SexyPrime, a blog by Susan Crain Bakos

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?: Liz Weber Has Some Answers In "HUNKMANIA"

While you are waiting for me to decide what to write next--read this wonderful new writer I have discovered for you;  Liz Weber.  She is a super bartender at Maxie's and a model/singer/writer.  If you think that men are beasts in strip clubs, read "Hunkmania," the three part feature on women enjoying male strippers, on her blog.  She is wicked good.

So many of you are weighing in via email on the The Power Kiss with "permission" post that I want to write more on the subject--and combine it with the fascinating interviews I've been doing at Maxie's Grill (19th Street between Irving and Park).  That's coming soon!  Also coming soon:  Dom Rose has a startling insight into why black women don't like it when white men are with their guys!  (I was with one of their guys last night, but we were downtown and nobody seemed upset.)  And more about Alphas and Betas is on the way--including more excerpts from emails from women who hate Alex Zola, The Spanking Man.  He must not be very good at it, since the women who hate him have all experienced his hand.  One asked for copies of his incriminating confession letters and PI reports to pass out at upscale steak houses.  Hmmmmmm........

WHY WOMEN HAVE SEX: Reason #238, Do Me

Photo credit:  "Blood Red Walking" on Photobucket

Do Me.

Cindy M Meston and David M. Buss, professors at the University of Texas at Austin, found 237 reasons when they asked women, “Why do you have sex?”  I didn’t find “Do Me” (which is the short form of I Need To Get Laid NOW!) in their book Why Women Have Sex (Times Books)—but that’s why I had sex last night.

The book is a fun read and somewhat educational—if you haven’t already figured out that women have sex for adventure, revenge, financial gain, boredom, gratitude, attention and a host of other reasons.

I like the forthright responses, such as “…my husband receiving a promotion and raise at work…he does look more attractive to me when he generates big bucks.”  And “I had sex with a couple of guys because I felt sorry for them.”  And, “My boyfriend and I were on a diet and felt we were not getting enough exercise.”  And, “When I was single I had sex for my own personal pleasure.  Now I am married and I have sex to please my husband.”

While sifting through the reasons, I also learned some history, like Roman women grew so ecstatic watching gladiators fight and die that they could be had right there in the coliseum.

On a less violent note, I had sex last night because I Needed To Get Laid.  In 36 hours, I’d had a heart-wrenching conversation with a woman whose 9 year old granddaughter died of cancer; worked with my fav author to finish a BRILLIANT book proposal; managed some other work-related duties; went to my weekly reading date with a group of hospitalized veterans and discovered one of them had died over the weekend; worked more—and, briefly excused myself from a publicity interview to push the button on my cell phone that connects me to him, the source of necessary pleasure.

“I want you,” I said.

“When?  I’m in a meeting, but I can get free in, say, thirty minutes.  Is that good?”

Yes, that was very good.  My breath kept catching and words were sticking in my throat, but I wrapped up the interview in fifteen and was in his private office on Wall Street in thirty.   He smiled and got up from behind his desk, undoing his tie as he walked toward me.  I love that he wears impeccable ties and crisp shirts that never seem to wrinkle and he smells so good.

“How do you want it?” he asked.

“Do Me.”

My fingers trembled as I unbuttoned his shirt; I needed to inhale his chest and feel the curly hair on my face.  He unzipped my skirt.  I’d already removed my panties in the cab.  (Now you know why I’ve never been a pantyhose kind of gal.)  We are expert at the semi-dressed fuck.

He scooped me up and carried me to the leather sofa.  The man is big and powerful, in more than one sense of the word.  While kissing me passionately, he caressed my vulva, penetrating my vagina with two fingers, circling his thumb around my clit.  I was ready to be fucked almost immediately—and he didn’t keep me waiting.

He nearly always asks, “How do you want it?”—unless he has been the one to call me, asking with no preamble, “Will you come suck my cock?”  

One day he or I or both of us will become entangled in an affair of the heart.  What we have together will end.  (Or, who knows, maybe not.)  My darling egalitarian partner in pleasure, I will cherish the memories.

