But Heavens, You Don't Actually Talk About It, Do You?

Not so long ago, I went for a teaching interview. The panel asked excellent questions, including, "It says on your CV that you're a widely published author. What sort of fiction do you write?" I explained that, among other things, I wrote about sexuality, and this was work I truly believed in. Connecting with others and dispelling shame is what I'm all about.

The woman who'd voiced the question gave me a serious look. "But when you're working with teenagers," she said, "do you talk about sexuality?"

"Well," I began, "if we were studying a love poem by W. H. Auden, I might raise the fact that Auden was gay, and that the students shouldn't assume the poet was addressing a woman." I went on to talk about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and how, though Juliet is only aged thirteen, she falls in erotic love and willingly has sex. "Our young people must learn to question pressure," I said, "while also understanding that they're responsible for their bodies. Stories are an excellent way of raising this sort of debate. So yes," I added, "I talk about sexuality. But sexual feelings? No. It's a classroom, after all."

The panelist had asked a reasonable question, of course, but I'm looking at it from the other side of the fence. I'd never want a child of mine left in the hands of a teacher who, when the subject of sexuality arose, wouldn't address the matter. If kids are going to read adult texts, such as Shakespeare's R&J, then I want them with a teacher who isn't afraid to be wise. Confusion about sexual needs is rife amongst our teenagers, which is why unwanted pregnancies are on the rise along with the spread of sexual disease...and that's before we've even mentioned self-esteem! Please, oh please, let our young folks be taught by someone who isn't afraid.

I have been a pastoral tutor for classes of British teenagers, where talking about sexuality was part of my job. Kids giggle when you first mention it and make a load of jokes, but as soon as they see that you're serious, the questions begin. They're important questions, thoughtful questions, down-to-earth and smart. These students are more mature than we realize.

But back to the interview panel. See, the panelist seemed to assume that sexuality was dirty, and that if I spoke about it, then I might be dirty too. I swear, the idea that a talk about sex might simply address identity hadn't so much as entered the woman's head. It seems she was stuck on the topic of arousal, when that's really just one part of it. Truth is, the more we believe that sex is bad and gross, the more we encourage repression and harm -- and these, I argue, are the stuff that damage is made of.

Some day, I hope I'll be on an interview panel asking the very same question. And the answer I'll want will be something like this: "I'd talk with teenagers about sexuality just the same as I'd talk about love."

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 9: Greta Christina

When Greta Christina was interviewed by Greg Fish at his blog World of Weird Things, Greg asked: "Imagine your ideal world in terms of sexual culture. What would it be like?"

Greta replied:

"I thought about that a lot and the best metaphor I came up with for treating sex and sexual preferences is to treat them the way we treat music. Different people have different musical tastes. Some like opera, some like rap, some like country, some people like a wide variety of music. To some people, music just doesn't matter a whole lot and to some people it's central to their lives and we pretty much accept that. We might have our own negative opinions about certain musical types but we generally accept their right to enjoy their music as long as they're not forcing others to listen to it against their will. And in fact we celebrate the diversity in music, that musical tastes change over time and that we have the right to choose the music we like for ourselves. And I would like people to treat sex the same way."

Greta Christina is a widely published author whose books include Paying for It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients, among many others. She also writes a fabulous blog.

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 8: Jennifer Lyon Bell

Jennifer Lyon Bell's erotic films are subtle, yet astoundingly hot. Not only are scenarios carefully scripted, but characters are developed and scenes are artfully shot. Check out Lyon Bell's Amsterdam-based company Blue Artichoke Films. The following quote came from an interview by Lauren Wissot in Carnal Nation:

"In the end, I think letting the film industry and government separate sexuality from the rest of human experience is tragically misguided. Sex is a part of life, and an extremely common and extremely powerful one. Why must sex be a genre of its own?"

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 7: Rachel Kramer Bussel

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a hugely talented author, and was one of the first U.S. editors to recognise my own worth as a writer. Rachel said the following in an interview with Mr. NYC:

"I really like the fact that, while I am not an expert in any way, I'm someone that my friends can talk to about things they might not have anyone else to ask. I was at dinner with a friend the other day and she looked around then lowered her head and whispered, I was told I have to ask you about this. Have you heard of this thing called 'squirting'? Her boyfriend wanted her to squirt (female ejaculate) and she was freaked out by it and we discussed it and I assured her that it wasn't weird but also wasn't mandatory. Then I sent her a copy of my friend Violet Blue's book The Smart Girl's Guide to the G-Spot."

The Big Orgasmic Giveaway!

Red hot reviews of Orgasmic are flooding in, including a fabulous one from the Edge. In celebration, both of this and the fact that I'll be reading at Orgasm Night in New York this October, I'm going to try to tempt you out of the closet. Anyone commenting on this blog over the next 24 hours will have the chance of winning a free copy of Orgasmic: Erotica for Women edited by the brilliant Rachel Kramer Bussel. The book features stunning stories by 25 fabulous authors. Now if that isn't temptation, I don't know what is!

