Emerald's Blog, page 2

Office Space at the #RLFblog

I’m delighted to be a guest today on the Romance Lives Forever blog, helmed by the esteemed Kayelle Allen. In addition to talking about my brand new book, Initiative: Tales of Erotic Boldness, I’m also sharing a little about my work space, which in my case is my home office.

You can find our interview here. Please feel free to visit, say hi, and learn why a gumball machine is one of my favorite things in my office!

Love,

Emerald

“In addition, my office has fabulous silver wallpaper, a wall calendar I buy every year that has gorgeous and inspiring garden photographs (the Secret Garden series—I highly recommend it), and a stuffed Hello Kitty in a hot pink plaid dress I consider my ‘writing buddy.'”

-from my RLF interview

Initiative: Tales of Erotic Boldness

While my excitement is counterbalanced with a deep reverence for the challenge of the current circumstances around the world, I am deeply pleased to announce the release of my brand new short story collection, Initiative: Tales of Erotic Boldness. While I considered pushing back the release date when the vast, perilous, unexpected circumstances surrounding COVID-19 began to emerge, I did, after some deliberation, choose to stay with the original release date of May 1. My hope is that for those seeking the stimulation, release, entertainment, or comfort (however one seeks or experiences it in a given moment) of reading, Initiative may support that experience.

Initiative contains thirteen stories, nine of which are previously published, and four that I wrote specifically for the collection. Here is the table of contents:

Rules
Shift Change
Lotus
Payback
The Beast Within (A Modern-Day Fairy Tale)
Who’s on Top?
Winter*
City Girl
Sunshine
Kissing Cassie*
Fulfillment*
A Few Hundred Dollars
Changing Tides*

For more information and buy links, please visit this page any time. If you would like to buy it right now, it is available in both print and e-book formats via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and IndieBound (Google Play coming soon). Thank you so much, and be well!

Love,
Emerald

“For instance, I could probably save you a few hundred dollars tonight.”


I heard the boldness of the statement as it came from my mouth, and I almost winced. What had possessed me to let that thought slip out loud?
 For the briefest moment the charming, even, ultra-collected man who was hosting this party in his mansion paused. But his smooth face remained impassive, and I likely wouldn’t have noticed the momentary composure slip had I not been paying so much attention.

-from “A Few Hundred Dollars” in Initiative

*previously unpublished

The Work of Realizing What We Truly Are

I missed an opportunity.

Several months ago, perhaps approaching a year now, I happened to tune in to one of Tara Brach’s videos via Facebook Live. I arrived in the middle of it, and she was talking about loving and having compassion for others. I tuned in right about the time she said, “As soon as you perceive threat . . . the reptilian brain goes into fight-flight-freeze; it happens quickly. So we get angry or hurt or afraid and contract and we get cut off from the parts of the brain that are responsible for compassion. So that’s one way that we get blocked [from experiencing love and compassion]: when we perceive threat.” (Emphasis mine)

A few days later, an awareness entered consciousness in me as I was driving. It was not preceded by a conscious recollection of Tara’s words. But it was in response to them. It appeared all at once and was essentially this:

If it is true that compassion does not tend to be activated unless we feel safe, then those of us in relative safety are on the front lines of evolution: It is our job, our fierce and immediate and unrelenting job, to love. To love right now. To love everybody. With everything we have. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, there’s a part of us that doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to do that. But that is our calling right now, and it is of utmost importance. If we are in a position of privilege that allows us to not perceive a direct threat right now (e.g., American citizens, white, cisgender, straight, currently financially secure, and/or many other manifestations of privilege), then we are the ones who must lead the mantle of love, do the hard work on the cutting edge of the evolution of humanity. We cannot lay this burden on people who are not actually safe right now—the LGBT community, those who aren’t white, those wishing to run from violence and instability to a place they have heard has less of those things—and must attend to the immediacy of the threats they are under. This is our job. Right now. And indefinitely.

I felt compelled to write about and share that at the time, and many times since. For some reason I didn’t.

Alas…circumstances have shifted, and now it appears none of us is safe. Fundamentally, this is always the case (and on another level, what we truly are is always safe). In the circumstances of the perceived external world, however, right now there is an imminent existential threat in a form related to, as a friend recently put it, “the great equalizer” of the health of a human body. No one is immune (literally) to this potential threat to human wellness and life.

