But it’s close.

When I’m scouting about for antiquarian/used erotica for purchase, I run acoss a fair amount of stuff that makes me laugh.  Ususally, we’re talking double entendre here, a type of humorous twist many people find juvenile.  However, if my first reaction is an automatic chuckle, then whatever the item is, it hit my natural default and I shrug off any notion of dignified, dowdy restraint.

Often, it’s raunchy pornographic paperbacks that earn my accolades — smutty twists on easily recognizable cultural fare.  Cockwork Orange? Go for it.  Pacific Phallusades?  Sure, why not!

Although the latter, somehow, gets me stuck on that Gary Lewis and the Playboy cover Palisades Park, an east-coast radio staple during my summers as a kid.  Hey, what can I say — cocks sound more fun with a soundtrack!

Another recent favorite:  Wendy’s Whips with the handwritten disclaimer “It is our duty to state that everyone who has written to us has eventually died a horrible and unexplained death.” (Detailed image here.) I guess that’s one way to declare a whip catalogue as “for novelty use only.”

But the last item?  It’s a reader, the erotic short story pamphlet cousin to the Tijuana Bible, common throughout much of the 20th century.  Ususally, you’d find the humor in the publisher’s name, as I’ve previously outlined, and the pamphlet titles were usually pretty, well, unremarkable.  Quick samples from my own collection include A Long One, Paging Young Heroes, I’m For You, My Secret Memoirs, and The Love Doctor.

So when I came across Hair Pie a la Wee Wee, it brought me up short.  I mean, WTF?  Hair Pie, I get.  But Wee Wee?  Are we talking a grostequely juvenile double entendre along French language lines?  Or are we talking piss play here?  I doubt it’s the latter; these readers kept to oral, intercourse, and group sex.  Regardless, this title is uncharacteristically tawdry for its format.  Can’t help but look at it with crossed-eyes and a perplexed expression.

But worth sharing with you nonetheless.  And I’ll keep my eyes (uncrossed) peeled for more.

Circlet Press started as a vision.  A vision to bring erotic elements into science fiction and fantasy.  To create genre literature that spoke to sexual communities.  To publish fiction that challenged norms.

And they’ve done so under the tenacious leadership of Cecilia Tan through thick and thin.  They’re survived the collapse of independent bookstores. They’ve withstood the demise of several distributors.  And when the e-book market reached viability, they switched horses in midstream without getting wet.

Yet they haven’t abandoned their love of print books.  Currently, they aim to bring a new volume of their BEST EROTIC FANTASY to print and have initiated a major fundraising effort to accomplish that goal.  You can find the details at their website.

Clever, no?  Evidently, their approach is unique enough to attract the attention of Publisher’s Weekly,  the book industry’s key trade journal.  I mean, how cool is that!

A magazine that strikes me as an early fetish pub-lication and not all that different from the tamer sections of John Willie's Bizarre from the 1940 – 50s.

Lately, when I’m not working on the next novel,  I’ve immersed myself in researching BDSM literature and its history.  It’s an endeavor that satisfies my inner bibliophile and collector, ever-curious facets of my mind.  I suppose it’s what I get for never seeking an advance degree beyond the B.A. I earned too long ago.

I’m never surprised by the extremes to which various BDSM artifacts go to.  Not even some of the stuff from the 1970s which presented an anything goes/right up to snuff portrayals of S/M.  It reeks of bad-as-I-wanna-be bravado and makes me wonder whether it influenced the slasher film that emerged as the 1970s ended.  But I suspect this stuff was too esoteric and underground to have any pronounced influence on anything.

What does surprise me, however, is how consistent our fetishes have been through the ages.  I began to see this in the better known fetish publications from mid- last century.  John Willie’s Bizarre isn’t all that different than the Nutrix/Mutrix stuff of the 50s and 60s. Ditto the more limited-to-get stuff like Dominate! digest and its peers.

"Devotees of the "elevator" heel is something else to interest you — a pair of patent oxford shoes with eight inch heels, and a pair of patent bar shoes with eight and a quarter inch heels, made my Mr. W. Coulson, of 15, Tottenham Court Road, London, W.C." Left: "Note the dainty delicacy of the tread." Right: "Note the chic effect produced by the bracelet."

But when I came across a copy of a 1911 Photo Bits, our consistency really hit home.  Here was an early 20th-century British relic that featured — what else! — items on corsetry, female impersonation, and extreme shoes, even headlining the latter as “the cult of the heel.”  That’s very similar to the tamer sections of Willie’s Bizarre, isn’t it?

