Tag Archives: health

October 19, 2016 · 6:58 am

Biotechnology, Symbiotes, Smart Blood, And Becoming James Bond

When I came up with the concept for my book, “Skin Deep,” I didn’t just want to conjure some overly magical force to explore the themes of beauty, sex, and decadence. I wanted it to have some basis in reality. I intend to leave all the magical stuff to Disney and those who do porn parodies of Disney.

I’ve always been interested in futuristic technology. Having grown up on a steady diet of Star Wars and superhero comics like X-men, I’m often intrigued by the sci-fi, futuristic elements of these worlds and yes, that intrigue extends to sex and romance. I don’t intend to be coy about that, especially for the subject of this post.

Some of that comic book influence found its way into “Skin Deep.” In that story, the mechanism that the main character, Ben Prescott, uses to become attractive is called Project Venus. Without getting to technical, which tends to kill the mood to anyone who doesn’t have a very specific Star Trek fetish, this project basically consisted of this high-tech biotech goop. It’s not as crude as it sound. It was also inspired by these things.

For those of you who don’t follow comic books, monster movies, or tentacle porn, those are what Marvel calls symbiotes. They’re conscious alien organisms that consist primarily of blackish red goop. Their primary function is similar to that of a parasite. They find a host, be it Spider-Man or someone who hates him, and bond with it.

What makes them so intriguing (and dangerous) is that don’t stop at bonding with a host. They actually re-shape, heal, and (most importantly for the topic of this conversion) improve it. Sure, it tends to make the host crazy, homicidal, and inclined to murder Spider-Man, but is that really as bad as the side-effects from some modern drugs? Look up anal seepage and tell me you wouldn’t risk it.

The stories in the comics tend to focus on the murderous side of symbiotes, but they do sometimes touch on the benefits. One Spider-Man character in particular, Flash Thompson, got the most of those benefits.

At one point, he was badly wounded while in the military, losing two limbs in the process. Then, a symbiote came along and healed him. When there are veterans in the real world facing problems like that, who wouldn’t risk a treatment involving an alien organism?

In “Skin Deep,” Ben Prescott was in a similar situation. He endured a terrible accident that left him badly scarred and in chronic pain. Both he and his parents were desperate and Warren Irvine, the main “antagonist” (I use quotation marks because I don’t like ascribing that role to him) of the story, takes advantage of that desperation.

The treatment in “Skin Deep” is not at all like the alien symbiotes in Marvel comics. In some respects, it’s a bit more realistic. It doesn’t have consciousness. It doesn’t function as a parasite. It doesn’t make those who use it want to murder masked vigilantes. Project Venus was a lot more pragmatic. It focused entirely on healing and improving the host.

This is, in essence, the primary goal of biotechnology as it applies to the human body. We know all too well just how flawed the human body is. A great deal of those flaws do more than just make us sore at the end of the day. They make us hate each other for petty reasons, hinder our ability to understand one another, and (as I like to explore as an erotica/romance writer) hinder our ability to love and be intimate with one another.

Biotechnology and the promise it offers may very well be the key to fixing those flaws. In fact, it’ll do more than just fix them. It’ll enhance what’s already there. I’m not just talking about the “super penis” that Deadpool joked about in his movie. I’m talking enhancements that go much further.

I intend to talk about the extent of those enhancements in other posts. For this one, however, I want to focus specifically on the mechanisms. I want to explore the nuts and bolts of how a real life symbiote/Project Venus would work, how it would affect us, and how it would impact society.

Make no mistake. There will be an impact. Once we achieve the technology to enhance, tweak, or repair the flaws in human biology, then the possibilities get pretty damn big. They’ll be much bigger than anything an aspiring erotica/romance writer can conjure. I can only explore and appreciate the sexy parts so that’s what I’ll focus on.

First, let’s focus on the mundane. How will technology like this work? As is often the case, movies and comics do try to get a leg up on these breakthroughs. We saw it in Star Trek with cell phones. The same applies to biotechnology. In the case, the latest James Bond movie, Spectre, gave us some insight.

In that movie, James Bond is injected with an advanced biotech fluid called “smart blood.” It’s not as sexy as it sounds, but it’s somewhat similar to Project Venus in “Skin Deep.” In that movie, the smart blood was designed only to track and monitor James Bond’s vitals. That’s a simple, but pragmatic use for such advanced technology.

Imagine a more advanced form of smart blood that goes even further. Imagine that it can do more than just monitor and track. Imagine it healing diseases (let’s face it, James Bond probably has more than a few), improving stamina (he runs from explosions all the times so that’s vital), and enhancing organ function (although he may not need it).

Now imagine this kind of smart blood being available to all men. Imagine all men with this blood in their system having the same physical abilities as James Bond. I’ll give the women reading this blog a moment to fantasize about that world. Take all the time you need.

This “smart blood” isn’t entirely science fiction. It doesn’t exist yet, but there’s nothing in the laws of physics that says it’s impossible. More importantly, there’s a huge economic incentive to creating something that’ll turn men into James Bond. The men’s grooming industry alone is an estimated $21 billion in 2016. Whoever perfects smart blood is bound to become rich enough to fund its own Spectre organization if they want.

The same incentives are there for women. In fact, they’re even more lucrative. Hair care sales alone for the United States topped $11.6 billion in 2014. Imagine a form of smart blood that could change the color of a woman’s hair as easily as she changes the desktop art on her computer. Just as every man could look like James Bond, every woman can look like Jennifer Lawrence. I’ll give men a moment to fantasize about that world. Again, take all the time you need.

This is the world that “Skin Deep” explored. Are we even ready for that world? It’s hard to say. Were we ready for the internet? Were we ready for vaccines? Were we ready for penicillin? These are questions that don’t have answers because they didn’t have to be answered. The same applies to smart blood.

Setting those questions aside for a moment, let’s ask a more relevant question. What exactly will perfected smart blood do? Well, it could definitely start off as a means of tracking and monitoring people, just as we saw with James Bond in Spectre. However, new functions would emerge, just as they did with smartphones so let’s follow that model.

In the same smartphones took on many more functions, smart blood could do the same. It could consist of trillions of programmable artificial cells. Since these cells have a measure of intelligence, we could communicate with these cells the same way Bluetooth devices communicate with each other.

This communication means we can equip these cells to fight off every form of infectious diseases, including the very unsexy kind that James Bond probably gets from humping too many bond girls. Viruses and bacteria thrive because they can adapt to whatever biology we throw at them, but in the same way trees can’t adapt to chainsaws, these diseases will not be able to adapt to smart blood.

That means no more infectious diseases. That means no more STIs. That alone will have a huge impact on society, both in terms of public health and how we approach sex. I already posed this question on my blog before. It’s not an unreasonable question to ask because smart blood may very well make this possible.

Using this same communication, we could instruct our smart blood to fix damaged tissues, repair organs, and improve their function. This means kidneys are more efficient, livers are more efficient, and muscles are more efficient. We become stronger, healthier, and can drink a crate of whiskey without puking. Those are all amazing benefits in and of themselves.

Yes, by the way, those enhancements extent to our sex organs. Smart blood could improve the function of a man’s penis and a woman’s vagina to a level that even porn stars would envy. Smart blood could ensure a man never needs Viagra again. Smart blood could ensure a woman always has multiple orgasms. It can even ensure it’s not over after two minutes. What kind of sex lives would we have if that were the case?

You done contemplating all those fantasies about being able to fuck like Ron Jeremy or Jenna Jameson? Well, it gets even better! Improving the inner workings of the body is just one side of the coin. The outer workings benefit just as much, as “Skin Deep” explored.

With smart blood in your body, you can program it to attack wrinkles, moles, and blemishes without the need for botox or surgery. Our skin can look as youthful at 91 as it did at 21. A woman’s breasts will never sag. A man’s scrotum will never sag. If smart blood is truly perfected, we’ll basically stop aging in our mid-30s. Sure, that may really undermine the MILF porn industry, but I’d say that’s a sacrifice worth taking.

For women, specifically, the benefits go even further than better boobs, if you can believe that. With smart blood, issues over birth control and contraception are basically over. If smart blood can improve the function of your sex organs, then it can also manage them just as well. That means every woman will have perfect control over her fertility.

That kind of control is unprecedented. Current birth control methods are effective, but flawed. With smart blood, a woman can literally decide the exact moment to get pregnant. Before she has a romp with her future baby daddy, she just programs her smart blood to prime her ovaries. This way, she knows who the daddy is. Maury Povich will be out of business.

