Pouvoir

by Jean Roberta

As is often the case, a catchy phrase in one language doesn’t translate well (or with the same music) into another.

In French, they say: Vouloir (to want to) est (is) Pouvoir (power or to be able to). In English we say: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

We could also say: Where there’s a saying, there’s a reckless assumption.

If wanting something hard enough enabled us all to get it, most human beings would be living in mansions, and the resulting destruction of the earth’s climate and its physical resources would have destroyed our planet already (much as we might want to save the earth without making any sacrifices).
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Smug-looking woman shows audience how a woman can get what she wants by cooking bacon for the man (husband) in her life, or the men, plural (including sons). Then the men, like trained apes, will build the wife/mother a bookcase, gazebo, or whatever she wants.

Feh.

This type of commercial (for bacon, of course) suggests what men have been complaining about since long before women gained any actual legal rights: women have too much power to seduce men into doing things for them.
This is not my idea of power.

VROOM, VROOM! That’s the sound of a car with no muffler, or any number of power tools. This comes closer to the sound of real power, because vehicles can transport people, which is useful, and electrical gadgets can make things. Being able to make things is satisfying, but it’s not usually what is meant by “power.”

Strangely enough, people in “backward” regions, who know how to make most of the things they need (prepared food, clothing, houses, furniture, musical instruments) are usually considered relatively powerless by wage-earners in urban industrial society whose lives could be shattered by the loss of a job.

Power is sometimes described as “social capital.” If I walk into a room, and the other people there treat me with respect because I am white and old, I have social capital. If students do their best to gain my approval because they need a passing grade in my class, I could be said to have professional capital. On the other hand, if someone treats me with contempt because I’m female, or for a quirkier, more apparently personal reason, I have no capital in that situation.

Power in the form of social capital is traditionally associated with credibility. To this day, there are men who claim (as did my late ex-husband) that their former girlfriends or wives are insane nympho sluts, who constantly hook up with random men and who violently attack (or “bash”) men for no logical reason. These men have credibility because the women under discussion usually can’t prove beyond a doubt that none of this is true.

Women who claim to have been assaulted in any way by men usually have no credibility because, seriously, how believable is that story? To gain credibility, women in large numbers (20 seems to be the minimum) need to give similar accounts of being assaulted by the same man.

So is power the same thing as credibility? If so, it depends completely on what an audience of other people believes. If my power depends on what other people choose to do in the moment, I can lose it at any time.

Louis XVI (the sixteenth) of France lost power along with his head on the guillotine. So even extreme political power can be overthrown.

Maybe power can be seized by working against the system, by becoming an outlaw. The endurance of myths about Robin Hood show the appeal of that idea. Queer sexual outlaws seem especially appealing. Here is part of a fantasy story I wrote many years ago, about a sassy babe named Felina by the author/narrator, and a mini-gang of leather-jacketed dykes named Spike, Mike and Toni:

Spike and Mike have hoisted Felina to their shoulders, where she poses for cars swishing past on the nearest street. Spike firmly grasps one ass-cheek while Mike’s fingers dig into the other thigh. She is proud to be held aloft like a flag or a lamp, and they enjoy sharing her weight. They sing an improvised rap song, Mike’s contralto seeming to carry Spike’s tenor:

“Woman, we need you,/Your heart and your snatch./You’re the wild critter/We most want to catch.”

The passing drivers and pedestrians ignore this anthem; they seem to be in another dimension or state of consciousness. They represent the State of Civilization or the Corporate Hetero-Patriarchy or the People on Opiates - alarming by any name.

Something tells me to look up. I see the Power Building, a fifty-story monument in steel, glass and artificial light that almost blocks out the night sky. I have never been able to get past the entrance lobby because I’ve never had the relevant pass.

But there is still free air and hope. I lower my gaze, easing the strain on my neck. Watching Felina, I find it interesting that cats seem to stretch across the line between wild and domestic animals. As long as the three blades don’t convince themselves that they can really own her, everyone should be reasonably happy. . .
Toni has been pushing all her buddies to join her in holding up a bank where she has an inside contact. She is also a cyberpunk who has hacked a path through the computer jungle to convert some corporate profits into hers. She hasn’t killed anyone yet because her conscience has a stronger grip than her left hand when it comes to certain things, but the temptation might prove irresistible.

