setting fire to my smokin’ hot mojo

“I’m a fountain of blood. In the shape of a girl.” 
~ Björk

I’m counting down to orgasmic ignition now that I’m on bio-identical estrogen cream and a testosterone cream to blast off my libido. Not that my libido needed anything. But like a pleasure glutton, I said “Sure, why not?” when my doctor asked me if I’d like some testosterone to boost my, um, libido. It’s like asking me if I’d like more chocolate cake, or another helping of garlic mashed potatoes.

All it requires (to get my groove back) is smearing on estrogen cream to my inner arms every morning: two dabs to the inner wrist, circling my wrists around and against each other, rubbing it in, imagining it absorbing into my bloodstream. I am visualizing my feminine body circa 1970′s model to be back to what it was before the symptoms started: as plentiful with estrogen as the plump lips of my thirteen year old self during puberty— glistening with strawberry lip gloss, ready to be kissed. The symptoms? Oh. Well, it began with night sweats and a sudden intolerance for red wine— Chianti to be more precise. It was my one pleasure, my one comfort, a glass or two of red wine. Instead of the usual soft and fuzzy feelings from a big goblet of vino, I got heart palpitations and insomnia. Wine tastings out the window, I was dismayed by this “Second Spring” as the Chinese call it so poetically. What about “Second Orgasm” or “Second Glass of Wine” or something?

I’m going crazy. I’m standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy. ~Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), The Philadelphia Story (1940)

It can’t be happening. I’m too young. Aren’t I? But, maybe it was the birth control pills? I began them at age fourteen. I was happy to have sex and not get pregnant. I wanted to have sex with as many guys as I wanted back then. To be filled with their come and not worry about a thing. I didn’t worry. I was young and on the pill, so why worry about anything except remembering to take my pills? Had I known how it would affect my body later? Perhaps the years of taking the pill affected my hormone levels and who knows if it has anything to do with beginning menopause so early. But I feel like I’m not myself. It’s not me. It’s someone else. I feel like I am going crazy. I want my estrogen back. I hear it on the loudspeaker at the grocery store: “Ms. Butterfly, your estrogen is waiting for you at register 9, please come to the information desk.”  

And what about my groove? My mojo? My oh lala? Where did that go? Do you think Joseph Campbell knows where I can find it? Is it in my closet, or in the messy sock drawer? I just can’t find it anywhere. It must be with my pearl rabbit vibrator. I just know it.

“When smelled, an estrogen-like compound triggers blood flow to the hypothalamus in men’s brains but not women’s.” (Ivanka Savic of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm)

So when I am low in estrogen and feeling less than my usual juicy self, my peri-menopausal mind is confused. I want sex, I want sex, and I-want-sex. But my body is off playing golf with the boys. She isn’t undulating with estrus anymore. She isn’t the Aphrodite she once was. No, in my case, I am wondering where the sexy vixen (a.k.a. my former body) went. Why did I feel like my body and my sexuality were two different and separate things? My mind was contemplating filing a ten-year restraining order against menopause. Do you think a G-Spot vibe would alleviate the symptoms? Hot flashes. Every other minute. During sex. I’m burning up, burning up for your love. Madonna, how did you know? I’m a woman in heat, that’s for sure.

It was supreme… the chicks will cream… for grease lightning… We’ll pound ‘em in the dashboard and duel muffler twins, oh yeah, with new pistons, plugs, and shocks I can get off my rocks, you know that I ain’t bragging, she’s a real pussy wagon, Greased Lightning. ~ Danny Zuko, Grease

Testosterone cream, when applied to the labia, has caused some pretty magical wonders. For one, I wasn’t sure where it came from, but I squirted during masturbation the other day. I hadn’t done that in about ten years. So I tried it out the next day. And it happened again. The G-Spot. Let me tell you folks, I just discovered that I had one. After all these years of looking for it. Female ejaculation is caused by pressure on the G-Spot that releases fluid. More specifically:

“All women have a functional prostate gland, about the size of their thumb, that surrounds their urethra. (Important Note: A medical article published in August 2011 indicates that while all women have “gland-like” structures surrounding their urethra, only 50% may have “a female prostate”. Read more) Just like the male prostate, it produces fluid, beginning at puberty. Within the prostate gland there can be an area of increased sensitivity, more commonly referred to as the G-Spot. The G-Spot is located somewhere along the length of the urethra. When the prostate gland is stimulated, many women experience female ejaculation, and a distinctive type of orgasm, a vaginal orgasm, one that is different from that experienced during clitoral stimulation alone. Some women cum, as in ejaculate, during sexual arousal, prior to orgasm, even without G-Spot stimulation. There is muscle tissue that surrounds the prostate gland that contracts during orgasm, potentially expelling its contents. There is some debate about the origin of all the fluid that is released during female ejaculation, as the prostate gland itself is relatively small, yet some women release up to two cups of liquid. Nevertheless, the liquid released during female ejaculation is not the same as urine. The best way to stimulate the G-Spot is through rhythmic massage with fingers, a penis, or dildo. It may take practice to locate and connect with the G-Spot, and to learn how to experience vaginal orgasms that are accompanied by female ejaculation. G-Spot and vaginal orgasms aren’t nearly as common as clitoral orgasms, some women always experience them, others never.” (the-clitoris.com)

I have never been a woman of extreme female ejaculation capabilities, barring two exceptions. Once was way back in my early thirties, when I drenched the bed (during sex) with my amrita or nectar of the goddess. I was surprised that it all came from me. It was truly amazing to realize that I had ejaculated so much mysterious fluid. Second time was during masturbation, again, in my thirties. I was using two vibes and double penetrating myself (there is an art to this) when suddenly I was coming so intensely, feeling this warm and wet rush of wetness goosh out of me. My lips were swollen, my body was responsive, and I was wet in between my thighs all the way to my knees. It was, strange to say, similar to when my water broke before giving birth. Warm and rushing like amniotic fluid. Pleasant. Not really like peeing yourself, which would be embarrassing. Mainly, I’ve been a ‘clit girl’ with my orgasms beginning with the slippery pressure to my swollen clitoris, and amplified by penetration. Of course, I can orgasm without penetration, but the combination works well. Anal sex is an additional subwoofer to my orgasmic sound system. Did you know that the most powerful subwoofer (for cars) is called the Jackhammer? And here I thought my minivan disc player was antiquated. But, what is worse is me.

I’m functioning like a tape deck with a raveled tape, and what I need is an upgrade. What I need is a good tune-up, an oil change, and a new sound system; and I’m a fast pussycat all ready for speed. After estrogen, and a little dab of that testosterone cream, I’m slick, I’m greased lightning. Thank you for the hormone fix, doctor!

“Cultivate your curves – they may be dangerous but they won’t be avoided.”  ~ Mae West

With the onset of perimenopause, I started getting curvier. Yet a vegan diet and raw foods only made the matters worse. I ate kale and avocado salads, and I worked out two hours a day. Nothing budged. Curves were accentuated. Then. My orgasms weren’t as, well, they weren’t as… they weren’t as orgasmic. It was like eating your favorite dessert but only you have a cold and you can’t taste it as much. You know it’s good, but it’s just hard to taste. Sometimes they would be darn elusive, get so close, and then without warning…kapow! Thankfully, I’d have a good one. But still, it wasn’t the same. Now, I’m a hyper-sexual gal with a libido that matched an entire professional football team (said my ex-husband when we were married). What exactly does that have to do with estrogen?

