Greta Christina's Blog

Two Erogenous Zones Walk Into A Bar: Sex And Humor

Note to family members and others who don't want to read about my sex life: This piece talks about my sex life a little. Not in a lot of detail, but some. If you don't want to read about that stuff, use your own judgment on this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

I want to like it.

Really, I do.

But mostly, I just don't.

I'm talking about humor in porn. And to some extent, I'm talking about humor in sex.

If you're one of these people who complains that porn is too serious and you wish they'd lighten up and have some laughs with it... well, I guess I'm part of the problem. Sorry about that. I've written some laugh lines into some of my porn, but I do it sparingly, and I never do it when a story is heading into the home stretch.

I just don't like it. Not usually. Not as a porn writer, and not as a porn consumer. I find it distracting, I find it un-sexy, and I find it a mood-killer. Or a mood-dampener, anyway.

Part of the problem with funny porn, of course, is that so much of it isn't actually funny. In the same way that commercial porn often winds up with half-assed writing (for books), half-assed lighting and framing (for photos), and half-assed writing and lighting and framing and acting and music and everything else for porn videos, the attempts at humor in all porn media often wind up being pointless, labored, and flat.

But even when humor in porn is done well, I still don't often like it.

It's not just porn, either. It's sex itself. I once had a sex date with someone -- a couple, actually -- who wanted to have sex with Warner Brothers cartoon music in the background. They were definitely of the "people take sex too seriously, we wish they’d lighten up and have some laughs with it" camp. I liked the idea in theory... but in practice, I found the music extremely distracting. I'd be working up to a nice erotic climax, when I’d hear some comic "boing" in the background, and completely lose my momentum. I felt bad -- I felt like I was one of those people they were complaining about who took sex too seriously -- but it absolutely did not work for me.

So here's what I think the problem is:

Laughter is a tension breaker.

And I don't want the tension broken during sex.

Sex is about tension. Obviously sex is about a lot more than that... but tension is one of the main things that makes it work. The slow, gradual, rise-and-fall buildup of tension, the amping up of erotic tension to an almost unbearable level of pleasure, the sudden, explosive release of all that tension in orgasm... that's what it’s about, baby. And I don't want it interrupted with some silly dirty pun or a comic "boing" on the stereo.


I'm not saying I never laugh in bed. Of course I do. And laughter can have some real benefits to sex. It can be a bonding experience, making sex feel like a naughty conspiracy that the two (or more) of you are in on together. And it can release the bad kind of tension as well as the good, smoothing over awkward moments and making you feel good about yourselves and each other.

I'm saying that when I do laugh in bed, it tends to break me out of my erotic mood. And it can take a little doing to get back into it and find my place again. That's true for sex with another person, and it's true when I'm enjoying porn by myself. Humor and laughter can definitely add to a sexual scenario... but for me at least, it does so at the cost of sexual arousal. It releases the tension too early, and in a non-erotic way. I can be turned on, and I can laugh, but I can almost never do both at the same time.

It can still be worth it. It can definitely be worth it when I’m with someone else and we’re getting the good bonding stuff you get from a good laugh. And porn can sometimes use humor in a similar way: early on in the story, to establish a mood and get you to bond with the characters. But once things really get going, I want my erotic tension to be broken in a shattering orgasm -- not in a fit of the giggles.

Come See Me Read! Perverts Put Out, Sat. April 19

If you're going to be in the San Francisco area this Saturday, come see me read! I'll be reading at the vaunted and notorious Perverts Put Out series, Saturday, April 19, at the Center for Sex and Culture. Other sex writers reading that evening will include Jim Provenzano, Kirk Read, Steven Schwartz, horehound stillpoint, Fran Varian, and emcees Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. In celebration of tax season, this will the the very special FTIRS edition of Perverts Put Out.

The Center for Sex and Culture is at 1519 Mission Street, near Van Ness, in San Francisco. It's very close to the Van Ness MUNI stop and to many Market Street buses, and not that far from the Civic Center BART stop. Perverts Put Out starts at 7:30, and admission is $10-15 on a sliding scale. Hope to see you there!

"Variety in itself is arousing": My Podcast Interview with Radio Blowfish

Check out the podcast interview that just went up on Radio Blowfish! In the interview, we talk a lot about adult comics in general, porn in even more general, and my new book Best Erotic Comics 2008 in particular. Among other things, I talk about why I think comics are almost an ideal form for erotica, why I think variety is so important in porn collections, and how I went about finding the comics I chose for the anthology. It's fun, it's chatty, and it's not too long (about 10 minutes or so -- I forgot to time it when I was listening).

If any of this sounds interesting to you -- or if you've been reading my blog and are curious about the dulcet sounds of my voice -- you can visit the main Radio Blowfish site (my interview is Episode 73, at the top of the dial as of this writing), or you can go directly to the listen and download page.

FYI, some of the material is sexually explicit. Like, duh. So you may or may not want to listen to it at your job, depending on where you work. Enjoy!

Dirty Comics Re-enactment! New York "Best Erotic Comics" Event, Wed. March 5

It is killing me that I can't be there for this event. So I'm hoping my New York friends and blog readers go for me, and tell me all about it.

