Why Pleasure Matters

I was moved by an essay called "Face Forward," by Jim Lewis, published in a recent issue of W. Here are some quotes:

Glamour is unfair -- one of the only things in this unfair world that are admirable for being so. ... Glamour is among the most superfluous of things. Many have never seen it, let alone borne it; many more have paid it no mind. ... Because it's nothing, really: just a bit of flash and glitter, a smile, and goodbye. It's not going to save the world.

No, but it's one of the things that can make the world seem worth saving. Pleasures aren't so easy to come by, after all, and the purer the pleasure, the more pointless and inexplicable, the more we tend to prize it.

I like the poetic tone of the essay, and I'm interested in the context of fashion and glamour. By the time he starts talking about pleasure, though, I've moved into thinking about sex. I often wonder why it seems so vital, so significant to write about sex. Sometimes, I mentally disparage my work by thinking of it as "cock and pussy stories," my own insulting version of the phrase "cock and bull." I worry about whether I'm wasting my talents, and wonder why I'm so interested in writing about people fucking.

But I do think writing about sex is really important, in addition to being fun. (I use the tag "sacred calling" on my blog for a reason.) And I think Lewis's words on glamour go a long way toward explaining one aspect of why. Pleasure is special, fleeting, significant. It makes life worth living and the world worth saving. And it is under siege, from myself and my own internal Puritan, and also from others who want to disapprove of where I find my pleasure or regulate it. Many people find pleasure terribly threatening, and that could only be the case if it mattered.

When BDSM Lacks Safewords

I don't talk about it much, but my first BDSM relationship was quite abusive. I was young, and had no idea that there was a community, or even that other people understood the things I desired, shared those desires, and had given them names. When I got together with someone who started tying me up, introducing spanking, and so forth, I was excited, ashamed, confused. He was older, and I leaned on him to know what we were doing.

We didn't have safewords. We didn't have negotiations. He just did things to me, and we had all the problems you might expect. There was no way to differentiate between fun "no" and serious "no." There was no way to express that -- really, truly -- I wasn't ready for something. And I was too dependent and not in control of my own sexual fate.

Why am I talking about this now? In conversation on Twitter the other night with @eroticawriter (author I.G. Frederick) and @MenageReviewer (Mary's Naughty Whispers), the question came up: "Is there such a thing as nonconsensual BDSM?"

I understand where the question came from, because these days to me BDSM is deeply intertwined with consent and negotiation. I'm sympathetic to the idea that if there's no clear sense of consent, it's abuse, not BDSM. I wish we lived in that world. But the truth is, we live in a world where a lot of people (including my past self) aren't very educated about sex, and don't have a good sense of how to take charge of what happens to them in a sexual context.

As part of the conversation, I discovered two incredible blog posts on this subject written by I.G. Frederick. I think they're must-reads for anyone who's ever been in a BDSM relationship that felt "off."

The first lays out the difference between abuse and BDSM:

But without training and experience, without care and consideration, abuse can happen even with consent. Someone who consents to a D/s relationship without prior knowledge of what it involves or the person to whom he/she is submitting is a perfect candidate for emotional abuse. This statement, in a “slave’s” online journal, speaks volumes about what the person writing it has experienced in the past. “i need some security and to feel good that i am not going to be thrown away for a simple reason.”

The second describes the anger that inspired Frederick to write disturbing erotic novels on this subject:

These novels are not romances. They’re cautionary tales about abuse and the meaning of consent. (In Broken Jessica consents to enslavement by her professor when he threatens to expel her from the university and blacklist her.) I know some readers find them arousing. Others have found them revolting. But, my intention was that readers find them thought provoking and that has indeed been the case.

This is a great example of why I think it's important for there to be at least some erotica that exists apart from the requirement of a happy ending. I need to read stories like this sometimes to understand the things that have happened to me. Other stories have given me a vision of hope -- the idea of what a BDSM relationship can be. But sometimes, I just need to know that someone else understands these situations in all their complexity -- pain and arousal both included.

Best Sex Writing 2012

I've written in the past about how I think erotica is a sacred calling, but I should expand the statement. Writing about sex is a sacred calling. I spent so long walking around wounded or confused about sex, afraid to say anything. I spent more time not knowing how to share my sexual joys. I love one-handed reading, for sure. But over the past few years, I've also become a huge fan of the Best Sex Writing series, published by Cleis Press.

I'm participating in this year's blog tour for Best Sex Writing 2012, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. The writing is honest, challenging, and exciting. There was a piece that really pissed me off and plenty of pieces that got me thinking.

Cleis was kind enough to send me a copy of the book to check it out, so I'm going to do a quick rundown of the pieces that made the biggest impression on me and why.

"Sluts, Walking" by Amanda Marcotte:

"I expect that when a man thinks a woman being sexy means that she isn't smart or deserving of basic respect, you know everything you need to know about him, and he is the one who has forfeited his right to be treated with respect, not the woman he claims provoked him."

