Happy Halloween! Vagina Monologues 2.0

Happy Halloween! Of all the gazillions of costumes at Fairvilla Megastore the vagina costume by Rasta Imposta spoke to me
...literally.
So here are some local Orlando (and one Canadian)
pals doing monologues (and 
other things) dressed as
vaginas. Charles Martin, Doug Rhodehamel, 
Jamesson Beane and Miriam Lorenzi were kind and weird 
enough to join me in my vision to bring the cooch costume to life. 
More to come...isn't there 
always?

Inner View of the Vampire

     With Halloween breathing down our necks exactly like a good villain ought to it seems like you can’t fling a crucifix without hitting a vampire. Thanks to True Blood and Twilight (neither of which I’ve seen; it’s an elder’s privilege to ignore the pop culture of the young) vampires didn’t need Halloween to be everywhere; like coolots and facial hair they ride occasional waves of cultural approval but at this time of year it’s worth looking at why out of all the traditional story monsters the vampire is the only one who has ever enjoyed any real sex appeal. You can argue that witches have, too, but there’s barely a sultry sorceress on the books that can hold a candle to The Count for pure magnetism.

       One part of the answers is pretty easy and pretty obvious: the vampire is just a dark version of Prince Charming, sweeping onto the scene in with more charm, money and fashion sense than anyone else and who is out for one thing: penetration. The bite is an obvious symbol of that act, giving and getting it, without showing the crass realities of our animal activities. And nothing romanticizes any act like blood  a blood oath, a signature in blood, the blood-brother/sister bond - even Catholics have been giving it the nod with transubstantiation for ages as a deal sealer.

       But there's one other thing I think is making vampire mystique popular right now, aside from the obvious kinky-forbidden-lust/elegant-stranger attraction they've always had. and that is submission. Once bitten you, poor thing, through no fault of your own, have no choice but to follow. Your free will, and its burdens, are gone.

       In a culture where “empowerment” is the ultimate selling point for everything from phones to philosophies it’s hard to imagine that we're running a low-grade fever to just give over the reigns to someone else - but power can be a little terrifying. We have a dizzying number of ways to lead our lives compared to previous generations who were pinioned by social pressures, but that means we have a dizzying number of ways to fuck up and no one to blame but ourselves. Add the choices provided by technology and it’s a wonder any of us can get out of bed. 
      The desire for a framework for all this freedom is why some people hang on Oprah's every word, cling to "The Secret" like a trailer in a hurricane or subscribe to a pre-fab 'lifestyle' - it's a relief to just use the sheet music provided instead of playing life by ear all the time and worrying that your song sucks. 

          That's why I think the vampire is the perfect anti-hero for our time; once you're his you don't have to pick a major, entertain moral dilemmas, learn internet marketing, fret about your relationships, think positive or update your Twitter status. Your health choices don't matter because you're technically not alive. And yet you still get to be on earth, with a lot of the drab and difficult stuff behind you and you know your clothes are great, your lighting is moody and what’s on the menu for dinner.

       Anyone who has a passing acquaintance with BDSM knows that it’s not so much about sex as power and the submissive’s desire to be relieved of it. The more references I see to BDSM in mainstream media, from Roseanne’s mom appearing in full domme regalia in the early 90’s to Mr. Slave on South Park – the more I think that people are hungry for safe vulnerability; freedom within a framework. As PJ O’Rourke said about bondage in his book "Modern Manners," “When you’re tied to the bed, at you know where you’re going to be for the next ten minutes.”

       It’s not that people don’t want the choices they have, but the idea of relief from tha adult responsbility can be a seductive one. That's why our love for vampires will always remain as immortal as they are.

We're Only Human...well, maybe not only

      It’s no secret that when sizzle goes out of sexy time that human beings are prone to stepping out – but out of our species?

       Svante Paabo is the director of genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is quite sure there was a historic hook-up or two, but what he wants to know is did we get anything out of it? Here he is in the Times Online UK: :

       “What I’m really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?” he said. “I’m sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be able to answer quite rigorously with the new [Neanderthal genome] sequence.”

