A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

2. Women’s Spaces

Saturday, June 7, 2008

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

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

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

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

Protected: Photographic Proof

Monday, February 4, 2008

The Thing About Tiggers

Saturday, January 5, 2008

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

But, all things pass.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cup

Monday, October 29, 2007

Last week, for the first time in my adult life, I spent seven days without a bra.

I’ve worn a bra every day since I was 13. I remember my first bra; a white cotton thing, more of an abbreviated tank top than an undergarment. At the time I had no breasts to speak of. I simply wanted a bra. I was adamant, I insisted on being bought that silly white thing.

Since then I have fleshed up, filled out. I will never claim that my breasts are spectacular; they are, in fact, overwhelmingly ordinary. They fall from my chest outward, small against the breadth of my shoulders and the generosity of my thighs.

My breasts are not high, nor are they perky. Rather, they are long, hanging from my chest in soft U-shaped drapes with the nipples almost directly downward. They fold over my ribs, giving me creases of soft flesh in the center of my chest, one a finger higher than the other. This gives my cleavage the impression of being slightly mismatched.

In size, my breasts are a soft handful, larger than apples, smaller than melons. Perhaps a grapefruit apiece. I straddle the no-where land between bra sizes, a B cup in some brands, a C in others. Their skin is ever so pale, gleaming with the iridescent rivulets of stretch marks. After a summer in bikinis and on nude beaches my breasts have gone from white-on-white to cream-on-pink. My nipples are only slightly darker, light pink with yellow undertones and a tight, tiny splash of rose in the center. I’ve seen nipples ranging in color from chocolaty brown spots to wounds of brilliant red. My nipples are not so dramatic.

The oddest thing about my breasts, which has kept me from plumping my cleavage high in corsets and convinced me to forever avoid demi-cup bras, are their distinctively large aureoles. It’s as though the aureoles continued to grow on, leaving my breasts behind, or as though I inherited my mother’s nipples but not the double-D breasts to balance them out. I’m not going to stick a ruler down my shirt at the moment, but at a quick glance I would estimate that my aureoles are each just under four inches in diameter. This used to embarrass me. Now it amuses me. These wide circles of puffy skin are just one of the quirks of my body I’ve grown enough to like.

I’m not particularly fond of my breasts. I have definitely run the gambit of issues, flaws, bits of myself I want to cover or poke at or cut off. My breasts are not an exception, with their teardrop shape and insistently large circles. But then, nor do they particularly trouble me. They are a sort of blank spot on my body’s radar, neither sculpted nor slack. My sexual wiring lingers in my nipples momentarily, and a hand will often stray to my breasts during masturbation, kneading softly. Having my nipples played with, sucked or licked, however, is usually a tease. Not teasing in a good way; teasing similar to a fly I want to swat.

I have never had any really good bras. I’ve owned a few nice ones, with bits of lace here and there. These are few and far between, however, and I’m usually content with a simple foam cup, an underwire , some skinny straps. The gentlemen in the audience may or may not appreciate how much good bras cost; I cannot drop $60 on a garment that no one actually sees. I don’t see bras as a lingerie item, and in scenes and sex they usually end up crumpled on the floor under my jeans.

I have always had a vague longing for the fruity dips and curves of high-placed, rounded cleavage. My sexual interest in women is often prey to a bit of breast fixation. That’s right; I’m a breast woman. Supposedly expensive bras can plump me, fill me, perk me and round me all at once, but I’ve yet to lay down money for the test drive and am content with my less-than-mythic decolletage.

Because I have a penchant for plunging button-down necklines my bras are often formed with great dips in the center, the cups sometimes held tenuously together by thin bits of string. This isn’t ideal for my breasts; in fact, I would say that my taste in clothing is in direct opposition to supportive, well shaped bras. I think one must have exceptionally high-placed breasts to comfortably wear a plunging V-shaped bra; my breasts are always wandering off in strange directions like unruly children.

And yet, although I’m clearly not on great terms with my bras, I continued to wear them. To not wear them had never occurred to me. Wearing a bra raises my breasts from their typical relaxed swing-low to a level that mimics the placement of a perky set. It shifts my nipples upward, low-beams turned to high-beams.

