Pervert’s Library

Edited by Robin Bougie
Published in 2007 by Fab Press

I don’t like comics. I suppose comics are fine if you are a little kid, but adults should have much better things to do than read comics.

I also don’t like going to the movies. If you catch me after I stand in line, pay way too much for my ticket, and get raped at the concession stand you will already have me ready to join any plan that calls for genocide. Add to that enduring the company of so many people who are using what might otherwise be precious air, and yours truly is done.

While I could watch movies at home, I rarely have the time and even less rarely have the inclination. Another hassle is that getting a good movie involves more energy than I care to invest. One problem is that there really aren’t many avenues available to get the sorts of movies that appeal to me. Some of you might be content to go to a certain national chain I won’t mention by name (it rhymes with cock duster), I think a trip there has all the appeal of the traditional movie theater.

Another thing that limits my movie watching is that few movies tickle my fancy. Even watching XXX movies is tedious. Porn is the kind of experience that should leave you feeling queasy and disturbed by the state of humanity. Unfortunately, the supply of such fare is scant and the overwhelming majority of what the porn store stocks is a bore.

So what is someone that dislikes comics and movies doing reading this book? It’s simple, Bougie’s work is so good, I couldn’t put this down. Bougie’s talent as an artist and enthusiasm for his subject comes through on each and every page such that I reconsidered my aversion to comics and movies.

The pages of Cinema Sewer focus on coverage of obscure horror, low budget 60s and 70s exploitation, Hong Kong cinema, and (my personal favorite) classic and extreme pornography.

Though Bougie’s love of extreme and obscure movies shines through in his writing, it doesn’t obscure his objectivity. When a film is good, Bougie’s excitement is contagious. If a film is bad, his criticism is biting, thought provoking, and entertaining.

While I could go on and on in singing the praises of Cinema Sewer, it is so good that you should experience it yourself. If you buy no other book this year, it should be this one. Truly the best book I have read in some time.

by Puppy Sharon and Steven Toushin
Published in 2004 by Wells Street Publishing

Tempted though I am to go on and on about this book, I am going to do you and me both a favor and keep this review as succinct as possible. What we have here is a book that consists of nothing more than a D/s couple’s emails back and forth from their initial meeting through their growing relationship. If that sounds remotely interesting, I can testify that it isn’t. Even the brief bit of bestiality is ho-hum.

The best thing about this book is that I bought my copy used so I didn’t further enrich the pockets of the either the publisher or the authors of the boring vanity piece.

by Deborah Addington
Published in 2006 by Greenery Press

I’m not sure what to make of this book’s appearance in print. On the one hand, it’s good that a publisher with the stature of Greenery Press finally went on the record and published a resource about play piercing. Yet for some reason, I can’t help but envision a self-serving politician hoisting this book in front of the cameras of a media all too eager to play along about the latest menace to our children. Even though we’re all responsible for our own behavior, I also can’t help but worry that the book might inspire someone who doesn’t know what they are doing to try play piercing on someone too trusting and result in a bad play experience or worse.

Play piercing is one of my favorite play activities. While there is a great deal of medical literature and accepted medical practices devoted to similar practices such as phlebotomy, play piercing is an art and not a science. There aren’t lots of controlled studies dedicated to following how different piercing techniques affect the body, how piercing bottoms react to such things. Nor is there a central agency to receive trouble reports when play piercing goes awry.

Though there is little doubt that experience is imminently valuable about learning how to do something like play piercing, all of that experience is anecdotal. Just because I stuck a needle in the Nether Region A on subs x, y, and z and nothing bad happened to them, it’s a big stretch to say that sticking a needle in Nether Region A is “safe.” For one thing, I don’t think that play piercing is safe.

It’s my considered opinion that if you want to enjoy BDSM but only when it’s safe, you’ve got the wrong sexual hobby. Most everything BDSM doesn’t meet any reasonable definition of “safe” either physically or emotionally. That’s okay – just because something isn’t safe doesn’t mean one has to be reckless and exercising caution isn’t a bad thing.

If nothing else, Play Piercing will prove to be a good resource for those interested in play piercing, because it will stand as a handy reference for basic questions about the most common questions and techniques about play piercing. The book also suggests a few more advanced play piercing techniques and ideas that can expand the play of even the most experienced play piercing fan. The sections devoted to the joys of blood play are also of interest.

Still I can’t write about this book without mentioning a few minor things that bugged me as I read through the pages. One thing in particular was Addington’s use of the term “skinsuit” to describe the skin. I don’t know if it was intended to be clever, cute, or both, but it distracted from the text.

