Sunday, April 28, 2024
Home Blog Page 52

The Benefits of Glass Sex Toys

By
Valeriam Vincent
-

Silicone, metal, cyberskin, glass –these are just some of the materials that sex toys are made of. So, how do you choose the right option?

For many people, it’s a matter of two things – safety and personal preference. Some materials are safer than others because they don’t contain harmful chemicals or harbor nasty bacteria. Glass and silicone are two such materials. They also feel quite different and allow for experimentation with various sensations during masturbation.

If you’ve never tried a glass toy before, you’ve missed on a lot. Its coolness and hardness offer a nice diversion from the feel of traditional sex toys. In addition, glass can be heated or cooled to allow experiments with temperature play.

So, why should you test out sex toys made of glass? Here are a few of the most important reasons why the material has so many fans.

Probably the Safest and Easiest to Clean Material

First things first, let’s start with safety.

Glass is non-porous. This means it doesn’t have micro holes on its surface. Such little holes provide the perfect conditions for bacteria to proliferate. Bacteria on sex toys can contribute to nasty infections and even the transmission of STIs.

When properly cleaned after each use, glass will be completely germ-free. This is why it’s incredibly safe for both vaginal and anal play. The best glass dildo out there will simply need to be soaked in soapy water and rinsed after each use to become perfectly clean and safe.

In addition, the glass that sex toys are made of doesn’t contain harmful chemicals like phthalates, for example. Glass toys can be used without a condom and there’s no risk of them releasing nasty chemicals inside the body.

Very Durable and Long-Lived

Sex toys are usually crafted from shatterproof and temperature resistant glass.

These two characteristics make them nearly indestructible.

You can drop glass dildos without worrying about them shattering or chipping. Obviously, throwing your sex toys around isn’t recommended but an accidental drop isn’t likely to cause any harm.

While a bit more expensive than other sex toys, glass items can be expected to remain in impeccable condition for years, even decades to come. In fact, with a bit of proper care, a glass adult toy is likely to have a longer lifespan than you.

If you’re a person that’s committed to quality and that doesn’t like changing belongings often, glass is the material to pursue. It will give you safe and reliable experiences time and time again through the years.

Unique Feel

What do sex toys feels like? Anyone who has used a silicone or a cyberskin item before knows that these have a bit of flexibility and flesh-like quality. Hence, such toys feel more or less like having sex with an actual human partner. They can have additional features like vibrations and suction but the material itself will feel somewhat familiar.

Glass adds a whole new dimension to sexual play.

It’s a heavy, smooth and hard material. The lack of flexibility is something that lots of people enjoy in their sexual experimentation. The same applies to the heftiness that’s so typical for glass items (they’re quite a lot heavier than comparable sex toys made of different materials).

When it comes to glass, you’re either going to love it or hate it. An in-between option definitely doesn’t exist. No matter which camp you belong to, switching to glass will most definitely give you a curious sensation that you wouldn’t have had in any other way before.

Temperature Play

We briefly mentioned temperature play in the introduction but it’s definitely worth discussing in more detail.

Temperature play refers to the introduction of heat or cold to sexual stimulation.

Heat and cold make stimulation even more intense than it already is. Our skin responds to both low and higher temperatures. Thus, some people find it much easier to reach orgasms or enjoy highly erotic sensations through temperature play.

Glass is one of the materials suitable for the purpose. If you’re experimenting with heat or cold for the first time, however, be careful not to overdo it. Manufacturers provide recommendations on how to change the temperature of sex toys in a safe way. If you go too far, you risk making the experience unpleasant or even painful.

Textures

Glass toys can have swirls, buds and other added textures for more pleasure.

These, combined with the solidity of the material, can result in profoundly overpowering stimulation.

To enjoy such textures, you should look for well-made, premium glass toys. Such items are fairly easy to find. A little bit of research will show you all of the great possibilities that the market has to offer. Don’t be afraid of experimenting with something that looks a little bit unusual and unorthodox. Chances are that you’ll have amazing sensations this way.

Incredible Looks

Here’s a consideration that may seem a bit superficial. For some people, however, the appearance of sex toys can be a great turn-on. It will add to the overall fun and the eroticism of the experience.

Glass sex toys don’t look like other items designed for adult use.

Quite often, they will look like beautiful accessories. Some even approximate them to works of art. Glass can be colored and shaped in ways that look fantastic and deliver pleasure at the same time.

If looking at certain items adds to your arousal and makes you feel good about the sex toys you own, glass is definitely a material worth trying. You can look at online pictures right now and you’ll quickly be convinced of this beautiful quality of glass items.

So, to sum it up, glass dildos are safe, easy to clean, very long-lived, highly erotic and pleasurable to use.

Needless to say, it’s impossible to tell if a glass toy is your thing unless you try it.

Anyone open to experimentation, however, will definitely have a ton of fun with such an item.

Glass toys are fairly affordable and easy to come across online. Adding one to your collection will give you a fun new element and a chance to diversify your routine. If you’re looking for something exciting and new to try, a glass toy would definitely be it.

What To Expect Of Your Erections As You Age

By
Dr. Andrew Siegel
-
Men's Sexual Health

It is shocking how ill prepared we are for aging. Nobody informs us of exactly what to expect with the process, so we just sit back and observe the changes as they unfold, dealing with them as best we can. Although educational books are available on many topics regarding other expected experiences, such as “What To Expect When You’re Expecting,” I have yet to see “The Manual of Man,” explaining the changes we might expect to experience as time goes on. Some day I wish to author a book like that, but for the time being I will blog about what to anticipate with male sexual function as time relentlessly marches on.

“But the wheel of time turns, inexorably. True rigidity becomes a distant memory; the refractory period of sexual indifference after climax increases; the days of coming are going. Sexually speaking, men drop out by the wayside. By 65, half of all men are, to use a sporting metaphor, out of the game; as are virtually all ten years later, without resort to chemical kick-starting.”

Tom Hickman

God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis

Aging can be unkind, and Father Time does not spare your sexual function. Although erectile dysfunction (ED) is not inevitable, with each passing decade, there is an increasing likelihood. Present in some form in 40% of men by age 40 years, for each decade thereafter an additional 10% join the ED club. All aspects of sexuality decline, although libido (sexual interest and drive) suffers the least depreciation, leading to a swarm of men with eager “big heads” and apathetic “little heads,” a most frustrating combination indeed.

With aging often comes less sexual activity, and with less sexual activity often comes disuse atrophy, in which the penis actually becomes smaller. Additionally, with aging there is often weight gain, and with weight gain comes a generous fat distribution in the pubic area, which will make the penis appear shorter. With aging also comes scrotal laxity and testicles that hang down loosely, like the pendulous breasts of an older woman. Many of my older patients relate that when they sit on the toilet, their scrotum touches the toilet water. So, the penis shrinks and the testicles hang low like those of an old hound dog…Time and gravity can be cruel conspirators!

So, what can you expect of your sexual function as you age? I have broken this down by decade with the understanding that these are general trends and that you as an individual may well vary quite a bit from others in your age group, depending upon your genetics, lifestyle, luck and other factors. There are 30- year old men who have sexual issues and 80-year old men who are veritable “studs,” so age per se is not the ultimate factor.

