Coming Out Kinky

Back in college when I was uber-involved in the queer student group, we used to have educational meetings around National Coming Out Day. One of the things we talked about what the Cass Identity Model of coming out, which described several stages in the process of coming out as gay.

The initial few stages are things like "identity confusion" and "identity tolerance," but what I'm interested in for this post is the second-to-last one, "Identity pride." Cass describes a phase when a gay person feels like they have to tell everybody about their newly realized orientation, where they divide the world into gay and straight people and mostly only feel comfortable with the other gay ones, where they might be a gay activist, where they surround themselves completely with the gay community. This is the last phase before "identity synthesis" in which one's sexual orientation is understood as just one of many aspect of self.

I think I’ve been in that uber-gay phase, except with kink. It’s really a similar process, I think, to come out as kinky as it is to come out as gay. They’re both marginalized sexualities which have potential legal and life-altering consequences. You can lose your job or your children for being kinky. You can be jailed for assault, even if it was consensual. It definitely can have social consequences. You can end up in therapy to “fix” your kinkiness. Parents don’t necessarily want to know about it.*

I’ve been practically cloistered in the kink community for the last year and a half. I work at a kinky sex shop. I live with kinky roommates. My boyfriend is kinky. My friends are kinky. I go to kinky parties and classes. My vacations are at kinky retreats. It’s been a little ridiculously consistent.

I think I’m starting to get over that stage of my coming out process. I did need it. I needed to learn about what I like and to feel okay with it. I needed to explore and I needed help in giving myself permission for that. I needed to meet people with whom I could play in this way and with whom I could talk about my kinks. I’m extremely thankful for the relationships that I’ve made in the kinky community, especially with my boyfriend and my roommates and coworkers.

But I’m ready for a little more variety. I have so many interests. I’m passionate about gender politics. I’m interested in spirituality. I’d like to do yoga, and I’m interested in health. I care about the environment. I love to write, and to read just about everything. I love to learn and study and be intellectual. I like to perform. These are all things I’ve neglected to one degree or another for the last year and a half.

Just sayin’ it’s time to branch out a little, and maybe write about it here!

*There are nuances to this argument and it’s an aside to my main point. There are of course differences between the social and legal impacts of kink and queer sexuality. But there are also lots of similarities.

Fuck My Sexual Orientation and Identity

I was reading a post on Figleaf's Real Adult Sex today where he answered several questions designed to provide enlightenment about his gender identity. He apparently got all these questions from Bond at Dear Diaspora.

One question in particular gave me a big jolt as I was reading, one that suddenly clarified a huge issue with my sexual orientation that I've been half-subconsciously grappling with for years. It was this:

What would your gender identity be if you’d been born as the other sex? How masculine or feminine would you be? (This comes from an old one for when one is questioning her sexual orientation: What would your sexual orientation be if you were the other sex?)

Now, my response had more to do with the parenthetical aside than the question itself. I answered without a millisecond of hesitation in my head: I would be a femme gay man.

And I was suddenly struck with the absolute truth of that. If I were male-bodied and could have queer sex with other men, I'd be gay. Not bisexual, really. Maybe a little. But no, I'd be gay. Almost entirely.

So sure, I'd still be femme. My gender identity is actually pretty solid and apparently has little to do with my body. The thought of being a femme man sounded just as comfortable as the thought of being a femme woman. But the question of orientation? That blew my mind.

I have historically had many more male sexual and romantic partners than I have had female ones. I've been annoyed with that fact. It feels like a barrier to my identification as queer, as a true bisexual. I know for a fact that I've been more attracted to some of my female partners and enjoyed the sex much more than that with many of my male partners. It's exciting in a different way that I like. A lot.

But.

I think that might have less to do with liking female bodies and femme gender presentations than it has to do with liking queer sex. When I so easily answered that gender/orientation question for if I had a male body, something clicked in my head. The thought of being a gay man felt like a relief. If I were a gay man, I'd be able to have the kind of sex that I like best with the people whose bodies I like best. And I think, weirdly, that those bodies for me are male.

