That Whole God Thing

I was raised Catholic, but not in the usual way. We went to a very alternative Catholic church in Massachusetts called Community of God’s Love when I was little. We didn’t use gendered pronouns in referring to God. (“God,” for instance, was “Creator.”) Women sometimes gave the sermons or even led the mass, we had a lot of queer congregation members, and the politics of the church were extremely liberal in general.

When we moved to California we found a slightly less radical church where I served as an altar girl and started studying for my Confirmation. When we got a new, more conservative priest who decided that girls could no longer serve at the altar, it was the last straw for my mother. She already felt that the Catholic church unfairly excluded women. If this church wasn’t going to welcome her daughters as full participants, then she wanted no more to do with it.

My whole family left the church when I was 11, and my mom now says she’s an atheist.

I know that at some point in my life I was enthusiastic about the idea of religion. I did, after all, hold up that Bible every week at Mass and carry the crucifix around the church for the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.

Since we stopped going to church, though, and through my upbringing in secular coastal cities, I’ve grown very uncomfortable with the idea of the divine.

I don’t regret at all not being Catholic; I think it’s in many ways a screwed up political institution.* My grandfather has been giving me optimistic crucifixes for birthdays and Christmases for years, and I have no compunction in never wearing them. I do miss the presence of some spiritual community, though.

I feel very self conscious about spirituality. I’m drawn to it, particularly to the kinds that embrace women and sex, but I’m also very awkward about the idea of being too New Age or woo-woo or superstitious or whatever. Perhaps I’ve spent a lot of time around people who judged others for believing in much of anything that couldn’t be proven.

I’ve nonetheless had some very powerful experiences which make me believe in some kind of energetic connection that underlies everything and which we as beings can access. I want to write about those in more depth in future entries, but suffice it to say for now that I feel called to explore.

I’m not necessarily excited about the idea of deities, except as metaphors for particular kinds of divine energy, but there’s a lot I can learn. I’d like to consider this post a resolution to give myself permission to go there. I want to not be shy about the pull I feel towards the divine. So I’m coming out as a (novice) spiritual seeker. Here I am, and I’m going somewhere in that direction.

*The Church does a lot of good charitable things, but also a lot of messed up gender and politics things.

A Call to Men

This pretty much speaks for itself. One observation: the audience is almost entirely women because this talk was at the TEDWomen conference. I think this is a vitally, vitally important message, but I do wonder how it's going to get to actual men when gender is so consistently considered only a women's issue.

I don't have a solution for this. I don't know how to get men to pay attention to this stuff because their privilege does allow them to ignore it. It just seems so important to involve them, not just to end violence against women but to free men, as he says, from their own versions of the Man Box.

Tony Porter's website, A Call to Men is very much worth checking out.

Shy?

So, while I've gotten better at this over the years, I've always been kind of bad about expressing my desires - be they sexual or for objects or especially emotional. I've gotten to a point where I can talk about them, but only in a detached, logical sort of way. Like I'm reporting on something external to myself.

It's easy enough for me to say "In general, I need regular physical contact and cuddling to be comfortable in my life," but much harder for me to say "Please hold me, I'm feeling sad."

This is something I've been struggling to overcome for years. It's kind of stereotypically feminine of me, and it's one of those ways I fit my gender role that drives me crazy. I'd like to be the first one to lean in for a kiss. I'd like to be able to simultaneously want and admit to wanting for something. As opposed to waiting until I don't feel it as strongly to admit to it.

I think I feel like my desires are so strong that I can't let them out while remaining at all in control of myself. I'm also afraid that if I admit or show the strength of any desire, the person I'm interacting with will be overpowered by it and bow to it regardless of their own needs. This may be irrational, but I also really don't want to impose on anyone else.

There are lots of reasons for this involving my upbringing and probably, yes, my gender role. But that's not as important for this post.

What I've started to think is that maybe I can approach this in a different way. Reframe it, if you will. Instead of thinking "I'm repressed about my desires" or "I'm incapable of expressing myself clearly," I could just think "I'm shy when it comes to desire."

