Tag Archives: sexual health

January 14, 2017 · 7:57 am

An Interesting Debate I Had With Someone (On Abortion)

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned time and again that there are few greater wastes than arguing with people on the internet. It’s right up there with spitting in a lake to refill it. Nobody ever changed their minds about anything because they argued about it with someone on a message board. That’s just an inescapable fact.

So why do we do it? Why do we have these online debates that are about as formal as meth-fueled orgy? There are many answers to that question. Not all of those answers are entirely misguided either.

People want to connect with each other. People want to share their views with the world, no matter what they are or how crazy they may be. Look up discussions of lizard shape-shifters to see what I mean. There’s nothing inherently wrong with sharing such views. So long as nobody raises the flags of the NSA, it’s one of those wastes that can help us with the basic human need to connect.

Being an erotica/romance writer, I’m all for activities that help us meet our basic needs. However, I’ve learned from experience that it’s not a good idea to have too many debates with folks online. I was once the kind of guy who spent hours crafting elaborate, detailed posts, complete with citations and footnotes, to prove my point. I’m pretty sure I put some grad students to shame.

I put in a lot of effort to make my arguments. I really did think I would stump, confound, or convince other commenters that I was right. In the end, that effort might have been better spent trying to find new ways to deep fry donuts. It took me way too long to realize that people don’t change their minds based on what online debates. They only ever change their mind when there’s a damn good incentive.

Until the day comes when saying something stupid online earns you a painful shock to the spine, nobody should debate anyone online with the expectation that you’ll change someone’s view. That’s not to say it’s a complete waste of time. If you set reasonable expectations and focus on less divisive issues, then you can have real, honest conversations with people.

This brings me to abortion. I’ll give everyone a second or two to unclench their assholes. Bear with me. That’s not a complete non-sequiter. When it comes to my least favorite topics to discuss, abortion is right up there with explosive diarrhea. I’m a man. I don’t have babies. I can’t get an abortion. I bring absolutely nothing to this conversation and, as a principle, I generally avoid it.

That said, I did end up having an insightful conversation with someone online, which was related to abortion. It occurred on a site called Townhall.com, which is basically the complete antithesis of the Huffington Post. If you have any kind of liberal or moderate inclinations of any kind, expect the content on this site to piss you off.

I go to it because I find it helpful and insightful to visit sites that present views you don’t agree with. Townhall offers that in abundance. The rhetoric here can be downright venomous at times and not just because Ann Coulter writes regular columns. Some of the commenters on this site would make Nixon himself look like a hippie.

Naturally, that means you’ll find a lot of pro-life, anti-abortion discussions here. You’ll also get no fewer than 20 Nazi references when discussing it. As a general principle, and in respect to those with a weak stomach, I try to avoid these discussions. However, one discussion in particular revealed something that’s worth sharing.

In a column I won’t cite, just because I don’t want to give the writer more exposure than he deserves, I got into a discussion with someone who was vehemently pro-life. He or she was the kind of person who would probably force women who’ve had abortions to tattoo a fetus to their forehead to shame them for their choice.

Debating with people like this is usually an exercise in futility, right up there with teaching quantum mechanic to a chimp. However, I tried to dig a little deeper into this person’s rhetoric. I asked them to try one of my little thought experiments, which I’m so fond of on this blog. It went like this:

Imagine that tomorrow morning, someone announced they’ve created the perfect form of contraception. It’s easy to use, it’s effective, it’s relatively cheap, it has no side-effects, and it functions in a way that ensures an egg and a sperm will never meet. No conception ever occurs. As such, no abortion ever occurs or is necessary. Would you, a pro-life advocate, be in favor of making this contraception mandatory for all of breeding age in order to end abortion once and for all?

This is one of those thought experiments that’ll either derail a conversation or just get you blocked. It’s also an experiment that has the possibility to become relevant one day because the technology to perfectly control our fertility, male and female, may very well emerge in our lifetime.

It’s a possibility that I find exposes a dirty secret in the pro-life crowd. While there are a few who genuinely believe that abortion constitutes the murder of an innocent life, there is also a sizable chunk that is vehemently anti-sex. They see abortion as just a means for people to have consequence-free sex and that doesn’t sit well with them.

I can understand why, especially from religiously-motivated arguments. Anything that leads to consequence-free sex is going to get the clergy of any religion up in arms. However, that’s another issue altogether. We expect religion to oppose anything that might distract people from giving them tax-free donations. It’s the other chunk of the pro-life crowd that are a bit more transparent with their sentiment.

For this particular person, however, I actually got a pretty insightful response. Not surprisingly, this person was not at all in favor of mandating that this perfect contraception be mandated as a means to end abortion entirely. Initially, I thought this exposed the person as one of those repressive anti-sex types. I turned out to be wrong. This was the person’s justification:

Once you start limiting peoples freedom for their own good you get slavery.

This weren’t against the use perfect contraception. He or she even said they’d gladly take it. However, the idea of forcing people to use it to end abortion just exchanged one immoral act for another. Regardless of how you may feel about abortion, I think we can all relate and respect that sentiment to some degree.

I tried probing a little deeper. I compared making perfect contraception mandatory to requiring seatbelts. Apparently, this person was against that as well. He or she did not make an exception between contraception and seatbelts. These are the exact words from the response.

So the answer to your last two questions is, of course it is immoral to force people to wear seat belts and forcing people to stop at red light is for the protection of others.

I really couldn’t go farther than that. I think the person effectively made their point. This person is an ardent libertarian. Coercion of any kind, even the kind that would end abortion completely, is every bit as immoral.

