Sixty Nine and Still Sexual

A Few Words About Waiting

11/20/14

Waiting to hear back from the powers that be appears to be a significant part of the writing process. Waiting for editors to respond to the to their submission calls, for instance, can involve lengthy periods of time — and as we all know, I am not a young woman and would prefer to celebrate my victories while I am still vertical.

For instance, I recently learned that an e erotic story I submitted as Dorothy Freed a year-and-a-half ago, still has no publication date belong sometime in 2015 — and this with the contract signed and accepted by the publisher more than six months ago. I also have three short shorts accepted by a well-know editor whom I’m thrilled to work with, still waiting in the wings for publishers acceptance, months after I made her requested edits. And I have been informed by the editor of still another anthology, that was accepted for publication in 2012 and slated to appear in print in 2013, that the entire anthology has been cancelled — sorry, but no reason. Back to square one on placing that piece of writing. Then again there was the editor I finally emailed months after submission, inquiring about the status of my piece, and being informed that she’d included it in her manuscript, but oops, had forgotten to inform me.

A year like this one makes me glad to be a “split personality writer,” who writes and seeks publication under more than one name. This year, the person bearing my legal name has enjoyed sever appearances in print: Two pieces about dogs, one about snails, another about friendship, and still another in a literary anthology concerning an individual’s right to die, which will appear in January 2015 — while last year, most of my publishing credits were accrued by Dorothy Freed — with just one, about women remembering the 60s and 70s, published under my legal name.

Now, as I enter the somewhat hair curling business of composing query letters and a fiction proposal for my finally completed first book length story, PERFECT STRANGERS: One Woman’s Journey Through The Swinging Seventies, I know when I finish my task I face waiting time again.

By now though, as a relatively new writer who has somehow racked up more than two dozen published pieces, and as an individual who is impatient by nature, I’m learning to roll with it. My job, I’ve decided is to send out those submissions and accept the waiting as part of the process — and just keep those stories coming while I wait.

More Said About the 80s

10/27/14

We proceeded with caution as we moved through the 80s, realizing the potentially dire consequences of the “if it feels good do it” school of thought, regarding impromptu hookups and unprotected sexual encounters. But propelled by our lust and unflagging desire, and armed with rubbers, dental dams spermicides and the like, we proceeded, none the less.

When thinking back on the 80s, I remember big hair and over-sized shoulders — influenced by TV shows such as Dallas and Dynasty — strong-hued lip color, sharply accented cheekbones, enormous earrings, fingerless gloves, and darkly outlined eyes. We were hard-edged in that decade, in our Doc Martens, high platform boots and needle-toed pumps, and in our formfitting skirts and slashed jeans. Leather was in, bigtime, along with a rise in popularity of tattoos and body piercings — in a blatantly sexualized look that glamorized both Punk fashion and the trappings of BDSM Culture. Heavy chains worn as belts and ripped fish-net stockings; safety pins, studded leather collars and wrist cuffs became mainstream fashion accessories — worn by teeny boppers who were drawn to the look because it was in — with little or no inkling of the counterculture lifestyles they emulated.

Art at that time was hard-edged as well and designed to be decorative. Think Patrick Nagle and his stark female illustrations , and the deliciously strong-hued, lushly erotic individuals painted by Polish artist, Johanna Zjawinska. For me, strong memories of music videos recalls Robert Plant and his pale-faced, red-lipped, hypersexualized women with darkly made-up eyes, in the mid-80s video Addicted to Love — and, of course, Material Girl, Madonna, whose lyrics and images typified the aspirations of the decade — as did fictional character, Gordon Gekko’s memorable statement, “Greed is good”, in the 1987 film, Wall Street. Prominent books on my reading list at that time included, Anne Rice’s now immortal BDSM trilogy, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, published in the mid-80s, and 9 1/2 Weeks, the cautionary tale of a Dominant/submissive romance that escalates beyond limits, that was made into a film a few years later.

On a personal level, my entrance into a committed relationship in 1983, brought about a major shift in focus from the swing parties and indiscriminate couplings I’d experienced in the prior decade — as well as a shift from primarily vanilla sex.

