Saturday, May 30, 2009

No such thing as out of town.

I'm camped in the mountains on the north side of Blewett Pass, in a tent overlooking the Wenatchee river from a meadow of lupine and widely spaced Douglas firs. I'm 150 miles from home and 40 miles from any town of more than 2000. I spent the morning photographing abandoned 1880s mining towns and the afternoon lounging by the riverbank. The air is clear here, the night truly dark, I've seen twice as many animals as people, and there's no sound but the rushing of the Wenatchee.

So naturally there's wifi.

Yeehaw.

I've packed my bag, watered my plants, stocked up the guinea pig cage, and now I'm embarking on a camping trip through several of the gold-rush ghost towns of Washington State. Seeya Monday. :)

Cuntalina.

(I'm going camping over the weekend, no posts.)


So Twisty Faster called a columnist a "cuntalina" for saying some admittedly ridiculous things about how women without kids are defective or something. Various people observed that calling a woman "cunt" for not being feminist was not entirely awesome.

Does Twisty say:
A) "Whoa, yeah, I screwed up and went too far, that's not acceptable language for a feminist and I'm sorry."

B) (which I am not making up) Twisty Faster is a fictional character. I'm just a writer named Jill who happens to have everything in common with her. So if you like something I said, I really meant it, but if you didn't like it it was just a fictional thought exercise and you're dumb for taking it seriously.

Also, hilariously, she complains that Internet feminists these days are too strict and hypersensitive, and she just can't take it anymore, wahhh.

Fortunately, 99% of the comments (well, of the comments that got through screening) pretty much amount to "we love you Twisty no matter what, of course it's different when you use sexual slurs, we understand! besides, women who aren't with the program really are cunts! hugs!"




For clarification, I am actually Holly and I'm barely smart enough to remember what I think, let alone make up entirely fictional points of view that I will present and defend as totally serious for years on end. Unless I piss you off, then that was my secret magical friend Molly. Molly's a bitch.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Obama nominates a liberal woman of color for the Supreme Court. Guess Twisty Faster's reaction!

A) "This is a great day that shows just how far our country has come."
B) "While I applaud the choice of a woman of color for this position, I have reservations about her record and political leanings."
C) "HE HUGGED HER THAT ASSHOLE HE HATES WOMEN."

If you guessed C), congratulations, you've read Twisty Faster before.

Some of the comments are golden too.

Wow. At least he’s not beheading her or something.
Uh... yeah. Yeah, that's a good thing. It's probably just political though; he knows if he beheads her now the confirmation process is going to be a nightmare.

If that man ever tried to touch me I’d make sure I pissed all over myself before hand. And I’d hold him tight and linger. I’d actually like to change a messy tampon and shake his hand right after. No washing.
Is this your politics or just your fetish?

And of course it’s paternalist. Do you actually suggest there’s no power differential between a dude President of the United States and a female Hispanic judge upon whom He bestoweth shit?
I dunno, man, beats the hell out of not bestowething shit.

If nominating someone to the Supreme Court is an insult to their race and gender, fuck, I don't know what would be a compliment.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

"It's not you, honey."

I understand that sometimes a guy simply isn't in the right headspace or relaxed enough for a girl to get him off, or an outside person just can't hit quite the right rhythm, and it's no reflection on my skills or sexiness if he needs to finish himself off.


But I also notice that this phenomenon--which a sexually open person should not feel threatened or insulted by, it's simply how he needs to do it sometimes--it seems like it happens less often lately than it did in the past.

Monday, May 25, 2009

PTFO.

I was fucking Benny. Saran Wrap: a success! More constricting than hoped, less icky than feared. The only real drawback is that the sight of a man encased in it is less "sexy tableau" and more "last known photograph." And when you've used part of it, the half-used-up tube makes an excellent instrument for thumping.

I broke a ruler on his ass, too. He told me I could go harder and it cracked right in half.

