Secret Confessions of a Smart Girl

Despite all evidence to the contrary, my best friend insists that weddings are great places to get laid. Sure, sometimes she’s managed a great connection and great sex, but other times I’ve gotten phone calls like the one where she told me “I think we had sex, but I’m not sure, because I really couldn’t tell.” She, when she was single, managed to pick up a man at just about every wedding she went to. I don’t know how she did it. I’ve only once picked up someone at a wedding and, other than some excellent making out on the steps, it was an outright disaster*.

This is on my mind, because I spent this weekend at a wedding in Florida. I did not, while I was there, manage to get laid. Even had there been viable options, which in retrospect there might have been, circumstances would have been forbidding. Both I, and the retrospectively potentially viable option**, were sharing rooms with people. It was also a huge wedding at which 95% of the people were from another culture, which made me very conscious of appropriate behavior. And we were at a golf resort. There’s nothing so diminishing to the desire for spontaneous recreational sex as being surrounded by aging white men in ugly shorts. This was, mostly, counteracted by being at a wedding surrounded by beautiful Indian women in saris that inspired ridiculous amounts of clothing lust***, but then you’d go back outside and just have to sigh.

Still, I had an absolutely fabulous time. Beautiful weather, amazing food, shiny clothing, fascinating ceremony, and the wonderful feeling of two amazing people pledging their lives to each other… I love weddings****. They should have another one in six months or so, so that I can go again!

–
*I shouldn’t have let him talk. If I’d just said “nice Lindsey plaid kilt!” and he’d been impressed that I recognized the plaid, we could have just had some pleasantly meaningless sex, but we had to try and go on a date. shudder

**Flirty, viable option or gay? You decide!

***I could happily live in Indian clothing. So pretty! So comfortable! So forcing you to stand tall or look awful!

****But I hate bridal showers. Evil things. Should be outlawed!

When I was growing up I had a really warped view of dating and romance. The reason? Teen movies.

Let me just say that life didn’t add up to expectation. I wrote a list once, of things I’d never done that teen movies would seem to imply are a normal part of a young woman’s life. The list included:

• Fooling around in a movie theater.*
• Playing spin the bottle.
• Playing 7 minutes in heaven.
• Making out on the doorstep before sneaking inside**.
• Having sex in a car
• Having sex in a classroom or with a teacher.***
• Making out in a basement rec room

and various other things that I don’t remember at the moment. If the movies I watched as a teenager were telling the truth, I seriously missed out! I don’t think they were, mind you, but in my imaginary adolescence I got a lot more action than I did in my real one.

My real adulthood has its own disappointments, I must admit. One of which is that I’ve never had sex, or even engaged in heavy petting, in a public place. This is also a staple of movie sexuality - the people who are so hot for each other they can’t wait until they get home. So Not My Life. The closest I’ve come is some mild snogging with my ex-girlfriend on a bench in Washington Square Park, and some heavy duty making out in a parking lot at the National Zoo****. No fooling around on an elevator though, or in a back alley, or in a booth in a deserted diner*****, which is why I suppose these things are such a big component of my fantasy life. Oddly enough, I’ve had a great deal of sex in front of other people, but sex in front of other people in private is just part of my weird poly kinky life. Mind you, I don’t know how I’d resolve “interest in semi-public sex” with “feeling like it’s wrong to non-consensually involve observers in your sex life,” but a girl can dream…

You know, at some point I think I should throw a “Teen Dating Movie” themed party with spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven, and truth or dare. I think that would be both fun and pleasantly ridiculous. I also think there should be brownies. A party just isn’t a party without baked goods.

–
*as a teenager I actually used to fantasize about this - whose hand would go where?!?! Wouldn’t the ushers kick us out? What if people could SEEEEE *sigh* I led a very sheltered life.

**I don’t think I’ve ever made out on a doorstep. Even without sneaking inside. See previous sheltered life comment.

***I have to admit I have been sorely tempted by a couple of my students, but I have ethics and I resist! Besides, I really prefer the power dynamic in the other direction.

****Where I was really REALLY wishing that it was going to turn into more, but it didn’t. Alas.

*****Damn that story was hot. I wonder if it’s possible for anyone to read Sinclair’s blog and not be consumed with lust.

