2. Women’s Spaces

Saturday, June 7, 2008

I’ve been feeling my way around my relationship with women’s spaces and my attraction to women lately. I recently took part in a 6-week discussion group at ACON, a great queer resource here in Sydney. It was the first time in my life I had identified primarily as same-sex attracted, instead of primarily kinky.

The group was a good experience. As I’ve said before, I often have to feel my way around relationships with women very carefully. Curiously, the strongest conclusion I’ve come to from being a part of the group is that I’m increasingly comfortable with being just a bit gender queer.

I wear ties these days and don’t have to reach up and adjust them every five minutes. My hair is in my eyes and I dress like a schoolboy. Sometimes May presses his body into me, I wrap my arms around his slender waist tightly, and we kiss with his head tilted backward while I stand straight and strong. I love it. It makes me feel romantic and powerful.

The other thing conclusions I’ve reached is that I really want a girlfriend. I hadn’t expected that. I don’t know how to handle that desire just yet.

Labels: Filed in Bisexuality, Drabble, Fashion, Pansexuality, Queer, Women | Comments (6)

Protected: Photographic Proof

Monday, February 4, 2008

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In Which We Are Geeks

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Maymay has written his side of this particular thought process. Of course he is brilliant and wonderful and cute, and makes equally good points. This is highly recommended reading.

All right. We’re going to take a break from the four words to examine this idea of bisexuality versus pansexuality a little more intently. May and I have just had a very long discussion, and you all know how we like to break apart words and ideas in this space.

I wrote in my previous post that I had made a distinction between bisexuality and pansexuality. In doing so, I was reacting to a growing unease with the implications of the word “bisexual” as well as the increasing evidence that I am attracted to trans and androgynous people, people who readily mix my ideas of men and women both physically and idealistically.

We did not exactly have a discussion. We had what amounted to a fight. Here is our geekiness revealed; we fight about words. In reflection, this doesn’t actually seem so odd, or so geeky. Lots of people fight about words.

In Maymay’s ideal world, every word we use has a precise, specific, singular definition. I do not live in this world. Almost every discussion we have in this relationship in some way breaks down to a contention over the definition or usage of words. Our personalities conflict, similar to our reading tastes. May reads non-fiction, I read fiction. May’s bookshelf is full of technical manuals. Mine is full of 19th century adventure novels.

Briefly and approximately: the prefix “hetero-” means “different.” The prefix “homo-” means “the same.” the prefix “bi-” means “two.” The prefix “pan-” means “all.”

May is bipolar. He drew a comparison between being bipolar and being bisexual. Being bipolar does not mean he is always either depressed or manic. It means he exists on a sliding scale between those two states. Bisexuality, therefore, would be defined as being sexually attracted to people who fall within a range along the sliding scale of gender fluidity.

This is commonly how the word is understood in kink and alternative sexuality communities. It’s how I used the word for years. It works for this idea; in fact, it’s how most of us assume the word is used. We’ve culturally subtexted it to indicate either a sliding scale or a disregard for gender or sex. It works to claim bisexual as an identity in alternative cultures; chances are you’re not so different from me.

Used in this way, “bisexuality” obfuscates “pansexuality” by essentially making the two synonyms. “Pansexual” then becomes confusing: “Wasn’t that what I said the first time around?” we wonder aloud.

But then, I start looking at the definitions that pop up when I go searching for “bisexual.” I start thinking about how my vanilla mother interprets the word when I use it. I think about the fuckuppery that the scene goes through by unconsciously accepting rigid gender binaries.

So when I say the word “bisexual” do the people who hear me think about my tastes as two sides of a coin or as a fluid range? And if they do think of my tastes as two sides of a coin, then clearly I’ve started the conversation at the wrong entry point. So is it better to start a conversation with a word and implication I don’t like, or with a word that’s unfamiliar and relatively undefined?

