Best Sex Writing 2010

Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Cleis Press

As a fairly obsessive sex educator, S&M activist, and informal researcher, I didn't expect Best Sex Writing 2010 to make me think nearly as much as it did. I'd imagined it as an anthology that would hit all the usual bases and say the usual sex-positive things: Sex work should be decriminalized! Open relationships can work! Fetishes don't have to terrify us! Women deserve to be promiscuous, if that's what we really want, and we must be empowered to say no to sex too!

The first few essays struck me as par for the sex-positive course—though extremely well-written. Indeed, my favorite essay in the book is the sixth (of twenty-five), an absolutely brilliant work by gay escort Kirk Read that made me want to close the book and start selling sex on Craigslist. Still, it didn't actually challenge any of my current preconceptions, it just made me want to cheer.

But then the book surprised me. As editor Rachel Kramer Bussel explains on the anthology's website, "I want writing about sex that makes people think about it in a new way, that confronts sex and sexual stereotypes, that opens people's eyes, that says things people might find uncomfortable." This even applies to perverts like me, I suppose. The chapters that unsettled me most weren't the explicit ones, but rather the ones that don't align with my ideals of positive sexuality: as openly and carefully communicated, for example, or negotiated with an eye to egalitarian ideals. (No matter how extreme the power differential when a gentleman friend whips me, I approach the relationship itself on an equal footing.)

I felt most grossed out by Michelle Perrot's essay on her upcoming affair, in which she writes: "I don’t want an open marriage, where you and your partner agree that you can have sex with other people. I don’t want hurt feelings and jealousy, all the inevitable trouble that would come with such an arrangement..." but then notes that she's discussed the idea of cheating with her husband, and that "if one of us were to have sex—just sex—with another person, we’d just as soon not know."

In other words, Perrot refuses to style herself as one of those open relationship people—and let's not even get into the stereotypes in her description thereof—because having a tacit agreement with your husband that both of you can sleep quietly with other people isn't an open relationship. Huh? At the same time, Perrot published the essay under a pseudonym "to protect her marriage," which would seem to indicate that she's not actually sure about her husband's consent after all.

I don't mean to pick on Perrot, whose essay was quite well-written and gave me a lot to ponder. My point is that Best Sex Writing 2010 has something for everyone, including material to make a jaded sex theorist think twice. It lacks political sensibility by missing some important bases (e.g., trans people, polyamory, and people outside of the US) and makes one or two truly odd editorial choices. (Why on Earth is Mollena Williams' essay on race play, a fetish so transgressive that it unnerves most people even within permissive S&M communities, placed before Betty Dodson's much gentler memoir that could serve as an introduction to S&M? Are we trying to blindside and horrify the newbies?)

Still, lesbians and sex work and sex education and sex biology and safer sex all appear; S&M is comes up a surprising amount, and even manliness gets a mention. Most importantly, Best Sex Writing 2010 is a genuinely layered and challenging book.

Review by Clarisse Thorn

Seven Minutes in Heaven: Coming Out!

Directed by Courtney Trouble
Reel Queer Productions


**This video is not in the least bit suitable for work!**

Courtney Trouble, the creator of Seven Minutes in Heaven: Coming Out!, is one of the hottest new directors of queer porn. After creating No Fauxxx in March 2002—a website with 150 models, twenty videos, and a free social networking community—Trouble started making full-length queer porn videos. She has also been in a few porn films herself, which she says adds to her respect for those in front of the camera. To date, she has ten feature films available.

Seven Minutes in Heaven is the first film of a three-part series of “reality porn,” unscripted amateur porn where the participants get to choose partners, sex toys, and chat about their experiences. It is set up like a wild slumber party night, with scenes being fueled by those timeless junior high games, spin the bottle and truth or dare, though these versions definitely end up in a lot less awkward and a lot sexier scenarios then making out sloppily in a closet! The truth or dare sequence leads to some brief food play and some of the hottest group sex scenes in the film. Seven Minutes in Heaven was nominated, like many of Trouble's films, for the 2010 Feminist Porn Awards.

I liked the parts where participants talked about their experiences or discussed certain issues, like sucking cock and having it be your first time in a porn—though at times the conversations dragged on a little long and were a bit too reminiscent of the familiar reality television confessionals, leaving a viewer feeling like they want the action to get going already! A lot of new queer porn films, including this one, have real musicians add to the soundtrack, which I think is a cool idea in theory. Seven Minutes in Heaven included Purple Rhinestone Eagle, Jenna Riot, DJ European DJ, and Diamond Beats. However, when it comes down to it, I don't generally feel like there truly is good porn music. The way I see it, if you barely notice it, that's probably the best. This soundtrack, at times, sounded pretty riot grrrlish, though that might be a turn-on for some!

The inclusion of S&M and kink was prevalent throughout, though pretty mild with some role play, flogging, gagging, fisting, and a few moments of knife play. There was definitely a lot of use of sex toys, mainly vibrators; a crop; and a good amount of dildo use for some steamy fucking and lessons on sucking. Many times there were multiple scenes going on at the same time, though you could only hear or get a glimpse of the indirect scenes, which definitely spiced things up.

Though the cast wasn't super diverse, it is always refreshing when there is a variety of real-sized bodies. Also of note was the use of safer sex; gloves and condoms were utilized throughout. Since there is generally not a lot of sex education oriented towards queers, I was glad to see a film where it encourages the notion that safe sex can be both easy to do and not make sex play any less erotic.

Seven Minutes in Heaven: Coming Out! has a lot to offer, and scenes get better and better as the film progresses and the participants get more comfortable with each other. Watching this film certainly made me very curious to explore Courtney Trouble's other films. If they are as appealing as this one, I would say she deserves all the credit she has coming her way.

Review By Lesley Kartali