Drinking bubble tea with a kinky friend and her young child leads to a lot of inadvertent oral sex jokes. You say these things, and then you realize what you’ve said, and then you start laughing so hard you can’t breathe while the 3 year old stares at you in confusion. Some of the more memorable quotes included:

“Suck harder! That’s your problem. You’re not sucking hard enough.”

“Stop spitting out the balls! You have to keep them in your mouth!”

and

“You’re hogging the balls!”

Bubble Tea: It’s so much fun when it’s going down.

When I’m stressed, I tend to get a bit obsessed over getting things done. Unfortunately, the more stressed I am, the more I focus on getting things done that don’t actually need to be done, rather than on getting things done that have deadlines (and that are therefore contributing to my stress.) To wit, in the past week, I’ve worked on my band’s webpage, written music, sewn a dress for my friend’s wedding this weekend, hung two light fixtures (one of them twice!), installed fencing, painted, (f)re(e)cycled large amounts of crap I didn’t need, and generally gotten a lot of stuff done that really could have waited a week or two… or even longer.

What I haven’t been doing is writing. Not here, and not for work. Here isn’t necessarily a problem, no one beats me for lack of productivity or anything (Alas! Although I suppose it would actually be more effective for someone to beat me as a reward for productivity…), but work actually needs to get done. So having gotten everything done about the house that I can think of, I’m going to write here instead of writing for work. That’ll show ‘em!*

While reading the time-sucking-leviathan-otherwise-known-as-livejournal this morning, I came across a post looking for links to “object insertion porn,” which reminded me of one of my favorite erotica stories. In Cecilia Tan’s anthology Black Feathers : Erotic Dreams, there is a story titled “Penetration,” where a woman ties up her lover and basically fucks her with everything in the house except a dildo. It’s a very hot story, but what I find interesting is that, when I went to look up the title, I had remembered it completely incorrectly. Oh, the story was the same, but it’s written from the perspective of the top and I had remembered it as being from the perspective of the bottom. I had remembered the bottom begging to be fucked and the top denying her, when what is actually going on is that we’re reading the top’s internal monologue and she specifically mentions several times that the bottom looks like she wants to beg but is holding herself back. It’s funny how the mind works. The scene stayed in my mind, largely as written, but the writing I recalled was completely different than what was actually on the page.

I suspect it all comes back to the fact that, when I read, I fall into the world that I’m reading about and live the story. That is why I can read a book for the 12th time and still need to finish it to see what happens - I may have read it many times before but when I’m living it I’m in the moment. With erotica, most of the time I remember the hot scenes from the perspective of the role I would want to be playing in them, no matter how they are written. Do most people do this? I suspect that I may have a very different relationship with the written word than most of the population.

–
*Who is this em? And why do they want to be shown me not doing what I’m supposed to be doing? One of the mysteries of the universe.

**Well, except when unidentified people leave me incomprehensible phone messages where the only understandable word is “Indiana.” Then I feel free to make it mean whatever the hell I want

Sometimes, when I’m feeling like I’m about to run out of spoons, a nice pain scene can help me to locate a few that were hiding at the back of the silverware drawer behind the dragon shaped pasta scoop and the generally useless serving fork. I think this is because intentional pain is such a wonderful distraction from everything else. If someone is beating you hard enough, eventually it becomes impossible to think about anything else. That’s nice. I’m having a week that would really be improved by someone consensually beating the crap out of me. Especially if they’d let me fight with them and scream until I wear myself out. Bondage and pain are my preferred spoon-forging mechanisms at the moment since I seem to have lost the ability to make them via sleep and I don’t currently have any access to sex. A couple of hours where it is impossible to think about things would be just what the silverware drawer ordered.

I would like there to be more wereanimal porn in the world. When the Anita Blake books devolved from being good stories about an interesting character into plot-free vampire and wereanimal porn it was a huge disappointment for me, because I loved the early Anita books, but I will give Laurell K. Hamilton this - she writes some insanely hot sex scenes. Lots of blood and violence. Yum.

I’m not sure where my interest in were porn originated. The first time I remember talking about it was with my friend L.* back when I was living in Baltimore and haunting one of the local BDSM educational organizations. She mentioned having a huge werewolf fetish, and all of a sudden my love of tooth and claw coalesced into a realization that werecreature sex would be really fucking hot.

