M. Christian: Sexy Stories, Arousal Through Intelligence
Sex, Love and Intimacy
Chip August
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Episode 59 - M. Christian: Sexy Stories, Arousal Through Intelligence

Everybody fantasizes. Some fantasize a lot, some hardly at all. M. Christian (Chris) makes his living setting his fantasies down in stories and teaching others to do it, too. Chris is an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 300 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and Web sites. He is the editor of 20 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, and many others. He is the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, and Filthy; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Brushes, and Painted Doll. Join Chip and Chris as we talk about erotic fiction: where it comes from, what makes it good, and how you can learn to write it. And don’t miss Chris’ exercise for you to try at home.

Transcript

Transcript

Chip August: Welcome to the show “Sex Love and Intimacy.  I am your host Chip August. Today we are going to be talking about eroticism and erotic writing. We are talking with my guest M. Christian.

M. Christian is one of the most extensively published writers, in the area of sex and erotica, working in the world today. M. Christian writes lesbian fiction, gay fiction, fetish fiction, transgender fiction. Basically, if it’s erotic and human beings like it he writes about it.

When I was asking him about himself he said,
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“I am a literary street walker with a heart of gold.” I love that. I just love that.

He’s had over 300 stories published. He has edited 20 different anthologies of erotica. He has written 5 collections of short stories. He has written 6 novels and I am told he is working on a 7th.

And he teaches everyday ordinary people classes on how to write sexuality and write erotica.

M. Christian: What makes a good erotic story is a good story. The sexuality is important of course. The detail is important. But more than anything be a good story teller. And that is the thing. It is like I like to say, I am not equipped to experience lesbian sexuality, I have never had a gay experience, but I know what a story is. I know what desire is. I know what love is. I know what arousal is. I know what humiliation and embarrassment is. Those are real things that you can bring to any story including an erotic story.

A lot of people ask, do you get turned on and I know a lot of other erotica writers do. That is actually part of the writing process for them. I hate to say this because I might lose some readers but I’ve got new for you. My turn on is intellectual. It is imagination. It is visceral in the regards of my own consciousness. As opposed to, Mr. Happy does not just sit up and salute. That is not my judge of a good story.

For me a good story is when I am writing the story and I lose myself. I am just having a great time. I am just saying, oh this is great, I am going to do a Steinbeck, I am going to a Kipling, I am going to do something that is magnificently fun writing. For me, that is like the excitement, so to speak.

Erotica is a really good place for writers to practice their craft. So many genres now a days are so saturated by people who have grown up all their lives wanting to be a mystery writer, a horror writer, so forth. Erotica, luckily, is still a pretty hungry genre. So if you are a good writer and you want some good stuff on your resume, if you want some good experience. I mean, I have written all kind of things in addition to erotica. My novels are not always smut. Two of them are, I think. I can’t remember exactly. But a lot of them, it just opened doors.

Chip August: Chris welcome to the show.

M. Christian: Glad to be here.

Chip August: How does one start a career in erotica? How do you begin?

M. Christian: Well, I started right out of high school. I just woke up one day and said, “You know, it would be fun to be a writer.”  I had actually fantasized a bit about it but never actually set about making it practical. And I tried for about ten years to sell my fiction and achieved a tremendous amount of no success.

Then just spontaneously I took a class in writing erotica, which was taught by Lisa Pallock, who I do not know if she is writing now or not. But anyway, I took the class. She liked my writing and she purchased one of my stories for a magazine called “Feature Sex”. It was then picked up by Susie Bright for best American Erotica. And it’s sort of spiraled out of control from there.

Chip August: OK. So you’re a writer. Is this sort of like a big come down? Is this like your failure, oh my god, I am reduced to turning out porno.

M. Christian: Actually it is far from it. At first there was a little bit of a trepidation, like can I do this. I mean, I sold one. Then I suddenly realized I can do more of this. But the more I did it the more I enjoyed it.  I was a writer and it was just a delight to be able to write something. Yes, it had to do with sex and, yes, it had to do with all kinds of different fetishes, interests, orientations, and so forth.