And then, with my breasts already sagging downward I lived with a tiny twist of terror in my stomach, the thought that someday my breasts would sag so low they’d end up level with my elbows. Characteristic of my imagination, they sagged down and down until I could imagine myself a white-haired hunchback with my breasts knocking at my knees. In a high-toned and perky culture my breasts can only hope to steadily decline.

I read an article last weekend questioning the myths surrounding bras. (Unfortunately while at work I cannot pull the link from the adult blog I found the article at. I will post it from a contained environment later this evening.) The prevention of the dreaded sag was front and center; the article argued that not only do we have zero proof that wearing a bra will prevent the breasts from sagging, but doing so for one’s entire life might encourage one’s breasts in a downward direction because the muscles of the chest wall never learn to support the breasts.

Huh, I thought. That actually makes quite a lot of sense.

I mean, what do we think happened to women’s breasts before we all started wearing bras? I doubt they grew significantly saggier. Yet there’s this image that unrestrained breasts will eventually drip down the chest like molasses and end up tangled in our feet.

The article then went into back pain, shoulder pain, bad fitting bras and the woes thereof. A ridiculously high percentage of the American population wear bras that are simply the wrong size. I’m guilty of this; my ideal bra size is hard to find. I also have chronic back pain; I carry a cramped muscle halfway down my spine that has not seen a relaxed moment since I was a freshman in college. I remain open to any back rub or suggestion that might unwind that damned Gordian knot.

Why am I wearing a bra every damn day of my life? Modesty? I admit that my experiment in bralessness had revealed that about half of my shirts are translucent in nature, but I am frankly not that kind of modest. Is the modesty to do with motion? Free from a bra my breasts wobble and shake. However, if wobbling and shaking are issues I might look into getting a girdle for my generous ass before casting aspersions elsewhere.

If not modesty, then I turn my eye to aesthetics. To perk or not to perk. Haul up the grapefruits on my chest a few inches and I’m that much closer to a beautiful woman.

Back pain and sagging tits. Bound flesh and conformed image. This is what bras might be doing for me? Adventurous spirit firmly in hand, I resolved to go a week without bras. I realize that in doing this I call up many feminist and social themes. That was not my intent; my intent was to survive with a minimum of madness.

Day one was irritating, as my nipples rubbed fabric with more attention than they’d had in weeks.

Day two the pain set in; my breasts were free-hanging, sore, and cranky.

Day three I struggled at my closet, trying to find something to cover the sheer revelation of aureole peeking through the white linen of my favorite shirt.

Day four in the morning hurt the most. My nipples throbbed, a tiny constant ache. By that afternoon they’d calmed a bit, but that day it was windy and frigid outside, and I remembered the warmth of that extra fabric layer with fondness.

Day five I almost threw in the towel; I put a synthetic, scratchy shirt on in the morning without thinking, and the irritation almost crippled me. That evening I changed to a low-necked sundress and self consciously kept glancing downward at my mismatched cleavage.

Day six was the first morning I pulled a shirt on without the odd sensation of missing a step. With a clinging tank top in place I felt both self conscious and sexy, the lines of my back uninterrupted for the first time in years. My nipples were insistently cold, as though my body couldn’t pump enough blood to their surface. They clamored for their cozy foamy cups.

Day seven I regretted my linen shirt again. I put myself in profile before my bedroom’s full length mirror and watched my breasts rise and fall with my breathing.

Without a bra my breasts are no longer a blank spot on my body’s radar. They shift, they move, they critique my shirt fabric and make themselves known. The discomfort of pinched underwire and shoulder straps fades to be replaced by sensitive tipped skin and the odd feeling of hard nipples all the time. It’s a curious mix and an uncertain trade-off; the discomfort I know compared with the discomfort I’m only just learning. The entire week I felt as though I was perched on the invisible edge of understanding something I couldn’t define.

The experiment ended this morning.

I am not wearing a bra today.

Pansexual

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

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

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

The first word is pansexual.

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

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

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

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

“Who’s getting fisted?”

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

I grinned wider. “What time?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure,” he answered.

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

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

Red Cotton Sheets, 2AM, New York City

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

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.

The Truth Will Set You Free

Monday, July 30, 2007

But first, it will piss you off.

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.

Eureka!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

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

All men are bisexual.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You mother fucking assholes.

