photo credit: fredseibert

Born on the Fourth of July:

Calvin Coolidge
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ann Landers
Geraldo Rivera
Neil Simon
John Waite
Leona Helmsley

(cue Twilight Zone music)

Found via Encarta: 1826: Fifty years to the day after the approval of the Declaration of Independence, which they both had a hand in drafting, former presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on the same day.

Other interested July fourth facts:

There are fifty-six signatures on the constitution.

The American national anthem, the “Star-Spangled Banner,” is set to the tune of an English drinking song (”To Anacreon in Heaven”).

Historical research has failed to confirm Betsy Ross sewed the first flag.

In July 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation: 2.5 million

The nation’s population on this July Fourth, 2008: 304 million

July 4th Quotes:

I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance. –John Adams

There, I guess King George will be able to read that. –John Hancock

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –Thomas Jefferson

Have a great July 4th!

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

This month’s most FREQUENT comment winner:

Tameka Green

The month’s RANDOM comment winner:

Dakota

CONGRATULATIONS!

Please email me at selena at excessica dot com before Tuesday July 8, 2008 to collect your prize!

Next month we will be eliminating the “frequent commenter” award, but we will be awarding one lucky RANDOM COMMENTER with a FREE E-Book, so keep up your comments!

This article originally appeared in the British pop culture e-zine Nuts4chic. I am Nuts4chic’s sex columnist.

Here’s something you don’t read every day. The headline was surreal: Two Women Report Ghost Has Been Having Sex With Them.

Two women in Washington State in the U. S. claimed that a ghost ” has been placing sensors on their bodies and visiting them in their house […] They said that the ghost has been having sexual intercourse with them.”

I swear I’m not making this up.

I am always interested in ghosts and sex because lots of my erotic short stories have ghosts and sex in them. I don’t do shapeshifters or hot, emo elves. I do ghosts for the most part. Ornery ghosts, too.

I had heard of women claiming to have been attacked by ghosts, but it was surreal to see such a matter-of-fact article about it in a local newspaper. Have you ever seen the movie “The Entity”? It’s a 1981 flick about a woman who was repeatedly raped by a ghost in front of her husband and children. The movie was slammed by critics when it first came out because it was rather explicit, but it became a cult favorite. It was supposedly based on the real life astral rapes of Carla Moran. Whether Moran actually exists has been up for debate for years. I’ve seen a reality show that supposedly interviewed her and had shown pictures of the astral being that had raped her, but the jury is still out on whether or not the woman actually exists. The movie was remade in Japan and is slated to be released in 2009. I’m curious to see it. Can’t wait until it comes out on DVD.

It would probably be exciting to have consensual sex with a ghost, but being raped by a ghost would be horrifying. First off, you can’t see the attack coming. Ghosts tend to be invisible. At the same time, a playful ghost could make otherworldly sex lots of fun. I wrote a short story called “Things The Go Hump In The Night” that involved a sexy spanking ghost. The fun thing about this playful ghost was that, since she was invisible, you couldn’t tell when she was going to spank you. When she did, it was very arousing. People who like to be blindfolded while engaging in a little fetish play probably know how exciting it can be to not know when the spanking is coming. That’s what gave me the idea for my story in the first place.

So, not only do ghosts make great characters for sexy fiction, they really do like to have sex with humans, if that Washington State case is any indication. Bored with your very human partner? Find a horny ghost! You’d be in good company.

eXcessica new releases

VORTEX

By habu

www.excessica.com

Length: Novella

Category: BDSM, Gay Male

Heat Level: eXcess 4

Price: $3.99

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Young, naïve and enticing, Kevin is driven by curiosity in alternate lifestyles and finds himself smitten by hunky Doug—and more, is willing to be taken by him. But what Kevin doesn’t know is Doug has only seduced Kevin to provide a virgin for the satanic “rejuvenation” ritual of a coven mastered by the rich and hugely endowed Donatien.

