Wednesday, April 30, 2008

One-Hundred-Eighty-Seven

Inside out...

Do I make you dream?

Do I make you wet?

Do I make you shiver?

Good for you...

It’s this blog existance meaning...

Enjoy this inside out sexual flash moments...

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( from Sharing Sexual Flash Moments )

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Sunday, March 23, 2008

One-Hundred-Eighty-One

YOU’RE MY EVERYTHING...

Do you remember when was the first time...

I got you in my camera?

How sexy was the pictures sequence?

Do you remember...

How erotic they still are today?

You really were something that day...

You are my everything...

Today...

* * * * *

( from Sharing Sexual Flash Moments )

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

One-Hundred-Eighty

Delirium tremendus...

She got the courage of execute her sexual fantasy...

She dreamed about making sex with two guys...

At the same time...

And getting possessed by them…

At the same time...

She did it last night, with nearly forty years old, at last…

It was the case to say:

DELIRIUM TREMENDUS!...

* * * * *

( from Sharing Sexual Flash Moments )

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Monday, January 21, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Five

Pay for Play: Did the Romans issue sexually depictive tokens for use in foreign brothels?
from Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope

Dear Cecil:

In a Discovery Channel program I saw about the history of sex, there was a brief discussion of “Roman brothel tokens,” coins showing images of various sexual acts. Lustful Roman soldiers in far-flung corners of the empire apparently used them to overcome the problem of expressing their specific desires in the local dialect. This all sounded very interesting if true, but what’s the straight dope? — hoarj

Cecil replies:

The use of tokens or other counters in various sex-for-pay setups — as advertising to prospective johns, to keep track of how many had been served and by whom, to keep cash out of the workers’ hands, etc — wasn’t uncommon in the past; examples abound from the American frontier, Boer War-era South Africa, and turn-of-the-century Manhattan. In 1919 Upton Sinclair described learning in his youth of a system under which a brothel patron would pay a cashier up front and receive a so-called “brass check,” a token he could subsequently redeem for a sex worker’s services.

So if something similar was going on in ancient Rome involving the racy coins known as spintriae, it wouldn’t be much of a shocker. After all, the Romans, who were nothing if not well organized, enjoy a richly deserved rep for ingenuity in logistics-oriented fields including architecture, engineering, and military strategy; it makes sense to suppose they could have devised a token system to streamline the economics of prostitution, had anyone seen the need. It’s not clear, though, that this was the case.

Somewhat smaller than a quarter and struck from brass or bronze, a spintria typically depicts an X-rated scene on one face and a Roman numeral from I to XVI on the other. (In coin-collecting lingo, the side with the image would usually be designated the obverse, or front side, but in this case, depending on the activity depicted — well, you see where I’m going.) They’re thought to have been minted somewhere between the years 22 and 37, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, about whom more later.

Typical rates for prostitutes at the time were somewhere in the range of two to ten asses (giggle if you must, but yes, the basic unit of Roman currency was called the as), which lines up fairly well with the 1-to-16 range imprinted on the coins. Throw in the fact that the hanky-panky is shown taking place in a luxe setting possibly suggestive of a high-rent cathouse, and you can understand why many have guessed that spintriae were in fact standardized sex tokens, with the number on the back naming the fee for the act shown on the front. Offered in support of this conclusion is a study by a Warsaw professor who surveyed modern-day prostitutes (ah, academia) and found that their higher- and lower-priced services corresponded to acts pictured on the higher- and lower-numbered tokens respectively.

Not so fast, say other researchers — for one, Geoffrey Fishburn of the University of New South Wales, whose 2007 paper “Is That a Spintria in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Pleased to See Me?” is well worth perusal by anyone interested in the topic. Such skeptics note that (1) the same sex act sometimes appears on coins bearing different numbers, which hurts the number-equals-price theory; (2) unambiguous references to such tokens are strangely absent from Roman writings (the purported examples that do get cited are notably iffy); (3) identical scenes show up in Pompeiian murals, suggesting these may have been commonly depicted artistic themes; (4) spintriae have been found in excavated bathhouses but never (points out Anise Strong of Northwestern U.) in the ruins of actual brothels; (5) the correlation between modern prostitutes’ rates and the tokens’ numbering system isn’t as neat as the Polish study would have it; and so forth.

We’ll likely never know for sure, but if spintriae weren’t a foolproof means for a Roman soldier to place his bordello order, what were they? Possibilities include gambling chips or markers, or claim-check tokens from bathhouse locker rooms. They could also just have been some kind of risque novelty item — the 30 AD equivalent of a ballpoint pen sporting the image of a bathing beauty in a disappearing bikini.

Whatever the intent behind their manufacture, spintriae apparently became objects of political humor. Tiberius was famously rumored to be into the kinky stuff (in citations provided by the OED, the adjective spintrian, basically meaning “anything but vanilla,” comes up several times in conjunction with his name), and since official coins bore his likeness, the idea of alternate, sexually explicit versions may have struck some as a joke at Tiberius’s expense — a sort of ribald editorial cartoon in brass. Which seems plausible enough: at this point, if you happened upon a fake 20 with a truly raunchy scene where the White House should be, tell me you wouldn’t at least for a moment think, yup, that’s what the administration’s been doing nonstop for seven years now.

—CECIL ADAMS

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Sixty-Four

Infidelity: Desperately seeking someone
by Angela Levin, the London Telegraph (Jan 2008), Part 1

In the digital age, having an affair has never been easier. Author Angela Levin spent five months interviewing middle-class professionals for an extensive study that charts the rise of the no-strings-attached* relationship. In the first of a three-part investigation, she reveals why the UK is in the grip of an infidelity epidemic.

‘Been left parked in the garage of marriage too long, battery getting flat and needs somebody to give it a spark of life, full tank and ready to go.


Clincher: many unfaithful men blame their wives

“Present owner does not like going for a ride any more but am not up for sale. Seeking discreet lady mechanic, preferably married, to enjoy some NSA run-outs together.”

This advert was posted by John, a 44-year-old married IT manager on a popular dating website favoured by men like him who want no-strings-attached (NSA) relationships.

“I try to make my adverts witty because I don’t want sex with someone who doesn’t have a sense of humour,” the father-of-two explained. “At the same time, I want whoever she is to know from the start that if she is after a relationship, she can forget it.

“I have no intention of leaving my wife. I realise it sounds funny to say I care about her, but I do. I am just a bit bored.”

Quite how many married men and a smaller, but increasing, number of women are risking their emotional and physical health in this way is difficult to know, as few people ever tell the truth about their sex lives. However, a survey last week claimed that more than half of married people admit they are not completely happy in their relationship, and that 59 per cent of wives would leave their marriage if they could afford to do so. Seemingly trapped by their unhappy domestic situation, eight out of 10 couples will, at some time, be unfaithful to each other.

Of course, men have sought mistresses since time began. The difference is that we now seem to be in the middle of an infidelity epidemic. The dilemma seems less about whether to have an affair and more about finding the most convenient way of doing so. As a result, no-strings-attached relationships have become something of a cultural phenomenon.

In spite of a recent survey revealing that 70 per cent of married women and 54 per cent of married men don’t know about the extra-marital affairs of their spouses, infidelity remains the most common reason for divorce - a situation that is currently affecting 40 per cent of all UK marriages.