Accept No Substitutes

Saturday, July 14, 2007

I’m going to the beach today! Hurray, beaches! Maybe when I get back I will have some hilarious stories about how sand is a great scene tool, or something. So, in the spirit of frivolous day trips, here’s a frivolous entry that I wrote yesterday and didn’t post because I figured to let the computer come down a bit. It was getting hot from the typing.

(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.

Fuck Him

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Hmm. This is going to be interesting. And opinionated, and possibly loud. And this is the kind of post where I feel the need to say beforehand that this is my personal opinion, and this is how I live my personal life. If I could make “whatever floats your boat” into a life motto, I would.

Also? This is essay length. I was going to split it, but I’ve decided against doing so. Read at your leisure.

Strap-ons.

On one of the first posts I made there was some commentary about gendered play. A nice man commented about the nature of his relationship with his dominant female partner, emphasizing his own masculinity, and writing in parentheses: no strap-on dildos here! I added the exclamation point, but you get my drift.

And at the time, that surprised me, but I hadn’t really registered yet that such a comment is totally in line with much of the blogosphere. Hey, whatever works.

But sorry. I’m not a card-carrying member of the No-Strap Ons Club. In fact, I’m a card-carrying member of the Strap-Ons Rock My Socks Off Club. We’ve got jackets.

I love strap-ons. Love them. Love them like I love singletail. I use a strap-on on a man, and I get to glory in every reaction I elicit from him, moans and little fragile cries and all. I enjoy this the way I enjoy whipping a man until he falls to his knees. I want to see what he does. I will push him just to see how he pushes back, or whether he does at all. If he’s never done it before I want to see what happens to his mind once it’s over. I am a reation top; I get off on the reations I inspire in others. Not all tops are like this; lots of doms get off on having their pleasure sated. I do that too. Reactions are my pleasure.

For female dominants who deal strictly in their own pleasure, strap-ons seriously stink. It’s true; I don’t feel anything. It’s detached, like any other toy is detached. It’s not arousing in any kind of physical way. It does not work for everyone, and I wholeheartedly agree with Bitchy when she says it should not be the cum shot of femdom, and we shouldn’t all have to rush out and buy one. It’s all about getting what you want. To get what you want, first you have to understand what you want. Then you can go finding a set of tools that work for you, be it handcuffs or rubber gloves or strap-ons or paddles. Whatever.

Like, what? I can’t be a powerful woman with a strap-on? I can be whatever I want with a strap-on! Pull out of this the only part of the sentence that is actually worth a damn to me: I can be whatever I want.

A lot of femdom throws out the strap-on emphatically because emphatic gestures, even when overly simplistic, are often the easiest way to deal with complex problems. I don’t believe that femdom needs to eradicate the use of the strap-on in order to stop the perpetuation of equating masculinity with power. I think we actually need to restructure our thoughts on a very different, more fundamental level.

We’ve got these two sets of binary ideas: male & female and power & weakness. We have them all wrapped up with each other, entirely interdependent in so many ways. I want to erase this connection. I want to separate the idea of the male & female from the idea of power & weakness.

I’m amazed you’re still reading, by the way.

Male phallus worship has been around for thousands of years. Female power worship has also been around for thousands of years. And you know, I’d call myself a feminist, but that’s not right. I’m more of an equalist, if such a thing existed. I think many equalists become feminists because it seems to be the best way to approach the current situation. The thing is, the current situation is fucked and will not benefit from tinkering. It should be defenestrated. I wish to throw it out the metaphorical window.

We want to change the kink world for the better, yea? The way to change the world is by thinking differently. Step back, take a breath, and redefine. Reexamine your accepted truths.

Culture tells us that penetration equals power, penetration is masculine and therefore masculinity and power are forever linked. Because we’re dealing with two halves of two binary ideas, culture automatically links the other halves together; femininity is weak.

In order to combat this fuckupery we have decided to embrace being penetrated as strong, in order to cause the inevitable chain reaction which concludes by stating that the female gender is the one with the power.

The problem with deciding to turn the idea on its head is that we’ve already demonstrated that the logic behind the idea is faulty; culture came to the conclusion that women are weak, and we disagree. So we take the exact same logical treatment of ideas and arrive at the conclusion that women are strong, which suits us infinitely better but in no way fixes the problem of the faulty logic. This isn’t trying to fix the culture. This is trying to reaarange it to our convenience.