Photo Bits was considered an early girlie mag, a publication that tried to straddle the mores of the Victorian era even as the world move onward.  The playful bathing beauties on its cover were eye-catching and tantalizing for its day and its headline about kleptomania almost yells “women inside!”  Still, if not for the fact that Photo Bits makes an appearance in Leopold Bloom’s thoughts in James Joyce’s Ulysses, I’d be hard pressed to think of the publication as edgy.  But there you have it.

And I must admit: It has me interested in securing some copies and delving into its page.  Hell, anything with a caption of “The Cult of the Heel” is likely to do that!

Click on the images for their full size. I’ve uploaded these and two other images to my Flickr account. Enjoy.

An early 19th-century pamphlet sold for over $1,700 dollars.  I’m not sure how it popped up on my radar, but it harkened back to New York City’s first major sex crime.  The listing, with minor editing on my part for readability:

THE DEVIL’S WALK THROUGH THE UNITED STATES, BY FRANK RIVERS. From the ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT  found among the Papers of THE LATE BEAUTIFUL COURTEZAN, ELLEN JEWETT. New York: Elton, Publisher, 134, Division-Street. circa 1836 (no date). 16 page stapled booklet, 5 1/2″ x 8″.

The manuscript for this poem was supposedly found among the possessions of Ellen Jewett (Hellen Jewett), a beautiful young prostitute who worked in an infamous New York City Whorehouse known for having some of the city’s gentry as clientele.  The poem is credited as being written by Frank Rivers. “Frank Rivers” was an alias for Richard Parmelee Robinson, the man accused of murdering Ellen Jewett. The engraving on the cover is credited to “Bill Easy” an alias for another man Jewett was reportedly with Jewett the night of her murder. This murder was perhaps the first of the sex-sin-and-mayhem cases that birthed sensational journalis. The title for this poem was borrowed from a well known piece of British political satire written by Professor Porson.

In 1836 Hellen Jewett was considered New York City’s most desirable and sought after prostitute. Jewett became something of a “star” at several of several of New York’s most exclusive bordello’s. Besides her stunning good looks, her sexual skills were legend. Her clientele was a who’s who of famous people. Even Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe were known to suffer from infatuation.

On the night of April 10th, 1836 Helen Jewett was murdered with an axe and set on fire. Richard Robinson,one of her clients, was accused of her murder. The ensuing trial captivated the nation. The sensation and publicity surrounding the murder and trial help set the stage for the rise and popularity of murder mystery and detective fiction, whose literary conventions Edgar Allen Poe pioneered, a resident of New York City at the time of the trial.

Although the prosecution had overwhelming evidence against Richard Robinson, he was aquitted. At the time, Robinson was well known for his literary skills and was more than likely the author of this poem.  This booklet was probably printed shortly after the trial in 1836.

Click for larger image.

I haven’t found any foundation for the claims that major authors were smittened by Jewett, the Jewett murder essentials in the listing are accurate.  However, I’m far from certain the pamphlet in question was actually found among Jewett’s belongings.  It’s not mentioned at all in Patricia Cline Cohen’s exhaustive and captivating book, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute In Nineteenth-Century New York — a red flag for me if every there was one.

And I’m skeptical that its attributions are sound.  Robinson and George P. Marston (aka Bill Easy) were rivals for Jewett’s attentions, and Robinson’s jealousy toward Marston was well documented. That Marston would provide an engraving to a work by Robinson borders on ludicrous.

There’s another reason for all this, me thinks.

Consider the estimated date of the publication.  Consider the text I’ve placed here (and see more at my Flickr feed).  It’s all about the devil coming to America to stir up abolitionist woes.  Now think: What abolitionist events happened during this time frame?

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By treaty, European countries agreed to abolish slavery left and right.  Jamaica abolished slavery.  And, by 1840, outright abolition or suppression of slavery by treaty reached from Europe to South America.

And most noteworthy to this region of America at this time? Amistad was right around the corner, starting in 1839.  Indeed, since this pamphlet is undated, it could conceivably date to the Amistad years.  In fact, the stanza I picture here where the devil  The Devil and A—r T—n, refers to, as far as I’m concerned, to abolitionist Arthur Tappan.  Whose brother, Lewis, took up the Amistad cause.

I view The Devil’s Walk Through America as an anti-abolitionist trait produced sometime between the Jewett incident and Amistad.  It appropriated Robinson’s and Marston’s monikers, capitalizing on one sensation to further another.  And it names prominent abolitionists George Thomson and  William Lloyd Garrison in its stanzas.

I’ve placed several more images from the pamphlet in a set at my Flickr page.  Feel free to examine them.

