| SEX IN THE SOUTH
Reprinted from Justin, Charles & Co. Literary Tease. In Sex in the South, journalist Suzi Parker, a life-long Southerner, writes about her personal journey into an eccentric world of sin amid supposed saintliness, where rectitude reigns from Sunday to Friday but sin rides high on Saturday night. Penthouse Magazine December, 2003 Her own Southern sex scandal prompted the author to investigate the secret sex lives of others in her native Dixie. Through interviews, undercover romps at strip clubs, a sex toy party, a drag pageant, and bondage events, Parker discovered that Southerners are indeed naughty. They just keep their fetishes under wraps. Yet, Parker reveals all in this tantalizing, if sometimes risqué, read. An Arkansas journalist, Parker penned in 2001 an erotic article about a wild night she had after sampling an aphrodisiac drink. Because of the article, Parker was booted from a public television show where she was a regular commentator. She was also entangled in a lawsuit against the dr ink's manufacturer. Friends were surprised that Parker had written so graphically about her sex life, she writes. They expected her to be embarrassed by the whole ordeal, to hide in shame and to repent. "The deal in Dixie is that everybody does it but no one talks about it," she writes. "Because no one talks about it, sex is encased in a plain brown wrapper making everything about it taboo, taciturn, and twisted, with just a smidgen of sin to top it off." In her debut book, Parker sometimes resorts to stereotypes about Southerners, broadly describing them as guilt-ridden, Bible-thumping, church-going conservatives, though her reporting proves otherwise. Her book busts many sexual stereotypes: in fact, sexual eccentricity is as common as sweet iced tea below the Mason-Dixon line. The author introduces her readers to The Skirtman of Arkansas, a university computer programmer who likes wearing women's clothing. She takes a piggyback ride from Trigger, a man in Nashville, Tenn., who gets a thrill out of pretending he's a pony. In Pell City, Alabama, Parker watches a photo shoot for an online pornography site. The site's customers pay big money to have average-looking women enact their fantasies. In Tampa, Florida, she meets the Iron Belles, highly toned women who are paid to flex their muscles, crush cereal boxes with their thighs and wrestle with their mostly male customers. These are the tamer escapades that Parker writes about. Though enlightening, Sex in the South isn't for every reader. Parker, perhaps taking her cues from Cosmopolitan and Sex in the City, writes saucily and vividly about the sexual play she observes. She uses slang terms for body parts and sex acts. Readers who are uncomfortable with frank, graphic discussions of sex won't like this book. But those who agree with the fetishist mantra "Your kink isn't my kink, but your kink is okay" will find it an eye-opening page-turner. (January).Foreword Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2004 The Dirty South Suzi Parker knows good sex. And she isn't afraid to ask. But before you dub her Dixie's own Carrie Bradshaw, consider this: Her new book, Sex in the South (Justin, Charles and Co.) has less in common with "Sex and the City" and more closely resembles another HBO product, the soft-core "Real Sex" series so loved by sleepless teenage boys. Parker, a journalist from Little Rock, Ark., details in the book's introduction (the "foreplay") her own involvement in a minor -- and ridiculous -- hometown sex scandal, which made her wonder what exactly was hiding underneath the floral sundresses and denim overalls of her birth region. What follows is a series of personal columns on various sexual subgroups, most often told with a stranger-in-a-strange-land sensibility and an ear for the absurd. Her thesis: We in the Bible belt put on a good show for Sunday school, but keep a big sloppy mess of creative kink in our closets. Parker gets points for variety. From a skirt-wearing straight man in Arkansas to a society of swinging suburbanites in North Carolina, her selection of subcultures might seem pedestrian at first, shocking only to those who live in the most conservative hinterlands. (Admittedly, this may be a jaded Atlanta bias rearing its unfazable head. The author points out that we are the Sex Capital of the South.) But just when the book starts to drag, Parker dips into Tennessee's freakfest and examines the fetish of "pony play" (guys who want women to treat them like horses) and drowning videos (underwater porn). Such journalistic gems make Sex in the South a frequently delightful read, despite the author's sometimes forced phrasing. Her lone entry from Georgia -- a night on the town with Burlesque queen Torchy Taboo -- turns out to be one of the weakest columns, and she even misnames Blondie, the Clermont Lounge's famous can-crusher. Despite such mishaps, Sex in the South still serves a titillating take on the region's panopoly of perversity, the kind of experience that might leave you wanting a cigarette afterward.Tray Butler, Creative Loafing Atlanta, Nov. 13, 2003 Do you reckon that sex in the South is any different than it is anywhere else? Shoot, Bubba, yin and yang can be as different as fiction and nonfiction. