Tuesday, 22 April 2008
| 12:00 am
| Industry
It’s fairly hard to miss this story if you read the adult entertainment news sources, but it’s still amazing to me how many sex-positive, porn-positive people in my social circle have no idea it’s happening — and how many more than that just don’t seem to care. On April 9, adult industry website XBiz reported that John Stagliano and his company Evil Angel had been charged by a federal grand jury in Washington, DC with a host of offenses, to wit:
Seven counts of “operating an obscenity distribution business and related offenses” not to mention “three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to sell and distribute DVDs containing obscene films together with a movie trailer in violation; two counts of using a common carrier for the conveyance or delivery of DVDs containing obscene films in interstate commerce; one count of engaging in the business of selling or transferring an obscene film and a movie trailer; one count of using an interactive computer service to display an obscene movie trailer in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age; and one count seeking forfeiture of certain assets of the defendants.”
Damn, that’s a lot of obscenity. Stagliano, in case you don’t know him, is the eponymous “Buttman” of the influential Buttman series of porn movies. His Evil Angel video is known for pushing the envelope and releasing movies with decidedly taboo themes. In the case of this indictment, there are two movies named: “Milk Nymphos,” which appears to feature milk enemas, and “Storm Squirters 2,” which features female ejaculation. Also named is a trailer for Belladonna’s “Fetish Fanatic 5.”
Stagliano’s attorney Al Gelbard addressed some of the constitutional issues surrounding this case, and XBiz reported that Stagliano would hold a press conference following his April 21 arraignment. Evil Angel responded by launching DefendOurPorn.org, a clearinghouse for information about the case and a place for fans and free-speech advocates to donate to Stagliano’s defense fund. They also said that DefendOurPorn will remain live after the charges are (inevitably) beaten, and left over funds will be donated to other free speech causes.
Though the paragraph’s worth of charges quoted in the XBiz article is enough to make one’s eyes cross, the case hinges on the idea that the material in “Milk Nymphos,” “Storm Squirters 2,” and the “Fetish Fanatic 5″ trailer is obscene.
Calling it that relies on the Miller test, the US Supreme Court’s standard, and therefore the US legal standard, for obscenity. In determining whether a work is obscene, the Miller test asks:
- Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
- Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
- Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
The government thinks that a work depicting female ejaculation is without literary, artistic, political or scientific value. In an industry of money shots, this is one of two titles selected for prosecution?
But ultimately, why should you care? Certainly a lot of people, even porn people, don’t seem to, except as it relates directly to them. They see Evil Angel as one of the “big dogs” who “asked for it” by being too big, being too successful, being too extreme. I’ve heard it in recent days from the lips of otherwise right-thinking supposed sex-positives.
On the other hand, antiporn groups are bloody pissed off that Stagliano has been indicted. Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, said that the government does nothing to stop the mainstreaming of porn by prosecuting Evil Angel. He also asserted that Americans do not like pornography, despite its rampant popularity: “Just because there’s a lot of pornography around doesn’t mean the American people accept it,” Peters has been quoted as saying.
Morality in Media is one of those antiporn groups that opposes pornography and other forms of “obscenity” in the media. Their founder, the late Fr. Morton Hill, sat on Lyndon B. Johnson’s Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. In 2006 and 2006, Morality in Media received Department of Justice grants in the amount of $150,000 to fund ObscenityCrimes.org, a website that solicits citizen obscenity complaints. As of August, 2007, it had resulted in a whopping zero obscenity prosecutions. High five, Fr. Hill. Morality in Media also led a campaign to get Cosmopolitan banned from supermarket checkout lines, and their response to the white ribbon campaign against violence against women was to lead a sort of counter-white ribbon campaign against pornography.
But I digress — Morality in Media is hardly the problem, since they could give a rat’s ass about “Milk Nymphos” specifically; they oppose the fact of porn, not its execution. The government has the burden of proving that individual works are obscene, and that’s going to be tough, even with something called “Milk Nymphos.”
The reason you should care is not — or at least isn’t just — because the government’s going to be coming for your porn; maybe it will, maybe it won’t.
But one thing’s guaranteed: the dollars spent on having federal agents watch zillions of hours of porn, pick two titles to prosecute, and build a case they’re almost certainly going to lose — those are real dollars; if you pay US taxes, they’re your dollars, and they’re going down the drain even as we speak.