Still driven by his attraction to Doug, Kevin schemes time and again, in a spiraling vortex down toward despair, to pull Doug from the clutches of the coven and to escape Donatien’s obsession with possessing him. Will both Kevin and Doug be sucked into hell on earth, or will they eventually find a way out of the whirlpool together?

LOST

By Varian Krylov

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Length: Novella

Category: Romance

Heat Level: eXcess 4

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When a typhoon destroys their boat, three scientists are stranded on an unpopulated island off the coast of Madagascar. As the weeks and months pass, it gets harder and harder for Derek to resist Cat’s seductive advances. Cat, sensual, spontaneous, hungry to experience every thrill, every sensation. Cat, a virgin ten years younger than he. Cat, his kid sister…

GINGERBREAD

By Gabriel Daemon

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Length: Novella

Category: Erotic Horror, Paranormal, Fantasy

Heat Level: eXcess 4

Price: 3.99

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In this dark retelling of a classic fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel are twins living in the rural town of Brimstone, at the mercy of their selfish and manipulative mother. Desiring to be free of the burden of caring for children who have come of age, Mother concocts a plan to abandon them far from home. But Hansel and Gretel are crafty and resourceful, prompting Mother to be even more devious. However, the twins find refuge at Ginger’s Diner, a refuge which quickly becomes a prison. Held captive by a vile witch, Hansel and Gretel realize there is only one way to escape, a way which will change their relationship forever…

As a writer and aspiring novelist, I had always assumed that length was important.  I mean, if you don’t give them a fat book, readers won’t buy it, right?  After putting off my novel projects for years (or writing only tiny, disjointed scenes), I began writing shorts, thinking, “I have to start somewhere.”  These were very pleasant distractions at first, but they also began to highlight my reluctance to write anything longer than 35k words (for those who do not know, print novels tend to have a firm minimum of 60k words, with the average length probably being close to 150-200k).

I’ve read plenty of books that would have been better at half their length (and certain ones like Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears have me wondering how anyone could forgive his droning style enough to enjoy the story).  I have read plenty of “tips” for writing novels, but they don’t seem to resonate with me.  When the plot isn’t there, it’s just not there.  But, this practical attitude did not help me in my struggle to unlock the keys to the elusive novel.  The itch does not diminish when it’s buried; it still itches.

I analyzed favorites, like Follet’s Pillars of the Earth and Martin’s A Game of Thrones, and realized that I judged books on their lack of sluggish sections or their feeling of importance.  In these examples, Follet’s book is a little slow in places, but these are completely overshadowed by the flavor, the view, he gives you, and most importantly, the sense of this majestic flow of time, of how these simple traumas and petty actions can add (and have added) up to earth-changing events.  The sense of historical drive is personalized, I guess.

One might say that A Game of Thrones is “only a fantasy story,” yet Martin’s genius lies in the techniques he uses; the read is so smooth and the action is so quick, that even when it isn’t, you can feel the storm coming on, hard and fast.  This intensity reads like a violent short story, and I was almost amazed that I had read 807 pages by the time I had read the closing phrase.  Heh, one of my very first thoughts was, “How the hell did he do that?”

Part of the effect may be personal (ie, come from my personal taste that would not be shared by others), but I can’t believe that accounts for much.  Both novels have intricate, interwoven plots, versus the generally-brief plots I dream up, but is this the only difference?  I’d be extremely interested in hearing from novelists and other short story authors as well as the readers of both.  I’d love to hear about the reasons they like/dislike certain features.

Why is your favorite novel your favorite; what sets it apart from the others?  Do you mind when a plot seems to meander, to get distracted?  Do you give a special weighting (concessions) to a story of a certain length, or approach them all the same?  Even if you send me a private reply, I’d be curious to hear from you about this.

In the meantime, happy writing and/or reading.

I asked some of my online friends, yesterday, what they do when they’re having a bad time. “Have an orgasm” seemed to be the mot unusual and yet – most popular response. I was surprised. When I’m having a bad time of things I comfort eat and watch rom-com films over and over: pretty much the very last thing I want to do is get involved in any sexual activity.