This has been so confusing for so long. Because, yes, I definitely like women and their bodies. Just not as much! But I like like lesbians soooooooo much more than I like most straight men. Maybe all "straight" men, if we define that as hetero- and gender-normative. In fact, I’m not particularly attracted to straight people. (Male or female.) I do like the ones who will say “I tried gay sex“ or “I would try gay sex” and it didn’t do that much for them, or the ones who approach sex queerly. That’s different. That’s not “straight,” that’s just heterosexual.

The problem here is that I'm QUEER. I like queer sex. I like queer relationships. I want to sleep with guys, but I want to sleep with gay guys. Or queer guys. I want to sleep with them queerly, without the total emphasis on PIV intercourse or the lack of respect for female pleasure. I want the sense of play and transgression I've had with other queers. Queer sex!

Which is frankly kind of sad. I'm female-bodied. I love being female-bodied. I really wouldn't want to change that. I just wish that more queer guys wanted to sleep with/date me. And yes, there are queer guys who like women, but they're so much harder to find. It takes "bisexual," which expanded my dating pool and turns it into “female bodied queer person who likes queer men," which drastically shrinks it.

As if there weren't already enough reasons it's hard for me to find a partner. Pfft.

Gay Bar

I went, tonight, to a gay club in the Castro. San Francisco's pretty fun in that its queer culture is exactly what you'd expect it to be. This club was all techno, mostly gay people, more men than women, and a good amount of drinking. It was packed. The bodies writhed together. It might as well have been a scene from Queer as Folk. (Although I know that was set in another city.)

I went to gay bars and clubs a lot throughout my college career. There was a period of time where I'd go to a gay bar at least three nights a week, to socialize and sometimes dance and sometimes drink.

I didn't like going to straight dance clubs because men would inevitably feel me up or at least hit on me in a very sketchy fashion. At gay bars, there isn't this problem. The men are only interested in each other and the women know better than to be totally disrespectful.

Since I've graduated, though, I've spent less time with queer folks. My job is to canvass for a queer issue, but there are still more straight people at work than gay ones. I'd sort of forgotten how much more comfortable I am within the queer community than I am in the straight one.

I have my own gripes with the gay community, mostly involving their sometimes exclusion of bisexual people. I still feel better, though, with teh gays than with teh straights. There's so much more gender flexibility, such an understanding that gender roles don't have to define everything. It cuts down a lot on the blatant sexism.

I'd forgotten, before tonight, how much more comfortable I feel around gay people than around straight ones. I'm considering taking a little break from dating men, just because I've gotten into such an unfortunate head space about them. Even if I don't skip out on all the less-sexist men who I do like, I'd like to spend more time with gay people. I think it's time to start pursuing women again.

Bisexuality and Dating Men

For the last couple of years, I've dated only men. I've slept with plenty of women, but all the people I've seen consistently or seriously were men. I wouldn't say that I've done this on purpose, but it's been a pretty obvious trend.

I think a lot of the reason for this is simple convenience. There are a lot more straight men scattered around in obvious places than there are queer women. They tend to approach me more often and I end up with them just as a matter of odds. In the past six months or so, I have been on more of a hetero kick, but that's not unusual. I've always gone through cycles of leaning one way or the other every once in a while. I had a lady cycle three years ago, and now I'm going the other way. Woo, fluid sexuality.

This trend of male-dating, however, puts me in a strange and slightly uncomfortable position. I'm a bisexual person who has been very involved in the queer community. In college, most of my female friends were queer. I was part of the leadership of the Gay Straight Alliance. I went to gay bars. Most of my jobs were in specifically queer-friendly or queer-oriented places. I tied a lot of my identity in with queerness.

And yet, most of my relationships were heterosexual. Straight, if you will.

Of course, the fact that my relationships are always open does allow me to sleep with women. That doesn't change the fact, though, that people assume I'm straight when I go out in public with a male sweetheart. It's sort of like the queer part of me is hidden inside myself.

I don't like feeling hidden. I end up questioning myself a lot because there is pressure from both sides to define and present myself as either queer or straight. It's not always an open or spoken pressure, although I've heard my share of "choose already" jokes and not-so-jokes. It's more often a pressure based on the fact that the queer community is so close and clearly-defined. There's a norm there, and there are great rewards of community and support for following it.