But then I had an editor come back at me and say, this is great, I want more. That for me was the biggest turn on. It really wasn’t the sex, but it was that desire of being wanted as a writer. And to this day I enjoy it thoroughly. I love writing erotica because I love writing.

Chip August: Now, I dabble. I write. I write a blog. I try to write short stories occasionally. I have never had anything published. I don’t consider myself a professional writer. I’m imagining, a short story is a short story. It has a form. It has a style. It has a literary sort of shape. And what makes it is erotica is just the level of explicitness or the focus on erotic activity, but you’re a short story writer.

M. Christian: That’s completely correct. In fact, I’m leaving because you just solved the whole thing right there. [laughing] That is actually one of the secrets I tell people, both when I do my classes as well as write articles on writing, that what makes a good erotic story is a good story. The sexuality is important, of course. The detail is important. But more than anything be a good story teller.

That’s the thing. It’s like I like to say, I am not equipped to experience lesbian sexuality. I have never had a gay experience. I have come close to having bi experiences. But I know what a story is. I know what desire is. I know what love is. I know what arousal is. I know what humiliation and embarrassment is. Those are real things that you can bring to any story including and erotic story. And that’s what makes an erotic story a success. It’s that sense of realism of telling a good story.

Chip August: OK. So that answered one question. I was going to ask, have you had all these different kinds of experiences? But that said, do you set out like, I think I will write a transgender story? Or do you invent characters and just see what happens? How do you do this?

M. Christian: I’m a very nuts and bolts writer. I am not one of those writers that sits down and goes, yes my muse is speaking, my muse says. Na, I’m a working stiff. What I usually do is either I have an editor who is a friend or a publisher I’ve worked with or something similar and they say, hey, this is sellling like hotcakes do me a- fill in the blank. Or I will do a call for submissions. Or I will be working on a project. Or like I said I have a publisher and an editor who is known for something and I sit down and pitch my ideas and we go form there. I am a nuts and bolts kind of person.

Though sometimes when I write for my own enjoyment I sort of feel that it congeals from nowhere, but for the most part it’s pretty much what someone wants me to do. Like I said, “Literary street walker with a heart of gold”. What do you want? Fifty bucks.

Chip August: Now, my experience of writer is - I hope I don’t offend you with this – writers are kind of isolated observers of life. Most of the writers I’ve known don’t really participate so much as they observe and then they quick go back and write something. Do you find that is true for you writing about erotica and sexuality?

M. Christian: I was looking at my first wife to experience a lot of alternative sexuality. We were very experimental, joined the society of Janus in San Fransisco. I work with San Franscisco sex information. So I do have a little bit of [clears throat] hands on experience. But for the most part I really use a lot of common sense around sexuality. I mean, usually I have to refer to my various websites to look up the details some times and, of course, I have a lot of friends so I can simply say, hey , how do you do this and I don’t want to know that.

But for the most part, I usually try and bring humanity to it and then fill the details in later. But I am luck enough, like I said, to have a little bit of experience in a lot of these things.

Chip August: For those listeners who don’t know, Janus is a club, a society, an organization, about B,D,S, and M, about Bondage, discipline,  and sadomasochism. And most of the people I know who play in those realms don’t like any of the terms. I noticed that ‘they’re just have fun and having sex’, you know. Some call it sex magic. I have just heard a lot of different names for it. So I hope I didn’t just offend anybody. But I know people don’t know what Januus is.

I think I just heard you say that when I am surfing the net looking at porn I am just surfing the net looking at porn, but when you’re surfing the net looking at porn you’re actually doing research.

M. Christian: Yes. Actually, my taxes are very interesting. I mean, my tax man says, “ If it’s a book, write it off.”  It’s like, OK. I hope they don’t actually audit me  one of these days. They would find some very interesting stuff for research.

