Almost two years ago I posted my controversial opinion that blogging services suck, citing an incident where LiveJournal killed a vibrant vintage erotica resource and concluding:

Anything worth doing on the internet is worth doing at your own domain that you control.

I still feel this way. Latest evidence, from LiveJournal again: apparently they are threatening to suspend users who dare to display the dreaded nipple, even when it belongs to the Virgin Mary and is being suckled by none less holy than the Blessed Baby Jesus:

Picking to the bottom of a huge flapdoodle with many nuances, the bottom line is that LiveJournal recently changed a FAQ explaining its TOS; the TOS prohibits “inappropriate” imagery, and the FAQ change nerfed a “graphically sexual” interpretation of “inappropriate”, replacing it with a “nudity” interpretation. In short, the prudishness got kicked up several notches. Obviously, folks object to the idea that all nudity is inappropriate by definition, because it’s such a fundamentally silly and stupid idea.

LiveJournal owner Six Apart has issued the classic corporate non-apology, stating in effect (I’m paraphrasing, and not with sympathy) “We’re sorry our new no-nipple policy makes us look stupid and bad, but we’re really not stupid and bad, so we’re not sorry for doing stupid bad stuff to our users, and we’re gonna keep doing it, neener neener, thank you for your support.”

In the Making Light post cited above, a commenter offers up a potential explanation of the corporate business pressures that might be responsible for all this anti-nipple stupidity. He then concludes with a version of my point from two years ago:

But the one thing this whole debacle proves is, you should never trust a public corporation to hold your blog or social network, because they will always try to place the interests of their shareholders ahead of the desires of their customers.

Exactly. Get your own domain, and get it hosted by somebody smart who knows he’s selling bandwidth, and that you’re the customer. And if you want to show some nipple, make sure your host has customers who sell real pornography on their sites. I promise, a web host with customers selling Street Blowjobs or Cum Fiesta is just going to laugh like hell at anyone who emails to complain about your nipples, whether or not there’s a baby attached.

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Just to mix things up a bit, here’s a bit of vintage gay porn from BJ, who sells this sort of thing on Ebay when he can get away with it, and distributes free samples on his blog:

BJ wonders about splinters, and I’m convinced there’s a stupid pun in here somewhere involving the word “wood”, but I’m not going to stretch for it.

Let’s be honest. Usually when a sex toy seller sends me a product for review, the best reaction I can find is a profound shrug. (It can be worse; I actually had one outfit send me a pair of size four stripper shoes, complete with transparent acrylic spike heels. The only person I know who would enjoy these just turned thirteen without outgrowing her princess complex, and I can’t figure out how to get them into her possession without her parents thinking I’m some sort of horrid creep, so that’s right out.)

Generally it’s: Oh, look, yet another vibrator, only this one smells like vinyl apricots and falls apart when you press it against…anything. Whatever. Batteries not included? Trashcan.

So I’ll confess to some skepticism when I got a package from Wild In Secret. But I like opening packages, so what the hell. It’s free stuff, how bad can it be?

Ask rather: How good?

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the first vibrator I ever saw that makes me feel the way all men feel when they first acquire a fine high-quality power tool. Behold, the Phantasy Sinnflut:

This is honest-to-God German engineering in a sex toy. First impression: Pretty! Nice color, friendly shape, nubbins on the end are kinda erotic-looking:

Second impression: Feels nice! The shape fits easily in the hand, and the texture (medical-grade silicone) feels more like flesh than the usual hard plastic or vinyl.

Third impression: Whoa! Is that a charging base? Is this thing rechargable, like my trusty Black & Decker electric screwdriver that I bought in 1997 and still use every week? Muah-ha-ha-hah!

Sure enough. No batteries, never again! Wheeee! And hey, the prong that fits in the charging base doesn’t have any exposed contacts, it must use inductance the way the fancy new electric toothbrushes do. Does that mean the Sinnflut is waterproof? Lemme check: Yup, the website says it is, although, sensibly enough, the user instructions (in four languages) are very clear about keeping the charging base out of the bathroom and away from water. Duh, that part plugs into the wall.