It's a Best Erotic Comics 2008 New York launch party and benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund... in which performers will be re-enacting stories from the anthology.

Loki in heaven, I wish I could go.

New York's funniest comedians will "act out" BEC stories by Colleen Coover ("A Bondage Tale"), Jessica Fink ("Cassie's Bush"), Ellen Forney ("Your Handy Map to Erogenous Zones"), Justin Hall ("Birthday Fuck"), Ralf Konig ("Roy & Al: Sniffing Around"), Erica Erika Moen ("Silver Bullet"), and Dori Seda ("Fuck Story"). Listen, laugh, squirm, and get turned on as they treat you to a night of sex and comedy you won't soon forget. Hosted by Rachael Parenta, the event will feature comedians Dan Allen, Sara Benincasa, Jon Friedman, Margot Leitman, Matt McCarthy, Giulia Rozzi and Bex Schwartz.

The event is at the Parkside Lounge, 317 E. Houston Street in NYC, Wednesday March 5 starting at 7:30 pm. Admission is a $10 suggested donation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. It's for 21 and over only, with a 2 drink minimum. For more info, visit the CBLDF website.

If you're in the New York area, please please please go... and please tell me how it went. I'm dying to know.

"Stories I wanted to tell": An Interview with "Best Erotic Comics" Artist Trina Robbins

And welcome to the second in a series of interviews with the artists of Best Erotic Comics 2008. Today's interview is with one of the book's Hall of Fame artists, Trina Robbins. I've been an admirer of Trina for many years, both as a comic artist and as a historian. The author of The Great Women Cartoonists, The Great Women Superheroes, and From Girls to Grrlz : A History of Women's Comics from Teens to Zines, as well as many other titles, Trina has been a powerful influence on the comics scene since the underground days. I was thrilled to have her work in Best Erotic Comics 2008, and even more thrilled to interview her here in my blog.

BTW, Trina will be one of the panelists at tonight's Best Erotic Comics 2008 launch party, Thursday 2/28 at 7pm at the Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission Street in San Francisco. Come by and say howdy!

Greta: Thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed! Tell me about your piece. What inspired it, what were you trying to accomplish with it, etc.? I know why I like your piece and why I included it in the anthology -- but what do you think makes it stand out?

Trina: Nothing heavy, really, just: what if the tables were turned and WE were the pets? Not even really an animal rights story, because I certainly am not opposed to neutering pets -- at least until someone invents tiny kitty kondoms. Our two cats are neutered -- they're a male and female -- and sometimes the poor dears get an inkling of an idea about what they're supposed to do, and they assume position, the male biting the neck of the female, but then they can't remember what comes next and they just kind of stand there. It's funny in a pathetic way. My partner calls it the love that can't remember its name.

And tell me a little about the history of this piece. You originally drew it in 1978, but it's being published for the first time here. Can you tell me the story about that?

Yeah, back in '78 I had done some illustration for this men's mag, and I got along nicely with the editor. I sent him a sketch for the comic and he liked it and gave me the go-ahead, but by the time I finished the piece, he'd been fired and the new editor wanted nothing to do with anyone the old editor had worked with. So it has sat in my file cabinet till I heard from you.

Well, I'm so glad I could help it to see the light of day! Since you bring up men's magazine, I wanted to ask: Do you see erotic comics as a separate genre from mainstream comics? Or do you see your erotic work as being an integral part of the comics world?

Well, they obviously ain't mainstream. But comics are comics (or comix) and there are many different kinds and they're all valid.

And when you're creating sex comics, is it important to you that they be arousing to the audience? Or are you focused entirely on other artistic goals?

I've done so few sex comics! I've certainly never done any with arousal of my readers in mind -- they've always simply been stories I wanted to tell.

Since you have done non-erotic comics as well as erotic ones, I'm curious: How has your adult work affected how your non-adult work is received? Has it made it harder to get your non-erotic work published or recognized? Easier? Or has it had no effect at all?

Far more non-erotic than erotic! But I don't think one ever affected the other.

You've been doing comics -- both adult and non-adult -- for a long time, since the early days of the underground comics era. How do you think adult comics have changed since then? And how have those changes affected your own work over the years?

I'm not an enormous readers of erotic comics, but the impression I get is that first of all, there are genuine women drawing erotic comics now, so you've got a different viewpoint than you had 35 years ago, and also of the ones done by men, I think far less of them are the kind I've always objected to -- the kind where rape and torture of women is portrayed as something cool and/or amusing. I'm sure you know that there are people who have accused me of being a censor simply because I have objected to comics that portray rape as funny. Those people don't quite get it that objecting to something is not the same as censoring it.

On that topic -- not the topic of censorship, but the topic of the changing world of adult comics: Do you think the increasing acceptance of comics as a serious art/ literary form has affected sex comics? Has it made it easier for adult comic artists to work? Or are artists less willing to do sex comics for fear of not being taken seriously... whereas 30 years ago they didn't care because they weren't getting any respect anyway?

Certainly there are some excellent graphic novels out now that deal with sex and that are widely respected. Michelle Tea's Rent Girl comes to mind, as well as Phoebe Gloeckner's books. And those books are definitely taken seriously.