Clearly, the word “pansexual” (along with words created in similar contexts such as “omnisexual”) is a neologism. In relation to the commonly known “bisexual” it has relatively little meaning or cultural clout. What does that mean? I will not claim that neologisms are valueless through their very unfamiliarity. Neologisms seem an appropriate way of promoting or defining a relatively unfamiliar idea.

And the idea of gender fluidity? For the culture we live in today, I’d say that gets a prime place on the list of unfamiliar, scary ideas.

“Pansexual” is also a political idea with roots in different issues than “bisexual.” It links to a different culture. It has different implications. It resonates with people of different interests and thought processes. And from my experience, I like those people. And I like bisexual people too.

I also recognize that people commonly try to tout pansexuality as “better” than bisexuality. Similarly, people tout polyamoury as “better” than monogamy. Just as a personal favor to me, please don’t do that.

The crux of the matter is why we use the words we do. Why do certain words define our identities; what do we claim, and how do we think? What do the words we chose say about our identity politics? Some women chose the word lesbian, while others prefer dyke. Some men claim the word fag, others choose to describe themselves as queer. May fights for words to be used in their exact sense. I do not. I like that words have ambiguities and cultural connotations. I like that labels are an entry point for learning.

May argues that if we want to get people thinking about the fluidity of gender, the best method lies in talking about gender as a scale. I argued that the best method would be to use different words, understanding that my sexuality relates to the genders and sexes I find attractive. In my experience, words create awareness.

We ended our spat about words with a deal. He’ll promote gender fluidity through conversations about scales, and I’ll promote gender fluidity through the use of different vocabulary. And in the end, we’ll probably meet in the middle.

Labels: Filed in Bisexuality, Choice, Cultural Pluralism, Maymay, Pansexuality, Self-Awareness, Sex | Comments (7)

Pansexual

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Imagine you get 350 people who have consistently hidden, ignored or marginalized a similar, crucial part of their lives. Then imagine you’ve put these 350 people in an enormous space together for three days, given them power, and let them play.

Floating World was not a culture shock. Floating World was a culture validation. An absolute, no questions asked validation, warm as a big gooey oven, warm as my hands deep inside a gorgeous girl. I come out of the weekend, back to the shock treatment of database software and street meat lunches, with four words to claim. Four words that I have made and will make my own.

The first word is pansexual.

“Pansexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by the potential for aesthetic attraction, romantic love and/or sexual desire for people regardless of their gender identity or biological sex.”

I was walking down the hall of the convention center, 6pm on Saturday night, and Jen and Blaise were cuddling by a wall. I had just gotten out of a panel I was speaking on about labels. I had mentioned briefly that I was struggling with the identity of bisexual versus the identity of pansexual; in essence, caught between the two words with no visceral understanding of either one.

I popped up to them, put my chin on Jen’s shoulder, grinned. It was mid-event; I was already high and climbing.

“Do you want to do a fisting tonight?” Blaise asked me.

“Who’s getting fisted?”

“This one,” Blaise smiled as he pulled Jen closer to him, “has requested a group fisting. So far it’s Tyler, me, Corey, Calico, you, and May. And I asked Kate Bornstein and Barbara Carellas too.” Jen was turning a ripe peach color.

I grinned wider. “What time?”

Jen is one beautiful half of a remarkable couple. Tyler is the other half, and she is smaller, but no less beautiful. It took me ages to recognize their kind of beauty. It is full of softness and permeated with sexuality and humor. They laugh when they’re fucking. They giggle and tell jokes and seem to have sex as naturally as I breathe.

That night we gathered in the corner of the mixed gender space, a wide curtained room off the main dungeon. We pulled a futon up to a sex swing in the corner, and made piles of bodies while Jen settled herself in the swing, her dress around her waist, leather boots in the air. Tyler was gathering lube and paper towels. “Okay guys, we’re going in order of hand size,” she said. She leaned over Jen’s body and they whispered together while on the futon we pressed palms together, comparing the lengths of our fingers and the thickness of our palms.

