The scene is not safe.

[Trigger warning for rape and BDSM abuse.]

I went to a sex party not long ago.  I talked to a bunch of the members and organizers of the group, and heard all around that they really value consent and they're super aware of feminist issues and the danger of abuse in sex-positive spaces.  I had a pretty good time, met a lot of people, hooked up with a dude, fit a humorous number of naked people people in a bathtub at the same time.

Days later I found out, almost incidentally, that one of the guys at the party had been ostracized from another scene for "some problems."  Some problems with boundaries.  I was a little ticked that no one had identified this guy to me.

Later still, I found out that the guy had raped a woman.

Oh, but, like, she only said he raped her and no one was there to see it and it was really confusing and stuff and anyway what do you want us to do, like, treat the guy like a leper?  He got kicked out of one scene already and that was like a couple years ago and we're trying to help him change and now he's okay as long as someone keeps an eye on him at parties.



Originally I had written a rant here.  I'm angry about this, is the short version.  I'm quite angry.  I'm angry because this isn't the first time I've been around a known abuser and nobody told me; I'm angry because I've been abused under the aegis of BDSM; I'm angry because so damn many of my friends have been abused in the scene; and I'm angry because if I used the guy's name in that story above, I'd be kicked out of the scene.

If you want the long version, Yes Means Yes spells it out here, in a post I think everyone in the BDSM/swinger/sex-positive communities should be reading.

The first step is admitting we have a problem.  And we do have a problem.  I’ll skip to the end: there’s no shortage of stories that start “I was abused” and end “when I tried to say something the community closed ranks around the abuser and I was frozen out.”  It’s happened to friends of mine.  It’s happened in communities where people insist that the community isn’t like that.  And almost always, you have to actually know the participants to know what happened because nobody talks about it.  It’s all secret, there’s no sunlight and no transparency.  You, you out there on the internet, can search blogs until you’re blue in the face for a record of some of these stories, or some indication that you shouldn’t play with some of these people, and you’ll never find it.  Even when “everybody knows,” the “everybody” is very narrow.

And much more.  Go read it.



In the meantime, I like the BDSM scene.  I like the sex-positive scene.  I love that spaces exist where I can be myself and spend time with people like me.  I don't want to leave.  I especially don't want to leave and let the abusers have it.

I also don't know how to fix it. I find the efforts to do so alternately inspiring and utterly frustrating.  I understand the problems that "expose and expel anyone with any accusation against them" would create and yet I hate the default solution of "therefore, keep all abuse secret and consequence-free."  And I also understand that anything framed in terms of accusations is only cleanup after abuse has already happened--a real "fix" would cut down how much it happens in the first place.



I have a few small suggestions that don't require involvement in the question of accusations*:

1. Let new people know the scene is dangerous.  Newcomers shouldn't be hearing "BDSM is all about consent."  Newcomers should be hearing "BDSM should be all about consent, but there are a few people here who won't respect that, and we don't know who they are."  We shouldn't be teaching new people to relax and take it all in stride; we should be teaching them to be wary as hell.  I'd rather feel like I'm scaring people off than feel like I'm luring them in.

2. But don't assume all newcomers are only potential victims; newbie education should also include teaching people how not to become perpetrators.  (I'm going to hopefully write my own thoughts on this soon.)  For three reasons:
a) It may, in fact, prevent some of them from becoming abusers.
b) Seeing things from the other side may make them better at recognizing abuse.
c) It takes away the "I didn't know that was a problem" excuse in a hurry.

3. Make audience-visible consent a part of BDSM classes and demonstrations.  I've seen this done right a few times and wrong a lot more.  Right is when the presenter negotiates with their demo-partner right there in public, or makes it explicit to the audience that they've negotiated privately.  Wrong is when the presenter just jumps right into throwing rope (or whatnot) on their demo-partner, and as far as the audience can perceive, the "consent" is that the demo-partner doesn't safeword or run away.  Wronger than wrong, and not at all rare: the presenter gets "playful" with their demo-partners (or audience members!) in ways that clearly weren't pre-negotiated even in secret.

Taking thirty seconds to make it clear that you always ask, you don't skip it because "it's just a demo" any more than you skip it because "I know they'll like it," would make a big difference in BDSM education.

4. Most parties have special rules that you have to talk to the host about before doing fireplay and bloodplay--the host will direct you to a location where you won't set the house on fire or ruin the carpet, or simply say "no, we don't have facilities for that, this is a no-fireplay party."  We need to have these same rules about resistance and "consensual nonconsent" scenes.  If you're going to do something that looks just the same as abuse, you should be required to run it by the host first.

That way, if a host sees something that looks just the same as abuse, even if they're afraid/unable to shut it down with a "hey, is that consensual?", they have an excuse to shut it down with "hey, you didn't get clearance to do that!"

5. Get survivors to real resources.  I don't think we should be creating internal, informal resources in our community for this.  The "we'll handle everything internally and informally" mindset is how we got in this mess in the first place.  What I do think we should be doing, however, is making a concentrated effort to connect abuse survivors with resources like the following:
The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center
The Network/La Red (GLBTQ- and kink-friendly organization against partner abuse)
The National Leather Association Domestic Violence Project
The National Domestic Violence Hotline
 The National Sexual Assault Online Hotline

And, frankly (although I know damn well the barriers there can be):
The Fucking Police

When people report abuse, we should be referring them to outside, professionally run organizations with trained specialists who can help them through the painfully complex process of decision-making and escape and recovery.  We should not be encouraging them to keep it in the community.  We see everywhere from churches to colleges to the military what happens when abuse survivors are told "we'll handle that internally," and it's always crap.  Let's handle this shit externally for once.



The first step is to admit we have a problem.  So in a way I'm glad to see my community doing that.  Even though it's upsetting and causes a lot of strife in the short term, I'm really happy to see all these conversations about the dark side of the BDSM community coming out in the open.  I just hope we can go from conversations to actual change.



*I really fucking hate saying "accusations," by the way, when I think it's "reports," and I fucking hate acting like it's a big tough question.  As far as I'm concerned I know the vast majority of these accusations are true and that not inviting someone to sex parties is such a mild goddamn punishment we should just fucking do it when we know damn well someone is a fucking rapist.  But I'm never going to sell that opinion to the community.

What am I?

I've gotten a whole bunch of emails lately that read like the following (with various combinations of gender/orientation/activity):

"Hi Holly, 

I'm a man who considers himself straight, but sometimes I imagine being tied up and sucking other men's dicks.  I don't want to date them or have sex with them; I just want to get tied up and suck dick and that's all.  Does this make me gay? Does it make me bi?  Does it make me kinky? Does it make me submissive?

Help me, Holly: what am I?"

So I'm going to answer these questions in one fell swoop here:
You are what you are.

You're a straight man who fantasizes about being tied up and sucking men's dicks.  What else is there to say?  What would a label add, what would it clarify?  Whether you'd like this in reality or leave it in the realm of fantasy, or whether you'd like to do other things with men or with BDSM, can't be answered with a label.

I'm not just telling you that I can't extrapolate from a letter.  (Although, seriously, I can't.)  I'm telling you that most likely you can't extrapolate.  Sexuality isn't symptoms that give you clues to your syndrome; sexuality is the symptoms.

I don't think words like "straight" and "gay" and such are completely useless.  But they're only descriptions.  If you're a man and everyone you've felt attracted to has been female, eh, you might as well call yourself "straight"?  But that doesn't "make" you straight.  It doesn't tell you anything about which women you'll be attracted to, or give you a guarantee you'll never be attracted to any men, and it sure as hell doesn't mean that you "should" be attracted to women.

The people who write me these letters seem very aware of what their fantasies, desires, and actions actually are--much more acutely aware, it seems, than most people who simply have a label.  Frankly, I'd hate to see them trade in this awareness for "I'm a kinky bi man."

---

I don't mean to just give this as advice from on high; it's something I'm wrestling with myself right now.  I've been trying very hard lately to hold the lines of:

-I play because I want to, and this makes me kinky; I don't make myself play because "I'm supposed to be kinky, better live up to it."

-I play with people besides Rowdy sometimes, and this makes me non-monogamous; I don't make myself play with other people because "what kind of crappy non-monogamist am I if I don't fuck this dude?"

Both of these have been struggles. Once you establish the persona as this kinky poly super sexy sex person, it's hard as hell to violate that and say "you know what, I'm just not feelin' it."  The pressure to live up to your labels is both internal and external.  There are times when I really want to relabel myself "kinkyfluid" and "polyfluid" or something, just to emphasize that these are things I do sometimes in some ways; they're not things I've made some sort of commitment to doing.

Fixing the label isn't the real solution, though.  The real solution is to fix the expectation that the label can ever speak for me.



