There is a story that I have been struggling with. I think I know where it is going, but I don't have any idea how it gets there. I probably will have to abandon it altogether or start it over with a different situation or a different character to support the same theme. I don't know.
What I do know is that, out of the blue, another story idea came to me, and to find out whether it seems to be going anywhere, I decided to just sit down and write for about 30 minutes.
And I pumped out about 700 words! They just flowed out, as if I had been preparing to write the story for months. I don't know if I'll run into any roadblocks or not—that sort of thing does happen—but from the first scene, knowing who these characters are and what their relationship is (although I haven't actually revealed that in those first 700 words), I find myself liking them already and seeing ahead to what's in store for them, and being very excited about getting them there.
With luck, you'll be able to see the results of this burst of creativity soon. No pun intended. Well, maybe a little.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
From Kink to Fetish to the DSM
What is the difference between a kink and a fetish? And are either of them anything to worry about?
I often see postings on Internet sites about people who are "experimenting" with a balloon fetish, or just "getting into it." And I think they're using the term in too broad a sense. Now, I'm not going to get into a fight over semantics, but I think the difference is worth noting. If you are experimenting with a sexual variation, like sexual activity with balloons, for example, I don't think you are participating in a fetish; I think you are trying out a kink.
It's something you are deciding to do, something you want to try out. It's not something that you feel compelled by some inner feeling to do, and most likely if you decided to give it up tomorrow, you could do so without any difficulty.
This applies to any kinky sex you might decided to experiment with, not just balloons, but since this is a blog about balloons and sex, we'll stick to that topic.
And as kinks go, I think balloon play is probably a pretty good one. It's harmless, with a low risk of injury. Balloons are fun, sensual, and yet in some ways kind of scary, though in a superficial sense. That is, the balloons won't really hurt you, but popping them might give some enough adrenaline rush to provide some extra stimulation.
I wouldn't know. I can't see balloons the way others do without it being influenced by my very real fetish, something I did not choose, feelings that just happened to me along the way, starting very early in my life. They are ingrained in me, and I can't just decide that I don't want to be turned on by them (or afraid of them or emotionally attached to them) and change my feelings overnight.
If I did want to make such a change (and I don't), it would be a long battle, and I truthfully believe that some vestige of those feelings would just never go away. And that, in my opinion, is the difference between a fetish and a kink.
That and the fact that I am convinced that not all fetishes are sexual, whereas all kinks are, by their nature. There's nothing wrong with that; I have nothing against kinky sex or experimentation as long as no one gets hurt, but I do care about the difference, personally.
Now, what about the second question: is kinky sex or fetishism anything to worry about?
I once had a commenter on Twitter tell me I need to see a psychiatrist. I was tempted to reply: "I don't think you'd agree with what the psychiatrist had to say." (I resisted the temptation.) Because according to the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V), which is what the psychiatric profession uses as a guide, fetishism in itself is not any kind of disorder.
There is something called fetishistic disorder, but that only comes into play if the fetish interferes with the subject's daily life. I wouldn't qualify. It's true, I do sometimes get very anxious when I'm around balloons in public, but that has little to do with my fetish and everything to do with my phobia.
So, whether you're doing balloons as a lark, or you're in it for the long haul through no choice of your own, there's nothing to be concerned about.
As long as nobody gets hurt.
NOTE: If you arrived here from Wikipedia, you should know that citing my blog as a source for what DSM has to say is a bit misleading to say the least. To see my opinion about that, click here.
I often see postings on Internet sites about people who are "experimenting" with a balloon fetish, or just "getting into it." And I think they're using the term in too broad a sense. Now, I'm not going to get into a fight over semantics, but I think the difference is worth noting. If you are experimenting with a sexual variation, like sexual activity with balloons, for example, I don't think you are participating in a fetish; I think you are trying out a kink.
It's something you are deciding to do, something you want to try out. It's not something that you feel compelled by some inner feeling to do, and most likely if you decided to give it up tomorrow, you could do so without any difficulty.
