Saturday 28 February 2009

Like Sister and Brother




A couple of weekends ago, I was lying in bed listening to the radio and this song came on. Back in the dim and distant past, it was a favourite, along with a couple of Stylistics and Chi-lites numbers.

The words reminded me that, every so often, our real worlds collide so that Ruf and I have to come into contact within a sphere in which people know about my marital status. With the advent of the internet, the world has become just like a small town. In the words of the song, 'everyone wants to know about the next man's secret', particularly when it involves an illicit affair.

So, on those occasions, we switch into a different mode, focus on the job in hand and avoid peripheral exchanges. Sure, we hug and kiss each other on the cheek, but in a very platonic way. We can talk in passing about our hobby, the weather, the travel arrangements, people we both know but, really, contact is kept to a minimum.

It's surreal to view him like a stranger. To see his exuberance and enthusiasm as if for the first time. I'm so proud of him that I want to tell the world how happy I am to be his lover but, of course, I can't. Nor can he treat me any more fondly in those situations than he would any other friend.

Sometimes it's really hard to see his hairy chest peeping out from his attire and not be able to reach out my hand to touch. If we do make eye contact, we both quickly look away but not in time to stop our subconscious from communicating.

I have no idea whether or not we have managed to achieve the aim of fooling people into believing that we are just mates or if our fondly imagined smokescreen is just a fragile facade that leaves people smiling knowingly behind their hands.

All the time we're just reminding ourselves where we are and that we have to behave in a circumspect way, whilst our libidos are counting down the hours until the next time we can be alone together with the freedom to be ourselves.

As I watch him drive away, I will wave as if he were just another friend and turn away to try to hide the tears, for to see him in this fashion is the ultimate in frustration.

But at least I will know the date of our next weekend and start counting down the hours.

Thursday 26 February 2009

HNT : Turquoise






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Tuesday 24 February 2009

Jade


Is it me or does anyone else feel the same distaste for the sensationalism that has surrounded this poor woman ever since she first burst onto our screens...?

I never watched the Big Brother series in which Jade Goody first came into the public eye but I remember how the Press vilified her. As I recall they likened her facial features to those of a pig and took the mickey mercilessly. I felt extremely sorry for her.

I also did not view the Celebrity Big Brother series in which Jade Goody became embroiled in some sort of racial name-calling scandal with a Bollywood actress. If my memory serves me correctly, the Media were very disparaging and placed the blame for the incident solely at her door when the incessant coverage, on both radio and television, seemed to show that there was group culpability.

I paid no attention to her subsequent career, although I was aware of its lows and then further descent into mockery through violence and heartbreak because of the headlines for articles and pictures in various magazines at the hairdressers. I read now that, in some of those instances, she actively courted the publicity in order to capitalise on our new-found celebrity status, with a series of reality television shows and her own perfume. My impression at the time was that she had become a figure of fun to those in the Media establishment.

When I heard that she had cervical cancer, I felt as desperately sorry for her as I would for anyone in a similar situation with young children. But I couldn't quite believe the publicity this news received. Top billing on the hour every hour on the radio for someone that had been ridiculed only weeks before..

Now that this unfortunate woman is facing death, the papers and magazines are falling over themselves to help her out with positive media interest. They are paying huge sums to feature her wedding (and, no doubt, her apparently imminent funeral).

The Press are known to be fickle. The British public suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome. But everyone feels pity for someone cut down in their prime. Especially when there is money to be made from that sentiment.

The whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach and I only hope that Miss Goody can take some pleasure, during what must be the most hideously public death, in extracting the maximum cash sum from this vile industry to give her children as protected a future as possible, although nothing will make up for her not being in it.

My thoughts go out to her and her family. Although I can't help thinking that this makes me as hypocritical as the rest of them. After all, would I even care if she wasn't dying?

It is Fifteen Minutes of Fame gone mad.

Monday 23 February 2009

Mute Monday: History























And from a less British perspective:




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Sunday 22 February 2009

The Pursuit of Happyness



The Pursuit of Happyness [sic] is a 2006 American biographical film directed by Gabriele Muccino about the on and off-homeless salesman-turned-stockbroker Chris Gardner. The screenplay by Steven Conrad is based on the best-selling memoir of the same name written by Gardner with Quincy Troupe. The film was released on December 15, 2006, by Columbia Pictures. For his performance Will Smith received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and a Golden Globe nomination.

