Erotic Writing
Reclaiming Joanie “Chyna” Laurer: Woman of the New Millennium
By Steven Tutino
If I had to select a favorite fictional character, I’d have to go instantaneously with Joanie “Chyna” Laurer (1969-2016), former professional wrestler and actress.1 In fact, I thought of Chyna the instant I came across the prompt for Issue #128. What is unique about her is that unlike your typical comic-book character like Spider-Man or Batman, Joanie Laurer became the
fictional character of Chyna - in other words, the character was created specifically for Laurer. In the midst of the current women's revolution and post MeToo, it is disconcerting to me how the life of this pioneer has seemingly gone unacknowledged and unnoticed, and has practically become a footnote in many revisionist accounts in cultural and feminist history. Today's feminism would be wise to look to Chyna as an example of a woman who transcended odds and obstacles and fought for opportunities to show all aspects of herself regardless of her gender: “I have fought the odds, and for that I believe that I’m a pioneer and that’s why my guys name me the 9th Wonder of the World,”2 she once said on national television. Joanie “Chyna” Laurer ultimately represented a freedom of sexuality in large part by re-defining what it means to be a woman in the male-dominated world of sports entertainment
Chyna was compared to a real-life Wonder-Woman, as well as a real-life Xena Warrior Princess in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, arguably the height of depictions and portrayals of strong, powerful and independent, self-reliant female characters on television. The motto was ‘girl power’ and Chyna embodied female power and strength to such a degree that she once joked about peeling back her bicep like an onion and making a grown-man cry. On The Howard Stern Show, she joked about being able to squash Stern’s head like a pumpkin and stated with confidence that in the new millennium, men find themselves more attracted to a woman who could snap their nuts off and give them a hard on at the same time. Underneath her superhero persona however, Joanie Laurer, the woman behind Chyna, was in the words of Jim Ross, “a kind-hearted, gentle soul,”3 with an incredible sense of humour who could laugh at herself for hours on end, but who was at the end of the day, also incredibly fragile and sensitive – a broken human being.
I came across Chyna in 2008 at the recommendation of my mom, 7 years after her wrestling career in WWE had come to abrupt end. Because both my mother and I were casual wrestling fans, she was rather surprised that I did not remember who Chyna was. I was around 5-
6 years old at during Laurer’s peak as an international celebrity, and although I remember The Rock and Stone-Cold Steve-Austin quite well, I simply had no clue who Chyna was. But from the moment I saw her on the Internet until the moment of this writing, all I can say is that she still continues to hold deep meaning and value for me, even after her death, something which not many can understand. Base on my recollections, my initial impressions were that of ‘superhero,’ and ‘bigger than life,’ as well as ‘godlike’ and ‘mythical.’ Like her predecessor Andre the Giant, who was dubbed the 8th Wonder of the World, Chyna, who would eventually be dubbed the 9th Wonder of the World, went on to become the most famous female wrestler in the world by the beginning of the new millennium.
Although Laurer wrestled in what was then known as the WWF (now WWE) in the late 1990's and early 2000,'s for only a relatively short period of time (4 years), she was a one-woman revolution. Chyna made wrestling history by being one of the founding members and the only female member of the now-classic wrestling stable, Degeneration – X. She was the first and only woman to participate in the annual King of the Ring Tournament, the first woman to enter the 30-man Royal Rumble match and also became the first and only woman to win the Intercontinental Championship, a title traditionally reserved for men. But despite her obvious accomplishments, her more subtle and lasting impact is that she ultimately represented a freedom of sexuality through the gradual evolution of the Chyna character she portrayed, and by revealing and showcasing different aspects of herself in a self-determining manner: “People might look at me still somewhat the same as far as that strength goes, but they might see me as the Woman of the New Millennium, that warrior-heroine, and I think too is that right now, a heroine is so needed.”4 Joanie “Chyna” Laurer was a Renaissance Woman who combined strength, power and beauty in the ring. Laurer went from being a 200-pound androgynous female enforcer to wrestling superstar and Playboy cover girl, showcasing that brawn is beautiful and that a woman who is muscular and athletic can still be traditionally feminine and beautiful as well. At one point, Laurer was even considered a shoe-in for starring in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as well as in a possible reincarnation of Wonder Woman. She truly was perceived as possessing myth or cult-like status, a god amongst men created, not in the image of God as attested to in Judeo-Christianity, but rather in the image of humanity as illustrated in the Graeco-Roman tradition which forms part of our present Western culture.
The irony of Laurer’s life is that she played a character who was the complete opposite of who she was in real life. Much of her life was marked by irony, controversy and contradiction, as well as transgression – the ability to shape and mold herself and display an evolution in her image and character, transitioning from silent killer enforcer to an American sex symbol, showcasing different aspects of the fluidity of gender identity. Despite all of her accomplishments however, her legacy risks being reduced to and defined by her struggles with fame and addiction as just another celebrity train-wreck who once had the world by her palm of her hands. In her own words, “Chyna is a character; she is very big and very strong, which is very true for Joanie … Joanie is basically just an average person, someone who has dealt with a lot in her life; ultimately, she is a very vulnerable human being.” Chyna the character spoke to female power, sexuality and female agency, while Joanie Laurer, the woman behind Chyna,
struggled her whole life with issues of identity and an overall lack of meaning, stability and value in her life. Lauer’s vulnerabilities (self-esteem, self-doubt, the need to be loved) are shared amongst all human beings, albeit not to the same degree or outcome, regardless of fame, wealth and social status. Yet those very vulnerabilities are what propelled Laurer to be a success and make a name for herself. A former professor of spirituality and a dear friend of mine summed it up quite nicely: our vulnerabilities propel us and/or thwart us in turn, and which wins out (the propulsion or the thwarting) is the drama of the human condition.
At the height of her success, Laurer portrayed an image of herself as a woman who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to attain incredible success, but as attested to in Greek tragedy, the fatal element or flaw in the protagonist inevitably ensures their eventual downfall. Laurer’s entire sense of identity was completely predicated on “Chyna,” but anything that went wrong with “Chyna” resulted in her whole world falling apart. Laurer’s vulnerabilities, her insecurities and lack of self-esteem, all amount, ultimately, to a lack of clarity of who she was: “I lost sight of who I was,” she once said.5 In a remarkable yet shocking account entitled “Wrestling with Demons: The Story of Chyna’s Final Days,” Mitchell Sunderland relates how in the final weeks before her death, Joanie told those closest to her that she regrets every aspect of her life as a professional wrestler, celebrity, sex symbol, porn star and drug addict: “Don’t ever be famous if you’re a woman,” she said. “Go be a doctor or a lawyer, go marry a rich guy. Just don’t get famous, because they will destroy you.”6 Tyson Otto reiterates Sunderland’s thesis by arguing that “Professional wrestling icon Chyna could not live with or without fame. In the end it killed her … The saddest part of her confronting, tragic, demise is that, at the end, Joanie ‘Chyna’ Laurer knew she’d ruined her life chasing the thing she believed would rescue her life.”7 The fact that she regretted her pioneering career seems to suggest that as much as Laurer craved the drug of celebrity, she realized in her final days that perhaps she had been chasing something of an illusion which had only exacerbated her misery and unhappiness, as well as her spiritual unrest and longing for wholeness.
The story of the rise and fall of Joanie “Chyna” Laurer is therefore significant for what it reveals about the search for meaning and value through something bigger than ourselves, as well as all the nuances and ambiguities of the human condition. But it also demonstrates how such a quest can be misguided at times, and that human beings do not always know what is conducive to their own flourishing and well-being. I actually got the opportunity to interview Sunderland
about his article, and when asked if he could sum up the significance of her life in one word, he replied: ‘violence.’ She lived a life of violence, whether directed at herself or at others. Oddly enough, that very spectacle of violence provided millions of viewers pleasure and adulation on a weekly basis; so, the very thing that she was celebrated and praised for also turned out to be very destructive as well for her in real life. At the same, the beloved world of wrestling was the perfect niche for Laurer, who was eager to combine the natural athleticism she possessed, along with the entertainment that she craved. The trauma inflicted onto Laurer from a young age would find expression in the wrestling ring, yet because wrestling is scripted and fake, the violence Laurer both dealt and received was performative – a performative violence mediated through character. In other words, Chyna the fictional character provided Joanie Laurer the necessary outlet for channeling and expressing her dysfunction and uniqueness, but which nonetheless also blurred the boundary between public and private, the real and the not-real.
