Monthly Archives: December 2016

December 31, 2016 · 7:52 am

New Years Eve Reflections (And 2017 Aspirations)

Well, we made it. We made it through 2016. Sure, we lost way too many beloved celebrities along the way and there may have been some massive political upheaval in the western world from which we may not recover, but we still made it through. That counts for something, right?

I tend to be an optimist at heart. Granted, I wasn’t always that way. As a teenager, I would’ve run for school president on a pro-apocalypse, anti-homework candidate. I would’ve lost and probably been suspended, but that shows just how crappy my teen years were. As an adult, I’ve learned to keep looking forward and striving to make the next year better than the last.

So with 2016 drawing to a close, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what I’ve done, what I hope to do, and what I’d like to accomplish moving forward. I won’t say I’ve had the best year. I won’t even say I’ve made a lot of progress, but I do feel like I’ve made some. In the long run, a little progress adds up. Like extended foreplay, it makes the final climax that much more satisfying. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

I’ll try to hold off on the dirty subtext for now, but I won’t make any promises. One of the biggest developments of 2016, by far, was the news I got on my book, “Passion Relapse.” The fact a publisher of any size took a chance on me, an aspiring erotica/romance writer who has received a steady stream of rejection letters for years now, is a pretty big accomplishment.

Now I’m not so delusional to think that this deal will make me the next J. K. Rowling. I’m not expecting to strike it rich or field calls from HBO anytime soon. However, I do hope that this is a stepping stone of sorts, one on which I can create a foundation for a successful future in publishing. I really do want to make a living telling these sexy, romantic stories. This is what I’m passionate about. This is what I want to do.

If 2016 is the first step in a long, arduous process. I’m happy to make it and I hope there’s more to make in 2017. I don’t know what the next step entails, but I will keep working for it. I will keep improving and refining my craft.

The same goes for this blog. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do with this blog for a while. When I first launched “Skin Deep,” I basically abandoned it for a while and by a while, I mean years. I revisited, revamped, and reorganized it with no real goal in mind. It has since become something so much more.

It’s not just a blog in which I can share my thoughts on the joys of sleeping naked or the health benefits of orgasms. It gives me a regular outlet for exploring and refining my writing skills. Spending a little time every day on this blog, talking about the topics that interest me, be they sexy or mundane, is downright therapeutic at times. If I find more success, I want this blog to be an outlet of sorts for my writing and my aspirations.

Again, I don’t necessarily know what that entails. I still intend to write regularly on this blog. I also intend to make it fun and entertaining when I can, like my “Sexy Sunday Thoughts” columns. I also hope to craft other little projects on the side to make this blog worth visiting. I admit it’s small now, but I want to do what I can to help it grow.

In addition, I also want to keep writing more novels. That should be an obvious enough endeavor for 2017. I’ve managed to craft a couple manuscripts in 2016. So far, only “Passion Relapse” has attracted attention. I hope that changes in 2017, but if not, I’ll keep producing more content. I have a fairly good idea of what kind of story I want to tell next. I also have a good idea of the story I want to tell after that. Like I said, I’m proactive.

Beyond writing, I still have my share of personal goals for 2017. Chief among them is to find a romantic partner with which to share this never-ending process. Whether that involves online dating or meeting someone at a dive bar on the Jersey Shore, I’m open to that experience. I want to make that kind of personal progress as well.

There are other goals I hope to make. I feel like I’ve become more balanced as I’ve gotten older, both in terms of my life goals and my approach to achieving them. I’d like to keep working on that balance. I believe it’ll keep me focused, honest, and sincere in my endeavors.

With 2016 drawing to a close, I feel like I can enter 2017 with a healthy bit of confidence. I feel like that’s the best anyone can do, to make the next year better than the last. Sometimes we can only do so much. There are a lot of forces beyond our control, but in our personal lives, I believe we control much more than we think.

So for the rest of 2016, my only remaining goal is to stock up on whiskey, watch college football, read some comics, brainstorm some sexy stories, and watch the ball drop before I get too drunk. If I can do these things while naked, then that’s just a bonus.

Until then, I wish everyone a safe, happy, and sexy New Years Eve!

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December 30, 2016 · 8:36 am

An Online Dating Experiment That Does NOT Bode Well For Me

I know it’s a little early to be contemplating New Years Resolution. We still have to get through the final days of 2016 without losing any more beloved celebrities. Then again, I’ve always been an overly proactive guy. I’m the kind of guy who used to turn in essay papers three weeks ahead of schedule in college. My old professors used to say setting deadlines was useless for a guy like me.

