Many thanks to Jezebel.com

Very gratified.  Very happy.  Very extremely happy. 

Jezebel.com posted a wonderful review/article of my new book project, Tales from the Velvet Chamber, written by Katy Kelleher.  What's perhaps most gratifying is that the author really gets it.  Really wrote eloquently and intelligently about the misson of this anthology.  To make this even sweeter, have been a big fan of Jezebel.com for a very long time.  As of today, 4,000 people have read it.  Oh yeah.  Oh yeah, baby.

Thank you Katy!  Thank you Jezebel.com:

Chambers of Blood and Velvet

STay tuneD

This just in:

A woman was taken into police custody today after threatening to blow up, Archeology, the well known chain of high end clothing for women. Information on this breaking story is still not verified, but it seems the woman began waving around a stick of dynamite when a sales associate informed her they no longer carried size 14 in blue jeans.  She is described as being in her late 40's, bleached blond hair, wearing a long gray cashmere coat and black cowboy boots.  She is a size 14 at least.

Apparently she walked into the store at around noon today.  Several witnesses reported that after only a few minutes, she became very agitated. At one point, she cornered a sales associate and said, "Where are the size 14 blue jeans?"  The associate replied, "We don't carry them anymore." When the still as yet unidentified woman asked to see the manager, the associate replied: "She's not here, she's taking her SAT's." 

The woman became even more agitated and demanded a pair of jeans.  At this point, three or four other associates as well as several worried customers began combing through the piles of neatly folded blue jeans.  Hoping against hope, playing against time--- perhaps a miracle.  Perhaps a pair of blue jeans that would fit.

But this was not to be.

While there were plenty of size 2, 4, 6, and 8, no one could find size 10 let alone 14.  Again, according to sources, this is when the highly emotional woman pulled out the stick of dynamite and threatened to blow up the store.  As of right now, we don't have any more information on this developing story.  But STay tuneD.  In closing, one might be tempted to draw a parallel between this and the story last week of a woman who held her plastic surgeon hostage for fifteen days.  Her HMO didn't cover her nose job.  Are we seeing a trend here?

STay tuneD. 

40 DD's

On my way to the 4 train, as I walk down 161st Street, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, I pass a discount clothing store; outfits for urban warriors, male and female.  The male mannequins are the usual blank faced generic male models.  They pose and preen but there is nothing noteworthy about them.  They are neither handsome or sexy.  But the women are molded from the bodies of porn stars. The women have something to say. A simple t-shirt is stretched across mammoth breasts with huge prominent nipples. 

A cheap black dress is made extraordinary by the sheer breadth of the boobs.  I'm talking 40 DD's.  I'm talking gazongas. Cha-chas.  Fun bags.  Forget Barbie.  We're talking 52-18-36.  We're talking the biggest of the big breasts.  I always stop to stare. 

Where in the world did they find these mannequins?

It's beyond insulting.  It's cartoonish, almost funny.  I've been tempted to stop in the store and ask them, "Hey just out of curiosity, are they supposed to represent real women to you?  Is this your wife?  Your girlfriend?  Your sister? Is it the smartest thing to model your clothes on bodies that don't exist in nature?" 

I long to puncture the fake boobs like over inflated tires, hear the hiss of escaping air, and bring them back to normalcy.  Women's breasts are not watermelons.  We are not Pamela Anderson.  We are not centerfolds. 

I wonder why the male mannequins don't have gigantic cocks.  A horse or zebra cock that would extend down to their knees, right next to the fake woman with 40DD's.  Now that would be something to write home about.  Wouldn't that make more sense?

Bitch Heaven (the hot July bitch)

Dammit.  My yellow slinky nightie is in the wash, and the roses on the bedside table need to be replaced, and my hair isn't dark, its blond.  But I got the right attitude.  I got the dark stockings, the feather bed, the smoldering impatient bitchy attitude, surely I will be allowed my rightful place in Bitch Heaven.  I'm July.  The month of hot summer sun, the cool blue sea, margaritas, sun screen that smells of coconut, and men on a foreign beach who don't speak English.  This is where you will find me.  The hot July bitch. 

photo: Amazon.com

Athena, the original headache

The story goes that she sprang fully grown from her father, Zeus', head.  He'd had a splitting headache all day long, and nothing he did soothed his suffering. But what he didn't understand was that he was having labor pains, that his daughter was endeavouring to be born.  Finally, at midnight, when the North Star was the brightest on the horizon, Athena burst through her father's skull.  Already a full grown woman, with breasts, hips, thighs, and most of all--- a brain.  Beautiful and strong. 

