Say it ain’t so: when reality doesn’t accord with our beliefs
I’ve spent a lot of this week collecting references for some papers I’d like to write. One attempts to challenge the very pervasive belief that being aroused by fiction sexually, emotionally, sentimentally or fearfully is somehow fundamentally negative – that it impairs our judgement completely and renders us quivering idiots (no, that’s not quite how […]
The By-blow of Good Intention
Now she wants to get in. The woman who keeps fucking up my dreams. Cloth coat buttoned up to her aging chin and a thick scree of make-up forever threatening to slide off her face and reveal… what? She’s half-zombie, half-vampire, an undead machine of unthinking consumption. Even as I lock her out: imaginary bolts […]
The Honourable Mishap
Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. “Oranges and Lemons” Traditional English Nursery Rhyme There was before and there was after. I remember the chill silk of the quilt beneath my naked skin, crisply urging me to arch my back. My small, perfect breasts, […]
The Privilege of Choice
I received a lot of gratifying comments on my last post on the subject, but it reminded me that I perhaps had an obligation to balance it. The wired world has become a mosaic of communities who share common interests. There are groups for every interest under the sun and it becomes easy, if you […]
Gender and Sexual Orientation: Authoritarian Desires to Label
I recently got caught up in a discussion on twitter with the charming Louise Sorensen over this article: “What Science Knows About Homosexuality.” As much as I applaud any survey of scientific research on a subject, I have to say that there is an undercurrent of assumption in a lot of the scientific literature that […]
Porn, Consent and the Singular Integrity of the Sexual Experience
There is a very interesting article in the Atlantic, “The Ethics of Extreme Porn: Is Some Sex Wrong Even For Consenting Adults“. Being the Atlantic, although thorough, it also relates some very dogmatic and (to me) quite offensive responses. But the author has written a fairly well-reasoned piece. It is all in response to this […]
Abyssal Depths – The Art of the Mindfuck
The topic of the mindfuck has been on my mind of late. I’ve had ongoing discussions with @DarkGracie on the subject, and a lovely face-to-face conversation about it with two people from different ends of the power spectrum: MisterGryphon and Mollena. I’d like to state up front that what follows is a very personal understanding […]
The Beauty and the Beast Trope: Children’s stories for Child-like Minds
I just finished reading Gabriel’s Inferno, by Sylvain Reynard and gave it a rather scathing review on Goodreads. One of the reactions this solicited was the question of why the “Bella and Edward” trope is so popular at present. I’ve given this some thought. The “Bella and Edward” trope is, essentially, a Beauty and the […]
The Fourth Annual International Conference on Popular Romance Studies: York #IASPR12
Not only was The Fourth Annual International Conference on Popular Romance Studies: The Pleasures of Romance the first academic conference I have ever attended, it was my very first paper presentation. After talking to a lot of people, I get the sense that most of them aren’t nearly so much fun. If you take a look […]
The Sense of an Ending
I feel free to appropriate this title because, although it happens to be the title of Julian Barnes’ celebrated piece of literary fiction, he borrowed it from an older, and much wiser book by Frank Kermode: The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Despite the title, Kermode’s book isn’t really about […]