Speaking of blogs, check out the official Orgasmic blog, and for a taste of some of the authors in this collection, check out Donna George Storey, Heidi Champa, and Andrea Dale, to name but a few.

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 6: Henry Miller

I was once snubbed by a bookstore owner for buying a copy of Tropic of Cancer, but who gives a darn? Miller wrote of the sexual world as he saw it, with guts, vividness and unapologetic fervour.

"Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation...the other eight are unimportant." Henry Miller

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 5: Candida Royale

Candida Royale began to direct her own erotic movies after she'd acted in porn herself. She is known for her sexually explicit films that speak to female desire -- something she wasn't seeing elsewhere in porn. This quote is from an interview in New York Cool by Anusha Alikhan:

"I need women who are willing to perform sexually on screen, who look good, and who can act. That's a hard combination to find in New York because there's no industry here. But I don't like shooting in LA because everyone looks the same there, it's the same Barbie doll look. I don't like when women get breast augmentation and too much work done. I feel like it sends a message that in order to be desirable you've got to surgically enhance yourself. That's not what I'm about."

Violet Blue's Stellar Talk at Gnomedex 2010

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 4: Violet Blue

Violet recently spoke about how social media, such as Facebook, are trying to tell us how/how not to speak about sex. Her speech (see above) won her one of the only three standing ovations ever known at Gnomedex.

At the conference, Violet said, of sex: "As geeks this is important to us: It is one of the things that keeps us connected to our bodies. Our hearts, our minds, our passion, and our human sexuality. It's the intrinsic and beautiful part of our human circuitry. And they keep telling us that it's not beautiful and I'm going to keep telling you it is."

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 3: Susie Bright

"The openness of lust, of sexual attraction, is often the way we learn to love somebody, and that's no small feat. It is very difficult to love people, even though our communal evolution and ego lead us there in many ways. It is so much easier to be impatient, to discriminate, to draw as many lines in the sand as we can. For even the awareness of not loving someone, of one's loss, is compassionate compared to the demands of shame and blame."

From Born-Again Virgin, an essay in The Sexual State of the Union, by Susie Bright

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 2: Dr. Ronald Moglia

Dr. Moglia, in Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance & Submission (by Georgia G. Brame, Williams D. Brame, Jon Jacobs):

"Do we need to understand S/M and B&D, or do we need just to accept it? When you look at the history of fetishes, three or four fetishistic behaviors were discovered between 1870 and 1900 -- they weren't [actually] discovered; they were just named by a medical source. All of a sudden we are compelled to understand and interpret them. Perhaps what social scientists should be doing is trying to understand the people who can't accept the behaviors."

Opinions on the Erotic Life, No. 1: Anais Nin

"The true liberation of eroticism lies in accepting the fact that there are a million facets to it, a million forms of eroticism, a million objects of it, situations, atmospheres, and variations. We have, first of all, to dispense with the guilt concerning its expansion, then remain open to its surprises, varied expressions, and (to add my personal formula for the full enjoyment of it) fuse it with individual love and passion for a human being, mingle it with dreams, fantasies and emotions for it to attain its highest potency."

From Nin's The Eroticism of Women, which can be found in In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays.

P.S. I just read a wonderful post on the process of erotic writing and sexual imagination here.

The Phone Sex Sagas

Thanks to Thomas Roche and Violet Blue for providing intelligent critique of the OkCupid iPhone saga. For those who aren't aware, OkCupid carried out a survey, the results of which suggest that iPhone owners have more sexual partners. And this has been interpreted by many as showing that iPhone users get more frequently laid. As Violet reminds us, "More sex partners does not equal more sex..."

See, we have to get savvy with studies like this. Our reading and critique skills need to be switched on. For thoughtful, independent coverage, do read Thomas Roche's brilliant blog post and Violet Blue's follow-up.

I have a comment to add, myself. If it were "proved" that iPhone users masturbated more, would there be such pride? Sadly, I think not. Yet those who are committed to solo sex might very well be far more sexually satisfied than those who solely seek partnered sex (and maybe we have more time to chill out with our own bodies when we're not constantly reading pointless surveys). We have to start looking at sexuality through a different lens -- not wondering how many people you've shagged or how often you've shagged, but how satisfied and in-tune you are. Numbers, numbers...why this dependency on numbers? I'm more interested in how we look after ourselves, how we use our own sexual creativity and how tolerant and welcoming we are.

By the by, I think what the survey actually suggests is that those who tend to carry out surveys and also own an iPhone seem to have more sex partners.

Gee. How enlightening.

Sexuality: A Story In Itself

A good friend often tells me she'd never date a writer. She can't be doing with all that swapping of work, reading one another's stories. Actually, I think she might also worry about the competitive aspect of writers' love relationships, and this I can totally see. In fact, I've made a big thing in my life of not being jealous. Our friends' successes are our successes. But we're all different, and for some, competition can be exhausting, and the choice to never date a writer is both fair and understandable!