I do have a strong desire to be recognized for who I am and to fit in with a group. I'd like to be more independent, but part of my identity is based on how others see me. I suppose that's my own cross to bear, but it makes the bisexuality particularly hard when it keeps me separate from what seems to be such a fun and close-knit group. I'd like to be a part of it.

I'm not letting identity issues stop me from dating whomever I like (or love) or dressing how I want or making friends with whomever I want. It does cause me some angst, though, when I feel excluded not only from the straight world which kind of turns me off anyway, but the queer community that appeals to me.

We Have to Stop Now

I've been fairly religiously watching the new web series We Have to Stop Now. It's about lesbians and therapy and is hilarious. It's on Jill Bennet's website, and I hope you'll check it out. The episodes are fairly short, and well worth watching.

Here's episode 1:

We Have To Stop Now: Pilot Episode from DynaKit Productions on Vimeo.

I've watched a few of Jill Bennet's other videos; she's got a vlog series called The Violet Underground. While I did really like We Have to Stop Now, I was a little saddened at the interview Bennet did where she and Dalila Ali Rajah discuss bisexuality. It was clear they were coming from a good place of trying to understand, but it was also hard to see them blithely trotting out a lot of the stereotypes.

That said, please check out and support We Have to Stop Now. I agree with Bennet that it's important to have media representations of all kinds of people and lives, and we can support those online.

The L Word and "Cheaters"

Okay, I'm watching the last season of The L Word in a serious procrastination effort. Yes, the show jumped the shark when Dana died, but yes we all still watch it because it's one of the only TV representations of lesbians. All that's been said before.

One thing, though, that's been driving me crazy about the show for years is that the idea of polyamory never comes up at all. You've got Shane who's happily sleeping with the entire female population of Los Angeles, and then bam she's in a relationship and that ends. She gets all tortured about it, sleeps with someone else, the relationship ends.

Then there's Bette, the "cheater" who "can't keep it in her pants even when she's in love." Bette, too, is in and out of relationships and can't help but fall in love with someone new when she's committed.

Both of these women would clearly benefit from some sort of open relationship situation and yet it never, ever comes up. It's just "oh, let's watch them torture themselves by trying to turn off their perfectly natural attractions to people other than their primary partners. Schadenfreude! Schadenfreude! Let's feel good because they're so bad at being faithful and we're better than that!"

Sure, it's typical of TV not to even hint at other options besides monogamy, but this is The L Word. It's queer TV that makes a point (however ham-handedly) to handle every issue that faces the women-loving-women community. To the point of absurdity. Where is the polyamory? Where's the compassion for those who don't fit so well into monogamy? Where is the workable solution?

Links Because I Read Too Many Blogs not to Share

I've been keeping up with my feed reader, so I've found some very interesting posts I'd like to share with you. I know I haven't been good about blogging this week. Too much school and an on the fly trip to NYC will do that to a person.

My Sexual Manifesto
Essin' Em shares her sex commandments, all of which I agree with heartily. I, too, have noticed that almost all the sex I've been having has been good. It's a wonderful change and without a doubt due to my better ability to communicate about what I want and ask how to please my partner, even after a brief acquaintance.

What Women Want and the Myth of the Psychic Lesbians
Greta Christina writes a spot-on post about how lesbians don't actually automatically know how to please every other woman because they've got the same kind of genitals. We're all different!

Is Sex Work Queer?
Jane at good girls don't asks if sex work is queer and grapples quite well, I think, with the question. I think that sex work CAN be queer, and that it's most exciting when it is.

I Need Another Word for Vagina
Found this via synthetic pubes. The title seems fairly self-explanatory.

Six Ways to be an Ally
Great post by Silvia on how to be an ally to women of color if you aren't one. I struggle a lot with how to deal with my own privilege, and I think this is a good, thought-provoking post on doing just that. Fires me up even more to do what I can to dismantle privilege in general.

National Freedom to Marry Day

Why would you ever want to tear someone's family apart? Why?


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Add your name to the petition begging the Supreme Court not to divorce thousands of families. Support rights. Spread love. Sign here.

Dan Savage on The Colbert Report

Alright, I have mixed feelings about Dan Savage. In case you don't know, he's an openly gay and partnered sex columnist for Seattle paper The Stranger.

