Susie Bright's Journal

(Sex) Crimes Against Nature: How Lovers Take Revenge With Dildo Abuse

There's a lesbian crime wave sweeping the country and not one local news program has the guts to cover it: sex toy vandalism. My phone has become a hotline of sorts for victims whose harnesses have been hijacked, whose rubber novelties have been mutilated.

Just last night a dear friend called to say that she and her lover had their camping trip ruined when someone entered their tent and snatched their black bag full of sex toys: two hundred dollars worth, she said— not an uncommon price for a vibrator, dildo, harness, and lube.

My friends did the right thing: they indignantly reported their loss to the park ranger. Might he be a suspect? These vicious robberies are underreported, but the problem isn't going to go away by keeping it a secret.

My advice? Especially at the big parks, like Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, keep your dick strapped on at all times, and your vibrator attached to your canteen belt or day pack. You'll have more fun in the forest and you won't have any nagging worries about what's going down at base camp.

The more familiar type of vandalism I hear about is committed by someone you know very well—  an ex or a soon-to-be ex.

I'd like a show of hands as to how many of you have watched in horror as your lover picked up a butcher knife and hacked your rubber dick into a million pieces. Or worse, they do the dirty deed in private and then stuffed the remains into your pillowcase or the soles of your shoes. When you consider the prices we pay for these items, the humor quickly fades.

The partner who had the guts in the first place to walk into a sleazy adult store to buy the precious item is usually not the one who wrecks the toy. It seems that with a lot of couples, one partner stays in the car chewing her nails while the other one attempts to look like she knows what she's doing as she tiptoes into Frenchy’s Fantasy Fun Palace.

There is no reason why you shouldn't get to know your own local novelty store. "Bob" at the Fantasy Palace is no more threatening than the sales clerk at Walgreen's, and no one is going to make a pass at you.

The male customers in the sex store are more afraid of you than you are of them. Watch them cut a wide swath to get out of your way as you head toward the tit clamps. It's an awesome sense of power. I don't know why men can be so rude at a bus stop but then be absolutely speechless in a sex toy store, but that's the way it is.

Back to the problem of inter-relationship dildo abuse. Thwarting such expensive destruction takes more sensitivity and imagination than the vacation rip-off cases.

First off, consider whether you or your lover has a pent-up desire to carve up a rubber cock... 

Contined in Susie Sexpert's Lesbian Sex World, "Sex Crimes Against Nature"

Hong Kong Juk for Everyone (Congee Loves You)

 

Making rice porridge is easy and yummy. You add your own extras and condiments to this comfort food and it tastes better than you can imagine.

Congee for your sick days, congee for missing-your-Mommy days, congee for hangovers, congee for brunch, congee impress-your-virgin- friends, congees for extended-TV-watching, congee right-out-of-the-fridge-heated-up anytime.

Most people look at congee recipes online and despair because it takes a couple hours of slow cooking.

 

NO MORE!

Here's how to make quick, perfect-tasting rice porridge:

Cook 1 part rice to 8 parts water or chicken stock. Or fish or veggie stock. Or coconut milk.

Cook it just like you would cook a regular rice recipe, for 20 minutes. 

Here's the sneaky, "right-tool-for-the-jook" trick:

Take an immersible blender and blend what's in your saucepan until it's like pudding.

YOU'RE DONE.

 

That's the basic recipe, but I've written down the congee I made yesterday so you can see an example of a full-blown congee pig-out.

My friends Janet and Dan Jurafsky supplied me with the condiments and garnishes for my first venture. They live in San Francisco. I was worried, "How will I ever find these Chinese ingredients in my square little town?" 

But guess what? You can buy all these things on the Internet. They are inexpensive and mail well. I have provided links below. 

 

Susie's Game of Thrones Congee

With Juky Love to Janet and Dan

 

1 cup rice

8 cups chicken stock and water (I ran out of chicken stock; didn't matter)

1 T sesame oil

Salt

Heat the oil on medium high heat in saucepan and stir in the rice and salt,until the rice is coated and transluscent.

Add your stock/water and cook for 20 minutes on low, simmering low. 

Turn off your heat.

Use your immersible blender in the saucepan, turning it  on "high" to blend your rice porridge until it's pudding-consistency.

Ladle into bowls and add your condiments and garnishes.

 

Garnish with any of the following, and hand yourself a big spoon:

Chinese pickles or any small-diced picked vegetables you have around. Picked cabbage, not cucumbers, is preferable.

