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From: Lady Cyrrh <LadyCyrrh@aol.com>
Subject: The Annex Reviews 1/11/98
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I'm back from vacation, after a relaxing journey through the 
southern half of the country overflowing with many strange 
sights and scenes...among them the Frederick's of Hollywood Bra 
Museum, sneak previews of the animator's sketches for the "Ace 
Ventura: Pet Detective" cartoon show, $500 folk art sculptures 
that look like they were constructed by autistic children, a 
waving mechanical Santa that contained an embalmed corpse, 
and Amtrak officials trying to bust a poor Latina Jehovah's 
Witness woman because they thought she was an illegal alien. 
Aren't vacations fun! 

Beginning this year, I will be posting these reviews the 
newsgroups alt.sex.stories, alt.sex.stories.moderated, 
alt.sex.stories.gay, and alt.sex.stories.gay.moderated. I have 
dropped posting to alt.sex.stories.bondage because it was so 
overrun with spam I couldn't see anyone wading through all the 
dross just to read a cute review or two. Remember that these 
reviews can always be found at my website 
(http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh) as well, along with book 
reviews, website reviews, and other assorted fluff. If you missed 
the 1997 Cyrrheal Awards for Newsgroup Fiction, they can be 
found there as well. 

Anyway, here's my offerings for the week. Note that I am slowing 
down this season, as I have some other things in my life I have to 
give attention to.

Doubts and Uncertainties, Ghost Ex Machina (M/F, femdom, nc/con)
Jemilsil, Parts 1, 2 3, Ruthless (Teen, trans, fantasy)
Two on One, Mark Aster (M/F/M group)
Dueling Clits, Parts 1-3b, Jackie (F/F, lingerie)


Doubts and Uncertainties [A+]
When posted: 1/1/97
Where posted: ASS, ASSM
Author: Ghost Ex Machina
Poster Address: Ghost@nym.alias.net

Apparently there's been a lot of talk about 
consensual/nonconsensual stories on ASSD lately. Exactly how 
much I don't know, as I haven't been online for the holiday 
season, but what is clear is that it is a subject that polarizes both 
writers and readers alike. In this story by Ghost, the pros and 
cons of literary sadism receive a workout.

The story begins on a classic femdom note: in a remote country 
woodshed, a man is chained to a workbench by his cock and balls 
while a woman gleefully sprinkles gasoline over the walls and 
threatens to immolate him with a match. Then the story picks up 
with the writer of the said story sitting at her computer 
pondering the consequences of what she's written and discussing 
them with her boyfriend, in a series of fantasies, some sadistic, 
that segue into each other like fever dreams. No conclusion is 
given; but when the original tale is picked up, it's revealed the 
inflammable substance was really water, not gasoline.

This story was an interesting commentary on the current debate, 
but an even more interesting one on the forum of that debate, 
which takes in an adult newsgroup dedicated to writing and 
discussing pornography. A story like this could never stand alone 
in a published anthology or magazine because readers not 
having current familiarity with ASSD or the ins and outs of 
alt.sex newsgroup culture wouldn't know what you were talking 
about. As such, this story could be considered a type of fanfic 
based around a venue rather than a TV show or movie, and to its 
intended audience--readers of the alt.sex.hierarchy--it speaks 
quite clearly as a personal editorial couched in fictional form. 
But! The drama of real life intrudes, as the writer has based 
certain characters and events on her own life, and the story 
becomes a multilayered journey through fact, fiction, opinion 
and public face; it reveals all, and reveals nothing. Stuff like this 
is why I read porn on the web--for what it says about human 
nature, what it reveals about the writer, and what the writer 
*thinks* it reveals about themselves.

However, it's hard to say exactly where Ghost stands on the 
consensual/nonconsensual issue, except that the whole thing can 
be mined to provide food for thought. My own opinion is that 
newsgroup writers have total freedom to write or say anything 
they want on alt.sex, and I am behind this right 100%, even if I 
ignore such spoutings or mock them. 

I will say though, taking this story as a story (that is, for its 
entertainment value) a CBT'd man about to be cremated alive 
packs a helluva lot more dramatic punch that a conversation 
between a healthily communicating couple.

My conclusion? Ghost is more than a little ambivalent about the 
subject, too.


Jemilsil, Parts 1, 2, 3 [A+]
When posted: 12/17/97
Where posted: ASGM
Author: Ruthless
Poster Address: ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca

In this story, which is more fantasy than erotica, a young man, 
the son of a warlord, deals with some peculiar customs on his 
wedding night and eventually finds out that his new bride is not 
who she seems to be, despite his own naivete about female 
genitals look like. You'll probably guess what gender the bride 
really is long before the young man does, but that didn't hinder 
my enjoyment of the story, which was rich, atmospheric, and 
plausible, with the matter-of-fact, nonjudgemental tone of 
Tigger's work. It also displayed a fine feel for history and 
anthropology in its examination of an imaginary culture. My 
only quibble is that the bride was still referred to as a "she" even 
when "her" sex became obvious, which deflated the idea of the 
same-sex couple somewhat; but overall this is an excellent piece 
that I was happy to start out the new year with. 


Two on One [A]
When posted: 12/27/97
Where posted: ASS, ASSM
Author: Mark Aster
Poster Address: MyFrThAl

The Allens are back, or at least one of them is, or maybe they've 
just made some new friends. In this three-way scenario, the 
narrator goes to visit his friend Tanya and finds her in post-
coital wantoness with her good-naturedly dopey boyfriend Jake. 
The three have sex, the mens' limited to a hand job, with the 
emphasis, I think, on the turn-on of seeing/imagining a woman 
being fucked quite heartily by another guy. I haven't seen too 
many three-ways between two guys and a girl in the past few 
months, and this one was a nice addition to the genre.


Dueling Clits, Parts 1 -3b [A-]
When posted: 12/20/97
Where posted: ASGM
Author: Jackie
Poster Address: an338903@cris.com

>From the title (which mimics a popular line of porno spam) I 
imagined this story must be a sort of Twilight-Zone sports fantasy 
about two women who use that particular portion of their 
anatomy to grapple each other in the manner of sumo wrestlers. 
But the story turned out to be a personal fantasy about steamy 
shower room voyeurism and nubile coeds: the narrator is 
attracted to a female member on her swim team, and after months 
of fantasizing finally befriends her love interest. She invites her 
to her room one night and the light-hearted "duel" ensures with 
the two dressed in opposing sets of undies: Frederick's of 
Hollywood red lace nothings on the narrator, and a schoolgirl 
cotton (printed with tiny red hearts) bra and panty set on her 
lover. Dyke love then gets the full treatment: nips and clits that 
plump when you cook'em, oozing gallons of creamy glistening 
girl-cum.

This is the second story by Jacki I've seen, and it's much better 
and more literate than the first ("Amusement Park Breast 
Growth" or something like that) and more interesting than the 
Candy Kane stories that are posted every once in a while. If this is 
your bag, then go to it. I know I was happy to see clits and clit 
measurements get the loving attention they deserve.


Comments to: ladycyrrh@aol.com
Website--->  http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh


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