“I’ve been thinking about what kind of a geek I am,” I said into his shoulder.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean that I’m not the sort of person who can spend hours in a bookstore or get really psyched up over research or academic papers,” I answered. “And I never really have been, but that’s sort of how I’ve always understood being a geek. I’m much happier to spend that time in an art store or making something, that’s what I’m actually passionate about.”

“That makes sense,” he said mildly, his usual response to my out-loud rambling thoughts.

I thought for a few breaths. “I think I need to redefine my geek identity.”

When I was younger, there was no question that I was a geek, a nerd, and to be such a creature came with a very narrow set of definitions. Among these, wedged between getting good grades, liking Star Trek and wearing doofy glasses (all of which I did), was the silent insistence that geeks and nerds date other geeks and nerds. If, of course, we were lucky enough to date at all. One of the reasons I took to ren faires so gleefully was because they broke this mold in a new way; not by hiding my geekhood, but by redefining it as part of my sex appeal. Unfortunately I never managed to meet a nerdy boy in a leather jacket on a white horse while I was there.

Though I never specifically pursued the male nerd image the way I did white knights and rebels, smarts have always appealed to me. And although very little of the imagery around nerdiness really got me going, I did harbor some long-standing and desperate crushes on very smart boys. I suspect one of the reasons they lasted as long as they did was because there was nothing in the stereotype to mess with my underlying preference for power exchange. The nerds of my younger days were never gallant, chivalrous, or sassy, but they were vulnerable. Shy. Wanting.

On a personal identity note, although I have since learned how many different ways a person can be smart, when I was younger being “smart” matched up perfectly with the kind of people who do spend hours in bookstores and jones over research. So though I never really adapted to this kind of geekery fully, I faked it stunningly well. And it’s taken me ages to work my way back out of that fake, and even longer to be able to say, honestly and sincerely, that sometimes bookstores bore me. That research fails to thrill me. That I would rather be somewhere else. And had I known that ten years ago, it might have changed those crushes. It certainly would have changed me.

There was only one problem, I realized, as I hit my 18th birthday with nary a boyfriend in sight. Most boys are not white knights, rebels, or nerds. Most boys are just, well, boys.

I have still not seen him play Johnny in The Wild One, but I don’t need to see the post-production photos to know I had a crush on a rebel.

I had a lot of trouble when I was a teenager trying to figure out what kind of man I wanted. Remember that this is pre-queer, pre-kink awareness, that I was still just a weird kid with weird friends and weird thoughts. And I loved Brando then. But now I wonder if I didn’t want to fuck him, so much as I wanted to be him. I watched Guys and Dolls again a few days ago and realized that he’s the only character I relate to. He’s also the only character with true agency and sexual power in the film, swinging as it does in its candy-colored 1940s New York. Go figure.

This crush was a strange one, because while I liked the man, and I liked the idea of the rebel, I didn’t see a space for me in his counterparts, in Stella or Sarah with their nice neat clothes. So I sort of gave up on him, and on the idea of falling for a rebel.

The undertone we can pick up in retrospect, of course, was that Brando’s image, and therefore my image of a rebel was a dominant man. I hadn’t learned yet how to sort the strength it takes to embrace countercultures from the overtly sexual nature of said strength. So I turned away from rebel crushes, though I do still have a soft spot in my heart for Brando.

I moved on to white knights.

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?

Predictably, my best friend is male. He is, in fact, the epitome of male. He is a heavyweight rower, hopefully (I still cross my fingers) Olympic-bound, and a sculptor. We came through our college art program together. He is my adopted family, my refuge. Stitch is my haven. He is also vanilla, monogamous, and Christian.

Stitch has deep-set eyes with smears of midnight blue slung around them in half-moons. He has thick black brows, thick black hair, a thick, rich voice. I am not a small woman, but his hands can span my waist and the breadth of his shoulders doubles my own. One of the first nights I met him we sat in big brown leather chairs by an open window, somewhere I forget, and he read me the Song of Solomon from his battered bible.

He occupies a strangely shaped place in my heart, not so much other-manly as other-worldly. He’s the man I would have wanted if I had grown up my own sexual complement. I was in love with him, for a laughable gap of months, the way sometimes little girls are in love with rock stars. That totally impossible, sexually incompatible, logically incomprehensible kind of way.

This story is the beginning of that laughable gap.

Eight-thirty on a Thursday night in spring four years and seven months ago, Stitch called me. I was sitting at my crappy desk trying to thread seed beads. The light was weak, I hadn’t bought new bulbs for the lamp, and my eyes hurt. I was short when I picked up the phone, a bit of a snap in my speech.

