6 hot new erotica books I just bought for my Kindle

As I gear up to teach my 3 upcoming erotica writing classes for LitReactor, CatalystCon and SHE (Sexual Health Expo), I'm reading a lot of erotica, and ogling sexy covers. Here are 6 new ebooks that are waiting for me on my Kindle when I get through my workday. Realistically, they may have to wait for next week's flight to the beach, but they are waiting for me and I look forward to digging in. While I have not read them yet, I am 99.99% sure they are full of hotness based on reading and being a fan of the authors/editors/subjects, so feel safe in recommending them. Full disclosure: I purchased all of these on Amazon (which I'm linking to below), save for Dirty, which I was given a free copy of by the author.


Coffee: Hot edited by Victoria Pond (Circlet Press)

Coffee: need I say more? I drink it every day and even though I've cut back from 2 cups a day to 1, and will do a very happy dance the day I find out I'm pregnant and can't drink it any more (even though a part of me will desperately yearn for it), I still am a coffee lover at heart. So how could I not swoon over this concept? Official description below and click here for a free excerpt.

Coffee-flavored erotica! Taste the bitter roast when a barista brews alone at closing time and is joined by coffee’s physical manifestation. Roll the rich smoothness of steamed milk along your tongue while spies hide from the enemy and pass the time in tense pleasure. In this anthology of speculative erotic fiction featuring coffee shops, COFFEE: HOT, editor Victoria Pond brings together nine authors to explore coffee’s connection with the erotic fantastic.

Alcohol and erotica were frequent bedfellows in the 20th century, but now we’re well into the 21st! Imbibing caffeine causes no hazy field of impaired judgement, and coffee shops are places to stimulate the mind and to socialize with all sorts.

This volume contains stories ranging from Victorian London to a far-flung space station, from the quiet to the action-packed, from two-person sex to tentacles. (Wondering how there can be coffee shop erotica with tentacles? Read “Dark Roast” by Justin Josh to find out.)

Readers love curling up in oversized plush chairs to read in cafes. Authors are drawn to working in coffee shops. But what hides beneath the milk-steamy surface of this glorious addiction? In a world where everyone is over-familiar with the steamer’s whir and the roaster’s aroma, drinkers forget to stroke the glazed porcelain that holds their caffeine and radiates its warmth through their hands and into their hearts.

COFFEE: HOT features work by Django Wexler, Rebecca Croteau, Owen James Franks, Justin Josh, Axa Lee, K.L. Noone, JJ Poulos, Greer Thompson, and Avery Vanderlyle. Their stories take a setting we know so well and transform it into something magical once again.

Wetware: Cyberpunk Erotica edited by Violet Blue (Digita Publications)

To be perfectly honest, I don't actually know what "cyberpunk" means exactly. I may spend the majority of my life glued to my iPhone and know how to blog but I'm not really a techie. But that makes me all the more excited to read this anthology edited by the incomparable Violet Blue, whose work I always enjoy. One thing I've found so thrilling about the erotica genre is that a good story is a good story, especially when it surprises you. You don't have to know exactly what's going to happen before you start reading. In fact, I'd venture it's probably better not to know and let the writing whisk you away. Which is what I plan to do with this book! Official description below.

Cyberpunk anti-heroes face global conspiracies, misused government R&D, thugs, drugs, true love, artificial intelligence, and vengeful sexbots in this collection's heady mix of sci-fi and sex.

Wetware shows how hot "high tech low life" can get when it's spiked with all the glittering and frightening possibilities of cyberpunk. Seven unpredictable stories depict hackers, transhumans, androids, pop stars, armed revolutionaries, government contractors and more who discover that sex is hotter with hacked, stolen and renegade tech -- especially when it's a high-risk proposition.

Some erotica writers have ideas, others have visions. Love is a side-effect of stolen, weaponized biotech in "Bishop to King's Pawn, Two" by Thomas S. Roche. In "Synthetic Skin" by Kendra Jarry, a government contractor steals secret field hardware for the sole purpose of seduction. A brainwave hacker's conquest in a club bathroom stall takes a turn in Cecilia Tan's "Rough, Trade."

Lines are crossed and re-crossed when the household helper bot in Devyn X. Sands' "Never Say No" has had enough of her owner's perversions. "Sixty-Five Night" by Stephen Stavros charts a dangerous AI experiment that pushes one woman into a seedy neon ghetto for a public transhuman sexual encounter -- under the shadow of a murder conspiracy.

Cyberpunk's sexuality has always been transgressive and prescient; this collection brings the genre's tradition into the current state of cyberpunk affairs. Wetware isn't a typical erotica collection, nor is it a typical sci-fi anthology. It's also a rich celebration of hacker and cyberpunk culture, within the hallmarks of this culture's rich and diverse sexualities and genders. It's a tech-savvy, philosophically-rich, erotic anthology artfully spiked with cyberpunk-themed cocktail recipes and recommendations for sexy cyberpunk films, books, and anime.

Blue's introduction "Coded in Spirals and Pheromones" features story excerpts in an essay examining cyberpunk sexuality, and how our fantasies of a gilded cyberpunk future have arrived -- while at the same time, something has gone horribly wrong with the way technology was supposed to empower us. Blue explains exactly why "it is our growing sense of things gone terribly wrong that gives the stories here their power, anchored in one of cyberpunk's most defiant agents of change: Sex."

This book contains adult situations, including BDSM, domestic discipline, gender fluidity in sexual situations, backdoor and oral play, power exchange, role-play, spanking, bisexual men, and explicit scenes. The book also depicts non-monogamous relationships and sexual activity (and penetration) involving more than two individuals.

Table of Contents

* Introduction: Coded in Spirals and Pheromones by Violet Blue
* Bishop to King's Pawn, Two by Thomas S. Roche
* Liquid Exploits: The Gibson Engine
* Rough, Trade by Cecilia Tan
* Say Cyber One More Time: Sexy Cyberpunk Films
* Dangerous Circuitry by N.T. Morley
* Liquid Exploits: Tschunk!
* Grinding by Janine Ashbless
* Say Cyber One More Time: Adult Cyberpunk Books
* Never Say No by Devyn X. Sands
* Liquid Exploits: Zero Couth
* Sixty-Five Night by Stephen Stavros
* Say Cyber One More Time: (Sexier) Cyberpunk Anime
* Synthetic Skin by Kendra Jarry

Wrecked by Corrine A. Silver (Totally Bound)

I met Corrine A. Silver at CatalystCon East last year, and have since published her short stories in The Big Book of Submission and Come Again: Sex Toy Erotica. I've been incredibly impressed with her command of BDSM and I love that this is the first in a serial, she uses the word feminist in her marketing, and it alternates the hero and heroine's points of view. I started this on my flight back from Thailand and am looking forward to having time to finish it, because it's plenty hot. Official description below.

“The first year is the most traumatic.” Leda’s medical school advisor’s words seemed like the words of a retiring blowhard, until she met Xander.