Mike and Spike make Felina kneel on the rough ground while Toni flourishes a bottle of champagne and pops it open. “To our next job, babies,” she purrs. Felina opens her mouth and her lover pours a shining, bubbly stream into it. The liquid spills over her breasts, down her stomach and wets her pubic hair. Spike crouches down to get a taste. Felina squirms and squeals. . .

[After Toni swears undying love to Felina, Mike and Spike are so excited by their planned assault on a fortress of macho capitalism that they tear each other’s jackets off. Shirts are pulled up, pants are unzipped and roughly pulled down far enough to allow hands to push in between thighs. An orgy ensues.]

They all rock together like a band, making music in the dissonant city night. They are as undisturbed as though a guardian angel hovered nearby, as though fantasies could be made real, as though wild women were a protected species.
Each woman rushes to the point of an explosion as though rushing to the vanishing point on the horizon in a painting that mimics the three-dimensional world. And although they burn like flames, Dear Reader, they will stay where they are until you join them.

Well, that was fun to write, but unconvincing even as I was writing it. Public sex is likely to attract unwanted attention. Breaking the law is likely to attract unwanted prison terms, if not death. (Financial finagling on Wall Street in New York or Bay Street in Toronto might be an unpunished pleasure, but even then, I’m not sure I’d be willing to risk it even if I had a firm grasp of terms like “insider trading.”)

Maybe the greatest power we have is the ability to write fantasies and seduce other people into reading them. And if we enjoy the process, we’re not completely dependent on the reactions of an audience.

I just hope the guillotine is never brought back as an agent of change.
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Anonymous. Obsession.

by Giselle Renarde

In 2010 or thereabouts, I wrote a book called Anonymous. It could just as easily be called Obsession.

It's about Hannah, a woman who lost her executive finance job when the market crashed. She's looking for work, but there's nothing available at her level. Being unemployed is getting to her, and it's having a definite impact on her marriage to Nathaniel.

The first thing we find out about this couple is that Nathaniel wants to get with another man and Hannah wants to watch. It's a fantasy they revisit again and again. The first scene takes place during a power outage. When they've got no TV to entertain themselves, they escape into their fantasy life together.

You get the sense that they've been replaying this scene for years: imagining what it would be like. Asking, "What would you do if we had a guy right here right now?" Getting ridiculously turned on by the answer.

You also get the sense that, if Hannah had a job to occupy her mind and her time, their fantasy life might never have spilled over into reality.

Hannah and Nathaniel have one caveat to their shared desire: they don't want to invite a guy they know into the bedroom. Could get really complicated if they brought in a friend or one of Nathaniel's coworkers and things went wrong. Hannah's convinced they're looking for a stranger.

In fact, she wants someone totally anonymous.

Anonymous is a "careful what you wish for" book, in a lot of ways. Hannah's got too much time on her hands, and she uses it to set up some no-strings-attached stranger sex.

One night only.

No names.

Total anonymity.

Except the big event doesn't go exactly as planned, which puts pressure on Nathaniel and Hannah's marriage. This is a book in three parts (not a trilogy, just a story that's divided into three sections). Everything I've mentioned so far takes place in Part One.

To me, it's what comes AFTER the "getting what you want" bit that's most interesting. Hannah can't handle not knowing. She becomes obsessed with finding out the true identity of Mr. Anonymous. The power of that obsession drives almost every decision she makes. Her obsession takes over. So much other stuff happens in the second two parts of this book, but Hannah's never the same after that one night.

Obsession drives Hannah to take a job she normally wouldn't have. I wonder if it's detrimental to her life or not. I remember one reviewer saying she didn't feel that Hannah's obsession took away from her relationship with Nathaniel. She didn't find the obsession unhealthy.

I'm not so sure. But what do I know? The writer is the last person you should ask about a book. We have a very skewed perspective.

