Ow.

I'm in the ER. (Yay hospital wifi.). I hit my head pretty hard on a metal pole and it knocked the fear of Head Bleed into me. I'm 99% sure it's just a concussion and I'm wasting time, but I felt bad enough to get checked out.

And now I'm telling my sex blog about it.

Shit, maybe I hit it harder than I thought.


EDIT: I'm fine. It's a nasty concussion but there's nothing dangerous and I am expected to live. Yay.

Too hot to fuck.

Today I had to work doing heavy lifting in 114 degree heat. A hundred and fourteen. The worst part is that it isn't cooling down at night; even at 4 AM it doesn't go below 70. I don't have an air conditioner.

And man, it's utterly killing even the idea of getting horny. Sex is so appealing on a cool night, two warm bodies under the covers, cuddling into each other's body heat. Right now, though, it just seems sweaty and uncomfortable. Like... you know the feeling when you sit on a vinyl seat in shorts and your legs just peeeeel off? I think it would be like that.

Good and Bad.

Cosmo asks the question: "Are You Good-Girl Hot or Bad-Girl Hot?" But I'm confused, because all the questions are just about how sexually assertive you are.

I know they don't literally mean "bad girls" are bad, but I'm still surprised that this quiz asks nothing about charitable contributions, honesty and kindness with others, willingness to support friends and family, or service to your country and community. Because it seems like if you've got all that going, your moral standing really wouldn't be so tarnished by a miniskirt and a few furtive bathroom makeouts. Shit, you've earned them.

Safety.

A local hospital had a bulletin board up advertising their classes, and in additional to the usual baby-care and cancer support classes, they had the following:

Mother & Daughter Safety Training
For daughters 14 years and older and their mothers.
This 3-hour class addresses the safety issues facing young women on or off high school and college campuses during the activities of daily living. The training is built on increasing the awareness of our surroundings, obeying instincts and employing proactive safety strategies including when socializing and dating.

Topics Covered:
~ Safety in elevators, parking lots & 'fringe' areas
~ The importance of the Buddy System and team work
~ What to do when approached by a stranger
~ Alcohol and common "Predatory Drugs": What they are and how to avoid them
~ Early recognition of inappropriate acquaintance/date behavior.

Well, that's great, I always wanted to bring my daughter to a three hour class on being terrified of the world! (Not my son, though. He can handle himself.) There's nothing here about self-defense tactics, either. Just a big list of things you should fear and avoid. All flight, no fight, and absolutely no standing your ground and asserting your right to walk around your own goddamn neighborhood.

I'm sure there are some useful lessons. "Keep an eye on your drink" and "dates who cross little boundaries will cross big ones," those are important. And if there's a really super creepy dude in the elevator maybe you should wait for the next? But the number one lesson of this class seems to be that girls should be afraid. Afraid of parking lots! Afraid of being alone! Afraid of strangers! Afraid to drink! Afraid to date!

(The part about "what to do when approached by a stranger" particularly weirds me out since this class is for 14 and over. Stranger Danger is one thing for 8-year-olds, but by the time you're going to college strangers will occasionally approach for non-menacing reasons and you should have the maturity to assess the situation rather than answer "excuse me, which way to James Street" with "OH MY GOD, SECURITY!!!")

Self-defense classes are awesome. Everyone, male and female, should have basic self-defense skills. But there's a difference between "the gift of fear" and just being quiveringly avoidant of everything that isn't background-checked and piss-tested and wrapped in Nerf.

Anyway, strangers aren't the danger. I've seen a couple dozen assaults in my day, and about two of them were between complete strangers. (Both of those, incidentally, weren't in "fringe areas" but in convenience stores. Perhaps we should teach our daughters never to go to 7-11, it's just not worth it.) The rest were committed by partners, siblings, friends, cousins, my boyfriend's weird friends he invites over, this john my pimp said was cool, and of course Sumdood. It's sort of comforting in a way to think that threats come from "outside," but it doesn't reflect reality. You can creep through the parking lot with a can of mace and total situational awareness and then go home and get raped by your husband.

There's a class I'd like to teach young women, actually. (Young people. I've seen a man streaming blood after his wife broke a heavy ceramic mug over his head.) Identifying and getting the fuck out of destructive intimate relationships. Not a brief sideline to Stranger Danger self-defense but a whole class on the real threat. Best for kids young enough to not be in serious relationships yet, but open to any age. It would save ten times as many lives as this "young ladies are fragile flowers that mustn't go into the big bad world alone" bullshit.

