Everyone thinks they're normal.

I was talking with a male friend once and we were joking about Viagra.

"If an erection persists for four hours..." he said, "Fuck that shit! If I have an erection for more than fifteen minutes I'm going to the damn ER!"

I didn't say anything rude. But I might have made a sound. And I sort of looked at him.

"Um, maybe like half an hour then," he said quietly.

HPV isn't a girl virus!

I know I'm not the only one who thinks it's strange that Gardasil is being marketed to women and girls. While HPV certainly has worse effects in females, it can cause genital warts in males, and more importantly: women are getting it from somewhere. If you want to vaccinate thoroughly enough to get the virus out of the community, inoculating only 50% of the community is a terrible way to do that.

This may just be a transitional drug-approval-process thing; the official website says it's approved for women 9 to 26 simply because they were the initial study group. So I don't want to scream "sexism"--considering the consequences of HPV are potentially fatal in women but not men, this is a rational choice. Hopefully the step of vaccinating men so they can't infect women (or get genital warts) will come with time.

I should really get Gardasil. I feel sort of resigned though, because the rationale on 26 is that women over 26 are more likely to have had multiple partners, and... yeah. I've been good with condoms, and I've never had any bumpies or oozies, but nonetheless I feel like I probably have something asymptomatic, just because that's how God punishes sluts, I guess. (When I was a teenager, incidentally, I was constantly convinced I was pregnant. I read somewhere you could get your period while pregnant and that really got me going. At one point I could swear I felt the baby kicking. Especially after I ate a lot of beans.) I mean, I can't expect to have this much fun for free, right?

Yes I can. Sex doesn't have a price or a punishment or "consequences"--it has manageable risks. I'm going to make an appointment on Monday.

Cosmocking: June '08.

Gosh, I put this one off a long time. The issues always come out two or three weeks in advance of their purported month so I've been sitting on this one for a while. Anyway. Carmen Electra on the cover. Her paint-stain dress, while actually sort of cool, clashes horribly with the safety-orange background.

Smashing into theaters this month is The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton. If your guy forgets the popcorn, crack him up with this classic Hulk line: "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
I do so love the awkward laugh of you-won't-put-out-if-I-don't-pretend-you're-not-an-idiot, don't you?

All guys can get away with being vulgar and crass, but very few women can. For instance, it's okay for a man to make masturbation jokes, but when a girl tells you she ended her day alone with a vibrator, it comes across as sad. So women should usually avoid superdirty humor.
Hey lady, fuck you! Oh, oops, I'm a dainty proper little lady--kiss you! In the ass.

Also: I'm going to end today alone with a vibrator. Anyone who's sad for me because of this, raise your hand. (Anyone who wants to listen in on this, you have my number.)

"I read about how much fun ice can be under the covers," says Owen, 26. "My girlfriend loved it so much that, even now, she sometimes brings up how creative it was."
Oh my gosh, that's so... adorable.

Thank Him for Being a Guy
Tell him you dig one of his manly moves, like changing your oil or fixing your computer sans manual.
That's not manly. It's helpful. I'll happily thank him for being helpful.

You don't see many 20-year-olds who are into role-playing or S and M because they don't need it--a stiff breeze is enough to get them aroused.
People don't do that freaky S and M shit because they can't get aroused without it; they do it because with it they get aroused a whole big lot. (Also, I find it sort of weird that they're implying "S and M" would arouse anyone who'd become less responsive to stiff breezes, like a flogging was the new Herbal Viagra.)

[in an advice column where a woman complains her boyfriend hasn't wanted sex for three years] Come to think of it, why do you want to have sex so bad with someone who's unwilling to be intimate? Is it because you're attracted to him or because you're desperate for him to notice you?
Or maybe she just wants to get laid sometime this year? Jesus Christ, nooo, women only want sex for fuzzy emotional reasons, because our vaginas are dead inside and feel nothing.

[in an article on date rape] Master Manipulators: Lines like these are meant to get you alone.
-"You're drunk. I'll give you a ride home."
-"Let's go somewhere quiet to really talk."
I can sorta see how these might get a very naive girl into a situation with unwanted expectations, but for an adult with social skills, really... "go somewhere quiet to talk" isn't a lie so much as a polite fiction. Maybe I'm steeped in rape culture, of course I don't think any such situation entitles the man to sex, but most guys who say "let's get some privacy" aren't manipulating you, they're assuming you know what they mean.