       The Neanderthals were not as primitive as they were once thought to be, “giving their dead complex burials, and making tools and jewelry...” said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, and presumably overdoing the cologne, acting like they know something about real estate and asking human girls "So, what jewelry store did you get your eyes from, honey?"  

       My favorite part is that Dr. Paabo is so certain that the sex happened, whether the children did or not. Geneticists presumably know humans as well as anyone can and it's brilliant that he just assumes that if it walked upright humans would eventually try to bang it.  I believe him. Everything evolves, but nothing really changes. 

Toy Talk: The Wartenburg Pinwheel

            Just because a thing isn't my kink doesn't mean it isn't a perfectly valid one. In fact, I'm actually a lot more intrigued by the things I don't do sexually than the things I'm more in tune with; after all, I already understand my own predilections - it's what other people like that's worth finding out about. 
       It's this attitude that makes me walk into the fetish department at Fairvilla going "What's this? What's this?" like Jack Skellington when he accidentally fell into Christmastown. I learn new, interesting things all the time and this week it was  the Wartenberg Pinwheel, which is more an accessory than a toy, but it’s Halloween week, so I thought we'd go out on a limb. This is a nasty-looking little number typically found listed under “medical supplies” and used for neurological testing. Dragging the little rotating pins across the skin produces sensations from mild to tingling to potentially owie, depending on how much pressure you apply. Light pressure over certain areas – my inner forearm, ferinstnace – had a pleasurable sensation like fingernails and though I prefer that organic method I can certainly see where this might be an intriguing little prop for those who are for a little topical intrigue.

       That said, careful, careful - those little points could be painful or even injurous with too much pressure. I wouldn't give this to anyone I didn't trust implicitly - the object of the game is to have fun, after all (come to think of it, I wouldn't want to roll over onto it either, so remember to put your toys away!) 
     Who’d have ever thought a whole bunch of little pricks could among to a good time? Evidently enough people that the Wartburg Pinwheels come in a color assortment. See? We both learned something new today. You can get an education in the darndest places. All you have to say is 
"What's  THIS?" (Photos by Sean Watkins)

Movie Mondays Adult Video Review: This is not Twlight, The XXX Parody

        Because I’m no longer anywhere near my teens or 20’s I haven’t bothered to see Twilight, the current generation’s romance with vampires. My generation had Interview with a Vampire and before that the 70’s gave us handsomest Dracula ever in Frank Langella (click video for video; who'd ever have believed this guy could play Nixon?). Every generation incarnates the sensual bloodsucker differently. I understand the new ones glitter.

       But this isn’t Twilight, in fact this is This Isn’t Twilight, The XXX Parody from Devil’s Film (now a one-day rental at Fairvilla and for once I was kind of glad there was not a lot of plot to worry about. , Sometime a bunch of hardcore vignettes is all your tired brain can handle; luckily this was one of those days cuz this was one of those movies.

       The pin-thin nod to the source film starts when Bella (Jenna Haze) tells Edward that she knows what he is. After a lot of sex they go meet Edwards parents where Alice and Jasper (not the parents; some other couple) are getting it on because Jasper’s having a hard time transitioning to vegetarianism. For real.

       Quick transition to ‘the hunters’ which are ferocious vampires (and not people hunting vampires as I’d have thought)/ There are three of them and one is…tada!… Audrey Hollander who’s looks I raved about just last week in review her as the wacky redhead in Everybody Loves Lucy. She was gorgeous there and here she’s 100 times better. Without the heavy makeup of the 50’s housewife – and once the incidental vampire teeth and faux blood are discarded – we get to see that what lies beneath is even more beautiful. Hollander has such a classic renaissance look – if she had been born in 1475 da Vinci would have painted her instead of adult cameras shooting her, I feel quite sure. In her three-way with two other hunters she’s got to be the healthiest, hungriest, horniest she beast that ever lived, or didn’t live (whichever). There’s nothing like seing someone at work who really…really…seems to be loving their job.

       The final segment in which Edward’s mom (Phyllisha Anne) and dad discuss having a human in the house which seems to make them both horny as hell. A very good sex scene follows but what stood out most to me was that at the start of it she comes to bed holding a book – “The Four Agreements : A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltic Wisdom Book”. I don’t know if this was on purpose or if they just grabbed whatever book anyone had, but it worked – if you’re a vampire going vegetarian, why not give other aspects of a more new-agey life a whirl, too?

