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A brief meditation on erotic comics (slightly NSFW)

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Kinky Comic Carnival was held at S&M cafe Wicked Grounds a couple Saturdays ago. Comic book fanatics, stimulated by both caffeine and visual erotica, swarmed in unexpected numbers to meet local creative talents that included Ted Naifeh (Courtney Crumren), Justin Hall (Glamzonia, the Uncanny Super Tranny), Serena Valentino (Gloom Cookie), Greta Christina (Best Erotic Comics), Tristan Crane (How Loathesome), and Storm (Princess Witch Boy). The crowd was a mix of committed comicphiles, local kink enthusiasts, passerbys intrigued by the fuss, and confused SOMA-ites who just wanted their coffee.

The eroticism of a comic book is a rather ambivalent one. First, to eroticize a comic book character requires a leap of imagination that most people cannot take; I blame it on the lack of a third dimension. Second, at face value, comics just don’t seem that sexual in the age of gonzo porn. The Victorians liked their quaint pornographic drawings, but then came the moving picture and the drawings became antiquated collector’s items, ancient history. Finally, we are warned that those who read comics after a certain age invariably morph into basement-dwelling creeps. The belief persists that comics block production of potent growth hormones and can prolong an adolescence like nothing else. (They should market that.)

Fans of the genre couldn’t disagree more. For them, the syncretism of X-rated adult content with G-rated comic form represents an appealing erotic alternative to the constraints of real life. Comic book fans like comic books because they represent an escape from mundane 3-D reality. Because their fantasies exist outside the literal world, comic book porn — the exaggerated drawings, crazy sound effects (in a Justin Hall comic, fellatio is accompanied the onomatopoetic “BAM!”), and benevolent deux ex machina who always gets the good guy/gal laid — could not be further from everyday sex. Unharnessing the Id? You don’t have to be a comic book collector to acknowledge the tantalizing possibilities.

This Saturday, give your Valentine the gift of … VD?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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This Saturday, give your Valentine the gift of … VD?

In honor of Valentine’s Day, a series of parochial films called “Love, Sex, and Venereal Disease,” presented by Oddball Film and Video, will premiere at 275 Capp Street on Saturday/13. Local filmmaker Stephen Parr runs the enterprise, and Oddball’s public showings are compiled from Parr’s enormous archive of offbeat film stock footage.

“Love, Sex, and Venereal Disease” is a motley repertoire. Included are films like “VD Attack Plan,” a Disney animation about syphilis and gonorrhea, and the judicious “Social-sex Attitudes in Adolescence,” which assures viewers that, being merely a phase, teenage gayness is not to be feared. There is also “Lot in Sodom,” a 1933 avant-garde interpretation of the well-known Biblical story, and “The Innocent Party,” about a lascivious teen whose past is checkered by venereal disease.

“Dater,” “Lovemaking,” “Chew Chew Baby,” “How to Date,” and a “Candygram” from Peter Lawford round out the selection. What the instructional program lacks in relevance, surefire entertainment makes up for. These desultory artifacts cannot said to be wholly irrelevant, however, even for an audience of San Franciscan been-there-done-thats boasting lifetime Tetracycline refills.

Freed from the polyester girdle of the 1950s, these films concede some unintentional revelations, like that cone-shaped brassieres look good on no one. Never very cohesive, my attention span has become a fragmented mess thanks to, among other things, 24/7 access to the Internet. Perhaps this is why I derive great pleasure from short films. For a time, Wholphin was the single greatest source of my procrastination (a title since supplanted by Jersey Shore).

Attending a showing at Oddball Films is like discovering a clip on YouTube that none of your friends have seen. It is found art for people who don’t necessarily want to do the legwork behind actually finding art. This lassitude is forgivable in our age of mechanical reproduction. Context-deprived weirdness is a potent antidote for cinematic ennui care of mainstream Hollywood soullessness. A lazy spectator myself, I’m am glad there are those, like Parr, driven to amass, catalog, and share the best specimens on others’ behalf.

“Love, Sex, and Venereal Disease”

Sat/13, 8pm, $10

RSVP at (415) 558-8117, info@oddballfilm.com

Oddball Films

275 Capp St.

www.odballfilm.com


Hot sex events this week: Feb 10-16

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Hot sex events this week: Feb 10-16

Valentine’s week is in full effect, but whether you’re single, double, triple, or just all-encompassing there’s a lot of fun (and smarts!) to be had out there in Big Sexyland.

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Swinging Chinatown: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs Opening Gala
Bay Area author and personality Ben Fong-Torres will host this celebration of the rare exhibit, featuring the “Grant Avenue Follies,” a troupe of former nighclub dancers.

Thurs/11, 6pm
$85-$100
Old Mint
88 Fifth St, SF
www.sfhistory.org

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Bawdy Storytelling: Your Cheating Heart
Adulterers, polyamorists, and jilted lovers tell stories in honor of what the hosts have dubbed “Filthy February.”

Wed/10, 7pm
$10
Blue Macaw
2565 Mission
www.bawdystorytelling.com
thebluemacawsf.com

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Beerlesque
Beer and breasts: What goes together better? Hubba Hubba Revue and Shmaltz Brewing Company celebrate the return of Coney Island Human Blockhead with a full-on cabaret show featuring Sister Kate, Honey Lawless, Pin Key Lee, and Vagabondage.

Thurs/11, 8pm
$8
Paradise Lounge
1501 Folsom, SF
www.hubbahubbarevue.com

Underwear Party
Trade in your underwear for a free drink at this weekly party in honor of undressing. Featuring wet underwear contest and Room and Locker passes from Steamworks.

Thurs/11, 9pm
$5
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 552-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

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Little Minsky’s
Douglas Good, the Flying Fox, and a few shady characters present Kellita, Sugar la Vie, Lady Monster, and a bevy of beauties in this monthly burlesque show.

Thurs/11, 9pm
$5
Club Deluxe
1511 Haight, SF
www.myspace.com/little_minskys

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Luv Up the HeARTbeat RED PARTY
The folks behind the Hearbeat Amplifier Art Project host a Valentine’s themed Lingerie and Lace party, featuring DJ Knowa Knowone, Aradia Tribal Fushion Bellydance, and a linger and lace fashion show. Show up in your undies or pay the higher cover.

Thurs/11, 9pm
$10-$15
Supperclub
657 Harrison, SF
www.supperclub.com

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Red Hots Burlesque
Dottie Lux celebrates two years of weekly shows with host Jukie Sunshine and a performance roster that reads like a who’s who of the Bay Area burlesque scene.

Fri/12, 7:30pm
$5-$10
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
www.elrioinsf.com

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Ladies and Couples Night at Galleri
The adult retail store in South San Francisco invites women and the paramours who love them to an intimate private party showcasing the shop’s merchandise. Guests will enjoy wine, Valentine’s gifts, special discounts, and a chance to sample the merchandise. Guests must RSVP.

Fri/12, 8pm
Free
Galleri
168 Beacon, South San Francisco
(650) 827-3946
www.thegalleri.com

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Lucha VaVOOM: From Lucha with Love
Everyone’s favorite combination of Mexican masked wrestling, burlesque, and comedy has come up with its most romantic Sexo y Violencia extravaganza yet.

Fri/12, 9pm
$32.50
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
www.luchavavoom.com

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Lick It
Party with naughty and nice gogo boys and compete for prizes and giveaways at this party hosted by Lance Holman, Mr May in the Bare Chest Calendar.

Fri/12, 10pm
$5
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 552-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

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Be Our Valentine: Customer Appreciation Night
Good Vibes celebrates Valentine’s Day with complimentary chocolates and wine as personal shoppers help you select the perfect gift for your sweetheart – or yourself.

Fri/12-Sun/14, 6pm-9pm
Free
Good Vibrations
www.goodvibes.com

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Whipped: ATPOC Recipes for Love, Sex, and Disaster
Mangos with Chile present the second annual show about the miracles, dreams, and cream our hearts make, featuring true life queer and trans stories of love through music, spoken word, theater, dance, burlesque, drag, and video.

Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm
$10-$15
La Pena Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck, Berk
www.lapena.org

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Water Tantra for Couples
Fancy dinner’s overrated. If you really want to impress your sweetie, sign up together for this special workshop for couples who want to deepen their erotic connection. Topics will include water yab yum, water lap dance, partnered breathwork, and sensual mediation.