Being here now.

Man, nothing shuts up your mind like your body. You can be worrying about twenty different things, worrying if you even should be worrying and then worrying about that... but put enough sensation into your nerves and you'll be thinking about exactly one thing.

It works for good and ill. The whole "be here now" thing is great if your worries are excessive, but if you have shit you actually gotta take care of you might need to be there then. I've used sex and pain and exertion to forget my cares, and I've used them to forget my obligations.

It's just such an experience though, to be changed from a constantly thinking and processing creature into an absolutely primal one. When there's a cock in me and things are right, there is nothing else. At all. I am an island in time and space, alone with my pleasure everywhere and forever.

There's a lot of paths to that state. Drugs, absolutely. Meditation, if you're good at it, but I'm terrible. Being just ridiculously sleepy. Exercising to the absolute top of your capacity. Pain, if you can accept it. Music, if you're really really into it. Sometimes nothing in particular at all but just the feeling of a moment. But for me sex works better than anything. It's a free, safe, guaranteed return ticket out of reality.



Man, and we giggle when we talk about sex. I think we're just afraid of a power that awesome. That and the sheer absurdity that such a transformative experience involves gooey body fluids and silly noises.

Fuck.

Fuck you. Fuck me. Motherfucker. Dumbfuck. Fuckin' A. Get fucked; I got fucked. I got fucked over. Fucker! What the fuck? I don't give a fuck. Fuck off. Fuck yes; fuck no! Go fuck yourself! Holy living fuck. Jesus Fucking Christ. Fucking awesome, fucking terrible. Shut the fuck up. Absolfuckinglutely. What a clusterfuck. You fuckhead. Fuck it. I'm just fucking with ya.

Not one word in that paragraph was about sex.

"Fuck" is one of the most versatile words, and yet one of the most verboten; shy of some racial slurs or maybe "cunt" it's about the worst word you can say--hell, it makes national news every time someone says it on broadcast TV--but I say it every day! And I just about never use it to hurt someone's feelings.

Instead, I usually use "fuck" to denote privacy and honesty. When CC and I are dealing with someone professionally, we never say it; the instant we're alone together--"fuck, that was fucked up." Saying "fuck" to CC means that I see him as someone I can trust, that we're peers leveling with each other. It's a signal that our thoughts as well as our words are uncensored. (It's also kind of funny.)

When I was a kid, "fuck" meant freedom. My parents and teachers were pretty strict about swearing, and anyway swearing with grownups isn't much fun. "Hey Dad, I got a pretty fucking decent grade on that fucking algebra test." But I'd get together with friends and we'd swear like it was punctuation. I've got a pottymouth now, but in ninth grade it was fucking indiscriminate. "Fucking pass me a fucking can of fucking soda, fucker." We did it because it was naughty, of course. In other words, we did it to show that we were drawing our own lines--between things authority forbade because they were wrong, and things authority forbade because authority had a stick up its ass. Just as we knew that heroin was scary stuff but pot wouldn't kill ya, we knew that truly shooting your mouth off was stupid but a little "fuck" between friends was downright bonding.

I had a teacher once who said "you know, if a girl uses those sorts of words, people will think it means she does those sorts of things." I never understood the problem with that.

Maybe what "fuck" really means is "fuck rules." Fuck petty little rules that exist for their own sake, circular self-feeding rules that don't touch on reality--fuck holding back raw brutal sweaty human emotion because the best way to express it is on the no-no list. Fuck polite dishonesty, fuck arbitrary social conventions, fuck the Man. Our minds are free, our voices and bodies are ours, and we're going to "fuck" and we're going to fuck.

Everybody.

I always loved that book "Everybody Poops." It's true and it's leveling--you're not gross because you poop, and no one is so much better than you that they don't poop.

I think there should be a corollary book for slightly older children called "Everybody Fucks." (I guess some people don't, although not many if you count masturbation. Still. A lot of people fuck.) Same leveling effect. Same much-needed perspective: that fucking doesn't make you bad and it doesn't make you special. If you're reading this, I know you know, but as a teenager I could've used that message: that fucking isn't a privilege or a mystery or a shame. It's just part of being a biological critter.