The secret to being a confident chick: JEANS
EXACTLY.

And now, the almost inevitable Incredibly Reprehensible Article of the Month:
How to Snoop on Your Man*
*Because sometimes you may have to
Yeah, it's not your fault, you had to!

The medicine cabinet: Google any meds you don't know--he may have an STD, depression, anxiety, and ADD. Painkillers could be from a surgery, but if they're under someone else's name, it could be a sign of abuse. If he has different tablets in the same bottle, note any numbers or letters on them, and use the pill identifier on drugs.com to ID his stash.
Yeah, fuck those antidepressant-using bastards, how dare they think they deserve to have a girlfriend! Being depressed, that's just such a horrible betrayal!

And it goes on, for four pages, straight-faced: check his trash, check his browser history, check his wallet, check his phone bill, check his goddamn underwear drawer. I don't even know what to say about this.

Never date a Cosmo girl.

Paradoxical Contusions.

Why is it that a long session of absolutely agonizing (seeming) caning leaves no visible evidence at all, but a single near-painless stumble on a metal bracket gives me a giant glorious bruise?

I want bruises, dammit.

Welcome to the seamy underbelly. Can I get you a Coke?

I'm continually impressed by how the filthy seedy underground contains some of the sweetest, friendliest, most open people I've met in a long time. You can hang around and chat and make friends, get up and get beaten and fucked in front of everyone, come back and resume chatting.

Which is what I did tonight. I hung out on the couches, met an adorable boyish blond top, we talked casually for like a half hour then went in a quiet back room to negotiate ("can I pee on you?" "no, no, I'm saving myself!"), came back out and he put me in handcuffs and leg irons, beat the shit out of me, and fucked me but good. I went from whimpering in pain from a huge heavy paddle on my ass, to moaning in ecstasy as he held my legs up over his shoulders and fucking slammed me, to a meek little "thank you, that was nice." Then we cleaned up, got dressed again, and went to hang out and shoot the shit on the couches again.

On the way back home I listened to country radio, and all the songs about eternal faithful love for the first person you ever kissed made me a little sad. Not directly sad; I had a damn good time, I don't think I'll start emotionally pining for Blond Boy but nor am I numb--just cheerfully pleased with what I got and wanting nothing more. But meta-sad. Sad that I wasn't sad, if you know what I mean. I'm starting to realize that ("at least at this point in my life" is what I tell myself) the entire traditional romance model isn't going to work for me. Some doors are opening and quite a few are closing. A lot of awfully nice men don't want to date the girl who's sucked thirty-seven dicks.

At twenty-two it doesn't matter much. I figure I've got at least eight years to be as much of a slut as I like; just use condoms, get tested, don't go anywhere private with anyone creepy, and I can party my little butt off. But I really want to have a kid someday, and I don't want to be a single mother. Does that stick me with traditional marriage? Would a man expect sexual fidelity in exchange for acting as a domestic partner and father?

I suppose there are some who wouldn't, especially in the kinky/poly community. It's certainly a more limited selection but not a dismal one. And things can certainly be worked out with men who don't publicly identify as poly. And this "kinky slut" shtick may be a phase; my sexuality and lifestyle may be different when I'm of mommy age. Or I may just make the sacrifice of traditional marriage and learn to accept it.

Nonetheless I worry sometimes.

Reactive.

I react a lot, to both sex and pain. I'll moan, grunt, writhe, grind, and flat-out scream. I never know myself how much of it is a put-on. Probably some, because I can masturbate silently, but then again masturbation isn't at all the same sensation. On the other hand, when I'm having sex with someone else, none of my or my partner's concerns about family/neighbors/hotel management/"oh god my ears" will stop me once I start losing control.

Fortunately I do own a ball gag. Unfortunately, I can still get a couple hundred decibels through it. It's really just an aesthetic choice between "OHHHH GOOOODDDD" and "MMMM MMMMMF."

I love it when guys react, but usually they don't. Maybe a little right before orgasm, but I've never seen a guy do the full-on moaning thing I do. Pity. It would be hot as hell.

I thought this was a gendered difference, but upon starting to go to kinky sex clubs I've discovered that pretty much no one yowls the way I do unless there's an entire hand in them or they're having needles jammed through their nipples. And frankly, sometimes not even then. I'm amazed by the stoicism of some bottoms who have horrible things done to them and just stand there silently. I don't think they feel less pain than me, and sometimes I don't even think they have a higher tolerance than me, they just don't express it by hollering so damn much.

