Oglaf Nails It (again)

Oglaf is often great, but this one was particularly relevant to my own personal current events. The "kinkier than thou" attitude has come up a few times in the last week, but mostly, I've just seen it closer than usual. I've seen it do more damage than usual. I've seen how much it's just complete bullshit.

I'm really pulling for an occasion to use that sentence in real life. Stamping my feet and balling my fists and scream "Just because I'm not into your stupid pain cake doesn't mean I'm a blushing virgin!" Although, I am pretty into the pain cake, so... maybe that won't work so well.

Up next: Kink from the Frozen Tundra; an expedition.

The Conflation Game

it's a pie chart! kink is the red. just 'cause.

I get pretty excited when kinky articles or posts pop up in non-kinky settings. Feminist blogs, or blogs of my friends, will occasionally feature kinky subject matter, and it puts my worlds together in a really great way. It's both that my sexuality feels less relegated to a dark corner of the internet, but also that it's somehow less pigeonholed, less quarantined (because even when kink isn't judged worse than... other aspects of being human, it's often very insular: people talk about kink in kink spaces, with kink people, and that's the only place it happens). Coming across it this way, it feels like part of a whole, an integrated whole, as opposed to a separate space.

I had a moment like this with a post by sex geek on feministing; the post is long, really long, but it does a good job of breaking down how the mainstream media talks about kink, and tackles a couple of recent and particularly egregious examples. One of my favorite of sex geek's points, and a thread throughout the post, is the conflation of kink and violence; or rather, the mainstream's choice to ignore how pivotal, and how essential, and what a cornerstone, and what-other-language-can-I-look-for-to-reinforce-this-point, consent is to the kink community (I've also written about this conflation before, from a more personal context, so I'm excited to see it getting discussed other places).

It's like the flour in bread, dudes; if you leave it out, you don't have "sorta kinda something like bread." You have water and yeast and sugar. Which is both gross, and very, very far from bread.

Kink in The NYT

Oh man! Guys guys guys guys guys!

There's an article about BDSM in the New York Times!

The New York Fucking Times!

And it doesn't totally suck! Yes, they sound like people talking about some strange breed of believed-extinct animal at certain points, and they mention That Book far too often, but still!

Plus, they've got comments in from Lee Harrington, which is just... icing on the cake.

The drippy, sweaty, perverted little cake.

(That's the second cake metaphor today... Maybe I need to bake more).

Anyway. Check it out, have opinions, but mostly, I think, just it's existence is pretty huge. We're not in Kansas anymore, kiddos. And fuck, what a big wide delicious world it is.

On The Radio (Huh-Oh!)

Short post, to briefly say: I'm on the radio tonight! I'm a guest! Wow!

You can listen to yours truly talk about sex, kink, bdsm, and (if I know myself at all) feminism and Fifty Shades, at Sex Talk With Curvy. There's also a past episode by a moderator over at BDSMcommunity, Dar_Synn.

I've never done radio before, but I have done sexy things in a radio station. I know it's not the same thing, exactly, but in honor of tonight, here's the one remaining photograph of that afternoon, when times were simpler, and radio was still analog.

At KROCK, Radio Free Reed College

(And yes, it's cropped, because although I'm getting braver every day, I'm not quite brave enough to put my tits on the internet yet).

So, here goes nothin'!

A Great New (to me) Kinkster Blog: The Perverted Negress

Just read a great interview on race play by Mollena Williams on her blog, The Perverted Negress (you can find it here). The topic has come up quite a bit on SRSKink lately, and I've gotta say, I haven't thought that much about it until now. That's probably because I'm a white cis lady, and... well, based on my identity, I'm not thinking about it in as obvious or prevalent a way as I imagine many kinky POC would be.

I really, really feel like I don't have a place to talk about from, and maybe that's okay. The best I can do when presented with a viewpoint that I don't have direct, personal experience with, is read, read, read. A lot. Read a lot of stuff about it, and try to listen a lot. I have some initial ideas about what I think about race play, but I really don't think it's my place to... offer that. I think being an ally, a lot of the time, means stepping back.

