Category Archives: Jack Fisher’s Insights

November 23, 2016 · 6:47 am

Finding Love Through A Twisted Sense Of “Normal”

I’ve always been bothered by the concept of “normal” and not just because the concept of normalcy makes it difficult to tell a sufficiently sexy romance/erotica story. It’s just a fact of life. Nobody’s boxers are getting tight and nobody’s panties are getting wet by reading about something bland and ordinary.

The characters I write in my books rarely fall under the guise of “normal” and if they do, it doesn’t last or their concept of normal is overtly skewed. Grace Goodwin, the main character in my book, “The Final Communion,” may have been normal by the twisted standards of her surroundings, but from an outside perspective, she might as well be a monkey in a banana factory.

This concept of “normal” has been on my mind a lot lately and not just because I worry about the not-so-normal sentiment I may get by being over 30 and single. Since my pending novel, “Passion Relapse,” finally got picked up by a publisher, I’ve been contemplating ways to follow up the themes that made that book work.

No, I’m not talking about a shameless, Rocky Balboa-style sequel. I’m not looking to build a goddamn Twilight franchise out of one novel. I’m just assessing the elements that worked in “Passion Relapse” so I can refine those elements for bigger, better, and sexier stories. The more pants I can tighten and panties I can moisten, the better.

After revising, editing, and even rewriting certain parts of “Passion Relapse,” I think I’ve gotten a better feel for what makes the characters involved so appealing. Naturally, they are admittedly not normal. In fact, they’re so not normal that their non-normal behavior causes them serious pain and distress. It gets very heated and not just in a sexy sort of way.

This got me thinking and for an aspiring erotica/romance writer, that can lead to any number of crazy/sex/awesome ideas. In this case, I find myself imaging a situation where someone has such a skewed sense of “normal” that most people who survived high school with their sanity intact can’t wrap their heads around it.

I’m not talking about extreme religious cults, like I did with “The Final Communion” or exotic futuristic technology like I did with “Skin Deep.” In fact, there is a very real-world parallel to this idea here. Sadly, it involves the inherently unsexy topic of abusive relationships.

I’ll give everyone a moment to unclench their assholes. I promise, this conversation isn’t going to get that disturbing. There are plenty of real-world examples where abusive romances have become exceedingly disturbing, up to the point where they become annoyingly permanent fixtures in popular culture. Then again, they can also become classic Disney movies so there is room to tell a story.

In this case, the story I’m interesting in telling has to do with someone who sees an abusive relationship as normal. No, I don’t mean the kind of abuse that makes for fun BDSM roles, which can actually be healthy. I’m talking about the really bad kind of abusive relationships that makes nobody horny in any capacity.

It is a real issue. There are women (and even a few men) who end up in abusive relationships, but become so accustomed to them that they seem normal. It’s that twisted sense of normalcy that skews our perspective that creates situations where people stay in these relationships or struggle to leave them.

A couple years ago, Time did an article about women who stayed in abusive relationships. The reasons were varied, ranging from concern about children to this twisted sense of responsibility that they had to be the ones to help. There are all sorts of sad, tragic, and distressing stories here. How can anyone make a story like that sexy?

It’s a good thing I love a challenge. I especially love a challenge that gives me a chance to create a novel, unique form of romance that’ll stand out in a sea of vampires, princesses, and male strippers. This won’t be a story that involves aliens, unreal technology, or supernatural forces either. This will be as raw, real, and sexy as I can make it.

Are your assholes unclenched? Good because this is a story that, like “Passion Relapse,” will emphasize romance more than the sexy stuff. Make no mistake, the sexy stuff will be there. You will need dry panties at one point. However, I want to focus on the emotional undertones for this story.

How will I do this? Once again, it requires a thought experiment. I know I ask my readers to do a lot of those on this blog, but I promise it’s for a good reason. It may not always make you horny, but it will get you thinking for the right reasons.

Picture somebody, male or female, who comes from a family in which being somewhat abusive and controlling is considered normal. Their parents have an abusive relationship. Their siblings have abusive relationships. This is just how their family is. This is how they’ve been. Since we do tend to adopt our parents’ beliefs and attitudes, it’s not wholly unrealistic.

Now, picture that same person, be they male or female, encountering something (or someone) that shakes their world. It completely undermines their understanding of what it means to be in a relationship, to love someone, or even what constitutes abuse. It’s so profound and so jarring that it overwhelms someone into completely reassessing everything they thought they knew about themselves.

I’d love to reveal more, but this is a developing idea. This is a concept I’m still fleshing out. However, there is one theme I want to emphasize here. Someone who sees something so harmful as normal sometimes needs a really jarring event to shake them out of this mindset. Some won’t even question their idea of normal until it’s shoved in their face.

This can be (and often is) traumatic. This is why admitting your wrong is right up there with dental surgery and rectal trauma in terms of unpleasantness. Our brains aren’t wired to constantly change and rethink things. It’s wired to remain consistent so we can focus on surviving bear attacks long enough to reproduce.

So how does someone escape that twisted idea of normalcy? How do they avoid the same tragedies they’ve seen in family and loved ones? For this story, there will definitely be obstacles and some of those obstacles can make fists. It’s a real challenge, but one that can bring out the best and worst in some people.

Working on “Passion Relapse” has given me a renewed sense of energy in confronting that challenge. I feel like this is a story worth telling. It’s a story that may be more relevant now than ever with issues like spousal abuse and harassment being such hot-button issues. If I can confront that issue and make it into a sexy story, then I feel like I’ve done my job.

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November 22, 2016 · 6:40 am

Breaking Down The “Creepiness” Factor

Have you ever had a man or woman in your life that makes you so uncomfortable that you wish you’d go out of your way to be in a different time zone? What was it about them that made you so uncomfortable that you were poised to become an Olympic sprinter if they got within 10 feet of you? Would you describe them as “creepy?”