And as with pooping, the goal isn't not to do it, but to do it right so you don't make a mess. You'll do better learning to use the potty than trying to never poop.



(In this analogy, the potty is a condom.)

Getting rid of Joe.

I fucked Joe once, two or three months ago. Met him that day, had a nice little roll in the hay, said bye. And I gave him my phone number and email, in case he wanted to do it again sometime.

He texted me that night. Did I want to come back out? It was a half hour drive and I was tired, and besides, sheesh. So I said no.

He texted again the next day. I had stuff to do; I said no.

This is where I fucked up. He kept texting, wayyy too often. He's not a bad-looking guy or a bad fuck, and he seemed normal in person, but he got real creepy real fast. I said no several times, I told him he was creeping me out, then I just stopped answering Joe's texts. Saw the phone number and hit delete without reading. He called and I didn't pick up and erased the voicemails. But I should've given a firm "don't contact me again," and I wussed out on that. I just didn't respond at all.

He stopped for a while. I figured he'd gotten the message and given up.

Then today I got a barrage. I was at work (in the middle of a fairly serious emergency, actually) and Joe texts and calls and texts again and emails. All to the effect that he understands if I'm busy, but I'm being rude and we should at least just talk.

So I finally gave the "no, not now and also not ever, do not contact me" speech (by email; I really don't want to talk to him) and I haven't gotten a response yet. Hopefully I'll never get any. But I'm weirdly fearful. He doesn't know where I live and he doesn't know about any of my online personas, but he can be a pretty significant pain in the ass electronically. I really hope he gets the message.

Bleh. He's never been threatening, he has no way to reach me in the real world, and he may very well get the picture and go away. Nonetheless I've got the heebie jeebies.


UPDATE: He sent me a two-page-long email to the effect that he doesn't understand why I'm being mean out of nowhere, but he'll go away, and I should be flattered dammit, but he'll go away, and he thought I liked it, but he'll go away. Uh... good, I guess? It certainly assuages my concern that I was being a jerk to a sane person.

Cosmocking: August '09!

Ah, now I'm back in the comfort zone. Katy Perry on the cover! All I know about Katy Perry is that she kissed a girl and she liked it, and big whoop! A gajillion chicks kiss girls and like it, honey, don't act like you invented it! Her outfit could not be worn in public without extraordinary amounts of double sticky tape!

The Mars company has introduced its first new candy bar in 20 years, and it targets women. The hot pink package contains two 85-calorie bars, and they're calling it Fling. Just don't tell your guy you had one at the office.
It makes sense that low-calorie means woman food, because women are pretty fat. Just look at their collective bodies, for chrissakes. That gender is headed straight to porkerville.

When a guy says he doesn't know why you're mad at him, deep down, he does.
Oh God Cosmo. Why would you do this? The consequences could be hideous!

Anyway, the "guess why I'm mad" game is moronic whether he can or not. Grownups use their words.

A guy's lying if he says he doesn't manscape.
There are more guys between heaven and earth, Cosmo, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. And some of those guys, well, you could shear them and make a sweater.

["guy poll" results] What girlie look do you most go for?
The girl next door: casual, not a ton of makeup, ponytail -- 76.1%
...The fashion plate: cutting-edge outfit, the latest haircut, trendy handbag -- 6.9%
This is only funny because it comes after sixty pages of ads and editorial on how to become the fashion plate.

Get Hit On All the Time
This article is great. I'd type up the whole thing if I could. It's a big list of body language moves--hilarious when performed together--that you should do while sitting alone at a bar or party so guys will come up to you. Dangle a shoe off your toe! Cradle your boobs! Expose your throat! Drop your chin! (Those two weren't sequential in the original list.) Make an "OK" sign over your crotch! Lean on the bar! Point your belly button at the guy you want! Expose your wrists!

The one thing that isn't on the list is pointing your face at the guy you want, and subtly using your lips and tongue--this is proven by expert research, it has to do with brain hemispheres and pheremones--to freakin' talk to him.

Going to dinner with your guy usually means forking over a lot of dough... unless you feast on complimentary samples. Head to a grocery store that gives out nibblers (Costco, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods). Then hit up a wine shop during a tasting night. For dessert, stop by an ice-cream parlor and ask to try a bunch of flavors.
Cosmo, the magazine for... hobos?