You may wonder about the means by which I was able to craft this guide. I was able to do so through more than 25 years spent deep in the urology trenches, working the front line with thousands of patient interactions. My patients have been among my most important teachers and have given me a wealth of information that is not to be found in medical textbooks or journals, nor taught in medical school or during urology residency. Furthermore, I am a 50-something year-old man, keenly observant of the subtle changes that I have personally witnessed, but must report that I am still holding my own!

Age 18-30

Your sexual appetite is prodigious and sex often occupies the front burners of your mind. It requires very little stimulation to achieve an erection—even the wind blowing the right way might just be enough to stimulate a rigid, gravity-defying erection, pointing proudly at the heavens. The sight of an attractive woman, the smell of her perfume, merely the thought of her can arouse you fully. You get erections even when you don’t want them…if there was only a way to bank these for later in life! You wake up in the middle of the night sporting a rigid erection. When you climax, the orgasm is intense and you are capable of ejaculating an impressive volume of semen forcefully with an arc-like trajectory, a virtual comet shooting across the horizon. When you arise in the morning from sleep, it is not just you that has arisen, but also your penis that has become erect in reflex response to your full bladder, which can make emptying your bladder quite the challenge, with the penis pointing up when you want to direct its aim down towards the toilet bowl.

It doesn’t get better than this…you are an invincible king… a professional athlete at the peak of his career! All right, maybe not invincible…you do have an Achilles heel…you may sometimes ejaculate prematurely because you are so hyper-excitable and sometimes in a new sexual situation you have performance anxiety, a mechanical failure brought on by the formidable mind-body correction, your all-powerful mind dooming the capabilities of your perfectly normal genital plumbing.

Age 30-40

Things start to change ever so slowly, perhaps even so gradually that you barely even notice them. Your sex drive remains vigorous, but it is not quite as obsessive and all consuming as it once was. You can still get quality erections, but they may not occur as spontaneously, as frequently, or with such little provocation as they did in the past. You may require some touch stimulation to develop full rigidity. You still wake up in the middle of the night with an erection and experience “morning wood.” Ejaculations and orgasms are hardy, but you may notice some subtle differences, with your “rifle” being a little less powerful and of smaller caliber. The time it takes to achieve another erection after ejaculating increases. You are that athlete in the twilight of his career, seasoned and experienced, and the premature ejaculation of yonder years is much less frequent an occurrence.

Age 40-50

After age 40, changes become more obvious. You are still interested in sex, but not nearly with the passion you had two decades earlier. You can usually get a pretty good quality erection, but it now often requires tactile stimulation and the rock-star rigidity of years gone by gives way to a nicely firm penis, still suitable for penetration. The gravity-defying erections don’t have quite the angle they used to. At times you may lose the erection before the sexual act is completed. You notice that orgasms have lost some of their kick and ejaculation has become a bit feebler than previous. Getting a second erection after climax is not only difficult, but also may be something that you no longer have any interest in pursuing. All in all though, you still have some game left.

Age 50-60

Sex is still important to you and your desire is still there, but is typically diminished. Your erection can still be respectable and functional, but is not the majestic sight to behold that it once was, and touch is necessary for full arousal. Nighttime and morning erections become few and far between. The frequency of intercourse declines while the frequency of prematurely losing the erection before the sexual act is complete increases. Your orgasms are definitely different with less intensity of your climax, and at times, it feels like nothing much happened—more “firecracker” than “fireworks.” Ejaculation has become noticeably different—the volume of semen is diminished and you question why you are “drying up.” At ejaculation, the semen seems to dribble with less force and trajectory; your “high-caliber rifle” is now a “blunt-nosed handgun.” Getting a second erection after climax is difficult, and you have much more interest in going to sleep rather than pursuing a sexual encore. Sex is no longer a sport, but a recreational activity…sometimes just reserved for the weekends.

Age 60-70

“Sexagenarian” is bit of a misleading word…this is more apt a term for the 18-30 year-old group, because your sex life doesn’t compare to theirs…they are the athletes and you the spectators. Your testosterone level has plummeted over the decades, probably accounting for your diminished desire. Erections are still obtainable with some coaxing and coercion, but they are not five star erections, more like three stars, suitable for penetration, but not the flagpole of yonder years. They are less reliable, and at times your penis suffers with attention deficit disorder, unable to focus and losing its mojo prematurely, unable to complete the task at hand. Spontaneous erections, nighttime, and early morning erections become rare occurrences. Climax is, well, not so climactic and explosive ejaculations are a matter of history. At times, you think you climaxed, but are unsure because the sensation was so un-sensational. Ejaculation may consist of a few drops of semen dribbling out of the end of the penis. Your “rifle” has now become a child’s plastic “water pistol.” Seconds?…thank you no …that is reserved for helpings on the dinner table! Sex is no longer a recreational activity, but an occasional amusement.

Age 70-80

When asked about his sexual function, my 70-something-year-old patient replied: “Retired…and I’m really upset that I’m not even upset.”

You may still have some remaining sexual desire left in you, but it’s a far cry from the fire in your groin you had when you were a younger man. With physical coaxing, your penis can at times be prodded to rise to the occasion, like a cobra responding to the beck and call of the flute of the snake charmer. The quality of your erections has noticeably dropped, with penile fullness without that rigidity that used to make penetration such a breeze. At times, the best that you can do is to obtain a partially inflated erection that cannot penetrate, despite pushing, shoving and manipulating every which way. Spontaneous erections have gone the way of the 8-track player. Thank goodness for your discovery that even a limp penis can be stimulated to orgasm, so it is still possible for you to experience sexual intimacy and climax, although the cli-“max” is more like a cli-“min.” That child’s “water pistol”…it’s barely got any water left in the chamber.

Age 80-90

You are now a member of a group that has an ever-increasing constituency—the ED club. Although you as an octogenarian may still be able to have sex, most of your brethren cannot; however, they remain appreciative that at least they still have their penises to use as spigots, allowing them to stand to urinate, a distinct competitive advantage over the womenfolk. (But even this plus is often compromised by the aging prostate gland, wrapped around the urinary channel like a boa constrictor, making urination a challenging chore.) Compounding the problem is that your spouse is no longer a spring chicken. Because she been post-menopausal for many years, she has a significantly reduced sex drive and vaginal dryness, making sex downright difficult, if not impossible. If you are able to have sex on your birthday and anniversary, you are doing much better than most. To quote one of my octogenarian patients in reference to his penis: “It’s like walking around with a dead fish.”

Age 90-100

To quote the comedian George Burns: “Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.”

You are grateful to be alive and in the grand scheme of things, sex is low on the list of priorities. You can live vicariously through pleasant memories of your days of glory that are lodged deep in the recesses of your mind, as long as your memory holds out! Penis magic has gone the way of defeated phallus syndrome. So, when and if you get an erection, you never want to waste it!