Sun/14, 4-8pm
$160/couple (including snacks and drinks)
Passion Temple
Hayward
www.passion/edu/e/ucpueaqqil

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alt.sex.column: Ars longa

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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alt.sex.column: Ars longa

andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I’m 43, good-looking, and reputedly sexy, funny, and easy to hang out with. I got laid almost daily in my 20s. But my last steady relationship was in 2007. My confidence is at an all-time low. I masturbate way too much to movies with Asian women and men who are hung to the floor, which makes me feel very small. I’m in a bad place right now and I don’t see the point of approaching women since I won’t be able to satisfy them like in the movies.

I’m a little under five inches. I’ve never felt comfortable with my size, although I did become very imaginative, creative, and kinky to give women pleasure. But I have never made a woman shake or moan with my penis. I miss female companionship, but I don’t feel man enough to try anymore. I just don’t have the confidence. Now I just fantasize about the kind of women I used to get.

Love,

Feeling Small

Dear Small:

Back when I used to answer questions at San Francisco Sex Information, we used to hear from a lot of guys who assumed that intercourse ought to go on for 90 minutes, penises ought to be at least 8 inches long, and all women achieve dramatic and very noisy orgasms from straight-ahead pounding and enjoy nothing more than a nice refreshing facial. What these guys had in common, was over-exposure to (mainstream) porn and little or no real-life experience from which to develop the kind of bullshit-o-meter one needs to protect one’s fragile sense of self-worth from most artifacts of popular culture, including Hollywood movies and all those songs about doing it all night till the morning light.

Those guys were virgins or recently devirginated, though, and were dismayed when real life failed, as it so often does, to match its own hype. You have no such excuse. You have actually done it with a real girl. Lots and lots of real girls, to hear you tell it. So buck up and back away from the giant-dick porn. Maybe try some amateur stuff, which, while still porn and still rife with porny conventions, may at least be more realistically scaled.

You do know that porn, like advertising, is aspirational and relies on a viewer’s ability to project himself into the imagined scenario, right? And it probably doesn’t work so well on people who already feel as rich, thin, powerful, well-dressed, and sexually satisfied as the people portrayed. Messages designed to make you feel unsatisfied with your own lot can be especially persuasive when you’re feeling vulnerable. So I assume that you also know that porn, however powerful, does not possess secret witch-doctor superpowers and cannot reach through the screen and SHRINK YOUR PENIS. So what the hell, dude? You were the same (admittedly smallish but hardly pathologically so) size back when you were in like Flynn. And all those women were not complaining then. Something has changed but it’s not the equipment.

I stopped making art when I stopped having the time and space (I hear these two are related somehow) to really spread out and do stuff, and I lost some confidence in my skills along the way, but a few weeks ago, sick of being a person who doesn’t do art, I dragged all my supplies out of storage and made something. If I can make art, you can … screw (despite the set-up I just could not, in the end, bring myself to say "make love").

I usually tell the unhung that they’ll have to develop mad skillz instead of relying on brute size to do the work for them. And then I add that everybody else would do well to do the same, since brute size is never a replacement for the skill that you, reportedly, already possess. And I usually throw in the fact that, speaking of not much penis, the people who report the most satisfying sex lives in all those surveys tend to be … lesbians.

To shake bad habits of thought and bad habits, period, find a cognitive-behavioral therapist. And to combat the blues from not getting laid, take a deep breath and find a date. Just don’t get the two things confused, and don’t put "has small penis" in the personals ad. Many women don’t care (and some prefer what you’ve got to offer) but it just doesn’t sound nice. You don’t have to marry this date. You don’t have to do her. Just prove to yourself that you can go.

And yes, I do know it’s not that easy. Neither is getting imaginative and kinky and giving women pleasure, and you used to do all that just fine. I would caution you, though, that thinking of women as something you (used to) "get" may have flown in 2007, but it won’t work now, bub. It’s a new decade.

Love,

Andrea

See Andrea’s other column at carnalnation.com.

The Sexy Professor speaks at City Lights

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Sexy Professor speaks at City Lights

Literary critic, Stanford professor, and sexy-brainy scholar Terry Castle will be speaking at City Lights Books on Tuesday, Feb. 9, about The Professor and Other Writings, a series of meditations on topics ranging from Art Pepper to the Polermo catacombs to Susan Sontag. When read together, the essays coalesce into a singular, fearless new memoir.

Castle has produced an incredible body of literary criticism and, in her work, she often explores the complicated relationship between literature and sex. Books like The Apparitional Lesbian and The Literature of Lesbianism examine depictions of love between women in the Western literatary canon. Boss Ladies, Watch Out: Essays on Women, Sex, and Writing investigates female sexuality in works by famous women writers.

But don’t let the lit theory put you off. Even those allegedly allergic to theory will enjoy the candid, intelligent essays in Castle’s latest work. Her intellectual gifts are obvious — even her informal pieces have the pleasing effect of making their reader feel smarter — but Castle remains accessible to a wide audience. In fact, her writing seems targeted at those who exist on the outskirts, or even outside, of the literary cognoscenti. Castle makes no secret of her distaste for the “preening and plumage display” of current day literary criticism, or what she calls “jargon-ridden pseudo-writing,” and her informal pepperings of middle- and low-brow references throughout The Professor add to Castle’s likableness. None of my college professors would ever (admittedly) discuss the “hotitude” of famous Hollywood stars; neither would they (admittedly) jam out to bass-bomping hip hop on their iPods.

The Professor is marketed as a memoir, but it reads more like a collection of prose pieces, each distinguished by their own specific ideas and themes. Though a touch gossipy, “Desperately Seeking Susan,” about Castle’s prickly friendship with Susan Sontag, is a delightful read. Near the essay’s end, the two women attend a dinner party at Marina Abromovic’s apartment also attended by (if this tells you anything) Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and the “freaking-looking” singer from Fischerspooner. The disaster that ensues is a finely-rendered comedy of manners, equal parts hilarious and grim.

Castle’s “Que Modo Deum,” a collage posted on her blog

Castle touches on the work of jazz saxophonist Art Pepper, whose underrated genius is vaunted by jazz enthusiasts, in “My Heroin Christmas”. In “Travels With My Mom“, a short travelogue which can be read online, the author’s relationship with her mother is illuminated in a series of seemingly innocuous glimpses. The title-essay, “The Professor,” which was my favorite, is a searing reflection on sexual discovery, and details the romantic entanglements of Castle’s own college days, the most significant one being her relationship with a troubled female professor that arrives full circle, many years later, in a chance meeting that I refuse to spoil for you here.

The essays in this fine collection are personal to their author, but their focus is outwardly directed. They observe and describe, in rich personal detail, other things and other people. They are not a periscope view into Castle’s human psyche, lesbian psyche, or any psyche for that matter. Castle is far too tasteful to go there. In The Professor there is no hint of the solipsistic introspection or blubbering confessionalism that has gives bad name to the memoir form. Castle is generous with personal anecdotes, opinions, and history, but her subjective experiences are used to shed light on ideas that remain, while important to the author, wholly independent of any one person’s life. I enjoyed this collection immensely. 

Terry Castle
Tue/9, 7:30pm, free

City Lights Book Store

261 Columbus Ave. (at Broadway)

(415) 362-8193

www.citylights.com

The Professor and Other Writings
By Terry Castle
352 pages. HarperCollins.
$25.95

Hot sex events this week: Feb 3-9

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

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Remember late Juliet Anderson, the adult film star and producer known for starting her career at age 39 and appearing in more than 70 films during the “golden age of porn” this Saturday.

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>> Hubba Hubba Revue stage-play
It’s so meta! Hubba Hubba presents a scripted play about staging a burlesque show, starring Wiggy Darlington, Sid Scenic, Bunny Pistol, McPuzo & Trotsky, Pin Key Lee, Miss Information, Zip the What-Is-It, and Kingfish and Eddie.

Thurs/4, 7pm
$15.50
Cobbs Comedy Club
915 Columbus, SF
www. hubbahubbarevue.com

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>> Juliet Anderson Memorial Gathering for Friends and Fans
Celebrate the late sex goddess known as Aunt Peg, who entered the adult industry during its Golden Age. The event will feature a clipshow with images of Anderson and a chance to bring written memories about her.

Thurs/4, 7pm
Free
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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XXX-rated bondage dinner
Every first Friday, supperclub hosts this nicely naughty party with Stormy Leather and sexploration with Monika.