It sort of changes things, doesn't it? Shy is not necessarily a positive or negative thing. It just is. And there are things you can do to deal with it, to live with it. It can even be cute or endearing.

If I can give myself permission to be shy with my desires, then I might even be able to, tentatively, physically express them in a way that doesn't make me uncomfortable. The gentleness of a shy expression of desire takes away, in my head, some of what I fear about it. It makes it manageable. It's a small step.

I haven't really tried this yet (I'm being celibate, remember?), but I'm hoping it will help.

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.

What Makes a Woman a Bitch

I want to clarify something about my goal of being more assertive.

I know that it's not very nice to tell a potential suitor to fuck off.* There are damn good reasons, though, for no more Ms. Nice Girl. I've written about a few of them over the course of this blog. The long and short of it, if you don't want to go back and read four blog posts, is that I'm constantly sexually harassed every time I leave my apartment.

It doesn't matter what I'm wearing; it doesn't matter what expression is on my face; it doesn't matter how I respond or even who I'm with. I'm tall and noticeable and have red hair, and I'm apparently hot. Or "sexy baby" or "can I taste that lip ring?" or "look at that pretty tummy." That last one was today.

This puts me in an awfully awkward situation. The thing about hot women in the media is that they're always portrayed as bitches: the blonde popular girl who is too haughty to respond even with kindness to the poor nerdy boy who just wants to love and cuddle her. What they don't show on TV are the good reasons for this behavior.

I don't want to be a "bitch," but I'm fully aware that the reason people use that word is usually to bring women into line. The words "bitch" and "slut" more often have to do with a woman exercising her power and the discomfort that causes in everyone else. If I have boundaries around who I allow to talk to me and in particular how they do it, I'll be branded a bitch. I'll become "that one" who is too cool to give the time of day to a defenseless guy. The thing is, y'all are rarely actually defenseless.

There are things that I respond well to. "Hello, how are you?" is usually one of them. Curiosity about me as a human being with emotions, opinions, and things I like to do is another. "I like you" or "You're pretty" on the street or in a club when my looks are the only thing you could know about me are not. Male folk have an option in how they view and approach me.

Nobody likes to be objectified, diminished into just one part of their person. Maybe somebody who approaches me ham-handedly is just socially awkward and because that's the only thing I see, I judge him as such. I recognize that if I reject someone in a club, that could hurt their feelings. The truth, though, is that it hurts mine to be approached lewdly, to be singled out solely for my looks. So what would you have me do? I'd love a better world, where this wouldn't be a problem. Or just a better solution. Any ideas?


*There's a more specific story there: a group of guys came up to me and my roommate and asked if we'd make out. I asked if they would then all make out with each other and they said "Hell, no!" so I responded with "Well, fuck off then."

Inconsiderate Lovers

There are so very many people who are bad in bed. Specifically, there seem to be hordes of inconsiderate men floating around waiting to spring their time-wasting self-centeredness on me at any unsuspecting second!

That's not to say that all men are bad in bed, of course. I've been with men who were wonderful lovers and women who were only so-so. There are lots of factors to a sexual experience, and plenty of them have nothing to do with skill and everything to do with connection. That said, there's a base level of consideration that makes for a decent lover. When I say someone's bad, I mean that they're selfish, not that they lack tongue agility or erectile prowess or some such nonsense.

For all I know, straight women could be on average just as bad as straight men in this regard. I can't be sure, as they won't sleep with me. Same goes for gay men. I have been with more inconsiderate men than inconsiderate women, but I've also just been with more men than women. Maybe it has nothing to do with demographics.

All that said, it's just sad. I'm almost content with very mediocre sex; I know how bad it could be, so if they even try to give me any kind of pleasure, I'm halfway to satisfied.

Now, generally speaking, I can just take care of myself when I'm having sex with someone who doesn't know what they're doing. That's actually totally fine. If they're trying and I like them enough to invest the time, I can teach them what I like. In the meantime I can take care of myself, and that's sexy in and of itself. I love to masturbate with assistance.

