A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

The Price Of Entry

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Since moving to Sydney, my relationship with the public scene has drastically changed. On the one hand, because the scene I’m finding in Sydney is drastically different to the scene I know in New York. And on the other, because the things I want from the scene are now different than they were six years ago, or one year ago, or six months ago.

Let me break one factor of this change down. Hopefully with some delicacy. I want to talk about money.

Even though I should know it by now, it consistently shocks me how expensive it is to be kinky. Money is one way in which much of the public scene is privileged; there is literally a bar to entry open to a selected few. (Not to mention all the other ways in which much of the scene caters to a particular privilege: age, time, location, race, gender, orientation, able-bodied, to name a few. With a nexus of overlying, unspoken requirements, it’s no wonder the public scene is comparatively tiny.)

Now, I’ve come to realize that the Australian relationship with money as I currently see it is a little different than I’m used to. Namely, they spend more on their pleasures. It’s not just that Sydney is an expensive city, especially with food prices skyrocketed. NYC is also an expensive city; I’m used to this.

Rather, it seems a regular occurrence for the people I hang out with to drop $100 on alcohol in a single night. A weeknight. On a weekend? An American girl I met the other day told me, in hushed tones, that an Australian guy she knows spent $600 last Saturday, between clubs, cabs, and drinks. We stared at each other with our mouths open. $600 is my rent for a month.

So it doesn’t seem like a good enough reason, in this culture, for me to say that something is simply too expensive.

I have spent a lot of money on the weapons and gear of my sexuality of choice. I have spent a lot of money on events like Floating World and Black Rose. Thousands of dollars. Thousands of dollars that I, and others in my economic situation, cannot technically count as disposable income. And as half of a couple who travel together and split our expenses, for every dollar I spend, Maymay spends one too.

If we shall speak very technically, it is not too expensive for me to spend $40 to go to a play party. I do have $40 in my bank account, and it could potentially go toward such a thing. So let me be a little more honest.

Unfortunately for the good people I’ve met here in the scene, some of whom host simply gorgeous parties, I have a hard time getting myself out and putting down cash at the door. This, I should clarify, is not through the fault of their parties. This is because, as I mentioned, the things I want from the scene have changed:

Where I used to consider the possibility of pick-up play, I now play only with established partners and long-term friends.

Where I used to feed from the energy in kinky spaces, I now feel awkward and exposed.

Where I used to be willing to manage the social minefield of not knowing anyone on the room, I now feel more comfortable around at least a few people I’m close to.

And where I used to be able to make friends with people solely upon the common ground of shared sexualities, I now find myself unable to do so. This has unfortunately knocked munches off my list, as well as parties.

So the events are not at fault. But the events are no longer right for me. And the Sydney scene appears to be structured in such a way that these kinds of events are the first point of entry.

So when I say that something is too expensive, I am being a little unfair. What I should say is that I’m not, at this point in my life, willing to pay an entry fee in order to be exposed to a number of kinky people with whom I have a slight chance of becoming friends. Because that’s what these parties have become for me; the vapor of a possibility that one of the other attendees might be someone I want to make friends with.

In the end, having complementary sexualities has almost no value for me in forging new friendships. It comes below a laundry list of other factors that must first align: our humor, our interests, our intellectual inquiries, our attitudes toward society and life and ourselves.

Complementary sexualities become a real factor in maintaining a relationship once sex itself becomes a factor of that relationship. To say that I am more likely to find friends among the kinky is similar to saying that if I were hetero, I would be more likely to find friends among men. Largely illogical, consistently untrue.

I have been reassessing the return on my investments, so to speak. Unfortunately, if I go to a play party that does not yield me any kind of good feeling, friendship, or conversation, I don’t just shrug it off. I get upset at myself, a little depressed. And where I get a little upset, Maymay becomes angrily vicious and bitter. It is not uncommon for us to leave play parties that are unsuccessful (by our standards), go home, fight, and end up miserable and crying. So in many ways, an entry fee is not just an entry fee; it’s a gamble.

And as what I’m looking for diverges further and further from what play parties are designed to deliver, the gamble becomes increasingly bad.

10. Vanilla

Sunday, June 15, 2008

There are a few things I never mentioned about the discussion I had with my family member last year. At the time they were too irrelevant, or too personal. But one of them’s popped up under my skin in the last few days, like a little irritating blood blister.

They said:

The way you use the word “vanilla” in your blog is bigoted.

At the time I thought, Bigoted? Really? That seems like a harsh choice of vocabulary.

But as you may recall, I did not choose to rise up in righteous indignation after being censored by scallywags. I chose to take on some of the responsibility for what had happened, because I wasn’t defining my language or giving context for my actions.

