Birthday Post

It's my birthday today, and I am now 22. Whoo!

Actually, I'm not feeling particularly excited or sad or whatever or anything about this birthday. It kind of just is. I like getting older, as I always hated the way people would ignore what I was saying because I was young, or seem generally suspicious of my intentions. I've noticed that happening less and less, and it's awesome.

Mostly, for me, this birthday means the end of my medical insurance coverage by my parents and the beginning of my "real" adult life. That's something I've been grappling with for a while now, and I'm finally starting to come to terms with it. The concept of independence is still a little freaky (I'm lucky I've had someone to depend on so that's the case), but I'm starting to pull things in order. It feels pretty good.

So happy birthday to me!

On Being Desired

I try to be confident in my body regardless of what other people think. You know, the old thing where you're supposed to love yourself before you can connect with others. Or whatever.

I wear what I want. I take or leave grooming habits (like shaving) as I feel like it. I have days where I don't try to be sexy. Realizing I didn't have to look good all the time, especially if I didn't want to be attracting anyone or interacting that way, was a huge thing. It's a relief to be able to say, "I'm not feeling sexy today, so I'm not going to dress to impress," and feel fine about it.

It does, however, feel really good to be desired. Especially by a lot of people.

It's pretty great to sleep with somebody and see in their eyes that they're impressed by you, and so happy to be getting to touch you. It's really nice to hear that I'm sexy or hot and to have people appreciate how I look. It's a total ego boost to get however many messages a day on OkCupid. These days, people are telling me they want me all the time.

I don't want to be dependent on these things, though. I feel sexy on my own and that should probably be enough, but I'm basking in the attention. I'm worried I might be enjoying it too much, that I'll get used to it. I know it's a part of the confidence boost I've been having lately.

I don't want to be one of those women who despairs at getting old, who tries too hard to hang onto her youthful life and body. I really look forward to getting older, to getting to know more things and do more and have a different outlook. I want to have more experiences in my memory that I've learned from. I want to see how I change. I'm going to do my best to enjoy all of it.

Being "young and hot," though, is addictive. I get all kinds of good feelings from people noticing and appreciating my looks. I can imagine myself being disappointed as I age, when my body changes, when it's different after I have children, when I don't fit the silly ideal and people might not pay to see me naked anymore.

I know the best I can do is try to understand that sexiness is about a lot more than fitting into a physical ideal. There are so many ways to be sexy. I've got to remember that, and try to appreciate this vessel I walk around in for what it can do, not just what it looks like. I'm sure I'll manage it and be fine. It's just a question of reminding myself and not getting too caught up in the young, thin, and hot hype.

Road Trip

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When I was at home in San Francisco over winter break, I got together with a guy I'd been talking with online for some time. I met him once over the summer, but we'd gotten to know each other over the internet and have a lot in common. He'd been really sweet to me when I had a (serious, depressing) issue with a friend in the middle of the night and had no one else to talk to.

He's straight, but also works as a stripper at a gay male club in San Francisco. He almost never wears shirts, likes women's underwear, and is totally adorable. I like him quite a bit; he's such a delightfully queer straight man!

Anyway, we were just talking about great it would be to go on a road trip across the country, stripping our way from San Francisco to New York. We've got friends to stay with along the way and a great way to both fund and fuel the trip. I have no idea whether it'll actually happen, but I'd love for it to. Doesn't it look like fun?

Blow Jobs, Annihilation, and Growth

When I was younger, I was a blow job queen.

My first real boyfriend told me that I sucked his cock on our second date. I don't remember this, but I believe him. I can't actually remember when I started seeing or playing with his dick. I've played with it and other cocks so many times since then that the first time has blended in with the other memories.

He was uncircumcised. I remember that; I could tell. Often he wasn't completely hard by the time I started playing with him, so there would be some extra skin when I first put my mouth on him. I didn't know what I was doing at first, but I'd looked up on the internet what to do. I knew to avoid teeth, to use my lips, hands, and tongue. I learned to respond to his movements. I made him come in my mouth.

