Looking back on this blog in 2016

Posted on December 31, 2016 by jaime

2016 ends in a few hours, at least for me.

This is the 1,072th post on this blog. Here’s what I know about you, my readers.

Growth in readership

The stats show that the blog has been growing at a great rate. In my first year, 2012, I doubt if I had any readers at all. Well, I got comments, but my guess is that I only got a couple of 100 views.

I didn’t get a Statistics app until 2014, when I got about 10,000 views. In 2015 I got 32,000, and in 2016 I’ve had about 59,000.

I hope that trend continues: thank you to all readers!

Oh, and if you want to say hello, I’m always pleased, and always reply. Click on Contact us (“us”? It’s just me) and have your say, ask any question, or whatever you feel like!

Who reads this blog?

All I know about my readers is that most of you are in the US, followed by the UK, then Canada, then Australia. That’s not surprising, as it’s an English-language blog. But I also get a lot of hits from Germany and France, followed by the Netherlands.

I’d had readers from almost every country in the world, except for some of the small states in the middle of Africa, who may be short on internet connections and time to worry about middle-class first world people pursuing their pleasures.

And then there’s Greenland. This blog has never once had a single view from Greenland. I vow that in 2017 I will shamelessly pander to Greenland perverts! Siissisoq! Simon Lynge! Handball!

What do my readers like to read?

No matter how she tried, she couldn’t shake that damn stuff off.

The most popular post I’ve ever put up was about toothpasting a girl’s clitoris and waiting to see if she can stand still. (She can’t, and it’s only right that unfair penalties should apply when she moves.)

There were two follow up posts, also popular, here and here.

That was posted way back in 2013, and it’s still going strong. I hope one day to get a cheque from toothpaste companies, for encouraging extra sales.

The most popular post I put up in 2016 is this one, about sexual tension in Raylene’s bedroom.

The next most popular post put up in 2016 is this thought piece about the emotional connections between dom and submissive.

What that tells me is that how-to information is popular, and so is sexual material about different situations I’ve been in, over the years.

The school skirt she bought mail order. But finding a desk that looked school-y, at about the right height: that took serious shopping

The other thing I know is that schoolgirl spanking stories are very popular. I’ve done two series, both times because it was suggested or requested by a woman I was with at the time. The comments make me think that the schoolgirl fantasy is more popular with women readers than with male readers.

Though that’s just a feeling, without enough evidence to make a reliable conclusion.

Men and women readers

I also suspect, without knowing it, that a higher proportion of this blog’s readers are women than men. It’s a truism that women like wordy erotica with a lot of focus on the character’s feelings, while men go for the pictorial. So this blog’s sheer wordiness, and focus on feelings, skews its audience female.

A girl who knows better than that. (Possibly my favourite image, of all I’ve posted.)

I run pictures that mostly seem to me to be hot, but they’re not usually the point of the post. They illustrate the words rather than replacing them. So maybe sex bloggers get more female readers, while sex tumblrs attract more male eyes.

Anyway, I’m grateful to everybody of whatever gender and orientation who has ever dropped by to read me.

I hope your 2017 is far, far better than your 2016!

Join the war on Christmas! (but have a wonderful, loving time)

Posted on December 24, 2016 by jaime

This picture illustrates some of the unease I’m feeling about Christmas.

The people are having a good time, or they would be if the picture wasn’t so obviously posed. The woman has a luscious body, and a pretty, rather sweet, face.

But it is posed, and the fact is, no picture with a guy dressed as Santa Claus in it can possibly be sexy. Not even if he’s wearing shades. (Though if I were wearing a Santa Claus outfit I wouldn’t want anyone to recognise me either.)

So it’s meant to be cheerful and sexy, and really, it’s just tacky.

I had to go shopping yesterday, and “tacky” is definitely the word for the village during the run-up to Christmas. The trees looked better without baubles in them, and I’m confident the shop assistants would look better if they didn’t have to wear foam rubber reindeer antlers.

I part reindeer, 1 part tycoon: mix well, then throw away

And, speaking of tack, there’s Christmas music. I was in a bookshop when they put a jazz version of “God rest you, merry gentlemen” on their PA, and words can’t describe what a skin-clenchingly vile experience that was. It was a pity, because I was looking for a book. But once that music started happening I had to get the fuck out of there, toot sweet.

Any version of “The Little Drummer Boy” has the same effect. As for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I wish him the same blood-gurgling fate that I wish on Rupert Murdoch, and it ain’t pretty.

And behind all that, there’s the deeper meaning of Christmas: monotheism, patriarchy, the often murderous alliance between the big churches and authoritarian governments, hatred of people who believe differently, hatred of sex and the body, and of gays, lesbians and, also and to a lesser extent, of perverts like me. I like all of the Jews, Christians and Muslims I know personally, but if belief in Judaism, Christianity and Islam could just go away, immediately, that wouldn’t be a moment too soon.

At the same time, last night there was duck with cherry sauce, and wine, fruit and ice-cream, and a pretty girl showing me the ladders in her pantyhose. Friends announced that they’re going to make a baby in 2017. I volunteered for baby-sitting duty. Everything flowed, beautifully.