When I got home that week I searched my entire blog for every time I’d used the word “vanilla.” Not counting the two vanilla gentlemen on my blogroll, it came up about fifteen times. Of those instances, one was a poetic comparison of May’s bum to the silkiness of vanilla ice cream. The majority were times in which I used the word to mean “not-kinky.” One was a bit of an arrogant statement about stupid, male, vanilla movie producers. I figured that the last instance was fair; I was being a bit of a snarky brat in that entry. Which, by the way, is an entry you’ll no longer find here. It’s one of the two that did not survive my great blogging purge and password initiative. The other one was about my mother.

But really, it’s all those tricky “not-kinky” instances that are the sinkholes.

I would argue that saying my use of the word “vanilla” here is bigoted is, frankly, absurd. To be bigoted means essentially to be intolerant of identities which are not my own. I work very hard to be tolerant, because that’s one of the best ways I know to gain tolerance for myself. I have spoken before about sneaky selfish motivations.

Currently the blogosphere has vanilla on the brain. Renegade Evolution has taken on the idea of vanilla privilege, while Trinity over at The Strangest Alchemy has opened up her blog for a discussion on the definition of this very tricky idea.

Also, closer to home and all of a sudden, I have some new readers. (Hello, ladies.) And from their conversations with me, their blogs, and their attitudes, I get the feeling that vanilla just isn’t cool these days, much in the same way Maja once used “het,” hilariously, as a neo-semi-pejorative. That seems a bit unfair to me. Vanilla is unfortunately conflated with sex-negativity in a way that is simply not true.

I was asked several times in my ACON group to define what kinky sex is. I found myself at a bit of a loss. I have spent so long just being kinky that to start defining what kinky means for a broader audience is insanely difficult. Like many other words that must be personally defined before becoming useful, I can only really speak about what kinky means to me.

For me, to be kinky is to enjoy sex or enjoy things I consider to be sexual while maintaining a deliberate power imbalance.

And going from there, to have vanilla sex, as I have had many times in the past, is to enjoy sex or enjoy sexual things without such a deliberate imbalance.

And yes, I know, that is a simply enormous definition. It’s also, you may notice, a definition that relies heavily upon intention and thought, mental perspectives rather than weapons and gear. It’s not what I do, it’s how I do it. That means that a lot of my kinky sex can look very, very vanilla. But it works for me. Maybe it works for you. If it doesn’t, I invite you to redefine.

I think there is such a thing as vanilla privilege, but it’s hard to pin down where my ability to access that privilege begins and ends. Similar to my access to straight privilege, I can pass as vanilla sometimes. Although curiously, it is much easier for me to pass as straight than it is for me to pass as vanilla. May and I still get funny glances when we walk down the street, my hand on his collar and his head bowed, that little-boy grin on his face, that lazy toppish look on mine. People do stare at us in restaurants. They do think we’re strange at parties. But it works, because we are essentially considered eccentric rather than threatening. I think it’s because we look straight.

And there is also a low level of bigotry in some corners of the kink community, as there seem to be in all communities. My new blog readers will probably run into that, unfortunately. Hell knows I have. I just wrote that the clothing I think is sexy looks vanilla. I have been called a vanilla tourist a few times. I have even been asked, by a very large man at the door to Paddles, if I was lost. I wanted to laugh at him. No, I responded, I am definitely not lost.

Attitudes like that are why I try to go places with people, when they’re new. They’re why I still appreciate having people to go with. That reaction is why having a group of kinky friends is an infinitely valuable advantage when trying to find one’s place in a kinky community.

And attitudes like that are why I also have vanilla friendships. Screw this secret-exciting-sex-club mentality. Really, my sex looks spicy from an outside perspective, but it’s just a way of having sex. Vanilla’s just another way of having sex. I’m wired one way. Someone else is wired another. It all works out, in the end.

The Thing About Tiggers

Saturday, January 5, 2008

The events of the past six weeks (damn, six weeks already) have put me off the Internet. I have commented scarcely, posted rarely, abandoned my Scrabble games in lonely binary heaps. Curiously, in this age there is actually such a thing as an electronic hermit.

But, all things pass.

I’ve recently started reading Axe’s blog, ever since I got a few chances to chat with him in person. Axe is a sweet, smart submissive guy here in New York, who writes primarily about his search for a relationship with a dominant woman. I get the impression that his search has morphed into something of an epic quest at this point, spanning several years and causing him to move from the midwest to New York City.

As is often the case for those of us with experientially based learning styles, for me recognizing a thing is not the same as knowing a thing. As such, I often come to long foregone conclusions in my own way, and in my own time. Getting to know Axe has really driven some issues home for me, issues that Maymay and others have been writing about for ages.

Where the hell are all the dominant women? Where are the women like me?