Again, I can really understand that. This person showed some consistency in their rhetoric, which is somewhat rare on the internet, as anyone who ever visited a Twilight message board can attest. I admit it was somewhat refreshing because most don’t even attempt the thought experiment. This person made an effort and for that, he or she has my respect.

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January 4, 2017 · 5:52 am

Women’s Tastes In Porn (Involves Lesbians)

Brace yourselves because I’m about to say something that’s going to explode heads and confuse genitals everywhere. Are you sitting down? Has it been a while since your last meal? If not, take about a half-hour or so to let it digest. You’ll thank me later. I promise.

Are you back? Are you sitting? Are you bracing yourself appropriately? Okay, here goes. Again, don’t say I didn’t warn you because this is going to shock more people than it should.

Women do watch porn.

Are you done gasping? Have you picked your jaw up off the floor? Take a moment to let this sink in. If you live in North America, a part of the world with a rich tradition of schizophrenic attitudes towards sex, you’ll probably need more than a few. Being an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I need to be in touch with those attitudes. Yes, that includes understanding women’s preferences in porn?

Why do I bring this up? Well, aside from the fact that it’s easy to garner extra attention when you talk about women and porn, it is a relevant topic for me. I want my writing to appeal to everyone, men and women alike. Being a healthy heterosexual man, I have a fairly good idea of what men like, be it porn, TV, and fast food. I need to dig a little deeper for women’s preferences.

That’s actually not as difficult as it sounds. Yes, I know the concept of understanding women is often equated to understanding quantum physics. No, I don’t believe that’s accurate. That’s just an overplayed gimmick in every bad romantic comedy made since 1977.

It is possible to understand women on some levels. You just have to do something so simple, yet so revolutionary, even in 2017. You have to actually listen. I’ll give everyone another moment to stop gasping.

Now I’m not saying I’m a professional listener, but I have a functioning brain and functioning ears. Those are the most vital tools last I checked. In addition, there are others who just announce to the world what women think and what they find sexy. You just have to be willing and able to listen. Again, it’s not as hard as it sounds. It did not need to be a sub-standard Mel Gibson movie.

One such medium that has been very informative to this blog before is ThinkTank. They’re not scientific. They’re not overly preachy either. They’re about as balanced as you can get on the internet these days, which I know is not saying much.

Understanding that anything on the internet has about as much scientific validity as a Star Trek rerun, I still find their discussions informative. Recently, one of those discussions involved women’s tastes in porn. Naturally, my ears perked up, as did other parts of my body. Since I’m trying to appeal to women’s sexy sensibilities, I had to listen to some parts more than others.

Here’s the video. It’s fairly SFW and not overly graphic. It does, however, paint an interesting (and telling) picture.

https://youtu.be/EJR3TsGR1xE

So apparently, this admittedly unscientific study found out that women in North America love lesbian porn. They love lesbian porn a lot. As a man, I say bless their female hearts because I think that’s something a lot of American men can rally behind. We don’t agree on much, but we can sure as hell agree that lesbian porn is sexy as hell.

That said, I don’t think we’ll agree on the factors behind this. I know there are radical feminists and even a few overly religious types who will whine about the extent to which women are sexualized. I don’t doubt that happens. It’s fairly well-documented, albeit incomplete, that women are more sexualized in North American media than men.

I’ve already done posts about objectification and why I think the whining about that is misguided. There also is some science to back up the claim that men are more visual creatures than women, although that science is incomplete. In this case, I think women’s tastes in porn reflect something else that actually unites genders.

One of the unique traits of lesbian porn is that it’s focused on the wants and needs of the women. It kind of has to be for pragmatic purposes. In addition, those involves in lesbian porn are, by and large, presented as equals. This is more a product of men and women being biologically and physiologically different. When two women are involved, it makes for more equal dynamics and not just because they have the same anatomy.

It’s because of that equality that the mood, tone, and appeal of lesbian porn is unique. I think that uniqueness appeals to women, especially in North America, because so much popular culture, including porn, creates all these woefully unequal relationships. It’s either the man who overshadows the women or the woman who busts the balls of the man. It’s often either/or and rarely anything in between.

It can happen though. A single X-men comic that came out last year proved that a relationship of equals can really work. It’s the kind of relationship I’m trying to craft in my novels. My upcoming book, “Passion Relapse,” really makes an effort at this and I hope it has that unique appeal to women and men alike.

Now I’m sure there are other factors in play. There are probably a whole host of other reasons as to why lesbian porn appeals to so many women. We live in a culture that uses beautiful women as the apex of all things sexual. One beautiful woman has the sex appeal of ten George Clooneys. That’s just how our schizophrenic culture operates at the moment.

With that in mind, I do expect tastes to change and evolve. Today, lesbian porn may be the preferred porn of choice for women. That may change in five years. For all we know, foot fetishes and finger-banging will come into style. It’s hard to say. I can’t predict the proclivities of an entire culture. I can just take note, listen to the whims of others as well as my own, and adapt my sexy novels accordingly.

One final note on lesbian porn for now. If you’re a woman and you enjoy a little bit of lesbian loving in your private moments, check out my book, “Holiday Heat.” The holidays may be over, but the sex appeal of this book should keep your spirits high.

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December 6, 2016 · 6:16 am

How NOT To Talk About Marriage

Picture a scenario with a man and a woman. No, it’s not one of those scenarios. They’re both fully clothed, in public, and otherwise normal. Then, imagine the kind of outrage/public shaming that would occur if this took place in front of one too many cameras.

