The Green Light District

Just Because

…I find this song ridiculously hot:

Love,
Emerald

“And I just can’t resist the urge to stand here in the light…I get off on you getting off on me…”
-Halestorm “I Get Off”

Filed under: Sex+ Art, Sex+ Diversion |8 Comments

The Case for Reading Erotica

A couple weeks ago I read an article in the New York Times that I considered blogging about but ultimately did not find compelling enough to do so. This is not because I didn’t find the article interesting but rather, I think, because I had not read enough of the work the author referenced to find myself relating to what she was postulating.

The article was about sex writing by male fiction authors of this and the immediately prior generation. Today I read three pages of letters to the editor in response to it, and those I have found compelling. (Compelling enough to blog about, obviously.) With the qualifier that I have still not read all or even many of the works the author references in her article or the ones mentioned in many of the responses, a consistent theme struck me, and a response began to arise repeatedly as I read more and more of the letters.

The summary of the article, written by Katie Roiphe and titled “The Naked and the Conflicted,” reads,

“We denounce the Great Male Novelists of the last century for their sexism. But something has been lost now that innocence is more fashionable than virility, the cuddle preferable to sex.”

The article’s general thesis seems to be that the current generation of male fiction authors are shying away from sex in their work, penning ambivalent, self-conscious sex scenes as contrasted with the previous generation’s works by authors such as John Updike, Norman Mailer, and Philip Roth, about which she says, for example, “There is in these scenes rage, revenge and some garden-variety sexism, but they are — in their force, in their gale winds, in their intelligence — charismatic, a celebration of the virility of their bookish, yet oddly irresistible, protagonists.”

She later laments things like, “But our new batch of young or youngish male novelists are not dreaming up Portnoys or Rabbits. The current sexual style is more childlike; innocence is more fashionable than virility, the cuddle preferable to sex,” and “Gone the familiar swagger, the straightforward artistic reveling in the sexual act itself,” concluding that in the previous generation’s work, “. . . there is in these old paperbacks an abiding interest in the sexual connection.”

The letters to the editor in response are varied, of course, but again, as I read them, a similar theme seemed evident to me.

This is an example of one of the responses:

Katie Roiphe’s essay has confirmed my suspicion that I’m not the only one to lament the disappearance of straight male sexual bravado in literature. I’m a feminist, but I still want to see inside the head of a man’s animal lust. Why must every roll in the hay be so ironic and self-conscious that it’s somehow castrated?

Other responses countered Ms. Roiphe’s proposition, but I also saw a few that introduced the idea that the trend she postulated may be resultant of a perceived “hypersexualized” culture and bombardment of messaging, expressed with lines such as, “In a world in which sex has become entirely ironic, and thus detached from real emotion, they find that the most emotional moments are no longer sexual,” and “a passing glance at Internet porn should explain why sexual candor no longer seems like much of a touchstone for artistic ambition.”

Whether the writers of the letters were agreeing with Ms. Roiphe’s hypothesis or expressing disgust or frustration with a “hypersexualized” culture in which explicit sex does not seem a “touchstone for artistic ambition,” the same response arose in me. This isn’t so much a response to Ms. Roiphe’s literary critique of past and contemporary treatment of sex by male authors (nor is it meant to be a discouragement of interpretive critique of literary trends and related societal implications) as it is a practical offering to what so many of the responders (and perhaps Ms. Roiphe herself) seem to be seeking, either overtly or between the lines:

Read erotica. If you’re not finding the authenticity, sincerity, directness, fearlessness, nuance, integration, and variety of sexual exploration and articulation you want to see in mainstream literature, read erotica. Read erotica published by Cleis Press, Black Lace (what will have to be already-published erotica now), Logical-Lust Publications, and any number of publishers listed on various erotica writers’ websites. That’s what the genre is here for, and if you think it won’t be “literary” enough, I am delighted to take the opportunity to direct you to evidence to the contrary.

