Home

23

From M/F/M to BDSM – the erotic alphabet

Letters. They have quite an important role in erotica and erotic romance book synopses. If you’re a seasoned reader of titles from these genres, you’ll know immediately what I’m talking about, but if Fifty Shades of Grey was your first foray into racy reading, you may be somewhat curious – or perhaps confused – as to what all the letters and acronyms you’re encountering in erotic book descriptions actually mean. Should you pay any attention to them? Are they important? Is there any difference between a book that has M/F/M listed in its description from one that has M/M/F?

In a word, yes. Many (but not all) erotica and erotic romance authors and publishers use letters and acronyms in online blurbs to give readers an idea of how the characters in their stories relate to one another sexually. And that’s important, because it lets you know what you’re getting yourself into before you start reading. Turned on by lesbian sex? Love the idea of a threesome? Behold, Chintz’s quick and dirty guide to the erotic alphabet … Continue reading →

22

Strange sex toys, a secretive author, and Fifty Shades of Grey meets Shakespeare

I love the Internet. It’s an endless river of information at my fingertips. A few quick key taps and I can find out about pretty much anything. But, lately, you know what I’ve really developed a thing for? Google Alerts. Having the ability to use words and phrases to throw up all sorts of news articles, blog posts, commentaries and clips that directly – and sometimes very tenuously – relate to things that interest me. So today, I thought I’d share some of the more intriguing Chintzy links that have arrived in my inbox, courtesy of GA, over the past week or so …

 

15 Real Sex Toys That Will Give You Nightmares
Source: http://www.cracked.com/

Dear God but this article from Cracked.com made my eyes bug out on stalks. I’m a pretty open-minded person but, boy, this post was a bit of an education. The title pretty much says it all and apparently, it’s a follow-on from the ‘most disturbing toys’ articles the author, Ian Fortey, wrote in 2008 and 2009.

The writing in this blog post is very funny and extremely witty – ensure you don’t have food or liquid in your mouth when reading because you will choke and/or spit them across the room – but a note of caution: if you’re easily offended or freaked out, steer clear. The article doesn’t feature any overt nudity or sex acts and there are a bunch of images that have been pixelated out in full to preserve your sanity but it’s still something of a trip. Favourite quote: ‘Finally, the sexual thrill of being a supermarket pork chop can be yours’. NSFW (Not Suitable for Work). Continue reading →

20

‘I’d like more … ‘ survey results

Back in July, we ran a poll asking what you’d like to see more of on Behind the Chintz Curtain. Interestingly, the results were very close, with an identical number of you voting for the two most popular options:

More Garden of Earthly Delights posts – 33.33%

An equal mix of all three – 33.33%

More book reviews – 22.22%

More Toy Box reviews – 11.11%

So, given your feedback it seems the current balance of posts is about right for now – albeit there’s a bit of a bias towards book and Garden [*no longer available on the blog] entries. We’ll try and include a few more of these going forwards but we may also start introducing some new topics during August, too.

There’s more Garden on the way this week (unfortunately, I’m a bit behind on writing this as the 40 degree heat in Italy played havoc with my ability to do much beyond recline on a sun lounger like lady muck) and you’ll be pleased to know that Nick and Grace have actually made it to the dinner table …

Finally, I have something I’d like your help with. I’m curious to know how many of us actually have ‘toy boxes’. Have we finally moved past hiding things in our knicker drawers and, if so, what are we now keeping our playthings in? This may seem like a bit of a random question but I’m currently researching sex toy storage options and I’ll be publishing the results of my findings here on Chintz for you. (Don’t worry – the poll is completely anonymous, so if you click on one of the voting buttons we’re not going to know that it’s you who’s hiding your vibrator in the freezer or linen cupboard!)

 

 

14

Back to our regularly scheduled programme

You’ll be pleased to know that Chintz is back to normal from today; we’ve had a short short posting break as I’ve (Jane) been on holiday in Italy for the past week or so.