Woman: I’m so sad! I’m so lonely! Why does the world so cruel?

Man: Maybe it’s because you’re really fat. Were you abused as a kid or something? Just exercise more or get some surgery.

You feel that? That’s the inescapable urge to roll your eyes because you know what kind of outcry this is going to cause. You know the kind of arguments, insults, rants, and raves that’ll emerge from this topic. Human can be pretty crazy and unpredictable when it comes to certain topics. Topics that involve marriage or gender issues, though, are annoyingly consistent.

So why do I bring up this scenario and the predictable outcry it tends to cause? Well, it was inspired, in large part, by a video I came across recently. It involves a small talk show discussing recent trends in marriage, namely why men are more and more reluctant to get married.

I’ve talked about this issue before, namely the part where the legal system gives men and women one too many tools to screw each other over and not in the way they enjoy. I generally avoid talking about it because it tends to make people less horny, which isn’t good for any erotica/romance writer. However, sometimes I do feel compelled to comment on something that feels overly relevant.

With that in mind, here is the clip in question. To get to the part that really annoyed me, fast forward to the 2:20 mark. I should warn you though. You may feel the urge to punch your computer screen.

https://youtu.be/1RkQIDHI0Qs

Did you see it? Is your computer screen still intact? Are you confused as to why someone who is single, in his 30s, and worried about his romantic future would feel uneasy with this exchange? Well, let me break it down in a way that I hope won’t cost anyone a new computer screen.

The argument the man in the clip makes is not a new one. They’ve been made before, the pitfalls of marriage and the reasons men aren’t too eager to participate. In fact, Fox built one of its most successful sitcoms about the ills of marriage and what it does to men. These are not new issues is what I’m saying.

Even so, there’s still this imbalance of sorts between men and women when it comes to the decline of marriage. There’s still a stigma against those who are reluctant to join an institution that has become exceedingly unjust for legal, political, and social reasons that are too complicated and unsexy to get into.

That stigma, however, doesn’t apply to both genders equally. I know this because I’ve actually felt this inequality to some extent. It plays out like this:

  • You’re a woman and you don’t want to get married? You go girl! You don’t need a man! You just need to be you! Girl power!

  • You’re a man and you don’t want to get married? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you gay or something? What kind of creep stays single all his life?

See the difference? The clip itself doesn’t do justice to the extent of this difference, but the man does get crap for making these arguments. When he calmly and reasonably lays out his arguments, the first response isn’t to take them seriously or ask more questions. The response is, “Were you hurt?”

To the man’s credit, he laughs it off. That shows he has more maturity and self-awareness than 95 percent of the people I see on talk shows these days. It’s still a very telling assessment though, assuming outright that the man is criticizing marriage was somehow hurt in the past.

Even as a man who does want to find love and does want to marry someone, I find that pretty insulting. I get that marriage has rarely, if ever, been an equal institution. I get that for most of human civilization, women had it pretty rough with respect to marriage. I’m not denying that.

However, if I’ve learned anything from all the superhero comics I’ve read over the years, it’s that you can’t fight injustice with more injustice. That’s like trying to fight a wildfire with napalm. It’s only going to make the situation worse.

At the moment, marriage is not a good deal for men. At the moment, women have more legal and social protections with respect to marriage then men. Women can divorce their husbands whenever they want for whatever reason and, in many states, get half their husband’s assets by default. They can get custody of kids, get favorable treatment by courts, and are more readily believed with accusations of spousal abuse.

Now I’m not Al Bundy in that I see marriage as its own circle of hell for a man. I believe marriage, love, and all the passion that comes with it is a beautiful thing. The problem is that our assumptions, legal traditions, and social constructs are horribly imbalanced at the moment. It’s only when marriage becomes a relationship of true equals that its beauty can be appreciated.

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December 4, 2016 · 8:05 am

Sexy Sunday Thoughts (And Staying Warm)

It’s been more than a week since Thanksgiving. I take it everyone has had sufficient time to digest their meal, pick at the leftovers, and hate themselves for the weight they gained. To those who still feel bloated, I say cheer up! You’ll feel better just in time for Christmas. Then you’ll get to feel bloated all over again, but you’ll get presents this time. That should help you hate yourself a little less.

It’s amazing. We’ve made it to the last month of 2016. What an eventful/crazy/please-God-let-it-be-over year it has been. Stephen King, J R. R. Tolken, Shakespeare, and Ernest Hemmingway could collaborate on an entire series of novels and not do justice to the sheer insanity we’ve had this year. They’d probably quit and/or throw up in disgust halfway through and nobody would blame them.

I won’t harp on the details. I’d rather look forward to making this last month of 2016 a bit less insane. The holidays are here. I’ve got my Christmas tree up. I see decorations, pretty lights, and cheap eggnog everywhere I turn. It’s a wonderful time of year, one that gives us all a chance to end the year on a high note.

I’m certainly ready for the holidays. I’m entering the final month of this year on a bit of an upswing. My book, “Passion Relapse,” is in the works with my new publisher. I just finished a draft for another manuscript. I’ve got a long list of sexy stories to develop on my plate. I like to think I’m making the most of this crazy year and feeling sexy as hell while doing it.

I can’t undo any of the craziness that 2016 has given us. I can’t do much to allay the fears of those who dread 2017 just as much. I can only continue to fill the world with my eccentric, sexy, and colorful musings in hopes they’ll brighten someone else’s day.