Wishing you the best of health,

Andrew Siegel, M.D.

www.AndrewSiegelMD.com

Private Gym website for pelvic floor instructional DVD and resistance training equipment

www.PrivateGym.com

 

Power of Positive Attitude for Happier Relationships

By
Dr. Ava Cadell
-
Photo by nappy from Pexels

What is a Positive Attitude?

Positive attitude is the latent power you have within you to bring about what you want.  It is your own personal “happy face” designed just for you.

A positive attitude is your ally; it is on your side no matter what.  That’s the reason you decide to look for it and adopt it.  Think of that happy face as an animated character that jumps into your arms and looks admiringly up at you, longing to bring you a brighter outlook.  That happy face wants to make you happy, not just lift you up.

The beneficial side of any unhappy circumstance is there, you only have to find it, extract it, and put it to work for you.  You don’t have to remain stuck in a negative reaction to any situation.  You have the power to change it.

Positive Attitude Leads to Love

Let’s take a look at how one 26-year-old young man discovered “positive attitude” before he even knew what to call it.  Jeff had just begun dating an elegant woman named Jeanne, but to his heartbreak, he soon learned she still had feelings for another man in her past.  “Jeanne was a beautifully sensitive woman, very feminine,” Jeff said.  “I longed for a relationship with her. But when I realized she wasn’t over her past love, my feelings were hurt, my ego was deflated, you name it: I was in the pits.  If I had kept dwelling on Jeanne’s past love and our lack of a future together, I would probably have manifested an empty life for myself,” Jeff reasoned. “So, almost as an experiment, I began to think about Jeanne and me as a couple, a team.  I visualized her going forward with me, and giving up her unhappy past.

“I did this out of desperation; I wasn’t particularly focusing on trying to be positive, but that’s the way it came out.  I knew Jeanne and I had a shot at something good, and it was worth a little effort.”

Jeff discovered by accident what positive-attitude lectures have been trying to teach us for decades.  Jeff drew on that one spark of mutual confidence hidden within a potentially static situation.  He got into the spirit of thinking bigger; he did not accept the miserable barrier that was looming between him and Jeanne.

“I wanted her to see me in the present moment,” Jeff said.  “I drew my confidence from a character in American Graffiti.  This guy in the film spots a pretty girl and wants to go out with her, but she’s already dating someone far away at another high school.  So he bravely smiles and says to her, ‘Hey, if you ever get tired of going steady with a guy who’s not around, I’m up for grabs.’

“That scene fit me and Jeanne, in a way.  I kept reminding Jeanne that I was there in the flesh, the other guy wasn’t calling or coming around anymore.  Little by little, I distracted Jeanne with my attention to her.  I helped her give up her sadness over the man who was gone.”

Jeff became excited when he made a further discovery, and laughed, “But you know, I think I was really teaching myself how to have a positive attitude just as much as I was teaching Jeanne.  It was worth the investment, I figured.  If all else failed, at least I would learn how to be bolder and take positive steps toward a goal I wanted.

“As it turned out, Jeanne responded in my favor and our prospects for a future together are looking good.  But if Jeanne had chosen to keep mourning her lost love, I think I would have reached a point of saying, ‘well, if she can’t move on, maybe I better move away from her’.”  As we’ve discovered through Jeff’s experience, positive attitude is an opportunity to react favorably.  It literally is a choice we decide to make.

Look up at the Sky

We can look down at the ground and become deflated over the events in our lives, or we can look up at the vast sky and think, “There are as many solutions and possibilities as there are stars in the universe.”

What Positive is Not

Positive attitude is not a forced buoyancy.  It doesn’t mean you have to go around feeling like Little Miss Mary Sunshine or Jack Be Nimble.  You don’t have to be elated all the time to be positive.  You don’t have to do back flips.

Take it from Gloria who unearthed a positive attitude in the midst of her “daily blahs.”  As Gloria tells it, “I go around in a depressing mood half the time, for no particular reason.  Maybe I don’t feel well, or I’m just generally bored.

“One day I put on a positive-attitude tape, with absolutely no intention of carefully listening to it; I just wanted the background noise while I was cleaning up.  The tape told me about new ways to look at old situations, and it must have sunk in.  I talked myself out of feeling bored.  I felt an urge to put on a “new face” and go out around people, just mingle.  So, I called a girlfriend of mine and we went to church later that morning.  Lo and behold, a young, single, substitute minister named Chris was there and he and I clicked; maybe because I had forgotten to carry my ‘daily blahs’ with me.  Chris and I are becoming friends and who knows what may happen.  He even likes it when I’m a little melancholy; it gives him a chance to joke with me.”

Positive attitude is not hoping-against-hope.  But being positive does mean that you can take your “divine discontentment” and use it as a springboard to a better lifestyle that does bring you contentment.

Hoping and wishing won’t get you there, though.  But being certain within yourself that you can be a loving and happy person is taking a positive action.  Changing your attitude is action; hoping is merely daydreaming.  You “hope” he or she will call, you “hope” he or she will ask you out.

What can you do though to move the process along?  Well, you can put him or her on the back burner and go out with someone else; let your answer machine do the waiting for you.   That is positive attitude, taking action and not merely hoping.  Looking to see the built-in solution in any problem constitutes a positive action, one that causes you to think and act creatively.  And creative thinking will yield positive results and that will give you confidence.  “Hoping” will only bring you a passive feeling of helplessness unless you take affirmative action in your mind.

Real-Life Revelation: How to Create a Positive Attitude

“Ya gotta put your behind in the past.”  This hilarious wisecrack, from a bumbling animated character in the Disney film “The Lion King” is as true as it is funny.  Whether you put your past behind you, or put your behind in the past, the message is the same: resolve it, turn your back on it, and live in the confidence of a new day.

Mowing down those overgrown mind weeds of past relationship “failures” clears the field for a new and better crop of romantic notions.  You haven’t forgotten how to be romantic just because you’ve been a little beaten down in the dating game or in a stale partnership.  By resolving to start fresh daily, you can grow only positive thoughts; that is, thoughts that make you feel good about yourself in a relationship regardless of the past.  What you did or did not do in past involvements cannot be changed.  What can be changed is the attitude you carry with you in your search for everlasting love.  You can choose to view the past differently for starters.  Look back and mentally change the outcome of an involvement that went wrong.

That’s what Mark did.  “I carried around a lot of hurt and guilt over my failed marriage,” Mark said.  “But I got tired of thinking myself a failure, just because I was young and ignorant when I married.  So I reran the marriage in my mind.  I imagined how I would have done things differently had I, and my wife, been more mature.  Once I did this, I felt okay and I thought, ‘Gee, I can have a good relationship; it’s not so terrifying’.”

A friend of mine, Bob, changed his self-perception when he was 30 and had gained much wisdom about himself in relation to other people.  He wanted to let go of the selfish boy he had been in the past, and really learn to relate one-on-one.

“I wrote out a whole soliloquy about the new person I was becoming,” Bob said.  “And I ended it by having my ‘old self’ say to my ‘new self,’ ‘Old Bob has moved and he didn’t leave a forwarding address; New Bob, you can’t go back to him’.”

