Lately, we've heard a lot about female desire, or lack thereof. In this weekend's Sunday magazine, the Times' Daniel Bergner wrote about the rather undernourished the study of the phenomenon. And then there's the Times' examination of the need for female Viagra. Says one woman quoted in the latter, "So many women give up...That's a shame. It's so important. You marry your best friend, but intimacy is what makes a marriage work."

Then, just by chance, the Daily Mail brings us the rather...more colloquial? story of one woman whose sex life was "pepped up" by joining a group of other female writers, the Contemporary Women Writers' Club. The group started as a means for housebound writers and mothers to meet like-minded women in their somewhat isolated rural area.

But what actually emerged from the increasingly drunken conversation was I should write a short story that had sex in it and see if it helped....At first I thought I absolutely could not do it. Every time I sat down to write my story, I blushed so much I could barely think of the words. But, eventually, I gave myself over to it. I decided to set it somewhere foreign, sexy and hot. It ended up in Argentina and involves an older woman and a gaucho and it's about as raunchy as I can get. Did it work for me? Absolutely. I found writing about sex made me feel far more sensuous about myself. And so, gradually, over these past two years, we have all begun to change.

While both the gaucho porn and the raisin-fondling Bergner describes in a sex therapy group may seem goofy, there's a similar premise behind both: destigmatizing female sexuality and getting in touch with a dormant part of one's self. The problem is, the whole issue is still couched in awkwardness - or rather, the defiant off-throwing thereof. It's still an issue that reduces us to 12-year-old boys. (Consider if you will the recent raft of "OMG pathetic women love Edward Cullen!" cream-puffs that have clogged the newstand and the inbox, to say nothing of Cougars.) What I've been trying to remember is if we found talking about male sexuality as hilarious before we were all inured to "Viva Viagra," or whether it's more purely a result of age-old Madonna-whore disconnects. Is it the stigma of 1970s Our Bodies, Ourselves sexuality discussions that tarnishes the discussion? And will this aggressive onslaught of the sublime, ridiculous and white-coat serious ultimately wear us down as surely as the little blue pill? I hope so. I think.

In Search Of Their Own Elixir of Love [NY Times]
Women Who Want To Want [NY Times]
How Joining A Group Of Female Writers Pepped Up My Sex Life! [Daily Mail]

Says Allyson White, a waitress from Darwin accused of engaging in "amorous activities" with the car's driver, "I also had a $5 note wedged between my boobs so [the cops] probably just assumed I was a sex worker or something and he'd already paid me. But $5 is a bit cheap for a head job."

The car crashed into a concrete drain en route to a place awesomely called "Humpty Doo." Ms. White says the seat belt burn on her chest, which looks painful, proves she was not, in fact, cheating on her boyfriend with the drunk driver, who's just a friend. As she tells the Northern Territory News,

I was not sucking his d*** - and it's pretty obvious that wasn't the case ... you only have to look at the mark on my chest...Clearly I had my seatbelt on, so it's impossible that I'd be leaning over sucking his d*** unless he is hung like a donkey or I've got a f****** rubber neck. If it was true I'd just cop it sweet and think 'how embarrassing, I got caught sucking someone's d***' - but it is not true and that's what is p****** me off.

I find her denial totally credible and think she is owed an apology for allegations of lewdness, infidelity, and engaging in overrated acts. I'd say "defamation of character," but I doubt she cares. In other news, Australian potty mouths are awesome.

Australian Passenger Was Not Sucking That Guy's Dick [The Awl]
Sex Act Driver Loses Control [NT News]
No Oral Sex, Says Ute Crash Waitress [NT News]

Related:
Top 10 Sex Acts That Should Be Retired [Playboy]

The hot new craze in romance novels (which, as any economist/pundit/chart-wonk can tell you, is the barometer for mapping cultural/political/economic change) is "m/m romance": dude love, for women, by women. (Although writing under studiously gender-neutral names.) According to the Baltimore City Paper, publishers warmed up to this notion when they saw the popularity of Brokeback Mountain with female audiences, and, always looking for a new sub-genre, started encouraging these less traditional story lines.

Although these romances deal in standard love tropes, by necessity (especially in historicals) they tend to involve more realistic situations and setbacks. Here's the description of Trangressions:

1642, England David Caverly's strict father has brought home the quiet, puritanical Jonathan Graie to help his dreamer of a son work the family forge. With war brewing in Parliament, the demand for metal work increases as armies are raised. The indolent and deceitful David Caverly is bored by his father's farm and longs to escape, maybe to join the King's Army, mustering at Nottingham. David finds himself drawn to Jonathan, and after a passing cavalry trooper seduces the beautiful David and reveals his true nature, he determines to teach Jonathan what he's learned. When David is forced to leave the farm, and the boys are separated by mistrust and war, they learn the meaning of love and truth as they fight their way across a war-torn country, never thinking they'll ever see each other again.