Thank you, Amanda Marcotte, for giving a clear, cogent rundown of this issue. I need to hear it to relieve my own twists of thought and my sense of shame. I think we all need to hear it, over and over, until it really sinks in.

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

"In debates with atheists, many believers argue for religion on the basis of how good it makes them feel. They argue that religion is emotionally useful, psychologically useful, socially useful: that religion gives people a sense of meaning, moral guidance, comfort in hard times, etc. ... But if this argument is to be believed, this usefulness argument is conclusively shown to be bogus--even on its own terms. At least when it comes to sex."

Greta Christina wrote on of my favorite pieces of erotica ever ("Bending," published in Three Kinds of Asking For It), so I was sorry to be so irritated by this piece. While I found the study data Christina cited (about sexual guilt and religion) very interesting, I disliked the essay's evangelical tone. I am a believer, and I've used the utility argument she describes when talking to atheists. But I'll tell you why: because I don't want to get into trying to prove the existence of God to someone. I actually don't want to argue at all (my personal approach to religion). I do believe, however, that God is real. Christina's essay convinced me that I need to be more upfront about that, to avoid disingenuous discussions and irritating treatises that won't convince anyone who isn't already convinced. I probably need to write a whole post on this one, but my brief response is that God and religion are like family to me. They come with a bunch of baggage and guilt, true, but I personally can't escape them. Being raised by my parents left me with a huge need for therapy, but they're still my parents. Religion's in the same category for me.

"I Want You to Want Me" by Hugo Schwyzer:

"So many straight men have no experience of sensing a gaze of outright longing."

One of my favorite pieces in the book. As a woman who has often felt ashamed of my "slutty" desire for the male body, which I've never been able to conceal, it's really interesting to read about the male experience of the female gaze. My partner loves reducing me to speechlessness by revealing his body and this essay gave me a better sense of what's going on with that. As I've written before, I realized at some point that a lot of erotica doesn't really describe the male body. I think it's why a lot of women are drawn to gay porn and m/m writing--we really do like the male body. I would love to live in a world where women felt free to express their true desires.

"Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift" by Joan Price:

"Robert would never touch me again, and I had to find my own way to reclaim the sensual and sexual life within me."

This piece made me cry. It's lovely and brave and I've since been recommending Joan Price's work right and left. I am a young woman, but I find writing by mature women about their sexuality very empowering and comforting, perhaps because it makes it clear that my sexuality isn't something that will just go away once I pass menopause. The wisdom, compassion, and sense of self that were so clear in this essay will all serve me well someday.

"An Unfortunate Discharge Early in My Naval Career" by Tim Elhajj:

"I was about to be forced to tear off the mask I had worn throughout high school. About to stand revealed before the adult world and acknowledge who I really was: a heterosexual male who struggled with authority, an indiscriminate rebel who had a weakness for a little good head."

I love the complexity of sexual identity that Elhajj lays out in his essay. Military officers repeat to him, "You are a homosexual," and his writing makes it clear what an outrage it is for someone else to define your sexual identity for you.

"The Careless Language of Sexual Violence" by Roxane Gay:

"It was an 11-year-old girl whose body was ripped apart, not a town. It was an 11-year-old girl whose life was ripped apart, not the lives of the men who raped her. It is difficult for me to make sense of how anyone could lose sight of that, and yet it isn't."

Another topic, unfortunately, that really needs to be discussed. And thank you to Roxane Gay for a brutally clarifying discussion of rape and what it is and means.

"Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth About Kinky Sexting" by Rachel Kramer Bussel:

"Without the motivation of the person sending and receiving [bits of erotic conversation], you really don't know anything, and yet a default anti-BDSM reaction seems to be acceptable. Our public squeamishness over the fact that some people can eroticize pain, degradation, and being ordered around, safely, consensually, and pleasurably, is nothing more than a prejudice that needs to be eradicated."

I have reams of chat logs that would make a lot of people seriously wonder about me. I like the solidarity of sex writing. When one person speaks up, it lets other people know that what they're doing can't be so terribly weird. I admire the bravery it takes to single yourself out and reveal what's in your bed, your closet, or saved on your computer.

"Adrian's Penis: Care and Handling" by Adrian Colesberry:

"Adrian holds no delusions about women wanting a man to last forever. In his experience, they resoundingly haven't. It's great for those first few times when you just can't get enough of each other, but after that, if you are anything like every woman he's ever been with, you'll be over it."

This piece is hilarious, real, and refreshingly honest. Written in a style that reminds me of David Foster Wallace (complete with footnotes) it is wry, self-deprecating, and friendly, while also cutting to the core of what's so damn uncomfortable about having sex with people who aren't you.

"Love Grenade" by Lidia Yuknavitch:

"We ate each other we ate pickled herring we ate Gruyere cheese. We ate the animal out of each other's bodies we ate steak we ate chocolate two women my chocolate. We drank each other we drank all the beer we drank all the wine we peed outside. We got high on skin and cum and sweat we got high on pot. We came in waves we ran out and into the waves."