I'm a person who sometimes likes some kinds of kinky play (list available on request) and sometimes likes to play with certain people who aren't my boyfriend (now accepting applications).  That's what I am, and trying to figure out what that "makes me" isn't a recipe for happiness; it's a tragic oversimplification.

Boiling Frogs and Family.

flickr user DonkeyHotey

I spent the weekend with my family.  It was not a pleasant experience.  It was an experience that made me wonder: "How did I ever live with these people for twenty years?"

Because I thought it was normal, of course.

The "boiling frog" experiment goes like this: throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, and of course it'll panic and immediately jump out.  Put a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly raise the temperature, and the frog will boil to death while never noticing anything's wrong.  (This isn't actually true, by the way.  Frogs in real life will jump out when the water gets hot, no matter how slow you go, because frogs are sensible like that.  But it makes a great metaphor.)

And the "boiling family" experiment goes like this: visit a family where every mundane conversation is an emotionally charged battle of wills and passive-aggressive posturing is the only way to express emotions, and you'll think "these people are fucked up!"  Grow up in a family like that, and you'll think "I'm fucked up!"

For a long time, I thought I would never have any social skills.  I just wasn't good at people.  Couldn't make friends, couldn't figure out when or how to talk, kept creeping out or annoying people without understanding why.  Then this weekend I had a little mini-revelation: I was bad at social skills because I never learned any at home.  (I am naturally awkward, but nowhere near as much as I thought I was.)  I had to learn things like "how to make small talk that isn't grossly inappropriate references to suicide" and "how to say what you want instead of giving bizarre hints and then screaming when people don't read your mind" starting at about age eighteen.  No wonder I was in my twenties before I could have such a thing as a casual conversation.



When you're immersed in an environment, especially when you're immersed in it from childhood, it takes a lot of time and distance to realize it was an environment, and not "just life."

It sounds like a sad or angry discovery, but it's kind of a wonderful one, because when you're in the frog-boiler you honestly believe that you're never going to be any happier.  That every relationship you'll have as an adult will be like the ones you grew up with.  That every time, in your entire life, that you knock over a glass of water, you will be screamed at and sometimes slapped for it, and this is right and normal and the only way to avoid it is to never be clumsy ever.

Finding out that this isn't so, that in the real world most people just go "oh darn, I'll get a towel," is one of the giant ongoing joys in my life.  And reorienting myself so that I expect people to go "oh darn, I'll get a towel" is one of the giant challenges in my life.

It's work, and work I definitely have not finished, to shake the habits and ways of coping I learned growing up.  (I still have way too much of the "conflict means violence so hide or cower at the first hint of conflict" stuck in my head, and a little bit of "people only tell you what they want via secret signals so constantly evaluate everything as a signal.")  It's also a tremendous source of power and confidence when I get it right.



...Yeah, I can't really connect this post to sex.  I mean, it's got lots to do with sex, considering how much the shift from "people communicate by incomprehensible hints followed by hissyfits" to "people communicate with goddamn words" has improved my sex life.  But I don't think I can work "vagina" into this one.

My next post will be all about vagina.

Orientation speech.

[Oh God it's been too long since I last posted.  I meant to!  But then I moved into a new house!  It's not far from the old one but it's much nicer and it's also a kink-friendly space.

Which is something I didn't want to be important to me--hey, I'm not "a kinkster," I'm just a person who is kinky!--but it turns out to be huge.  The feeling of having nothing to hide, of being able to tell my roommate honestly about my weekend, of not needing to censor the contents of my room before opening the door, of not needing to constrain the way I interact with my boyfriend in the house... turns out that's not a silly whim.  It's something that takes a gigantic weight off my shoulders.  I feel safe in my home, and I'm just now realizing I didn't before.

...I also didn't feel safe in the old home because apparently my roommate was letting random people shoot up in the house.  I found that out as I was leaving.  Lovely. But not my problem anymore.

Anyway. I only just now got Internet in the new house.  So I've got some posting to do this week!]

This started as a joke.

"Welcome to Holly's vagina!  Please stay seated for this important briefing.

"Very little foreplay is required, but in the event that insufficient moisture is available, artificial lubrication is available in your seat pocket or beneath the seat ahead of you. Make ample use of this lubrication, as it greatly enhances the experience and reflects in no way on your performance or her enthusiasm, and can be used as a floatation device. 

"Roughly one inch above your seat you'll note the clitoris, illuminated with red and white indicator lights.  Tampering with the clitoris is a federal offense and may result in a fine or jail time.  Unauthorized clitoral stimulation will result in delay of our trip, and continuing to manhandle the clitoris and claiming 'but girls like this' may result in cancellation of your ticket. 

"Directly inside the vagina, on the front side, you will find our exclusive The Happy Place™ facility.  Feel free to enjoy The Happy Place™ throughout your trip, but please bear in mind that this facility is designated primarily for rubbing and massaging, and extensive or forceful thrusting in this area may not produce the desired effect.  If at any time during your trip you wish to thrust forcefully, please activate your call light for assistance and we will direct you to the most comfortable positions to do so. 

"In the event of an emergency orgasm, please assist those around you with their orgasms before securing your own, bearing in mind that the plastic bag may not inflate. 

"Enjoy your trip!  You may use approved electronic devices at this time."

Truth is, though, having an orientation spiel for my vagina is damn useful.  Simply sitting down and writing that, airplane jokes and all, clarified things.  To have good sex, it helps to know what you like--and to know what you like, it helps a whole lot to actually put it down in words.

Giving a little speech on The Care And Feeding Of My Vagina is one of those things that seems awkward, until you realize how awkward the alternative is.  Getting someone up to speed on my physical quirks makes the difference between constantly interrupting sex with "whoa no not that" (or worse, politely enduring "whoa no not that" things) and having things just flow.  It's not just about catering to my own needs, either; letting my partner know what's up with my body gives them an idea of where to start and relieves some of their performance anxiety, and it gives them an opening to tell me what's up with their body.

Obviously I wouldn't really do it flight-attendant style?  (Or I might.  Mixing "sexy" and "hilarious" is underrated.  This weekend I watched a couple have a pillowfight while having sex.  It was adorabawesomesexy.)  But I really would make a little speech out of it.  A breathy speech right in my partner's ear, given between deep kisses, with my hand running through their hair, maybe.  Or a cheery, matter-of-fact one over dinner.

...Or one posted on my blog, under the clever guise of talking about how to clarify sexual needs.



Sex for me is a three-step process.
1. Find out what you want.
2. Make sure your partner knows what you want, and you know what they want.
3. Dirty sweaty monkey love.

Step 3 gets all the glamor.  But it's rare chemistry indeed that makes Step 3 just work out without any planning.  The awkward, talky, using-the-word-clitoris-without-giggling process of the first two steps is where the real magic happens.

Why have sex?

Rowdy and I had another little relationship summit last night.  We're trying to make it a monthly thing.  It's quickly gone from "well, that's a little silly, we can talk whenever something comes up" to "oh my God I'm so glad we have a designated time to air everything out."  Doing it once a month also means that the airing-outs are relatively small; with only a month of conflict backlog, there's no big "here's everything about you that bothers me, all at once" emotion-dump.


We had two important discussions at this meeting.  (Well, two that are any of your business.)

The first one went a little like this:

"I feel like we're not having as much sex as I'd like lately."
"Yeah, me too, I'd like to have a lot more sex."
"Really? I haven't been initiating because I thought you weren't interested and I didn't want to pressure you!"
"...I wasn't initiating because I thought you weren't interested and I didn't want to pressure you!"

So that was nice to clear up before our little sexual "who's on first" turned tragic.


The second big discussion came when I whipped out my kink worksheet for us to do together. Again, it seemed a little silly, considering we've been together a year and a half.  And again... turns out we've been together a year and a half and there were still things we didn't know about each other's sexuality.

The most interesting one had very little to do with kink.  Rowdy and I found out that we have sex for completely different reasons.

The question of "why do you want to have sex?"* sometimes sounds silly--because you've got a sex drive, right?  Hormones and stuff.  And because you're attracted to your partner and hopefully like them at least a little. Emotions and stuff.

It sounds self-evident, but when you start asking "okay, so why do you want to have sex, rather than just masturbate for the hormones and cuddle for the emotions?", it gets complicated fast.  And it gets diverse.

In my case, it's about escapism.  I'm a person who spends a lot of time in my head, criticizing and analyzing, and I love something that yanks me out of my head into my body, puts me in the here and now, narrows my focus to nothing but sensation.  For Rowdy, it's about pleasing.  He's very much of a service top and even something of a service fucker--he wants to see me come more than he wants to come.

And for me it's also a little bit about validation--about knowing someone finds me sexy, holy shit, sexy enough to actually fuck, whoa.  (Somehow it's still a surprise.)  And for him it's also a little bit about sensation; a very specific sensation, the muscularity of our play and sex, the whumph of muscle on muscle, the dull thudding impact of fucking.