Think about the hottest days of summer, when you're walking around and your thighs stick together--that's pretty much what it feels like for your guy when he tries to enter you when you're not wet. And psychologically, dryness can have an even more negative and traumatizing effect on his libido.
Well, the poor dear! I didn't realize this was all about him! I guess I never realized how uncomfortable it was for him because I was too distracted by all the agonizing pain!

(Also: boxer shorts.)

Q: A few months ago, my boyfriend brought up the idea of role-playing, and I was into it. At first we kept our roles generic, but the other night, he suggested we be my friend and her boyfriend. I said that would freak me out, and to his credit, be backed off. But does this mean he's thinking about my friend when he's having sex with me?
A: Ya think?

If a girl has it all going on--an incredible job, a hot boyfriend, countless pairs of killer shoes--it's easy to resent her so much that you refuse to be her friend. If you were a wolf, you'd know that was a big mistake. The alpha wolf may be top dog, but he always has a beta wolf who serves as his number two. In return, the beta gets the best food, the right to mate with the hottest females, and respect from all the other wolves.
Well, that's very comforting, except that actually alpha wolves don't let anyone else mate. The beta wolf may have the best odds of sneaking something behind the alpha's back, but now we're taking the metaphor to new and fascinating places.

(Also, the alpha-beta-omega model of wolf packs was based on captive packs of unrelated individuals and it turns out that in the wild, wolf packs are more often families in which the "alphas" are the mom and dad and the subordinates are their offspring. And the subordinates avoid breeding not because of hierarchy but because they're waiting to do that after they split off from the pack and meet an unrelated wolf. But now I don't know what the metaphor is saying except you shouldn't have sex with your relatives.)

[On opening lines.] "It's really loud here--let's go someplace quieter to talk. My friends can meet us later."
That's not an opening line, honey. That's a closing line.

Oh, THIS is why people think I'm crazy when I say I'm kinky.

Good lord, there are some serious chucklefucks in my supposed community.

My sub and I do not, of course, wish to reveal the gritty details of our relationship to our vanilla friends, so we are subtle, but at the same time it is frustrating[...]
Last night we were at a fan-based literary discussion group and my slave was very outspoken in heated discussions, and I enjoyed hearing her opinions. She is the first one to admit that if she is not interrupted she could keep talking all night, and so from time to time if I wanted a word in I did just that, interrupted her. We have agreed it is my right to do so. Well, this one woman was very offended and told me to, "let her finish!" more than once. When this happened my slave was the first to say, "No, it's ok!" to the woman and, "Yes, sir." to me. When the formal discussion had finished, the woman approached me and tried to give me a piece of her mind about respecting women, etc. I held my ground and told her I have a great respect for women, that this was between myself and my wife and that she should kindly butt out of our relationship, but the fact that she confronted me in the first place took me by surprise and left me annoyed.

I really don't understand this kind of thing. Now I know I'm not really such a super submissive, my idea of dominance pretty much comes down to that you should hit my butt (when I say, as hard as I tell you to) and tell me to suck your dick (when I already feel like it). But I can understand the concept of one person taking charge of a relationship. I can understand showing extra respect and deference to your husband, even in public, because he's your Dom.

What I can't understand is the idea of BDSM as a "get out of normal society free" card. You don't interrupt people like that. It's rude to the people listening as well as the person being interrupted, and it doesn't make you look like the boss so much as a big ol' assface. And it's not even very dominant; conversationally stomping on your sub doesn't mean you control her, it means you're a loudmouth. I guess the dominance is that she doesn't bite his head off afterwards? That's some really finely tuned command there.

And if a guy gave me the "this is between my and my wife" speech after something like that, it would give me the creeping heebie jeebies. Not because I'm some naïve vanilla rube but because that's abuser-speak. Although to be fair, I don't know how you would explain something like that forthrightly. "Oh, don't worry, that's just our fetish, and we like to practice it during book club in front of everyone," I guess.

I think it bothers me more than anything that this guy can't even understand why normal people would be upset by this.

BDSM (even that weirdass 24/7 D/s thingymajig) isn't wrong, but it isn't always right either. It's a thrill, it leads to the best sex and sexiest relationships and deepest release of weird subconscious things that I know, but it's not carte blanche. You can't turn off your ethics and social skills because "it's my kink!" Being a kinky motherfucker and a decent human being isn't that hard.




