Tag Archives: human sexuality

The War On Horny Women (And Why We Keep Fighting It)

People have been waging wars since the dawn of civilization. These never-ending struggles have people clash over ideas, concepts, and identities that cannot and will not be resolved. Some of these conflicts have literally reshaped society and the world we live in. They are a fundamental, and at times inescapable, part of civilization.

Then, there are the subtle, less obvious wars that we never win, but insist on fighting. These wars rarely have epic battles or iconic names like Waterloo, D-Day, or Super Bowl XLII. On some level, we know these wars can’t be won. We know we inflict a lot of collateral damage by fighting them. We’ve just been doing it for so long that we don’t know how not to fight it.

The war, in this case, involves horny women. Yes, that’s a war too. I know I dedicated an entire post to documenting the war on horny men. Even though I am a man with functioning genitals and a healthy sex drive, I don’t deny that women experience plenty of horniness, as well. I also don’t deny that those same women have endured a war that has spanned generations, cultures, and rap battles.

Despite not being a woman, I think it’s important to touch on that struggle, especially since recent scandals and trends in our sexual culture have taken the war to uncharted territory for both genders. For women, in particular, the conflict is far different from the one they’re used to fighting.

Anyone who has studied history, or just listened to Pat Robertson for more than five minutes, understands that civilization hasn’t exactly been kind to the female libido. For a good chunk of human history, a horny woman had exceedingly limited options.

If they weren’t having sex with their husband, who they probably didn’t even choose, then they weren’t having much sex. For the most part, a man could get away with having a few mistresses or seeing a prostitute every now and then. If a woman dared stray from her wifely duties, though, the punishments were severe.

Even today, a woman sleeping around on her husband is dangerous in some parts of the world. Even when it doesn’t get you killed, it can ruin your life in many other ways that men rarely deal with. It’s not fair. It’s certainly not in line with notions of gender equality. That’s the problem with wars, though. Things like logic, justice, and compassion are the first to go.

Why is this war even being fought in the first place, though? Moreover, why are women dealing with a different war than men? Well, there are many answers to that question and most of them will piss off most feminists, egalitarians, or people who just value any semblance of fairness.

I’ve touched on it before, to some extent, but the foundation for the war on horny women has its roots in a mix of biology and economics. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species in that each gender bears distinct traits that set them apart, beyond the presence or absence of certain organs. However, the trait that most distinguishes women is their ability to have children.

It’s a beautiful, but critical skill that any species needs to survive. A great deal of energy goes into giving incentives for humans to make babies and some of those incentives are pretty damn powerful. However, because of the biology involved, there are circumstances that set a horny woman apart from a horny man.

In terms of raw numbers, horny women are at a evolutionary disadvantage. No matter how horny they are or how much sex they have, they can only bear one or a few children at the same time over the course of nine months. Men, on the other hand, can impregnate dozens of women and sire a much larger volume of offspring.

From an evolutionary perspective, it’s like one person has a butter knife and the other has a machine gun. One tool is just inherently better at doing more damage. Now, if men and women are living in some hippie commune where nobody cares about which kid belongs to who and nobody has to deal with messy child custody hearings, then a horny woman doesn’t have much issues.

Unfortunately, hippie communes are few, far between, and prone to poor hygiene and clogged toilets. Much of our civilization was built on complex, hierarchical societies that required men to work the fields, women to care for children, and a certain assurance that the kids you had were yours.

Before the days of Maury Povich, though, the only way to be sure of that was to be sure that a woman was faithful from her wedding night onward. Since people rarely trust the horniness of their spouses or the men who may seduce them, this led to traditions and taboos that demanded modesty and subjugation for women.

It didn’t matter how horny or sexually unsatisfied they were. From the perspective of society, it was more important that these women remained “untainted” so that men could be sure their kids were legitimate and there were no nasty diseases, a common problem that plagued ancient societies to no end. It wasn’t as much a war of misogyny as it was a war of practicality.

Even after we learned to treat disease, control conception, and test for paternity, the idea of a horny woman is still taboo. There are some that even claim that promiscuous women bring down entire civilizations. These are not claims that anyone should take seriously, but they do reflect the ongoing struggles of this war.

The idea of a woman being horny, sexual, and feeling no shame about it just seems wrong to many people. They see that and they see an affront to how they believe society should work. Never mind the fact that society is always changing and technology promises to accelerate that change. We, men and women alike, are still stuck in this war-like mentality when it comes to horny women.

It often manifests in subtle ways. Watch any slasher movie, sitcom, or poorly-scripted reality show and you’ll see a similar theme. The horny, promiscuous women are the villains. They are an evil, corruptive force that undermines all that is good and noble. Why else would Regina George be so easy to despise?

Beyond the media, female horniness is often presented as something that has to be contained and hidden. Unlike men, who are expected to fight the wars and work the fields, the standards for women are different. A “good woman” is someone who doesn’t sleep around, flash her tits, or show off her thong to an entire basketball team. A “good woman” stays home, has babies, and dresses in a way that doesn’t attract horny men.

That’s why modesty is conveyed as such a virtue for women, but not so much for men. That’s also why exceedingly repressive societies segregate women from men. The possibility that someone might get horny and might act on that horniness is seen as a bomb going off in house full of puppies. It’s just that terrifying.

However, despite this centuries-old war, ripe with traditions and taboos, women still get horny. Women still want to have sex and not just to make babies, but to enjoy the toe-curling pleasure that comes along with it. No amount of modesty, shame, or scorn can stop it. That says a lot about the strength of horny women. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I can’t help but admire that.

As much an optimist I am, at heart, I don’t see the war ending anytime soon. Like the war against horny men, certain taboos and insecurities still linger. Some are cracking, though. Just recently, Mayim Bialik from “The Big Bang Theory,” generated a lot of criticism for daring to claim that women should dress more modestly in order to avoid harassment, as though horny men aren’t that determined.

Naturally, albeit unfairly, she got accused of blaming the victim for the misdeeds of horny men. The idea that horny women are somehow responsible for crimes committed against them is rightfully absurd, but the notion that horny women need to contain themselves while some men can still push the boundaries is beyond absurd.

As I said at the beginning, the basis of the war on horny women is neither fair nor logical. Compared to the war on horny men, though, it’s just unfair and illogical in a very different way. There reasons and justifications for the war are changing and will likely continue to change, especially as certain medical advancements emerge.

Whatever the change, though, the war will continue to rage. Horny women will still be considered this taboo force of chaos that could potentially undermine the whole of society. This may be a taboo that’s impossible to break, but that may not matter much in the long run.

No matter how the war is fought, whether by religious dogma or excessive shaming, it won’t turn off that fundamental drive to make love or to enjoy good orgasm. In the long run, the horny women will win, if only because the horny men will want to hang out with them more. I’m not one to take sides in a war, but if my sexy novels can act as battle cries, I’m happy to do my part.

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The War On Horny Men (And Why It’s Doomed To Fail)

I won’t deny it. Men do stupid things when they’re horny. That’s just a cold, hard fact. I realize I’m inviting any number of dick jokes by saying that, but it’s still worth saying. It’s partly because of that fact that there’s a market for the erotica/romance novels I write in the first place so I have more appreciation for it than most.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where facts are about as relevant as a giraffe’s shoe size. It doesn’t matter how true or vindicated something is, be it a scientific theory or a documented observation. Unless it makes people feel a certain way or allows them to push some sort of agenda, it either doesn’t matter or gets twisted to suit a purpose.

When it comes to horny men, though, evolution and global warming got nothing on them. It’s not so much that they exist that’s the problem. It’s that they are now the face of all that is wrong and evil in the world.

Look at any controversy or social issue in recent years, from Hollywood scandals to trends in feminism, and chances are a horny man is involved and that man isn’t the good guy in that narrative. I’ve seen it become more magnified in recent years, but in a sense, there has always been a war over horny men. It takes many forms and has gone to disturbing extremes, but it rarely succeeds in the long run.

In the past, you could argue that battling horny men was a frustrating, but necessary endeavor to some extent. Up until the 20th century, the status of women in society and concerns over the spread of debilitating diseases gave society a valid reason for wanting to temper men’s desire to bone everything in sight. A society full of diseases and children without fathers is not a stable society.