Apparently that’s the main difference between male and female sexuality – the fact that women need their head to be in the right place before their body will follow the lead, but many of the people who suggested an orgasm as the best cure for misery were women. Perhaps there’s just something wrong with me…?

Anyway, a new day has dawned, I still feel a bit glum, only I’ve eaten all my chocolate brownies now, I haven’t got any unwatched DVDs left and I need a cure, or at least ome comfort. Perhaps I’d better go back to bed…

~E~

The Illusionist. The Heartbreak Kid. The Band’s Visit. Sideways. You, Me and Dupree. No Country for Old Men. What do they all have in common?

Like oh so many works of fiction, they feature a romantic pairing between a man, and a much younger (and arguably much hotter) woman. In The Heartbreak Kid, we get forty-three year-old Ben Stiller paired, first with thirty-year old Malin Akerman, then with thirty-two year-old Michelle Monaghan. In The Band’s Visit, the lovely Ronit Elkabetz, forty-two, pursues a romantic encounter with the much older Sasson Gabai. Sideways sort of makes up for its pairing of Thomas Haden Church, forty-eight, and Sandra Oh, thirty-seven, with its love match between Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen who is (gasp!) six years his senior, though let’s face it, those six years haven’t done much to level the playing field between the two in the looks department, have they?

The Illusionist is in a category all by itself, because it gives us a story about childhood sweethearts who are the same age, yet when they grow up, the man is played by thirty-nine year-old Edward Norton, while the woman is played by Jessica Biel, who’s thirteen years younger. One effect of such casting is to give the illusion that, while it’s quite all right for a thirty-nine year-old man to look his age, his thirty-nine year-old lover should of course look like she’s twenty-six.

The other films, with their pairings of older men and younger women, simply feed the already rampant assumption that every average schmuck can reasonably expect to shag, marry, and be eagerly sought by women far younger and hotter than he, while implying to all us women that, however svelte our bodies, however glossy our hair and toned our skin may be, we should be content to snuggle up to, spread our legs for, kneel down and give blowjobs to craggy, flabby, droopy guys ten or twenty years older than us.

Thanks.

Now, before you start throwing rocks and castigating the superficiality rampant in my critique (Age and beauty don’t matter! It’s what’s inside that counts!), I’ll head you off and agree.

I’d be perfectly content if there were any kind of balance, if for every film where an aging, thickening beauty like Matt Dillon was paired up with a fresh and willowy Kate Hudson, we got a romance between Emma Thomson and Justin Timberlake, a fuckfest featuring Carrie Ann Moss and Gael Garcia Bernal, a film where Cillian Murphy desperately pursues a romance with, say, Meryl Streep. And of course, such films exist (Young Adam and Shadowboxer are two examples), but they’re comparatively rare.

And I’ll readily concede that the trope of the older man and the younger woman reflects history and reality, to a degree. All over the world, in all periods of history, including our own, young girls have been married off to men two, three, four times their age, and in many socioeconomic environments, it’s been typical for men who’ve been out in the world long enough to establish economic stability to take to wife a young woman just as she’s ready to leave the nest.

But that’s not the world being portrayed in any of these films. And it’s certainly not my world. Films that portray couples where the man does all the financial heavy lifting while his partner coifs her hair and arranges their social engagements, thereby cultivating an expectation in women that a man should take care of them, are as irritating as those that encourage every pasty cubicle slave in slacks and a button-up to comb the earth for his very own Keira Knightley.

I hope that now that women have joined not only the ranks of authors and artists, but of filmmakers, as well, portrayals of love and sex will more often be egalitarian, or, failing that, cater to the fantasies of women as well as men.

Regardless of the reason we begin to put words to “paper” — whether it’s to quiet the voices in our heads or to take the edge off pain — the moment we choose to share the fruits of our imaginations with an audience of any size, self-stimulation is added to the mix.  Even when we’re not writing about sex.  Feedback — via ratings, reviews, sales, or other kudos — strokes the creative libido.

Writing is an art. Publishing is a business. And a career is the bed in which they fuck.

This, I believe, extends to other creative endeavors.

Regardless of the reasons that drove George Carlin to open the curtains so we could watch, he blended art with business in a way that made them appear one.  And he made us laugh in the process.

