Category Archives: writing

I am super happy to have Leandra Vane aka the Unlaced Librarian on my blog. She is an author in my upcoming Prompted anthology which I am editing with Oleander Plume, and she has a new book Trophy Wife: Sexuality. Disability. Femininity out right now! Leandra is a divine bibliophile, and you are going to enjoy her guest post because I know you are one too!

I launched my blog The Unlaced Librarian, to review the non-fiction sexuality books that I had ravenously been consuming for years. My not-so-secret secret, was that I also wanted to write non-fiction sexuality books on topics that are important to me – especially disability and sexual identity.

My first venture into making this goal a reality is my sexuality memoir, Trophy Wife: Sexuality. Disability. Femininity. In this book I write about the multitude of topics that have shaped my sexuality as a disabled woman, including passing, kink, my open marriage, Devotees, my femme identity, bowel and bladder control in the bedroom, erotica, sexual fantasies, disability fetishes, pornography, coming out, and sex when you lack physical sensation. 

My hope is to connect with readers who are untangling aspects of their own sexual identities and to contribute to the amazing sex-positive dialogue that writers before me have pioneered. 

The following short excerpt reveals a bit about how reading sex books has helped me connect to those around me and has sparked important conversations in sexuality. Enjoy!

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Since I’ve been reading relationship and sex books – in coffee shops, on work breaks, before I meet friends for dinner, in my car – more people have opened up, asked questions, or confessed secrets they’ve been holding onto for years. I have bonded with so many people – over books.

So often when I carry around a book on sexuality, a friend or acquaintance will comment or ask why I’m reading a book on that particular topic. I answer, because I find sexuality interesting and want to understand it better. I leave it at that for the awkward silence to settle and the raised eyebrows to fall and allow the person to decide whether or not to continue the conversation. Nine times out of ten, the person will then say, “Can I ask you a question?” 

The person will then proceed to talk about a sexual dilemma in their own life – sometimes shame or a question they have been carrying around since childhood. Many times I am told I am the only other person with whom they have openly discussed sexuality.  All this simply because I expressed a polite interest in the field – and had a book.

Since carrying around sex books I have certainly found I am not the only one worried about my body, about fitting in, or about matters of sexuality. I have sat hunched forehead-to-forehead with friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and family having conversations in cafés, backseats, at picnic tables, on couches in the basement. Whispers about infidelity, not being good enough, he said she saids and you won’t believes.

I have emerged as a confidante, a holder of secrets, and at times a giver of advice. Because of this, I make it a point to read far and wide, in areas of sexuality I am unfamiliar with, so I may always have a book to lend or at least recommend. Because I know some of the most personal discoveries are made in ink and pulp and paper cuts. 

Too many times we are left with no one to speak with face-to-face about our sexualities. Sometimes it is because of shame or taboos or judgements. Other times it is because no one we know is experiencing the same life struggle; they simply cannot relate or empathize. In these times we turn to books.

I know this because I have seen the conversations so many people have had with books. There are infinite insights written in margins of used books. Some tell of victories, others of tragedies. I cherish them all.

Seeing as I have to buy used books fairly frequently, I am always touched by what I read between the lines – passages the previous owner underlined, showcasing what they were studying, what they were working through, or what struck them enough to notate. 

Some instances are amusing – One anti-porn book I bought, literally, the whole thing was underlined. The entire book. I could more easily have counted the lines that were not underlined than those that were.

Some instances, however, are so sad, they hurt. I picked up a book at a library used book sale about communication and emotion in marriage and some paper fell out of the front cover. Four typed pages. I proceeded to read an anonymous account of an entire marriage. The birth of a child, the affair, the decline of the relationship, and the divorce. The book itself had highlighted passages, asterisks, little hearts, and even more little broken hearts written in the margins. 

I bought the book for one dollar.

It seems an odd irony, that I was broke so I had to buy used sex books, yet I was graced more insight, more raw life experience than any paid course or crisp new text could have taught me. 

I’ve learned a lot from books. But I’ve learned even more from the people these books let me connect with. Authors. Friends. Lovers. And strangers I will never know except by the slant of their handwriting in a margin note. 

You don’t have to fly away to San Francisco or be a fetish model to experience a life of sexual adventure. Indeed, I am just a woman from the Midwest, who was finally sick of acting like the “nice girl” she never was. Sometimes, all you have to do is pick up a book.

Click on the link for your copy of Trophy Wife!

I met Catherine–Cathy–at an erotica reading sponsored by my publisher Riverdale Avenue Books. We became friends that day. She is lovely and warm, and a brilliant writer. I just immediately liked her. Cathy is what I consider the real deal–a writer’s writer. She is a freelance writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her two novels The El and Different Drummer are treasured additions to my library. Cathy does a monthly poetry reading in Brooklyn where we both live–yet I have failed to attend one! I literally cannot keep up with her! But we did find time to chat with each other on two separate occasions, for our various projects at The Tuscan Gun. Interviewing Cathy did not even feel like work, she is so warm and lovely, and a foodie like me!