I feel like I need to insert a disclaimer in here. Bestiality is gross. Having sex with unconsenting animals is just EWWWW. Ok. Disclaimer inserted. Where was I?

It’s not the animal that is hot about were-porn, although I have to admit that, if one could avoid the overwhelming impulse to kill people, it would be pretty amazing to be a were. To be able to transform into an animal and experience the world through its senses… incredible. Not to mention the speed healing. That would be nice. But the attraction of Werewolves, wereleopards, werewhatevers** is less about the specific animal and more about the beast.

I really like the concept of that kind of uncontrolled, violent passion. Overwhelming. Irresistible. Claws like knives. Teeth on my throat. Dangerous. Unburdened by human conscience. Fierce. Wild.

There is a certain freedom in being so thoroughly overpowered that fighting is futile. It’s oddly relaxing to be able to struggle with no fear of getting free. With wereanimals you get that presumption of overwhelming power. Preternatural strength and desire that a mere human has no hope of resisting. Plus biting, scratching, and controlled or uncontrolled violence. It makes for the best kind of fairy story. A cautionary tale for adults that leaves you screaming in the night.

–
*Somewhere out in the world I think there may be an incriminating video of me in a very sheer white slip covered in fake blood doing a theatrical vampire scene with her. Damn, that girl was hot. She’s now a boy, and, although I haven’t seen him since his transition, I imagine he’s pretty damn hot as well.

**Ok. That’s going too far. Not weregeese. Weregeese are NOT a sexy thought. Canadian geese are the bane of my existence. Let’s restrict those whatevers to large mammals.
–

I should also mention that there’s also a really well written pseudo-were story in the BDSM erotica anthology “No Other Tribute” where the protagonist’s cat turns into the world’s most perfect top.

I read Dev’s recent post on her feminist issues with female submission with a combination of aggravation and agreement. It made me want to write about why, for me, submission is an empowering choice, and not at all in disagreement with my feminist nature.

The key word in the above paragraph is choice. What seems to bother Dev, and some of her commenters, is the worry that women have ended up in the submissive role by default. I agree, wholeheartedly, that that is a problem. Sexual roles, or any societal role, should never be assumed on the basis of gender. Men should not be assumed to be dominant or want sex all the time. Women should not be assumed to be submissive or pushovers who are just giving in to their partner’s will. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander, and vice versa.

Sadly, this is not always the case. Many women have been socialized to deny their interest in sex or to deny their assertiveness in general. That can make it easy for them to take on the submissive role without choosing it. That kind of submission is not empowering. But, really, no kind of sexuality that isn’t chosen is empowering. Going with the tide is easy. Easy doesn’t require strength. Choice requires strength, and it’s in the need for strength that helps people empower themselves - no matter who they are. Choices don’t have to be hard, but not making them… makes it hard to develop self respect. After all, who are you if you always do what is expected without either consideration or intent?

I have no doubt that I am a strong woman. I am successful and I choose my own way. I may occasionally be hampered by the instinct for politeness, but no one makes me do anything I don’t want to do for long. When I choose to submit to someone, I do it because I want to do it. I choose to do it because I like it. I choose to do it because, quite honestly, having one area of my life where I don’t feel like I always need to be in control and on top of every little detail is an enormous relief. I choose to do it because sometimes it’s nice to let go. I choose to do it, and by choosing it, by making a conscious decision to give my power into someone else’s hands, it becomes an empowering choice.

Feminism, to me, is the right to stand on equal ground with any man. The right to earn the same opportunities. The right to be treated with the same respect. The right to choose how to live my life - both within the bedroom and without - with the same freedom. Yes, male submission transgresses against the established order, but, while I’m all for battering the established order with a stick until it runs away crying, just doing something because it’s transgressive doesn’t make it an inherently more valid choice. It just, in some ways, makes it a more acceptable one.

