Posts Tagged ‘books’
Fiction for Sex-Positive Seniors
It’s often frustrating to me that most contemporary fiction doesn’t reveal truths about my world as an older person. I’m always looking for books by writers of our generation about strong, senior characters. Given my own endless fascination with sex and relationships, I want the characters I read about to be sex-positive and in interesting relationships — or have interesting attitudes and activities if they’re not in relationships. I’ve compiled a few novels and short story anthologies that I’ve enjoyed lately whose authors and characters are men and women of our age and don’t shy away from sexuality. These recommended books portray characters whose sex lives are rich and varied–in reality for some, in their memories or imaginations for others.
Widow: Stories by Michelle Latiolais. I happened upon this collection of short stories accidentally — the title caught my eye because as a widow myself, I’m always grasping for understanding of how one goes on to live and love after the profound loss of a spouse. About a third of these stories are told from the point of view of widows; the others are narrated by women who experience loss in different ways. I had to ration myself to one story a day, because I needed time to think about — and sometimes recover from — what I had read. This passage, for example, made me cry, but I love it.
“For all her culture’s attention to the physical, it seemingly has little to salve the creatural anguish of losing someone else’s body, their touch, their heat, their oceanic heart. ‘Are you dating yet?” In other words, get another body … she doesn’t want another body, she wants the body she loved… One wants what one has loved, not the idea of love.”
An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer. Edward Schuyler is a 62-year-old science teacher who is mourning the death of his wife. “Their sex life was more vibrant than anyone, including themselves, would have imagined,” we’re told early on. Grief is treated realistically: although Edward’s friends and family encourage him to start dating again, he worries that closing the door on grief might mean closing the door on his precious memories. (How real that felt to me!) He does start dating, and his fumbling attempts are endearing because we understand what he’s feeling. “I’m heartbroken… and I’m horny. There was an icebreaker for you.” If the mix of grief and dating intrigues you, you’ll be glad you read this novel.
Smut: Stories by Alan Bennett. If the title gets your attention, that’s intentional, but the book really isn’t “smutty” by our standards, though the characters’ actions would be considered smutty by their peers. This little book offers two long short stories, “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson” and “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes” by a British dramatist born in 1934. Mrs. Donaldson is a 55-year-old widow (she seems older to me) whose job is role-playing medical conditions for doctors in training in an array of entertaining scenarios. She takes in boarders, college students who can’t always pay the rent, and so she watches them having sex instead. The other story deals with a narcissistic, closeted gay man who marries a woman and has trysts with a man who blackmails him; his mother; and his father who — no, I don’t want to give away that part.
Breaking Out of Bedlam by Leslie Larson. Cora Sledge, an 82-year-old widow, has been forced to leave her home for an assisted-living facility because her kids have decided (and rightly so) that she’s a danger to herself. She decides to write a scandalous, tell-all journal about her life — past and present. Her story is sometimes tragic and often harsh, but because of her/Larson’s manner of telling it, it’s also hilarious. Add to the mix a romance in the nursing home (is he devoted? or trying to use and cheat her?) and a bit of a mystery– and did I mention that you’ll enjoy the sex scenes?
In One Person by John Irving. I’ve saved this gem for last because it’s my favorite book of the year so far. The main character is a bisexual, 68-year-old man looking back at the influences — many of them sexual — that shaped his life. I’ll never forget Miss Frost, though it would be a spoiler to tell you why. This compelling, beautifully written novel will make you think about the people and events along your own life’s journey that helped you form your sexual identity and attitudes. It’s a long book (448 pages), but I can’t imagine you wanting to put it down. I listened to the Audible Audio edition, which is superb.
50 Shades of Grey Hair
If you’ve been awake on this planet, you’ve heard of the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s the Number 1 best seller on Amazon, where it sports 3,639 reader reviews at this moment.*
The big deal about this book is that it’s erotica, BDSM erotica at that, and it’s being read by a mainstream female audience — everyone from teens through their moms and, yes, grandmoms of our age, too. Many start reading it because everyone else seems to reading it, and we like to be shocked.
