Thursday, Nov. 12: Sex Sells: How To Write And Sell Erotica @ Center For Sex And Culture In SF!

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

I love teaching all my classes, but Sex Sells: How To Write And Sell Erotica is especially near and dear to my heart.

And the very good news is that I'm going to be doing this special class for the Center For Sex And Culture in San Francisco on Thursday, November 12th!

Here's the write-up ... and here's a link so you can pre-order tickets.

The market for erotic fiction and nonfiction is booming! There actually is a secret to writing great erotica - and you'll discover just what that is in this fun, hands-on workshop with well-known erotica writer and teacher M.Christian.

For the beginning writer, erotica can be the ideal place to begin writing, getting published, and - best of all - earning money. And for the experienced writer, erotica can be an excellent way to beef up your resume and hone your writing skills. M.Christian will review the varieties of personal and literary expression possible in this exciting and expanding field. He'll also teach you techniques for creating love and sex scenes that sizzle.

Plus: current pay rates, how to write for a wide variety of erotic genres, where and how to submit your erotic writing, and more.

Sex Sells: How To Write And Sell Erotica
The Center for Sex and Culture
1349 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

Thursday, November 12th
6:00PM to 8:00PM

$20 (purchase pre-event tickets here)

M.Christian has been an active participant in the San Francisco BDSM scene since 1988, and has been a featured presenter at the Northwest Leather Celebration, smOdyssey, the Center For Sex and Culture, The National Sexuality Symposium, San Francisco Sex Information, The Citadel, The Looking Glass, Floating World, Winter Solstice, and lots of other venues. He has taught classes on everything from impact play, tit torture, bondage, polyamory, cupping, caning, and basic SM safety.

M.Christian is also a recognized master of BDSM erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many other anthologies, magazines, and other sites; editor of 2t anthologies such as the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, and more; the collections Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and more; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Finger's Breadth, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His site is www.mchristian.com

Beyond Romance Likes Skin Effect!

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is very touching: the great Lisabet Sarai reviewed by brand-new erotic science fiction collection, Skin Effect: More Science Fiction And Fantasy Erotica, for Beyond Romance.

Thanks so much, Lisabet!

Normally, when I write a review, I treat the book as a stand-alone entity, without considering prequels, sequels or other books in a series. In reviewing Skin Effect, however, it’s almost impossible not to make some reference to The Bachelor Machine, M. Christian’s first collection of science fiction erotica, which I reviewed back in 2009. For one thing, there’s the subtitle, “More Erotic Science Fiction and Fantasy Erotica”, pointedly implying the existence of the previous volume. Then there’s the author’s Afterword, which explicitly compares the perspectives in the first book to those in this one. Even the title is a reference to the earlier book, the name of one of the stories therein (which is not included here). In any case, I couldn’t really read this collection without being reminded of the earlier volume. The stories are equally inventive, but extremely different in tone. To me, they suggested a more mature, subtle and balanced vision of the future. 

The world of The Bachelor Machine is largely dystopic, a dark environment of crumbling infrastructure, poisoned nature, desperate individuals, oppressive and dehumanizing technology. The stories in Skin Effect reflect a greater degree of hope as well as the expected impact of more recent technological developments—constant data streams gathered by wearable sensors; software agents that relieve us of the need to learn or remember; the omnipresent social media-sphere, where every thought, action and emotion is immediately visible to one’s audience and one’s worth as a human being might be measured by the number of spectators one can muster. Like those in the earlier book, however, these tales ask difficult but intriguing questions about reality and human existence. What does it mean to talk about one’s life history, when memories can be implanted or erased at will? What happens to sex when changing gender is almost as easy as changing clothes and every possible sexual variation is available via simulation? Is there something special or unique about direct experience, unmediated by technology? Is that sort of genuine, first-hand, totally disconnected experience even possible anymore? 

One of my favorite stories in the collection is the simple and elegant “Prêt-à-Porter”. A rather shy, serious young woman purchases a – garment – made of the ultimate intelligent fabric, fabric that transforms itself into whatever sort of clothing or costume its wearer desires—and which shapes its owner’s desires in the process. 

--- 

It was ... warm, like a another person's skin. She knew it would be, but the comfort of it was still calming – making the release of that second breath slow and easy. It moved up her body like a splash from a shallow pool, the warmness of it making her relax even more. 

As it flowed, it stayed black – but just as she noticed that, it changed: rolling through a rainbow of hues, shades, and saturations. As it flowed, it stayed glistening like colorful latex – but as she noticed that, as well, it changed: tumbling through an array of textures, contours, weaves, and shapes. 

