The Weekly Links, Opinion, and Inanity Post

1. Links of Interest:

Sandy of AAR was interviewed about vampire romance for a positive, nonderogatory story at CNN.com. One article doesn’t constitute a trend, but it’s something.

I found a new blog that focuses on audiobooks. Megan reads a wide range of books, including sci fi, young adult, thriller, and historical fiction. Check out her amazing bookshelves, organized by COLOR!

Nicola O. of Alpha Heroes and Jackie of Literary Escapism are doing a Saturday Short Story meme beginning next Saturday, Dec. 5. It’s genre-neutral, and you don’t have to review every short in an anthology to participate. I’m thinking I’ll try to participate, since the short story, in any genre except romance (oddly), is one of my favorite literary forms.

In my post last week on cultural studies takes on romance, the “placeholder heroine” concept reared its head. Well, Bev happened to be thinking about it, as well, and wrote two great posts, here and here.

An incredibly funny “review” of Outlander. thanks to @ScarletCorset

Lynne Connelly weighs in on the “pre”/”aspiring” writer debate at TGTBTU

I liked this post showcasing the journeys of two self-published writers at Erotic Horizon.

AnimeJune reviews the new Christmas anthology with Courtney Milan, Mary Balogh, and Nicola Cornick. If you haven’t been reading her reviews, you are missing out: she’s funny and thoughtful.

2. Kindle News

Got an email from Amazon letting me know about updates to my Kindle 2.0. It now has native PDF support and a battery update that improves battery life by 85%. Very nice!

A thorough comparison of B&N’s Nook v. Kindle (although the Nook is sold out and not shipping until January). Found via a new to me blog, Kindlevixen, which is the first blog I have found that focuses on Kindles and romance.

3. Women Who Want to Want in the NYT

An interesting article in Sunday’s NYT Magazine about research on women with low libido. One of the panel charged with revising DSM-IV’s section on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders (DSM-V due out spring 2012, with drafts for public view next year), and a researcher, psychologist Lori Brotto, is working on mindfulness as a way to overcome low libido in women. Notice anything familiar about her technique, other than the fact that it involves getting personal with …raisins?

They are sent home with assignments — to observe their bodies in the shower and describe themselves physically in precise and neutral language, in phrases that hold no judgment; and, after another session, to repeat over and over, “My body is alive and sexual,” no matter if they believe it. They are taught about research that shows that belief doesn’t matter, that the feeling will follow the declaration. And they are instructed, in their sessions, to place the raisins in their mouths, to “notice where the tongue is, notice the saliva building up in your mouth . . . notice the trajectory of the flavor as it bursts forth, the flood of saliva, how the flavor changes from your body’s chemistry.”

This exercise is among Brotto’s ways of training patients to immerse themselves in physical sensation. One hope is that such feelings will whisper to the women of their own erotic vitality. Another is that her patients will learn to be aware of the changes in their bodies — automatic reactions similar to salivating — before or during sex. An underlying theory is that while her patients’ genitals commonly pulse with blood in response to erotic images­ or their partners’ sexual touch, their minds are so detached — distracted by work or children or worries about the way they look unclothed, or fixated on fears that their libidos are dead — as to be oblivious to their bodies’ excitement, their bodies’ messages

Forget the raisins. I think she ought to have them read romance novels, don’t you?

4. Personal:

cape-town-baboons-001

December is always a crazy month, even for those of us who don’t do Christmas. Three birthdays (with parties), grading, Hanukkah, and this year we’re going to South Africa at the end of the month. I am worried enough about this trip, and then I see a story about baboon gangs running wild in Cape Town, breaking windows in cars at stop lights to get the food inside. I can’t help but giggle, though, that The Guardian reports the gang leader is named “Fred”.

This week I teach Patricia Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold, and in preparation, I reread it this weekend. I had forgotten how explicit, long, and numerous the sex scenes were in this book. I have taught nonfiction academic takes on sexuality many times in my career, but never something like this. I am a bit nervous, and am not sure why it feels different than teaching about Foucault or female genital cutting, or contemporary sexual ethics, but it does. Will post on it later this week.

Happy week!

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