Thomas Roche is the PR Manager at Kink.com, an educator at San Francisco Sex Information and has written or edited ten books. He can be found at thomasroche.com.
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Friday, 18 April 2008
| 12:00 pm
| Culture
Warning: This isn’t a proper movie review. Not at all. I barely even mention the movie’s plotting and construction, its writing and acting, its lighting and camerawork. This is a lot more like that Saturday Night Live sketch, the one with the welder’s review of “Flashdance.”
This is the sadomasochist’s review of “The Bank Job.”
Which I certainly wasn’t expecting to write when I saw the movie.
Quick precis: “The Bank Job” is an unusually well-done bank heist movie, set in England in the 1970s, and based — loosely — on real events. And one of the movie’s main MacGuffins — an object everyone is chasing after, an object driving the plot — is a series of photos of a member of the House of Lords cavorting at a brothel . . . a brothel offering, among other things, sadomasochistic services, catering to what is often known as “the English vice.” These photos of an MP being tied up and flogged have obvious blackmail potential; hence everyone in the movie being very interested in them, and attempting to steal and swindle and threaten them away from one another. (There’s another, more central MacGuffin in the movie, also involving naughty photos of a famous person; but that’s a post for another day.)
Now, secret sex — even secret sadomasochistic sex — being used to drive a movie plot is hardly unusual. It’s barely worth even mentioning, much less writing an entire column about. But there’s something about the kink in “The Bank Job” that’s very unusual indeed . . . so unusual in mainstream movies as to be almost unheard of.
And that’s this: The movie’s attitude towards the sadomasochism is entirely casual, and entirely non-judgmental.
The SM scene in the photos — which we get to see a bit of as it’s being secretly photographed — is more than just safe and sane and consensual. It’s friendly. It’s happy. The MP at the center of attention is smiling, enjoying himself, and even making requests in a very “topping from the bottom” manner. Devotees of the more classic forms of SM might chide him for his manners and his poor form — and obviously the fact that he’s being secretly photographed for potential blackmail purposes isn’t so cool — but nobody could say that he isn’t having a good time.
What’s more, the women in the brothel — the women tying up and whipping said MP, as well as the women catering to more conventional desires — look happy to be doing what they’re doing. They’re not victims, they’re not prisoners: they’re professionals, doing their job and enjoying it a fair amount.
And while the characters in the movie are of course aware of the photos’ shock value — and hence their blackmail value — none of them seem personally shocked or surprised. There’s no, “This man likes to be beaten? Merciful Zeus! What wicked debauchery has this world descended to? And a Member of Parliament, too!” They’re amused, they’re entertained, they’re immediately aware of the photos’ potential value and perfectly willing to take advantage of it . . . but none of them seems upset, or concerned, or even the least bit surprised, by the fact that a member of the English aristocracy gets off on being beaten.
And in movies with SM in them, this attitude is so rare as to be almost unheard of. The usual cinematic approach to SM is to treat it as a marker for real-life cruelty and abuse, or real-life martyrdom and self-destruction. Sexual sadists tend to be evil drug lords or something; sexual masochists are either prisoners of the sadists, or prisoners of their own sick, destructive desires. And when movies show SM, they typically try to have their cake and eat it too: using SM imagery to excite and titillate the audience, while at the same time condemning and punishing the people who engage in it.
Either that, or the whole thing gets treated as a big joke. Treating SM as just another sexual variation — and treating society’s objections to it as silly and hypocritical — is rarer in the movies than dildos at a church picnic.
There have been other pro-SM movies, of course. “Secretary” leaps to mind. But that was a movie specifically about an SM relationship. “The Bank Job” is the first mainstream movie I can think of that has SM as a side plot, a casual, secondary plot device with not that much attention paid to it . . . and that still pays the attention it does give to SM with basic acceptance and an acknowledgement of its right to exist.
I don’t know if this marks the start of a trend, or if it’s just a one-time fluke. But I just want to say this, to all the sadomasochists who have been coming out over the last couple/ few decades and trying to educate the public about what we do: Good job, everybody. Coming out works. It’s slow going, but it works. Keep it up.
Greta Christina, copyright © 2008. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.