This applies to any kinky sex you might decided to experiment with, not just balloons, but since this is a blog about balloons and sex, we'll stick to that topic.
And as kinks go, I think balloon play is probably a pretty good one. It's harmless, with a low risk of injury. Balloons are fun, sensual, and yet in some ways kind of scary, though in a superficial sense. That is, the balloons won't really hurt you, but popping them might give some enough adrenaline rush to provide some extra stimulation.
I wouldn't know. I can't see balloons the way others do without it being influenced by my very real fetish, something I did not choose, feelings that just happened to me along the way, starting very early in my life. They are ingrained in me, and I can't just decide that I don't want to be turned on by them (or afraid of them or emotionally attached to them) and change my feelings overnight.
If I did want to make such a change (and I don't), it would be a long battle, and I truthfully believe that some vestige of those feelings would just never go away. And that, in my opinion, is the difference between a fetish and a kink.
That and the fact that I am convinced that not all fetishes are sexual, whereas all kinks are, by their nature. There's nothing wrong with that; I have nothing against kinky sex or experimentation as long as no one gets hurt, but I do care about the difference, personally.
Now, what about the second question: is kinky sex or fetishism anything to worry about?
I once had a commenter on Twitter tell me I need to see a psychiatrist. I was tempted to reply: "I don't think you'd agree with what the psychiatrist had to say." (I resisted the temptation.) Because according to the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V), which is what the psychiatric profession uses as a guide, fetishism in itself is not any kind of disorder.
There is something called fetishistic disorder, but that only comes into play if the fetish interferes with the subject's daily life. I wouldn't qualify. It's true, I do sometimes get very anxious when I'm around balloons in public, but that has little to do with my fetish and everything to do with my phobia.
So, whether you're doing balloons as a lark, or you're in it for the long haul through no choice of your own, there's nothing to be concerned about.
As long as nobody gets hurt.
NOTE: If you arrived here from Wikipedia, you should know that citing my blog as a source for what DSM has to say is a bit misleading to say the least. To see my opinion about that, click here.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Fetishist From Birth?
After my last entry, someone on Facebook was discussing the post, and talked about being "born with the fetish." And I asked, as an aside, "Do you think we're born with the fetish?" Because I don't actually think that's true. I think that, even for true fetishists (a subject my predecessor touched on a couple of years ago), there is an event, before our earliest memories, that triggered some reaction to balloons that became an attachment to balloons which became, for most of us, a sexual connection to balloons, of some stripe.
But I could be completely wrong.
Anyone who claims to know how fetishes occur is blowing smoke into your balloon. Because, for us who truly have the fetish, our reaction to balloons was never something we chose. It was a reaction to something that happened to us; exactly what we have no way of knowing because most likely it happened in that time before we were four while we were forming memories that, for whatever reason, don't stay with us.
But born with it? Well, of course, there's no gene or birth trauma that makes us have a particular fetish. We're not born to love balloons, specifically. But maybe, just maybe, we're born to have this kind of attachment. After all, there are a lot of fetishists in the world, if you count all the fetishes that there are. Maybe there is a rather large subset of the populace is predisposed to have an emotional and/or sexual attachment to some object or another, with the particulars of which object falling to the whims of circumstance.
I don't know. And I don't think anyone else does either. My inclination is that fetishism is more likely an awakening of propensities that almost all of us share, but some incident or series of incidents turns the attachment process on its head and sends us in an unusual direction (and, as I said, not all that unusual for fetishism as a whole).
Not necessarily a bad direction, either. Sometimes my life would be simpler if I didn't have a fetish for balloons. But for the most part the balloons not only bring me sexual excitement, but comfort and happiness as well. It would only be a problem if my fetish interfered with living a full and satisfying life. And frankly, if that was the case, it probably wouldn't be just the fetish that was the issue.
So, while I cannot say with any confidence why I feel as I do about balloons, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.
But I could be completely wrong.
