Category Archives: Writing

Interview with Safe Word author: Molly Weatherfield, a.k.a. Pam Rosenthal

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If you missed Part I of our two-part interview with Pam Rosenthal, whose erotica pen name is Molly Weatherfield, then you will want to check out THIS POST.

Her award-winning first book, Carrie’s Story, was followed by an even more wild adventure – both in terms of plot, sex, and narrative style – Safe Word.

Here is Lola’s interview with Molly and also an amazing illustration done by our dear friend in Ukraine, Sergii.  The illustration shows Lola, lying down on the floor, reading Carrie’s Story, as Pam Rosenthal (top left) looks on at her fictional author, Molly Weatherfield (top right) and Molly’s fictional character, Carrie looks to her creator with admiration.

Pam, Molly, Carrie, Lola

Questions for Pam Rosenthal, a.k.a. Molly Weatherfield – PART TWO – Safe Word

Lola – I’m so glad you enjoyed the first interview and have agreed to a second for the sequel book, Safe Word! As I said at the end of our last interview, I totally needed a sequel because I didn’t want Carrie’s Story to end – especially not where it did end. But, I have to say, Safe Word did not follow any of the possible narrative sexcapades that I had imagined at the end of Carrie’s Story – and I imagined a lot!

This will be a tricky interview because I don’t want to give away too much of the book for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, but – OMG! – you really took off for the sequel! As in, Safe Word was off to the races!

Compared to Carrie’s Story, this book has a lot of steamy man-on-man sex and BDSM. Where did that come from and, again, were you worried about pushing boundaries or even warping genres?

Safe Word by Molly Weatherfield

Molly – Actually, I was so surprised to be writing it at all, that I never thought about whether I was taking things too far. I mean, I had told everybody that Carrie’s Story was a one-off, and that I was done. And then I found out that I wasn’t, which was such a gift, and so unexpected, that I just ran with it.

As for the man-on-man sex, I don’t remember it as being a conceptual departure from the first book. It’s just that in Safe Word there are more opportunities for variation. Carrie has moved on to a bigger world, with more possibilities, while Jonathan is kind of rediscovering that world. What wasn’t entirely explicit in Carrie’s Story (though Kate is kind of grumpy about it) is that for the year or two when he’s most involved with Carrie, Jonathan has stopped being active in the association and its doings. But with Carrie gone, his old life comes rushing in on him again. What I was going for was a sense that the magnitude and the variety of this hidden world of sexual exchange and domination should be always revealing more of itself to the reader, through Carrie’s and Jonathan’s narratives of the year they’ve spent apart. I used to call this the “Snoopy’s doghouse” approach, but clearly, it was a way to conceptualize my own fantasy life as I explored it. 

Lola – There were a couple of points in the novel where I laughed out loud because the plot went in such an unexpected direction. For instance, the rivalry between Carrie and Stephanie really reminded me of some of the YA books I had read. And then, while in the stable, Carrie befriends her neighbor by clandestinely using a piece of rubber tube to communicate between stalls. That reminded me of a scene from V for Vendetta, which came out much later than your book. And you mentioned to me before the interview that the first scene of the book is right from Little Women. Two more disparate books, I think, could not be found. Was this sort of juxtaposition of texts part of your plan or did it just come out that way and you realized it after?

Molly – I don’t know anything about V for Vendetta. But the Carrie and Stephanie rivalry is very YA, you’re right. And it was inspired by something that happened years ago among a bunch of adults, including me, who were traveling and working together. And because of the pressures of the situation, we found ourselves sometimes acting like bratty teenagers, even to the midnight giggling and whispering. Not proud of it, but there you are.

As for Little Women, thankfully it was only after I’d finished writing the first scene of Safe Word that I realized that I’d copped it from the scene in Little Women when Laurie first catches up with Amy in Europe. In the Greta Gerwig movie the scene is shown from the p.o.v. of Amy in the carriage with Aunt March. But in the novel, it’s very similar to the scene in Safe Word: first a kind of birds-eye view of the setting in the south of France, then focusing in on a very handsome American man who’s being rather ogled by passers-by while he waits for a particular young woman.

Here are some snippets of the passage from Little Women:

At three o’clock in the afternoon, all the fashionable world at Nice may be seen on the Promenade des Anglais, a charming place… Along this walk, on Christmas Day, a tall young man walked slowly, with his hands behind him, and a somewhat absent expression of countenance… which caused sundry pairs of feminine eyes to look approvingly after him… There were plenty of pretty faces to admire, but the young man took little notice of them, except to glance, now and then, at some blonde girl, or lady in blue.

And here are some parallel bits from Safe Word:

The city itself [Avignon] is heavily touristed… On this particular day… however, it was sunny and lively… An American man was sitting at one of the cafes… and he’d been glancing up eagerly whenever a slender young woman, especially one with close-cropped hair, came from that direction… Lots of attractive people were strolling… lots of women he liked looking at… and since he was extraordinarily good-looking… none of this was going unnoticed.

What was so remarkable to me when I finally realized what I’d done, was remembering how much I’d loved the scene in Little Women when I read it as a breathless 9-year-old, just knocked out by what I took to be its elegance and sophistication. The point of view and the rhythm of the phrasing had clearly imprinted itself onto me and yet my conscious mind didn’t remember it at all; when I was writing that part of Safe Word I was focused on the Avignon history (which are themselves copped from Francine du Plessis Gray’s At Home with the Marquis de Sade, the book I’d reviewed for Salon.com). 

But then, in both Carrie books — and really in everything I’ve ever written — I used so much of what I’d read and experienced, even when it might not appear directly apposite to the subject at hand, which I think is awesome evidence of the heavy lifting the mind and memory are capable of during the creative process. Once, at a reading, I was introduced by the author and anthologist Violet Blue, who said to me, jokingly, “I feel that I know you.” To which I replied, about 90% seriously, “You do.”

Lola – Whereas Carrie’s Story was, like many erotica books, a romance novel with kinks and explicit scenes, Safe Word is a much more complex work. I really appreciated the multilayer narrative. On one level you have Carrie, who is in love with life in general and is open-minded and willing to experience all of it. (I love that about her!) But there is always the lingering question in the background of the book (carried over from the first novel) of whether she will get together with her most obvious love interest, Jonathan. But Jonathan is engaged in his own love affair with Kate. And then, because none of these characters are simple, one dimensional, or merely functional for the plot, there is always the possibility that Kate and Carrie will fall in love. I had no idea how it would end, even right up to the last pages! How did this complex plot develop?

Molly – For maybe three quarters of the process, I didn’t know how it would end either. And I guess that I only found my ending when I’d realized that I’d come to the outer limit of my erotic imagination; the feeling that I couldn’t make things any heavier, deeper, or more hardcore and still continue having fun in fantasyland.