Stitch’s voice is a rumble over wires. “Hey, I mean, hi, am I interrupting?”

“Yes,” I answered. “You suck, and I hate you.”

He made an ‘Mmmmhm’ noise, the half laugh of someone who knows me too well. “Do you want to come to the studio with me? I have a thing to finish for tomorrow.”

“I don’t really have any studio work to do right now.” I knocked a few seed beads off the desk. “But no, I’ll come. I want to get out.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“I know.”

The sculpture studio of our art department was eleven blocks uptown, one of those flung-off outlier old buildings skirting the edges of where I don’t walk at night. I met the boy on the sidewalk of 117th, stuck my tongue out at him, and buried my head under his chin as he wrapped me up for a moment and blocked out the light of the street.

Stitch wore a mechanics suit in dirty blue, a one piece canvas sheath with a zipper up the front, and a black beater underneath. It was open past his navel, letting in the warm night, and the shape of his shoulders showed through. The bitter smell of his sweat filled the creases of the canvas.

“I didn’t mean to drag you out,” he said.

I thought of the seed beads rolling over my floor. “No worries, lil bro.”

“You really don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” He sounded genuinely worried, and his brown eyes had gone liquid and wary.

“I’m here already!” I cried. “I’ve come, I’m breathing deep and half asleep, I’ve come for fucks sake – Will you calm down?”

His eyes went from wary to warm. “That was brilliant. Did you think of that yourself?” He was smiling at me indulgently.

“Sometimes I am funny, you know.” I glared at him sideways. He smirked again. “Jackass,” I snarled, but it was too late; I was laughing.

Stitch was in the middle of a metals class that semester. The metal studio is on the top floor of the building, and has two steel tables and a double barn door in the corner that opens onto the roof. The roof was his favorite place to test theories; Stitch had a penchant for setting his sculptures on fire.

He gathered tools and scraps and three sheets of steel together while I puttered about in the corners of the room, knocking my sketchbook against things. Working studios are a fabulous place to putter; half-finished pieces abandoned by freshman were tucked in corners, bins of bits of sawed-off copper rods and shiny stacks of solder neatly lined up on wooden benches. The room was empty but for us. I swung myself up onto one of the tables, tucked my legs under me and watched him move, a pencil in my hand quickly forgotten.

There is something undeniably butch about men welding or soldering steel. Welding is a focused stream of slow, strong motion; the torch can give the illusion of kicking back, making the hand shake and causing bubbles in the metal. Get too wrapped up in the danger of the tool, the heat and shivery noise of burning gas, and nothing comes out right. Smooth lines come with control. I thought of holding a knife to someone’s cheek, of sliding needles into skin with a smile, the same kind of casual confidence.

Stitch had pushed a helmet with a face guard over his head, zipped his coverall up to the neck, and was working with his back to me, shielding the torch flame from view. He had two of his flat steel sheets pressed together in a right angle. A pretty welt of metal grew along the seam.

I detailed the edges of his clothing with my eyes, the brace of his feet pressed against the concrete, the impossibly broad shoulders, the impossibly thick arms. Stitch has never had an ass worth noticing, but the blend of his spine into his thighs, lean with crew muscles, is undeniably eye catching.

I caught myself undressing him, sketching in the flanks and shadows.

Stitch seems easy to mentally undress. Sometimes when we would go into the city on Saturday romps I would see women (and men) doing it, their eyes calculating, his clothes vanishing one by one in puffs of fantasy smoke.

But then, I had seen him stripped before that night in the studio, come back from late nights at the gym in sweaty spandex, peeling back the cling of the soaked fabric. I knew the color of his skin (faded tan, olive undertones), the pockmarks in his back, the lines of his hips. The web of personal history laid over the fantasy frame.

Stitch has a body of secrets. Scars, dips, invisible fingerprints. Tight bulges where he’s strained muscles most of us never use.

This night in the studio was the first time I wanted to know his secrets. Wholly, utterly. Biblically.

The entire room was humming, through the muscles of his legs to the floor and up the legs of the table I was sitting on, buzzing delicately on those sensitive lines of skin where my labia meet my thighs. His sculpture was growing, slowly.

I could see it happening, how the wires of artistic tension and sexual tension were crossing in my mind. You’re being dumb, my logical brain thought quietly. He’s your best friend, he has a girlfriend, and you don’t actually want to fuck him on a welding table. My body begged to differ, the steel under me turning warm. The seam of denim pressed to my crotch was damp.

