Sex and Nachos

One night a few weeks ago I’m sitting on our thin foam mattress bed trying to catch up with my email. When May pushes the front door open he makes all the familiar sounds: his keys clink-clank, his shoes thud on the carpet, he puts his iPod on the front table with a click and hangs his underwear over the arm of the couch. Every night, the same little clatter.

He comes to the bedroom naked and curls up on the matress like a June bug. He starts banging his forehead into my thigh.

“Yes, may I help you?” I say, petting his hair.

“Can we have sex?” he says, all hopeful.

I pet his hair. “No thank you, dear.”

He goes and gets his iPod from the table and wedges his ass tight against my knee as he checks his Twitter feeds. A minute passes.

“Now can we have sex?” he says, in his best little-boy voice, like I have cinnamon rolls hiding under the blankets. Pretty pretty please with a cherry on top?

I finish my email, put my computer on the floor and roll him over, rubbing my face and hair into his. I pitch my voice high and smile while I make fun of him. “ Can we now, can we now, huh? No? Hoooow ‘bout now? No? Now? Now?” And he laughs and hides his face in the pillow. I throw the sheets on the floor, lace my hand through his hair and drag him downward with one hand. With the other hand I awkwardly pull down on the elastic of my cotton boy-cut briefs. They are one of my oddest pairs of underwear; they have bananas printed on them.

He goes in soft with his long tongue, and has just made contact when I start screeching. The long wiry hairs of his beard are brushing in little circles over the sweet-spot skin of my ass. “Augh! It tickles, stop, it tickles!” I writhe back and forth and try not to laugh so hard. “Get off!” I plant a hand on his forehead and he goes back in a jumble on the edge of the bed while I try to start breathing again. When I stop laughing I crook my finger at him.

He comes back firm this time, and that goes well until his beard starts to brush my bum again and I squeeze my eyes shut trying not to laugh. For a little while it works, but soon I can feel the tiny bits of laughing tears start to gather. I’m trying frantically to swat them down with the incoming buzz of juices.

I give up. I pull him up, reach over to the desk drawer, and toss a condom in his face. It hits him on the nose, and that’s too much. I laugh hysterically while he rolls it on. He drizzles lube over his penis with a wrist flick like a dessert chef, and once he’s inside me I stop laughing.

It’s sweet, slow. I have a hand on the small of his back and I can feel the sharp line where his skinny hipbones dig into my inner thighs. My feet flop a little in the air, and then I pull them up to my chest. I push him out so that he has to hold himself up with his arms like a seal, and as I look at the gap between our bodies inspiration strikes.

I scoop the Hitachi from the side of the bed and wriggle it down into that little rounded space. He grins at me. I flip the switch.

Nothing happens. “Shit,” I say. I realize I unplugged the damn thing the night before to charge my cell phone. I pull it out of the way. “Plug that back in?”

He reaches over me, his penis still inside me at an awkward angle that makes me want to giggle again, and feels along the crack of the bed.

“What am I doing?” he says, bewildered.

I try to explain. I paint little pictures with my hands. “Take the thing that is plugged in, unplug it, then take the other thing that is unplugged and plug it in.” It’s perfectly clear in my mind.

He tries again. “Yeeeeaaa,” he says eventually, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I push him off and weave my hand through the bed frame to the plug, make all the right connections and pull him back inside me as I’m turning. I slap his ass and smirk as I flip the switch again. “Let’s get up to speed here, boything!”

The wand comes on. In a few minutes, while he watches and thrusts and sighs, I start screaming low in my throat, because my clit feels like it is under attack from an invading army and has chosen to run in six different directions. I grab the sheet and twist with my free hand, and come in waves that, amazingly, don’t stop. Between our legs things get wetter, and warmer.

The final spasms push his penis backward, and as I lay and quiver-twitch he runs a finger up my side. “Can I go back in?” he says. That same voice from before, a boy begging for sweets.

