Tag Archives: erotica

Starfire: Profile of a Sex-Positive Superhero

I intended to move onto another topic to start this week. I thought I said enough about jealousy and rejection last week, at least for now. Well, I may have been premature and as a man, I do not use that term lightly. Before I get going on another topic, there’s one last item I want to discuss regarding jealousy and rejection. That item involves superheroes.

I know that sounds like a non-sequiter, but hear me out. If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I am a big comic book fan. I tend to refer to comic books and superheroes when discussing issues on this blog, including the sexy kind. I’ve actually referenced the Deadpool movie as an example of progress in our culture’s attitudes towards sex. I promise it’s not as crazy as it sounds. I’ve also highlighted a recent issue of an X-men comic as an example of a balanced modern romance.

It’s not my fault that superheros help make my points so well and this issue is no exception. As I wrote about issues surrounding jealousy, rejection, and our cultural attitudes towards sex, I made some connections to a lesser-known superhero, but one who fits into this discussion in an important way. It’s not Superman. It’s not Batman. It’s not Wonder Woman. It’s not Captain America, Iron Man, or Wolverine. No, I’m talking about Starfire.

Who is Starfire, you may ask? Well, she’s an alien princess named Koriand’r. She can fly, has super strength, is super durable, and can shoot green energy bolts called starbolts. By all accounts, she’s very similar to Supergirl. She’s not as well-known as some of the other mainstream heroes. She still has quite a history and has done a lot to set herself apart from a crowded superheroes market. Oh, and she looks like this.

I think that tells a good chunk of her story right then and there. However, what makes Starfire special isn’t just her ability to look good in skin-tight outfits. A lot of female superheroes can make that same claim. Looking good in an obscenely revealing and/or extremely impractical costume is par for the course for female heroes and even male heroes to some extent. Anyone who remembers Michelle Pfeiffer’s memorable take on Catwoman in the old Batman movies knows this.

So what sets Starfire apart? Why am I singling her out from the countless other super-powered heroines who wear overly revealing costumes, have an awesome rack, and give pre-teen boys all sorts of strange new feelings? Well, it’s because Starfire embodies a special trait that sets her apart from every other superhero, male or female. She is, by far, the most sex-positive superhero in comics right now.

What do I mean by that? Well, superheroes having sex isn’t new. Superheroes having strange, deviant sex isn’t new either. Starfire exists in a universe where Superman and another female hero named Big Barda made a sex tape. It’s also a universe where Batman and Batgirl have sex on a rooftop. So clearly, comics and comic creators aren’t afraid to get kinky.

What sets Starfire apart is that she isn’t just comfortable with sex. She conveys it in an overtly positive way. She doesn’t treat it as an act of deviance. She doesn’t treat it as something callous or meaningless either. She treats sexuality as part of her overly loving, overly emphatic personality. She always frames it in a good, positive context. In the superhero world, that’s not just rare. That’s an aberration.

Traditionally, when a female character becomes more sexual, it makes them come off as more deviant. Overly sexual female characters take on a stereotypical vixen, one who flaunts her sexuality and exploits it to the utmost. I already mentioned Catwoman as one example, but Catwoman is a lightweight compared to Emma Frost of the X-men. I won’t get into all the way she’s conveyed her sexuality, but just assume she exploits it in ways even an erotica writer can’t imagine.

It’s an unfortunate theme that has played out in superhero stories in various ways over the years. Like slasher movies and teen movies, it reinforces this puritanical subtext that the more sexual a woman is, the more deviant she is.

Men aren’t immune from this subtext either. While they can get away with having more sex than female superheros, there’s still this unspoken impact attached to it. If a male hero is going to be more sexual, then he’s going to be more of an asshole. Like the jocks in 80s teen movies, they don’t come off as positive or upstanding like Superman or Captain America. The best example of this would be Namor, a character who has actually slept with Emma Frost. This is what he looks like and this is how he usually dresses.

I think that effectively conveys the traditional dynamic of sexual superheroes. It’s also why Starfire is so unique in her persona. She dares to defy this tradition. She dares to be a compassionate, loving hero while being openly sexual. She does not carry herself like some superhero vixen, flaunting and flouting her sexual traits. In fact, flaunting sexuality is downright alien to her.

For Starfire, sexuality is just a simple, natural part of life. It’s just one of the ways she shows love and affection to those around her. She doesn’t do it with an agenda. She doesn’t do it to exploit. She does it for all the right reasons. She’s also very comfortable with her body. It doesn’t just show in her skin-tight superhero outfit either. She’s also very comfortable being naked. Having written extensively about the joys of nudity on this blog, it’s something I can definitely appreciate.

There’s one other trait to Starfire that sets her apart. It has to do with jealousy, the less joyous topic I’ve brought up on this blog. In being so sex-positive, Starfire doesn’t experience jealousy the same way we see in other characters. Throughout the history of superhero comics, there have been all sorts of crazy love triangles and convoluted love stories. Wolverine’s love life alone is a testament to this. With Starfire though, these sorts of convoluted emotional entanglements are a moot point.

The best example of this manifested in a solo series she starred in earlier this year. In that series, she deals with multiple male characters with which she shows a romantic interest. Dick Grayson, the first Robin, is just one of them.

