Out of town.

I'm going to Boston tonight and getting back next Tuesday night. Updates will be sporadic (and agonizingly pecked out on a handheld) until then.

Oh, and I'll be 24 when I come back! (As of Sunday.) Very exciting! And sort of horrifying. I worry that might be the cutoff age for excusing all your activities with "I'm just a kid," and at the stroke of midnight I'll develop an irresistible urge to take out a mortgage and eat broccoli, or whatever the hell grownups do.

Lifestyle choice.

Man, not only did I not choose to be attracted to both men and women, I don't even get to choose which ones.

Management has the right to refuse service.

So I was talking to a guy at a kink event about the awkward little dance of kinky pick-ups, and I mentioned that it's extra awkward when you get approached by someone you just know you're not going to play with.

He recoiled like I'd said something horribly racist. "How can you possibly just know that?" And I was too afraid of looking like a bitch to say "well, some of the dudes here are really ugly and are exuding very loud 'hello I am a weirdo' vibes." Because that would be discriminating. (Incidentally, my standard of "ugly" is neither fat nor old--I like big dudes and some guys definitely hit their 50s still going strong. But some people are ugly to me and I know it when I see it.)

I don't think being ugly or even weird is cause to treat a person badly. But refusing to play with or fuck someone isn't an abuse. I'm not an equal opportunity employer, and I don't think I have any ethical obligation to be. I think there's also an implication that since play isn't sex, it shouldn't matter if you're attracted to someone--but c'mon now, this isn't doubles tennis, it's a fetish and even if I leave my panties on I'd still like them to get a bit wet. And tragically, physical appearance and presentation are important fuel for my panty-wetting mechanisms.

Kink communities that are so devoted to "acceptance" that no one stands up to creeps have been a pet peeve of mine for a while. But when you start telling me that I should be "accepting" with my body... fuck that.

Whoo.

R-71 passes. (By a narrow margin with not all votes entered, so I shouldn't count my chickens, but oh my how many chickens I have!) Washington can continue to have gay not-marriage, and The Children will just have to cope somehow.

Yay. I'll commence fornicating in the streets immediately.

Okay, "continue."

Radio Ad.

Someone is putting way too much money into opposing R-71 (domestic partnerships), and I really wonder what they possibly have to gain by it. "Ewwww, queers" is one thing, but who has thousands of dollars to spend on that sentiment?

Anyway, here's the radio ad that just drove me insane:

*kindergarten class noises*
TEACHER: Okay, kids, put away your instruments. Music time is over and now we're going to hear a story. This is a very special story. Instead of a mommy and a daddy, this story has two daddies.
KIDS: *Gaaaaasp.*

And then the ad just sort of ends and a narrator says "Vote against R-71."

What's supposed to be the problem here? Does it somehow go without saying that this would be a terrible thing? These ads are apparently targeted at people who think "well, if they want to get married that's one thing, but telling kids about it, that's crossing the line." I guess the idea is that being gay is explicitly sexual, and somehow there's no way to say that Billy loves Robbie without bringing buttsex into it? That's my best guess here. Either that or being gay is really shameful and harmful, like being an alcoholic, it's the sort of thing that happens and you don't hate alcoholics, but kids shouldn't be told it's normal to drink Thunderbird at 9 AM.

Shit, there might be a kid in that class who has two daddies. He better not tell anyone, that would be totally inappropriate.

It's rude to say "Well, DUH."

Man, leaving Benny was about the best thing I ever did for myself.

Not just because of the little abuse incident, but because it shook me out of "meh, I have a play partner, sort of" complacency and kicked me back into the kinky world and all its wonders and annoyances. And because it stopped me buying into his ideas that casual sex is always lesser, that if you don't love someone you're supposed to kind of hate them. And because it stopped me thinking that his big dumb ass was the best I could do.

Sure, I don't have a regular Friday-night fuck anymore. What I have instead is freedom. Sometimes it's better to risk sleeping alone than to settle.

Gateway Drug.