This is what smart blood can do. This is what we may be facing as a society at some point in our future. Personally, I hope I live long enough to see it because it’ll be a very different society compared to the one we have now. However, even that society is not the ultimate endgame for fixing the human body. What do I mean by that? Well, that’s a topic for another post.

Until then, I’ll leave readers to contemplate this society. It’s important to think about because it will likely be the topic of another book I write down the line. Think about the society we’ll have with smart blood at our disposal. What kind of conflicts will there be in that society? How sexy will this society be? I can’t answer those questions, but I sure as hell hope to explore them.

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October 18, 2016 · 6:51 am

How Do We Fix The Human Body (Namely The Sexy Parts)?

I’ve done a lot of complaining these past few weeks. I admit it. I’ve covered some pretty depressing shit recently. There’s just no way to put a positive spin on the gross injustices of gender inequality or how double standards make men and women hate each other way more than we should. I’m not making anyone’s panties moist by talking about this stuff. I know that. That’s why I’m hoping this gets everyone back in the mood.

I feel I’ve already gotten my point across. The human race is an amazing, but imperfect species. Sure, we do have some pretty awesome hardware, as the health benefits to orgasms so wonderfully demonstrate. Anyone who watched the Olympics this year knows we can do some pretty awesome things with that hardware.

That said, it’s still full of bugs, flaws, and imperfections. The human body, as it is right now, is like the first version of Windows. For those of you too young to remember the days when we couldn’t download a billion pictures of tits on our phones, this is what that version looked like.

It’s old. It’s dated. It’s not very sexy anymore. There’s a damn good reason why it gets upgraded and updated all the time. Sure, those upgrades aren’t always the best, as anyone who used Windows Vista for more than five minutes knows all too well. At least future upgrades can fix the crap that the last upgrade created.

We take those upgrades for granted because the human body doesn’t get upgraded. We’re born into one body. We’re stuck with that body. The chemistry within that body is prone to all sorts of flaws. According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, there are approximately 6,800 rare genetic diseases that we know about. There’s a real possibility there are a few that we don’t know about and won’t know about until someone suffers horribly from it.

Those are a lot of flaws and for most of human history, we couldn’t do squat about them. Our best bet was to just hope we weren’t born with any of these flaws and those are some pretty long odds. As someone who regularly loses at poker, I know all too well how long odds tend to screw people over and not just with money.

We’re lucky to live in an age where some conditions can be managed, but even if we’re lucky enough to be born with these flaws, there’s still the matter of upkeep. I’m not just talking about staying in shape, avoiding hungry bears, and not eating things that’ll make you violently throw up your internal organs. Even when we give the human body everything it needs, it’s still woefully inefficient at making use of those needs. Hell, it’s downright lazy at times.

The human body, like the bodies of all animals, is designed for two things: survival and reproduction. That body evolved on the African savanna and while it has proven adaptable to many environments and conditions, it’s still a crude piece of hardware that’s easily broken, easily wounded, and breaks down over time.

The human body is not like a car. Sure, we can spray on a tan, even if it makes us look like an old baseball glove. Sure, we can get plastic surgery and expensive skin treatments, even if they make us look like glorified crash test dummies with wigs. The human body still breaks down. It still ages and dies.

In fact, the rule of thumb in biology is that once your body stops growing, it starts dying. From an evolutionary perspective, it has to. Individuals of a species have to die in order to free up resources from the young and the growing who aren’t as close to dying. Is it harsh and crude? Yes, it most certainly is. However, it’s a process that has kept life going for a couple billion years on this planet so it must be doing something right.

Beyond its limited survival abilities, even the good parts are limited. The average male orgasm lasts only seven seconds. The average female orgasms lasts around twenty. Granted, those brief moments are a lot of fun, but who among us hasn’t longed for a longer stay in O-Town?

By that same token, who among us hasn’t longed for a body that doesn’t bloat up after eating a tub of ice cream? Who hasn’t longed for a body that doesn’t need parts of it shaved every other day? Who hasn’t longed for a body that isn’t hung over after drunk karaoke night at the bar? Who, I ask?

Clearly, there are many aspects about our bodies that we would like to improve. Fixing these flaws in the body is a critical step in fixing the flaws that emerge between people in general. Think about it. If you had the body of an Olympian and could eat chocolate-covered bacon every day without getting sick, would you be able to hate anyone? I think not.

It all seems like a fantasy, but it’s one I’ve explored before. In my book, “Skin Deep,” I explored the concept of changing your body, becoming as beautiful as you wanted to be and indulging in all the decadent pleasures you wanted. That’s every supermodel, actor, and professional athlete’s dream. You think Brett Favre would’ve retired if he had that option? I think not.

While the mechanisms I used in this book were fantasy, complete with technobabble refined from years of comic book and Star Wars jargon, the concept is not entirely fantasy. There actually is some science behind the inspiration to this story that was full of sex, romance, and teen melodrama.

How is this possible? Well, keep in mind that there is one powerful trait that sets humsn apart from the chimps, spiders, and pond scum of this planet. We build things. We build very elaborate things. I’m not talking about sticks and spears. I’m talking about big ass buildings in the middle of the desert.

The ability to build shit that helps us survive is a big reason why the human race is the dominant species on this planet. Beyond the big buildings, we also build amazing medical devices like CRISPR, which is to genetic engineering what a wrench is to a mechanic.

We are rapidly advancing to a time when we’ll have to tools to finally give our bodies the upgrade it needs. That raises all sorts of fundamental ethical and moral questions, but those questions aren’t very sexy so I won’t be touching on them too much.

Instead, I’m going to ask a simple question that I hope to answer in multiple posts. How would you upgrade the human body? Specifically, how would you upgrade it in a way that would allow us to be more intimate, more loving, and more understanding of one another?

There are all sorts of crazy enhancements that some would pursue just for the hell of it. I’m sure there are some people out there who would enhance their bodies in ways that would help them get the hell away from people in general. Sheldon Cooper of “The Big Bang Theory” comes to mind, but he’s an unapologetic asshole so this little thought experiment doesn’t apply to him.

For most of the non-Sheldon Cooper population of this planet, we’re an affectionate people who seeks intimacy with others. Our bodies provide some mechanisms for that, but those mechanisms are woefully limited by the forces of biology, evolution, and all the petty, unjust bullshit we tack onto it. There has to be a better way, right?

So before I start talking about specifics, think about this question. Think about how you seek love, intimacy, and understanding right now. How would you make that better? How will future tools make that better? Would you want orgasms to last longer? Would you want to share your thoughts with someone? Would you want to improve your senses so you can hear, touch, smell, and see your lover more clearly? What would you do?

Think about it and don’t shy away from the sexy implications. Hell, embrace them! These are implications that I want to explore as an erotica/romance writer and I think they’re worth exploring. At some point, the future will catch up to us and it will affect us. If we’re not ready, we’ll miss out on the sexiness and who wants to miss out on that?

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October 6, 2016 · 8:17 am

Fixing The Flawed Wiring Of The Human Brain

I talk a lot about the flaws, failures, and absurdities of the human species on this blog. It’s not by accident, I assure you. It’s not entirely by choice either. I’d love to be able to attribute shortcomings in the human condition to evil spirits, curses, and watered down beer. It’s just a matter of inescapable pragmatism that I constantly circle back to the flaws in our collective human brains.

These flaws extend to issues like unhealthy attitudes towards sexuality, religiously-motivated self-torture, and irrational understandings of gender differences. There’s no escaping it. We, as a species, are a buggy beta version at best and a 10-year-old, malware infested laptop running Windows Vista at worst. The fact we’ve been able to survive this long is a testament to our adaptability and/or dumb luck.

There are a lot of complexities and intricacies to these flaws in the human condition. I’ve touched on many to date on this blog and I intend to explore many more, both here and within my own books. Some may argue that these flaws are part of what make us human. That may be true to some extent, but I also believe that we’re way overdue for an upgrade.

The problem with these upgrades is that the flaws in the human condition are closely tied to the flaws of nature as a whole. Nature, by its own overly-pragmatic accord, is a blunt instrument that is stuck using painfully slow processes to fix and tweak its creations.

Natural selection, adaptation, genetic variation are all painfully slow. They’re akin to bunch of blind rats trying to direct traffic down a busy city street during rush hour. This means they can’t be precise, calculated, or measured. They basically have to build a house using nothing but a baseball bat and globs of wet cement. It is possible, but it’s not going to be very refined.

This clunky, crude process is a big reason why humans are at the mercy of the caveman logic that’s hardwired into our brains. Human civilization progresses quickly and chaotically, but our collective brains are still stuck on the same settings they were when we were hunting sabretooth tigers in the African savanna and shitting in gopher holes.