I put my fist in his hair and tuck him tight into the bend of my shoulder. When he comes he tries to get away, for air. I press his face further into my skin.

Afterward we lay gasping together for a little while. I sit up before I fall asleep, feeling the heat seep out of my body and into the room that is getting colder every second. I poke him; he’s dozing with his mouth open in a little half-moon smile.

“I like having sex with you,” he says.

“I like having sex with you too,” I answer.

“Damn,” he says as he sits up. “I’m starving. How long did that sex take us?” I pull my cell phone from the dresser and flash him the screen. Two hours. “Damn,” he says again.

He goes to the kitchen and makes a plate of nachos. When he comes back I’m writing.

“What’re you writing about?” he says with his mouth full.

“Sex,” I say. I steal one of his nachos.

“Are you writing about the sex we just had?”

“Yes. Damn.” The residual nacho grease makes my fingers slip on the keyboard.

“That’s very meta of you,” he smiles. We are very meta people. He gets out his iPod again and rechecks his Twitter feeds. After a little while he turns back to me.

“I like having sex with you.”

I smile. “You mentioned that, my love.”

He pokes at my arm with his finger. “Also,” he says, and his voice goes round and little again. “Also, I like the cryptography script I made today.” He looks at me like a puppy, so I reach over and pet him. His eyes sink gently closed and his eyelashes flutter as he smiles. I lean toward him.

“Silly sexy boything,” I say softly, just before we kiss.

37. Chibi Emo Indignation!

One of the characteristics of my relationship with Maymay that does not generally make the blogging consciousness is that we are adorable. Seriously, we are cuter together than two sugar-crazed five-year-olds on a cotton candy bender. Although in many ways our interactions mimic the kink of age play, our “small spaces” are primarily non-sexual. Instead, they are a sort of relaxation time in our relationships. A resting rate.

But not only are these moments cute, they are a little bit ridiculous. They make us sound insane. We have actually had people cross the street when they hear us coming.

As an example, today Maymay accidently dressed entirely in black, with black Converse sneakers. When he bounded up the stairs to the bar where we met for dinner, I laughed out loud. “Hello, emo boy,” I said when I caught my breath. He stuck out his lip and narrowed his eyes.

Later, as we walked home, he clasped both hands around my arm and tucked his head down on my collarbone as we walked. I nuzzled his hair with my cheekbone. “You are a wiggler,” I said.

“I protest that you are the one who wiggles!” he declared, his voice high pitched and muffled in my shoulder.

I started laughing. That’s the thing about small spaces. They are silly, and odd, but mostly they are gleeful.

“You’re like a tiny chibi emo,” I said to him.

“Chibi emo!’ he chirruped back.

“If you’re a chibi emo, shouldn’t you be crying tiny, adorable tears?”

He shook his head and said forcefully, “Just because I’m a chibi emo doesn’t mean I have to cry all the time!”

I grinned at him. “Oh my! Chibi emo rage!”

He pulled away from me and crossed his arms in a small, exaggerated huff. “You’re mocking my chibiness! How could you do such a thing?”

I started laughing harder. “Chibi emo indignation!”

And he stopped there on the sidewalk, threw back his head, and wrapped his arms around his stomach as he laughed. “That’s it,” he declared. “Chibi-emo-indignation: the cuteness quota has been reached. Officially, if we get any cuter, the world is going to explode.”

I wrapped my palm around his soft, dry fingertips and started walking again. He bumped his shoulder into my side. “I love you,” I said.

“Yay!” he said back. “I love you too.”

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How To Write Porn For Me

For one reason or another, more text-based porn than usual has made it across my radar in the last few weeks. (Thank you for the links, gentlemen, you are very sweet.) And it’s gotten me thinking. (And other things as well.)

 Most pornographic stories are bad; a vast and sweeping generalization, I know, but I’ll let it slide for the moment. However, more often they are not so much bad as they are off target. They make me feel like ringing the author to say “Great effort, but the judges just couldn’t relate to your performance.”