Anyone who claims to know how fetishes occur is blowing smoke into your balloon. Because, for us who truly have the fetish, our reaction to balloons was never something we chose. It was a reaction to something that happened to us; exactly what we have no way of knowing because most likely it happened in that time before we were four while we were forming memories that, for whatever reason, don't stay with us.
But born with it? Well, of course, there's no gene or birth trauma that makes us have a particular fetish. We're not born to love balloons, specifically. But maybe, just maybe, we're born to have this kind of attachment. After all, there are a lot of fetishists in the world, if you count all the fetishes that there are. Maybe there is a rather large subset of the populace is predisposed to have an emotional and/or sexual attachment to some object or another, with the particulars of which object falling to the whims of circumstance.
I don't know. And I don't think anyone else does either. My inclination is that fetishism is more likely an awakening of propensities that almost all of us share, but some incident or series of incidents turns the attachment process on its head and sends us in an unusual direction (and, as I said, not all that unusual for fetishism as a whole).
Not necessarily a bad direction, either. Sometimes my life would be simpler if I didn't have a fetish for balloons. But for the most part the balloons not only bring me sexual excitement, but comfort and happiness as well. It would only be a problem if my fetish interfered with living a full and satisfying life. And frankly, if that was the case, it probably wouldn't be just the fetish that was the issue.
So, while I cannot say with any confidence why I feel as I do about balloons, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.
Monday, April 28, 2014
It's Not All About Sex
If you do nothing but skim the surface, balloon fetishes seem pretty simple. Some guy or gal blows up a balloon until it pops and gets horny. Or does the nasty with a balloon or watches someone else play with a balloon.
And I guess for some balloon fetishists, it really is that simple: the balloon is an object that stimulates or enhances their sexual desire. There's a lot of variety within that description, of course, but it does cut to the chase. I think that my character in Popping Out meets that description pretty well, and maybe even the guy in Eric's Secret.
But for me, and I suspect a lot of us, it isn't nearly so cut and dried. I had a non-sexual relationship with balloons for at least eight years before they began to relate to sexual feelings at all. I will never understand how it started, around the age of three. I do know that I was deathly afraid of balloons popping, and that I felt a sense of loss when they were destroyed. I do know that I loved having balloons around whenever my parents would let me.
And for some reason that I do not understand, I loved having balloons stuffed into my pajamas. Aha, you say, a sexual relationship after all. No, not at all. A sensual relationship, maybe. It just felt good, like a stuffed animal or a particularly warm and fuzzy blanket. I just loved balloons. Even as I was afraid of them.
The sexual feeling for balloons came later, with puberty. Oh, there was probably some anticipation of that transformation earlier. After all, I was a boy, and things that get held against a boy's penis, especially with any amount of pressure, tend to cause an erection.
That's not necessarily a sexual response, mind you; often it's just the body protecting a vital reproductive organ from loss of blood flow. But your mind treats protective erections and erections from sexual arousal pretty much identically, and so the connection was made.
But discovering my sexual feelings for balloons did not take away the non-sexual feelings, and even decades later, as a middle-aged man, balloons in various circumstances can bring on waves of varied—and sometimes conflicting—emotional and even visceral responses.
I still love just having balloons around. At a former job, I decorated my office with them (we were in the entertainment business—such quirks were tolerated). Now I decorate my house with them in the winter. They oxidize in the summer, and I don't like oxidized balloons, even though when I was little, I kept them until they were oxidized and nearly flat. See? It's complicated.
I still like to cuddle with balloons, although I don't get much opportunity these days. Some of the cuddling leads to sexual activity, but a surprising amount of it does not.
And where popping balloons is concerned, things get even more complicated. I pop balloons now, something I never, ever did until I was in my teens. I can even do it without earplugs, in most circumstances.
But when I'm around someone else who has a balloon, I get a sudden flight response, and I want to get away as quickly as possible. I don't like being around popping balloons if I'm not in control of the situation.
