Big Ed's Place

When I first reviewed Joymii.com back in March, I wrote “I found it enjoyable and classy, but still not as arousing as I perhaps would have liked.”

Well, things have changed. Wow.

The technical quality of the photography and videos remains high. The models are of course gorgeous. But now it’s not just solo scenes and girl-girl that seems more posed than hot. Now they’ve got boy-girl about every other week, along with hotter girl-girl scenes. I’ve included some samples below (one is a sample video). Some of the solo scenes are interviews, where the models talk about sex before masturbating for the camera (way way hotter than just doing it, in my opinion). Finally updates are now every other day.

I have to move the site from three to four stars out of four. I’m impressed and I definitely recommend it. They addressed everything I said they needed to in order for it to be arousing as well as artistic. Check it out yourself by clicking on any of the images below.

It doesn’t take much reading of my stories to realize I have a small lingerie fetish. Ever since I hit puberty, a woman in sexy underwear, particularly those styles that are clearly non-functional for anything other than sex, has been a pleasurable sight. A girlfriend once asked me to explain my appreciation of garter belts and stockings to her and I said it was two things. First, there was no reason for a woman to wear them unless she wanted to be seen in them (or more than seen in them). Second, garters to stockings provide a frame around her feminine parts. I happen to like Art with frames.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover the site Art-Lingerie. It’s a soft core nude site, much like Met-Art or FEMJOY. In fact, many of the models appear on those sites as well. The photographic quality is similarly high. Samples are below. They have a new photo set daily and videos on Mondays and Thursdays. These are soft-core shots, so they’re largely single girls posing, though there are a few two-girl photo shoots. I haven’t found any more suggestive than simple posing, but then the archive is large and goes back to May 2009.

The site has a couple of features that I particularly like. One is its search function allows you to search by lingerie type. So “Red Hair, opaque black stockings and suspenders” is a legitimate category. The other thing is that it lets members identify other sites that carry that model. As a result, I quickly learned that my favorite redhead Ariel appears on over thirty sites. Alas, some of my other favorite models don’t have such a handy directory, so maybe I’ll have to hope that Art-Lingerie gets sets of those models (Nella, please). They also have some options to let you customize how the photos and videos appear on your screen and a ton of links to other sites.

So, what are the downsides? Well, first and foremost, it’s a niche. If you’re not into lingerie, particularly softcore nudes, there’s not much else here for you. Second, the selection rather heavily focuses on stockings and garter belts with the models otherwise nude. While that does happen to be my favorite form of lingerie, it’s by far not the only way sexy lingerie can be shown, as Playboy demonstrated with their special edition lingerie magazines and videos back in the 1980′s and 1990′s. It’d be nice to see more sets with models in teddies, cammies, bustiers, and other lingerie. It’d also be nice if these were selected more often as the cover image for the photo sets, as they otherwise tend to look all the same.

So I recommend it. You can check it out via the banner below.

Back in the day when I first became able to buy porn legally in the 80′s, Penthouse was the gold standard. Playboy still had cachet, but the girls were so obviously airbrushed they weren’t particularly sexy. The ‘girl next door without her clothes’ had lost the allure it must have had earlier and so much of the style seemed completely out of touch. Meanwhile, on the other end of the scale, Hustler was just crude. There’s only so much ‘pink’ one can see before it becomes a gynecology exam instead of a sexy allure. Penthouse admitted it was about sex, but remained classier than the usual porn. I bought, and even subscribed for a while.

Penthouse ran couples pictorials then, and by the nineties, they were explicit. I remember being shocked the first time I saw one that had explicit penetration. Of course, I immediately bought it too. But as my youth-addled hormonal impulses died down, I started noticing that my favorite pictorials all had one thing in common. They were photographed by Earl Miller. Furthermore, the pictorials I’d liked before they became hardcore were also by Earl Miller.

So I decided to check out EarlMiller.com. Here’s my review.

First, the site is huge. There’s an update of one form or another every day. That’s good value. There are multiple sections, including amateurs, centerfolds, threesomes, girl-girl, hardcore, and some small behind the scenes sections and a spot for guest photographers. Within each section are pages and pages of shoots. In addition to still photo galleries, there are plenty of videos, a blog (which is not updated very often–hasn’t been since February), and outgoing links.

