I have been fascinated with sex for as long as I can remember. I played doctor from when I was 5, 6 years old. A sex game I happily picked up as an adult.

And when I was in my early teens and my father got rid of his collection of nude magazines, I quickly curated them from the paper recycle bin.
I loved going through those glossy pages that so openly discussed what already fascinated me most in life, even though I barely had my first period;
Sex

Together with the nude models came Xaviera Hollander, who had a column in Penthouse, with a penis shaped lipstick. I didn’t understand the meaning of the shape, or the image. But I liked it either way, and spelled out her columns.
I think Xaviera’s page was Q&A, but I can’t remember.
Nor do I know when (or why!!) I eventually got rid of the stack of magazines, especially because I didn’t buy new ones. They were all I had until I got a boyfriend who was as open about owning them as my father had been.

Despite the promising start, I almost never came into contact with the sex industry, nor did I watch or own pornography.

I visited the Sex Museum in Amsterdam last weekend.
It was founded in 1985 by a woman who was 20 at the time. Her father had owned an arcade at a premium location; right at the route every train passenger and tourist walks.
But the arcade had to shut down because of a rise in crime, and that’s when his daughter stepped in.
She bought an eclectic collection of sex magazines, toys, and paraphernalia. She later referred to it as “rubbish” but part of her original collection maintains to this day!
Just check out the back; a small dark room, where you can see about twenty large frames with cut and paste crafting work featuring anal sex, fisting, BDSM – all dating from 1985.

I like that they kept that little touch of nostalgia – of the humble beginnings – even though the museum is much bigger now, and the young owner all grown up.
I met her at an antiquarian book auction in the nineties.
I was bidding for my father, and she was the only other woman there. She was beautifully dressed, and very friendly to me. I ll never forgot the excitement when she told me who she was, and what she was buying there.

Maybe we also connected because we were both daddy’s girls, I don’t know.

Either way, what I meant to say by not having a lot to do with the sex industry, was that contrary to for example that intriguing woman who had founded the sex museum, I had a boring career and love life too.
I became an academic, just like my father. I had long term relationships. No one cheated. It was absolutely boring.

I know what kept me from pursuing what I really wanted – or even what kept me from finding out what it was I wanted.
So I can forgive myself. Because it takes a lot of nerve and strength to figure out your sexuality, and I didn’t have that as a teen, nor did I have it in my twenties.

But I did know I wasn’t interested in sex the way others were; as relationship glue.

I found sex with the secondary interest of establishing or maintaining a shared life outside the bedroom, severely limiting.
It’s like saying; “Let’s see who can jump the furthest,” facing a brick wall at 2 meters.

For a long time I thought my faithfulness was fake and that deep down I wanted other partners. That it was monogamy that was killing my lust. That’s what you get if you don’t figure things out; you assume.

But in hindsight I didn’t mind having sex with the same person.
I just disliked having a relationship with him at the same time. This epiphany took me ten years of being single to figure out. So that’s a long time.
But yes, I am monogamous.
I call it; My kink.

Things get more exciting for me, if I can focus on one man, and one man only.
Having more of them, would be hugely straining. I dread the day I am in love with two men, and they would both want to date me.
I would have to step up my game, get out of my comfort zone of monogamy, and love them both.

But outside of the relationship component- there was a second reason my previous monogamous “affairs” aka long term relationships never worked;
Because I desire a man to be non-monogamous.

Maybe that’s evidence of the sexually rich and exciting start I had.
But I get bored at the idea of him being devoted to me, and not wanting to bother go chase other women.
It’s not that I need to know the specifics, or that I want to be part of a threesome (maybe I could- I don’t know).

But I just want him to totally own his sexuality and his autonomy.
And if I would ask him about other women, I would want him hug me close and answer;
“That excites you, doesn’t it?”

It may look like a docile ending, with me all monogamous even though I was into sex at such an early age.

