Eros Daily Musings and Digressions

From a book called Passion’s Vinyard, via Spank Statement: I sat down on the bench, I flung her over my lap, I hoisted up the white antiseptic skirt and the whiter slip underneath it, and there was a bottom ideally made for spanking. Spacious, jouncy, sheathed with a white satin-elastic pantie girdle, and the tabs [...]

Abel, in conference with Haron, recently wrote up a comprehensive safety tip-sheet for the benefit of a woman who was planning to meet up for the first time with a potential top she’d encountered online. This is more detailed, and perhaps even more careful, than many such lists of advice, but it strikes me as [...]

Robert Rosen worked in the porn industry for 16 years. He got to see some shocking things. He even got to be shocking himself.

Here’s the thing: I wanted to interview Robert Rosen, author of Beaver Street, so the publisher sent me a copy of his book. I meant to skim it and schedule an interview, but I ended up getting hooked and had to read the whole thing, which delayed this interview. Rosen worked in the porn industry for 16 years, and has managed to make it sound even more interesting than I imagined. Reading his book was like having an animated conversation about sex, business and politics. This is Part 1 of a three part interview that will run all week.

Beaver Street is currently available via Headpress, Amazon UK, and will be available at Amazon US next March. In the meantime, those of you in St. Louis can check the book out at Shameless Grounds Human Sexuality library!

What’s up with the cover? Did you get to pick it? It’s so patriotic vampire trampy.

We had a lot of trouble coming up with a proper image for the cover. What we finally used—it was Headpress editor David Kerekes’s idea—is based on one of the High Society phone-sex ads, which you can see on the first page of the photo section. I think it works well. The subtitle of the book is “A History of Modern Pornography,” and modern pornography, the fusion of erotica and computers, began at High Society, in 1983, with phone sex.

You dedicate Beaver Street to your father, saying he would have enjoyed the book - most people are really weirded out with parents or children knowing about their sex lives - what kind of relationship did you have with your dad?

In the last 25 years of his life—he passed away in 2005—my father and I had an OK relationship. We had friendly, though hardly frank or profound, conversations. I didn’t talk to him about my sex life or get into anything too personal. Still, this was a far better state of affairs than the way things were when I was living at home and my relationship with my parents was more like open warfare.

My father and I were very different people. Politically, he was ultra-conservative, a law-and-order Republican. At one point, when I was about 15, he was threatening to send me to a military academy to “straighten” me out, and he went absolutely berserk when I grew my hair long and became a hippie. He would have loved to see me go to West Point and was thrilled when I got the job as speechwriter for the Secretary of the Air Force and was working in the Pentagon.

But despite all this, he was always cool with pornography and had no problem with me working in the biz. He loved getting free mags. He loved reading books, too, which is why I think he would have enjoyed Beaver Street. For the most part, he was into spy novels and stuff like that, and when I was having trouble getting published, he was always saying, “Why don’t you write a spy novel? You’ll make a lot of money.” He lived long enough to see Nowhere Man published, and he was delighted with the book’s success.

Though my mother would have preferred that I didn’t work in pornography, she was just happy to see me with a full-time job that paid decently and had good benefits. She read Beaver Street, by the way, and said, “It’s well written.” She was also impressed with the research that went into it.

Chapter One of your book introduces us to a bestiality scene, which sets the tone. EVERY page of your book features an - ahem - interesting concept, things most people never even think about. How much of a surreal perverted mindfuck was that?

Well, as I said in Beaver Street, “As an unavoidable side effect of working in pornography, I’d… became unmoored from all sense of conventional sexual mores… [and] ceased to think rationally about sex itself.” So, yes, I did get used to living a crazy lifestyle, which is one of the reasons that I decided to do my “journalistic experiment” and get in front of a camera and find out what it was like to be a porn star. At the time I did this, it just seemed normal, and it never occurred to me that other people might think otherwise.