And that is reason #238 why women have sex.

IN THE PINK: Sex, Laughter, Shop The Cure, Hold The Ribbons

Photo Credit:  "Pink Roses" by Todd on Photobucket
  

“I was tired of my head alternately sweating and hurting under the wig and, I thought, what the hell nobody looks at me anyway so I went out to meet my best friend Kate with only a couple inches of short, soft newborn baby hair between me and baldness.  I hadn’t felt sexy in a long time—since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  But I put on black stockings, a short skirt and stilettos to compensate for having so little at the very top.

 

“Waiting for Kate at the bar, I realized with a shock that the handsome young bar manager was looking at my legs.  He couldn’t have been over thirty, a good ten years younger than I am.  He smiled at me and said, ‘You caught me admiring your legs.  They’re beautiful.’

 

We chatted briefly; and he told the bartender my check was ‘comped’.  When Kate got there, he excused himself.  I put out my hand for a shake, but he held it to his lips in a chivalrous kiss.  His lips were so warm.; and his warmth coursed through my veins.  He flipped my switch.  I felt sexy again,”  Carla.

 

I am probably the last to remind you that it’s Pink October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.   

 

Carla’s email nudged me; and so here I am, on the right train, but in the car where they serve Martinis and champagne.  Like Carla, I am wearing black stockings and stilettos and am open to advances.  In addition to reminding you about the many retailers who will donate a portion of sales to breast cancer research this month—I think it’s important to share with you the parts of stories that are not about tears and affirmations, like Carla’s and that of Marisa Acocella Marchetto, downtown New York City cartoonist.  She is the author of Cancer Vixen, the graphic novel based on her own experience.

 

 

 

“Lip gloss and shoes were my secret weapons to get through it,” she says.  “The book is all about laughing in the face of death.”  Though one of her own doctors discouraged her from turning cancer into cartoons and “making light of something that is serious”, she said, “I would rather be a Cancer Vixen than a cancer victim.”

 

Author of the new book, Bright Sided:  How The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich is another irreverent breast cancer survivor.  Infuriated by the disease’s “upbeat, infantilizing culture of pink ribbons and teddy bears”, she was inspired to examine the smiley-faced positive thinking culture that is America today.  (Could we save the world if Hitler came back?  I don’t think so.)  She argues persuasively that our national delusion about reality led to the economic collapse.

 

 

One of my favorite lines from the book:  “Certainly men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not receive gifts of Matchbox cars.”  Or blue ribbons.

 

The False Positive culture has given us the 24 hour orgasm, hot monogamy forever, the mortgage crisis, "The Secret", Boomers who will never die, motivational speakers and coaches who swear you can be and do anything—and more.  An update from a Face Book friend recently said:  “I have removed all negative people from my life.  I won’t be surrounded by those who say ‘No.’”

 

Really?  Sometimes “No” is the right thing to say.  What this country needs is more realists, people who can accept the terms and are able to laugh in the face of death—of the body, the career, the love life, one’s options.  Life is finite.  Find the humor.

 

Now about shopping the cure:

 

Babeland will donate $20 of Pink October toys sales to help fund mammograms for women in need.  There are lots of yummy pink toys on the site, including the one I love best, JimmyJane's Form 6.

 

Candida Royalle’s Natural Contours Petite Pink Ribbon Vibrator was created to commemorate breast cancer awareness.   I love Candida’s line.  The discreet vibes , curved to fit your body, look like pieces of sculpture.  Petite Pink feels velvety smooth—and is my favorite pink vibe (and I have several.) 10% of sales are donated to Breast Cancer Action (BCAction.org.)

 

Of all the department store Pink October promotions, Bloomingdales is the best.  You can buy a pink umbrella, a pink tote bag, designer t-shirts—so many items with pink and varying percentages donated to cancer research.

 

Not in the mood to shop?  Donate.

 

Marchetto started Cancer Vixen Fund at St. Vincent’s Hospital where she had her treatments to provide semi-annual free state-of-the-art breast cancer screenings for women who can't afford them.  She did not have health insurance when she was diagnosed, but doctors treated her anyway until she got married to the restaurateur Silvano Marchetto (Da Silvano) and got coverage through his policy.