Kate’s my favorite character in some ways. I have no idea where I got the idea for her, but I’m always wanting to know (i.e. imagine, i.e. write) more parts of her backstory, to account for her toughness and honesty. I was also kind of obsessed with how Jonathan’s such a pampered little prince: I enjoyed imagining him, but I found myself resenting how much he gets away with; I remember explaining to author and sexual activist Carol Queen that I thought of him like my cat — so beautiful that somehow he existed to be spoiled and indulged. I found their story provocative, sexy, and a bit troubling — as Carrie does, even if she begins to wonder whether it’s her story any longer. 

Lola – And, while we’re on the topic of narrative complexity, the trading of stories between Carrie and Jonathan as they seduce each other and then seduce each other again was brilliant! Of course they would seduce each other with words. I can appreciate breaking with conventional narrative form. This book is so inventive, not just for erotica, but as a novel. Did you feel as if you were breaking new ground that way?

Molly – I’m not really satisfied with how it flows between Carrie’s narrative, Jonathan’s narrative, and the overriding omniscient storytelling, but it was the best I could do with what technical chops I had. So I guess the best answer is that I was breaking new ground for me, and maybe for a certain kind of erotica, but that I was and am haunted by knowing that there are narrative techniques that I didn’t (and don’t) know how to employ. Yhat isn’t at all to say that I’m sorry I wrote it. I did the best I could with what I wanted to say, and in many ways it’s my favorite of my books.

Lola – One aspect of the book I really enjoyed was that the “masters” or “owners” were not only rich men. And the “slaves” or “subs” weren’t just women. (Other than Carrie, we don’t really know their socio-economic status in the civilian world.) There is a certain sexual equality in the book, if not economic equality. I also took particular delight in Jonathan’s punishment for breaking the rules. That really put a dent in the sense that these rich folk were beyond being flogged themselves. And, it’s clear throughout that Kate is the dom to just about all the other characters. Did it just flow that way as you were writing it, or did you have a political statement in mind?

Molly – Again, the sexual equality was what I’d learned from Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty books. I didn’t have a political statement in mind, although I suppose these days you could look at it that way. At the time, though, I was just glad to be exploring the world I was imagining, and grateful to those who’d given me a world of increased possibility. 

Lola – “Feminism” means something different to just about each person who uses the word. I could picture some self-proclaimed feminists (especially Second Wave Feminists) getting their panties in a bunch about your erotica. But one aspect of Third Wave Feminism that I really embrace is the sex positivity – the notion that we all have our little kinks and there’s nothing wrong with living them out loud. So much sexual repression is a function of patriarchy and a healthy sexuality can look and feel all different ways for different people, including Male Dom/Female Sub relationships. Such relationships are not necessarily symptoms or results of patriarchy, or not simply so, at least. Did you receive a lot of criticism from other women/feminists for your writing?

Molly – No criticism at all from women or feminists. I know, it’s weird, right? But true nonetheless.

Lola – I’m sorry for my ignorance, but I wasn’t even born when this book was published. So, can you indulge me a little? The pony play. Where did that come from? If I do a Google search now for “bdsm pony girl race” I will get hundreds of images of women in various states of dress (leather, buckles, naked but for the harness, etc.) with bits in their mouths pulling little rickshaws with doms ready to whip them. I lack the historical knowledge to know if all this porn was inspired by your book (was it the first of this sort?), or if there was already a sub-culture of cosplay or other BDSM play that inspired you.

Molly – Pony play was around before I wrote Carrie’s Story, but I didn’t know about it. I only found out about it after I’d finished a short first draft and was looking for ways to extend it to novel length. Visiting a San Francisco leather/fetish store for inspiration, I found a glossy magazine containing an extensive photo shoot of some real-girls’ pony farm somewhere — or maybe it was all staged, I don’t know. Anyway, I leafed through it in kind of a fearful fever dream, jammed the magazine back onto the rack, stumbled out of the store, and drove home. Only to turn around, get back in the car, drive back, buy the magazine, read it over a few times, and write the Sir Harold chapter in a crazy burst of words that I’ve never been able to equal. It wasn’t writing, exactly: it was copying, as fast as my fingers would go, what my frenzied imagination was dreaming up as fast as it could. And then I retrofitted the earlier chapters around it.

Lola – Since our last interview, you mentioned that you wanted to post a link to the interview on your Facebook page, but were concerned that the censors might punish you for it. Along the lines of historical reference, can you talk about what sorts of shifts you’ve seen politically and artistically in tolerance and censorship with regard to erotica? There seems to be a growing movement in England and America to reduce access to certain material. I know we, with our blog, have been constantly challenged by censorship. I get my social media zapped on the regular and certain companies that transfer money refuse to send us funds because the money is made through sexually explicit material. What have you seen over the years?

Stroll?

Molly – First about censorship: Honestly, it’s been such a long time since I’ve written or actively promoted myself that I don’t have any specifics, but friends who are still writing are always dealing with it, and though I know stuff is always being challenged on Amazon, I’m sorry that I really don’t have any insights to share. I posted the link on my Molly Weatherfield page, which Facebook said it was going to take down. But they haven’t yet, so I’m totally confused. But I didn’t paste a link from my Pam Rosenthal page because I use it to connect to old friends and extended family, and I don’t want them to shut that down, so I’m more circumspect about erotic posts there.

As for shifts in standards, a few wildly unrelated points: 

  • I’m guessing that these days there’s a lot of really intense stuff out there, of a sensibility to appeal to readers of a different generation than mine. I’m told that my teenage granddaughters read stuff that’s crazy explicit (not my stuff, but who could blame them?). But I’m shy to pry too deeply, so I don’t know much. 
  • I’ve always objected to any pornography that tries to locate kinky sensibility in childhood trauma; it seems to me that when you do that you delegitimize freedom of choice and imagination by pretending to be on the side of the “victims” while at the same time scapegoating some nasty “victimizers” by blaming them for your own fantasy life. To the extent that Fifty Shades was coherent, it seems to me that it played that nasty trauma card while going all swoony over private jets and diamond bracelets — but since I found the book a dreary, disorganized read and wound up skipping long passages, who knows what she was getting at? 
  • What most troubles me right now is a kind of eroticizing of totally illegitimate power, as described in this powerful, smart, and scary essay: https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/thats-bait. If there’s anything I’ve tried to be clear and consistent about in these interviews it’s that I always situate my fantasies within a framework of total consensuality and freedom to say no. I really hate erotic fantasy that’s in any way based on coercion, and my imagination tends to shrivel up in horror when I don’t feel safe; which I don’t, these days — less as an erotic writer than as an ordinary American who cherishes democracy and the rule of law.

Lola – Lightning round of questions: Favorite erotica author? Favorite book (of any genre)? Favorite poet? Favorite movie? Favorite porn star? Favorite play of Shakespeare’s? Favorite sex toy? Favorite age (meaning, did you love your 20’s, 30’s, 80’s the most) and why?