I didn’t read the whole book, but I did read quite a bit during a very long airport wait at JFK, where I found a mile-high display of all three Shades of Grey books. How did the author, E L James, come out with three books so fast? From the quality of the writing, I’d say she wrote them quickly, didn’t rewrite, and didn’t have an editor. Otherwise, how could she repeat herself all these ways, as an Amazon reviewer points out:
Ana bites her lip 35 times, Christian’s lips “quirk up” 16 times, Christian “cocks his head to one side” 17 times, characters “purse” their lips 15 times, and characters raise their eyebrows a whopping 50 times. Add to that 80 references to Ana’s anthropomorphic “subconscious” (which also rolls its eyes and purses its lips, by the way), 58 references to Ana’s “inner goddess,” and 92 repetitions of Ana saying some form of “oh crap” (which, depending on the severity of the circumstances, can be intensified to “holy crap,” “double crap,” or the ultimate “triple crap”)…Characters “murmur” 199 times and “whisper” 195 times (doesn’t anyone just talk?), “clamber” on/in/out of things 21 times, and “smirk” 34 times. Finally, in a remarkable bit of symmetry, our hero and heroine exchange 124 “grins” and 124 “frowns”… which, by the way, seems an awful lot of frowning for a woman who experiences “intense,” “body-shattering,” “delicious,” “violent,” “all-consuming,” “turbulent,” “agonizing” and “exhausting” orgasms on just about every page.
Readers recognize the bad writing — more than 1,000 reader reviews are only 1-star — but what the heck, it is sexy (of course “sexy” is in the eyes of the beholder). Anastasia gets lots of orgasms, and isn’t it a fantasy of women at any age to have an extraordinarily handsome, insanely rich lover who gives us endless orgasms — and, by the way, has inner turmoil that we’re convinced only we can fix by offering him our special brand of devotion?
Our age group is reading this book, too, and not just women. I enjoyed the reader review from “a male senior citizen, a semi-retired gynecologist,” whose “arthritis flared up just reading about Ana’s sexual gymnastics.” He had to take Viagra to stiffen his resolve to keep reading.
If you’re interested in BDSM erotica, there are plenty of well-written books you can read, with the sex you’re looking for plus skillful, non-repetetive writing and unpredictable characters and plots. For example, try the Sleeping Beauty Novels, a trilogy by Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelaure, or check out the many BDSM erotica anthologies from Cleis Press. If it isn’t specifically BDSM but simply well-written erotica you’re looking for, both Cleis and Seal Press do a great job. Starting with an anthology can introduce you to writers whom you particularly enjoy, and from there you can explore what else these writers have written.
What would Fifty Shades of Grey look like if it featured a woman our age, instead of a college student? We could title it Fifty Shades of Grey Hair, and our heroine would be a woman of, say, 68, who has left a long, boring marriage and goes to San Francisco or New York City to discover her hitherto hidden sexual kinks. She hooks up with a dom who is maybe 72 and in the best of health and vigor, who uses plenty of lube while he introduces her to his special brands of toys, fingers, tongue, and penis, to bring her to the ultimate heights every few pages. I say “every few pages” instead of “every page,” because we need longer foreplay these days.
Or maybe she doesn’t find a dom — maybe she’s the domme, exploring her personal power in ways she has only fantasized.
You see how much fun this could be? Fifty Shades of Grey Hair wouldn’t suffer in any way by being about senior sex. In fact, by featuring savvy, sexy seniors, we wouldn’t need any of the lip chewing and we could be more inventive with our reactions than “oh, crap.” What do you think?
(If you love the idea of senior erotica, I’m editing a senior sex erotica anthology right now with Seal Press. I’ll let you know when it’s published!) Update: Ageless Erotica is available for your reading pleasure!
*I can’t help comparing: my Naked at Our Age has 20 Amazon reviews–all raves except for one that found it offensive because too much of it is “about how to give yourself an orgasm.” Here I thought that would be a useful part of a senior sex self-help sex guide….
The Ultimate Guide to Kink: book review
I was, at first, conflicted when Cleis Press invited me to review The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge, ed. Tristan Taormino. I’m so unkinky personally. I like gentle sex, and although I had a “try anything twice” motto a few decades ago, by now, I feel pretty secure in knowing what works for me, and it’s decidedly, deliciously, vanilla.
I’ll admit it, I’ve never understood what could be pleasurable about pain. I’ve been in two devastating automobile accidents with residual and lifelong pain, I shattered my shoulder in ten places two years ago, I have arthritis in my neck — I know pain. I couldn’t imagine bringing pain intentionally into my sex life. Imagine my surprise reading this in Tristan Taormino’s introduction:
| Tristan Taormino |
When people experience pain, adrenaline, endorphins, and natural painkillers flood their nervous system. People get off on this chemical rush, which many describe as feeling energized, high, or transcendent… In the context of a sexually charged scene, some people, when they are aroused (and their pain tolerance is much higher), process a face slap in a different way: it feels good.
Oh! Now I get it. (Are true kinksters laughing at my innocence?)
- Patrick Califia, who writes “Butthole Bliss: The Ins and Outs of Anal Fisting” (“one of the most extreme sexual acts that one person can allow another to do to his or her body”) and “Enhancing Masochism: How to Expand Limits and Increase Desire.” He defines masochism as “the desire and the ability to become aroused and perhaps even climax while experiencing sensations that other people avoid.”