Nori, or any kind of seasoned seaweed

Salted peanuts

Pork threads, also called Pork Fu

1000-Year-Old Egg, (a preserved duck egg), diced. Yes, this is a must.

Scallions, diced

2 Hard-boiled regular eggs, crumbled

Cilantro

Soy sauce

 

I would also happily use:

Chopped-up cooked chicken

Raw Yellowtail

Shellfish

Carnitas

Sliced ginger

Any kind of veggies, lightly sauteed or raw

Greens, raw or cooked

Bean curd skin

Anything that goes with rice is going to taste good. 

 

Illustration: Jon Bailiff

 

 

 

Farmer in the Dell

The farmer wrote to me, " You must be weary," and he was right. His message was one of a hundred e-mails a day I received on the road: six weeks, twenty-eight stops, the full package book tour.

I invited nearly everyone I met on the road to write to me about their own sexual philosophy. His was a little different.

See, those other 99 messages, they said things like, "I can't get enough of you." It was the sweetest praise I could hear, and yet that yearning that exhausted me: there was never enough of me;  they always wanted more. I was a girl who couldn't say no, and couldn’t register “empty.”

By the end of the day, though, I was turning into toast. I didn't want to be Susie Sexpert anymore; I wanted to disappear.

This man— who addressed my tired bones instead of my credentials—read my exhausted senses. He said he farmed for a living. He lived an hour from one of the university hamlets I was visiting. He he could drive me out there to the fields where  I could watch the new garlic grow. We could walk in the woods, or sit at the lakefront and do absolutely nothing at all.  I salivated reading his offer.

My home is in the central farming community of California. Some of my best friends are farmers, and they feed me well. Writers and farmers share the sensibility that you might as well go broke doing something you love. 

I liked this man already, just to know what he did for a living, and for extending me the best invitation I'd ever received on a book tour: to run away.  Still, I had to decline the temptation. I had interviews nearly every hour I was in his vicinity; there was no way I could make a polite escape. 

The farmer read my online diaries, and he wrote me again. This time, he said, that truth be told, he did fantasize about making love to me— but that my doubts were as real as his own. He liked that I promised fans to be “bad in bed.” He said it was a relief.

I couldn't dismiss him as easily as I had the other e-mails, like the one that said: "I am a 43 year old atty. in Las Vegas who is well-endowed. Call me when you arrive." 

No, the Farmer wrote well, and that always touches me. He was lyrical about his environment, and his kindness was a genuine aphrodisiac. Still, I was wary— this could  be a ruse, an Internet pose job. I wrote him back:

"Things are always so different face-to-face. I hope when I speak in town that you'll come and introduce yourself to me."

A week later I was at another Big University, signing books at the back of an auditorium. He came up to me at the very end. The end of a glorious night, a SRO crowd of readers, and many autographs on both breasts and books.

On my ninth glass of ice tea, he walked up to the table, and in my mania, I'd forgotten entirely about my invitation to him. What I saw was a six-foot tall man, with graying, curly long blond hair, waiting at the end of the line. He was so shy, that despite his height and looks, he didn't stand out in the crowd. He put out his hand and said, "Hello, I'm the Farmer. "

For a second, my mind recognized nothing; he sounded like a recording from a child's pull toy. I almost replied, "Hello, I'm the Author!"

Then my mind's eye uncrossed and I leapt from behind the table to greet him. He was real, and I gave him a great hug. He embraced me back, and I remembered that although he wrote me that his hands were rough, they weren't harsh at all.

That night I went back to my antiseptic hotel room, put the starched pillow over my head, and started to fantasize about the Farmer: his body over me, fucking me, his hands on my breasts. I pulled myself out of my reverie long enough to grab my laptop and find his address:

Dear Farmer:

I liked meeting you so much tonight. Now I can't get you, or your invitation, off my mind. If I postpone some of my media junk tomorrow, I can get away for four hours— is that ridiculous?

I went to sleep happily, knowing that if nothing else, I was going to have him in my dreams. In the morning, I checked my messages: 

Continued here in Mommy's Little Girl, "Farmer in the Dell"

Free Speech Legal History, US and Canada

 

 

My Case Histories:

Co-plaintiff, ACLU v. Gonzales (COPA case), 2003-2006

Consultant, Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Commissioner of Customs and Revenue and Minister of National Revenue - S.C.B.C. Action No. L020443, Canada, 2003-2004

Plaintiff, Bright v. Los Angeles Unified Sch. Dist. , 18 Cal.3d 450, 1974-1976

 

Notes:

I've been meaning to make a little database of this case law history, so I can find it when I get asked about them from time to time.

