Jack Fisher's Official Publishing Blog

May 18, 2017 · 6:53 am

A Second Sexual Revolution: The (Sexy And Non-Sexy) Possibilities

Every revolution in history thought theirs was to be the last. They thought when all was said and done, the radical change they brought to society would be vindicated, ever-lasting, and celebrated. Through the harsh lens of history, those behind those revolution all have one thing in common. They all thought wrong.

Whether you’re fighting for the right to marry a squirrel or marching with Vladimir Lenin himself, those behind a revolution are often blinded by their ideals. They see the change they’re seeking as a new and proven method for fixing society’s many ills. Seeing as how every society in every point in history has had many ills, they’ve had a lot to work with.

That was the case with the sexual revolution of the 1960s. However, I explained in another post how this so-called revolution followed the basic formula of many other revolutions. Those revolutions are now pages in history whose effects have been either tempered, rebuked, forgotten, or overlooked.

It’s impossible to predict when, where, and how a revolution will unfold. The why, though, is almost always the same. There’s something insufficient about the current state of affairs. Whether it’s the government, the economy, or trends in movies, there’s always some sort of deficiency. With sex, the rules are unique, the stakes are higher, and the impact spans everything from how we do it to what we wear to get it.

At some point, there will be another “sexual revolution” of sorts. It probably won’t be called that. You won’t turn on the news one day and hear that another sexual revolution has begun so everyone should stock up on stilettos and lube. As time passes, though, and we can look back with painfully clear hindsight, we’ll see just how revolutionary it was.

It’s not a guarantee. Nothing is when you speculate about the future. However, current trends in technology are taking us down a similar path to the sexual revolution we saw play out in the 1960s. As those trends achieve certain milestones, our sex lives will be impacted. After that, all bets are off.

I’ve already talked about a few of these trends and their very sexy possibilities. The field of human enhancement, particularly with advances like smart blood, could give us superhuman endurance, beauty, and sex skills. A world where men and women can hump like porn stars on crack is definitely revolutionary.

That advance is a ways off, though. Others like new forms of long-lasting contraception and new disease-fighting agents like CRISPR would bring their own brand of change. Some are even already here. There are two men living this planet who have a bionic penis. If you think that’s not going to cause some revolutionary ideas, then you’re underestimating how much inspiration men draw from their penis.

All these amazing advances are emerging at a time when we, as a society, seem to be getting more sexually uptight. We already saw how technology, specifically the advent of antibiotics and modern contraception, helped spur the sexual revolution of the 60s. So what kind of revolution will these advances inspire?

Again, it’s impossible to predict. I’m an aspiring erotica/romance writer. I’m as qualified to be an oracle of the future as I am an astronaut brain surgeon. That said, since I write so much about sex on this blog and in my novels, I like to think I have some insight.

If a second revolution does start, it’ll do so when technology like CRISPR develops to the point where every nasty infectious disease that kept our collective panties on gets cured. That will eventually happen. The first sexual revolution in the 60s saw the end to some of the nastiest diseases we ever endured as a species. It just came too late for men like Al Capone.

As soon as we enter a world where there’s no debilitating disease like syphilis or AIDS to terrify us between the sheets, that will change the game. At the moment, we dedicate significant resources to teaching horny teenagers about the dangerous diseases they can get if they have more sex than what religious authorities and registered republicans deem appropriate.

So what happens when those diseases are cured? Well, it’s going to certainly terrify parents who don’t want to think about their precious babies getting sweaty, naked, and loud as they indulge in the kinds of decadent orgies usually reserved for Roman emperors. Some will rally against it. Some may even try to prevent these diseases from being cured. That didn’t work in the 60s, though. I doubt it’ll work in the 21st century.

Without disease, the only real consequence people will have about sex is unplanned pregnancy. However, that too might become an afterthought thanks to advances like Vasalgel, which will likely enter the market within the next five years or so. Add this on top of improvements to IUDs, as well as advances in artificial wombs, and then pregnancy becomes a non-issue.

That’s not to say that sex won’t have risks. Even without the potential anxiety of disease and unplanned pregnancy, there will still be issues between the sheets. If there isn’t, we’ll create them. That’s what we humans tend to do with our caveman brain. Then again, with the emergence of brain enhancements, such as Neuralink, that too might be mitigated.

This is all assuming there won’t be other major trends in technology or society that nobody, especially not an aspiring erotica/romance writer, is able to anticipate. There’s a virtual 100 percent chance guarantee that such an assumption is wrong. Even if we can’t make that assumption, we can still entertain some sexy speculation.

That’s where the prospect of a second sexual revolution gets interesting/scary. It’ll arouse some while making others put on an extra pair of panties. That’s also where being an erotica/romance writer gives me an edge because it gives me a chance to blur the line between fantasy and reality.

Perhaps the second sexual revolution will involve a new concept of what it means to be monogamous with someone. That concept may actually not involve sex, weddings, or legally binding documents either.

Perhaps the second sexual revolution will emphasize intimacy more than basic pleasure. With no concerns about pregnancy or disease, along with enhancements to the body and brain, we can focus entirely on being intimate with our partner.

Perhaps the second sexual revolution will expand and enhance the pleasure we experience. Between brain enhancements and biotechnology, the orgasms we feel today may be a mild tingle compared to what we experience in the future.

Perhaps the second sexual revolution won’t just emphasize pleasure between two people. We may end up forming intimate groups, linked together by a shared love and possibly shared thoughts.

Perhaps the second sexual revolution will actually temper our sex drives so that we can better channel it. We may emphasize control over expression, preferring quality over quantity with the aid of brain enhancements and biotechnology.

There are all possibilities. There’s very little chance that only one manifests. There’s a better chance that we’ll see bits and pieces of these ideas converge to create something that we simply can’t imagine right now with our caveman brains. It’s an inherently sexy idea with many implications, both sexual and otherwise.

So what do you think a second sexual revolution will bring? What can we expect in a world where technology and medicine expand our ability and understanding of sex and intimacy? I don’t usually get a lot of comments on this blog, but I’m very interested in hearing new ideas on this topic.

So please take the time to share your thoughts on this issue. I think it’s definitely worth discussing, if only to give me more excuses to talk about sex robots.

3 Comments

Filed under Sexy Future

Tagged as counterculture, future of love, futurism, human enhancement, love, relationships, romance, sex, sexual health, sexual repression, Sexual Revolution, sexy, the human body, transhumanism

May 17, 2017 · 7:00 am

A Second Sexual Revolution: The (Sexy) Precedent

In any human society, nothing becomes a revolution until after people realize just how revolutionary their ideas were in the context of the times. Few people who end up being part of a social movement, see their activities as part of a revolution. That assumes they’re sober, which history tells us can be a factor.

Those who oppose revolutionary activities are even less inclined to call them as such. They see these kinds of movements as chaos, criminal, and dangerous because it’s distracting people from doing more important things like paying their taxes, pumping out babies, and giving money to their preferred religious service.

It’s hard to really transform a simple protest to a full-blown revolution is what I’m saying. That brings me to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the possibility of other sexual revolutions in the future.

I’ve talked about the sexual revolution of the 60s before. It was fueled by two powerful factors that helped loosen sexual norms, namely the advent of effective contraception and the elimination of major sexually transmitted diseases thanks to antibiotics. For the first time in recorded history, human beings had more flexibility in exercising their sexual desires.

Advances in technology, science, and public health gave people the ability to explore their sexuality without fear of negative health consequences. Unwanted pregnancies and life-threatening diseases were no longer as big a concern. Men and women could engage in various sexual activities more freely and openly. The only obstacle in their way were the prudish sexual norms that remained.

