On Our Backs publisher Debi Sundahl always liked to say, “What would Steve Jobs do?”
I had no idea who, or what, she was talking about.
This “Steve Jobs” was her number-one favorite man in the whole world. I had the impression she must know him personally; she quoted him so extensively I presumed they'd met where she worked, in the Copenhagen Room at the O’Farrell Theatre, some extraordinary lap dance customer.
“We’re not going to pay for typesetting anymore,” Debi announced one day. “It’s too expensive, and it’s irrelevant. Steve Jobs has a computer for us that’s going to change all that; we’ll do it right here in the house.”
She said this as she pointed at our living room, which had been transformed into our paste-up and layout den.
A computer?
I imagined "Hal" in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Impossible! I couldn’t program a rocket ship; I only knew how to write, edit, wax down copy, and use a proportion wheel.
Debi came home one day with an enormous, beautiful white box that looked like it belonged on a Milan runway. It was the 1984 Macintosh desktop computer.
I started whimpering. “I can’t do it. You don’t understand... I barely passed ninth-grade algebra.”
She took a cassette tape out of the package and loaded it into her boom box. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Flute music started up on the tape, as if we were about to attend a New Age seminar. I felt as though someone had placed either an egg or a bomb over my head, but I couldn’t tell which.
A woman’s voice came over the speaker; she sounded beatific. “Take the monitor out of the box,” she said. She patiently explained how to insert the power cord on both ends. Debi rolled her eyes.
The disembodied Apple Voice said, “Press the power button on.” It was like a priest declaring, “Body of Christ.”
A heavenly tone came out of the computer, as if something were being born.
The screen flickered and a smiling little “box face” appeared on-screen. It twinkled at me. It said, I don’t care if you didn’t understand ninth-grade algebra.
I blew my nose into my wet Kleenex one last time, and Debi said, “So, how fast can you type?”
Debi wanted everything Steve Jobs had. —Like investors. Giant loans. People clamoring for our innovation. I felt she was ignoring political reality.
“People don’t think Steve Jobs is a pervert! We're lesbian sex publishers!” I said. “No one’s trying to take him away in leg irons for frightening the horses.”
“He is frightening the horses,” Debi said. She cupped her face in her palm like she and Steve had just spent all last night having pillow talk...
Deb was absolutely right. Within a year, our "entertainment for the adventurous lesbian" magazine took PageMaker 1.0 software, tossed out the typesetter, and published On Our Backs completely on Mac software.
We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were the first magazine to do so. We printed our 13,000 copies, and sent them all over the country.
Our On Our Backs Winter 1986 edition was what the first magazine— on any subject, anywhere— looked like, built on a 1984 Apple machine with Pagemaker.
The kerning is atrocious. You could only choose from Helvetica or Palatino fonts. I remember crying about that, too. But we could afford it; it was the only thing we could afford. And considering our content, which no one else in the printing industry would touch, that was saying something.
I look at our first Mac-built issue now, and some of it still seems avant-garde. If you read the “Letters to the Editor” page, you’ll get an idea of how our readers' stunned reactions.
I love the note that says: "Enclosed is $15 for your magazine. Thank you! I have been a lesbian for all of my 76 years."
Inside our landmark "Mac" issue, you'll find:
Announcement of the first feature film based on a lesbian-written novel: Desert Hearts, by Jane Rule, directed by another dyke, Donna Deitch. No one ever came out of the closet to do such a thing before, and few have since.
First lesbian genital piercing article and photos with pioneer Raelynn Gallina.
Sarah Schulman's Dyke-Kafkaesque prose, “a short story about a penis”— which was refused by every other feminist press she approached.
The first feature on lesbians' relationship with AIDS, again, from an author who could not find another feminist publisher who would publish this information or statistics.
Advertising-wise: the first dildo harness designed for a woman’s figure, from Kathy Andrew’s Stormy Leather studio, and the first-ever advertising for dildos, based on Bruce Springsteen’s BORN IN THE USA album cover. Our advertiser invented the silicon dildo, and we ran with it.
I am very sad today about Steve Job's passing. I know many of us are thinking about how his life touched ours, through good times and bad. For authors, artists, and publishing outlaws of every description, the Mac revolution was the puzzle piece we had pressed for, longed for, and finally achieved.
Some of my friends went to work at Apple, it was their dream come true, and I know they must be devastated by this loss. My heart goes out to them.
It's rare that a man "you never met" feels like part of your coming of age, your extended family. It's raining hard outside tonight in Santa Cruz, and that voice is calling out again from my illuminated screen.
I can hear it . . .
