Showing posts with label Sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sex. Show all posts
Killer Covers
Great collection of vintage crime paperbacks from KILLER COVERS. Many high resolution images. Lots to see. Check out their archive and dig into the older posts. Companion blog to RAP SHEET a news and features resource for crime-fiction fans.
" ... He was that good at it!"
"Women paid for him-- Fought for him-- Even begged for him... He was that good at it!"
Best Sex Writing 2010
Edited by Rachel Kramer BusselCleis 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
Brilliantlove
Directed by Ashley Horner
Pinball Films
Pinball Films
Manchester is taking a photograph of his girlfriend Noon. She’s asleep. He develops the film while she naps and goes outside to lay on a dingy blanket on the gravel driveway that leads to their makeshift garage-turned-apartment. Did she consent to being documented? No one seems to care. When Noon wakes up, she goes outside naked and has sex with Manchester in broad daylight.
A seemingly enviable hipster couple sequestered from the world in their own squalid little space, it doesn’t take long for things to go south. While Noon stays home preparing taxidermy birds, Manchester gets drunk at a local pub and leaves behind his snapshots of her nudity, their lovemaking. Found a bit too conveniently by a local art dealer who then spends an inordinate amount of time tracking the couple down, Manchester’s amateur, low-light snaps are sold and catapult him to fame, complete with praise for his non-technique—“just a willing girlfriend,” he insists. Not surprisingly, their idyllic, secluded, grungy love is ruined by Manchester’s brush with fame and having their privacy traded as consumable art.
Based on the filmmakers’ obsession with objectifying Noon’s ass in every possible shot, with making her the sexual object in nearly every supposedly erotic scene, it’s painfully obvious that the production team is almost exclusively comprised of men. Should the audience be pleased to see female masturbation, so rarely depicted in film, or should we be revolted by the popsicle prop in one scene, that Noon is accidentally hit in the face with the camera during sex, that physical pleasure seems to trump self respect? Brilliantlove isn’t so much a meditation on love, desire, and intimacy as it is degrading soft-core porn with a bit of art world skepticism thrown in for good measure.
I also have to wonder whether this is just a hipster wet dream. Does someone think, "I can just leave these trashy photos in a bar and find fame?" At a time when it’s hard enough to control any aspect of your privacy, I’m so unbelievably unimpressed by the lack of ethics, trust, and respect displayed by Manchester. I also wonder why, within a framework of already shaky ethics, Manchester’s consent was sought at all, or why these photos weren’t just uploaded to the Internet (which is striking absent from the film, as is bathing, eating, and pre-porn employment).
Brilliantlove could have been really interesting. It could have relied on actual character development, on normalizing passion, on queering the perceived normalcy of (hetero)sexual relationships. For many, there’s obviously a big difference between sex and love, and my issue is not with this dichotomy. Rather, this is just one more film made by an all-male team unwilling (or unable) to depict thoughtful, engaging intimacy between two enthusiastic, willing partners.
Both my male partner and I were genuinely disgusted while watching it, barely able to force ourselves to finish it; desperate to cleanse our mental palates, we popped in an innocuous film to chase the memory of this damaging one. If disliking this film makes me sex-negative or some other hip third wave feminist label I deem more judgmental than useful, so be it. This film is a voyeuristic, hedonistic, male gaze fuck fest. Watch at your own risk.
Going Down: The Official Guide to Cunnilingus
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The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage
By Roxana ShiraziIt Books
The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage, written by Iran native Roxana Shirazi, was a complete and utter waste of my time. The book was championed by writers Neil Strauss and Anthony Bozza, who met up with Shirazi one faithful day and immediately became enthralled by her tails of debauchery with bad up and coming rock ‘n’ roll bands, as well as some oldies, but not so goodies like Guns N’ Roses. Appetite for Destruction never did anything for me musically or otherwise, but apparently the mere appearance of Axl Rose was enough to give Shirazi “gushing orgasms” as a teenage girl and her sexual fantasies about him set her on her path to groupiedom.
I’m not surprised that two men would be impressed by a book in which an otherwise intelligent woman makes a fool of herself by revealing that she’s let musicians piss on her and has had sex while so wasted that she threw up on one of her many partners for the night. According to these boys, “This was a woman who was not a victim, but who made rock bands her victim—and she got off on pushing them to extremes that made them uncomfortable.” Did these guys read the book? From what I could tell, it didn’t take much coercing to convince the men to degrade her, and a person who’s completely at ease with their lifestyle isn’t prone to nervous breakdowns, depressive episodes, or the need to constantly be wasted, as was detailed by Shirazi.