After we'd both come a few times, he worked four fingers into me and just wiggled them and that was almost too much to bear and then he started pumping them full-force into me and I arched back and screamed and came and...

...woke up.

"You okay there?" Benny asked. "You kinda passed out."

I felt fine; I wasn't lightheaded or anything, and I could feel a powerful must-cuddle-now warmth of afterglow. I'd just gone completely out for a second. I lay down for a bit, napped for maybe half an hour, and I was totally back to normal.

Weird.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Unsluttly admission.

Y'know, just spending time with someone I really, really like is way better than crazy sex with someone I kinda like.

I don't really, really like that many people though. I'm not a misanthrope (which sometimes seems to put me in the minority, at least in the geeky world I live in), I like tons of people, but really really like comes along maybe once a year. Tops. And leads to a sexual relationship rather less often. Between amazing kindred-souls from the blue... I gotta do something with the rest of my time.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

American Psycho bleg.

If there's anyone out where who understands the prostitute threesome scene in American Psycho, could you please explain it to me? Every time I watch that scene and things like "now wash your vagina" and "I'm going to call you Christie" I feel like there's something I should be getting about Bateman's particular psychosis that I'm not. (Well, I get the mirror-flexing thing, that's just awesome, but that's not all, is it?)



On an unrelated note, Saran Wrap is underappreciated as a bondage material. It's see-through, touch-through, requires no special knowledge to apply quickly and thoroughly (I suspect this is a secret negative for a lot of people), you can get a ton of it for three bucks, it looks pleasingly seedy and bizarre, and it's quite effective if you use enough passes. Okay, if you don't have a fetish for your submissive sweating like a racehorse there's one drawback, but really, it's a minor one.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Fuckin' outside.

I had a fun first yesterday--first time fucking outside. It was sunny and warm and a friend and I found a nice secluded spot off a nature trail and he did me up against a cedar tree. I have to admit, it wasn't as different as I'd hoped; being fucked puts me into such a happy little bubble that I could be on the surface of Mars and I'd barely know it. Sun and dirt and forest are lovely things, but I just wasn't thinking about the scenery.

We could hear people passing by on the trail. I don't think any of them noticed us.

The only real bummer part about fucking outside was that we couldn't really cuddle after. We hugged, but a proper lazy bed-cuddle would've meant rolling in the dirt and stinging nettles.

Fucking outside makes me feel like an animal. In a good way. Fucking started outside, man. You and me baby, ain't nothing but mammals.

Not For Sale.

For some goddamn reason (well, probably "hey, I can write a grouchy blog post about this!"), I picked up Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant's Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography from the library. I kinda knew what I was going to think just from the title, because "resisting" is a weird and weaselly word for it. "Opposing" makes sense, "resisting" makes it sound like they're valiantly fighting a powerful compulsion to run out and start selling $20 blowjobs on Pac Highway.

Personally, I think legalization is the only way prostitution can be made safe. Prostitution isn't inherently dangerous because it's sexual; it's dangerous because it's marginal. Predators don't attack people in sex shops or strip bars or or swingers' clubs, they don't go where sex is, they go where women with no legal protection or organizational safety measures are. Likewise human trafficking gravitates to prostitution because it's outside the law anyway; they don't smuggle people in to work at Safeway, because that's a legitimate, regulated business.

(Also, streetwalking isn't all of prostitution, and a high- or middle-class escort with high fees and client screening is in a very different business and far less prone to abuse.)

I also think pornography shouldn't be lumped in with prostitution. Porn stars aren't fucking random strangers. Sometimes it's not strangers at all--some porn stars perform with their real-life partners, for chrissakes, adding a camera to what you do anyway hardly seems problematic--and when they are strangers, they still come with a guarantee they're not going to be diseased or abusive.