Molly – Pauline Réage, who wrote Story of O, has got to be at the top of the list. Erotic authors I’ve admired over the years are Michelle Tea, Aaron Travis, Thomas Roche. I’ve mentioned Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty books, but I need to add that the direct inspiration for the association comes from the opening chapter of Rice’s book Exit to Eden. Actually, I’ve been reading more erotic poetry than fiction lately. Natalie Diaz’s book, Postcolonial Love Poem, has some really hot writing in it and won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; and you should run-not-walk to buy The Poetry of Sex, edited by Sophie Hannah.

I don’t have a favorite porn film, but the most smoking hot movie I’ve ever seen is Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, starring the sexiest film actor I’ve ever seen, Tony Leung. 

All-time favorite pieces of writing: Grace Paley’s short story, “Friends”; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (imo the great American novel); and Proust’s epic In Search of Lost Time, which is kind of my basic spiritual discipline.

Favorite play of Shakespeare? When I was young it was Much Ado About Nothing, clearly the first romcom. Now it’s absolutely King Lear, particularly in this version: https://www.ntathome.com/king-lear/videos/king-lear-trailer

No favorite sex toy, just some simple basics.  

As for sexual decades: it was pretty great when I was writing Carrie in my 40s, but as we approach 80, there’s a new kind of beauty to it, for which we are profoundly grateful.         

Lola – I don’t know if you have kids or grandkids, but, if you do, do you have any regrets about writing erotica since they will probably eventually be reading your work? Do you ever look back and think, “That was fun to write, but, OMG! I should have never published that!”?

Molly – Our very smart son, a literature professor, has managed to be entirely circumspect about my erotica for the last 30 or so years. I have no idea whether he’s read them or not, which is just fine by me. And I’m guessing that his two astonishingly literate daughters will be pretty much the same.

Still, I do sometimes have second thoughts about my books — again, because they’re still out there, in a world where cruelty has been instrumentalized and eroticized. So sometimes I have to pick up one or the other of them and reassure myself that that’s not what I was doing — far from.

Lola – Last question. Not sure if you have had a chance to read or listen to any of HH’s writings about me/us, but if you have, any thoughts?

Molly – Only a few sentences, so I can’t comment. But I love the idea of you guys sharing an erotic and a creative life as a single enterprise. Way to go and wishing you all the best.

Lola – Thank you so much! This has been a rare treat!!!

Molly – Thanks to you as well. I’ve been kind of grieving the fact that I’m not writing any more. But your smart, engaging questions have helped me sum things up and to own the astonishing experience of writing these books.

Molly Weatherfield, author of Carrie’s Story and Safe Word, a.k.a. Pam Rosenthal Interview

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Dear fans of erotica and romance, today we have a very special interview for you:

Pam Rosenthal, a.k.a. Molly Weatherfield – PART ONE – Carrie’s Story

 Pam/Molly is an award winning author in both the genres of romance and erotica! That  doesn’t happen to just anybody! I had just finished reading her first published erotica novel, Carrie’s Story, and I felt such a kinship with both the titular character and the author. I looked her up, reached out, and – to my great luck – she was willing to chat! Then she was willing to do an interview. Now, if you haven’t heard of her (and, I admit, I had only heard of her in passing about a year ago), you totally should have! Why? Because her writing – style, plot, characters, and basic command of the English language – put that other ho-hum popularizer of erotica/BDSM fiction to shame! That’s right, 50 Shades should have been called “50 Degrees Not-As-Good-As Molly Weatherfield!” Or maybe, “16 Years Late!” No, really! Anything that pale best seller had to offer was there in Carrie’s Story, and more – whoa so much more! Don’t take my word for it. Read both for yourselves and get back to me.

Luckily, some have seen the quality in Molly/Pam. In October of 2006, Playboy called Carrie’s Story one of the top 25 sexiest novels ever written! Number 12, in fact – just after Lolita (which, in HH’s humble opinion is the best erotica ever written) and just before Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying. Not too shabby!

Playboy’s 25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written

Number 12 – Top 50 Percentile

That’s not the only list she’s made. There’s also “33 of the Best Erotic Novels of All Time.” Now, if you read that list, you’ll see that it is hardly “of all time.” I mean, there’s nothing prior to Lady Chatterley’s Lover from 1929 on the list. But hey, “33 of the Best Relatively Recent Erotic Novels” just doesn’t have the same pizazz.

Speaking of lists, one particular author I know (in a Biblical way) made the list of ranker.com‘s “Best Sensual Fiction Writers” (even though HH isn’t writing “fiction”). We’d both appreciate it if you’d take a moment to vote us up on the list. Thanks!

Classic and Updated

Now, let’s get to the interview!

Carrie’s Story (updated cover)

Lola – OMG! It is such an honor to interview you! However, I have to be honest, so far I have only read your BDSM erotic novel, Carrie’s Story.  That’s why this interview is PART ONE.  I look forward to reading Safe Word and then having a second interview. And, maybe, when I can, reading some of your Romance work, like A House East of Regent Street, which you published under your own name, Pam Rosenthal. But tell me, what’s your background?  How did you get into writing?

Molly – I’ve always thought of myself as a lifelong English major, in love with reading and writing, and a little shaky in terms of earnings potential. For most of my life I managed to pay the bills as a computer programmer, which was hard, though also stimulating, pretending to have technical chops. Before Carrie, I never considered writing fiction; what writing I did was lit-crit or wonky nonfiction stuff, often about computers and science fiction, published in obscure leftwing venues, but pretty exciting to me intellectually and even artistically (I got the name Molly, for example, from the mirror-shades girl in the classic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer).

I’ve also been a feminist since I came to adulthood in the late 60s (I’m pretty old, as anybody who did the math can figure out). And I also had a secret passion for SM erotica, at least since high school when I somehow glommed onto the Marquis de Sade. Which two parts of my belief system weren’t easy to reconcile, especially since 60s-70s second-wave feminism was particularly disapproving of anything smacking of sexual “objectification.” 

But it was my great good fortune to be in the right place at the right time to begin to resolve my dilemmas. I don’t know if your readers will know this history, but in the early 1980s there was a big split among feminists called “the sex wars,” where some devastatingly brilliant women began to challenge feminist orthodoxy, and to insist that their erotic and affective lives, their role-playing, style of dress, (even their lipstick) didn’t invalidate their personal power. This might sound quaint to you, but for me it was huge when feminists started theorizing about sexuality, writing erotica, plumbing the boundaries of autonomy and desire. There was a lot of backlash; a friend, the late Amber Hollibaugh, was thrown off a panel at Barnard College for talking about butch/femme lesbian roles. But I was inspired, and had the good luck to meet legends like Susie Bright and many others, and to read great, smart erotic stuff — fiction and non-fiction both, which probably got my writing instincts going, though I didn’t know it yet.  

