Reading This Blog

This is how I hope my Dear Readers experience my sexy blog...

(it's how I write it)

Nettie and Egon, A Century Apart, A Connection, An Homage

Here is one of the most lovely images of Nettie Harris, which says a lot, since dozens of the best photographers have shot her, and she's helped create probably hundreds of photos that will someday be seen as the masterpieces of this time.

It is, of course, the nature of Art History. So much of it is hindsight. Like seeing the work of Egon Schiele. He was a protégé of Gustav Klimt. His work, often self-portraits and women, noted for their twisted bodies. Some say he was a fore-runner of 20th Century Expressionism. Schiele began to explore not only the human form, but also human sexuality. At the time, many found the explicitness of his works disturbing.

Today, the sexuality of the work isn't shocking. Rather, we can see that he was just a pioneer of erotic art. 

It is exactly a century since Egon made his now classic erotic work. This portrait of Nettie, holding a book of his work, is a fitting tribute, that I am sure would thrill Egon. 

Nettie Harris by John Running

Seated Nude, with elbows propped, 1914

Green Stockings, 1914

Kneeling Girl, resting on both elbows, 1917

Seated Woman, with bent knee, 1917

Little Birds

Two self-portraits taken in 2013 by Brittany Market, from her "In Rooms" series. Perfect.

The book on the ground is, I assume, Little Birds, by Anais Nin, from which she quotes: "We do not see people as they are. We see people as we are."

Hardcore Summer Reading

A lovely shot from a sexy blog, Parallel Slidings of Pleasure. 

The book she's reading, by the way, is considered one of the classic academic works on porn. The author, Professor Linda Williams, "moves beyond the impasse of the anti-porn/anti-censorship debate to analyze what hard-core film pornography is and does—as a genre with a history, as a specific cinematic form, and as part of contemporary discourse on sexuality."

Sounds to me like an afternoon well spent.

Sophie's World

What I love about Sophie's world is what she surounds herself with.

3/30/14

Here is an addendum to the above post, in response to a Dear Reader's comment. A second photo from the same day, and a note from the photographer, Sophie:

That time of the year when you get goosebumps under the sun because there’s no way you’re jumping into those trousers again. It’s the time of the skirt and the dress, the slow slide towards bare feet. Hello, Spring.

Reading Break

Alone, with a magazine. A nice break.

New York Times Reports: "Return to a more natural state."

As editor of My Sexy Spot Blog, I strive to bring the best, most accurate, and most historically relevant stories about our understanding and appreciation (and acceptance) of human sexuality. As many long-time Dear Readers know, I have been following and reporting on what seems to be a grassroots cultural shift back toward a more normal (and in my opinion healthy) acceptance and appreciation of pubic hair.

I've noted it in amateur blogs, in the emerging works of Fine Art photographers, and even in the porn industry.

For so long I've seen hope peeking out like the stray untamed hairs from a bikini line. I'm amazed, and thrilled that finally a publication with a lot wider viewership than this humble DIY blog is finally taking note.

Last december, The New York Times blog ran "On Beauty For Women, a New Look Down Under."

Only once before in our history have we reprinted an article verbatim and in its entirety. We felt this article well worth it.
--Annie O.

On Beauty For Women, a New Look Down Under

by Amanda Hess

After years of razors, wax and lasers reducing pubic hair to the bare minimum — or nothing at all — there’s a return to a more natural state.

Marilyn Monroe’s maid claimed she once walked in on the actress naked and splayed-legged, bottle and toothbrush in hand, meticulously bleaching the hair between her legs a perfectly matching platinum. When Monroe danced onto a breezy New York City subway grate in that billowing ivory dress in “The Seven Year Itch,” she layered two pairs of underwear to ensure that her bountiful crop was obscured from gawkers’ sightlines. And when the studio photographer snapped on-set publicity shots of the scene, they were meticulously airbrushed to smooth out the unmistakable texture visible beneath her pleated skirt.

For women of Monroe’s generation, pubic hair was a game of peekaboo — on full display in the privacy of the bungalow, but carefully hidden from popular view. In recent years, the bombshell bush has essentially disappeared. Wax-wielding estheticians and permanent lasers have whittled it down or erased it entirely. Pornography has served up a new degree of bareness. When the paparazzi shoot pantyless pop stars exiting limousines, their cameras zoom in on a barren landscape.