       The film abruptly cuts to the end after Sex with Mom and Dad (who can still smell the human and are still turned on) which was fine with me. The fact that This is not Twilight had little plot to get in the way of the sex (to paraphrase Joe Bob Briggs) was fine by me. It meant that not knowing the source material well didn’t matter. Bottom line: it’s hardcore vampire that doesn’t suck.

NEW VIDEO! "Some Vagina Monologs"

When I saw this vagina among the Halloween costumes at 

Fairvilla I thought "Wow, I could do The Vagina Monologs 

in that! “

Then I thought “WOW! EVERYONE could do some vagina 

monologs in that!”

And believe it or not, they did.

Actual pro actor, writer and producer Scottie Campbell joined me, as did Brendan O'Connor (right - oh, we'll have a whole post about him soon...) and the mysterious "Jim" – we hope you like it and we know, that as is the way with vaginas, there will be many more wonderful things to come from this one.

Enjoy!!!

A Toast to a Great Idea

       When you’re going for romance there are a few things that are givens – subdued lighting, thoughtfully chosen music and a good bottle of wine. Why wine is the drink of romance I’m not sure – maybe because it’s sophisticated and simple or because it’s beautiful and ancient (Jesus made it as a party trick fercrissakes). Red wine, we now know, is good for your heart literally and all wine is good for matters of the heart figuratively. Maybe that’s why we bought 2 million cases of it last year and are expected to by more in the future. AND Florida is the third largest consumer of wine in the country.

       While putting away all that wine the only time you ever likely consider the cork is when you’re trying to pry it out of the bottle, but now our good friends at ABC Fine Wines & Spirits would like you pass those corks their way. ABC, a Florida institution since 1936, is running a campaign called "Save the Corks!" sponsored by Nomacorc, producer of alternative wine closures, the gist of which is that for every cork you bring them recycling company Terracycle is putting .02 cents towards charity. It might not seem like much but “If we collected ten corks a day - just ten - in each ABC store across the state and turned those in and got those recycled and upcycled we would collect almost $11,000 a year for charity,” says my good friend ABC’s Lorena Streeter in this video from Channel 6 on Click Orlando. . That’s a lot of corks that won’t be plugging up landfills.

       Interestingly some of the most environmentally conscious people I know are also some of the wine-drinking-est  (it’s all that eco-responsibility – it makes them really need). So if all of them, not to mention all the restaurants we all go to, started donating their corks to ABC, imagine all the money that could be going to good causes instead of the garbage  (ABC is a big supporter of funding for local college scholarship and God knows we need all the smart people we can get). You know you know the location and store hours if every ABC within five miles of your house, so bring them in and do your karma as much good as that Cabernet Sauvignon did your spirit. You know the song: ABC... easy as 1-2-3.

Shining Happy People / Scary Mary

Lust Never Sleeps is usually about all things sexy but today I'm so excited and in such a Halloweenie mood over the cold snap we're about to get any minute now that today I'm stepping off the track. SOMEONE out there brilliantly remixed Mary Poppins to get a horror movie trailer out of it (above) and did the same with The Shining (below) to get a happy, heart-warming family feature and these horror/family movie mixes are the chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter effect at its best. So just for now, enjoy being  able to wear a jacket tonight and enjoy these brilliant little mash-ups! Have a great weekend!

Have a great weekend!

Louise Black is the new Black

       A few weeks ago I did a post mentioning Steampunk, an aesthetic combining Victorian, Edwardian, goth, burlesque, fetish, punk, the 1920’s and the Old West – actually, just ask yourself “Would Tim Burton dig it?” and if he would, it’s likely to be Steampunk. The most immediate example I can think of might be Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane in Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow,” in his 1899 clothing sometimes accessorized with bizarre and fascinating detection devices he’s made himself (Steampunk also involves a lot of DIY and blending high tech with turn-of-the-18^th-century style).

