A step forward

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Delilah Night

I submitted the Christmas story last week, and won’t hear until late October or in November.

Yesterday I did something I never thought I would do.  I began to take steps to erase all of my work at literotica.  Literotica was my first home for erotic writing, and it’s where I cut my baby teeth 10 years ago.  The problem is that today I’m unhappy with most of that work, and what I’m not unhappy with, I’d rather take down and rewrite/submit professionally.

It feels momentous, like a major step forward, even if all it actually amounts to is deleting a bunch of stories from a public site.

In the meantime, I have started a BDSM short story set in King Arthur’s court.

 

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Accents and the trouble they cause writers

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Delilah Night

There really is nothing sexier to me than a brainy Brit.  Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer? YES, PLEASE.

I have long wanted to write a story with a brainy Brit, but the major thing that has stopped me is the whole question of accent.  How do write an accent without writing a pidgin English to convey what they’re *supposed* to sound like?  JD Robb (aka Nora Roberts in wearing her murder mystery romance hat) has a male protagonist named Roarke, who has an Irish accent (also way sexy) and has set several stories in Ireland.  She manages to reference things like lyrical quality or a hit of Ireland just often enough to keep you reminded (or the setting does).

But in a 3-4K story, how often can you reference something without it getting repetitive?

Food for thought.

 

Also food for thought–after spending a week in Sydney, I have realized that I’m ambivalent about the Aussie accent, which is surprised me.

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50 Shades of Grey…and me

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Delilah Night

If you’ve been living under a rock, 50 Shades is a blockbuster erotica novel that has been breaking sales records and optioned for a movie.  As an erotica author, I’ve recently been asked by a lot of my friends what I think of it.

That I’m not interested in reading it.

I have an intense dislike of Twilight, so it’s not a far stretch for me to say that I’m not going to enjoy this book, as it is re-purposed Twilight fanfic.  (What’s fanfic?)

I have read excerpts, and I’m not crazy about the author’s style.

I think that the unrealistic portrayal of BDSM would make the book problematic for me.

That anything that helps mainstream erotica is a good thing.

We write in a genre that gets very little public respect or acceptance.  I write under the pseudonym of Delilah Night not because I have delusions of being mobbed at a mall like Justin Beiber, but rather because I know that my profession is uncomfortable for many.

The day I don’t feel uncomfortable saying “I write erotica” at my daughter’s nursery school is the day it’s truly gone mainstream.  I tend to say I’m a writer, and then deflect after that or just say “romance.”  I only came out publicly on facebook to my friends and family as an erotica author after my first professional acceptance in Irresistible (now available in paperback and as a kindle e-book).  While some people knew, not everyone did (and my in-laws sure as hell didn’t before–and we don’t discuss that they know it now).

Sure I’m a little jealous of the checks EL James is depositing in the bank, but if the popularity of 50 shades actually helps to mainstream erotica (already getting shelved with the romance trade paperbacks–a far cry from 15 years ago) then we all benefit.

Wow, I’d love that kind of paycheck some day.

By and large, erotica isn’t a money making genre.  I’m only able to be a writer (which mostly means the blog I write about my life in Singapore, and the short stories/novel I’m working on—but full time in this context is maybe 10 hours a week in a good week) because what I actually am is a full time stay at home mom who writes.  Most of us who write erotica have full time other jobs (mine may not pay, but it is absolutely full time).  So yes, I absolutely would love to repay all the love and support my partner has given me with a big fat check for a book I’ve written.

“Mommy Porn” is lazy writing and rude

For me, the most troubling aspect of the talk surrounding 50 shades is the lazy descriptor of it as “mommy porn.”

Calling it “mommy porn” is dismissive to mothers, to erotica writers, to the genre, and it’s just plain lazy.  It buys into the madonna/whore stereotype that says mothers don’t like sex.  That in the act of childbirth we also push out our sexuality and become boring asexual beings.

Guess what?  I like sex.  I like writing about sex.  I don’t always like my sex vanilla.  I’m also a mother, but that’s just part of my overall identity. My being a mom does not dictate what type of pornography I am attracted to.  Or if it does, it influences me in that I tend to write a lot of characters who also happen to be moms, because I can identify with that at this stage in my life far more than I can identify with a college co-ed.  On the flip side, I’m writing one of Santa’s elves these days and contemplating which fairy tale I want to BDSM up for a submission to a different anthology.

The major demographic for this novel is the same demographic that reads romance novels in general.  Is a Nora Roberts book mommy soft-core porn?  No, it’s a romance novel.  Let’s not diss women who want a more explicit read (and I say that as a fairly big fan of Nora Roberts work, and a long time reader of her work).

Call it fanfic, call it a bad portrayal of BDSM, call it a publishing phenom, but don’t call it mommy porn.

 

Hats off to you, Ms James.  I hope to one day be so lucky.

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A new definition of “surreal”

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Delilah Night

I currently live in Singapore.  It is always in the high 80’s/low 90’s and humid here.  Palm trees and other tropical flora/fauna abound.

I am writing a Christmas story.

It is April.

Surreal.