But, actually, to be honest, I use a lot of friends. I also use a lot of good resources like San Francisco Sex Information, which is sfsi.org. ,w,which is a wonderful resource.  There’s a whole bunch of other ones.

And like I said, I’ve taught sexuality as well. So I have a pretty good vast interest as far as that goes as well.

I usually though try and avoid the nuts and bolts approach. I usually don’t do a lot of research. In fact, one of the hardest things to write is fetish because the sexuality, the interest, is a little off of what my own experience is. Like I said, I can translate lust, desire, embarrassment, giddy excitement, into any kind of orientation. But I can try to stretch my imagination and do some research, talk to people, and make sure it clears from there, so.

Chip August: I am not sure everybody listening knows what you mean by fetish. So what are you talking about?

M. Christian: Well, my definition of fetish, which may not be the legalize or the medical, is a sexuality or an interest that is more- I don’t want to say avant-garde. That sounds judgmental. - but it is off of just simple hetero, gay, bi sexuality. For instance, youk now, fetishes for leather or lace. Domination and submission, like you just mentioned, and that kind of forms of power play are much more easier to grasp. But I am talking about things like, you know, objectification, someone who is into, like for instance, feet or something similar.

And I have written more than my share. I am actually very lucky and very blessed. I have some very good responses from those things, people who have not doubted for a second that I am not actually into this. A lot of what I think is important- I may be jumping the gun a little bit here- but caring about the audience. I never write down to my audience. I always… It is an absolute giddy thrill to me that I still to this day have people who are off whatever I am myself, whatever I take home with me, you know, gay, lesbian, straight, whatever, and who say, that touched me, that was a wonderful story.

It means a lot to me because it means that I reached them and I did my job as a writer. A writer I think is a story teller. And if I can convince you that I am something that I am not and you enjoy it I am very happy. That means a lot to me.

Chip August: Well, that leads us write to where I want to go. I want to talk a little bit about your audience, who reads this, and all that kind of stuff.

But before we do, we want to take a break.

You’re listening to Sex, Love, and Intimacy. I am talking to M. Christian. We are talking about erotica.

On this break please do listen to our sponsors we love getting the support of them and we’d like you to support that by buying things. You may notice that there are all kinds of opportunities. I know that one of my sponsors, Audible, you can get a free book. That’s it. You can get a free book from audible. You can save 20% on ice.com jewelry. If you go to personallifemedia.con and check out the links on my episode page, if you are asked for a code you might want to use the code love. That’s usually the code for my show.

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Chip August: We are back. You are listening to Sex, Love, and Intimacy.  I am your host Chip August. I am talking to M. Christian. We are talking about erotica.

And just before we took a break, Chris, you were talking about your audience. So who is your audience? And how do you know?

M. Christian: I actually get the question sometimes, you know, do you have fans? I go, “I hope not.” I don’t want to meet them.  I am kidding of course. I still to this day, like I said, get these wonderful messages of people saying, ‘oh that story was great’, ‘I really loved your writing’. And that means a lot to me. It means a lot that I reached the audience, I actually convinced them, you know.

And eroticism, its odds because I am not really trying to turn people on I am just trying to tell a good story. And I have actually got stories rejected because they say, ‘it didn’t turn me on’. Well, I didn’t write it for you. I just wrote a story. I think the universals are more my appeal. That’s why it touches me when people write and say, ‘oh I loved this story’ or something similar.

But I have a wide and diverse audience. Like I said I write straight stuff. So I get straight people writing me. I get a gay audience. I have a lesbian audience and all this kind of stuff. And like I said, it’s still remarkable that I get these little messages every once in a while.

And I am really blessed that I am respected enough that I work with extensively gay publishers. I work for Allison Books, for instance and a whole bunch of other publishers who publish gay and lesbian fiction. And it’s interesting because I have always been very open about my own sexuality, which is basically I am a straight guy. No bells, you know, not a lot of whistles.