That brings me to yet another addition of Sexy Sunday Thoughts. I’m trying to make it a weekly column that everyone can look forward to on this blog. Had a long week? Feeling tired, burned out, and run down? Say no more because I’m here to help!

So sit back, relax, hug your lover, hug a friend, and ditch the clothes. Let yourself feel content and free as I share with you the crazy sexy musings that fill my head on a Sunday morning in December.

“We build a holiday around a woman who gave birth without having sex, but we still celebrate when we or our friends give birth with sex. Am I missing something here?”

I’ve always wondered about that. The Virgin Mary is so revered, but we also revere those who can get laid and give birth. So which is it? Which is more worthy of such reverence?

“A cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day is like an orgasm in liquid form.”

Staying warm in the winter is a challenge. With hot chocolate, marshmallows, and a little nutmeg, it’s be one of those fun challenges we can enjoy and we don’t even have to take our pants off.

“Anyone who says it’s better than sex might just be doing it wrong.”

I’m not saying it’s impossible for something to be better than sex. I’m just saying that some may have a skewed perspective.

“Large breasts and soft pillows offer a similar level of comfort. Coincidence? I think not.”

Large breasts have many functions. They are among the most beautifully functional structures in nature. What other body part can arouse us and calm us so effectively?

“Does sex really have a smell? Or is it just our other senses conspiring against us to keep us horny?”

I’ve often heard people claim that something or someone smells like sex. I’m not sure sex has a specific scent, but I am sure our bodies will use any excuse to make and keep us horny.

“A fat wallet is to a man what breast implants are to a woman.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s no such thing as an unsexy rich man.

“The only difference between porno and action movies is that porno exchanges violence for sex.”

This is something that does bug me to some extent, sex being put on the same level as violence. When it comes to shooting someone or giving them an orgasm, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.

“When you think about it, mutual oral sex between partners is an extremely enhanced hug.”

As a hugger by nature, I think there’s a spectrum of sorts when it comes to sharing intimacy. Mutual oral sex, namely that of the 69 position that Playboy loved to describe, is right in the middle.

That’s it for this week’s edition of sexy Sunday thoughts. Hope this helped warm you up, made you horny, or put you in the holiday spirit. If it ends up doing all three, then consider it a bonus.

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December 3, 2016 · 8:08 am

A Handy Trick For Men

It’s true you can’t really know a person by judging them on their looks, their clothes, or who they follow on Twitter. There are so many things that go into making people who they are that, short of reading their minds and hacking their Facebook account, it’s impossible to truly know them.

That said, it is possible to glean a few details about a person based on simple observation. As I’ve said many times before, nature is not that intricate. Nature is a drunk monkey trying to shave itself with a rusty axe. That means there are bound to be a few surface-features that nature is too lazy to tweak.

The results are a few little parlor tricks that you can use to impress others too lazy to look them up on the internet. The human body, in all its flawed glory, has a few peculiarities that you can either laugh at, exploit, or ignore entirely. It doesn’t matter. Nature is so beyond giving a fuck at this point.

One of those little tricks involves your hands. No, I don’t mean that trick that requires tissues and lube. I don’t mean the trick I’ve used to set an overtly sexual tone in my novels. That’s not a trick. That’s built-in happiness that we can all celebrate in our own way.

This little hand trick involves measuring the length of your fingers. Why would you do that? Why would anyone without severe OCD do something like that? Well, for the men out there, I can best sum it up in two words: bigger penis.

Do I have your attention now? Good because short of fireworks and air horns, this topic is sure to interest a certain segment of men, gay and straight alike. It’s called digit ratio. It’s not quite as technical as it sounds, but it effects your penis so you damn well ought to take it seriously.

Specifically, digit ratio involves the length of your index finger compared to your ring finger. In technical terms, your index finger is labeled 2D (second digit) and your ring finger is labeled 4D (fourth digit). Take that length and put it into the ratio 2D/4D and you’ve got yourself your digit ratio.

That’s the basic math. So how does this affect your penis? Well, it actually affects a lot more than that for reasons that are a testament to the eccentricities of biology.

For reasons that I can only assume involve nature being drunk on the job, your digit ratio is a byproduct of the amount of androgen (male hormones) that you were exposed to in your mother’s womb. According to Science Direct, a smaller ratio, which means having a longer ring finger, is a direct byproduct of being exposed to more androgen.

More androgen means more masculine features and masculine traits. Among those many masculine traits includes a man’s penis size. In a sense, nature really does have the sense of humor of a 13-year-old boy. More exposure to manly forces make your manly parts bigger. It’s crude, but oddly fitting when you think about it.

It’s also a great convenience when you think about it. At the moment, it’s not legal to show somebody your penis in public when they ask you to prove your endowment. While that’s a legal battle we’ll surely fight down the line, our hands give us an easy cheat.

Is someone curious about the size of your bulge? Are you in an area where dropping your pants will get you arrested? Don’t worry! Just show them your hand. Show them that your ring finger is longer than your index finger. That should assure them that you’ve got a generous endowment. If they have a problem with it, they’ll have to take it up with biology.

I hope this tip helps men out there who want to flaunt their penis without taking their pants off. I’m sure it’ll help at office parties, bars, and nosy relatives. As a man, this is my way of doing my part and I feel I can do more than just write sexy stories.

Now this is not to say that simply having a longer ring finger makes you a well-endowed man. Again, nature is not that refined. Having a bigger penis is just one of the effects of getting a big dose of manly chemicals in the womb. There are other effects and not all of them are good.