That’s where the revolution came in. Science and technology can do a lot of things for us, such as curing disease and preventing pregnancy. However, it can’t convince people to just abandon their beliefs, values, and assumptions about certain subjects. That’s why we still have people in positions of great power who don’t believe in evolution.

Anyone who has ever dared to read the comments section on a news site understands it all too well. There’s a segment of people who ardently cling to the norms of the past. There’s also a segment of people who cling to the emerging norms of the present. When the two meet, it can get ugly.

The sexual revolution of the 60s was basically the comments section of a New York Times article made flesh. An entire generation of youth, who now had both the tools and the desires to explore their sexuality, was running into the brick wall that their elders had established.

They were taught from the days of Elvis’ evil hips that sex was a generally bad thing. It’s only acceptable function was to make babies that will work in factories, pay taxes, and go to church. Any orgasms that anyone had were optional. It’s easy to see why a whole lot of horny teenagers heard that message and decided to rebel.

In many respects, the spirit of the sexual revolution of the 60s was a direct response to the incredibly uptight, annoyingly prudish attitudes of a 1950s culture where couples sleeping in the same bed on TV was seen as scandalous. One generation bombards the other with endless morality lectures. The other rebels. The next thing you know, you’ve got mud orgies going on at Woodstock.

It’s not necessarily a new pattern. Throughout history, cultures have gone through periods of sexual prudishness and sexual promiscuity. Cultures like the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Indians were well-known for their liberal attitudes. Then, you have extremely restrictive mores of the ancient Chinese and Victorian England. By and large, sexual attitudes have been downright erratic.

When you examine the history of these attitudes, you see a cycle of sorts. That cycle usually plays out like this:

There’s some kind of upheaval in society, usually caused by economics, famine, or disease.
A large segment of society seeks more order so they embrace morals that encourage more uptight, restrained attitudes.
Those attitudes extend to sexuality and more prudish attitudes take over, giving any sexuality that doesn’t involve procreation a negative connotation.
Society stabilizes and comes to accept these attitudes for a long stretch of time.
A new generation is born, never knowing the upheavals that previous generations faced.
That generation sees the overly prudish attitudes of their elders as flawed and rebel.
New attitudes emerge that loosen sexual standards, often in ways that shock and horrify older generations.
The new attitudes become a spectacle and the shock value wears off.
Eventually, the attitudes result in another round of upheaval in society, which is magnified by a rises in sexually transmitted diseases or unstable family structures.
Another generation emerges and adopts more restrictive sexual attitudes once more.

Like every revolution, the sexual revolution of the 60s did incur a backlash. The emergence of new diseases like AIDS, as well as less stable family structures, contributed to all sorts of ills that played out over the course of several decades. You could make the argument that it’s still playing out.

That leads us to today. At the moment, it’s hard to say where in the cycle we are. Unlike previous periods in history, technology and modern infrastructure has taken society into uncharted territory.

Even if sexual attitudes regressed after the 60s, the growth of the porn industry and the widespread availability of erotic content, thanks to the internet, kept the backlash from going too far. It’s one thing to regress in a society dominated by uneducated masses. It’s quite another to do so in one with high literacy, fewer famines, and unlimited access to full-frontal nudity in their pockets.

However, I have made the argument before that our society is steadily becoming more sexually uptight. We’re seeing it in the way people react to sex in the media. It’s becoming more taboo for female characters in movies and video games to be sexy in any way. It’s also becoming taboo to use sex as much in advertising, as Carl’s Junior recently found out when they dropped their sexy ads.

There are also shifting trends in what society seeks to shame. There are now buzzwords like “toxic masculinity” and “rape culture” that skew sexual attitudes. Every week, it seems, there’s a new moral crusade against some sort of sexual injustice, be it sexual assault or inequalities in the LGBT community.

These crusades are putting sex into a negative context, not unlike the one it had in the uptight 1950s. In the current cultural landscape, any and all negative manifestations of sex get more attention and are blown out of proportion, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Never mind the fact that rates of sexual violence against women have declined by over 60 percent since 1995. Fear, dread, and upheaval still pervade whenever issues of sexual violence emerge, even if it turns out to be false. Remember the first part of that cycle I mentioned? Well, that upheaval element is there so the cycle might continue.

If that happens, then the end result will be similar to what we saw in the 60s. There will be another sexual revolution of sorts in response to emerging trends or as a backlash to the ongoing moral crusades. The human libido is powerful and erratic, but it never sits on the sideline when we aggressively attack our own sexuality.

Now, I’m not a good predictor of the future. If I were, I’d be picking stocks and betting on football games for a living instead of writing erotica/romance. However, my caveman brain still sees patterns, especially the sexy kind. What I see now and what I see in the past with the 60s sexual revolution checks more than a few boxes.

It’s hard to know how it’ll manifest, but I think there will be another sexual revolution of sorts. Within a generation, we’ll see young people engaging in sexual behaviors that shock and horrify today’s latte-loving millennials. What kind of behaviors might that entail? It’s hard to say, but it’s fun to imagine.

7 Comments

Filed under Second Sexual Revolution

Tagged as 60s Counterculture, counterculture, family, gender issues, love, romance, sex, sex in society, sexual health, Sexual Revolution, sexual trends, sexy, social movements, social trends, technology

May 16, 2017 · 6:59 am

New Deadpool Cartoon Announced (And Why It Matters)

In addition to being an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I have a fairly diverse set of interests. I talk about many of them on this blog. I love superhero comics, superhero movies, futuristic technology, and activities that involve nudity. I like to explore these topics because the world is a diverse and sexy place. I want this blog to reflect that, as well as entertain/titillate.

So when news emerges that involves superhero comics and a potential for entertainment/titillation, expect me to mention it at some point. When that news involves someone like Deadpool, a character who has built his entire appeal on that and dick jokes, you can pretty much set your watch to it.

I’ve talked about Deadpool many times before. I’m not the only one either. Deadpool is the new golden boy for Fox, Marvel, and the entire superhero genre. He was once a niche character with an especially loyal set of fans and cos-players. Then, former sexiest man alive, Ryan Reynolds, made Deadpool the hottest thing in spandex not named Jennifer Lawrence.

The Deadpool movie wasn’t just a game-changer. It dropped a metric ton of napalm on the game, blew it up with C4, and roasted marshmallows over the entrails while strippers danced in the background. If that sounds crazy, then congratulations. You now have some insight into why Deadpool is so appealing.

The first Deadpool movie completely shocked the established superhero genre, grossing $783 million on a $58 million budget. At a time when many superhero movies need budgets of at least $250 million to be taken seriously, that’s not just impressive. That’s downright jarring.

The fact that Deadpool did this while being rated R, complete with exposed breasts and Ryan Reynold’s jerking off with a stuffed unicorn, makes it all the more astonishing. It proved that superhero movies could be mature, sexy, and appealing. It also proved they can be extremely profitable and nothing speaks louder in the entertainment industry than money. Why else would Disney have made five “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies?

The impact is still being felt, but it’s already starting to show. Just this year, Fox proved that Deadpool’s success was not a fluke. The R-rated “Logan” movie made $606 million on a $97 million budget while generated critical acclaim. Once can be an anomaly. Twice is the beginning of a trend.

In an effort to continue that trend, Fox and Marvel announced this past week that they will be making a Deadpool animated series for the FXX network. That’s the same network that hosts such kid-unfriendly shows like “Archer” and “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.” There couldn’t be a more appropriate home is what I’m saying.