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Thursday, 17 April 2008
| 3:44 am
| Toys
Back by popular demand! No, really. The Rollerball Silicone Cock-Ring has been one of our best-selling, best-loved clit stimulator cock-rings, and when we couldn’t get it for awhile we were nearly deafened by the howls of outraged frustration. So we’re delighted to offer this fabulous toy in our catalog again. The Rollerball has a few things going for it that other clit-stim cock-rings just don’t. The prong that juts out from the ring (y’know, the part that rubs up against our girly bits and makes them extra-happy?) is at a rather jaunty angle. So, if you’ve tried other rings and have found yourself grinding in hard to get to the nubbin of fun, this one’s not going to take near as much effort on your part (and you can use this in pretty much any position you can think of). Once you’ve achieved contact, the Rollerball has a sweet little bed of “pearls” which feel absolutely fantastic bumping over your clit and labia. Mmm. It’s silicone, which not only feels great, but you can also boil it to clean it. Unlike a traditional cock-ring, which goes around the cock and balls, this one is sized to fit only around the shaft, which means you can use it on a dick or a dildo and not have it sliding around all over the place.
What’s that? All that and it’s still not enough for you? For those who need just a little bit of an extra oomph! on their clit, the Rollerball now comes in a vibrating version! Pretty much the exact same toy, but with a surprisingly strong (for its size) micro-mini vibe tucked up inside the prong, putting the vibrations right where she wants them. This enhancement on an already awesome toy just brings a mysterious smile to our faces here in the Blowfish tank. With or without a vibrator, this is one special toy, perfect for bringing your lovemaking to a whole new level of fun.
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Thursday, 17 April 2008
| 3:43 am
| Toys
Most vibrators — especially the hard plastic type — come with your basic high, buzzy vibrations. And while I’m a big fan of high, buzzy vibrations (especially for clitoral play), sometimes they get lost in translation when you’re using a vibrator deep inside your pussy. The Petal Power Vibrator has the flower power I’ve been looking for in an insertable, hard plastic, good-for-the-G-spot vibe. With enough girth to fill you up nicely, but with a gentle curve to hit your G-spot, this vibe has the sort of deep, thudding vibrations you need to really get things throbbing. If that’s not enough, the petals are raised along the surface, adding that extra bit of texture to get your attention. The only thing I don’t like about this pretty little flower is the fact that the scroll-wheel in the base doesn’t lock in the “off” position, which makes it too easy to jostle on (so, y’know, take the batteries out before going through airport security). No worries if it does turn on most places, though — the vibrations are so quiet, it’s nearly inaudible at the lowest setting, and only a low, faint buzz at the highest setting. Hard plastic means it’s easy to clean and compatible with pretty much any lube you’d want to use it with. Next time you want to say it with flowers, consider the kind that will make her bloom.
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Thursday, 17 April 2008
| 3:42 am
| Books
Naked Ambition: An R-Rated Look at an X-Rated Industry is one of those books that I had a hard time putting down, but when I did, it would vanish off my desk, spirited away by another ‘fishie who wanted to pore over the full-color, full-page photographs of people in the porn industry. Photojournalist Michael Grecco set up a booth at the 2006 and 2007 AVN awards and took pictures of every porn star, director, visionary and even chiropractor to the (porn) stars he could get his hands on. Chosen from the 13,000 photographs he took, this book contains the best of the lot, and with the fascinating interviews (which might reveal anything from what they did before to their body measurements) and the large-size format, this glimpse into the porn industry is surprisingly revealing. From Jenna Jameson to Joanna Angel, from Larry Flynt to Seymour Butts, from Ron Jeremy to Buck Angel, it’s an engrossing look at what it means to be in the industry.
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Thursday, 17 April 2008
| 3:42 am
| Videos
There’s a long story behind the genesis of Debbie Loves Dallas, the brainchild of director and Vivid Alt head Eon McKai . . . but I won’t rehash it here. Do some googling if you’re curious. Basically, this is McKai’s low-budget (but majorly stylish) response to other — in his opinion inferior — remakes of the classic porno Debbie Does Dallas. This is no cheerleader fuck fantasy, though there are nods to the original; the “Dallas” in this case is a band fronted by the charismatic Punky (Alex Gonz), and Debbie (Cassidey) is his number one fan, whose only ambition in life is to fuck the indie rock star. The film follows Cassidey and her fellow groupies (notably Charlotte Stokeley, one of my favorite alt-porn stalwarts) in their quest to meet and screw the members of the band. Along the way there are disappointed junkie boyfriends, opportunistic drug dealers, deceitful roadies, assorted scams, and various sexual misadventures. It’s an artsy film in many ways — lots of filters, odd camera angles, and deliberately strange stylistic choices, including hand-drawn “exterior shots” of buildings, plus occasional moments of editorial commentary in the form of text onscreen. The effects are sometimes distracting, but they’re just as often amusing, so call it a draw.