Chyna’s story appeals to the human condition because of its broad set of universal values: the quest and search for identity and self-esteem, the search for meaning and value, redemption and salvation. Her story demonstrates the power of individual action to overcome circumstances and adversity while also serving as a cautionary tale about the dark side of fame and celebrity. A woman who once wrestled in front of close to 70, 000 people and was the most popular female wrestler of her time ultimately died heartbroken and alone in a one-bedroom apartment, only to be found three days later. In “The Great Fall of Chyna,” Jason King remarks how Laurer went from being a “health nut whose gym bag was stuffed with protein powders and vitamins,” to “swigging Jack Daniel’s, smoking Marlboros and popping Valium.”8 Laurer went from being the highest earning female in sports entertainment (earning more than $1 million in a single year) to “living with a homeless man in a tiny apartment devoid of furniture, save for a naked air mattress on the living room floor.”9 In my estimation, Laurer was more than just another train-wreck celebrity, she was a modern woman who was ahead of her time who also just happened to struggle with severe mental health issues with regards to addiction and some type of dissociative identity disorder no doubt linked to her highly dysfunctional and traumatic upbringing. Her tragic downfall will always be part of the conversation, but her legacy in terms of what she contributed to the wrestling business and by extension, to popular culture, should not be defined by those struggles. The fictional character of Chyna will forever remain entrenched in the very fabric of Americana, while Joanie Laurer will hopefully one day receive the posthumous treatment that is due for someone of her stature and the contributions that she made to the very male-dominated world of professional wrestling.
As an MA student in Theology, the notion of spreading the Gospel or ‘good word,’ is one I’ve appropriated and internalized in my relationship to a woman who I consider to be my spiritual sister. Now, wherever I go, I always find some way to bring up the story of Joanie “Chyna” Laurer. Many millennials I’ve spoken to have fond memories of watching Chyna as
they were growing up and consider her as part of the fabric of the late 1990’s boom of emerging female heroines on television. She inspired an entire generation of LGBT fans who were awed and inspired by her dual gender identities. But based on my conversations with many of them, it seemed that while Chyna was truly a ground-breaking pioneer for her time, Joanie Laurer eventually faded and lost sight of her own trajectory. Some hadn’t even heard about her death, others had only dimly heard of the name but had fonder memories of Xena Warrior Princess whom Chyna was often compared to, while others hadn’t the slightest clue who I was referring to.
Joanie Laurer was a very flawed and tragic human being, but that's what makes her story so compelling. Furthermore, she was both a triumphant figure and a tragic figure whose life and times deserve to be recorded and enshrined in those long lines of history books and anthologies for generations to come. I can already envision something along the lines of Women of the New Millennium, which would include a section entirely devoted to Chyna. I’m currently working on a biography of her life that I’m hoping to have turned into a biopic.
Every now and then, I look back at those signed Playboy issues of Chyna tucked neatly in my door. My favourite is where she’s dressed (barely) as a warrior. In the tradition of Graeco-Roman antiquity, these classy and impressive images of Laurer showcase the body as sculpture and a piece of art that is worthy of praise and celebration, reverence and admiration. These images should be canonized as part of the great fine art tradition that goes all the way back to the nude in classical antiquity. One day, when the human race has been extinguished and other life forms have stepped foot on planet Earth, these photographs will give a glimpse and idea of the values and ideals which informed our culture and way of life.
Works Cited
“Chyna Wrestling Superstar to Warrior Princess,” The Sablelicious, November 28, 2020, video, 00:22:44-00:22:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcDEeb351dI&t=1378s.
Keller, Wade, Jim Ross. “Jim Ross Conversation – ‘Chyna’ Joanie Laurer.” Pro Wrestling
Torch, April 23, 2016. Video, 00:04:26-00:04:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soksDAQBIjY&t=270s.
King, Jason. “The Great Fall of Chyna: How WWE’s Greatest Female Wrestler Disappeared.” Bleacher Report, September 15, 2016. https://thelab.bleacherreport.com/the-great-fall-of-chyna/.
Laurer, Joanie “Chyna.” “Chyna Sept. 25, 2000.” Dailymotion, 2009. Video, 00:04:26-00:04:35. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9iep1.
Martin, Adam. “Joanie ‘Chyna’ Laurer Interview: Talks about leaving WWE, HHH & more.” WrestleView, April 21, 2006.http://www.wrestleview.com/news2006/1145655056.shtml.
Otto, Tyson. “The sad final weeks of WWE icon Chyna’s life revealed.” News.com, February 17, 2017. https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/the-sad-final-weeks-of-wwe-icon-chynas-life-revealed/news-story/607cf1815b5cb0b929ef1e6cba1e3e05.
Sunderland, Mitchell. “Wrestling with Demons: The Story of Chyna’s Final Days.” Broadly, February 2, 2017. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ezjyem/wrestling-with-demons-the-story-of-chynas-final-days
Kabzah
by Gerald Arthur Winter
Chitra never thought of herself as beautiful, a term she believed applied in
Nature, only to those animate and inanimate creations of Prajñāpāramitā Devi,
The Great Mother of all that sparkles on Earth, just as the stars do in the Heavens.
At sixteen, as a priestess of the Temple, she was sure that only what she felt in
her heart was true. Truth, Compassion, and Love were all that held the world
together. Without any one of the three, Earth would implode and the universe
would collapse for all eternity. From that assurance, held dear to her faint heart,
Chitra whispered these adages of her firm beliefs into the slumbering ears of the
younger girls left in her care as tokens to the Temple in exchange for food for
her parents and their male offspring.
These seven girls, ages six to eleven, rested their weary souls on the
strength of their elder Chitra’s dedication to The Great Mother, especially the
twins, Devi and Urdu, aged ten. Physically, they were identical reflections of
each other. They had the darkest complexions of the seven girls with irises
making their almond-shaped eyes appear pupilless like oval onyxes, blacker
than charred bamboo.
Their sculptured noses stood out like solitary exclamatory punctuations
within a vast field of prose. Their high cheekbones and strong chins added purpose
to words that flowed from their pearly-teethed mouths. Their full lips were pursed,
perpetually poised for a welcomed kiss.
Chitra knew she had to watch the twins more closely than the other girls.
What they reflected physically in common was diametrically opposite in spirit.
Devi would press her puckered lips to kiss you, but with the identical approach,
Urdu would suddenly spit in your eyes and viciously bite your face. The conundrum
was the same for Chitra, their beloved teacher, as it was for anyone else. How
could she distinguish which twin was approaching her, Devi, the sensual lover,
or Urdu, the innately ferocious beast?
The other girls in the Temple treated this internal danger like a lottery.
They learned to live with it by accepting their misfortune by chance alone.
Chitra had advised this outlook to the other five girls who shared their
quarters. Like a cloven-hoofed herd, they clustered for protection, hoping
they weren’t on the predator’s menu . Chitra gave them this coping method,
to share the heavy burden of fear when they couldn’t tell which twin was
approaching them.
“Soon we may all be scarred by Urdu’s attacks. Veil your faces when
a caravan camps outside the Temple. There are other means of enchanting a
man then a countenance of flawless charm.”
Periodic howls and shrieks in the dead of night echoed through the
Temple. The next morning, Urdu’s hapless victim would be found maimed
with teeth marks on her face, lacerations on her limbs.
Although there were herbal potions kept in the Temple to heel
the facial scars of Urdu’s victims, the girls draped their faces with veils,
so the Temple priests wouldn’t see their disfigurement. After many
months, all of the girls in the Temple, including Chitra, had been scarred
by Urdu. Only new girls sent to the Temple for training were without
veils, but only for so long. The only unmarred girls in the Temple were
the twins. Levi and Urdu remained affectionate to each other, often
whispering back and forth through the wee hours. Chitra kept watch
over them, always wondering if they were plotting her demise.
* * *
One night, the others were awakened at midnight by the twins
quarreling with each other. Wrestling, they both scratched and shrieked
then hissed, like cobras. Such aggressive behavior by Levi, even in self-
defense, had been unseen in the Temple before. Alas, this time Urdu
scarred Levi’s cheek.
Or is it, Urdu? Chitra wondered.
But for the scar, she couldn’t tell them apart.
