusing on a range of techniques, implements, characters and scenarios, from newbies to seasoned bondage players and everything in between. Bondage should be a central focus of the erotic element of the story but the plot does not have to hinge on bondage. The final book will include stories focused on both the physical and mental aspects of bondage, from varying points of view. Bondage plus other sexual activity is welcome (spanking, tickling, exhibitionism, voyeurism, intercourse, oral sex, teasing, etc.). Original, unique, creative characters, settings, scenarios and forms of bondage are encouraged. As befitting the title, I’m looking for the best, hottest, most creative bondage erotica for this collection. All genders/sexual orientations welcome. Original stories strongly preferred, but reprints of work published (or slated to be published) between September 2011 and November 2012 will be considered but will be given lower priority than original work. All characters must be over 18; no incest or bestiality. Please see Best Bondage Erotica 2011 and Best Bondage Erotica 2012 (http://www.bestbondageerotica.com) or my other kinky Cleis Press anthologies (Bottoms Up, Spanked, Yes, Sir, Yes, Ma’am, He’s on Top, She’s on Top) for an idea of the kinds of stories I prefer.

How to submit: Send double spaced Times or Times New Roman 12 point black font Word document with pages numbered (.doc, not .docx) OR RTF of 1,500-4,000 word story. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch and double space (regular double spacing, do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). US grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) required. Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), mailing address, and 50 word or less bio in the third person to bestbondage2013@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. You will receive a confirmation within 72 hours. I will get back to you by September 2012.

Payment: $50 and 2 copies of the book on publication

Deadline: May 1, 2012 (earlier submissions encouraged and preferred)

I’ve been seeing numerous recent submissions that do not conform to my guidelines. They are there for a reason. Please read and follow them or risk your submission being rejected or returned for reformatting. If you have any questions, please contact me atbestbondage2013@gmail.com

About the editor: Rachel Kramer Bussel (rachelkramerbussel.com) is the editor of over 40 anthologies, including Best Bondage Erotica 2011 and 2012, Irresistible, Gotta Have It, Women in Lust Orgasmic, Fast Girls, Passion, Peep Show, Bottoms Up, Spanked, The Mile High Club, Do Not Disturb, He’s on Top, She’s on Top, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Crossdressing, Dirty Girls, and is Best Sex Writing Series Editor. She writes the Secrets of a Sex Writer column for SexisMagazine.com, and has hosted and curated In The Flesh Reading Series for five years. Her writing has been published in over 100 anthologies, including Susie Bright’s X: The Erotic Treasury, Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and Zane’s Purple Panties and the New York Times bestseller Succulent: Chocolate Flava II. She has written for Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, Inked, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, Penthouse, The Root, Salon, Time Out New York, xoJane, Zink and other publications.

Erotica 101 writing workshop in Milwaukee February 9th

2012-01-16T16:27:00.000-08:00

February 9th is around the corner - if you could do me a big favor and let anyone you know who might be interested in this writing workshop in Milwaukee at Tool Shed Toys , I'd really appreciate it. You can register online. I'm a little afraid I will freeze, but I'm excited about trying something new. And I look forward to writing workshops as a chance to find new authors for my anthologies. Hopefully by then I'll have some new calls up! And if you're in Milwaukee, check out all their events, including a Naughty Needles knitting event! (I wrote a column about that, "Kinky Knitknacks," once for The Village Voice.)

CLASS: Erotica 101 Writing Workshop

With Rachel Kramer Bussel

February 9, 8:00pm - 9:30 pm

Professional erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of over 40 anthologies, including Gotta Have It, Women in Lust, Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples, Orgasmic, and The Mile High Club, will take you through the ins and outs of modern erotic writing, from getting started, finding your voice, writing against type, erotic love and lust letters, to submitting your work keeping up with the thriving erotica market. You'll learn how to incorporate everyday scenarios as well as outlandish fantasies into your writing, and make them fit for particular magazines and anthologies. Whether you're writing to that special someone, penning longtime fantasies, or want to earn cash for your dirty words, this workshop, taught by the editor of over a dozen erotic anthologies, is for you. Paper and writing implements will be provided or you can use your own laptop.

$15 per person.

When you purchase a ticket online your name will be added to the guest list for the event. Please arrive about 10 minutes early to check in at the desk and grab a seat.

PLEASE NOTE: You may see a charge for tax when you purchase a ticket online-- this amount will be removed from your final charge.

Why I'm loving Storm Large's memoir Crazy Enough

2012-01-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm only 27 pages in and am smitten with performer Storm Large's memoir Crazy Enough Two excerpts below are part of the reason why. You can also read some excerpts at Willamette Week. Plus the cover rocks!

First, her awesome disclaimer - I read a lot of memoirs and sometimes they offer up a straightforward one, and sometimes the writers get a bit more creative (Sara Benincasa also has a great one in her mental health memoir Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom). I added a silent "Fuck yeah" at the end of this one as I read.

All of these stories are true and as accurate as I could get them, with the help of friends and family who were party or privy to the events described. Several names and identifying characteristics of people and places have been blurred or outright changed to protect the innocent and the dead. Some have been changed to protect myself from the drug addled and psychotic, along with the general douche baggery that is so prevalent in these litigious times. Many of these memories are from more than thirty years ago, so keep in mind there have been a few tankers of alcohol and trash bags full of drugs, not to mention acres of weenie, that have been tossed through my body and brain since then, so I could have gotten a few things twisted around. But I do know for sure that I live at the end.

And then this passage, one which I, um, identify heavily.

Everything with me as a child--and later on--was either the mostexcitingwonderfulamazingyougottacomeseethisnow thing ever or else the sun would be going black, it was raining frogs, and the hooves of plague were thundering around me. Sometimes, I wondered if I was too sensitive to even be alive. I still feel that way now and then, like a turtle yanked raw and naked from its shell and tossed, torn open, and shrieking, into a sandstorm.

One day only e-book BOGO sale: Buy Best Sex Writing 2012 for Kindle or Nook, get a free signed book for me

2012-01-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

This promotion is limited to United States addresses, and is only good for the ebook version of Best Sex Writing 2012 purchased on January 17th, 2012. Both the Kindle and Nook editions are only $9.64 and 9.99 respectively, so one of those low prices, you get an e-book and a signed erotica book or signed edition of a previous Best Sex Writing edition. What a deal!

Purchasing links:

Best Sex Writing 2012 on Kindle

Best Sex Writing 2012 on Nook

Best Sex Writing 2012 gets released as an ebook this Tuesday, January 17th. If you're going to buy it, I'm encouraging you to buy it that day and will send you a free, autographed copy of any of my in print Cleis Press books; choose from the following: Pick from: Irresistible, Best Bondage Erotica 2011, Best Bondage Erotica 2012, Best Sex Writing 2008, Best Sex Writing 2009, Best Sex Writing 2010, Caught Looking, Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Fast Girls, Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex, He's on Top, Hide & Seek, The Mile High Club, Obsessed, Orgasmic, Passion, Peep Show, Please, Ma'am, Please, Sir, Rubber Sex, She's on Top, Smooth, Spanked, Surrender, Tasting Her, Tasting Him, Women in Lust, Yes, Ma'am or Yes, Sir. See all the covers at Cleis Press..

Email your receipt to me at bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com by January 20th. Put "BOGO" in the subject and include the receipt, your name and US mailing address, and which book you'd like. I will mail you an autographed copy by February 9th. If you'd like me to autograph it to someone other than you, just let me know. Thanks for reading! A refresher below if you want to know more about the book.

Watch the book trailer:

Table of contents:

When the Sex Guru Met the Sex Panic Susie Bright

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex Secrets Rachel Kramer Bussel (see below)

Sluts, Walking Amanda Marcotte

Criminalizing Circumcision: Self-Hatred as Public Policy Marty Klein

The Worship of Female Pleasure Tracy Clark-Flory

Sex, Lies, and Hush Money Katherine Spillar

The Dynamics of Sexual Acceleration Chris Sweeney

Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better Sex Greta Christina

To All the Butches I Loved between 1995 and 2005: An Open Letter about Selling Sex, Selling Out, and Soldiering On Amber Dawn

I Want You to Want Me Hugo Schwyzer

Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift Joan Price

Latina Glitter Rachel Rabbit White

Dating with an STD Lynn Harris

You Can Have Sex With Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them Radley Balko

An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career Tim Elhajj

Guys Who Like Fat Chicks Camille Dodero

The Careless Language of Sexual Violence. Roxane Gay

Men Who “Buy Sex” Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies Thomas Roche

Taking Liberties Tracy Quan

Why Lying about Monogamy Matters Susie Bright

Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture Abby Tallmer

Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth about Kinky Sexting Rachel Kramer Bussel

Adrian’s Penis: Care and Handling Adrian Colesberry

The Continuing Criminalization of Teen Sex Ellen Friedrichs

Love Grenade Lidia Yuknavitch

Pottymouth Kevin Sampsell

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex SecretsRachel Kramer Bussel

I think about sex a lot—every day, in fact. I don’t mean that in an “I want to get it on” way, but in a “What are other people up to?” way. I’m a voyeur, first and foremost, and this extends to my writing. I’m naturally curious about what other people think about sex, from their intimate lives to how their sexuality translates to the larger world.

With the Best Sex Writing series, I get to merge my voyeuristic self with my journalism leanings, and peek into the lives, public and private, of those around me. This volume in the series doesn’t pull any punches; the authors have strong opinions, whether it’s Marty Klein sticking up for circumcision in the face of an effort in California to criminalize it, Roxane Gay taking the New York Times to task for its treatment of an 11-year-old rape victim, Thomas Roche calling out Newsweek for its shoddy reporting about prostitution, or Radley Balko examining a child pornography charge.

There are also more personal takes on sex here that go beyond facile headlines or easy answers, that aren’t about making a point so much as exploring what real-life sex is like in all its beauty, drama, and messiness. Whether it’s Amber Dawn and Tracy Quan sharing the truth about their lives as sex workers, or Hugo Schwyzer explaining the damage our culture does to men with its mythology about their innate sexual prowess, or Tim Elhajj’s first-person account of pre–don’t ask, don’t tell military life, these authors show you a side of sex that you rarely see.

What you are about to read are stories, all true, some reported on the streets and some recorded from lived experience, from the front lines of sexuality. They deal with topics you read about in the headlines, and some topics you may never have considered. They are but a small sampling of the many kinds of sexual stories I received in the submission process.

Part of why I think sex never goes out of style, as a topic or activity, is that it is so very complex. There is no one way to do it, nor two, nor three. Sex can be mundane or mind-blowing, and for those who are trying to get from the former to the latter, there is a plethora of resources but also a host of misinformation purveyed by snake oil salesmen.

In Best Sex Writing 2012, you will read about subjects as diverse as “Guys Who Like Fat Chicks,” the care an handling of a man’s penis, and the glamour and glitter of the Latina drag world. Abby Tallmer, telling a story set in a very specific time and place—the gay leather clubs of New York’s Meatpacking District in the 1990s—manages to capture why sexual community is so vital, and why, I’d venture, those who lack such a community wind up mired in sex scandals. Tallmer writes, “These clubs gave us a place to feel that we were no longer outsiders—or rather, they made us feel that it was better to be outsiders, together, than to force ourselves to be just like everybody else.”

I’m especially pleased to present stories about the kinds of sexuality and sexual issues that don’t always make the headlines, from Lynn Harris’s investigation of dating with an STD to Hugo Schwyzer’s moving look at men’s need to be sexually desired and what happens when boys and men are told that that wanting to be desired is wrong. Joan Price gives some insight into elder sexuality, as well as into what it’s like to purchase the services of a sexual healer. The topic of elder sex is often treated with horror or disgust, or the focus is placed on concern over STDs—which is a worthy topic this series has explored before. But Price, author of two books on elder sexuality (her piece here is excerpted from Naked At Our Age), obliges the reader to see the humanity behind her age. She writes, “My birthday erotic massage from a gentle stranger changed something in me. It showed me that I was still a responsive, fully sexual woman, getting ready to emerge from the cocoon of mourning into reexperiencing life. I realized that one big reason I ended up on Sunyata’s massage table was so that I could get ready to reenter the world.”

Not all, or even most, of the reading here is “easy.” Much of it is challenging and heartbreaking. Roxane Gay’s media criticism centers on a New York Times story about a Texas gang rape and why “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence” distorts our understanding about rape. You may think such a piece doesn’t belong in an anthology with this title, but until we rid our world of sexual violence so that everyone can freely express themselves sexually, we need to hear searing indictments of media or those in power who ignore injustice.

As an editor, I’m not only looking for pieces that I agree with, or identify with, but for work that illuminates something new about a topic that’s been around forever. The authors here dig deep, challenging both mainstream ideas about sex and a few sex-positive sacred cows. Ellen Friedrichs sticks up for the right of teenagers to be sexual without throwing parents, school boards, and other adults into a sex panic. Amanda Marcotte explores the fast-moving SlutWalk protest phenomenon, which has garnered criticisms from various sides, from being futile to only appealing to white women.

I will quote Abby Tallmer again, because I don’t hear the words “sexual liberation” often enough these days. What moves me most about her piece is that you don’t have to be a New Yorker, queer, leather, or kinky to understand what she’s talking about. I’m 100 percent with her when she writes, “Back then, many of us believed that gay liberation was rooted in sexual liberation, and we believed that liberation was rooted in the right—no, the need—to claim ownership of our bodies, to experience and celebrate sexuality in as many forms as possible, limited only by our time and imagination.” I hope this applies in 2012 just as much as it did in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.

The truth is, I could have filled a book twice this size. Every day, stories are breaking, and being told, about sex—some wondrous, some heartbreaking. This is not a one-handed read, but it is a book that will stimulate your largest sex organ: your brain. Whether you live and breathe sex, you are curious about sex, or somewhere in between, I hope Best Sex Writing 2012 informs, incites, and inspires you. I hope it inspires you to write and tell your own sexual story, because I believe the more we talk about the many ways sex moves us, the more we work toward a world where sexual shame, ignorance, homophobia, and violence are diminished.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this book and what you think are the hot topics around sex. Feel free to email me at rachel at bestsexwriting.com with your comments and suggestions for next year’s anthology.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York
November 2011

Book cover prettiness

2012-01-14T07:35:00.001-08:00

Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples is here! My copies arrived last night. Yay. In stores, online and off, very soon.

Dorkily stalking the newsstands for the February 2012 sex issue of Inked

2012-01-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

I'm such a dork but I don't care. I love writing for new venues and it's rare these days that those are print venues. I've been wanting to write for Inked for a while and I haven't seen it yet, but a short interview I did with Tristan Taormino about her work and her tattoos should be in their February 2012 sex issue, on newsstands soon. I've known Tristan for over a decade and have interviewed her multiple times but I learned things from this interview, as I should! If you missed it, I wrote about my first tattoo, "Why I Got The Word 'Open' Tattooed on My Back" for Lemondrop, and think good thoughts about an essay about my second tattoo that is out on submission that I hope to share with you, let's just say sometime in 2012. I have a vague inkling (ha!) that I want to get another one when I'm in Portland, Oregon. Partly because it'd be cool to have one from Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon, partly because my friend there is a tattoo artist, and partly because the right side of my body is feeling art neglected.

Eat cupcakes with me today at 2 in Tribeca

2012-01-14T06:26:00.000-08:00

All you need to know about today's cupcake meetup at Billy's Bakery is here.

And if you like, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Blue Ivy Carter and/or babies, please check out my post . Anyone famous you want to see a cupcake post about? It would require there be cupcakes related to them out there, but you'd be surprised what people bake.

Naked women dancing, Baryshnikov sighting and super comfortable seats at Young Jean Lee's Untitled Feminist Show

2012-01-13T12:02:00.000-08:00

First I want to say that I'm not a dance critic, or any kind of critic besides a book critic, nor do I want to be. For proper professional real performance art criticism, read Culturebot or the forum of your choice.

Another caveat is that I've seen probably less than five dance performances in my life. I go to theater more than I go to the movies, and I read a lot, and sometimes I go to museums. Those are the main forms of art I consume. The idea of dance performances is not one that sounds like something I'd like. It sounds over my head, like the ideas are being expressed in a language I don't speak, hence I shy away from it, which is perhaps a vicious cycle. So in the interest of recommending it before I forget what I saw or chicken out that this is useless and amateurish, here are my thoughts.

But when my friend H. invited me to see Untitled Feminist Show by Young Jean Lee at Baryshnikov Arts Center, I said yes, based almost entirely on this image:

First thing that happened is that as we were standing outside saying hi to Melissa Febos, she spotted Baryshnikov. I'm not sure I would've recognized him, but there he was entering the theater. He was part of the audience too. We went inside and admired the crowd, which seemed to be a mix of queer folks in their twenties and thirties, burlesque fans, and theater and dance fans.

I wish I had a photo of the seats, because I think I can safely say they are the most comfortable theater seats I've ever sat in, and the prettiest. They are a teal-ish blue and were extremely comfortable; I could easily lie down and sleep on them. That helped, cause I tend to get fidgety.

