Crazy Little Contest winner!

A little over a week ago I posted a contest to win a signed copy of "Crazy Little Thing: Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad," my book on some of the neurochemistry and psychology of love and why it makes us do the screwy things it makes us do. My winner really surprised me - I got fun tales of some surprise transgender revelations and stick situations involving poison ivy but my favorite was from someone who didn't want their name used and whom I'm going to call Heathcliff*....though his story doesn't end tragically:

“I met and fell in love with a girl I met while getting my MBA. We started to date, and a few months after were engaged to be married. We were inseparable and did everything together. We loved to cook together and we traveled exceptionally well together. We were truly very much in love with each other. As graduation got closer, baggage from our previous relationships started to creep into our relationship. We both had recently been divorced. With two weeks left in the program, she broke up with me,” he writes, and it wasn’t an easy split. Life - including graduation - went on, but “I was completely heart broken. We didn’t speak for a full year. We dated other people and went on with our lives, while at the same time repairing the issues that lead to our break up. Almost exactly a year after we last spoke, she reached out. We met for drinks, and she asked how I was doing. I tried to conceal the affection I still had, and said, “I’ve moved on.” She responded, “well, what if I tell you I haven’t.” I ordered a double whiskey. We talked. We explored. We forgave. We realized we were still very much in love with each other. We made an agenda, set goals, and took it slow. Well, sort of…” They married relatively recently and “are sincerely in a better place today because of our breakup…love works.”

WHEN I SHARED THIS with a novelist friend, he agreed, saying "My favorite line is "I ordered a double whiskey." Here, he said, is man concealing his love for a woman, trying to play it cool and finding she still loves him...the double whisky felt thoroughly authentic.
For me the pathos came with the feeling the weight of carrying on with a broken heart only to find out your feelings actually are shared. Who can forget Emma Thompson as the reserved, sensible Elinor Dashwood in "Sense and Sensibiltiy" when she finds that Edward still loves her after she thought he'd married someone else? The complexity of love is sometimes most masterfully shown in a few seconds like those.


So even though there are no arrests for violent crime, no alligator-skinned people and no vampire conventions (like there are in Crazy Little Thing Heathcliff's story had the element that so many stories of deep connection - and that we can connect with deeply - have got which is the notion that "The heart has reasons that reason knows not of." I love knowing that it happens outside the movies. Thanks, Healthcliff!
      And thanks to everyone else who wrote to me! There are probably going to be other contests coming up so stay tuned! And cheers!

*(the woodcut image of Healthcliff and Cathy above from a very nice blog by Fairweather Lewis on the power of illustrations in books)

What's Hot in Central Florida

This week on WMFE's What's Hot in Central Florida the Zora Neale Hurston Festival, Joni Sternbach's Surfland at the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona and the Florida Opera Theater presents The Barber of Seville - another weekend full of fun stuff to do - see you out there!

SexCult: I love therefore I'm nuts - "Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love"

Affairs, open relationships, hookers, murder, STDs, disgraced preachers, closeted sexuality and even some kink....had you known philosophers were this interesting you'd have paid a little attention in school right?

Well, they are and Andrew Shaffer gives us the juicy stuff our teachers didn't in Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, which I happily reported on this week in SexCult: I love therefore I'm nuts. We get a peek inside the private lives lives of great Western thinkers from St. Augustine to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Ayn Rand to Albert Camus and most of them prove that when it comes to love you might as well give your brain some cruise tickets til you're done because it won't be working anyway. An excellent read - and a comforting one.

SexFeed: Stephen Hawking, Scientology and the human library of Ottawa

The past few days have been busy ones on Sex Feed....we had Britain allows abortion clinics to advertise on TV and President Obama vows to protect women's reproductive rights. alongside a goofy story about a School that board doesn't want to use the name "Cougars" in case human cougars get mad.....Friday of course we had some fun with Newt bringing open marriage to the campaign trail....and my personal favorite of the week Ottawa library system allows you to check out a human being for 20 minutes. Well, there's no better way to learn something than just asking someone, is there?

Catching up with a few pieces there was a scary story about outing the homophobia in Scientology but my all time favorite was Stephen Hawking deems women a 'complete mystery.'

What's Hot in Central Florida! Sweets, surrealism and slammable phones!

This is the first week I've managed to totally shed the post-holiday-season blues, largely thanks in part to a last weekend's full calendar of events, which were great fun and which I'll post about later. In the meantime on What's Hot in Central Florida I can't even wait to go to the very first Florida Key Lime Pie Festival! And I can't believe what a beautiful weekend we're going to have in January to make a beach trip sound so appetizing. Pie...of course....is always a draw but they're also going to have tiki carving, key lime margarita and martinis and lots and lots of other stuff. I think it'll be like a little taste of the Keys without having to drive eight hours to get to that atmosphere!