Do you find that working on adult comics is an erotic experience? Or when you're doing the drawing, are you just focused on the craft of your work rather than the eroticism of the scene you're creating?

As I said before, I'm focused on telling a story. I find the idea of people as pets being allowed to mate before being neutered ironic rather than erotic!

And finally -- what are you working on now?

I've been writing educational graphic novels for kids and they are definitely not erotic! They're meant for the classroom, as teachers and librarians have become aware that kids are reading less, but that kids WILL read graphic novels. Some of them came out very well, thanks to a bunch of good artists: the stories of Hedy Lamarr, drawn by Cynthia Martin; Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to get her pilot's license, drawn by Ken Steacy;and Florence Nightingale, drawn by Anne Timmons, with whom I also team up for our ongoing graphic novel series, GoGirl! I just finished adapting a Ray Bradbury story into graphic novel form for Scholastic, and this Spring Anne Timmons and I will be doing a graphic novel adaptation of Little Women -- like I said, definitely not erotic!

Retired cartoonist Trina Robbins has been writing books and comics for over thirty years. Aside from writing about women cartoonists, she has written books about dark goddesses, Irish women, and women who kill.

Previous posts in this series:
"That's the fun of it": An Interview with "Best Erotic Comics" Artist Justin Hall

Are You A Sex Addict? Part 2

Part 2 of a two part post. Please note: This post discusses many different aspects of my personal sex life -- many, many aspects -- in a fair amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't. Really, really don't. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

In the last column, we were discussing this Sexual Addiction Screening Test created by Dr. Patrick Carnes, inventor of the term "sex addiction." We saw a noticeable pattern in this test: the pathologization of unconventional sex; the pathologization of sex that other people are shocked or upset by -- regardless of whether they have any right to be; and the pathologization of people who make sex a high priority in their lives. (Thanks to Dr. Marty Klein's Sexual Intelligence blog for the tip). Today we continue going through the test, looking at all the questions that a sexually healthy person might answer "Yes" to... and examining what exactly is troubling about this test and the model of sexual dysfunction it represents.

(This piece contains explicit descriptions of sex. If you're under 18, please do not continue reading.)

Are You A Sex Addict?

Please note: This post discusses many different aspects of my personal sex life -- many, many aspects -- in a fair amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't. Really, really don't.

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Are you a sex addict?

Probably.

I seem to be.

Via Dr. Marty Klein’s excellent Sexual Intelligence blog comes news of this Sexual Addiction Screening Test from SexHelp.com, a site designed "to help those affected by sexual addiction and compulsivity." The site was created by Dr. Patrick Carnes: inventor of the term "sex addiction," founder and designer of multiple treatment programs for sex addiction, and author of several books on sex addiction.

According to Dr. Klein, Dr. Carnes admits he has no training in human sexuality. But let's not focus on that just now.

Because according to this test, I have a problem.

Which is a bit odd. My life is good; my sex life is great. Things in my life are stable and flourishing, and sex is a happy part of that.

So I don't actually think I have a problem.

I think this test has a problem.

I think this test has several problems. I think this test represents an extremely narrow, rigid view of what can constitute a happy sex life. It pathologizes any kind of sex that's unconventional. It pathologizes any kind of sex that other people are shocked or upset by -- regardless of whether they have any right to be, or whether their sexual sensibilities are reasonable. And it pathologizes anyone who makes sex a high priority in their life.

And I think this is the problem with the way sex addiction commonly gets treated. In fact, I think it's the problem with the whole "sex addiction" theory in the first place. I don't deny that some people behave compulsively around sex, self-destructively and destructively of others. I'd be an idiot to deny that. I just don’t think "addiction" is the right word -- or the right concept -- for that problem.

And I think this shows up in this test. Specifically, it shows up in the way that unconventional sex, sex that defies conservative sexual mores, or making sex a high priority in one’s life, are all seen as signs of sex addiction.

But maybe I'm in denial. Maybe I'm one of those addicts who can't admit they're an addict. Let's take a look at the test, and at all the questions I answered "Yes" to... and let's see.

(This piece contains explicit descriptions of sex. If you're under 18, please do not continue reading.)

"That's the fun of it": An Interview with "Best Erotic Comics" Artist Justin Hall

I'm very proud and happy to present the first in a series of interviews with the artists of Best Erotic Comics 2008. One of the things I'm most proud of with this book is the wide variety of first-rate comic artists I was able to showcase, and I was thrilled to have the chance to talk with some of them directly and find out more about how they work, how they approach comics in general and dirty comics in particular.

Today's interview is with Justin Hall, best known for his True Travel Tales comic series, and known to Best Erotic Comics readers as the artist of the sweet, kinky, hilarious, and seriously dirty "Birthday Fuck." Justin and I talked about the comics industry, the sex industry, the challenge of telling true stories, the balance of arousal and artistry in erotica, and lots more.

Please note: Some of the content of this interview, and some of the images illustrating it, are not appropriate for minors. If you're under 18, please do not continue reading.

"Best Erotic Comics 2008" -- A Couple of Cool Reviews

My new book, Best Erotic Comics 2008, has gotten a couple of nifty reviews already, and I thought y'all might like to see them.