The sex we had after this little meeting was amazing.  It went whumph and it drove me out of my mind.


So I think "why do you want to have sex?" is a good question to ask your partner and yourself.  When you treat it like a foregone conclusion then it's harder to know exactly what you want out of sex.  When you think "I want it for the usual reasons" it's too easy to have what you assume is the usual sex--instead of your sex.

Plus I just think it's sort of funny: when I tell someone (outside Kinkland) I like to get punched and flogged and thrown around like a ragdoll and kicked in the crotch, the first and most obvious question is "why? what's in that for you?"  But when I tell them I like to have a penis in my vagina, nobody thinks to ask.

Why not?



*All this is assuming that you do want to have sex.  Which shouldn't be a foregone conclusion either.  There's also a universe of reasons to not want sex.

Cosmocking! April '12! Part Two!

Okay, let's get this out of the way so I can write real posts again.  My jaw is finally healing (it seriously was horrible for a while there, I had wounds going down to visible bone in my mouth) and I got no excuse.

Cosmo's idea of "If Men Edited Cosmo." They don't think much of men I guess.

Do Women Wrestlers Know Something We Don't?

...How to wrestle?

(This turns out to just be a bunch of bad metaphors about how you should "never let your guard down" and "roll with the punches" and I think these are actually boxing concepts but whatever.)

You are out with pals and want the last bar stool but the chick in the adjacent chair has her purse hanging off it. Don't ask to sit there--it implies you think you're doing something wrong. Just take the seat.  She'll get the hint to grab her stuff.

Or there's someone sitting there!  For a magazine that tries to project an ultra-sophisticated, master-manipulator facade, Cosmo can be pretty dense about basic human interactions.  Anyway I'm pretty unclear on what happens if I "imply I think I'm doing something wrong."  Total ostracism from human society?

The Crazy Thing My Gyno Said to Me

This is a genuinely disturbing article.  It's a mix of the merely goofy:

"My gyno used a mirror to show me my cervix, which she called my 'pink doughnut.' Gross!"

And the completely inappropriate and borderline criminal:

"While doing an exam, my OB-gyn, his face closer to my hoo-ha than it needed to be, told me how beautifully groomed I was, then patted my butt.  I was so floored, I just mumbled 'thank you' and prayed for the exam to be over."

The upsetting thing is that Cosmo doesn't make any distinction between the two, nor any suggestion that the latter is something that you can take up with the doctor's employer or the state licensing board.  It's just another wacky hijink!  Just another thing that you're expected to put up with and shrug off.  The concept that sometimes shit is wrong and dangerous only exists in the "very special socially aware story of the month" section of Cosmo, and absolutely nowhere else.  Everywhere else, sexual harassment is a hijink.

My guy is small down below but gets really big when he has an erection.  Is this normal?

Yeah, it's called an erection.

The weirder part here, though, is the question of "normal."  I mean, clearly this isn't the symptom of a disease or some horrific genetic defect.  So does it really matter in some big anxiety-provoking way whether "small but gets big" is a common way for penises to be?  Unless you were considering whether to submit him to Ripley's Believe It Or Not, I guess.  Then you definitely want to do some research beforehand.



There wasn't much bad sex advice in this issue.  Cosmo, I am disappointed.  When you don't give me bad sex advice, I'm left with nothing but sexism and social buffoonery.  It gets depressing!  At least tell me something amusing I could do to testicles.

Cosmocking: April '12! Part One!

It's that time again.  (And it's totally Tuesday, just like I promised.  Shhh.)  Thanks to Rowdy and Star for co-Cosmocking!

White cover! Megan Fox! Bizarre giraffe neck pointing a whole different direction than her head, as per Cosmo standard practices!  "Megan Fox: Naughty or Nice? You Decide..." Cosmo, I don't know her!  "What He Wants to See During Sex!" I thought the answer was "a naked person" but it turns out the Cosmo answer is "his own penis"!  Too bad, because having sex can make it really hard to see your penis!

[in the letters section] Wow, the February story "Deadly Decisions: How Smart Women Put Themselves at Risk" opened my eyes. No way will I be heading home alone at night anymore."

Well, that's going to be pretty goddamn inconvenient.  I mean, if you go out with female friends, I guess the last two friends have to have a sleepover so neither of them goes home alone?  And if you go out with a man you have to commit to letting him take you home?  (Which, to take a brief real-world-break here, puts you at far greater risk than walking home alone.)  And if you go out alone that's just unthinkable because woman?

...And if your friends all leave before you then I guess you have to sleep at the bar.

The Naughtiest Thing I've Ever Done: "I hacked his email and then hooked up with his friend"

Cosmo always runs these "Naughtiest Thing" stories and they're always incredibly fucked up.  The one last month was about a girl gaslighting her roommate by secretly moving the roommate's car to illegal spots.  And this month it's about a girl who steals her boyfriend's password (like you do) and finds out that he's cheating on her, so she books a plane flight to the guy's long-distance-best-friend to fuck him.  Without telling the best friend.  I don't mean without telling him about the cheating, I mean without telling him anything.  Her first contact with the guy is a text from the airport:

"I've got the lace panties covered. You might want to pick up some condoms this weekend."

Fortunately, in Cosmoland all men are both indiscriminately horny and mildly psychic, so of course they have  awesome wild revenge-sex, instead of him texting back "I think you sent this to the wrong number. o.0"

Researchers found that the vibration of women's voices are more complex for men to hear, so dudes end up using the part of the brain that interprets music. Translation: You have to be direct, since he may be at a biological disadvantage when it comes to listening--and processing--what you say.

[incomprehensible high-pitched lady noises]

[listening closely, you can make out a strange warbling tune that sounds oddly like the words "FUCK YOU."]

[signs your friend-with-benefits wants to date you:] He lingers in bed postbooty for cuddle time. If he's only in it for the s-e-x, he'll nearly leap off the mattress when you're finished.  Sticking around shows he's into you for more than your bod.

Okay, I get that there are some people who just don't enjoy cuddling, but not cuddling because you think it'll mean you're getting attached? Actually kind of a giant dick move. Guys who spend the entire time trying to keep you at arm's length and protesting "BUT I'M NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND" make terrible fuckbuddies.  If you don't have the maturity to trust that your "this is just sex, kay?" negotiations were real and that women aren't all secretly trying to entrap men in their relationship-tentacles, you don't have the maturity to be a fuckbuddy.

Friends with benefits are supposed to be "friends with benefits," not "strangers with body parts."

Girlie Stuff Guys Don't Get

This feature is amazing, because it's not so much misogynistic as just... strangely unfamiliar with basic Earth activities.

Long baths: Lying in a lukewarm tub of your own filth? No thanks.
Bed skirts: Your mattress doesn't need cute clothes.
Emoticons in texts: Typing eight frowny faces after telling us you're running late doesn't make us think you're really sorry. It makes us think you're an emotional wreck.

And so on.  Other impossibly girly things he doesn't get: brunch, tote bags, space heaters, bobby pins, phone cases. I've seen a million "ha ha, frivolous feminine things" articles, but this is the first one to just start naming random household objects and activities.  He's overdoing his misogyny so hard he accidentally overshot women and hit the entire human race.

...Which is a pretty good description of Cosmo in general.



But wait... there's more!  Unfortunately.  But I have an anatomy midterm so I'll finish this later.
(Anatomy: Come on ladies, having body parts? Really? Grow up!)

Brief hiatus.

Why haven't I posted this week?

Because this:

xkcd

I had two badly infected teeth pulled on Monday, and well, without getting graphic, it has not been a smooth recovery.  I've spent the week in a state alternating between Vicodin haze and "oh God I don't want to have a mouth any more."

I'll try and have new content up by Tuesday at the latest.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Contraception.

Contraception's been in the news lately.  Which is so weird.  I mean, it's the 21st century!  We have iPhones and robotic surgery and Roombas and Segways!  How is this even a thing?

In a sense, it's not.  The real issue is "will religious organizations be required to include free contraception in their healthcare plans?" which while still an important issue, isn't at all the same thing as "should contraception even exist?"  And yet it seems to have drawn all the creeps who want to yell "contraception shouldn't exist because SLUTS!" out of the woodwork anyway.

I don't want to expound too much on how I feel about this, because I think it's pretty obvious where I stand.  You think I'm going to spring the anti-birth-control stance on you here?  Seriously.

So instead, I'm going to expound on some relatively little-known, and hopefully useful, facts about birth control.



1. You can use regular birth control pills as an emergency contraceptive.
If you have access to birth control pills but not Plan B, you can take extra pills to prevent pregnancy after having unprotected sex.  Here's a table of the correct dosages.  This is not an abortion method and won't stop an implanted pregnancy, but it's effective for more than just the "morning after"--although sooner is better, emergency contraception can work up to five days after unprotected sex.  (It also doesn't appear to cause any birth defects, so if it doesn't work, keeping the pregnancy and having a healthy child is still an option.)