It’s apparent that this book is meant to shock, but I found nothing shocking about it. Shirazi, who calls herself a feminist, defends her use of the word slut before her story begins. I don’t care about her use of slut; it’s not offensive to me in any way. What is offensive, however, is attempting to pass this book off as a heroic piece of writing by a fun and carefree young woman who happens to have a penchant for wild nights and rock stars. If anything, this book just verifies that being a groupie is a lifestyle often chosen by women with low self-esteem.
The first portion of the book details the author’s childhood in Iran where she was a “child basked in gunfire, Islamic law, and sexuality.” Raised mostly by her mother and grandmother, Shirazi was abandoned by her opium addict father, molested and raped by neighbors, and beaten by her step father. It seems to me that these are the kinds of things that shape a young woman.
Having suffered through similar circumstances, I can attest to the fact that burying the feelings that result from these occurrences only sets you up for disaster once your sexuality is blooming and your childhood has left you with the impression that men are supposed to hurt, yell, hit, and take anything they want from you—even when you say no. It seems absurd to me that Shirazi doesn’t make the connection in the book that her feelings as a child, a belief that the abuse she suffered at the hands of men was her own fault, was the most likely reason she grew up and allowed herself to be further taken advantage of, almost as if she felt like she deserved it and that it was her duty to be the thing that men used to get off.
What’s wrapped up to look like a fun package, a carefree romp in the hay, is actually a very depressing book that often reads like a bad romance novel. (“I don’t understand how Stuart found the energy and ability to fuck me so masterfully all night, nor how his testicles were able to produce such a huge amount of sperm.”) Shirazi is disparaging of other women, often only describing them in terms of their weight, makeup, clothing choices, and ability to be fucked by second rate rock stars. You get the impression that she’s the type of person who thinks calling another woman fat or ugly is the biggest insult that can be hurled.
If anything was shocking about The Last Living Slut, it was the author’s implication that the rockers she is sleeping with are fulfilling her “hunger for a free-spirited life, for breaking the rules, for laughing, for knowing the meaning of it.” If fucking teenage boys in bad bands and has-been rock stars in worse bands is the meaning of life—and the new face of feminism—I better bow out now.
Review by Tina Vasquez
The Carrie Diaries
By Candace BushnellBalzer and Bray
Sex and the City the television series ended six years ago. One might find this hard to believe, considering the characters and the lavish lifestyles they live have been far from gone in the mainstream media. The latest installment in the SATC enterprise is The Carrie Diaries, author Candace Bushnell’s young-adult novel that introduces audiences to Carrie Bradshaw as they’ve never seen her before—seventeen, virginal, and unsure of how to fulfill her dream becoming a writer. The young Bradshaw struggles through adolescence the same way her adult self struggled through her thirties, and with just as much, if not more, wit and insight. It’s easy to see how Carrie became Carrie as Bushnell chronicles a very real, and entertaining, teenage experience using the skills we’ve come to know her for: realistic dialogue, relatable, yet flawed, friendships; and capturing the excitement and emotion the first moments of love.
As a feminist scholar and critic, and an advocate for girl-friendly media, I was plagued by very familiar annoyances in the reading. Although adult Carrie admits in SATC (season four, episode seventeen) that her father left when she was a toddler, Bushnell posits high-school Carrie as the eldest of three girls being raised by their father since their mother died a few years earlier. Although a single dad raising three young women is certainly an alternative to the status-quo, it is not more or less feminist than a mother working full time and raising three daughters. And in the case of the latter, it provides something very important missing in both fiction and film—positive female role models.
The debate over Bushnell’s characters and their choices has been raging since the debut of the original series. In The Carrie Diaries, the author offers her own feminist commentary that is neither subtle, nor convincing. In a chapter dedicated to Carrie’s discovery of feminism, the twelve-year-old visits her local library to see her mother's favorite (fictional) feminist Mary Gordon Clark speak. The young Bradshaw is chagrined by the woman’s gruff and judgmental manner, leaving her to ponder “How can you be a feminist when you treat other women like dirt?” An excellent question, though I’d be interested in asking Bushnell “Why all feminists must be represented as angry, elite meanies?”
Unlike her adult counterpart, whose friendships offered support, honesty and resilience in the face of obstacles, the high school Carrie is surrounded by a group of friends that are competitive, highly emotional, or just plain bitchy. Her most passionate moments include falling for a narcissistic but gorgeous guy who eventually cheats on her with her best friend, developing her voice as a writer with the support of the Brown-attending George, and eventually being published in the school paper, with the help and support of the paper’s editor—her friend’s boyfriend.