I think I also give a false impression of being much closer to my limit than I really am. I've had to explain more than once that "Aaaauugh" doesn't mean "stop." That's why we have safewords!

The funny thing is that when I get hurt in "real life" I'm not that big of a crybaby. I tend to laugh it off. But even if I could do that in a sexual context it probably wouldn't be a good idea.

"Your Pretty Is Your Worth"

You know, the next time I get into an "Aww, I'm so ugly" mood, I don't want to hear "No, you're pretty!"

I want to hear "I don't care if you're pretty."

Bits of a BDSM party.

-He didn't tie me up. He simply put my hands in place on a St. Andrew's cross and when my hands moved or I looked to the side he made me hurt. He was making me hurt anyway, but if I disobeyed it was much, much worse.

-"This is a real soft deerskin flogger, so it doesn't hurt at all, it's just like a massage"--LIES. FILTHY LIES.

-Even when you are ass-naked in front of about 60 people, it's impossible to be self-conscious of your body when someone is whaling on your back and ass hard enough to put tears in your eyes. You don't remember to suck in your stomach.

-However, I am horribly self-conscious about my inability to take pain the way those other freaks seem to. Not that I'm a complete wuss, but my "stupid noises" threshhold is ridiculously low (some people told me this was a plus) and unfortunately my "okay, stop now" threshhold is not really up to Serious BDSM Standards.

-He hit me with a chain. Big chunky metal chain like I was losing a biker fight. Surprisingly it hurt less than the "so soft, just a massage" deerskin (possibly because he was more timid about using it hard). Just a big, hard, deep impact and sexy as hell.

-Hey, a Wartenberg Wheel really does feel like your skin is being cut open! Uncannily so! Yikes! (Also, it's difficult to spell. Whartenburg?)

-If you have a really, really firm grip on my nipples, you can make me do pretty much anything you like.

-I think my favorite toy is hands. I hate to say that in the face of $8000 worth of dead cow and surgical steel and I don't discount its awesomeness, but there's something hopelessly beautiful about being controlled with nothing more than one hand on my throat and one hand beating the hell out of me.

-I was high afterwards, literally high, with my muscles shaking and my mind dazed. It was a strange and thrilling feeling.

-I didn't technically get laid. That's a terribly thin-stretched "technically."

Unlaid.

Thought I'd get laid tonight. Ended the night by sadly taking a condom, still in its wrapper, out of my pocket and putting it back in the drawer. That drawer's starting to look mighty overstocked. It's been more than a month since I was laid in the proper, condom-requiring way.

(It's been like 18 hours since I had phone sex and less than a week since I got dry-humped close to orgasm while being beaten, but never mind those, my self-pity has a very Clintonian concept of what constitutes sex.)

I know that if I really had the super-healthy attitude toward sex that I sometimes pretend to, I'd have a good attitude about not having sex. I don't. Being underfucked fills me with feelings of entitlement, obsessive fantasies, and worst of all, loneliness.

I want to make this into something half-noble, like "it's the human touch that I really miss," but it's not. It's a sheer greedy frustrated animal craving. I'm so damn horny it's not awesome anymore.

Well. It's a little awesome.

Heavy Breathing.

Masturbating is so much more fun when you're on the phone with someone. Even if neither of you really says anything. Just knowing that they know what you're doing changes it from masturbation to sex.

One of the (many) things I love about sex is how it can transform the comical or disgusting--incoherent grunting, wet sticky body fluids, butts and boners and cooters--into the sublime.

A thing.

I started to fill out a random "BDSM checklist" from online, then realized that the one I'd started was like a million pages long and I just don't have the stamina to articulate my feelings on arm sleeves versus my feelings on clit clamping ad infinitum. But the things I wrote on the first part were vaguely entertaining so I'm posting them anyway.

Look, this isn't one of them fancy-ass blogs with "organization" and "editing" and "a point", okay?


