A kiss is just a kiss...not

Ever wondered about the political uses of a kiss, the kiss's changing status or legendary movie kisses? Do you find yourself needing to say the word in Albanian, Icelandic or even, perchance, Maori?

Fear not. "A Compendium of Kisses," the guide to everything oscular -- that's "of or pertaining to kissing" for the unenlightened -- tells all about one of the world's most universal gestures, whether simple greeting or sublime.

"When I came to look at the kiss, the romantic side is such a small part of it," said British novelist and actress Lana Citron, who compiled the book.

"I love how when you're born, the first thing is, you're kissed, you're welcomed into the world. It's this little gesture that follows you throughout life, through all the most important parts of your life."

Citron's interest in kisses began with a short story she wrote a decade ago about a lonely woman who collected kisses in jars -- such as one for the lover who spurned her, one that was full of yearning -- and labeled them.

That led to her invitation to do an installation of kisses in jars, all labeled, as part of an art exhibition. The response of viewers sent her to the internet, searching out books on kisses and deciding to write her own when nothing seemed just right.

"It was almost like opening a Pandora's chest and just being overwhelmed by all the different ways a kiss is expressed, the meanings attached to it and the things it symbolizes," she said.

"I fell in love with it, I really did. I was submerged in the world of kisses for a year and came out of it with a book." Read on >>

The Sexiest Blogs of 2010

It's bitterly cold outside here in Germany so I will stay at home, snuggled up in my cosy bed and read some hot stories. I've found this list of the sexiest blogs of 2010 and I'm sure this will keep me busy for the next hours.

Kissing Tips

Violet Blue has written about a zillion books on the subject of sex, but finally there’s one you can discuss with your grandmother: Seal It with a Kiss: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Delivering the Knockout Kiss. Seeing as the national smooch holiday is almost upon us, we thought we’d check in with Violet for some of her best snogging advice.

Em & Lo: Do you think good kissing chemistry is a reliable indicator of good sexual chemistry And is the reverse true, if the kissing is bad, do you think the sex is likely to be bad?

Violet Blue: When we first kiss, it’s often the moment we know — instantly — whether or not we “click” with someone’s chemistry. Our senses are fully engaged, and we’re truly drinking in everything; sight, taste, smell, feel, the sounds, the essence of the person we’re quite literally tasting. There are parts of us taking in and reacting to the person we’re kissing that we’re not even aware of, let alone in control of. It’s exciting! So if we can shut off our brains for a minute and listen to our bodies and intuition, kissing is a very reliable barometer for knowing if it’s going to be hot — or not.

If you want to deliver the first kiss, how can you tell that it’ll be welcome?

Besides asking sweetly? Well if you’re one of the lucky few who “just know” then you are indeed lucky, but if you’re like the rest of us, you’ll want to look for concrete signs and signals. When you’re ready to move in for the kiss, look to the lips to see if they’re clamped together and uninviting, or relaxed and ready for a kiss. See if the other person is unconsciously (or consciously) imitating your body language; mirroring means they’re ready to follow your lead. And check to see if they’re in close physical proximity, closer than ordinary. People who are desiring physical contact will gravitate to you, and place themselves a step closer than would be typical for acquaintances.

So if you’re too shy to deliver the first kiss, does this mean you can use body language to let someone know that a kiss would be welcome?

Yes! Make eye contact for a count of three to five seconds. If you dare, smile at the end of your count. Incline your head close, especially during eye contact. If that doesn’t work, try the eye contact count a second time and glance at their lips, then back to the eyes before smiling and looking away. If they still don’t get the hint, start your eye contact count, smile, and draw more attention to your lips by touching the corner of your mouth for a quick second with your finger. It’s your subliminal way of saying, “Right here, pal.” Read more >>

The Rough Guide To Sex

If you're buying a Rough Guide it's normally because you're off on your travels, but it's not the world you'll be exploring with the latest book, it's sex.

The publisher of the popular travel and reference guides has revealed its saucier side by developing a hands-on 'how to' sex manual with advice on bodies, techniques, orgasms, adventures and accessories.

