Tag Archives: gender issues

November 23, 2016 · 6:47 am

Finding Love Through A Twisted Sense Of “Normal”

I’ve always been bothered by the concept of “normal” and not just because the concept of normalcy makes it difficult to tell a sufficiently sexy romance/erotica story. It’s just a fact of life. Nobody’s boxers are getting tight and nobody’s panties are getting wet by reading about something bland and ordinary.

The characters I write in my books rarely fall under the guise of “normal” and if they do, it doesn’t last or their concept of normal is overtly skewed. Grace Goodwin, the main character in my book, “The Final Communion,” may have been normal by the twisted standards of her surroundings, but from an outside perspective, she might as well be a monkey in a banana factory.

This concept of “normal” has been on my mind a lot lately and not just because I worry about the not-so-normal sentiment I may get by being over 30 and single. Since my pending novel, “Passion Relapse,” finally got picked up by a publisher, I’ve been contemplating ways to follow up the themes that made that book work.

No, I’m not talking about a shameless, Rocky Balboa-style sequel. I’m not looking to build a goddamn Twilight franchise out of one novel. I’m just assessing the elements that worked in “Passion Relapse” so I can refine those elements for bigger, better, and sexier stories. The more pants I can tighten and panties I can moisten, the better.

After revising, editing, and even rewriting certain parts of “Passion Relapse,” I think I’ve gotten a better feel for what makes the characters involved so appealing. Naturally, they are admittedly not normal. In fact, they’re so not normal that their non-normal behavior causes them serious pain and distress. It gets very heated and not just in a sexy sort of way.

This got me thinking and for an aspiring erotica/romance writer, that can lead to any number of crazy/sex/awesome ideas. In this case, I find myself imaging a situation where someone has such a skewed sense of “normal” that most people who survived high school with their sanity intact can’t wrap their heads around it.

I’m not talking about extreme religious cults, like I did with “The Final Communion” or exotic futuristic technology like I did with “Skin Deep.” In fact, there is a very real-world parallel to this idea here. Sadly, it involves the inherently unsexy topic of abusive relationships.

I’ll give everyone a moment to unclench their assholes. I promise, this conversation isn’t going to get that disturbing. There are plenty of real-world examples where abusive romances have become exceedingly disturbing, up to the point where they become annoyingly permanent fixtures in popular culture. Then again, they can also become classic Disney movies so there is room to tell a story.

In this case, the story I’m interesting in telling has to do with someone who sees an abusive relationship as normal. No, I don’t mean the kind of abuse that makes for fun BDSM roles, which can actually be healthy. I’m talking about the really bad kind of abusive relationships that makes nobody horny in any capacity.

It is a real issue. There are women (and even a few men) who end up in abusive relationships, but become so accustomed to them that they seem normal. It’s that twisted sense of normalcy that skews our perspective that creates situations where people stay in these relationships or struggle to leave them.

A couple years ago, Time did an article about women who stayed in abusive relationships. The reasons were varied, ranging from concern about children to this twisted sense of responsibility that they had to be the ones to help. There are all sorts of sad, tragic, and distressing stories here. How can anyone make a story like that sexy?

It’s a good thing I love a challenge. I especially love a challenge that gives me a chance to create a novel, unique form of romance that’ll stand out in a sea of vampires, princesses, and male strippers. This won’t be a story that involves aliens, unreal technology, or supernatural forces either. This will be as raw, real, and sexy as I can make it.

Are your assholes unclenched? Good because this is a story that, like “Passion Relapse,” will emphasize romance more than the sexy stuff. Make no mistake, the sexy stuff will be there. You will need dry panties at one point. However, I want to focus on the emotional undertones for this story.

How will I do this? Once again, it requires a thought experiment. I know I ask my readers to do a lot of those on this blog, but I promise it’s for a good reason. It may not always make you horny, but it will get you thinking for the right reasons.

Picture somebody, male or female, who comes from a family in which being somewhat abusive and controlling is considered normal. Their parents have an abusive relationship. Their siblings have abusive relationships. This is just how their family is. This is how they’ve been. Since we do tend to adopt our parents’ beliefs and attitudes, it’s not wholly unrealistic.

Now, picture that same person, be they male or female, encountering something (or someone) that shakes their world. It completely undermines their understanding of what it means to be in a relationship, to love someone, or even what constitutes abuse. It’s so profound and so jarring that it overwhelms someone into completely reassessing everything they thought they knew about themselves.

I’d love to reveal more, but this is a developing idea. This is a concept I’m still fleshing out. However, there is one theme I want to emphasize here. Someone who sees something so harmful as normal sometimes needs a really jarring event to shake them out of this mindset. Some won’t even question their idea of normal until it’s shoved in their face.

This can be (and often is) traumatic. This is why admitting your wrong is right up there with dental surgery and rectal trauma in terms of unpleasantness. Our brains aren’t wired to constantly change and rethink things. It’s wired to remain consistent so we can focus on surviving bear attacks long enough to reproduce.

So how does someone escape that twisted idea of normalcy? How do they avoid the same tragedies they’ve seen in family and loved ones? For this story, there will definitely be obstacles and some of those obstacles can make fists. It’s a real challenge, but one that can bring out the best and worst in some people.