What starts as a tutorial in anatomy quickly evolves into Xander’s desire to possess Leda. While she is drawn to him, wants to give in and experience sharp passion unlike any she has ever known, she has reservations. Can a feminist, a modern independent woman truly be a sexual submissive? Why is he holding back? What is the dark past that Xander is hiding from her? And ultimately, can she trust him—with her body and her heart?

Xander wasn’t looking for a submissive, but his attraction to Leda is undeniable. He tries to follow caution, but ultimately he has to take her, subdue her, at her insistence. The more he opens himself up to her, though, the more his past comes back to haunt him, with nearly catastrophic events when his former lover shows up at their door on New Year’s Eve. How can he keep and protect Leda from all the risks of his kink, when he knows he is the biggest threat to her wellbeing?

In Her Closet (The Lust Diaries Book 1) by Tasha L. Harrison (Dirtyscribbler Press)

This book isn't as brand new to the market as the others, but The Lust Diaries is a series I've been eager to read, after enjoying her prequel story A Slant of Light. After all, it involves a sex blogger, so of course I'm intrigued. You should follow @tashalharrison on Twitter because she posts about sales on her books.

Entertainment columnist Yves Santiago unapologetically lives her life as carelessly as a man. Her day job keeps her flush in men, with few regrets and even fewer mistakes. By night, she details her exploits on her anonymous sex blog, Lust Diaries.

Yves leads a happy, delightfully filthy life. Until she meets nonfiction editor Elijah Weinstein.

Moss green eyes, sun-kissed shoulders and a mouth so damn sensual that it should have a NC-17 rating, this perfectly suited and coiffed, Fifth Avenue prince is everything she never wanted yet can't resist. He methodically lays waste to the walls she's built around herself, looking to get closer to the real Yves Santiago.

With the the promise of a fairytale turned real, Yves must dig into the depths of her past. But once she shakes out the skeletons in her closet, will she be ready for all Elijah has to offer?

First Time: Ian's Story by Abigail Barnette (Amazon)

Barnette is the pen name of writer Jenny Trout, whose extremely kinky, fascinating The Boss series (as Barnette) I've been enjoying, and have a forthcoming piece at Salon mentioning one of them. What intrigued me about this new title is that it's being released as two books, one from Ian's point of view, and one from Penny's, which ties into an exercise I teach in my LitReactor class, so made me especially excited to see how she pulls it off. I'm starting with Ian. Official description below.

Newly divorced and romantically pessimistic, Ian Pratchett doesn’t know why he’s been set up with Penny Parker. She’s unrelentingly positive, utterly superstitious, and sexually inexperienced—everything Ian is not. But when sparks fly between them, Ian sees the possibility of a life he’d given up hoping for…with a woman he would never have expected.

Dirty by Martha Davis (Loose Id)

I have to once again confess to my ignorance: I barely know what incubi and succubi are, but I know that Martha Davis is a powerful writer whose work I've published in The Big Book of Submission, and I always like to read longer pieces from my authors. I also like to push myself to try new subgenres I might not have tried otherwise. Plus that cover! Read a free excerpt here.

In Buckhead, the lavish, eclectic heart of downtown Atlanta, incubi and succubi fill the dungeons and private rooms of Kiss, an elaborate BDSM club where the lascivious go to explore their every taboo fantasy. But there are vampires on the loose – cold, dead, unnatural beasts that consider incubi/succubi blood top-of-the-line furnace quality and they are desperate to obtain it.

Orchid Teixeira, a young widowed succubus who wants a better world to raise her two-year-old daughter Itati in is not afraid to get her hands dirty to see those she loves safe. But the sheer number of vampires suddenly on the streets she calls home, leave both her and the supernatural mafia she clings to more than a little overwhelmed.

Federal Agent Max Hawthorne suddenly appears claiming to investigate the vampire influx, but he seems to be spending more time either trying to get into Orchid’s panties or arresting her than he is exterminating the vamp problem. Why is he really in Atlanta and why is he so dedicated to chasing Orchid? Is he hungry for her or is it her biological skill set he covets, and why can’t Orchid stay away from him?

Supporting myself and supporting my fellow authors and editors

I haven't publicly posted about this yet, in part because I haven't known what to say, and in part because I've been busy with deadlines and teaching. Now that I'm between LitReactor classes, and actually getting over a cold as I prepare to hit the road for my Virginia and Maryland events and post my first call for submissions in a while, it seemed appropriate.

This year, in marked contrast to last year when I had to move because I wasn't bringing in enough income, I'm approaching work from a steadier place, but still one that is lived freelance check to freelance check. I'm working on doing everything I can to best bolster my business, including making smarter choices than I have in the past. I used to flit off to every event that asked me to speak, paying no mind to the cost either because I had a full-time job then or I thought it would be "good for my career" to always say yes. This year, I am soundly focused on minimizing my costs while also making sure I meet the deadlines for my steady writing gigs at Thought Catalog, Philadelphia City Paper and DAME and pushing myself to write for new venues. This means that I will be drastically cutting back on travel and events, even those in New York City, in order to protect my time for my work and my personal time. I'm learning that in order to have the energy, interest and focus to do what needs to be done, I have to say no almost as often as I say yes professionally, and think hard about the things I do say yes to.

It also means that I have to make the best choices for my career, including when I sign on to edit more anthologies, which I've held off on as I catch up on previous ones (which I am wrapping up this month). My approach is not the same as it once was, when I was crazily editing 6-8 anthologies a year, which meant a heavy workload for me, less enjoyment of the process, and what I see as my book sales cannibalizing each other. Now, I am being more choosy and doing fewer books per year, but putting my heart and soul into the creation and promotion of them. For instance, this year, I see Come Again: Sex Toy Erotica as my strongest release because it's likely to have the most widespread appeal, it's very fun, and it's one I'm incredibly excited about (my copies are shipping to me from the printer today!). Therefore, I'm putting a lot of my own time, effort and money behind promoting it. I couldn't do that if I had another book coming out right behind it. (That's all me and my particular personal situation; plenty of authors, especially romance and erotica authors, can and do successfully put out and promote numerous books per year. I strive to learn from them but also know my limits.)

So for every new book or writing project, I very carefully consider and decide how they best fit into my overall goals for my work and my business. Part of why I now strongly prefer teaching writing online is because the only cost to me is time. I approach any new business decisions the same way, which is why I hired a lawyer for the first time in my life to help negotiate the contract I just signed. Trust me, as a former law student who still feels tremendous guilt about dropping out, even 15 years on, this was not an easy step, but it was a necessary one that had an immediate result. It reminded me that I have to always work to protect myself first and foremost. I've made the choices that work for me, and will evaluate any future decisions on a case by case basis.

That being said, yes, I've been troubled reading the recent accounts by Violet Blue, Alison Tyler, and Kristina Wright about their treatment in publishing, by the press we share in common, all of whom I consider friends and colleagues and all of whom have published my writing in previous, current or future anthologies. I care on both levels; as a friend/colleague and as an author.

Here's the part where I don't really know what to say, so what I'm going to say is: support their work and buy their books. How have I done that? In addition to purchasing their books, by doing things like interviewing Violet Blue about her must-read The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy, which genuinely changed how I approach so many aspects of my life; it's also being re-issued this July by No Starch Press and I strongly urge you to read it and take the necessary steps to protect yourself (see the book's Tumblr for more information). By mentioning their books, like Morning, Noon and Night in a column about sex at various times of the day. Stay tuned for Thursday's sex column about threesomes quoting Kristina Wright.

