Kinky Sex Link

My new article about slut shaming and young, single straight women who want to enjoy their sexuality is up at On The Issues, the premiere feminist magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

American society is not kind to sexually active, single, straight women, especially when virginity is so popular among political talking heads. The purity movement and “hooking up” culture are at loggerheads, creating a great deal of confusion.

Chances are, if you’re a woman who enjoys playing the field, you’ve been called a slut, whore, tramp, and a host of other slurs. There is no equivalent set of words for guys who play the field, and the words that describe them are positive, something to aspire to: Lothario, player, stud, Casanova. “Slut” is designed to humiliate and negatively judge a sexually active woman simply because she has a vagina.

But what if a young woman wants to explore her sexuality? What if she does not want to wait for marriage or isn’t really all that interested in marriage to begin with?

To read the rest, go to On The Issues:

http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2010summer/2010summer_Black.php

Lizzie

While I love writing about sex toys, my true love is erotic fiction. I will appear several times on Beth Wylde’s Yahoo Group this month talking about GLBT issues and promoting my books, in particular “Feral Heat” (m/m/f, m/m), “Lost In Her Mouth” (f/f), “Neighbors” (f/f), and my upcoming June 11, 2010 release “The Fountain Of Youth” (m/m).

Here’s the link to Beth’s Yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde

My release party for “The Fountain Of Youth” will be on Beth’s group on June 24, 2010 from noon until I drop. I will host a contest and a lucky winner will get a FREE copy of “The Fountain Of Youth”!

Look for more contests during the month.

Here are dates. Mark your calendars!

June 07 – GLBTQ open discussion
June 11 – Release Date – “The Fountain Of Youth”.
June 14 – Gay male fiction day – win a free copy of “Feral Heat”!
June 15 – Bi writer’s day
June 21 – F/F day – contests! Win free copy of “Neighbors” and “Lost In Her Mouth”.
June 24 – My chat day with contest! Win a copy of “The Fountain Of Youth”
June 28 – GLBTQ BDSM day

I’m looking forward to talking to all of those who love GLBTQ fiction.

My readers know that I write more than erotica and erotic romance. I’m also a sex writer. In fact, I think I do more sex writing than erotic romance writing. I just started writing for Good Vibrations Magazine, published by the sex toys company Good Vibrations, so I invite you to come check out my articles. Want to read fun articles about sex? Check out Good Vibes Mag!

Here’s the link to my Good Vibrations page, including links and excerpts from all my articles:

http://magazine.goodvibes.com/author/elizabeth-black/

My First Post – Talking ‘Bout Sex, Money, And Raising A Son

My son, who will go by the name The Royal Spawn since my blog is called The Countess, is in college now. He’s had a long-suffering attitude about my sex writing, as in he knows about it but I don’t go into detail because he says it’s TMI. (If you don’t know what TMI stands for, Google it.) When he last came up to Massachusetts from college in Maryland to visit for winter break, I showed him my first book in print form and I was very excited about it. So was he and he was very happy for me, but he backed off and said “but it has naughty words in it”. He wouldn’t touch my book with a ten foot pole.

Lack Of Integrity In Integrity Balls

Purity balls are all the rage. Girls pledged to their fathers that their hymens would remain intact until they married some guy who wasn’t under nearly the same pressure to remain “pure” as they were. As I have previously noted, teens who made abstinence pledges are almost as likely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease as those who never made the pledge. So much for the effectiveness of purity balls and abstinence pledges.

Don’t forget to read my articles at Sexis Magazine and Alternet.

Elizabeth Black – Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/authors/11032/

Read my article about getting over the G-spot. Here’s the link and a blurb:

Why We Really Need To Get Over The G-Spot
http://tinyurl.com/ykkm6um

Once again, sex experts are arguing over women’s sexuality, and as usual they ignore what women actually say about their sexual arousal and orgasms. This time, English and French sex experts are grousing over whether or not women have the fabled G-spot. The English say no and the French say yes, prompting a commenter on the blog Pandagon to describe the peek-a-boo games the G-spot plays with sex researchers as Schrödinger’s G-spot: “It both exists and doesn’t exist at the same time and the act of observing it changes it.”