You can find out more about Cathy on her website, but here are some bits and pieces from her…and a recipe!  

People’s lives are so steeped with sex, and sex decides so much of what we do. It’s part of everything, it’s who we are.

In Different Drummer, I wanted to recapture a time (70s) that I did not want to fade away.

Doing corporate writing, they want you to fit a certain formula, but I did enjoy writing about people. I like telling their stories, figuring out what makes them tick. I still do.

We compartmentalize sex, to the point that we obsess about it. Sex is an organic, vital part of life.

I was interested in porn from a very young age. I would go see porn movies with my boyfriends and say, “I could write that.” And eventually, I did.

After reading The El, my 90 year old Aunt Betty said, “Who would even think that Cathy could think those thoughts!”

I don’t like sitting there, trying to write. Instead, I’ll go do something. In yoga class, I often get ideas for stories—if you get that first line, you’ve got everything.

Food is an expression of love. To me, cooking for somebody is a good way to show you care. The food descriptions in The El can even be considered erotic. Food porn. Someone once told me that reading the book “made me hungry, made me horny.”

This is Cathy’s favorite recipe from The El:

Dom DeLuise’s Roasted Red Peppers*

6-8 red bell peppers

4-6 cloves of garlic, sliced in half (he uses 2)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice

¼ teaspoon dried basil

salt and pepper, to taste

(3 tablespoons capers – I leave them out)

Preheat your oven’s broiler. Line a cookie tray with foil. Put washed red peppers on foil and place directly beneath broiler, making quarter turns when skin blisters and blackens, until the entire pepper surface is nicely charred.  Remove peppers from oven and lift corners of foil, sealing it tightly around peppers. Cover with thick dishtowel for 30 minutes or more. (My favorite part of the recipe!)  Open foil and slit peppers so steam will vent.  Cool a few minutes more and peel skin from peppers.  Slice into ½ inch wide strips and place in bowl with remaining ingredients.  Add a bit of the juice from the peppers.  Mix and cover tightly.

Serve on bread, with antipasto or to compliment any dish you like.  Tastes best a few days after you make it because all of the subtle flavors have a chance to meld.  Lasts a few weeks in the fridge.

*Adapted from his amazing cookbook, “Eat This, It Will Make You Feel Better,” and used with the permission of Dom’s wonderful sister Anne.

Here is a link to recipes from The El. Read some of Cathy’s recent articles here, and follow her on Twitter (@BklynCatwoman) and Facebook.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I don’t dress up–but I get lots of candy! Oleander Plume has been having a ball with Halloween! She did a favorite horror book round-up of the Prompted authors, including me, and talked horror flicks with Roger Jackson. When she asked me to do a scary story swap, I did not hesitate! Ever the most prolific person I know, she got her story to me right away–and now I get to share with you!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Demon’s Kiss

By Oleander Plume

I told her no, that temptress, that she-devil. But that gal don’t listen – she takes – until all that’s left is a pile of smoldering ash.

I met her in a dive bar. Whiskey on the rocks she ordered. What kind of woman drinks whiskey? The kind you should stay away from, that’s who. You see a dame sipping Jack, you turn tail and run, boy. Fast as you can into the night, eyes down, watching for shadows and the sound of leathery wings.

She’s a demon! I speak the truth. Her perfume smelled of sulfur and hair was the color of hell fire. Those crimson nails left rake marks on my back that never fade – scars on my heart – blood gurgling in my lungs. She destroyed me, I know this. Ruined me and left a shell of a man behind.

That wicked succubus, drew me in with her creamy thighs and tight pussy. Rode me hard until she got hers, sometimes all night long. Once finished, out the window she’d fly, before sun up, always before sun up. Afraid of that ball of orange rising in the east and maybe the blue sky, too.

She drank the night. Yeah, I said whiskey but she drank the night, too. Tall glasses of inky black, stars floating at the top like tears. I took a sip once and it damn near froze my tongue. I know if I tasted her blood it would do the same.

That witch tried to force it down my throat. Be like me, she said. Dance in the ebony gloom, naked, skin bone white, for all the ever after. No thanks, I told her. I’ll keep my ever-loving soul intact, and one day I’ll soar to heaven on a golden beam. She laughed like the caw of a raven. There’s no heaven, she said, only the pyre and screams of the damned.

Her kiss was like a burning ember. Singed me to the quick. If you stripped away my skin you’d find soot, I swear this is true, I swear on all that’s good and holy. Yeah, I’ll have another, but not whiskey. No, sir.

That’s the devil’s drink.

Loved that? Go read my story on her blog!

I am very pleased to have Emmanuelle de Maupassant as my guest today. She is a true connoisseur of the erotic genre, and is not afraid to explore its dark side. It seemed only appropriate on the eve of Halloween, to explore the raw and forbidden aspects of erotica with her!