However, it’s her reaction to another relationship with a character named Sol that really sets her apart. While she’s off fighting monsters and exploring subterranean civilizations (it’s a long story, but one that’s totally worth reading), he finds love with a co-worker. What’s Starfire’s reaction to this? Does she get angry, upset, or sad? No. She doesn’t. She’s happy for him.

Does that sound strange? Does it sound downright alien? Well, think about it for a moment. Someone Starfire really cares about finds happiness. Being a loving, empathetic person, she’s happy that he’s happy. Besides, if you love someone and they find a new source of happiness, shouldn’t you be happy as well?

It’s one of those strange thought experiments that makes too much sense for our culture. As I’ve said in other blog posts, our culture does a lot to create unhealthy attitudes towards sex and intimacy. The idea of being happy that a lover finds happiness with someone else feels alien because our culture creates this strange nation that we’re supposed to own the love and happiness of another.

Think about that for a moment. We’re supposed to own the intimate affections of someone else and should be upset when they find it with others. The idea of owning the thoughts and feelings of others doesn’t sit well with me. I imagine it doesn’t sit well with a lot of people on some levels. However, this is what our culture commands us to some extent.

It’s for this reason that Starfire is such a remarkable character. She embodies a different brand of sexuality. She embodies an attitude towards sex that sets her apart. Given that she’s an alien, these attitudes certainly feel alien. However, they’re attitudes that we can and should learn from.

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One More Bit About Rejection And Dealing With It

Well, it’s been a day since I made a post that is sure to upset feminists, non-feminists, and clown porn enthusiasts alike with my insight into the mind of a misogynistic man. I haven’t gotten any threats. I haven’t been sued. I haven’t even gotten any hate mail. That shows just how relevant I am in the grand scheme of things right now. If I ever become a famous author, I have a feeling that post will come back to haunt me in some ways. For now though, my obscurity and lack of success protects me.

Perhaps posts like yesterday’s and my discussions about jealousy and rejection were tempting fate. I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe that things you don’t believe in can still screw you over. Maybe that happened this week because I got another rejection letter for “The Big Game.” This one wasn’t as detailed or friendly as the last one. It was basically, “We read it. We don’t want it. Fuck off.” Since this is erotica we’re talking about, I’m guessing that last one was meant in a good way.

Maybe I was hoping for too much with “The Big Game.” It’s not meant to be some epic “Lord of the Rings” scale erotica masterpiece. If I’m going to write something that big, I’d like to know I have an audience first. I don’t have that. I have a handful of people who think I don’t suck. I’m happy to accept that for now, but I’d like to grow that audience. Rejection certainly doesn’t help so I may have to figure something else out.

Earlier this year, I thought about joining The Writer’s Market online service. My only concern is that some of the services involved will be reluctant to push the kind of BDSM I have in books like “The Big Game.” I want to believe that there’s a market for every genre. Go to Amazon and look up Dinosaur Erotica for proof of that. I hope I can tap into that market.

Until then, I have to keep refining my ability to deal with rejection. I expect to deal with plenty more as I aspire to become a published author. I’ve found that humor of the sexy kind is a good way to cheer myself up. So in the interest of sharing these valuable skills with others, here’s a complication of sexy Vines I found on YouTube. It cheered me up. I hope it can do the same for you.

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Inside The Mind Of A Misogynistic Man

This is probably going to be the most ambitious, contentious, and volatile post I’ve written to date on this blog. If any post is going to incur hate mail and outrage, it’s going to be this. I’m bracing myself for whatever backlash I’ll incur because I know I’m going to offend someone here. I apologize in advance, but offensive things can contain harsh truths.

To date, I’ve tried to keep things fun, enlightening, and non-controversial. Granted, you’re bound to be a little controversial when you say orgasms have health benefits, religion is undermining our sex lives, and being naked is good for your health. This time, however, I’m going to touch on something that is already controversial. It’s gotten people fired. It’s generated death threats online and in real life. It’s been the butt of jokes and a talking point for presidential candidates.

That’s right. I’m going to be talking about feminism. Yes, I mean that kind of feminism. It’s the kind that deals with sexual assault, patriarchy, male privileged, and rape culture. It’s the kind that generates hashtags rather than aids poor girls in third-world countries working in sweatshops. If you’re a regular reader of this blog and don’t care for this issue, this is your chance to close this tab and wait for my next post. I promise I’ll get back to the fun, sexy, entertaining topics soon enough, but this is something I think needs to be said.

Still with me? Okay, then let’s do this. Let’s talk about this strange new brand of feminism that is sweeping the internet, undermining the video game industry, and getting people fired in some cases. If you’re not in your safe space now, you probably should be.

Now let me make one thing clear. I do not like talking about this. I’m a man. I can’t win these arguments because the deck is stacked against me. In my experience, discussions about women’s issues are best handled by women. It’s a crazy concept, I know. As a man, I can only bring so much to the table because I only know the perspective of a man. So how the hell am I supposed to understand the complex, sociopolitical struggles of contemporary women?

Well, being a man does give me some level of insight. I’ve noticed that discussions about this brand of feminism says a lot about how women think and feel about issues such as male privileged, patriarchy, and rape culture. The thoughts and feelings of men are a lot less scrutinized.

