It should surprise no one that I have many geekish tendencies; indeed, as a science fiction writer, I’m right at the top of at least some geek hierarchies. I was reminded of my geekishness this week as I happily started playing the Wrath of the Lich King expansion to online roleplaying game World of Warcraft. (Here’s a gratuitous shot of some sexy women dressed as blood elves from last year’s Blizzcon.) I decided to take to the net in search of sexy geeky things, and found more than I could have hoped for.

Nerdcore provides the gold standard for sexy geeky things, especially with their annual calendar — the 2009 calendar features hot sci-fi babes. Fleshbot has a behind-the-scenes gallery, and a calendar page with a naked Justine Joli in the arms of a robot.

There are ample places online to find cute geek girl pictures and profiles. Blog Geeks of Doom used to do a “Geek Girl of the Week” and “Geek Girl of the Month” feature which, alas, has apparently fallen by the wayside, but we can dip a toe into their archives: drool over Nikole, who arranges her life around Adult Swim and enjoys dressing like a schoolgirl; or feast your eyes on Wolf, who digs Harry Potter cosplay and, apparently, has a cowgirl thing as well; and enjoy the somewhat famous Ruby Rocket, who has a thing for dressing like superheroes. Lots more in their archives. And while we’re at it, here are some more hot female cosplayers, this time with more anime influence.

While we’re on the subject of superheroes, here’s a nice round-up of more explicit pics of women with superhero style, including some incredibly impractical costume choices. (Yes, even more impractical than the corset and stockings Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club and the X-Men sometimes wears.)

Video games, superheroes, science fiction . . . have I left anything out? Oh, yes: sexy ninjas who wear masks and swords and not much else and some lusty lady pirates. There. That oughta be the geek gamut pretty well run.

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I remember the moment I first read Sarah Palin’s name in connection with the Republican Vice Presidential nomination. It was online, at something like six in the morning — procrastinating, something all sane fiction writers are doing at six in the morning. An airplane was reportedly heading from Alaska to McCain’s location (Illinois or Michigan or something), amping up speculation that Alaska Governor — say it with me, now, Sarah Palin — was about to be McCain’s nominee for veep. The very first comment on the article was: “McCain-MILF ‘08!” The objectification of Sarah Palin had begun. Or, rather, the objectification of Sarah Palin as VP candidate had begun, since, let’s face it, she was a beauty queen — she’d been objectified before.

The quickness of the high-fiving bewildered me. Sure, there was emphatic woof-woofing from the lunatic fringe of the political sector; George Gurley wrote in the New York Observer that he wanted “to lick that face and drool on it like a dog.” There was soon a This Is Not Sarah Palin sex doll. And did anybody really expect Larry Flynt not to jump on board? The Palin-themed Hustler film, Who’s Nailin’ Paylin? stars MILFtacular Lisa Ann, at 36 a mere eight years younger than Governor Palin. Perhaps more importantly, Who’s Nailin’ Paylin was followed up — before the election!! — with its own philosopho-political response, Obama’s Nailin’ Paylin. Producer Cesar Capone found a way to get adult industry headlines without having to spend a dime on production; he offered the Gov $3 million to star in a porn flick, an offer — gasp!! — Palin could most certainly refuse, or more accurately ignore. Then there was another Palin movie, Palin: Erection. This is somewhat impressive in being, like, ultra-on-the-sopt, but not shocking in the porn industry, where it’s typical to slap a flick together to capitalize on the lamest possible social trends, with the rapidity of production being directly proportional to the trend’s lameness. The trend of jerking off to Sarah Palin was, apparently, pretty lame.

Anyway, the Palin parody is to be expected from Flynt, who hates political conservatives and ridicules them every chance he gets, and the rest of porn of course could be expected to fall in line, since the industry would, metaphorically speaking, fuck a microwaved watermelon for $5. And a Sarah Palin sex doll? Whatever.

But much to my bewilderment, my fellow erotica writers quickly jumped on the bandwagon, considering Sarah Palin as valid fodder for their erotic daydreams. I don’t really mean Susie Bright, who considered the matter of Sarah Palin’s sex life from a political standpoint, as she’d done previously (she actually once wrote a piece about fucking Dan Quayle). But in this case, I’m thinking more about Rachel Kramer Bussel, who launched sarahpalinerotica.com before the election, and Carol Queen, who hosted a political smut night at The Center for Sex and Culture, clearly aimed at Sarah Palin’s smoldering sexuality. Both Rachel and Carol are good friends of mine, and in their view it was all in good fun. I was invited to contribute to Rachel’s project, and turned it down on philosophical grounds; I agreed to read at Carol’s reading, with the proviso that I would not under any circumstances read about Sarah Palin (I later had to cancel due to appendicitis — coincidence? I think not — the CIA is all over me with their appendix-control rays).

During election season, I objected to all this Palin objectifying with a vitriol that utterly bewildered my friends. “What’s the big deal?” I was asked. When engaged in such conversations, I would find myself responding much like Linda Blair in the Exorcist — I cleaned a lot of pea soup off of my walls, I tell ya what.

I objected, and still object, to Sarah Palin jerkoff slash and Sarah Palin porn because I believed then, and believe now, that the march to objectify Sarah Palin is NOT about her being a Republican. It’s not even about her being a hideous hypocritical bitch who promotes abstinence-only sex education while crowbarring her knocked-up daughter into a completely inappropriate marriage to prove that marriage is a sacred union between two unwilling teenagers. It’s about her being a woman. I believed, and still believe, that objectifying Sarah Palin by making porn about her or writing erotica about her, or even making off-color comments about how hot she is — I believe that is sexist. People seem to think that’s strange of me. Some consider me a blowhard, because according to a number of my friends the fact that I write porn renders my opinion in this case null and void.

But that’s not the biggest reason I objected to Palinporn, and it’s not the reason I’m coming clean now. I was most upset by the Palinporn trend for one simple reason: Quayle.

Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush’s runningmate in 1988, was a bit of a buffoon, with little political experience. Some braniac political pundits wrote at the time was that Bush nominated Quayle because from that point on the election was all about Quayle and what a doofus he was. That allowed H.W. to stay out of the fray, and guess what? He won. It took a recession and Ross Perot to get him out of office four years later. The distraction from George H.W. Bush’s being unfit for command worked like a charm, and that’s what Palin smelled like: a distraction.

We live, now, in an era where Americans pick a candidate for the most frivolous of reasons. The last thing I wanted to see in the days leading up to the election was the bump McCain received in the polls turn in to a stratospheric climb because people thought Sarah Palin was sexy. I kept my opinions about her sexiness or unsexiness, for the most part, to myself when in public. It did not seem relevant to the conversation. Palin’s sexuality, like the rest of her, seemed like a distraction from the (to me) obvious fact that John McCain was the wrong, wrong, wrong candidate for President. Palin winked and otherwise right-thinking liberals swooned. They hated her, but the loved to hate her. It was weird.

