Tag Archives: feminism

Fantasies

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Grab a scrap of paper and a pen and write down very briefly and generally your top ten erotic fantasies.

Have you done it?

Good. Now let’s compare.

According to AskMen.com, women’s top ten fantasies are just as raunchy as men’s. No surprise there. I’ve always maintained that we women have much dirtier minds than men do. Unfortunately, we’ve been socialized on a huge diet of guilt and self-doubt where sex is concerned. The good news is we’re doing our best, in spite of the opposition, to overcome.

Most of the top shelf erotica now in main stream book stores, as well as online, is erotica written for, and by women, and a lot of it blends great story-telling with blow-your-hair-back, burst-into-flame, nuclear sex. If you want the skinny on what goes on in our very dirty minds, women’s erotica is the place to look, and what a fun place it is!

So here it is. According the AskMen, the list of fantasies in reverse order are: dominating and being dominated, teacher/student, sex with a stranger, threesomes – MFM, FMF, voyeurism, force fantasies, exhibitionism, private dancer.

There they are, ladies, our faves. How accurate is the list? I can only speak for myself, but based on the women’s erotica I’ve read, and written, I was surprised to find being a private dancer at the top of the list. I was equally surprised that girl-on-girl wasn’t on the list. I would have also expected to find spanking and punishment in the mix, although I’m sure most of us can slot those in nicely in the teacher/student category, or dominating and being dominated.

Most of the fantasies on Ask Men’s list (and a fair few not on the list) I have written about in my short fiction and in The Initiation of Ms Holly. I’m not sure how Ask Men came up with their list, but based on the women’s erotica I’ve read and written, my list would have been similar. How about yours?

IN OTHER NEWS: A big BOOOO goes out to Facebook this week for deleting the 3,000 + member sex-positive women’s empowerment group, “Our Porn, Ourselves” founded by Violet Blue. Sadly, the above-mentioned opposition we women are constantly battling is alive and well.

Taking back our sexuality and owning and understanding it is an ongoing battle, one in which, unfortunately, we women are often our own worst enemies. Asertions aren’t facts, and zeal is no substitute for truth. Thanks, Suzanne Forbes and Carnal Nation for reminding us.

The Double Standard is alive and well

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I was lucky enough to meet Zoe Margolis a few months ago. Zoe, aka Abby Lee, was famously outed for her popular anonymous blog, Girl with a One Track Mind. When I met her, she was doing a book reading at Sh! Women’s Shop in Hoxton promoting her new book, Girl with a One Track Mind Exposed. At the time she talked briefly about her shock and anger at being called a hooker in the headline of an article that ran in the Independent on Sunday, so I was very happy to read in Saturday’s Guardian that she had won libel damages. No one doubted that she would. The headline of the article was not only defamitory, but it was also wrong. The Inedpendent has since apologized and settled out of court.

As I read the article, I couldn’t help thinking about the big news a couple of months ago when Peter Biskind’s book, Star, How Warren Beatty seduced America, revealed that Beatty had supposedly slept with 12,775 women — give or take.

No one — even mistakenly — called Beatty a hooker. In fact the very idea is ludicrous. Men, especially handsome powerful ones, build reputations on their sexual prowess. Other men admire them, and women long to be the next notch on the bed post. Even though Beatty was referred to as a serial philanderer in one of the many newspaper articles, somehow that just doesn’t have the same impact as being called a hooker.

Seldom does a woman get admired for her sexual prowess, nor does she have to sleep with anywhere near 12,775 men before she gets labeled a whore. I’m in no way denegrating sex workers. I’m simply saying that the old double standard is alive and well, no matter how sophisticated we think we may be.

I doubt if there’s a woman writer of erotic fiction anywhere who doesn’t empathize with Zoe. Every time I publish a new story, every time I write a blog entry, there’s a frisson of fear, a small knot in my stomach, when I consider the risk. The truth is, the prudism and puritanism that’s a part of the culture we all grow up in still causes me to doubt myself, and even though I know better, causes me to fear what other people might think or say. And certainly not without cause. When women are open about sex, we run the risk of being labeled slut, whore, hooker. We run the risk that those who still think sex should be the property of the patriarchy, the church and state, will see us as fair game for verbal and emotional abuse (or worse) because we’ve chosen to celebrate our sexuality rather than repress it.

Zoe Margolis is one of my heros. She’s courageous, outspoken, and she’s making a difference for all of us who believe in the celebration of sexuality. And the world could certainly use a little more cause to celebrate.

Who the Hell is Mr. Perfect?

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Mr. Perfect doesn’t exist, so it’s time to face cold reality and settle for Mr. Good Enough. This is Lori Gottlieb’s advice in Saturday’s Guardian to single women. ALL of whom, she assures us, are secretly desperate to get married and start popping out sprogs. She’s so convinced of this that she has written a book about it.

Everyone wants an alpha male. Alpha males have good genes. It’s biology. Not enough alpha males to go around? Never mind. If it’s just sperm and child support poor lonely singletons are looking for, why wouldn’t Mr. Mediocre-but-stable-making-good money be Mr. Just-as-good-as-anyone-else?

And since we’re being brutally honest, why the hell would Mr. Perfect be slumming for Gottlieb’s pathetic and shallow version of the single woman in the first place? One really has to wonder who actually is settling for whom?

Being reduced to our biological imperatives leaves little room for imagination, for creativity, for passion, or even just for fun. We simply settle, then we get on with it. It’s possible that being lonely is worse than being bored, but it’s very unlikely that settling for one will cure the other.

The Female Gaze

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If you’d like to learn more about what turns women on visually, then you won’t want to miss this exciting presentation by editor of Filament Magazine, Suraya Sidhu Singh

‘The female gaze’ – Photographing men erotically for women

This will be a presentation rich in photographic examples – ranging from the stunning, to the hilarious, to the baffling – as well as unravelling research findings, all of which tell us a story about the beauty of the erotic mind and the constricted, stereotyped world in which women’s erotica has often been produced.

Where?

Sh! Women’s Store

Spaces are limited, but totally free, so email Renee at renee@sh-womenstore.com to book a place.

When?

Wednesday 20 January at 7 pm.

About Suraya Sidhu Singh

New Zealand born and London-based, 31-year-old Suraya Sidhu Singh is the editor and founder of Filament magazine (http://www.filamentmagazine.com <http://www.filamentmagazine.com/> ), the first women’s magazine that seeks to present a genuine female gaze in its photography of men. She has studied research-informed public policy and worked as an advisor in various government agencies for nine years, before becoming an editor and pornographer.