As a result, there are a lot of assumptions about what men think and how they justify their male tendencies. The way some feminists talk, they give the impression that men conspire in Illuminati-like meetings to conjure ways to subjugate women. First off, let me say that this does not happen. If a lot of men are going to meet in secret, it’s to tailgate at a football game or watch a My Little Pony marathon. So to all you feminists out there, you can stop worrying about that.

This still begs a very important, very relevant question. Why do men get so upset about feminism? Why do men get so hostile over women who criticize their masculine traits? Why do men cling to these unequal power structures between genders? Well, I can’t speak for all men, but since I am a man, I can provide some insight.

So here’s what I’m going to do. Again, if this is something that makes you want to punch your computer screen and start a hashtag, here’s your chance to leave. I really don’t want to offend anybody who is going to get that upset, but I’m willing to take that chance to say what I feel needs to be said.

What I’m going to do is tap into the mind of the misogynistic, patriarchal male that so many feminists despise and offer an explanation as to why men feel the way they do. Please note that this is just a thought exercise. These do not reflect my personal views. I strongly believe in equality, understanding, and empathy between all people, regardless of gender.

For the rest of this post, however, I’m going to take on the mentality of a pure, undiluted misogynist. Once you read this text, I hope feminists and non-feminists alike have a greater appreciation for why men feel the way they do. So here goes. Here is a letter from a misogynistic man to the feminists of this world.

Dear Ladies,

There’s no easy way to put this so grab your tissues, get a box of chocolate, and sit down. What I’m about to say is going to piss you off and that’s good because it pisses me off too, way more than you’ll ever know. So here it is. Here is the cold, callous, testosterone-laden truth. We HATE you.

I’m sorry, but it’s true. On some deep, primal level, we can’t help but HATE you. I’m not talking about the hate you have for bullies or poor wi-fi connections. I’m talking about a hate that is so deep, so unspoken, and so reserved that we couldn’t express it fully if we tried. It’s a hate that consumes every man, be they gay, straight, white, black, old, young, and everything in between. We don’t like this hate, but we can’t escape it.

Why is this hate so strong you ask? Well, that’s hard to explain. This isn’t the kind of hatred that we show. In fact, most men go through their whole lives never showing it. They just know it’s there. It plays out in all sorts of ways, but for the sake of clarity, here’ s a quick scenario that should give you some idea.

Remember that beautiful, sexy, popular girl that every guy wanted and every woman wanted to be? Remember that stereotypical cheerleader type that was in every bad teen movie ever made? If you do, you probably remember how we men loved to say mean, dirty things about her. We talk about all the nasty, pornographic shit we’d do to her. Then, we’d call her names like whore, slut, and bitch. We’d shame and scold her the first chance we got. Why would we do that? Why would we do that to anyone we barely know?

The simple truth is that these girls are not having sex with US. I’m not talking about US, as in men in general. I’m talking about US, specifically. It’s inherently selfish, which is why we tend to do it in groups, but it’s true. We resent pretty girls who don’t have sex with US and only US. We see it as either some other man taking something that’s ours or some girl denying us something we want.

Imagine yourself in a cafeteria. There’s all this food, but there’s only some that you really like. You find this food. You go up to the counter. You ask for it as politely as possible, but the cashier just flat out says no. You’re not getting this food. You’ll NEVER get to eat this food. Only a very select few that the cashier chooses by entirely arbitrary standards will get this food. You’d be pissed, wouldn’t you? Well, that’s how men see it when you women refuse to have sex with us.

I know. Comparing sex to food is a poor analogy, unless you’re into a specific kind of fetish porn. We don’t like it either, but this is what evolution does to us. It wires our brains a certain way. That wiring still assumes we’re cavemen roaming the savanna, hunting elephants and escaping hungry tigers. It gives us two primary drives: survival and reproduction. It’s not rational, but it’s how we survive as a species.

The problem is that when you tie survival and reproduction together as such strong imperatives, some wires are going to get crossed. We’re going to equate the act of acquiring food to acquiring sex to a ridiculously illogical degree. We kind of have to because logic doesn’t fill your stomach or propagate a species. If we had another choice, we’d take it, but this is what we’re stuck with.

It’s because of this hate we feel when you deny us sex that we feel the urge to control you. Think of a man fighting off a tiger that doesn’t want to become dinner. We fight with every bit of primal rage we can to survive and secure our next meal. As a result, we try to do the same to you.

Take a look at history. Look at how so many societies went to absurd lengths to control female sexuality, manage gender roles, and structure the dynamics of sex. There’s a reason why most of it is overtly patriarchal and no, it isn’t because of some shady conspiracy. It isn’t even done out of the inherent hate we feel towards women. It’s all about economics.

I’m sorry. I know that’s not a very satisfying explanation. That’s like the IT guy telling you that your computer is slow because pigs in Wyoming are farting too much. It’s true though. Economics, including those involving sex, drive a lot of this patriarchy shit you complain about. I’m sorry, but we kind of owe our entire civilization to that shit.

After we stopped hunting and gathering, we formed farms. We needed to protect those farms so we formed tribes and kingdoms. We also needed a lot of people to work on those farms so we needed to do a lot of boning to produce a lot of kids. That means subjugating women on a farm and doing everything we can to make them focus on producing those kids, knowing some of them will probably die in childbirth.

