Just thought I’d make a quick announcement today, one that I hope bodes well for the future of this blog. Since I started posting regularly again last year, I’ve been contemplating its future and purpose. I’ve found that the more I write here, the more I want to write. It’s one of those brutal cycles that doesn’t destroy your liver or lungs.
With that in mind, I decided to invest a little more into making this blog more official and not something that a burned out college student works on in between exams. I’ve taken my own money, which is limited mind you, and purchased and upgraded plan from WordPress on this blog. In conjunction with this upgrade, I also got a free domain name to go with it.
This, I hope, will add more legitimacy to this blog, especially after my books “Embers of Eros” and “Passion Relapse” come out. If I’m going to be a real published author, it’s important that I present myself in a way that looks like I give a damn. Having a domain name and a more polished blog is just one of the ways I hope to do that.
As of now, my new web address for this blog is as follows:
So please take the time to update your bookmarks and browsing history accordingly. This site will now be the new hub for me and my publishing efforts, be they book announcements or my “Sexy Sunday Thoughts.”
I also intend to keep upgrading this blog in whatever way I can. That may mean tweaking the design and format, but I still haven’t decided yet. Right now, I’m focusing more on the ongoing projects I have at the moment, as well as the one I intend to start next. I’m not short on sexy ideas for sexy stories so I expect to be busy throughout 2017. I hope having a more polished blog will help.
If you’re an American Football fan, then this is a wonderful time of you for you. It’s playoff time! That’s right, the NFL playoffs start today. This is one of those years where I don’t have a lot of teams I’m rooting for. I have quite a few teams I’m rooting against, but sometimes that’s the best you can do in sports.
I’ll definitely be enjoying my share of the NFL playoffs for this week and the next couple weeks. Watching football is a great excuse to just pop open some beers, gorge on chicken wings, and relax. You usually don’t need too many excuses for that, but it helps.
You’d think that contact sports involving a bunch of big, strong, sweaty men ramming into each other at full speed wouldn’t inspire sexy thoughts. Actually, I don’t know why anyone would think that. Anything that works up a sweat or raises the heart can send all sorts of sexy signals to your brain. For an erotica/romance writer, those signals are always welcome.
So I’d like to make use of them today with another edition of Jack Fisher’s “Sexy Sunday Thoughts.” Hope this helps get everyone in the mood for the NFL playoffs, among other things. I consider it a public service from an aspiring erotica/romance writer, if only to keep people warm during the cold winter.
“Having an attractive pool cleaning guy is the male equivalent of having a hot secretary.”
How many pornos and bad movies that only air after midnight on Cinemax use this scenario? It’s overplayed. It’s predictable. It’s even a little flat. Even so, it can still be fun. It can still be sexy. Sometimes you just gotta stick with what works.
“For the excessively homophobic crowd, eating a hotdog or a banana must cause some serious anxiety.”
I have little to no sympathy for those who champion homophobia. I stash their sentiment in the same pile of trash as those who claim that letting kids playing dodge ball counts as abuse. However, I do sometimes wonder how stressful it must be to hold such extreme, bigoted views on an empty stomach.
“Give men a tax break for the number of real orgasms they give their wives and the number of happy marriages will increase considerably.”
This is just one of those crazy ideas that comes to an aspiring erotica/romance writer while he’s lying in bed at night, contemplating ways to change the world. Powerful, politically connected men are all about tax breaks these days. Provide a little orgasmic incentive and that power can be put to good use.
“Every time you see a really nice table in someone couple’s home, assume someone has been bent over and fucked on it at least once.”
This is simple math and connection here. You eat your meals on a nice table. You put your best cloths and flatware on a nice table. Naturally, if you’ve got a lover, you’re going to put them on there too and fuck their brains out. Sometimes people are just too horny to make it to the bedroom.
“The color of your bed sheets can inadvertently reveal how messy or dull your sex life might be.”
This time, it’s basic physics and chemistry at work here. Certain bed sheets, especially those of a darker color, tend to reveal certain stains more than others. The presence or absence of those stains can say a lot about your sex life.
“Giving sex education to horny teenagers can only go so far. Giving them sexual training might actually help their love lives down the line and they might actually be eager to learn it.”
As a former horny teenager, this is something I can relate to. My teachers can tell me everything there is to know about how a penis and vagina work. I’m not going to know if I’m doing it right without a little guidance. I’m not saying that it’s wholly feasible in high school, but it would make everyone a lot more excited to go to school.
“From a pure numbers perspective, women’s vaginas have cracked more bank accounts than every hacker or bank robber in history.”
I’ve watched many crime movies. I’ve heard all sorts of crazy stories about elaborate heists and hacks. Then, I recall how divorce laws work in this country and realize that if you’re going to crack a safe, sometimes a vagina and a great pair of tits is the best tools you can have. You don’t see too many sexy female bank robbers, do you?