The cluster of people stayed on the futon while Tyler went first, making little theatrical motions in the air that sent us into hysterics. But soon, as Jen’s breathing became louder and more regular, we gathered closer. Jen is mesmerizing; we were all drawn into the magnetism of her skin. She pulled her top down, flung her arms over her head, and closed her eyes. I knelt beside the swing and grazed my lips along her neck. “Hi,” I said. “Hey you,” she answered back.

We changed places slowly, tapping out as each person drew their hands into her. Everyone in the group wanted to touch her; I would pull her hardened nipple into my mouth and smell the bootblack on Blaise’s hands as he caressed her from the other side of the swing. When we weren’t touching her, we stood close and watched.

“I’m trying to practice your breathing techniques,” she said to Barbara at one point, drawing her breath in deliberately through small moans. That got a general laugh from the sex-drugged peanut gallery.

My hands are small. When my turn was coming up I pulled on rubber gloves, dropped lube over my hands and began rubbing it to warm it into a soapy mess. As I took my place at the foot of the swing, I watched Calico pull her hand out and marveled that it had gone in so easily. Clearly in the world of penetration I am tightly lagging behind my fellow explorers. “So Jen, dear, should I mention that I’ve never fisted a girl before?” I smiled at her, fighting down the little bite of apprehension.

Jen’s pussy, as she lay with her boots sprawled upwards, was wide and slippery soft, that peach color all over again. I eased three fingers inside her, pushed a little, and jumped as my hand slid past her labia and was enveloped.

Her pussy was hot; I was reminded of fever kisses. I pushed deeper and marveled as my wrist bone touched her ass. Blaise and Tyler started giving me directions, making turns and twists in the air that I would mimic inside Jen’s body. Jen was vibrating with every motion by now, fingers grasping into Tyler’s sides and her throat all thrown back and trembling.

I piled more lube on my palms, cupped one hand around the base of the other and slid back in. With a hand and a half inside her I went exploring slowly. I couldn’t pound away, leaving that to more experienced hands than mine. Instead I made deep thrusts. I watched her body. I poured myself into her. Fucking hell, I was thinking. I want immortalize you. I want to to carve you in white marble like a goddess and paint you all in pink.

When I drew out she let out a little kitten moan and then swelled up again as Blaise’s hands replaced my own.

As I looked around the circle magnetized to Jen’s presence, I was struck, shot, paralyzed with wonder. Half the dozen-odd faces were people I’d never met before that morning. I felt a little shy when Kate turned to me and smiled; its seems that Kate is like that, at first. Barbara too. These people have so much passion it’s hard to process.

I was paralyzed so suddenly because everything was so fucking easy.

The space was easy, the people friends already. The sex was gorgeous. When Jen screamed the second time, gushing outward in a frenzy of relaxed tension, that was easy too. Easy, sexy, gratifying, and perfect.

Once Jen had struggled her liquid bones up from the swing and was standing in just her boots by the futon, I took the time to collapse and look at her. Christ, girl, you look amazing naked. I wish we could stay here forever.

The next morning in a class on male bisexuality Jefferson asked the class for a show of hands of people who identified as bisexual. I started to put my hand up, and stopped. I was thinking about the night before.

I didn’t want that space divided by gender. The “bi” in “bisexual” wouldn’t touch even half the people that stood in that circle. Do I use language for what I am or what I do? And are they different, in the end?

I raised my hand. “Can I make a distinction between bisexual and pansexual?”

“Sure,” he answered.

I am pansexual. It was time to say it out loud.

In the comments string on this post, Juliet (f’ing brilliant, by the way) and I have been having a discussion about the nature of the word “pansexuality” as it relates not only to gender but to activity. I like the word for several reasons, I have not touched on them all here, and I suggest that as further reading you explore the comments thread. And go read Juliet’s blog.

Labels: Filed in Bisexuality, Choice, Eroticism, Floating World, Friends, Men, Pansexuality, Sex, Women | Comments (14)

The Night Before

Monday, August 20, 2007

My head feels like it might spontaneously drown itself, so this entry is written at about half of normal mental capacities. Also, I hate summer colds. Hate them.