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Illustration: Kim Larson, On Our Backs Winter 1986 Cover
The whole 48 page issue of OOB, Winter 86 is here. I made a quick scan, so the photo quality suffered— but I thought you'd like to see it. One of these days we'll have to make a digital archive.
My memory of Debi and our first Mac is from my memoir, Big Sex Little Death.
I asked Cory to come talk with me about everything he doesn't get asked on the usual sound-bite "sexpert" shows.
This is a must-listen— I rarely get to talk to someone this sophisticated about sexual practice and philosophy.
Some of our topics:
• Should Yuppie Moms Give Their Darling Daughters a Vibrator? Cory and I have a thing or two to tell Oprah; like back the fuck up....
• Do children of "open marriages" or swingers grow up to feel the same way about their relationships? Ice Storm, anyone?
• What two sex toys would Cory "take to a desert island"-- and which sex-garbage would he prefer to bury on that island and never see anyone use again? He's one of the worker-owners at Toronto's "Come As You Are," so believe me, he KNOWS ALL THE DIRT.
• Why is the 1974 film Coming Home still the cultural reference point for disabled sex? Cory quotes Tom Shakespeare, ""the trouble is not how can we have sex, it's who can we have sex with..."
You can listen to an excerpt or download my new show right here.
Best deal to listen to my weekly show? It's only pennies if you get a year sub. On the same link, you can also find my new "best of" compilations if you want to get a hot bundle right away.
My friend Jamie Gillis died last Friday after a long struggle with cancer. He was an actor and legend in the sex film business whom I've written about over the years the way most movie critics write about Meryl Streep. They broke the mold with this guy.
Gillis grew up in the City, one of six kids with a father who was known as "The Mayor of the Roseland Ballroom." He graduated from Columbia University in 1970.
He was a classical repertory actor, scrounging extra money as a cabbie, when he answered an ad in the Village Voice for a movie gig that turned out to a casting call for porn loops— the kind of tiny movies that used to be shown in peep shows.
Gillis went on to act in the most important movies that were ever made in American erotic cinema — Radley Metzger titles like The Opening of Misty Beethoven— and his unforgettable roles in the films by the late director Richard Mahler, Midnight Heat being most notable.
("Mahler" was a pseudoynym for famous horror director Roger Watkins. It's frustrating that there are no video clips of Watkins' erotic work online.When I've shown clips of Jamie from the original Midnight Heat to theaterical audiences, the audience falls silent holding their breath).
Twenty years into his career, Gillis originated what came to be called "gonzo porn," simultaneously (and accidentally) pioneering the reality show genre. He teamed up with one of his favorite actresses, Rene Morgan, plus photographer Duck Dumont and a chauffered car— and cruised San Francisco's North Beach to find someone who'd be willing to have sex on camera, right on the spot. Much easer said than done. It was called On the Prowl.
I interviewed Jamie two years ago in NYC, for my podcast on Audible.com. When Gillis arrived for our interview he sheepishly admitted to the engineering staff that he turning sixty-four. My producer, a pro inured to "star-power," grabbed me aside and said, "I can't believe it! He's incredible!"
The man had a timeless sex appeal. More than that— this capacity to get to something intimate with strangers that you couldn't shrug off.
Beyond that, he was a great conversationalist. I can't tell you how sad I am I won't see Jamie and sit in his beautiful garden next time I'm in NYC. Jamie was a piece of the City's history you won't see again. He died way too early— yet he outlived most of his contemporaries.
Below is a partial transcript (darn it) of one of our interviews, and an audio excerpt. It is all too brief, and I hope you can listen to the entire hour long interview.
Jamie and I started off by talking about the last time we'd seen each other in person. We were at a Christmas party at the O'Farrell theater — owned by the late Jim and Artie Mitchell.
We reminisced about a mutual friend who partied with us there — Lisa Thatcher, a formidable (but now long-retired) porn star in New York during Jamie's early days in the business.
Susie Bright: If you remember, when we saw Lisa Thatcher at Jim and Art's Christmas party, you told me something like, "Not everybody is right for this business. Lisa was."
And like myself, Lisa is now middle-aged. If you saw her on the street going to the grocery store now, you wouldn't say, "OMG, it's a porn star." And yet she still has this sort of glimmer in the eye. What did you mean when you said that to me?
Jamie Gillis: She wasn't just some innocent kid, you know? She knew exactly what she was getting into. She loved all kinds of sex, so she was never, in any sense, a victim of the business. And I think she did well in the business.
The seventies were some pretty raunchy days in New York. But you'd go someplace and there would be a line of guys trying to get to touch her. I'd never seen that big a line. And she loved it! She told me that one of the things that got her excited was the hunger of the guys who got to spend one or two minutes with her. She would relate to that kind of hunger that they felt. And she loved that. It turned her on.