That’s it for now. Enjoy the NFL playoffs and keep your tables clean!
Ever feel like you’re being watch? No, I’m not talking about the kind of watching that those in tin-foil hats and poor mental health talk about. I’m talking about the feeling of actually being watched by someone who isn’t a CIA agent, a lizard person, or an agent of the Illuminati.
This isn’t a spy movie or a conspiracy theory. This is an extension of the whole love vs. obsession discussion I began yesterday. When I started writing about this topic, I realized quickly that one post was not going to be enough. There are just so many aspects to this issue that it’s hard to capture everything necessary to convey the message I want to convey. Even this part will only convey part of that message.
When you break down the fine, but obscure line between love and obsession, you enter a strange part of human emotions that borders health and unhealthy attitudes. Love is probably one of the healthiest things you can do for your soul. There’s a good reason why those who marry and form stable, loving relationships live longer than those who don’t. In some sense, sexual healing is a real thing.
Obsession, on the other hand, is not going to increase your lifespan. It’s not going to help your social life either. Obsession at a certain level becomes a symptom of mental illness, be it crippling depression or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It’s hard to know where that level is, which is why it’s so hard to know the difference between love and obsession.
There is, however, one clear line that becomes painfully apparent once crossed. It’s a line that represents the endgame of sorts in the love vs. obsession conflict because it turns emotional upheaval into an actual crime. That crime, in this case, is stalking.
Unlike obsession, stalking is a crime and can be prosecuted as such. It takes obsession, dips it in napalm, and throws it into a furnace to create a perfect raging firestorm of emotional unrest. It’s the point where any and all potential for romance fades, becoming instead a case-study in what happens when emotions go haywire.
To make matters worse, the age of the internet and social media makes a stalker’s job so much easier. It’s no longer a matter of just asking the Yellow Pages to not list your address and phone number. If you have an internet presence of any kind, someone obsessed enough can exploit it. It’s scary as hell, but that’s the age we live in.
For most of us who don’t have a vindictive ex-lover, we don’t have to worry about being stalked most of the time. It’s not a passing concern, which is why the whole love vs. obsession conflict kind of flies over our head. For celebrities, though, the concern is real and so is the harm.
So in the interest of providing perspective in what happens when obsession goes too far, here’s a video by WatchMojo detailing some of the most disturbing cases of celebrity stalkers in recent memory. They don’t include cases where the stalker was intent on murder, as that kind of skews the issue. This is just about people who took their love and obsession too damn far.
I admit these cases are extremes. The people involved have serious mental issues and I’m not just talking about the eccentricities of the celebrities either. This is what happens when emotions go haywire and become so unhealthy that it leads to real harm. For an erotica/romance writer who wants to tell stories about healthy romance, it’s an important lesson to heed.
We’ve all asked ourselves one fateful question. It also happens to be the question at the basis of 85 percent of all romance movies and 99 percent of all bubblegum pop music songs. It affects us all in some form or another and is a core component of the human experience.
“How do I know I’m in love?”
It’s a profound, but beautiful question to ask. To love someone is a big part of being human. One could argue it’s one of the most important parts of being human. Being in love is one of those basic, emotional experiences that drives us all. We seek out love because it helps make life worth living. Like chocolate, bacon, and hot showers on a cold winter day, it fulfills us on a fundamental level.
Love is a beautiful thing. It’s a beauty I get to admire from a unique perspective as an erotica/romance writer. Pretty much all of my books deal with love in some form or another. Some books, like “Holiday Heat” and “The Escort and the Gigolo,” go to great lengths to build up a romance. Others, like “The Final Communion” and “Jackpot,” use less elaborate forms of romance.
Whatever form it takes, I enjoy writing about romance and many of my future novels will deal heavily in romance. When mixed with a healthy dose of erotic undertones, it can make for some pretty potent narratives, among other things.
As much as we love romance and as critical it is to the human experience, there’s another question that’s somewhat linked to romance, albeit indirectly. It’s a question we don’t ask ourselves quite as often and in some cases, that’s becomes a big problem. It’s uncomfortable, unpleasant, and distressing to think about. That’s a clear sign that it’s still worth asking.
“How do I know I’m obsessed?”
Stay with me here. I know some snicker at that question the same way they would if a five-year-old came up to them and asked why dogs don’t talk. It seems like an unrelated question. It seems like something that really shouldn’t enter the equation when talking about love, but it does. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s a big part of the flawed narrative we collectively craft about what love is.
A big part of “Sex At Dawn,” involves breaking down what it describes as the “Standard Model.” Again, this model is just the stereotypical boy-meets-girl-and-they-live-happily-ever-after-like-an-old-Disney-movie narrative. It’s very familiar to modern Western civilization. It’s the ideal embodied in sitcoms, music, and movies.
