"5 Types of Women Men Go For" and other Internet Articles

I can’t help myself. The fact that you clicked on this link to read this blog means you’re just like me. Admit it.

The Internet is rife with articles about how to interview, how to know if he’s really into you, what it means when she wears certain clothes. I’m hooked. Cannot resist collecting these things.

But, I have an excuse. Several in fact. I write blogs about relationship sorts of stuff. I tweet daily (@RomanceRighter), and I maintain my Angelica French Facebook posts. Oh, and I write erotic romances. So that’s why I collect this stuff. I use it!

One article I’ve been hoarding for a while is “5 Types of Women Guys Go For” (http://bit.ly/10TlGdT). How could I not have been drawn to it?

In this article, you are given character sketches--for free--of women to include in your stories! How cool is that? I mean, think about it. You read the description and come up with some questions about plot lines and BINGO! A book!

Let’s try one. But first, here are the five types:

Type #1: The older woman

Type #2: The woman who’s “just one of the guys”

Type #3: The free spirit

Type #4: The intellectual

Type #5: The seductress

Here’s my process:

Remember I’m into Crone Lit. Old rules!

So, Type #1: The older woman is described as a sophisticate who’s been places, seen things, and done lots more. She knows who she is and what she wants. She can act as a mentor to both younger men and women helping them gain perspective on life. Being desirable isn’t an age but a way of being. A man needs to find ways to please a woman who isn’t looking to start a family.

After listing the traits from the article, I generate questions for me to answer:

What has she accomplished? What are her goals at this time of life?

Is she looking for love? What gives her the greatest satisfaction?

For conflicts, I can contrast her with male or female characters who are opposite her goals and accomplishments.

Then to the what-ifs:

What if a woman who just lost her husband and son met a man on a cruise who looked like her son but acted the opposite?

What if this guy is oblivious to her curiosity about him?

What if he is attracted to a younger woman who is so wrong for him and the older woman wants to save him?

What if in the process of distracting him they discover a mutual interest?

And so on.

After that, list your ten key events and build out to 35-40 scenes from them. 

Your turn! How would you exploit the remaining four types? Comments?

Carrie's Top Ten Sex Tips

So how does Carrie keep Harlan’s interest? After all, this guy LOVES having sex often in varied ways with various partners. Can he maintain the monogamy he promised to try at the end of STREETWALKER?

Here’s how Carrie plans to ensure that he does.

Carrie’s Top Ten Sex Tips

10. Think sex before having sex. It gets the juices going.

9. Talk dirty in your partner’s ear while s/he loads the dishwasher.

8. Don’t just not say “no” to sex; initiate a romp, and often.

7. Put naughty notes in a lunch bag for a real “happy hour” after work.

6. Rent a XXX movie and act it out while it plays.

5. Pretend sleep, but display yourself as an invitation to follow “up” on.

4. Wake him as a “midnight rider” and straddle him until he bucks back.

3. Boot the TV out of the bedroom.

2. Leave a note sending her to a bar. Pick her up & get it on in a motel room.

And Carrie’s #1 Sex Tip for a healthy, happy sex life . . .

1. Laugh with your partner in bed, not at him/her. Humor signals good sex.

What are your tips? Please share in the comments section so all of us have happier, healthier sex lives!

Dating--Again

I hear from my friends that the dating scene is no more fun now, in fact, much worse, than our angst-ridden teen times. Holy cow!

And to hear some tell it, it is much, much worse. There is still the appearance-thing, the confidence-thing, will-he-call-me thing, and the how/when-do-we-escalate-this thing. Those anxieties are givens at any age. But for adults, it’s also complicated by the who-pays-for-what thing and who-gets-the-door thing. Honest.

When Lil’ Bro began dating again after his wife died, we had many a talk. His date wanted to pay sometimes. She wanted to open her own door if she happened to be there first. Stuff like that. He had some out-moded notion (well, he hadn’t dated for 40 years) that guys were supposed to do it all. I told him it was the 21^st century and to get with the program.

Sure, it’s nice to open the door of the restaurant, but not if it’s awkward reaching around and nearly crushing her to get to it first. Let her open the damn door. She’s not that delicate, I hope. I open the door if I get there first, and then let the other person--male, female, indeterminate--go through. That is common sense. And polite.