SB: What do you notice about a performer who doesn't belong in the business?
JG: Well, they're not happy. They're doing it for the attention or maybe for affection that they haven't gotten from their families, or whatever. It's a sad story when they're not that interested in the sex — they just want to be noticed. They'll put up with the sex but you can see they're not there. They don't want to be there and they're trying not to be there. They're just saying, "Look at me. Hold me. Love me."
And, you know, you do get attention if you're a porn performer. “We're concerned about you, and we'll send a car for you” — all that stuff — you know? So it can feel good, but with disastrous results for people who don't really belong in porn.
When Porn Wasn’t a Business Yet
SB: You got started in the business in the early '70s, I think.
JG: '71. There wasn't even a business. It was a dirty basement.
SB: I was about to say, it wasn't so much a business. It was a fly-by-night thing happening in a counterculture.
So on top of the sex, you had this attitude: "This is our generation doing something different than anybody else would do." Even though it wasn't explicitly political, in the sense that some of the rock and roll was — it was of the time, like smoking pot or dropping acid.
It had that vibe: "We hang together because we have some kind of consciousness, and we're also making some bucks and getting our rocks off." But then you had this complete change in technology in the business, and now there's nothing countercultural about the scene — nothing "outlaw" about it.
JG: It's no longer counterculture. The counter is gone. "Hey, Ma! We're cultcha now!"
SB: Did this change depress you at all? You came from this era where you could be a freak or an intellectual, or you could have some cinematic or theatrical background, and you could fit in.
Whereas now it's more like, "What do you mean? I'm busy, I have this many minutes to make this many dollars before my next real estate seminar." Was that change hard to cope with?
JG: In a way. It's sort of sad to see sex be a business.
SB: You didn't do it for free before...
JG: No!
SB: ...but there was just something else going on.
JG: But then, we don't want to get too romantic about this. I got into the business just looking for part-time work. I wasn't making any money acting so I was looking for a part-time job to support myself. But it did feel good, and it became a social thing. We were excited about what we were doing. It was kind of fun. (Laughs)
SB: I got interested in doing porn and being a porn critic in a sort of revolutionary spirit. I have zero interest in going to the AVN awards or some business seminar, or making some cookie-cutter movie with people who wouldn't know a filmic moment if it fell on top of them. It pisses me off! I get a little cranky about it.
JG: Well, people are making money and doing what they want. But I did get disgusted with the business around '89. I'd been in it for a long time. That's when I started doing that gonzo stuff, because the scripts were so stupid. So I thought — we'll just take a girl out to the streets…
SB: See what might happen.
JG: ...get her fucked. Yeah.
Gonzo Porn
SB: For those people who don't know, what is “gonzo porn”? What did you want gonzo to be?
JG: All I wanted to do was just go out into the streets and meet people. Bring a girl out – maybe to a dirty bookstore or something — and just "throw her to the wolves."
SB: A lot of people will think everyone jumped at the chance. But of course, they didn't! There was a lot of tension. People were afraid of being conned, or that it wasn't real, or that she would cut their balls off in some crazy... There's this tension that they don't know if they can trust you with their nuts.
JG: It's a very unusual offer. Sure!
SB:(Laughing) Yes it is!
JG: I remember I was hanging out with Long Jean Silver and she said, "Let's go find some boys!" She wanted a group of boys to fuck. But we had a hard time finding them!
We'd go up and I'd say, "Hey, you guys want to come back to our place?" They'd run! Finally, we found a group of seven. I said, "We're not taking seven. We're taking three. And I told her, "Pick three that you like the most."
There were two sailors that we picked up early on for a film we made. And I got a call from the Navy. One of the guys was in the brig because he did this movie.
So I said, "What do you mean, one of the guys is in the brig because they did this movie?" (laughter) And it wasn't even the guy that did the fucking! It was the other guy.
So the guy's lawyer told me, "Well, they want to get rid of him, so they're using this as an excuse."
So I said, "You tell the Navy that if they use this as an excuse to get rid of this guy, I'm going to call the press and tell them that he didn't even do anything in this movie, and the Navy's just trying to screw him. Because they're leaving alone the guy who actually did the fucking. So tell the Navy it's going to be on the front page of the Chronicle.
So the lawyer said, "OK, thanks." He called me back a half hour later and said, "Thanks a lot. He's out. Everything's fine." That was the only time in my life I had any sense of what real power was.
SB: The classic report from most men about doing porn is that they think they'll have a giant dick on TV, but when the camera is on them, they're just sweating bullets. Did you ever have one of those shy moments back when you were a little lamb?
JG: Never. I was a duck to water. I mean, to me it was like — wow! Even though it wasn't good money back then, it was like — "Thirty bucks to fuck a pretty girl!" I couldn't believe it.