There's no hope, though, with the ones who don't even try, who don't care a whit about my pleasure. Kind of like the guy I slept with last week.

This man was attractive. I thought he was gay, actually, when we first met, which made him even moreso to me. I like people who push the queer/gender envelopes. However, his idea of foreplay was to masturbate a little and then try to put it in me. In other words, none.

As an independent woman who knows how to take care of her own pleasure, I could have done something about this. I could have initiated the sex sooner. Instead of sitting there not wanting to watch the same episode of Real World Road Rules twice in a row because he was too stoned to notice, I could have climbed into his lap and gotten things started.

Instead of waiting until I was too tired to care enough, waiting until I was half asleep in the middle of the night and woke up to his cock in the air as he stroked it, I could have taken matters into my own hands.

Instead, I had the second worst sex in my life (ask me about the worst sometime). He tried to go for it without a condom, which I had none of, and once I got one and put it on him, he went limp immediately. And then to sleep. Not once did he try to touch any part of my body other than my vagina, with his penis. Gross.

Perhaps if I'd started things earlier, I might've been able to steer him into, you know, doing anything at all to my clitoris or nipples. I could've asked him to turn me on in any way other than masturbating in my general direction. I like a show as much as the next girl, but not enough for me to be ready to fuck.

Anyway, I'm going to make it a project for myself to be a more aggressive flirt and lover. I want to initiate things more, drop this femme bullshit where I try to attract people but make them take the final step. I'm going to set concrete goals, hold myself accountable, make this a real thing I'm working on. I'll let you know how it goes.

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.

Self Discipline in Writing, and My Evening

I think it is now time to start forcing myself to post every day. I have been very, very terrible about blogging for the last several months, to state the obvious. This isn't because I've had nothing to talk about; my brain continues to churn regardless of what weird emotional/stress state I'm in. I've had plenty of things percolating.

I just haven't really been writing. Not here, and not for school anymore, and not in my journal, and not anything fictional. Nothing. This, for me, is not a good thing.

Writing keeps me a little more sane, forces me to analyze my life, helps me to understand my feelings and experiences by articulating them. I really need to be doing it more, because I've been letting some good ol' life patterns (like the whole man issue I wrote about in my last post) build up without really dealing with them.

I spent tonight at a bar and then a dance club with a group of people from work, and although I enjoy the company of many of my coworkers, I was left feeling uncomfortable and almost grossed out after this evening. It really had nothing to do with my companions and everything to do with my feelings about men and being surrounded by them.

I was being lightly hit on by one male coworker, Y, who shared that he hasn't had sex in months and is desperate (his word!). He was also pursuing, and talking about pursuing, another coworker who is new to the office. C, the third woman in the group, picked up an Italian guy early on and got him to buy her drinks and make out with her.

I was being more subtly but also more persistently hit on by N, another male coworker who has a girlfriend but who admits that he make-out cheats on her when he's drunk. He kept saying he wanted to drink more so that he could make poor life choices and touching my knees. A random guy outside the club who I talked to for about a minute took the time to make sure that N would be escorting me home as it's not safe out there for a beautiful lady like myself.

I can't really say what it was that bugged me so much about the whole night, I just felt vaguely dirty, as though I was a part of something I didn't like. I wish there was some way to just check out of traditional gender roles entirely, to not be confronted with them all the time. I wish men didn't objectify me constantly based on my confidence and openness around sexuality. I don't want to be someone's wet dream.

I like it when people are attracted to me, sure, but not so much when it's because they think I'll be the perfect lay. Or the perfect anything, for that matter. It's so much nicer when they perceive me as a human, flaws and all.

It's been an off night, and I'll do a better sort later through what was up. I'd like to find some kind of conclusion, a reaction to this discomfort with men, that will help me function better in their presence. It is, after all, a little hard to avoid them altogether.

Stripping and "Hating" and Dating Men

When I first started stripping, I heard from lots of my coworkers and a few of my friends in the industry that the job would make me hate men. They said that when you do sex work, you see the worst in men and so it is inevitable that you start to dislike them at least a little. I didn't write this off entirely, as of course they had experience at that point and I didn't, but I hoped that it would be different for me.

