Celestial Reviews 92 - June 19, 1996

GREAT NEWS!  {I think.}  Someone has opened a web page that contains my 
reviews of the Top 100 Stories of 1995 along with the stories 
themselves.   The address is

http://proffa.cc.tut.fi/~k113973/

I would like to express my appreciation to the owner of this web site 
for making these reviews and stories conveniently available to a broad 
audience.  (I have no connection with this web site other than granting 
permission to use my reviews and writing an Introduction.)

Note that the authors of these stories do not get paid for their 
efforts.  They would probably appreciate your constructive criticism.  
Their e-mail addresses can usually be found in either the reviews or 
the stories.

It may be possible for you to download these stories and read them off 
line.  To do this, use your browser to select the desired text, copy 
it, and paste it into your word processor.  You can then leave the web 
site and read the material at your convenience.  This will permit more 
readers to have convenient access to the web site.  If you download 
stories in this way, please respect the copyright of the original 
authors.

If this works out well, maybe the same person will continue this 
service with the Top 100 Stories of 1996 - and perhaps someone else 
will offer a similar service for my monthly Top 15 lists.

Second Note:  Here are the names and addresses of some people who 
archive their own or others’ stories:

Mark Aster has set up a Web site with all the Allens stories:  
http://users.aol.com/myfrthal/

There is a Web site for Deirdre stories.  If someone sends me the 
address, I’ll post it.

Robot Fetish stories are posted at: 
http://users.aol.com/robotdoll/asfr.html

Celestial Reviews are posted at: http://www.emi.u-
bordeaux.fr/~jay/Celeste

Elf Sternberg stories are posted at: 
http://www.halcyon.com/elf/index.html

Sisters Ng stories are posted at:  
http://members.aol.com/deidreng/index.htm

Warthog stories are posted at: 
http://www.connect.net/linetwo/stories.html

Estragon’s stories are posted at:
ftp://unix.tpe.com/pub/estragon

The Wulf stories (and apparently some others) are archived at:
http://www.teleport.com/~marawuti.

If any of these are no longer current or if there are others I should 
add, please contact me.  I am interested only in free, non-commercial 
sites.  However, I’ll also plug the following organization; although 
they charge for membership, they GIVE stories away to non-members.  (I 
suppose they hope you’ll eventually join.)

The BackDrop Club  offers a service of helping people who are looking for a 
specific file, story, or a chapter or section of a story. If you are an adult 
and know the name of the file you wish to receive, send a request using the 
following format:

TO:       file.archives@backdrop.com
SUBJECT:  (the name of the file you wish as a single word)

I HAVE used this service myself, and it is my opinion that it is NOT a 
rip-off.  If you need more information, contact robin@backdrop.com.  
The BackDrop Club also has a Web Page at http://www.fantasies.com.

- Celeste

      “A Brother’s Duty” by Dungeon Master (incest) 8, 5, 2
      “Don’t Blame Porn” by Chris Marlowe (poem) 9, 9, 9
      “Cusps” by Jordan Shelbourne (romance) 10, 9, 9
      “My Only Love” by Artemis and Luna (romance)
            9, 9, 9
      “Et Tu” by Mark Aster (surprising oral sex) 10, 10, 10
      “Gecko” by Unknown Author (wartime sex) 9, 9, 9
      “What Are Supergirls Made Of?” by Tooshoes (Superhero
             romance) 9, 8, 8
      “Opening Helen” by Xanthe (virgin sex with the coach)
            8, 7, 7

“A Brother’s Duty” by Dungeon Master (mccoyf@millcomm.com).  This is a 
story about an unusual family.  There are many families in which the 
father has passed away, but not many in which the mother comes upon the 
13-year-old son whacking off on his 8-incher and disrobes and offers to 
help out.  Some may think this is improper, but it’s really a 
necessity: how else can Mom make sure that Jimmy is ready to train his 
younger sisters, now that Dear Ole Dad is gone?