I don't know if it was because I was a sex freak or because of my acting training. I didn't care if anyone was there. I would just concentrate on what I was there to do. It wasn't hard to do that.
Is Porn Hard On Off-Camera Lovers?
SB: I've heard that it might be hard for men who were in the business to have relationships. Mike Horner told me that.
JG: Mike is the male version of somebody who shouldn't be in the business. He's too sweet for it. You know what I mean?
SB: Well, I don’t agree with you about Mike, but I want to hear what you have to say about the dilemma he describes. He told me, "If I'm fucking somebody all day at work, and I come home, and someone's all needy and saying, "I want you to fuck me now, because I'm your girlfriend and I need you to show that same enthusiasm for me.'"
And he said, "It's too much. I can't do that."
And I said, "Well, what if you hook up with someone in the sex business? Maybe they'll feel the same way. Maybe they'd also come home from a hard day of being fucked, and they don't need you to turn on, or turn off."
But he said, "Oh, I can't win. I've tried a lot of different things." He really wanted to have a girlfriend the way other people have girlfriends.
JG: But this is even true in the "legitimate" Hollywood. If you're a guy, you get on the set and you're working with the most beautiful woman in the world. Maybe your wife or girlfriend at home is just as pretty, but still, this is fresh meat. You know? And they're all over the place — not just the actresses, but there are the extras. But Mike has a point. You can't live with somebody "straight" in the sex business. Of course it doesn't work. How could it?
I've had relationships with girls in the industry, and that seemed to work out OK, because we were both sex nuts. You know? But a "normal" girl? How can somebody even think about that?
SB: Did you ever feel like you wanted a romance or a domesticity that you couldn't have, or was your attitude just, "No thank you"?
JG: At the time when I got into the business, I was with a girl who saw me as this nice Jewish boy. I came out of college. I was acting. I was a mime. I was a good boy. (Laughter)
SB: You still are.
JG: Yeah, I still am. But all of a sudden I started fucking all these strangers. Somebody once said that a man is as faithful as his options. That's how it is.
So all of the sudden, I didn't even have to go out and look for the girls. They were thrown at me. And I was getting paid for it. So it's like, you've got this really wonderful woman at home. But on the other hand, you've got this other great stuff happening too. And if you're in your twenties, that great stuff is gonna win out… or maybe in your thirties and your forties, even. You know?
SB:(Laughs) Okay, well let's go to the fifties.
JG: Fifties? I don't know. (Laughs)
Is All Porn Queer?
SB: Whenever I read official descriptions of your film career, they'll say, (solemnly) "Jamie Gillis — who never denied his bisexuality!"
JG: Oh… I saw that on Wikipedia.
SB: I love that phrase — "who never denies it." (Laughter) And it's not like you've ever been the grand marshal of the bisexual float in the gay parade.
But you also haven't had this issue that some guys have where they think their career rests on a certain kind of perception that they're straight. I always think that's such a facade. If you're in the sex business, and you're fucking around other people all day long — the notion that you are some kind of "Kinsey 0" is a joke. You can't be. Because you're dealing with other people's dicks and cunts all day long. You better be comfortable with people's bodies.
Anyway, how come you haven't been smeared by it?
JG: Well, I think the entire porn business is just fag-ridden. (Laughter)
Including the customers! I mean, it's all about dick! It's all about dick, and watching dick come. Look at the dick squirt. See Dick. See Dick squirt.
I've always had this funny image of myself as a straight guy who just happens to have more fag sex than any fag I know. Because when I was coming up, gays were the only ones that were really sexually crazy.
Before there was a Plato's Retreat, there was a place called Continental Baths. It was the exact same location. And I used to go to the Continental Baths, because that's where you could have crazy, wild sex! Nobody else was doing that.
And I remember walking around that fucking place thinking, "If only there was a heterosexual place like this. Wouldn't that be amazing?"
And I didn't even dream that it would happen — but it did, like about two years later, with Plato's Retreat. It was this straight place with all these hundreds of girls going there.
In my ideal world, if you were walking down the street, there'd be a place where you could just touch people. There would be a grope club.
SB: Did you ever have a moment when you were a teenager where you thought, "Oh my god, why am I so kinky?"
JG: No, not "Oh my god." Maybe "Thank god!"
SB:(Laughs) But you're supposed to feel guilt and despair and compare yourself to everyone else. How come you didn't?
JG: I guess I always sort of liked sex — almost any kind. It was a big treat! There's this Woody Allen line about how bisexuals have it better because they have twice as many opportunities for a date on Saturday night.