Elizabeth Black – Sex Is
http://www.edenfantasys.com/contributors/elizabeth-black/

My latest article is about figging, which I enjoyed very much.

http://www.edenfantasys.com/sexis/sex/figging-0102101/

Fairly frequently, I get emails from all over asking me ‘What is a Leather Family?’. I’ve thought for months now that writing it out here and just having a link to give people would be a better solution than trying to explain it each time. Sounds easy enough. It’s been an oddly drawn out process. I’ve started writings that were very personal, some that were very academic and fourteen other flavours and just couldn’t seem to strike the right tone. Now I’m deciding to revert back to what my former preacher used to say: ‘Start at the beginning and when you come to the end.. stop’ (I know its been said by many others as well, but his is the voice I hear when I say it to myself). So, back to the beginning it is….

What IS a Leather Family?

At its most basic and simple, a Leather Family is nothing more than a group of people who identify as kinky in some way and wish to be known as part of a specific grouping.

Sounds simple right? Well it is, and it isn’t. Consider the following:

• Each one is unique, no one will look completely like another.
• The number of people involved can range from 2 to 200. There is no minimum or maximum.
• Sometimes there is a D/s or M/s dynamic to some or all of the members involved. Sometimes there is no stated power structure at all.
• Sometimes there is a sexual component to the relationships between some or all of the members of the group. Sometimes there is no sex at all.
• Sometimes there is a service aspect present between some or all members. Sometimes there is no service aspect at all.
• There are no hard & fast rules as to what constitutes a Leather Family (other than ones the members of an individual family mutually agrees upon, which often times never occurs)

After reading the above, you may be thinking ‘Well that sounds an awful lot like ‘Family of Choice’ or ‘Urban Tribe’ type stuff to me..’ And you’d be right! That’s exactly what it is. It’s just that when you add the ‘Leather Lifestyle’, ‘BDSM’, or ‘kink’ labels into the equation, the words change slightly. It basically means you & your closest pals are kinky,the relationships between you feels more familial than friendly and rather than just have this affinity go unnamed, you choose to place a label on it so that it’s easily understood that these people are very meaningful to you.

Like I said above, no two are alike. There are some with very structured hierarchies, some actually have members assigned to traditional familial labels (Daddy, sister, etc..) and some are a loose collection of people with shared interests. Some are little more than people who see each other at events and some have more rigid systems that may even include all members living in one house and following a strict set of rules regarding play, sex, finances, decision-making, etc. None of these is ‘more right’ or better than another. Basically it is what you feel, say, think it is.

Since it’s the only one I can speak to, I’ll give you the rundown on my very own ‘Leather Family’.

I live with my primary partner. He is also my Dominant. We are very blessed to have alot of fantastic people in our lives. Some are casual friendships, some are much closer. We play with lots of other people. We have sex with some but very few. My primary and I have our own power structure that does not extend to anyone else. We have people who are closer to us than others and it’s those in this intangible, rather undefinable ‘closer’ areas that we consider family.

On Fetlife a few of these people are marked as ‘in a Leather Family’. This was/is due to circumstance, a little bit of in-joking, and a little bit of seriousness over a very specific situation. It means that the people listed there are very dear to us. What it does NOT mean is that those NOT listed there are NOT dear to us. If I were to list every single person I consider family under my ‘in relationships with’ heading on Fetlife, John Baku himself would email me to let me know that his FL server is only so large and can’t contain my proclamations for all those I adore. There are people not listed there that I wouldnt hesitate to jump out of bed at 3am and drive 8 hours  just to give them a hug if they needed me. They would do the same for me. That, to me, is family. Fetlife label or no Fetlife label.

The kinky people who I know and that I feel would be there for me no matter what and I’d do the same for them, those are my Leather Family members. And I have alot of them. I cant quantify what makes them family to me, except how I feel about them. My Leather Family doesn’t look like anyone else’s. It’s more structured than some and not nearly as structured as others. I may not call them Daddy or sister or brother or Mistress, but I am bound to them from a place of shared interest and mutual affinity. They are precious to me in a way that historically only those bound by blood have been, and that’s what makes them family. The fact that I met and fell in love with them because of kink is what makes it Leather (to me).

