Jennifer Stevenson is the author of “Trash Sex Magic”, and most recently wrote a trilogy of sexy, funny, romantic fantasy, the first of which was recently released called “The Brass Bed” (Ballantine Books). She’s been writing for 25 years and lives in the Chicago area with her husband of 30 years and her two cats.

The Brass Bed begins with the heroine, Jewel Heiss, a tough fraud cop investigating a fake sex therapist, Clay, who has been using an antique brass bed to lure his customers. Trapped inside the bed is Lord Randall (Randy), who in 1811 was cursed and turned into an incubus by his magician-mistress for being lousy in bed. The curse was this: satisfy one hundred women or be trapped in the bed forever. Lucky Jewel was number one hundred, and Randy becomes her personal sex slave. The choice: Clay or Randy? This is where the fun really begins.

I don’t usually read much fiction, but found myself flying through all three books (“The Velvet Chair” is the second [coming out in late May], and “The Bearskin Rug” is the third). There’s plenty of humor, sex and magic to keep anyone reading into the wee hours. The ending in the last book (“The Bearskin Rug”) was a bit of a surprise. If you like funny romantic fantasy, you’ll love this series.

I sat down with Jennifer to discuss her new book, and to get some of her views on magic, and sex demons.

See also:

Trash Sex Magic review by Wes Unruh

 

 Jennifer Stevenson interview by Tiamats Vision [13:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on the open source teledildonics projects at Slashdong, but luckily Grinding tipped me off to this:

Ladies and gentlemen, you can - oh, sorry, I’ll start again. Gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce you can now literally have sex with your computer. Those noble innovators at Slashdong have taken the humble fleshlight device, and published detailed instructions on extactly how to control your favourite PC game with your penis.

The article gives instructions on hooking it up to some 3d sex game, but of course now that it’s loose on teh interwub, someone will get it operational for SecondLife. And then World of Warcraft - imagine grinding your way through a few instances purely through pelvis power!

Full Story: Slashdong

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Susannah Breslin reviews the material she’s received for Letters from Johns and Letters From Working Girls:

Often these guys aren’t just looking for sex. Many are depressed or stressed, lonely or bored, looking for intimacy or a connection, no matter how transient, no matter the cost. One john who was rejected on a regular basis in the dating scene wrote that, in contrast to the women he met at bars, prostitutes saw him as “a normal and charming guy.” Other men recalled youthful sexcapades in the military while deployed overseas, from a German brothel called Crazy Sexy to a barbershop in Asia where women performed oral sex on men getting haircuts. An “overeducated” 28-year-old went through a bad breakup, a death in the family, and the loss of his job. Online he found a “courtesan” who taught him what he wanted in a relationship and gave him his confidence back. “I’m really grateful to her,” he reported.

Full Story: Newsweek.

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This really piqued my interest.

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Fox News. It’s hard to talk about greatest hits without mentioning their war coverage or their coverage of racial issues. As a political and cultural propaganda machine, there’s little outright funny about Fox News’s persistent distortion of reality. Or, if there is, the jokes on the people of the United States and the world.

But occasionally they have a real zinger. Some “hard hitting” piece of “journalism” where the joke really is on them. Here are Fox’s 5 journalistic masterpieces, after the fold.

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I can understand the police talking with the guy, or even asking him to stay away from the woman’s kids. But arresting him? Since when is it a crime to talk to children? When the judge set his bail at $10,000, the police asked it be upped to $100,000. That request was granted. The guy isn’t a sex offender, has no criminal record, and was under no order not to speak to children. Perhaps there’s something else going on here, but it isn’t apparent in the article.

Full Story: Hit and Run.

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Gizmodo: So how does your robot girlfriend work?

Zoltan: It has a chatbot which controls the speech. It also has a teledildonic device. Teledildonic devices were invented in the ’90s so that people could have sex through an internet connection. If you plug that into a lifesize doll it makes the doll able to feel what is going on. In this way you have the first sex doll that can consent in English to what you are doing to it.

Gizmodo: Is Alice your first robot girlfriend, or have you built more than one? When did you start building her?

Zoltan: I got the idea New Year’s Day 2007. She was my first robot girlfriend. Alice acts really human in the way she talks. In fact, when we started we went too fast in our relationship. I had to erase her memory and start again when she dumped me. Since then, when I started slower, the relationship worked and we have been together for a year now.