Positive Affirmation

Positive attitude is about living for today and creating a new “head set” for a more fulfilling future.  One of my favorite affirmations is so simple because it doesn’t antagonize the mind.

Write down what you want to occur in your life, using this thought: “It’s just possible that _________ can happen.”  Fill in that blank and see how easy it is.

“It’s just possible that I can be happy and grow in a relationship; that can happen.”

“It’s just possible that everlasting love can happen to me.”

“It’s just possible that true love can happen.”

This affirmation is exciting to me because it focuses on possibilities, not limitations.  And it is wide open; you can fill in that blank with as many things as you desire your mind to accept.  No matter what restrictions you imposed or encountered in the past, this affirmation can help you move past them and design a new relationship- life.

Creating a positive attitude in yourself is just one side of the coin though.  The other side is creating a positive attitude in the people you encounter.  No, you cannot change other people. But you can change the way you view them, and they will most likely respond to your positive notions.  Visualize the good in other people, no matter how offensive they may appear to you.  No, you don’t have to put up with offensive behavior; that’s not what we are talking about here. You are using your visualization power for them, just as you use it for yourself.

Picture, imagine, and absorb yourself in how you want that person to be in your presence.  Imagine a favorable outcome when talking with that person.  Extract that person’s positive qualities and enhance them in your mind.  If nothing else, you will have opened a door for dialogue.  And who knows, that “negative” person may just become very positive by being around you.

How to Maintain a Positive Attitude

Practice not only makes perfect, it perfects what it makes.

Try a little experiment, just to keep you on the positive track.  For five minutes each day, close the mental doors on every negative thought that comes into your mind.  After a month, you will have conditioned yourself to automatically shut out thoughts that tear you down.

For instance, if you meet someone you would like to know better and your mind says “you’ll never have a chance,” stop the thought right there.  Replace it with “I am worthy to know that person better; I have the confidence to socialize with that person.”

Changing your attitude, on an ongoing basis, is a powerful proposition.  Be prepared for the deluge of hot dates, good friends, and everlasting relationships that can come into your life if you build up positive thoughts, and believe them!

One man I know, Charles, found the love of his life, Sara, by simply saying every day: “I want a woman who will try to understand me and who will allow me to understand her.”  This is what he wanted, this is what he believed, and this is what he found.  “Not only do Sara and I understand each other more and more deeply as we interact, but we carry what we’ve learned together into our business lives.  We attempt to understand and accept the many kinds of people who frequent the small market we own and manage,” Charles said.  “I’d say we have a large number of repeat customers because we take a few moments just to walk-in-their-moccasins.”

Positive Affirmations for Self-Love

Another exercise in positive attitude is to look in the mirror and tell yourself what you want to hear.  This is especially powerful if you live alone and don’t get enough compliments from other people.  Give those compliments to yourself.  That person in the mirror is the most important person you will ever know; his or her opinion is really all that matters in the long run.

Remember, it is always futile to try to control another person.  You wind up either chasing rainbows or chewing up your fingernails in chronic anxiety.  The only thing you can ever control for certain is your reaction to any situation.

For instance, if a lover dumps you for someone else, don’t dwell on it ad-nauseam.  Let someone else put up with your erstwhile lover, and think of how lucky you are to be free to find someone better.

Successful thought patterns, like everything in life that endures, are built up slowly, one by one.  Take control over your “failure” thoughts.  Visualize what you want until you believe in it, and go for it!  After all, it is successful thoughts that motivate us; depressing thoughts stop us in our tracks.

Each moment is precious to you in your search for everlasting love.  You can’t afford the luxury of a depressed mind if you want a fulfilling partnership.

Say to yourself each evening: “What did I do with my beautiful day today that will guide me closer to the love I want.”  You’ll be surprised how creative your mind can become in searching out that right partner.

Queer Sex Education: The Problem With Sex Education

By
Janet Lovelace
-
Photo by Charles Deluvio

Queer sex education is often left out whenever we discuss sexual health, sex positivity — and well, sex in general. We all know that traditional sex education is failing us all, but the LGBTQ youth in particular are disproportionately affected by this knowledge gap. It’s ignorant of the social realities and personal concerns that queers deal with about identity, their bodies, pleasure, and relationships.

While we are definitely moving forward with more and more people speaking out about issues that concern the LGBTQ community as a whole, not a lot of people know how to start talking about queer sex, especially to teens who are just starting starting to explore themselves.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

The Problem with Sex Ed As We Know It

Traditional sex education has always had its roots in attempting to prevent pregnancy through abstinence and employing scare tactics. Though it has inched its way towards relative progress over the years through its inclusion of contraceptives, it still focuses on sex involving one penis and one vagina, when in fact there are a myriad of sexual experiences that don’t just revolve around this heteronormative act.

This is rooted in the misconception that sexuality is inexplicably tied to our bodies. Our notions of biology, bodies, and sexual health are informed by cultural norms more than we care to realize. Plus, the empirical nature of science helps legitimize these unfounded assumptions as absolute truth. This makes sex education a complicated topic to even begin talking about, let alone inclusively teach.

Sadly, bias is the reality of sex education as we know it. This fundamental misunderstanding of sexuality erases, stigmatizes, and in some cases, demonizes the queer community. When you omit important information about queer sex and queer identities, you are essentially invalidating the experiences of LGBTQ youth, making them feel rejected and not worthy of the chance to decide about sex and their sexualities.

If sex education is structured around misinformation and prejudice, it ultimately creates a public health issue for everyone, queer or not. Not to mention that it has a dangerously adverse impact on the lives of LGBTQ youth. Leaving them out of chances to learn how to have sex safely pushes them towards risky situations without the proper foundations, leaving them more vulnerable to negative sexual health outcomes. These include higher transmission rates of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and higher risks of sex and dating violence.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon

What does a Queer Sex Education look like?

The short answer is that it’s inclusive, encouraging, and judgment-free. This means expanding the pool of knowledge about sexual health and making it easily available to LGBTQ youth from all walks of life, while maintaining an affirmative environment where they’re free to explore themselves sexually in a safe and healthy way. If the sex education of the past fixated on abstinence, queer sex education must have acceptance at its core.

While sex positivity may shed a light on queer sex, this vague encouragement doesn’t necessarily lead to deeper insights, and this spells trouble when creating resources for queer sex education. Not everyone has the same experiences or relationship with sex, so the journey isn’t the same for everyone — and neither is the destination.

Related Read: Hello I’m Gay–Coming Out Again… And Again…

We have to treat queer sex education like a public health issue so we can operationalize frameworks that empower the LGBTQ youth to decide what they think about sex, how they want to have sex, and who they want to have sex with. And sometimes, that means not having sex at all.

Aside from providing more complete information about healthcare options for all the many ways to have sex, queer sex education should also include discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity. This will not only help questioning teens take steps to figure themselves out, but also encourage an attitude of acceptance for all teens of any SOGIE (straight allies included!).

Photo by Retha Ferguson

Queer sex education isn’t just about sex. It’s about starting open and honest conversations that are more inclusive of everyone’s experiences. When you do this, you give more teens an opportunity to form healthy relationships with their sexual and romantic partners, with sex, their own bodies, and most importantly, themselves.