The supposed scarcity of dominant women is bemoaned, condemned, dismissed and mistrusted. And yet, my experiential evidence within the New York scene confirms this scarcity.

And, a less-recognized issue but one that I find personally just as relevant: Where are the other couples in relationships like mine?

I think I’ve remained so persistently blind to this imbalance because addressing this issue demands that I acknowledge exactly how rare I am. I have no real sense of personal rarity in my life; it consistently surprises me that other people are not like me.

Obviously there are multiple issues at work here, which play against one another. The scarcity of dominant women in the scene says many (predominantly negative) things about how scene space welcomes women, and how the dominant sexual orientation is portrayed and understood. The scarcity of femdom/malesub couples speaks to the scarcity of desirable, sane, smart male submissives, which in turn illuminates how the scene marginalizes that brand of sexuality.

Honestly, folks, there’s too much at work here for a single entry, or even a single blog. Here’s my suggestion: for more insight on how scene space “welcomes” dominant women, I refer you to the brilliant, bitter Bitchy Jones. For more insight on how submissive men are marginalized, see Maymay’s entire blog.

Just right now, just here, I want to talk about what the scarcity of dominant women means to me, as a dominant woman in the public scene.

Axe writes not once but twice that Maymay and I are the only femdom/malesub couple he knows. This confirms my experience; we are the only femdom/malesub couple I know as well. The rare dominant women I do know in passing are usually dating dominant men.

I intend to keep my data on a meatspace level during this entry. Yes, I know other dominant women online who are like me. We make similar choices about our identities and maintain similar relationships. And I have online friendships. But, for me, they’re not the same.

The part of my brain that thinks the world should make sense finds it strange that Axe has not met an appropriate dominant woman. He’s a polite, sane, well spoken submissive man: an attractive rarity. He’s good looking, has great kinks, and a charismatic ‘nilla personality.

But it is ranging on impossible for him to find a partner.

I’ve had three long-term relationships with submissive men, at the age of 24. I’m picky as hell, but I can find partners. On the other side of the coin, I’m the first dominant woman Maymay has dated. Before me, he dated three submissive women.

Believe me, I understand how much the imbalance created by the scarcity of dominant women works in my favor. I see how unfair it is to him when Maymay and I compare our numbers of potential play partners.

I understand how desirable my age, gender and orientation are.

There’s a part of me that deeply distrusts this desirability. After all, it’s not particularly reassuring to know that one is the best choice because one is the only choice.

I suspect we all feel, at times, as though we are unseen. Being a young, sexy, dominant woman gives me privileges in the scene that I don’t earn. I show up, and people give them to me. At the same time, being desired (or respected, in a culture that consistently confuses sexual attraction with respect) because of a particular flux of timing, genetics, and orientation makes me feel like a cardboard cut out.

Of course, from many perspectives I have nothing to complain about. Inherited privilege trumps any kind of card I might play about feeling insecure, or unseen, or unwanted. In a world where rights are gained through suffering, yet again, I have no right.

I wrote after I came back from Floating World that I was wrestling with the difficulties of supporting a fluid culture from a standpoint of relative stasis. This was true then of gender, and it’s true now of power.

I firmly believe that power balances shift, that people are capable of embracing multiple roles and defining themselves as they choose, in as many ways as they choose. In short, I believe in the existence of switches.

Right now, however, I am not a switch. And perhaps because I love fluid people, the overwhelming majority of my friends are switches. Most of remainder of my friends are men who top and women who bottom. Within my circle of friends here in New York, there is not a single dominant woman besides me who does not switch. I know dominant woman as acquaintances, and almost never in couples.

The simple truth of the matter is, I have no friends like me.

Where are the other dominant women? Women my age? Yes, in friendship and the exchange of ideas on related experiences, age does matter.

Women who don’t switch, and are doing their best to incorporate that choice into their lives? In an avidly fluid, changeable culture, and possessing a chameleon-like personality, that choice is sometimes very hard for me to manage.

Women who’re smart, and wise, and local? Where are you? Could we have coffee sometime?

Fin

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

For Christmas this year I was given a Border’s gift card. The thought behind the card was that I would use it to purchase an Australian travel guide. I already have an Australian travel guide. Instead, I went home with the newest PostSecret book, A Lifetime Of Secrets. This remarkable art project asks people to send in anonymous postcards with their secrets on them. I find it enormously touching, and often poignantly sad.

I leafed through the pages of the book on the subway, headed home with Maymay on New Year’s Eve. On the lower right-hand corner of one page, written in blue ink above a snapshot of a couple clapping, were the words I miss when you were just proud of me.

I started sobbing right there on the subway. I had to laugh at myself, I felt so foolish.