And I definitely did come up for air. Again, as I describe in the book, right around the time of the Meese Commission and Traci Lords scandal I was getting burnt out on cranking porn nonstop and ran away for two weeks into the mountains of Oregon and Idaho to forget about what I did for a living. But then I came home and dove right back into the thick of it.

There’s the scene that comes towards the end of the book that describes my state of mind as I began to edit D-Cup:

I knew I was in trouble the day I asked Izzy Singer’s girlfriend, a reliable freelancer who’d done a credible job with some of the more nauseating digest-book letters, to write, for the first issue, a 2,500-word essay titled ‘Why I like to Fuck Sleazy Black Chicks with Enormous Jugs.’ It wasn’t so much that I told her, “Make sure he comes all over her tits and not in her pussy.” What frightened me was how ordinary the words sounded coming out of my mouth, as if it were just another day at the office—which it was. I should have known right then that the only honorable solution was to get the fuck out of the porn business while I still remembered how to converse like a human being.

Did you get to the point where nothing shocked you?

There were times I’ve wondered if anything having to do with sex could shock me anymore. About two months ago, I found out the answer was yes. The character in the book I call Izzy Singer self-published (under the pseudonym Irv O. Neil) on Amazon Kindle a short story titled “Learning to Be Cruel.”

I’d published a lot of Izzy/Irv’s stories when I was editing the magazines, but because of censorship regulations, I’d never seen one like this.

The story shocked me because it seemed so autobiographical—the way the character looked, his age, what he did for a living. And Izzy/Irv was so clearly writing from the heart. I’ve know him since 1984, but I’d never suspected that he might enjoy having beautiful young Asian women humiliate and degrade him in the manner he so graphically and realistically described in the story.

However, he told me that the story isn’t autobiographical, so maybe he doesn’t really get off on being made to eat like a dog in a restaurant, masturbate in a public restroom, scrub toilets naked, and kiss a woman’s feet in the middle of Broadway. But when I was reading the story I kept seeing Izzy/Irv doing all these things. And it was shocking that he was even capable of going there so enthusiastically in his imagination.

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Copyright 2011, The Beautiful Kind

quote [Erica Simone was born in 1985 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Having divided her life between Los Angeles, Paris and New York City, you can now find Erica either hopscotching around the world, shooting fashion, people, documentary and fine art, or climbing her way through the New York City jungle. Erica is constantly shooting and always eager to take on new projects. She is very passionate about photography and deeply inspired by the ways of the world—her eye always craving to reveal the beauty she sees in it].

quote [Kevin Nayler meticulously collates and translates source imagery from a broad spectrum of media that covers boundless time spans and styles. His computer generated depictions bridge fine art and graphical illustration in a bold and definitive style. Subject matter is multi-layered and multi-directional; vibrant colours juxtapose with dark content producing conflicting messages that simultaneously excite, disturb and arouse. His work always breeds discussion].

I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t gotten an abortion four years ago. I’m so glad I did.

My name is Kendra Holliday, and I had an abortion.

I woke up on the morning of my scheduled abortion and my beau at the time joked, "Today is your big day!"

Honestly, I was looking forward to it. I had felt like shit for the past month, barely able to function from the nausea and loss of energy, and was eager to get it over with. The clinic actually made me wait a couple weeks longer to get it done, so the egg sac would be big enough to locate. I was going in 8 weeks pregnant.

My man dropped me off and then went to play a few rounds of golf. Just kidding. We passed through security (no protesters again!) and they searched our bags. We sat in the waiting room. He graded papers. I knitted. There were more men there with their partners this time, but at least three of the dudes were sleeping. I heard several different languages being spoken.

I got called in to pay for the procedure ($240), then got sent out to wait again. It wasn't long before they called me back in along with five other girls. They were all in their early 20's; four were African-American, one was Eastern European. Herd-like we followed the nurse to a locker room where we all changed into hospital gowns and these awful paper bag slippers. Those slippers were the worst part of the experience.