You may think, “Aren’t these people worried about inbreeding?”  No, 
that’s part of the family tradition - they wouldn’t have it any other 
way.  The little motherfucker becomes really good at his job.  His goal 
is to have daughters through his mother and sisters and then be able to 
knock them up too.  When he and Mom initiate the girls into the rites 
of womanhood, they are very careful to teach them the right words - 
like to say pussy instead of coochie.  There’s also a lot of talk about 
popping cherries.  Fortunately, the local obstetrician is very 
understanding and doesn't ask any questions when all three females show 
up pregnant at the same time.  I think the obstetrician may have been a 
relative - possibly Jimmy’s grandmother.

The hard part about reading a story like this is that it’s difficult to 
determine whether the author is poking fun at the customs he describes 
or is himself a devotee.  For me, this was simply not a sexy or 
otherwise interesting story.  Maybe I’ve become spoiled by stories with 
more plot and character development.

Ratings for “A Brother’s Duty”
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 5
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 2

“Don’t Blame Porn” by Chris Marlowe (cmarlowe@bora.dacom.co.kr).  This 
is a short (four stanza) poem that suggests that people should accept 
culpability for their own actions and stop blaming pornography for the 
evils that befall society.  I liked it, and I agree that people 
(especially the demagogues that run for public office) are all too 
eager to blame pornography for the “decline of Western society.”

On the other hand, let’s be fair.  A sexy story DOES make it more 
likely that my husband and I are going to have a good time later that 
evening.  Why is it less likely that a kid who reads about having sex 
with little girls will want to try it out on his little sister in real 
life?  The answer, of course, is that my husband and I are already 
predisposed to engage in sexual activities, whereas a well-adjusted 
child would not have this predisposition.  Or so we hope.

There’s overwhelming evidence that people TEND to act out what they 
enjoy thinking about.  The powerful American advertising industry 
depends on this tendency.  How else could Nike get by with charging 
kids (even impoverished kids) twice what the shoes are worth - unless 
they could count on people wanting to be like Michael Jordan or some 
other jock who wears those shoes on television?

As I recall, about ten years ago the conservatives in the U.S. Congress 
tried to railroad a Commission on Pornography to denounce sexually 
explicit materials as evil.  Several competent scientists (including, I 
think, C. Everett Koop, who was the American surgeon general at the 
time) repudiated the commission’s report and argued for a much more 
balanced view.  They essentially said what I am saying: giving people 
(especially kids) “bad” ideas will, in fact, make it _more likely_ that  
they will engage in these activities.  However, the problem is much 
deeper than that, and simply suppressing freedom of expression is not 
likely to overcome serious social problems.  If somebody else has 
serious scientific evidence (or can find me the actual commission 
report with the reactions to it), I’d like to hear about it.

What I am saying here is that those of us who are fans of erotica ought 
to take a realistic perspective.  Saying that dirty stories won’t 
“hurt” anyone is simply not true.  If I bake a great pie and put it on 
the window sill where it will tempt an obese or diabetic person to eat 
it, I am doing something that might hurt that person, even though the 
choice to eat the pie is certainly that person’s responsibility.  That 
doesn’t mean I shouldn’t bake or enjoy pies; but I do have some 
obligation not to deliberately screw up the lives of other people with 
my pies.  

Likewise, I think we should acknowledge that pornography CAN put into 
the heads of children ideas that may cause them problems and may even 
give psychopaths ammunition for their weird activities.  That doesn’t 
mean society can solve the problem by blaming or banning pornography.  
Nor does it deny that the benefits of erotic stories might far outweigh 
the potential disadvantages of pornography.  Better solutions to the 
potential problems would include communicating with our kids so that 
they can develop wholesome attitudes toward sexual activities and 
finding better ways to deal with psychopaths - and having a place like 
alt.sex.stories where perverts can gather at their leisure and leave 
the rest of society alone.  As the Bard says...

If one day, in a state of hysteria
You find your daughter in the school cafeteria
In front of the janitor, down on her knees
Doing things that make her a total sleaze--
      You can say that you didn't raise her right
      Or that she shouldn't go out at night;
      You can blame the star under which she was born--
      Put the blame where you want to. Just Don't Blame Porn!