When I was studying Psychology we looked at how most westerners tend to define themselves primarily by their roles, particularly in terms of the work they're paid to do. Silly, really. We're so much more than that. But this is one of the reasons why unemployment can feel so empty and hard in our culture. I've found saying "I write erotica" raises a bundle of prejudice and confusion. When asked, the first thing I say is that I'm a writer. Then, if someone wants to know my genre, I tell them I write erotic stories.

Sure, the "role" thing is an issue and what we do is important, but I became more sexually in tune with myself when I realised I'm more than a teacher, editor, writer, reader. And, if, someday, I am suddenly unable to write, I will retain my sanity and understanding of my broader creativity if I don't solely define myself by what I do or did. So I love telling people that I'm all about stories -- not just erotica, but any kind of story. I love hearing people's stories of their day, and I can't wait for the moment at night when I can sit and read my book. In fact, my sex life, not to mention my erotic writing, is a story in itself: creative, unending, and true.

But we should all see ourselves as we want to see ourselves, and I understand, absolutely, my friend's observation. She must never date a writer because that's what she's like. She is strong in herself, knows what she wants.

Sounds pretty sexy, right?

Second Bite of the Cherry

Want to take a peek beneath Lana's silky layers? Then read the opening of my erotic novel-in-progress, Second Bite of the Cherry, in which a geek is transformed, wedding guests get kinky, and a cruel bride isn't quite what she seems. It's so much fun to write! Enjoy...

Eve, Honey, Pass Me That Apple.

What a complicated tarot card "The Lovers" can be. As you may know, it features the first man and woman, as well as the apple tree they ate from and the snake that led them astray. For me, the story of humankind's demise, in which woman and man break the first of all rules, is one of the hottest around. Well, we all know rule-breaking is sexy! I once wrote a poem about Eve's downfall, in which she tells the reader, "I know this bite / is right." After I read the piece aloud at a poetry cafe, a man came up to me and told me my writing was always about sex, even though I didn't explicitly write sex scenes. Not so long after, I made my first attempt at penning erotica. A little like Eve with the apple, wouldn't you say?

Naturally, the whole apple saga is a tale of domination, and punishment is doled out to all concerned. Our serpent is forced to move around on his belly*, and man and woman are banned from all the neat perfection of Paradise... Of course, we know it's a problematic tale. If the Boss didn't create evil, where the heck did it come from? But I hold a particular affection for the Adam and Eve story because it shows that, right from the beginning, we were willing to put love, independence, fidelity to one another, and the sensual world at the top of our list.

According to A.E. Waite, the Lovers card symbolises "Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome." The card is beautiful, erotic and complex. And there's something a little kinky about it too. I received this card in a recent reading, and am happily awaiting the arrival of my snake... ;)

The pictured card is from the original Rider-Waite tarot deck.

*Before the fall of A&E, the snake had legs, it would seem.

Equal Rights are Sexy

Thank heavens! Feeling very happy and relieved about equal marriage rights in California:

The following is quoted from SFAppeal (do visit their site - they have great, up-to-date coverage on what's happening hour by hour):

Equality California's released a statement, saying,

"We are thrilled with today's ruling, which affirms that the protections enshrined in our U.S. Constitution apply to all Americans and that our dream of equality and freedom deserves protection. Judge Walker has preserved our democracy by ruling that a majority cannot deny a minority group of fundamental freedoms. This is as much a victory for the soul of our nation as it is for the thousands of same-sex couples and their families who will be directly impacted."

May justice keep coming!

Photo from the Huffington Post (an old article from May 2008).

What We're Truly Being Prescribed is a Load of Hot Air

I write this post in a passionate fervour! Thank you to The Wonderful, Wacky World of Sexhibition for pointing us towards Doctor Petra Boynton's most recent post. In case you don't know, Dr. Petra Boynton is the voice of reason on all things sexuality in Britain. In the blog post I'm talking about, she shows us how the Brit media claims that growing numbers of underage girls are having sex, enabled by GP's.* These doctors, allegedly, put the girls in question on oral contraceptives without consulting their parents. But this whole story, as you've probably guessed, is a load of hot air. For starters, the vast majority of the journalists researching the story had no idea that girls could be prescribed oral contraceptives for reasons other than sexual protection. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. For the rest, do read Doctor Petra's blog, which is both elegantly written and smart as heck.

Of course, there are more and more calls for statutory UK sex education in schools. Bravo. Maybe someday I'll be involved with that. I'd welcome it, for sure. The first time I saw someone putting on a condom, it was over a banana, and that was weird enough; so heaven knows what you do if you're faced with a throbbing member before anyone's actually mentioned latex. More tragically, I believe that when we're open to sexuality, and knowledgeable about it, we're so often thought of as sluts.

With that, I point you to Doctor Petra again, who argues the media so often "frame sex as a two-sided, moral debate" with goodies and baddies and little in between. Yup. Sex is still so scary for some that complex doesn't even get a look-in.

Thank you, Doctor Petra. You shine.

*GP stands for General Practitioner - that's the equivalent of Primary Care Provider for U.S. readers.

The incredible Artwork is by Shepard Fairey.