Giving sex a good name since 1995
I haven’t had a date in months. Tonight I’m finally going out with Dimitri, the buff Russian with bad teeth. He spotted me at the gym this morning. In the middle of his sweaty, mad run on the treadmill he came to an abrupt stop and approached me.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked, cornering me up against the leg machine.
“I’m not sure.”
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Leonid Pekarovsky is a writer, journalist and art critic.
Aged 13, I arrived in the common room of my new boarding school to be greeted by the supervising senior boy with ‘So you’re the new boy, Abrahams, bit of a wog are you?’ I had no idea what he meant so merely smiled and accepted.
These faculty committees were of a piece: business (so-called), people, little speeches, gossip, results: none. Hours murdered, and neurons. Fenshaw did nothing but think of his office; who would be waiting. Mary Ellen, no bra, no panties, slight skirt, plush lips, and the will and skill to use the whole kit for his pleasure. She was short, voluptuous, twenty years old, and a junior, which meant she’d be around for another year. And she wanted nothing in return. Sure, she expected pleasure of her own, but such was her ferocious response to his ministrations that her pleasuring became his as well.
In our new GALLERY section, Julia discusses her work. "My project, The Act, is a multi-faceted study of women who engage voluntarily in the UK sex-industry, their reasons for choosing this career path, and their feelings about their work. It includes images, and ‘stories’ in text and as well as online videos. During the project, I was involved not only as a photographer, but as a ‘normal’ woman observing other women unabashedly engaging in acts during which they exploit their sexuality and their physicality to earn their living. It was a stimulating experience from start to finish. It took me on an unexpected and daring adventure seeing life from a distinctly different perspective than one I lead. These are my thoughts on my photographic odyssey into the world of the sex industry."
Hannah Sward holds a BA in Creative Writing from Antioch. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals such as Arts & Letters, Yemassee (University of South Carolina), Lickerish Library, Halcoyne (Black Mountain Press) Red Wheelbarrow, Porter Gulch Review, Other Voices (Canada), Anthology of The Mad Ones, Milk, Alimentum, Anthology of Women Writers, Hypertext, Pig Iron Malt, Pindeldboz, Nerve Cowboy, Afternoon, Wimpole Street Writers, and Word Riot.
I come from a family where my parents would argue for a whole day about whether a picture should be hung three inches to the right or the left; the loser would often sulk for a week. So you might think that after such a traumatic childhood I could care less whether people had pictures on their walls or not.
Yesterday afternoon I spent £1600 on prostitutes in Nairobi. Fifty two of them, in fact. Fifty girls and two boys. My charity (how I hate the proto-Christian smugness of that word) Mama Biashara works in the slums setting women (mainly) up in small businesses to pull them out of the absolute poverty in which they are living and elevate them to simple poverty.
A lingerie designer must have a very specific understanding of the female form. We must work in unison with nakedness; we can enhance, but hide little. We must sculpt, uphold and create smooth lines. We know a woman would prefer to be comfortable but she will sacrifice this for effect, when choosing the expensive ‘dress-up’ kind of lingerie as opposed to the ‘day-wear’ sort which lovers reel from. Working with fine silk to make basques, satin teddies, silk cami-knickers and balcony bras, my collections have always been expensive and so must combine elegant aesthetics with immaculate fit to earn their worth.
‘That's a hell of an ambition, to be mellow. It's like wanting to be senile.’ Randy Newman