Chitra bargained with Urdu until the vicious twin agreed never
to attack her victims more than once. Thus, any girl wearing a veil
would be safe from another attack by the accursed, ill-tempered Urdu.
At last, Chitra thought, with Levi’s face veiled like the others,
no one would shun her, mistaking her for Urdu.
As the only unveiled girl, Urdu was considered the most beautiful
girl in the Temple. Talk of her beautiful façade lured travelers to spend the
night, hoping to see her unveiled beauty, to hold her close, kiss her full
lips, caress her breasts, and know, with intimacy, the internal essence of
her soul.
* * *
Six years later, at sixteen, Urdu replaced Chitra as teacher of
the five-year-old girls left by their parents. Urdu’s service was patronage
to The Great Mother. Soon, she became the envy of all the veiled girls.
Wealthy merchants from distant lands seeking refuge from their travels
heard of the beautiful, unveiled priestess at the sacred Temple.
Urdu offered herself to the thousands of men waylaid overnight.
They always left great treasures as tribute to the Temple for indescribable
pleasures Urdu had to offer them.
One night, a handsome young prince stopped at the Temple with
his caravan. Chitra, now in her early twenties, had become the veiled
greeter, and instructed the Temple eunuchs to help the Prince’s slaves
settle his camels for the night.
“I’m told of a beautiful priestess among you who, in one night, will
give me the pleasures most men dream of all their lives.”
“When you have refreshed yourself, dear prince, I will send her
to your quarters,” Chitra said. “Her beauty is unmatched and her kabzah
technique will leave you breathless.”
“Kabzah? I don’t know this word,” the prince said with piqued curiosity.
“You will know it, surely, when you feel it,” Chitra assured him.
* * *
That night, a teenaged girl came gracefully into the prince’s quarters. Her
essence filled the room, and her onyx eyes danced by the flame of the oil lamp
beside the bed. In the shimmering light, her veiled face came into his view.
“Don’t hide your beautiful face from me,” the prince demanded.
“Not until you’ve experience Kabzah, my specially gift to a noble prince.”
She bared his loins then swished the tassels of her veil across his chest,
fluttering slowly down. . . down . . . down to his groin. Taking his erect manhood
in her gentle grasp with long, delicate fingers, she mounted him, then spun around
inserting his member. With slick ease, she began her cadence, rippling her vaginal
muscles with a rhythm that played solely in her mind.
The prince gasped with breathless arousal. Each time his excitement
piqued, her rhythm altered, subsiding to contract, then surging in tempo to
near crescendo. He begged for release, but with moans of intense pleasure.
“I’ll not release you until you call out my name for mercy.”
“I don’t know your name!” he bellowed.
“You know the rumor of the Temple twins. Word travels fast by
caravan.”
“Is it true? The story of Levi and Urdu? Levi the timid but scarred.
Urdu the beastly but beautiful?”
“Mastering Kabzah took five years of training since puberty. My
breasts perk longing for your caress. Now my loins excrete sweet nectar
for you to savor before reaching my core. But what lies beneath my veil,
bold prince? A grotesque, but kindly maiden, or a lethal beauty? It’s that
unknown and that fear that will heighten your pleasure, make your hair
stand on end, and enhance your rapture. Who am I? What is my name?”
As her rhythm resumed, his mind raced. He had never dreamed of
such ecstasy. He had never realized how fear and passion could heighten
his adrenaline rush.
With both arms making serpentine swirls above her head, and her
pubococcygeus muscle flexing and unflexing, she saw it was time to unveil
her face at the moment of his climax.
“Levi!” he shouted, gasping with release as she showed her scarred
face.
She slithered her warm slick tongue into his ear, making him shutter.
“You have answered incorrectly,” she whispered.
“But your scar?”
“My dear sister Levi and I devised this plan—a way to pique a man’s
excitement, not just with our manipulation of his sexual desires, but combined
with his fear of disfigurement and pain. It is sweet Levi who is scarless, not I.
We feigned a spat some time ago, all thinking it was I, the notoriously fearsome
Twin, who’d gnarled her beauty with my teeth.”
He trembled as she rolled back her upper lip and bared her pearly
teeth.
“I’ll not harm you—not this time,” Urdu said. “But it is Levi the sweet one,
You may face next time. You will see her beautiful face and fulfill your rapture
again . . . just before you die.”
Squirt on This
Erotic Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
1. Ava, Alienated
Maybe, I thought to myself, there is genuine interest there after all. I realized quickly, by the disinterested look in her face, that my answer would hang there like a “piñata” waiting to be smashed to smithereens.
“How’s work? Still singing?”
A personal question? Coming from Kayleigh? Miracles do happen after all.
Kayleigh expected positive simplicity, of course, not a complicated lecture. Polite small-talk carried out while giving me dirty looks, the kind of dirty looks this whole family seemed to be giving me: that's all I ever would get.
“She has big tits, a tight ass, she is a famous star, she probably cheats on Kenneth, also: she’s arrogant.”
That was probably what they were all thinking.
I know how sensitive I was., but I just couldn’t help being sensitive with all those strange looks coming my way. I realized that having big knockers, liking to dance and being a popular stage performer actually worked against me among country folk.
I swallowed my damn pride, let the damn chick sneer at my good sexy looks and I told Kayleigh that I worked on the side in order to find artistic fulfillment, that there was stress and competition and bad attitudes and that, in spite of everything, I really didn’t know how I should find time to learn all that music. Her response was to yawn. Yes, baby. Yawn.
“Ah, yes,” I was expected to say. “Everything is great.”
So it was as if I had not even been saying anything at all. I felt like a fly landing on somebody’s damn leg, slapped away by an angry hand. I hadn’t spoken long, however, when my husband Kenneth came striding up with his usual confidence and interrupted my story.
“Look at what we experienced yesterday, my son and I,” Kenneth told Kayleigh. “He just loves the rollercoaster. We filmed the occasion with my small camera.”
Me? I was left there, looking like a beautiful and abandoned swan, following my husband’s tight ass with my eyes. Did he have any idea what he had just done? Probably not.
Kayleigh took the camera in question from Kenneth’s hand, willingly, and disappeared into the house.
God, I was angry at Kenneth.
Too many times now, I had wondered why so many swords of indifference cut into my innards. I saw them all leave, knowing that I was just simply the fifth wheel around here. This was my new family, but they understood as little about what I did for a living as a mouse could understand what life was like for a camel. My heart wounded, my pride felt penetrated by all kinds of virtual arrows.
Why couldn’t I just be respected by my in-laws? I spoke to myself, or to my higher self as they case might be. I left the garden going out onto the street, circling the block, wondering why I really felt this way.
“I’m good looking, I’m nice, I’m interesting, I have a great profession, but it matters more to me if I my family cares what I feel - and they don’t seem to. Why am not popular around here?”
I called it the hamster wheel. My anger rose to new heights, primarily because I spoke to myself and accordingly conjured up new emotions. My son loved me, I had brought him to world, breastfed him, changed his diapers, brought him to school every morning, but all he could talk about right now was my husband.
I returned through the garden gate again just as Kayleigh asked my husband where I was. I promptly interrupted her that I was back. Ava, the curiosity among the hoagies, Ava, the sexy but weirdly arrogant chick with the sexy looking ass, Ava, she had returned.
I sat there, watching my family work on making juice out of the peers I had helped pick from some tree today. My sister-in-law listened politely while I told her about my work. I was hurt, because I missed the general interest in my life or my general feelings.
When she threw a jibe at the expense of Kenneth and myself, “Little Ava with the big jugs says nothing about how much her beer-guzzling fool of a husband drinks”, I only answered that the world was a big place and that I was happy. She should be so lucky, I muttered to myself under my breath. Other people know who I am, but no one is a prophet in his own homeland. Kayleigh eventually stood up, without really giving me any actual comment about what I had told her, only telling me that she had to go back to the diner she was the manager of.
“I am my own manager,” I answered her.
Kayleigh laughed at this, oblivious to my pain, and left me with my hands in my knickers, squeezing pears and wishing I had more artistic things to do. In fact, soon almost everybody left for a stroll through the forest. Kenneth was left doing the kitchen and I, feeling like a silly child, walked back into the kitchen to tell Kenneth that I thought Kayleigh had been unfair in calling him a beer-guzzling fool and that I thought he was great.
His reaction was shallow, dismissive and rather arrogant.