But ultimately what it comes down to, is that I simply refuse to settle for any man who doesn’t arouse me, surprise me, and lure me in with the same seductive power as that stack of nude magazines had on a thirteen year old girl.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

extra Dutch/ Nederlands
2020 interview Gaykrant met Xaviera Hollander

ABOUT THIS BLOG

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I once wrote a blog post how your ideas have a life span of 24 hours or less. They die after that. Whether you write them down or not, and regardless of how relevant they still are to your readers, or how sublime the idea is;
You either have to execute immediately.
Or don’t bother, and just let the idea go.
Because ideas don’t stick around until you make time for them, and your note will just be hollow words. There is no life in them. Many believe the spirit moves on to another artist.
One who isn’t so careless with them.
I was clearing out my main notebook that contains all my ideas for existing blogs, random notes, and insights I don’t have a purpose for, to those that are extremely relevant.
One insight would have been perfect for a project I abandoned months ago.
Unknowingly even.
Because just like the writing down of ideas gives this great sense of accomplishment – even when I know from experience I just signed the idea’s death verdict – some of my projects die on me as well. Without me knowing, and still high on a comparable feeling of accomplishment that I’m running such a great program or creating such an awesome project.
In this case, the particular note would have been perfect for my late video bundle; 
The Good Mistress – move UP!
from being powerless to feeling amazing, loved and FREE in 30 days.
If the program had not gotten cancelled.
The Good Mistress was a classic example of me gloriously failing to notice something had died on me.
First I managed to miss the severity, true meaning, of me not making videos. Even though I had pages full of ideas for new videos, and I m sure I had the time as well, I was buying into all kinds of excuses making myself think I would pick it up tomorrow. And tomorrow. Next week. Next month. I even made a video at some point, acknowledging the delay, but ensuring that The Good Mistress would be up and running soon.
But of course it never did.
Then, when finally after months I realized The Good Mistress had died on me, I cancelled it and came up with some valid reasons but in retrospect is was so no NOT the real reason!
Video not my medium?
Course too long?
All true.
But the real reason was that the circumstances that had sparked this course, had profoundly changed… I no longer felt like a Good Mistress. I didn’t feel like a mistress at all.
Because as a backlash to the best sex ever, or maybe as a seasonal thing because this pattern is familiar to me from previous years, the man whose mistress I was, Mister Big, pulled back.
Not in a mean way.
There wasn’t anything provocative, manipulative or unkind about it.
It probably wasn’t even about me.
But where our communication would normally lead to a sexual encounter, it now ended with six weeks of not seeing each other, followed by a platonic date. No wonder I was incapable of continuing the Good Mistress project. I felt a lousy and frustrated mistress.
Convinced that the platonic date would soon lead to a more fruitful encounter, I talked myself out of feeling too bad about it. I was pretty sure the waiting was over now.
Until another two months of not seeing each other followed and I seriously started to doubt my status, and everything I thought I had been doing right.
Eventually we had a date that was private enough, and long enough for me to give him a blowjob, but insufficient for me to warm up to real sex. Maybe it was because I needed time, hours, attention, to defrost from all the neglect, but I couldn’t feel any life down there. My libido seemed to have gone into hibernation,
It’s almost been three and a half months since we had the best sex of my life anyway, and I started my Good Mistress program to enthusiastically share what I knew. Wisdom that apparently still needed some finetuning.
I still don’t know if the great sex, and the deep intimacy, were in any way linked to the sweet but quiet months after. Science says yes. True intimacy is able to scare a man away. This may be especially true if you are just the mistress and he is cheating on his wife. It can easily disrupt the delicate equilibrium of his guilt management.
But I say no.
Mister Big doesn’t work like that.
From what I can tell he needs the thrill of it all, and the higher the stakes, the more he gets from it. His friendly and nice messages – he hasn’t neglected me attention wise ever since – confirm that. He feels warmly towards me, and the intimacy has not scared him.
I found two notes, clearing out my notebooks.
The first was a success formula for being a good mistress. Or good in any relationship, in my opinion. It was something I had planned to use in the Good Mistress program.
It said:
“To be happy you must always deeply respect your (sexual) partner and ignore, accept or even cherish the sides that are not compatible.”
The second note was specific to my current situation, and to Mister Big and me not having had a proper date or real sex for a long time.
It said:
“I trust Big has his reasons for not seeing me much.
And I trust that he has his reasons for not sharing why that is.”
I was right thinking 30 Days was too long a training, to become a Good Mistress. One word is enough;
Trust.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

My books are available internationally, at my Lulu store +
in Nederland doet Boekhandel de Feeks de distributie

Het boek van de maand oktober is de jaren 80 coming of age novelle Mango
Mango staat tijdelijk gratis online & is op voorraad bij de Feeks (Nijmegen + webshop).

Op woensdag 22 november geef ik om 19.00 (SHARP!) een lezing in de Feeks, boekhandel in de van Welderenstraat Nijmegen, over Mango en 22 erotische verhalen.

yogales in Nijmegen;  M Yoga.

movie Mother!