The photo is by Joel Levine, of our underground high school newspaper, The Red Tide, rolling off the web press. The Red Tide was frequently seized and confiscated by high school admins, who also expelled or suspended our writers. That's why we sued them, and that began my first experience as a plaintiff.

The Little Sisters experience began because Canadian customs was seizing and destroying small press gay, lesbian, and feminist work that US publishers and authors shipped to Canadian bookstores. My books were among many titles seized, as well as the magazine I edited, On Our Backs. It was so draconian that OOBers used to smuggle our zine across the border in a car, as "tourists." CAN customs, ironically, used statutes cultivated by feminists Dworkin/MacKinnon legal policy to ban our work. Little Sisters is a radical gay and very activist bookstore in Vancouver with a history of pressing for justice in sexual speech--- many authors and publishers got involved in their legal struggle... Ask a gay or sex author from 80s or 90s about this case, and they'll have a war story! 

The COPA suit, brought by ACLU in coalition with about every public-interest bookseller and publisher around, was a response to the early Internet hysteria that the Web was run by child-molesters. The government was considering scrapping the First Amendment for new technology, but happily, we prevailed. My web site was used as an exhibit of material that passed the Miller Test that would be illegal if COPA became the law of the land.

Susie Looking for Literary Translators in Spanish, French, Italian, German

Dear Language-Lovers, Readers, and Friends,

I'm beginning a new literary-translation project— a long-awaited dream.

I have an opportunity to publish a few of my books in Italian, Spanish, French, and German— and I'd like to find experienced, sympatico translators to work with!

Here are the first titles I'm translating:

Susie Sexpert's Lesbian Sex World

Susie Bright's Sexual Reality

Sexwise

Mommy's Little Girl

Big Sex Little Death

The Erotic Screen: Volume 1

I'm looking for native speakers in the above languages who have experience with biographical and literary translation work. A sensibility for erotic, sexual, and feminist vernacular will be key. What fun!

I'm aware of the professional translator referral lists at PEN and ATA, but a personal introduction or referral is always welcome.

If you or someone you know would be a fine candidate, please send me a note with your resumé, plus links or samples of your book-length translation work.

You may write to me here. I'll be delighted to respond.

All my best,

Saludos,

Chaleureusement,

A presto!

Alles Liebe und Gute,

 

Susie

 

Screw in a Hotel: Shar Rednour's Advice to the Sex-Starved Parental Unit

 

 

Shar Rednour, who really does know more about maintaining an awesome sex life no matter how many screaming kids are occupying your living room.

The Hippest Conversation You've Ever Heard About Porn. Yes.

 

Mike White interviews Susie Bright on the The Projection Booth about vintage porn and her new book The Erotic Screen, Volume 1.

It was such a treat to talk to Mike, who's eminently knowledgeable  about the erotic and indie movie history.

Listening to our interview three months after our first meeting,  I'm taken aback: this is the most frank and wide-ranging conversation I've ever heard about sex movies, from anyone, anywhere. 

Listen to us get down and detailed about our favorite classic XXX films, early erotic video innovation, legendary erotic directors and actors, including:

Greg Dark's Let me Tell Ya Bout White/Black Chicks era, 

Rinse Dream (aka Steve Sayadian) with Cafe Flesh and Nightdreams,

Veronika Rocket's Smoker,  

Pirates, and why it was produced for Disneyland lovers

Radley Metzger's Score,

Joyce Snyder's Raw Talent, ("the Portlandia of Porn!")

Kink.com,

Directors Michael Ninn, John Stagliano, Andrew Blake,

Jack Baker,

Porn theaters in Detroit and London,

Stalag porn that flourished in Israel in the 50s/60s,

Segregation and race tropes in porn, ("people would talk to me, a reporter, as if it was Pig Night at the Ku Klux Klan rally"),

Bernard Purdy's Lialeh, 

The G-spot Fraud Detection Squad,

The veracity of the letters I got to my Penthouse in-box, (all real, handwritten or typed and snail-mailed--- and more than I could ever answer),

Edward Penishands and other porn satires ("It's the same whether it's Catherine the Great fucking her horse or the GOP primaries"), 

What it takes to cut it as a Woodsman, ("Viagra doesn't make you come on camera... it's a very particular kind of 'hitting your mark.' To hell with the drugs...There's always been a million ways to hide the soft sausage.")