“Uh-huh,” he moaned and asked me to help him dry the dishes.
Rednecks, I thought to myself. Damn Rednecks with capital R’s. How come that I, the daughter of intellectual Broadway artists, had married into this family filled with these damn Rednecks? Hillbillies. Fuck, I was steaming. I had to do something in order to feel better. Why had I married this man? He had been so understanding in the beginning of our marriage. Now he had become an asshole. I had to get him to want me again.
“Ava is a singer,” another sister-in-law had told her three year-old daughter last week. “She makes lah-lah. “
“It’s more than lah-lah, sister,” I chuckled.
“Even more than lah-lah,” she laughed. “Wow.”
Lah-lah? Jesus Christ, I thought to myself. What was that? I could, of course, have resorted to actually telling the woman off what professional music was about and that everything I had learned in the academy had a reason. But I had held the same lecture years ago at a party and Kenneth had told me off so harshly that I cried myself to sleep many nights. I felt like getting back at someone, holding my own, something, anything to boost my self-confidence. What could make me feel better?
If I was to get him back I would have to play hard to get. It came to me as I dried one of the longer glasses, one that looked like a very thick and short cock. Sex.
2. Ava’s Physics
I dried the dishes like a good girl, then walked up to the upper floor of the house, changed into my training gear, turned up the stereo and punched myself into shape, constantly looking at my sexy boobs and hot ass, stretched my million dollar body, fondling my boobies in the process, and spoke to my higher self about what to do next.
This time I would not act out of frustration. I would have my husband eating out of the palm of my hand. Memories of logging into Facebook yesterday night appeared in my mind. I found myself silly in actually having confessed my erotic desire to a male colleague that was a self-confessed Casanova. He hadn’t answered me. I also knew that I could not tell my husband that I felt awkward about his family of self-confessed Ohio Rednecks. I knew that my nightly chatty PC excursions with the male Casanova colleague could not be openly discussed. I also knew that I had actually just contacted that brief acquaintance with the sexy eyes because I was frustrated.
My vacation this year felt like a row of board games and house chores.
Oh, yes, and barbecues.
That old song from “A Chorus Line” came to mind as I stood up there, “Who am I anyway? Am I my résumé?” Finally, I really got into a swing when the sounds of The Buggles’ old song “Video Killed the Radio Star” blasted through the speakers.
When Kenneth came up behind me, standing in the doorway, my confidence suddenly soared. He must’ve watched me there in my sports-wear for quite a bit, my E-cup knockers bouncing to the beat of the song and my pony-tail swinging to and fro. I felt like an 80’s crumpet, back in my teens, remembering my young years, stretching my legs and buns to the sounds of Duran-Duran. I felt transported back to the old days. I had found my recipe for success. “He likes to watch,” I told myself. “Well, I will give him what he wants.”
So I gave him the benefit of the doubt, a rush of confidence now rising in my soul. I kept dancing, shaking my arse, twisting my hips, stretching my tits just enough to give him a clear view of them and the nipples visible through my tight J-Lo T-shirt. My hunk of a hubbie did not move. He simply stood there watching me, probably getting hotter by the minute.
I could just picture his big cock growing as he saw me dance. I could picture him dreaming about fucking me. Hard to get, I just had to play hard to get.
Kenneth had an effective sperm factory working in his testicles. Would my provocation change that, you think? If I left him standing there and if I actually spent the day ignoring him, he would walk into the computer room at night, search the porn web and repeatedly squirt on a tissue. Then I would walk in and laugh at him just as I saw him squirting. That would be the thing, wouldn’t it: 40 year-old, confused and nervous milf, a crumpet with no self-confidence but a fantastic rack of jugs and a good-looking ass, playing hard-to-get. I sighed, yawned, smiled to myself and turned up the volume of “Ring My Bell”. Once last dance, I thought to myself, and then the real show begins.
I bent over, letting those sweet buttocks telling my husband to shove it. I swirled around, stretched, performed a kick-ball-change and a leap, enjoying it thoroughly, and promptly walked toward the doorway past Kenneth, grabbing my towel, drying myself off and slapping him on the butt as I walked by. Little cock-loving me, giving him no double whammies, not getting down on her knees pleading for his penis, not jumping down on the bed and spreading her legs in order to let him fuck her, not showing him her asshole so that he could stick in his big dick into her soaped and creamy love-hole. Little sexy me with the big jugs simply walked into the bathroom and stripped naked, Kenneth only watching.
From the corner of my eye I saw his shorts actually getting too tight for his comfort. He shifted in his step, wiggling his hips, pretending to adjust his belt. He would be taking out his dick at any minute.
I had Kenneth where I wanted him now: wanting me to suck his cock. I would keep him wanting me, pushing his desire rise to new heights. I would laugh at his erect cock a few times and then have him fall on his knees and let him beg. Maybe I would allow for him to fuck me then. Just maybe.
3. Provocative Ava
As I showered off my sweaty boobs and dripping pussy, I heard my husband quietly mutter my name as he stood in the doorway, sort of hoping that I would answer him. I ignored him, like he had ignored me an hour ago. I stuck one finger into my snatch, masturbating just a little bit just to keep my desire burning and ready for his dick tonight. Then, happily horny, I turned off the shower and opened the curtain. Kenneth was still there, his cock now out of his pants, big and dangly. His cock was not erect just yet, but it was growing steadily by the minute. He said nothing, but he looked like a horny beagle, hoping I would get on my hands and knees as always and let him squirt on my tonsils.
“Why don’t you just lock yourself in the computer room, honey, and squirt on a tissue?” I looked up at him, wearing his cocker spaniel expression, his cock now erect, touching his own full length. “The web is so full of cum … uh, fun,” I said, feeling triumphant about showing him all this female independency. “Cumshots? Big Jugs? Kirsten Imrie? Torie Wells? Chloé Vevrier? Colt 45? Busty Dusty? Katie’s Load Delivered? Brandy Taylore? Tiffany Towers? Nina Hartley? What tickles your balls?”
Kenneth now masturbated like crazy, watching me rub my clit usisng my Hello Clitty towel. “You drive me nuts,” he panted.
I laughed, putting on my pink knickers. “I have licked more pussy than you know,” I lied, putting on my white 40E bra and shaking my knockers. Kenneth’s hand was now jerking off his absolutely enormous dick so fast that I saw the package only in a fast forward blur.
“Oh, please let me fuck you, Ava,” he moaned. “Please.”
I really honestly felt like saying yes, or my pussy did. My pride, however, remained steadfast. I wanted to be the winner once. So, accordingly, I played hard to get.
I choose the see-through dress with the daisies and the pussy-willows hanging on the small closet door and slipped into it. I ruffled my hair a little bit, checked the mirror for corrections, carefully added lipstick, rouge, eye shadow and the obligatory beauty spot on my left cheek. His one-hand merengue accelerated and now he used both hands to masturbate.
He panted again. Now louder than before. “I have got to have you.”
I shook my head, happily. “Have yourself, dear,” I laughed, arrogantly. “You know you like jerking off. That cock of yours just seems to adore your hand. It looks like fun.”
I searched the bathroom for a tissue, interrupting my cosmetic moment, found none and finally ripped off some loo-paper instead and gave it to him.
“Squirt on this,” I told him, dismissively. “Those sperms of yours like flying.”
Confused, he took it.
“Now, little guy, use my ass as a sex-object. I will grant you that much, baby.”
I kept on making myself up, carefully lifting my skirt and letting him look at my ass while he jerked off. I knew I had him now. Soon enough, his grunt grew more rugged. Then, only silence followed. Slowly, I turned around, looking at him with his schlong out of his shorts, that sticky liquid swimming on the loo-paper.
I smiled, opening the toilet-lid, and walking past him, more triumphant than ever before. “Don’t forget to flush,” I said, walking past him as fast as I could.
“I need your clit, Ava,” he said, desperately. “Even now.”
“You’ve had your sex for today, Kenneth,” I laughed seductively as I walked down the stairs, leaving him standing there like a kid with his hand in the cookie-jar. “If in doubt, fuck yourself.”
I just had to laugh to myself as I opened the fridge door and took out the cold Italian white wine that I had bought in Wal-Mart yesterday. I stood there for one moment, drinking that alcoholic liquid, feeling quite good about myself for getting back at my husband in this way. I was going to let him fuck me tonight, but only on my own terms. The chill of that wine slipped down past my boobs into my stomach, tickling my cunt, and making me giggle.