I was remiss in missing the opportunity to write in more detail about the above when it presented itself. This is what is presenting itself to be written now.

There have appeared to be different responses to the current phenomenon around the world. One of the most disturbing came recently from Donald Trump and is outlined in this article. I quoted and commented the following in response to my friend’s posting of it on social media:

(From the article) “The problem is that the political right, along with centrists like Blankfein, don’t want such a heavy intervention in the economy. As a result, they indulge in a truly grotesque display of self-interested reasoning and argue that there can be a quick and easy end to quarantines, shutdowns, and social distancing campaigns.

“What they are arguing for goes beyond Social Darwinism and is, in fact, a kind of cult capitalism. The existing [economic] system is viewed as so sacred that it is worth sacrificing innumerable human lives to keep it going.”

(My comment) This is breathtakingly horrifying in a way that feels almost quietly surreal. It is an epitomization of the unconscious distortion and shadow prevalent in the human species right now…as well as exactly what we are called, right now particularly, to evolve beyond.

That Donald Trump has modeled inhumanity is not surprising to me. I do not say that lightly or flippantly. Simply sincerely. Since my relative introduction to him (I knew who he was when he first ran for president but had never paid attention him), I have rarely, if ever, observed in him a concern for humanity in general. Generally, I have observed the opposite.

So this was not completely surprising, but of course it is horrifying. Further disturbing to me is that, as a perceived authority figure, he has appeared to influence some of the citizenry of the United States into perceiving things from an economic standpoint rather than a humanitarian standpoint. As I see it, this framing represents a fundamental way the human species is being invited to evolve right now: will we continue the oblivious and arbitrary unconscious distortion that has manifested as the worship of the concept of money, or will we awaken (at least more) to the connection of all living beings?

I’d like to note a subtle distinction here. Subtle, but essential: I am not saying that the choice is between economics or humanity. Economics is a social science, and like the rest of the social sciences, offers fascinating material for study, creativity, learning, historic assessment, and opportunity. I am not talking about economics, the social science, inherently.

I am talking about our current economic system.

It is that which has manifested from and continues to perpetuate one of the deepest shadows of the human species right now: a system that literally worships money, places it as the unquestionably highest priority on the planet, makes the pursuit of it the greatest goal of many egoic consciousnesses and the lack of it (which, importantly, is often arbitrary and virtually impossible to overcome in both this country and many places in the world) the cause of profound suffering. It is because of this system that people don’t get what they need, not because of some inherent conflict between economics and the well-being of collective humanity.

This perspective, this focus, this allowance of the concept of money being the ultimate priority of existence, is the shadow. It is also abominable.

And it is not inevitable.

Economics is a social science and will likely to continue to be with us. But it doesn’t need to look like it does now. Economic policy could look different. In a way/ways we likely can’t even conceive of right now.

The public policies of the United States and the human species will not shift until the consciousness of the people creating the citizenry and the leadership does—more specifically, until the consciousness within each of us expands and awakens. Were it to do so, there would be a paradigm shift that our current ego consciousness literally cannot conceive of. That inconceivability, by the way, is important—it’s why our public policies have not ultimately addressed or resolved our challenges. Because those policies are being created from the same egoic level of consciousness from which the distortion creating our challenges arises in the first place. As the quote attributed to Albert Einstein says, “Our problems will not be solved by the same minds that created them.” I understand this to not refer to the literal minds of specific people but rather the level of consciousness of those (our) minds.

So when I say our ego consciousness cannot conceive of how economics in the human species might look different, I mean it, because that level of consciousness sees things the way we have historically seen them; and worshipping money, for example, has been an unquestionable part of that for a long time.

A shift in perspective is required for a shift in public policy. Put simply, we have to care about each other. Right now we don’t. You may be thinking that of course you care about people! You care about your family, your friends, occasionally people you see in the news for whom you feel sympathy. I appreciate that. And in fact, I should articulate what I mean more specifically: We have to understand our connection. Only when we recognize that we are all one, that the separateness we perceive in the external world is ultimately illusory, that when any being suffers, the collective of life (which includes all of us) suffers, will we actually recognize the obviousness of wanting no one to unnecessarily suffer. Until we see this, we will simply be perceiving the limited level of externality and separation and trying to “fix” things on that level, which does not recognize the larger one of intrinsic connection and oneness.