‘I am a forest, and a night of dark trees.’ 

― Friedrich Nietzsche 

I am a different person by night.

Velvet-wrapped in my shadow-self, I have license to breathe more deeply.

Whatever your heart and soul craves may be subdued but it can never be put aside. Vital appetites do not abate.

Perhaps, what you thirst for is not the reflection in the mirror but something beyond and behind, only visible when there is no light: a realisation of your darker self.

Taking pleasure in thoughts of revenge, debasement, danger, fear, pain and violence, is this my ‘real’ self?

It is, although other selves exist too. They have the daylight.

All are mine: dark and light.

As Jung said: ‘How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.’

My self beyond the mirror desires what cannot be spoken, and what cannot be attained. This ache may be soothed but it cannot be satisfied. Whatever I imagine, it will never be enough, for my desire is always to want more: to grasp at what is out of reach.

‘I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.’

― Sylvia Plath

I walk a balancing act between light and shade, between my ‘civilised’ self and that which flickers and dissolves at the edges.

In Joseph Kessel’s Belle de Jour (1928), Séverine knows well that her indulgence of her ‘dark’ self – which wishes to lose its conventional, public identity and surrender only to desire and sensation, without thought of consequences – endangers her ‘social’ self.

The story is best known through Catherine Deneuve’s portrayal of the icily beautiful housewife, in Luis Bunuel’s film (1967). Compelled by desires she cannot articulate, let alone share with her husband, Pierre, she is drawn into an alternate sexual world, choosing to spend each afternoon working at a brothel.

The greater her revulsion with her clients, the greater her satisfaction, yet she seeks continually, without finding true fulfillment. She experiences little ‘conscious’ choice, driven almost mad by her need to act out fantasies of masochism and debasement: to be forcefully subdued, to ‘lose’ her usual sense of self.

Her desires make no sense to her; she only knows that she must serve them.

The story’s complexity lies not especially in her compulsions but in her knowledge that they are incompatible with her ‘other life’ and her love for Pierre. For him to discover the truth is inconceivable. She sends one of her lovers, Marcel, to murder the man she thinks will betray her and it is upon this moment that Fate twists the course of the story, turning the blade towards Pierre.

The shock of almost losing him drives Séverine to renounce her sexual yearnings and devote herself to the long-term care of her terribly injured husband.

The final tragedy is that her desire, and her shame, live on sufficiently to drive her to confess all and, in so doing, bring to pass the very reaction she most feared: Pierre’s revulsion and his repudiation of her. In the closing lines of the story, we are told that he refuses ever after to speak to her.

Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut, based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, also examines ‘unbridled’ desires, including concealment of the truth and feelings of guilt. A woman tormented by relentless dark fantasies involving a man she encounters briefly, reveals the details to her husband: a scene intimately constructed in the film, whereby Nicole Kidman whispers her confession of her ‘raw self’ to Tom Cruise.

Aroused and resentful, he allows himself his own act of transgression by entering a twilight world: attending a secret, orgiastic gathering, at which he is an intruder. It is for this segment that the film is best known: its glitteringly dark, dream-like depiction of a sinister, masquerade sex party. Much is left unexplained, elevating the sense of danger.

What these books (and the resulting films) share is their portrayal of the lure of the forbidden. However much we experience and possess and taste, it is never quite enough, because our imagination always craves more.

We feel, almost instinctively, the seduction of what lies on the darker side of the mirror, where the norms of social behaviour no longer apply.

George Bataille (in Guilty) wrote: ‘Eroticism is the brink of the abyss. We’re brought to the edge by uncontrolled ecstasy. This is the stage of rupture, of letting go of things.’

Similarly, he said: ‘The need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.’

And here it is. In fiction, we seek both to ‘escape’ and to ‘find’ ourselves.  We seek an echo of our nature within the pages, while hoping also to set aside the constraints of ‘reality’: to ‘lose’ ourselves, as we do in ultimate moments of sexual arousal.

We want danger.

We want extremes.

We want the duality of pleasure and pain.

We want the forbidden.

In Japan, diners delight at the tingle of poison on their lips from the carefully prepared puffer fish, knowing how close they are to danger, to death.

So it can be with our erotic nature.

What greater triumph is there than to feel your mortality and to conquer it?

In reaching a heightened sexual state, we are of the flesh and beyond the flesh: we are corporeal and spiritual. We feel our mortality and we transcend it. At that moment of sublime ecstasy, we ‘defy’ death, becoming more than bone and blood.

We see beyond the mirror.

We see the hidden self.

Emmanuelle de Maupassant wrote The Gentlemen’s Club to explore the darker elements of desire. She believes erotic literature allows us to enter realms we might otherwise dare not.

Authors that inspire her writing include Sarah Waters, Michel Faber, Fay Weldon, Angela Carter, and Donna Tartt.