Erotic Review Kickstarter

I thought I’d give you a heads up that Erotic Review has a Kickstarter campaign to create a book. ER has a special significance for me as the very first place I published any of my erotica (and that piece, incidentally, is about to be republished by Head of Zeus Press, as I mentioned in previous post).

It’s a free-thinking publication that covers a wide range of stuff – it has erotic fiction, pieces on sexual trends, discussions of social issues related to sex and a whole lot more. It takes erotica seriously, exploring subjects you might never have known existed, through both fiction and factual articles. It used to be a monthly print magazine but a few years ago it shifted to a free online format, supported by its advertising. And the idea of an ER book is an interesting one.

You can see the Kickstarter pitch here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1720724620/er21

And if you want to look at ER itself, it’s at http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/

Have fun!

-F

We’re back

It’s been going on two years since our last post. Surprisingly it looks like all that time, people have been viewing the blog and reading stuff on it, which is pretty cool, and thank you all.

The reason for the long absence is simple. Repeated hospital visits and tests. The kind of discussions with the consultant where you’re advised to put your affairs in order. We went through a long period where blogging wasn’t a priority given what  else was going on in our lives.

What else has happened? Sweetmeats Press published Wanderlust: Five Erotic Tales of Women on the Move. The link is to Amazon UK but it’s on Amazon.com too. It contains a steampunk-influenced story by Fulani. The story is also available individually: Love Gun. Ditto with Amazon.com, it’s there if you look for it. Like many stories it weaves elements of biography with elements that are completely imagined, but you probably don’t need to know that. And it was written in late 2014 before the health thing came up, and the book came out mid-2015.

Upcoming in October 2016 – Head of Zeus publishers in London contacted us to ask if they could include Fulani’s first-ever published erotica, ‘The Phenomenology of the Whip’, in a new collection. Actually it looks like it will be in two separate collections, one themed collection of about 30 stories and the other a complete collection of 100 stories. The news blurb for it is on the Head of Zeus website. The story is exactly what it says in the title. And if you need to know what phenomenology is, Google will tell you it’s ‘

the science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being’, and ‘

an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience

‘.

Fulani’s starting to write erotica again. If anything it’s darker and more offbeat than before, and grounded in issues ranging from modern philosophy to a sharp awareness of human mortality. It may not be the kind of stuff erotica publishers would want to publish. We’ll see in time. Maybe the next blog posts will include extracts.

 

BDSM Fiction and Authenticity

As you’re all aware by now, we write a lot of BDSM fiction. We’ve noticed a lot of concern about the non-consensual writing that’s around being a ‘poor representation of the BDSM world.’ (this came from an Amazon review of another author).

Fiction is fiction, and I doubt this same complaint would be levelled at a murder mystery or a sci-fi novel in which characters are treated badly and not as we would like in an ideal world. What is important, I believe, is that if a story is non-consensual, it is honestly marketed as such. The reason for this is so that newcomers to the scene, many of which learn through reading, (and that’s often fiction), can see the clear boundaries which should not be crossed in reality. After all, you wouldn’t really expect a zombie to stomp round your living room or a vampire bite you, would you?

I have no problem with writers or readers who produce or have fantasies of non-consensual play or sex. What is of more concern is passing those fantasies off as acceptable sex or BDSM practice.

We try in our stories to make these things clear. My fiction is always consensual, primarily because non-consensual is too far off my radar and I wouldn’t be able to write it convincingly as a result. Fulani stretches the boundaries a little more, but always makes this clear for the reader so they can make an informed choice.

What we are proud of is the inclusion in our fiction of safety awareness. I like to include some details of things to be aware of, such as characters having some way of communicating their hard limit if gagged. A safeword of course cannot be used when gagged, so characters are given a ball or something similar, which they can drop to alert their dom to stop the play. I feel it is important that anyone thinking of tying someone up, making them helpless and creating pain for them should be very aware of their responsibility to that person.

This has all come from personal experience. I know how it can feel when someone does something to you that you did not want to happen. I know how it feels for someone to try and push you to use your safeword, thinking this was the way to play. It is not. Safewords are intended to STOP play for whatever reason. For either the sub or the dom, a safeword is just that. A word to use to keep you safe. And that means safe physically, mentally or emotionally. It is used in extreme situations and not as a goal for the dom to reach. A responsible dom would set up a scenario in which he/she could PLAY at pushing a sub beyond their safe limits, but not as an aim in reality.

There are types of BDSM play a few people wish to indulge in that are not safe, such as choking, or breath play, which can result in death long after a session due to heart attack or stroke caused by the interruption to normal heart rhythms. There is no doubt that breathplay ranks among the more dangerous practices in BDSM, and infosar as you may find a little of it in a few of Fulani’s stories, you’ll also find commentaries in the text that make those dangers crystal clear.

So, reader beware. Ensure you realise that what you read in fiction is not always acceptable BDSM practice. Nor is it always a fair representation of the BDSM world any more than crime novels always accurately depict how detectives work.

Playing with themes

Yes, the page looks different. We’re refreshing content and playing with WordPress themes and layout.  Bear with us, it will all be much better in a few days’ time…

Happy Bisexuality Day!

Bisexuality day poster

Unashamedly copied and pasted for all of us bisexuals today! Hope it’s been a good one for you.