2. You're probably paying too much for condoms.
Drugstore prices are highway robbery.  (Or at least highway rubbery.)  $15 for a package of 12?  Maybe $10 for the crappy brand?  Yep, still cheaper than diapers, but you can do way better than that.

If you have a credit card and a mailing address, you can buy a giant bag of 100 for less than $19 here.  I can personally vouch for that brand being reliable and comfortable on the vagina side, and I've gotten good reports on the comfort for the penis side.  I can't vouch for these, but they're even cheaper--under $14 for 100.  At that price, you can afford to have sex and make ballon animals.

3. "Pulling out" works better than you think.
Withdrawal has a bad reputation; most people think it's more of a bad joke than a birth control method.  But actually, if it's done correctly, it works better than a sponge or a diaphragm.  Interruptusing your coitus is 96% effective over the course of a year--if you do it right.

That's the catch, though.  Pulling out is trustworthy; penises often are not.  And if you have an "oh oh OHHHHH oh shit" moment, or if there's residual sperm in the urethra, your risk of pregnancy goes up to 27% over the course of a year.  (You can remove residual sperm from your urethra by always peeing before sex and after any time you ejaculate.)  So I don't really recommend this method--except that it is by far the most effective method that requires no money, no drugs, no trips to the doctor or drugstore, no pre-planning.  All you need is your bodies (and some trust and ejaculatory control).  It's not the best birth control method, but it's the best one that you can do entirely on your own.

Note: I am not advising you to rely on withdrawal for contraception.  It is not a very good idea.  It provides no protection from STIs and 27% is not great odds. Condoms can be gotten for free or dirt cheap and they protect you from infection as well as being much more effective protection against pregnancy.

4. Spermicide is way, way, worse than you think.
The pregnancy rate (over a year) with typical use of spermicidal foam/jelly/film is 29%.  That's not great odds.  It's certainly better than nothing (85% risk), but it's worse than condoms (15% typical risk), worse than the pill (8% typical risk), worse than the rhythm method (25% typical risk), even slightly worse than pulling out!

Also, if you have a vagina, using spermicide can put your health at risk.  The most common spermicide is nonoxynol-9, which has been found to increase the risk of HIV, HPV, trichomonas, and vaginosis infections.  Sex workers are 50% more likely to contract HIV if they use nonoxynol-9.  And the reason is nasty--because it can cause ulcers to form in your vagina, which creates open wounds for infection to enter.

As pregnancy prevention, spermicide is crappy, but better than nothing; as infection prevention, spermicide is actually worse than nothing.

5. If you're on birth control pills, you don't get a period.
It certainly seems like you do, at least if you're on the 28-day-cycle kind of pill.  But the "period" you get between pill cycles is not a period at all--it's withdrawal bleeding from the change in hormone levels.  Unlike a true period, there's no uterine lining buildup and no egg in it.  It doesn't perform any cleaning or renewing function. It's just bleeding.

So why do pretty much all conventional (and the most affordable) birth control pills make you bleed every month, if it doesn't serve any purpose?  The answer pretty much comes down to "tradition."  "Normalcy."  I've heard claims it gives users "a sense of well-being," which is slightly hilarious.   Confirmation you're not pregnant--I guess that's nice-ish, but is it really worth a week's worth of cramps and stained underpants?  Ultimately, I might have to chalk this one up to "male doctors."

So calling Lybrel "the birth control where you don't have periods" isn't quite right.  Hormonal methods all stop you from getting a period.  Lybrel is really "the birth control where they don't make you bleed for no reason."

Things I Wish My Sex Ed Teacher Had Taught Me.

I had, by US standards, above-average sex education.  Oh sure, they showed us misleading slides of diseased genitals to try to terrify us out of sex. And sure, they told the girls that we should expect guys to pressure us into sex but that if we had "self-respect" we would always refuse.  And sure, they let the entire class yuck it up during a video on sexual harassment and didn't give a crap if we took it seriously.

(The class reaction to that video was actually a fascinating insight into the stereotypes we held, even as teenagers, on what kinds of harassment are serious and what kinds are sexy/funny/unthinkable.

Video: "Sexual harassment can be male on female,"
Class: [stern silence]
Video: "Female on male,"
Class: [snicker]
Video: "Male on male,"
Class: [laughter]
Video: "Or female on female."
Class: [roaring, pounding on desks, falling out of chairs])

But at least they taught us that contraception exists!  We even had another day where we learned that homosexuality and bisexuality exist.  For public education in the US, that's outstanding sex ed.  In retrospect, someone probably had to fight for that.

And yet it left me, not just lacking in advanced topics, but in the basic understanding of how sex even worked.  I mean, it wasn't until I started watching porn that I understood what an erection was, or that intercourse involved thrusting.  The sex-ed version was so sanitized it had left me honestly thinking men stuffed their soft dicks in women and just sorta stood around until they ejaculated.  This isn't a frivolous pornographic detail.  This is like taking driver's ed and still not knowing about the gas and brake pedals.




So here's some things I wish they'd taught in my sex ed class:
•"I know this is a pretty loaded subject, and a little nervous laughter is okay, but if you're laughing at someone, or if you're making disrespectful remarks, you're out and you can tell the principal what was so funny.  This classroom is not a place to hurt people."

•"Homosexuality and bisexuality don't just exist as some 'other' that you should dutifully tolerate.  Some of the people in this class are gay or bisexual. It may be you. You may or may not know it yet. And all that is okay."

•"Oh hey, you know who else exists? Transsexual, transgendered, and genderqueer people.  They exist too.  Let's make a note of that."

•"Some people want sex more and some people want it less.  These are both normal and okay.  There's nothing wrong with a girl who wants it more or a boy who wants it less."

•"It is not normal or okay to not want sex but to have someone have sex with you anyway.  Whether you're a boy or a girl, even if you didn't stop them from having sex with you, that is not how sex is supposed to go."

•"There's a big debate among adults whether we should teach you about contraception.  So I figure hey, this debate is about you, so you deserve to know about it.  I'm going to teach the controversy! We'll learn the arguments on both sides of this issue and discuss them in class. However, we can't very well have an intelligent discussion on contraception without everyone being on the same page about the basics, so let me give you a quick primer.  This is a condom..."

•"You know what else exists?  Abortion.  I'm not saying you should. I'm just saying that if you're fifteen and you're pregnant and you're not remotely ready to be a parent, you should know this is a thing you can do and have an idea of where to begin the process."

•"Here's a real rough outline of how sexual activity actually works.  It's not lasciviously detailed, but it'll give you the gist.  There's details in there like 'most penises like stroking with a bit of squeeze, but ask your partner to be sure.'  You're going to be doing this at some point in your lives, you ought to know what you're even trying to accomplish."  [I am aware how hilariously impossible this would be to get into a sex-ed curriculum anywhere in the US. I'm just dreaming now.]

•"You can't talk about sex without talking a little bit about love.  Here's some things you should know about love."

•"The most important thing about sex is that it's consensual.  The second most important thing is that it's safe.  Whether you have sex is not important at all."



If you ruled the world, what would you teach kids in sex ed?

A concise kink worksheet.

There's a lot of kink negotiation worksheets out there, and frankly, most of them are a mess.  500-item lists of "animal play (puppy) - rate interest from 1 to 10 or hard limit" and "animal play (pony) - rate interest..." can be interesting ways to learn just what possibilities are out there, but they don't necessarily help you narrow down what you want in a particular scene.

So I've made a kink worksheet that fits on one page.  It assumes you already have a general idea of what you're into, and only need some help condensing and communicating those ideas to your play partner.

The Concise Kink Worksheet! 

(Google Docs PDF)

Notes on use:
•I don't really expect you to write on it; it's more of a jumping-off point for talking and thinking.  It's probably better to talk this over  with your partner than to hand it to them filled out, but, you know, whatever works for you.

•If you're new to kink, it's probably good to think about your answers well in advance of actually playing, when you have a clear head and time to put your thoughts together.

•"I don't know," "maybe," and "let's try it a little and see" are totally acceptable answers.  Don't feel like you have to have a super confident answer to everything.  Knowing that you're not super sure what you want is rarely a dealbreaker, but important for your partner to be aware of.

•It's really a pre-negotiation worksheet; the purpose of these questions to give your partner an idea of where you're coming from and what you're looking for before you work out exactly what's going to happen in your scene.  Once you know these things about each other, it's between the two of you to work out explicitly what you will and won't do in your scene.

Going from "so you don't want to roleplay, do want to use toys, and do want pain" to "so how about I throw you up against that wall and hit you on the ass with the paddle--we'll start slow and see just what you can take" is what happens next.  That's the fun part of negotiation and it can turn damn sexy.