On top of that, we had to account for a good portion of those kids dying before their second birthday so we needed to control the lives of the women pumping them out. I know it sucks, but there’s no way around it. We can’t make these kids on our own. If we could, we’d have no reason to hate or subjugate you. We still need you though. Our survival depends on it. Remember, our brains are wired for survival, not reason.

While we’re on the subject of those kids, there’s something else to consider. We kind of need to make sure that they’re ours. We need that because again, we need to protect all this land and property. We need to make sure it stays within the family. That means we can’t have you women fucking around with other men. That means we need you to be virgins on your wedding night. We also need you to fuck us and only us to make sure that the kids you make are our kids.

Because there’s a lot of money and wealth at stake, we come up with all sorts of crazy ways to make sure you fuck only us. We create these crazy religions, myths, and cultural practices that say you should not have sex, you should not enjoy it too much, and you should focus on making babies for the tribe. Some of these excuses are pretty fucked up, but remember there’s a lot of money and wealth at stake. We’ll justify them any way we can if it helps us survive and reproduce.

So we create this whole system around men working the fields while women pump out the babies that grow up into more workers or baby-makers. Along the way, other men in other tribes do the same. They aren’t always good at it for reasons that aren’t always their fault so they form armies to invade their neighbors. That means we need to have an army too. That means even more boning to make more babies so they can become soldiers. You see the pattern here?

This is where we get into the whole rape culture/sexual assault thing. I know this is a big sticking point for women. I know you get so outraged when you see stories about blaming victims and men claiming that women are tempting them. Well, if you’re with me so far on the economics at work here, you should be able to figure out why this is a thing in the first place.

Keep in mind, we didn’t stop living as agrarian tribes until very recently. For most of our civilized history, we needed a steady supply of men to farm the fields and fight the wars. So when a man rapes or assaults a woman, we tend to make more excuses than we care to admit.

We need that man producing food and fighting wars. The woman he rapes may be hurt or traumatized, but she’s not going to protect the tribe or make the food. She’s going to produce babies and is likely to die in the process. So overall, the man will do more for the tribe so we’ll come up with any excuse we can to avoid punishing him too much. On top of that, the woman may have a disease or be carrying a child that isn’t her husband’s so that’s kind of a big problem. It’s just easier and more economical to blame her.

I get that we’re not living in a Game of Thrones society anymore. I get that we don’t need women pumping out babies to work on farms and fight wars as much as we used to. The problem is, our biological wiring is still the same. On top of that, there are still economic incentives to control women and in case you haven’t realized it yet, we’ll come up with any excuse to justify the economics of a situation, no matter how fucked up it might be.

We can’t escape the economics any more than we can escape our biological wiring. That’s why we hate you. That’s why we continue to hate you, shame you, and scold you for trying to achieve some level of equality or authority over us. The way we see it, you already have too much power over us as it is.

Think back to that pretty popular girl I mentioned earlier. Did she just fuck anyone who politely asked? Of course not! The men who wanted to have sex with her had to jump through all sorts of crazy hoops. They had to be rich, play sports, or be charming on some level to win her attention and access to her sex.

At the end of the day, she couldn’t pick everyone. There were bound to be more rejections than acceptances. That means all these men worked so hard and got nothing in return. We thought we did the work. We thought we earned the privilege of having sex with a beautiful girl, but she chose otherwise and that pisses us off.

On top of that, we can’t be honest about our masculine inclinations. We can’t be overt about them. The culture we live in now basically shames every masculine trait. To be a man is to be a bully or a tyrant. To be a woman is to be a princess and a saint. Men cause and fight all the wars. Men are the victims and perpetrators of most crime. We are disposable, dirty, pathetic excuses for flesh in the eyes of this culture and you expect us to NOT be resentful on some levels?

We men spend so much of our lives trying to secure and impress you, the beautiful women our biological programming wants us to have sex with. We can’t control the sheer intensity of this desire. We hate that it consumes us so completely. Some of that hatred is projected onto you as well. We can’t escape it and neither can you.

That’s why we hate you. That’s why we can’t help but hate you. That’s why we do what we do. If you don’t understand it, or don’t even TRY to understand it, you’ll just make it worse.

Sincerely,
Men

Full Disclaimer: What I just wrote was a thought experiment and nothing more. It does not represent the sentiments or values of me, Jack Fisher. This is just something I wrote to explore a sensitive topic. I apologize for any offense I may have incurred on readers, but I hope it offers some perspective on these issues.

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How Our Culture Is Ruining Our Sex Lives And Driving Men And Women Apart

We don’t agree on much in this twisted culture of ours, but we have reached a consensus on a couple issues. One, jealousy is toxic to every relationship, real or potential. Two, rejection is the worst feeling short of injecting molten steel into our veins. Third, there’s nothing that ketchup can’t make taste better.

Other than the last one, we don’t really question the end results of these assumptions, but we don’t question the circumstances either. I’d like to give those circumstances some additional scrutiny because I think it reveals a lot about just how unbalanced our culture is towards sex, love, and intimacy.

Earlier this week, I wrote about how jealousy may or may not be an entirely natural feeling. I pointed out that our feelings of jealousy towards those who reject our sexual or romantic interests create this unhealthy mentality that we own someone or are owed by them. In the 21st century, we really shouldn’t need to remind ourselves why owning someone else in any capacity is a bad thing.