The title is intentionally misspelled, as it also appears as graffiti in a scene in the film. The misspelled phrase is actually taken from an essay written in 1776 that argued that whites and blacks were created equal. The essay, which was written by Lemuel Haynes, a biracial man living in New England during the Revolution, quoted Thomas Jefferson's well-known sentence from the United States Declaration of Independence, but spelled the last word of the sentence with a y. The sentence, as it appears in Lemuel's essay, is as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-Evident, that all men are created Equal, that they are Endowed By their Creator with Ceartain [sic] unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happyness."

Wickipaedia

It was purely a coincidence that we watched this film that weekend but it came to have a relevance well beyond anything we could have imagined when it first began playing.

There are no obvious crossovers here as such. Certainly I am not black and trying to earn a living in a white man's world in the face of poverty and recession with the responsibility of a small child in tow.

However, the twin themes of courage and determination are very important. Chris Gardener is an inspiration. When times are hard, you should just knuckle down and get on with it. Yes, you can argue that he also had some luck but, faced with an awful lot of bad times, he had a huge hand in making a large proportion of any good fortune that did come his way through his perseverance, diligence and refusal to roll over and give up. It was his dogged work ethic that put him in the right place at the right time.

I have been suffering badly from the stress of my lifestyle recently. Some would say that it is mostly self-inflicted and that if I gave up my double-life, things would ease. However, the prospect of giving up either my children or my lover is not a choice that I would care to address.

I tend to deal with problems by putting my head down and getting on with it. Continuing to get the jobs that need to be done completed, despite any external problems. Mentally, this is tough enough but now physical symptoms of that battle have become apparent and there is always the pervasive fear that my anorexia will return because emotional upset is never known to increase appetite.

Changing the circumstances around me or people's behaviour/attitudes towards me so that the causes of the stress are diminished is not possible so I have to learn to deal with it better. Not allow myself to turn it inwards but give the rage and frustration an opportunity to escape before the destructive vortex of venom inside me has the chance to build.

I also have to learn to remember that the past is the past and not allow it to ferment so that it can affect my ability to deal with the present.

For someone as highly-strung as me, this is not an easy process but I have been given some keys to begin a determined assault on the Pursuit of Happyness.

And Chris Gardener was a very welcome example to which I could aspire.

'You want something, go get it!'

Friday 20 February 2009

UnderRated: Accents

Love them or hate them, accents are incredibly powerful things.

I can remember the first time I went to visit Ruf, I warned him that I would probably have to bring the Universal Translator as sometimes he speaks so fast that I just cannot decipher the words. It's as if my brain shouts 'can't compute, can't compute' and threatens to spontaneously combust. He has bouts of hysterics at some of my own pronounciations and the things he's thought he's heard as opposed to what I've actually said.

But my worst sin, apparently, is my refusal to accept that words like path and bath do not have an 'r' in them. The perennial symptom of the North/South divide, I believe... although, of course, Ruf would insist that he comes from neither.

One of the things we do agree on when it comes to speaking in tongues is how incredibly sexy it is when Cerys Matthews sings 'Rrrroad rrrage' in that lilting Welsh style.



The Scottish accent does it for me big time too. Sean Connery saying 'The name's Bond, James Bond'




Of course, my formative years were spent submerged in films, particularly musicals and a great favourite was Gigi, with the soft, seductive tones of the French - Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier. And then there were the Saturday night programmes featuring Sacha Distel... Not forgetting Serge Gainsbourg in 'Je t'aime' and Charles Aznavour's 'She'.












However, I've always been a sucker for the dialects of my native country too. The rough, earthy tones of Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe just do it for me big time. So you can imagine my excitement at Erotica when the man with the vibrating finger ring began touching the back of my hand and talking about the process in an accent so reminiscent of that Yorkshireman that I would quite willingly have allowed him to take me off somewhere and explain in greater detail, preferably with practical demonstrations. Fortunately, I had three very sensible chaperones to drag me off to the next stall to examine the Lelo collection.

But let's not forget the cheeky twang of the Geordies and even the nasal whine of the Black Country has a certain 'je ne sais quoi' when it comes to my nether regions.

Ruf and I disagree violently over the Liverpudlian tones with that soft kkkkkk in so many words. I think it's one of the reasons I used to love Brookside and, in particular, Barry Grant.



Whatever your accent, I will appreciate your linguistic charms.