First thing tomorrow morning (it’s Christmas eve here) I’ll call my dad and tell him I love him. (He’s deaf, and he doesn’t live in the world any more. So even if he hears and understands me over the phone, he’ll have forgotten five minutes later. But that doesn’t matter at all.) And I’ll call the rest of my family.

Then I’ll talk with my girl, who has the audacity to be spending the day in a different country. Once we’re in the same room, I’ll be severely reprimanding her for that. And maybe that’s when my Christmas will come, and her, and me.

Personally, I had a good 2016, with love and writing and other good things, but I appreciate that for most people 2016 has been a shit-rain of monumental proportions. So that colours my perception about the year’s end as well.

But there’s still life and love, and friends, and excellent things including duck and pinot noir, and thighs bursting out of the rips in their pantyhose (and/or whatever turns you, reader, on).

I wish you all a wonderful few days, with people you love.

I’m a Top 100 Sex Blogger, 2016!

Posted on December 8, 2016 by jaime

Jerusalem endures? He practically abides.

So you’re reading one of the Top 100 Sex Blogs for 2016!

Good for you, and please keep on doing it! I’ll keep writing … stuff, mainly about bdsm, sex generally, and occasional bursts of politics. Or silliness.

This is me having just received the news and celebrating. It’s taken outside the local art gallery, where they’re doing an exhibition of nudes from the Tate.

A heartfelt thank you to the sponsors, KinkKraft, and to Molly and the team, who went through more blogs than I want to think about, in order to rate and rank them.

They gave this an enormous amount of dedication and hard work. I’m grateful to them.

Inevitably there’s an element of arbitrariness in any human judgment. Do I think this blog is necessarily better than one that missed the final cut? No, not really. But there were criteria, and applying them to so many blogs must have been one hell of a task.

And I’m ridiculously pleased by the recognition. I’ve always been one of life’s over-dressers. The fact is, I do like a ribbon to stick on my coat.

Click on this to find the complete list of the Top 100 Sex Bloggers!

A library of filthy books 2: The bdsm case

Posted on October 20, 2016 by jaime

These are the top two shelves of the (mostly) bdsm bookcase. It starts with Taschen reprints of Eric Stanton femdom fantasies. And a shiny gold book of historical erotic photos, most of which don’t have any bdsm relevance, but it’s there to be with the rest of the Taschen books. There’s safety in numbers. As the mathematicians say.

Then Sade, Sacher-Masoch, “Walter” and his secret life (I’ve read it all, so you don’t have to: god, that man was a terrible writer), then various books of Victorian porn, and a few samples from pre-Victorian times.

The next two shelves are mostly 20th century bdsm erotica, plus two of the 50 Shades books, which I picked up off the free book exchange table at the local rail station. Plus a few non-fiction books. The wiry brass couple fucking on the upper shelf are from Mali. And the stocky fellow with a thick (but short) erection on the lower shelf is a piece of Saami art, from Lappland.

These are the two bottom shelves. On the left of the upper of these two shelves, there’s one of the very few actually valuable books or series I own. Those three volumes are the bibliographies of Henry Ashbee, possibly better known as Pisanis Fraxi. The Index Liber Prohibitorium, or Index of Forbidden Books, and its two successors. First editions, from Victorian times.

The very bottom shelf has various books of erotic art, including bdsm art, like the works of Guido Crepax and Milo Manara.

The thing with a Playboy Bunny Symbol is the complete set of Playboy from the 1950s, on CD-ROM. I’d get the collection for the 1960s as well, but I’ve never seen it in this format. I wouldn’t bother with the 1970s, though Robert Anton Wilson was still editing and writing there at the time. But it was an important and stylish literary mag, for a while.

The duck? He’s a reed duck decoy, First Nation art from the Canadian prairies. He’s got no business being there amongst the sex books in particular. But the duck, he just wanted to be there. Maybe he’s a mallard: they – unlike most other birds – actually have a penis.

And you need a duck, don’t you, if you want to write a rhyming poem about sex.

I was walkin’ down the road an I met a little duck.

He said, “How are ya, human, you look down on your luck?”

I said,”I saw that sexy Sally, tried to slip my nip inside her tuck;

She told me nobody loves me an I’ll never get a -” And so on.

Anyway, that’s the Concavity of Depravity, where Cinderella posed, waiting for her Prince. (Who did come.)

UPDATE:

Cinderella has naming rights, for various reasons. She tells me the whole room is the Library of Depravity, and only the sex books section is the Concavity of Depravity. That seems fine to me.

A library of filthy books

Posted on October 18, 2016 by jaime

This is the sex alcove in my library. It’s been named (not by me) the Concavity of Depravity. I like it, though, so it’s become my name for the whole damn library.

Five cases of books about fucking. The case at the left, in the front, is for the pioneering sexologists: the complete works of Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Havelock Ellis, whatever I’ve been able to get of Magnus Hirschfeld, Ivan Bloch and others. Plus Shere Hite, the legendary Juliet Richters of the Australian Survey on Health and Relationships (ASHR), and various others.

