… not just for the weekend, but for a whole damn year of dealing with people who are cruel and unwell. This quote in my horoscope this week:

Carl Jung: “The foundation of all mental illness is an unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”

A smattering of free galleries; I’m super picky and these are good — not out of control, hand in your pants amazing, but quite good. Olga D is in the kitchen — my god, I hope she eats something! Fabi bought her stripperwear at Walgreens by my house, I know it, because all they have for sale right now is Santa hats. Vicky has a nice puffy outer labia and pretty eyes, but I won’t let Alex look at her gallery because — fur coat, faux pas! Jenny (pictured) is blonde, typically not my flavor, but I think she’s sexy and strangely compelling… And Jana’s nylons are all ripped up, I really hope she has another pair to wear home because nail polish isn’t going to save her this time. Enjoy for free! Don’t shop! Although if you did decide to shop, Hegre is having a ‘two months for the price of one’ offer that I’d be remiss not to tell you about. I selected a nice foreign-language banner for you after the jump, just because it looks better not in English. And it’s stashed in the extended post field because it’s all festooned annoyingly holiday-like, and I’m just not ready for that yet. Ugh.

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I’ve been quoted in Esquire pretty steadily since 2003. Sometimes twice in a year. I’m nice, give them solid soundbyte-ready sex ed tips, and though I’m not always easy to get a hold of, I make sure I get them something by their deadline. And they always, always use what I give them. The people I talk to there are unfailingly nice, smart and fun to talk to. Sometimes I’ll chat with them for a while about whatever sex ed topic we’re on, and we digress into other sex ed topics. I’ve always had a great experience with Esquire, they’ve always treated me respectfully on the phone and in print, and I’ve really considered it an honor to be a regular, reliable sex expert for them.

I’m in Esquire again this December. Normally I get dorky and blog it excitedly. Imagine how disappointed I was when I saw how I was quoted this time.

In their sex column for December in print and web versions, Stacey Grenrock Woods answers the question, “I’m a woman, and I think I might taste bad. Could it be something I’m eating?” In her response, she writes,

(…) And some experts (the ones who would talk to us) don’t rule out that your diet could indeed be influencing what the bloggers keep referring to as your “congealed salmon and battery acid” flavor. (But don’t let them bother you. Take it from me: They’re just jealous!) Garlic and onions spring to mind. Curry is far from innocent. Antihistamines, too. Ultimate Guide to Cunnilingus author Violet Blue (who was kind enough to speak to me now that Blue Indigo Violet is no longer accepting my calls) posits that one can sweeten one’s taste by drinking “a smoothie that contains cucumber, mango, and pineapple juice once a day for three or four days,” and hopefully by that time, anyone who was considering oral sex with you will have moved on. (…)

The first thing I thought, after thinking “fuck you” for making fun of my name (which is SO original), was — I never talked to Ms. Woods. I had a nice chat with a guy (in October). Second, the information leading up to my quote (about garlic, curry, antihistamines, from “experts”) came from me. Next, I would never, ever be so rude to the reader, which I worry was implied by Woods’ hideously sexually shameful “salmon” and “battery acid” comments, along with the insult tacked on after my quote. Which I really really hope doesn’t make readers think I said that, or implied that. What an asshole thing to say; it’s so far and away from my approach. Sex should be funny and fun and smart — not make you feel bad for simply asking about it.

Then the last thing I thought was, fuck you for making fun of my name. That never happens every week by some troll in some comments, somewhere. Who is probably, actually in 9th grade. Next time Esquire calls, I’ll pass. I’m not, and never have been desperate to be in Esquire (or anywhere in media, to be honest). They’ll find some other sex educator standing right behind me with a degree and background in marketing who’ll be desperate enough to talk to them. Some people eat worms just to be on TV. That’s not me. Especially when you fuck with the way I present sex; have fun, but act your age. “Feed the poor, starve the rich” is one of my principles, meaning with sex, make fun of people who deserve it (as in hypocrites like Bill O’Reilly) and don’t shame readers for asking about sex. Esquire treated me so disrespectfully this time, it shows just how dated the attitudes (and systems) in print media have become.

Get real answers to the question of taste, flavors and changing them in my article Taste of a Woman, or listen to my open source sex podcast #33 (from my SFSI lecture) on oral sex and flavoring issues for all genders.