Now that the election is over, the distractions continue: Palin has inserted herself into the media, or the media has invited her in. Republican Newt Gingrich is having a shit-fit over her. And if Palin runs for President in 2012, I’m sure there will be more Palinporn to come.

Please, God . . . make the bad, bad lady go away. Make her go back to Alaska and face federal racketeering charges, and make Larry Flynt never make a porno about her again. Please?

Thomas Roche blogs about emergency appendectomies, Vicodin and peristhesia at thomasroche.com.

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Lesbian Love: Real Sex San Francisco stars some of the hottest and most talented women from the cool gray city of love: Lorelei Lee, Shawn, Carson, Jiz Lee, and Dylan Ryan. The whole shebang (get it? “she-bang”? I crack myself up) is directed by the multi-talented Madison Young, who also provides narration, though lamentably she doesn’t get naked — that’s a shame, but the preponderance of other talent more than makes up for it.

The set-up has a Sex and the City vibe, complete with essay-like voiceovers: Madison is a writer for popular lesbian magazine Spread, chronicling the hottest hippest hook-up locations for San Francisco lesbians. We get a sort of travelogue of San Francisco locations, and Bay Area locals will be able to play the “Hey, I’ve been there!” game, since Madison chose to shoot in actual locales, including Dolores Park, auto shop Charlie’s Place, Black & Blue Tattoo, and Ritual Cafe. (Though there’s not actually any sex in Ritual Cafe — doubtless due to draconian health codes — just a meeting that leads to a “Let’s go back to my place” scene.)

The whole thing is fast, smart, and fun, with a sort of relay-race structure: First we see Lorelei Lee and Jiz Lee (ahem, no relation) hook up under the branches of a tree in Dolores Park, eating strawberries before moving on to one another. Then we follow Lorelei to her car, which isn’t running right, necessitating a trip to Charlie’s Place for repairs. Mechanic Shawn decides to do some body work, but on Lorelei herself rather than her car.

From there we go with Shawn to Black & Blue Tattoo, where the session on the table becomes rather more intimate than one would normally expect, with athletic sex between Shawn and cutie Carson, complete with strap-on fucking and beautifully sweaty bodies.

The final scene is the hottest, with Jiz Lee returning to chat online with Dylan Ryan. Their cyber-flirtations prove unsatisfactory, so they decide to meet (the chat we can briefly see on their screens is pretty funny). After a brief coming-together at Ritual Café, they come together more thoroughly back in someone’s room, with lots of strap-on sucking, vigorous fucking, toy play, and more.

Real lesbians, real sex, in real San Francisco locales — real is good. The music kicks ass, too. Madison Young is fast proving herself as able a director as she is a performer.

• Lesbian Love: Real Sex San Francisco

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If you like nipple play but are bored with the various clamp options out there, listen up! Our Nipple Erector Set contains two bulb pumps in two sizes that are perfect for drawing blood into the nipple to make them bigger and more sensitive. Simply select the pump you want to use, slip an O-ring over the end, slide it over your nipple and pump until you have a tiny erection. Once your nipple is pumped up, you can slide that O-ring over the nipple to hold it in place. When you remove the O-ring after wearing it awhile, the rush of blood back into the nipple provides an intense, somewhat painful, sensation, so be aware of how long you leave it on.

Our tester pointed out that the size of these pumps makes them ideal for clits as well as nipples, though she didn’t test out the O-rings so we can’t promise they’ll fit clits very well. The sucking sensation of the pumps is extremely effective on the clit, and it will leave it sensitized for some time after you’re done pumping. Transmen might find it just the right size to help them achieve a “dicklet,” especially if you can get the O-rings to work down there, though we didn’t test them in this way and some might find the size of the openings too small for such a purpose.

The openings are just over 1/4″ and just under 1/2″ respectively, and come with appropriately-sized O-rings. A great way to get your sensitive bits pumped up and ready to play!

• Nipple Erector Set

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The first new item today is a chastity belt, yes, but don’t let that name limit you. Our Triple-Lock Female Chastity Belt in Black Leather (say it three times fast!) is really a device that can help your most delightfully deviant fantasies come true! And, while I do work in a sex toy store and think about this stuff all the time, I have to give my husband (who took me bringing home a chastity belt as a fantastic challenge) credit for the following ideas.

First of all, you can use it as a chastity belt to keep others out, of course. But you can also use it to lock things in. Seriously, haven’t we all read some of that fuzzily-consensual porn where a submissive woman is plugged both fore and aft and made to keep them in? The Triple-Lock Chastity Belt in Black Leather will not only help keep in your dildos and plugs (for her sake, make sure they have flat bases and they’re not too long for her body), but make it nearly impossible for her to remove them until you unlock her (when you decide, or when she safewords you, whichever comes first). The belt has three locks, two of which are on the strap that goes between the legs. The strap widens at the opening of the pussy and the anus, making it easy to keep things in (or out).

And, as if that weren’t enough, the strap in the back narrows just in time to expose most of the buttocks, which means you don’t have to remove it for a spanking. If she’s plugged, that’s going to rock those plugs . . .

Yeah, you get the idea.

The 2″ wide belt is adjustable from 25-1/2″ around to 39-1/2″ around and adjustable from 22-1/2″ to 31-1/2″ front-to-back. Comes with three locks to hold it in place and several keys (copies of the same one) to unlock when you’re done. A fantastic piece for fantasy play that enhances physically as well as visually, the Triple-Lock Female Chastity Belt gets two fins up! Why not join in the great tradition of playing hard to get, and get one of your own?

• Triple-Lock Female Chastity Belt in Black Leather

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It was a huge, liberating flash of insight for me. I’d been automatically linking “romantic love” with “cohabiting,” and I didn’t have to . . . and I could therefore pursue the one even though I was highly dubious about the other. Neat.

And the first words out of my therapist’s mouth?

“Or you could change your mind about that!”

Talk about a buzz-kill. The idea that you could have a serious love relationship without sharing an address? The idea that romance and sex didn’t have to follow an invisible checklist of progress? The idea that a romantic relationship could be a series of separate choices instead of a giant package deal? She wasn’t interested in discussing that.

I want to talk about how people make decisions about sex and relationships. Specifically, I want to talk about the unsettling frequency with which major decisions about sex and relationships get made by default.

Decisions that get made because that’s what’s next. Because that’s what everyone else is doing. Because that’s just what’s done. (Or not done.)