Part 1. Sexual Activities.
Anal Penetration - Sure! - But I'm not always good at it. The spirit is willing but the butthole is closed.
Anal Fisting - No - Well, I guess if you can you can, but I don't see how on Earth. I'm sure I'll be proven wrong someday.
Anilingus - Meh - If things are very extremely clean.
Cock Worship - Sure! - I ain't religious, but good God I'm spiritual.
Cunnilingus - Sure! - Duh.
Cyber Sex - Meh - I don't know how to type a moan. "Unnghhhoooo" sounds sexy, I swear.
Double Penetration (oral/vaginal) - Sure! - Although maybe not with two different people. But with a dude and a toy.
Double Penetration (oral/anal) - Sure! - Same deal.
Double Penetration (vaginal/anal) - Maybe - Eep.
Gang Bang - No - I just won't feel any emotional intimacy with Dude Seventeen, you know?
Group Sex - Sure! - That's totally different from a gang bang and I'm not even sure why.
Masturbation - Sure! - That's fundamental.
Phone Sex - Sure! - "Unnghhhoooo!"
Rough Sex - Sure! - I think that's the whole point.
Triple Penetration - Maybe - But how will I breathe?
Vaginal Fisting - Maybe - Be vewy, vewy caweful.
Vaginal Sex - Sure! - DUH.

A million little virginities.

"Please don't let anyone piss on your face before I get the chance, Holly."
"I won't, baby. I'll save myself for you."
"Aww. I get to be your first."

New Rule!

A friend from elementary school came to visit yesterday. She's kinky. (Roughly half of my friends are perverts. This is less because of some secret vibe we gave off before we even knew, and more because my friends are geeks and for some unclear reason liking Star Trek makes you like nipple clamps.) It's a little weird to discuss the finer points of caning with someone I used to play tetherball with, but I always like having kinky allies in the real world.

And we came to this rule, which I think might be a solid one: only do BDSM with people who are in the "scene." People who go at least sometimes to BDSM gatherings and events have an entirely different style than people who identify as kinky but have only expressed it in their own bedroom. Scene people are better at it, they're safer, and above all else they tend to be much much better at negotiating and respecting/expressing limits.

(This is not just a bottom problem; as a top, she's run into people who scared the heck out of her by being unable to express their own limits. "You were really hurting me back there and I didn't like it." "I wasn't hurting you in your vocal cords...")

Of course there are plenty of creeps in the scene and plenty of nice people who don't have the inclination to make their sexuality public. But niceness isn't entirely the point. It's more a matter of education and culture. Public BDSM communities have, when they're working properly, a culture based on explicit negotiation. Whereas most people's private sex lives are based more on nonverbal clues, guessing, and sometimes even pushing. That's okay (although not always) for just sex, but if you're going to be causing me pain and humiliation, wink-wink arm-around-the-shoulder ain't gonna cut it. We need to swallow our romantic spontaneity fantasies and talk.

On Joy.

Probably my biggest continuous revelation when it comes to sex is that sexual pleasure is happiness.

Going in to it, I always thought that sex (or later, perverted/promiscuous/etc. sex) was a dirty pleasure, something like binge eating or cutting yourself--the fulfillment of a physical compulsion but marred with shame and guilt. Something that feels good, but you don't feel good about.

But it turns out, at least for me, that it's simple joy. Like rollercoasters, like sunshine, like puppies. Getting spanked and fucked by near-strangers makes me smile and sparkle and laugh. Other than a little performance anxiety and occasional fear of getting "caught," my emotions about it are positive and surprisingly uncomplicated. It's fun!

Not for everyone, not always even for me. But at its root, when there are no complications, sex is joy.


I've been singing all day.

How to egg a mean man on.

"That doesn't hurt."
"Ergh, that doesn't hurt."
"YIPE... that doesn't hurt."
*eyes closed, jaw clenched, sweat breaking out on forehead, tears in eyes* "That... doesn't... HUUAAARGH... hurt."

Partay.

I just got back from my first formal BDSM play party. It was a great experience.

What got me was that everyone was smiling. Not always in mid-scene, but sometimes even then, and certainly every other time. It was a wonderfully friendly, fun atmosphere. I'd come in expecting things to be a little seedy or furtive, but it was more welcoming than most clothes-on parties I've been to. Just about everybody there was happy. Least I was.

Oh, and an incredibly cute and musclebound young military type grabbed me by my hair, had me struggle and then wrestled me down, and beat the hell out of my tits. I have the most amazing bruises.

I've got to do this again.

"Shocking."

I'm going to be stun-gunned. I'm terrified. A fucking stun gun. Fuck.

The horrifying part is that it will only happen if I consent to it. And I will.

Because, man, I'd regret it forever if I didn't.

Lateral Thinking.

The naughty board game card read "take off your lover's shirt without using your hands."

I thought about it for a second, looked my boyfriend dead in the eye and said in a certain voice, "Take. Off. Your. Shirt."

