I guess I’ve got a case of readers remorse.  As in … Boy, did I do something really stupid last week when, for the first time ever, I picked up a People magazine.  Something on the cover caught my interest, and I thought why not?  My bad.  Talk about much ado about nothing.  Who reads this stuff?  There is nothing there but fluff and air — such silliness.  Okay, yeah, I’m saying this just after having returned from the nail salon.  But still ….  Is it too much for a girl with pretty French Nails ( who, by the way, can type very well with them) to ask for a little substance in her reading?

It surprises a lot of my readers and callers that I’m uber-feminine, yet eschew pop-gossip (I find my own life much more interesting) and detest fashion magazines (80 percent ads and who are they to tell me what to wear?).  I actually prefer something more substantial — meat and potatoes rather than tofu surprise, thank you very much.  In case you’re wondering:  Yes, this very much carries over into my sexual dalliances, capers, and pursuits.  When it comes to men, sexy is smart and smart is sexy … dummies move on, please.

But back to that reading thing.  As a child, from the time I was in first grade, I’d been permitted to read the Sunday funnies.  But at 8 years old, I rebelled.  I took the funnies back to the kitchen (where my mother and father, drinking their morning coffee, were reading the "big people" parts of the paper) and handed them back to my parents, saying, "I don’t want to read this anymore.  It’s stupid."  And so was handed the Society Pages, which shortly led to the Community pages, which shortly led to the front pages, etc.  But never, ever the Sports pages.  Just wanted to make that clear. *grin*

Then around fifth grade I began reading Reader’s Digest.  In sixth or seventh grade, I discovered Time and Newseek.  In highschool, I continued with Newsweek, ditched Time, and lapped up every issue of Writer’s Digest cover to cover.  Newsweek was still my main squeeze in college, but I kinda-sorta was its cuckoldress, fluttering the lashes of my sheep’s eyes at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, Smithsonian and even National Geographic.  Then there were the one night stands with one glossy ofter another — too many to remember.  Hey, plop an Appalachian girl into the center of Academia with the flash of big city lights beckoning from the horizon and what do you expect?

These days, being an all grown-up girl, I’m kinda-sorta torn between two lovers: Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly.  Now my beloved Newsweek and I’d actually settled into a comfy monogamy for the last few years.  But there I was at my physician’s office, late as usual, my time moved back so that three to five of the patients would get to go ahead of me now, since I obviously needed to be taught a lesson on responsibility by the all-powerful minimum wage receptionist.  .

But I digress.  What was I saying?  Oh, yeah, The Atlantic Monthly.

Well, I guess you’ve figured out that the magazine I fished from the table was The Atlantic Monthly.  While I can’t remember what I read as I sat there stalwartly taking my punishment with barely a stentorian sigh or weary grimace, I do remember falling in love.  So much so, that I pilfered that magazine and brought it home.  No, I’m not in the habit of lifting reading material from the sundry waiting rooms I’ve occasionally and briefly occupied.  But I wanted to read the magazine from cover to cover and I wanted to order my own subscription ASAP.  Which I did and I did.

So now I’m finally getting around to what this somewhat mindless meandering has been leading up to.  You might remember that last month, as a PSOetry entry, I’d presented the poem, Cathedral — and said I’d be asking you about it the next time we talked.  And we have talked, haven’t we Puzzler, Professor, PQS and HDB?  And we talked about the poem, so the four of you already know — as I’m about to tell the rest of my Zen readers — that this particular poem came from … yes, you guessed it:  the pages of The Atlantic Monthly.  But guess what?  It was from the online version of The Atlantic Monthly, where right on the Internet you can access it anytime you want — which, obviously, I am highly recommending. 

Why?  Because the writing is divinely intelligent and eclectic — covering politics, fiction, poetry, national and international news, and stuff … lots of stuff!

ie.

• Goodly yummily writing from James Fallows
• Texas Justice Gone Awry
• Famous and Fucked (over, that is)
• 2008 Election — A Perspective
• Fiction, Fiction AND MORE FICTION!
• Google for Dummies
• And, yes, there are PODCASTS
• The Girls:  Hillary and Sarah
• Interview with poet Philip Levine
• Pornography and Us (that would be me and u)

Is that eclectic enough for you?  Are you feeling it?  The deliriously electric thrill of it all? And that is just a teensie-weensie smidgen of what is available.  Read through just a few of the above cutesy-chocolatey links and I bet you fall head-over-heels just like I did on that fine sunny day when I was kinda-sorta under house arrest.  What’s really fun is that you can sign up for a Newsletter,  The Trans-Atlantic (sample newsletter), and know exactly what’s up and where to find it.  Because it’s link love, baby cakes, and with a clickety-click you’ll be right where you want to be.  Or else you can hang out in higher-end waiting rooms and score your very own print version.  I mean, after all, it worked for me.

