BDSM comedy?

It's been a very Aspie weekend for me. The more stressed I feel, the harder I obsess over whatever I'm currently interested in. Right now that's The Try Guys, a quartet of professional videographers/performers (formerly of Buzzfeed) who make YouTube videos in which they try various experiences for the first time. They're famously willing to do anything, from testing makeup tutorials on themselves to learning ballet to swimming with sharks. In this video, they're exploring BDSM with the help of a professional dominatrix, and they've brought along some female friends.

A few things you should know, going in:
1) Yes, The Try Guys is a comedy series, but it's also about being open-minded and willing to learn. As they begin this experience, their attitude is playful curiosity. They aren't making fun of BDSM (In fact, you can tell that some of them really got into it - even the very straight-and-married Ned), although they do make fun of that book. As well they should.
2) None of the "couples" in this video are couples in real life; they're all just good friends.
3) Eugene is the only actual LGBT in the group, and he's also the most adventurous. I'd be astonished if he hadn't already experimented with BDSM before making this video.
4) Zach is my spirit animal.

Latex depersonalization vs. punk rock

It seems that somebody's had the temerity to turn Neil Gaiman's award-winning short story "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" into a film. Judging by the trailer, the film is going to be a very loose adaptation of the story; but it's directed by John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, so that gives me hope. If anyone can make a premise like this work, it's him. Plus we've got the adorable/slightly kinky Elle Fanning on board, as well as Nicole Kidman cosplaying an opposite-sex David Bowie from Labyrinth. Her character certainly wasn't in the short story, but the girl with the doubled middle finger was. Make of that what you will. Anyway, here's the latex-slick movie trailer, and here is the original (very funny) short story, which you can read online for free.

Heat and chills

This is a post that grew in the telling (ten points to anyone who gets that reference). I had originally intended to post the first video, and only the first video, two weeks ago. Then I found something better for that weekend; and then last weekend I was as nauseated and terrified as most of the world at certain election results. But let's not talk about that. Here we go with the original video, which is just a fun, hot piece of fluff; and then I'll give you something new and creepy that I just found yesterday.

First up is - warning: controversial opinion ahead - the only scene worth watching in what's supposed to be a camp classic. I tried to watch Barbarella in full. Honestly, I did. But it felt like a Saturday morning kid's TV show with overt sex thrown in, so I kept feeling weirder and more uncomfortable until I had to turn it off. But I did like this scene, where one of the villains tries to torture Barbarella to death with unexpected results. I especially love her exclamation of dismay at the end:



Now here's the creepy second video. Some of you know about a SF anthology series called Black Mirror, which until now was made in the UK (I only saw one episode and loved it, but reviewers everywhere rave about it). Now it's being made in the US and coming to Netflix, so Netflix designed this very...counter-intuitive...promotion for itself: "Hey, you! Forget the rest of the world and be Netflix's zombie slave! You'll love it!" Well, I love it, anyway. Especially that last little bit at the dinner table. Plus, the ad gives me so many, many ideas for corrupting this imaginary technology. I'm sure it will do the same for you:

We have liftoff!

I'm pleased to announce that The Final Adventure of Doctor Theodore Steele and His Intrepid Assistant Franny is now live in the Kindle store. I had a great time writing it, and I think you'll have a great time reading it. It's a sendup of all those old pulp SF stories with their lantern-jawed heroes and damsel-in-distress sidekicks. This time, the villainess has decided to break out of her pulp role and play for kinky keeps. Check it out and let me know what you think. Better yet, leave a review!

As a matter of fact, in case you missed or forgot about this post, here's a reminder that you can still review one or more of my books and win an autographed copy of my upcoming "Dark Spaces" anthology.

I'm already at work on the second story of that anthology ("If Wishes Were Horses"), but for some reason my Muse is driving me to do the cover before the story itself. I don't mind. I'm having a lot of fun playing with spaceships and spiral effects. Stay tuned for more on that one.

Ten...nine...eight...seven...