Finally, I think a lot of objections to prostitution are really objections to capitalism. I've never sold my ass, but I sell my body five days a week--I do physical things I don't enjoy and say things I don't mean because I need the money to live. I risk violent assault and exposure to diseases at my job. I have to touch and be nice to strangers off the street with no right to refuse unpleasant ones. The vast majority of the money I take in is kept by my employer.

But l I provide a socially valuable and economically productive service, and I'm in the same boat with most anybody with a job. (How I differ from hookers, other than the obvious: I have the ability to call the cops, to file an L&I claim, and to sue my employer. And because my employer knows this they provide safety systems. Legalization would save lives, people.) Doing un-fun things to meet survival needs is a condition of life outside the Garden of Eden, and I'm not convinced that selling sex is a uniquely horrible way of doing that.

In short, a vagina job is really just a job, but "resisting" it makes it unnecessarily sketchy and dangerous. That's my overall view, snarky commentary on ridiculous quotes from the book are coming in the next post.

Friday, May 15, 2009

On EMTs.

Ahem.

EMTs do it with rubber gloves on.
EMTs do it allllll night.
EMTs do it with one in the front and one in the back.
EMTs do it with lots of different partners.
EMTs do it while asking "can you feel this?"
EMTs do it within ten minutes.
EMTs do it with firefighters. (Firefighters are great because they always put out.)
But...
EMTs do not pack the vagina.

Thank you.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Are you a feminist?

There's an interesting discussion going on over at figleaf's blog about calling yourself a feminist.

My personal stance is that I don't give a damn whether you call yourself a dragon, what matters is whether you breathe fire.

Or, in other words, I've known people who called themselves "feminists" who were sexist lunatics, and people who never used the term who were thoughtful and respectful about gender issues. And frankly the word "feminist" is a little off-putting--"fem"? I'm not particularly pro-woman as opposed to men, I just want people to be decent to people!

And yet I call myself a feminist, mostly because there isn't a better word that doesn't carry its own weird baggage. My idea of feminism is really equality--that under the law and in the social sphere your gender shouldn't interfere with you living the way you want. That if you want to be a soldier or a Presidential candidate or a stay-at-home parent or you want to feel safe in your workplace or your home, no one needs to check in your undies first. (Or your partner's undies. Or, for that matter, your partners' undies.) Is that really "feminism"? It's what I believe and I guess it's close enough.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Bad habits.

Man, so often I feel like I've graduated Sex College without even passing Human Interaction Kindergarten.

Case in point: way too often I catch myself thinking "man, I haven't met any boys in forever," when the truth is I haven't met any people in forever. It's frighteningly easy to get in a routine of home->work->friend's house->public place with old friends and not talking to strangers->home, and then curse the heavens for not dropping new friends in my lap. It's a pretty rare occasion when I socialize with totally new people, and when I do I almost always end up making new friends. It's not that people aren't open to me, they just have no way of knowing that I exist.

I don't think of myself as a hermit, because I go out all the time, but lately it's been to familiar places with familiar people, and while that's certainly fun, as far as meeting men goes it's barely better than staying home whining to Blogger about how I must be too fat or something.

The other functional-hermit habit I really have to break is waiting to be approached, or more often, approaching but waiting to be asked out or propositioned. There's a lot of guys out there (especially as my tastes run pretty damn geeky) who wouldn't say "no" but who might not want to risk a "no" either. If I'd like to take him home but I'm too nervous to say so, what makes me think he isn't in the same boat? He may not be, but it's worth at least finding out.

Okay, and the third stupid habit I should break is going on dates all the time and getting laid roughly weekly and still somehow thinking I'm doing everything wrong.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Penetration domination.

So recently I've been playing some in the Mean Scary Dominatrix role (well, I'm not very mean or scary; maybe the Bossy Slightly-Unnerving Dominatrix), which very often includes buttfucking boys and making them suck my cock. If I think about it, though, the symbolism bothers me. It doesn't seem quite right that taking on the normal sexuality of a gay man or straight female is humiliating. I don't like the idea that to be dominant I need to play a physically male role.