Rest in peace, George.

~ Alessia Brio

eXcessica new releases

VIRGELINA’S TORMENT

By Jennifer Campbell

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Length: Novel

Category: BDSM

Heat Level: eXcess 4

Price: $4.99

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Highly sexual and easily aroused, the women of Ranexx have many factors in their biology which make them natural slaves. Our heroine, Virgelina, is a pampered pleasure slave, sent by her Master to the Imperial Palace to compete to become an imperial pleasure slave to serve the Emperor. However, when Virgelina fails miserably, it is she, not her Master, who must face horrible treatment and tortures at the hands of Varius, the head imperial slave trainer. After days of torment, Virgelina is forced to confront her Master, who abandons her body to a cruel fate. Will Virgelina survive and find another Master to serve—and perhaps even love?

SILENT NIGHT

By Selena Kitt

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Length: Short-Short

Category: Erotic Horror

Heat Level: eXcess 4

Price: 0.99

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Justine has left Bruce for another man, left him all alone with their young daughter - while he slowly goes insane. His building, impotent rage leads to sudden, unexpected brutality. But how far will he go?

VARIETIES OF LOVE

By Amicus

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Length: Novel

Category: Anthology

Heat Level: eXcess 4

Price: 4.99

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A collection of short stories intended to appeal to a wide and varied interest of the reader. If you enjoy group sex, “Four Friends”, will lead you gently to first time discoveries by four college student. If sophisticated and sexy romance is your pleasure, “The Girl in the Limousine”, might offer you a pleasant read. Explicit and sexy Fan Fiction; see if you can guess who the two major film stars might be. If Reluctance is your favorite, “The Girl on a Dusty Road”, and “The Girl by the River”, might make you smile and perspire. If a gentle, first time, non erotic romance might put you in a mood, “The Girl in the Bookshop” might bring a smile and a tear. When Mickie & Mike share a sleeping bag in the backyard, even though they are step brother and sister, they discover more than just each other…

“You’re such a contradiction,” my client told me as we ‘did’ lunch the other day.

“Really?”

“Of course!  You’re a porn-writing opera-loving radical feminist Leonard Cohen fan.”

“Yeah… so?”

In my mind, those elements aren’t so contradictory. Can a feminist not love a ladies’ man? Can an opera connoisseur not enjoy some filthy raunch?  Why do we need to place every artistic endeavour on this spectrum of high to low culture?

I don’t see opera and porn at opposite ends of some scale of artistic valour.  Neither do I see “erotica” and “porn” standing in opposition, though many people out there –readers and writers alike- do.

So, what’s the difference between erotica and porn?  I believe the standard definitions go something like this:  Porn is down and dirty, sex for sex’s sake, blow-by-blowjob smut.  Erotica is explicit sex within the context of a story, usually with accompanying emotions and motivations.

What do I write?  I write erotica, but I also write porn and I feel no shame in saying it.  Even my grandmother will tell you I am a proud pornographer.  What’s more, I don’t set my erotica above my porn.  I don’t set opera above Leonard Cohen.  It’s a big world; they can coexist.

We don’t go through life wanting one thing exclusively.  Sometimes we want Die Fledermaus, sometimes we want Anthem.  Sometimes we want Carmen, sometimes we want Who by Fire? Sometimes we want long, languorous sexual encounters, sometimes we want a cheap fuck.  One thing isn’t better than another, it’s all about what we’re in the mood for.

Okay, you’re right, it’s more complicated than that.  It’s also about what has greater social value.  In academic/social/intellectual terms, literature has a very high social value.  Erotica manages to feed off that a little bit, but it’s a sliding scale:  High Literature has greater social value than literary erotica, which has greater social value than porn.  However, the scale is reversed if your social group values porn and looks down its nose at literature.

When will we dispense with pretensions?  None of this, “I’m too smart for smut” or “I’m to badass for the ballet.”  Let’s just admit that we like what we like.  I am Giselle Renarde and I love Leonard Cohen, social justice, opera and porn!