Which brings us to another quote of this kind that is well-known and frequently not truly appreciated: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Often perceived as a platitude or metaphor, that is a recognition, on the contrary, of a perspective that recognizes the connection of all beings. If it helps, picture for a moment the earth as a human being—and see that we are all cells of that being. Our waging war on each other and neglecting each other and ignoring others’ suffering would be similar to the cells of our liver declaring war on the cells of our skin, for example, and hailing a great victory when they “won.” What are they doing? Destroying, willfully and unconsciously, something they are unequivocally connected to—destroying, indeed, a part of themselves. (When we disregard and attack the planet itself, we are doing a version of the same thing: destroying the very organism that allows us to exist.)

You may be wondering how one becomes conscious of the inherent interconnectedness and oneness of life? I’m glad, as it’s a fair question. Please know something very important about it: you do not “grasp” this. You do not “convince” yourself to love everyone and grudgingly recognize our connection so you can feel like a better person. You do not “choose” to see this or effort your way to it or pursue it like a goal that you finally attain and then move on. The recognition is not on that level of awareness.

But not to worry: the awareness is always available to you. And whether you recognize it or not, the oneness of the universe is simply the case. How each of us perceives anything related to it does not change it at all; it simply influences our own experience. So how do you become aware of it? You work on yourself. You go deep within yourself, let go of what isn’t really you, ideally receive support releasing past trauma, sit, breathe, be, practice…until some moment, with no attempting or expectation, you suddenly and unexpectedly recognize it. You see it for yourself. You’re instantly aware this oneness, this connection of and with all life, was there all along. And that you always had access to it, but there were other things in the way, past pain filtering your experience and perspective that you have now kindly, fiercely, carefully supported yourself in working through and releasing enough that you see it. You see the oneness. You see what you truly are. What we truly are.

And that they are the same.

And then you care. You care in a different way than you ever consciously understood before, but that you again realize was always there. You care in a way that allows you to see the sometimes severe unconsciousness in people and feel the pain of it and not suppress your feelings and the anger and frustration and sometimes rage, while still recognizing the inherent love they are. Even if it’s way beneath the surface of tremendous shadow that requires much work for them to dismantle and release—having worked with yours, you understand and feel more compassion for the struggles of working on oneself and one’s shadow. And you know that needless suffering feels virtually unbearable to you, and you know now that on some level it does to everyone and that they just don’t see it yet and that one of the things you want most in the world is for them to recognize it so we can release it as a collective and focus on supporting the thriving of every being in the beauty and vibrancy and joy of the extraordinary opportunity of life we have right now.

Perhaps most importantly, you see all of this due to the degree you have awakened. And that awakening has put you in a prime position to support awakening in all others as well.

From here, we can begin.

All love,

Emerald

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will live as one…”

-John Lennon “Imagine”

Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 5—Out December 10!

I’ve been a little quiet on the writing/publishing front for the last few years, so I’m delighted to say that my story “Something New” is releasing soon in Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 5! Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and published by Cleis Press, Best Women’s Erotica Volume 5 is due to come out December 10. I am especially humbled and delighted that the Publishers Weekly review of the book made mention of my story.

There is a blog tour for the anthology that started yesterday and runs through December 13, and you can find out more about the book, including upcoming events (I’m scheduled to be at the one in New York on January 19!) at the Best Women’s Erotica of the Year website. Rachel is also hosting an Instagram giveaway of two print copies of the book—find out how to enter here!

In addition, the publisher, Cleis Press, designed graphics to promote all the stories in the book. Mine is there to the right! I completely adore it, and you may be seeing more of it if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook. :) The book is available for pre-order from IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and most other online book retailers. If you do pick up a copy, thank you, and I hope you enjoy!

Love,

Emerald

When I looked at Samantha, there was an unmistakably different energy in her countenance. Her eyes had changed, from lively and friendly to darker and intense. Abruptly I found myself captivated by her even more than by Isaac, transfixed by the intangible allure she now radiated. I watched her look at my husband with obvious hunger, and I smiled.

I, fortunately, was not the jealous type either. And I had a feeling Isaac had just learned something new about his soon-to-be wife.

