
The following is a review I wrote for PopMatters on Uncanny X-men #1. Enjoy!
An Uncanny Deconstruction of Superheroes in ‘Uncanny X-men #1’

The following is a review I wrote for PopMatters on Uncanny X-men #1. Enjoy!
An Uncanny Deconstruction of Superheroes in ‘Uncanny X-men #1’

I don’t consider myself a flirting expert, nor do I think very highly of the pick-up artist community. The idea of just bullshitting someone into sleeping with you doesn’t really sit well with me. Other than being unromantic, it comes off as the shallowest kind of intimacy. Sure, there’s a place for that sort of thing, but it doesn’t deserve to be glorified.
I’m still a big fan of using words as a catalyst for intimacy. I’m not just talking about the lurid dirty talk that often finds its way into my novels and sexy short stories. I genuinely believe that there’s an art to saying just the right thing in just the right way to turn a tender moment into something extra sexy. It’s not easy knowing how or when to say it, but when it works, it’s downright magical.
There have been only a handful of incidence where I can say with a straight face that I aroused a woman with my words. Those were amazing moments, though. I genuinely hope the women felt the same way. They helped affirm the power of sexy words and saying in just the right way.
The following Daily Sexy Musing is a tribute to how powerful that kind of sexy rhetoric can be. Regardless of gender or circumstances, it can turn a tiny spark into a passionate flame. You don’t need the wit of Shakespeare. You just need a willingness to turn sexy thoughts into sexier words. Enjoy!
I wait for a brief silence. In the chaos that is our lives, they don’t come by often. That makes every opportunity more precious and I intend to embrace every one of them. I need only you, me, and a quiet place where you can hear my voice above a whisper.
We’ve found just the right moment.
We’re in just the right place.
We have a chance to share illicit sentiment and I’m taking it.
I lean in and talk right into your ear. My tone is barely above a whisper, soft and direct so that there is no ambiguity. I leave nothing to chance. I make abundantly clear all the lurid things I want to do with you. Are you bold enough to handle that sentiment?
I say what needs to be said, unfiltered and uncensored. I await your reaction. I see you tense and I hear you gasp. I also notice your legs shifting, as though I struck just the right chord in your intimate anatomy. You try to hide it, but you don’t try very hard. You let me see your reaction. It says so much without a single word.
You turn and look at me. At first, you’re aghast. Moments later, you’re intrigued. Your expression changes. Gone is the look of innocence and restraint. In your eyes, I see the shackles come off. Your heart and your loins are freed. My words didn’t just pick the lock. It shattered every link on the chain.
You dive eagerly into my grasp.
You whisper devious musings into my ear.
You take my luscious verbiage and turn it against me.
Suddenly, the same chords are struck. Body, mind, and heart go in different directions, but make their way to the same destination. Our words provoke actions. Our actions inform passions. Those passions bring out the extremes of love, lust, and everything in between.
I offer more amorous rhetoric. You respond in kind. Like gusts of wind fueling a firestorm, it drives us to the highest peaks of desire. We don’t just remove our clothes. We rip them off. We don’t just caress one another. Together, we plunge into a sea of depthless desire.
All it took was a few words.
All it took was a distinct tone.
From our voice, the greatest acts of love and desire manifest before us.
Filed under Daily Sexy Musings

Maintaining a healthy romance is a lot like pursuing good sex. There’s no one right way to do it that works for everyone, but there are any number of wrong ways that can fail spectacularly. I’ve shared a few personal stories about my love life and even offered some insights on how to improve romance in the world of fiction. When it comes to real world advice, though, I try to be careful.
I’m not a relationship expert or a licensed therapist. I’m an aspiring erotica/romance writer who shares weekly sexy thoughts and bemoans how love is portrayed in popular media. Sure, I’ll occasionally give my opinion on serious issues involving gender politics and trends in popular culture, but I try to avoid giving the impression that I’m qualified to give advice.
However, there are a number of things we can all do for our love lives, a sex lives, and everything in between that makes it better. There are personal experiences that demonstrate it and even scientific research that supports it. Some are just common sense, but anyone who is familiar with the Darwin Awards knows that’s not always sufficient.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer the wonderful readers of this site the simplest and easiest advice they’ll ever get. It’ll improve your relationship. It’ll enhance your sex life. It’ll make you feel better, overall. What is the magical method that does so much to help so many aspects of your personal life? It’s simple.
Get better sleep.
That’s it. That is a real, effective method for improving your relationships, be it with a long-time lover or a one-night stand in Las Vegas. There’s no need for expensive therapy. You don’t have to pay a guru or a life coach. For once, it really is that simple. Get better sleep and your love life will improve.
Now, in the interest of not sounding too obvious, there are some details here that are worth highlighting. In recent years, the importance of getting a good night’s sleep has been become more critical. A great deal of research has shown a long list of benefits that come with good sleep and an equally lengthy list of detriments for those who don’t get enough.