So, on this particular topic, I'm going to do that. Race play, for me, is off the table, unless it comes up in another way. Meaning, it's not an issue I want to shy away from, by any means, but I feel like it's not something I should bring up either. Sort of like not bringing up sexism and misogyny, say, spontaneously in a group of women. Maybe wait until it comes up on it's own, and if/when it does, maybe learn how to listen more, and talk less.

All that said, the interview is thoughtful and funny, and definitely worth the read (like I said, reading = learning = having more of a basis to understand = how to be an ally without putting the onus of teaching into those who experience). I also appreciate that Williams offers dissenting viewpoints to her own, on her blog, when they're also thoughtful and well-written.

(Which is more than I can say for the mods of /r/feminism on Reddit right now, but that's neither here nor there).

And so, leave you with a few teasers, here are my favorite lines out of the Williams interview (but seriously, go read it for yourself; it's worth it)

"I'm saying that, if this intrigues you, think about why. And I am saying if it repulses you, think about why." 

"Sex is sexy. It is also sometimes fucked up. And that is also sexy."

Those two things, in conjunction, are all I really wanna do. Have sexy dirty fucked up sex, and then think about it a lot. Here's to kinkynerdsex, and all it's fucked up thinker participants. Fuckin' Aye Right.

New Sidebar Links

Hello, small squandron of people who maybe read this blog!

I'm linking a couple of new things in the sidebar of this blog, wanted to give a heads up about them.

The Masocast is an entertaining, informative (and often very funny) podcast out of New York. Check it out.

Because of my recent frustrations with the reddit kinky communities, I started my own. It's very small yet (but so is this place, so it seems fitting), and there's a zero tolerance policy for anything bigoted, creepy, misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, or otherwise shitty. I'm excited.

Bruised and happy as always,

The Good Girl

90's Internet

I'm really amazed at how far the internet has come since I first used it. I was nine, maybe ten years old when we got our first computer, and I remember making a sandwich and eating it in the time it took to dial up to AOL. Once I figured out that there was more to this grey box than just aol, I remember fondly sits like the Hamster Dance, and Frogger. This was a golden age of pixels and bright color pallets, an era of choppy scrolling and over-decorated side bars.

We moved on to sleeker, more elegant times. Times of blogger, of facebook. A time when even sites like reddit and live journal have a faster, sleeker aesthetic.

But somehow, I don't think the kink community got the message.

Seriously, do a search, any search, for a kink-related thing. Once you get past all the porn (or filter it out), there's an incredible number of pixelated skull-and-crossbone rose-adorned headers, or bright fuscia scrolly fonts. And I know some of these sites have been up for a really long time, but... I find it hialrious that, in a community where the aesthetic is something that I usually love, their internet style is so very dated.

It's not a serious thing (although I do think it's a shame that some of these websites have such good information, and that that information might be disregarded because of the poor quality of their website). But it might behoove us to, amidst our flogging practice and discussions of protocol, to geek about something else for a while, and learn a little CSS or HTML.

Okay, out of my system. More substantive posts to come.

The Interneteth Providetheth

That post I made about the argument I had with a moderator on the bdsm subreddit the other day?


This is exactly what was happening.

Also this.

Oh, and a smattering of these as well.


Wow, internet. I take comfort in your sarcasm, refuge in your satire. Thank you, oh internet, for all the tiny nooks and crannies of good in the giant mass of slowly spinning crapola. A little nebula of cleverly laid-out truth in the solar system of bigotry. I thank my lucky, feminist stars.

Female: beep motherfuckin' boop.

Remember how I was going to take a break from feminist arguments on the internet? Whoops...