-from “Something New”

A(nother) Plea to Consider

Around the time of the DECRIMNOW DC press conference on the introduction of a bill decriminalizing sex work in the District of Columbia, the inimitable Veronica Monet posted a link to a New York Times article titled, “Could Prostitution Be Next to Be Decriminalized?” I appreciated seeing the article in general, as well as some of what it said, and of course there were perspectives offered in it as well that are counter to mine. One such statement said, astonishingly enough:

“Ms. Mathieson and others who work with women in the sex trade say that supporters of decriminalization gloss over a raft of gruesome details about the profession, including rape, physical abuse by clients and pimps, commonplace drug use and an often ravaging physical toll of multiple sex partners, sometimes in the span of a few hours.”

There are times when my response to such assertions feels like one giant sigh. Nobody is “glossing over” anything in the sex industry. I sincerely don’t know why anyone even perceives that. The very motivation for decriminalization is the recognition of the extensive risks and, as the quote calls them, “gruesome details” of the industry that are largely invoked by its underground/illegal status. I honestly have not understood why this seems challenging to grasp. When abortion was criminalized, exploitation, sexual assault, and unsafe and unsanitary conditions surrounded it. This does not seem surprising, and I’m not certain why anyone would find it so. It is similarly the case with sex work. When it is criminalized, it becomes surrounded by exploitation and violence, in no minor part because the workers in the industry do not have the open option of seeking legal support. (In both cases, this is why I am unconvinced by anyone’s claim who supports the criminalization of either thing that they are actually concerned about the people impacted by such criminalization.)

Sexual assault is illegal, holding human beings against their will is illegal, and physical assault of another person is illegal. All would remain against the law were sex work decriminalized. It is these things that are a problem, not the consensual offering of sexual services itself in a capitalistic economy. Viewing any of these circumstances as intrinsic to sex work is like viewing them as intrinsic to marriage, as both sex work and marriage represent cultural systems in which astonishing abuses and exploitation have taken place. It is not the intrinsic fault of either of these systems but rather a result of unconscious and distorted perspectives our species has managed to develop around gender, sexuality, race, class, and in some cases, basic humanity.

Incidentally, both marriage and sex work have arguably have been a historical way for (some) women* to survive financially. Historically, marriage was the route offered white, middle-to-upper-class women in the western world. When people seem to find receiving financial payment for performing sexual services in the context of sex work inherently degrading, I do not understand how they see this as different from the historical cultural strictures that disallowed women from being educated and working to make their own money so that virtually their only choice was to marry a man who would provide the financial support they needed to sustain their existence. It was relatively understood at that time that sex was part of the deal in getting married. (If that’s hard for anyone to understand, please recall that marital rape did not come into existence as a law—indeed, as something many people even understood could happen—until the 1970s in the United States. That is because it was assumed that when people were married, sex was intrinsically consensual at all times and under all circumstances by virtue of the act of getting married.)

The most distinct difference between these two circumstances seems to be longevity: in sex work, a woman performed a service for a man for a limited time for a specific amount of money, while in marriage, the woman performed an action for perhaps the rest of her or her husband’s life in order to receive ongoing financial support that allowed her to subsist. The ethics or appropriateness of either of these circumstances is not, in this immediate context, the point. The point I offer at the moment is simply the commonality of these two systems and how engaging in a sexual action and receiving financial compensation for it on a short-term basis was (and still is) perceived as so fundamentally different from doing so on a lifetime basis that one is viewed as one of the basest of actions, worthy only of criminalization and dehumanization of those who partake in it, while the other has become lauded as one of the most cherished traditions in contemporary society and considered the standard among adults seeking to share their lives with a romantic or sexual companion.

To be fair, the practical difference as far as life experience between the circumstances is obvious. What is not, to me, is the subjective proclamation of the merits (or lack thereof) of each that has led to our feeling as a collective compelled to eradicate the existence of the first and, at least in the past, all but insist upon the preponderance of the second.

Though gender strictures have shifted in current US society, and many of the expectations and perceptions of marriage have along with it, the history of the institution of marriage and correlative notions as outlined above make it seem relevant to me that sex work has become such a viciously condemned endeavor while marriage was, at a time when women often depended on it for financial subsistence, not only accepted but expected. As usual, I aspire to support and participate in a collective examination of such perspectives as seem to me both arbitrary and automatically accepted with the aim of discovering what unconscious patterns may be influencing us (and eliciting detriment) unawares.

