Fifty Shades: A conclusion

this should be in every bookstore

I never quite finished the Fifty Shades of Grey critique series, and with a surprise day off, I thought I'd get back to it.

I picked the book up off my shelf, started to flick the pages, saw that I had, in fact, read to the end of the book, that there were notes til the end of the book. I remembered what happened, in a vague, big-plot sort of sense, but none of the funny details that would let a breakdown be funny (or as funny as any of them ever were, anyway). And I realized that I just didn't want to read the last chapters again. The writing is bad, the message is worse, and... I don't really have time for this kind of crap. This kind of shitty portrayal of kink, this kind of perversion (and not in the fun way) of a sexuality I hold dear. My time? Not worth it.

But I've gotta close it out, so a few parting thoughts (click the "five-oh shades" tag at the bottom to see previous posts in the series):

What I remember about the end of the book is this: Anastasia, finally, leaves Christian Grey. Which is great, which is phenomenal, which is arguably the only sex-positive, consent-conscious, I'd-even-go-so-far-as-to-say-sort-of-feminist moment in the entire five-hundred-odd-page drivel. James, to her infinitesimal credit, even alludes some pretty great reasons why Anastasia would leave:

"He has needs that I cannot fulfill, I realize that now."

"This is really it. This is what it boils down to - incompatibility..."

"'I can't stay. I know what I want, and you can't give it to me, and I can't give you what you need.'"

These (isolated as they are here - but we'll get to that in a minute) are perfect reasons for leaving a relationship, healthy reasons, even. Recognizing when two (or three, or four - you go puppy piles!) people just aren't going to fulfill on another's needs is, so much so that they're going to be unhappy trying: that is perfectly valid. Painful, difficult, but really valid.

It's also a circumstance many kinksters are terribly familiar with. Kinky, or poly, or otherwise "other" sexually inclined folk run up against this very conundrum, explicitly, all the time: 'I want to be with this person, I want this person to be with me, I love them, even. But I'm kinky, they're not, or I'm kinky, and they're differently kinky than me. And nobody's needs are going to get met if we stay together, and it's going to slow-simmer into resentment and, eventually, dissatisfaction on both our parts. It's painful, it sucks, but we both have to recognize it.'

And if James were to leave it how the above, isolated phrases imply she leaves it, I'd have better things to say at the end of the book. But on the heels of my last post, the assumptions and context that go along with Ana leaving are especially disappointing. Some additional quotes from the last chapter:

"He's not normal."

[from above]: "incompatibility - and all those poor subs come to mind."

"I have had my eyes opened and glimpsed the extent of his depravity, and I now know he's not capable of love - of giving or receiving love."

And that last one pretty much sums it up. There are a lot of issues in this book that rub me wrong, some trivial, some not. The lack of negotiation, the anti-woman caricatures, the bad writing. The fact that, although I love that she leaves him in the end, I'll eat my feminist jacket patch if it's not just a set-up for them to eventually get back together, for Anastasia to be heartbroken for time enough that readers sufficiently salivate, making the reunion all that much more tragically satisfying.

But I'd be willing to forgive all that (maybe not the anti-feminist bits, but the rest, surely) if the underlying message of the book didn't tell me that how I love, how I have sex, how I express affection and gratitude and desire is inherently wrong: that it is, in it's very nature, impossible. The book is a denial of my sexuality, of the sexuality of thousands (hundreds of thousands? where to draw the line anyway, really, because the number of people who deem themselves "not really kinky" and use toys and power exchange and role play in their sex lives is growing every day?).

I've often been told that I shouldn't take offense so much. As if being offended is something I choose. Peel back the layers of what it means to be offended, for me, and it basically strips down to hurt. I am hurt. It is hurtful, especially because of how popular this book is, that someone would say these things about me, about my friends and my community, would not only write this perspective, but succeed with it, popularize it with others, make so much money from it.

Which isn't mean to come off as reason to be pitied, or as victimized. I don't think E.L. James has a right to that kind of influence over me, or any kinkster. But simply to say: that sucked, lady. That sucked, and that hurt people, and that was a step back for kinky people in a lot of ways.

So with this, I say goodbye to Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm not going to read the next books (I've got better literature, and better kink literature, to spend my time on).

Consolation prize? I'm probably having wicked better sex than you ever will, James. Put that in your crop and flick it.