 And it occurs to me that while many, many, many resources exist to enable better writing, not many resources exist that are specifically designed to teach a writer how to target their audience. In fact, I would venture that most of us can’t really manage to write for audiences unlike ourselves, even when we actually try to (and, let’s face it, most of us don’t even try.) Especially regarding this particular subject matter.

And look, I’m not talking about great literature here. I’m talking wank material. Brown paper wrappings. Not safe for work. Porn. Which can still be great literature; the two are not mutually exclusive, although they do entail different perspectives and skills. It’s a bit of an alien experiment for most of us, the writing of porn. I don’t often write it, and you readers never see it when I do.

So, in my half helpful, half rantish mood, I thought I’d give a little Cliff Notes version of how to target porn for an audience I might relate to. Namely, dominant women. (Solipsism? On a blog? Impossible.)

This is how to write porn for me. Not that I expect you to, and not that I’m anticipating that any of you actually will. But many people try, and the success rate is just too low to ignore. So if you’ve ever been curious how to write pornography that a dominant woman would enjoy, here’s my side of the story. (I highly encourage each of you to write your own list for your orientation as well. I’m tempted to meme that suggestion, but I don’t think the world really needs more memes.)

Onward, and leaving aside the obvious things like “write about kinky sex” and “yes, women read porn too” and “yes, male bottoms are sexy” and “yes, as a matter of fact I am queer,” here is the not-so-secret list of hints and tricks. 

1. Get out of my head.
Many of the stories I read are entirely made up of long, complicated inner monologues about arousal and angst and the contemplation of dominance. I give this tactic a great big failing mark in bright red pen. Remember the purpose of the piece. If you’re writing academic prose or fiction, go ahead and explore the psyche of your dominant character. Interesting? Definitely interesting. Sexy? Not sexy. Pornography is not contemplation. Pornography is action.

 One of the questions we keep asking about pornography is how the reader relates to the characters, i.e. what character will I choose to inhabit? As I have mentioned before, I usually resist “inhabiting” dominant characters, because they annoy me. Instead I will eroticise a third-person perspective of a story, or inhabit the character of the submissive in order to better translate their reactions into wankable material. I would rather not have to do this, but inevitably I find dominant women in pornography alienating and annoying, not because they’re behaving stupidly or doing something I don’t relate to, but because they just won’t shut up.

1a, related: Skip my orgasm.
Unless it advances the plot or is necessary to complete the story, you can leave out all of the bits about the shock waves and juiciness the me-character is feeling. Usually when I get to this part I skim over the lines, usually while thinking, “Been there. Done that. Trying to get there again. Don’t need a guidebook.”

2. Focus on the bottom.
Following very obviously from the above points is this; I don’t want the focus of my pornography to be on the character I’m supposed to be inhabiting, but on the character I find attractive. Or, as other women have said before me, omigod hot slaves! Get the view off the dominant and onto the submissive. I want the bottom’s monologue, the bottom’s reactions, the bottom’s screams, the bottom’s emotions. I want to read the side of the story that I find sexy. Shocker: that’s not me.

3. Write my kinks.
Obviously I would love it if every pornographic story I read was about the things I love. Wouldn’t we all? Give me harem slaves, give me cages and heavy metal, whips and chains, tenderness and flinching, slapping and strengths and service. Give me fantasy and living artwork and quirky details. Give me rituals, love, slavery, fear. Give me characters who are joyful, who are confident, genderqueer, beautiful, funny, sexy, smart, skilled. And especially, give me great long strings of language and all of those searing, desperate words I love.

4. Write your kinks.
My kinks aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, and as far as I’m concerned that’s fine. If none of the things I like get you off, then write about something that does get you off. Showcase your specific enthusiasm and passion, and the arousal will translate.