Some of the scenes are quite hot, especially Charlotte Stokeley’s blowjob with Alex Gonz (she finagles a meeting by pretending to be a reporter), though it’s a shame the plot interrupts them before the scene can go farther. There’s a rough and nasty all-girl three-way (I suppose that’s what horny groupies do when they can’t reach the objects of their affections? They take whatever solace they can in one another?), and the original Debbie Loves Dallas is playing on a TV in the background, which is just one of the many cute touches McKai includes. Pixie Pearl isn’t particularly pixieish, having some pleasantly generous curves, but the tattoo of wings on her back are suitably fey. Her scene with James Deen is good, too, and there’s a nice moment when she “fantasizes” about fucking Alex Gonz instead, and we get to see her inner life acted out on screen. Justin Snyder abuses his position as a security guard for the band by promising Charlotte and Cassidey that he’ll introduce one of them to the lead singer — whichever one of them sucks cock the best. The girls get on their knees in the spirit of friendly competition, and a good-old-fashioned suck-off follows. They perform admirably, but though he comes, he doesn’t come through, and the ladies have to try various other stratagems to achieve their goal. Naturally, Cassidey succeeds, catching Alex’s eye and going back to his hotel room after the show. It’s a satisfying final scene, if not quite hot enough to justify all that build up There are zillions of extras, from a PDF of the script to a CD soundtrack, and overall it’s a fun little package.
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Thursday, 17 April 2008
| 3:41 am
| Videos
PornoMation is CGI cartoon sci-fi smut, circa 2004! (I know, we’re a little behind the times, but I review the stuff when I get it. I will say that the footage suffers a bit from being on the old side — if you’ve played any next-generation video games, the cut scenes mostly look better than these shorts do.) The advantage of animation over live-action porn has always been that you can show stuff that’s more extreme than reality, including straight-up anatomical impossibilities. (See, for instance, any of the zillion tentacle porn titles available in Japan.) There’s some of that here, and it’s fairly entertaining, and weird, if not especially hot — unless your kink involves alien sex slaves with impossibly long dongs, alien sex gladiators with penises that have mouths, chicks fucking sex robots, etc. The meat of this disc consists of various short films, all with a science-fictional or fantasy edge, some with a fairly realistic CGI style, some a bit more surreal or stylized. There are penises that turn into volcanoes, UFO abductees encountering the expected sorts of probes, soldiers shagging Valkyries, sentient dildos (or are they penis-shaped aliens?). After the short films, which last about 20 minutes all together, we get a rather badly done segment that consists of scenes of illustrations, with mermaid sex, dragon sex, winged penises, conceptual sketches from the films we just saw, women riding horses inappropriately, women being pleasured by minotaurs, fairy fucking, angel fucking, demon fucking, skeleton fucking (insert “boner” joke), etc. It’s rather rapid-fire and of wildly uneven quality, and would have been a lot better as a photo gallery that the viewer could progress through at will, so we could linger on the good ones and shoot quickly past the lousy ones. I like erotic fantasy art, actually, and I’ve seen worse . . . but I’ve also seen better, and without the novelty of animation, it seemed a bit pointless. Finally, we get a behind-the-scenes feature, basically, in the form of creators Sagemonn and Karynna explaining to a visiting CGI alien what their artwork entails. It’s fairly interesting. The novelty value makes this worth a look, even if it’s not entirely, hmm, “spankable” is the word I want, I suppose.