Oh how I love this magazine and how I love you and how I love the Internet.  (Well, the Internet is more like a love-hate thing, but we’ll leave that can of worms for another day.)

… and yes, boys, I will be asking questions.  So read up!

xo, Angela

Tip-toeing around the web I found this incredible FREE website for cuckolds, CuckyBoy.  The site’s owner/operator is actually a cuckold and his passion for his kink is reflected in the incredible amount of content, including cuckold stories, personal ads and a forum.  It is simply divine, generous and overflowing with so many goodies that  you’ll want to bookmark it and visit often.

Below is Cucky Boy’s (methinks quite astute) breakdown of three "cuckold types" followed by his list of personality traits common in most cuckolds.  He’s obviously much more an expert than I am, but from what I’ve experienced via the kink-O-phone, he is most definitely right on target.  And I wonder when academia in all it’s "vanilla-ness" is going to address cuckolding, humiliation, erotic hypnotism and all the other stuff they just keep pretending isn’t out there.  Hmmm.  Because, quite frankly, Cucky Boy’s types and accompanying charactaristics should be in a text book some where. 

* The cuckold may have come to the lifestyle by finding out his wife is cheating
* There is a certain aspect of deviance by the cheating wife
* The cuckold can seem almost tortured by the cheating wife’s behavior
* The cuckolds say they enjoy it but if you really read what they’re saying in their posts or comments it’s almost as though they do not have choice and they lack of choice excites them
* At some level the cuckold does enjoy the emotional torture, much like a masochist
* They enjoy the humiliation aspects of cuckolding (wimp factor, knows his place, small penis)
* The slut wife sometimes includes him and sometimes she ignores him
* The cuckolds tend to be more submissive in all aspects of the relationship and the hotwives tend to be more dominant in all aspects
* The cheating wife may practice sexual denial with the cuckold

* Came to the lifestyle after talking the wife into it
* They love their hotwives having sex with other men
* Their hot wives enjoy teasing the cuckold and letting him be a part of it somehow (the cuckold is not necessarily always physically present with her and her lover, but she makes sure that he is a part of it by calling or telling him all the details when she arrives home)
* The cuckold and the slut wife are open about all aspects of the wives sexual activity, no deviance
* The cuckold enjoys the hotwife’s sluttieness and her sexual power over him
* The cuckold tends to have more desire and passion for his wife after she has been with another man
* These cuckolds tend to be only sexually submissive
* In all other aspects of the relationship the cuckold and wife are equal partners

* The cuckold enjoys feminization brought on by the hotwife
* The cuckold enjoys the forced femimization by the hot wife, made to wear panties, make up, bras, etc.
* The cuckold enjoys the humiliation of not being man enough to handle his wife
* The slut wife tends to be dominate in all aspects of the relationship
* The hot wife may or may not include the cuckold in her sexual activities
* The cuckold has definite bi-sexual tendencies
* The hot wife may use a strap on dildo on her fem cuck
* The hot wife may include the lover in using the cuck for her pleasure (oral and anal)

* Cuckolds tend to be highly educated and rely on their minds a lot
* The difference between a strict hot wife relationship and a cuckold relationship is in the cuckold relationship the hotwife is always in sexual control, she is the one who makes the decisions about other men and often controls the sexual behavior of the cuckold. In a strictly Hot Wife relationship the husband will be in control of who the Hot Wife meets and fucks.
* Cuckolds tend to enjoy masturbation and fantasy
* Cuckolds are not necessarily very physical in their love making skills and tend to be more mental and emotional
* Cuckolds are not easily turned on by just the physical aspects of sex itself, they tend to need more mental, visual and aural stimulation then the average male
* Cuckolds may have less testosterone than say a Bull who can get excited by physical aspects of sex
* The act of being cuckolded is appealing because of its mental and emotional aspects and it is often long and drawn out over a period of time with the wife dating and such
* The cuckold loves feeling cucky angst for hours upon hours until the slut wife comes home and allows relief
* The cuckold my be fixated on the idea of his penis is not enough to pleasure his wife and take pleasure from her getting a larger cock for her lover
* It is very difficult to define a cuckold relationship, we are all different and ultimately if you call yourself a cuckold and your hotwife has sexual activity with other men and she controls it, then I guess you are one
* Real cuckold couples are rare
* Real Bulls are rare