 

“I started the Fund out of gratitude,” she says.

 

I am grateful that my best friend is cancer free; and I'm sure you all have similar reasons for gratitude.  Write a check if you can.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CALL GIRL AND A MATERIAL GIRL?

Sex and money.  Can you have one without the other?  Is sex ever free?  Oscar Wilde famously said, "The difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money costs a lot less."  

The society pages and fashion magazines celebrate material girls.  They marry for money, lots of it, and keep the luxury goods industries afloat.  Call girls show up periodically in the tabloids--with numbers blatantly attached to their names.  They charge by the hour, not the possibly lifetime commitment.

If you don't live in New York, you may have barely noticed last year's state political scandal.  Then Governor Elliot Spitzer was brought down when he was caught with a call girl, Ashley Dupree.  (Apparently the Gov, who spent about 80 grand on Dupree, was a little kinky.  Shocking, huh?)  The stunning "24 year old tattooed vixen" (The New York Post) extended her fifteen minutes of fame by telling the Post that a lot of women are essentially selling sex for money--whether as wives or hookers.  In her defense, she says, "I wasn't pretending."  Some New York women protested; other said, She's got a point.  Madonna, the voice of materialism, girl style, proclaimed Dupree her "nude hero."

The writers represented in the anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys:  Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money and Sex (Soft Skull Press) know to the dollar the cost--and the price--of sex.  The New York Times gave this book front page of the Sunday Book Review in "Meet, Pay, Love." This brutally honest, informative and even occasionally witty collection of essays, stories and poems should be required reading, especially for women.  You will recognize some of the names, like Nina Harlety, Annie Sprinkle, Jennifer Blowdryer and others.  Some are unknown, even anonymous.  But their stories will stay with you.  Mamas, raise your daughters to be financially independent.

If you're in Manhattan tonight, some of the contributors will be reading and signing books at Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street (Forsyth and Eldridge) at 8 p.m.  Try to get there early if you want a seat. Author, sex educator and activist, Audacia Ray will emcee the program.  

HAVE YOU FOUND YOUR ASS MAN?: Booty and the Books

Photo Credit:  Cleis Press

 

A copy of bottoms up, spanking good stories edited by Rachel Kramer Bussell (Cleis Press), was lying on top of my book pile.   Rachel puts together the best anthologies of erotica.  She won the Gold at the IPPY (Independent Publishing Book Awards) this year.  (Congrats, Rachel!)  The spanking books have particularly sexy covers.  Whether you’re into spanking or not—and I’m not—the books are lush and intriguing; and if you’re like me, you can get aroused by things you don’t necessarily want to do. 

But this is not a how-to guide.  In most of the stories, someone is whacking the hell out of an ass, male or female.  Fine in fantasy, Ouch! In real life.  You can administer an erotic spanking without leaving the recipient bruised and battered.  Read "How To Spank Your Lover."

In between spanking stories, I read emails.  A surprising number of them were ass-oriented this week.    Spanking.  Anal intercourse.  

That reminded me of another book in my pile:  The Anal Sex Positions Guide by Tristan Taormino (Quiver Books).  Tristan is the expert on this subject.  She answers that question, What would you take to a desert island?” with “Lube, lube, lube.”

Tristan has great advice for any heterosexual couple, whether they’re exploring the idea of anal intercourse—or looking for new positions to do it in.  

The best (and probably the only) literary erotic account of anal intercourse is, of course, Toni Bentley’s classic, The Surrender, about her intense and “transcendent”, mostly anal affair with the A-man.  They did it 298 times.  She found God.

From the book:

"Vertical fucking.  Upside down, legs over my head, knees by my ears, ass up, he perches over me like an acrobat and points his cock down into me.  He thrusts downward to Earth’s center, and I am grounded.  I point upward, outward to the sky, to the Milky Way, to heaven’s gate, and I see clearly between my legs his cock pumping like a piston.  Angle is everything.”