On top of that, organized religion had often tried to play a part in that war. In general, they espouse traditions that value modesty and restraint. Naturally, some try to take it too far. Some have gone so far as to create a special circle of Hell to endlessly punish those who give in to readily to their horniness.

There are time when it’s worth questioning the motivations of organized religion in this war, though. As I’ve pointed out before, religion has an incentive to want people to bone only for procreation.

For one, they want all that pent up energy reserved for helping out at the church/temple/mosque/synagog. Second, they know that children of adherents tend to adopt their parents’ religion so they want them making as many babies as possible. More children means more adherents. More adherents means more money. Even when deities are involved, it often comes back to money.

However, as the influence of religion has faded and the status of women has improved, the war on horny men has taken a very different form. In some respects, it has been escalating lately. It’s not just a matter of horny men cheating on their wives with their secretary anymore. Horny men have basically become the de-facto enemy that are determined to hold women, minorities, and society back.

It’s horny men who become sleazy Hollywood producers that try to get sex out of ambitious young women. It’s horny men who demand that the women in comic books, video games, and movies be beautiful, thereby contributing to the objectification and degradation of women.

I won’t get into the issues I have with the concept of objectification, but it’s becoming increasingly taboo for a horny man to like and appreciate sexual imagery. It has become especially taboo to voice that appreciation, so much so that some countries are looking to criminalize men who cat-call women. That’s right. It one day might be a crime to say how sexy you find a beautiful woman.

For an aspiring erotica/romance writer, it’s a distressing trend. I get some of the logic behind it. Men still commit the majority of the sexual assaults in this world. That’s another cold, hard fact that can’t be denied.

It’s also a fact that sexual assault, as a whole, is on the decline. That’s a good thing, but thanks to the rise of mass media, terrible stories about sexual assault are easier to come by. It’s even easier to sensationalize, sometimes to the detriment of the truth. Whatever the statistics say, though, there’s still a horny man with poor impulse control at the center of it all.

At the moment, it’s not illegal to be a horny man or express some of that horiness. We don’t live in the days of John Harvey Kellogg and most horny men have access to abundant free porn, giving them an outlet for their horiness. However, even with all that free porn and a lack of uptight religious figures demanding that men not pleasure themselves, horny men are still subject to shame and ridicule.

If you like your female superheroes wearing chain mail bikinis, then congratulations! You’re a sexist, misogynistic pig.

If you like admiring beautiful women and go to strip clubs to exercise that admiration, then congratulations! You’re a sexist, misogynistic pig.

If you like having sex with beautiful women and seek to do so with every resource available to you, then congratulations! You’re still a sexist, misogynistic pig.

Are you seeing a trend, here? Whether it takes the form of porn or involves casual flirting, there seems to be no way around it. Any effort a man makes to get with a beautiful woman, sexually or otherwise, is somehow vilified. Just the act of wanting to sleep with a beautiful woman can now be construed as sexist, misogynistic, or whatever the hopelessly outraged can scream at the top of their lungs.

A man just looking for sex or some kind of sexual outlet garners no sympathy. Even a man looking for love is somehow prone to ridicule, as evidenced by the prominence of the beta male in shows like “The Big Bang Theory.” A man can’t ask for sex because he’ll get accused of being a creep or worse. He can’t even admit he wants sex because that somehow means he sees women as glorified sex objects.

There seems to be no way around it. No matter what a man does, he’s practically doomed himself and his reputation for daring to admit that he’s that horny. If he just masturbates to satisfy his desires, he’s a loser. If he eagerly pursues sex, then he’s a creep. If he just tries to repress it all, then he’s a dork who can’t get laid. Unless he’s a rock star with a foot-long dick, the average horny man has no hope.

This is an issue and it affects both genders because both genders are wired to seek love, sex, and everything in between. Nature, itself, gives us plenty of reasons, considering the various health benefits of orgasms. All those pursuits are effectively undermined if one side is overtly shamed for wanting something so basic and beautiful.

I’m not saying horny men don’t do stupid things. They most certainly do. I’m also not saying horny men don’t do heinous things too. They do that too and it’s become major news. People should be mindful of crimes like sexual assault and issues like consent. The problem is that the outrage over scandals and sex in the mass media is overshadowing the basic desire behind it.

Men, and humans in general, are sexual creatures. No matter how much people try to temper sex in society, whether by forcing women to cover their faces or designing video game characters to be less sexy, it’s impossible to subvert basic biology.

That’s the ultimate tragedy of the war on horny men. It can’t succeed in making men less horny. It can only ever succeed in making men feel guilty about feeling something that they’re hard-wired by biology and evolution to want, pursue, and enjoy. Guilt can keep us from stealing a cookie as a kid, but it can be downright debilitating if heaped on someone to excess.

All that guilt can make people angry, depressed, desperate, hopeless, and irrational. For a man that is already irrationally horny, that can be dangerous and frustrating. That kind of mentality is not going to help in efforts to curb sexual violence. If anything, it’s going to make those efforts even harder.

For now, I don’t see the war on horny men abating, nor do I see one side claiming victory over the other. I’ll just say that the hostilities are doing a lot more harm than good. They’re hindering those seeking love, sex, and all the good stuff that comes with it. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, that’s a dangerous trend.

To those who still insist on fighting this war, claiming horny men are the bane of all societies in all times, I have one simple message for you. For several centuries, the Catholic Church wielded immense power throughout Europe. If even they couldn’t stop horny men, despite being armed with the Spanish Inquisition, then what chance do you have?

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What “Big Mouth” Gets Right (And Wrong) About Puberty

When you’re a platform that has created shows like “House of Cards” and “BoJack Horseman,” the bar for quality is higher than most. That’s the benefit/burden of being successful. Say what you will about how Netflix has evolved over the years, it has produced some amazing content in an age that some call the third golden age of TV.

Then, there are shows like “Big Mouth.” I’m not saying that Netflix is lowering the bar for the sake of balance, but I’m still struggling to make sense of this show. When I heard about it, especially with comedian Nick Kroll attached to it, I hoped I had found another show to pass the time in between seasons of “BoJack Horseman.” I’m won’t say I was disappointed, but I do feel like I took the quality of Netflix content for granted.

I’m not going to say that “Big Mouth” is a bad show, but I won’t make excuses for it. It’s the kind of show that goes out of its way to be crude for all the wrong reasons and not in the traditions of “South Park” either. It doesn’t go for the cheap laugh or even the mid-priced laugh. It’s a show that just goes out of its way to sensationalize teenagers going through puberty.

On paper, it sounds like a great concept. Going through puberty is wrought with all sorts of craziness, some funny and some embarrassing as hell. I’ve shared some on this blog, including a story about the most awkward boner I’ve ever gotten.

Big Mouth” tries to extract humor from similarly awkward situations. It takes a lot of swings and it misses a lot of pitches, but it does manage to hit a few balls here and there. Yes, I also mean that in a literal sense. This show does resort to that kind of humor.

It may not be the kind of high-concept insight you get from an episode of “Rick and Morty,” but it does at least try to send a message about the horrors of puberty. Even if the product is crude and exceedingly exaggerated, that message is relevant, so much so that it’s worth talking about.

I honestly didn’t expect to write about “Big Mouth” in any capacity, especially when writing about sexy memories from my college years is so much more interesting. However, after gritting my teeth and watching the show, I feel the horrors of puberty are worth talking about, especially with ideas about toxic masculinity being so prevalent lately.

Big Mouth” doesn’t attempt to wade too deeply into those kinds of issues. It’s too crude and too crass a show to even attempt that kind of commentary. However, it does do a good job at showing just how powerful and, at times, overwhelming that flood of hormones can be to a young person. For some, it’s downright traumatic.

Throughout the show, the main characters, Nick Birch, Andrew, Glouberman, and Jessi Glaser, are often hounded by literal manifestations of a monster that personifies their hormones. It’s never clear whether the monster is invisible or not, but this creature basically says everything the FCC won’t allow teenagers to say out loud.

For the boys, the monster is named Maurice and his advice usually amounts to things like, “Go ahead and jerk off!” or “Look at her tits!” or “Too bad, buddy! You’re getting a boner!” I’m not going to lie. That monster kind of triggered some awkward moments from my teenage years where I found myself thinking thoughts too crude, even for my novels.