She couldn't help it: she laughed. It was like a puppy, fresh out of the box and eager to play. It didn't take her mind long to imagine the artificial, intelligent, endlessly chameleonic material as wagging a form of artificial, intelligent, endlessly chameleonic, tail. 

--- 

“LMS”, the last story in the volume, is another high point. Set in a nearer term future than most of the tales (a future in which humans still design web sites!), this tale features an insecure, depressed protagonist who is pried out of his fugue of self-loathing by an encounter with a transsexual who sincerely admires his work. This is a sexy but surprisingly sweet love story, set in a world where your Facebook numbers can determine your personal fate. 

“A Kiss Goodnight” presents the next stage in evolution, as an aging pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence is seduced by the “ghost in the machine”, the sentient, self-aware outcome of his own research. The language in this tale is utterly gorgeous, whether the author is describing the taste of a peach (a real peach, grown on an actual tree—something exceedingly rare) or the nature of the professor’s elusive partner. 

--- 

Shimmering shoals of software; ripples of digital entities flashing in and out of existence – some on a scale of centuries, others faster than anything alive could ever blink, the on and offs of their own basic (in its own way primitive) DNA coding drifting, merging ... vast snowflakes of algorithms wheeling and spinning against an infinite spectrum of quantum uncertainty ... breaking, splintering, only to merge into new complexities, new potentialities. It was a flashing, flickering, fairy kingdom of brilliant streaks, pops, swirls, cascades of illuminated data coming and going, evolving and learning, growing and refining ... flowering unique forms for unique tasks while deep, immense structures, eternally pondering monoliths of infinite potentials and possibilities, thought their long computational thoughts ... knowing every permutation and branch of possibility and, within it all, a cool and perfect understanding of their original architects, the first programmers, far more than they could ever know themselves. 

--- 

Despite this awe-inspiring vision of distributed intelligence, the physical coupling between the professor and his digital partner is compelling, even world-shattering, flesh and blood sex a kind of fundamental language that in some sense transcends species.
This is the message of “The Potter’s Wheel” as well, a fascinating tale in which a woman who supports herself by selling her experiences via social media is chosen to meet the Potter of Gujyo-hachiman, a Living Treasure renowned for his exquisite porcelain. Living off the ‘Net at his monastic retreat in rural Japan, more or less purely in the physical world, the Potter helps Peers reconnect with fleshly, unmediated desire.
Although a few are listed as previously published, all of the stories in Skin Effectwere new to me, with the exception of “The Bell House Invitation”, which I’d called out as one of the sexiest stories in The Bachelor Machine. I was delighted to have the chance to savor this unique ménage once again. Indeed, the story might be more consistent with the worldview spun by this volume than in its original home. 

All in all, Skin Effect is a solid collection of speculative erotica. I have to be honest and admit that I found it less erotic, overall, than The Bachelor Machine. However, that may say as much about me (years older than I was when I read the first book, and far more jaded) than it does about the book. I think it’s fair to suggest that the sex in these stories is sweeter and more sincere, less about thrills and more about connections. That’s fine, as far as I’m concerned. I want more than heat in my reading; I want original ideas and graceful language. In this regard, there’s no question that M. Christian delivers.

Up Now: 5 Science-Fiction Novels That Pushed The Limits of Sexuality On FutureOfSex!

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is very, very cool: my grand new article 5 Science-Fiction Novels That Pushed The Limits of Sexuality just went live on the excellent FutureOfSex site!

Here's a tease - for the rest click here.

Erotic visions of the future from renowned sci-fi literature.

Like a lot of genres, science fiction took a bit of time to discover that one special, yet very basic, component of humanity.

Yes, I’m talking about sex.

But unlike mystery, horror, romance, thriller—and every flavor of literature you can name—when these science fiction authors explored eroticism, it didn’t just change that genre. Using visions of the future, they changed the way many people came to look at sex itself.

While there are many writers working today who are exploring sexuality in science fiction (hint, hint), here are five works that I personally feel went way above and far beyond the known limits of both sex and science fiction.

Oh, and be prepared for some very minor plot spoilers—but I promise not to give too much away.

[MORE]

What Classes Do YOU Want Me To Teach?

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

As 2015 is - gasp - rapidly drawing to a close I thought it would be fun to ask all of you out there to vote on what classes you want me to teach for 2016!

