This blog isn't about sex. It's about great sex! I set it up because you only live twice, once in your dreams.

This blog is a portal to the wonderful world of web-based erotic writing. It also serves as a filter: finding stories for you to enjoy without worrying. Use both the reviews and the labels to help you identify stories which will suit your tastes. If the idea of ‘oral’ makes your stomach churn, click on ‘romance’ in the label cloud. Use the rating system: from 0 for nonsexual to XXX for eyebrow raising. (Just your eyebrows will do, thank you, sheesh!)

And use the biggest sexual organ in your body: that’s your brain, dumbo! Which bit of you do you think processes the little messages from your nerve endings in a kiss and releases the endorphins that make you go Whoopdidoo! As you read the reviews and choose stories, as you follow up other stories from those outside of this site: Think before you Click. Come Home quickly if you’re not sure about what you find. Some stories out there are far out on the wild side because humans are inventive beings –not always in nice ways.

Remember too that these are fantasy erotic stories and so the sex is always sizzling. In another life, just being close to someone you have always liked is usually enough. They won’t need a 10“ wonger or GG breasts to turn you on.

Take care of your sweet self and enjoy your dreams.

Tuesday 14 April 2015

Disney Princesses


From Fanpop

If you thought Miss Congeniality was an unlikely candidate for this blog, your jaw must be hitting the floor now, LOL.

In this unlikely blogpost I am going to argue that the Disney Princess has come a long way from her first incarnation: Snow White ("If you let me stay, I'll keep house for you. I'll wash and sew and sweep and cook.") Disney Princesses are one of the earliest means by which children come to an understanding of romance and adult relationships. It might be helpful to think back and consider if your attitudes to sex and love today were influenced by those entrancing films.

Plus, the films are beautiful. One of the bonuses of having a piglet is that I get to buy all the classic Disney films on BluRay. (Although I want to add that piglet maintenance is unfortunately not all about slobbing on the sofa with some jelly and icecream and Beauty and the Beast, so you should wear a condom until you are really sure you want to spend your life kneedeep in shitty nappies).

Disney's Princesses went from the childish high voice and domesticated Snow White (1937) to Cinderella (1950) and Aurora (1959). Another long break was followed by more feisty coming of age stories, in which Ariel (1989), Belle (1991), Jasmine (1992) and Pocohontas (1995) find love and demonstrate that they are grown up partly through defying their fathers. Classic Freudian stuff, gals! with an underlying message that it's through sexuality and an adult romantic relationship that you come of age, rather than through getting to go out socialising with your girlfriends or going away to college or getting a job, etc etc. With Esmerelda and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) it was all starting to be a bit different. (TBH, I have never managed to see that one, in spite of efforts to persuade Piglet to stop watching educational nature programmes and give it a go.) I suspect that was the last Princess film in which cultural values came through the medium of the script without the writers being conscious of the way the story sells us certain ways for girls (in particular) to be. After that one, writers began to think consciously about representing role models for future generations of women.

Article from MIT
From pinterest
The arrival of Mulan (1998) seemed to signal that the Disney studios had finally realised we were fast approaching the 21st century. Mulan defies her father, not to find love but to go off to war. Of course she finds love there too, gosh, we were still in the 20th century after all!  

Mulan was a break with tradition in a number of ways, utilising culturally appropriate drawing techniques unlike the orientalist (although still delightful) Aladdin, and combining comedy with exquisite painting. Mulan not only found love, she had a set of battle comrades including her dragon, cricket and horse, and three unlikely fellow warriors willing to drag up in a good cause.

Send kick-ass Princesses as an e-card!
In 2001, animated romance was turned upside down by the postmodern Shrek. In Shrek traditional forms of story-telling and film-making are turned on their heads. There are obvious joking references to cultural icons like the three little pigs or the gingerbread man. Many of these references are used to undermine traditional gender politics, e.g. the big bad wolf wearing a dress. Contemporary and golden oldie pop music is utilised in knowing ways, rather than simpering songs being composed especially for the film. (Donkey sings to Dragon: I Like Big Butts, and Disco Inferno - "Burn, baby, burn"). At the end of the film, Fiona selects not the 'charming' prince she was destined for - who turns up in Shrek 2 (2004), hilariously voiced by Rupert Everett - but an ogre. In doing so, she accepts her own inner ogre.