Last week, from what will possibly go down as the most disagreed on film of 2017 (Mother! by Daron Aronofski) I was able to derive a crucial piece of information for anyone who has ever made a brave attempt to get into yoga and failed. Anyone who has ever wondered why that whole self-practice just ain’t happening or why you couldn’t make yourself do something for as little as an hour a week that gave you a good night sleep, and immediately made you feel better.
Why was merely the memory of that never enough to make you commit, sign up, or just go back to try it a second time?
I am currently on my zillionth cycle of having a troubled menstruation which I know will completely clear up if I do as little as twenty minutes of yoga a day. Twenty minutes of yoga a day! Doesn’t even matter which type of yoga. Any yoga will do the trick of putting my menstruation back in line. Then why can’t I make myself do that?
After seeing Mother! I know why.

Creator versus Preserver {contains spoilers Mother!}

Mother! introduces two dominant characters.
The first is a charismatic poet; a fifty-something dominant male, in who we will later recognize both the destroyer of all things, as well as the creator. When the whole place is destroyed, by his crazy as fuck poetry admirers, he rebuilds it with his mind. The Poet is God.
The second character is his young wife, who is meticulously improving their house. The whole mansion has this brocante early 20th century look, with fluttering curtains and boxes filled with starched linen.
The young woman has a symbiotic tie to the house. Not only does she refurbish, nurture and embellish,  her heart is the heart of the house. Whenever people enter the house who will do it harm, she suffers from heart pains and becomes ill. Where her husband unapologetically licks up all the adoration and thrives on the interaction with Mankind, the young woman who symbolizes Mother Earth, wants them nowhere near the house and feels protective of it.
The woman is Mother.
And it is the two opposing agendas of Mother and God, that explain why yoga (to some) is so boring. Or a lost battle.

Creativity is free

Ever since the beginning of my practice I ve been using yoga schedules, dvd’s, and ideas from teachers and yoga schools from all over the world. It didn’t matter how quaint the yoga book, or how obscure the magazine, I could always get something out of it, and weave it into my practice or my classes. I had an incredibly eclectic taste.
I realized there was something not quite right with our take on yoga, when my teacher said to me;
“You can’t keep expanding (your range) forever. One day you’ll have to go deeper into your practice.”
She was wrong, because creativity is both infinite, as well as a powerful way to develop your craft.
The second time I realized yoga was being heavily underused was when I got into the videos from Meghan Currie on YouTube. My favorite was “Creativity is Free”; a nine minute time-laps from a two hour practice which Meghan Currie created intuitively as she went along. Here was a form of yoga everybody immediately recognized for what it was;
Yoga as a work of art.

Yoga for Artists

Suddenly, putting two and two, and the movie Mother! together, we have a complete picture of what is missing from yoga. And why modern day yoga covers the needs of about 95% of all practitioners.
But not the last five.
First let’s take a look at the main stream yoga that is doing so well; Yoga as the preserving Mother energy. A nurturing, non-competitive, non-ambitious practice that nicely balances the high energy, demanding lifestyle most of us have. This is the type of yoga that was taught (tremendously well!) at the yoga training where the teacher told me to go deeper into my practice. It’s the type of yoga where you will feel relaxed just entering the room, and that will appeal to many people, and it has even appealed to me at times!
It’s the yoga that grounds you, keeps you alive, and makes sure you don’t die of a heart attack age forty five. It’s also the type of yoga that is low in excitement, low in being challenging and therefor to some incredibly boring.
These people are not into the Mothering side of yoga. Instead, they long to be more active, to be challenged and are motivated by a little competition.
Enter the domain of the more physical yoga lineages.
Iyengar yoga, Ashtanga yoga but also all forms of power yoga and intermediate hatha yoga, require stamina, flexibility, and mastery of your body. And of your mind as well. I would also see long silent meditation to be among these types of challenging yoga practices. Challenging yoga will appeal to ambitious people, but it may also fuel a (secret?) need to be admired. A longing to be “good” at yoga. Just like the Poet wanted to be admired.
But even without that “dark side” of looking for validation, it is clear that this type of yoga is totally different from the more preservative kind.
My estimate is that the Mother type of yoga, plus the challenging type of yoga, cover about 95% of the needs of yoga practitioners. Leaving one aspect out. The aspect of creation. Of creativity.
Because Meghan Currie does yoga for the same reason Sergei Polunin dances;
For the same reason Darren Aronofski made Mother!;
The reason Marina Abramovic stared people in the eyes for three months straight;
because it is their art.
Yoga is Meghan Currie’s creative expression.