Working on “Passion Relapse” has given me a renewed sense of energy in confronting that challenge. I feel like this is a story worth telling. It’s a story that may be more relevant now than ever with issues like spousal abuse and harassment being such hot-button issues. If I can confront that issue and make it into a sexy story, then I feel like I’ve done my job.

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November 22, 2016 · 6:40 am

Breaking Down The “Creepiness” Factor

Have you ever had a man or woman in your life that makes you so uncomfortable that you wish you’d go out of your way to be in a different time zone? What was it about them that made you so uncomfortable that you were poised to become an Olympic sprinter if they got within 10 feet of you? Would you describe them as “creepy?”

Chances are, calling them “creepy” would probably be the most polite way to describe such people. Everybody’s concept of “creepy” may be different to some degree, but like bad porno, we all know it when we see it. In biological terms, it’s our “fight or flight” instinct going into overdrive for reasons that have nothing to do with facing a hungry grizzly bear.

Even if we all have an idea of what constitutes “creepy,” it’s one of those ideas we don’t scrutinize that much. Again, it’s one of those “I know it when I see it” type feelings and unlike bad porno, it can affect our lives in pretty profound ways. It’s led to a plague of creepy clown sightings. I’d say it’s more serious now than it has ever been in recent years.

What does it mean to be “creepy” though? This is one of those concepts for which a dictionary just doesn’t do the trick. It’s so subjective and personal that one person’s phobia is another person’s fetish. Those who are into clown porn probably understand this more than most.

It’s also a serious question for a guy like me. Recently, I talked about some of the strange looks I get when people find out I’m in my 30s and still single. While I don’t dress like a clown and collect hairs of young women, that does evoke a certain “creepiness” factor for some people. They see a single guy in his 30s and a part of them thinks that’s just wrong somehow, even if there’s nothing on the surface that comes close to clown makeup.

At its core, our revulsion to those we deep creepy is an extension of our gag reflex. When it comes to protecting our frail, fleshy forms, nature can’t be gentle. It has to make the process of vomiting or wanting to vomit so debilitating and uncomfortable that it drives us away from distressing situations. Without that sort of gag reflex, what would stop us from swimming in a pool of elephant poop too cool off on a hot summer day?

As is often the case with nature, our gag reflex tends to be overly broad and for some people, it severely overcompensates. That means the things that make us gag don’t always involve seeing a dead horse floating around in a pool. They can involve how and why we avoid certain people.

Sometimes those people do have a reason for being avoided. I’ve walked by homeless people who clearly have issues that go beyond just being homeless. Some of them do a lot more than just ask for money. Some will go out of their way to tell you that there’s a fairy on their shoulder who refuses to scratch their butthole. That’s usually going to trigger a gag reflex for most reasonable people.

However, those situations are the obvious ones. The situations that effect most people, including some people like me, are a bit more subtle. We all have traits and quirks that set us apart. We can’t always control when someone sees those things and calls them “creepy.”

For some people, my love of comic books and infatuation with sexy superhero women counts as creepy. For others, it’s a reason to hold a major convention in New York City. One person’s creepy obsession can be another person’s passion.

Then, there’s the added bit of overcompensation that we as a society heap on all things creepy. What does that entail? Well, most kids who attend a public school these days get a crash course in something called “stranger danger.”

When I was in school, it was a big fucking deal. We would have assemblies in the middle of the day to hear counselors and police officers tell us about the danger of talking to strangers. Never mind the fact that the amount of dangerous strangers is a tiny sub-set of most strangers. Never mind that a good chunk of crime and abuse comes from intimate partners and not strangers. We need to keep kids from getting kidnapped, damn it!

I get it. This is a big fear for parents and communities. It’s not an unreasonable fear, wanting to protect kids from creeps, but urging the to stay away from strangers can have side-effects. It can make kids mistrustful, paranoid, and even xenophobic. Later in life, these kids will become the adults that wants to kick minorities and foreigners out of their country.

We’ve already seen recently how this can have some pretty serious impacts on society. I won’t go into details, but I think recent trends in wall-building enthusiasts speak for themselves.

Now I’m not going to say that we should ignore the things that spike our “creep” factor. Again, that feeling is there for a damn good reason. Until we become superhuman cyborgs, which may happen one day, we need that reflex to remain. However, we also need to avoid pushing people to the fringes of society who don’t deserve it.

This might just be the hugger in me, but we do ourselves no favors by focusing on the “creepiness” in everybody. We all have our quirks. So long as those quirks don’t involve mutilation, exploitation, or clowns, we should give people a chance. If they mess up that chance, then that’s their problem and not yours at that point.

We want to be safe. We want to protect our kids. However, it is possible to overdo it. We can be doing more harm than good to those around us. Let’s not assume the extremes of creepiness outright. Until they put on clown makeup, let’s give people the chance they deserve.

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November 21, 2016 · 6:20 am

Being Single At My Age: Should I Worry?

A while back, I was walking through a mall, as I often do on a nice weekend. This particular mall happened to have these kiosks where people would walk up to you and try to sell you anything from beauty products to exotic vacations to cult membership. I’m usually pretty good at ignoring them, but one in particular got my attention.

This woman was selling some sort of fancy skin care product. She did her pitch. I listened, trying to find a polite way to brush her off. Then, she said this product would make a great gift. She asked if I was married. I said no. She then asked if I had a girlfriend. I said no. Then, she asked me something that kind of struck me.