While I appreciate their insight, I do understand that you can only be so proactive with certain activities. Compared to college essays, dating may as well be an Olympic event done drunk, blindfolded, and concussed. I’ve made my recent luck with dating painfully apparent. I’m trying to change that luck for 2017.

Over the holidays, I actually set a very specific goal with my family, one that may or may not be too ambitious. I actually told some close relatives who know how dedicated I am to my craft that I want to bring a significant other to Thanksgiving dinner in 2017. In my family, that’s a big fucking deal. Bringing a significant other to a big family event is right up there with co-signing on a loan.

It’s ambitious, but it’s something I really do want to try. I’m hoping online dating will give me a chance, if only to slightly improve the long odds. Then, while doing some cursory research on the subject for my last post, I came across some very discouraging news.

It has to do with a certain kind of gender disparity. I’ve talked about that sort of thing before and it’s never a pleasant conversation. It’s like talking about taxes, dead animals, and clogged toilets. It’s not going to have pleasant details. With online dating though, I can’t avoid these details.

In this case, the disparity has actual numbers to back it up. After the Ashley Madison hack in July 2015, we learned a nasty secret about certain online dating sites. The amount of men on these sites grossly outnumber the amount of women. How gross is it? Well, according to the Washington Post, only 15 percent of the profiles on Ashley Madison belonged to actual, real-life women.

Think about that number for a second. If you went to a restaurant and you only had a 15 percent chance of getting a meal, you’d say that was a pretty shitty restaurant, wouldn’t you? Well, those are the kinds of odds that men are facing here.

I already have some direct experience with it. Last year, I created an account on two dating websites. In both cases, the only responses I got came from chat bots trying to solicit money for porno webcams. That’s literally all I got. There’s enough pornographic spam on the internet and that’s all I could attract with my online dating profile. What’s that say about me?

It’s depressing, but it’s not just me. People have done actual experiments on this disparity and the results are pretty discouraging. An Elite Daily article profiled a man who created two Tinder profiles, one male and one female. The response rate between them was pretty damn egregious. The female version of his profile got five times as many messages. In terms of raw numbers, that is not a trivial difference.

Other experiments have revealed similar results. The Daily Mail UK did a similar profile on a man from London who actually dressed up as a woman for his profile. It turns out, the men didn’t care. They inundated him with responses, some of them using language I usually reserve for my books.

This is not encouraging. This does not sit well with me. It also reveals something else that gets lost in the laughable number gap. Online dating sucks for men and it brings out the worst in them, which gives the radical feminist, overly PC types a reason to whine.

There are any number of articles where the dirty, pornographic language men use on these sites are documented. Women and the PC crowd love to screen-cap these comments and use them to say, “Look at this! Look how disgusting men are! There’s so much misogyny! All men must be ashamed of themselves and die!”

That may be an extreme response, but extremes are the new normal in this day and age. So I’m not going to waste my time confronting those issues. There’s another side to that coin that will get lost in all the whining and it comes down to this simple truth:

Men are REALLY desperate to find a lover and not having one really screws with their mind.

Think about it because I sure have. When men get really horny, they tend to make poor decisions. Women do the same, but it’s much easier for a horny woman to find an outlet. As these online dating experiments prove, they really don’t have to make much of an effort to get a man’s interest. The massive disparity in gender ensures their options are limited.

With men, however, that kind of horniness really fucks with our brain. Scott Adams even talks about this when explaining the modern phenomenon of sexting. Horny men don’t think clearly and will, in turn, do stupid shit. Remember, our brains aren’t wired for logic and reason. They’re wired for survival and reproduction.

Survival isn’t as big a deal in 2016 so reproduction occupies much more of our mental energy. When we don’t have an outlet, our caveman brains get a little erratic. That leads us to saying some of the disgusting shit that women find so offensive.

Now I like to think I haven’t sent a woman an outright pornographic message, but given the heavy erotic content in my novels, I’m sure I’ve let a few slip. I’m sure some women even found it offensive. There’s nothing I can do to apologize to those women. They’ve already formed an opinion about me and I can’t change that.

So where does this leave me? What can I do at this point if the odds and numbers of online dating are stacked against me? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. I’m serious. I really would like to know because this does worry me.