However, in analyzing this model, the book highlights a few unflattering features that are hard to overlook. A big part of this standard model requires that the man and the woman be completely devoted to one another, the first thought they have when they wake up and the last thought they have when they go to sleep, presumably after a quick round of highly-scheduled, missionary-style sex.
That’s all wonderfully romantic on the surface, but take a closer look at the finer details of this narrative. They’re completely devoted. They direct all their romantic and sexual energy at each other. Their thoughts and feelings are completely narrow and focused on a singular person. At what point does that kind of sentiment turn from romance into obsession?
I ask that question knowing there isn’t a fine line. However, it’s difficult to decouple the details of this narrative from the definition of “obsession.” According to Dictionary.com, the definition for “Obsession” is as follows:
With this definition in mind, think back to the narrative surrounding the standard model of romance I mentioned earlier. How much of that romance is built on love and how much of it is built on obsession?
It’s a hard, if not impossible question to answer, but it’s a question that’s worth contemplating because it reveals something about the nature of our emotions. Part of being in love is to desire someone and to be desired. However, sometimes our faulty, flawed brains take it too far and that can really hamper the romance.
When someone is obsessed with someone, especially when it’s done out of love, it consumes a person so completely that they struggle to function on a basic level. They can’t focus at work. They can’t focus with family. They can’t focus on whatever goals, aspirations, or dreams they may have had in their lives. It all becomes secondary because of a person.
A good way to contrast this is to look at it from the opposite end of the spectrum. There are all sorts of people who are obsessed with someone out of hate. There are even entire groups devoted to hating others. For most reasonable people, this is deplorable. Devoting that much time and energy into hating someone just seems wrong. It makes no sense.
So if hate is that wrong when taken to extremes, why should love be different? Isn’t that just as unhealthy? I admit it’s not an entirely fair comparison. Comparing love and hate is like comparing candied bacon with expired kale. They’re two very different manifestations of something that’s so basic, broad, and varied. That doesn’t make the extremes any less damaging.
Being in love is a wonderful feeling, but then again shooting heroin and smoking crack can feel wonderful too. That doesn’t mean that it’s healthy. The problem is that Disney movies, pop songs, and bad romance novels have created this ideal about what love is and some of that ideal involves more obsession than love.
There are plenty of examples to explore and I plan on doing more blog posts on this issue. I hope to break it down a bit more, if only to help me craft more complex, engaging romances in my novels. For now, I’ll focus on one particular example involving music.
When it comes to sappy love songs, pop music can always be counted on to give us a massive glut of material from boy bands, country stars, and 80s hair metal bands. There are so many love songs out there of so many different kinds that if super-intelligent aliens landed tomorrow, even they would be confused about how our music defines love.
This leads me to a very famous song that is often mistaken for a love song. It also happened to be one of the biggest pop hits in 1983, voted song of the year by Rolling Stone. Chances are, if you’re over the age of 30, you’ve heard it at some point or another. If you aren’t familiar with the lyrics, you’re at least familiar with that soothingly haunting tune and the undeniably handsome face of Sting.
This song was, and still is to some extent, widely regarded as a love song. However, if you look at the lyrics a bit closer, how much of it is love and how much of it is obsession?
Every Breath You Take
Every Move You Make
Every Bond You Break
Every Step You Take
I’ll Be Watching You
In a certain context, that sounds sweet. It sounds like something a dying spouse would tell their lover before they passed away to provide comfort.
In another context, it sounds creepy as hell. It sounds like a note a stalker would leave someone, as if to warn them that they can never escape their obsession.
The mere fact that such context is even needed says a lot about our inconsistent sentiments towards love and romance. On one hand, we want to be desired. On the other, we don’t want to be stalked by someone who devotes every waking hour to obsessing over us. It’s a tough balancing act.
This conflict is something that even Sting himself, the writer of this song, admitted in a 1993 interview. He goes onto say:
“I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.”
Again, it’s pretty telling when we can’t tell whether a song is about love or obsession. It says a lot about how we assess love, sex, and romance. Since I’m in the romance/erotica business (or at least trying to be part of it), it’s something I think I need to assess more than most.
At the end of the day, stories about love and romance still strike us on a fundamental level. They have an appeal that spans generations, civilizations, and terrible pop music. I want to channel that appeal with my novels because in the end, a story about love will always be more compelling than a story about obsession.
The late, great Benjamin Franklin once said, “[I]n this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” That little pearl of wisdom has held up remarkably well over the years, especially when democrats are in charge or when despots need more money for their gold-plated toilet seats.
However, if Mr. Franklin were alive today, he’d have to amend that quote in a very specific way. While it’s still true that the only certainty is death and taxes, there is one other inescapable force that makes even the forces of nature tremble. It’s a force so powerful that it can reduce the best of us into wounded puppies begging for a band-aid.