Chances are, calling them “creepy” would probably be the most polite way to describe such people. Everybody’s concept of “creepy” may be different to some degree, but like bad porno, we all know it when we see it. In biological terms, it’s our “fight or flight” instinct going into overdrive for reasons that have nothing to do with facing a hungry grizzly bear.

Even if we all have an idea of what constitutes “creepy,” it’s one of those ideas we don’t scrutinize that much. Again, it’s one of those “I know it when I see it” type feelings and unlike bad porno, it can affect our lives in pretty profound ways. It’s led to a plague of creepy clown sightings. I’d say it’s more serious now than it has ever been in recent years.

What does it mean to be “creepy” though? This is one of those concepts for which a dictionary just doesn’t do the trick. It’s so subjective and personal that one person’s phobia is another person’s fetish. Those who are into clown porn probably understand this more than most.

It’s also a serious question for a guy like me. Recently, I talked about some of the strange looks I get when people find out I’m in my 30s and still single. While I don’t dress like a clown and collect hairs of young women, that does evoke a certain “creepiness” factor for some people. They see a single guy in his 30s and a part of them thinks that’s just wrong somehow, even if there’s nothing on the surface that comes close to clown makeup.

At its core, our revulsion to those we deep creepy is an extension of our gag reflex. When it comes to protecting our frail, fleshy forms, nature can’t be gentle. It has to make the process of vomiting or wanting to vomit so debilitating and uncomfortable that it drives us away from distressing situations. Without that sort of gag reflex, what would stop us from swimming in a pool of elephant poop too cool off on a hot summer day?

As is often the case with nature, our gag reflex tends to be overly broad and for some people, it severely overcompensates. That means the things that make us gag don’t always involve seeing a dead horse floating around in a pool. They can involve how and why we avoid certain people.

Sometimes those people do have a reason for being avoided. I’ve walked by homeless people who clearly have issues that go beyond just being homeless. Some of them do a lot more than just ask for money. Some will go out of their way to tell you that there’s a fairy on their shoulder who refuses to scratch their butthole. That’s usually going to trigger a gag reflex for most reasonable people.

However, those situations are the obvious ones. The situations that effect most people, including some people like me, are a bit more subtle. We all have traits and quirks that set us apart. We can’t always control when someone sees those things and calls them “creepy.”

For some people, my love of comic books and infatuation with sexy superhero women counts as creepy. For others, it’s a reason to hold a major convention in New York City. One person’s creepy obsession can be another person’s passion.

Then, there’s the added bit of overcompensation that we as a society heap on all things creepy. What does that entail? Well, most kids who attend a public school these days get a crash course in something called “stranger danger.”

When I was in school, it was a big fucking deal. We would have assemblies in the middle of the day to hear counselors and police officers tell us about the danger of talking to strangers. Never mind the fact that the amount of dangerous strangers is a tiny sub-set of most strangers. Never mind that a good chunk of crime and abuse comes from intimate partners and not strangers. We need to keep kids from getting kidnapped, damn it!

I get it. This is a big fear for parents and communities. It’s not an unreasonable fear, wanting to protect kids from creeps, but urging the to stay away from strangers can have side-effects. It can make kids mistrustful, paranoid, and even xenophobic. Later in life, these kids will become the adults that wants to kick minorities and foreigners out of their country.

We’ve already seen recently how this can have some pretty serious impacts on society. I won’t go into details, but I think recent trends in wall-building enthusiasts speak for themselves.

Now I’m not going to say that we should ignore the things that spike our “creep” factor. Again, that feeling is there for a damn good reason. Until we become superhuman cyborgs, which may happen one day, we need that reflex to remain. However, we also need to avoid pushing people to the fringes of society who don’t deserve it.

This might just be the hugger in me, but we do ourselves no favors by focusing on the “creepiness” in everybody. We all have our quirks. So long as those quirks don’t involve mutilation, exploitation, or clowns, we should give people a chance. If they mess up that chance, then that’s their problem and not yours at that point.

We want to be safe. We want to protect our kids. However, it is possible to overdo it. We can be doing more harm than good to those around us. Let’s not assume the extremes of creepiness outright. Until they put on clown makeup, let’s give people the chance they deserve.

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November 21, 2016 · 6:20 am

Being Single At My Age: Should I Worry?

A while back, I was walking through a mall, as I often do on a nice weekend. This particular mall happened to have these kiosks where people would walk up to you and try to sell you anything from beauty products to exotic vacations to cult membership. I’m usually pretty good at ignoring them, but one in particular got my attention.

This woman was selling some sort of fancy skin care product. She did her pitch. I listened, trying to find a polite way to brush her off. Then, she said this product would make a great gift. She asked if I was married. I said no. She then asked if I had a girlfriend. I said no. Then, she asked me something that kind of struck me.

She looks at me strangely, gives me this cock-eyed glance with her eyes, and asks, “Are you gay?” I said no and I laughed it off. She laughed too and after that, I had a good reason to walk away. However, something about that conversation really struck me. As time goes on, it strikes me even harder and not in the way most BDSM enthusiasts would enjoy.

It’s one thing for a guy in his early to mid 20s to be single. Society really doesn’t look down on that. We see a young guy in his 20s who is single and think:

“He must between girlfriends. That or he’s just humping everyone and everything he can to get it out of his system before he settles down. That’s okay. I will not shame him. He’s a valuable part of the labor force so it’s probably not a good idea to bust his balls.”

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what we think when we see a young 20-something single guy, but it’s a close approximation. The point is that when a man is young, society is okay with him being single and unattached. We don’t look at that as anything strange or suspicious.