Ratings for “Don’t Blame Porn”
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“Cusps” by Jordan Shelbourne (an624781@anon.penet.fi).  It has been 
either six or ten months since the man and his wife have made love, 
depending on whether they counted the one time when the baby was six 
weeks old.  He’s in the mood, but she isn’t.   In the middle of the 
night he wakes up and finds her depressed, and to liven things up he 
tells her about his affair with the one Other True Love of his life.  
This story-within-a-story is the real story.  It describes the 
development of a physical relationship that evolved into love and then 
eventually disintegrated, while the man still remained in love.  This 
story is rich in details, but the plot into which it has been inserted 
is not.

Incidentally, my own experience with breastfeeding was almost the 
opposite of Gwen’s.  For example, my husband seemed to like the fact 
that my breasts were occasionally engorged to unusual dimensions, and 
he didn’t mind that someone else was using them as feeding stations.  
We had pretty hot sex pretty regularly.  Having the kids puke at later 
ages was a much more serious disruption than my breastfeeding when they 
were young.  At that time I attended meetings of a major organization 
that advocates breastfeeding but which shall remain anonymous in this 
review, and my impression was that my experience was pretty much 
normal.  On the other hand, I also have a friend whose husband took off 
for Las Vegas with his girlfriend while the wife was in the hospital 
giving birth to their firstborn, and he continued making those trips 
monthly for the next year or so.  Different -people simply respond 
differently to the same stimuli.

Oh!  The title of this story refers to epiphanies or cusps that we 
encounter in life.  The word has several related meanings, but in 
architecture “cusp” refers to the point of intersection of two 
ornamental arcs or curves.  The idea is that you have to be ready when 
you encounter one, or the doorway becomes closed.  I understand that 
Robert Frost would was going to call his poem “The Cusp Not Taken,” but 
he had an epiphany and chose “Road” instead, and that has made all the 
difference.  Some of the things that I say in these Reviews are not 
perfectly true.
 
Ratings for “Cusps”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“M’Lord’s Crest” by M'Lord Tribble (tribble@buffnet.net).  This story 
describes the art of branding a slave girl as a mystical experience.  
That’s not my kind of thing; but the story also reminded me of a 
conversation I had with two of my female friends in a pizza 
establishment after we played volleyball a couple of weeks ago.  Gail 
is a divorcee and what I would call a super-feminist.  After a few 
drinks she pointed out to Barb and me that marriage is really a form of 
slavery.  The marriage ring was essentially a brand; although there is 
no physical branding iron, the woman goes through a huge amount of pain 
and is thereby labeled as subservient to her Master.  Therefore, Gail 
had no use for marriage - nor much use for men.  My other friend, Rita, 
replied, “Maybe so.  But it’s worth it.  Even though I belong to him, 
he’ll do anything he can to make me happy.  Stan would literally lay 
down his life to rescue me from danger.  I love him, and I’m happy to 
wear his brand.”  Or something like that.  Sometimes we drink a lot 
when we get philosophical while eating pizza.

I mostly listened.  I don’t buy either theory; but when I read the 
present story, I was reminded of Rita’s comment.  Treating a woman like 
a piece of property to take possession of her sounds pretty dumb to me; 
but my point is that Rita is a strong, beautiful, talented woman who is 
raising a family of three independent-thinking kids - and she bought 
into a servitude theory.  I think a lot of people do.  

I also think that if we interpret a story like the present one as a 
metaphor or allegory, it makes sense.

For some reason this story also reminded me of the biblical story where 
Abraham is instructed by God to offer his son as a sacrifice to show 
his obedience to the divine will.  I’ve always reacted negatively to 
that story: what kind of idiot would do that to his son?  I mean, if I 
thought I had received a message from God to kill one of my children, I 
think society would expect me to consider the possibility that I had 
gotten the message wrong, rather than to actually carry out such 
misguided “instructions.”  On the other hand, people who know more than 
I do about biblical studies tell me that the purpose of the story is to 
demonstrate Abraham’s absolute willingness to obey God.  They say that 
IF people lived in a world where God treated people like puppets and 
occasionally tested their obedience in this way (which we don’t), then 
it would make sense to respond like Abraham did.   The same thing can 
be said of the present story.  IF a woman lived in a world where she 
was consigned to slavery (which we don’t, I hope), then it would make 
sense and may even be erotic for her to want to be humiliated and even 
painfully branded to become the best possible possession of her Master.  