And I remember thinking the same thing when I was eleven, before Woody Allen said it. I thought that as a kid! It was before I had any kind of sexual contact. It seemed like a reasonable attitude to me.
The Mayor of Roseland Ballroom
SB: Has your family been shocked by what you do? Did you have to negotiate this with them?
JG: It was hardly a problem. My family always recognized that I was a little different.
SB: Why do you think that is?
JG: Cause I was always a little different. (Laughs)
Once my mother saw me on television — that sort of legitimized it a little bit for her. And she would read TheDaily News or whatever and see my name in advertisements. My older sister told me, "You know, she has clippings."
My father became a pain in the ass because I made the mistake of getting him a girl once. My parents were separated, so I got him a beautiful young girl. I think it was for his birthday or something.
SB: And you had reason to believe your dad had a strong sexual interest in...
JG: Oh, absolutely. He was always interested in women. They used to call him “The Mayor of Roseland Ballroom.” His legend was that he had danced and kissed every woman who came there.
So I knew this would work out and he'd be very happy. But the problem was — until he died, I could not talk to him without him saying "Do you know any more girls?"
So every once in a while, I had to throw him another hunk of meat.
SB: So the lesson is — do not procure for members of your family?
JG: Don't procure for your father. It's a pain in the ass.
SB: Do you have kids? I mean, how do you deal with it...
JG: I have one child who's practically older than I am. I was a virgin when I was seduced by an older woman.
And then she got pregnant. It was a plan — she wanted the child. I told her, "If you have that child, I will never see you again."
And she said, "Well, I don't expect to see you anyway. I'm going to have the child." So that's how that was.
But I must say, I'm now delighted that I had this child, because it sort of takes that edge off of wondering what that's like. There is this human being out there and I'm glad that she's around now.
But it took me about nine years before I even acknowledged her. It was only because I didn't want to be a bad father. I wasn't prepared. I didn't want to end up like my own father, who had six children because that's what you did in those days.
When I’m 64...
SB: As you get older, does the sizzle endure?
JG: It never ends. I remember — there used to be an old Jewish dominatrix in New York called “Belle du Jour.” And she was popular. I would go to her place just to hang out sometimes because it was interesting. Guys would come in.
This old guy who must have been close to ninety comes in, and he goes in the back with her. And she has these black, thigh-high boots on. And he falls onto the floor, and he's lapping at her boots. And I'm thinking, "My god. It never ends." You know, you'd think when you were ninety, you'd have a little dignity. Something would change. But it doesn't! It just goes on.
SB: Do you know more about how to touch people now, than you knew ten or fifteen years ago? Actually, I don't even know how old you are…
JG: I… I… I… sort of have a spasm whenever I say how old I am. This is the worst possible year, actually, because the Beatles song keeps running through your mind.
SB: Are you sixty-four?
JG: Sixty-four. And there's nothing worse than knowing that you heard that song when you were a kid, and you were thinking — what a joke. There are sixty-four-year-old people walking around the street. And then there you are. It's ridiculous.
SB: Well, you're very honest about this, so I'd treasure anything you can tell me about being a sexual man at sixty-four.
JG:(Pause) Well, first of all, I don't feel I have to fuck everybody I meet.
SB: What a relief!
JG: Of course, also, the girls also don't feel they have to fuck me as much. But you're a little more in control, particularly if you've had as many women as I've had. You sort of know what they're like. And you can appreciate them more just for themselves. You can talk to them and have a good time. And you can just sort of look at one of them and have a good idea of what it's like to fuck that one. And you can think about that and not have to go through with it...
I know that Jamie's friends, his partner, siblings, and daughter— and so many people who worked with him— are missing him today. And so many people who had sex they will never forget, with Jamie, are thinking about him today.
"The essence of freedom consists in thinking you have it," is something Giacomo Casanova once wrote. But today, it reminds me of Mr. Gillis. I will miss his kiss, his embrace, his teasing, and the way he knew he could say anything to me and I would just ask... another question.
Photos: the film stills are from 1983's Midnight Heat. Seriously, try to find this movie on VHS or 16mm. Try. The recent portrait is one he gave me on that famous 64th birthday interview. Here is an obit from Ashley Spicer, which ought to be in The New York Times, but I'm not holding my breath.
To read the rest of Susie's history with old school porn, check out:
US magazine has reprinted an erotic cuckold dream that Tiger Woods reportedly sent to one of his alleged mistresses.
Woods told "Rachel" in an email that he envisioned her having sex with Derek Jeter and Bones star David Boreanaz— at the same time. The juicy email describes his fantasy in lurid detail...