God, I should get beat up more. Even as I kind of mock it, I'm realizing that I'm also itching for it. But I won't do it in front of some poor unsuspecting book club and then answer their concerns with "oh no, that's just his way, you don't understand, please don't make any trouble."

Edge.

I begged him to make me come, and I don't know why, because when he did it would be over. As long as we stayed like this, bodies entangled from toes to hair, his fingers buried in me and just barely moving, it could last forever. My whole life in a bed, bent back onto my elbows and the balls of my feet, hips circling endlessly, tasting his sweat and mine. I could feel his cock hard against my thigh, his lips on mine not kissing but just breathing into me, and his fingers, oh God his fingers.

And the only thing I could say to him was that he should make it stop?

He wasn't listening anyway. He knew what he was doing. When I went faster he went slower, riding out the bucking of my hips, giving me not an inch more or less no matter how I thrust myself down on him. He pinched my nipples, bit my neck, but not quite enough. I was half a second away for minutes on end.

Finally I begged for his whole hand, and he gave it to me, not gently. When his thumb just started to slip inside it was finally enough, finally too much, and when he could no longer hold me off he didn't hold back. He fucked me with his hand and it hurt and I was coming and it was so fucking much, so fucking good.

I was in a daze afterward, laughing, kissing him over and over, curled fetal, babbling like an idiot, laughing at myself again.





And all told it still didn't take twenty freakin' minutes, sheesh.

Religion.

I've become increasingly aware in recent months that I'm going to have to work out some sort of religious beliefs. I'm not really sure what my family believes--we're Jewish, but that's more our culture than our religion, I never hear any of my relatives actually mention God like a real thing. You have a Bat Mitzvah because it'll bring the family together and give the kid a sense of belonging and accomplishment and the elders a sense that their traditions are being passed on, but you don't really have it for God. Even the funerals in my family don't mention God much.

Which leaves me adrift, and a little too aware of my own vulnerability to fate and mortality to ignore the issue entirely and just be a secular agnostic by default. For a while I was one of those "magical sky man, hurrr" Internet Atheists, but that ends up as arrogant and obnoxious as any hellfire evangelical--it's really just about cherry-picking the worst in religion as a justification for ignoring subtler possibilities. Science and religion aren't adversaries, and taking a side--either side--makes you a jerk.

It's enough to make me believe in the snake-god-puppet Glycon.

Which I do. My current tentative, confused stance is that I should believe in everything. Everything, not just Jesus and the Buddha but also Tinkerbell and Spring-Heeled Jack and artichokes and Br'er Rabbit and Paris Hilton. Everything that there is an idea of exists. I don't know if God made the world in seven days while cleverly disguising everything as billions of years old, but I do know that the Creation exists. Saying "it's all in your mind" of something ignores an extremely important fact (the only certain fact)--my mind exists. A mental image isn't some ephemeral thing that doesn't "really" exist; mental images are all we freakin' have.

At the same time obviously the billions-of-years thing works better if you'd like to prospect for oil rather than the totally real and valid mental idea of oil. Our perceptions of the physical world are fairly consistent and science is the reasonable way to understand and predict those consistencies. But saying the physical world is all there is doesn't fit with my ability to have mental images--with my ability to have a "mental," or for that matter a "my," at all. Evolution can explain the existence of a sociable bipedal mammal sitting here typing; it doesn't explain why that's me. "Me" exists on the same level as Jesus and Tinkerbell, and that's why I can't discount their existence. I'm not sure if they can change anything in the apparent physical world (although, hmm, I can), but I know absolutely that they affect me.

I hope this makes some sense. I feel the need to clarify that I'm sober. I have no idea how to translate my ideas into practice. I still don't know what's going to happen when my body dies.

And may Barney Rubble bless you all.

How long it takes.

I just saw a TV show that kept saying "men take two minutes to orgasm, women take twenty." Like it was some established thing. I've also heard three and thirty.

On average, maybe? I've never done a survey. One of my friends has never had an orgasm, so factoring her into the average, women take infinity minutes to come. Myself, I don't think I could possibly hold out for twenty minutes unless you're measuring from the first kiss or something.

Actually, that makes me wonder when you measure from. Are we talking from the start of sexual activity (whatever that means), or from the start of genital stimulation, or from the start of short-strokes intense genital stimulation? Because really, having an orgasm takes me about three hours if you count dinner and drinks.