I guess I’m somewhat lucky because I do have an outlet with my novels. I can take these sexy thoughts that fill my masculine brain and channel them into erotic novels or sexy Sunday thoughts. I think that’s a healthier way to manage my mental energy compared to sending women overtly sexual messages online.

Then again, it still only goes so far. It still leaves me alone, single, and dangerously close to creepiness territory. I still want to make an effort in 2017 to change my romantic luck, but I’m facing an uphill battle here. If, however, it means I can find a good and affectionate lover, then I’d say I’m willing to fight that battle.

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December 29, 2016 · 8:30 am

Online Dating: Should Give It A (Third) Try?

We live in an era where people have a more intimate relationship with their smart phone than they’ll ever have with another person. Think about it. People tell their phone all their dirtiest secrets, trust it to keep those secrets, and turn to it in their time of need, no matter how serious or trivial the situation may be. In the grand scheme of things, a smart phone is a lover, an accomplice, a therapist, and a butler all rolled into one.

There may come a day when our phones and our technology will take the place of lovers. There are some parts of the world where sex robots are already a thing. Until then, though, we will continue to seek out human companionship in some form or another.

I certainly love my smart phone, but I’m not going to form an intimate relationship with it. I can’t make love to it. I can’t enjoy foreplay with it, which is kind of important to me. Maybe I’m old fashioned by today’s standards, but I’d rather have a person as a lover.

This is something I’ve talked about before as a concern. I am in my 30s now and I’m a single male. The older I get, the greater the creepiness factor will escalate. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the creepy guy on the block. I’m already the guy on the block who wears flip-flops and a bathing suit to a coffee shop. That’s the most my reputation can handle.

So as I was getting together with friends and family for the holidays, I started having conversations about my goals for 2017. Naturally, most of those goals involved being a successful erotica/romance writer and a more awesome guy in general. Those have been my goals for years now and I like to think I’m making progress in both.

That said, one goal in particular came up and I’m the one who brought it up. Maybe it was due to me seeing so many members of my family find love in their own way. Maybe it’s just the male version of a biological clock starting to go off in my 30-year-old brain. At some point, I do want to find love again and I’d like to make that part of my goals for 2017.

The problem is I have piss poor social skills. I can write novels. I can talk about comics and football for four hours straight. I can work out until I’m a big mass of muscle and sweat. I still can’t, for the life of me, find a way to properly interact with the opposite sex on a face-to-face level. I struggle to enter that mindset where I can use my words and my gestures to win a woman’s heart.

That’s a big reason why I haven’t had a serious girlfriend in a number of years now. It’s for that same reason I really want to change things up for 2017. One approach that many family members suggest is to use online dating. That’s something several family members have used to great success in some form or another. The problem is I have experience with it too and it’s not all that pleasant.

A while back, I did give online dating a try. In fact, I gave it two tries. I signed up for two popular sites and since I don’t know any good lawyers, I won’t name names. I’ll just say you’ve probably seen commercials for both of them.

I put some serious effort into these sites. I worked hard on my profile. I made sure my pictures weren’t too goofy or unflattering. I tried to paint a picture of being an awesome guy with plenty to offer a prospective lover. I must have not tried hard enough because, despite spending both time and money, I basically got zilch out of it. I probably would’ve been more productive trying to seduce a tree.

It’s not that the sites themselves failed me. I just think I’m shoveling sand against the tide with online dating. I’m a single male. There are a lot of single males on the internet looking for love and not all of it is of the healthy variety. The disparity between single males and single females on the internet is pretty goddamn staggering. If you’re a woman of average physical attractiveness, online dating is like a candy store. For men, it’s basically akin to fighting over table scraps.

That was my experience. It wasted my time and my money. It also made me feel ugly, unattractive, and unloved. It was not a pleasant experience. That said, it’s not like what I’m doing now is working any better. I need to do something different if I’m going to find a lover.

So with a healthy bit of skepticism and an unhealthy bit of frustration, I’m thinking of giving online dating a try again. I will definitely not use the same sites I did last time. I will try to use another. I will even invest some money into it. There’s no romance without finance, especially if you’re a man like me. It’s not necessarily fair, but that’s the way the world works.

Again, I’m doing this because my options just seem so limited. I’m a young single man and there are just too many of them on this planet right now and not enough women are willing to give them a chance. I need to find a way to be more awesome than all of these men. I don’t know how I’ll accomplish that, but I’d like to give it a try in 2017. Wish me luck.

