#gratitudeNow: Here's the keys to your sexcar. Pump the gas. Mind the brakes.

I've got this friend, Nanny Grace.  She's a sex worker, a pro-domme Mommy.  She's thinky, fun, and kind.  We're relatively new friends, and lately have indulged in that glut of "get to know you" talk where we discuss anything and everything.

She introduced me to an idea about sexuality, the "dual-control" model of sexual response.  Basically, it works like this:

Some things get you going, like pressing a gas pedal.  Other things hold you back, like a brake pedal.

What sort of things? All sorts of things.  Physical condition, social context, self-image, emotional well-being, the list goes on and on and on.  So, what it's like a math problem?  Gee thanks, Mako, you've reduced my getting off to an algebra problem.  

No, no, I swear it's not that bad.  Even though it seems overwhelming, clinical and awful, there's a hidden secret yet effective way to get on top of your sexual response.

Just ask Emily Nagorski.

Who?  I'm glad you asked.  She's a researcher, author and speaker who my friend Grace introduced me to.  Watch this.  It's going to be among the most useful, important 17 minutes or so of your life.  The basic premise is, context matters.

When you like yourself, when you recognize how awesome your body is, and all the different ways you have to use it to get off, and how good a thing that is, you stomp that gas pedal in your underpants hard.

Thanks, Grace.

#gratitudeNow: You're wet, too.

So this morning...

I'm surfing the internet in bed, from my phone, like you do.  I stumbled onto a short film called YES, GOD, YES.

Here's how the film-makers describe it.  "Fifteen-year-old Alice has always been a good Catholic, but when an innocent AOL chat turns unexpectedly racy, she finds herself suddenly obsessed with masturbating."

This film is brilliant.  It's literally a coming-of-age story.  If you watch it carefully, you can see subtle, artful skewering of all sorts of social conventions and hypocrisies.  And, without giving away any spoilers, Alice, after floundering some, really finds her sexual agency, really takes responsibility for her own ideas around sex.

Don't take my word for it.  Watch it!

One last, weirdly bizarre moment of grace or something about this film.  After I saw it, I just knew I had to blog about it, because of this weird little thing about how Karen Maine,  the film's writer, director, and producer uploaded the film.

"Uploaded by Karen Maine... via MAKO UPLOADER."

I'm super grateful films like this exist.

#365Gratitude Day 38:A good story

On my way home last night I was listening to an audiobook as I drove, 69: Sultry Short Erotic Stories of Need and Desire.  

I love collections of erotic short stories.  They can be hit or miss though.  I've been on-and-off listening to this particular anthology for a while, as sort of filler amongst other things.

It hadn't really clicked with me, until last night.

Two stories in it, one right after the other, caught my attention.

First was "His", by Charlotte Stein.  It's about a powerful businessman, getting a spanking by his diminutive wife.  Every little thing about it was perfect.  The narrator's voice was spot on, and the story described not just the action but the feelings of the main character so very well.

Here's a clip from it.  Sorry it can't be longer. 

Then there was "Talk to the Hand" by Allison Wonderland.  This one's the story of a deaf woman and her hearing lover, who is kinky.  Actually, they both are.  It's the story of how the main character comes out to her lover, who, spoiler, already knew.  It's brilliant.  The characters come alive as you listen.  You just know them.  (Valentalae in particular would love this one, with her love for deaf culture.)

Again, here's a clip from it, I wish could be longer.

These are both so artful.  I'm grateful I own this book, and can listen to them over and over.

#365Gratitude Day 37:Pornwhat

As an author who writes erotica, I can be something of an effete snob about erotic fiction.  I often (but not always) need it to be narratively good, have believable characters, situations, conflict, setting, and narrative.  

Having said that, I'm also not full-of-myself about it.  I recognize that one of erotica's prime goals is to arouse people.  I consider myself validated when someone tells me something I wrote made them wet or hard.

These same sensibilities translate into my love for pornography.  And I do love it.  Although again, I'm kind of exacting about it.  Sex-negative stuff, content which degrades, trivializes, or asserts gender-essentialism generally doesn't do it for me.   

There are particular things which appeal to me, but I'm often at a loss as to exactly what about them speaks to me.

Today I'm a bit closer to understanding some of that.

This post has three such images.  They're all drawn images, and none is exactly, directly explicit, but they are still NSFW.

I stumbled across each of them in an early morning tumblr-porn-crawl because I was in a bit of a mood.  

In the first, a dominant woman cuddles her submissive in their bed.  The woman's in bra, panties, and stockings, and she's got the man cradled to her chest.  You can't even see what he's wearing.  The room they're in is warm, inviting, and suggests a bright sunny morning.  They look like they're caught up in adoring one another, even as she's definitely in charge.

In the second, a fully dressed woman has a submissive man, naked except for some sort of harness, trapped under her legs while she sits and reads a book on a dreary, rainy day.  She's got one hand lovingly caressing the man's hair.  The comfort, warmth, and intimacy they feel is palpable.

In the third, the most abstract and cartoonish of the lot, a woman in a gray dress is laying back, on a plain red background square, and has her submissive man, who is naked, on his stomach between her legs, as she pulls his head by his hair, to lick her between her legs.  From the slight detail you can see of the dress the woman's got a curvy, natural figure.  She's not particularly thin, nor particularly heavyset, but she's got curves.  Her thighs are proportionate, and very real.  Her face has a pleased expression of bliss.  The man's arms are underneath her, you cannot see them, but you can tell that he is willingly under her control.  It's an animated image, and as she tugs his head to press him into her, she nods her own head in acknowledgement of the situation.  

The thing I see in all these images, the thing that fairly jumps out at me is that in each of these pictures, you can see how everyone in the picture feels, and you believe it.  

The power exchange and consent are so plain to me, and so compelling.  Through my love of these images, I know myself just a little bit better.

I'm grateful for them, and for that.

#365Gratitude Day 8:Real Life Wife Swap

No, not me, nor Missy.

That's Viv, Roger's wife, in episode 2, trying on some nice lingerie she wants to get to wear to a swing club with him.

I was working from home today on my side project, and doing producer-type-things for the Big Little Podcast, and put on something really interesting on Netflix.  It's a series from England called Real Life Wife Swap, about swingers.

I'm two episodes in, and really digging it.  It's amazingly, refreshingly sex-positive and not overly sensationalist.  They show real people, engaged in real life.  Is there nudity? Yes.  Sexual content? You betcha.  There are also candid shots of people cooking in their kitchen and going fly-fishing, and just, you know, being actual people.

It's fantastic.

You can watch it here.