My gateway drug was The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I watched it for the first time when I was maybe 13, at home in the middle of the day on a VCR, but with friends there who knew the callback lines. Pretty soon after that we went to see it live and I played the "virgin games," deep-kissing a girl I didn't know and moaning out a fake orgasm in front of a packed theater. Before I was 18 I was on a shadow cast (backup Tranny, whoo) and drunkenly took my clothes off mid-performance and promptly lost them altogether, walking home in sub-freezing temperatures in my underwear. (I'm still not embarrassed of that. I was free dammit.)

Rocky is a terrible movie, but for me it represented a wonderful world. Inside and outside the frame, Rocky is all about fluidity and openness of sex and gender, a polymorphous perversity that says you can play with these things. Men are sexy in garters and the flamboyantly gay and flamboyantly straight can fuck side-by-side and with each other and let's all of us roll around in a pool together for the sake of nothing but pleasure. Sex doesn't have to be defined and controlled, you can be amorphous and promiscuous and that's wonderful. Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh. Don't dream it, be it.

(Of course this is naïve, and it's true that Rocky--and unfortunately a lot of our cast--didn't give full thought to safety and consent issues. We don't live in a world where everyone can literally roll around with everyone and have it be fine. But it's a beautiful ideal. Just recognizing that ideal existed as opposed to the "meet a nice boy, settle down, do it to seal your love" ideal was a watershed moment for me at 13.)

Even the callback lines, as silly as they were, were part of the personal evolution that led to this blog. Those words you're not supposed to even say? At Rocky you can scream them.

Rocky is also a great way for a geeky young girl to meet kinky people and learn that such things exist outside porn--and that for all the black leather, most of them are surprisingly nice and laid-back about it. That lady with a flogger on her belt isn't a "dominatrix," she's a person and you can go talk to her. Ditto that man in a dress and that girl with a collar and leash on. You might have more than you'd ever expect in common with them. You might realize there's nothing stopping you from being one of them.

And Rocky is a great movie for doing really dirty things in the back aisles and up behind the screen. I'm just saying.

all i really want

Sometimes I'm embarrassed how little it takes to make me happy. I think I'm supposed to want to change the world somehow, to discover or create something new, to have a big house and a perfect family.

But all it takes is the touch of skin on skin to make me want nothing at all.

NaNoWriMo!

I'm getting a jump start on my NaNoWriMo project today. It was supposed to be an erotic novel, but four pages in it's turning into a grimdark existentialist erotic novel. "Kae paused and wondered if her real body had been forgotten and was rotting away at that very moment, then took another slurp of pussy."

I think I've expounded upon this idea before, but it's basically the Sex Matrix, which enables a hooker to service clients from all over the world without any risk to her real body, but then things... get weird. (No, she isn't The One. There is no One. There is only an endless procession of the helpless many. Just because there is no spoon doesn't mean you can bend it. Are you turned on yet?)

I can't pretend to be distressed by this. I like being weird! I'm excited to see where this goes!

Small Circles.

Sometimes I feel like half of the population is perverts. It's really amazing how many people, once you get to where they're comfortable talking about it, turn out to be into some form of BDSM.

And sometimes, on the other hand, I feel like there are only about twelve perverts in Seattle.



(Context: last night I went to a party I haven't been to in months. I originally stopped going because it was getting taken over by this weird little clique that would literally try to assign play partners to other people--"Oh, you're new here, you should play with Joe! Go get 'er, Joe!"--and imposed their view of the One True Kink on everyone and generally soured the vibe. But I figured people always come and go from these things, and after six months the population should've cycled some, right? I show up and it's the same damn people. It's deeply weird to be away from a place for six months and still know everyone by name.

But I met a nice new guy anyway, once I extricated myself from the tentacles of the Kink Dictators, and we had fun times, so yay.)

On Stereotypes.

I can always find my jacket really easily when I leave a fetish meetup, because I wear a brown leather jacket.

Keeping it in the bedroom.

I had a Very Bad, No Good, Horrible Terrible day at work today. I don't mean "late on TPS reports" bad, I mean that I was spat on and slapped and punched multiple times. And contrary to unnervingly popular opinion, liking that sort of thing in bed has fucking nothing to do with how I feel about it in the real world. (I feel somewhat negatively about it. Thanks for asking.)