Same with paying. Why, why, why should guys always have to fork over the cash? Especially with women of a certain age (ahem, my friends, I mean). They’ve got enough money to pay for their own food. So splitting the cost or alternating paying makes perfect sense. It also has the benefit of signaling that the woman is not for sale. Getting between my legs is going to cost more than dinner, Fella.

An interesting thing about all this is that the woman must initiate the discussion about date responsibilities. Sadly, if a guy says, “You pay tonight”, women, paradoxically, think he’s being cheap. No, we have to do it because we are weird that way.

Sex for Sale, Book Two in the "Sex Sells" Trilogy

I have been working on my erotic romance, Sex for Sale (tentative title), the sequel to Streetwalker. It will be the second book of the trilogy, “Sex Sells”. My plan is to have it off to my editor, Sascha Illyvich at Sizzler Editions before the clock tolls a new year.

I am finding it hard to limit this book. I want so much to happen to set up Book 3, but I know I am being unrealistic. I should just bite the bullet (Do you love the cliché, Sascha?) and move a bunch of stuff to book three. Or not?

Here are the 10 key events for Sex for Sale. Please chime in if you have ideas for other complications/characters/plot lines. The more the merrier (Just for you, Sascha)!

1) Carrie and Harlan have settled into a conjugal-sans-legal commitment, new for both of them.

2) Carrie’s mother shows up and Carrie deals with her baggage from childhood.

3) Harlan has withdrawn more and more from the whore house business to focus on his photography, a talent Carrie encouraged him to develop, but Carrie resents having to carry (!) the business on her own.

4) Carrie develops new products and new delivery modes which Harlan tries to squelch. They include DikMilch, a skin cream made from cum; art gallery with a restaurant with prurient foods; on-line services while clearing out the in-house services, etc.

5) Bored and feeling neglected, Carrie takes up with a fellow who is an undercover Vice cop. She inadvertently implicates Harlan and herself in criminal activity.

6) Laurel comes back into their lives. She tries to snare Harlan but is rejected after an aborted sexual encounter. She turns to the D.A. and makes a plea bargain deal that implicates Harlan but clears her.

7) Laurel engages in risky sex play leading to her death; Harlan is a major

suspect.

8) Harlan is arrested. His mother is gravely ill. His sister tells him to come clean to mom about his work so he can move on with his life and resolve his commitment and sexual issues.

9) Harlan is cleared of Laurel’s death.

10) Carrie wants more than Harlan does from their relationship, but he is inching toward marriage. Meanwhile, Carrie and Harlan recommit to their relationship and turn to legal ways to make money using sex. They sell their brownstones and buy a condo overlooking Central Park.

Would you read a story like this? What’s missing? Do you believe a sex addict and a prostitute can make a go of it? Stay tuned!

Writing Erotic Folk/Fairy Tales for Fun and Profit

You might be surprised to learn there is a whole cadre of writers of erotic folk and fairy tales. It’s sort of like the old Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show’s “Fractured Fairy Tales” taken up a few notches.

I mean, really, just think what you could do with plot line like Sleeping Beauty. Horny young prince comes upon sleeping maiden. (How does he know, by the way--whether she’s a maiden? After all, once you know for sure, then she isn’t!) What to do, what to do? He takes liberties, of course. And she awakens gladly into his arms. Riiiight! Not in real life. She’d be ticked off. And then the fun begins.

Then there’s the matter of Snow White (sure she is) living with seven guys. Cozy, eh? Sounds like a case of nymphomania, to me. Wonder if she likes it in ménage or if she just takes them on one at a time? Does she give each Dwarf his own day or does she have favorites she pops more than once a week? And how about the “equipment”? I’ve heard--never had direct experiences--that the dwarves weren’t dwarf everywhere.

If you like your folk tales spicy hot, check Annie Eppa, A. Violet End, Selena Kitt, Cerys du Lys, Adriana Hunter, Elizabeth Black, Nadia Wilde and others. It is a field that just keeps attracting more and more erotica writers.

How can I resist? I’ve always loved folk tale variants, so here is the start of one of my erotic folk tale books. When I finish it, you’ll know!

SCARLETT IN THE HOOD

by

Angelica French

CHAPTER ONE

    Prince Wolfe leaned his back against the headboard and pulled Nana to his chest. His fingers trailed down her arm and her shiver rubbed her nipples deeper into him. She watched his eyes as she moved again, pressing into his hardness.