We were given a Valium and Ibuprofen. Then we were told to go to a waiting room/holding pen, where FUCKING MONTEL WILLIAMS was on TV again, berating some 15 year old for smoking pot (2nd worst part of the experience).

The Eastern European girl was terrified. She mentally latched on to me and said in a tiny broken voice, "Are you scared?"

"No. I've been pregnant before and I've had a D&C, and this is not as big a deal as people make it out to be." I was trying to reassure her; hopefully I didn't trivialize her fear.

"Why you get abortion?" she asked me.

I shrugged. "It's just not the right time for me. I haven't been with my partner long enough and we want more time to get to know each other."

She said, "I've never done this before. I don't believe I am here."

I felt so bad for her. She was like a little injured bird sitting there hunched over (3rd worst part of the experience). The other girls filed in and had a seat. None of them seemed particularly worried.

Then a chipper volunteer came in, a woman in her mid-4o's. She introduced herself as Maggie and said, "I will be here to help each of you through it. Yes, it does hurt, but most girls walk out of here thinking it wasn't as bad as they thought it was going to be. No matter what you're feeling right now, it's OK." Oh good, we have an abortion buddy.

Eastern European bird girl started to cry, and Maggie went and sat next to her and held her hand. Fucking Montel Williams blabbed away in the background.

"Now tell me," Maggie said, leaning forward earnestly, "What's your name, and what are you going to do for birth control?"

Three of the African-American girls had the same first name, let's say LaTonya. LaTonya1 one said she wanted to get her tubes ties. She had one kid and was 21. Um, good luck with that.

LaTonya2 wanted to get a Nuva Ring. "Good!" Maggie approved.

I piped up. "Doesn't that cause blood clots or something?"

"Yeah, right!" Maggie pshawed.

"Well my friend went into the ER one time with a blood clot in her brain and she was using the Nuva Ring. She almost died."

"Well the blood clot was caused by something else, not her birth control," Maggie decided dismissively. (I have no doubt my friend will be commenting on this post.)

Brandy wanted to get an IDU. "An IUD?" Maggie offered.

I said, "What's the difference between an IUD with hormones and without?"

Maggie said, "The one with hormones works better."

I said, "But I heard that can cause spotting for months at a time and make you break out."

"Where do you get your information?" she asked sneering a bit.

"I do a lot of research and that's what my gynecologist told me," I answered.

LaTonya3 said she wanted to get her tubes tied, too. She was 24 and had two kids. I told her she'd probably need to ask around to find a doctor who would do it, that I had a friend who was young and wanted a vasectomy and it took him seeing three doctors to find one who would snip him kidless at age 24.

Then it was my turn. I told Maggie I planned on using condoms and spermicide, that I had been on the pill for 15 years and went off it to take a break. "And now look where you are!" she exclaimed triumphantly. Um, good point.

"But I don't think it's healthy to ingest artificial hormones for years and years, it's kind of unnatural."

"Well do you know what they call women who use condoms and spermicide for birth control?" Maggie said, then gave a pregnant (HA!) pause before announcing smugly, "Mothers!"

I shot back, "But this way the man shares in the birth control and for that matter, why the hell can't the man take a pill and deal with weight gain and break outs and mood swings?!"

Everyone laughed. Maggie declared, "Well that's not going to happen. You should just go back on the pill."

Poor terrified Eastern European bird woman didn't even get a turn to say what she was going to use (I'm guessing she'll never let a dick near her again and I found myself trying to imagine her having sex in the first place) because the nurse called her name. Maggie went with her.

This left the rest of us to chat among ourselves. LaTonya2 said she had been there the year before for an abortion, and that her sister just came last week and paid $1000 because she was 5 months along. We were all horrified by this, and one girl said, "That far along? You should just have it!"

"My sister be trippin'," LaTonya2 explained.