Anonymous was briefly off the market when its original publisher closed down, but it's BACK as of today and if you click real quick you might just find it at Amazon.

As an introductory price for the re-release, it's only $0.99 or free if you're a Kindle Unlimited subscriber. Here's the link: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4GBSD6?tag=dondes-20 

Enjoy!

The Power of Nature

We had the first thunderstorm of summer last night.  The wind howled, the rain came down in sheets, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled.  When I awoke in the morning, the clouds were gone, the streets were wet, and most everything was still as-is.  It was a storm, but it wasn’t a bad one.

Today, I mowed the lawn (once the summer sun had dried up most of the rain) and I found a baby bird in the grass, likely having fallen from his nest in the overnight storm.  The bird was still alive and seemed to be doing well — and a few adult birds watched me as I neared the baby, so I hope the parents knew it was there.  I worried about the bird, of whether I should try to put it back in its nest, but the nest was too high and if those adult birds were its parents, then it had mom and dad watching after it still.  While I had gotten through the storm just fine, my feathered friend had not done so well.

The storms here in central Canada have certainly worsened with climate change.  There have always been violent storms when I was growing up, but the frequency and severity of these storms has increased in the last ten years or so.

I still remember the first time I saw a storm so violent that it had snapped trees in half and torn others straight out of the ground.  It wasn’t a tornado — we don’t get them here — it was just a violent storm.  When I realized that entire trees had been knocked over, I had gotten on my bike and went on a ride through the neighbourhood, assessing the damage.

Nowadays, a snapped tree means nothing.  Just last summer, a tree across the street from my house cracked and then split in half during a summer storm.  A couple trees down the street had fallen over, destroying fences.  I drove past them, barely giving them a second glance.

I think it’s easy to ignore the awesome power of nature, especially when we are comfy and cosy in our houses and apartments.  We barely notice nature unless it does something unexpectedly destructive.  Right now, huge swaths of Alberta (a province here in Canada) are still in flames.  Forest fires are burning even closer to home, with several running rampant in my province of Manitoba.

But as I sit, comfy and secure in my house, I can’t help but think of that bird, of how one strong gust turned its world upside down.  That one gust could have even ended the bird’s life — I will check on it tomorrow to see how it’s doing, if it’s even still alive.

When a thunderstorm happens, I love turning off all the lights, opening the curtains, and watching the violence of wind and rain.  I love the sound of heavy drops pelting the roof and windows.  Sometimes the brutality of nature can make me worried, even when I’m safely in my house.  After all, houses are never completely safe — the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, make that clear.  The falling trees after a violent storm show just how close people are from getting hurt in a storm, even if they’re in their houses.

But even in the fearsome violence of nature, there is life.  Even now, in the charred remains of the forests of Alberta, insects are hard at work, creating new life in the devastation.  Pinecones have opened and will soon being the process of growing into trees.  Animals will soon return.  Even in nature’s darkest hour, there is still life and activity.  There is beauty in destruction.  There is life in the aftermath of the power of nature.

And the next time we have a violent thunderstorm here, I’ll put on a pot of tea and snuggle up with my lover as we watch nature put on its spectacle.  I will worry about the roof and the windows, about the possibility of hail or heavy rain causing damage, of me being like that baby bird — helpless in the face of nature’s power.  But I will also get a thrill from the brilliant flashes of lighting and the wall-shaking rumble of thunder.  I’ll snuggle up close to my lover and we’ll cuddle.  Like the insects in the forest fires of Fort McMurray, my lover and I will be a spot of life and calm in a sea of nature’s chaos.

Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Belly Dance and Empowerment

by Jane Kohut-Bartels

Quite a thought but it’s part of an ongoing discussion I have been having with other belly dancers and with women outside this particular dance form.

One woman replied to an entry blog recently:

I think of my own practice, and I know that dancing transforms my thinking, my moods and in some very fundamental way, grounds me. It also transforms me, my body over a period of time, but my head. too. I think my head even more fundamentally.

This is the heart of it for you. You are lucky you can feel this way about something.