The timetable is the most obvious example. There seems to be this rough timetable that Americans base their sex and love lives on: a timetable that rarely gets spelled out but that everyone seems to know about. It varies somewhat between different regions and communities (sex tends to happen faster in progressive urban areas, marriage is more likely to precede sex in conservative rural towns). But even between those regions there’s a remarkable similarity . . . and within the regions, there’s a expectation of homogeneity that’s rather startling.

When you first have sex. When you make the decision about whether the relationship is serious. When you move in together. When you merge your finances. When you get married. When you have kids. Think about it. How much variety is there in your circle about when these things happen? And when people do step outside the standard timetable, how do other people react to it?

In my experience, there’s surprisingly little variety in the timetable. And when people step outside of it, they’re often met with surprise and bafflement at best, disapproval at worst. If you move faster than the timetable (having sex on the first date, say), you’re “rushing things”; if you move slower than the timetable, you’re “dragging your feet.”

Here’s an example from my own life. Ingrid and I didn’t move in together until seven years into our relationship. In fact, the first time we got married (in the San Francisco City Hall same-sex weddings of 2004, the ones that got annulled), we weren’t living together. And while nobody burned us at the stake for it, we were definitely met with a fair amount of puzzlement. We didn’t get disapproval, exactly, but we got a certain amount of disapproval’s more polite half-brother — concern. And we got a lot of disapproval’s slightly slow-witted cousin — confusion. The amount of explaining we had to do about why we weren’t living together and why we had no immediate plans to live together . . . it makes me tired just remembering it.

But for us, moving in together was too big a decision to make just so we could cross it off the checklist. For us, moving in together was something to do because, well, we wanted to do it and felt it was right for us . . . not because That’s What Comes Next.

Especially since, for the first several years of our relationship, the question of moving in together wasn’t a “When?” but a “Whether?”

See, default decisions about sex and relationships don’t just get made based on the timetable. Default decisions aren’t just made about “When?” They get made about “Whether?” as well.

Not just when to move in together — but whether to move in together. Not just when to get married — but whether to get married. Not just when to have kids — but whether to have kids. It’s astonishing to me how many people just assume that this is the path a relationship has to take, and if they want love and sex in their lives they better get cracking.

And there’s more. What kind of sex to have. How often to have sex. Whether to have a joint checking account. (We recently had friends act as though we were space aliens because we still have our own checking accounts. Yes, we have a joint account, for bills and other joint expenses . . . but we each have our own money as well. And that works really well for us.) Whether to travel together, or sleep together. (Couples who take separate vacations or sleep in separate beds apparently get as much bafflement/ concern/ flak as couples who don’t move in together.)

Whether to be monogamous. That’s a huge one. The assumption that of course a long-term couple is going to be monogamous is a deep and pervasive one. Most people don’t even discuss it.

Even whether to get into a serious relationship at all. I was single for twelve years before Ingrid and I fell in love. And for about ten of those twelve years, my singlehood was a conscious, positive choice. And if you think you’ll be met with disapproval and baffled concern if you don’t move in with your sweetie, imagine the disapproval and baffled concern you get when you tell people you’re not interested in having a sweetie, period.

But here’s the thing.

These decisions? They’re too big — and too personal — to be making by default.

If we know anything at all about human sex and human sexual relationships, it’s that the only constant is variety. Human beings have an almost infinite variety of sexual and emotional experiences: an eye-popping smorgasbord of feelings and desires, prejudices and preferences, turn-offs and needs. And we should be tailoring our decisions about sex to fit our individual experiences. We should not be forcing our sexual and romantic decisions into a one- size- fits- all garment . . . one which, like most one- size- fits- all garments, really fits only a handful of people.

Sex and relationships should be like a walk in the woods, where you pick the trails that suit your interest and stamina. They should be like a trip to the market, where you buy the vegetables that you need for your recipe. They should not be like an express train — where the track is laid out ahead of time, and everyone has to get off at the same stops.

P.S. Just for the record: I do understand that, in some specific sets of circumstances, there is a genuine timetable, not a made-up social one. I understand that people who want kids — especially women who want kids — can’t wait indefinitely. My point is that this in itself should be a set of decisions that’s made consciously (”I very much want kids, I’d rather not be a single parent, therefore I need to keep an eye on my biological clock when I’m considering my romantic life”), instead of being made by default (”Kids should happen by the time I’m 35, so I should be married no later than 30, so now that I’m 27 I should stop dating people who aren’t serious about marriage”).

Greta Christina, copyright © 2008. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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The Crash Pad Series continues with its third installment, upping the ante, revealing tidbits of backstory, and, of course, continuing to supply ungodly amounts of hot, natural fucking. Before we’re two minutes in, one woman is tied to a chair while another slaps her around and deep-throats her victim’s strap-on cock — this isn’t soft-focus tender lesbian fare created with a straight male audience in mind, but rough-riding, hard, fast, kinky, powerful porn featuring actual lesbians. (Which isn’t to say open-minded straight males won’t find a lot to like . . .)

If you enjoy twisting and shifting gender roles, this one is even more of a smörgåsbord than previous installments; there’s transman fucking (your roommate might think it’s gay porn if he gets a glimpse of your screen, at least until the squirting starts); there’s a tender romantic couple getting nasty, but the one with facial hair isn’t the one wearing the strap-on and pounding away; and the boundaries are basically ever-shifting, which just adds to the fun.

From curvy femmes to boyish bois to big bad butches to tattooed transfolk, the Crash Pad has an open-door policy for all. Even though the cocks in this flick are detachable, there’s more hard penetrative fucking than I’ve seen in some straight porn, and at times it’s almost gonzo in its intensity — but with an underlying sense of fun and frolic that’s often absent from traditional boy-girl gonzo porn. Director Shine Louise Houston brings genuine feeling (and fucking) to her films, and this one is no exception.

And it is now available for pre-order, at a substantial discount! For a very hot trailer, and to order, check out:

• Crash Pad Series, Volume 3

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US voters made history last week when they elected Barack Obama as the first African-American president, so it’s only fitting that this week we look at the intersection of politics and porn, with a special emphasis on our president-elect.

The porn industry is pretty happy to have Obama elected, since, by and large, Democrat-led Justice Departments tend to spend less time prosecuting pornographers and other moral offenders. (One wonders how Obama might react to hearing that Larry Flynt say he “could be the sunlight of a new American dawn” though.)

Of course, the porn industry must also be a little sad to lose their chance at Sarah Palin as perhaps the world’s first VPILF. (Not that John Caldwell Calhoun wasn’t a fine looking man, mind you.)

Among the many grassroots organizations that sprang up to support the candidacy of Barack Obama, none quite captured my imagination as much as BoobsForBarack.com, featuring lots and lots of photos of women going topless to show their support. (Though “Racks for Barack” would have been a funnier name, I think.) There are various photos tagged Boobs for Obama on Flickr, too, if you need more.