Fri/5, 7pm
$65
Supperclub
657 Harrison, SF
(415) 348-0900
www.supperclub.com

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>> Red Hots Burlesque

Dottie Lux’s seductive, spicy, absurd, and amusing weekly burlesque show features Alotta Boutte, Isis Starr, Nikki Sparx, Dottie Lux, La Rena Rose, and Lindsey B. Jones.

Fri/5, 7:30pm
$5-$10
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
www.redhotsburlesque.com

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>> Pre-Code Follies
Film curator Paul Etcheverry presents hidden film clips Includeing Zazu Pitts, Betty Boop shorts, and Busby Berkeley, while burlesque star Kitten on the Keys plays naughty tunes from the ’20s and ’30s.

Fri/4, 8:30pm
$10-$12
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
37417 Niles Boulevard, Fremont

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>> Nasty
Attend this filthy fun-raiser for the AIDS Emergency Fund, featuring a battle for the nasty girl between Cooper the Trick and Cooper the Boyfriend in a real, raw wrestling match.

Fri/5, 10pm
$5
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
(415) 552-8689
www.powerhouse-sf.com

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>> First Friday Follies
Celebrate two years of this monthly burlesque show with emcee Maragaret France, Vera DeVille, Cupcake, Little Eyeful, the Bombshells, and more.

Fri/4, 9:30pm
Free
Stork Club
2330 Telegraph, Oakl
www.myspace.com/firstfridayfollies

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>> Pussy Boxes
Join this special artmaking workshop with jeweler and assemblage artist Ruby Pearl, who’s known for her pussy boxes and altered Barbies.

Sat/6, 12-4pm
$25-$50
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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>> Burlesque n’ Brass
The Hot Pink Feathers perform at this monthly musical event.

Sat/6, 8:30pm
$10
Café Van Kleef
1621 Telegraph, Oakl
blueboneexpress.com

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>> ”Pin me up, Pin me Down” artist discussion panel
Femina Potens kicks off a month devoted to the art of the pin-up with an opening reception featuring a special burlesque performance by FellaFem and Debauchery.

 

Sat/6, 6pm
Free
Femina Potens
2199 Market, SF
www.feminapotens.org

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>> Kentucky Fried Woman Show: Rock of Love
Hear the best of rock and roll and see the best of Bay Area brulesque, Includeing Dottie Lux, Rusty Hips, Kitty von Quim, and Delicio del Toro.

Sat/6, 8:30pm
$10
Velvet
3411 MacArthur Blvd, Oakl

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>> Ask our Doc: The G-Spot
Fact or fiction? Find out with Doctor Carol Queen, PhD, who confirms the existence of the special spot and tells you how to find and enjoy it.

 

Sun/7, 6pm
Free
Good Vibrations Berkeley
2504 San Pablo Ave, Berk
(510) 841-0171
events.goodvibes.com

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>> ”How to Paint a Pin-Up”
Learn a bit of art from an artist’s perspective in this workshop with Nancy Peach.

Sun/7, 2-5pm
$20
Femina Potens
2199 Market, SF
www.feminapotens.org

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>> Uptown Hubba Hubba
Kiss Me Kate, Eva Valentine, Monifa, Pin Key Lee, and Vivi Ennui star in this week’s installment of Hubba’s Oakland show.

 

Mon/8, 10:15pm
$5
Uptown
1928 Telegraph, Oakl
www.hubbahubbarevue.com

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>> Intro to Lap Dancing with Slinky Productions
Learn the art of sensual teasing and erotic fun without gettingg out of your chair. This women-only workshop with Catherine Rose will give you the skills you need to start your own slinky dance.

Mon/8, 8pm
$25-$30
Good Vibrations Berkeley
2504 San Pablo Ave, Berk
www. goodvibes.com

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>> Intro to Red Tantra
Bast, director of Dakini Temple, will get you started in this introductory, non-explicit workshop on the artful, conscious practice of red tantra.
Tues/9, 8-10pm
$45-$50
Good Vibrations Polk
1620 Polk, SF
www. goodvibes.com

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Punxsutawney — feelin’ hawney?

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By Amber Schadewald

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Punx: hunk

So, Punxsutawney Phil awoke from his slumber, saw his shadow, and Twittered six more weeks of chilly. But c’mon. While some groundhogs around the country saw shadows and others did not, it couldn’t be more obvious that, at this time of year, the male of the marmot species could give two shits about the weather. After a long hibernation, there’s only one thing Punxsutawney Phil and his fellow wobbling rodents want to see in their immediate future: S-E-X.

Fat, furry, and a bit sleepy, groundhogs (or woodchucks, or “whistlepigs” — as in wolf-whistle) crawl out of hibernation aroused and ready to go, determined to plant their seed for summer babies. Timing is incredibly important for the underground critters, due to the fact that the youngsters must be weaned and fat before the long winter snooze at the end of the year. Courtship must begin immediately, teeny Viagra pills at hand or no.

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How much woodchuck could this woodchuck, er, chuck?

Similar to single human ladies, female marmots are apprehensive about hooking up with the eager little beavers and therefore must be given a chance to “get to know” their possible partners. Gathering food and digging holes, the groundhogs flirt, chat about their dreams, and eventually slip into the sack to do the deed. Forget complicated relationships — once the couples have mated, their reproductive duties are done for the year and the woodchucks can get back to doing what they love: eating and making forts.

A man of the times, Punxsutawney Phil now has a cellphone (probably to keep up with all his adoring lady-woodchuck fans). Send this charming rodent a text to confirm today’s prediction — “Groundhog” to 247365. Maybe he’ll hit you back with a “How you doin’?”

Science slips into something more comfortable: the Exploratorium’s “Sexplorations”

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Spring is in the air. Sure, it’s coupled by a lingering chill, but the past few days have brought a cameo by our fair weather (ha!) friend the sun, flowers are popping up and open toed shoe spottings have been increasing in intensity on our city sidewalks. It’s a time of rebirth, renewal… and no small amount of, shall we say, “fecundity” in the world around us.

Such fertility sets the stage nicely for this month’s Exploratorium After Hours night dedicated to the science of hanky panky. If you haven’t yet checked out the kid-friendly science museum’s adult-friendly monthly event, just know that it features all the regular museum exhibits, a cash bar, music, expert lecturers and free parking. February’s theme is “Sexplorations” and it promises a vaguely titillating evening- particularly if you’re into watching insects bang or modern science’s latest findings on your nasty bits.

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“Baby you so fine I wanna stick on you like recombinant DNA.” Science pick-up lines, ya dig? Photo by Amy Snyder, copyright Exploratorium

And what has science dug up on our down under since 10th grade health class? “Sexplorations” will feature a discussion of just these revelations by sly fox science writer Mary Roach, whose latest tome “Bonk,” is a rundown of understandings and misunderstandings of our privates and their functions, a follow up to her previous treatises on cadavers and what specialists have discovered about the afterlife.

What else? A “condom couture” fashion show, sea urchin fertilization, a talk on the sex lives of kitty cats, bull testicle dissection, live sperm and two movies entitled “Love Life of the Octopus” (1965) and “Sexual Encounters of the Floral Kind” (1983). Ready to get frisky, scientifically speaking?


After Hours: “Sexplorations”
Thur/4 6-10 p.m., $15
The Exploratorium
3601 Lyon, SF
(415) 561-0363
www.exploratorium.edu

Atlanta beats the pants off SF — again

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Hot guys mostly not in their underwear at Atlanta’s 2009 Pride Parade

In general, San Franciscans deal with an existential crisis in one of two ways: binge drinking or making idle threats to move to New York. Usually, it’s a combination of both. Concerning the latter, we frequently cite the Big Apple’s better nightlife, for which we are prepared to sacrifice amazing food, outrageously mild weather, and overall happiness and sense of well-being.

Our behavior needs to stop. Listen, whatever problems you may have, New York isn’t going to solve them for you. I learned this lesson the hard way. Once upon a time, I turned threat into reality. I packed up all my things, threw myself a teary goodbye party, and got an apartment in Williamsburg. Several months later, I was happily back in San Francisco. It was embarrassing.

Here’s a piece of advice. Next time you hate your life, instead of threatening to move to New York City, why don’t you threaten to move to Atlanta?

