June is Pride Month throughout North America and much of Europe. This is when the Lesbian/Gay/Transgender/Bisexual/2-Spirit/Non-binary community commemorates several hot nights in June 1969 when a sketchy gay bar (and they were all considered sketchy then) in New York City, the Stonewall Inn, was raided by the police. This was a fairly regular event in those days, but this time, the bar regulars resisted arrest and fought back. The “Stonewall Riots,” as they came to be called, are now considered the trigger that started the “gay rights”movement.

My Chilean-born spouse and I watched the rainbow flag being raised at the legislature of the province of Saskatchewan for Pride Month, and we also watched a similar flag-raising in front of the city hall of Regina, the small capital city where we live. We rode on a float in our local Pride parade. I posted numerous photos to Facebook under my full name, Jean Roberta Hillabold.

After a ten-day “Pride Week” had ended in Regina, we were passengers in our friend’s car when four of us went to Saskatoon, the other small city or large town in Saskatchewan, for THEIR Pride parade. Although Regina and Saskatoon have traditionally been rival cities, the organizing committees that plan Pride Weeks in both places always arrange to schedule them one after the other so that anyone who likes to travel can enjoy at least two weeks of Pride.

However, we weren’t all going to Saskatoon so we could party for another week. We were bringing a gay refugee to the nearest office of the government of Canada where refugees need to apply for official status, and permission to stay in Canada indefinitely.

Ramon, as I’ll call him, is from El Salvador. He just turned 28 during Pride Week in Regina. He says he finished secondary school in his country, but my Spanish-speaking spouse doubts it, based on the things he says and the way he says them. We first met Ramon several months ago, when he was brought to Regina by an international development organization. He told us he was afraid for his life, but felt he had to go back. Since then, he has kept in touch with my spouse Mirtha by telefono and correo electronico (email).

About two weeks ago, Ramon sounded desperate, so we bought him a round-trip plane ticket and arranged for him to be a visiting speaker at a Pride Week event, with Mirtha as translator. This was his official reason for entering Canada.

Ramon has been in our guest bedroom ever since, and we hope we can help him start a new life here. He told us that his own father threatened to kill him, and an American woman hid him in her house for six months because it was no longer safe for him to go to his paid job for a Salvadorean organization that educates people about AIDS. (As far as we know, Ramon is healthy.) Apparently his American friend thought he should stay in his country and fight the macho, Catholic homophobia. Mirtha and I believe that live activists, even those in exile, can do more good than dead ones.

Little by little, things are falling into place. We discovered that the friend who drove us to Saskatoon has experience in helping refugees navigate the system. A local “affirming” (queer-accepting) church has offered help. Someone already offered Ramon a job, which he can’t legally accept until he has legal permission to work in Canada. On that note, I recently got a nice raise from the university where I teach, so Mirtha and I have no problem supporting Ramon. I need to work on my Spanish, and having to converse with Ramon is very motivating.

Now that Pride Month celebrations have become huge, corporate-sponsored tourist attractions in the U.S. and Canada, it’s easy to forget how dangerous it is in many countries to be anything other than heterosexual and monogamous, preferably married with children.

I often wish that Mirtha and I could afford to rescue all the people who are persecuted for being any shade of queer, for marrying against their parents’ wishes, for having sex lives that aren’t considered acceptable in their homeland. For women in extremely male-dominated countries, any kind of sexual experience is likely to damage their reputations beyond repair, and make them targets of violence.

If everyone who can afford to host one refugee of sexually-based persecution would do so, this would relieve some of the pressure at national borders. Of course, conservative sexual values don’t account for all the human suffering that drives people into exile, but it does account for a lot. Do you think that corrupt military regimes and horrifying violations of human rights flourish in countries where women have considerable political power because they can lead independent lives without being condemned as whores? (Time will tell whether the gathering political resistance of American women will overturn the current reign of the right wing in the U.S.)

I’m celebrating something else this month: the release of my latest collection of lesbian short stories, Spring Fever and Other Sapphic Encounters. Most of these fourteen stories first appeared in various romantic and erotic anthologies, but some are virgins, never seen in public before. So far, this book is only available for Kindle, but I hope it can eventually appear in other formats, possibly including paper.

Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T91FCFC/

There has been so much bad news in the media in the past few months that lust sometimes feels irrelevant.

Both the U.K. and the U.S. seem to be in full meltdown, and Canada’s government/corporate scandal shows that it’s not far behind. The Canadian Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau, son of a former P.M.)  and his wife might still be the most photogenic First Couple on the planet, but appearances can be deceiving. Trudeau’s harassment of two high-level middle-aged female ministers for failing to put party loyalty above respect for the law has tarnished his image as a libertarian, and will probably drive voters away from the currently-ruling Liberal Party. The collapse of a traditionally left-of-centre party could pave the way for more conservatism, less environmental protection, and a more open war on all demographics that are not rich heterosexual white men.

We are not living in a sexy time.

Social media in general seem to be shrieking, “Do something! Sign a petition, donate to a cause, go to a demonstration, write to your political representative!” What usually isn’t said directly is that spending an afternoon in bed with your sweetie—or a few playmates—is the height of irresponsibility. And this is the leftist position.

The anti-sex position of the right wing is usually clearer. Conservative spokespeople tell us that no one is really transgendered, that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, polyamorists, fetishists, and anyone who is any flavour of BDSM all need to be locked up or reprogrammed for the good of society at large. Women of child-bearing age are being told they should only have marital sex with men, and risk pregnancy every time. Since men are not being held responsible for the babies they father, the possible consequences of unprotected sex are almost guaranteed to turn women off.

I assume that few conservative white men of any age are attracted to women of my vintage (over 65), but they would be appalled to learn that we can have sex lives without them. As Lisabet Sarai, mentioned here lately, sexual feelings in older folks are widely considered icky.

The current zeitgeist feels like a continuous cold shower, interspersed with saunas in hell. No one can live like this all time. As mammals, we need pleasure in various forms just as we need air to breathe.

Sex-writers, in particular, need to remind ourselves of what sex feels like in order to describe it authentically. If we are women, we need to imagine being wanted without being hated, and having our own desire accepted without blame.

I keep a list of calls-for-submissions, and I know that several deadlines for important anthologies and theme issues will whoosh past me before I will be able to write something suitably sexy. Conjuring up joyful, mutual sex is easier for me if I imagine it happening in the Temple of the Loving Goddess in the far-distant past or future, someplace far removed from today’s world. However, not all editors are looking for speculative fiction.

In a happier time, at least for me, I wrote “A Striking Dilemma,” a story about a three-way relationship of two young ladies and their gentleman friend in the late Victorian Age. That was definitely not a sex-friendly era either, but the jolly lovers in my story have enough privilege that they can make their arrangement appear respectable from the outside. This story is included in the second ERWA anthology, Twisted Sheets: Tales of Sizzling Menage, which has been selling well. Here is a taste:

I shook my tresses free, wondering if I looked like a madwoman in an opera.

     Lizzie unlaced my corset before I could do it myself. My small breasts popped into view, and I could see that my nipples were already hard. They looked very pink against my pale skin, but then one of them disappeared into Lizzie’s hot, wet mouth. “Oh!” I gasped. My uncontrolled response inspired her to apply a mercilessly firm tongue to my flesh. The heat of her mouth, and her persistent attention, sent moisture to my neglected cleft.

     Liz heartily sucked my nipple, then gently pulled it with her teeth before suddenly exposing it to the cool air. I looked down and saw it stretched to an amazing length, as if it were made of gutta percha.

     “Aha,” she muttered, as if to herself. I could feel my face grow warm. She liked to make me blush, and my awareness of her goal always guaranteed that she would get her wish. She tugged on my remaining underthings, and I obligingly pulled them off. I stepped out of my petticoat, and left it in a heap on the carpet.

“My girl,” she said approvingly, smiling at the sight I presented. “You’ll still look like a nymph to tempt the ancient gods when all the professional beauties of our time have become fat old women. How many times do I have to show you how beautiful you are?”

     I considered her question. “As many times as it takes,” I answered.