You see, I got lumbered with Estuary.



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Thursday 19 February 2009

HNT: The Mark

I always hate the last day and somehow this was worse.

After the best part of a week together, there had been several stays of execution, otherwise known as postponements of departure, and this had meant that the 'last night scenario' had been played out more than once over a 72 hour period. Where we hardly slept for the necessity of having to slake our thirst from each other in preparation for the barren weeks ahead. Skin on skin, arms tightly wrapped around naked bodies, sleepy mouths kissing proximate flesh and whispering endearments into the darkness.

And on that last morning, it still wasn't enough. My need to maintain the sense of connection to you in the emotional wasteland that is my real life. So I asked for a mark. A brand that says you love me and that I belong to you. Something I can look at for reassurance in the dark days ahead. Hidden on my body somewhere only I can see.

So that's how it came about.

Your mouth hard against the soft flesh of my hip sucking and biting. Almost painful and yet so rewarding. The giving, just as much as the receiving, an acknowledgement of this need. At first just a red mark, but which darkens over the days until the moment that I miss you the most; when I can focus my memory with those navy toothmarks imprinted on the palest of white skin.

Almost black against the transparency of my flesh, it reminds me how and why you made it.







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Wednesday 18 February 2009

Sugasm #159

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #160? Submit a link to your best post of the week by emailing me directly at radicalvixenatgmaildotcom Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks

The Annual Anti-Valentine’s Day Posting: 2009 Edition “Ahh, Valentine’s Day. Sigh.”

Exposed “We talk a lot about putting me on display, and it was even more intense in reality as it has been in fantasy.”

Yes “At the edge of the precipice, my nerves rippling with electricity, i tumbled down into you”

Sugasm Editor Sex Work And Compassion: A Call From Baghdad

Editor’s Choice Stairwell

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Justify My Love

Sugasm #162



"Poor is the man
Whose pleasures depend
On the permission of another"

Madonna


And the same applies to the woman whose neediness makes her incomplete without the validation and approval of her man. For she is only happy in the moment when she hears the words and then for a millisecond afterwards, before reverting to the despairing state of uncertainty.

I thought about this a lot after that weekend. I arrived dessicated by the cares of my every day life. I had driven to him with a desperation borne of the need to become whole again. My world had ground me down to a hesitant, tearful shell. All I could think of was to have his arms around me so that they could make everything right. In his kitchen, his hallway, his lounge, his bed, I told him I loved him over and over again and each time it was never enough to totally encapsulate just what it is that I feel for him.

How then can I expect his 'I love you' to fulfil the need within me. Whether he says it voluntarily or in answer to my request to hear it. And yet, when I looked back over the two days, it was the little things he did that showed me the depth of his feeling for me. That and the way he held me so tightly. I started to believe that maybe we really could make this work.

It was, therefore, very interesting to come across Mendicatus's view of this from the man's side.

...I want (no, need) a woman with absolute confidence. I spend my life reassuring and cossetting and saying “yes I love you” and “yes I think you’re attractive”, but it’s just wasted breath. The irony is that the only thing that’s really unattractive about people is their continuing obsession with whether they’re attractive or not. I want somebody who knows, implicitly, that they are comfortable with themselves, and exudes that confidence in their clothes, their mannerisms, the way they carry themselves and with their sexual confidence. Somebody who takes instead of waiting for it to be offered. Somebody who doesn’t care if the destination is wrong, because the journey is the bit that matters.

When I emailed to question him about it further, he explained:

What women never understand is that a less attractive woman who thinks she's hot is far sexier than a hot woman who thinks she's ugly.

I'd never thought about it that way before. The wasted breath aspect. That no matter how many times he says it, a woman's psyche will never believe. Conditioned to feel unlovely, unloveable and unloved. Forever pleading to know the contrary. How tiresome must that be? How draining? And how horribly unappealling.

I think I shall take a leaf from Madonna's book and see his desire reflected in his eyes without requiring the verbal confirmation. Allow my passion to run amok and revel in his physical demonstration, rather than continually trying to validate myself through his spoken affirmation. Desist in my determination to reside in the half-light of confusion and explode in a blaze of glory.

So, now that Valentine's Day is past, as we re-read our love letter and munch on our chocolates, let's remember that insecurity sucks and, as women, we must accept that no partner should feel pressured to continually vocalise their love. If your lover finds you attractive, it should be obvious from their behaviour.