Now I have to get ready to go to a “sex themed” party. Should be fun! (If you’re wondering why I’m not at the Winnies tonight, I *should* be , as I was to present an award — but it’s my last weekend of lectures at SFSI and I chose the duty and love of work over play in LA this weekend…)

Update: Tony Comstock has a particularly eloquent post about Ms. Woods and what lots of us “sex experts” go through when dealing with magazines such as Esquire. My favorite bit: “I can only guess at what sort of personal baggage Stacy brings to her writing about sex, but I know all about the cultural baggage. It’s Tyra Banks making a cheap, undermining joke about faking orgasms; it’s ASHLEY AND KISHA getting banned, while DESTRICTED plays across town; it’s Stacy’s foul quip about congealed salmon and batteries acid. (Attributed to the blogging community, but Google comes up empty. Maybe that’s a peek into Stacy’s personal baggage after all.)”.

Just for fun, last night after I recorded my new audiobook How to Kiss I set aside this chapter to share in my open source sex podcast. It’s chapter 4, where I detail all the different types of kisses: the good, the bad, and the *scary*. Hey, I know we’ve all been victims of a ‘fish tank kiss’ or a ‘Zoolander kiss’… Be prepared: in some places, I giggle uncontrollably — it was that kind of reading (the fun kind). Even if you just nibble this free sample chapter I think you’ll love it and get some fun ideas. Enjoy!

* open source sex 61 (post, libsyn.com)
* Direct MP3 download link: open source sex 61: how to kiss

I pulled a late night last night and recorded an entire book: the audio version of my book, How to Kiss! It was intense but really fun — what a sex nerd gets up to when she’s home alone on a work binge, I tell ya… Congratulations, me! It’s almost exactly the same as what’s in the How to Kiss ebook (yet the same DRM-free goodness), except it’s me cracking up, being silly and I opted for higher quality audio files than usual. It sounds really good. Still, let me know what you think…

You can see the product page here; you can order it for $7 through PayPal here (all 9 MP3 chapters in a downloadable .zip), and you can read details about what’s in it after the jump. Finding someone to smooch is another matter entirely…

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My nose became a coffee-shooter when I saw this morning’s comments on my SF Gate / Chronicle column about sex toys (note: Sullivan’s Funeral Home is right by my house). Never has my column brought me so much joy! Here’s a snip:

shotzyreborn wrote:

Well I am too vanilla and too unimaginative to be bothered with accessories for myself but if they enhance others sex lives - wonderful! More good sex more happy people. I myself don’t have sex for enjoyment. I only do it for the free drinks. I mean you don’t have to be a religious zealot or a republican to be a prude. You should have seen me on my wedding night! “Freddie was furious when he’d found out I’d taken tranquilizers.”

booboobear wrote:

Well it’s not that you took A tranquilizer. It was that you took a whole bottle of tranquilizers. Of course, Freddie was a big boy, so tranquilizers were completely reasonable, but I digress. Or do I?

shotzyreborn wrote:

The best relationship I ever had was with a necropheliac mortician. I’m serious. It was great for him and I didn’t have to worry about drinking too much. Plus he’d tighten up my face for me.

booboobear wrote:

Oh is that the one who still fixes your hair over at Sullivan’s Funeral Home?

(…)

shotzyreborn wrote:

don’t you remember the melanie griffith commercials? Don’t lie about your age, DEFY IT. Makeup can get into fine lines and cake up and make a person look like a AAA road map. Do what I do. Use egg whites. It dries and pulls your face into a mask. Plus it smells horrid so people stand farther away from you so they don’t get a really good look. Also I can’t talk when its on which seems to make people happy.

smilie wrote:

milkie here. I am sorry to say however that I am having a hard time getting into these boards these days. No matter how outrageous or tragic the stories are (Oakland murders etc) I’m pretty burnt out. I thought I could rekindle my energy by changing my persona, but so far smilie doesn’t have it. I’ll give it some time. I can’t believe they actually axed you shotzy, what did you do? If anyone was going to get cut down, I thought for sure it would be booboo :). Mine was voluntary but I am thinking now it might have been a mistake. I miss milkie.

shotzyreborn wrote:

We miss you too uncle milkie. I don’t always agree with you but you’re a nice person and can be very funny. Especially on the topic of prison rape, which you are an expert. I am not quite sure why I got axed but the people I argued with the most got it right before me.

smilie wrote:

I don’t always agree with me either, shotzy. It is strange what comes out of my fingers sometimes. I am for the most part fed up with how things are going - it seems that the same old problems never go away. Sigh . . . maybe I’m getting old.

shotzyreborn wrote:

No I agree with you. Kids having kids and kids killing kids. It is depressing. Now I’ve learned that I have to give up chili for the environment. I’ve already given up Aquanet. I’m a mess.