Sex as Sacred Union

In a Venn diagram of people in theater, kinksters, and poly folk, there's considerable overlap. I'm not sure if it's as remarkable as the geeky vs. kinky graph, but it's close. Something about subcultures and niche social groups and other-than-mainstream beliefs, probably. Or that it's a self-perpetuating feedback loop of friends having interests spreading to friends, etc etc.

Regardless of why, I've got a fellow stage manager friend, who's also poly, and we bumped into each other the other night. As expected, it was late at night, in a mostly empty theater. She was doing paperwork after a rehearsal, I was helping a friend tape out a floor (for those of you not in theater, taping out a floor is when you mark out the set, in tape, in the rehearsal space, so the actors can practice on it. It's actually one of my favorite bits of stage management). We were all tired and a little fried, but again, as expected, got to talking. In this business, with it's strange hours and ridiculous time commitments and insular subject matter, we all take the social time where we can get it, which mostly means theater people are friends with other theater people

She got to talking about a lover of hers (her word, not mine; "lover," always ends up sounding too much like shag carpet and shiny shirts with gold chains, to me) who, after much discussion, she'd finally found a balance with. He wasn't interested much in her theater friends, or that community, and she wasn't much interested in his kinky proclivities. But they'd found a happy medium, a good level of investment and commitment for both of them, and she felt like they were, after a year, finally hitting a happy pace and frequency for each other. Especially considering how into the kink scene he'd gotten lately, she said, which just wasn't her thing.

"Yeah, whips and chains and pain, it's not for me. I'm about sex as sacred union, and if that's not you, then no thank you."

And I'm sure she didn't mean it as anything, because for her, kinky sex obviously can't be sacred, or deep, or... whatever it is that she needs sex to be. But it was interesting, hearing those words come out of her mouth, how much it stung. As usual, the sting got me thinking, and as usual, I have thoughts from that thinking.

Much of the world, it seems, especially with the recent media frenzy around That Book That Shall Not Be Named, has become aware of the kink in a way they weren't before. And sure, there are all kinds of ways this perspective (the perspective that's offered by the media, that's offered by The Book, that most of people, when I talk to them, have about kink) is pretty screwed up. But this friend of mine, a woman I know and like and who's sex positive and open and loving, she doesn't really fit into that category. She knows more, and doesn't, from what I can tell, have these biases. She's not a person I would peg (punny, punny) to assume much, if anything, about other people's sex lives. So it was surprising to me, and enlightening, to see this tiny piece of the perspective on kink that, regardless of where you get your representations of kink from, or sex positive or poly you are, might be much more prevalent than I realized.

Different than the idea that being kinky is deviant, or a sickness, or exists only in the sex industry, or is something that dirty, fringe people do in dark hotel rooms, there's this idea that kinky sex is funny, or silly, or, in some fashion, trivial. That it doesn't run as deep as sex without pain, without overt power exchange, without role playing or costumes or implements.

That kinky sex is, inherently, less than non-kinky sex.

This might not be a revelation to many people, but it was for me. I thought back on conversations I've had with friends and acquaintances, and started to wonder what kind of weight they gave the words I use, how the meaning behind those words and ideas shifted from the moment they came out of my mouth, to the moment they landed in the brains of those friends. Do they imagine it as a game? As goofy? As trivial or, worse still, as just a mechanism by which I get turned on, as a tool by which I get to the actual, meaningful part: the sex?

Taking kink too seriously has it's own issues, and I'm not trying to advocate that kink = meaning any more so than any "non-kinky" sex must be imbued with meaning. That's entirely up to the practitioners of that given sex, at that given instance of sex. One of my favorite blogs is Happy BDSM, and it serves as a delightful reminder that this is fun, that this is play, that joy comes in smiles and laughter as much with BDSM as without.

The other side of that coin, though, is this reaction I'm having to my friend's comment, the thing that I think so many people don't understand about kink, or don't maybe better said: the thing that they don't even think to consider. That yes, the joy comes with D/s, with role play and bondage, but that it comes because of it as well.