For starters, pick up Donna George Storey’s novel Amorous Woman, Charlotte Stein’s short story collection The Things That Make Me Give In, erotic short stories written by Shanna Germain, Craig Sorensen, Alana Noel Voth, Nikki Magennis, P. S. Haven, to name a very few. That is a wholly non-exhaustive list, of course, but once you’ve delved into such things, you will likely discover a network or references with much more you may find of interest. Because that’s what this is—literary work that doesn’t hide sex, fearfully peeking at it from behind mainstream standards that demand either rebellion against or acquiescence to them. Just integrating sexuality into the work of writing fiction, the same way it is integrated into life.

“Sexual male bravado” and “a man’s animal lust” are not write-able only by males, as the above examples readily evidence.* Further, there are such things as female sexual bravado and a woman’s animal lust that do not seem to be mentioned in either the context of the “traditional male greats” or the supposed watered-down sexual description plaguing contemporary fiction. They are a part of sexuality, however, and may also be found in abundance in the above-cited works.

I have not read all of the referenced authors or work in either Katie Rophie’s article or the responses to the editor. But I have read the list presented above. And I offer it very sincerely as an antidote to what Ms. Roiphe and her responders seem to lament—from whatever perspective they may do so.

Love,
Emerald

*I will note that I’m not sure why the article is exclusively about male authors. Perhaps that aspect is an important part of Ms. Roiphe’s overall presentation. If so I don’t mean to detract from that; again, what I present here has less to do with critique and more to do with anyone who is interested in reading about sex presented unflinchingly, artistically, and authentically.

“‘Cause the good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems…”
-Billy Joel “Keepin’ the Faith”

Filed under: Sex+ Art, Sex+ Writing: Others' |16 Comments

The Other Dance Seeking Submissions

Several months ago I posted a letter and response to it, neither written by me, that related to openness about sexuality and an elder’s view and experience of sexuality. I did this because I appreciated the original letter and felt extraordinarily moved by the response.

The original letter was from A Pause for Beauty, the email newsletter of Heron Dance, a literary arts and wilderness publication to which I have subscribed for a few years. The founding artist of Heron Dance, Rod MacIver, is currently embarking on a new, additional venture in support of his nude and erotic watercolors (the picture accompanying this post is one of them) which is to include the publishing of an electronic newsletter with short erotic written pieces to accompany his paintings.

The newsletter has been named The Other Dance, and submissions for it are now being sought. The full call and contact information is on ERWA’s Call for Submissions page (note: they are accepting submissions from female authors only), and the website of the project, which showcases some of the paintings that are the impetus for The Other Dance, is EroticWatercolors.com.

Since I am familiar with this venture and have been a fan of Heron Dance for a few years, I wanted to pass the word along. When I posted last year the previously referenced letter Rod wrote for A Pause for Beauty (and the response it received from an 80-year-old woman), I did so because I appreciated the straightforward introduction of the subject of sexuality into the writing he was presenting. The Other Dance seems a continuation of that, and in wholehearted support of open and integrative recognition of sexuality, I wish it all the best.

Love,
Emerald

“But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on the wall, then I think we’d see the beauty and we’d stand staring in awe…”
-Bright Eyes “Bowl of Oranges”

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Yellow Lights and Long Summer Shadows

Earlier this week in my Spicy Summer Sundays blog tour post, I talked abut transition. As well I invited readers to talk about it, which they did so beautifully and thoughtfully that it has inspired me to continue to ponder the topic. (It appears I wasn’t the only one — check out the beautiful flash story Craig J. Sorensen created.) Yesterday as I was driving home, I noticed the “long shadows” that Rick had mentioned earlier as uniquely characteristic of evening in late summer. I wasn’t looking for them, but as I looked out the windshield at a large flowering bush, I suddenly did notice a particular kind of light. I realized the lighting appearance was that of the long shadows he had just been talking about — a sign of late summer.