This week’s column, Lube the Halls — also includes my top picks for 2007’s newest holiday sex toys gifts, from the high-end designer vibes to the superb new basics:

Maybe I shouldn’t have started mulling over my annual sex toy list after a big vegan Thanksgiving feast. I had barely cracked open the Firefly lube when I fell deep into a postprandial slumber.

In the middle of the night, I was jarred awake by a ghastly sound, frightful, and near.

“Oooooh. Yoooo arrrr so boot-tee-fullll,” the thick, whispery male voice crooned. “My daahhhrleeng. I laaaahv yooooo.”

It was coming from inside the house. It was coming from between my legs.

It was the ghost of scary sex toy past paying me a visit: the Talking Head Vibrator, set on “Latin Lover” to be exact. The Talking Head is a dual-action (clitoral and vaginal) vibe with an embedded MP3 player that includes a record function and two pre-recorded “audio fantasies.” Yes, it’s a vibrator that talks to you. The last thing I want my vibes doing is making any noise, let alone telling me they love me in a fake Spanish accent.

I recoiled in horror, only to see movement at the side of my bed; hopping frightfully on one leg, menacing me with a big, rubber other leg was the Jack Hammer Johnson. As it hopped closer, I could clearly see the mechanism; a single black pogo stick with a dildo attached. It taunted me with its floppy rubber appendage as it bounced menacingly up and down, heart-shaped handle not reassuring in the least. What had I done to deserve such horrors from sex toy past?

I rolled away from the vision in a cold sweat, only to come face-to-face with a trifecta of orgasmic horror: a gigantic vibrating pointy pink blob known as The Cone, the Eroscillator Plus whirring and changing its dentistry-like appendages like a “Hellraiser” clone, and a skinny silicone dildo named — dear gods, no — Tyra. (…)

Link.

At right: It’s not porn, it’s the advice vlog The Midwest Teen Sex Show.

In January, San Francisco will be host to a very exciting conference, the first of its kind: Sex::Tech, a conference on youth, technology, sex and HIV/STD prevention. It’s so cool, and I’m already excited to attend. It’s being hosted by local organization ISIS Inc., who I think have been doing some seriously incredible work in the emergent field of tech and sexual health information and prevention.

Sex::Tech is January 22 - 23, 2008 and “will explore available tools and methods for reaching youth with culturally appropriate STD/HIV prevention and sex education interventions from a youth perspective, with input from public health professionals, educators, researchers, and technology developers.” Yaaaayyyy!!! It’s really time. We need this.

Right now, they’re running a scholarship video contest: $3500 for making a video about sex ed, with a deadline of December 31. Winning videos will be shown the first day of the conference. On the same day, creators of the Midwest Teen Sex Show will be showing and hosting a “best of” episodes session, which should be really fun (and funny). The speaker lineup and topics look fantastic! I just noticed while poking through their site that registration is limited to 300 attendees, so I better get my act together. Early reg is $100, and students or under 25 is only $20.

Please stop stalking my boyfriend in my Flickr photos, even managing to find the ones not tagged with any identifying information. That’s creepy. You broke up TWO YEARS AGO.

Deadline accomplished, yay! Now back to our regularly scheduled sex blog, with some links I’ve been kicking around for the past few days.

* Not About Love has relaunched and looks totally fucking hot. Hours of fun; lots of hosted galleries but some great original stuff, too. Nice work! (via)

* Norman Mailer won the bad sex in fiction award from beyond the grave. Are we really all that surprised? I love this bullet point: “Judges underwhelmed by Mailer’s ‘grinding hound’”. I would be, too.

* It’s one of the funniest online videos I’ve ever seen in my life (this year): Protecting and Maintaining Your Heterosexual House of Cards. It includes epic acronyms like WANGZ (We Are Not Gay Zone), and now I totally understand. I mean, I *understand*. It’s also embedded after the jump. And poor, poor Trent Lott. He should have just kept his WANGZ covered. (thanks, Kirby!)

* Two pornalicious film fests coming up next weekend: Pornotopia in Albequerque, New Mexico (yes, we already made the “left turn” joke on Fleshbot and ZOMFG: Disco Dolls in Hot Skin 3D), and CineKink has a special show in Chicago. My pick for CineKink: Friday’s lineup of “Passion Plays”.

* Charlie Rose just had a program on sexology. No, really. It is available to watch here; Mind Hacks has an intriguing post about it, and notes that they left oodles about human sexuality out of the picture. And you know, because just talking about sex is sorta shameful they endeavored to legitimize the topic by making it as narrow and dry and biological as possible, because talking about sex because it’s *fun* would just be dirty and all down that slippery slope of porn… Mind Hacks also suggests, “I suspect their achingly academic approach to the subject reflects the need to be seen to be serious, but it’s also interesting that the Charlie Rose show is sponsored by Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, which may also account for the almost unrelenting focus on biology.”