According to the fine folks at www.artofmanliness.com, having a low digit ratio is also tied to higher rates of prostate cancer, higher rates of substance abuse, higher rates of infidelity and risk-taking, and higher rates of aggression. These are all things that can ruin your weekend and limit your ability to enjoy your big penis.

In the end, all we can do is take the good with the bad. I try to focus more on the good so to those men out there with a low digit ratio, do what you can to enjoy the benefits. Show your hands to those curious about the bulge in your pants. Show them that nature has been generous enough to endow you.

On a more personal note, I suppose it’s only fitting that I describe my own hands. I’ve measured them closely and I can confirm it. My ring finger is considerably longer than my index finger. Take from that what you will.

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November 10, 2016 · 6:22 am

The Age Of (Sex) Robots Is Upon Us!

After this week, I imagine everyone is sick of politics, elections, and even democracy in general. People, I share your pain and frustration. I’m sick of it too. There’s not enough whiskey and comics in the world dull my frustration with American politics this year.

With that in mind, I’d like to talk about something far less controversial and far less frustrating. I’d like to talk about something that is fun, apolitical, and relevant for everyone. So what could possibly fit all those criteria? What could possibly unite the internet in a positive way for an aspiring erotica/romance writer? I admit I struggled with this question. Then, it came to me.

One word: blowjobs.

I can’t think of anything that isn’t dipped in chocolate that inspires more unity and joy in people. Let’s face it, you could be having the worst day of your life, but if it ended with a blowjob (or a thorough oral excavation in the sacred valley for the ladies), that day will feel that much better.

So in our unity over the joys of oral sex, I’d like to bring robots into the equation. No, that’s not a non-sequiter. No, I’m not trying to kill the mood. There’s a reason I’m bringing robots into this conversation. It’s the same reason we bring robots into a lot of conversations these days. We usually bring them up when they’re about to enslave us and/or make something better and more efficient. I’m here to talk about the latter.

I’ve already talked about sex and robots before on this blog. I’ll likely talk about them again because chances are, one of my future erotica/romance novels will feature a sexy robot of some sorts. I know myself. At some point, this is going to happen for me. It’s only a matter of time and energy.

However, before my perverse imagination can craft a steamy erotica/romance story around sexy robots, the real world will need to catch up. Believe it or not, the world is farther along than you think. What do I mean by that?

I mean there’s a café opening in Switzerland where customers can come in, get a couple of coffee, and then get a blowjob from a robot prostitute if they want. No, this is not the plot of some low-budget softcore porn on Cinemax. This is real. This is actually happening.

It used to be a joke, a future where we would start having sex with robots. I still remember a time when the thought of having sex with a robot was akin to talking dirty with C-3PO form Star Wars. It didn’t have that much appeal, even to comic book nerds like me. Now, robotics has advanced to a point where robots can give us blowjobs. It’s an amazing thought with some pretty profound possibilities.

The fine folks at ThinkTank even did a piece on this. Granted, their tone was somewhat humored and full of dirty jokes. I can’t say I blame them though. Those things are bound to happen whenever we start talking about blowjobs, but I think there’s a more serious issue here that we can’t ignore.

https://youtu.be/KrzwvxaMaxg

Robots are rapidly advancing. The pace of technology is advancing as well. With Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, we’ve already allowed robots into our homes to some extent. These robots don’t have mouths, butts, penises, or vaginas yet, but I’m pretty sure someone is working on that in a lab as we speak.

This means it’s likely that within our lifetime, we’ll see a robot, male and female, that will be a fully functional sex partner. This partner will be programmable, capable of catering to our whims in needs in ways that no human ever could. Robots, by their nature, are not bound by the same limits as fleshy, frail humans. That means that, theoretically speaking, they could be vastly superior lovers in every way.

Think about it. For men, that means having a lover that never ages, never gets moody, never cheats (unless you want her to), and doesn’t complain when you want to try something you read about in 50 Shades of Grey. For women, the benefits are the same, but these lovers also never need Viagra, never fall asleep after five minutes, and never skip the foreplay. They are, quite literally, the ultimate lovers.

This café in Switzerland is just the first step. It may seem crude now. The robots they’ll use probably won’t look like Kate Hudson or Megan Fox. To us, it’ll be a novelty reserved for a select few. If you think that makes it a fad, consider the following. Cell phones used to be reserved for Wall Street tycoons and drug kingpins. Also, they looked like this.

Now, cell phones are so ubiquitous and cheap that people in third-world countries can have the same cell phone model that Wall Street types have, albeit theirs probably aren’t plated in gold. In some cases, a cell phone is as cheap as a cup of coffee and works a billion times better than the old models of the 1980s.

That’s only 30 years worth of technological advancement. Now apply that to sex robots. Right now, we’ve got robots that can give people blowjobs along with their lattes. That’s not much, but fast forward 30 years and dare yourself to speculate. What kind of sex robots will be on the market by then? How cheap and accessible will they be? What kind of features will they have?

It’s hard to say. Even my dirty imagination can’t contemplate every lurid possibility, but I’ll certainly try in one of my future novels. Whatever comes of my novels, we may look back on this day when robots began giving blowjobs as an important historical event. The day when sex robots finally began to please us in ways we cannot do for one another is surely a day that will change the course of human history.

