Chapter 8 of The Inn is now live on Literotica.com!

And there's still time to vote for Contrast and Big Flipping Deal in the Readers Choice Awards:

Literotica Readers Choice Awards

Best Interracial Story (Contrast Ch. 04)

Best Transsexuals & Crossdressers Story (Big Flipping Deal Ch. 07)

Voting closes early morning Sunday May 1, so if you haven't voted yet please hurry!

Sex & Sorcery 2!

As promised, here's the Amazon link to Sex & Sorcery 2! And the cover! (Which is also a link to the publisher's page for the book.)

 

I've read the first four stories so far, and enjoyed them all. One was a little sillier than the others, but it had hot lesbians in it, so I'm willing to make allowances. I'm especially happy to see that these are actual storytelling stories, not just excuses to write sex scenes in a fantasy setting. (Not that sex scenes are lacking here, though!)

My story, "A Harem of Harpies," features one of my favorite old D&D characters, Chortle Bonegrinder, a jackal-headed barbarian I invented because I didn't feel like my play group really had a good handle on what "Chaotic Neutral" meant. I had a blast writing about Chortle again (last time I did so was about 5 years ago), and now I'm thinking I might need to write more Chortle stories once I finish up The Inn. And publish Contrast. And Big Flipping Deal. And the mainstream fantasy novel I finished the first draft on back in December.

So much to do!

Anyway, I'd be delighted for you to pick up S&S2, which I can't imagine you'll regret if you like sword and sorcery tales and erotica. It's 100,000+ words and only $2.99 -- more than worth it just for the four I've read so far.

New Serial! New Short Story! Awards!!!

I've been a less-than-zealous blogger lately ... but not because I've been entirely slacking! After finishing up the first draft of Big Flipping Deal last summer, I went back to a mainstream fantasy novel I'd put on hold and wrapped up the first draft near the end of the year. Since then, I've been writing away on a new erotic fantasy series on Literotica: The Inn.

But in the midst of The Inn, an editor contacted me and suggested I submit a story to Uruk Press' erotic fantasy anthology series, Sex & Sorcery. I promptly fired up my short-story brain and did what I think is a pretty bang-up job on a tale called, "A Harem of Harpies," which made the cut and will appear in Sex & Sorcery 2, due out any day now. I'll post a link to the book's Amazon page as soon as it's available.

Finally, I have been horribly remiss in begging for votes! Both Big Flipping Deal and Contrast were nominated for Readers Choice Awards on Literotica.com. Big Flipping Deal is currently in front of the competition by a hair, but after a strong start, Contrast has fallen way behind. Please, please, please, vote at the links below! I will be eternally grateful.

Literotica Readers Choice Awards

Best Interracial Story (Contrast Ch. 04)

Best Transsexuals & Crossdressers Story (Big Flipping Deal Ch. 07)

Voting closes early morning Sunday May 1, so don't delay!

How to Fix the Internet

So here's a pretty depressing article about the disproportionate targeting of women by comment trolls.

I've scratched my head for ages trying to figure out how you can retain freedom of speech and anonymity on the web without all of us having to suffer the bullshit antics of playground bullies who never got past a middle-school maturity level in their psychological development. Thankfully, this article gave me a great idea.

In order to post anywhere, you've generally got to agree to the site's terms of service, right? So all we need to do is get public sites to include the following in those terms: the user also agrees that if any authorized moderator or filtering system should determine the comment to be hate speech or harassment, the comment will be either deleted or translated by our "Play Nice" software into a form that expresses more appropriate content.

Then all troll comments can be run through an AI translating system that makes them say nice things instead of shitty ones.

For example, a comment reading, "Ian Saul Whitcomb is a piece-of-shite whore who should fuck off and die!" would be translated into "Ian Saul Whitcomb is a piece-of-relief genius who should be lavished with affection and live forever!"

It wouldn't necessarily end up being difficult to see that a comment thread had a lot of trolls attempting to hijack it, but they wouldn't actually be able to spread their poison, and the rest of us wouldn't be exposed to their abuse.

Okay, troll-fighters! Somebody with web programming skills get right on this.

No Argument Here

This guy's a smart blogger I like. Occasionally, his pet theories miss the mark, but usually, like this one, they're pretty good.

A good portion of guys need to get their acts together. I'd like to think it's a minority, but some days I'm not so sure.

That's not to say you ladies out there are perfect! But when it comes to being unmarriagably awful, the guys probably do take the lead by a fair margin.

Sorry, guys. Chin up, though. Odds are, if you're reading this blog, you're one of the okay ones.

Who Are You?

So I've been to see the new Star Wars film ... several times ... and I'm sure I know the question that's on everybody's minds: What does Ian Saul Whitcomb the "sensible feminist" think about Rey?

Apparently, there's enough internet grumbling going around about Rey being a "Mary Sue" that I've read about it in two different articles. (For those who've never heard, the term is used to denote a character who exists only as wish-fulfillment on the part of the author, being so super-competent that everyone loves and marvels over herim, despite hiser lack of any real personality or complexity.) Though I myself have only seen one person actually call Rey a Mary Sue, he was a pretty big ass about it, and that's enough to make me think it's a real phenomenon and not just some activist caterwauling or girls crying wolf.

I could make a lot of arguments about the substantiality of Rey's character being far too great to fit with the definition of a Mary Sue. I could point out plenty of personal failings on Rey's part that show her to be much more flawed and nuanced than an actual Mary Sue. But instead, I'm going to fall back on my inner male swine to provide the best evidence possible against these frankly infantile criticisms.