What is a Sexual Surrogate? Surrogate Partner Therapy

By
Dr. Ava Cadell
-
Photo by Dainis Graveris from Pexels

There is so much confusion about Sexual Surrogates that I want to clarify some of the myths.  Some people think that Sex Therapists, Sexologists, and Sex Counselors are Surrogates, but they are not.  However, they can refer their patients to Sexual Surrogates if they believe that it will be therapeutically beneficial.  Then the surrogate works closely with therapist and patient in a “triangular” arrangement that focuses on specific goals.

What is Surrogate Partner Therapy?

“Surrogate Partner Therapy is a form of therapy based on the successful methods of Masters and Johnson. In this therapy, a client, a therapist, and a surrogate partner form a three-person therapeutic team who together work to understand and resolve difficulties that a client is experiencing in their lives. The surrogate participates with the client in structured and unstructured experiences that are designed to build client self-awareness and skills in the areas of physical and emotional intimacy. These therapeutic experiences include partner work in relaxation, effective communication, sensual and sexual touching, and social skills training. Each program is designed to increase the client’s knowledge, skills, and comfort.

As the days pass, clients find themselves becoming more relaxed, more open to feelings, and more comfortable with physical and emotional intimacy. The involvement of the team therapist, a licensed and/or certified professional with an advanced degree, is a cornerstone of this therapy process. Clients often experience apprehension as they begin therapy and when they begin to experience changes. The team therapist assists the client with these and other emotional issues. Sessions with the therapist are interwoven with the surrogate partner sessions in order to facilitate understanding and change. Open, honest, consistent communication between all team members is a fundamental ingredient of successful surrogate partner therapy.”–From: https://www.surrogatetherapy.org/what-is-surrogate-partner-therapy

Who Needs Surrogate Partner Therapy?

“The problems that motivate clients to seek Surrogate Partner Therapy range from general anxiety in social situations to specific sexual dysfunctions.

Concerns for any gender might result from one of the following:

  • Negative body image or physical disfigurement
  • Medical conditions
  • Sexual, physical, or emotional abuse and/or trauma (rape or incest, for instance)
  • Intimacy issues
  • Phobias and anxieties
  • Unresolved relationship trauma
  • Confusion about sexual orientation
  • Lack of social or sexual self-confidence.

Sexual concerns may include:

  • Orgasmic inhibition
  • Genital or pelvic pain
  • Avoidance of physical and/or emotional intimacy
  • Lack of experience due to anxious avoidance.

Common sexual issues for male clients include:

  • Erection difficulties (ED)
  • Rapid ejaculation (PE)
  • Ejaculatory inhibition.

Female clients’ sexual issues might include:

  • Vaginismus (involuntary contraction of vaginal muscles resulting in painful penetration)
  • Vulvodynia
  • Limited or non-existent orgasms

Clients of any gender may seek therapy to address problems relating to:

  • Fear and avoidance of sexual and emotional intimacy
  • Lack of relationship experience
  • Shame or anxiety regarding sex
  • Low arousal or lack of sexual desire”

From: https://www.surrogatetherapy.org/what-is-surrogate-partner-therapy

There are two primary plans for this Sex Surrogate Therapy:

  1. Open-ended Therapy:

The patient sees the surrogate on average once a week, in one to two hour sessions, until the surrogate, therapist, and patient decides that the therapy is completed. An average length of surrogate partner therapy seems to cover thirty to fifty hours.

2. Intensive Therapy:

Structured to help patients who are from out of town, have a deadline such as an upcoming nuptial, or simply do not have a local therapist and surrogate team.  The patient sees their therapist and surrogate on a daily basis for a prearranged length of time, which can be anywhere from one week to one month.

Qualities of a Sexual Surrogate

To become a Sexual Surrogate, experience in nursing, psychology, social work, or alternative therapy are useful, but more importantly, people who possess “mature sexuality” and “emotional stability” make the best candidates.

The IPSA is a non-profit education corporation that offers training for individuals wishing to become surrogate partners and for therapists wishing to learn to work with surrogates.  IPSA offers referrals for therapists seeking trained, ethical, professional surrogate partners, and for clients seeking therapists who have experience and skill in working with surrogate partners.  IPSA also offers continuing education opportunities for surrogate partners and therapists.

+++

Photo by Dainis Graveris from Pexels

What is it really like to live the 24-7 Dom/Sub Relationship

By
Coralyn Jewel
-

When I sit here and write this blog to share with you, let it be known I am NOT an expert on this topic.  I too, have researched it and in the various adult entities I am involved in I have been exposed numerous times to others who do choose to live this type of lifestyle 24/7.  Now, this can not only be referred to as information on a Dom and Sub but also on a mistress or Fem Dom and submissive.

A relationship between two people where one is the higher authority figure, hierarchy, or power structure.  Now, just as I have discussed in previous interviews and blogs, the number one most important thing is consent.  You are choosing to be involved in this type of relationship and communication is the key ingredient.

When it comes to roleplay or playing out your sexual fantasies, you must know that if choosing to live this lifestyle 24 hours a day 7 days a week, you will not always be aroused.  So, it reverts back to why you are choosing this lifestyle.  Does this mean one of you is less superior than the other? Does this have anything to do with race, gender, age difference, race, or another variable?  The answer in my research is absolutely not.   It comes down to both involved choosing to voluntarily choose who is in which power position.

It is also important to keep in mind, no one is perfect and mistakes will occur.  A safeword is still 100% on the table and limits must be set between both involved.  Everything I always say and will continue to say, revolve around communication.

What about Kink groups? Communities, seminars, books, or anything having to do with learning more about the Dom Sub relationship, will they help? Again, I have found that we can always improve in any way of life by continuing our education.  So, do not be afraid to reach out for guidance and assistance.  Remember, you are both learning and although one may be more experienced there needs to be a level of patience and understanding to continue to build a healthy Dom sub relationship.

So, if this type of lifestyle intrigues you my suggestion as with any other alternative relationships we have discussed on my podcast is to take it slow, communicate, attend seminars, workshops, read blogs and listen to podcasts.  You learn by listening.  Learn together and work together and back to my words I live by, “Patience will Prosper”.

Coralyn Jewel

“Write for yourself, edit for your audience.”

By
Ralph Greco
-
Photo by Thomas Svensson from Pexels

“Write for yourself, edit for your audience.”

 

I read the above quote this week, and thought, ‘Yeah, I guess some of this is true.’ The first part is something I have always wholeheartedly believed: Write for yourself. The second half, though: edit for your audience, is where things get a little trickier.

 

I have a buddy, a professional actor who is fond of saying about plays (but it applies to all forms of artistic expression posted and considered for an audience), the ‘thing could always be better shorter’ (definitely, not what she said!) In this regard, then, the editing for your audience concept is perfectly understandable, but only if and when you are considering presenting what you do to an audience.