Built from the Ashes

I once saw a video on the unwanted side effects vacation. It was not for artists, it was for entrepreneurs. It explained that entrepreneurs needed to understand that if they were truly driven, they would not need vacation the way normal people needed a vacation. In fact, taking time off would be one of the most stressful things they could possibly do for themselves. The video pointed out that entrepreneurs should accommodate their family by taking downtime and doing fun stuff with their loved ones. But that it would be in everybody’s best interest if they would also take their laptop to Corfu, because they would become absolutely unbearable if they had to take a break from working.
And it is the same with artists, with people who create.
Taking a break is not fatal to the people who create to get admired, like the Poet, when he writes a new book and becomes a star.
Going on vacation is not a disaster if you create as in refurbishing, like Mother. Although it is a fine line to argue when a project (like building a house or planting a garden) stems from an organic energy and when it is a creative expression.
But taking time off will go against everything you stand for, if you create like God in Mother!
After the masses, the admirers, the humans, have destroyed God’s and Mother’s world with everything in it, God recreates it. With a similar woman, waking up in the same linen sheets, looking for the identical estranged husband.
He creates because he has to, it’s just who he is.
He can’t take a break from work any more than an entrepreneur can.

Yoga for Artists

I’m close to my twentieth yoga anniversary. And although the reasons I ve dropped out (doing a self-practice) have been many – and the reasons I don’t mind have been diverse –  there is one aspect of yoga that I know I haven’t fully explored. And it’s what 5% of people have to explore if they want to “get” yoga;
To use yoga as a creative expression.
And although this is largely unknown territory, these pointers may help you to find your way;
1. keep an open mind, but most of all your own mind
Let go of any preconceived, general, learned ideas of what yoga is. If you ve been doing yoga, you may need to be at peace with not doing yoga for a while. Until new ideas have hatched. Remember you’re not interested in other people’s view on yoga; this is all about creating your own experiences, and thoughts.
2. feel where the Life is
Maybe it’s curiosity, or maybe it’s an overwhelming urge. But whether you get into yoga reading books about Tantra, or following a 30 day Yoga with Adrience challenge on YouTube (or decipher antiquarian yoga books) you must start with where you feel the life.
I remember being inspired by a business card a Pilates instructor gave me. And by a flyer with yoga exercises that came with a Nike yoga mat. But I ve also been inspired by Madonna music, performances of Marina Abramovic and the discipline of Sergei Polunin.
3. Combine yoga with your art
If you have a background in dancing, you will be able to make a seamless transition to expressing yourself through yoga. If you’re a writer you ll enjoy blogging about your practice. If you are more of a visionary you will love designing yoga series or developing a yoga system. Reinvent yoga by combining it with science, art, or any hobby or habit you already have.

Forget what normal people do

Like I said, yoga as an creative expression is more or less unknown territory. No one has really approached it that way, and if they had- it would be of no use, because you would still have to find your own way, and make it your own.
No true artist would ever copy someone else’s expression, so there really is no way someone could lead us/ you, and help you.
But I do think that being so extremely high up in your creative energy comes with limitations.
We will not be “helped” by relaxing yoga, any more than an entrepreneur is helped by a vacation.
And we will not be inspired by challenging yoga, any more than by doing cardio five times a week.
We simply need to build our own yoga from the ground up.
And we may need to first burn it down, before our own unique expression of yoga, can rise from the ashes.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

My books are available internationally, at my Lulu store +
in Nederland neemt Boekhandel de Feeks sinds deze week de distributie op zich!

Het boek van de maand oktober is de jaren 80 coming of age novelle Mango
Mango staat tijdelijk gratis online & is op voorraad bij de Feeks (Nijmegen + webshop).

Mijn online yoga is te volgen bij M Yoga, net als de lessen in Nijmegen.