The world had never seen a woman like this. Men and women were in awe of her.  Even her father shrank in her presence.  No one could forget her.  No one could ignore her.  She wouldn't go away.  She wouldn't disappear.  No one could shut her up.  This is why Athena is the first headache.  The first real woman. 

The well-manicured clam

To those of you who are squeamish, please read no further. I’ve made a career writing nonchalantly, elegantly and openly about sexuality. It just doesn’t embarrass me. This topic may however embarrass you. So be warned.

I’m only half-kidding.

Specifically I speak of the clam, the bush, the cunt, the pussy, the snatch, the gash, and the slash. It is a discovery I’ve made at the gym; in the locker room, in the shower, in the sauna, and the steam room. Of the moment, when we guardedly check each other out. When we look at the tits, the ass, the face, the belly, and yes, the pussy.

I’ve discovered that women under the age of 40 now present a well manicured clam. I speak of the bush that is now shaped and trimmed. These women no longer sport the full unruly, kinky, crazy mass of pubic hair. That wiry jungle that sometimes grows half way down the thighs, a garden of furry delight. It is now, for younger women, a neat landing strip; clipped and shaped. Manicured. Even elegant. Like topiary on an estate.

I wonder, where do women go to get this done? Do they go to a salon and say, take a little off the top and the sides? Can you buy a kit at the drugstore? Is it waxed? Is it painful? Do you pluck it? Clip it? How often? Although my days of wearing a bikini are over, I do remember gently lathering up along the bikini line and gingerly, carefully shaving the excess so that nothing poked out of my suit. And the re-growth was painful.

But this is a whole other level of grooming. I’ve known women (girls) who defiantly refused to shave under their arms, who refused to shave their legs. Who I’m sure sported a full bush of pubic hair. Let your freak flag fly. I sometimes wonder how much the porn industry has played into this trend. When completely shaved pussies first made their appearance it was a bit appalling, and even freakish. For me, it seemed to infantilize the women. They became little girls.

Obviously, this has spread to main stream America and even Brooklyn. I remember stepping out the steam room, a towel wrapped around me. I caught of glimpse of myself in a mirror and was completely embarrassed. My clam was exposed and it wasn’t manicured! The horror! I’ve actually become self conscious about this. As if I need anything else to be self conscious about--- still though I don’t see myself joining the ranks of the well manicured clam anytime soon. "I'm hairy high and low."

photo by:  Marc Travanti

Thanks, but I'd rather not

Ad from American Airlines.  Circa 1960.  From gwen at Sociological Images.

One of many obsessive self-portraits

I call this:  Insomniac's Delight.

Sssssexting

When does sssssexting---- become sssstalking?

Two years ago, he walked into Deluxe, a restaurant/bar near Columbia University, still wearing his baseball jersey.  Friend of a friend. I liked the way he looked in his uniform.  Very male.  Very masculine. Great guns. Two hours later we were making out as he hailed a cab for me.  He was 36, and a Spanish Teacher on the Lower East Side.  He had my phone number and promised to call.  One week later, I met him at my local Starbucks for our first date.  I had a lovely time and enjoyed his company, but it was a first date and he was not going to get to first base, and certainly not second. 

I was surprised and pleased when he offered to walk me home.  A perfect gentleman.  At my door, I kissed him good night and he said, "I'd love to see your apartment."  Sure, I thought, why not.  He came up.  Molly loved him.  She was still a puppy.  But now it was 8:00 p.m. and I had work to do.  I dropped gentle hints; dishes to wash, papers to grade.  He didn't budge.  It became clear to me that he thought at one point, if he was patient, I would lead him to my bedroom.   

Finally, I said, "Well, I have to walk Molly, we can go out together."  The look of shock on his face!  He wasn't getting any.  I softened the blow by adding, "Let's have drinks next weekend.  We can make-out at the bar.  I love doing that. Or we can go to the movies."   The next weekend, he had family in town and cancelled our date.  I left for San Francisco for the holidays.  Two months later, he texted me at 2:00 a.m.  It quickly became sexual.  I wasn't at all aroused, but it was fun.  Again, it was 2:00 a.m., a budding insomniac, and I was lonely. Who else could I talk to?  My very first sexxxting session. 