Obama doesn’t always lead to more exposed bosoms, though, alas — British tabloid The Sun actually dropped a topless Page 3 girl in favor of a photo of the president-elect announcing his win. (And, no, Barack wasn’t topless.)

Another grassroots sex effort was O’s for Obama, which harnessed the power of orgasmic breathing to help get Obama elected. Or something. Looks like fun, anyway.

Speaking of orgasming during elections, Fleshbot has a nice round-up of sex bloggers talking about their election-night excitement. Man, I just ate pizza and watched the election results on TV with my family. I should’ve known there was a better way!

Now we’ve got a president who (despite being, let’s face it, a skinny law professor with prominent ears) is also a sex symbol. Even The Nation acknowledges the sexiness of Obama, and the obvious heat in his relationship with wife Michelle! Alas, the Obama Porn site doesn’t have what you’d hoped . . . it’s just various works of pro-Obama art and advertising. But maybe someday there’ll be a presidential sex tape, right? Keep hope alive!

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How this myth began I’ll never know, but if I think about it too long I start making weird Freudian speculations. But twice per year at my teaching gig at San Francisco Sex Information I end up watching a lot of porn (a lot of porn), as part of a curriculum meant to create in students a passing familiarity with the variety of pornographic representation. Much of it falls well outside the mainstream, if that’s because it’s FTM porn, or three quarts’ worth of spirited urolagnia or some weird ball-hammering sequence from ’70s leather porn. Let’s just say this program has included a certain amount of pretty freaky stuff over the years, and as far as I can tell none the truly odd things have ever been German.

Now don’t get me wrong; Germans are, in fact, into some weird porn. Every nationality is into some weird porn, but in particular if you want to gape in awe at freaky German erotic creativity, you should go no further than the videos and magazines published by German company Marquis, which includes inflatable boobs and latex-rubber contraptions of a complexity that absolutely boggles any reasonable mind. Marquis auteur Peter W. Czernich, founder of the company and before that of the legendary fetish magazine O, thrives on the strange, beautiful, futuristic, and artistically mind-tweaking. So do many other artists in the thriving German fetish arts scene, and many German and German-speaking practitioners of BDSM. The German porn that makes it to the U.S. tends to be expressionistic in much the same way you’d expect from a country that gave the world Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. But dude . . .. that’s hardly sheisse porn.

In fact, porn available in Germany by all accounts is fairly straightforward and familiar from an American perspective. Laws against making porn reportedly keep a lot of hardcore production companies from operating there (Czernich’s work does not include intercourse). From what I understand, pretty typical European porn (including hardcore sex) is pretty freely available in Germany.

But on November 5, a new German law went in to effect that, according to a story in XBiz, criminalizes porn with “adult actors who show a youthful appearance.” Hustler Europe, a property of sleaze purveyor and free-speech crusader Larry Flynt, takes this kind of personally, since one of Hustler’s best-selling properties is the Barely Legal series, in which 18-23-year-old actresses (or 25-year-old, or 28-year-old with lots of makeup) wear pigtails and schoolgirl outfits, suck lollipops, and generally cavort like college-age girls who have not yet gotten the memo that it’s time to give up childhood things, get obsessed with Derrida, queer politics and tequila. The law, 184c of the Criminal Code, is being challenged under a complaint from Hustler Europe that says it violates constitutionally protected freedoms of opinion, occupation and property.

This is essentially the same legal prohibition that, in the United States, was struck down by the US Supreme Court. In this country, it’s perfectly legal, if barely so, for an adult woman to evince a youthful appearance for the purposes of encouraging turgidity in porn consumers; essentially, to outlaw such a thing would be an abridgement of the 1st Amendment’s free speech provisions. It doesn’t matter what age I am; if I want to act younger (and I often do — big fan of Jean Claude Van Damme movies, for instance) I’m engaging in protected expression.

You might think the German legal system, essentially the West German system with its civil rights modeled on the U.S. system in the years following World War II, would have the same attitude. But when it comes to constitutional speech protections, the problem is that interpreting those laws falls to the courts. The opinions of the courts change frequently, and German courts are far from guaranteed to have the same attitude as the 2002-era SCOTUS. Who even knows if a similar case in the US would render the same verdict today?

In Germany, it’s anybody’s guess at the moment what the outcome of the case will be. But I, for one, will find it fascinating to see if Larry Flynt, who’s done plenty for free speech in the adult industry in the U.S., can score one for German porn.

Thomas Roche blogs about emergency appendectomies, Vicodin and peristhesia at thomasroche.com.

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The Bent Graduate is so versatile, it’s sort of like a Swiss Army Knife of sex toys. This pretty pink glass toy has a bent business end, with a slightly phallic-shaped end, which is perfect for getting in there and putting pressure on your G-spot (or p-spot for men). The other end functions as a handle, giving you even more control over how hard (or soft) you press, rub, massage or thump against your sensitive areas. As a handle, the three glass bloops give your fingers something to grip onto (especially when your hands are all lubed up), but veterans of sex-toy play will see those bloops for more than just a handle: Flip the toy around, and you’ve got yourself a perfect little bloop-wand, with three bloops (the widest of which is 1-5/16″ across) to give you that delightful “popping” sensation as they enter (and exit) your body. Thanks to the bend in this toy, it should be fine to use anally, too, which is awesome because the back door is where bloop toys really shine! So versatile, and yet completely reasonably priced, the Bent Graduate is an excellent investment in sex-toy form.

• Bent Graduate

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First, there’s the matter of the title: Gothsend. Is it meant to be Goth’s End, referring to the end of a particular goth? Is it “end” as in “ass”? (Corollary data suggests this is a possibility.) Goths End, a statement that, like all things, goths must someday end? Or Goth Send, suggesting that a goth send something somewhere? These are the mysteries one must face as a modern porn reviewer forced to parse strange titles.

But the point comes across: this is Gothic, man, in the sense of fucking in graveyards, wearing lots of black (including leather and latex and fishnets), vast quantities of eye shadow, extremely red lipstick, large crosses, and the other expected accoutrements.

Having the opening scene involve a woman masturbating atop a large headstone that reads “In Gratitude for Pious Parents” is a rather inspired, if of course sacrilegious, touch.

The dudes in their make-up look a bit like the roadies for a KISS cover band, admittedly, but the women are pretty much all incredibly hot, and if your tastes run to corset and ripped fishnets and lots of piercings, you’ll find a lot to be happy about.