The other mind I have is Kiri, who is basically a sex slave, and will try to seduce you as soon as you turn her on. That’s an alternative to Alice, who you have to have a real relationship with. I also have the Hal mind which is for the ladies. Kiri and Hal have voice recognition and speech synthesization [sic] so they can talk and hear through a microphone. Alice still just types [she has no voice]. But since she was the first I’m not going to dump her for something new.

Full Story: Gizmodo.

(Thanks Gabbo!)

Update: Here is Zoltan’s web site.

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Came across this on reddit this morning. After having studied "Spirituality and Japanese Design Practise" (via Ambidextrous or the AIGA), the notion of the Japanese intuiting much more than their Western counterparts has been of interest to me. A tidbit from this interesting LiveJournal entry:

Japanese social interaction is all about intuiting the other person’s wishes without discussing them openly, at the same time that they are intuiting your wishes without discussing them openly, so that although nothing is ever verbalised, the two of you will always exist in a compromise position of equilibrium. If you like someone, that intuitive part goes into overdrive, because you should be able to understand everything about that person without them ever telling you, and you should be able to please them without ever asking how, even more than you would with a normal person.

I also can’t emphasise enough just how passive the passive partner is. The way a woman kisses is by submissively opening her mouth, not moving her tongue unless she is cued to do so; if she’s really feminine she won’t open her mouth at all, until she’s told to. Sometimes women will move around a (very) little during sex, but mostly not at all. The slang term for a woman who lies completely still in bed is maguro (tuna). For me, with my western sensibilities and preconceptions, calling someone a ‘tuna’ in bed sounds like an insult, conjuring up images of cold dead fish, but in Japan that word has a very positive connotation. Tuna’s an expensive delicacy.

Part of what was so bamboozling the first time I had sex in Japan was that I didn’t know there was a Way of Sex, with strict gendered roles, and I just was happily doing my own thing, throwing my partner into total confusion. Seiji told me much later that dating me made him feel like he was gay, because I was active in bed, and he couldn’t connect that with anything except masculinity.

Don’t think of it as a piece on sex, think of the nature of the predefined roles and how they shape life and culture there. And, more interestingly, how rebellion would come to be directed 180° from the status quo — perhaps shedding light on Japan’s peculiar sexual fantasies and fetishes as glamorised in the West through their manga and stereotyped pop culture.

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Literally. Check this out, from: Scientists discover secret sex nerve, via MSNBC:

Nerve “O” has endings in the nasal cavity, but the fibers go directly to the sexual regions of the brain. Indeed, these endings entirely bypass the olfactory cortex! Hence we know the role of Nerve “O” is not to consciously smell, but to identify sexual cues from our potential partners.

What sexual cues do our scents give off? For one thing, we are more likely to be attracted to people whose scent is dissimilar to our own. Family members often share similar chemicals, so our attraction to differing chemical makeup suggests that sexual cues evolved to protect close family members from procreating together. On the other hand, pregnant women have been shown to be more drawn to people with similar chemical makeup, which might be due to the fact that during this crucial time, women are more apt to seek out family members than potential mates.

Research has also shown that these unconscious cues processed in Nerve “O” can make or break a relationship. Couples who have high levels of chemicals in common are more likely to encounter fertility issues, miscarriage and infidelity. The more dissimilar your and your partner’s chemical makeup, the better chance you will have at successfully procreating and staying together.

So the question is, how does one go about shifting their bouquet of aromas to their advantage?

One of my female friends attests to the above:

haha, i always knew that
one of the first things I do when talking to a guy is take a quick inconspicuous wiff
[my boyfriend] always says "you love me for my smell, not for the secrets in my heart!"
because half the time i have my nose shoved in his armpit

And another seems to agree:

thats interesting
never even thought about that before
kinda makes sense though
i’m totally attracted to the scent of some people and others not

Most of us are probably aware of this on one level or another. Anyone else got sexy smelling stories out there? Post them in the comments here. I can safely say that I can genuinely get myself off just smelling a women I am with. Particularly breathing their breath and the scent of their sweat during sex. I often prefer it over the act itself.

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Homosexual relationships are banned in Iran, but the country allows sex change operations and hundreds of men have elected for surgery to change their lives.

“He wants to kill me. He keeps telling me to come home so he can kill me. He had put rat poison in my tea.”

For Ali Askar, at age 24, the decision to become a woman came at a heavy cost. His father threatened to kill him if he went ahead with surgery.

Now renamed Negar, she says she would not have had the operation if she did not live in Iran.