What is this force, you ask? Get ready to embrace the horror because it will affect us moving forward. In fact, it’ll affect us more and more as the pace of technological advancement accelerates. It conjures dread, fear, annoyance, and frustration. It is the ultimate shit stain of the internet and technology in general. They are the true beasts of the 21st century.
Yes, I’m talking about Internet Trolls.
I’ll give everyone a moment to either cringe in horror or roll their eyes. Some of us have experience with internet trolls. Some of us may have even done our share of trolling in the past, although we’ll never admit in public that it qualified as trolling. Like a kid trying to get out of chores, we’ll make any excuse not to be associated with this horror. That doesn’t make us any less guilty of it.
I freely admit that I’ve done my share of trolling in the past. I’m not proud of it, but I’m only human. I’m passionate about a lot of things and I hope that shows in my erotica/romance novels. If it doesn’t, then I’m not doing my job.
We humans are passionate creatures. We always have been. We probably always will be on some levels, despite the efforts of movies like “Equilibrium.” It’s only recently that we’ve had a tool, namely the internet, to convey our passion all over the world about every possible subject from sports to pets to how we style our pubic hair.
I don’t consider this a bad thing. I’m not those who think the internet makes people into monsters or trolls. I believe that humans always had these sentiments to some degree. We just never had a chance to express them on a larger scale. The internet helps us reveal the breadth of our passions. There’s going to be the good and the bad. We can’t avoid either, nor should we.
So in many respects, internet trolls are like the sewer systems of a city. It smells, it’s ugly, and it’s flowing with shit, but it needs to be there. It needs to function for the city to function. You can whine about it all you want, and some people do, but you can’t escape it.
If we can’t escape it, then how do we deal with it? How do we deal with these digital demons that attempt to suck the fun out of anything and everything we hold dear? It’s actually easier than you think, at least for the non-famous population. For the famous crowd, it’s a little trickier, but not by much.
Since I can’t relate to famous people that much, I’ll stick to what I know before I dare to speculate. I’ve been on the internet for over 20 years and I’ve seen it grow and evolve, from the early AOL days to the fall of MySpace. In that time, I’ve picked up on a few techniques to combat internet trolls. Here are just a few:
Assume there will be trolls wherever there’s an opportunity and don’t get overly upset when they show up
Never assume a troll is being one hundred percent sincere, nor should you assume that the troll is one hundred percent knowledgeable either
A troll that makes threats is serious, but a troll actually carrying out these threats is exceedingly rare so keep that in mind
Above all, deny the troll any and all forms of attention or reactions, as this is the primary fuel in which a troll operates
Apathy is the most potent weapon against internet trolls
There are probably more techniques that are unique to certain situations. There’s probably a whole host of tips and tricks to deal with certain trolls that go to much greater lengths to harass others. Those cases aren’t typical.
How can I be so sure of this? Again, apply a little caveman logic and it’s obvious. Human beings have a lot of remarkable mental and physical traits, breasts and balls being some of the most notable. However, when it comes to our attention span, human beings are incredibly lacking.
The average human attention span is not that great and some even argue (albeit not very effectively) that it’s shrinking due to technology. A troll operates at the very basic of levels in terms of human capacity. That means a troll’s attention span should not be overestimated. The internet is full of so many distractions, cat videos being just one of them. A troll that doesn’t get a reaction isn’t going to stay interested for very long.
In the end, the greatest weapon that any of us can use against internet trolls is apathy. That is a troll’s ultimate kryptonite. When a troll goes to such great lengths to harass and demean, but earns nothing but a blank gaze in the end, it’s downright toxic. Their brains simply cannot process why they are wasting time and energy that could be better spent hunting for tigers and seeking fertile mates. It’s caveman logic at its finest.
This is a sentiment echoed by those who have a somewhat larger social media presence. Being a lifelong comic book fan, I frequent comic book message boards and social media. I see a lot of trolling, to say the least. Comic book fans are a passionate bunch, as we learned during the Avengers: Age of Ultron controversy surrounding Black Widow.
This leads me to Tom Brevoort, an accomplished editor at Marvel and a genuinely interesting guy. I’ve met him in person at comic cons. He’s great at what he does and the way he deals with fans is nothing short of astonishing. A couple years back, he responded to a question that effectively proves my point.
When Mr. Brevoort was asked, “What does Marvel fear more? Angry fans or apathetic fans?” he responded as follows:
“Apathetic fans, definitely. When fans are angry, we’re selling comics.”
That’s a refreshing bit of honesty from someone who often has to be coy about his business. It also emphasizes the power of apathy, both in terms of dealing with trolls and dealing with public visibility. That saying about there being no such thing as bad publicity is somewhat accurate, but it’s incomplete in that it ignores how human passions operate.