The girls aren’t spared from that awkwardness either. There’s another hormone monster every bit as crude, but reserved for female characters. Her name is Connie and she embodies all the alpha bitch, hyper-feminine extremes that Sam Kinison ever joked about. She’s emotional, dramatic, and demands that every female character be confused or overwhelmed by her body. That’s basically puberty in a nutshell.

In a sense, “Big Mouth” is unique in its balanced approach to showing how boys and girls both struggle to endure puberty. That’s rare in most coming of age stories that either focus on horny guys trying to get laid or bitchy girls trying to get popular. This show doesn’t give a pass to either gender.

This is what “Big Mouth” actually gets right about puberty, to some extent. It’s not just overwhelming and frustrating for one gender. The male experience is unique. They have to deal with constant erections and that annoying voice in their head urging them to think dirty thoughts about anything that even looks like a beautiful women.

Since I’m a man who has more than his share of bad memories from my awkward teen years, that’s a sentiment I can appreciate. However, it’s the female perspective in “Big Mouth” that I found most intriguing. The idea that girls are just as freaked out about the changes in their bodies, minds, and everything in between shouldn’t be such a novel concept, but this show goes out of its way to belabor it.

Now, I don’t know for sure that the girls I went to high school with had an actual hormone monster on their shoulder, telling them to cry irrationally at a moment’s notice or lash out at anyone who dared to look at them the wrong way. It’s just somewhat refreshing to think that teen awkwardness knows no gender.

If gender balance is a strength in “Big Mouth,” though, it’s biggest weakness is portraying how the characters deal with it. The show is so over-the-top with the extremes of puberty that it’s hard to glean a meaningful story from it all.

It’s not just that puberty takes the form of actual hormone monsters that sound like uncensored commentary from a bad porno. It’s not that the show makes puberty sound overly traumatic either. There’s never a sense that the characters, even Jessi and Nick, actually grow through the experience. That’s kind of a big oversight with puberty.

From a purely biological standpoint, puberty is the maturation of a child into adulthood. That maturation part is never even hinted at in the show. After watching the first season of “Big Mouth,” it’s hard to imagine any of the characters involved growing into functioning adults.

In the real world, puberty tends to bring out the best or worst in a person. If someone starts becoming an asshole in puberty, they usually stay that way into adulthood. If someone shows an ability to deal with it and grow, as a person, then they’re usually in good shape. It can even get pretty hilarious when both kinds of people have to deal with one another. Unfortunately, we don’t get that with “Big Mouth.”

I won’t go so far as to say the show is terrible. It does have its moments and some of those moments are genuinely funny or insightful. It is, as the end of the day, an overly comedic take on the rigors of puberty. It doesn’t try to be coy or deceptive. It doesn’t try to use colorful metaphors involving flowers or cucumbers. It gets right down the dirty, gritty details.

I can see the show appealing to those who suffered more during puberty than most. I can even see the show appealing to “South Park” and “Family Guy” fans. It’s hardly a guide or a warning with respect to the rigors of puberty, but it reflects a common truth. Being a teenager sucks and puberty is a big reason why.

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In Memory Of Hugh Hefner And The Sex Positivity He Inspired

On September 28, 2017 the world lost a true champion of all things sexy. Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy and a sexual pioneer who helped loosened the panties of an uptight world, is dead at 91. Everyone from strippers to gigolos to sluts to studs to aspiring erotica/romance writers are all in a state of mourning.

Playboy may not be as prominent or taboo as it used to be, especially in the era of internet porn, but it’s impossible to overstate its influence on the sexual landscape we see today. Compared to where it was and the world Hefner grew up in, what he accomplished is almost as impressive as the number of hot blondes he slept with.

My generation, the latte-loving, overly-sensitive, debt ridden millennials, will likely never appreciate Hefner. As I write this, there are probably a few young people out there just shrugging their shoulders, surprised that Hefner hadn’t died years ago. I hope they’ll take a moment to appreciate how Hefner changed the culture around them. Without him, they might think being horny is a symptom of a brain tumor.

There’s a lot I can say about Henfer, but the outpouring of celebrities and former Playboy Playmates has already said it much better than I ever could. I’ll even admit that I probably still have some old back-issues of Playboy magazine gathering dust in my closet. I might just open them up again, if only to pay tribute to the man who dared to think that sex could be a positive thing.

That, more than anything, including hot blondes and working in pajamas, should be part of Hefner’s greatest legacies. It’s a legacy that allows aspiring erotica/romance writers like me to believe that it is possible to craft hot, sexy stories that will titillate others for all the right reasons. Sex, be it an erotica novel or a nude centerfold, can be a good thing.

Considering that Hugh Hefner grew up in a conservative, Methodist family, it’s pretty remarkable/ironic that he became the visionary for a sexual revolution that went beyond the free-loving hippie movement that burned out. He lived long enough to see the rise of hippies, the decline of pubic hair and the porno mustache, and the mainstreaming of internet porn. The man saw a lot, but lived a lot too.

Between the sexy parties he threw at the famous Playboy Mansion to the careers he launched, including sexy icons like Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson, Hef lived a life that embodied an ideal. Like a superhero for the horny, he dared to make a man’s sexual fantasy a reality. Whether you’re disgusted or envious of that life, there’s no denying that Hef liked to enjoy himself.

He lived that life knowing that there would always be a certain contingent of angry, uptight prudes who see anything sexy or fun as a ghastly affront to all things good and decent. These people, be they religious conservatives or humorless politically correct asshats, will never be able to say they lived as interesting a life as Hefner. They’ll also never be able to undo the sex-positive movement that he helped inspire.

When I talk about sex-positivity, I’m not just referring to the counterpoints to those who favor the sexual morality espoused by celibate priests or certain female superheroes who embody that spirit. I’m referring to a mindset and a cultural attitude that sees sexuality as something healthy, positive, and good.

That’s something society needed back in Hef’s day where anything that didn’t match the sitcoms of the day was considered deviant. That’s something we need today when certain segments of society seem to be getting more sexually uptight. That’s something our species needs, as a whole, if only our evolutionary inclinations to survive and reproduce.

Sex and how society treats sexuality had a long, sordid history of taboos, trends, and panics that can lead to some pretty disturbing attitudes, as John Harvey Kellogg demonstrated.  It will likely continue to be controversial, whether it’s overly sexy ads or advances in sex toys. What Hugh Hefner did was focus on the positives of sex, showing just how beautiful and fun they could be.

I don’t doubt that, over the course of the next few weeks, there will be people claiming that Hefner deserves no praise. They’ll blame him for advocating a hedonistic lifestyle, denigrating women, promoting toxic masculinity, and making baby Jesus cry. These people are entitled to their opinions, but not to any credibility. If they prefer to live in an unsexy world enforced by Vatican decrees, that’s their business.

That doesn’t change the fact that Hugh Hefner made the world a sexier place. He made it okay to admire the beauty of the female body. People forget that it wasn’t that long ago that the female form was looked upon with disgust. Some parts of the world still do. Some are even trying to regress us back to a periods where the sight of a sexy woman provokes outrage.

Those efforts are destined to fail in the long run because Hugh Hefner, as outrageous a lifestyle he lived, understood the power of sexuality and the inherent desire to celebrate its beauty. Our desires, lusts, and passions aren’t going away anytime soon, no matter how much the religious or politically correct asshats whine about it.

Moreover, Hefner understood how to convey those sex-positive attitudes in a way that shattered taboos and overpowered the shame that those same asshats had used for centuries. It’s telling when famous models like Kendra Wilkinson will come out and praise Hefner for giving women a chance to celebrate their beauty and become stars in their own right.

“A lot of women, so many women, thousands of women are so appreciative of Hef,” the Playboy model, 32, exclusively told Us Weekly in May 2016. “They are so happy that Hef gave them their chance and became who they are because of him.”

There will still be radical feminists and celibate religious officials who cry immorality or oppression. It doesn’t make the sentiments of those who knew and loved Hef less sincere. The man lived life to an extent that exceeds the wildest fantasies of the horniest men. For that, he deserves respect and praise. He will be missed dearly.