I'm particularly game to hear your suggestions for classes that may not be on my usual hit parade ... or venues and events that might be my cup of tea.

Here's the link to the survey.

Have fun!

A DARK DOINGS AT MISKATONIC U Special: Made In DNA

(from M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik)

Continuing the celebration of the release of Dark Doings at Miskatonic U (that I had the extreme honor of editing) here's a quickie interview with the author of one of the new Miskatonic tales in the book - the wonderful Made In DNA:

Q: What's your favorite part of the Lovecraft mythos

The creeping darkness the work introduces into your soul. There isn't any particular "monster" in the series I really dig as they all create this overwhelming sense of foreboding. It's the whole package.

Q: What do you think is the lasting "allure" of Lovecraft's work?

Though steeped in monster culture, the work never stops playing with your mind. It's the moonlit shadows and the inexplicable noises that lurk around the other side of a door or turn of a hallway.

Q: What's the scariest thing, for you, in Lovecraft's work?

The monsters.

Q: What's your area of study at Miskatonic University?

Sex Magicks.

Up Now At FutureOfSex: Part Three of The Ten Greatest Sexual Innovations to Come

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is fantastic news: part three of my three part series on The Ten Greatest Sexual Innovations to Come is live!

Check it out at the Future Of Sex site ... in the meantime here's a teasing taste:

Our first series on future sex technologies took a gander at developments in sensory tech: virtual reality, augmented reality, and direct neurostimulation. Then we journeyed into a future erotic world of cyborgs, body switching, and genetic engineering.

We’ve looked at what changes may come to our senses, including the changes to how we’ll experience eroticism. Then we explored the possible coming changes to our physical selves: how we’ll interact with the world.

So what’s left?

As that old chestnut goes, the greatest sex organ in the human body is the brain—and the future promises incredible changes to that very special part of ourselves. Hang on for a ride into the future of our erotic mental landscape with an exploration into neurochemistry, memory manipulation, personality reproduction, and artificial intelligence.

[MORE]

This Thursday: Polyamory: How To Love Many And Well

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

This is gonna be a blast: check out my next class at the SF Citadel in San Francisco:

Polyamory: How To Love Many And Well

Thursday, October 15, 2015 · 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM
SF Citadel181 Eddy St, San Francisco, CA
Cost: $20 at the door, or $15 in advance:
https://www.Purplepass.com/sfc10082015

Sure, you've heard of it - and maybe have been intrigued by it - but what is polyamory and how do you love more than one person and make it work? How can you deal with jealousy, time-management, emotional rough patches, and more to enter into multiple sexual relationships? In this class, participants will learn to separate the myths from the realities of polyamory, how to make tentative steps towards having more than one partner, and how to approach and deal with the problems of sharing yourself with others, and being involved with someone who, in turn, is involved with someone else. Included in this class will be simple emotional exercises, true life experiences, unique techniques and innovative approaches to understanding the joys - and the risks - of beginning, or entering into, a polyamorous relationship.

#

M.Christian has been an active participant in the San Francisco BDSM scene since 1988, and has been a featured presenter at the Northwest Leather Celebration, smOdyssey, the Center For Sex and Culture, The National Sexuality Symposium, San Francisco Sex Information, The Citadel, The Looking Glass, The Society of Janus, The Floating World, Winter Solstice, and lots of other venues. He has taught classes on everything from impact play, tit torture, bondage, how to write and sell erotica, polyamory, cupping, caning, and basic SM safety.

M.Christian is also a recognized master of BDSM erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many other anthologies, magazines, and other sites; editor of anthologies such as the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, and more; the collections Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and more; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Finger's Breadth, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His site is www.mchristian.com

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: What's Erotic?

Check it out: one of my fave Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker essay just went live on the fab Erotica Readers and Writers site:

It's one of the most common questions I get asked – by budding writers via email or in person during one of my (ahem) Sex Sells: Erotica Writing classes: what makes an erotic story ...erotic?

But before I answer [insert suspenseful music here] a bit of exposition is in order: there is ahuge difference in writing for yourself, such as when you are first dipping your ... toes into erotica writing, and when you've made the very brave decision to throw your work out into the professional world.

If you are writing for yourself then you really don't need to be thinking about sex (or the amount of it) at all: you're writing for your pleasure, or just as practice.

But if you do decide to send your work out you really do need to be pay close attention to where you're submitting: when a publisher or editor puts out a call for submissions they are often – or should be – quite clear about the amount of sexuality they need or want from a writer.  If you're sending a story, say, to a site, anthology or whatever it's always a good idea to scope out the territory, so to speak: read what the editor has accepted before, take a gander at the site ... and so forth.  That, at least, should give you a ballpark feeling of what (and how much) they are looking for.