Lola – Carrie’s Story is. . . how should I say?  It pushes so many limits.  How did you hit on this story?  Did the character of Carrie come to you first or did the deep, dark adventures just unfold as you went along?  What was the creative process?

Molly – I remember the first time I tried to write an SM story. It was a lazy, sunny Sunday after sex, and I was feeling really good and loosey-goosey, which I guess freed up my thoughts in some way. So, when my mind drifted to SM fantasies — and then to the fears of fascism that sometimes also flowed in along with the sexual stuff — I felt a little braver than usual, a little less guilty and a little more adventurous. Maybe sex-positive feminist thinking had actually started to penetrate; in any case, I began to wonder whether I was really the sicko I feared I was. What would happen, I wondered, if I actually let the fantasies rip? What would they look like if I wrote them down (what a concept)? So I sat down to find out.

For hours. There I sat in my ratty pink terrycloth bathrobe, scribbling and smiling and just… happy. I totally didn’t know what I was doing — I even had to run to the bookshelf to see how to punctuate dialogue. And when I wrote COMMA CLOSE QUOTE HE SAID PERIOD, I felt like God.

The story stank, though it did have a character sort of like Jonathan and a few characters who found their way into Safe Word. But it was such fun, and I felt so much myself, that I was determined to keep writing, and maybe even trust my own moral sense. Because I found that in my fantasies, I was totally turned on — obsessed really — by the idea of mutual consent, and the subtle, interesting places that can take the imagination and the relationship. I’m interested in people playing power games, exploring strange places, but from a position of mutual agreement as to the boundaries of the fantasy space. I am absolutely not interested in sex where deep down (in like reality, like in government or the economy, or like on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island) the power is unequal. 

What was missing, of course, was Carrie. The smart-girl voice who’d been in my head since Jo March, and in western fiction since Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Eyre. The brave girl who fights the power with words and wit, and who can own the experience through her smarts. I realized I needed her to tell the story I was evidently dreaming up when I “heard” that voice in a fantasy novel called Beauty, by Sheri S. Tepper.

Anyhow, once I realized that Carrie would be telling the story, and that it was a story — that is, that she feels a need to tell us how she got to where she is when she’s telling it (which we don’t know yet, except for the auction, but which suggests a lot of SM tropes), I felt like I was cleared to go. That compulsion to tell how you got where you are is a powerful narrative engine, and I began to see how you could apply this to BDSM, with its tropes of training and discipline. Even if I didn’t know the ending, I felt that it would emerge in the telling. And oddly, the first publisher, Masquerade Books, caught the mood perfectly with the cover of the first edition: something about those wide light eyes, those parted lips (other Masquerade editions went way downhill from there).

Carrie’s Story – Original Masquerade Publishing Cover

Carrie’s Story, Most Recent (and Tame) Cover

Lola – You published this in ʼ94, so you must have been writing it earlier than that. Just to be clear – that was well before 50 Shades of Grey and its imitators took BDSM into the mainstream. Were you scared by what you had written? Did you think you’d ever find a publisher for it, or an audience? What was it like to be writing this stuff at that time?

Molly – I probably started writing it in ʼ91 or so. I was in no hurry, because it felt like its own reward to be exploring my fantasy life, opening up my imagination and sharing it with my husband, who began to share his as well. I don’t usually think of myself as brave, but I did while I was writing, and that felt amazing. And yeah, sure I was scared. “Always scared,” as Carrie says at some point. Because isn’t that what bravery is, to be willing to go where it’s scary? Isn’t that how we always get where we’re going, to find our limits as we go?

Still, I wasn’t writing in a vacuum. I was breathing the air of the San Francisco sex-positive feminist community, standing on the shoulders of giants, if you will. I was playing catch-up, reading lots of erotic fiction and theory, and adding a lot of stuff from my own reading over the years. And of course, since Carrie’s a brilliant, prodigy student intellectual, it all kind of fit together for me. 

As to whether I’d find a publisher: at first I really had no idea whether the thing was publishable. I thought the writing was good; I have a fair amount of confidence in my voice. But I didn’t know if my particular take on how body and mind work together would resonate with anybody else — and of course there’s always the fear of revealing oneself and grossing people out. “It’s a pure act,” I kept telling myself. “It’s its own reward.” And — certainly compared to Fifty Shades of Grey — the Carrie books are clearly a niche taste. But as the years go by, and as still, after 30 years, every so often I open my email to read some absolutely amazing, deeply thought communication from one or another reader, the thrill of making connection never gets old.

Carrie’s Story as I imagine it

Lola – The book, and its smart, sensual, and masochistic titular main character make frequent reference to erotica classics, most notably, Story of O by Pauline Réage.  What were the books that influenced you the most in writing this one and why?

Adaptation of Story of O

Molly – I’ve already mentioned the Marquis de Sade, who was in many ways a dreadful person, but I read bits and pieces when I was a teenager, and it stayed with me. A couple of years after that I read Susan Sontag’s essay, “The Pornographic Imagination,” and she talked about how porn is often funny, which gave me permission, years later, to make Carrie funny. Anyway, Sade is funny, in a weird, cold, whacked-out way (for more on this, for anybody who’s curious, you can read the piece I wrote for Salon.com, which is still kicking around the internet at https://www.salon.com/1998/11/19/feature_459/).

Histoire d Lo

Then, of course, Story of O, which came out in English in 1966, the same summer as Bob Dylan’s record Blonde on Blonde, which was the summer I connected with the guy I’ve been married to for more than 50 years now. We passed his copy of Story of O back and forth in bed. (And many years later I wrote about it, also for Salon, https://www.salon.com/1998/08/06/feature_12/)

Blonde on Blonde?

The next, important books came years later: Gayle Rubin, the brilliant queer theorist and cultural anthropologist, recommended Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty books, and I ran-not-walked to get hold of them. I think I’d find them unreadable now (all that spanking!), but at the time, I just gobbled them up, because I loved the equal-opportunity sexuality (women as tops and bottoms; gay and straight combinations cheerfully intermingling). And I loved the Disneyland fairy-tale setting. It was so light-hearted, so technicolor: I was totally energized by the idea of this sexual magic kingdom. 

Sleeping Beauty

There were also small-press books written by local (often queer) authors, that were super hot. Pat (now Patrick) Califia, Aaron Travis, Carol Queen, Thomas Roche, and Simon Sheppard are names that spring to mind, but there were lots more: San Francisco in the 80s and 90s was bursting with creative erotic imagination; I met Tristan Taormino at an open mic, for example. And this week I went to a Zoom memorial for the recently-deceased Dorothy Freed, a stalwart at erotic writers groups, whose memoir of her longtime, loving marriage to her BDSM partner, Life After Promiscuity, I totally recommend (I copy-edited it).

Perfect Strangers by Dorothy Freed

Lola – Though the story-line is fanciful, many of the scenes are ones that could have a basis in reality.  Were any of the sexy scenarios drawn from your real-life experience?