Good sleep helps you lose weight, alleviate illness, and recover from serious injuries. None of that is news to anyone, but I get the sense that people don’t appreciate the role sleep plays in a healthy romance and a good sex life. That role goes beyond work and afterglow, as well.
According to research published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, poor sleep can disrupt your emotions and not just in terms of being groggy in the morning. Managing and regulating emotions is core component of any functional relationship. Even those who don’t mind melodrama are going to get burned out from someone who can’t figure out whether they’re stressed, miserable, or pissed off.
It even goes beyond messy emotional exchanges. That same study also showed a link between poor sleep and depression. Considering how depression tends to dull passion of any kind, romantic or otherwise, it’s understandable how it can undermine a relationship.

It’s even more understandable in terms of how it hurts your sex life. In addition to depression limiting your capacity to get in the mood, it also creates situations where people use sex as a band aid instead of a basic emotional expression. I’ve seen this happen before with friends and relatives. They try to use sex as an anti-depressant. It can offer temporary reprieve, but it does little to resolve any actual issues.
Then, there’s the simple logistics that a lack of sleep will create. If your lover is on a different sleep schedule than you, then that makes spending time together a chore because one of you is going to be groggy. Whether it’s due to work schedules or one person being a night owl, love can only do so much when a couple is rarely rested at the same time.
This goes beyond just being restless and buying overpriced lattes. A lack of sleep can actually cause damage to the brain. Sleep is supposed to be the time when your brain heals and refreshes itself after a long, arduous day. If it never gets a chance to heal, then that could impact everything from your memories to your emotions to your genitals.

Yes, a lack of sleep does have sexual side-effects. For men, it lowers testosterone, the magically masculine hormone that drives a significant part of the male libido. It effects men whether they’re gay, straight, bisexual, or trans. When your hormones are off, your sex life will suffer. It can even lead to erectile dysfunction, which is sure to compound that nasty mood I mentioned earlier.
Women experience a similar effect as well. On top of research showing that well-rested women tend to have more sex, a lack of sleep can make it significantly more difficult to achieve orgasm. At a time when women are already already dealing with an orgasm gap, this certainly doesn’t help. Even with adequate sleep, a lack of orgasms can hurt any relationship.
Again, a lot of this is common sense, but for those looking to improve or maintain their love lives, it may seem too common. It goes against the standard romantic narrative that two people in love always have to be doing something. They always have to be off going on adventures, working hard every hour of every day to stay in love, have great sex, and grow together.

While there’s certainly a place for that kind of effort in a relationship, it doesn’t have to come at the cost of a good night’s sleep. If anything, a couple sharing a restful night in bed together should count as an act of genuine romance. It doesn’t even have to come after sex or even involve nudity, although couples who sleep naked do enjoy added benefits.
Ideally, good sleep shouldn’t just be a byproduct of a quality romance. It should be part of the process. It could be as easy as communicating with your lover how much sleep you need, when to do it, and what helps you feel most rested. It may sound mundane, but these are little things that real loving couples often overlook.