Once the lights went down, the six naked performers started making their way down the stairs on either side, breathing heavily. By the time they reached the stage, I knew this was not going to be a "regular" dance performance. Firstly, it was funny. I felt invited to both ogle and appreciate and laugh at the absurdity of the naked women onstage. The dancing involved skipping, leaping, running, head banging, touching, acrobatics, acting, interacting, laughing, crying, fighting, flirting with the audience, and simulating sex acts, among other things. I was surprised that it was a far cry from whatever my preconceived notions of "dance" were.

My takeaway was that I didn't need to "know" or decipher what ever scene "meant" to enjoy it. That there were extremely minimal props besides the women's bodies--namely, lights, music and a few parasols--is remarkable. And about those bodies: not only don't you see six naked women onstage very often, but seeing the range of bodies, from what I can only describe as butch, to plus-size, tattoos peeking out here and there. Their nudity was certainly a major component of the performance, which struck me when they came out onstage at the end to take a bow in a variety of clothing and styles that I'm pretty sure would've been distracting during the show. Seeing them move in all kinds of motions naked and utterly comfortable in their skin was moving and inspiring. It made me appreciate the strength it took to lift up another woman and make it look effortless, to be so seemingly at ease. That I admired greatly.

The highlight, for me, was seeing Hilary Clark rock out to a number that was just remarkable; she was at one with the music, hair whipping each way. It was this totally pure rock appreciation moment, and she took it into the audience, including dancing right on over to Baryshnikov. It was beautiful and glorious and then segued into a fight scene that was my second favorite, in slow motion. It was a strange sensation to enjoy watching women fighting, even if it was in the context of a performance; it was beautiful, and that kindof messed with my head, but it was also real. Women aren't always BFFs with each other, and the show touches on jealousy and outsiderness and being part of a group and excluded from one. At least, I think it does.

In conclusion, I really have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about and I'm obviously self-conscious about that, but in the spirit of writing is always better than not writing, a lesson I'm still slowly, painfully and expensively learning, I'm gonna share this because I am so glad I went to the show. It was beautiful and captivating and fascinating and utterly entertaining.

Read more: Time Out New York interview with Young Jean Lee

$6 for all you can eat cupcakes with me at our meetup tomorrow!

2012-01-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

Hope to see some of you tomorrow at our Cupcakes Take the Cake meetup, and if you can't make it, tell someone in New York City who likes cupcakes about this bargain! RSVP here. See you then!

Billy's Bakery Tribeca
75 Franklin Street
New York, NY

Happy New Year! We get to try all eight of Billy's Bakery new cupcake flavors. Maple Pecan, Lemon Poppy, Chai, Dreamsicle, Nutella, Chocolate Mint, Almond Pistachio and Chocolate Cherry. Bring an empty stomach and a friend! For just $6 you can eat all the cupcakes you want. Drinks and non-cupcake items are separate.

Literary blogs wanted

2012-01-12T16:19:00.000-08:00

If you know of any blogs/sites that cover literary fiction and nonfiction who'd be good to contact about Best Sex Writing 2012, pretty please let me know. The book is full of lots of political commentary, as it should be, but the more literary nonfiction also deserves attention. And I'll post the next call ASAP, but a heads up that I very much welcome submissions from literary magazines - see the pieces in the book from Guernica and The Rumpus for proof! Actually I welcome submissions from ALL over, especially the places you wouldn't expect to find "sex writing." Thank you! I'm really pulling out all the stops to make sure this book succeeds so anything you can do to support it is much appreciated. Obviously sales are awesome, but blogging about the book, asking your local library to stock it, passing it on to someone who might want to read it (or review it - you know I always give away freebies, just follow me on Twitter cause there are many more books coming out in 2012) would be wonderful. It'll mean the world to me to have this book find as passionate an audience as, well, me, as audacious and obnoxious and whatever other vile -ous words that sounds, it's what I want and hope and dream for this book that I poured so much of myself into.

Today's major cupcake accomplishment

2012-01-12T11:45:00.001-08:00

Justin Bieber (Fever) cupcakes galore! You're welcome. :)

Constance and Eric photo exhibit opens January 20th at SHAG

2012-01-12T11:29:00.000-08:00

I'm reading with other writers from The Nervous Breakdown next Friday at KGB Bar but am hoping to stop by the early end of the Constance and Eric photo exhibit, which runs from 6-9 at SHAG in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (108 Roebling, 2 blocks from the L train to Bedford!). Here's the official Facebok invite.They took this photo of me at SHAG, in fact (it's a great place for photo shoots):

and are awesome! Even if you can't make it on the 20th, stop in to SHAG for all sorts of amazing jewelry, pillows, lingerie, cards, sex toys and of course, my books. You can also order online from their shop.

From their blog:

Come out to Shag on the evening of Friday the 20th and see our first solo show.

There will be 14 new works hung in the main space and 3 classic pieces in the back room, all are single edition prints.

My latest essay: "Are New Friends More Exciting Than Old Friends?"

2012-01-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

My latest essay The Frisky on new friends vs. old friends. Didn't quote it but will always remember Girl Scouts and "Make new friends but keep the old/one is silver and the other gold." What do you think? Is there a friendship equivalent of "new relationship energy?"

At the same time, my friend K. was just in town from England. We met in 1998, via a Sleater Kinney mailing list, and have since visited each other a handful of times. I have a comfort with her that goes very deep, and we’ve seen each other through all kinds of relationships. There’s definitely something wonderful about friends who’ve seen you at your best and worst, who know how your past informs your present. I don’t want to sound like I’m throwing my old friends under the bus for younger, cooler versions. It’s not about age or “cool” per se, but perspective. Sometimes I get stuck in a rut of how I see myself, and that comes across with old friends.

Lately I’ve been so busy working that I’ve barely had time to see my closest friends, and sometimes I feel guilty about that, and like I shouldn’t be hanging out with new friends when I haven’t even hung out with my old ones. But I don’t think it’s a competition; true, there’s limited time and we may not get to see everyone we want to, but different friendships provide different sources of support. There are friends I mostly see movies with, friends I gossip with, friends I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets to without worrying about them judging me. One isn’t necessarily better than the other, but together they form a network that, collectively, props me up.

Read the whole thing

Outstanding Best Sex Writing 2012 review!

2012-01-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

I love this review of Best Sex Writing 2012 by Lily K. Cho on Amazon.

I received a copy of "Best Sex Writing 2012" to review last week, and after a few days of procrastination decided to crack it open. I ended up reading it in two nights! "Best Sex Writing 2012" is a fascinating and diverse collection of essays all related to sex. The subjects, styles, and viewpoints are wildly different, and yet they come together into a cohesive unit.I'll admit I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, b

ut that is the joy of this collection. There is something here for just about anybody. Well, anybody who is not afraid of sex! The stories I found a bit self-indulgent will undoubtedly be the stories that others may find inspiring.

For me, the highlights of this book were the ones that painted a picture of a life I have never known. I loved Marty Klein's article on circumcision; as a woman, there are some things I will just never understand, but after reading "Criminalizing Circumcision: Self-Hatred as Public Policy" I did find myself at least considering some things in a very different light. The story of Ketty Teanga described in "Latina Glitter" by Rachel Rabbit White also opened a window to an alien landscape, that of a trans performer who has seen a lot of cultural shift in her time.

Tracy Clark-Flory's "The Worship of Female Pleasure" inspired me to look within and maybe learn how to take things slowly... while "I Want You to Want Me" by Hugo Schwyzer made me determined to show the man in my life just how animal-sexy he is.

Tim Elhajj and Abby Tallmer manage to expose totally different sides of LGBT life in their stories "An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career" and "Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture," respectively. The first details a sailor's life way before DADT, while the second shows us the wild ride that was Manhattan's gay sex club scene.

I find it totally appropriate that it is editor Rachel Kramer Bussel's own contribution, "Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth About Kinky Sexting" that sums up the book for me. Her point is that one person's turn-off is another person's fantasy, and it's all ok, really. As I see it, some people like vanilla, some people like chocolate, and some people like rainbow sherbet with sprinkles and gummy bears. That's how "Best Sex Writing 2012" is... with all the flavors between its covers, there is something for everyone's tastes, and if you're willing to explore, you may find, like Chloe in Lidia Yuknavitch's "Love Grenade," you're licking something new... and loving it.

My latest sex column

2012-01-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

Free erotica by me at Goodreads

2012-01-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

I put up a couple free erotica stories from my anthologies on Goodreads. If you like the stories, there are hundreds more stories in my books! Each of the stories I'm posting is from one of my Cleis Press books, and I'll be adding to those to round it out, in between writing new ones for various anthologies as well as my solo short story collection.

Why cupcakes in jars are a security threat

2012-01-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

I quoted the official TSA blog in this post. Yes, cupcakes in jars are a security threat.

Gay sex diary

2012-01-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

This week's sex diary: "The Gay Corporate Strategist Wondering If He Has Daddy Issues"

There was all sorts of slang like GUD and NE LAC in this week’s sex diary that I had to ask what it was. I totally thought they would be gay sex slang but actually they’re universal. Read the diary to find out what they are and if you’d like to write an anonymous sex diary for nymag.com email me at sexdiaries at nymag.com and tell me why you’d make a good diarist.

Win this cupcake hand warmer

2012-01-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

Enter to win the cupcake hand warmer below at Formstack by Friday, February 3th at 5 pm EST, US only. Visit Cupcakes Take the Cake for lots more contests coming up. And do be sure to check out my 10 Valentine's Day cake pops post!

Want to read this novel based on artist Tamara de Lempicka: The Last Nude by Ellis Avery

2012-01-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

I'm a fan of the work of artist Tamara de Lempicka, so of course I'm interested in the new novel The Last Nude by Ellis Avery. Looking forward to reading it soon.

Official description (side note: I learn about one new thing in HTML each year, and last year it was how to do a block quote, hence this post's formatting):

Paris, 1927. In the heady years before the crash, financiers drape their mistresses in Chanel, while expatriates flock to the avant-garde bookshop Shakespeare and Company. One day in July, a young American named Rafaela Fano gets into the car of a coolly dazzling stranger, the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka.

Struggling to halt a downward slide toward prostitution, Rafaela agrees to model for the artist, a dispossessed Saint Petersburg aristocrat with a murky past. The two become lovers, and Rafaela inspires Tamara's most iconic Jazz Age images, among them her most accomplished-and coveted-works of art. A season as the painter's muse teaches Rafaela some hard lessons: Tamara is a cocktail of raw hunger and glittering artifice. And all the while, their romantic idyll is threatened by history's darkening tide.

Inspired by real events in de Lempicka's history, The Last Nude is a tour de force of historical imagination. Ellis Avery gives the reader a tantalizing window into a lost Paris, an age already vanishing as the inexorable forces of history close in on two tangled lives. Spellbinding and provocative, this is a novel about genius and craft, love and desire, regret and, most of all, hope that can transcend time and circumstance.

An interview with Ellis Avery at the very, very cool site Sheepish Fashionista, if you're into fashion and beauty products and all sorts of interesting intersections between those and literature. To wit, Avery was asked "Who is the best-dressed character you’ve created? How did you come up with and dress them? What does the way you dress them say about them to you?" and she answered, in part:

At the beginning of the novel, which takes place in 1927 Paris, Tamara is the artist and Rafaela is the muse. Over the course of the book, however, Rafaela discovers that she’s an artist too, albeit in the trivialized and demoted art of fashion. Rafaela begins this novel, which is very much a story about coming into one’s own, in a dress that she made by copying a pattern from Chanel, but by the end she has created a new dress from scratch, one that works a zipper into its design: this is an idea Rafaela comes up with on her own, long before she ever encounters a dress with a zipper by Schiaparelli or anyone else. Rafaela’s initial, Chanel-inspired dress is a form-fitting little number made of dazzling teal-blue raw silk, while the zipper dress that ends the book is an A-line piece made of slate-colored gabardine with darker gray piping. Rafaela’s zipper dress is designed to draw as much attention to its own construction as it does to its wearer: this is a novel about learning to depend on one’s art rather than one’s body.

A Yahoo! News interview of Avery (in which she also reveals she had to cute 120 pages!):

Q: You've said you were inspired by the paintings. How did you develop the story and the characters?

A: "I saw her work at the Royal Academy in London in 2004 and came away weak in the knees -- this is so gorgeous -- and the caption said that the young woman in the painting was the 'Beautiful Rafaela' from 1927, that she had met this girl on a walk in the Bois de Bologne and she became her model, and her lover. Their relationship resulted in six paintings, and it seems to have been a brief relationship. Then when I looked at her catalog, the very last painting she was working on when she died was indeed that copy of 'Beautiful Rafaela.' So 53 years later, this girl was still on her mind, which was thrilling to me.

"I got a book of her paintings and cut them out and spread them on the desk. All the paintings from 1925 to 1929, and looked at them for days. I read biographies of de Lempicka by her daughter, by others. I read a lot about her era. But a lot of the work was just looking at the paintings and at the people that she represented, and just trying to enter that world."

Author Emma Donoghue interviews Avery at Amazon:

Donoghue: At what points did you find you had to change a fact in order to make a better fiction?

Avery: First, if Tamara’s apartment and the train station had been on the same side of the Seine, there would have been no need for Rafaela to cross the river on a crucial occasion toward the end of the book. For that reason, although the biographical Tamara--whom I got to know through the excellent work of Laura Claridge--lived in what was at the time the newish-money Sixteenth Arrondissement of Paris, my fictional Tamara lives in the old-money Seventh.

Second, when I finished my first novel, set in 1880s Japan, I promised myself that my next book would be about English speakers. Of course, next thing you know, I’m fired up to write about a Polish painter who grew up speaking French. Partly because the biographical Tamara never specified the biographical Rafaela’s nationality or origins, and largely for my own sake, to avoid writing another book full of translated dialogue, I have taken the liberty of imagining an English-speaking Rafaela.

What readers are saying about Best Sex Writing 2012

2012-01-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

The reviews are in and I figured I'd let you take their word for what's inside Best Sex Writing 2012 (click to read my introduction), aka the book of mine I'm most proud of and think is, ahem, the best. I know that's totally subject but I'm just super excited about this book and the readings we're planning - so far on tap are readings in Portland, Oregon and Seattle and San Francisco and NYC. Also stay tuned for more contributor videos (I'm working on those) and in non-Best Sex Writing news, I'll be in Milwaukee doing an erotic writing workshop February 9th.

And thanks to everyone who participated in the BOGO offer! Stay tuned for more special offers.

But what I wanted to share were these reviews, which I think get at the heart of what the book's all about:

Five Stars - Fascinating, Engaging, Thorough, January 6, 2012
By mjims
This review is from: Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture (Paperback)The 2012 edition of "Best Sex Writing" is one of the most thorough compilations of journalistic writing I have ever encountered. Rachel Kramer Bussel and Susie Bright have done an excellent job of selecting pieces that address the year's most newsworthy events, as well as issues that I knew nothing about until I read this collection. Pieces that I was surprised to find in this collection (and are well worth reading) in particular were: a discussion of a ballot initiative to ban circumcision in San Francisco; a thorough examination of the John Ensign sex scandal, and the involvement of current presidential candidate Rick Santorum therein; an article comparing and seeking out the correct definitions of `premature ejaculation'; a fascination explanation of conflicting age of consent and child pornography laws. The list goes on and on. Also included are a large number of personal essays, both humorous and profound. Among them are an open letter to butch lesbians from the point of view of a femme, a touching treatment of sex at 66 years old, and a user's manual for a particularly complicated penis.

This collection is essential reading for anyone interested in the current state of the American sexual landscape. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is worth reading cover to cover; every piece in this book has something to offer for the curious and open-minded.

Provacative, bold, and well-curated, January 5, 2012
By Victoria Bloom
This review is from: Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture (Paperback)Erotic writer and anthology megaeditor Rachel Bussel and smart-ass sex activist Susie Bright have pulled together an intelligent, spirited, and thought-provoking collection of political and personal essays about sex in America today that makes you want to read in a private place. Not because you are embarrassed to read a sex book in public or because you're going to be aroused, but because you're going to want to talk back out loud to the strong-voiced authors of these no holds barred commentaries, either to yell "Hell, yeah" (for me, that was Camille Dodero's "Guys Who Like Fat Chicks"), argue back with the author (Marty Klein's "Criminalizing Circumcision"), cry a little (Joan Price's "Grief, Resilience, and my 66th Birthday Gift"), or just giggle outrageously (Susie Bright's "Why Lying About Monogamy Matters"). Tough topics like rape, sex work, queerness, STIs, sex and the military, and statutory rape get unapologetic coverage here, and though you won't agree with everything you read here, you'll certainly find that each and every essayist has been eloquent about saying their piece. Overall, an excellent collection, and worthy of the title "Best Sex Writing". I'll follow this series in the future!