Now, this news might not seem like a big deal to non-comic fans. Deadpool had a successful movie, making Fox and Marvel a boatload of money. With a sequel already in the works, why not capitalize on his popularity with a cartoon? It sounds like a normal money grab by big corporate media giants who are never satisfied with merely having a few pools of money to swim in.

There’s no doubt that’s part of the dynamic here, but there are far larger implications, some of which might have an impact on erotica/romance. Bear with me, here, because this is where I try to gaze into a crystal ball and not throw up. Since I haven’t won the lottery or predicted the Super Bowl yet, assume my ability for foresight is limited.

Earlier this year, I talked about the success of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie, as well as the challenges associated with creating quality erotica/romance. Some of these challenges aren’t insurmountable, but they are daunting. The success of “Game of Thrones” might be nudging public attitudes to some extent, but only to a point.

Since Hollywood is too damn impatient when it comes to exploiting a market, I speculated that animation might actually be the key to future erotica/romance. It effectively circumvents many of those daunting challenges I mentioned. Cartoon characters don’t get too testy when you ask them to take their clothes off.

With a Deadpool cartoon being on FXX, there’s a lot more potential for raunchy sexiness. We already see it in shows like “Archer,” which doesn’t shy away from the kind of crude humor that is usually reserved for “South Park.” Unlike “Archer,” though, Deadpool has more brand recognition. He generates far more attention and not just because he’s been known to cross dress every now and then.

Deadpool will be entering a market that’s ripe for growth. Adult-themed animation has been around for years, but has never been more than a niche market. That might be changing just in time for Deadpool.

In recent years, shows like “Archer” have inspired other shows like “Rick and Morty,” gaining more than just a cult following. These shows get away with plots and humor that would never make it past the network executives who are routinely terrified of getting a call from the FCC. By being animated, they can push the proverbial envelope in ways that go far beyond an exposed nipple.

Deadpool doesn’t stop at nipples, though. He’s a character who married a succubus and flirted with Spider-Man. He does things that made the kid-friendly executives at Disney faint. With a cartoon, they can even do things that Ryan Reynolds would never agree to and he’s the guy who agreed to do “R.I.P.D.”

The potential that a Deadpool cartoon has cannot be understated. He can do more than just create another hit cartoon for a network that already has a few under their belt. He can foster a new audience that’s hungry for more mature animation.

Between the success of movies like “Fifty Shades of Grey” and TV shows like “Rick and Morty,” Deadpool is coming along at the best possible time. By creating a larger audience, it’ll let the big wigs at major media studios that audiences do want sexier content. They want media that’s fun, sexy, and not afraid of showing a few nipples every now and then.

There will always be a place for kid-friendly cartoons, but animation need not be a medium that appeals to one segment of the population. There are many more people out there who want sexier material and they don’t need to whine to their parents for money to buy it.

A Deadpool cartoon definitely has plenty of appeal, especially to those who enjoyed the sex and violence of the movie. It has everything it needs to be success. However, it’s the implications of that success that may have far sexier implications.

2 Comments

Filed under Comic Books, Jack Fisher, Superheroes, Jack Fisher's Insights, Uncategorized

Tagged as adult animation, animation, Deadpool, Deadpool Cartoon, Deadpool Movie, FXX, Marvel, Marvel Comics, popular culture, Ryan Reynolds, sex positive, Wade Wilson, X-men, X-men cartoon, X-men comics

May 15, 2017 · 7:06 am

Plans For Future Novels (And Beyond)

It’s been a month since I released my first published novel, “Passion Relapse,” with Totally Entwined Group. It’s still an exciting milestone in my ongoing efforts to become a successful erotica/romance writer. At some point, I’d like to remove the “aspiring” moniker to that title. I know I have a long way to go, but I want to keep taking steps.

Now I’m still going to promote the hell out of “Passion Relapse.” Expect me to fit that into future blog posts in any way I can, whether the topic involves sex robots, superhero comics, virtue signaling, or sleeping naked. I’ll keep finding ways to promote my book and my brand.

On top of that, I want to announce that I’m already working with Totally Entwined Group to publish a second book. I’ve also just started writing a third one. On top of that, I’m still doing regular blog posts. So I’ll be keeping myself pretty busy, but when you’re work involves telling sexy stories and talking about sexy topics, it really doesn’t feel like work.

With respect to details about my next book, I can’t reveal much because I just submitted the manuscript to Totally Entwined Group a few days ago. I don’t even know if they’ll accept it. They may find something about it that just doesn’t fit with their catalog at the moment. I probably won’t know for sure until my editor reviews it and makes the decision.

In the event it’s not accepted, that’s okay. I’ll see that as a setback, but not a defeat. That’s because that when I send query letters to other publishers, I can now say that I’ve been published before.

One of the most frustrating parts of the dozens of query letters I’ve sent over the years was that I had to reveal that I’ve never been published before. Most publishers and agents request that you answer that question in your letter. If you’ve been published before, then that gives you an edge. I know “Passion Relapse” is my only published book, thus far, but it’s still better than zero.

That said, I do have high hopes for this second book. I think it fits with the themes and brand of Totally Entwined Group. Those who enjoyed “Passion Relapse” will definitely enjoy this book. Again, I don’t want to reveal too much since it’s being reviewed, but here’s a quick teaser.

Have you ever been trapped? Has your life ever been stuck on a dark path from which you cannot escape? Well, a beautiful young woman from a dying town was on such a path. Her life seemed set. She’d long since stopped trying to avoid it. Then, one fateful night, someone came to her in her time of greatest need. That someone became her angel, saving her from a cruel fate. Now determined to escape the path that had trapped her, she seeks to forge a new life, one that she hopes will lead her back into the arms of her angel.

It’s a story that’ll cater to many sexy tastes. It has love, lust, drama, action, heart, and everything in between. While it won’t be quite as long as “Passion Relapse,” it will be just as sexy and heartfelt.

I’ll be working closely with my editor on bringing this book to the market as soon as possible, assuming they accept it. I’ll post regular updates on this process. I don’t know if it’ll happen by the end of this year, but I’ll work to get it out there for fans of sexy stories as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I just started my next novel. I can’t even tease this one because I haven’t even finished the first chapter. I will tease one part about it, though. The story within and the themes of that story were largely inspired by some of the topics I’ve discussed on this blog. When you read it, you’ll know which topics I’m referring to. You might even know the specific posts.

Beyond that, though, I have plenty of ideas. However, I’m not going to make concrete plans until after I finish this book and get a sense of where I’m at with Totally Entwined Group. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself and jump the gun. There are some very dirty jokes I could make with that last sentence, but I’ll hold off.

There are a lot of sexy stories I want to tell. I’m hoping one of those stories is sexy enough to make me a truly successful erotica/romance writer. It may take a while, but much like true love or great sex, it’s worth working towards.

3 Comments

Filed under Book Announcement

Tagged as ebooks, erotica, erotica novels, erotica romance, Jack Fisher, love, love stories, novels, romance, romance novels, sex novels, sexy stories, Totally Bound, Totally Entwined Group

May 14, 2017 · 9:14 am

Sexy Sunday Thoughts: Mother’s Day Edition

Today is a very special day. Today, we give thanks to the wonderful women who enjoyed having sex enough that they lovingly conceived us in their wombs. Yes, it’s Mother’s Day. Then again, anyone who willingly carries another human in their bodies for nine months deserves way more than just a card and breakfast in bed.

No matter how you spin it, moms are a big part of our lives. Why else would MILF porn be so popular? Moms give birth to us. Moms nurture us. Moms willingly let us suckle on their nipples and receive nourishment. They are the only ones who can actually make tits more amazing than they already are. That’s an accomplishment.