Then there is theBrokeback-like genre of straight-living men - often friends, seemingly often police officers - struggling with their sexuality and forbidden love. These are not, as a rule, light stories, even when the subject would seem to be standard historical fodder. In Alex Beercroft's False Colors (no relation to the u-including Georgette Heyer romp of the almost-same name), the aforementioned naval romance, there's more anguish than romping, blouse-ripping and shanties. Says the City Paper,

The pivotal points in the story are markedly different from an m/f romance. First, Alfie admits his attraction to John, who hasn't yet faced his own orientation, and John is embarrassed and demonstrably repulsed. Fifty pages later, John has his first homosexual experience; it is anonymous and disturbing for John, more realistic than romantic. As the climax of the book builds, John is asked to choose between his career and Alfie. It's 1762, and John can either become the captain of his own ship or he can risk the gallows by unsuccessfully defending Alfie against sodomy charges.

Is it too "real" for the mass market? Borders and Barnes & Noble both shelved the novel in the less-trafficked GLBT section, and had Amazon (trying to re-group from its whole 'not rating LGBT titles' fail) not given it a boost, it might have faded away. Instead, it became a bestseller. One can only imagine that in time the genre will evolve to include lighter romances, in which the "issue" of same-sex love doesn't need to serve as a dramatic lynch-pin to the same extent, and the authors can simply have fun with characters who happen to be of the same sex.

But then, as the article's author points out, the genre may appeal because it deals with classic "forbidden love": romances depend on tension and conflict - see the popularity of the societal restrictions in Regency-set novels - and we've pretty much exhausted the boss-marries-secretary-for-convenience trope. Beercroft also says she welcomes a chance to play with traditional gender roles: "Unlike f/f which has the same advantage of equality, m/m allows the writer to use characters who are not mired in feminine gender roles either. So it has a big element of escapism to it, plus the advantage of two gorgeous heroes for the price of one."But maybe there's more to it than that: I have several (straight, female) friends who prefer gay male porn to the kind "aimed" at them; it's quite possible that authors like Beercroft are onto something. The book's popularity would suggest as much. And despite some people's surprise at women writing on the subject for women, there's a funny symmetry to it: it's an open secret that there's long tradition of gay men writing traditional romance under pseudonyms. As one friend (who's done just this) wrote me, "why should we have to categorize who can write what? A good writer can find readers, period - and why should this subject be "niche?" At the end of the day, it's just a romance."

Zipper Rippers [Baltimore City Paper]

Trouble is the story of two women in their forties who take a trip to Mexico to escape their lives. One of them, Josie, embarks on a sort of sexual renaissance. Christensen tells Salon,

She experiences sex in her 40s as being about her own desire for a man rather than the thrill of her power over him, his desire for her — which defined sex in her 20s. She knows what she wants now, isn't afraid to want, and can allow herself the pleasure of desiring a man. Part of this comes from comfort in her own skin, and part of it comes from the fact that this affair isn't about power or marriage-and-babies, it's mutual lust without expectations or pressure.

This travel-to-a-warm-climate-for-mutual-lust trope sounds a little familiar, but Christensen resists the popular idea that hot sex is a path towards self-actualization, a way to reinvent oneself and become a better person. As Josie enjoys her adventures in Mexico, Christensen says, she suffers from "selective myopia. She sees what she needs to see and what she wants to see, but she is increasingly self-involved as she gets happier and happier. When you're unhappy, you're more compassionate on some level." And while her friend Raquel "becomes more and more self-aware as the novel goes on, [...] Josie becomes more and more clueless."

Vanderbilt's view of sex [that's her above] is a lot sillier than Christensen's. Obsession includes a carrot and an expensive hairbrush used as sex toys, a brothel where the whores go commando under their Fortuny tea gowns and elaborate feathered masks, "scenes involving dildos, whips, silken cords and golden nipple clamps," and a unicorn. The book also offers this beauty ritual: scrub your breasts with sea salt, douse them in gardenia oil, and then "let loose shaking onto the breasts a goodly amount of chocolate sprinkles, which will adhere prettily." Yum?

Vanderbilt's son Anderson Cooper is supportive, saying, "at 85, whatever she wants to write is fine with me." But he has to be a little disturbed by her assertion that "I do think all art is autobiographical." Whether or not Vanderbilt's still-vibrant sex life ("I'm always in love," she says, "that's one of my secrets.") includes carrots or unicorns, she may be speaking more metaphorically than literally. She says the character of Bee, a "highly sensual" orphan, is based on her experiences growing up without parents. "If you've never had a mother or a father," she elaborates, "you grow up seeking something you're never going to find, ever. You seek it in love and in people and in beauty."

It's not necessarily a prescription for a psychologically healthy life, but constant, insatiable seeking does sound like a pretty good premise for an erotic novel. Both Vanderbilt and Christensen seem to understand that what is sexy is not necessarily what is good for us. This is especially true in fiction and fantasy, but it has some application in real life too. In her 20s, Josie saw sex as a means to an end, and this mindset — whether the end is "marriage and babies," self-esteem, psychological or even physical health — is pretty common in American culture today. Try, for instance, to get through a whole women's magazine without finding something about how boning is good for your weight, sleep, or skin. Maybe what some women learn in their 40s and beyond is that sex is best enjoyed as an end in itself, without ulterior motives.

Sex and the (fortysomething) single girl [Salon]
At 85, a Brahmin in Blue Jeans Writes of Sex, Masks and Veggies [New York Times]