Before you do a double take on the title, no this isn't the guide to 'rough sex', but a book filled with sex facts, surprises and oddities, whether you're gay, straight or bisexual.

The manual will give readers frank advice on 'how to do it', attitudes and beliefs about sex, and for anyone who still isn't quite getting the safe sex message, sexual health issues.

In the book author James McConnachie investigates attitudes and beliefs, cultural and ethical issues, and sex as it appears in art and science.

Sex is about more than just doing it, McConnachie said: "If we cut sex off from the rest of civilization," he writes, "we can't hope to be truly civilized about sex."

McConnachie was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2008 and is the author of The Book of Love: in Search of the Kama Sutra.

It's good news for the anyone who's a bit clueless when it comes to hitting the sack, but the bad news is you'll have to wait until January 2010 to get your hands on one.

Top 10 erotic bestsellers

If you speak with 10 different people, you may get 10 different definitions of erotica. You may also get dozens of arguments for what does, or doesn't, classify a work as erotica. And any given number of readers will share their favore sub-genres, or types of erotica fiction, within the larger erotica genre. The fact remains, however, that erotica is hot--no pun intended.

Today, I'm featuring erotica titles that are currently, or have recently, sat in bestselling erotica slots in several of those erotica sub-genres, to include fantasy erotica, paranormal, menage a trios, group erotica, BDSM, etc. All titles are available at Fictionwise, a Barnes & Noble company. Read more >>

New erotic magazine for women

Filament Magazine is a new concept in magazines for women: intelligence, inspiration and images of men designed for the female gaze. It's quarterly, hard copy and launches 1 June 2009.

Vampire porn for women

In a traditional sense, porn is defined as “something with no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire,” according to the Webster’s dictionary definition.

“Twilight,” the hit vampire series by Stephenie Meyer, is precisely that. The books offer nothing more than female escapism complete with a price tag, sleek dust jacket and a complementary bookmark.

The escapism is expressed via the caricaturized romance between Bella, a teenage girl who bears a suspicious resemblance to series’ author, and Edward, a century-old sparkling vampire who can’t decide whether he wants to kiss Bella or eat her.

Though the series is often labeled ‘pornographic,’ the text is surprisingly devoid of explicit sex.

But Twilight’s brand of porn, otherwise known as “girl porn,” does not rely on graphic material to captivate its female audience. Rather, this special type of porn manifests itself in the form of emotional binges, excessive romanticizing and interaction with impossibly perfect male characters.

Girl porn has existed for years in the various forms, from the clever and sophisticated Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte novels to the less tactful bodice-rippers by garden-variety romance novelists. Both kinds have had their share of success, though neither has claimed the limelight the way “Twilight” has.

It’s gaudy success has aggravated seasoned novelists. “Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn,” Stephen King told USA Weekend this past February. “[Twilight] is exciting and it’s thrilling and it’s not particularly threatening because it’s not overtly sexual.” Read more >>

Male Sexuality: Why Women Don't Understand It

At first glance the sexual male seems easy to understand, but beneath the surface lie complexities that disrupt lives and relationships. Why can men be so distant in bed? Why do many men love porn so much? And can he love porn and still love his wife?

Respected psychologist Michael Bader takes an honest look at the nuances of male sexuality, addressing issues such as sexual boredom, internet sex, and sexual fantasies that can leave women bewildered and men ashamed. Illustrated with engaging examples from his practice, Male Sexuality gives readers, both women and men, deeper understanding of male behavior from the flamboyant to the mundane. Through increased awareness of the psychology behind the sex, Bader aims to enhance individual self-esteem and improve communication in relationships.

Making open relationships work

Relationship expert and bestselling author Tristan Taormino offers a bold new strategy for creating loving, lasting relationships. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over a hundred women and men, Opening Up explores the real-life benefits and challenges of all styles of open relationships — from partnered non-monogamy to solo polyamory. With her refreshingly down-to-earth style and sharp wit, Taormino offers solutions for making an open relationship work, including tips on dealing with jealousy, negotiating boundaries, finding community, parenting and time management. Opening Up will change the way you think about intimacy. Read a review >>

Book of the Week: Wetlands by Charlotte Roche

Charlotte Roche is a literary phenomenon. In April last year she was the first German author to top Amazon's monthly bestseller list, outselling stellar talents such as Khaled Hosseini. Her debut novel, Wetlands, has sold half a million copies at home and is so sexually explicit that people are said to have fainted at readings.