One of my old college roommates actually got sleep down to a science. He and his girlfriend made a genuine effort to line up their sleep cycles so perfectly that I could pretty much set my watch to when they would turn in. It wasn’t always romantic, but I can’t argue with the results. They were together that entire semester and I rarely saw them in a bad mood.
Most people, whether they’re in a relationship or not, are willing to put in the work to make romance work. They’re just as willing to listen to gurus, pop pills, and read sexy stories to improve their sex lives as well. While I try to do my part with the sexy stories I tell, I think it’s ironic that just getting better sleep rarely comes to mind.
Even if it makes too much sense, it’s probably the easiest way for anyone to improve their relationship. We already know how to sleep. Most of us relish the opportunity to get more. If more sleep means better sex and quality romance, then it more than warrants a higher priority in our intimate efforts.
After all, a good lover is a well-rested lover.

I don’t care how good a relationship a couple has. At some point, they’re going to have a fight. Sometimes, it’s over something petty, like who didn’t do the laundry or who didn’t take out the trash. Other times, it can be pretty serious. I’m talking on the level of sleeping with the neighbor or running over the dog.
The strength of a relationship isn’t in how well they avoid these situations. It’s how well they endure them. Couples who really love each other and work on their relationship figure out how to get through those rough times. It can be hard, but they come out stronger in the long run. In many cases, the greatest manifestation of that strength is make-up sex.
Now, I feel as though make-up sex gets a bad rap. Every time it shows up in the erotica/romance genre, it’s portrayed as a crutch. It’s something couples use to mask the breadth of their problems. I don’t agree with this portrayal. I think it’s only a small part of a much larger story.
I intend to tell some of those stories, both in my novels and in my sexy short stories. In the meantime, this Daily Sexy Musing is my first attempt to re-establish the inherent sex appeal of make-up sex. Enjoy!
You’re upset.
I’m upset.
We’re both upset and we’re both to blame.
I don’t remember how it started. First, I did something. Then, I didn’t do something in response. You got angry and I got angry too. The things we said came from an unclear, irrational place. For a moment, all the good we had done and the trust we had established was forgotten.
It tears at my heart. I hate being mad at you. I know you hate it too. I see it in your eyes. The tears give away your anguish. It hurts you to direct such hatred towards me. It leaves wounds that cut deep, forging memories not easily forgotten. It’s a special kind of pain, one only possible when it comes from a person you love.
It doesn’t have to break us. It can’t. Our love is too strong. The work, passion, and energy we put in is too durable. I let you say what needs to be said. I say my part as well, but not a word more. We lay everything out for one another, our outrage and flaws laid bare.
I see you at your worst.
You see me at my lowest.
Together, it is our lowest point.
Then, in this moment of frustration and rage, something magical happens. We fall silent. On a whim, we decide to place our faith in the love and trust we have for each other. We gamble that our love is stronger than the source of our anger.
In the end, it pays off.
What is said and unsaid sends the right message. As quickly as we forgot our love, we remember it with sobering relief. I throw my arms around you and we embrace. You kiss me as though my life depends on it. I can literally feel your love entering me, washing over all the negative feelings that once drove us apart.
Now, we are together again. We are still wounded and in pain, but in a perfect position to heal. We tear our clothes off, find the nearest piece of furniture that can support our weight, and channel every feeling into something beautiful.
Pain becomes pleasure.
Hate becomes love.
Despair becomes ecstasy.
We can argue, disagree, and clash. We can never avoid the flaws of a world that seeks to undermine our love. However, we can make up for it and make our love stronger.
Filed under Daily Sexy Musings
Filed under superhero comics, superhero movies

What is it about manly chest hair that’s so sexy? Actually, a better question might be why the sex appeal of chest hair is so mixed? Men have more body hair. That’s just basic human biology. It has a pragmatic, albeit limited function. We don’t have enough of it to keep us as warm as a polar bear, but it still has a unique aesthetic.
Like breasts on women, chest hair is one of those distinguishing male features that denotes raw masculinity. Most men don’t emphasize it as much as women do with their breasts. Then again, very few features can ever hope to match the sex appeal of female breasts. That doesn’t mean chest hair can’t have a place in the sexual landscape.
I’ve had chest hair since I was 16. I come from a long line of men in my family who have hairy chests. Some family members even take pride in it. The women they’re with don’t hide their appreciation of it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the manliness my chest hair conveys and I think it’s worth appreciating even more.
For this week’s edition of my Sexy Sunday Thoughts, I’d like to celebrate this underrated sexual trait. It does more than just distinguish men from women or offer some extra warmth in the winter. It adds a unique kind of sexiness to a world rich in sex appeal. Not everyone finds it sexy, but for those that do will always be a little warmer on cold nights.
“A bad date that ends in sex will always be more memorable than a good date that ends in a kiss.”

