by Nicole Powers

“I started to write erotica as this sort of quiet rebellion.”
– Tiffany Reisz

Tiffany Reisz has just lured me over the edge of a cliff and is letting me hang. If I didn’t love her I’d hate her. When I ask her how she could do this to me, she responds: “I’m a sadist. It’s what I do.”

Fortunately I’m a glutton for punishment. Having already devoured The Siren and The Angel, the first and second books in Reisz’s Original Sinners gothic romance series, I’ve just reached the suspenseful end of the third installment, The Prince. The fourth climactic novel of the tetralogy, The Mistress, won’t hit bookstores until August 2013, and the anticipation is sweet torture.

The Original Sinners is set in the underground world of the 8th Circle, an illegal S&M club where anything goes as long as the members stick to the strict codes of the culture. Thanks to the staggering popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, BDSM has been dragged out of the proverbial dungeon and into the glare of the mainstream. However, fans of Reisz laud her work for being more accurate in its portrayal of the scene, and far superior in terms of plot and prose.

Like Reisz, the central character in The Original Sinners series, Nora Sutherlin, is a writer of erotica with a penchant for pajamas in the living room and power play in the bedroom. But while Reisz’s leading man is brunette SG blogger Andrew Shaffer, Nora’s is an enigmatic tall, blonde and handsome Catholic priest called Søren who’s blessed with some seriously sadistic predilections. Other characters that jump off the page and stay with you long after you’ve put the book down include Zach (Nora’s cautiously curious editor), Wesley (her virginal houseboy), Kingsley (her complicated confidant), Griffin (a playboy with a heart and a Rolex both made of gold), and Michael –– a bisexual young man whose journey from tortured teen to self realized submissive is the subject of the second Original Sinners book, The Angel.

Though laced with lashings of romance, Reisz’s fiction also exposes and explores the more extreme and contentious aspects of carnality. The underlying message is one of acceptance without judgment, which might seem at odds with the author’s stated strong Catholic faith. However religion, like human sexuality, is full of contradictions and nuance. We caught up with Reisz, ironically on a Sunday just after mass, to talk about sex, love, original sin, writing, romance and erotica –– though we never did find out why there are no good synonyms for thrust [a pet peeve of Nora’s].

Read our exclusive interview with Tiffany Reisz on SuicideGirls.com.

by Laurelin

One of the perks of having an online column is literally being able to go back in time. Exactly a week, month, and year to the date your words are still there and you can instantly remember what was going on in that moment. So many times those memories are just… lost, and I realize suddenly how lucky I am to write the truth, to write with honesty and more often than not, pain, because I can look back see how I’ve progressed. Tonight I look for last year’s post, and I am a bit squeamish. I have a sinking suspicion that nothing has changed. I don’t feel different. I feel… used up and empty. To quote Bilbo Baggins, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

On this day last year I wrote “Life Beyond the Bar Scene: Winter is Coming.” I was clearly not over my ex and I was using other people in an attempt to replace him. It wasn’t working. I remember feeling lost, confused, alone. Fast forward one year, and I have managed to actually get over the ex I was writing about. He and I didn’t speak for about six months, and while I think part of me will always look at him as the one that got away, they were the best and most needed six months of my life. Erased. Deleted from everything, hidden from Facebook, he quit working at my bar, simply… gone. I ached, and then one day I didn’t. Life goes on, what do you know!

He walked into the bar two months ago, after all that time, and I remember stopping dead in my tracks. I had almost forgotten what he looked like and that moment of recognition hit me like a wave crashing into a small vessel in a storm. I hugged him and said I was happy to see him, and for once, I was.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you on your birthday,” he said. And I knew he had remembered it and had not called because it really didn’t matter.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I didn’t call you on yours either,” and my lower lip didn’t tremble when I turned away. I couldn’t believe it. I smiled, and when he left I waved, turned back to my bar and carried on. He was never really far from my mind, but it was almost like he had finally found a place in the archives, a place that didn’t hurt.

A new year is coming and I don’t feel any different, but I am. I think I only feel used up because I think I should feel that way. Looking back I’m suddenly pretty sure I just lived the best year of my life. I went on a ten day Caribbean cruise in January. I scuba dived shipwrecks, got over my fear of karaoke, and held baby monkeys in diapers. I danced like no one was watching even when everyone was watching and I screamed “Discount Double Check” and did Aaron Rodger’s touchdown move zip lining across the rainforest in Antigua.

I dated. I discovered dating was not for me and I discovered that while men can be mean and break my heart, I can be mean and break their hearts. And I was sorry, sometimes more than others. I got up on stage and I read stories naked for the first time in March and again in October. The first time I was so scared I could have just peed right there on stage and the second time I walked with confidence, read with pride, and now I can’t wait to do it again.