       Steampunk has become a fascination of mine and while casting about for Steampunk fashion photos I came across this spectacular corset which I think epitomizes the genre. Corsetry is a staple of the look and this piece is the most inventive example of that most alluring weapon in the fashion arsenal. It reminds me of something the macabre and elegant Edward Gorey might draw and while the skeletal image framed on the corset (a genuine Victorian lithograph) might seem to some to be a little dark I think it’s also an symbol of that Steampunk characteristic of stripping things down to the bare bones and elegantly repackaging. 

       So I’m blown away by this piece and realize the creator is none other than Louise Black, recently of Project Runway fame (check out her audition tape and interview here; I love that Delia Deiez from Beetlejuice is one of her inspirations). Louise’s 1920’s/noir style and pinpoint attention to detail made her strong and unique viewpoint one of the best parts of the season. You can see more of her on Etsy (where she lists several ways to keep up with her) and more views of that corset here; (photograph by John Ledeaux; modeled by Nixon Suicide.) Her Etsy page she’s no longer (or very, very rarely) taking orders for custom corsets, evidently due to huge order volume (no surprise there) but it’s great to know where to find her. Sometimes you’re just jonesing for that a Morticia-meets-Theda-Bara-meets –Dita-Von-Teese sensibility all tied up with laces and since that’s every day for me I’m happy I’ve found her. Good Luck, Louise!

It's that time of the month....

....and for most girls that phrase comes with an eye-roll but for me it means I get to see Miss Sammy and Pepe at O-Town's best hybrid talk/game show "Truth or Dare with Pepe," or as it's called this month "Truth or SCARE with Pepe!' Even I have no idea how the team plans to ring in Halloween, but we'll all find out this Thursday night, Oct. 15, 10pm at the The Peacock Room (1321 N. Mills Ave.)! Guests this week will be Beth Marshall, Dewey Chaffee, Douglas McGeoch, Jeff Horn and Thomas Thornspecken and of course I'll be there with the Fairvilla dare - hope you can make it too!!! There will be lots of free shots and chances to win great prizes so come see us!

Toy Talk: Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of WTF?

          “The male body is stunningly beautiful thing; the attempt to imitate anything so well-designed, therefore, is a pathway strewn with banana peels. Remember all those X-Files knock-offs, like “PSI Factor?” Of course you don’t. The better the original the paler the copies always seem. That’s one reason I’m not the biggest fan of hyper-realistic sex toys.”

         That was me, back on March 9 when Lust Never Sleeps was just a teeny little tiny blog, not even a month old, in a post about surrealistic vibrators and why I prefer them to toys that attempt to ape the real thing. Call me prissy, but disembodied penises weird me out; I don't want a toy that looks like a penis and more than I think I'd want a penis that looked like a toy (no, not even if it has Pop-o-Matic).

         So imagine how I ricocheted between delight and horror when, hoping for something Halloween-y weird to write about for Toy Talk, I found a sex toy with not one, not two but TEN tongues, all disembodied and ready to serve.

         This fascinating object is the Sqweel Oral Sex Simulator by British sex toy firm LoveHoney and when I read about it on Gizmodo this morning I went from shock to laughter to “WTF?” to “Brilliant!” to “Is this real?” to “Weird…” to “Brilliant!” all in a span of two seconds.

         The Sqweel got a very good review on Crunch Gear  (my favorite line: “You can close it up and it make it look like a hockey puck for easy transport….”) and though it has three speeds one has to wonder if it has other motions. Maybe I’m spoiled but I expect more than the one ice-cream-licking move…although most toys have to be manipulated in some way and it might be possible to manuver it to do your bidding, maybe even “Lick the alphabet,” as famously suggested by Sam Kinnison.

         This tiny ferris wheel of joy is just an affirmation that there are engineers in this world working tirelessly to expand our battery-operated pleasure and good on them. I’m just happy I found a heap of disembodied tongues to show you for Halloween. See? Wishes do come true. Usually it's the dumb wishes, but any sign is a good one...  

         (PS: For those of you who get the title of this post, God love you for being an SCTV fan and here’s a clip of Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses).