The excellent and prolific sex writer, editor, and blogger, Rachel Kramer Bussel (most recently editor of Best Sex Writing 2008), has written a very glowing and nicely thorough review of the book on Amazon. She gave it five stars, and says, among other things:

This first in the annual series shows comics that aren't just designed to turn you on (though some of them surely will), but also tell humorous, honest stories about a range of sexualities, using various artistic styles that show readers just how many ways one can interpret sex.

And Audacia Ray (blogger and author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration) has created a very nice video review of the book. Embedding the video doesn't seem like an option, but you can watch it on Audacia's Live Girl Review blog.

You can buy Best Erotic Comics 2008 at Last Gasp (the publisher), and at many locations and online stores, including Powell's and Amazon. Many thanks to Rachel and Audacia for the kinds words. So glad you liked the book!

Best Erotic Comics 2008 Is Here!

It's here at last! Best Erotic Comics 2008 has arrived at the Last Gasp warehouse. It's available for sale at Last Gasp, and is already available at many locations and online stores, including Powell's and Amazon.

A literary and artistic exploration of human sexuality -- and a fun dirty book, featuring today's smartest, raunchiest, funniest, filthiest, most beautiful, and most arousing adult comics! Best Erotic Comics 2008 smashes the divide between literary/art comics and adult comics by including both the hottest work from the literary/art comics world -- and the highest-quality work from the adult comics world. Artists include Daniel Clowes, Phoebe Gloeckner, Gilbert Hernandez, Michael Manning, Toshio Saeki, Colleen Coover, Ellen Forney, and many others. The wide variety includes work that's kinky and vanilla, sweet and perverse, and straight, lesbian, and gay. Features recent comics, a handful of vintage Hall of Fame gems -- and some works never published before! 200 pages. Color and b&w.

Work by: Belasco, Marzia Borino & Mauro Balloni, Susannah Breslin, Katie Carmen, Cephalopod Products, Daniel Clowes, Vince Coleman, Colleen Coover, John Cuneo, Dave Davenport, El Bute, Jessica Fink, Ellen Forney, Phoebe Gloeckner, Daphne Gottlieb and Diane DiMassa, Justin Hall, Gilbert Hernandez, Molly Kiely, Ralf Konig, Dale Lazarov & Steve MacIsaac, Michael Manning, Erika Moen, Quinn, Sandez Rey, Trina Robbins, Toshio Saeki, and Dori Seda. Cover art by Ellen Forney.

I'm immensely proud of this book, and am delighted with how it turned out. I think I really did do what I set out to accomplish: make an adult comics collection that's both arty and dirty, with comics that will make you think, make you grin, and make you want to whack off. And everyone who's seen the book has commented on its tremendous variety: not just a variety of sexual preferences and practices, but a variety of moods and stories and artistic styles.

I'll be blogging about this book a lot in the coming weeks, with artist interviews and links to reviews. But for right now, I just wanted to let y'all know: It's here.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Porn -- Or Not

This piece originally appeared on the Blowfish Blog.

Porn is not sex education.

I'll say it again: Porn is not sex education.

I'm saying this to everyone who's reading this. But I'm especially saying it to parents: Porn is not sex education. So you need to make sure your kids are getting actual sex education. Because if you don't, then all they really need to know about sex they'll learn from porn -- and they're going to get it completely wrong.

This came up because of a piece I heard on the NPR radio show, "This American Life." The program was on the topic of "talking to kids," and it had a whole segment on talking to kids and teenagers about sex. The entire segment was excellent... but the part that jumped out at me was the teenagers saying that they didn't have good information about sex. Specifically, they didn't have good information about the actual mechanics of sex, what goes where and how.

And so they looked at porn.

And I didn't know whether to vomit, throw things, or cry.

It wasn't just the appalling state of sex education in our country that made me want to cry. Although that was a big part of it. The sex education these kids are getting from their schools is pathetic and insulting, and they know it.

No, what was really making me want to throw bricks through windows was that these teenagers were getting their sex education from porn... and I know, in great and vivid detail from the many years I've been watching porn, exactly how lousy that education will be.

Here is a very short list of things that people will get grotesquely wrong if they get their sex education from porn.

What women's genitals look like. This is a biggie. If you're looking at porn video to satisfy your curiosity about what a pussy looks like -- well, standards of female beauty in porn are almost as rigid with pussies as they are with basic body types, and female genital cosmetic surgery in the porn industry is getting increasingly and depressingly common.

What male genitals look like. Another biggie -- literally. Every time I read a letter to a sex advice columnist from a guy complaining that his dick is pathetically small -- not like the guys in the porn videos -- I want to scream and bite people. Male porn actors are specifically selected for their large genitalia. They are not a statistically representative sampling. Statistically speaking, they represent the far, far end of the bell curve.

The realities of female sexual response. This may be the worst offender of the bunch. There's already enough ignorance about what gives women sexual pleasure and what gets us off, without "porn as sex ed" adding to the mix. Look, I have no doubt that there are some women out there who don't need foreplay, get very aroused by giving blowjobs, have intense multiple orgasms from intercourse alone, and couldn't care less if you touched their clit. But if that's how you're trying to get a woman off, you're really not playing the percentages. Trust me on this.