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Using Sex Robots (As Therapy)

It feels like I joke about sex robots every chance I get on this blog. In my defense, this is a blog that sells sexy stories, promotes steamy romance, and dares to imagine a future with bionic genitalia. Make no mistake, though. sex robots are a serious issue.

Sure, they’re easy to make light of when they still look like over-sized blow-up dolls with tits, but they are steadily becoming more advanced. They’re already entering the sex industry, albeit in a limited capacity. There are actual companies working on them, as we speak, and for good reason. The demand for sex is like the demand for water. It’s a market that can always be counted on and one Amazon hasn’t monopolized yet.

I’ve talked a bit about how sex robots might impact us, but I always assume that impact will be far greater than anything an aspiring erotica/romance writer can imagine. Hell, I doubt even movies can imagine it, although some like “Ex Machina” make a concerted effort.

I intend to keep discussing the breadth of that impact on this blog in all sorts of ways, including those that’ll make people horny as hell and others that’ll make people more uncomfortable than a vegan at a butcher shop. In any case, it’s worth belaboring both the upheavals and the opportunities that functional sex robots will present.

Sure, there will always be truly deranged people who will become more deranged by presence and use of sex robots. Those people are always a minority, though. Like Charles Manson, they’re the disturbing exceptions that make the news, but not the norm.

Beyond the extremes, though, there’s another aspect of sex robots that I think warrants discussion and one that actually builds on other issues I’ve brought up on this blog, primarily those involving the challenges most people face in forging a healthy sex life in the modern era. If the failure of celebrity couples are any indication, then those challenges are more daunting than we think.

To illustrate the extent of those issues, take a moment to think about the number of people you know who have sought therapy or counseling in some form. Chances are you know more than one. I certainly do. Hell, I challenge anyone to find someone who doesn’t know anyone who has sought therapy.

According to the American Psychological Association, approximately half of American households had someone who’d sought therapy in some form or another. That data was gathered in 2004, though, and pointed out that some couldn’t even seek therapy, due to a lack of insurance. That’s a lot of therapy and a lot of people who need it that aren’t getting it.

Now, take a moment to consider how much of that therapy involved someone’s sex life. While I doubt it applied to every case, I imagine there’s a significant portion of psychological issues that are tied to sex. The fact that sexual dysfunction is so prevalent leads me to believe that more than a few psychological issues are at work here.

Hell, it’s practically part of our popular culture. Watch any sitcom, any movie that doesn’t involve talking animals, or any novel that involves a Biff Tannen/Regina George knock-off and you’ll see it. A man or a woman has an unsatisfying, frustrating, or non-existent sex life. It is the source of a lot of problems, plots, jokes, gags, and obstacles.

Enter the intelligent, interactive, fully-functional sex robot. What does that do to therapy and the reasons we seek it? I’m not just asking that because I want you to picture a world full of advanced sex robots that look and function like Jenna Jameson and Channing Tatum on crack. Granted, I always want people thinking those kinds of sexy thoughts on this blog, but I want people to keep their panties on and look at the bigger picture.

Think, for a moment, how much stress and frustration most people experience when dealing with their sexual desires. It doesn’t matter that it’s the 21st century, internet porn is everywhere, and women are legally allowed to have sex that doesn’t involve making babies. People who aren’t celebrities, supermodels, or as attractive as either struggle to satisfy those desires.

It can and does take a psychological and physical toll on people. If the documented health benefits of orgasms are any indication, then nature wants us to have plenty of sex. Not getting it is like denying the body and mind key nutrients. Without it, there will be issues that go beyond bad moods and morning wood.

At the moment, it’s not easy for a lot of people to explore their sexuality and actually engage in meaningful sexual exchanges. Between uptight religious attitudes, rampant slut shaming, and woefully unequal gender dynamics, finding an adequate sexual outlet is not like going to the grocery store to buy some snacks when you’re hungry. It also comes with all sorts of risks, including disease, pregnancy, and toxic relationships.

The sheer breadth of this difficulty is a major driving force behind the sexual frustrations of many men and women, alike. It’s hard enough just articulating those desires, even to a therapist that is legally obligated to never tell another living soul about your clown fetish. Actually exploring those feelings and achieving some level of sexual gratification is more difficult.

Sex robots don’t just change that situation. They don’t just rewrite the rules of the sexual playbook. They throw the playbook out, shoot the people who wrote it, and use their notes as toilet paper. Sex robots are destined to upend the sex industry and already are in some parts of the world. The impact they’ll have on therapy, though, may be just as great, if not underrated.

Picture a scenario, if you can, of a young man or women going into a therapist’s office in the not-so-distant future. In that future, sex robots are a mature technology in the sense that robots are nearly indistinguishable from humans. They look, feel, and sound real. They have a measure of intelligence, but it’s not much greater than that of the virtual assistants we already use today.

Knowing this, the therapist sits the man or woman down and talks to them. They find out quickly that this person is dealing with depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness on a level that’s beyond that of most people. As part of the treatment, the therapist provides them with a specially-programmed sex robot. It’s here where the implications become both daunting and seamy.

Unlike the traditional sex robots that ordinary horny people use, or the sex bots you see in an “Austin Powers” movies, these sex robots are programmed with a specific purpose. They’re not just there to give their patients a good orgasm. They can get that from porn or sex toys. The sex robot, in this case, will have a more intimate function.

First, they’re molded to look like someone that the patient feels strong sexual attraction for. That may require some kinky tweaks, especially for those who have crushes on Jennifer Lawrence. However, that’s both doable and kind of necessary. There are already sex dolls molded after porn stars. That same process can be applied to sex robots.

Second, the robot is programmed with a specific personality profile that takes into account the patient’s mental issues. It won’t be enough to just get them off. They’ll need to create an emotional bond with them so that they can help them cope with those issues.

Maybe that involves a sex robots that’s a kinky, assertive dominatrix to help someone with authority issues. Maybe it’s a sex robot that’s meek and submissive to help someone with poor self-esteem. Maybe it’s a sex robot that’s just extra-durable to help someone who’s a real nymphomaniac. There are many ways a sex robot can help people is what I’m saying.

That process may not always include kinky sex. The sex robot may just be programmed to provide some sort of emotional intimacy that the person lacks or can’t find with another person. They could even be programmed to satisfy those who suffer from physical deformities, paralysis, or chronic disease. Thanks to these robots, everyone can have a physically and emotionally satisfying sexual experienced.

The possibilities are limited only by the extent to which a sex robot can be programmed for a specific purpose. Given how good we are at customizing our phones, cars, and even weapons, it’s very likely that we’ll do the same with sex robots for therapeutic and non-therapeutic use.

On the therapy side, though, those possibilities have the greatest implications. It’s one thing for normal, healthy people to enjoy regular, satisfying sex with a robot. It’s quite another when people who would otherwise be crippled or hindered by mental illness are suddenly able to function again and achieve some measure of happiness.

Think, for a moment, what that means for society. It elevates sex robots beyond a mere novelty or kink. Suddenly, they become a means to treat people who never would’ve gotten treatment otherwise. In addition, those who’ve lost loved ones, become ill, or just can’t attract those cute cheerleader types that gets their blood flowing can enjoy intimate, satisfying experiences.

In terms of quality of life, it’s a huge boost. In terms of how we approach our sex lives and sexuality, in general, that’s a bit harder to quantify, even for a mind as lurid as mine. Having a society where everyone, man and woman alike, is sexually satisfied is kind of unprecedented.

It’s really hard to know just how such a society functions or even if it can function. Throughout history, our species has struggled to channel and manage our sex drive. The extent to which we have so many sexual taboos and asinine double standards just proves that the struggle is still ongoing.

Modern medicine, contraception, and even the mainstreaming of the porn industry has helped make sex less dirty, to some extent. We still have a long way to go before full sexual satisfaction is achievable to everyone, not just the beautiful, the popular, and the mentally healthy.

Sex robots could very well be the most critical tool society creates in helping people achieve a level of emotional, physical, and mental satisfaction. In a world where everyone is that satisfied, how will we conduct ourselves? How will we interact with each other? It’s impossible to say, but if writing sexy novels has taught me anything, it’s that few things are more therapeutic than a satisfying sex life.