...But I sure do like the way it feels.

...I mean, when they moan...

Symbolic implications of gender roles are important and all, but shit, you can't feel them all the way down in your bones like that.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Slut Paradox.

If I'm too quick to get in bed with him, or a bit too practiced or kinky at it, he'll think I'm a slut and sluts are not girlfriend material. If I deliberately hold back, he'll think I'm no fun. And dang, I'm not a eunuch myself, I certainly want to be in bed with him having the wildest possible time as soon as possible.

Well, so I am a slut, or at least a horndog. I guess the only question is, if I'm dating with an eye to Serious Relationship Possibilities, do I need to pretend I'm not?

Boys are moody and inscrutable creatures.

The date went well. Then it went real well. Then he came and he suddenly got all weird.

He got really quiet and distant. I don't know if it was just a sudden onset of sleepiness, or if it was some fucked psychological thing like regret or "she put out too soon, dirty slut, forget her" or "well, now I don't have to pretend to like her."

Also, I have the magical power to be neurotic and obsessive about anything. Let's say it was sleepiness and I should go to sleep my owndamnself.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Can gay be hot?

Date tonight. Whoo. This one seems rather less losery and more my "type" (blond, square, geeky, kinky, funny) than most of the dates I've had recently, so I have my hopes up. By "hopes up" I mean "condoms in the cargo pocket." Although I usually do. Knife, phone, flashlight, mobile Internet gadget, mace, condoms, I go around Prepared these days, and my pants are pretty close to falling down. Which is the plan anyway, really.

Anyway.

I know a lot of straight women are into gay porn, and the affinity of straight men for naked lesbians (or "lesbians") is legend. But I always feel a little weird about being turned on by gay men. Not that the sight's unappealing--god no--but it seems wrong somehow, intrusive even when they're willing performers, to be getting off on someone who wouldn't get off on me. I feel like a voyeur, like I'm nosing in on something that's none of my business.

Maybe this is just my own crazy neurosis, but I'm curious if anyone else feels this way. (I realize plenty of straight male porn stars and actors wouldn't be interested in me either, and to be honest, sometimes that bothers me too. Not that I think they should, just that I feel weird ogling someone who wouldn't want to look back.) Watching gay sex turns me on, but feeling like a gatecrasher to the boys-only party is awkward.

This is one of the reasons why bisexual men are so utterly hot as fuck.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Everyone already knows how to lose.

Does it really matter what obviously doesn't work in online dating? This blog would be getting me a hell of a lot more fame 'n' fortune if I knew what does. Fame 'n' fortune 'n' men with no shirts on.

But douchebaggery is entertaining, so everyone, meet John Fitzgerald Page! He's briefly been in the same room with Dick Cheney, he's been an extra or even unnamed bit part in fourteen films, and, most importantly, he has an 8.9 on HotorNot! That's, like, almost a 9!

Also, he can "bench/squat/leg press over 1200 lbs.," which means that he is either The Incredible Hulk, he's adding his amounts together (hey, I can bench/squat/leg press/clean and jerk/bicep curl/deadlift/military press over 1200 lbs.!), or blah blah blah and he's also the crown prince of Unicornland.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

quick update from work

CC and I are working on it seriously. He's a designer and I'm filling the "genius founder" role, but we still need a programmer. This may actually happen.

Dating System.

When I was in college, one of my professors told me how he used to run (within the student community) an Internet dating system. No clever profiles or carefully-angled photos: all you needed to put was your name, your times of availability, and a decent helping of good faith. Once a week it would match up everyone, assigning each person a partner, a time, and a date activity.

The cool part: it was completely random. No "match percentage," no "29 dimensions of compatibility," no lists of interests--it didn't even consider gender or orientation. (You could meet a great friend... "or discover something about yourself," said the professor, who was kinda one of those professors, y'know.)