Now let’s fiddle with it. (Alas, The Nymph is out of town, so I can’t subject the Sinnflut — or The Nymph, for that matter — to full operational field testing.) OK, that little button is the on-off switch, nice buzz, but just one speed? That can’t be right. (Fiddle fiddle.) Aha! The nubbin that goes in the charge is also a speed control. Press it sideways and this thing goes from zzz to buzz to BZZZZZZ to “ARGH, I should stop pressing it against my face because my teeth are buzzing and my fillings are shaking loose.” This thing goes to eleven. (And past, it turns out — there are a couple of intermittent vibration modes you get if you press the stud again once it’s at max power.) Bottom line: way more powerful than a typical battery vibe, feels more like a hand-held plugin “electric massager”. But dials way down to a gentle hum if you like that sort of thing.

I’ve gotten some nifty free swag in the mail since starting this blog, but right now I think the Phantasy Sinnflut may be the coolest sex toy ever sent to me for review. Once The Nymph gets home, I’ll try to update my first impressions with some useability reports.

…and writing, erotica that is, moreso. So sez Chelsea Girl:

I’m accustomed to reading books and finding my girlparts moist. The act of reading, after all, has a kind of inherent eroticism. A generally solitary activity, reading is just you and your quiet hands and the fantasy that the words play out in your mind. It’s just one swift hand below your waistline away from masturbation.

The eighteenth-century birth of the European novel was heralded with all kinds of fear that reading would unreasonably inflame the senses of the young with what one critic has termed ‘one-handed reading.’ And justifiably so — by the middle of the century, John Cleland wrote the first piece of English pornography to help him get out of debtor’s prison.

To get out, and one might suspect, to get off, because let me tell you that writing porn makes a person seriously body-needy.

I’ve been writing a couple of commissioned porny pieces: the first for an American soldier stationed in Iraq narrates a soldier’s wife’s experience of her husband’s return and her waking up from a long sexual nap. The second, for an international poker player, gives the story of a secretary being anally punished for habitual lateness.

Who knew that in a pinch binder clips work as impromptu nipple clamps? Me, that’s who.

I’ve found it incredibly hott-making to get inside these character’s heads and bodies. To inhabit the life of a woman who has by necessity put her sexuality on hold and then to find it smacking it upside her fanny was incendiary. It was hard, literally, a hard little wet knot in my g-string as I sat on my desk chair typing, typing, typing this story of this woman’s learning about what she wanted and how she wanted it.

When I finished, the story a crescendo of simultaneous orgasm and multiple penetration, I felt as if I knew her.

And now, immersed in this office fantasy, the rolling chairs, the drawers of pointy staples and rolls of tape, the shredded gossamer of good-girl pantyhose and the imminent threat of discovery, I find my delicate sensibilities inflamed. (Today, while writing, I had to take a break, discover the painful joy of my nipple clamps and come hard and long with my bullet vibe, groaning louder than I’d expected.)

Ah, the joys of literacy!

This is the Sit-N-Spin you remember:

This is how grownups play the game:

Picture courtesy of Water Bondage; the model is the lovely Ava Divine from this shoot.

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Mistress Matisse’s latest column offers instruction on The Gentle Art of Girl Fisting:

I vividly recall the first time I ever had my whole hand inside a woman’s pussy. I was 19, and my girlfriend was a sexy butch woman with an appetite for deep penetration. One night — we were on the living room floor, I believe — I had all four fingers inside her and was fucking her as hard as I could, trying to match the tempo of her fast-pumping hips. In our thrashing tangle of limbs, my hand pivoted from the usual thumb-to-the-clit position to a diagonal approach. I instinctively pressed my thumb against my palm so my fingernail wouldn’t jab her. As I did, she thrust herself against me like a roller-derby queen butting aside a competitor, and to my surprise and momentary alarm, I felt my whole hand slide into her.

“Baby, are you okay?”

“Don’t fucking stop!”

So I didn’t.

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Bondage guides on the net are a dime a dozen, but most are boring compendia of rope technique plus safety info. (The worst of them read like the instructions for rewiring a breaker panel.) Via Bondage Blog comes this pair of links to our favorite Steph doing it better:

Bondage For Beginners, Part I

Bondage For Begginers, Part II

Thanks, Steph!