Here are covers and links to their recent or upcoming books. I hope you'll support my fellow authors' work and my work. I don't see this as an either/or situation. How can you support them? Buy their books, read their books, blog and Tweet and post on other social media about their books. Review them on Goodreads and Amazon. Spread the word. Follow them @violetblue @AlisonTyler @kristinawright on Twitter. Sharing book news counts for so much in an age when many of us, me included, find out about what we want to read next online. As someone who lives in a town without a bookstore, I do support brick and mortar stores when I'm in them, but most of my book purchases are made online because that's what I can access on a daily basis.

I'm proud of the stories I have in their books, and hope we all have incredible success whatever publishing path we choose because I believe the market has room for great sexy smut of all kinds. I'm linking to Amazon, as I often do, because they have an affiliate program and I think Kindle is one of the most common ways of accessing ebooks, but I encourage you to support your local independent bookstores and publishers. For Violet Blue's ebook titles, including erotica anthologies Filthy Housewives and Holiday Kink, get them from Digita Pub. Now, a reading list for you:

Bisexual Husbands edited by Violet Blue, out this Thursday, March 20th (read the introduction)



Official blurb:

Seven stories skillfully depict seven different bisexual husbands whose cravings for a same-sex tryst have reached the point of no return, and their wives can't wait to watch -- or join in, sometimes controlling the action. Layered characters and vivid, clever fantasies drive this compendium of bisexual men in loving couples who want to get dirty -- sometimes taking turns as the center of a three-way where there's truly no limits.

In "Your Turn" an unsuspecting husband is turned into a plaything by his wife and her dominant executive boss; in "Pick Up The Interest" a woman orchestrates payback for a secret same-sex favor her husband received in college. "Roger's Fault" watches a husband find out his wife wants to be "one of the boys" in a same-sex threesome; "Sparks Will Fly" finds a wife picking up a total stranger in an exclusive hotel for a surprise encounter her husband will never forget.

In editor Violet Blue's award-winning style, this collection takes graphic erotica, casts each story with complex and relatable characters, puts them in the hands of exciting writers, and blends literary erotica with hardcore. Bisexual Husbands delivers a rich erotic anthology, artfully spiked with charming cocktail recipes and playful tips for trying out bisexual fantasies in real life. Blue's introduction to the book "Bisexual and Voracious" features steamy story excerpts within an essay that looks at perceptions of male bisexuality and takes apart what everyone gets wrong about bi men -- namely, that they don't really exist. This book shows exactly (and graphically) just how hot bisexual men can be.

This book contains adult situations, including domestic discipline, backdoor and oral play, power exchange, role-play, bisexual men, and explicit scenes. The book also depicts non-monogamous relationships and sexual activity (and penetration) involving more than two individuals.

Alison After Dark: Sultry Stories to Keep You Up All Night by Alison Tyler



Official blurb:

Alison After Dark features nine naughty stories by Alison Tyler. "Insomnia" is Ms. Tyler's middle name—in fact, if you're up, she's probably up—and these tales explore many of the different illicit events that occur in the middle of the night. Themes include watching a girlfriend with another man, to cheating, to anal, to figging.

The sultry stories in the collection are a mix of brand-new, never before published pieces (The Keymaster, The Key, The Keyhole, All Things to All Women), as well as several hard-to-find stories (Too Dirty to Clean, The Prince and the Upholsterer, Cherry Slushie, and Seeing Stars). Finishing the collection is: Planes, Trains, and Banana-Seat Bicycles (originally published in The Mile-High Club).

Violet Blue says, "Alison Tyler is a prolific, sharp editor and a hell of a writer."

Publishers Weekly says, "Readers tired of sensationalistic portrayals of BDSM will appreciate Tyler’s nuanced and realistic approach..."

City Book review says, "Alison Tyler shines as a literary voice in erotic fiction."

This book contains erotic content and is intended for adult audiences only.

Three of Hearts: Erotic Romance for Women edited by Kristina Wright, out now in print and ebook, including Kindle (contains my story "An Extra Pair of Eyes")



Official blurb:

Three’s company? No, three’s a charm! Three of Hearts features sexy trios who are not just falling into bed, but are also falling in love. These stories fearlessly explore the emotional and sexual dynamics of three hearts romantically intertwined. Voyeurs and exhibitionists alike get what they want in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s “An Extra Pair of Eyes.” “What Happens in Denver” leaves indelible memories when three co-workers get snowed in during Cheyenne Blue’s romp. Editor extraordinaire Kristina Wright outdoes Kerouac in her wildly romantic “Three for the Road.” From a couple introducing a third person to their relationship for just one night of fun, to a woman torn between two lovers—who decides not to choose—and long-term triads who collaborate on all their desires, Three of Hearts focuses on joy in triplicate and female pleasure.

Talking to Violet Blue about internet safety and The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy

Over at DAME Magazine, I talked to Violet Blue, author of the newly released The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy, which I consider a must-read, about how to protect yourself online. I learned a ton from the book and can't recommend it highly enough. I truly thought I knew a fair amount about the topic and the book swiftly disabused me of that notion and I'm working to correct the gaps, especially for when I travel.

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

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

Excited to read: Best Women's Erotica 2012

I haven't read Best Women's Erotica 2012 yet but I think it's pretty safe to say it's going to be as hot as all of Violet Blue's collections, and, hello, there's a story called "Tweetup." For all the geeky erotica readers!



Lots of my favorite writers, like Remittance Girl, Elizabeth Coldwell, Jacqueline Applebee, Tsaurah Litzky, Sommer Marsden and Donna George Storey, writers who are new to me, an writers whose work I'm just discovering, like Amelia Thornton, whose kinky outdoor sex story "Something to Ruin" is in Women in Lust.

My copy is hopefully arriving by UPS on Monday cause I wasn't home today to get it. I'll tell you more about it once I've read it, but definitely check it out, and coming up next month is Violet's One Night Only: Erotic Encounters, which includes my story "Rock Star Rewards." For the latest on Violet Blue, visit tinynibbles.com and follow her @violetblue on Twitter.

Via Amazon, the lineup for Best Women's Erotica 2012:

Drought by Olivia Glass
Tweetup by Louise Lush
Eddie's All Night Diner by K.D. Grace
Pleasure's Apprentice by Remittance Girl
The Nylon Curtain by Elizabeth Coldwell
A Big Deck by Rosalía Zizzo
Bad by Kay Jaybee
Dolly by Amelia Thornton
No Rest for the Wicked by Jacqueline Applebee
Skinheads by Jaqueline Applebee
The Skin Doctor by Tsaurah Litzky
Pagoda by Sommer Marsden
A Wider World by Donna George Storey
All's Fair by Tiffani Angus
Neighbourly Relations by Dorianne
Let Me In by The Empress
Lolita by Zahara Stardust
The Gourmet by Chaparrita
The Magicians by Valerie Alexander

Vote for my SXSW panel, please!