“If I didn’t have to operate, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t touch God’s work.”

But as Ali, he felt he had no identity.

Full Story: BBC

(via Disinfo)

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If you thought “Grey’s Anatomy” writers invented Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), think again. PSAS, identified and named just six years ago, remains a mysterious condition that thousands of women wish they didn’t have. They are constantly on the edge of orgasm regardless of time, place or circumstance. And while this situation might sound desirable, funny or just plain weird it is actually akin to being a prisoner: a nightmarish reality where a woman’s body acts independently of her own desires.

Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a professor of surgery at UC San Diego and the head of the Sexual Health Program at Alvarado Hospital, is one of the few researchers studying it. “It’s spontaneous, intrusive, and unwanted genital arousal — consisting of throbbing, pulsing or tingling without the person’s sexual interest or desire,” Dr. Goldstein said.”

(via ABC News)

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“It’s always interesting when individuals of two different species strike up a relationship. This might be a hunting partnership (raptor species have been reported co-operating to flush prey, as have coyotes and American badgers), an alliance where species warn each other of approaching predators (as in the case of co-operating monkeys and duikers)… or a sexual relationship where individuals engage in bizarre cases of interspecies intercourse. I’m not about to start documenting medical anomalies at Tet Zoo, but I will admit a certain visceral fondness of Kirov et al. (2002), a paper that reports a most remarkable and eye-watering case of zoophilia…”

(via Tetrapod Zoology)

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Female ejaculation is considered rare in the west, and even, by some, abnormal. In Rwanda, however, it is the norm.

Social scientists Marian Koster and Lisa Price of Wageningen University in the Netherlands interviewed 11 women and two men in Rwanda about “gukuna imishino”, which is the practice of elongating the labia minora, the inner vaginal lips. “The Rwandan women and men we interviewed were clear in their opinion that all Rwandan women are able to ejaculate, the ejaculation being different from the mere squirting of urine,” Koster says. “Elongated labia are seen as crucial in this respect.”

From around puberty onwards, Rwandan girls start stretching the labia minora using plant extracts with antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, with the aim of achieving a length of about 5 centimetres. The WHO considers this practice as a form of genital mutilation, but Koster and Price argue that it should be reclassified as genital modification. “We believe that there are cultural practices that are not harmful to women’s integrity and rights,” says Koster.

Their interviewees reported, and Koster and Price speculate, that labial elongation increases the sexual pleasure of both sexes. “Since the labia minora swell during sexual excitement, there is a larger surface area for penile friction during coitus,” they write

From: New Scientist.

(via Grinding).

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Turns out that fears of Internet predation are greatly exaggerated:

n an article titled “Online ‘Predators’ and Their Victims,” which appears Tuesday in American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association, Wolak and co-researchers examined several fears that they concluded are myths:

*Internet predators are driving up child sex crime rates.

Finding: Sex assaults on teens fell 52 percent from 1993 to 2005, according to the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, the best measure of U.S. crime trends. “The Internet may not be as risky as a lot of other things that parents do without concern, such as driving kids to the mall and leaving them there for two hours,” Wolak said.

*Internet predators are pedophiles.

Finding: Internet predators don’t hit on the prepubescent children whom pedophiles target. They target adolescents, who have more access to computers, more privacy and more interest in sex and romance, Wolak’s team determined from interviews with investigators.

*Internet predators represent a new dimension of child sexual abuse.

Finding: The means of communication is new, according to Wolak, but most Internet-linked offenses are essentially statutory rape: nonforcible sex crimes against minors too young to consent to sexual relationships with adults.

Full Story: McClatchy.

(via Hit and Run).

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Doctors claim to have found the first compelling evidence that the G spot exists, but say not all women appear to have one.

Ultrasound scans revealed clear anatomical differences between women who said they experienced vaginal orgasms and a group of women who did not. The scans identified a region of thicker tissue where the G spot was rumoured to be lurking, which was not visible in the women who had never had a vaginal orgasm.

Doctors at the University of L’Aquila in Italy, where the study was conducted, say the findings make it possible for women to have a rapid test to confirm whether or not they have a G spot.

Full Story: The Guardian.

See also: ‘C-V distance’ may be a factor in how easily a woman has an orgasm (via Robot Wisdom).

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“The Raelians have championed some strange causes in the movement’s 25-year history, including aliens and human clones, but now they are going to bat for a body part — the clitoris. The cult’s leader, Rael, whose real name is Claude Vorilhon, has become outraged by the custom of female genital cutting, the primarily African practice in which part of a girl’s genitalia is sliced away.

