Tory Richards's Blog, page 151

Sex Toys in Pop Cullture

Sex and sex toys have moved from being taboo subjects to cultural norms. Decades ago everyone was hush hush about their bedroom antics, but recent studies show that 15 billion dollars are now spent every year on sex toys and 1 in 2 women now own a sex toy. So you can bet your money that if you don't own one, your friend certainly does. But sex toys have moved beyond the bedroom and now penetrate every angle of pop culture. You can find celebrities endorsing and creating their own toys . Literotica has exploded in the reading world and some celebrities even owe their stardom to scandulous sex tapes they have made. Let's explore how sex toys have affected pop culture.

TV and Film:
The Rabbit, an infamous vibrator shaped like a rabbit, can thank Sex and the City for its widespread popularity. SATC dedicated an entire episode to the power and effectiveness of the Rabbit and since then sales haven't looked back. The Rabbit is still the best selling vibrator on the market and that episode aired 14 years ago.

As for film, you can find movies like American Pie and The Ugly Truth celebrating sex toys. American Pie was a little unconventional, as they exploited an unsuspecting pie, but The Ugly Truth shows what can happen when you wear vibrating panties to a company dinner.


Celebrity Endorsements:
You knew it wouldn't take long for a Real Housewife to come up with some sort of sex toy or movie. My money was on Kim from Atlanta, but Kandi (also of Atlanta) beat her to it. She teamed up with OhMiBod and created an entire sex toy line, complete with lubes, vibes and lingerie.

Rhianna can always be found promoting sex. She is well-known for her song S&M, a song celebrating sadomasochism and is also frequently seen shopping for sex toys. While I can't always say that leads a good example, I think she does show that it's ok for women to enjoy sex.


Books:
At this point, who hasn't read or at the very least heard about Fifty Shades of Grey ? The book that took the summer of 2012 by sexual storm has reportedly increased the sale of ropes and zip ties in hardware stores nationwide. Ben Wa Balls have also seen a spike in sales. Now all questions point to who will play Christian Grey in the movie?

Mimicking Pop Culture:
What is pop culture without remakes, knocks offs and spoofs? While you can always dress like your favorite celebrity, why not get intimate with them, too? I hate saying that the cast of Jersey Shore are celebrity status, but I guess they are, but you have to be to have a sex doll created after you. That's right, you can now pick up your very own Guido Sex Doll, complete with abs and a spray tan.

Finally, amateur film.
Where would Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton be without their sex tapes? It seems like a different celebrity has a naked photo or film leaked each month. Sometimes I think it must be for publicity, other times by accident, but either way, the Internet flocks to the evidence every time it happens.

While some celebrity involvement with sex toys can be a little strange, I think they have helped pave the way into making us a more sex positive culture. We can be more open about sexual satisfaction and STD prevention, which is pretty awesome. So if you're feeling frisky or just wanna be like your favorite celebrity, you should head over to Adam and Eve , where you can indulge in your own scandalous behavior!


Lauren Blain is a freelance writer and blog contributor. She writes on a range of topics mostly related to sex, pop culture, and women's health.

Is Chocolate Better than Sex?

Hmmm...that's debatable:)

Sunshine Award

I was awarded the Sunshine Award by Covers by Ramona !
Here are the fun questions I was asked to answer:

Favorite Color: yellow

Favorite Animal: panda bear (all of them really)

Favorite Number: 13

Favorite Non-alcoholic Drink: sweet iced tea

Facebook or Twitter: both

Your Passion: writing

Giving or getting presents: giving

Favorite Day: Friday

Favorite Flowers: I love all flowers

My favorite quote: It's never too late (not sure if it's a quote but if it isn't it should be)

I am passing on the Sunshine Award to the following deserving bloggers:

Faith Smith
Marie Harte
Lorraine Kennedy
Kate Hill

Calling in sick to work

They were talking about this on the Today Show yesterday, and the questions was, do you think it's okay to call in sick to work? Well, I'm here to tell you, YES! As long as you don't make a habit out of it, and you're not leaving a co-worker in the lurch. I rarely ever called in sick during my 40-year work history. In fact, 99.99% of the time when I did call in I wasn't sick at all. That's because I'm rarely ever sick. Usually the only time I called in was because I needed a mental stress day...away from work. We all need those.

Besides, it wasn't as if I was out there shopping or partying when I called in. I stayed home with the curtains drawn because I was afraid if I ventured out someone from work, on their day off, would see me. 

Have you ever called in to work sick when you weren't sick, and then got sick? 

Sneak Peek Sunday

LINK to participating authors
Sneak Peek Sunday is where authors post 6 paragraphs of something they've published or a work in progress. This week I've decided to post 6 paragraphs of Wicked Desire .


“Lady, you put on a good show but I’m not buying it. I’ve been a cop long enough to sense something’s going on. I don’t believe the bull you’re feeding me. Your show of bravado can land you in a lot of hot water.”

His warm breath slapped Maggie in the face and she lowered her arms, ignoring the impulse to push him away. He didn’t frighten her, not really. He’d just caught her unaware. David had taught her what physical abuse by a man’s hands was like. For a split second she’d felt unreasoning fear, until reminding herself this man was a cop. He was paid to protect people.