How the best films of the Golden Era got literally cut to shreds by their own copyright owners, ("You're dealing with IDIOTS"),

And what really matters to me in sex cinema:

"You know how I am, Mike. The girl's gotta come, and I've gotta know it."

 

Illustration: The cover of Mike White's must-read cult film book, Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection. White is a writer for CinemaScope, Paracinema, Detroit's Metro Times, and Detour-Mag.com. He's jury-served at Slamdance, Cinekink and MicroCineFest, and been featured in the documentaries David Goodis: To a Pulp and The People Vs. George Lucas.

What Do You Call "The Bits?" -- What Children Need to Tell Parents About Sex

 

What to call the bits? Teaching children only the anatomically correct names may cause some difficulty for them on the schoolyard.

Interview by Katherine Holland, Vitamin Daily

I like "bits." I wish Americans knew that one— it's egalitarian.

Your family will have humorous and pet names for "penis" and "clitoris"— that's the nature of language and the most familiar parts of our lives. Your kids will also bring home schoolyard inventions you couldn't dream of. Enjoy the learning curve.

It's all good, as long as they feel free to ask "What does ______ mean?" and know that you'll have a curious and forth-coming attitude, a context to put it in.

Why are couples' libidos so affected after having children? Is it hormonal? Sheer exhaustion, shifted priorities, or something else? What can help to snap out of it?

The answer is a), b), c), and all of the above.

There is no snapping out or into it!

It's more like careful stitching. Turn to your adult wisdom— put the knowledge you have into practice.

Set up regular babysitter dates, ahead of time. 

Money isn't the issue, planning is. Set up multi-family childcare nights where one set of parents hosts the all the kids for pizza and movie while the other parents get to do WHATEVER THEY WANT.

 

 

Shar Rednour is hands-down the most brilliant writer on this subject: How Great Sex Made me A Good Mom.

Read her entire blog on the subject and weep with gratitude.

Your children catch you in the act— now what?

It's not: Now what?

It's: So what?  

Good-humored non-chalance is the desirable reaction. It's a moment to reinforce a privacy lesson, not a sex lesson. 

"Are you ok?" you might say. "Good. Close the door and always knock before you barge in."  

Answer questions later, when you're spending time with them, not during private time in your bedroom. The same goes for whether you're jilling off, reading a book, daydreaming, or writing in your journal. Privacy is so important for them, for you. Be a consistent role model on both sides of the door.

At what age do you do what? I would be hard pressed to say at what age kids are starting to have sex.

When do you need to have a proper heart-to-heart with them to discuss the responsibilities?

Are you encouraging them or pressuring them if you introduce this topic too early? Or, is it worse to approach it too late? 

There's no numerical answer to this— we all develop differently. We're born with sexual curiousity and sensation— there isn't one talk or one moment that defines us.

Sex is about a lot more than pregnancy and disease-prevention. My favorite book in that regard— the only sex book for young people about the other parts of sexuality— is A Kid's First Book About Sex by Joani Blank.

If your family is committed to fact-based education, you're already miles ahead of the superstition that plagues most sex education.  

 If you talk about current events and pop culture in your family, what's going on in the natural world around you; if you have intimate and wide-ranging conversations at the dinner table, in the car, fooling around— these conversations will come easily. Sex is an integrated part of life— it's not the bogeyman.

When parents finally get a night to themselves without the babes, I feel like dinner is the easy choice. "Let's go for dinner, honey!"

Screw dinner. What's the sexiest thing parents can do on date night, and how often should it be scheduled?

Go straight to your bliss, whatever that may be.

What makes you feel sexy again is having fun. Fun leads to enjoyable sex; hormones and exhaustion be damned. I don't know what your idea of fun is, but you need to make the empty space where it can happen.

Variety is everything. You may plan your escapes on the calendar, but what happens each time is part of the fun. Whether it's careful maps, spontaneous inspirations, or surprises— you've set aside the time to find out.

"Date night" for the two parents enjoying each other's company isn't the only date you need.

You want "alone time," dates with dear friends, as well as escapes with your lover.

All pistons firing is what makes life sexy. Maybe you crave a nap; maybe you want to make out in the back of the car— you'll find out soon enough if you make the time. You'll be such a better, more patient, nurturer for your efforts!

 

Illustration: from my favorite 20th century sex manual, "Is Sex Necessary?" by James Thurber and E.B. White.