•Clear, explicit scene negotiation is a cornerstone of consent culture in BDSM.  A lot of the recent talk has been about flushing out serial abusers, but equally important is making sure that well-intentioned people don't hurt each other through miscommunications or assumptions.  A cute little worksheet won't guarantee that but I hope it helps.



...Not-kinky people, I will write a totally not-just-kink sex post next.  I have not forgotten you!
...Why am I apologizing for being kinky?  This blog is called The Pervocracy.
...But nonetheless.  I don't intend to be all BDSM inside baseball, any more than I'm all gender or all politics.  I value diversity in my perversity.

Why I didn't just call the cops.

[MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING for the nitty-gritty of sexual assault and aftermath. This is not a happy post and it's not one I really wanted to write.  But it's one that a lot of people seem to need to read.]


There's been a lot of talk lately in my local BDSM scene about how to make the scene a safer place.  Which is an awesome thing, but it's depressing to see the pushback it's been getting.  (If I felt safe before, I wouldn't now, not knowing how many people around me like to play the "but if you don't do XYZ then you're to blame if you get raped!" game.)  And one part of that pushback is "hey, public safety isn't our job; if someone has a problem they should go to the police."

This isn't limited to the BDSM scene.  I've heard this elsewhere in discussions of sexual abuse.  Formally report or you have no right to complain.  Formally report or you're to blame for their next victim.  Formally report or it probably didn't even happen.

Like it's that easy.

So I'm going to explain in agonizing detail how I was assaulted by a guy in a BDSM scene, and why I didn't go to the cops.  And I hope this makes a difference to all the people who think "if someone assaults you call the cops" is the be-all-end-all of stopping sexual assault.



The guy was Benny, we'd been sleeping and playing together for a couple years, and he had been throwing up the flaggiest of red flags for a long time.  He'd already done things to me without my permission.  That's putting it lightly.  I mean that I'd said no (last paragraph) and he'd gone ahead and stuck his dick in me.  Which is... I guess it's rape right there?  But I didn't even register that.  At the time it just seemed like... a thing that happened.  I told him "no," he penetrated me anyway, I was like "whoa whoa whoa hey," more annoyed than scared, and in a second he stopped.  It seemed more like an awkward, uncomfortable misunderstanding.  Like someone giving you a noogie even though you're going "hey no."

Which is why I don't believe in giving people noogies if they don't want it, by the way. Sets a bad precedent.

REASON 1: Sometimes assault doesn't "feel like assault." A million movies and news reports had conditioned me to the idea that assault is big and loud and dramatic, that there's always blood and bruises and screaming.  The idea that something quiet and weird and awkward could be literally rape didn't occur to me.  And maybe you can argue that a guy shouldn't go to jail for something that didn't traumatize me, but that's only from my point of view.  From his point of view he had a woman saying "no" and he stuck his dick in her anyway. 

To say that's not rape because I didn't start screaming is like saying it's not theft if you snatch someone's purse and they say "oh well, these things happen, I suppose I can live without that purse."

What did bother me was the time he convinced me to let him come on my face, telling me it would be totally sexy and awesome and badass of me, and then as soon as he'd come he burst out in laughter at how ridiculous I looked with come all over my face like some stupid whore.

What did bother me was the time he fingered me, I had a blindfold on, and I didn't realize I was starting my period.  He stuffed my blood in my mouth and smeared it on my face without telling me what it was, then took the blindfold off, told me to look in the mirror, and cackled with glee at my predicament.

What did bother me was the increasing frequency with which he played the hold-down game.  The way this game worked was that we'd be lying in bed together and he'd roll over on top of me and not let me move.  He wouldn't do anything to me, just use his size (he had a full foot and 100 pounds on me) to hold me down until he decided to let me up.  Which could be a while.  I'd beg him, I'd try to hit him, I'd "no, seriously, it's not funny, seriously let me go" him, I'd even try reverse psychology and just go limp, and he'd just laugh and keep holding me down until he felt like giving my body back.

REASON 2: I blamed myself and expected to be blamed. So this isn't one of those cases where a nice guy turned into a monster out of the blue.  This is a case where I had a million red flags and I ignored or excused or "that's just his way"ed them.  Was this stupid of me?  HELL YES!  Is sexual assault a fair punishment for being stupid?  FUCK NO.  But because there had been those warning signs, I felt like I had it coming, felt like anyone I told would ask "why did you keep seeing him?" and I would have no answer, and felt like I had no right to report a crime that I had "contributed" to by not avoiding. 

I'd heard (and continue to hear, and future victims are hearing it right now) the same things said about a million rape victims before me.

And then eventually he crossed a line I couldn't forgive or ignore.  I was at his house, late at night, with only one purpose, the only reason I kept seeing him: filthy kinky sex.

REASON 3: Slut! There's a lot of shame in being a woman who goes to men's houses late at night with only one purpose.  Even without the red flags, that alone is enough to get a lot of people saying "well, what did she expect?" 

REASON 4: I said "yes." I did agree to have sex with Benny that night. And there's a huge number of people (some of them cops or jurors) who think that consent to sex is consent to anything, and you don't get to say no once you've said yes.  Or if you do it's only rape by some finicky feminist definition, only "gray rape," not in the same category as "rape-rape."

So he tied me up, spread-eagle to the four corners of the bed, saying he was going to finger me and get me off while I was tied.

REASON 5: Kinky shit.  So how do you explain this to a cop: "Yeah, I said he could tie me up naked, but not tie me up naked and hurt me!"  We're in a cultural atmosphere where most people think going to a guy's room is consent to anything he might do to you; what were my odds of explaining that letting him tie me up was not blanket consent? 

REASON 6: Kinky "crazy" shit. One of the more common stereotypes about women who do kink (especially who bottom in kink)--one I've had people say to my face when they didn't know I was kinky--is that we're "crazy."  Unpredictable, irrational, damaged goods, you know, "crazy."  And it's a widely accepted fact in the misogynist community that a "crazy" woman will make an accusation of rape for no good reason, just because she's so "crazy."  That's not shit I wanted to face.

REASON 7: The kinky shit community. The kink community talks big about consent, but they also talk big about not having "drama".  Calling the cops is the ultimate drama, and if I went back to the kink community after that, I'd very likely get the reputation of "holy shit, she didn't like a scene so she called the cops on her top!" 

That's kink-specific, this isn't: the kink community contains most of my friends and it's a major source of emotional support in my life.  Having a considerable proportion of my friends turn against me when I needed friends the most--that would not be an easy thing to get through.

REASON 8: Kinky shit exposure. If I pressed charges, inevitably everyone in my life would find out about it and the circumstances.  Which would be... not good.  Not good for my relationship with my family. Not good for my job.  Not good with my roommates.  Not good for a large chunk of my future.

Things weren't going well from the start.  I wasn't really into the sex and it was obvious; usually I get off easy and this time I was just tense and uncomfortable and kinda muttering "okay, this isn't working, maybe I should just... I mean maybe we could... can we take a break? Maybe?"

REASON 9: Mixed signals. "Did you actually say 'no' to him when you started feeling pain, Ms. Pervocracy?" "Er... I said maybe could we maybe take a break."

He did not take a break.  He tried to shove his entire fist into me.  I've been fisted and liked it, but this was dry and sudden and forceful.  It was his resentment for me not being a good fuck, for me not moaning and writhing and telling him how amazing he was, balled into a fist and shoved into my vagina.  It hurt.  Fuck it hurt.

I said "red" and he didn't stop.  I said "red, safeword, stop, ow" and he didn't stop.  Like when he was holding me down, this was going to end on his time.  He kept going and I kept saying "no, really, fucking red, fucking stop." I wasn't screaming or yelling--I was feeling weirdly calm, practical, a sense of "do what you need to do now, panic later"--but I was definitely not unclear.  Eventually he did stop.  I looked down to see if there was blood on his hands but I think there wasn't.

He stepped away, but left me tied up.  He went to the bathroom and started washing his hands.  I asked him to untie me.  He laughed and said "if you're tied up, you're at my mercy."

That's when I screamed.  I screamed "YOU FUCKING UNTIE ME RIGHT NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING FUCK LET ME FUCKING GO FUUUUUCK" or words to that effect.  And then I screamed "I'M GOING TO SCREAM UNTIL THE NEIGHBORS HEAR" and he untied me.

And then... I didn't dash out of the house crying.  I didn't attack him.  I didn't grab my phone and call 911.  I got dressed and I talked to him.  Not even "what the fuck just happened?" talked to him.  I just said "hey, this sex thing isn't working out, you know."

He said "yeah, I know.  But we had a good run there. We'll stay friends."

And then I left.  Still not crying, still not acting "traumatized" whatever that looks like, still not calling the cops.