On the one hand, he is hilarious as fuck. I've read his column frequently and he's really funny. He's great on some issues, like gay marriage and being understanding of people's kinks. He even gives some good advice sometimes.

On the other hand, I think he often strong arms issues that need a more sensitive treatment. I don't want to be a mushy female feminist (sigh, stupid stereotypes), but in his quest to always be funny, he sometimes becomes a bit misogynistic. He makes no secret of his distaste for women. I mean, "he's gay so whatever," but I think it does affect the quality of his advice.

That said, I absolutely LOVE his recent appearance on The Colbert Report. He is delightfully funny and I think he even made Colbert a little speechless. If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that he says something similar to what I did about the old folks who voted for Prop 8. (He's not as nice.) Makes me feel kind of vindicated.



Go you, Dan Savage.

Hipsters Suddenly So Hip?

I've noticed this trend lately. I'm not sure if I'm just making shit up, but I think more and more people are starting to present themselves in "queer" or "alternative" ways.

Maybe it's just an instance of the mainstream starting to adopt an underground culture as it always does and this is the first time it's a culture I've identified with. I'm at an age where what I think is cool is going to be what trendy culture thinks is cool. Also, the trend that's coming into popularity is the hipster thing. It's perfectly bred to work in the mainstream. It's consumerist, focused on music, slightly pretentious.

It's not just the hipsters, though. I've been seeing a lot of girls who I'm pretty sure are straight presenting themselves in blatantly gender-variant ways. You know: lesbian pant syndrome where they're a little baggier because you just don't care or a prevalence of baggy, plaid, button-down shirts or a short shaggy haircut. It's everywhere now, I swear.

And it's confusing as hell! My gaydar is all messed up. I mean, it's probably a good thing. If mainstream culture is adopting queer ways of expressing itself, that could mean queer identity is becoming more acceptable. I think it's already a lot less stigmatized among people my own age. (The over 65 vote was definitely a huge factor in the passage of Prop 8. Is it bad for me to want the bigots to die of old age already? No violent deaths, I don't want pain for them or anything, just passing on peacefully in their sleep to the heaven they're so avidly awaiting. Is that mean?)

It is really strange, though, to be a part of something that's mainstreaming and to feel my identity as less my own. It's so external and silly to base how I feel about myself on superficial things. It's a little foolish to identify strongly with one subset of people, one way of dressing, one box in the identity column. I'm young, though; I think it comes naturally until you're ready to live simply in your own skin.

Has anyone else noticed this trend? Am I blowing smoke rings?

Election

I just don't know what to say or feel about the election.

I'm so so so so so so so so so so so excited that Barack Obama won. I'm just speechless about it. He's the first black president and the first Democratic president I can remember taking office. I was alive when Clinton made it, but I was small and I don't remember it that well. I'm a young person; the only elections I remember well were ones where George W. Bush won. This has been such an experience for me, and I'm so happy he's our new president.

I just can't even express it. It's huge.

And then there's Proposition 8.

As of right now, it looks like it's going to pass in California, adding discrimination against gay people to our state constitution.

Which is just devastating. Devastating.

I can't even convey how awful it is. It feels like the state which I count on to take care of me, to be a home when so many other places will reject me for my sexual orientation and my "lifestyle," is rejecting me, too. I really did think that we'd be better, that we'd be more accepting, more fair than the rest of the country. It's so sad that it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

I have no idea what's next, where we go in fighting for the rights of queer people. It's so important. We are PEOPLE, we do not choose our orientation, it is a part of who we are and doesn't affect other people AT ALL. It is simple hatred and homophobia that lead to this kind of legislation.

I have so much more to say about this, about how sexism ties into homophobia and how ballot initiatives in California are problematic. Right now, though, I'm going to celebrate for Obama and cry for California and go to bed.

There's time for our next move in the morning.

P. S. Proposition K probably won't pass either, and I'm sad but not surprised. I saw the way the rhetoric was going, and it wasn't in favor of sex workers' rights. Also more on this soon.

No on Proposition 8!

If you live in California (especially if you read this blog), you probably already know that Proposition 8 on the ballot next week is a measure which will add a clause to the state constitution stipulating that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Because the May court ruling decided that a law banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, they're trying to change the constitution. Woo, putting discrimination in the document that defines us as a state. That's just great.