However, should those little things be missing, then you have a problem that goes way beyond the need to hear that he still fancies you.


Monday 16 February 2009

Sunday 15 February 2009

Cake's TV Must Sees

I'm very excited about the second series of Damages, having been one of a very exclusive club of devotees to the first.

With the magnificent Glenn Close as the Machiavellian lawyer, Patty Hewes, and Rose Byrne as her young protegee, Ellen Parsons, the first series took us on a rollercoaster of twists and turns told through an intricate web of flashback, present and fast forward. It was a very clever device that left you scrambling to try to work out what actually happened when.

Thoroughly recommended from Sunday night 15th February at 10.20pm on BBC1.



I am also very much looking forward to the second series of Mistresses which begins this Tuesday 17th February at 9pm on BBC1.

Sarah Parish, Sharon Small, Shelley Conn and Orla Brady reprise their roles as good friends Katie, Trudi, Jessica and Siobhan in the hugely popular drama series from last year.

According to the BBC's website: It has been 12 months since we left Katie, Trudi, Jessica and Siobhan and, despite all their personal trials, their friendship remains as strong as ever.

Struggling to learn from their past mistakes, the thirty-something women face new dilemmas, though the root of their problems remain the same – men and sex!

Will they ever find true happiness?


Enjoy!

Friday 13 February 2009

Love Letters of Great Men

Yes, I've been watching the Sex and the City Movie and I couldn't help thinking that Carrie was right. There should be such a book. A literary feast from which our partners could draw inspiration when needed.

And, lo, off the back of the film, I discover that there is such a tome.



Anyone who ever was anyone and penned an epistle to his lover has been scrutinised for consideration and the best ones have been brought together for this collection.



I know it was different for Mozart and Beethoven and Nelson and the like. As Big pointed out: 'Those guys had to write. They were separated from their loves by wars and sometimes hundreds and hundreds of miles. I'm right here.'

And I guess that's true. They couldn't text their mistresses with a two line appreciation of the pertness of their breasts or the fact that they had a hard penis which they wanted to stick up them.

They had to sit down, get pen and ink and parchment and construct proper sentences to convey the depths of their feelings. When I read the love letters that Henry VIII wrote to Anne Boleyn, I am quite moved by his almost pitiful entreaties that she accord him even a moment of notice. And she dragged out the final consummation for seven years, most of which was spent fluttering her eyelashes coyly and waggling her arse to provoke, before knocking him back vehemently when he tried to respond as most males would.

Napoleon, away making war, sent the following thought to Josephine: 'I awake consumed by thoughts of you'

To be fair, Ruf has been known to send me texts in a similar vein, if not with quite such romantic verbs. But then, of course, he cannot be with me all the time so, sometimes, he does feel the need to write those things by way of communication... and I love to receive them. Confirmation that he is feeling as bereft about not being together as I am.

Beethoven, in a missive to his own true love: 'My thoughts go out to you my immortal beloved, I can only live wholly with you or not at all. Be calm my life, my all. Only by calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together. Oh, continue to love me, never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

Ever mine
Ever thine
Ever ours.'


But even if you do see us every day, that doesn't mean that we, as women, don't like to have some written proof that our man cares about us. Not sexually but emotionally. That they are all at sea without our presence. That they long for us with a passion which pushes them totally beyond their capacity to explain. And yet, perhaps they should still try.

Even if it's only to email: 'I know I screwed it up - but I will love you forever'.

Who knows how many insecure women would find such a departure from the norm, a boon that takes them through several weeks of personal self-esteem issues.

A friend of mine with a marriage that now extends well beyond 35 years, would invariably put a little lovenote into the package containing her husband's sandwich lunch and he would often leave a similar billet doux lying around the house.

Why hide how you feel from your partner? Communication is the key to a successful relationship and sometimes just saying those three little words into her ear can become commonplace.

So, with Valentine's Day imminent, why not express yourself via your pen today? Don't rely on the mass-produced sentimental claptrap of the manufactured card because there won't be any good ones left by now. Write something appreciative that is specific and personal to her.

A proper love letter.

I bet you get your leg over as a result...