I spent eight days visiting family members during the Christmas holidays. I had enormous trouble organizing my thoughts while I was there. Much of my time with my family was nourishing, and content. I enjoyed Christmas. I ate cinnamon rolls and watched my cat pounce on wrapping paper, high on catnip.

I spent some time alone with the family member I shared that painful conversation with back at Thanksgiving. Seeing them was both relieving and difficult.

We did not have the beautiful, moving conversation one might have thought we’d have. I was not expecting us to. There’s a part of me that is amazed we talked at all. We sat in a crowded lunchroom over chili and hot chocolate, and built a small, sparse bridge of words.

“I’ve put passwords on my blog,” I offered, uncomfortably.

“That’s good, I suppose,” they answered. “I know you’ve been writing, but I haven’t read it.”

I wasn’t sure what to think of that. I turned a spoonful of chili over, contemplating. Eventually I answered. “You don’t have to read what I write, you know.”

“I know that,” they said. “But I’m always going to want to read what you write. You’re a part of me, what you do is going to last.” They paused a moment. “Your dust is going to be my dust too.”

I smiled at that.

“It was very painful for me, saying those things to you,” they said.

I teared up a little. “I know it was. I wrote about that.”

“This isn’t a good place to talk about it,” they said.

“I know,” I answered.

Later we drove home together. I watched the trees meld together in blurred shapes as we passed.

I drew a helpless gesture in the air with my hands. “I don’t know if you want to talk about . . . all this, if you want to learn about it or have me explain things to you.”

“I don’t think . . . I’m never going to think that violence is okay,” they answered. “I told you what I think, and I know you’ll do what you want.” They paused, staring at the road ahead. “I’m trying to let you go,” they said.

I thought about that for a little while.

Finally they spoke again. “Is there anything you really want to say?”

I turned the question over in my head. Was there anything I really wanted to say to them? About violence, or kink, or being an adult? About decision making, about work and energy and dedication? About criticism, constructive or otherwise? About Maymay, about how much I love him and how good he is for me?

I’m trying to let you go.

“I really think you could have handled the situation better,” I said at last.

“Maybe,” they answered.

We drove on, for a little while, in silence. Eventually I fell asleep with my cheek on the window.

Is that it?

I don’t know.

I think I’ll always disappoint my family in ways, and there will always be things we just don’t talk about. I think I will always live, as I have always lived, with this undercurrent of criticism and distance, and love.

I think I’ll relish the day I can see in the distance, the day I make decisions without my family.

I think that right now, just in this moment, that’s okay. I think that it will still hurt. I will cry on subway cars sometimes, and then occasionally, and then, hopefully, not at all.

Like I have been every other time my life was broken, in the end I will be okay.

Have I brought this painful span of words and weeks to an end?

Perhaps I have. I don’t know.

I do know that for the first time in weeks, I want to write again.

Protected: It’s Not All Blood And Games Any More

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Protected: When It Rains

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Out

Monday, December 10, 2007

Now that I was dealing more solidly with the reality that life can go on after heartache, I started chipping away at the second issue I had outlined that night at Burgers and Cupcakes.

I would hate to imply that I have everything all figured out. I don’t. A lot of questions have been raised about exactly how we can use language appropriately and apply context to our actions, and honestly, I don’t have any answers. This experience has not been so revelatory. I have ideas, of course. I suppose you should expect nothing less.

But first, I want to talk about being out.

By “out” I mean openly claiming my sexual orientation. (I realize that “out” doesn’t always apply to sexual orientations, but for the moment we’ll operate under a narrower definition.) It’s such a tricky word, and in my opinion misleading.

It’s clear that this isn’t a binary situation. “Out” implies an open or shut door, but from personal experience most of us realize that such simplifications are hardly helpful when dealing with real life.

So we could try placing “in” and “out” at the ends of a 1 to 10 scale, and shuffling ourselves into places along that scale. But then, that becomes quickly bogged down. How out is out? Am I completely in if I deny my interest in kink even to myself? Or am I completely in if I think about being kinky, but never tell anyone? Am I completely out if I write under a fake name? A real name? Am I completely out if I get a video camera and start streaming every minute of my life to the world?

Like power, like gender, being out is far too complicated to shuffle into numbers.

I’ve said before that I’m out. Among my friends here in the city, I am probably more out than most. What does that mean?

It means that if someone asks me where I’m going if I’m headed to a CV meeting, I’ll tell the truth. But depending on who I’m speaking to, I might filter that truth, leaving details unsaid. If someone asks me what I’m sexually interested in, if I think they’re serious and respectful I’ll tell them that I’m kinky. I took a day off work to attend a kinky event. I told my workplace, when asked, that I was attending a conference on sexual education. How out does that make me, such a devious half-truth?

I said in my first post on being attacked that I felt blindsided. In all honesty, one of the reasons I felt blindsided is because I told my family I was kinky three years ago. At least, I thought I had. Maybe they missed the memo.