Another girl said people were telling her to consider adoption. She sputtered in disbelief. "I ain't carrying a baby nine months and then giving it away!"

Another told of how she came last week for her pre-appointment, but she had left her ID at home and had to go back and get it. The abortion protesters cheered and clapped, and she assured them, "Don't worry, I'll be back."

Next they called my name. YESSSSS. I didn't want to wait around.

I went into the exam room and got up on the table. The nurse prepped the supplies, and I asked, "Is my doctor male or female?"

"Female," she replied.

PHEW. I knew they had four or five doctors and one of them was some dude who had been doing it for 30 years, and while that's all well and good, I just didn't want some old guy doing my abortion.

The doctor came in and she was totally cool and young and pretty. Pill pusher Maggie came in and stood by my head and held my hand. They asked if I had any questions and I said, "Does it really take only two minutes?"

They said yep.

"Just tell me everything you're doing."

I assumed the position with my feet in the stirrups and the doctor put a speculum in my vagina to get access to my cervix. I don't think the valium had really kicked in yet, but I knew they were going to inject a local anaesthetic into my cervix. (They offer an IV sedation for extra, but I didn't want that.)

I offered to donate the material they gathered to science, but they told me there wasn't enough there at this stage. It would just be discarded.

Sure enough, the whole thing took about two minutes. I felt my cervix being stabbed and/or a sharp pain about five times, and it did fucking hurt (4th worst part of the experience), but I had a death grip on Maggie's hand. As soon as they injected my cervix I felt the medicine go straight to my head, whoosh, and I got a little zooty then. I mean I could feel things and ask questions, but some of the words came out wrong.

"Boy am I glad you're here!" I gasped to Maggie, who looked down at me kindly. I couldn't believe she took time out of her day to help women out like this. I felt grateful for her presence, even if she did seem more concerned about preventing future pregnancies than a woman's health and well-being.

The doctor widened my cervix and inserted an - I kid you not - hand held turkey baster, and sucked out the unwanted contents of my uterus. No whirring machine, no scraping instruments. "The dentist is worse than this!" I said between winces, and "Hell I've had a baby, I can handle this!" I was a brave girl.

The doctor pulled away and said all chipper, "That's it."

"That's it?!" I exclaimed. I did it.

Then I asked my bravest question yet. "Can I see what you sucked out of me?

I had looked online beforehand and had seen all the gruesome bloody shots and mutilated body parts, but I wanted to see it for myself, with my own eyes. I was seriously dreading looking, but wanted to bear witness. I was expecting a pan full of blood, some stuff that looked like raw liver, and maybe a gross little alien bubbling in the gore croaking out, "Mama?"

"Sure!" the doctor said, and she came around the sheet draped over my legs and showed me the little plastic tupperware container that held the abortion. And do you know what it looked like? Half a cup of egg whites with some brown bits in it. It wasn't even bloody.

"That's it?!" I exclaimed in astonishment.

"That's it!" She swirled it around so I could see better. I looked harder, expecting to see at least a leg or something.

"But where's the fetus?!" This was blowing my mind.

"Right now it's too small to see with the naked eye," the doctor explained. "What you're seeing is mostly the egg sac."

"And this is what it normally looks like?"

"At 8 weeks, sure."

"Well HELL! If THIS is what they put on those abortion signs, people would be thinking 'omelette,' not 'baby killer'!"

I thanked them for their help, put on my maxi-pad, and the nurse walked me to the recovery room. I was still stunned, but read my book. A couple other women were also in the recovery room in reclining chairs looking exhausted.

A nurse came by and offered me a heating pad, Sierra Mist and cookies. Nice!

I hung out in the spa for about 15 minutes, then went and got dressed and discarded those fucking awful paper bag slippers. They sent me home with a bag of antibiotics and three months worth of birth control pills. (I'm not supposed to put anything in my vagina for a week. OK, maybe THIS was the worst part of the experience.)