Intelligent and Satisfying Writing about Sex (At Last!), January 4, 2012
By Donna G. Storey "writer and Japan scholar"
It seems every headline you see online or in the grocery store is a sexual come-on, promising the top ten secrets for superstud bedroom techniques or the inside scoop on the latest Hollywood nanny sex scandal. Invariably these articles fail to deliver anything but shallow clichés, leaving me to wonder why I wasted my time. Best Sex Writing 2012 is different. I could barely put the book down, and its power still lingers. The articles always made me think and often brought me to tears. Just as promised, the editors' wide variety of offerings--from humorous to poignant to fiery truth-telling--brilliantly reflect the complexity of sexuality today. And like all the best writing, these articles allowed me to empathize with people whose experiences are different from my own, yet also realize that these issues directly impact me. Joan Price's powerful memoir about the vitality of sex in our later years should be an inspiration to us all as we grow older. Hugo Schwyzer's unforgettable piece on the male desire to be wanted brought a new understanding of how both sexes are deprived of full personhood in our current sexual climate--and resulted in a very touching conversation with my husband. The fascinating variety of male desire, the dangers of shoddy journalism, the horrifying injustice around sexuality in our legal system, it's all here. I could go on and on with examples, but I'll conclude by saying I was very, very glad I read this book and would recommend it highly to anyone craving a thoughtful, provocative treatment of sexuality in our time.

sexy, powerful, hilarious & thought-provoking, January 3, 2012
By J. Kelley (Macon, Georgia)
I could not get enough of this book: exceptional writing, intimate conversations, and mind-expanding viewpoints on familiar controversial topics. A lot of sex scandals break all the time ... we're used to them by now. But these stories explain how the emotional hype and judgment over sex scandals keeps everyone from exploring sexuality safely and pleasurably. And in between serious stories about political cover-ups, careless and criminal language used in reporting, and criminalizing teen sexuality, there are stories that make you laugh, smile, feel sexy and dream about how great sex can be. Adrian Colesberry's piece is NOT to be missed. And "Love Grenade" by Lidia Yuknavitch was probably the hottest story I've read all year.

This anthology opens the door for more honest discussions around sexuality -- if we could talk more about the emotions, laws & the gray areas of sexuality, it wouldn't be so easy to judge & criminalize any part of sex that scares people.

Impressive collection of the year's best, December 31, 2011
By Robert T Bakie
Typically, I'm much more of reader of stories of sex (erotica anthologies) than stories about sex, but I've really enjoyed Best Sex Writing 2012 as evidenced by last night's speed read through it.

I guess I like to focus on the happy side of sex, without worrying about how someone's hang-ups somewhere are making someone's else's life miserable and so on. That's a pretty short-sighted view, I'll admit, and this book has plenty of content that doesn't fit that view at all. From the funny and honest "Adrian's Penis: Care and Handling by Adrian Colesberry" to Rachel Kramer Bussel's story on Sexting, it covers a lot of ground. Some stuff I'd caught as the year went on and some I'd missed out entirely.

Basically, it's a great book if you're any kind of sex geek, which, apparently, I am. :)

Eye-catching, informative, funny, entertaining, and sexy...best writing indeed, December 29, 2011
By Sam Chupp "sambearpoet"
This review is from: Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture (Paperback)I tend to read collections such as this in a non-linear format, thumbing through the book until something catches my eye. Well, every piece featured in this book edited by Rachel Kramer Bussell and selected by Susie Bright has its own eye-catching hook. My empathy was aroused reading Amber Dawn's butch/femme memoir in "To All The Butches I Loved Between 1995 and 2005: An Open Letter about Selling Sex, Selling Out, and Soldiering On," realizing that I have heard similar regrets from vanilla, straight folk. The cold terror of a pre-Don't Ask, Don't Tell Navy was made clear in "An Unfortunate Discharge Early in my Naval Career" by Tim Elhajj - which just makes me even more glad for DADT's repeal. There are humorous pieces as well: Love Grenade by Lidia Yuknavitch made me laugh at its sheer honesty and ebuillience about young lesbian road trips, Adrian's Penis: Care and Handling by Adrian Colesberry was gentle and sweet and funny in a sympathetic manner. There are topical pieces, explications of complex subjects like elder sex and child pornography and writings of slices of life in the Latina Drag community and the New York Meat Packing District gay leather community.

I enjoyed reading the work of so many curated for my attention and I am now left wishing it were 2012 and I could start to read the best of 2013.

A sexy, cute and thoroughly engaging read!, December 29, 2011
By Patrick M. Whitehurst "Whitehurst"
This review is from: Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture (Paperback)Rachel Kramer Bussel gauges hot blood with the accuracy of a thermometer. She's edited more sexy anthologies than almost anyone in the erotic literary scene. And she proves herself a true queen of the sexual word with her non-fiction effort - a smart collaboration with famed erotic author and "sex politician" Susie Bright. Bright chose the journalistic stories collected in the volume and penned a laugh out loud introduction that helps set the tone of the book. "Best Sex Writing 2012" counts as a marker in the world's sexual evolution, indicating the flavor and tempo of the planet's lustful ambitions at this particular point in history. Containing a number of non-fiction stories, some humorous, some sad, many sexy, the book ramps up society's sexual discourse to a new level, beginning with Amanda Marcotte's take on the SlutWalk and ending with Kevin Sampsell's hilarious "Pottymouth," the collection covers everything from transgender latinas, political sex scandals, religion and sex, dating with STDs and much more. I thought it would take me at least a week, with a rum and Coke in hand, to read the book. Instead it took only two nights. Lots of hot fun here.

Order Best Sex Writing 2012:

Amazon

Kindle (out January 10th - pre-order now)

BN.com

Nook (out January 17th - pre-order now)

Powell's

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

Yes, cupcakes are everywhere I go, even ice skating!

2012-01-06T13:48:00.000-08:00

Had fun ice skating in Bryant Park at Citi Pond today, screamed a lot, managed not to fall. And found cupcakes, but of course:

Free wine, cheese, haiku and single girls tonight at WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

2012-01-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

Firstly, Happy National Whipped Cream Day! Yes, it's today.

Join me tonight at 7 at 126 Franklin Street (G train) at WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with Anna David and Beth Griffenhagen. Free wine and cheese and skin care products!

I just got Beth's book Haiku for the Single Girl and it's hysterical! I have SO many favorites, among them:

On my kitchen floor
We fucked loudly, more than once.
Take that, married friends!

I like trysts with guys
From other countries. It's like
Stamping your passport!

Dear Future Husband,
Hope you like a.m. blow jobs
And pizza. Call me!

Best Sex Writing 2012 praise, sex diary, iPhone essay and photos

2012-01-04T04:39:00.000-08:00

A few things to share (though for faster linkage, try my Facebook fan page, and yes I know that sounds pretentious, sorry, or add me Google+).

My new book, the one with the buy one get one free from me offer through this Friday, Best Sex Writing 2012, was named by Creative Loafing Atlanta "one of the top 10 most provocative books out this month."

This week's sex diary (I'm the editor): "The 'Terrible Girlfriend' Making the Most of Holiday Sex" and last week's in case I didn't link to it: "The Marketing Consultant Getting a Blowjob at His Parents' House for Christmas."

I wrote an essay for Open Salon called "My iPhone Photos (all 5,000 of Them), Myself" along with some of those photos, like this one:

And over at Romance Divas I'm the Author of the Month, with an accompanying interview about Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples, which will be published this month and I'm very excited about! Read 16 hot excerpts here.

And last but not least: 11 Cupcakes I Liked in 2011! and Top 10 Cupcakes Take the Cake posts of 2011.

s'mores cupcake

Samoa cupcakes

Andes mint cupcake

Crazy Januaries

2012-01-02T22:06:00.000-08:00

We're only two days in to 2012, three if you are counting the 41 minutes that have just passed. I sortof skipped out on any New Year's festivities in favor of digging in to the work, which seems to create more of itself the more I tackle it, or maybe my faulty memory and reminder systems just clue me in to what's there. All I know is there is So Much and I hesitate to say it's anything other than a blessing; it is, totally. To think otherwise would be to fall into the same traps I did in 2010 and 2011, to believe I'm not worth anything worth having, and I've got the non-essays and non-books to show for it.

I want this year to be different. I want to enter it believing I can sustain myself, financially and emotionally and spiritually. I don't just want to end the year being proud, but each day. I don't want to have the regrets I started out last year with. Last year kicked off with Crazy January, which set the tone for the rest of the year. I spent so much of 2011 trying to remake and rearrange and recast that month of madness. I wanted to undo it, erase it, but I couldn't. Maybe that's the lesson I needed to learn but that took me many months more than it should have. You can't undo. Or unhear. Or unsee. Or unfeel. Or maybe you can, which presents a whole other question of whether we should want to.

That trip seems like so long ago, from another lifetime, when I was so worried about time. I wound up in an extraordinary (to me) sunny dispensary-filled Los Angeles with a babbling baby and new friends and all I could think about was the days I was "missing" at work, thanks to the snow. That's such a warped way of looking at time, but a necessary one when your time is allotted to someone else. Now that my time is allotted just to me, the days are different. They start out full of promise and I forget that hours have passed with my empty cup of coffee and a rotating case of neighbors. I realize I've been so deep in cupcakeland I've opened up dozens of tabs and ignored the stories waiting so patiently for my attention. Word doesn't jump up and down or otherwise call out to me like some of my other apps. It knows I know it's there. I'm not sure if I wish it were more blingy, flashing lights and reminders, luring me in.

So now it's 51 minutes into the third day of the year and those same documents are waiting for me, a little less patiently. One is about shame, where there's so much to say yet it's all equally scary, which is my half-assed mock excuse trying to pretty up my procrastination. Does it count as good writing if you write something that might sacrifice future writing jobs because of what you reveal? Others are stories that are so close to their ends, so close but not quite there. I'm afraid of those too. What if I look at them and have no entry point to wherever I was when I started? I know I have to go back, to dive in and even if it means tricking myself into a few words that sound awful and horrid and disjointed, to write them anyway. I know, yet I so rarely, even now when everything is depending on it, do I. That's my "job," I suppose, in 2012, to get there, to get back to the place where the words are what matters, not the outcome.

Maybe this January is just as crazy as the last one, but it's a more self-controlled craziness, one that starts and ends with me, here. It's not being told Oprah is evil or being promised a ride and instead offered kisses or standing in a hallway with bare legs and a pounding heart. It's a lot closer to home, literally and figuratively. It's sitting under a blanket and listening to cars going by. It's knowing what the human cost of failure is, the way it haunts your dreams, the way it is like a phantom limb, the almost-book, the chopped-off-essay. It's realizing there's a strong possibility that this daily practice, this digging down, this reckoning of 2012 rather than running away of 2011 is maybe, just maybe, not crazy at all, but the real path to those endings, happy or not.

One of my favorite photos of me from 2011

2012-01-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

Until I have time to post more here (though I am posting lots over at Cupcakes Take the Cake and hopefully will have some new writing to share soon), I'll give you one of my favorite photos from 2011, taken by Violet Blue, who you should visit at Tiny Nibbles! This was taken at Booksmith and I'm hoping to come back to the Bay Area and do a little West Coast tour through Seattle and Portland too - stay tuned!

Buy one get one free, and signed: special sex book offer, this week only!

2012-01-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! As a special 2012 offer, this week only, buy my new book Best Sex Writing 2012 and I'll send you any of my Cleis Press anthologies in print free, and signed! Offer good through Friday, January 6th, midnight EST, US only. You can preorder the ebook or purchase the print book from any store selling it, or directly from the publisher, Cleis Press (some helpful links are below); send proof of purchase to bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com with "BOGO" in the subject and let me know which of my books you'd like, along with your mailing address and, if it's not you, who to make it out to (they're all listed at the bottom, but Crossdressing and Bottoms Up are temporarily out of print). I'll send you a signed copy by the end of January! If this sounds like a good deal to you, I'd love it if you'd let your fellow book readers/sex nerds know. Thanks!

Purchase Best Sex Writing 2012:

Amazon

Kindle (out January 10th - pre-order now)

BN.com

Nook (out January 17th - pre-order now)

Powell's

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

Table of contents:

When the Sex Guru Met the Sex Panic Susie Bright

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex Secrets Rachel Kramer Bussel (see below)

Sluts, Walking Amanda Marcotte

Criminalizing Circumcision: Self-Hatred as Public Policy Marty Klein

The Worship of Female Pleasure Tracy Clark-Flory

Sex, Lies, and Hush Money Katherine Spillar

The Dynamics of Sexual Acceleration Chris Sweeney

Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better Sex Greta Christina

To All the Butches I Loved between 1995 and 2005: An Open Letter about Selling Sex, Selling Out, and Soldiering On Amber Dawn

I Want You to Want Me Hugo Schwyzer

Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift Joan Price

Latina Glitter Rachel Rabbit White

Dating with an STD Lynn Harris

You Can Have Sex With Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them Radley Balko

An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career Tim Elhajj

Guys Who Like Fat Chicks Camille Dodero

The Careless Language of Sexual Violence. Roxane Gay

Men Who “Buy Sex” Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies Thomas Roche

Taking Liberties Tracy Quan

Why Lying about Monogamy Matters Susie Bright

Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture Abby Tallmer

Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth about Kinky Sexting Rachel Kramer Bussel

Adrian’s Penis: Care and Handling Adrian Colesberry

The Continuing Criminalization of Teen Sex Ellen Friedrichs

Love Grenade Lidia Yuknavitch

Pottymouth Kevin Sampsell

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex SecretsRachel Kramer Bussel

I think about sex a lot—every day, in fact. I don’t mean that in an “I want to get it on” way, but in a “What are other people up to?” way. I’m a voyeur, first and foremost, and this extends to my writing. I’m naturally curious about what other people think about sex, from their intimate lives to how their sexuality translates to the larger world.

With the Best Sex Writing series, I get to merge my voyeuristic self with my journalism leanings, and peek into the lives, public and private, of those around me. This volume in the series doesn’t pull any punches; the authors have strong opinions, whether it’s Marty Klein sticking up for circumcision in the face of an effort in California to criminalize it, Roxane Gay taking the New York Times to task for its treatment of an 11-year-old rape victim, Thomas Roche calling out Newsweek for its shoddy reporting about prostitution, or Radley Balko examining a child pornography charge.

There are also more personal takes on sex here that go beyond facile headlines or easy answers, that aren’t about making a point so much as exploring what real-life sex is like in all its beauty, drama, and messiness. Whether it’s Amber Dawn and Tracy Quan sharing the truth about their lives as sex workers, or Hugo Schwyzer explaining the damage our culture does to men with its mythology about their innate sexual prowess, or Tim Elhajj’s first-person account of pre–don’t ask, don’t tell military life, these authors show you a side of sex that you rarely see.

What you are about to read are stories, all true, some reported on the streets and some recorded from lived experience, from the front lines of sexuality. They deal with topics you read about in the headlines, and some topics you may never have considered. They are but a small sampling of the many kinds of sexual stories I received in the submission process.

Part of why I think sex never goes out of style, as a topic or activity, is that it is so very complex. There is no one way to do it, nor two, nor three. Sex can be mundane or mind-blowing, and for those who are trying to get from the former to the latter, there is a plethora of resources but also a host of misinformation purveyed by snake oil salesmen.

In Best Sex Writing 2012, you will read about subjects as diverse as “Guys Who Like Fat Chicks,” the care an handling of a man’s penis, and the glamour and glitter of the Latina drag world. Abby Tallmer, telling a story set in a very specific time and place—the gay leather clubs of New York’s Meatpacking District in the 1990s—manages to capture why sexual community is so vital, and why, I’d venture, those who lack such a community wind up mired in sex scandals. Tallmer writes, “These clubs gave us a place to feel that we were no longer outsiders—or rather, they made us feel that it was better to be outsiders, together, than to force ourselves to be just like everybody else.”

I’m especially pleased to present stories about the kinds of sexuality and sexual issues that don’t always make the headlines, from Lynn Harris’s investigation of dating with an STD to Hugo Schwyzer’s moving look at men’s need to be sexually desired and what happens when boys and men are told that that wanting to be desired is wrong. Joan Price gives some insight into elder sexuality, as well as into what it’s like to purchase the services of a sexual healer. The topic of elder sex is often treated with horror or disgust, or the focus is placed on concern over STDs—which is a worthy topic this series has explored before. But Price, author of two books on elder sexuality (her piece here is excerpted from Naked At Our Age), obliges the reader to see the humanity behind her age. She writes, “My birthday erotic massage from a gentle stranger changed something in me. It showed me that I was still a responsive, fully sexual woman, getting ready to emerge from the cocoon of mourning into reexperiencing life. I realized that one big reason I ended up on Sunyata’s massage table was so that I could get ready to reenter the world.”