My daughter’s entered an art competition related to Time Burton’s upcoming movie. If you see this entry between 2/18 and 2/19, please vote for her!  She’s #293.

My daughter's competition entry

To my chagrin, site registration is required, damn it, but please help her!

You see, her job search for an entry level position animation will begin this summer and it would be great if she could add a win to her resume.  Or, even better, get noticed by the Burton’s people.  Now *that* would be a weird mother’s dream come true!

Be sure to comment here if you do indeed join in the voting!  And I’ll return you to your (ab?)normal biblio/sex-in-the-news content shortly.

In my collecting travels and endeavors, I sometimes snap up small pamphlets called “readers.”  A close cousin to the Tijuana Bible, they were essentially dirty short stories, often accompainied by photographs of prostitutes going at it.  I don’t routinely buy readers everytime I see them — they’ve become common enough, thanks to the aggregating nature of eBay and I own dozens of them alread — but when a good deal entices me, I’ll buy them.

Click on graphic for larger image.

Readers, like their more famous dirty comics kin, were produced by the same publishers who produced erotic book and playing cards.  Cheap to produce and carrying a big profit margin, they were distributed to newsstands, cigar shops, used bookstores, bars and burlesques houses.  First appearing in the 1920s and 1930s, they saw a good thirty-year run before falling away in the face of legal pornography.

I’m always attracted to any clandestine erotica — and these babies certainly had underground existence — but I’m attracted to readers for more than just their clandestine nature.  First, known curiosa book publishers printed them, namely  Samuel Roth, who fought repeated obscenity charges during his publishing life, and I. R. and Jack Brussel, noted book row jack-of-all-trades, the latter of whom later reprinted the famed three-volume Bibliography of Prohibits Book by Prisaus Fraxi (really Henry S. Ashbee) in 1962.  I’ve also appreciated how, when all else tried to keep people ignorant about sex, these readers at least contributed something to an American’s erotic awareness.

And, of course, pamphlets in general were often a vehicle of street democracy and sometimes subversive as well.

But what I like best about readers are their subversion “thrown the authorities off the track” sense of humor.  Their cousin, the Tijuana Bible, were never actually printed in Mexico.  The label was a ruse, a complete fabrication, meant to mislead the authorities.  The same for readers, except they were far more tongue-in-cheek about it.  I mean really:  Humpville Illinois?  Gimme a break.

Click on graphic for larger image.

Shaftsbury Ave, London? Sure. Whatever.  But the 20 shillings suggest it could’ve been European in origin, perhaps aimed at lonely G.I.s.

The Havana locale may have been legit.  The exorbitant $5.00 price tag indicates that it was produce late in the readers’ existence.  And the mob was well known for supplying all kinds of forbidden entertainment in Cuba in the years before the rise of Castro.  However, it’s just as likely that Havana, Cuba was nothing more than code.  “Havana” was once short-hand for anything-goes sex.  (See Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, believe it or not. Cleavon Little says as much to Madeline Kahn.)

You know, maybe that’s another reason I like these little readers.  Maybe it’s because they make the cogs and wheels of my mind turn.  I guess it’s true — the best sex *is* between the ears!

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As a collector of erotica and “curiosa,” an old bibliophile’s codeword for the pornographic, I come across a lot of unusual publications. Some are historical interesting — like a rare pre-Civil War erotic novel — and some are downright silly. I figure one way out of my blogging inertia might be to start a Tawdry Tuesday where I share tidbits from and about books I’ve collected. And to start things off, let me share four flagellation images from the 1934 Falstaff Press edition of Iwan Bloch’s Sex Life in England.

Falstaff Press was one of several clandestine publishers that produced books out of depression-era New York City. Run by Ben and Anne Rebhuh, Falstaff specialized in the risque and “anthrolopgia” and traipsed that fine line between scholarly and prurient. A arts-and-culture website’s wiki entry provides a sound run-down of what’s known about Falstaff Press.

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Although by today’s standards, Sex Life in England would appear tame, it was one of those titles that flirted with the prurient, largely because of its cabinet of illustrations as end contents. The flagellation illustrations I’ve posted here range from the seriously rendered to caricature. Hard to imagine that this is the kind of stuff that would stop the U.S. Post Office in its tracks and arrest someone for distributing such stuff, but such were the times when the Comstock law was in effect.

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Iwan Bloch was a noted author and sexologist from pre-Nazi Germany. He was a contemporary of fellow sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Sigmund Freud considered his contributions on homosexuality key to looking at sexual orientation from a non-pathological stance. I suspect it gave some level of legitimacy to Falstaff Press in the eyes of government suppression, but not much, given the fervor of the law. Although he was responsible for discovering the presumed-lost manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade and he was an early biographer of the notorious figure, so who knows.