* Transactional sex (as in prostitution) vs. romantic sex (as in normative love)? Male agency vs. female passivity in regard to sexual conduct? It isn’t accurate to see one or the other as separate, concludes an anthropologist who just conducted two consecutive yearly studies at a South African university. Check out An anthropologist on sex, love and AIDS in a university campus in South Africa. Interesting stuff. (Thanks, Praemedia!)

* Speaking of Africa — I know, it’s a big place — this news item caught my eye: Older white British ladies traveling to Kenya for young male studs. Not a bad holiday if you can swing it, I suppose. Make all the “cougars on the hunt” jokes as you must… Scary that they eschew condoms, though.

* Aussie amateur all-girl porn company Abby Winters just turned 7 years old. A round of one-handed applause for those very sexy girls, please…

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Tonight, Hacker Boy took me on a date. An old-fashioned date, the kind I love. Dating is such a complex animal; but even if I’m all not into commitment or long-term scariness sure to end in doom (!), I know one thing. And that’s if a guy (or girl) wants to see me, like go on a date, it’s best not to ask me to “hang out”. Unless you just want to hang out, and get beer and eat pizza and watch TV with roommates. No, if you ask me on a date, I want a date. Where we dress up for each other, and go through the rituals and nervousness and even a few delightfully archaic gender formalities. We dress up for each other and go out, and maybe it’s going to lead somewhere.

Such a hot formula for me.

Tonight he came over in his little convertible Triumph, all dressed in black with a neat-cut dark gray wool coat. Clean shaven, he waited for me to slip into a big coat on my chilly doorstep. He picked me up; I wore short boots, black tights under a black 60s babydoll dress, houndstooth headwrap, smelling like girl and butterscotch and vanilla. He kissed me sweetly all evening like no one else was in the room.

But there were a lot of people in the room: he, of course, took me to a nerdc0re rap hiphop show. It was the MC Frontalot show, with my friend Doc Pop opening and a rapper I’d never heard but now I love — STD. Live, he rocks. He rapped about grammar and usage! He dropped lines about how nerd girls are the hottest! “When we kiss.. It’s like magic… (The Gathering)…” (It was weird too, like he somehow knew I was at the cat show yesterday…) Check out his video full of insanely sexy girls (The Peach Tartes) dancing a super-sexy burlesque routine; a rapper after my own heart. Or lower.

I got the desired frisky goodnight kisses before the Triumph sped away; now I’m off to bed to dream of Chronicle columns…

Yesterday Irina and I went to a cat show at the Alameda County Fairgrounds to shoot a GETV episode (thanks for the tip, Lane!) I shot and edited this short video of my experience at the cat show, though it’s really a hollow, flimsy excuse for me to show you video of KITTENS. Going to the show was everything I’d expected (including scary cat sweatshirt ensembles and lime green pantsuits), but the whole thing was so calming and sweet. Basically, I spent a day with purring kittens, devoted pet guardians, and good friends.

* My super-fun, LOL-capshun needing photo set is here.
* The Fog City Cat Club site is here.
* Lane Hartwell took a fantastic photo of us in the parking lot here.
* My video does indeed begin with my own cat kicking me in the *head*.
* Thanks to Jonathan Moore for loaning me a camera; unfortunately his Canon’s audio input gave me a *lisp*. Yay.

I’ll definitely make a big post when the GETV episode is live; the interviews were *hilarious* and fun. The video is embedded after the jump.

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Photo by Jonathan Moore.

I’m messing with the new iMovie — so I grabbed some really silly video I shot of myself at Kink.com’s last happy hour and edited a video together. It’s here and embedded after the jump if you want to watch it… Yes, you’ll see I’m a *total* dork (shot on the fly, no prep, argh).

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Being a huge fan of Merkley??? — local photographer of local lovelies (and their strangely symmetrical couches and cats) — I am thrilled to bits and pieces to see pre-sales for his upcoming book “111???” become available. And, of course, to see the above Thanksgiving photo greeting that just went up on his Flickr photostream (here, use his guest pass so you can see all the good stuff).

Here’s a snip from his post about the book; the post has 11 big gorgeous sexy images selected for inclusion (browser resize warning). I love Merkely because he’s a visionary and makes teh sexy, but mostly because he says “minimalism is for quitters”, which I might get tattooed in reverse text on my forehead. Snip:

“When is it coming out?”