That long white object on the middle shelf of that bookcase is a whalebone dildo, which is probably Indonesian in origin, and was used for pleasure and (the head is relatively small) apparently to instruct young brides-to-be on their marital duties.

The case at the front right is devoted to less pleasant topics, like diseases, rape in the family, in the community and in prison, sexual abuse of children, and other horrible things.

The case on the inside left is for historical books – Aretino, Aristotle’s Masterpiece, the Memoirs of Casanova, and other good things. Also, sex work now and in the past. And pro-sex feminism, i.e. people like Lynn Segal.

At the back, shining in the light, is the (mostly) bdsm bookcase. We’ll come back to that, on Thursday.

And the inside right bookcase, which is barely visible, contains people writing Theory (i.e. late 20th century pomo wankery) about sex and gender. And writing by anti-sex feminists, glowering across at their pro-sex counterparts in the left book case.

Dental porn

Posted on September 21, 2016 by jaime

Ah, there’s porn of it. Thank god!

Sorry. It’s been a while since I posted. I’ve had a hole bored in my jawbone and a steel pin inserted into the hole. I’ll get a crown some time in December.

That was on Tuesday. The rest of Tuesday was a write-off, and so, surprisingly, was Wednesday as well. Probably because of the pain-killers more than the pain.

I was a bit more battered than I thought I was. Battered like an old car, not like a fish. Or a battery. I was the batter-ee.

Now I’m still trickling the odd bit of blood, and I’m guessing that the floor of an abatoir must taste a lot like the inside of my mouth.

But I’m feeling a lot better. Thanks!

My main memory of the whole thing was the hair, hands, mouth and breasts of the dental assistant who was using one of those slurping machines to suck out the blood and bits of bone. I suppose it’s natural to focus on the best life has to offer, at a time when most of the incoming sensory information is (literally) bloody horrible.

Maybe the reason why dentists tend to have pretty girls as assistants is so that patients, at least those who are susceptible to pretty girls, have something to distract them from the gory goings-on in their mouths.

And male dentists also like to have a pretty girl about the place, since the inside of someone’s mouth, when that person needs dental treatment, ain’t that pretty at all.

I’ve been to two women dentists, by the way, and neither of them had dental nurses. So dentistry, like political assassinations, can be done by one person acting alone.

I know that dental nursing is a skilled job, and it shouldn’t be turned into a wank fantasy.

It is required by law that this picture be captioned, “Open wide.” (I fought that law, but the law won.)

But the people who get that job tend to be young, pretty and female, which isn’t entirely fair on job-seekers who aren’t. That’s not the fault of the pretty young women; it’s more the fault of, oh, you know, patriarchy.

In some ways it’s odd that dental fetish is such a strong theme in porn. I guess it’s the hint of bondage in the chair, though the patient is held in place by the situation, not by actual bonds. There’s the appealing contrast between the angular sterility of the room, and the curved, not-sterile human body. Cold colors against warm skin, and so on. And, of course, the dentist commands and the patient obeys.

For me, no matter how charming I might think I am, I know that dental assistant has seen the inside of my mouth at its bloodiest and worst. That’s got to be a profoundly repellant sight.

There must be guys who spring out of the chair once they’ve got the all-clear, flashing their most brilliant smile at the nurse and trying to engage her in witty, flirtatious conversation. But me: Nah. Just … no.

Gretel in flight

Posted on August 20, 2016 by jaime

I saw the beautiful and ethically based Gretel to the airport today. Me, I’m not beautiful, and I’m ethically base. Anyway, she’s now in the air over Antarctica, and I’m home, which is now Gretel-less.

I’ll be writing more often soon, about Gretel, and then getting back to the Raylene story.

For now, please indulge me in my current obsession for images of Leda and Zeus, the swan.

The elegance of whipped cream

Posted on August 16, 2016 by jaime

This blog, and this blogger, have pretty much turned into the Gretel fan club. If it’s not about Gretel, her cleverness, wit, ethical base and, oh, also hotness, I don’t currently want to write it or think about it.

The photo below was taken before we went out for dinner last night. So it’s just a playful belt spanking you can see glowing so very prettily there. Nothing brutal. Add very stylish knickers, skin the colour of cream, at least in the unwhipped areas, and you have a really elegant image.

She wore a “spank me and fuck me” little kilt to the restaurant, with fishnets, and attracted a bit of attention. The proprietor even came out and did all the things that gauchos do instead of kissing a lady’s hand, when they want to show off to a hot girl.

So I had that thing men get when they’re squiring the hottest girl in the room around. Not mature, I guess, but fun.

Anyway, here’s Gretel being elegant.

Idyll: Gretel and her pink …

Posted on August 13, 2016 by jaime

Hi. Your blogger is busy for a while. I’m in one of the wonderlands of the world, and I haven’t paid attention to anything or anyone outside my hotel room yet.

This, and she, are more wonderful.