She looks at me strangely, gives me this cock-eyed glance with her eyes, and asks, “Are you gay?” I said no and I laughed it off. She laughed too and after that, I had a good reason to walk away. However, something about that conversation really struck me. As time goes on, it strikes me even harder and not in the way most BDSM enthusiasts would enjoy.

It’s one thing for a guy in his early to mid 20s to be single. Society really doesn’t look down on that. We see a young guy in his 20s who is single and think:

“He must between girlfriends. That or he’s just humping everyone and everything he can to get it out of his system before he settles down. That’s okay. I will not shame him. He’s a valuable part of the labor force so it’s probably not a good idea to bust his balls.”

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what we think when we see a young 20-something single guy, but it’s a close approximation. The point is that when a man is young, society is okay with him being single and unattached. We don’t look at that as anything strange or suspicious.

That all seems to change when a man crosses that special, magical threshold otherwise known as “turning 30.” I’m over 30 and I’ve been over 30 for a while now. I try to stay healthy. I made it a point several years ago to be healthier in my 30s than I was in my 20s. I like to think I’ve kept that promise to myself.

However, no matter how much I work out or how healthy I am, I can’t change the number of days that have passed since I was born. That also means I can’t change the fact that I’m single and over the age of 30. For whatever reason, that’s the age where being single suddenly becomes an issue.

It’s another one of those lesser-known double standards. I’ve bemoaned many of the double standards plaguing women and men, but this one affects me personally. It may very well affect my ability to find love, interact with the public, or work ahead in my career. It’s a serious issue for me and one that I don’t know how to address.

It may sound like a trivial, first-world problem by current standards, but it is there. We’ve made a lot of societal progress. We no longer arrange marriages for our children and force them to stay in passionless, abusive relationships. I say that counts as progress in my book.

A byproduct of this progress, though, is that we’re going to end up with a sizable population of men and women who either lag behind or never really catch up in the end. It’s true. There is a stigma to being single these days. I’m not just talking about a stigma that amounts to the “creepy guy” factor either.

When we find out someone like me in their 30s is single, society has these strange set of assumptions that are somewhat understandable within a context. I’m not saying those assumptions are right, but there is a context. So when people find out a man is over 30 and single, there are sentiments like:

  • He must be gay or something
  • He must be some kind of pervert who can’t get a woman
  • He must have some kind of mental health issue
  • He must have some sort of gross habit that repels women
  • He must be a serial killer or a child molester in the making
  • He must be abusive or selfish to an extreme degree
  • He must be some kind of man-whore who only sees women as disposable tissues
  • He must be terrible with kids
  • He must be broke and have nothing to offer

These are all harsh assumptions. Some are more extreme than others. Again, there is a context though. For most of human history, we lived in small tribes. Men and women often paired up out of necessity and convenience at young ages. If someone, male or female, became distant from the tribe, that was inherently harmful to the tribe. In that sense, the stigma is understandable.

Here in the modern era, the circumstances have changed, but the caveman logic hasn’t. A single man in his 30s is often seen as a sign of a larger problem. It’s still seen as a failing of sorts. Even in this more progressive era, men are expected to be married or in some form of relationships after a certain age. They’re expected to be locked into some sort of social bond. When they don’t meet that expectation, that’s cause for concern.

This has a real impact that goes deeper than just creepy glares and accusations of being gay. Some of these impacts affect men much more than women as well. It means that when I see a cute kid and play around with that kid, it’s going to come off as creepy to some people. A single man in his 30s playing with a kid? That makes some people shudder for reasons I don’t think I need to describe.

It also has an economic impact. If you’re a single man over 30 and you’re working full-time, you can expect to make less than a single woman the same age. Society does, and understandably so, reward those who are married and in relationships. I can understand society wanting to incentivize those in relationships, but sometimes incentives can have a snowball affect.

I worry that as I get older, the stigma will become harder and harder to avoid. With each passing year that goes by without me getting in a relationship, people are going to start making more and more assumptions. As a result, people will also keep their distance from me. For someone like me, a natural hugger, that can be pretty damaging.

It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, one that will make things worse in the long run. It’s a cycle that may drive me to enter a relationship for the wrong reasons and I don’t want to put myself, or any woman for that matter, through such an experience.

I do want to find love. I do want to forge close, intimate relationships with others. I just worry that my age and the stigma that comes with being single will work against me. I hold out hope that I’ll find someone to share my life with one day. I just hope that day comes sooner rather than later.

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November 4, 2016 · 6:30 am

The Sex That Alters Your State Of Mind (Yes, It Involves BDSM)

Let’s face it. We all have bad days. We all go through periods in our lives when we wish we could just alter our state of mind. I’ve come home from a long, arduous day wishing I could just bang my head against the wall until my brain matter reconfigures itself into a state that’s less miserable. It rarely works, but it’s not like we have much to work with.

Sure, there are mind-altering drugs, but the legal varieties only go so far. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a few glasses of whiskey or a six-pack of beer like anyone else, but between hangovers and lung cancer, there are plenty of risks. The risks for the more potent, but illegal drugs are even greater. Despite these risks, the desire to alter our state of mind is still strong because some days will just be that bad.

Surely, there’s some way of getting to an altered state of mine. Surely, there’s a way that’s legal and doesn’t involve damaging our liver, lungs, and brain. If we’re to believe that nature isn’t stupid and understands that human beings need to re-arrange their brain matter every now and then, then surely it has a natural way for us to do so.