The problem is that certain elements of our culture were built on foundations of owning land, passing it down through bloodlines, and protecting it against those who would steal it. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with protecting your property, we as a society just take it one step too far when we see our lovers and prospective partners as property. We don’t understand that our brains didn’t evolve to be so rational and understanding. Our brains evolved to keep us alive and because of that, the wiring gets a little faulty at times.

Irrational wiring in our brains inevitably leads to irrational understandings of our world. Irrational understandings, in turn, leads to irrational behavior. It’s the same force behind every misguided social movement and stock market crash in history. Some are just harder to sniff out or overcome than others. So how has this undermined our ability to love, make love, and share intimacy with one another?

Well, in order to illustrate that, let me lay out a common scenario. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use a man and a woman, but the same circumstances can apply to same-sex partners as well. So keep that in mind.

Man: Hey there, ma’am. You look really nice today.

Woman: Thanks! You look really nice too.

Man: I appreciate that. Since we both find each other attractive, would you like to have sex?

Woman: What? You pig! You’re disgusting!

I know this scenario is a bit simplistic, but it’s supposed to be for illustrative purposes. Read over this dialog for a moment. How does the man sound? Does he sound polite or generous when he asks the woman for sex? Or does he sound like every crude jock from every 80s teen movie ever made?

I ask because our culture creates in us certain expectations of how certain social interactions play out. This is just one. A man is expected to be interested in only sex. A woman is expected to reject him. Subsequently, the man who dares to ask a woman for sex is shamed. In a follow-up scenario, we may get moments like this among other men and women.

Woman: You see that guy? He asked me for sex! What a pig.

Man: That’s just wrong. What kind of man does that?

Woman: I hate him. I hope every woman rejects him. Those that don’t are horrible!

Take a moment to think about the less obvious implications of this interaction. A man who simply wants sex and asks politely for it is shamed, shunned, and castigated by everyone. He’s seen as a pig, a misogynist, and a creep.

Here’s a crazy question though. Is it possible that he’s just looking for the most basic forms of intimacy and wants to share it with someone? Perish the thought! Our culture doesn’t allow that. If he really wanted that woman, he would have jumped all the elaborate hoops this culture has set up for men to get sex. If, after all that, she still rejects him, then that’s too bad.

Is this overly simplified breakdown of these events fair? No, it isn’t. Our culture doesn’t let men simply walk up to a woman and ask for sex. We make him go through all these elaborate rituals and even if he succeeds, there’s still no guarantee that he’ll get what he wants. For men, it often means that those who aren’t adept at those rituals (and most men aren’t) will end up isolated, distant, and sexually frustrated. As history and current affairs have shown, this tends to be unhealthy for society.

Now, in the interest of gender fairness, let me paint another scenario that shows what our culture does to women who are interested in sex. In our culture, we have all these irrational expectations about female sexuality. The diverse varieties of lesbian porn alone are a testament to just how irrational these expectations are. As a result of these expectations, we create situations like this.

Woman: Hello. You’re really handsome.

Man: Why thank you. You look really nice yourself.

Woman: Thanks! Would you like to have sex?

Man: Wow! Already? Um…is there something wrong with you?

See the difference? Well, there are gender differences. There are double standards. No, they’re not fair or rational. That’s just the nature of gender dynamics in our culture. Despite these differences, the same irrational expectations manifest in this interaction.

When you read the woman’s words, what do you imagine? Does she sound sweet, caring, and affectionate? Or does she sound sloppy, ugly, or disheveled? Our culture demands that something be wrong with this woman. How can any normal woman simply ask someone for sex? She can’t just be looking for that toe-curling joy we feel when we have sex and the intimacy it inspires. That would just be wrong. That last sentence was sarcasm by the way.

Just as we had with the first scenario, there’s often a follow-up scenario surrounding these interactions. They play out among those who see this interaction and interpret it in the context of our cultural expectations. This is how it manifests.

Woman: Did you see that? That girl just walked up to that man and politely asked for sex!

Man: Wow. She must be a real slut. We need to shame her for offering more sex than she’s allowed to give.

Read over that overly simplistic logic again. Is that fair? Is that moral? Is that even natural in the context of a species that’s so social and passionate? No, it isn’t. That’s why the wiring of our brains needs to be warped a certain way. Culture, often with help from religion and government, does this fairly effectively.

As a result, our society creates this horrible imbalance among those seeking intimacy with one another. Men want sex from women, but shame them when they offer it too eagerly. Women want sex from men, but shame them when they ask for it too eagerly. It creates all these mixed messages that our brains struggle to process. Remember, our brains aren’t wired for rationality. They’re wired for survival.

At birth, our brains are already wired for sex and intimacy. Our brains drive us to seek sexual and intimate gratification the same way it drives us to seek food and water. Denying it these needs creates distress. Excessive distress in any system, be it a brain or cell phone, causes problems. We may bemoan these problems, but on some levels, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

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There Are 5 Different Kinds of Orgasms. Wait What?!

I did have an idea for another post today. I’m not done talking about jealousy and rejection. I still intend to discuss a few more issues surrounding those topics over the next few days. However, I came across another video that I just had to share.