That's facetious. But it's not facetious to say that when you get to the short-strokes, I'm going to come a lot faster and more reliably if I know you better--so dinner and drinks really were part of reaching orgasm. Fuck, if you count everything that contributes, sometimes it's taken me two years to reach orgasm with a guy. And slutty as I am, it's never taken so little as twenty minutes. If I've never laid eyes on you before and you just walk up and start the G-spot stimulation--well, that's more a thought experiment than a sexual experience, but I'm guessing it would be just a bit harder to relax. I don't think most guys could do it in two minutes like that either.


It seems like the "ten times as long" platitude gets around less because of validity than because it reinforces stereotypes. Men are simple and slutty, women are unfathomable and frigid. Making a man come is merely a matter of consenting, making a woman come is a painstaking skill. Men give it up easy, women make you work for it. Woman, she is a meeestery. (Or if you want to be sort of feminist about it, "female sexuality is very complex.") A woman who gets off pretty fast just from plain old fuckin' doesn't fit that paradigm. And a guy who doesn't come from a couple minutes of straight-up cock-stroking every time--shit, maybe he's gay or something.


Anyway, all this is like saying "men weigh 180 pounds, women weigh 120"--maybe it's just an obnoxiously narrow social expectation or maybe it really is valid statistically, but either way I wouldn't take it shopping.

I'm kinda sick, gonna be brief.

The best thing a guy can do in bed with me, bar none, is like what I'm doing to him. There is nothing you can do with your fingers that feels as good as a really sincere moan of enjoyment.

Yeah, most everyone likes getting laid, but there's a difference between guys who don't think it's a bad way to spend an evening, and the surprisingly small proportion of guys who are fucking into it. Expressiveness is obviously a factor, but I don't think that's all there is. Most guys are fans, but some guys just love sex.

Those guys are the best.

Anniversary.

I shouldn't get too explicit about this here, but: as of the end of this week, I will have made my year. One full year on the street. I've seen five people die, been assaulted three times, and crashed twice. I've gotten a lot of free food and made a lot of new friends. I've learned far, far more about my city, its places and its people, than I ever knew before.

It's changed me. Some. On one level, I'm physically stronger, mentally quicker, emotionally stabler than I ever was before, and I've gained reams of knowledge and miles of perspective. But most of the time I'm the same goofy slutty childish asshole I was going in.

I'll have to move soon. I haven't really thought this through as much as I should have, but I've gotten about as far as I can go on this career track in this area. It's been fun, I like this city, but I can't stay in this job forever, it's entry-level and I'm getting about ready to advance. I don't know--at all--where I'll be going. Boston? Any new city will be a shock, it'll take a lot of money and work and time just to get back to the standard of living I have now, but at least I know a few people in Boston and I've got some history there. Anywhere else I'd just be throwing darts at a map.

This is hardly a declaration that I'm moving to Boston. If I do it'll be months from now and I might not at all. I might move to Spokane. Or Anchorage. Or, fuck, I don't know, Albuquerque. I hear Albuquerque's nice. Don't know anyone there, but I only know two or three people in the other places so it's a pretty close running.

Right now I don't have to decide yet. What I do have to do now is exercise and study and save money. I can't live like I'm done growing, because I'm not. I'm getting ready for something better. I have to make myself better.



Man. I'm tired just thinking about this. It's been crazy. It's going to be crazier.

Hitting.

Hitting in relationships bothers me. Oh wow, what a courageous and novel stand, I know. But I'm not just talking about blatant abuse. There's two kinds of hitting I see a lot that don't really reach the level of domestic violence but still bug the shit out of me.


1) Girl hitting. "Tee hee, I'm just a little girl and he's a big strong boy, when I get angry it's just a cute angry and when I flail my fists at him it's just cute little blows!" I know an unfortunately large number of girls who think it's just fine when they get frustrated in an argument--generally not a serious emotional argument, but a disagreement--to sort of ineffectually whack at the guy and think it's funny. Like a goofy cartoon "snap out of it, sillypants!" head-bonk. Only real.

First, you're discounting your own power. The idea that girl-hitting is okay hinges on the idea that girls are harmless. Maybe you're not as strong as him, but even if you're tiny (tiny girls do seem to have particularly poor hit-inhibition), you could do some damage if you tried. You could leave a mark. Respect that. Your fists, even small untrained fists, are weapons, and you don't goof around with weapons.