Molly – No. Sorry. My real-life experience is much more about subtle signals and shared imaginings. A funny thing, though, is that some people I used to work with as a programmer are sure they know who I took as my model for Carrie — and they won’t tell me who!

Porn inspired by Carrie’s Story

Lola – Did you dare show the novel to any of your friends, lovers, or family when it was still in manuscript form?  If so, how did they react?  And how did they react when it got published?

Molly – I’ve always been ridiculously, naively open about this stuff. There were some people who totally didn’t get it, but in general I received remarkably little pushback, and incredible help from friends who agreed to be beta readers, including the guy who corrected a quote from the Latin somewhere. My husband, in particular, is a tough, brilliant editor who pulls no punches and always helps me improve whatever I write. I even came out to my mother about it (a long story how that happened), though I strenuously warned her not to read the stuff. But when a piece of Safe Word got into some iteration of Best American Erotica, of course she read it anyway – the word “best” just being too much for her. “What did you think?” I asked her somewhat grimly. “It was Very. Well. Written,” she replied, through a jaw that might have been wired shut. And that was that.

Lola in her collar

Lola – Before this interview, you told me that the story never got optioned by any film companies.  It’s so cinematographic.  I could totally picture everything in my mind.  I am surprised no one offered that to you, especially after the box-office killing that the ho-hum 50 Shades pulled in. Any ideas why not?

Carrie’s Story definitely inspired many movies

Molly – I’m so flattered you think that, and I do think that one of the things I do well is move characters through imagined space. But as for actually making a movie out of it… maybe it’s better that nobody has. Carrie goes through a lot of stuff that would be far less engaging if you had to look at it rather than imagine it as told through her smart-ass commentary. Or as a leatherman friend once said to me, “Pam, pain hurts!”

Pain Hurts, but degradation?

Lola –  I’m sorry for the comparison and any spoilers, but, it seems to me the whole boring premise of 50 Shades is “Will she or won’t she?” sign the contract, that is. In Carrie’s Story, there is a contract, but the joke is that it’s all just cosplay, though the pain, degradation, abasement, and humiliation are real. However, Carrie can say no at any time. As I read it, I found it interesting to wonder, “How far will she go?” And it seemed to me like this was Carrie’s question too: “How far will I go?” And she goes pretty damn far! How did the plot drive the novel for you?

Molly – I think you’ve intuited what I’m going to answer. That the energy that makes the plot go was my energy, my curiosity about how far my fantasy life would go. You can’t fake that energy — or at least I can’t.

Lola – I was so glad to learn that there was a sequel because, if I have any criticism of the book, it’s that it ended prematurely.  I wanted it to go on – so badly!  Just like I want this interview to go on.  I guess I have to get reading.  But, quick question, the audio book, narrated by Shana Savage, is just fantastic! Were you involved in choosing her for that format?

The only way to fly is listening to erotica

Molly – I was involved, and it is fantastic. Susie Bright, who produced the audio, let me choose between 3 finalists, and I chose Shana. And I’m so proud that in 2014 the audio book won an Audie award for best erotica — first time they gave an award for erotica.

Eargasms

Lola – Thanks again! We will continue this soon, I hope!!!!

Molly – Thank you, and hope to speak again.

Pam Rosenthal/Molly Weatherfield

 

 

Rank Erotica

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mysexlifewithlola
and
Match, Cinder & Spark made the top 50 of erotic reading

What a lovely Valentine’s Day gift!

We found out yesterday that this blog is ranked 46 on the Ranker website for best erotica.

Thank you to all those who voted for us and please, visit the site to find more erotic authors and also, if you don’t mind, voting us up the list.

xoxoxoxo,

Lola & HH

The author and his muse

 

A Hotwife’s Guide to Cuckolding

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We interrupt this story of Lola’s Cum Cube to bring you, hot off the presses, a steamy review of Nathalie Bardot’s A Hotwife’s guide to Cuckolding:The Subtle Art of Fucking Whomever You Want

Author and Hotwife Nathalie Bardot

Cover Art: Lola Down

 

A Hotwife’s Guide to Cuckolding – yes, that is a title that I could not pass up and that I knew immediately I had to read.  I had to see for myself if this Nathalie Bardot was speaking from experience or merely selling copy.  I had to find out if she had something to teach me or if I had seen and done it all.  And I’m here to tell you, Nathalie Bardot is the real deal and there’s even a thing or two that even a seasoned slutty hotwife can learn from the pages of her guide.

Hotwife Nathalie Bardot getting off to Match, Cinder & Spark

As she tells us in the prologue, “there are actually people genuinely interested in discussing the cuckolding lifestyle.  However, in this context, people almost exclusively refers to men.”  Her goal with this book is to “describe the cuckolding lifestyle from a female perspective.”  Yes, that is sorely needed.  And if you’re a woman who is even remotely interested in having a thing on the side, then this book is for you.

Nathalie Bardot and all she needs to get off.

I appreciate that she begins with “Definitions” and distinguishes between a cuck and a stag.  The former often takes delight in being humiliated by the sexual promiscuity of the hotwife, the latter not so much.  But, in either case, they both have in common a pleasure that is derived from the hotwife’s “satisfaction and sexual growth.”

Nathalie Bardot and Cuck Hubby Eric with Match, Cinder & Spark

If you read this book, if you have ever engaged in being a hotwife or a cuck, a stag, or even a bull or cuckqueen, there is one formula you should know and that this book repeats out of necessity: Have a solid foundation of love, trust, and excellent communication!

Nathalie Bardot, Hubby, Match, Cinder & Spark

Many men/husbands will find this book useful (if they follow its instructions) because Nathalie is very clear that, though so many men want to see their wives fuck around, not every wife or girlfriend wants to live that lifestyle and Nathalie is explicit that this is about her pleasure, not his.  If a woman derives pleasure from this arrangement, then her man may, as a happy “externality” (as economists put it) also enjoy it, but if she does not derive pleasure from it, then he has no business forcing this upon her.

Nathalie gets warmed up

Nathalie explains that introducing the idea (no matter who is the one to introduce it) should be gentle and exploratory.  She recommends reading erotic novels “on the theme of the wife seeing other men and the husband really enjoying this” together.  Might I suggest here starting with the collection of Match, Cinder & Spark about yours truly?  She also recommends reading blog posts together about a couple in this lifestyle.  Again, perhaps you might want to start with mysexlifewithlola.com.  Just saying.

Nathalie preps for a visit from her bull.

Nathalie has a whole chapter on the “benefits of being a hotwife” which include increased horniness, better sex with your partner, and my favorite – constant butterflies in the stomach, as well as that extramarital, post-coital “glow.”