Lots of us in the scene - in the queer community, in the sex positive community, in liberal blogger land - pride ourselves on our differences and on the way we subvert the dominant paradigm. I know I do. I’m proud to be a queer woman. Making out with my girlfriend in the park used to have an extra spark of hotness because I was showing my pride in my differences to the world. I was being visibly subversive. I was kissing her because she was hot and I wanted to get my hands on her, but it was also nice to, at the same time, be giving a big “screw you” to people who think homosexuality is wrong. To shove my transgression in their face.

Sometimes when I’m with a man, I feel sad because my queerness is invisible. The fact that I have chosen to live my life in a way that is true to my spirit and my identity is hidden. The same thing happens to me as a submissive - whether I’m submitting to a man or a woman. How do I show the world that I’m not on my knees because I think this is the place where women are supposed to be? How do I show people that I’m on my knees because it is the place where I have chosen? And why do I care so much that they know?

I care because I am a feminist and because I put choice on a pedestal that most people reserve for their gods. I don’t want people to look at me and think “that poor girl, following the role society has shoved her into” or “she’s just doing what some man wants her to” or in any way pity me or find me weak. I am not weak.

I am as strong and as empowered as any person who chooses the way in which they live. I swim against the currents because it’s the best way to build up my strength in case one day I have to fight for my rights. Even if the right I’m fighting for is the right to do exactly what’s expected.

–
Oh, and as an aside to Dev… I have absolutely no problem with your post, and totally understand where you’re coming from, you just pushed my rant button. Ranting is fun! Thanks!

I really like multiple penetration in my written (as opposed to visual) porn. Back in the heyday of alt.sex.stories, my favorite keywords were “mmf” and “nc” because they brought up a lot of gang rape porn. Gang rape porn also frequently involves bondage, pain, and humiliation, so there’s really very little about it that I don’t like.

Sadly, those days are over. Every six months or so I’ll get a hankering for new masturbation fodder and run a keyword search over at a.s.s., but nobody writes anything new any more. It’s all stuff I’ve read before, advertisements for photo sites, or just textual garbage.

But then, a few years ago, I discovered the joy of hentai. I’d heard of it for years, and knew basically what it was, but I’d never seen or read any hentai porn*. I was totally missing out. I’m slightly mortified by how much I enjoy reading about aliens restraining women with their tentacles, abusing them horribly, and probing their various orifices, but I find a lot of it incredibly hot. One of the nice thing about most of the hentai I read, and I still haven’t actually watched any - although I’ve seen still images, is that within the construction of force the women generally end up enjoying what’s being done to them**. I would totally be willing to negotiate an alien tentacle rape scene!

Ok. Maybe not This is one of those “would it really be hot if I actually did it? I have no idea!” things, but on paper, or screen, I can not deny that it works for me. Fortunately as there is a distinct lack of alien tentacle monsters pursuing me at the moment, it really isn’t an issue. If I was walking down the street and an adorable little green alien tentacle monster tapped me on the shoulder, tipped his black felt bowler hat, and said “excuse me, miss, but I would like to transgress against you with my multiple muscular protrusions,” I think that I’d at least take a moment to consider the proposition***. Well, at least I would after I’d recovered from my faint.

–
*I used to have a messenger bag that said “hentai inside” as an alteration on the Intel logo. Whenever I carried it I always acquired the most interesting stalkers. One followed me into a shoe store once to accost me in, relative, privacy.

**My not-so-inner feminist occasionally screams at me about this, but I like the illusion of force in my sex life after I have clearly consented to whatever is going to happen. “Make me,” is an enormous turn on after I’ve already agreed to something in principle. I know it’s horrible, and it goes against all my beliefs about “(wo)men should say yes if they mean yes and no if they mean no,” but it’s one of my kinks and I apply consensuality to it! So there! Hmph!

***There’s just something about a tentacle monster in a bowler…

So, earlier this afternoon a “nice young man with very sharp teeth,” randomly messaged me off my chatback badge and inspired me to write a post about biting.

I like biting.

Even though I couldn’t manage to type it in chat, I would actually say that I am a more than a little bit of a hussy for biting. But there is definitely a difference between Good Biting and Bad Biting, and, although it’s certainly a matter of personal preference, I would like to explore that gap-toothed divide.