Okay, I'm finally interested! "Adulterous Sports Star" didn't rouse me out of my non-monogamous slumber. On that count, Tiger needs to listen to Mo'Nique:
“[My husband and I] have an agreement that we’ll always be honest— and if sex happens with another person, that’s not a deal breaker for us. That’s not something where we’ll have to say, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to go to divorce court because you cheated on me.’ Because we don’t cheat."
But this cuckold fantasy that Tiger spins— where he vicariously enjoys his pretty lover getting plowed by two butch hunks— how timely!
The humiliated-but-thoroughly-aroused-husband is the biggest new trend in taboo erotic fantasies.
In 2006 or so, I started seeing the first mini-fad of erotic cuckolding confessions, which started to proliferate on CraigsList. More elaborate versions subsequently arrived in the form of manuscripts in my mailbox— authors seeking to publish on the subject. It was still an "embarrassing" fantasy— none of the people who sent me fiction wanted to use their real name in print.
Most of the authors I read were amateur, but one was really worthy of "Double Indemnity" craftsmanship— a piece called "Playing Doctor," by Eloise Chagrin, which I published in The Best American Erotica 2008.
Eloise offered this p.o.v. in a postscript to the story:
"It surprises me to no end that the sexual fetish of cuckoldry, once thought of as a disability, could be shared by so many people. The cuckolding fetish has an element of surprise, along with a bittersweet emotional masochism.
"Another key to the fetish, from the perspective of the cuckold, is that of eroticizing as a defense mechanism. When someone you care about expresses their interest in another person, you wrestle with your inadequacies. This fight may take on different forms, in many cases with the ultimate rejection of your lover.
"However, if your bond is strong, and you’re able to put aside that sense of self, then it’s possible to experience pleasure vicariously.
"Many people may think of this as abhorrent, as tantamount to abuse, while others believe it’s an essential part of their sexual health. I don’t know; I’m only trying to describe something that I’ve thought about for a long time.
"Some may find putting oneself second to be deleterious to one’s emotional health; others find something beautiful in the idea of loving your partner so much that you become attracted to whatever role he or she plays, whatever the two of you become. I leave the benedictions to others.
"A third ingredient to the mix is homoerotic. There is no way to avoid this with groups of three. Even in the most repressed situations, at least two out of the three people are of the same gender, and all parties are interested in the situation, else they would stop participating.
"In my story, as in my perceptions of cuckoldry from real life, betrayal is on the horizon. There’s a real possibility that any pair may break off from the group and form a greater intimacy. That prospect keeps the game competitive, and the players had better give their best performances, bank on everything they have in their bag of tricks— because, ultimately, someone must lose."
After I published "Playing Doctor," I heard from Kidder Kaper, the impresario of the Sex is Fun game group, who told me he was writing an illustrated book of sexy role-playing games for couples. He wanted my feedback on a cuckolding fantasy he was drawing.
His scheme involved setting up a tableau in your bedroom so it looks "as if" the wife is just getting buggered by a handyman before her husband walks in. Very clever! All the erotic drama without an actual plumber— or cheatin'!
I think ground zero for the "Out and Proud Cuckold" scene was Seattle; in part due to Dan Savage's column, who is always pulling off the manhole cover.
His column was the first place I listened to men, who, despite using pseudonyms, were unapologetic about their turn-on.
"Yes," they said, "it's emotionally masochistic; so what? Why do bottoms who merely request spankings get to have all the fun?"
Then there was the question, "But isn't it gay? Are you hung up on Daddy?"
Some men, said, "Sure, I'm bisexual and a submissive. I'm a happy camper." Others said,"This fantasy doesn't work for me without the woman; she's the star. I identify with her, but I don't want to be a man getting worked by another man."
Mostly what they said, like every other person who has a non-vanilla fantasy life, was: "Don't judge me!"
Cuckold-fantasists are every kind of person, not identifiable by what they wear or the circumstances of their public life. You might think they were one of the most powerful, charismatic men in the world— you know, like Tiger Woods. Is he ready to be a poster boy?
Do women eroticize being cheated on? Jealousy is a universal experience and we often "play" with its green tendrils, to give ourselves a charge. Too much, and it's anti-erotic— just enough, and it's spice.
To tell you the truth, though, I have never received a manuscript submission where a "wife" describes coming home to find her husband being ravished by two man-eating nymphos who make sport of her. In a classic cuckquean fantasy, the wife would then jill off, right in front of her sexy tormenters, simultaneously humiliated and exhilarated.
I think women of our times do eroticize sexual humiliation a little differently... perhaps you'd care to weigh in? (Note: obviously no one enjoys reality-based humiliation... please address the erotic/S/M aspect!)
For those of us who who are devoted to the American tele-novella Mad Men, the recent psycho-shooting at Ft. Hood had an eerie plot echo.
(Spoilers ahead).