Menopausal symptoms all conveniently occurred simultaneously with the hottest sex of my life. Fortunately, [the hot sex god that is] my lover is capable of making me have incredible orgasms and knows how to please me in many ways. Including kissing. I thought my orgasms were gone with the wind. Then I discovered passion, or it discovered me. However it happened, chemistry. Bang! Fireworks! Hot flashes! Wow-wow!

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” ~ Mae West

The night sweats, the hot flashes, the insomnia, the feeling of discontent, edgy thoughts, bursts of aggression. Nearly hitting my ex-husband and telling him I’d like to sock him in the face, for instance. Fiery-tempered, hot-headed. I’m a stranger to myself. What was my problem? Other things were changing. And fast. No period for four months. Nothing. No blood. Wanting to come harder and get wetter, but instead I’m not so wet and my orgasms are really good but, occasionally, muffled like before. I worried. I didn’t think it could be anything but hormone fluctuations. Passion and desire certainly helped the situation, and for a good while, distracted me from the issue.

I come frequently, immediately sometimes. Multiple orgasms, yes, yes, yes! Oh, good, I sighed. My orgasms are back in full swing. Maybe that momentary pause was due to a dampening relationship. Was it emotional? Probably. Maybe it was the end of a relationship kind of mystery lull. A new lover has sparked my fire. Orgasms, ho! Yes, the best sex of my life and a real, honest-to-goodness lover that is a good listener with not only his ears, but his hands, his mouth, and his intuition. Amazing sex happens in between the ears. His brain circuitry makes my pussy wetter than any cream, um. Yes, pardon the pun. But he gives me neural and cerebral O’s.

And I was denying it, the onslaught of menopausal verklemption. What happened to my waist? My arms? Why did my six year old daughter tell me I reminded her of Mrs. Doubtfire while I was putting my bra and panties on in the morning? Exact quote: “Mommy, you remind me of Mrs. Doubtfire, but you’re prettier, and you’re a girl.” But I felt like Mrs. Doubtfire. I wasn’t happy about that. No, I’d rather be told I looked like Nigella Lawson with the sashay of Marilyn Monroe and the smoldering appeal of Ava Gardner. How about a dash of Rita Hayworth? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Being forty-one years old, I would have never suspected menopause would interfere with what is supposed to be my “prime” sexual peak. This myth of a woman’s sexual prime being between 35-50 years old isn’t that mythical, especially when I experienced a surge of libido after giving birth to my third child. I thought for sure it would last. I was a believer.

A man’s eroticism is a woman’s sexuality. ~ Karl Krauss

And yet, my sexuality has blossomed in the midst of menopause. I found my G-Spot. I have estrogen and testosterone and everything is groovy. I’ve reached a deeper level of pleasure with my lover. Deeper and wetter and yummier. I’m having amazing sex with someone that turns me on more than the largest electric generator facility in the world turns on over 36,000 incandescent lamps— I explode when he breathes on me, when his fingers ignite my clitoris and even when he nibbles on my neck, ear, lip— I am saturated, swollen, drenched with want. Thank you, Dr. Estrogen, for giving me my groove back. Or maybe I should thank the heavens that I finally found my G-Spot?

I won’t sweep my blossoming sexuality under the rug at forty-one years old. I just won’t. I’m just beginning to have soulful sex and understand my body in ways never before imagined. Like female ejaculation, finding the elusive G-Spot, and discovering that sometimes kissing is just as good as really good sex. Maybe menopause is a blessing, coming out to help me clean house and get ready for satisfying sex. Sorry Micky Jagger, sorry Austin Powers, but I’m getting all of your mojo in a cream and getting some real satisfaction.

When we smell another’s body, it is that body that we are breathing in through our mouth and nose, 
that we possess instantly, as it were in its most secret substance, its own nature. Once inhaled, the smell is the fusion of the other’s body and my own. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre 

The power of scent influences our human responses during attraction and mating. Love at first sight just may be love at first smell. Perfumes have been created for centuries, as ancient of a practice as we can trace back. Oils, unguents, elixirs, and the like were made for perfuming during and after bathing rituals, anointing one’s body to attract and entice. Our own pheromones are nature’s chemical concoction to attract, allure, and bond us with our mate. Sexual attraction and desire are fueled by scent, along with other contributing factors. But the natural scent of a lover is everlasting in our olfactory memories.

The scent of my lover intoxicates me with desire. When I nuzzle my nose against his skin, I am flooded with emotion. As we kiss, the scent of his upper lip makes my body tingle with a strong sense of devotion for him. I feel this awareness zing through me from his face to my nose, through the bones of my face, down into my breastbone, into my belly, like electrical current into the bones of my hips and down my legs to my toes. It is so powerful, like a magic spell cast over me. The skin of his neck and just near his ear smells so indescribably good and masculine that I feel gravity pull me into him. It’s so strong, I can’t resist. His scent causes a swell of longing to surge through me. When he leaves his clothing behind, I hold it to my face, close my eyes, and remember his embrace. I am obsessed with my lover’s scent.

Gustave Flaubert waxed deliriously with desire over his lover’s scent that lingered on her gloves and slippers. Poet Robert Herrick’s desire for his lover’s intimate scent, whose “breast, lips, hands, thighs, legs … are all richly aromatical,” made him wild with want for her. Napoleon Bonaparte, upon returning home from a long absence due to war, sent a message to his lover Josephine: “Home in three days. Don’t wash.” Washing and cleanliness decrease the musky scent that lovers crave of one another. I must admit, although I do love to bathe and enjoy feeling clean, I also love it when my body smells like sex after making love, because it reminds me of my lover. I feel possessed, scent-marked. But like animals do, marking their scent and licking the scent of others, I want to be scent-marked by my lover’s body. I want to be claimed by him. I inhale the scent of his skin during lovemaking, just his natural scent, without perfumes or deodorant. With my face buried into his armpit, there is nothing like the scent of him, so I breathe him in. It arouses me beyond measure. Kissing his mouth and inhaling my lover’s scent during sex is the most compelling combination of sensory pleasures.

Walt Whitman said the sweat of a lover was “aroma finer than prayer” and I must say I agree. In fact, I’ve discovered that I’m becoming a little fetishistic about the scent of the man I love. He leaves behind a necktie and immediately I smell the narrow part that keeps itself nearest around his neck. I am transported to the warmth of his skin there, the place where my face seeks when we are embracing. I recall the scent of him, remembering the smell when I burrow my face against his warm neck. I hold the thin black fabric to my face and caress it with my cheek. Inhale. Searching for the scent of him, I give the tie another smell along the strip of its silky fabric. Smell again. I discover a hint of his scent. My eyes flutter with the memory and instantly I understand the romantic cliche of smelling handkerchiefs and jackets where the memory of one’s lover exists. There, his white undershirt is draped across the chair. I gather the softness to my face. I smell the faintest scent of his body and take another deep inhale to find his odor at the armpit. His body odor is so delicately fragrant that I have to bury my nose. We recently both discovered our mutual love of each other’s smell, so when he is on top of me during sex, he generously offers his armpit to my face. I delight, savor, and relish him then. It drives me near to orgasm and I’m ecstatic with the fragrance of his underarm, his cock deep within me, his breath near my ear.