“1-11″

“You mean January 11th right? Where is the release party gonna be?

“111 minna gallery.”

“What time?”

“11pm”

“Word is that you decided to publish the book yourself because you don’t know how to read contracts and are afraid of book stores and libraries and getting porked by book business buttholes and that you’d instead rather print a super duper limited edition of them on your own so that you can make them big and heavy (11×14, 222 thick pages) and sign and number them like rare and collectable pieces of art that will most likely sell out lickety split and then you can wipe your hands of the whole deal and move forward into the sunrise while leaving your nice customers with a purchase that will certainly only grow in value from day one and within a few months each copy will be worth a million bucks OR MORE. Just how rare will they be? Exactly how many copies are you making?

“1111.”

Link.

* Note: Shipping and handling is $11.11.

Images by Steven Meisel (”Make Love, Not War”) from Vogue Italia September 2007, seen at foto decadent.

So we’re all here figuring out what to be thankful for, with a big split down the middle of the country and a trainwreck in office, and there are a bunch of people over in Iraq whose freedom to look at porn is under (sadly successful) attack. I mean US soldiers, and according the the email I’m getting this morning, they’re mighty pissed about it. You’ll be shocked and appalled (not awed) to see what I uncovered in this week’s Chronicle column, Don’t Ask, Don’t Wank: a cabal of “family values” groups just pressured the Pentagon to enforce a somewhat recent porn ban to the strictest degree. It’s just not right on so many levels. I’m getting some pretty impressive, supportive emails from Iraq about this one… They’re commenting on the piece from over there, too. Teaser snip:

(…) I knew Tara wasn’t kidding. She followed up with me a few weeks later, telling me how much the guys appreciated the porn — they whooped and cheered as it was distributed, and were even more exuberant when they found out it was handpicked by a girl.

I had no idea I’d participated in the breaking of any laws. But I had. And I’d do it again in a red-hot, Barely Legal second.

Porn — the oft-ridiculous caricature of human sexuality, and most basic sex toy that there is — is considered by officials as dangerous to our service people as drugs. The Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996 prohibits stores on military bases from selling “sexually explicit material.” It defines that as film or printed matter “the dominant theme of which depicts or describes nudity” or sexual activities “in a lascivious way.” Challenged as a First Amendment violation, the law was upheld by a U.S. appeals court in 2002.

In Iraq, service people are subject to General Order Number 1a (GO-1a) put into effect December 19, 2000:The regulations prohibit conduct “prejudicial to the maintenance of good order and discipline of all forces.”GO-1a prohibits a lot of things, such as “controlled substances and drug paraphernalia”, gambling, selling or defacing artifacts and national treasures, entry into a Mosque without permission and much more. Including porn. GO-1a expressly prohibits our soldiers from — or “protects” them from, “Introduction, possession, transfer, sale, creation or display of any pornographic or sexually explicitphotograph, video tapes, movie, drawing, book, magazine, or similar representations.” Sure — go sweat your life into your fatigues guarding a checkpoint that might deliver you a suicide bomber, but get caught with a DVD of “Shaving Ryan’s Privates” and you’re in trouble. And not the kind that involves shaving anyone’s privates, not for fun anyway.

The laws are nearly ten years old, so what’s the fuss, Miss Evil Porn Crusader? Well, (…)

Link.

Also: here’s my favorite email — I want to hug this guy, or send him some (yummy) Four Finger Club DVDs:

Hi babe, I am a soldier over here in Qatar, and here is a copy of the email I sent that old fuck-wad Bartless:

——————-
You know, for a guy who was never IN the military, who didn’t even fight in WWII, you sure have a lot of opinions about what us soldiers are allowed to read. Maybe if you had actually BEEN in combat or ever been brave enough to join the military, you would feel differently.

“If soldiers want to read that stuff, they can walk down the street and buy it somewhere else,” Bartlett says. “I don’t want (the military) to help.”

Yea, well, over here in Iraq and elsewhere in the middle-east, it is kind of hard to “walk down the street”. Look, why don’t you go to your church or whatever and worship whatever God you want, in any way you want, and keep for damn nose out of the military’s business. Really, why don’t you just leave us soldiers alone, we can take care of ourselves, we don’t need some old bible-thumper like you dictating to us what we can or cannot read.

If we don’t want to buy it, then we won’t, but don’t try to censor what we can obtain. We fight for freedom and rights, and you self-righteous religious nuts try to take them away. Retire already. I already am tempted to start campaigning against you when I get back, either running myself or helping your opponent.