Next, the photography is of course high quality. The angles, the lighting the makeup all are truly ‘centerfold’ material. This is indeed what I used to drool over in the 80′s and 90′s. Examples are provided below.

But that of course is when it hit me–the models are overwhelmingly in the Southern California Porn Star genre. They’re very big breasted. They’re heavily made up. The acting is what I’d expect from a Southern California porn film. It was far far too easy to become saturated and remember why I’m no longer a fan of the porn Southern California produces. It’s far too artificial to turn me on the way it used to when I was younger.

The other minor complaint is that the layout makes it easy to hide things. The search by model feature is not complete and won’t pull up all pictorials by that model. The toolbar across the top doesn’t list all the options that are on the main page. This meant that on my first visit, I didn’t find any of the old pictorials from Penthouse that I’d fallen in love with, but did on a subsequent visit. That made all the difference, since it was what attracted me in the first place.

So, check it out. I recommend it if you like traditional porn actresses and centerfolds, simply for the volume of quality pictures and videos. Those viewers who don’t care for Southern California styles won’t be as impressed. You can see it for yourself here or by clicking on the pictures below.

Jasper Fforde’s sixth Thursday Next novel, One of our Thursdays is Missing, recently came out in hardback. He’s one of the few authors I still buy hardback books for, sight unseen. While his other series are interesting, his forte is really the Thursday Next novels.

First, they’re not erotica, and they have no real sex in them. They’re a warped modern silly world that involves how books are created, which is why I feel I can justify reviewing them here. Basically, they’re good, they spend a lot of time musing about the business of writing and the creative process, and they’re fun.

Thursday Next’s universe can charitably be described as an alternate reality where time travel exists, as do the paranormal, dodos, cheese smuggling, Richard the III performances conducted like Rocky Horror, and Croquet being the national sport of England. The craziness is reminiscent of Douglas Adams, but is far more accessible and less strange for the sole purpose of being strange.

Thursday Next, the name of the narrator and lead character, discovers in the first novel, The Eyre Affair, that she can leap into books. There, the characters hide backstage until they are being read, at which point they strut on stage and say their lines. Of course, the ability to move between the fictional world and the real world is of significant interest to some villains and the Goliath Corporation–the multinational of evil that invokes Milo Minderbender and Catch-22. Fortunately, Thursday Next is a war veteran (from The Charge of the Light Brigade), a decent investigator, and a heck of an adventuring heroine.

In the following novels, Thursday Next becomes one of the top agents in Jurisfiction–the book world police. They’re responsible for making sure that the characters follow the stories laid out for them by the authors, as well as keeping elements from one novel from creeping into another. Failure can mean something like “that lighthearted cooking farce” Titus Andronicus turns into something completely different. We also learn how much control authors really have over their characters and storylines, as plot features and scenery details are bargained and traded in The Well of Lost Plots, and actors are trained to become lead characters or consigned to side parts.

The sixth novel, One of our Thursdays in Missing, goes meta. The narrator isn’t the original Thursday Next, but her fictional alter ego, from the book written about Thursday Next. She has to investigate the original’s disappearance, cope with actors in her book who aren’t interested in following their lines, and deal with the possibility of being less read (which leads to the characters’ destruction unless they can find another book).

The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel

is available from The Tattered Cover in paperback. It’s the first book in the series.

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

is also available from Tattered Cover in hardback. It’s the most recent book in the series.

(Why The Tattered Cover? See my post here).

By now, you’ve probably heard of Avenue Q, the 2004 Tony Award Winning Musical Comedy. It combines the puppetry of Sesame Street with a decidedly adult turn. Besides a lot of cursing and sexual innuendo, there’s actually on-stage sex–between puppets. It’s toured a couple of times and I recently caught it for a second time. That should immediately clue you into how much I’ve enjoyed it–I was willing to pay premium prices to see a show that I’d already seen before.

The basic premise of the play isn’t important–we meet a bunch of characters, some of whom are puppets, some of whom are actors, all of whom are poor and struggling and living on the same street (Avenue Q). They struggle with relationships and personal growth and eventually arrive at “happy for now” endings.