But is it realistic in this day and age to expect decades of fidelity? And should society come to a new accommodation of marriage and long-term relationships? “An awful lot of both men and women commit adultery but don’t want their marriage to end,” says James Stewart, a divorce lawyer at leading London solicitors Manches. “They can be quite shocked when their spouse considers it a deal-breaker.”

There are many reasons why more people than ever are having extra-marital affairs. We are all healthier and living longer, which means marriages can last decades more than they used to and there is an increasing chance of people growing apart or getting bored of each other. We also live in a me-generation, and fewer of us are prepared to compromise on the kind of life we want. Women today are more financially and psychologically independent than ever before, and more sexually active. They are far less likely to stick with a marriage if they are unhappy than ever before in history.

Viagra and other drugs help men stay sexually active for longer, while women have access to HRT, Botox and cosmetic surgery to keep themselves looking good. And - thanks to modern methods of communication, such as email, mobiles and text messages - affairs are far easier to run than ever before, at least in practical, if not emotional terms.

Over a five-month period, I spoke to nearly 100 men and women - all middle-class professionals with good homes, decent jobs and, on the surface, happy families - who have had extra-marital relationships. It was a random rather than scientific study but it confirmed that there seems to be a seismic shift in people’s attitude to adultery.

What used to happen (and still does to some extent) is that an individual met someone, perhaps a colleague or their spouse’s best friend, fell for them and as a result had an affair. Nowadays it is often the other way round and almost brutally clinical. Individuals decide objectively and in advance that they want an affair and then set out to find someone suitable. It’s almost as if he or she is a commodity to be taken off a supermarket shelf. As it has never been easier to find illicit sex, the adulterous shopper is often spoiled for choice.

Type “discreet relationships” into Google and an astonishing 1,670,000 websites come up. These include marriedsecrets.com, illicitencounters.co.uk, rekonnect.com, meet2cheat.co.uk, askmen.com, philanderers.com, and the sizeable personals sections on sites such as gumtree.com and craigslist.org. They cater for people of all ages who want to advertise for sexual partners.

But a glance at the type of advert placed reveals the age old differences between the sexes. While the men are self-promoters and boast about their sexual prowess, the women tend to undersell themselves. “I am not a stunner, just average,” begins one modest female. “I have no wish to lie about my circumstances. I am at the end of a long marriage but can’t leave just yet because of the children,” writes another.

John has been advertising on two sites with some success over the last nine months. “I’m doing it because my life has become dull and predictable,” he says.

“My job’s OK. I can pay my mortgage and go on holiday. My children are doing reasonably well at school. My wife works part-time and runs the home. But I want to feel adrenaline running through my body again and only great sex can give me that. I feel really excited when I place my advert. I have opened up a separate email account so it is unlikely that anyone at work or home can discover it. I’ve had a few short-term flings and haven’t got it right yet. But it is addictive, so I shall keep trying. You don’t know who is going to be out there.”

Some older men admitted that they have advertised for a sexual playmate to relieve the boredom of early retirement. “I had a busy career but now that I am at home all the time, I find life very dull,” one 60-year-old confessed. “I want what everyone else is getting. I can always get some Viagra if I find a much younger woman. I’m still very interested but my wife lost interest in sex long ago.”

Blaming their wanderings on their wives’ sexual rejection of them is a common way for men to justify their behaviour. Richard, who runs his own marketing business, shows unwavering confidence in his sexual prowess and has successfully found several casual encounters. His advert - “Another married guy, 54, looking for NSA married fun with married woman” - is pragmatic and to the point, but hardly enticing.

He insists his unemotional affairs are saving his marriage rather than putting it at risk. Like many men he doesn’t want a divorce, partly to avoid the financial wrangling and also because he wants to stay close to his children.

“I’ve been married a long time and have a high sex drive. My wife doesn’t. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but she either gets angry, withdraws or cries and the atmosphere between us can be awful for days.

“But I don’t want to leave her. We are good friends. We have a lot in common, including our children. So having an NSA arrangement suits me fine. I love the excitement of a different body and know for certain that without it my marriage would be over by now.

“I have sex with a woman, rather like casual friends might meet for a drink. I don’t get emotionally involved. I enjoy the chase and can get very intense when I am after someone new. I send lots of flirty texts, and emails. Women are very susceptible to flattery. Most feel self-conscious about some part of their body and reassurance soon makes her mine.

“When the sex is good I feel 50 feet tall, confident and relaxed. Otherwise, I’m climbing up the wall, am bad tempered, difficult to be with and very critical of my wife. It’s as simple as that.” He believes men have been genetically programmed to stray: “Men can’t resist temptation. I get a thrill from chasing new women. I prefer older married women, because they know what they want and have fewer hang ups.”

The most likely times for a man to stray are after the first year of marriage, when the emotional high of finding the right partner subsides; after his first child is born, when he suddenly sees his partner as a mother figure rather than a lover; after between five and seven years of togetherness, when he’s bored, doesn’t want to settle into a cosy routine and yearns for excitement; and then at intermittent intervals.

Tony, 53, believes he could never be faithful, whoever he married and in whichever century he had been born. “If I wasn’t involved in NSA relationships I might have had more complicated affairs or even used prostitutes. Most prostitutes today are drug addicts whereas most of the women I’ve been with have been quite respectable.

“I like the fact that I don’t get involved in talking about mundane stuff like problems with the washing machine or little Billy’s latest upset at school. I get those passion-killers at home. Instead, I wipe out everything that is going on in my life for a couple of hours.

“I’ve met some attractive women who are fed up with their husbands because they have gone to seed and lost interest in sex. All they have to do is understand the deal.

I am straightforward about it, always use contraception, and if they show signs of getting involved I move on.”

All the men I spoke to were careful to take precautions and tried to ensure their wives didn’t find out what they were up to. But they all persisted in the belief that if she did catch them out, she shouldn’t take their behaviour seriously. “Although in some people’s book what I am doing is immoral,” said John, “I think it’s pretty harmless. No man wants to swap a meaningless relationship for a marriage. Particularly if it’s lasted a long time and you are good friends.”

It is perhaps the only saving grace of an NSA relationship. If there is a scale of adultery, NSA liaisons surely come nearer the bottom than the top. They are essentially top-ups, a desire for variety and sexual thrill and not intended to break up an established relationship. “It’s a bit like not wanting the same sauce on your pasta every single mealtime,” one man told me.

An alternative, that simplifies the process for both sexes and saves time, is offered by David Miller, a self-styled businessman turned adulterers’ guru. David, 53, runs lovinglinks.com, a London-based internet dating site that has 23,000 members all, in theory at least, married men and women who want to stray. He also runs “a bespoke one-to-one service” for a select few, where women pay £350 and men £1,500 every eight weeks for his services. ("Men pay more,” he explains, “because the type of men I deal with are usually high earners. It also helps ensure they are respectable.")

David, who is twice divorced and now “extremely happy and faithful” in a long-term relationship, likes to think of himself as a cross between a service provider and a social worker. “I am not in the sex industry,” he insists. “I am just a realist. People have these situations and want to deal with them elegantly.”

He used to produce TV commercials but 13 years ago decided he wanted a change. “I toyed with the idea of opening a specialist dating agency but realised married people don’t really want to get involved with singles. So I ran an ad in a Sunday newspaper with a PO box number that read, ‘Attached? Married? Bored?’. I was inundated and it went on from there.”