5. Write well.
I know that as you’ve been reading this you’ve been mentally gearing up for my (hopefully witty, you cross your fingers) contribution to the titanic outpouring of hatred against improper grammar, spelling, and punctuation that already floats about online. You can stop bracing yourself; you won’t get it. Two points on this:

Point the first: It’s porn, for fuckssake.
When it’s porn I really don’t care. I will not be brought back from the brink of orgasm by a misplaced apostrophe. (Honestly, if you’re brought back from the brink of orgasm by something so minor, I would suggest that you examine your grammatical hang-ups with a more critical eye.) In literature these things are important. In porn, frankly, not so much. I spoke out strongly against the Kushiel series recently not because they aren’t good pornography (they contain, in fact, some scattered moments of very good pornography) but because they aren’t good literature.

And point the second: Of course I would prefer proper grammar, proper spelling, proper punctuation, but good writing is not the same as these things. I suspect that many potentially good writers (pornographic and otherwise) don’t write because they fear being vilified over these aspects of their craft. And, of course, because on the internet there are no full time copy editors.

When I say “write well,” I mean to present developed characters, engaging scenarios, powerful interactions, and emotional growth. That sounds more complex than I could rightly ask for in pornography, but it’s actually a deceptive set of very simple ideas. A character can grow emotionally by simply moving from pain to acceptance. Our erotic imaginations have scenarios and interactions galore. As I said, pornography is about action. And as for character, which seems to stump so many people, hell, there are characters everywhere. Write slash if you don’t want to make your own. Appropriate your friends. Appropriate people you see on the street or meet in shopping centers. Appropriate your blogroll. I’ve been appropriated in pornography a few times in the past, and it always seems to turn out remarkably well.

And that’s it. It’s not a very long list, being the Cliff Notes version. But as May said last night when I was ranting the baby beginnings of this post at him, “Sex just isn’t that complicated.” And in the end, he’s right.

Now that I’ve written all of this down, I think I might just go write some pornography of my own. Who am I writing for? What’s on your how-to list?

Coochie Snorcher

Did you ever play the penis game when you were growing up? The boys in my high school used to play it in math class, and I remember thinking how weird it was that they’d use a part of themselves as a dirty, funny word.

I will never be a good erotica writer. I get annoyed with the euphemisms, I’m sick of the crashing oceans. I’m fed up with the metaphor, the impossible dance to balance the delicate with the raw. I’ve had terms churning up in my mind for weeks now, full of frustration.

I simply do not like any of the words we have in this language to refer to our genitalia. And you must admit, erotica does generally contain genitalia. It’s the nature of the two-backed beast.

This is what I do with my time. I sit around and try to figure out why I don’t like words.

I’ll start with the obvious. The technical terms, if you will.

Vagina & Penis

The Vagina Monologues really nailed the word “vagina” right on the nose:

“It sounds like an infection at best, maybe a medical instrument: ‘Hurry nurse, bring me the vagina!’”

Seriously, that is one awkward conflux of sounds. The “v” comes humming off the tongue nicely only to be brought up squeaking short by the high-pitched vowels. It’s not a word I’d like to run my tongue over; it actually sounds distasteful. Clinical.

“Penis” isn’t really doing much better. Pee-niss. The onomatopoeia of the word “penis” is not sex; it’s urine. I realize that’s right on the nose for some, but I am not quite happy that one of the most inevitable words in sexual language is screaming piss play in my face. A sterile, yellow fluid for a sterile, yellow word.

Insert and remove the penis from the vagina, ensuring a sufficient amount of lubrication has saturated the area to allow for fluid motion. Repeat until climax.

Yes, that’s definitely how I want to spend my nights.

Our vaginas and penises are pretty much the only body parts we still consistently use euphemisms for. We’ve grown past the tightly buttoned morality of the Victorian era that danced around chicken breasts and table legs, but we’re still in a culture where it’s just not okay to admit to sex out loud. Our sexual organs are swearwords.

And the euphemisms are even worse, which goes against the very definition of what a euphemism is supposed to be.

There are, of course, the obvious choices.

