Xan West's Blog, page 11

My 2015 Book List: New Romances I Found This Year

So, as the booklists of 2015 abound, I’ve been thinking about my reading habits in 2015. They changed dramatically. I used to go to the library about once per week, and 90% of the books I read were hard copy. I found books in a combination of ways, but primarily I reread books I already knew, read new books by authors I knew, or found books by browsing in the library, or on occasion, in a bookstore.

At the end of 2014, I got hit by a car, and that event rippled out in so many ways. One of the things that dramatically changed was my reading habits. My glasses got broken in the hit and run, and I didn’t have a spare pair that actually worked well. Not enough for long periods of reading, anyway. My old glasses also irritated the skin on my face so much that it hurt to wear them. In addition, my leg got broken, and needed surgery, with a long recovery period during which I could not walk, or could only go very short distances. I couldn’t use the limited help I had to get me physical books, I needed it to help me take care of my basic needs. And besides, I couldn’t really read physical books, because I didn’t have glasses that helped me see well enough.

Suddenly, the only way I could read books was on my phone. It was that way for months, until I got new glasses. After that, I still could not access the library, or browse for books on shelves, for many more months.

My reading habits changed. I started reading ebooks, pretty much exclusively. Mostly ones I could borrow from the library, but a few I was able to purchase or get for free. For a couple months, I read mostly lying down, with my glasses off, my phone an inch or two from my face.

I also needed something different from what I had been reading. The hit and run was really hard on me, and so isolating. I wanted books that made me feel connected. I needed to reread old books that were familiar and comforting, and new books that were hopeful, ones about relationships and connection. For new books, I turned to the genre that I always go to when I want a book that makes me feel hopeful and less isolated: romance.

I couldn’t find books through browsing, not as easily. Instead, I took recommendations from people online, mostly from Twitter. I followed chains of twitter accounts, as one author recommended another, following them all to see about new books and book deals. I found a community of romance writers and readers that were so generous with each other, so supportive and smart and funny. Writers and readers that cared about representation in romance, that were committed to supporting stories about love and relationships that center characters of color, trans characters, queer characters, disabled characters.

And those folks helped me find a whole bunch of new romance to read, lying in bed, recovering from surgery, holding my rather small telephone a couple inches from my face. Romance that helped me get through those months of recovery, and the difficulties of returning to work and navigating the world in new ways. Romance that helped me get through a very hard year.

So, here are 21 romances I fell for in 2015, approximately in the order I read them.