And now we come to the end where we will stop, and the closing thought is this:

A Leather Family can be whatever you wish for it to be. There is no ‘one true way’. Its nothing more than you and the people you are close to and how you decide to define yourselves. Just to further the point, I’ll leave you with this bit from someone who said it much more poignantly than I as to what a Leather Family is:

Those very select few that i find solace, comfort, information, strength, and closeness with are the ones i consider my Leather Family. Those i have listed in my Leather Family on my profile are the ones i turn to for guidance, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to bend, assistance with situations i feel lost in, friendship, conversation, enjoyment, company, etc. There are a great many things i deal with in regards to my BDSM involvement that i cannot talk to my biological family about as they do not have an understanding or do not wish to be included.

i respect, adore, love, and relish my Leather Family, they are an extension of me. i would hope that i am there for them in the same manner that they are for me. i would give my life for them in the same manner that i would exchange my life for the One I give myself to completely. My Leather Family is exactly that, my family. I got to choose my family members this go around, and i think i have the bestest family ever!

http://www.tsrnetwork.com/blogs/entry/Leather-Family

~kim

Kink In Motion

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1. Family of Choice – a group of people who choose one another and whose bonds often mimic that of a birth family

2. Urban Tribe – a group of individuals that form communities or smaller grouping with bonds to provide the emotional support of an extended family.

3. Leather (as in the lifestyle) – for lack of a better definition (which I am happy to add should one be made available to me) the term ‘leather lifestyle’ is a very large term that can encompass ‘Old Guard’ practices/protocols/ hierarchies to those who engage in BDSM  to simply people who enjoy wearing leather. There is alot of debate about who has the right to claim which terms. These are debates  I am not prepared nor qualified to engage in. Ergo, the term ‘Leather Lifestyle’ is used here simply as a means of conveying a group of people who claim the term as applicable to them in some way.

4. BDSM – those who engage in some form of Bondage/Discipline/Domination/Submission/Sadism/Masochism.

5. Kink – those who view themselves as ‘set apart from the norm’ by way of their sexual or recreational proclivities, often with some BDSM leanings.

[This post first appeared on my blog, The Countess.]

I have long been fascinated with affairs, ever since I was in college and I realized that some married men would screw anything female with legs, as long as the woman presented herself to him in an appealing manner. I was occasionally that woman. It wasn’t just men who cheated on their spouses. Women have cheated countless times throughout history.

Is it really cheating if you never meet in person, leaving your sweaty paw prints all over the computer screen when interacting with your honey? I recall an article about a guy who was addicted to the online role playing game “Second Life”, and his real life wife was not happy that he had cheated on her with a woman he had “married” in the game. I found the real life wife posting on the Yahoo group EverQuest Widows, and she was so pissed about the article and all the new things she learned about her husband’s cyber affair that she had decided to divorce his ass.

Get a load of this near-miss one man had with his wife:

When Tim’s wife opened the Valentine’s Day gift he had mailed to her, he knew he was in trouble when she pulled an eight-inch purple butt plug out of the box.

That gift was meant for his cyber playmate. The company had shipped it to the wrong address.

He stammered, telling her it was really for him. He’s into bondage and sadistic play. She’s not.

He likes cybersex. He likes kinky web sites, in particular BDSM web sites. He said that he had done it “often when I had a day job that allowed unfiltered access to the Internet.”

He doesn’t consider his cyber-relationships affairs.

“They’re flirtations,” he said. “There’s no face-to-face.

Is it really an affair if it’s only on the Internet? What about hot, steamy e-mail exchanges? The concensus from my research into that article was that, yes, indeed, a married person who has cybersex is having an affair. Energy, attention, and sometimes even money are paid to the person who is not the adulterer’s spouse.

Here are some movies and books that address the time-honored practice of infidelity:

Anna Karenina
Double Indemnity
Casablanca
The Scarlet Letter
Body Heat
Same Time, Next Year
The Bridges Of Madison County
Indecent Proposal
Brief Encounter
The Postman Always Rings Twice
52 Pick Up

Affairs figure prominently amongst political scandals. Former President Bill Clinton is better known today for Monica Lewinsky’s blow jobs than for much of his public policy. Ministers such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart have seen their empires fall due to their inability to keep it in their pants. Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer saw his power crumble after the public got wind of his own carryings on with a prostitution ring.