In April I ran my first Tough Mudder and it was a ten mile muddy uphill journey of insanity. I didn’t train much and when I got back, that was it. I started running. I joined a Crossfit gym and I vowed that I would no longer blame every aspect of my hectic life for the wobbly parts of my body I didn’t care for.

I got promoted at all of my jobs, I turned 30, my friends are brilliant and I still find time for the little things: cat naps, cuddling with pets, reading, movies, martinis, and the occasional misstep into romance, which as my readers know has yet to work out. Used up and empty is often a result of this; but it’s not all I am. It can’t be.

When you think about it, each day since that post one year ago is just that: one day. It’s just another ordinary day, when added up makes an ordinary week, ordinary month, and yet somehow… a totally extraordinary year.

[..]

by Symbol

I’m 6’6”.

I’m 6’6” and on average somewhere around 275lbs. I routinely get compared to Vikings, characters from medieval fiction, and the occasional professional wrestler. The average height of the women I usually end up in relationships with? About 5’2”. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been involved with someone taller than 5’7”. That’s not from lack of trying. I just don’t seem to be able to find, or perhaps attract, taller women.

I went on a few dates with a woman who clocked in at 5’10” this summer and it was wonderfully strange –– I’m so used to having to bend to kiss. The level of height disparity I normally deal with renders paired dancing completely out of the question, and there’s a variety of other things that can’t be done when you’re more than twice the size of your partner.

I’ve dated a lot of women in my life, and they all seem to share the same dominant characteristics, they’re tiny women who know they want and go after it –– me, in this case. I remember having a conversation with one of my exes, Heather, about why she was attracted to me (and to large guys in general), her response was something I completely wasn’t expecting. I’d known that she’d been sexually assaulted in the past and basically, for her, the safety she felt with a guy my size was second-to-none.

This got me to thinking a little and, in an unintentional homage to High Fidelity (one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time), I dug around a bit and got in contact with some exes, at least the ones I’m still on speaking terms with (read: the ones that didn’t cheat on me) to find out what their respective stories were.

There wasn’t a common trait really, and I feel a little foolish for thinking there might have been. In almost every case it was a combination of things: sense of humor, appearance, conversation. Safety was a big one though. It resonated with more than a dozen of my exes, but it still wasn’t unanimous.

However, what I did discover during these inquiries, which started out innocently enough, was more disturbing. I found out that less than ten percent of the women I’ve been involved with had not been sexually assaulted prior to getting involved with me. Now, if you’ve read my other posts (the White Knight one in particular) you might not be surprised by that, but I was. With very few exceptions, I had no idea that any of these women had this particularly history during the time we were together, so it wasn’t my subconscious trying to find women who “needed” protecting.

This got me thinking more about the “safety” quality that had been brought up, which in turn got me thinking more about former living conditions and such. I have distinct recollections of the majority of my ex-girlfriends sharing a couple of qualities that, in retrospect, make a lot more sense:

1. More than half of them hated being home alone.
2. Almost all of them hated sleeping alone and/or going to bed alone.

I didn’t pry into the specifics of the sexual assault stories my ex-girlfriends had newly revealed, though several of them felt the need to explain in more detail. In almost every case, it was either a relative that went too far, or someone who had taken them out on a date and didn’t take no for an answer.

After I got over that grim revelation and reigned in my sudden need to run out into the streets and dispense vigilante justice, I started thinking about all the women I know and the ones I’ve been interested in. The fact is, I simply don’t know a lot of tall women. And by “a lot” what I mean to say, really, is any. I think I’ve known two tall girls in my whole life; one I wasn’t remotely attracted to and the other hasn’t been single a day in her life.

I suppose it stands to reason that if being tall is a trait that women find attractive, it’s a trait that men find attractive too. But here’s where that theory falls down: I’m obviously attracted to women regardless of height, or else I’m a terrible masochist that has spent the better part of twenty plus years “settling” for short women (and that’s totally not the case, honest!).

I’m really not sure what I’d do if I was presented with a tall, available woman. To be clear, by tall I mean 5’9” and above. I seem to keep coming across women on dating sites that list their height as 6’. I’ve even seen one that was 6’1”. They’re never people I’m interested in for one reason or another. (One was a smoker, another openly mocked vegetarians in her profile – both deal breakers for me.) Since there seems to be an entire world of women 5’11” and above out there, who are these women dating?! And what part of the world are they living in?

“Scandinavia” seems to be the response people usually throw back when I (jokingly) ask that question aloud. But surely I don’t have to travel to the other side of the world just to find women that are eye level?