Not all, or even most, of the reading here is “easy.” Much of it is challenging and heartbreaking. Roxane Gay’s media criticism centers on a New York Times story about a Texas gang rape and why “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence” distorts our understanding about rape. You may think such a piece doesn’t belong in an anthology with this title, but until we rid our world of sexual violence so that everyone can freely express themselves sexually, we need to hear searing indictments of media or those in power who ignore injustice.

As an editor, I’m not only looking for pieces that I agree with, or identify with, but for work that illuminates something new about a topic that’s been around forever. The authors here dig deep, challenging both mainstream ideas about sex and a few sex-positive sacred cows. Ellen Friedrichs sticks up for the right of teenagers to be sexual without throwing parents, school boards, and other adults into a sex panic. Amanda Marcotte explores the fast-moving SlutWalk protest phenomenon, which has garnered criticisms from various sides, from being futile to only appealing to white women.

I will quote Abby Tallmer again, because I don’t hear the words “sexual liberation” often enough these days. What moves me most about her piece is that you don’t have to be a New Yorker, queer, leather, or kinky to understand what she’s talking about. I’m 100 percent with her when she writes, “Back then, many of us believed that gay liberation was rooted in sexual liberation, and we believed that liberation was rooted in the right—no, the need—to claim ownership of our bodies, to experience and celebrate sexuality in as many forms as possible, limited only by our time and imagination.” I hope this applies in 2012 just as much as it did in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.

The truth is, I could have filled a book twice this size. Every day, stories are breaking, and being told, about sex—some wondrous, some heartbreaking. This is not a one-handed read, but it is a book that will stimulate your largest sex organ: your brain. Whether you live and breathe sex, you are curious about sex, or somewhere in between, I hope Best Sex Writing 2012 informs, incites, and inspires you. I hope it inspires you to write and tell your own sexual story, because I believe the more we talk about the many ways sex moves us, the more we work toward a world where sexual shame, ignorance, homophobia, and violence are diminished.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this book and what you think are the hot topics around sex. Feel free to email me at rachel at bestsexwriting.com with your comments and suggestions for next year’s anthology.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York
November 2011

So long, 2011

2011-12-31T16:29:00.000-08:00

I'm immersed in words, excited about a big day/month at Cupcakes Take the Cake, and looking forward to 2012. This year has come full circle (cue the Suzanne Vega), and I'm grateful to be in an infinitely better space than I was a year ago. I never want to repeat the lowest moments of this year, yet I have to grapple with and learn from them so I'm not doomed to repeat them. 2011 grew me up in some vital ways, and I'm truly grateful for that. I had to think long and hard about what I want, what I don't, what (and who) I covet and why, about failure and success, both of which I experienced, about love and loss and faith and courage and ambition. I have an endless amount left to learn, but I am doing the daily work of making the best choices, of treating others as I'd wish to be treated, of living by the Serenity Prayer, though I'm still stubborn as hell about the things I can't change. So be it. HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

A friend's awesome holiday card (it says "cause we're having a blast!" on the other side, along with adorable photos)

Me looking at the bright side:

As seen in the window of Pas de Deux:

And the last two cupcakes I ate in 2011; click here for my review!

Yay! My super professional Best Sex Writing 2012 book trailer is here

2011-12-30T17:15:00.000-08:00

Please keep your fingers crossed that this Best Sex Writing 2012 it passes the approval of Amazon; it's been a huge goal of mine to get one of my book trailers embedded there and I'm 99% sure that will help with sales, but time and luck will tell. I'm so grateful for the chance to have had this shot in a professional studio for free. Bigtime grateful. Enjoy!

Order Best Sex Writing 2012:

Amazon

Kindle (out January 10th - pre-order now)

BN.com

Nook (out January 17th - pre-order now)

Powell's

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

I'm on Goodreads

2011-12-30T16:58:00.000-08:00

fyi, having trouble with their widget but you can add me on Goodreads here.

"Is Casual Sex Good for You?"

2011-12-29T08:21:00.000-08:00

That's the question I ask and somewhat answer in my latest SexIs Magazine column. And yes, I've gotten lots of feedback on the photo Dave Naz took of me below. I am not that photo's biggest fan, not because of Dave's photography, because of my own self-consciousness. Hoping to take a sexy photo from the front soon so I can switch it out.

Slightly haunted

2011-12-29T08:16:00.000-08:00

title inspired by the wonderful Lynn Miles, whose new album Fall for Beauty I highly recommend

I had a dream the other night, and what I can tell you is that the least surreal part of it was that in the dream I was having a conversation with a dead man (he wasn't dead in the dream). When he was alive, I cannot think of any possible scenario where I'd be sitting in with a friend interviewing him in a living room, but that's what happened in the dream. Then I had an ethical dilemma, did the right thing, and faced an even more wrenching emotional dilemma. I held my phone tightly in my hand and was so immersed in that decision that when I woke up because my neighbor was storming into their apartment, for a few seconds, I was still in that foggy dreamlike state. I thought I still had to make that decision: to call or not to call? I know that sounds vague, but that's the best I can do. I can tell you that the dream was a giant reminder of a lot of things that have been haunting me this year, my subconscious' way of saying: Don't let go, don't let go, don't let go. Oh, subconscious, if you only knew how little I've let go, you wouldn't need to send me such an insane, easily decipherable reminder, like a child's jigsaw puzzle of, say, 24 pieces, when I'm more of a 1,000-word piece puzzle type.

This is a weird time for me, both the wrapping up of a year that I'm in some ways very ready to leave behind, but also am clutching to, trying to rectify mistakes, make amends, catch up on work and all the goals I had for this year that I have to admit are not going to be done before January 1st. I'm excited about so many new possibilities next year offers, starting with just the idea of a clean slate. But a clean slate is not the same as a blank slate. I'm entering it with everything I've been and done, but I am trying, by any means necessary, really, to use that history to help me navigate the present and future, rather than keep me stuck in that past.

I don't always want to be the girl who is so immersed in one way of thinking, especially to the point that I can't step back, outside myself, and try to see life from someone else's point of view. That has been a huge challenge this year, but I am working on it. Charlotte Kasl writes in If The Buddha Got Stuck, in a chapter called "Notice the Stories You Tell Yourself:"

You can also notice how your stories can stop you from feeling joy or happiness. Many people get scared at the fullness and expansiveness of joy and try to push it away by jumping out of the experience and into a story. Instead of feeling awe at a glorious sunset, they distance themselves with a torrent of words or, even more removed, they bring up some problem they are having, or suddenly say, "Time to go now." Any form of strong energy, be it joy or sorrow, has the potential to shake loose parts of us that are hiding. It's like a big wind blowing through us. To get unstuck is to invite the wind in.

I haven't been the best about recognizing that a lot of the things I told myself this year, last year, maybe my whole life, were not necessarily true. They felt true, so I thought they were. Sometimes I wanted them to be true, wanted them so badly I was willing to ignore any evidence to the contrary. I catastrophize and I also do the opposite (is there a word for way too positive thinking?) and have trouble recognizing reality. When I do, especially the last week or two, I've been shocked at how when someone asks me how I'm doing I can actually say, "Good." And it has nothing to do with things or money or, for the most part, other people. Sometimes it's literally just the sun making its way through my mostly bare windows, or splashing down the street as I walk from my deli to my coffeeshop (I'm pretty sure that since I go to each almost every day and almost all the staff know me by sight, I can claim possession of them). Sometimes it's geeking out when I get to meet a little kid who melts my heart in approximately .01 seconds. Sometimes it's just sheer fucking gratitude, for not having to haul myself through the MTA every day. I always thought I was so grateful to live in New York for its public transportation, and while I am, this is the first time in ages that I haven't been utterly dependent on the subway, haven't had to race the clock, have been able to find my own rhythms, which sometimes means making awesome discoveries late at night.

Last week I got this Modern Love rejection and my first thought was not "That sucks" but "Ooooh, I am really proud of that essay, let me send it out to another editor." I was almost excited. It was surprising and awesome. Am I still impatient? Of course. I want to know right this second whether that editor likes it, or if I should send it elsewhere. I'm rarely that into something I write; usually I'm mentally on to the next thing, even while in the middle of one thing. It's part of what I'm trying to work through; if you can afford it, I recommend Vyvanse for cutting through that overthinking, but I don't have that luxury right now. My point was, though, that that rejection didn't send me into the "you suck" mindset it normally would.

Life is up and down; I'm up and down. I can't get too complacent, because the moment I do, I'm in trouble. So, yes, I may find myself when, reading Holly Cupala's excellent YA novel Don't Breathe a Word, immersed in the story, and then not. I see "Capitol Hill" and I'm in Capitol Hill, on my last trip there, so fully that I have to stop reading for a moment to process that. I don't know even what to wish for: to be someone who keeps reading? Who doesn't remember? Who smiles and nods, or medicates herself into a state of complete equilibrium so nothing can get past it?

I'm not gonna lie: I'm getting out of town for a little while next month partly because winter is not my ideal time of year. I'm already cold, and yes, I am going to Milwaukee in February (9th-12th, more on that soon), but it's a strategically planned trip to the beach, a little escape that I have high hopes for (but not opposite-of-catastrophizing-my-life-will-change-completely hopes). I got this vision in my head of me on a beach in my purple bathing suit, no phone, no distractions, just time and warmth. It sounded flighty and fantastical and then I realized I could make it happen and no matter how much transforming I do or don't do, I'm proud that I was able to make it happen. It's both an escape and an escapade. But you can't live your life in search of permanent escape. Okay, you totally can, and plenty of people do, but I don't want to be one of them. Instead of fixating on the transformation of escapism, I'm trying to be as present as I can possibly be, in the haunting moments, the mundane ones, and the blissful ones.

Food, wine, haiku and single ladies on January 5th!

2011-12-26T19:42:00.000-08:00

Join me, along with Falling for Me author Anna David and Haiku for the Single Girl author Beth Griffenhagen next Thursday, January 5th at WORD, 126 Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn (one of my favorite bookstores!).

My review of Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety by Sacha Z. Scoblic

2011-12-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite books I read in 2011 was Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety! Also one of the first I purchased for my Nook. I read it in pieces, and finally finished it last night. I cried. In a good/moving way.

My review:

It would be almost impossible to tell her story of the first year without alcohol without sharing what alcohol meant in her life, and Scoblic manages to weave the two together beautifully in this moving, sometimes funny, sometimes sobering (pun intended) memoir. She writes about how she relied on alcohol in multiple ways, and that when she took that crutch away, she was left with a lot of assumptions, about 12-step programs, about faith, about relapsing, that she had to reexamine. One of the most crucial parts, one that I related to, was the idea that faith and prayer are not just for believers. She writes about praying even though she doesn’t actual believe, or isn’t sure that she does, and that is a concept that was utterly new for me. From Unwasted: “I have found moments of prayer, as I snuggle into my white bed in my deep blue bedroom—like a woman floating on her own moon—when I get grateful about the man next to me, my little pooch, my groovy neighborhood, and our good health and lives, in which I can rediscover a sense of adventure about life and I can touch a small and wonder-filled current inside of me.” This concept permeates the book.

She includes extended fantasies about alternate worlds, from aliens to celebrities, where she might be “required” to drink, and these relapse fantasies, while fantastical, lend an important reality to the book. Scoblic did not simply hop, skip and jump into sobriety. She does not make it sound simple or easy, and doesn’t gloss over the challenges of being at a heavy-drinking company retreat or at a party where her old ways can no longer guide her. Toward the end of the book, Scoblic writes, “Until sobriety, the idea that I was someone worthwhile and unique a priori had not occurred to me. And, as I looked toward the blank sober slate before me in the mirror, a thousand discarded personas on the floor, I began to sense that this one last transformation—that is, become myself, which is what everyone tells you to be from the start—was going to be an awful lot of fun. I was going to reinvent myself as me.” By the actual end, as she writes about training for a marathon, a lifelong goal, I will admit that I cried. Scoblic does not pretend to have all the answers, but her vision of community, of strength and support, for running and sobriety, is an antidote to the loneliness she explores in the rest of the book, the loneliness and fear that alcohol momentarily removed from her. Her journey in exploring those dark spaces and discovering how to fill the gaps left by alcohol is touching, and should help give insight into alcoholism from a very poignant, personal perspective.

Sexy excerpts from my first 2012 anthology, Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples

2011-12-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

Irresistible is my first anthology of 2012; isn't the cover HOT? Guess what? The inside is hot too, and if you click here you can read excerpts from all 16 stores.

If you like these free short story excerpts from Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples (click on the title to read the full introduction), please click "like" on Amazon and check out the entire book! Thank you.

As you can read, it's got everything from outdoor sex to BDSM to strip clubs to the military and more. If you’d like to review it on Amazon by February 28th (books go out mid-January), email irresistibleantho at gmail.com with “Amazon” in the subject line and your name, US mailing address and “Amazon” in the subject line. Fans of meatier stories will especially appreciate this book (I will not be reaching out to Mr. "there's no married couple erotica" cause I don't deal with haters, but he should totally read this book for lots and lots of married couples fucking). I usually opt for more stories at fewer pages but with this book I have 16 longer-than-usual stories, so for those who prefer more depth to their short stories, this book offers that, along with more depth to the emotional relationships. All the stories, as befitting the title, involve couples.

Words to (try to) live by

2011-12-26T08:58:00.000-08:00

People have asked me a lot since getting laid off, "What do you want to do?" The truth is, I love all the varied parts of my work, the fun and community of cupcake blogging, the learning from interviews, the enforced deadline and honor of getting to write a sex column, the introspection and politics from personal essays, the creativity of writing short stories and, back to community, the thrill of getting to publish and pay other people and put together books that are greater than the sum of their parts. I do enjoy the mania of book promotion, the having someone design postcards and mailing giant packages of them, the posting excerpts, the making videos, though plenty of times that feels like useless awful busywork, fake work, even, like something that "real" writers don't do, but I'm trying to train myself out of that way of thinking. I'm also learning that when you hate it is the time to quit, and the best thing I did last year was end In The Flesh when it became clear that I was in way over my head. I know that's an option if things reach that point with anything else I do, but I feel that my job now is to find the time, creativity and energy to make sure I meet my goals and commitments, and keep pushing myself to actually take the next step, as petrifying as that may be.

I love getting to edit sex diaries every week and all the worlds that have opened to me since I shucked the poor fit of law school and stepped into a career, or rather, leapt without knowing a damn thing, that fits much better. At the same time, I don't romanticize brokeness. I have major debt I'm trying to dig my way out of. I want to move past the status quo and reach higher. I'm most proud of pitching and striving to break into new venues this year. I love traveling and won't always have frequent flyer miles. I said last year I wouldn't do any more readings and because I'm desperate for all the hard work that went into Best Sex Writing 2012 to pay off, literally and figuratively, I'm trying to swing as many readings in as many stores as I'm blessed enough to host me.

So...who knows where 2012 will lead? Certainly not me. But I want to approach it with a healthier attitude, not one of lamenting all I haven't done or feeling utterly overwhelmed, but welcoming each day's blank slate and blank pages, ready to be filled. I know I'm extremely lucky, and I cannot afford to waste my time here on earth, however long I'm lucky to get. So this is, as always, a very selfish post to remind me to keep on keeping on, and to love my days at Gimme Coffee as much as my days in far-away places.

Cupcakes cupcakes cupcakes!

2011-12-25T16:39:00.001-08:00

Head over to Cupcakes Take the Cake for lots and lots of holiday cupcakes! I'm so excited that 2012 will be the year of our amazing Cupcake Cruise (tickets are on sale now, and we'll have more details soon) and hopefully lots of amazing cupcakes.

Lesbian French fry flirting and rock star female dominance in my two new stories

2011-12-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

I've got stories in two hot off the press Cleis Press anthologies: "French Fried," my Parisian lesbian French fry flirtation story (Fuck Yeah French Fries indeed!!!) in Best Lesbian Romance 2012, edited by Radclyffe, and "Rock Star Rewards," about a rockstar and her groupie plaything in One Night Only: Erotic Encounters, edited by Violet Blue. Check them out!

A big excerpt (also at PGW, woo-hoo!):Rock Star Rewards
by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Anyone who tells you that fame is the biggest perk of being a rock star is lying; sure, the high of being onstage, the rush of hearing your song on the radio, the fact that I never have to commute on a subway train at eight in the morning again. There’s the fact that I can dye my naturally red hair an even more fiery shade of red/orange/badass and get applauded, not sent to HR. There’s meeting celebrities, even going to the White House once, and travel galore, and knowing that every day I get to see my art not boxed up or hanging on a wall, but alive, being hummed or sung or danced to. I love entertaining people, love being able to take my thoughts and feelings and turn them into a rock song that goes beyond words. But best of all, I love the boys who love me back.

Okay, “love” is overstating the case. I hunger for the boys who lust after me; they’re men, really, but I like to call them boys, even to their faces, and they like it too. They, my groupies, are the biggest perks of the job, by far. The kind of fan a six-foot-one Amazonian tattooed screaming redhead lead singer (of my band Fiery) gets aren’t exactly the type who’ll object to anything. I once had a boy come backstage and told him I wanted my own personal tattooer to put my name on his ass. No sooner had I said it than this sweet young thing dropped his pants! Even I don’t have an on-call tattooer, and I wouldn’t have gone through with it anyway; I just wanted to see what he would do.