They Put a Spell on You: Best Witches Ever PLUS a money spell for you

Every hour is the witching hour in October and since I've always admired out spooky sisters, here's my tribute to the most glamourouswitches on film PLUS a real-live 
money spell for you to try at home! Special thanks to Sean Watkins from Fairvilla for 

his excellent video editing skills!
Happy 22 days til Halloween - enjoy!

Thank you, Dr. Drew

       It didn’t surprise me too much to see a post on Jezebel this morning in which someone – in this case Sexplanations poster, Tracie – was pissed at Dr. Phil, in this case over his sweeping generalizations in a show about teenagers and oral sex. I’ve never understood the pop cultural interest in this blowhard. The few times I’ve watched his show he’s just come off as a bully and the last person you’d go to with a problem.

       Finally my opinion was vindicated by another pop psych doctor, in this case Dr. Drew Pinsky of Loveline fame. I’m about halfway through Dr. Pinsky’s book "The Mirror Effect,"  about narcissism in the celebrity world and how it’s effecting our daily lives and culture.

       Narcissism, most people think, is about having a huge ego but Dr. Drew says its more complicated than that and that a true narcissist is not self-involved but disconnected from themselves and therefore seeks to find their self-importance through the eyes of other people. This disconnection plus an inability to empathize with other people help make up NPD, narcissistic personality disorder.

       There’s quite a bit more to it, but on the empathy part for a minute, Dr. Drew makes this observation:

       “The behavior of one of televisions biggeset self-help experts suggests a striking inability to feel empathy. Dr. Phil McGraw has attracted fame and a huge following for his “tough-love” brand of pop psychology. The people who appear on his show often have serious problems, but his frequently impatient demeanor toward his guests and his signature response, telling them to “get real!” suggests he has difficulty appreciating their emotions. On the E! True Hollywood Story, Dr. Phil McGraw described dealing with the problems of the patients he counseled during the year he spent practicing clinical psychology: “They’d want to sit there and talk to you for six months. There were a lot of times I’d figured this out in the first hour, and I’d be sitting there saying, ‘Okay, here’s the problem. You’re a jerk’.” Such posturing may make good TV, but it also makes one wonder about Dr. Phil’s capacity for a truly empathetic response.”

       Thank you! I felt so vindicated when I read that passage, like an adult had come in and made sense of something tangled and exaspirating. People are super-complex mash-ups of their own natures and experiences and while some issues can be at least illuminated in a short show or story, some require a lot more effort. It’s not TV friendly but some things take time and to suggest otherwise is just as unreal a media image of the mind and heart as is the now-famous Ralph Lauren ad is of the body.

You Gotta Urn It

       As expressions of love and the desire to keep another near go, this is not the strangest, not by a long shot. There’s no violence involved, no mom-in-the-fruit-cellar, nothing headline provoking. It’s quite benign. And I’m hesitant to quibble about any expression of love in a world that needs many, many, many more of them. It’s just that this one, while its heart is in the right place, feels like it should be being introduced to you by Cryptkeeper.

       The company is Cremation Solutions and when your loved one has gone on to glory they will, with the use of a few good pictures, make a replica of that person’s head for you to keep the ashes in. A full size head will run you $2600; a smaller, keepsake size only $600 (it's on the website under Personal Urns).

       I feel compelled to say tout suite that Cremation Solutions also has some of the loveliest and most surprising ways I’ve ever seen of keeping the departed nearby - mixed into glass or jewelry made of crystal, wood or elegant silver filagree, among other things. They’re so thoughtfully designed I’m very seriously considering getting one myself (I have so many people’s ashes, you’d think I smoked them*) – some even made me tear up, thinking how right they would be for some of my own People Who Died.

      But then…there’s the head. I’ve lost people – you don’t reach a certain age without losing people. And while I loved them dearly having their disembodied head leering out at me from the bookshelf like something Vincent Price made is more Halloween than even I can imagine wanting around - and I once had a psycho shower curtain (right).

      So you see what I mean by odd but - benign. It's really just another way to remember the beloved and who knows?  Maybe it’ll be commonplace one of these days. Maybe they’ll soon be making replicas of parts other than the head that you can remember your loved one by. All people in all cultures have had unique and peculiar ways of expressing their love for those passed; the Egyptians had their mummies, the Victorians had their post-mortem photographs, Hunter Thompson was shot into the sky in a shower of fireworks. This is just another notion of 'what a way to go,' or rather, what a way to stay.