On the other hand, when I think about it, I see tall women all the time –– but the tall women I see are always holding hands, have linked arms, or are emitting some other obvious body language that is designed to communicate “I am taken.” I take signals like that pretty clearly and so they just usually don’t register.

Sure, I’m guilty of seeing a really long pair of legs and following them up, but the moment those legs become part of someone who is clearly unavailable they just sort of ghost off of my radar (sadly). I’ll let you in on a little secret though, whenever I see a tall woman the first thing I do is check her feet. An old acquaintance of mine, herself a tall girl, got me into this habit. She’d always check other tall girl’s feet to see if they were really tall, or if they were cheating and using lifts, platforms or heels. Nothing pissed her off more, as a tall woman, than seeing another women cheating her height (so she said).

For me, I think a partner in the 5’7” to 5’11” range would be ideal. I have one friend who, for whatever reason, I always think is shorter than she is. Every time I see her I find myself pleasantly surprised by how tall she is. I can’t explain why –– she’s just taller in real life than in the memory I have of her. It’s strange, I know.

Again, I want to be clear: I have no problem with shorter women. I love women of all heights, sincerely. It’s just sort of become something of my own personal “white whale.” …And now I find I’m immediately regretting using the term whale in conjunction with any kind of search for women.

Surely Laurelin can’t be the only tall women out there that’s looking?

Related Posts
A Guy’s Perspective: The Legacy Of A Violent Upbringing – The White Knight Syndrome
A Guy’s Perspective: Good Friends Are Hard To Come By (Especially After 30)
A Guy’s Perspective: Falling in Love (And Other Deadly Sins)

by Laurelin

I hung his picture last week. I hung it in the kitchen above the stove, the space was perfect and as I pounded the nail into the wall I wondered if this was the right thing to do. It had been shoved in the back of my closet for one year and two months and today I hung it up, finally ready to not vomit when I looked at it. It’s a nice picture. It’s not a photograph: the kid fucking painted it. It’s hands down, the best gift I have ever received in my whole life, and for one year and two months after my 29th birthday the only creature that saw it was my cat when she tried to climb the vertical plastic shoe rack from Target in the back of my closet.

So, last week I hung the picture. I hung it, and when I walked in to the kitchen today to make tacos there it was above the stove as I sautéed the onions. I made tacos. I ate the tacos at the black and silver high top 50s diner style table in my kitchen and they were delicious. The painting watched, and when I was done I smiled and I knew that I had finally done the right thing. That chapter of my life was in plain sight and finally over.

It’s weird not having anything to harp on. Not having that nagging feeling of heartbreak, not having that sinking feeling as I lock the house and head to work or to the bar I hang out at. This feeling of freedom, to see these men and actually be happy to see them, to no longer have to fake it till I make it. My smile is genuine, my invites to events aren’t because I want to win them over but because once we were all friends and finally I am not a fucking idiot, and I can take this for what it always should have been: friends, co-workers, anything but what it was.

It’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I can finally see, and I pray that I can constructively move forward. What did I learn from that last relationship? What did I learn from the last bartenders who broke my heart and what did I learn from the bartenders whose hearts I know I broke? As much as we think we can’t, we always put the pieces back together. We are able to one day not make the same mistakes over again, finally able to look at the bigger picture. And one day, hopefully, we can take that picture out of the closet and hang it in the perfect spot in the kitchen, right above the stove.

[..]

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Salome

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q:I have been married for almost three years, and I do love my wife very much. I have multiple fantasies where I’m having threesomes or four-ways with groups of men and women or both. I have tried numerous times to explain this to my wife but she wants NO part of it. 
I want more not only for myself sexually but more for our relationship. 
How can I get my point across to her? Should I leave her and explore my options on my own? Or should I just forget about these fantasies?
Sexually Confused in the South

A:Dear Sexually Confused in the South,

You say you love your wife very much and want more for your relationship, but I am skeptical. You are asking for advice on how to press your wife into something that, right now, she has made it clear she does not want to do.

I hear a lot about you and what you want in your question, but nothing about what your wife wants. If you are approaching this as “Honey, this is what I want, give me permission and let me drag you along,” then of course she’s going to be resistant. Sex is something you share with your partner and anything new you try should be something you explore together as equals.

Try initiating a conversation with her about what SHE wants. Don’t use it as a jumping off point to try talking her into your desires again; just ask questions and then listen to the answers. Ask her what she likes in your sex life now, and what she’d like more of, or less of. Ask her if there’s anything she’d ever wanted to try or wondered about doing, but hasn’t brought up to you. If you do this respectfully and honestly, she may surprise you. You may get some of the variety you need in your sex life, she gets to explore her own fantasies, and hopefully you will make her feel safe and secure in the idea of exploring new sexual territory with you.