But it is interesting when that comes up and I have to say that it is a real tremendous compliment that it never is a factor. No one ever says, ‘oh my God, you’re a straight guy, don’t write for us’. It’s like, ‘you’re a great writer, we just want you to write for us.’ I think that is the biggest turn on for me. I have to say that my biggest curve, my biggest fetish, that biggest excitement, is actually being a writer, is actually being able to tell the story that I want to tell, reach out and touch people, and for people to want to read it. That is the biggest turn on for me.

Chip August: Now, where do your ideas come from? I mean, how does one…? I don’t know. I notice every couple of days I have to write another blog and every couple of days I am staring at a blank screen. And I have no idea…it is just like pulling teeth. Where do these ideas come from?

M. Christian: Well, the one thing that I talk about it my class was other places where I talk about the act of writing is imagination is a muscle and you need to develop it and I  often tell people just to have fun. I really encourage just simple mental masturbation. Fantasy, not necessarily sexual fantasy because sexuality is around us all over the place but  just the imagination, using it and being open to it.

A lot of people think there’s some kind of muse, some kind of divine lightning bolt. Na, nine out of ten times it’s I want to tell a story similar to one of my favorite ones and I will tweak it  or twist it or maybe I have always wanted to tell a story that’s like this and then I have an opportunity, it gives me a change to do it. Mostly it is just kind of playing. I am having fun. It is just, once again, allowing yourself to the old idea of child like not childish, just opening your mind to imagination and ideas.

And sometimes inspiration comes from a project that I am working on. You know, sometimes I will get a call or an email saying, ‘OK, we need another issue of Truck Stop Transsexuals in Trouble’ and I am, OK , I can do this, I can do something fun. But a lot of it, like I said, just simply open up the doors of imagination and letting yourselfsimply enjoy the process.

Chip August: Now are your friends afraid of telling you stories about their personal life for fear it’s going to show up in your stories?

M. Christian: I usually try and keep my fantasy and/or the reality of my stories. However, every once in a while I will stick someone in there as a joke, you know, a name or a description of someone or something similar. But for the most part my stories are 99% completely my imagination. Though, some of my friends have notice some things that I may not have been aware of.

Chip August: Yeah, well I imagine there are people who say, ‘you just wrote that about me’, and you didn’t  know this about the person until they told you that.

M. Christian: Exactly. Exactly. It is like sometimes having someone write and them saying, ‘oh I am so crushed, you used our sex seen or you used our afternoon. And it is like, ‘I did? News to me.’ It is like, ‘I will split the royalties with you. How about that?’

But, yeah, sometimes it is like, when you’re a writer, or I think anything creative,
sometimes it is like I said, “ Imagination comes from all kinds of different places.” So every blue moon… Like it was really funny, I had a publisher one time for my first collection of short stories, “Dirty Words”, which was published by Allison Books a number of years ago. The editor I really really liked came to me and said, “I have read all your stories. It’s magnificent. We are looking forward to this. And he said, “By the way, do you realize that a lot of your stories take place at dusk or dawn?” And I went like, “you’re kidding”. 

I was completely not aware of this. And now, of course, I make a conscious effort to take it out. But it was really odd to hear someone reflect that, you know, something that I had been completely oblivious to. And I am sure other writers have the same thing. It’s like they suddenly wake up one day and realize all their characters are a certain description or all their stories take place in a certain place.  But, you know, creativity is a weird beast.

Chip August: Yeah. I used to be a big fan of Steinbeck and pretty much all of his stories are about his family, all of his stories, yeah.

So does the writing act as a kind of therapy for you? Is there a kind of release or a personal growth that you get from this?

M. Christian: Well, it’s interesting because a lot of people ask: do you get turned on? And I think, a lot of other writers do. ask: do you get turned on? And I  know a lot of other  erotica writers do. That’s actually part of the writing process for them. And I hate to say this because I might lose some readers but I’ve got news for you.  My turn on is intellectual. It’s imagination. It’s visceral in the regards of my own consciousness. As opposed to, Mr. Happy does not sit up and salute. That is not my judge of a good story.