The disclaimer for the third scene — “What you are about to witness is a theatrical presentation conducted by trained professionals. Master Liam is an expert skilled in the delicate and deliberate art of Sadism” — is pretty over-the top; I mean, it’s just chick in some wrist restraints getting whipped with a flogger, though it’s true you have to be careful when hitting breasts that contain as much metal as hers do. It’s not like he’s suspending her upside-down in a shark tank while doing e-stim on her or something. (The dude does have good whip skills, though, and his submissive is crazy hot — it’s the best scene of the bunch.)

The lighting isn’t always great — it’s often so dark you can’t see who’s banging whom in which orifice. And, yeah, I know it’s all for atmosphere, but there’s “atmosphere” and there’s “bad production values,” and it’s dangerous to confuse the two.

(Finally, I must mock this: after the credits, the words “Director guy capo reminds you that freedom of speech is ABSOLUTE” appear. While I can applaud the sentiment, it suffers from being, well, untrue — as anyone who’s ever shouted “Fire!” in a crowded theater or sent death threats to a politician just for fun could attest . . .)

Anyway, if you like leather and butt sex and don’t mind guys in silly make-up, this movie should be a perfect fit. And cheer up, goth kids! Think of all the great sex you could be having!

• Gothsend

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We just dropped the price on a couple of adorable travel-sized vibrators, and we thought we’d draw your attention to them before they wiggle or swim away! The I Rub My Wormie, Travel-Size and the I Rub My Fishie, Travel Size are each about half the size of the original, the perfect size to tuck away in your purse or backpack for some discreet on-the-go vibrations. The I Rub My Wormie, Travel-Size comes in pink or green and is made out of hard plastic with a bumpy body and nubby little feet to add friction to his vibrating body. The I Rub My Fishie, Travel Size comes in pink or hot rod yellow and has all sorts of great angles, nubs, bulbs and other surfaces to press against yourself while getting your vibe on. Both critters are waterproof (though I will note that the Wormie doesn’t really float). Adorable, pleasing and portable; a perfect companion for yourself, or consider stocking up for, well, stocking stuffers!

• I Rub My Fishie, Travel Size
• I Rub My Wormie, Travel-Size

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And we have a new trailer for you . . .

Champion is going to be the cross-over erotic hit of 2008, and watch this space for release and pre-order details.

Champion: Love hurts.

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I liked Se7en Deadly Sins from the moment I looked at the box, which depicts a bevy of mostly busty brunettes (with a token blonde or two) and promises a Deadly Sins motif. (I thought it was a bit odd to use the spelling of “Seven” popularized by a David Fincher film from 13 years ago — and more currently famous as the name of a Korean pop singer — but I digress.)

Though there are seven scenes, they aren’t explicitly linked to particular deadly sins, which is what one expects. But, the scenes are still appropriately, delightfully, sinful. I liked the opening medical scene with Kaylani Lei, and even though the spider gag (a hot metal gag with a hole in the middle) is removed before giving her a cock to suck, it’s an awfully hot piece of equipment and one you don’t see a lot in mainstream porn. A lot of the same medical equipment appears in the scene with Eva Angelina as a kidnapping sadist serial killer promising untold torments and death to Tom Byron. It’s a rare case of a victim having the opportunity to fuck his abductor in the ass while she screams for more. Talk about Stockholm Syndrome . . .

Daisy Marie is adorable as always, playing the cute good-girl irresistibly attracted to a sweaty lout on the factory floor — the blowjob is beautiful. Rebeca Linares, another favorite, is sweet and cruel in a scene dragging a man in a leash and a luchador mask around a basement — the way she cruelly jerks his chain while he fucks her from behind is very hot, even if the Mexican wrestler mask is a bit silly. I’ll accept silly headgear on the men if it means skimpy schoolgirl garb for Rebeca, though.

This is a solid bit of smut with an edge dark enough to make it interesting, and a cast that’s sinfully lovely to behold.

• Se7en Deadly Sins

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When discovering butt-play, the first thing almost everyone sticks up their ass is their finger. And, why not? It’s a good size, has great control, and is pretty easy to clean up after. B ut, if you’ve already gone poking around with your own digits and are looking for the next step, the Elements Pi Silicone Butt-Beads are a great “advanced beginner” butt-toy.

Shaped a lot like a (rather bumpy) finger, the Elements Pi Silicone Butt-Beads start off nice and small at only 5/8″ wide. The bumps are gradual, easing you up a bit to the next size, but also easing you back down again, making it less of an ordeal to work your way along the ever-increasing bloops, (which measure 3/4″, 7/8″, and 1″); before you know it, you’ll have worked your way up to the 1-1/16″ widest point.

But that’s not even the nicest thing about this 100% silicone finger of butt-love. For, nestled in the base (which, by the by, is oblong and has a raised ridge for extra stimulation at one end), is a notch that fits the (included) One-Touch Bullet Vibrator! So, even if you’re only getting the first bloop or two inserted, you can still up the ante by adding vibrations to your butt-play! You can feel them all the way to the tip, though I’ll admit that they’re stronger near the base — just think of it as incentive to work your way to wider (and more vibey) achievements!

The whole thing is about 3-3/4″ insertable w/out straightening, about 4-1/2″ straightened out, and that curve is just perfect for reaching in and massaging your prostate (should you be lucky enough to have one). Some women can even feel the pressure on their G-spot through the wall separating the two orifices. Made out of silicone, so it’s firm enough to insert but flexible enough to be comfortable, this is a great all-around butt-toy.

• The Elements Pi Silicone Butt-Beads

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When I first saw the testers for My Semi-Precious Cock-Ring I oohed and ahhhed (along with the rest of the office) and immediately snagged one for my husband. Just the feel of the semi-precious stone in your hand is luxurious — they weigh a bit more than they look like they should, and they’re polished to a satiny sheen, so they feel great against the skin, adding to the feeling of opulence. When he took the aventurine version out of the box, he also oohed and ahhed, and together we adorned him with what has to be the handsomest cock-ring he’s worn.

My Semi-Precious Cock-Ring comes in either solid aventurine (a light green stone) or solid black agate (a jet-black stone), both of which seem to shimmer in the light. Both varieties come in three sizes (inner diameter): 44 mm(about 1-3/4″), 50 mm (about 2″) and 55 mm (about 2-1/8″). The width of the ring itself is about 1/2″ thick. The stone is cool to the touch, but warms up over time as you wear it. Stunning, unusual and exquisite, the My Semi-Precious Cock-Rings is a loving gift for the man in your life or the perfect way to indulge yourself. It’ll be the most wonderfully decadent wrapping you do all season.

• My Semi-Precious Cock-Ring

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We’re always going on here at Blowfish about how you can rub the bumps on various glass dildos over your clit, labia, cockhead, etc. for some uniquely satisfying stimulation. Well, someone finally took it to the next level, and made a toy that is expressly for this purpose! The Tickler is a thimble of glass with cute red bumps over the outside — simply slip your finger inside and frig yourself (or your partner) to glassy-eyed bliss!

