A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

23. The Why Behind Things

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Sometimes on this blog, sometimes in real life, but most often in emails, IMs, and other types of written conversation, I am very blunt. I have a tendency to shock on purpose, to ask questions I shouldn’t, to put my foot in my mouth. Not with everyone, no. Not here, usually. But sometimes, in certain contexts, with certain others.

In many ways, laying my cards on the table is necessary for me. It’s one way I manage my decisions about other people, and I need the little bit of protection bluntness provides in my relationships. It’s my way of saying, “If you’re going to hurt me, I want to know in advance. In fact, right-the-fuck now, if you please.” But of course I don’t say that specifically. I say other things instead. It’s very late. I’m not sure this post is making sense.

That protection is important because, you see, when I think something’s right I go for it. I almost always make decisions fast, reassess, and think my way back to my first conclusion. When my instinct and my reasoning says that the relationship is good, I am a no-holds-barred, hell-or-high-water, second-date-with-a-Uhaul person. I mentioned in my previous entry that I moved in with May three weeks after we started dating, which was five weeks after we met. To most people, that’s insane. Insanity didn’t occur to me at the time; I just moved in, and three years later, here we are.

And it worked because we knew where we stood, even when where we stood was shaky ground. So in some ways, being as rude, straight-forward, blunt, direct as I am is not just a personality quirk. It’s how I keep my decisions conscious, and how I make connections, and how I learn, and demonstrate, trust.

11. Precious

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Saturday night I pulled May up from the beige carpeted floor of our living room and onto our rough blue couch. He was wearing thin satin panties. A garter, a slippery nightgown. Pretty things. Pretty boy.

I held my lips over the skin of his throat and growled, feeling my lips peel back from my teeth. I climbed on top of him and ran my fingers through the air around his skin. He writhed upward, trying to make contact somewhere. Anywhere. I hid my laughter in his curls. He moaned. The bright pink tip of his cock slipped out the waist of the satin, and waved back and forth in the air.

After a little while I caught him up in a little ball, his legs folded close to his chest and my arms around his entire body. He tucked his chin down to his collar bone and looked up at me. Red eyelashes. He has red eyelashes. His mouth was trembling open, his eyes enormous.

“I love that look,” I murmured to him, just to watch him being sweet and coy. He flutters those eyelashes sometimes, when he’s pretty, when I compliment him. It goes right through my chest like a dart when he does that. I pressed my lips to his cheekbone, right at the corner of his eye. I smiled in his ear.

“You are so beautiful, precious, precious boy.”

Protected: On The Rotation

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Back In (Blank) Minutes

Monday, January 14, 2008

Ironically, this is my 100th post.

I am moving to Sydney, Australia in exactly four weeks. I get the feeling, from emails and the like, that perhaps this information has not reached general consumption.

Caught on the tight-wire of leaving my friends and family, packing my life into two suitcases, managing my relationship and handling my financial concerns, I am, as they say, stressed. If I were a guitar string I would be so tight that a gentle pluck would snap me.

That I am actually picking up and leaving my social life is a realization that comes in little waves. I’ll be in my kitchen, thinking I’m fine, pouring coffee, and then discover that I’m sitting down very quickly and my breath is making little gasping noises.

This weekend I packed almost all of my possessions into storage. My walls are achingly empty. My crafts are missing. Can one have a psychic connection to the comfort of things? I barely know who I am without crafts on hand.

I find myself counting the change in my pocket. I catch myself questioning whether to buy food, and have to speak sharply to myself.

I have been thinking about writing here for days. I want to dig into these recent posts and see what I turn up. It keeps not happening. I am too stressed to bring myself to care.

I had a panic attack last night. This will make the second panic attack I’ve had in my life. I know how terrifying they are to watch (from much experience), and I’m sorry for that, my love. I forgot how terrifying they are to have.

I’m calling a break. I’ve tried very hard to keep this blog kink focused. This is not my personal blog, and right now, frankly, my life is inappropriate to be written about here. Bloody Laughter will update regularly again when updating is something I do for pleasure. I feel that at the very minimum, you all deserves that consideration.

In the meantime, I’ll be around. I’m always around. It’s never as bad as it sounds.

Edit: Yes, Maymay will be joining me.

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.

When Does It Get Better?

Friday, December 21, 2007

Last night I drove up the West Side Highway with Rona. Technically she drove, I fluttered from a late night adrenaline attack, and we talked, loud and long. I said something then that stuck with me:

How can my life be simultaneously so fucking easy and so fucking hard?

I have a family I love, who loves me. I am overwhelmingly grateful. And yet, thinking of my travel plans for the holiday makes me feel ill.

My discussion with my family member broached a topic that I have not yet touched upon. A large, I might even say central topic. A topic with soft skin and red hair.

Yes, of course. Mixed up in this whole damn mess is the boy I love.

There was a question broached, some months ago, about whether May would accompany me to my family’s for a portion of this holiday season. I broached this question, I believe, in early September. I understand now why I never got a straight answer.

I was told at the time to make my own decision. This infuriated me; I felt it entirely unfair to be asked to make decisions about other people’s homes and lives, in a potentially explosive situation, with absolutely no input from the people involved.

Last Sunday, in the afternoon before May and I talked, I called my family member’s home. After some brief, friendly conversation I asked the question.