She was a ballerina who danced with George Ballanchine’s New York City Ballet for ten years.  Thus the flexibility and probably the high tolerance for pain.

In the space of less than a generation, heterosexual anal sex has gone from “taboo” to something most couples try at least once.  Shockingly, many men push for it the first time they have sex with a woman—and/or, attempt to “just slip it in” like (presumably, but not really) it’s done in porn films.  Recently, I’ve had emails from two Indian men, strangers, who said they were coming to the U.S. and want to have anal sex with me.  Gentlemen—that is so not appealing.

Many women try anal sex and hate it.  Some like it so much they do it with every partner.  Most of us have an Ass Man, the guy to whom you surrender your ass and find enjoyment in doing so.  I had mine.  He was skilled and patient—and the orgasms were astounding in their intensity.  (We didn't do it 298 times.)

But I haven’t wanted to do it with anyone else since him—especially not with guys who want anal sex before they even buy you a glass of champagne.

Now I wonder if I should have let him spank me too.

 

 

 

 

 

HUNGRY IN HELL: Reading Is Life's Other Great Pleasure

Don't you love reading other women's lives?  I've got the perfect book for you, especially if you've been shopping the sales at the mall where you were forced to confront your body in a three way dressing room mirror.  (Do we know how to enjoy a holiday in this country or what?)  Put down that September Vogue and pick up Hungry.

Crystal Renn was discovered at age fourteen in her little hometown in Mississippi by a modeling scout from New York City who promised she would be "the next Gisele" if she lost fifty pounds.  Two years and seventy pounds later, looking like a terminal AIDS patient, she went to New York and signed a lucrative modeling contract.  Two more years later, she was minimally successful, miserable--and starving.  Hungry (Simon & Schuster) is her story--and it's a good one.  (The book is sold with two different covers.)  

From Hungry:

"I look at pictures from that time, and I'm stunned. Not at my thinness--unlike some anorexics who always think they're fat, I knew on some level how thin I was.  No, what astounds me in those photos is my blankness.  There was no light in my eyes....There was no there, there.  I was supposed to be selling romance and glamour, but the notion of sensuality or sex was laughable."

Crystal has an important message for young girls and women:  depressed-looking, emaciated models are not sexy.  When she put on some weight and became a plus size model, her career took off and she found love.  The photos of her lush body are gorgeous.  I'm taking this book to my 13 year old niece when I visit the family in Illinois next month.  And I will buy a copy of the new Glamour magazine with a plus-size model on the cover.  As women consumers, shouldn't we let fashion editors know that we don't support the starving of young girls?

After reading Hungry, I needed a change of pace--a novel where the hero goes to hell and has sex with Anne Boleyn.   She loses her head in bed and bites through his penis--but their parts are restored again and again.  Nothing is ever over in Hell.

In Robert Olen Butler's author photo, he looks like he may have visited Hell on a weekend pass and while there learned how to drill into a woman's soul with his eyes.  Based on those eyes alone, I would have sex with him--and keep my own eyes open the whole time.  Maybe I would learn something too.

Butler is the master of high concept novels that incidentally poke fun at our national obsession with celebrities.  Remember last year's Intercourse--inside the minds of fifty famous copulating couples?

The Hell (Grove Press) he imagines is a dark and funny hot place where one cannot escape the nightly news or dead politicians like Dick Nixon.  I love this description of a hotel frequented by the damned (and that's going to be us.):

"The Raffles Hotel in Hell sits in the desert outside the Great Metropolis, facing the mountains, blindingly bone white in the sun.  Like its progenitor in Singapore, it is done in French Renaissance-cum-tropics style but on a vast scale, with six stories of arched and ornamental windows growing narrower and narrower as they ascend toward the hipped and balustraded roof until, in Hell's version, on the top lawyer, they become federal prison slits, though with scrolled finials."

And Satan's cockroaches sing.  