He meets each applicant personally and over a drink or two finds out his or her needs and desires. He then provides three carefully chosen individuals at a time for them to chose from.

His clients are wide-ranging. “I have all sorts of high-ranking professionals come to me and, recently, far more women. Many of my female clients are psychotherapists. I haven’t a clue why.

“All the women tell me they feel safer if I vet men for them before they meet - while the men are often so busy they rely on me to find them someone discreet and personable. I’ve even had a woman bring her son-in-law to meet me. She could see that there were things going wrong in [her daughter’s] marriage and thought a discreet affair might prevent a break-up.

“Nor are most of my clients only interested in the sex aspect. They also want to be able to talk intelligently with whoever they are with and even go out to dinner. They don’t want something dirty, nasty or sleazy. They want fun and quality in their life and I try to find it for them. I am a romantic and I want people to be happy.”

Isn’t their happiness at the expense of their married partner? “People can get hurt,” he agrees, “but they can get hurt anyway, and sometimes these type of relationships, if they are handled discreetly, are the Band-Aid a long-term marriage needs.

“Women have usually thought about it very carefully often for years before they approach me, and by the time they do they have already bought a separate mobile and set up an email account - whereas most of the men haven’t even thought about how they will manage it. Women also can handle a portfolio of relationships, men can usually only handle one. And not just because they are so busy.”

His liaisons are not for the emotionally vulnerable or faint-hearted and should come with a health warning. “Once people get involved in the type of situation I provide, it’s hard for them to stop,” he says. “They are the crack cocaine of relationships. People get addicted to the buzz and adrenaline rush of new encounters.”

Anyone who seeks a casual fling needs to have a cast-iron emotional constitution.

Re-assurance or tenderness isn’t part of the deal. It’s a take it or leave it situation, although it’s not always expressed in such basic terms. He, and particularly she, also needs to understand the difference between lust and love and try to protect their heart as well as their health - and that of their spouse. The health risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are well-known, but the risk of psychological damage, particularly for the vulnerable and needy, can be underestimated.

Note: Names and some personal details have been changed

TOMORROW
Why more women are turning to NSA relationships

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Number One-Hundred-Fifty-Eight

Clit Capsule
from WomynsWare, one of Vancouver’s Finest

To paraphrase the Bionic Man (okay, our age is showing!) and with a grateful nod to the original narrative: ... Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic silicone dual vibe. Clit Capsule will be that toy. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Sometimes it’s a challenge to classify a toy that’s multi-functional. Consider Clit Capusle ... it’s certainly good as a dual vibe (penetration and clit stimulation) and special use dill on its own but it’s just as functional when used with a partner. The vibe cavity fits two fingers nicely! Consider two fingers in the enclave and the thumb on the clitoral pad and the manual manipulation possible when used thusly ! What an adventure for both the master of the toy and the receptor!

On the heels of seven years of invaluable customer feedback we recently had the opportunity to improve on all our silicone exclusive designs. Its predecessor was the pioneer silicone dual vibe, Clit Capsule takes the concept further by enhancing the pad with capsules. Besides caressing the clitoris, the clitoral pad now includes a great deal of movement from the newly engineered capsules. Envision a sea anemone swaying in the ocean current and you’ll get an idea of what the clitoris will feel.

Made of silicone, when you manipulate the shaft, the lanes of vibrating capsules run along the clit. We’ve maintained the curve for G-spot pressure, textured shaft for drag on the vaginal walls, and head for even more potential contact points. These features provide excellent vaginal stimulation to couple with what is going on at the pad. Thus, a dual silicone vibe (vibe is easily removed for clean up and replaceable over the long term) that can be used for many years. Womyns’Ware Exclusive Warranty.  Surface area of the clit pad is 1 3/8” x 1 3/4”.  Available with or without vibe. Vibe requires two AA batteries. Variable speed.

Colour Choice: Womyns’Ware cobalt purple only

Dimensions: 3 1/4” x 1 3/8”

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Friday, December 07, 2007

Number One-Hundred-Fifty-Four

NobEssence
Sculptural Sensuality

Wood’s Your Pleasure?
NobEssence: Exotic Hardwood Made Erotic
by Simone Wright, Good Vibrations Magazine (August 2007)

There’s something about wood—the smooth surface, the beautiful grain, the beauty only found in nature….

Tryst

When our Senior Toy Buyer came across the NobEssence line, she was immediately struck by both the design and functionality of the stunning wood toys. The product line is diverse, with something for everyone: Tryst is a double-ended toy, perfect for both anal play and G-spot stimulation, Fling is a G-spot specialty with a handy handle, Romp is a wearable prostate toy, and the Rendezvous Rings are a great alternative to metal or rubber cock rings.

All of the NobEssence toys are made of exotic hardwood and feature an odorless, non-porous and hypo-allergenic coating, making them perfect for folks with sensitivities.

I recently sat down (via the internet) with Alicia Yoder, President/CEO of NobEssence, Inc. for this exclusive interview:

How and why did NobEssence come about?

I would like to give you some deeply intellectual story full of lofty ideals, but I am afraid to say that it was mostly to do with the fact that I could not find a toy that I was satisfied with.

With delightful frequency and the enthusiasm of an eager puppy with a morning newspaper, my husband Jason would present me with a new toy – each one guaranteed to please. Unfortunately for him I must be a close relative of Goldie Locks, as everything I tried was too soft, too cold, bumps in the wrong place, pulled my hairs, absorbed the lube, was ugly or smelled bad.

Fling

I was pregnant with our fifth child and it was evident that Jason was looking for his pregnancy project. You see, it is common that while a woman is growing a baby, her partner has to use up surplus energy in some manner. This often manifests as decorating the nursery or remodeling a bathroom. When you get to your fifth child and only have one bathroom and no nursery, one has to start getting creative. So, I gave him his task, “we can not find the perfect toy, so make me the perfect toy.” My criterion; firm, smooth, beautiful, with just the right amount of essence of nob (British Slang for Penis)”. I was informed that while he was quite resourceful, he was pretty sure that glassblowing, masonry or steel forging were not going be happening in our garage. Jason however did know wood. Raised in a rural wood-based community he had made furniture, tree houses and some driftwood carving, and was now happy to be able have an outlet for his wood working skills.

As the baby grew, so did the realization that our project was so successful that it had to be shared. After a year and half, we are delighted by the positive response that we are receiving to the NobEssence brand.

NobEssence designs are ergonomic….

Ergonomics is very significant to our designs because as we were developing the sculptures so was my pregnant belly. Thus the “Tryst” was born. Finally, I could comfortably hit the right spots without requiring Yoga warm-ups.

I did not want to have to explain to my prenatal group that my repetitive strain injuries were due to my extensive use of sex toys – even if it was in the name of research. So we enrolled numerous friends and acquaintances to trial our designs. We were blessed with a really wide range of testers from the insightful San Francisco Bay Area Sexologist Danielle Harel who kindly featured an adventurous version of the Tryst in her quarterly podcast, to individuals who had never used a toy before. Each one has their part in our development process and we thank them all.

Romp

No one has a straight vagina or anus - we know, because we researched real anatomy – external and internal. The “Romp’s” design was derived from real impression casts of inside of some of our more intrepid tester’s bottoms. It is so comfortable that it can be worn for extended periods.

Layered through all of this is Jason’s undeniable artistic gift. It truly amazes me how he can select a piece of wood and instinctively know how to carve it to release its beauty.

Why wood?