The realities of male sexual response. If you're getting your sex education from porn, you're going to think that it's normal for men to get rock-hard immediately, at will, and to stay rock-hard throughout the encounter until they come. You won't necessarily know that (a) male porn actors are specifically selected for their ability to get wood and keep it; and (b) the omnipresence of wood in porn videos is due in large part to the miracle of video editing (and more recently to the miracle of Viagra).

To round it all off, we have the actual mechanics; the "What happens during sex?" stuff that the teenagers in the NPR story were desperately looking for. The sex in porn videos is choreographed to give a clear, unobstructed view of the penetration. It's choreographed to look good -- not to feel good. I shudder to think of a generation coming into their sexual prime thinking that reverse cowgirl and that stupid position where the woman sticks her leg up on the wall are the gold standard of the sexual nuts and bolts.

And all of that is just the tip of the sexual misinformation iceberg.

So I want to say a few things to parents:

1. Sex education in our country is in an appalling state. It has huge holes in it at best, and dispenses gross misinformation at worst.

2. If you think your kids aren't seeing porn, think again. Even before the Internet, kids and teenagers were looking at porn. (How many of us swiped our dad's Playboys for a peek? I sure did.) And with the Internet, the horse is definitely out of the barn

So do something. If you're not comfortable talking frankly with your kids about sex yourself -- and I have more sympathy for that position than you might imagine, I sure didn't want to talk with my parents about sex -- you need to make sure they have a way to get the information they want and need. Get them books. Point them at the Scarleteen or San Francisco Sex Information websites. Send them to the sex education programs offered by the Unitarians. Make sure there's an adult in their life they can talk about sex with. Or suck it up, get over your discomfort, and talk to them yourself.

But for the love of all that is beautiful in this world, do not let them grow up thinking that they can get accurate, useful sex information from porn. They can -- once they're adults, of course -- use porn to get entertainment, inspiration, arousal, even some interesting new ideas. But the sex information they'll get from porn will be, if possible, even more useless and misleading than the sex information they're getting from their schools.

Which Side Are You On? Pro-Porn and Anti-Porn Arguments

Note to family members and others who don't want to read about my personal sex life: This post talks about my personal sex life, including a few details you may not want to know about. If you don't want to read that stuff, please don't read this post.

This post was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

You'd think this would be a no-brainer. I've performed in porn. I've produced porn. I've sold porn. I've written porn. I've reviewed porn. And I've read and looked at porn, many many times, purely for my own libidinous pleasure. And whenever I read someone reflexively attacking porn, railing about how horrible it is and how it's degrading and ruinous to all that is good and wonderful about sex, I get very cranky and argumentative.

But here's the kicker. When I read people reflexively defending porn, raving about how wonderful and uplifting it is and how all criticisms of it are absurd and unfair, I get cranky and argumentative as well.

You might conclude from this behavior that I am a cranky, argumentative person.

You might be right.

But there's more to it than that. (She said, crankily and argumentatively.)

The core problem, I think, is this. Critics of porn often focus exclusively on the specifics of how porn commonly plays out in contemporary culture. They see the body fascism, the rigidly narrow and male-oriented vision of sexuality, the sexism (and yes, there is sexism in porn, just like there's sexism in every other part of popular culture). And they conclude that the particular is the same as the general. They conclude that because that's how porn commonly plays out in contemporary culture, therefore that's what porn is always like, de facto and by its very definition.

(They also focus on video porn to the exclusion of all other forms. Not entirely unfairly, as that is the lion's share of the porn market... but somewhat narrow-mindedly as well. And there's an unfortunate confirmation bias when feminist critiques of porn focus on video, since written fiction is a far more woman-driven form of erotica than video has ever been. Especially when you look at the vanishing line between the erotica and romance genres.)

By the same token, though, defenders of porn often focus exclusively on the ideal of what porn could be, while ignoring the ugly realities of what it very often is. And I'll include myself in that critique. I've definitely been guilty of saying, "But what about Candida Royalle? What about Libido Productions? What about the dozens of other wonderful indie porn productions I could name?"... while ignoring the over 10,000 pieces of formula-driven, factory-made, tedious pieces of sex in a box that come out every single year, and that porn customers snap up like candy.

I'm not going to say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I think the idea that the truth of two opposing extremes usually lies somewhere in the middle is total bullshit. I am, on the whole, very much pro-porn, if for no other reasons than (a) I think there's no way to stop the fucked-up kinds of porn without stopping healthy sex information and expression, and (b) I like to get off on it.

And I think anti-porn writers have a very bad habit of ignoring Sturgeon's Law. They fail to recognize that, yes, 90% of porn is crap... but 90% of everything is crap. And in a sexist society, 90% of everything is sexist crap. I've seen some very good arguments on how most porn is sexist and patriarchal with rigid and misleading images of women... but I've never seen a good argument for why, in a world of sexist TV and movies and pop music and video games, porn should be singled out for special condemnation -- to the point of trying to eliminate the genre altogether.