These are some pretty serious flaws, but the human species, like other species that manage to survive this long, can still adapt because of and/or in spite of these flaws. The human brain itself can do this to a significant degree thanks to brain plasticity, the wonderfully complex process that allows the brain to adapt and tweak its wiring in accord with new experiences.

While this plasticity is somewhat limited, it does provide a mechanism for tweaking our faulty wiring when it gets too faulty. This mechanism can be used to treat issues like addiction, depression, or learning disabilities like dyslexia. There’s a whole cottage industry of sorts, complete with accomplished experts and outright frauds, for rewiring the brain in this way.

About a year ago, Big Think did an article that focused on methods for rewiring the brain to improve performance in their careers. They cited a study where people who actively practiced a particular skill on a piano affected their brains in a similar way as people who just thought about practicing that same skill.

It once again reveals the crudeness of our biology. Our brains don’t always know the difference between action and thought. Both will help tweak the wiring to some degree. Crude or not, it does show the power of this mechanism. It’s easy to exploit if you understand and appreciate the clunky processes it uses.

We can use these new findings about the brain to help us become better performers at work, more successful in our business dealings, and more fulfilled professionally. By consistently training our thoughts, like those imaginary piano players, we can expand the number of branches and synaptic connections in our hippocampus, potentially leading to an increased ability to retain new information and adapt to new situations.

This alone should give some people hope that they can wire themselves to be more efficient in their jobs, their personal lives, and everything in between. Just understand that thoughts and actions can have a similar impact. Thoughts will inspire your actions and vice versa.

So when a parent tells their kid, “If you think it’s going to be awful, then it will be!” they’re not bullshitting them. They are actually telling the truth and they have scientific studies to back it up. That’ll be handy to have for when I have kids one day.

It’s even possible to push this process even further. In his book, “How To Fail At Everything And Still Win Big,” Scott Adams talks about using self-hypnosis to re-wire your thoughts into a more successful framework. He even provides actual instructions for those seeking to get in shape, eat a healthier diet, and deal with idiots at work. It’s a great book that I highly recommend. Given the amount of idiots in this world, this kind of advice is invaluable.

While having a faulty brain that can be hacked is nice to some degree, there are limits. Human beings are complex creatures who are at the mercy of equally complex and exceedingly clunky natural processes. Sure, we have Einstein, Mozart, and Shakespeare, but we also have Stalin, Dahlmer, and Bieber as well. The sheer range and breadth of that margin of error is a tad disconcerting.

This is the point where I close my eyes, ignore the doomsayers, and speculate on the progress mankind will make with its technology one day. We have a distinct advantage compared to the gorillas, elephants, and raccoons of this world. We can do more than just gather food from trees and trash cans. We can build shit. We can build some pretty amazing shit. Hell, we built this.

Our ability to build awesome shit gives me some hope that one day mankind will find a more comprehensive way to fixing the egregious flaws of our biology. It’s not enough to just train our minds and bodies to be better. We need to build shit that’ll make us better beyond anything that biology will allow.

Nature can create the grand canyon. We can make Mount Rushmore, the Hoover Dam, and spray cheese in a can. These are things that can’t happen naturally and, in some cases, are impossible even in ideal conditions. At a certain level of complexity, there needs to be an intelligence force armed with more than a blunt instrument to shape the world around it.

When it comes to the wiring of the human brain, the biggest promise at the moment is nanobots. These are little tiny robots that we can put in our bodies or in anything else and have them perform processes that are impossible to achieve with blunt natural forces.

These processes include going into our brains and physically rewiring the parts that are making us dumb, dispassionate, and depressed. Since these things would have a measure of intelligence, they could do more than just slap duct tape on the structure. They could break it down and rebuild it with shiny new fixtures, polished marble, un-rusted nails.

What does that mean for us? What does that mean for society? How will men and women function in a society where our brains are not at the mercy of the cavemen logic that has guided, for better and for worse, since our hunter/gatherer days?

It’s very difficult to say since I, like the rest of the human race, am limited by my caveman brain. However, it is an idea that I’ve toyed with to some extent in my books. One of my first novels, “Skin Deep,” explored the idea of using technology to reconfigure the human body, which vastly changed how certain characters interacted with one another.

I’ve been contemplating ways to explore this idea in other books. I find myself imaging a future where the brains of men and women are bereft of the flaws and limitations of our current condition. I don’t see us all being these mindless drones in such a future. I actually see us becoming more emotional, more connected, and more passionate than we would be otherwise.

Since this is the internet and pretty much any bit of technology will be applied to sex, I also find myself thinking about how this would affect intimacy. What would it be like for two people, be they gay or straight, to have sex when their brains have been enhanced to such a degree that they don’t have any biological limitations?

What sort of emotions would we feel? What sort of thoughts would we think? What sort of orgasms would we have? These are the kinds of kinky ideas that keep me up at night, among other things. They’re ideas worth contemplating because this future may manifest in some form or another down the line.

According to futurist, Ray Kurzweil, nanorobotic technology will advance to a point where it can re-wire our brains at some time in the 2030s. He claims:

We’re going to expand the brain’s neocortex and become more godlike.

That’s a pretty bold claim, but one that only seems bold from our limited, caveman brains. I’m sure a mouse looks at a hot pocket or a cup of Ramen noodles and struggles to comprehend that as well.

Unlike a rat, we can speculate and tell stories about the lives of those who live in a world where their brains are functioning beyond that of mere cavemen. Will these brains be absent of the flaws, taboos, and hindrances that hinder our ability to be intimate with one another? It’s amazing to contemplate and could make for a damn good, damn sexy story.

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October 3, 2016 · 6:52 am

Finding Sexiness In The Little Things With Jack Fisher

Everybody has their own unique turn-ons, turn-offs, mood-setters, and mood-killers. Human beings are diverse, innovative, and at-times downright weird in what turns them on. I’m not just talking about exotic fetishes or elaborate role playing either. There really is no one way to make a man or a woman horny.

Whether you’re straight or gay, male or female, monogamous or polyamorous, your sexual wiring is entirely unique to you. Sure, you may share your tastes with some people. Hopefully, you share it with a loving and passionate partner who knows all the right combinations to heat up your loins. Whatever your romantic situation, these proclivities are still unique to you and make up a significant part of our personality.

Having dipped my feet into a few hot-button, controversial topics like radical feminism, porn addiction, and the impact of religion on sex, I feel the time has come to lighten the mood a bit on this blog. If possible, I’d like the made the mood a little sexier. It’s October now. Halloween is just around the corner. That means we’ll all have an excuse to channel our spookier proclivities.

In a perfect world, we really wouldn’t need such excuses. We’d be able to freely share our sexual proclivities and explore them without fear of shame or scrutiny. Sadly, we don’t live in a perfect world, as our irrational attitudes towards circumcision show. So we have to use impersonal blogs and private clubs to discuss such things.

Accepting the many imperfections of this world, I’d like to use this backwater blog of mine to share in those proclivities. I won’t ask what few viewers I have to get too personal. I understand that’s an unreasonable request from someone who is a long way from achieving his goal of being a successful erotica/romance writer. So I’m willing to do what 95 percent of the internet won’t and be reasonable with my audience.

In that spirit, I’m going to list a few of the little things that I find sexy. Now when I say sexy, I don’t necessarily mean these are fetishes of mine. There are no clubs for these little things, at least not that I know of. Rest assured though, I do check for these things and as far as I can tell, these are just personal proclivities that I happen to have.

I won’t list everything that I’ve ever found sexy. That would take multiple blog posts and there are only so many hours in the day. Plus, I had some awkward teenage years. There are some things I’d rather not list, discuss, or even acknowledge.

With that in mind, here are a few little things that I, an aspiring erotica/romance writer, find sexy.

Sexy Little Thing Number One: Women in Sweatpants

There are any number of sexy garments that a woman can wear. Hell, the “intimate apparel” industry is a $10 billion chunk of the economy. I understand and appreciate all those sexy garments. Yes, I mean all of them.

That said, there’s just something inherently alluring about a simple pair of sweats that’s not to baggy, not to tight, and much easier to get off than a pair of skin-tight jeans. I can’t say for certain that sweats look as good on a man, but I can say that a woman wearing sweats will make my twisted mind wander into sexy domains.

Sexy Little Thing Number Two: Badass Female Soldiers

I don’t think this will surprise anyone who has followed this blog, but I have a thing for heroes and superheroes. I’ve cited superheroes as a prime example of a romance of equals. I’ve cited superheroes as example of sex-positive female characters. Naturally, I’m going to find heroism sexy on some levels.