Wood has long been associated with luxury and quality. A truly natural material, the whorls, knots, holes, and spectacular grain patterns are to wood as inclusions are to diamonds. We carefully choose all of our exotic hardwoods for their color, shape, texture and grain, so every single toy we make has a different character.

There is great versatility in wood. With access to the world’s diverse woods, we are able to greatly vary texture, color, pattern and weight. Rosewoods and ironwoods sink in water and are great for bottom sculptures and leopardwood has a uniquely bumpy texture. And because wood is a natural insulator, it stays at room temperature and soon warms with your heat and stays warm for a while if set aside briefly. It won’t be the temperature with NobEssence sculptures that makes you gasp!

The first thing people say when they hear wood in the same sentence as dildo is, “Oo! splinters!” But when handed a NobEssence “Fling” with its sensual curves and ergonomic handle, that “Oo” changes to “Mmmmm……” The wood species we use are hard and dense so they are able to be sanded to an incredible smoothness. It is lengthy part of our production process, but one that I won’t compromise. We caress each sculpture innumerable times before it is deemed smooth enough to caress you.

The other question most people ask is about wood being an absorbent material. I have really sensitive skin, have to be very careful with lubes and I am pretty fussy about what gets put in my most sensitive spots. There’s nothing worse than finding that your toy leaves you with a nasty itch. So it was a must that we found a way of finishing our products that made them waterproof and safe even for sensitive skins.

I am happy that we have achieved more than that. Our 16 step finishing process sets our sculptures apart from your standard toy. Not only will our sculptures not soak up your lubrication, but they are scent-free, hypoallergenic, non-porous and bacteria resistant. The slightest spot of lubrication makes them slick and slippery – compatible with all known lubricants – a little goes a long way.

Are all your pieces hand-crafted?

Yes they are. I love the fact that we can provide heirloom quality sculptures at a reasonable price and you can invest knowing that no one will ever have a toy exactly like yours.

Each sculpture is hewn from solid planks, hand-sculpted and finished with great care. As demand for our sculptures is growing we have sought out and trained additional craftspeople to assist us. We have very high standards and have found few artisans who are detail-focused enough to be able to meet our narrow tolerances for sculpture quality.

Rendezvous Rings

Unlike plastic, glass, stone and steel, wood is a living material and the only one that continues to develop its own shape and color over time. While this occurs in all of our wood sculptures to some degree, it is particularly pleasingly to observe in our “Rendezvous Rings.” Each ring is perfectly round until seasoned over a period of 2-3 months whereupon it settles into a slightly ovoid shape that delivers long-lasting visual and physical excitement.

While the artistic and organic nature of our products may imply that size and shape does not matter, we personally examine and caliper test every piece to ensure consistent results to within 1/8″ to ¼” of the original reference design.

Are there any special care instructions….?

Our exclusive waterproof finish means you can spend more time enjoying your toy and less time worrying about how to care for and sterilize it. Between uses or between partners you can wash it with warm water and non-abrasive soap, or wipe down with your favorite toy cleaner and finish by wiping down with a soft cloth. You can leave your sculpture out in the open or store it in its premium velvet-lined storage box. Though wood is very durable material, it can be damaged if dropped or impacted against other hard surfaces. If this happens, I recommend a close inspection before re-use.

Not all wood products are alike. Each NobEssence sculpture bears our unique “n” shaped mark meaning that you can trust that it has our hypoallergenic waterproof finish. I am not aware of any other wooden toys that can be cleaned to the same standard of hygiene.

Good Vibrations used to carry wood products years ago…

One of the reasons we have chosen to partner with Good Vibrations is their commitment to selling safe, quality products and educating consumers so that they may avoid materials that may harm their bodies or environment.

The fact that we use woods selected from our own estates or harvested from responsibly managed woodlands (replanting, selective cutting, etc.) is not our only story.

We understand ourselves to be stewards of our environment and therefore practice sustainable business practices that consider the entire lifecycle of our products and the materials we use in our business operations. This encompasses everything from the planting of exotic species for future generations, premium packaging made from renewable wood and paper, paperless office management, and the collection and composting of waste wood and sawdust.

As wood is a naturally occurring raw material, our products require very little energy to create. Oh! And did I mention that they are Phthalate free? No nasty chemicals or petroleum derivatives here!

What can we expect from you in the future?

*Smiles* Why, ‘vibes’ of course. We have developed a way to add buzz to our sculptures and are currently refining those designs. Early 2008 will also see the introduction of some remarkable new shapes and textures as we are very excited to have access to newer organic materials.

While some of our products are already dishwasher-safe, we are refining our finishing process so that we can confidently recommend this method of cleaning for all NobEssence sculptures.

Flogger

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Number One-Hundred-Forty-Eight

Private collections by Cotton Club (designed by R. Crescentini)
(with a h/t to the Lingerie Blog by Petite Coquette in the UK (in “Muses” on the left side))

You can also view their collections at Cazar.

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number One-Hundred-Forty-Seven

Mata Hari: The spy who came in from the cold
Ninety years after her execution for espionage, Mata Hari remains a byword for female treachery. Here, the director Martha Fiennes explains why she is now making a film, starring Dita Von Teese, which casts this notorious seductress in a very different light
Martha Fiennes was talking to Peter Stanford, London Guardian (November 2007)

Mata Hari is a name everybody recognises but nobody seems to know anything about. You could argue that she is the ultimate fallen woman. What interests me about her is that she created her own identity and branding. Her story is all about fantasy – conceiving an idea and then selling herself brilliantly on it – in short, an advertiser’s dream. Mata Hari is all the more fascinating when all the things that have been projected on to her since her death are considered. It is a phenomenon that has been shared by a myriad other “fallen women” through history, from Mary Magdalene to Pope Joan to Princess Diana.

It is perhaps appropriate to start by giving a few facts about Mata Hari’s life. Her real name was Marguerite Zelle and she was born in the Netherlands in August 1876. Her father was a bankrupt hat-seller. At 18 she married a Dutch naval officer, Rudolf MacLeod, and moved with him to Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies, later Indonesia, where she had two children. The first, Norman, died as a child, possibly, it is said, as a result of poisoning. This is alleged to have been an act of revenge, carried out by a maid who poisoned the child’s rice as a response to Rudolf’s extreme brutality in this colonial outpost to a young Javanese soldier. In this telling of Mata Hari’s story, then, men were destroying her life – in this case as a mother – from the start.

MacLeod was certainly a drunk and abused his wife. Their marriage lasted less than a decade and ended up in divorce, with their daughter, Non, placed in the custody of her father. He refused to allow his ex-wife any contact with her, though she continued trying to get letters to her ever after.

Marguerite emerged from the divorce “fallen” from bourgeois respectability with few options open to her. She used her natural and precocious sexual sense to reinvent herself completely – a kind of Madonna of her day. A divorcee at that time was regarded as damaged goods, so while her solution may sound extreme, it is also understandable.

She headed for Paris, where she worked initially in a circus as Lady MacLeod, but in 1905 started performing as an exotic dancer and calling herself Mata Hari, a name taken from the Indonesian and Malay words meaning literally “Dawn of the Day”. She performed almost nude on some of the best stages in Europe, veiling herself and her body in elaborate layers of fantasy. She was, she would tell audiences, a princess from Java of priestly Indian birth, who had been initiated into sacred dancing as a child. Her act took on both an erotic and a quasi-religious dimension.