Also up this weekend at Twelve 21 Gallery in Orlando featuring work by Eric Althin, Scott Donald, Johannah O'Donnel and Steve Parker- click the link to see a video trailer for the show which is full of beautiful, whimsical and satisfyingly transporting images. As everyone knows reality and I are not on speaking terms and the magical, surrealist visions in this groups show are a sure bet.

Finally...WANT! I don't know if the phone below will actually be at the Antique Telephone and Insulator Show (the best description/contact info for which is here at the Orlando Sentinel's website) at the Maitland Civic Center on Saturday - but oh my god, what an object of desire! There will be dealers from all over the country bringing us back to the days when you had to actually sit/stand in one place to make a call and, when not everyone could get hold of you 24/7 (remember the joyful power of just letting the damn phone ring without having the responsibility for returning messages because you couldn't get messages?). It's super nerdy, I know but it sounds swell to me!

     Anyway, whatever you do this weekend it's going to be a beautiful one so get out there and enjoy it!
     Cheers!

Sex Feed: Advice from French women and Mongolian dinosaurs

Today...well, now yesterday...on Sex Feed we got some terrific advice terrific advice vis-a-vis sex from French women via The Stir and even better advice from the tale of some idiot in a North Carolina jail who  hit a gun up his heinie.

Meanwhile, back in the early part of the year, we had Weak breast implants filled with fuel additive....medical staffs get new recommendations for treating transgender patients....does Lego need to make a separate set of Legos for girls?....the Museum of London features an ancient coin depicting sex positions....will the world's tallest transvestite please stand up? and my favorite, mostly for the pictures...French kissing dinosaur statues in Mongolian theme park. Seriously....does this make anyone else want to go on a road trip to see all those roadside attractions that are going to close any minute now that you don't want to miss? Anybody?

WIN a signed copy of “Crazy Little Thing Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad”!

Love drives us all a little mad sometimes and my book Crazy Little Thing: Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad from Cleis Press/Viva Editions explains some of the chemical and psychological reasons why, along with stories of people who will help you realize how crazy you aren’t…some people really do go off the deep end. Surely you never have….

So what’s the craziest thing that has ever happened to you in love? Tell me in 250 words or less - the best story will win a signed copy of the book - click the link to check out the reviews on Amazon! Hopefully this book help you see crazy coming before it happens again and - no hopefully about it, it will definitely keep you entertained.

You can send me your story via Facebook or at crazylittlecontest@gmail.com. Contest deadline is a week from launch - Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 3pm and I’ll announce a winner on Friday January 27. 

So what constitutes the “best” story? Well, humor helps a lot, degree of insanity is a strong factor, story-telling ability a plus, fake names are fine (no feelings should be hurt in the making of this contest). It needn’t be smutty…this is love we’re talking about, not sex. If I want gratuitous nudity I’ll go look in the mirror. But if it’s essential to the plot, ok. And it doesn't have to be bad crazy - we're not entirely allergic to happy endings. :)
That’s it! 


Good luck!

Donorsexual. It's always fun when a new sexual term is coined but I'm not sure that's one we're going to be using much unless we're talking about Trent Arsenault, a 36 year-old man who has never had sex but has fathered 14 kids by donating sperm for free to childless couples. We think he read the instructions upside down...sex is nature's way of tricking people into having kids. Having kids without sex is like having the hangover without the fun the night before.

Speaking of kids, LGBT parents are just as good as straight parents in just about any study you want to look at plus, it turns out, they might actually do a better job of raising kids in an open-minded, more accepting environment so they won't grow up to be a bunch of Santorums. We like that plan.

(image from Someecards.com

Now, catching up with some of the archives we have: Can we blame Columbus for syphilis or not?....Hawaii and Delaware ring in the New Year with same sex unions....Canadian DJ maintains New Years resolution of abstinence.....a Cardinal compares the LGBT movement to the KKK....and the Best and Worst Sex Scandals of 2011.

SexCult: Dating: Dealing with Crazy

A few weeks ago a story came out about a man who, having been silently rejected by a woman after one date - she simply never replied to any of his texts or calls - wrote her an email of 1615 words. The email went viral, like a bullied girl's diary might be circulated by Mean Girls. It raised a lot of questions in my mind, like what's so difficult about politely declining instead of staying icily silent, what constitutes sending someone too many texts and emails when they are clearly trying to send you a message by not responding and is there no better way than to deal with either one than to turn a global information network into a fourth grade classroom? That was my topic in a recent SexCult: Dating: Dealing with Crazy, and it was one I'm particularly proud of. Enjoy!

Sex Feed: Ostriches like you. I mean, they really really like you...

So yes, I've slacked on blogging a bit, mostly since I sliced into my thumb while cooking and want to keep typing, among other things, at a minimum. Cooking is dangerous. I'll never attempt it again.