I assumed that this would lead to an actual date.  I assumed this was a type of foreplay.  As the months went by, however, it never led to an actual date.  It began to feel like a form of harassment:  HI ITS ME.  LAYING ON MY BED. WHAT R U DOIN?  After awhile, I just ignored them.  Ignored him.  He got the message and went away.  But it started up again in the summer.  This time there had been a death in my family--- and I was overwhelmed emotionally, so I welcomed the distraction.  I kept suggesting an actual date.  Wouldn't that be better?  Wasn't that the point? 

As it turns out, no.  Recently, home with the flu, I heard from him again.  Since I hadn't washed my hair in a week, put on make-up, in short looking like a witch, I texted him back: HOME W/THE FLU.  He wrote back: IS THERE ANYTHING U NEED?   When he tried to steer the conversation to sex, I artfully deflected this:  DON'T GET SEXUAL.  NOT GOING THERE.  He quickly ended it.  This has been going on for two years, and I think I finally understand that this is a man who has no intention or zero interest in a real time date.  This is a man who gets off sexually in cyber-space.

It's strange.  When it first felt like he was stalking me, I quickly dismissed it.  After all, its not like he was standing outside my bedroom window, showing up at work, calling me. I wasn't physically being threatened.  He wasn't leaving a million voice mails.  He wasn't calling my friends.  Maybe stalking isn't even the right word.  All I know is that he does not desire to have sex with me.  I could be anywoman.  Anywhere in the world.  Perhaps its that very anonymity that feels obscene. This is a man who tried to sext me while I had a fever of 101 degrees. 

Welcome to dating in the 21st century.

A question

My friend Marc Travanti ,whose artwork is featured regularly on this blog, told me that unless feminism becomes more inclusive it will die out as a movement.  I asked him to review the website I am creating for my book project, Tales from the Velvet Chamber.  He said, You should invite male writers as well.   Part of me agrees with him.  I've never wanted to participate in a movement that shuns or belittles or sets itself off in an ivory tower.  I've never wanted to be a member of a group that is portrayed as strident, bitter or angry.  That's not the feminism I practice.  Or at least this is what I tell myself. 

But to be honest, the books I read are primarily by female authors.  There are exceptions; recently I've read books by Jose Saramago and Jonathan Lethem.  I tell myself that I am just tired of the male voice.  In my 20's and 30's, including my years as an undergraduate, the canon was strictly male: Blake, Shelley, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Aristotle--- well you know the drill.  Every once in awhile a female voice would explode like a rocket--- Woolf!  Plath!  Austen!  But these exceptions were few and far between.

I grew up--- my consciousness and my culture--- framed primarily from a male point of view.  For many women this is not earth shattering news.  But bear with me.  When I became aware of this, I was already in my 40's.  For a long time, I've considered it my duty and my responsibility and my pleasure to shape my world-view and my politics and my dreams through another lens, one that is feminine, different.  My work as a writer has been shaped by this as well; what is the other version of this story?  Where is the female voice? I remember working on a series for National Public Radio--- Lost Voices.  I wrote and produced a piece called, The Trial of Agnes Gaudry. 

I reconstructed her voice from actual trial transcripts from the height of the witch craze in the 17th century. I collaborated with Anne Barstow Ph.D, a prominent and well known scholar in this field.  I can't begin to you tell you how how exciting and dangerous and forbidden this felt.  These ordinary women; some old, some young, some rich, some poor spoke to me from the grave.  These ordinary women were all convicted of sleeping with the devil and conspiring against the Catholic Church.  They all died horrible, brutal deaths.  I found their voices eloquent, passionate, articulate.  I found them beautiful. 

But now, I am considering including male voices for Tales from the Velvet Chamber because I think Marc might've been right when he said, "That would be totally post modern feminsism. That would be the next wave."  This also feels dangerous and exciting.  How would male voices respond to the platform for the anthology? However, I am not 100% convinced.  Part of me still feels like I have to make up for lost time--- all those years deep inside the male canon.  What do you think?

Finally, it was never simple.

"She is allowed to love herself only if a man finds her worthy of love."

--- Annis Pratt, Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction.

Ads from the 1960's: saltycotton, flickr

Simplicity: It was never simple. A series of portraits in honor of my mother's upcoming birthday

1964.