It wasn’t always this way. For centuries of artistic tradition, the absence of pubic hair was merely an illusion. Renaissance artists depicted the female pelvis in smoothed stone or oil-painted shadow. Although a few artists made bids for erotic realism — notably Gustave Courbet in 1866 with the furry black patch in his painting “L’Origine du Monde”— the taboo persisted. The story goes that the 19th-century art critic John Ruskin was so shocked by the discrepancy between the renderings he’d studied and his wife’s naked body that he annulled the marriage. “Though her face was beautiful,” he wrote, “there were certain circumstances in her person” that left him unable to proceed. When the photographer Alfred Stieglitz exhibited 45 portraits, several of them nudes, of his muse Georgia O’Keeffe in 1921, they caused a sensation.

The explosion of the bikini on 1960s beaches changed everything, bringing with it the “bikini line,” which required a precise shave. The beauty industry graciously homed in on this new terrain, first with razors and depilatory creams, then waxes, electrolysis and lasers. Peruse popular nudes over the past decades and you can practically carbon-date the photo by the area’s dwindling dimensions. In the 1960s, the fashion designer Mary Quant got hers trimmed into a heart. Helmut Newton’s 1981 “Big Nudes” series of photographs featured towering heels and equally imposing pubic hair; by the 1990s, Playboy centerfolds had transitioned from a full growth to a teensy landing strip; by the 21st century, the “Brazilian” was established as the new standard.

Did it go too far? Today, the Helmut Newton nude makes for a more aspirational ideal than an unfortunate celebrity crotch shot. The New York waxing emporium J. Sisters displays a 1990s head shot of Gwyneth Paltrow signed, “You changed my life!!” But these days, Paltrow laughingly told Ellen DeGeneres, “I work a ’70s vibe.” Mert & Marcus photographed Daria Werbowy and Naomi Campbell with full, frank pubic hair in a 2010 Love magazine spread, and they look assertive, real, even rebellious.

Even young porn stars are “bringing the ’80s back,” says Nina Hartley, a doyenne of the scene. Stoya, one of the highest-profile porn actresses of the moment, has also posed for the fashion photographer Steven Klein with grown-out pelvis and armpits. “I’ve had all sorts of pubic hair,” she says. “I’ve been completely bald, I’ve had my entire natural bush grown out, and I usually have an arrangement somewhere in between.” It’s worth noting that this look isn’t completely untamed, of course. Many women still attend to the sides and underneath. But there’s something refreshingly retro, delightfully expressive and confidently grown-up in getting back to nature. And Courbet’s “L’Origine du Monde”? It now resides at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where — judging by the sale of postcards — it is one of the most popular paintings of all.

Here's the original link to the full article.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Women Watching Porn

Porn doesn't turn on women? Not all women, to be sure. But I count myself as one.

The old saying is that their are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I don't give much stock to the stats reported online, since usually they are either originated by a blog or online magazine with a non-statistical sample size (like one survey I read with a 300 person sample, pulled from the Facebook of a British adult toy and lingerie company). Or are just re-reported stats with no fact checking, like a post published on Fox news that had been republished from the Sun, which originally came from who-knows-where.

Also, the top hits I got on my search weren't exactly current. Seems this was a hot topic in 2010, and circulated. Why then? Who knows. But digging back over the past decade is an interesting way to try to get a larger sense of a social trend. 

A 2001 study of 506 undergraduate students found that 35% of women had accessed "sexually explicit materials" on the internet "at least once." In 2006 another study of 563 college students found that 62% female respondents had seen online pornography before coming to college. Who knows if that's from the same college, or even colleges in the same country. But if we can generalize enough and assume perhaps the two samples of approximately 500 students are from similar enough colleges, the face value of the numbers suggest that twice as many female college students had seen online porn in 2006 than in 2001. I'd say this has to be somewhat true, since it's probably equally true that twice as many students were online in 2006 than in 2001.

Speaking from personal experience, I was at college in 2001, and we were on dial-up modems, and most of us were still using the college computer labs. (This was a state school, a Pac 10, and therefore what one might consider an "average" American student body.) In 5 short years, laptops were common and people got online via wi-fi. We're talking about the years from chat-rooms to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook. As such, the amount of porn online, and the ability to download it, or upload it changed radically from the start of the milleium through its first decade.

A report in 2007 claimed that 17 million women watched porn on a monthly basis. I don't know if that's 17 million American women, or exactly who the sample population was, so who knows what percentage that represents of whom. I guess the point is that 17 million women is a lot of women looking at smut.