What I happen to love is the way the songs stab directly at things we don’t say, but are true. The most controversial song is “Everybody’s a Little Bit Racist,” which pokes fun at PC beliefs that we’re not biased at all. Of course the most famous song is “The Internet is for Porn”–again, something that was nearly 100% true for the first decade of the web and arguably still true now. But even songs like “There’s a Fine Line” point to things we know but generally don’t state. The tunes are hummable and enjoyable and how often do you really get to hear people praise “Schadenfruede”?

So–if you haven’t seen it, I recommend going. If you want to get a sample, you can always catch the soundtrack via the link below.

For some time, the site FEMJOY has published high quality nude photos and videos of very attractive models. However, other than the nudity, their site is fairly chaste. None of the poses or activities of the models cross the line from modeling into sex. No licking, sucking, masturbation, or penetration.

I happen to appreciate that. It’s far too easy to let the quality degrade, or for the photos and film to become crude, once the line between nude modeling and actual sex has been crossed. We certainly see that in a great deal of the sex industry. “Class” seems to be hard to maintain, when the lowest common denominator will still sell. You’ll never go broke appealing to man’s more basic and coarser urges. Similarly, you’ll never go broke selling something that can be addictive for a fraction of the population, but that’s a different post some day.

So recently, the FEMJOY folks launched a new site, Joymii.com, that attempts to capture the quality of FEMJOY’s main site, while loosening up the limits on what happens. I figured it was worth a look.

Well, I’m pleased to say that the photography and video production quality remains top notch. I’ve included two examples below (click on the images to get the full associated promo gallery). Two new galleries and two new videos show up each week, usually in pairs (two photoshoots with a gallery and video for each).

The content is a little harder. The galleries to date are all girl-girl or solo girl masturbation. Many of them involve dildos and other toys. Some of the girl-girl scenes (like Karlie and Riley below) are particularly hot because it’s clear the girls are really getting into it. Others don’t rise to that level and feel more like friends putting on a show. There’s no male-female content so far.

As a result, I found it enjoyable and classy, but still not as arousing as I perhaps would have liked. I think it’s definitely a nice addition to the FEMJOY catalog, and also a nice addition to what’s out on the web. More class is good. And of course, seeing one of my favorite models, Ariel, in action is also good. So I recommend it, but at the 3 out of 4 star level. More frequent updates or more chemistry in the girl-girl scenes would push that higher.

UPDATE
Joymii has released their first boy-girl video and photo set, Miela and Tom. There’s an example below. Video and production quality are high. The enthusiasm and interaction between the two is good. It doesn’t come across as acting. Hopefully we’ll see more like it in the future.

You can see more of Joymii by clicking on the images below.

It’s not too hard to figure out, from my writings, that I’m a fan of exhibitionistic women. I love it when women engage in public flashing (discreetly, of course–there’s a consent issue for the observers at play). I also love seeing photos of nude women outside. It seems rather refreshing and certainly more ‘natural’ than many of the porn shots that you know are in someone’s house or rented motel room.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find FTV Girls. Pretty much every model has a gallery taken outdoors or in a public place. Some are more public than others, but I’ve been pretty happy going through them and admiring the views, so to speak. Each model has galleries of still photos and two or three video galleries, which can make the public flashing scenes even more fun.

The site’s high quality. The photography is well shot and well posed. The models are pretty but with a natural look and feel. I’ve included some examples below (click on them for full sized pictures). Most of the models are indeed “new”–going with their title that this is “First Time Video Girls.” That gives a more playful and friendly vibe to the photos as well. In several cases, I could see the model’s nervousness as she first started getting into posing.

FTV Girls is more than flashing, though. Most models also strip and masturbate on camera–some with toys, some with their fingers. They have some fetish shots–mostly girls using vegetables and other implements to masturbate with. They also have some hardcore girl-girl videos and some hardcore boy-girl videos. The latter, in most cases, appear to be the model having sex with her boyfriend.

New galleries are released a few times a week. The site also give sneak peeks of upcoming models. They also have a review section of other adult sites, which is a bit strange because the sites they’re reviewing are pretty much the low quality pure porn/stroke sites that FTV Girls is trying to rise above.