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December 28, 2016 · 7:18 am

Traffic, Holidays, And Recoveries

There are a lot of ways to kill a mood, be it sexy or otherwise. With the holidays drawing to a close, you have fewer and fewer reasons to be cheerful and upbeat. Plus, you have fewer excuses to wear ugly Christmas sweaters and Santa hats. I’ve yet to spend a day wearing either of those and not come home in a good mood.

For some, there are certain things that’ll kill a mood faster than anything that doesn’t involve projectile vomit, hangovers, and sick puppies. I certainly have my share of those things. Some of those things involve experiences that make me want to take a hammer to the nearest Home Depot and smash all the windows in frustration.

I say all this as a preface because as I write this, I am so goddamn burned out that I just want to sleep for the next three days. Why am I so burned out? Well, there’s a damn good reason for it.

As I announced before, I spent a good chunk of my Christmas at the Jersey Shore with family. It’s a tradition of sorts and a damn good one. I had a great time with friends and family. We had every kind of holiday fun you can have with your pants on. That part of the experience wasn’t the problem.

The problem came yesterday when I drove back home. Now usually, a drive to and from the Jersey Shore is about three-and-a-half hours, depending on weather and traffic. That’s about how long it took to get up there. On the way back though, it was a very different story.

There was so…much…traffic. Like a post-Christmas hangover, minus the fun of being drunk, it hit me like sleigh full of cinder-blocks and baseball bats. It turned what is usually a fairly scenic and uneventful drive into a six-and-a-half hour case-study in break lights. There aren’t many better ways to kill a mood and wound your spirit in a way that doesn’t involve solitary confinement or slow wi-fi speeds. This did way too good a job of that.

Now I know there are plenty of traffic horror stories out there. I’m sure there are those who can handle a six-and-a-half hour drive the same way most people handle a hangnail. For me, however, it left me restless, moody, and badly in need of an extra day of rest. I tried to go to bed early last night. It didn’t work. For reasons that make me think that one too many people cussed me out on the road, I was just too damn restless.

So I guess this counts as a day of recovery. I did plan on doing some extra writing, reading some comics, and enjoying what’s left of my holiday vacation. I’m going to have to revise those plans. I’m also going to need to find better ways of dealing with traffic.

If anybody out there has any tips that makes the recovery easier, I’d love to hear them. I’d also love to hear how the hell you’re supposed to sleep when you’re more restless than a rabbit on crack. I’m going to try comics, hot chocolate, and whiskey. That’s all I have on hand, but if anyone has any other tips, please share. Today must be a day of rest. Then, I can go back to talking about sexier, less stressful topics.

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December 26, 2016 · 10:45 am

Staying Sexy In Winter (It IS Possibe)

Christmas is over. The holidays are drawing to a close. Many today are still fighting off hangovers from excessive eggnog, whiskey, and fruit juice spiked with vodka. If you party like my family does, you may be fighting off a combination of all three. If that is the case, I commend you. You are molded from stronger stuff.

As much fun as the holidays are, they do signal something else besides hangovers. The holidays, at least in this part of the world, signal the first stage of a long, cold winter. For those of us who don’t live in a tropical climate where it’s possible to wear a bikini to a Christmas party without risking hypothermia, the end of the holidays marks the end of the excuses we give ourselves to tolerate this time of year.

It’s winter now. It’s going to be cold. You can’t be all that sexy when it’s this cold. Being an erotica/romance writer, that’s kind of a problem. I sort of need to maintain a sexy sort of spirit in order to continue my work. I have a lot of ideas for novels. I have a lot of romantic/erotic concepts I want to explore. That’s going to be a challenge when I’m wearing several layers of clothes, sipping hot chocolate spiked with whiskey, and trying desperately to keep my balls from freezing.

Now I’m not saying I live in a part of the country that freezes over every winter. However, I do live in a part where it’s uncomfortably common to have to dig my car out of a big snow bank at least once a year. It’s not nearly as fun as it sounds. Kids may love snow days, but once they have to start digging their shit out of snow, it loses a lot of its appeal.

So how do I handle it? How do I keep things sexy in the winter time when walking around my house naked is a bit less practical? Well, I do have a few tips. In the spirit of recovering from holiday hangovers and helping others prepare for a long winter, here are some of Jack Fisher’s winter survival tips for those who want to keep things sexy.