Actors are also well known for their affairs. Katherine Hepburn has long been known to be Spencer Tracy’s lover, but his wife would not give him a divorce because they were Catholic. Elizabeth Taylor cheated on Eddie Fisher with Richard Burton, and later married Burton. Twice. When Billy Bob Thornton met Angelina Jolie, he was living with Laura Dern. Dern had once stated that “I left home to work on a movie, and while I was away, my boyfriend got married, and I’ve never heard from him again.” Angelina Jolie made the news again when she was linked with a very married Brad Pitt. As anyone with a pulse knows by now, Pitt left wife Jennifer Aniston and hooked up with Jolie. They are still together, and Jolie’s pregnancies and adopted children have made gossip columnists very happy.

Tiger Woods and John Edwards show that no matter how horrid they are affairs never go out of style. My work in progress “Dangerous Curves” (also might be titled “Don’t Call Me ‘Baby’”) includes lots of thought and action about affairs. My main character is a single young woman who has sex with lots of men including a few married ones. Her views of affairs change as she progresses through the book. One thing she notices is that the married man she is seeing gets incredibly jealous whenever she has a date with someone else. As if he has a right to complain about her seeing other men when he has a wife at home. It’s rather ironic that some married men demand exclusivity from their mistresses when they aren’t exclusive themselves.

[This post first appeared on my blog, The Countess.]

Under the “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” category is a study that found that work hours in excess of seventy per week wreck havok on your sex life and your marriage. Executives tend to work those kinds of hours, so they should take heed.

Apparently, these long working hours in executive positions is called “the extreme job“. I certainly would not like to work like that. What kind of life would that be?

People with extreme jobs don’t hate their jobs. In fact, the opposite is the case. They love their jobs. They brag about their earnings, their long hours, their work, and all the travel they have to do. The problem is that their families are suffering. Their sexual relationship with their spouses is in the toilet.

Harvard Business Review published the study. Those who work in extreme jobs consider a ten-hour work day a part-time job. What the hell kind of nonsense is that? It’s not new, though. Work hours in general are longer now than they were decades ago. The forty hour work week is getting to be a thing of the past. Plus, there is little job security. I remember that DuPont has laid off a bunch of workers a couple of years ago – just before Christmas. What a great present. I also suspect that those who work in extreme jobs aren’t pulling in the kinds of benefits that jobholders have had in decades past. They don’t take vacations or days off. They even go to work on days that they normally have off. These kinds of jobs also involve travel and “evening entertainment”, which was not identified. As far as I know, that could be anything from mandatory meetings at restaurants to after-work seminars and even meetings in strip clubs, which suck if you’re a woman surrounded by a gaggle of horny guys and you’re trying to discuss the latest sales figures. If anyone reading this post can identify what is meant by “evening entertainment”, please post in comments.

The article I link to described problems men and women in extreme jobs have, saying that “nearly half of men and women who took part in the international research project said their jobs “interfere with having a strong relationship with my spouse/partner.” So much time is spent on the job that relationships with spouses and children suffer. This includes the sexual relationship. These extreme job workers are too tired for sex. That’s not a good thing.

I’d rather see people scale back their working hours and enjoy their lives, but many jobs these days require longer hours and less time with families. I’ve always known that the workplace had never been family-friendly, but it seems to be getting worse. I’m glad I make my own work hours and control how I spend my time.

Anyone reading in an extreme job, or just have ridiculous working hours? Do you enjoy your job? How is your family life faring? Care to discuss the issue in comments?

Challenges make life interesting, however, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. – Mark Twain

Life has taken some unanticipated and less than desired turns as of late. There has been heartbreak and revelation, tears and trying moments, pity parties and plain ole bad days. But there’s also been processing and introspection, with a focus on how to do it better next time.

BDSM as a mechanism for personal growth never ceases to amaze me. Didn’t we get into this thing for the sex and the rush? For lots, yep.. that’s why we started. But for many of us it was just a springboard to looking deeper within ourselves to begin defining who we are, what we want, and other such things. Come for the sex, stay for the growth.

I thought I knew what  wanted from a submissive, from a partner. Things like control, power, structure, protocol, etc. Those things are still there. But recent developments have made me sit back and wonder, ‘What was missing? Why did things fall apart? What is it I wanted and didn’t know I wanted? What name does it bear?’

The answer came to me much more quickly than I would have expected: Devotion.

Forgetting the religious aspects of the word, the devotion I speak of here is defined as:

Yep, that’s it all right.