    “Whoa, Girl!” Prince held her back. “Let a guy rest, will ya? Damn. I thought I scratched that itch. You’re one hot woman, you know that? But if you want to play some more . . .”

    He pushed her head lower, and shifted himself so she could find what she looked for.

    “Rinnnnggg. Rinnnnggg.”

    Nana looked up, annoyed at the interruption. “Damn phone.” Nana leaned across Prince, draping her breasts on his legs. “Hello?”

    She listened to the response. She mouthed “my daughter” to Prince as she looked over her shoulder. She pushed herself upright, and held the phone close to her mouth and gave a big cough. “No, Honey. It’s not really better. I told you before, I don’t think we should get together tonight. I’d better rest. I’m in bed now.”

    Prince smirked as he reached over and tweaked a nipple.

Streetwalker Excerpts

Here are two teasers from my erotic romance, Streetwalker, out August 1 from Sizzler Editions. I hope you go to Amazon and download your copy onto your Kindle after reading a bit about Carrie and Harlan. The book opens with a decision point for Carrie:

“Oh, Baby! Oh, yeah, Baby. Oooh, oooh, yeah, oooh. Unhhhhh!” The dock worker held her down while he screamed his release, his hot breath redolent with beer. The smell of diesel fuel on his hands sickened her, dandruff showered her face from patches of thinning hair as he hard-rode her, pinning her shoulders to the thin mattress. The biting jab of aching muscles meant she’d be swallowing another Flexeril after he left. Her skin split where his broken fingernails dug in. He threw back his head and jerked into her two more times before he collapsed, the bulk of him spilling onto the space on either side of her body.

Long ago, Carrie learned to go to “not here” during sex. She tolerated the body pumping into hers if she went somewhere else.

She looked down at his greasy hair covering her tits. She restrained herself from lifting off the dead weight of her John. She knew the rules. He initiated the withdrawal of his limp cock from her pummeled body. He owned her for the remainder of his fifteen minutes. Nine minutes to go.

She waited, still beneath him, afraid her stirring would get him going again. While waiting out her time, she rehearsed the steps of her escape from this hellhole of a whorehouse. After tonight, if it went as planned, everything would be different. No. More. Fucking. Ever. Ever. Again.

Later on, Carrie is telling Harlan about her past. She finds herself attracted to him but fighting that feeling:

Carrie convulsed and her laughter sputtered out. "Only you, Harlan, would worry about SPF levels when you take a girl on a picnic. I love you," then realizing what she had said, she tacked on, "like a brother. Oh, God, no. Not like a brother," remembering her past a beat too late. "Like ... a business partner."

He shook his head. "That's better. I do not want you thinking of me as a brother!"

If you wonder what the book is about, here’s the blurb:

Carrie is a smart woman with a dark past and more than her share of heartache. Determined to retire early from hands-on sex work, she uses her skills as an exhibitionist to bargain for partial ownership of a high-end, brownstone bordello in New York City with the erudite, handsome and powerful Harlan Ledbetter.

But even though she's only 22, Carrie's already been in her line of work far too long. Besides the fact that sex has been little more than Work for most of her adult life, Carrie also has to contend with painful memories of abuse at the hands of her stepbrother. Could sexuality ever truly belong to her? Could it ever become something she would want?

Harlan, meanwhile, certainly wants more than a business partnership with this stunning woman – and the feeling may be mutual, if Carrie can let herself want him as much as she fears she does. But she has a long way to go before she can give her heart and body to a man willingly. How will she get there? If there's one thing Carrie has learned, it's how to negotiate. She has a feeling this skill will come in handy with Harlan in more ways than one.

Carrie approaches Harlan with a unique business proposal – one that offers more than just a way to run their bordello, but a whole new outlook on life, sexuality and love. Intrigued, he takes her on...

Streetwalker is Part One of Angelica French's exciting new "Sex Sells" trilogy.

You can buy Streetwalker here:

http://amzn.to/16lT5Xg

Also check out the Angelica French author page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/angelicafrench

The Cover for Streetwalker

I just got this last night, and I am so excited. I am grateful for all the work of my editor, Sascha Illyvich, for Sizzler Editions (an imprint of Renaissance E Books), and my publisher, Jean Marie Stine.

Here is the cover for the first book in my "Sex Sells" trilogy. Streetwalker is coming out late this week and will be available on Amazon for your Kindle.

