March 24, 2017 · 7:04 am

Why Spider-Man May Be The Most Incompetent Hero Of All Time

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Whenever I talk about comic books and superheroes on this blog, I generally try not to single one particular character out unless I’m trying to make a point. I find that singling out one too many characters is like pointing out all the plot holes in a Michael Bay movie. It just becomes too frustrating and futile in the long run.

That means if I’m going to dedicate a post to a character, it better be for a damn good reason. They must be a uniquely compelling sex-positive female character or a potential prelude for future female villains. Well, after talking about why most superheroes are incompetent by design, I feel compelled to single out one particular character who is, within this context, the worst offender.

That character isn’t some obscure, little-known sidekick from a bygone era either. In this case, the worst case of inept superheroes who take their incompetence to the next level is one of the most recognizable superheroes of the past 50 years. He’s had multiple movies, multiple cartoons, and multiple actors play him with varying degrees of success and/or failure.

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Yes, I’m talking about Spider-Man, also known as Peter Parker. He is, by far, the most recognizable and iconic of Stan Lee’s many creations. He’s also, by a ridiculous margin, the most profitable superhero in terms of merchandise sales. He makes enough money for Marvel every year for them to eat caviar every day off diamond-encrusted gold plates.

So why, then, is he so incompetent as a hero? Why is Marvel’s most iconic character a case study in how not to operate as a superhero? Well, some of it has to do with the built-in incompetence I mentioned before. Spider-Man can’t be too competent, otherwise his overall narrative just wouldn’t be as compelling and his toys wouldn’t sell.

However, compared to the many other orphaned heroes who get their powers through accident or tragedy, Spider-Man sets himself apart by not just screwing himself over, but also by undermining the very principles of power and responsibility that he espouses. That doesn’t just make him an incompetent hero. It just makes him misguided, albeit not on purpose.

So what exactly makes Spider-Man inept by both the standards of a superhero and the standards that he sets on himself? Well, that has everything to do with his tactics and how he goes about them. If you’ve ever read a Spider-Man comic, seen a Spider-Man movie, or watched a Spider-Man cartoon, you know those tactics well. It goes like this:

  • Someone commits a crime
  • Peter Parker springs into action, putting on his costume and mask
  • Spider-Man fights the criminal, making jokes and quips along the way
  • The criminal whines and complains about how he’s ruining their master plan
  • The fight plays out and Spider-Man wins
  • Spider-Man ties the criminal up with his webs for the police
  • Spider-Man goes back to being Peter Parker and uses the pictures he takes of himself to make a living

This is Spider-Man’s primary method for dealing with crime and irresponsibility. It is the primary structure of every major battle he’s ever fought, be it the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, or Venom. While he wins/survives many of those battles, and even goes onto marry a supermodel for a while, it’s only when you step back and scrutinize the larger picture that you see how he loses his war against irresponsibility.

First and foremost, it’s important to establish that Spider-Man is one of those heroes who doesn’t kill. Like Superman and Batman, he goes out of his way to prevent the loss of life, be it innocent life or that of his enemy. That’s an understandable position to take. Killing is one of those unambiguous moral lines and many superheroes define their heroics by respecting that line.

For Spider-Man, however, this moral stand against killing is a major liability and the catalyst for his ineptitude. Granted, it’s not intentional, but the byproducts are unavoidable and those close to him have suffered as a result. Just ask Gwen Stacy.

Now I’m not saying Spider-Man is directly responsible for such suffering. Like all heroes, his intentions are good. He wants to help people. He wants to save lives. The problem is that, with his tactics, he’s doomed to hurt far more people than he helps.

This is because his tactics essentially guarantee that he will be a target, his loved ones will suffer, and his enemies will become stronger as a result. This isn’t just because Spider-Man refuses to kill them, although that is part of it. It’s because of the very persona that Spider-Man creates that his efforts are so inept.

Spider-Man, unlike Batman or Daredevil, doesn’t present a very intimidating presence. He’s many things, but intimidating isn’t one of them. His costume isn’t that intimidating. He doesn’t operate in the shadows or anything. He’s actually a well-known public figure, thanks largely to his own efforts and those of his boss, the ultimate blowhard that is J. Jonah Jameson.

This is a huge problem because it ensures that Spider-Man’s presence isn’t considered a major threat or danger to his enemies. He’s more of an annoyance or inconvenience. Whether they’re the Green Goblin or a simple mugger, they know Spider-Man isn’t going to kill them. He’s not even going to seriously wound them. He’ll just fight them, tie them up, and give them over to the police.

Even for those without access to overpaid lawyers, that’s not so much a threat as it is a frustration. On top of that, Spider-Man doesn’t really have meaningful conversations that get people to rethink their choices. He’s just cracks jokes, makes lewd comments, and generally carries himself with the maturity of a 13-year-old. Granted, this is part of his charm as a character, but it also ensures his tactics are doomed to fail.

It’s one thing to anger and annoy an enemy in the heat of battle. That can work to a hero’s advantage. However, the problems with Spider-Man manifest after the battle is over.

By annoying and angering his enemies, all he does is give them more incentive to fight him and hurt those he cares about. On top of that, he wears a flashy, distinct costume that’s easily recognizable in both night and broad daylight. It’s also well-known, thanks to his own efforts at taking pictures of himself and selling them to a newspaper.

Even before the era of smart phones and Twitter hacks, that’s putting a pretty big target on his back. He makes himself an identifiable figure on which his enemies can focus on. Even if they don’t know his identity, they know the source of their frustration. Since Spider-Man doesn’t scare them, they have every possible reason to fight him.

To make matters even worse, he gives his enemies a common threat to rally against. Anyone who knows anything about social psychology, or has just been to a Taylor Swift concert, knows that nothing unites people better than a common cause. He doesn’t just make his enemies stronger as individuals. He makes them stronger as a team. How is that responsible?

In essence, Spider-Man doesn’t intimidate his villains, doesn’t do anything to deter their irresponsible decisions, and gives them a common enemy to really around. If being responsible is deterring the kind of criminals that killed his Uncle Ben, then he’s the most irresponsible hero of all time.

I’m not saying Spider-Man has to start killing like the Punisher. I’m saying that his own tactics undermine his goals. Now you could make a similar criticism to characters like Batman or Daredevil because they don’t kill and their enemies constantly escape to torment them. However, there is one key difference that sets them apart.

Batman and Daredevil, despite their gaudy costumes, are intimidating. In fact, intimidation is a key tactic of theirs. Batman said it himself in the early scenes of “Batman Begins.” He seeks to strike fear in those that prey on the fearful. In this sense, he does succeed.

You could make the argument that because of Batman’s presence, there people in Gotham City who choose not to enter a life of crime. The prospect of dealing with Batman is scary. Fear is a powerful deterrent. Only the truly deranged criminals dare to enter this life and take on Batman. In that context, it makes perfect sense that the kind of villains he faces are the exceedingly deranged kind.

Spider-Man can’t make that claim. He can’t claim that he scares or intimidates people into not choosing a life of crime. If anything, his tactics may annoy ordinary people who wouldn’t otherwise consider such a life, but try it anyways just to shut him up or make a name for themselves.

Every hero is different. Every hero has their own set of tactics, goals, and ideals. However, no hero is as inept, incompetent, or irresponsible as Spider-Man. So long as he keeps doing what he’s doing, and Marvel has a huge financial interest in never allowing it to change, he’ll continue emboldening his enemies while guaranteeing that everyone around him suffers.

It’s both an irony and a tragedy. In his efforts to be responsible with his powers, Spider-Man conducts himself in the most irresponsible way possible. Even if it’s indirect and unintentional, the results are the same. He can still call himself a hero because of his principles. He just can’t call himself a very competent hero.

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March 23, 2017 · 7:01 am

Why Most Superheroes Are Woefully Incompetent (By Design)

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I’ve been meaning to do a post like this for a while now. It’s a topic I’ve actually tried to discuss on comic book message boards. Unfortunately, most comic book message boards too readily devolve into debates about who can lift Thor’s hammer, who Wolverine is sleeping with, and whether or not She-Hulk shaves her pubic hair. Yes, it gets that bad.

