The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy (25 page)

A tripod not only frees you up to enter the shot and join your lover, but also provides a reliably solid base to keep the camera steady. Many higher-end digital video cameras have a steady-correction system that reduces shakiness, but no shot will be steadier than the hand that holds the camera. If you like the idea of hand-held shots and the first-person realism they convey, try to shoot using both hands, keeping your arms tucked against your body for stability. Leaning against a wall, doorframe, or other stable object will help, as will standing with your feet apart, sitting, propping your elbows on a table, or lying across an ottoman or on your stomach.

Sound is important. As a porn reviewer, I've had my libido crushed, trampled, and seen it run for the hills by many a porn film with wretched sound or ridiculous music. The mistakes made by many “professional” porn auteurs are easy to avoid. First of all, have your subjects make noise—dirty talk, panting, groaning, whatever is authentic and arousing. Next, be aware of your background noises—they can make or break a scene. The sound of traffic outside can enhance an urban, city-dwelling setting, but the sound of kids playing on your neighbor's lawn can ruin everything. Decide if you
want music—it's often unnecessary and a distraction. Avoid having your music coming from a stereo or other source in the room, which sounds like crap in the final video; instead, add the music afterward as a subtle layer.

Your Erotic Photo Shoot

Most erotic photographers I've worked with and interviewed for this book prefer 35 mm cameras. SLR (single lens reflex) cameras are pricier than others, but turn out great shots and show the photographer just what the shot will look like through the viewfinder. But you don't have to break the bank to get breathtaking photos—even 35 mm disposable cameras available at drugstores and supermarkets can yield great shots. Wacky toy cameras can make for artful, sexy, and fun shoots as well, and tend to be inexpensive. In general, Fuji film brings more greens and blues to finished pictures than Kodak film, which produces heavier reds and yellows. When shooting erotic photos with film rather than with a digital camera, you'll need to do your own developing or have them developed by a trusted friend. Instant Polaroid cameras circumvent developing issues but lack quality—though you can buy close-up lenses and black-and-white film to make your erotic Polaroid photos more exciting.

Digital cameras are easy to use, fun to edit and manipulate, ensure privacy with at-home printing, enable you to email or post pictures via the Internet, and they provide instant gratification. You can find disposable digital cameras in drugstores for a pittance, or you can invest in high-resolution cameras with oodles of effects, on-board video, and professional lenses. Read the section above, “Make Your Own Porn,” for tips on keeping your camera steady, autofocus, and automatic light
balance. With a digital camera, take into account the one-second lag time from pressing the button to taking the actual shot.

Set up your studio, and you're ready to go! Consider your background, avoiding busy patterns that will distract from your subject. If you're shooting in public, see
Chapter 8
, “Public Sex,” for tips on safety. Hang a bedsheet or a roll of colored paper, position your lover in front of a wall, or on a bed with few conflicting patterns. Gather a variety of fun props and sex toys—you'll try many different props and positions as you go along. Expect to take a lot of pictures to end up with a few good ones—that's how the pros do it. Play around with what the camera sees by experimenting with anonymous close-ups, having your subject look at you directly, just past you, or away from you, and try different expressions. Provoke your subject with questions and comments—make them laugh, snarl, seduce, or melt for the camera.

Cybersex

We are wired for sex. Our brains drive us to seduce, tease, arouse, and to be led by desire and erotic passion—so it's no wonder we've adapted sexually so very well to the Internet. Even those who know little about JavaScript and think the only use for a router is to cut wood have learned to make email salacious, chatrooms into virtual sex clubs, and webcams into peep booths. We are millions of dirty-minded primates with millions of high-tech typewriters to play with.

Cybersex
is a blanket term for sexually explicit exchanges using Internet technology, including email, instant messaging, chatrooms, digital cameras, and
transfers of audio and image files. Cybersex also refers directly to the act of sex with another person while you are both online via instant messaging or in a chatroom, talking dirty to each other, scene-building, possibly role-playing, and masturbating. You'll see the word used as a synonym for the word
fuck
, typically
cybering
or, as a noun,
cyber
. Using Web technology for sex has made communication with faraway lovers both affordable and thrilling, and has made connecting sexually with strangers more exciting than ever. On the Web, you can be yourself or someone you've always wanted to be, and can communicate with people you'll never see (unless you want to). It's private, it's anonymous, and you can try any sexual fantasy imaginable. The Web has freed our culture sexually in ways we have yet to discern.

Email

Email is probably the easiest and most convenient tool for cybersex. You can write a naughty note, compose a dirty letter, or jot down a raunchy suggestion—all you have to do is press “send” and it's in your lover's mailbox instantly. And unlike the phone or chatrooms, it allows you to take your time composing your message.

A sexy email can be as simple as a note saying that you're having a fantasy about your partner, telling them what you want to do to them later, or composing an erotic short story about the two of you. I once sent a cybersex lover a fantasy about meeting in person—but I sent it a few paragraphs at a time, over the course of a few days. I don't consider myself an erotica writer; I simply wrote what I knew turned both of us on. You don't need to be a writer at all to send them sexy stories—instead, send them a link to a hot story you found
on a website. If you're planning an S/M encounter, you can send your sweetie suggestive emails to get them excited about the encounter to come—for example, telling them you want them completely shaved, or you want to come home and find them ready for whatever you have in mind. Sending erotic photos, short videos, or voice recordings as file attachments is also fun.