Sorry about the digression; but my point is that even if we reject the 
reality of the worldview presented in this story, it can still be a 
good story.  This story differs from more mundane torture stories in 
that it actually presents a context and rationale that make the 
apparently harsh activities make sense.

Ratings for “M’Lord’s Crest”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“My Only Love” by Artemis and Luna (vbaa85a@prodigy.com).  In spite of 
his new step-mother’s opposition, the young man is strongly attracted 
to his step-sister Nicole.  The two make tender love, resist the step-
mother, and become happily married.  It was a good story.  If the 
authors want to write even better stories, they should add some twists 
to the plot or work on the character development a little more.  By 
saying this, I don’t mean to encourage them to throw in extraneous 
things like sexually torturing the step-mother or having group sex with 
her.  A better focus on interesting/sexy details or the use of more 
descriptive language (a la Mark Aster) would do fine.  Actually, 
ratings of 9 on a first story are pretty good!

Ratings for “My Only Love”
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“Et Tu” by Mark Aster (MyFrThAl@aol.com).  This title is taken from the 
famous words of Julius Caesar to Brutus.  I think it was on the Ides of 
March that Brutus asked Caesar if he had gotten any good pussy lately.  
Caesar replied, “I Et Two, Brutus.”  I guess maybe it gains something 
in the translation.

Halfway through this story I determined that I had finally found a 
story by this author that would not receive a high rating.  Moderately 
high maybe, but not extremely high.  Certainly not straight 10’s.  It 
was a story about Our Hero and the delectable Julie watching another 
couple make love while they themselves got sexually involved with each 
other.  It was good sex; but this author had done this so often that I 
was not about to give him a really high rating for doing what he had 
done so often before - even if the language was exquisitely 
descriptive.  It was even no great shakes to me when Our Hero gasped 
with pleasure as the lips of the unseen other woman wrapped themselves 
around his cock and brought him to orgasm while he buried his own face 
in Julie’s cunt.  But surprise!  It wasn’t the other woman, it was the 
other MAN!

This story offers fictional verification of my basic contention that 
any sensible man who enjoys getting head from a sexy woman would enjoy 
equally sensuous fellatio from a man.  In this story the man enjoyed it 
while it was happening, although he had never engaged in male-male sex 
before, because while it was occurring he assumed it was a woman 
sucking his cock.  I think enjoyment of this kind of activity would be 
the most perfectly normal reaction.  The fact that opposition to same-
sex activity is a learned response is proved by the fact that most men 
would not find this activity to be disgusting or even at all 
objectionable until afterwards - when they acquired supplementary 
knowledge by looking around an noticing that the lips, mouth, and 
tongue belonged to a guy rather than a woman.  {A similar case could be 
made for women enjoying cunnilingus from another woman.}

I am not arguing that all men “should” engage in homosexual behavior.  
I am simply re-asserting my contention that almost all men would enjoy 
homosexual activity if they would be able to free themselves from 
culturally acquired resistance.  I am refraining from passing moral 
judgment, since morality has nothing to do with whether an activity is 
_enjoyable_.  It is quite possible that culturally acquired objections 
to homosexual behavior may seem valid to a person who would enjoy such 
behavior and that many men should, therefore, refrain from such 
activities in order to live a happy life.  But it also seems obvious to 
me (1) that we should refrain from labeling people as “gay,” 
“straight,” or “bi” simply on the basis of what they admit to enjoying, 
and (2) that we should be willing to expand our horizons by being 
willing to enjoy fictional accounts of activities that do not 
immediately appeal to us personally.

I’ve gone well beyond the story.  You’ll have to read it to find out 
how Our Hero reacts.  Don’t worry.  Enjoying this story will probably 
not change your sexual preferences - or those of your partner!

Ratings for “Et Tu”
Athena (technical quality): 10
Venus (plot & character): 10
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 10

“Gecko” by Unknown Author (rdragon@ix.netcom.com).  Red Dragon reposts 
numerous stories by other authors.  In this vignette an American 
solider is having sex with a young Vietnamese girl, when he is 
distracted by the movement of a lizard (a gecko); and this distraction 
causes him to thrust more deeply than expected, and this puts into 
motion an interesting chain of events.  If you have some knowledge of 
the Vietnam War and integrate that information with this brief plot, 
this becomes an interesting story.