Cock & Pussy

What am I, keeping a farm now?

I really don’t get the word “pussy.” It’s a bit squelchy, in the end. I feel as though this word got picked up to mean “vagina” because no one could think of a better option. I have no ownership of the word. The area between my legs, although hairy and soft, does not seem adequately represented by the word “pussy.” This edges into the nonsensical for me, a combination of baby talk and misplaced modesty.

The word is far more illuminating in its derogatory use: don’t be a pussy. Don’t be a wimp. Don’t be passive. Pussy is a swearword of weakness and impotence. Isn’t that just fantastic; we’ve managed to make the word we use for a women’s genitals simultaneously dirty and weak. I can’t really avoid that when I say the word pussy. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

“Cock” is a word that I’m warily all right with. It sounds arrogant and hard and clever. But it is undeniably a bit blunt for some situations. The language forces my hand, the very rhythm of the word like a loud misplaced drumbeat in a quieter symphony. I ran my fingertips gently along his cock.

It’s like a linguistic game: one of these words is not like the others, one of these words is not like its brothers.

Cunt.

Here’s the thing about the word cunt. I actually like it; that’s right, I like it. Its vulgarity and abruptness make it a natural complement for the word “cock.” They sound nice together, an aggressive shoulder-to-shoulder brawling clash of sounds. Cock. Cunt. They are hard, fast sounds, and they work for hard, fast sex.

Cunt. Cock. Fuck. Cunt. Cock. Fuck. Them’s fighting words. Thrusting words.

But “cunt” is also a political word. It holds multiple spaces in my consciousness; a word of female power, a word of reclamation, the word so dirty I didn’t even know it existed because no one dared to use it. A violent word, a feminist word. It is politically charged in ways that my sex is not.

Also, my sex is not always the thrusting rhythm of cunt-cock-fuck sex. This is the battle between technical and vulgar; no matter what words I choose I cannot escape being one or the other, unless I just want to be funny.

So those are my choices: technical, vulgar, or funny. That’s what sex comes down to.

Really, it’s all downhill from here.

Dick.

Horrible sound. “Dick” has all of the shortness of “cock” but none of the flavor. Also, similar to “johnson,” I really cannot get past the fact that this is a name. I don’t name my vagina. I don’t want to name your penis. It’s not a pet, for fuck’s sake.

Organ. (See also: manhood, member.)

What organ? His liver? Am I having a tender tryst with the man’s kidneys?

These words are like having sex through a hole in a bed sheet; distant and full of deniability. Words of coming of age stories and exclusive clubs that I clearly cannot join. In my head these words ring of the historical distaste that made women out as incomplete men. I have organs aplenty, but not the one that counts. My womanhood is innocuous and outdated, and as for membership, well, you get the picture.

Cooch.

No. Just . . . no. I give up on this one. I have no idea how people can stand to even say this out loud. It feels like sandpaper on my tongue.

From here we devolve into the obscure and the outrageous. I cannot create my own euphemisms to use in my erotic writing, precisely because they would be meaningless. Meaningless words are the least sexy of all; they are simply baby talk. Often reading erotica with made-up words makes me feel as though I’ve stumbled into a game of dirty Mad-Libs.

I get that some of us have moved beyond these hang-ups, although clearly I have not. I can talk about almost everything; I spent the beginning of Friday night regaling a complete stranger with my opinions on dildoes. I can talk about sex. And yet I feel hemmed in by these terms: cock, pussy, cunt, penis. I don’t like how they sit on the page. I don’t like that our sexual organs are weighted with such unsexy language.

I mean, coochie snorcher? What the hell?

Posterius Maymayeus

“I shall write an ode to your bum!” I proclaimed one night. (I was drinking hot toddies; it came out a bit like “Ishil ritanode toyer BUM!”)

May looked at me, an adorable mixture of bemusement and self consciousness. “Uh huh, sweetie. That would be weird, but you write whatever you want. Maybe you should sit down?”

