friends with benefits

If you haven't seen this before, you might find it amusing. If you can't read it, click on the chart for a much larger version. Who knows whatever clever person designed this. That is life on the internet -- where things are passed around more times than a drunken hooker in a biker bar.

While being in a happy, stable marriage is nirvana, I nonetheless recall my "friends with benefits" days with a fondness. Having a few friendly males who only wanted a bonk and nothing more made life pretty much drama and stress free.

I frequently wonder why I let myself get drawn into bad relationships. I honestly think some of the answer was I did it for the guarantee of regular sex. If a guy was fantastic in bed but sort of an asshole otherwise, I nonetheless allowed myself to be eased into something more with him.

too sexy

I can't watch many American TV series online, because the programming is blocked for foreign countries, unless I use a web proxy, which is exactly what I do.

I was both excited and apprehensive about the new series Justified on FX, based on a character from several of Elmore Leonard's novels and stories. The new series is garnering great reviews and has already been renewed, notwithstanding that only two episodes have aired.

The central character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is played by the excellent Timothy Olyphant. He's doing a great job in the series, which is hands-down fantastic, too.

But but but.

He is just wrong for the role, in my opinion. In the books, Raylan Givens is just one notch below foolish. That's what makes him work, because he comes across as something of a doofus and an uncultured hick with provisional attitudes. He is cool entirely by accident, and you don't notice at first how cool he is.

Raylan keeps his true self hidden, something he usually only reveals to a very select few women. He's not outwardly sexy, but you get the sense in the privacy of the bedroom, a real tiger is unleashed. He is at once extremely tough and very vulnerable.

Timothy Olyphant is just too damn sexy to play Raylan Givens. The actor is too suave for the role and oozes testosterone all over the screen. I love watching him, but he's just not the Elmore Leonard character. He's Raylan gone way Hollywood.

I will continue watching the show because I enjoy it tremendously. I understand why they made the role more sexy. At the same time, I think they missed a real opportunity. If they had found a more accurate Raylan, the show would have had so much more punch. He is so well written that the wrong casting diminishes the power of the character.

pole vaulter

Pictured below is Balian, an Olympic pole-vaulter. He looks like a healthy, athletic male, right?

Balian, however, was not born a man. He was once a woman and has undergone gender reassignment surgery.

I offer this not to make any kind of value judgment but simply to say "wow." For whatever reason, gender reassignment fascinates me. I would never, ever want to be made over into a male, but there's something about it that brings out the voyeur in me. I want to see Balian full-frontal naked and having sex with a woman. I want to know how he cums. I want to know if a woman could realize he once was a woman by seeing him naked or while having sex with him.

Does asking questions like this make me strange?

My brother told me that when I was about five, I was fascinated with plumbing and septic systems. I asked endless questions about cesspools and the like.

So if I'm strange, I've always been strange. Or at least for most of my life.

man marries pillow

Just when you thought the world couldn't get any stranger, news comes from Korea that a man has married a pillow. It's not just any pillow but a dakimakura, a larger-sized huggable pillow with an anime face.

I first thought this was rather sad and pathetic. But then I remembered the wonderful independent film Lars and the Real Girl, starring Ryan Gosling, about a painfully shy, introverted man who marries a sex doll. It's an absolutely fantastic movie -- if you haven't already seen it, don't miss it on DVD.

So if it makes pillow man happy, go for it. I just hope she doesn't cheat on him with the sofa cushions.

doodle tattoo

Remember that kid in school who never took notes and only used his notebook to make elaborate doodles with different colored pens?

He'd work on one page for days, then move on to a new page and start yet another elaborate doodle.

Apparently he's now a tattoo artist.

If you look closely, you'll see this guy has the word "tattoo" inked on his neck below his chin. Like anybody needed a hint.

New Hampshire men are hung

They don't call New Hampshire the granite state for nothing. According to an extensive study by Condomania, New Hampshire men are the most endowed, followed by Oregon. Wyoming and Utah rate at the very bottom.

The company insists their research is far more accurate because they base it on orders for custom-made condoms. The logic goes, while you might lie to everyone else, you'll buy a condom that fits properly.

on seduction pond hnt

This Half-Nekkid Thursday shot was taken at my husband's favorite hideaway, a little-visited pond tucked away in a far Sydney suburb.

He used to come here when he was younger to skinnydip, which he sometimes also employed as a seduction technique. He would invite some young thing on a motorcycle picnic and then, once the food was over, invite her to swim. Alas, trunks had not been brought, so either the female in question declined or stripped down naked. If the latter course was chosen, things would often progress to something more.