I love my mom. I try to make that love and appreciation clear every time I see her. She’s been a wonderful influence on me my whole life. Considering that I was miserable, self-loathing little shit at times, I can’t help but marvel at the breadth of such love. She really is that amazing. No offense to Gal Gadot, but she is the real Wonder Woman of my life.

She knows what I do. She’s been very encouraging since I began writing all those years ago. She, my father, and my family have given me more support than I ever could’ve hoped for as I pursue my dream of being an erotica/romance writer. So to my mom and all the other wonderful moms out there, I thank you.

As such, I’m proud to dedicate this week’s edition of Sexy Sunday Thoughts to my mom and all the other moms out there. Thank you for giving us life. Thank you for having the sex that conceived us. We hope that was an especially satisfying experience, just as I hope these crude comments are especially funny.

“The sight of boobs makes boys hungry as babies. The sight of boobs makes men act stupid as adults. Does that count as irony?”

I’m not sure if this counts as irony or a paradox. Maybe it’s a fluke of biology or part of some deep-seated psychological imprint that develops in the minds of men. Maybe it’s just our caveman brain’s inability to differentiate between hunger and horniness, which I’ve talked about before.

Whatever the case, the results are the same. Boobs make baby boys hungry. Boobs make grown men act stupid. When I was in New York City last year, I walked past a number of topless women in Times Square. I could feel my brain power temper so that it could process the beauty of expose breasts. Ironic or not, men think boobs are awesome at any age is what I’m saying.

“Those who say sex is an itch that needs to be scratched has clearly never had a nasty mosquito bite on their balls.”

I’d rather not go into too much detail about this. There’s a reason I know what it feels like to have a mosquito bite on unusual parts of my body. I do not want to tell that story. I’ll just say that those who make light of a mere itch are woefully misinformed about how sensitive certain parts of their body really are.

“Massages can be equally sexy for both genders, but they’re always more messy for one gender in particular.”

Who doesn’t love a good sensual massage? It’s one of the few sexy acts that can be both deeply romantic and overtly pornographic. It has everything you need for sex appeal. There’s intimate touching, relaxing sensations, and plenty of potential for romantic affection.

If done right, a massage can be an orgasmic experience and then some. That said, it can get messy, especially if you’re very generous with the massage oil. It also tends to get messy for one particular gender, namely the one that requires tissues and baby wipes. It’s just basic biology.

Ask anyone who’s had to clean up that mess though. They’ll say it’s worth it.

“A man can’t say he’s in love with a woman until he willingly buys her tampons. A woman can’t say she’s in love with a man until she willingly fixes a toilet he clogged.”

There are many ways to test just how in love you are with your partner. Having similar tastes in movies, food, and underwear certainly help, but true intimacy can sometimes manifest in less obvious ways.

The way I see it, if you’re willing to accept the less flattering traits of someone, then your love definitely has some meat to it. A man who buys feminine hygine products and a woman who deals with a man’s bathroom habits can rightly claim they’ve achieved a level of intimacy that goes beyond rubbing body parts together.

“A true test of trust is letting someone else shave your pubic hair.”

Think about it. Shaving your nether regions is a dangerous and risky endeavor. One wrong move and your weekend is ruined, among other things. It’s hard enough to trust your own hands to tend to your most sensitive body parts. Trusting someone else to do it takes something special. It’s actually kind of romantic when you think about it.

“When a woman flashes her tits outside a strip club, is it undermining the efforts of hard-working strippers or does it count as free advertising?”

This kind of confuses me. When I was in Las Vegas, there was a topless woman giving out flyers for a strip club. She had great tits herself so it seemed kind of redundant. Why advertise for something in a way that gives the customer what they want from the outset?

Then again, maybe it was a free sample of sorts. Maybe that woman understood that when a man sees one pair of tits, he wants to see more. In that sense, her ploy was pretty brilliant.

“Would prostitution be less taboo if they were reclassified as sexual trainers?”

There are all sorts of taboos surrounding prostitution. When you’re the world’s oldest profession, the simple law of averages ensure it’s bound to happen. I get why women wouldn’t want their lovers to see prostitutes. It works the other way too. I’m sure men don’t want their girlfriends drooling over male strippers.

So rather than make this another source of conflict, why not turn it into something productive? Why not reclassify prostitutes, male and female alike, as trainers with which we refine our sex skills? The prostitutes get money. Ordinary people are trained by professionals to make love to our partners more effectively. Everybody wins.

Once again, thanks to all the moms out there for being the wonderful women they are. If you can, do something special for the woman that bore you. She’s more than earned it.

How To Make Sense Of The World In One Easy Step

When it comes to politics, the news, or general advice, I try to avoid it as best I can on this blog. I want this blog to be a refuge and reprieve from the vast, stinky ass crack that is the real world and the parts of the internet that amplify the smell. That’s why I prefer talking about less dire subjects like sex robots and sex-positive comic book characters.

If I do talk about something that’s in the news or controversial, I usually try to put a humorous and/or sexy spin on it. I don’t want to push an agenda, start a movement, or leader a rally. That’s just too much time and effort that could be better spent talking about hot teachers and bionic penises.

I know that I sometimes give the impression that I have an agenda beyond selling my novels. I try to minimize that, but sometimes it’ll slip through. I try to avoid it, but I’m not going to apologize either. I’m only human. Every now and then, something I write or say will have some sort of connotation to real world news, events, etc. At the end of the day, I want to make this blog as sexy and fun as my novels.

That being said, I’d like to do something a little different today. No, I’m not going on some sort of political rant. I’m not going to get on a soap box, hold up a sign, and start talking about shape-shifting lizard people. I’ll leave that sort of thing to Alex Jones or the character/troll he allegedly plays.

Instead, I’d like to offer a bit of insight to those still struggling to make sense of the world, the news, and the people claiming that fluoride is an elaborate mind control scheme. It’s not necessarily advice. I’m an aspiring erotica/romance writer. I’m as qualified to give advice as I am to build a star ship.

What I’m offering here is perspective, a precious commodity in a world where everyone has the means of muting messages they don’t want to hear. Anyone who watches the news for more than ten minutes or spends more than five searching for it on their Facebook feed is sure to be overwhelmed, upset, and confused.

It’s just too easy to filter out the news and facts you don’t like. It’s too easy to mold your own agenda into a neat little package that makes you feel content to some extent. Sometimes we do too good a job. Sometimes our agenda is so nice and neat that it does everything other than give us oral sex.

That’s why we need perspective. That’s why we need to step back, see the bigger picture, and understand that we all embrace our own particular brand of fake news, alternative facts, and elaborate excuses. It’s the only way to truly make sense of the world, at least as much as our caveman brains will allow us.

So here’s how you do it. There’s only one step. It’s free. It’s simple. There’s no complicated instruction manual. It can all be boiled down into three simple words. Brace yourself because this is going to either rock your world, break your heart, or make you yawn. Take a moment if you need to. If not, read along because here it is. Here is the secret to making sense of a chaotic world full of crazy people.

Nobody Knows ANYTHING

Go on. Roll your eyes and laugh. Start calling me names in the comments. Call me a cuck, a troll, or an agent of the Illuminati. I don’t expect this to blow anyone’s mind or soak anyone’s panties beyond a certain extent. It is, however, as true and honest insight as you’ll ever find in the era of fake news.