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November 4, 2016 · 6:30 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://youtu.be/rUM4rnJAKsM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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November 3, 2016 · 6:48 am

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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October 28, 2016 · 6:28 am

The Cult/Myth/Absurdity Of Virginity

I talk a lot about the absurdities in our culture that undermine or ruin our ability to love, make love, or just plain hump. These absurdities are important to me because I’m in the business of telling sexy, romantic stories. If there’s something that hinders or attacks our natural inclination to love and hump one another, then it’s going to affect the ability of my readers to get the most out of my books.

Since I want my readers to get the most out of my sexy love stories, I feel inclined to confront these absurdities. Sometimes it comes in the form of radical feminism. Sometimes it comes in the form of religious dogma. There’s no one singular force that’s putting the locks on our collective panties. It’s more of a drunken brawl of forces that are coordinating to attack one person, but don’t realize it.

It’s chaotic. It’s controversial. It’s bound to offend certain people with certain sensibilities. For that, I apologize, but I still feel that these absurdities need to be called out for what they are. It doesn’t matter if sticking your hand in a deep fryer is a sacred tradition. It’s still an absurdity on some levels.

The absurdity in this case has to do with the big V-word that we in the erotica/romance world must navigate. No, I’m not talking about a certain body part for a certain gender. I’m talking about the other big V-word. I’m talking about virginity.

Say that word out loud and measure your reaction. Then say another word like pencil and measure your reaction as well. Is it the same? If so, then you’re excused from reading the rest of this post. You’re more than equipped to appreciate the sex appeal of my books, which I highly recommend. If not, then this is something we need to talk about.

The whole concept of virginity is one of those concepts we, as a society, actively avoid scrutinizing. As a definition, it’s not that hard. Virginity is just a colorful term we used to describe those who have never had sex. If that were there was to it, then it wouldn’t be an issue. We’d lump it together with words like “moist” and “juicy.” They may make some people uncomfortable for entirely personal reasons, but most just shrug it off.

The problem is that, for reasons that have a lot to do with pre-modern culture and little to do with actual physical traits, the concept of virginity has been conflated, twisted, and in some cases deified. There’s a reason why the Virgin Mary has that moniker. If she were just the Hot Blond Mary, it would not have the same impact.

So why does it have this impact? Well, I’d love to say that there’s some complex, fascinating, socio-political reason for it. I’m sure there are some people who teach entire classes on this subject who can conjure complexities from this issue that make it seem akin to quantum mechanics. I’m not one of those people. That means I’m the answer I give is simple, crude, and frustratingly concise. Spoiler alert: I’ll be using caveman logic again.

Virginity has this impact for a pretty simple reason. For most of human history, we didn’t know squat about diseases. We didn’t have reliable pregnancy tests. On top of that, our best contraception involved trusting men to pull out at just the right moment. We can barely trust men with smartphones these days. You really think we can trust them that much when orgasms are involved? Just ask Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner.

This means that virginity is pretty much the only thing our ancestors had to be certain that a woman was disease free and not carrying someone else’s child. Marrying a virgin means there’s little chance she has the plague. It also helps guarantee that the kids she has are going to be yours biologically.

When your entire society is based on land-owning, agrarian traditions, that’s kind of a big deal. By kind of, I mean wars will be fought and people will lose their heads (among other body parts) if they find out their bride slept around or had a kid who wasn’t theirs.

Naturally, our caveman brains can’t process this on a wholly rational basis. Our biology, and the mechanisms that drive it, are blunt instruments. That means they’ll see an issue that may be as simple as a bent nail, but try to fix it with a jackhammer. It’s bound to cause some collateral damage. Unfortunately, the collateral damage in this case undermines the sexuality and agency of women.

It’s no coincidence that every major religion, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and pretty much every major religion founded before Scientology, places some emphasis on virginity. For these traditions, virginity isn’t just a pragmatic tool for ensuring disease-free, bastard-free brides. That’s too logical. They have to turn it into this esoteric, mystical brand of purity.

A virgin woman, in this context, is like a freshly-baked cookie that no one else has touched. It’s like perfectly ripened fruit that hasn’t been harvested yet. It’s like polished Rolls Royce that comes fresh from the factory, never driven and never sat in.

Is this starting to get creepy? Is comparing women to food, cars, and things that don’t have thoughts or feelings starting to bother you? Well, don’t go running to the toilet yet. That’s normal. That’s what happens when you peel back the layers about virginity and why it’s so deified. It really just comes down to a convenient excuse for old sexual traditions.

It’s still absurd, but it’s at least understandable to some degree. We didn’t know what we didn’t know for a long, long time. We only had these traditions and superstitions to guide us. The fact that we’re still here as a civilization and a species shows they did have some merit, but that merit is exceedingly limited, especially to those of us who think women should have agency in their sex lives. What a concept, right?

The concept of virginity became obsolete as soon as we discovered methods of contraception that don’t rely on trusting men to pull out at the right time. It’s become even more obsolete as medical science has advanced to a point where the diseases that used to render women sterile, weak, or dead are either curable or treatable. It’s a wonderful thing, women not being sick or at the mercy of their fertility.

Unfortunately, these outdated concepts of virginity didn’t die as soon as condoms and birth control pills became easier to obtain than cigarettes. Once again, our caveman brains screw us over and not in the fun way.

Remember, the caveman brain is not rational. That means it will cling to irrational crap for as long as possible because completely re-thinking a concept takes too much time and energy. That time and energy needs to be spent preparing for the winter and avoiding hungry bears, damn it! At least, that’s how our caveman brains see it.

As a result, the idea of virginity still has this strange place in modern society. It’s only strange because some people take it to distinctly creepy extremes. Those extremes lead to something like this.