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Breaking Down The Breakup Between Anna Faris And Chris Pratt

The life of a celebrity compared to the life of a non-celebrity couldn’t be more different without involving aliens, unicorns, and pet monkeys. That’s also a major reason why we’re so fascinated by celebrity culture. Say what you will about the crazy headlines of the glorified toilet paper known as tabloids. They still get our attention and, as I’ve pointed out before, that’s the most valuable currency in our economy.

As such, a high-profile celebrity couple breaking up is a big deal. From a celebrity culture and deranged tabloid perspective, it’s like crack mixed with meth mixed with heroin. It’s as addictive as it is debilitating. It crushes whatever fairy tale narrative we had playing out in our collective psyches and making us question whether love is truly real.

Now, I don’t doubt the allure of celebrity romances. These are people with a lot money and power at their fingertips. These are people who could ask a random stranger to smear pudding on their chest and have a hungry loin lick it up and they’ll do it with a smile.

They have every conceivable resource to make their relationships the sort of thing that Disney movies are built on. How is it that they keep failing? That’s not just a perception thing either. In terms of raw numbers, celebrity marriages fail at nearly twice the rate of non-celebrity marriages. With all that money and power, how is that even possible?

Well, last week we were reminded that no matter how many fairy tales fever dreams a celebrity romance may inspire, it can still fail. The latest involves Chris Pratt and Anna Faris, one of Hollywood’s highest profile celebrity couples. After an eight-year marriage, they’ve announced that they’re legally separating.

Even I admit, this one caught me by surprise. I’ve been a fan of Chris Pratt since his day as the chubby dork, Andy Dwyer, on “Parks and Recreation.” I’ve also had a soft spot for Anna Faris since her colorful performance in the horror spoof, “Scary Movie.” The fact that those two got together and stayed married for nearly a decade was just a nice bonus.

However, much like the end of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the high-profile nature of the marriage always made it subject to scrutiny. Most recently, there had been rumors that Pratt had cheated on Faris with Jennifer Lawrence, his co-star in their movie, “Passengers.”

I tend not to give much weight to such rumors, even when Jennifer Lawrence is involved. That hasn’t stopped some people from blaming Ms. Lawrence for the breakup, but that’s to be expected. Brad Pitt had been subject to similar rumors before his breakup with Angelina Jolie.

In general, it’s fairly safe to assume that, unless there’s high-definition sex tape, those rumors are only partially true at most. Since nobody other than Pratt and Faris know the full story behind their breakup, I’m not going to assume that cheating or infidelity was involved. According to Pratt’s own statement, the breakup was mutual.

“Anna and I are sad to announce we are legally separating. We tried hard for a long time, and we’re really disappointed. Our son has two parents who love him very much and for his sake we want to keep this situation as private as possible moving forward.”

For now, I’m going to take Mr. Pratt at is word, but assume there were other dynamics at work that neither he nor Faris care to share with an unforgiving public. I’m not even going to speculate on what those dynamics can be. Instead, I’m going to step back and look at the bigger picture here. If nothing else, I’d like to give think fans of both Pratt and Faris, as well as fans of any celebrity couple, a sense of perspective.

Much of that perspective boils down to one inescapable truth. Celebrities live crazy lives, work crazy jobs, and deal with crazy stresses that no ordinary person can hope to understand, let alone deal with. The fact that any celebrity romance succeeds in the long run is nothing short of a miracle.

These are not people with normal or even semi-normal experiences. These are people doing things few people can do, achieving success that most people never achieve, and struggling to manage it all without going insane. So whenever a celebrity does have a very public breakdown, of sorts, it really shouldn’t surprise anyone.

On top of that, celebrities often work jobs that keep them busy for insane hours and requires them to spend a good chunk of their time traveling. Even if they have their own private jet and a support staff who effectively manages every minor detail of their lives, right down to the brand of toilet paper they buy, they’re still always busy. In a sense, being a celebrity is as close to a full-time job as anyone can have.

How can you make a relationship work in those circumstances? That’s not a rhetorical question. That’s an ongoing issue that many celebrities struggle to solve. Pratt and Faris thought they had the answer. I’m sure Pitt and Jolie felt the same way. In the end, they were wrong. It’s tragic, but it shows just how hard it is to answer that question.

That’s not to say it’s impossible. Some celebrity couples find a way to make it work. They are, however, the exceptions and not the norms. Realistically speaking, the circumstances of a celebrity romance are a checklist of how not to structure a relationship. For the sake of context, here are just some of them.

  • Working extended periods in a high-stress, fast-paced environment
  • Managing large numbers of people and resources
  • Traveling frequently and having little time to spend at home or with loved ones
  • Doing physically demanding, often exhausting work
  • Being surrounded by extremely attractive people with a strong incentive to seduce others
  • Being subject to constant scrutiny and micromanaging
  • Constantly entering unfamiliar situations and dealing with unfamiliar people
  • Occasionally having to get naked and/or intimate with strangers

Just dealing with a few of these issues is stressful enough on any relationship. That’s why occupations like bartender, massage therapist, or police officer have a markedly high divorce rate. With celebrities, though, the challenges are even greater because it’s not just one or two issues. It all of them.

At the end of the day, no matter what Tom Cruise may think, we’re all human. We all have human brains that are stuck with caveman settings. Those brains aren’t equipped to deal with the rigors of a celebrity life. Hell, it’s barely equipped to handle our current ideals of romance.

Chris Pratt and Anna Faris had the odds stacked against them from the beginning. They clearly loved each other. They made that abundantly clear in their announcement. However, their brains have the same limits as ours. Those brains compel us to form the kinds of intimate, close connections that are easily strained by stressful jobs, constant travel, and an excess of beautiful people willing to sleep with you.

Most relationships, in general, struggle to function in those conditions, as evidenced by the non-celebrity divorce rate. Pratt and Faris tried to beat those odds, on top of all the forces working against them, and did a lot better than most. Just ask anyone Taylor Swift ever dated.

At the end of the day, though, the mechanics of a celebrity romance are just too daunting, even for those who genuinely love each other. It’s part of why people root for celebrity romances . The idea that two people can overcome those daunting obstacles nourishes our ideals about love and marriage. When that fails, it hits those ideals pretty hard, as evidenced by the Twitter reaction to the Pratt/Faris breakup.

https://twitter.com/RyanJohnNelson/status/894444088287780864

While it is disappointing, especially for a relationship that seemed more healthy than most, it still shouldn’t be surprising. We, the non-celebrities of the world, can’t forget that people like Chris Pratt and Anna Faris live such crazy lives that are wholly unconducive to our romantic ideals.

Some of that is our fault. Some of that is the fault of biology with the way our brains are wired. Even so, it shouldn’t destroy our concept of love. If nothing else, it should remind us that making a relationship work is hard, but the fact that celebrities try as hard as they do is proof that the work is worth it.

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Why Nice Guys DON’T Finish Last (Or First)

We’ve all heard it before. It’s the primary plot of nearly every teen movie ever made. It’s the secondary plot of every underdog movie ever made. It’s also the title of a classic Green Day song. Say it out loud in almost any context that isn’t on the set of a porno and most will agree.

Nice Guys Finish Last

When we look at the world through our irrational, caveman brains and glean our information primarily from movies, sitcoms, and Fox News, that certainly seems to be the case. It’s almost obvious that we live in a world nice guys solely exist to act as toilet paper to the Biff Tannens, Bernie Madoffs, and Kanye Wests of the world.

In a sense, it’s comforting. Being a nice guy means you’ll carry the spirit of a lovable loser and who doesn’t love a lovable loser? Sure, Cleveland Browns fans would probably beg to differ, but it’s that very mindset that makes us content with the status of nice guys and gives us an excuse to scrutinize the concept through the harsh lens of reality.

As I’ve made clear before, I don’t care for excuses that don’t involve donuts, comic books, or nudity. That’s not to say I have anything against nice guys. I too consider myself a nice guy. You won’t find me punching a small animal just to impress a couple of cute cheerleaders. There are far more honorable and pragmatic ways for that sort of thing.

Instead, I’m going to add a little bit of context to the whole concept of nice guy finishing last. I’ve already highlighted how being a nice guy is a laughably low standard with which to base your appeal as a person. Most of the people on this planet are nice. The only reason you know about the assholes more is because they’re the ones that end up with TV shows and professional trolls.