In Mad Men, which takes place in New York of 1963, there's a fictional character named Greg, an aspiring surgeon who disgraces himself so badly in the operating room that he is forced to go into, shame of all shames, psychiatry.
Since I've placed my life in the hands of a therapist more than once, this reaction came as a surprise to me!
Yet among Greg's colleagues at the hospital, the psychiatry career path is considered a "fail." The deep background on Greg is that we already know he is a messed-up dude, a rapist with serious issues who is the LAST person you'd want to be talking to on a couch.
As the season closes, we learn that Greg has joined the Army where they're desperate enough to take a loser like him and give him a surgeon's scalpel and a badge.
He's so ignorant he doesn't have a clue that Vietnam is his imminent destination.
Meanwhile, in real life, Nidal Malik Hasan, the deranged Army psychiatrist who went on a shooting spree at Ft. Hood, also turns out to be… a failed surgeon. The detail that caught my eye was the anecdote revealed by his uncle, who said that Hasan went into psychiatry after he FAINTED in the O.R. during a routine childbirth. The sight of a baby emerging from a woman's vagina sent Nidal over the edge.
With that clue, something in me snapped.
This was a guy, who by all accounts so far, has never been on a date, and routinely complained to his mosque's imam that he couldn't find a woman "pious" enough to marry, a virgin who would wear a veil around the clock.
Hassan is being scrutinized for any potential ties to espionage, fanatical religious beliefs, and vicarious PTSD from treating so many broken soldiers.
But this man's craziness is more clearly understood in the context of his severe and distorted sexual repression.
In the midst of this reality-fantasy convergence, another piece of patriarchal-creep rocked the country— this time, affecting more people than Ft. Hood and Mad Men's viewership combined. We witnessed the Orwellian "health care reform" process become derailed by what I call "The Stupid Amendment," a wildly successful Vatican intervention to make sure that whatever health care plan comes out of Congress, it will be engineered to control women's wombs.
In other words, health insurance for men, not for women.
The Stupak Amendment is ostensibly about preventing women from using their insurance coverage to pay for abortion procedures. But making a rule that women's healthcare below the waist is subject to moral review is outrageous.
Would any of these politicians consider making a health care exemption to the complications of a man's penis? His prostate? His semen? His scrotum? His urethra? Would urologists, like abortion surgeons, be treated like criminals whose entire knowledge base should be wiped out of existence? Would any man be put on parade to prove "rape, incest, or imminent death" in order to prove that he needed a procedure about ANYTHING?
"Pro-life" rhetoric is now used across the aisle, with even the President proclaiming that the federal government will never fund abortions.
Afghanistan annihilation, yes! Abortion, no!
Our war-lovin', misogynistic culture cares so little about "life" that the candlelight vigil for the Hasan's victims at Fort Hood had the air of a rote exercise. Here's Wade Goodwyn, from NPR, talking last week:
The thing I was struck by was... that the vigil was a well-established routine.
I mean, this was a pretty big moment for me, but I could tell that the attending crowd had done this before.
And when we interviewed people, the soldiers and the families, after the vigil was over, they'd tell us, "I've been to too many of these already."
This country cares little about killing all life forms and even less about the welfare of its children. Our atrocious infant mortality rates, hungry children, uneducated children, children with birth defects and developmental disabilities treated like trash… my blood's turned cold. Watching Congressmen gleefully cheer on the passage of the Stupak amendment, for me, was like watching Greg rape Joan— and worse, to witness her acceptance of it.
American boomerangs from "Fear of a Black Planet," a Youth Revolt, a genderfuck coup, to the opposite horror: that of a lone man with a big gun.
Meet the older, privileged, "had-all-the-opportunities" kinda guy who comes equipped with a bomb, no dates, and a pathologically self-centered attitude. Oh, we'll wish he had only been in the Crips! If only he'd been a drag queen, if only he'd pierced his dick and gotten high on dope! Any of these would be preferable, a million times more humane.
We can diss a counter-culture, but what are we supposed to do with a counter-human? We can't stand to look at the cult of alienated masculinity and wonder how we got here.
This week on my audio show is part two of my discussion with sex historian Jeffrey Escoffier. We blurt out gay film secrets, discuss
why straight male porn stars enjoy queer sex, how to achieve the perfect double-penetration shots, and the manner in which exhibitionists get ahead in the film industry.
Jeffrey wears many hats, but one of his most distinguished is as the editor of a reference book I use on a weekly basis:Sexual Revolution. It's a collection of the seminal (and ovulastic!) documents of modern sexual liberation: Susan Sontag’s "Pornographic Imagination," Al Goldstein’s notorious review of Deep Throat, Anne Koedt’s classic "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm," Norman Mailer’s "The Homosexual Villain," Helen Gurley Brown, Lenny Bruce, Erica Jong, Lawrence Lipton, Masters & Johnson, Betty Dodson, Gayle Rubin, Timothy Leary, Henry Miller, Huey Newton, Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir— whew! I find new gems to mull over every time I read it.