It really bothers me when people draw this kind of connection between the real world and the sex world. I was almost as weirded out when a person at a kink meetup talked about her daughter chasing around and hitting the boys at her daycare, and remarked "she's turning into a little domme!" I know it's a joke, but ew. Ew, and also wrong because that's not what dommes do. Unless they're psychopaths, dommes don't run around hitting boys; they run around asking boys "can I hit you?" Kind of an important distinction.

Even when it's not violent, people saying things like "ooh, you work at a shoe store, you must have a foot fetish" and "ooh, you have a foot fetish, do you work at a shoe store?" ook me out equally. Again, I know, joke, but it's a much creepier joke than intended. Somewhere up there with "oh, you work at a morgue, are you a necrophiliac?"

Of course it's not really sex that draws the hard line between "ha ha, hitting" and "OH FUCK, hitting"; it's consent. If a foot fetishist indulges their fetish at work, it's not cute, because the customer didn't consent to foot-molestation. Seeing sex where there's no sex is déclassé; seeing sex where there's no consent is mega creepy.

Very important tip.

Brush your teeth. Not just right before dates but all the time. And use mouthwash. And mints.

I can't count the number of times I thought I was attracted to a guy, got within the breath radius, and WHOOOF. A whole evening's worth of flirtation undone in a single pungent blast. Now all I can think, no matter how good-looking or charming he is, is "if I had sex with him, I'd have to breathe that for like a half hour."

Reality.

The other night, I had dinner with witches and goddesses, masters and slaves, 40-year-old little girls and human dogs. It was really just chance that there wasn't a goddamn dragon present.

Of course I didn't. I had dinner with a bunch of middle-aged software developers who own a lot of cats. Why dignify their delusions?

Because they'll dignify mine. My delusions may be modest in scope--I'm pretty sure I'm an ordinary adult human--but I certainly have notions about my place in sex and the world that might not be perfectly objective. Who I am is a mix of what I am, and what I say I am. I was born female, but I'm a woman on my say-so.

Of course it's silly. Of course it's a game, and someone saying they're a dog is probably not as serious, deep down, as someone saying they're a woman. But it's not "wrong" for someone to identify in ways that don't fit physical reality. The only times I've had a right to bristle were when someone tried to impose upon my self-concept--you can be a goddess but you can't make me your worshipper. And honestly, once I get over my Internet-conditioned "ewww a furry" reaction, a dog-dude is a barrelfull more fun than your average dude-dude.

Why does this flexibility of identity seem to cross over with sex so often? You don't run into dog-dudes who just want to play frisbee nearly as often as you run into dudes who want to be dogs during sex or BDSM play. Maybe it's because sex is the only arena where adults really have a license to play. There's rules for frisbee, even when you're just tossing it around, it's not true play the way children play. Even supposed "RPGs" tend to be more about leveling up and phat lewtz than really roleplaying. Whereas "roleplay" in sex is a free-form and accepted thing.

It makes me a little sad sometimes. Not that play has become sexual, but that play so often seems confined to sex. I can get people in bed with me playing like we're the naughty policeman and the seductive suspect, but I can't get them to go play cops and robbers with me in the park. That would be weird. You have to outgrow these things. Life has rules now, so fun has to have rules now. Even when I find someone game to play Calvinball with me, it feels awkward and hollow. I don't know if that's because we can't play anymore or just because we can't stop feeling that we're not supposed to. But I see dog-dudes and guys who call themselves Lord Ravenblood as precious evidence that it's the latter.

So you know what? Fuck you, I'm a dragon.






raaaarrrr

Why I'm not a hooker.

The difference between sex and. prostitution isn't just that money gets exchanged. A prostitute accepts money in lieu of having his/her own desires met in the sex. If your hooker is any good, you're not just paying for consent, you're paying for sex that's all about you. You don't have to go down on a prostitute unless you happen to love going down.

