Cunts
Facebook’s banning of the posting of this painting and the subsequent legal wrangle in the French courts got me thinking about where I first saw this painting and the impact it had on me, on my understanding of myself as female, and the strange social aversion we seem to have to our genitals. I […]
BDSM, Consumerism and The Care of Self
This is in response to a very disappointingly unnuanced article published in the Atlantic Monthly. So, you’ve just seen Fifty Shades of Grey, or you read the book, or both and you’re thinking… wow, that’s looks sexy. I could go for some of that…. Okay, I really hope you read this fully and take what […]
Bad Men and Why Perfectly Intelligent, Independent, Sane Women Fantasize About Them
Do you ever get the sneaking suspicion life would be a lot easier if we shut up about our erotic fantasies? I do. Picture Miss Catherine Thoroughgood: a primly dressed, middle-aged spinster sitting at a window on a cold autumn day, overlooking a bleak rural English landscape, trying to get enough light to darn a […]
The Cypher Dom: Christian Grey and the Failure of Visual Media
I guess you have to thank a bad book and a mediocre film if it engenders thought on the subject of the textual and visual portrayal of eroticism. The success of Fifty Shades of Grey has certainly brought a debate about BDSM, stalkerish males, passive women and the compromise of bad sex for love into […]
Fifty Shades of Grey: A Film Review
Fifty Shades of Grey is the first mainstream film based on an ‘erotic novel’ in quite a while; the last one I can recall was Secretary, loosely based on a short story with the same title by Mary Gaitskill, but I could be wrong. There have been numerous recent art-house films considered to be erotic, […]
I Am Charlie, Uncomfortably: The Price of Free Discourse
“To hold a pen is to be at war.” Voltaire In the wake of the murder of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo Magazine offices, there has been shock, mourning and much passionate debate. It is sad that it takes the assassination of a group of French satirical cartoonists to prompt a serious discussion of […]
Spanking and Female Ejaculation: Everything Good Is Bad Again
This week the new Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 aimed at censoring On Demand Video in the UK were ratified. I can’t say I watch a lot of porn of any kind, and my personal opinions of the remediated acts listed in the regulations range from a shrug to a shudder. There are lots of […]
Ask Better Questions
Kristina Lloyd, whose novel Undone has just been published (and is phenomenally well-written – buy it), has been doing the blog tour thing. Today, Anna Sky hosted an interesting post by Kristina: “Do Women Prefer Erotica?” Whether you’re a reader or a writer of erotica, it’s worth your while to read it. At the end, […]
Labels, Tribes and the Beauty of Singularities.
I cannot write you. I try and fail. I try, I fail and I’m a butcher. Me I’ve had some ongoing conversations, and I’ve offended some people recently, because I’ve refused the label ‘bisexual’. I want to take the opportunity to explain why and to acknowledge that for some people these words matter greatly, and […]
On Transgression: A discussion with Harper Eliot and Molly Moore
I recently participated in a delightful and meaty conversation on the topic of transgression – with a focus on erotic transgression and fictional depictions of it – with Harper Eliot and Molly Moore, who produce the bi-monthly IGRD (It Girl Rag Doll) podcast. You can listen to the podcast on the web here or listen […]