Shine Louise Houston of Pink and White Productions, a great lesbian porn company, is donating all of the proceeds from her popular Crash Pad Series to the No on Prop 8 campaign for one day, TODAY, October 30th.

Basically, if you're a fan of lesbian porn for any reason or you want equality as a general rule, get your butt over there and spend some money! It's really good porn, and it's for a good cause. Maybe you usually get your porn for free, but think of this as donating with a tasty bonus. Mm, porn for charity!

I also want to reiterate my support for Proposition K to decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco and make known my vehement opposition to Proposition 4, which would dangerously require minors to report abortions to their parents.

Below are a few good videos and links for more information on all of these ballot measures. A lot of bloggers have written very eloquently about these measures, so I will direct you to them instead of trying to reiterate what's already been said.

This post on sex worker blog Bound Not Gagged is a very thorough explanation of the arguments in favor of Proposition K. It's really long, but even just the beginning is helpful.

Here's a great post on Feministe explaining why Proposition 4 would put teens in danger if they don't feel they can report an abortion to their parents. I also explains why the so-called "bypass procedure" written into the law is completely unhelpful and would actually serve to put teens through more stress than "just" their unwanted pregnancy.

Here are a couple of fun videos about the anti-marriage-equality proposition, via Sugarbutch Chronicles.





Lastly, this video gives me goosebumps all over. I don't know how anyone could say this is wrong.


Vote! Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Turning

I turned 21 a couple of days ago. I had an absolutely lovely brunch (with mimosas) and dinner with my parents. They splurged on this amazing meal, which was like being in mouth heaven. Oral sex, except not the usual way. Then I went out and did the bar crawl thing, which was fun but not that exciting since it's not like I haven't done it before. Overall, though, I'd say it was one of my best birthdays ever.

It's funny, during life events like that. I only get to turn 21 once, so I'm trying to pay close attention to everything so I can record the experience in my memory. It seems so fleeting, and I want it to last in some way. I think that's one reason I like writing so much. It's a way for me to preserve my life, to draw it out and get as much out of it as I can. Yeah, I only get to live each experience once, but I can rethink them and relearn from them and relive them a little through my writing.

One other nice thing that happened on my birthday was that I ran into a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. If you don't know who they are, click through and learn about them. They're awesome.

She was one of the only female Sisters, and she carried around a special pot of glitter with, as she put it, "a few special dead people" and some Burning Man soil and other special things in it. She did this little blessing for me in honor of my birthday and glittered me, and it was lovely.

I've been feeling lately like I'm in the thick (you know, slogging molasses thick) of coming of age. I'm right on the cusp of this weird thing, being an adult. I know in a lot of ways I already am an adult, but over the course of this summer I've really started to feel it. It's an odd thing.

People have started to treat me differently; other adults approach me as an equal, not a subordinate. I've started to have different relationships with my parents and people their age. It isn't so much that they're my elders and I must listen to them. It's become a question of respect and trying, on my own, to learn from them. A mentoring relationship more than a parenting one.

I feel a little alone in this transition, though. I don't have any kind of larger community of adults to welcome me into their folds. My closest friends are young; I still haven't successfully jumped the generation gap. I can see now how a faith community would be nice. All those rituals--Bar Mitzvahs, Confirmation, Menarche, whatever--to welcome new adults are really helpful, although they happen a little young. I'm not a spiritual person, but I've been feeling a lack of ritual in my life. Not all rituals have to be spiritual, they can just be about life.

I think I'm going to find a way to create my own ritual. When I'm back at school and surrounded by my loved ones, my chosen family, I want to celebrate adulthood in some way. Anyone have any glowing ideas for adulthood rituals? I feel like the more community input I have, the better.

The Next Generation

In my work this summer at a queer youth center in San Francisco, I had my first experience with working among some older members of the queer community. Granted, most of them were still in their twenties and happily working for very little pay at a small nonprofit youth center, but still. I was hanging out with older queers for really the first time.