My husband and I, as a BDSM couple, were fortunate in that our erotic fantasies were compatible, both in nature and intensity — and that we were both strongly attracted to the excitement of the party scene and public play. This led us to an ongoing erotic adventure involving an agreed upon power exchange and intense forms of foreplay, such as sensation play, bondage, and the use of sex toys. Such play occurred with or alongside other players, and was enormously arousing in itself, even to orgasm — without involving risky behaviors such as penetrative sex, thus radically minimizing our STD risk. For me, my new, non-promiscious lifestyle provided an opportunity to play and explore with multiple partners, within the confines of commitment — offering me, from my point of view, the erotic best of both decades.

At the time we entered the scene, the main venues for play among straight kinky couples was the now defunct, Gemini club, which catered to Male Dominant and female submissive pairings — as did its counterpart, the Scorpio club, in LA, where we once attended a never to be forgotten Story of O party. The still active, pansexual, Society of Janus, was dedicated to the promotion of safe, sane, and consensual BDSM play, with bi-monthly programs designed to educate, as well as provide the kinky community with a non-sexual, highly arousing sexual outlet.

My husband and I also attended parties at the Catacombs, which was originally a private men’s fist fucking club. When the club closed its doors in 1984 due to concerns over the AIDs epidemic and consequent restraints on freedom of play, the space reopened as Shotwell Meeting House, in SF’s steamy South of Market — emerging as the primary play space for straight and bi couples in the kinky community, as well as the site of Janus’ educational programs.

My husband and I continued to be active in the scene throughout the decade. By the time the 80s drew to a close, we were old-time members of the Bay Area BDSM community — and as we neared our fifth decade, the hyper-intensity of virgin experience was behind us, and the effects of late night parties began requiring abit longer recovery time. But still, we partied on.

Lit Quake: Do You Come Here Often? Or Is This Your First Time?

10/20/14

I’ve never attended the Lit Quake Festival in San Francisco before. Last Saturday evening was my first time.

And what better way to dive into this iconic literary experience than as a participant — joining writers, Jen Cross, Amy butcher, Horehound Stillpoint, Anain Bjorkquist, Seeley Quest, and Erin M, at the Good Vibrations Store on Valencia Street, where we teased our audience by reading hot bits from our stories in Sex Still Spoken Here — a new anthology of stories and poems from the Erotic Reading Circle, co-edited by Dr. Carol Queen, Jen Cross and Amy Butcher.

My story, The Gambler, is a semi-autobiographical tale, inspired by a hot erotic encounter I had with a professional gambler, whom I met at Bay Meadows Race Track back in 1977 — when I was a girl of thirty-three.

The receptive audience of perhaps one hundred, steamy story enthusiasts filled Good Vibrations to overflowing, making it the largest group I’ve addressed to date. I’m pleased to report I felt entirely comfortable standing before them, and the most relaxed I’ve felt at a reading thus far. So relaxed, in fact, I even ventured to lift my eyes from my page as I read, to engage in eye contact with audience members — beginning with my husband, always the friendliest face in the crowd and always there to support my endeavors.

I’m also getting a sense of pacing my words and pausing at strategic points during a reading to let my words sink in. I don’t think I’m imagining that my story was well received. Afterwards audience members stepped up to congratulate me on my reading, and I was asked to sign newly purchased copies of our anthology. And as my husband and I left Good Vibrations and joined the Lit Crawlers heading up Valencia Street, several people called out their congratulations on my offering.

Virgin experiences are so exhilarating, don’t you think? Before ending this post, let me offer a huge than you to Carol Queen, co-facilitator of the Erotic Reading Circle and founder of The Center of Sex and Culture, for inviting me to participate. Sorry you were down with the flu, Carol, and missed out on the evening. But rest assured we did you proud, and thank you again for the opportunity. Reading is in my blood now. What better way to celebrate a published piece than to read it in public? I hope to do so again at Lit Quake next year with a new story — with many more readings at other venues to come between now and then.

In the meantime, I invite you to come hear me read my latest story and bring a story or poem of your own, to the Erotic Reading Circle, at the Center of Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission Street, in San Francisco, from 7:30 to 9:3o PM, on the fourth Wed of each month.