More likely is that the casual conversation I had three years ago is a level of “out” that doesn’t compare to the revelations this blog contains.

The main reason I’m more out than the majority of my friends is because of this blog, and Maymay’s blog. Now, Eileen and Maymay are not our real names. However, we’ve shared personal details, plans and agendas, our voices and even photos of ourselves. Anyone who knows me personally could connect me with this blog through independent observation.

When I started writing here, similar to when I started playing in the scene, I did think about what being out would mean for me. At the time, I decided that I wanted to be able to write freely and speak my mind; I decided that this was more important to me than the threat of a future bogey-boss-man come to take my job away.

I did not direct my family to this blog, nor did I hide it from them specifically. As I mentioned, I did not assume that if they were reading they would react explosively. But I assumed a certain amount of context and experience in my writing, and the results of that assumption were indeed explosive.

My immediate reaction was to take the blog down and rethink exactly how “out” I wanted to be. Of course, as I began rethinking, I realized a very simple truth.

I’ve written here, with personal details and specifics, for nine months. The things I’ve said will probably be attached to me forever. I’ve marched in two Pride parades here in the city. That means that there are photos of me taken by spectators that I have no control over. I have gone and will continue to go to kinky events. I have no method of controlling the information that I am kinky.

The truth is that once out, there’s no going back in.

If I’m attempting to keep a portion of my life anonymous, I face attacks from two well-established fronts. The first is from employers and authorities. The second is from family and friends. These are the people most likely to take an interest in my writing without sharing my knowledge, interest, or arousal in my topics.

Each of us when writing online faces the two sides of the coin: Could someone, starting with my online identity, discover my real name? And could someone, starting with my real name, discover my online identity?

In my case, the answers were yes and yes. Now, the answers are maybe and maybe, but frankly, maybe is the same as yes.

I had not expected attacks from my family or friends. Now that I’ve been attacked, I’m living through it. I’ll keep on living.

I also do not expect attacks from my employers or other authorities. I realize I may be wrong about this. I realize that someday I may be fired from a job I love because of this blog. But I’ve come to the same conclusion I came to the day I started here: that’s okay.

I honestly believe that being able to write what I want about my life and my sexuality is more important to me than the possibility that I may never teach children. I may never become powerful within a large company. I will definitely never run for public office.

A part of this is the knowledge that I’m planning a career which will probably not involve people snooping around to try and reveal something scandalous about me, or that if they do, I can always pray the scandal will help my book sales.

A part of it is the belief, the naive, wide-eyed, furious, childish insistence that my life is my own, my body is my own, and I should always be able to speak my mind.

I can only be hurt by the words I write if those words represent a secret that is for some reason damaging. In many ways, being out protects me. Being unashamed, vocal and revealing can only limit the weapons available against me.

I suspect that some of the essential properties of the Internet are misunderstood. The Internet is not an anonymous playground. The Internet, in fact, is a wealth of identifying information, meticulously cataloged and stored. Even with safeguards and careful planning, all it will take to find out your real identity is someone with better technical skills and more resources than you. It is incredibly hard to disconnect your name from your words.

If keeping your sexuality a secret is essential to a portion of your life, using the Internet to express yourself is a deceptively weak method of practicing information security. Even under a false name, even when writing from a false perspective, there is always the possibility that your words will reconnect with you at an inopportune time. It seems to me that if you absolutely cannot handle the consequences of a specific person reading something you’ve written, you should not be posting online.

On the other hand, we must recognize how blogging and content-production is changing our lives. The Internet is creating undeniable links between our personal and public persona. Again, I hesitate to cite generational influences, but it’s a safe estimate to say that nine out of every ten people I know in my age group keep a blog or maintain an online page. Online footprints are becoming crucial elements in our interpersonal relationships.

As these trends develop, the people responsible for hiring new employees in companies will be forced to change their methods. Eventually the people hiring will be keeping blogs themselves. The economy will have to adapt to a generation of people who share their private lives as a matter of course. Our culture will have to adapt to different methods of sharing information and different expectations in communication.

As I thought about this, I started talking to people about being out. In particular, I spoke with Susan Wright, who can take credit for planting many of the seeds of these ideas in my mind. I began formulating my defenses and tapping the resources and good people of my community.

As I did this, I also realized that I don’t want to go back in.

Although I wince at the cloying humanitarianism, I have to admit that I’m not just out because being out protects me. Nor am I writing this only because the writing has a cathartic benefit. I’m out, and I’m writing, because I recognize that being out, and writing, helps people.

This community supported me from the beginning and can claim a huge portion of the credit for beginning to heal me now. What would I have done without it? Where would I be? Where would any of us be? Probably locked in our bedrooms trying to convince ourselves that we’re not mentally ill.