I was, I rationalized, doing sex work for different reasons than most of them. I didn't need the money, I just kind of wanted to see what it was like to dance naked and get paid for it. I figured this privilege would protect me from making some of the compromises they might have had to, would protect me from a changing opinion of men. I knew the industry would definitely alter me, as everything in life does, but I figured my compassion could hold up to it in that regard.

Well, my compassion is certainly still there. I feel sorry for men much more than I hate them. But things have definitely changed in my feelings towards them.

I've been thinking about my recent heterosexual trend, wondering why my attention has been so much more on men than on women. It hasn't been for lack of physical attraction to women; it's just that when I meet a nicer (and attractive) man, my focus zooms in on him immediately. He stands out to me. This hasn't been happening much with women.

It occurred to me that I've got a little reaction formation going on when it comes to men. (Wikipedia: In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defensive process in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.) In this case, I'm very uncomfortable with and somewhat dislike men, so I've been dating them.

So I certainly don't hate men, but I do hate a lot of the things a lot of them do. I don't much like being objectified without my permission. (Accepting money for it is giving permission.) I don't like it when they assume I'm sexually available or feelingless based on my orientation or relationship style or job. I feel almost paranoid about being imposed upon by them, pushed into ways of being or thinking of myself that I don't like, and it affects me from day to day.

So I'm very defended against them. In order to protect myself, I have to be paying attention to the men around me at all times. I'm expending an enormous amount of energy and attention on making sure I don't interact with men in ways that will hurt me. I'm super up front about my job, orientation, and relationship style so that I can immediately avoid the men who objectify them. Putting up barriers like that takes a good amount of effort and so I'm always very aware of men.

What this means is that when I do find a guy who's nice to me, who doesn't do those things I hate, I've already been paying oodles of attention to him in order to find that out. It seems notable, remarkable, that he's not going to be sexist towards me. I appreciate him a lot. I date him, if he's available. There you go. I'm not as afraid of women, and so this happens less often.

(As a side note: I don't claim this is a rational reaction to anything. These are feelings and my attempt to understand them.)

Now, back to stripping. Stripping didn't force me somehow to have these feelings towards men. It's not even that men act much differently at a strip club than they do in general. In fact it's just the opposite, and that's the problem. Stripping commodifies the sexist interactions that exist every day, everywhere. It puts a monetary value on them and so it makes them very, very obvious.

As a stripper, I have to trade somewhat in misogyny, to play off it and manipulate it so that I can get lap dances and tips and avoid groping and slurs. It's something I simultaneously like and hate about the job. I've learned oodles about gender roles, particularly about what's dysfunctional in masculinity. I like learning. However, this knowledge makes it hard to move comfortably in a world that's so full of sexism. I'm just so aware all the time. I can't really sit back and accept it, learn to ignore it, bite the harness and move on like women have been doing for centuries. I'm psychologically fighting it out most of the time.

I'd like to try to shift my focus a little. It's probably unnecessary and certainly draining to be so defended all the time. I'd like to learn, in my day to day activities if not my scholarship and activism, to brush off sexist men. I don't want to let them inside my head, let them affect me, which is something I do have control over even when I can't change their behavior. It'd be nice, even, to spend more time with women and live more in a sisterhood community where I can feel safe. Focus on safety, on whom I am comfortable with rather than on whom I'm not.

I suppose it's a lesson for me as an activist. I want to keep working to change the things in the world that strike me as unfair and wrong, the things that make me angry and hurt me. I need also, though, to focus on healing from that anger and hurt. It's just as important.

