Novice Dominant

 Posted by on October 4, 2011
Oct 042011
 

By Sarah Sloane

Dear Sarah,

I am a novice dominant and I’m interested in finding a submissive; I’ve been trying to get to know people at my local munch group (as well as online) but I’m having trouble with finding someone special. Some people treat me like I don’t know anything because I’m young (I’m 22), and some people just act like they don’t want to even get to know me. I don’t have very many options because I don’t live in an area where there are a lot of choices of groups & munches, and I’m feeling really discouraged. What can I do to find a submissive that is interested in a relationship with someone like me?

-NewDom

Dear NewDom,

Sometimes, it’s hard to be taken seriously as a novice dominant. You did not say if you’re male- or female-identified; often I find that younger male dominants have a significantly harder time being taken seriously in many parts of the community, as they are often told that they aren’t “old enough” to fully be in control of a situation (young females, on the other hand, are often fetishized, especially if they dress in leather or latex and have “the look”, regardless of their experience). In either case, being taken seriously can be a big problem.

My first suggestion is to look at how you’re presenting yourself. Are you cocky & arrogant in your communication? While some dominants try to behave in those ways on the belief that it somehow makes them more attractive, the reality is that it can be exceptionally off-putting to people. A submissive is usually looking for someone who they feel confident can accept and direct the power exchange; often, the people that are putting out the vibe of being So Totally Amazing And Uber-Dominant are the people that do not take the situation (and the submissive’s feelings and needs) into account when dealing with the big issues of how to proceed.

Second, I’d recommend getting to know people and looking for mentors & friends within your community (whether local or online). I occasionally see people come to the community with a single focus – finding a partner. What they may not realize is that by creating a network of friends, they also create a network of people who are invested in helping them find partners – people in this community really love to hook up friends with new partners (whether for a single session or a lifetime). They also lose the chance to learn from people who have been there, done that, and got the collection of event teeshirts – which means that one can learn from someone else’s mistakes without having to repeat them.

Finally, seek out a TNG group if at all possible. While I believe that every person in the community can benefit by going to open-to-all groups & munches, I do know that my friends who have gone to TNG groups have found it helpful to be surrounded by people who are of similar age and whose life experience (and mindset) are more similar to theirs. You’ll meet other dominants under 25 who have been right where you are – and you’ll also meet submissives who are not at all averse to having relationships with younger dominants!

But stick around, whichever you do. When I got started in the community (back in the days where dinosaurs fueled our 28.8 baud modems so that we could get onto AOL), young people in the scene were a rarity – I was among the youngest at my first munch, and I was in my late 20’s. Today, a tremendous (and growing) section of the community is under 30, and people are finding their way to it at 18 and 19. Should you decide to network with others, this group will need people like you who are navigating the waters right now to look up to & help guide them in the future – and you’ll be the person that’s answering these questions (hopefully with a successful D/s relationship to reflect upon)!

Best,

Sarah

Battle of the Breast vs. Bottle Just Got Snarkier

 Posted by on October 3, 2011
Oct 032011
 

By TM Bernard

If you have mammary glands, or simply like/love/marvel them for viewing, snuggling or other pleasures, chances are you have opinions about what they’ve been designed for. Few anatomical regions elicit as much sociopolitical vitriol as the female breast.

It’s utilitarian! Cry the lactation crowds. Believe me when I say – having had enough confrontations – they mean it when they insist that nothing come between your baby and your boobies, including your own emotional or physical health. To ‘breast is best’ advocates, your sweater puppies serve one function, and it ain’t for a woman to decide, bless her pretty little post-partum brain and all.

Then there’s the whole debate about putting your breast view forward. Public displays are strictly verboten (New Jersey courts just made that ruling) if a woman wants to air her private valleys. For a whole host of reasons beyond the scope of this column, that’s just so wrong. Beyond the moral debate – as if body parts can be moralized – some people just freak out about the whole non-erotic useful purpose for the bosom.

It’s enough to make a woman shriek…oh wait, a new study actually says that’s likely to happen to moms who are breast-feeding. Turns out, those mama tits turns a gal into a mama bear under certain circumstances.

The small-scale study conducted in the US investigated something known as ‘lactation aggression’ or ‘maternal defense’ in mammals. It found that breastfeeding provides mothers with a buffer against stress including giving them an extra burst of courage if they felt that they or their child is being threatened.

Fortunately for Mommy and Me groupies, the aggression demonstrated by breast-feeding mothers has its limits. “Breast-feeding mothers aren’t going to go out and get into bar fights, but if someone is threatening them or their infant, our research suggests they may be more likely to defend themselves in an aggressive manner,” the lead researcher said.

Take that!