It's countdown time to the publication of "The Final Adventure of Doctor Theodore Steele and His Intrepid Assistant Franny." With help from my contest winners (See the post just below this one for details - and join a later contest if you like), I've finalized the story; and I've just uploaded it to Amazon for pre-order.

This is another of those cases where I'm giving my blog readers a special gift. When the book goes live on March 28, it will sell for $2.99; but you can pre-order it for $0.99 here.

Here's the synopsis of the story:

Doctor Theodore Steele, the lantern-jawed hero of a thousand intergalactic adventures, is about to meet his match…in a nemesis he's beaten dozens of times before. Until now the brave hero and his sidekick have come out on top because, well, that's just the way it works. But does it have to work that way? Ursula Major has just thrown out the old rule book and written a kinky new one. In her version, the hero is vanquished, the damsel in distress isn't saved, and the villain gets the girl. It might be just crazy enough to work.

"The Final Adventure" is a send-up of your favorite old pulp science fiction stories with their blue-eyed heroes and helpless, admiring sidekicks. It includes alien life forms and heavy bondage, shiny ray guns and shinier latex, white knights in armor and bi-curious sidekicks, and a planet's worth of hypnotic spirals.

key words: hypnosis, satire, pulp fiction, lesbian, mind control, bdsm, dominatrix

It's complicated

I haven't done any writing in several months, not serious writing. I did rework "Couples Skate" for inclusion in an anthology called Cupid's Secrets (which you should consider buying or at least borrowing; not all the stories will be to your taste, but I can almost guarantee you'll love "Horngry" and "Two Gods Walk into a Bar"), but other than that, nada.

And why haven't I been writing? Well, it's complicated. My real-life life has been pretty unpleasant these last few months, and I've also been channeling a lot of energy into a different, vanilla project (which none of you will ever see - sorry!). I get obsessive about things, but I only have a limited amount of obsession available; and it's been going in a different direction than writing.

But suddenly that's changed. Even while I wasn't writing, I was thinking about which story I wanted to work on next. It was going to be "Avatar" - which, of course, will have to be retitled now - but I wasn't too enthused about the project. Then last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I started to think about "Sucker Punch"; and suddenly a host of fun, new ideas presented themselves to me. That's the story I need to work on next, not "Avatar." I'll be shuffling and, in a few cases, totally rewriting scenes, and changing the brainwashing method into something more appropriate for the Flash Gordon satire that this story is.

I need a better name, though - something along the lines of, "The Final Adventure of Doctor Theodore Steele and his Intrepid Assistant Franny." But as amusing as I find that title, I think it might be too long and weird to attract new readers. Tell me what you think. If you didn't know my stuff already, and if you were browsing Amazon for a good EMC story, would a title like that pique your interest or turn you off? Let me know in the comments.

EDIT: It's evening now, and I've done a lot of work on the story already. It looks like I'll be rewriting huge chunks of it, but that's a good thing because I have some fun ideas. What's not such a good thing is the length: I'd forgotten how short the story was. I'll have to combine it with a couple of other short ones ("If Wishes Were Horses" and "What to Expect from Your Alien Brainwashing") to make an anthology. This also means I'll need a title for the whole collection, so I think "The Final Adventure...." will work fine as the new title of "Sucker Punch." As for the anthology, I'm currently toying with the idea of "Kinks in the Space-Time Continuum," but I'm not set on that. What do you all think?

Just a little giggle

I'm not sure if anyone is even home surfing the net this weekend, so I wasn't even going to post anything until I found this. Enjoy.

Kinky elves

I was going to post something more sensible, but I've been sick for a week and a half (which, BTW, is why I didn't post last weekend), and my brain still isn't back to normal...by which I mean "as normal as it ever is." So this is what you get today.

Never mind why, but I've spent the day Googling for Tolkien-related art. I've found some great stuff; and then I've found, well, this sort of thing. The artist clearly has skill, and if she finds my post here, I hope she'll understand that I'm not really making fun of her...well, not entirely. I'm delightfully aghast (which is quite possibly how she meant me to feel anyway). And since I know a lot of my readers are into Tolkien and/or BDSM and/or gay sex, I hope you'll enjoy these pics as much as I did.