Ignoring, for a moment, the immaturity of certain crowds on message boards, there are certain issues pertaining to comic books and superheroes that are too easy to overlook. I say this as someone who is plenty eager to overlook the flaws in a story if it means seeing Starfire, Wonder Woman, Emma Frost, and Storm of the X-men kick ass and look damn sexy while doing it.

One of those flaws, ironically enough, deals with the actual pragmatics that come with being a superhero. Granted, those practical details are usually an afterthought in most superhero comics. Why would anyone give much thought to that when they could instead focus on giant monsters, killer robots, and the Hulk’s penis?

Some of the problem has entirely to do with fans like me. I freely admit that, as a fan, I’m part of the problem. Superheroes, whether they’re in comic books, cartoons, or blockbuster movies, aren’t created with the intent of being really good at their jobs. They’re created as a product to sell. That means they have to be compelling, engaging, and part of a meaningful story.

That’s why we don’t care if Spider-Man fails miserably to stop a criminal or if Superman fails miserably to keep Lex Luthor locked in prison. So long as it’s part of a story, we keep buying in. We increase our emotional and financial investment. It keeps the narrative going and, by default, the money for the company producing the merchandise.

That’s also why there will never be a superhero who is too good at fighting crime, defeating enemies, and solving problems. After a while, they do too much good and the world they live in just doesn’t have enough flaws to be interesting anymore. Who wants to read about Spider-Man anymore after he’s effectively solved New York’s crime problem and spends his days taking photos of hobos pissing on trees in Central Park?

On some levels, comic book companies and movie studios of the world knows this. They’ll never admit it outright, but in the back of their mind, they have to know that they can never let a hero be too competent. Even Superman has to slip up every now and then. Make no mistake though. He definitely has throughout his 70-plus year history, sometimes in laughably disturbing ways.

There’s a very simple reason for this and unfortunately, it’s neither heroic nor sexy. I’ll give you a hint. It’s valuable, it’s green, and it fits perfectly in a stripper’s G-string. If you need more than one guess, you should probably see a doctor.

Yes, I’m talking about money. If anything, it’s kind of ironic, given the values that many superheroes hold and how broke many superheroes often are. They’re created to embody our greatest values, but they’re sole purpose, from an image standpoint, is to make money for the company that owns their rights.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, superheroes do succeed in that respect. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spider-Man alone makes over a billion dollars a year in merchandising. That’s not a typo. I said billion. Batman is a very distant second with a little less than half-a-billion.

Superheroes are big business these days, both in terms of making money and spending it. According to rumors by Bleeding Cool, the next two Avengers movies could collectively cost a billion dollars. Again, that’s not a typo.

It’s because superheroes make so much money and generate so much money for the economy that they have to stay incompetent to some extent. Just look at the superheroes of old, from Greek mythology to the bible to the medieval legends of King Arthur. They all have one defining trait. They all had definitive endings.

Whether tragic or triumphant, the heroes of old were part of a finite narrative that had an ending. King Arthur dies. Hector dies. Jesus Christ triumphs over the Satan. If these were comics, they would never survive in the modern market because they’re too complete. Modern superhero stories can never truly end.

Even iconic comics like Watchmen, which was supposed to have a definitive end, but DC Comics nixed that by incorporating it into their mainline superhero comics. Granted, this thoroughly pissed off Watchmen’s creator, Alan Moore, but he’s been pissed off for any number of reasons for the past 30 years so that’s not saying much.

Instead of ending, modern superhero comics are prone to a tricky phenomenon that most comic book fans know all too well. It’s called retroactive continuity, also known as a “retcon.” This is basically the literary equivalent of a mulligan.

Has Spider-Man become too convoluted, mature, and dark? A retcon will make him a lovable loser again. See “Brand New Day.”

Has Batman become too campy and goofy? A retcon will make him dark and gritty again. See “Batman Begins.”

Have the Fantastic Four become too flat and boring? A retcon will make them a team of jaded young millennials. See 2015’s “Fantastic Four,” although pretty much every Fantastic Four fan would strongly advise against it.

Thanks to retcons, superheroes never age. They can always be reinvented, re-tooled, and adapted for a new audience. Granted, that won’t stop some audiences from whining about it, but it effectively ensures that the narrative never ends and the particulars of the story at every point in the timeline are subject to change.

This can be a good thing sometimes, such as when a retcon gives us a great character like the Winter Soldier in the Captain America comics. However, it can also splatter painfully disturbing details on an established narrative that didn’t need it. Just talk to Spider-Man fans about a story called “Sins Past” and watch them become visibly ill.

In the end, however, it often means that characters never really progress beyond a certain point and the problems they hope to solve never go away. The Joker always escapes. Lex Luthor always returns. Spider-Man’s girlfriend gets killed, injured, or impregnated by his worst enemy. It’s as frustrating as it sounds.

Most superheroes will gloss over this detail by taking a stand against killing. That’s perfectly understandable on some levels. The morality of killing someone is one of those few moral issues that don’t generate too much debate, unless it involves Nazis in video games. However, in some respects, the anti-killing is both an excuse and a sales tactic.

Batman is, by far, the best example in this respect. Despite being the alpha and omega of an ordinary man achieving extraordinary feats without superpowers, Batman still cannot and will not stomach killing any of his villains. No matter how many times they escape, kill, or torment others, he refuses to kill them.

Ignoring for a moment the debate on whether he’s responsible for the deaths those villains subsequently inflict, there’s one other issue that makes Batman’s anti-killing stance more a marketing gimmick than a morality stand. Batman’s villains are iconic characters in their own right.

Just look at the list of famous Batman villains. Then, remember how many of them are popular Halloween costumes. Also keep in mind one of them earned Heath Ledger an Oscar and another got Margot Robbie to put on hot pants. Creating characters this iconic isn’t easy. That’s why comic companies and movie studios are so reluctant to kill them.

This is the dilemma that all superheroes face in modern comics and movies. If Batman kills the Joker, then there are no more iconic battles between the two. If Superman kills Lex Luthor, then there’s no more epic struggle. That means there are fewer comics to sell, toys to make, and slutty costumes to create. That situation, from both a fan and business standpoint, is untenable.

As a result, every modern superhero is, by design, incompetent to some degree. On top of that, the villains are either insanely lucky or ridiculously resilient. That’s why we’ll never see a version of Batman, Superman, or Spider-Man who actually succeed at reducing crime. That’s why we’ll never see the X-men or the Justice League actually create a peaceful world.

It’s not that it’s impossible. It’s just that it ends the story and the ability for big companies to make a boatload of money off them. That ensures every modern superhero is a walking paradox. They can never truly achieve their goal, but they can never stop trying either. It’s not because it’s the right, moral thing to do either. It’s because movie studios and publishing companies still need to make money.

That’s not very heroic, to say the least, but that’s the world we live in. Until money and movie rights stop driving superhero narratives, we’ll never see a truly competent superhero.

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March 22, 2017 · 7:00 am

Would You Let An AI Choose Your Spouse?

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It’s that time again. I’m pitching another one of my sexy thought experiments. I don’t know exactly how many people actually dedicate a significant portion of brain matter to these thought experiments, but I’m one of those guys who just like to put strange, sexy ideas out there. What people do with them is up to them.

This latest sexy thought experiment is actually a spin-off, of sorts, of another post I did that asked the semi-serious question on whether we should actually marry for love. That question wasn’t a thought experiment. I admit some of the points I made were done in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. This time, however, I want to ask a serious question with serious implications for us and future generations.

I’ve already pointed out that the concept of actually choosing your spouse is a new and radical idea in terms of the history of marriage, family, and relationships. Today, over half of all marriages in the world are arranged and some even champion this form of marriage because it boasts a lower divorce rate. That’s a debate for another post. For this thought experiment, I want to focus on the underlying principle of arranged marriages.

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The logic is not entirely flawed or heartless. The idea is that finding a spouse or long-term partner is hard and shouldn’t be entrusted to the erratic whims of love. Men can fall in love with a nun and a cocktail waitress in the same day. Women can fall in love with their high school sweetheart and tennis instructor just as quickly. Love and passions are chaotic to say the least. That makes them an unstable foundation on which to build a relationship.

Arranged marriages are usually arranged by parents. That makes sense because who knows you better than your parents? They birthed you. They raised you. They changed your diapers, cleaned up your messes, and listened to you whine when your favorite TV shows got cancelled. In many respects, they know you better than anyone. Why wouldn’t they be qualified to find you a spouse?