REASON 10: Aftermath. I think I had a brief chance there to be a Proper Rape Victim and I totally blew it.  If I'd gone right to the cops, right to the hospital, maybe I would have stood a chance of being taken seriously?  But I didn't.  I didn't even think of it as sexual assault at the time.  I wrote a blog post right afterwards in which it's clear that I'm angry and shaken up but in which I don't call it sexual assault. 

Going back after a space of time, and saying "no, wait, I realized it really was assault" fits the misogynist idea of the woman who "changes her mind" or "has regrets" just a little too perfectly. 

REASON 11: Doubt.  Was this bad enough to put someone in jail over?  I mean, jail, that's a really big deal.  That's gonna make him lose his job--and he had a good job!--and really ruin his life.  From when I started saying "no" to when he untied me was, I don't know, five minutes tops.  Can I justify ruining someone's entire life over something that only lasted five minutes?  To be honest, even now I can't give an unconflicted "yes" to that question.

REASON 12: Retribution.  Benny had a lot of friends.  I didn't know them well.  I'm sure most of them thought of Benny as the kind of guy who would never hurt anyone.  I'm sure they would take his side if some random girl made some random accusation against him.  What I'm not sure of is how far "taking his side" would go. Maybe they'd just quietly hate me.  Or maybe they'd come to my house at night.  I don't know.

So I went home. I wrote my little blog post. I went to sleep.  Went to work in the morning.  Sat a little funny the next couple days. Got angry or sad a few times. Life went on.

REASON 13: It's over.  I never saw Benny again.  As far as I was concerned, that chapter in my life was closed.  Reporting would mean reopening it, rubbing my nose back in the absolute worst parts of it for weeks or months.  It would mean extending the ordeal from "got assaulted" to "got assaulted, got interrogated about it, got a pelvic exam, got interrogated again, went to court, got interrogated again," and what would I have at the end?  At best, the very mixed (see Reason 11) satisfaction of punishing Benny.  Quite likely, nothing at all.  For that kind of risk-reward, I might as well just let it go. 

Some of the stuff I've listed above may sound kinda trivial, or kinda theoretical, kinda like I'm worrying too much what people will think.  But it's stuff that if I reported, I'd have to face all at once, all the time, for a long-ass time until my life was normal again.  If I didn't report, my life would be normal again right away.

Finally, I just want to say: These are reasons, not justifications. You might see some of these and think "but that's not right, actually that thing you're worried about wouldn't have happened" or "but this doesn't add up, you still should have reported!"  And fuck, you may be right.  But these are the things that went through my head during and after my sexual assault.  These are not reasons I shouldn't have reported the assault.  These are reasons I didn't.

Is there one big fix for all of this, one way to make sexual assault super easy and simple to report?  I dunno.  I doubt it.  Or if there is it's a big, massive, culture-changing fix.  I don't have time to get into it in this post.  I just wanted to answer the question "Why don't sexual assault victims just go to the cops?"

So yeah, there are a few reasons.

Cosmocking: March '12!

Lavender cover!  Selena Gomez!  Her left leg is growing out of the side of her abdomen!  "Why guys love it when you bite your lip!" "Because it is a widely understood gesture indicating sexual interest in our culture" is probably not the answer!  "3 things he doesn't have to know!" Hm...

1. The plot of the epic thirty-two-part Final Fantasy VII fanfiction saga you plan to write!
2. This thing your friend he doesn't know told you about this other friend he doesn't know at a party he wasn't at!
3. Any dream that takes more than two sentences to describe, ever!

I sure hope it's stuff like that, because wow, these are things nobody ever has to know! "How to own any room you walk into!" ...Buy a house and never leave?

Letting him take the lead: It may seem a little retro, but the simple act of allowing your guy to forge a path for the two of you can do wonders for his ego and your relationship.  [...] So throw the guy a bone and let him grab your hand and guide you the next time you're walking down a crowded street.

"Retro" is the wrong word here.  May I suggest "dehumanizing" or "infantilizing" or a good ol'-fashioned "bullshit"? But what's really getting me here is the "throw him a bone" thing.  Like, yeah, we're totally all feminists and we understand equality now... but be a sweetie and let him degrade you a little sometimes!  I mean, sure you're as much of a capable adult as he is, but you don't have to rub his nose in it!

I'd be less Humorless Meaniepants about this if it said "sometimes it's nice if one of you lets the other take charge and lead."  It did not say that.

I am a nursing assistant and work with a hot male nurse. One day, he asked if I could help him clean up an empty room. But it turns out he just wanted to hook up, so we locked the door and started going at it.

So... your direct supervisor asked you to go to an empty room with him on false pretenses and then he locked the door?  ...Are you okay?  Do you need to talk?  Do you want me to call someone?

The worst part is that this is a part of a transparently fake "true confession" story, which means that someone made this up thinking it would be sexy, when they could have just as easily made up a story that didn't have terrifying implications.

The lip bite brings out his inner caveman. Why? It causes blood to rush to your lips, which plumps and reddens your pout. Both are signs of fertility, and when a guy sees them, it sets off his primitive instinct, since he's subconsciously looking for a mate with whom he can reproduce.

"Caveman" bullshit aside, this doesn't even work.  I've been biting my lips in the mirror for the last couple minutes, and unless I chomp down so hard it hurts, my lips look exactly the same afterwards.  My teeth aren't bees.

This isn't a difficult thing to test, Cosmo.

Men love when you beg them to finish.  In a sweet, sexy voice, say, "Please come, baby, please come."

Oh God, I used to do this.  I was dating a guy who took forever and when it stopped being fun-forever and started being ow-forever, I'd do this to try to make it end.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it just prolonged the "but I'm almost there!"  The whole situation was as sexy as a root canal.

Now I have a partner I can just say "I'm getting sore" to, and even though that doesn't sound sexy, it beats the hell out of "dirty" talk that really means "oh for the love of God why can't this be over already."

So that's just my personal associations with "please come, baby."  Maybe it's great for someone else.

Try this kinky trick: Color your nipples with a crazy-colored lipstick, like sparkly purple. Bonus points if it's yummy. He'll love the shocking, sexy change in scenery!

Man, I love Showgirls on so many levels, I think it's the unheralded companion piece to Starship Troopers... but absolutely nothing in that movie should ever be attempted by anyone.

"My guy and I will be at lunch and I'll say things like 'Yes, master,' and 'Whatever you say, sir.' He gets the hint that it's time to tell me what to do.  It's a huge turn-on, and the sex later is super passionate because of it. 

I don't disapprove of this quote at all.  I just want to slip the person who wrote it a few phone numbers.  It's okay!  You are not alone!  We have meetings Tuesdays and Sundays!

[Jewelry ad: an elaborate diamond and white-gold pendant, and two matching cocktail rings, lying on a wood surface.  Next to them, a note tied to one of the rings reads:] Girls' night out just got cancelled.

You ever get that feeling where you don't know exactly why something is wrong... you just know that it is?

"In the early stages, subtlety is key," says Nicholas Boothman, author of How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You in 90 Minutes or Less.  "It sounds old-fashioned, but guys want to feel like they have to chase you a bit."

You know, I'm not an easily embarrassed person.  I'll happily go up to the bookstore counter and ask if they have Anal Pleasure And Health, or Hand in The Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting, or The Toybag Guide To Erotic Knifeplay, and anyone gives me a look I'll give them a look right back.  I know when I've got nothing to be ashamed of.

But if I bought a book called How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You in 90 Minutes or Less, I would ask for a brown paper bag.

Anyway, the problem with the whole "make him chase you" thing isn't just the passivity it imposes on women and the aggressiveness it requires of men.  It isn't just the risk for dangerous confusion between a woman playing hard to get and a woman trying to get away.  It's also how often I've tried to do this, tried to be super subtle about my attraction, tried to make a guy chase me... then looked behind and realized he wasn't following. I'd just plain run away from him.

Sex and love games are awesome.  But I prefer the kind where everyone knows they're playing.



Oh, and the three things he doesn't need to know? What you do when you're not with him, what skills you have, and what insecurities you have about your body.  Because if there's one thing your boyfriend doesn't need to know, it's that he's dating a person.

The Valentine's Day Dilemma.

someecards

[Cosmocking is coming next!  They take a long time to write.  I'll have it up late today or sometime tomorrow.]

I have a dilemma every time I’m in a relationship when this day rolls around.

Part of me thinks: “This is a commercialized, manufactured holiday that celebrates oppressively inflexible gender roles, shames men who don't give the perfect gift and women who don't get the perfect gift, marginalizes queer people, marginalizes the shit of single people and people in closeted relationships, and ought to be completely unnecessary in a relationship where we express our love when and how we feel it rather than the way The Man tells us to. This holiday sucks and as someone who cares about conscious and intentional relationships, I should have no goddamn part of it.”

