Hope is high on the horizon, at the Institute, in the Speakeasy, on BonoboWay, and in the world.

America will have a new President. Hopefully, it will be my running mate Frank Moore. Barring that, it’s encouraging to see Obama sweeping the free and unfree world with his elegantly tailored message of hope and glamorous progressive politics. Even if the man onstage turns out to be just a corporate frontman, Obama Fever is a step in the right direction, away from the Bush Leagues. On a more personal note, we also have high hopes that our Nightmare on Bauchet Street will soon wind into the inevitable happy ending. In the meantime, we’re doing all we can to have a little fun and spread our message of peace through pleasure around the world. Much as we appreciate Obama’s message of hope (which once upon a time was Bill Clinton’s message of hope), we like “peace through pleasure” better. After all, hope is often false, and peace through pleasure never is.

For instance, there’s nothing false about our latest Clip-O-Rama clip: “Daisy Layne Rides the Monkey Rocker,” created by BlockFilms‘ brand new editor Ashleigh (under Mar’s gentle but firm direction). No pretense or special effects, just a real-life, happily married, very attractive (albeit a bit whacky-looking), clown couple having crazy but very real orgasms in the wild but totally real environment of The Dr. Susan Block Show. The stars of the clip are Clown Porn newlyweds, Daisy and Dick Chibbles, playing on the amazing “fucking machine” known as the Monkey Rocker in the middle of last Spring’s “Jack ‘n’ Jill Off Jam.”

Daisy Layne Rides The Monkey Rocker!

Watch sweet Daisy go down on Dick’s big dick, then jill off on the MR while Dick jacks off all over her lithe, nude (except, of course, for the clownface), orgasming body, demonstrating what a super sex machine that cute little Monkey Rocker can be. It’s also, incidentally, the perfect gift for any playful woman, not to mention a great springboard to mutual masturbation, whether you’re just clowning around or up for some serious deep-penetrative orgams. Get your very own Monkey Rocker in Shopping Heaven, or save $795.00 and just watch the download. You might also want to check out a vintage fucking machine, a.k.a. “female self-gratifier” or masturbation machine, circa 1926, in Weimar Love: Hot Sex in Pre-Nazi Berlin.

10 Commandments of Pleasure Published in Italy

Speaking of sex in Europe, we just received the Italian translations of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. We’re delighted to have my book published in Italy, my husband’s native land and one of our favorite countries. Mama mia, the pasta, the pesto, the men pinching your behind! The publisher, Armenia, printed the commandments in two elegant, pocket-sized, hardback editions, one for the ladies, Le 10 regole per Dare Piacere a una Donna. and one for the boys, Le 10 regole per Dare Piacere a un Uomo.

There’s just one problem. My name on the cover of both editions is spelled wrong.

That is, my Italian last name, which is my husband’s Italian family name is Filangieri. So my name on the cover should be “Susan Block-Filangieri.” On the Italian books, it is wrongly spelled “Susan Block-Filangeri.” This misspelling is particularly unfortunate since the old aristocratic “Filangieri” name is highly respected throughout Italy, almost like Windsor is in England, the most famous Filangieri being Gaetano Filangieri, philosopher and prison reformer of the Enlightenment, as well as inspirational confidant of Benjamin Franklin. When I told my British publisher, the distinguished and sympathetic Ernest Hecht, who arranged the Italian (as well as the French) translation, he wrote back: “Unbelievable…We immediately sent your complaint to them but as you probably know not surprisingly the whole of Italy is now on holiday until the end of August…Very annoying I can appreciate.”

Well, there are islands of pleasure in a sea of pain, as well as a few moments of pain in any night of pleasure. Sometimes it hurts so good, and sometimes it’s just “very annoying.” So, guess we’ll have to wait (and hope!) for the corrected second edition before we can show my Italian in-laws.

Happy Hookers on Sunset Boulevard

Somehow, a few friends, fans and I managed to slip away from our crazy busy lives on a Monday afternoon to see the West Coast Premiere of Xaviera Hollander: The Happy Hooker, Portrait of a Sexual Revolutionary at the Dances with Films Festival .

Mae Victoria and Dr. Suzy

This was my second full viewing (I saw the World Premiere at New York’s Cinekink Film Festival where our Squirt Salon also premiered), and parts of it are better than ever, especially the haunting opening scenes that reveal the conditions of Xaviera’s first couple of years on Earth in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia during World War II. The film has been shortened, which is good, though I was sad to see a few scenes I liked edited out. Well, at least they didn’t leave my part on the cutting room floor. I, along with several other sexologists, including Dr. Betty Dodson, Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Candida Royalle, Norma Jean Almodovar and Veronica Vera (all of whom have, at one time or another, been on my show!). All of us talking heads (or in the case of Dr. Sprinkle: talking boobs) comment on Xaviera’s groundbreaking contributions to the Sexual and Feminist Revolutions. The film is filled with exhilarating and titillating sexual moments, including a scene in which I describe how Xaviera’s underwater blowjob style greatly inspired one of my therapy clients, intercut with shots of Xaviera frolicking naked in the pool. Recently, the movie won the “Best Documentary” award at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival and the West Hollywood International Film Festival.

Produced by Xaviera’s cousin, sexologist Dr. Patti Britton and directed by filmmaker Robert Dunlap (who happens to be Dr. Patti’s husband), the film leaves no doubt that Xaviera is an important and rather unique icon in our cultural history, “the most famous madam of all time,” even though she was only a full-time madam for a couple of years.