I wrote once that we should talk about our dark desires and fantasies because not talking about them is the more dangerous alternative. Keeping our thoughts hidden allows us no way to critique our ideas or examine ourselves. Nor does it allow a space for us to learn from others. Our community survives and supports itself only through our individual willingness to keep on talking.

As misty-eyed as the declaration is, this community is valuable to me. I will keep on talking.

Does it mean the blog will go back up completely? No. Although I recognize that I am out, and I will continue to be so, I still intend to edit my blog entires for personal details. I see no reason to throw myself off the cliff simply to see if I survive the fall.

I definitely intend to take my family out of my blog entirely, as they never consented to being written about on a kinky blog, even if they did raise a kinky child.

It would be easy to say that’s that and close the matter, but we all know it’s not so simple. This is a complex resolution, and still tinged through with vulnerability.

I gave a lot to this forum, and I ended up very, very hurt. As valuable as I recognize the giving to be, I’m still not ready to be hurt again.

Graduate Level

Friday, December 7, 2007

So. I had been presented with two problems which, although intimately linked, I chose to deal with separately. These problems mirror consistent, resonant issues in alternative sexual communities of all kinds.

The first problem: Someone I love thought (thinks?) I’m immoral and sick, based upon what they’ve read and seen here in this blog.

The second problem: There is a possibility that my public words and actions will negatively affect my life, career, or personal safety.

Well, first things first.

I want to talk about why people attack us.

One of the comments on my previous post cited a religious irony. True, religious groups often attack alternative sexualities.

However, in my case this is not relevant. We are not a religious family. Perhaps because of this, perhaps because of other influences, my family member and I actually have similar attitudes on sex. The crux of our issues, it seems, focused specifically around the themes of pain, violence, and consent.

I knew I was not being attacked out of hatred. I knew, intellectually and viscerally, that I was embroiled in a troubled but loving relationship.

With the blog still down, I started pouring over the old entries. What does this look like to my family? I kept thinking. I started identifying problems.

My blog details my experiences with kink, and I’m aware that my experiences with kink are not par of the course for my age group. My blog relates episodes that evidence my preference to play hard and my skill in doing so.

I had a good conversation with Maja while I was going over these ideas. “I mean, yea,” she said, “Your blog’s pretty intense.”

“401 class?” I replied snarkily. “I have a graduate level kink blog?”

She laughed. “Right.”

When presented with the idea of abandoning kink, I said that it would never be an option. Why not? I literally dismissed the idea that I could give up being kinky without a second thought.

Would I have done that when I was just starting out? Where did that security come from?

An easy question. That security comes from six years of BDSM experience.

Six years of experience means that I’m writing from an assured, educated, well-rounded perspective. But it also means that I’m writing contextually from within that experience. This works perfectly if I assume that I have a sympathetic audience; the things I say are based within a common framework that kinky people share.

This means that the words I use have subtext. The events I write about have unseen protections. The ideas I present have history, and complex ramifications that I don’t always address.

As critical as I am of communicating without establishing appropriate subtexts, I have to admit I am a little ashamed of myself.

I know it would make a pretty story for me to come out and say I’ve risen above oppression by rejecting those who falsely accuse me, all in a blaze of righteousness and glory. But you know what? I won’t.

I do not think I was falsely accused. I think that if we’re going to go around assigning blame in this particular situation, some of it belongs to me.

We all use words without establishing their subtext, and it works for us because we’re familiar with the community that gives us cultural context. My blog exists within a vast network of other blogs and sites that speak on similar topics. My personal life plays out around hundreds of other people with similar ideas and interests.

Additionally, we assume that our blogs will be read by a self-selecting audience. Either this audience will have a genuine interest in our topics, or a genuine interest in us. Unfortunately, these two types of audience members don’t always intersect; our blogs are read by people who have no understanding of or sympathy with our topics, but who will continue reading (or censoring, or attacking) because they’ve taken an interest in us, personally. Family, friends, employers.

Most of us approach the process of information exchange from a modern, web-based perspective. Information is no longer presented to us in complete, self-sufficient volumes. Rather, we exchange information in small packets which link dynamically to other packets, creating the context upon which our ideas rest.

I hesitate to cite a generational influence here; I realize that I’m young within my own community. But it seems fair to say that where I see dynamic linking and packet exchange, my family member may see a single, isolated volume.

You, the people who read my blog, are under no obligation to read other blogs, nor to educate yourselves upon the history, issues, or best practices of BDSM. I think we have to acknowledge that dynamic, self-driven education will not always occur naturally, and is much less likely to occur when the reader is taking a personal interest in us, rather than in our topics.

This means that the people most in need of establishing a cultural context before judging us personally are, in fact, the people least likely to do so.