*ok, only two, but they seem like dozens

Did you love this and want to express some financial gratitude? Did you hate this and want to pony up some money for me to go learn another trade? Here's your chance: 

Toy Talk: Marco Polo if you can

        So Stephanie, from Fairvilla Megastore , and I are playing this weird game of Marco Polo:
        “Where are you?”
        “I’m in the party department!”
        “Is it still working?”
        “Yes!”
        “Where are you?”
        “I’m downstairs!”
        “Is it still working?”
        “Yes!!”
        We’re expermimenting with the range of the California Exotics 7-Function Vibrating Egg, an egg-shaped vibrator with a wireless remote, to see how far she can walk away with the egg while I stay in one spot with the controller. It turns out she can get to the front of the store – downstairs from where I am. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the layout of Fairvilla, it used to be a movie theater if that gives you any idea.
            The Cal Exotics egg is the first one Stephanie recommends in this line of vibrators, which fits vaginally and has a small cord (so it doesn’t get lost) and a remote you can hang onto or give to a partner for a little bit of public thrills that no one else at the restaurant/party/theater has to know about.
           “It’s all about personal preference,” she says “You want something firm so you can get it in there,” but you don’t want something too big for comfort or that gets too hot and the Cal Exotics egg has a comfy polyurathane coating plus seven speeds and an on/off switch.
            My favorite part, though, was having her run all over the store with the thing and shouting to me that it still worked from quite far away – it’s Fairvilla after all, and most people don’t bat an eye when they overhear unsual conversations but two girls playing Marco Polo with a vibrating egg definitely stands out, even at Halloween time.
           So if you want to experiment with a toy that gets to your inner reaches from the outer reaches, the California Exotics 7-Function vibrating egg is one to look into. It’s also as close to a functioning long distance relationship as some of us might ever be able to get.

My tip jar should be working now

A loyal reader recently brought it to my attention that the donation button on my PayPal tip jar wasn't working....here's another try, so if you've been just dying to help keep me in eyeliner and shiny shoes, now's your chance!

Halloween costumes and Steampunk fashion

       Yes! It’s finally here! That snap in the air! That crisp scent! The realization that you just walked out of your house and weren’t dripping with sweat and defeat after three minutes! It’s October!

       Well, at least it felt like it yesterday and I’m going to accept it as the kick off of the holiday season: costumes, candy, parties, presents, TV specials, boots, houndstooth, closed-toed shoes, pie and a reason to wear stockings outside of the house.

       And the best of the holidays is the first, Halloween, best because you get to wear the most outrageous outfits and no one can say Boo. It’s the time of year everyone can pretend to be something they’re not – so, as a wise person once said, it’s the same as the rest of the year, but with more candy.        

           Fairvilla Megastore is already packed to the rafters with amazing costumes – here are a few pics from the Cocoa Beach store of the fuschia geisha, the lay-der-hosen girl, the belly dancer and the Egyptian princess, modeled by the most 1972, Frederick’s of Hollywood mannequin (whore-equinsns, as some call ‘em) on earth, and finally Vinnie, the store manager decked out as a celebrity chef (you will be expected to bring chocolate salty balls to the party if you wear this, you know that, right?)

       

     One thing I noticed in the Orlando store were a lot of top hats, veiled hats – Victorian-era/Sweeny Todd/pirate kinda stuff that I find seriously alluring and thought it was just vampire chic. Come to find out in a whole different, unrelated conversation that there’s a whole genre of fashion called Steampunk that I’d never even heard of before, though I’ve seen shades of it, a kind of psychotic carnival blend of Victorian/Edwardian/punk/fetish/goth that I think is the hottest thing to come along since vinyl. Here's a video giving a little explanation of this hyper-alluring style blend, in which the Victorian era is re-imagined with all the technologies we have today or, vice versa, today’s technologies deconstructed and given a steam-era hand-crafted aesthetic.

       Good potential Halloween stuff, but one of my new goals is to construct a life where I can afford the time and money to dress like this every day…and nobody gets to say a word.