This is how I am with art and artists. I get strung out in the tight-wire of craft and form. I chronically sensualize process and creation, when we exist in a bubble of time shaped by the things we make with our hands, and pressed together by the understanding of how the things are made.

Eventually he turned the torch off, stepped away, undid his coverall and let it fall to his waist. He tied it off in a narrow band. His smell hit me as I crept up on him: boy, Old Spice, bitterness, steel, sweat, skin.

“Oh, fuck me,” he said quietly.

“What?” I jumped a little.

He turned, gave me a wry look and a sigh. “I fucked up. See? There.” He pointed.

“Oh.”

“What did you think I said?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

He wiped a dirty forearm over his brow. “Let’s go home,” he said. “Come on, I’ll buy you a donut for coming out here with me for no reason.”

It was just you being horny, and the metal, I thought as I watched him walk home ahead of me, his long familiar stride. You’ll get over it. A soothing lie.

It took me a year to get over him.

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.

Now, when I say pretty, I don’t mean broad shoulders, rippling muscles, carrying power tools and towering over me. I don’t mean that genre of men, though god knows I’m a fan. I am a happy member of the cheering section.

I mean the men with soft skin, full lips, femme clothing. Men with skinny limbs and long hair. Men who like to wear satin and velvet. Men who like to feel pretty.

Pretty (adjective): pleasing by delicacy or grace.

You know who you are. This one’s for you.

There is some serious fuckupery concerning how body image issues are presented. Take a minute and think about who talks about body image. Think about the last time you had a discussion about body image. Think about the language you used.

Nine times out of ten, I’d bet that language was gendered. I’d bet you were talking to a woman. Woman’s issues. Woman’s weight. Women’s bodies. We’re teaching women how to accept cultural stereotypes, and how to fight them. Women’s body issues are vocalized.

Does it not seem a little fucked up that men’s body issues are not? When body image is considered a women’s only issue, we continue to strengthen the idea that only women are judged by their bodies. In a twisted kind of way, we continue to objectify ourselves while we fight not to be objectified. Following from this, we pigeonhole men into the role of the objectifier while simultaneously ignoring them as possible victims of cultural stereotypes.

Men are praised for their attractiveness in totally different ways. They are held to totally different, strictly gendered, strictly masculine standards. These standards, by the way, are almost never standards of beauty. They’re standards of wealth, of skill, of strength, of ownership and possession. May’s attraction is judged by how hot his girlfriend is. Most people look at me. Only rarely do they look at him.

Even the uprise of the metrosexual fashion movement in urban areas perpetuates the dichotomy separating modes of attraction. Metrosexual men can be in touch with their feminine side, can “reject macho stereotypes”, can use expensive hair care products and wear aesthetically pleasing clothes. But god help them if they decide to wear a satin nightie to bed.

This blindness leaves a vast, gaping hole that pretty men keep falling down.

Men aren’t the attracting partner. Men don’t get pursued. Men aren’t androgynous. Men aren’t bisexual. Men don’t want to be pretty. Men don’t want what women have. The most damaging of all? Shut up and take it. Be a man.

Ladies, hate to break it to you. Our bodies are pushed and shoved and stereotyped to within an inch of our lives. And yet, the freedom we’re allowed in breaking gendered stereotypes of attraction is epic, compared with our fellow men.

Why are we so much more okay with women in men’s clothing than we are with men in women’s clothing? I wear boy-cut jeans and a ratty button-down, and I don’t get a second glance, and I’m not necessarily a lesbian. But May wears girl-cut jeans and a ringer tee that I gave him, and he gets looks on the street, and he must be gay. Never mind he’s holding hands with a chick.

We bitch and yell when men want to dress up as women to be humiliated. (I bitch and yell with the best of them.) What about the men who’ve been told, over and over, that a man who wants to be a woman is supposed to feel humiliated?

What about men who just want to be pretty in the only way they’ve been taught is possible: by being more like women?

There is no middle space where “real men” can feel pretty. If you’re a man who wears women’s clothing or makeup, either you’re gay, you’re just getting off on being humiliated like a weak woman, or you’re three steps away from a gender transition and you just haven’t gotten there yet. And it’s such bullshit.

There needs to be some gender fluidity, and it needs to flow both ways.