My mother is in her early 30's, and her youngest child is nine months old.  We are going for a walk.  She wears a tight skirt; burnt orange with kick pleats, and a snug turtleneck sweater, black high heels.  My brother is secured inside his stroller that has wooden beads strung across the front. He's gnawed and chewed on them like a small rat.  Drool leaks from the side of his mouth, and we set out in the early afternoon.  We walk along the wide avenue.  Cars pass by and men honk their horns in appreciation of my mother's derriere swinging to and fro as she pushes the stroller.  We pass houses which are variations of ours; one story ranch with contrasting trim.  Five or six or seven children with runny noses and smart mouths.  Too high tuition at the local Catholic school where the nuns are an instrument of torture.  Husbands who work at the factory.

My mother walks fast; as if escaping.  She smokes cigarettes, she chews gum. She doesn't speak.  My brother is quiet. I hold onto the stroller, helping my mother push it up a hill as we pass by the local park.  This is who we are as walk on the avenue.  It's not about where we are going, it's about how we are getting there. We don't have a car.  It is strange to be the only people out on the streets in the middle of the day, the middle of the week.  My mother walks with the knowledge that she is still a good looking woman.  Her fourth child, and she can still fill out that skirt.  Curl her blond hair, walk out in the world with two of her children, and still get noticed. 

advertising from the 1960's: saltycotton, flickr.

Tales from the Velvet Chamber

I'm working on the website for my new book project, Tales from the Velvet Chamber.  An anthology of stories by women who subvert and invert classical myths, fairy-tales and the Bible: I'm thinking Lilith, Mary Magdalene, Eve, Medea, Medusa.  A fresh take on old archetypes; the whore, the bitch, the crone, the muses, the fates, she-devils, gorgons.  The idea: make these powerful women strong, dark, evil and beautiful.  Admired, not reviled.   A gallery of women who are erotic, transgressive, outrageous, comic and charming.  Stay tuned for more details. 

Erotica

Love in the Time of Terrorism

A sexy short story

on Salon.com

From the archives

wild garden

Anita Valium

This image courtesy of Appetite for Equal Rights. Halloween costume called "Anita Valium." Because nothing is sexier than a woman who's in a straight jacket. This blog called for costume ideas that are not sexist. Any ideas? Can a woman be sexy and yet not sexist?

My sex slave story

So after the movie, I walked out onto Houston and it was a gorgeous evening, traffic and hipsters and neon everywhere, the city was abuzz. So instead of jumping on the F train, I walked north on Broadway, toward the giant colorful sombrero, a place I call "The Hat" b/c I've never remembered its real name, even though, I've been a patron there for about fifteen years. Lately I've had a thing for Margaritas, and they do it right. Frosty, salty, sexy.

I walked in, sat down at a bar stool, and the man next to me said, "You're beautiful, you're like a supermodel." He was out of his mind drunk; cognition; nil, connection to the real world; 0. He continued, "You know they're not going to serve you. You know you have to be 21." I said, I'm way over 21, I'm 48 (I know, its a lie, shut-up)." He replied, "Damn you sure look good for your age." So sue me, and slam me, I started to find him funny.

I found out that he's the owner of prominent store in Soho that caters to the A-List. That he's a millionaire. He dished a bit about his celeb customers just enough so that I knew he was probably telling the truth (plus I checked it out the next day online). He was outrageous, so much so--- that I knew part of it was tongue in cheek, going for the gold, so to speak, saying the worst and possibly the most sexiest things he could get away with, things like:

"I'm going to take you to Peter Luger's and fatten you up on steak and mushrooms, then I'm going to take you to Brooklyn where I have a bat cave, and I'm going to tie you up, you'll be my sex slave for 24 hours, and when I set you free, when you're roaming the streets of Brooklyn you'll be a changed woman, you'll never be the same. I'll fuck you till eight in the morning, but not a minute past eight because I got to go to work, and you're gonna love it, you're gonna love being my sex slave. You're going to beg me to keep going, past eight in the morning, and I won't, but that's not going to piss you off, because we're gonna start again the next night."

I was so laughing at him. Seriously enjoying myself. I stopped at the second Margarita so I had all my senses intact. I knew he might possibly be a Jeffrey Dahmer and even though he insisted we start tonight, I demurred. In fact, when he asked me if I wanted another drink, I said, "No, and neither do you. I'm walking you home." So we walked, arm and arm, south on Broadway to Prince Street. All the while he's continuing his sex slave narrative, and all the while I'm still laughing.

