Today I'd like to welcome Matthew Stillman to the blog as my special guest author. He's appearing here as part of a blog tour promoting his new book, Genesis Deflowered. When I first heard about this book I was curious to say the least. Matthew had an interesting platform to work from, but I'll let him tell you about Genesis Deflowered. I hope you find it and him an interesting guest today and don't forget to check out the bottom of this post for a chance to win a free ebook from Matthew.
Guest Post by Matthew Stillman.
“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine”
“Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lay
your head I’ll lay mine. Your people will be my people. Your God shall be my
God..”
“Love is patient, love is kind...it does not
rejoice with wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
“Set me as seal upon your heart, as a seal upon
your arm, for love is a strong as death...Many waters cannot quench love,
neither floods can drown it.”
Go to any wedding in the Western world and there
is a decent chance that one of those quotes from the Bible will be read. And rightfully so, these quotes from Ruth, Song
of Songs and Corinthians are equally poetic and profound.
It is great that our religious tradition can
speak of love so beautifully. Why can't it speak of sex with equal passion and
beauty?
Aren’t we worse off for that?
Love is pure and beautiful...sex is dirty,
perverted, sinful.
In my new novel “Genesis Deflowered” I took the
classic King James Bible’s version of Genesis and turned it into a celebration
of the unspoken (but deeply present) erotic aspect of the first book of the
Bible. There are nearly 500 suggested erotic acts in Genesis but none of them
are described. Beyond that not one of those acts is initiated by a woman. How
can this be true?
I love the poetic beauty of the King James Bible
and wanted to write about the erotic lives of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel,
Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel and the rest of the characters in Genesis,
in a way that could make it seem like it it was always there...that the lusty
aspects of ourselves was always present and not rejected, even “In the
beginning”. And so I have written erotica that is not only about biblical characters
but I have written in the chaste but poetic style of the King James Bible -
Elizabethan English.
I always longed for a space where the spiritual
and the sexual weren't at war, as they are in Western culture. I think I have
started to build a place where that happens by retelling the seminal creation
story in our culture.
Come take a look at how sexy and loving the
Bible can be in my new and unusual erotic novel - Genesis Deflowered.
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Book Excerpt
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for
my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together
all the men of the place, and made a feast. And Jacob did wash the skins, and
perfumed the tent, and made all new within it. And he bedecked the bed with
blossoming vines from Lebanon, and gathered wine in jars at his sides. And he
plucked the harp and sang a song unto his love Rachel. And his song did call
her to his bed to sup the final meal with him and come to know the garden at
once. And it came to pass in the dark evening, that Laban took Leah his
daughter, and brought her to Jacob. And that night that was made made for
loving between Rachel and Jacob was not to be, though Leah loved Jacob with all
her might. And Leah saw the wine, and the vine. She heard the song, and took of
the scented oils; and, yea, her heart opened unto Jacob. And Jacob went in unto
Leah. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid for an handmaid.
And she stood in wait outside the door of the tent. Yet the day came too soon
for Jacob: for his dearly earned pearl was revealed to be but lowly stone. And
it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to
Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve with thee for
Rachel? Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so
done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her
marriage celebration week, and we will give thee this also for the service
which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled
the week of Leah: and Laban gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And
Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid. And Jacob
went in also unto Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served with
Laban yet seven other years after the first seven.
Where many see the Bible as the pathway
to Heaven, others say it should be covered in a brown paper bag because it is
so, so filthy.
There are hundreds of sex acts implied
in the first book of the bible (and sadly none initiated by a woman). How has
nobody ever described how each of them would have played out in biblical
language?
If the writers and translators of the
Bible had been a little less prudish we might have an entirely different
relationship between sex and religion than we have now. In Genesis there is sex
before marriage, threesomes, incest, group sex, kinky fetish cuckolding, gay
sex and more.
Isn't it time that you read the Bible
for the dirty parts?
Using the seminal King James Bible in
its Elizabethan English as spring board,"Genesis Deflowered" makes
the beginning of the Bible come out as a sexy, readable and fun erotic novel.
"Genesis Deflowered ": equal
parts holy scripture and blaspheming scandal
About the Author
Matthew Stillman is a born and bred New Yorker.
With the exception of college he has always lived in Manhattan. After scoring a
BA in Comparative Literature from SUNY Geneseo, he got into programming at Food
Network and developed shows like Iron Chef, Good Eats and many, many others. He
also started improvising with the Upright Citizens Brigade shortly after they
first arrived in New York, and he still does.
"The End of Poverty?" was his first
film. He conceived of it, wrote the first treatment, co-produced it and spoke
at the UN four times about it after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
and went to 40 festivals around the world.
After a lifetime of a making out with
literature, inner spiritual work from different traditions, creativity and
play. He has written "Genesis Deflowered". It is his first full
length book. And, of course, he started with a genre that he may well have just
made up - Biblical Erotica written in Elizabethan English.
He is married to an exceptional woman from
Sheffield in the North of England. He blogs at stillmansays.com where he writes about his ongoing creativity experiment in
Union Square. And you can find him on twitter at @stillmansays
free ebook to the first person who can name the
original poem and poet echoed in the section from “Genesis Deflowered” above.
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