Why Are We Still So Scared of Sex?

Boy, do these months fly by!  It's time for my new column, "Uppity Vaginas and Educational Porn," at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association blog, and I have juicy topic today.  While we're constantly bombarded with sexual images to shock us out of our twenty-first-century stupor so we'll buy stuff, "serious" journalists and commentators still treat sexuality with a mixture of fear, contempt, and ridicule.  Witness The New Yorker review of Naomi Wolf's new book, Vagina: A New Biography.  I haven't read the book, but I am amazed at the response.  Over the top snark--but why?  If it's simply a bad book, whom does it threaten?  The New York Times is less obviously sex-phobic in their profile of Cindy Gallop, a woman who is starting a website for realistic videos of sexual encounters, but they still feel the need to focus on her far-out fashion and boy-toy lair.  Unlike me, I guess she looks like an erotica writer!

If you get a chance to read, let me know what you think.

Eternal Inspiration for Your Writing

This month, my "Cooking Up a Storey" column at ERWA explores "Eternal Inspiration:The "How's" and "Why's" of Genre and Gingerbread."  I discuss how those two simple questions will provide a lifetime of material for your writing, how all good stories are mysteries, and why gingerbread stays delicious forever.  Check it out--and consider baking yourself a batch of Honey Cake Squares soon!

Violet Blue Recommends the Best of Donna George Storey

What a great way to start the week--Violet Blue has recommended my short story collection, Picture Perfect: The Mammoth Book of Erotica Presents the Best of Donna George Storey in her column, "Kink Your Kindle."  I'm in the company of many awesome erotica writers such as Elizabeth Coldwell, N.T. Morley, Sommer Marsden, and Alison Tyler.  Violet Blue knows her erotica, so this is quite an honor.  And what better way to celebrate the season of chilly days than to curl up with a nice, hot book!