Now, I can’t claim to have come up with this on my own. This little bit of insight is actually something one of my old college professors told me on the first day of his class. Before you roll your eyes again, know that this professor could easily have been mistaken for a hobo who just robbed a fancy clothing store. Imagine every pipe-smoking professor you’ve ever had. Now imagine the exact opposite. That’s this guy.

He dropped this incredible truth bomb on us the first day because he wanted to make clear that he would not be giving us the politically correct version of his class. He was going to be honest in as brutal a way he could without getting fired. The fact he was tenured and admitted to working drunk in the past kind of added to his credibility.

So what exactly did he mean when he said those words? How do they relate to what I mean by it? In the grand scheme of things, it has to do with the certainty we all seek. Our caveman brains, for better and for worse, crave certainty and abhor stress. When we have a gap in our knowledge and understanding, we naturally jump at anything to fill it.

Sometimes it’s a certain news source. Sometimes it’s a certain religion. Sometimes it’s a particular political ideology, social club, or even a TV show. Talk to anyone who was a big fan of “Lost.” They’ll put any charismatic preacher to shame.

Since our brains are so crude and aren’t equipped with a google connection (yet), it doesn’t matter whether or not the source we seek is true. It doesn’t even matter of it’s debunked. Our brains still cling to it because changing our minds causes too much stress and we’ll make any excuse to avoid that stress.

That creates an unavoidable paradox of sorts and I’m not talking about the ones Doc Brown worried about in “Back To The Future.” Our caveman brains are so limited, but they’re wired to seek certainty. However, because of those limits, our ability to achieve certainty on complex issues is next to impossible. In most cases, it is impossible.

Nobody knows for sure what the economy will do today, tomorrow, or even two hours from now.

Nobody knows for sure whether a new product will sell or be a flop.

Nobody knows for sure whether a rookie athlete will be a bust or a hall of famer.

Nobody knows for sure whether a particular movie will be a big box office success like “Deadpool” or an unmitigated disaster like “John Carter.”

Nobody knows for sure whether a law, court decision, or executive order will do more harm than good.

Nobody knows for sure how a new piece of technology will affect society.

Nobody knows for sure whether their theories about life, the universe, and everything in between are accurate.

In the end, nobody knows anything. It’s just that simple.

That’s not to say that we should be inherently doubtful of everything. At most, those who make bold proclamations can only make best guesses. It’s not always accurate, but sometimes it’s fairly close. Other times, it’s just dumb luck. Ask the guy who predicted the Chicago Cubs world series victory in 1993.

We can surmise, speculate, and reason all we want. In the end, nobody really knows anything. Nobody can really be certain. Nobody can have all the facts. That’s why people gravitate towards others who express such certainty. It’s akin to having a superpower. In our minds, having that kind of certainty is right up there with Superman, the X-men, or the Avengers.

Unlike superheroes, though, that certainty is self-delusion at best and a scam at worst. Those who at least try to be reasonable, offering facts and best guesses in extrapolating those facts, deserve a chance and some credibility. If they’re honest, they’ll admit they don’t know everything with absolute certainty. They can be fairly confident, but they can never be completely certain.

Keep this in mind the next time you see a news story, an article, a book, a self-help guru, or a religious zealot. They can only claim certainty, but they don’t know any more than you do. They don’t know anything for certain. That doesn’t make them inherently bad. It just makes them misguided.

I hope this perspective helps. I hope the world makes a bit more sense now. I can only do so much as an aspiring erotica/romance writer. Like everyone else, I don’t know anything with certainty. I know only that I want this blog to be both helpful and sexy. This is just another part of that effort.

5 Comments

Filed under Jack Fisher's Insights

Tagged as alternative facts, facts, fake news, history, love, marketing, media, media lies, news, philosophy, predictions, psychology, science, truth, understanding

May 12, 2017 · 7:03 am

A Disease-Free World: We’re More Ready Than You Think

It’s such a frightening thought. It terrifies parents, priests, rabbis, mullahs, monks, and conservative republicans. People, especially young people, are having sex at this very moment. If that’s not horrifying enough, they’re having sex for fun.

They’re not doing it with their government-approved, religiously-sanctioned spouse. They’re not doing it to produce more babies that will grow into tax-paying, church-going citizens. They’re just doing it because they enjoy the wonderful, toe-curling pleasure that comes with sex.

The most horrifying thought of all, though, is that they’re doing it and they’re not facing any consequences for it. They’re not getting pregnant because of modern contraception. They’re not getting sick either because of modern medicine. There’s literally no legitimate reason other than stigma to dissuade people from having sex for fun. It’s such a horrifying thought.

Okay, that’s enough sarcasm for now. What I just described is an exaggerated extreme of the mentality of those who are opposed to a society that permits or does not punish sexual promiscuity. It’s a reverse of the thought experiment I pitched last year about a world where the diseases that used to scare people out of having sex are all cured.

I don’t think people realize just how much closer we are to that world than they think. Most people alive today don’t remember a world where the biggest dread wasn’t HIV. It was debilitating diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. To give you an idea of just how devastating they were, over 20,000 people died from syphilis alone in 1939.

Like small pox, these diseases ravaged generation after generation. Also like small pox, modern medicine eradicated it from our collective fears. In fact, the rise of antibiotics has been largely credited with kick-starting the sexual revolution of the 1960s, more so than contraception.

There are still some scary diseases out there, though. In some respects, those same parents, priests, rabbis, mullahs, monks, and conservative republicans can take a perverse comfort that diseases like HIV/AIDS provides a strong incentive to avoid excessive promiscuity. That comfort, however, won’t last.

In a previous post, I talked about an emerging medical tool called CRISPR and how it may hold the key to ending infectious disease as we know it. I also asked a question I’m sure the anti-promiscuity crowd dreads. Are we ready for a world where we don’t have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases?

There are people who believe that our society simply cannot function in a world where there aren’t any scary diseases to dissuade people from having more sex than the Catholic Church sanctions. On paper, their fears aren’t wholly unreasonable.

In a society with so much promiscuity, fewer people will get married. Fewer people will form the stable, nuclear family that every 50s sitcom championed. Without disease, why would anyone forge any stable family units? Then, there’s the children. How traumatic would it be for them if they grew up in a world where people just had sex for fun?

That’s not entirely sarcasm. That is a very real concern and I can empathize with it to some extent. A society without disease, but full of rampant promiscuity is just so different. Our society has always had to content with these horrible diseases. The idea that they would no longer be a factor just seems unnatural and uncharted for our species.

However, empathy or not, it’s also a sentiment that I believe is misguided. It’s rooted more in flawed assumptions about a specific cultural ideal than actual human biology. I would argue that human beings, as well as society in general, is more prepared for a disease-free world than the Vatican would have us believe.

I believe this because there is a precedent, sort of. In fact, this may be one of the few instances where caveman logic works in favor of our emerging future and not against it. To understand this, we have to go beyond the ways our hunter/gatherer ancestors functioned. We have to look at the practical aspects of these nasty diseases.

For a disease to be real nasty, it has to both spread easily and within a population of hosts that are able to infect as many potential hosts as possible. When you look at our modern infrastructure, or even our ancient trade routes, it’s easy to see why a nasty disease would choose humans.

It’s also easy to see why diseases would use sex to spread. Like eating, it’s a hardwired drive that built into every human being. The desire to mate is every bit as powerful as the desire to eat. Unlike foodborne disease, though, sex provides more opportunities to infect other hosts. On top of that, rubbing body parts together is a lot more direct than simply sneezing on someone.

However, while modern and even pre-modern infrastructure made sex an ideal mechanism for spreading disease, we have to remember that this situation is actually very recent. The ability to simply travel to other regions, meet other people, and possibly have sex with them is very new in the context of our evolutionary history. For most of that history, though, the story was very different.

