the reading list

I'm hosting a BDSM panel at a writer's convention in a couple weeks, and several people asked me to post my BDSM reading recommendations here since they can't make the convention. Not all of these are BDSM, but may contain elements, or in the case of anthologies or collections, contain a story or two that is BDSM related. This list is nowhere near complete. I do forget incredible books. (feel free to add your favs in comments)

I didn't add them to the list, but suppose I should mention the Gor series. There are Gor lifestylers, many Gor Universe chat rooms, and legions of fans. I simply don't happen to be one of them. Not every book is for every reader.

Anyway - The List

Websites:

Castlerealm

Clean Sheets

Desdmonas

The Doms View

DL King

The Erotica Readers and Writer’s Association Simply the finest community of Erotica Writers to be found anywhere.

Justus Roux (warning - has very annoying sound, so turn down your speakers before you click through)

Literotica

Leathernroses

Scarlet Letters

Dusk Peterson’s

Velvet Mafia (a personal favorite)



Erotic Images:

Pink Box by Joan Sinclair

Joe Oppedisano

The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage by Midori

(I know there are many more)


Anthologies and collections:

Any 2 People Kissing, Kate Dominic

Best Bondage Erotica, Vols 1 & 2, edited by Alison Tyler

Best S/M Erotica, Volume 1 Extreme Stories About Extreme Sex, edited
by M. Christian

Best American Erotica series, edited by Susie Bright

Best Women’s Erotica series, edited by Violet Blue

Best Lesbian Erotica series, edited by Tristan Taormino

The Bachelor Machine, M. Christian

Johnny Was, Greg Wharton

Fire, Lisabet Sarai

Little Birds, Anis Nin - classic

Mammoth Book of Best Erotica series, edited by Maxim Jakubowski

See Dick Deconstruct or Satyriasis: Literotica 2, Ian Philips (Ian's Harder is the hottest short story I've ever read.)

Sacred Exchange, edited by Lisabet Sarai and Seneca Mayfair

Master/Slave edited by N.T. Morley

Writing Naked, Mike Kimera


Novels:

The Beauty series by Anne Rice

Blue of Noon and Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille

Carrie's Story and Safe Word by Molley Weatherfield

Lofting by Alma Marceau

The Marketplace series by Laura Antoniou

The Works of the Marquis de Sade and Justine

Mortal Companion by Patrick Califia

Mr. Benson by John Preston

Story of O by Pauline Reage

Taming Of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (play)

Topping From Below by Laura Reese

Travels With A Whip by G.C. Scott

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch


How to Books:

Bondage on a Budget by Alison Tyler

The Book of Kink by Midori

Come Hither: A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex by Dr. Gloria Brame

The Compleat Slave: Creating and Living an Erotic Dominant/submissive
Lifestyle by Jack Rinella

The Compleat Spanker by Lady Green

Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance & Submission By Gloria Brame, William Brame & Jon Jacobs

Elements of Arousal by Lars Eighner (out of print, unfortunately, but you can find it)

The Ethical Slut Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt

Erotic Surrender: The Sensual Joys of Female Submission by Claudia
Varrin

The Essential Guide to The Practice of Corporal Punishment by Lucy

The Family Jewels: A Guide to Male Genital Play and Torment by Hardy Haberman

How to Write A Dirty Story by Susie Bright

The Leatherman's Handbook: Silver Jubilee Edition by Larry Townsend

The Loving Dominant by John Warren

Miss Abernathy's Concise Slave Training Manual by Christina Abernathy

The New Bottoming Book and The New Topping Book by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton

Sadomasochism by Philip Miller and Molly Devon

Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns: The Romance and Sexual Sorcery of SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Weisman

The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage by Midori

Sensuous Magic: A Guide For Adventurous Couples By Pat Califia

The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women by Tristan Taormino

When Someone You Love is Kinky by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt

Wild Side Sex by Midori

One of the Perks

of spending my evenings checking the information on this database is the stuff I stumble across.

Warning - not safe for work, but this work by Joe Oppedisano
is some of the best
homoerotic photography I've ever seen. You can almost smell
the sweat.

Finally, a New Entry!

I haven't been blogging much lately. My main excuse is that I've been
busy working on that database for Saints and Sinners. All the entries
are done, but now I'm checking them to make sure it has updated
information.

Maybe it's because it's February, and everyone has Valentine's issues up, but it seems like every site I've been to has pictures of young couples in love, talking of marriage. At my last writer's salon, we talked a bit about the trend we've seen in young gay men who fully expect to marry, have kids, and move to the suburbs. And
then we all sighed. This cautious hand wringing reminds me of a
conversation I overheard at the West HollywoodBook fair between two mature gay men - possibly partners.

Gentleman
1: "They don't even know about what we had to go through, and they
don't care. All they (young gay men) want to do is go out and dance and
have a good time. That isn't why we fought so hard for our rights."

Gentleman 2: "Yes it is."