It’s a video about orgasms. Do I have your attention now? I hope so. I’ve written about the intricacies of orgasms before. Their joys and benefits are pretty much beyond dispute. I certainly enjoy exploring those benefits in my books and I have every intention of continuing that exploration in a way that I hope is both entertaining an sexy.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a video from Think Tank claiming there are five different types of orgasms. This surprised and intrigued me. Orgasms are one of those things that doesn’t really need variety. They tend to be great no matter what form they take. However, it turns out there may be more variety than we thought. I’m not sure what this means for erotica writers like me, but it definitely opens the door to new concepts.

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Is Jealousy Natural? An Honest Question

Is it really so natural to be jealous of someone when they love or lust over someone other than you? To anyone who has ever been jilted or cheated on, this may be an outrageous question to ask. How can anyone not feel outrage when the person they love has feelings for someone else? It’s the basis for at least 85 percent of all love stories and around half of every episode of Jerry Springer.

Jealousy seems like one of those emotions that’s so natural. We’ve come to see it on the same level as fear, hunger, or horniness. Few really question these assumptions beyond a certain context. Today, I’d like take a sledge-hammer to that context and dare to probe deeper. If that sounds overly lurid, I apologize, but I’m being genuinely serious here.

If ever there was an emotion that brings out the worst in people, jealousy seems tailor-made for it. One of my favorite comedians, Christopher Titus, once described it like this:

Is it somewhat extreme? Yes. However, I think there’s a sizable portion of the population that agrees with this sentiment. Jealousy can make people do horrible things. Sometimes, just seeing someone with someone else is enough to make us upset to the point of doing horrible things we wouldn’t otherwise do. Jealous and jilted lovers have committed serious crimes, including outright murder.

It’s those irrational extremes, however, that should beg the question. Is this feeling really a basic product of the human condition? How much of it is in our genes and how much of it is in our heads? It’s something we need to think about it, if only to assess the horrific behaviors it inspires in people.

Now I admit I didn’t really think about this question until recently. I admit I’ve felt pretty jealous at numerous points in my life and it’s not a pleasant feeling. I went through a period as a teenager where I got downright fatalistic whenever I heard a girl I liked had a boyfriend. Some of that can be chalked up to teenage hormones and serious personal issues. Others, however, are a bit more complex.

The first time I really thought about this issue came while reading Darrel Ray’s book, “Sex and God.” It’s a book I’ve recommended on this blog before and while it does primarily discuss the effects of religion on sex, it also frames jealousy in a very different context that makes it seem less a natural emotion and more a byproduct of sorts.

It goes back to the whole “caveman logic” I’ve used in discussing other topics on this blog, such as nudity. Biologically speaking, we’re still the same cavemen and cavewomen who roamed the African savanna 50,000 years ago, hunting and gathering for food. Then, something happened that changed our way of life and in evolutionary terms, it happened fairly recently. That something is agriculture.

That’s not to say this is a bad thing. The Agricultural Revolution is a big reason why civilization, as we know it, developed in the first place. However, it did come with a specific byproduct. It introduced the concept of land ownership and passing down property through bloodlines. It’s a concept that is not strictly Western. It occurs in almost every society in every part of the world that relies on agriculture to some extent. The culture develops its customs around owning and managing land. So naturally, some of those customs extend to owning and managing people.

Using caveman logic, the concept of owning land is entirely arbitrary. Unlike a tool or physical good that we create, we can’t hold it or lock it in a safe. However, we still treat it as something we need to protect from theft. We treat it as something that we associate with our own name. This is where the idea of passing possessions down to children enters the picture. It’s one thing to just give a child a tool or heirloom you made. It’s quite another to leave them ownership of a farm or property.

This is why marital fidelity, virginity, and knowing that your kid is really your kid became so important. Before the days of Maury Povich and blood tests, the only way to truly know that your kid is yours is for your bride to be a virgin on her wedding night and to have never cheated on you. It’s not so much about nature as much as it is about economics. There’s an economic and legal incentive to treat sexuality, child-rearing, and sexual relations as a commodity. As a result, we guard it like we do other commodities.

From that perspective, it’s easy to see how jealousy emerges. It’s like seeing someone with a nicer car or more food than you. It makes you envious and jealous. It stirs up all sorts of negative emotions that don’t always manifest in healthy ways. We think it’s natural, but take a second to consider the implications of this feeling.

To be jealous of another person’s feelings over someone else implies that you own that person to some extent. It implies you own their emotions, their sentiments, and their sexuality. For most people in the modern era, the idea of owning another human being in any capacity is abhorrent, yet we don’t bat an eye when we think we own someone’s emotions.

In the context of caveman logic, it doesn’t hold up. As small communities of hunter/gatherers, the idea of owning another person’s emotions wasn’t very pragmatic to say the least. Two people and whatever children they have aren’t enough to fend for themselves against a pack of sabretooth tigers. They need to band together as a community and a by-product of this, as we see in other primates, is that sexual monogamy isn’t the norm. It can and does happen, but it isn’t the ideal. It’s just a variation.

Now it’s one thing to make a promise of sexual fidelity to someone and break it. It’s quite another to just assume that someone else’s emotions must be managed a certain way. That undermines the very concept of what it means to be a sovereign human being. However, our culture is still structured around this idea that one person owns the love and lust of another and this is somehow an ideal.