We both recently learned about how much we have been enjoying each other’s scent— the lingering scents of our bodies and sexual blending of our odors after lovemaking. He admitted to inhaling my sexual musk from behind, burying his nose in between my bottom cheeks, tonguing me there, and then tasting my sex, breathing it in, the femaleness. Even the remaining odors of my sex upon his, as it lingers the following day, he takes pleasure in. I admit my own renifleur delight of his body, the many areas of his body I love to smell, and even more when it has been a day or two after he has washed. Underneath his arms, his upper lip, his cheek, neck, the sultry musk of his sex, the creases in between his legs, and down underneath his balls, the area around his ass, and further. His feet smell good, and when I massage his toes, I am tempted to either suckle them or smell them. I can’t decide. The inner arch of his foot, the in between of his toes. I want him in a way that I have never known before. You see, I have never desired a man this much, and this may just be my first fascination with a lover’s scent. If pheromones are the cause, then it really was love at first smell.

“Masculine exhalations are, as a rule, stronger, more vivid, more widely differentiated than those of women. In the odor of young men there is something elemental, as of fire, storm, and salt sea. It pulsates with buoyancy and desire. It suggests all the things strong and beautiful and joyous and gives me a sense of physical happiness.” ~ Helen Keller

From Diane Ackerman’s book A Natural History of the Senses there is a plentitude of information on scent and smell. I found many curious and interesting facts about pheromones and desire in her book about the senses:

“Pheromones are the pack animals of desire (from Greek, pherein, to carry, and horman, excite). Animals, like us, not only have distinctive odors, they also have powerfully effective pheromones, which trigger other animals into ovulation and courtship, or establish hierarchies of influence and power.

Animals would not be able to live long without pheromones because they couldn’t mark their territories or choose receptive, fertile mates. But are there human pheromones? And can they be bottled? Some trendy women in Manhattan are wearing a perfume called Pheromone, priced at three hundred dollars an ounce. Expensive perhaps, but what price aphrodisia? Based on findings about the sexual attractants animals give off, the perfume promises, by implication, to make a woman smell provocative and turn stalwart men into slaves of desire: love zombies. The odd thing about the claims of this perfume is that its manufacturer has not specified which pheromones are in it. Human pheromones have not yet been identified by researchers, whereas, say, boar pheromones have. The vision of a generation of young women walking the streets wearing boar pheromones is strange, even for Manhattan. Let me propose a naughty recipe: Turn loose a herd of sows on Park Avenue. Mix well with crowds of women wearing Pheromone eau de cologne. Dial 911 for emergency.”

I recall the first day we met. He embraced me right away, and I swooned against him, my face fitting into his chest. We kissed and kissed, the warmth, the scent of his skin. Everywhere I met a new scent upon his body. The faint hint of shampoo in his hair, no cologne nor deodorant to hunt through for his natural aroma.

Unnameable fragrance, mysterious. I could not argue with instinct. I wanted him more than any other man in the world. He became the entire universe in the moment of his kiss.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,

I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

For your hands the color of the wild grain,

I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,

The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight

Looking for you, for your hot heart,

Like a puma in the barren wilderness.

Pablo Neruda wrote this poem about craving a lover’s mouth, with the last line, and I walk hungry, smelling the twilight, looking for you. The animalistic hunger of wanting a lover, searching for them in the scent of twilight, wanting to eat them from the intensity of desire. And like Jean-Paul Sartre said, Once inhaled, the smell [of a lover] is the fusion of the other’s body and my own. 

As I remember all the erotic moments I’ve had in my life, the ones that stand out as “the best” or “the one moment I cannot forget” are very few. I could count, but I don’t quantify; and I’m terrible with numbers. Besides, I’d rather not count. The one lover that has come along and, with a sweeping kiss, undone all of my notions of what “the best sex” is has done so without realizing it. Chemistry and all.

When I was a girl of thirteen, one of my aunts told me that sex was good and healthy to have when I’m ready. That last statement was added for precaution by my auntie, the hippie, the flower child— she had three boyfriends at the time she gave this advice. She then sealed her comment with “and it’s the best when you are in love.” So I thought that this magic combination would be waiting for me when I fell in love one fine day,  I expected it would happen like all young girls that age tend to do.

But falling in love wasn’t easily found, and, when I did have sex, the first time, I was fourteen. That was a year after my auntie gave me her words of wisdom. I wasn’t in love with the first boy I had sex with, of course. I wanted to have sex, and I was ready, or so I thought. The years that followed were explorations in sex and many a guy I wasn’t feeling anything for. I was searching for love and not finding it. I watched awful porn with my so-called boyfriend and thought I was suppose to act like those 80’s porn stars. I had no idea what the best sex was. I did whatever was required to get the approval of the boy I wanted to be loved by. I wanted to be loved, so I moaned and made lots of noise and even let him come all over my face. I swallowed, I sucked, and I fucked him wildly, but clearly this wasn’t the magical “best sex ever” experience I had in mind.

I wasn’t having orgasms during sex in my teenage sex life either. My boyfriend was older than me by a number of years, and he wasn’t very emotional or tender. I was lost in the act of sex. I had thought that sex would be as good as my auntie said. Especially so if I was in love, which I wasn’t. I wasn’t in love, and I was having lots of sex without feeling, straight ahead fucking without romance or sweet nothings. When he and I had sex in the back of his Chevy Impala, David Lee Roth was on the tape deck singing Jamie’s Cryin’ which taunted my young heart. While the lyrics said that Jamie’s been in love before, and that it should mean a little more than one night stands, I got the idea that it should mean more. It could mean more. But, I was fifteen year old girl, and my boyfriend wasn’t in love with me.

I knew I could orgasm by myself, but the mystery of sex was clouded with the idea that other women could orgasm so easily (as I’d seen in porn). But, I wasn’t having such an easy time doing it in real life. One scene I remembered watching was a couple fucking hard. The woman was being taken from behind in an all fours doggy style position— a moaning and gasping blonde porn star, her glistening buttocks shimmying like jello with every thrust as she was being fucked into a frenzied orgasm. Inspired, I tried that position with my boyfriend. He came right away. I didn’t.

The best sex evaded me.

As I entered my twenties, sex became much better. I knew my body, and I was familiar with toys and what worked for me to get off: vibrators, dildos, and anal play, mainly. I read Women on Top and My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. I read Anais Nin’s erotica and Anne Rice’s erotic writings as A.N. Roquelaure, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. I was stripping down nude daily at a seedy club in the San Fernando Valley, affectionately called “The Ball,” and my best friend was a former porn star from the 80’s. She was dancing at the club and found love with a sweetheart of a man. They married, and I was her maid of honor. I wondered what exactly it was that she understood about sex and love that I didn’t. What was good sex with real love? During that time of my life, I had many girlfriends, mostly from the club. Finding a boyfriend or a serious lover was difficult when mostly what men wanted from me was to be had for the price of a table dance or a round of dollar bills around the stage. Men wanted to watch me dance naked. The loneliest time of my non-existent love life was when I was a stripper, in fact. It was a terribly lonely feeling to be sexually sought after day after day but have no one who cherished me once I left the club. The idea of someone taking me to dinner without paying me for my time was a silly notion. Who would just take me out to dinner, just because?

Not that I minded being alone. I preferred my solitude and enjoyed my beautiful apartment, my new car, and my growing bookshelf full of books. Most of the time, after a long day naked in high heels, I popped open a bottle of my favorite champagne, put some jazz on the stereo, and happily made myself a lovely dinner. I dined in candlelight on my patio alone with a good book. I had erotica to read. If the mood struck, I had my fantasies to help me along while using my vibrator. The thing was I still had no idea what the best sex was or how to imagine it happening to me.

I did figure out how to orgasm with a partner, finally. I had a sweet boyfriend who cared a little about me. Me, the young nineteen year old girl-woman. My clitoris was my best friend in that discovery. As long as I touched myself while he slowly went in and out, I came and came. It was good sex, but I wasn’t in love. We never said anything about love at all. Ever.