Is
assimilation going to kill gay culture? Is all that vibrant urban life
going to get sucked into the suburbs and made into a bland, homogenized
life? That's the fear. But that's the fear of every unique culture in
the US. Blend and disappear, lose your identity, or stay separate? When your young are talking about doing the blend and disappear routine, does it feel as if the community has failed, or succeeded? This is going to be an interesting topic in the gay community in the coming years, and I predict a lot of soul searching, academic papers, and heated rhetoric. Stay tuned.

Dreaming of New Orleans

Every night this past week and all yesterday I worked on a project for Amie Evans related to the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival. My hands are killing me. I work on the computer all day, and I write all evening, but work involves surfing for research followed by reading, and writing is bursts of furious typing followed by staring at the screen while I try to figure out what to write next. None of which prepares me for hours on end of data entry. It's a good thing Amie bribed me with chocolate. I sure as heck wouldn't be this diligent for a banana Moon Pie.




Between reading Greg Herren's blog and working on this database, I'm getting that itch to be back in New Orleans. Something about that town got under my skin, and every year about this time I realize that May is too damn far away. I can't even define what it is that draws me back. (Not the food. Most people rave about Cajun cuisine, but I'm allergic to so much of it that finding food in New Orleans is actually a challenge for me.) It's the music, it's the architecture, it's that feeling of being in one of the few remaining unique places in the US, it's the energy, it's the people, but even that list doesn't sum up that certain unidentifiable something that New Orleans has.

I am Not Lazy

Eh, yes I am. I'm doing some grunt work for Saints and Sinners Literary
Conference and don't have time to be pithy on my own, so I swiped it
from other people.

Gideonse Bible This is the kind of stuff that happens to people around me as I try to look really busy and above such things.

Perfect for Valentine's Day - Homemade Sex Toys! NSFW!!!!!

And go here in case you're at a loss for words when the god or
goddess of your life walks down the hallway accompanied by the rosy
glints of dawn, and somewhere far off, birds sing (I can't find Jean
Sheppard's exact quote on DaphneBigelow, but you get the idea).

Nobody Passes

Last night I went to the LA reading for Mattilda's (AKA Matt Bernstein Sycamore) Nobody Passes: Rejecting The Rules of Gender Conformity last night with a visiting friend from New York. Since experiencing Mattilda is always an event, I had to take pictures - but somehow managed to take only horrible ones. I refuse to post them.

Before I even know there was a name for it, I was interested in gender identity. I had my own word for it, of course. Freak. Or maybe I should say that I used that word for myself. I always assumed I was the only one. And isn't that the worst part? We all think we're the only one. Freak is a singular word, because once there's two of you, you become less freakish and approach belonging.

Now I know better, but last night when I heard Jen Cross talking about at
one point of her life wanting to cut away the girl parts of her body,
my mouth dropped open and I thought, "My god, I'm not the only one." I
knew that. I know that, but sometimes even I need to hear it again.
Hopefully this book will make it into the hands of someone who feels
like a freak and experience that great wash of relief that comes with
knowing there are more people like you out in the world.

Mystery Solved - Sort Of

The contributor's copy I received of Mammoth Book Of New Erotica 6 has a different cover than the one shown on Amazon. The reviews on Amazon are dated from 2004, so I wondered if the book was available in the US. Then in her review of the book that appears on ERWA, Lisabet Sarai (my editor for Cream) mentioned the UK/US cover art change. Mystery solved, but it's too bad that the published decided to do that. The UK cover is much nicer. So the one on Amazon is the new one - even though the reviews are for an older version.

Something Completely Different

I saw an opossum on the side of the road this morning, dead. Or was it? Other than poking it with a stick, how do you ever know when an opossum is really dead? Tricky little devils.

Just Musing

This whole "I'm Cured" thing with Ted Haggard has me thinking. What I'm
thinking is that he's a liar. Still a liar. And still out there damaging people.

But beyond that, I'm wondering about the therapists and psychologists in this country. I do a lot of research on medical devices and (legal) drugs. Medical devices and surgical techniques are heavily regulated in this country. Testing, testing, and even more testing goes into each one. And every time a company wants their "safe" device approved for something even slightly different, they have to go through the trial and approval stage all over again. If a doctor wants to put a shunt in your arteries, you can be fairly sure that the device will do what it's supposed to, and that the surgeon has been trained specifically how to insert it.

However, when you get to the world of therapy, it seems that anything goes.
Homosexuality is no longer considered to be a mental illness, and yet people out there claim they can "cure" it. Kids are put into institutions and "treated" with methods that surely wouldn't be allowed under the Geneva convention, and yet parents are allowed to have their kids tortured in the name of a cure. Why? Why are these places allowed to be open? Why are those "doctors" allowed to further harm people who shouldn't be patients in the first place - because there's nothing wrong with them. The sickness is in society, not the person. Why are parents allowed to commit their children to behavior modification boot camps that, again, torture and psychologically harm the inmates, er, patients? Why are religious leaders, under the guise of therapy, allowed to screw up the most vulnerable people in our population?