And now, without further ado, I present a very non-traditional love story between an Elf and a Dwarf.

They're real, and they're spectacular

I'm still working on my "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, of course (I expect to be working on that for months, but I also plan to publish "Hoarder" in the meantime). One of the places you'll be able to tour is a garden which the aliens are terraforming. Now, since the story is set in the Seychelles, I Googled the flora and fauna of the region so I'd have a realistic starting point. Imagine my astonishment when I came across the images you see in this post.

At left is a seed of the coco de mer tree. This species produces the largest seeds in the world, but as you can tell, they're not exceptional just because of their size.

But wait! There's more! The stamens of the male trees look just as suggestive as the seeds of the female trees - and they're just as large. The whole thing kind of reminds me of the Babel Fish joke from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where the fish is such an obvious clue to the existence of God that it actually negates God's existence.

Then there's the jellyfish tree. If ever a plant was designed to feature in a tentacle sex story, it's this one. Sadly, it's an endangered species, but at least in my story the aliens have a way to give it an edge on survival.

Finally, here's a clue that you might want to tuck away in your memory until the story gets published: the garden is an interesting place to visit, and depending on where you go, you might have a life-changing experience there...but what's behind the garden could be even more important.

I kid you not

Just for fun, I did a Google Image Search on "A. Regina Cantatis." Most of the pictures that came up were straight out of my blog. No surprises there. On the other hand, I kid you not, there was a picture of the Pope giving a happy thumbs-up.

Purely for the sake of laughs

I found this a minute ago on Gizmodo and thought it was fairly amusing, so I've decided to share. :-)

Next weekend I'll treat you to an extended quote from one of the mainstream-ish SF MC classics, and sometime after that will be a new e-book. In the meantime, have a smile.

I'm not dead yet!

I didn't post anything last week because I was so intent on polishing "Sleepwalkers" - and getting it out to you fine people - that I couldn't stop long enough to think of a blog topic. This week the writing bug is biting me even harder, but I'm making myself pause because I think you deserve a story update.

The whole first draft is finished, and I had a little laugh yesterday thinking about how, in my introduction, I thank my proofreaders (Lady K, Callidus, and the friendly neighborhood orc) for helping me keep the volume turned to eleven - and then I actually ended up with eleven chapters. I hope that number will give you that extra push over the cliff.

In the meantime, I apologize for being too obsessive-compulsive to publish the story until I have several chapters polished to my satisfaction (I'll probably still end up with a few typos despite that, because I always do - and I can't tell you how much it drives me crazy). I'm not waiting until it's all done, though. I'll post the first chapter on the EMCSA after I've finished polishing chapter 6. That way, I can feel confident of having each successive chapter ready to go live the following week. I'm polishing Chapter 4 right now, so that gives me a rough time frame of three weeks before Chapter 1 goes live. If - and only if - I unexpectedly croak before then, Lady K has my permission to post the rough drafts she's been proofing. I'd hate to leave you all hanging ;-P

And now I need your input. Like I said before, I plan on posting each chapter of "Sleepwalkers" on my blog a few days before I post it on the EMCSA. That's my gift to everyone who takes the time to stop by here. My question to you is which of these options you'd prefer in the meantime. Let me know in the comments section. I've set up this blog so that you don't need a Google account to make a comment, and you can post in total anonymity. I won't delete anything that's not trolling or spam.

So, now, tell me what to do. I am your obedient thrall. ;-)

1. I can tide you over until EMCSA-posting time by giving you the first half of Chapter 1 right here, next weekend. That would give you plenty to get excited about even though it would mean you had to stop reading just short of the induction.
2. I can wait until just before posting Chapter 1 on the EMCSA and then give you the whole chapter in its entirety here so that you don't have to stop before the induction...However, I should warn you that the chapter itself ends on a cliffhanger. Most of the chapters in "Sleepwalkers" do.

Weigh in below.