In my previous post I promised sex, a blowjob, and homemade pesto. What I did not mentioned was that I had only one of these three things.Jefferson makes fucking awesome pesto.

May is going to demo bottom at the upcoming Floating World for Jefferson’s class entitled “G and P-Spot stimulation.” May and I share almost no intersections in our lists of Things We Will Not Do. Occasionally this fascinates me.

An email floated about. It suggested getting to know one another. The Biblical sense here is accurate.

May and Jefferson had dinner one Sunday a few weeks ago. Thursday evening was to have a more complete agenda. I considered myself tacitly invited.

Jefferson is sweet, enigmatic, and, I suspect, top of his charm school’s class. He is also, as I mentioned previously, a great cook and a very good host. We chatted art, the scene, and sexual degrees of separation. (Apparently May is now six degrees removed from Elvis.)

Eventually, after a bit of wine and sundry, Jefferson proposed the business at hand. Again, very charmingly. “I’ll give the two of you a minute,” he said politely before heading back to toward the bedroom. May and I looked at each other with vague suprise – Why would we need that? I was thinking – and followed him.

(In retrospect this impulse, which Jefferson repeated throughout the evening, makes a lot of sense. Most couples do not communicate non-verbally with our alacrity.)

I like the way Jefferson put his hands on May’s skin. (This is the number one thing I watch when I’m observing scenes, by the way. The intersection of the top’s hands and the bottom’s body.) I like that he was forceful and patient when he had May’s hair gathered up in his fist and the boy was gagging on his cock.

What I will remember most clearly from that night is the image of May’s back curled in a perfect arch as he leaned over and took Jefferson’s cock so deeply that his nose touched skin, while Jefferson leaned to his bedside table, picked up his glass of bourbon and sipped it, one hand on my boy’s head.

Eventually May came up, resting his forehead on the bed and breathing deep. His nose has been stuffed for a week; that couldn’t have helped. He giggled a little into the bedspread. “It’s easier than bottles.”

Jefferson looked mystified, but I started laughing. “I taught him to deep throat on Corona bottles.”

I was a contented observer. Briefly I came to the bed and kissed my boy’s skin and face, a simple check in. I watched the two of them fuck. I smiled at the visuals. Someday I should explore why watching boys fucking makes me smile, because it does. There’s attraction built in there, and visual sensuality is inevitable, but in the end much of that reaction is strangely indulgent happiness. I suspect this is rooted in affection.

The boys ended up in the shower. I ended up back on the couch. I poured a glass of bourbon, dumped a handful of raspberries in the bottom, and curled up to read Lolita until the boys tripped into the living room, naked, still dripping in places. The conversation picked up where it had left off with amusing ease.

Jefferson was momentarily absent when I leaned in to May and kissed his cheek. “Your deep throating has gotten a lot better.”

He touched a spot about halfway down the side of his throat. “I could feel his penis pressing here.”

“How did it feel having sex with a man for the first time?”

He shrugged a bit. “It didn’t feel any different than when you fuck me.” There was a bit of wonder in his voice at this.

As I mentioned in our last episode, Jefferson and I did, eventually, kiss. He also did, eventually, work his finger under the fabric of my boycut panties. I believe I grinned a lot. We did, eventually, cuddle. But then, just when you thought that maybe I was going to have some delicious sexual romp and then write about it for ya’ll to thoroughly enjoy . . .

Jefferson fell asleep. I think the boy and the bourbon wore him out.

It was pushing 2 am, rapidly abandoning everyone’s bedtimes, and the evening came to a perfectly timed close. On the whole it was delightful. In the elevator on the way down to the street I pressed May up against the wall and kissed him. “Is it weird that, well . . .” with another kiss, “Is it weird that that made me love you more?”

He tilted his head in recognition. “No,” he answered. “It did the same to me.”