The moment of obeying a command, the seconds between hearing it out of Jamie's mouth and fulfilling the action, the frantic, visceral, immediate compliance: this is sacred to me. The warmth that spreads from my face to my shoulders to the very edges of my skin when I know I've done what's been asked, when I know he's happy with me, proud of me, when I know I've been good, really good, whatever I've overcome to get there: that is sacred to me. The sound of a cane through the air; the sharp shock of as it flicks across my ass, upturned in the air, although it's frightening, difficult, shameful for me to keep there, but he wants me to keep it there, so I do; the pain changing in the seconds after the strike, spreading, ebbing from sting to pressure to a sweet and steady burn; the residual warmth of the line as he winds up for another, and another, layered in succession until I'm screaming: this is sacred to me. Running the tips of my fingers up to my neck, feeling the wide band of black leather there, knowing that it is only a thing, but my, what meaning we have put in it, what incredible heights such a simple, ritual object can carry us to: this is sacred to me.

So yes, kink is sometimes silly: sex, in any of it's permutations, should be able to be silly. But frivolous? Or employed for some other, better purpose, by definition? Or lesser in some way than other kinds of sex? No way.

because isn't that the face of the radically ecstatic?

And I know that most people reading this are with me on it; I know I'm not trying to convince anyone otherwise, really. But I think a lot of my passion about this comes from how incredible it's been for me to discover this; how basically excellent it's been to find. I'm invested and passionate about this part of myself. Wanting to scream from the rooftops: "Look! Yes! Look! This is how I am! I've found what I want and I get to have it! Isn't it amazing? Isn't it just fucking unbelievable?"

A few dictionary definitions of scared pretty much sum it up: "dedicated to some person, purpose, or object; regarded with reverence." In those moments, I revere him; there isn't a better word. I am dedicated; I am a dedication, dripping wet, prostrate, ass welted and panting through open lips. This is my church; this is one of the ways I find myself most joyous in the world.

So yes, Sir, yes Sir this is my sacred union. This is the way I butter my bread. And not as an appetizer, not simply to fill my stomach, but because this bread and this butter are my first choice.

"Sloots"

Belushi's "feminists say what?" face

My younger brother turned nineteen yesterday. I called him (at 11:58 - two minutes to spare!) and we had one of the most (if not the most) engaged and related conversations we've ever had.

Which is really saying something. Because, while he will always be family, and while we've had any kind of long-running animosity between us, my brother and I have never been close. We've been, compared to most other sibling pairs I know, extremely distant. We never talk on the phone, or if we do, it's short. We don't hang out when I'm home. We mostly eat dinner together, sometimes, with my parents. We live alongside each other, but we don't interact much.

I don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that I'm generally a pretty outgoing person. I often get "outspoken," or if I'm lucky, "well-spoken." Gregarious, snarky, a lover of words, a master debater: these are characteristics that live at the top of my dance card.

My brother is not like this. Not only does he not love debate or argument (which has been difficult, in terms of us figuring out how to connect with each other), but he has a hard time with it; he's got some auditory processing problems, and so a debate for him, with me, feels more like I'm bullying him than anything playful or fun. On top of this, he's just naturally quiet, and reserved, and introverted. I love him, always will, very much, but we've never been close, as siblings go.

So when I say we talked for an hour and half, and he told me about college, and his friends, and even different girls at college, and even parties, and even drinking, and asked me questions about drugs/usage/what the different M's in MDA and MDMA mean: this is a huge deal. We laughed and talked, and even exchanged pretty in-depth observations about why the Catholic Church sucks. It was incredible. I felt like a sister.

Which is why it was so hard, when we got to talking about women in college, and a woman that he'd been (in his words) "sorta messin' around with," and he sort of stopped, stumbled over his words, and said "well, I wish so many of them weren't such sloots." It sort of caught me off guard, really, to hear that word come out of his mouth. In a way, it was gentler that the traditional "sluts." I suppose. Although I'm not sure that it's really anything more than goofy pronunciation that separates the two.

It hurt to hear, but I didn't really know what to do. I was uncomfortable, flustered, standing in my kitchen. I was surprised, although when I think about it now, I guess I shouldn't have been. I assume a lot of things about my brother that simply aren't true; I assume he's like me in various ways, that we are the same in various ways, when he is, in many ways, somewhat of a stranger to me.

I asked him what he meant by the word, and he proceeded to describe these women as loud and annoying, as sleeping with lots of people. He spoke of a few of the women golfers (he's on the golf team: golf is, more so than school, what he's going to college for) as having been "passed around the team." I nodded (because you can totally hear nodding over a telephone). I understood what he was saying, and that the way that he was saying it wasn't meant to be mean, or hurtful, or misogynist. I understood that he was younger than me, and different than me, that he was sort of a frat boy, sort of a bro.