Nathalie Bardot: “I’m ready for you. Read to me.” Match, Cinder & Spark

Nathalie goes into a lot of important details about the lifestyle, including rules and the importance of following them, cock size and how, though it is not the most important aspect of a man, she does “truly enjoy getting stretched out” (as do I!), and how to find a bull.

Match, Cinder & Spark – it’s THAT GOOD a read

A few other things that Nathalie and I have in common include that she sometimes shows her man her “newly shaved pussy before leaving, telling him I shaved exclusively for him.  Of course, he’s fully aware that I’m being completely ironic.”  And, when she leaves her man behind to go on a date, she is sure to tell him that “he’s not allowed to cum” while she’s out, “no matter what.”  It was nice to see we share these little quirks.

I also appreciated that this is not simply a book to turn you, the reader, on, but to give you practical advice, like the chapter on insuring your personal security.  Everyone thinking about getting into the lifestyle should start with that.

Nathalie Bardot The Toast of The Hotwives

Finally, this book is not simply a steamy read that allows a glimpse into the mind of a sexy, experienced, and happy hotwife, but it helps you (whatever your role in the triangle you occupy) to navigate these complex and challenging, but fun and fulfilling, encounters with the benefit of advice from someone who has been there before and will cum there again!

You can find more of author Nathalie Bardot on Medium.com

Check out more of Nathalie Bardot’s writings here.

Interview with Author, Dominatrix, and F-Girl Emme Witt-Eden

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This week our good friend and talented writer, Emme Witt-Eden, a.k.a. “Mysterious Witt,” became a full-fledged author with the publication of her memoir: Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl. (You can read our review here.)

She was generous enough to sit down with us for an interview about the book, writing, marriage, and of course, sex.

Promo for Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl

 

L – Congrats on your new book, Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl! And thank you for letting me (or us – me and my man, H.H.) read it ahead of time to write a review. We loved it! We each devoured it in about three days. When we got together to talk about it, we devoured each other. What a sexy ready. But it’s also so personal – I mean, it is a memoir after all. Since it is a memoir, as opposed to an autobiography, it only portrays a sliver of your life – from the time your marriage fell apart to your emerging as a self-aware, self-confident f-girl. Tell us how you’d characterize yourself in your marriage and before. I mean, in the memoir you say you “claimed” your sexuality, not “reclaimed it,” because you felt like you never actually had it to begin with, but what was your sexuality (real and fantasy life) like before?

EWE – Ha-ha! I wouldn’t characterize myself as a completely self-confident f-girl in my book. I was still suffering from quite a bit of insecurity and was working my way through this throughout the entirety of the book. But I did definitely find myself again through sex, even though I still met with other challenges, such as some bad matches in bed and a guy who totally broke my heart.

But back to the other part of your question. I would say that my sexuality has fluctuated quite a bit throughout my life. I was very prude and full of shame in my younger life, even if I had sex for the first time at 15. I really didn’t enjoy penetration and a lot of it was because I felt like I was doing something bad. I come from a very conservative family and sex was always framed as something that I was giving up to a man who would use me if I wasn’t careful (and prude). And even after I got married, I should still feel shame surrounding sex, because my parents definitely treated their sex life – or what I knew about their sex life – in that way. Sex was something to hide at all costs, they were not going to talk to me about it, and I was not allowed to ask about it. I hate to say, but as I came into my own as a young woman, I suffered quite a bit from the mother wound, meaning my mother had a very negative view of sex, and I, sadly, adopted that.

I only started to open up – sexually speaking – when I became a dominatrix after college (pre-marriage!). But I didn’t see that job as sexual. I thought domming was just about treating men like garbage. (If you’d like to learn more about this era of my life, please read my newsletter The Accidental Dominatrix.) Nevertheless, my job as a pro-domme helped me deal with some of my shame. Little by little, my body image improved, and I started to explore myself sexually. And yet, during that time, I still maintained the belief that I had to keep my body count low or no man would ever want to commit to me. I did not embrace, nor did I completely own my sexuality, in that era, though I was on my way to getting there. This is why I say that I only finally “claimed” my sexuality after I left my first husband, as even when I was working in the sex industry as a dominatrix, I was still quite prude and felt like I was always at the mercy of men whom I let have so much control over me emotionally.

Fortunately, after my divorce, I finally worked through these issues. Finally, I was able to enjoy sex just for sex – and that was incredibly liberating! In that regard, I say that I finally “claimed” my sexuality. I hope that makes sense.

And…. to fully answer your question, I would say that I did have some BDSM fantasies even when I was working as a pro-domme. I had the desire to be dominated, but for the reasons I explained, I wasn’t ever able to experience it in a satisfying way. Back then, kink wasn’t viewed as it is today, as this fun thing that’s pretty benign, just a way to spice up sex. Back then (this was the 90s), kink was seen as a pathology. Though I had kink fantasies, when I would tell my lovers about them, they always thought I had some sort of mental issue. This was extremely painful and I’m very glad that we’re much more open today about the healthy, normal reality of kink.

A little cross-endorsement from Emme Witt-Eden

L – You’ve been in the lifestyle for some time now. As I recall, you used to not show your face in your posts on Medium.com and other social media, but now you do. Does this mean you’re “out” to your friends and family? And, I guess most importantly, does your ex-husband David know about this memoir?

EWE – Yes, you’re right, there was a time when I didn’t show my face because I was very keen on protecting my family from scandal. LOL. But seriously, I have kids whom I wanted to protect. I was also protecting my conservative family from embarrassment and pain. I’ve already been told that I’ve hurt my family. Quite a few of my family members know about my dominatrix past. It’s just so much pressure on me to feel like I’m bringing people so much pain just for exploring and writing about my own sexuality. I know this sounds crazy! But to make everyone happy and to keep the peace I once decided to hide my identity.

Not just that, there’s a part of me that likes privacy. I have a social life with other parents from my kids’ school and I just don’t feel like having to explain some of my life choices to these people. And I think many of us are like this. We have a face we show one set of friends and colleagues and a face we show another. We might have a professional face that we show our workplace friends, but they don’t know what goes on in our bedroom. I’ve happened to have chosen to make a profession out of what goes on in my bedroom and so it’s created this tension. A lot of people are simply not the appropriate recipients of the spicy news of my sex life. So, when they find out about it, I have to first listen to their judgments, and then decide whether we’re going to continue to be friends. This has basically resulted in me having much fewer friends, because, as a rule, people are very close-minded.

A couple of years ago, when I decided to show my face, several things had happened. I realized that I wasn’t going to get ahead in my writing career unless I started revealing what I look like. And when I did, I knew I would lose people. And so I basically had to get to the point where I was so tired of hiding parts of myself that I realized it was better to lose everyone. I’m just not interested in perpetuating the balancing act of ensuring certain people like me by hiding so much of myself. I’m finally ready to own up to who I am and that’s why I started showing my face. Of course, I still write under a pseudonym for now. Part of that is to just protect myself from trolls. It’s a crazy world out there, I’ll tell ya. Oh, and David does know I’ve written about him. He doesn’t care enough about my writing to give a crap, though. God, I’m glad we’re divorced.