It turns out that such a way exists. It’s legal, but it’s not something you can do on a school playground. It’s natural, but it sometimes involves accessories that aren’t found in nature. It also has an abundance of instruction material, some of which I’ve written.

Yes, I’m talking about BDSM, or Bondage, Domination/Submission, and Masochism. Yes, this is going to be another one of those articles.

I’ve written about it before. I’ve even incorporated it into some of my books. We already know, surprisingly enough, that BDSM has health benefits. We also know that BDSM played a big part in the creation of Wonder Woman. Surely something that helped create an icon like Wonder Woman has merit.

Well, it may actually have more than just merit. It may actually do more than just do more than just improve your mental health. At this point, I don’t think BDSM needs any more appeal. I think the success of “50 Shades of Grey” and the babies born as a result of it have proven that beyond any reasonable doubt.

Despite this, nature decides to go for broke and gives it yet another benefit. It turns out it can actually alter your state of mind. It can do for your mind what a cocktail of illicit drugs and alcohol also do, but with less damaging side-effects. Nature isn’t usually this overt so I think we better listen.

So what exactly is going on here? How is it that BDSM can significantly alter your mental state in a way that doesn’t involve risking a raid by the DEA? Well, the fine folks at ThinkTank lay it out once again. As is often the case with issues of intimacy and sex, it follows a perverse, but understandable line of logic.

One of the key components of BDSM involves stressing the mind and body in ways that don’t typically happen at the office, in the fields, or in the mines. It can turn the powerful into the weak and the weak into the powerful. It can take a mind from one extreme to another and back again.

Think about it for a moment, but in a way that won’t require clean underwear. You come home stressed. You’re upset, anxious, and unable to relax. Then, your lover enters the room. He or she offers to tie you up, lay you out, and make it so you can’t focus on any of the crap that’s stressing you out.

Or maybe your lover has a different approach. Maybe he or she enters the room in handcuffs wearing nothing but a mask, a gag, and leather boots. They offer you a chance to dominate and control them in ways that you can’t do in any other aspect of your life. Can you see how that would be a powerful rush for someone?

It’s a power that can affect both men and women alike. Both genders can be submissive. Both genders can be dominate. Both can do so in their own unique way, crafting their own unique strategy. It gives everyone the power to mold their own experience. That’s something you’re just not going to get with whiskey, cigarettes, or other illicit drugs.

If we’re going to apply this to caveman logic, as I’m prone to do on this blog, we can see why this mind-altering appeal is there in the first place. Our brains are not precise tools. They’re blunt instruments. That’s why they’re prone to malfunction in bizarre ways. That’s also why they’re prone to have multiple types of orgasms.

It’s because the brain is wired for both pleasure and pain that BDSM has a naturally broad impact. It takes a mind to multiple extremes, from pleasure to pain, in a very intimate setting. Being such a crude instrument, that’s bound to alter someone’s mental state. It’s also bound to impact brain chemistry, hence the mental health impact.

This means that feelings like love, intimacy, pleasure, and pain are all going to be mixed into one potent pool of experience. Our brains, being so crude, aren’t equipped to process every one of them individually all at once. There’s bound to be some mixing and mashing going on. There’s bound to be a flood of chemical cocktails swarming around in our brain matter. Like the chemical cocktails we drink, smoke, or inject, it alters our state of mind.

Like any mind-altering experience, chemical or otherwise, it can be abused and misused. People can overdue it. People can get hurt. Then again, people can drink too much and get hung over. People can smoke too much and get lung cancer. It all comes down to moderation and understanding what you’re doing. Like being a mechanic or a brain surgeon, it helps to learn and refine your craft.

I like to think I offer some help with my books, but I understand that only goes so far. As BDSM becomes more mainstream, the taboo that keeps people from exploring it will become less an issue. If people can more freely discuss their intimate needs, then I say that’s a net benefit, especially to those exploring their kinky side.

There’s still a ways to go. We’re still not at a place when we can openly discuss how we like being tied up or what sort of whips we enjoy without getting awkward glares at Starbucks. We’re on our way though and I do hope some of my books will help with that. Using BDSM to enter an altered state is just one of the many benefits that our capacity for intimacy offers. On top of that, the side-effects are way less painful than hangovers.

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November 3, 2016 · 6:48 am

Thoughts On Male Birth Control And Why It’s Making Men Look Bad

Let’s face it. Men can be very targeted with their masculinity. Show us a deer that needs killing, a wall that needs smashing, or a bucket of fried food that needs eating and we’ll flex our nuts like we’re John Wayne. We all have egos, but men tend to jump at the chance to feed those egos more than most. Sure, it gets us in trouble and we make asses of ourselves in the process, but it makes us feel manly and that’s all we need.

Men may be overly simple creatures in that respect, but by excessively targeting our masculinity, we leave ourselves vulnerable. It doesn’t matter how thick our manly armor is. If there’s a target on our ass, we’ll get hit and we’ll still whine about it more than we dare admit.

This is why the recent news surrounding the first male birth control shot caught my attention. For those of you too distracted by the World Series, the economy, or sexy romance/erotica novels (hopefully written by me), here’s a quick and dirty recap.

In a study co-sponsored by the UN, a group of 320 healthy men in monogamous relationships were recruited to test a new male birth control method. This method involved two injections given every eight weeks, one consisting of a synthetic form of testosterone and the other consisting of a derivative of the female hormones progesterone and estrogen.