If a woman opens up and says she’s feeling unattractive in comparison with cultural standards, the common mode is to support her in a sensitive, relatively ungendered way. We’ll talk about her mind, or her ideas. But if a man opens up and says he feels unattractive in comparison with cultural standards, we tell him he’s strong. Bad logic, damnit, bad logic!

But never mind. A real man would never say that in the first place.

I asked May last night about the etiquette of linking to opinions you wish to disagree with. His reply was “It’s the Internet. You can do whatever you’d like.”

Yea. Doesn’t that just hit the nail on the head?

john (his capitalization use, not mine) has a great blog. He’s thoughtful, he’s sincere. He and I have some differing opinions, but in general I quite enjoy reading his posts. (He also posts a lot, which is great for keeping me entertained at work.) And he reads this, so I’d like to make it very clear that I quite like him.

But yesterday he approvingly posted a quote. And when I read it and his response to it, I screamed. (Apparently, Elizabeth screamed too.)

I didn’t really get the bitterness. I yell, and I fume, but there’s always been something a bit alien to me about just how bitter May is, or why Bitchy is such a bitch. But guys, I understand now.

Here’s the quote I have a problem with:

You are the male of the future and your message is an important one. The Female Gender is the superior gender. I am not saying males are useless, they are the yin to our yang, but the best male is one who understands his role as helpmate and passive.

Funny how people toss about “superior” without owning up to its binary relationship with the word “inferior.” “Inferior” is such a nasty, tricky word.This is sexism.

Check it out, straight out of the all-knowing Wikipedia: Sexism can refer to . . . different beliefs or attitudes [such as] the belief that one gender or sex is superior to or more valuable than the other.

Many folks seem to think that sexism must necessarily go hand-in-hand with chauvinism, or misogyny, or misandry. Actually, no. Hatred is not a prerequisite for sexism. You can say you love and respect men in their inferior status, and you’re still sexist. A lack of hatred is not a mitigation.

Still others think that since culturally women have been getting the short end of the stick since god-knows-when, espousing a doctrine of female superiority isn’t sexist; it’s payback. Well, there’s a word for that too: reverse sexism. Notice how the word “sexism” still exists in that phrase.

And hey, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t happen to think sexism is okay. Neither, might I add, does the U.S. Government.

Perhaps you would like to live in a world in which we are not all created equal, or in which there are no efforts made to protect the human rights of certain groups. But this is not that world. This world is fucked up and twisted about and still suffering massively under the influence of people who believe in the superiority or inferiority of generic characteristics in their fellow human beings. One of the things you do not have, as a random Internet voice, is the authority to include me in your world view. And one thing you shouldn’t be doing is allowing philosophies that promote violations of human rights to be approved, respected, or used to represent the opinions of a larger community.

Here is how that quote could have been written in such a way that I would have no problem:

You are the male of my future and your message is an important one to me. I consider myself superior to you. I am not saying you are useless, you are the yin to my yang, but the best male you can be for me is one who understands his role as helpmate and passive.

That? If she wrote that to me, or May, we’d both still find it offensive as hell. But that’s a personal matter. Excluding generalizations makes that a personal comment, which means it’s no one’s business except the person who wrote it and the person who’s receiving it. A generalization covers more ground than you think. It covers every woman, and every man, and every space. Your method of anonymous communication via the Internet does not excuse generalizations.

In the privacy of your own home you’re welcome to say anything you like. You can say that Jews have horns, or that men are pigs, or that French people smell bad. You can say that one gender is superior to another.

But I’m here to tell you, anonymity and privacy are not the same thing. The Internet is a public forum. Which means you are espousing a public opinion. Which means you are promoting sexism in a public space. You’re just wearing a mask to do it.

Can we think of any other examples of rhetorics of group superiority being espoused from behind the supposedly untouchable comfort of anonymous masks?

Saying that you’d like to be superior/inferior to a specific man/woman in a certain context is something ya’ll can work out for yourselves. (Yes, I’m even okay with the word “superior” in certain, pre-negotiated relationships.) But the minute you generalize it to include people you don’t know, the minute you say it in a public space, you are espousing a sexist philosophy of life. You say it on the Internet as though this space exists only in a fantasy realm. As though the online world is an extension of your bedroom. Or maybe you think that speaking to a sympathetic audience excuses the offense your opinion gives to those outside your audience.

Say it in your workplace, and you’d be fired. Say it in a non-anonymous public forum, and maybe you’d get sued for your trouble. That’s the trouble with generalized philosophies of superiority; in the real world, practicing them is illegal.

Don’t delude yourself. Maybe there are fewer consequences here, but this space is not an extension of your bedroom.