Since the superheroes in my favorite comics are fictional, I find myself drawn to the women who serve this wonderful country. With their badassery, they protect this wonderful land of freedom, liberty, and spray cheese in a can. How can I not find that sexy on some levels?

Sexy Little Thing Number Three: A Simple Casual Sigh

Now what do I mean by this? How can a simple sigh be sexy? Women can do so many sexy things with their voice. Why else would sexy 1-900 numbers have racked up so many phone bills in the mid to late 90s?

For me, a simple sigh sends so many subtle messages. There’s enough obscene dirty talk in internet porn and “50 Shades of Grey” these days. There’s a time and a place for that kind of crude, overt dirty talk. There’s also a time and place for something simpler and subtler. Those times are woefully underappreciated.

Sexy Little Thing Number Four: A Woman Who Cheers At Sports.

I know sports are supposed to be a “guy thing.” I get that 95 percent of all sports prey upon our testosterone-soaked brains, bombarding us with manly feats of ass-kicking manliness in the name of winning that sweet, sweet championship and all the bragging rights that come with it. It’s part of the culture.

We, as a society, don’t expect women to share the same passion for sports that men do. Those expectations are unreasonable and flawed. Women can like sports too. I don’t deny that. I just find the women who aren’t afraid share in this manly passion a special kind of sexy. I see a woman wearing a football jersey and I can’t help but smile.

Sexy Little Thing Number Five: Sharing A Tub Of Ice Cream

There are all sorts of sexy turn-ons involving food. Make no mistake. There is an entire fetish that mixes food and sex in the weirder, messiest, most extreme way possible. I won’t describe it because I just ate and I’d like to keep the contents of my stomach in place.

This little act is not like those. For me, this is more romantic than it is sexy. Who doesn’t love ice cream? Who doesn’t love something sweet and savory? The idea of sharing it with a lover, eating out of the same tub and using the same spoon because we don’t care where our mouths have been, just has this special allure.

So there you have it. Those are five little things that I find uniquely sexy. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I feel like we all need to appreciate the little things every now and then, especially the things we find sexy. It reminds us that not everything has to be some elaborate setup in a Las Vegas honeymoon suite to be sexy.

With all that said, I’d like to open the floor up to what few commenters I have on this blog. Please share with me what little things you find sexy. It doesn’t have to be weird. Actually, it would be downright interesting if it were weird because I might be able to incorporate that into my novels. In that case, weirdness is optional.

Weird or not, please take the time to share it! I’d love to hear what others find sexy. It’s a weird and wonderful world we live in. We should find sexiness wherever we can and celebrate it!

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October 1, 2016 · 8:32 am

Logical Fallacies And How They Mess With Your Caveman Brain

I like to think this blog offers something useful other than announcements on books from a no-name aspiring erotica/romance writer. I want to both entertain and enlighten with my writing. If I can also titillate and arouse, then that’s a nice bonus. I’d like to enhance that bonus down the line, but for now I’m willing to be flexible.

Since I started this blog, I’ve talked about numerous topics. I’ve touched on controversial issues like unfair divorce laws, body shaming, and misogyny in modern society. I’ve also touched on lighter, less serious issues like sex-positive superheroes, terrible love triangles, and the joys of sleeping naked. For the record, I still sleep naked and I don’t intend to stop.

Through many of my twisted, and sometimes perverse thoughts, I use a common phrase. That phrase is “caveman logic.” It’s something I may want to copyright or trademark because I find myself applying more and more of it to various issues, be they exceedingly serious of overtly juvenile. It’s not intentional. It’s just that it works so damn well in making sense of the craziness in this world.

I’ve started contemplating a new idea, one that would be a major departure from my typical romance/erotica aspirations. I’m thinking of writing a non-fiction book to flesh out the concept of caveman logic. It’s an intriguing thought. What else could I apply to? Politics? Economics? Religion? More overly sexy issues to explain the insane sexual landscape of this crazy world? I think you all know which one I’m leaning towards.

As I contemplate this idea, it’s worth exploring more of the finer details of how caveman logic works and how it affects us. It’s important to understand because if we can at least acknowledge the mechanisms of our craziness, then we can at least appreciate it in the right context.

Make no mistake. Context does matter. People aren’t going to stop doing crazy stupid shit. We’re a species that obsesses over cat videos, hashtags, and the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass. We’re not a logical species. We can’t expect ourselves to make logical choices in religion, government, popular culture, and sex. I’ve already covered some of the sexy parts of this illogical nature. There’s still plenty more to cover.

The main crux of caveman logic is that human beings are not wired, be it by nature or whatever magical deity you think made us, to be logical. Our biological programming, from our brains to our body chemistry, is wired for two things: survival and reproduction.

Whether it’s by nature or by deity, it makes sense in that’s exceedingly pragmatic. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. If you can’t survive long enough to get laid, your species is screwed. This is why jocks and their meathead kids still dominate in the halls of public schools today. It’s why they’ll likely keep dominating, no matter how many shitty teen movies Hollywood makes.

In the context of caveman logic, it’s important to understand that the traits that aided our survival and ability to bone emerged in the African savanna. Biologically, our bodies are adapted to an environment that allows small tribes of humans to hunt, gather, and farm food. There’s nothing in our DNA that equips us to deal with smartphones that can download unlimited amounts of free porn.

Civilization, despite its many glories, doesn’t always do a good job of complementing or supplementing our caveman brains and bodies. Nature is, by and large, a blunt instrument and not a scalpel. It can’t tweak and fine-tune itself for us as we would like.

As a result, civilization and the complexities of the universe tend to screw us over. When the situation before us doesn’t involve survival and reproduction, humans tend to do a sub-par job of making use of it. This often reveals the faulty programming of our caveman brains. It’s the reason why we do things like mutilate our genitals or overly repress our basic desires.

This faulty wiring can manifest in very specific ways. Some call them logical fallacies. I just call them bugs in human software that nature is not going to fix as soon as we’d like. Evolution and adaptation are painfully slow. Societal progress is painfully slow. There are still countries that practice slavery for crying out loud.

That’s not to say we make no progress. Indoor plumbing, smartphones, and bacon flavored lube are all testaments to just how far we’ve come as a society. However, the bugs are still there. The flaws in our biological program still fuck with us every day.

Just how much do they fuck with us? Well, the fine folks at Cracked.com once again provide a valuable service by highlighting some of those kinks in our programming and they do it in a way that’s funny. For that, I thank them and share with you just how bad those kinks are. If you’re scared, worried, or depressed afterwards, I recommend getting some bacon-flavored lube. That’ll make your day better in some way or another.

Cracked: 5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Way More Wrong Than You Think

Five: We’re Not Programmed to Seek “Truth,” We’re Programmed to “Win”

Go on any message board or talk politics with anyone who voted for George W. Bush twice. You’ll see just how deep this bug in our system runs.

It’s called the argumentative theory of reasoning, and it says that humans didn’t learn to ask questions and offer answers in order to find universal truths. We did it as a way to gain authority over others. That’s right — they think that reason itself evolved to help us bully people into getting what we want.

It helped us get laid and get food. That’s all evolution needs.

Four: Our Brains Don’t Understand Probability

Anyone who plays lotto is proof of this. For the record, I play lotto. Yeah. I’m part of the problem here.

It’s called neglect of probability. Our brains are great for doing a lot of things. Calculating probability is not one of them. That flaw colors every argument you’ve ever had, from the tax code down to that time your friend totally cheated you in a coin-flip.

Again, think back to the African savanna. Overestimating the probability that there’s a giant bear hiding under a rock may be stupid, but it decreases your chances of being eaten by a bear. That’s good enough for nature.

Three: We Think Everyone’s Out to Get Us

It’s not just bear attacks we like to overestimate. Remember, survival is a blunt instrument. You’re not going to do brain surgery with a sludge hammer and avoid collateral damage. So of course you’re go a little overboard when assessing threats. Again, you’re less likely to be eaten by a bear and that’s still good enough for nature.

Think about all the people you’ve disagreed with this month. How many of them do you think were being intentionally dishonest? Experts say you’re almost definitely overshooting the truth. It’s called the trust gap, and scientist see it crop up every time one human is asked to estimate how trustworthy another one is.

So can we trust ourselves? To an extent, we can. Let’s just be careful about that extent.

Two: We’re Hard-Wired to Have a Double Standard

I’ve talked about double standards before. There’s no logic to them, but remember. Nature doesn’t give a shit about logic and nor do our caveman brains. It sucks, but it helps us survive and get laid. That’s good enough.

