The Green Light District

This is one of my many favorite pieces by Alison Tyler. Its incredible subtlety that seems, to me, to intertwine with its also incredible evocativeness to provoke the staggering sexiness it does takes my breath away every time. Simply gorgeous.

I’ve loved this story ever since I first read it a few years ago. To me, it manages to combine humor, irreverence, and hot sex to quite charming effect!

I was delighted and mesmerized by this fantasy piece by the lovely Jade. Beautiful, hot, captivating—breathtaking!

I especially like the excerpts Michelle provides in this post as complementary to what she herself is saying. The combination of excerpt and her original offering strikes me as interesting and insightful.

I enjoy the variety of questions this interview includes, and I find Kristina’s responses about erotica, gender, and sexuality thoughtful and compelling.

I found this expose fascinating and appreciate Remittance Girl’s outlining in such detail the way she performed this research and the conclusions she drew.

I find this expose delightful and so appreciate Lynn’s exploring and writing it.

[Trigger warning for survivors of child and adult sexual abuse/assault.] This seems certainly not a light piece, and even hard to read. Its argument for the decriminalization of sex work seems resounding in a way I truly don’t understand how almost anyone could ignore.

While I find the phenomenon this post addresses troublesome and disheartening (for many of the reasons the post discusses), I find this post, in response to it, profoundly beautifully articulated.

While it amazes me that this still has to be said, I appreciate that Charlie says it and says it so well. Appreciating the individualism and complexity of sexuality and not appreciating reinforcement of simplistic gender assumptions are quite in alignment with my own perspective, and I feel Charlie speaks sensibly about them here.

I so wholly agree with Ms. Davis’s point at the end of this video that it energizes me to see it presented in a context with so many viewers. It has occurred to me since I can remember that the relative rarity of seeing certain positions or responsibilities fulfilled by female-bodied/-identified individuals seems to make it so when a woman does, she supposedly or is perceived as representing “women” in general—which strikes me as obviously ludicrous.

I have read this more than once now, and I have been brought to tears each time. This strikes me as one of the most beautiful, inspirational things I have seen about teaching, humanity, and gender in some time…perhaps ever.

This resonated quite a bit with me, and it strikes me as not an easy piece. While I saw in it a little more perception of separation based on sex than I have probably historically appreciated, I related to much of it, and I agree with the author (as I interpret it) that this seems very sad somehow. Ultimately, I really like the point I interpret her making at the end that it is up to all of us to be aware of ways our privilege might go unnoticed by us and result in historically oppressed populations feeling more so or dismissed, and to work to empathize and appreciate that all the time, thus “be[ing] vigilant, [because we] must make [ourselves] trustworthy. Every day.”

For whatever reason, I feel like I’ve been encountering references to and expositions about the concept of privilege lately. Of all of it, it may be that this piece, framed as a personal narrative and containing a progression of perception in memoir form, has struck me as both the most fascinating as well as one of the most effective illustrations of what privilege may mean and how it may manifest in everyday interactions.

I deeply appreciate this piece from Charlie. Though I read the Gaslighting piece he mentions sometime back, it never fully resonated with me, and I think even at the time I felt vaguely aware that that was because it seemed a little too simplistic and generalizing to me. I completely agree with Charlie that people of all genders and sexual orientations have engaged in this behavior, and I also concur that it isn’t always conscious. I feel much more resonance with Charlie’s exploration here, which I interpret as including and addressing gender socialization as well as lack of self-awareness, both of which strike me as paramount to the discussion at hand (or, frankly, almost any discussion relating to sociology or psychology).

As we wind down to the end of the Western calendar year, I’ve chosen three light pieces this week. This one made me smile the first time I saw it, and it still does.

I imagine just about any writer who has held readings or done a book promotion tour could appreciate the humor in this.

This seriously makes me laugh out loud. Even after reading it numerous times, I still crack up throughout it (often at the same parts, ha). Enjoy!

Since the author of this post (also known as Andrea Dale, a fellow erotica author), is someone I know personally, it’s possible this story affects me more than it would were that not the case. But I’m not sure—it seems to me it is a striking account of beautiful actions that brings me to tears. Regardless of whether I personally know those involved or not, I feel true gratitude for that kind of expression of beauty.

As simple as this post may seem, I felt quite moved by it. The sincere affection and love of a parent combined with the equally sincere recognition of one’s child as an autonomous being, and having the strength and equilibrium to be with both, inspires me deeply.

This strikes me as poignantly and beautifully encompassing of the kind of love and perspective that it seems to me can change the world.