Customer Reviews

Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads

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For the last three years, artist Ellen Forney has illustrated selected personal ads for the Seattle-based alternative weekly The Stranger. Forney publishes the Lustlab Ad of the Week for The Stranger's adults-only personal section, selecting her material from the Lustlab postings by men and women seeking other men, women, or ?, from couples (be they MW, MM, or WW couples), from groups, and from transvestites and transsexuals. The author noted in a recent interview that she's only illustrated one ad from a woman-woman couple - they're everyone's fantasy, but they aren't out posting for dates.

Forney has an eye for the bizarre, for flying one's freak flag high with pride, as evidenced by her previous illustrated work I Love Led Zeppelin. In LUST, she gives perverted ads a playful treatment, turning odd fetishes into outrageous caricatures. She pays homage to glam pin-up style, draws from mainstream cartoon and popular culture images, and revives the style of early 1900's consumer advertising. Her bold brush strokes paint hippie-inspired images, sailor tattoos, and comic book covers. She has only one limit - Forney is uncomfortable about discreet encounters. She doesn't illustrate ads in which the poster aims to cheat on an unsuspecting partner.

This art collection is complemented by four interviews Forney conducted with Lustlab posters about their preferences, desires, and experiences. Introduction from Savage Love's Dan Savage.

I used to get a kick out of reading the personal ads in the free weeklies in SF. Who DOES these things, I wondered? It was interesting to imagine all these people living their lives and doing all manner of odd and kinky things in private.

So since I'm a huge fan of Ellen Forney's comics, I thought this would be a fun read for me. But something about it just didn't work for me. It's pretty much exactly what I expected, but it feels like Forney kind of phoned it in. Usually with her work, there's an extra something she brings to it where it makes a project more than the sum of its parts, but this book wasn't like that.

It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect of a book like this, but lacking the special touches that would make you really laugh out loud on your own or snicker about it with your friends over drinks. Unless you're a Forney completist, I'd skip this one and go for any of her other books.

Well, I wanted to like this book...as I havea largely kinky, free-spirited side...but, I wasn't that impressed. Was it edgy? Yes. Provocative? Not so much. A little TOO raunchy..just for raunch's sake? Most def. I only "liked" ( was titilated by) maybe three out of ALL of the pages!