That all seems to change when a man crosses that special, magical threshold otherwise known as “turning 30.” I’m over 30 and I’ve been over 30 for a while now. I try to stay healthy. I made it a point several years ago to be healthier in my 30s than I was in my 20s. I like to think I’ve kept that promise to myself.

However, no matter how much I work out or how healthy I am, I can’t change the number of days that have passed since I was born. That also means I can’t change the fact that I’m single and over the age of 30. For whatever reason, that’s the age where being single suddenly becomes an issue.

It’s another one of those lesser-known double standards. I’ve bemoaned many of the double standards plaguing women and men, but this one affects me personally. It may very well affect my ability to find love, interact with the public, or work ahead in my career. It’s a serious issue for me and one that I don’t know how to address.

It may sound like a trivial, first-world problem by current standards, but it is there. We’ve made a lot of societal progress. We no longer arrange marriages for our children and force them to stay in passionless, abusive relationships. I say that counts as progress in my book.

A byproduct of this progress, though, is that we’re going to end up with a sizable population of men and women who either lag behind or never really catch up in the end. It’s true. There is a stigma to being single these days. I’m not just talking about a stigma that amounts to the “creepy guy” factor either.

When we find out someone like me in their 30s is single, society has these strange set of assumptions that are somewhat understandable within a context. I’m not saying those assumptions are right, but there is a context. So when people find out a man is over 30 and single, there are sentiments like:

  • He must be gay or something
  • He must be some kind of pervert who can’t get a woman
  • He must have some kind of mental health issue
  • He must have some sort of gross habit that repels women
  • He must be a serial killer or a child molester in the making
  • He must be abusive or selfish to an extreme degree
  • He must be some kind of man-whore who only sees women as disposable tissues
  • He must be terrible with kids
  • He must be broke and have nothing to offer

These are all harsh assumptions. Some are more extreme than others. Again, there is a context though. For most of human history, we lived in small tribes. Men and women often paired up out of necessity and convenience at young ages. If someone, male or female, became distant from the tribe, that was inherently harmful to the tribe. In that sense, the stigma is understandable.

Here in the modern era, the circumstances have changed, but the caveman logic hasn’t. A single man in his 30s is often seen as a sign of a larger problem. It’s still seen as a failing of sorts. Even in this more progressive era, men are expected to be married or in some form of relationships after a certain age. They’re expected to be locked into some sort of social bond. When they don’t meet that expectation, that’s cause for concern.

This has a real impact that goes deeper than just creepy glares and accusations of being gay. Some of these impacts affect men much more than women as well. It means that when I see a cute kid and play around with that kid, it’s going to come off as creepy to some people. A single man in his 30s playing with a kid? That makes some people shudder for reasons I don’t think I need to describe.

It also has an economic impact. If you’re a single man over 30 and you’re working full-time, you can expect to make less than a single woman the same age. Society does, and understandably so, reward those who are married and in relationships. I can understand society wanting to incentivize those in relationships, but sometimes incentives can have a snowball affect.

I worry that as I get older, the stigma will become harder and harder to avoid. With each passing year that goes by without me getting in a relationship, people are going to start making more and more assumptions. As a result, people will also keep their distance from me. For someone like me, a natural hugger, that can be pretty damaging.

It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, one that will make things worse in the long run. It’s a cycle that may drive me to enter a relationship for the wrong reasons and I don’t want to put myself, or any woman for that matter, through such an experience.

I do want to find love. I do want to forge close, intimate relationships with others. I just worry that my age and the stigma that comes with being single will work against me. I hold out hope that I’ll find someone to share my life with one day. I just hope that day comes sooner rather than later.

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November 20, 2016 · 9:01 am

Sexy Sunday Thoughts

It’s another beautiful Sunday. It’s not just any Sunday either. It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving. That means two things. One, I’m getting hungry as hell. Two, I need to get my Christmas shopping done so I can be slightly less annoyed by all the Christmas ads.

It’s a beautiful time of year. It’s not a time of year that most people associate with anything sexy. I’m sure there’s a specific subset of people that find turkey, stuffing, and family gatherings sexy. I don’t judge what gets your dick hard or your panties wet. I just know that everyone has their quirks. How else do you explain the success of dinosaur porn?

As an aspiring romance/erotica writer, it’s my job to appreciate and nurture these quirks in any way I can. I’m not saying I’ll be writing a novel about a Thanksgiving three-way anytime soon, although I don’t doubt that such a story may have some appeal. I’m just saying that there are a few things around the holidays worth appreciating and yes, those things can be sexy.

With that in mind, I’d like to share with you a few sexy Sunday thoughts, courtesy of Jack Fisher. I apologize in advance if some of these sound like musings from someone who skipped a couple meals. When you work up an appetite, your loins and your stomach tend to conspire against you.

The appeal of fireworks and orgasms is eerily similar, but the more you think about it, the less eerie it gets.

Go on. Look at this picture and give it just a little extra thought. Your panties will tell you I’m right

In some respects, a woman playing a video game with a male character makes her a dominatrix by default.

I know women play video games. I know video games have  broad appeal. However, if you’re going to take the definition of a dominatrix literally, you can’t escape the implications.

The noises we make when we’re hungry are eerily similar to the noises we make when we’re horny.

Food and sex are part of survival and reproduction, the two most basic drives of life. Is it really any surprise that sometimes our brain mixes them up?

Some of our kinkier sexual practices are inspired from animals, but animals don’t seem inspired by us in the same way.

That’s kind of telling when you think about it. We humans need to observe the strange mating practices of animals for ideas, but they don’t seem to have that problem.

Kid toys can be used as adult toys with a little extra effort and imagination.

This may be a disturbing thought for some, but it’s kind of hard to avoid the imagery. If you’re horny enough, you don’t need much imagination to see potential in a toy.