by LS Harteveld

Since a year I know what I am.
Where “what” stands for a more or less self-invented word, although others are using it, or have used it, as well. But it’s not a word you can feed to your spell checker without getting it back underlined in red.
Compersionist.
I like the idea of my lover Big with another woman or other women (plural). I can count on one to be there, exactly in that spot where I like those women most: Out of sight, never or rarely discussed or talked about. Yet mysteriously hovering just outside the boundaries of my life with him. That woman? Is his wife.
I have absolutely no reason to assume he doesn’t have sex with her. Least of all that he wouldn’t find her attractive. But I can’t be certain of the sex. I just know that if he uses only half the skills on her, as he does on me – to make her feel special and like she’s the only and most attractive woman on earth – and if she’s only half as fond of his husky whiskey voice, his suave manners and irresistible melancholy, it would be impossible according to every law of nature, man and the heavens above, that they wouldn’t have sex.
I used to believe I was waiting for him to divorce, and be the chosen one. I used to believe this was all temporary. But as soon as I let go of that idea – and God placed some useful pointers on my path as God always does – I saw I was actually benefiting from that ethereal presence, in the form of his lawfully wedded wife that was omnipresent, yet hardly ever spoken of.
That I could think about her without feeling anger, or disappointment, and even with mild curiosity. Mild curiosity, that rapidly grew into brazen fascination if I thought of him and her making love.
And I didn’t stop there.
I thought of all the others whose name I d heard, or whose existence had been hinted at by him. And the women I had seen with my own eyes, who had responded with laughs and openness and a whole body that screamed DEFINITELY WOULD, in response to whatever it was he had said to make them laugh.
And again, I was fascinated.
I m heavily invested in my own personal development (my tagline is “An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living”), so I dug deeper and I ve been able to trace this habit to be fascinated by a cheating lover- rather than scared or repulsed- back to when I was as young as sixteen.
And if I m really bold I can honestly say that my strongest feelings have been reserved for men who I thought, or knew, were not faithful. Or the feelings were invoked in a phase where I suspected it. Sometimes to be disappointed by his fidelity later. But the bottom line has been that a man needs to be a player to draw out my most deeply rooted devotion and my undying fascinations for All Things Him.
Which is why another name suddenly surfaced. Someone who I had been in love with online, and who broke my heart before we even met. He did something to ensure I would know he was with someone else. And even with whom. I was hurt, and furious. I felt insulted and played with. Like someone had deliberately led me on, won me over, and now felt free to destroy my castle of emotions with the same determination he had recently displayed to win my heart.
He blew it.
I took the bait and have no doubt I responded in the exact way he wanted me to. Or did I?
With my recent interest in compersionism in general, and my own feelings and sexual orientation in particular, I reviewed the incident that happened a long time ago. It was one of those memories that seemed to have foot long thorns to it, and I had always kept my distance.
But in the light of my compersionism I needed to know; had my reaction been authentic?
Or had I responded from the same, conditioned blind anger people seemed to have collectively adapted ever since Christianity invented monogamy?
Had my response been compersionist worthy?
For reasons of privacy I can’t share exactly what happened but trust me: he deliberately leaked his rendez vous when he was still with her. It was not something he did afterwards. At best she was in the bathroom but he was with her. Thinking of me, the woman he had not met yet but who would be stopped if he got the information of his whereabouts and whatupabouts, out.
Maybe he was thinking of other distant admirers like me. Or exes who still felt warmly for him. We would ALL be stunned and brought to a halt.
Maybe he was thinking about his friends who would be impressed with his conquest, consolidating his place in the male hierarchy. But whatever it was, he was not one hundred percent present, with the woman he was with. And he was not investing in any of us, to make us feel loved, like we were the only one and the most gorgeous woman on earth. He was deliberately setting us up against each other, so that we would all be aware of each other’s presence. So that we would all know that none of us was, nor would ever be, the only one.
And that?
Is something you cannot get away with, without immediately seeing it underlined in red. With absolutely zero suggestions for an alternatively.
Not even, or maybe especially not;
“Did you mean compersionist?”

<3 LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

My diaries and erotica, including the seductive “Big” with two years worth of compersionism done right, are available at Lulu .

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of lees de Nederlandse columns; M Yoga Twitter and M Yoga Facebook