In another section where she was discussing consuming (drinking) blood, she attempts to come across as a blood epicurean and makes silly preposterous claims about how one’s diet affects the taste of their blood. She claims that people who eat fish often taste fishy, frequent fried food lovers taste like gravy, and so on. While I don’t know if Addington is trying to be sincere or exercising literary license with these claims, I am reminded of the folly of relying on anecdotal evidence to make claims of fact. It seems likely that one’s impression about the flavor of blood is based on their expectations than anything else.

At any rate, sometimes I imagine conducting a double blind study of the taste of blood and diet. A vision complete with lab workers in white coats holding clipboards handing small samples to volunteers and asking them to report their impressions of the taste. Sometimes, I imagine a crimson Pepsi Challenge where perverted volunteers like myself are surprised to find that they prefer the taste of Miss Eats McDonald’s Every Day. Then again, I’m a little strange.

While I wouldn’t say that reading this book will serve as a substitute for learning about play piercing by doing and observing, anyone interested in play piercing regardless of their level of experience will find this book a good investment of time and money.

by Jay Wiseman
Published in 1996 by Greenery Press

I remember back in the 1980s there was a commercial for an instructional break dancing video. The break dancing fad was already on the wane by the time the video marketers decided to shamelessly capitalize on it, but that mattered little as the video’s target audience was clearly middle class parents, rarely the avant-garde of anything

The fashions and set design of the commercial clearly showed the influence of “street” culture. But these weren’t the frightening urban streets of Harlem’s slums; instead these were the cul-de-sacs of suburbia. What really resonates in my consciousness was the cheery announcer allaying the fears of parents everywhere with the promise that the video offered “the safe way to break.” You know the fun is over and mediocrity has set in when something is safe enough to sell to the middle-aged middle class.

Naturally, you may be wondering what that has to do with an introductory book on sadomasochism. On the surface, not much. But after reading SM 101: A Realistic Introduction, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how something seemingly relegated to our cultural fringes could be commodified into something “safe” and not so frightening that everyone can embrace it.

Doing so was not Wiseman’s stated objective. In the introduction, he states that his purpose in writing the book is to give readers as much education about S/M sex as one might expect from an introductory college course. He does a very good job of this, but something is missing. Or more to the point, there’s just too much of something.

After finishing and contemplating the work, I initially wondered if Wiseman didn’t have a safety fetish that borders on the pathological. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Surely we all want to avoid injuring our lovers even as we do evil, sadistic things to them. Likewise no matter how outré someone’s fantasies are, no reasonable person wants their fantasy fulfillment to end with a maiming. It would surely be irresponsible, at best, to offer instruction on S/M and not take pains to make sure the advice didn’t includes lots of information about safety.

It should be hard to fault the book for including too much of an emphasis on safety, yet I can’t help but think there is a natural tension between that which is safe and that which is fun. That isn’t to say that safe and fun are mutually exclusive; while every person clearly has a threshold where being endangered can only be perceived as a terrifying fear, lots of people experience some amount of fear or awareness of danger as excitement or fun. Were that not the case there would be no lines at roller coasters or horror movies. Likewise, S/M should be fun. If it isn’t, what’s the point in doing it?

While debate about what exactly S/M is, and is not, will never reach unanimity, without doubt a large part of it involves exploring, both physically and psychologically, the darker places of our consciousness. If S/M is completely safe is it any fun? Is it still even S/M? I think the answer to both questions is clearly no.

That’s what troubles me about this book’s excessive emphasis on safety: I don’t think that its overemphasis was intended for someone interested in learning about S/M. Instead, I get the feeling that Wiseman obsessed about safety to allay the arguments of those who claim S/M is abuse. The trouble is, not only are critics of S/M unlikely to read this book in the first place, they are also unlikely to persuaded that S/M isn’t abuse no matter how safe and consensual it is.

Despite this criticism, this book is still a wonderful resource for someone interested in learning about S/M, and to be fair, much of the safety information (e.g. safe calls) is essential advice that one would be foolish to not observe. Wiseman writes in an affable conversation style that is clear and avoids the fictionalized interludes that drag down many books of this type. While some of the information about using the internet as a resource is out of date, given the way that the internet has changed since the last revision, this was inevitable and forgivable.

If Wiseman revises this book again (this is the second edition) and focuses on the novice S/M audience - instead of the vanilla audience he’ll never convince anyway - he will have written a book that will remain essential reading for S/M novices for generations to come. Even if Wiseman doesn’t revise the book, flaws and all, for those wanting to learn about S/M the book is worthwhile.

Self Published in 2008

Before I had my sweaty little palms on the Porn Project’s inaugural issue, I happened upon the second issue.

I read a lot of zines.Typically, the first issue is the least polished. The writing lacks a tight focus and struggles to find a voice or tries to hard to be all things to all people. As a zine grows legs and finds a voice, its writing grows sharper and more focused making for much better reading.