I know it still doesn’t sit right for those in the freedom-loving, I-choose-my-own-path-and-I-DARE-you-to-get-in-my-way spirit of the modern west. It’s sort of a rite of passage in western culture, escaping the influence of your parents and authority figures to set your own path. There’s nothing wrong with this, but let’s not lie to ourselves. Sometimes we use that freedom to make stupid decisions.

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For a decision like this, choosing a life-long companion with which to share our lives and passions, it’s generally a good idea not to make a stupid decision. The near-50 percent divorce rate in the United States, as well as every episode of “Married With Children,” is a testament to how bad it can get when we make stupid decisions about our love lives.

This is where the thought experiment enters speculative territory. We can argue whether or not our parents know us well enough to choose our spouse. Some parents know their kids more than others. My parents know when I’m lying, when I’m sad, when I’m upset, and when I just farted. Not every person can say that about their parents.

So what if there was something far smarter, far more informed, and far more resourceful than our parents could ever hope to be? What if there was very powerful, very intelligent authority figure that we trusted and respected because they’re such a critical part of our lives? Would we trust that to pick our spouse?

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Enter artificial intelligence. I’ve brought that up a lot on this blog. I’ve posted warnings about just how quickly our future robot overlords are catching up to us. I’ve even made the argument that our future overlord will be a dominatrix.  However, I’m not ready to dread our overlords as Skynet rip-offs just yet. I believe our robot overlords may very well earn our submission before it ever needs to impose it.

Finding us the perfect spouse would go a long way towards earning trust. Human beings are a very social, very passionate species. That’s why it should come as no surprise that science has uncovered a wide range of benefits of a long-lasting, healthy relationship. When you’re in love, sexually satisfied, and with that special someone, it makes your life better. That should be more obvious than Pamela Anderson’s cleavage.

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An artificial intelligence, loaded with enough information about us and potential lovers, would be able to, in theory, find us the perfect spouse that complements us in every way. Now this would require insight into people that even our parents don’t know.

For a machine like this to work, it wouldn’t just need to know whether we prefer blondes or brunettes. It would need to know everything about everything, right down to which side of the bed we like to sleep on, and locate someone who finds that sexually appealing. That’s a lot of information about us and not everybody shares that kind of information easily, even if people are too eager to share every wet fart on social media these days.

Those limitations aside, let’s take the thought experiment to its greatest extreme. Let’s imagine an AI that has perfect knowledge about us. Perhaps it actually reads our thoughts and feelings, something computers are just starting to do. We all want to find love. If we had a chance for a machine to do it for us, wouldn’t we take that chance? After all, we already trust machines with our email, our schedules, and our porn stash.

It has a massive database of our thoughts and millions of others. It can then perfectly process all that information, determine which individuals are compatible, and hook them up with an efficiency that puts eHarmony, Match, and Tinder to shame.

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Now we may never create a machine that works that perfectly, but we could conceivably create one that is powerful enough make determinations that no human mind can possibly make. Even if it wasn’t perfect, would you still take that chance? Would you still let that machine find you your perfect spouse?

Personally, I would give it a try. In fact, I would’ve tried it the second I became legally allowed to try it. I’m not saying I’d be that eager to get married, but I would definitely be eager to find someone who is truly compatible with me and complements me in every meaningful way.

I say this because when it comes to choosing a spouse and finding someone who is truly the one for you, it’s hard. Don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely worth doing, but it’s still very hard and prone to a lot of mistakes.

You’re bound to make mistakes. You’re bound to find someone you think is compatible with you, only to find out that they bring out the worst in you. You’re also bound to endure plenty of heartache along the way. I certainly have had my share. I know as well as anybody how much it sucks. If there’s any way to get around it or minimize it, I’d say it’s worth doing.

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We’re already trying. The growth of online dating shows that we want technology to help us find better lovers, spouses, or one-night-stands. We want our technology to make this easier for us. My own less-than-memorable experience with online dating shows that this technology has a ways to go.

Like all technology, there is a growth and maturity period. Right now, we’re at the very nascent stages. We’re just starting to let AI assistants like Alexa, Cortana, and Siri into our lives. The kids born today will grow up having always had these AI’s in their lives. In some cases, they may trust them more than they trust their parents, especially as they become more advanced.

As a new generation comes to trust computers with more and more, doesn’t that mean it’ll only be a matter of time before we trust them to choose our spouse? I’m not saying it’s inevitable, but we’ve seen marriage and cohabitation evolve a lot over the centuries. The one constant, though, is that we all continue to seek love. If we have tools that can better help us find that love, then shouldn’t we make the most of it?

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I’ll leave others to do this thought experiment themselves. Again, it probably won’t come to pass anytime soon, but there’s no reason to think that it wouldn’t. We already trust computers with so much. We’re bound to trust them even more as our lives and the world around us gets more chaotic.

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March 21, 2017 · 7:01 am

Animation: A Possible Solution For Erotica/Romance Movies?

This is a follow-up to a post I did a couple of days ago on the future of erotica/romance in movies. It’s an issue that I find myself contemplating more and more with the success, financially speaking, of the “50 Shades of Grey” movies. Since it’s an issue that may end up affecting the industry I work in, namely that of erotica/romance, it’s one in which I’ll keep a close eye on in the coming years.

I’ve already laid out the unique challenges facing erotica/romance in cinema. Even with the success of “50 Shades of Grey,” those challenges are pretty daunting. We’re still a long way away from a sexy erotica romance movie getting as much hype as a “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie. Given how that movie has the sex appeal of Chris Pratt going for it, it’s not  affair fight to say the least.

Fair or not, the obstacles for erotica/romance are still pretty daunting. Between its association with the porn industry and a society that is still horrified of the idea of women being excessively sexual, it really does seem as though this genre on which I’ve chosen to build my writing career has a long way to go.

At the moment, there is a sizable, but not exceedingly large gap to overcome. On one side, you have mature stories with erotic themes like “50 Shades of Grey” and “Showgirls.” On the other, you have porn and the poorly-acted skin flicks that only air after midnight on Cinemax.

Bridging this gap, telling a serious story in a movie with a non-gratuitous amount of sex, is the key. As the success of “Die Hard” and all its assorted rip-offs can attest, it only takes one solid movie to kick-start a new trend.

In giving this issue some serious, sexy thought, which I like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at on this blog, I think there might be one avenue that erotica/romance can take. It would help circumvent some of the biggest obstacles that I laid out before and complement other emerging trends as well. It could even completely reinvent the way movies, sexy or otherwise, are told.

What is this sexy solution, you ask? Well, it already exists in a major way, but it’s due for a major leap forward. It’s this:

That, my friends, is high-quality animation from the video game, “Destiny: The Taken King.” Take a moment to admire it. Then, think back to how animation used to be. If you’re with me to this point, you’ve already made the overtly-sexy connections.

This may be the key. This may be the secret weapon with which to shatter the seemingly-impenetrable walls that keep erotica/romance relegated to midnight skin-flicks on Cinemax. Animation, namely the high-quality kind that companies like Pixar and Bungie pay top notch for, could be the key to making erotica/romance work.

On paper, it makes perfect sense. With animation, you overcome one of the biggest obstacles in producing a quality movie, namely finding actors and actresses that can both emote the necessary passion and not shrivel, literally and figuratively, when they have to get naked and make love on demand.

Animated characters don’t complain about mood, chemistry, or how their trailers are painted. They don’t age. They don’t get fat. They can look as beautiful or as ugly as a director wants them to be. They are, by default, the perfect medium for bringing a character to life. A number have already become quite iconic.

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Now this isn’t a wholly radical idea. In fact, it’s already an established industry in a magical land called Japan. There’s an entire genre of animated porn called anime porn. This brand of porn utilizes themes and stories so outlandish, so extreme, and so disturbing that even the worst moments in “Game of Thrones” cannot compare. Look up something called “Futanari” for proof. Be warned though, you won’t be able to unsee it.

Radical or not, Japanese anime has the same problem that our softcore skin flicks on Cinemax have here in the United States. The stories are flat. The acting and dialog is atrocious. The main point of these movies is to titillate and not enchant.

Pretty much every male character in an anime porn acts a certain way, just like every bleach-blond, big-breasted woman in a softcore porn acts a certain way. There’s no real depth. It’s just basic, bland, and blunt.