She had what we would today call a high skill set, both on stage and with men. She spoke seven European languages and was a courtesan with many lovers, including high-ranking military officers, who funded what became a lavish lifestyle. In the fin-de-siècle world of pre-1914 Paris, she was a celebrated figure.

The script I am writing about Mata Hari’s life and myth is based on what I feel is the best (of many) biographies of her, by the British-based Canadian writer, Julie Wheelwright. Hers is a perceptive and insightful take that identifies the extraordinary and sometimes damaging mythologising of powerful women who capture the public’s imagination. In her book, Wheelwright quotes the historian AL Rowse. “There is a wide-ranging association,” he wrote, “of war with sexuality, complex, intricate, intimate and at every level.”

So, in Mata Hari’s case, what had been acceptable before the First World War became something other once the conflict began. Her lifestyle, her independence, her ability to travel alone, the essential selfishness of what she did, all became suspect. At her subsequent trial, one of the chief prosecutors, Lieutenant Mornet, labelled her typical of the sort of “international woman [who] has become so dangerous since the hostilities began [because of] the ease with which she expresses herself in several languages, especially French, her numerous relations, her subtle ways, her aplomb, her remarkable integrity, and her immorality, congenital or acquired”.

In effect, the men who had enjoyed Mata Hari’s skills mostly turned against her once war broke out, and unleashed a brutal misogyny as they sought to condemn her. A prison doctor who looked after her during her trial described her as “a being without physical charm, something of a savage, it was certainly through hard work before her mirror, and by strength of will, that this woman had succeeded in cultivating beauty, by putting her body in the most pleasing attitude”. ‘

One lover had been the French Defence Minister at the outbreak of war. He would have worried that she knew things about him that could be valuable to the enemy. Mata Hari was to find to her cost that if you sleep with men across Europe in peacetime, once a war begins, your position becomes extremely precarious. Contrast her with the women whom the leaders of wartime Europe valued and she can be seen as a victim of the sexual politics of the era. Women during a war were required to embody chastity, patriotism, to be essentially passive and self-sacrificing. She was none of these.

In such an exposed position, it was understandable that when she was approached by French intelligence agents, who wanted her to exploit her contacts with military officers of all nationalities to uncover secrets, she agreed. So, she became a spy, but a curiously naive one. It was as if it was another game for her. In that sense there is something almost comic about it. But it quickly turned to tragedy.

When she came back to the French authorities with information she had extracted from a contact in Madrid who had links to the Germans, their fundamental doubts about her only increased. She had made it seem almost too easy. They accused her of being a double agent. Mata Hari was arrested in February 1917, tried and found guilty of spying for Germany and therefore of causing the deaths of 50,000 young Frenchmen in the trenches. The evidence against her was slight. One witness sought to condemn her on the basis that she was a femme forte – a strong woman. She was executed in Vincennes on 15 October 1917.

Even her death is surrounded by myth. There are various stories – that she blew a kiss to the firing squad, that she wore a fur coat, that she opened it at the last minute to flash her naked body in an effort to make the riflemen miss – but I find the reality much more moving. The image I have of her is of someone without food in a damp, rat-infested cell, so different from her boudoir as a courtesan, awaiting her execution, abandoned by Vadime de Masloff, her young Russian lover and the love of her life. No one came afterwards to claim her body.

My script does not attempt to put her on a pedestal. She was not your typical heroine. She was a contradictory and sometimes unlikeable character. She also got caught up in something bigger than herself. She was hopelessly ill-equipped and even arrogant when it came to getting involved in espionage for the French. Yet she went about it all so very grandly – which I secretly admire her for.

I want to reflect on the sheer shoddiness of her trial. In many ways it was just as much of a charade as her performances. She was packed off to her death because France needed someone to blame for its woes on the battlefield. It had to be seen to cut out the cancer of its losses. It needed a head to hold up, a witch to burn. Her death came at a very particular moment in the course of the conflict. It can be argued that a month or so before, or a month or so later, Mata Hari would never have been sentenced to death, but France itself at that instant was in crisis, and she was an easy scapegoat. I find myself reminded of the phrase that the only good woman is a dead woman.

There is, though, a huge attraction in the visualisation of feminine seductiveness and beauty and my film will not pull its punches in this respect. “I see things big,” Mata Hari once said. I want to honour her on this – with the help of Dita Von Teese, who will play Mata Hari. I was writing a synopsis of the script, early on in the project, and found myself saying of Mara Hari that she was “the Dita Von Teese of her day”. In that moment it seemed so logical to cast her.

Dita is usually described as a burlesque artist, but what she does is strip. Mata Hari used to say that “stripping is my art form” and she made it one – a show, a performance, an escape route even. There is certainly an art to taking your clothes off in front of an audience, and Mata Hari did it very well. As does Dita now.

The other fascinating element in Mata Hari’s story for me is why it has endured for so long. Why do we all know her name? In part it is because of the demonisation that followed her execution. There were 10 women and around 300 men executed in France for espionage during the First World War, but we remember only one name.

Mata Hari illustrates the need we have for morality tales – especially around women. Why, to take a recent example, do we care whether Princess Diana was pregnant with Dodi al-Fayed’s child? What does it matter? Yet somehow it does.

What the Mata Hari legend shows, in particular, is a courtesan getting her just desserts, men punishing someone who at the same time they want. The myth “proves” that a seductive woman who exploits sex, who exploits men, is not to be trusted. And you see that curious mixture of the allure of Mata Hari and that need for her legend in the books and films that have come at regular intervals since her death.

The first attempt to construct a story around her name came in 1921, in a silent German film. In 1931, Greta Garbo appeared as Mata Hari in a fiction based very loosely on the facts. And, in succeeding decades, a range of actresses from Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jeanne Moreau, Sylvia Kristel, Marlene Dietrich and Doris Day have played her. She was said in the Indiana Jones books to have deflowered him. And in the 1967 spoof James Bond film Casino Royale, to have fathered a child with the secret agent. All this fantasy was possible in part because the actual details were under lock and key. Without any substantiated research, the facts of the death of this sexual, sensual female icon by firing squad grew and mutated and became something it was not.

But in the 1960s, documents began to emerge that provide a very different picture and take us behind the distortions that are part of the ghastly cliché of Mata Hari to her still riveting picture. The first biographer to use these archives was a Dutchman, Sam Waagenaar, in 1964. By 2001, a French publisher had made available her entire dossier, and MI5 records about her – showing that the British could find no evidence that she was a spy – are now in the public domain.

In my film, I will attempt to put the record straight – and to uncover those deeper, darker reasons why this fallen women has remained with us for so long. *

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Number One-Hundred-Four

The Perfect Gift!
As good as sex!  Anytime!  Any place!  Any occasion! 

“Teuscher’s Famous Champagne Truffle: Starting from the middle and moving outward, this truffle has a light-colored, creamy Dom Perignon Champagne center surrounded by a dark chocolate ganache, dipped in milk chocolate and then very lightly coated with confectioner’s sugar. The ganache is creamy yet very light and airy. Not overly dense or rich as to cover the gentle taste of the Champagne. The combination of the Champagne cream and the ganache is refreshing, even palette-cleansing in a way; this is a unique attribute for a truffle, since the heavier ones can linger on your palette (for good or for bad) for quite a while.” --The Tasty Show

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Number Eighty-Six

Introduction to Champagne Pol Roger - Excellence and Independence

Established in 1849, Champagne Pol Roger remains family-owned and proudly independent to this day. The history and spirit of the company mirrors that of the family who bear the same name: a respect for nature, a devotion to quality and a certain joie de vivre.