 

This is no small point. There is plenty we create and do that we know when we create and do it, we have no intention of anyone ever seeing/reading/hearing it. And even when you do know an audience might be at the receiving end, especially with something you present live, like a play, you need to consider the very real phenomena of the audience hive mind. I am always amazed when seeing a one-act play of mine performed over multiple nights how the laughs or tears come in different places with each performance, how an audience’s reactions—and how they often react together—differ from show to show.

 

So, editing, something I am always championing writers to do, while a good idea, can leave you chasing your tail if you are trying to edit to fit the likes of every audience member or even just one kind of audience.

 

This is also true if you are editing to catch one kind of readership, a sure fool’s errand, as in, how do you know who is going to come to, read and enjoy your opus and why would you want to alienate one group over another by making your writing too exclusive? Let the genre and form find its readership all on its own.

 

Sure, there are rules to follow here. Let’s use my previously mentioned playwriting as an example. When I submit my one-acts, the only kind of theatre writing I presently do, there are often time restrictions set by the producers or the theatre putting on a show. If my play does not come under a specific number of pages/time (the formula roughly is that for every page of a play, a minute of time is expended), I need to edit it to meet the time requirement or pick another play to submit. And many a publication will set a specific word count range they will only consider for the pieces they might run. And of course, if you are submitting to Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, I’d advise making sure the story is kinda science-fiction-y.

 

I get all of this. It makes perfect sense. 

 

But this kind of editing, for a specific time constraint or magazine word count or even niche, is not the same thing as editing generally because you are trying to imagine an audience ‘out there.’ I believe that the quote I began this diatribe with means that a writer should write for him or herself first (they are the initial ‘audience’) then edit for broader readership, understanding, a more general palatable (possibly better commercial) acceptance.

 

But this last consideration is where things can get really dangerous.

 

I know you have heard the stories of the ubiquitous movie preview where producers, actors, director all sit on pins and needles waiting to collect, review and consider an audiences’ review cards. How often have you heard the story of how a movie might not have played well in one theater but manages a gangbuster preview in another? Making changes considering a committee, mass of people—the audience—means you will edit to try and catch the interest of all, working towards the middle-ground common denominator.

 

Do you want this really?

 

I can assure you, if you are trying to surf the latest wave, trying to interest the masses in what you feel the masses are currently into, or looking to tickle every single person in the same way, you won’t ever be able to accomplish a mass appreciation, and you certainly won’t be writing for yourself anymore.

Sex Writing: Where to Publish Your Smut

By
Ralph Greco
-

I went to see Kurt Vonnegut lecture sometime in the mid-’80s. Being one of my all-time favorite authors, you can bet how rabid I was to be among the sold-out crowd in that college auditorium on a weekday night, digesting every word the master said. One of the points Mr. V was adamant about was how when he was first starting to write and publish, a fledgling author could find a whole host of places to send stories, essays, and poetry. These places would pay for these pieces, and they were almost all professional magazines, well respected in their fields. Some were indeed fiction mags, while others would run one or two stories an issue, alongside with the rest of their usual non-fiction fare. Dearly departed Mr. Vonnegut didn’t have to tell us all, although he did, that this free range-like publication opportunity does not so much exist anymore. 

Image by ugururlu0 from Pixabay

I’m sorry to say, things have gotten worse in the ensuing years. And what’s even more harrowing is that following along with the mainstream fiction marketplace dying, there are less and fewer places to place erotic fiction these days, in print or online, small press or major market, and those places that do take erotica tend to have strict guidelines of their needs. I’m not trying to discourage you, as there are indeed publishers still out there, and if you get slightly creative, you might be able to sneak some dirty stuff into places you might not have ever imagined. But as dear old departed Kurt Vonnegut warned and has come to pass, the field has shrunk for us all who scribble and dream, no matter what it is we scribble and dream about.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix from Pexels

So, where does one go to try publish a naughty slice of their life? a hastily written dirty haiku? a salacious fictionalized memoir?

I find the Erotica Readers & Writers Association (ERWA) the first and best resource for us smut writers presently. Here you will find current calls for anthologies (a great way to get published), the latest eBook or actual book publisher of naughty stuff, and a whole host of other invaluable resources and opportunities for writers. I have a small group of publishers who I send my works to regularly (some on this list). And maybe in time, you will build relationships here and there with a small press, magazine, an eBook publisher, or even some audiobook spot that will take your latest sight unseen. Lots of smaller publishers do indeed take unsolicited submissions. I’d suggest a little more research online to see who does, and to checkout what is trending.

Hell, I still look around plenty, even with my connections, as much in the hope to spread myself around as to keep up on who is out there and what they are looking for.

Plenty of ‘mainstream,’ magazines (The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope: All-Story, director Francis Ford Coppola’s literary arts publication) takes erotica—although they stay away from niche or fetish—as do lots of online journals. There is the online storehouse of Literotica where many an erotica writer goes, newbie or those long-in-the-game to get something up, just to be seen (they do not pay here). And if you sign-up for a newsletter like Duotrope, you will get email updates where you might be able to send stuff (this online newsletter handles all kinds of writing).

Photo by Tofros.com from Pexels

You can also try your hand at self-publishing erotica on Amazon and Kindle. Tread carefully here, though. I have put up a few self-published books on the portal and have seen a mix of results. They are also always on the lookout to kick a book off their listing for any one of a wide range (and seemingly always changing) criteria.

Besides searching far and wide for markets (try punching “erotica” + “write for us” OR “ghostwriting erotica” in Google for places that are seeking erotic writers), look in unusual spots (Freelancer.com), or pimp your work out on Fiverr and Guru.com. You can make moments happen by being even pushy at times (something I certainly am not and have suffered for not being). It’s a ‘got to be in it to win it’ kind of pursuit, as much about sitting down and scribbling as doing the deep dive into the market place that brings one publishing credits.

Good luck.

Featured Image by VisionPic .net from Pexels

The Power of Forgiveness for Better Self-Love

By
Dr. Ava Cadell
-
Photo by Jasmine Carter from Pexels

What is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is giving to yourself.

It is a gift for you on your pathway to everlasting love, one that can help you clear up emotional wounds which may be hampering your success in finding and holding the right partner.

Forgiveness means to free up those hurts inside you.  Then you can breathe that clear, heady, elevated air of emotional freedom.  And that’s when you become open to the partner who is truly right for you.

As a popular spiritual teacher puts it, “forgiveness is necessary in igniting the spark of love.”

Forgiveness is release.  The word “forgive” literally means “to give up,” “to give away.”  Forgiveness is a form of unburdening, removing emotional clutter that can keep you blocked from experiencing everlasting love.  Forgiveness can lead to emotional freedom and that can lead to change.  And it is your life that you want to change.

Forgiveness is about uncovering hurts rather than denying they are there.  Forgiveness has to do with acknowledging all those creepy crawly feelings that block you from your joy.

A Weekly Forgiveness Exercise

One simple exercise is to forgive yourself each week for the mistakes you made.  Set aside a few minutes to review what went wrong, and how you might better have handled the situation.