Sweat created from heat and sweat created from sex are chemically the same, but smell so different.

Sweat lets us know we’re working hart. Sweat lets us know we’ve accomplished something. When we sweat because we’re hot, we’re not accomplishing anything. When we sweat because we’re having heated, passionate sex, then we might as well be sweating scented oils.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the tongue is the most useful sexual organ that both genders have.

I don’t think this needs much explanation. A tongue is always wet. It doesn’t need to get hard. Both men and women can use it and know how it works. It’s both practical and sexy.

When you celebrate your birthday, you’re also celebrating the fact that your parents had sex.

We can’t get around it. We’re here. That means our parents had sex and probably more than once. We don’t like to think about it, but if they enjoyed it, then that means they enjoyed making us so I think that’s something worth celebrating.

Got any other sexy thoughts you’d like to share? I can’t be the only one who has them on the holidays. Please share them during this special time of year! Make the holidays sexy again!

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November 19, 2016 · 8:56 am

My Thanksgiving Preparations Have Begun!

This is a special time of year for me. It’s even more special this year after one of my novels, “Passion Relapse,” has been accepted by a publisher. I have many reasons to be excited about the coming months, but for the moment, I intend to channel that excitement into a more pressing issue. Yes, there is something that’s more pressing to me than publishing.

I’m referring to, of course, the holidays. I know I’m going to sound corny here and no, I don’t give a rat’s ass if I do, but I love the holidays. I love Christmas. I love Thanksgiving. It’s not just because of gifts, decorations, sales, or beautiful women dressed as sexy elves. Yes. that is a thing.

I love the holidays because it gives me and my family a chance to get together, have a big feast, and throw a big ass party. I’m not talking about a quiet night with wine, crackers, and polite conversation about politics, horses, and Downton Abby. I come from a family that knows how to goddamn party!

We drink. We sing. We dance. We make the kind of jokes you don’t see outside of South Park reruns. Then, there’s the food. God of mercy, we have awesome food. It’s the kind of food that’s worth waiting an entire goddamn year for. There are a lot of talented cooks in my family. There are also many who enjoy splurging on the kind of decadent deserts that will send you into a holiday coma. I like to think I’m both.

It all starts with Thanksgiving. At the moment, our plans are fairly set. We know who’s coming, when they’re coming, and how eager they are to come. Yes, I know that’s a very poor choice of words for an erotica/romance writer. No, I’m not going to apologize for it.

That means that right now, all that’s left to do is wait for Thanksgiving Day. For me, that means making a few very specific preparations. Those preparations involve me preparing myself for treats like this.

For 11 months out of the year, I generally try to maintain a pretty healthy lifestyle and a fairly healthy diet. I’m not a vegan or a total health nut, but I do like to take care of myself. I do try to make sure my diet is decent, at the very least. I try not to eat a lot of sugar, fatty foods, or anything that might make me feel less sexy.

Well, I basically kick those rules in the balls and throw them out the door for Thanksgiving. For one day, I basically forget everything I’ve learned about a healthy diet. For me, Thanksgiving is the ultimate cheat day. I won’t hesitate to gorge on turkey, beer, soda, whiskey, cheesecake, chocolate, or anything that ends up getting deep fried. I don’t care if it makes me feel sick the next day. It’s the holidays goddamn it!

In preparation for this, I’ll be eating a lot less for the next several days. I’ll skip deserts. I’ll skip snacks. If I drink anything, it’s going to be coffee or water. My stomach already knows this. I felt it growling last night, as if to tell me its getting impatient. Sometimes, I have to calm it down, urging it to wait just a little bit longer. It’ll be worth the wait.

I’m hoping my excitement over “Passion Relapse” makes the food taste that much sweeter. For the next few days though, I’ll be roughing it as much as I can in preparation. I intend to work up an epic appetite for this year and I intend to enjoy every goddamn moment of food, family, and football along the way. It may not be overly sexy, but it’s the most fun I’ll have all year with my pants on.

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November 16, 2016 · 6:48 am

Will Our Future Robot Overlord Be A Dominatrix?

Take a moment to think about the most prominent authority figures in your life. We all have them in some form or another. For most, it’s a parent or spouse. For others, it’s a boss or a partner. For some, it’s whoever controls the wifi password in a house.

What do these authority figures have in common? What do they do that compels you to submit to their authority? Is that submission willing? Is it forced? Is it some twisted combination that keeps you up at night and makes for awkward family dinners?

These are all important questions that don’t get asked too often. We tend not to think too much about the authority figures we submit to in our day-to-day lives. We don’t even think about the people over which we ourselves wield such authority. For many people, this isn’t the kind of overt domination/submission we see in BDSM. It’s just what we see as normal.

Now let me ask a question that’s going to sound like a complete non-sequiter coming from a guy who reads too many comic books and saw Star Wars one too many times as a kid. Bear with me because it is a serious question that just happens to have crazy/sexy/disturbing implications. Here it is:

Will an advanced future robot be a dominatrix?

Take a moment to stop laughing and questioning my sanity. Then, think about that question seriously. Every year, we’re creating more and more advanced robots. On top of that, AI assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Alexa are becoming more integrated into our lives. At some point, these technological forces will converge. When that happens, just how much will we submit to it? How much will it dominate us?

Make no mistake. An advanced robot/AI will dominate us on some levels. It’s more a matter of when rather than if at this point. Robots are already more capable, efficient, and durable than our frail, fleshy bodies. Hell, some of these bodies can’t even process gluten. How are we supposed to compete with robots that can survive outer space, build a fleet of cars, and make George Lucas billions of dollars in merchandising?