 

I’m serious. Last year, a Trojan sex study revealed that Atlantans are “most sexually satisfied” out of 10 cities surveyed. San Francisco ranked dead last. 73% of Atlantans participating in the survey professed to have satisfying sex. That’s pretty good.

I know what you’re thinking. Back then, I was skeptical too. Now, I’m prepared to suspend some of my disbelief. The Advocate just published an article on the 15 gayest cities in America, based on the number, per capita, of gay couples, gay bars, cruising spots, and gay films on Netflix queues, among other criteria. The gayest city, of course, was revealed to be… Atlanta?

What is it with this place?

San Francisco wasn’t even on the list. Mike Albo writes, “This admittedly subjective search reveals spots that are much more pink than you might think. Determined by a completely unscientific but accurate statistical equation, these gayest cities may surprise you. Iowa City, Austin, and Asheville have more gays per capita than the biggies.” On Atlanta, he says, “Atlanta guys are hunky… And who doesn’t love the sweet lilt of a Georgia accent on a knockout guy or gal?”

Admittedly, the Southern accent is cute. Next time you are sexually or otherwise frustrated enough to utter that old “I’m moving to New York” platitude, why not replace “New York” with “Atlanta”? Atlanta has better weather, a lower cost of living, and good-looking people, and the stats show that, whether straight or gay, Atlantans are having a lot of great sex. Repeat after me: “I’m moving to Atlanta!”

Before I get labeled a disgraceful turncoat, I’ll admit I’m arguing Atlanta’s case on the basis of reverse psychology. Those temporarily dissatisfied with the Bay Area might finally have a cure for their existential malaise! Imagine waking up tomorrow to find yourself living in Atlanta. Let that thought marinate for a while. You live in Atlanta. Suddenly, things don’t seem so bad here, do they.

 

alt.sex.column: The old triangle

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By Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.

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Dear Andrea:

I seem to find myself being one-third of a long-term, stable threesome. Or is there no such thing?

I was dating “Jill,” who is bi but was only dating me. We decided to try a threesome just for fun and invited her friend “Jen.” It turned out not to be one-time thing. Jen came back, and came back again, and she and Jill started to fall in love, and so did we (Jen and me), and before you knew it, we had this thing that looks weird from the outside but feels very normal and even simple to us. Only a few close friends know, and we are worried about what parents and others would say if they knew. Jill and I were planning on getting married and having a kid, and we still want to, but now Jen would be part of our family too. And we’d like to get a house together, but wouldn’t people know then?

I know “one guy, two girls” sounds like a porno fantasy, but it isn’t like that really. We all have jobs and lives, and it’s not like we hang around the pool having crazy three-way sex all the time. But we do want to stay together. What do you think? Is such a thing possible?

Love,

Equilateral

Dear Equ:

Clearly so, since you are doing it. As for the future, who can tell?

 

An equilateral triangle is about as stable a shape as you can find, but even triangles suffer stresses. You are still in the two-honeysmoon phase and everyone is, I am sure, on his or her best behavior. This is certain not to last. Sooner or later someone will feel neglected or insufficiently supported and will not repress the urge to make that snappish comment, and somebody else will come back with a “Yeah? If you’re so ____ing _____ why don’t you ______instead of ______ing?” and somebody else will roll his or her eyes and somebody will yell at the eye-roller for eye-rolling. It is inevitable. And soothing three egos and salving three sets of hurt feelings is exponentially more complicated.

I would also not discount the lack of societal support for nontraditional unions as a source of yet more stress. I hesitate to draw a direct parallel to gay couples, but not having people beam at you when you announce your intentions and not having all the aunts tear up at the sight of the lovely bride (groom) and not having the chair dance and the “mazel tov and siman tov” can be a real loss. It isn’t all about the health insurance and the tax breaks or even about commitment — marriage is also about societal support and approval, and that support and approval does help solidify a union. As I said, not exactly the same thing, though. Your situation is worse.

What? No. I don’t disapprove. But other people will, so strenuously that you will feel obligated to keep it a secret. And while secrets can be sexy and sharing them can be bonding, living in hiding (or in a situation generally misunderstood or despised) is ultimately pretty destructive. Which is certainly no reason not to do it.

The complications of a multiple marriage (equivalent) go far beyond potential threats to peace on the home front like jealousy, possessiveness, and schedule difficulties. (Have you never watched Big Love? Even if you’re not planning on founding your own splinter sect, you might want to.) Spouses are family, but what are second spouses? What happens if Jen has a family emergency, is ill herself, or otherwise in need of immediate succor? Your boss understands “My wife’s mother died, I’ll be out this week.” She doesn’t give a damn about your wife’s girlfriend’s mother. What if Jen wants to have a baby too? The three of you may fall easily into a family pattern that works for you, with one mommy and one mama, or whatever — children never seem to find unusual arrangements the least bit troublesome, since they have no idea what “usual” is and what’s normal is what’s normal for them. Schools and soccer coaches and other authorities, however, will have Opinions.

In other, fewer words, sure, you can do this. Jill can do it. Jen can do it. But living a life that sounds like somebody else’s dirty joke is not going to be easy. If I’m sick of hearing “You’ve really got your hands full!” when I walk by with my twins — imagine how tired of it you’re going to get. You might want to get in practice now: “How do you figure out which one to do first?” sniggers the office wit when you let slip that you’re finding your home life complicated, “I wish I had your problems.”

“Dude,” you’ll sigh, as you attempt to side-step him to get to the copier, “You have noidea.” And he won’t.

Love,

Andrea

 

Hot sex events this week: Jan 27-Feb 2

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

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Selina Raven is the spankin’ maven at Good Vibes on Monday.

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>> Lip Service
Tracy Bartlett leads this perennially popular workshop about one of the most overlooked erotic skills: kissing. Bring a partner to smooch and a bottle of water to keep your lips lubed.

Wed/27, 8pm
$45/pair with pre-registration
Good Vibrations Valencia
603 Valencia, SF
www. goodvibes.com

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>> Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop
Gina de Vries hosts this workshop for current and former sex workers who want to share their writing and get honest, non-judgmental feedback.

Wed/27, 5:30pm
$10-$20
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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>> Erotic Reading Circle
Share new or old work in this non-judgmental workshop setting.

Wed/27, 7:30pm
$5-$10 suggested donation
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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“The Viagra Diaries”: sexy chick lit for the over-sixty set

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If the idea that a mainstream San Francisco newspaper would publish a weekly sex/dating column called The Viagra Diaries — targeted at local singles over the age of sixty — sounds like a work of fiction, it’s not because Violet Blue isn’t in her sixth decade yet.

The Viagra Diaries is a novel by Barbara Rose Brooker, a 73-year-old local writer whose latest protagonist happens to be a septuagenarian dating columnist named Anny Applebaum. [No doubt revered Russian historian and political journalist Anne Applebaum is tickled — Ed.] The name of Applebaum’s fictional column supplies the book’s title. Old but hardly wise, Anny struggles with personal finance and falls into a messy relationship with an emotionally unavailable older man. Given that Anny shares Carrie Bradshaw’s mental age, perhaps it makes sense that her column is more like “Sex and the City” than “Sexually Speaking with Dr. Ruth.”

Known to Anny’s readers as “Mr. X,” Marv is a 75-year-old diamond dealer whose merits include being addicted to JDate, constant cheating, and lusting helplessly after women who are too young for him. He wears a flashy gold Rolex and drives a Mercedes convertible. His eloquence is revealed in statements like, “I love all sports. I ski all over the world. My first wife was a champion French skier. She ran off with her trainer and died in a ski accident.” Ever drawn to the bad boy, ingenue Anny enters into a mostly-NSA sexual relationship with Marv, and the emotional detritus provides fodder for her column. Brooker’s novel seems to argue that poor decision-making skills, romantic and otherwise, are not wasted on the young.

Brooker sold the movie rights to The Viagra Diaries and has appeared recently on the morning talk circuit promoting her book. Her goal, she’s said, was to show that old age doesn’t necessitate BINGO and nursing homes, that old people can have successful careers, grand aspirations, and good sex too. This argument, to which Sophia Loren is a walking testament, is hardly new. At one extreme, I suppose you have something like 77-year-old Philip Roth’s The Humbling, featuring a sexually-potent protagonist in his mid-sixties who likes a lesbian threesome every now and again, and on the other, something like this.