Love,

Emerald

*In this particular illustration, I am referring exclusively to cisgender women and cisgender men, as, in speaking about the historical comparison between the phenomena of marriage and sex work for illustrative purposes, utilizing this referential limitation seems to make the most contextual sense. Since it is clear that sex workers are nowhere near exclusively cisgender women, I only use this limited population as an example for this particular context. I specify the class and race because the historical institution of marriage in the United States and elsewhere in the western world has certainly been different for people of different races and classes.

“If you’re not part of the future, then get out of the way…”

-John Mellancamp “Peaceful World”

The Poignant Beauty of Bound: A Daughter, A Domme, and an End-of-Life Story

In November of 2012, a post from Elizabeth Anne Wood, whom I know in person and am Facebook friends with, appeared in my Facebook feed in which she shared that she was “putting [her] phone on silent overnight for the first time in seven months.” I remember finding the statement deeply poignant. I had learned from a post two days before that her mother was no longer alive in that physical form.

I had been peripherally aware via Facebook that Elizabeth had been caring for her mother through an intensive and terminal illness. Not long after, I learned that Elizabeth planned to write a book about the experience of being her mother’s caretaker during the health challenges that arose shortly after her mother’s later-in-life sexual exploration and foray into erotic domination. I made an immediate note to read it when it came out.

Doing so illuminated just how peripheral my knowledge of the situation had indeed been as Bound: A Daughter, A Domme, and an End-of-Life Story guided me unflinchingly into the thick of not only the mind-bogglingly complicated (thanks in part to the bureaucratic nature of current health care in the United States) care of Judy Wood during her cancer diagnosis and treatment, but also through a poignant and engrossing narrative that touches topics ranging from Elizabeth’s childhood to her discussions with her mother about the latter’s discovery of and newfound enthusiasm for sexual dominance to navigating communications with health care providers upon whom the well-being of a beloved family member to some degree depends. Intertwined in the story are the tension that arises sometimes between the author and her sister as they navigate the utterly uncertain terrain of their mother’s health and care, the welcome presence of the male partner with whom Judy has developed an erotic relationship of dominance and submission, and an exhausting number of physical transferals from hospital to rehab centers to skilled nursing facilities, wash, rinse, repeat.

Bound is a book to which we already know the “ending.” Such is, in fact, included in the subtitle. Like many books in this category, the purpose of reading it then becomes not to find out how the volume resolves but to witness the shape, evolution, and content of the story as it progresses to its known conclusion. This is reflected on occasion in the actual text, in which Elizabeth at times not only foreshadows but actually shares a significant fact or occurrence that will become known later in their experience but that they are not yet aware of in the current scenario. Rather than detract in any way from the suspense of the narrative, these observations enhance the poignancy and, in many cases, highlight the frustration or anguish of aspects of the author’s (and her family’s) journey.

On page 193, I cried for the first time during the reading. It is on this page that a doctor offers Elizabeth the gentle invitation to “just be the daughter,” and I immediately sensed both the profound compassion in the invitation and also the earth-shattering and seemingly impossible surrender its recipient was likely to perceive in it. This was, of course, because Elizabeth had so effectively depicted the supreme propensities for organization, capability, and conscientiousness that had been dominating (no pun intended) her role of being her mother’s primary caretaker and medical advocate. It was easy to recognize, however, the beauty and importance of also “being the daughter,” and I cried alongside the author as she expressed, both out loud to the medical professionals and also in the written narrative, the frustration and uncertainty about what allowing herself to embrace such a role would mean.

This instance of being personally—and sympathetically—moved to tears contrasted with other times I felt moved in a more philosophical way, such as in the anguish and indignation I felt on pages 178-179 as Elizabeth alluded to the devastating racial and economic inequality of America’s health care system. (As a slight digression, it is a sincere hope in me that someday humanity looks back and recognizes a health care system—or what was called that—in any society that is centered on for-profit institutions and a for-profit industry that dictates what care individuals may receive according to how much money that for-profit industry is willing to spend as the inhumane abomination that it is.) Such practical and sociological conditions receive both recognition and illumination in this account of a patient who happens to be white and have high-quality employer-provided health insurance, as well as a primary caretaker and medical advocate who is well-educated and has the relative luxury of getting to take time off to care for her ailing mother full-time.