And second, you are, in anger, touching someone in a way they don't want to be touched. The fact that it doesn't do real damage doesn't make it all okay and adorable. Violence isn't just about injury, it's also about violation, and cute little "ooh you rascal" swats, when unwanted, are a cute little violation. It's not okay for him to hit you as long as it doesn't really hurt--so it's not okay to hit him. Ever.


2) Dom hitting. I've experienced this one. He's so used to hitting you during sex and giving playful swats or full-on "punishments" for "infractions," that you're out of role and you genuinely displease him and he spanks you. (Or you're just walking around and he sneak-attacks, which is not morally offensive but is very annoying.) The problem here is pretty self-evident, I think: a sub's consent isn't carte blanche, and sexy-hitting should have absolutely nothing to do with real hitting.

Like the girl hitting, dom hitting in my experience is usually meant to be silly and not physically dangerous. He's not deliberately being cruel, he's just failing to realize that the difference between a little spank for being such a dirty slut and a little spank for sass mouth is huge. It may hurt the same or less, but it's crossing the consent line. And it's scary. A lot scarier, I think, than he realizes. I've ditched guys over this; if I can't trust a guy when we're out of role just messing around, how can I trust him to tie me up?


The bottom line is basically don't hit people even a little bit unless they have very specifically and explicitly asked for it. It's a pretty easy rule to remember I think.

Glamocking!

I don't have the new Cosmo yet! Tragedy! But I do have Glamour (Shouldn't that be "Glamor" in the US?) and that's basically the same thing! Sandra Bullock on the cover! I can't argue with plaid!

Going to work without makeup: 49% say it's a DO, 51% say it's a DON'T.
Where do these people work? Because if you're a face-to-face sales rep or something, then maybe you have to. But I'd guess more than 49% of people work in jobs that don't require the "businessy" look--either no one cares what you look like (IT tech, maintenance worker) or the professional standard isn't heels-and-hose based (nurse, police officer). And then, well, what the heck? Wear makeup if it makes you happy for some perverse reason, and if it doesn't... don't. You don't owe it to the world to emphasize your sexual characteristics when you're just at fuckin' work.

Makeup is a nice little option to add to your appearance if you wish. But women who feel "naked without it" give me the heebie jeebies. Do you really look that bad?

(Side note: these women's magazines always seem to assume all their readers have a particular kind of job. Something office-based, upper-middle-class, business-casual, not heavily dependent on a technical skill, nine to five, and heavy on the office politics. It's almost like they think we're all... hmm... magazine editors.)

How to tell him to get better clothes: ...You lie next to your peacefully sleeping boyfriend. After making sure he's down for the count, you sneak over to his dresser, shove a couple of particularly awful items in a bag and hurry out the door.
NO. Do not do this. Do not fucking destroy someone else's property because it offends your aesthetics. It's not cute, it's not mischievous, it's not funny, and it's not something you fucking do. Maybe he hates some of the things you own, you know that? Would you like your stuff to just disappear with a tee-hee and a "now we can get you things I like"? I don't fucking think so.

How to talk to the sexiest guy at the party: ..."Are you a model? Or did I have sex with you in college?"
How to make the sexiest guy at the party awkwardly mutter "uh, nope, uh, don't think so" while backing away so fast he may trip over something.

Don't show [a date] photos featuring your most attractive friends.
I agree that subjecting a date to a wacky cameraphone slideshow of people he doesn't know isn't a great move. But the "most attractive" part is creepy. Am I really supposed to be so damn insecure that I need to shield him from the sight of women prettier than me? Shit, he's going to leave your control in a couple hours, and then he might look at ANYONE! OH NOES! BLIND HIM!

Hey, it's OK! ...to think the fireworks were a wee bit excessive. Ooh, aah, how many small countries could that have fed?
Well aren't you just a bundle of fun.

(And this in a magazine promoting $172 jean shorts and a $268 skirt.)

Yes, This Woman is a "Mail-Order Bride"
So wow. Wow. There's a whole article on a woman from the Ukraine who met a much older and richer man on a marriage brokerage website and moved to the US to marry him, and he spent about $20,000 on "the process" and "expenses." But they really love each other and she's very independent and very happy, it was just an unconventional way to meet.