Who knows if this pond even has a name, but in our house, we call it "Seduction Pond."

does puberty make you stupid?

That's the headline for a new article appearing in the latest issue of Time magazine. A new scientific study suggest a correlation exists between puberty and the capability and speed of learning.

I know that was certainly the case for me. Before puberty, I was well behaved and a good student. Puberty hit me like a truck sideswiping a wagon full of banjos. All I could think about was boys and sex. That was the beginning of my academic slide which ended up with me dropping out of high school.

I know, as an adult, a lack of sex usually makes me muddled. The Husband and I enjoy an active and regular sex life, but on occasion a dive will take him away from home for two or three days. When I have to go without, my mental acuity goes off the cliff. A basic recipe becomes a challenge.

The same was true when I was single. If I wasn't dating anyone regularly and none of my friends with benefits were available, I could not focus if I didn't get sex. So I would decamp to a popular hotel bar and wait for some cute traveling guy to make a pass and invite me up to his room.

John Adams

I know I veer all over the place here into topics that have nothing to do with sex, but hey it's a blog.

Today I'll skitter all the way back to the 18th century. Several friends had raved about HBO's miniseries John Adams to me, and I have to say I was very skeptical. I like some period material, but some stuff can be deadly.

I was certainly wrong about this one. It took a long time for me to get a copy via interlibrary loan here in Australia, but I'm more than glad I did.

In short, it's fantastic, at least the first two parts. The Husband isn't particularly vested in American history, but he too was riveted. We can't wait for the next DVD to arrive, and hopefully that won't take too long.

If you're an American but the idea of a historical piece turns you off, think again. It will fill you with patriotic pride in a nice way. Our founding fathers were pretty damn terrific.

The lovely Sarah Polley, who appears below, plays Nabby Adams, daughter of John and sister to John Quincy Adams.

dung shoes

File this under the category of the emperor's new clothes: pictured below are women's pumps made from elephant dung. I think even someone with a shoe fetish might be a bit turned off by these.

The designer explains on his blog how he fabricated them.

I'm guessing the maker is trying to make more of an art statement than a fashion statement. With that said, I'm not a big fan of trying to pass off anything and everything as art. Yes, art is meant to evoke an emotional reaction, but it also is meant to reflect humankind's higher aspirations.

I don't know if shoes that look like someone forgot to wipe their feet after walking through the zoo would rank up there with, say, the Sistine Chapel.

And, of course, my inner child wonders how awful they smell and how many pair Lady Gaga has ordered.

frankentatt

I imagine a tattoo like this vastly improves your employment opportunities.

lock and load

Given the Defense Department's history of overspending, I'm guessing they spent about $817 apiece for each copy of Hustler.

Is there a logical, non-humorous explanation for why the box is marked that way? Is it some kind of military term? I asked my husband, but he said in the Australian Navy, porn was just porn.

PORN is a medical term, short for "progressive outer retinal necrosis," a malady of the eye, but I'm pretty sure they don't have that in the box.

Robert Duvall was sexy

Darling Husband and I watched the director's cut DVD of George Lucas's great early film THX 1138 last night. I realized, as the movie was playing, that Robert Duvall was very sexy as a younger man.

He wasn't conventionally handsome, but he had an intriguing feral, masculine edge to him, notwithstanding the role he played was somewhat emasculating. Duvall is now old enough to be my grandfather, but almost forty years ago, when this movie was made, he was nobody's grandpa. We'll have to watch the original MASH feature with him because that was made about the same time.

Duvall certainly must be a charmer in person. He's had four wives plus innumerable girlfriends. His current wife is more than forty years younger than him.

If you've never seen THX 1138, don't miss it. The film is a fantastic example of paranoid dystopian science fiction. You can also see many suggestions of later elements in Lucas's films, particularly a C-3PO-like android.

depth of focus hnt

I've been trying to teach myself some photographic concepts with the help of a book. This week's Half-Nekkid Thursday lesson is depth of focus.

The smaller the circle of confusion, meaning the smaller the lens opening, the greater the range of focus within the image, which can be further altered by light variations.

While lack of attention to depth of focus may leave a picture mostly or entirely out of focus, sometimes it can be used to achieve a three-dimensional effect to draw a viewer's attention toward one aspect of the image first before a more obscure element is noticed. Alternatively, a sharpened element within the picture can be used to frame a more nebulous element in a sort of visual punctuation.

the wisdom of Marlene Dietrich

I was hunting down some good quotes for my Tumblr page and came across this choice item from Marlene Dietrich: "Without tenderness, a man is uninteresting."