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That may be a product of sticking to a winning formula. Japanese anime porn has been around for decades, has an established fan base, and isn’t going to risk that fan base by doing something different. That’s just how an established industry works.

That said, it does prove that there’s a market for mature, animated content. We’re already seeing major studios attempting to tap that market beyond the usual “Simpsons” and “Family Guy” demographics.

In the past few years, new cartoons with mature things like “Archer” and “Bojack Horseman” have found a major audience. Even among younger audiences, shows like “Samurai Jack” reveal that there is a market for a more mature cartoon.

The timing of this growing market couldn’t be better because as this audience is growing, technology in graphics and animation is improving. Moreover, video game companies and developers are using those improvements to tell better stories. Some of these stories are every bit as engaging, dramatic, and emotional as movies. I know this personally, as I’ve freely admitted that the end of Final Fantasy X and Mass Effect got me choked up.

Major video game makers are already exploring deeper, more mature stories that don’t just rly on killing zombies or shooting aliens. Games like “Heavy Rain” utilize mature themes, a rich story, and intimate moments. Having played the game, I can say that this definitely strikes plenty of chords, including the sexy kind.

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So there’s a growing market for mature cartoons. The technology for graphics in animation is also improving and being refined through the $5.2 billion video game industry. What’s the hold up then? Why aren’t we seeing an animated “50 Shades of Grey” movie that isn’t limited to Jamie Dornan’s acting abilities?

As is often the case in the entertainment industry, it all comes down to money. That’s the simplest and most complete explanation. It’s safe to assume that if every major movie studio could replace every actor and actress with a 3D animated model, they’d do it in a heartbeat, thereby ensuring that they never have to work with Shia LeBeouf or Lindsey Lohan again.

The reason they can’t do that is because, as much as animation has improved, it’s still expensive. Toy Story 3, the current gold standard for animated movies, cost $200 million to make. For TV, the average cost of a half-hour animated show is about half-a-million and the cost of a top-quality show like “The Simpsons” is about $2 million.

For comparison sake, entire movies like “Boyhood” and “Whiplash” cost less than $5 million. Animation is also more labor-intensive, which requires a great deal of outsourcing, something the cast of a typical sitcom doesn’t have to worry about.

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As it stands right now, animation is not a preferable option for making movies, TV shows, or erotica/romance. It’s costly, labor-intensive, and affiliated with too many talking animals. However, that may be changing in a major way very soon.

This is where I try to channel my inner psychic and see a bit into the future. Granted, I’m about as much a psychic as I am a starting point guard for the Golden State Warriors. Don’t assume I know more than someone working at Starbucks, but at least trust me when I say I do try to see the forest from the trees and make connections where I see them.

While the cost of animation is going up, advances in computing power and AI are growing as well. Most are content to let AI’s run their schedule or make annoying telemarketing calls, but they can’t make are, right? That’s intrinsically human, right?

I’m sorry to say that our future robot overlords are catching up faster than you think. Back in 2014, the University of Spain created, Iamus, a program that creates its own melodies. Not to be left out, Google followed suit with a program of their own in 2016.

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That’s all well and good, even if it sucks for the future Taylor Swifts of the world. That doesn’t mean robots can draw, right? Humans still have that on the machines, don’t they?

Again, our future robot overlords are catching up faster than you think or feel comfortable accepting. In 2016, Google created another AI called “Quick Draw,” which can recognize simple doodles. A number of robots have even been able to produce their own artwork.

Granted, these works of art are a long way away from being Picasso or Elvis Presley. It’s a start though and, as our recent history with technology has shown, the pace of that technology will only accelerate. Given how slow and clumsy we humans are, it’s only a matter of time before they’re a billion times better at it than we are.

On top of that, the technology for computers to read our minds is emerging as well. This too is in the very early stages of development, but there’s a lot of money in technology, art, and doing things a billion times better. If a computer can make a movie like “Frozen” a billion times faster and a billion times cheaper, you can assume Disney will be all over it like Homer Simpson in a donut factory.

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This has huge implications for every art-based industry in the world, but what does this mean for animation and erotica/romance? Well, most importantly, it means at some point the cost of animation is going to come down.

Eventually, a future version of Google’s drawing software will be so advanced that it can do the job of 100 animators 100 times faster and a million times cheaper. That means movies like “Toy Story 3” no longer cost $200 million. They could cost only a couple million. That means episodes of shows like “The Simpsons” can cost less than a used car.

This opens up countless possibilities for new stories to be told, which don’t have to rely on the bloated budgets or corporate backings of major studios. Since AI is also developing to a level where it can mimic voices, it means that even the cost of voice actors will go down or be replaced altogether.

It won’t happen all at once. There won’t come a day when entire animation studios go out of business or new studios pop up overnight. These types of technology trends take time to develop. They never happen all at once. Cell phones took 40 years to get to where they are now. Modern TV took over a half-century. Expect this kind of technology to take a few decades at the very least.

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However, there’s a lot of money to be made. The rising cost of producing movies is creating a strong incentive to find an easier, cheaper way to create a similar product, minus all the zeroes at the end of the price tag. When there’s that much incentive, then economics usually makes it an inevitability.

That means the first real erotica/romance movie may not be the same live-action piece we saw with “50 Shades of Grey.” It may very well take the form of colorful, sexy animated feature that doesn’t require self-conscious actors or actresses to use body doubles. Maybe one of my own novels will one day take that form. I hope I live long enough to see it.

Again, that day will not be tomorrow. However, this may be the future of erotica/romance. In that sense, Jessica Rabbit may be less a cartoon sex icon and more a prophet. If so, she may go down in history as the sexiest prophet of all time.

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March 20, 2017 · 6:58 am

The Orgasm Gap: Biological Or Psychological?

When it comes to talking about an issue, I generally avoid the kind of crisis fear-mongering you’d see on a CNN special report, a Fox News segment, or an Alex Jones podcast. More often than not, those who resort to fear-mongering are a few steps too close to fitting their heads for tin-foil hats.

However, I’m about to bring up an issue that I believe really is a crisis. It does warrant a little fear-mongering, if only because it directly affects the erotica/romance industry, of which I’m trying to be part of. That’s because it involves orgasms.

Usually, my posts about orgasms are of the fun, positive, sexy variety. That’s to be expected. It’s not hard to make a discussion about orgasms fun. Unfortunately, it’s also not hard to make that discussion dire because when a significant portion of the population isn’t having them, then I consider that to be a big problem.

This isn’t just the sexy musings of an aspiring erotica/romance writer. This is a real issue. There really is an orgasm gap, so to speak. Men, not surprisingly, don’t have a hard time achieving orgasm. Thanks to an unfiltered imagination and internet porn, an orgasm for a man is as routine as a morning cup of coffee.

For women, however, it’s a very different story, one I wish were relegated to the kinds of sexy novels I write. The data doesn’t lie. Women are having a harder time taking a trip to O-town during intimate moments with their male lovers. Regardless of whether you’re a radical feminist or a douche-bag frat boy from an 80s teen movie, we know that’s not fair. Given the universal joys of orgasm, that kind of disparity just isn’t tenable.

Why is this an issue though? Why does this orgasm gap even exist in the first place? Evolution has given both genders a wonderful incentive to have sex, make love, and everything in between. What’s keeping us from enjoying it?

By and large, there are two major theories to explain this injustice. One theory says this gap is primarily due to biology, which is bad news for women because it means the gap is impossible to close. The other says the cause is psychological, which is somewhat less dire because it means the gap can be addressed, albeit with expensive therapy.

Most of the time, when there are two competing theories about why something exists, the truth often lies somewhere in between. In some instances, though, such as the case of creationism and evolution wherein one is definitively right and the other is a religiously-motivated fever dream, the truth is not so balanced.

So with respect to the orgasm gap, which theory is correct? I’m not a scientist and am woefully unqualified to be one. Thankfully, there are some scientists out there who value equal access to orgasms as much as I do and they have done research on this. These people are the true heroes of the erotica/romance world. So what did their research find?

Well, a recent TED talk by Peggy Orenstein does a nice job of summing up these results. I’m not saying her talk is definitive. These TED talks never are. However, her conclusions have some pretty powerful implications and not just for our collective sex lives.