“Lovemaking can easily turn into fucking, but it’s much harder to do the other way around.”

“When you think about it, mirrors tell us just how much we want to fuck ourselves.”

“The appeal of anal sex changes considerably after a woman has given birth.”

“Love is just a more refined and focused version of being horny.”

“Historically speaking, humping is the second oldest form of exercise after running.”

“Puberty is just your body’s way of letting you know it’ll be fucking with you for the rest of your life.”

For those who find inherent sex appeal in chest hair, the colder weather in the coming months should help vindicate you. Hairy chest hair is one of those traits that tends to have a very targeted sex appeal. Some genuinely don’t care for it. Some find it sexier than Ron Swanson covered in bacon grease. As winter draws near, I believe those men who value their chest hair will once again make their case.
Filed under Sexy Sunday Thoughts

Halloween has passed. The days are getting shorter. It’s also getting noticeably colder outside. Unless you live in a tropical climate, in which case you’re the envy of many in my part of the world, these factors all lead to one critically sexy outcome. Snuggling is in and it’s about to get a lot more pragmatic.
I’ve already celebrated the joys of cuddling, but I make some key distinctions between cuddling and snuggling. As a self-professed romantic, I believe there are major differences and most people know them when they feel them. Cuddling is informal, playful, and supplementary to quality romance. Snuggling is more intimate and direct, allowing it to complement romance rather than just enhance it.
Before fire, snuggling was a key source of heat. There are logistics to it, which become even more necessary once we enter the fall and winter months. A good snuggle doesn’t just help us stay warm. It reminds us that we have a love in our lives that provides us with warmth, shelter, and protection in a very literal sense. Seriously, what could be more romantic than that?
This Daily Sexy Musing celebrates both the logistics and sentiment of snuggling. I hope it gives lovers out there something to contemplate on the many cold nights that await us this winter.
The night arrives. An unforgiving cold sweeps across the land. There’s no escaping it. Everywhere it goes, it seeks to expunge warmth and contentment. We cannot escape it, nor can we fight it. However, we can endure.
Alone, we only brave the coldness of the night.
Together, we dare defy it.
Unafraid of the looming darkness, we shed our clothes and gather blankets. We then surround ourselves in layers, insulating us from the icy touch of the night. Under the welcome shelter, we find each other. We follow one another to the only remaining source of heat. Thankfully, we don’t have to venture far.
The sun may be gone, but there is still warmth to be found. From you, the same flesh that arouses my every sense is now my salvation from the unforgiving gold. From me, I offer similar reprieve. I welcome you into my warmth. I share with you the sanctuary born from love, desire, and compassion.
I wrap you in my arms.
I surround you with my love.
I protect you as you protect me.
As our skin touches, heat fuels more heat. The cold attempts to snuff it out, but it fails miserably. There’s no stopping us. Our desire to keep each other warm proves too strong. Our need to survive the night proves too tenacious. By ourselves, we were vulnerable. With each other, we are stronger than any night.
Curled up under the sheets, creating more heat with every gesture, we smile. It is an affront to the cold and the darkness that spreads it. Where there was once despair and discomfort, we create a new domain for our passion. The night air can fight us all it wants. We’ll just fight harder with our love.
It starts with a simple snuggle, warm flesh warming warm flesh, the heat compounding every step of the way. It culminates in multiple ways. On one path, the heat allows us to make love. On one path, the heat allows us a peaceful sleep. In between, there are many others. All lead to a world of contentment.
Our bodies entwined, we navigate the cold night.
Our bodies entwined, we turn vulnerability into strength.
Our bodies entwined, we turn thoughts of passion into feelings of warmth.
Filed under Daily Sexy Musings

The following is a review I wrote for PopMatters for X-23 #6. Enjoy!
Class, Clones, and Killer Robots in Marvel Comics’ ‘X-23 #6’