Carrie is a smart woman with a dark past and more than her share of heartache. Determined to retire early from hands-on sex work, she uses her skills as an exhibitionist to bargain for partial ownership of a high-end, brownstone bordello in New York City with the erudite, handsome and powerful Harlan Ledbetter.

 

But even though she's only 22, Carrie's already been in her line of work far too long. Besides the fact that sex has been little more than Work for most of her adult life, Carrie also has to contend with painful memories of abuse at the hands of her stepbrother. Could sexuality ever truly belong to her? Could it ever become something she would want?

 

Harlan, meanwhile, certainly wants more than a business partnership with this stunning woman – and the feeling may be mutual, if Carrie can let herself want him as much as she fears she does. But she has a long way to go before she can give her heart and body to a man willingly. How will she get there? If there's one thing Carrie has learned, it's how to negotiate. She has a feeling this skill will come in handy with Harlan in more ways than one.

Carrie approaches Harlan with a unique business proposal – one that offers more than just a way to run their bordello, but a whole new outlook on life, sexuality and love. Intrigued, he takes her on...

 

Streetwalker is Part One of Angelica French's exciting new "Sex Sells" trilogy.

 

 

Deep into Edits

I got it! My editor, Sascha Illyvich at Sizzler Editions, sent me edited manuscript for Streetwalker.

My turn now to work on it again. It feels so real now that this is happening. Which is not to say it's easy.

I knew there were two scenes that could cause me trouble. Turns out there were three.

One scene is a retelling of sexual abuse over years of an underage character. That one might fly, since it's a retelling, but the editors will have the final word on it. I consider it critical to defining who the character is and why she did what she did. Can I salvage the intent and lose the explicit descriptions? I don't know. I am still pondering how I'd do it. The horror needs to show through.

Another scene, bestiality, I knew would get bounced. I'm okay with that. I was prepared for it, so I am re-writing it with an auto-eroticism scene featuring Ben Wa balls, two-entry dildo, butt plug, and Sybian saddle. That should do it, plus it is always more fun (for me) to create than to edit.

The third scene was a surprise no-go. Or rather, it needs modification. Who knew rape and torture were no-no's in erotic romance? Sigh. That one can be fixed with an earlier entry (so to speak!) from the hero onto the scene. I think it will lose it's punch, but, hey! Editor, I will do whatever you want!

I did the easy stuff first, word/sentence-level changes. So off to work some more magic so you will have a chance to read Streetwalker sooner rather than later.

Come back for the cover reveal and an excerpt from Streetwalker to get you interested in Carrie and Harlan's story.

Waiting

The life of a writer is filled with episodes of waiting in between periods of frantic composing and revising. No one ever mentioned that in any job description I read.

Write, write, write. Send off to critique group members. Wait, wait, wait.

Revise, write, revise, write. Send off to beta readers. Wait, wait, wait.

Revise, write, revise, write. Send queries to agents and/or editors. Wait, wait, wait.

Write something new. Write, write, write. Still waiting on query responses.

Send something new to critique groups. Still waiting on query responses. Waiting for critique group feedback.

Joy, joy, joy. Send full ms. to agent or editor. Wait, wait, wait.

Let me fast forward here to the signed contract. First draft is being edited. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

This time the wait is different. You’re under contract. It’s going to happen. This time, though, the wait means someone else is deciding what works and doesn’t work, what should be cut, where you need to add material. This time it’s not a critique group or beta reader. This is for real.

I am in the waiting game with editors for two manuscripts. I can’t help myself. I check hourly (for weeks now, mind you!) to see if the manuscript is back on my turf ready for me to take another whack at it.

I am terrified. What if what I am asked to do is beyond my scope? What if I can’t add more dramatic tension or tie subplot lines into the main plot? What if . . .?

So I wait. Not knowing. Worried.

Z is for Zodiac

[Cue music]

The party’s over.

It’s time to call it a day.

 Or, rather, call it a month. This A-Z April Challenge Blog Hop has been fun. I hope you’ll pop back from time to time to see what else I’m up to. And don’t forget: Look for Angelica French’s first novel, Streetwalker, out from Sizzler Editions in a very short while. On to Z!