But a smaller yet deeper part of me feels sad about those words, because they're words that come from a sexual and romantic rebel, yes, but they're also words that come from a Perfect Girlfriend Who Never Wants Anything. (I have battled often with the Perfect Girlfriend Who Never Wants Anything inside me, desperately resisting her threats that I'm just one "can we go out somewhere nice tonight?" away from morphing into the High-Maintenance Girlfriend Who Wants Everything.)  That part of me wants to put my foot down and say “I know this is arbitrary, Rowdy*, but sometimes I need you to make small arbitrary gestures to prove you care about me even when I don't make sense.”

Also, Valentine's Day sometimes feels like a one-day hyper-concentration of the "you poor dear, guess he doesn't love you that much" messages I get from the mainstream culture over the facts that we're not monogamous and not planning to get married or have kids.  It's not that I even want any of those things, but the relentless message of "non-traditional relationships are no way to treat a lady!" still seeps through to my sad little insecure place sometimes.  Celebrating Valentine's Day like giant saps is a relatively safe, cheap way to soothe that little sad place.  Or maybe it's a way to say screw you, society, see how our non-traditional love can be totally sappy.

I don’t want diamonds and I don’t want to receive without giving, but I think exchanging goofy heart candies** for goofy reasons is an opportunity to say “You know what? Sometimes validating feelings is more important than always fighting the good fight.”


This year, we’ve agreed to exchange presents on the 16th. That way we get to take advantage of day-after sales and uncrowded restaurants and feel like we’re getting something over on The Man, while still satisfying my irrational need to occasionally be allowed to have an irrational need.



*Rowdy is actually really good about validating things like "I need you to be here for me and I can't coherently explain why." This post is about my own tangled insecurities, not about him trying to convince me not to want anything. If anything, I think he gets upset when my Perfect Girlfriend Who Never Wants Anything self-enforcement goes into overdrive.  
Captain Awkward has a great post here on related issues, on why we pressure ourselves into pretending we never need anything from our friends and lovers, and why good friends and lovers don't actually want us to do that.


**But not Conversation Hearts. They're great cultural touchstones for representing the holiday and all, but they taste like chalk.

The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex.

xkcd

With all apologies to the original, which all geeks should read...

I think geek sexuality is an awesome thing.  God knows it's the only sexuality I've ever known.  Geeks are tinkerers who constantly try to improve and innovate, and geeks are not bound by many mainstream social rules, and these two things combine to create some fucking hot sex.  Also for some semi-mysterious reason the overlap between "geek" and "kinkster" is, like, 90% of both groups.

But geeks also are prone to weird social thinking, some of it a reaction to the ungeeky mainstream, some of it their very own invention.  Here's some common misconceptions that can fuck up geek sex.

GSFS 1: People can voluntarily control their emotions about sex.
This manifests a couple different ways:
"We've agreed this is casual sex, so as long as we decide not to develop feelings, we won't."
"Sex is just a physical activity, so adding it to our dating/friendship won't change our relationship."
"My partner promised not to feel jealous because I'm not monogamous, but they're betraying me by feeling jealousy anyway!"  (Note that in this example both partners are apparently carriers of this fallacy.)

Pretending you can just decide whether you'll feel any emotions at all is a geek fallacy stemming from the idea that you should be able to optimize your own brain to not do anything unproductive or unintended.  But geeks ought to know better, because come on, you can't even get a computer to do that.  This stuff comes on you, it gets you by the heart and the gut, and it doesn't ask you "pardon me, I'm an emotion, are you okay with experiencing me?" first.

What you can and should voluntarily control is how you express your emotions.  It's okay to feel strong emotions; it's not okay to attack people or break promises and use "I was emotional" as an excuse.  This is when it's time to tell your partner "hey, we need to talk, I'm feeling an emotion!"  Solving the problem may involve changing your relationship boundaries, it may just involve talking it out, or it may mean you have to end the relationship.  But the solution is never "that is an incorrect emotion, please stop experiencing it."


GSFS 2: The weirder your sex, the more enlightened you are.
I've done a whole post on this, so go there if you want extended pontification.  The short of it is: geeks have a tendency to mistake "less mainstream" for "better," and to conclude that sex that least resembles the mainstream is both the sexiest and the most virtuous.  So polyamory gets seen as more enlightened than monogamy, kink gets seen as sexier than vanilla, and monogamous vanilla geeks get a big steaming pile of "I guess you're just not very open-minded."

I think polyamory and kink have great things to offer geeks of all sorts, but "having sex with multiple people" and "having ouchy sex" aren't those things.  Those are just neutral activities, things to do if you like and not if you don't.  The real takeaways are conscious and explicit communication.  That's what makes us cooler than the squares.


GSFS 3: Cool chicks don't worry about sexism.
This isn't exactly a sex thing but God does it plague some geek circles.  I know because I've been the cool chick.  I've played the "don't worry, I'm not like those other girls, I'm not into gossip and drama" card; I've played the "well, you have my permission to objectify me, because I take it as a compliment" card; I've even played the "that mean lady was such an uptight no-funster for having boundaries" card.

Those cards are the fuck out of my deck now.  And I've paid the social price for that.  There's definitely some people in my circles who've put me in their "uptight no-funster" mental box since then, or who deliberately bait me about "watch out, Holly, I'm going to patriarchally oppress you!" because ahahaha she's an angry little lady isn't that cute.

I don't blame a woman who sees this go on, decides she wants friends more than she wants to start fights about some abstract problem that doesn't seem to affect her personally, and starts telling her male friends not to worry, they can be sexist around her, she's cool.  The problem isn't her.  The problem is all the people who made it so much easier and more pleasant for her to be a "cool chick" than a woman who gives a damn how people think of her gender.


GSFS 4: Drama is always worse than the thing the drama is about.
I guess the xkcd comic has a little bit of this one.  Drama's never fun, but it beats the fuck out of suppressing real issues.  In my time in geek circles, I've seen reports of sexual harassment and even outright assault silenced with "well, I don't want to make drama" or "but whatever, that's just drama."  A woman in the group is a sexual predator? Gosh, I don't spread gossip.  A man needs to be disinvited from parties because he's repeatedly threatened people at them? No, kicking him out would make a scene, it would make drama.

In geek sexual communities, the illusion of smooth functioning and of everyone being bestest friends with everyone can supersede people's needs for comfort and safety.  A lot of this has to do with the "Ostracizers are Evil" non-sex GSF, but it gets worse when you add sex to the mix, because defensiveness about our non-traditional sexuality suppresses important issues even further.  Like, if you admit that people violate boundaries in BDSM circles, then you're admitting that BDSM isn't a perfect haven of consent and negotiation, and that's just going to play right into the mainstream idea that BDSM is abusive!  So we end up defending abusers to prove BDSM isn't abusive.

"Drama" is a trivializing word.  Let's try "conflict," instead.  "I don't want to treat him any differently just because he gets a little handsy with women, that would cause conflict."  It doesn't sound so superior and level-headed now, does it?


GSFS 5: Sex should be no big deal.
This is related to GSFS 1, but even nastier.  This is the idea that since sex is just a super simple physical act--you rub some bits together, it feels good, the end--that there shouldn't be anything complicated or difficult about sex.  That casual sex should be easy for everyone, that having multiple partners should be as simple as "it's like having a sexual partner, but more than one of them," that everyone who makes sex into a big complex issue is being dramatic (GSFS 4) or no-fun (GSFS 3) or narrow-minded (GSFS 2).

Sex is complicated as fuck, and if you think understanding sex is easy, you don't understand sex.  I've written 1300 posts on sex and I've already changed my mind about roughly half of them.  It amazes me that the same people who admit that games about rolling dice can hide deep complexity and meaning will go on and claim that sex is just some squishy bits coming together.  It's not.  Sex is two (or more) people interacting in a huge diversity of ways, and while it can be great, it's never simple.



I love geek sex.  I love the way we're endlessly willing to rethink and improve and break stereotypes about sex.  But we gotta stop buying into this crap.  We're geeks; we oughta be smarter than that.

A different kind of love.

Love songs don't work too well for Rowdy and me.  Romantic movies neither.  It's hard to pick out Valentine's cards.  All these things--pretty much any trapping of romance that contains more text than "you're awesome, I love you"--seem to define love very differently than we do.

There's so many things that get associated with "love" that aren't part of our experience of loving each other.

Exclusivity.  Both of us are sleeping with other people right now, he's dating other people, and there's not a damn thing wrong with that.  I've started to love the feeling of "coming home" to Rowdy after fooling around with someone else; it's a wonderful warm thing to be able to say "I like going off and having adventures, but your dick is where I hang my hat."

"...metaphorically."

So it's weird to me to see "I'm all yours" and "you're my one, my only" used as expressions of just how sincere and true a love is.  They can certainly be definitions of a particular couple's love, but that doesn't make it lovier.  Exclusive love isn't deeper or more serious (or worse!) than open love, it's just different.