That brings me back to the hunter/gatherer lifestyle from which all our ancestors evolved. Books like “Sex At Dawn,” which I’ve mentioned before, describe in great detail the particulars of this lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle that, ironically to some extent, makes sex a pretty lousy method for transmitting disease.

This is because during those hunter/gatherer days, we humans roamed and foraged in small bands of closely-knit tribes. These tribes rarely interacted with other tribes because most were spaced out over large areas. Naturally, roaming lands and foraging for food makes it hard to stay in one place, stake claim to a territory, and fight over it.

On top of that, these close-knit tribes had very low population density, a limited ability to travel long distances, and no elaborate trade networks. That means that within these tribes, a sexually transmitted disease is rightly screwed. Sure, it can infect a tribe, but not much else. If that disease is fatal, it may kill the tribe, but it also kills itself as well. So if a disease as nasty as AIDS did emerge, it never had a chance to spread.

If there were any diseases, they couldn’t be fatal and they couldn’t seriously affect fertility. Like the common cold or the flu, it could only ever be so nasty. Otherwise, it never would’ve survived into the modern era.

Keep in mind, also, that the hunter/gatherer lifestyle was the lifestyle of choice for our species for nearly 90 percent of its existence. Our evolution and biology emerged within this lifestyle. That lifestyle was also conducive to some fairly loose sexual practices, many of which would make the Rick Santorums of the world faint. That’s why it’s not unreasonable to say that our ancestors had better sex lives than we do.

Those sexual practices were rarely conducive to the world of white picket fence type families that is so idealized by western civilization. It’s also not conducive to the world of kings and his multiple wives/concubines/sex slaves. That kind of rigid structure or hierarchy just doesn’t work in in a hunter/gatherer society. That’s why many practice strong egalitarian traditions.

This makes sense in terms of sheer pragmatism. In a society of hunter/gatherers where you’re only working with small tribes, you can’t be too much of a bigot. Everyone has to pitch in. Everyone has to share. You can’t be too big an asshole because you won’t survive without your tribe, nor will you have a chance to have sex. From an evolutionary and society perspective, it’s a pretty good deal.

In this context, human beings are already well-wired for a more promiscuous society. In fact, as “Sex At Dawn” argues half-jokingly, it may be better for us overall. You need only look at the happy, sexy lives that Bonobo chimps live. They have a lot of sex. They rarely fight. Even by hippie standards, they’re pretty chill.

At the moment, we humans can’t live those lives. Our world is too developed, too connected, and too vast for our caveman brains to make sense of. Add nasty diseases that can now use sex to effectively spread and it just isn’t pragmatic anymore, even if our biology favors it.

That may change very soon though. Once tools like CRISPR and contraceptives like Vasalgel are refined, those barriers are gone. We can safely exercise the same libido that our ancestors got to enjoy. What will that do for society? What will that do for the dynamics between men and women? It’s hard to imagine, but it’s a damn sexy idea that’s worth imagining.

3 Comments

Filed under Sexy Future

Tagged as CRISPR, disease, future of love, futurism, infectious disease, love, medical breakthroughs, medical science, passion, promiscuity, relationships, sex, sex in society, sexuality, sexually transmitted disease, STD, STI, technology

May 11, 2017 · 7:01 am

A Disease-Free World: It’s Closer Than You Think

Last year, I proposed a little thought experiment that I’m sure everyone whoever sat through a high school health class outside of Texas has contemplated at some point. I simply asked people to imagine a world where all the dreaded infectious diseases, including the very unsexy kind, were cured.

I tailored the thought experiment to focus on our sex lives because disease is still a major concern for anyone that is sexually active. That’s not just because diseases are used as scare tactics to dissuade teenagers from having more sex than priests, rabbis, mullahs, and monks have deemed appropriate. These diseases still carry a stigma to them that you just don’t get with the cold or flu.

Anything that effects disease is bound to affect our sex lives and many underestimate just how big an effect it’s already had. Many attribute the sexual revolution of the 1960s to the rise of contraception, but in observing the historical data, it’s now clear that this remarkable advancement didn’t play quite as big a role.

If any one breakthrough should be credited with the sexual revolution and the greater sexual freedom that came with it, it’s modern antibiotics. That’s right. Penicillin probably did more for your sex life than the pill ever did.

That’s because up until the 20th century, nasty diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia weren’t just more prevalent. They were downright debilitating. Just ask Al Capone. There was a legitimate reason to avoid excessive sexual promiscuity. It could actually kill you.

These days, however, the diseases that ravaged generations and scared the extremely horny to death are no big deal. If caught early, a thorough round of antibiotics will ensure your blood is as clean as a chaste nun. While religious conservatives may hate that, it is one of the many benefits that modern medicine has bestowed upon us that our disease-weary ancestors could only dream of.

At the moment, HIV is the only disease that’s still fatal, but even that is losing its grip because modern antiviral drugs can contain it to the point where it’s manageable. It’s still a concern and it’s still ravaging certain parts of the world. However, at some point, even diseases like this will succumb to modern medicine.

I bring all this up because a future without infectious disease, including the unsexy kind, is actually closer than you think. I’m not saying it’ll happen in the next few years so don’t throw all your condoms away just yet. Within the next couple decades, though, we may very well see a future where the horrifying diseases we dread today no longer plague us.

To understand the scope of this issue, we first need to understand how most of our modern medicine works when it comes to treating infectious disease. Modern antibiotics, as well as antiviral drugs, operate in a way that’s akin to carpet bombing in World War II. Anyone who has seen one too many History Channel documentary knows about that.

It’s a messy, destructive, and potentially counterproductive effort that does a lot of collateral damage. Sure, you’ll probably kill a few Nazis, but you may also kill some of the folks opposing them. For many diseases, though, it does the trick. Our bodies can take the necessary punishment to take down these nasty bugs.

Now, we may have a new tool with which to fight disease and this one go beyond merely bombing its target. It’s more akin to sending a legion of Navy SEALs and ninjas to take down a handful of targets and do so with an efficiency that gives military commanders wet dreams. It’s called CRISPR and it will change the world in ways that even antibiotics never managed.

CRISPR stands for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats,” but make no mistake. This exceedingly wordy, overly technical jargon is a game-changer. It’s modern medicines first functional gene-editing tool that allows scientists to cut and paste genes the same way we cut and paste text on a computer. That may not sound like a big deal, but if you’re concerned about your sex life, trust me. It’s a huge deal.

Infectious disease, be they a sore throat or total organ failure, relies on pathogenic organisms that are genetically programmed to infect others and spread to as many other hosts as possible. Anyone who saw the movie “Outbreak” understands this. Until CRISPR came along, we really couldn’t attack those genetics. That’s why we needed the biological equivalent of carpet bombing to combat them.

CRISPR changes that. It can specifically identify certain segments of DNA within an orgasm, snip them out, and either replace them with something else or nothing at all. For any robust infectious pathogen looking to ruin your weekend, that’s the equivalent of a head shot with a 44 magnum.

CRISPR is still in the early stages of its development. It is, essentially, in beta test mode wherein scientists and researchers are working out the kinks and refining various editing techniques. However, the implications are already taking shape.

Last year, a team at Temple University successfully proved that CRISPR could be used to remove HIV from infected cells. If CRISPR can take down something as robust and devious as HIV, a disease that has tormented medicine for decades, then all bets are off. Every disease that relies on a pathogenic microorganism is screwed.