I experienced this book as a very personal offering from the author. Many, if not all, books are that, perhaps (though memoirs are explicitly so), but what I mean is that the way the author frames her words and what she chooses to convey feel, on one hand, very intimate, offered with both a generosity and a vulnerability inherent in letting us in to view this experience as she perceived living it. Simultaneously, the volume feels almost like an internal reckoning for the author herself, an exposition outlaying her history, family dynamics, experiences, perspectives, and, perhaps most of all, her labor on behalf of all of those things, borne of love and laced with the confusion, obligation, competency, and uncertainty that (perhaps in that order) developed from her childhood and formed the unique psychic structures she exhibits as she rejoices in Judy’s late-in-life sexual development and shepherds her through the health-related ordeal that will result in her mother’s transition out of that physical form. This subtle juxtaposition gives a beautiful, personal, poignant tone and energy to a story filled with love, sensitivity, and honesty.

One final note: Rather than at the beginning, the acknowledgements are at the end of this book, which seemed both moving and fitting somehow. To me, they almost seemed like a combination of acknowledgments and epilogue, and I encourage readers to continue through to their conclusion. The story hardly seems complete without them.

Love,

Emerald

“Hospitals, on the other hand, remove our agency immediately, in very unceremonial ways, and then offer it back coercively by way of consent forms that we are compelled to sign in order to get the treatment we know we need.”

-from Bound: A Daughter, A Domme, and an End-of-Life Story

A Focus on Abortion Access

A couple weeks ago I heard Dr. Randall Williams, director of Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services, say on NPR’s All Things Considered that if Missouri’s single abortion clinic were unable to provide abortions, people seeking abortions in that state have the fortunate circumstance of Missouri’s being surrounded by eight different states, so that many facilities that provide abortions are “very close by” there.

How handy! Arkansas, for example, which is so well known for its rich abundance of reproductive health facilities, is a mere 150-mile hop, skip, and jump from central Missouri. What a relief! Such a relief, in fact, that while they’re at it, perhaps they should stop selling Viagra in Missouri and just send anyone wanting it to one of the very-close-by neighboring states to pick it up. It’s fair to assume, incidentally, that people seeking such health care measures are just sitting around with gas-filled vehicles looking for something to occupy their time, yes?

Something I’m aware of about myself is that when I get sarcastic, it means I’m so pissed off I can hardly see straight and haven’t quite processed that yet. So I’m taking a deep breath now. And what I mean to say is that if you don’t want women/people with uteruses to legally have the same bodily and sexual autonomy as men/people without uteruses, please acknowledge that and spare any listening audiences the malevolent condescension of pretending you give a shit about the health and well-being of such people.

Case in point: the interviewer asked two direct questions about patients seeking abortion care, and Dr. Williams’s answers to both did not reference or mention patients a single time. While telling, this is not surprising. Because he doesn’t care about them.

For those who want to talk about killing the unborn, this is my serious response: You prefer killing already born or grown people via war, economic policies that encourage poverty, and inaccessible healthcare? Obviously we see this differently. But if you want to say that abortion is murder and leave that statement as the singular reason abortion is wrong or should be illegal, I will assume you are 100% against all war under all circumstances. If you are not, that means you find “murder” justifiable under some circumstances. When and why is it okay? When it is government-sanctioned and done to people on the other side of the globe by people in uniform? Yes? No? If it is not the case that you are against lethal warfare under all circumstances, then that means you find killing people justifiable under some circumstances, so you need to come up with why it is not justifiable in the case of abortion if you think killing someone is what it is. Simply falling back on the statement that it is “murder” does not work, as we just established that you do not find murder 100% unacceptable or unjustifiable in and of itself.

I’ve said this before, and I continue to find it an important consideration on the subject of abortion: pregnancy and childbirth are unique. I don’t think they can be compared to anything else, so using a framework of comparison—whether the fetus is a “person,” whether abortion is “murder”—seems foolhardy to me. If you find it unacceptable for a pregnancy to be terminated, then you do. Perceiving the subject of that pregnancy as something you have anything to do with while it is inside and depends for survival on someone else’s body is beyond comprehension to me. Unless you are the impregnator or intimately partnered with the pregnant individual, that pregnancy has nothing to do with you, and you have nothing to do with it. Even if you are the impregnator or partner of the pregnant person, it is the case that the individual carrying that pregnancy is its sole connection with life, and it is that body and that person who chooses how to interact with it.