After we broke up, I didn't stay celibate for long. I had a good girlfriend who I lusted after but didn't think I could be with. She was too Christian and I was too timid.

So I blew her ex-boyfriend. It didn't occur to me then, but I know now that the only reason I had any chemistry with T was that I'd hung out with him and my friend together. We'd all cuddled on my bed, and my sexual tension with her had leaked into my interactions with him.

T kissed like a dead fish, all lips and no tongue. By the time we fooled around, I didn't especially like him, but I was bored and considered him a challenge. He was selfish in bed, wouldn't do anything at all for me except fumble in the general area of my clit with thick fingers. He said he'd go down on me if I got him off, which I found out a few weeks ago has still never happened for him with another person. He was also even more Christian than my friend, hated his own and others' sexuality, and was very politically conservative.

Every time he'd leave my house or drive me home, I'd feel like a whore. I might as well have been paid for what I did. There was very little physical gratification for me, just the vague eroticism of serving someone, the humiliation of feeling hated because I was giving away physical pleasure. It was masochistic.

I had a few similar flings during the next few years, between more serious relationships. Boys who'd call me when they wanted to get off, or who I'd call when I was alone at night. I'd feel this intense need to be touching someone, to be giving something, and I didn't know any other way to satisfy it than by finding a boy to blow. Some of my motivation was simple loneliness.

Mostly, though, it came from a need to feel annihilated. When I was feeling empty or in pain, I could hurt myself by finding someone who'd think less of me for having sex with him. I could stop feeling anything by being with a person who did not see or understand that I was a human with emotions. I was reduced to body parts, objectified, fucked. It was everything those old feminists talked about.

One day, after a few months of therapy and a decision that I didn't want to do it to myself anymore, I finally said no. A boy I'd blown was leading me back drunk from a fraternity party, and as we started to pass my dorm I said "Wait, I don't think I should do this. My shrink says I shouldn't have sex for a while."

He gave me a funny look and said goodnight, which is what I'd wanted. I wanted him to think I was crazy so it wouldn't hurt his feelings. It had worked. I ran off, almost giggling, to my room. Awkward though it was, I'd finally drawn the line and walked away when I wasn't actually into the guy or the sex.

I haven't had that kind of sex since then, the kind where I give up my humanity to have a physical connection with someone. I have casual sex, yes, but I do everything I can to make sure it's with someone who will see and value my humanity even while we're fucking. I can't always tell ahead of time whether this will be the case, but I can get a pretty good idea.

I'm glad I had the experience of objectified sex. It gave me something to contrast with what I wanted, to grow from. It allowed me to understand what it is that I don't want. I'm just as glad, though, to have moved past it into fulfilling sex with people I like. It's just so much more fun.

My Long Lost Brother: The Note to Ann Landers

When I was eleven, I found out I had a long lost brother.

I was playing Riven. I don't remember what I was stuck on; it was probably the little balls in the puzzle on top of the globe. No matter how many times I went back to the place with the puzzle's clue and how many times I thought I had it right, it just wasn't working. I was close to tears.

My mom, who'd played the game before, wasn't home and she wouldn't answer her cell phone. It was off. I thought I might be able to find her Riven notes in her filing cabinet, where she keeps her personal papers. When I noticed a file titled "Adoption," I was curious.

You can guess where this is going, right?

I found a note she'd written to Ann Landers. The advice columnist had told a birth child not to search for his birth mother, that the mother had given him up for a reason and probably wanted nothing to do with him. My mother wrote back and told Ann Landers how she'd had a baby in college and given him up for adoption. She considered it his right to decide whether or not to meet her. She had given him up, given him the decision, but she would be devastated if she never got to see him again.

His name, when she left him at the hospital, was Michael Patrick.

I stared at that piece of paper. I didn't know when my mom was getting home. She was probably at the grocery store, or paying bills at the bank. I put it quickly back in the filing cabinet and brought the phone into my room, where I had an unused jack for it. My parents didn't think I needed my own phone.