It’s called the fundamental attribution error. It’s a universal thought process that says when other people screw up, it’s because they’re stupid or evil. But when we screw up, it’s totally circumstantial. Like if you notice a coworker showing up to work high on mescaline, it’s because he’s an out-of-control peyote hound. But if you show up at work high on mescaline, it’s because you had a flat tire and you needed the distraction.

So the next time you hear an athlete meltdown at the end of a post-game show, you know why he or she makes excuses. They still have to pull them out of their ass, but that’s our brain’s default setting.

One: Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

Go to any message board that talks politics and try to convince someone to change their mind. After you’ve punched your computer screen enough times, you should have sufficient proof that this is real.

Let’s go back to the beginning for a moment, and the theory that people figured out how to build arguments as a form of verbal bullying rather than a method of spreading correct information. That means that there are actually two reasons somebody might be arguing with you: because they actually want to get you to think the right thing, and because they’re trying to establish dominance over you to lower your status in the tribe (or office or forum) and elevate their own. That means there’s a pretty severe cost to being on the wrong side of an issue completely separate from the issue itself.

Facts are wonderful things. They help us make sense of the universe, seek universal truths, and expand our understanding. However, they don’t do quite enough to help us survive and have sex so they’re shit out of luck.

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September 27, 2016 · 6:00 am

How I Shamed Myself Into Being Healthier

There’s no way around it. Compared to all the characters in movies, TV shows, and comic books, we’re ugly as hell. We don’t take care of ourselves. We’re fat. We’re weak. We’re unmotivated. Despite all this, we still like to pretend we’re sexier than Jennifer Lawrence in a bikini sucking on a popsicle. It’s as unhealthy as it is delusional.

What I just wrote is not to be taken as motivation or a sales pitch. It’s not even directed towards any person or group in particular. In fact, what I just said is merely a reflection of the thoughts I once conveyed whenever I looked in a mirror, minus that part about Jennifer Lawrence. Just like I am with my writing, I am my own harshest critic when it comes to my body and health.

I shamed myself. I shamed myself a lot for a good chunk of my adult life. It wasn’t just about my looks either. I had a serious self-esteem issue growing up. It wasn’t because of anything my friends or family did. That’s for sure. I did it to myself and not for all the right reasons. I was fucking miserable. I hated myself. In the end, however, it helped me in a profound way.

Confused? That’s to be expected. Annoyed? Yeah, I have that effect on people. Anxious? Well, you should be because I’m about to get personal again. I’ve talked about sleeping naked. I’ve talked about my own circumcision. Those topics are bound to fill peoples’ heads with unpleasant imagery. I hope this time is little anecdote is a bit more pleasant.

This personal story is a follow-up, of sorts, to my post on body-shaming. I understand that what I wrote probably offended certain people because I took the unpopular position that there’s some kind of merit to shaming. Then again, the people who took offense to that probably get offended when someone points out the color of the sky so I’m not going to worry too much about those people.

Instead, I want craft a real-life example of how shaming can make us better ourselves. It’s not enough to just be happy with who you are, love yourself no matter what, and never acknowledge any flaws you may have. I think it’s an important lesson to learn because people make a big fucking deal of self-esteem these days and worry endlessly that kids and adults alike or suffering when they don’t have enough of it.

Like snake oil and diet pills, self-esteem is basically seen as this cure-all for every mental shortcoming. Chief among those shortcomings involves how we look. We shouldn’t shame each other for looking different, right? We should love ourselves and embrace our inner beauty, right? It’s the lesson that Lady Gaga has taught an entire generation.

First off, this lesson is bogus. Second, it’s extremely easy for Lady Gaga to love herself. Why? She looks like this.

It’s very easy to love yourself when you’re beautiful. Beauty like this is beauty you actually have to work at. You think Lady Gaga looks this way because she just loves herself? Hell no! She has to fucking work at it. She has to actually earn the right to look this good.

This is an important concept and one that more people need to learn. Beauty and health aren’t things that we can gain just by loving ourselves. Self-esteem does not help you lose weight, nor does it make your acne go away. A lack of self-esteem can make it even worse. I would know.

This is how my story played out. For most of my life, I wasn’t very attractive. That’s not to say I was ugly. I wasn’t short, fat, or deformed in any way. I was basically just average at best or below average at worst. I also wore dorky glasses and had a horrible acne problem that plagued me for most of my teenage years. I never felt attractive. I never felt sexy. I basically went out of my way to make myself more miserable for not looking good.

I admit I was probably much harsher on myself than I should’ve been. While I was in school, I knew people who actually did have health issues, be it their weight or their appearance. Harsh or not, it did mess me up. It didn’t make me very pleasant to be around, that’s for sure.

I certainly didn’t get a lot of attention from women either. Believe it or not, girls don’t find pudgy, pale, self-loathing guys with an acne problem attractive. This certainly did plenty to undermine my self-esteem even more, but looking back on it, I can hardly blame them. I can’t imagine I would’ve been a good partner for any woman during that time.

So what changed? It had to have changed. I wouldn’t have the energy or the self-esteem to share this story if I had remained this sad, dorky, overly-emo kid with an acne problem. So how exactly did I respond to all that self-shaming and self-loathing?

Well, for one thing, it ensured I didn’t ignore it. When my acne got really bad, I made it a point to go to a doctor and get actual medication to help treat it. Believe it or not, modern medicine does work. I was able to find a treatment for my acne that more-or-less solved the problem. So thanks modern medicine! That’s one issue solved.

Modern medicine helped me out again down the line. Remember those dorky glasses I mentioned? Well, they’re gone now. I don’t wear them because I got Lasik surgery on my eyes to fix them. I now see perfectly. I now have a face that is unhindered by acne or glasses. I like to think it’s a cute face. I’m not Ryan Gosling, but I’m no George Costanza either.

However, modern medicine could only do so much. Sometimes, you need a good kick in the ass to get yourself to change. I definitely got that when a close relative of mine suffered a serious heart attack. He didn’t die, but it was serious.

The fact that he was only in his 50s really concerned me because after that incident, I found out that there is a history of heart disease and cancer in my family. On top of that, I didn’t take care of myself. My meals consisted primarily of sugary cereal, cookies, greasy burgers, and pizza. My exercise regiment was restricted to walking up to the store to buy more junk food. I was playing a risky game of poker with the deck stacked against me.

Despite this very disconcerting knowledge, I was still reluctant to get off my ass. The caveman part of my brain just didn’t want to change. It was just too easy to keep doing what I was doing. Plus, I really like the taste of cookies and junk food.

In the end, I feel the shaming gave me the extra push that I needed. Seeing myself in the mirror every day and not liking what I saw motivated me to do something about it. On top of that, I love comic books, as I’ve made clear on this blog many times before. In case you’ve forgotten, Superman looks like this.

Look at those muscles. Look at those abs. Look at that raw masculine power. Is it an unrealistic ideal for men? Absolutely. Superman is, by his own nature, the embodiment of an ideal. However, just because something is unattainable doesn’t mean it’s worth striving for. That’s a lesson Superman himself preaches.

I finally got that message loud and clear. One day, I finally dragged my pudgy ass out of bed and to a gym at the local rec center. I convinced myself to go there by promising myself that I would soak in the hot tub after getting in a workout. It wasn’t much of a workout to begin with, but it was a start and that hot tub felt dam good.

From there, a new habit formed. I started going to the gym more regularly, once a week to start. I soon felt the urge to do more so I started going twice. I bought workout clothes. I looked up fitness tips online. I didn’t buy into any gimmicky weight-loss crap from late-night infomercials. I just ran, lifted, and sweated.

Flash forward a bit more and now I’m an avid runner. I go out running for at least 30 minutes a day or four miles, whichever comes first. I do weight-training twice a week and I don’t go light either. I grunt, I sweat, and I toil. After every workout, I look like I just swam in a pool of my own sweat loved every second of it. I’m not going to lie either. It makes me feel damn sexy.

On top of the exercise, I did tweak my diet. This was, by far, the hardest. I had to cut a lot of sugar out of my diet. That meant cutting soda completely and saving cookies for special occasions only. That was painful. It meant eating more protein, such as eggs and chicken. It meant eating less red meat. These changes were tough, but worth it.

Now I’m not saying I look like Superman. I don’t. I’m not saying I have Brad Pitt’s abs or Hugh Jackman’s ass. I don’t. However, I can say that I look a lot healthier and a lot more attractive than I did before I started working out. I don’t have as much body fat anymore. I can actually see my abs. I actually have good bicep now. It does work, people. You can work out, eat better, get healthier, and become more attractive.