I think she's dead right. A tough macho guy who can also be tender has a lot more depth than a less dimensional man.

I believe a man's oral skills are a good barometer of his tenderness. Sure, many guys can give you headboard-banging sex, but if he can tongue you to Jupiter and back several times within an hour before seeing to his own needs, that's a man with profundity you want to know better for a whole lot of reasons.

I spoke too soon

Do you ever, in hindsight, regret speculating about something out loud for fear that it might come true?

In January I wrote here about a straight male friend back in the States who was doing solo porn for the gay market. I speculated about whether he would soon end up in male/male "gay for pay" porn.

Less than two months later, I heard from a mutual friend that indeed has come to pass. I've also seen the photographic evidence so there's no doubt.

I am not by any means a prude when it comes to sex. There's nothing wrong with male on male sex, just like there's nothing wrong with girl on girl sex.

With that said, I will admit I find this disturbing about my friend. I guess the reason is because I feel the guy in question, who I'm calling Sean here, is being exploited. It's certainly not the first nor the last time that's happened to a model.

Perhaps the primary reason I'm bothered is because he used to say, and repeatedly, that he would never do porn. He seemed very determined and emphatic as a matter of principal.

I have to imagine his manager, known for steering people into porn, talked him into changing his mind. The manager in question is something of a Svengali, and based on a few things Sean has mentioned since signing with him, I have a sense he was given a very hard sell.

Doing porn is not the end of the world, but it arguably closes more doors than it opens. Sean realized that once, but now he seems to have been hoodwinked into forgetting his conviction. He's an adult so, if he later comes to believe he made a mistake, he'll have to live with that. He hasn't mentioned anything to me about his little modeling sideline in emails so I'm certainly not going to mention it.

My husband commented that I'm more maternal than I might realize. Maybe being off the pill is awakening all kinds of strange things inside me.

bling ring

The March 2010 issue of Vanity Fair has a fascinating article about the so-called "Bling Ring" of over-privileged Los Angeles teenagers who allegedly robbed the homes of professional celebrities like Paris Hilton. (A little aside here -- Paris was robbed four times before she realized anything had been stolen -- d'oh!)

Regardless of whether or not the mostly female crew is guilty, they come across in their interviews as back-stabbing narcissists quite lacking in common sense. An example: one of them purportedly wore Lindsay Lohan’s stolen necklace to her court date.

My favorite bit is a quote by one of the arrested teenagers, Alexis Neiers, seen in the picture below: "I see myself being like an Angelina Jolie, but even stronger, pushing even harder for the universe and for peace and for the health of our planet. God didn’t give me these talents and looks to just sit around being a model or being famous. I want to lead a huge charity organization. I want to lead a country, for all I know."

As if. Get over yourself sweetie. Alexis "stars" in her own reality show on E!, which is an interesting commentary in itself on our times.

Don't miss the article. It's fascinating stuff.

daylight saving mindfuck

I use chat to keep in touch with a few people stateside, usually my brother and some very close female friends. Most of the US switched to Daylight Saving Time this weekend.

Because Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, our autumn will start in a few weeks. So in New South Wales, we "fall back" around the same time the United States "springs forward."

However.

We switch in April, not March. So that means our local time zone differential with the US will change three times in the course of a few weeks. I have to try and keep that all in my head.

Australia is much more factional about the issue of Daylight Saving Time. About half of the states/territories observe it; the other half doesn't. That means some times of the year, the country has three time zones, while at other times five.

To add to the complication, two of the states/territories use a "half hour" time zone, which means thirty minutes or ninety minutes difference, depending on which zone you're calling on the phone. Adelaide is thirty minutes ahead of us, for instance. Sometimes Darwin is thirty minutes ahead of us, but at other times of the year it's ninety minutes ahead.

I was never very good at math, so I usually just end up asking my husband to figure it out for me if he's handy.

kiss of the tiger woman

I'll bet she has a whole schtick she employs to emphasize those tattoos -- tiger-clawing gestures, feline growling, and double-entendres like "pussy is hungry." I imagine some guys go for that. I wonder about the guys, however, who are horrified -- how do they react?

happy birthday

My husband turns forty today. I'll save all the mushy stuff for him privately to spare readers from having to reach for barf bags.