For me a good story is when I am writing a story and I lose myself and I am just having a great time. I am just saying, OK, this is great. I am going to do a Steinbeck. I am going to do a Kipling. I am going to do something that is magnificently fun writing. And for me that is the excitement, so to speak.

I have actually rarely written about my own peccadilloes. Someone will ask me to do an article somewhere and I will have to confess then. But for the most part it is usually just; I am playing with mood, environment, structure, and plot. I am having fun with the characters. I am having fun with, you know. And a lot of times also sex is not sex it’s the power dynamic. It is also taking sex away from the physical act and putting it into things like a simple fantasy, simple arousal or…

You know, sexuality is around us all over the place and it can come in an unusual place. That is why I like playing with it as well. It is like let’s do a sex scene with no sex. Let’s do a sex scene where there is never a possibility of sex or something similar. So, that is more my turn on it than anything else.

Chip August: You can’t know this but one of the things I teach is that our limited view of sexuality actually keeps us from having the sexuality we’d like. I think of that word sex, ‘S E X’ and I think it often means sacred energy exchange or sensual energy exchange. I’m clear though, the first time I held hands with someone that I had a crush on when I was a kid, that was sex, you know. You get all sweaty and you get all nervous. Or the first time you just kissed with somebody that you really wanted to kiss that was sex.

And I notice as adults our idea of what is erotic and what is sexual gets focused right down to genital contact and in the process I think we lose so much.

M. Christian: You’re completely correct. I can’t agree with you more. In fact, one of the things I would like to say also about erotica and one of the things you need to get away from is the nuts and bolts approach.

In other words, sometimes new writers will come to me and say, “Well I  put  in the oral sex. I have done this position and this position. What position should I do now?”
It’s like, it’s not a shopping list. You know, sex can be anything. It can be a split second of a fantasy. Even, sex can be divorce. Like I mentioned fetish, it can even be divorce, like for instance some things that are enumerate because of the memories connected to it. Some people get turned on a certain time of day, ot the weather, or a smell. That’s sex.

You can do an erotic story that is nothing but a fender bender of a collision. I am making my metaphors like crazy here, but I am talking about a partial glancing of an emotion or a  feeling or a memory or something similar. I hear the word sex all the time that’s why when I read bad sex, it is like people having full blown sexual fantasies that are bland. Most of the time when we think about sex and imagine sex its flashes, its pieces, and then we’ll stitch them together and make them full blown.

Like I said, sex is around us all over the place and you can have a sexual exchange without ever taking anything out, or every getting hard, wet, moist, whatever you want to do. That is still sex. It is like I said, we need to change our definition of what sex is.

Chip August: I did have a moment, however, when you were saying the nuts and bolts of thinking. Well now, I think that’s just for the men. The women it has got to be something else. I don’t know. The washers and…I don’t know.

We need to take a break. Give a chance to sell some product and also for us to take a little bit of a break.

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You’re listening to Sex, Love, and Intimacy. I am your host Chip August.

We’ll be right back.

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Chip August: Welcome back. You are listening to Sex, Love and Intimacy. I am your host Chip August. We’re talking to M. Christian. He is a prolific writer of sexuality and erotica. And we’ve been talking about where these ideas come from and what kinds of things he writes about.

Now I know you have a class that’s upcoming. That’s actually how I found out about you is that you contacted me about the class which just looked like great fun for my partner and I. So I am wondering, could you talk a little bit about this class?

M. Christian: Certainly. The class is called “Sex Sells”. I have taught it for a long time and for a variely of different venues. And I finally decided, what the hell, why not do it again.

The class itself is on October 12th, Sunday. It is at the Center For Sexuality and Culture in San Francisco, which I have the address here right now,- Excuse me for the crumpling of paper here. – 1519 Mission.