Sometimes I have led myself astray. I have tested the waters of different things, disciplines I was either not prepared for, was seriously lost, was a detour, or I should have stayed on the porch. There are a lot of ways I can sum up a number of recent experiences.

Recently this came home to me and I had to take considerable stock of what I was doing and where I was going.

When in “trouble” it is sometimes best to fall back on the very things that have brought us forth and have proved to be valuable in discovery of self. My friends and family know that I am both a writer of erotica and a belly dancer. I just published my first book, A Seasoning of Lust, available at

(http://www.lulu.com/content/5739484 )

Sometimes I am primarily one thing, and then….I am the other. The trick is not to discard one for the other, because both are now integral in my being. I pull from both for life and creativity.

Actually I am more than just those two, I am a wife, mother, a painter, a seeker, and sometimes a royal pain in the ass.

But I want to pose some questions to my friends who are joining me in this “dance of life” which I see as belly dance.

What are our aims in coming into this particular dance?

I know that I have struggled with many issues over the past 5 years, but it varies for every woman. Is it ego identity as to who and what we are, or is it to ‘heal’ deep wounds brought about by a lifetime of abuse and self-abuse, or do we just see it as a ‘creative’ outlet?

Do we come from a place of self-loathing? Do we feel non-sensual or lacking in our beauty? Do we give so much to others that we have nothing, or little for ourselves? Have we become disembodied where we live in our heads and our bodies are just….there?

All this above will be present and we will bring that into the dance. And that’s ok. We work those issues out within the movement.

We can work these things out piece by piece by being ‘present and mindful’ in the movement. And the movement will transform us, slowly at first, and then, one day, we look back and we shake our heads in wonder. How much we've grown!

And this issue of self-loathing? Over and over I hear from women who ‘hate their bellies’. I can totally relate! I went through a long stretch of hating my belly, too. Then I suddenly made ‘peace’ with it. I will never be flat bellied, but then again…

Belly dance isn’t ‘long hair’ dance, or ‘arm dance’ or ‘hidden feet’ dance….it’s BELLY dance…and for a reason.

The belly is the seat of our femininity. It’s not the hidden vagina, it’s the outward expression of our bellies, as they grow with children, shrink back with stretch marks, and we seem all to define ourselves by trying to make it disappear. We hold our stomachs in tightly until we can’t move….

Or breathe!

Well, along comes Tribal Fusion and here is presented the BELLY in all it’s glory! Those stomach movements that Rachel Brice, Zoe Jakes, all of them, are very liberating…Snakes in the belly!

Undulations that express the very essence of our femininity, our being women. As generators and cradles of life.

(I attended a 4 hour workshop in Montreal in late January. I was glad to see that the teacher, Audra Simmons from Toronto had a belly on her. She has 4 children and this is the natural way of things. Our bodies expand and contract with life.)

We are not flat assed/bellied/titted men…We are full blown women with dangerous curves and belly dance gives us a dangerous attitude, too.

Given enough time, it’s called Empowerment. A realization of our Femininity, a fulfillment of our innate Sexuality.

And we should have fun dancing….it’s not all sweat, sore muscles (but it is in the beginning…) and serious attitude.

This is a very funny video….I screamed with laughter, because that is good for life. Laughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwK2NTt-MBc&NR=1
More later….

Lady Nyo who is also Teela when she dances

A poem that speaks to belly dance. Will be in Volume II of “A Seasoning of Lust” out this June.

THE TROUPE


Waves on a dark but sparkling sea

They cluster together

And with the sounds of the first drums

Sail into position

Striking a pose.



Stretching out in formation

Gentle waves of skirts flaring

Breasts lifting in sweet provocative gestures

Hands arched in arabesques

Like leaping dolphins.



The coins on their bras

Catch the lights and sparkle

Like Sun lighting the whitecaps.

Spiraling outward

Like a nautilus shell

Eternal in movements

Eternity flows

From long fingertips.


Now the Sea roils

With stomping feet

They mark the tempo

Increase it with breakers

Crashing over their gleaming heads

To fall together in

Turkish drop

The Sea finally

Calm and restored.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

March, 2009