As lover of pop-culture and an advocate for media literacy among the youth, especially girls, I was encouraged to find the positive elements of a story that will surely resonate with a large audience. Although Carrie’s mother is absent in reality, she is ever present in the lives of her daughters, all of which are struggling to maintain her legacy while evolving into who they will be as individuals. The biting yet quirky humor that endeared me to Carrie on SATC punctuates the tensest moments in the novel as Carrie offers teen-appropriate insights like, “Funny always makes the bad things go away.”
Unfortunately, comparing the young Carrie to the character she became on the series leaves me no less than disappointed. The Carrie created here comes out an evolved and matured being, moving forward into the next phase of her life, something that was remiss of her character when the SATC series ended, and further exacerbated in the following two films. In fact, I’d favor a film version of The Carrie Diaries over both SATC films.
Review by Alicia Sowisdral
Girl Parts
By John M. CusickCandlewick Press
I almost wrote realistic fiction for the category on this book—and it's basically about robots. I know that's a weird start to a review, but that's how I felt about the book. This story is about the Internet age and how it's keeping people connected online... but totally separate in real life. One company decided that the way to cure alienation for the many boys who waste their days online was to create a girl for them! A really hot, really devoted girl.
At first, my feminist sense started going off when I heard the premise. I mean, all a boy wants is a chick to love him? Really? That's all it takes? Surely there's a lot of fallout from that whole idea. And that is what Girl Parts is about: the fallout for one guy and his Companion.
I felt a little better about the idea when all of the problems started showing themselves pertaining to the idea of a robot girlfriend. I'm still a little bothered that there's no dude for the girls who spend way too much time online. I mean, we all know those girls exist (I'm trying not to look in a mirror), so it's hard to believe this company decided to only make girls instead of both sexes. But that's just me, I guess.
One of the reasons Girl Parts feels like realistic fiction is that it deals mostly with relationships and how people create and maintain them. I really liked seeing how all of the different characters interacted with each other. You see each of them from several different viewpoints, which makes the whole thing fit together really well and gives a more complete view of the characters.
I wish Girl Parts were a little longer because I feel like there were some things that could have been hashed out a little more. You get a really unlikely friendship toward the end and I would have liked to see more of how that worked out.
Despite being labeled as Young Adult, I think the subject matter is described in enough detail that it shouldn't be read by middle grade kids. It's a bit too graphic for them. For lack of a more in depth explanation, there's a bit sexual content. Oh, and some drug use as well. Just FYI.
Review by Emily @ The Ninja Librarian
Happiness Runs
Directed by Adam Sherman
Strand Releasing
I sat through this eighty-eight minute monstrosity two and half times. And the question that I’m still asking myself is, “What the fuck?”
Set sometimes during the eighties, Happiness Runs is the semi-autobiographical story of its tyro director. Happiness Runs centers on Victor (Mark L. Young), a teen who is desperate to escape from the hippie commune that he was born into. His terminally ill, inexplicably wealthy, and utterly disinterested mother (Andie MacDowell) has been brainwashed into single-handedly supporting the commune by Insley (Rutger Hauer), a creepy self-proclaimed “guru” who has impregnated most of the women on the compound. When Insley isn’t hypnotizing his narcissistic adherents into complete submission, he is training Becky (Hannah Hall) to serve as a sex slave. Due to Insley’s indoctrination, Becky has become a drug-addicted promiscuous mess, having sex with nearly all the boys in the group.
Victor, deeply in love with Becky, resents her naïve embrace of “free love” and repeatedly begs her to run away with him. To complicate matters, Victor’s mother absolutely refuses to give him any money. Because Victor doesn’t seem to understand that he can support himself by finding a job, he drifts from wild party to wild party with the other children in the cult, even half-heartedly drug-dealing, an enterprise which the adults hypocritically disapprove of. Due to their early exposure to drugs and sex, the children are all incredibly damaged, escaping the anger over parental neglect with varying forms of self-destructive behavior.
Just like a lot of movies with a “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” theme, the women of Happiness Runs are routinely objectified. There are several instances of full frontal female nudity—the exposed female bodies juxtaposed with male bodies that are always covered with at least boxer shorts, if they aren’t completely clothed. The men and boys routinely use the women sexually, an attitude that the women seem to encourage. Becky is referred to as “everybody’s girlfriend,” not seeming to understand that the males in the commune aren’t automatically entitled to access to her body. She even goes so far as to climb into Victor’s bed, saying, “You can do whatever you want to me.” The fact that Rachel (Laura Peters), the only girl in the bunch inclined to call the boys out on their disrespectful attitudes, is the “ugly” one that none of the boys seem to want is another slap at the women’s liberation movement.
And Happiness Runs marries sexuality and violence in an especially disturbing way, with no fewer than three shots of Becky’s nude body covered in blood. (Becky also gets her hip thrown out during a bout of passionate sex; an event that amuses the boys to no end.) It’s been a long time since a film managed to offend most of my feminist sensibilities. Then again, it’s been a long time since I saw a movie this bad.