Sgt [redacted]
The Middle East

Image from Muki’s Kitchen via The Dominant’s View.

You know it’s that day again; you know, the traveling, the eating, the hype — and hopefully, the relaxing. I just can’t resist feeding you a few spanksgiving-themed links:

* Kayla Kuffs, who I published a very intense erotic story by in Lust, has a review of Muki’s Kitchen in The Dominant’s View with a generous gallery stuffed with super-sized sample images. I blogged them on this day last year, and since then they’ve been busy cooking up some tasty, cute cannibal fetish themed updates.

* No, no, nooooo: Homemade Sex Toys has 15 naughty things you can do with a turkey baster. Avert your eyes to the “serve a creampie” suggestion! “Turkey Baster Sex Tips” = wrong! (via)

* Erotica: All The Trimmings by Thomas Roche and Giving Thanks by Alison Tyler.

* Don’t think about it while grandma stuffs the turkey, but read all you can before you attempt fisting any human birds. (Lesbian Life has good fisting tips, too.)

I just uploaded my free safer sex ebook/reference guide to Amazon’s Kindle catalog. I had the notion that I’d make it free content, as it should be — but guess what? Amazon has price limitations for sellers. Nothing over $200, and items “must be over .25″. Hmmm. So, what does a girl do? I want it to be free. And .26 is such an unattractive number. Making it .50 would just feel wrong; I’m (obviously) not doing this for the money. I played with it for a bit, seeing if I could trick it… and finally spoofed it with .25 as the price. Would you pay a quarter for carefully researched, CDC current safer sex info on your Kindle? Who knows, but it sure is fun to play with this…

Let’s see if they accept it. Hee!

Update: YAY! The “modern safer sex guide” is on Kindle for a quarter!!!! No description yet, but that took a day on my other books, too… :D

And, some people really, really love their Kindles. I had no idea there was any “backlash” about it… Anonymous email:

> You need to play with mine. Don’t be taken in by the Cory Doctorow
fear mongerers. It’s quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever owned
as a reader. A quarter is a no brainer since all the purchases are one
clickers. My first 4 books were out of print editions that I’ve been
trying to track down for over a year with no luck and I paid an
average of $5 each. It’s like magic I tell ya! And it’s a breeze to
import Project Gutenberg books so you have about 120k books for free.
This backlash is totally juvenile.

Just my thoughts on it,

I blogged the world’s most boring gangbang here; the comments are priceless. Now, once more, but *with feeling* please…

I adore this 2008 calendar: it’s a whipsmart, tongue in cheek(s) pinup treatment of “The Lovely Mistresses of George W Bush“. So cute, and the images are kinda hot. I love their stats and names, like “The lovely nurse: Robyn DeSyck”… (via Fleshbot)

#

My mom: So I really need a way to get ahold of you. You don’t answer your phone.
Me: I know!
Mom: No, really, A real way that I can get you right away. Like some kind of signal.
Me: Like a bat signal? Can’t you just, like, shine some kind of a light into the fog with a symbol in it and I’ll see it? Commissioner?
Mom: (…pauses until I stop giggling…) Well, I can just send a patrol car to pick you up.
Me: (gulp)

#

via email:

> That [redacted] shit over at [redacted] is so fucked. I don’t even know what to say about it, it is just the adult industry showing its worst side, siding with the “helpless” little deer in the headlights porn star against the big bad enormously wealthy ultra powerful legal machine of the freelance writer. I could make nasty innuendos about [redacted] but it would just be undignified. His implication that you are some loaded bitch is what kills me. As if.

#

(walking to a party with a group of tech people)

Boy 1: So, how’d it go with the VC’s?
Boy 2: Alright.
Boy 1: That great eh?
Boy 2: I’m kind of sick.
Boy 1: Maybe you could cough on them and they’ll throw money at you to keep you away.
Boy 2: Nah, it’s better if you cough on them and they get sick because they blow their noses on hundred-dollar bills.
(pained laughter)

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Shots of me and Alex from last night, rolling around in bed after meeting my Chronicle deadline and before more sick-bed Buffy (season 6). Here’s the set of insane adorableness.

Also: I went to one of those A-listy parties last weekend and had a blast. It was on World War 2 cargo ship the SS Jeremiah (images and text about the party is here)! Thanks and smooches to my new pal Tim Ferriss for inviting me. I finally got a chance to connect with Brian Solis (yay!) and many others in both government and entertainment, snuggled with a few close friends and got caught up with folks I usually only see fleetingly at conventions and parties.