From a visual perspective, a zine’s first issue often has a better and more interesting layout as the publisher, not knowing what he is doing breaks the established “rules” for graphic design and comes out with something that is breaks the visual mold.Sometimes that isn’t the case though and the visual quality rises along with the production values.

Knowing that, I waited until I had read the first issue of the Porn Project to delve into the second. While I wasn’t overwhelmed with issue one, I had hopes for this issue. Disappointingly, those hopes were misplaced.

Clocking in with the annoying rubber band binding and outrageous cover price of $5, I figured that the girls (those of you with a bent for political correctness or inclusiveness can substitute women, bitches, or womyn as suits your fancy.) would give me a much better product than the first issue had for the same greenbacks. For a zine titled “The Porn Project” saying that things were only going down would seem to connote a good thing. Too bad that isn’t the case here.Compared to the first issue, this thing went down like a like a $2 whore whose trick just gave her a shine new Benjamin.

Rather than becoming clearer or more focused, the writing here seems to ramble more and astonishingly got less sexy.Not only that, the illustrations went from nondescript to eyewatering.If this is what passes for interesting insightful erotica from a woman’s point of view, I’ll stick with good old fashioned smut.

If a third issue of the Porn Project comes out, I will likely buy it. But don’t worry about me suffering by reading it. I have a plan. Instead of torturing myself with what will likely be a terrible read, I will make my girl read it first and have her tell me if it is any good. If it turns out to be as awful as I imagine it could be, I can claim it was a really intense scene.If by some miracle she reports the Porn Project rights its sinking ship, I’ll give it yet one more chance.

By William A. Henkin and Sybil Holiday
Published in 1996 by Daedalus Publishing Company

This book’s table of contents left me wary because it devotes 150 pages to what the authors refer to as a “safety manual”. I am firmly of the opinion that if you think BDSM has to be “safe” you probably should find a different sexual outlet. That isn’t to say that I think it is okay to be reckless when you play. Far from it. I think that we all have to recognize that BDSM is an inherently risky activity that demands we each take personal responsibility for when we play. To be clear, I don’t think that the only risks are physical.

In fact, I think that the physical risks are the least severe. It is the emotional risks that we take when we play that are the most extreme. These risks aren’t the sole purview of bottoms (or submissives or bottoms or whatever the Hell it is someone chooses to call themselves. I could write a lengthy rant about how silly we can be about terminology. Someday I just may…) Indeed, tops (or dominants…same rant…) also take just as much emotional risk when we play.

Luckily despite my initial worries the discussions of playing safely aren’t heavy handed. Instead, they serve as brief introductions to the sorts of play they describe. Sometimes, these discussions seem too brief. However if these types of play were all covered in the depth they demand, the book would be so long it would be too intimidating for all but the most dedicated reader to pick up.

Also important to remember that BDSM is ultimately not something that one learns from a book but instead is only learned from practice and experience. (I should add that this process of learning is ongoing. The most dangerous sorts of people are those that maintain they have nothing left to learn.) This is a point the authors make more than once by cautioning anyone interested in such play to learn from someone with lots of experience.

Another refreshing thing about this book is the total absence of fictional fantasy sequences from its pages. I have no idea why such fantasy scenes take up so much of the space of most BDSM how-to books as their inclusion detracts rather than enhances.

Unfortunately, even though this book avoids the annoying fantasy sequences it does include another flaw that rears its head all too often in BDSM books: new age spirituality. Even though I don’t personally have much use for spirituality I recognize that there is a time and a place for it; I’m just dumbfounded why anyone believes that time and place to be inside a book about how to beat people.

BDSM spirituality almost invariably manifests itself in one of two ways, Wicca/paganism or Indian mysticism (Tantra). Most published BDSM books come from California and have the Indian bent confirming yet another hippie-dippy California stereotype. Locally, most “spiritual” practitioners I know seem to be of the Wicca/Pagan/mother earth/bridge troll persuasion. Just once I would love to hear someone report that while they were “flying” in the middle of a scene they felt closer to, oh I dunno, Isis. I’d settle for a report of an out of body experience where someone tongued Satan’s asshole. Alas, I suspect that I will remain forever disappointed.

But I digress, despite the predictable embrace of spirituality, Consensual Sadomasochism is an excellent introductory book for those wanting to explore BDSM and those interested in learning more would be well served by reading it.

P.S. Some of you poor misguided people out there are under the impression that activities involving consent are “consentual.” Those of you who are sticklers for spelling and grammatical accuracy (aka “grammar Nazis” like myself) are already well aware that there is no such word as “consentual” and cringe upon seeing it. The word is properly spelled consensual. Learn it, love it, live it.