Trade Me, by Courtney Milan, for the slow build romance, the clueless privileged character who tries to get a clue, but especially for the characters dealing with poverty and college at the same time, and the complexities of family dynamics. Also, the first romance I ever read that had a trans woman character that felt like she was a whole person. (She’s getting her own book soon.)
The Theory Of Attraction, by Del Dryden, for the autistic top who totally stole my heart, the lovely slow burn of desire between the characters, and some really hot kink. Also nerds nerds nerds.
A Gentleman in the Street, by Alisha Rai, for Akira who is badass and emotionally armored and vulnerable all at once, and for the ways both characters insist on owning and claiming their sexuality. This is the book that sparked me reading basically the entirety of Rai’s backlist. The first five on the same day, I might add.
The Bedroom Games series, also by Alisha Rai, for hot kinky sex between characters that are actually real and flawed and make mistakes and don’t solve their relationship problems through sex or BDSM.
Opening Act, by Suleikha Snyder, for the spot-on depiction of the frustration of being only seen as the good girl, and the ache to break out of that.
The Companion Contract, by Solace Ames for being so damn hot of a slow burn, the gorgeous complexity of the BDSM scenes, and especially for all the webs of complex relationships and support systems to deal with oppressive shit that happens in life. And for the queerness and centering a sex worker who doesn’t quit for love, and all the ways it tells immigrant stories, and a trans woman character that is three dimensional and complex who I fell so damn hard for.
Sleeping with Her Enemy, by Jenny Holliday, because it’s so funny and sweet and builds so slowly and for the way it makes room for grief and most especially for his family because I adored them all.
In Her Closet by Tasha L. Harrison, for Yves with all her complexity and challenges because she won my heart, for the web of her relationships and all the nuances of those and also especially for the realistic depiction of the struggle to extricate yourself from abusive exes, which I’ve never read before in a novel and am so grateful exists in this book.
The Boss series by Abigail Barnette, for some of the hottest orgasm control scenes I’ve ever read.
Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell, for being the first Jewish romance I ever read, and such a sweet one on top of that. As a Jew, I needed that. And for the complex depiction of grief, which I really appreciated.
The Brother Sinister series, by Courtney Milan, which I devoured one right after the other. Especially The Duchess War because of the ways it grappled with class and trauma and the way the style evoked screwball Howard Hawks comedy. And for the wedding night. And the complexity of the characters. And the feminism.
At Her Feet, by Rebekah Weatherspoon, for the gorgeous fat queer femme character that doesn’t think about dieting once and is not ashamed of her size, and for the only Mommy/girl dynamic I’ve ever read in a full length novel. I really enjoyed the little girl Suzy so much in this, loved her voice.
Defying Convention, by Cecil Wilde, for the achingly realistic internal voice of both trans characters, in their fumbling and uncertainty and sweetness and nerdiness. I fell for these two hard.
Sated, by Rebekah Weatherspoon, for the adorable geekiness and the only romance I’ve read so far centering two switches, and the earnest concentration of the novice top who also cracks tons of jokes when she bottoms.
Breath on Embers, by Anne Calhoun, for a beautiful story about coping with and recovering from grief.
Serving Pleasure, by Alisha Rai, for the gorgeous prose, the careful and accurate representation of trauma, the hot sex, and Rana, who I adored. Also for Rana’s family and how much they were part of the story.
Challenge Accepted, by Annabeth Leong, for a vulnerable scared top, a confident novice bottom, a gorgeous D/s dynamic between them, and the joy of Leong’s prose style. Also, one of the few BDSM romances I have found where the top is a woman.
Full Exposure, by Amy Jo Cousins, for the lovely sexual tension, the very hot sex, and being inside Evan’s head, which was a joy.
Craving Flight, by Tamsen Parker, for the ways these characters were careful with each other, the gorgeously drawn BDSM scenes, the slow build of trust and love between them. And again, for a story centering Jews, something that’s pretty rare for me to find in romance.
For Real, by Alexis Hall, for a queer men’s romance whose plot and character arcs are not driven by internalized misogyny and homophobia, finally. (I’ve found this to be sadly rare.) Also for a novice top that sexually bottoms, an experienced older bottom, actual mistakes during play, a top safewording, and a lovely D/s dynamic. I fell for both these characters, hard.
Have Mercy, by Shelley Ann Clark, for the beautiful D/s dynamic, the very hot slow burn, a novice top at the center of the story, a more experienced strong worshipful bottom, and the way music is woven into the story. I read this when I was looking for stories that center tops who are women, and it delivered beautifully, one of the best of those I’ve read. I loved the complexity and nuance in this story.

Note: If you want to find the folks on Twitter that wrote and/or read these books and recommended them to me, they are on my romance and erotica Twitter list. There are also a bunch of awesome erotica writers on that list.

Tagged: 2015, access, BDSM romance, erotic romance, hit and run, reading, romance

Books I Carry With Me

What books do I carry with me? Let’s start with the practical. Three years ago I packed myself up and moved across the country. I took very little, leaving the bulk of my things (including a lot of books) in storage, took only what was absolutely necessary. That included a small number of books. I had to bring the books I could not live without, the books whose support I thought I might need when landing in a new place.

Most of the books I brought were ones I’ve read many times, books I hold inside, and carry with me. Books I know so well that I think in them. Books I use over and over again to inspire my writing, to remind myself of what I know, to hold a mirror up to my own life.

Here is a list of fifty books that are dear to my heart, precisely because they kicked my ass in some major intense way when it needed to be kicked, or showed me I wasn’t alone when I felt deeply alienated, or helped me understand something I really needed to understand.

Links are to Goodreads. If you have a question about a book, or want trigger warnings, you can also feel free to ask me about it.

