Susie Bright's Journal

Baby Animal Goodness for Everyone!

My special "Easter Sermon" on the bloody, erotic history of hot cross buns:

Chocolate Christ Can Come Over to My House Anytime!

My whole Easter Pandemonium Podcast is here: Link

Too Busy: The Sexual Politics of the Presidential Crisis

This has been George Bush's horrible, no-good, very bad week. Nothing could be worse— the President had to give up throwing the first pitch of the season.

His spokeswoman said he was "too busy" to make the game.

But W. has never been too busy for baseball in his entire life.

In past years, this was Bush's holiday. He was the first president, in '05, to do the honors in D.C. since the Senators left town after the '71 season. The Senators, of course, became the Texas Rangers, which Bush bought a chunk of in 1989. Sweet times, eh?

But you'd be "busy,"  too, if you were a President who feared the stadium crowd would boo and jeer your arrival.

"I've got a decision to make today. Do I go with the fastball or a slider?" Bush asked in 2005. Now he gets to choose whether he wants to appear in public with a bag over his head, or a Britney-wig.

George's dear friend, Attorney General Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales has also been very busy.

While Congress hounded him to account for the federal prosecutors who were fired on what appears to be "Mean-Girls" criteria, Gonzales refused to answer the indictments, and instead... is on a national speaking tour to decry the horrors of child pornography.

I'm not going to quote what Gonzales has to say about "child porn," because his speech, all by itself, is a purple-prose, pornographic, exploitation rant. He could leave Andrea Dworkin speechless. I'm surprised no one in his audience decided to stop kiddie porn in its tracks by duct-taping Gonzales' mouth.

It's not enough to say his remarks were disingenuous; they're sickening. The Justice Department under Bush has not been an ally to abused and neglected children—  unless we're talking about block grants of Hot Air.

90% of reported child abuse cases take place in the home, between blood relatives, and there's no webcam involved. There may be bias to child abuse statistics, but everyone— except political opportunists— acknowledge that "hurting children" is largely an ugly and secretive family affair, one which Bush's DOJ has ignored. The issue has no partisan "gain" for them— why bother?

Of course, the Executive Branch functionaries in charge of "helping families" are the folks at the Department of Health and Human Resources, but they are so busy demanding abstinence education, and trying to stop birth control, that they can't get around to the starving, burned, or beaten.

Let's say, for argument, that the Justice Department has a special priority: "Hey, we're going after global porn monsters here."

Even on their own parochial terms, the Justice Dept. has not hunted down the causes or perpetrators of human chattel, which is the basis for sexual exploitation of children. The label "child porn" is a frivolous, insulting, bargain-basement sales tag for what's really going on: a global, multi-age system of slave trafficing.

Let me quote an encyclopedia-style definition of slavery:

Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons — known as slaves — are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to perform labor or services.

Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase, or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation in return for their labor.

Chattel slavery is the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons, including the legal right to buy and sell them.

Not very sexy, huh? But that's what this is all about. Pimping young people on camera doesn't exist separately from the economic tit of human degradation. It's not the frisson of a MySpace page that is driving young people into literal bondage. Our President's policies trivialize human trafficing by acting as if it's a "pornography beef"— and who's calling him on it?

As many observers have pointed out, the Rovian Era of presidential politics is to gut every federal "helping hand" and then transform what's left into a propaganda arm for fatuous fundie causes— the more loony and "sexy," the better.

Since the day the Moral Majority got its Ralph-Reed milk teeth into the base fears of sexual repression, we have seen the America's political leadership throw everything they've got at sex-fear mongering:

"Why do we go to war?"
Because we're not PUSSIES.

"Why is corporate crime no big deal?"
Because CHILD PORN is destroying America.

"What's the most important moral question facing the country?" 
GAY MARRIAGE.

"What's the problem with public education today?"
QUEER LIBERALS are passing out CONDOMS.

Do you know what the eight fired prosecutors have in common? The mainstream media have downplayed this, when you'd think they'd be building a bonfire.

The common thread between the Fired-8 is that all of them declined to press obscenity charges on cases that the DOJ was desperately running up a flagpole without success.

Now, why? — since we know these prosecutors are Republicans who would love to win a solid case— why would they frown on pursuing such charges?

Bush's DOJ Porno Task Force told the prosecutors to go after X-rated entertainment companies who make adult, consensual productions—grown-ups with contracts! This time, the focus was supposed to be on subject material like piss, scat, bestiality, and... S/M. They were counting on a big "ick" factor!

But the Super-8 aren't all that stupid, and they know what happens in obscenity trials when you go after the 1st Amendment. They could paper the White House with case history. They won't chase these clown cars, because, as Paulie Walnuts might put it, "they're weak, they're out of control, and... an embarrassment to yourself and everyone else."