But [insert dramatic drum roll] as far as the right, perfect, ideal, amount of sex for a story that isn't just for your own pleasure, or a very specific market, goes ... well, what's sex?

[MORE]

This Thursday: Using Social Media To Grow Your Adult Business And Build Your Client Base - The Working Smarter And Not Harder Way!

(M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

This is going to be very, very, very fun: this Thursday I'm going to be teaching
Using Social Media To Grow Your Adult Business And Build Your Client Base - The Working Smarter And Not Harder Way! with my great friend Jean Marie Stine.

 Here's the info:

Using Social Media To Grow Your Adult Business And Build Your Client Base - The Working Smarter And Not Harder Way...

... for Retailers, Therapists, Photographers, Video Makers, Sex Workers, Writers & Others

Thursday, October 8
6:00 PM - 8:00PM
Center for Sex and Culture
1349 Mission St,
San Francisco, CA 94103

$20

Pre-Order tickets here

Let's face facts: the adult business world has totally, completely changed marketing and advertising tricks that used to work simply don't anymore ... which is why, more than ever, thinking outside the box is key to raising above the rest and, best of all, bring in exposure and, hopefully, sales.

Twitter? Tumblr? Facebook? While there are a lot of options, many of the techniques that a lot of gurus and experts recommend only work for those same experts and gurus ... and not for anyone else.

But in this fun and provocative lecture you'll learn to learn the differences between what other people say you should do and what actually works including when to play by the rules and when not to, how to rise above the rest, and how to manage your marketing time and dollars.

Among some of the subjects covered will be:

• How to blog, tweet and post effectively and efficiently
• How to handle fast media like Twitter versus slower ones like Facebook
• When national social media is what you want and when it's something you don't need
• The power of FREE
• Knowing your audience ... and developing great techniques to reach them
• Understanding the difference between likes, friends and actual sales
• How to make your social media presence rich and interesting without taking valuable time away from your company
• How to think innovatively about advertising, public relations, and marketing that don't involve social media or even the internet

Jean Marie Stine is the author of a number of pioneering works of erotica published in the late 1960 and early 1970s, beginning with Season of the Witch in 1968, which was filmed as the motion picture Synapse. Her erotic short stories and novelettes have been collected as "Trans-sexual: Fiction for Gender Queers." She is the Publisher of Renaissance E Books, which includes the Sizzler Editions imprint of premier and groundbreaking erotica

M.Christian is a recognized master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica and many others. He is a sexuality and BDSM educator for venues all across the country -- and an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books.

I'm Going To Be At Con-Volution!

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

This is gonna be a blast! If you're going to the great Con-Volution convention in Daly City look me up - I'll be doing more than a few panels, a reading and teaching a class on mixing sex in science fiction!

Here's my schedule:

Actual Science in Science Fiction
Saturday 10:00 - 11:15, Sumac (Hyatt Regency SFO)
Should we expect 100% accurate science from authors who are telling a story?
M Christian (M), Jay Hartlove, C. Sanford Lowe, Edward Pizzini Ph.D., Heidi Stauffer

Secret Panel
Saturday 11:30 - 12:45, Harbor B (Hyatt Regency SFO)
If we told you, it wouldn't be a secret, now would it?
Steve Libbey, Matt Marovich, Steven Mix, M Christian, Jennifer Nestojko, Emerian Rich, Sumiko Saulson, Linda Kay Silva, Frank Wu, Carrie Sessarego

New Wave SF
Saturday 13:00 - 14:15, SandPebble D (Hyatt Regency SFO)
Bradford Lyau (M), Dario Ciriello, M Christian, Chuck Serface

Video Games: Past, Present, Future
Saturday 16:00 - 17:15, Harbor A (Hyatt Regency SFO)
Rev. Dr. Christopher Garcia (M), Rob Miles, M Christian, Beau Safken

Reading
Sunday 11:30 - 12:45, Wine Room (Hyatt Regency SFO)
Dario Ciriello, M Christian, Jason Malcolm Stewart, Tyler Hayes

Writers Workshop: Let's Talk About Sex
Sunday 13:00 - 14:15, SandPebble D (Hyatt Regency SFO)
This class will focus on how to write credible and non-awkward sex and love scenes. How to write about the heaving bosoms without blushing and convulsing in giggles.