However, this doesn’t mean you should jump right to “we did what you wanted, now I get an orgy.” Introducing additional partners into a relationship can be an incredible experience, but it can be extremely complicated to pull off. The relationship dynamics have to be right, there has to be total trust, honest and constant communication, pre-established ground rules, and a way for either partner to end the encounter or situation quickly and without fear of judgment or bad feelings. Group sex, swinging, polyamory, open relationships, or any other shade of non-monogamy are not for everyone. It would be unfair of you to demand this of your wife if it is truly not for her, or if she might be up for it but you are unwilling to put the effort into building a strong, loving and trusting relationship that will not be damaged by opening it up.

Before you can think about taking a step as huge as having sex with other people, you need to make sure your relationship is as strong as you can make it – and even then non-monogamy may not be the right choice for the two of you. Only at that point is your choice actually between subsuming your fantasies out of love for your wife or pursuing your fantasies in a life without her.

Salome

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Dexter

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I was dating this girl that I had met at a friend’s event. We started dating/seeing each other for about 2-3 months, against my friend’s wishes (we share the same mutual friend). I traveled to her, about a hour away, and slept over her place and vise versa. We really only saw each other from Saturday night into Sunday afternoon because she works 6 days a week. I know I didn’t do well with texting her, I only really texted her Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to plan out if we were going to hang out and what we should do.

I also asked her why she didn’t text me during the times that I didn’t text her and why she assumed what she assumed and just ended everything. I just hate being lied to and eventually she told me she was seeing another guy. But I don’t understand why she acted like a child and ignored me, lied, and assumed all this about me and our relationship. I liked the girl and want to try to be friends but I just can’t get over how she went about things. I guess I would like your opinion on this whole situation, the girl, and what maybe I should do…

A: First of all, let’s start with this; you mentioned that dating this girl was done against your mutual friend’s wishes. Maybe that friend was trying to save you a whole lot of grief! This girl sounds shady, plain and simple. I can guarantee that she didn’t have much of a problem with the weekend hang out/booty call with minimal strings. She obviously enjoyed it since it went on for a few months.

It seems likely to me that she met someone new, someone local probably. Having someone new is exciting, and it’s pretty damn convenient if that someone new lives only ten minutes away. This gave her an excuse to start using the “lack” of text messages and the distance as an easy way out. Using excuses is much easier than admitting you fucked up. It’s also much easier than telling the truth.

It’s not because she didn’t think YOU could handle it; it’s because SHE couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t handle telling the truth, or being the bad guy in the relationship, so she made up excuses.

If you can accept that she’s a shady kinda girl, then it should make it easy to be just friends with her with no romantic interest. But do you really want shady friends in your circle?

Best Wishes! 


Dexter
xoxo

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by Laurelin

I sit here in bed, the television muted, my iTunes silenced. I sit here in bed with my cell phone on vibrate; my hands ready to receive at any moment. All night, my hands, waiting. Waiting for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. I almost welcome that familiar twinge, that feeling that leaves me so full of emptiness. I remember I heard once that you’re never more alive than when your heart is breaking. Mine is already broken, and apparently I like nothing more than to make the same mistakes twice.

I almost don’t even know who “he” is. At this point there are so many people who could fill that void that I feel stupid, because while there are so many, there are in fact, so few.

My ex, who I haven’t spoken to in months, says he’s on his way to the bar. I miss him, but I don’t really, and when he doesn’t show tonight I feel better for not having put the picture he painted me for my birthday back on the wall. I keep thinking, “One day I can hang it,” but it’s been one year and it’s still stuffed in the back of my closet next to the framed photo of the ex that used to hit me and the clothing I wore when I would wrestle bachelors for money at the strip club in hot oil and whipped cream. I don’t know why I even think I can stand to look at it, and for one fleeting moment it’s clear as day and I don’t know why I haven’t burned it.

I find myself sitting here, wishing for anything. The last guy I liked had my friends in absolute giggles; comparing the new guy to the old one, leaving me a little bewildered because this new one was honest and sweet… at least in the beginning. So he wasn’t as muscular or tall. And then, just like all the rest, he was suddenly gone, and I was left with nothing. In the beginning we had laughed over how cold we both seemed (we weren’t really). In the beginning I had thought, “He’s not cold at all,” but in the end I thought, “He was right,” though I never cried.

I never cried. There are some guys who make you think; some who make who question your very essence. There are some guys who make you feel like nothing will ever be the same. The ones who break you, day after day, month after month, year after year. There are those guys that no matter how many times you tell yourself they’re going to stay buried they always seem to surface just when you’re at your most vulnerable. There are the guys that never call; and those are the ones who are made for nothing more than heart breaking and other lies.

[..]