Folsom Street Fair

10/2/14

I attended the Folsom Street Fair on Sunday, 9/20, my first time ever at this iconic San Francisco evcnt. I can’t say why, considering my long history in the local erotic community. Over the years I’ve attended Gay Pride celebrations, partied on Polk Street, visited the Bizarre Flea Market, and been a vendor at the Castro Street Fair. Somehow I never got around to attending Folsom Street until now. Sicne my recent big birthday, I’m all for doing anything interesting I haven’t done before — and if it feels good, I’ll do it again. (This might mean you can take the girl out of the 70s, but can’t take the 70s out of the girl.)

I’ve heard Folsom gets rowdier and raunchier as the day wears on. Consequently, being a very small person who tends to avoid large crowds, my friend and I arrived when the fair opened in the morning at eleven and left before two, while the streets were still easily negotiable. What impressed me the most about Folsom St. in the time I spent there was not the naked people, or folks on leashes, or public floggings, or pony girls, or Master/slave interactions — although I must say it all seemed like good clean fun to me. But what stood out for me was the solid feeling of community I felt as I wandered along, checking out the information displays and artisan booths and the people around my. As a horny old girl who has been in an alternative style relationship for decades, I didn’t see anything of a sexual nature that shocked or offended me in any way — although in the year 2014, I was really sorry to see displays of kinky toys made of animal fur.

I particualy enjoyed seeing more than a few mature BDSM couples, walking hand in hand, or in some cases, leash in hand, along the street — just old timer kinky folks, out having a stroll though their neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon — and from the look of things, still hot, after all these years. For me, attending Folsom St. was a delightful journey into live theater and I enjoyed myself a lot. I many go again next year.

Book Launch Was a Sucessful Event

9/29/14

The book launch party for Sex Still Spoken Here at CSC last Wed, was an exciting, sucessful, and well attened event, offering food, drink, and hot-off-the-press books for sale. Editors Carol Queen, Jen Cross, and Amy Butcher emceed in their own inimitable and enegetic style, introducing each writer warmly, with brief bits from our bios, as we steppd up tothe blood-red podium to read from our stories.

My husband, who joined me for the evening’s festivities, commented that I was the best reader present that evening — an unbiased opinion if I ever heard one, but always nice to hear. Now, with several readings under my belt, I’ve becoming more comfortable with spotlights and a microphone, and hear myself speak with expression, and in my natural voice — although I’m still not relaxed enough to raise my eyes from my typewritten pages and address my audience directly, at strategic points in my story, for fear of losing my place. My confidence will, no doubt, increase with time and subsequent readings.

My next one, by the way, will be during Lit Crawl, at the Good Vibrations Store on Valencia Street, Saturday, 10/18, from 7:15 to 8:15. Come listen to Carol Queen, Amy Butcher, and other writers from Sex Still Spoken Here. I’ll be reading from my story, The Gambler, and forget the long lead-in; I’ll be jumping right in to the juciest bits, teasing you into buying the anthology in order to read the rest.

Digression from Erotic History: Cause for Celebration in September

9/18/14

Years ago, while still a girl of sixty, I decided that the bigger the birthday the more celebration it required. Consequently, with September being my birth month and with my big day fast approaching, I’ve just returned from a weeklong vacation at a Palm Springs B&B, spent with my husband, sons and grandson, a dear family friend, and our dog. I’ve been there many times before, but the place — lush with Bougainvillea, dotted with fruit trees, and set near the base of a snowcapped mountain — still takes my breath away every time. This trip was a complete change of pace for me. I loved every minute of it, even when gasping from the heat and unaccustomed humidty. It reained on the third day of our visit. I haven’t experienced a storm in Palm Springs before. It was wonderfully dramatic, with a darkening sky, rumbles of thunder, and vivid pink Bougainvillea petals blowing in the wind. Erotic weather, I thought.

The family dynamic was remarkably mellow — attributable in part to the miracle of air-conditioning in our cool, comfortable suite, and to the exquisite pleasure of the swimming pool, not twelve steps from our door. Fully in relaxation mode, I didn’t write a word the whole time, but did formulate some thoughts on how I might best present my nearly completed book, PERFECT STRANGERS: One Woman’s Journey Though The Swinging Seventies, to a publisher.