None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t shamed myself into action. If I had just done what Lady Gaga said and loved myself, I would be 25 pounds heavier and far less healthy than I am now. Working out and becoming more attractive gave me more confidence and energy. It made me better to be around. It also made me more attractive to women, which is certainly a nice bonus.

I get that there are still problems with body shaming. There are people whose biology simply doesn’t allow them to look the way they want. It’s a difficult issue. Hell, it was the primary topic of my book, “Skin Deep.”

Until science advances to a point where it can make everybody look like Hugh Jackman and Jennifer Lawrence, we need to push ourselves. We need to actually work at it if we want to be beautiful, healthy, and attractive. Just being content with who we are isn’t enough sometimes.

We need to shame each other to some extent to get our asses in gear and get healthier. It can be hard and downright demoralizing at times, but it’s worth doing. You feel better, happier, and sexier as a result.

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September 26, 2016 · 6:02 am

Re-framing Body Shaming

Shame on you. Shame on me. Shame on us for not being exactly how others want us to be. We should all be appalled with ourselves. How dare we not conform to societies expectations?

That last paragraph was pure sarcasm, by the way. It’s also an overly simplistic summation of shaming, that inglorious facet of society where we collectively decide to denigrate or denounce someone in a way that’ll make them feel terrible about themselves. It’s one of nature’s crudest instruments for shaping a social species. Being so crude, it’s absurdly easy to misuse.

There’s all sorts of shaming. There’s slut-shaming, fat-shaming, food-shaming, culture-shaming, gender-shaming, and probably some other form of shaming that’s being invented as we speak. Even in the era of the Internet, it’s hard to keep up with all these types of shaming. So for the purposes of keeping this post simple, I’m going to focus on one particular type of shaming: body shaming.

This type of shaming is relevant to me because, being an erotica/romance writer, I deal with a lot of bodies. In my stories, I have to describe bodies. I have to describe how they look and what they’re doing in a way that’s compelling, interesting, and sexy. If I can’t do that, then I can’t tell much of a story. Nobody’s panties will get wet if the story just involves two amorphous blobs rubbing together.

According Urban Dictionary, body shaming is simply defined as:

Shaming someone for their body type.

Pretty obvious, isn’t it? This is one of those concepts that really explains itself. It really shouldn’t be that complex, but like so many things in this world, we love to fuck it up in a way that completely skews the concept.

Body shaming is a big deal these days for reasons that have nothing to do with health and beauty. It, like other forms of shaming, have become tied into the anti-bullying movement that has grown rapidly in recent years. We no longer live in a world ripped from a bad 80s teen movie. It’s not cool to be a bully anymore. Bullies are now right up there with dead skunks and cow shit in terms of things we don’t want in our society anymore.

The stereotypical bully is often the first to laugh at someone’s body, be they fat, skinny, ugly, or deformed. They loudly proclaim that there must be something wrong with a person who allows themselves to get that fat or that ugly. They make someone feel guilty, depressed, or sad for being who they are and that’s just not cool.

Okay, now this is the part where I piss off the politically correct, overly emotional, obscenely sensitive crowd because I’m going to look at this issue in an unusual, unpopular way. Brace yourselves, prepare to send the hate mail, and hide in your safe space because I’m probably going to offend some people here. I’m not going to apologize ahead of time either. I’m just going to say what I feel needs to be said about this issue.

My problem with the current approach to bullying and body-shaming is that my brain just can’t work in such simplistic terms. The simple idea of, “All bullying is bad! All body-shaming is bad! Shame on all those who justify it!” just doesn’t work for me. My brain has a problem with accepting overly simple things that sound too good to be true. Maybe I’ve had one too many bad experiences with infomercials and Nigerian princes, but I just can’t look at this issue in the context of “always bad and always evil.”

Human beings just aren’t that simple. Humanity, in all its inglorious grandeur, is full of all sorts of complexities, both as individuals and as societies. These complexities are a big part of what makes us so interesting and entertaining. If aliens landed tomorrow, I’m sure they’d find something about humanity to laugh at.

With respect to body-shaming, I do think there is a context that sets it apart from traditional shaming. First and foremost, we have to understand that the very concept of shaming is important to our society. We can’t do a way with it, nor should we.

Shame, as ugly as it may be, serves an important purpose for social creatures like humans. You see, for most of human history, we didn’t have laws or message boards to punish or denigrate others for doing something socially unacceptable. We lived in small bands of tribes that roamed the land, looking for food and safe places to hump. Failure to do so means that both the individual and the tribe would suffer.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, for the politically correct crowd), humans come with some built-in biological wiring to keep people in line. If someone did something wrong, they would feel guilt about it and have an incentive not to do it again.

Shaming emerged as an extension of guilt, creating a system for an entire tribe to use to let someone know that they need to get their shit together. It was a way to motivate or incentivize them to do the right thing for themselves and others. It can be harsh, but it can work too. It can even be funny, as Family Guy regularly proves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ7vkmUNTPA

It’s a fact of life as a social species. We need shame because it’s built in. It’s hard-wired. It can’t be bribed, corrupted, or bought off. It’s a force that can affect the poorest among us and the richest among us. It is effectively the glue that incentivizes us to function in society. When laws and internet message boards fail, shame can pick up the slack.

So where does this leave body-shaming? First, let me make clear that there are degrees of shaming that have no excuse. If someone’s body is big, small, or misshapen in ways they cannot control, either by genetics or poverty, then that’s a gross misuse of shame. It’s true that human bodies have many variations and some are more prone to be fat, thin, or something in between. However, there is one little detail here that skews the context.

That detail is called obesity.

When I say obesity, I’m not just referring to fat people. I’m also referring to overly skinny people as well. They aren’t shamed quite as often, but it’s the same blunt instrument. It’s the same unjustified use of shame. It’s just being used in a way that isn’t consistent with the biological purpose of shame.

Here’s the issue that I know anti-shamers and obesity activists try to avoid. Obesity, like smoking, does have serious health risks. While it’s not nearly as bad as smoking, it does carry with it some health issues that aren’t exactly attractive. According to WebMD, these issues include:

It’s true that not everyone who is obese will have these problems, but the chances are greater and not everybody is willing to play those odds. Eating too much, having too much body-fat, and not getting enough exercise can be damaging, both to individuals and the society that incurs the cost of these health issues.

As a result, our crude biological wiring is going to step in whether we like it or not. When we see something unhealthy in society, we tend to do whatever we can to stop it, even if it means bullying and shaming. It’s true we go overboard at times. We’re human. We’re blunt instruments, not surgical tools. However, there often is some level of logic behind our actions.

It’s just not the kind of logic that will ever show up in an 80s teen movie. This is caveman logic, a term I use so often on this blog that I should probably trademark it. In the old hunter/gatherer days, the biological programming of which is still with us, the fat and unhealthy bodies incurred a burden on the tribe. If the person couldn’t see that, then shaming them was a way of getting them to shape up and get their ass in gear.

We’re not cavemen anymore, but we’re still stuck with their wiring. We need to accept that and there are some politically correct types who can’t seem to wrap their heads around it. They seem to think that human biology can be ignored or circumvented.

It’s the same faulty belief that has effectively doomed the Catholic Church’s crusade on premarital sex and masturbation. You can’t stop people from masturbating. You can’t stop them from shaming bodies either.

By the logic of our faulty human wiring, a tribe of healthy, fit men and women is a good thing. Being fit doesn’t necessarily mean that all the men have to look like Brad Pitt and all the women have to look like Kate Upton. The human body has all sorts of glorious variations, colors, and traits. Being healthy enhances every one of them.

Some people aren’t going to be motivated to pursue that level of health. Shaming is a way of getting their asses off the couch. Again, we do tend to go overboard with it, but it’s one of those unpleasant facets of society that has a legitimate biological function. So those who want to live in a world where nobody is shamed for how they look may as well wish that carrots taste like chocolate. It’s not going to happen.

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September 22, 2016 · 6:04 am

Of Commitments and Disappointments

A big part of every meaningful romance is commitment. Without commitment, a romance has no more depth and meaning than a dentist appointment. It’s a big part of the process that comes with loving someone enough to want to sacrifice for them. Being willing to sacrifice, share, and understand is part of the foundation that makes a romance work.

I say all this because we, as a society, do a piss-poor job of fostering commitment. The fact that I’m saying this shortly after my rant on marriage and divorce is not a coincidence. This is an important issue that involves major expectations (some of them flawed) and important life lessons (that are difficult to heed).

I discuss this issue with the full admission that I have a difficult history with commitment. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a steady girlfriend and, without getting overly personal, none of these relationships progressed beyond a certain point. We never lived together. We never shared a bathroom. We never shared a toothbrush. We never really got the chance.