I used to think that line from Jerry Maguire was sappy: "you complete me." Now I believe otherwise, because that is precisely what James does for me. He is the yin to my yang, my anchor in every storm, the nucleus to my atom, the center of my universe. I never believed I could love someone so much. Every day with him is a gift to treasure.

headless HNT

Today is the feast day of Saint Eulogius. Not being Catholic, I don't celebrate the feast day, but I am intrigued by his story. An important priest of the ninth century, Eulogius may have been the secret lover of Leocritia, whom he converted from Islam. Both were executed as a result -- this was in Moorish occupied Iberia, what is today Spain. They may have been the Romeo and Juliet of their day.

So perhaps you're wondering what in the world this has to do with Half-Nekkid Thursday. Yes, there is a connection! Both Eulogius and Leocritia were executed by decapitation. He lost his head on March 11 and she followed a few days later. So here then is my homage to Leocritia.

circa 1995: why the internet will fail

Various blogs recently have dug up a 1995 Newsweek essay predicting the demise of the internet. If you haven't seen it already, the piece offers amusing reading.

The writer predicts things like telecommuting, interactive libraries, e-commerce, books and newspapers online won't happen. Of course, time has proven him very wrong.

The 1995 article -- and this 2010 Newsweek "whoops" item about the essay -- only skitter across the topic of sex and the internet with the merest mention and then move on. That's unfortunate, because the relationships landscape has been massively impacted by online opportunities. I'll bet you, like me, have quite a few friends who began a relationship online and, in some cases, fell in love before ever meeting in person.

Then, of course, there are the opportunities for actual sex sex. How many escorts still use the phone book or cards left in phone booths, considering both of those are almost extinct? How many people still arrange casual hookups through classified ads in alternative newspapers? How many people buy sex toys who otherwise would not step foot inside an adult bookstore?

I'd posit the impact of the internet is so enormous it's almost impossible to judge from any perspective. It's become an essential part of our life like electricity and the combustion engine, irreversibly changing innumerable aspects of society and human relations.

The degree of change makes you wonder what things will be like in another fifteen years.

pubic-shaving woman wrecks car

A woman named Megan Mariah Barnes in Florida was arrested a few days ago after she rear-ended a truck while shaving her pubic hair.

Her ex-husband was in the passenger seat, steering for her, while she made herself all lovely down there. Apparently he wasn't doing such a good job, because her car smacked into the back of a truck. She continued driving for another half mile until she stopped and switched seats with her ex.

To make matters worse, she did this in front of a state trooper, who arrested her and later told the press: "She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit. If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have believed it. About ten years ago I stopped a guy in the exact same spot who had three or four syringes sticking out of his arm. It was just surreal and I thought, ‘Nothing will ever beat this.’ Well, this takes it."

A day before the wreck, Barnes had been convicted of numerous driving infractions, including DUI with a prior arrest and driving with a suspended license. She had been ordered to impound her car, her license was revoked for five years, and she had been placed on probation for nine months.

Barnes was charged with driving with a revoked license, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident with injuries, and driving with no insurance. She faces up to a year in jail.

In case you're wondering, that is not Miss Barnes below. You can see her mugshot in the news story link here. Warning: she might not be considered "hot" by the more discriminating male, say about 99.98 percent of the population.

razzing the razzers

Most celebrities take themselves wayyyy too seriously. So it was refreshing to see Sandra Bullock show up to collect her Golden Raspberry Award, which is a sort of Anti-Oscar recognizing the worst in American film. Bullock and Halle Berry are the only two true celebrities who have shown up at the Razzie award show to collect their prize.

demure tattoos

Thanks to reader blkmagik for bringing this gem to my attention. It originally came from the great erotic blogger Library Vixen. You may need to click on the image to see the larger-sized original.

I really don't know what to say about this. I'd love to know more about her to find out what was the motivation behind all this.

selling orgasms on the internet

A woman in New Zealand is selling -- on the Internet no less -- what she claims are two ghosts sealed in tiny bottles of blue water. The bids are currently running at more than $1,000 American.

That gave me a great idea: I should sell some of my really intense orgasms on eBay or some place similar. I could put them in little bottles of pink water. After all, if the Kiwi babe could capture poltergeists in water, I see no reason why I couldn't do the same with a few soul-shaking climaxes.

Of course, each sale would be accompanied by a lovely certificate of authenticity plus details of how I achieved the mind-blowing orgasm being offered, e.g. "my husband tongued me for close to an hour, each time pulling back just when I was about to cum, so when he finally let me go, I screamed so loud the half-deaf old dog in the next room began to howl."