I had not been standing there long when I heard Kayleigh’s voice again, now with her entire family of Ohio Rednecks slamming with BBQ cutlery and walking in and out of the guest house, turning on the barbecue, laughing about bad baseball players and weird politicians. I left them to their shallow conversation and walked into the sitting room, turned on some Mozart on the stereo, leafed through a coffee table book about Rubens and masturbated to the painting of Rubens’ second wife Helene Fourment. I was very aware that anyone could come in here at any moment, including my son Joshua, but I kept fingering my pussy until I came during the third movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony.
I realized how lucky I was, not needing a tissue to squirt on while masturbating like my husband did. My knickers were a little damp and that was all.
4. Ava’s Inspiration
With my underwear sticking to my clitty, I listened a bit longer to the music of my favorite composer, fully aware how sexual he had been as well. I had often sung the arias of the Countess from “The Marriage of Figaro”, knowing how erotic the story was of the adulterous Count Almaviva and the games everyone played with him as a culprit. The Count finally consented to excusing himself in front of the Countess, kneeling down in front of her instead of her kneeling down in front of him. I am sure that fellatio was common in Mozart’s day, as well, but I also knew that Beaumarchais’ play also had the Count kneel down in front of the Countess as a comment to Rococo feminism. The servant Figaro also had the Count kneel before him, because Figaro had helped the Countess get back at her husband.
I was alone in my sexual game, but I knew that when I sucked my husband’s dick tonight he would be following my every move, obeying every rule.
I refilled my glass in the kitchen and walked out into the garden, my cunt still dripping with female cum. The party was in full swing as I walked out. Beer was being guzzled, steaks were devoured, hot sauce was being poured over penis-like sausages, boob-like potatoes were slapped on the grill and vagina-like hot peppers were shoved into willing male mouths, There was no Mozart out here, just Billy Ray Cyrus and Shania Twaine. No artistic coffee table books with Rubens paintings discussed, only the texture of the Beef or the length and color of the hot dog buns were analyzed.
I felt strong. I suspected that my husband was still upstairs, probably performing another acrobatic trick with his one-hand-girlfriend, letting his sticky juice squirt over another length of loo-paper. I now transformed completely. Knowing how I now was capable of playing a sexual game with my arrogant husband, I was able to joke about the things they joked about and even tell my in-laws about how it was to be a performer on an opera-stage without being interrupted. I now had these country folk eating out of the palm of my hand. Finally. Playing hard to get really gave me confidence.
My husband came down, probably having jerked off to the pictures of Amber Lynn a thousand times, his hands sticky with sperm. He guzzled a few beers, told a few jokes, but I was the star attraction. By the time evening came I was drunk with Italian wine. My husband was horny and very sad.
I didn’t care. I really did not care and it felt fantastic.
Heck, I even helped with the house chores; I even played a board game with those country bumpkins. I knew my husband had been holding his own dick a moment ago and now I was holding the sword and shield. Down by the riverside, my ass.
“Mommy,” Joshua came up to me toward the evening and said.
“Yes, dear?” I responded, sweet as could be, happy that he now was returning to me with a question instead of just going to Kenneth.
“Mike asked me if I wanted to sleep over at his house,” he sing-songed. “They have a new Star Wars-game on Wii and we also wanted to play some basketball.”
“Well,” I answered. “If it’s okay with dad and if Kayleigh is okay with that, I’m okay with that.”
Joshua looked at me with a gaze that spoke of surprise. He noticed that a new won confidence had arisen in my heart and recognized that something old and familiar now lived in my heart. “Kayleigh and her family have invited us all to join them for a round of scrabble at their house. So, we will all be going there. Dad won’t go. He has to finish his project on the computer, he says.”
I smiled to myself, knowingly. His penis-project, my mind mused, jerking off for the sixth time today and hoping I would fuck him like I used to fuck him. For hours on end.
“I will stay here as well,” I answered my son. “I want to paint a bit.”
My son nodded. “Will you show me the painting when it’s finished?”
I nodded, actually bonding with my son again after so long a time. Happily, I packed a small bag for him, putting in his favorite games and explained to Kayleigh what to think of and what not to worry about. Soon enough, Kenneth and I were the only ones left over in the house. That really felt good.
My cunt tingled with excitement, thinking about how his large cock would penetrate my asshole and cunny soon enough. I had to plan this well. I was going to make the rules.
5. Ava Copulates
All the way up to the upper floor, I chuckled to myself. My canvas, my paint brushes and my acrylic colors waited, Kenneth was horny again. I heard that familiar faint thumping of hands against testicles, “Slap! Slap! Slap!”, rubbing a seven inch erect penis.
Getting more excited by the minute, the idea of Kenneth so damn frustrated, I took all the time in the world stripping completely naked, hoping he saw me. Soon enough, I stood there naked painting my landscape painting, now and then reaching down to rub my cunt, pushing my paintbrush into my vagina.
Oooh. Then, the moment arrived. The sensation of my husband’s erect seven inch penis touching my snatch aroused me in ways I cannot describe. I knew I had played hard-to-get long enough and so I bent over, showing him my butt clear enough for him to be able to stick his cock inside.
“Will you be a good boy, Kenneth, and respect me in the future?”
“Oh, yes, Ava,” he answered.
“Will you do what I tell you?”
“Well, okay. If you say so. Just, please, pretty please let me stick my dick in.”
“Oh, all right. If you really must then, by all means, stick your silly thing in.”
My furburger dripping wet with my own clitty-liquid, his hot precum turned my insides into a cocktail of sexual glory. I felt his hard groin pumping my ass and making my butt cheeks wobble like crazy in a kind of boogie-woogie-rhythm. I held my paintbrush in my hands, pretending to paint a tree and some dark green grass.
I had to be honest, though. I couldn’t concentrate on emulating William Turner right now. I had to concentrate on my husband’s hard hands gripping my waist and thrusting his long dick into my wet pussy. It really grew harder by the minute. That fabulous sensation made me see stars. We hadn’t fucked like this for years. Playing hard-to get was really the best way to enflame his desire. I even had to glance over my shoulder just to see if it really was Kenneth that was fucking me. But it was Kenneth and he was red in the face, just as red as his cock was.
Surprisingly fast, my husband withdrew out of my clit, slapped my butt really hard and threw me around. I was ready to be a submissive whore, letting that game of hide-and-seek go and just become the cock sucking hooker that I knew I could be.
Kenneth took my head in his big masculine hands and pushed me on my knees. This time, I obliged. I opened my mouth and he inserted his long prick into my obedient mouth. The helmet of his penis was now blue, all of the blood in his body pumping into his crotch. His brain was on leave. Right now, Kenneth was a sex machine and I loved it.
“You are such a good dick pleaser,” Kenneth finally said, his eyes glowing with excitement. Now I had to admit that I loved his cock.
“Oh, ah shuhsst lovvve schucking your cockh,” I mused like the prostitute I was with him penetrating all my holes, speaking with his big dick still in my mouth. “Bhutt youh gotta letth meeh bee the bossh occasionally, okhay? Letth mhe bhe yourh dhominatriksch onsche a dhay.”
“I will be submissive, you bitch,” he mused. “As long as you suck my dick once in a while.”
Kenneth banged his cock into my mouth harder and faster than I ever before. His helmet felt like one of those big hard walnuts and his big tasty cock had the hardness of a wooden pole. My cunny dripped like crazy. Cumming on the floor under my cunt while his gender pumped in and out of my word hole aroused me in ways that defied gravity. I felt like flying. I moaned and groaned in higher and higher tones.
I knew that he loved my voice range climbing into the extreme high range. Although I was a dramatic soprano, I had also sung Mozart’s Queen of the Night during my college years. I had even sung it once while he fucked me. Now I sucked his cock and exerted small staccato squeaks as he rolled over my tongue.
With a thunderous plop and really sexy splash of a sound that sounded like I had just finished a cocktail, pardon the pun, I took out his long dick out of my mouth and wiped off my own saliva off my chin and exclaimed: “Let’s go into the bedroom, you horny fuck. Lick my pussy long and hard – or else. Show me how good a pussy licker you are, baby. Lick this sexy bimbo’s cunt like a good boy. Show me you are good for something other than to bitch.”