Xaviera’s effervescent aura, strong will and can-do attitude toward sex, writing, promotion, business and life itself, have made her an erotic legend and an inspiration to independent sexual women around the world. It certainly inspired me and my girlfriends to party in her honor.

“What becomes an erotic legend most?” asks the Washington Post. “Longevity. Sex symbols have notoriously short shelf-lives, and the few that endure loom large in our pop-culture consciousness: Liz, Marilyn, Madonna. In an age of fleeting sexperts and flavor-of-the-month porno queens, it’s nothing short of remarkable that after 30 years Xaviera Hollander is still a household name.”

I took along another budding hooker/author, Mae Victoria, one of Xaviera’s spiritual daughters, author of Hooker: A Beautiful Madness and the Block Institute’s newest celebrity telephone sex therapist.

We hooked up (not literally) with famed international civil rights attorney Barry Fisher who several years ago helped me craft a winning pro per case against the LAPD when they raided the Speakeasy, expecting to find…hookers (they didn’t)!

From the Laemmle Theater to Greenblatt’s across the street to the Pleasure Chest champagne after-party where we met up with Speakeasy Girl Sara Sioux Robertson, it was a festive time.

Having recently grieved over the untimely death of another famous high-end madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a., The D.C. Madam, it was sweet to celebrate the long, exciting life of a successful, respected, genuinely happy hooker who is still very much alive, even after several decades of enjoying multiple pleasures in many different arenas, from sex to travel to food to fame to friends to life itself.

Liberal Bashing & Liberal Killing in Knoxville UU ChurchAccording to the evidence, the man who walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children’s show and fired three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation, killing two people and wounding six others before he was wrestled to the ground by church members, “hated liberals and gays.”Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still wrote in his police report that the shooter, Jim David Adkisson, targeted the UU Church “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.” Adkisson’s message has been broadcast on countless media outlets over the past few days, just going to show that in the 21st century, committing a sensational multiple murder is a very viable way to get your political “point” across to millions.Adkisson, an unemployed truck driver and former member of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne who recently ran out of food stamps, said that since “he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement, that he would then target those that had voted them into office.”The UU’s are nothing if not liberal, especially as churches go. Their website states that it has worked for “desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women’s rights and gay rights” since the 1950s. Current ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and support for the homeless, as well as a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and lesbian teens. Sounds like an oasis of sanity in a sea of intolerant religiosity. Apparently, Adkisson targeted his victims for this precise reason. That and the fact that his estranged ex-wife used to be a UU member.Inside Adkisson’s house, officers found the books “Let Freedom Ring” by right-wing TV talk show host Sean Hannity, “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” by far right-wing radio talk show host Michael Savage, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by right-wing loofa lover Bill O’Reilly. There’s a great temptation to blame right-wing blowhards like Savage, Hannity and O’Reilly for Adkisson’s hate-fueled shooting spree, and many of my fellow lefty bloggamists are doing just that. But considering the evidence thus far, I’m going to pass on accusing the O’Reilly Gang of being “accomplices” to Adkisson’s murders. Maybe it’s because the right-wing blogosphere, most prominently Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto, melodramatically blamed me (me!) for the horrific suicide-bombing of Istanbul’s HSBC bank in the Summer of 2003 and accused me (me!) of being “Saddam’s Sex Therapist,” all because I had written an anti-war essay called “Rape of Iraq” that Spring just after the Anglo-American invasion. You can read all about how several rabid right-wingers held me “morally responsible” for that terrible tragedy and called for me to be “hanged for sedition” in “Saddam’s Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech.”Speaking of Free Speech, O’Reilly, Savage and Hannity are *just* exercising theirs. Along with their feminine counterparts, Dr. Laura and Ann Coulter, they cheer on what is meanest in America: war, intolerance, ignorance, bigotry, backwardness. But no, they are not guilty of “aiding and abetting” this trigger-happy hater in his cold-blooded murder of two innocent people. At least, they are no guiltier than they are of aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in the conduct of an illegal, mass-murderous invasion and occupation of a once-sovereign country which, by the way, is filled with millions of innocent people, many of whom have been killed by trigger-happy haters of gays and liberals. Yes, the O’Reilly Gang is among the lowest of the low. But, even though their minions have called for my execution, I won’t give them the satisfaction of calling for theirs. The Freedom of Speech we receive from our First Amendment gives us the right to be right-wing, war-mongering loudmouths like O’Reilly and friends, or liberal, peace-through-pleasure-loving loudmouths like me and my friends.So I’m not calling for their hanging, but I am calling for these overexposed corporate hacks (hooker is too good a word for them) to be vilified in the village square, throughout cyberspace and, hopefully, at a dinner table near you. Because their self-serving, mean-spirited philosophy of aggression and intolerance is, indeed – sometimes quite literally – killing all that is good, gay and liberal in us. Fallen Hero of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and Liberals Everywhere.

But enough about those right-wing cretins, corporate shills and loser shooters. I’m going to end this bloggamy on a note of hope and praise for Linda Kreager and Greg McKendry, the two people who were killed in the blasts delivered by this crusader-maniac egged on by media bullies. If the UUs had a sainthood, they should be canonized. McKendry, a UU usher and much loved foster dad, died while shielding the children from shotgun fire as fellow church members wrestled the gunman to the ground. Both Kreager and McKendry are heroes for “taking the bullet” for the rest of us liberals. They give us hope for humanity. We will not forget their sacrifice.