Quick but Excellent Link on Masculinity

Really, really good post on masculinity and what it would take to create a more egalitarian gender structure. I really like Hugo Schwyzer's blog; he says some really wonderful things about masculinity and parenting. Here's an excerpt from the post:

The feminist project is, in the end, about men too. Women’s liberation can’t be dependent upon men, of course; women don’t need men’s blessing in order to become autonomous agents, freed at last from the chains of custom and the bonds of biology. (Sorry, I’m tired, and the prose gets purple when I’m underslept.) But the benefits of feminism are undeniable for men: a chance to be full and complete human beings, capable of courage and tenderness in equal measure; a chance to be loved for who they are rather than what they can perform. That’s precious stuff indeed. But men raised on the noxious elixir of traditional manhood will find it difficult to adapt quickly to this new paradigm, even when the old model has proved so unsatisfactory. What’s needed is a continued cultural revolution, aimed at redefining what it means to be male, aimed at liberating boys and young men from the masculine straitjacket.

Read it. The whole thing. It's spot on.

Slut

I very rarely use the word "slut" to describe myself.

There are a lot of people who have decided to reclaim it and try to recast it in a positive light. I'm all for that, and I don't think a word that describes someone who has a lot of casual sex should be so negative. I support the efforts to reclaim the word slut.

I just can't do it myself.

It makes me really uncomfortable. I think it's mostly because it's still so overwhelmingly a negative word. It connotes someone who's diseased and irresponsible, as if anyone who has lots of sex is either of these things. (As if people who don't have a lot of sex can't get diseases. Great, double stigma, on sex and disease.)

Slut conveys a complete sexual availability. This is of course not a problem in and of itself. I'm very sexually available, and I think it's great. I like being open to do whatever I want with whomever catches my fancy. "Slut," though, suggests availability to the point of passivity, of loss of choice. A "slut" is someone who "will sleep with anyone." They just go along with whoever wants them. It suggests someone who is often and can easily be taken advantage of.

I think it's a disempowering word. I don't like all the negative and sexist ideas about sex it carries along with it like eight tons of baggage. I can't divorce it from those things in my mind.

It's also just because it's been used against me and hurt me in the past. Its use can completely change someone's life. Women who are labeled sluts get abused and generally treated poorly all the time, just because they're somehow considered subhuman. I don't want that for myself or anyone else.

I recognize that this could be like the word "queer." People in my generation don't have the same negative connotations for it and so we like to use it as an umbrella term. I find it empowering. Older folks don't like it because it was a very negative slur in their youths. Maybe (hopefully!) the same thing will happen for "slut," but I'm okay with not embracing the word for now.

First Troll

I got my first troll the other day!

I got to be called a whore and hear about how all women are whores (because getting paid for sex is like totally the worst thing ever, right?) and feminism is bullshit. Woot.

Seriously, though, I knew it would happen eventually. It's ironically in the same week as the first time I've been called a (fuckin') whore at my university. I'm more perturbed by name-calling by someone I actually know, but it feels all of a piece.

In writing and talking about and having sex a lot, I've always known I practically invite these kinds of backlashes. I got slut-bashed in high school by people I'd considered close friends. That was very hard and hurtful, but I know it's a nearly universal experience for women. I'll bet that all women have been called a slut (in seriousness not in jest or reclamation) at some point.

I've actually been pretty perplexed that I hadn't gotten more of it since I came to college. I write a sex column, I founded a sex discussion group, I'm open about being very sexually active, I'm an out stripper, I'm queer. I've gotten very little negative feedback, even though I am known as "the sex girl" around here.

The person who called me a whore is someone I slept with once two years ago and haven't spoken with since. It was a generally baffling 4am Facebook message, but I'm not particularly worried about it. A close friend basically told me he's got a serious drinking problem and I shouldn't take it too personally, and I'm not.

Getting trolled, though, online and in person, makes me feel like I've arrived. Like hey, someone thought I was being sexually transgressive and felt the need to punish me. Hey, enough people are reading this blog now that some asshole was able to find it and felt the need to comment negatively. I'm a REAL blogger, now! (Like Pinocchio, but without the growing and shrinking phallus on my face.)

So yeah, I am kind of celebrating it. My attitude is kind of like, bring it on! I don't need to be hurt by these things and maybe it can even be a part of having a larger discussion. Let's go! Have at! Dukes up! Here I am, ready.