I don't understand why these practitioners don't have to prove in rigorous clinical studies that their methods work. Oh that's right - because the use of medicine to harm patients were outlawed after the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. And torture and brainwashing haven't been considered safe medical practices since the Nazis.

Why don't they pull the licences of quacks? Why don't states shut the doors of such facilities? Or do the Feds and States tacitly agree that it's okay to torture homosexuals?

Silly me. I answered that one for myself.

Much Ado About the Snickers Ad

I only saw the chest hair ripping version of this ad, but I have the link
to the wrench attack version below too. I wonder
who at M&M Mars candies thought it was acceptable to show that the way to
deal with irrational fear is to assault someone.

What I'm waiting to see is who M&M Mars will eventually apologize to - homophobes for showing men touching, or the GBLT community for inciting gay bashing. No one is going to be satisfied.

Here's a list of M&M Mar's trademarks, suitable for framing, or carrying to the grocery store:

3 MUSKETEERS, AMICELLI, AQUARIAN, BALISTO, BISC&, BOUNTY, CANIGOU, CASTELLARI
CATSAN, CELEBRATIONS, CESAR, CHAPPI, COMBOS, COOKIES&, CRAZY HAIR, DOVE, EBLY
ETHEL-M, EXELPET, FANFARE, FLAVIA, FLYTE, FROLIC, GALAXY, GOLDEN COB, GOOD-O,
KAL KAN, KAN TONG, KIT E KAT, KLIX, KUDOS, LINGUANOTTO, LOCKETS, LOYAL, LUCKY
M&M'S, MALTESERS, MARS, MASTERFOODS, MASTERFOOD SERVICES, MILKYWAY, MONDO
MY DOG, PEDIGREE, PEDIGREE DENTABONE, PEDIGREE MEATY BITES, PEDIGREE PAL
PEDIGREE OPTIMUM, RARIS, REVELS, RONRON, SEEDS OF CHANGE, SHEBA, SKITTLES
SNICKERS, STARBURST, SUZI WAN, TRACKER, TRILL, TUNES, TWIX, UNCLE BEN'S
WALTHAM, WHISKAS, WINERGY.

Remember - no one ever died from a kiss, but Matthew Shepard died alone and in pain.

Let your conscious be your guide.



Original

wrench

motor oil

love boat

Ya Gotta Have A Gimmick

I've been humming that number from Gypsy where the other strippers give
advice to Gypsy Rose Lee before she goes out on stage the first time.
Sometimes I arbitrarily break out in show tunes, but this time there
was a good reason. I was working on the synopsis of my novel.

Somehow, I managed to write a good enough synopsis of Chaos Magic that the editors at Torquere Press asked to see the novel, and bought it, but I thought of that as a
fluke.

From the way writers groan about the dreaded synopsis, I'm
convinced that writers secretly believe their MS gets accepted despite
the synopsis, not because of it. So even though I theoretically know
how to write one, I spent a lot of time reading advice on how to do it.
Every piece I read said, "You have to start with a hook." Thus the show
tune.

A synopsis is a selling tool that offers the editor the
distilled essence of the novel. But here's where it gets tricky. The
writer has to focus on the audience. If the editor buys romance, the
writer should emphasize the love story aspect. That might not be all
that's happening in the novel, but that's the market the writer is
aiming for. The same novel might be pitched to a publisher who buys
mysteries instead, so that version of the synopsis should dwell on the
mystery in the novel and downplay the romance angle.

I wrote the first draft of my synopsis without thinking about the audience
simply because I need to have something to polish before I could polish
it. I knew the first draft sucked, but it was a starting point. Since
then, I've been concentrating on the publisher and trying to decide
what approach is most likely to catch his eye. That's where the gimmick
comes in- hook him with a theme that I believe will interest him and
then give him the distilled essence of the story from that perspective.


I spent a lot of time today working on the hook and cleaning up my first
draft so that it doesn't suck so much. It still needs work, but I think
I finally found the right pitch.

LA Readings

Thursday, February 8th @ 7:30 pm
Max Pierce
The Master of Seacliff
A Different Light
8853 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood Ca 90069
Telephone: 310 854-6601

I met Max briefly at the West Hollywood book fair. Nice guy. Several writers I admire have been raving about this book. Moody, gothic, queer. What more could you ask for?



Friday, February 9 @ 7:30 p.m.
Mattilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore
NOBODY PASSES
Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323) 660-1175
with Dean Spade, Jessica Hoffmann, Ruth Blandon, Irina Contreras, Stephanie Abraham, Benjamin Shepard, Jen Cross and Jennifer Blowdryer.

Mattilda's readings are always an event. Not to be missed. This anthology is getting a lot of great press.



Thursday, February 15th @ 7:30 pm
Nicole Kristal and Mike Szymanski
The Bisexual's Guide To The Universe
A Different Light
8853 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood Ca 90069
Telephone: 310 854-6601

Don't know them, but I saw this reading listed on A Different Light's site and thought I'd pass the info along to the bifolk I know.