What is there to say about May’s bum?

I call it a bum quite consciously. It has none of the adolescent sniggering of a butt; only a smattering of the gritty sex appeal of an ass. It is rounded, very soft, and exceedingly cute. It is a bum if ever I saw one.

When I first met him, May did not have a bum at all. I remember one of the first nights he spent in my bed. I lifted his bum in the air with two fingers hooked into his pubic bone on either side, and as his legs spread wantonly open I remember his perineum bulging outward, prominently displayed against the flatness of his inner thighs. He was achingly skinny, achingly aroused.

I didn’t think about his bum, then. I had never had a partner with a particularly pert ass, and had yet to understand the appeal.

Of course, as the relationship progressed I began fattening him up. All very subtle, of course. When I met him you could count his ribs with his hands at his sides, and his jawbone was etched in stone. Once his mother, his incredibly Jewish mother, commented on this. I agreed, thusly: “Yes, the boy looks like a Ho- . . . like a famine victim.” Behind her back May and his brother choked on their orange juice to keep from laughing. Hello, my name is Awkward, could I stay a while?

My campaign to put meat on his bones rests mostly with the siren call of the Milky Way bar. Maymay cannot resist this combination of chocolaty, nougaty goodness. He’s very particular; regular Milky Way bars are ideal for munching. Popable Milky Way candies are summarily rejected (wrong chocolate to nougat ratio) while dark chocolate Milky Ways are reserved for special occasions. And king sized? Look out, world.

I hid them in my purse. I slipped them in my pockets and sent him hunting for them. I would ask him in drugstores, “Do you want a Milky Way?” He’d say “Noooo, they’re so bad for me!” and I’d smile, and buy it anyway.

And then one day he slipped on his first pair of tight-fitting jeans, turned in a pert little circle, and there it was. The bum.

May’s body is for the most part skinny, with muscular limbs and a triangular torso. His bum is round, soft, and just a bit on the squishy side. When he lays on his stomach it protrudes like a pillow. I carry my fat in my hips and my thighs; May carries his entirely in his posterior. I am shaped like a pear. He’s shaped like a porn star. Adorable little bastard.

From pictures you may or may not have seen, you might know that May’s skin is about the color of a polar bear in a blizzard. He’s covered in the posterior regions with a fine little coat of very small, very blond hairs. Slap a hand to his ass, fingers spread, and the handprint lingers on. If you do it hard enough, it can stay for hours.

Maymay is also (just a little bit, slightly all the time) anal retentive about personal cleanliness. We won’t talk bathroom habits in this particular entry, but suffice it to say I have never met such a well-soaped anus in my life. It even smells lovely. Skin and Old Spice and vanilla ice cream; this is the smell of May’s bum on warm evenings in bed. I like to bite his flesh, tongue it, roll it around in my mouth. It makes him pout when I bite his bum. Oh, I just can’t get enough.

And because I am on a calculated, tactical campaign to impress May with the reality of his sexual attraction; I pay a lot of attention to this part of him. A day does not go by when I do not grab his bum in some public setting or caress it in privacy. When I met him Maymay could not stand to be hit in that region of his body; spanking would drive him into a blind rage. I systematically destroyed this response. In this more than any other place, his attitude to spanking, I admit a deliberate, manipulative hand.

And then, there came the wiggle.

One day, pressed close against each other in bed, he made a little animal noise, combined with a tiny movement of his rear. It was not quite a shiver, not quite a wriggle. It was a wiggle. I was almost incapacitated by the cuteness of this gesture.

He kept doing it. Soon he was doing it at parties, on the subway, everywhere. It became how he said hello, how he said goodbye, how he said I love you. All of this contained in the wiggling of his bum. It got a soundtrack, an accompanying “wiggelzeebums” type of word. We joked that if he were ever made into a Super Mario Smash Brothers character, the bum wiggle would be his attack move.

His bum has become a character in our relationship. It has its own language, its own habits. It is a plump little inside joke.