The Viagra Diaries is addressed to a particular type of older woman. Helen Gurley Brown would read this book. Doris Lessing and A. S. Byatt would not. But by its intended audience, The Viagra Diaries will be well-received. Joan Rivers, not known for being easy to please, described it as “a poignant picture of dating, romantic love, parenting an adult daughter, and sex after sixty.” Brooker is no belletrist, but she manages to unassumingly, sometimes even unintentionally, charm. With scaffolding borrowed from the much-loved chick lit canon, her characters are immediately recognizable to anyone who has ever read a matte-finished paperback with a stylized handbag or lipstick tube on the cover. It makes perfect sense for Anny and Marv, old though they be, to fashion themselves after Candace Bushnell and Helen Fielding characters. What better method can there be to feeling young-at-heart than to indulge in the immature follies of the young?

“Cult of the Hermaphrodite” mystery deepens

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By D. Scot Miller

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The Cult of the Hermaphrodite — our own Da Vinci Code

I loved Juliette Tang’s piece on the cult of the hermaphrodite poster. One of the beautiful, sexy things about San Francisco is our collective psychosexual make-up. I’m turned on by the seemingly infinite ways our sexual selves can manifest, inhabit… twist?

On one of those few recent warm nights, I was walking down Polk Street and when ran across this same poster taped to a telephone pole. What drew my attention was the Scotch tape and white out. Each poster had been touched by a human hand. I live near Frontlyne Video (1428 Bush Street. “Speciality” movies. Large TS section. Stop by and say hi), so I stopped by to look at the book: “Cult of the Hermaphrodite Unveiled…is part 2(two) of Master R.J. Daniel’s PATH of the ASTRONOMER/SCRIBE/PRIEST/WARRIOR from “A Private Think Tank” known as the “Almasi Scholars Research and Consulting Organization”, who are “Observers and Trackers in trends in adult entertainment. economics, religion, politics, male-female-family and gender.”

I must confess that I pulled what little sex clout I’ve garnered writing SFBG Sex SF blog, and the the counter guy was cool enough to let me sneak a peek. The truth was revealed to me in crude, meticulous drawings, collage, and Situationist-inspired type-text :

“Hermaphrodites, calling themselves SHE MALES/TRANSEXUALS, travel a NATION-WIDE CIRCUIT of LOVE-MAKING, where they are WORSHIPPED as GODESSES of EROTIC LOVE. LOVE PISTOLS on TOUR Fully LOADED”

Written more like an expose than a story (though it begs to be one), Master Daniel traces the still-influential Cult of the Hermaphrodite to the ancient Phoenician city-states and the sex-cults of King Solomon 6,000 years ago. The affluent male devotees of the cult, known as satyrs, wish to re-establish the erotic link between the god of cunning, swiftness, and commerce (Hermes) with the goddess of love, beauty and raw sexuality (Aphrodite). After his initial thesis, he backs it up with a complex cosmological and numerical system based on astrology, astronomy, pornography and folklore.

Cruising through the Polk district on another rare warm evening, with Diva’s down the block and the TS sex-workers mingling on corners, stepping out of town cars, limos and taxis, even I could see the possibilities of a cult rife with sultry rites lurking in the catacombs. Could Master Daniel be right? Wouldn’t it be fun to make him so?

I’ve seen Master Daniel, and have run across one of his business cards. Call me a freak if you need to, but I love stuff like this. My novel — Knot Frum Hear (2010) — is loosely based on an actual San Franciscan known as James Bond Zero who also printed his own business card. Though there is a 30 year difference, they could be working for the same company, William S. Burroughs CEO.

Master Daniel’s book, which Frontlyne reports has been selling “pretty good,” is copyrighted and with his written permission, I will post more of his actual text and images. Yes, I will be calling him. Is that another story or the same one? We’ll see…

Hot sex events this week: Jan 20-26

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

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Join Mr. May from the Bare Chest 2009 calendar for Lick It at Powerhouse.

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>> Sex Workers’ Writing Workshop
Join current and former sex workers for a workshop geared towards both beginner and seasoned writers.

Wed/20, 6pm
$10-$20
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
sexandculture.org

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>> Moulin Rouge: Sacred Courtesans and X-traordinary Gentlemen
La Diva Francesca Gentille De Mirae hosts a special night of beauty, flirtatiousness, exquisite food, incandescent music, and ecstatic dancing.

Wed/20, 6pm
$34.95 includes 3-course dinner, entertainment, fashion show, and dancing
Supperclub
657 Harrison, SF
(415) 348-0900
www.supperclub.com

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>> Barbary Coast Burlesque: Intoxicating Beauties of the Bay
Virginia Suicide hosts a special performance featuring Bunny Pistol, Honey Lawless, Kiss Me Kate, Mynx D’Meanor, Josie Starre, and sASSy Hotbuns in a bordello-esque atmosphere.

Wed/20, 8pm
$6
Hotel Utah
500 4th St, SF
www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

alt.sex.column: The new Pluto

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By Andrea Nemerson. Email your questions to andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com. Read more of Andrea’s columns here.

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Dear Readers:

Last week, after being besieged by poorly-reported announcements of the G-spot’s sudden demotion from anatomical feature to "whatever," I had "The G-spot is not the new Pluto!" as my status update for a while, prompting my friend Wednesday to come back right smart with, "It ain’t Uranus either." Pass it on.

And yes, we did cover this last time, but given the space constraints I ended up giving what is in there and what you can do with it shorter shrift than deserved. So I expected questions, which you were all apparently either too lazy or too stunned with grief over the loss of your G-spots to ask, so I’m going to do it for you.

Q: So what did you mean, "We don’t know what we’re referring to?" Is it or is it not an area of sensitivity on the upper wall of the vagina, probably responsible for the shy and easily frightened cryptozoological entity called the vaginal orgasm?

A: Yes and no! Each of those terms I reeled off — G-spot, paraurethral sponge, orgasmic platform, et cetera — comes with some researcher or writer or activist’s personal and political baggage. Ernst Grafenberg*, the original "G" in G-spot, never named it himself. He was a urethra man; his big paper on the subject was called "The Role Of Urethra in Female Orgasm." He was looking at the area where the urethra runs closest to the vaginal wall, and the erectile tissues surrounding it, as the possible locus of vaginal responsiveness and even female ejaculation.

The Federation of Feminist Women’s Health Centers, in the early 1990s classic A New View of Woman’s Body, coined or popularized "paraurethral sponge" for the same area. And while the use of "sponge" in this context does conjure up distracting images of Seinfeld‘s Elaine and her "sponge-worthy" dates, it’s probably less confusing than G-spot. A "spot," after all, could be anywhere. "G-spot" itself was coined by Beverly Whipple et al. in 1982, and immediately entered popular parlance and was just as immediately misunderstood (as well as dismissed by gynecologists and other experts). If only they’d gone for something like "area" instead of "spot," a lot of this confusion could have been avoided.

Tera Patrick — “Sinner”?

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By D. Scot Miller

 

On Wednesday the 13th, at the Border’s on Union Square, more than 100 people showed up for Tera Patrick signing her new bio Sinner Takes All (Gotham Books, 2010). The mostly male constituency were a curious bunch; paunchy, grizzled, and 40-plus, they came loaded down with over-sized posters and pristine, collectible magazines. As they waited in line for Ms. Patrick’s signature, I wondered if any of them had read the book, because if they had…

By D. Scot Miller

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On Wednesday the 13th, at the Border’s on Union Square, more than 100 people showed up for Tera Patrick signing her new bio Sinner Takes All (Gotham Books, 2010). The mostly male constituency were a curious bunch; paunchy, grizzled, and 40-plus, they came loaded down with over-sized posters and pristine, collectible magazines. As they waited in line for Ms. Patrick’s signature, I wondered if any of them had read the book, because if they had…

Sinner Takes All, ghostwritten with Carrie Borzillo, works well as a biography. And as with all well-written bios, we learn more about the subject than the subject may have intended. For example, we learn that Tera Patrick is not a big fan of Tera Patrick, “I’ve never watched any of my movies,” she says in the Q&A section, “never.” This is part of her appeal for me. There’s an honesty in this book that is at once tragic, funny, scary, and savvy. I have no doubts that this is one of her less-visual assets that has made her one of the top producers, owners, and entrepreneurs in mainstream porn today.