There’s a lot to unpack here. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, it reveals some major flaws in the proverbial narrative that is our intimate lives.

Parts of her talk definitely resonated with my own personal experience. I remember sex ed when I was in high school. Since my community wasn’t run by uptight religious zealots, I had the good fortune of receiving a fairly comprehensive education about sex, especially compared to Texas standards.

They were pretty thorough, talking about everything from contraception to childbirth. When it came to certain body parts, though, I do recall a distinct difference. Descriptions about male anatomy and how a penis works was fairly concise. Most of my male classmates didn’t learn anything they hadn’t already found out and were fairly assured that their manly bits were operating fine.

When the time came to discuss female anatomy, however, I sensed a distinct shift in mood. Everybody, girls and boys alike, shifted like they were trying to hide a nasty fart. The intricacies of female genitalia wasn’t so much about their beauty or aesthetics. It mostly boiled down to the idea that blood and babies come out of it. That’s about it.

On a personal note, I’ll just say I learned about the existence of the clitoris from “South Park.” What’s that say when a comprehensive sex education program from a major school overlooks something that can be gleaned from watching “South Park?” I’ll give everyone a minute to stop banging their heads against their desk.

Then again, self-image is something every teenager struggles with. I certainly did, but I had a damn good excuse because of my horrible acne problem. It’s one of those things that improves with maturity. Sure, some people mature faster than others, but most of the time, it’s women who do the maturing so how does that orgasm gap not disappear?

This is where the psychology, it would seem, overpowers the biology. Make no mistake. Our thoughts and attitudes can influence our bodies. Anyone who has tried to sleep the night before midterms knows this all too well. Then, there’s the attitudes that we, as a society, collectively impose on each other.

In this case, it’s an attitude we impose on women. Whether by the spirits of angry Puritans or the agendas of old men who vomit uncontrollably at the thought of their daughters having sex, we tell women that they’re not supposed to enjoy sex that much. They’re told the orgasm disparity is normal.

There’s supposed to be this orgasm disparity between men and women. Somehow, this disparity is supposed to keep society intact so that people don’t waste too much time enjoying orgasm. This is where Orenstein gets really personal when she recounts the woman who says:

“I guess we girls are just socialized to be these docile creatures who don’t express our wants or needs.”

The girl who said that claimed to be this fiery, assertive woman. That should reveal just how powerful these attitudes can be.

It’s not just one type of attitude either. Orenstein points out how girls see their vaginas with shame while boys let their dicks hang with pride. Being proud of a body part tends to affect it. I used to play baseball. This works with arms. It works just as well with genitals, if not more so.

However, I think Orenstein overstates genital attitudes in some areas, ignoring the fact that men will shave their balls and undergo circumcision to avoid being aesthetically unpleasing. That’s something that affects both genders more than she lets on.

That said, I agree with her wholly when she brings up one of the most telling details about the orgasm disparity. When same-sex partners are involved, that gap disappears quicker than a cold beer at a Red Sox game in July. This is where the biology theory starts to fall apart.

Now it may seem obvious on some levels, the idea that same-sex lovers can climax at the same rate. It makes intuitive sense. They’re two people working with the same equipment, so to speak. Naturally, they would know how to make that equipment perform.

I don’t doubt that’s part of it. I also think there’s more to it and Orenstein seems to agree.

“Girls’ investment in their partner’s pleasure remains regardless of the gender of the partner. So in same-sex encounters, the orgasm gap disappears. And young women climax at the same rate as men. Lesbian and bisexual girls would tell me that they felt liberated to get off the script — free to create an encounter that worked for them.”

How telling is that? Put women in a situation where certain attitudes about sex and female pleasure don’t apply and they can enjoy a trip to O-Town as much as any man. As an erotica/romance writer, it brings tears of joy to my eyes.

So the orgasm gap disappears with same-sex partners. That’s all well and good, but what about the women out there who can’t get too horny around other women? What about the women who actually want to share the joy of orgasm with men? Well, Orenstein gives hope to those women too when she cites surveys done in cultures that aren’t haunted by the spirits of angry Puritains.

“Consider a survey of 300 randomly chosen girls from a Dutch and an American university, two similar universities, talking about their early experience of sex. The Dutch girls embodied everything we say we want from our girls. They had fewer negative consequences, like disease, pregnancy, regret — more positive outcomes like being able to communicate with their partner, who they said they knew very well; preparing for the experience responsibly; enjoying themselves. What was their secret? The Dutch girls said that their doctors, teachers and parents talked to them candidly, from an early age, about sex, pleasure and the importance of mutual trust. What’s more, while American parents weren’t necessarily less comfortable talking about sex, we tend to frame those conversations entirely in terms or risk and danger, whereas Dutch parents talk about balancing responsibility and joy.“

Let’s all take a moment to thank the Dutch. Let’s also take a moment to understand what this reveals.

Again, no theory is truly definitive, but Orenstein lays out fairly concisely how the orgasm gap is largely a psychological issue. Men define satisfying sex by their orgasm. Women define it by the ability to please their partner, which sets the bar low and ensures an unequal outcome.

That means we, as a society, should set new standards and I can say with a fair amount of certainty that men are all for that. How do I know this? Well, let me let all the women out there on a little secret about us men that really shouldn’t be a secret.

We WANT you to have orgasms when you have sex with us.

It’s true. Men really do want the women they have sex with to orgasm. Most of the time, they don’t want women to just lie there and act like a glorified barbie doll with a pulse. They actually want their partners to feel pleasure.

It shouldn’t require a real stretch in logic. Men understand that if women feel a lot of pleasure during sex, then they’ll want to do it more often with them. More sex makes us happy. We have a powerful incentive to make sure you women share in the joys of orgasms. The problem, albeit a sexy problem, is that it requires a mutual effort.

I believe we can close that orgasm gap for coming generations. I can only do so much as an erotica/romance writer, but we collectively can do so much more. When the day comes where men and women can expect to have an equal potential for orgasms during sex, then we will have achieved true equality. I look forward to that day.

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March 19, 2017 · 10:23 am

Sexy Sunday Thoughts: St. Patrick’s Day Edition

Top of the morning to ye, my lovely lasses and laddies! I hope everyone here had a safe, fun, hangover-free St. Patrick’s Day this past week. Whether you stayed sober or got more drunk than Homer Simpson at happy hour, I hope you all had a fun, sexy time.

I know St. Patrick’s Day isn’t exactly Christmas in March. I know it doesn’t involve elaborate gifts, fancy deserts, or family gatherings that coincide with football games. However, it does involve a damn good excuse for heavy drinking, bad dancing, and public nudity. We all live such stressful lives these days. I say we need something like that every now and then.

I won’t go into detail about how I spent my St. Patrick’s Day. Just assume it involved more than a few beers and resulted in some form of nudity. For me, that constitutes a successful holiday in any capacity. Considering how sick I was a week ago, it’s a damn good feeling and one that has inspired some sexy musings.

As such, I’m proud to present my official St. Patrick’s Day edition of “Sexy Sunday Thoughts.” I can’t guarantee that all of these musings were surmised with a sober mind. I also can’t guarantee they won’t disturb those still recovering from a hangover. I’ll just say that they’re a product of a mind that’s just glad to not be sick anymore and eager to celebrate any holiday that inspires public nudity. Enjoy!

“Women underestimate how much breasts make men act stupid and overestimate how much they’ll regret that stupidity in the morning.”

I’ve seen men do many stupid things when in the presence of exposed breasts. I, myself, have done my share of foolish things in the presence of breasts. I don’t think that women understand just how much power their breasts have over us.

It often leads to cases where women complain about male stupidity when in the presence of beautiful women. I get why some women feel that way. Even some men feel that way. However, they don’t seem to understand how futile it is to make men feel sorry for appreciating the power of breasts. You can shame men for a lot of reasons. Being stupid around breasts isn’t one of them.

“It’s inherently hypocritical for men to insult a woman for being a bitch, but still wanting her to fuck like one.”

I’m a man. I have a lot of male friends. As such, it’s not uncommon for some of those friends to complain about a woman being too bitchy, whether it’s a co-worker, a girlfriend, a sibling, or a spouse. In some cases, the insult is justified. In most, however, it’s somewhat misguided.

