Deliciously Naughty

Professor Dumbledore is Gay

I've never talked about my love of Harry Potter here before.  I haven't had a reason to-while I enjoy the books, I haven't felt the urge to write any fanfic or slash, and what place does a children's book really have on a blog about sex?

Well, the fact that JK Rowling just outed Dumbledore seems like a reason to break with that position.

I have to admit when I first saw a reference to this, I thought it was a hoax.  But apparently it isn't.  JK Rowling insists she knew all along that Dumbledore was gay, but kept it mum, with one exception.  Apparently there was going to be a passing reference to a former (female) crush/love of Dumbledore's in the upcoming movie of Book 6, and she felt compelled to send the director a note about it.  Rowling, however, decided to share this information publicly when asked by a reader at Carnegie Hall last night.

Which begs two questions-Why wait to tell us, and why tell us at all?

Why wait to tell us is perhaps the more interesting question to delve into.  It is difficult to repudiate something we care deeply about, and perhaps (giving Ms Rowling the benefit of the doubt) her game plan was to have us love Dumbledore deeply (which we-readers of the series-do) before dropping the information on us.  For many of her younger readers, Dumbledore will be the first gay "person" they know, such as Vanyel from Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey was the first gay person I "knew." 

While it is easy to believe stereotypes or project what you believe a gay person is like if you have never met one, it is much more difficult to have those small minded prejudices once you actually know a homosexual.  I would hope that Ms. Rowling's younger readers will think long and hard about their own prejudices as they digest this information about their beloved Headmaster.

A more cynical person might argue that while she has known all along, she didn't share with us because it might have impacted book sales.  Not that the religious right in the US didn't already hate her for all of the "witchcraft" in the books already (including a memorable 700 club my tivo accidentally taped because of the Harry Potter reference wherein I watched the host claim that the books stated that HP had been sexually abused as a child---to which I said WTF?  I think you're reading a different series than I am).  However, I know from my time as a teacher that while there are many conservative parents who let their children read controversial fantasy novels (such as Phillip Pullman's book The Golden Compass, in which the Church is painted as evil and corrupt) but who would pitch an absolute shit fit at a gay character (witness the semi-successful banning of Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which she chronicles with her characteristic flair and style on her blog here-start at the bottom and read up).  Waiting to tell us until the series was done might lose Warner Brothers a little bit of revenue on the last two movies, but the book revenue is safe.  Which makes me wonder if it was her choice or her publishers?

So which was it---wanting to preserve revenue, or wanting us to grow so attached to Dumbledore that outing him would force us to face our own prejudices, hopefully ending up more tolerant?  I want to believe the latter, I really do.

So now I ask the other question--why tell us at all?  In 2007 should we really care what a character's orientation is?  Should Dumbledore's outing actually have been news?  Shouldn't we be past the point where learning someone is gay earns a collective eyebrow raise or gasp?  Does it matter?  How does it change the legacy of HP? 

I really would like to live in a world where a character didn't need to be outed because no one necessarily expected him to be straight.  I wish that it weren't seen as relevant.

Come to think of it, now I'm a little angry that none of our characters had a crush on/ended up with a same gendered partner.  And I'm a little angry at myself for never entertaining the possibility beyond persuing a piece of slash or two.

BUST Magazine

You may have noticed a cute pink button under my pic that says I'm member of Bust's girl wide web.  Although it's not hard to get on their GWW, I'm so excited to be there.

You see, BUST is the magazine I've been searching for since Sassy went out of print in the late 90's.  I tried to move to Ms., but it's a little preachy. My major complaint with Cosmo et al is that they're just not inclusive enough (heterocentric much?  thincentric much? vanillamuch?).  So I haven't really had a magazine that I've loved in a long time (People doesn't count-that's a bad bad bad bad habit)

My discovery of BUST was totally accidental.  My gym has magazines available on the workout floor and in the dressing room donated by members that you can read while you work out.  I think I'd forgotten to charge my iPod, so I needed something to keep my goldfish attention span (look, shiny!) long enough to finish my workout.  I saw a copy of BUST and grabbed it.