Poetic and cutting. I had a hard time picking a quote for this one because you just have to read the whole thing. Quite different from the rest of the pieces in the book because it's much less intellectual. I was glad for it.

***

Looking back, I've written a blurb for more than a third of the pieces in the book and I could easily do more. Every page is well worth reading. I highly recommend it.

For more information about the book, you can visit this page. Here's the book trailer:

On The Red Hills of Georgia

I got into writing erotica partly because I found myself telling more of the truth when I wrote in the genre--not just about sex, but about life. Topics I avoided in other writing (addiction, hopelessness, hopefulness, politics, abuse, gender issues, and many more) suddenly carried irresistible attraction. In the realm of the forbidden, nothing is sacred and everything is worth discussing. My pseudonym became a rallying cry for my psyche, braver than me, bolder, sexier, and smarter.

One of the biggest tests of this to date came with my story, "On the Red Hills of Georgia," which posted last week at Every Night Erotica. I've written about all kinds of things, but race always seemed too delicate, too dangerous, too easy to get wrong.

But like sex itself, if you're not willing to get it wrong, you're going to be boring for the rest of your life. And while this story has a serious subject and message, it's got lots of sex, too. Here's an excerpt:

Maureen shifted uncomfortably. She had hoped for a huge cock the night she’d met Kareem at a club. But she still wouldn’t have given her number to just anyone–or, at least, she didn’t think so.

Kareem pursed his lips and lay back down. “Baby, people like what they like. I don’t know if we can control that. Maybe when I see you’re an Asian girl, there’s a bunch of stuff I expect with that. Maybe you’re doing the same thing to me. But it’s been a year, and I think I see the person you are, too. You know?”

His words made sense, but what he’d made her discover inside herself had her burning with shame. She tried to find a comfortable position. She couldn’t bring herself to face him right now, or to hold him.

He sighed. “You think too much, Maureen.” He turned her toward him, running his hands up and down her spine, parting her legs, wrapping them around his waist.

The best part of Kareem’s body was actually his tongue, not his cock. On their first date, he’d put a cherry stem from her drink into his mouth. A moment later, he showed it to her on his tongue, tied in a perfect knot.

He slid down her body. Her cunt had already gotten wet at some point, and her juices trailed up his chest until he sank his face into her folds. He handled her easily, one hand gripping her ass and the other feeding fingers into her cunt–one, then two, then three. She clenched around his fingers while he traced his tongue in patterns over her clit with exquisite, teasing patience.

Eventually, she came hard enough to forget her worries.

Read the rest here.

Stories I've Enjoyed (Coming Together Edition): "Quite Contrary" by Allison Wonderland

In honor of the Coming Together Share the Love Blog Bash, I thought that I'd feature Coming Together stories all month for "Stories I've Enjoyed."

Coming Together publishes erotic anthologies and standalone titles, and donates all proceeds to various charities.

The story I'm featuring today, "Quite Contrary" by Allison Wonderland, appeared in Coming Together: By Hand, a collection of masturbation stories that benefits the Coalition for Positive Sexuality.

"Quite Contrary" is about a woman who decides that having the first orgasm of her life is "the one gift that will suffice" for her 50th birthday. She masturbates for the first time, carefully preparing her room and setting aside the taboos she picked up from childhood:

"Ready or not, here I come," Mary giggles, as her hand advances toward her cunt. Her arm quivers, causing her to make a detour to her thigh. The pads of her fingers trek along the pallid skin, tickling the tiny flaxen hairs.

Parting her legs a fraction, she traverses the interior, her nails brushing against the powder pink lace sheltering her sex.

I found the story both hot and moving, a true sign of excellence. I like erotica, most of all, for its honesty, its willingness to go behind closed doors. This story is a great example. I like that Mary is 50. I like that Mary is brave. And I like that Mary learns how to give herself an orgasm.

For full disclosure, I've been published by Coming Together, but I bought Coming Together: By Hand and wrote this post entirely on my own.

The Share the Love Blog Bash Begins!

Alessia Brio kicks things off with a moving description of why Coming Together matters to her:

I'm doing things I believe in with every fiber of my being. Not only do I believe in the rightness and the power of charity, I also believe in the rightness and the power of sex. Writing about sex, whether to educate or to arouse, brings it into the light where it belongs. Sex needs to be celebrated for the joyous, life-affirming, rowdy primal romp that it is. It is only when relegated to dark, forbidden places that sex becomes something shameful. Something that others—media, religion, politics, retail—can use to manipulate and control us.

For those not in the know, Coming Together publishes erotic books and donates all proceeds to charity. She's also posted an excerpt of one of her stories, "Butterfly," which is an amazing example of the healing power of erotica, and appeared quite appropriately in an anthology benefiting Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

I'm proud to be part of Coming Together's stable of authors, and my own blog bash post will be up on Feb. 24. Keep an eye out!