It’s for this reason that I now see the concept of jealousy as somewhat flawed. When I think about my own romantic inclinations, I don’t want to own another human being. I don’t want to be owned either. I want the love and lust I share with another to be freely exchanged for all the right reasons. There’s room for romance. There’s room for lust. There’s room for commitment as well. Jealousy feels like a perversion of this sentiment and something that needs to be re-evaluated.

So once again, I’d like to open this up a little. What do you, the readers, think about our current concept of jealousy? What is your experience with it? Do you think it’s natural? Do you think there’s room to change our perceptions?

This idea has given me plenty of think about for future books. There is one new idea I’m developing, hopefully for a short, sweet, and sexy story I can write after I’m done with my next project. I think there are too many stories out there that focus on love triangles and scorned lovers. I think the marketplace is ready for something new and I hope to provide it.

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Other Topic Suggestions

Well, I’ve spent the past few days talking about nudity and its many joys and benefits. I intend to switch to a new topic for the coming week. I can’t promise it’ll be as fun or as sexy, but I want to continue generating new discussions on this blog, if only to explore concepts for future books.

I do have have one topic in particular I want to discuss for tomorrow. However, before I jump into that, I want to put this out there. I know this blog doesn’t have a large following. I also know I’m not a successful writer yet. Seven self-published books, few of which have any reviews or sales, doesn’t make me successful. In order to generate interest and readers, I need to create an audience. I want to do that with this blog in any way I can.

So with this in mind, I’d like to open things up for potential topics of discussion. For the handful of readers I do have and the others who have yet to stumble across this blog, what would you like me to discuss here? What topic do you think warrants greater scrutiny?

It doesn’t have to be solely about sex or erotic fiction. It can be about pop culture in general. It can be something about society or current affairs. It can be about philosophy or feminism. I’m willing to explore any topic. I only ask that it not involve too much politics or religion? Those are two issues that tend to get overly divisive and I don’t want to offend. I’d rather entertain, enlighten, or titillate. If I can do all three, then that’s even better.

So what’s it going to be? What do you want to see this blog discuss? I’ll let you, the lucky few followers of this blog, lead the way for once. If I’m going to be a successful writer in any capacity, I need to listen to my audience. Like a good lover, I need to heed the needs of those I’m trying to please.

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One More Thought on Nudity

I know I’ve spent the past few days focusing a lot on nudity in my post. In my defense, it’s the middle of August and it’s very hot. Being naked is more pragmatic than usual in these conditions. However, I’ve gotten such a positive response from my discussions on nudity that I feel I need to add one more tidbit before I switch to another topic.

I’ve discussed how I, a humble erotica writer, enjoy sleeping in the buff. I’ve also touched on the health benefits of being naked. I’ve even encouraged others to ditch the clothes and enjoy the warm summer air on their skin. Then, I remembered that we live in a society that’s still frustratingly erratic when it comes to our views of nudity. All it takes is one person offending some other person with a good lawyer to cause problems. So for legal reasons, I’d like this post to act as a disclaimer of sorts.

It’s true. Not every society views nudity the same way. As I recently pointed out from my own vacation, New York City’s laws on public nudity are somewhat lax. It’s legal to be topless in New York and the cops generally don’t care if you wear crazy sexy shit in public, so long as you’re not actively humping someone in broad daylight. A quick search of the database at HG.org, a comprehensive legal database for anyone in need of a lawyer, shows that every state has different laws regarding nudity. In some cases, it’s a misdemeanor on part with a parking ticket. In others, it’s a full-blown felony.

Now it’s worth noting that some of these laws aren’t strictly enforced. They’re more like stop signs in that people generally follow them, but others flat out ignore them and don’t really get penalized unless they do it in front of a cop. If you’re not hurting anyone or trying to actively harass someone, you’re probably not going to get into too much trouble. I should point out that probably is not the same as definitely.

It’s also worth noting that there are parts of the country that are exceedingly prudish when it comes to nudity laws. I won’t name names, but some of these areas still have anti-fornication laws on the books that they refuse to remove. That should give you some idea of the kind of culture we’re dealing with here. Those areas are the way they are for a reason and it’s best not to belabor it. Eventually, prudishness has a way of fading once younger people get too tired and/or too horny to embrace it.

So where can you go in order to safely enjoy being naked? There are a few places where nudity isn’t just permitted. It’s part of the culture there. It’s embraced and celebrated. If I ever become a successful erotica writer, I’d like to visit some of these places and partake in the festivities. Until then, here’s a video from The Richest that should act as a nudist travel guide.

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Why The World Needs More Nudity

Yesterday, I confessed to the world that I, Jack Fisher, sleep naked and love it. I praised the joys and even highlighted the benefits. I even got a few generous commenters to express support for my nude sleeping preferences. To those commenters, I thank you and I hope you get a chance to experience those joys as well.

After writing that post, it also got me thinking. If sleeping naked offers so many benefits, then does that mean there are other benefits to being naked in general? Using the same caveman logic I used yesterday, it seems logical. Our bodies evolved on the African savanna. It’s very hot in the African savanna, which means wearing a lot of clothes isn’t all that practical. So for our species to survive, we had to evolve some benefits to walking around in the buff.

However, caveman logic alone isn’t enough. It also doesn’t explain why there is so much taboo surrounding nudity. We all see it in most forms of popular media. There are movies, TV shows, and music videos where people shoot, stab, and bludgeon each other horribly. This is all fine, but showing a female nipple? That’s somehow so horrific that it traumatizes society as a whole. That’s why Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl XXXVIII half-time show caused society to crumble as millions of people were traumatized.

