Frank and Ava
Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner at a table in a restaurant in Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam) on December 13, 1951, a month after their marriage. Photo Ben van Meerendonk
What’s New
A Newer Method of Self-Propelled Lateral-Move Automatic Harvesting
by Justin F. RobinetteAlmost a full century after the failure of the Demeter system due to its inefficiency – start, stop, start, stop, turn; start, stop, turn – not to mention the literal stumbling blocks, there is a newer system for autonomously harvesting crops: Saturn, LLC’s self-propelled lateral-move automated harvesting system. Saturn, for short.
Fiction
A Newer Method of Self-Propelled Lateral-Move Automatic Harvesting
by Justin F. RobinetteAlmost a full century after the failure of the Demeter system due to its inefficiency – start, stop, start, stop, turn; start, stop, turn – not to mention the literal stumbling blocks, there is a newer system for autonomously harvesting crops: Saturn, LLC’s self-propelled lateral-move automated harvesting system. Saturn, for short.
Reviews
We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers
by Eamonn GearonFor anyone whose exposure to Arabic literature begins and ends with a child-friendly edition of Alf Layla wa Layla, in English 1000 Nights and a Night or The Arabian Nights, it will come as a surprise to hear that there is an ancient, honourable and celebrated – and just as often decried – tradition of erotic writing in Arabic. Further, while the existence of erotica in Arabic sinks in, we might add at this point the additional fact that many exponents of the art form are women. Surprised?
Love & Sex
The Freebird Paradox
by Karin JonesA few years ago I was so moved by the biopic “Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love,” about the complex relationship Leonard Cohen had with his most significant lover/muse Marianne Ihlen, I paid homage to it on my Instagram feed by writing: “Some souls are steadfast and some are restless. Soulmates don’t often live and die together. But they often live and die a richer life.” However, one of my followers wasn’t nearly as enamored. She commented, “I never bought the trope of tortured genius as a free pass to screw anything that moved whilst inflicting pain on the people who love you. Just a different face of misogyny. They need their “muses” but mostly treat them abominably. Glorious poet but is he a great man?”
Galleries
Henry Monnier (1799 – 1877) A Group of Erotic Miniatures
Henry Bonaventure Monnier, artist and playwright, was born 7 June 1799. After studying at the Lycée Bonaparte, he frequented the workshops of the neo-classical artists Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson and Baron Antoine–Jean Gros. Aged just 23, Monnier went to live in London, returning to Paris five years later where he started to encounter and befriend a glittering cast of authors and painters of the time: Alexandre Dumas, Théophile Gautier, Stendhal, Eugène Sue, Prosper Mérimée, Eugène Scribe, Eugène Delacroix, Louis Boulanger and Honoré de Balzac.
Articles
For the Hungry Girl
by Katie DriscollLove always used to feel like pigging out, the same kind of bottomlessness. Sex was for cold mornings where you forgot to close the blinds or for hot summer afternoons, when the urge took you, when the sun was watching but you didn’t care, all white rumpled sheets like an advert.
History Of Pleasure
Respectable Women Don’t Wear Pants
by Lucy RoeberNowadays, not wearing underpants is a statement. It’s an act of seduction or daring or extreme forgetfulness. Going commando is whispered and giggled about. It’s funny and possibly sexy and definitely out of the ordinary. However, in the 18th century, respectable women didn’t wear pants, only whores did.