For me, this was one of those elementary, foundational ‘this is just how you do it’ kind of things. I assumed anyone who identified as submissive intrinsically felt this, simply because that’s always how I’d viewed it. It’s like teaching someone to wash their hands, you don’t always think to include telling them ‘now use soap..’ because it seems so obvious to you. But again with that self growth thing.. and a big part of that in BDSM and poly dynamics is realizing that we each bring our own histories and thoughts to an experience. Often this means words and concepts do not always mean the same to people as they do to you.

So we have the textbook definition of devotion, now what does that look like in real time and in relation to submission?  Here is a part of what it looks like to me:

• To want and desire with a full heart
• To set apart and above all things when practical
• To view or be viewed as special
• To think of that person and their needs and wants before your own a majority of the time and with consistency
• To act in an anticipatory manner so that the needs and wants of the person are met before a request is needed
• To look upon or be looked upon with eyes that are longing and eager to please
• To think of the self last
• To sacrifice personal comfort or wants for the other
• To be dedicated to making sure the other’s needs and desires are met
• To do all that is asked with sincerity and depth
• To perform with grace and enthusiasm for the greater cause
• To be transparent in communication and relaying emotional information
• To place one’s own well being and comfort in the hands of another after great thought and great trust with abandon
• Surrender of one’s will

There are others of course.. but the overall theme here is clear: to place another above yourself from a place of a desire.

Lest it seem I am asking for the moon, I am not unreasonable or entertaining visions of a god complex. If there are practical things like jobs, livelihoods, children, families, primary partners, emergencies, etc.. to be tended to then those should be seen to. But when at all possible, which actually is a goodly portion of the time; I want to be wanted, actively seeken out, to be served with enthusiasm, to have control freely given to me, to have someone be grateful for the effort I expend on them and return it in kind and more. I want someone who is devoted to me and my best interest.

This is how I have always approached a D/s dynamic as a submissive. I thought everyone did it the same way in this regard. Clearly, I needed to define it more. This is how I serve my Dominant. As a Dominant, this is how I want a submissive to serve me. Now that I have a more specific definition of it, I’ll be able to communicate this from the beginning for my next interaction.

New mistakes will be made in any future dynamic I enter into to be sure, but this one will be more easily intergrated I hope.

~kim

Kink In Motion

Posted from www.alpinesubdreams.com

Two Wednesdays ago was very special night. For the longest time, I’ve wanted a VCH (vertical clitoral hood) piercing but for one reason or another I never got it done.

PG knew that I’ve wanted to get it done and we were discussing that one night. It started out simple, I brought it up that I would like to do it with him there with me. Over the course of our conversations and the closer we become, the thought was mentioned to make it a special ceremony between us. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was right.

We knew we wanted it to be special and as sexy as piercing stores are, it wouldn’t of been the right atmosphere for us. We wanted it to be some place special to us. We also wanted the person who was doing the person to understand the D/s element of it and at the very least be comfortable and understanding with it. We found that with the best piercer in Vancouver who understood all of that.

The more we talked about it and waited, the more it meant. It’s a commitment to each other and to our relationship. Even though, we are both poly, we have a special relationship and bond.

After some organizing and patiently waiting, Wednesday night was here. We went out for sushi and headed back to my place for some intimate bonding before getting ready.  After setting up the sling, showering and bonding the cell phone rang and we were only minutes away.

That’s when I got nervous, this meant so much to us and was a significant act. When I get nervous (and happy) I giggle a lot. PG was great and supportive. He relaxed me, tied a breast harness on me and gave me a lot of kisses and hugs. The time came and I was in the sling, legs spread and PG standing beside me while holding my hand.

After I was cleaned, PG took the time to say some very sweet words which will remain private. It was really sweet and touching. My heart melted and feelings of love came rushing into me. It also left me speechless.

I was told to remember what this means and take deep breaths. There was a wow oh fuck when the needle went in. A couple of seconds later, the jewelry went in. I laid in the sling embracing the feelings with PG right there. The sensations rushing in me. After gaining a bit of composure, we talked about different things about the piercing such as how to clean it (urine is the fine) and about how long we would have to wait for certain activities.

The adrenaline rush hit me and I was bouncing all over the place. After saying goodbye to the amazing piercer, we spent the rest of the night together and celebrating our new commitment.

It was a magic and special night between us. The emotions, love and adrenaline was running high. This is surely a night that we will both remember and a special piece of metal in me that displays it.