I just attended my first birthday party in years. Because for what seemed like a decade – or wait! it was a decade! – my writing came first. Writing was my work addiction, my leisure activity, my personal development tool, and my preferred company to spend my nights alone with. If someone wanted a shot at me getting away from my computer I only did so for two reasons.
1. I really liked their company
or
2. I really liked their company and we were going to have sex
I never invested time in meeting new people, and I didn’t engage in group activities with unsorted social interaction. Spending time away from my writing only served as a way to get a fresh pair of eyes on the matter at hand (or “pen”) through conversation with others, or to do activities that I knew would inspire a new diary entry or erotic story.
Inspiration or analysis. Those were the only two needs I had aside from writing. Randomly getting to know new people or spending nights away without a clear purpose, was not on the menu.
The party however, was everything I hoped for. I must admit I was invited by someone who knew “presence” and “leveling” were not in my repertoire, and that the only way to have me, was to have ALL of me.
I was going to be my bold, entertaining, provocative self.
Halfway through the evening I had gathered a small crowd of people who had gotten me talking about my single years. Which included bedding multiple men half my age, a Mossad spy, a broad selection of men of exotic descent, and a married man, Mister Big.
I knew Mister Big was a keeper when he gave me my first time anal sex. A flawless performance. After eight years of diverse material, and various disappointments, I immediately recognized a star player. With the others I had turned a blind eye on almost everything, before we finally got down and dirty (and I knew I could take it from there!) Whereas with Mister Big I only had to condone that he was married and that the matter was never ever to be discussed other than a vague “It’s complicated”.
A fair price to pay, for the performance he was able to give. So I paid. I never asked for more. And we’re heading for our three year unsolicited sex anniversary, so worth the investment.
I was explaining to my crowd exactly how brittle female sexuality is. A guy can screw it up by not being attentive enough, or by being too pushy. He can throw away his chances by the heating not being on, when you enter his house at night. Or by sleeping with the windows open.
I have a theory!
And this is such a good story that it is worth a separate blogpost but I m just going to throw it in now. The theory is – and I m almost a hundred percent sure I m right! – the theory is that the special breed of men who know exactly what a woman wants, and who are even more in tune with her desires, quirks and pains than she is herself, that the few men who are the womanizers that are able to read women, just like a horse whisperer can read horses, that those men have one thing in common; They had a dominant mother, and they pleased her. They fought her too, don’t get me wrong. But it was never with the intention of changing their relationship to one that was based on being equal. He fought her as a way to stay into contact, and he was never mean to her. Even though she? Yes…she could be mean, although he would never call it that.
She was jealous of his girlfriends, and fought it with arguments like him needing to do his homework. Or with the girl not being good enough. She was often disappointed by the countless ways in which he didn’t live up to her expectations. And he internalized it. He too became disappointed with himself, and he was especially sorry for not being able to please her.
But he stayed. And he could read his mother.
Just a twitch in her voice, or an answer that took a bit too long, and he would know he had displeased her. And sometimes he growled, but he knew what to do. Maybe he went away giving her time to cool off. Until, like all women obsessed with a man, she had driven herself crazy with her thoughts and she became hysterical for his attention.
Or maybe he did have some sort of friendly method to calm her down.
But whatever it was? It molded him. Where other men learned to adjust a carburetor just from listening closely, this particular type of man with a dominant mother coped by paying meticulous attention to what his mother needed.
And his first girlfriends, who he immediately knew better than they knew themselves especially at that young age, got hooked on him. It was inevitable. They felt safe, and loved. And the boy noticed his friends were being way better with cars than with girls, and he tried to inform them that really- women weren’t that difficult. You just had to listen carefully. But even with prospect of having any girl fall for them, and being able to fulfill any of their most pornographic fantasies with the girl willingly agreeing, – even that prospect couldn’t motivate them to listen to the advice from the boy with the dominant mother.
And the boy became a man whose bedroom and house were always comfortably warm, he became a partner who knew exactly what you wanted to hear and a lover who knew precisely what to do to turn you on and take you next level.
I told this theorie to my audience, and asked them if they believed my theory was right, and the first thing someone said was:
“Those men don’t exist!”
Oh, but they do…
Because crucial in my storytelling was the first night I went home with Mister Big. I didn’t want sex. We had kissed a while back, and that was nice but not earth shattering. I had decided I would make out with him every once in a while, but had no intention of becoming a secret mistress. I had judged being a mistress somewhere between being seedy and being emotionally dangerous. I wasn’t in love with him (or so I thought) and the kissing at a bar had been okay, but it had not set me on fire head to toe, so it all seemed okay. I was sure I could contain it. Mister Big was exciting and he oozed danger, but I knew he would never want to do anything against my will.
If anything, he would manipulate me until I was begging for it.
But with the kissing being down-to-earth and nice, I was sure I could safely go to his house for some TLC without being either raped or swept away by desire.
Or so I thought. Suffice to say I only just managed to get away unfucked. But it all started almost coolly, and in a way any normal man would have almost certainly fucked up.
We entered his apartment.
The hallway was nice and warm.
And suddenly, I felt super conscious of the situation. I was alone, with someone I had known for only a few weeks, and no one knew where I was. I got slightly nervous. Mister Big didn’t seem to notice. He rooted a bit around the house in a casual fashion. As if it was the most common thing in the world to bring blonde erotica writers into your house in the middle of the night.
“And you know what he did?” I asked my audience.
Which now included a ten month old baby who had the talent to laugh or drop his jaw at exactly the right moment. The baby shook his head.
“He took his shoes off and asked if I wanted a cup of tea.”
The female audience was now screaming and yelling:
“No!”
“Brilliant!”
“He’s good!”
But one man couldn’t see how offering tea was a good idea when you’ve just managed to get an attractive woman passing through your door. So for him I needed to explain what just happened. And what made Mister Big so good.
Where normal men are way too preoccupied with their own insecurities, and desires, on moments such as these, Mister Big – and other highly talented womanizers – stay in touch with the woman. They are so sensitive to a woman’s need, that they know exactly what is required. In this case, Mister Big had sensed I was intimidated and he totally downplayed himself. Exactly the way a horse whisperer has to pretend he’s not interested in the horse, and will keep his distance where the horse can come closer on its own accord. In the same way, Mister Big pretended he had no particular interest in me being there. Least of all getting into my panties.
I elaborated on my affair with Mister Big, and how the years together had given me powerful insights into my own sexuality and personality. And that I now fully identify with being a secret mistress. If this relationship would end, I would choose to be someone else’s secret mistress.
It was late. I had talked for an hour or maybe even more. And yet both me, and the other people there, seemed to have a desire for more. Like a little dessert.
“Can I show them what’s in the bag?” I asked my friend who was having her birthday. “You already know, and I ve been dying to show it. But I want to know if it’s okay.”
The friend said it was okay, and reminded me I had been invited with the promise that I could totally be myself.
I took a glossy magazine from my bag, and showed it to them.
“Today is an incredible festive today. Because in this magazine, you will not find my naked ass. Even though I was invited to be in it.”
The magazine changed hands quickly, and we paid special attention to the ten pages that had all the women who had said “yes” to the invitation. I wondered if they had always thought getting butt naked in a magazine was a good idea, or if it was something they had done because they had a sort of “try everything once” philosophy to life.
All I knew for certain was that I was happy that Mister Big had never tried to get me out of my panties to pose butt naked in a magazine. Because he would have played his cards so well, that I would have ended up fucking begging for it.