Even antibiotic resistance won’t help them this time. That’s because CRISPR is akin to a chainsaw and a tree. The tree can only adapt so much to resist chemicals, pollutants, or whatever other lifeforms are used to kill it. No amount of adaptation will save it from a chainsaw. That’s why there are no chainsaw-resistant trees.

Modern medicine already spurred one sexual revolution, but that one still had limits. This brings me back to the same thought experiment I pitched last year. What will happen to our society when tools like CRISPR are perfected and every infectious disease we ever worried about is no more?

This isn’t some distant scenario either. There may very well be children alive today who will grow into a world where they never have to worry about diseases like AIDS, the flu, SARS, or hepatitis. Add in advances in contraception like Vasalgel and the possibilities become even more intriguing, not to mention sexy.

Again, don’t throw away your condoms just yet. CRISPR isn’t perfected just yet, but its potential is already clear. The days of the diseases that sex ed teachers have used to scare teenagers out of having sex are numbered. A world without infectious disease isn’t just possible. It’s very probable now. The question is are we ready for it?

32 Comments

Filed under Sexy Future

Tagged as CRISPR, disease, future, futurism, Infection, medicine, modern medicine, nanomedicine, Pandemic, sex, sex in society, sextually transmitted diseases, sexy, society, STD, the human body

May 10, 2017 · 6:52 am

Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, And A Positive Feminist Message

It’s hard to believe it’s almost here. In less than one month, the “Wonder Woman” movie starring Chris Pine and Gal Gadot will finally be released. It’s been a long time coming. For comic book and superhero fans of every age, race, and gender, this is a movie we’ve been waiting for with baited breath and wet panties.

I’ve already made my love of Wonder Woman quite clear on this blog. She is, beyond dispute, the most iconic female hero of the last 100 years. She isn’t just a symbol for female power that spans generations. She represents a unique heart, spirit, and passion that appeals just as much to 1950s housewives as it does to latte-loving millennials in 2017.

Of all the many superhero movies I’m excited for, “Wonder Woman” is at the top of a very long list. She already made her presence felt in last year’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” While that movie was critically panned to no end for all the wrong reasons, there was one sentiment than most agreed on. Wonder Woman was one of the best parts of that movie.

Gal Gadot, who also happens to be a former Israeli soldier in addition to being drop-dead gorgeous, proved that she is worthy of this iconic role. She can be Wonder Woman and kick an insane amount of ass while doing it. She can do all of this while having a level of sex appeal that Lynda Carter herself would be proud of.

This is all wonderful news for fans of comics, superheroes, and beautiful kick-ass women. This is also usually where I turn the tables in a post and bring up an issue that tends to bring down your spirits faster than a dead kitten in a graveyard for orphans.

Well, if you’re looking for me to put another dent in your soul, I’m going to have to disappoint you this time. Instead, I wanted to bring up Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, and all the wonders that come with her for a genuinely good reason that should put a smile on your face and fill your heart with a cradle of baby puppies.

That’s because, as the marketing machine ramps up for Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot and the director, Patty Jenkins, are hitting the media circuit. Naturally, that’s going to lead to a few fake controversies and out-of-context quotes. Just look at any interview ever done with Ben Affleck. It’s as inevitable as a child star needing therapy.

It’s a dangerous game, throwing yourself out there in a world where the internet will crucify you for using the wrong pronouns. If anyone can do it and be sexy as hell, though, it’s Gal Gadot. She ended up proving herself in a way that any Amazon warrior would be proud of.

She did so by addressing an issue that tends to infuriate the internet, people, and the very forces of nature if it’s ever mentioned above a whisper. That’s right, Gal Gadot talked about feminism. I’ll give everyone a moment to stop gasping, but don’t head for your safe space just yet. This one actually has a happy ending.

I’ve made multiple posts on how hard it is to talk about this issue, especially when there are so many frustrating double standards. Gal Gadot didn’t attempt to address everything. Even Wonder Woman has her limits. However, she did address one issue that seems to divide feminists, conservative Christians, and men who have a hard time hiding their boners. Specifically, she talked about her attire.

Usually, when people talk about women’s attire, it turns into a pay-per-view caliber whining fight where one side argues it’s too sexy and the other side argues it’s too repressive. Wear too little and you’re being too slutty. Wear too much and you’re propagating the grand patriarchal conspiracy to relegate all women to making sandwiches. You just can’t win.

Gal Gadot, being the wonderful woman she is, proved that wrong. In an interview with the New York Times, she addressed the issue of Wonder Woman’s attire and did so in a way that every self-proclaimed feminist should learn from. Here’s what she said.

“I think as a feminist, you should be able to wear whatever you like!” Ms. Gadot said. “In any case, there is such a misunderstanding of the concept. Feminism is about equality and choice and freedom. And the writers, Patty and myself all figured that the best way to show that is to show Diana as having no awareness of social roles. She has no gender boundaries. To her, everyone is equal.”

It almost makes too much sense. It’s almost too logical. If you’re for feminism, you should be for wearing whatever the fuck you want. If you want to wear a G-string and a tube top made out of duct tape, then wear it. If you want to wear a burka or a bear costume, then wear it. That is the perfect feminist message, one that men, women, and those of unspecified gender can get behind.

It’s wonderfully refreshing because feminism, be it radical or otherwise, has been somewhat schizophrenic when it comes to women’s attire. On one hand, you’ll have feminists protesting their right to sunbathe topless. On the other, you’ll have feminists whining about video game characters dressing too sexy.

It’s a painfully asinine conflict, one that reduces feminism to glorified virtue signaling coupled with excessive excuse banking. It’s the main reason why feminism has become such a toxic buzzword that’s less associated with equality and more associated with mean-spirited bitchiness.

What Gal Gadot says helps put things in perspective. It’s also the perfect response to the bullshit decision the United Nations made earlier this year to rescind her status as an ambassador to girls because she was too sexy. She’s able to frame feminism in a context where only genuinely uptight, misogynistic, patriarchal asshats can disagree. By every measure, that’s a win for Wonder Woman and feminism.

I’m sure Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman will still have her detractors from feminists, men, and even other comic book fans. That’s just the nature of a world full of diverse, erratic, and often misguided opinions. That’s why it’s so refreshing for someone like Gal Gadot to use your position to make a positive contribution.

There will still be those who complain that Wonder Woman’s attire is too sexy. There will also be those who complain that she’s not sexy enough and that she’s not a good role model. However, those same people would complain about the sky being too blue if they had nothing else so their opinions deserve less credibility than their farts.

Gal Gadot didn’t need to say what she said. She didn’t need to prove to anyone that she deserves the role of Wonder Woman. She still did it and for that, on behalf of Wonder Woman fans and fans of those who say things that actually make sense, I thank her.

4 Comments

Filed under Comic Books, Jack Fisher, Superheroes

Tagged as Batman, body shaming, comic books, DC Comics, female body, feminism, Gal Gadot, Justice League, Radical Feminism, sex in media, superhero movies, Superman, William Marston, Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman Movie

May 9, 2017 · 6:58 am

What “Guardians Of The Galaxy” Can Teach Us About Character Development

What makes a character great, iconic, and memorable? Think of your favorite character from your favorite movie, novel, or TV show. Why do they stand out? What is it about them that just makes you want to hug them, love them, and reenact every scene from every porno ever made since 1982? Take all the time you need. I imagine it involves some fairly extensive thought, among other things.

Creating these kinds of characters is one of the greatest challenges that any director, producer, or aspiring erotica/romance writer can face. It doesn’t matter how great the story is, how awesome the action sequences are, or how gratuitous the nudity is. If there’s no iconic character, then the story just won’t have the kind of impact you’ll feel in your heart or your loins. Just ask Michael Bay. Better yet, ask Megan Fox.