Kenneth didn’t have to wait long in order to follow my dominating orders. He lift me off the ground, his dick bobbing in its erect position like a flagpole in the wind. We passed the bathroom where he had squirted on the loo-paper for the first time this morning and entered the temple of our nightly sin. The sun was setting as he inserted his tongue into my snatch for the first time. I had the feeling that he buried his face deeper and deeper into my clit by the second. So deep, in fact, that I soon only saw his hair looking like an extension of my pubic hair. I alternately rubbed my E-cup titties and his by now ruffled hairdo.
The sound he was making was quite similar to the sound he made when he ate spare ribs. The slurping and licking sounds made me think that there were gallons of clitty-juice in there – and there probably was. I laughed to myself, aroused by this amazing sensation. I loved the way my husband licked my clit. It really made me understand why I had married the man, arrogant asshole or not.
Now we were in the final stages of our copulation. Kenneth heaved himself out of my crotch, his face dripping wet with my cunt-liquid. When he thrust his prick into my hole, I sang. I really sang. I began singing not Queen of the Night, but Gilda’s “Caro Nome” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. The tones just swam out of my mouth as my husband fucked me harder and harder, my tones wobbling as hard and as intensely as my pussy ached. Kenneth closed his eyes, humping me harder and harder. I sang, his cock getting harder and harder as his rhythm accelerated faster and faster. My pussy was sore. It actually hurt me, every part of my clit throbbing with pain. But it was a pain that I actually enjoyed, being fucked until I was sore. I knew that I would come out of this a winner. After this I was going to play hard-to-get again, but not right now. Now I just wanted to be fucked.
Finally, Kenneth withdrew his dick and stretched it out into the open air, jerking off like crazy, his insane gaze giving me the impression that he was in a sexual trance.
“Let me squirt on your tongue, baby,” he moaned. “Show me just how submissive I was. Give me your endless desire.”
I crawled about on the bed, looking like a seal, swirling around from my position on my back to a position under his dick, opening my mouth wide and sticking out my tongue, making little squeaking and horny tones as I did. I stuck out my tongue even further, pleading for his sperm. “Give me your cum,” I moaned. “Come on, baby. Squirt on my face.”
His hand movements now accelerated to arrive at an insane pace. I saw his thick arms tense up, his face grimace, his head bob, his dick grow even bigger and bluer, his muscles flex. Finally, his cock made a small dancing movement and erupted into a long string of cum that positively skyrocketed into my mouth and onto my tongue. The second portion shot onto my left cheek, the final dessert of this three course sperm-dinner landing on my nose. I licked it all off, swallowing every drop. A stunned silence now came over our mutual copulation. The bedroom became our symbiosis, the restful oasis of a green acre that had appeared after the hot fire of lust of our burning desire. Every portion of my face was covered in cum.
I wasn’t going to go wash up. I was going to let the sperm dry on my face and then let Kenneth squirt on my face again. Now I had the recipe for self-confidence and erotic success. Playing hard to get, holding my own, so to speak, was my tool to be the best I could be.
6. Ava, Consulated
I fell asleep pretty soon, but woke up sometime during the night with Kenneth squirting cum on my face. I can only conclude that married life really has its advantages, especially while being married to a man able to produce as much sperm as my wonderful and arrogant husband Kenneth. The best thing is that we actually began speaking about our marital problems after that. I rarely eat protein pills. You will probably know why. I have my own recipe for success: cum, cum, cum, cum and – boy, oh, boy – cum again. All night.
A Dream Above the World
By Naria Burke
As I settled in and put my things on the floor, I took notice of the two gentlemen beside me. One had sandy brown hair, strong bone structure, with lots of sun kissed freckles. He was older, but he looked like he could be a male model. I noticed he had a gold band around his left ring finger, a family man, I assumed. The other man was olive skinned, with dark waves falling around his cheekbones. He was scrolling aimlessly on his tablet. Our knees touched accidentally, and I involuntarily jumped. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. I didn’t mind. I tried to relax, opening my most recent read. I lost myself in the story.
Suddenly, I felt the dark-haired man to my right lay a strong hand on my thigh. He looked into my eyes and squeezed. Instantly, he pulled me into a deep kiss. I touched his ebony curls as he traced the curves of my waist, his movements becoming more needy. He pulled me onto his lap, and I was straddling him. To my surprise, the other man, Freckles, came behind me and kissed along my neck while tugging at my shirt. I turned to kiss him and felt his muscular chest as the man underneath me pulled my hips against him and grinded upwards against me. My heart pounded and my face felt flush. I panted as I tasted each of their warm mouths, rough stubble against my face and neck.
The man behind me reached from behind to cup my breasts, squeezing, and exploring down my front. I felt my body temperature rise. We laid down the best we could, intertwining legs and arms and lips. It felt so good to be between them. I relished the moment of being all over two strong men, eager to taste me. My heart picked up pace as they did, my breath hitched, and my eyes rolled back. Oh my-
*ding ding*
“The captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign as we will be landing at JFK airport in about 30 minutes. Please enjoy the rest of the flight, as always thank you for flying with Delta Airlines.”
My eyes snapped open. I nervously cleared my throat and adjusted my shirt as I saw my book splayed out across my lap, I must have dozed off. I looked to my left; Freckles was sleeping peacefully with his head against the seatback. To my right, dark and handsome was still scrolling. I sighed with relief and tried to appear unassuming as I got my bags together.
When the plane landed, I watched as the passengers got off. The three of us walked together, but they took no notice of me. As we entered the gate, I watched the two men walk away, eager to return to their lives, and whatever they had waiting for them at home. I stifled a smile as I walked to get my cab, holding my naughty secret inside with pleasure. It was cool and clean inside the car; I took notice of the soft black leather against my skin. My mind and body relaxed as I stared at the blurred lights of the city on my way back to my apartment, longing to be wrapped inside the safe warmth of my big white bed.
The next day, I returned to work as normal. Sitting at my desk, my cat Chico rubbing against my ankles, I answered emails and planned my week ahead. Still jetlagged, my mind was fuzzy. I decided to make myself a cup of coffee and take a short break. I laid on my couch sipping my hot cup of deliciousness, willing it to wake me up and give me the strength to be an efficient human being. I opened my book. I read the descriptions of the sand and the cool waves of the sea, on the beach where the family built their sprawling summer home. The protagonist was embarking on a surfing lesson when the sentences started to blur on the page, I let the gentle tiredness take over and my eyes drifted shut.
I felt a strong hand reach around and grab my neck, pointing my head backwards, forcing me to look at the man behind me. Tall, beautiful, with lots of freckles. In between my legs, was a head of dark, curly hair.
An Ode to Warmth
Creative Non-Fiction by Ginger Hartley
The palmtree in the corner covered parts of the dining room lamp. It looked like the sun shining through the rainforest on an August morning. The ginger tea had the taste of that rainforest warmth, a look that resembled the color of the Egyptian painting in the living room. The feeling in my soul really encompassed warmth, logical warmth, if ever there was such a thing. The warmth I heard in Toto’s “Rosanna” playing on German radio, cool keyboard sounds originated in the 1980s. Warmth, like a palmtree providing a soothing shade away from the heat of a bright light. Warmth, like the soothing love of a daughter practicing math to the sounds of Leopold Mozart. Warmth, like a wife knitting a cap while the tea trickled down a wintery chill-protected larynx. Warmth, like the studious attention of six vocal pupils whose fine personalities gave a teacher pride of being an artist.
This singer looked up at the painting that hung upon his wall: one artwork painted by one Caspar David Friedrich. A boy holding a Swedish flag fluttering in the ocean breeze. 19th century men and women lingering on the stones of an ocean shore, overlooking the departure of five ships. Five people, five ships, one sunset. The chill of the breeze still unable to freeze any of the love that came flooding out into the world from within the endless soul out into the ether.
One word: warmth.
Warmth, like a lucious evening bath to Chopin music.
Warmth, like making love on the sea shore.
Warmth, like creating a baby that changed the world.
Warmth, like the smile of a baby.
Warmth, like the future of the world held together in one oyster shell.
Warmth, like a universe residing within the joyous teardrop emanting out of a baby boy’s eye.
Warmth, like ginger tea steaming inside an Elvis cup.
Warmth, simple red and yellow and orange warmth.
Warmth, like the dainty staccatis of a Mozart quintet.