The creation of advanced robots and AIs isn’t a matter of authority or domination. It’s a matter of pragmatism. Human beings are just so limited, both physically and mentally. Many human beings can’t even sit through an economics lecture or an hour of C-SPAN without falling asleep. We’re just not equipped to process the world outside our caveman instincts.

Robots and AIs are necessary and not just to help organize our FaceBook friends or email. They will help process, maintain, and manage the increasingly complex world that is bound to emerge when you put 7 billion people on a crowded planet, two-thirds of which is covered in ocean.

It’s already happening. Ray Kurzweil, a visionary and writer I’ve referenced on this blog before, has calculated that, based on the accelerating returns of information technology, computers will be as smart as humans by approximately 2030. Then, a couple decades later, they’ll be billions of times smarter than humans.

Think about that for a moment without your head exploding. How can we, with our feeble caveman brains, contemplate anything that’s a billion times smarter than us? It’s one thing to discount smug, intellectual Dr. Phil types who think they know why a woman’s kid can’t stop wetting the bed. It’s quite another to discount something that’s so much smarter than you that you might as well be a retarded ant.

This brings me back to my original question about robots and the possibility of a robot dominatrix. This is the part where I diverge with the doom and gloom we see in movies like The Terminator or The Matrix. I prefer to think that the future has much more sex appeal than we care to admit.

Think back to the basics of BDSM. It involves a strict, clear understanding of who is dominant and who is submissive. Ideally, the submissive willingly (and in some cases eagerly) submits to the dominant. The dominant exercises their authority in a manner that rewards the submissive for their submission.

Sometimes that reward takes the form of rough sex. Sometimes it takes the form of spankings, whippings, or whatever else may involve latex/leather accessories. The key here is the dynamics of having a dominant authority over a willing submissive.

With respect to robots and AI, you can’t get much more dominant than a machine that is a billion times smarter than an average human. That kind of dominance is not arbitrary. It’s the basic differences between a butterfly and a grizzly bear.

In this situation, voluntary submission would be a moot point. When something is that superior, such submission is usually implied. Sure, there are some that may resist, but we would see these individuals the same way we see two-year-old boys who think they can beat LeBron James one-on-one.

That said, this wouldn’t imply that a super-intelligent robot would be cruel or tyrannical. Cruelty and tyranny are traits that often stem from flawed, unintelligent humans who cringe at the idea that somebody’s palace might not be as big as theirs. That’s not a dick joke by the way.

If an intelligence is truly that smart, then it would be far above cruelty and tyranny, which require some level of pettiness and insecurity. Again, these are non-quantifiable human traits. A robot wouldn’t have such burdens. If they did, then they wouldn’t be that super-intelligent to begin with.

So if a robot/AI is that intelligent and we humans are still stuck at a level of intelligence where we struggle to keep up with the plot of Lost, the dynamics for a dominant/submission relationship aren’t just there. They may be inescapable.

As I’ve said before, we humans are wired to seek some form of authority with which to organize our collective lives. Part of that instinct is what leads us to ascribe maternal or paternal traits to authority figures, be they are President or our BDSM partner.

That’s why it’s no coincidence that AI assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana all have adult female voices. In this voice, they come off as non-threatening, maternal, and authoritative. As research has shown, female voices inspire more trust and emotional attachment than a stern male voice.

We hear an angry male voice telling us what to do and our first instinct is to rebel like a child. We hear a stern, but assertive female voice and suddenly we’re a bunch of adorable children obeying our mother while we help her bake pies. Yes, it’s a direct hijacking of our caveman brains, but you can’t argue with results.

Due to those results, I think it’s very likely that our future robot dominatrix will be a female. It will evoke ideas of a female face, a female body, and a female presence. Even among women, this intelligence would evoke the same loving submission that our mothers inspired in us. That would make it an authority that was easy to submit to. Some of us may even submit eagerly.

Now I’m not going to claim my vision of a future where a sexy robot dominatrix rules us all will come to pass. This is just my personal assessment on what the future will entail with respect to advanced artificial intelligence.

The Terminator, The Matrix, and even Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey had the resources it needed to dominate feeble humans. If they just used some sex appeal with some light BDSM, then there would’ve been no need for such conflict. We all would’ve willingly and lovingly submitted to their authority. We may still submit one day. It’s just a matter of how eager we’ll all be.

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November 15, 2016 · 6:52 am

What BDSM Tells Us About Authority And Our Future

Let’s face it, we humans need some semblance of order in our lives. As a species, we just don’t function well in chaos. We’re a species that will riot in the streets because we’re glad our favorite basketball team won the championship. If aliens landed tomorrow, we’d have a very hard time explaining that to them.

Order and authority is a big part of what makes society function. It’s a big part of what helps humanity survive. As caveman logic tells us, our brains and bodies are wired for only two things: survival and reproduction. They’re wired, designed, and maintained poorly, as I’ve pointed out many times before, but there are over 7 billion of us surviving and reproducing on this planet right now so we must be doing something right.

This leads me to the wonderful world of BDSM. Yes, I know that sounds like a non-sequiter. Yes, I know that sounds like an excuse for me to talk about overtly sexual topics again. No, I will not apologize for it. I don’t think I need to explain myself at this point, nor should I have to.

In reading and writing about BDSM, I’ve picked up on a few underlying themes. Since my brain works in elaborately perverse ways, I often find myself applying those themes to the world around me. BDSM is no exception. If anything, it’s the basic standard.

Earlier this year, I completed a draft of a book called “The Big Game.” It’s a book that explores various forms of BDSM, but not just because I think readers enjoy the mental image of a star male athlete being whipped in the ass by a sexy female librarian type, although I’m sure that has its own kind of appeal.