But I also think that pro-porn advocates -- myself included -- need to stop pretending that there isn't a problem. We need to recognize that the overwhelming majority of porn -- or rather, the overwhelming majority of video porn, which is the overwhelming majority of porn -- is sexist, is patriarchal, does perpetuate body fascism, does create unrealistic sexual expectations for both women and men, does depict sex in ways that are not only overwhelmingly focused on male pleasure, but are rigid and formulaic and mind-numbingly tedious to boot. And we need to be trying to do something about it.

What I think is often missing, from both sides of this debate, is nuance. I think anti-porn writers need to acknowledge that the crappy realities of average porn don't automatically prove that all porn is evil by definition. And I think pro-porn advocates need to acknowledge... well, the crappy realities of average porn.

And goddamn it, this cranky and argumentative sex writer wants nuance. If I have to scream myself blue in the face to get it.

Male Dom Female Sub

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, discusses my personal sex life -- or to be more accurate, my tastes in porn -- in a certain amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't.

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Has anyone else noticed a drastic shift in kinky porn in the last few years?

It used to be that the most common trope in kinky porn was the dominant woman. Madame Cruella, Mistress of Pain, Kitten with a Whip -- these were the themes and images that dominated, if you will, the world of SM porn, both in writing and in visual art. It was a cliche, even: everyone knew the cliche of the powerful business executive who paid to get beaten and humiliated once a week -- or who built a library of fem-dom porn to help him fantasize about it.

But in the last few years, I've been seeing a definite shift. In the kinky porn that comes across my path (and a fair amount of kinky porn comes across my path), I'm seeing less and less porn starring dominant women, and more and more starring submissive women and dominant men.

I'll admit that I haven't studied this trend with any scientific rigor: this observation is very much anecdotal, and I could be talking out of my ass. But I really don't think so. I was actually so used to the prevalence of dominant women in SM porn that it took me a while to realize that they weren't nearly as prevalent as they used to be.

And now I'm wondering: What's that about?

You could argue that this trend is sexism at work. Most porn is still aimed at a primarily male audience, after all. And while men were happy to fantasize about powerful women with whips back when it was overwhelmingly a man's world, as women have been gaining more and more power, men are fantasizing more and more about taking that power away.

I suppose there might be something to that theory. But it can't possibly be all there is. Because women are having these fantasies, too. In droves. Women writers and artists are creating a lot of this male-dom female-sub porn -- and increasingly, a female audience is sucking it up. Myself included. I eat it up like popcorn.

In fact, you could argue that this dynamic is happening because of the opposite of sexism. Women have had submissive and masochistic fantasies for ages, and porn is finally starting to cater to our goddamn fantasies of being the helpless, vulnerable center of attention/ object of desire -- not just men's.

But I think there's something else going on here, something that's key. Again, I haven't studied this with any kind of rigor, so I'm just going to speak for myself, on the assumption that what's true for me may be true for others as well.

I think that we fantasize about what we don't have. Stressed-out city folks dream of tropical paradises and bucolic rural getaways; bored small-town folks dream of the excitement and glamour of the big city. Unhappy single people dream of true love; unhappy married people dream of being footloose and fancy-free. Etc., etc., etc. That's the whole point of a fantasy, isn't it? Even if your life is generally good, you're still not going to fantasize about the things you already have.

So what does this have to do with male-dom female-sub porn? After all, we still live in a sexist world where women have less power than men. Wouldn't women and men alike be fantasizing about men in shackles and women with whips?

In the much broader and more obvious sense, of course that's true. We've made a lot of advances, but the world is still very sexist indeed. But -- again, speaking only for myself now -- in a more immediate day-to-day sense, the reality that I want a fantasy escape from isn't sexism.

It's the fight against sexism.

It's the constant vigilance against the stupid sexist indoctrination that's been sunk into my head since I was an infant. It's the constant struggle to be assertive when I've been taught to be compliant, to speak up when I've been taught to be a good listener, to argue when I've been taught to be agreeable... all without turning into an asshole. It's the constant half-second arguments I have in my head every time a guy says or does something sexist -- is this particular battle worth fighting? Do I respond, or let it go?

It gets exhausting. Not just for women, but for men as well, who're contending with the flip side of gender indoctrination and changing roles and expectations. And I think a big part of the appeal of the male-dom female-sub fantasy is that it offers a break from the fight. It offers an opportunity -- whether in a role-play scene in real life or a masturbation fantasy in your head -- to take a vacation from the battle, to briefly
wallow in the familiar roles, in a safe place that's separate from your everyday life.

And like most vacation spots, for most people it isn't the place where you'd really want to live. Sure, there are people who do 24/7 male-dom female-sub relationships, just like there are people who sell their houses and move to Tahiti. But for most people, part of the pleasure of a good vacation is how happy you are to come home from it, the fresh perspective it gives you on everything you love about your everyday life. The indulgence in a fantasy of a masterful man and a compliant or helpless woman gives you a break from the struggle against sexism in your everyday life... so you can emerge rested and refreshed and ready to do battle once more.

Perfect Porn and Other Myths

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog. Please note: This piece discusses, not so much my personal sex life, but my tastes and preferences in porn, and it does so in some detail. If you don't want to read that, please don't.

It's almost a throwaway line. And yet it's stuck with me for weeks.