What the hell is an "S/M" video, after all? Are you going to go after Hollywood for releasing 9 1/2 Weeks? Any defense lawyer worth his salt is going to bring in Pasolini's Salo, portraits of Abu Gharib victims, and documentaries on cattle insemination to pose the question: What is context? What about taste? What crime has been committed? Legitimate film producers, be they "adult," mainstream, or hybrid, are not going to take it lying down.

You know when President Reagan went after porn in the 80s, he told his Attorney General, Edwin Meese, to focus on gay sex, anal sex, and black-white couples— and to charge them in Texas. And it still backfired.

Here's the rule of thumb: whatever the DOJ wants to prosecute as obscenity is an unfortunate snapshot of the dirty mind that wrote the memo.

If DOJ super-porn-cops like Brent Ward want to get in the witness box and talk about the S/M scenes that make him piss in his pants, hand him the rope. This is a guy who tried to pass a law that would make art-school models wear bikinis.

But when the jury listens, the obscenity-prosecutors lose, because it is impossible to keep a jury together on the pained assumptions of fundamentalist, sexist, racist hysterics.

Unfortunately, you haven't been able to say the same thing about American voters. The prudery-floggers have been able to whip up their beloved  base  in every election, mobilizing voters to punch a ticket for their sexual neuroses instead of their economic, environmental, or knowledge-based self-interest.

Have we finally reached voter-porn-fatigue, or is it just a lull? Is reality intruding— and for how long?

Who can forget journalist Ron Suskind's priceless story in 2004 where he talked with Bush's senior adviser, at the height of the White House's conceit?

The [adviser] said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community'' —which he defined as "people who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.''

I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism.

He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality— judiciously, as you will— we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.

We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Hmmm... reality. The middle class stripped to a barrel, the poor sent to die abroad, the US rudderless, internationally. So much blood on our hands, Lady Macbeth looks like an American Idol contestant.

Can any amount of political smut-mongering and queer-baiting pull us out of the reality hole?  "I fell through a hole in the flag...... heeelp!"

Ben Franklin designed our first penny with his favorite expression, "Mind Your Business." It was taken as a statement of respect for privacy, as well as minding your own store.

There's a kind of "busy," when you're taking care of your family and your community— and there's the other kind of "busy," when you're poking your nose where it doesn't belong, because of your vanity and greed.

Smut-baiting needs to be seen, and called out, as the kind of "busy" that no one's going to tolerate anymore.

It's a disgrace that the White House panders "child porn" panics with such deceit and indifference that they have succeeded in making people's eyes glaze over an issue that ought to turn anyone into a pillar of salt.

They've gone beyond shame, they've dragged us into "numb," and now George is hiding in his fantasy baseball league because he can't take the heat in Reality Stadium. I can't wait to see what happens when he really gets preoccupied.

Executioner and Justice, photomontage, by John Heartfield (Germany), from a collection of images of the goddess of justice.

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP:  Embattled AG now accused in sex scandal 'cover-up'

Shanna Germain's Entry Point

SUSAN AND REESE slow down until they’re alongside us. “Put your paddles up,” Susan says. Then she reaches out to grab the side of the canoe with wet fingers. A diamond flashes on her middle finger, a gift from Reese. No, that’s not right. Susan called it a commitment ring. Like a cross between engagement and marriage.

An excerpt from "Entry Point," by Shanna Germain, in Best American Erotica 2007

We float that way a while, listening. Dark is falling somewhere nearby. You can see it in the way the shadows lengthen on the river, the way the trees darken and reach.

Susan takes her hand off the boat, points to shore. “We’re going to try and camp over there,” she says. “Should be an easy landing.”

It’s not easy, but it’s okay. Reese jumps into the river at mid-thigh, a little splash and sigh, and then she grabs the front of our canoe and pulls us ashore.

Harry doesn’t like that, being pulled to the sandy banks while he’s sitting in the back with his oar on his lap, but he doesn’t say anything. And by the time I’ve got the salmon and corn steaming over the campfire, he’s helping the girls raise the tents. One on this side of the clearing, one on the other.

We eat round the campfire, gobbling in the near-dark. I’m so hungry, I eat the salmon with my fingers, pulling the greasy pink flesh off the bone and sticking it in my mouth.

Susan does the same. “Jesus, Ma, this it the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“I agree,” Reese says, her mouth so full of fish the words barely come out. I feel a quick surge of warmth toward her.

After dinner, Harry goes off into the woods to do his business somewhere quiet and I sit on the picnic table, away from the campfire. The dark makes soft edges out of my fingers.

