Posts Tagged ‘erotica’
The Ageless Erotica Revolution by Donna George Storey
Behind every story, there’s a story (and, in this case, a “Storey.”) Donna George Storey, who wrote “Invitation to Lunch” for Ageless Erotica, shares what it meant to her to contribute to Ageless Erotica, and her insights about the importance of this anthology.– Joan
I’ve been publishing erotic fiction for over 15 years, but “Invitation to Lunch,” my maiden erotic memoir that appears in Ageless Erotica, is one is one of the most satisfying pieces I’ve ever written.
Why? Because it has given me the chance to tell the truth about enjoyable sex between two 50-something people who’ve been married for 27 years.
On the face of it, what’s the big deal? All memoirs describe real experiences. Yet a careful look at the portrayal of sexuality in our culture shows that positive descriptions of mature sexuality are extremely rare. I’ve been hesitant to try it myself. Without question, Ageless Erotica will help redress that lack.
However, I believe the impact of this book is even more revolutionary. By busting apart the myths about sexuality for older people, we question the stereotypes that hinder us at every age. Writing erotica is all about steamy images and sensibilities, so I consider it a professional duty to pay attention to the media’s presentation of sex. I see three major “acceptable,” but limiting, ways to discuss sexuality today.
- The most ubiquitous: idealized visual images of gorgeous models and actors in advertisements, Hollywood movies and pornography. These images are invariably tied to consumption of some sort—buy this product and be satisfied like these demi-gods, if only for the moment. How many 20-year-olds can claim to experience the air-brushed,
contrived, and absurdly short encounters so familiar in the visual
media? Even in my supposed nubile prime, I felt compelled to compare
myself to Hollywood perfection and came up lacking. - The “scientific” journalistic report, which tends to focus on social and physical problems, neuroses and diseases. The focus here tends to be on promiscuity in the young and sexual boredom or dysfunction for older married couples.While we’re all curious about the latest sex survey or specialist’s
view of “normal” sexuality, quantitative and expert measures can never
capture the complexity of our unique personal experience. - Erotica and erotic romance, an extremely popular genre. Yet the majority of these stories are fantasies, standing in stark contrast to what we do in our ordinary lives. While there are hardly any positive images of older people enjoying erotic pleasure in this mix, the sad truth is that there are few positive, realistic images for anyone of any age. Erotic stories can be arousing, but there are limitations to consuming someone else’s ideas of what is sexy. Aren’t the most powerful sexual experiences fearlessly created from the heat of our own passion and imagination?
Every time someone has the courage to reveal her genuine experience of sexuality in a way that breaks out of safe cliché, she opens the door for others to speak out and look within to define their own truths. There’s potential for release from all kinds of damaging assumptions about what sex is for real people.
If you don’t have to look like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to have a great sex life, what other lies are restricting us from owning our potential? Do married couples have to grow bored with each other? Must sexy feelings fade after menopause? Is passionate love beyond our reach after 30? Is dewy innocence really sexier than knowing who you are and exactly what you want in bed? Indeed, since we all hope to live long, rewarding lives, what could be more encouraging than reassurance from wise, experienced lovers that great pleasure lies ahead for as long as we desire it?
In “Invitation to Lunch,” the couple—my husband and I—play out the woman’s fantasy of being watched while they make love. It’s probably no surprise that an erotic writer is attracted to the forbidden fantasies of her sexuality being seen and accepted by others. I realize now that this is what Ageless Erotica means to me: seeing and celebrating the honest erotic experiences of all lovers whatever their age, appearance or sexual preference. Let the new sexual revolution begin!
Donna George Storey is the author of Amorous Woman, asemi-autobiographical tale of an American woman’s love affair with Japan. Her
fiction and essays have appeared in numerous places including Fourth Genre, The
Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, Penthouse, Best American Erotica, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Read
more at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com. Her story in Ageless Erotica, “By Invitation Only,” is based on a recent
lunchtime interlude with her husband of 25 years. Their motto is “you never
stop learning” — especially when it comes to pleasure.
Ageless Erotica!
Ageless Erotica is now available! Follow this link to buy it at a very good price from Amazon. (Please post a reader comment on Amazon after you’ve read it, ok?) I have copies for sale now, too, and I’ll be happy to sign them – click button at the bottom of this page .
Your independent bookstore should have their copies soon — request it and they’ll notify you. The book will also be available in e-book format very soon.
Ageless Erotica
Seal Press, 2013
What would it look like if talented writers over age fifty wrote erotica featuring steamy, sexy characters who were also over fifty? Now we know. Ageless Erotica is a ground-breaking anthology of erotic short stories and memoir essays presenting women and men, couples and singles, straight and gay, who are over fifty, sixty, seventy, and beyond – all enjoying and sharing their erotic moments.