A friend of mine, Jane, has learned to stop wasting her time blaming others for what they have done to her.  Instead, she opens up her weekly forgiveness ritual with something like this: “I forgive myself for going out on a blind date and expecting love-at-first-sight,” or “I forgive myself for putting up with a man who belittled me.”  By forgiving herself in this manner, she remains focused on her needs rather than what is lacking in the other person.  As Jane says: “When I release my resentments this way each week, it clears me up inside.  I don’t hear that rumble of anger underneath my breath anymore.  And it helps me to stay focused on me and my expectations.”

Forgiveness is for giving to yourself what you didn’t get enough of as a child: attention, love, affection, and recognition.  We all missed out on something.  Whoever or whatever denied you your needs in the past can be forgiven — released — to make more room for what you want to experience in a relationship.

Pamper Yourself with the Affections of Others

Draw yourself out; don’t wait for others to do it for you.  Allow them the pleasure of knowing you better.  Reward yourself by becoming the center of attention at a party; don’t be afraid to stand out.  Notice how other people will love you if you allow them.  If you have a pet, take note of how that little animal loves just being around you.  Permit other people to enjoy your company in the same way; let yourself be flattered by their attention.  Pamper yourself with the affections of others.

Recycling Old Hurts

If you hug almost any human being, they will generally hug you back.  And that one little hug per day can prove that the love you have to give is very, very worthy. Forgiveness is daring to become unencumbered by old stale resentments.  Recycled trash is still trash.  Rancor cankers, and it can manifest eventually as body illness and pain.  You wouldn’t dream of eating yesterday’s garbage for dinner tonight, but that’s similar to what you are doing if you keep recycling old hurts through your system.

Forgiveness is Feeling Worthy

Forgiveness is daring to feel worthy of the love you seek, giving up what you may have accepted as love in the past, especially if it was wrong for you.  Forgiveness is having the courage to confront a two-fold roadblock: self- forgiveness and for giving-up the limitations of others.

What Forgiveness is Not

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your personal feelings or your relationship values.  We always have options, but we cannot always see them.  Try forgiving yourself for “settling” for this or that situation.  Ask yourself why you settled.

Doreen dated Mike for a year who did not express the character or integrity she was seeking.  It took that long before she realized he was not right for her.  “I was angry at myself when it dawned on me that I had ‘settled’,” Doreen said.  “I felt lower than an earthworm.  But when I stopped beating myself up over this ‘mistake’, I suddenly realized there is no such thing as a mistake.  I had learned something valuable with Mike.  I was honestly able to face why I had invested so much in a relationship that wasn’t all I wanted.  And that made me feel better.  I thought Mike and I had so much in common, that naturally the integrity element would be there too.  It wasn’t, and I was afraid I would never meet another man who shared common interests with me.  I was scared to keep looking for everything I wanted in a man.  I had to forgive myself for sacrificing my ideals, and then move on.”

To err is human; to forgive divine

Forgiveness is not what we have been conditioned to believe it is, all our lives: it is not instantaneous godliness.  To quote English author Alexander Pope’s wise observation: “To err is human; to forgive divine.”

Yes, we humans make social blunders, we make fools of ourselves daily — that is, we “err.”  But forgiving these faux pas, in ourselves and others, is not a matter of putting our halos back on and waving a wand.  We tend to be hypercritical of our mistakes as well as those of other people, yet these little sticky social errors are usually just human stumbling blocks.

Forgiveness is Learning and Growing

Forgiveness then becomes a chance to help educate another person if his or her behavior is offensive or detrimental.  Or forgiveness can mean learning about more appropriate forms of behavior for ourselves, so we don’t keep repeating the same mistakes or issues.  And these positive actions make forgiveness a truly divine opportunity to experience everlasting friendship, at least.

A relationship ends when it needs to end.  If the union was a mistake that only means it was a growing experience.  It’s okay to make relationship mistakes, if you don’t keep repeating them.  And in your next relationship, you’ll make new mistakes; that’s what growing is all about.

Forgiveness Creates Black Pearls of Wisdom

Forgiveness is not a quickie emotion which magically lets you “forgive and forget.”  You know, it is more essential to forgive than to forget.  As we have learned above, forgiveness is getting the venom out of your system so you won’t carry the festering snake bite into your next relationship.  But we don’t want to completely forget those poisons and irritants we have extracted from our failed marriages, friendships, and partnerships.

We have earned the right to retain the memories of our blackest, ugliest relationship experiences and turn them into shiny, attractive “black pearls.”  These hard-earned “black pearls” of garnered insight and wisdom will keep us from making the same mistakes over and over.  And as you may know, a black pearl is more rare and more priceless on the market than a white pearl.

Or shall we say, experience can be our best teacher?

Femme Porn Classics: The History of Feminist Porn

By
Megan Hussey
-

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the Feminist Sexpert certainly has. Most of the porn films considered all-time classics are not precisely female friendly. And that is the understatement of the day, the month, the year, the millen…–that’s just a really big understatement!

Let’s take a look at the standing roster of motions pictures considered porn classics:

Behind the Green Door: She gets kidnapped.

Debbie Does Dallas: Teen girls sell their bodies to old, pervy, sleazy men.

Deep Throat: A woman discovers she can only achieve climax by giving bj’s. Really? On a more serious note, star Linda Lovelace lodged assault and abuse allegations against her husband/manager and others involved in the film.

Pretty Peaches: An innocent young woman sustains a head injury and loses her memory. While wandering around looking for help, she is raped repeatedly. This is a comedy.

Water Power: Rape. Torture. Murder. Mayhem. And it’s supposed to be hot.

The Devil and Miss Jones: She dies and goes to hell.

As actress Joan Van Ark said on the brilliant Diane English show Women of the House, on an episode that addressed the treatment of women in Hollywood films, “I’ve played a woman who was stalked, a woman who was raped, a woman who was kidnapped, car-jacked, high-jacked, and sky-jacked. And frankly, I mean, I’m tired!”

“But Feminist Sexpert!” You might be saying at this point. “Everybody knows that feminist porn didn’t exist before Candida Royalle directed her first film in 1985.”

Well there’s a reason that Royalle, who directed 15 femme porn classics before sadly passing away in 2015, is granted the lioness’ share of credit for the inception of the femme porn movement. And that reason is, she friggin’ rocked. From comedies like Stud Hunters to heartfelt romances like My Surrender (one of the few porns that makes me cry every time I watch it, and not out of terror or disgust–“Turn it off!”), this woman was a skillful director who made love stories out of sex stories–in addition to her role as a woman who supported and encouraged other women and minorities in the adult industry. Myself included. Yet to trace the true origins of feminist porn, we must make like the Hot Tub Time Machine peeps and journey back a full decade before the premiere of Candida Royalle’s debut film, Femme. We’re talking BC on the timeline–Before Candida!

In 1972, the first porn film made by and for women debuted on the underground film scene. Goldenrod, the story of a handsome Casanova who learns valuable lessons about how a treat a lady–all while satisfying as many women as humanly possible and then some. “Back in those days, there was a lot of talk about women getting into explicit films and making feminist porn. It was the first time the feminist movement had thought about this,” Webb’s ex-husband, filmmaker Charles Desantos, told The Rialto Report (https://www.therialtoreport.com/2020/11/15/charles-desantos/). “So we decided to make a film from a woman’s perspective, and she directed it and actually used her own name. It turned into quite a thing. It was shot in 16 mm, and it had a feminist angle to it. We called it ‘Goldenrod.’”