Sometimes when May is tripping about the apartment, wagging that naked bum of his at the neighbors and dragging his long boned feet, I stop, and sit back, and watch him. This makes him self-conscious; he will stand pigeon-toed and wave at me. Sometimes I will stop him in the kitchen while I’m sitting at the table, pull him close and plant lines of kisses down his protruding hipbone, take little nips out of his skin and cup my hands around him.

He’ll stand for this for a minute or two, usually. Sometimes we get into little tug-of-wars. He’ll want to go back to fixing dinner, and I’ll be rapidly forgetting food in the luxurious, distracting swell of his skin.

Red Cotton Sheets, 2AM, New York City

I highly recommend this beautifully personal post about fantasy and reality which explains one reason why my boyfriend is so freakin’ skinny. I am currently a bit fried on intellectual pursuits.

So Eileen, how come you never talk about sex or scenes or sexy things in your supposed sex blog?

Wu-huh? Did I sign up for a sex blog? Oh. Right.

Friday night I went out into the ether of the East Village with May, Calico, and a professor friend of ours. We found a bar with $3 tequila shots, and when I kissed Calico later that night I could taste the shot on her mouth. I bit down and felt the flesh of her lips come up and meet me, propelled by the little moans and whimpers of hazy pain.

It’s been ages since I kissed a girl, and even longer since I kissed one who gives off little breathy moans and wriggles more when it hurts more. I like kisses that hurt. I like that I can smile and bite down at the same time.

She had climbed on top of me at first, but I flipped her down, spread her legs with mine and got very, very distracted by the skin between her earlobe and her collarbone. I licked it and felt as her back arched up to meet my stomach. Her torso is very long, as though her waist dropped and strung her body out like taut, silk saltwater taffy. She’s all hard oak wrapped up in feathers. I pressed my mouth into her neck and rubbed my teeth across the skin, then settled back to watch the bruises rise.

“Please fuck me,” she whispered. The edges of her mascara were smudged with the beginnings of tears. I looked down at her, her bottom lip swelling up, and couldn’t help it. I started laughing.

“Maybe,” I said between giggles, “Sometime when we don’t have an audience.”

We both looked over my shoulder to the professor and May, leaning back in their chairs by the end of the queen sized bed, grinning at us like teenagers at a sex-themed circus. The professor raised his beer in the air in a salute. I waved my ass in their direction. Calico and I sat up, and I put a hand to my face, shook my head, and laughed.

It wasn’t long before we started kissing again.

Eureka!

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.

Have You Heard The One About . . .

Oh my god, with the thing, and the funny of doom.

What the hell was I going to write about? Oh yea, not being a scatterbrained hysterical whatserface. Also, laughter.

Laughter is the saving grace of every successful relationship I have in the scene. (Curiously not every successful relationship I have ever, but then the word “relationship” covers all manner of sins. I did just quote Hugh Grant. Shut up. I drank regular soda and I’m punchy as hell.)

So. Picture this. I’ve got Maymay, in all his wriggly red-headed glory, tied down to to a bondage bed with a metal frame, and we’re playing with my friend’s violet wand and a knife. I’m using the knife to channel the electricity, running it up and down his chest and thighs, pressing the tip into one hip or the other to force his body to flatten out when he tries to curl up like a little June bug. And he’s never felt electricity like this before, because this is ages ago and we’ve only just started playing together and I’m still in the phase where I practically stole this violet wand from my friend because it was just so fucking cool. I take the point of the knife and I run it down the center of his chest, and little sparks jump off the tip bright enough that we both can see them. May says “it’s like little mini lightning bolts!” except he’s in sub space and feeling small and when he says it the words come out like he’s a six year old playing with a super awesome science experiment. We look each other in the eyes, and a tremor starts in his jaw and travels up my arm to my face, and suddenly we’re giggling like there’s no tomorrow, and we don’t stop until the scene ends an hour later.

