During my daily internet comb, I came across some stimulating simple and erotically elegant illustrations by Malike Favre and I had to share. Her use of intertwining shapes embodies the book she illustrates.
I am a french illustrator based in rainy London.
I am represented by the very Handsome Frank
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I’m in love. I’m in a new love relationship and it is sweet. In fact, it’s many things, like any relationship.
When I’m in love, I feel so alive, so full, so rich. In making love with this new love, I’m being asked to open my heart and body to an ever deepening experience of vulnerability and tenderness. I’m being asked to savor life through this body, and to trust that, even though being in this woman’s body feels exceedingly vulnerable, there is also a gorgeous richness and ripeness available to me precisely because I am alive in this female body.
This is the edge I’ve always felt as a woman – the edge between the possibility of living a life of deep-feeling and sensuality, the full expression of eroticism, and the vulnerability that seems to be inherent in living life in a woman’s body – a body in which we receive our lover into ourselves. I don’t know about you, but to me this edge is where aliveness happens, where the rawness of life touches me in a most human way.
I suppose it is much like a flower. When petals open to the sun, the flower shows its most tender and vulnerable places, and it is in this opening to life that we get to experience the full, rich beauty of the flower. I have a not-so-secret love affair with flowers, for just this reason. I am drawn into them because of the stark contrast between their softness and the harsh world in which they grow. They are both luminous and numinous, one of the most beautiful examples of the ephemeral nature of life here on earth.
As I deepen into my new lover, I am beginning to open, a little more willingly each day, to feeling this ephemeral experience of life, knowing that this, too, won’t last forever. Every relationship ends at some point. As I learn to trust what my lover offers me each day, I also open to the realization that I have just as much to offer to my lover and there is no point in holding back my gifts.
This is the exchange of giving and receiving that love and life are truly about. It isn’t about staying open all the time; rather it is tuning into the dance of the heart that opens and closes, into the breath that comes and goes, into the rhythms of the moon that waxes and wanes.
To open in this way, I’m having to question many of the beliefs I’ve held about the nature of exchange, the exchange inherent in giving and receiving. I’ve had deep fears that I would have to give so much away in order to receive; that receiving put me in a position of weakness; that I was a better person if I gave more than I got; that I had to earn everything I was offered; and that all some people want to do is take.
All of these beliefs cause me to see the world in a way that is distorted, and that causes me to not trust others or my own natural neediness as a human being. They caused me not to trust life, itself.
When we create and express and share this prosperity with the world through our work and love, we come into flow, the flow of eroticism in a physical world that is alive and pulsing with abundant prosperity.
Yes, life, itself, is my new love. Life is teaching me how to receive and in this teaching, I am learning how to give in a healthier way. This is the most erotic, sensual, sexual dance I’ve danced. Life is in a constant state of arousal, constantly in the arc of orgasm, coming into being, letting go into death.
Here, in this dance, I’m discovering prosperity, for what could be a more prosperous life that living the full arc of creation – both many, many times, and one big long arc of a life fully lived, fully alive?
Here, in this dance, I’m really discovering how to be fully in relationship with myself, finding the dance of the feminine and masculine with me, the giving and receiving, the pulsing out and the drawing into.
I’m not saying it is easy, nor that I do it perfectly. But I am learning to come back to the dance. To open once again. To say yes to this lover.
Can you feel it? Can you feel this arc of orgasm in your own life? This is a kind of prosperity that can never be taken away, can never be lost, can never lose its sheen in the light of your own heart and soul. The abundance of life is all around us, an abundance that lives and dies, comes and goes. None of it is ours, nor was it ever ours. We neither deserve it, nor do we not deserve it. It is life. Giving and receiving allows us to participate in this flow for as long as we are here. That, in itself, is enough.
(via Julie Daley)
So I’ve managed to catch the “Fifty Shades Fever” that has been going around and have come to the realization that a little erotica can in fact go a long way in a relationship. Lets face it, the majority of women have a very hypocritical view when it comes to pornography, myself included sometimes…most of the time. We have a problem with our husbands and boyfriends jerking off to some big breasted, silicone lipped, fake ass, weave wearing bimbo. Porn was made to cater to whatever bukkake, anal probing, kinky fetish, raw fucking fantasies people may have. I watch it now and then, i mean its there, right at your fingertips (thank you worldwide web). With that said though, I think women are less visual. Like me for example, I’d rather read erotica and make my own movie in my head. I feel its more sensual and well, more realistic. No plastic titties or cock rings in anyone’s face. You are able to put your own face to the characters, perhaps yours and your partners? Instead of a “realistic” version of a blow up doll. I think sex columnist Violet Blue described it best, “Porn is something that is a graphic sexual image that conjures up an animalistic reaction in you. You like it or you don’t,” she says. “Erotica also is graphic sexual imagery, but it has an extra component or several extra components that resonate with the viewer—be it artistic, be it passionate, be it something that emotionally engages you, be it something that parlays into a fantasy that you have about sexuality or the way that you relate to the people on screen.”
I think the shitty part is when women start feeling uncomfortable with themselves because of things like porn. Sadly, the signals that allow men and women to find the partners who most please them are scrambled by the sexual insecurity initiated by beauty thinking. A woman who is self-conscious can’t relax to let her sensuality come into play. If she is hungry she will be tense. If she is “done up” she will be on the alert for her reflection in his eyes. If she is ashamed of her body, its movement will be stilled. If she does not feel entitled to claim attention, she will not demand that airspace to shine in. If his field of vision has been boxed in by “beauty”–a box continually shrinking–he simply will not see her, his real love, standing right before him. I believe that through erotica women can find that sense of empowerment they need to overcome these self-image conundrums, it allows a woman to be a dom or the sub, the damsel in the distress or the bad girl off the streets. It stirs that “inner goddess” and brings her out to play, whether you’re playing solo or partnered up. So keep your erotica close ladies and permit yourself to do a little role playing. To me porn is ugly, that’s pretty much it, I don’t like it. Give me a good erotica book though and everybody comes out a winner 
I have never been the kind of girl that fantasizes about her wedding day, the dress she wants to wear or what theme and colour palette to use. I’ve had my ups and downs with the idea of marriage. When I became a mother I thought that ideally I would be married but not everything is ideal is it? So considering my love hate relationship that I’ve had with the idea of wedding dresses and flowers its very surprising to me that as soon as I knew I was getting married I already knew what I wanted that day to look like. Only further proof that yes…I can be a real girl. I remember being in high school and talking about the different themed parties we would have for all our different weddings but it was all in good fun. In a few days I will be a Mrs. and the thought of it alone makes me grin like a fool as opposed to my usual eye roll towards that particular matter.The changes that a person can influence in you are astounding aren’t they? I guess it’s all love. Potent, irrevocable love. I’m sorry guys…I know I’ve been one big ball of cheese lately but c’est l’amour fou.
Day 157 Question 157:
Why are so many women obsessed with dieting/weight?
Dieting is one of those subjects I know far too much about. If there is a diet out there…I have tried it out. I was always looking for a quick fix and had this inner desire to be thin. Why did I want to be thin though? There is a big difference between being thin and being healthy.
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