The book certainly requires a strong stomach, discussing, as it does, the narrator's sexual preferences in minute detail, but is it cleverly packaged pornography or an erotic classic? And why have so many people chosen to read a novel that breaks all the conventional barriers of taste?

Admirers say that Roche has hit a nerve, while one German newspaper dismissed the novel as “a masturbation pamphlet”. Now British readers are about to encounter Wetlands for themselves and reach their own conclusions about a novel that has sharply divided critics on the Continent.

The novel's USP is a heroine who explores her own orifices with the fearlessness of a 15th-century adventurer; Helen's vagina, anus and bodily secretions fascinate her to a degree that will not necessarily be shared by every reader. The novel's opening sentence, an admission that Helen has always suffered from haemorrhoids, signals that nothing is off limits. Forced to rest while her doctors wait for her to defecate successfully after the operation, Helen reveals her unusual attitude to personal hygiene, which includes smearing secretions from her vagina behind her ears as a substitute for perfume: “It works wonders from the moment you greet someone with a kiss on each cheek.” Read more >>

Sex between the covers

A new wave of erotica subverts the usual porn conventions, and invites debate about pleasure

Women and men were becoming increasingly vocal about their anger at the way sexuality - still mainly female - had been co-opted by commerce, with the values of the market turning the act itself into a competitive sport. For a moment, it felt as though - in addition to critiquing the pornification of society - it might be possible to open up a public space to investigate how this was affecting personal sexual development. But I sense this didn't quite happen - despite the blogosphere offering individuals like Margolis ample opportunity to explore their own erotic journeys.

Sexual ignorance is far from bliss, yet we still don't know, for example, precisely how a woman reaches orgasm. While it's generally assumed that men have higher libidos, recent research from Canada found that women are physiologically aroused by a much wider range of stimuli than males. And, while the porn movie industry has entirely mainstreamed anal penetration, I don't see the PSHE curriculum teaching our young people how to make the act safer and more comfortable by using condoms and lube any time soon. Read more >>

Hot Erotic Holiday E-books

Read one of these hot erotic holiday e-books and you’ll be sure to warm up fast on that cold winter night!

Cooking With Cum

Many of you—male and female, gay and straight—have tasted come before. (Straight guys: we know you try your own!) And chances are your first thought upon tasting is, reliably, “damn, how could I work that into some cookies?” Well, you need lust no longer for semen-flavored food, because Cooking With Cum is here.

It's the perfect holiday gift for that special cook in your life.

Better Sex Erotic Fiction Contest

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Click Foreplay

Clickforeplay , the producer of downloadable short-form adult 'radio' dramas, today announced its launch and made available its first four plays. Each play, priced at just GBP2.99, is designed to stimulate listeners' imagination and be easy to download and enjoy.

Visitors will be able to see a synopsis of each of the available plays and listen to a sample. From there they can download to MP3 players, or listen via their PCs or other computer devices.

Mr Unavailable & the Fallback Girl

Understand why our attraction to emotionally unavailable men is tied up in the negative things that we believe about ourselves, love, and relationships. We tend to choose men that reflect these negatives.

Learn about yourself, the Fallback Girl; that woman that Mr Unavailable relies on to massage his ego and cater to his needs whilst managing down her expectations and contributing little or nothing into the relationship. Meet the Yo-Yo Girl, the Other Woman, the Flogger, the Renovator and Florence Nightingale, the Over-Givers, and Miss Independent/Miss Self-Sufficient.

Discover the most common relationship situations such as him being attached, seperated, long distance or hooked on his ex, that are the hallmark of the emotionally unavailable man and learn to recognise key signs that you’re with him.

Find out exactly what is making Mr Unavailable tick from blowing hot and cold, to using you for sex, and refusing to recognise his poor behaviour, and learn why issues such as poor emotional schooling and an over inflated ego will be keeping him the way he is. Discover exactly how he manages down your expectations and even manipulates you into doing exactly what he wants.