I know I’ve spent entirely too much time critiquing the lifestyle choices of the characters. Unfortunately, this movie is so threadbare that I can’t adopt the Oscar Wilde standpoint of not concerning myself with the morality of the characters. The plot and character development are virtually non-existent. The pacing is slack with performances ranging from anemic to downright wooden; none of the actors are skilled or experienced enough to convincingly play world-weary addicts. The dialogue is so vapid and elliptical that it will put even the most committed viewer to sleep. And the cinematography is uninspired. And, like many movies centered on impressionable drug-addled subjects, Happiness Runs repeatedly sinks into surrealistic dream sequences, over-relying on the visions’ hallucinogenic quality to drive the story.
Please don’t waste your time with this one, kids. This movie sucked.
Review by Ebony Edwards-Ellis
Strand Releasing
I sat through this eighty-eight minute monstrosity two and half times. And the question that I’m still asking myself is, “What the fuck?”
Set sometimes during the eighties, Happiness Runs is the semi-autobiographical story of its tyro director. Happiness Runs centers on Victor (Mark L. Young), a teen who is desperate to escape from the hippie commune that he was born into. His terminally ill, inexplicably wealthy, and utterly disinterested mother (Andie MacDowell) has been brainwashed into single-handedly supporting the commune by Insley (Rutger Hauer), a creepy self-proclaimed “guru” who has impregnated most of the women on the compound. When Insley isn’t hypnotizing his narcissistic adherents into complete submission, he is training Becky (Hannah Hall) to serve as a sex slave. Due to Insley’s indoctrination, Becky has become a drug-addicted promiscuous mess, having sex with nearly all the boys in the group.
Victor, deeply in love with Becky, resents her naïve embrace of “free love” and repeatedly begs her to run away with him. To complicate matters, Victor’s mother absolutely refuses to give him any money. Because Victor doesn’t seem to understand that he can support himself by finding a job, he drifts from wild party to wild party with the other children in the cult, even half-heartedly drug-dealing, an enterprise which the adults hypocritically disapprove of. Due to their early exposure to drugs and sex, the children are all incredibly damaged, escaping the anger over parental neglect with varying forms of self-destructive behavior.
Just like a lot of movies with a “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll” theme, the women of Happiness Runs are routinely objectified. There are several instances of full frontal female nudity—the exposed female bodies juxtaposed with male bodies that are always covered with at least boxer shorts, if they aren’t completely clothed. The men and boys routinely use the women sexually, an attitude that the women seem to encourage. Becky is referred to as “everybody’s girlfriend,” not seeming to understand that the males in the commune aren’t automatically entitled to access to her body. She even goes so far as to climb into Victor’s bed, saying, “You can do whatever you want to me.” The fact that Rachel (Laura Peters), the only girl in the bunch inclined to call the boys out on their disrespectful attitudes, is the “ugly” one that none of the boys seem to want is another slap at the women’s liberation movement.
And Happiness Runs marries sexuality and violence in an especially disturbing way, with no fewer than three shots of Becky’s nude body covered in blood. (Becky also gets her hip thrown out during a bout of passionate sex; an event that amuses the boys to no end.) It’s been a long time since a film managed to offend most of my feminist sensibilities. Then again, it’s been a long time since I saw a movie this bad.
I know I’ve spent entirely too much time critiquing the lifestyle choices of the characters. Unfortunately, this movie is so threadbare that I can’t adopt the Oscar Wilde standpoint of not concerning myself with the morality of the characters. The plot and character development are virtually non-existent. The pacing is slack with performances ranging from anemic to downright wooden; none of the actors are skilled or experienced enough to convincingly play world-weary addicts. The dialogue is so vapid and elliptical that it will put even the most committed viewer to sleep. And the cinematography is uninspired. And, like many movies centered on impressionable drug-addled subjects, Happiness Runs repeatedly sinks into surrealistic dream sequences, over-relying on the visions’ hallucinogenic quality to drive the story.
Please don’t waste your time with this one, kids. This movie sucked.
Review by Ebony Edwards-Ellis
The Killer Inside Me
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
IFC Films
The song "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" sums up all Jim Thompson’s oeuvre. When he wrote his novels (mostly in the '50s) they were rightly regarded as violent misogynist twaddle. It was only after his death that certain misguided critics mistook his nihilistic, bad-day-at-the-abattoir style for art. Thompson’s writing has all the literary merit of pissing your name in snow. Like Mickey Spillane, he saw two kinds of people in the world: bad men and the women who love them. The mistake director Michael Winterbottom makes (in his new adaptation of The Killer Inside Me) is to believe Thompson’s worldview teaches us anything apart from bad taste.