Please do me a HUGE favor and take a small moment to register and vote for my panel and if you're an extra special rockstar, leave a comment. And also please vote for Nichelle Stephens' solo talk "Major Laser Focus: From Dilettants To Polymaths". If we go we will throw another of our fabulous Cupcake Socials in Austin!



Sex, Dating and Privacy Online Post-Weinergate

Format Panel
Organizer Rachel Kramer Bussel – Freelance
Speakers

1. Twanna Hines – Funky Brown Chick
2. Samhita Mukhopadhyay – Feministing
3. Violet Blue – Violet Blue

Description We’re living in an age when even powerful politicians can’t keep track of their digital dating trail. Employers and exes are likely reading your words. How can you write about sex, participate in online dating and social networking sites, and still maintain your privacy? Bloggers and authors Violet Blue (sex author, tech columnist; @violet blue and tinynibbles.com), Rachel Kramer Bussel (Lusty Lady, Best Sex Writing series editor), Twanna A. Hines (Funky Brown Chick®, The Late Sex Show with Twanna Hines), and Samhita Mukhopadhyay (author, Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life, Executive Editor, Feministing.com).
Questions
Answered

1. Should you use your real name for all your online profiles?
2. How can you maintain a professional presence online separate from your personal/private one?
3. How do people who write about sex professionally balance the public/private divide?
4. How can online daters and social media users ensure their anonymity and privacy?
5. How should you handle online trolls or detractors?

Sexy book covers with my stories: One Night Only and Best Lesbian Romance 2012

Will share more when the pub dates are closer but I’m excited that my story “Rock Star Rewards” will be published in Violet Blue’s anthology One Night Only: Erotic Encounters (a post-concert female domination story) and the lesbian French fry in Paris story I’d blogged about, “French Fried,” will be in Radclyffe’s Best Lesbian Romance 2012. Just saw the covers on Amazon and wow wow wow! I was in a little writing...I don't know what to call it, but it was not good, for a while, but am finally getting my nonfiction and fiction mind back and I hope there will be more news to share soon. In both areas I'm trying to push myself to be rigorous and fearless and use everything at my disposal, especially when I think, "I can't." I think that all the time and the only thing standing in my way is that very thought.

Bisexual guy + voyeur girlfriend in "The Female Gaze" in Sweet Confessions

Lately I've had some kind of issue with writing. I miss it, I think about it a lot, I come up with scenarios and titles, I start stories and essays and pitches but...I don't seem to quite finish them. Maybe I start too many, or maybe I sleep too late, or maybe I just need a vacation. It sucks, though, because I know those ideas could've been worthy and would've had a good chance of being accepted. I do have a few stories pending that my fingers are (virtually) crossed on, but I don't want to keep making that mistake over and over. It does mean that the stories I have sold, I'm extra proud of. One is "The Female Gaze," which will be in Violet Blue's July 1st Cleis Press anthology Sweet Confessions: Erotic Fantasies for Couples.



Below is all the sneak peek you're gonna get...you should pre-order the book so you can read the whole thing! The title was inspired by the seemingly umpteen times I had to read people like Laura Mulvey and John Berger and Michel Foucault in my women's studies classes at UC Berkeley. My politics were very different but one thing I think I can safely say remains the same is that I'm not an academic and never will be. The male gaze is an interesting concept but I think when it comes to erotica and sexuality so many of these topics can be played with, fucked with, if you will. No offense if you dig those writers; my point was my title played on that, and also the idea that "men are more visual than women," which I think is such a broad stereotype as to be useless. I'm totally a voyeur, much, much more so than I am an exhibitionist. I also kindof wanted to turn the straight guy + bisexual women trope on its head a bit. And I did (well, you can be the judge).

The Female Gaze
by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Ever since they’d started dating three years before, Alex had been telling Rory about the boys who hit on him--the men, the bears, the daddies, the ones who looked like they were barely legal, the silver foxes, the shy boys who found in him a kinship, or just a look, a lust, an impulse. “The bartender comped my drink, then slipped me his number. Do I have to put on a wedding band before they get the picture?” he’d ask, chuckling as he kissed her lightly.

She ran her hands through his thick black hair before telling him that a wedding ring had never been a deterrent to men hooking up with other men. Maybe she should have been bothered by people checking out her man, the one who’d once been a model and graced ads for Calvin Klein underwear and Brooks Brothers before deciding that he really preferred environmental law. But she didn’t mind, not really, and certainly didn’t begrudge these men their hungry stares, their heartfelt offers. The women she could do without, the ones who blatantly clocked her man while they walked down the street, the ones who she could tell would him into the bathroom for a quickie if they thought they could get away with it. Rory wasn’t sure why, exactly, the former amused her and the latter annoyed her, but there it was. Actually, it was more than that; the thought of these men kissing her boyfriend, running their hands all over his firm, muscular body, swallowing his cock, plundering his bottom as she’d only fantasized about doing, well, it turned her on.

She couldn’t help but wonder if they saw in Alex the same things she did. Was that possible? Were they clairvoyant--or just horny? Was he just another pretty face or did they want him to speak to them in that booming, low voice? Did they want him to order them around, like she did? “Touch yourself for me. Show me how wet you are. Fuck yourself with the vibrator I got you.” Would Alex be a top or a bottom in bed with a man? The more these men propositioned him, the more Rory found these naughty images creeping into her mind when she was alone, when she let her fingers wander between her lips and her mind go free.

Last night at Booksmith, in photos

I have to run a few errands, like buying a case for my pretty new laptop (though I must admit, Tantek showed up and pulled out his 11-inch MacBook Air last night and it was so light, I wondered if that would't have been the better option), then catch a plane to Los Angeles - I'm on the Dr. Susan Block Show tonight, and I want to get me and all my huge amount of belongings settled into my hotel and just write. No dates, no ice skating, no phone calls, at least, for one day. I've been running around nonstop and have been feeling physically off. I Tweeted that the reading would be a success if I didn't cry. I didn't, at least, not on the outside, not there. At Booksmith I was proud of myself for reading that totally fraught story and so happy to hear my fellow authors. The after where I was a little sad, where I could recall exact phone calls made from exact streets, plans and dreams and fantasies, that was, well, after. That's another story for another time, but I was happy to remember some of the good parts, the ones that make anything not-so-good worth it.




photo of me before the reading by Violet Blue via Flickr - to be totally vain for a moment, I love this photo!

I will write more about how Booksmith is the best place ever to do readings; if you want to watch last night's, Click here. Thanks to everyone who showed up, to the guy who had me sign his birthday card with my lips, to the Sarge and Reputation and Wild Flag fan, to all my friends and to the Booksmith staff, who not only hosted a wonderful evening but really know their books. Thank you to Violet Blue, Susie Hara, Dusty Horn and Donna George Storey, who all breathed life into their stories that, much as I love the written word, it just doesn't have in the same way on the page. Dusty sold sexy calendars to benefit Lyon Martin Health Services (see photo below and, incidentally, I'll spank you anytime!). One of the highlights for me was chatting afterward with them about all manner of books.






