Giving sex a good name since 1995
Irony abounds: Whitney Wolfe, co-founder of the speed-dating app Tinder, has had a bust up with fellow co-founder Justin Mateen, who dated her, off and on, for a year. Fuelled by rejection and jealousy, he allegedly called her a slut and a liar. And much worse. It was also alleged in her lawsuit she brought against the firm that both Justin and Sean Rad had sexually harassed her for most of the time she worked at Tinder. Then they demoted her ‘co-founder’ status.
Men plagued with lower back pain can rest easier (and more satisfied) tonight. New research from Canada’s University of Waterloo reveals that there are positions in which the afflicted can enjoy sex, even if there’s no one-size-fits-all fix.
The wave of romantic erotica remains undiminished with Fifty Shades of Grey still triumphantly leading the way followed closely by Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series. One of the many advantages of the digital revolution is the anonymity that accompanies it. We can download all manner of dodgy commercial claptrap and no one is any the wiser. And it is the women’s romantic erotic market that benefits from this trend. Whilst it is still difficult to know exactly what sort of numbers are selling digitally what is clear is that there is an appetite for it. Last year The Bookseller noted:
Our news story on 2nd July about poor Leena McCall’s painting being chucked out of the Society of Women Artists’ exhibition by their host gallery, the Mall Galleries, was followed by a little flurry of excitement in the meedja, culminating (or perhaps not) with Dan Damon’s World Update on the World Service yesterday. Among these, our sainted former editor Rowan Pelling penned a lovely piece for the Guardian on the 8th July and a former ER columnist, Dr Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle de Jour, likewise wrote a convincing argument in the Telegraph against the sanitisation of the world for the sake of children and vulnerable adults.
"Slowly but surely I want to strip her of every kind of happiness so as to make a saint of her" - Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers.
An update about the painting that Leena McCall has had removed from the SWA exhibition (see below): a full statement has now been issued by the Mall Galleries:
Surprising news has just reached ER, news of censorship and prudishness on an altogether Victorian scale. The Society For Women Artists’s 153rd annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries – home of the Federation of British Artists – has had one of its exhibits summarily removed.
Yesterday evening to Soho’s Ingestre Place to find the Society Club in full swing and rejoicing at the publication of Alex Larman’s book, Blazing Star, all about the life of one John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. 
After enjoying the party and clinking beer bottles with the author I went on my merry way down Peter Street where I was accosted by a Lady of the Night. A blonde, svelte vision in pink, and like me no stranger, I would think, to the Freedom Pass. The conversation went something like this:
We are saddened to hear of the death of Felix Dennis, publisher of the Erotic Review 2003-2004
A show has just opened at X Marks the Bökship in Bethnal Green from 23 Jan to 1 March. Titled The Postcard is a Public Work of Art, it exhibits new artists' postcards by 60 different British-based artists, ranging from the well-known like Susan Hiller, Jonathan Monk, Peter Kennard, Tim Head, etc. to bright younger artists such as Ruth Ewan, Andy Parker and Proctor. In various media and techniques, they all engage with the form and concept of the standard commercial postcard.