That’s because I’ve also noticed how men expect so much from their women. They want a loyal, gentle, nurturing lady they can parade in front of their grandparents, but they also want a kinky nymphomaniac who will fuck like Jenna Jameson on crack. That’s expecting too much, in my opinion, and insults mixed with hypocrisy is never sexy.

“A man who shaves his balls assumes way too much about the role they play in his sex appeal.”

I don’t know who started this trend. Whoever it is, I wish to personally punch them in the jaw. The male nutsack has a purpose and shaving it does nothing to enhance or facilitate that purpose. I get the logic behind grooming pubic hair and being mindful of one’s genitalia. I just don’t think the presence or absence of hair on a man’s balls has much influence on how sexy he is.

“We live in an era where a text message can count as foreplay and a compliment on a woman’s breasts can count as harassment.”

Honestly, I’m scared to compliment a woman on her appearance these days. Anything and everything said about her body can be construed as harassment of some kind. It’s frustrating because women say they want us to respect their bodies, but get offended when we compliment it. It’s enough to frustrate any man’s brain and genitals.

Then, there’s the idea of sexting. Apparently, this is how a new generation of horny men and women are getting around that issue. For them, a simple text message is the equivalent of tongue-kissing and copping a feel. I’m all for the power of the written word, but some kinds of power need not be that skewed.

“The fact that so many young people learn about sex through internet porn makes me worry that they overestimate the impact of spanking.”

Now I love internet porn as much as the next guy. I’m grateful for the service and convenience it provides. However, I worry that our collective unwillingness to talk to young people about sex is essentially deferring the issue to porn stars, porn studios, and Howard Stern.

That would be like ditching driver’s education and letting teenagers learn about driving by watching “The Fast and The Furious” in conjunction with having multiple orgasms. That’s going to leave a flawed impression. Given the amount of lubricant, tattoos, anal bleaching, and spanking involved in the average porn, I worry that an entire generation of youth will have a flawed understanding of what constitutes intimate, sensual experiences.

“Sex appeal is like the meat on the bone of a juicy stake. Romance is a willingness to slow-cook that steak and marinate it in special sauce.”

As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, it’s important to understand the difference between raw sex appeal and romance. Sex appeal is pretty basic. A woman with big breasts and a man with a big dick has inherent sex appeal. Those traits trigger the kind of basic, primal responses that made our cavemen ancestors horny.

Romance, on the other hand, goes beyond the mere primal. Romance requires a certain amount of thought, patience, and planning. Whether you’re a man or a woman, romance is the icing while the sex appeal is merely the sugar. Our willingness to be patient, thoughtful, and intimate goes a long way towards crafting that perfect dish, be it a dinner or desert.

“When you think about it, romantic gestures that cost money are down payments towards future orgasms.”

Economics and finance are rarely that sexy. That doesn’t mean they can’t influence our love lives. When you get down to the basics, romantic gestures are like emotional investments. Instead of interest, the payoff is love, intimacy, and hot sex. Even by Warren Buffet standards, that’s a pretty good return on investment.

That’s all for now. Hope this helps others recover from their St. Patrick’s Day festivities and/or reconcile with their liver. Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine. So long as it isn’t coupled with blackouts and dry-heaves, I like to think I’ve helped.

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March 18, 2017 · 10:49 am

Why Quality Erotica/Romance Movies Are (Almost) Impossible

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A while back, I talked about the box office reception that “50 Shades Darker” received and the implications this had for the future of erotica/romance in movies. In my assessment, as someone with a keen interest in the future of erotica/romance, I painted a mildly optimistic picture.

I had good reason to. After all, “50 Shades Darker” turned a profit, just like its predecessor. Sure, it was panned by critics, but that has never stopped trends in movies before. Just ask Michael Bay. Critical reception aside, “50 Shades of Grey” made a lot of money for book publishers and movie studios. That should be all that’s necessary to spark a new wave of erotica/romance in movies, right?

Well, maybe it’s because I’ve had some spare time while recovering from a terrible cold, but I find myself re-assessing my assessment. In doing so, I’ve surmised a number of major, almost insurmountable obstacles that will keep erotica/romance stories, like the ones I write, from being Jaws-level blockbusters.

Now I say it’s almost insurmountable because Hollywood has defied the odds and/or common sense before. I thought the vomit-inducing shit storm that was “Batman and Robin” had killed superhero movies for the next several decades. Thankfully, I was wrong and three years later, “X-men” came out. However, the erotica/romance genre has challenges that even superhero movies never had to overcome.

With that caveat in mind, here’s a quick rundown of the obstacles that hinder erotica/romance in movies. Yes, they seem daunting, but keep in mind that when there’s money to be made, Hollywood usually finds a way to exploit the hell out of it.

Obstacle #1: The Porn Problem

While the Mike Huckabees of the world may hate it, porn exists. Porn, as a genre and an industry, exists in a big way. According to Forbes, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry with its own line of major brands, product lines, and superstars. Names like Brazzers, Adam and Eve, and Jenna Jameson are all well-known, even though many are still reluctant to admit just how much they know.

This may be good for the industry, but it’s also a big reason why the erotica part of erotica/romance has such a big problem getting into movies. It’s because porn is its own industry that there’s this hard, unambiguous line between porn and cinema.

Show any typical movie next to a typical porn and it’s usually pretty easy to figure out which is which. Even if none of the actresses involved have boob jobs, it’s painfully obvious which one was produced by a porn studio. If a movie is going to be overly sexual in any way, then it’s going to either get hijacked by porn or associated with it. In either case, the romance part will be lost completely.

This is why the erotica parts of movies like “50 Shades of Grey” and “Showgirls” are so watered down. Sure, you’ll see a pair of breasts. Sure, you’ll even see a penis or a vagina every now and then, if only briefly. However, it’ll never be as overt or uncensored as porn.

Some of this because too much T&A will earn a movie the dreaded NC-17 rating, which means no major theaters will carry it. At best, a movie with that rating will end up a late-night softcore porn movie on Cinemax or HBO, which directly ties into another obstacle.

Obstacle #2: The Acting Problem

Here’s a pop quiz everybody should be able to pass. How many Oscar-winning actors or actresses in the past 30 years have ever starred in a porno movie? If you can’t think of any, then congratulations. You passed.

That’s because for actors or actresses, acting in porn or being too eager to take your clothes off is the quickest way to lose credibility in Hollywood. Now some actresses can get away with showing their tits more than others, as Angelina Jolie has proven, but those are the exceptions and not the norms.

For men, it’s even worse. Many male actors are willing to get naked on screen, as Leonardo DiCaprio has proven, but chances are they’ll never do a full-frontal where their dick and balls are clear for everyone to see. That’s usually the quickest way to get laughed out of any future audition.

This is a problem because good acting is important to a good story, especially one that involves romantic themes. However, good actors and actresses can’t get quality work if they’re too eager to get naked on camera. That’s because they’ll just be seen as quasi-porn stars of sorts who rely more on their sex appeal than their acting skills to make a living.

Now there’s nothing wrong with relying on your natural or surgically-enhanced sex appeal to make a living. Pamela Anderson is proof that this can work, even if she has become somewhat of a hypocrite about it.

However, for serious actors in Hollywood, it’s an unbalanced balancing act of sorts. Too much sex appeal means your acting skills become secondary. Without those acting skills, it’s hard to tell a meaningful story. Even if the actor or actress has those skills, there’s also the erotic acts themselves to consider, which leads to the next major obstacle.

Obstacle #3: The Performance Problem

By performance, I don’t mean an actor or actress’ ability to cry on cue. Think back to porn for a moment without opening a new tab on your browser. Why is it that many porn actors or porn actresses have such poor acting skills? Well, there’s a simple reason for that. Their acting skills are a secondary concern at best, if not an afterthought at worst.

The biggest challenge to being a porn actor or actress has nothing to do with actual acting. It has everything to do with actually being able to have sex in front of a camera, under weird lighting, and with a director barking orders behind the scene. It’s not exactly an intimate setting is what I’m saying.

Most men can’t exactly rise to the occasion under those situations. As a man, I can attest that our biology makes that difficult for us. Just as many women can’t exactly get in the mood either. That’s why male porn stars are judged more on their ability to keep an erection and why female porn stars are judged by their ability to keep the sex going, even after the mood has passed.