L – Are your kids old enough to know about your “alternative” lifestyle? Have you told them or did they find out? Or will you be telling them at some appropriate time?

EWE – My kids still aren’t old enough and it’s really not appropriate for me to talk about it with them. However, my second husband, the man whom I’m currently married to, really applauds the way that I talk about sex with my kids. I’m very open and I talk about sex in a very calm and clinical manner. I don’t clam up and feel shame or tell my kids to stop asking questions. My current husband wasn’t like that with his kids and so he looks at my openness as this wonderful thing. I am able to guide my children as they learn about their sexuality, and I can do this in an open and honest way. And that is the result of the life I’ve led. But when the time is right, when my children older, I will tell them more about my life. I no longer feel shame. I’ve led the life I have because I’m curious and felt like a major part of my humanity was basically off-limits to me because I’m a female. I simply decided to explore those taboo territories. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Emme Witt-Eden

L – In the book you mention taking a creative writing class (and crushing on the professor). Would you workshop your erotic stories in the class, or did you keep it PG for the other students (and the hot professor)?

“Hey Emme, where you going?”
“My creative writing class.”

EWE – Hells no, I never workshopped my erotic stories in class. But I was writing a novel about the implosion of my marriage. It was basically a thinly veiled memoir, and a couple of those chapters did make it into Confessions, though in different form. I published a lot of the other stories under a different account on Medium. Yep, I get around… But no, I have never workshopped my erotic stories, and honestly, even my novelized stories have scandalized people. Sometimes I really hate other writers. I find writers to be the most conservative group of creative people. Musicians and visual artists are so much more chill.

L – What inspired you to turn your shorter works of writing into a book-length memoir?

EWE – Once again, I felt like I could get farther ahead in my career by actually having a book. A book gets people’s attention the way shorter pieces don’t, even though my shorter pieces have been quite lucrative. But writing a book is also a huge risk. If a shorter piece bombs, it’s no big deal, you just write another one. If a book bombs, then you’ve spent quite a while writing it and that sucks. Fingers crossed this project does well.

L – Care to share some of your favorite authors and/or books?

EWE – In the last year, I’ve been reading a lot of Annie Ernaux, Virginie Despentes, and Guadalupe Nettel. In my heart, I’m a literary fiction fanatic. Oh, and Maggie Nelson’s books are the bomb.

L – Care to share some of your favorite erotic authors and/or books and/or porn?

EWE – I like Japanese porn a lot because the actors tend to look like they’re actually enjoying the action, instead of just acting for the camera. American porn is so histrionic with the actors acting so fake, continually looking toward the camera because they know they’re being filmed. It’s obvious it’s a performance, and as a female, that’s a turn-off for me. Men probably don’t notice it, but I do. I’m not sure how you categorize your Match, Cinder & Spark series, but your man, HH, writes some of the best erotica I’ve read! And the photos and art of you are – well, let’s just say “inspiring”!

Emme Witt-Eden getting off to Match, Cinder & Spark, Volume V: Shorter Shorts, in public. An author, avid erotica reader, dominatrix, and exhibitionist!

L – I noticed in the memoir that, with all the f-girl shenanigans you got up to, there was no girl-on-girl, anal, bondage, or water sports. You make it very known in the book what you do and don’t like. Are those not on your kinks list or did you grow into them later?

EWE – Oh, there was a little bit of bondage in the first chapter of Confessions. You’ll have to wait for the girl-on-girl action for the new book I’m writing. In terms of anal, that’s not something that I typically engage in as a hookup, so there wasn’t much in this book. Luckily, my current husband is the one who gets to enjoy having his dick up my ass. In terms of water sports, that’s something I explored as a dominatrix but honestly, I’m not really into that.

L – What advice, if any, would you give to young married mothers who are in committed, but rather unstimulating relationships, somewhat like you were in just at the start of the memoir?

EWE – My advice? Well, they committed to this guy for a reason, so they might as well make the best of it. I would advise doing everything they can not to let the passion die. I would schedule date nights and sex. A lot of people don’t like to schedule sex because they think that’s not romantic. Well, this is just the way it is once you get married and have kids. We can no longer drop everything and have sex whenever we want. So schedule sex. Don’t, and watch the passion fizzle away.

Then again, if you’ve tried everything and it’s still not working out, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with considering a divorce. That or an open marriage. Non-monogamy is no longer perceived as the crazy thing it once was, so I think it’s a great way to deal with mismatched libidos

L – Any bucket list goals you hope to achieve this year?

EWE – I really want to get the sequel of this book done!

L – What can we expect from future publications by you?

EWE – You can expect my second book in this series: Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-girl in Costa Rica. And then my third: Diary of a Middle-Aged Sugar Baby.

L – Thanks Emme! We cannot wait to see those books come out as well as a prequel about your time as a dominatrix!!!

You can find Emme Witt-Eden, a.k.a. Mysterious Witt here:

F-girl dating Instagram: @mysterious_witt

Kinky consultant Instagram: @emmewitteden

www.emmewitt.com

Emme Witt-Eden’s Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl

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Two weeks ago we were lucky enough to be asked by our dear friend, Emme Witt-Eden (known to many of you as “Mysterious Witt”), if we would read and review her newly published memoir: Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl. We said “YES!” very enthusiastically.

We weren’t disappointed. The book was a pleasure to read. It was a page turner and the short chapters were bite-sized but delicious! We each devoured it and then, when we got together to discuss the review, we devoured each other!

Here is the review of the book. In the next post we’ll have an exclusive interview with the author!

Promo for Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl

Fuck Eat, Pray, Love.  Read Confessions of a Middle-Aged F-Girl instead. There’s more sex, more insight, and it’s better written. Oh, and there’s also more sex.  Did I mention that?

Emme Witt-Eden’s Confessions takes you, the reader, on a journey from her midlife, middle-class, middling marriage to her terrific, if tormented, sexcapades of self-sexploration.

After Emme’s husband confesses to having a string of affairs, facilitated by Ashley Madison, Emme decides it’s high time to declare the time of death on her nearly non-existent sex life and venture out into the world of L.A. dating.

Emme first browses the Casual Encounters page of Craigslist (the story begins over a decade ago) to find her next cock to conquer. After a few revelatory romps in the sack, she then transforms into a “Middle-Aged Fuck-Girl.” Emme prefaces the book with six “definitions” of a fuckgirl. I have always thought of a fuckgirl as a modern take on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but one who doesn’t just flit about like Holly Golightly, but also gets down and dirty, living up to the updated title. (Although, to be fair, Holly Golightly was a prostitute, or, as Truman Capote said, a New York City “geisha.”)