I don't think this is inherently wrong--you don't pay a massage therapist to trade backrubs, after all--but it's an important thing to keep in mind when discussing prostitution. Prostitution isn't some women doing for pay what other women do for free, despite what the Freakonomics guys seem to think when they say things like:

Who poses the greatest competition to a prostitute? Simple: any woman who is willing to have sex with a man for free.

I don't know about you, but I've never had sex with a man for free. I've had sex in exchange for getting my sexual desires--partner choice, specific kinks, sometimes emotional closeness--met. Prostitutes, especially high-class ones, do have some say in which acts and which men they'll do, but not to nearly the degree a woman fucking for "free" does. I'm fairly sure that any prostitute who only slept with men she found panty-soakingly attractive and insisted that they fulfill her fantasies would go broke.

I'm also not a sucker for giving it away for "free" because prostitution in our current society involves a lot of risks unrelated to the sex. I like my day job, but I might do a couple paid fucks on the weekend now and then for extra cash, the way I work on festival event crews now and then--except that if I ever got caught at the fucking I'd lose my day job and a whole lot of possibilities in life. The money may be worth the sex (i.e, the dude-centric sex with ugly dudes), but unless I want to commit myself to the lifestyle it's not worth the sex and the risk.

And I don't want to commit myself to the lifestyle because odds are I can't be a $500 whore. (Also because I don't want to choose between lying to my dad and horrifying him.) I like sex well enough and I've got a decent work ethic, but I'm not conventionally gorgeous, I'm not great at mustering up enthusiasm for sex acts and partners I'm not into, and I'm downright terrible at the whole charming-sexy-manner thing that separates the "courtesans" from the Pac Hiway hookers. (I don't think I'm Pac Hiway material either, by the way, but somewhere on the Craigslist midlist. I could probably get somewhat more than my current salary, but not enough to compensate for the risks and sacrifices.) Just because a woman can get $500 an hour for sex doesn't mean any woman would get that if she played enough pricing games.

Certainly, prostitution isn’t for every woman. You have to like sex enough, and be willing to make some sacrifices, like not having a husband (unless he is very understanding, or very greedy).

Most hookers do have husbands or boyfriends; there are plenty of "very understanding" men out there. But me, I like sex enough to not be a hooker. Because it's sex that I like, not hooking, and no disrespect to hooking but those are two very different things.

10 tips for having sex with women.

1. Women are rather submissive, and will appreciate a bit of take-charge in your attitude, from a little extra firmness in your touch to shoving your dick in her mouth and referring to her as "slut."

2. Don't touch her clit. Women hate that. You can touch around it, you can touch the lips and the mound, but keep your poky fingers off the clit, please.

3. Spank her. Oh god, yeah, spank her.

4. She'll get rather moany and squirmy rather early in the proceedings. Don't take this as a sign that she's done. Believe me, you'll know when she's done.

5. Women like to be manhandled, literally. Don't be shy; grab her by the wrists or the hair and put her right where you want her. She grew that ponytail just to give you a nice handle.

6. The more turned on she is, the more she can take. In just about every sense--size, pain, aerobicism. Show some consideration for her comfort at the start, but when she really gets into it, fucking use her, she'll love it.

7. Women's nipples are quite sensitive. You should probably put your mouth on them. A little bit of tooth wouldn't hurt.

8. Don't bother with cunnilingus unless you really enjoy it. Women appreciate the effort and all, but it doesn't really do much for them.

9. Women like it doggy-style. They have a good time in missionary and most funky positions too, but they're not that great at being on top. They'll do it, they sure like it better than sitting around sipping a mint julep, but they never feel totally confident up there.

10. Want the real secret to pleasing a woman? Penetration, penetration, penetration. Even if she isn't so keen on your foreplay--even if she isn't all that keen on you--gently work your fingers or your dick up in there and her eyes will roll back.




(Explanation for the confused: By being ridiculously self-centered I illustrate how women--how people--are so individual that any list of simple physical tips is doomed to failure. By drawing it out to ten items, I illustrate how much I love to talk about my vagina.)

I started writing a really thoughtful essay, but I got stuck, so.

If you've had sex with everyone your partners have had sex with, I've had sex with a chinchilla.



