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!

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.

When I started blogging almost a decade ago (!), weblogs were primitive things. Believe it or not, the tools that allowed a comment section didn’t yet exist (well, outside of the alpha versions of Things To Come). Neither did blogrolls. Really, we just listed our links and wrote pointed little insights about them. If other bloggers wanted to comment on something you said, they linked to you and lent their two cents via their own blogs.

God, what cavemen we were back then!

The cavemen is me is going to be a tad agitated that I have to trust WordPress’s architectural over my own primitive (and often limited) coding instincts, but I’m delighted to have so many tools on hand. Special thanks to my good friend, Roger, who dragged me by the hair into modern times.

If you’re looking at PL via a blog feed, please come visit directly. And whether you’re a long time reader or have just discovered me, comment! Honestly, having caught the twitblog bug this last year, I can’t believe what a hermit I’ve been through the years. Maybe I’ll turn into a social butterfly now!

Regardless, I welcome your participation and camaraderie.

If I’m lucky, you’ve been asking that question about me, wondering if I’ve been partying like a dumb Persian cat. Well, sort of. I just haven’t gotten to the lampshade extreme yet. I’m too busy working for that.

In July, literary agent Lori Perkins emailed me about a new e-publishing venture, Ravenous Romance, and asked whether I had any unpublished novels and short stories. Boy, did I. So we corresponded.

The outcome? I’m now working with her agency, which will guide my works into publication with Ravenous Romance.

Lori and I had touched base awhile back, but nothing came of it at the time. At the time, a fellow author told me, “You probably didn’t have anything she could use.” I guess she was right because Lori didn’t forget me. I’m deeply thankful for that. But I’m also happy that Ravenous Romance appears to be a good fit for me. According to a press release, “Ravenous Romance™ will be a destination site for women, with erotica that celebrates female sexuality, and strong Web 2.0 community-building features.”

Which gets a big pumping-fist Yes! from me.

Ravenous Romance has set an ambitious goal of publishing a short story and a novel every day, starting in December. It seeks “erotic romance stories with strong plots and character development, but with steamy sex scenes and explicit descriptions of sexual encounters. The stories must feature strong, passionate characters and plots that express a broad range of fantasies.”

Which earns more happy dancing from me. (Probably look there like Snoopy from Peanuts, not the Dumb Lampshade Cat.)

Why? Because it feels like the sex-positive school of erotica — the platform that formed my writing perspective — has finally merged with erotic romance in a way that’s meaningful to me.

Feels good to me.

But the reason I’m not lampshade crazy with euphoria? Because I have to part ways with Carnal Desires Publishing to some degree and it’s bittersweet for me. We’ve shared a strong collaborative spirit, one that I value and appreciate. I still intend to keep them on my website as a source of erotic fiction and I’ll still point you to their titles. They’re doing good things at CDP, much of it in the same sex-positive vein I’ve needed as a writer.

I’m busy at work, finishing up my first title for Ravenous Romance, an effort that’ll keep me busy through much of this month, but it’s time to get back to blogging as well. I’ve stories to tell, thoughts to contemplate, and points to make. Time to blog.

On another note, I’m finishing up a short story and once I do, I plan to write a few thoughts on Spike Lee’s film, She Hate Me and post them tomorrow sometime.

But I’m back now, listening to my neighbor shoveling old gravel into his trash can (why, I don’t know…), crows calling, and a siren going off over at the nearby sports fields. It’s nice to be on my deck this late afternoon.

Still, give me a couple of days to resume blogging speed (same with email). I’ve got to get through some significant medical adventures with my son and browse online long enough to see what I want to discuss, but once I’ve done that, here I’ll be.

Man, it’s good to be home.

It’s been four years since I took the plunge
put my words to a blog and said how dandy.
Four years since I grabbed a link saying
get off your ass now, get on with blogging.
Back then sex was frowned upon
I realized such talk wasn’t liked ‘mong the techies.
Still today it’s a favorite rage
it’s sex all the time and from every persuasion…

About here’s where the going got tough and the tough decided they can’t render history in lyrics. It was just too manic a prospect, given the song’s meter. Besides, if you’ve read Pursed Lips for any length of time, then you know the story.

But I do have a thought to share with you this year: I’m glad the sexblog explosion continues unabated. I’m glad people are blogging everything from sex news to pornography to personal experiences. We need the public discourse and the bearing witness to pro-sex acceptance. Why? Because the culture war’s back on.

Consider the fundie right’s unrelenting effort to equate every GLBT success as a victory for evil, gay sadomasochists. Sites like section12.com’s weblogs and efforts like 100 Bloggers stand to counter them simply by proving that sadomasochism isn’t just for gay men. They supply evidence that plenty of BDSM practitioners are coupled heterosexuals and stand contrary to what the fundie right wants us to believe.

As well, I’d like to think the dirty whores, the pornographers, the hedonists, and the renegade artists out there might become ubiquitous enough to dull the U.S. Justice Department’s prosecution of Extreme Associates. I worry that if federal authorities succeed in this case, they’ll continue down the line, attacking one weak link after another in the adult industry, and yet I think the weight of sexblogging will help push the community standard further along so when juries are presented with “evidence,” they’ll yawn and acquit.

The sexblog presence helps move the public community standard towards a more liberal and open stance, and it does so by being of, by, and for the people. Every sexblogger is a common everyday person, distinquished only by being brave enough to reveal him- or herself publically through blogging. I can’t of anything any more democractic than the critical mass that our growing presence is helping to create.

Next year, when Pursed Lips turns five, I hope there’ll be so many sexblogs of so many persuasions that it’ll be impossible to blogroll ‘em all. I hope people everywhere will have something bold and positive to say about sex. I hope we’ll create enough of a new culture that whatever this renewed attempt at a culture war is, it will sputter to a stop.