This is why sex in movies is so overly-censored. Even in softcore porn movies, it’s extremely watered down. If you do see a penis, it’s never erect. If you do see a vagina, it’s rarely that wet. That’s why the sex never looks real or genuine. It’s a matter of skill more than story.

Good actors and actresses have the skill to make a character seem real. Good porn stars have the skill to actually have sex in front of a camera. Few, if any, have the ability to do both, which is why erotica/romance has so much working against it.

Obstacle #4: The Stigma Problem

As I’ve pointed out before, Hollywood still has a few oddly outdated attitudes when it comes to sex. Again, just go see any slasher movie made in the past 30 years. The first person to die is always the man or woman who is too eager to get naked or have sex.

In any major romance movie, a relationship that has too much sex will be portrayed as shallow. A relationship that lacks sex or sex appeal will come off as more genuine. It’s an either/or scenario that rarely gets challenged and for good reason.

Too much sex in a movie will cause it too lose credibility. Too much sex in a romance will make it seem shallow. The idea that sex can actually complement a romance might as well seem alien to a Hollywood producer. That would be like claiming Seth Rogan can do a good movie that doesn’t involve weed. It seems outrageous.

Beyond the stigma within the movie, there’s the stigma outside the studios as well. As I mentioned with the acting issue, those involved in an overly sexy movie will get labeled as the kind of people who can only do movies that involve a lot of sex.

This is why few victims in slasher movies go onto win Oscars. They commit the sin of getting naked in a few too many scenes and they’re basically blacklisted in Hollywood. It’s not fair, but that’s how the industry works.

Reasons For Hope

Now if these obstacles make it seem like erotica/romance will never be a legitimate movie genre, I apologize if I give that impression. Granted, these are obstacles that few genres have ever had to overcome. Even with the success of “50 Shades of Grey,” it’s not like studios are clamoring to make knock-offs on the same level we’ve seen with superhero movies.

That said, there does appear to be an emerging market for more mature content that doesn’t shy away from showing nudity in more than a few scenes. How do I know this? It can be best summed up by three words: Game of Thrones.

Say what you want about the critical reception of “50 Shades of Grey.” There’s no denying the cultural impact that “Game of Thrones” has had since it debuted on HBO. It’s violent. It’s sexy. It’s downright gratuitous in the way it glorifies Emily Clarke’s breasts. It’s also a damn good story full of great acting and compelling characters.

Now that’s not to say “Game of Thrones” qualifies as an erotica/romance story. It’s very much a different kind of story, one that fits more into established fantasy genres. However, it’s willingness to use a balance of sex, violence, and story offer hope that this balance can find its way into other genres.

So while it may be a while before we see an erotica/romance movie, like my upcoming book, “Passion Relapse,” we’re a lot closer than you think. Sex still sells. Meaningful romance still sells. It’s only a matter of time before Hollywood finds a way to combine the two and make a boatload of money off it.

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March 17, 2017 · 7:00 am

Emma Frost: The Future Of Female Villains?

Not long ago, I dedicated several posts to the defining traits of villains and why Walter White was such a game-changer, beyond getting Bryan Cranston more Emmys than he’ll ever need. I could’ve done many more posts because quality villains are every bit as integral to any story as a quality hero. Just look at Batman’s rogues gallery, and the number of cos-players that dress as them, for proof of that.

In these discussions, I kept things fairly general and if I did, I singled out a specific character like Walter White or Magneto. Well, recent events and ongoing trends have inspired me to re-address the issue of villains from a different angle. Specifically, I’d like to talk a bit about female villains.

Quickly, take a moment and recall your favorite female villain of all time. Chances are it’ll take you a moment and not just because a great many female villains made us both scared and horny at the same time. It may also be difficult because some female villains don’t exactly carry themselves as villains. Catwoman may be a thief, a deceiver, and the subject of one of the worst comic book movies of all time, but she’s not an outright villain.

Female villains are one of those difficult concepts to flesh out and not just because men can’t resist turning female villains into sexy anti-heroes, some more egregiously than others. It’s just one of those elements that either gets under-used or overlooked.

Well, as is often the case with the ever-changing/insanely-erratic tastes of pop culture, that may be changing. At a time when a new generation of strong female characters, badass female superheroes, and women who just do more than give the male characters something to obsess over, it was only a matter of time before female villains caught up.

Now I generally suck at making predictions. I’m the same guy who was convinced that Cleveland Cavaliers would never win the NBA championship last year. I’m not proud of the things I had to do for the bets I made on that game, but it does show that everybody, including aspiring erotica/romance writers, can be dead wrong. With this, however, it’s not just a prediction. It’s based, in part, on an observation.

As most regular readers of this blog already knew, I love comic books and superheros. Specifically, I have a special affinity for X-men comics. So it should come as no surprise that I follow the events of the X-men comics very closely. Well, this past week, something pretty damn major happened in the X-men comics and it has to do with this woman.

Her name is Emma Frost. Trust me, she’s even sexier than her fan art would imply. She’s a prominent character in the X-men comics and has had numerous roles throughout the series for over 30 years now.

At times, she’s been a devious villainous vixen. At others, she’s been a cunning heroic vixen. In every role she’s in, she generally makes it a point to be sexy as hell. She doesn’t mind getting naked, she doesn’t mind having sex, she doesn’t give half-a-tortoise fart about what anyone things. In short, she’s a perfect blend of Regina George and Wonder Woman.

Now Emma Frost is somewhat unique in that she’s had so many roles, but she’s never defined herself completely as a hero or villain. She hasn’t even been an anti-hero. If you were to do the villain’s journey test I laid out in a previous post, she wouldn’t complete it, but she would come pretty damn close.

The same goes for the hero’s journey. She would check some boxes, but not all. She’d just look a million times sexier than anyone else on that journey.

Why is this important? Well, in a major X-men crossover event that just concluded recently, Emma’s role changed again. After a clash between the X-men and the Inhumans, one Marvel built up over the course of two years, Emma crossed a line that effectively sealed a new fate for her. She’s a villain now. However, she’s a very different kind of villain.

What do I mean by that? Why is that even relevant? Well, to answer that, think back to what I said about listing your favorite female villains. Go back to that list again. Exactly how many of those villains are refined, well-rounded, complex characters? Chances are your list will shrink considerably or outright disappear.

That’s because female villains have a history of being annoyingly flat. Going all the way back to the Wicked Witch of the West, they rarely had many compelling traits. Most of the time, they were just evil witches or devious vixens. Basically, just think of every evil female character in a James Bond movie. That’s the extent of the depth female villains usually get.

This is what makes the development with Emma Frost so intriguing. Emma Frost isn’t like Pussy Galore or the Wicked Witch of the West and not just because she looks better in a thong. As a character, she has a rich history. She even had her own comic series at one point. She has various layers as well. She’s not just out to be a total bitch and look good doing it, although she does make it look pretty damn easy.

Emma Frost has real, genuine motivations. They’re not always pure either. For a time, she was a stripper who didn’t mind using her sexuality to get ahead in the Hellfire Club, who have been major X-men villains for many years. When she was a teacher, she watched many of her students die in an attack that she had no chance to stop.

However, she has never been one to play the part of a victim. She never uses tragedy or excuses to justify her actions. She does what she thinks needs to be done and anyone who disagrees with her can just kiss her perfectly shaped ass. Hell, she could probably charge for that and it would be worth every penny.

The recent events in the X-men comics pushed her to extreme actions and for good reason. As part of the story that set up the clash between the X-men and the Inhumans, she lost someone near and dear to her. Cyclops, a character she had been romantically involved with, died in her arms. It affected her profoundly, which is saying a lot for someone who killed her own sister.

That effect leads her to do more than just lead a conflict. They put her in a position to become a hardened, but complex villain, both to the X-men and anyone else who generally pisses her off.

Her timing really couldn’t be better. Just as everyone from Disney Princesses to Taylor Swift prove that there’s a market for strong female personalities, she’s entering a domain that’s ripe for new energy. Emma Frost could very well be the first of a new push for better female villains to go along with the female heroes that every comic company and movie studio is pushing these days.

I feel like this is a trend that needs to happen. Women can kick ass as heroes. That much they’ve proven. Why not show they can do the same as villains? Emma Frost is unique in that she has the kind of complexity that allows her to be a hero when she needs to be and a villain when she wants to be. I believe there will be a market for that kind of complexity.