I called my best friend, and cried because my mother hadn't told me. Cried because I wasn't supposed to know; I'd found out clandestinely. I'd been intruding.

Bette Midler had a song called "Lullaby in Blue" about adoption. After that summer, whenever my mom would skip it on the album, I'd calmly ask her why. I asked to see her yearbook photos, since I'd figured out that she must have given birth during her senior year at Notre Dame. I didn't know all the details.

Every once in a while, I'd go back to look at the letter again. I'd wait until she was gone, for sure, for a while, and go back to the filing cabinet, slamming it closed if I thought I heard my sister coming up the stairs. I did this every few months until Mom sat the family down for a macaroni and cheese dinner three years later.

**Update** I was going to continue this story, but I decided I don't actually want to, at least not in this style. The short story is that Michael Patrick was coincidentally named Patrick by his adoptive parents and found my mom and our family about a year after she finally told my sister and me about him. He's a Catholic youth minister and just had a baby girl, I, with his wife, C. They got married as soon as she graduated college. I won't use his full first name after this, but it's a pretty cool coincidence.

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.

Growing Up?

It is the very weirdest thing to be getting near the age some of my teachers were when I was in high school.

I was listening to an old CD from my high school choir tonight and feeling nostalgic about the great teacher I had. He was young, we were his first choir, he was passionate and a good teacher and we did very well as a result. So I looked him up on facebook.

He left my high school a year after I did and just finished getting his Master's degree. I plan on starting my Master's degree in just over a year. I thought back and realized he was 23 when I first had him as a teacher. That's only two years older than I am now.

This is trippy. I mean, I've slept with people who are as old as he is now. Not that I'd ever want to sleep with him; he's kinda floppy, and just not my type. But there are Facebook pictures of him with a girlfriend or whatever. Partying. Etc. It's just like the kinds of things I do now.

I'm at this weird point where I'm starting to interact with adults like I'm one of them. You know, we have things in common, we can talk like equals. I can work for them, work with them, sometimes they even work for me. It's just very odd. And also pretty cool.

I feel like I'm standing right smack on this line between being a kid and being a "grown up." Not like "Oh, I suddenly know everything because I'm an adult!" I think everyone is really a child in the face of everything there is to know and learn in the world. I just feel more adult in the way people see me, the way my interactions with strangers have changed. It's kind of nice.

I'm Watching Jesus Camp For the First Time

Jesus Camp

Now, that link will get you to the whole film. If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should. I prefer to financially support films, books, and music that I like instead of getting them on the internet, but you can make that decision for yourself. If I were you, I'd go rent it, because I'm sure it's better with nicer film quality.

I am so speechless about most of this film. Part of me wants to give the kids a hug, I just feel so bad for them. The emotional blackmail, the guilt that they're put through.

But on the other hand, they are not stupid. Clearly. They speak very articulately and passionately and are so obviously trying really hard to live well. With the information they're given, they are making the best decisions they can. They wouldn't want my hugs. I just can't imagine what it's like to go through life with that kind of guilt, repressing yourself so much.

To grow up like Ted Haggert, who's got a little cameo in the film, and despise yourself, live a double life, oppress people who are like you because you think that you are evil. What that must be like, emotionally. How much pain there must be.

That doesn't mean I like Ted. On one level, I really despise people like Ted, people who press others down. Part of me whats that to be all I feel, as an activist, a humanist. They are mean people, hypocrites, etc.

But I also feel empathy for them. I can't help it; they're living in a hell. Of course, they're trying to force that same hell on other people. For that, I'll always fight them. But I'll feel sorry for them, too.

It starts when they're children, just like the ones in this video. If we feel sorry for the children (who are perfectly capable of thought, simply more open to new ideas and brainwashing because they have less previous knowledge) it makes sense to feel sorry for their adult manifestations.

(P. S. I know it's stereotyping, but after watching good ol' Ted speak for about a minute, I'm wondering HOW nobody ever guessed that he was kinda gay... Just saying.)

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.