Although I did quite a bit of lazing about, I managed to get a fair amount of holiday reading in amidst all the olive and wine consumption and had the joy of discovering three stand-out erotica books: Slave and Need (both from Sherri Hayes’s Finding Anna series) and Uncle Charles’ Girls by Anne Randolph – all of which I’ll be writing reviews for over the next few days. There are some new toy reviews on the way, too, and The Garden of Earthly Delights [*no longer available on the blog] is also due some further instalments. (Unfortunately, the latter suffered a bit in the forty degree Umbrian heat and I didn’t get as many new episodes written as I planned!)

Finally, a word on the image heading up this post (if you follow the Chintz Facebook page you may have spotted this picture already) … As I wandered though the picturesque hilltop town of Urbino (birthplace of the famous Renaissance painter Raphael, home of Piero della Francesca’s iconic ‘Flagellation of Christ’ and site of Federico da Montefeltro’s breathtaking Ducal Palace) what did I see for sale?

Cinquanta sfumature di Grigio.

I wonder if it’s better in Italian?

13

Thanks! And a tweak to the Words section …

A quick note to say ‘thank you’!

It’s been great to see so many people exploring Chintz since our go-live just over a week ago. We really hope you continue to visit us – and we’d love for you to comment on our posts (or ask us questions if you’re brave enough!). We’re happy to consider suggestions for the Toy Box, too. Our testers are a pretty fearless bunch, so if there’s something you’re curious about but are a bit nervous to try, let us know.

Based on how people are currently using Chintz, we’ve made a small change to the site navigation. In addition to appearing on the Home page when they’re posted, our book reviews will now automatically appear in the Words section, which is also the place to find Chintz’s free erotic reads. This tweak will make it much easier for you to find all the posts that are ‘text’ rather than ‘toy’ related.

Again, thanks to everyone who’s visited so far. Don’t forget that you can ‘Like’ us on Facebook to add us to your feed (we always update the page whenever a new post goes up) and you can also follow us on Twitter @ChintzCurtain.

11

Captive in the Dark: The Dark Duet (Volume 1) – C.J. Roberts

Title: Captive in the Dark: The Dark Duet (Volume 1)
Author: C.J. Roberts
Publisher: C.J. Roberts (29 Aug 2011)
ISBN: 978-0615429502

I’m pretty bombproof when it comes to subject matter – there’s not a lot that can shock me – but if I’m going to tackle something harrowing, the balance has to be absolutely perfect: the writing has to be solid, the story clever, the characters worth the emotional investment. So having read the synopsis for this book on Amazon and come face-to-face with the pretty blunt warning about its content (‘This book contains very disturbing situations, dubious consent, strong language, and graphic violence’), I wondered how I would get on with Captive in the Dark and what I might be letting myself in for.

An amazing book, as it turned it. I am not exaggerating when I say C.J. Roberts – who wrote and published Captive in the Dark herself – had me in the palm of her hand from the prologue. Lately, it’s been a bit of a struggle to find BDSM erotica books that stand out from the crowd and have something truly unique about them (one power exchange plot can start to feel very much like another) but Captive had me absolutely glued. To the point that I couldn’t even put it down to do the dishes – and let me tell you, scrubbing a dirty pot one-handed is hard. I devoured the entire book in a day, that’s how good it was, and then immediately visited C.J. Roberts’s website to find out when Volume 2, Seduced in the Dark, was due. (As you’ve probably guessed from the title, Captive in the Dark is part of a series.) Continue reading →

09

The 52 Seductions – Betty Herbert

Title: The 52 Seductions
Author: Betty Herbert
Publisher: Headline (19 Jan 2012)
ISBN: 978-0755362530

It’s a ‘fifty’ book, but not the one you’re thinking of. The 52 Seductions began life as a blog, with the author, Betty Herbert, recording a series of seductions that she and her husband perform in in an attempt to kick-start their waning sex life.

