Dear Sasha: I have unclear HIV status for reasons that are really technical and boring, and for the longest time I didn’t care because I was in shock, single and celibate. Now there is a new person on my scene and I’m starting to care.

I’ve been to my local AIDS advocacy network and they have furnished me with some info and some female condoms (which I will never use) and some dental dams (which I am curious about). I have never used one before and I can’t help but wonder if there’s any point to it. I mean, someone’s tongue through a wall of rubber just can’t be that good. Have you ever used one? Did you get off? Obviously we’ll be using condoms too, that’s a given. I keep thinking that the sex is going to suck so bad.

—-Rubber Duck

Dear Rubber, By no means am I trying to be Pollyanna Silverline about your health status, but one of the benefits of having to monitor effluvia or viral activity is that you’re actually forced to be more adventurous about things you may have excluded out of sheer “just stick it in” laziness. Open your mind to enhancing your sex with toys, games, sex-positive club nights and books, and you’ll see options rather than endings.

My experience with dams is limited but positive. Along with some lube, they add a totally slick yet frictional layer to skin contact. I’ve never tried getting off with one but that’s my own laziness and routine—I’ve developed a bit of a symphonic procedure to orgasm during partner sex and people tend to find it hard going down on someone when there’s a huge vibrator battering the bridge of their nose.

The female condom is another story, but with high quality male ones available, you have other handy options. Still, why not give them a shot? What have you got to lose?

Dear Sasha: My partner wrote an amazing book—Bi/Transgender, D/s, a dark urban fantasy set in SE Ontario—and we are looking for a Canadian friendly publisher so the book can be released.

——SF Fantasy Fan

Dear SF: When I asked Mike O’Connor of Insomniac Press if they published erotic fiction, he wryly replied, “not on purpose.” Toronto writer Sandra Alland suggested Arsenal Pulp Press (arsenalpulp.com). They do dirty queer stuff and take submissions through their Web site.

Another great publisher of sex lit is Cleis (www.cleispress.com). They’re out of the States and are unfortunately embroiled in the massive Publishers Group West bankruptcy debacle along with many other independent American publishers, as well as a few Canadian ones that use PGW as their American distributor.

Around five years ago, PGW was purchased by a huge corporation called Advanced Marketing Services, and as a result of some fraudulent and nasty business (hey that reminds me, I haven’t suggested people watch The Corporation in a while), AMS’s money and holdings were seized, three of their employees (all women) went to jail and PGW filed for bankruptcy protection.

It’s a great big ugly mess and tons of small publishers don’t know when they’ll see the money they made from September to December—the most profitable time in publishing— and writers will likely not see their royalties at all.

This doesn’t impact most Canadian small presses because, as Alland said, many of them couldn’t afford PGW anyway. Although Raincoast is a big Canadian distributor and is 25 per cent owned by PGW, O’Connor says so far there haven’t been any problems.

The effect on small presses in the States, on the other hand, is monumental. Violet Blue, who wrote The Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn and many other invaluable sex advice books for Cleis, added this to all the injury, “None of the publishers under PGW or AMS are allowed to leave; under bankruptcy filings, all contracts have to be honoured during the process. So no one could leave and go to a different distributor right now, even if they wanted to.” You can read more about this online—Blue has updates and links at www.tinynibbles.com. Just a bunch of stuff to keep in mind when you’re considering handing over your baby

Got any questions for Sasha? Email: POULEDELUXE@YAHOO.COM