Also, on my website at www.mchristian.com there is also some information there. And you can write me directly to get information on it. My email is [email protected]. I am very welcome to answer any questions people might have about it.

It’s from 1-4. Until September 30th it is 40 dollars. After that it’s 50 bucks.

However, you get some nice perks for that including an autographed photograph. No, actually you get a free copy of one of my collections, Filthy, which is outrageous gay erotica.

And  I am going to bring a bucket load of books I am going to be selling at a considerable discount. So even if the class sucks, you’ll walk away with some good porn.

It is a fun class. It’s really open for anybody. I mean, I like to do a pole when I first start out about the experience level [makes a coughing noise], excuse me, the writing experience level, of the various participants so I can tailor it.

But for the most part it’s really designed in two parts. One is how not to think about erotica. In other words, not negative but how to change your perspective about what it is because like I said there is not formula, there is no secret recipe, except to tell a good story. The las part is more nuts and bolts. Not to once again use the same expression. But it’s about like the market, how to sell it, and how to go from there.

And it really is almost two separate classes because really for a lot of people the marketing is not really part of it, the selling of the story. But other people  do want to try it.  I sort of put it in there to give people a little reality check about what the real world is as far as trying to sell stories, novels, collections, anthologies, and so forth.

There is also a certain degree of, like you mentioned before, kind of a spiritual and sexual awakening of printing erotica as well. And I do try and focus on the quite a bit.

Chip August: Now is this really a class for people who think of themselves as professional writers or do you get a lot of people who are just trying it out for fun?

M. Christian: I get a mixture. But for the most part it’s people who are trying to write erotica for themselves. Some people actually do want to become erotica writers. –Perverts- Some people just want to be writers. And like I explain in the copy for the class, erotica is a really good place for writers to practice their craft. So many genres now a days are so saturated by people who have grown up all their lives wanting to be a mystery writer, a horror writer, or so forth. Erotica, luckily, is still a pretty hungry genre. So if you’re a good writer and you want some good stuff on your resume you’ll have some good experience.

I mean. I have written all kinds of things in addition to erotica. My novels are not always smut. Two of them are, I think. I can’t remember exactly. But a lot of them it just opened doors. If you start to get stories published and you start to get your works out there, doors are open to other genres. So you suddenly have invitations to write, horror, fiction, fantasy, romance, non fiction, whatever. Once again, it’s a place to get the doors open so you can expand from there, so.

Chip August: If I wanted to buy one of your books, one of your novels, one of your collections, one of your anthologies, how would I do that?

M. Christian: Actually, they’re all over the place on Amazon . My website mchristian.com again… It is a redirect by the way. It is actually zobop@, whatever, but anyway mchristian will get you there. I have a list there of all my books and they’re all available on Amazon. It is amazon.mchristian.  And if people will write me at zobop I can point them in the right direction.

Right now I have two new books that just came out. Brushes, which is a romance erotica title, that just came out from iphase., both “e” as well as print books. I also have one called “Painted Doll”, which is sort of a cyber new R, cyber punky, sort of book. That just came out from Leath Press, both print as well as digital.

And I also have a reprint of one of my favorite books. “Very Bloody Marrys” just came out. That is actually a nonerotic gay vampire book, which was a lot of fun to write. That one is actually out right now as well from Leath.

And I also have a book called “Me Too” that is published by Alison Books. It is still out there.

Most of my books are still in print. You can still find them with a little bit of leg work and so forth. But like I said, Amazon is a good place and if Amazon can’t do it you can always write me or go to my website.

Chip August: This is all so terrific. I just want to remind listeners; we’ll also put a link to M. Christian’s site on my episode page. So when you find this episode there will be a link on the episode page.

You can find all kinds of things at personallifemedia.com so you might want to visit the site both to look at my episode and to look at the sponsors and the various deals that we’re offering and also to look into some of the other shows because if you like this show you’ll probably like a bunch of the other shows that are on the Personal Life Media Network.