So even if there are mostly nice people in this world, does that mean they finish last? Well, to answer that, it helps to build a story around the context. I could try to cite studies that show that just being likable tends to get you more opportunities in life, but that’s not very sexy. Nobody comes to this blog for scientific studies that don’t involve sex robots. They come here for sexy stories.

With that in mind, here’s the story that every nice guy should learn before they hit puberty:

You walk into a casino with all your life savings and you have to gamble it all of it on just one game.

In some of those games, the risk is high and the reward is high in the short term, but that reward naturally decreases no matter how much you win at other games.

In some of those games, the risk is very low, but for each dollar you don’t bet, you end up losing twice as much in the long run.

Then, there’s this one game in the middle of it all where if you bet on it, you probably won’t win big, but you won’t lose either. The odds are stacked in such a way where that over time, your money increases. It’s slow and tedious, but it does go up. It’s just a matter of patience and playing the odds, which are objectively on your side.

With all this in mind, which game do you play?

If you’re a smart gambler in any sense and don’t have any self-destructive tendencies, then the choice you make in this story is fairly clear. You end up playing the third game because that’s the only game that, in the long run, will increase your life savings.

That third game is basically what it means to be a nice guy. It is akin to investing in an index fund in the stock market. Ask nearly any financial guru, including Warren Buffet, and they’ll say the same. An index fund is the safest, most effective investment anyone can make. It won’t beat the market, but you won’t lose to it. Just not losing to the market is enough to make a lot of money in the long run.

Being a nice guy is one of the best investments you can make in yourself because, on the whole, it increases your value as a person and as a functioning member of society. In general, people want to deal with nice people. People want to work with them. Some even want to have sex with them. It is, by far, the easiest and most effective way to get ahead in the long term.

The main problem is the payoff sometimes takes a while. There is also some element of luck involved, but not in the Vegas odds sort of sense. For those willing to take more risks, being a nice guy just isn’t enough. Being a nice guy just takes too damn long.

That’s how you end up with the professional trolls I’ve mentioned before. These are people who are gambling that being an asshole will help them stand out. It’ll help them get attention, which they understand on some levels is a valuable asset.

That attention may be negative. In fact, it often is negative. Being an asshole in a world of nice people helps you stand out. It makes you different, exciting, and charismatic to some degree. However, all that is a quick short-term gain. In the same way these crazy things get people’s attention, those same people will just as easily get bored or frustrated with it. As I’ve said before, there is a lot of power in boredom.

That’s why a lot of those arrogant, Biff Tannen jocks from high school end up pumping gas, digging ditches, or getting shanked in prison. Being an asshole, in the long run, decreases your value because it hinders your ability to form social connections. Without those connections, there’s going to be nobody to help you up when you fall flat on your face.

That’s not to say that being an asshole doesn’t pay off big for some people. Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and most successful YouTube stars are proof of that. They do finish ahead of the nice guys. However, they are the exceptions and not the norms.

Most of the assholes are so far behind the nice guys that they have no hopes of ever catching up. Some just quit the race entirely and cede their rank to the nice guys because they know too many people hate them to hope for a break. It can be somewhat tragic, but it does benefit the nice guys.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the overly careful type people who despise both the nice guys and the assholes. I knew people like this in high school. I was almost one of them. These are people who are so bleak in their outlook on life that they don’t bother being nice or mean. They’re just a walking ball of gloomy nihilism.

Other than grunge rock and Marilyn Manson, you don’t see too many instances of this paying off in the long run. Even if you’re not an asshole who kicks small puppies for fun, people will still avoid you if you’re a pain to be around. If every hour of your day involves whining about how terrible and awful everything is, then nobody will want to work with you, help you, or sleep with you.

As a result, the nice guys beat those gloomy goths with ease. They finish ahead because, and it’s worth emphasizing, people prefer to work with those who are likable. They will help, befriend, and have sex with those who are nice to be around. Again, it won’t happen all at once. It will take time, but in the end it will pay off.

So in a sense, Green Day got it wrong. Nice guy’s don’t finish last. However, they don’t finish first either. Given how few of those who try to finish first ever make it, your best bet is to just make sure you don’t finish last. In that sense, being a nice guy is the safest bet you’ll ever make that doesn’t involve jello shots.

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Awkward Boners And Another (Overly) Personal Story

Brace yourselves because I’m about to get personal on this blog again. Yes, it’s going to be the awkward kind of personal. Yes, it’s also the sexy kind of personal. No, it’s not that kind of sexy. I still save the bulk of that for my novels.

I think it’s important to get personal when building an audience. It helps us relate to one another. I can’t just be some faceless guy behind a computer screen trying to sell sexy stories. I need to be someone with which people can feel a personal connection. That connection is the difference between a passing audience and a loyal one. The sexy stories I sell, as a result, are just a nice bonus.

Now, I’ve already gotten pretty personal on this blog before. I’ve talked about my love of sleeping naked, my own circumcision, and the soul-crushing, four-year prison sentence that was high school. I hope those stories have endear my life and this blog to people. I’d like to deepen that endearment and I intend to do that by talking about awkward boners.

I’m sure I’ve got every man’s attention now. I’ll still give a moment for the women to stop rolling their eyes. I get it, ladies. Awkward boners are one of those things that men make too big a deal of. Yes, it’s a unique experience to a particular gender, but it’s not even in the same hemisphere as giving birth or breast feeding. I’m not going to equate awkward boners with that, but I do feel they’re worth talking about, if only because it’s funny.

In fact, I think it’s because we don’t talk about these gender-specific experiences that men and women have such a hard time relating to one another. For some, talking about the joys of birth is a bit too much. I think awkward boners are a good start, if only because they reveals a vulnerability in men that they don’t readily admit.

This brings me to my personal experience. Yes, it’s about an awkward boner situation that I endured. I admit it. I’m a healthy man who has had at least one awkward boner in his life. Any healthy man who doesn’t admit that is a goddamn liar. While I doubt I’ll start a trend, I can at least tell a story that should brighten everyone’s morning.

This particular story happens in middle school, which is sort of like the sub-par prequel to high school. It’s like a mild soreness that you don’t realize will one day become a stabbing pain in the pit of your soul. I won’t say it was awful, but there were definitely signs that being a teenager was going to suck on a lot of levels.

This was also before I developed a serious acne problem that utterly destroyed what little confidence I had. I like to think that during middle school, I was at least somewhat content. I won’t say I was as happy as a fly in a shit factory, but I wasn’t miserable. For the most part, life was okay.

At the same time, however, puberty was starting to kick my ass, as it does with most people when they enter those fragile years between being a kid and being a walking time bomb of hormones. As a result, unexpected and unwelcome erections were becoming more common.

For the most part, I was able to hide those erections as well as any burgeoning young man. Talk to any man who survived that part of his life and they’ll tell you the same. They learned to be tactful, discreet, and downright cunning at hiding their boners. You might say that men at this age become boner ninjas, which is a lot less sexy than it sounds.

Every now and then, though, our boner ninja fails. In this particular instance, it failed at one of the worst possible times, short of me giving a speech to the entire school while wearing a speedo. I’ll give everyone a moment to conjure that mental image. You’re welcome.

On this particular day when my inner boner ninja failed me, I was in the seventh grade. It was late in the spring and really starting to get hot outside. As such, gym class involved a lot more outdoor activities that turned us from hormonal time bombs into sweaty hormonal time bombs. I didn’t mind this because it made the afternoon go by faster.

However, my body just loved making it harder for me and yes, that means exactly what you think it means. I’d just finished my English class. Gym was the last class I had before I went to lunch so I went to the locker room eager to work up an appetite. I go to change into my gym uniform, as I’d done almost every day to that point. Then, it happens.

I don’t know whether it was the poetry assignment I’d had in English class. I don’t know whether it was because of some cute girl I’d seen who just started wearing a bra. Maybe I’d just read one too many Wonder Woman comics that day. I don’t know, but whatever it was, something triggered an unexpected launch in my pants. It wasn’t a half-launch either. This rocket was going into orbit and staying there for a while.

Now, keep in mind, I’m in a boy’s locker room in a middle school full of immature teenagers. You can’t find a time or place less appropriate without involving clowns, dead puppies, and buckets of expired milk. On top of that, I’m up against the clock. I needed to be out in the gym with the rest of the class within five minutes. For a situation like this, that’s the longest five minutes you’ll have outside a dentist’s office.