“What’s your sign?” The classic pick up line from the 70’s has become not so much an icon as a punchline. Sleazy guys in sleazy movies think it a cool way to show the girl at the bar they are interested in her. They often follow it with a line like, “Mine is penis rising.” Har-de-har-har. What a laugh. NOT!

Like any of those sleaze bag guys have ever done any research into the character traits associated with each sign! Now, whether or not you believe in the zodiac and astrology matters not a whit. If you’re a novelist , like me, A LOT of your readers do. Otherwise, the daily paper wouldn’t print horoscopes, and you couldn’t get horoscopes delivered daily to your e-ddress.

To a reader who follows astrology even a little, you can send a message about a character in your story by identifying the zodiac sign. For example, in Mission Impastable (about to be published by Oak Tree Books), Rita is a Cancer. In-the-know readers will figure she is moody and mercurial. They expect her to be very emotional and prickly. She is a clinger who has trouble letting go. I now have a blueprint for how Rita will respond in situations I place her in. See how easy that is.

I have a file in my novels folder on the zodiac and astrological signs: what they mean, who the signs are compatible with, and who they are incompatible with. [Apologies here to Sunny Frazier who writes great zodiac mysteries published by Oak Tree Press. She’s the real deal, and I just dabble in the on-line level of knowing! Seriously, check out Fools Rush In and Where Angels Fear. ]

I refer to the sign charts to find traits for my characters to build consistency of actions and motivations. For example, Cancer is a “personal” sign, meaning she is more aware of and interested in herself than in others. She is always seeking reassurance and secretly wants to feel safe financially, emotionally, and romantically. That segues beautifully into her role and how it plays out in the book.

One question on one of the character interview forms I use with my characters is, “What’s your astrological sign?” This is a great question. How well do you know your characters?

Read the zodiacal descriptors and pick the one closest to your character, then tighten up the character by explicitly including more of those traits in the story action. Be consistent with the trait building and your characters should have interesting interactions with others.

Make your antagonist someone with an oppositional sign to create tension and conflicts arising from opposing strengths and limitations. Make the best friend/ally someone with a compatible sign that helps complete the protagonist. Each can bring different strengths to the relationship.

Another way to use the zodiac is to read the descriptors and start doing character sketches without a book in mind. Getting some great master characters developed could lead to a book problem. What happens when an emotional Cancer and a cool, collected Taurus meet? Can they fall in love? Will they complement one another’s strengths or will they tear one another apart? Are their odds so at cross-purposes they cannot work together?

It’s your book. What will happen? Can’t wait to read it!

Y is for Yin and Yang

Yin-Yang

Yin-Yang. Yin Yang. Yinyang. You’ve seen it written many ways. The symbol is one of the most recognizable in the world. But what in the heck is it about?

As an author looking to create interesting characters, I am always on the hunt for character analysis strategies. [Read tomorrow’s blog for another tool I use.]

First a superficial intro to yin-yang. Yin-yang comes to us from the Oriental religious tradition, Taoism. It was later adopted into Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism.

Yin-yang deals with the two cosmic forces, basic forces, of the Yin (female; moon, some say earth; cold; darkness; absorption; passive) and Yang (male; sun, some say heaven; hot; light; penetration; forceful). You can tell men designed this concept, can’t you?

The yin-yang symbol is the ideal, a balance of the forces. White represents enlightenment and black represents ignorance. So, one could say, in all knowledge there exists ignorance, and in all ignorance there is some knowledge. Now that makes for some interesting book characters!

The dualities exist in real people, but too often we have trouble writing multi-dimensional characters. While in common parlance, folks often equate yin with good and yang with evil, that is not part of the philosophy. Rather, and rightly so, yin-yang is who we are as indivisible entities. Yin and yang are meant as complementary, not oppositional, to one another.

As an author, I have my protagonist. I want her to be a certain way. It’s easy to find her positive aspects. I like her, of course. So her yin, to be believable, should be what is oppositional to her finer points.

Let’s say she is driven to succeed, but she has this procrastination streak when she thinks things will be uncomfortable. She also is caring and supportive, but feels taken advantage of by some family members and is about to cut them off.

Her antagonist, on the other hand, can be quite an interesting foil if his yang pushes things through, forcing her to act when she needs to delay. He could manipulate family members to push her buttons. But his precipitous nature might cause him to make mistakes.

See how one could cast oppositional traits for oppositional characters?