Feminism vs. Real Life

Courtney at Feministing wrote about the ways her feminist ideals differ from her actual life, and invited others to do the same. I think this is a really good exercise in self-awareness, so I'm going to try to answer her.

1. I'm incredibly self conscious about how I dress and what I look like at all times. I know that there's no need for me to always be sexy or attractive, but I can't help the running commentary in my head that compares my own appearance to other women's in a very competitive, distinctly un-feminist way. I try, but it sneaks in. (I do dress however the hell I want, but I'm very aware of when I look different from how I'm "supposed to.")

2. I have and often give into the urge to take care of people much more than I let them do so for me.

3. I make all kinds of assumptions about people based on their gender (and race and apparent sexuality) which may have nothing to do with reality. Things like men are going to be less progressive or women will be more sexually shy or black people won't want anything to do with me because I'm white or queer people won't be misogynistic. I try to be aware that I'm doing this and at least not act on my assumptions, but I know I have them.

4. I enjoy blatantly misogynistic pop culture: movies, tv shows, music, etc. Sometimes it's as a cultural critic and sometimes it's just because it's got a catchy beat or a satisfying good vs. evil plot line. I like James Bond.

5. I buy lots of products whose production I know nothing about, including beauty products, clothing, and random toys. I do try to be conscientious most of the time, but other times I just go with convenience. I'm more of a thoughtless consumer than I feel I should be.

6. On a very basic level, I take advantage of gender roles by getting guys to pay to see me naked. Most of them wouldn't do it (or at least wouldn't spend as much as they do) if the male sexual role didn't prevent them from having intimacy outside sexual situations or from finding real sexual satisfaction in their unpaid interactions. (This is a complicated issue which I'd like to talk about more in depth but haven't gathered together the time and thoughts yet.)

Blow Job

Well, I just gave a blow job. And got nothing in return. Took about thirty seconds.

I guess it's a nice affirmation that I'm good at that, but it wasn't very satisfying. Even though I've been fantasizing about sex where I'm used by a man, I do want to get something out of it for myself. Perhaps I need to do a better job of articulating what's in it for me, and asking for it.

Yes, I do love giving head, and I like to please whoever I'm with, even and sometimes especially in the absence of my own physical release. It's about more than just an orgasm.

That's exactly it, though: it's about more than an orgasm. I don't want to be a masturbation toy. I don't mind (I like!) getting someone off, so long as they interact with me a little, make it into an exchange. If you don't swap physical pleasure, at least trade me some enjoyment and playfulness, or give and take some power.

This guy who just left after he came (I told him I wouldn't be calling him again) really just sat there and took it. He made very little noise, didn't voice much appreciation, didn't seem to give a thought to how I might feel about what I was doing. He just kinda came. I might as well not have been there.

I suppose, yes, I do feel used in the bad way. I'm not super upset about it, but it did get me thinking about the whole blow job queen scenario.

What do I want out from it? I want to feel like I'm giving someone pleasure, I want to see and feel their enjoyment. I like that. I get off on it. That's what I get out of it. There you go. This time, it was lacking.

By the way, for those who don't know, the "blow job queen" thing is actually a Liz Phair reference, from her excellent song Flower:


This is a disorganized post, I know, but it's just the thoughts as they came. Maybe I'll clarify this more in the future, figure it out a little better.

Nearly-Anonymous Sex?

I've been really wanting to fuck someone I don't know very well. Just for fun.

I want that dirty sex, the kind that feels a little tense, maybe removed, where the release is more psychological than physical. I'm frustrated by my usual restraint; I want to break it down, push it through, fuck it.

It's been a really long time since I've had this urge; maybe since my freshman year. These days it's so easy for me to have friendly, gleeful sex that I haven't tapped into that part of me that's influenced by the taboo, by what I used to call the "dark side" of sex. I'm not entirely sure what's brought it on.

This kind of urge, for me, is usually directed towards men. I guess it's easier to engineer casual sex with them, but I think it has more to do with why I feel this way in the first place. I want to exercise and exorcise something I feel is going on with my gender and the men around me.