We tour about ten months of the year; I’ve chosen bandmates who like the itinerant lifestyle as much as I do. Two of them, Steffy and Craig, are actually in committed relationships, while Benny is like me, the kind of guy who just goes with the flow. We’re in a city one night, maybe two, and we don’t form attachments, except to each other. We’re not lovers, though we have been known to take a tumble on the rare night when there just aren’t any groupies to our liking or we want a warm body to curl up next to far from home.Usually, though, what happens is something like what happened tonight. Our gigs usually end around midnight, and then the real show starts. Sometimes while I’m onstage, I’ll roam my eyes over the audience, try to pick out a boy who just looks like he’d be the perfect fuck. You might think that I’m not discriminating, but that’s far from true. I have standards, especially because this guy’s only gonna get one shot to perform. You don’t want someone so insecure or uncertain that he shoots too soon or can’t get it up. I want a guy who’s turned on by my power, but not so turned on that he can’t access his own, if fucking is on my agenda.

If I do spot a candidate, I’ll have our roadie, Genius (his nickname for himself, but one that, with his voluminous store of random knowledge, we’ve had to concede is pretty accurate), go pull the guy aside, give him a backstage pass. Does that sound sleazy? Well, so be it. Nobody’s complaining. I look for boys who I can toss around my hotel room, who I can pick up, throw across the bed, maybe take over my lap and spank. You work up a lot of adrenaline, not to mention aggression, when you’re onstage, and even playing the shit out of my beloved electric guitar isn’t always enough to get it all out of me. Besides, the guitar won’t fuck me back. These boys will.

Sometimes I think I should’ve been born a guy; I’m told I talk like one, cuss like one, and even fuck like one, but I don’t wish I were a guy. I like being a loudmouthed, smartass wild girl. I like being unpredictable, and I love having a new specimen of manhood to play with every night.

There is a magic to getting to start over, to have a human body at your fingertips, waiting to be explored. Tonight, it was Jacob. He was twenty-five, but looked a few years younger. He had black stubble set against his pale skin, and was wearing a slightly worse for wear t-shirt of ours from five years go, along with black jeans that had seen better days, and black and silver sneakers. I cared more about the look on his face than the look of his clothes, and what I saw when Jacob stood before me was pure adoration, like he was ready to worship me in every way. He already was, in a sense, as I flung myself all over the stage, flitting my eyes back to him on occasion. He clearly hadn’t brought a girl to the show, and his eyes seemed to bore into me.

If I were looking for a soul mate, I, like other women, might have a whole checklist of things I wanted to know: job, pedigree, hobbies. But since all I wanted was some fun for the one night I was in town, a way to let off steam, to keep on seeing that worshipful face after I’d gotten off the stage, I didn’t care about all that. What I cared about was how looking at Jacob made me feel: sexy, hot, invincible. During sex, I like to feel the way I do onstage, like the ruler of my own mini-universe. When I winked at Jacob, I saw the small gesture make its way through him; he knew what it meant, he knew what I wanted. After so long in this business, I can spot my special submissives easily.

There was no band t-shirt that said, “I want to be ordered around and made to lick a powerful woman’s pussy.” There was no hairstyle that could convey, “My dick gets hard when a hot woman growls at me.” It wasn’t a fashion statement, for me or for them, but somehow, we found each other. Powered by the adrenaline rush of knowing I’d have a boy to test out the new red suede flogger I’d picked up at a sex shop that afternoon, I blazed my way through the set list and even added two songs to the encore.

“Hot damn!” Genius greeted us as we left the stage. “Someone’s got a fan.” He was onto me; he was always onto me, and not just because I’d pointed out Jacob earlier. Genius could spot these guys a mile away, too, and sometimes I was kind enough to let him play with the ones I didn’t want, if they swung that way. He knew, though, that my music was powered by sexual desire, and that I was hungry to continue that flow of energy.

“Should I go get him for you?” The others just looked at us and rolled their eyes. They didn’t quite share our groupie-spotting vision.

“Nah, make him wait a little while. Give him these to play with,” I said, reaching under my short skirt to take off my sweaty

21 bondage erotica excerpts from Best Bondage Erotica 2012

2011-12-25T15:54:00.000-08:00

Best Bondage Erotica 2012 makes a great gift for the kinky person in your life! This book also features bondage expert Midori's foreword! For that matter, so does Best Bondage Erotica 2011. Here's excerpts from all 21 stories in the book; maybe I'll read "The Weight" to you if I get a chance. One of my 2012 goals is to finally put the voice recorder I bought last year into action. If you like these excerpts, please pass on this link and click "like" on Amazon and spread the word. Thank you!

Order Best Bondage Erotica 2012 from:

Amazon

Kindle (only $8.99!)

Barnes & Noble

Nook

Powell's

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)

Books-a-Million

Cleis Press

Melting Ice Shoshanna Evers

Taking the bowl containing the single ice cube into the living room, she sat on the couch and watched the ice. It hadn’t even begun to melt. How long would it take? Just the idea that it would be a while turned her on.

Because tonight, she was going to be handcuffed, unable to free herself, until the cube with the key in it melted. Her pussy clenched in anticipation.

While she waited for the handcuff key to freeze in the tray, she took the second key upstairs with the cuffs to practice.

She was so turned on that just walking made her clit rub against the seam in her pants, and she had to stop and take a deep, shaky breath. Save it for later, she told herself.

A Night at the Opera Elizabeth Coldwell

“Remember I said I’d make sure you couldn’t misbehave tonight?” I asked. “Well, these beautiful gloves are designed to help me do just that. Hands behind your back.”

“I don’t want to,” Jonathan murmured, in a tone indicating the exact opposite.

“Now!” I snapped, the word perfectly in time with a dramatic burst from the brass section. Jonathan pulled his hands away from his cock, so rigid and enticing it took all my willpower not to forget the game and simply order him to fuck me.

The lack of resistance as I guided first one arm, then the other, into the gloves told me how much Jonathan was enjoying being placed in this bizarre predicament. Some submissives fight against the process of being tied up every step of the way, their pleading and struggles all part of the game. Others complain their bonds are too tight, too loose, too inexpertly tied, whining and goading until the only response is to gag them and silence their irritating attempts to top from below. The easiest to deal with are those who embrace their restraint wholeheartedly, permitting themselves to give up all responsibility and handing the administration of their pleasure to their partner. Jonathan falls into that latter camp, letting me mold and twist him into whatever position I desire without complaint.

Darlene’s Dilemma Andrea Dale

Darlene had surreptitiously squirmed her way through breakfast, trying to no avail to find a comfortable position on the chair. She was stubborn enough to not want to admit there was no comfortable way of sitting in public when there was a butt plug buried in your ass.

Of course, the wriggling around made it worse, made her more aware of the silicone toy inside her. It wasn’t terribly big⎯she wasn’t into harming delicate tissue⎯but it was there, and it brought a flush to her face anytime Jaden or Sienna lubed it up and told her to bend over.

They allowed her to wear panties to breakfast, because they had a respect for the hotel’s antique chairs and didn’t want her staining the cushion.

Sienna was wearing a plug, too, but somehow she managed to look completely unconcerned and entirely comfortable. She didn’t find it as deliciously humiliating as Darlene did.

Snow White A. R. Shannon

“Snow white, just the way I like it,” he said, caressing my bare buttocks. “Like a blank slate.”

I didn’t understand.

If he liked it blank and white as snow, what was I doing tied to this chair?

“I like the first mark best,” he said. “I like to make that first mark, and then I like to watch as you change colors under my hand.”

I could feel him reach down and pick up the leather glove he’d brought with him. He held it dangling by the hem and let the empty fingers drag over my flesh, tickling me. I squirmed a little over the back of the chair and he chuckled.

Trophy Boyfriend Lucy Felthouse

Finally, the penny dropped. Understanding the new game at last, Ethan dropped his arrogant behavior and removed the rest of his clothes speedily. As the last garment landed on his pile of discarded clothinges, I spoke again.

“Get the chair. Put it in the middle of the floor, facing me. Then sit on it.”

This time Ethan didn’t need telling twice. I had no idea what he thought about this new dominant persona of mine, but it was clearly turning him on. His cock jutted proudly out of his pubic hair, pre-come already beading at its tip.

He sat on the chair and looked at me expectantly, awaiting my next move. I walked to where I’d placed my overnight bag and began rummaging inside. When I pulled my hand out with a pair of handcuffs dangling from my fingertip, Ethan grinned from ear to ear. Walking over to him, I made short work of cuffing him to the chair. I smiled as he pointlessly rattled his restraints. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not without the chair, anyway.

The Spider and the Fly Salome Wilde

He made his way into the private club, paid for a one-night membership and found his way to a little table in the back of the darkened main room with little fuss and eyes kept mostly to himself. Only when he was sipping a complimentary Coke (it was BYOB and he’d not remembered that, and he definitely could have used a stiff shot) did he begin to peek out at the crowd. There was a whole herd’s worth of leather, he noted, from jackets and miniskirts to chaps and bustiers. There were corsets and schoolgirl outfits and Lycra and more spike-heeled shoes and boots than he’d ever seen in one place. The men were far less decorative, on the whole, most going for leather and T-shirts or prim black suits with narrow ties. The majority paraded their submissive girlfriends or wives behind them or on ostentatious leashes. He could pick out the very few gay and lesbian couples easily enough, though there wasn’t a lot of difference in presentation. Both gender and role were on proud display. The few submissive men with their dominant women interested him most.

He stared at one young-looking guy in nothing but a cock cage, head down, sitting at his mistress’s feet. She was heavily made up, trussed into a corset and long black skirt, and was stroking his shaggy head with long, red nails. A “hetfemdom” poster couple, Nick concluded. Mostly, he found himself wishing he were at home with Paolina, naked and exposed to her desires and demands. Too much here was for show, and that wasn’t what kink was about for him. How much did Paolina really get into this, he wondered, and would it prove too great a wedge between them?

Tied Down Elise Hepner

“It’s over, Lexie,” Marley purrs.

It doesn’t matter that it’s the most expensive restaurant in town. Marley’s got a scowl on her puss that could piss off a mime. Those gorgeous cheekbones could cut me if I get too close and her light blue eyes burn with an intensity that makes me squint. But her model looks won’t detract from the problem, a slight bump in our road that has my stomach twisted in panic, even as my pussy gets wet and eager from her taunt.

There’s a pile of her “relationship notes” sitting in between us and, where her water spilled, purple ink stains the white tablecloth. All the reasons we shouldn’t be together, just there⎯as if we’re sitting at a business meeting. Maybe I can still work this exchange to my advantage. She’s always had a sticky sweet soft spot for my kind of lovin’, even from the beginning.

But it’s okay⎯she’s biting her lower lip. That means there’s hope. Even if it isn’t laid out on the pros and cons list next to my lobster that I ordered to be spiteful⎯across from the water Marley just spilled in her nervousness. Her nervousness is beautiful; it’s an emotion that rarely pushes through to the surface of her domineering and perfectionist tendencies. It’s a tiny chink in her armor, but I’ll take it. This is the most serious I’ve ever seen her. My chest tightens reflexively as I nibble on the inside of my cheek. Underneath her hard exterior there’s something gentle in her gaze as she considers me across the table. Could those three rapid blinks mean this is another sexy game?

The Cupboard Under the Stairs Kay Jaybee

The moment she heard the sharp click of the key turning in the padlock, her pulse drummed faster and her mouth dried.

Kristi slowly lowered the book she’d been reading to her lap. Mark was standing right behind her. She continued to look the other way as she spoke. “I didn’t hear you come in.”The minutes before it started were precious. Kristi took silent deep breaths, aware that her pussy was already twitching and her chest was swelling beneath her black satin bra. Perspiration dotted her palms.

As her long russet hair was gathered into a sleek ponytail by strong male hands, Kristi closed her eyes, and goose pimples covered the flesh beneath her shirt, as her husband’s fingers traced the length of her hairline. Her husband tugged her hair sharply, craning her neck backwards, making Kristi’s throat constrict with longing.

Speaking calmly, as if he was simply offering to take her to the movies, Mark said, “I know how much you’ve missed our special sessions while I’ve been working away, so I’ve arranged a surprise.” Without relaxing his grip, he began to knead Kristi’s left breast with his free hand, squeezing it roughly through her top. “I see you’re more than ready for the challenge that lies ahead, my dear.”

Suffer for Me Teresa Noelle Roberts

Martin said, “I want to suffer for you.”

I smiled. I tried to make it an aloof, catlike one, but my heart ached with a combination of tenderness and lust and I’m sure it showed on my face. “You’re such a good boy,” I said, continuing to stroke his long, brown hair. “And so beautiful. Why would I want to make you suffer?”

He was sitting at my feet, his head in my lap. He looked up at me, his eyes huge and lost, almost tragic. “Please...I want to be worthy of you, Mma’am. I want to suffer for you.”Martin was younger than me and new to revealing his own submissive nature. The admission had released a streak of dark romanticism, abetted by much erotica read with too little grounding in reality. I could chuckle about it, remembering my own early, fantasy-fueled explorations ten years ago, and yet his leather- and hemp- scented romantic fancies, his yearning devotion, had swept me off my feet just as much as my firm but sensual control had swept him off his. Now we were trying to figure out where to go from here. I was the experienced one, and I had definite ideas where I wanted things to go with my beautiful, biddable Martin, but a responsible Ddomme finds a balance between her own needs and those of her sub. This was especially important at Martin’s delicate exploratory stage, where a wrong move could sour his fascination not just with me, but with kink.

I tangled my fingers in his hair, tugging cruelly. “If you weren’t worthy of me, you wouldn’t be here,” I said, dropping my voice to a low, ominous register. “Do you question my judgment, or my taste?”

Dry Rub Giselle Renarde

The chair jerked twice, and she realized Terry was trying to raise his hands to grab her before remembering they were tied to the sides of the chair. She still had a grip on his hair, and his face looked so pitiful in her hands that she almost wanted to laugh. He was desperate, poor boy, and she wouldn’t give in. Tonight he was a tool of her pleasure, nothing more. She stroked her pussy harder against his cock as he struggled to free himself from the pretty peach napkins. Her mother had bought them as a gift for special occasions. They’d never used them until now.

Today had been its own sort of foreplay. Shaving her pussy and squeezing into this school uniform had made her pussy pulse hot beneath her skirt. Now, with the pressure of Terry’s dick and the smooth heat of the leather, her clit was throbbing like it had its own heartbeat. It wouldn’t take long to come. In fact, she could feel her orgasm sitting like a trembling itch at the base of her pelvis. She knew just what would get her there.

Releasing her grasp on Terry’s hair, she quickly unbuttoned her top. As she shoved her tits against his face, his mouth moved like a magnet to the nearest nipple. When he sucked it into his hot mouth, she felt that velvet sensation of tongue on flesh all the way down to her clit. Bolts of energy passed through her, setting off sparks in her cunt as she writhed against his cock. She felt hazy now, like her body was something separate from herself.

Worth Redemption Craig J. Sorensen

“I’ve forgiven you, William; you’ve forgiven me. You have to forgive yourself.” You touched my chin to lift it. My eyes remained fixed downcast. My resistance was cracking. So tempting, but so strange. So similar, but so far from our usual. You must have known I was giving in. Silently, swiftly, you took me by the hand and led me home. You stripped so suddenly, so certainly. Strange how meek and small you looked, which is not you, not even in submission, Dana. You took the cross from your neck and suspended it from the center headboard finial. You pulled the covers from the bed like a matador and fell in the middle of the nude bottom sheet. Your body opened wide like grand double doors to a temple.

You seemed so supple as I put your left hand in the first steel bracelet. Your right hand balled into a fist, your arm twitched. A fish nibbles at bait, the pole slightly bends; resisting, but hooked, just a small fish. The fist relaxed into the second bracelet and I closed it. You scissored your legs after I cuffed the left foot, and it took a hearty tug to spread the right, but I know how strong your dancer’s legs are. I felt you relax your grip. I paused. You didn’t say a word. It was the point of no return. I pulled my hands away. The foot stayed in the cuff. I locked it. You gave a tiny nod.

We’d done this sort of thing so many times before, I knew all your boundaries. This was different. I lifted two meticulously folded silk scarves you had placed on the nightstand, and wadded the first.

You opened your mouth. I stood motionless.

Laced Elizabeth Silver

The pull on my arms eases just enough so I can straighten, and I gulp for breath, even though I have nowhere to put the air. Stefan keeps my wrists pinned in one of his hands, holding me close, petting my stomach with his other as he kisses my neck, kisses my collar.