Donna George Storey, Susie Hara, me, Dusty Horn, Violet Blue


Thanks, Josh, I hope you had a fabulous birthday! You were very cute - I kindof wanted to pinch your cheeks and make out with you, but in a friendly way. I was happy to sign your card with my eyeliner (before I was given a lovely purple pen) and lipstick.




Pin Up calendar as sold by the sexy Dusty Horn


I bought these at Booksmith (and they gave me the tote bag for free, which I will wear proudly). Looking forward to reading The People Who Watched Her Pass By by Scott Bradfield, Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin and Stuff: Compuslive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Gail Streketee.

And welcome to my hotel life world (which, I will say, has been greatly improved by the use of Skype):


Since editing Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, I always take these. I've liked the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, but think they don't need to make the staff where crazy uniforms. I booked this via Quikbook for $93/night!


I kicked these off my bed getting comfortable. Oops!

Thank you especially Booksmith, everyone at Cleis Press, especially Kat for driving me to Emeryville, and Violet Blue, for whom I promise to return for a proper vacation and longer stay and mayhem and fun!

West Coast book tour is this week: Berkeley, San Francisco, Los Angeles! All free, all with free cupcakes, and hot, hot stories.

I'll be doing a separate post about my 3 New York City events in February, but as a reminder, unless I'm already traveling or have a special occasion like a panel, this is my last year of doing a bazillion outside readings. I just can't pretend like I can afford them or that I'm rich, and it doesn't make financial sense to be running all over the country when I could be working smarter, better and trying to sell more books. So my point is: come see me in Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles now! I'm hoping to get to a few other cities like Denver, Minneapolis and Milwaukee in 2011 as well, fingers crossed.

A reminder with Facebook links - I'd really love it if you'd spread the word. All these events are free, it's a chance to get the just-released Gotta Have It signed by me and contributors (Denise Hoffner, who wrote census taker erotica story "Concensus" in Gotta Have It, has been added to Thursday's Berkeley Good Vibrations reading) and I'm getting fabulous, unique cupcakes, different ones from different local bakers, for each event.

Saturday night I will also make my third appearance on The Dr. Susan Block Show - listen online! Saturday night, January 29th, 10:30 pm to midnight, PST, I'll be on with Shameless author Pamela Madsen - my interview with her will be up soon at SexIs Magazine.



January 27, 6:30-8 pm
READING AND EROTICA ADVICE WITH DONNA GEORGE STOREY
Join me and prolific local erotica writer Donna George Storey (author, Amorous Woman, contributor, Orgasmic, Gotta Have It) and Gotta Have It contributor Denise Hoffner as we read some of our favorite erotica and share erotic writing advice. Free!
Good Vibrations, 2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way), Berkeley, CA
510-841-8987

Facebook invite (no need to RSVP though, but if you want to pass it on to friends)

January 28, 7:30 pm
READING WITH VIOLET BLUE AT BOOKSMITH



Me and superstar author and editor Violet Blue read along with Orgasmic contributors Susie Hara, Dusty Horn and Donna George Storey!

Free cupcakes!

Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA
415-863-8688

Facebook invite (no need to RSVP though, but if you want to pass it on to friends)

February 1, 7 pm
COCO DE MER READING



Join me along with Eden Bradley (The Lovers), Pamela Madsen (Shameless) and Oriana Small, aka Ashley Blue (Girlvert) for a night of hot readings and free champagne and cupcakes in this beautiful setting!
At Coco de Mer, 8618 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
310-652-0311

Facebook invite (no need to RSVP though, but if you want to pass it on to friends)

West Coast tour starts in 2 weeks

It's a mini tour, but since I'm flying across the country for it, I'm calling it a tour! After that I'm working to make events happen in other cities too. I'm itching to go back to Denver and Minneapolis and read at The Smitten Kitten and I'll be in Seattle in June and some other events are maybe in the works. I'll keep you posted!

January 27, 6:30-8 pm
READING AND EROTICA ADVICE WITH DONNA GEORGE STOREY
Join me and Orgasmic contributor Donna George Storey as we read some of our favorite erotica and share erotic writing advice. Free!
Good Vibrations, 2504 San Pablo Avenue (at Dwight Way), Berkeley, CA
510-841-8987

January 28, 7:30 pm
READING WITH VIOLET BLUE AT BOOKSMITH



Me and superstar author and editor Violet Blue read along with Orgasmic contributors Susie Hara, Dusty Horn and Donna George Storey!

Free cupcakes!

Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA
415-863-8688

February 1, 7 pm
COCO DE MER READING



Join me along with Eden Bradley (The Lovers), Pamela Madsen (Shameless) and Oriana Small, aka Ashley Blue (Girlvert) for a night of hot readings and free champagne and cupcakes in this beautiful setting!
At Coco de Mer, 8618 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
310 652 0311

Dusty Horn reading her lesbian erotica story "Share" from Orgasmic

Please join us, and tell your San Francisco/Bay Area friends, to join us on January 28th; here's the official Facebook invite if you want to let people know about it, but you don't need to RSVP. You'll be among the first to get your hands on Violet Blue's new book Total Flirt and copies of Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex, with stories by me and Donna George Storey, will also be for sale! And free cupcakes, including vegan ones! Below is Dusty reading from her story "Share" from Orgasmic at Orgasm Night at In The Flesh. She also has a very hot story called "Subdue" in Best Bondage Erotica 2011 that I'm sure she'll sign at Booksmith too!

Free cupcakes at San Francisco reading with Violet Blue January 28th at Booksmith

To those who were at our last fabulous reading, it was packed, and we signed lots of books and gave out lots of cupcakes. I hope to do so again so pretty please, tell your SF friends about this one. I'll be reading "Espionage" from Best Women's Erotica 2011 (and it'll soon be available for your listening pleasure). Plus I get to host Dusty Horn (who Violet introduced me to at Litquake in 2009!), Susie Hara and Donna George Storey, both of whom I met via working with Susie Bright. See you at Booksmith! (And Donna George Storey and I also read the night before, January 27th, at Good Vibrations in Berkeley.)

I didn't title it "Fisting: A Love Story" but I could have

From my story "Espionage" in Best Women's Erotica 2011 by Violet Blue. I used all sorts of devices I don't normally - second person, a tense I'm not even sure what it's called ("In a few minutes, you will emerge..."). It's dark yet it's a love story, for sure. When I'm feeling down about how my writing isn't going as planned, sometimes I pick up this story and reread it. I'm making my way through the whole book, too. It's a keeper, and a great holiday gift for that special someone. Kindof funny because the one I wrote for Obsessed (my 2011 erotic romance anthology) is not this intense at all. It's more lighthearted, fun, but the love is there too. It takes all kinds, I guess, to quote an Aimee Mann song.

You are ready, so, so ready, and you take them in greedily, followed by four. His other hand finds places to pinch you—inner thigh, belly—as you open for him, spreading your legs as far as you can, willing yourself to relax. You—the part of you that makes these decisions—want this, want this final time, this heat, this heaviness, but your body is more cautious, closing around his fingers as the thumb attempts entry. Your body, your cunt, knows he is almost too large to fit inside but you have overruled your body before, turning pain into the most dazzling of erotic highs. This is not like the times he’s held you down and shoved his cock inside you, shocked you with the bluntness of it, making you play catchup. He can’t hurry this along. Instead he rotates his fingers and adds more lube and you grunt and bite your lip and feel him get a little further inside.