Oh wait, that didn’t happened. Society didn’t crumble. A generation of children wasn’t traumatized. It’s almost as if human beings aren’t biologically programmed to faint in terror at the sight of their own physiology. What a radical concept, right?

So why are “wardrobe malfunctions” a thing? Why is the sight of a female nipple or an exposed penis so horrific for some people? Well, that’s difficult to answer. It is fairly well-documented that America’s approach to sexuality is downright schizophrenic at times. America loves to champion freedom, but goes out of its way to shame or inhibit sexual expression. Tech Times did a nice job of highlighting some of America’s odd prudishness on the internet, despite being the home of the biggest porn industries in the world.

It is an odd quirk of western culture in general, claiming to promote freedom while clinging to prudish attitudes towards sex. Some of this probably stems from outdated cultural practices meant to stem excessive promiscuity. As I’ve discussed before in previous blog posts, western property-owning societies did have a logistical reason for discouraging promiscuity because it undermined the transfer of property and spread disease. Many of those reasons are no longer valid, thanks to advances in technology and medicine. That still doesn’t stop people from clinging to these concepts.

Most people these days don’t claim that exposed female breasts alone will traumatize children. If not, they should take a trip to New York City. There are women on the streets standing around topless, in front of families and children, and nobody is traumatized. Even children have some innate understanding that naked bodies are not disgusting. It’s the adults of the world that want us to believe as such.

As a result, we get entire societies and cultures promoting modesty as a high virtue. We especially see this in the Middle East where there’s this assumption that men can’t control themselves at the sight of a naked woman. As a man, I find this extremely offensive. I’ve seen many naked women before in non-intimate settings. It really wasn’t that hard to control myself. If I, a writer of erotic fiction, can do so, then how can anyone else claim otherwise?

We evolved to be naked. We’re all naked underneath our clothes. Get over it. There are a great many joys to being naked. There are also many health benefits, thanks once again to the wonders of caveman logic. Today.com even did a nice write-up on the benefits of being naked. It’s good for your skin, it improves your mood, and it increases Vitamin D levels in your body. So for the good of your health, ditch the clothes and embrace its naked glory!

If you still need more proof, check out this video from DNews. If it still doesn’t convince you, then you’re just being difficult.

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“The Big Game” Rejection Follow-Up

I know I said I’d get back to writing sexier, less depressing posts on this blog. I still intend to do that, hopefully today at some point. Just thought I’d follow up on my post yesterday about the rejection email I got for, “The Big Game.”

As I often do after I get a rejection letter, I send a response to the publisher thanking them for their consideration. It’s just professional courtesy. I also ask for an explanation as to why they determined that my story wasn’t viable. I almost never get a response back. If they do respond, it’s usually something along the line of, “We just feel it isn’t right for us at this time.”

That doesn’t tell me much and it doesn’t give me any chance at improving. I understand they probably get a lot of manuscripts every day, but the quality of the content can’t improve unless there’s feedback. If I’m not doing something right, I like to know what it is so I can fix it. I am that committed to becoming a published author.

So it came as somewhat of a surprise when the publisher sent a more detailed response. I won’t reveal the name of the publisher. Again, it’s out of professional courtesy because I don’t want to slander anybody for doing their job. This is just what they sent.

The fact that the book includes substantial amounts of both F/M and M/F content is probably going to make it somewhat difficult to find a publisher for it.  There are some authors who publish books with F/M themes, but in most cases they don’t sell nearly as well as books in which the core relationship is M/F.  I wish I could be more helpful, but there isn’t a publisher with which I’m familiar that would be a particularly good fit for this book.  That doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, of course, and I just haven’t heard of it.

This is somewhat revealing to me because I didn’t know that a book had to stick to one kind of BDSM. It’s true that “The Big Game” explores multiple sides of BDSM plots. It’s not just about one character dominating another. Both characters get a chance to exercise dominance. I did this on purpose because I wanted to explore the full range of BDSM experiences from different perspectives. I felt that would make the story more comprehensive and appealing to a wider audience.

Perhaps I overestimated the extent to which BDSM novels occupy a certain niche in the market. Perhaps this particular publisher wasn’t looking for a larger, more encompassing story and wanted something more focused. I can understand that. “The Big Game” isn’t focused in the sense that it has one particular type of BDSM. It’s a different kind of story and I hoped, in a way that may have been misguided, that broadening the story would make it more appealing to publishers. I suppose I was wrong.

I’m not sure what this means for the long-term viability of “The Big Game.” I still believe that it can tap into a BDSM market that’s ripe for something new. There are so many novels out there that focus solely on one approach to BDSM in a story. There’s a place for those stories, but I think the growing trend in pop culture is towards more equal power dynamics.

I think the public is more eager to see two characters on an equal playing field, both romantically and sexually. There’s still a place for classic dominant/submission roles, but there’s also a place for new dynamics. I want “The Big Game” to be part of it. Unfortunately, it seems my chances exploring these dynamics with a publisher are a bit larger than I thought. I’ll still keep rolling the dice though. If nothing else, it’ll give me some better insight into writing BDSM stories in the future.

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