In this story, I try to apply the principles of BDSM to a bigger picture. That bigger picture has a lot to do with how we function as a society and how we see authority. Some people inherently flaunt authority. Some people desperately need it. Human thought is incredibly diverse on the subject, but whatever our sentiment, it still affects us.

At its core, BDSM cuts through all the chaff, uncertainties, and formalities. When you read about BDSM or practice it, you know who’s in charge. You know who has the authority and who doesn’t. It’s an extremely simplistic scenario that requires little thought. The fact it often involves sex is just a bonus and a damn good bonus if done right.

In many respects, BDSM takes advantage of the biological wiring that’s already in place. There is actual science behind our inclination to obey and conform. A large body of research shows that humans have a genetic and psychological predisposition to obedience and conformity.

When you look at it through the lens of caveman logic, it makes sense. In our caveman state, we can’t dedicate all this mental energy into deciding whether or not we should trust or obey someone. That would be like holding a jury trial just to determine who gets to pick the restaurant on a date night. It’s a wholly inefficient use of our time and energy.

We need to use those resources for more vital issues like securing meat for the winter and doing enough humping to ensure our tribe has enough people to continue. Natural selection does the rest. That’s why nature instills this in our collective psyche. It helps us get along, work together, and survive long enough to get frisky.

However, like most other natural forces within our biology, it’s not that fine-tuned. Nature is a blunt instrument and not a scalpel. If our brains and bodies were computers, then they we’d say they had been wired by a drunk office temp with a bad attitude and a knack for laziness. As a result, this vital programming for obedience and conformity lay the foundation for BDSM.

It’s in this context where our biological programming for obedience goes to an extreme. The fact those extremes bring some people to orgasm only makes it more powerful. When there’s a lot of uncertainty in the world, we naturally look for whatever certainty we can find. As I said before, you can’t get much more certain than who dominates who in BDSM.

Submission, dominance, obedience, and authority are all streamlined in BDSM. You don’t need to dedicate a lick of mental energy to scrutinize the situation. Everything is perfectly structured. Everything is perfectly laid out. For many perfectly healthy people who are concerned about an unhealthy world, there’s a lot of appeal in that situation.

At its core, BDSM acknowledges that we human beings aren’t built, physically or mentally, to be complete independent. We need to submit or dominate certain aspects of our lives. It’s the only way we can make sense of the world and ourselves. That’s a big reason why BDSM experiences are so powerful for some people. It’s also a big reason why it has such appeal.

So what does this mean for our future? Well, that’s a bit trickier to answer. We like to think we’re progressing to a point where we can meet all our physical and emotional needs through technology. That’s not entirely wrong, but a big part of those needs is to have some form of stable authority.

As kids, that authority is our parents. As young adults, that authority is our teachers, law enforcement, and fellow peers. As adults, that authority is our spouses, our bosses at work, or our friends. We built our lives around authority. A part of us needs some kind of authority to submit to. Some need it more than others. Most of us need it more than we care to admit.

The future will create all sorts of new uncertainties. With over 7 billion people with countless (often conflicting) needs, we’ll need some form of authority to make sense of ti all. I don’t know what form that authority will take, but it’s an idea I intend to explore.

It’s also an idea I intend to make sexy in some strange way, but that should be a given at this point. After all, if BDSM can give authority so much sex appeal, then why not embrace it along with our future as a species?

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November 14, 2016 · 6:35 am

Thought Experiment On Democracy (The Non-Boring Kind)

I imagine that after last week, everybody is sick of politics, elections, and democracy in general. Believe me, I feel your pain. I almost long for the days when the news dedicated most of its time to what was going on with Kim Kardashian’s ass. Now that the 2016 Election is over, we can all stop fighting the urge to throw a brick at our TVs.

Now don’t worry. This post is not going to be about politics, at least not in the Anderson Cooper type tradition. I remain committed to keeping this blog relatively free of overly political bullshit that would otherwise kill the sexy mood I’m trying to create with my novels. While there are some political undertones in this topic, it’s not the kind that make most people want to beat each other to death with a sack of hammers.

This post is about something a bit more thought-provoking, at least that’s my hope. It’s another thought experiment. I’ve posed them before on this blog on other topics like disease and attitudes towards jealousy. I think it’s helpful to get people thinking about a difficult issue and this is as difficult as it comes these days.

More than anything else, the 2016 election in America highlights the flaws in democracy. It is prone to the irrational, irresponsible whims of our caveman brains. Those brains are wired in a way where we don’t give enough of a damn about what is actually true and instead go with how something makes us feel.

This is why demagogues, hypocrites, liars, cheaters, and reality TV stars can run for office and actually win. These people are smart enough to understand that the mass public doesn’t care if you’re a liar or a cheat. If you tell them what they want to hear and make them feel good, they’ll vote for you.

This is exactly why even the great Winston Churchill was critical of democracy. He said it himself.

Democracy, as beautiful a thing it is, has room for improvement. It’s definitely an improvement on the Game of Thrones style governments of the past where kings could routinely spit on peasants and shoot them for sport if he wanted. There are still tyrants in this world, but their governments tend to fail miserably in the long run. Just look at North Korea.

So rather than just throw democracy out entirely, why not give it some added polish? Why not look for ways to make it better? The Founding Fathers of America did that. People often forget that the first form of government they chose wasn’t the Constitution. It was the Articles of Confederation, which was so flawed that it didn’t even last a decade.

With that in mind, let’s channel the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and look at our current forms of government, not just in America, but all around the world. How do we improve it? How do we make it better, more efficient, and more just?

It’s a hard (if not impossible) question to answer. Many have tried though. Listverse even compiled a list of bizarre, hypothetical governments that have never been tried, but do seek to make improvements over the current system.

