hot solo senior sex---a contest from Seal author Joan Price

We wanted to share/reprint Joan Price's blog post from yesterday. Joan is the smart, outrageous, and totally sex-positive author of Better Than I Ever Expected, who's always coming up with fabulous new ideas for keeping senior sex front and center.

Here's the goods from Joan herself:

What's your best tip for hot solo senior sex? I've published my 10 Tips for Hot Sex after Sixty that apply mainly to couples (and I've been criticized for that), and now I'm asking your help in compiling the best tips for pleasuring yourself solo after age 60 (or 50, or 70, or 80).

Here's how to enter the Solo Sex Hot Tip Contest:

1. Email Joan with "contest tip" as your header.

2. In your email, describe in about 100 words your Solo Sex Hot Tip, including an anecdote from your personal story about how this tip improved your sexual pleasure. (I'm not looking for porn or even erotica---just the nuts & bolts how this tip worked to enhance your pleasure.)

3. Be sure to include your full name, mailing address (so that I can send you a book if you win!), and email address in your email. This information will NOT be shared.

4. You're welcome to post tips anonymously as a comment here, but realize that I can't give you an award if I don't know who you are.


Prizes: One entry per month will receive a free copy of Better Than I Ever Expected, and the best entry of 2008 also will receive a free copy of Getting Off: A Woman's Guide to Masturbation, by Jamye Waxman. (No, you don't have to be a woman to enter the contest.)

And then what? All entries may be posted on this blog and/or used in a follow-up book or article, at my discretion, without your name (I promise!) or any identifying info that could cause you embarrassment. I'll ask you for a code name to use if I decide to post your tip. Entries may be edited.

I don't know how many entries this contest will attract, so I'll give awards as the best ones strike my fancy, rather than by a certain deadline. This could be an ongoing contest.

Enter soon and enter often!

Tango in Portland

Camille Cusumano, author of Tango: An Argentine Love Story is in Portland this week attending the Portland Tango Festival. Yesterday she appeared on AM Northwest to teach the host, Dave, how to dance tango and also to talk about her book. Check out the video here.

Who Does She Think She Is? --- premiering tomorrow in NYC

This is a post for our New York readers and supporters.

Who Does She Think She Is? features five fierce women, all artists, who refuse to choose between motherhood and career. The film premiers tomorrow, Friday, October 17th, at Angelika Film Center in New York City---and it's coming to San Francisco later in the fall so stay tuned for updates on the west coast!

Courtney Martin will be moderating post-show talk backs at both the 5pm and 7pm showings, which will include an artist from the film and the filmmaker, Pamela Tanner Boll.

Let us know what you think if you catch the show!

Second Installment of "So, how is the maternal political?"

Last week I posted the first of two installments of Shari MacDonald Strong's post about the issues that mothers will take with them to the poles. As the editor of The Maternal is Political, Shari knows that this election there are a lot of issues of great importance and here, Shari discusses what's on her list. Check out the first installment below, then continue reading here!

...So as we move into the final weeks of the election, I’m listening for details, and watching carefully to see what the candidates have to say about the issues at the top of my list...

• Reproductive Rights: Like Governor Palin, I would “counsel” any woman I know to carry her pregnancy to term, if possible. That said, I don’t for a moment believe that I have a right to tell another woman what she has to do with her body, what she legally can do with her own body, because I realize that I don’t know what it’s like to walk in her shoes, and I’m not the one who will be responsible for the life she might carry to term (and I know that the government won’t necessarily be there to help her feed, clothe, care for, provide health care for, or educate said child). I think about the days of deadly, back alley abortions, and the prospect of seeing Roe v. Wade repealed terrifies me. I want to hear what the candidates have to say about Roe v. Wade (and about the potential appointment of supreme court justices who could repeal it), as well as about reproduction rights – and the moms I know do, too.

• Paid Family Leave, Health Care, and Other Family Services: Not coincidentally, abortion rates could be brought down substantially in the U.S. if the government provided crucial social services and addressed important political issues (e.g., access to health care, subsidized child care, paid family leave, gender pay equity, paid sick days, flexible work hours) that would make it possible for more pregnant women to have their babies, if they want to (and many of them, of course, do). Yes, I’m concerned about these pregnant women, and I’m also concerned about the women who already have children and are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they can’t afford childcare and can’t afford not to work; they can’t afford health insurance and they can’t afford the medical bills they get if they don’t have insurance. It’s one thing for a candidate to say s/he cares about families; what are they going to do to relieve the burden?

• Education: My children’s education is one of my biggest concerns, and if I could sit down and ask questions of the candidates, I’d make sure it’s one of their biggest concerns, too. How will you make sure young children get a good educational start? Will your presidency help support after-school programs? What will you do to make sure my husband and I can send our children – all of them –to college? Anybody?