Playing with other women was exciting— observing how they pleasured themselves and how they liked it. One memorable moment was with a girlfriend that I lived with. We had one of those ‘papasan’ bowl-shaped couches from Pier One Imports that proved itself to be a sex chair of the deluxe kind for two nubile young women. We slathered some oil on each other’s pussies and scissored our legs together while holding each other’s hands. Grinding our pussies together allowed us to come in ways I had no idea existed. The slippery feeling of her pussy on mine was arousing beyond compare. We loved that chair for all its fabulous reasons. That was the best lesbian sex I had ever had. But did Jen care for me? I know she felt something like desire. I did feel a sense of something with her, too, but it was simply lust and sexual curiosity. She had two other boyfriends as well as me. She loved the way I went down on her and used toys to get her to come in a shaking orgasmic release. And it was Jen— the one who climbed on top of me and, with a naughty smile, she knew just what to do. She went down and licked my clitoris while slowly moving a vibrator in and out of me until I came. She also used toys in my other parts, both anally and vaginally penetrating me, while licking my clit and getting me so juicy wet. So far, it was Jennifer that gave me the best sex. And I was barely twenty years old then.

But the idea of romantic love and sex combining itself together into “the best sex” was still mysterious. My gal pal, Kristy, from the dancing days of The Oddball Cabaret, a.k.a. The Ball, was a piano teacher by weekend and stripper during the week. Kristy was a warm and wonderful redhead. She wore thigh high leather boots onstage and danced to Thomas Dolby’s She Blinded Me With Science. We spent most nights hanging out while mixing up Kahlua and cream in iced glasses, watching films, or soaking in her big round bath tub while listening to endless loops of Enya. She had a crush on Rutger Hauer in Ladyhawke, and, for the most part, she was closer to straight than anything. She was a sweet woman and yet .. . Sex with her alone was not really quite ‘it.’ Kristy was a flirt with all the men we knew, and finding boy toys to satisfy us was our specialty. We had one weekend long romp with a lovely guy we met and tired the dear man out between the two of us. But did I remember that as the best sex?

There were many other boyfriends until I had a year-long fling with a musician who didn’t mind that I was a stripper. We did have delicious sex, and I did orgasm every time. I began to discover that I was multi-orgasmic. I felt a slight tenderness for him, and I am sure he felt something similar. But there were no “I love you” moments from either of us, and we never discussed our relationship beyond a sexual one. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He was just a guy I had really good sex with. As far as the idea of love went, he compared me to liking a chocolate chip cookie rather than to a summer’s day. But he never admitted a darn emotion. Not once.

As the years went on, the best sex was hard to find.  Even while I was engaged to a chef, our best times were in the kitchen, cooking for our dinner parties, or traveling together to luxurious locales. In bed, it was vanilla and lukewarm. One hot steamy night in Kona, he was overwhelmed by my hungry need for good and lusty sex. It was too much for him— he rejected my intensity. I had a lot of sun that day. Sunning in the nude always makes me aroused. I had masturbated outside on the grass while at the house we were staying at. The scent of plumeria flowers, the ocean, the sun, and the relaxed Hawaiian air had me wriggling around in the island heat until I touched myself, feverish for some kind of passion. So I made it known that I wanted ‘it,’ but he just liked ‘it’ when I was sweet and demure, half asleep, with my legs spread open. It was a few thrusts, and that was that. I thought that perhaps the idea of ‘the best sex’ or even good sex was something I might just have to give up. The fantasy of having sex with a passionate lover that involved hair pulling and wild sweaty abandon may never happen to me, I thought. I was in my mid-twenties. I had yet to have that magical combination of amazing sex and loving emotions. Maybe the idea was just a dream?

But I wanted passion. I realized that it was something I could not live without. I hadn’t experienced true passion before, but there was a yearning deep within me that ached for it. I wanted passion, and I couldn’t get married unless I had that with my fiancé. But, we were more like good friends and less like lovers, and I wanted more.

He compared me to a diamond in the rough. If I could just polish you, he said, you’d shine. I coiled from the mere comparison, which suggested that I wasn’t good enough the way I was, just as me. So, that led me to a question. Wasn’t I enough for someone just as I am? Why couldn’t I have amazingly good sex with heaping amounts of love? Why was I labeled the ‘diamond in the rough’ and just a chocolate chip cookie?

All these years, I have waited for that mind-blowing orgasmic bliss with a man I am so very into— with passion, desire, and intense kissing. Wanting someone so much like this, I can’t embrace, kiss, and orgasm upon him enough. The desire to bite him out of sheer lusty want is my wild expression of intense affection. I feel so much desire, it’s animal. It’s almost cannibal. I want to eat him because I feel so much. And is it the best sex of my life? Yes.

Yes, years later, now in my forties, I am experiencing what I think is the best sex of my life. And yes, love has something to do with it. Passionate sex has found me. I’m getting close, and I’m coming… closer. I’m closer to that passionate experience I have been longing for. Yes. Finally, the universe has answered my heart, mind, body and soul. James Joyce couldn’t have written it better: And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes. 

Spanking. The rules of the dungeon were such as to initiate me as a submissive. No one graduated to become a dominatrix until they were a submissive first. I wore a white lace bodice that corseted me in and a garter belt with white thigh-high stockings. My submissive attire was to look girlish and innocent. Sweet. And I’m real good at being sweet. I’m a darling girl.

The dominatrix took me into a room fashioned like a classroom. In place were school desks and a chalkboard. She gently bent me over the teacher’s desk. Wearing her black latex outfit and shiny thigh high boots, she looked like a rocker from the late 80′s. I almost expected to see an electric guitar strapped to the front of her. In a way, she looked like Nancy Wilson from the rock band Heart. She was excited that I was so willing to become a submissive. Her thrill bubbling over her cool exterior, she was gentle when guiding my hips into position. Much like a yoga instructor helping me out with the proper pose of “down dog,” she angled my ample bottom into an upwards place. Contrary to my ideas of dominatrix behavior, she was, well… sweet to me.

This was when I realized the connection between my arousal and the sense of trust and safety. Mental connection and mutual respect needs to be the foundation for such explorations. The dominatrix was doing her best to make me comfortable, without pushing me beyond my threshold.

While I was bending over the teacher’s desk, the dominatrix gave my bottom a light swat with her leather paddle. It felt a little cold and kind of soft. The sting didn’t come until a few more swats to my behind. I felt a flush of excitement thrum through my body—my neck turned red and splotched, my face tingled. I was blushing. My body was responding with arousal. She didn’t say much but mentioned that she’d have to give me a number of spanks in order to train me properly as a submissive. The paddle was warming up, and the swats turned into full leather blows to my cushiony bottom. The ample amount of tush I had served me well. She caressed one of my cheeks with her hand, feeling the heat. She devilishly remarked how red my bottom was getting and giggled. It seemed as though she was enjoying it with all the mischievous glee of a naughty child stealing a cookie.

And just when I was getting into it… she was done. My eyes were glazing, my head lowered, facing the desk. A rush of sexual tingling flowed through my sex. I was swollen and wet; juicy through my white lace panties. I wanted her to do it more. The desks were all orderly, lined up in the classroom, facing the chalkboard like good children. I gave her a demure schoolgirl look like I wanted to be taken. I was aroused by the spanking, my breathing was heavy, and if she had pulled my hair and took me with a dildo I would have allowed her to.

“There’s two things in this world: wonderful, visceral, sexy sex. And death. Horrible, boring death.”