He doesn’t ask me if I’m good, but I really am when he stops petting me and starts wrapping my wrists in the tail ends of the corset laces. Jesus fuck, I think, and flex my fingers as he binds me to my clothing, my arms behind my back. Now there’s no getting out of this without him, no quick release of the corset unless Stefan decides it’s time. I am completely at his mercy.

It should scare the hell out of me, and it does, but at the same time, it feels so goddamn good to let go of it all. Every last responsibility is his now, and all I have to do is just fucking enjoy it. And I really am; my body feels like it’s been plugged into a live current, and if I had enough room in my lungs, I’d say I feel like singing. I want to tell Stefan all this, but how do you say that you feel the most free you’ve ever felt in your life by being tied up, and please, please, don’t fucking stop?

Instead, I twist in both his and the corset’s grips, and offer him my mouth. He kisses me back, a warm and wet invasion that takes what little breath I have away, and we’re both panting when he pulls away and yanks on my arms, forcing me to face front again. He’s just as flushed as I am, grinning as he rubs his cock against my ass; I’m pretty sure he got my message loud and clear.

Pawns Billey Thorunn

He went to give her their usual hug but froze when he saw what she was wearing. Or rather, wasn’t. He glanced at her bare collarbones, eyes moving down her cleavage before skipping shyly to the floor. Instead of relief, there they found shiny red heels. A dancer turned yoga teacher, Kate was calm as she watched Chris’s eyes move up her sculpted legs. When they reached the midthigh hem of her apron they jumped back to the floor.

“It’s okay, man, look all you want. We went over this—that’s what the day’s all about.” Gabriel came up and clapped Chris on the shoulder. “Come out to the balcony, I’ve got the chessboard set up.”

Chris gave a small laugh and relaxed a little. “You’re crazy, Gabe.” He looked at Kate, who had returned to the kitchen and was pulling glasses down from a shelf. The apron didn’t reach around her back and her teddy barely covered the curve of her buttocks.

“You’re both crazy.”

Cumaná Helen Sedgwick

First he lifted my left hand. I felt rope tighten against my skin. He pulled my arm up to the top corner of the bed, securing it somehow. I held out my other hand obediently, and he guided it towards the other corner, fastening more of the rope around my wrist. I lay there, waiting, tensing against the knots that secured my hands above my head. One by one he took my ankles and pointed my feet to the corners of the bed, spreading my legs wide open. Moving slowly, deliberately, he tied them down. I strained against the rope, but it was tight. He made no sounds, no more movements. My heart was racing. I could still hear the music from outside and voices chattering; I was glad I wasn’t down there. Something in me shifted; my eyes stopped straining to see through the satin, my limbs relaxed, my skin stopped shivering, my breathing slowed. I felt my mind slide to a place it didn’t usually go, and I started holding my breath. He turned on the air- conditioning, and I felt a cold rush of air over my skin. My nipples hardened instantly, a shiver moving up and down my body.

“Don’t move,” he said.

His fingers stroked my skin from my elbows to my armpits, the sensation making me conscious of the soft exposed underside of my arms.

Good British Steel Lana Fox

At the window, the curtain was only half closed and the moonlight spilled across the Roman statue, a bust of a boy in an ivy crown with vacant eyes. I burned as I remembered Rupe’s sword slicing through the darkness, and I dreamed of the steel pressed onto my sex as I rubbed against it, wet.

At last the door opened again, and Rupe walked toward me, after closing the door behind him. “How’s my little captive?”

I shivered with longing. Then came the swish and glint of metal as he unsheathed the weapon with a flourish. Wielding it in front of him with the tip pointing upward, he took a step toward me. “Spread your knees.”

Slowly, I did as he said.

He moved closer, the sword still held between us, close enough that I could smell his scent. With a glare, he told me, “Lick it.”

Parting Ways Tenille Brown

Maggie stood there, stunned and mesmerized all at the same time, watching through a crack in the door, her feet seemingly glued to their spot.

Derek was sitting in a chair, naked. There was wide gray tape over his mouth and binding his wrists as well as his ankles to the chair.

Almost as tall as Derek, the woman stood over him, smiling deviously. And she was naked, too, except for the black patent leather stiletto heels and bangle bracelets.

Glancing just behind her, Maggie saw the woman hadn’t always been naked. She had shown up in a red shirt and gray slacks; a long white lab coat thrown over the sofa bore the name FELICE.

In the chair, Derek was hard, hard in that tantalizingly solid way that drove Maggie wild. His cock rose up, bounced forward and back.

Maggie struggled to identify the emotion that coursed through her body as she watched the scene that was unfolding before her eyes.

Knot Alone Kathleen Tudor

I keep a full-length mirror in my walk-in closet. It’s a freestanding antique, made of dark, polished wood that seems to catch the shine of the lights as I dress in front of it every day. Today is special.

I carry the heavy mirror out of my closet and set it up in my bedroom where it shows off my body in the best possible light. Today isn’t about hiding in closets or being secretive; today is about celebrating me.

I’ve met a few so-called Doms in the scene. They’re punks and jackasses or dirty old men. I’m sure there are exceptions out there, but the good ones, the kind of men I dream about, they’ve already got their girls, and they don’t seem to bother with the dirty little bondage clubs downtown.

What I dream of is a man who can drop me to my knees with a glance or turn my cunt liquid with one steamy gaze. I want a man who earns his control over me—a man who can make me beg him to control me. He’ll be nothing like those boys at the clubs who try to order me around and hope I’m in the mood to obey. No, he’ll expect me to listen, and he’ll command me with no doubt or hesitation in his voice, and when he does…

The Insurrection Valerie Alexander

Our gazes locked. Then I looked around for the rope that had to be there. Different lengths of what looked like six-millimeter hemp were coiled under the coffee table.

I held one up. “Try me.”

He smirked and held out his wrists like a prisoner. “Okay, cowgirl.”

That was the wrong thing to say. I pushed him facedown on the sofa, bringing his arms behind his back. “You’re not that fast,” he said, turning his face to the side so he could talk. Jackson always talked during sex, could never stop lecturing and pontificating and educating. “I could still get away at this point.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for my next abduction.” I skipped all the fancy knot work and went straight for incapacitation. I toyed briefly with the idea of hog-tying him, but decided it would limit his uses too much.

He jerked experimentally against the rope. “Not bad.”

Neither of us said anything, and he forced a laugh. “You going to leave me like this, compadre?”

“You sound nervous.” I ran a fingernail down his long brown back. “Afraid I’m going to violate your maidenhood right here on the sofa?”

“Impossible. I’m inviolable.”

The Tipping Point Lolita Lopez

Mia shivered as Cal brushed the looped end of the braided rope against her collarbone. The silky rope followed the curve of her naked breast, teasing the stiff peak begging for attention, before sliding even lower along the sloped plane of her bare belly. Cal playfully swatted the tender lips of her sex with the looped braid. Mia hissed at the sting and pressed back against the stone wall. The shock of the cold masonry on her hot skin forced her ramrod straight.

Cal’s fingers tangled in her black hair. He claimed her mouth with a possessive kiss, his tongue darting between her lips and swiping her own. A hint of peppermint licked at her taste buds. She gave a little mewling sigh and shoved her aching breasts against his chest. The pearlescent buttons lining the front of his crisp cotton shirt lightly scratched her flesh. Cal abandoned her lips and nipped the edge of her jaw. His teasing bites moved ever lower, sliding along her throat to the swell of her breasts. He sucked on one nipple and then the other. With his tongue and teeth, he teased her erect nipples until they were glistening and ruddy.

Mia breathed heavily as arousal blossomed in her chest. Her pussy ached with need and seeped its slick juices. Already she could feel the sticky wetness pooling between her thighs. She squeezed her knees together in a desperate attempt to calm the overwhelming urge to open wide and beg Cal for his cock. A deliciously dirty image filled her mind: Cal taking her up against the wall as she clutched at his shoulders and sucked on his earlobe. She bit her lower lip at the phantom sensations of Cal pounding into her.

The looped end of the rope caressed her cheek. Cal fixed her with a searching gaze. She swallowed hard and gave a little nod.

As Long As You Don’t Wake Me Neil Gavriel

She climbed on my face and ordered me to use my tongue. “And use it well, or there will be consequences.”

She’d never been this imperious with me before, and I found that I was slowly sliding into a deeply submissive version of myself that I barely recognizedknew. I had a sudden sense of myself when I was young, and I’d first been exposed to bondage, playing “Han Solo frozen in carbonite” by wrapping myself tightly in an afghan and lying on themy couch, not moving for hours at a time. It was almost meditative, my current predicament, and I had only the sensations of my tongue inside her wet, slick pussy, and my cock vibrating slightly from the rubber ring around it.

It snapped me out of my reverie when she came again, this time even harder, and she ground her face against my mouth and nose until I was gasping for breath. I felt used; I was merely a tool to provide her orgasms. I was always, I felt, a selfless lover, but at that moment I felt barely necessary or regarded, and it was an immense turn-on for me.“How’s this little thing doing?” she asked, flicking my cock.

I didn’t answer, for fear of reprisals. She slapped me.

“I asked a question, cock,” she said.

The Weight Rachel Kramer Bussel

I settle into my favorite position: naked, facedown on the bed, arms by my sides, legs slightly spread. I’m not moving, but inside I’m twitching with excitement. I wait, like this, for Damian. He’s in the kitchen but he knows I’m in our bed, eager, hungry. He knows he is the only one who can give me what I need. Now he does, anyway. I’m pretty sure when we first got together all those years ago, he thought it was just my kink or fetish: get on top of me, hold me down, provide that rote set of actions that get me off.

I didn’t know how to tell him for a long time it wasn’t that at all; it was him. He was my fetish, he was my everything, which made it easy to give so much of myself right back to him. It didn’t even feel like a choice. Better for him to think I was just a kinky girl, rather than kinky for him. He already held so much power over me after that first time, another bit of it might set me permanently in the cage he’d placed me in, the one whose invisible bars I met everywhere I turned, with every thought that passed through my mind. He’d invaded me inside and out, to the point where he didn’t need to do or say anything to keep me in place. He had me, every inch of me. I was only twenty-two, but I knew exactly what I wanted and, once he sank his claws into me, what I needed.

“No,” I told him, looking up at him and blushing as I felt the tears rushing to give me away. “Just you. All of you.” He’d looked at me for a long time. I could sense the smile along his lips even though he didn’t dare show it to me. He likes to look stern even though I can read him just as well as he can read me and I know that while it’s not an act, there is a heart as tender as mine beating beneath the layers of menace he slips into when we are together. He manages to make the transitions seamless, though, so I never know which Damian I will get, how rough he will be, how deliciously far he will push me.That first night was a lot like tonight, but no matter how many times I prepare myself for Damian, I’m never truly prepared. I couldn’t be, even if I could peer into the future with some kind of kinky crystal ball. Some things you have to live through moment by agonizing, dazzling moment. He steamrolls over my anticipation, crushing it like he crushes me, until I am a blank slate. Oh, he likes my dirty mind well enough, the fantasies I cook up and spin for him, but he wants me to know they’ll never come true, not exactly, not the way I conceive of them, anyway. His fantasies will, and do, and he will make them mine whether I like it or not, even though I always wind up liking it, even when I’m literally kicking and screaming.

Sometimes my fantasies morph into his, or maybe it’s that they merge. Maybe it’s that what I think I want is never actually what I really do, or that when the fantasy comes alive, like now, it’s more intense, more scary and far more arousing than I ever could have predicted. Damian takes away my predictability the same way he takes away my mobility, my breath, my agency; they’re there, and in a flash, they’re gone. I could protest, but he knows me too well for that. I like offering those elemental facets of my being to him, only him. I like the way he looks when he knows I’ve stripped away even the flimsiest of barriers between us. Too many of my exes thought stripping was about the skin, about getting naked, and that was all it took to see all of me, to capture me. How little did they know. I’m the queen of the invisible cover-up, but Damian can induce fear and lust and a scarily possessive passion all with a look, even with my clothes on. So now, when I’m bare in every sense of the word, is when the real magic happens, when I truly come alive, and so does he. I can almost see the power shift animate him, light him up like a rocket about to shoot into space, only it’s my space he’s about to barrel through; the spaces inside me, the ones I’m not even aware I’m clinging to, he’s about to invade.

There’s nothing showy about this. If you were watching us, you’d see a large white man lying on top of a smaller white woman, if you could see her at all save for her brown hair splayed across the sheets. There are no pillows beneath me; he is pillow enough for both of us, even above me, his heavy softness cushioning, momentarily, what he is about to do. I’m aware we could be on the floor, we could even be on the sidewalk; he could get me to do that, I’m pretty sure, my cheek pressed to the filthy concrete, drool leaking out of my mouth. So any lack of amenities simply makes me more conscious of what I do have in this moment: him, his body, every last ounce. I don’t know how many there are, ounces or pounds, but I know there are a lot. I know he can easily scoop me up into his arms. I know the guards size him up when we get on a plane. I know he is not just big, but huge, so when he is on top of me, I am small, able to be crushed, flattened, compressed.

Sinfully awesome tights!

2011-12-25T10:43:00.001-08:00

I love these tights! They're my friend Denise's tights (and legs!) and she got them on Etsy.

Email reminders

2011-12-24T09:28:00.000-08:00

I rarely print out emails. It seems redundant and wasteful. I can access them at the press of a button, because I never delete them. But once in a rare while I do print out an email. It's something that I don't just want to read on the screen; its words look different in stark black on crisp white, rather than the glow of a computer screen. I had printed one such email, copying and pasting the words from gmail into Word, then printing the 8.5 by 11 page and folding it in half. I tucked it into one of several books I used this year as a wallet. I didn't forget that email—that would be impossible—but its precise details had eluded me.

I woke up this morning and needed a piece of scrap paper; I keep daily lists in my phone but often crave the feel and look of my pen on actual paper, the liquid imprecision of the ink oozing onto the page, making letters fatter or thinner, perfectly imprecise, personal, mine. And I saw this one email I'd printed. For the first ten to fifteen minutes that I'm awake, my mind is foggy. I usually first fumble for the light, unless I first pause and assess what day it is, what time it is, what was the last thing I did or thought before I went to sleep. So it took a sentence to realize that this was the prequel to the other email I found on a folded-in-half piece of paper in my living room the other day.

I should know them by heart. They are twin bookcases to something that started and ended so fast yet seems to have lasted forever. A smarter girl might burn them, or, okay, a very smart girl might recycle them, but I don't. I put each back where I found it and resist tracing my fingers over those words, thinking them might akin to my tattoo, slightly raised, somehow alive. Reading them in succession, no matter the order, is not something I do easily, because they are stark reminders of the best and worst of my 2011.

Right before I found this one I was reading the new book The Moment, a collection of "wild, poignant, life-changing stories." Perhaps it's audacious to call the moment after I first read that first email "life-changing," but it was for me. It was a moment when I saw something in myself that I hadn't seen before. I let this space inside me shift, crack open, make room. I let it reveal itself to new possibilities, a new way of remaking a relationship that was dying, and taking me with it. That space was one I knew required a gigantic leap of faith but I took it, right then. It wasn't even a question, really, a weighing of what would happen if I jumped right in, or if it was, my heart had already jumped for me and I was simply catching up.

That space inside me was one I had to make for myself; certainly nobody was going to make it for me. Certainly it's not one our culture readily embraces and no matter how much you push yourself to live outside that culture, if you live in it's part of you, embedded, so even stepping outside of it means walking through it to get to that outer circle, and for me it's like always having some small part of me touching it, getting shocked by it but unable to fully separate.

And that's where I was in that moment, not quite fully shocked by what I'm supposed to want, and not quite all the way into what I did want, but somewhere in between. I've spent a lot of time, probably more than is healthy, since pondering that space, its beauty and its imperfections. As precarious as that space was, it was somewhere I felt at home, at peace.

Recently, I thought about making a list like a friend of mine did of everything she wanted in a partner, down to the most minute detail, and before that idea got way too overwhelming one of the first things I came up with was someone who would accept me for me and not judge me. I felt so comfortable in that space that feels dreamlike looking back because there wasn't that judgment that I feel so much of the time, or at least, I didn't sense it. It's a rare thing, to be nonjudgmental, to be open, to take people where they are rather than where you want them to be. I struggle with that every single day. Maybe it's a very human impulse to want to see others in what we think is the best light possible, so human that we forget that "best light" is subjective.

So anyway, these five months later, I saw those words and I didn't rip them up or burn them or try to erase them. I could, and I might sometime, but that's the thing about words—they never truly go away, especially once you write them down. Maybe you add to them, or disagree with them, disavow them, but there they are, still being reckoned with, still powerful.