Harry’s footsteps are light across pine needles. He gives my shoulders a quick squeeze. “I’m gonna hit the hay,” he says. His kiss is mint and river water, and somewhere beneath that, a hint of salty, sweet fish.

“’Night.” I sit, watching the trees darken against the sky until I hear the zipper of the tent, the rustle of sleeping bag as Harry settles himself in like a dog. We didn’t bring air mattresses or even good pillows—the canoe space was reserved for food and water and tents—and I imagine tomorrow we’ll both be bent over and stiff from work and wear.

Across the campground, Susan and Reese are still sitting by the campfire, their backs to the picnic table. Together, near the flame, they are dark and light. Together, they should blot each other out. But they don’t. Instead they make each other darker and lighter, luminescent, alive.

I watch as Susan leans in to Reese, holding out a piece of fish between her fingers. Reese opens her mouth, takes the fish and Susan’s fingers inside, holds everything there, her eyes on Susan’s. Susan pulls her fingers out slowly, then she puts her own fingers into her mouth, sucks them the way she used to when she was a child. She’d get so excited by something—the tiger at the zoo, riding in the car, Daddy coming home—that she’d stick her fingers in her mouth and suck on them, just to calm herself.

I don’t believe they are being exhibitionists. They are just in their own world, not even aware that I’m watching.

Reese puts her palm against Susan’s cheek, runs it up into Susan’s ponytail. She pulls my daughter’s face to her own. It is not gentle, and for one moment, I want to stand up, I want to slap this woman’s face, tear her hand from my child’s cheek. But then Susan closes her eyes, leans sideways into Reese’s palm. Between their lips, the orange fire sparks and crackles.

When Susan opens her mouth against Reese’s chin, I know I should turn away, but I cannot.

There is something here that I am coming to understand. Something that is burning its way through my stomach, something that I am afraid of, something that I want. I am afraid that if I step back into the darkness now, that if I close my eyes without seeing my daughter’s joy, if I unzip the tent and slide in beside Harry, that this everything will disappear.

I want to capture this thing like a firefly, to bring it to Harry and say, here, look. To say, please, yes. But I am afraid that it will die between my cupped palms, that I will arrive at Harry’s side with nothing more than a husk of something that was bright and shining....

You can read the rest of "Entry Point" in BAE 07 — it's a wonderful story...

Susie's Interview with Shanna

SB:  I just got asked to blurb a book called How to Fuck in a Tent, or How to Have Sex Camping, something like that. As an outdoorswoman, what are your thoughts on the subject?

SG:  Wow, a book on how to fuck in a tent! I need that, please. I’m always the one who ends up with a rock under my ass.

SB:  You're a poetry editor at The American Journal of Nursing. What do nurses know about sex and the body from their practice that the average "lay person" wouldn't?

SG:  I was a volunteer paramedic and firefighter in college. Later, I went on to get a psych degree with a specialization in post-traumatic stress. I was barely18 when I started running calls and still thought I was invincible. It didn’t take long for that to change.

It changed how I lived my life. I don’t hesitate to tell people how much I care for them. I’m afraid of so few things now. You realize that everything can hurt you, so if you spend your whole life worrying about it, you’ll never do anything.

The body is such an intricate, amazing machine. Working on the ambulance solidified my belief that sex-ed is a must, for everyone. We saw so many patients of all ages who had sexual issues, and didn’t have a clue. It was everything from men and women with HIV and AIDs, to women who didn’t understand how they could be pregnant, to kids who knew they had something wrong, but were ashamed to tell their parents and then they came down with a fever or something else that forced them into the ambulance.

SB:  What kind of "sex education" did you have growing up?

SG:  My sex-education was oddly split. I grew up on a farm which teaches you more than you might really want to know. Our dinner-table conversation was often about which animals were in heat, when the AI (artificial insemination) man was coming, who was due when, who had to be gelded.

From a young age, I watched the AI man come with his long glove and artificially inseminate cows. I waited up in the barn all night so I could be there when the animals gave birth, I handled placentas and helped the babies start nursing. I understood sex as reproduction. —Also, as kind of messy and not all that much fun for the girls.

My parents were very playful about sex, and my mom is one of the most open people that I know. When I was younger, I also understood that there was this other side to sex: a fun, funny, loving side that I didn’t quite understand. My parents never had “the talk” with me or anything like that, but my mom made sure there were always books around, like Our Bodies, Ourselves. And, me being such a reader, I’m sure she knew that I was dipping into it every chance I got.

Despite all of that, there was something missing for me. I liked sex, but I still didn’t quite understand about my own pleasure. Now only how to have it, but also that it was okay for me to ask for what I wanted, to discover what I liked. I didn’t have my first orgasm until I was in my early twenties. And now that I think back, I realize that I thought that just wasn’t supposed to be part of the sexual equation for me. I have no idea where that misconception came from, but I’m so glad that I eventually kicked it.