Granted, this one looked hopeful. This one looked civil. This one didn't even look like an argument, at first. Or maybe it did, a little. Maybe I really am more of a masochist than I give myself credit for.
Part of why I started in the first place is because my counter-debater was a moderator of the subreddit I enjoy so much. I'd seen his writing and I'd seen his arguments, and aside from his sometimes arrogant tone, he's pretty spot-on most of the time.

We talked about feminism, the definitions of feminism, how political ideologies affect personal relationships and how theories like feminism affect personal sexual identity. I cited (as many feminists have before me) the "personal is political" quote, and took it one step further (or rather, put in the context I've always thought it's sort of implicitly in anyway) in saying that I think the political is personal as well, that there isn't a clean-cut line, and that there is a reason why so many people write about this. Hell, that there's a reason we care about politics in the first place; the world is not, in fact, populated entirely by isolated libertarian hermits. Although sometimes I wish that were the case.

The argument devolved. I held out hope for a long time, and there were a lot of good things that happened along the way. But eventually, I had to let it go, with a comment that made some final points, and stated very simply that I thought the conversation had run it's course, that I would think about what he said and that I hoped he would think about what I said.

And then he replied with more arguments, to which I did not reply, which as an action in itself is so fucking hard. My partner was with me, and it was with his unbelievable support that I shut the computer, that I went to bed, that I tried and tried and tried to forget about it. Just breath. Just let it go.

I went to bed feeling that way, with an undertone of this:

And then in the morning, the undertone became the overtone became the only tone, so of course, I come here and write about it. Because I can't let it go, not totally. Because having an argument like that always results in me wanting to point, specifically, where the problems with each side fester. Or rather, my problems with his side, as it were. They're two fold.

1) He states, basically, that he doesn't let things like racism or sexism affect him, and that allowing those things into his personal sexual life just doesn't do any good.

"You go looking for things to be upset about and you'll find it. I choose not to look, but to address as it happens."

It's the verb choice here that exemplifies our essentially different perspectives, and life experiences. "Allows"? "Choose"? Do you think, if I had a choice in all this, I would voluntarily intertwine these two inherently complex things? (I mean, maybe I would, for like, an interesting exercise. But everyday? Hell no). I don't mean that in a victimized sense; I mean that in an essentialist sense. As in, these two things, for me, and for many people out there, are inherently linked. Because of their linkage (sounds dirty... "ooh baby, I wanna see your linkage"), the need to parse out the intricacies of their interaction becomes a calling. Or if not a calling, at least a point of interest. For more than a day. For more than a class or a paper. For me personally and for me politically.

2) I called him out some misogynist language. It wasn't a big deal, but I asked about it in a comment. He didn't reply about it (but addressed everything else in my comment), and so I asked again. And it was here that he got defensive, that the argument devolved, and that was when I let go of it.

The second problem isn't really even about the language (in brief, he used the words "females" and "men" as equal in a sentence), but about the reaction I so often encounter when I call people out on their use of language, or their comments, or their actions. I see it when it's not me doing it; it's obvious in arguments... in general. And "Call out" isn't even the right verb phrase to use, either; I pointed it out, I addressed it, I inquired about it; I did this in a calm and reasonable manner, making it clear I wasn't angry or trying to involve hostility. I did this because I wanted to my best, without just letting something go, at having a constructive conversation about misogynist moments.

Which is, of course, where the conversation got defensive and hostile. Where I got called a looking-for-trouble angry feminist. Or rather, to pull a quote directly:

"I can't see you there looking at your screen wagging your finger saying "That's a BAD word! You're a BAD word!" As amusing as such a scene may be :)"

(Just how I like my put-downs served: equal parts condescension, insult, and belittling. Yeah, those might all be kind of maybe synonyms. But I like them all anyway).

And this is what gets me, more than anything, about this. There is no humility. There isn't even a shadow of "hey, I might have been wrong in using those words; no, I'm not a misogynist, and she's not saying that I am, but everybody makes mistakes. Sorry I made it. Here's a correction." How hard would that be? How hard would it be, not even an apology, but a recognition of a mistake?