Sister/Outsider by Audre Lorde
No Mercy by Patrick Califia
Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler
Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence by Adrienne Rich
The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricote
Waist High in the World by Nancy Mairs
Medicine Stories by Aurora Levins Morales
A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voight
Pushing the Limits ed by Shelley Tremain
Talking Back by bell hooks
Growing Beyond Survival by Elizabeth Vermilyea
Diesel Fuel by Patrick Califia
The Marrow’s Telling by Eli Clare
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein
Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
Enter Password: Recovery by Elly Bulkin
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Keeping Slug Woman Alive by Greg Sarris
Missed Her by Ivan Coyote
Martian on the Playground by Claire Sainsbury
Fire, by Kristin Cashore
Whipping Girl by Julia Serano
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Safety Planning with Battered Women by Jill Davies
A Map to the Next World by Joy Harjo
After Silence by Nancy Venable Raine
Getting Home Alive by Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales
Butch is a Noun by S. Bear Bergman
This Bridge Called My Back ed by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
The Deep End by Chris Crutcher
Kissing God Goodbye by June Jordan
S/he by Minnie Bruce Pratt
Loving in the War Years by Cherrie Moraga
The Burning Pen, ed by M. Christian
The Persistent Desire ed. by Joan Nestle
The Survivor’s Guide to Sex by Staci Haines
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
The Alchemy of Race and Rights by Patricia J. Williams
Exile and Pride by Eli Clare
Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich
Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine
Seeking Safety by Lisa Najavitz
Nearly Roadkill by Kate Bornstein and Caitlin Sullivan
Thinking Class by Joanna Kadi
My Dangerous Desires by Amber Hollibaugh
The Collected Poems by Audre Lorde
Blood and Silver by Patrick Califia

These are books I read as an adult. (I’d need a whole other list for books that shaped me as a child.) Many of these books came with me as I traveled, or I quickly realized that I needed to have them again. These are books that gut-punch me in ways that I need it, hold up the mirrors I ache for, inspire me to be brave. I consider them essential texts that have shaped me, and continue to shape me.

Tagged: essential texts, gut-punching books, reading, teachers

One Top’s Perspective On Talking Publicly About Kink Relationships and Exes

When I publicly tell stories about my own kink experiences (which I do quite frequently both as a kink educator and on this site), it is primarily in service of a goal: to illustrate something I’m trying to explain, to make a point, to give context, to articulate something about myself or something I’ve learned, to share my own vulnerability so that folks feel more comfortable taking risks themselves. These are generally not stories for their own sake, but stories to get us somewhere.

For this kind of public storytelling, I am careful. I avoid sharing unnecessary details. I avoid sharing identifying information. Most importantly, my intention is to center my own experience, my feelings, my reality, what I have learned for myself. To make myself vulnerable. In telling stories about kink, I inevitably have to talk about the folks I do it with. Where I’ve landed is that I choose to talk about other people’s behavior (what they do and say), not their motivations, emotions, or internal experiences.

Telling stories in private is a different matter. I tell stories in private to let people in, to help people know me, to create intimacy and connection, to get reality checks, to sort through my feelings, to ask for advice, to try to understand what happened. A very different set of goals. In private storytelling I am more likely to name names, to share a wealth of detail, and to discuss not just the behavior of my partners or exes but also consider and speculate about what they might be feeling, or thinking, or experiencing, what their motivations and intentions might be.

I perceive private storytelling as essential in my life, both as a way to build intimacy and as a way to manage risks. Every time I’ve been in a relationship where there is an expectation that I not share stories about my relationship with close trusted others, that relationship has turned out to be abusive. If my partner expects/asks me not to talk about my own experiences with the people I trust, then something is wrong. I need to be able to do reality checking, it is vital to my continued practice of discernment of abusive dynamics and behavior.

In private storytelling, I am responsible for choosing carefully who I share stories with, and the setting in which I share stories, and for being respectful in how I tell the stories.

In my mind, public storytelling comes with a different set of responsibilities.

When I tell a story in public, I have little control over where it goes or how it is interpreted. What I do have control over is what I say. I am much more careful about what I say, and focus my stories on my own experience.

There are a few reasons for that and a lot of them have to do with the realities of being a top.

-Domism in kink culture creates situations where tops do a lot of public theorizing and pontificating and speculating about bottom experience, needs, intentions, and motivations. Much of which is flat out wrong. Much of which is done to talk shit about their exes. Much of which occurs in top-centered conversations. I don’t want to participate in that. It contributes to a culture of deep disrespect of bottoms, and their voices and experiences.

-Tops rarely center their own vulnerable feelings and needs in public conversation. I want to shift that. Focusing on my own experience and vulnerability hopefully helps create that shift.

-I can really only know my own experience, what people tell me, and the behavior I’ve witnessed. So it makes sense to stay in that zone, and tell stories from that place, especially when I’m in a role that is often perceived as expert. However much I care about and want to know what’s going on for the folks I play with, I’m not an expert on my partner’s experiences or motivations or internality. Only they can be an expert on that. I don’t get to speak for them. (Tops are not actually mind-readers, y’know, however much people fantasize about that.)