So with that in mind, use these techniques whenever necessary. If you’re a celebrity, it may be somewhat trickier because internet trolls can sometimes turn into dangerous stalkers, which is an entirely different problem that I’m not equipped to deal with. For those like me, who are a long way away from being famous, this should help make your internet experience more tolerable.
Brace yourselves because I’m about to say something that’s going to explode heads and confuse genitals everywhere. Are you sitting down? Has it been a while since your last meal? If not, take about a half-hour or so to let it digest. You’ll thank me later. I promise.
Are you back? Are you sitting? Are you bracing yourself appropriately? Okay, here goes. Again, don’t say I didn’t warn you because this is going to shock more people than it should.
Women do watch porn.
Are you done gasping? Have you picked your jaw up off the floor? Take a moment to let this sink in. If you live in North America, a part of the world with a rich tradition of schizophrenic attitudes towards sex, you’ll probably need more than a few. Being an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I need to be in touch with those attitudes. Yes, that includes understanding women’s preferences in porn?
Why do I bring this up? Well, aside from the fact that it’s easy to garner extra attention when you talk about women and porn, it is a relevant topic for me. I want my writing to appeal to everyone, men and women alike. Being a healthy heterosexual man, I have a fairly good idea of what men like, be it porn, TV, and fast food. I need to dig a little deeper for women’s preferences.
That’s actually not as difficult as it sounds. Yes, I know the concept of understanding women is often equated to understanding quantum physics. No, I don’t believe that’s accurate. That’s just an overplayed gimmick in every bad romantic comedy made since 1977.
It is possible to understand women on some levels. You just have to do something so simple, yet so revolutionary, even in 2017. You have to actually listen. I’ll give everyone another moment to stop gasping.
Now I’m not saying I’m a professional listener, but I have a functioning brain and functioning ears. Those are the most vital tools last I checked. In addition, there are others who just announce to the world what women think and what they find sexy. You just have to be willing and able to listen. Again, it’s not as hard as it sounds. It did not need to be a sub-standard Mel Gibson movie.
Understanding that anything on the internet has about as much scientific validity as a Star Trek rerun, I still find their discussions informative. Recently, one of those discussions involved women’s tastes in porn. Naturally, my ears perked up, as did other parts of my body. Since I’m trying to appeal to women’s sexy sensibilities, I had to listen to some parts more than others.
Here’s the video. It’s fairly SFW and not overly graphic. It does, however, paint an interesting (and telling) picture.
So apparently, this admittedly unscientific study found out that women in North America love lesbian porn. They love lesbian porn a lot. As a man, I say bless their female hearts because I think that’s something a lot of American men can rally behind. We don’t agree on much, but we can sure as hell agree that lesbian porn is sexy as hell.
One of the unique traits of lesbian porn is that it’s focused on the wants and needs of the women. It kind of has to be for pragmatic purposes. In addition, those involves in lesbian porn are, by and large, presented as equals. This is more a product of men and women being biologically and physiologically different. When two women are involved, it makes for more equal dynamics and not just because they have the same anatomy.
It’s because of that equality that the mood, tone, and appeal of lesbian porn is unique. I think that uniqueness appeals to women, especially in North America, because so much popular culture, including porn, creates all these woefully unequal relationships. It’s either the man who overshadows the women or the woman who busts the balls of the man. It’s often either/or and rarely anything in between.
Now I’m sure there are other factors in play. There are probably a whole host of other reasons as to why lesbian porn appeals to so many women. We live in a culture that uses beautiful women as the apex of all things sexual. One beautiful woman has the sex appeal of ten George Clooneys. That’s just how our schizophrenic culture operates at the moment.
With that in mind, I do expect tastes to change and evolve. Today, lesbian porn may be the preferred porn of choice for women. That may change in five years. For all we know, foot fetishes and finger-banging will come into style. It’s hard to say. I can’t predict the proclivities of an entire culture. I can just take note, listen to the whims of others as well as my own, and adapt my sexy novels accordingly.
One final note on lesbian porn for now. If you’re a woman and you enjoy a little bit of lesbian loving in your private moments, check out my book, “Holiday Heat.” The holidays may be over, but the sex appeal of this book should keep your spirits high.
It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not talking about that time when people start making a list of all those who ruined their holiday and how they’ll get back at them. That time has already passed. It’s a new year. It’s 2017. That means we’ve all got a clean slate so to speak. We have a chance to shake off the burdens of 2016 and make 2017 better.
It’s that very sentiment that leads many to make New Years Resolutions. I’m definitely among that crowd. For most of my adult life, especially in recent years, I’ve tried to make New Years Resolutions that will help me improve myself, my life, and all those around me.
I know it sounds cheesy. Some might not even think it’s very sexy. I think it’s an important part of being an adult, finding ways to improve yourself. Isn’t improvement supposed to be sexy? Isn’t that why women get breast implants and why men smother themselves in aftershave? Call it whatever you want. Improvement on any level should be sexy.