There's a hubris that seems to be everywhere when I argue feminism, and it seems to go in a predictable cycle:

Person A: I am a feminist. Here are some of my beliefs.
Person B: I don't agree with feminism. Here are some of my beliefs.
Person A: Counter point, also, do you recognize your language/framing/insinuation there?
Person B: Good counter points. Counter point. Counter point. Counter point, here's why you're wrong about my framing.
Person A: Good Counter points. Framing is still a bit off though. Nothing personal, I promise, but maybe take another look?
Person B: Feminists always do this. Fuck you.
Person A: Misogynists always do this. Fuck you too.

And even in the most civil of discourses, this happens.

I'd like to think that I'm better at taking criticism in this way. I'd like to think that if somebody called me out on my language, I'd stop and think about it, I'd give credence to their experience, I'd take responsibility *at least* for being a part of something that was offensive/hurtful/perpetuating a [insertcrappythinghere]culture. And even if I kept it in that non-apology-apology zone, that would be okay. That would be better than this.

And what's crazy, and almost funny, about the whole thing: I wasn't offended. It wasn't hurtful. I actually just saw this instance of language (which I'd seen before many, many times on reddit), and thought I should point it out. I didn't even want a real apology. Although I think I did want, a little bit, a confession. An admittance. And I think it's okay to want that.


But maybe I'm not better. I don't know. Maybe people are never better when they're on the criticized side, no matter what the argument. Maybe I expect too much.


When's that break I'm supposed to take again?

Ex; why? (or, I tried to talk to my former boyfriend about kink. It didn't go well).

I've had isolated kink negative moments over the years. It happens in much the same way that misogynist moments happen, most of the time. Almost unnoticeable, almost too subtle to point out in the moment. The sneaky nature of these moments are part of what makes them the most frustrating. When they're obvious, I feel totally fine speaking up, and can point out clearly and discuss with someone - that's the easy one. But when I speak up at the sneakier bastards, I end up feeling like an oversensitive whistleblower. Sometimes it's because I get painted that way directly, sometimes it just worms it's way in.

I sometimes imagine the subtler moments, the ones where I don't speak up (because yeah, sometimes, I don't), collecting in a reservoir somewhere. Like every time I push them under the rug... well, the bulge in the rug gets bigger. So big that, eventually, I trip over it (har har). And it creates a tension that comes out at inappropriate moments. I wonder if I read into things too much, or if I'm becoming actually oversensitive. It's a self-perpetuating problem, really.

All this theory comes in the context of an exchange I had with an ex-boyfriend. We've been trying to be friends again, and I had asked how much, in our e-mail exchanges, he wanted to hear about my romantic life, trying to gage how comfortable he was. Not even trying to gage; I actually asked, flat out, how much he wanted to hear about my romantic life. And he said "Tell me whatever you want to tell me, it's okay." And so I did. I told him a little bit about my current partner, but mostly, I told him about discovering kink for myself, in a way I never had before. I told him about kink fest. I told him about being glad, excited, revelatory in exploring this thing I'd wanted to explore for so long.

And he flipped.

To be clear, the e-mail I wrote him was about all kinds of things: photography, books we'd both read, the college we both attended, Chicago, Portland, etc. There was lots in there, including a few sentences in the middle about kink, and going to kink fest. I mentioned the lectures and the vendors, and mentioned that the play party in the nighttime had been intimidating.

When I got his response, it was all about kink, sex, and how insensitive I'd been in talking about it. It was angry and hurt, and that's okay, and I feel bad about that (even though I'd really, really tried to avoid that by asking in the first place). I was pretty pissed off, though, because parts of his response were borderline misogynist, and just sort of... asshole-ish. Which was surprising to me, having known this man fairly well and thought him to be a pretty decent person. So I wrote him a fairly scathing e-mail back.

And then I went back and re-read his e-mail, a few days ago, and I'm not sure if I was reading in more than I'd thought. Below are the most offensive parts of his e-mail, and at the moment, they don't seem that bad. Or maybe I'm apologizing for myself. Who knows.