Rather than rehash an old process with new ideas, it serves us better to examine the process itself to figure out what the hell’s going wrong.

Point one: Penetration equals power. Not true. Penetration is a tool to be used in the process of power exchange. Being the giver or taker of a penetrative act in no way necessitates a certain kind of power, as all the lovely women who can top while being fucked have proven. Scratch it. It’s a false assumption. We knew that already; that’s the basic premise of the No Strap-Ons Clubs’ argument.

Point two: Penetration is masculine. Well hey, guess what. I don’t think that’s true either. And I fully realize I’m going against literally hundreds of thousands of years of biology here, with men having penises and women not. But doesn’t it seem that the very invention of the strap on has pretty much made this whole argument bullshit? Not only that, it’s not just a penis one can penetrate with. I can penetrate you with a knife, a needle, my fist, my finger, my teeth. I can penetrate your personal space. I can penetrate you emotionally with my mind. I get as much pleasure out of penetrating you with a strap-on as I do from penetrating you with a needle. I’m a woman with full control over the ability to penetrate people. I’m not taking on a masculine trait. This does not need to be gendered. Seriously, stop gendering things. Really.

With point one and point two pretty much gone, the conclusion just doesn’t hold up now, does it? Masculinity does not equal power. It’s not because masculinity equals powers’ opposite, weakness. It’s because, guess what, you don’t actually need to gender your power exchange in any one particular way. You can if you want to. But you don’t have to.

Especially not when stuck within this rigid bullshit idea that gender and power are binary concepts. Gender and power are fluid concepts. The two scales can play off one another with or without being intertwined. You can treat them any way you’d like.

I believe gender is necessarily fluid, because we’ve stuck ourselves into a binary idea and then have to embrace fluidity in order to account for all of the people, ideas and actions that don’t fit the binary model. I include myself in this fluidity. And I believe that power is fluid for exactly the same reason. I wear boys clothes, I kiss girls, and I don’t always think of myself as totally feminine. And I don’t hold every single solitary kind of ultimate power in my relationships, and don’t want to.

We insist on gendering power exchange because we choose the genders of our partners. It makes so much sense if you’re a submissive man to connect women with power. You want a woman with power. It’s not a far jump from there to wanting women to be powerful, even if they don’t want to be. And from there, to deciding that womankind is powerful. We are so insistent on gendering everything! Look how we name our interests: fem dom, male dom, fem sub, male sub.

If you’re not heterosexual this whole insistence on a binary equation of gender and power just up and fades away. Seriously, the heterosexual scene needs some prolonged exposure from the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans) scenes. Most of them figured out what I’m about to say a long time ago.

They’re *people,* people. We’re humans in the end. Embrace the idea that you are powerful because you are you. You demand power, you work for it, you get it. Embrace the idea that you are vulnerable because you choose to be, not because of how your sexual organs happen to be arranged.

It’s not me being a man, or being masculine. It’s me with a strap-on. It’s all about me. My gender identity informs rather than defines my identity as a whole. I claim power, because I am me. It’s so more elemental than gender.

A strap-on is a tool. Penetration is a tool. Power exchange is mental; power exchange is not about the tools you use but how you how you use them. It’s not about what you do; it’s about how you do it.

This is bad news for every annoyingly clueless femdom who’s ever walked into a play party and demanded that strange men bow down to her. It’s bad news for every male dom who argues that women are naturally the weaker sex. It’s bad news for every male sub who insists he’s worthless, and blissfully perpertuates the idea that all women are to be worshipped. It’s bad news for every man who wants to be fucked up the ass to make himself feel like a weak woman.

Nope. Sorry. Here in my corner of the Internet, I’m going to make you work for it. I will not accord you a place on any power scale according to your gender or a gendered idea of how you want to play. It’s going to be much harder than that, and it’s going to involve understanding the exchange of power as something you have to deal with consciously. Something you have to earn because of who you are as a whole person. What you think, and how you play. I have power because I use the tools I have available in order to gain power.

I’m not saying people can’t go out and gender their power exchange if they want to. Gender is fascinating, and an incredible tool to have available. I’m saying do it consciously. Have strap-on sex, or don’t! Whatever! Give and take as whole people, not arrangements of sexual organs.

But don’t come looking to me for femdom. I’m not a femdom. I’m a dom. Straight up. And I penetrate.

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