I don't know whether I'll actually act on it. There are very specific circumstances in which I feel comfortable with casual sex, and they all involve mutual respect and a very clear understanding (as much as I can ensure those things after a brief acquaintance). Unless I can find someone in my upstate NY city who can respectfully negotiate disrespectful sex, I can't really see it happening. We shall see, though. Maybe the blow job queen is back for a limited engagement.

Paradox

I have a tattoo that probably doesn't have much obvious meaning to other people.

The double spiral, in very simple terms, symbolizes balance. In Celtic lore, it can also be tied to the equinoxes. To me, though, it's more complicated than that.

One internet writer tells us that the double spiral "represents a deep understanding of chaos as potentiality and of coming into being...The double spiral is an expanding dialectic, a spiral of transformation." Another says that the double spiral symbolizes "opposing forces, the personification of opposites blending to make a whole. "



It's contradiction and transformation that turn me on, physically and emotionally, That's why I've engraved the symbol on my body. It reminds me that opposing things can actually be connected, that binaries are really a continuum and a circle. Male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, good and evil, life and death. I call myself Paradox when I work because I always want to embrace the apparent contradictions in myself and other people. I want to see it all as whole.

I was thinking about all this because of the video below (via Spiritual Cowgirl). I really like the text quoted there; it reminds me precisely of the meanings I assign to my tattoo. I thought I'd share it with you.

Sexuality Feminism

I’ve been struggling, like many feminists interested in sexuality, with the issue of self-identification. I am clearly neither an anti-porn feminist nor a sex-positive feminist. I very much enjoy porn, but I think its trends and messages are extremely problematic. I'd much rather see a new, different kind of pornography as an alternative to what we've already got.

In the past, I’ve identified most closely with sex-positive feminism. When I was growing up, I was socially attacked and ostracized for being a woman who was openly interested in sex. This hurt me. When I encountered sex-positive feminism, it was like a light shone down from the sky. There were other people who thought that sex was important, that women could be sexual, that I was really an okay person even though I had a sex drive.

On the other hand, I don’t agree with a total lassiez-faire attitude towards porn. I think it’s important to recognize the systematic misogyny in porn. I don’t want to ban porn at all, but we can’t do any better for sexuality if we don’t recognize its problems. That “pornified” misogyny is part of what creates the idea that women can’t be sexual unless they’re whores (in other words unless their sex is in service of men). I can see that, and think it’s important.

Therefore, I am coining a new term for myself. I am a sexuality feminist. I believe that sexuality is central to gender inequality. I think that addressing sexual inequality is a very crucial step towards decreasing overall gender inequality. I make sexual equality the main focus of my activism.

This term could, in fact, apply to both the anti-porn and the sex-positive feminists. It says nothing about whether you’re in favor of mainstream porn or not. Maybe it could even let us work together sometimes.

It doesn’t mean we have to give the word “pornography” a new meaning in order for the average person to understand what we mean when we define ourselves. It doesn’t suggest that those who oppose us are “sex-negative” or anti-sex. Rather than putting us in opposition to something, it gives us a realm in which to work, rebel, agitate, create, define, and live.

Who knows, maybe it could catch on. I'm claiming it here and now: I’m a sexuality feminist.

Note: This is an excerpt from my in-progress honor's thesis on porn and feminism.

Essentialism and Why It Sucks

Excellent point about sex and gender and the way we study them in a post on this article at Sex in the Public Square:

My frustration comes from the fact that researchers like Chivers insist on trying to pull apart the cultural from. What is it that drives the notion that our biology is where the "truth" about us would be found if only we could clear away the confusing layers of socialization and culture? I would much prefer to see research examine the intersection of the biological and the cultural giving equal "truth value" to both. This is a theme that comes up over and over, especially in relation to the discussion of Chivers's work. In fact if we could get past our desire for biologically essentialist answers we could see the variations in human experience that would allow us to start breaking down the false binary of male/female = boy/girl = man/woman.