What this fable says to us, is that we are not airbrushed corsetted Disney Princesses; to be human can sometimes mean being a little ogre-ish rather than perfect. We should accept that and have fun, not tortured hairdos. For feminists, Shrek was a joy, with the ass-kicking Princess and the Dragon who has feelings too.


Favourite Disney kiss for this blogger
Disney wobbled along with their next two Princesses, making small adjustments to the traditional format: Tiana, (2009) hardworking and first African American princess (falls in love); Rapunzel (2010 - she was another lovely classic Disney Princess).


From DisneyWiki
Then Pixar stepped into the frame, and we got Merida (2012), the first Disney Princess not to fall in love, and first to cross swords (almost literally!) with her mother rather than her father. Merida refuses all three of her suitors to fight for her own hand in the tournament. Her tempestuous relationship with her traditionally minded mother initially brings tragedy but then greater understanding, love and freedom for both mother and daughter.

Most recently, we had Frozen. You might consider that a classic Disney Princess film, with Princess Anna having to realise that one bloke is not as good as he looks, and that a more humble lad is her chosen beau. But whose little outfit and little Disney Princess doll and jewellery set plus wig is most popular? Queen Elsa, who never has a sniff of a love interest. The story revolves around Elsa's extraordinary powers. Her ability to cause all around her to freeze is at first seen as a curse. Rather than the curse being lifted through true love, however, her powers comes to be seen as a benefit. Elsa empowers herself through her gift, stepping up to rule the kingdom as the sole monarch.

Recently I popped into the Disney shop (ugh ugh! ours even has a glittering floor, ugh!) for something horrid as a gift for my niece. The song from Frozen (you know the one) came up on the screens. I saw another mum standing in the middle of the shop, looking up at the screen and softly singing along:"Let it go, let it go, ... the cold never bothered me anyway." I don't know if or what troubles she might have had in her life. That song spoke to women of all ages who have felt we are struggling through life instead of skating figures on its surface, who have amazing powers which are viewed as a curse, who want to make a difference.


 

I would really love to leave my blogpost there, with this feminist fairy tale about a Queen who gets to realise that her 'curse' is a power that she can use for good in the world. However, let's go back to the Disney shop and have a look at the Brave items for sale there. Little bow and arrow, well yeah, but I can tell you they have not been designed for budding archers to practice with. Stuffed horse, OK. Plastic figures. Several long dresses prettily decorated with celtic symbols, of the kind Merida ripped off herself in order to compete in the tournament. Merida handbag. Merida plastic jewellery set. Merida make-up kit. 

The Disney shop is driven by demand. The films are written by a few people who might bend the story in order to influence young minds, in the way that AussieScribbler and I agree in his guest blogpost is an acceptable way to bend writing. However what is available in the shop, is there only because the larger mass of people are buying it for our children. Until our daughters start insisting on having the Merida DIY build your own target kit instead of a make-up kit, until we bring them up to expect something like that, beautifying herself will continue to be the main way a young woman demonstrates that she is a competent adult. 

Fighting bears? Arguing with mummy? Oooh, I don't know. I won't risk ripping my lovely long Merida frock, will I?

2 comments:

oggbashan said...

The Disney store has always depressed me. Despite the 'message' in some of the films, the merchandising is almost more important than the movie. Young children want the latest Disney products - at high prices, and they soon grow out of the clothes, or they want products from the new movie.

When my daughters were young, dressing up at school was home-made, amateur, and often involved the children in making the costumes. Now there are dozens of Elsa clones, dressed from the Disney store, or supermarket copies. Now, as then, there was competition between parents to produce the best dressing up clothes.

Then? Ingenuity, imagination and dressmaking skills produced the best.

Now? Whoever spends the most in a Disney store.

Sigh.

Unknown said...

Nowadays a lot more money can be made from merchandising than from the actual film and in some cases, this even drives how the film is written. Such is the nature of capitalism!
Things are changing, and although this is a poor substitute for a world which considers people not profit, corporations are realising that sexism doesn't sell. I guess it may take a little longer, we really can all do our bit by encouraging kids towards less gender polarised toys and allowing girls to have more activity focussed things as well as a Princess dress. Piglet had both bought dresses and bits of net curtain and ribbon, she and her friends enjoyed playing with both.