At his loft, he keyed in the numbers, and asked, "Coming in?" I said, "No dude, remember I'm just making sure you get home safe." He said, "Thanks," and buzzed himself in.

Dear Anonymous Woman:

Photo: New York Times

On Thursday night I saw A Woman From Berlin. It's the true story of how a young woman survives the Russian occupation of her beloved city at the end of the war. She keeps a journal. She writes everything down. She bears witness. On the first night of the occupation she is raped once. On the second night of the occupation she is raped twice; other women in her building as well. She complains to the commander.

He says: All my men are clean. Meaning what can you do? Boys will be boys. Since her body is going to be occupied, and since she has no choice in the matter--- she decides to choose her lover. One of the highest ranking men in the Red Army. The alpha male who keeps her safe from the sexual frenzy of the mob. Ironically, she falls in love with him. When her husband finally returns home, he treats her like a whore. The producers of the film know her identity. But to this day, the shame keeps her silent.

Here is what I would like to say to her:

Dear Anonymous Woman:

You were smart to have a strategy. You wrested whatever control you could in an out of control world. This allowed you to get through each day and not be destroyed. I liked when you waltzed with the soldiers who had invaded your home. It's important to find beauty in destruction. This is how you ensured your survival.

I think you are a brave and smart woman. There are many women like you in this world. I am one of them. I,too, had a strategy, and I too live to tell the tale. I wish you would come out of the shadows. I'm sorry the women around you--- the women who thought you dishonored the name of German women---I'm sorry they belittled you, and shamed you into silence.

I liked the authenticity of your story. The truth is always more beautiful and compelling than any lie.

The history of the orgasm

I had lunch today with a group of three men. One of them was pitching a documentary on the history of the orgasm, the other two are film producers. I believe they included me in the mix to make it clear that any discussion about orgasm needed to include a woman's point of view. The man pitching this said he really didn't think it was necessary to bring in the politics of gender since his exploration would be scientific and historical. And I said, politely, that's where you are wrong.

Scientific information has been written and evaluated and analyzed from a male point of view. I pointed out that it wasn't too long ago that the medical establishment asserted that they could prove that a man's brain was bigger than a woman's brain. That therefore, women and minorities of both sexes had smaller brains, and thus we possessed the mental acuity of children and needed to be treated as such. Was this in the far distant past? No. It was about one hundred years ago.

History, a series of narratives, has also been written primarily from the male point of view. So to assume that both disciplines present an empirical and objective picture is not entirely true. Any serious study of the orgasm, male and female, should, I think, include the work of female researchers and scientists; such as Shere Hite and Natalie Angiers. Language itself I argued carries within it the potential for a gendered point of view, and must be dissected and parsed as well.

At one point, the movie producers, got out their camera and began taping the discussion. It got quite spirited, and to be honest, thoroughly enjoyable. No offense to the man who was pitching the documentary, but women have had quite enough of discussion of our sexuality from the point of view of the hierarchy. Listen: everyone can join in the fun. That's the beauty of yin and yang.

The snake swallows its own tail

Just finished A.S. Byatt's Babel Tower. It's a story inside a story, inside more stories. At times it felt the novel was just a vehicle for deep analysis on how we use language--- which in part is the spine of its Biblical counterpart. The snake swallows its own tail. She quotes Nietzsche, Blake, Freud, R.D. Laing, Rilke, Simone de Beauvoir.

The dominant narrative is Frederica's story: A young woman, a young mother, highly educated at Cambridge University, is trying to unravel the knot of an abusive marriage in the late 1960's. For her, there has been no revolution. Educated women are trouble. The judge tells her this in the courtroom during her divorce proceedings.

The other major narrative is an allegory set in the Middle Ages--- there are echoes of Chaucer's dispossessed pilgrims fleeing the plague. The world has become too violent, too brutal and so these gentle patricians, these educated souls set out to create their own world. A new world with new rules. Their ultimate decline towards total sexual anarchy is both erotic and disturbing.

We find that the author of the above story, Jude Mason, is a friend of Frederica's. That she in fact recommended the book to the publisher and it is now on trial for obscenity. Much is made of D.H. Lawrence's trial for Lady Chatterley's Lover. Through all of this then is a constant examination of language--- how to manipulate it, parse it--- how its used in education, in law, in poetry, in philosophy, and last but not least, how it tells stories. The snake swallows its own tail.