I have so many things I want to do differently in 2012, which I'm trying to think of in a positive way rather than, "Look at all the things I fucked up in 2011," cause that's way too depressing, and much as the moments after that moment were dark, shall we say, which is a grand understatement, one of the things I most want for 2012, what I managed to squeeze into five letters on my arm, four on my back, is not to reject those moments when something shifts inside me, when a space opens and leads me to a new way of being myself. It would be incredibly easy to override those impulses, train myself out of being the kind of person who has them, to brace myself inside and out when anything or anyone threatens to get that close, dares to wade past all my armor and even foresee a space like that existing in someone like me. But like one of my muses this year, the character Musa, who I saw sitting in the innermost circle of seats during Musa and Sheri in the Free World this year, I don't want easy, at least, not at the expense of...I don't even know how to end that sentence, actually. Sorry. I'm not saying I want its opposite either, I want to be clear about that (hi, universe), but easy simply for the sake of ease, no. I want everything that email that's tucked back inside its bookish home promised, as crazy and audacious and ridiculous as that might be, as much as my realistic side knows I might never get that. I don’t want to be someone who stops wanting.

Erotica audiobooks: Listen to me now at Audible!

2011-12-23T08:27:00.001-08:00

Cleis Press and Audible.com have paired up to bring you audio erotica! Several of my anthologies, as well as some anthologies featuring my stories, are now available for your listening pleasure. Below are links to Amazon, and you can also buy directly from Audible. I haven't heard them yet but think this is a very cool new way of getting erotica out there. If there are more, I'll link to them.

He's on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission

She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission

Orgasmic: Erotica for Women

Passion: Erotic Romance for Women

Hide and Seek: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists

Best Sex Writing 2010

"Do you like dick or vag?" and other negging pickup lines I heard in Vegas

2011-12-23T06:38:00.000-08:00

Haven't had a chance to catch up on everything here, but my latest pieces (other places I post my links at Google+ and my Facebook fan page), for whatever reason posting everywhere else but Lusty Lady has been easiest for me) but here's a piece I wrote for The Frisky, "Let's Talk About Negging", about a guy I met in Vegas (of course it was in Vegas!) who told me my dress was ugly, my name was fake, and asked "Do you like dick or vag?" Really.

Instead, he asked me my name three times, each time demanding to know if it was my real name. I’m no expert on fake name etiquette but I’ll go out on a limb and say that if a girl’s going to make up a name, it’s not gonna be as generic as “Rachel.” The more he asked if my name is real, the more accusatory he sounded, and if he thought I was making up my name, surely anything else I said would probably sound just as ridiculous.

I didn’t need to worry, though, since he wasn’t big on small talk, and every question I asked him he managed to evade. “What do you do?” I asked, not in the New York one-upmanship kind of way, but out of genuine curiosity, considering I knew absolutely nothing about him. “You don’t need to know,” he told me, like I’d just asked him for a trade secret. True, but it seemed like a pretty basic question a guy trying to pick up girls might expect.

Instead, he pounced on the idea that he’d somehow managed to interrupt an incipient lesbian tryst with my friend simply with the power of possessing a cock. He asked me over and over, any time there was a lull in the meager conversation, whether I was “with” her, as in, on a date. I told him repeatedly that she was just a friend (if she was my date, why would I suddenly ditch her?), but he didn’t believe me. Then he busted out with “Do you like dick or vag?” At first, I wasn’t sure what he said, since no one has ever asked me whether I’m bi in quite that gross a way before. When it sunk in, I told him, truthfully, “Both.” He acted like this was a more offensive answer than either of the others I’d come up with, including my “fake” name. Up unil then he had his arm around me, but he moved as far apart from me as he could while still be seated in the chair next to me.

Read the whole thing

Shame, Sex Addiction, Sleep and Food Porn

2011-12-17T06:49:00.000-08:00

Haven't had a chance to update here lately (for that, read my Tumblr and @raquelita on Twitter) but here are some recent writings:

"Shame, Sex-Positivity and the Sensationalizing of Sex Addiction"

"30 Hours of Sleep, or, The Fantasy of Escape" (realized later could equally accurately be "and The Fantasy of Escape" but hey, whatevs, I write at Open Salon for the community and the sense of completion, both things I don't have much of these days)

"Why Nigella Lawson's Caramel-Covered Photo Shoot Was Food Porn"

Kinky BDSM spanking sex diary this week!

2011-12-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

I imagine this week's sex diary "The Kinky Blogger Who Gets 'Maintenance Spankings'" will be of interest to many of you (I'm the editor). Here's a snippet:

He pulls the "demerits" list off the fridge. I have accrued twenty demerits this week, each one punishable by a spanking, for offenses like being messy and teasing him. I bend over the bed, arching my bottom up in the air. He spanks my bare butt through open-bottomed fishnet panties.

Read the whole sex diary

If you're interested in writing a sex diary, make sure to read a few diaries then email me at sexdiaries at nymag.com and tell me why you'd make a good diarist. And if you know someone who'd be interested, do feel free to pass that info on. Thanks!

Blast from the erotic past: Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women

2011-12-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women from Seal Press is my bestselling anthology. Crazy but true. Click here to read the introduction, which you know is ancient (okay, 3 years) because the first sentence references my MySpace page, an account whose password I no longer remember. I say "crazy" because it has no particular theme other than "dirty girls" and the nipple on the cover is pretty hidden and, well, I wasn't expecting that, but I love it. My friend Twanna Hines wrote about it over at Funky Brown Chick in "Who Wants to be a 'Dirty Girl:?'"

“I don’t think my sexual interests make me any less of a well-rounded, kind-hearted intelligent person,” writes my lusty friend Rachel in her anthology Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women. “I’m as likely to kiss a lover’s forehead tenderly and offer to tuck them into bed as I am to throw them down on the floor and strip them naked.” Yeah, Rachel’s a dirty girl. But, here’s the question: Is that necessarily a bad thing? “I’m realizing that everyone (or almost everyone) has a dirty and a sweet side,” she cops. “All too often we denigrate the dirty girls — the ones who dare to publicly show their naughty sides — as incorrigible sluts, rather than realizing just how exciting it is to tap into our lustiest selves. Once you crack the surface of those who are seemingly prim and proper [...] you’ll very likely find that the simplicity of the word ‘dirty’ doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to describe the kinks that lurk within them.”

Coming in January: Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples

2011-12-10T14:15:00.001-08:00

This is going to be a very HOT Valentine's Day read! A heads up. Yes, postcards are coming; I determine whether to spring for postcards or not based on how hot the book cover is. I'll be in Milwaukee doing an event at The Tool Shed on February 9th (details coming soon) so will have postcards with me, and am looking forward to my first Milwaukee visit and signing this hot-off-the-press book. I'm excited about the entire book, of course, but especially getting to publish new-to-my-books authors Tiffany Reisz and Kris Adams and Alyssa Turner and Delilah Night and Karenna Colcroft and (I think) Kate Pearce. There's a lot of new territory for my books, both plot and location-wise, and I think this pushes the envelope a bit. And there's some familiar themes; it shouldn't surprise you that after my story "Our Own Private Champagne Room" in Kristina Wright's Best Erotic Romance, my story here, "Exposing Calvin," starts off: "'Let’s go to a strip club,' I say, my eyes lit up." If this book sounds good to you, I'd love it if you'd click "like" on Amazon to show your support - thank you!

Coming in January: Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, published by Cleis Press. If you are interested in reviewing Irresistible for a publication or blog, email Brenda Knight at bknight at cleispress.com with your mailing address and publication's URL.

This Irresistible read features loving couples turning their deepest fantasies into reality, resulting in uninhibited, imaginative sex they can only enjoy together. You’ll delight in discovering all the exciting erotic possibilities, from serving tea naked to a very intimate massage to a reminder that sometimes best friends make the best lovers. Engage in a little sexting in A.M. Hartnett’s sizzling “Safe for Work” office tryst, and follow a kinky candidate for public office—and his lusty wife—in "Hypocrites." Cole Riley’s moving “Same As It Ever Was” shows that makeup sex can be worth fighting for. Dirty talk leads to lustful surprises and inspiration for the neighbors in “The Mitzvah” by Tiffany Reisz. As editor Rachel Kramer Bussel notes, the lovers in this daringly romantic anthology are “able to open up in the ways they do is precisely because they have another person to rely on, coax them, challenge them, tease them and seduce them into traveling down a new sexual path. Whether that means outdoor sex, kink, a trip to a strip club or a very sensual massage, we get to see how the layers of trust that have been built up get used to stoke the fire that burns between them.”

Pre-order Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples:

Amazon

Kindle (coming soon)

BN.com

Nook (coming soon)

Powell's

Books-a-Million

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

Introduction (see below)

Twice Shy Heidi Champa

Safe for Work A. M. Hartnett

Repaint the Night Janine Ashbless

Same As It Ever Was Cole Riley

Out of Control Karenna Colcroft

Warrior Kate Pearce

Hypocrites Alyssa Turner

The Pact Elizabeth Coldwell

Exposing Calvin Rachel Kramer Bussel

Six Eyes, Two Ears Kris Adams

Renewal Delilah Night

The Netherlands Justine Elyot

Predatory Tree Craig J. Sorensen

The Mitzvah Tiffany Reisz

After The Massage Kay Jaybee

Pink Satin Purse Donna George Storey

Introduction

A lot of the erotica that comes across my desk focuses on the spark of attraction when strangers meet, the cataclysmic sensation of falling, hard, for someone new and exciting. That makes sense, because there’s built-in drama and erotic tension when two people discover there’s intense chemistry between them. With this anthology, though, I wanted to explore what happens after that, once those people have been together a while (even a short while). I wanted to see what sparks fictional couples could produce on the page, and the results are, well, scorching.

The couples in this book explore all sorts of exciting sexual possibilities, and one of the main reasons they’re able to open up in the ways they do is precisely because they have another person to rely on, coax them, challenge them, tease them and seduce them into traveling down a new sexual path. Whether that means outdoor sex, kink, a trip to a strip club or a very sensual massage, we get to see the ways the layers of trust that have been built up get used to stoke the fire that burns between them.

In addition to enjoying naughty, wild adventures, the couples here also work out differences between one another and handle issues like infidelity in ways that ultimately strengthen, rather than destroy, their relationships' longevity. In Cole Riley’s “Same As It Ever Was,” Joanne suspects her husband of cheating, but with a little help from her best friend, manages to recapture the sensual spirit and passion that’s been missing as both husband and wife make amends and move on, knowing what it was they almost lost. Rekindling a romance that’s threatened to go stale is also the theme of “Renewal” by Delilah Night, where she writes, “That touch sent a long-missing ripple through my body. I hesitated, hoping he’d remember what I love.”

In “The Pact” by Elizabeth Coldwell, a woman rediscovers a man she’d once passed over, only to find that the years they’ve spent apart have made him someone she’s sorry she overlooked. How a couple deals with a death in the family, as well as religious tradition, is the subject of “The Mitzvah” by Tiffany Reisz, as Grace and Zachary find that embracing desire can be healing. Kris Adams takes us into an African village and some complicated relationship dynamics, along with a lot of voyeurism, in “Six Eyes, Two Ears.” Kay Jaybee takes a common fantasy, that of a man watching two women make love, and breathes new life into it by showing both halves of a couple as they live out this dream.

Individual characters work through their own issues with the help of their partners, getting support, love and, of course, very hot sex. “Repaint the Night,” by Janine Ashbless, is about public sex, but, even more, a woman who is conquering a fear of the dark after being mugged ten years before. The erotic power of that story is heightened by Leah’s awe at being able to enjoy what she and Callum are sharing, as she recovers a part of herself she lost and deepens the level of trust between them.

For those who likes things a bit spicier, there’s "The Netherlands” by Justine Elyot, in which a nude Loveday serves guests tea and takes orders, while fulfilling a longtime fantasy of being “used,” with her true love there to watch.

Make no mistake: though these are stories about couples, they are not light or fluffy. They are full of joy, lust and kink, as well as realistic elements of mistrust, uncertainty and confusion, which the couples work through in ways that don’t gloss over or ignore their differences.

These couples, however long they’ve been a team, push the envelope by pushing themselves to try something new, even when they’re not sure where it will lead them. They go to those exotic, erotic places, to those recurring fantasies, because they know they have someone who will travel there with them. I hope this book will inspire nighttime reading--out loud--and erotic adventures, as well as conversations that have been bubbling under the surface, waiting to be exposed, just like the fantasies in the tales you’re about to read.

Rachel Kramer Bussel

New York City

Seeing art in Chelsea reminds me why I live in New York

2011-12-10T10:26:00.001-08:00

Lately when I visit or think about another place that I know is cheaper, quieter, less full of memories, I find myself thinking, Maybe I should move there. Of course in real life I couldn't afford to move, and it would take months to toss everything I'd need to toss, but it's a fantasy. But here's some things I saw recently, all in Chelsea save for the top photo, which I saw in the C/E subway station at 51st (?) and 8th. My friend Rachel Hills was in town from London and had Time Out New York with her and we started at the Matthew Marks Gallery for the excellent Nan Goldin exhibit. I realized that while being unemployed sucks bigtime, there is so much free art a subway stop away, and that is pretty awesome. All photos by me; more on Flickr.

A quick snapshot that in no way does justice to the art, but just to give you a sense of what she's doing; there was another piece all about hair, and a four-photo homage to the infamous L'Origine du monde by Gustave Courbet (the gallery has amazing light, and it was a sunny, beautiful day). From the Nan Goldin exhibit Scopophilia at Matthew Marks Gallery. She took photos at the Louvre (by special permission) and juxtaposed them alongside some of her 1970's photos. Amazing. Through December 23rd. Read more about it in The New York Times.

Both of the above images from the Sydney Chastain-Chapman exhibit, on through January 7th, at Kravets|Wehby.

I'd never been to Printed Matter before. I highly recommend it. So much to see and soak up. I got the Bread & Puppet calendar for my dad.

So fucking true, so hard to live by

2011-12-10T09:46:00.001-08:00

"You don’t discover courage right away…You discover a tender, shaky vulnerability. It takes courage to be vulnerable. But when you live with a genuine heart, unarmored, you can trust the basic goodness of yourself and humanity."

Pema Chödrön, quoted in Learning to Breathe: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life by Priscilla Warner. I actually responded to someone on OkCupid because they listed Pema Chödrön as one of their favorite writers, but the more I get in touch with what I'm supposed to be doing right now, who I'm supposed to be, the time I'm supposed to take to sit and focus and feel and explore, the more I realize that looking for external validation like that is always, always the direct road to self-hatred. Giving over any part of myself for someone else to judge and find wanting, when I do the very same thing every day? Not helping. Never has, never will, and yet, I'm weak too, sometimes. I want things I can't have. I fail hard at the Serenity Prayer almost every day. I can only pick myself up from those failures and keep trying. I can't undo the book that's not on the shelves, the essay that never was, bounced checks, whatever. I can only not doom myself further by assuming that once a failure, always a failure. I don't think (and certainly don't hope) life works like that. Every day is a chance to remake myself into someone I can be proud of, someone who can live up to being vulnerable in all its utter shakiness.

So instead I'm trying to find ways to live this unstable life as best I can, with all its stops and starts and ups and downs and recognize that sometimes the greatest moments, the biggest lessons, come when everything is on the verge of falling apart, or feels that way. Being financially, emotionally, physically vulnerable, fearing that I have no words, especially when I've made a promise that I will have words, have done the ultimate hubris and called myself a writer and staked something on that...well, it's fucking hard. Some days, impossible. But thankfully, there are more days. Like today.

Call for sex diarists!

2011-12-08T10:34:00.001-08:00

I'm the editor of the sex diaries and here's a recent call for diarists posted at nymag.com - do read a few diaries to get a sense of whether you're game for this. All are true, anonymous sex diaries. Please give a little bit of info on why you'd be a good candidate (what makes your sex life stand out). I'll get back to you within 2-3 days. We are not looking for you to send a completed diary, but to send your vital stats to see if you'd make a good candidate. And feel free to pass it on!

We know that bisexual women in open relationships aren’t the only people having sex in New York City. You, the readers, are all having sex — or at least trying to, probably. And however successful you are, we want to hear about it. Especially if you’re not the “typical” sex diary author. Maybe you’re married with kids. Maybe you were born during the L.B.J. administration. Maybe you’re a gay fireman. Maybe you’re a gay, old, married fireman. Whoever you are, however much ass you get, we want you to share a week in your sex life. Our Sex Diaries editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel, is looking for new submissions. Get in touch with her at sexdiaries@nymag.com.

Why Best Sex Writing 2012 is my favorite of all my books, and the one I most want you to read

2011-12-08T09:52:00.001-08:00

If you only ever read one book of mine, I'd lobby hard for this one. It's the book I've worked the hardest on in terms of hours and effort and the one that's closest to my heart and politics. I'm really proud of it and think that no matter what your background, you'll learn something from it. I'll have copies in my hands next week, and it'll be in bookstores and in stock online by the end of the month. I'm looking into readings in (fingers crossed) Portland, Seattle, the Bay Area and NYC (NYC will probably the toughest location, so if you have any bookstore contacts, let me know!). Below is my introduction, and if you like it, I'd really appreciate it if you'd pass this on. I hope it does well, not just so I can continue to edit the series, but because I think the ideas and the writing are important, and trust me, I rarely say something as audacious as that about my work, but look at this killer lineup and you'll see what I mean.