BUT the Sex Feed must go on! In the past few days we've had...Mother-Daughter Lingerie models a French town bans the word 'Madamoiselle' as sexist on it's paperwork....an intern at the Trevor project who commited suicide....a sex toy company finds new uses for Sonicare motor...and the dumbbell award to guy who got the penis tattoo, causing him to have a semi-permanant erection.
And then there's my favorite: Ostriches can become attracted to humans.

"Yooooohoooo!"

Since I'm still playing catch-up with posting Sex Feed items from the holidays, check out ...a very freakish prank by parents and school officials at a pep rally...gay coffee....LA residents voting on condom use in porn....a Quiebecois school clerk who got fired for doing porn starts her own porn company.....an Egyptian court bans humiliating, needless 'virginity testing' for female detainees in military prisons...and Christmas porn parodies and sex toys. Really happy holidays were had by many.

What's Hot in Central Florida

There's so much to do this weekend in CF that your own house should look like unfamiliar territory to you by the time it's all over. One of my personal favorites, the Scottish Highland Games opens tonight with a few events like a whisky tasting, but the main events, like the sheep dog demonstrations, the caber toss (burly men flinging telephone poles around like they were pretzel sticks) and folk and highland dancing will be going on for the rest of the weekend (we're told we may have an opportunity to try haggis, and we use the word 'opportunity' generously).






Next up the Orlando Science Center presents Otronicon, it's four-day expo of all kinds of interactive technology including workshops and experiences in medical technology, military tech and Rock Band Experience, with real concert lights and sounds (I'll be squirreled away in the Reboot Lounge myself, playing the video games that were popular when I was a kid, not quite a hundred years ago but when the word "joystick" was still in use and humorous.

Finally when I saw the photographs of Atelier: The Work of Edson Campos online I very much wanted to include the exhibition on the list and you can see why in the image below. Strangely ethereal and surreal but with a vivacity and almost hyper-liveliness, I'm looking forward to seeing this one myself as well. When I went to the Mount Dora Center for the Arts website (the link above) just prior to posting this it was momentarily down; just in case there are technical difficulties, this link might work a bit better; if not, the number for the Center is  (352) 383-0880. There's a reception tonight from 6-8pm and tonight is also the Mount Dora Arts stroll, a free event - you can pick up maps with participating locations in various spots in downtown Mount Dora. and for more information on the exhibit check out the Orlando Sentinel write-up here.

Sex Feed: Gay divorce legislation, sex toys for military wives and Girl Scouts welcome transgender kids

In Sex Feed yesterday we had a sex toy company altruistically trying to help military couples out by bringing teledildonics (that's remote control sex) to military wives, plus, before most states have even legalized gay marriage D.C. is introducing legilsation to help same-sex couples divorce more easily.

Going back into the archives - but just a little ways - Go Canada! Canadian scientists develop first HIV vaccine approved for human trial, a lady convicted of having sex for World Series tickets had her conviction overturned causing an interesting pause for thought about what exactly counts as prostitution....the Lesbian sailor who won love's first kiss at homecoming.....Newt Gingrich telling gays to vote for Obama.....Colorado Girl Scouts welcome transgender girl while their counterpart Scout leaders in Louisiana acted like, well, like 7 year-old girls about it. Way to go Colorado GS! You deserve a merit badge for sure.

The Winner: Little Miss Parliament House

From Futurama: 

Amy: "Aw, come on, Leela. Deep down all girls wanna be Miss Universe."

Leela: "Not me."

Amy: "Really? Maybe it's just cute girls."

Great satire doesn’t just make it’s target look horrifying or ridiculous - by the time something is being satirized it’s been seen that way already. Great satire makes you realize that the target is a dozen times worse than you’d ever imagined it was before you sat down. 

Before seeing “Little Miss Parliament House,” Orlando comedian Jeff Jones’ send-up of child beauty pageants ala “Toddlers and Tiaras,” we all knew child pagaents were disturbing. We all know that. But nothing could have underscored the weirdness of sticking little girl kids in Tammy Faye make-up and coaching them to move with all the child-like exhuberance of Abe Lincoln in the Hall of Presidents than having 40-50 something drag queens satirize them doing it. 

“Little Miss Parliament House,” will make your face ache from laughing, too. It’s a blend of theater, improv and mixed-media with pre-taped interviews of the contestants’ “mothers” and of Jones as the cloying, closeted pageant emcee with Janine Klein as his deliciously disenchanted wife. Doug White, as the pageant assistant, rounds out the stable cast, which  which brings us to another inspired aspect of the show - a rotating cast of contestants so the show is always different. Only the “talent” portion is pre-arranged, so the result is a hilarious free-for-allwith a quick-witted cast that does better on the fly than many do with a script. 