She let her guard down as a wave of relief washed over her. “Is this the best intimidation tactic you have?” Something warned Maggie she was playing with fire baiting him that way. But as usual she spoke before she thought. His eyes narrowed but Maggie held her ground. As the silence stretched between them she began to notice other things. Like how smooth and sensual his lips were, how sexy the five o’clock shadow made his firm jaw look. 


Waves of heat rolled off his too close body, enveloping her, making her sweat beneath the heavy robe she was wearing. Maggie felt it run down her neck and between her breasts. He was so close she was afraid to take a deep breath. Unwanted desire uncoiled in her belly and her nipples tingled, catching her by surprise. His intimidation was working all right but in ways she was certain he hadn’t intended. 

She couldn’t take the tension building between them any longer and blurted out the first thought that came to her mind. “Are you going to frisk me?” She smiled.

His brows rose at her remark, the slightest twitching on his lips indicated he was holding back his own smile. “What if I tell you I’m not a cop?” 

I put out some fresh catnip, take a shower and come back to 4 crack crazy cats!

Voluptuous is the New Skinny?

If forty is the new twenty, does that mean two-hundred pounds is the new one-hundred pounds? Well, why not? We no longer live in a world where all men, even the evil ones, wear suites and hats, and all women have perfectly coiffed hair, and a string of pearls around their necks. Oh, and they all wear dresses. June Cleaver types went out with stale bread. 

I remember when I first began reading, romance novels of course, 
that heroines seemed to come from the same mold. Unlike real women, they were perfect, dainty little creatures who always appeared helpless, and needed to be taken care of. The kind of heroine who stood by ready to swoon while the hero is fighting the villain to the death. Think of Barbara Cartland books. I loved reading her books, and almost cut my teeth on them. However, they all had the same ring of similarity about them with regard to the heroines. I’m in no means belittling her books, I read so many of them in my early twenties that I probably paid a mortgage or two for her. 
If you are like me, most likely you put yourself in the heroines place while you’re reading a romance. What women doesn’t want to be fought over or rescued, and then taken into the hero’s arms and kissed senseless? Course back then, and I’m talking thirty years easy, it was hard to picture myself as the heroine. I’ve always been curvy, voluptuous, or fat as it was most commonly called. You know, before the world became politically correct, and we started using phrases that didn’t, hopefully offend anyone. Think of the debate over something the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch said that he recently took heat over. Yeah, I was right there!

I’m here to say that heroines have gradually changed into the real women of today. It began with our heroes. They now come in all shapes and sizes. Some are bald, have long hair, tattoos, piercings. Some drive trucks, ride motorcycles, or fly. They are tall, not so tall, and come in all shades of color. They have fangs, claws, scars, and most of them all have one thing in common. They are sexy as hell to the heroine in some way.

Heroines have evolved, too. Yeah, baby! Today our heroines are tough, sassy, can take care of themselves and their men, and are comfortable in their own skin. They’re not perfect. Who is? Writers quickly figured out that readers want to read about real heroines . And those are short, tall, curvy, sassy women who aren’t dainty and weak as they’ve been made out to appear in yonder years. Real women! We can so relate to the curvy, girl next door who covets the sexy fire-fighter across the street. Right now they’re friends, but can they be more? Hell, yes!

As a woman with curves, I wrote A Perfect Fit deciding my heroine 
would be a plus-sized model. So, what is plus-sized? I had one reader comment about the book cover because she said the heroine was definitely not plus-sized. Well, I did my research and found that the modeling industry perceives a woman the size of twelve and over as plus-sized. My heroine is a size sixteen. So I guess it all depends on your perception.

People carry their weight differently. Duh! I used to carry my extra pounds really good, I actually had a figure. But as the years added up my curves began to re-shape themselves until I began to look like a lumpy potato with arms and legs. We all know if you’re six-feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds or five-feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds your body shape will be a lot different.

Plus-sized doesn’t always mean fat, or voluptuous as I like to say. But a size sixteen, one hundred and sixty pound something model is considered plus-sized. Does my six-feet tall, big as Texas hero care? Hell no! As soon as he saw her walk the runway, wearing a sexy corset, he got a serious itch that didn’t go away, until he did something about it.

Chaz and Val's First Sex Scene

Whew! I spent this past Saturday writing one, steamy sex scene between Chaz Evans and Val in Burning Hunger . I believe this is the hottest scene I've written yet. It literally drained me! I'm not kidding. I was so exhausted after I was finished that I had to take a break.

A Perfect Fit  (book #1) and Surrender to Desire (book #2) have received great 4 & 5 star reviews lately. I can't tell you how pleased I am over that. Burning Hunger is the final book in this trilogy. No release date yet.

My plans are that once Burning Hunger is released the three books are combined into a print edition. 

Wet and Wild Blog Hop

Link to participating authors

This is the Wet and Wild bloghop, where we have super fun grand prizes for your entertaining pleasure, including a $100 gift card to Victoria’s Secret AND a digital gift basket. There's 169 participating authors!

My prize is a download of one of my back list books, winners choice. Plus, if you didn't know it, Up in Flames if FREE at Smashwords right now! Please leave a review at Smashwords and Amazon if you read it. Here's the link if you still need to pick up your copy.  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/290834

To be entered for a chance to win one of my books please answer the following question, and make sure you leave your email addy! 

What do you like about summer?

Have fun meeting new authors!

I hate shopping!

I have to go to hellmart today. Will let you know if they survive:)