Maybe you happen to think sexism is okay. Maybe you love the idea of being dominated and inferior, or dominating and superior. Y’know what? Great! Fine. Your rights are your own. Give them away, exchange them with your partner, do whatever you’d like with them.

But the second you generalize your opinion of superiority or inferiority, you include others. If you say women are superior, you include me. If you say men are inferior, you include May. You are fucking with our rights, and our status, and our place. You are spreading propaganda about us.

And you do not negotiate my rights.

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.

(Okay, so maybe possibly this is one of four blog posts I currently have written but haven’t posted yet. Did I mention the thing where I’m apparently really good at my job, and still spend all my time writing? But I figured to let you guys rest too.)

I’m kind of fashion obsessed, which in the scene is often code for “I have a lot of black shiny things” but in the context of me actually means exactly what it says. I’m kind of fashion obsessed. I passionately love to people-watch for good and bad trends, I can spend hours debating fabric textures, I design my own clothes. I like how shape and color can modify and accentuate the body. I like that when people wear clothes they adore, for whatever reason, it makes them glow just a little bit.

And I also overthink. And you may not have realized this, but the way you dress can and will convey things about your orientation to the world. I’m smart enough and have enough short skirts to know that being read by your cover is pure fuckupery, but here’s a couple of quick, totally selfish points to make it easier for you in my world. If, you know, you’d like to come visiting.

This is by no means a complete guide; there are plenty of those already. Bitchy wrote one, but I’m too lazy to search her archives at the moment. And also, beach.

Jumping right in -
Everyone:
- Could you stop being obsessed with purple? I ask this strictly as a personal favor. I really hate the color purple. If you like it, hey, awesome, but I get pissed when all the sex toys I could possibly buy come in my least favorite color.

Women:
- Any kind of shoe with a cutesy little strap around the ankle makes you look like a sub. Those little straps are the vanilla man’s ankle cuffs.

- Chokers and short necklaces look submissive, because they recall collars. Also, collars look submissive, which should be fucking obvious but that doesn’t seem to stop prodommes from wearing them.

- You can wear a skirt as a dom. You can even wear a fwooshy, swishy skirt; go for it. But if you’d like to really just nail the issue of dominance home (like if you’re going to a club with a lot of assholes) wear pants. It just saves time.

- I don’t care if it’s not a scene look, but just for me, trash your wedges. For serious. You look like you have chopping blocks strapped to your feet.

Guys:
- Careful with the fall tones. I get that your deep purple (ugh) shirt makes you feel sexy, but you do actually run the danger of looking like a carbon copy of every other dom in the joint. (Other men have caught on to the sexy wonder that is buttondowns.) And although dark colors can be rich and yummy, they’re bloody hard to see under dim lights. You might as well be wearing black at that point.

- Wear more kilts.

- This is the big one. This might possibly be my personal fashion crusade.

Do you own anything that can be described by the three adjectives “black,” “denim,” and “tapered?” Unless what you’re describing is a black denim motorcycle jacket with a tapered waist, take it out of your closet and throw it away. Better yet, just to make sure you don’t rescue it when my back is turned, burn the fucking thing.

Tapered black denim jeans do not make you look sexy. They make you look like a serial killer with an 80s fetish.

Seriously, what’s wrong with black slacks? Black dockers? Black khakis? Or blue jeans? Blue is a lovely color.

Do you think I’m just playing around with you? Do you realize that hipsters in New York Effin’ City wear black tapered jeans ironically, because they’re so ugly? Did you catch that? Those jeans that you think are the end-all-be-all of sexy fun time are being worn mockingly by people my age because they’re just that fucking ugly.

Please. Stop. You’re making my eyes hurt.

And after you’ve cleaned your closet, come to the beach with me.

So I mentioned a bit back in my sex post how I was maybe-just-a-little-bit avoiding an extremely nice man from the sex positive community. And then we got thrown into a bunch of social situations together, and I realized I was also maybe being a bit of a dipshit for rejecting a man because he likes sex too much (shut up, I can be clueless too,) and we decided to have dinner. Which we did, last night.

He picked the restaurant. I wasn’t expecting that, used to meeting on a street corner and then hemming and hawing about saying things like, “Well, I’m really up for anything you’d like . . .” and “I mean, lots of the food is good here,” and “no, I’m okay with Indian really, I just had it two nights ago but I do like it quite a bit . . .” and such. If making social plans is a test of domliness, I fail. I totally flunk.

