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Monday, April 16, 2007

HOWTO: Be A Bossy Lover

filed under: HOW TO: by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

Let’s get super-juvenile and play a game of I Never…, yes? I never… had my phone put in my hand by my lover to call in late to work as their hands… I never… blew off a deadline, a meeting, a project, a career for a blow… I never… used to get turned on by the phrase ‘long lunch’ until… I never… had to worry about losing points with my boss over my sex life because I am freelance, or, I am screwing them.

You, then, have your sex/work time management down to a finely-tuned system, and congratulations, and we look forward to your infomercial (we’ve already got a title: Getting Sex Done). For the rest of us layabouts, however, there’s learning how to be a more effective boss of you, and the fine people you fuck.

Getting into a position. Let it be known to your lover that you could use a bit of discipline when it comes to scheduling, and that doesn’t just mean you want to start sharing Google calendars. There’s a good chance they could use some guidance, as well — or, are aching for the chance to play Strict Taskmaster with more tangible orders to give than just orders for giving really phenomenal head. Get license and permission first, and stake out the terms of your position.

Action Items Vs. Action, Period. There’s no shame in making use of sex as a motivational tool, whether that’s withholding until a milestone, or allowing for controlled “work breaks” to keep momentum up. For the kink-inclined, that might mean turning to the rod to make the pains of procrastination acutely, immediately felt. The first few months of this very blog were composed under threat of a stroke of the cane for each post below the daily benchmark. (No, that did not make it to the Sexerati Flickr pool.)

Take Down a Memo. Turn to the flirtatious letters of artists and lovers past for inspiration in penning those nudging texts and iCal alerts to yourself or partner-in-crime. Even for us working in sex, and other glamorous self-employed pursuits, the pressure of working against a ’supervisor,’ even one of our own selection, is needed to do truly good work. Creatively savor that deeply geeky hot mix of sharing your breathless excitement over a project with your intentions for how to most thoroughly celebrate completion.

Professional Differences. Take to heart that if you find drive and ambition sexy, you are bound to sometimes play second to the prospect of your lover’s success. Some of your choices are: eroticize the way there, plot your path to savor that together, take the opportunity to throw yourself headlong into your own career, or choose a lover with fewer aspirations — or choose a few lovers to enjoy when your’s is busy. You may find sex emerging from your relationships as just another possible point of collaboration.

Just as we manage differing levels of intimacy, intensity, and commitment in our sex lives, so, too, do we have to balance that between our dating and professional lives. Short-term, long-term, or just bearing down hard ’til deadline, business and pleasure both require evaluating when it’s wise to bring out our fiercest, nastiest internal project manager, and when to gratify ourselves with kindness and mm, sweet, sweet reward for a job well done, even if we aren’t quite done getting it done yet.

(And yes, we know this post is a little late today. Ahem.)

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Erotic Elite: Rachel Kramer Bussel’s He’s on Top

filed under: Erotic Elite by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

As part of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s whistleblogstop book tour, Sexerati comes up for air on a Sunday to review her most recent erotica anthologies, He’s on Top and She’s on Top.

He’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission appeared in my mailbox just in time for me to decide not to bring it with to Phnom Penh. Reading pornography on airplanes, as much I indulge stateside, is, what with all those messy Customs declarations on obscene materials, not something I wanted to take a gamble on just to get a leg up. That’s what coming home after a web party, swimming from key lime cocktails, and a vibrator, is for.

Was it the lipsmacking liquor or the taut lines on what makes a top that got me? Leave it to consummate cupcake fetishist RKB to include a story where sugary treats are not only a feature, but a deliberate prelude to bent-over-the-bakesheet sex (anal sex, no less) in the kitchen (”Yes,” Donna George Storey). Sadly, I went all soft-on as I got lost on why it’s story-making that a sexually dominant male might, for example, crave vanilla sex sometimes (”Incurable Romantic,” Lisabet Sarai), or cruise chatrooms with an unfortunate handle (”In Control,” M. Christian). Bits like these were contributed by strong writers, but some turned a bit too closely on parodying — maybe? — the cliches of straightboy dom culture. Which is actually, honestly, the problem with straightboy dom culture: one never really knows when it’s just putting itself on.

It might be that I could never call someone topping me “Master” without a tongue firmly planted in cheek, and so that sort of language wilts me when I’m looking to, you know, come, and tease and denial is a cornerstone of erotic dominance and submission, true. But the heat that lingered for me after this read was not for a hard slap, but a longing for a denser, literate, primal, raucous sort of exploration of what it is to be a woman who ably, proudly, shamelessly takes it, a story as stung through with fuck as the words the most erudite of sluts is able to form around a cock.

My He’s on Top wants a She’s on Bottom, please.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Erotic Elite: Rachel Kramer Bussel’s She’s on Top

filed under: Erotic Elite by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

I’ve never identified as a top.

Far from it, in fact.

I’ve never identified as a top, and I’ve never really been into reading about female domination. It wasn’t really a part of my repertoire, or even on my radar.

But I found myself yearning to expand my experience, to learn a little more about the other side of the coin, so to speak: so it was, perhaps, good fortune that I found myself with a copy of She’s on TopErotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, Rachel Kramer Bussel’s latest anthology of thigh-clenchingly hot erotica.

Stories of domination and submission usually fall into a pretty narrow spectrum, laden with the traditional accoutrements of BDSM (whips, chains, leather, etc.). While there’s no shortage of BDSM imagery, She’s on Top manages to move beyond stereotype, examining the eroticism of female domination from a wide range of experiences — bringing the reader into a Victorian boudoir to witness some distinctly unvictorian action (”Victoria’s Hand”), a Wall Street office that has the secretary taking charge (”Suit and Tie”), and a gender-bending fantasy where roles are reversed in more ways than one (”Why Can’t I Be You?”).

My favorite story, however, would have to be “Room 2201,” the story of a dominatrix who brings her submissive to his knees… and into the service of her hot, hung lover. The thought of a dominatrix watching her submissive get fucked up the ass by another man was, well, pretty damn hot. For me, female domination is fun to play with, but male domination is will always win my heart in the end.

Overall, She’s on Top is an excellent collection of stories of female domination — a good addition to the collection of any the female domination afficianado and a nice introduction for the new and curious. Kudos to Rachel Kramer Bussel for putting it together. I’m definitely looking forward to her next project.

Next stop on the kinky book tour: Tara Tainton; the full schedule continues on into May.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Weekly Wrapup: Around The World Edition

filed under: Weekly Wrapup by Melissa Gira | 5 Comments

Let’s match it up quick, then: what we wrote with where it was written, and marvel at how fast sex moves, even across the most jetlagged of bodies:

How To (Jet Sex Edition): Share a Lover: Siem Reap, Cambodia (home to the temples at Angkor Wat)

Bubble Hotties: The Future Johns of America: NYC, baby, Manhattan.

The 10 Reasons Why Sex Nerds Make Better Lovers: San Francisco, Lower Haight

Rock over Cambodia, rock on America. Sexerati: making love to the future, five days a week.

photo: sex smart blogger and podcaster Amber Rhea, visiting Babeland/SohoLES, via the Sexerati Flickr pool