  • Always keep hot chocolate and wine handy, as there are few situations that can’t be made sexy with the right drink
  • Take regular hot baths, with a heavy emphasis on candles and bubbles to make for a steamy, sudsy environment
  • Wear colorful coats and scarfs, as color can let the world know that cold can’t stop you from being sexy
  • Just because you have to wear layers doesn’t mean you have to wear them on every part of your body
  • A sweatshirt and no pants will keep you warm and keep you sexy
  • For men, use this opportunity to grow a thick, manly beard to emphasize the scope of your manliness
  • For women, use this opportunity to style your hair and your nails in a way that’ll keep you warm and sexy
  • Find a way to exercise and work up a sweat, if only to remind your body the importance of exerting itself in just the right ways
  • Warm soups go well with a movie, especially those with heavy action and graphic nudity
  • If you have a fireplace, use it and make love near it at least once during a snowstorm
  • If you don’t have a fireplace, use your TV to stream a crackling fireplace to create a similar ambience (it won’t keep you warm, but lovemaking will)

These are just some of the tips I have to offer. If anyone has others they’d like to tac on, please let me know in the comments. I think we could all use a little help getting through the long, cold winter. With the holidays over, it’s just a matter of counting down the days until we can wear bikinis and speedos again. Like the holidays though, those days will come before we know it.

For the record, though, the cold weather will not stop me from sleeping naked. I don’t care how cold it gets or how many blankets I need to pile on top of my bed. I will not give that up.

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December 26, 2016 · 9:04 am

On The Road To The Jersey Shore

Just thought I’d make a quick post today. As per my family’s holiday tradition, I’m doing a lot of traveling. I’m making my way up to the Jersey Shore where I’ve got some relatives with which I spend most of my holidays. There’s beach bars, there’s restaurants, and there’s enough Christmas candy to put anyone into a diabetic coma. It’s a beautiful thing.

While I’m on the road and have limited access to Wi-Fi, I’ll be contemplating a few other topics to discuss before the end of the year. I’m still waiting to hear from Crimson Frost Publishing on news of “Embers of Eros.” Due to the holidays, I’m not expecting to hear much. If I do, however, I’ll make a big deal about it on this blog. That much you can count on.

I also have a few sexy topics that I hope to discuss, which should get everyone in the mood for 2017. I’m still reading “Sex At Dawn,” a book that seems to give me a new sexy idea with every chapter. So expect plenty more discussions about that.

Also, I hope to finalize a plan for my next novel. Depending on how my work with Crimson Frost Publishing and “Passion Relapse” go, I want to go in a specific direction, one that will create that perfect blend of romance and erotica.

So as I remain on the road around the Jersey Shore, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and are recovering as needed. We’ve got a brand new year ahead of us and I’ve got plenty of sexy stories and discussions to share.

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December 25, 2016 · 7:37 am

Merry Christmas!

On behalf of little old me, Jack Fisher, an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I wish everyone everywhere a very Merry Christmas, a very Happy Holidays, and a very sexy New Years.

It’s been an eventful year for me as an aspiring writer. I finished several manuscripts. One of them got picked up by a publisher. One is still pending. I’ve got plenty of ideas to explore in 2017 and plenty more sexy stories to tell. For now, I hope everyone takes the time to settle down, open some presents, drink some eggnog, and spend time with family.

It’s also not too late to make it sexy with my special holiday book, “Holiday Heat.” What’s the holidays without a little sex appeal? I ask because it’s a question most don’t dare to ask. Well, I dare.

My weekly sexy Sunday thoughts will be back in 2017. Until then, have a great holiday!

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December 24, 2016 · 8:51 am

Jack Fisher’s Favorite Christmas Special (It Involves X-men)

I love this time of year. I love Christmas, the holidays, and everything associated with it. I’m the kind of guy who puts his Christmas tree up a few days after Halloween, does all his Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving, and gets drunk on eggnog when the first Christmas special airs.

My love of Christmas even extends into my erotica/romance career. I wrote an entire book around the premise of mixing seasonal cheer with an overtly sexy story. It’s called “Holiday Heat” and if you’re looking for a sexy gift that doesn’t involve handcuffs or anything leather-studded, this will fill that need, among others.