~ Kieran, Dinner for Schmucks

Rough sex. It’s like anything extreme or intense. If it’s done properly, with the right ingredients, it’s delicious. If it’s not done with skill, if it’s devoid of emotion, it can be awful. Cooking is much the same.

If you don’t handle your ingredients with care, you’ll ruin the whole meal. Don’t just thrash around the kitchen, stir things violently, cook haphazardly over a high flame, without knowing how to manage things in an artful way. Otherwise you might as well just microwave it and forget about what it tastes like. It’ll end up as inedible cardboard. And that is how I feel about rough sex without the right ingredients.

And I have had a desire for rough sex lately, which is an unusual thing for me. What I thought I liked or what I felt safe with was soft, gentle, and loving sexual encounters. Most of the time, I want it slow. Tenderness, caresses, and kisses. And then, past the point of orgasm and beyond, I long for my lover to take me as hard as he can. I want more. When I enter this zone, there is an emotional realm, a hidden place that runs along the periphery of my brain, and that realm asks for it rough. I want to be pushed into intensity. I want pleasure, and I want more of it. I want it harder, deeper, more. I need that animalistic sex— the pulling of my hair, the pounding into my body, the growling, screaming, moaning, wild fucking of sex.

Most of my life I’ve responded to sweetness. Sweet behavior and treatment opens me up, allows me to respond. If you are sweet, thoughtful, and gentle with me, I will most certainly enjoy (when the mood strikes) rough sex. You see, I don’t respond to rough right away. Crude behavior is a big turn off. Rough doesn’t mean you can be a boorish ogre and get your way with me.

Going back to the memory of being spanked by that dominatrix in that dungeon. Odd to say, but it was one of the most pleasant experiences I’ve had with a stranger. She was caring and feminine, strong yet soft.

It happened out of necessity. After I had moved back from New Orleans, I needed a job. I had just had my son— he was just a baby then. I was a single mother. My body was still carrying the extra pregnancy weight. Add to that, living in New Orleans. All the food. The wonderful, delicious, gourmet-buttery food. The extra weight wasn’t unattractive, just a little zaftig. Curvy.

I was thirty years old. I was in the prime of my life. And the strip club that I once worked at in Los Angeles wouldn’t hire me back. I was once one of their best girls.

Ten years before then, I had made them a fortune. They gave me any shifts I wanted, and I left with hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars, each day. My body was supple, young, and tanned, with a small waist you could put both hands around, and large, bountiful (albeit silicone) breasts. My hips were sensual and feminine, and my legs as long as a gazelle. In heels, I was towering, over six feet tall. When I emerged from behind the curtain, the slow bump and grind of my hips melted men’s minds, moving like syrupy molasses onstage. With my sultry gaze, I mesmerized men by the crowd. Men lined up for me, waiting, for a private dance. Hordes, dozens, hundreds of men spent their pretty wallets up dry just to have me near. I was in my early twenties. Pretty face, healthy as a thoroughbred, intelligent mind. Not a wrinkle on my face or a reason to be discouraged. To add to my arsenal of seduction, I had a growing comprehension of what men really wanted. My British cousin once said disdainfully: “You’ve always been a man magnet.”

Surprisingly, this time, the club wouldn’t take me back. The manager I dubbed “Valium Bob” poked my belly with his bony index finger.

“What’s this?” he prodded.

“My belly, of course.” I snipped back.

I wanted to say that this was how women naturally look. Surrounded by the new girls, all of them skinny as supermodels in their rhinestone-studded bikinis, Valium Bob was surrounded by girls that resembled greyhound dogs. Compared to my womanly belly dancer curves, I stood out. I wondered, how did this happen? Wasn’t it just years ago I was scooping up bills off the main stage? Slithering out of my satin gowns, giving sideways looks, casting spells over any man like a siren to a sailor, drawing him closer toward the rocky collision of lust. I was the Princess of the Bare Elegance. Where were the girls I knew before? So I had to get over myself. It was all as false as the breasts in that club. And my breast implants had been removed years ago. The moment of pseudo-downfall and has-been realization was no matter. It wasn’t a small world my mind existed in. I saw it for what it was: superficial and nonsense. I had developed an illusion, a mechanism, to exist in that world. But, when my belly was poked by a scrawny, drugged up slimeball, I took offense. My feminist perspective found this behavior in men to push me beyond loathing. I kept my disgust at bay, held my head high, and gracefully stated that I wasn’t about to kill myself with amphetamines or crystal meth in order to work in their club. I walked out.

I had just given birth six months prior to that moment. I was back in Los Angeles, far from the Big Easy of butter and cream. I was not in New Orleans anymore. Dazzling through my mind, thoughts were spinning around, like a dancer spinning down a metal pole. I was wondering what happened to Lucky, Sasha, Heather, Precious, Cherry, Zee, Anita Dawn, and Renee— my sisterhood? The new girls were Fembots, representative of the stereotypical strippers. And those girls were thin, stick-thin, emaciated— some I suspected were anorexic or worse. And everyone in Los Angeles, it seemed, was fixated on body image, whether they knew it or not. It was a rude awakening from the sleepy romance of Louisiana bayou and Nouvelle-Orléans grace. In the Land of Hollywood, supermarkets contained shelves of magazines with celebrities on diets, and diet drinks, diet sodas, ‘lose weight now’ blurbs and fat-free options. Where was the joy of living? The laissez les bons temps rouler of New Orleans left behind, I was lost again in the asphalt maze of Los Angeles traffic and the underground of sex work in a megalopolis. It was a lonely place to be.

So I ended up working at that dungeon. I decided that it was an experimental thing until I lost the pregnancy weight. Then I’d go back to dancing. Or do something else. Besides, I liked being spanked. I guessed it would work out fine if I made some income from it. My behind was pleasantly plump. Spinal Tap’s song of adoration, Big Bottom, was fitting, unlike my old size eight jeans.

When I’ve had rough sex, it was done with love and emotion. The longing and ache to be set free from my contained nature, to have my lover pound me into glorious submission with his hard cock— to be shaken and stirred by the raw instinct— to be utterly taken. Surrender. It’s more about surrender and letting go of all control than violence. If it’s true violence, I’m not in the least interested— violence is not something that arouses me— I don’t want to be slapped in the face or called names. Violence is abhorrent. When I want rough sex, I want it to be about passion.

The most mind blowing rough sex scene I saw was in the erotic espionage film Lust, Caution by Ang Lee. I was pregnant with my third child when I went to see the film in the theater. I have always loved the Chinese actor Tony Leung. Any film he is in, I must watch. A parallel discovered. The parallel: my second pregnancy and my erotic fixation for Asian men which was awakened by a violent sword fight scene in House of Flying Daggers,— and again during my third pregnancy— the realization of my desire for rough sex while watching Lust, Caution. I was shocked to discover how it — rough sex and raw emotion— aroused me still. What was it about violent scenes that provoked? Was it intense love and passion that compelled me? The axis of that parallel erotic response was in correlation to my need for more. For passion and all its reasons, the vicissitudes of my experiential knowledge were weighing upon me. Physical weight, extra body weight, emotional weight—-

I want freedom. I crave lightness of being.