I’m not a doctor. I’m barely qualified to make a cheese sandwich so please don’t take my assessment as definitive. Based on what I’ve read about this procedure, it’s basically a one-two punch of hormones basically tricks a man’s body into thinking it doesn’t need to produce sperm anymore. That’s good if you don’t want to be on the wrong end of a paternity test.

There’s just one problem though and it’s a problem that is making women everywhere roll their eyes and resist the urge to punch something. The study ended because, according to CNN, the men became concerned when side-effects like mood disorders and depression emerged.

On the surface, that sounds like a reasonable concern. If something is affecting your mood that badly, then you should be concerned. If this were just a new blood pressure drug, it wouldn’t be news. The problem is this drug affects our sex lives and in a culture where a wardrobe malfunction becomes a national scandal, it’s going to be news.

If those effects involved men growing a third limb or having the sudden urge to sing show tunes in public, it may be news for all the right reasons. Unfortunately, those reasons are nowhere to be found this time. Instead, this news basically gives women everywhere an excuse to bust more balls and honestly, I can’t say I blame them.

Why can’t I blame them? Well, check out WebMD and look up the side effects of hormonal birth control for women, which has been legal and available for 50 years now. Here’s a quick rundown of the side-effects.

  • Nausea
  • Weight gain
  • Sore or swollen breasts
  • Small amounts of blood, or spotting, between periods
  • Lighter periods
  • Mood changes

These side-effects may not be on par with migraines, dry heaves, and explosive diarrhea, but they’re nothing to scoff at. Women have been enduring them for years and they endure them because they want to have some measure of control over their reproductive destiny. That’s objectively a good thing. We all want to control our lives. That should include the stuff that goes on in our bodies.

However, when it comes to contraception, there’s an undeniable imbalance in terms of who has to take the shot and who has to endure the side-effects. For men, there are no side-effects to condoms other than having to worry about whether your lovers have a latex allergy. They’re also cheap, easy to use, and don’t involve pumping chemicals into our bodies. By all accounts, it’s pretty damn easy.

Compare that with female birth control, which requires either a dose of chemicals or inserting something right up through the vagina and into the uterus. They endure this whereas men will go to any length to avoid inserting anything into their penis. That just doesn’t seem fair, does it?

We humans already have an innate sense of fairness built into our brain wiring. When we see something that we know is unfair, it tends to cause us distress. This discrepancy in contraception definitely triggers that response, if only indirectly.

The fact that women have to bear such a greater burden when utilizing contraception is definitely an issue. I believe it’s part of what fuels some of the gender issues that are driving women apart. Again, this may be indirect, but it’s an effect we can’t ignore.

In nature, when there’s an imbalance, any living system, be it a blob of pond scum or the whole of human civilization, will work to rectify it. Creating contraception that shares the burden between men and women equally is part of an effort that has been going on for centuries, often with unequal results.

A story like this just exposes that inequality even more. It reminds us that men are not bearing their share of the burden. It’s still on the women to make sure that they’re on contraception and that it works. All men can bring to the table is condoms and condoms don’t involve injections into genitals.

This study is definitely a setback and one that’s sure to frustrate women for quite some time. To those women out there, I would only urge patience. I believe that medical science is advancing at a rate our horny ancient ancestors can only dream of.

I’ve talked about the future of the human body and how technology will change it. I believe that one day, we will have the perfect form of contraception that works equally with both genders. It’ll most likely involve a single injection of programmable flesh, each designed to regulate our reproductive systems. It means men and women will be equally capable of controlling their fertility.

When that day comes, it’ll finally balance out what centuries of evolution cannot. It will change the way men and women relate to one another. Hopefully, it means we’ll have fewer stories like this where women want to punch the first man they see for being such a whiner. I say any future where women have fewer reasons to punch men is a future worth fighting for.

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October 17, 2016 · 6:58 am

Injustice, Male Privilege, And Why It’s So Unsexy

There are a lot of unsexy things out there that really kill the mood. Dead kittens, an overflowing toilet, and Rush Limbaugh’s voice all come to mind. We all have certain tastes and proclivities that either make our pants feel 10 degrees hotter or make us want throw up in the nearest trash can.

These tastes vary from person to person. Some are more typical of certain cultures. Some are more typical of genders. Men tend to get more aroused by big boobs and women tend to get more aroused by big biceps. It’s basic biology. In terms of what turns us off, that’s a bit less obvious. Aside from the things that involve heavy vomiting and excessive back hair, it’s hard to pin down things we deem universally unsexy.

I contend there is something that does turn us off faster than a picture of Pat Robertson taking a shit. It’s something that’s also ingrained in our biology, beyond the extent of the caveman logic I so often love to cite. Pull your pants up, skip your next meal, and brace yourself because I’m about to tell you the least sexy force in the world:

Injustice

I’ll give everyone a moment to stop gagging. For those of you who are confused, stay with me and skip your next meal as a precaution. It’ll make sense soon enough.

I spent a good deal of time talking about gender double standards and just how much they suck. I know it’s not as sexy a topic as sleeping naked or the different types of orgasms we can have, but I’m exploring these issues for a reason and I promise those reasons are sexy in nature.