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I hope I’ve made clear by now just how much I love Christmas. I’ll definitely be doing plenty of celebrating over the next few days, with and without my pants on. I’m at that stage in my holiday celebration where I’m watching all my favorite Christmas specials and discovering new ones.

Now I have a soft spot for the classics. I can watch the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special” again and again and still love every second of it. I can watch “The Santa Clause” and “Die Hard” just as much. Then, there’s “Bad Santa.” I don’t think I need to explain why I love that movie so much.

As much as I love those movies, there is one particular Christmas special that is near and dear to my heart. It’s necessarily the most iconic or the most sexy, but it’s been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. Naturally, it involves comic books, which I seem to cite a lot on this blog. Even more naturally, it involves X-men, which I cite more than most.

Back in the mid-90s, there was a sizable glut of comic book themed cartoons. I know because I watched damn near every one of them. My priorities were survive school, get home as fast as possible, and watch cartoons. X-men, particularly the 90s animated series that ran for 76 episodes, was one of those cartoons.

It may seem a little dated now, but for its time, this was the alpha and omega of all things X-men. It was the avenue through which many X-men fans were created. Naturally, I was one of them. Just as naturally, it had a Christmas special.

That special was called “Have Yourself A Morlock Little Christmas.” It’s one of the few episodes where the X-men don’t fight aliens, killer robots, or super-villains. Instead, they seek to help the Morlocks, a group of outcast mutants who live in the sewer to escape anti-mutant persecution. Not surprisingly, their Christmas isn’t very festive, but that doesn’t stop the X-men from making their holiday a little more awesome.

It’s short. It’s sweet. It’s not going to make you cry or vomit. It’s just going to put a smile on your face for all the right reasons. While there may be other Christmas specials in the future, this one will always have a special place in my heart. If you’re an X-men fan or a comic book fan in general, I highly recommend you add this to your holiday viewing schedule.

I can’t post the entire episode here on this blog without earning the wrath of Marvel’s army of lawyers, but here’s a clip that should show what this episode has to offer.

 

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December 23, 2016 · 8:58 am

How NOT Tell A Love Story: The Cautionary Tale Of “Passengers”

We live in an era where it’s impossible to hide a twist ending to a movie. Movies like “The Empire Strikes Back” or “The Sixth Sense” simply could not be made today and have the same impact. As soon as someone sees it, they just tweet the ending and it’s spoiled for everybody. Even those without social media can’t avoid it.

You could argue whether or not this is a good thing from now and until our robot overlords enslave us. I’m not going to have that argument here. It’s not an argument anyone can win, let alone an aspiring erotica/romance writer. However, this era of excessive spoilers does sometimes pay off, if only in the sense that it saves you a few bucks here and there.

This brings me to the movie, “Passengers.” It stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, two big time Hollywood stars that are at the top of their game at the moment. I’ve made my love of Jennifer Lawrence very apparent many times here on this blog and it’s not just because she walked around naked in an X-men movie, although that definitely helps.

Now I love Chris Pratt too for his role in “Parks and Recreation” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but I’d much rather see Jennifer Lawrence naked and covered in blue paint. That’s just me though.

So with two acting talents like this, I was naturally excited about the prospect of “Passengers.” It’s a sci-fi movie with a lot of sci-fi elements, from interstellar travel to conflicts involving how mankind goes about traveling the stars. It also is heavy on romance, which definitely appeals to me as an erotica/romance writer. After seeing the trailer, I was tempted to reserve my ticket right then and there.

Then, I read the spoilers. I found out that there’s a very important detail that this trailer leaves out. I won’t go into the full scope of that detail, but I’ll just keep it simple. This whole movie is just one big case study in Stockholm Syndrome romance and personally, that just doesn’t appeal to me.

What is the Stockholm Syndrome? Well, if you saw Beauty and the Beast as a kid, then you already know, but didn’t realize it. It’s when a hostage begins developing sympathetic, almost affectionate feelings for their captors. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, it makes perfect sense with caveman logic.

For centuries, we lived in small bands of tribes. Those tribes didn’t always get along with other tribes. Sometimes those tribes fought one another and took captives. Psychologically, this is pretty damn stressful for some people. Our brains, wired only to help us survive and reproduce, developed a mechanism to help us cope. Just being upset and terrified all the goddamn time isn’t a productive use or resources.