I tried to let it go. Difference of experience, difference of language, he just didn't mean it, I ran through these excuses in my head and tried to let it go. We talked about other things for a minute. About five percent of my brain was focused on what he was saying, and the rest of it was racing through ideas, questions, approaches, outrage, trying to find a way to tell him why it was upsetting to me, this ill-pronounced slur, without ruining what was turning out to be the most sisterly conversation I'd ever had with him. I didn't want to scare him, I didn't want to make him feel bad. I was trying to weigh my principals against this newly discovered siblinghood.

And so I said something. I told him, as free of confrontation as I could, that it sort of hurt to hear him use that word. I followed it up with asking him why, really why, he used that word. I asked him, again, trying to really ask, leaving the judgment out of my voice, if he thought there was anything wrong with women having a lot of sex, with different people, often, frequently, etc.

He doesn't. He told me as much in the conversation that followed, which (surprising enough) turned into a really interesting discussion about sex, and how people have sex at college, especially a big frat-esque pseudo state-school like his. It wasn't that these women were having sex with lots of different guys, but rather, he didn't like that people (not women, but people) had so much sex that they didn't seem to care about. Not that the sex was casual, or without emotional involvement, but that it was treated like something to be traded, to be kept secret (or, when drunk, to brag about). That there was animosity, a culture of throw-away people and throw-away nights surrounding sex at his school, as these frat parties, with these women he so-dubbed "sloots."

I'm paraphrasing into my own words, there, but basically I ended having a super-great sex positive conversation with my brother. I'm not sure he really understands the whole why-that-word-is-bad-and-has-a-really-shitty-history thing yet, but in terms of his attitudes about sex, they seem really excellent. I shared a tidbit with him from my OKCupid question-answering experience that he seemed to like, and sort of agree with. The answer to "do you enjoy meaningless sex," for me, is "no." And not because I need all sex to be in the context of a long term relationship, or I think sex equals love, or anything like that. But because sex isn't meaningless. It has value. It has weight - what weight you give it for yourself, what weight it has for your partner(s). Can I enjoy casual sex? Yes. But it's going to mean something.

In the quest for sexual liberation and free love, I think the pendulum can swing too far. Or that maybe there's not enough sex-positivity in the casual nature of Big State School sex culture (I mean, of course there's not: in this particular sense, I suppose). It seems like, in trying to distance ourselves from the sex-means-I-love-you narrative, we sometimes move into the once-we-have-sex-I'll-cease-to-acknowledge-you-exist-or-treat-you-like-a-human. Which is ridiculous.

I don't really expect anything of my brother, and I don't really want to reserve judgment on him. He's living in a generation and a culture where any kind of feminism or sex-positive attitudes are met with incredible scorn. But for this particular interaction, I was really happy that he could hear me, and I could hear him, and for all our differences, we sort of landed in the same place, albeit with distinctly different nomenclature, about sex.

So good job, bro. I'm going to bug you about the execution, but in general, you're coming from a good place. An honest human place. It's almost like we were raised by the same people, or something. Funny, that.

Everyday Feminism: A Rant

triple irony points. not, i do not know where you can get one; yes, I made it.

More sexytime stories soon to come. But for now, a tirade. Really and truly. Consider yourself primed.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm going through a second adolescence. It's not the butterfly stomach about my man or the weird unpredictable body - although these things are also hilariously reminiscent of my more heavily poxed days. Nope, it's that sometimes, these days, I find myself embarrassed, and it's a flavor of embarrassed I haven't felt since those greasy days of yore.

It's the shame that comes with enthusiastic, almost zealous conviction. It's the moment of realizing exactly how loud I've been yelling, and for exactly how long, and that maybe it's a little louder and little bit longer that is deemed entirely appropriate for that particular situation. The level of passion reminds me of the way I used to feel about my future, about my parents, about my school and what I was learning and what I was planning on doing with my life. There's a desperation in this kind of security, a zealous knowledge that yes, this is really is so important, can't you see? It's a grasping, a pushing to the edges of what is acceptable emotional fervor behind a concept. But it's okay. I was a teenager. It was understandable that I would hate (instead of dislike) things, that I would cry (instead of be a little upset). That I would yell. A lot.