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My evolving relationship with my breasts

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Delilah Night

My breasts have generally been a disappointment to me.

I remember feeling like the last girl to develop in middle school.  As a plus sized woman, shirts are cut to accommodate a certain figure, and my barely C cup breasts never quite filled out a top correctly, to my eternal shopping frustration.    When the LM was born, breastfeeding just never worked out for a variety of reasons and I was angry with them, feeling as though they had failed me.

Having a successful breastfeeding relationship with the BG has made me re-evaluate my relationship with my breasts.  They are successfully doing the job they are engineered to do.  They are fuller than they have ever been (in which I have to admit I take some amount of shallow joy).

However, this is not to say that all is well and now I love my breast and it’s all rainbows and unicorns and Disney songs over at the DN household.

My breasts now straddle the line between sexual and functional and I’m often filled with ambivalence over this.  On one hand, I enjoy their sexy fullness.  On the other, I’m embarrassed when I’m walking in the mall and look down to find my shirt soaked from leaking (although not embarrassed enough to wear a bra).  They make me feel sexy, but I’m not always comfortable with having my partner or myself sexualize them. I’ve fought for my right to breastfeed publicly and then felt uncomfortable doing so.

Madison Young explored all the controversy and ambivalence over the whole breastfeeding is sexual/isn’t sexual….and was called out for it by another woman.

There’s been plenty said about this dust-up (the Jezebel article is a good place to start if you missed it), and I don’t know that I have much to say that hasn’t been said already (other than I think Young did nothing wrong, I think the concept is brilliant and I wish I’d been able to attend).

However, I’ve been thinking about this controversy a lot lately because I’ve been at war…with myself.  Ironically I had none of this ambivalence or conflict when I was a pumping mom…maybe because my breasts were one step removed from the actual feeding of my baby.  Now that they are directly involved in the relationship (in fact, the basis of the relationship), I find that I’m struggling with my own perceptions of where the line between sexy and functionality is at any given moment and when the line can and should blur.

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Touched Out

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Delilah Night

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.  The husband had to work late, and I was home with the girls.  The baby, at 4 months, is hardly a handful…but the 3 year old can be another story entirely.

I rigged a game of Candyland to ensure a speedy end once I’d announced that bedtime was imminent, after the game was over.  I had barely settled her and gone out to the living room when my husband got home.

I was surprised that instead of feeling happy that he was home….I felt a frisson of disappointment.  Part of me had been gearing up for an hour or two of alone time before ending the evening with my partner.  While I was happy to see him, and had been missing him…I felt a little cheated of “me time.”

I recognized this feeling from my last go-round with the newborn period.  The sensation of being “touched out.”  I love that the LM is affectionate and loves to climb in my lap and give me hugs and beg for “Mommy ups” (to be picked up and hugged tightly) and so forth.  I love that I’ve managed a successful breastfeeding relationship with BG.  I love that my husband is still attracted to me physically after almost 7 years together and 2 children.  But there are days when I all I want is NOT to be touched, hugged, pulled on, climbed on, breastfed from, and so forth.

Yesterday I took that “me time” by making my husband dinner.  Yes, it’s a total cliche…but I love to cook, and the kitchen is my domain.  Making food for my loved ones makes me happy (most days…) and as I prefer to cook alone, it also serves as a place where I get that touch-free time.  By the time dinner was ready, I was more than happy to hang out with him and watch the Daily Show online.

Feeling touched out is normal.  It’s hard not to read too much into it, especially if you’re a first time mom.  One of the perks of second time parenthood is that it’s easier to identify those transient feelings, and to acknowledge them, and to deal with them constructively (most of the time).

 

In other news…the book is out!  Go buy it!  Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples!  (And, yes I do see the irony of pimping my story about sex after kids in a post about feeling touched out…)

Filed under: Parenting, Post-partum sexuality, Published, Writing | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Supporting slutwalk and what it has to do with breastfeeding

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Delilah Night

It wasn’t until today that I realized the reason I’m so nervous about breastfeeding in public is that I’m scared of being slutshamed.

Slut shaming is when a woman is made to feel as though she’s been inappropriately sexual when she hasn’t been (among other definitions, but when discussing breastfeeding, this is the right definition to use).

If you want to see negative comments about breastfeeding in public, you only need read any article about it or a board that mentions it.  Someone will inevitably accuse the mom of wanting to flaunt her breasts, of her finding sexual enjoyment from “exhibitionism”, misunderstandings about how much breast is actually exposed, and so forth.  Asking a woman to cover up implies that she’s doing something wrong, that she needs to hide her breasts from the licentious eyes of the men around her, lest she inflame their lust…it is slut shaming.

As a mom who supports the rights of women to breastfeed publicly, and without a cover if that is their or their baby’s preference, I support slutwalk.

I attended slutwalk in Singapore with BG and the LM.  They were the only children there, and sure, both were too young to know what the day was about, but they were there.  As they grow older I’ll have to explain the knife’s edge dance all women do when it comes to sexuality…walking the line between frigid and slutty, madonna and whore…but at least when I do, I can also tell them that they’ve been fighting against that since the inception of slutwalk, and their mother even before that.