For the study, researchers recruited three groups of women — 18 nursing mothers, 17 women who were feeding formula to their babies and 20 non-mothers. Each woman was asked to compete in a series of computerized time-reaction tasks against a research assistant posing as an overtly rude study participant. The women’s infants were supervised in an adjoining room. Upon winning a round in the competition, the victor was allowed to press a button and deliver a loud and lengthy “sound blast” to the loser — an act of aggressiveness.

The researchers found that breast-feeding mothers delivered sound blasts to the rude research assistant that were more than twice as loud and long as those administered by non-mothers and nearly twice as loud and long as those by bottle-feeding mothers. This was true both before and after the breast-feeding mothers nursed their infants.

They also measured participants’ stress levels via blood pressure during the experiment. Breast-feeding mothers’ systolic blood pressure was found to be approximately 10 points lower than women who were feeding formula to their infants and 12 points lower than non-mothers.

In other words, previous research in non-human mammals that shows how lactation enables heightened defensive aggression by down-regulating the body’s response to fear, works in humans too. We are such animals after all.

A whore by any other name…

 Posted by on October 2, 2011
Oct 022011
 

By Bex vanKoot

No doubt even those among us who aren’t privy to the sacred sex newswire have heard about the raids on Goddess Temples in Pheonix and Sedona recently. The debate among the local community and pagan community alike have been greatly divided, with comments ranging from the greatest depths of sex-negativity all the way to complete libertarian permissiveness.

What the debate seems to be boiling down to is what I think will be the downfall of this particular sacred sex community and of a great detriment to sexual autonomy across the US: what makes a whore?

I am the first in line to say that I believe prostitution should not be illegal, that coming to terms with the economics of sexuality (and other things, but that’s a whole other bag of cats!) can help prevent the abuse and trafficking that are inevitable in a black market system.

But it seems the trend for backers of this great temple is to make statements claiming that charging money for sexual experiences isn’t prostitution if it’s done in sacred space and with sacred intent. Attempting to legalize the sacred whore by differentiating her from the secular prostitute does not help either group. Solidarity is what we need now, in the fight for body autonomy and personal freedom, not divisive shaming of the millions of men, women and transgender individuals who sell sex without invoking a deity first.

Sex is sacred. It does not have to involve healing past trauma to be a sacred experience. It does not have to be done in a temple to be sacred, it does not have to be done in persona daea (having invoked deity) or with someone calling themselves Aphrodite. All consensual sex is sacred, paid for or not, healing or not. Making the excuse that “healing” sex and “temple” sex is better and more deserving of legalization than brothel sex draws a distinct line in the sand and calls for the government to regulate, to decide who is “sacred” enough and “holy” enough to engage in consensual sex for money. Do we want a government to be able to tell us what religion we must belong to and what spiritual practices we must include in our sexual services and worship in order to qualify as a legal “sacred whore” or do we want to assert our rights to body autonomy and continue to fight for the rights to make a living in any safe and consensual environment we see fit?

We have to face the truth here. In the US and much of the rest of the world, prostitution is illegal. If there is sexual contact, there can be no monetary exchange. If there is monetary exchange, there can be no sexual contact…. unless you are prepared to challenge the ruling government in a court of law. If money changes hands and someone has an orgasm, it doesn’t matter what God or Goddess was there guiding those hands, it is still prostitution.

Think of it this way. There are many churches and spiritual groups that assert it is their right to use specific psychoactive substances that are otherwise illegal in the area where they live. If they are quite lucky indeed, they may win the right to cultivate and use said substance for personal spiritual exploration. This does not give them the legal right to start mass producing, advertising and selling the illicit substance to patrons off the street. If this group was arrested for drug trafficking, would we say that they should be allowed to sell scheduled substances to whoever happened to see their ad on Criagslist, when others are not, because they are “sacred” drug dealers? Or would we simply assert that if these people are allowed to cultivate a substance for their own purposes, so should we all be allowed to do put whatever we want into our own flesh.

Arguments suggesting that sacred sex work is better, more legal or somehow more deserving of respect and support denigrates and debases prostitutes to make sacred sex feel more viable an option. If you truly believe that the sacred whore deserves the right to teach, heal and most importantly, simply share in the sacrament that is sex, then gear up to fight for the rights of all humans everywhere to do as they please with their own bodies.

Don’t Be Scared

 Posted by on October 1, 2011
Oct 012011
 

By Mako Allen

Many years ago, I started going to The Phoenix Society, a scene club in Baltimore. I was brand-new, and while I was bold about seeking out my desires, I did hold back some. I had no problem telling people I wanted to get spanked, but I kept what I thought were my more exotic interests to myself. I was completely terrified to tell anyone that I had a diaper fetish. These were people who on a regular basis were pulling down my pants, and spanking my bottom. Why should I be afraid to tell them anything? Lao-tzu knew.