For me, good biting, the kind of biting that makes me melt rather than run screaming, is the kind of bite that grabs deep into the muscle. The kind of biting that makes you feel like someone could lift you up by their teeth without breaking skin. Actually it’s the same kind of deep pain that I like in piercing, the kind that makes me think I might one day want to try flesh hooks. I think it’s somewhat tied into my “werewolf” fantasies and the notion of animalistic violent sex where my partner has me pinned by their teeth on my throat or buried in the big muscles of my back. That’s the good kind of biting. Far on the melt side of the continuum, even when there’s a little (or a lot) of pain built in. That’s the kind of biting that even thinking about it makes me want someone in the room who I can jump.

On the other hand, I’m usually not all that crazy about sharp biting. The less tissue involved in the bite, the less I’m likely to enjoy it. It does depend, however, on what effect you’re going for. Deep bites are sexually arousing to me. If you want to turn me on to the point of distraction, that’s a good way to do it. If you want to hurt me, though, sharp bites are extremely efficient. You can hurt me, a lot, with very little effort and leave really good marks for me to enjoy later. Since it can be incredibly hot for me to have someone hurt me just because they want to hurt me without my enjoying it*, the sharp bites on the shriek end of the continuum can be an extremely effective tool

So, really, “good biting” and “bad biting” are misnomers. There is, to misquote a certain brilliant writer, “no bite either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

–
*Waves to a fellow sex blogger who should know who he is.

There are some days when all I can think about is sex: wanting it, having it, not having it… whatever my current situation is, thoughts about sex haunt my brain and make me all tingly and distracted at inconvenient moments.

Then there are days like today when what I want most in the world is communal napping and attack snorgling.

I am an inveterate cuddler.*

I love cuddling. I like to cuddle my friends. I like to cuddle my sweeties. I like to cuddle my dog.

My dog, however, does not always like to cuddle me.

You would think that having a dog would allow a person to fulfill her cuddling urges whenever they arose. Especially when the dog in question is utterly devoted to said person and mopes disconsolately whenever she leaves the house.

You would be wrong.

In many ways, the dog’s and my cuddling styles are completely incompatible

1. I like to kiss her on the muzzle. She likes to bash her extremely hard skull into my forehead.
2. I like to spoon. She likes to push against my chest with her feet and occasionally supplement the sternum bruising with a paw to the face.
3. I like to rub the warm fuzzy place on her chest where the fur is so thick that I can bury my hands in it. She likes to lie across my legs with her butt in my face and spend 20 minutes licking my feet.

Sadly, I seem to bottom to my dog in these situations. She wins the cuddling wars and I read my book and roll my eyes while she tries to see how much of her nose she can fit up the leg of my pants.

I have to say that, in general, people are much easier to snuggle with. They may not be nearly as soft and fuzzy, and they have extraneous limbs that can make logistics difficult, but they’re far more willing to compromise. Sadly there are very few people in this world who will come over to your house just to let you nap on them. Someone should start a service! Time Warner Cuddle on Demand. That’s only 4 letters off from Cable on Demand, so how hard could it be?

I actually have cuddle fantasies sometime. They make me miss my platonic boyfriend of years ago. I’d go over to his house and we’d make out on the couch for a few hours and then nap until it was time for me to go home. It was nice. Violent kinky sex is awesome, but so is non-violent cuddling**. It’s just often seriously underrated.

Speaking of cuddling fantasies, I got an e-mail yesterday from the boy who inspired the I hate dating post of a few weeks ago. His life has been full of great quantities of suck lately, but he wanted to let me know that the interest is not entirely one sided. So, I’m torn between feeling happy that he likes me back and terrible that I care about that when I should just be concerned about the great quantities of suck that are plaguing him. Poor boy. I wanted to send him snuggles, but, since I suspect he’s not nearly as much of a touch-comfort person as I am, I settled for sending him an offer of any assistance I could provide.

—
* To be distinguished from an invertebrate cuddler. I don’t find most invertebrates terribly cuddly.

**Violent cuddling is good too, but if there’s too much violence (in particular, biting) in my cuddling it tends to lead to either jumping or sexual frustration from lack of jumping. Mmm… biting. Ok, my brain is back to wanting sex. I’m the poster-child for short attention span fantasizing. Want boy ! Want girl! Want nap! Want alien tentacle ravishment! Want cookie! Mmm… cookie.