(Making it even worse: I learned this before I had sex with the guy.

Making it slightly better: The chinchilla wasn't harmed--its soft fur, rather than any orifice, was the object of my lover's ardor--and he characterized its state afterwards as "confused, but not upset.")

Worth 1000 words.

(With thanks to Unix-Jedi by way of LabRat.)

Pervert.

Kinky people habitually refer to themselves as "perverts"; it's sort of a half-joke, a bit of reclaimed persecution, the "queer" or "bitch" of the hittysex crowd. But what does "pervert" really mean?

The dictionary (Merriam-Webster) definition for the noun is "one that has been perverted; specifically : one given to some form of sexual perversion." That's a little circular, so look up "pervert" as a verb and we get "to cause to turn aside or away from what is good or true or morally right." From the Latin pervertere, to corrupt or literally to "thoroughly turn."

My personal morality, and I hope this isn't too idiosyncratic, is that it's bad to hurt people without cause. "An it harm none, do what ye will" comes close but doesn't include the catch that sometimes a small harm prevents larger ones. "An in harm none unless you gotta, do what ye will," anyway.

I don't find anything in there about having weird sex. Not that consenting-adults sex is always harmless--having adulterous sex harms the cuckold, having unsafe sex harms yourself and your partners, and so on. But what you actually do in bed is the least of your worries. The butt is not eviler or falser or wronger than the vagina. Receiving a footjob from a woman wearing a gasmask while you bark like a dog and call her "Mommy" is kinky--but it's not perverted.

Language evolves. Because "cunt" was once a neutral term doesn't mean you should use it in fifth grade sex ed. Maybe I should only worry about what "pervert" means now. Except, as the dictionary entry suggests, the language isn't quite done evolving in this instance. Often it is a straight-up expression of disgust. The usage of "perverted" as "wrong" is very much alive, with "pervert" commonly used as a term for pedophiles and other sexual abusers. If a guy who gropes women on the subway is a "pervert," should I be sharing that label?



Oh shit, I literally forgot the name of my own blog while writing this entry. It's way too late to change it to "The Unusual But Ethical ...ocracy." I guess I'm committed now. I gotta reclaim this thing unless I want to make this into a blog for subway creeps.

So I'll say that "pervert" is one of those words, like "moral", that reflects more on the speaker than on the person described. The difference between "ugh, that's perverted" and "mmm, that's perverted" is what matters, not the difference between "pervert" and "kinkster." Someone who thinks I'm gross can call me "kinky" or "a BDSM enthusiast" and still mean a slur by it.

This particular word may be in an awkward point in its evolution, but that doesn't even matter. It's all in what you mean by it. If by pervert I mean someone neutrally different in their sexuality, and I can make my listener understand that I mean it that way, then yeah, I'm a pervert. What of it?

I'll know that the word has finally changed when I see an internet asshole referring to my kind as "so-called 'perverts'..."

Blood.

I love seeing my own blood. Not because it's the life being drained out of me, but because it's a tiny fraction of the life that's still in me. Bleeding and still being alive gives me a crazy little thrill of how strong I am, of what my body can withstand without even getting dizzy.

Blood is proof. Feeling a knife is one thing, that's subjective, but if blood comes out, that means that I was really cut, that my pain is real. If I don't have marks I don't have a way to prove to myself that I was touched with anything more than bunnyfur, and a mark that breaks my skin, that's the most serious mark of all. I can't be completely a poser if I'm bleeding.

Blood is drama. Interest in BDSM is partly rooted in the love of drama that elevates sex into something more mysterious and powerful than ordinary life, and what's more dramatic than flowing blood?

Blood is beautiful. To me at least. Even a little smear of it is a thrill, a flowing line of it a frightening rush, a single drop a single of so much power and terror. It's so red.

Blood is me. It's my life flowing through my veins, and it's my life to do what I want with--to throw away if I see fit, to give to those who deserve it, to spend on sex and fun as well as "worthy" pursuits.

I'm not completely crazy. I don't want to bleed a lot, I don't want to risk even a scar, much less real injury. But that single shining red drop of it. That's sexy.