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I know I write a lot here about the sexy, sexy collisions of sex and science, but I can’t help it — this is a column about sex stuff on the internet, and the internet is obsessed with technology for the same reason Hollywood keeps making movies about life in Hollywood: the joy of obsessive self-regard. Now that my elaborate justifications are out of the way, let’s talk tech:
First, news about the fleshlight, that humble male masturbation sleeve. No, it hasn’t been fully automated or converted into a hands-free device — not to disappoint those of you who keep asking — but it has been modified to act as a mouse for your computer. Yes, that’s right, with the correct equipment, you too can move your pointer by . . . well . . . moving your pointer. The repurposed fleshlight is specifically designed for playing kind of a lame-looking video game where your CGI avatar tries to seduce a nurse. (”If you thought the controls for the Nintendo Wii were intuitive, wait until you try the Nintendo Wee-Wee!”) There are hints the fleshlight-as-mouse controls might go open-source, which means all kinds of hacks could be coming in the future. Imagine being able to pay your bills online . . . with your cock! Or being able to play World of Warcraft . . . with your cock! Or being able to read Caught in the Net . . . etc.! (I could keep going, but you get the gist.)
The Large Hadron Collider being built at CERN in Switzerland will be the world’s largest particle accelerator, and the device itself is practically porn for a particular kind of science nut. But the name of the machine lends itself to a particularly hilarious typo, dubbed “the world’s funniest malapropism” by the creators of Large Hard-on Collider.com. Yes, many a reporter has accidentally mistyped and created a headline that seems to imply there are oversized atom-smashing penises in our future. The site above collects incidents of this hilarious misuse, which is fine, but the genius comes in the crude hand-drawn sketch of the hard-on, the unknown particles it produces, and the “black hole” it’s plunging toward . . .
But, lest you think our glorious future is all cock-based technology, here’s a little something featuring the softer side of metal: hot models cuddling with, and even making out with, robots, from the March ‘08 issue of Marie Claire Italy. Though perhaps better as an idea than in the actual execution, there are still some lovely images here.
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Tuesday, 15 April 2008
| 12:00 pm
| Industry
An officer at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, recently admitted to working as an escort. She faces administrative discharge for conduct unbecoming an officer, despite the fact that she’s protected from non-administrative punishment — in other words, a court martial — because she confessed, by testifying against her former Madam.
Lt. Commander Rebecca C. Dickinson was the manager of food services for the Naval Academy from September 2004 and May 2007. During part of that time, she was also serving, apparently somewhat unhappily, as an escort run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey — the “D.C. Madam.” Palfrey’s clients included the military strategist who invented “shock and awe,” as well as a Deputy Secretary of State, a Senator, and more.
As reported in the Baltimore Sun, found via sex work blog Bound, Not Gagged, the 38-year-old Dickinson testified against Palfrey under a grant of immunity, which means that she can’t be court martialed or prosecuted under federal law. But, at 19 years into her Naval service, Lt. Cmdr. Dickinson faces administrative discharge — which means the loss of her pension.
The reason? While Dickson testified that she did not always have sex with her clients, and when they did, “it was mutual,” the Navy, along with most of the world, regards being an escort as prostitution. The idea goes like this: Pay a woman for her time, and of course you must be paying her for sex. It also goes like this: A woman would not voluntarily have sex with a guy she doesn’t know. Prostitution is forbidden under the Uniform Code of Miliary Justice (UCMJ), as is “sexual misconduct” in many other avatars. If Dickinson she hadn’t gotten immunity, she’d face court martial; with immunity, she’s likely to lose her pension and benefits.
You might ask what working a second job, even as an escort, has to do with being an officer in the navy. Or you might just cut to the chase and ask why officers are forbidden sexual misconduct or prostutitution, which would be a reasonable question. Would you also be surprised to know that US military officers can be court martialed for all sorts of sexual misconduct?
In fact, the military’s attitude toward sexual misconduct and its related behaviors is nothing short of fascinating. Start digging and you see all sorts of weird prohibitions. For instance, the following language occurred in Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) until October 1, 2007:
Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife, by force and without consent, is guilty of rape and shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
Yes, yes, that is two-thousand-freakin-SEVEN, not 1907: rape your wife, apparently, and it’s not problem, Cap’n — but I digress.
On October 1, 2007, Congress came up with a revised Article 120 that is like 10 times as long as the old Article 120. covered sexual misconduct in agonizing detail, with a medieval Demonologist’s fascination. The new 120 specifically details its applicability to such nasties as date rape, roofie rape, child molestation. It also contains some really bizarre language; “wrongful sexual conduct,” for instance, requires in cases of sexual contact without another person’s consent, “That the accused had no legal justification or lawful authorization for that sexual contact,” which makes it sound like you can get a court order to commit rape, but I’m sure that’s not what they had in mind.