In a dusty, nowhere little town in Texas, a young sheriff likes to beat women. He was raised to be bad, by his no-good daddy and his paedophile half-brother. Even his babysitter was a sadomasochist. Now, cloaked by his badge of office and spurred-on by legal impunity, he plots the death of a rich boy who manslaughtered his sibling. Since we’re in Jim Thompson-country, he can’t just kill the rich boy, of course. He must kill a few chicks along the way (because he’s bad and women want him, badly). He’s got two women in his life: a good girl and a whore (one girl, if you read Freud). They both worship him enough to inspire hate, and to turn him on to murder.
I shut my eyes when Casey Affleck beat Jessica Alba to death. Even listening for a minute was tough. This scene, which has stirred the critical backlash against the movie, is true to Jim Thompson’s lurid vision, but watching it doesn’t tell us much. In interviews, Michael Winterbottom has argued that ultra-violence is moral, because it’s unattractive to most people. The trouble is: it’s only unattractive to moral people. (Wife-beaters love watching women get punched in the face.) Does Winterbottom think we’re under some illusion about what beating a woman to death looks like? Jim Thompson wasn’t a feminist, for Pete’s sake. He wrote what he wrote because lurid violence sells. His work only seems insightful because psychos have so few thoughts. Pity the man who wants to see women battered.
As the sheriff, Casey Affleck has a coward’s smile. His signature look—like Ben Affleck if he’d killed somebody—is used to good effect here. He’s got eyes that seem to die on people. His voice is permanently curled into his throat, waiting to be kicked. Everything about him is wounded. Unfortunate women think he’s “vulnerable.” Men mistake him for a servant. But both ways of seeing him look like weakness from his point of view. His wounds aren’t there to be healed, or to be used against him. He’s long past that. His wounds are, in fact, the only reminder there is that he was once a child. For him, feelings are what he fakes, the way a hunter baits a trap.
There’s no such complexity to the women’s roles. (The old action movie maxim: “Any woman is superfluous to the plot unless naked or dead” was probably invented by Jim Thompson.) Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson do their best, but their roles are pretty much confined to the bedroom (or the grave). They are the women who’d sing "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)". Every woman in Jim Thompson’s fiction has a taste for male dominance and bloodshed disguised as sex. The only difference between a murder scene and a sex scene for Thompson is that his killers actually enjoy murder. Sex might be hot for these guys, but it’s always foreplay to death.
There is an audience for this kind of thing. In the '50s—hell, for most of human history—men wrote violent misogynist twaddle, and people lapped it up. As in rap lyrics today, there’s a supposed authenticity in boy-on-girl spite. But woman-haters are all liars. And not even interesting liars at that. Misogyny is the thinnest veil for self-doubt. Women are everywhere, after all. How big a man’s fears have to be to encompass an entire sex! (So big they dwarf him.) The makers of The Killer Inside Me know their anti-hero is a personality void, so they accentuate violence, like real misogynists. This can’t hide the littleness of the man, or how empty the movie is.
Review by James Tatham
Cross-posted at Movie Waffle
IFC Films
The song "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" sums up all Jim Thompson’s oeuvre. When he wrote his novels (mostly in the '50s) they were rightly regarded as violent misogynist twaddle. It was only after his death that certain misguided critics mistook his nihilistic, bad-day-at-the-abattoir style for art. Thompson’s writing has all the literary merit of pissing your name in snow. Like Mickey Spillane, he saw two kinds of people in the world: bad men and the women who love them. The mistake director Michael Winterbottom makes (in his new adaptation of The Killer Inside Me) is to believe Thompson’s worldview teaches us anything apart from bad taste.
In a dusty, nowhere little town in Texas, a young sheriff likes to beat women. He was raised to be bad, by his no-good daddy and his paedophile half-brother. Even his babysitter was a sadomasochist. Now, cloaked by his badge of office and spurred-on by legal impunity, he plots the death of a rich boy who manslaughtered his sibling. Since we’re in Jim Thompson-country, he can’t just kill the rich boy, of course. He must kill a few chicks along the way (because he’s bad and women want him, badly). He’s got two women in his life: a good girl and a whore (one girl, if you read Freud). They both worship him enough to inspire hate, and to turn him on to murder.