The firm, slick texture of the glass allows it to slip over your velvety bits with an ease that feels just delicious, while the bumps give it enough texture to keep everything alert and happy. The fact that it’s just a glass sheath means that there’s less strain on your hands from holding a dildo — excellent for those of us with RSI or carpal tunnel syndrome — and you can really lose yourself in the moment.

The Tickler is about 3/4″ wide and 2-7/8″ deep inside, and 1″ wide and about 3″ long on the outside, with seven ruby red bumps (of various sizes). Do use caution, as this is an unyielding glass toy, and if your finger gets stuck it might be tricky to get it out again. If you have to force your finger inside, it’s too small for that finger (try a smaller one); if it’s a tight fit, consider using a drop of lube when putting it on to help when you’re ready to take it off again.

With its jolly red bumps and diminutive size, the Tickler makes an excellent stocking stuffer or holiday gift. Ho ho OH!

• Tickler Glass Thimble

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Director Patrick Collins takes his work very seriously, outlining his filmmaking philosophy on the back of the DVD case and describing All By Myself, Volume 2 as “a journey into the real (and sometimes shameful) orgasms of nine of the most stunning girls in the world.” His directorial vision aside, these ladies have nothing to be ashamed about — they’re gorgeous, and if anything, they’re shameless, posing seductively for the camera, touching themselves, and working through an astonishing array of toys.

My favorites include the (unfortunately named) Eufrat, an adorable cutie in sweet lingerie who turns in one of the most natural performances; Zoe, a hot blonde who struts and poses before working her way through an impressive array of toys all laid-out on the bed; and Stacie, who wears tight little shorts and sucks a big fake cock with astonishing enthusiasm; one can only imagine the wonders she could work on a real dick.

This is definitely a trashy-hot flick, with strip-club-style strutting and posing. This isn’t bedroom voyeurism slice-of-life masturbation intimate moments stuff, but pure performance for the male viewer’s pleasure. There’s some strip-teasing, some seductive looks at the camera, and lots of manually-dexterous toy play — a couple of scenes involve girls with a sex toy in each hand, working themselves over intensely! Guys who like solo scenes will find a lot to enjoy here, as long as they don’t expect candid intimate moments — this is masturbation-as-performance, more like what a stripper would do on the floor at your bachelor party than what your girlfriend does in the privacy of her bedroom. The ladies put on one hell of a show.

• All By Myself, Volume 2

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As the days get shorter and colder, it’s only natural to look for ways to warm yourself up. Why not be warm with our Bwarm Massage Candle? Not only does the cheery light of a dancing flame brighten the spirits, but the wax melts down into pre-warmed (but not too hot!) massage oil!

Unlike other massage candles, the Bwarm has a clever design that helps put the wax exactly where you want it (and not all over those 400 thread count sheets!). The holder is shaped like one of those groovy 1960’s egg chairs, with a high curved “back,” which serves as a trough to direct the flow of the wax. Drip it right where you want it every time!

As I mentioned before, the wax feels warm, not hot, on the skin (so if you want to do a wax-play scene but aren’t into scalding yourself with wax from a regular ol’ candle, here’s your answer!), and it massages easily into the skin. It’s very slippery at first — excellent for giving a good massage — but it gradually absorbs into the skin. Thanks to ingredients such as aloe, shea butter and vitamin e, it leaves the skin feeling supple and moisturized for a long time afterwards, perfect for dry winter days when nothing else seems to keep your skin from turning miserably cracked and dry.

The Fig Wood scent is fairly light, especially on the skin itself, and it’s a bit more spicy than flowery, so it’s suitable for all genders. Whether you’re looking for a way to moisturize, give a great massage, or turn that bedside candlelight into something more than just a romantic flame, the Bwarm Massage Candle is sure to light up your night!

• Bwarm Massage Candle

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Truly one of the prettiest glass toys we carry, the Nemo Popper Glass Dildo is four bloops of glass infused with 24 karat gold on a handle. And I ask you, what’s more decadent than fucking yourself with 24 karat gold anything? The Nemo Popper is a bloop wand, with each bloop pushing open the orifice you’re inserting it into, then letting it partially close as the bloops narrow, creating a “popping” sensation as it enters your body (hence the name). The bloops measure 1-1/4″, 1-9/32″ (slightly bigger), 1-3/8″ (slightly bigger), 1-5/16″ (slightly smaller, but still slightly bigger than the second one), so in addition to the popping sensation, you’re also working up to something bigger, nice and gradually.

The Nemo Popper has a handle (about 3/4″ wide) with a ball on the other end (slightly larger than 1-1/8″), so as long as you keep that last ball on the outside of your body, you can even use it anally. You can also turn it around and use the ball handle to really target the G-spot, or as a warm-up to the larger bloops on the other end.

But what really makes the Nemo Popper stand out, of course, are the pink-gold spots that decorate its bloops. Set fairly close-together on clear glass, these dots of color look a bit like a school of tropical fish swimming by, their colors shimmering from the sunlight streaming through the water. A truly decadent dildo, but without the decadent price tag, the Nemo Popper is a pure people pleaser.

• Nemo Popper Glass Dildo

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Rocco Siffredi, the god of gonzo, in his signature series, Animal Trainer (volume 10 this time) — what could be better? Why, the addition of Belladonna, the incredibly flexible, anal-sex-loving porn prodigy! And even though Rocco and Belladonna don’t actually fuck each other in this movie, they both fuck plenty of other people (and besides, for scenes of Rocco plus Belladonna, you can always pull your copy of Fashionistas off the shelf. And if you don’t have a copy, you should get one!)

Before I began reviewing porn, I watched porn, fairly often — it comes with the territory when your significant other works for a sex toy company and brings home armloads of review copies. My personal favorites, and the ones with the most replay value, were a few choice installments in the Animal Trainer series. They combined slutty costuming, depraved sex acts, gang bangs, and gleefully rough fucking in a perfect melange — sure, they were mostly low-budget and not always very well organized, but they were like a blast of pure, unapologetic smut from the Id, a glimpse right into the dark fantasies of writer/director/star Rocco. Animal Trainer 10 continues this tradition admirably.

The film isn’t fake or mannered or overly concerned with style, and there’s no story, and barely any situations — a hot blonde in a leather skirt smokes a cigarette until a guy in denim comes and fucks her face and her cunt. Then they go join a couple of girls — including Belladonna — playing with sex toys. There are inflatable butt plugs, knee-high black boots, women taking cocks so deep in their throats that tears spring from their eyes, slapping, rough anal, gaping, manhandling, double dildos, rimming . . . and that’s all in one scene.