SB: You're a connoisseur of dark beer and black coffee; you're a coffee trade 'zine editor— so okay, spill. What's the greatest you've had lately?

SG:  With dark beer, I have two eternal favorites: Black Butte porter and McMenamins Black Rabbit porter. I like my beers dark, sweet and chocolately. A hint of smoke or coffee is good too.

As for coffee, it depends on the day. There’s a shop in Portland where you go in and they have twenty-some coffees in stock. I’m always switching it up. I edit a coffee magazine and visit origin countries like Guatemala and Costa Rica quite a bit, so there are some coffees that have personal connections for me. I know the farmers and I had the chance to visit the land where the coffee was grown.

SB:  Do you get aroused from your own work?

SG:  Not typically. I’m very character-driven in my fiction, so my characters are often different from me, as are their fears and desires. Also, I’m methodical about character and plot, and I’m a slow writer. I plod along, change every word and sentence a million times. It’s probably the least sexy thing in the world, the process of me writing.

But… I do notice that when I’m re-read a finished piece, I am surprised by how arousing it is. I think, “Wow, how did all that sexy stuff get in here?”

I do a lot of editing in coffee shops, and sometimes I’ll be in the coffee shop editing something and I’ll realize that I’m sitting all hunched up over my laptop, getting aroused reading my own fiction while guys in suits the next table over are talking about selling insurance. I have this simultaneous response of: “Wow, I have the best job in the world” and “I really should start editing at home. Ideally, in bed with the laptop!"

SB:  Have you had any experiences with prejudice as a writer because of your erotic writing?

SG:  I had that question in my head when I started publishing erotica. I was freelancing for a number of publications at the time, and I used my real name for all of my writing, so I expected that  some of the publications that I worked for would have a problem.

But, no. If anything, I’ve found that my editors were not only completely cool with it, but many of them said something like, “Wow, I wish I had the guts to do that.”

To be honest, my writing has actually been a reprieve from discrimination for me. My experience has been that people take one look at me and write me off as either stupid or as having had some kind of charmed life, because of how I look.

With writing, because you submit work and you publish work via snail mail or email, no one knows (or cares) what you look like. It’s one of the few places where you know that the response you’re getting is based, at least for a large part, on the quality of your work. Either you’re good enough or your not.

The only  “discrimination” I’ve faced, if you can call it that, is people thinking that I’ve done everything that I’ve written about in a sexual sense. That seems to be a particular issue with erotica.

No one asks mystery writers if they went out and sleuthed a case. If you write a novel about being a widow, no one asks you when your husband died. People don’t ask Stephen King if his car came to life when he was a teenager.

But people ask me about my stories as though they’re non-fiction. On one hand, I take it as a compliment that I’ve been able to create something realistic. It offers an opportunity to talk with readers about sex in an open way, but I do find it strange. —Which isn’t to say that I don’t wish I’d done all the things I write about, but if that was the case, I wouldn’t have time to write anything!

Photos: Canoe Porn from a perfectly wonderful fly-fishing blog. And no, this isn't a candid shot from Shanna's last summer vacation— it's  a vintage  Sex in the Tent  shot from ErosBlog.

Three Obscene Phone Calls

My first conscious encounter with the police, in which I knew something "bad" had happened, was over an obscene phone call. I think I was three.

My mother got very upset while holding our heavy black AT&T receiver to her ear.

A few minutes later, there was a pounding at the door, and man in an incredibly pocketed and weighty uniform came in. I remember being curious how his pants stayed up on his waist. My mom got more agitated over his arrival than she had over the phone conversation.

I was eye-level with his long flashlight and gun holster. Could he shine the flashlight into the holes on the phone earpiece and see who was calling?

All of this came to mind as I read one of my favorite stories from Best American Erotica 1999, "Three Obscene Telephone Calls" by Marian Phillips.

In Bed with Susie Bright: "Three Obscene Telephone Calls"

Listen to an excerpt:

Listen to the whole show: Link

Get the whole Best American Erotica '99 Audiobook and Gorge Yourself: Link

 In the second half of my show I discuss a recent British documentary about jacking off elephants that is just so informative.

Finally, in the Try This at Home mailbag, I hear from a man who's starting to become sexually active at age 30, and wonders if what he desires at this point is completely crazy, or even "unmanly."

Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, or requests for Girly Cards (free "In Bed" shows for a month!) to [email protected] (Episode 287, March 30, 2007)

How Doth the Little Elephant Jack Off His Shining Tail

I just love a good animal documentary. Marlin Perkins, eat your heart out! And thanks to Sandrino for the tip...