Dickinson probably didn’t run afoul, or didn’t just run afoul, of Article 120, but also of Article 134, which covers prostitution. You can also be court martialed for committing a felony, even if you admit to it, which probably covers Dickinson. But the prohibitions go on — Article 134 also covers adultery; that’s right, you can be court martialed for committing adultery. From watching JAG, I had always thought that prohibition was about fucking another officer’s spouse, but apparently adultery proper is included, provided “the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.”
Article 134 also covers indecent assault, but only if “the acts were done with the intent to gratify the lust or sexual desires of the accused,” which is kind of a weird requirement for prosecuting indecent assault. Apparently, if you hump your buddy’s leg as part of a hazing ceremony, no problem, but if you enjoy it, it’s the brig for you, sailor.
The new Article 120 also specifically amended a particular offense from Article 134 — this one boggles the mind. Here our Congressional friends are discussing “indecent language communicated to another,” meaning that someone faces court martial under Article 120 if the following can be established:
- That the accused orally or in writing communicated to another person certain language;
- That such language was indecent; and
- That, under the circumstances, the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.
Those of you who have sleazed around on Yahoo chat may know already that such messenger services are one of the few types of sexual interaction that deployed servicemembers have access to, and one that they utilize with gusto. Congress does not want.
But I want to get back to Lt. Cmdr. Dickinson, because she’s the one who’s really getting screwed here. Know how much she made per encounter? Well, of the $275 fee for her services, $145 went to the agency, and she kept $130. She says she did it because she needed the money, which could seem like an apologist’s argument except that Dickinson stopped shortly before she declared bankruptcy.
As a patriot and a civil libertarian, I have no problem with the idea that military personnel might turn tricks because they want the money, but I find it pretty royally fucked up that a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy would be turning tricks because she needed the money. I don’t mean that the government should pay our officers more; I think the situation Dickinson found herself in probably speaks to the broader structure of capitalism and the fact that even a pretty well-paid working person can find her or himself in some pretty dicey financial straits. But shouldn’t a USN officer have had access to financial information, counseling and assistance to keep her head above water? Apparently not. Non sibi sed patriae indeed.
Like many women who do sex work, Dickinson was doing it out of necessity, hoping no one would find out; now in order to secure immunity she’s a witness at somebody else’s trial and a news item in somebody else’s blog. And she might find herself at 38 without a pension after 19 years of service because the Navy thinks getting paid to have sex with someone is conduct unbecoming. Smells like bilge water to me, sailor.
Thomas S. Roche is the Public Relations Manager at , the author, editor or coeditor of 10 books plus a bunch under pseudonyms, and a member of the training staff at San Francisco Sex Information. He blogs about funky shit at www.thomasroche.com.
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Thursday, 10 April 2008
| 12:19 pm
| Toys
If you’d like some versatility in your dildo collection, but don’t want to devote a whole chest of drawers to organizing them, here’s a great little dildo that can add a twist to your sex life. The Silky Bendable Elastomer Dildo is made with flexible spine that allows you to bend the dildo at an angle (and have it stay that way). The possibilities here are endless: keep bending it at different angles until you find the one that hits your G-spot just so, re-create that unusual, but oh-so-delightful crink in your otherwise useless ex-boyfriend’s dick, slip it through a harness and bend it at the base for an extra-showy packing dildo that you can straighten and fuck away with at a moment’s notice (do be warned that you might make innocent bystanders drool at the size of your package if you try that last one, though!). With its squeezable, lifelike, silky Elastomer surface, this is definitely one of our more real-feeling dildos; it feels really wonderful rubbing against your own sensitive bits. It even suctions well onto flat surfaces (moisten for best suction). It is latex- and phthalate-free, and compatible with silicone- and water-based lubricant. 7″ long, 1-1/2″ thick and comes in a gorgeous blue color. A favorite of ours and a very handy little guy to round out any toy collection.