And yet, watching a lovely lady do something that might pop a balloon is sexually arousing for me. So there's where the conflicting feeling come in. I really want to get away from the balloon, and I really want to stick around and watch the lovely lady pop the balloon.
Provided she's popping it the right way. If she's going after balloons with a pin, forget it, I'll run away as fast as I can. If she's sitting on it, I'll stay. If she's blowing it up until it pops...well, I don't know what I'll do because it scares the crap out of me and it turns me on. Conflicted!
I'm sure that there are a lot of stories out there just like mine—not in the details, you understand, but in the general sense that their feelings for balloons are not simply sexual.
Not, in fact, anything simple at all.
And I guess for some balloon fetishists, it really is that simple: the balloon is an object that stimulates or enhances their sexual desire. There's a lot of variety within that description, of course, but it does cut to the chase. I think that my character in Popping Out meets that description pretty well, and maybe even the guy in Eric's Secret.
But for me, and I suspect a lot of us, it isn't nearly so cut and dried. I had a non-sexual relationship with balloons for at least eight years before they began to relate to sexual feelings at all. I will never understand how it started, around the age of three. I do know that I was deathly afraid of balloons popping, and that I felt a sense of loss when they were destroyed. I do know that I loved having balloons around whenever my parents would let me.
And for some reason that I do not understand, I loved having balloons stuffed into my pajamas. Aha, you say, a sexual relationship after all. No, not at all. A sensual relationship, maybe. It just felt good, like a stuffed animal or a particularly warm and fuzzy blanket. I just loved balloons. Even as I was afraid of them.
The sexual feeling for balloons came later, with puberty. Oh, there was probably some anticipation of that transformation earlier. After all, I was a boy, and things that get held against a boy's penis, especially with any amount of pressure, tend to cause an erection.
That's not necessarily a sexual response, mind you; often it's just the body protecting a vital reproductive organ from loss of blood flow. But your mind treats protective erections and erections from sexual arousal pretty much identically, and so the connection was made.
But discovering my sexual feelings for balloons did not take away the non-sexual feelings, and even decades later, as a middle-aged man, balloons in various circumstances can bring on waves of varied—and sometimes conflicting—emotional and even visceral responses.
I still love just having balloons around. At a former job, I decorated my office with them (we were in the entertainment business—such quirks were tolerated). Now I decorate my house with them in the winter. They oxidize in the summer, and I don't like oxidized balloons, even though when I was little, I kept them until they were oxidized and nearly flat. See? It's complicated.
I still like to cuddle with balloons, although I don't get much opportunity these days. Some of the cuddling leads to sexual activity, but a surprising amount of it does not.
And where popping balloons is concerned, things get even more complicated. I pop balloons now, something I never, ever did until I was in my teens. I can even do it without earplugs, in most circumstances.
But when I'm around someone else who has a balloon, I get a sudden flight response, and I want to get away as quickly as possible. I don't like being around popping balloons if I'm not in control of the situation.
And yet, watching a lovely lady do something that might pop a balloon is sexually arousing for me. So there's where the conflicting feeling come in. I really want to get away from the balloon, and I really want to stick around and watch the lovely lady pop the balloon.
Provided she's popping it the right way. If she's going after balloons with a pin, forget it, I'll run away as fast as I can. If she's sitting on it, I'll stay. If she's blowing it up until it pops...well, I don't know what I'll do because it scares the crap out of me and it turns me on. Conflicted!
I'm sure that there are a lot of stories out there just like mine—not in the details, you understand, but in the general sense that their feelings for balloons are not simply sexual.
Not, in fact, anything simple at all.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
A New Story, Finally
I know that I have neglected this blog for a very long time; I have spent most of my balloon-fetish-writing energy on fiction for the past three months. And the result is a story that ended up being a novelette: Popping Out.
You can buy Popping Out on Amazon.com now. I'm still working out a few kinks that fail to link the Kindle and paperback editions, so if you want print, search for "Tim Popper Popping Out" in Books, and if you want an e-book, search for that same set of terms in the Kindle Store.