In order to convey the extent of that sexiness, however, I need to touch on one more inescapable detail that stems from these double standards. I originally wasn’t going to dig any deeper on this admittedly unsexy topic, but then I came across a powerful video on YouTube that changed my plan.

There’s one feature of gender double standards I’ve tried to avoid, if only because it’s a loaded term. I can’t avoid it anymore so I might as well come clean. It’s the concept of “Male Privilege.”

Now I’m not going to lie. As a man, I do feel like I have my share of privileges. For one, I can walk around without a shirt on and not get arrested. I don’t feel compelled to shave my legs every other day. I don’t feel pressured to put on a certain amount of makeup before I go out. People even assume I’m tougher than I really am, never knowing that I grew up in a family with two older sisters who could kick my ass with their eyes closed.

However, there has been a growing trend in recent years, some from feminists and others from bullshit media controversies, to shame men (particularly white men) for having so many privileges. We’re getting to a point where “male privilege” has become a blanket term to undermine every benefit that any man has ever achieved.

Now I’m all for gender equality. I hope I’ve made that abundantly clear on this blog. Men and women can’t be biologically equal, but we can be socially and legally equal in the eyes of justice and fairness. The problem is we are a woefully imperfect species. That means there’s a long list of instances where men have created horrendous injustices for petty, sexist, bullshit reasons.

However, there’s a problem with this approach and it comes back to that horrendously unsexy force that we call injustice. As someone who grew up on a steady diet of superhero comics and superhero cartoons, I like to think I’m well-versed in what constitutes injustice.

In pretty much every episode of Superfriends and every other issue of Superman, there’s a common message about injustice. You can’t fight it with more injustice. Injustice is like an ant infestation. Fighting injustice with injustice is like trying to fight ants by throwing surge cubes at them. It’s only going to make the problem worse.

The popular perception is that “male privileged” ensures that men get more justice than they deserve. Ignoring for a moment how we measure the quantity of justice each person deserves, let’s not cross our eyes so that we can’t see the forest from the trees. Injustice, like spam email or annoying pop-up ads, finds a way to hit everyone. That includes men.

So what kind of injustices do men face? Are they at all comparable to the injustices that women face? Well, that’s hard to gauge because some of these comparisons are subjective. I’m sure there are women out there who see injustices against men and laugh their ass off at it. It may even make them horny.

These people are despicable excuses for human beings and are beyond reaching. If you are at all okay with injustice against men, please do me a favor and don’t come to my blog, buy my books, or interact with me in any way. I can do without that kind of douche-baggery in my life.

For those with a sense of compassion, decency, and justice, here’s the video that I found so powerful. Whether you’re a man or a woman, I hope it has the same impact on you that it did for me.

I hope this makes those who complain about “male privilege stop and think for a moment. It’s true. There are injustices in the world that are fueled by direct and indirect sexism, but it’s not just women who endure those injustices.

Our society is imperfect. Our species is imperfect. I’ve pointed it out many times before. Our biology is crude, clunky, and prone to errors, overkill, and oversight. Despite this, there’s still some glimmer of hope within those flaws that keeps us honest as a species.

Remember, children as young as two already possess an innate sense of fairness and justice. When we see something that’s unfair, it bothers us. It makes us anxious and uncomfortable. In essence, the feelings we get when we see injustice are the complete antithesis of the feelings we get when we see something sexy. That alone sends a powerful message about the innate sense of justice we all share.

Within that justice, it shouldn’t matter whether they adversely affect men or women. The abuse, harassment, and subjugation of women is a gross injustice. The denigration, dehumanization, and disparity that men endure is just as great an injustice. Writing it off as “male privilege” is just a pitiful excuse to ignore injustice and whenever injustice is ignored, more injustice will follow.

I’ll give everyone another moment for the non-sociopaths out there to swallow their disgust. These injustices should make everyone, male or female, sick to their stomach. That still leaves one burning question. What do we do about it?

I’ve made clear before that I’m not a fan of whining. Just talking about an issue is akin to throwing dirt on a festering wound and calling it medicine. Our society has made progress since the caveman days, but there’s still plenty more to make. With that in mind, how do we go about fixing this? Can it be fixed?

Being an optimist with a dirty imagination, I think it is fixable. I believe we will see more progress than we think. What form will that progress take? Why is a romance/erotica writer even talking about it in the first place? I’ll reveal that in future posts, but there is a reason for it and that reason will become clear very soon.

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October 15, 2016 · 9:06 am

One More Point On Gender Double Standards (Courtesy of Cracked)

Are you tired of hearing me talk about gender and double standards? I don’t blame you. Can I guarantee I’ll never talk about this issue again? Of course I can’t. Making promises on the internet is pointless. In a digital world, anything you write (and even some stuff you don’t write that gets attributed to you anyhow) can come back to bite you down the line. So please, I beg of you, don’t make me belabor this more than I have to.

Double standards are important to point out, especially with respect to gender. There’s a reason I chose to explore this subject. It’s not just relevant in an era where Chris Hemsworth is a sex symbol when he takes his shirt off, but Nicki Minaj is a slut for shaking her ass too much. It affects my aspiring career as an erotica/romance writer.

Gender dynamics are kind of an important component of romance and erotica. By important, I mean that trying to work around them is like trying to perform open heart surgery on an angry lion. These dynamics shape and guide relationships, characters, and the overall sexiness of the product. These are all factors I must take into consideration when crafting a sufficiently sexy story.