"In fact, from my perspective, a lot of our most intense sexual experiences together involved me opening myself up (or trying, at any rate) to being the kind of dominant figure that turned you on.  Do you really---I mean, really---think that I want to hear about how effectively this guy is getting you off?  I'm not sure what's intended by a "totally overwhelming playtime at night..." but I'm pretty sure nobody that was there needs me to know about it."

I really appreciated what you did, accepting my kink, telling me so, trying to expand your own horizons. And that was awesome in it's own right, and isn't threatened (I promise) by what's going on in my life now. And no, I don't think you want to hear about that. WHICH IS WHY THAT'S NOT THAT I TALKED ABOUT.

And like anybody there would care what you knew about their sex life. That woman was paddling her eighty year old boyfriend under his pink frilly tutu! She DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU.

"I don't need to be reminded of our sex life, (such as it was) in the context of your new, better sex life.  I don't need that kind of emotional... noise." 

I didn't really even know how to respond to this. I thought, when Edward (let's call him Edward, shall we?) and I were together, our sex life was alright. I mean, we did the weird long distance thing, and it was really tame, but other than that, I didn't have any complaints. And yeah, my sex life is better now, but I wasn't talking about that. Oy.

" I mean, on what planet is it normal to email a guy whose heart you broke eight months ago to tell him just how sexually satisfied you are in your new relationship?"

Okay, 1) I didn't talk about sexually satisfied I was. Ever. And 2) Welcome to Planet We Are Adults. We here at WAA try to respect each others boundaries and speak to each other in mature and emotionally aware ways. And when someone doesn't, we call the WAAmbulance, and they're escorted back to earth.

"...you are either unwilling or unable to recognize that that sort of shit can really stay between you and your man."

The parts that make me most angry still (besides the general... hostility of his tone) is his comment that "that short of shit can really stay between you and your man." We had a few exchanges after this, and I quoted it back to him, except that I mis-quoted, replacing the "can" with a "should." Which of course, sparked a long argument about semantics. Which is pretty irrelevant now, because whether you can or you should, the tone implied is "you should have known better," which is... stupid.

Whether I overreacted or he overreacted, it's pretty clear that we have fundamentally different views of kink. When I wrote to him about kink, I didn't even mention sex, and in his response, it's all he talks about. And I'm not about to try and claim kink as some kind of above-physical-sexuality-über-etherial-hippiewoowoo-force, but, in my life, it's about much more than sex. It's part of identity, a huge part of my sexuality, and intellectually fascinating.

And maybe that's part of what hurt the most. That this person, who I was trying to be friends with again, is someone who I can't share this part of myself with yet. Either because he's not ready for that (which I totally respect), and that un-readiness manifests in focusing entirely on my sex life, or because kink can't ever be about anything other than sex, for him. And that... well, that sucked.

We haven't talked in a couple of months. I wish it were different.

"Sir"

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"vanilla"

So, there's sex. There's kinky sex, and vanilla sex. Two kinds, right?

Well, wrong (power dynamics are always going on, many people use all kinds of props and roles and scenes, etc. etc.), but that's beside the point. There's a way that kinky people and kinky communities use the word "vanilla" that really bugs me, like it's some dirty, other-caste, somehow unenlightened. And so I want to talk about that. Harrrrr.

This maybe isn't really going to be very long, because that's basically what it is. Kinky people and/or groups and/or the internet use "vanilla," to mean "less than." Not all the time, not by a long shot all the time, but sometimes. Like, when people talk about their partners, or ex-partners, as "just vanilla," or "I think she's pretty vanilla," etc. I understand that, in some cases, what they might be saying is "she's not kinky," but in some other cases, it really starts to sound like they're saying "he's an up-tight, non sex-positive, distant and removed partner." And all those things are crappy. But all those things have nothing to do with whether or not you're kinky.