-Pretty much everyone I’ve played with has been a woman, a femme, a genderqueer person, and/or a trans person. Those folks are often not listened to, silenced, not allowed space to name their own experiences and realities. If I start naming their realities, I’m participating in that and encouraging others to do so. It doesn’t take much to encourage that kind of misogyny, transphobia and transmisogyny. I don’t want to be part of that.

I once attended a panel that was ostensibly about the experience and needs of bottoms. It had three tops and two bottoms on it, and was facilitated by a top. The bottoms rarely spoke and were often interrupted when they did. A dominant on the panel (who held a leadership position in the community) spent a good twenty minutes explaining the experience and feelings and motivations of his recent ex, a submissive woman who was not in the room, and using that opportunity to disparage her with pretty much every sentence.

There was an intense amount of domism and misogyny going on in that room. It is one of many experiences I’ve had where dominants who are butch, masculine and/or men publicly talk shit about submissive exes or partners that are femmes, feminine and/or women, and encourage other dominants to do the same. (Not very different in a lot of ways from how heterosexual men are often cheered for spewing misogyny about their exes or current partners.)

The reality is that as a top, my words often have more weight in a public forum. That my storytelling is taking place in a kink culture that values my words and my supposed “expertise” on my partners experience. That I have power and privilege in these arenas, particularly as a masculine top. We are not equal parties in our stories about what happened in our kink relationships, and I cannot pretend these social realities away.

What I can do is use care when I tell stories in public. I believe very strongly that we hunger for stories, personal stories about the realities of people’s kink lives. I love writing fiction and see great value in it, but real stories are deeply important, too. So I do not want to stop telling my own stories, but I also want to take responsibility for the stories I tell and how I tell them.

I treasure my partner’s vulnerability when they choose to share it with me, and a big part of what I treasure is their choice, their trust. I don’t want to choose for them. So when I tell stories about my kink experiences, I endeavor to make myself vulnerable, instead of choosing to tell a story in a way that makes my partners and exes vulnerable.

My behavior as a top does not stop at the end of the scene or the relationship. It also includes how I talk in public about my partners. I value care and intention and responsible consensual use of power in my BDSM practice, and this is another extension of that.

Tagged: being careful, discernment, domism, judicious disclosure, misogyny, personal stories, public vs. private, top's POV, transmisogyny, true stories

On Writing Disability In Erotica

“the world needs more erotica that consciously depicts the beautiful diversity of bodies and identities”

I am honored that She Bop, a fabulous feminist sex shop in Portland, recently posted about my writing, with a focus on writing disability in erotica. It makes my heart sing to know that there are sex shops like this who get excited about disability representation in erotica.

She Bop carries print copies of Show Yourself To Me (it’s listed as a staff pick!), so if you are in Portland I hope you will consider checking out the shop and perhaps picking up a copy. They also have an online store that is definitely worth a look. Perhaps you can grab a copy of Coming Out Like a Porn Star, or The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard (which is on sale right now and is a seriously amazing collection). Might I suggest picking up your very own Tristan plug (which is featured in a story in Show Yourself To Me), or getting a copy of Tobi Hill-Meyers amazing Doing It For Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project?

So, I got inspired to gather a few links of my writing on disability and erotica.

Imagining Disabled Characters in Erotica answers the question “what would it add for you to find more disabled characters in erotica?” and goes on to describe some of how I write disability into erotica.

“That’s what I think about when I try to imagine an abundance of disabled characters in erotica. All the modeling that is possible, that could show me ways of being in sex and kink and relationships and queerness and community that I cannot imagine right now, cannot fathom in the sea of ableism that I’ve been steeping in for years. There are possibilities I cannot conceive of, ways of navigating the world that I could learn only from erotica that centered disabled characters in the fullness of their lives and struggles and fantasies. Futures that are possible, that could be moved towards and tried out and organized around our hope and yearning for that kind of erotic reality.”

Being a Disabled Top in Kink Community talks about my experiences of disability and access in kink community and how writing erotica is one of the ways I can access kink.

“I can’t show up in person most of the time, but I can write. I can write visions of kink communities that are more accessible.”

Writing Erotica as a Disabled Top talks about the struggles of self-representation and gives a specific example of how I edited the beginning of a story to include disability.