- Hardy Haberman, who writes “A Little Cock and Ball Play,” including household items you can use as sensation implements: toothbrush, paintbrush, nylon scouring pad, mushroom brush….
- Jack Rinella, who writes “The Dark Side.” As the Dark Lord, he advertised for men who desired to be “subjugated, degraded, dominated, humiliated, and violated” — about 120 men responded.
- Lolita Wolf, who writes “Making an Impact: Spanking, Caning, and Flogging,” including choosing an implement, techniques, and why the bottom and the top enjoy it.
- Barbara Carrellas, who writes “Kinky Twisted Tantra,” including “The Tao of Pain.”
Patrick Califia challenges those who brand BDSM players as “mentally ill”:
The assumption that variant sexualities are mental illnesses has more to do with conservative religious values than it does with objective observation. If a mental state or human behavior is unhealthy, we ought to be able to demonstrate that it makes that person unhappy, interferes with their ability to give and receive love, prevents them from setting goals that give them a sense of fulfillment, and injures their health.
Best Sex Writing 2012: book review
I love Best Sex Writing 2012, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel with guest judge Susie Bright, from Cleis Press. I always look forward to this annual series because it compiles the best non-fiction writing about sex published the previous year in magazines, newspapers, online sites, and books.
This is writing on the topic of sex — it’s not erotica. As
Rachel Kramer Bussel says in her introduction, “This is not a one-handed read, but it is a book that will stimulate your largest sex organ: your brain.”
Rich with diversity of topics, points of view, writer backgrounds and styles, this is a book you’ll read hungrily and carefully. As
Rachel Kramer Bussel says,
What you are about to read are stories, all true, some reported on the streets and some recorded from lived experience, from the front lines of sexuality. They deal with topics you read about in the headlines, and some topics you may never have considered.
 |
| Rachel Kramer Bussel |
In fact, I often found myself stopping to ponder an essay, halting the whirlwind of my brain absorbing new facts, new views, often new topics that had never been presented to me with such passion and insight before.
For example, in “Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture,” Abby Tallmer takes us back to the Meatpacking District of New York City’s West Village from the 1960s through the mid-80s, when a “select group of queer and kinky people” roamed the streets where gay SM and sex clubs thrived. Categorizing herself as a femme lesbian, Tallmer let her boy buddies disguise her, complete with a sock in her pants and a fake five o’clock shadow, so she could get into the Mineshaft. She describes the scene:
I remember seeing a sea of nude, half-nude, harnessed and chained male bodies (the bottoms) and muscular men in full leather (the tops)… I remember all sorts of sounds: from the bottoms, cries and whimpers and gasps and moans and shrill but insincere pleas of “Stop!,” tops barking orders at their slaves sternly or angrily or calmly… All the collective words and sighs were punctuated by the unmistakable sounds of flagellation — wooden paddles striking flesh, the snapping of bullwhips slicing through the air and landing sharply on human targets… I stood there transfixed, thinking, This is what men do when women aren’t around.”
In “Why Lying about Monogamy Matters,” Susie Bright slams op-ed columnist Ross Douthat who wants us to believe that abstinence from premarital sex makes us (and him) really happy. She conveys his viewpoint as this: “There are Four Big Kinds of Sex: casual, promiscuous, premature, and ill-considered.” In contrast to this “shaming, stunted fair tale,” Bright fought her upbringing that “Sex is so wrong, there’s, like, a million ways to do it wrong and burn in hell forever”) and now she thanks all the lovers she’s ever had.
In “Dating with an STD,” Lynn Harris points out that “Statistically, your date is more likely to carry a sexually transmitted infection than to share your astrological sign.” She quotes medical sociologist Adina Nack, PhD:
You should go out into the dating world assuming that the person you’re with has already contracted something, even though they may not know it. Even if someone says, ‘I’m clean–I’ve been tested for everything,’ they’re either ignorant or lying, because we don’t even have definitive tests for everything.
I’m happy that senior sex is included this year! I’m proud that this year’s anthology includes a piece I wrote: “Grief, Resilience, and My 66th Birthday Gift.” This is an expanded version of an excerpt from Naked at Our Age about reaffirming my sexuality with a gentle stranger after the throes of grief left me unable to imagine pleasure, sexual or otherwise. I’ve been told it’s a powerful piece of writing. I hope you agree.
I’ve just scratched the surface of what Best Sex Writing 2012 has to offer. I hope you’ll read it and share your favorite parts in your comments here.
Read what other reviewers have to say about Best Sex Writing 2012 by clicking here.