Ode to crap

For the past few weeks I've been trawling YouTube, lookinbg for videos of songs I enjoyed in the 1980's. Sometimes the music holds up, but the videos are almost uniformly awful. Take, for instance, the one below: "Mr. Roboto" by Styx. Right here in one tidy little package is everything that was wrong with the '80's pop/rock zeitgeist. I don't even have to make a list of the atrocities. If you're brave enough to watch for yourself, you'll catch them on your own.

So why am I posting the thing here? Because it typifies something else that many of you can relate to. When I was a teenager coming to grips with my fetish, shit like this was hot to me. It made me squirm, half happily and half uncomfortably, because it felt so weird to be turned on by something this - let's face it - dumb. I was especially uncomfortable watching robot or MC material with anyone else around. It was like having one of those "naked in public" dreams. I got the same sensation watching Dance Fever (part of my weekly Saturday night routine) whenever anyone did The Robot, or with Superfriends, or dozens of other totally innocuous TV shows and movie scenes.

So this post is really about nostalgia, and how much tougher things were for my generation. This is my version of "When I was a kid, I had to walk ten miles to school every day. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways." It's also a good opportunity to fantasize that the segment beginning at 4:20 ends differently, and/or to laugh at the suggestion of male cameltoe.

Happy Holidays from George "Oh My" Takei

This is all the gift you need, and more. ;-)

Two Neils and Some Smut

I've thought for some time that the coolest name anyone could give a male child is Neil/Neal. Just think about it: Neil Gaiman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Stephenson, Neil Patrick Harris....the list goes on and on. If you want your son to be awesome, just name him Neil.

So anyway, I just happened across this delightful interview with Neils Gaiman and deGrasse Tyson - who, being the wacky and wonderful souls they are, promptly start talking about venereal disease. For the full effect, you should watch the video before reading on.



Okay, now, if you're like me, you're suddenly curious to know more about the Earl of Rochester. I've just done a bit of googling and turned up several quite entertaining X-rated poems. These are the two most accessible for non-poetry geeks:

The Imperfect Enjoyment (spoiler: it's about premature ejaculation)
Signior Dildo (This one should be obvious)

As always, enjoy!

P.S.: If you really want to know more about Rochester, you can always rent this.

How many ways can you describe an orgasm?

The more erotica I write, the more of a challenge it is to find new ways of describing sexual climax. I can write about pulsing, throbbing, bells and gongs, feelings of electricity, fireworks, the mind going white, falling into an abyss, a flower blooming (That's one from my upcoming "Sleepwalkers"). Then, for men, I can add in guns and clubs and towers. But there has to be more, doesn't there?

I'm not talking about words for body parts (like "pussy" or "cock" or Ulorin Vex's adorable "ladyflower"), or about euphemisms for the sex act (like Shakespeare's "making the beast with two backs"). I'm talking about metaphors. Analogies. Poetry. How many different ways can you describe an orgasm? Feel free to leave ideas in the comments below this post. If I use any of them, I'll be sure to give you credit.

Then again, if you don't feel like commenting, at least you can enjoy these not-so-subtle metaphors. The art is by Hajime Sorayama, the song is by Cracker, and the skit is by Monty Python. It's an odd mashup, but I think it works. ;-)

Just because it was inevitable, that doesn't make it any less funny

Is it wrong of me to laugh so hard at this?

I think not!

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Just FYI, the apocalypse is upon us

Just found this over on io9. Count the memes. I've got four so far:
1. Bert and Ernie are gay
2. ___ raped my childhood
3. Rule 63
4. What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Feel feel to share your own. This is good(?) stuff.

BTW, this is not my usual weekend post. It's just something I stumbled upon and felt compared to share. God knows why.

Maryland politician is not, I repeat not, becoming a lustful cockmonster

In my continuing quest to provide you with grade-A ammo against (maybe) self-hating closet cases in high office, I bring you the delightfully blistering takedown of Maryland delegate Emmet C. Burns Jr. by Baltimore Ravens punter Chris Kluwe. Please give Kluwe (and teammate Brendon Ayanbadejo) a great big standing ovation...then share this link with as many people as you can.