The survey reported in the Sun in 2010 stated that out of 4,200 women surveyed, 76% said that porn was part of their sex lives. A more recent article, just a year old, sited the Nielsen report that said one in three adults browsing adult porn sites are women. So there you have it: if you have three women, at least one, quite likely two, and just possibly all three have spent a little time looking at sexy stuff online.

The reports usually also note that its more likely that younger women (ie Millennials) are looking at online porn than older women. But that should be no surprise. I'm sure you'd also see that reflecting in which age group of women accesses and uses the internet the most. (I think my Mom literally still has an AOL account, and my grandmother adamantly refuses to own a computer.)

What is most encouraging to me is the current trends of DIY porn. The 2010 survey from the British toy/lingerie company reported that 40% of the women polled had made their own porn. As I mentioned, they only had a survey size of 300. But the good news is that in the group, at least 120 women had made their own porn. Think about that the next time you are in a public space, like having dinner in a restaurant.

One thing is most certainly true: the numbers are under, rather than over, reported. Let's be honest: not everyone is willing to share every intimate detail of their sexual lives with researchers. A lot of people skip over polls. Maybe people looking at porn would rather look at porn than take a survey about it. I'm no statistician, but let's just say that I'm a woman who loves porn, and no one has ever asked me in a poll, so I am one of the uncounted.

What can we take away from this? Lies, damn lies and statistics? Can we infer anything concrete from the numbers, or just that the numbers seem to follow what we'd expect anyway: over the last 10 years, more women are online looking at things; more often than not, those women are younger women; and at least two out of three woman are taking a moment to check out sexual content. Possible two out of three. And the third is my grandma.

I guess that isn't exactly shocking news. But what I hope comes from this is that as more and more people (men and women) are able to access the wide world of online porn, people will be able to see the variety of human sexuality, and in the viewing of such diversity, come to realize that: a) sex is fundamental to the human experience; b) everyone is different and so no one is "normal" and conversely, the thing you are into that you thought so "abnormal," you realize is shared by hundreds, maybe thousands, or maybe even millions of others; c) my personal favorite--if you don't see anything that reflects you and your experience, you can simply make your own.

Lea, Reading, Relaxing

Hey, did you enjoy the topless photo of the lovely Lea Seydoux I posted yesterday? I bet you did!

So here's another, Dear Readers.

Blog Work

It's tough work, but someone's got to do it. Making the wold a little sexier, one post at a time.

Couple things you might not know. I have been doing this blog since 2006, posting nearly everyday. I do have a "real job" and this blog is just for fun. I make absolutely no income from it. I do it as a sexual outlet, because I love writing and photography. 

I know I have a few dedicated Dear Readers, but the vast majority remain silent lurkers or webots. Hard to say.

Anyway, I hope I am making someone happy. At the least, I am.

Reading and Relaxing

Two of my very favorite things to do.

Self-shot by Daily Fur

All American Girl Next Door

Who is America?

This girl. She's 20, attending the University of Michigan, and "living in the middle of nowhere." She likes her pets, likes camping with friend, goofing off, and studying. She likes to read, has a fascination with Japanese culture. Likes bunnies, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, listening to Kanye. has had her heart broken. She's adorably cute, smart and funny.

Who is America?

This girl.

My Own Naughty Book

I love, love, love books of erotic photos. There's something more tactile, more satisfy about them than online porn. And I don't say that lightly, since I'm an erotica blogger. But I simply can't say enough of how much I love the feel of a sexy book. 

It's amazing to me how easy it is to publish one's own book, using sites like Blurb.com. In fact, I'm working on one now. This book below is not it, but it certainly has inspired me to make one similar.

If you've made your own sexy book, please send me the link. I'd be happy to check it out, and share some photos with our Dear Readers.

Library Reading

Reading Nude on the Beach

I absolutely love taking a book to the beach. There is nothing more relaxing than reading on the beach, in the buff.

Reading Au Natural

I spend so much time reading (nude) in the house. 

If you do, too, send us a snapshot.

Shared Reading

They made a good couple, always enjoying the sharing of literature and new ideas.

Couple Shares Porn

I wonder what they are sharing. Watching a video for fun? Or, as I'd like to think, logging onto their personal blog and reading their viewers comments and questions...

Wife With Magazine

Inspired

Art imitates life; wife imitates art.