If I am correct in this comparison between f-girls and MPDGs, then it may be that Emme is neither, for another defining characteristic of both is an almost complete lack of inner depth, subjectivity, and interiority, as well as a compulsion to define oneself as simply and merely the romantic interest (some may say ‘play-thing’) of a man. Any man. All men.

By contrast, the defining characteristic of this memoir (as it should be for any memoir) is Emme’s self-reflection (in some passages, literally), her sense of inner growth and turmoil, and quite poignantly, her feelings of responsibility to her children, guilt and remorse about her failed marriage, and longing to find herself.

This travelogue to the depths of Emme’s soul and the bedrooms of single and married men around L.A. is told through a crisp narrator who uses some beautiful metaphors. Reflecting on her insecurity about entering the dating world as a forty-year-old single mom of two, Emme says, “If my new boat was bogged down with my issues, I decided sex would be my life raft.”

The overarching “issue” is Emme’s reeling in pain from the shock of her husband’s prolific infidelity and, even more than this, his ability to deceive Emme for so many years into thinking that he just wasn’t interested in sex. As it turned out, he was interested in sex, just not with her (until she throws him out, that is).

Consciously or unconsciously, or maybe unconsciously until, in the process of writing it became conscious, Emme’s promiscuity was a way of taking revenge on her philandering husband David, as well as feeling her own feminine power. Emme’s vagina becomes both the site of her emotional charging station – “With each thrust of Kent’s cock, he pushed life back into me.” – and a symbolic scar – “his actions were akin to a knife reopening the wound left by David’s betrayal.”

With each new partner, Emme learns something about herself. When one of her paramours wishes to photograph her nude, she says, “Undressing in front of Russell felt like shedding not just clothes, but also the roles I had been trapped in for years. It was as if with each piece of fabric that fell away, I was peeling back layers of the persona I had created alongside David – and identity that had never truly aligned with who I was.”

The newly single-and-ready-to-mingle Emme is eager to shed her partnered persona. “Wife. Mother. These titles clung to me like a suffocating cloak, concealing the essence of the woman I truly was.”

Finding the woman she truly was involved feeling sexy, desired, and often high on orgasm induced oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. The transformation was palpable, including by her children, one of whom remarked that she seemed “80% nicer” than she was when with her husband.

But the path to putting her past behind her wasn’t as easy as she was. It involved some bad dates, some duds, some “blue labia,” and sometimes simply the blues. Emme is not only a complex and likable narrator, she, unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, is concerned about others. She is put off by men who are self-absorbed, self-centered, and worst of all, sexually selfish. She connects with others who, like herself, are able to give-and-take in both conversation and bed.

Realizing that some men just didn’t feel it necessary to reciprocate pleasure, or were too lazy to do so, she begins carrying a “pocket rocket” with her on dates. Her breaking the fourth wall narration is endearing, as when she explains, “I get it – this might sound illogical. Hear me out on this one. If I wanted to make sure I had an orgasm on every date – and I wanted to have one with a man – if he couldn’t handle that, I could speed things along with a vibe. If I always had a vibrating friend on hand when I ended up in bed with these guys, I would always be guaranteed an orgasm.”

She’s also very funny when she tosses caution to the wind and upgrades to carrying with her a very large, bulky, and heavy Hitachi Magic Wand in a backpack when she goes on dates. Can’t say I blame her. It gets the job done in a jiffy! And it can double as a serious weapon in a pinch!

In addition to most of Emme’s epiphanies occurring in various bedrooms around L.A., rather than having to travel to distant lands, as Gilbert did, Emme also stands leagues apart from Gilbert in her care of and for others, particularly her children. And, in a way that characterizes Emme’s humanity and humility in ways easily distinguished from Gilbert, Emme is not beyond self-reproach and self-doubt. As she muses:

I feared their [bad] behavior was actually my fault. It was my fault for letting them eat donuts so close to dinner. It was my fault that I buckled to their donut demands in the first place. It was my fault that I was in love with Zachary. It was my fault that he was gone.

And it was my fault that David and I couldn’t make our marriage work. It was my fault he cheated on me. I had withheld sex, so he found other covert lovers. His cheating was totally understandable. I was to blame.

And now my new lover had dumped me because I wouldn’t show my face in a ‘Casual Encounters’ ad.

I was to blame for everything.

No, this is not sexy. This is not MPDG material. This is not fuck-girl fun. But it is real. And deep. And it shows the fear we all feel at one time or another.

At one point, Emme describes the blissful pain of her pussy after a night of little sleep and lots of big dick pile driving with a guy named Bryce. She compares the bush beating discomfort to the euphoric feeling of being sore the day after a good workout. No pain, no gain. The same could be said for Emme’s overall experience as recalled in this memoir. She gained wisdom, but it came with pain. And she came, again, and again, and again.

As Emme Witt-Eden’s online moniker, “mysterious witt,” suggests, she’s a woman of mystery and wit, but also of indomitable spirit and juicy womanly bits. My only regret of this memoir is where it ends. But, it gives me hope that we can expect a sequel describing how this mid-forties f-girl and MILF gets herself into being a dominatrix. Emme, your readers want more! I hope you won’t leave us longing for a second like some of your lovers left you titillated but not satiated. Perhaps the name of her next memoir will be Fuck, Eat, Pray, Love!

A little cross-endorsement from Emme Witt-Eden

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May is Masturbation Month!

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Hello to all our loyal and horny readers!

As you know, today is May 1 – the beginning of Masturbation Month.

Lola Masturbating

Or, as the old limerick goes:

The first of May, the first of May

Outdoor fucking starts today!

Masturbation Month

 

Here’s some good news, mysexlifewithlola.com has been named as a top erotica site by Katrina Fairhurst. Here’s the link to the full article.

 

Katrina Fairhurst

In addition to professional writers recommending us, we’ve been overwhelmed with the number of people interested in joining The Match Book Club! Thanks for the submissions of your photos!

Here’s one from Rose!

Rose

And one from a couple who go by “S E Kinky”

S E Kinky

Katrina Fairhurst Author

Basically, we just wanted to say thanks for reading, spreading the news, spreading your legs and masturbating to us!

xoxoxoxoxo,

Lo and HH

HH and Lola

An Announcement and Two Excerpts

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You probably have seen the “Fans of Match, Cinder & Spark” page. Well, we’ve decided to make it more official and call it the “Match Book Club.”

Send us a request for a free copy of one of our books and when it arrives you take a sexy photo or ten with it and send them back to us. We’ll then promote you (and your OnlyFans page or blog or whatever you wish us to promote) on our blog and all our social media platforms!

Also, here’s an excerpt from the Introduction to Volume I: Nymphomania and the Single Girl, as told in Lola’s own voice:

“Amanda”

And here’s an excerpt of a passage inspired by Lo:

Nothing Like the Sun

If you want to hear this read aloud, just click HERE.

Looking forward to all your sexy photos!

xoxoxoxo,

Lola & HH