Up Now At FutureOfSex: Part Two of The Ten Greatest Sexual Innovations to Come!

(from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is great news: part two of my three part series on The Ten Greatest Sexual Innovations to Come is live!

Check it out at the Future Of Sex site ... in the meantime here's a teasing taste:

In our first installment on future sex technologies, we took a look at upcoming developments in sensory tech: virtual reality, augmented reality, and direct neurostimulation.

But this time around we’re going to explore what may very well happen to the flesh and blood of humanity—and in fact how sex will no longer be just flesh and blood—by examining three promising innovations in sexual biotechnology: cybernetics, body switching, and genetic engineering.
Innovation Four: Cybernetics

Sure, Nathan S. Kline and Manfred Clynes may have coined the term cyborg in 1960, but the concept of enhancing humanity through artificial limbs and organs is actually an ancient one.

Through recent developments in direct nerve connections, exotic materials, and microscopic sensors, we are looking at a time in the not-too-distant future where we won’t just be able to replace missing or diseased organs with artificial ones—but may very well prefer them over the “real thing.”

This is especially true around our sex organs. Just look at how breast implants—in a way a form of artificial augmentation—have changed human eroticism. Right now, breast implants are mostly cosmetic, but what happens when we can alter our physical forms in any way we wish?

That’s the kicker: we’re limited only by our imaginations. More than likely we’ll first see people who look pretty much like people. Soon, though, we’ll begin to realize that we can become anything we want. With soon-arriving technology, we’ll be able to feel an artificial sex organ just as good, if not better, than the flesh and blood version.

What’s even wilder is that if you get tired of whatever new body part you’ve had installed, then you can just swap it out or upgrade it.

With artificial forms we’ll be able to turn any part of our bodies into sex organs, or use our entire bodies as one. We could make love to clouds, ocean currents, solar winds, or entire planets if we desired.

But we’d still be ourselves. This is where another huge development comes in: the technology that will allow us to become someone else.

[MORE]

A DARK DOINGS AT MISKATONIC U Special: Jason Rubis

(from M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik)

As part of a celebration of the release of Dark Doings at Miskatonic U (that I had the extreme honor of editing) here's a quickie interview with the author of one of the new Miskatonic tales in the book - the fabulous Jason Rubis:

Q: What's your favorite part of the Lovecraft mythos

The monsters! No writer ever created such memorably "indescribable" abominations! The nightgaunts, the shoggoths, Great Cthulhu himself ... they all feel as real as sharks or tigers, and twice as menacing!

Q: What do you think is the lasting "allure" of Lovecraft's work?

The man was simply a great storyteller. You can talk about existentialism and the insignificance of man against the unfeeling cosmos and such, but Lovecraft's fiction has that strange note of conviction you see in all great fantasists (and not a few other genres as well). When you start reading a really great HPL story like "Whisperer in Darkness" (one of my personal favorites), there's that oddly comforting feeling, of sitting down to hear a story, told by someone who knows what they're talking about. You imagine this someone--a very tall, gaunt someone from Rhode Island, let's say--sitting down with you, looking you in the eye and saying: "Listen ... there were these terrible floods in Vermont, way in the back country, and they found some bodies in the river afterward ... very *strange* bodies..." That may not be what initially brings people to Lovecraft, but it's the reason they keep reading him and remember him as one of the greats.

Q: What's the scariest thing, for you, in Lovecraft's work?

The way his stories--the later stories, in particular--are told as a series of hints and allusions, through invented bits of lore, newspaper clippings, journal entries, etc. You only see what's happening very obliquely, but there's a sense of some awful truth slowly coming into focus. And then suddenly--WHAM! It all comes together. Even today, after having read and re-read the stories many times, it works for me.

Q: Tell us a bit about how you came to write your story for DARK DOINGS AT MISKATONIC U?

Like the hero of "Signed First Edition," I spent way too many hours of my freshman year digging through the stacks at my university library. I found one very odd book full of very graphic pictures of people being tortured by people in skull masks and like that. Today my guess is that it was about Grand Guignol or European exploitation films, but the text was in French, so I had no idea at the time what the hell this thing was about, which made it even more disturbing. I carried that book around in my head for a long time, and when the opportunity came to submit to DARK DOINGS I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

Q: What's your area of study at Miskatonic University?

I'm currently "virtually auditing" several classes in cryptoarchaeology at the Misk. I do hold a master's in Unspeakable Blasphemies from the Eldritch Studies department, but it's not on my resume. ;)