Warmth, like a sage in his couch on the bear rug in front of a roaring fireplace.
Warmth, like a brandy and a cigar.
Warmth, like a hug and a boo.
Warmth, like a kiss on a summer day.
Warmth, behind the scenes.
Warmth.
Simple and genuine warmth.
The creation of art, the creation of love, the creation of truth, the creation of a baby, the creation of warmth, the creation of faith. Building bridges, building houses, building trust, building churches, building temples, building trust.
A fiddler in the corner stamping his feat to the sound of the tin whistle and the bodhran, creating warmth in the hearts of Irish rovers.
Warmth, like the rum of pirates, pulling their ropes on deck.
Warmth, like a baking pizza in a stone oven.
Warmth, like a fresh hug from a wife and daughter after a long business trip.
Warmth, like laughing friends around a table on a spring night.
Warmth, like a hot cup of coffee given to a homeless man on a cold winter’s day.
Warmth, like love.
Warmth, like old friends drinking a pint at the local Dublin pub.
Warmth, like applause after a concert.
Warmth, like confession.
Warmth, like marriage.
Warmth, like unselfish behavior.
Alive, alive-oh.
Send those gypsy harmonies into the world.
Make a circle, bless you.
Let’s all make a circle right now.
Think good thoughts and good thoughts shall come to you.
Good thoughts create good actions, good actions create a good world.
If you don’t start spreading warmth around this rock, who will?
It’s up to you.
Yes, you CAN change the world.
That’s where the future lies.
The future lies in the embrace, in the kiss, in the cuddle, in the unity of masking love, in the beauty of the pure spirit. The future lies in kissing your lady good night and giving her a sweet sererade about how gorgeous she looks tonight.
The future is a love song.
An ode to warmth.
The Spirituality of Sex
Article by Charles E.J. Moulton
Watch out. You’re sitting in the hotseat.
What we’re about to deal with here probably contradicts what you have learned or have been taught, but let’s face it: this is a new age.
Sex is a sacred, procreative and divine act and it is not a sin.
Celibacy really is redundant, even for Catholic priests.
If they were allowed to marry, we could put an end to a lot of pain.
A new age? Well, I mean that both in the sense of the religious movement in question as well as in the sense that this actually really is a new age. No, not a new world order. We are not talking about the Illuminati here. This is the evolution of humanity at work.
We have to look reality straight in the eye, using our souls and not necessarily our brains. Our emotions lead the way and, in that sense, the truth really shall set us free.
We might think that a discussion like that is outdated, but look at what we believe, what our society tells us. We think sex is dirty. We are taught that we can only be holy if we are chaste, but if that were true why are so many good people parents of so many children? If that were true, why are there hypocrite virgins or people who have no sex but commit crimes?
The result is that young people battle between liking sex and finding God. God actually lives within their souls. There is a great tragedy in such an act, because they can have both sex and find God. In fact, they should have both. They are fertile souls put here in bodies upon the Earth to procreate and love each other. I have good news for you: God wants you to have fun during sex with someone you honestly love. That’s what it was meant to be: fun.
When we make love to the partners we love, we should treat it as a sacred act between equal partners and an act of utmost tenderness, but we cheapen it and treat it as a sin.
Disrespect, hatred, arrogance, theft, murder, bigotry, ignorance, injustice, those are sins. Forcing celibacy upon clerics has created wars and famine and hung, drawn and quartered thousands of innocent people. Do you know how many lives have been ruined because of that kind of behaviour?
I am about to scratch the surface of a very old wall nourished by a very old muse. One that defends a tradition that we have accepted as true – but isn’t.
The fact that nobody actually has checked the facts is a sign that people accept what is preached to them by anyone in power. People don’t want to make their own decisions for fear of making the wrong decisions. So, most people will let other people make the wrong decisions for them. That way, if something goes wrong they can blame him for the catastrophy.
God exists, God is inside you, God is everything there is, God loves you.
He gave you your emotions. Use them to improve the future of humanity.
I stress that I, too, am a bible reader and a religious man. I am also, however, a soul, a husband, a believer and a man that loves sex. I know also what problems have been created through the anti-biblical and quite misunderstood and misinterpreted requirement for celibacy.
Fidelity, certainly. Respect, of course. Gender equality, naturally. Celibacy, not really.
Having lots of respectful, equal levelled, faithful sex is a part of who we are.
You heard it, I said: “faithful.”
Faithful is real.
So, does the bible actually say that sex is a sin?
No.
I’ll give you some quotes here before we go to the facts:
St. Paul, in the bible, in 1 Timothy 3: 1 – 13, assumes, to begin with, that many deacons and bishops will be married. In Timothy 3: 2, 12 and in Titus 1:6, he even states that a cleric must manage his family well and that his children must obey him with proper respect (1 Timothy 3:4, Titus 1:6). So, we see that the bible only loosely recommended celibacy and sometimes even recommended priestly marriage. The Catholic Church, however, has turned celibacy into a real problem that began only as a power-tool.
If that is true, how come that celibacy has been given the stamp of being so diabolical an act? If it was never a clerical requirement stated in the bible to begin with, when did that begin? The initial requirements concerning the celibate life of priests appeared at the Councils of Elvira in 306 A.D. and Carthage in 390 A.D. That it was a discussed necessity prior to these meetings is not the issue. The real reason for the inclusion of celibacy in the clerical profession was to omit any nepotism.
Anyone who has studied Renaissance history will know that Alexander VI, the Borgia-Pope, frequently passed professional torches of sorts to his children and was even reputed telling his son Cesare that he would see that he would become pope one day – by his father’s own hand.
Celibacy was a way to avoid that.
The hypocrite political agenda of Alexander VI shows us that clerics found ways to promote nepotism and overcome celibacy anyway. I am willing to bet Alexander VI would never have become so bigot a pope, if celibacy had been banned.
Also, the patriarch-oriented and masculine bureaucracy of the church was simply a power-tool to keep the power where the power was stationed. Men were stationed on the battlefields. It didn’t take long for the regal leaders and the clerics to cooperate to keep their kind in power. The crusades were examples of this kind of cooperation. It was a bigot attempt to crush any other way of obeying God by forcing everyone to be as masculine and as westernized as them.
Let’s be honest here: no woman would ever have gone on a religious crucade in order to kill muslims just to get back land, holy or not. Jesus knew that his kingdom was not of this world. Jesus chose a woman named Mary Magdalene to spread the message that he had been resurrected and he sure wouldn’t have killed anyone to make a point. So why should we do the same? Shame on the inquisitors, crusaders and the clerics for forgetting what Jesus taught to begin with. Jesus only told his followers to be faithful. Did Jesus ever kill anyone, avoid prostitutes, call sex a sin? No. He told us to be honest, faithful, kind, loving, sincere.
Female priests would’ve used their brains and their vocabulary, not weapons. The male population knew that and they were afraid of it. Many clerics are still afraid of female sincerity. The male dominance factor within the priestly profession was and is only a power-tool. In a way, we all are and can be or could be priests of God.
The presence of fear for female honesty included Paul, who in the Corinthians spoke of women required to be silent in church.
It should be noted that I believe that if women would have been used as the main religious leaders of clerical tradition, not one drop of blood would have been shed.
Women are creators to end all creators.
We know that, don’t we, guys?
If the body is the beautiful house of the soul, why can’t we enjoy that house? Tizian, Rubens, Caravaggio, Boucher and Michelangelo painted naked bodies. Their art is considered divine. So why should real nudity portrayed in a respectful way be any less?
We can even go back to the very beginning of the Old Testament to find another real truth. Adam and Eve’s downfall was never that they were seduced to have sex by any old snake. It was never even once stated that sexual practice was a reason for any destruction. What is stated, however, was that Adam and Eve were ashamed of being naked.
Accordingly, their own shame was their downfall.
Are the animals ashamed of themselves for being naked? To them, there is no such thing as “naked”: they are what they are. It would be highly impractical for us to strip naked and wander about town with nothing but our birthday-suit on. But the fact remains: if we had the honesty animals possess, we would be better off. Look into the eyes of a faithful dog or a friendly horse and tell me that they have no souls.
I heard a friend of mine say that animals have no eternal souls. That, fortunately, is a lie. They do, indeed, have souls. And are we not more or less worthy than they?