He goes in, and in, and in, thumb curled up and then there it is, the ball of his hand, this giant inside you. You’ve heard that the human heart is actually the size of a hand, and wonder if, right now, he is giving you a part of his heart, a part that is only for you, a part you can treasure as you feel its outline pressing the tender, thin walls of your pussy wider and wider. The tears come—of fear, relief, pleasure, love—all at once, and you are grateful for the dark. He can hear them, that’s fine, but seeing them is another story. Seeing them is a little too close for comfort. You lie there on the floor of the closet, stealing more than your seven minutes in a kinky kind of heaven, as his massive heart of a hand reels you in and lets you go. His other hand finds your clit, so hard and aching it could be a cock, and you think you’ll hurt him when you come like that, squeezing so tight, the energy rushing all around, making your fingers tingle and your head so light it could float away. You see stars behind your eyes and have to drop your legs to the ground. His hand makes love to you, makes love appear inside of you even as you know this has to be the end. You want all of him, all the potential he has to love someone, and this is just a teaser.

“I’m going to pull out,” he says after what could be three minutes, or thirty. You want to protest, because once he’s gone, the emptiness will be so huge you know that sex will never be enough to fill it. You reach for his wrist and he lets you take it, lets you half sit up and keep him there. There’s a stillness to this all, a calm, Zenlike focus combined with the way it makes your pussy take over everything. You can feel him shaking, are sure he is sweating, and you take your fill of him, then lie back and let him leave. The silence is not deafening, but awe-inspiring. You break it by leaning against his chest, listening to his heart beat. You manage to block out all the noise outside the closet.

Autographed books at Barnes & Noble Greenwich Village

I moved to Mercer and West Third Street in Greenwich Village way back in August of 1996 when I first moved to NYC to go to NYU Law School (long story short, I didn't finish law school). I used to shop and stroll all over the area and one of those places I prowled was the Barnes & Noble at the corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street.

I walked in on Saturday and saw this in their Fiction Anthologies section:



I then browsed and bought Passions of a Wicked Earl by Lorraine Heath, a historical romance, and said I was an author and asked to sign some books. They then gave me a pen and I signed all their stock, which was quite extensive. So if you're in NYC, check them out for signed books (and I'll post here if I sign other places), including the ones you see above and Please, Ma'am and I think a few others.

Not in NYC and want a signed book? If you're in the US, you can Paypal me at rachelkb at gmail.com $14 and I'll send you any of my Cleis Press books signed to whoever you'd like. If there's another book you ant, email me at that address and ask me if I have any spare copies, and if I do, I'd be happy to autograph them.

Speaking of books, check out Violet Blue's Top Hot Sex Books for Gifting, Coveting - I've read most of them, and those I haven't, I want to, and Passion and Best Bondage Erotica 2011 are on there!

Violet Blue calls my "Espionage" "one of the most powerful stories I've ever read

Two very cool bits of news. First, editor Violet Blue has this to say about my second person story "Espionage" that she included in Best Women's Erotica 2011 (Cleis Press):

Not only famous in erotic writing, Rachel Kramer Bussel is an online media sensation. In one of the most powerful stories I’ve ever read, “Espionage” seems to pull from a very deep place to create a story I’ve returned to more than once. Here, we are the girl at the party who’s been having a torrid affair with the man of the house, seeing his wife for the first time as guests float in and out and finally mustering up the force to do something that dares him to be ours, even if just for that one intense moment that rips our fishnets.

Second is that I don't have my author copies yet, but I read that for free with my free sample I downloaded from the Kindle edition. Many Cleis Press anthologies, including my Peep Show, Bottoms Up, Fast Girls, Orgasmic, Smooth, Passion, Please, Sir, Please, Ma'am and Spanked (probably others too) now allow you to preview the book, reading the introdution and one story, sometimes part of a second. So check it out and read her sexy, ice cream-meltingly sweet and dripping and luscious introduction.



You can also order the paperback from Amazon or directly from Cleis Press.

Here's the start of my story "Espionage:"

You tuck your new pink and black coat, the one purchased earlier in the day just for this special evening, around your body, pull it tight like it’s cold out, except you’re indoors and the fire is roaring. You are cold, but it’s the kind of cold that can’t be heated by rubbing two sticks together or turning up the thermostat, the kind of cold that can only be vanquished once your heart catches up. Your heart is cautiously icy, watching and waiting; it isn’t safe to let it melt just yet.

Instead, you look—you could say spy, except you have an invitation, an elaborate listing of reasons this will be the party to end all parties, delivered right to your inbox. You’ve been promised bubble baths, servants, champagne, s’mores, drugs, debauchery. Those things intrigue you, sure, since you’re used to zoning out in front of the tv, quiet dinner parties, wholesome events like comedy shows and trivia nights, but you’d have shown up for gin rummy if it were held right here, in these rooms that hold a life that will never be yours, a life you’ve been given glimpses of but never truly peeked inside. Even better than any promise of party pampering, you’ve been granted access to this sacred space, this love shack you’ve up til now only imagined vividly. This is your chance to enter the inner sanctum, and you cling to it in the same way you hold your coat, and your heart—close. Still, despite the tacit permission, you feel like a spy, an Anaïs Nin emissary, as you walk through the rooms that make up their home, their urban house of love and lust and lasciviousness, a house you will never inhabit no matter how many times you fuck the master of it.

And while I don't necessarily "set out" to write bisexual protagonists, bisexuality weaves its way into many of my stories. In part, it's because I'm bi, and in part, it's because in erotica it adds all sorts of nuances and intrigues—you can definitely have those without it, but I like mixing things up.

You feel his eyes follow you around the room, feel his palms sweat as you tilt your head back and let the journalist whose byline you’ve read countless times tilt your head against her breast and slide her red lipstick over your lips, painting them as if she were making love to you. In a way, maybe she is, her fingers crushing your jaw, the not-quite-liquid, not-quite-solid of the waxy ruby pressing hard against your hips, hard the way he used to crush them, hard the way you like it.

She laughs an almost evil laugh that makes you wonder what else she could do with the lipstick, and feel a frisson of static pass from her small, bony hands into your cheeks when she pinches them, inspecting her work. You wonder, of course, if he’s fucked her, even though it shouldn’t really matter. Lots of things that shouldn’t matter take up space in your mind, fragments of jealousy on permanent repeat. You pucker up just to give your lips something to do, someone to make contact with who is not him. Her tongue traces the red, teases, darts but doesn’t claim you as her wicked laugh did. You let her know, with your lips, that she could have you, but she simply pulls back and smiles, her nails digging into your upper arm. Suddenly you want to pull her bleached blonde hair, tug hard until she can’t even make a sound, the feral domme inside of you wicking at your insides, aching to be let out for a moment. Instead you just smile wide and she slinks away to find another victim.