I think this is great. More than great; if I knew how to code it I would be building a version of this right now. Because I think over-selectivity is one of the banes of modern society. When I was in elementary school we had three TV channels and no VCR. Now I've got BitTorrent and Hulu, I can watch anything I want at any time. And, y'know, I'm not sure that I'm happier. Options are cool and all, but I don't discover shows any more, I select them. If a show sounds bad to me but I'd actually love it, or if I've simply never heard of a show, I'll never watch it.

As with TV shows, so with people. The ability to only interact with people who share your politics and subculture and fetishes and look good to you is awesome... but it's a goddamn curse. Saying "I only want to meet 20-something single kinky libertarian straight men who enjoy science fiction but also hiking" is all about closing doors. It's not that I necessarily want to date a 40-year-old vanilla Christian Conservative--but the fact that I'd never even talk to him makes my life boring and insular. And the fact that I also might not talk to a 20-something single kinky hippie straight man saps my chances at Ultimate Pairing Happiness.

Most of the good friendships and relationships in my life (online and not) came about randomly--we were in the same Bio class, we were next-door neighbors, we found each other's blogs with the "random" function, we got assigned to the same shift. Hell, I still talk to a guy I met three years ago when he dialed my phone number at random out of the phonebook.

I believe that we would like more people than we think, and the selectivity and ultra-narrowing effects of traditional online dating keep us from realizing it. Bring on RandomDate! As singles and as human beings, we need it.





(In all seriousness, if I can figure out the technical aspects I'm going to come up with a cute name and launch this puppy. At least for the Seattle area, maybe nationwide. I'll make millions.)

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Benny was okay.

I saw Benny today, and weirdly, I felt really good about it. During and after. He's changed a lot. I've changed a lot, and maybe more recently than I realize.

For most of my life, I've always had the feeling during sex that I was getting away with something. Like the grown-ups didn't want me doing this, like I had to hide it. Today we were lying in bed together naked, kind of idly stroking at each other's bits but between bouts of real sex, the window open to the afternoon sunlight, and I had the thought that this was something two people did and it was really okay. Millions of couples around the world were in bed just like us, and it was just one of the wonderful things about being alive.

Well, except I tied his wrists to his ankles and put clothespins on his cock and made him suck my strap-on and lick up his own fluids, so maybe not everyone was exactly like us, but you know, close enough.


(It's sort of weird that I no longer bottom at all to the man who introduced me to hittysex. But I just haven't been feeling it lately, and I've been genuinely enjoying hitting him.)

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Cosmocking: June '09!

A white cover, very classy! And I like the dress and hairstyle on... um... the cover-person! "Leighton Meester"? Is that a real name? "Meester Leighton" would be a good Bond villain, sort of.

There's a weird paradox in every issue of Cosmo: they constantly say that men have huge sex drives and aren't picky, then lay out thousands of things things you must do exactly right in order to get and please a man. Apparently dudes will fuck anything that moves... unless it's wearing last season's eyeshadow, gawd.

"Approaching girls in bars terrifies us. It sort of feels like a no-win situation. Like, we know we're already paddling upstream because she assumes, 'Oh, he thinks I'm cute. I win.' And where does that leave us?"
Shit, dude, do you really think women go to meat markets to hear that they're cute and go home? I guess this explains the paradox I was wondering about: women have narcissism complexes in the spot where our libidos should be.

Some experts claim that you can actually transform the entire sexual experience into one long, continuous orgasm.
Uh huh. I'm guessing this involves some creative interpretation of what constitutes an "orgasm."

Your partner touches and tantalizes you until you're at the brink of climax but without letting you tip over the edge. The Bodanskys call this hyperaroused state an orgasm--just not the kind we're used to.
I fucking knew it! Hey, I know how you can have an eighty-year orgasm. It's just not the kind you're used to.

Women often find they're approached by guys more often when they're in a relationship than when single? Why? People who are in love have high levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with a good mood and sociability-qualities that attract men.
MEN CAN SMELL DOPAMINE. Well, either that or desperation.