FINDING GOD IN A WOMAN'S VAGINA: A Book, A Poem, A Painting--and My Hindu Altar

I have a Hindu altar with brass statues of Kali, Lakshmi, and two of Ganesha, the remover of obstacles and the patron saint of Mumbai, a place I hold dear.  In one statue, actually two movable figures attached at the cock, Ganesha is having intercourse in the YabYum (sitting) position with a woman.  (I bought it years ago in Mumbai's tumultuous Crawford Market.)  That position seems right to me. When I am looking for god, I look to the cock.  

Last week in a New York Times Arts Beat article, I read that 94 year old M. F. Husain, known as India's Picasso, was excluded from the largest contemporary art show in India (which opened last week) because the organizers can't guarantee his safety or the security of his work.  Many of his paintings portray Hindu deities, sometimes in the nude and in sexually suggestive poses.  The most famous work, "Nude Mother India" particularly upsets conservative Hindus who apparently never wander the stalls in Crawford Market. Husain left the country in 2007 after his home was vandalized and art works attacked at galleries and now lives in exile in London and Dubai. How is it possible that the ancient civilization which gave us the Kama Sutra has come down to this?  Just as the artist who carved the erotic figures into temples thousands of years ago, Husain is merely looking for god in a woman's vagina.

"Nude Mother India" by M. F. Husain

Artists, poets and novelists do create beauty in this secular quest that enrages the fundamentalist and devout.

Inspired by reflections on the painting and my sexy Ganesha, I asked an old friend and poet to write an ode to female orgasm for me.  He graciously complied--and here it is:

 

a stain spreads across the sheet

wet against the moment

movement against the grain

the wet deepens

the moment turns

electric into rhythm

rhythm into dark and free

there is no world outside this bed

there is no life but in my cunt

the moment turns

shatters

breaking truth into rhyme

there is no reason outside this time

this time

this torrent

this unrelenting wave

 --ROGWOLF

(all rights reserved)

 

R's poem led me to search for a passage in a wonderful novel I just finished:  Louise Dean's The Idea of Love (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, HMH).  Ex-pats living in Provence, the characters are beginning to recognize the realities of their marriages and affairs--the mundane and dismal truths of sexual desire that belie the idyllic setting.  Richard, the main protagonist, travels to Africa in his job as a pharmaceutical salesman.  Alone there, he senses that his domestic life is about to implode.  His idea of love "seems to be just an illusion."

But while having intercourse with a one night stand, he glimpses something briefly reflected in her eyes--god, love?--that will inform his later choices.

 From the novel:

“When he opened his eyes, he saw that she was staring at his face and her lips were all tragic and her eyes were wet, and he was taken aback.  It nearly made him stop.  He should have looked at the eyes before now.  What a waste!  Looking into her eyes now, he felt drawn to something holy—a fire, life—it was sensational, he strove deeper inside her and felt a surge of excitement.  ‘So you think you’ll find God through a woman’s vagina?’”

 It's as good a place to look as any, isn't it?

By the way, this isn't chick lit, despite the somewhat incongruous cover.  They were striving for irony?  Louise Dean looks unflinchingly at the human interactions we call "relationships".  Her insights are as brilliant as her writing.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BETTY DODSON!

 

"Orgy" by Betty Dodson

That sex world icon, "godmother of masturbation", accomplished artist and national treasure, Betty Dodson recently turned 80 years old.  She could pass for 50.  No lie.  Betty has a radiant glow that is an advertisement for sexy living and regular orgasms.  

If you aren't familiar with Betty's work, visit her website, Dodson and Ross Online.  In partnership with Carlin Ross, she has rejuvenated her career, doing what she's always done best, teaching women about orgasm, and much more.  Their You Tube posts are priceless.  Through her books, workshops and DVDs, Betty is responsible for more female orgasms than any man or group of men including Hugh Hefner and a collection of NBA All-Stars.

I do not understand why some publisher hasn't snapped up her memoir.  She writes beautifully, has led and is still leading an interesting life.  But you can only read her story in installments on the website.  Read the latest installment on artful hedonism and then start at the beginning.

Cheers, Betty!  