After, you think the lipstick will be smeared—that’s only right, isn’t it, after someone’s just fucked you with a tube from Mac?—but instead, it’s perfect. Redder than red, redder than you’d ever dare in your daily life. Fancy that. They should put that in an ad campaign. You go back to your spying-cum-ogling, your lips now signaling that you are the hussy you know yourself to be, the other woman come seeking vengeance, seeking something you will never have because it belongs to someone else.

Read the whole story in Best Women's Erotica 2011.

My story "Espionage" in Best Women's Erotica 2011

I told you about this when I first made the sale, but I'm thrilled that this book is out, and incredibly honored to be in it, especially because I pushed myself with this story, in a lot of ways. It's erotic but also more than that, I hope. Thank you to editor Violet Blue for including me in what I'm sure is a sexually sizzling collection (I don't have my copies yet but can't wait to read it). You can buy it now from Amazon or your local bookstore (click to find one). The Kindle edition will be on sale November 1st.



From the Cleis Press site:

"Suddenly this year, every single story is layered top to toe with explicit sex—hard and wet and mean and sweet, flowing with love and fused with characters who finally feel like us, with no apologies..." —from the Introduction

In Best Women's Erotica 2011, women are ready to stake their sexual claims like never before—with characters created by some of the most famous names in the erotica genre. Alison Tyler's naughty roommate threesome get more than they bargained for in the dangerous and delicious "Want"; an athlete in Sommer Marsden's "Laps" finds herself doing anything to please her trainer; and a mistress in Rachel Kramer Bussel's "Espionage" commands her lover for herself, if only for a searing moment, during a dinner party where she meets his wife.

With stories contributed by Alison Tyler, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Sommer Marsden, Jacqueline Applebee, Donna George Storey, Cecilia Tan, Louisa Harte, Louise Lagris, Chrissie Bentley, Alyssa Turner, Lana Fox, Amelia Thornton, Giselle Renarde, Valerie Alexander, Velvet Moore, Lola Olson, Kirsty Logan, Cynthia Hamilton, and Janine Ashbless.

For a little more of a teaser, here's the opening to "Espionage:"

“You tuck your new pink and black coat, the one purchased earlier in the day just for this special evening, around your body, pull it tight like it’s cold out, except you’re indoors and the fire is roaring. You are cold, but it’s the kind of cold that can’t be heated by rubbing two sticks together or turning up the thermostat, the kind of cold that can only be vanquished once your heart catches up. Your heart is cautiously icy, watching and waiting; it isn’t safe to let it melt just yet.”

and a bit from the middle:

"His fat fingers find your wetness, a wetness that surprises even you. You didn’t come here for this; you’re supposed to be an observer, a spy, a detached spectator, not a participant. In the dark you can barely see a thing, can only feel. He wants his fingers to hurt, to hurt the way they used to, to hurt the way you used to like it, so your pussy is sore long after they’re gone. He twists them and slams them deep inside you, and even though you’re wet there, it does hurt in its way. He drops your wrists to press his hand against your cheek, to pin you in place, digits digging into the tender skin of your face, landing wherever they may.

You squirm, and aren’t sure if it’s to get away or to get him in deeper. Actually, that’s a lie; he’s always known better than you what you want, a trait that’s either the hottest thing ever or the apotheosis of infuriating. You push against him and instantly the mood changes; you are no longer simply star-crossed lovers reuniting, but something darker, deeper. You press hard with your hands, your hips, to fight him off—but not really. He pushes back with ease, his hand twisting your head into the wall, covering half your face. The harder he holds you there, the deeper the ache in your pussy. You try to twist to the side, give him an elbow blow, something to make him feel the impact, but he is more powerful than you by far. Even if he weren’t, though, he would be winning, because this, finally, is what you’ve come here for: to struggle, to writhe, to argue with your body, to try to tell him, and yourself, that this is over, knowing all the while it will never be over, not really."

Fucking: What's feminism got to do with it?

I tried to write this last night and was so addled from doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer I could barely think, so here's what I've got so far, I hope to add to this, and apologies if it's a bit disjointed, but I wanted to get this up while it's still timely.

This is going to start with four cliched words: I'm a feminist but...I don't think feminism and fucking are quite as intertwined as they are sometimes tagged as being. That is not to say I think they're unrelated, but there is not always an obvious connection, and that's a good thing.

What do I mean? Well, let's look at Karen Owen and the Duke Fuck List. Much of the discussion about the list asked the question of whether what she wrote was an example of "feminist empowerment." But that idea in itself almost mocks feminism, because it means that anything a woman does is automatically assumed to be speaking for all women and having some grand meaning rather than an individual one.

Jasper Hamill wrote in Scotland's The Herald:

No-one admires the misogynistic way sports teams objectify women, so why on earth would we admire the same thing flipped on its head?

Why does that question automatically have to be asked? Why does every woman, whether or not she's a feminist, have to be a stand-in for all women and all of feminism? Isn't that just another version of putting women on a pedestal, except this time it's a feminist one?

Witness Catherine Cai in The Emery Wheel:

But to call Owen a feminist hero would be a disgusting misinterpretation of the events. By assigning worth to individuals based on appearances and sexual performances, she’s only reversing the roles, not doing away with them. In the end, Owen is not empowering women, but simply subscribing to the same patriarchal system that feminists have fought against for decades, one that insists on a dominant party and a subordinate party.

Feminism is also not about women’s domination over men, power plays, reversing the tables or spite. That counterproductive approach is what gave rise to such negative terms as “feminazi” and “manhater,” which, at the end of the day, only detract from the movement. Feminism should be about women’s self empowerment — a simple and worthy goal that’s too often lost in translation.

I think to take something that was never intended to be shown publicly (unless that is all a ruse and it was a wonderful media ploy, but I don't believe that) and try to assign some grander meaning on Owen's part is problematic, to say the least. Whether or not it was empowering for Owen is a different question from whether or not the list's public spectacle is "empowering" for all women. This is the same question that came up ad nauseam about Sex and the City, though there it was slightly more valid, as that was a television show aimed at the public, but still, it was never allowed to just be entertainment, and Samantha Jones was repeatedly held up as a negative example of "sexual empowerment." But was she trying to be a feminist heroine (or hero) or, like Owen, perhaps, just herself? Do we need to hold up every promiscuous woman as the "new" feminist icon?

This is not 1994, and we have moved on from the Tad Friend-coined term "do me feminism," though there are still plenty of feminist sex activists, women who are starting sex toy stores, sharing information, providing options.

The problem becomes when we start to make judgments against women like Owen because we don't want her to be held up as an icon. "That's fine for her, but..."

Tom Leonard in the Daily Mail, to my mind, misread the original Jezebel post when he wrote:

Meanwhile, critics are ­particularly offended that she is being held up as a ­champion of female sexuality and empowerment. Feminist icon ­status beckons.

Two websites that printed her ‘thesis’ claim they have been approached by the William ­Morris talent agency, the publisher ­HarperCollins and a film company, desperate to get hold of Owen to discuss book or film deals.

An editor at HarperCollins was quoted as speaking about the student’s ‘sense of self-empowerment’.