Not sure if you're ready to buy? Then download a sample of the Kindle edition. Because the story is so long, the preview actually gives you quite a good feel for the story, without really giving anything away.
And, as I've mentioned before, if you don't have a Kindle, you can still read the sample (or the whole book—hint) on a free Kindle reader for your tablet, phone, or computer, or in the Cloud Reader.
And if you haven't yet, why not download samples from Blowing It! and Eric's Secret?
So no excuses! Download the samples today and get a little taste of inflatable latex fun.
You can buy Popping Out on Amazon.com now. I'm still working out a few kinks that fail to link the Kindle and paperback editions, so if you want print, search for "Tim Popper Popping Out" in Books, and if you want an e-book, search for that same set of terms in the Kindle Store.
Not sure if you're ready to buy? Then download a sample of the Kindle edition. Because the story is so long, the preview actually gives you quite a good feel for the story, without really giving anything away.
And, as I've mentioned before, if you don't have a Kindle, you can still read the sample (or the whole book—hint) on a free Kindle reader for your tablet, phone, or computer, or in the Cloud Reader.
And if you haven't yet, why not download samples from Blowing It! and Eric's Secret?
So no excuses! Download the samples today and get a little taste of inflatable latex fun.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Sometimes Publishing Gets Weird
From time to time I check to see how my books are doing on Amazon.com. I check the ranking, review the descriptions, think about cover design and whether or not I can afford to have a better one done.
And, I look at the price. Now, since I set the price when I publish the book, that might seem odd, but the fact is that I only set the suggested retail price. Amazon can change the price at which they decide to sell the book, and so I sometimes see it available for a lower price, which I will occasionally announce so that anyone who's thinking about buying it will be tempted all that much more.
But today I looked at the price, saw that Amazon.com has Blowing It! available in paperback for $6.75, which is 75 cents below list—nice—but that someone else has it new for $6.32. Now, I have recently made the book available for expanded distribution, so that retailers other than Amazon can carry it. Now, this seller charges $3.99 for shipping, and if you buy it from Amazon with an order totaling $35 in eligible items, you can get it shipped for free, so Amazon is probably still a better deal.
It doesn't, by the way, make any difference to me.
But what was truly bizarre is that the price for used copies of Blowing It! start at (are you ready for this?) $19.05. For a used copy of a book that you can buy new for $6.32. Makes perfect sense.
And even stranger is that one seller (I'll leave it to your curiosity to find out which) sells the book for $999.11! If I could sell even one copy for that price, I would be very happy indeed. In fact, if you are of a mind to pay that kind of money for a copy, shoot me an email and I'll arrange it. I'll even throw in the shipping (which this seller doesn't)!
And let me make something perfectly clear. Blowing It! and Eric's Secret are print-on-demand titles. There is no such thing as a first edition, and they will be in print for as long as I want them to be. Each book is printed when you order it and not a moment sooner. There is absolutely no reason to pay more for a used copy of any of my books than for a new copy (although if you can find a used copy for less, jump on it).
Perhaps someday, when I'm dead and gone and my heirs decided to withdraw the books from circulation, existing copies will be worth the extra money, if only for the novelty. But for now, save your money and buy a new copy or a Kindle edition, and have a good read.
And use the money you save to buy some balloons. $992.79 will buy enough balloons to fill a house. And that, I can get next to.
And, I look at the price. Now, since I set the price when I publish the book, that might seem odd, but the fact is that I only set the suggested retail price. Amazon can change the price at which they decide to sell the book, and so I sometimes see it available for a lower price, which I will occasionally announce so that anyone who's thinking about buying it will be tempted all that much more.
But today I looked at the price, saw that Amazon.com has Blowing It! available in paperback for $6.75, which is 75 cents below list—nice—but that someone else has it new for $6.32. Now, I have recently made the book available for expanded distribution, so that retailers other than Amazon can carry it. Now, this seller charges $3.99 for shipping, and if you buy it from Amazon with an order totaling $35 in eligible items, you can get it shipped for free, so Amazon is probably still a better deal.