I know I’m not alone in making these resolutions. Around this time of year, I notice a significant uptick in crowd sizes at the gym I go to. In fact, there have been some instances where the gym is so crowded on the first week of the new year that it’s hard to get a good workout in.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, as may be the case), those crowds tend to taper off. Usually by mid-February, the crowds are almost back to normal. I think that says a lot about New Years Resolutions and how hard they are to fulfill.
I think we’re all guilty of it at some point in our lives. We make a promise to ourselves to do better or be better in some capacity. Then, for reasons that aren’t always our fault, we fail. It’s sad. It’s frustrating. It can be downright demoralizing. Unless you’re rich enough to pay someone to meet your goals for you, it’s downright inevitable.
Why is this though? Why is it that so many people fail at New Years Resolutions? Well, some of that goes back to the “caveman logic” I’ve cited many times before on this blog. In some respects, our own evolutionary biology is working against.
This isn’t just a case of our brains being wired primarily for survival and reproduction. This is more a product of our brains favoring certainty over uncertainty. Back in the caveman days, not knowing where we would get our next meal, when we would hump our mate, or whether there was a hungry bear around the corner caused a lot of stress. We needed to feel stress so that we’d do something about it. That’s just the laws of nature.
Once again, the problem with our brains is that it still hasn’t gotten the memo that this is 2017. We’re not living in caves anymore. Our wiring still confuses the uncertainty surrounding our whole weight-loss resolution with the uncertainty that comes with not knowing whether a bear will steal the meat we gathered from our last hunt.
Being so crude and blunt, reorienting our brain is like trying to cut glass with a hammer. Technically, it is possible. It’s just not very precise. Our brains are wired to avoid the distress that comes with uncertainty. That’s why it’ll fight you tooth and nail when you try to change something in your life.
I know this because I certainly had to fight it when I pursued some of my resolutions. As I documented before, my efforts to get in shape did not happen overnight. I had to slowly work my way into a healthier mindset. It took time. It took patience. It took a whole lot of frustration as well, but I did it.
In some respects, I was lucky. I had some strong motivating factors behind that resolution, namely recent health issues that some close relatives endured. That, along with getting older, helped provide incentives that my brain just couldn’t work around. Those incentives have served me well, so much so that not exercising causes me distress.
This has been the key to a lot of my resolutions. It’s not so much that I make bold promises. It’s how I go about it. I try to work my new resolutions into a system of sorts. I’ve always been a very regimented person by nature. So when I want to do something, I try to fit it into a schedule or a system that I can live by. If possible, I try to make it as flexible as possible.
A lack of flexibility in setting a goal or a system is usually the first step towards failing. I don’t like to fail. That’s why flexibility is so important. Some of that actually comes from my parents, who made it a point to make everyone flexible to deal with the daily chaos of our lives. It worked when I was a kid. It works even better as an adult.
Now I’m not saying I’m an expert in helping you achieve your New Years Resolution. I’m as qualified to be a self-help guru as I am to be starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. However, I’m not one of those late night infomercial scam-artists who will charge you a hundred bucks just to tell you what you want to hear. I prefer to keep things simple and practical.
I know my experiences with New Years Resolutions won’t work for everyone. My situation is wholly unique and it probably won’t work for everybody. I can definitely relate to those seeking a career in publishing or wanting to explore the world of superhero comics. I can’t exactly relate to those whose resolutions involve buying the perfect Ferrari or not getting mauled by a hungry cheetah.
So in the interest of not overplaying my hand or making light of the fact that I’m still an aspiring erotica/romance writer who has yet to accomplish many of his goals, I’ll try to keep my New Years advice simple and concise. It goes like this:
Take a moment to analyze your routine/system, how you go about your day, and how well it’s working at the moment
Highlight specific areas of that routine/system that has room for improvement and identify those areas as “blanks” that you can reorganize
Assess how flexible you are in your current routine/system and, wherever possible, try to improve that flexibility to the greatest extent possible
Set small, concise goals at first within the “blanks” and try to work it into your system
Do not try to pursue more goals than you can count on one hand at the same time
Be realistic and be willing to fail
Above all else, learn from your failures
There, that is Jack Fisher’s unofficial guide to pursuing your New Years Resolution. It’s simple. It’s free. You don’t need a guru charging you by the hour. You just need commitment, motivation, and a willingness to try, fail, and learn from those failures. In the long run, the successes will emerge in places you don’t expect.
Also, in keeping with my admission that I am as much an expert as I am a rocket scientist, I’ll cite another more comprehensive list from the fine folks at Psychology Today. The people on this site are likely more qualified than me to assess the intricacies of self-improvement. Their article “Why New Years Resolutions Fail” offers more in depth advice that I’m not qualified to give.