But he picked it, and it was good, and I remembered after a few minutes about the thing where my generation is socially stunted in the dating scene because we never go on actual traditional dates. At least that’s the case with everyone I know. So having him do that was sweet and very nice in a masculine “grr!” kind of way, except I totally wasn’t expecting it and the generation gap kind of threw me off my game.

Oh, did I mention he’s a top, by the way? That’s important to the story.

And then it was super loud. We had noodles (I had pad thai, dear god, I love pad thai. If I’m ever stranded on a desert island, just air drop pad thai, seriously) and the restaurant sat us at a long communal table. So that was funny, because I was trying to not-quite-shout “I like blood play a lot” while the girl next to me quietly choked in her soup. Him: “What?” Me: “Blood play!” Him: “Sorry, what?” Me: “Blood!” Girl next to me: *choke*

But conversation flourished along, helped out generously by him asking tons of leading questions in a very clever way which I totally noticed and was quietly amused by. (I also flunk at getting-to-know-you conversations, by the way. I’m totally resistant to getting to know people. It’s like a disease.) And we had a lot of fun, and talked a lot about the difference between the East Coast and West Coast communities, which was fascinating, and I reaffirmed my earlier suspicion that he is in fact a very nice, very articulate man. And very open, and very laid back in just the kind of way I find to be lovely, because it means not putting pressure on me. I get the feeling that this man has literally built up years of experience learning how to not put pressure on people. (Can I also mention as a sideline that I find that hilarious as well, because he was an interrogator? In the armed forces? Talk about putting pressure on people.)

And we turned to kink stuff, and he asked me what I liked, and I laughed and mentioned I’d just written a whole post about some of the weird shit that I like that I don’t tell people about when they ask me what I like. I ran the list off, and we chatted about fear play and emotional play for a bit. And then he said, “Are you the same way when you bottom?” To which I replied, “I don’t bottom.” To which he reacted, “Oh.” And conversation moved on with nary a hitch.

Now although I will occasionally kick and scream a bit over being pinned as a bottom because I wear dresses (note to me, write a post about subliminal orientations expressed through clothing) I wasn’t expecting that from him. (And bless his big burly heart, he didn’t even blink. Good for him.) Because, see, he’s seen me in kinky contexts before, and I’m just . . . not a bottom. And I’ve told him before I was a top, although I hadn’t realized that saying “I’m a top” is apparently not the same as saying “I’m not a bottom.” The term for that is switch, by the way. Which I am currently not.

I won’t kick and scream over being pegged, not this time. Because I actually think he asked me that because he’s the type of guy who just doesn’t assume things about the people he meets. (And okay, yea, maybe he wanted me to be a bottom, but seriously, plus several thousand points for not losing interest.)

Eventually we escaped the loud restaurant and the choking girl and sat on a bench in Union Square. After some chatter I figured to bite the bullet and said, “So, I have to tell you honestly that I just don’t see us being sexually compatible.”

Seriously. I actually said that. I’m so proud of myself. (In case you haven’t caught on, I’m actually not as blunt in person. In fact, I am maybe a bit obsessed with not offending people, but that’s an issue for another day.)

He didn’t blink at that one either. Instead, he talked about tops learning from each other, and expanded experiences. The he started in on a thought about wild horses. I think I can remember it pretty close to verbatim:
“And as for sexual experiences, y’know . . . I like to think of wild horses coming together, in such an incredibly strong beautiful union. And you see, the mare’s not the weaker of the two there, she’s just as powerful a being.” Although no, he said it better than that.

People actually say things like this! I now have proof! I find that amazing. And not in a scornful kind of way, but in a gratified, amused sort of “I can’t believe you just pulled that off and didn’t sound ridiculous” kind of way.

At this point I was thinking, Holy wow, that’s a great line, and you’re a great guy, and that’s so incredibly not arousing. And also Too bad you’re not submissive.

Which caused the logical part of my brain to step up for a moment and think, Eileen, that very attractive man just compared you to a mare and offered you wild-horse-style sex. Have you not been paying attention?

And I thought back, Um, yea, but . . . not submissive.

And the logical part of my brain went, SO??!

And then I realized that I have never in my life been sexually attracted to a man who wasn’t, in some way, submissive. Which was an amazing revelation I probably should have made several years ago, but for some reason hadn’t actually figured out. It was like watching part of my brain gel.

And the date ended with a hug, and we wandered off to separate corners of the night. He’s kind of an awesome guy. I think we’ll be friends.