That sex scene in Lust, Caution— rough sex— he takes her with passion bordering on brutality. The emotions were intense, conflicting and layered. It was shocking and erotic. It was dark and dangerous, and tender and instinctual. She wants him; he takes her, roughly, on the bed. His belt buckle in hand, he’s violent with desire. I’m clutching the theater seat; my hands don’t know where to go. I can’t breathe. I’m holding my chest, my breath. I can’t watch. I’m watching. Shaking with undoing, I’m pregnant, and I want to be taken like that. My body is in conflict, wanting gentle treatment when carrying a child within my body. I am thrown into confusion. In the back of my mind, I want someone to take me like he takes her. It was done with finesse. Tony Leung, playing his part, in a sex scene that raised questions in my being as to why I want to be taken so, and the extreme emotions that go with the territory. Much like how lions subdue their mates with a bite to the neck during their mating habits and rituals, I want to surrender.

Perhaps the dangerous amount of intensity, when combined with strong emotion, lights my body up with a thrilling energy. I don’t want brutality. I want passion. Perhaps my body responds to extremes. Anal sex allows my body to feel an extra amount of intensity that vaginal sex doesn’t quite give me. When I am spanked, it’s a similar charge. It’s naughty, erotic. I love the intense orgasms I have during anal sex, which sends riveting tingling sensations and aftershocks of orgasmic pleasure through my entire body. I can reach such realms of heightened erotic stimulation during regular vaginal sex, but it takes longer. Anal sex, spanking, and rough, penetrative, emotional, animalistic sex with someone who adores me, someone I know would never truly hurt me, is the essential ingredient within the landscape of my erotic desire. Surrendering to someone who passionately loves me is the magical link to the core of my erotic being.

For the past nine years, I have been acutely aware of what arouses my desire: a passion, a yen for the Asian male. I say that playfully, yen, but it’s a serious matter. I cannot fully explain it. I write this to better understand my erotic fascination. Asian men are, for me, an enigma, the Eros of my own Psyche, the dream of my sensual desires. My attraction to the Asian male goes beyond the surface, deeper into my soul’s mysterious yearning.

My fantasy of the Asian man. He is sincere, tender, kind. A man who considers, rather than assumes. He is gentle yet masculine, soulful and strong. He is connected to his inner femininity, which emphasizes his own masculinity. He doesn’t try to exhibit machismo; he is supple of heart and mind. He is romantic but not effusive, gentlemanly but not contrived.

In my experience, other men I have dated, slept with, been with, engaged and married to, were not quite right for me. After a certain point, I lost interest. Somehow, the magic was not there, and the thrill was gone. What was left after the initial spark? I didn’t know myself well enough. I needed more time to explore the very depths of my being in order to know what I like and to know my soul’s desire. Previous to my acknowledgement of what sort of man attracts me like no other, I tried a rainbow of men. A few Latino lovers of Mexican and Spanish heritage. I was engaged to a red-headed, freckly, Irish-Belgian man covered in tattoos and piercings. I dated a few Scottish laddies, one Norwegian type, and a Hungarian from Montreal. A fling with a cerebral Bostonian songwriter. I had several boyfriends that were ‘grunge’ musicians of various mixed nationalities, simply Americans. I was pursued by many salivating Italian raconteurs and one Persian Casanova. I had a Persian-Polish-French (ex)husband. There was that African-American guy I dated and an Aussie or two. I had a whirlwind affair with an Irish poet from Wicklow.

Along the way, I discovered, my archetypal ideal man is Asian.

It started in fifth grade. I was a shy girl; tall, awkward, wearing tortoise shell-framed glasses. My lanky body and large hands made me feel like a monster next to the petite and giggly Japanese girls in my class.

I lived in historic Los Feliz, the hilly old Hollywood neighborhood of Griffith Park. My elementary school was a melting pot of many cultures. I felt comfortable, at home, around the colorful mixture of ethnicities.  I was intrigued by a Filipino boy that wore glasses like me. He was also shy and tall. And completely adorable. My first real crush.

When this Filipino boy was near, my blood pulsed through my veins, my mouth felt sticky and dry. I could not look at him. He also looked away. Then one day, he decided to look at me in class. He gave me a long, sideways glance. He pushed his glasses down his nose and gave a sly smile. Everyone in class knew he had a crush on me. My stomach gurgled with nervousness. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible. My vacillation between wanting him to talk to me and wanting to hide filled me with dread. What would I do, I thought, if he kissed me? I shoved the thought far back into my mind, never asking that of myself again. Until I read the (forbidden) novel I found on my grandparents’ bookshelf, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. 

When I found the book on the shelf, I instinctively knew it was sensual. The sound of the book, the sweeping title name Lady Chatterley followed by Lover spelled out suggestions of longing and kisses. But the other thing was, as I read this novel, she was a Lady that was also compelled and confused by the climate of her desire.

As young as I was, I was aware that there was something interesting about the boy I had a crush on. If we had the opportunity to talk to one another, I am sure a puppy love affair would have developed. But with both of us being very shy, it never happened.

Many years later, I am in the movie theater. I am pregnant with my second child. My then-husband, the Persian-Polish-French man, loud-voiced, blue-eyed, blond-haired, was suddenly of no interest to me. In fact, he repelled me. I am in the movie theater with my French Maman-in-law, watching House of Flying Daggers. It’s November. I’m eight months pregnant, transfixed by Takeshi Kaneshiro on the screen. Suddenly, I’m boiling hot. I feel stifled. My clothes are uncomfortable. I’m wiggling and soon desperate to remove every article of clothing possible while in a public theater. My fluffy pink pashmina was itchy. My eyes grazed the handsome glowing face of Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Breathtaking, strong, determined. His love scene in the fields with the dangerous beauty, Mei, naked. Observing his pale skin, his long, black hair, it created a chain reaction of chemicals brewing in my body like a love potion. My mouth tasted of metal, swallowing, shaking. My body shifted from cold to hot. My sex pulsing. My belly full of baby, rolling around. I gripped the theater seat. My hands- sweaty. Jin has fallen in love with Mei, the main love interest. The duel in the snow, the last scene, profoundly aroused me until I was left flushed and confused by it all. The clash of swords caused my body to respond. I am surprised that I am turned on by violence. But the look of intense and furious concentration on his face reminded me of sex.

My brain pieced it all together; his face, his body, the love scene, the duel in the snow. All of it was powerfully erotic. My maman-in-law in the seat next to mine, Parisian and aware of l’amour, sniggered to herself as I removed my pashmina and socks. Barely reaching my shoes, I fumbled in the dark theater. I could not stop the chain reaction of the sword metal clanging in my head, reverberating through my bones, sending off little fires like daggers into my blood. Takeshi Kaneshiro’s naked skin flashed again and again in my mind’s eye. During the fight scene, his battle cries were sexual, his voice guttural and animal. I could not stand it, the reaction my body. In that moment, I imagined him coming inside of me, wanting it wildly. I wanted to be naked underneath him, his body pressed upon me, feeling the weight of him, the smoothness of his skin, the scent of his body. I imagine the taste of his lips. Then, in the film, he strikes forward toward his opponent, thrusting his sword in rage during the duel, and I swoon like a lady of the Renaissance, completely undone by the primal response.

As Jin thrusts his sword, I think of him naked and sweaty, dripping his perspiration all over my body as he groans and plunges inside of me. His hair is damp with sweat from our lovemaking, and he is determined to make me orgasm over and over again. He won’t stop, he keeps thrusting, deeper, harder, with ferocity and sexual hunger. The theater seat felt hard and confining. My swelling pregnant body overwhelmed by sudden, unexplainable lust.