<3 LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

My diaries and erotica, including the seductive “Big” with two years worth of sexual encounters are available at Lulu .

Want in my inner circle? I share all my real secrets with my private mailing list.

click photo to buy Kat’s book

I m having one of THOSE mornings again.
Or maybe it’s not a morning, but an accumulation of frustration after weeks of not writing. Writing is 98% of what I label as my beloved Work Addiction. And the reason I don’t allow myself to indulge in what Kat Loterzo would call my “drug of choice” is that I m pretty certain that ten years of “writing”, which includes my yoga business where I have increased my online presence over the past years, that my writing slash work addiction is the drug that has kept me from having the thin strong lean body I used to have when life was simple.
When I lived offline.
Had a diary.
An occasional boyfriend.
Good sex.
And that was it.
I did not have the urge to write about everything with the urge, and to the extend, as I later had. My writing was CONTAINED.
And now it is UNLEASHED.
Something that comes with working for hours without eating (and then your body immediately storing everything as fat, not knowing when its next meal will come); it comes with missing practice, because you wake up with that ITCH you need to soothe, that itch to work work work. To write write write. And then MAYBE if you’re having a good day? At three or four pm, then MAYBE you will turn off the computer and do some yoga before you start your evening of teaching yoga.
“Maybe”
Make that once a month or so.
So when a couple of weeks ago, I decided I was done being two stone heavier than before I started writing, and that from now on, I would beat the craving to work, and calm down and do yoga instead. And not just any yoga but a powerful, challenging practice, that has the potential to restore my youthfulness and size 6 figure alike.
Except it did’t work. It doesn’t work. I m hardly practicing yoga and now I m so dying to write that after every social event, and every time I see my lover, after every deep personal insight, I feel I ve eaten a 7 course meal without being able to digest it.
I feel bloated from all the things that happened and that I m apparently just supposed to carry with me.
I ve never felt like a normal writer. When I hear about normal writers they can have writer blocks, or try a new genre, or somehow seem to be CONSCIOUSLY INVOLVED in what they write!!
Even Carry Bradshaw, the columnist from Sex and the City, whose photo I use with my columns, even she only writes because she’s paid to do so. You never see her diving into her secret “Red Shoe” diaries to really spill the beans on boundary breaching sex with Mister Big.
Other writers seem to have a CHOICE whether they can write.
And I don’t know why I keep thinking that being one of them is an option for me.
Probably my desire for a petite 19 year old body, that got the better of me.
The only person who I KNOW, and I say this in capital because that’s how she writes, the only person I KNOW who knows exactly how I feel is Kat Loterzo.
She describes it as;
You simply can’t NOT (write, do the work, UNLEASH).
And;
“Let the message be the message. However it wants to come out. Get out of your own way!”
Because that’s the BEST thing about being held hostage by your writer addiction, by being pinned down by all the stories that want to be told through you and then they let you go for 12 hours before they tie you down to your computer again;
The stories are already there.
You don’t have to DO anything.
You only have to sit there, and write and write, until those little devils, demons, angels, lovers, children, muses, and the spirits of your ancestors are satisfied and let you go.
It was so naieve of me to think I could bypass them. And that not being a writer addict was even an option. Because the difference between a normal sane writer, and me, Kat Loterzo and every other haunted writer is pretty simple;
Either we write.
Or we die.

