Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Sexuality
January 31, 2012 | Tuesday | 14 Comments
Cleo is looking for a book that was truly memorable for her, for a number of reasons, including the context in which she read it. Honestly, this book sounds fascinating. I have an HaBo. I read this book in the late ‘80s, during my freshman year at college, and of course I don't remember any names or titles. I borrowed it from one of my roommates, who borrowed it from someone down the hall, who borrowed it from someone else in the dorm. I’m looking for it because I think it was ahead of its time - the heroine had…
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January 09, 2012 | Monday | 46 Comments
As a follow-up to the earlier discussion about where the hell the hymen is, here's a link to something truly fascinating that I read via Jane Litte and a few others on Twitter this weekend. The museum of sex has a truly amazing article on the size and shape of the clitoris. No, it is most certainly not a button. Or a nubbin. There's a lot more to it than that: The scientific name for the external “little button” or “bulb” is glans. Not to be confused with glands, glanssimply refers to a small circular mass. This little structure contains…
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November 11, 2010 | Thursday | 140 Comments
Well. That was…unpleasant. I’m done with the 1970s-early 1980s OG Old School. That was one of the most unpleasant reading experiences I’ve ever had, and I read The Phantom of Manhattan. I finished it because I was kind of interested in where this story would end (and how much shit can be heaped upon the head of the heroine), and I have a finely developed case of trainwreck syndrome. (Also, my copy didn’t stink, so that helped.) I’m having a really hard time coming up with a Letter Grade, because I’ve read worse, and I’ve read better. I had a…
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October 28, 2010 | Thursday | 26 Comments
I found this book a few weeks ago when I noticed that it was one of the top reviewed titles at All Romance, and I wondered what the reviewers liked about it. Most of the comments focused on the unique emotional journey of the protagonists, and boy howdy, were they right. Jonathan Kechter is a workaholic living a rather lonely life after a bad breakup. When he is set up on a blind date with Cole Fenton, it’s a total mess: Jonanthan’s cell phone won’t stop ringing - and of course all of the calls are ones he “has to…
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October 07, 2010 | Thursday | 142 Comments
I recently discovered three advice email messages in the spam folder - which I feel really shitty about and I apologize. This letter came in mid-August, and while it’s been almost 2 months since it was sent, I wanted to answer it and discuss here because the romance/porn accusation is unfortunately perennial. That said, I don’t know if this person is still in this relationship and I don’t have an update. Dear Smart Bitch Sarah: I have a general question for anyone who also loves romance that may be willing to help me untangle a sticky situation in my current…
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July 26, 2010 | Monday | 45 Comments
Gotta love it when I stick my foot in my mouth! Last night I did an interview with 744 ABC Melbourne about erotic fan fiction. During the interview with Alan Brough, he asked me about why erotic fan fiction so often pairs two characters of the same gender. What I meant to say was that in most countries, popular culture reveals a general discomfort with homosexuality, and that frank portrayals of homosexuality are not common. What I said was that “most people in the world are uncomfortable with homosexuality.” Clearly, these are not the same things. Yes. Everyone in the…
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June 06, 2010 | Sunday | 22 Comments
Dusk writes a very sad tale, with bonus shapeshifting WTFery: Horror of horrors my computer gets a HUGE fucking virus, causing me to have to re configure my computer. and in the process lose ALL of my Ebooks. I was reading this one and i had only gotten a little into it but what i had read should be enough for SOMEONE to identify it (having spent the last five hours trying to find this books name I’m desperate) I can’t remember all the characters names but here is what i know - It’s a M/M/F Erotic romance number where…
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April 13, 2010 | Tuesday | 19 Comments
First: from Jessica A, SmartPop has an essay up about the language of sex, specifically looking at sex in the Anita Blake series, and how authors approach sexuality and sexual depictions. You can read it online at the SmartPop site. I don’t know how author Marella Sands wrote about the sex scenes in the Blake series. There are hardly any. Want to watch videos about awesome? Carrie Lofty has two for you. They’re older, but they’re teh winsome. First, The Nostalgia Chick talks about token chicks, with the default and the deviation of the default/gender alternative. Well worth watching and…
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December 14, 2009 | Monday | 17 Comments
From the inbox, we have an assortment of things that I wanted to share. Ready?
First, from Zoe Archer: “You need a picture of David Beckham in a yarmulke.”
OH YES I DO. And so do you. Happy Hanukkah indeed.
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October 13, 2009 | Tuesday | 10 Comments
This is a bit outside the boundaries of the genre, but in some ways, it’s not. I first mentioned The Virginity Project here, and when the publisher of the book offered a review copy for me to review, I was so curious to see the collection, I couldn’t say no. Since so much of romance focuses on virginity in one form or another, both literal and figurative, examining sexuality through illustration of the (dare I say) seminal moment for some men and women’s sexual history seemed relative to romance’s interests. This collection is so moving, I couldn’t stop reading it.…
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June 25, 2009 | Thursday | 20 Comments
Back when Jane and I started the Save the Contemporary campaign, I found a reader who was mighty pissed that we’d recommended Talk Me Down as a contemporary romance. Why? In her opinion, it was romantic suspense. I disagreed - I thought the secondary story line operating behind Molly and Ben was not nearly as pronounced and spicy as the conflict between the protagonists themselves. I liked Talk Me Down - and I’m not a fan of romantic suspense on the whole. So that may be part of the reason I didn’t enjoy Start Me Up nearly as much: the…
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June 18, 2009 | Thursday | 24 Comments
I linked earlier to this news report about the new owner of Britain’s Erotic Review moving away from female erotic writing to “almost exclusively male writers” because they know more about sex. Aside from the blood pressure liftoff among female erotic romance and erotica writers on the internet, the attitude made me roll my eyes. Way to grab headlines by shoving your head up your ass - which, now that I think about it, was something a guy once said to me so I guess cranio-rectal impaction is erotic, huh? For the holidays, I was gifted with a subscription to…
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April 21, 2009 | Tuesday | 174 Comments
A User’s Guide for Reading Butterfly Tattoo:
1. Put aside your concepts of what love is, between whom it should be shared, and what a partnership, marriage, loving relationship or family should look like.
2. Definitely forget about your standard expectations of hero archetypes. Michael, the hero, is an electrician. He’s muscular. He’s damn fine to look at. He’s a single father.
So far so good, right?
He’s a widower.
Not uncommon, right?
His former spouse was a man named Alex. Alex was killed in a car accident that left their daughter scarred and his family broken.
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April 16, 2009 | Thursday | 5 Comments
As Lindsay alerted me, two notable and amazing women died this week - and that their passing, and the significance of their lives and contributions may have been missed in the brouhaha surrounding #AmazonFail.
Judith F. Krug, founder of Banned Books Week, died of cancer in Evanston, IL. She was 69.
Ms. Krug was the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. She also helped establish the Freedom to Read Foundation in 1969, an organization that in part helped defray litigation costs for freedom of speech cases.
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March 21, 2009 | Saturday | 56 Comments
Bitchery reader M. wrote in and asked for a specific type of romance, and alas, I drew a blank at helping her out. I did name a few titles, though I won’t mention them here because the secret is part of the plot twist in most of them, but I figured the Bitchery knows all. M. writes: I’m obsessed with a specific type of romance, and someone said you might be able to help. I’ve looked at the AAR Special Title Listings page, which is so awesome, but they don’t seem to have the dynamic I’m looking for. I am…
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