My family member read accounts of sadism and saw pictures of blood, and came to the same conclusions I might come to if presented with such things independently. Independently, some of the things we do and say are scary as hell.

It seemed, as I had suspected, that my initial impulse would become my plan of action.

Initially my instinct was that I would continue writing, do some hard thinking on what I say and how I say it, and in the meantime try to open a dialogue with my family member that might allow them to put my 401 graduate level blog within a framework of elementary knowledge.

I would prove myself sane, not by backing down or changing myself, but by changing the way I present myself.

This is an easy resolution to make, but hard to carry through. I couldn’t bring myself to make such an awkward phone call. I began writing a very long, very passionate letter. I asked people around me to recommend books and resources, and debated how to send them. With a little note? With my letter? Briefly I flirted with the idea of giving the books as Christmas gifts, but rejected that as cruel and melodramatic.

Why did I (do I) assume that my family member would want to be educated? Doesn’t that seem presumptuous?

When I started writing and exploring my sexuality, I did very little to hide my interests or activities from my family. I saw my actions, my development and beliefs, and took pride in them. I assumed that my family, similar in their basic principles and sharing my inquiring mind, would come to the same conclusions.

This assumption turned out to be wrong, with shattering results. I forgot that one crucial piece of the equation: that the assumption was based on information we didn’t share.

But the inquiring minds remain. I have faith in inquiring minds.

I had begun to examine the situation within the baseline of a loving, troubled relationship. Again, it came to my rescue.

They emailed me, a single line: “I love you.” The lines of communication were open.

Options

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

The morning after this very devastating conversation, I woke up early, drove to the bus station, and started back towards New York. As I was leaving the house the family member who I believed had attacked me the day before gave me a tight hug. “Remember, I still love you, and we’re still going to hug,” they said. I felt numb, and bile rose in my throat.

This is when things started really falling apart. I’m having an incredibly hard time trying to write everything down retrospectively, as it’s now muddled in my head as a conglomeration of ideas rather than a series of events.

On the bus between my home and Boston I took out my laptop and wrote an entry for this blog. I intended to post it as my explanation of why the blog was going down that evening. A piece of it says “I don’t understand how this can hurt so much.” It’s hard to read now; it is far more revealing and far more raw than I now want to be. It was a little miniature catharsis in words.

(Why didn’t I post it that night? Three years ago I would have, in a heartbeat. Perhaps I’ve grown beyond such impulsive gestures. I know I’ve become far more private in my pain. My writing is histrionic and melodramatic when I’m hurting, and somewhere along the line I kept enough sense to know that.)

I cried the entire way to Boston, and even banged my head against the window of the bus for a few long moments.

From Boston to New York I slept.

Coming over the bridge into the island of Manhattan I have never felt more grateful to be coming home. I was dull and very, very tired. And yet, I’d woken up. I had settled back into almost rational thinking.

What do I do? What are my options and where do I go from here? Why did they do this to me?

If a person attacks some part of myself that I hold dear, what should I do? Do I want to keep writing? What does being out mean to me?

My family is incredibly dear to me. And yet, consistently, my wounds trace back to them. Usually I understand this, usually I forgive it as the inevitable push and pull of strong-willed people who love each other.

But this? This was wrongful, this was unnecessary and stupid.

I was suddenly, passionately angry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell and hurt and wound and accuse. I wanted to disappear forever and never speak to them again, to punish them for hurting me.

When I got to the bus stop I sank down by the wall near the door and silently fumed. After 20 minutes May walked in the door. As he pulled me in his arms I burst into violent tears.

“I’m supposed to have coffee with Blaise,” he said, once I stopped crying and kissed him. “You should come. Is that okay?”

I nodded. When Blaise came down the street to meet us, all silver boots and that bright, quirky smile, he pulled me into a hug and I started crying all over again. This was becoming a theme.

I explained. We hugged more. We picked up my bags and went to Burgers & Cupcakes on 9th avenue. “I need cupcakes,” I declared.

After a little while of watching May and Blaise talk, ordering food, and pawing through the bags I brought for gifts, I interrupted. “Can we talk about this thing with me?”

“Yea, of course,” May answered. Blaise nodded. “I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about it.”

I shook my head. “I definitely want to talk about it.” I stopped for a moment to eat some cupcake and gather my thoughts.

“Okay, these are my options,” I said, surprised that I even had options. When did I come up with options? “Option one,” I continued. “I give up being kinky, and therefore stop writing about being kinky.”

Blaise gave me an incredulous look and burst out laughing. “Why is that even on the list of options?”

I laughed for the first time in two days. “For the sake of completeness, since they think it’s an option,” I answered.

“But not really,” he stated.

I shook my head and made a motion to brush the idea away. “Obviously, not really.”