Cosmofied Pickup Lines: We took some of the raunchiest, corniest things guys say while hitting on women and translated them into sassy lines to use on dudes.
"That's a nice dress. I'd love to see what it looks like crumpled on my floor." -> "That's a nice jacket. If you're lucky I'll let you offer it to me so I don't get cold."
"Do you have a mirror in your pocket? 'Cause I can see myself in your pants." -> "Do you have a crystal ball in your pocket? 'Cause I can see you spending a fortune on me."

Dang, Cosmo. Dang. (The second one doesn't even make sense.) These are "sassy" all right! Ooh, ooh, I can play along!

"If I ran the alphabet I'd put U and I together." -> "I don't even want to see your filthy little dick until you've paid me in cash."

[On approaching a group of men.] If they think you're trying to snag their alpha, they'll ignore or even harass you. So chat up guys on the periphery, since their reaction influences the alpha's opinion of you. Laugh at jokes, smile, and orient your body toward whoever is speaking. It may take a bit, but you'll work your way toward the man in the middle.
Then present your estrus-inflamed rump to him, spray urine around the vicinity, and allow him to best another male in antler combat before mating.

Smoking and heavy drinking have the same effect on a guy's mojo as a Rosie O'Donnell striptease.
"Haha, no one wants to fuck a fat lady" is crude enough, but when you're ragging on a fat gay lady for not being arousing to men... man, what makes you think Rosie would want to strip for you anyway, buddy?

You can glean a lot [of information about a man's fertility] from the volume, clarity, and taste of a man's semen.
"You taste like babies! HUNDREDS OF BABIES!"

How to Get Michelle Obama's Arms
Oh boy, are big arms in now? This is actually exciting for me, my arms are (NWS)huge. Eat your heart out Ms. Obama, if you've got B-cup arms I'm packing double-Ds!

...Oh wow, Cosmo's recommending 20 reps with 5 to 8 pound weights for bicep curls. I know they don't know me and they don't want me to hurt myself or anything, but geez, as an owner of true Big Beautiful Arms I lift just about, oh, five times that.

Pets are now being treated for OCD. Dogs who chase their tails and cats who groom nonstop can be given anti-anxiety meds.
I don't know about the cats, but a dog that runs repetitively in circles needs anti-seizure meds.

Rosé is the perfect drink for a Cosmo girl--it's cool and trendy, just like you. Don't stress over what bottle to buy. "Pick something that is light pink. The less pigment it has, the more refreshing it will be," says sommelier Lyle Kula.
Gosh, I feel like such a total wine expert now, ohmigawd! I wonder why wineries even bother making wines that aren't like super light pink, ohmigawd!

Stressful interactions trigger the fight-or-flight area of a man's brain. In women, they activate an area responsible for nurturing.
Shit, if that's true, why do I feel like fighting or fleeing right now?

I think I'm gonna flee.

Bleh.

It seems like dating is such an either/or proposition for me. Either I click with someone instantly and the very first day we feel like we've known each other forever, or it's obvious it's never gonna be.

This is never gonna be.

Nothing bad happened, he was good-looking and nice and laughed at my jokes and kissed me at the end, but it was clear we could both tell that there was nothing there. He wasn't as smart as me, I wasn't as sincere as him, he hadn't heard of my interests and I wasn't good at his. Neither of us even bothered to lie about calling.



Ah well. You can't fall if you don't climb up on tall things. Or something.

Friday, May 1, 2009

It's so nice out!

It's the first of May. And I think we all know what that means.

Outdoor fuckin' starts today!

I have a brand new actual date tonight (I had a couple lame ones I didn't even mention, but this one is promising) and if all goes well we should definitely find somewhere to take it outdoors. I love outdoor sex, it's like being in summer camp!

...I mean, not that I ever had sex in summer camp, but it's all happy and wildernessy with bright sun and good earth smells, you know.