As I mentioned in my poppy seed post, according to Traditional Five-Element Acupuncture we are in the season of Late Summer* — the season of transition. After writing the post and reading the extraordinary discussion that followed, I have been noticing transition more, and sometimes I have been deliberately pondering it as well.

As I noticed these long summer shadows, I simultaneously seemed to feel a quite vague, mysterious, and fleeting yearning. It occurred to me that transition may seem so fascinating to me because historically there has been an orientation in me distinctly disposed to focusing on extremes — a “one or the other,” “all or nothing,” black and white mentality. I remember when I was a kid, long before I learned to drive, I didn’t understand the purpose of the yellow traffic light. Seriously. It seemed to me you either go or stop — what is the in between of the yellow for? After I learned to drive, of course, the purpose of the yellow light made sense, but it seems funny to me that even now I can remember feeling genuinely confused by its existence.

Transition. The yellow light signals transition (interestingly, the color that corresponds to the Late Summer season in Five-Element Acupuncture is yellow). And in a way, transition flies in the face of that focus on extremes that has historically operated in me. Scarlett Greyson mentioned in a comment after the poppy seed post on Sunday the transition of fresh water to/from ocean water — an example I found exquisite, as well as one I don’t ever remember occurring to me. To the historical “extremes” perspective in me, there is fresh water and there is salt water. There are places of each. Somewhere in a cold mountain spring, the water is as fresh as can be. In the ocean, that freshness is nowhere to be seen in the utter saltiness of seawater.

Yet somewhere, there is a transition between. Somewhere, there is a meeting in which the extremes are not yet defined.

I felt actually startled when this relation between transition and non-extremes occurred to me, as I don’t know if it had ever quite occurred to me that way. Unsolicited, different areas of transition began to occur to me, along with how the historical orientation in me toward extremes may have influenced my perspective or experience.

First came writing. For almost as long as I can remember, I have loved the act of writing. Sometimes I have experienced it as evoking a near-euphoric feeling in me. In Jeremy Edwards’s Spicy Summer Sunday post, he asked what readers’ favorite phase of the writing process was. An answer I gave, very sincerely, is that one of my favorite parts of writing a story is when I finish it. I mentioned a possible reason for that as well, and a number of reasons for such have occurred to me before, but this drive yesterday was the first time viewing it in relation to transition had occurred to me.

I have noticed — numerous times — a part of my psyche that has seemed to operate with “the story has not been written yet” and “the story is done” being basically the two aspects it feels aware of or interested in. The middle literally seems like a blank. The act of writing, when I’m doing it, may feel magnificent, but if I am not writing and examining what to work on or do, I have often felt this orientation in me front and center.

As though it looks at the actual writing of the story as a transition. And it does not feel interested in that as per its zeroing in on the extremes — the story is either done or it is not started yet (or barely started during a time of aforementioned euphoria-producing writing but obviously not finished yet).

I wondered as this occurred to me what this part of the psyche in me does not like about transitions. Possible answers came forth again unsolicited. Transition may be a time of uncertainty, of disorganization, of fragility, and perhaps most of all (maybe in part due to those things) of vulnerability. It was not new to me to recognize that a part of me has historically not felt comfortable with those things. It was new to me to consider them specifically in the context of transition.

At which time sex occurred to me. When I was younger, the perspective in me about sex seemed often not interested in transition. In fact, it seemed distinctly opposed to it and wanted to pass over it as quickly as possible/practical. The orientation in me at that time was to literally go from determining the interest in and practicality of fucking someone to the act of doing so in as little time as possible. The area of transition was where things like emotion and, perhaps relatedly, vulnerability could develop. Of course in these encounters I was interested in mutual respect (in fact insisted upon it), connection, and to some degree affection, but serious emotional experience or certainly intimacy (which I’m not sure this part of me even had a conception of) seemed disorienting, frightening, or utterly foreign to this part of me and, according to it, were to be avoided.