I don’t even get a chance to undress before the situation escalates. By the time I get to my locker, we’re already at ignition. By the time I unlock it, we’re at liftoff and we’ve cleared the tower. There are several obnoxious boys next to me, talking about crap that should arouse absolutely no one. All I can do is keep my head down and silently curse my dick for doing this to me.

I know my body well enough at this point to understand that this situation is going to get worse before it gets better. If I start undressing, there’s no way I’m going to hide this. For a moment, I just stand there and stare at my uniform in my locker. At that point, though, my rocket is well into its orbit and re-entry is not possible.

I needed to act and act fast. I had only four minutes left and that was just not going to cut it. Finally, I made a decision. It was going to require some theatrics on my part, but there was no other way.

Tactfully, I grab my uniform from my locker. Then, I clench my stomach as though I’m in pain and head right for the bathroom stalls. From where I’m standing, those bathroom stalls might as well be in the heart of Mordor. Instead of Orcs, though, I have to weave through a bunch of spitting, swearing teenage boys. It was an arduous journey, to say the least.

At one point, a kid next to me that I knew looked concerned. He asked me if I was already. I instinctively said I was fine, but my stomach wasn’t. I might have said something about the tacos I ate for dinner last night, hoping he would fill in the blanks.

That seemed to do the trick, though. He didn’t ask again. I managed to work my way around the crowd of other boys and make it into the bathroom stall. In my first stroke of luck, there was nobody in there. I was able to close the door, lock it, and breathe the biggest sigh of relief I’d felt to that point in my life.

After I was alone in the stall, I was able to settle down and let my penis complete its orbit, so to speak. It still took a lot longer than I wanted. I remember thinking about anything and everything that would get it to settle.

If you’re a healthy man, you know what I’m talking about here. You’ll go through any number of unsexy thoughts and images. You’ll picture your grandmother in a nightgown. You’ll picture your dog throwing up on your bed. You’ll even resort to doing algebra in your head. When algebra is an option, you know your body is working against you.

For me, I don’t quite remember what I thought about to subdue my erection. It still didn’t work as quickly as I’d hoped. I still had somewhat of a quasi-boner by the time I got undressed and put my uniform on. I was still up against the clock too. By the time the warning bell rang, I had to grit my teeth and hope for the best.

I managed to put the rest of my stuff in my locker and make it out into the gym. I still had somewhat of a tent in my pants. Keep in mind, these gym shorts aren’t exactly known for being well-fitted. I had to be very careful with how I carried myself, especially as the girls started making their way out of the locker room. It also helped that the gym uniforms weren’t exactly sexy. Even raging teenage hormones can only do so much.

Once I sat down and waited for the gym teacher, I was able to finally able to complete re-entry, so to speak. In another stroke of luck, the teacher was a bit late so I had a few extra minutes to make sure no more rockets were ignited. It still made for some tense moments, but I got through it.

That, my friends, is the story of my most awkward boner. I’m sure there are other men out there who have had far worse experiences in far less comfortable situations. It is, in a sense, the shared price of masculinity. No one is immune to it. We never know when it’s going to happen. When it does, we learn that we aren’t always in control of our bodies. Sometimes, our bodies control us.

There’s almost something poetic about that. I’m sure plenty of men disagree and just see awkward boners as an annoyance. Well now, you’ve heard my story. If there are any men out there feeling bold, I encourage you to share yours as well. Please let me know in the comments. There’s no shame or judgment. For men and women alike, let’s share this experience and everything it can teach us.

Perhaps I can make this part of my sexy discussions. Boners can be awkward, but they can be beautiful too. Let’s not let that awkwardness undermine that beauty.

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Professor Marston & The Wonder Women Trailer (A Non-Traditional Love Story)

When we look back on 2017, I think it’s safe to say that many will see it as the year that Wonder Woman shined and the year that the “mic drop” officially became overused.

There’s no doubt about it. This has been a damn good year for Wonder Woman. Her movie was a hit with critics and fans alike. Her comic raised the bar for female heroes while also letting her get laid. She’s on a winning streak right now that we don’t usually see unless the New York Yankees and the New England Patriots are involved.

However, 2017 isn’t done with Wonder Woman just yet. It’s not enough that her movie may have single-handedly saved the DC Extended Universe, established Gal Gadot as an A-list actress with A-list sex appeal, and raised the bar for female directors like Patty Jenkins. Wonder Woman, being the iconic female hero that she is, just has to go the extra distance.

That brings me back to the man who created this sexy female icon, William Marston. In a sense, Wonder Woman is one of those characters that could never have emerged from a traditional mind looking to create a traditional hero. For her to become the icon she is now, she needed an unconventional mind and William Marston was definitely that.

I’ve talked a bit about the origins of Wonder Woman and the not-so-secret BDSM elements within that origin. A lot of that is a direct result of the non-traditional thinking that William Marston used in creating Wonder Woman. It was also the product of a very non-traditional life, some of which had some very kinky connotations.

The story behind that kinky life is now about to get some overdue attention and at the best possible time. Wonder Woman’s star couldn’t be flying higher. Why shouldn’t the man behind the sexy icon get a little attention? It’s 2017. Kink is already mainstream, thanks to internet porn and best selling novels based on Twilight fan fiction. The timing couldn’t be better.

That leads me to the upcoming quasi-biopic on William Marston, “Professor Marston & The Wonder Women.” Admit it. You probably didn’t know that a movie like this was being made. Even ardent Wonder Woman fans probably didn’t know.

It’s happening, though. This is not some weird fan film or parody to poke fun at Wonder Woman’s BDSM origins. This is a real movie starring Luke EvansRebecca Hall, and JJ Feild. It’s even being directed by a woman, Angela Robinson, who was a writer/producer on the sexy bloody spectacle that was “True Blood.” This movie is coming out later this year and last week, the trailer dropped.

It’s a very different trailer compared to “Wonder Woman.” It’s supposed to be different. It might not have as many warrior women. It might not have a naked Chris Pine. However, it does have some sexy, but kinky connotations.

Unlike Stan Lee, Bob Kane, or Jack Kirby, who are icons in their own right for the characters they created, William Marston kind of gets forgotten. Granted, he didn’t create nearly as many iconic characters as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. However, it was his non-traditional views and the non-traditional life he lived that might have made it easier for people to dissociate the man from his creation.

As the trailer shows, Marston was an unusual voice at a time in history before the modern feminist movement and before the sexual revolution. He believed in peace through submission, seeing submission as an act of love. He also believed that women were more honest than men in certain situations. He never said they were superior, but he made it a point to highlight female strengths, as often revealed in Wonder Woman.

On top of those unusually progressive views at a time when women were still seen as nurses, teachers, and baby-makers, Marston had a non-traditional view of love. He was married to Elizabeth Holloway Marston, but theirs was a somewhat open marriage in that he also had a relationship with a woman named Olive Byrne.

It was not at all akin to the kinds of open relationships that make for raunchy TV shows about Mormons or the kinky softcore porn series that used to play on premium cable. It was a real relationship and, as the trailer showed, it was very different in terms of substance and approach. In a sense, you can say that Marston had a non-traditional relationship to match his non-traditional views.

Even today, his views on men, women, and the ways they relate to one another would be odd. Chances are, he would evoke protests from the overly politically correct crowd. That probably wouldn’t dissuade him, though. If anything, those protests would prove a part of the point he was trying to make, which was reflected somewhat in the trailer.

He claimed that there was peace and happiness to be found in submission. To the ardent individualist, which is very much at the heart of western culture, that sounds abhorrent. That sounds like something slave-masters would say to keep their slaves content, which was a thing, sadly. However, that’s not the kind of submission Marston was talking about.

In Marston’s kinky world, to submit to someone willingly is an act of love and to accept that submission with love is the apex of human connection. He sees the endless struggle to dominate everything around you, be it a person, a job, a pet, or World of Warcraft, as the source of conflict.

He also labels that kind of dominating persona as a very masculine trait. While it’s not exclusively masculine, he sees it as a common thread among male-driven narratives. Conversely, he sees women as having a greater capacity for that kind of loving submission. Wonder Woman is, in his point of view, embodies the greatest capacity for that kind of love.