In an interview that Webb conducted with The San Francisco Examiner in 1973 (https://www.therialtoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/RR-The_San_Francisco_Examiner_Sun__Dec_23__1973_.jpg), she described Goldenrod as a moral film that also happened to be arousing. And while lost for years, this one of a kind production is now available in the Dragon Art collection through Something Weird Video.

Ah, but what about lesbian porn? Well the fact is that lesbian sex acts have been recorded for film since the days of black and white stag film loops; yet they never were shot by virtue of the female gaze. This all changed in 1974, when indie filmmaker Barbara Hammer created a work of motion picture art called Dyketactics.

“Hammer’s breakthrough work, Dyketactics (1974), is an experimental film that features more than 100 shots in just over four minutes, with images superimposed on top of one another,” reported Art News. “Hammer often described the work as a depiction of lesbian sex from a lesbian point-of-view and positioned it as filmmaking about women devoid of the ever-present male gaze.” https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/barbara-hammer-dead-79-12157/ Into the ’80s came a smattering of films made by and for lesbians, with Tiger Rose Distributing releasing titles such as Where There’s Smoke and Fantasy Dancer, and Exotic in Nature; and Fatale Media coming up with gems like Suburban Dykes and BurLEZk (lesbian striptease).

“Fatale Media — the company that released the film in question — was born in 1984 with an explicitly defined mission to “reflect the feminist right for [women’s] control over our bodies, thereby promoting female sexual autonomy,” wrote Marcus Dowling in the article On “Suburban Dykes,” And The Advent of Sublimely Sexy Sexual Awareness. “When a suburban couple explore phone sex and BDSM via an escort service to spice up their sexual experience, that’s well within the scope and range of Fatale’s stated aims.” (https://marcuskdowling.medium.com/on-suburban-dykes-and-the-advent-of-sublimely-sexy-sexual-awareness-6017106c5e0a)

Swinging back over to the other side of the spectrum, we saw our first feminist male porn hunk in 1978. And no, don’t even think I’m going to say John Holmes. For while he was the first household name male porn star, his actions on and off the screen were anything but feminist. No, the gentleman of which I speak is Jesse Chacan, a stunningly gorgeous Native American actor who also reigned as Mr. Nude USA (Question: Do they still host such a competition? And if so, why oh why is the Feminist Sexpert not a judge?) Also notable as the first Native American actor to portray a Native American character in his films, Chacan is known in particular for his star turn in Deep Roots, a 1978 feature renowned for its tender love scenes and its generous shots of Chacan’s flawless body. Chacan’s image is featured prominently in the film’s cover art, and his name appears above the title–virtually unheard of for that time, or for this one for that matter. 

This flick also holds the dubious distinction of being one of the few directed by a pretend woman; indeed, credited director Lisa Barr is actually Joseph Bardo. Oh well, this movie still rules; thanks to Jesse, and to Lisa/Joe!

The first video magazine for women was–of course!–Playgirl On the Air, a Playgirl Magazine video series that debuted in 1984. Featuring filmed centerfold shoots, interviews with celebrities such as Mark Harmon and Sybil Danning, and softcore sex scenes shot from a woman’s point of view, the series veers from the adorable (the volumes feature adult cartoons, and one includes a trailer for a filmed Tom Jones concert) to the chic–with a sexy music video displaying music and production values ahead of its time. And if you choose not to fast forward through the interviews to get to the centerfolds, you’ll hear some empowering messages from Sybil Danning about the importance of “sheroes” on the big screen.

 

The inaugural male stripper tape takes the form of the Chippendales: Tall Dark and Handsome, an entertaining party tape that shows the signature hunks of the Chippendales dance troupe to their very hottest effect. Within a framing story that finds a trio of fun-loving women taking in the show, we see several choreographed striptease routines and fantasy sequences.

A couple of cool trivia facts about this movie: It features Chippendales legend Michael Rapp (the one they always sent out to do talk shows), action star Deron Michael McBee, and XXX porn stud Colt Steele. Comic Maureen Murphy (a popular performer on the Johnny Carson show) and comedy star Judy Landers stand out among the gals. Another factoid: Just about every video store in the ’80s and ’90s featured this title in the adult section–because although it’s not remotely hardcore, the film was the only widely available sexy type tape for women at that time. Out of every single adult section, we generally got one friggin’ tape–and if it wasn’t this, it was the Sean Bean version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

The title of the first romance novel committed to adult film is somewhat up for debate. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, director/screenwriter Victoria Arnelle brought a series of filmed romances to the screen, complete with gorgeous covers that likened book jackets and extremely hot male leads. Oh, the women are cute too. And while Arnelle’s work is novel and interesting, with some original plotlines and dialogue, I’m sad to say that each of these titles features themes not at all at home in feminist erotica. We see heroines kidnapped, slapped, and sometimes forgiving of abusive lovers. Also, they break the girl code by messing with attached men–even their own sisters’! Vicky, WTF? Still, we must acknowledge the effort to produce a romantic feature for a female audience.

As far as true literary adaptions, I happily credit the amazing 1993 softcore feature Cabin Fever with being the first feminist romance story realised on film–and beautifully so. Based on an erotic story featured in Lonnie Barbach’s Erotic interludes, Cabin Fever is truly a thing of beauty–and oh so hot. Lonnie Barbach just may have been the original Feminist Sexpert, with her books lauded as having a positive impact on women’s sexual expression. Bringing her words and images to the screen was director Deborah Shames, the first female softcore director. This older woman/younger man love story is both tender and thrilling, sexy and sensitive, and features a gorgeous leading man whose character shines through with uncommon sensitivity.

My absolute, all time favorite softcore series has to be Love Scenes, a collection of four videos geared toward the visualized fulfillment of women’s sexual fantasies. Director Ron Lawson cast Playgirl models, male exotic dancers, and top tier male models alongside strong, glamorous actresses in a host of female-geared fantasies.

This series scored countless good reviews and AVN rewards, and remains pretty much unprecedented. Featured fantasies include a male model seducing a female photographer, a pool boy charming the lady of the house, a dancer ‘auditioning’ for a female director, etc. Each interlude is softly and tastefully shot, with lingering shots of the male body and lots of tender foreplay. Even cooler, the content of Love Scenes was determined by a female review panel.

And speaking of unprecedented–I’ll conclude this with a look at the introductory feature from the Godmother of Femme Porn: Ms. Candida Royalle herself.

Her 1985 debut feature was indeed titled Femme, and contained a series of vignettes capturing the essence of women’s sexual fantasies. A housewife dreams up an encounter with her favorite soap opera star, a woman makes it with two hunks in an art gallery, etc.

Both tasteful and tawdry, this is a beautiful film–and girl, it sure did start something!

+++
Featured Image: Candida Royalle from Femme Productions.

1...515253...94Page 52 of 94

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

© Copyright 2019 - Sexpert Media. All Rights Reserved. For permission to syndicate content, please contact us.