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference. Suzi Parker, for example, writes of Skirtman in Little Rock. This is a straight man who likes to wear skirts. And high heels. But he's not a cross dresser: He doesn't look or act feminine. This is truth. Eva Morris, on the other hand, writes of finding a fine musician on Beale Street and making a steamy and memorable visit to his dressing room. This is fantasy. Parker's book, "Sex in the South," is an engaging and revealing collection of feature stories ranging from lap dances at Platinum Plus in Memphis to closeted gays in Natchez, Miss., to a musclewoman for hire in Florida. And, of course, Skirtman. On the other hand, Morris's torrid and revealing book is fiction that reads as memoir and is less varied in subject matter. But there is a generous assortment of situations. Highly diverse variations on one basic carnal theme. Parker is a Little Rock-based freelance journalist and has contributed features to The Commercial Appeal in recent years. She has solid reporting skills and a breezy approach to feature writing that works well with this topic, don't you know. She puts herself in these expositions and that works with the attitude - think Janeane Garofalo with manners. But sometimes you hunger for another voice. Her profile of a gay man in Natchez, for example, relies solely on the subject's voice. He gossips, he makes claims, he judges people. You wonder, "Can that be true?" But Parker seeks out no one to confirm or counter his statements. Nonetheless, this is a terrifically readable book. It is meant to entertain (see how a sex toy party is like a church meeting!), educate (a burlesque dancer is not a stripper!) and amaze (an underwater porn enterprise in rural Tennessee!). And can they do all that at Platinum Plus? Where Parker's book is about those wacky erotic things people do, Morris's "RoadBabe!" is explicitly erotic in itself. The author is based sometimes in Memphis, sometimes in East Hampton, N.Y., and oftentimes on the road. She has secured a niche writing automotive raunch and has appeared in "Best American Erotica 2000." Nothing can ruin an amorous tale quicker than dimwitted scribbling. Happily, Morris's well-written smut will ring your belles lettres (but don't try it all in one sitting). Her style is conversational and plenty wicked. Conversational is good, because it's intimate, but sometimes not so good when it wavers in consistency. But nothing that a little editorial tightening couldn't fix. Perhaps with some wide leather straps and a firm hand. Memphis Commercial Appeal, November 9, 2003 "While Southerners may be famous for churchgoing and family values, they also 'like to liberate themselves,' according to journalist Parker, a Little Rock, Ark., native with a reputation for sexual controversy. One needs only an Internet connection, a car and an open mind, and the South is a veritable smorgasbord, with its Passion Parties ('think 1970s Tupperware parties but with rubber penises instead of plastic ice trays'), Iron Belles (for 'muscle fantasy'), bondage and s&m clubs, aqua porn, swingers parties, strip clubs and BBW (Big Beautiful Women) parties. The South may look straight-laced, but the same ladies trying and buying double-penis dildos at Passion Parties in Maumelle, Ark., are also reading the Christian apocalyptic Left Behind novels and going to church every Sunday. For better or worse, Parker's no social scientist, so she's quick to ditch her hook (the religion vs. hot sex problem) in favor of wide-eyed voyerism. At any rate, it's probably more fun to read about Ms. Cindy's projectile ejaculations than how she feels about sin. Holding fast to her mantra'Your kink's not my kink, but your kink is okay'Parker interviews a host of sexually adventurous people (mostly heterosexual white women) who are grateful the Internet has helped them connect with like-minded fetishists and pleased that their sex lives have become more fun or more profitable. Curiously, the last stop on Parker's erotic odyssey is a pilgrimage to Gennifer Flowers's bar for a GBLT (gay, lesbian, bi, trans-gender) literary soiree that only leaves Parker fantasizing about Clinton. " Publishers Weekly, September 15, 2003 "Suzi Parker has unearthed some of the funniest Southern characters there are. I'm afraid that she told the truth to the point that she may have to move." Susan McDougal, author of The Woman who Wouldn't Talk "Suzi Parker combines wit, insight and investigative journalism to tear back the curtains and expose the sirens-sounding sex of the so-called 'genteel south.' Funny, fearless and ultimately, humane, this is a neon orgasm of a book." Sparkle Hayter, author of The Last Manly Man "Slide between the pastel sheets for a salacious sneak peek at the phantasmagorical sexual antics of these oh-so kinky Southerners. Suzi Parker's hysterical take on Suburban Swingers, Big Beautiful Belles, Aqua Porn and Passion Parties for the pent-up Religious Right will shock, surprise and titillate. 'You may now spank the bride' indeed!" Pamela Des Barres, author of I'm With the Band |