As one of the smaller houses, Champagne Pol Roger owns 87 hectares of vineyards on prime sites in the Vallée d’Epernay and the Côte des Blancs, drawing the remainder of their supplies from individual growers, many of whom have supplied Pol Roger for generations. Its cellars, extending to 7 km, lie on three levels in the chalk below the streets of Epernay and are among the deepest and coolest cellars in the region: contributing to the slow maturation and creation of fine, persistent bubbles which are the hallmark of all Pol Roger champagnes.

The History of the Family

Foundation

Champagne Pol Roger is one of the very few remaining houses still owned and run by the founding family, who remain responsible for the winemaking and selection of the cuvées each year.

Pol Roger was born on 24th December 1831 in the village of Aÿ. He elected not to follow his father’s footsteps by entering the law, but received his support when he showed a determined interest in the wine trade. Pol set up in Aÿ as a négociant or wholesaler at the age of 17, drawing initial business from his family’s contacts and clients of his father.

The following year, 1849, saw the birth of the new champagne house as Pol Roger began to create his own cuvées (for release from 1853) rather than bring in wines solely from other houses. His sales for the first six months of operation were 3,769 bottles and 825 half-bottles. Today that has grown to around 1.5 million bottles per annum.

Establishing the brand

Historical events for Pol Roger champagnes in England began in the second half of the 19th century, which saw the rapid development of the business, in what was a golden era for champagne. In 1876 Conrad Reuss of Reuss, Lauteren & Co. of Crutched Friars, Mark Lane in the City of London was appointed as the first UK agent for Pol Roger, selling in to the top end of the hotel trade, prestigious clubs – and the following year to the Royal Household.

In 1887 Maurice Pol-Roger, the son of Pol who with his brother Georges had changed their surname by deed poll to Pol-Roger, paid his first visit to England to learn the business here, starting a close relationship between the family and this country that has been maintained ever since. By 1888 HRH The Prince of Wales and Prime Minister Gladstone were amongst those enjoying the pleasures of Pol Roger.

The second generation

On the death of Pol Roger, his two sons took over the stewardship of the company. Then in 1900 tragedy struck when the major part of the cellars in Epernay collapsed destroying 1.5 million bottles, much of it destined for England. Other champagne houses and agents rallied round to support Pol Roger and help the company maintain its export business.

In 1908 Winston Churchill, then in the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, became a customer for the first time, beginning a lifelong association with the brand.

The Royal Warrant was awarded to Pol Roger in 1911 and Pol Roger was served at the Guildhall luncheon held on George V’s Coronation Day, 30th June.

The War Years

During the First World War hostilities affected Epernay (occupied by the Germans during the month of September 1914) and champagne production and exporting, since the front line remained just over 20 miles away for most of the duration of the war. In the interwar years, sales of champagne in England only picked up slowly, but were strong again by 1923 in large part due to the outstanding quality of the 1914 vintage.

In 1934 Champagne Pol Roger opened their new celliers at 34 Avenue de Champagne, still a landmark building in the town. In the same year King George V held a reception for 800 guests on the occasion of the marriage of his son the Duke of Kent to Princess Louise, serving Pol Roger.

Germany’s invasion of France in May 1940 and aerial attacks on Epernay led to the suspension of shipments to England. Nothing was heard from the Pol-Roger family until France was liberated by the Allies in 1944.

Modern Times

The post-war years saw only a gradual restoration of exports to England as military and domestic market requirements in France restricted supply. In the 1950’s the poor harvest of 1951 and the growth of local co-operatives led to the Pol-Roger family purchasing vineyards and developing existing land to control a fully owned area of 87 hectares to produce nearly half of their grape requirements and thus assure quality and supply.

In 1955 the introduction of ‘White Foil’ Non-Vintage (now Brut Réserve NV) helped to rebuild sales in England. An agent was employed in Scotland, Dick Yorke, who became the brand’s ambassador there.

In 1966 the English agency arrangements changed, with the purchase of the Reuss business by H.P. Bulmer of cider fame.

In the 1970’s worldwide sales of champagne topped 100 million bottles for the first time, but fluctuating harvest and the oil crisis of 1974 affected sales dramatically. The beginnings of the 1980’s saw two poor vintages and very high grapes prices, and a second energy crisis. By the middle of the decade, with a high proportion of wholly-owned vineyards, sales recovered and the Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill was launched in June 1984.

Following three excellent vintages, in 1989 the opportunity came to change the company’s sales representation in Great Britain, and Bill Gunn M.W, who had been responsible for the brand at Dent & Reuss, was appointed in 1990 Managing Director of a new company, majority-owned by Pol Roger in the UK – Pol Roger Ltd, with offices in Ledbury, Herefordshire. The company progressively took on the agencies for a number of independent, family-owned businesses producing premium wines and spirits. In 1993 Pol Roger Ltd assumed the agency for Scotland from RMR Yorke & Co. Pol Roger Ltd moved to Hereford, its present location in 1998. 

Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill had a lifelong ‘attachment’ to Pol Roger champagne and insisted on enjoying the wine at the most dangerous and dark periods of wartime. He famously borrowed a slogan of Napoleon’s to describe his passion for this supremely invigorating champagne: “In defeat I need it, in victory I deserve it”.

Winston Churchill was born in 1874, the same year from which an outstanding Pol Roger vintage was created – a cuvée which was to provide the foundation for the brand’s reputation in England.

Winston became a customer of Pol Roger for the first time when a Cabinet Minister and President of the Board of Trade. He ordered a supply of the 1895 vintage.

By 1914 Pol Roger had become the champagne of people of prominence, and the 1906 vintage sealed this position, being consumed at many royal functions. Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, retained his loyalty to the brand.

During the Second World War, Churchill maintained a stock of Pol Roger always at hand, even having a case loaded onto flights into foreign war zones, as both defeats and victories ‘justified’ its consumption. (Allied troops, after the liberation of Epernay and France in 1944 had special stocks of Pol Roger labeled and reserved for their use).

In 1944, Churchill attended an informal luncheon held by the British Ambassador in Paris, Duff Cooper and his wife, where he was introduced to Odette Pol-Roger and a lifelong friendship developed. Odette was one of the renowned ‘Wallace Collection’ – the three beautiful daughters of French Major General Wallace. The coming together with Odette was described as ‘a beautiful December – May relationship, quite harmless and smiled on by Mrs Churchill, who much admired Odette – who personified the best in France’. Every year on Winston’s birthday, November 30th, Odette would send a case of Churchill’s favourite vintage while stocks lasted – the 1928.

Churchill described Odette’s home at 44, Avenue de Champagne, in Epernay as ‘the world’s most drinkable address’ but sadly was unable to complete his promise to tread the grapes with ‘my bare feet’. Instead he sent her a signed copy of his memoirs with the inscription ‘Mise en bouteille à Château Chartwell’. In 1949, he was still attached to the 1928 vintage, insisting that it be the only champagne served in his lodgings in Strasbourg for the Council of Europe meeting.

In January 1965 Churchill died. As a tribute to their most loyal client, through whose cellar it is estimated more than 500 cases of Pol Roger had passed in the last ten years of his life, a black border was added to the labels of all bottles of ‘White Foil’ sold in the United Kingdom.