“Should he come up with me? It’s okay if he shouldn’t,” I added quickly. “I just want to know what you think, and if he shouldn’t then I’ll just go home to New York a little earlier, so I can spend the holidays with both of you.”

I felt as though my heart was choking me, asking this question. I thought of the email, that stupid joke that made me laugh. I thought Maybe it’s really all right.

“I know you said it’s my decision, but I really think it’s unfair to ask me to make that decision. I would appreciate some guidance.” I closed my eyes.

They paused on the other end of the line. “I guess you should go back to New York, then.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will. Thank you. That helps. That’s all I wanted to know.”

When I hung up the phone I pressed my hand to my forehead for a second. Silly girl, you knew better. Nothing has actually changed.

It didn’t actually hit me until I was sitting on the subway platform. Suddenly I curled up in a ball and started crying, leaning over the hard bench. May made a distressed noise and rubbed my back.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. He walked to the booth a few feet down the platform, bought something, and came back. It was a fashion magazine; one of my silly guilty pleasures. He smiled as he handed it to me.

“Here,” he said. “A distraction.”

I smiled, then laughed slowly. I thanked him, kissed him.

You stupid shit, I thought to myself as I flipped through the pages. It was far too soon to ask that question.

Protected: When It Rains

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Walls

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I’ve spent the past two entries and a lot of my energy on rhetoric and objective thinking. But at the same time, there’s the nitty gritty, the bits of my psyche that are feeling minutely unbalanced.

Having my sexuality censored didn’t throw me into an enormous depressive spiral of self-doubt. It didn’t cause me to take any dramatic steps back or change any of my beliefs. It has not been so climactic.

But I’d lie if I said it wasn’t affecting my relationship with kink, with sex, and with other people.

Two weeks ago, that Saturday night, I fell asleep with sex banished from my mind. The yawning gap where my sex drive had gone missing was hidden, all mixed up with the rest of my misery.

I keep using the word “shredded.” What it means is I walked around for days with my nerve endings dead, my brain feeling sluggish, my nose stuffed and my spirit exhausted. I still feel it; the numbed feeling, the exhaustion. I am still so, so tired. I can’t remember the last time I was this tired.

One by one, parts of me are beginning to heal. I emailed my family member back. What started as a fight has become a halting, slowly paced discussion; still painful, much more rational. A few days ago they emailed me a stupid joke:

Q: What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?
A: Make me one with everything.

I laughed and cried at the same time.

In an example of incredibly ironic timing, the weekend of the fight was directly followed by the weekend of Black Rose, a kink event in Washington DC. Months ago, May and I had planned to go. We had tickets, a hotel room, people expecting us.

That week, as each day dragged by, I kept thinking Oh god oh god, I do not want to go to Black Rose. I cannot deal with scene space. I cannot handle playing.

I feel incomplete. I feel as though parts of me have died and fallen off.

But I had laid my money down, and as it became clear that sometimes the solution to pain is not to wall oneself off to the world, I sucked it up and went.

And it was lovely. Lovely, and hard, and complicated. It was what I needed it to be.

The entire weekend I felt strangely as though I’d been granted a brief reprieve from my pain. Like the world was on hold, and my sexuality was working, albeit quietly and with far more reservations than usual.

It was as though the range of interests I’m used to enjoying had been culled ruthlessly, walling off sadomasochism, walling off D/s, building big heavy brick walls around anything I would consider heavy play. At the time I hardly noticed; I was so fried, so happy to be playing again, to be reconfirmed.

But as I’ve come out of that space and back to the world over the past week and a half, those walls have remained. It took me days to find a way to recognize arousal again. My fantasies feel scattered. The first orgasm I had after the weekend was hard. I had to wait for it, because I couldn’t fight for it.

It would be easy to say this is frustrating me, but that’s not quite right. It’s making me less confident, it’s pushing me into issues with my body and my personality that I had under control three weeks ago.

It makes me want to wear baggy clothes and put my hair in my eyes. I watch myself flirting and have to consciously tell the part of my character that worries about social faux pas to shut the hell up.

We think about being attacked and group our possible responses into fight or flight categories. I know it looks, on that side of the computer screen, like I’m fighting. On this side, nothing is simple. I’m consciously trying to figure out ways to defend myself and cataloging ways to fight, and at the same time I catch myself stumbling over words, pulling gestures back in half-fulfilled motions, hiding my face and shutting my doors.

It’d be easy to pass this off as a minor depressive spiral. Maybe that’s all it is; I don’t really have a pinpoint on the nuances of my mind.

I know I’m second guessing my desires. I can feel myself doing it, like there are decisions being made in my body that my mind is continually one step behind. I don’t like it; it’s unconscious. This little thread of pain and uncertainty isn’t based in rational thought. Rather, it’s an earmark of my self confidence, reduced to tatters and shreds.

I feel as though there’s a plate glass window between myself and my sexuality. As though I have neural gaps and lack the ability to bridge them.

I know I will bridge these gaps and tear down all the temporary walls I threw up in my hasty defense of my psyche. I realize that this is largely a matter of time.

I can be patient. I will wait for my kinks and I to find our way back to each other.

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.

Protected: Wadsworth

Monday, October 15, 2007

A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

23. The Why Behind Things

11. Precious

Protected: On The Rotation

Back In (Blank) Minutes

Fin

When Does It Get Better?

Protected: When It Rains

Walls

Out

Protected: Wadsworth

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