Which may be true. But nonetheless the article is kind of unsettling. She talks about going to the US and getting citizenship in a lot more detail than actually liking or having a relationship with the guy; her opinion of him seems more like "well, given the choices, not unacceptable" than "my love." And the "his story" sidebar reads as seriously evasive--he had a couple bad dates and then he just spontaneously decided to fly in a Ukranian lady on a whim, you know, like anyone might. What a wacky lark that worked out so well!

Hell, I believe them when they say their relationship isn't domineering and they're both happy. But it's still creepy.

Maybe it's just the photo. The photo is priceless. (And not just because of Evil Pop Art Mickey.)

CC put it best: "Oh, I've seen this photo before. In nursing home ads."

Yeah.

(I'm not talking about age so much as the intersection of the worshipful/befuddled upward gaze and the "isn't he cute? almost like a person!" downward gaze. Although at least the nurse is actually looking at her elderly client.)

Put on a 2 percent salicylic acid lotion from the drugstore. ...Or dissolve an aspirin tablet (salicylic acid in solid form) in a bit of water to form a paste, apply to the breakout and rinse after three minutes.
CHEMISTRY FAIL.

This is how the orgasm fairy tale goes: you meet Prince Charming, and the very first time, he knows exactly how your body works. There's some kissing, some foreplay, some moaning and, after maybe 10 minutes of intercourse, bam--a shattering climax for two. Angels may even sing. If your sex life fits this description, kudos. If not, this story is for you.
Welp, guess this story isn't for me then! Ciao!

I'm not sorry.

Sometimes during sex you do have to apologize. You're dealing with sensitive areas both physical and mental, you're going to fuck up, when you've fucked up it's nice to say sorry. That's okay. But people apologize too damn much during sex. (I know I do. Sorry about that.) They apologize for things they shouldn't.

Saying "sorry" can make someone less upset with you, but it can't make them happier. "Sorry I bonked you on the nose there" soothes the indignity of the nose-pain a bit, but "sorry you didn't have more fun" doesn't create any fun at all. And when you apologize for things that didn't bother the other person in the first place, you draw attention to those things and you sound insecure as hell.

So here are a couple things not to apologize for.

1) Your body.
They're fucking you, aren't they? Unless they're putting on a blindfold and handling your bits with tongs, it's pretty safe to say they find you attractive. Going "sorry, I have a big belly" can only go two ways:
-They actually kinda liked your tummy, but now are sad that you don't feel the same way.
-They didn't love your tummy but didn't mind it since the rest of you is so damn cute, and now you've drawn their attention to it.

Not only do the outcomes suck, but so does the implication: that your body is something you're doing to them. "Look out, I'm going to be fat at you!" Horseshit. Only the sleaziest teenage boys think that being attractive is a duty to others and being ugly is an offense or dereliction. If your body's somehow a problem, at least realize it's only your problem.

2) Malfunctions.
So he didn't get hard, you had weird pain and had to quit, she didn't get off, you came in ten seconds. Sucks for both of you.
So here's your options:
-Fix it. Take a rest and go a little easier this time, let your fingers finish what your cock started, ask her how she likes it and do just exactly that.
-Forget it. Welp, no sense going on if it's not fun anymore. Wanna watch a movie and cuddle? We can try again later if we feel like it, or not if we don't.
-"Sorry sorry ohmigosh that was terrible sorry."

3) Your limits.
Big one for me. "I'm really sorry, but I just can't get comfortable with crowbar blows, it must be such a letdown for you, sorry." Even if it's not crowbar-play, even if it's spanking or giving blowjobs or having your feet touched, you shouldn't apologize for a decision you're not planning to reverse. Maybe it really does disappoint them, but apologizing won't help and it makes the limit seem less firm.

The worst limit to apologize for is who you'll fuck/play with. Giving a polite no is nice; giving an apologetic no is annoying and misleading. Are you actually, literally sorry you won't fuck them? If so, it won't help them to know that. If not, don't lie.


I'm sorry for things I did and I know were wrong and you'll feel better if I say it. If it's not my fault, if I still stand by my actions, or if "sorry" will only be salt on the wound, then I'll be nice, but I won't be sorry.

Garden.

Flowers are just plants fucking. For the longest time I thought that was funny, maybe even ironic.

Now I understand that it's beautiful.