Be very careful about sending erotic emails using computers at work, or sending them to lovers while they're at work. Companies can legally monitor employees' email sent from work, whether anonymous or not, and can fire you for sending sexually suggestive emails. One way to get around this might be to use personal wireless handheld computers, PDAs, or cell phones to send text messages, which should be fine if none of it is paid for by your employer. Don't ever install software on work computers for your adult fun and games, as some services that do more than email, such as text messaging and instant messaging, might require.

Text Messages and Instant Messaging

Text and instant messages are like sending email, except whoever you're sending to can respond instantly, so the two of you can have a conversation—between computers, from computers to phones, between phones, with wireless PDAs such as Palm or Sony Clié, or with other devices like “hip-tops” and pagers. You can use any device capable of receiving a text message, and you don't have to worry about long distance charges if you're sharing text phone sex with someone far away. For tips on phone sex and talking dirty, read
Chapter 6
, “Weaving a Spell.”

Online, you can find several free services that will allow you to download what you need for messaging.
Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, and Instant Messenger are popular. Try to make sure your lover isn't at work or in a compromising place when they receive your message, as some services chime to announce a new message, drawing attention from anyone nearby who might be able to see the computer screen. But once you start, unleash the dirty talk—you can direct your lover to masturbate, explicitly describe what you're doing to yourself, or engage in role-play fantasies. You may learn to type very well with one hand!

Chatrooms

From anywhere in the world, a person can log into a chatroom and communicate instantly with scores of people at once—as many as there are in the “room” at that moment. The messages are seen instantly by everyone in the room, and you can have group or solo conversations with total strangers, using any name, description, and role you like. You can arrange to meet cyber lovers in certain rooms for trysts. Chatrooms have possibly become the most popular places for meeting virtual sex partners and having anonymous sex.

You can find chatrooms on Yahoo!,
www.iFriends.com
, ICQ, and MSN Chat, to name a few, including services dedicated to gay men and lesbians, services that provide free chatrooms for anyone, and rooms divided into categories and subjects. Many sites like Yahoo! include staff- and user-created sections: The staff sections offer topics like knitting and antiques, but the-user created sections are where you find the sex rooms (carefully safeguarded from minors), with themes ranging from arousing to crass. Some services require that you download an application in order to chat.

Chatrooms are semipublic, so if you are even a little
bit of an exhibitionist, you'll find yourself in heaven talking dirty and having anonymous sexual interactions with strangers while others can comment or just “watch.” If showing off isn't necessarily your cup of tea, most services have options for creating a private room with another user in the form of a single pop-up text message window, where you can cyber together uninterrupted and unwatched. Some of the private rooms permit you to “enable voice” with your computer's microphone and speakers.

Because anyone can enter a chatroom, you may run into users who are rude, abusive, offensive, or just annoying. Remember that you are completely anonymous, and you are safe from all but a temporary irritation. Every service offers a menu option allowing you to block the messages of anyone else in the room. It's like erasing them from your screen room—you no longer see their messages. By the same token, anyone in your chatroom may assume any role or persona they please, so err on the side of caution when you choose to interact with anyone beyond the anonymity of the chatroom. Don't give out any personal information or offer further contact outside the room. It's just like meeting any stranger—be smart, safe, and cautious.

Webcams and Digital Images

Take an erotic digital picture of yourself, and you can send it attached to an email, a text message, or to someone in a chatroom. Many chatrooms allow you to connect a webcam so you can send real-time video to whomever you're cybering with. Camera phones have taken erotic spontaneity to the next level, giving users a toy to snap explicit photos anywhere, anytime, and send them as email or text attachments.

When snapping a digital image to send via email or text message, be sure your camera is set to the lowest resolution to avoid sending a giant file attachment that might clog up your lover's inbox. If a webcam sounds more your style, you'll find digital cameras that can double as a webcam—though webcams themselves are now relatively inexpensive. Mind you, with a webcam you're not sending a video transmission; instead, the images will come through in a broken stream about every three seconds or so. If you want a moving picture, you'll have to take short movies of yourself, save them as QuickTime files, and send them as attachments, just as you'd send a picture.

Show-and-Tell

BY
A
LISON
T
YLER

I know it's silly, but I like game-playing in the bedroom. Every once in a while, I read about romantic couples who require only a little candlelight and soft jazz in order to get in the mood. Sometimes I envy them. Sometimes I think they must be lying. Candlelight and mood music are fine—when you're going for ambiance at a fancy restaurant. But in the bedroom, what I need is that friction that only comes about for me when someone's willing to play kinky. To dress me up or tie me down. To talk dirty or use a blindfold. To break out the sex toys, the whipped cream, the handcuffs.…Or, my favorite, to play show-and-tell.

For me and Hank, show-and-tell is far different from the childhood activity of parading some new trinket in front of a room of bored classmates. For me and Hank, show-and-tell is a special sort of game, in which I show him more of myself, if he tells me something delicious that I don't know about him.

It starts like this: I dress up in something incredibly slinky—garters, maraboutrimmed nightie, high heels, gloves—the sorts of things that drive men crazy. Or, at least,
my
man crazy. Then I perch myself on the edge of my rose-pink vanity table, and I let Hank get a good long look at me. I wait until I know he's ready.

“All right,” I say, finally. “You start.”

He pretends to think about it, making me wait. He always makes me wait. Right when I start to squirm, he begins. “Once,” he says, “I picked up a girl while I was on a date with someone else.”

“Continue—” I say, as I start to slide one long velvet glove off. “My date was in the restroom, and this hot young thing had been batting her eyes at me all night long, and I gave her my business card and a kiss at the bar.”

“You scoundrel,” I say.