(I would also sing and dance and generally, bodily, try to get the volume of feeling out through me anyway I could).

And I've noticed, in the last year or so, that I'm doing many of these things again. And, like when I was a teenager, I'm getting embarrassed about them again. Although more so now, because I'm a damned adult, so these "outbursts" are... less acceptable than they were. By some arbitrary terms of some arbitrary set of societal niceties that tell us what is and isn't appropriate. Grrrrrr.

Feminism. Passionate feminism, gender awareness. Violent conversational smashing-of-patriarchy. These are the things that boil my blood. And these are the things that, in moments of rage or passion or exasperation or, yes, righteous indignation, I get embarrassed about. I wonder if I'm seeing it everywhere. I wonder if I'm reading into things. I wonder if I'm giving people too hard a time, I wonder if I'm not enjoying my life as much because I can't un-see the misogyny, the entrenched stereotypes, the language.*

(*for more on this, read: How to Like Problematic Things. Warning: it doesn't have magical answers to solve your problems. I know, I hoped it would too. But nonetheless, it's well written and informative).

Mostly, though, I wonder, even if all these things are true, if I would just shut up about it, then everything would be better. People tag me when they take pictures of feminist buttons on bags. A friend of a friend asked, at a party, if he could play me a song he'd written and if I could tell him whether or not it was sexist (the strangeness of this question is... another story). I come to be known, due to my own loudness, as the feminist. And this embarrasses me.

Here are maybe some reasons wherefore the shame:

- I wonder if people think it's stupid.

- I wonder if my friends are quietly disagreeing with what I have to say, but not wanting to make a stink about it.

- I wonder if it's just... well, if it's annoying. If I have become annoying.

- I wonder if I'm that feminist, a social justice friend, who my "regular" (whatever that means) friends just tolerate.

- I wonder if my adamancy for this idea isn't allowing room for other people, or I wonder if they're all just sick of hearing about it, and fed up with my zero tolerance policy for shittyness.

Wait. Hold on. Pause.

This is all bullshit.

You know who else was annoying and adamant? You know who else everybody pointed to, scoffed, rolled their eyes, and said "would you just shut up already?" The fucking suffragettes. Simone de Beauvoir. bell hooks. Margaret Atwood. The abolitionists, and the LGBT rights movement, and the fucking civil rights marchers, motherfucker.

Every fucking progressive revolutionary ever.

So, yeah, maybe I'm obnoxious. Maybe I'm annoying, or maybe you're sick of stopping conversations or derailing arguments into the sticky, mired swamp of gender relationships and power dynamics in this world. But guess what? I believe in this. I believe that it matters what we say and how we say it; I believe that tiny social interaction can actually change the way we think about gender and power in our daily lives. And those beliefs aren't going anywhere. If you want to be my friend, or my acquaintance, or play me a song, that's the me you're going to get.

Because I don't want to be "that social justice friend." I want everybody to be that social justice friend. There was a time when being comfortable with women's rights, gay rights, race relations: you name it - there was a time when this made you a crazy progressive free-thinking hippie liberal. And now look around you. Have any friends who aren't?

So to all that doubt I've got, and all that teenage embarrassment, I say: fuck off. Good for you, you feminist, for finding something you're so passionate about, it reminds you of a time when your body was coursing with hormones and you had the whole world at your feet. Leave that other shit behind.

There was a great analyses, post-Louis CK/Tosh debacle, about why it is that feminists and comedians are "natural enemies." Amongst other reasons (found in this article, which is... mostly good), there's a history of "smile and shut the fuck up." There's a history of "take the joke that's super misogynist and shitty, and laugh at it." It was one of the first sticking points, way back in the first wave. No, I won't smile. No, I won't keep  my mouth shut. It isn't just that feminists are loud and won't let it go; it's that being loud, and not letting go, are sybmolic acts. They are linked to the history of being a woman in this country, in this world, in your family, with your friends. It is not just that I believe in this, and I want to tell you. It's that the action of telling you is actively supporting my beliefs. It's that I want to show you.

I'll show you my revolution, baby, if you show me yours?

So, on the heels of MLK day and the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I say: fuck no, I'm not shutting up. Take it or leave it. And if you leave it, better remember: it's probably gonna knock down your door someday, whether I'm the one doing the knocking or not.

Punchy, over and out.