When I first became a patient of Five-Element Acupuncture in January 2006, the layout of the five seasons was explained to me (the familiar four plus Late Summer), and it came to light also that each season presented unique offerings and gifts. At the time, I liked summer and that was about it and had found plenty of reasons to disdain the others. During the course of treatment, my acupuncturist presented the different offerings of each season, and a significantly new appreciation for all of the seasons and their incredible respective offerings developed in me (so much so that I was actually just moved to tears as I typed that).

As I write this I feel like the examination of Late Summer has perhaps been the least focused on for me. I’m not sure why — maybe because we haven’t seemed to work as much on that element in me (each season corresponds with an element in Five-Element Acupuncture, which relate to meridians in the physical body), or maybe because its being the transitional season has made it not seem so much like a “season” to me as the four with which I was previously familiar. In any case, the opportunity really seems prominent to me right now for me to appreciate and explore this season of transition. I feel deeply grateful as such.

Love,
Emerald

*I would guess that now we are actually quite close to or even into Autumn according to the Five-Element calendar, which does not follow or coincide with the official Western calendar (e.g., the Western calendar places the beginning of such seasons as summer and winter around their actual solstices, which according to the calendar of Traditional Chinese Medicine is actually their peak).

“And look for the stars as the sun goes down…just sit back…prepare for the best and the fastest ride…everything’s magic…”
-Angels & Airwaves “Everything’s Magic”

Filed under: Sex+ Art, Sex+ Diversion, Sex+ Spirituality |17 Comments

A Portrait of Age and Sexuality

Since this blog deals with sexuality, and since I have considered myself a supporter and advocate of open, sincere acknowledgment and exploration of sexuality, it feels remiss to me to not post this.

From the June 10 edition of an online newsletter to which I have subscribed for a few years (this is the first time I recall seeing him overtly reference human sexuality):

Dear Heron Dancers,

Over the years, positive emails and letters from subscribers to Heron Dance and A Pause for Beauty have outnumbered negative responses about ninety-nine to one. Of course, that excludes the time a few years ago when I quoted Doug Peacock, aka Hayduke, who said in a Heron Dance interview, “Beware of homicidal lesbian motorcycle gangs in the Dakotas!” (Issue 21). That time the ratio dropped to about ninety: ten. A couple of weeks ago the responses became more like eight to one, and the reactions on both sides have been much more intense than usual.

Although I wish they didn’t, the negatives preoccupy me more than the positives, no matter what the ratio. But Heron Dance now has a creative energy and excitement it hasn’t had since the early years. It all still revolves around the connection with a spiritual core, a spiritual center of…of what? Of a human life? Of life in general? Of the universe? I don’t know, but I do know that, regardless, there are times of flow and harmony and times of disharmony, distraction and setback. I want to write about those ups and downs from a different perspective than I have in the past.

The protagonist of my story is a certain wild artist, partly fictional, partly me. He’s a deeply spiritual man and his spirituality revolves around wild nature and the sense of peace he finds there. He’s put a lot of thought into how he lives his life and lives more or less on his own terms. He has a wild and free creative energy. He loves literature and music. Security means less to him than sucking, as Thoreau said, the marrow out of life. He experiences a lot of ups and downs, triumphs and defeats. He tries to walk his path with as much dignity and equanimity as he can find within himself. Sometimes it is a lot; at other times it isn’t much at all.

As with most of us, eroticism and sexuality play a major role in his life. That, of course, is the controversial part of this work. Sex is such a powerful part of life that we fear it, even try to hide it. Perhaps we should; uncontrolled, it can cause a life to unravel and, at times, it causes our protagonist’s life to unravel. I’m putting the erotic part of his journey in the story because, without it, the story lacks authenticity. They all feed each other: his creative energy, his love of wild places, his sexuality.