Hitty 4 Life.

There've been times when I've questioned whether I was actually a pervert. Is it a thing deeply ingrained in me, or is it a thing I kinda made up to be Special and Different? Or worse yet, a thing I only like to make me unhappy, something sad and damaged?

Nope! I'm just a pervert!

I was talking to a friend who's a sadist and I felt myself responding to him in truly eerie ways. Not just getting horny, but feeling in some weird fuzzy way that it was right. That I was downright happy he wanted to hurt me. Lucky. How often do you find someone who will take pleasure in giving you exactly what you want? It's like free ice cream!

I always feel awkward and get that weird sense of "is this okay?" when I post about people who read this blog, and I'm pretty sure he does. (The line between "telling my most intimate secrets" and "telling everyone's most intimate secrets" can get awful thin. Or, you know, nonexistent.) So, uh, hi Mr. Sadist! I like you! That's what I'm really saying here.

You're cute! Please hit me!

Dear Sweet Little Innocent.

My beloved but very conventional friend Julie: "So why did you and Alan break up, anyway?"

Me (after some hemming, hawwing, ineffectual "it's personal"-ing, and heavy sighing): "Well, Alan's very vanilla, and I'm not, and when he found out about just how unvanilla I was, he decided it wasn't going to work out."

Julie: "Ohhh, I know what you mean."

She does?

Julie: "You're not vanilla at all! You're like totally wacky! You're my wild and crazy silly friend, and that's not vanilla!"

Oh.

"No."

I asked a male friend if he wanted to have sex. He said no. I responded like the mature, enlightened, sex-positive, individual-choice-valuing intellectual that I am, and asked "are you suuure?" about twenty times and pawed him in the street and pretty much oozed all over him.

If our genders were reversed I'd be Googling "testicle replacement surgery" right about now, but fortunately Society thinks that a woman overbearingly groping a man is kinda funny, so I'm only deeply, deeply ashamed of myself.

It's not even the first time I've done this. When my first boyfriend broke up with me, my response was to tearfully try to take his pants off. If I can just get to the penis I can fix everything! I'm a creature of simple mind.

I don't take being turned down well. I don't get angry, it's just... it hurts me in my ego and my vagina, and those are my two most sensitive parts. And there's sort of a petulant unreasonable six-year-old in me who just got told she can't go on the rollycoaster even though she wanna. It's sort of unfortunate when your rollycoaster of choice is the bodies of other human beings. I'd like to believe that someday I'll grow into the kind of serenity that lets me take a "no" gracefully, but I doubt it.

I've never been on the opposite side of this situation. I don't remember ever saying no to a sincere offer of sex. Maybe when I wasn't physically up for intercourse I offered a rain check or a consolation prize (as in, "I could console the chrome off a ball hitch"), but actually saying "I don't want to do anything sexual with you"? Not once. I'm mousy enough to not get a lot of offers, horny enough to want as much as I can get, and willfully ignorant enough to always believe we'll both feel great in the morning.

Feh. Much as I love to write about it in hifalutin theoretical fashion, I don't have the sexual morals God gave a bonobo. I'm sad I made such a disrespectful ass of myself, and I'm still sad I didn't get any.



Well. To the Bat-Craigslist! Den of the all too willing and even fucking crazier than me! Thank God for free anonymous sex ads! They fix everything!

Hiatus.

outta town, no new posts till Monday

In Dreams.

I almost never have sex dreams. The nerves won't work while I'm asleep, or something, so I'm always having dreams where I'm just about to have amazing sex but wake up an instant before it actually happens.

What I have, endlessly, are cuddling dreams.

It's so sad waking up afterwards in an empty bed.

This is what happens when you go off the pill.

Fuck, I can't understand any complex feminist issues because I'm too fucking horny! I was reading blogs with this talk about "rape culture" and "enthusiasm not consent" and all I can think about is how enthusiastic I'd be with most anybody (okay, anybody cute) right now! I spent all day looking at random dudes on the street and wondering if I just pulled over and told them how horny I was how many fucks I could get. There was one tall blond guy in a tie I woulda paid.

This is crude and dehumanizing to me and the men ("hey bro, you've got a dick and you're not ugly, fulfill my needs!"), it's pointless and I know my horniness eyes are bigger than my emotions stomach anyway. It's the way I've been feeling all day today.


(Also, I'm breaking out like a teenager. Cripes.)

Like a little teddy bear!