Thirty minutes on the treadmill of torture later (I'm not a huge workout person, can you tell?) I was hooked.  Here was a magazine that did a little fashion, some reviews (but of interesting books), some articles and OHMYGOD they had ads for sex toy companies AND an erotic short story.  I almost came right there.

I started picking it up from my local bookstore when I saw it, and finally subscribed because it wasn't always easy to find.

BUST comes out bi-monthly (sad) and while you can occasionally find it at Borders or Barnes and Noble (I think I found it over by Ms., not by Cosmo, you'll have to look carefully), it's much easier to find if you have an alternative bookstore.  If you live in NYC, I'm willing to stake my reputation that Bluestockings would have it.  In Boston, try Trident, which I know for certain has it regularly.

I'm not doing this post because I'm a member of their GWW, by the way.  I'm doing it because I realized that some of you may not have encountered the fabulousness that is BUST.  It's like Sassy, only all grown up and with an erotic short story every month instead of something appropriately teendramaangsty.  If you read and loved Sassy the way I did when you were younger, your grownup self will just love BUST.

Dork Whore

Dork Whore: My Travels Through Asia as a Twenty-Year Old Pseudo-Virgin by Iris Bahr is a hysterically funny read.

For me, this book was a natural culmination of my love of travel writing and my love of sex writing.

Bahr grew up in the US until the age of 13, when she and her mother moved to Israel.  After serving her two years in the Israeli Army, Bahr took a long vacation in Asia.  She has one simple goal-lose her virginity.  Along the way she watches a Thai exotic dancer inhale and then squirt a banana out of her vagina (the description of this is worth the price of admission alone), attempts to have sex in the bunk of a train in Vietnam above a large family, and finds out that hiking and sex don't mix.

The book is filled with hysterical asides written as footnotes.  ("When it comes to advice on not getting fucked over, one Israeli's word to another is as good as gold.  It's all part of the "us against them/everyone hates the Jews" mentality.  The fact is, Israelis will only trust each other.  Except when they're actually in Israel, of course, where they wouldn't trust each other with the time of day"-p 83)

Whether you like sex writing or travel writing or Jewish humor-you definitely need to pick this up.

Indecent

I just finished Indecent by Sarah Katherine Lewis.  I will admit up front that it was not the book I was hoping it would be.  Like Diablo Cody in Candy Girl, Lewis gives a brutally honest recounting of her time as a sex industry worker.  The main difference, and for me the letdown, is that Lewis does not write with any of the wry amusement that made Cody's book so likeable.  Lewis' journey is that from a woman who takes a job as a "lingerie model" who is vaguely entertained and empowered by the experience to a jack shack girl who confesses to contemplating cutting off her clients' dick.

The problem with confessionals like this is that unlike a genre book (such as a romance) we don't know which way the story will go or if we will like where it goes.  The truth about the sex industry is that it does chew many women up and spit them out.  While I wouldn't go so far as to say that's what it's done to Lewis, she is unflinching in reminding us that it's a transactional business and unlike being a girl who goes out and screws around, you don't get a lot of say in what your clients look (and smell) like. 

I think that women who are considering doing sex work professionally should read this.  If you finish it and still think you'd enjoy being a sex worker, you probably will.  If you read it and want nothing to do with the professional sex industry, then that's probably a good thing to find out before you're too far in.

Lewis begins (and ends) in Seattle, but I was most interested by her recounting of her time in New Orleans.  She works for awhile as a stripper on Bourbon Street at a club I walked past on my trips, but never went into.  However, it's in New Orleans that she bares her own dark side-even stealing a client's wallet at one point.

What I couldn't help but wonder as I read the book was why she didn't get out.  The answer seems to be the money.  She is still occasionally working in the industry as well as working on another book (according to her blog) but she has a lot of scorn and hatred for it.  Money is often a drug, and there are few things in this world that net a woman hundreds of dollars in an hour (or even $100 for an hour).  I wonder if she's not someone who fell prey to it.

I also infer that once you get the kind of freedom that sex work affords you, it's soul crushingly boring to imagine going back to a straight job (not to mention all the empty spots on your resume).  It's a truism that once you're in, it's pretty hard to get out.