Thank you for your support! I have a limited number of copies avaialble for Amazon.com review. You must promise to review it by January 31st and get your request in by December 14th. Your signed by me copy will be mailed out next week via media mail. I will delete this one call the copies are taken. Email bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com with "Amazon" in the subject line and your name, US mailing address and Amazon.com profile so I know you are eligible (or a link to a previous Amazon review).

The book has original pieces and reprints from everywhere from Ms. ("Sex, Lies and Hush Money") to Reason ("You Can Have Sex With Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them" to Playboy ("The Dynamics of Sexual Acceleration") to The Village Voice ("Guys Who Like Fat Chicks") to Salon ("The Worship of Female Pleasure" and "Dating With an STD") to The Rumpus ("The Careless Language of Sexual Violence") to Guernica ("An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career") to SexIs Magazine ("Latina Glitter" and "Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth about Kinky Sexting"), plus literary fiction stars and some preeminent commentators on sexuality, and many more offerings from a range of ages, backgrounds, locations, topics, etc. I'm especially proud of the media criticism, which is intense, unrelenting, powerful, political and vital; I speak of Roxane Gay's "The Careless Language of Sexual Violence," which takes The New York Times to task over its coverage of an underage rape victim, and Thomas S. Roche's "Men Who 'Buy Sex' Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies," which challenges the newsweekly's coverage of the issue of sex trafficking nad utterly unqualified fawning over Melissa Farley. The book touches on atheism, SlutWalk, sex work from a first-person perspective, sex scandals, sex after a lover dies, male sexual education, obscenity law, teen sex and the law, and much more.

If you do plan to buy it, as with all books, pre-ordering them has a dual impact on the book's sales, meaning your sale counts not just for one book, but means that the bookseller your purchasing from will stock extra copies. All sales are great, but pre-orders are extra special, a heads up as a way to support your favorite authors.

Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today’s Sexual Culture is a nonfiction anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, with Susie Bright as guest judge, to be published by Cleis Press in January 2012. It is available for pre-order at Amazon (other links below). Email bestsexwriting2012 at gmail.com if you have any questions; to request a review copy, email Brenda Knight at bknight at cleispress.com.

Pre-order Best Sex Writing 2012:

Kindle (coming soon)

Nook (coming soon)

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore

Cleis Press

Table of contents:

When the Sex Guru Met the Sex Panic Susie Bright

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex Secrets Rachel Kramer Bussel (see below)

Sluts, Walking Amanda Marcotte

Criminalizing Circumcision: Self-Hatred as Public Policy Marty Klein

The Worship of Female Pleasure Tracy Clark-Flory

Sex, Lies, and Hush Money Katherine Spillar

The Dynamics of Sexual Acceleration Chris Sweeney

Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better Sex Greta Christina

To All the Butches I Loved between 1995 and 2005: An Open Letter about Selling Sex, Selling Out, and Soldiering On Amber Dawn

I Want You to Want Me Hugo Schwyzer

Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift Joan Price

Latina Glitter Rachel Rabbit White

Dating with an STD Lynn Harris

You Can Have Sex With Them; Just Don’t Photograph Them Radley Balko

An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career Tim Elhajj

Guys Who Like Fat Chicks Camille Dodero

The Careless Language of Sexual Violence. Roxane Gay

Men Who “Buy Sex” Commit More Crimes: Newsweek, Trafficking, and the Lie of Fabricated Sex Studies Thomas Roche

Taking Liberties Tracy Quan

Why Lying about Monogamy Matters Susie Bright

Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture Abby Tallmer

Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth about Kinky Sexting Rachel Kramer Bussel

Adrian’s Penis: Care and Handling Adrian Colesberry

The Continuing Criminalization of Teen Sex Ellen Friedrichs

Love Grenade Lidia Yuknavitch

Pottymouth Kevin Sampsell

Beyond the Headlines: Real Sex Secrets
Rachel Kramer Bussel

I think about sex a lot—every day, in fact. I don’t mean that in an “I want to get it on” way, but in a “What are other people up to?” way. I’m a voyeur, first and foremost, and this extends to my writing. I’m naturally curious about what other people think about sex, from their intimate lives to how their sexuality translates to the larger world.

With the Best Sex Writing series, I get to merge my voyeuristic self with my journalism leanings, and peek into the lives, public and private, of those around me. This volume in the series doesn’t pull any punches; the authors have strong opinions, whether it’s Marty Klein sticking up for circumcision in the face of an effort in California to criminalize it, Roxane Gay taking the New York Times to task for its treatment of an 11-year-old rape victim, Thomas Roche calling out Newsweek for its shoddy reporting about prostitution, or Radley Balko examining a child pornography charge.

There are also more personal takes on sex here that go beyond facile headlines or easy answers, that aren’t about making a point so much as exploring what real-life sex is like in all its beauty, drama, and messiness. Whether it’s Amber Dawn and Tracy Quan sharing the truth about their lives as sex workers, or Hugo Schwyzer explaining the damage our culture does to men with its mythology about their innate sexual prowess, or Tim Elhajj’s first-person account of pre–don’t ask, don’t tell military life, these authors show you a side of sex that you rarely see.

What you are about to read are stories, all true, some reported on the streets and some recorded from lived experience, from the front lines of sexuality. They deal with topics you read about in the headlines, and some topics you may never have considered. They are but a small sampling of the many kinds of sexual stories I received in the submission process.

Part of why I think sex never goes out of style, as a topic or activity, is that it is so very complex. There is no one way to do it, nor two, nor three. Sex can be mundane or mind-blowing, and for those who are trying to get from the former to the latter, there is a plethora of resources but also a host of misinformation purveyed by snake oil salesmen.

In Best Sex Writing 2012, you will read about subjects as diverse as “Guys Who Like Fat Chicks,” the care an handling of a man’s penis, and the glamour and glitter of the Latina drag world. Abby Tallmer, telling a story set in a very specific time and place—the gay leather clubs of New York’s Meatpacking District in the 1990s—manages to capture why sexual community is so vital, and why, I’d venture, those who lack such a community wind up mired in sex scandals. Tallmer writes, “These clubs gave us a place to feel that we were no longer outsiders—or rather, they made us feel that it was better to be outsiders, together, than to force ourselves to be just like everybody else.”

I’m especially pleased to present stories about the kinds of sexuality and sexual issues that don’t always make the headlines, from Lynn Harris’s investigation of dating with an STD to Hugo Schwyzer’s moving look at men’s need to be sexually desired and what happens when boys and men are told that that wanting to be desired is wrong. Joan Price gives some insight into elder sexuality, as well as into what it’s like to purchase the services of a sexual healer. The topic of elder sex is often treated with horror or disgust, or the focus is placed on concern over STDs—which is a worthy topic this series has explored before. But Price, author of two books on elder sexuality (her piece here is excerpted from Naked At Our Age), obliges the reader to see the humanity behind her age. She writes, “My birthday erotic massage from a gentle stranger changed something in me. It showed me that I was still a responsive, fully sexual woman, getting ready to emerge from the cocoon of mourning into reexperiencing life. I realized that one big reason I ended up on Sunyata’s massage table was so that I could get ready to reenter the world.”

Not all, or even most, of the reading here is “easy.” Much of it is challenging and heartbreaking. Roxane Gay’s media criticism centers on a New York Times story about a Texas gang rape and why “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence” distorts our understanding about rape. You may think such a piece doesn’t belong in an anthology with this title, but until we rid our world of sexual violence so that everyone can freely express themselves sexually, we need to hear searing indictments of media or those in power who ignore injustice.

As an editor, I’m not only looking for pieces that I agree with, or identify with, but for work that illuminates something new about a topic that’s been around forever. The authors here dig deep, challenging both mainstream ideas about sex and a few sex-positive sacred cows. Ellen Friedrichs sticks up for the right of teenagers to be sexual without throwing parents, school boards, and other adults into a sex panic. Amanda Marcotte explores the fast-moving SlutWalk protest phenomenon, which has garnered criticisms from various sides, from being futile to only appealing to white women.

I will quote Abby Tallmer again, because I don’t hear the words “sexual liberation” often enough these days. What moves me most about her piece is that you don’t have to be a New Yorker, queer, leather, or kinky to understand what she’s talking about. I’m 100 percent with her when she writes, “Back then, many of us believed that gay liberation was rooted in sexual liberation, and we believed that liberation was rooted in the right—no, the need—to claim ownership of our bodies, to experience and celebrate sexuality in as many forms as possible, limited only by our time and imagination.” I hope this applies in 2012 just as much as it did in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.

The truth is, I could have filled a book twice this size. Every day, stories are breaking, and being told, about sex—some wondrous, some heartbreaking. This is not a one-handed read, but it is a book that will stimulate your largest sex organ: your brain. Whether you live and breathe sex, you are curious about sex, or somewhere in between, I hope Best Sex Writing 2012 informs, incites, and inspires you. I hope it inspires you to write and tell your own sexual story, because I believe the more we talk about the many ways sex moves us, the more we work toward a world where sexual shame, ignorance, homophobia, and violence are diminished.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this book and what you think are the hot topics around sex. Feel free to email me at rachel at bestsexwriting.com with your comments and suggestions for next year’s anthology.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York
November 2011

How to make me feel special

2011-12-08T03:34:00.001-08:00

Create gorgeous custom cupcake toppers with the Cupcakes Take the Cake logo for our party! That's what LBV Designs did and I couldn't stop staring at them. Gorgeous!

Katy Perry blue hair Barbie® doll for charity

2011-12-08T03:00:00.001-08:00

This could be yours...Love this blue-haired Katy Perry Barbie® doll in a cupcake dress! I'd so wear one. It's for charity, to benefit Project Angel Food.

When fiction is the most honest way to tell emotional truths

2011-12-07T11:16:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was very excited to get an acceptance email from ultra popular erotica author Zane, whose novels and anthologies frequently find their way to the New York Times bestseller list (including Succulent: Chocolate Flava II, which I have a story in). I found out that my story "Party On" will be included in her Chocolate Flava 3 anthology from Strebor Books/Simon & Schuster.

Thinking about that story reminded me how, for me, I so often use real events to inspire erotic fiction. Sometimes it's a straightforward telling, pretty much, or based on my sexual experiences, but more often, it's a tidbit of information, a snapshot of something I saw or did or heard about, and I transpose that into the setting of the story. One of the things I champion and cherish about erotica is that it has the ability to take negative sexual experiences and turn them into positive ones. Same could be said for any kind of fiction but I think sex is so fraught that it's especially important. So remember that column I wrote, "The Nonconsensual Play Party Voyeur"? That was an experience I'd be happy to never relive, but I realized that while my personal experience was negative, the setting was a good one for a story, so I used it.

The other story I'd submitted, which I plan to submit elsewhere, was inspired by a friend who worked in a chocolate shop. I remember I was going on and on about the chocolate and someone tasting it and the sensuality of that experience that I was almost at the word count and the sex hadn't even started!

As someone who writes both personal nonfiction as well as fiction, I often am faced with the task of figuring out the best medium for what I want to say, and I've found that often, it's in fiction that I can tell the most honest emotional truth. To tell certain things via nonfiction, if we are sticking to the strict definition of nonfiction (which, if you read memoirs, you will know are full of composite characters, compressed timelines, made-up characters, and other ways authors massage the truthiness of their stories), is often too blunt, and would require so much overexplaining or simply wouldn't get at what I actually want to say.

I'm thinking of a very particular moment that my mind keeps going back to over and over and over again, so much so that I know I need to figure out why I cannot forget it. I remember exactly what I was wearing, what I was thinking, what I was feeling. I was in hyper-aware mode, taking in every sound, sight; it was a night when I felt as if I were watching myself in a movie, so I was extremely conscious of what was happening, yet also felt a bit removed from it. So it's not that I don't have the raw facts, but rather that this is not about "facts." It's about what that moment felt like; it was one of the most emotionally vulnerable moments I've probably ever experienced. I think about it as if I could go back and relive it, and I wonder if I'd have done anything differently. If it were a movie scene, it would last less than a minute, but it would be pivotal, because it was for me. I feel in some ways as if my whole year has, in some ways, been driven by that moment.

I haven't figured out yet how to tell that story, how to make sense of it. Maybe I don't have enough distance from it, maybe I don't know what it symbolizes in my real life yet to be able to transpose it into a fictional life. But I know it's there for a reason, and I know that any time I creep toward an encounter that feels vaguely close to that level of emotional rawness, I'm right back there, and that's why it's not so much about the strict facts as the deeper truth.

When I first started writing erotica, and for a good long time, I thought that I had to basically tell the story the way it happened, if it was true. I thought that was how to be honest, but fiction demands a different level of honesty, a different purpose. Sometimes the two are one and the same, but not always.

It reminded me of "The End," which I am going to put in my solo collection. I love that story, even though it was hell to live through. Here's, well, the end of "The End." It's a bit overwrought, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the work that I'm most proud of is often work that stems from emotionally intense moments and experiences, like the one I described above. Neither of the stories I sent to Zane are that wrenching, and that is too much for me to live with all the time. But I'm learning to appreciate the moments that don't let me go, even when I try to let them go. They are there for a reason, and I have to both be patient and probing in figuring out what that reason is.

I reach, reach, reach inside her, desperately searching, hoping to wrench us back to wherever we are supposed to be, back to where we were—a week, a month, a lifetime—ago. I draw out this process, watch myself as if from afar as my hand slides inside her, as I lube myself up and try to cram all of me into her, make a lasting impression. I have my entire had inside her yet I feel more removed from her than I have ever felt. She might as well still be in Florida. She might as well still be a stranger, this might as well still be our first date where I laughed so much because I was so nervous. I'd rather this be any of those nights, even the ones where I was so drunk and afraid, so powerless and unsure; anything would be better than this slow death, this slow withering until we are nothing more than two girls in a room with tears in our eyes and an ocean of questions and scars and hurt between us. I can’t predict what will come after this most pregnant of silences, can’t know the depths of pain that will puncture me beyond the horrors of my imagination, can’t know that I will regret everything I might have, could have, did do wrong.

She turns over on her stomach, face hidden from my searching eyes, and I fumble to reconnect, to slide into her like nothing is wrong, like it’s just a matter of finding a comfortable angle. I finally have had enough, cannot keep going with the charade that pressing myself against her will fill all the gaps that still exist between us. But for whatever twisted reasons we need this, this final time. And this is the last time, because nothing is worth feeling so utterly and completely alone while you're fucking your girlfriend before you break up. No power trip or blazing orgasm, no heart-pounding breathless finish, no sadistic impulse or mistaken nostalgia is worth this much pain.

I don’t know how to say what I have to, what I’m terrified to, how to ask questions whose answers I know I won’t want to hear. There’s no book I can read that will teach me how to make her g-spot tell me her secrets, tell me those fantasies and dreams that don’t come from her pussy but from her heart. The end, it turns out, is nothing like the beginning. There is no promise of something more, some grand future of possibility, the infinite ways of knowing each other just waiting to be discovered. There is no hope that we can merge, in all the ways love can make you do, into something so much greater than the sum of our parts. The end is like what they say about death, where your whole life flashes in front of your eyes. I see moments, fragments—my hand up her skirt on the street, taking her in the doorway of a friend’s apartment, so fiercely she can barely sink down to the ground, her on her knees in the bathroom, surprising me as she buries her face into me, no room to protest, grinding the edge of a knife along her back, slapping her tits until they are raw and red—but they seem so far away right now, like a movie, someone’s else’s pornographic memories. They don’t make me smile, and I don’t want them anymore. I want to bury myself in her and never let go, hold on to something that has just fluttered away in the wind, fine as the glittering sparkles she wears on her eyes, miniscule and almost opaque, too minute to ever recapture. But all I can do is back away, as slowly as I can, so slowly that it seems as if I am hardly moving, and before I know it, I, and she, we, are gone, almost like we never existed.

300+ cupcakes for you tonight!

2011-12-05T06:20:00.001-08:00

If I've ever brought you cupcakes (EAA Conference and In The Flesh attendees, this means you!), please pass this on to anyone who might enjoy our party. It's a very big one for us (7 years!). I promise you it'll be awesome and cupcake-filled and fun. Buy your tickets here.

Want me to hand feed you a cupcake? Come to our party on Monday!

2011-12-04T13:22:00.001-08:00

I promise if you say you read about it on Lusty Lady, I will hand feed you one cupcake of your choice at the blowout Cupcakes Take the Cake 7th anniversary party - you'll have over 300 cupcakes to choose from, plenty of gin to drink and your chance to win lots of prizes! I promise you'll get to eat way more than $10 worth of cupcakes. I'm so excited. I still can't believe it's been 7 years. I've learned so much about blogging, business, cupcakes and community, and truly cannot imagine my life without seeing cupcakes every single day, and all the adventures and places cupcake blogging has taken me. See you in SoHo!!