Wonder Woman loves and embraces everyone around her. Her capacity for love, regardless of gender, is well-documented over her 70-year history. Sure, the kink has been largely filtered out with a few notable exceptions, namely “Wonder Woman: Earth One.” That only makes the elements Marston used in creating her all the more profound.

In some ways, William Marston was ahead of his time in creating a female hero that emphasized what he saw as female traits. He never tried to make Wonder Woman as strong or as capable in the same way as Superman or Batman. She wasn’t supposed to prove that women could be as strong as men. Just being a woman gave her a unique strength all her own.

You could also say he was ahead of his time, with respect to how he conducted his personal life. He didn’t bother with the ideal of monogamy, one man and one woman being in love until the day they died. He and the two women in his life forged their own brand of love and family. They followed their own romantic path.

They never claimed their non-traditional brand of love made them superior. That would’ve defeated the point. In Marston’s kinky world, any effort to dominate others through force, shame, or debate was pointless. In the end, the best way to bring peace is to conduct yourself in a way that makes others want to submit to your loving authority.

That’s not just my interpretation. When he was once asked by The American Scholar in 1943 about why Wonder Woman would appeal to men, he said this.

“Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they’ll be proud to become her willing slaves!”

As a comic book fan, a fan of beautiful women, and a fan of female strength in general, I whole-heartedly agree. The success of the “Wonder Woman” movie, over 70 years of comics, and a top place in the pantheon of iconic female heroes says a lot about our willingness to submit. Perhaps “Professor Marston & The Wonder Women” will help us appreciate that even more.

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Sex Robots, The Risks, And The Impact On Our Sex Lives

Talking about fascism and repressive governments is rarely sexy. I’ve yet to meet anyone whose panties ever got wet while talking about regressive free speech policies. You know what is fun, sexy topic to talk about, though? That’s right, I’m talking about sex robots again. Can you think of a better way to lighten the mood after all this political talk?

Traditionally, I don’t need a lot of reasons to talk about sex robots on this blog. I’ve even been known to make any excuse to talk about how sex robots will effect us, whether it’s how they’ll affect the prostitution industry or how they’ll make us better people. Granted, I do want to talk about something sexier than George Orwell, but there actually is a relevant reason for bringing up this sexy topic again.

It’s relevant because it tends to happen with all new technology to some extent. When there’s a clear trend emerging, it tends to generate this wave of irrational fear regarding its impact on society. We saw that with television when people though Elvis’ hips were part of a communist conspiracy to corrupt America. It’s only a matter of time before we see that with sex robots.

As such, it should surprise precisely no one that some people are already stoking the same fears about sex robots as their parents did with Elvis’ hips. This past week, the Salvation Army actually brought up the issue of sex robots and not in a very sexy way. These were their exact words.

It believes the technology could result in more people brought into the UK illegally for sexual exploitation instead of lessening demand for sex workers, the Birmingham Mail reports.

That’s not entirely surprising. Remember, the Salvation Army is a Christian organization. They do wonderful work, but religion have a long and stories history when it comes to sexual fear-mongering. The fact the Catholic Church still considers masturbation a sin in the age of internet porn shows how regressive religion can be on sexual matters.

It’s not just religion, though. Other more pragmatic organizations that don’t rely on people breeding uncontrollably expressed some concerns as well. A paper by Responsible Robotics, a non-profit that contemplates the sexy and non-sexy impact of robots on society, issued a paper called “Our Sexual Future With Robots” that expressed concerns similar to those of the Salvation Army. Here are some highlights.

“When we look at the question of whether or not sex robots could help to prevent sex crimes, there is major disagreement. On one side there are those who believe that expressing disordered or criminal sexual desires with a sex robot would satiate them to the point where they would not have the desire to harm fellow humans.”

“Many others believe that this would be an indulgence that could encourage and reinforce illicit sexual practices. This may work for a few but it is a very dangerous path to tread. It may be that allowing people to live out their darkest fantasies with sex robots could have a pernicious effect on society and societal norms and create more danger for the vulnerable.”

It sounds pretty dire. Then again, those fears about Elvis’ hips were pretty dire as well. Fears about cartoon violence, video games, and comic books were pretty dire as well. That’s not to say the concerns from Responsible Robotics and the Salvation Army are on the same level, but this kind of sentiment is nothing new.

I can see the logic behind these fears on some levels. The idea that people who fulfill their sexual needs with robots will somehow become socially isolated makes intuitive sense. It’s easy to imagine some creepy guy spending his every waking out in a windowless basement, acting out the most nauseating fantasies ever conceived with a sex robot that is programmed to be completely obedient.

It’s easy, but as is often the case with most fear-mongering, it focuses on an incomplete picture, of sorts. It simplifies and generalizes the impact that such a profound advancement would have on society. Given the sheer breadth of human society, that’s a crude, shallow understanding of the subject at best.

New technology always negatively affects some people. The simple advance of texting generated approximately 330,000 traffic-related injuries accidents in 2010 alone. It’s hard to know how many injuries sex robots will cause, but chances are it’ll be more than zero and heavily inflated if done while driving.

Despite the clear and documented harms of texting while driving, there’s no effort to un-invent the technology. It’s already here and it’s exceedingly profitable. Since the sex industry is already worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the incentives for sex robots are just too great to ignore, no matter how much religious organizations condemn it.

That’s not to say there won’t be issues. There are always issues with new technology. As advanced as smartphones had become, we still had faulty tech as recently as last year that caused some phones to explode. It’s terrifying enough to think about your phone exploding in your pocket. It’s hard to imagine how terrifying it would be if a sex robot malfunctioned in such a away.

Being an erotica/romance writer, I like to think I can imagine more than most. I also like to think that after hearing so many of the same arguments about video games, violent TV shows, and what not, I can sift the legitimate concerns from the agenda-driven fear-mongering.

Make no mistake. Sex robots will undermine certain peoples’ agendas. There are a lot of industries that cater to lonely, sexually frustrated men and women. It’s easier to convince a lonely, sexually frustrated person that a particular product will alleviate those feelings. Every marketing department in the world knows things get tougher when customers are happy, content, and satisfied.

There will also be cases of people who are already unhinged to begin with becoming even more unhinged due to sex robots. The rock band, Judas Priest, found that out the hard way in 1985 when two depressed teenagers listened to their music and committed suicide. While the band was found not liable for the deaths, it was still one case too many for the fear-mongers.

As soon as sex robots become more mainstream and more affordable, there will likely be a similar incident. Some poor loner will seek an outlet with a sex robot and somehow that will exacerbate, if that’s not too loaded a word, issues that are already festering inside his brain.

It could lead to people who become so isolated, they never leave their home again and end up dead.

It could lead to people who are so socially awkward that just being in public triggers a panic attack.

It could lead to people who can only have a functioning sexual relationship with a robot they can control and not a human being.

These are all possibilities and if I had to bet money on it, I’d say there will be at least one such case. Like the Judas Priest controversy, though, it’ll only take one to justify ramping up the fear-mongering. We may very well see governments and advocacy groups seeking to ban sex robots altogether or at least regulate them.

Seeing as how there’s too much money to be made in sex robots, it’s unlikely they’ll be banned. Chances are there will be some form of regulation or standards. Since the government is so uptight when it comes to regulating sexual matters, it’s more likely that the industry itself will try to regulate its own affairs. The last thing the industry needs is prudish bureaucrats telling sex doll manufacturers how big a pair of breasts can be.

It’s hard to say just how the sex robot industry will manifest. Unlike smartphones and TV, there’s far less precedent. While we do have sex dolls that are extremely realistic, we’ve yet to produce a sex robot that’s truly indistinguishable from the real thing and has a comparable measure of intelligence.

It will happen, though. The financial incentives are too strong and people are too horny. There will be issues. There will be reservations. However, we humans have proven incredibly adaptable over the centuries when it comes to bold new technology.

We adapted to cars and planes. We adapted to vaccines and contraception. We adapted to sexting and internet porn. We’ll find a way to adapt to sex robots. When people are that horny, they’ll find a way. It’s a beautiful, sexy thing that brings tears of joy to an erotica/romance writer’s eye.

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