Kink Documentary (and James Franco)

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Savage OKStupid

Since Jamie left, I've been doing a lot of things I don't usually do. Daily routines have shifted. Eating alone more, sleeping alone, masturbating a lot, and generally being a recluse from the world. Which is fine by me, for as long as it feels good to be that way. This new shift has left me with a lot of internet time, and a lot of walking-with-headphones time, which means a lot of OKCupid response rampages, and listening to podcasts. Specifically, new-to-me-recently, the Savage Lovecast with Dan Savage.

And I like these two things. I like meeting new people and I like listening to (mostly) sex-positive advice shows. But between them I've gotten pretty frustrated over some recent events (errrr, maybe not so recent - it's been a while, I suppose), pointing out once again, I guess, that's it's that much more heartbreaking when something almost not shitty does shitty things (as opposed to things you knew were shitty from the beginning).

I get a lot of messages on OKCupid. Lots of women do. And for the most part, they're just sort of... boring. Unoriginal, clearly copy pasta, a general form message sent out to every mildly compatible person. Sometimes they're especially weird, or creepy, and sometimes they're just very, very boring.

A while back, before he left, Jamie and I were talking about the trends on OKCupid, and how the vast majority of women don't send many messages, and the vast majority of men do. It's a self-reinforcing cycle, which even knowing about, I experienced first hand. Getting three or four shitty messages a day, I don't even want to bother writing back, which means my response rate goes down, and I don't want to bother looking in a proactive way, because I'm so exhausted. A nonexistent offense for the necessity of a good defense. Gender essentialism of the internet, a feedback tornado.

So I decided to change it. I decided to try and write back to every message I got, even if it was just a "fuck off, thanks." I wasn't about to let some stupid gender paradigm drop my internet percentage response rate. Nobody can take away my 100% but me, dammit.

And this is one of my favorite examples of that endeavor. 

(I know the initial response seems pretty harsh. And it is. I was probably cranky. I don't think it actually matters - pretend his initial message was shittier, if that makes it work for you. I'm in the red, he's in the grey).

I am, I think, as clear as I can possibly be about not wanting to talk or interact with the fellow. I'm downright rude. And what do I get back? A "hey, I like your energy." Like what I had said doesn't actually matter at all.

Keeping that in mind, I was listening to the Lovecast this morning, and while my issues with Dan Savage cover a broad range of misogynist flavors, he hit on one this morning that was particularly... shitty. Not to excuse my own exasperation (I'm exasperated: no apologies about it), but I will say that Savage is, a lot of the time, great. Which is part of the reason why I wish he was better when it comes to women. Because there is the possibility there. Because he isn't a shithead. Most of the time.

A man called in, describing a situation wherein his wife and he were at a bar, and the wife went off with a lady friend of theirs to the bar next door, saying she was going to "get into a little trouble." The lady friend and the wife ended up making out in front of a random dude (let's call him dude number two), and dude number two made a pass as this guys wife. It's unclear (but doesn't really matter) whether or not husband and wife and lady friend know dude number two prior to this interaction. The wife declined, and then dude number two tried again, at which point wife left. End of situation.

(I know it's shitty language to use - "wife" and "lady," but for differentiations sake, I'm gonna keep it there. I use "husband" too, so I think I'm alright).

The caller expressed, at first, frustration with dude number two (understandably), and after a while, frustration with his wife. For not talking to him about kissing someone else, I assumed, but after a bit more listening to the call, it came out that he was in fact frustration with her for "putting herself in that situation." And in defense of the caller, there could be a lot of complex emotions going on with why he was mad at his wife. Which he could confuse for victim blaming, I guess. It's super shitty, but emotions are complicated. Although what the caller posited feeling, and why, isn't actually so important.

As the call ended, I expected a two-part breakdown from Savage, as he sometimes does. I expected a "you and your wife need to talk about what your boundaries are, so that's number one, and that's probably why you're mad at her," as well as a "nothing about that was her fault, and I don't know if you need to be worried, but that guy sounds like a dick, and if you know him, maybe you don't want to know him anymore."

The first, yes, that happened. As he tends to be in areas of poly, Savage is right on point. But the second, not so much. Instead, he said something along the lines of "Yeah, your wife probably should have known, making out with a lady is the sort of situation where you might get hit on by dudes. They think the ladies might be down to fuck, which is understandable, because that situation sometimes means that. So don't be too hard on him."