     Lizzie took my response as a dare. I let out a muffled squeak when she lifted me up. She held me firmly, despite my wriggling, and carried me into her boudoir, where she laid me on the counterpane that covered her bed. She had never carried me so far before. I realized that her passion for sports – badminton, archery, riding, and shooting – had given her Amazonian strength and endurance.

     There was a quiet knock at the door. Before Lizzie could attend to it, I heard a key turning in the lock. She strode purposefully into the hallway to greet him. “Henry!” She didn’t sound at all pleased, even though she had impulsively given him his key as a birthday gift two years before.

     I thought briefly of hiding under Lizzie’s bed, but then I realised how childish that would seem. I decided that a mature woman would accept the role of fellow-hostess. I wrapped myself in my clothes, as though in a blanket, and walked in bare feet to the hallway, where I stood beside her. I could guess how ridiculous I looked. Henry had seen me and Lizzie in various states of dress and undress, but never had he seen either of us completely naked.

     “Henry,” I said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Our young man looked as mischievous as usual. He doffed his hat, laid it on the parlour table, and approached us at once.

     “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said, almost laughing aloud. “I do hope I’ve interrupted something.” His brown eyes shone with merriment. “Ruth, please don’t feel embarrassed. I know that you and our Elizabeth have an intimacy that men may only wonder at. The games of love are entirely natural.”

——————-

Henry is right, of course, and apparently our readers agree with him. I recently got a surprisingly large quarterly royalty payment for my stories that are selling on the on-line platform Excessica, including my collection of five stories about a Dominant English prof, Dr. Athena Chalkdust, my story about the conception of King Arthur, (Under the Sign of the Dragon) and my stories in the two anthologies from ERWA (Erotic Readers and Writers Association).

Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

I can’t speak for other writers, but for me an unsolicited comment from a reader is worth more than getting published, or even getting a check in the mail. For a total stranger to tell you she read your story and that it affected her … wow, you can’t put a price on that.

Like a lot of folks around here, my first time exposing my scribblings to the public came courtesy of ERWA and the Story Gallery. And while email addresses of authors are tacked on the stories that appear in the gallery now, some time ago readers were encouraged to share their thoughts with authors about stories. And, if you think seeing your words in print is a thrill, wait until you get your first fan mail from someone you don’t know saying, “Hey, I really liked your story.” Then it’s Release the endorphins!

I can’t remember ever getting a negative response to a story, but I remember one that was somewhat unsettling.

I don’t have any particular system for choosing names for my characters, particularly last names. Most are relatively common surnames, so no one is likely to confuse a character in one of my stories with an actual individual, even when I pick a name from someone out of my past – except for this one time. Oy!

I was pondering a name for a female character who was a psychologist and settled on the name of a kid with whom I shared a few classes at high school.

The story was chosen to appear in ERWA’s story gallery, and shortly afterward I received an email from a young woman who was urgently curious to know how I had come up with the surname of the character of the psychologist. She explained that it was her family name and only 35 people on the entire planet had it.

It was a classic Uh-oh! moment.

I replied explaining I was trying to settle on a name that fit a female psychologist and that I remembered the name of  the kid from high school. I described him and told her his first name.

“That’s my Dad!” came the reply.

Like I said, Oy!

I braced for her to demand I change the name or take down the story. You can’t tell, after all, how someone might react to having their family name in an erotic story. I explained that her dad and I weren’t friends, but only shared a couple of classes, so only knew each other casually.

She replied, “That’s amazing.” Then she shared that she was in college studying psychology, and wasn’t that also a coincidence.

We kind of chatted back and forth for a bit, as she told me what had become of her dad. I offered that he would likely not remember me at all.

Anyway, that’s how we left it. Except, feeling a bit more relaxed about the situation, I asked her how she liked the story. She said erotica wasn’t really her thing and that it was one of her dorm mates who had read the story on ERWA and brought it to her attention. I didn’t think to ask her what her dorm mate thought of the story. Afterward, I couldn’t help feeling like I had dodged a bullet of sorts.

The story was never published anywhere else but in the Story Gallery, but if I’d ever submitted it elsewhere I would have likely changed the name.

And so … a bit of a cautionary tale. What were the chances?