He’s known a lot of love in his life. Profound love. He goes through long periods — in two instances more than seven years — in committed relationships. In between, he seems to go through multi-month periods as a free agent. He didn’t used to. When he was younger, it was one live-in girlfriend after another. As our story opens, he is in one of his wandering phases. He dreams of a committed monogamous relationship, but he also loves solitude and quiet. His struggle in this area, as in the other important areas, is to keep the faith, keep touch with that spiritual core. Sometimes he loses touch and I really want to explore that.

I’m painting a lot of nudes these days. I’m working with three different models, but one in particular has captured my imagination. She’s a very beautiful art student; a young woman who sometimes camps alone in the forest. When she’s standing there with her back to me, her right hip thrust out, I want to just go up and bite her gently on the nape of her neck. Then she’d moan and I’d cup her breasts in my hands. Of course, she might turn around and slug me. That wouldn’t be good. Or she might start crying. I’d very definitely go into a tailspin. I might start crying too. If I started crying, she might not pose for me again.

This is all ridiculous. This beautiful young woman, with her dreams of far off places and of new experiences, does not fit well into my scenario, nor I hers. We’d take rather than contribute energy to each other’s lives, and we both know it. Reality and fantasy are different sometimes. And difficult. Maddening, actually.

So we talk about past loves, about wild horses and wild rivers, about art and our families. We talk about sexual experiences from our pasts. I try to be on my best behavior, but sometimes my conversation is out of balance and crosses that vague but important boundary. I’ve got this fold-down couch and I ask her to lie down and pretend like she’s pretending she’s asleep and trying to nonchalantly interest her boyfriend in sex….She does. I paint her. My painting is off balance.

I think I need a break for awhile. Maybe I need to find a different model. There is so much highly charged energy flowing around the room. Unsettled energy. I lose my bearings. My vision for this work — sexual, erotic art but with a flow, a calm and peace about it — is unlikely to evolve out of this scenario. Maybe I need to just paint women with whom I have an emotional bond, women with whom I share a sense of peace.

That which does not have cannot give. And that, dear Heron Dancers, is all I have to say for today. That’s probably more than enough.

In celebration of the Great Dance of Life,

Roderick W. MacIver

And one of the responses he received via email (original may be read by scrolling down here):

Ah yes, Rod,

I can thoroughly relate to your protagonists adventures with the model. I, however, am a eighty year old female….in an asexual relationship…..hmmmm let me just call this my protagonist…too personal to tell you it’s me.

She was divorced after a twenty year marriage when she was about forty. Did it all. Over the next twenty years. There were married men, there were monogamous several year relationships, there were one night stands, and there have been three live-in relationships.

There were road trips across the country, and a spirit-led three year trip to a majestic tropical setting, far away from her usual life. Life was so simple that she owned no keys . Her body and the wild beaches and ocean were joined, and her bed was in a retreat center just off the beach.

And always the theme of liking to live life on her terms, liking solitude, and wanting to be lovers with nature at its wildest. Dancing naked in thunderstorms, swimming naked in the salty waves, camping peacefully beside a waterfall, walking the beaches, and crying at the majesty of sunsets. Alone thank you, unless in the throes of infatuation with another man.

She now lives with a man that she has lived with for over ten years. She has seen him through having his prostate removed, only to find that the cancer was not gone. And he has seen her through some mysterious process which allows her only to walk in a crippled way. NO more running through the forest, or on the beaches. All that is left is the freedom of being in water, or on a bicycle, and even then, not too far into wilderness. They always carry a cell phone now in case….bones are frailer at these ages. This life, even though only fifteen years ago , she was up on the roof of the house, nailing back shingles that had come off in a windstorm, and watching a controlled burn of the prairie, with the wind from the flames whipping past her face, And she thought nothing of being 65 and being on that roof. Now, she could maybe not even get up there.

As I said, her relationship is asexual. She is not. It is a terrible quandary at times, when she sees the young boys on the beach with the silhouettes of their front side beckoning her both forward , and back in time. Or when she meets an occasional vital older man, who recognizes her inner self.

When she was younger, the dilemma was her sexuality versus commitment to a relationship. Now it is the same, but the relationship has become more important than the sexuality.