Ratings for “Gecko”
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 9
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 9

“What Are Supergirls Made Of?” by Tooshoes (tooshoes@ix.netcom.com).  
Supergirl shows up just in time to stop a guy from raping an innocent 
young woman.  The hero sends the young woman on her way with a proper 
word of warning and then turns to deal with the villain, who cons 
supergirl out of punishing him.  It turns out Supergirl has an identity 
crisis.  Because of her origins and super powers, she has trouble with 
her femininity.  She solves part of her problem by working under an 
assumed identity as a stripper at a sleazy bar.  I don’t want to tell 
you any more, since part of the fun of reading this story is seeing 
what happens.

I was surprised at how good this story was.  I had skipped past it 
several times in the postings until someone called it to my attention.  
It’s a bit like a high-class comic book or cartoon.  When I was in 
college I used to sneak off and watch “The Incredible Hulk” and wonder 
how David Banner would solve his dilemma of radioactive contamination 
that caused him to undergo metamorphosis - when all the kids in the 
country were watching the same show so that they could imitate him when 
they would “hulk out” and scare the shit out of their friends.  
Something similar happened with this story: I began to wonder about the 
sexual feelings of a comic book hero.  The story wasn’t exactly great; 
but I think that may be because all I could find was one out of four 
episodes.  Taken in its full context, this might be an even better 
story.  These stories usually begin with SG in the postings.  You may 
want to look for them.

Ratings for “What Are Supergirls Made Of?”
Athena (technical quality): 9
Venus (plot & character): 8
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 8

“Opening Helen” by Xanthe (an574240@anon.penet.fi)  "I'm still a virgin 
and I don't want to be," Helen breathed. "I'm sixteen and all my 
friends have done it but I just don't seem to be able to find 
anyone....”  And so, she asks, would the coach please help her out?  
I’ve read lots of stories on a.s.s. where an older man pops a young 
girl’s cherry; and this one is pretty much like the rest.  However, 
either my version of the story was incomplete or the story ended very 
suddenly.  I found another story entitled “You liked ‘Opening Helen,’ 
so here's more”; but it still showed a lack of real plot development.  

Since I’m an athletic person myself, I would have liked to have seen 
more integration of the sexual with athletic activities.  I mean, we 
have a story about an athlete and her coach; but once we pass the first 
few lines of the first story, the girl could have just as easily been a 
car hop who followed a customer home.  On the other hand, the sexual 
activities described in this story sound like fun.  As long as you’re 
willing to believe that a coach would spontaneously refer to the 
protegee whom he is fucking as “My darling” and “Pet,” you might enjoy 
this story to be enjoyable.

My husband coaches a high school girls’ team in a sport that I won’t 
specify.  I know from my own experiences as a high schooler and my 
adult locker room conversations with other women that some women find 
it hard to ignore the obvious sensuality of a good-looking athlete who 
works with them to develop their physical skills.  In short, the words 
that opened this review, have occurred as a possibility in my own life.  
My solution is threefold: (1) I make it a point to take care of my 
husband myself; (2) I let him to fantasize about anything he wants, 
make it clear that I do the same, and encourage him to share his 
fantasies with me; and (3) I make it plain that I’ll cut his balls off 
shortly before I wreak terrible havoc upon any sweet young thing with 
whom he actually has a fling.  Actually, I am exaggerating.  In 
reality, I simply invite the girls over to the house, attend their 
athletic events, and hold hands with my husband when we’re around the 
kids.  They know perfectly well that he’s in love and is taken; and I 
believe him when he tells me that he hasn’t been propositioned in over 
ten years - even though I know any sensible girl would love to have him 
in the sack for a half hour.

In real life, of course, tennis coaches don’t act this way.  Theirs is 
a very ethical profession, and part of the test for licensure requires 
them to develop plans to fight off the many young woman (and occasional 
men) who will throw themselves at their invariably well-hung coaches.

Ratings for “Opening Helen”
Athena (technical quality): 8
Venus (plot & character): 7
Celeste (appeal to reviewer): 7