This?

Is not sexual.  Is not pornographic.  Is not dirty.  Is not shameful.

I’m not covering up, and you can’t slut shame me into doing it.

 

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When your kid doesn’t care where babies come from…

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Delilah Night

The LM was fascinated by the idea that I had a baby in my uterus.  She was curious (ish) about how the baby was going to come out.

She never once asked me how the baby got in there.

I will admit to being a bit deflated over this as I had my sex positive, age-appropriate answer all ready to go.

But just as sometimes our kids will ask us a question we are not prepared to answer, sometimes they’re not going to ask a question you are prepared to answer.  The struggle is to know when to push to have a discussion and when to let it go.

The LM just turned three, so I’m okay with her lack of interest in how the baby got into my uterus.  If she were five or six, I might have made a point of asking her if she had any questions about how the baby got into my uterus or what she knew about how babies get into a mommy’s uterus.  With an older child, I might use a pregnancy as a jumping off point for a discussion about safe sex and having children when you want them.

If your child hasn’t asked you about sex, think about how old they are and question where they ARE getting their information from.  Because chances are it’s probably full of misinformation.  When I taught sex education to middle school students, I heard plenty of old myths that persist; you can’t get pregnant your first time (yes, you can), you can’t get pregnant when having your period (rare, but not impossible depending on your body’s fertility cycle, if it’s a true period as opposed to breakthrough bleeding, etc), and so forth.  Knowledge is power, and it’s important to arm your child with age appropriate knowledge.

For now, it’s enough that the LM knows that babies grow in a woman’s uterus, that they can come out through the vulva or sometimes a doctor has to cut into the Mommy’s uterus (BG was a C-section so it was a necessary discussion) to take the baby out, and that they can drink milk from a bottle or from Mommy’s breasts.  When she’s ready, we’ll bring up how her baby sister got there.

 

Filed under: Parenting, Pregnancy, Talking to your kids about sex, Toddlers | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

Failing at having sex

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Delilah Night

I’m feeling a sense of deja vu.  I’m almost certain I’ve written this post before, after the LM was born.  But what I’ve said before bears repeating…it is OKAY to “fail” at having sex.

Yesterday was my “six week” check-up, and I was thrilled to have been cleared for sex.  Between being put on bed rest after having pre-term labor, and how lousy I’d been feeling prior to that, it had literally been MONTHS since I’d had penetrative sex.  While I am a loud and enthusiastic supporter of alternative forms of intimacy between partners, it had been a while and I had a specific agenda for last night.

I may have talked a big game prior, texting my husband things things like how he should have a protein and carb rich lunch because I had high expectations for that night.  But somehow between the errands and the parenting, while I did manage to shave my legs, I ran out of steam.  I’m guessing that my (necessary, if I want chairs for our Thanksgiving party on Saturday) trip to IKEA was what tipped the balance into “far too tired” for me.  For my husband’s part, while his enthusiasm got him home on the early side, he’d had a long day, too…coupled with hurting his foot.

We made an effort, but admitted that we were just too damn tired last night.

When you are a new parent (or a parent at all), there will be times when you want to have sex, you plan to have sex….and you don’t have sex.

Do not read too much into it.  One failure (hell, 5 or 10 of them) doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed.  It has changed (whether it’s your first kid or your 5th), and there are going to be bumps along the road.

When these failures occur, make a point of still being emotionally intimate with your partner and get some good cuddles in…even if you end up cuddling with a baby between you.

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Sasha Grey reads to children, and parents are pissed

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Delilah Night

This is a blog, among other things, about the cross sections of parenting and sexuality.  Usually I’m thinking about maintaining your sexuality as a parent, or talking to your kids about sex.

But the two issues recently intersected in a whole new way when former adult actress Sasha Grey read to a group of third graders as part of the Read Across America project.  She tweeted that the kids had been sweet.  Parents flipped out to the point where the school district tried to denying it ever happened, despite photographic evidence to the contrary.  Now they are saying they will “review” participants in the program more carefully.

Which leads me to think about why the parents were freaking out.  You’d have to be familiar with her work to know she’s a former porn actress.  Which, I would assume, would mean you watch porn.

It’s not like she was reading Penthouse Forum letters to the kids.  Nor was she there on a career day to discuss what the pros of acting in porn.  She didn’t spread her porn cooties.  She was dressed in everyday clothes, not fetishwear.

Parents?  Chill out.

She read a book to a group of kids, promoting literacy.  It’s a GOOD thing.

They weren”t old enough to know anything about her.  NOR would they have likely ever realized anything about her former career had it not become a major news item.  So by making it an issue, you were able to inform all of them (a) what a porn movie is (b) what a porn star is (c) that they’d been read to by one AND (d) made it FAR more likely they’d google her works and be introduced to adult images.

In being so eager to slutshame, to throw stones, those eager to persecute her seem to have been the ones to highlight the very thing they didn’t want their kids to know.

Personally…if she wants to read to my kids…I’d love a break; I can only read “Pinkalicious” so many times before my head explodes.

Filed under: Parenting, Porn | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

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