Then in 1984 Pol Roger introduced the Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, the launch taking place at Blenheim Palace, his birthplace. In 2006 the Cuvée was re-released in a new livery with lively shades of marine blue and red recalling the resplendent uniform worn by Sir Winston during his tenure of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports.

The champagne reflects the rich, mature, full-bodied style of Pol Roger champagne made before the Second World War, the style that Churchill preferred. Christian Pol-Roger explains: ‘The composition is not disclosed – Winston Churchill never asked about the exact composition of our cuvées – but Pinot Noir dominates, blended with Chardonnay. The grapes are from Grand Cru vineyards under vine in Churchill’s lifetime.

In 1990 the black band of mourning on ‘White Foil’ was lightened to navy blue, recalling Winston Churchill’s ‘loyalties to the Senior Service’ as a former First Lord of the Admiralty.

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Number Eighty-Two

From the Janet Reger Collection, the Basque.

A limited edition of the Katrina basque and tanga in baby blue silk and soft pink lace, as worn by Keeley Hazell on the cover of her 2007 calendar.

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Number Eighty-One

Sexy: Quantifiable? Bogart to the Rescue
a brilliant piece by Steff, of “Smut & Steff” (and a DGT muse).

Every day, somebody somewhere sputters, “They ain’t makin’ ‘em like they usedta.” And this is true. So, there I was, watching The Maltese Falcon, thinking about what it is about Bogey that gets me hot and bothered every single goddamned time....I slowly melted as I watched Bogey; lying there on the floor, longing for a man who has that same mix of brashness and humour and sensitivity and lust and brood to step out of the shadows to a saxophone soundtrack playing behind the scenes in my life. Goddamned right they ain’t making them like they used to. They’ve never made ‘em like Bogey. It’s a fucking crime his career wasn’t longer. What makes him sexy? Scratch that. What is sexy? What is it that turns us on and keeps us revving? How do we define an idea, an intangible? For some women, it’s a guy wearing only a jock under seersucker pants. For others, it’s cracked and aged black leather paired with jeans and a wife-beater and topped with stubble (sigh). For still more, it’s that metrosexual gleam that comes from the coif and the couture. But Bogey, he had none of that. A face like a weathered horse, the man was no Errol Flynn. His voice had that gravelly vocal twang and he always had that inimitable sparkle in his eye when he grinned or leered. He oozed sexuality in a time of repression, and because he didn’t have the lustful good looks of the A-List stars, he got away with it. He was an average guy that could eyeball a woman in a way that conveyed exactly the kind of confident and daring lover you knew he’d be. You just knew he’d pin you against the wall and devour you. You knew he’d be as comfortable submitting to you as dominating you. It just showed.

There’s something about the way a man can unapologetically own a woman through his looks (or vice versa), yet offer no intimidation by ever even suggesting it’s about ownership. There’s something about expressing lust through your eyes – real, true, now-here, for-as-long-as-we-can lust. And Bogey broke the ground and set the pace for an entire legion of men who’d grow up wanting to have what he exemplified. Bogey set a new standard for sexy, something we’re still trying to figure out in this day and age of plastic surgery and air-brushing, and something we keep missing the mark of.

It’s not about the dimples, the white teeth, the hard body, the fine coif. It’s about you knowing what you want and knowing how to show it. It’s about learning how to communicate with your eyes, with your lips, with your words, with your body language. How to think something like, “I’d love to throw you down and keep you there until we’re both utterly spent and gasping in musky pools of our own sweat” and let it be read only through your eyes and the purse of your lips.

And Bogey, he had that. Throw into it the ability to adopt dozens of different smiles, the coy mannerisms of his foot shuffle, his playful body language and suggestive head tilts, the way he searched a room or his scene’s companion for changes in mood and worked with it, and that incredible focus he had in his gaze, and the guy could be 5’1 and a buck-10, and he’d still have the sex appeal of an animal. Some guys just have it, and Bogey, he did.

I’ve known a couple guys who had it, and to this day I see their faces in my mind some nights when I’m alone, or even with a man. They’re always unforgettable, those guys, but it’s that gleam in the eye you remember. Yep. There’s something about a gleam… and it’s one of the reasons leaving the lights on during sex is so fucking hot. Too many of us can’t muster that gleam outside the act itself, so leaving the lights enables you to see your lover drinking you in like that… well, mm, there’s not many images that you just want to freeze-frame forever, but that’s sure as hell one of them.

Me, I’m very conscious of how and what I emote with my eyes. There are guys who set my eyes a blazin’ and I make a point of letting that show. Those nights, I don’t even have to mention that sex is on the mind, it’s just that damned obvious. It’s not needy or desperate, it’s confident and suggestive. You don’t even have to say the words. It’s like seeing a movie with a great director pulling the strings, some things are left unsaid but are unmistakably clear in intent. It’s fucking hot, whoever’s doing it, and it’s part of what defines sexy. Knowing what you want, and being ballsy enough to show it. Or just damned well taking it (when consent is obvious).

When it comes to men, it’s a pity there aren’t more Bogeys...Or Clints. Or Newmans. Or Depps. Sure, the latter are pretty boys, but it’s more than that. They discovered sexy, what it really means, what it really is. That it’s a quality, not a look, not an image, not a brand name. It’s just a thing inside you that you learn to put on display, and it’s uniquely you, whatever it is. You find your way to that place, that confident spot, and it compensates immeasurably. It just shows.

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And Scarlett Johansson and Veronica Lake . . . . definitely!

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Number Seventy-Six

Sensualle Lingerie.  Brazilian Sexy.  Brazilian Hot.

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number Seventy-Five

Lola Luna.  “Brevity is the soul of lingerie.” ~ Dorothy Parker

In Provence France, the Lola Luna lingerie company manufactures the most sexy and luxurious mini & micro thongs & G-strings in very small and limited quantities.  Lola Luna lingerie is very exclusive and is hand-made from Calais lace & the finest embroidered tulles.  It makes some of the most decadent crotchless micro thongs anywhere & many of its G-strings are decorated with Swarovski crystals & real pearl accents.

Lola Luna makes the ultimate & possibly the most expensive micro G-string on the planet: the very special Shakti is hand-made to order and is decorated with a Garnet jewel, 18-carat yellow gold & chains made of white gold (3.2 grams of gold total), and is presented in a luxury gift box with a certificate of authenticity. 

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Here are some enticements.

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Monday, June 25, 2007

Number Seventy-One

Succès de scandale!
Colette

“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” ---Colette

“I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.” ---Colette

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From Histoires de Parfums . . . .

The only girlish thing about Gabby was her knee-length braids and big brown eyes. Around their village, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette and her gang of girl toughies ruled the school.  They had secrets, schemes and territories.  Eager to prove themselves every bit a smart and tough as the boys their age, the carried themselves like more like a big city street gang than the peasant girls from the French countryside that they really were.  They even called each other by their surnames, like their fathers did, which is how Gabby came to be known as Colette.

Precocious and headstrong, Colette was a wild child of nature who never grew tame.  Analyse Colette and you’ll find an interesting dichotomy.  She is undoubtedly one of France’s greatest woman thinkers.  She wrote plainly about the tacit intricacies of love and relations in turn of the century France.  Yet for such a cerebral writer, she was physical in all her pursuits. Victorian culture dictated that women laced themselves up tightly in corsets and passed their time sitting on wingback chairs whilst sipping tea.  Colette wore a corset and drank plenty of tea but she also designed and built a gymnasium at her back yard and worked out vigorously every day.