If that person chooses to engage them as such, others may certainly be in consultation about it. But the common thread in all pregnancies remains that except in cases where a pregnancy releases on its own (miscarriage), the pregnant person (assuming they are an autonomously competent individual) is responsible in all stages of the pregnancy for interacting with it the way most resonant for them, whether that is choosing to release the pregnancy via abortion services, continuing with the pregnancy through birth, feeling compelled to release the pregnancy for tragic reasons after it had been received as desired, or other scenarios as may arise. If a pregnancy is embraced as desired, ideally all the circumstances surrounding it result in a life-affirming and healthy pregnancy and birth. Whether or not this occurs, the position of the individual harboring the pregnancy as the ultimate authority on it throughout the process does not change.

To return to the subject of Missouri, I am aware of the legal strategy of what they and other states are doing, and I feel confident that Roe v. Wade will be overturned in the foreseeable future. Obviously, I can certainly appreciate the activism protesting that: Human-made laws that circumvent the autonomy of a pregnant individual and force a potential human being to form in and emerge from a being and body that does not desire or consent to that process is a literal perversion of the phenomenon of the creation and birth of life. Yes, such a specter is profoundly appalling to me. The ignorance and unconscious distortions that motivate a desire for such perversion similarly dismay me, and they are clearly operating to an ominously prevalent degree in current society.

That said, I see the loss of Roe v. Wade’s precedent as a legal protection as close to an inevitability as long as the government of this country continues in the form it has since its creation. I thus admit I feel more urgently oriented toward practical organizing in terms of helping people get abortions once doing so is criminalized again in this country. How will networking and technological advances best be leveraged to help people seeking abortions get them and help people obtaining and providing them stay out of jail? A recent article by Rebecca Traister speaks directly to this question:

“[T]hese organizations already exist, are founded and run by women of color, have long been transporting those in need of reproductive care to the facilities where they can get it; they are woefully underfunded. The trick is not to start something new, but to join forces with [those who have already been organizing around abortion access for those denied it]. . . . Distinguishing the work of abortion funds from the policy fights in state houses and at the capitols, Hernandez said, ‘whatever happens in Washington, and changes in the future, women need to get care today.’

“And whatever comes next, she said, it’s the people who have been doing this work for years who are likely to be best prepared to deal with the harm inflicted, which is a good place for the newly enraged to start. ‘If and when Roe is abolished,’ said Hernandez, ‘the people who are going to be getting people to the care they need are those who have largely been navigating this already and are already well suited for the logistical challenges.'”

Safe, professional, legal abortion has indeed been inaccessible to a number of people and populations for some time due to legal intrusions such as the Hyde Amendment, waiting periods, minor consent laws, and other legislation orchestrated to impede the accessibility of abortion services. That the legal orientation in the United States currently appears to be continuing in that direction is abhorrent, and simultaneously, a shift in how we support reproductive justice (from working to defend Roe to supporting the population after abortion is criminalized in some states for all people in those states) seems, however wretchedly, called for to me.

Love,

Emerald

“Every road they led you down felt so wrong, so you found another way…”

-Lindsey Sterling featuring Andrew McMahon “Something Wild”

Autonomy, Ignorance, and Porn

Some readers may have heard about the recent kerfuffle over a high school newspaper that carried

Pissed Off Part I: Autonomy, Ignorance, and Porn

I started to blog about a few things I’ve found vastly frustrating (sometimes infuriating) lately, and the post got so long that I’m dividing it up into three sections…which is fairly easy, since it was already about three distinctive topics. Because I seem to not feel like being particularly eloquent with the titles, this will be the “Pissed Off” series, with each installment posted as a separate post. Following is Part I.

Some readers may have heard about the recent kerfuffle over a high school newspaper that carried

Guiding Into Creativity

I recall with certainty that when I was in grade school, A Wrinkle in Time was one of the books a teacher chose to read out loud to our class (a chapter a day). I don’t remember whether it was in fourth or fifth grade, but I remember that that book was read to me.