I want to tell you I have a new client, a new sponsor that I am pretty excited about. It’s a company that makes a thing called a tantra chair and if you go to tantrachair.com, Sex, Love, and Intimacy listeners will get a bonus for buying a tantra chair. You’ll need a promo code and the promo code is “free”. This tantra chair is just amazing. It’s a fine crafted piece of furniture that’s designed to be used for sexuality. My partner and I have tried it and we just think it’s pretty extraordinary.

So if you are looking for something that will really take your sexuality to a whole new level you might want to take a look. Go to tantrachair.com and if you use the promo code “free” when you buy you’ll get a free Zendie meditation chair, which is $139 value.

We’re coming up to the end of the show here and as we end I always like to ask my guest if they have an exercise, something that people can do for themselves after having listened to the show, something that might improve their own Sex, Love, and Intimacy. Chris, you said you did have an idea.

M. Christian: Actually it is funny that you mention this because one of the other classes that I have taught has been called “Writing for Your Sex Life”. My partner Sage Vivant, who you’ve  also had on your show has taught the class a couple of times. And the ideal of that class is actually to use writing as a sexuality tool. And we have all kinds of different exercises. A lot of them… I wouldn’t call it noble, but a little bit more higher thing of just simply writing your fantasies down, keeping a dream journal, and simply also just  more fun exercises like if a show turns you on, if a character …if you happen to get turned on by something that said by George from Seinfeld write it down.

And remove the sensor, that’s very important in writing, whether to improve your sex life about yourself or writing for publication. Remove the sensor.  We so often think, oh my god this is bad. Just write. That is the biggest exercise any writer can do is simply just to keep writing because it gets easier, it gets smoother, and then things really start to really happen.

But, yeah, there’s all kinds of exercises you can do as far as sexuality in writing. You can write a dream journal. You can write stories about characters either in your real world- not necessarily for publication- or just simply write your own version of something.

Sometimes film is a good example. I love to use film as a story medium. If you look at some of your favorite films they may not have explicit sexuality. Write it yourself. You know, how would you reflect the characters nuances in an actual physical sex scene?  Or, once again, finding exactly the opposite. You know, taking a scene, removing the sexuality, and make it part of the environment. Make the part of the interchanges between the characters similar.

So it is like I said, I think the biggest thing for both sex in writing is to have fun. And- not to step on the SM people’s toes- if it hurts you’re doing it wrong.

Chip August: Unless you want it to hurt, in which case if you’re hurt it is probably doing it right.

This is great. So I am just picturing all these people now writing sex scenes between like Leonardo DeCaprio and- I can’t think of what her name was – from titanic or writing the sex scene that Humphrey Bogart could have had with Ingrid Bergman in Casa Blanca. What a great idea. What a great idea. My mind is just running with it here. I am seeing Wally and Eve, you know. I mean, yeah, that sounds like a really fun idea.

Chris, you have been a really great guest. I really appreciate you being on the show. Thank you so much for making this time available.

M. Christian: Thank you. It’s been an absolute delight.

Chip August: And listeners thank you. If you want to send email comments, give me ideas for the show, or let me know how I am doing you can reach me at [email protected] or we do have a voicemail system. You can leave me a phone message at 206-350-5333. That message is for all of the shows on the Personal Life Media Network so please leave your name, leave your comment, mention that it’s about my show “Sex, Love, and Intimacy”, leave us a phone number or an email to get back in touch with you, and just know that if it’s an accolade, if it’s a praise, your leaving the message is also leaving your permission that we can use it in promotional material as well as like testimonial stuff, so.

I would love to here from you though. So write to me, let me know how I am doing, and I am always looking for guest ideas. So if there’s a favorite author you have or someone in the field of love, intimacy, and sexuality that you think, oh you know, chip ought to talk to that person, please let me know. And I will do my best to get that person on the show.

Well, that brings us to the end of another show. I really appreciate you listening. I hope you will tune in again for our next episode

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