Finally at the end of this week's show, in the "Try This at Home" mailbag, I get a letter from a listener who finds cheap thrills on freeway overpasses, and right in the middle of her dental checkups. Sexual revolution is indeed a guerilla enterprise!
Don't forget, you can send your confidential questions, feedback about the show, and requests for girly cards to [email protected] (Episode 312, October 5, 2007)
I first met Jack Davis when I was a frequent visitor to a lesbian brothel commune in Santa Cruz, circa 1981. He lived in the basement.
The first time I visited Jack, he was crocheting a penis, and like everyone else who entered his lair, I was hooked.
Since then, Jack moved to San Francisco where his fiber arts are legendary. I'm just one of many collectors in his cult.
So far, I have a cunning Valentine-doily penis in black and red— and a big knotty bruiser pierced with many amulets, including an old-time New York subway token.
And yes, if you're nice to me, I'll let you touch it.
It's difficult for me when Jack has a show, because if I get around a new crop of his penises, I Want Them All. But I can't stay away... and I like to meet the other devotees!
Here, Mr. Davis answers every question I have on my mind:
Why did you start making penises?
I got my M.S. in Art, focusing on Fibers in 1975. I was in college in the 60s, and graduate school in the '70s— and was influenced by the aesthetics of the period. Women in my weaving and textile classes were making wall hangings that looked like vulvas. I wanted to make things that would help men feel good about themselves, and at the same time I was coming out as a big fag.
Three hours for a simple one, up to several months for a complicated one.
Are they knitted or crocheted?
Crocheted. Knitting is done with two needles; crochet is done with a single hook. What materials do you use?
I use yarns that are cotton, silk, wool and synthetic. Sometimes I recycle yarn from by taking apart thrift-store sweaters. A few yarns are hand dyed. Some penises are crocheted from found string.
In the past I have crocheted with sewing thread and colored telephone wire. Sometimes I use beads and other found objects for embellishment.
Are they cut or uncut?
All of the penises have foreskins.
How do you put one on?
You don't; they aren't penis warmers. They do open, however. There is a drawstring in each foreskin. So while they are not designed to be worn on a penis, you can put other things in them.
Did anyone model for them?
No.
What do you stuff them with for display?
I use plastic Easter eggs. They're the right size and weight.
How are your penises hung?
I use sturdy push pins in the back. It's easier than using nails. I usually hang them in a grid. There is a group of pink ones that I hang in a triangle.
How seriously do you take your work?
There's an element of humor in my work; how could there not be? Whenever I talk about my work with people, it isn't long before they start laughing about questions like, "How are your penises hung?"
But I do take my work seriously. It comes from being an art student for seven years. I use the word penis, instead of dick or cock, specifically because it's a more serious term.
Any interesting stories about your penises?
Tons.
One of the earliest stories occurred during my graduate exhibit. A straight male graduate assistant was taking a beginning art class through the university galleries. He stopped by my work, and picked up on of my penises to talk about it with his class. When he realized what it was, I guess he didn't want to be seen holding a penis, and dropped it instantly.
Back in the old days when I entered art shows using slides, there were several times when I was accepted into a show, but my work was rejected after it arrived. They realized they weren't crocheted abstract forms; they really were penises.
I once accidentally stabbed my finger with a fine-gauge crochet hook. Joe, my boyfriend at the time— and my roommate, Sue— took me to the hospital to have it removed. The emergency room staff couldn't believe I had been crocheting. They wanted to believe that my female roommate had stabbed me with what they assumed was her crochet hook.
What do people do with your penises after they buy them?
A friend of mine uses one for a change purse; it gets interesting comments in gay bars.
I know a lesbian who used one for packing.
My grandmother used to crochet cotton animals with a drawstring; you would put your little end pieces of soap inside one and use it to wash with in the bathtub or shower. So, yes, I know someone who uses one in his shower.
Some people put them on their altars. Since they have drawstrings, they lend themselves quite well as ritual objects. Some people put them among their plants.
But mostly people display them on a shelf or on the wall. They look good in a group. While there isn't a right or wrong way to display them, I prefer that people not put them in display boxes.
This week on my audio show is part two of my discussion with sex historian Jeffrey Escoffier. We blurt out gay film secrets, discuss
why straight male porn stars enjoy queer sex, how to achieve the perfect double-penetration shots, and the manner in which exhibitionists get ahead in the film industry.