While it makes sense with respect to caveman logic, it also makes for a really shitty love story. This is not “Titanic.” This isn’t even “50 Shades of Grey.” At least Anastasia Steel willingly entered Christian Grey’s world of BDSM. The characters in “Passengers” didn’t get to choose shit and when they did, they chose badly.

Now based on the spoilers I read, there is a concerted effort to redeem the characters. There’s even a concerted effort to make a happy ending. However, as the Rotten Tomatoes score for the movie shows, it didn’t really work.

What happens here is that Chris Pratt’s character basically dooms Jennifer Lawrence’s character and he does it for all the wrong reasons. He just does it because he’s lonely and losing his goddamn mind. That’s understandable when you’re marooned, lonely, and lacking in some of your most basic needs as a human. However, it’s worth restating that this is a awful way of establishing a romance.

Even “Beauty and the Beast” did a better job of twisting the Stockholm Syndrome premise just enough to feel genuine. There’s none of that here. There’s nothing Pratt’s character can do to redeem himself. He effectively killed someone just because he was lonely and basically tried to lie, cheat, and justify his actions. That’s not romance. That’s making excuses.

As a result, I’m not seeing this movie. That’s not the kind of romance I care for. It sends the message that if two people are stuck together in isolation, then eventually they’ll fall in love, no matter what sort of lies and atrocities are committed behind the scene. I like to think genuine love is a bit more complex than that.

This movie sends a message that someone can just randomly pick another person and get that person to fall in love with them. I’m not a love expert by any stretch, but even I know human emotions aren’t that basic. A love story based on that premise can only ever be forced and nothing is less sexy than a forced romance.

Now there may be other factors involved in how this movie played out. The premise of the movie might not be the same as the result of the movie. I’m not qualified to speculate, but the folks at Midnight’s Edge, a YouTube channel I follow that digs into Hollywood news, do a great job of breaking it down.

Overall, it’s times like this where I’m grateful we live in a world of abundant spoilers. If this movie came out in the mid-90s, I probably wouldn’t have realized the flaws in this movie until after I bought the ticket. Thanks to spoilers, I saved myself money that could be better spent on whiskey and comics.

Now I don’t want to give the impression that my distaste for this movie is because of some radical feminist concept of men manipulating women for their own ends. I’ve made it clear on this blog that I take issue with a lot of firebrand feminism. My aversion to this movie has more to do with how poorly it handles romance.

As an erotica/romance writer, I feel like my standards for solid romance are a bit higher. Maybe that’s just a byproduct of writing about it so damn much, but it means forced romances like “Passengers” just don’t do it for me. I think Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence deserve better. Hopefully, they’ll get a chance in a future movie.

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December 22, 2016 · 8:34 am

Quick (Non) Update On “Embers Of Eros”

Just wanted to give a quick update on “Embers of Eros.” By that, I mean I want to vent a few concerns and for once, they have nothing to do with the holidays. I’m not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing.

A few weeks ago, I finally made the announcement I had been hoping to make for years. I announced a release date for my long-pending novel, “Embers of Eros.”The date the publisher game me was December 20th. I still have the email sent to me by Crimson Frost Publishing.

I don’t think they’ve forgotten about it. If you go to their website, the cover of Embers of Eros is shown as an upcoming release. However, I’ve checked both their website and Amazon and found nothing. Near as I can tell, the book hasn’t been released. I haven’t even gotten an email from the editor.

This is somewhat par for the course with Crimson Frost. I’ve tried again and again to get in contact with them. I know they’re a small-time publisher with limited resources, but this is my first published book. It’s a big deal for me and their lack of responsiveness is troubling to say the least.

Now that they’ve basically reneged on a release date, I’m more than a little concerned. I’ve sent an email asking for details. So far, I’ve gotten nothing back. I know it’s the holidays. I know things come up, people get busy, people have to travel. I had hoped that all this had been taken into account when they gave me the December 20 release date. I guess I had hoped for too much.

I’m not going to rant or whine here. I’m still willing to give Crimson Frost a chance. Hopefully, they’ll release the book before the end of the year so I can finally say I’ve published something with someone. That’s a big step for me and I one I want to take before heading into 2017, where I’ve got “Passion Relapse” in the works.

I hope I can take that step. I’m still not sure what the deal is. I’ll be sure to provide updates as they come in. Fingers crossed I can end 2016 on the highest of notes by releasing my first book. If not, then I guess I better work extra hard to make 2017 more awesome. Stay tuned.

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