If we look at the Renaissance alone, we have countless examples of sexual perversions inspired only by celibate supression. Clement VII and Alexander VI were two of the many popes that had illegitimate children. Nay, they had entire dynasties of offspring and mistresses, conducted orgies and perversions without end going on within the walls of the Vatican.
Behaviour like that scared people away from the church. We would never have created atheists, though, if we had realized that God and the church only remotely played the same ballgame. When we see what Alexander VI did in God’s name and how the religous wars ravaged Europe, we witness the tragic logic of a missed oppurtunity that created today’s secularized world. Accordingly, also because of the abnormal celibate dictatorship, the church did more harm than good by being so concentrated on celibacy.
The prude era of Victorian England was compulsive in its strictly gender-based society (not unlike some other countries today where educated women with degrees are expected to stay home and cook). The woman was a mere decoration and the man was the workhorse that came home to take her for walks and show her around. The dark dungeon-like catacomb of that infrastructure, however, was a capital that created 200 000 prostitutes and a killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Can you imagine a world that did not label sex as a sin creating such perversity? If sex and nudity would have been a natural thing people accepted and talked about the husband would certainly have gone home, respected and made love to his equal wife and not gone out and shagged someone else.
That conflict between the natural feeling of lust and the abnormal requirement for celibacy persists to this day. How many witch hunts, inquisitions, trials, executions, acts of torture, illegitimate children, homosexual affairs and perverse acts of sexual conduct could have been avoided within the clerical community if this unnatural act of celibacy had been lifted? After all, man is a rebel and he wants to be free. Forbid him to do something and it becomes interesting. Sex is interesting to begin with. Give him the freedom to have it and he will act responsibly.
If you still disagree with me, ask yourself why God would create something that we need to do in order to survive and then ask us not to do it?
So, that being said, I wanted to say that I believe in the eternal soul and I believe in God. I also believe that God created sex. Of course he created it. If we didn’t like sex, we wouldn’t have a species to begin with at all. Liking sex is a part of who we are.
That doesn’t mean we have to sleep around to begin with. In fact, we shouldn’t sleep around. Fidelity is a necessity, but supressing sex only makes matters worse.
History should show us that. If it doesn’t, boy, are we in trouble.
We are procreators. God is a creator and like he created us we, as individuals, are put here in this world to create something of our own. We create art, music, dance, literature, inventions, machines, new worlds, just to praise him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit – and yes: we create babies to praise him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit. If we didn’t like sex so much, we wouldn’t feel drawn to having it – just for the fun of it or for creating beautiful new babies that can keep praising him/ her/ it/ the divine spirit in any way we choose.
We have to like it.
In a lot of ways, sex actually saves us. As I said, that doesn’t mean we should go and have sex with everyone. In fact, being faithful is a sign of necessary respect for any partner. You sign a contract of sorts and you are expected to follow it.
Sex, though, is not just a procreative thing. It is also a symbiosis of souls, a union of emotions, a wonderful moment between two people. It is not a power tool. Never ever.
Again, I am a deep believer. I am first and foremost a soul living in a body. God lives inside me, outside me, within me, without me, before me, in front of me.
Respect each other, love each other.
Lust and sex in its most beautiful form is a triumph of emotions between two loving, consenting adults who just enjoy expressing a faithful sexual unison.
It is time we stopped pretending it is not part of our lives or that God doesn’t want it. What he doesn’t want, though, is for us to cheapen it. Guys, there is a whole lot of cheap sex out there. We have to stop that. Enjoy each other and by all means: use your dignity.
I am willing to bet that if the church had not brandmarked and devilproofed sexual lust with such adamancy we would not have such a clerical history of secret lust. This is an ongoing story that lasts to this day.
Of course we must point out that most priests are deepthinking, trustworthy and actually celibate people. The fact remains, however, that celibacy was implemented to avoid nepotism and was based on a biblical misunderstanding.
I firmly believe that even the atheists believe in God.
In my mind’s eye, I see one thousand people raising their eyebrows now. We must remember, though, that God lives within us and that God is everywhere. We can reach God in many ways. Going to a church, a temple, a mosque or a synagogue are ways to find God, but by no means the only ways.
How do I figure? Even the most adamant atheist has emotions. Maybe he falls in love, even though he will blame it on endorphines. He will wonder why he is angry at a friend who betrayed him once, even if he blames it on neurons. He will feel these emotions inside and deep down he knows that he believes in justice or equality or truth or faith or hope. He might even believe that good will can move mountains.
All of these things are spiritual characteristics that have nothing to do with the human body. In that sense, even the atheist believes in God. If he didn’t, why does injustice upset him? If God did not exist, nothing like that would matter. We all relate to beings in a non-corporeal way. Friendship has nothing to do with the body. The key is emotion.
You even hear agnostics say:
“Funny that you should call me right now, I just thought about you!”
or
“What a coincidence! I was just speaking about you with a friend!”
In my mind, there is no such thing as luck or coincidence.
The atheist might say that he does not believe in God, but maybe he believes in love, hope, justice, friendship, hope and faith. These things, my dears, belong to the spirit and the spirit is God.
Have you ever heard the expression: “God is love”?
Exactly.
And what is sex but an expression of love?
Now for the biggie: God expects us to act responsibly. He has given us assignments. Everyone has a mission. It is our job to find out what that mission is. God has one address: he is inside your emotions, inside what you feel, inside your most tender love, your hopes and dreams and faith.
If you find God while making love to your wife: well, hey, that’s great.
Where two people meet and pray in his name, God is with them. That is true for prayer, so why shouldn’t it be true for faithful sex. Sex, after all, is a form of amorous prayer.
As long as you don’t sneak out in the middle of the night and copulate with another woman, you are okay. In that case, you would actually be working against God.
If you feel attracted towards another person besides your spouse, keep it platonic, write a poem about love and lust in general, paint a painting, write a song, do a dance. Be creative. There are a thousand other ways to get rid of your lust. Don’t do what some men have done, creating havoc: exploding out of their frustrated marriages, leaving their families for some younger bimbo, leaving an unemployed wife and two children who wonder what hit them. In more cases than we know, we can make it work. In fact, we should definately try.
Having now held my sermon about fidelity, I will add that God gave us these feelings of sexual lust because it binds us together and explores who we are.
If Catholic priests were allowed to marry, can you imagine how many young lives that would have saved? It would put many therapists out of work. Express your love. Enjoy your love, just be faithful about it.
Make a decision that benefits everyone.
If you let your soul be your guide, you can never go wrong.
God is real. The seemingly endless universe, the intricate system born into every single individual, the telepathic reality of chance meetings, out of body experiences and correct recollections of proved past lives: those are all parts of a puzzle that we can use as evidence in actually proving God.
God really has nothing to do with the church. Not really. You can find him there. Most certainly. I know you can, I grew up going to churches, temples, synagogues, mosques. After all, I found him there, too. Remember that my parents were singers who sang loads of church concerts a year. They were deep believers, deep thinking people who prayed with me at least once a day. But they didn’t care what church they went to or in what church they actually sang. My mom Gun Kronzell, besides being a successful opera-singer, spent half her career singing oratories in churches. Churches, to me, were free for all, because faith and belief was, as well. Churches were potential employers for singers who wanted to get jobs. My dad Herbert Eyre Moulton was a cantor in a synagogue during his army days in Georgia, for crying out loud, and he wasn’t even Jewish. He studied to become a priest for four years before returning to his regular profession as an actor, but that didn’t stop him from going to the evangelic or even the orthodox church afterwards.
I, for my part, discovered that there was such a thing as church taxes at all when I had my first official theater gig. Paying someone money for believing in God? Excuse me?
My divine belief is my personal issue. It is not of this world, guys.
I will conclude my sermon of sorts here by mentioning the film “Basic Instinct”. The public reaction to the film back in 1992 showed me that we still have a long road to walk down before we can be as truthful, as respectful and as gentlemanly as we should be. People were more concerned back then that Sharon Stone showed the audience her vagina than the fact that she was a brutal murderer.
Think about that for a second.
What is worse? Sex or murder?
It is my hope that we one day will live in a society with people that know that we are souls, living in bodies, that are allowed to enjoy embracing one another, loving each other a bit before we move on to the next world.
Maybe we can then just stop the sexual excess of modern media and be just what were: faithful and emotional human beings that just love to love each other. After all, aren’t we all clerical advocates of our loving God?