I think I should get at least a few hundred for that one.

funny or gross?

I imagine these do a great job cooking the meat, but they are somewhat unappetizing at the same time. If you're a cannibal, they'd be perfect, but if you're a more mainstream meat-eater, they might be a bit disquieting.

The Husband grills meat constantly and I mean constantly -- two or three times a day when we're home and almost always boneless chicken breasts. He lifts a lot of weights so he needs the protein without fat. A typical breakfast for him is bone-dry uncooked oatmeal straight from the package with nothing else added, a half dozen cans of tuna, and several scorched breasts of chicken fresh from the grill. Lunch is often the same thing without the oatmeal.

new blouse hnt

This week's Half-Nekkid Thursday picture reminds me of an old joke.

At dinner one night, a little girl tells her mother, "Mom, the boys at school always give me a dollar to shimmy up a tree on the playground. I know they do this so they can see my underwear. Well, today, I fooled them -- they gave me a dollar, I shimmied up the tree, but they couldn't see my panties -- because I wasn't wearing any!"

letting go

I've written here before about how I've kept in touch with some previous boyfriends. I've also mentioned in passing a guy whom I'll call Rob here. He's a police officer I dated for quite a while in Vegas.

I met Rob not long after I arrived in Sin City, which was also shortly after he and his wife began a trial separation. It was understood during our relationship that he and his wife might get back together, which ultimately happened. Things remained amicable between us and we kept in touch.

I liked Rob a lot. He was lots of fun to be with, a little crazy, good looking, very fit, and pretty fantastic in bed. Law enforcement was also very much his life. I loved listening to his various crime-fighting stories, and knowing him made me very sympathetic to how difficult it is to be a cop. Had he not gone back to his wife, I would not have been surprised if I ended up marrying him. He had many of the same qualities I admire in my husband.

After we split up, I played the field until I met my husband. We very quickly bonded and, if you've read any of the early entries of this blog, that story has already been told.

Shortly after I met the man I would eventually marry, I received a message from Rob. He and his wife had decided the reconciliation was not working and had decided on a divorce. He said during the time we were apart he realized he had lingering feelings for me and wanted to see me again. I had to break the news -- I was off the market and probably permanently.

Needless to say, Rob was very disappointed. I had not yet left Vegas, so he asked to meet me for coffee. Because I still considered him a friend, I agreed. He was his usual charming self and, although he tried tactfully but persistently, he realized pretty quickly he wasn't going to close the sale. I was very taken with someone else.

My husband James sees this all as part of his big destiny equation -- I had to meet Rob before I was to meet him. Something in his karma was working, my sweetie believes, but not for Rob.

Since that time, Rob has kept in regular touch, sending me emails about his life, his work, and his various dating disappointments. Every single email contains some kind of a lament about how sorry he is I got away and how lucky my husband is. Now while I think that's sweet, I also think it's a little sad. I feel sorry for him, but any romantic feelings I once had for Rob have long withered away. When is he going to let me go?

While he's not registering anywhere on the stalker scale -- after all, I'm 10,000 miles away -- I'm somewhat surprised he hasn't cut his losses and moved on. It seems out of character for him because he otherwise is a very practical, grounded person. I often wonder, but do not ask, if he has any of these same lingering feelings about his now ex-wife.

One of the things I think that keeps me very grounded is I'm a "no regrets" kind of person. While I sometimes wish some things had turned out differently for me or I hadn't made certain choices, I certainly don't regret the road I've taken in life, in part because it led me to James. Hopefully Rob will reach a point in his life where he comes to that same sort of realization, too. I guess it will just take the right woman.

lovely

Here's another tattoo I found fascinating and quite lovely. The artistry is amazing. Such a contrast to some of the horrors I've featured on this blog. If only these lasted for a year or two, instead of forever. This is intriguing on the back of a young woman, but sixty years from now, when she's knotted from osteoporosis, that will be a different story.

cheap and tasty

I love this photo. It's from someone's old box of slides, but it could be by Diane Arbus it's so surreal. I found it here.

There's a gallery in Los Angeles featuring nothing but people's old slides and snapshots blown up and framed like fine art. They sell for several hundred dollars a piece and, when I lived there, they sold like proverbial hotcakes.

Be sure to click on the image to see Martha in all her surreal glory. Oh that hair. She punched her own special hole in the ozone with all the hairspray on that thing.