Longtime readers will know that despite being a feminist and an opponent of ogling, I very regularly recognize the sexual attractiveness of women who enter or pass through my perceptual sphere. It's just something my brain does, and I refuse to feel guilty about it or try to train myself out of it. I'm a pretty sex-obsessed guy, and I think as long as I treat people properly and don't let anyone catch me with my tongue hanging out, that's as valid a part of my human sexuality as being attracted to men would be if I were gay, or feeling trapped in a male body would be if I were transsexual.

My point is this: I was three viewings into The Force Awakens before one particular scene made me notice the attractive quality of Rey's leg and bottom. That's three viewings spent watching the central character of a pretty long movie without once recognizing her substantial sexual allure. It's not that the filmmakers hid her figure in concealing outfits or avoided camera angles that would flatter her attributes. The moment of leg-and-bottom that broke through into my consciousness actually shows that stretch of flank fairly prominently. No, the reason I took three viewings to notice is that I was so invested in her as a character, from the first moment she came onscreen, that even my normally rampaging libido couldn't break through my fascination with who she was as a person.

I grasped instantly that I wanted to get to know her. And without giving her a single line to speak, the filmmakers spent at least five minutes letting me do that. By my count, we follow Rey through a minimum of eight scene changes before she says a word. And despite this entirely visual introduction, despite the fact that she's an extremely pretty young woman with a very nice figure, the things we learn about her kept me so entranced that her femaleness informed my perception of her no more than the fact that she has brown hair.

The trailer for this film prominently featured a woman's voice asking Rey, "Who are you?" And though that line was apparently cut from the final edit of the movie, Rey begins answering it from the moment we first see her -- answering it so richly and magnetically that my mind had room only for her answer, and nothing else.

So, no, dipweeds, Rey is not a Mary Sue. Brush up your literary and cinematic analysis tools before you go spouting this kind of foolishness in the future.

Don't Look Now

Okay, guys, before I rain on your parade, let me say that I’m with you: women are incredible. Gorgeous, virtually all of them. Among the most beautiful creations in the natural world. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with looking at them, finding them astonishing, and even saying so in the right circumstances.

So why is it that they don’t always consider it a compliment when we glance smilingly at them or remark on how lovely they appear to us?

Honestly, the answer here is so simple I shouldn’t have to point it out.

But we’re guys, and guys can be dense, so I’ll go ahead and explain it with a couple of quick mental exercises. 

First, I want you to imagine that you’re working at a job you like, a job you put a lot of pride and effort into and that you’re good at. You studied your ass off getting the right degree or training for it, you gave a genius interview, you’ve done everything right since you were hired, you’ve saved your team’s butts with your creative ideas on a regular basis, you’re always on time, you stay late when you need to – you’re the perfect employee.

And no one ever says anything appreciative to you about any of that.

Well, maybe once in a while someone does, but for the most part, they just take your talent and intelligence and work ethic for granted. Other people get lots of kudos for their efforts and get promoted every year or two, but your career just kind of putters along unnoticed.

So now imagine you’re walking down the hall, and a coworker says, “Hey, nice bipedalism, buddy! I mean, you’re just being exceptionally bipedal today.”

Then, a little later, you’re in a meeting, and your boss says, “Look at you and your opposable thumbs. Lots of people have thumbs, but you sure know how to oppose them. Good job.”

Nothing about your terrific productivity. Nothing about that suggestion of yours that made the whole department look good. Just regular and consistent compliments about attributes that are mere artifacts of being born human. 

You may very well think you have a really nice walk. You may consider your hand-eye coordination better than average, and maybe in elementary school you were best at “One-Two-Three-Four, I Declare a Thumb War.” But compliments about having two legs and opposable thumbs are still likely to  sit ill with you if all your real accomplishments are being overlooked.

Mental exercise number two:

You’re walking down the street. For whatever reason, you need to find something in your wallet, so you take it out and start digging around in it. As you’re walking along, you realize that someone significantly larger than you is approaching from the other direction, staring at your wallet. When you look up, the person smiles and says, “That’s a nice wallet full of money you’ve got there.” 

Even if the smile looks genuine and you’re on a crowded street where nothing is likely to happen, isn’t that going to make you uncomfortable? Especially if it happens again half a block later, and another block after that? 

“Yeah, that money’s lookin’ good, dude.”

“Whoo-eee! You’re loaded, aren’t you?”

How many comments like that will it take before you put your wallet away and hurry onward even though you may not have found whatever business card or free-coffee coupon you were looking for?

The thing is, if you see someone who has surprisingly good opposable thumbs or a really confident walk, or if you see someone in possession of an impressive sum of money in their billfold, it really ought to be a nice thing for you to comment on it, if you truly mean it in a positive, encouraging way. But in the world we live in, people often go unvalued for their talents, hard work, and striving. And in the world we live in, people are regularly accosted by strangers and relieved of their money through physical force or threat of violence. These facts create a context in which compliments about bipedalism and fat wallets could easily be unpleasant and even hurtful, regardless of the intent behind them.

So if you want to live in a world where you’re free to look at women as you like and tell passing strangers how beautiful you find them, then you need to get to work. You need to build a civilization in which women receive all the rewards and acclaim they deserve for their personal accomplishments and abilities. You need to build a civilization in which women feel completely safe at all times from unwanted physical advances and sexual assault.

You need to create a world in which people feel valued enough, and safe enough, that appreciative observation of their superficial attributes won’t be taken the wrong way.

In the meantime, if you just can’t repress your instinct to make eye contact with pretty women in public and smile at them, here’s a suggestion: 

Smile at everyone.

If we all did that, and meant it, I guarantee you many things would get better much more quickly.