One of the things that came up a lot over the three months that I was working there was the gap between queer youth and the adult queer community. The youth center was in a house in the Castro (San Francisco's queer neighborhood), and nobody was allowed to hang out on the porch or in the back yard. According to the neighbors, the kids were too noisy and troublesome. One of the employees of the center complained to me that if there was any kind of problem in the neighborhood, the youth center always seemed to take the blame.

Now, of course sometimes teenagers are loud. But this center was a place of real productivity for a lot of these youth. It was a place where queer teens who might otherwise be at a true disadvantage (there were many homeless youth who came to the drop-in hours) could find a job for decent pay or be involved in an educational project. We played sports in the local parks, arranged field trips, and had some really intense group discussions in which I know all of us learned a lot.

And yet, to the older gay and lesbian families living around the center, we were a threat to the neighborhood. We were a pain in the ass. We were causing trouble, invading their Castro queer haven. The neighborhood association made countless restrictions on what, where, and when the youth center could do anything.

It made me wonder if the lack of continuity in the queer community isn't just the fault of disinterested youth. I have had a really hard time learning about queer history. I don't really know much about the queer activists who came before me. As the leader of a queer student group, I usually feel like the blind leading the blind. I'm really hungry for a sense of the past of our movement and the support of our predecessors.

But it's really not there. Of course I know a few older activists who have been truly supportive and helped me and my fellow youngsters learn a thing or two, but mostly it's radio silence from the older generation of gays. It's really quite disappointing.

I'd love to connect with older people, learn from their stories, soak up my history as part of a civil rights movement for people of varying sexual orientations. I really want a sense of that continuity. Maybe that's something I'll be able to work on: building a place, a group, where young and old people can connect over being somehow queer and working together for equality and respect.

Playing the Queer Card

I spend a lot of time with straight men. It's in my job description. I've experienced every pickup line, every little grope, every lean-in-too-close-and-breathe-on-my face. Granted, it's refreshing when I'm at work or even when I'm bumming around campus in street clothes and some immediately attractive guy surprises me with better conduct. I am not as jaded as some of the more experienced dancers; I don't think that all men are dirty pigs and that they're ultimately out for only one thing.

But. I've had to learn a lot of ways to fend off unwanted advances from men. My job, as I often tell my girlfriends, is really to reject a guy, make him like it, and furthermore make him pay me to continue rejecting him. It's a fine tightrope to walk.

I tell people all the time at work that I am bisexual. There, it works in my favor because of the prevalence of girl-on-girl porn and the lovely stereotype that any bisexual woman must want to have a threesome with the next available guy. I wear the label as something to make me attractive.

But outside of work I use my queerness in an entirely different way. When I dress myself in the morning, I half-consciously try to wear clothes that I know look a little gay. My pants are not quite as tight. I wear a bigger, thicker belt. I add a necktie randomly, or something with a subtle rainbow. I know that if I dress like a lesbian, if I present myself as queer, I'll be treated completely differently by straight men and everyone else.

Openly queer women are lucky in one sense. By broadcasting their sexual "deviance" to the world, they announce that they definitely are not a part of the heteronormative, sexist world that those who sleep with members of the opposite sex inhabit. If I cut all my hair off, I'm less likely to get stepped all over by a man in conversation. They assume I'll fight back because, of course, queer women are always strong and aggressive. If I have an eyebrow piercing, no man is going to come up to me and ask if I want him inside of me. He'll wait until I give some sign of interest because queer women aren't automatically into anyone who shows the slightest interest in them. If I wear combat boots, people who meet me are less likely to comment solely on my appearance and more likely to listen to what I say. Queer people don't care how they look, so their personality is more important.

Of course, I don't fit completely in the queer community. I do like sleeping with and having romantic relationships with men. I am not a lesbian. When I present myself as a Gay and then I tell some other lesbian that I'm actually bisexual, there's an immediate turning away. I am not really allowed to use a queer identity to protect myself, because according to many people I'm only queer half of the time.

This, of course, is confusing and really annoying. I am everything that I am all of the time, not straight half the time and gay half the time. I need some way to be, some public identity to claim for myself, that lets people know who I truly am. I wish I didn't have to hide in queerness to get away from little everyday sexisms. I wish I didn't have to play down my interest in men in order to participate in the gay community.

But then, I guess I'll have to carve out my own bisexual identity for myself.