Whatever advice you choose to follow, I strongly encourage everyone to pursue a New Years Resolution. We should all strive to improve as best we can with what little time we have in this world. Why not start now?
This post may be a day late, but I feel like it’s one of those posts that needs to be said. It doesn’t just apply to the holidays, the time after the holidays, or the time in between holidays. This could very well apply to any day of the year, but some more than others. Anyone who has had a day where comfort comes in one too many glasses of wine, bottles of beer, or shots of whiskey knows what I’m talking about.
Yes, I’m talking about hangovers. For some people, the mere mention of the word is enough to trigger reflexive dry heaves. Some say hangovers are God’s way of letting us know we’re having too much fun. I think they’re more a harsh reminder that our bodies are woefully imperfect hunks of flesh that can’t always handle our vices.
I’ve certainly experienced the joys of a fun night followed by a painful morning. The worst hangover I ever experienced came after an NFL preseason game of all things. I watched the game with some buffalo wings and a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels. For me, this is perfect football food and I was excited about how the game and the upcoming NFL season.
Unfortunately, the game was kind of crappy. The team I was rooting for really stunk. Naturally, I found myself reaching for the Jack Daniels after each lousy play. Then, like an unplanned one-night-stand, one thing led to another. Before I know it, the entire bottle of Jack Daniels is empty. Yes, I said the entire bottle.
Naturally, I became very drunk. I became so drunk that I could barely stand up and I started dancing to the music on commercials. So while it may have been a lousy game, I still found a way to have fun that night.
The next morning, however, was not so fun. I emerged from a restless sleep feeling like a truck hit me and then an entire team of elite kick-boxers took turns kicking my head. It was bad, to say the least. I threw up at least twice and didn’t leave my bedroom until 4:00 p.m. the next day. I don’t know if it could’ve been worse, but it was pretty damn bad.
So, with that painful experience in mind, I’d like to share some hangover remedies. Now make no mistake. There is no miracle cure for a hangover. You can’t just down a bottle of whiskey and expect to be all upbeat and chipper the next morning. Hangovers are a product of biology, chemistry, and sub-par human physiology. As anyone who went through abstinence only education knows, you can’t fight biology.
Eat a good meal and drink plenty of water before you start downing shots
If possible, drink clearer alcohols like vodka and gin since they tend to incur less severe symptoms
Don’t smoke, which is not only considerably worse for you, but will augment the symptoms
Down a light drink the next morning to alleviate the symptoms, but don’t overdo it because that’ll just make the symptoms worse
Make sure you have ibuprofen and Pepto-Bismol handy in the morning
Again, none of these are miracle cures. You may still feel like shit, even if you do everything on this list and try a few folk remedies from your crazy uncle. At some point, the agonizing process of a hangover has to run its course. Like teenage hormones, you can’t fight it. You just have to endure it.
I hope this helps everybody get through some rough days in 2017. If you want some more less proven remedies, check out this video from WatchMojo. I want to help people with this blog. Alleviating a hangover may not seem like much, but once you experience one, you’ll appreciate the sentiment.
We made it! If you’re reading this, you can finally say it with a straight face. We survived 2016. We made it through another year, even though that year seemed determined to crush our spirits, our hearts, and our will to live. It wasn’t easy, but we made it and we’re stronger because of it.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Years Eve. I imagine some are still fighting off another holiday hangover. Then again, if you survived a Christmas hangover and were still able to celebrate New Years, then you can definitely survive a New Years hangover. You should be pretty damn good at that by now.
Instead, I’d like to start the year off on a sexy note by delivering another entry of Jack Fisher’s Sexy Sunday Thoughts. I’d like to start 2017 off on a high note. I think a few sexy musings will help everyone get in the spirit of the new year, among other things.
“When you think about it, a bottle of lube is the ultimate romantic gesture in that it helps us to love each other and ourselves.”
Remember this when you’re shopping for a Valentine’s Day gift this year. Your partner might not understand or appreciate it at first, but once they understand the sexy sub-text, they’ll realize it beats the hell out of flowers.
“The main difference between erotic art and porn is the extent to which it’s acceptable to take your pants off.”
I’m not saying erotic art doesn’t have merit in it’s own special way. I’m not even saying it’s on the same level as porn. I’m just saying that some differences are more substantive than others.
“The market for new panties grows during times of prosperity while the market for used panties grows during recessions.”
This is basic economics and good investing advice for those who think male horniness is a good way of predicting market trends. When times are good, we want to hump, so that means more fresh panties. When times our tough, we still want to hump, but need to pinch pennies so we resort to less glamorous alternatives. Beautiful women with used panties are in a unique position to weather the storm.
“Does being a gay man give you an advantage at a hot dog eating contest?”