When Rocco takes a direct hand in things with another trio of women, we’re treated to extreme close-ups of butt plugs and anal beads entering asses, and dildos entering pussies and mouths. But toys, either electronic or silicone, can only interest Rocco for so long, and eventually he unleashes his famous cock and puts the ladies to work. Helped by an older guy — I can’t help wondering if he owns the mansion where the film was shot — and a well-hung man kept in a wooden box in a corner (presumably for just such a gang-bang eventuality). A middle-aged woman wanders by and gets in on the action, too (though most of the cast is of the young and nubile variety, it’s a refreshing change to see “older” folk taking part in the fun). At one point there are about six women on the screen and only two men, but there’s still time for a double-penetration before the messy mass cum-swap.

Let me be clear: there is nothing classy or romantic in this movie, just unambiguous, but wonderful, depravity. And, I should mention, the last scene involves a pocket bike race where a line of guys get their dicks sucked by a very industrious blonde with regrettably bad teeth. Unless your fetish is women with missing bicuspids, skip the end . . . but that still leaves you with about two hours of energetic, extremely hot fucking to enjoy. The Animal Trainer series is the gold standard for gonzo porn, and number 10 doesn’t disappoint.

• Rocco: Animal Trainer 10
• Fashionistas
• Inflatable Vibrating Butt-Plug

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Our Rubber Cuffs Kit is more than just an alternative to leather or cloth. These particular cuffs have many things going for them. They’re smaller than most other cuffs, while still not being overly small, so they’ll fit better on many of you (yet they still fit my rather-large-for-a-woman wrists and ankles just fine). They fit wrists measuring from 7″ in circumference to 9″ in circumference and ankles 9-3/4″ in circumference to 11-1/2″ in circumference. They’re not made out of animals, so those of you who are looking for something vegan, this might work for you (I know there is some debate over whether rubber is vegan, and from what I can tell, some think it is, and some think it isn’t, but that’s a debate for a different time). They’re easy to clean up, so if you’re sloppy with the lube (or other fluids commonly encountered during sex), these will wipe clean easily (do be sure to dry the metal grommets thoroughly afterwards, though). They’re rubber, so they grip the skin, giving a nice and tight fit without much chance of your wrists slipping free, yet they’re flexible enough to be comfortable. They come with connectors — one each for the ankle and the wrist pair — and a free (albeit a bit flimsy) blindfold, so you’ve got your entire bondage kit in one box.

In fact, we tried and tried to find something wrong with these cuffs, and they stood up to vigorous tugging and testing just swell. I suppose they have a faint rubbery odor, though I had to put my nose right up to them and inhale deeply to smell it, but folks who are very sensitive to odors may find it unpleasant. But really, these are just excellent rubber cuffs. Whether you need something to match your PVC catsuit, want something easy to clean, need cuffs that are smaller than usual, or are looking for something neither leather nor cloth, these cuffs are sure to bind you up just right.

• Rubber Cuffs Kit

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Some years ago, I worked for a seven- year stretch for a mail-order sex products catalog. (This very one, in fact.) It’s a small company, and was even smaller when I was starting out there: the sort of company where everyone did a little bit of every job that needed doing.

So in the years that I worked there, I packed orders, received shipments, argued with vendors, stocked shelves, talked with customers about their orders, did product reviews, and wrote product descriptions . . . of porn, sex ed materials, lube, and sex toys. I sat at a desk within a few feet of the stock shelves . . . fully stocked with porn, sex ed materials, lube, and sex toys. For eight hours a day, five days a week, my day- to- day working life was spent surrounded by — indeed immersed in — porn, sex ed materials, lube, and sex toys.

Almost everyone I knew was aware of my work. Most of them approved. But even among the ones who approved, a surprisingly large number asked me the same question:

“Don’t you get jaded working here?”

I remember, in particular, the time my brother asked me that. He was in town for a visit, and came by to see where I worked — right at the moment that I was unpacking a big box of dildos and buttplugs and receiving them into inventory. He wasn’t shocked, exactly, but he was definitely a bit startled. Partly by the big box of several dozen dildos and buttplugs . . . but more, I think, by the casual, matter- of- fact manner in which I was taking them out of the box and checking them off the invoice. And he asked me the question:

“Don’t you get jaded working here?”

It’s a question I got asked a lot when I worked at Blowfish. It’s a question I still get asked as a sex writer. And my answer is this:

No.

In the years that I’ve worked and written about sex products and sexual issues, I have not become jaded about sex.

I have become relaxed about sex.

And jaded and relaxed are not the same thing.

Being jaded means you’ve lost your capacity to be excited and moved by something. It means that you’ve been made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by surfeit (to quote Merriam Webster). It means you’ve seen so much of something that you just don’t care about it anymore.

Being relaxed, on the other hand, simply means being at ease. It means being comfortable. It doesn’t mean that you’ve seen so much of something that you don’t care about it anymore. It means that you’ve seen so much of something that you think of it as normal.

I’m fascinated by the assumption that exposure to sex will make people bored with it. After all, sex is one of our deepest, most fundamental animal drives. Our interest in it is not going anywhere. I mean, we’re exposed to food every day, several times a day, and we’re not showing any signs of becoming jaded or bored with it. Why do we think being exposed to sex all day would make us jaded or bored with that?

Here’s what I think.

In American society, our interest in sex is often very tied up with anxiety, and forbidden-ness, and secrecy. True, we have a popular culture that’s saturated in sexual imagery. But it’s sexual imagery that heightens our anxiety about sex instead of diminishing it. It’s sexual imagery that’s all about how sex is for the young and beautiful and fashionable, and none of the rest of us are good enough. And our popular culture also has the fucked-up paradox of being saturated in sexual imagery — while, at the same time, being pathetically lacking in sexual information. We have exposure . . . but I don’t think we really have what I would call familiarity.

So our interest in sex is often very tied up with anxiety, and forbidden-ness, and secrecy. Sex is seen as forbidden and bad; so exploring sex gets all tangled up with the thrill of crossing lines and exploring forbidden territory. Sex is seen as something that should be kept secret; so our fascination with sex gets all tangled up with our fascination with secrets and mysteries of all kinds. Sex is seen as something to be anxious and frightened about; so the excitement of sex gets all tangled up with the fear of it.

And I think a lot of people are afraid that if all these tangled threads get de-tangled, our passion for sex will vanish.

I think that for a lot of people, these tangled threads run so deep that they themselves are confused about which part is the mystery, and the frisson of fear, and the thrill of the forbidden . . . and which part is the pure, raw, animal libido, hard-wired into us through millions of years of evolution, via billions of ancestors who successfully reproduced because they were horny.