• Maturity: I’m passionate about a wide range issues, in addition to the five-plus listed above, but I also want to briefly mention maturity (and I’m not talking about age, McCain and Biden). Some pundits call it looking presidential. I call it being a grown-up. Enough with the bickering and sniping and arguing, already. I get enough of that at home. (I have two kindergardeners and a third grader.) I want to see which of the candidates can be diplomatic and generous; who refuses to be mean-spirited and petty. After all, I’m a mother. I tell my children to treat others with respect; I encourage them to talk and not to hit. I tell them to look for friends who treat them, and other people, well. Our country deserves nothing less from its leaders. Some candidates try to get away with bad-mouthing, but moms know a cruddy attitude when they see one. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be watching – I’m already watching. Very closely. And everyone knows: when she’s watching closely, there’s not a whole lot you can get by a mom.

May We Have This Dance? The Seal Press podcast series presents an interview with Camille Cusumano

Click over to our Seal Podcast page and listen to our newest episode, an interview with Camille Cusumano, author of Tango: An Argentine Love Story. In this interview, Camille gives us an insider's take on this personal, spiritual dance, provides tips on dance etiquette, and explains what makes tango so empowering. After listening to Camille describe the sights and sounds of tango in Buenos Aires, you'll want to put on your dancing shoes and tango, too.

For all of you in the SF Bay Area, come dance (or learn to dance) with Camille this Sunday, October 12th, from 1:00-4:00 PM at the Museo ItaloAmericano at Fort Mason. Camille will be reading from Tango, and there will be a tango exhibition and dancing for everyone. Hope to see you there!

To learn more about the sights and sounds of tango from Camille, check out the video below.

"So, how is the maternal political?" Shari MacDonald Strong, editor, The Maternal is Political has the answers!

The election is right around the corner. Women everywhere are thinking about the issues that will impact their decision on election day. I had the privilege of asking Shari MacDonald Strong, editor of The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change, what she thought. What are the issues that mothers take to the polls, what are the most important issues for families, and which issues should we focus on when we vote, and why? Read below for Shari's response.

Keep in mind, this post is one of two posts. We'll post the second half later this week, tune in!!


As the editor of the anthology about motherhood and politics, The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Politics, I’m often asked, “So, how is the maternal political?” I usually pause when confronted with this question – not because I don’t have strong opinions on the subject, but because I’m dumbfounded that this is a question we still ask in our society. How is motherhood political? It seems more reasonable to ask, How is it not? Because, of course, every act of mothering has a political dimension: from how we spend our time to how we spend our dollars, from what we teach our children to what they teach us. The opposite is also true: every political act impacts every single mother, because each shapes the world in which our children live.

After decades of being largely ignored, political motherhood is currently getting a tremendous amount of press in the U.S., because Republican V.P. candidate Governor Sarah Palin is getting a lot of press. Whether she’s disembarking from her plane in St. Louis for her debate with Joe Biden, with baby Trig in her arms, or promising to be a “friend in Washington” to those with special needs children, she wears the mantle of motherhood. Gone are the days when the acknowledgment of maternal figures in our political landscape was simply a token nod to “soccer moms” or “security moms.” Today, we have the “hockey mom” who the G.O.P. would like us mothers to think of as our peer, our voice. Motherhood has arrived on the political stage!

But for me and for other mothers I know, getting a mom into office, while desirable, was never the point. I had hoped that having a mom on the main ticket (months ago, I presumed this would be Hillary Clinton) would bring mothers’ interests into clear focus in this election. But despite all the recent attention given to a small town mom from Wasilla, this hardly seems the case. The candidates speak in generalities about health care reform and education, but the moms I know are looking for specific, impassioned answers about what a McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden administration will do for our children. So as we move into the final weeks of the election, I’m listening for details, and watching carefully to see what the candidates have to say about the issues at the top of my list.

• Iraq/Afghanistan: Just once I would like to see a candidate acknowledge in an emotional and unapologetic way that the people dying in the War on Terror – including U.S. soldiers and Iraqi and Afghan civilians -- are somebody’s children. While I understand the need for national security, I also want to see the candidates express sincere regret at the ongoing loss of life and a strong commitment to bringing our troops home, timetable or not. No more cavalier, We have to do what we have to do. No more shrugging the shoulders at the necessity of “collateral damage.” I want to see a sober understanding of what the loss of each life has meant to that person’s family members, both in the U.S. and overseas, and a determination to bring this war to an end.

• The Economy: In the last year, I watched my best friend’s marriage come to an end, in no small part because of the effect the economy had on her relationship with her husband, whose co-owned mortgage brokerage crumbled as the real estate market faltered; another family I know had to abandon their efforts to adopt a teenager girl from Russia, because the real estate market slowed so badly, the husband’s earnings as a realtor couldn’t be stretched to accommodate an adoption. My husband and I eye our own mortgage nervously. Families everywhere are struggling to survive and to live responsibly and honorably in the face of economic crisis. Both candidates say they’re committed to fixing the economy. I want to know: How? I’m not an economics expert, but I’m also no dummy. I want more details.


To Be Continued!! Check in later this week for the rest of the issues that Shari and mothers and women accross the country, are taking to the polls!

Jenny Block, author of Open on The Tyra Show!

Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage will be on The Tyra Banks Show tomorrow, October 2nd. Block will be providing commentary based on her own experiences and the research she did for her book. Hopefully this will be informative and educational and a unique opportunity to hear more about open marriage. She was also recently on The Mike and Juliet Show discussing her open marriage. Check out the clip here