Colette’s notorious first husband Willy plucked his precocious teen bride from the Burgundy countryside and transplanted her into Parisian society. Instead of being startled by the change, Colette thrived.  A beautiful young bride who could be outspoken and elegant as the situation merited, she was quickly accepted among the Parisian intelligentsia that populated the literary salons of the day.  Willy fostered his new wife’s popularity by buying her clothes and showing her off.  Willy was already a successful and established writer when Colette tried her hand at her husband’s trade.  She wrote thinly disguised and erotically charged memoirs of her school days.  Willy liked them so much that he had them published under his name.  The first “Claudine” novel was a sell-out success.  So Willy locked Colette in the attic and didn’t letter her out until she finished the sequel.

Of course this sort of treatment didn’t fare well with headstrong Colette.  As soon as she was able, she left Willy and tried to make a living on her own.  She wrote, she performed in plays, cabarets and dance halls. She bordered on the edge of respectability, and these encounters with the Parisian underworld fuelled her creativity.

Colette Colette’s Claudine was the original Lolita, an underage girl bursting with saucy exploits and earthy sexuality.  In the 1920s Colette wrote of opium dens and alternative society of fashionable, wealthy lesbians.  She knew of both first hand.  Later she waxes philosophical and lets cats and dogs argue the contradictory natures in men and women in Dialogues des Betes.  In her later works, Colette returns to her most familiar theme of erotic urges and sexuality.  This time her protagonist is an older woman and her paramour a younger man.  The scandalous theme was again, like the Claudine novels, culled from reality as Colette was having an affair with her real life step-son.

France loved their audacious, outspoken Colette.  They honoured her by making her the first woman admitted to the prestigious Académie Française.  And they grieved severely when she died.  Parisians cued all day in a kilometre-long line down the rue di Rivoli in order to pay respects or perhaps leave a flower on her coffin displayed at the Palais Royal.

To her dying day, she was a robust woman of remarkable energy.  Lusty, soulful, stylish and smart, Colette is the Ultimate Parisienne.

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Number Fifty-One

If you’re ever in Sydney, Australia . . .
Stiletto is the world’s finest short-stay boutique hotel and Sydney brothel, offering truly luxurious bordello and short stay services; with discreet underground parking, for the discerning pleasure seeker.

Their concept is a unique mixture of style, sex & theatre, removing the red light but not the erotica.

The luxury premises have been designed to make your stay more pleasurable. Stiletto’s eclectic look and sensual colour pallet sets the mood which is intimate, seductive & sophisticated. The minute you walk through the door, you’ll notice they are world class, from the fine fittings to the beautiful women and professional friendly staff.

There are thirteen Level 1 rooms with various themes including Curve, Pisces, James Bond, The Library, Moulin Rouge, and the Roman Orgy. 

The Level 2 Party Suites include the Presidential Suite, the Duchess Suite, the Directors Suite, the Governors Suite, the Royal Suite, The Interconnecting 1 / 2 / 3 Suites, and the Ultimate Party Suite. The Executive Suites include pool tables, leather lounges, marble pole dance stages, club lighting, fresh water spas, water features & touch screen technology . . . . all set up to cater for the ultimate indulgence & the very best adult services has to offer.

Keep up with their blog here.

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Number Thirty-Eight

Belly Bella.  The finest belly ring and jewelry selections in the world

Belly Bella’s craftsmen and staff combined have over fifty-five years of experience in the creation and design of belly rings and other fine jewelry for many of the world’s most well known artists and celebrities.

Belly Rings (Hope & Pila).

Necklaces (Stiletto & Suerte).

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Monday, February 19, 2007

Number Thirty-Seven

Eternal Spirits.  Exquisite Corsetry and Boudoir Accessories.

Award-winning Eternal Spirits is one of the UK’s most talked about corsetry specialists, offering a unique range of traditionally made, handcrafted corsetry, lingerie, and bridal wear.  Established in January 2002, our exquisite range of corsetry and boudoir wear is beautiful enough to be worn in and out of the bedroom and is the ultimate in sexy & seductive lingerie while our corsets are perfect for a special night out teamed with a pencil skirt or pair of skinny jeans.  As our corsetry is made-to-order using traditional techniques, they are designed to take the waist in by 2 to 4 inches so you can really have your cake and eat it.

Susi, the designers’ love for the corset stems from the irony the corset projects, as nothing tickles us good folk more than a bit of irony.  That not even 100 years ago the corset was the bain of every woman’s life.  A garment that was seen to restrict and oppress, and create an un-natural shape, even during pregnancy and childhood - is now the single most erotic and attractive piece of clothing a woman can buy.  That today, the corset displays ultimate sexuality and freedom brings poetic justice to all those years of corset-wearing oppression.  Each corset is created individually and handcrafted and finished to traditional corsetry methods.  Made in England, the Eternal Spirits team create each order to perfection before sending each item beautifully gift wrapped in a corset box to the customer.

Selected Corsets (from the Agnes, Audrey, Burlesque, Dita, Grace, Lilly, Sherbert, Striptease, Trixi, Victoriana, & Violet collections)

Selected Accessories (Candy Floss Clear necklace, Iced Fire choker, Italian Leather Arm Cuffs, Starburst Montana Blue necklace).

And...Eternal Spirits Issue No. 1 of Spirit Magazine is available.

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Number Twenty-Nine

Documento Sin Titulo...two places to find your dirty books for the New Year.

Olympia Press is renowned for it’s Ebook reproductions from that golden age of Parisian decadence and especially its’ Traveller’s Companion Series including “The Romance of Lust” (Volumes 1-4), “The World of Sex”, and “Sex Without Intercourse”. 

Salon featured Olympia Press in its article, “Lust in the Dust Jacket”, and paid it a heady compliment, “. . . .The Olympia Press has earned an honorable, demented place in literary history. It published some of the great books of the century when no one else would, and in the process helped smash down the last barriers of censorship. . . .”.

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The Erotic Book Shop has some interesting reading selections along with some toys & games.

Black Lace Book of Women’s Sexual Fantasies.  The Black Lace brand name is synonymous with quality erotica written by and for women. When the book was originally published in 1999 it was the first collection of British women’s fantasies to appear on the market.  The editor had unique access to the Black Lace readers’ most private opinions and spent a year and half interviewing and corresponding with the contributors.  The results are fascinating and clearly divided into themed sections dealing with the many-faceted nature of female sexuality. With thought-provoking analytical essays before each chapter, the reader can follow the history of modern sexual behaviour and see how popular culture and even fairy stories have influenced our erotic imaginations.

“The Society of Sin” was conceived on a hot and sticky summer’s evening inside a mansion house on a large country estate when, after an opium-fuelled night of passion, Lady P and her close friend Samantha Powerstock succumbed to desires they had both repressed for years. Now, a year later, they have invited a select few to join their exclusive association. But only genuine hedonists need apply; prospective members are interrogated over a sumptuous dinner then given an ‘assignment’ which they must fulfil. Failure to do so results in instant expulsion and the prospect of being ‘named and shamed’ in the exclusive circles they currently frequent. However, successful completion of the task opens for them a Pandora’s box of pain and pleasure.

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©