That’s a purity ring. It’s one of the tools/gimmicks that extremely conservative types use in pushing their preferred brand of sexual education, “abstinence only.” They believe they can override an onslaught of hormones and millions of years of biological imperatives in impressionable, irrational teenagers. I want to admire their bravado, but at some point the absurdities are just too much.

They try to paint it as something romantic like, “true love waits.” As a romance/erotica writer, I just find that offensive. These religious, conservative types have their hearts in the right place. They don’t want young people engaging in risky sexual behavior that they’re not ready for. That’s entirely respectable, but extremely misguided.

It’s true that some people are better off waiting to have sex for the same reason some people are better off waiting to get their own credit card. They need to first make sure they’re responsible enough to handle all the proclivities that such things entail. Taking the abstinence route would be like not giving kids driver’s ed before they get a driver’s license. You’re just asking for trouble in the long run.

Even for those who wait, the religious dogma has a nasty tendency to misconstrue our libido. It’s why the idea of porn addiction is more prevalent among religious people compared to non-religious people. It’s also why some who do wait end up regretting it.

Sex is a lot like that road trip your parents to you on as a kid. You didn’t want to go. You worried and complained about it. Your parents just kept saying that if you think it’s going to be terrible, then it’s going to be terrible. You never admit they were right because you convinced yourself of something before you knew anything about it.

The same thing applies to sex. If you think it’s this dirty, evil deed that Satan created so that he could make babies to sacrifice, then you’re not going to enjoy it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your wedding night or your prom night. You’ve already convinced yourself it’s going to be terrible.

You bought into all the dogma and let it rewire your brain, which still has that nasty imperative to survive and reproduce. It’s the one way you screw yourself that you can’t enjoy.

To make matters worse, our society still struggles with shaming women who decide to defy these notions of virginity. We don’t do it to men because men are just expected to hump everything with a pulse, which is offensive in and of itself to me, but that’s a post for another day. The women still disproportionately suffer the bulk of the shaming. Lose your virginity and you can expect to be shamed.

Human beings are sexual creatures. We’re also loving, passionate creatures. Trying to temper or restrain that passion for all the wrong reasons is going to have some nasty side-effect. Sadly, women are the ones who suffer those side-effects the most. Women are the ones who get stoned to death in certain parts of the world for not being virgins on their wedding nights. They’re the ones who get shamed when they try to enjoy sex.

As an erotica/romance writer, I want to celebrate and explore these feelings for men and women alike. I think they should be celebrated, but false notions of virginity and purity are getting in the way.

It’s still part of our culture, this idea that women should be pure and virginity is a virtue. It’ll continue to be part of our culture, even if we get to a point where contraception is fail-proof and medical science cures all diseases. Like many absurd traditions, it doesn’t stop being absurd.

With this in mind, anyone looking to learn a bit more about the concept of virginity and purity should check out this book by Jessica Valenti. It’s called “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Woman.” I highly recommend it. If nothing else, it’ll give you another reason to enjoy my books.

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October 26, 2016 · 6:58 am

The Forbidden Fruit Factor: How Taboo Skews Our Sexuality

If I were to walk up to you and say, “Don’t kick elephants!” what would be the first thing that pops into your mind? For one, you’d probably be wondering what sort of head trauma I had suffered as a child to issue such a warning. Then, you’d probably think about kicking elephants.

This isn’t just the musings of someone who may have gotten hit in the head with one too many baseballs as a kid because he sucked at little league. This is a mental exercise that author/reporter/TV personality John Stossel uses in his book, “Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.” It’s as colorful a read as it sounds.

The reason I cite this tactic is because it perfectly demonstrates something that I often see in romance/erotica, be it novels, movies, TV shows, or hardcore porn. Some call it taboos. Some call it tradition. I think it’s best described as the “Forbidden Fruit Effect.” Whatever you call it, it affects our culture, our minds, and our sex lives. Being an erotica/romance writer, it affects my career path as well so I feel I should talk about it.

Most of us in Western traditions know what we’re referring to when we talk about “forbidden fruit.” It comes right out of the bible, symbolizing something tempting that some higher authority have told us to avoid. In the bible, it’s an apple. In real life, it can be damn near anything.

For some people, that fruit is chocolate. For others, it’s alcohol, heroin, or cocaine. It doesn’t even have to be drugs. There have been higher authorities warning people about dungeons and dragons, comic books, and  Pokémon. Some of these fruits are legitimate health concerns, especially with drugs. Others, such as those who whine about Pokémon, are just plain stupid.

For the purposes of this discussion, though, the forbidden fruit effect is applied to something that impacts everybody. Yes, I’m talking about sex. Let’s face it, none of us would be alive if it weren’t for sex. That makes it a slightly more important fruit than Pokémon.

There are a lot of forbidden fruit aspects surrounding sex, erotica, and romance. There are so many, in fact, that I’ll probably have to do multiple posts about it to really explore the breadth of this issue. For now, I’d like to keep things general because this is something that I’m exploring for a reason. I am actively developing a new novel that uses the forbidden fruit effect in an extreme (hopefully sexy) way. Consider this a prelude of sorts.

With respect to erotic issues, there is no one forbidden fruit that applies to every culture or every society in every time period. Human beings are just too damn complex/diverse/eccentric. There is one relatively common fruit that is fairly pervasive in Western traditions, particularly those with roots in the three Abrahamic faiths, namely Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

That fruit pertains to female sexuality. It’s not sex in general. It’s specifically female sexuality that takes on the aura of forbidden fruit. For proof of just how much it affects us, look no further than Carl’s Jr. ads like this.