The sword fight in the snow shook up my belief that I only responded to non-violent, loving, and gentle behaviors— it was puzzling that I physically reacted with such an intense sexual response. Gentleness and sweetness are two qualities that I require in a partner. The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama, has the same effect upon me due to his beautiful calm and handsome face. For quite some time I absorbed everything the Sakyong wrote, keeping his books by my bedside. And why is this little “falling in love” so troublesome? When having a “crush” on a Tibetan lama provided so much necessary inner growth and peace? But for the earthly desires I felt, falling for Sakyong Mipham was a positive thing. His poetry, painting, and calligraphy inspired me, because it illumined his passion. The sexual desires were natural as well. And quite probable, the possibility. Tibetan Buddhist lamas are not celibate at all. In fact, his father, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was a lover of many women.

My sexual fantasies were more complex than I realized, and my primal instinct was to want the rough, savage male fighting viciously with his sword. My neural pathways were creating infinite loops and knots in some ancient pattern. The sword, his face, masculine, animal, my breath, my heartbeat, blood. Again and again, my female response to this scene, a sword fight, calls question to my own self-knowledge.

Understanding my sexual response and inclination to prefer the Asian man is a long path that trails through my genetic wiring. Scientists are now finding through research that women’s sexual orientations have something they call fluidity. 

Fluidity is something that occurs when I am entranced by a handsome Asian man, and, yes, it is no surprise that it triggers the physical fluidity as well (like damp panties). But fluidity in this terminology is “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.” The original concept of “fluidity” has to do with women (like me, again) that are “bi-sexual” as their sexuality shifts (like water or fluid) according to the social influence and stages of their life. So I suppose it sort-of fits this situation, but not really. What I am finding is, as I entered my last marriage (to a non-Asian and very Caucasian male), I completely lost interest in him and his kind and only wanted Asian men. Period.

Still, after so many years, the final sword fight scene in House of Flying Daggers affects me like hardcore pornography. Intense, passionate, and bloody, Takeshi Kaneshiro moves my soul into a realm I cannot explain.

As the years went by, my desire for the Asian man reached epic proportions. Obsessive desire, longing, and wandering Asian markets, shopping centers, and neighborhoods, wearing nothing underneath my flouncy skirt. I wanted to be ravished, devoured, desired by them. I wanted many Asian lovers, all of them hopelessly in love with me. Takeshi Kaneshiro would not be immune. In my fantasy, he stalks me, calling me at all hours, asking if I like pineapple. He runs deliriously through the rain, longing for my touch again. Okay, I am making that up and referring to the film Chungking Express where he does just that. And eats many cans of pineapple.

I am with a Japanese man. I have become so accustomed to him, I forget that he is Japanese. It is because I love him as the person that I connect with. It has become more than the idealized sexual fantasy. Attraction has its magic, but sexual preference is still the glue that binds. It has been more than five years with him, and sex is better than ever. Quirky I guess, but when he talks softly in my ear in Japanese when we make love, I get shivers all over. My sexual response speeds up remarkably, until I am highly aroused and have multiple orgasms. Some things are better off as mysterious. It’s the wonders of life that we cannot know.

There are other celebrity Asian men I find wildly good looking or exceptionally sexy. Chef Ming Tsai, for instance. I have recently admitted to masturbating while looking at the cover of his latest cookbook: Simply Ming: One-Pot Meals. He turns me on by just looking at him. And, he cooks. He loves wine, and he does yoga. He believes in balance and harmony, and combines it all in one pot. Yes, he was raised in Dayton, Ohio. But still, he was raised in the kitchen and learned the art of cooking from his parents before studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I melt like butter in a hot pan when I see his handsome face. Watching clips of Ming in the kitchen is veritable foodie porn.

 Ah, Ming. A dream man I desire. Whatever my mind does, and however it does it, I forget science and gaze upon his picture, longing to be by his side, at a wine tasting somewhere verdant and pastoral. The fantasy rolls through some idyll countryside of France, where we are giddy with wine and love. I imagine sex with him would be gourmet. His hands fragrant with spices and herbs. His kisses, sensual and epicurean. I suppose there is a common thread: wielding a sword or a chef’s knife, the Asian man of my dreams is multi-faceted, passionate, the existential hero of my animus within.

I am lost in the mystery of my desire, in favor of the Asian man.

I’m drawn to her sensuality. Like a dreamy angel, her skin is opalescent, glowing with the kind of light that comes from translucent clouds filtering the sun, candles within a lantern. There is something within her that burns bright. The facade, external beauty, yet within, her mind, her soul, burns a heavenly blaze that roils in the dark sky. Sovereign Syre: ‘a different kind of sex doll’ is a tag phrase mentioned on her blog : Sans Jupe: Diary of an Erotic Model.

Her gaze into the camera, similar to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, invites the admirer. Yet, what stands out most of all is her mind. She’s quite an intelligent brain, and I would like to share a post from her blog, titled Marilyn:

Marilyn

There was a time when dirt and hormones covered me in a sticky film, so thick I could scrape a trail down my arm, and see my adolescence compacted into a single black arc under my fingernail. When I was thirteen the heat of my cheek withered the grass and I could press my ear into the darkness and hear the world turning on the axis of my atoms. June bugs hissed in the humid folds of my dark blond hair, dragonflies rolled their tongues along the brackish crevices of my knees. The back door creaked and framed my father like a dark knight, the sun beating his retreating silhouette into the pits of my eyes with trailing bullets of color. The wind blew the leaves together in muted applause when I rose up and pushed the bodice of my dress taught over my swollen breasts, knotted with the fibrous lumps of puberty. The neighborhood boys walked past the back gate and rolled their damp eyes over the curve of my back. The pucker of her hard lips pressed my back flat into my bed, the short bursts of their breath spread my thighs in rhythmic worship. There was a time when I spilled out of my dress like an overripe fruit tree, onto the slick pages of magazines and left behind a legacy of sticky fumbling in gas station bathrooms. Words came out of my mouth light as spun sugar, dissolving on the pillows of starry eyed orphans. I came down like an incubus on dark haired soft bellied little girls, coaxing fingers down their throats, and teaching them to turn away from their mothers ashamed. I spent so many years crouched in dark hotel rooms chasing flashes of armor across mens faces that I forgot how the slope of my own nose looked. I woke up thirty years old afraid to look in the mirror distorting me now like a body of water, bloated and blanched and floating. Lines ran down my face the echoes of hidden frowns, tears cast into the corner where no one could look. Age walled me up like an anchoress, counting pills like days, from memory, slowly hardening loneliness. The years bring me grubby fingered minions afraid the world will forget,nailing my picture to the weeping willow overhead, lips spread, arms open. Girls tucked neatly into white cotton panties wet their tender lips with crimson lipstick, and suckled on the pink marble nipple of my grave, until their affection eroded it into the coarse teat of a bitch. In the white silence, the tuning fork of death strikes the earth and shakes loose the pollen. I can hear the morning dew quiver of the web, the roping steps of the spider on the leaf. What you can’t hear. What you can’t know.

 Sovereign wrote this piece when she was 18. She says: “My English professor suggested I write a poem about what I thought it meant to be beautiful.  We started talking about Marilyn Monroe.  Like most poems that you end up liking, I wrote in about ten minutes.  It’s early and full of all the mistakes that come with doing something for the first time, but I’m fond of it, because it was the first thing I published.”

In the photographs featured from a recent photo shoot with Holly Randall, she is depicted as an urban angel with wings. Yes, she is lovely. Smoldering. Sensual gaze, reminiscent of Sophia Loren. But what I would like to see more of is her writing.  She and her beau have their website Darling House.

voluptuous night

ripe with our sweat and pleasure

summer has begun

his skin like honey

dewdrops, tears, nectar, semen

delicious pleasure

Legs trembling,

he asks

why desire is like

the summer heat.