I shut my eyes when Casey Affleck beat Jessica Alba to death. Even listening for a minute was tough. This scene, which has stirred the critical backlash against the movie, is true to Jim Thompson’s lurid vision, but watching it doesn’t tell us much. In interviews, Michael Winterbottom has argued that ultra-violence is moral, because it’s unattractive to most people. The trouble is: it’s only unattractive to moral people. (Wife-beaters love watching women get punched in the face.) Does Winterbottom think we’re under some illusion about what beating a woman to death looks like? Jim Thompson wasn’t a feminist, for Pete’s sake. He wrote what he wrote because lurid violence sells. His work only seems insightful because psychos have so few thoughts. Pity the man who wants to see women battered.
As the sheriff, Casey Affleck has a coward’s smile. His signature look—like Ben Affleck if he’d killed somebody—is used to good effect here. He’s got eyes that seem to die on people. His voice is permanently curled into his throat, waiting to be kicked. Everything about him is wounded. Unfortunate women think he’s “vulnerable.” Men mistake him for a servant. But both ways of seeing him look like weakness from his point of view. His wounds aren’t there to be healed, or to be used against him. He’s long past that. His wounds are, in fact, the only reminder there is that he was once a child. For him, feelings are what he fakes, the way a hunter baits a trap.
There’s no such complexity to the women’s roles. (The old action movie maxim: “Any woman is superfluous to the plot unless naked or dead” was probably invented by Jim Thompson.) Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson do their best, but their roles are pretty much confined to the bedroom (or the grave). They are the women who’d sing "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)". Every woman in Jim Thompson’s fiction has a taste for male dominance and bloodshed disguised as sex. The only difference between a murder scene and a sex scene for Thompson is that his killers actually enjoy murder. Sex might be hot for these guys, but it’s always foreplay to death.
There is an audience for this kind of thing. In the '50s—hell, for most of human history—men wrote violent misogynist twaddle, and people lapped it up. As in rap lyrics today, there’s a supposed authenticity in boy-on-girl spite. But woman-haters are all liars. And not even interesting liars at that. Misogyny is the thinnest veil for self-doubt. Women are everywhere, after all. How big a man’s fears have to be to encompass an entire sex! (So big they dwarf him.) The makers of The Killer Inside Me know their anti-hero is a personality void, so they accentuate violence, like real misogynists. This can’t hide the littleness of the man, or how empty the movie is.
Review by James Tatham
Cross-posted at Movie Waffle
Sex and the City 2
Directed by Michael Patrick King
New Line Cinema
Allow me to save you $8. Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, and on occasion, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.
SATC was always only about a certain type of woman, despite attempts to make Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte into everywoman. But the friendships between the protagonists felt universal. And as cartoonish as the individual characters could be, I saw pieces of them in the women around me, if not in myself.
Then I got older. So have the characters in SATC, but the franchise’s male creators aren’t quite sure what to do with women over forty. And so they have taken four flawed but generally likable women and made them repugnant.
Charlotte’s chirpy childishness—always a little icky—seems gross coming from a twice-married woman with two children. Carrie’s self-centered flakiness and drama-whoring is exhausting. Samantha and Miranda are unrecognizable—Sam having gone from an independent woman in charge of her sexuality to a desperate caricature fighting to hold on to her youth (Note: Chris Noth, who plays Mr. Big, is two years older than Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha. Interesting that Samantha is portrayed as fading, while Big still gets to be…well…Mr. Big) while Miranda quits her job because the new partner at the firm is a sexist jerk. No fight. She simply gives up, which seems completely out of character.
SATC was never as feminist as it was made out to be, but now it seems as un-empowering and pandering as a those pink “girl” computers by Dell. And when the fearsome foursome arrive in the Middle East, privilege, racism, and ignorance meet in an unholy trifecta. Here is what we learn:
All you need to know about Arab countries, you have already learned in Aladdin. If you have a Jewish married name, do not use it on a trip to Abu Dhabi. In an Arab country, be sure to wear expensive clothing reminiscent of the aforementioned cartoon. (Two words: gold harem pants.) Arab men are either frightening crazy-eyed religious fundamentalists or hot menservants. (By the way, it is not at all creepy to accept the services of said hot, brown menservants, and if one such manservant is gay... jackpot! Two new accessories for the price of one! Refer to him as Paula Abdul.)
No woman ever follows the tenets of Islam by choice; all women who wear abaya or niqab are oppressed and secretly want to be white, wealthy, American women who wear revealing couture. Arab women who are not oppressed may be bellydancers in Western-style nightclubs. It is feminist to travel to Muslim countries and expose yourself, simulate fellatio on a hookah, grab a man’s penis in a restaurant, and possibly have sex on a public beach. If you are trying to communicate in an Arab country and cannot find the right words, saying “lalalalalala” will get your point across.