The one thing I don’t like is sorting through the galleries for individual models. The descriptions of the galleries are in the cover photo, and the white print is often illegible on bright photos. Also, it would be very nice to be able to search on content tags–they list them for the galleries (“Public nudity”, “fingering,” etc.) but the terms aren’t consistent and aren’t searchable. As a result, I found myself spending a lot of time scanning down listings and opening galleries, hoping that ‘public’ meant something like a mall instead of a field where it was clear no one would be around.

Still, I recommend the site. Check it out here.

My wife and I finally got around to seeing Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. I find myself feeling ambiguous about it. It was compelling and the visual direction was stunning. However, the storytelling left a lot to be desired, in my opinion. Since it’s impossible to discuss those flaws without dropping some spoilers, the rest of the review is behind the jump.

read more »

Wow.

That could pretty much be my review, except that I really need to provide details. Suffice it to say, I’m impressed.

The Upper Floor is a site dedicated to putting, on camera, an attempt to have a bdsm community that can live the 24/7 dream I posited was just an ideal. It’s the brainchild of Peter Acworth, the owner of Kink.com and other websites under the kink.com umbrella. Mr. Acworth (sorry, I just can’t bring myself to refer to him by his first name. It feels wrong) made a ton of money with kink.com, bought The Armory in San Francisco, and decided to see if he could create a community where bdsm principles really were in place 24/7. The results are… mind-blowing.

The site mostly consists of videos of bdsm scenes and parties that have taken place on The Upper Floor. These videos include edited movies, raw footage, stills, and live feeds. The scenes include slave training and other exercises. A couple of examples are below (click on them to expand). There are also discussion forums and extensive posts on the bdsm community.

First, I should say that I’m impressed with the professionalism of the site. I’d heard through the grapevine that kink.com paid its performers far better than the mainstream porn industry. They also treat them well, to the point of putting the explicit rights for models and rules for directors on the site. That means that every viewer becomes a de facto enforcer–”was this submissive treated right?”, “Did the director stick to the rules?”, etc.. Yes, stuff could have happened off camera–except for the live feeds. I really like this level of accountability.

I also think the video quality is delightfully high. No complaints at all there. Additionally, The Upper Floor has been decorated with an Edwardian theme and it really brings a sense of the mood to the events and parties. I can very easily imagine enjoying a drink or a conversation while casually watching a whipping occurring nearby. The videos are beautiful.

As for the scenes depicted–they struck me as truly representative of the bdsm community. Not everyone is a gorgeous model, but that doesn’t prevent them from being a great player. I included a photo of a guy below who won’t exactly be appearing in any Playgirls anytime soon, but he fits right into the scene here. The energy crackles as I remember it in the dungeons–far more casual and constant than the overacting one often sees in vanilla community depictions of bdsm. The sex is also real. Oral, anal, and vaginal sex are all out in the open and depicted in their glory as they happen, with very little of the artifice of much of today’s porn.

It feels authentic. More importanty, it feels honest.

So like I said–wow. I’m impressed with The Upper Floor and am enjoying poking around and learning more.

You can check out The Upper Floor yourself by following the link here.

Occasionally in my random wanderings through cyberspace, I stumble across a website that makes me go, “hmmm, that’s different. And nice.”

The Art of Blowjob is such a site. It’s essentially a one woman operation (though another woman does make an appearance for a double blowjob video) that contains nothing more than videos and photo sets of her giving blowjobs.

Can you say “niche”?

The trick is, the woman (Camille) is a very attractive redhead who definitely enjoys her ‘work.’ Camille looks at the camera as she very lovingly sucks and licks her cock until she’s finally rewarded with her partner’s orgasm. The video quality is excellent and the blowjobs are truly sensual. She appears to release a new video or photo set once a week, and there’s a decent backlog on the site. I found the videos quite enjoyable.

My one complaint is…well, it’s a niche. I’d love to have had more sets with her friend Annie, either alone or in another double blowjob. I also think I would have enjoyed a little more set-up before some of the videos–they all pretty much start with her partner already nude and hard and her face inches away. Simply watching her pull his pants down would have added a touch of variety so that the videos didn’t start to feel so similar, time after time. Or perhaps something to hint at a backstory or fantasy scene before the blowjob commences.

That said, it’s worth checking out.

UPDATE (9/10/10): The Art of Blowjob is now allowing me to provide a video preview (below). The link to the full site is below it.