That’s why I’ve often seen characters as the bedrock on which any great story is built. In the same way you can’t build the Empire State Building on a mountain of soft, unstable shit, you can’t craft a great story without lovable, memorable, and iconic characters.

I’ve certainly tried to create those kinds of characters in my novels. Stories like the ones I craft in “Passion Relapse” or “Skin Deep” rely heavily on developing strong characters with strong motivations. I won’t say those stories succeeded. I’ll leave that up to the readers, but that process may very well determine how my career as an erotica/romance writer plays out.

That brings me to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. I know that’s not much of a segway, but cut me some slack. When you’re trying to relate the challenges of character development with a movie that has both a talking tree and a raccoon with a machine gun, there’s only so much you can do in terms of transitions.

For those of you who have been under a rock and/or in a coma, “Guardians of the Galaxy” is the biggest surprise hit in movies since some guy named George Lucas convinced movie producers that audiences wanted to see space battles, Wookies, and light sabres.

The first movie came out in 2014 and made $773 million worldwide. For a movie based on a team of obscure comic book characters that nobody outside the most hardcore of comic book fans knew existed. They are not the Avengers. They are not the X-men. They were the D-list of D-list characters.

The story of how they ended up being one of the biggest franchises that didn’t come from the mind of George Lucas or Stephen Spielberg is epic in and of itself. It might have simply been a matter of pragmatics, given how Marvel doesn’t own the movie rights to all its iconic characters.

Whatever the circumstances might have been, though, James Gunn and Marvel Studios managed to create another blockbuster franchise for Marvel and Disney. For a couple of companies that are never satisfied with just a few billion dollars here and there, that’s saying something.

The success is undeniable. Just this past week, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” came out and generated $145 million domestically on top of the $427 million it had already generated worldwide. I saw the movie the day after it came out. It’s fun, it’s heartfelt, and it’s dramatic in the best possible way. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s well-worth your time.

In watching this movie and its predecessor, though, I saw something that was actually more remarkable than a raccoon with a machine gun, if you can believe that. I saw, in my opinion, a case study on how to develop endearing, memorable characters that will both entertain audiences and make them care less about overpaying for popcorn.

The best example, in the context of the first two movies, is Peter “Starlord” Quill, who is played by Chris Pratt. That fact alone is both remarkable and telling because before “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Pratt was best known as that chubby dork from “Parks and Recreation.” In a sense, though, the journey of the Andy Dwyer and that of Starlord tell a similar story. One just has a lot more sex appeal than the other.

When both “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Parks and Recreation” start out, both Starlord and Dwyer aren’t presented as likable characters. One is an admitted thief and outlaw. The other is a selfish slacker. On the surface, they give no reason as to why we should hope they succeed at anything that doesn’t involve severe head trauma.

That changes quickly though, especially for Starlord. Shortly after the story begins in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” we start to see that he isn’t just some renegade outlaw looking to steal things, blow stuff up, and swim in a pool of orphan tears. He’s just trying to get by in a galaxy full of rough circumstances.

He and the rest of his crew, including the talking tree and raccoon, are all in a similar boat. They’re not out there looking for baby seals to beat with baseball bats. They’re just trying to get by, making as much money as they can with their limited skills and jaded reputations.

Sure, it leads to a clash that nearly destroys a planet, but that’s not their fault. Those are just more rough circumstances, coupled with an insane alien religious zealot with a big ass hammer. It’s every bit as ridiculous and entertaining as it sounds.

That situation, as well as their lot in life, is a big reason why Starlord and his ragtag team of outlaws gain so much appeal. It’s also a major factor in what made the story so great. These characters, especially Starlord, aren’t born as princes, prodigies, or heirs. They don’t just start at the bottom of the social ladder. They start in a deep hole right under it.

Starlord had a lot of shit luck early on. He never knew who his father was as a kid. His mom died of cancer. Then, a team of alien bounty hunters abducted him and made him their personal bitch for most of his life. He’s not just an underdog. He’s someone that even other underdogs spit on.

That makes his efforts to find a better lot in life, including those involving crime, both understandable and justified. There’s almost no other way for Starlord to pull himself up and carve out a better story for himself. He has to be an outlaw of sorts. Having Chris Pratt’s sex appeal is just a nice bonus.

However, the outlaw persona is not the core of Starlord’s character. It’s never more than a secondary trait at best. Starlord is still a hero in the sense that when the situation gets tricky, his first inclination is to do the right thing. When what he thinks is just a simple heist turns into a galaxy-threatening crisis, he doesn’t need any coaxing. He wants to do the right thing.

That doesn’t just make him heroic. That makes him endearing. That makes him someone we can root for. That makes him someone we can get behind. In terms of creating an iconic and endearing character, Starlord checks all the right boxes and so do much of his teammates, including the talking tree. Given Groot’s limited vocabulary, that’s quite an accomplishment.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” takes that effort a step further by having Starlord meet up with his long-lost father. It both expands on the origins that began in the first movie and adds greater emotional appeal.

The first movie succeeded in making Starlord a character we can root for. That meant that even before the second movie began, we as an audience were already rooting for him. We wanted him to find his father. We wanted him to have the kind of relationship that he wanted with his father.

I won’t spoil the key details of the movie, but I’ll just say that the this sentiment is what makes the story in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” especially devastating. However, it’s devastating in the best possible way because it reminds us how much we were rooting for this character.

We all wanted Starlord, a guy who lived most of his life in the armpits of society, to achieve that happiness he sought. When the devastating truth comes out, it hurts both him and the audience. We empathize with his plight and we share in the devastation.

This is the most potent manifestation of a character that any novel, movie, or TV show can achieve. When it gets to a point where the audience shares in the struggle and plight, it becomes more than just an entertaining story. It becomes personal.

Starlord’s journey might not have been the same as Superman, Captain America, or even Luke Skywalker, but it’s a journey we shared. It’s one that evoked all the right emotions within us. That’s why it was so effective. That’s why James Gunn, Chris Pratt, and Marvel are now swimming in a fresh pool of money.

There are many lessons that can be learned from movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and not just those espoused by talking trees. As an aspiring writer, I want to create characters like Starlord that readers want to root for. I want a character whose pain and pleasure will be felt by everyone who reads it.

It’s not an easy feat to accomplish. I’ve made a concerted effort in every one of my novels. I won’t say I’ve succeeded yet. I won’t say I’ve failed either. However, I do feel there’s plenty of room for improvement. I’ll just have to figure out how to do it without the aid of a talking raccoon with a machine gun.

2 Comments

Filed under Comic Books, Jack Fisher, Superheroes

Tagged as Baby Groot, character development, Chris Pratt, fictional characters, Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, iconic characters, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics, Marvel Movies, movies, Peter Quill, Rocket Raccoon, Starlord, superhero movies

Jack Fisher's Official Publishing Blog

A Second Sexual Revolution: The (Sexy And Non-Sexy) Possibilities

New Deadpool Cartoon Announced (And Why It Matters)

Plans For Future Novels (And Beyond)

Sexy Sunday Thoughts: Mother’s Day Edition

How To Make Sense Of The World In One Easy Step

Nobody Knows ANYTHING

A Disease-Free World: We’re More Ready Than You Think

A Disease-Free World: It’s Closer Than You Think

Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, And A Positive Feminist Message

What “Guardians Of The Galaxy” Can Teach Us About Character Development

Donations

Jack’s Sexy Novels

Latest Release

Recent Posts

Jack Fisher’s Twitter Feed