Ask Dan and Jennifer » erotica

Self Pleasure – Enjoying Erotica on Your Own…

Alicia Night Orchid — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:35:57 +0000

Janie, a bachelorette, travels constantly on business. After a long day of intense sales calls, she retires to her room where she eats alone, checks e-mail, and prepares for the next day’s work.

By the end of the evening, she’s too edgy to sleep and a little lonely. She could saunter down to the lobby bar, but the thought of picking up a stranger has little appeal in today’s world of dangerous STDs.

She could call one of the men she dates from time to time, but doesn’t want to come across as needy. She could watch a pay-for-view movie ADULT movie, but doesn’t want to explain that charge to her employer.

Faced with those alternatives, she often ends the day snuggled up in bed with her laptop. She reads an erotic e-book by a favorite author. With one hand on the keyboard and the other under the covers, she gives herself some well-deserved “personal time.”

Afterwards, she sleeps like a baby.

Nathan and Bri have a great sex life, and Nathan’s as crazy in love with his wife as the day they married three years ago. Even so, he has fantasies of a threesome involving Bri, him, and another woman. In his favorite fantasy, Bri and the other woman begin kissing while he watches.

One thing leads to another and soon the women are naked on the floor, making love. After they’ve driven each other over the edge, the two women turn their attention to him.

So far, Nathan has refrained from sharing his fantasy with Bri, because he knows she’s strictly a one-man woman.

But once a week, when she’s out with her friends, he indulges himself with a box of Kleenex, a favorite lubricant, and a visit to a website featuring erotic stories about threesomes. He prefers the slow build-up and exotic settings offered by the stories to video porn’s bright lights, close-up shots, and predictability.

In the back of his mind, he harbors the hope that Bri will some day turn his fantasy into reality.

Katie and Patrick have been together for four years. They’re in a committed relationship, but Katie has come to realize that she needs more sex than Patrick.

He’s pre-occupied with starting a new business and happy with their twice a week routine. For her part, she’d prefer a trip down the “O” highway every day.

She’s not opposed to a furtive moment alone in the shower or a solitary fling on the day bed before Patrick returns home from work. But what works best for Katie is curling up in front of the fire or in the chaise lounge with a steamy period romance and a favorite vibrator.

She secretly hopes Patrick will find her books and want to see what she does with that vibrator while she reads.

Doing it by the Book

Masturbation, wanking, play time.

Call it what you like, it’s something we all do. In fact, Kinsey Institute research shows that 90 percent of all men over the age of 18 “toss one off” on a regular basis, while 65 percent of all women “rub one out” now and then.

The percentages are lower for married couples, but a Playboy survey found that 72 percent of married men masturbate, while a Redbook survey revealed that 68 percent of married women join in the fun.

Yet, when confronted with these percentages, many people are embarrassed to admit that they aren’t much different from everyone else when it comes to self pleasure.

Furthermore, even if we confess to an occasional personal dalliance, we’re likely to characterize it as a “moment of weakness.” In the words of the old “Seinfeld” episode, we take pride in being “masters of our own domain.”

But the truth is…

How to Enjoy Erotica with Your Partner

Alicia Night Orchid — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:58:54 +0000

Lauren and Will have been together for three years. She works at a law firm where she’s caught her male co-workers checking out her long legs and firm buttocks on more than one occasion.

Will is a commodities trader. He often leaves for the office early and returns home late. He’s known for his boyish good looks and twinkling blue eyes.

When they first started dating, Will was the one who initiated sex, the one who encouraged Lauren to try new positions and do things she never imagined good girls did. She enjoyed it more than she expected.

After they married, sex remained a centerpiece of their relationship, with Saturdays often devoted to exploring and satisfying each other’s urges and desires.

But in the last few months, their lovemaking has acquired a sameness. They’ve fallen into a pattern of straight missionary sex on the one or two nights a week that Will doesn’t fall asleep in front of the TV.

Lauren finds their couplings less than satisfactory. And she’s worried, because now when the guys at the office look, she’s tempted to look back. She’s caught herself fantasizing about that hunky fellow who exercises on his deck across the way. And the other night, she woke up from a dream about her high school boy friend, damp and flushed and too worked up to go back to sleep.

She’d like to talk to Will, but isn’t sure where to begin. She’d like inject a little spice into what’s become “same old, same old,” but is afraid of rejection. Why, the other night when she wore a new black thong to bed, Will didn’t even notice.

Maybe it’s time for a little erotica in this couple’s life.

Erotica: What’s That?

Lauren’s never been turned on by porn videos. Like a lot of women, she’s more threatened than aroused by the carved bodies, pretty faces, and practiced capabilities of the porno queens. So, popping a porn video in the CD player and snuggling up on the couch with Will probably isn’t the best solution.