So please don’t think of me as an expert on this issue. I’m not. I’m just someone who deals with commitment out of necessity. As a romance/erotica writer, I have to understand and explore it on some levels. Even without relationship experience, this is surprisingly hard.

There are all sorts of jokes we can make about commitment these days, but there are a few common themes. Like many flawed concepts, these jokes have a clear gender disparity. Commitment joke for men are very different compared to women and it shows in our assumptions about each other.

Most of these jokes and flawed assumptions can be boiled down to a few simple stereotypes. Women want commitment from men. Men want to avoid commitment at every turn. Women want someone to provide for them and cater to their every waking need without question. Men want to be able to put their penis in whoever they want with as little effort as possible.

Are these jokes funny? Hell yeah! I laugh at them all the time. Are these assumptions flawed? Definitely. No man or woman fits perfectly into the stereotype that manifests in every sitcom, Beatles song, and Hugh Grant movie. We are a diverse and varied species, both in appearance and in thought. It’s just too damn hard sifting through all that variety. We just try to make it easier on ourselves by making assumptions.

However, making assumptions is not the problem. It’s when those assumptions turn into expectations that we get problems. We’ve raised an entire generation of children to believe that the world operates by the same rules as Disney movies. Then, they find out how much we lied to them and wonder why they’re so jaded and bitter. What else explains the rise of hippies, hipsters, and reality TV?

For women, the expectations place a heavy burden on men. As young girls, movies and TV give the impression that they’re all princesses and one day they’re dutiful prince will come along. He’ll be big, strong, handsome, and understanding in every way. Most importantly, he’ll be 100-percent dedicated to them and only them. He’s basically a pet who owns a castle and pays for their shit.

For men, it’s just as bad, but in a different context. Growing up, boys (at least those without personality disorders) don’t see themselves as the Prince Charming that the girls want. They see themselves as the heroic underdog, fighting against the odds and overcoming them so they can get the glory, the fame, and the pretty girl that comes with it.

They think that the dynamics of every Rocky and Karate Kid movie ever made are accurate representations of how the world works. They’re destined to be just as disappointed as the girls who think they’re princesses waiting for a Prince Charming.

They think that just being the underdog and having the drive to overcome the odds is enough. Things like talent, chemistry, and understanding are all secondary. They just need to stick to the script, wait for the pretty girl to fall into their arms, and let the credits role.

Given these laughable expectations, is it any wonder that we suck at commitment these days? By we, I don’t just mean me. I’m referring to society as a whole when it comes to romance. Men and women place all these ridiculous expectations on their relationships and how they approach themselves. Then, they get upset when those wholly ridiculous expectations aren’t set.

This is akin to lighting a fire-cracker, holding it in your hand, and getting upset that your hand got burned. We set ourselves up for disappointment, get upset when that disappointment hits, and blame others for it, which in turn gives us more reasons to not commit to one another.

It’s a sad and brutal cycle. It’s a self-inflicted wound that manifests slowly and subtly, torturing us like death by a thousand paper-cuts. It’s at a point where women don’t just expect a Prince Charming and men don’t just expect a pretty girl. They think they’re entitled to it and will gut punch anyone who may deny them.

This is a dangerous mentality that plagues both genders, but being the optimist I am, I see glimmers of hope. I even highlighted one this past summer when an X-men comic showed that the relationship between Cyclops and Jean Grey didn’t have to stick to overplayed Disney tropes. I think an emerging generation is realizing that these old expectations are bullshit and we, as a people, need to refine our understanding of commitment.

There are still extremes. The contract Christian Grey wanted Anastasia Steele to sign in “50 Shades of Grey” shows that we can go overboard with our expectations. At least in Christian Grey’s case, he presented a legally binding document that limited the ambiguity. I don’t think we need to be that legalistic in the real world, but the concept is sound.

First, we acknowledge our expectations. Second, we share them with others and do our best to ensure they’re understood. Finally, we recognize that sometimes we’re the asshole when our expectations aren’t met.

At the end of the day, commitment is a two-way street. Sometimes the lanes in that street are uneven, as I pointed out in my divorce post. That just means we have to navigate that street more carefully. There are going to be differences and not just between the genders. Those differences are bound to change as time goes on. The key, in the end, is to find someone whose differences and expectations match your own. That’s what makes for meaningful commitment and more meaningful romance.

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September 20, 2016 · 6:07 am

How Men and Women (Legally) Screw Each Other (Over)

There are a great many ways for men to offend women. In fact, there are so many that men these days have to walk on egg-shells every day, picking and choosing their words as carefully as possible. They have no idea whether asking a woman about her favorite kind of ice cream will result in a date or a sexual harassment claim.

We’re at a point in our culture where pretty much anything can be construed as sexual innuendo. Take the following sentence:

Sure, I can give you a ride, ma’am.

It seems innocent enough. People probably say this in polite conversation every day. Now, channel you’re inner 13-year-old who just discovered internet porn. That ride isn’t referring to a car and what the man wants to give the woman has nothing to do with traveling. If the guy’s dick had a mouth, it would probably say this:

Sure, I’ll give you a ride, ma’am. Now come over here and sit on my dick while I fuck you!

I’m not saying that happens outside a bad porno. I’m just saying that it’s implied more than we care to admit.

We live in an era where the old patriarchal order is giving way to a new, more equitable way of doing things. By and large, this transition has been very positive. Few outside the clergy and Congress would argue that society is better when both genders get a chance to live their lives as equals instead of adhering to a rigid caste system where the individuals at the top get to decide what, who, and how often they fuck.

As positive as this new way of doing this is, there are a few wrinkles that we’ve yet to iron out. I’m not just talking about the wage gap, spousal abuse, or gender discrimination either. Instead, I want to focus on something a bit more subtle. I want to focus on the other side of the gender imbalance coin that often goes unnoticed.

One of the oldest and most effective ways to offend a woman these days is to tell her to get back in the kitchen and make a sandwich. I don’t know what it is about wanting women to make sandwiches. Making is a sandwich is not that hard. Plus, I kind of like making my own decisions about how much peanut butter I use. That’s just me.

For whatever reason though, the idea of a woman making a man a sandwich is symbolic of that old Father Knows Best mentality that women belong in the kitchen, men belong at work, gays belong in the closet, and sex belongs in a darkened bedroom. We all know that old trope and even most men thinks it’s laughable. However, there’s another unspoken side to that laughable trope that few talk about and isn’t a laughing matter.

Let’s re-examine that old sandwich joke for a moment. Let’s examine it from both sides time. We all know this side from the man:

Shut up and make me a sandwich!

However, what about the side of the woman that says:

Shut up and sign this legal document that entitles me to half your shit and custody of your kids whenever the fuck I feel like it!

Does that sound right? Does that sound like something any woman would say out loud? Of course not. Women wouldn’t say this out loud these days any more than a man would order them to make him a sandwich. However, this dynamic is an inescapable part of modern gender dynamics and it’s making us hate each other way more than we should.

I’ve discussed before on this blog how certain cultural taboos are driving the two genders apart and ruining our sex lives. At least those taboos and quirks aren’t legally enforced. What I just described though does have the full weight of the law behind it. We don’t call it a taboo though. We call it no-fault divorce.

I can already sense some people cringing at the mere mention of the word. Divorce is one of those few concepts that’s hard to make sexy, even for an aspiring erotica/romance writer. I know how ugly it can get. I come from a family that was shaped by divorce. While my family never let it get too ugly, it’s still the ultimate mood-killer that can turn any kind of passion into a toxic (not to mention expensive) mistake.

The modern concept of divorce is actually very new in the grand scheme of things. For most of human civilization, divorce was only granted if there was cause. If a man beat up his wife, cheated on her, or lied to her about the premise of their relationship, then that was grounds for divorce. People couldn’t just get divorced because they felt like it.

That all began to change in the mid to late 20th century. Here in America, the great state of California enacted the first no fault divorce law in 1969, a year that isn’t that ancient when you consider how many people these days recall/complain about it. By 1983, the same year Michael Jackson released Thriller, nearly every state in the union had no-fault divorce laws on the books. When you consider that civilization as we know it is over 4,000 years old, this may as well be the historical equivalent of an abrupt kick to the balls.

This is a painfully apt metaphor because this phenomenon completely changed the dynamics of marriage, especially for men. It shows in the data. According to the Centers for Disease Control, divorce rates really began to spike around the late 60s and early 70s, which is around the same time that no-fault divorce entered the picture.