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I happen to like Bloch’s Sex Life in England because it’s a what’s what and who’s who of English erotic literature — although I chuckle at chapter titles like Highly Spiced Titles of Erotic Books, Secret Pornologic Clubs in England, and The Greatest Erotobibliomaniacs in England [and] Their Fabulous Erotic Treasures Described. Sure, it lacks the bibliographic depth and details of highly scholarly work, but it’s still informative. So much so that I have two copies of Sex Life in England in my library — one in collectible condition, the other clearly beat-up but perfect for reading and research.

I’ve posted jpegs of the table of contents from Bloch’s book at my my Flickr account. Stop by and view the breadth of Bloch’s research yourself!

A year ago today, I watched Ravenous Romance roll-out to the public. It was quite a splash, with its sophisticated look of a website, its authors’ blog, and its many sub-genre offerings. And I got to be part of the action!

A decade previous to this date, I embarked on writing short erotic fiction. Dozens of my stories appeared in major anthologies from Cleis Press, Alyson Books, the now-defunct Venus Book Club, Berkley Heat, and more. I celebrated every by-line and cherished every opportunity. But something was missing. I was one of those authors that the larger mainstream publishing world overlooked. I was an early blogger and diarist about sex and my sex life, yet no book deal came my way. I had a couple of novels in the can yet securing an agent was a multi-year exercise in futility. I watched the romance market embrace a certain level of eroticism in their publishing lines… but it did not speak to me in a way that was authentic to my experience or even paralleled the intensity of erotic writing I had done. Let me tell you, I felt left out in the cold.

Until Lori Perkins blew me away by inviting me to submit Ravenous Romance. She remembered my writing and publishing creds — something every writer prays for — and just when I questioned whether to continue on, she gave me the very outlet I needed to journey on. I had a whole new reason to celebrate and cherish opportunity. Since then, Lori and her partners have brought two of my novels into e-print. They’ve asked for several more, including one that is shaping up to be an opus of a lifetime. And, most soulful to me, they’ve allowed me to write from the erotic edge. Not once have they asked me to softball my erotic portrayals.

Today, all of us Ravenous Romance authors are celebrating our good fortune. We’re ecstatic. And our publisher is celebrating, too, by offering all full-length e-books to the reading public for a mere .99 cents. Go, check it out, and if you’re fond of my writing, look in the Wicked Pleasures section for more kinky fiction.

Happy anniversary, Ravenous Romance!

Or: naughty stuff, free for the asking!

Over the summer, my college-aged, production-savvy daughter helped me assemble an exciting DVD/CD promotional package, specifically geared to the erotic romance/erotica reader. It’s a DVD/CD package that has book trailers, author commentaries, and book excerpts of all my novels.

My novels are exceptionally kinky and probably not for the faint-of-heart. But if you’re an adventurous, open-minded reader and game for interesting twists of erotic extremes, then you might enjoy my work.

If you’d like one of these babies, simply email me at debrawriting at cox dot net, provide your snail mail address, and I’ll send you a DVD/CD combo at no cost to you. (Adults only, please.)

I absolutely promise to regard your snail mail address as sacrosanct. I will not share it and if I have future offerings, I will contact you first via email.

I hope you’ll check out this freebie of mine. We had such fun putting it together and I’d like to pass our enthusiasm to you!

This past Sunday saw the tenth year anniversary of this here humble blog. Yes, Pursed Lips has reached the decade-old mark! My thanks to all of you who’ve followed me on this journey, whether you were among the few who joined me on day one or the many who discovered me after blogs exploded into the web forefront. A couple of years ago, I recalled:

I began Pursed Lips in August 1999 when the blogging community numbered less than two hundred individuals. Most of those blogs where tech-based. A few disseminated cultural tidbits to entertain us. But no one was writing about sex full-time in a blog format.

screen shot of Pursed Lip’s debuit

So I did. Years before “not safe for work” entered the vernacular.

Ah, the joy of reminiscing!

Today, I’m not as avid a blogger as I was ten years ago. With the advent of new technologies, other competitors vie for my time. Like a quick 140 at Twitter. Or producing a book trailer for You Tube. And promotional give-away productions. Best of all, I’m busier than ever with my fiction writing.

But I’m still nostalgic for my past enthusiasms and I still love this little blog of mine. And to celebrate this modest milestone, I grabbed a screen shot of my first blog post to share with you — my foray into an emerging on-line avenue. Looking at it now, it reminds me of baby steps, good memories all.