The book opens with Tera in a psych ward a la Lady Sings The Blues. After a period of hard-boozing and raging black-outs (who AIN’T been there?), the porn star is given time to reflect.

From her gawky, awkward upbringing — the daughter of a free-love hippie father and no-nonsense, abusive mother, which leads to her out-of-control adolescence (“…at the young age of twelve, I was flirting with older men, kissing boys, and using my sexuality to get what I wanted”) — to becoming a teen model in Japan, Patrick gives graphic detail without being trashy, and at times, the sadness is almost too much to bear. Losing her virginity to a 35-year-old photographer she remembers, “After that, we continued the photo-shoot like nothing had happened. This is where ‘The Switch’ kicked in. This is where I changed forever and put me on the path to porn. He was done. I was done. OK, we can move on and finish the shoot now.”

Fortunately for us, Patrick does not stay in the sexual doldrums and her matter-of-fact approach to sex is refreshing, if not a little too clinical at times. If you want a little charge when someone is describing a threesome, keep looking. Patrick is known as “The Vanilla Girl of Porn”, The serial-killer enthusiast Tera Patrick IS a rather vanilla romantic who has a thing for “bad boys” with motorcylces and tattoos. Unfortunately, this where the book falters.

Beginning with the courtship of her future husband (Biohazard’s Evan Seinfeld), the story takes on the aura of adolescent sex fantasy in the “Twilight” tradition. Through her struggles with alcohol and depression, Seinfeld remains by her side, making movies with her, as she builds her empire. It seems like true love, success, and eternal happiness for these two beautiful losers; and we don’t care. I do see a reality show on the horizon though.

The best parts of the book are (where else?) from the back. Here, Tera answers 12 burning questions from her fans, lists her best movies (which she’s never seen), and gives the “ins and outs” of being a porn icon. Oh, and the glossy, full-color pics that make up a third of the book, including a fold-out poster cover, are nice too.

Its funny; with the mainstreaming of porn, and the emergence of live-feed — an advance spear-headed by Patrick — on the rise, it’s amazing that the “porn star” is becoming a thing of the past. To think that I’m reading a snippet from the life of a future Gloria Swanson gives Sinner Take All an unintended literariness that just feels…swell.

Sexcipe: Pork chops and slut training

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Pork Chops with sautéed Honey Crisps, and Sweet Potato Sluts!

 

By Mistress Eve Minax, a professional dominatrix, sex educator, and food lover based in SF. As told to Juliette Tang.

This recipe occurred one evening when I entertained a lovely slut in training. Who knew that being fed and fucked simultaneously while blindfolded could be so much fun? Well, I do.

So easy and hot!

Pork Chops with sautéed Honey Crisps, and Sweet Potato Sluts!

By Mistress Eve Minax, a professional dominatrix, sex educator, and food lover based in SF. As told to Juliette Tang.

This recipe occurred one evening when I entertained a lovely slut in training. Who knew that being fed and fucked simultaneously while blindfolded could be so much fun? Well, I do.

So easy and hot!

Ingredients:

2 thick cut boneless pork chops

2 medium sized apples, (I prefer honey crisp)

2 medium sized, unpeeled, fresh, organic sweet potatoes

salt/pepper – I like hickory smoked salt and 4 peppercorn mix for mine.

a bit of olive oil

Method:

First, put sweet potatoes in the oven at 325 f.

Then, rub in a little olive oil then salt and pepper the chop to perfection.

Make sure you are dressed in something slutty but a little bossy yourself. Being the bossier slut always grants you more street cred than wearing sneakers or a stretch pants. I like to wear something short with high heels and of course a harness, ready to strap on my cock at any time. If you already have one attached, consider easy access and sexy undies. Put on some sexy music. For slut training, I have a burlesque mix that moves into trip hoppy grooves because I like to have my slut strip for me to get me turned on before I fuck them.

 

Sit in a prominent place and order your slut to dress/undress and dance! Enjoy the show. If it’s really good, you may wish the slut to worship your body while self touching. Things should be heated up. Now’s the time I put the slut in the sling, (some people call these adult swings). A bed or a couch will do, but a sling is best! I like to blindfold my slut now, and restrain the hands so that they can almost touch themselves but not quite.

Return to kitchen, slice the apples in crescent shapes, and put them and the pork chops in a cast iron skillet on very low heat with a bit of olive oil.

Back to slut, slowly begin fondling the nipples and caressing the sex. Slut should be writhing a bit now. Be sure to tell the slut that you’d really like to see them take everything your going to give. Put a ball gag in the mouth and warn of “other things” to come. Be sure to fondle and pinch all the right spots, perhaps even penetrating a bit to loosen the slut up for more.

Return to kitchen, turn chops. Remove potatoes from the oven to cool.

Back to slut. Now is the time to place nipple clamps on and insert a butt plug and/or vibrator if you are so inclined. 
Return to kitchen. Remove chops onto a cutting board and slice into one to two inch slivers. Cut the an end off each one of the potatoes. Plate the pieces and apples with the potatoes. Back to slut with plate. Begin telling your slut what a little greedy pig they are, ask them if they want more, (they will!). Remove the gag, take a piece of chop and apple, move between sluts legs grinding into the groin and feed slut, taking care to tell them how “dirty” they are and how they need to be fed, to be “filled up”. Grind some more. Grab the potato and squeeze a bit of fresh warm, softness into slut’s gaping mouth. Grind some more. Alternate respectively until you feel it’s time for penetration. I like to keep stuffing the slut until cataclysmic orgasm and fullness, but hey, you’re the chef and the boss, I’ll let you decide how to proceed from here!

 

 

Spotted: Cult of the Hermaphrodite at 5th and Mission

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By Juliette Tang

When I encountered this flyer on 5th and Mission, I figured “Cult of the Hermaphrodite” was yet another sadly-named juggalo band I’d never heard of. Unless someone’s cute, lost puppy is involved, flyers usually escape my attention, but loud declarations of”Ancient Sex Cults,” “Numerology,” and “Fertility” proved too ridiculous to ignore.

Closer examination of this bizarreness reveals an interesting viral marketing effort. My very mild disappointment that “Cult of the Hermaphrodite” wasn’t coming to town with opening bands “Prophecy” and “Hard & Hung” in tow was mollified by a happy realization that a seedy adult videostore was still doing business in the Polk Street area: a href=”http://www.yelp.com/biz/frontlyne-video-san-francisco” target=”_blank”>Frontlyne (1428 Bush St). According to my research, their prices are as brilliantly retro as their rentals-based business model: DVDs are $1-a-day.


Spotted at Van Ness and Eddy, dombrassy‘s Flickr

Hopefully, for the sake of cheap DVDs (a modest selection of non X-rated material in stockas well), these flyers will bring some foot traffic, but it’s unclear whether they’re even associated with the business they advertise. I called the store asking about them, and the woman on the line told me “Cult of the Hermaphrodite” wasn’t the title of any DVD they had in stock. “We don’t carry it,” she told me flatly. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about… is this Jen?”

If anyone, or Jen, knows what these flyers refer to, please call Frontlyne at 931-9999. They’d like to know.

Hot sex events this week: Jan 13-19

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

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Get a copy of Roulette – or any one of your favorite Reel Queer Productions videos – signed by Madison Young or Courtney Trouble at Saturday’s special Good Vibes event.

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>> How to Be the Dominant Guy Women Want
BDSM veteran John Lichtenberg hosts this free workshop for men of all ages, experience levels, and relationship statuses (and also women who’d like to observe). The workshop is based on the concept that old models of masculinity no longer work, and men need to learn how to please women in a way that feels sexy and safe to empowered, sophisticated women.

Thurs/14, 7pm
free
Fort Mason, SF
RSVP to johnlitchenberg@gmail.com

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>> Sneakeasy Speakeasy
The cocktails will be cheap but the girls will be high class when Dottie Lux hosts burlesque performances by Bunny Pistol, Honey Lawless, sASSy Hotbuns, and more at this one-time-only show at the soon-to-be-closed venue.

Thurs/14, 9pm
$4
Annie’s Social Club
917 Folsom, SF
www.anniessocialclub.com

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>> Little Minksy’s
The cocktails will be cheap but the girls will be high class when Dottie Lux hosts burlesque performances by Bunny Pistol, Honey Lawless, sASSy Hotbuns, and more.