No, Dan Savage. Just no. That is not understandable. That is victim blaming, and you don't have a complicated emotional standpoint to come from. Granting the shitty state of our culture around consent, sexuality, and women, a first pass *might* squeak by. But a second? A second after a clear "no"? That's assault.

Which brings me round to the big philosophical point of all this. And it's sort of beyond the pointing out of "no means no," in both cases. It's more a sort of wondering of... where this comes from. The complicated and interconnected reasons behind all the shitty. This idea that sex, or consent, or conversation in the dating world, is contingent upon vagueries. The idea that when someone is clear about what they want (or in these cases, don't want), it is ignored, or that ignoring it is somehow part of what's hot.

I think the ambiguity is a combination of things. I think it's gendered, for sure. I think we take "no" as an answer as much more definitive from men, and I think (as evidenced by the OKStupid conversation), we ignore what women say outright, most of the time, and just focus on (as that person did) that they're responding at all. But more than this, I think it's an attitude we have about sex and dating. That push-pull is sexy, that ambiguity is hot, that the human mating dance is one of intentional ignorance and charging blindly forward.

And I just think that's bullshit. It's a feminist issue, surely, but it's also a people issue around sexuality, I think. Part of sex positivity, for me, is acknowledging that these kinds of instances are what's wrong with our view of sex, and trying to find a way to change that. Because sex if fun and pleasure is good for you, and so is basic decency and the agency of humans.

Negotiated ambiguity? Super hot. But like all things kinky, it's based in explicit, enthusiastic, and clear consent. It's what separates kink from abuse, full stop. Anything else is bullshit.

Bring to a Boil

It feels like a long time since I've posted here, and not for want of things to post about. But life has gotten life-y, like it does, and it seems that, in the time I usually stop to think "hey, I could write about that thing I've been meaning to pontificate to the internet about," I've ended up thinking "hey, I could write about that thing, but I have ONE MILLION OTHER THINGS TO DO OH GOD." Not that it's a good excuse, but it's what's been happening.

The show I'm working right now (right at this very minute, actually - and there are few things better than sitting in the dark, at work, updating your sex blog) has a monologue where a character talks about cooking, reads a poem, sort of, about cooking, using only verb phrases from recipe books. It's lovely, and sort of fitting for what I have time/energy for here. So, instead of "bring to a boil/season/taste," here's a little verb-phrase stream of consciousness about what's been happening lately, with more detail to come once I'm over the hump (a week or so, probably).

It seems fitting, in part because lately, it's felt like there's so much to do, so many actions to complete and get done and accomplish, that there's no space to be at all.

Profound, eh?

Here goes nothin.

A Verb-Phrase Poem That Turned Out To Just Be A Poem (or; It's Been A Very Long Time Since I've Put Poetry On The Internet. Fuck It).

Shiver
It's getting colder, this northwest winterdark
And he's leaving
To where the cold doesn't compare
To where here huddle weather
Is bask on the porch
Is linger in the evenings
To where here snuggle down deep
Is cast off the blankets and breathe luxurious. 

I study study
Move the money
Pay the bills
Study study
Change the names and the schools and the fonts and the format
Make it perfect
(never actually, but as perfect as you can stand
given the time
given the sleep)
Submit
Tick it off the list
And another
And another. 

Date, have a date
Timing, and it's like fun
But with a clock ticking
Because the seconds when he is home
And you are not
Are limited.
And they're limited anyway,
But the scope so much smaller now,
A more visible finite. 

Make the paperwork
Schedule the calls
No, we don't have that yet
Yes, I can find a replacement
No, I can't
Yes, I'll figure it out
Yes, no, I'll check on that later
(remember to check on that later)
Theater magic
On my hands and knees
In the sawdust, in the paydirt
(which pays sometimes enough)
Much less fun
That kneeling and feeling like this
Usually means. 

The weary ends of days
Forgotten kisses at the door
Remembered, meeting in the hallway
After notes, after applications, after props and run lists,
After a wash and a brush and after
Everything is charging
And most things are clean
And some things are folded
And none of the dishes are done,
Take a minute
Keep your eyes open
Like a prize, forget all of it.
Because in light of this
In this light
The rest slips away like easy, like letting.
And just live in it, the touch, his mouth,
What your body can be under his fingers.
And for a moment
Remember: this is home.

That was less explanatory than I thought it would be. Oh well!