All in all, the writing is solid even if the content occasionally made me squirm (and not in the good way).  I would be open to reading her next book, even though I fundamentally disagree with her positions on the sex industry. 

As a potential future sex worker, I think that the point where I start to hate my clients is the day I stop doing it.  I wonder if Lewis' mistake is that she didn't get out when it stopped being fun.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

Although Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King doesn't fall into the erotic category, it is still a book I think my readers would enjoy.  This memoir by King recounts the author's experiences growing up in Virginia in the 40's and 50's.  Her experience of being a lesbian in Mississippi in the 50's alone makes it noteworthy for this blog.

I first ran across this book my senior year in college when I was working on my thesis, which explored women and the changing sexual norms between 1920 and 1950.  For various reasons, this book ended up not fitting within the scope of my final thesis topic, which saddened me as I was dying to recount King's experience with her doctor.  When she 14 or 15, King had such bad menstrual cramps that her grandmother took her in to be examined.  When the standard anal exam didn't turn anything up, her doctor had to break through her hymen and examine her vaginally.  He then presented her with a certificate of virginity "to give to your husband so he'll know he didn't get damaged goods."

King is never apologetic, and her wry sense of humor stays just this side of appropriate.  It's an easy read, even during the moments where King is calmly recounting her inability to stay the night at her girlfriend's for fear of being attacked. 

Although sex takes up a large portion of the memoir, it's not just sex.  Anyone who's a fan of the southern woman genre or themselves grew up in the south will also identify with King.  I strongly recommend the book to one and all. 

Book Review-How to Make Love Like a Porn Star

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Jameson was an experience.  Jenna (and her co/ghost writer Neil Strauss) share the life that led up to and her experiences as the "Queen of Porn."

Most people, when I've mentioned this book, only hear the first half of the title and begin to mock it, saying things like "don't you just buy a bottle of lube and fake it?"  Anyone who doesn't pay attention to the second half of the title is going to be surprised by the contents.  While there is a lot of talk about sex, most of it isn't sexy.

Jenna did not have an easy life-her mom died when she was little, her dad was absent and there were several less than caring step moms.  So Jenna ran wild, experimenting with sex and drugs at a young age.  When she was 17, she walked into a strip club and lied about her age to get a job.  She doesn't sugar coat the highs and lows of her life.  She admits to her drug habit almost killing her at one point, discusses her anger management issues, and is open about her bad taste in men.  Once the memoir passes the point where she entered the industry, she dishes plenty about life in pornography and what it takes to make it there for both men and women.  Perhaps the saddest thing about it, for me at least, is that it ends with her wedding to her (now ex) husband Justin and how happy she is to be getting married and her desire to become a mom.

While honest, the book does read like a soap opera at times.  The format of the book may prove annoying for some readers.  The story isn't told chronologically, but in sections.  Parts of it are diary entries, other parts are transcripts of interviews with Jenna, her dad and her brother, and there's the occasional comic or top ten list thrown in for good measure.  It's a thick book and is only out in hardcover right now (soft cover in June of 07) so it's difficult to carry around.

I do recommend it, but I think you may want to borrow it from the library or wait for the paperback.

Candy Girl by Diablo Cody

Candy Girl is a memoir of Diablo Cody's year as a stripper.  We follow her journey from amateur ("As I tried to wrap one leg around the pole and spin, one of my stiletto heels got caught, the pole wedged between the heel and the sole) to banking stripper ("I felt like I'd graduated, only instead of 'Pomp and Circumstance,' the band played Warrant).

Along the way, she works as an entertainer at three different clubs, a peep show girl at a sex emporium, and finally as a phone sex operator before leaving the sex industry.  She shares stories that are both funny (a panty auction) and grotesque (an individual known as "The Cum Licker").

This is a no-holds barred look for those of us who are fascinated by the sparkly world of strip clubs.  We learn about one clubs quota system, encounter a high schooler who strips as a part time job, and learn the many bodily hazards of the job (bad knees, bruises, blisters, etc).  Cody is a riveting author.  I literally couldn't put down the book even though it was four am and I desperately needed sleep. 

Candy Girl just came out in paperback.  If you haven't read it yet, you have no excuse not to.