“Okay, good,” he answered, still smiling at me.

“Option two is that I continue to be kinky in my private life and stop writing about it publicly. Option three is that I continue to be kinky in my private life, and I continue to write about it publicly. And then, if I take option three, I can either choose to try and explain myself to my family, or to cut off communication with them.”

My throat started closing up again at the end of this list. Blaise looked at me thoughtfully. “Could that really happen? You could potentially just never talk about this with them again, move your blog and pretend it never happened?”

I nodded slowly. “That’s totally possible. In fact, that’s probably what they’d like to have happen.” I turned this option over in my head, and realized how exhausted I am with things that go unsaid.

“There are two separate problems here,” I said. “The first is how to teach them that I’m not the things they say I am, so that we can actually have an okay relationship.”

Sick, immoral, addicted.

I continued. “The second is to address the problem of whether or not I want to be out, whether being out will affect me negatively, how that might happen, and what I can do about it.”

A wry thought crossed my mind. I guess I’m learning negative affects the hard way.

And then, More important than what I’m going to do is why I’m going to do it.

That night when I got home I changed every entry in my blog to “Private.” I posted a cryptic, painful note, essentially uncertain of what I wanted to reveal. I wanted to say that I was in hiding, and I was in pain. In retrospect, I wanted help.

I curled up on our bed and pressed my back into May’s body, and thought how tired I was of being in tears. Can one be with tears, as one is with child? I felt pregnant with tears, full up with them, the subject of an inexhaustible pressure of sadness.

Pressured, angry, and shredded.

Live And Let Die

Thursday, November 1, 2007

It’s been a bad week. A lot of real-life people have been telling me what to do in ways I don’t appreciate, and that gets me edgy. And then, I’ve become short-tempered with a large portion of the folly of the kinky Internet. People keep dictating, making snide remarks, giving orders. Breaking the rule of no imposition. The Golden Rule, for you Heinlein fans.

This drives me mad. Mad, I tell you. It makes me want to do silly things, like stab my screen with a pen.

There is a common bad habit of dismissing people’s opinions precisely because they are specified as opinions. Apparently our personal opinions are so much dandelion fluff, as though to express an opinion is to express a weakness, an imaginary concoction lacking rhyme, reason, logic and fact.

And yet, when it comes to how I should live my life, there is nothing more important than my opinion.

It is my opinion that no one’s sexuality should have to die for mine to live, and vice versa.

It is my opinion that I should live my life the way I see fit, have a space to call my own, and fuck the way I want to fuck.

It is my opinion that you should do the same. Heck, I even think it’s your right to do the same. I’ll stand up and fight for your right to fuck any way you want to, and I hope you realize how essential it is for you to fight for mine.

Give me my space, and I’ll give you yours. Do me this courtesy, and the world might miraculously become a well-mannered place.

Don’t put me in generalized superior or inferior groups. Don’t tell how my partner should address me. Don’t tell me what my orientation is. Don’t invade my autonomy. Don’t touch me without my consent.

We’ve drawn trenches in a battlefield of sexuality. We fight bitterly over a hundred different versions of the One True Way. We go around telling each other what’s wrong with the words we use, that we choose the wrong genders, that strap-ons degrade women and paying a girl for sex in Toronto causes earthquakes in Arizona.

I don’t understand this instinct to destroy spaces rather than making spaces. Is this an artist thing? Is it naivety? I’m guessing a big part of it is willful stubbornness.

Sexuality’s spaces are not a zero-sum game, folks. We can always make more, and we always do. We exist in a naturally occurring and (thanks largely to the Internet) virtually unlimited state of cultural pluralism.

The only ideas I choose to genuinely attack are ideas that invade my space. The day I choose to attack someone or something on any other terms, call me out. I’m begging you, call me on it. Do me that courtesy too.

May has been remarking in the past few days that he doesn’t think people really understood his recent post on Halloween. He’s been accused of being judgmental, trying to pass his opinions off on others. I pointed out to him that his tone implied this, although his words did not. His words said, very simply, that it is sad that there’s only one day a year when people are allowed the freedoms they are allowed on Halloween. We’re so used to having our personal spaces encroached, at this point, that we see attacks where there are none. We take it as a given that everyone’s out to tell everyone else how to live.

Okay, Eileen. Take a deep breath, step away from the keyboard.

There is a very fine line between expressing our opinions and dictating the actions of others. Sometimes I suspect that line is irretrievably blurred. I suspect that many of us no longer know where it is. This, to me, is heart-wrenching.

Writing this entry made me cry.

A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

The Price Of Entry

10. Vanilla

The Thing About Tiggers

Fin

Protected: It’s Not All Blood And Games Any More

Protected: When It Rains

Out

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Live And Let Die

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