You can do the same thing with characters on the same side. I tried to do that very thing with Carrie and Harlan, heroine and hero in my erotic romance, Streetwalker (published this year by Sizzler Editions). Carrie and Harlan not only have their own yin-yang thing going, but when the two are together, they create an encompassing yin-yang and the harmony completes both of them. At least for a while, until their world is shaken and they need to readjust their elements.

Look at your characters. Are they multi-dimensional? If not, consider how to deepen them with yin-yang. If nothing else, it gives you another interesting topic to present in all those interviews you’ll be giving.

X is for X-Rated: Erotica and Erotic Romance

I did a whole blog post on this earlier, but it has more import now that Streetwalker is about to be released. My family will have a member who writes smut. In their eyes. I’m okay with that. For many people, X-Rated stuff just isn’t what they enjoy reading (though they may enjoy doing!).

 

To me, the range of sexual experiences that partners engage in is varied and incredibly powerful. When I write about those experiences, I write erotic romance. Hey, I’m a farm girl. Sex is normal, natural, wonderful. Why not try to describe its richness?

 

Some call what I write smut. Some call it porn (rather harsh, I believe, for my work).

 

Smut is “obscene or lascivious” writing (dictionary definition). Okay, maybe I write smut--of the lascivious sort (luscious sounding word, that!), but I take exception to obscene. By whose definition? It often comes down to those connotations and denotations of word meaning.

 

I write erotic romance because for me the relationship and the character arcs are the most important parts of the story. The sex is hot and frequent, but it is in service (so to speak!) to the relationship/character arcs. My books have either an HEA or HFN ending.

 

Others write erotica. I have no problem with erotica, though I don’t read as much of it. Because erotica is more about the sexual arc of a character or characters than about the relationship between them, I don’t find it as interesting. There is relationship stuff in the story, but it is subservient to the sex. I, myself, would call the 50 Shades books erotica. You may disagree. Okay.

 

The dictionary also distinguishes pornography for us. Porn is material “intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.” That sounds right.

 

Porn? I find it boring. How many sexual contortions can the author get characters into while displaying a panoply of parts? Ho hum! Not that I find sex boring. Nope. I just love that sexuality is part of the healthy human psyche.

 

We farm girls make good sex partners! X-Rated??? Pretty much anything goes! Yee haw!

W is for Window

“The eyes are the window to your soul.” (attributed to Shakespeare, Da Vinci, English proverb, and countless others!)

 

“Rear Window” (the Jimmy Stewart movie)

 

“Window of opportunity.” (comes from the space program who coined “launch window”)

 

     Etymologically, the word window is from Old Norse vindauga, “wind eye”. (Can you hear how that morphed over the years to “window”?) Apparently, they cut holes in the roof for ventilation and light. The wind eye eventually was covered with glass, but it retained its original name.

     Now that does help interpret better the phrases this post began with.

     A window is a sign of trust. People can see in. It’s not as solid as a door or wall. It invites exploration beyond the location of the viewer.

     And is that true of your soul. Do your eyes invite people in to explore who you are, what you value, and what aspirations you have?

     In “Rear Window”, Jeff (played by Jimmy Stewart) is a wheelchair-bound photographer. He is drawn into the drama being played out in an apartment across the way as he observes the occupants. A photographer has a special eye or way of seeing, so I’m sure that choice of occupation wasn’t coincidental. The window tableaux engrossed him so that the events in others’ lives became more concrete than those in his own. His window, looking into their window, was the eye to the souls and secrets of strangers.

    On a whole other tack, the expression, “window of opportunity”, demonstrates how windows open up possibilities, options, and, well, opportunities. The window allows a vision of what could be, especially if acted upon quickly. This phrase implies an urgency of decision-making, a pressure to act.

     In the books we write, authors use metaphors and phrases (sometimes even the tired, trite ones) because they communicate much in a short burst. The eyes are often highlighted in descriptions because humans notice them so much. The urgency to act quickly and open windows to possibilities is behind much of the plotting.

     Are there phrases you see being incorporated in your stories or the stories you read?

V is for Virgin

WARNING: This post contains controversial content that some may find offensive!

“Virginity is over-rated in American culture”, says Angelica French, renowned expert on all things love because she has been dabbling in it for decades!

In some cultures, premarital sex was ordinary practice in order to determine the fecund fitness of the virginal vessel. After all, propagation of the species ensured survival for the greatest number in the tribe. So kick the tires, take her out for a test drive. If she’s fit, impregnate her ‘til she drops.