Permanence. Stuff ends.  And when stuff is a relationship, it really only ends in two ways--you break up or somebody dies.  Rowdy and I are in our twenties, we're not getting married, and we both have a bit of the "maybe I'll move to Alaska next" wanderlust in us.  We'd like to be long-term but realistically we're not forever.

And I'm okay with this.  I don't love to think about it, but I'm at peace with it.  Which is why stuff like "I'm yours forever" grates on me as a romantic sentiment.  No.  I'm not yours forever.  I'm with you now. Now matters too.  Let's treasure today, and accept tomorrow.

Ownership. I realize that "I'm yours" doesn't literally mean "I am your possession," but a lot of romance language does come weirdly close to that.  It weirds me out.  I'm starting to think this entire post is just me being painfully literal, but it's hard to think clearly if you don't think literally sometimes, and I don't like hearing that lovers "belong" to each other.  Rowdy's not mine, nor am I his--he has no authority over me and no rights to me.  We're just two people who enjoy being together.

I know there's not much room for nuance on a Conversation Heart, but I don't want to tell my lover "be mine."  I only want to tell him "be with me."

Obsession. Rowdy isn't my life.  I mean, how goddamn boring would that be?  Rowdy is just one wonderful part of my life.  Of course I could live without him; of course life would go on; of course we're not everything to each other.  And to me, that's not less meaningful but more.  One of the most romantic sentences I know is "I don't need you; I want you."



So without these things--without every part of "be my only one forever," what's left?  Funny thing is, there's a shitload of things left.

There's simple, raw affection.  Rowdy makes me happy and he makes me want to make him happy and whenever we're together we make a little Happiness Feedback Loop.  This is the main thing and it's why I say "love" at all.  Being with Rowdy just plain feels good.

There's trust.  Trust that means we show each other all our soft vulnerable parts--the bad stuff in our pasts, the screwed-up stuff in our heads, the things that make us cry and the things that turn us on--and we know we're safe when we do.  We know it's not going to be used against us or taken lightly.

There's loyalty.  When I was sick Rowdy came and comforted me.  When Rowdy moved I came and hauled boxes.  We've cried on each other's shoulders and we've gotten each other's backs.

And yeah, there's sexual chemistry. I don't think that defines our love but it sure makes it a whole lot more fun.

How is this different from being really good friends who are physically intimate?  Honestly, it isn't.  Which brings me to the last thing our love isn't:


Magic. There's nothing special about being in love.  It's only a matter of gradation away from being very close friends.  The feelings I have for Rowdy are different only in degree, not character, from the feelings I have for other people with whom I share affection, trust, and loyalty.  Being with my friends just plain feels good, too.

Love is wonderful, but love is not ineffable.  Love is powerful, but love is not mysterious.  Love is a rock in storms and an open meadow on sunny days, but love is not a bolt from the blue.  Love is just really really really really liking someone.  And that's enough.

Maybe our problem isn't that we think love is too magical.  Maybe our problem is that we don't realize how magical every human connection is.



...Wow, that was pretty Care Bears even for me.  But fuck it, I'll be Care Bears.  Caring about someone is fucking awesome.

Guest Post: Top Tips for New Friends in the Scene.

[This is BDSM inside baseball.  If you're not a BDSMer or wannabe BDSMer, I'll have more of my usual tomorrow.]




[My friend Match_Stick wrote this for our local BDSM munch, and I think it's some solid advice. Text in brackets is my comments.

Also, my excuse for not writing a post this week is that Rowdy and I were in a hovercraft competition!  We had 48 hours to build a working remote-control hovercraft from scratch.  The post image is our results, hovering triumphantly.]

1. Get an email address without your real name in it. You will need it for invite lists and such.

2. Get a FetLife account, and put a picture up. No need for your face to be shown, but put something up. Something other than a shot of your genitals.

[You can use a headless shot of your body to avoid showing your face, but sometimes it's nicer to use a non-human picture that simply reflects one of your interests.   One of my friends is a bird, another one is a famous painting, another is a photo he took.  It gives you more character than the headless shot.  My suggestion is to use that for an avatar and then upload your headless-body shot as a secondary picture if you want to show off your stuff.]


3. Find local events such as munches and classes to go to.

4. Pick a name to be known by in person. If you have a common first name, you may want to use that. If you don’t, or want to be even more careful, pick another name. Remember, people might buy “Buddy” a beer, but no one wants to buy “Lord Domly Pants” a beer.

[There's an important deeper meaning in calling yourself "Buddy" rather than "Lord Domly Pants."  Which is that you're dealing with real people here, not with sexual fantasies.  If all goes well, you'll be able to act out some sexual fantasies with some of them, but you don't want to come off so narrowly focused on your fetishes that you don't treat people like individuals.  You want to project "hi, I'm a nice person" before you project "hi, I want you to lick strawberry Jell-O from between my toes."]


5. Practice introducing yourself. You will be doing it a lot.

[I have made so many friendships--including Match_Stick!--simply by walking up to people and saying "Hi, I'm Holly. I don't think we've met before."  Bluntness is my religion these days and it's paying off.]

6. Go to real life events. Everybody is shy sometimes. Go to events and introduce yourself. A lot.

7. Make friends, before you make play partners. They will help guide you.

[I strongly, strongly, strongly agree with socializing before playing, even if you get the opportunity to play right off the bat.  You'll have a much better first-play experience if you've gotten to know the people who are prancing around naked. Also, certain people who proposition newbies are sketchy, and going to munches is the best way to find out who.  Remember that women who prey on men, and submissives who prey on dominants, do exist.]

8. Don't touch people or stuff without permission. You will notice that people in the scene can be touchy and huggy. They know each other. If you get to know people you can probably get hugs too. If you want. People should not be touching you if you don't want them to.

[BDSM culture is stricter about touch than you're used to.  If someone is touching you without asking, they know, or should, that they're crossing the line.  On your part, remember that even a friendly touch on the arm can turn weird under BDSM social rules; even if it seems goofy, ask first.]

[Also: It's good to make an ally early on--preferably someone you know isn't attracted to you at all--that you know you're safe around and can go to if someone's pushing your boundaries.]

9. Guard your identity. Don’t give out your real name, phone number, or post pictures of your face without a good reason. Get a Google voice number to hand out instead. It also works with texting and you can block calls with Google Voice if you need to.

10. Meet new people in a public place or at a group event. Trade personal identity information later if you feel comfortable, and want to meet them privately.

[Rule 10 requires you to break rule 9, and I agree with this.  It's prudent not to share your personal information with the kinky "public"--everyone at the munch doesn't need to know where you work--but it's rude and creepy not to share it with your play partners.  Personally, I wouldn't go to someone's house alone or let them in mine unless I knew their "real life" identity.  There's some trust involved in this, yeah; but there's some trust involved in getting tied up and beaten.]

11. Learn what a safety call is and use it. At the very least tell a friend where and who you are meeting, and let the person you are meeting know you did this.

12. Read a lot! SM 101, Screw the Roses, Loving Dominant, Ethical Slut, etc.

13. If you are looking for a mentor, look at your peers. If you are a submissive, find an experienced submissive to mentor you.

[I.e., not a dominant!  Lots of dominants are lovely people who will give you great guidance, but they don't know what it's like being a submissive, and there's also a big risk of conflict of interest.  If you don't have an official mentor, at least have a close submissive friend.  Go to them with your "X wants to play with me, are they cool?" and "X wants to do Y with me and I feel Z about it, what do you think?" type questions.]

14. Ask questions. People are happy to help you learn.

15. Practice saying “No, thank you”. Be firm but polite. You may get many offers – much more than what you are used to in vanilla life.

[One big difference from vanilla culture: simply asking is almost never impolite.  Someone saying "would you like me to beat you?", even if it seems a little bit out of the blue, is not being creepy.  It's only creepy if they fail to take the first "no" for a clear and final answer. That's when you need to find your ally or a party host and tell them you need backup.]

16. If you are at an event, please say hi to the hosts. We love to meet new people, and we can introduce you to good people.

17. Ask for what you want, when you are ready. And don’t be afraid to ask for something simple and mild.

[This one is important!  You will see some people playing very "heavy" at play parties.  They are certainly the most eye-catching.  They are not the best at BDSM, or the realest, or anything like that.  "I want to get your drinks tonight" is just as legit a desire as "I want to be your slave."  "I want to spank you a little" is just as real as "I want to suspend you from the ceiling and beat you with a cane."]

18. Trust your gut. If something feels wrong, assume it is.

[A million times yes to this. Every time I've said to myself "aw, you're being unfair, just give them a chance," I've regretted it.  When it comes to your body and your safety, be unfair.]


Copyright 2011-2012 Match Stick, major contributions by kaminaru. Licensed under the Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution License. Please feel free to copy, improve, translate, and share. You don't need to ask permission first.


Feel free to tattoo it on your ass. If you do, please send me a picture!