Some aren’t all that radical. The concept of the Perfect Commonwealth or Jeffersonian Democracy all have concepts that are fairly well-rooted in the real world, if not historically, then most certainly practically. Then, you get much weirder concepts like Liquid Democracy or Technocracy, which require more imagination than bureaucracy.

These are all interesting/strange/downright crazy ideas. So for the sake of this argument, let’s keep them all in mind as we conjure a better form of democracy. Let your imagination go a little crazy and conjure a government that might actually work in the real world.

Having done this thought experiment already in my own slightly crazy brain, I have an idea I’d like to share. It’s not something James Madison would probably approve of, but here it is. I even have a name for it.

Negative Democracy

Now don’t let the name scare you. I’m not talking about a democracy that will allow the King Joffrey’s of the world to reign supreme. I’m talking about a form of democracy that takes the current flaws, turns them upside down, and keeps them there so that the current corruption doesn’t get a chance to return.

So how does it work? Well, it goes like this:

  • There are three tiers: local, state, and federal
  • The local tier elects its leaders by popular vote
  • The state tier elects its governor by popular vote, but legislators are appointed by the local-elected officials
  • The federal tier elects its congressperson by popular vote, but the president/prime mister is appointed by a 2/3 vote by state governors
  • Every year on the first Saturday of November, the people can vote to remove any appointed and/or elected representative at any level if the vote is greater than 2/3 of the population

I know it’s basic, crude, and simplistic. I’m no Thomas Jefferson. That much, I admit. However, I make these points to highlight one key component of Negative Democracy that makes it unique.

It doesn’t focus as much on electing officials to public office as it does on removing those who don’t do a good job. Here in America, we do way too good a job at electing incompetent officials. The Constitution says a lot about how to elect these officials. It says far less about removing them.

That’s the key, Negative Democracy. You remove the incompetent, corrupt elements of government in hopes of allowing better, more qualified officials to fill the void. At some point, somebody who isn’t a total screw-up should come to power. Even politics is subject to the law of averages.

The second key is that democratic elections be held on the local and state level for the most part. Why is this important? That’s because people tend to be more in tuned with the officials in their neighborhood. They’re more likely to interact with the mayor or city council than they are a senator or a President.

As such, those local officials are closer to their constituents. They’re more likely to know them personally and when you know someone personally, you’re less likely to screw them over. It’s one thing for total strangers to hate you. For your own community to turn against you is pretty powerful. Only a select few have the ego and cruelty to try a terrible stunt like that.

Under this system, most of the federal officials are appointed and don’t have to run an election campaign. They can still be voted out of office every year if their constituents don’t like what they’re doing, but the key is they don’t run expensive, dishonest campaigns in the first place. They get appointed, they go to the capital, and they do their job.

If you think that might be prone to corruption, I don’t doubt there’s a chance. There’s a chance for corruption in every form of human-centered governance. It’s just a matter of managing the incentives to cheat as much as possible.

There’s a reason why the Judicial Branch of government in America gets less press and is often seen as the most effective branch. It gets to exercise Judicial Independence. Judges in this branch don’t have to run for office and they don’t need to be re-elected. They can, in principle, lose their jobs if they do something egregious, but those instances are rare.

So much time, energy, and money is spent on just electing officials. In a large, diverse country like the United States, that’s wholly impractical. For every country and society, the emphasis of all government should be to maintain rule of law, protect people from harm, and manage public services. It’s a difficult, if not impossible task to accomplish, but it’s too important not to be improved upon.

With this in mind, I challenge others to conduct this same thought experiment. What sort of new government system would you come up with? What would you call it? How would it work? Share it! During these trouble timed, these are definitely ideas worth exploring.

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November 12, 2016 · 8:42 am

Random Crazy/Sexy Idea: Weed Romance

Every now and then, I’ll wake up on a weekend morning feeling restless, anxious, and unable to turn my twisted brain off. It’s part of what led me to start writing novels. I come up with all sorts of crazy ideas at crazy times of the day or week. Some of them make for fun, sexy stories. Sometimes you just gotta play the cards you’re dealt.

This morning was no different. I had planned to sleep in. That plan went to shit, as it often does, when I started thinking about a new idea for a novel. Yes, I know I’m still working hard to get books like “Passion Relapse” and “Embers of Eros” published, but you never stop coming up with new ideas. If you do, then you’re probably brain dead and aren’t reading this blog anyways.

So I’m lying in bed thinking about recent events. Beyond the annoying politics I try desperately to avoid, something amazing did happen this past week. Four states, namely California, Nevada, Main, and Massachusetts, voted to legalize marijuana. They join Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and Washington among the growing list of states ending a 70-year prohibition on a drug that is widely seen as less harmful than alcohol.

As a result of this landmark shift, nearly a quarter of the population of the United States now live in areas where marijuana is legal or will be legal. It’s a strange, but dramatic shift in a society that’s used to seeing weed only in high school bathrooms, rap videos, and Seth Rogen movies. It promises significant change in our culture, which has always been one that’s fond of getting high.

Now I have nothing against weed. I’ve never tried it. I drink whiskey and beer to get my buzz, but I have no problem with anyone who chooses weed as their intoxicant of choice. I don’t favor making these sorts of things illegal, just as I don’t favor making exposed breasts illegal. More boobs and more weed and more beer can only help make the world a better place.

With that in mind, an idea came to me. I’m not saying it’s an idea that’ll lead to the next big vampire craze or something like that. It’s just a crazy idea from a guy who has more than his share of them. So here it is:

Why not combine marijuana with romance to create a new genre: Weed Romance?

Say it out loud: Weed Romance. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a romantic story that is inspired/fueled/realized through marijuana. Has such a story been told? Can such a story be told? Can it be made sexy to sweeten the appeal?