WHY ARE MANY WOMEN JUDGEMENTAL PRUDES?: Or, Stop Calling Your Sister A Slut Just Because You Don't Have Orgasms

Photo credit;  "Retro Girl" by Lady Boracua on Photobucket

I applaud the judge who ordered the name of the "skank" blogger made public.  Rosemary Port, an unemployed telemarketer, harassed model Liskula Cohen, calling her "ho", "skank bitch" and so forth in numerous nasty posts. Setting a precedent that will hopefully have an impact on other cyberstalkers with no lives, time on their hands and apparently no vibrators--Cohen went after Port in court.  When she learned her anonymous bully''s identity, she said, "I'm glad it wasn't someone I respect."

Before the internet, women like Port had to be content with organized whispering campaigns featuring lies and exaggerations as rumors-- and black-balling the jealousy-inspiring sexy wife from the Junior League.

A few months ago I wrote a piece for Fabulously40.com, "The Prude 'Tude" about women who become sexual prudes at midlife:  "When the sexual brain shrivels into a hard and wrinkled thing, moisturizer is useless."

But many women have the Prude 'Tude in youth.  They judge other women's sexual behavior in one way or another.  You have more sexual partners than they do?  You're a "slut" or you "fear intimacy" or "you are desperate."  Ostensibly looking out for your best interests, they recite The Rules and warn:  A man won't commit to you if you have sex with him too soon.

Or maybe they just make fun of you, like one of the respondents to the 7 Questions on His Penis.  The concept is "silly," she wrote and later passed her judgment on being dick-matized by a particular dick:  "juvenile."  (She did, however, answer the questions.)  

Or they say you're going to hell.  One woman wrote, "I have never looked that closely at a penis and I am sure that God does not want me to.  I pray for you that you don't go to Hell for all the penises you have seen."  (And how the hell does she know I've seen "all" that many?)

My old friend Dr. Marty Klein, one of America's strongest sexuality advocates, wrote an article on women's internalized sexual oppression.  He says, "Women are caught in a historical collision between the sexual values of the past and future.  Religion, the media and our families are sending out contradictory messages that are driving women crazy.  Women are supposed to be sexy, but not too sexy."

It's a great article.  Read it.  Let's honor one another's sexuality, not judge, condemn or belittle it. 

WHY DO YOUNG WOMEN LOVE DON DRAPER?--He's The Ultimate Alpha Male

Actor Jon Hamm as Don Draper in AMC's brilliant series "Mad Men"

Last night I watched the third season premier of "Mad Men"--my only regular Must See date with my television.  It did not disappoint.  I love the clothes, the intelligent, sexy plot lines, the period details, the characters, especially, of course, Don Draper. Not since Bill Clinton, have I so lusted after an image on a TV screen.  Apparently, Draper's appeal, like the former President's, cuts a wide and deep swath through the landscape of heaving bosoms in America.

My pal Steve Otero at Sexy Spirits sent me to the link to a Newsweek blog:  Why The Ladies Love Jon Hamm by Katie Baker.  She writes that her friends and other women in their late twenties to early 

thirties LOVE Don Draper.  "A man's man. A virile man.  A masculine man."  But would they want to marry him?

No, she hastens to assure us.

"We know madness that way lies.  We see how Betty Draper is drowning in loneliness, one more beautiful woman trapped in her suburban prison..."

The mothers of these women married men like Don--"...men who were made caged animals by their domesticity...men who unleashed their restlessness in ways both erotic and destructive."  Look how that turned out.  They will marry men who are "sensitive and respectful, men who emote and help around the house and talk openly about their feelings."  Some of these husband types will be beta males, who earn less and have less status and power than their women do.  

Baker is almost apologetic for the women who love Don.  I say there is absolutely nothing wrong with loving a "real" man.  He makes a woman feel real too.  Nobody does it better than a man who isn't overly sensitive to his own feelings.  He explores your body, not his psyche.

If you drown in loneliness after he leaves, that's your problem.  It's got nothing to do with him.  Betty was trapped by the constraints of unreliable birth control in the early 60s before the pill came into wide use.  The Feminine Mystique, Betty Freidan's classic feminist rallying cry, would have been a different book on the pill.