Now, I am sure there are those who will say that I am thinking too deeply about a movie that is meant to be a bit of fluff. For you, I will share that SATC 2’s problems are not all about the portrayal of women, privilege, race or religion. Before any of those things pricked my nerves, I was already sighing at the films stilted dialogue, awkward group dynamic, hackneyed situations, and corny jokes that beg for a sitcom laugh track. And then there was the spectacle of seeing Liza Minelli performing “Single Ladies.” Yes, Liza with a “z” sings Beyonce with a “B.”
Review by What Tami Said
This is an abbreviated version of Tami's review. The full review can be read here.
New Line Cinema
Allow me to save you $8. Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, and on occasion, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.
SATC was always only about a certain type of woman, despite attempts to make Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte into everywoman. But the friendships between the protagonists felt universal. And as cartoonish as the individual characters could be, I saw pieces of them in the women around me, if not in myself.
Then I got older. So have the characters in SATC, but the franchise’s male creators aren’t quite sure what to do with women over forty. And so they have taken four flawed but generally likable women and made them repugnant.
Charlotte’s chirpy childishness—always a little icky—seems gross coming from a twice-married woman with two children. Carrie’s self-centered flakiness and drama-whoring is exhausting. Samantha and Miranda are unrecognizable—Sam having gone from an independent woman in charge of her sexuality to a desperate caricature fighting to hold on to her youth (Note: Chris Noth, who plays Mr. Big, is two years older than Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha. Interesting that Samantha is portrayed as fading, while Big still gets to be…well…Mr. Big) while Miranda quits her job because the new partner at the firm is a sexist jerk. No fight. She simply gives up, which seems completely out of character.
SATC was never as feminist as it was made out to be, but now it seems as un-empowering and pandering as a those pink “girl” computers by Dell. And when the fearsome foursome arrive in the Middle East, privilege, racism, and ignorance meet in an unholy trifecta. Here is what we learn:
All you need to know about Arab countries, you have already learned in Aladdin. If you have a Jewish married name, do not use it on a trip to Abu Dhabi. In an Arab country, be sure to wear expensive clothing reminiscent of the aforementioned cartoon. (Two words: gold harem pants.) Arab men are either frightening crazy-eyed religious fundamentalists or hot menservants. (By the way, it is not at all creepy to accept the services of said hot, brown menservants, and if one such manservant is gay... jackpot! Two new accessories for the price of one! Refer to him as Paula Abdul.)
No woman ever follows the tenets of Islam by choice; all women who wear abaya or niqab are oppressed and secretly want to be white, wealthy, American women who wear revealing couture. Arab women who are not oppressed may be bellydancers in Western-style nightclubs. It is feminist to travel to Muslim countries and expose yourself, simulate fellatio on a hookah, grab a man’s penis in a restaurant, and possibly have sex on a public beach. If you are trying to communicate in an Arab country and cannot find the right words, saying “lalalalalala” will get your point across.
Now, I am sure there are those who will say that I am thinking too deeply about a movie that is meant to be a bit of fluff. For you, I will share that SATC 2’s problems are not all about the portrayal of women, privilege, race or religion. Before any of those things pricked my nerves, I was already sighing at the films stilted dialogue, awkward group dynamic, hackneyed situations, and corny jokes that beg for a sitcom laugh track. And then there was the spectacle of seeing Liza Minelli performing “Single Ladies.” Yes, Liza with a “z” sings Beyonce with a “B.”
Review by What Tami Said
This is an abbreviated version of Tami's review. The full review can be read here.
Seven Minutes in Heaven: Coming Out!
Directed by Courtney Trouble
Reel Queer Productions
**This video is not in the least bit suitable for work!**
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.
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.
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
Pleasure Me Purse Kit
To get it in the open and out of the way: the item’s name, Pleasure Me Purse, is a command to someone else. While the purse is awesome, it could be a downer for someone who expected something along the lines of a Pleasure Myself Purse.Good Vibration’s Pleasure Me Purse Kit comes with a waterproof Magic Touch Bullet Mini Vibrator, a deliciously scented Mini Heart-Shaped Rub Me Massage Bar, .5 ounces of crème brûlée flavored Devour Me Lickable Body Oil, and a sample of Please Cream Lubricant. While the “purse” itself seems hardly big enough for lipstick and an o.b. tampon, the contents are so varied, and in some cases so multipurpose, one would be hard-pressed to try them all out in one evening (or one morning, or one really exciting afternoon).
In small quantities, the crème brûlée body oil can be great, and opening the miniature bottle can fill a room with its potent scent, which I might have first guessed to be waffles and maple syrup. When dabbed strategically and appropriately, the oil turns ordinary old oral into a tasty treat. As my partner jokingly put it, “I really like that stuff. It made you suck my dick like a delicious lollipop.”
