It’s Valentine’s so Let’s Talk About SEX (with Christopher Ryan)

*Cue the 70’s funky background music*

Yeah, baybeh! I’ve been waiting a looong time to finally share this one with you guys: Behold the cover for the just-released eBook Talking Sex. This is the second compilation of audio conversations extracted from Christopher Ryan’s Tangentially Speaking podcast (like the one I helped to curate and edit, which was released last year) but instead of drugs and psychedelics, this book deals with a much more interesting (and pleasurable) altered state of consciousness —Sex.

Excerpts from some of the edgiest conversations with authors, porn stars, and educators. Each challenges narratives that shame, repress, and obscure our understanding of sex. They encourage us to go beyond propaganda telling us that sex is toxic, dangerous, and pathological. Interviews with Asa Akira, Wednesday Martin, Reid Mihalko, Zhana Vrangalova, and Angela White. Each of them are, in their own ways, taking on the status quo and spreading the subversive, liberating, and life-enhancing truth that sex is nothing to be ashamed of — unless shame turns you on!

Edition of this book was carried out by Erin Ginder-Shaw, who also selected the episodes featured in this sizzling compilation. And, once again, the cover was designed by yours truly 🙂

As you can see, I decided to have FUN with this one. Since Chris loves to brag about the AVN award he won in 2016 for Best Non-Sex Performance –he starred as himself in the movie Marriage 2.0— I decided to be cheeky (or rather, boogie) and actually portray him as one of those adult male performers of the 1970s, pornstache and all!

Check out that mouth carpet!

Now, here’s a little confession to make: I’ve watched A LOT of porn in my life. Yep, I was one of those horny teens who would sneak down in the middle of the night to turn on the VCR and watch an XXX cassette tape rented on a sleazy video club. Oh, how I used to jump and panic whenever I heard my parents going to the bathroom, or if my sisters came down the staircase to grab a glass of water! Nowadays, of course, kids don’t have to go through the ‘initiation’ of mustering enough courage to go to the newspaper stand and ask for a Playboy –the ‘trick’ was to order a bunch of other innocuous magazines and request the nudie one last, THEN cover it with the other ones as you walked home as casually as you could, thinking of other things so you wouldn’t get a hard-on (that’s the old-school horndog for you, Millennials!). In fact, porn has become so ubiquitous and easy to find, I actually feel it’s lost some of its allure.

I also feel –and this may very well be a sign of my age– that 1970’s and early 80’s porn was way better than what you find nowadays. Oh sure, the women are prettier now –and there seems to be no small amount of young, enthusiastic girls willing to make a career in the adult entertainment business– but it’s hard not to feel a bit nostalgic about the Porn of Yore, when they filmed the movies in real 8mm film, they had actual plots and LINES for the actors to try to memorize and perform, aside from the orgiastic gymnastics one expects to see in such movies. The directors cared about costumes, backgrounds, camera angles and lighting, along with making close-ups of the women’s faces to show their expression of carnal ecstasy, not just about zooming in to the naughty bits and the incessant “in-out” –they even had actual soundtracks for Christ’s sake! From the POV of this connoisseur, the vintage movies are way more erotic than the modern ones.

Which is why I decided to make a little homage to the 1970’s vibe of those ‘forbidden’ movies which threatened my eyesight (or so I was constantly reminded!) with this cover, and used ‘groovy’ fonts and garish colors combined with tantalizing symbols. The first time I sent Chris the cover (I didn’t tell him of my concept beforehand) he found it hilarious, so I sent him a printable version of the file which I hope it will one day be properly framed inside Scarlett JoVANsson (Chris’s beloved van).

So, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this funkyliscious eBook, which contains a lot of really interesting and useful information, from exceptionally smart (and beautiful) women who either work in adult entertainment or sex education. You can find the book on Amazon with the link provided above, OR you can become a regular Patreon of Chris, and this book along with Talking Drugs come as a gift.

Oh, and if you’re interested in me designing a book cover, just “come up and see me sometime”… 😉