It doesn't, by the way, make any difference to me.
But what was truly bizarre is that the price for used copies of Blowing It! start at (are you ready for this?) $19.05. For a used copy of a book that you can buy new for $6.32. Makes perfect sense.
And even stranger is that one seller (I'll leave it to your curiosity to find out which) sells the book for $999.11! If I could sell even one copy for that price, I would be very happy indeed. In fact, if you are of a mind to pay that kind of money for a copy, shoot me an email and I'll arrange it. I'll even throw in the shipping (which this seller doesn't)!
And let me make something perfectly clear. Blowing It! and Eric's Secret are print-on-demand titles. There is no such thing as a first edition, and they will be in print for as long as I want them to be. Each book is printed when you order it and not a moment sooner. There is absolutely no reason to pay more for a used copy of any of my books than for a new copy (although if you can find a used copy for less, jump on it).
Perhaps someday, when I'm dead and gone and my heirs decided to withdraw the books from circulation, existing copies will be worth the extra money, if only for the novelty. But for now, save your money and buy a new copy or a Kindle edition, and have a good read.
And use the money you save to buy some balloons. $992.79 will buy enough balloons to fill a house. And that, I can get next to.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
A Misconception
I'm not going to clarify anything about balloon fetishes in this post, but I am going to lay a myth to rest. And it goes like this:
"I would love to buy the Kindle version of (insert name of book here), but I don't have a Kindle."
I don't have a Kindle either, but I not only write books for the Kindle but I read them. On my computer, on my phone, and on my non-Kindle tablet. Kindle reading applications are available for iOS and Android, and for Mac and Windows. There's no official reader for Linux, but you can still read as long as you are connected with the Cloud Reader. If you can post to Facebook, you can read a Kindle book.
That said, there are a couple of advantages to print, enough that I bothered to put the short story Eric's Secret into print although it's only 34 pages. First, as I once heard someone say, the only hand-held device that doesn't lose its charge is a book.
And then there is the question of ownership. You may think you own the Kindle books you buy, but your access to them is controlled by Amazon. You can lend Kindle books for a short time, but you can't give them away or resell them.
Now for me, the author, this would seem to be a good thing. But the way I look at it, if you lend, give, or sell my book to your friends, I have another potential reader, who might recommend my books to others who will actually purchase their own copy.
And I personally think that if you buy a book, it should be yours to do with what you please as long as you don't violate my copyright in doing so.
That said, I do buy Kindle books, because they are convenient, often more affordable, and sometimes the only option.
But I'm trying to give you whatever options you choose.
"I would love to buy the Kindle version of (insert name of book here), but I don't have a Kindle."
I don't have a Kindle either, but I not only write books for the Kindle but I read them. On my computer, on my phone, and on my non-Kindle tablet. Kindle reading applications are available for iOS and Android, and for Mac and Windows. There's no official reader for Linux, but you can still read as long as you are connected with the Cloud Reader. If you can post to Facebook, you can read a Kindle book.
That said, there are a couple of advantages to print, enough that I bothered to put the short story Eric's Secret into print although it's only 34 pages. First, as I once heard someone say, the only hand-held device that doesn't lose its charge is a book.
And then there is the question of ownership. You may think you own the Kindle books you buy, but your access to them is controlled by Amazon. You can lend Kindle books for a short time, but you can't give them away or resell them.
Now for me, the author, this would seem to be a good thing. But the way I look at it, if you lend, give, or sell my book to your friends, I have another potential reader, who might recommend my books to others who will actually purchase their own copy.
And I personally think that if you buy a book, it should be yours to do with what you please as long as you don't violate my copyright in doing so.
That said, I do buy Kindle books, because they are convenient, often more affordable, and sometimes the only option.
But I'm trying to give you whatever options you choose.
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