I have mentioned in a previous review that I ask a little more of my vibrators than a gentle shake–which is, of course, what one gets from the small toy included in this kit. It gets tired after five minutes of use, and the low intensity vibrations alone are what bring me to warn all the single ladies: you may be better pleasured by a different bag. That said, if you’re not doing everything yourself, the little silver buzzing bobble can be a lot of fun in more places than one (hey-oh!).
The .17 oz sample of the cream lubricant is really more than enough for a single use. The packaging boasts that it is “water-based, glycerin-free, long-lasting, [and] moisturizing,” which is probably all true, but it was difficult to tell when adding it to what I already had going on naturally. However, in a very weak post-coital study of the cream’s longevity, I did get bored rubbing it between my fingers for what seemed like eternity. This I take as a good sign.
The mint chocolate scented massage bar was definitely my favorite and seemed to go over well with my partner. The heart-shaped bar melts easily by touch and smells good enough to eat (in fact, we were sort of hoping we could eat it). Besides smelling awesome, giving and receiving a massage can be a really nice addition to the usual sexual repertoire, and fosters a sense of intimacy beyond coitus itself.
Overall, if you’re already accustomed to utilizing lotions and vibrators with a partner, then this little purse packs a lot of variety and excitement. If you’re new to sexual accoutrement, it’s a compact way to see what you’re into. Definitely make sure your partner is willing to try it out, and allow yourself the options of both liking something that you may have previously thought weird or disliking it even if it’s supposed to be sexy.
Review by Tatiana Ryckman
Erotic Poems
By E.E. CummingsEdited by George James Firmage
W.W. Norton
Love, sex, and springtime are fundamental themes in E.E. Cummings’ lifetime body of work, and in Erotic Poems, editor George James Firmage brings together pieces by Cummings’ that are especially sexual, exalting of fertility, and written in a voice that is at once fresh and wise, evocative of the dumb yet utterly precise instinct to procreate.
These poems, and the line drawings (also by Cummings), were selected from the poet’s original manuscripts and are diverse in their eroticism, tone, and form. Representing a spectrum of sexual desire, thought, and impulse, the poems range from humorous to romantic, graphic to tender. Some are raw, even violent, while others are philosophical, and still others are playful but intelligent. My favorites led me to laugh, delighted by both the humor and the poetic genius in the verse, or else moved me to a deep sentimental ache at the beauty and tragedy of love and the existential anguish in its inevitable loss.
A particularly evocative poem entitled "ix." has a dark shadowy edge evoking the violence of both desire and of life itself, as well as a melancholy awareness of eventual extinguishment of life. It begins:
nearer:breath of my breath:take not thy tingling
limbs from me:make my pain their crazy meal
Then climaxes with:
flower of madness on gritted lips
and on sprawled eyes squirming with light insane
chisel the killing flame that dizzily grips.
And finally concludes:
thirstily. Dead stars stink. dawn. inane,
the poetic carcass of a girl.
This is not your run-of-the-mill erotica! From the sound of the words themselves to the use of unconventional syntax and spacing, the poems in this collection wind up to a climax after following a cadence that varies in texture, from rocky to sinuous.
Perhaps my favorite poem, because it hit me so squarely in the heart, is "vii." After the lovers have made love and:
all the houses terribly tighten
upon your coming:
and they are glad
as you fill the streets of my city with children.
Resting now, the lovers embrace, and it is Cummings' description of the melding of their bodies and hearts that, for me, so poignantly captures the sense of oneness between them:
you are a keen mountain and an eager island whose
lively slopes are based always in the me which is shrugging,which is
under you and around you and forever: i am the hugging sea.
The line drawings are themselves poetic, expressive, and emotional. Their style is reminiscent of Egon Schiele, Chagall, Picasso, and the deco illustrative style of the 1920s. (Interestingly, Cummings worked as a portrait artist for Vanity Fair magazine from 1924 to 1927.) The drawings are a great complement to the poems, as each holds large and complex movement, lovers' limbs and torsos twisting and twining around one another, floating in passion.
The book itself has been beautifully and simply executed; when I took Erotic Poems out of its mailing envelope, I had the sense of receiving a valentine. Its white cover is sparely punctuated by rose and black text and a shadowy crease evocative of the furrow at the center of an open book, or the entry point in clean white sheets ready to be mussed. The fashion in which the poems are headed—with non-sequential Roman and Arabic numerals—didn’t make much sense to me, but that wasn’t really a problem. There were poems that seemed to continue into one another and a few that could work as a triptych. While this may not necessarily be intentional on the part of the poet or the editor, it is indicative of the streaming and deeply subliminal nature of Cummings’ poetry and this collection in particular, which reveals the interior erotic landscape of both body and mind.
Review by Matsya Siosal
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