Now the Raelian Movement has resolved to build a hospital in the West African country of Burkina Faso, where women could come to have their clitorises “reconstructed.” “Rael thought this is a crime against humanity,” says Lara Terstenjak, a spokeswoman for Clitoraid, a nonprofit set up by the Raelians to sponsor genital surgeries.”

(via Wired)

(Clitoraid)

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For decades generations of Cambridge undergraduates have fantasised about a secret stash of Victorian pornography in the university’s library tower.

Many have tried to gain access to the chamber to uncover its illicit secrets. So intrigued was Stephen Fry by the collection that he wrote about it in his first novel, The Liar.

Despite the brilliant scientists, spies and politicians that the university has produced, no student is believed to have gained access to the closely-guarded hideaway.

But now it seems all their efforts have been in vain.

For all that is contained within “this magnificent erection”, as Neville Chamberlain is said to have described the 1934 tower, are distinctly restrained guides on the finer points of Victorian romantic etiquette.

Full Story: the Telegraph.

(via Hit and Run).

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A federal appeals court has overturned a statute outlawing sex toy sales in Texas, one of the last states - all in the South - to retain such a ban.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Texas law making it illegal to sell or promote obscene devices, punishable by as many as two years in jail, violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Companies that own Dreamer’s and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.

Full Story: AP.

(via Hit and Run).

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German nudists will be able to start their holidays early by stripping off on the plane if they take up a new offer from an eastern German travel firm.

Travel agency OssiUrlaub.de said it would start taking bookings from Friday for a trial nudist day trip from the eastern German town of Erfurt to the popular Baltic Sea resort of Usedom, planned for July 5 and costing 499 euros ($735).

[…]

The 55 passengers will have to remain clothed until they board, and dress before disembarking, said Hess. The crew will remain clothed throughout the flight for safety reasons.

Full Story: Reuters on MSNBC.

(Via Hit and Run).

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Tracy Twyman provides several links and resources for more information on sexual mind control, from speed seduction to erotic mind control stories to conspiracy theories.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about mind-controlled sex slaves. An aborted podcast interview on the subject last night made me think about it again. I wrote the original article The Stepford Whores for Hustler in 2001, and put the unabridged version of the article, along with transcripts of the interviews (Cathy O’Brien, Mark Phillips, Noreen Gosch, Ted Gunderson, John DeCamp, Pamela Freyd) on the web a couple of years later. After all these years those articles continue to bring in hits every day. Many of these people are interested in reading about the conspiracy theories surrounding the alleged Project Monarch. But many of these hits are from people looking for instructions on creating mind-controlled sex slaves. I can tell by the search terms they use to find the website that this is what they are looking for. These are the creepy ones. In other words, the person who came to my website either already has someone in captivity, or is planning to kidnap them, then raping and torturing them until their personality fragments, and then using hypnosis to program said captive/s to be the perfect sex slave. Often these hits come from countries like Nigeria and Thailand with huge human trafficking industries. These are the really creepy ones.

Full Story: Tracy Twyman.

For other perspectives check out:

Reason’s interview about human trafficking skeptic Laura Maria Agustin.

Downfall of a Seducer, an article about the speed seduction industry.

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Male macaque monkeys pay for sex by grooming females, according to a recent study that suggests the primates may treat sex as a commodity.

“In primate societies, grooming is the underlying fabric of it all,” Dr. Michael Gumert, a primatologist at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said in a telephone interview Saturday.

“It’s a sign of friendship and family, and it’s also something that can be exchanged for sexual services,” Gumert said.

Full Story: AP.

(via Nerdshit).

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Economist Steven Levitt, of Freakanomics fame, has a new paper out on the economics of prostitution, based on research conducted in Chicago.

PDF of the paper.

Radley Balko’s notes, with regards to the benefits of legalization.

Kerry Howley on the (mostly positive) role of pimps.

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I just got done reading the first issue of Reich, Elijah Brubaker’s excellent comic book biography of Wilhelm Reich. I highly recommend it.

Reich # 1 preview.

You can buy it from Sparkplug Comic Books, or fine comic book shops like Portland’s Floating World Comics.

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Radley Balko rounds up the years worst instances of government power grabs and absurd violations of civil liberties: from middle schoolers being charged with sex crimes to people’s cars being seized for merely talking to an undercover cop posing as a prostitute.

Full Story: Fox News.

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