In what seems to me both a strange and simultaneously typical circumstance, I have remembered exactly one specific scene and line from the book. That line I could quote almost verbatim. The rest of the book was entirely gone from my conscious memory, including the general plot, characters, beginning, and ending. I can say with confidence this is not likely due to anything about the book itself, since I have experienced such circumstances with numerous books and movies I know I read/saw as a child: frequently, I remember almost nothing about them except one specific line or several-second scene, which I can often quote exactly and/or describe in minute visual detail.

Why has my memory worked this way? I have no idea. I mention it simply to introduce the fact that a few days ago, I found myself drawn to read A Wrinkle in Time again. Even though it is a children’s book, and even though I know I was exposed to it when I was at the age for which it was intended. (Perhaps, in fact, especially for those reasons.)

In the back of this edition was a short interview with the author, Madeleine L’Engle. I noted that the two of us have in common that when we were kids, we wanted to be writers when we grew up; we started writing at a pretty young age (she at 5, I at 7); and that English was our best subject in school. I also appreciated noting her response that A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times, and she had just asked for it back from her agent when she was introduced to the publisher who ended up publishing it.

L’Engle’s acceptance speech for the Newbery Medal for the referenced novel followed the interview in this edition. And there were things in this I truly found striking. (To be clear, I found the book itself striking and can easily see why it has become a classic and was so highly awarded.) The first quote I highlighted in the speech was,

“Because of the very nature of the world as it is today, our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity.”

While she was speaking specifically about children and children’s books, of course, I immediately felt a parallel with the writing of erotic fiction.

What I write is specifically not for for children and instead exclusively for adults. However, similarly to the way that their “reading for fun, for pleasure” may “[guide chidren] into creativity,” as I experience L’Engle as so appropriately lauding and encouraging, I feel erotic fiction may “guide” adults into sexuality—not the superficial and often artificial “sexuality” that is so exploited and used in commercial culture, nor the tyrannical and puritanical oppression of it leveraged for political for social purposes, but a true appreciation of, respect for, exploration around sexuality. An invitation to align with how we truly experience it uniquely and individually and what resonates with us about how we relate to this energy that is responsible for our being here.

Harkening back to part of the very plot of the novel I had just read, L’Engle’s acceptance speech goes on to describe the “forces working in the world . . . for standardization, for the regimentation of us all. . . . [T]he drying, dissipating universe that we can help our children avoid” by providing them with writing that invokes and encourages both imagination and creativity.

In the way that reading for fun and pleasure reminds kids to tap into these things, erotica may remind adults that sexuality is an intrinsic force in their lives and in our collective existence, not to be dismissed among the world of production, competition, frenzy our culture seems so oriented to at this time. That the connection, the awareness, the relaxation and pleasure that sexuality can espouse is as important and deserving of attention as such other things contemporary society seems to place so much emphasis on. L’Engle’s statement that, “Very few children have any problem with the world of the imagination . . . it’s our loss that so many of us grow out of it,” speaks to me of the importance of retaining the understanding of the significance of fun, relaxation, pleasure, play as we grow into our adult understanding of sexuality and its place in our lives.

As most who have ever read this blog or my erotic fiction may have gathered, I truly consider sexuality and eros important subjects, both for literary exploration and also in our everyday existence. I do not choose to write about them frivolously or lightly. In L’Engle’s acceptance speech for one of the most hallowed children’s fiction awards in the world, her proclamation of why she finds writing for children important resonated deeply with me in relation to why I have found writing for adults important.

And yes, in referencing erotica and my own writing I am speaking about actual sexual acts, but the sexual energy I have also referenced is far, far more than that. When L’Engle says, accurately as I see it, “A book, too, can be . . . ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,'” I perceive sex as also literally this, but ultimately, I recognize an inextricable link between sexual energy and the creative impulse, and I also recognize that they represent far more than any specific acts or connections with any particular person(s). Sex, after all, is the impetus for creating life. Sexual energy, far from being only about sexual acts or personal connection, is the foundation that manifests all creation and creativity.

In speaking specifically about A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle states that, “it was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.” I both include and close with that quote because I find it, simply, one of the most magical things about writing.

Love,

Emerald

“Even the most straightforward tales say far more than they seem to mean on the surface.”

-Madeleine L’Engle