Thurs/14, 9pm
$5
Club Deluxe
1511 Haight, SF
www.liveatdeluxe.com

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alt.sex.column: Hellloooo in there ….

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Considering that almost no one agrees on what a G-spot even is — an area of internal erectile tissue within the upper wall of the vagina? Similar tissues surrounding the urethra and/or the vaginal vestibule? Glands and ducts making and secreting some sort of prostate-ish ejaculate? An “orgasmic platform?” An imaginary friend? Without any clear sense of what may or may not be rattling around in there, variously unnoticed and/or cherished, it doesn’t matter how many women are asked, “Well? Got one? Huh? Well, do you or don’t you?” So either there is more to this study than reported, or it may be the all-time winner, poorly-designed sex research, women’s division. And that is saying something.

“But,” you protest. “They used twins. Doesn’t that make it all sciencey and stuff, since they had a proper control for the experiment built right in there? Sure, kinda, if they had been poking around with ultrasound dildo-cams and comparing the results. But this wasn’t that kind of study. (Italian researchers did do this recently, and found “an area of thicker tissue” that was promptly dismissed by the G-spot deniers.) The most conclusive search for some sort of heritable, distinct internal tissue would probably be conducted using deceased twins, so they could excise, measure, and weigh the likely tissues, as both Slovakian and Australian researchers have done with small numbers of cadavers. You find me 1,800 deceased female twin pairs who thought to will their bodies to science and I will design and conduct that research myself. I’ll rent a storage space or something. Like Dexter.

Even the scalpel-wielding mad dissectors, though, had no idea if their subjects’ differing amounts of glandular tissue corresponded to different degrees of sexual responsiveness. So they were not answering the question in a way that is actually applicable and useful to live women wondering if there’s something hiding in there worth issuing their partners a miner’s helmet and emergency rations in case they get lost.

I don’t even know why I’m still bothering to consider “is there a G-spot?” a serious question worth spending time and money to investigate. Frankly, I’ve had it up to here (and down to there) with G-spot zealots and G-spot dismissers. Yes, of course I’m interested (and so ought you be) in the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. And I certainly want to know that any descriptions of female generative organs I happen to proffer are rigorously accurate. I don’t think these are the questions that women and their partners are really asking, though, when they corner a sexpert and beg her to draw them a map.

Most want to know why vaginal intercourse feels OK but doesn’t make them come. Or why it does, when everyone knows that’s the clitoris’ job. They want to learn to be more responsive to vaginal stimulation, or learn to ejaculate, or not to. They want to know why that one thing that one partner did worked so well and if they can teach their new partner how to do it, or they want to know why their last partner went crazy when they did that thing and their new one doesn’t. They want to learn how to have more fun with vaginas. And they can.

Not all women are going to learn to go off like M-80s the second someone sticks something in there, but with the right partners, angles, and attitudes, most can get a lot closer. The twin subjects couldn’t have given identical answers without identical sexual histories, and since you can’t find such subjects, you would have to make them. I don’t even want to imagine how you might go about doing that. OK, I do, but that’s because I kind of like kinky science fiction, which I realize can be an acquired taste, just as vaginal responsiveness can be an acquired trait. Go forth, spelunkers, and explore.

Love,

Andrea

See Andrea’s other column at carnalnation.com.

Earth loving with Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens

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By Juliette Tang


Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens

Local artists Annie Sprinkle (whose resume also includes sex educator, writer, and appearances in more than 200 pornographic films) and Elizabeth Stephens (Professor of Fine Arts at Porter College, current Chair of the UCSC Art Department) are married to more than just one another. Following a declaration of vows in Calgary two years ago, Sprinkle and Stephens set the remainder of their marital ambitions on our planet’s ecology. Three whirlwind courtships later, the two women are now jointly married to the earth in Zagreb, the stretch of sky over Oxford, and the sea in Venice. A chronicle of their romantic pursuits can be found at their website LoveArtLab.

This past Sunday, I attended the opening reception of their new month-long installation and exhibit at Femina Potens (2199 Market St) titled “Sexecology: Making love with the Earth, Sky, and Sea”. The artists coined the term “sexecology” to describe the overlaps in sexology and ecology, which includes the practice of “taking the earth as their lover.” This custom, otherwise weird and New Agey, should surprise no one who’s lived in the Bay Area for any amount of time.


Anyone care for some disco?


Wedding ephemera

The installation was an expression of the sexecological vision of its two artists. Environmentally-themed photographs and artwork (some of which included penises drawn on maps) by Sprinkle and Stephens were displayed on the gallery walls, along with scrapbook-type collages of wedding invitations, notes, and photos from their sexecological wedding ceremonies. A makeshift tree was erected from a beam in the center of the room, and paper-mache orbs, decorated with bits of greenish tiles and glass, dangled overhead. At first I thought they were intended to evoke wasp nests, which are also round and hang from trees, but upon closer inspection I decided they were probably nature-themed disco balls. An antique cabinet displayed selected wedding ephemera: the usual suspects of shoes, accessories, and decorative curios, albeit in color schemes based off the 7 chakra system.


Sky wedding dresses

The artists’ vision is certainly kooky, but singularly their own.

10 sexy books published in 2009

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10 sexy books published in 2009

As the aughts, a decade fondly described by many to be the worst decade ever, mercifully makes way to the grave, an uncharacteristically optimistic blogosphere is abuzz with requisite “best of the decade” lists, signaling that even the grimmest times come with small condolences. These “best of the decade” lists are — for all their neat hierarchies, pithy generalizations, and annoying assumption of authority — quite fun to read. And, as a rare opportunity to recycle old news as relevant content, they are also fun to write.

Among the many “best ofs” floating about at the moment, I find myself gravitating toward the literary. For all their Anglo-centric, sexist, dead white male undertones, and despite the occasional mentions of Malcolm Gladwell or Dan Brown, these “best books” lists seem far less depressing than their pop-cultural (like hipster of the decade) or political counterparts (like top political scandals of the decade). And as I peruse the many books deemed by many opinions to be the best of the year or, grander yet, best of the decade, I find myself compiling a modest, literary list of my own: 10 Sexy Books Published in 2009. Having been all of 14-years-old in the year 2000, I don’t really have the authority to create a “best of the decade list” regarding anything sexual.

However, I have certainly read some very sexy books this past year.

If sexy is to be taken by its dictionary definition as “sexually interesting or exciting,” then the following ten decidedly qualify. Some are sexy for their potent ability to raise readerly temperatures, others, for their intellectually seductive, mentally stimulating faculties. Despite a somewhat disparate array of themes and subjects, each book is capable of producing the feeling that compels readers to, as my aunt puts it, “close their legs and open a book”: the ecstasy of reading.

10. Confessions of an Ivy League Pornographer, by Sam Benjamin. Ahh, Ivy Leaguers, drawn, as moths are to a flame, to porn careers which are subsequently turned into quarter-life memoirs. Or not. Mind you, this career trajectory is not something I fault a college graduate, or anyone at all, from pursuing. In an economy in which a college graduate is lucky to find a job doing anything, partying with porn stars sounds like the glittering reward at the end of a Horatio Alger (himself an Ivy League grad) tale. With the dreaded spring semester looming ahead, soon-to-be-graduates are advised to find inspiration where they can. Hint: Benjamin’s book.

9. Over Here, a volume of poems by Frank Sherlock. Having won a coveted Sexiest Poem of 2009 award, from CAConrad’s “Sexiest Poem Award” blog, Sherlock is a shoo-in for a spot on this list. “Over Here” is, without a doubt, a sexy poem — though it’s not a poem about sex. What makes Sherlock’s poem sexy is, in CAConrad’s words, its “tenacious defiance for culture’s endless forms of violence to our fellow humans, other animals and the environment.” Hmm… tenacious defiance…

8. Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object, by Kathleen Rooney. In the beginning, there was irony: Rooney began working as a nude model after being fired from her cafe job because she refused to sleep with her boss. Her experiences as an art model are the inspiration and subject of her book. Rooney is a talented writer whose honesty, conviction, and obvious poetic gifts underline her ambitious theoretical observations. In this contemplative book, Rooney ruminates on working in the buff and, in the process, finds something to say about Roland Barthes, Judeo-Christianity, and the Terra Cotta warriors of China. Somehow, she succeeds in making such declarations convincing; Rooney did earn money being naked, but her memoir cloaks that nudity in layers of meaning.