Find out how you tie in with emotionally unavailable men by allowing them to turn the tables around you causing you to become ‘the pursuer’ and refusing to listen because you’re like a ‘disgruntled customer’, plus many more behaviours that are in sync with all of his behaviours.

Learn what your motivations are for being in relationships with Mr Unavailable and find out how to break your pattern by choosing you and seeing actions for exactly what they are.

Most importantly, you’ll learn that it’s not about you per se, and that these issues were there long before you came on the scene, they are there now, and they’ll be there long after you’re gone.

This is about taking control of yourself and your relationship choices so that you can learn to stop deriving your value from the relationships that you have with these men and get happy.

Recommmended by Loving Annie

2008 Short Story Competition

To celebrate their 5th birthday, For The Girls is conducting their fourth erotic fiction competition. Their aim is to uncover more great examples of sexy writing created expressly for women.

This year's theme is transgression. To transgress is to disobey, to revolt, to engage in sedition, to sin. It's a broad theme that can encompass crossing boundaries, breaking rules, kink, mistakes and consequences, experimentation or simply being naughty.

The competition will run throughout June and July and is open to FTG members as well as members of the public. Both professional writers and amateur wordsmiths are welcome to enter.

Read more details here >>

How Many Days Does it Take to Become a Sex Bomb?

Apparently seven.

Seven Days to Sex Appeal claims swagger and sex appeal can be taught. Good to know there's hope out there for foaming-at-the-mouth underdogs.

According to Amazon, 93 percent of customers bought the book after seeing the product page. And dude, it only got 3 stars out of 5. So I'm guessing optimism, however loose in wallet, does not a sex god make.

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Sexual Fluidity

In a culture in which the pornographic has become predictable, it seems downright cheeky to write and publish a sex book — not because it's difficult but because, to cop an exhausted term, eros has jumped the shark. Is there really anything new to say about sex?

Lisa M. Diamond and Brian Alexander think there is.

The title of the first chapter in Diamond's Sexual Fluidity — "Will the Real Lesbians Please Stand Up?" — is likely to intrigue even the most jaded sexpert.

In the kick-off to her study of the malleability of female erotic longing, Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, writes: "In 1997, the actress Anne Heche began a widely publicized romantic relationship with the openly lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres after having had no prior same-sex attractions. ... The relationship with DeGeneres ended after two years, and Heche went on to marry a man. The actress Cynthia Nixon of the HBO series Sex and the City developed a serious relationship with a woman in 2004 after ending a 15-year relationship with a man. Julie Cypher left a heterosexual marriage for the musician Melissa Etheridge in 1988. After 12 years together, the pair separated and Cypher — like Heche — has returned to heterosexual relationships. In other cases, longtime lesbians have unexpectedly initiated relationships with men, sometimes after decades of exclusively same-sex ties. ... What's going on? Are these women confused? Were they just going through a phase before, or are they in one now?"

Setting out to prove the theory that, for some women, love is truly blind where gender is concerned, Diamond presents her evidence in a fascinating, anecdotal fashion — by tracking over the span of a decade the relationships of nearly 100 women who at one point or another had experienced "same-sex attractions." Read more >>

Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women

What do women really want? To be sensually seduced or pressed up against the wall for a quickie? To be tantalized by a peep show or the chance to join the mile high club?

Acclaimed erotica writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel knows: They want it all. They want to be worshiped, ordered around, sent blindly into ecstasy, and made hot in front of a mirror. They want strangers bearing ice cubes on a hot day and to be the party favor passed around among guests. They want sex at the office and in the great outdoors and on trains and airplanes. They want sex with the whole United States of America (or, at least, part of it). They want to be wooed, seduced, flirted with, taken. They want to handpick their lovers and make them do their bidding. They want men, women, and sometimes both at the same time.

In Dirty Girls, the country’s best erotic writers explore their sexual psyches. With contributions from Carol Queen, Alison Tyler, Sofia Quintero, Shanna Germain, Lillian Ann Slugocki, Tsaurah Litzky, and many others, this collection will set your heart racing as you savor these intimate, shocking, and passionate female fantasies.