For US readers

For Canadian readers

For UK readers

Thursday 12 February 2009

HNT : Humps






In the run-up to Valentine's Day, lots of love to all my readers from the very heart of my bottom x





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Tuesday 10 February 2009

Industrial Pleasures - the Hitachi Wand


The Hitachi Wand is a multifunctional megabeast that straddles the twin worlds of sex toy and muscle massager like a behemoth. Not for nothing was it chosen by Samantha in that famous episode of Sex and the City 'Critical Condition'.

With thanks to erinmak for this synopsis:

Carrie bribes Samantha into helping Miranda out with the baby. Samantha very reluctantly agrees and gives up her fabulous hair appointment that was impossible to get to let Miranda take her place on the spur of the moment. Miranda's icy neighbor has taken pity and stopped by with a vibrating chair that calms Brady down. She's amazed that Miranda doesn't know about this wonder-chair, but Miranda explains that none of her friends have babies. Miranda admonishes Samantha not to take Brady out of the chair, but when the chair breaks (or runs out of batteries or something), she's at a loss. She then remembers her earlier trip to The Sharper Image, where she tried to exchange her broken vibrator. (She had an argument with the salesman who insisted that it was a neck massager - "The Sharper Image does not sell vibrators." In the end she got a replacement "neck massager.") So she puts the "neck massager" in the chair with Brady, who's as happy as a clam
.

As this demonstrates, the thing about the Hitachi is that it has enough power to be both an effective muscle massager AND a very satisfying sex toy.

After all, as Samantha says about a different 'neck massager' in the same episode: 'That one actually works against you. If we wanted to work that hard we'd find ourselves a man, am I right?'

I read recently that the older woman requires more stimulation than her younger sisters and so it's been on my list of things to try for some time. When the lovely Rick at Vibrator Toys sent me one to review, I was very excited.

But this was somewhat short lived because, on plugging it in, the thing in my hands became absolutely terrifying. I was certainly of the opinion that if I put that between my legs, I was likely to fry my most delicately sensitive bits... and that was on the 'Low' setting. This was like the industrial catering version of any of my kitchen implements when it came to power comparison.

But then my tulip gave up the ghost and, needs must, I turned to the Hitachi. At first, outside of my clothes. So, whilst I was straddling Ruf's back and using it as a massage tool, I discovered that it was actually very pleasant to press my most intimate parts against the vibrating bulb as it did its work on his tense musculature. I could feel the powerful buzz transmitting itself through my flesh to my g-spot with the most pleasant results.

Since then I have used it against my clit through my pants and I can pretty much guarantee an orgasm within a minute. It's so powerful that even though it doesnt actually press directly against the clitoris in the way that my toothbrush/tingle tip would, that doesn't matter. It vibrates the whole area so vigorously that all the important points, both internally and externally, are somehow activated.

There are a couple of downsides in that it is a bit cumbersome because of its size and the electric flex plus adaptor. It is also pretty noisy - but then most neck massagers of this power would be in order to be effective.

In a conversation with Marianne, we were trying to work out if one should even attempt to insert the implement but, fearing some form of vaginal scrape as a result, I decided to consult an expert. When I first wrote on my Joanna Cake Facebook page that I was awaiting my Hitachi, Curvaceous Dee made a very excited comment extolling its virtues. By chance, she happened to be online so I was able to get chapter and verse about the Hitachi attachments for extending its pleasure capacity.

Another exchange with Rick, and I chose the G-Plus attachment to go with it.


I am pleased to report that this really sorted me out, although it reminded me of Gonzo from the Muppets. It was made of a material called TPE which is non-porous and so can be cleaned with hot water and anti-bacterial soap to prevent the spread of bacteria. Suffering from recurring cystitis, this is very important to me. It also contains no phthalates or latex which is also imperative.

It has two floppy sort of beaks. One for the clit and one for insertion. The fabulous effect of the material is that the intensity of the vibration is diffused so there is not so much friction against the clitoris as I would have imagined and the part that is inside you is responsible for the most divine sensations.


My only complaint would be that the insertion piece could be slightly longer and perhaps a fraction stiffer for the best results.

Since its first use, it has been responsible for a number of most unladylike fantasies... hopefully, I shall be able to tell you the tales of their fruition over the next couple of months.

All in all, it is a beast, but a very reliable one. Whether you want it to release the tension in a sore muscle or your frustrated genitals, the Hitachi Wand is guaranteed to do the job toute de suite.

Anyone looking for ideas for Valentine's Day...? It's not the most romantic of gifts, but it sure covers a lot of bases.

Monday 9 February 2009