"I figured out pretty soon that, to get a video that pushes all your buttons and doesn’t grate on any squicks, you have to win the lottery and produce it yourself."

This is spanking model Adele Haze, in a blog piece titled Why I Modelled for Lupus Pictures. It's a smart, insightful piece about why she was willing -- not just willing, but happy -- to perform in a spanking video for a production company that she knew was going to physically push her much, much harder than she liked. The piece has some compelling implications, not just about spanking porn or even porn in general, but about any kind of sexual relationship, and indeed any kind of job.

I've written about those implications elsewhere. But right now, I'm fixated on this one comment she made almost in passing. Again:

"I figured out pretty soon that, to get a video that pushes all your buttons and doesn’t grate on any squicks, you have to win the lottery and produce it yourself."

I think this is one of the smartest things I've read about porn. I think it has important implications, for both porn critics and porn consumers alike. And I think it has even bigger implications for porn creators.

I've been a porn consumer for close to thirty years now, and a porn critic for over a decade. And as both a consumer and a critic, I've definitely fallen into the trap Haze is talking about. I've griped about porn -- videos, stories, photo collections, comics, whatever -- being too arty, and I've griped about them being too raw. I've griped when porn took forever to get to the good parts, and I've griped when it rushed to the sex too soon. I've griped when the porn I was watching was too soft-focus and romantic, and I've griped when it treated its characters like meat. I've griped because the performers didn't spank as hard as I liked, and I've griped because they spanked too hard.

In other words, I've definitely griped about porn because it either didn't push all my erotic buttons just right, or because it grated on some of my squicks. I've griped when it hasn't fallen into my perfect window: the perfect amount of artistry without sacrificing spontaneity, the perfect amount of teasing and buildup to get me worked up without getting me frustrated and bored, the perfect degree of roughness or kink to be convincingly real without being terrifyingly brutal.

And I -- along with every other porn consumer and porn critic -- have to acknowledge that this really isn't fair.

Of course I have a right to my erotic buttons. I have a right to express those erotic buttons. And I have a right to seek out porn that pushes them. Absolutely. But it isn't right to act as if porn creators have done something wrong for failing to push them.

Besides, and much more to the point...

The porn that I've loved most passionately hasn't necessarily pushed my erotic buttons at all. And some of it has definitely grated on my squicks. The porn that I've loved most passionately has been the porn that most effectively got across how the people in it felt about the sex they were having -- regardless of whether the sex they were having was sex I wanted to have, or even wanted to fantasize about.

If I can be drawn inside the head and the skin of the performers/ characters/ models, if I can be made to really feel what it feels like to be this person/these people having this sex and to feel what they find hot about it, the actual content can be just about anything. It can be content that would usually bore me, and it can be content that would usually squick me. If I can get why they find it hot, I can generally find it hot myself.

This is the main reason I'm so rabid about authenticity and enthusiasm in video porn. An authentic, enthusiastic performance in a porn video will completely bypass the presence or absence of my erotic buttons, and will turn me on by the sheer force of the performers' own excitement. A competent piece of push-the-buttons porn will only get me off if it hits my buttons successfully.

And I think that's a lot of what's wrong with so much porn. Mainstream video porn especially, but it's true of almost any commercial porn. I think way too much porn focuses way too hard on maximizing their button pushing and minimizing their squick-grating (emphasis on minimizing their squick-grating). They spend way too much time and energy checking off boxes on the "positions and sex acts" checklist (did we get the blowjob? did we get the reverse cowgirl? did we get the anal?) and making sure none of the "avoid at all costs" boxes get touched (did the guys' dicks touch each other? does the girl look even slightly fat?). And as a result, they all too often forget the entire point of the exercise -- namely, to show how exciting it feels to have great sex.

On Surfing the Web... The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, contains very explicit details, not so much about my personal sex life per se, but about my fantasies and my tastes in porn. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog -- with a nosy little poll at the end of it, aimed at readers of all stripes but especially at other sex writers and educators. It's called On Surfing the Web for Spanking Porn, and it begins very much like this:

Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed by it.

I know that seems weird. I've been writing in shameless detail about my sex life, my sexual fantasies, and my tastes in porn for years. Why should I be embarrassed about surfing the web for spanking porn?

I think I'm embarrassed because I'm so single-minded about it. As a porn critic, I pride myself on having eclectic tastes, on being able to be turned on by almost any sexual scenario if it's executed with passion and skill. All of which is true.

But when it comes to my free time, my "me" time, my non-professional "looking at porn just to whack off" time, I'm very single-minded indeed. I want to look at photos of women being spanked.

Within some pretty specific parameters.

To find out more about those parameters -- and how I feel about the whole thing -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

His Hands: A Dirty Story

I haven't been posting much about sex here lately. Except for the stuff about the sexual hypocrisy of right-wingers, of course. Which is entertaining in its own way; but not exactly hot.