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Thursday, 10 April 2008
| 12:17 pm
| Toys
Our testing couple fell in love with the Driver Leather Harness, despite being just a wee bit jaded from exposure to nearly every harness under the sex-toy sun over the years. Made of soft garment leather, this harness fits more like a pair of comfy (leather) panties than a contraption made of straps and metal hardware. It’s a basic two-strap harness, so it’s easy to step into, pull up, tighten with the D-rings, and start fucking with it. The two legs straps can be adjusted along the back of the hip strap, making it wearable for men (fans of double penetration, look sharp!), or you can push them together and make this into a sexy G-string harness for her. And the 2″ O-ring snaps out, so you can replace it with a smaller ring to accommodate dildos with smaller bases so they don’t flop all around or slip out. Adjustable, yet simple, comfy, yet sexy, you can see why the Leather Driver Harness is a new fave around the Blowfishie office.
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Thursday, 10 April 2008
| 12:17 pm
| Books
Well, it’s about damn time someone came out with a coloring book of cocks! Sure, we’ve known and loved the The Cunt Coloring Book for a decade now, and last year, when the updated and hip The BIG Coloring Book of Vaginas came out, our crayons melted from the hot, pierced glory of it all. But the poor penis has been neglected as coloring material for too long! Well, no more! The The BIG Coloring Book of Cocks is by Morgan Hastings (yup, the same dude who did the Vagina book I just mentioned), and it’s packing a really large . . . collection of all sorts of great and wonderful cocks. Big ones! Little ones! Tattooed ones! Ones with piercings some of you have never even heard of! Bent ones, straight ones . . . you get the idea. Since most of these are pretty plain along the shaft (better for coloring, you see), you can design that tattoo you’ve always wanted to get (or wanted him to get for you). There are some fun activity book pages, with word searches and dot-to-dot, furthering the whimsical air of the whole thing. Great for parties, stocking stuffers, fourth dates and long plane rides (well, maybe not that last one), The BIG Coloring Book of Cocks will make your crayons stand up and take notice.
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Thursday, 10 April 2008
| 12:16 pm
| Videos
An old adage says the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his penis, but let’s be serious here — the quickest way to a man’s heart is by sucking his cock. Want to learn how to better perform blowjobs? Then you should quickly acquire Tristan Taormino’s Expert Guide to Oral Sex Part Two: Fellatio. It’s educational, full of great practical advice, and some of the demonstration scenes are quite hot. While all the couples depicted are boy-girl, the techniques could also be useful for gay men looking to improve their skills. Like all Tristan’s educational flicks in this series, it begins with about twenty minutes of workshop-style discussion, with Tristan pointing at charts and talking to a group of ordinary women. Granted, Roxy DeVille and Christian (two of my favorite performers in all porndom) come in to demonstrate some of the things Tristan talks about, which isn’t something you’re likely to find in an ordinary sex-ed class. Amusingly, Christian is posed naked, with an erection, and becomes a living anatomical diagram, with onscreen text and arrows pointing out his glans, corona, scrotal sack, and etc. There’s frank and useful information, and you get hilariously straightforward lines like “The testicles, also known as the ‘balls,’” plus honest commentary about, say, the fact that eating certain foods makes your semen taste horrid.
After that, it’s off to the demonstrations. Kaiya Lynn and Alec Knight talk a little about their personal relationship with blowjobs, then do a demonstration in a bedroom. Pretty basic, but also pretty hot. Next Lindsey Meadows and Marco Leon do the sensitive, communicative, tender couple thing, with lots of checking in with one another and slow exploration. Finally, Adrianna Nicole and Alec Knight do the truly advanced class, with deep-throating techniques, positions that may be beyond the powers of ordinary mortals (like sucking cock while doing a handstand! Well, not exactly that, but pretty close). Tristan’s voiceover chimes in throughout, pointing out salient details, but if you just want to groove on the oral excitement, you can watch the scenes sans-voiceover. There are better films if you just want a smutty blowjob flick, though; this really does work best as an educational film. So, if you have a cock, sit down with your loved one and watch this, and if you have a loved one with a cock, sit him down and watch this, and don’t be afraid to try out what you see on screen (at least until you get to the handstand blowjob bits; maybe you should be a little scared then, depending on your general fitness and level of flexibility). It’ll definitely be more fun, and make a more memorable evening, than sitting around watching old episodes of Friends on the Tivo.