And now, home again, my month-long celebration continues in a different vein — the long awaited book launch party for Sex Still Spoken Here, the newest anthology I’m in. This event will take place next Wed evening, 9/24, at San Francisco’s Center for Sex and Culture (CSC), at 1349 Mission Street, between 9th and 10th. A big shout-out to the book’s editors, Dr. Carol Queen, Jen Cross, and Amy Butcher, who have worked tirelessly to put together his eclectic collection of delghtfully smutty stores and poems from the Center’s monthly Erotic Reading Circle (ERC). Also included in the anthology is a discussion by our editors on how to establish similiar reading circles in other cities, thereby promoting more high quality smutty writing in the world — a great idea, seems to me.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of seeing a new piece in print, and will be at the launch to read from my story, The Gambler. This one is a semi-autobiographical tale, based on my long ago meeting with a sexy man with a big cock and a sense of humor — a man among men, who managed to make me laugh and come, during the same hot encounter. I’ll be reading along with some talented writers and performers at CSC, and am honored to be among them.

Please come and listen to us. Buy a book. Join the celebration.

Change Came In The 80s

9/2/14

It turned out that my decision to change my lifestyle for a less promiscuous one was excellently timed on my part. During the 60s and 70s — as far as the average, sexually active person knew — STDs resulting from indiscriminate sexual contact could be treated and cured with antibiotics — and dreaded exceptions, such as Herpes or genital warts, could at least be treated to manage symptoms. And this mindset, based as it was on lust and ignorance, generated a less than desirable level of vigilance about safe sex. But with the advent of the 80s and the newly discovered AIDS epidemic, for many people sexual behavior underwent an immediate and radical change.

The term “safe sex” entered our vocabularies. Bowls of condoms began appearing at party houses and sex clubs. Casual hook-ups, even with the use of condoms were viewed as potentially dangerous behavior. Consequently, one-on-one came into vogue again. Romance was back. Celibacy was celebrated. True love waited. People talked of marriage again.

Personally, I didn’t plan on taking matters that far, but although I retained grave reservations about the institution of marriage itself, I did feel ripe for a committed relationship. What I wanted was a special type of partner — a sexual main-man, so to speak, someone strong and emotionally secure — with the steadfast dependability and trustworthiness of a platonic best friend, combined with the erotic focus of my most favorite lovers. And I wanted this, please, all rolled up into one hot, hard, erotically adventurous man, to be enjoyed on a longterm basis.

Missing from this equation was someone to have that relationship with.

With further pursuit of casual hook-ups now off the table, I found men who turned me on and who were likely candidates for commitment to be disappointingly few and far between. But although I felt lonely and horny without my accustomed sexual distractions, I was unwilling to settle. My main social interactions were with my young adult children or women friends, or an occasional fling with an old friend-with-benefits. Aside from that I stayed home a lot, adopted a dog who turned out to be excellent company, and began to clarify my specific relationship needs in my mind, based on my plethora of personal experience.

The culmination of this semi-celibate time in my life was the personal ad I placed in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, in late 1983. The responses were many, but the one that mattered came from a man who had somehow read between the lines of my relationship ad, and responded with a letter — we wrote actual letters in those days — offering me “a special kind of erotic intimacy”, that he sensed I craved. I have no idea how that clever man knew that the most secret desire of this strong, capable, feminist woman was sexual submission.

How could he know, I wondered, when I barely knew myself?

But the man was right on, and I became his woman on that same night we met, following our initial meeting and negotiation at a San Francisco coffee-house — although I always maintained I wasn’t easy, because I made him buy me coffee first. And to our genuine surprise and delight, our alternative lifestyle relationship resulting from my newspaper ad has endured to this day.

Yes, there was a life after promiscuity. And yes, there was life after vanilla sex.

Being Sexual In The Seventies

8/25/14

We were fearless in the 70s. Our sexual adventuring knew no bounds. The process of erotic liberation that began with the sexual revolution of the 60s continued on, in spades, in the decade that followed. It was a time of discarding inhibitions and prohibitions, and of embracing personal freedom, and of self-discovery above all.

It was a time of living out sexual fantasies, via impromptu hook-ups anywhere and everywhere: on sandy beaches, and swimming pools, and hot tubs, and saunas, and on water beds with black satin sheets. We did it in vacation cottages, and at ski resorts, and nudist colonies, and on cruises — and at organized events , and encounter groups, and alternative lifestyle playgrounds, such as swing clubs, and BDSM party houses, not to mention our own private homes.