Or picture this. I’m having my boots shined as part of a demonstration for a class. My friend Blaise is doing the shining, something he’s done for me a dozen times before, except that this time there are 20 people watching us and I keep trying to not open my legs in such a way that the audience members on the side of the room can see up my skirt. Blaise is lying on the ground, licking the top of the right boot’s toe, when I feel this little noise come through the leather from his mouth. He looks up at me with eyes like he’s Peter Pan fighting pirates, and grins, and suddenly the ironies of this private thing in public space hit us both between the eyes, we’re both laughing so hard we can’t stop, and I almost fall out of my chair in front of 20 people.

Or hell, picture this. I’m eight years old, swimming in a pool, beating my brother’s friend up with one of those ridiculous water noodles. There is no situation in which those water noodles are not hilarious.

Laughter seeps into my life from all directions, and invades scenes insistently and without remorse. I am freaked out by people who never laugh when they play. How is it possible to not see how sex is funny? The squeaks, the squelches, the weird belly sweat, the noises. Dear god, the noises. How is it possible to not see how kink is funny? The outfits, the pomp and circumstances, the noises all over again.

And isn’t there something funny about a big hulking man twice the size of everyone in the room wearing a frilly, pretty shirt and a skirt with his knees poking out? I don’t mean something meanly funny, something to promote humiliation or ridicule. I mean something amusingly, preciously funny. Affectionately funny. I love seeing men in girls clothing. I love seeing gay couples with their hands in each others pockets. I love seeing women comparing nipple sizes in bathrooms. These things make me laugh.

Is it really all that fun to play with a top who never laughs? I don’t mean a top who never laughs at you. I’m not talking about the kind of laughter born of cruelty, although I get how that’s sexy as hell sometimes. I mean a top who never laughs with you. Who’s never human for an instant, fallible for an instant. Who’s never joyful. I don’t want to go near someone who behaves as though they’re infallible, or inhuman; the instant you start thinking you’re infallible in the scene is the instant reality sits up and smacks you in the face for your insolence, probably injuring your loved ones in the process.

I’m not saying that people who never laugh necessarily think they’re infallible. But I do think that a lack of laughter in a top points to a distinct issue of taking oneself too seriously.

And then, on the other side of the equation, I don’t want to play with bottoms who never laugh. A bottom who never laughs is indicating to me not that they are taking themselves too seriously, but me. Taking me seriously is, of course, an earmark of a wise bottom. Taking me too seriously means there has been a breakdown of communication. We are coming to the scene for different reasons, and two people with two different goals rarely manage to mesh together. And hell, it’s not like I’ve put out a copyright on laughter. I’m laughing! You can laugh too! Just try and tell me having someone play tic-tac-toe on your skin with a knife isn’t funny.

I think that the lack of laughter within the scene may be the single most obvious indicator that we are still dealing with the influence of sex-negative cultures, even in supposedly sex-positive communities. Conveying the idea that sex or BDSM is no laughing matter is a direct carry-over from the straight-laced morality-focused mindset in which sex may or may not be a sin, but should absolutely be treated seriously and as a serious pursuit for serious aims and goals, like procreation or the consummation of love. Which I personally think is bullshit, by the way, because whether you believe that sex is goal-focused or recreational, the reality is that sex (as well as kink) is humanizing, and humans are funny beings. And also, even your goals should be treated with humor.

I encourage laughter over the specific quirks of BDSM not only because these things are genuinely funny, but because laughter over specifics keeps the mind open for laughter in general, and general laughter paves the way for positive influences.

Even the kinky people who never laugh are always up about taking pride in the scene. Be proud! Stand tall! To hell with that. Take joy in the scene. Be happy. Find humor, because with humor comes affection and connection, and the very essence of pride is born out of affection and connection. Laugh because you love what you do, love life, love your partner. Laugh for the hell of it, laugh because your leather’s sticky, laugh with delight, laugh like an eight year old with a water noodle.