Hacker Boy and I shared a camera at the party and our shots of the gorgeous engine room are here (yes, my TX1 is broken *again* and I have a Lumix on my wish list, sigh). Scott Beale has incredible daytime photos from last August here.

Update: Two cats talking! Sean sent it to me IMing, “I have a bloody nose from ramming my face into my screen trying to snuggle with them.”.

I just created entries for and uploaded two of my ebooks How to Kiss and Creatures of the Night to Amazon’s new Digital Text Platform store — and their Kindle Reader catalog. It’s a very easy-to-use interface. I mean, provided you already have content, it’s formatted, you’ve purchased your own ISBN numbers, your description text and cover art is ready, etc. Luckily I do, because I never sleep, and when I do it’s on a pile of smutty books and well-oiled Hacker Boys. Basically, you sign in and fill out the fields, upload an image and text file and then hit “publish”. The info fields are exactly what I expected from staring at Amazon book product pages, and the formats it accepts are HTML, unencrypted .mobi eBook files, Microsoft Word (.doc), plain text (.txt) and Adobe PDF. The whole process is a *lot* like YouTube — you could easily call it YouTube for ebooks. After you upload, it takes a swift minute to convert it to a Kindle Reader file, which you can then preview, and it totally interprets your formatting. Like YouTube, it doesn’t seem to be a very high-quality, quick file conversion. But my books looked decent; now I just wait 12 hours, supposedly for Amazon to be “integrating your content into the Amazon.com global catalog, i.e. creating a product detail page, addition of content Amazon’s search index and the Amazon Kindle categories, etc.”

I wonder if it’s also to screen for content, but I guess I’ll find out. Or not; I didn’t upload anything out-of-control racy. But it’s a total rip for publishers — you only get 35% of the sale price, and in the fine print Amazon reserves the right to determine the final sale price. I guess it’s a trade-off if writers and publishers get enough exposure and increased sales to make up for being on the fuzzy end of the lollipop, royalty-wise. And it’s good if people want the content just for the Kindle platform. But to me it’s all an experiment. I figure if people want to ensure their dollars go directly to me and the authors I work with, they’ll buy the books directly from my DRM-free ebook/audiobook site.

We’ll see what happens! I’ll update this post if and when the Amazon listings go live so you can see what it all ends up looking like.

Update: All systems are go and the books are live in Kindle editions! They still haven’t added my product description, but it looks good so far and they are using the prices I set. Check out the product pages for How to Kiss and Creatures of the Night.

Lane Hartwell took my new publicity photo last weekend :D

Taking a break form the sexy for a minute to show you two videos that have really hit a positive nerve with me this week. One, the Larry Lessig TED talk about copyright, creative freedom, remix culture (and the criminalization thereof), and how companies trying to control content are alienating not just users but generations — the new cinema of transgression is indeed breeding online. (thanks, Jamie!)

The other is one you may have already seen; I’m sure the Kucinich video made the rounds this week but if you’ve been working like a laptop porn mine slave like I have, you may have missed it — and you don’t want to miss this one. It’s going to have you in your chair much in the same way Stephen Colbert did when he addressed the president (via Steve Dekorte’s blog):

BLITZER: Congressman Kucinich, I believe you’re the only person on this stage who had a chance to vote on the Patriot Act right after 9/11 who voted against it right away.

KUCINICH: That’s because I read it.

Both videos are embedded after the jump.

(more…)

A few fun galleries for the weekend; it’s been while since they’ve sent me anything that I think is sexy; it’s been several weeks of too skinny, too young looking, and sadly in the case of Richard Kern’s New Nude City, low quality photography. But I do like his recent shoot with this young Indian beauty. In the realm of well-shot, explicit nudes I especially like Hegre’s set of Sophie in her black panties (above); Gallery Carre’s black and whites really rock my world for a change with blonde Maria all super-flexible on a sofa, the stunning macros of Elektra and her glass dildo, and smiley brunette Gabriella in sunlight at a window. Free porn = good. Don’t buy, just look and enjoy.

A little early, but I’m not complaining. See the whole set (if you’re not a member or don’t have your permissions set to see naughty stuff) with this guest pass, plus all photos marked as private in my photostream. Who sez it’s not the ’season of giving’?

Update: The Fleshbot exclusive gallery is up! Check it out.

No, it’s not the Naked Ambition anthology I had a nonfiction essay published in, but a whole other book about the porn industry with the same title — Michael Grecco’s Naked Ambition is a big fancy photo book of mainstream porn peeps. The mens’ mag styled text and porn glam is missable, but the images are compelling and often raw, despite the Pornywood sheen. And it’s the topic of this week’s column, plus I interview the photographer, who is apparently catching flak for not retouching the images… Interesting stuff.