I don’t just want to tell stories about some random guy or girl going out and falling in love/getting laid with some schmuck. I want to forge a relationship of equals. There are enough of those on the market today, from erotica novels to re-runs of Jerry Springer. Relationships of equal are more difficult and, as a result, much rarer. That’s why I went out of my way to highlight one when it showed up in an X-men comic of all things.

I won’t pretend the results of my efforts are perfect. I’m positive I’ll mess up along the way. Every writer does. Every goal worth seeking requires at least a few mistakes along the way. That’s exactly why we need to be aware of the obstacles in our path and double standards are just one of those obstacles, although finding a publisher has been a bit harder at times.

So in the interest of belaboring double standards just enough to get the point across, I’ll turn back to the fine folks of Cracked.com. They’ve been an insightful source for information and comedy on this blog before. As it just so happens, they did an article earlier this year on double standards we, as a society, just accept or turn a blind eye to.

Some are small and indirect. Others have major political implications that people on talk radio won’t shut up about. They’re all relevant in the sense that they’re a byproduct of these powerful double standards that shape relations between men and women. The more I think about it, the more I’m amazed that either gender can resist the urge to strangle one another.

With that upbeat thought in mind, here is another wonderful article from Cracked.com about double standards and the implications for gender relations. Just to be safe, keep your hands in your pocket for a while after you read it. You’ll thank me later.

Four Gender Double Standards Everyone’s Apparently Okay With

Number Four: Adele – Stalker

Seriously, listen to the lyrics of Adele’s hit song, “Hello.” I love that song too. Don’t get me wrong. However, if you really listen to what she’s saying and what she’s doing, it’s hard to differentiate that from a stalker. If a man sang this same song, then he’d be in line for a restraining order.

And let’s be honest: While in a scholarly way, we’re willing to admit that any scumbag thing a man can do, a woman can do as well, it’s generally with a reluctance that anyone would admit to a sexual crime perpetrated by a woman against a man.

Number Three: Sex Tapes/Selfies In The Media

Let’s be honest here, something that the internet often has a problem with. There are a lot of naked women on the internet. Men like looking at naked women and women (and even other men, to some extent) love to shame them. As for the naked men on the internet?

Well, we just all shrug and go back to searching for pictures of baby kittens on our phones. Jennifer Lawrence gets her phone hacked and nudes of her go all over the internet. Suddenly, she’s this tragic victim who had her privacy violated. Hulk Hogan gets his privacy violated, arguably in a way much worse and nobody can give two licks of a donkey’s ass. Is that fair? Hell no, but since when do double standards give a damn about fairness?

This is just one sad example from a site with the journalistic integrity of me after ten shots of whisky and a bribe, but it’s noteworthy for the way at least some of the media approaches the idea of invasion of privacy: Men have none, while women do. Hulk Hogan, whom not even science wants to watch have sex, must be watched! Jennifer Lawrence, darling girl of the Internet, must be white-knighted to the safety of Gawker towers, where none shall dare even glance at her ankles again!

Number Two: Hillary Clinton vs. The World

I am not going to get overly political on this blog. I would rather bathe in a tub of honey and stick my face in a beehive than talk politics. It’s the fastest way to ruin relationships, kill a mood, or offend everyone around you in a way on par with chronic diarrhea.

That said, I don’t think it’s disputable that Hillary Clinton and female politicians in general have to play a rigged game with a stacked deck. On top of that, she has to play cards that nobody with a white penis ever has to deal with. Again, it’s not fair. Regardless of what you think of her or her policies, the double standard here is pretty disgusting. Seriously, nobody should have to defend their record on anti-poverty spending and fashion choices at the same time.

Except Clinton’s getting raked over the coals for her emails, for her husband banging an intern about 20 years ago, for Benghazi, for various financial and ethical issues, and for her Wall Street ties. In other words, people have an entire list of genuine concerns about her as a politician. And then they want to know why she’s wearing an orange pantsuit. Clinton’s “free pass” costs just as much as any candidate’s, with the added bonus of having a dress code.

Number One: Amy Schumer’s Speech

Specifically, this one refers to a speech that comedian, Amy Schumer, gave back in 2014 where she recalled an incident with her, a drunk guy, and a night of sloppy sex. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with sloppy sex. It happens. It’s the reason why romance/erotica writers like me have a job. We like to imagine stories where it doesn’t involve alcohol, regret, and a lack of orgasms.

However, if you break down the details of the story, you see a pretty serious double standard here. Listen to it again, reverse the genders, and what do you get? You’ll get a guy whose life is over because in the court of public opinion and Twitter hash-tags, he assaulted her. Anything a woman does while drunk makes her a victim. If a man is drunk though, then screw it. He’s drunk. What does it matter?

The man is so drunk that he’s fumbling and stupid. He can barely get hard. It’s like he doesn’t know what’s going on. My God, Amy Schumer is a sex devil! But read the actual words Schumer spoke, and it actually reads closer to her being the one sexually assaulted. The only difference is that because she was hopeful for the encounter — because she wanted it to be good, to be that fairy tale romantic moment — she allowed it to continue. She didn’t rape the man; she let a drunken bum get off on her while she effectively rubbed a lamp and hoped for a romance genie to appear. But it never did

For safety reasons, I recommend everyone still keep their hands in their pockets for a few more minutes. It’s okay. The kind of sentiment you’re feeling is normal. As I said before, our caveman brains do understand fairness on some fundamental level. By exposing these double standards and the unfairness behind them, we can let caveman logic do the best. It’ll be good for both genders in the long run.