I came out to the waiting room and my guy looked up at me with concern. "Boy do I have a surprise to tell you," I said in amazement. His eyes widened. He was getting a little wary of my "surprises."

We were there for a total of two hours. I thought I'd be down for the count at least for the day, but I felt fine. Afterwards we had sushi and went shopping. My guy wanted to stop in at Sports Authority to look at exercise equipment, and I said, "I'm not really comfortable going into a sports store."

His reply to that? "Well, I'm not really comfortable going to abortion clinics, so come on."

Dunno if it was psychological, but I felt instantly better. That evening I got my taste for coffee and booze back. I finally started cleaning the house after neglecting it for days.

And hey, here is what one pro-life website has to say about the aftereffects abortion:

Abortion procedures vary according to the stage of pregnancy. Each procedure is painful for both the mother and her unborn baby. After an abortion, many women experience one or more of the following consequences, some of which may take several years to surface.

Physical:
- Excessive bleeding, may require blood transfusions.
- Perforated uterus or damage to other organs.
- Chronic and acute infections.
- Intense pain.
- Incomplete removal of baby or placenta.
- High fever, convulsions, shock, coma.
- Increase in miscarriages, ectopic (tubal) pregnancies, premature births, and stillbirths.
- Irregular pap smears; breast cancer.
- Infertility.
- Death.

I haven't taken so much as an Advil, and I stopped bleeding the next day.

I want to hear from other women who have had abortions. What was it like for you? Did you look at what came out of you?

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Copyright 2011, The Beautiful Kind

Not new… but always good!
quote [Test your Awareness with Do The Test's Whodunnit. Who Killed Lord Smithe? TFL cycling safety advert! How observant are you? How did you do?].

Contrary to how it may appear, I’m fairly sure that is not Rachel Maddow delivering the leather strap punishment to this poor girl’s palm: Screencap is from a Her First Punishment video. See Also:It's Switching Night!Ouch Ouch!Tawse Meets PussyEnthusiastic Classroom CaningCaned By A Monk

Kneeling on little hard round dried beans or peas: it’s a sure way to make a sorry girl even sorrier! From Lupus. See Also:Paddled BlondeStripped For PunishmentHumiliations, Galore!Saturday Celebration Of Super Sore BottomsAdele's Black And Blue Bottom

If you were on a news blackout this week, you might not know that a woman opened her suitcase after a flight to find a note from the airport security agent who searched her checked bag with this message, “Get your freak on, girl”. She was traveling with a Babeland Silver Bullet vibrator and was so creeped out knowing that someone had handled it, she threw it away. We took notice and sent her a new one (having to replace your sex toy after inappropriate conduct from a government employee is just adding insult to injury) and we included a nice gift, too.

The woman, Jill Filipovic, blogs at a site we love, Feministe, and posted an articulate and insightful follow-up to the incident today when news hit that the Transportation Security Administration had disciplined the note-writing employee. She was frustrated that the issues about privacy and the government’s invasive security measures post-9/11 weren’t dissected in the media coverage. We agree, but also have to point out the positive side here, that a woman traveling with a sex toy didn’t become the issue. In the dozens of articles and posts we read, the vibrator was a non-issue, and that’s progress.

Culturally and socially, a woman’s right to sexual pleasure is gaining mainstream acceptance. Many people could relate to this story and wonder about the many times their personal items have been reviewed by security agents. We always worry about what someone else is thinking about our personal choices, it’s a good thing that we tend to worry less about our sex toys. If you want tips about traveling with sex toys, you can view our tips here.

Do you have a story about traveling with a sex toy? Share it in the comments. We’ll choose a random winner and send you the infamous Babeland Silver Bullet! A winner will be chosen at noon on Monday, October 31st and notified.

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This post, Yes, A TSA Agent Might See Your Vibrator and No, You Don’t Have to Be Ashamed, originally appeared on Babeland's Blog on October 27, 2011. Tweet This Post!

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