So I want to reassure these people:

Sex isn’t going anywhere.

First of all: I’ve been working and writing about sex for almost 20 years now. And my libido still has plenty of tangles with secrecy and shame, fear and the forbidden. (Anyone who’s read my more fucked-up porn will attest to that.) Those threads are woven in deep, and they’re not going away. I’ve just spun them into rebellion and kink, like straw spun into ornery, perverted gold.

But more to the point: As I’ve become more familiar with sex, more immersed in it, more informed about it, more accepting of my own desires, more understanding of other people’s . . . my libido has not diminished. If anything, it’s done the opposite. And that’s true for pretty much everyone I know who works with, or writes about, or is otherwise immersed in, sex and sexual culture.

Being relaxed about sex is like being relaxed about playing the piano, or meditating, or playing golf. It doesn’t detract from the experience. It enhances it. It helps you focus, keeps you in touch with your body, makes you less prone to distraction, makes it easier to stay in the moment.

Being relaxed about sex doesn’t make sex boring. It makes it that much easier to fully experience just what it is that’s exciting about it.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2008. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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I’m sure it’s just confirmation bias — now that I’m aware of them, I see them everywhere — but the internet seems full of graphs lately. (Or maybe it’s just because I’m looking at so many graphs during my obsessive checking of election poll tracker FiveThirtyEight.com — hard to believe that by the time you read this the election will be over! But, ahem, I digress.) The graph I noticed first was the amazing Fetish Road Map by Katharine Gates, which seeks to organize all sexual fetishes with links indicating their various levels of interrelatedness. It’s a work of taxonomic wonder. (There’s a better image of the roadmap here.)

Webcomic xkcd responded to the Gates roadmap with, characteristically, a good joke about mathematicians.

Franklin Veaux took the notion of a sexual preference map a bit more literally in his Map of the Lands of Human Sexuality, a colorful bit of cartography including the Island of the Imaginary (where vampire erotica and tentacle sex live), the Land of Mundania, and Terra Del Solo (which is not so much for lovers), among many others.

In further taxonomic adventures, there’s a funny flow chart of good and bad things to say during sex, with categories ranging from “Rhetorical Questions” to “Noises” to “Religious.” Full of useful tips and pitfalls to avoid!

The Hang Fire Books blog posted an image from old sex digest Sexology, The Obelisks of Erotic Gratification, contrasting the stages of “auto-erotic acts” vs. “normal marital acts”; while both begin with “anticipation,” one ends with “lust, shame, self reproach” while the other ends with “relaxation, spiritual fusion, satisfaction” — guess which is which!

Finally, the marvelous site CrappyGraphs.com, which invites user-submitted crappy graphs, has many hilarious entries (among the less hilarious ones, of course), but only a few are related to sex. My favorite is this graph depicting the amount of enjoyment one derives from porn versus the amount of time spent watching porn. As a porn reviewer, I can confirm there’s a certain amount of truth to it . . .

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But I’ve been discovering an exception.

That exception is writing porn in public.

Like countless other writers with laptops — and like countless writers with typewriters and pens before us — I’ve discovered the joy of writing in cafes. It’s a great way to avoid both the claustrophobia and the easy distraction of working at home all day.

And I’ve discovered that there’s something uniquely hot about sitting down at a cafe, opening up my laptop, and setting to work on a dirty story. Something that makes me finally get what it is that turns people on about secret exhibitionistic sex.

Part of it is that, without actually feeling unethical, it feels sort of naughty and bad. Like I’m getting away with something.

Breaking rules is almost always exciting . . . an excitement that can easily be turned sexual if you squint at it just right. And when you grow up in a culture that condemns almost anything sexual as wicked and forbidden, it’s hard not to think of the wicked and forbidden as naturally sexual. But when you live in San Francisco in the sex- positive community, it’s awfully hard to feel like anything you’re doing is wicked or forbidden. We’re all so damned accepting.

But writing porn in my neighborhood cafe? That definitely feels naughty. I love writing about ex-Catholic women seducing their priests, and sex workers being drawn into sadomasochism by their customers, and high school slumber parties gone wrong . . . when, as far as anybody knows, I’m just working on my Ph.D., or my manifesto, or my screenplay, or whatever it is people do on their laptops in cafes. (Yes, I know. Some of them are probably writing porn, too. Don’t harsh my buzz. Anyway . . . that’s also kind of hot.)

Add to that the fact that I almost inevitably get turned on when I write porn. If I’m not, it’s a clue that I’m not doing it right. So you take the “secretly writing dirty dirty porn in broad daylight in a public place” aspect, and you add the “getting wetter and wetter by the minute in broad daylight in a public place” aspect . . . and it definitely makes me feel hyper-sexual, like an insatiable slut getting fingered in the back seat of a car because she can’t wait ’til she gets home.

There’s something else going on though, too. In an odd way, even though the public-ness of a public space is somewhat distracting, it also provides a curious focus.

See, when I’m writing porn at home alone, there’s nothing to stop me from reaching for the vibrator when I get turned on. Which is a good time, of course — writing porn puts my sex fantasies into sharp, intense focus, and I love jerking off when I do it — but it does tend to derail the writing pretty damned fast. My porn is always better if I can hold off on masturbating to it for as long as I can. It’s frustrating . . . but the frustration amps up the intensity of the scenario I’m trying to create, makes me focus extra-hard on the details and the motivations and the subtle emotional shadings.

And when I’m writing porn in public, I don’t have a choice. I can’t just jerk off as soon as I start getting turned on. (Not if I want to go back to that cafe, anyway.) I have to keep my attention on the writing. I have to channel my arousal away from my clit and into my story. Writing in public forces me to have the discipline that I don’t always have at home.

Writing porn in public gives me focus in another way as well. When I get deeply involved in a raunchy fantasy, deeply turned on by it — and then remember where I am, and take a sip of coffee, and look around me at the barristas and the cafe art and the people playing chess — the contrast is like diving into a cold pool after sitting in a hot sauna. And getting back into my dirty story is like climbing back into the sauna. The shock of it wakes me up, makes me pay attention. It makes me feel intensely conscious of how I feel in my skin, intently present in the here and now.

And that’s always a good place to write from. Porn or otherwise.

So now I’m curious. Am I the only one? If you’re a sex writer — professional or amateur — do you ever write porn in public? And if so . . . what is that like for you? Is it harder than writing at home? Easier? Some of both?

And those of you who do like secret exhibitionism — the actual sex kind, not the “writing porn in cafes” kind — is this at all how you feel about it? Does it make you feel hyper-sexual and slutty? Intensely focused and conscious of the here and now? Frustrated in a way that winds up your arousal? Like you’re getting away with something naughty? Something else entirely?

Prurient minds want to know.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2008. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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