I think she's absolutely right, that the nature vs. nurture argument is just kind of silly. When we get down to it, almost everyone agrees that it's actually some combination of the two, but the whole basis of the argument is really polarizing. It's like we're pushed into picking a side, and then everyone ends up ignoring compelling or interesting information that would favor the "other side."

I'm taking a class on gender and sexuality right now, and we've been talking about how our concept of two natural sexes each with a corresponding gender role is a fairly new one. Up until the Enlightenment with its emphasis on physical "truth" and the imperfection of anything metaphysical, the body wasn't that important in conceptions of sex and gender.

Philosophers like Aristotle and Galen, who both talked about sex and gender extensively, thought that "man" and "woman" were essentially gradients of one physical sex. Of course, under this model men were "more perfect" and women an incomplete or flawed version of the perfect male. Because women were metaphysically less perfect than men, their bodies came out differently. The spiritual essence of the person, made up of what we could now consider their transient gender characteristics, was actually their essential being. The body was only its physical manifestation.

This is precisely the opposite of how we measure things today. What I think Elizabeth Wood gets at very well in her post is the silliness of both ways of seeing things. There is no truth without both biology AND culture, the physical AND the metaphysical. Nature is informed by nurture to create who we are. There can be no studying one without admitting and looking at the other. Trying to isolate either is always going to present a skewed picture.

Bad Blogger Wrist Slap and Porn Thesis Excerpt

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The Shit Feminists Say About Porn

I'm writing an honors thesis on porn.

I've mentioned this before, and I've said a few things about it. You probably have some idea where I'm coming from, especially since I'm a stripper. That gives you some prepackaged ideas about who I am and what I think.

I don't know, though, how to engage with all the shit (yes, shit) that feminists say about pornography.

Everybody is so concerned with taking a side. We must all be Pro-Pornography! or Anti-Pornography! and there is so little room allowed for having an opinion that's in between. It's yet another fun incarnation of the good ol' virgin/whore dichotomy.

There's so much vitriol on both sides:

"Those who oppose pornography are anti-sex! They continue the oppression of women by oppressing our sexual expression! They take away the agency of sex workers, taking away the agency and independence of women! Pornography should be encouraged as a sexual expression and an education tool!"

Or:

"Those who support pornography are anti-woman! They continue the oppression of women by encouraging representations of violence against women, perpetuating the myth that all women want to be dominated and abused! They ignore the economic and social coercion of women into sex and sex work! Pornography should be illegal and stigmatized!"

For heaven's sake, you're both right.

I think, actually, that Ariel Levy has a good idea of what's going on. Her book Female Chauvinist Pigs is immensely popular, especially with the anti-porn set, but if you read carefully, she's in the middle of the debate. She doesn't actually think that all porn is terrible (as the anti-porn activists want us to think), but she's not unequivocally accepting of porn and what she calls "raunch culture" either.

Here's an excerpt from an email conversation she had with Susie Bright about her book and what it means for "sex-positive" or "sex radical" feminists:

OF COURSE I don't think you & co. are responsible for this...the whole point of sex radicals is to explore new and different and more creative ways to represent— and to have— sex. I'm all for creativity. I'm all for exploration. I'm just not for the incessant reiteration of this one incredibly dull shorthand for sexiness... Wet t-shirt contests! Implants! Brazilian bikini waxes!

It's pathetically limiting. I'm tired of hearing about how liberating and empowering "raunch culture" is. I think it's the easy way out... as if when we buy a thong or a t-shirt with the Playboy bunny on it, then we don't have to question or face our own complicated desires. (But then you miss out on all the fun!)

You have always been about encouraging women to investigate what they really and truly want from sex. Raunch culture, on the other hand, is about performance, not pleasure. That's my objection.

Let's try and find a middle road here, people. We all want the same thing, ultimately. We want women and men to be equal to each other. We don't want these gender stereotypes and privileges to rule our lives. We want to preserve sexual freedom for both sexes. We want to make sure that no one ever has to give in to a sexuality that's harmful to them. It's a noble goal. We should work towards it together.