It appears we can, in part, thank the Puritans for putting the big kibosh on sex for fun. Because, let’s face it, those tribal guys probably didn’t mind the requisite checking out the goods. (Not saying it was that much fun for the girls, however.)

Along with that came a lot of other restrictions--modesty (vastly overrated in my opinion); abstinence except for procreation (crazy, people’s urges clearly indicate a sex drive beyond procreation or we’d be like dogs with seasons to be in heat); and, just general elevation of the female body to untouchable status.

The Catholic Church didn’t help either, so let’s not put it all on the Puritans. Sexual purity also came down with the whole virgin birth thing that was formally adopted in 649 A.D. That was more than a few years after everybody involved was long dead! So much for fact-checking!

I took classical Greek in college. For fun. And it was. One of the things you learn when you study any language is that translations are tricky. Was something big, huge, gargantuan, or merely large? See how gradations of meaning can affect how you understand the message?

Well, the Greek word translated as “virgin” was parthenos. Parthenos meant unmarried, not necessarily virginal. Of course, many of the unmarried were virginal, but . . . you see where I’m going.

I never understood the big deal about why Mary had to be a virgin. So what? The accomplishments of her son were the important thing, along with the message for how to live our lives. Why the clutter around how He was conceived? I just don’t get it.

To this day, virginity is valued by societal norms, but not necessarily by people. Sexuality is a huge and important part of the human experience. If some choose to wait, that’s cool. But don’t diss others who might make a different choice, following their own natural urge to couple. (Interesting word, that.)

It is our society that has extended childhood so that what was normal in the past at puberty has now become forbidden for years past puberty.

I also wonder, with self-pleasuring and mutual-pleasuring, if the definition of virgin needs to be updated. Is vaginal penetration by a penis the ultimate desecration of the virginal state or is any orgasm by any means?

U is for Union

Today is my anniversary of a lot of years. Decades, even. (I don’t do numbers; just words. But trust me, we were united a long time ago.) And a happy union it is.

But milestones like this cause one to reflect on what it means to have such a strong connection to another that you seek public validation of the relationship, an acknowledgement of it’s value to society.

We lived together before we made any formal commitment. Our first formal commitment was buying a house together. That legal document bound us more than a marriage certificate. It’s a bunch easier to dissolve a marriage than to get out from under a 30-year, jointly-signed mortgage!

The second commitment we made, though not legal, was adopting two dogs. The third, a decision to have a baby. Now my mother wasn’t so wild about that order. But we were happy in our choices.

Only then, when we pieced our lives together, did we realize we wanted the paper work that accompanied what had accumulated into a formal commitment. We wanted to live our lives together--forever. It was pretty easy to make that happen.

But what if you love another and the world tells you you cannot formalize that love? What if the power majority get to decide the definition of “union”?

It certainly was true with the miscegenation laws. Quotes from past decades stated that mixed-race marriage would tear at the very fabric of what marriage means and society would go down the toilet in a big flush.

Well, that didn’t happen, now did it? I read that if “society” had waited to do away with miscegenation laws until “society” agreed with mixed race marriages, it would have been in 1991 before the majority tilted to that perspective. Really?

That just shows that sometimes laws to right injustices are needed before the public perception changes.

We are in the same predicament now with same-sex marriages. Who really believes that MY marriage is threatened in any way by the marriage of any other couple? I mean, really, can you claim with a straight face that a marriage performed by an Elvis impersonator is a holy affair. That the “sanctity” of the institution is upheld. [No offense meant to those unions, by the way. I’m just trying to make a point that not everyone goes the walk-down-the-traditional-aisle route.]

The majority of Americans accept the idea of equality marriages but many legislators continue to try to block it with laws.

Having said that, believing that people who love should be allowed to formalize their relationship, let me say that I don’t believe the government should get involved in “marriage” at all--for me, for anybody else.

I cede “marriage” to the religious groups to control. Let them marry who they want. Or deny it if that is their tenet.

But UNION, ah, that the government does, can, and should control. I needed a license to “marry”. The government recognized the formality of the document. Same could happen with unions. Let the government grant “union” licenses; if couples want to layer on “marriage”, find a religious group to do so. Matters me no mind.

But the government, apparently, has to step in to make things legal. So do it, Feds!