Labels: Filed in Bisexuality, Date Stories, Friends, Maymay | Comments (6)

Eureka!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

I have a theory. Newly discovered. It’s a bit revolutionary, I know, but I think that if you stop and contemplate it with me, just for a little while, you will agree that it is an obvious, necessary endpoint of our biological and cultural origins. Here’s my theory:

All men are bisexual.

Women are the natural aggressor in sexual activity. We’re dominant, horny, think about sex four times a minute. Biology endows us with the ability to devour our partners. (Vagina dentata, no?) Culture confirms and validates us. Men, in their passive roles, devote themselves to attracting us. Seducing us. Worshipping us. Deep seated instinct demands our dominance as a gender. (You know, don’t you, that gender equals power?)

And as sexual aggressors, women are always wanting more. Two mouths on my body are better than one. Four hands on my skin are better than two. We’re devoted to the conquest, the chase, the sating of our pleasure in the most extravagant ways through the mouths and bodies and cocks of our willing prey.

And men are willing. Everything men do, you see, is designed to attract women. As the passive partners in the sexual act they choose to seduce us by making themselves increasingly attractive, offering us everything we desire.

Women live for sexual conquest; as many men as possible, as many possible ways. Devotion to a single partner is laughable for us, unnecessary. We’re independent, self-fulfilled. We support men. Their devotion is unquestioned, and complete.

Any man who tells a woman he’s bisexual is hoping to pick that woman up. We know, of course, that men only say they’re bisexual to get more women. The male-to-male attraction is a pale comparison to the passion and devotion that men feel for women. (Don’t give me this piffle on the definition of “bisexual.” Men love the pussy above all.)

Any man who tells a woman he’s bisexual is offering a threesome with another man. He won’t be particularly picky on who the other man is, because they’ll both be too busy devoting themselves to the woman’s pleasure. His best friend? Sure! His twin brother? Brilliant! Friendships be damned, incest is a lark, as long as the lady’s happy in the end.

Following logically from the above point, all bisexual men are also polyamorous or dedicated to open relationships. Or if not, then they’re just sluts. (And since all men are bisexual, all men are also sluts. Logical, no?)

Gay men are all secretly bisexual, just waiting for the right woman to take them in hand and show them the glory of pussy. We all just love wanking off to the thought of gay men. So sexy! Look at all the pretty men just waiting to be shown the light; they’re like pussy virgins! And god, do we love virgins.

Any man who insists that he’s straight is just shy.

And then, when it comes to sex everybody likes pretty things. Men are by far the more beautiful gender. Just look at all the pretty, pretty, pretty men. So it makes sense that men should be attracted to themselves in a purely sexual sense. It’s a matter of aesthetics.

But of course in the end all bisexual men will eventually choose long term female partners, because although men are pretty, there’s just no denyin’ that women make more valuble partners. We’re the independent ones, after all, earning a living, guiding sexual encounters, making decisions. A man couldn’t function without a woman around to support him. Eventually all bisexual men outgrown their attractions to other men and prefer to devote themselves to a single woman. Only then can they truly be happy, or experience love.

I haven’t thought, really, about women who like other women. I don’t think women can be bisexual, actually. I mean, it seems strange that a woman who could have her pick of the most attractive partners of either gender would choose to sleep with women. Didn’t we just get through saying that men more attractive? And fit logically into the necessary power structure that women deserve in their sexual encounters?

But I guess that women who like other women might secretly think of themselves as men. Then they’d only want women. So I guess all bisexual women are secretly gay. Or degenerates. I don’t really care. I’m not one of those.

As long as men can come out and just embrace that they’re all secretly bisexual, I’ll be a happy girl.

And if you have the contact information for the leaders of any overpopulated, impoverished countries, could you send it along to me? I have a killer recipe for roast baby rump in lemon herb sauce.

You mother fucking assholes.

Labels: Filed in Bad Logic, Bisexuality, Humor, Men, Stupidity, Women | Comments (13)