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Thursday, 10 April 2008
| 12:16 pm
| Videos
Ah, the classics of film: On The Waterfront, Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, The Very Best of Desireé Cousteau — oh, wait, that’s a different kind of classic. Or, rather, a compilation of classic moments featuring sweet-faced Southern belle Deborah Clearbranch, better known by her nom de porn Desireé Cousteau (for some reason, the box copy for this film takes away the accent on her last e). She was hot stuff in her prime, during the ’70s and early ’80s, nabbing a Best Actress award in 1978, and this film puts together some of her better scenes. (These days she’s a child psychologist back home in Savannah, according to Wikipedia — you couldn’t make this stuff up.)
In the first scene, from Getting Off, Desireé plays a sex slave in service to a brutal female dom who collars and whips her — though, this being vintage porn, it’s pretty sad fake whipping. She gets chained up by her wrists and ankles and presented to a man with glasses, who’s also smoking a pipe and wearing a leather hat. Ah, the good old days. Best line, from the lady dom: “It’s a matter of training, like a dog.” I could do without the “reaction shots” from all the creepy dolls around the room, but that aside, it’s a good scene.
The next, with fellow legends John Holmes and Seka, has some painfully bad dialogue but some surprisingly hot action, though between Holmes’s beard and everyone’s ample pubic hair, there’s more fur in this one scene than in the last dozen pornos I’ve watched combined . . . The scene from That’s Erotic has Desireé in an orgy on and around a leather couch (well, maybe it’s Naugahyde), with some rough positions, including a piledriver — those gonzo kids today think they invented this stuff! There are several scenes from the amusingly named Pizza Girls, where she plays “Anne Chovy” (good to know porn humor hasn’t changed). She has a rather invasive job interview, and later eats a slice of pizza while someone eats her out — her stream of inane chatter during the latter is pretty funny. In Deep Rub she’s a would-be massage therapist who learns the art of the happy ending from Paul Thomas (back when he was an actor, not an occasionally-pretentious director) and has some strap-on sex. Summer Heat features sex on a speedboat (and in a swimming hole) action, plus masturbation in the woods. I wonder who got to check Desireé for ticks after that? Lucky bastard.
This is a great sampler of scenes from a onetime superstar who is, sadly, not as well-remembered as some of her contemporaries. Pick up a copy so her legend will live on in your heart (and your pants).
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It’s no secret that I’m first and foremost a lover of the literary — books are my passion and my obsession and so forth. So it is with great pleasure that I explore some of the interstices of the literate and the erotic.
Literary site Bookslut.com (which certainly has a name Caught in the Net readers can appreciate) has a blog, and one of the blog’s regular contributors, Melissa Lion, runs an occasional series called “Sticky Pages,” an “an exploration of sex in literary fiction,” where she discusses the sex scenes in various books. The blog doesn’t have category tags, or even a search function (that I could find), so I’ll just have to link directly to a few of the offerings. First, the introductory entry, where she promises to “tell you the page numbers so we can all flip ahead and enjoy our sex on the literary side.” (In that one, she covers Do Me: Tales of Sex & Love from Tin House, which is pretty damn literary, and also has a great cover.) Most recently she read Getting Off by Jayme Waxman, subtitled “A Woman’s Guide to Masturbation,” and what begins as a discussion becomes a celebration of the book’s subject matter (it also introduced me to a term for female masturbation I hadn’t heard before: Jocelyn Eldering). If you like those, check out this one about the sexy side of Stuart Dybek, and this one about sodomizing Dick Cheney (in a literary way).
Mary Roach, one of my favorite non-fiction authors, has written about cadavers (in Stiff) and life after death (in Spook), and having taken on death and spirituality she now, naturally, turns to sex. Her new book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex looks just as fascinating, full of her usual weird factual tidbits and dry humor. I haven’t read it yet, but I have read this interview with Roach, where she talks about her research, the quest for a female Viagra, the dubious correlation between female orgasm and the distance between the clitoris and the vagina, and other interesting things. (The aforementioned Bookslut site also did a feature on the book). I can’t wait to read it.
Finally, a little Sex Advice from Booksellers, from Nerve.com. When asked “Can working at a bookstore get me laid?” bookseller Lori Rozycki sagely replies: “Who doesn’t want to date a bookseller? We climb ladders in skirts, and remain slightly aloof.” It’s difficult to argue with that.
Until next week, keep reading, and I hope you find something wonderful between the covers.
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