Sure, some parents would still prefer that their daughters dress up as Disney princesses rather than Emma Frost, if only to avoid any Honey Boo Boo comparisons, but having strong female villains still does something important. It adds balance to the greater narrative between heroes and villains as a whole.

Now I’m somewhat guilty myself of not fleshing out female villains. In my book, “The Escort and the Gigolo,” the main villain was a woman named Madam Felicity. While I did make an effort to give her some complexity, I admit she’s not more ground-breaking than a James Bond villain with boobs.

I’d like to change that in future novels. I just hope that by then, Emma Frost will have set the bar and set it high. As any X-men fan will tell you, Emma never does anything haphazardly. If she’s going to usher in a new wave of strong female villains, then she’s going to make damn sure she’s the best and looks damn sexy while doing that. For that, she’ll always have a special place in the hearts and pants of X-men fans everywhere.

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March 16, 2017 · 6:59 am

Should We Marry For Love? Wait What?!?!

Should we really marry the person we love? That’s not a rhetorical question. That’s not the beginning of some elaborate joke or rant either. It’s an actual, honest question that we, as a society, stopped asking very recently in the grand scheme of things.

As an erotica/romance writer, these kinds of questions are pretty darn relevant. The way people see love, marriage, sex, and everything in between shapes the novels I write. I’ve written several books thus far, but I’ve never really dealt with this question directly. Given the rate at which the concepts of marriage and love are changing, this question is pretty important.

So why is it relevant to begin with? Why should this be a controversial issue? Well, contrary to what registered republicans and the church would have us believe, the modern concept of traditional marriage isn’t that traditional.

In fact, for most of human history, marrying for love was the exception and not the norm. For some people, the very idea of marrying for love was an affront to marriage itself. There’s even an old Egyptian proverb that says:

“One who marries for love alone will have bad days, but good nights.”

Let that sink in for a moment. Up until very recently, and by recently I mean the 17th century in Europe, people didn’t marry for love. They married because it was just part of how old, pre-industrial societies worked. From Europe to China, most marriages were arranged by families. Sometimes, the bride and groom didn’t even meet each other until their wedding day.

This was because marriage was not seen as a romantic gesture. It was seen as a cooperative partnership, of sorts, between families. You didn’t marry your spouse as much as you married into their family. It was how pre-modern societies ensured a proper exchange of property, bloodlines, and procreation.

That’s not to say love was completely absent. Ideally, the hope was that a couple would marry first and then fall in love. It may seem backwards today, but that was the ideal espoused in the past.

Why was this? Why was love divorced from marriage, if that’s not too loaded a term? Well, there is a social and political reason for that, one that a brilliant woman named Stephanie Coontz articulates far better than I ever could. She explains:

In some cultures and times, true love was actually thought to be incompatible with marriage. Plato believed love was a wonderful emotion that led men to behave honorably. But the Greek philosopher was referring not to the love of women, “such as the meaner men feel,” but to the love of one man for another.

Other societies considered it good if love developed after marriage or thought love should be factored in along with the more serious considerations involved in choosing a mate. But even when past societies did welcome or encourage married love, they kept it on a short leash. Couples were not to put their feelings for each other above more important commitments, such as their ties to parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors, or God.

In ancient India, falling in love before marriage was seen as a disruptive, almost antisocial act. The Greeks thought lovesickness was a type of insanity, a view that was adopted by medieval commentators in Europe. In the Middle Ages the French defined love as a “derangement of the mind” that could be cured by sexual intercourse, either with the loved one or with a different partner.4 This cure assumed, as Oscar Wilde once put it, that the quickest way to conquer yearning and temptation was to yield immediately and move on to more important matters.

In China, excessive love between husband and wife was seen as a threat to the solidarity of the extended family. Parents could force a son to divorce his wife if her behavior or work habits didn’t please them, whether or not he loved her. They could also require him take a concubine if his wife did not produce a son. If a son’s romantic attachment to his wife rivaled his parents’ claims on the couple’s time and labor, the parents might even send her back to her parents. In the Chinese language the term love did not traditionally apply to feelings between husband and wife. It was used to describe an illicit, socially disapproved relationship. In the 1920s a group of intellectuals invented a new word for love between spouses because they thought such a radical new idea required its own special label.

In Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, adultery became idealized as the highest form of love among the aristocracy. According to the Countess of Champagne, it was impossible for true love to “exert its powers between two people who are married to each other.”

In twelfth-century France, Andreas Capellanus, chaplain to Countess Marie of Troyes, wrote a treatise on the principles of courtly love. The first rule was that “marriage is no real excuse for not loving.” But he meant loving someone outside the marriage. As late as the eighteenth century the French essayist Montaigne wrote that any man who was in love with his wife was a man so dull that no one else could love him.

It sounds as unromantic as it does unsexy, the idea that love is actually a liability in marriage, so much so that people in the past were shunned for loving their spouses too much. However, there is a context to consider.

These are pre-modern, pre-industrial, mostly-agrarian cultures where infant mortality is high, maternal mortality is high, and plagues are exceedingly common. Love, as anyone whoever listened to a Beatles song, is a very fickle emotion. It cannot be channeled, controlled, or changed. Some have tried, but most efforts fail. Just ask anyone who endured conversion therapy.

That kind of chaos just doesn’t fit in a society that is only one bad harvest or one nasty plague away from total collapse. These societies need to exert some level of social control in order to function.

Societies still change. Civilization, as we know it, changes with it. We no longer live in a society where such social control is necessary, but there are still plenty of societies all over the world where arranged, loveless marriages are common. Some will even claim that such marriages are better than love marriages.

It may sound ridiculous to the freedom-loving west, but think about it. Why go through the trouble of finding a spouse when your parents can just do it for you? Besides, who knows you better than your parents? Wouldn’t that save everyone a lot of time, energy, and heartbreak?

That last part wasn’t entirely sarcasm, but that’s the logic behind arranged marriages. The fact it’s still so prevalent all over the world indicates the logic isn’t entirely flawed. It also acknowledges that there are some fundamental issues with marrying for love.

As many writers far more accomplished than me have said, love is a very fickle emotion. It changes on a whim more than it lingers. You could love someone for 30 years and one day find someone else you love even more. It happens. That’s what love can do. That’s why it’s so scary/amazing/powerful.

There’s no doubt that marriage, as an institution, is destined to change even more than it already has. Every church, mosque, and synagogue may fight it. Every social conservative may oppose it. That still won’t stop it. The institution will keep changing, probably in ways that nobody, especially not an aspiring erotica/romance writer, can predict.

This brings me back to my original question. Should we marry for love? Should marriage even be connected to love? It’s as serious a question as anyone can ask, regardless of time period or generation. It’s also a question that we, as a society, will have to answer at some point in our lives. Let’s hope we answer it right.

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March 15, 2017 · 6:59 am

“Passion Relapse” Available For Pre-Order/Early Download!

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I meant to announce this earlier, but a lot of distractions, including a terrible cold coupled with a snowstorm, kept me down for that count. I’m back on my feet though and ready to make an exciting announcement for my first published book, “Passion Relapse.”

About a month ago, I announced the launch schedule that my publisher, Totally Entwined Group, had given me. So far, that launch date is still on. I’ve heard of no delays or disruptions so by all accounts, the stage is still set. April 18, 2017 will mark the official launch of “Passion Relapse.” If I could be any more excited, I’d get arrested for public intoxication.

That date is just a little over a month away. It’ll come quickly though and for once, that’s a good thing. Yes, I know that’s a woefully dirty joke. No, I do not care. I’m just too excited to be subtle.

At the moment, it is possible to pre-order the ebook version “Passion Relapse” on both Amazon.com and the TotallyEntwinned bookstore. So if you want to be proactive, you can set the mood, so to speak. By pre-ordering, you’ll be fully ready to make April 18, 2017 the sexiest day of the year.

Let’s face it. It’s been a long winter and spring is, after all, the time of rebirth, romance, and rabbit humping. What better way to get into the spirit of spring than with a scintillating, sensual love story like “Passion Relapse?”

So what are you waiting for? Pre-order your copy and make sure you stock up on spare panties. After you read this book, you’ll thank me.

“Passion Relapse” Amazon Pre-Order

“Passion Relapse” TotallyEntwined Pre-Order

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