<3 LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Want in my inner circle? I share all my secrets with my private mailing list.
My ten diaries and erotica (vijf Nederlands, and five English) are available at a bargain price at Lulu . 

by LS Harteveld

My first monthly book sale is coming to a close and if one thing stands out it’s this;
Everybody chooses my biggest, most expensive book, as soon as they realize what I am offering them.
And that makes me so incredibly happy because I really went the extra mile to publish my collected works- 8 Dutch and English books- at the same time as the single volumes.
Despite the time pressure.
Despite having to redo the entire lay out to 400 pages at US letter size.
Despite multiple people urging me to FIRST publish one book, or a few, or even eight. But to never offer the collected works in the same go. Because if I published it later I could sell you the same book TWICE!
Did you read that?
I was warned not to do this because it was going to cost me money. YOUR money that would not be ending up in my pocket, if I offered you the bargain deal of my collected works (worth €105) in one €45 book.
As if that was not the perfect reason to make me work harder, and to really push myself!
How could I ever sell you my books one by one, when I knew that within a few months I would have a book for you that you would probably want even more? And that would be a better choice for you?
Because you have to make smart choices of where to spend your money on.
Or because you prefer those soft cover big floppy books because they remind you of college.
Or because you wanted to have a bulky book to keep on your night stand, something about the meaning of life. Like the bible but different ;)
Then I would know beforehand, that you would be buying the wrong book with a single volume… and that the collected works was on its way! What was I supposed to do then? Keep my mouth shut, and accept your hard earned cash?
No way.
I was having a conversation about me being honest to the point of being a significantly worse business woman, and the guy – who had taken me out to celebrate the release of my books (thank you!) – said:
“It’s part of what you ARE. Just like lying is part of what other people are. You can’t change that.
Just like you can’t make a liar tell the truth. A personality is like a bomb; If you pull the wrong threat the whole thing blows.”
So that’s why within twelve hours after I ve decided the following, I m here to inform you about this: Dear English reader, native speaker, non-Dutch folks who have to keep up with my Dutch tweets, Dutch sales, and three Dutch books that you can’t read:
I hear you… and I m here to help.
The upcoming months I will be working like an absolute mad woman:
– to translate my White Tigress guide from Dutch to English
– to translate my three Dutch books to English
– to publish the English collected works The Book of Benjamin
I just have one question…. I think I can do with just the collected works. That that will be okay. I see it on the Dutch market; as soon as they know of the big book, they only want that one.
But if you’re English and you think I should publish English versions of Mango, 22 erotic stories and The Candy Stop as separate volumes, for no other reason than that it would HUGELY benefit my English readers?
Please let me now.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Nederlands; Al mijn boeken inclusief het Het Boek Benjamin zijn t/m donderdag 31 augustus 16.00 (één dag verlengd!) via mijn direct sale.

English; My five English books are all available at a bargain price at my publisher Lulu (Worldwide). So even though the collected works in English are on their way, here are five reasons to buy Dutch American Diary, LS Diary, Bedtime Stories, Mirage and Big as separate volumes NOW;
1. reading comfort (sentence length and holding the book) is optimal reading the separate, smaller A5 volumes. Not the US letter sized book.
2. they are thin and a portable, and will fit into any purse or luggage.
3. the covers are a beautiful art work by Nicolet Pennekamp
4. they’re brand new first editions, and recognizable as such in the book itself, and they’ve been released only two weeks ago. This makes them unique, and as far as I know, only one set of books has been sold outside The Netherlands at this moment.
5. if you choose to buy the English collected works you can choose to use the five books as gifts with a great story attached to it about a little Dutch girl who one day woke up bilingual and started writing. Because that is what happened basically… but it’s a story for another day.

photo; thanks to Irene for inspiring me with the idea!