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My Magazine > Editors Archive > Sexpert > The Bent World of Greta Christina
The Bent World of Greta Christina   by AdultFriendFinder with Greta Christina

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Our sex-stuff reviewer Greta Christina talks about her novella, Bending, which is just out this month in Susie Bright's anthology Three Kinds of Asking For It (published by Simon & Schuster). In the following review, Ms. Christina shares some of the secrets of her bent world with AdultFriendFinder.

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AdultFriendFinder: Susie Bright's three-novella collection Three Kinds of Asking for It (one kind of which is your story, Bending) just came out June 28 and already it's getting a lot of attention. What is some of the feedback you've been hearing?

CHRISTINA: We've gotten some great reviews from some very good people -- Alan Ball, Annie Sprinkle, even Publisher's Weekly -- and the theme that keeps coming up is that the book is both sexy and smart. People are saying that the novellas in "Three Kinds of Asking for It" are good, hot, intense porn stories that are fun to get off to -- and that they're thoughtful, funny, surprising, moving, poignant, and generally well-written. And one reviewer pointed out something I think is very important, which is that those two things aren't separate -- good storytelling helps make the writing sexier. It's very gratifying: that's certainly what I was aiming for, and I'm sure it's what the other two writers in the book (Jill Soloway and Eric Albert) had in mind as well.

AdultFriendFinder: Did your story Bending come to you all in one shot so to speak, or was it the result of an idea and a lot of germinating?

CHRISTINA: An idea with a lot of germinating. What came to me first was the main character, Dallas. I had this strong visual image in my head of a woman bending over, with this very insistent, hungry quality to her. Everything else grew out of that image -- who she was, what she'd been doing, what got her off, what she thought she wanted, what she really wanted.

AdultFriendFinder: The sex is great -- how do you generate that level of intensity and maintain it?

CHRISTINA: I wish I knew -- that way I'd know I could do it again! Seriously, when I was writing "Bending" I was completely immersed in it. The main character, Dallas, was on my mind constantly, not just when I was writing, but all the time. I was as obsessed with Dallas as she was with getting bent over. So that helped with the intensity.

I did have a specific trick to keeping the intensity up. Writing this story made me constantly horny and wanting to masturbate all the time... but when I did masturbate, I'd often lose my momentum. So if I was getting turned on while I was writing, I'd make myself wait. I'd force myself to sit at the computer in that state of intense arousal, and I wouldn't let myself jerk off until I'd finished the paragraph or scene.

And whenever I was stuck, or felt like a section wasn't coming across, I'd come back to one question: What does this sex feel like? What is this woman feeling during this sex act -- not just physically, but emotionally? What does it mean to her? So much porn writing describes sexual acts, and completely ignores sexual feelings -- not just physical sensations, but the thoughts, the emotions, the meaning of it. And that gets pretty tedious. I didn't want to do that.

AdultFriendFinder: What are some of your personal favorite sexy parts? Are there any places, in the sex you're writing, where you are pushing some of your own personal boundaries?

CHRISTINA: That's hard to answer -- there's a lot of sex in this book that I love. (There's a lot of sex in this book, period, and I love almost all of it.) But one of my favorite scenes is the shopping mall, where Betsy makes Dallas wear the short dress and the lace panties to the mall, and then keeps making her drop her purse and bend over to pick it up. I love that scene -- it's so dirty, and yet there's no physical sex in it, or even any physical contact. You could be in that mall, ten feet away from them, and have no idea what was happening. It's a completely public scene of sexual domination and humiliation -- and yet it's completely private.



Yes, there is a scene in the book that pushed my own boundaries... and it's also, I think, one of the best in the book. It's the scene where Betsy and Jack have Dallas pinned down over the toilet, and Jack is fucking her in the ass while Betsy shoves her head under the water. It's an image that I love to think about, yet it's something that would terrify me to actually do. That was hard -- trying to get inside Dallas's body and mind, and stay there and write about it, while she was doing something that scared the crap out of me.

AdultFriendFinder: The story gets especially interesting when Dallas, who only enjoyed sex when she was bent over, discusses her turn around with her former lover, Jack -- that whole section including when he makes the comment, "you were a better fuckbuddy than you were a lover." They cover some pretty complex ground (but very naturally, not sounding philosophical). Did you spend much time going over that section? Like getting the arguments on all sides to ring true?

CHRISTINA: I spent a huge amount of time on that section -- I was trying to do so many things at once! It was hard to get all the ideas across that I wanted to, while keeping the conversation natural. It was hard to let Dallas and Jack have real conflict and anger while still conveying the unshakeable bond of their friendship. And it was extremely hard to do all of that while keeping the erotic interest alive. I'm glad to hear you say it worked -- that's very reassuring.

AdultFriendFinder: Not only is the sex great but it's got intriguing psychology about obsession and about the implications of being completely in the body. Did you learn anything or illustrate anything about these ideas that you'd like to share (beyond what the story itself is saying)?

CHRISTINA: I do think the story speaks for itself, and I don't want to overanalyze it -- I'll leave that to the critics. Besides, writers often don't know what their stories are really about, anyway. I will say that, of all the ideas in the book, I think the most important is something Jack says almost offhandedly. It's the idea that you have to be brave and true about your sexual desires -- even if it doesn't get you the happy ending you want. Sexual honesty and courage are their own happy ending. Nobody's going to give you a lollipop for it.

AdultFriendFinder: What got you going on the idea of obsession?

CHRISTINA: What got me going was the character of Dallas. I had such a vivid image of her in my mind, of this woman bending over in this beautifully submissive, generous way -- but also being really demanding about it, and kind of impatient. The idea of obsession came out of that, out of her.

AdultFriendFinder: What got you going on that particular obsession?

CHRISTINA: Okay, I'm blushing now.

[To be continued…]

You can check out Ms. Christina on her web site, www.GretaChristina.com, visit her blog at http://gretachristina.typepad.com or write to her here on the site with your comments at handle Sextoyreviewer.



You can find Three Kinds of Asking for It at Amazon.com