Realising that, sexually speaking, things have started to go off the boil in their relationship despite them still being very much in love with one another (‘I am not prudish; I have just been married for ten years’), Betty talks ‘Herbert’, her husband, into engaging in a seduction every week for a year. Her theory is that sex begets more sex, and by ‘forcing’ themselves to make love, their desire for each other will increase in proportion to the amount they’re actually having. They agree that they’ll take turns devising them, with Betty dreaming up and organising a seduction one week and Herbert the next. What unfolds is book that charts Betty and Herbert’s rediscovery of one another and an examination of their attitudes towards sex in general.

One of the things this book does well is to highlight – very accurately – the hum-drum of long term partnerships while also pointing out that said hum-drum doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve fallen out of love with your significant other. It boldly acknowledges what’s likely true for a lot of long-term couples: that you’ve gone through the first, frenzied flush of sexual discovery, things have settled into a routine, and going outside of the status quo when you’ve been plodding along the same road at the same pace for some time takes some guts. Continue reading →

05

Fifty Shades of Grey – E.L. James

Title: Fifty Shades of Grey
Author: E.L. James
ISBN: 978-0099579939
Publisher: Arrow (26 April 2012)

I’ve procrastinated over whether to do a review for Fifty Shades of Grey because, frankly, there’s not a lot that I can say about it that hasn’t already been said. The coverage of – and the furore around – this book has been absolutely massive and you can’t seem to walk five paces without bumping into someone who’s reading it or having a conversation about it. It’s broken sales records set by J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard, Harry Potter, and is the first book ever to reach the one million sales mark on Amazon Kindle. If you’ve been living in a parallel universe and haven’t a clue what I’m going on about, here’s a brief run-down …

Fifty Shades of Grey is an erotic romance written by British author E.L. James (a pseudonym for London T.V. executive Erika Leonard). It started life as fanfiction based on the characters and stories from Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, which James later reworked to create Fifty Shades of Grey and the two subsequent books in the series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. To boil it right down to basics:

- Edward Cullen (wealthy blood-sucking vampire) becomes Christian Grey (wealthy flogger-wielding sadist);

- Bella Swan (virginal high school student) becomes Anastasia Steele (virginal college graduate);

- Forks (small Pacific North West town) becomes Seattle (large Pacific North West city). Continue reading →

04

The Dirty Bits for Girls – India Knight

Title: The Dirty Bits for Girls
Author: India Knight (editor)
ISBN: 978-1844082285
Publisher: Virago UK (March 1, 2009)

The Dirty Bits for Girls has been around for a while – it was first published in 2006 – but I’m offering it up because 1) it’s a great read and 2) because it gives you enlightening glimpses into books that you might not have considered picking up otherwise.

This collection of ‘dirty’ excerpts runs the gamut – Georgette Heyer, Anaïs Nin, John Cleland, Jilly Cooper, to name just a few of the authors whose work appears in it – and, as such, caters to pretty much every taste. From the over-the-top soap opera sex of 80s Judith Krantz (Scruples) to the dark eroticism of Pauline Reage’s Story of O, Dirty Bits serves up a tasting menu of sex in literature and is perfect as means of steering you towards the books that do it for you and away from the ones that don’t.

The extract from Georgette Heyer’s Regency Buck with its smouldering, rakish hero, the Earl of Worth (a.k.a. Julian St John Audley), is toe-curlingly good. At the risk of sounding like a giddy thirteen-year-old, the guy is hot. He’s handsome. He’s arrogant. He’s dominating.  He’s insolent. There’s not a single ‘traditional’ sex scene in the excerpt (or in the entire book for that matter) – the raciest it gets is a raised hem and a kiss in the back of a curricle-and-four – but the sexual frisson between him and Judith, the heroine, is brilliant. Reading this particular snippet sent me into something of a Heyer frenzy and I consumed a number of her Regency ton romances in short order after reading the Dirty Bits taster. A perfect and satisfying example of Alpha male versus feisty, spirited heroine, with sexual chemistry to boot. Continue reading →