So today I'm posting a dirty story from the archives. (Family members and others who don't want to read my porn, now would be a good place to stop.) This piece was originally published in the Five Minute Erotica anthology, a collection of short-short (1000 words or less) erotic fiction edited by Carol Queen. As usual with my fiction, I'm not illustrating it with any pictures, since I want you to visualize the characters however you want. Enjoy! Story begins below the fold.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Porn — Or Not: The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, talks about sex. Not about my personal sex life so much -- it's more in the "social and political commentary" vein -- but if you don't want to read about the sex stuff, then please hang up now.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog, about kids and teenagers learning about sex by watching porn. It's called All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Porn — Or Not, and it begins very much like this:

Porn is not sex education.

I’ll say it again: Porn is not sex education.

I’m saying this to everyone who’s reading this. But I’m especially saying it to parents: Porn is not sex education. So you need to make sure your kids are getting actual sex education. Because if you don’t, then all they really need to know about sex they’ll learn from porn — and they’re going to get it completely wrong.

To find out more about why using porn as sex education is such a bad idea, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

How I Write Porn

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog. Please note: While this piece doesn't talk about my personal sex life per se, it does talk about my taste in porn, which may be TMI for family members and others.

*****

Disclaimer: I'm aware of the pitfalls of writing a "how to write porn" piece using your own porn writing as an example. So if you don't like my porn writing -- the passage I wrote for this piece, or any of the rest of it -- please feel free to ignore this advice.

I usually start with the physical actions. What the characters are doing, what they're saying, which body part is going where.

"He gripped her wrist and twisted it behind her back."

It's what I call "the skeleton." And the problem with most bad porn fiction is that it stops there. Too many porn writers think that a description of sex acts is all a porn story needs.

I have more sympathy with these writers than you might imagine. When I'm writing a first draft, I get very excited about these things, too. After all, when I'm having a sex fantasy, these are the things I fixate on: the breasts spilling out of a low-cut blouse, the cock pushing into a tight asshole, the hand smacking down on the bare bottom again and again. I know how those sex acts make me feel. Vividly.

And it's easy to forget that conveying the sex acts doesn't convey the feeling.

But it doesn't.

So then I move on to how the sex feels: the emotions, the sensations.

It's what I call the flesh of the story. How does it feel to be this person, or these people, having sex? How do these sex acts feel physically -- soft, tight, sharp, gentle, smooth, cold? And how do they feel emotionally – nervous, urgent, giddy, relieved, beloved, dirty?

So not just, "He gripped her wrist and twisted it behind her back," but:

"He gripped her wrist and twisted it behind her back; his nails dug sharply into her skin, and she felt a rush of excitement, followed immediately by a flush of shame."

And that's better.

But it's still not enough. Not for me. I've read plenty of porn that stopped there, and if it pushes my personal erotic buttons, it'll be enough to get me off. But it's not enough to make a story linger in my mind after I come; to shift the way I look at sex; to make me jerk off to the story again and again. For me to be happy with a sex scene, it's definitely not enough to just describe the sex acts that are happening -- but it's also not enough to convey how the sex feels physically, or even how it feels emotionally.

It has to convey what the sex means.

Why the people are having it. Whether it's giving them what they'd hoped for. What about it is surprising. Whether anything is going to be different now because of this sex.

That’s the nerves of the story. And the nerves are what gives a story life.

So not just, "He gripped her wrist and twisted it behind her back; his nails dug sharply into her skin, and she felt a rush of excitement, followed immediately by a flush of shame," but:

"He gripped her wrist and twisted it behind her back; his nails dug sharply into her skin, and she felt a rush of excitement, followed immediately by a flush of shame. She had specifically asked for this, had spelled out the fantasy in some detail. And now that it was here, digging into her flesh and forcing her face-down onto the floor, it was too much: not just the helplessness, but how exciting the helplessness felt. She didn't want to be that person, that cliche, the powerful woman who deep down just wants to be mastered by a more powerful man. Her safeword bubbled up in her throat, but she gritted her teeth and choked it back down. She had asked for this, by God, and by God she was going to see it through.

"He forced his knee between her thighs and fumbled with his zipper, and she whimpered, in something resembling real panic, as she felt a flash of wetness inside her pussy. I don't want this, she thought. I don't want this, I can't do this, please stop. The words in her head made her pussy wetter, and the sharp fingers forcing her cunt lips apart made it wetter still, and she moaned in humiliation and rage at her treacherous pussy that was begging for his cock to force itself inside her against her will, and that was getting off on her shame and fear."

You may notice that this passage suddenly got a lot longer. And it's not just the "why" stuff that made it longer -- there's more "what" and "how" as well, more skeleton and flesh.

Here's why. It's usually the skeleton of a porn story that gets me started -- some fantasy image of some physical act. But it's the nerves that drive it. Once I find the meaning of a story, once I know who these people are that I'm jerking off to and why they're having the sex that they're having... that's what tells me what happens next.

And when I'm rewriting and polishing a story (if the acts and feelings and meaning of a porn story are the skeleton and flesh and nerves, then the rewrites and polishes are the skin), a lot of what I'm checking for is the balance between the three. Does a section feel tedious? There's probably too much physical description: I need to sink into the character's bodies and get at what they're feeling. Does it seem cliched? I need to remember what makes these characters unique, why they're there and what they're getting out of it. Is it starting to lose momentum and sexual heat? Maybe there's too much deeper meaning stuff, and I need more strong visual images of what's physically taking place.