7. Obsession: An Erotic Tale, by Gloria Vanderbilt. I wrote about Vanderbilt’s erotica earlier this year. Vanderbilt, who will be entering her 86th year in 2010, has a habit of becoming hugely successful in endeavors that should reasonably predict the exact opposite. Like that time in the ’80s when she lent her name a line of high-waisted mom jeans… for women and men. The famous socialite’s new career as a writer of BDSM erotica has impressed even Salman Rushdie, who acknowledged, “Writing about work and writing about sex are probably the two hardest things. If I’m still doing it when I’m 85, I’ll be very grateful.”

6. Roberto Bolle: An Athlete in Tights, photographed by Bruce Weber. Men are lucky. Men are not confronted nearly to the degree that women are by images of bodily perfection. Can you imagine what would happen if half the advertisements featuring undressed women, from Victoria’s Secret to American Apparel to PETA, were to be replaced with one of Weber’s strapping Adonises? For my benefit, can we conduct an informal experiment using Weber’s images of Roberto Bolle?

5. Best Women’s Erotica 2010, edited by SF’s own Violent Blue. As a genre, erotica is tarnished with a sorry reputation, so it is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of good erotica-writing abilities must be in want of a literary champion. Anais Nin had Henry Miller; these women writers have Violet Blue. Like the other “Best Women’s Erotica” collections Ms. Blue edits, her latest will not disappoint her readers and fans.

4. Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, by Leanne Shapton. To any degree that a break-up can be sexy, this one is, perhaps because, in reading Shapton’s book (an experiment of form that is part story, part photo essay, part auction catalogue) we can’t help but recall the intensity and sadness of our own past relationships. Through ingeniously chosen ephemera, vibrant “artifacts” Shapton employs to bring her characters to life, the otherwise cloying artifice of a fictional auction becomes believably real. As this is a story of a break-up, it makes perfect sense that we should see nothing of Lenore and Harold themselves. Like our own ex-lovers, their identies are marked by absence outlined in memory, as invisible fingerprints tracing the objects they leave behind.

adderall-diaries0110.jpg

3. The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder, by local writer Stephen Elliott. Granted, neither murder nor Adderall is sexy. Then again, this isn’t a book about murder or Adderall. Like most of Elliott’s work, The Adderall Diaries is about Stephen Elliott and, true to form, his latest effort contains (in addition to good writing and a dark backstory that readers familiar with Elliott’s work will recognize as one that could only have happened in this author’s universe) a healthy dose of stolid sexual confessionism. Judging from the behavior of some of Elliott’s fans, as gathered from his own reports and my own firsthand observations of several local readings, Stephen Elliott is a subject that some women do find sexy indeed.

2. We Did Porn: Memoir and Drawings by local writer/artist/pornographer Zak Smith, a tome that helped SFBG‘s D. Scot Miller overcome his “fear and predjudice of hipsters.” Given that Smith looks like a combination between Devon Sawa’s character in SLC Punk and a guy I had a crush on in high school who drew pentagrams on his fingernails with a White Out pen, we shouldn’t understate the accomplishment. In any case, it was the art that swayed D. Scot, who contends that despite being a “artsty-fartsy, probably spoiled, uber-talented white boy artist,” Smith’s “artwork is impeccable. There is tenderness, daring, heat in his pieces. With a Nan Goldin compassion, he captures an intimacy and inclustion that is often lacking in the movies he and his comrades made.” Seconded.

1. Don’t Cry, by Mary Gaitskill. Mary Gaitskill is, in my opinion, the sexiest writer currently working in the English language. I’ve been an overzealous fan since I discovered, at an impressionable age, her short story “Secretary,” a BDSM-themed story of a young secretary’s affair with her boss (that later inspired the Gyllenhaal/Spader movie of the same name). Gaitskill is unafraid to tackle grand themes in small spaces, and it’s her short stories — oozing as they are in love, sex, and grief — that her formidable abilities are most obvious. She lends an intelligence, devastating accuracy, and unmatched bravery of sentiment to topics otherwise reducable as merely “perverse”. In “Folk Song,” Gaitskill creates a female character who decides to have sex with a thousand men in a row. A 43-year-old woman, in “Old Virgin,” lends her anatomy to Gaitskill’s precisely honed scalpel. My favorite of the collection, “Mirror Ball,” reveals the theft of a soul, literally, as something that a beautiful young Mephistopheles collects from his trail of lovers. Like the sex that Gaitskill is so adept at describing, the stories in this collection are first brutal, then revealing — and necessarily in that order.

alt.sex.column: Clip show

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alt.sex.column: Clip show

It’s a decade’s worth of last-week-of-the-year concerns!

1999

Q: Is it true that a small quantity of alcohol is increasing the sexual pleasure of the couple?

A It may be increasing the pleasure, but it may also be affecting the performance or making the sleep.

2000

Q: Felching, in fact, is the act of expelling flatus in another’s mouth. Surely you’ve already been notified by one of your other seven readers.

A: The word you actually want may be “eproctolagnia,” and it may not, but it certainly isn’t “felching.” We’ll ignore your last crack, which is unworthy even of you.

2001

Q: Male G-spot?

A: Words for female things and female people (including, of course, “female” itself) are traditionally back-formations of words for male things and male people. “Male G-spot” is an intrinsically ridiculous phrase, but it’s delightfully ass-backward. The proper term is “prostate gland,” but that doesn’t sound anywhere near as much fun.

2002

Q: Do I just tell my boyfriend I’ve been faking it?

A: There’s a sort of little half-lie that might work. (Oh, pleeaase people, don’t write and tell me that lying is always wrong. Nothing is always anything.) You could tell him that you thought you were coming all this time, and you guess you were, but this was some big breakthrough— you never thought it could feel like that!— and now you realize what you’d been missing, yada yada yada. This actually happens.

2003

Q: Should I try to share my boyfriend’s (he calls us best friends) hobbies: porn, strip clubs, and used panties?

A: I don’t think sharing his (formerly) secret life with him is the way to make him happy, not that I’ve dedicated my life to making your boyfriend happy or anything. I think he’s in the habit of pursuing a solitary sex life based on voyeurism and other people’s underwear, and that’s the way he likes it.

2004

Q: (Various opinions about the guy’s wife who blew an “alpha male” Chippendale in the parking lot)

A: Phrases like “alpha male,” with their shiny aura of scientific certainty, don’t mean nearly as much as people hope they do. Who is the alpha male? In the wolf pack, where the concept belongs, he’s probably easy enough to spot. (Not being one of those women who run with the wolves, I couldn’t tell you.) In human society, though? Is it the strong guy? The rich guy? The guy who is probably neither but looks good in a thong?

The writer’s wife didn’t blow the pretty-boy because he was the alpha Chippendale; she blew him because she was bored and had gotten drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

2005

Q: “While going down on me he suddenly asked me to shit on his face.”

A: If one wrote me (oh, they have, they have) wondering how to broach the subject with a would-be partner, I’d probably say, “Whatever you do, don’t do what that girl’s date did.”

2006

Q: “Polyamory works for those committed to the hard personal work needed make it work. Of course, the same could be said of all other forms of relationships.”

A: Of course a good relationship requires attention and occasional maintenance — what living creature does not? — but the constant harping on work, work, work makes me tired and suspicious. The tired part needs no explanation; the suspicious part, well, what is paying a therapist if not “working on it?” I may be lazy (OK, I am lazy) but I maintain that you can tell you have a good relationship when it pretty much runs itself. “Oh, we work on our relationship constantly!” does not make me think, “Oh, good for you guys!” It makes me think, “Oh, bro-ther.”

2007

Q: Lap-dancing, etiquette, and feminism.

A: If you’re going to be a sex worker, you deserve to be treated with respect and decency, and what you say goes as far as who’s allowed to touch where with what and so forth. But come on. Into each stripper’s life a little semen must fall. If that’s absolutely not going to work for you, dance behind glass or get your Realtor’s license or something.

2008

Q: New Year’s resolutions.

A: Most of the “ew, yuck” reactions to your supposedly kinkier sexualities come from lack of information and fear of the unknown. So much of kink and fetish turns out to be harmless and often endearingly nerdly on closer inspection. Look behind the flames-of-hell clipart on any S–M information site and you’ll find a lot of software professionals and librarians earnestly comparing notes on how not to hurt each other playing with whips and chains.

2009

And so to bed. Happy New Year.

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