The women’s website Jezebel ­proclaimed: ‘Here’s another reminder that women can be as aggressive, or acquisitive, about sex as men can. And there’s ­nothing wrong with that, as long as all ­parties are consenting.’

I think this is the same reason that a lot of women, myself included, have struggled with our own masochism and kinkiness, especially when our play partners are men, because that seems to smack of some kind of antifeminist imagery. In other words, how can you be a feminist and like: to get tied up, verbally degraded, choked, spanked, exposed, etc., by a man? Those kinks are held up as examples that we often internalize about how we are supposed to behave, and rarely does the female dominant/male submissive get mentioned.

When I've edited the Best Sex Writing series, I get a disproportionate number of essays from feminist submissives grappling with how feminism and submission fit together. It's not that this is not a worthwhile topic to write about or consider, but the fact that we belabor it to such a degree means that we do think, on some level, that our individual actions need to be held up as some sort of heroic feminist acts, and that's where I think we've taken the political too far.

I also think that while of course the personal is political, that doesn't mean that everything about an individual's sex life can be reduced to politics. For example...I have trouble orgasming. I'm one of the women that new national sex survey is talking about (not literally, as I wasn't surveyed, but in general), but whenever I see that reduced to a "problem" or called anti-feminist, it makes me feel like there is something personally defective about me.

Perhaps the larger question is: does everything a feminist does have to be "feminist" or can it just be something she does? Because we are never all going to agree on what a proper feminist sex act is, in part because I don't think there can be such a definition. It's like we're being goaded to hold up Owen as a hero or dismiss her as a whore, and I would hope that we could recognize that people do not so easily fit into extremes, and that sex, of all things, is more complicated than that.

I think Megan Carpentier at Jezebel is dead right that women are told:

Don't watch porn, don't give blow jobs, don't go home with just anyone, don't give away the milk so that he doesn't think the cow is free. Don't be an exhibitionist, don't be submissive, don't engage in sex work, don't expect to be loved if you've been too slutty.

BUT, and this is a big but, those things are not then by definition, because they're excoriated by certain segments of society, feminist acts just because a feminist (or a woman) is doing them. That is my main point about this post. Not that feminism and sexuality aren't intertwined, but that we can stand up for sexuality without having to hold women to a higher standard because of feminism.

Or in the words of Jezebel commenter blueberryblackberry:

I practice BDSM and I'm a woman who tops men. It frustrates me when others try to politicize this into a feminist statement (and especially into some kind of bizarre "female supremacy" bullshit). My kink is my kink because it turns me on, not because it aligns with any social or political ideology.

For some kink or a fetish or their sexual expression might be linked to their feminism, but to assume it's so, or to imbue feminist ideals onto sexual acts and motivations without hearing from the participants, is a grave mistake in my opinion, especially when we have people like Rabbi Shmuley Boteach telling us that "How The Condom Culture is Killing Sex". The answer is not that "all casual sex is wonderful" or "empower" or "feminist," but that as autonomous adults, we have the option to engage in casual sex and discover whether it suits us or not.

I will have more to say, especially as this relates to topics like BDSM and female masochism, but I have to head back to the walk.

There is also a very interesting discussion going on at Violet Blue's blog Tiny Nibbles about what the definition of "sex-positive" is that I think can help inform this discussion.

My story "Espionage" to be published in Best Women's Erotica 2011

One of the assignments I give students when I teach erotic writing workshops is to write about something that really happened, but give it a twist. I like to tell them to take a sexual experience that wasn’t so great and turn it into something that, in fiction, is everything you had hoped it would be. That is the beauty of fiction, or erotica, to me, anyway. Some people prefer completely fictional stories, to get way outside themselves, and at times, I’m like that too. In the aftermath of my breakup I had to write about a gay couple and I lent that story an outrageousness I didn’t feel in my personal life.

So anyway, I took my own advice and wrote a story called “Espionage” that I am beyond honored to have published in the December anthology Best Women’s Erotica 2011 edited by Violet Blue (Cleis Press). I’m proud in part because I know Violet receives hundreds of submissions every year and only chooses the cream of the crop, but I’m also proud because it’s a somewhat dark story. I wrote it in the second person because for me, to have written it in the first person wouldn’t have been cathartic; it would’ve destroyed me. I find it challenging when writing in the first person about something that is at least partly autobiographical to not gloss over details; I was there, I know what I looked like or was thinking, but the reader has no clue. So in order to go outside of myself, which is kindof what I felt like in that situation, I used second person. Through that lens, it was much easier to have compassion on myself, or rather, the me-like character in my story.

This wasn’t a story I’d ever say I “wanted” to write, but one that clawed at me, that I needed to write to put that experience behind me. The event the fictional story commemorates is the culmination of a relationship and that shows. What I love about that process is that through writing it, I worked through a lot of things. All those emotions that are maybe “too mean” or that make me feel uncomfortable, I could throw into the guise of fiction and turn them into a blender until I barely know what’s true and what’s not, and furthermore, that doesn’t matter. There is no such thing as “truth,” anyway, not really, not when it comes to emotions and relationships. There are experiences and feelings but I would never presume to say my take on any one relationship is “true” or not. Anyone involved could write or create art out of any human interaction and that, to me, is the biggest, most telling lesson of all. I sometimes get so mired in “my version” that I forget that a whole other world exists outside, in this case, the pain of it. I could be angry at myself for indulging my worst emotions, for letting myself get caught up in something I never should have, or I could just make peace with it.

I’m proud that it works as a story, as something that, in those several thousands words, takes my tale of being an “Anaïs Nin emissary” and makes it into something that others can appreciate and enjoy. The “you” in the story is no longer me, if it ever was. It’s “you,” some fictional girl. I can’t share more right now, but I will leave you with this teaser from the first paragraph that I hope will make you rush right out and order it (or put it on your wishlist):

“You tuck your new pink and black coat, the one purchased earlier in the day just for this special evening, around your body, pull it tight like it’s cold out, except you’re indoors and the fire is roaring. You are cold, but it’s the kind of cold that can’t be heated by rubbing two sticks together or turning up the thermostat, the kind of cold that can only be vanquished once your heart catches up. Your heart is cautiously icy, watching and waiting; it isn’t safe to let it melt just yet.”

I think I’ll read it at the very last In The Flesh on December 16th. You can read it in Best Women’s Erotica 2011, out in early December, available now for pre-order.

Congratulations to me (and Violet Blue and Jessica Valenti): IPPY Winners!

We all won Gold IPPY (Independent Publisher) Awards!



Violet Blue's anthology Sweet Life: Fantasies for Couples (watch the sexy book trailer here) and my Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories both tied or the GOLD IPPY Award for Erotica for 2010! Woo-hoo!





Best Sex Writing 2010 took the Gold IPPY Award for Sexuality/Relationships.



And Jessica Valenti won for The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women (Seal Press) for Women's Issues.



Synchronicity: Best Sex Writing 2010 includes both Violet Blue's "The Future of Sex Ed" and an excerpt from Jessica Valenti's and Jaclyn Friedman's Seal Press anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.