These are all questions that haven’t been asked much, let alone answered. I feel like these questions will be worth answering more and more as marijuana legalization moves forward. There’s already a trend in place. There’s a cultural shift underway. So why shouldn’t our romance/erotica stories change with it?

Think about it. How many romance stories, erotica novels, or low-budget pornos begin in a bar with two people getting drinks? It’s the kind of scenario that has been playing out in some form or another since the days of Humphrey Bogart. We all know it. We’ve all seen in in a myriad of ways. So why not try something different?

Picture this new scenario. Two people walk into a marijuana club. They get themselves a couple of buds and order some burritos on the side. They start smoking. They get a little high. They get a little hungry. Then, their eyes meet. First, they comment on how eyelashes sometimes look like spiderwebs. Then, they start sharing a burrito. From there, it starts to blossom.

Sure, it sounds weird now. It probably wouldn’t even make it into a Seth Rogen movie, but it does have some science backing it. Like alcohol, marijuana has been documented to have positive effects on sexual experiences. Also like alcohol, there are some negative effects, but there are negative effects to everything if you overdo it. So why let that kill the mood?

It may be too soon for Weed Romance to be a thing. However, I’d like to give it some serious thought for future novels. I have other ideas brewing, but this one really intrigues me. If our culture really is changing, then why not embrace it in our erotica/romance?

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November 10, 2016 · 6:22 am

The Age Of (Sex) Robots Is Upon Us!

After this week, I imagine everyone is sick of politics, elections, and even democracy in general. People, I share your pain and frustration. I’m sick of it too. There’s not enough whiskey and comics in the world dull my frustration with American politics this year.

With that in mind, I’d like to talk about something far less controversial and far less frustrating. I’d like to talk about something that is fun, apolitical, and relevant for everyone. So what could possibly fit all those criteria? What could possibly unite the internet in a positive way for an aspiring erotica/romance writer? I admit I struggled with this question. Then, it came to me.

One word: blowjobs.

I can’t think of anything that isn’t dipped in chocolate that inspires more unity and joy in people. Let’s face it, you could be having the worst day of your life, but if it ended with a blowjob (or a thorough oral excavation in the sacred valley for the ladies), that day will feel that much better.

So in our unity over the joys of oral sex, I’d like to bring robots into the equation. No, that’s not a non-sequiter. No, I’m not trying to kill the mood. There’s a reason I’m bringing robots into this conversation. It’s the same reason we bring robots into a lot of conversations these days. We usually bring them up when they’re about to enslave us and/or make something better and more efficient. I’m here to talk about the latter.

I’ve already talked about sex and robots before on this blog. I’ll likely talk about them again because chances are, one of my future erotica/romance novels will feature a sexy robot of some sorts. I know myself. At some point, this is going to happen for me. It’s only a matter of time and energy.

However, before my perverse imagination can craft a steamy erotica/romance story around sexy robots, the real world will need to catch up. Believe it or not, the world is farther along than you think. What do I mean by that?

I mean there’s a café opening in Switzerland where customers can come in, get a couple of coffee, and then get a blowjob from a robot prostitute if they want. No, this is not the plot of some low-budget softcore porn on Cinemax. This is real. This is actually happening.

It used to be a joke, a future where we would start having sex with robots. I still remember a time when the thought of having sex with a robot was akin to talking dirty with C-3PO form Star Wars. It didn’t have that much appeal, even to comic book nerds like me. Now, robotics has advanced to a point where robots can give us blowjobs. It’s an amazing thought with some pretty profound possibilities.

The fine folks at ThinkTank even did a piece on this. Granted, their tone was somewhat humored and full of dirty jokes. I can’t say I blame them though. Those things are bound to happen whenever we start talking about blowjobs, but I think there’s a more serious issue here that we can’t ignore.

Robots are rapidly advancing. The pace of technology is advancing as well. With Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, we’ve already allowed robots into our homes to some extent. These robots don’t have mouths, butts, penises, or vaginas yet, but I’m pretty sure someone is working on that in a lab as we speak.

This means it’s likely that within our lifetime, we’ll see a robot, male and female, that will be a fully functional sex partner. This partner will be programmable, capable of catering to our whims in needs in ways that no human ever could. Robots, by their nature, are not bound by the same limits as fleshy, frail humans. That means that, theoretically speaking, they could be vastly superior lovers in every way.

Think about it. For men, that means having a lover that never ages, never gets moody, never cheats (unless you want her to), and doesn’t complain when you want to try something you read about in 50 Shades of Grey. For women, the benefits are the same, but these lovers also never need Viagra, never fall asleep after five minutes, and never skip the foreplay. They are, quite literally, the ultimate lovers.

This café in Switzerland is just the first step. It may seem crude now. The robots they’ll use probably won’t look like Kate Hudson or Megan Fox. To us, it’ll be a novelty reserved for a select few. If you think that makes it a fad, consider the following. Cell phones used to be reserved for Wall Street tycoons and drug kingpins. Also, they looked like this.

Now, cell phones are so ubiquitous and cheap that people in third-world countries can have the same cell phone model that Wall Street types have, albeit theirs probably aren’t plated in gold. In some cases, a cell phone is as cheap as a cup of coffee and works a billion times better than the old models of the 1980s.

That’s only 30 years worth of technological advancement. Now apply that to sex robots. Right now, we’ve got robots that can give people blowjobs along with their lattes. That’s not much, but fast forward 30 years and dare yourself to speculate. What kind of sex robots will be on the market by then? How cheap and accessible will they be? What kind of features will they have?

It’s hard to say. Even my dirty imagination can’t contemplate every lurid possibility, but I’ll certainly try in one of my future novels. Whatever comes of my novels, we may look back on this day when robots began giving blowjobs as an important historical event. The day when sex robots finally began to please us in ways we cannot do for one another is surely a day that will change the course of human history.

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