Granted, there had been spikes before, but these usually came in conjunction with wars and economic upheavals. That’s understandable to some degree. It’s easy to imagine a marriage getting overly strained at a time when bombs are dropping and everybody is flat broke. No-fault divorce took a different path, but this time it screwed over one side more than others.

Once again, it all comes back to economics. I know. It’s right up there with chicken pox and dead kittens in terms of unsexiness, but it’s still the primary driver of damn near everything that guides human civilization.

Using the same caveman logic I’ve used before, we can see the incentives that guided marriage for most of human history. Remember, it wasn’t until recently that people started marrying for love. Most of the time, marriage was a loveless business arrangement. Even without the love though, it had incentives.

Men needed women who could bear children that would inherit their property and/or work the fields. Men can’t have children so they need to provide a home for a woman in which to bear those children. By marrying a man, a woman got a home and a steady supply of care. By marrying a woman, a man got children who could work the fields and inherit the property. It’s a model that served civilization well for a long time…to a point.

The problem with this model is that it had a lot of incentives to keep women in the home and out of the workforce. Remember, this is also an era where most women died in childbirth and there weren’t as many tools with which to maintain the home. Keeping women in the home helped protect them to some degree while the men did the back-breaking labor that their wealthy overlords demanded.

That model needed tweaking in the modern era. It was no longer enough for men to just work the fields and fight wars anymore. The economy became more complex. Opportunities became more varied. As a result, new incentives emerged that drew women into the workforce. Over the course of the 20th century, women became as integral a part of the economy as men. They still aren’t entirely equal in many cases, but compared to 95 percent of human history, it’s pretty damn equal.

Unfortunately, this equality doesn’t extend to divorce. While women are gaining more education and independence, we still have these old taboos and biases that cling to us like ticks. Is a marriage in trouble? It must be the man’s fault. Is a woman unhappy? It must be the man’s fault. Is a home unstable and unhealthy? It must be the man’s fault.

Turn on any sitcom, watch any movie, or listen to any song and the themes are almost all the same. Every problem in every relationship can be heaped on the selfish, arrogant, whiny, insecure, irresponsible, irredeemable man. Men don’t love their children as much. They don’t put as much energy into a relationship. They’re more selfish and stupid. It’s the basis of pretty much every single episode of the Simpsons and Family Guy.

Is it any wonder why, according to the National Parents Organization, that there’s an unmistakable bias in the judicial system towards men in divorce court? Women tend to get custody of the kids, half the man’s assets, and regular alimony payments. On top of that, the man doesn’t even have to cheat on her. She can get this all if she fills out the right paperwork and has a competent divorce attorney. In that sense, the movie Liar Lair may as well be a goddamn documentary.

Go back to the economics for a moment. Look at the incentives as they stand. Then, picture this overly simple conversation between a man and a woman.

Sure! I’ll have sex with you and have your kids. Just sign this legal document that entitles me to half your assets and custody of your kids if I ever feel unhappy enough for any reason whatsoever.

Is it any wonder why marriage rates are declining rapidly among millenials? Is it any wonder why men are reluctant to commit these days? Is it any wonder why some men show hostile attitudes towards women?

This is a problem. This is making it difficult for us to love each other. Men and women can hate each other all we want. Our biological wiring doesn’t give a shit what the law says. It still drives us to want to be together. We can’t turn that drive off, but we can do something about these perverse incentives. We just have to acknowledge they are perverse and realize that there are more effective ways to love one another.

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September 18, 2016 · 9:41 am

Jack Fisher’s Top 5 Simple Pleasures

I’d like to get less elaborate and less controversial for once. It’s Sunday. There’s football to watch, pizza to eat, and beer to drink. The fact that I can do all these things without my pants on is just a nice bonus. This is one of those days where you just sit back, put your feed up, and enjoy the simpler pleasures of life. With that in mind, I’d like to get a little personal again to cap off my weekend.

I’ve found that getting personal on this blog is a lot of fun. It may even be therapeutic. I’ve admitted that I sleep naked. I’ve admitted a great fondness for foreplay. I’ve even told a very personal story about my circumcision. I dare anyone to get more personal than that. This time, I don’t intend to get that personal. For a nice, warm Sunday afternoon, I’d like to reflect on those smaller, lesser known pleasures in life.

I admit it’s somewhat jarring for an aspiring erotica/romance writer. A great deal of my stories revolve around some of life’s most powerful and endearing pleasures like love, lust, and indulgence. These are themes we see in all sorts of literature, going all the way back to ancient mythology and epic poems. There’s a place for these sorts of stories, but there’s also a place for the pleasures that’ll never get their own epic.

With that in mind, here are Jack Fisher’s Top 5 Simple Pleasures for your Sunday Morning.

Number One: Sleeping In on a Rainy Morning

This is one of those underrated pleasures that feels like a confluence of luck. For one, you have to be in a position to actually sleep in. These days, that’s a challenge in and of itself. As Dennis Miller once put it, “The only reason we’re living longer is because we can’t fit death into our schedule.” Despite this, every now and then we find a day to sleep in and when that day comes on a rainy, dreary morning, it’s downright magic.

You see, it’s usually hard to sleep in when the sun is beaming in through your window, loudly proclaiming, “You don’t get to catch up on all the sleep you missed! I won’t let you! Mwhahahaha!” When it’s raining though, that proclamation is muted. Instead, you get the soothing sound of rain pounding against the window. It triggers this instinct to just curl up under the sheets, purr like a kitten, and sleep. It’s just special in ways that words cannot describe.

Number Two: The Feeling of a Freshly Shaven Face/Leg

Here’s one with a slight gender variation, but not a major one. I come from a long line of burly men with thick beards and wild hair. The men in my family kind of pride ourselves on that look. We take pride in our manly facial hair and how manly it looks. The problem is that if we don’t shave for a few weeks, we look like a creepy mountain man who just choked a bear.

So when I shave my face, that smooth feeling is very fleeting. Naturally, that makes the feeling all the more precious. I don’t know for sure that women feel the same way when they shave their legs, but I think that feeling of smooth skin appeals to everyone on some levels. We all like smooth things, whether it’s our coffee or our flesh. That makes it a feeling worth appreciating.

Number Three: Drinking Hot Chocolate and Wrapping Yourself In Warm Blankets on a Cold Winter Day

Ideally, there will come a day where I’ll be such a successful writer, that or I’ll become the personal gigolo to a rich woman, and I’ll retire to a tropical climate. I’m not a fan of winter. I’m not a fan of cold weather, shoveling snow, and not being able to sit on my porch with no shirt on. That said, winter does create opportunities for certain particular pleasures.

Warm blankets and hot chocolate are the alpha and omega of these feelings. I’ve had days where I’ve spent one too many hours in the blinding cold. I’m shivering. I’m sore. I’m in no condition to do anything. So I brew up some hot chocolate, get some extra blankets, and curl up in front of my TV. It’s a special feeling that warms me up in more than one way.

Number Four: A Satisfying Ending to a Book/Movie/Video Game You’ve Been Enjoying

Let’s face it. It’s rare that our expectations are met, let alone exceeded in this world. We all have to learn at some point that the world isn’t fair and it isn’t going to cater to our whims. Some learn this lesson slower than others, but there are times when it feels like the world throws us a bone.

I feel it whenever I’ve reached the end of a long, satisfying book. I feel it when I see a really good movie for the first time. I feel it when I reach the end of a video game and feel that every bit of effort is worth it. I felt that the first time I saw the Deadpool movie. I felt it the first time I played games like Mass Effect 3 and Final Fantasy X. It’s like reaching the top of a mountain. It’s a great feeling and the fact it doesn’t happen often makes it all the more enjoyable.

Number Five: That First Bite Into A Freshly Baked Cookie/Doughnut/Slice of Pizza

We all have to eat. We all need food to survive. Some enjoy it more than others. Some enjoy it too much. It’s a lot like sex in that respect. Some see it as just a biological process and some turn it into a goddamn religious experience. Also like sex, food has certain situations where it’s extra blissful.

For me, that involves the first bite. We all know that feeling. It’s when we’re at our most hungry. It’s when the food is at its most fresh. It’ll never be as savory and we’ll never want it more before that bite. When it comes, it just feels special. It feels like jumping into a pool on a hot summer day. Sure, we’ll finish our meal and fulfill our basic needs for survival, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the hell out of it.

So those are my Top 5 simple pleasures. I’m sure there are dozens more. I’m sure my list is very different from that of others. So if you have your own list, please share it! What do you consider to be a great simple pleasure that just makes your day a little better? I’d love to know. Life is complicated enough. Simple pleasures are a good way to make it meaningful.

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