Here’s where the poster came from

We’re back

We’ve been away and now we’re back, having covered, roughly speaking, 1,000 miles in 8 days. It was pretty full-on though not particularly fetish-related. Lots of little things we did and places we saw, and conversations we had, worked on our imaginations in ways that could easily find their way into stories at some later date. Give us a few days…
Fulani came back to an email announcing that an interview he did with Renaissance Sizzler for their blog came out while we were away – you can read it here (opens in new window). The interview includes a teaser for Hanging Around (link opens in a new window), his collection of BDSM stories based in a somewhat bohemian/artistic subculture. Renaissance Sizzler published it a couple of months ago.
Meanwhile, here’s a pic taken at a campsite: it was on the side of an old campervan that was in pristine condition but seemed to be either stored on the site, or possibly used by the owners themselves. We liked it, anyway. Or identified with it, or something.

Trailer Trash

Fire Flogged!

Following Fulani’s post about our holiday, I’ve been asked what it feels like to be flogged by fire. I wonder how people guessed I might know the answer to that? It’s an interesting question. Of course, we take thorough precautions when playing with fire, and have an extinguisher ready, as well as lots of cold water to treat any burns with, a first aid kit and my own first aid trained Fulani. I have to strip, as clothes could cause serious burns if they caught alight. Don’t try this stuff if you don’t know what you’re doing, please. A recent domestic accidental burn has left me even more careful as the pain was ridiculously high and has left a nasty scar.
What does it feel like? Well, an ordinary flogger is quite thuddy and hard, but a fire flogger is surprisingly lightweight. When used correctly, it hits the skin very quickly, and for this reason, believe it or not, doesn’t hurt. It’s an interesting experience. You feel the flogger, and feel the heat, but it glances over the skin so fast that, although I have in the past been convinced that there would be marks or burns, fire flogging has never damaged my skin or even left a red mark. I am so confident I’ve recommended to friends to try it. One of those friends is in the pictures in the last post. He loved it! You feel a stingy glow and of course the excitement (biggest BDSM tool being the brain) work wonders. We have been known, after doing a demo, to disappear for a while on our own. Over to your imagination now!

VelvetTripp

Getting on with things

We haven’t been posting as much as usual on here over the last few weeks. We’ve been getting on with other things that have turned out to be a little time-consuming.

Fulani wrote a novella. Currently being considered by a publisher, we’ll see how that goes.

He also, bearing in mind we’re at a pagan camp for the next few days, got round to making a firewhip. Pagan camps is where we do bits of fireplay and we wanted something new this time. Frankly, we were going to buy a firewhip but the companies we tend to use for fire performance equipment were out of stock.

It looks crude, because it is, but it does crack. Loudly.

Hone-made firewhip

Apart from that we have things we’re used before: the fire flogger and the fire rope. If you want to see older pics of these things in use, they’re on a post ‘Playing with Fire’ we did back in January (opens in a new window). We should have some new pics in a couple of weeks…

The flogger is the only one of these things that can be used on actual humans, of course. And while it’s scary for the person being flogged, the logic of it is that the flames brush across the skin so quickly, because it has to spin fast, that the heat is much less significant than the sound of flames roaring as it travels through the air and the whole headspace of having it done. Once the thing is alight, you have to keep it spinning otherwise anyone holding it will get their hand burned off. For the person being flogged, hair, obviously, does need to be wetted down (on fact we usually damp down the skin as well) and long hair kept well out of the way…

The rope is far to large and unwieldy to be used in play, though it does make for pretty pictures. And the whip should, in theory, not just crack but send a small ball of fire off the tip when it cracks. Again it’s for performance rather than play. Probably.

Home-made fire flogger

Fire rope

Safety stuff. We don’t use these things without a good space (usually around 10 metres) between ‘performer’ and anyone watching, and we do have a safety spotter and fire extinguishers to hand. If necessary we wet down the ground where the things are being used as well. These are not toys for playing with anywhere other than outdoors with a lot of space around.

Apart from that, we’ve been out and about doing fun things at clubs, and playing at home since Velvet decided we no longer need a separate guest bedroom (she kept cracking her shins on the corner of the bed, so it’s been replaced with a fold-out sofabed) and cleared room in there so it could come back into use as a private playspace.

Oh, and Fulani did write at least the first part of a story based on the fact it’s now the music festival season. But you’ll have to go to his other blog to read it – called ‘The Museum of Deviant Dreams, on the Fulanismut blog (opens in new window). Maybe the second part will get written while we’re away…

Happiness is…six of the best

We were chatting over the weekend. Of course everyone is different (thanks goodness) and we wondered, having watched a hackneyed movie quoting what happiness is…what is it in Sexual or BDSM terms? Here are my six of the best.

Happiness is…anticipation of a play session
Happiness is…fire and ice. First candles, then ice cubes. Whilste spreadeagled to the bed, of course.
Happiness is…the nipple clamps coming off!
Happiness is…three forced orgasms in a row
Happiness is…curling up in my dom’s arms when he releases me from my bonds
Happiness is…falling asleep with the rope marks and feelings still on my body.

Don’t be shy. what are your six of the best. We’d love to know…..comments please

Contract for Sex At Work

I had an email this morning. It was from my publisher (Xcite Books uk) or .com for a short story I wrote last year and which is due to be published, I believe, around March time. I had to laugh. The subject line of the email relates to the theme of the collection my story will be in which is Sex At Work. So the subject line actually reads ‘Contract for sex at work’! Wonderful. I wish I could get a permanent contract like that. License to have fun or what? The mind fairly boggles at the thought. Would any real work get done under a contract such as this? Would anyone be sat at their desks or on the shop floor (giggle – they might, but with a contract like that what would they be DOING on the shop floor?). Ideas on a postcard please (or in comments). We’d love to hear from you. Happy new year and I hope your sexploits this year are all happy and memorable ones.

Velvet Tripp