The problem with masturbating yourself to sleep is waking up with sex toys still in your bed. It always makes me feel a little dirty, both metaphorically and literally.

On more than one occasion I've woken up cuddling a dildo.

Clockwatching.

It was 8:55.

I got on top of Benny and we fucked for hours. The fuck was a journey, an adventure in every possible position with peaks and valleys of ecstasy and at the end strained our endurance to the limit and we collapsed completely spent.

It was 9:05.

Benny put his arm around me and we cuddled for a couple minutes before getting out of bed and cleaning up.

It was 11:00.

Dealbreaker.

"Would you lick my asshole?"
"Would you kiss me after?"

An unsettling conversation.

Benny (mostly teasing): You should have your sister over here sometime with us.
Me: Ugh.
Benny (wistful now): I actually think it'd be kinda hot...
Me: It'd be incest.
Benny (suddenly awkward now): Well, that's, uh, kinda... I know... well, it's a taboo, isn't it, you know? I mean... as a fantasy...
Me: Oh god, please tell me you and your sisters never...
Benny: No, no. They're much older than me.

What stands between me and understanding.

I've never been raped. (Statutory raped like a hundred times! But it was mostly my idea.) I've never been seriously assaulted, sexually or physically. I've never been in an abusive relationship. As I said before, I've never been groped by a stranger.

I've never even really been treated badly. Well, of course I have, but it was always a situation of Dickhead vs. Holly, not of Man vs. Woman; I've never felt that a system was maltreating me because I was female. The problems I've had with institutions--getting sent to collections without ever seeing a bill, endless waits and expenses for professional licenses, getting drop-kicked out of schools and jobs--all would have happened the same way to a man, I'm fairly sure. Maybe it's just my own interpretation of events, but when I get fired or flunked or fined, I tend to think "I'm a moron" and/or "they're morons." I've never had a serious situation in my life where I felt that "this is because I'm a woman" was a good explanation.

Right now I'm working a traditionally male job in an 80%-male company and my coworkers and bosses are entirely respectful. I'm making the same pay as the men in my position and haven't experienced any hazing or harassment or any kind of hostile environment. Nobody treats me like a girl; they treat me like Holly.

These are the things that feminism won for me.

But they're also the things that make it difficult for me to identify with a lot of feminists. When people talk about how hard it is to be a woman I just don't know how to respond because I'm a woman and my life is... not easy, but I think it's no harder than it would've been if I were male. I don't know that; maybe there's some subtle favoritism that would've set Male Holly on the road to fame and fortune by now. And I haven't had kids yet, I understand that can really bugger things up. Still, the bottom line is, as far as I can tell, nothing bad has happened to me because I'm female.

This is just me. I know that other than gender I've got my privilege ducks in a row--white, straight, wealthy family, nice neighborhood, college education, good health--and so on, to my great fortune in real life and great disadvantage in Internet arguments. So when I'm bearing only one major oppressed status, I guess it's no big surprise that I haven't experienced much oppression.

I'm not quite dumb enough to say that sexism doesn't exist. But I think it's losing. It's retreating from politics to pop culture, from institutions to individuals. It's working in concert with other forms of discrimination not because it's all-pervasive, but because it no longer has the strength or legitimacy to exist alone. Is feminism done? FUCK NO. Sexism's influence in the things that really matter is waning but still present (in the field of pro-life, anti-gay, abstinence-only "family values" law particularly), and even in the things that don't matter as much (Cosmo) it's still wrong. Because life for women has become livable doesn't mean it's time yet to declare "we're all equal now!" and go play foosball.

It is, however, time to get some perspective. It's time to realize that you win nothing by exaggerating your own victimhood or claiming that all individual problems are systemic. Above all, it's time to stop saying "It sucks to be a woman," because really (I've been one for like a whole bunch of years now), it doesn't. Being a woman is not yet like being a man, but it does not suck. Part of honoring the women who got us votes and equal-opportunity laws and reproductive rights is continuing their fight; part of it is acknowledging and enjoying the strides we've already made.

I'm a woman, and I'm happy.

Doodles.

Benny and me, lying in bed warm and sleepy from fucking, afternoon sun streaming in the window. He's doodling little patterns on my back with his fingertip.

"Guess what I'm drawing."
He swirls his finger down the skin between my shoulderblades and back up again, drawing long loopy lines and circles on my body.

"A cock and balls."
"How did you..."
"You're predictable."