I don’t know much about the skills necessary to enter and win a hot dog eating contest. However, I suspect that gay men with healthy sexy lives may have more natural skills than most in this endeavor.
“Wonder Woman is rarely seen wearing a bra, which effectively proves that the weight of being a woman is never too much for her.”
As a lifelong comic book fan with a deep love and admiration for Wonder Woman, I’ve noticed this since puberty flooded my brain with the chemicals that make me horny. Wonder Woman is a proud warrior and a feminist icon, but doesn’t seem too fond of wearing bras. I think that says a lot about women, female empowerment, and the power of breasts.
“When someone shaves their pubic hair, it means their lover has fewer excuses for not knowing their anatomy.”
There are a lot of reasons that people shave their pubic hair. Not all of them are logical. Not all of them are necessary. That said, if someone does go full Brazilian, it means that their lover better know their partner’s anatomy because they’ve got no excuses.
With that lurid thought, I wish everyone a safe and sexy New Year! Here’s to making 2017 a better, sexier year for everybody!
I tend to be an optimist at heart. Granted, I wasn’t always that way. As a teenager, I would’ve run for school president on a pro-apocalypse, anti-homework candidate. I would’ve lost and probably been suspended, but that shows just how crappy my teen years were. As an adult, I’ve learned to keep looking forward and striving to make the next year better than the last.
So with 2016 drawing to a close, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what I’ve done, what I hope to do, and what I’d like to accomplish moving forward. I won’t say I’ve had the best year. I won’t even say I’ve made a lot of progress, but I do feel like I’ve made some. In the long run, a little progress adds up. Like extended foreplay, it makes the final climax that much more satisfying. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
I’ll try to hold off on the dirty subtext for now, but I won’t make any promises. One of the biggest developments of 2016, by far, was the news I got on my book, “Passion Relapse.” The fact a publisher of any size took a chance on me, an aspiring erotica/romance writer who has received a steady stream of rejection letters for years now, is a pretty big accomplishment.
Now I’m not so delusional to think that this deal will make me the next J. K. Rowling. I’m not expecting to strike it rich or field calls from HBO anytime soon. However, I do hope that this is a stepping stone of sorts, one on which I can create a foundation for a successful future in publishing. I really do want to make a living telling these sexy, romantic stories. This is what I’m passionate about. This is what I want to do.
If 2016 is the first step in a long, arduous process. I’m happy to make it and I hope there’s more to make in 2017. I don’t know what the next step entails, but I will keep working for it. I will keep improving and refining my craft.
The same goes for this blog. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do with this blog for a while. When I first launched “Skin Deep,” I basically abandoned it for a while and by a while, I mean years. I revisited, revamped, and reorganized it with no real goal in mind. It has since become something so much more.
It’s not just a blog in which I can share my thoughts on the joys of sleeping naked or the health benefits of orgasms. It gives me a regular outlet for exploring and refining my writing skills. Spending a little time every day on this blog, talking about the topics that interest me, be they sexy or mundane, is downright therapeutic at times. If I find more success, I want this blog to be an outlet of sorts for my writing and my aspirations.
Again, I don’t necessarily know what that entails. I still intend to write regularly on this blog. I also intend to make it fun and entertaining when I can, like my “Sexy Sunday Thoughts” columns. I also hope to craft other little projects on the side to make this blog worth visiting. I admit it’s small now, but I want to do what I can to help it grow.
In addition, I also want to keep writing more novels. That should be an obvious enough endeavor for 2017. I’ve managed to craft a couple manuscripts in 2016. So far, only “Passion Relapse” has attracted attention. I hope that changes in 2017, but if not, I’ll keep producing more content. I have a fairly good idea of what kind of story I want to tell next. I also have a good idea of the story I want to tell after that. Like I said, I’m proactive.
Beyond writing, I still have my share of personal goals for 2017. Chief among them is to find a romantic partner with which to share this never-ending process. Whether that involves online dating or meeting someone at a dive bar on the Jersey Shore, I’m open to that experience. I want to make that kind of personal progress as well.
There are other goals I hope to make. I feel like I’ve become more balanced as I’ve gotten older, both in terms of my life goals and my approach to achieving them. I’d like to keep working on that balance. I believe it’ll keep me focused, honest, and sincere in my endeavors.
With 2016 drawing to a close, I feel like I can enter 2017 with a healthy bit of confidence. I feel like that’s the best anyone can do, to make the next year better than the last. Sometimes we can only do so much. There are a lot of forces beyond our control, but in our personal lives, I believe we control much more than we think.
So for the rest of 2016, my only remaining goal is to stock up on whiskey, watch college football, read some comics, brainstorm some sexy stories, and watch the ball drop before I get too drunk. If I can do these things while naked, then that’s just a bonus.
Until then, I wish everyone a safe, happy, and sexy New Years Eve!