The moon tonight

is the color of wine,

making me drunk

with his question.

this night, lovemaking

street lights blossom with desire

July fireworks

what else can we do

but ignite like stars

into the heavens?

I recently tried Babeland’s Body Chocolate with my lover. It is a delicious body chocolate made of sugar, organic cocoa powder, safflower oil, organic coconut oil, organic cocoa butter, and vanilla.

Being an amateur gourmet, I have some experience in tasting other chocolate spreads, from the luxurious Noisella, a Belgian chocolate and hazelnut spread (by Le Pain Quotidien, the Belgian gourmet café chain) to the infamous Nutella. I  love to spread chocolate on bananas, as it’s a sensual experience. Although eating it off a banana is cliche, it sure tastes good. The two flavors together are just delicious. Then I discovered Noisella while dining at Le Pain Quotidien. So, with these flavor references, I can properly explain that Babeland’s Body Chocolate leans closer to the latter, more elegant chocolate spread.

You are probably curious as to why one would order body chocolate spread from a sex toy purveyor when a chocolate spread could be found in some local gourmet shop? Why not go grocery shopping for your own 9 1/2 Weeks sexy food scenario? And so I will explain the positives of trying this Body Chocolate through Babeland: you can also shop for incredible, sex-positive, women-friendly, and even eco-friendly, sex toys while you order your absolutely delish Babeland Body Chocolate. Why not?

This particular “body chocolate” is by far superior to regular chocolate spreads, and comparable to some of the healthier kinds I’ve enjoyed (on bananas, bread and even raw flax seed crackers). But, let me tell you, it’s better on someone’s naked body.

Yes, my husband enjoyed the body chocolate on his nipples: “I didn’t think it would be so arousing,” he sighed. And… tasting it off his nether parts. And… his nipples again. I was surprised that he liked his nipples sucked, and so a discovery was made. Yes, it was yummy for me too, as I enjoyed spreading a taste on his arousal and slowly, languidly, tasting, sucking, and savoring it off of him. You might as well consider this “gourmet sex chocolate” and add it into your sex toy basket.

More reasons to lick up delicious Babeland Body Chocolate:

It contains coconut oil.

Research has proven that coconut oil has many health benefits. The health & beauty plus of coconut oil includes hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, to name a few.

The benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial.

And… chocolate? What could be better?

Think of the pleasure you will both have (or perhaps use it for a menage a trois? A chocolate body painting party? The possibilities are plentiful). And I am sure I don’t need to give you explanations on how healthy orgasms are. Coconut oil, chocolate, and orgasms? A quintessential recipe for health and happiness.

Just the many reasons to enjoy Babeland Body Chocolate. For a midnight snack, or a sexy morning breakfast in bed.

Chocolate happens to be my religion. I grew up in a very liberal Jewish household, the kind that celebrated the holidays with a “pagan” Chanukah bush. I decided that even though Judaism was my heritage, it was really chocolate that I believed in. Chocolate could get me through. If I was having a particularly challenging day, some good chocolate would just make  things better. Not as tame as my British grandmother’s ‘cup of tea’ which also had the magical ability of righting a particularly rotten mood or moment,— chocolate promised of something sensual, something luxurious, like a seductive kiss. Hershey’s kisses, in their happy little easy-to-open foils, buttery with cocoa pleasure. Mood lifting. Aphrodisiac.

If I were admitted into the hospital, when asked what my religion is, I’d say “chocolate”. If I should ever be in a life or death situation, instead of sending the hospital clergy, my wish would be for someone from the ‘religion of chocolate’ to arrive, bearing a large box of chocolate truffles at my eleventh hour. I don’t need gloomy prayers, just give me a decadent bite of chocolate truffle with hazelnut filling.

The {aphrodisiac} history of chocolate and its origins, little nibbles quickly taken from the chocolate bunny of Wikipedia:

The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl (/ʃo.ko.laːtɬ/), a Nahuatl word meaning “bitter water”— Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the theobromine content. Chocolate was also an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were often used as currency.

A BBC report indicated that melting chocolate in one’s mouth produced an increase in brain activity and heart rate that was more intense than that associated with passionate kissing, and also lasted four times as long after the activity had ended.

Babeland Body Chocolate. It does a body good.

I’m in the mood for chocolate & love. So I am spreading Babeland’s Body Chocolate all over my lover’s body like a delicious spread of Nutella.

This Body Chocolate is actually healthier than Nutella. A little bit.

It is made of : sugar, organic cocoa powder, safflower oil, organic coconut oil, organic cocoa butter, and vanilla.

Research has proven that coconut oil has many health benefits. The health & beauty plus of coconut oil includes hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, to name a few.

The benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc.

Which is why I’m slathering it all over my lover and tasting it off.

Check out Babeland Toys for more sensual fun and sex-positive pleasure:

VISIT BABELAND TOYS

After creating my last post about Nyotaimori, the Japanese erotic food art, 女体盛り,“body sushi,” the art of serving sashimi & sushi from the body of a naked woman, I was inspired to try it myself.

My naked body would be the “sushi platter” for my darling man’s lunch.

Good idea, I thought.

I phoned our local sushi delivery place while freshly showered, standing naked in my bathroom., glancing at the to-go menu.  This place specializes in demae sushi, or more properly, o-sushi dema-e. “DE-MA-E” means “made to order” and conveniently, I live near such a place that creates to-go sushi.

The person answering the sushi delivery picked up on the second ring, but placed me directly on hold after they answered. Must be very busy at 11:30am. I waited for some time. Don’t they know there is a naked woman waiting to order sushi for erotic purposes? I thought that telepathically, I could encourage them to pick up the phone and take my sushi order. So, after nearly fifteen minutes on hold, I knew the outgoing recording pretty well. I imagined there were many customers, ordering sushi to-go in the nude. I hung up, and redialed again.

A friendly voice answered, the same guy that left me on hold. But this time  he was available to take my order. I chose the Kiku (Gokujyo) combination: 2 tuna, 1 each of seared tuna, salmon, hirame, hamachi, albacore, shrimp, uni, ikura, kani, and spicy tuna. I also ordered the vegetarian platter (avocado roll and avocado sashimi, asparagus sashimi, cooked shiitake mushroom sashimi, kaiware, pickled eggplant, and vegetable rolls) with brown rice, and two iced green teas.

“Do you need any chopsticks?” they asked.

“Um, no…” I answered demurely. “We won’t need them.”

We would not need chopsticks whatsoever. Besides, we have a growing collection of ohashi, or chopsticks. I left it a mystery for my other reasons.

They called back and said they were out of uni.

My husband replied, “more salmon, the color will look better on your skin.”

“Extra salmon, please.” I answered.

They delivered our sushi feast quickly, without any problem. Everything arrived in tact with a cold pack inside the bag.

He wasn’t sure about eating it off of me. It made him laugh and I tried not to giggle. If I did, all the carefully placed sushi and sashimi would just tumble off. Sticky grains of sushi rice were holding each piece, sticking to my skin.

In my fantasy, my husband would be eating sushi sensually off my body, then proceeding to taste me everywhere. Instead, he was laughing, I was giggling. We ended up eating off of plates on our tatami mat.

My skin smelled faintly of fresh sushi. I had previously showered for the occasion, so with the scent of sushi on my body and silliness in our hearts, we enjoyed our lunch, half naked (I put my pink kimono back on), savoring the pleasure of our meal. I felt like an utter goofball (which I am) and this was such a fun way to have lunch. Gochisoosama deshita. Oishiikatta ne. YUM.