It's similar to mono/poly conundrum, and resonates a little with The Pervocracy Geek Social Fallacies (I swear, there's going to be a post where I don't link back to there. Maybe). Members of the "out" or "fringe" sexual identity, whatever that may be, look back at the more mainstream sexual identity and talk about it as if it were less than, as if the people still participating in that identity either hadn't gotten around to being deviant yet, or they just weren't smart enough/adventurous enough/whatever enough to figure it out. And then there's this elitist sex attitude, which is... sort of bullshit. No sex is inherently better than any other sex, as long as said sex is: a) consensual, and b) pleasurable for the parties involved.*

*(... and yes, I mean, "bad" sex can be bad because... well, bad sex happens. And I'd say that sex is sort of... worse than good sex. Bad sex = worse than good sex. Oh, tautology).

So I tried to imagine good vanilla sex, and to be honest, it took a little while (I think that's partly because when I imagine sex, I immediately imagine myself as involved somehow, and that... doesn't really work with vanilla sex. Or rather, I couldn't stop the me-vanilla-sex from just morphing into kinky sex somehow†. I eventually had to imagine other people. Anyway). And that was mostly because what I imagined, off the bat, was silent, stilted, non-communicative, non-negotiated, in-the-dark missionary. And that's what I associate with vanilla sex a lot of time. That or over-the-top, fake orgasm, bro-dude/cheerleader sex. It is, evidently, also always hetero-normative.

† I know that there's not really a line, hard and fast in the sand, like this. I know almost everybody plays with power dynamics, etc. But my sweet vanilla scenes kept turning into school-girl-short-skirt-caning sex, or choked-by-the-throat-rapey sex. Anyway.

So then I started thinking about people having really sweet, communicative, quiet sex. Or sex that was really hot and steamy with roof-busting orgasms, but no pain/power/etc. I imagined ladies and I imagined guys. I imagined multiple partners set-ups. This, too is all vanilla sex.

And while it didn't turn me on, it seemed like a pretty awesome sex life. Certainly no sex life that the participants therein should be pitied for, or condescended to about. (How's that for dangling prepositional daisy chains?) º

º I'M SORRY WINSTON!

Like the poly/mono argument, I think there's a reason why we (and I'm just go to go ahead and say "we," without caveatting who I mean. The people who do this sometimes. I've included myself) associate sort of... shitty sex with non-kinky sex, and the reason why poly folks sometimes get a little... proselytizing about how amazing poly is, and how maybe, just maybe, monogamy isn't the right choice, even if you haven't figured it out yet.

Deviant choices, by definition as deviant, must be chosen. Must be talked about and negotiated, because there is no pre-understood framework for them to happen in. More mainstream choices (like "vanilla" sex and/or monogamy) don't have this (basically required) negotiatory step. Which means that nobody has to talk about it. Which means that nobody *communicates* about it. Which means... well, in partnered activities, lack of communication usually yields a less than excellent time for both partners. In other words: crappy sex.

But I don't think all non-kinky relationships are like this. I might posit that more non-kinky relationships are like this than kinky ones, but even then, who knows.

What I do know is that non-kinky sex doesn't automatically mean bad, unenlightened sex. It can mean great sex. And while I completely understand kinksters going to the internet, full of angst, and asking for advice about their "hopelessly vanilla," partners (I've been there, and felt that frustration), I don't think the implied power dynamic there is a fair one. You don't have "the one true way," while your partner is just "not sexually savvy enough too enjoy it." You're both making choices, you both have preferences, and bummer for you, looks like they don't line up.

And that's an honest bummer, but it doesn't make anyone's sexual preferences or expression any better than anybody else's.

So, I'm going to try and avoid using the word "vanilla," from now on, I think. I'm going to stick with "non-kinky," until I come up with something better (and really, non-kinky isn't even very good, with it's definition relying on deviance, and being a lack-thereof-definition and everything). Because vanilla, while delicious as a flavor (yup, I really like vanilla. Like, a lot), isn't so much working for me in a connotative vocabulary kind of way.