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September 24, 2016 · 7:50 am

Funny Divorce Stories (Seriously)

It’s important to find humor in all things, even things that are objectively horrible. I’m talking about topics like war, poverty, and reality TV. These are all serious subjects that evoke the worst in humanity. Some of them are bad enough to make you wish you were born a monkey, especially a Bonobo. Among the top 10 of those terrible subjects is the ultimate D-word: divorce.

The late Robin Williams described divorce as follows:

Ah yes divorce…from the Latin word meaning to rip a man’s genitals through his wallet.

I’d say that’s an apt description and those who have endured divorce would probably agree. Some may even claim it’s too generous. Having spent most of the week talking about the legal horrors of divorce that make romance and intimacy an emotional minefield, which happened to coincide (albeit unintentionally) with the recent high-profile divorce of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, I think I’ve belabored these horrors enough.

As such, I’d like to lighten the tone a bit. That means finding the funny side of divorce. I know. That’s probably horribly insensitive to those who endured the legal, emotional, and financial gut punch that divorce incurs. For those people, I’m sorry. However, that makes finding humor in such a solemn topic all the more vital.

So, with help from an article I found on the Huffington Post, here are 9 little anecdotes documenting the funny side of divorce. It may be crude and it may dent your faith in the human race, assuming you have much to begin with. At the very least, it’ll make you laugh and sometimes that’s the healthiest way to deal with such a distressing topic.

Huffington Post: 9 Divorce Stories Too Ridiculous To Make Up

“I had a couple arguing for three hours over who got the kids on Christmas day, only to discover at the end that they were both Jewish.”

Not sure if this is petty or blasphemous, but it’s funny so it doesn’t really matter.

“Our case fell apart over a massage chair. They had two kids, but they couldn’t let go of the damn chair.

I know people can have misplaced priorities, but that must have been a damn good massage chair.

“Took the couple two hours to decide who would get the groceries left in the fridge. Estimated value of the groceries was around $40. Two hours of my time, opposing counsel time, and mediator time added up to about $1,000. It all came down to a Costco/Sam’s Club-sized jar of peanut butter. (Who keeps peanut butter in the fridge?!)”

As someone who loves peanut butter, I can understand this to some extent. That said, even I don’t love peanut butter that much.

“I was in a mediation where it took the couple an hour and a half to split their personal property, retirement accounts, real property, and custody of their six-month-old son. The rest of the day, about four hours, was spent arguing about how to split the time with the dog. For the kid they just put, ‘as agreed upon by the parties’ but the dog had a strict calendered schedule working out holidays and strict pickup/drop-off times. I was ashamed to be a part of that unbelievable display.”

Misplaced priorities can be tragic, but when dogs and kids are involved, it just becomes downright ridiculous. In cases like this, I actually sympathize with the lawyer. How sad is that?

“My dad was a divorce attorney for some time. He said people would argue over $150 patio furniture for hours on end at a $300/hour rate (each side). It’s not about the patio furniture, it’s about sending a message to your b*tch of an ex-husband/wife.”

I know you can’t put a price on love, but you can put a price on a lawyer’s time. Sometimes you get what you pay for and you have no right to be offended when others laugh at you.

“I had a case where the estranged wife was calling my client’s employer repeatedly, accusing him of theft and other white-collar crimes, [in an attempt] to get my client fired. The thing is, the children were with her, and she was also demanding child support. Which is based on his income. For the job from which she was trying to get him fired. (Fortunately, the employer was onto her BS and my client wasn’t let go.)”

It’s all too common to not think things through when heavy passions are involved, but when it costs you money and destroys your family? That’s just pushing it.

“Marriage proposal from wife’s new boyfriend while he was being questioned during her divorce proceedings. Classy.”

There’s a time and a place for everything. A proposal in a divorce proceeding is not it. That’s like strangling someone’s puppy and then asking them out on a date.

“I dated a divorce lawyer and my favorite story from his work was the man who was super pissed that the division of assets was 50/50 and that his wife’s lawyer had a forensic accountant who found his multiple offshore money stashes. In retaliation, he demanded half the dog. Not joint custody. Half of the dog, who was his wife’s much beloved, very spoiled little buddy. He burned through thousands of dollars of legal fees just to make her cry, by demanding that the dog be put to sleep and its ashes split, 50/50. People are delightful!”

Divorce is ugly enough. Let’s not make it worse by mixing it with animal cruelty. Can we all agree on that?

“I had a client completely sandpaper/key the finish off a brand new Maserati that was given to the wife pursuant to settlement agreement because he hated his ex so much. He also took off the tires. I also had a guy who funneled money over to his girlfriend, thinking he was slick hiding it from his wife. Girlfriend broke up with him and kept it.”

As with animal cruelty, I think we should leave cars out of the horrors of divorce as well. A significant chunk of the population was conceived in them. Let’s show some respect.

There you have it! Those are nine hilariously fucked up stories about the unmitigated horror that is divorce. Got any other horrifically funny divorce stories to share? Please share them! Divorce wounds us all in some ways. Laughter is good for the heart and the soul. Let it be the medicine that helps us heal do we can love again.

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