        The opening night cast included Addison Taylor and Carol Lee who play girls so marvelously tragic and familiar that you just want to adopt them or show them an “It gets better” video - something - and Ginger Minj and Chantal Reshae playing girls whoso disconcertingly adult that they make you feel like one of the first two. Future contestants will include Miss Sammy, Gidget Galore, Doug Ba’aser and April Fresh.

So go see “Little Miss Parliament House” - it’s not only hilarious and great satire, but it delivers something real raelity TV seldom does - entertainment, surprises and something to look forward to. It’s been awhile since I’ve been so happy to be totally horrified. 

Orlando is the 2nd Gayest City in the U.S. & Catching up with Sex Feed

Last year when Orlando was voted the fourth gayest city in America by The Advocate I swore we'd get the first place tiara....well, I was only off by one place and that ain't bad. Orlando came in 2nd this year but the surprise of the century....was that the Advocate's choice for the gayest city in America is...well, you'll just have to click on the link, won'tcha?

So that and an Israeli gynecological conference that won't allow women to speak were the stories on today's Sex Feed but going back into the archives a bit we have...how legalizing same-sex marriage improves LGBT health....a mother-toddler group banned from making the 'diamond' symbol in Twinkle Twinkle little star because it's dirty....coercive group sex on the rise among teens.....and a Mississippi mayor whose misappropriation of funds helped him get out of the closet (it helped when it was discovered where he was spending it).

Listen for me on Susan Rich Talks!

Listen for me on Susan Rich Talks, today at 11 a.m ET...go to Susan Rich Talks on W4WN.COM to listen to the broadcast! I'll be on Susan's Love & Lifestyles segment talking about my book Crazy Little Thing: Why Love and Sex Drive Us Mad....and there have been a few things in the new lately that make me feel even more on the money than I thought I was when I wrote it including:
      * Stephen Hawking - yeah, that Stephen Hawking - smartest guy ever - is totally baffled by women so intelligence has nothing to do with it. And
      * Yes, you can die of a broken heart. The depression, anger and anxiety associated with the pain of losing a loved one (in the case of this story, to death....heart attacks are 21 times more likely the day after a loved one dies) increases you heart rate and blood pressure. So the emotional and the physical are inextricably linked.
       ANYWAY, that's more than enough to start you off with for today! Hope you can tune in!

Catching up with Sex Feed

Jeez. Ever feel like the time train has left the station and there you are on the platform in your bathrobe with your cup of coffee just waking up and thinking "What the F? Are we moving along already?"

I started playing catch-up with my Sex Feed posts for SeXis magazine - which I was writing 12 of a week for awhile there - just before New Year's. The holidays very very happily distracted me from the cares of the world and there were a lot of them for women in mid-December, including a report showing that 20% of women have been sexual assault victims and a fraternity's "who would you rape" survey (and people wonder why 'frat boy' is a slur). No wonder Hotels for Women Only have become a travel trend.

There was some comedy, though, including Paul Rudnick's All-New Kinsey Scale in which the writer takes the Kinsey sexuality criteria, -  i.e., how straight are you, how gay are you? - and expands it just a smidge to include references to Mandy Pantankin and museums. Also much-loved was the billboard of the Virgin Mary looking at her pregnancy test results. And one that was scary/funny: Pilates move causes breast implant to lodge in woman's rib cage. It's 1 pm. Do you know where your boobs are?

What's Hot In Central Florida

 I've had the post-holiday blues this week....between Christmas and New Year's but I saw about 100 people I love, ate, drank and slept well and wish all of life could be like the dying days of 2011. That year that brought some spiffy things... my book and the events surrounding it, getting to go to work for WMFE 90.7 FM and an extended stay in beautiful Victoria BC.
     There were other parts of the year that stunk like a fish market dumpster in August. Watching it slink into oblivion while drinking champagne with people I love was all you could want of comfort and joy.
    Plus, there's a long list of things to look forward to in 2012. I'll be talking about them in What's Hot in Central Florida on WMFE 90.7, aevery Friday at 4:32 PM starting with some spectacular live funk music (and who can be sad when that's on?) at Plaza Live Orlando when Galactic plays tonight - click the link and listen to "Hey Na Na" and you'll see what I mean. They're there with Toubab Krewe and both are bound to kick off 2012 in style.
      Saturday and Sunday is the Deland Rail Fair and Model Train Show and I have no doubt there are enough people who go bonkers over all things choo-choo - I know some of them - that this will be a ticket to happiness for many.
      Finally, Orlando comic Jeff Jones will give you your first real belly laughs of the year with  Little Miss Parliament House, a show he wrote and emcees, satirizing Toddlers and Tiaras and other kiddie pageant nightmares with your favorite Footlights female impersonators playing both the little stars and their white trash moms. I've never see a show at the Footlights Theater that didn't leave me with a stomach ache from laughing, so I know this will be a great bet.
       Anyways, I'll see you out there! I'll be the one with the champagne.