We’ll have an exclusive gallery at Fleshbot shortly *now live*. Here’s a snip from my column:

(…) “Naked Ambition” captures all the bright pink everything, Lucite heels, trashy stripperwear, het stereotypes and big-boobed blondes that seem fresh from a trip through a 1990s frat-boy time machine. It’s DVD culture (far, far from Internet culture) and dated sexuality, preserved like a pornified Twinkie in its format and distribution channels. Glimmers of event horizon seep through in the text: Vivid Video’s Steve Hirsch smartly remarks, “If you are a producer and the majority of your income comes from DVD sales, you are in trouble.”

Yet unlike every other mainstream depiction of porn, in “Naked Ambition” you won’t find a sex-negative attitude that presents porn people as “damaged” or “sleazy.” There’s no judgment or underlying apology for the topic. It just is.

Refreshingly, we’re allowed to look at every angry pimple and crepelike fold on surgified breasts, while also clearly seeing the unmade, natural beauty of women like Dana DeArmond (myspace.com/littledana) and Michelle Aston (michelle-aston.com), and decide for ourselves. Grecco doesn’t avoid any challenges with his lens, and it’s the book’s explicit inclusivity — like showing a voluptuous trans performer shaved and naked, breasts and biological genitalia intact — that I think would ensure this book a NC-17 instead of an R.

The event at which Grecco shot this book is actually not very fun to attend, unless you have friends with you. It’s rather freaky (in the not-sexy way). There are security guards posted at the entrances to all women’s restrooms. After an hour squeezing through men packed together (the fans) and the performers’ exaggeration of femininity and sexuality all bottled up in one place, it’s difficult to tell if it feels homoerotic or suffocatingly heterosexual. The awards are long and boring — just like the Oscars they’re modeled after. They seem more made up and less relevant every Internet minute. And we wish the best for porn stars, really, but I’m pretty sure their bright, glued-on turquoise and gold Barbie dresses are not part of those wishes. (…)

Link.

* Following today’s Bella Vendetta post at Fleshbot, I spotted this short interview with erotic/fashion photographer Guido Argentini at Eros Zine — leading me to his very fun galleries and images like the one above.

* Sometimes I joke about the therapy bills porn star parents might have for their kids; turns out vlogging is its own therapy for kids like Ryan Makowski. “Growing Up X is the story of Ryan Makowski, an average 17-year old whose parents just happen to be in the adult business.” (@ myspace, thanks Courtney!)

* Feministing’s take on the WSJ when it (finally) discovered the Midwest Teen Sex Show is pretty neutral. It’s a great show, though I’m not at all in love with it — but not for the reasons they think.

* I almost missed this Halloween porn list, but for some of us, it’s every day. Hot Movies has their list of the Top 7 Horror Porns. Why stop at just seven? There are so many to choose from. Intentional, and otherwise. (via Viviane)

* Members of the European Parliament are using Facebook to launch a condom campaign. Let’s just hope they’re using their real names, or else.

* Sex and tea has always sounded nice to me. But in Semarang, sex and jasmine tea means something entirely different — “The peculiar relationship between sex and jasmine tea in downtown Semarang keeps both police and prostitutes in a game of cat and mouse.” Sex and Tea in Semarang is a fascinating story about tea house brothels, the language of sex negotiation and tea nomenclature.

My head hurts. I just spent 4 hours at the hospital with Hacker Boy, more doc time. He has viral bronchitis, again (he had it back in March when we did the SRL Maker Faire show). His other trip to the ER has been explained and he is okay (and will be), but the future holds more doctors. WTF is up with this year? I’m over it.

You may have seen it, but if you haven’t, I urge you to watch my dear friend Eddie’s video A Day At Oil Beach — he took a camera down to nearby Ocean beach here in San Francisco and shot what he saw, which is intense. Especially since it’s not one of the closed beaches. (We just had an oil disaster/accident here in the Bay. Ocean Beach is a couple miles from my house.) Our birds are dying, crab season is halted until further notice and the beaches are… well, watch the video and see for yourself. It’s heartbreaking and angry-making all at the same time; and also lovely footage of the beach at sunset.

Eddie has a photo set of his experience here; sweet Lane Hartwell has amazing shots here of the tanker and birds being cleaned (and hopefully saved, only 50% survive after cleaning). Pal Mattymatt has an ongoing post about it here, with volunteer information and more info/activity in the comments.

Update: part of that beach is now closed.