“As I’ve become increasingly more disabled, much more of my work represents BDSM play that I used to be able to do, but do not currently have the physical or psychological capacity to do.”

What To Take In, my first monthly column at The Erotica Readers and Writers blog, talks about writing insider stories (e.g. stories by disabled people, centering a disabled audience, for disabled readers) and how it can be important to think carefully about editing feedback that asks you for more detail or explanation. It gives a particular example about that kind of feedback around disability.

“This story is an insider story, for fat activist queers, particularly for disabled fat activist queers. It intentionally does not make a big deal about how people move on scooters, because it’s a regular part of life for the intended audience.”

Writing Disability Into Erotica is a blog post I wrote for the Show Yourself To Me blog tour, where I give concrete tips and examples for writers interested in disability representation in erotica.

“Because disabled folks are so often desexualized, it is particularly important to make them sexual subjects in your story, where you value their desire. But it is also deeply important to tell a story about how that particular character is desired. To make that desire specific and concrete and complex and alive on the page. Because the last thing you want in erotica that includes disabled characters is to assist readers in a patronizing pitying smug smile about how nice it is that your disabled character found a man.”

One of the main projects of my new erotica collection, Show Yourself To Me, was to write disabled queers into erotica. Many of the links in this post describe those writing efforts. I’m thrilled that reviewers have recognized this aspect of the book. Here are a couple reviews that discuss disability representation: Kiki DeLovely and Kaleigh Trace.

“If you want to see disabled people getting off, then this book is your bag.” –Kaleigh Trace

“As someone with an invisible chronic illness, I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to see issues of disability addressed thoroughly as well as elements of it simply woven casually into much of the collection.” –Kiki DeLovely

Tagged: disability, erotica writing, kink, kink community, writer's tools

Want to read my work for free?

Many of my stories have excerpts posted online. You can find those by story on this page, which lists all my publications, by story.

I also have posted a number of excerpts from my novel Shocking Violet, which is my current major WIP.

But if you want to read an entire story, I now have several available free online.

“Baxter’s Boy” centers a high femme dyke who aches to play with queer boys. It focuses on her desire for Baxter, a gay trans top, the first trans guy who came out as a faggot in h...

elust 77

Welcome to Elust #77 –

The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at Elust. Want to be included in Elust #78? Start with the rules, come back January 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

~ This Month’s Top Three Posts ~

On the Island of Mhowra

Shoulder shaming?

What becomes of the broken hearte...

Memories of wax

This morning, the scent of wax brought waves of memory.

Dripping wax on my own skin when I was a teenager, long before I let myself admit that I was kinky, soaking up the feeling of inflicting pain. I used up a whole box of fancy blue and green candles, four different shades, very slowly.

Bottoming to wax play for the first time, where it had very little to do with pain at all. Just a warm wash on my skin, and the feeling of being encased and decorated. Wax melted on slow heat in a crock pot...

Reading at Leather, Lace and Lust, 12/19/15

In a couple weeksI will be reading from my new collection of queer kink erotica, Show Yourself To Me,at Leather, Lace and Lust in San Francisco. I really enjoy reading at this event and am looking forward to it.

What: An Evening Of Lusty Literature By Many Of The Best Erotica Writers In The Bay Area!

From the tempting tease of delicate lace to the steamy heat of hardcore leather, these authors and performers will amuse, delight, and most of all excite you in all kinds of new and provocative w...

Review Roundup for Show Yourself To Me

“Xan is willing to destroy the fantasy to talk about something much hotter; real life..” Heather Elizabeth

“As I readthese pages, my heart pounds. I can hear my veins pumping, pumping, pumping in my ears. I’m at the brink, the exterior contour of my desire, my limit, so to speak, at every turn of the page. I’m taken and return to that delicious instant when tears spring to my eyes from a hand on my ass, when I switch from grounded presence to floaty headspace. That moment which is my favorite...

If You Love Romance, You’ll Hate This Book, A Guest Post by Giselle Renarde

“I myself am depressed more easily by works that evade, compensate or cover up than I am by ones that pursue their patterns to the conclusions inherent in them. I’d rather have an unhappy ending than a happy one if it’s an unhappy ending that the story demands.”

~Margaret Atwood, from Survival: A Thematic Guide To Canadian Literature

Brief introduction for those who don’t know me: I’m Giselle, I’m Canadian, I’m queer, and I write books for a living.

Well… “books” could be anything from shor...