It was a time when female sexual gratification was viewed as a birthright — and casual sex with perfect strangers was as easy as shaking hands.

If it felt good we did it. If it felt really good, then, by god, we did it again!

Still, by the end of the 70s, having accrued enough sexual experience to eroticize a small, sex-starved country, I’d taken a giant step back from my promiscuous lifestyle. But not because I felt I had an out-of-control addiction requiring a twelve-step program for recovery. Or fear of disease either — believing as I did that God protects both fools and innocent, and I fit somewhere into one or both of those categories.

Instead, I stepped back for two primary reasons: First, I’d learned over time that for me, as a woman, sexual freedom was not necessarily synonymous with sexual satisfaction — and casual sex with strangers, exciting and potentially perfect as they appeared to be, often left more to be desired. Also, by then I’d come to understand and accept my intrepid erotic nature, and perceived how easily I could continue on as I was, until my life evolved, or devolved, depending on viewpoint, into an unending series of casual, sexual encounters.

And in the end, I realized I wanted and needed a greater level of intimacy than that.

By Way Of Personal History

8/18/14

I was born in the mid-1940s and brought up in post-World War II America. Women were housewives then; they stayed home with the children. They baked pies, waxed linoleum, watched soap operas, and joined the PTA, while men ran the world and brought home the bacon. As a girl-child, I understood that I was expected to do the same.

With the advent of my entering puberty, my dad began eyeing teenaged boys with mistrust, and my mom, foreshadowing Nancy Reagan, strongly advised me to “just say no” to any touching below the neck. Consequently, I married straight out of high school, in 1962, having swallowed whole the prevailing myth that girls who had sex before marriage were sluts — but not so much if they married the boy they’d had sex with. And as a young wife and mother, I pretty much missed out on the sexual revolution, occupied as I was with diaper changes, shopping lists, and earning my university degrees.

As a stay-at-home mom, I was far removed from gender inequities in the workplace. Still, certain glaring inequities between the sexes did not escape me. For instance, I gave up my last name when I married, while my husband did not. And while my husband experienced orgasm each time we had penetrative sex, I did not — despite coming frustratingly close. Over the years, although I did achieve some splendid orgasms via sufficient oral or manual stimulation — vaginal orgasm, my alleged birthright as a modern woman continued to elude me, becoming a source of friction and disappointment for me and my husband and casting a pall on my sexual life. By the time my marriage collapsed, twelve years later, I was twenty-nine-years-old, believed myself frigid, and set out on a personal journey of erotic self-discovery.

I had quite a good time proving myself wrong.

Sixty-Nine and Still Sexual

8/5/14

I’ve been dragging my feet about blogging for months now, since in addition to being a technologically challenged individual, I’ve had concerns about writing enough of interest to sustain continued postings. But with my website up and running, I realize it’s time to get moving because my birthday is in September after which I’ll no longer be sixty-nine, and I’m not sure seventy and still sexual would have the same ring.

So welcome to my blog and why am I starting one anyway? One reason is that as a relatively new erotica writer whose publishing credits are gradually mounting, it seems appropriate to begin publicizing myself and my stories, as well as the awesome editors who chose to include them in their oh-so-hot erotic anthologies.

Speaking of oh-so-hot, I can’t say enough about the latest book I’m in: Sex Still Spoken Here, an Erotic Reading Circle Anthology (ERC), published by the Center of Sex and Culture (CSC), in San Francisco. And kudos to editors: Dr. Carol Queen, ERC co-facilitator and CSC co-founder; Jen Cross, of Writing Ourselves Whole and ERC co-facilitator, and Amy Butcher, author of Paws for Consideration and ERC participant.

Being included in this book has special meaning to me, since I’ve joined this writing community in 2010 as a fledgling writer, and found in it the inspiration, support, and encouragement I needed. I have a hunch there will be more ERC anthologies to follow and hope to have a story in every one. ERC meets on the fourth Wed of each month. The book launch party will be Wed, 9/24, at CSC, 1349 Mission Street. I’ll be there reading from my work and others will too. I hope to see you there.