This is not your usual erotica with a few wrinkles slapped on — these are stories that show how hot sex can be at our age. This collection embraces the agelessness of sexuality while still realistically acknowledging the changes that accompany aging.
Ageless Erotica is a stimulating celebration of the many pleasures of “well-seasoned” sex. In this anthology, age is accepted, celebrated, and sensually enjoyed. Some selections are tender and loving, while others are edgy and kinky. Characters may be having spicy sex with partners they have loved for decades; or with new loves, old loves reunited, or forbidden partners; or solo with fantasies. Ageless Erotica has it all, portraying older-age sexuality as healthy, lusty, and glorious.
TO BED by Erobintica
SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE by Nancy Weber
DOLORES PARK by Dale Chase
INVITATION TO LUNCH by Donna George Storey
OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF by Susan St. Aubin
LADY BELLA by I.G. Frederick
HAND JOBS by Kate Dominic
SMOOTH AND SLIPPERY by Doug Harrison
TONY TEMPO by Tsaurah Litzky
BETTER THAN VIBRATORS by Cheri Crystal
AFTER TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS by Dorothy Freed
MY NEW VAGINA by Audrienne Roberts Womack
TRAIN RIDE by Harris Tweed
AT THE WANE OF THE MOON by Bill Noble
PEAS IN A POD by Maryn Blackburn
ENDLESS PRAISE, TIMELESS LOVE by Linda Poelzl
THE HOTEL LOUNGE by Skyler Karadan
COMING FULL CIRCLE by Cela Winter
GEORGE by Lorna Lee
IN THE MEANTIME by Miriam Kura
MR. SMITH, MS. JONES WILL SEE YOU NOW by D.L. King
JAGUAR DREAMS by Evvy Lynn
TOAST FOR BREAKFAST by Cheyenne Blue
BY THE BOOK by Rae Padilla Francoeur
BLIND, NOT DEAD by Johnny Dragona
AFTER DINNER EUPHORIA by Peter Baltensperger
THE WACKY IRAQI, THE SHAMAN LOVER, AND ME by Erica Manfred
BEYOND THE DOUBLE DOORS by Sue Katz
MORNING by Belle Burroughs Shepherd
Media, book reviewers, bloggers: If you’d like to review Ageless Erotica or interview Joan Price, please email Joan.
To purchase your autographed copy of Ageless Erotica directly from Joan Price via PayPal for $16 plus shipping, please click below.Autograph to… (name)?
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….
Fast Girls: Erotica for Women
Fast Girls: Erotica for Women
Yes, but this is a blog about sex and aging. Is anyone in this anthology over 50? Yes — one character — 51-year-old Shirin seduces a much younger classical pianist (who can resist those fingers?) in “Waitng for Beethoven” by Susie Hara. Many other characters could be any age, so if you like imagining them 50+, as I do, you can get away with it.
One writer that I know of– D.L. King–is over 50. Her story “Let’s Dance” is about a woman who seduces an “adorable” young dancing man (we love our dancing men!) from the “vanilla club” dance floor into a cab to her photo studio/home equipped with pulleys and restraints, and introduces him to his fantasy (“Cute Boy was a total bondage slut”) and hers. Though D.L.King doesn’t make a big deal about the narrator’s age, you know she’s older. If dom/sub stories turn you on and you’d like to read a story by King expressly about a man’s 65th birthday gift (think a lifesize crate), read “The Gift” online. Check out her blog, too, for more about King’s books.
I asked D.L. King her views about age and erotica:
My dominant female characters are often my age and their submissive males are usually quite a bit younger, but that isn’t to say I haven’t written the obverse, too. I don’t always do it, but sometimes it’s fun to play with age.
I think erotica is a great way to get the juices flowing. After a while, people tend to lose interest in the same old sex. Erotica’s a great way to explore other options and spice up a relationship. If you read a story that really turns you on, bring it to your partner and see if he or she would like to try it on for size. Erotica can also help to stimulate your own fantasies. Anything that helps you to enjoy your sexuality more can only be a good thing!
I love to do readings and meet readers. Most of the readers who turn up for those events are young. I think many of my contemporaries don’t attend those kinds of events. I wish more would. After all, we’re the original free love generation.
I also asked the editor, Rachel Kramer Bussel, a prolific erotica writer herself, if she thinks that characters who are over 50 will become more common in erotica. She replied:
I hope so! I like to see a range of characters, though the ones that cross my desk when I’m editing an anthology tend to skew younger. I’d definitely welcome older characters and in general themes I haven’t seen before or as often in my anthologies. I’m editing two new anthologies now, Obsessed and Women in Lust and if there are older authors or those who simply want to add a little more variety, I encourage you to submit your work.
Let me know if this blog post results in your story being included in one of Rachel’s anthologies, will you?