On the other hand, Lauren remembers how much she enjoyed reading about sex when she was younger. She remembers being stimulated by descriptions of sex between characters she cared about in the context of stories in which she was engaged.

While it’s an overgeneralization, the distinction being drawn is between “porn,” especially video porn, and “erotica,” especially writings about sex. Researchers know that while men are easily stimulated by images of sex, women prefer reading about the down and dirty. The best news is that while men respond more quickly to visual images, they also respond to written erotica.

Especially, when it’s shared with a partner.

Finding What You Like

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The Best Places to Find Erotica

Alicia Night Orchid — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:56:27 +0000

Sex researchers have known for sometime that while men prefer to seek sexual stimulation from images, women favor reading about love, romance, and sex.

Men are willing to settle for scenes of disembodied sex organs colliding together under bright lights, while women are more likely to enjoy and be stimulated by descriptions of sex between characters they care about in the context of stories in which they’re engaged.

The term “erotica” is often used to refer to these softer images of, and especially writings about sex.

Many women enjoy erotica on their own, which is good news in and of itself. Even better news is that couples can enjoy erotica together as a prelude to sex or as a way to explore sexual activities, fetishes, and lifestyles they’re not ready for in real life.

Where Do I Find It?

Sex stories and novels are easy to find. More challenging is finding quality erotica. By this, I mean erotica that is well-written, with interesting characters, fascinating plots, exotic settings, and really hot sex.

Here’s a guide to finding the really good stuff.

Print Anthologies

Every year, several wonderful print anthologies featuring erotica are published. The most popular of these are “The Best of the Best American Erotica” edited by Susi Bright and “Dirty Girls: Erotica by Women” edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. If you’re worried about buying these books in a public bookstore, all it takes is a credit card to purchase them confidentially and without embarrassment online.

I recommend these anthologies as a good place for couples to begin. They tend to include a sampling of various types of stories including literary, humorous, romantic, and really dirty erotica. You can read various styles and authors to see what really turns you on.

E-Books

Another highly popular source of erotica is e-books. E-books are electronic books, which range from story to novel length. They can be purchased online, typically for a fraction of the cost of print books, downloaded and read on your computer or e-book reader. While taking a laptop to bed with you might have much appeal, some e-book readers are no bigger than a cell phone. You can even acquire “read-aloud” software, so that the words are spoken in a voice you select, allowing for hands and mouth-free enjoyment, should that be of interest to you.

There are several sources of e-books. Ellora’s Cave is one of the more successful e-publishers and sells its books, organized by author and genre, directly from its website. Fictionwise is a virtual warehouse of e-books. You can find erotica titles simply by searching under the key word “erotica.” Lulu is another virtual warehouse offering self-published print and electronic media. Because the work is self published, authors aren’t required to meet anyone’s standards but their own, so quality of packaging and content is a concern. Again, a search under “erotica,” or a particular author’s name, will provide you with a wide variety of choices.

Free Erotica

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Porn vs. Erotica: What Women Really Want

Alicia Night Orchid — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:00:48 +0000

This story is intended for mature audiences only.

Ever wonder why most women hate porn? Then you’ll want to keep reading.

Michael and Chloe go to dinner. The food is sex on a plate—rubbed and grilled, sauced and drizzled, earthy and sea-scented. The wine is warming, causing her face to glow, his ears to buzz.

Afterwards they hit that new club uptown and listen to some great live music. They dance the salsa, swirling and humping, pelvises pressed together in a slow grind. In the car they snuggle close. Fingers entwine, tongues swirl. Hands play on thighs and breasts. Fabrics strain.

By the time they reach home, he’s tenting his trousers. She’s damp and giddy. He struggles to get the key in the door. She presses her hard nipples into his back and fumbles with his belt buckle. She’s ready to be swept off to the bedroom, entered and ravished. He reads the signals differently, thinking this might be the night to try something new.

While she’s in the toilet, he flips on the TV, slips in a CD (“Horny Teenage Tailgunners”), and cues it up. She hears it before she sees it. “Yeah, yeah, give it to me, give it to me.” He pats the sofa next to him. On screen, under bright lights, a heavy-chested tanned man with a penis the size of a baseball bat plunges into a woman from behind. She’s as blonde as California, sports size DD breasts, rock hard abs, and an ass and legs to die for.

Michael’s flushed and horny. Chloe’s threatened, wondering why he’d want this woman instead of her, wondering why he couldn’t just ask for anal sex, if that’s what he really wanted.

Hands on her hips, she admits she was pretty turned on by the first two paragraphs of this article, but finds the porn video more repulsive than sexy. She spins on her heel and heads to the bedroom, locking the door behind her and vowing to herself to dye her hair, get a boob job, and lose ten pounds. He’s left alone with a raging erection, wondering why she’s so uncool.

Images versus Writing

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