A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

The fourth and final word is educator.

I went back to Pleasure Salon this past Thursday, drank bourbon cosmos (strange invention) and put some faces to some names. And I was asked a handful of times, “How do you feel, having photos of your face on your blog?” I was surprised by this, in all honesty. It had occurred to me only in passing that I might not want to put a face to my pseudonym.

But then, let’s review. I’m 24 years old. I work a job I enjoy, but I don’t intend to make it a career. I have always intended to work primarily for myself. I’m out to all of my friends. I’m out to my parents. Who, then, would I be outing myself to? My situation is dramatically different than the majority of my readers and fellow partners in kink.

And as I am rapidly realizing since this past Sunday morning, I don’t ever want to live a life that means I have to stop talking about sex.

In addition to Kate Bornstein, I also saw Susan Wright (founder of The National Coalition For Sexual Freedom) speak this past weekend. I am developing mild hero crushes on both of them. And if you must know, my friends, hero crushes are not generally my style. Most of my heros are writers who died several decades ago.

You will laugh at me, but I’m not really a political person. (See? I knew you’d laugh.) So I take it as an indication of something significant that I am passionately interested in the political and social ramifications of sex. I take it as something significant that this blog is 60 posts long and I feel like I haven’t even touched most of what I want to talk about. And that I have managed to create a space where education, discussion, sex and writing (i.e. almost everything I get excited about) have come together.

I have many creative skills. I can paint, draw, sculpt, weld, write prose, write poetry, blow glass, throw pots, tile floors, make stone walls . . . you get the picture. My trouble has never been having a skill set; it’s been having material. When I was picking up oils for the first time and sending photos of my work to my dad, he’d write me back and say, “You do an awful lot of naked people. Why do you do so much with naked people?” Or, “How about a nice landscape or two? You know, they’d sell better.”

Or, “Eileen, all your work is about sex.” Which is slightly unfair. But only slightly.

Because far more unfair is the subtext that sex doesn’t make good material. Socially acceptable, career-like material.

I had always assumed, you see, that eventually I would have to go into hiding.

After Kate’s class was over, May and I wandered off into the depths of Floating World. “Do you want to see the kinky ren faire?” he asked me, wonderful man that he is, and I nodded numbly. I held his hand while he led me down the twisting hallways like a lost four year old. Inside my head all manner of tumultuous things were going on.

Because, you see, that was the first time I’d seen a really good sex educator speak, and care, and make a difference in someone’s life. Namely, in my life. And changing my life? That was not on my radar for last weekend.

There was a little baby seed that got planted the day I started my first kink blog five years ago, and got a little water the night that May and I had our first date, when we started talking and didn’t stop for 36 hours. It wriggled about a bit when I started teaching a class or two, and probably got a good shot of juice the day Bloody Laughter said “Hello, world.” And then, 12:30 on that Sunday afternoon, it sprang up and hit me right across the face.

I stood in that weirdly lit hallway with my forehead on May’s shoulder, hyperventilating fit to pass out and with tears streaming down my cheeks. All around me, big chunks of my life were slamming into place. Pathways that I didn’t know existed were becoming clear.

Because it hadn’t occurred to me until that morning, you see, that I could be a sex educator.

That I could live a life that means I never have to stop talking.