That does not mean it does not still hurt. Or tug at the fibers of her heart and her well used and well loved other body parts. She wishes she could have it all….wild natural interaction, wild personal interaction, and a peaceful and loving commitment.

She remembers well that unbalanced feeling of an unfulfilled sexual attraction. That which would not leave her alone, until she was driven to another man, another sexual adventure, another crashing onto the beach of the wave of eroticism that had come over her. There was no fantasy, dream, or writing that would take the place of the “action”. She often wondered how the nuns lived, and concluded that they were better at suppression than she, or more committed to their marriage with Jesus, than their marriage to their body. She was not. Her body, her sexual nature was so very important and so very strong, that it nearly ruled her entire life at times. It would not let her feel balanced until fulfilled.

Age has dulled the lack of balance, and though she often walks in peace, she feels the loss of not having it all. Of giving up that which has been so vital and important. Her ability to walk for miles down the deserted beach, her chances to tangle her body with another, in the highest forms of ecstasy that she ever experienced, AND a committed partner beside her.

She supposes she should thank aging and circumstances for making the choices she could not have made for herself. She is very, very grateful for all that life has brought her.

And she is even grateful for today’s life….as out of balance as it may sound….it has its own sense of balance.

A subscriber

I have nothing to add.

Love,
Emerald

“When our time is up, when our lives are done, will we say we’ve had our fun?…all the love I’ve met, I have no regrets, if it all ends now I’m set…”
-Lostprophets “Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)”

Filed under: Sex+ Art, Sex+ Spirituality |6 Comments

Let’s Talk About Sex — Part 2

Part 2 of my interview with the spectacular Dr. Dick is up on his site now! If you missed the first part of our interview last week, all Dr. Dick’s podcasts are archived on his site, and last week’s edition may be found here.

In this second half of our interview we talk more about erotica, writing, and linguistic/cultural/philosophical questions in relation to sex. As I said last week, I really had a blast talking with him.

In this installment I also read from my story “What We Do,” featured in the upcoming Swing! anthology, to be released soon!!

Thank you again for listening, and thanks again so much to the fabulous Dr. Dick!

Love,
Emerald

“People might misunderstand what we’re saying, you know?, no but that’s a part of life, come on, let’s talk about sex baby…”
-Salt-N-Pepa “Let’s Talk About Sex”

Filed under: Sex+ Art, Sex+ Spirituality, Sex+ Work, Sex+ Writing: Mine |3 Comments

Let’s Talk About Sex

I am really, really delighted to announce my interview with the eminent sexologist Richard Wagner, a.k.a. Dr. Dick of Dr. Dick’s Sex Advice! Dr. Dick interviewed me for his podcast series called The Erotic Mind, in which he interviews erotic artists, and I was honored to take part.

The first half of our interview may be heard online now! (Dr. Dick’s podcasts may also be found on iTunes under “Dr. Dick’s Sex Advice.”) Our full interview encompasses a number of topics about erotica and writing in a cultural, spiritual, and artistic context. I had much fun talking with him! This first part that’s up now focuses on how/when I became a writer of erotica, my pen name, personal history, etc.

In addition, I also read from my story “With Random Precision,” found in the anthology Love Notes: A Music & Sex Anthology published by Ravenous Romance.

I enormously enjoyed working with Dr. Dick, and I encourage you to check out this illuminating interview with him at the Swing! website. I myself find his dedication remarkable, and I personally thank him for his service in the field of sexuality.

Thanks for listening, and thanks again to the magnificent Dr. Dick!

Love,
Emerald

“Let’s talk about sex for now to the people at home or in the crowd, it keeps coming up anyhow, don’t decoy, avoid, or make void the topic, ’cause that ain’t gonna stop it…”
Salt-N-Pepa “Let’s Talk About Sex”

Filed under: Sex+ Art, Sex+ Spirituality, Sex+ Work, Sex+ Writing: Mine |8 Comments