Show an ad like this to an audience where female sexuality is taboo and it’s easy to imagine the reactions. Such an audience sees this and thinks, “Oh my God! Look! It’s a sexy female! A beautiful sexy female! It’s so wrong! So immoral/sinful! It’s making me think impure thoughts! Help me!”

I admit, that’s an exaggeration. It still illustrates the impact that forbidden fruit has on our minds. It doesn’t even always come from a strictly moral stand either. There are people on the other side of the socio-political spectrum that see that ad and think, “Oh my heavens! There’s a sexy female! It’s so wrong! It’s so blatantly sexist/misogynistic! This is an affront to women everywhere and it must be destroyed!”

Yes, that’s another exaggerated reaction. It illustrates the same effect. If a man were in that ad, it may raise a few eyebrows, but it won’t generate full-blown distress. It highlights just how much that we, as a civilization, have skewed female sexuality.

So how did this happen? Why did this happen? When did we, as a society, decide that female sexuality was this succulent, delicious treat that we dare not seek, touch, or even think about?

Well, the Richard Dawkins’ of the world would love to blame religion entirely and granted, religion does play a huge part in fetishizing this basic component of human sexuality. The bible spends a great deal of time and effort making women and the desire to be with them taboo. The Quran continues this tradition and even takes it to greater extremes. However, it is not the sole culprit.

Culture, primarily those built around economic models that require large farms where large families are needed to grow crops, are also major culprits. I’ve discussed it before. When there’s an economic incentive to make sure women have a lot of babies and men have incentive to make sure those babies are his, then society will find every possible excuse, crazy or otherwise, to manage female sexuality accordingly.

As a result of these forces, female sexuality isn’t just a forbidden fruit. It’s basically the ultimate prize for men, a Super Bowl trophy on top of a pile of gold-plated elephant’s tusks. For women, it’s this inherent shame that they must carry and be anxious of every moment of every day. For both genders, it’s pretty damn stressful.

Naturally, it’s going to screw with our minds. Sex isn’t like chocolate, video games, or Pokémon. It’s a hard-wired basic drive. Nature programs every living thing to survive and reproduce. It doesn’t program us to survive, reproduce, and level up our Pokémon. It’s one thing to stop playing Pokémon. It’s quite another to subvert basic human drives.

This is born out in research. Some call it, “The Paradox of Temptation.” When you establish that something is just another option, then your brain tends to assess them on equal footing, which is what it’s supposed to do. That’s a survival mechanism. We need that.

However, when you establish that something is a forbidden option, then the wiring of your brain gets a little clunky. That caveman logic in our brains comes back to haunt us again. It follows the skewed logic that if this is forbidden, then it must be valuable and if it’s valuable, then it must be sought.

These results have even been born out by studies about cigarette smoking by the National Institute of Drug Abuse in 2010. When you loudly proclaim that something is forbidden and wrong, it gets peoples attention and sparks curiosity, which is basically the goal of every annoying advertisement ever made.

It also plays out in our interest and desire towards sex. Utah is famous for being a religiously conservative state run by Mormon, another religious sect that places a high emphasis on sexual morality. By sexual morality, they mean women should not have sex for any other reason than to make more Mormon babies that will grow into more Mormons who will give the Mormon church more money.

Despite Utah’s conservatism, it still leads the United States in terms of porn subscriptions. The same situation plays out in Pakistan, which expressly forbids homosexual relationships, but leads the world in internet searches for gay porn. Making something forbidden just makes people more aware of it.

Why does awareness matter? Well, remember this famous speech by Alec Baldwin?

Ignore the premium-level assholery for a moment and look at the sale strategy called AIDA (Attention, Interest, Decision, Action). What’s the first part of that strategy? It’s simply getting the customers attention. You could argue it’s the most important step because the other three steps can’t happen without the first.

Attention is the first step towards making a sale. It’s also the first step towards making connections, forming relationships, and finding the love of your life. It doesn’t matter if your one true love walks right up to you. If you don’t get his or her attention, it doesn’t amount to jack squat.

By making something taboo and forbidden, you immediately give it some extra attention. Just like when John Stossel says, “Don’t kick elephants!” you end up drawing more attention to it than it would if it were just another mundane choice.

Apply that to sex and we’re bound to skew, disrupt, or undermine our attitudes towards sex in a multitude of ways. We’ve created a set of assumptions and morals in our culture that say female sexuality is forbidden and should not be expressed in ways that a Mormon priest wouldn’t approve of. As a result, we give a lot of attention to female sexuality because we’ve convinced our caveman brains it’s somehow more precious than other forms of sexuality.

When you take into account the gold rushes, tulip manias, and black Friday sales after Thanksgiving, it’s easy to see how excessive attention and skewed value can mess with our heads. It affects how we structure our relationships, how we seek love, and how we deal with our lovers.

It’s one thing to forbid something that’s genuinely harmful, like heroin and meth. It’s quite another to forbid basic sexual expressions that are an intrinsic part of our nature. It’s a concept I’m exploring for a future novel.

I don’t want to reveal too much at the moment because my plans for this book are tentative, but expect it to be a story that confronts forbidden sexual expressions in the most direct way possible. It’ll be direct, but it’ll also be sexy as hell and just as entertaining. I’ll post more details as the story develops.

Until then, think about all the sexual taboos in our world. Look at them closely. Try to filter out the flaws in our caveman logic. Should these forbidden fruits really be so forbidden? It’s a question worth asking.

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