Verse 13

Success is as dangerous as failure.

Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?

Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.

When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?

Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self.

When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.

Have faith in the way things are.

Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.

After waiting so long to find people like myself, I really treasured the folks at Phoenix. I couldn’t wait to go see them and spend time with them. I loved being around them, watching them play, playing with them. It wasn’t just that it was fun – it felt connecting.

These weren’t just kinky people they were MY kinky people.

Which was why I felt like I had to censor myself a bit – because I didn’t want to lose them. It’s almost ironic that after struggling for so long with my desire to find others like me, finding them made me feel more alone. I was so desperate to cling to what I had, that I didn’t want to risk losing it. My success turned into a weight around my neck!

Eventually, my need to explore won out over my fear, and I openly started talking about being an adult baby, and having a diaper fetish, to the folks there. Some were super positive about it, while others were a bit squicked. But overall, it went well. Not too long after that, I started openly bringing diapers to the club, and wearing them there. It wasn’t too long after that that a dominant woman diapered me at the club, in front of others, for the first time in my entire life.

I was immensely, intensely grateful for this. As it turned out, I wound up having some truly awful play experiences with this person a few months later. But I’m grateful for both sets of experiences.

The thing all these experiences have in common is that they’re examples of dualistic thinking.

Non-duality is a tough concept for us western thinkers to wrap our minds around. The word “tao” is the Chinese word for “way”, as in “the way things are.” But Tao, with a capital

T is The Way. It includes everything. I mean, literally everything. Every word ever spoken, every thing that has ever happened, every person, place, thing, idea, or action is part of the Tao. In fact, even referring to it as the Tao is abstracting you from the idea of it. There is only one correct way to think of or refer to the Tao, and that’s not to think of or refer to it at all!

That’s what Lao-tzu means when talks of “not seeing the self as self.” When I was so consumed with losing my connection to the Phoenix Society over what they might think of my diaper fetish, I was seeing a duality – me versus them. Actually, I was seeing several dualities – me versus vanilla society, me versus my needs, me versus other people in general.

All of which is an illusion, a sort of lie. The truth is that my diaper fetish, my spanking buddies, Phoenix Society, 18th century chamber music, cheese puffs, this column you’re now reading, and I are all just part of one great big thing.

And I love that thing, as I love myself. That’s because there’s no difference between them. I don’t need to fear judgment, intolerance, or loss. I don’t need to celebrate achievement, victory, or gain. Things are what they’re supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be.

It’s reminds me of that line from the poem Desiderata, “whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”

So don’t be scared. And know that I love you.

The Double-Edged Sword

 Posted by on September 30, 2011
Sep 302011
 

By Richard Wagner

Last month I responded to an inquiry about a possible connection between masturbation and prostate cancer for us older men. I’ve been thinking, since we’ve broken open the topic; why not continue in that vein?

Those of you who know me know that I am a fierce advocate of masturbation. I contend that self-pleasuring is the foundation of a happy, healthy sex life for both women and men. I’m also a proponent of couples masturbating together. The mutual joys and the important information shared in this way are indispensable.

But masturbation can be a double-edged sword, so to speak. I say this because most of us guys learn to pull our pud early in life—and most of us discover how to do this on our own. This freelance sexual investigation can, and often does, produce some very unique, and even downright strange, styles of self-pleasuring. And there in lies the rub, no pun intended. Some masturbation techniques, pleasurable though they might be, do not lend themselves to partnered sex. And so, over the course of the next three months, we’re going to take a, well, hard look at male masturbation—from what works to what don’t, and everything in between.

Here we have Wayne, a 26-year-old man from Philadelphia:

Hey Dr. Dick,

I have a little issue that has stumped me, my doctor, and numerous urologists. I figure there’s no harm in asking one more person. I have never—not once—been able to come normally. I suppose there is a normal way, considering every other guy I’ve ever met has been able to do it “by hand,” but the only way I’ve ever achieved orgasm is by laying on my stomach, putting pressure with a slightly closed fist on the spot where my dick meets the rest of my body, and sliding back and forth.

Weird aside: This was a way to lift myself up off the floor and “fly” as a young kid. Then one day, I found out that it was pleasurable. I know…weird little kid.

Anyway, fast-forward to my twenties and becoming sexually active, and now I have a concern. I want to be able to come by having intercourse or just jacking off, but I’ve never been able to. I can get very close—never have a problem getting hard—but the deal just doesn’t happen. Any thoughts?

Interesting masturbation technique you got there, my friend. While it’s unique, it is not the most distinctive style I’ve encountered in my career. Someday I oughtta write a book. What’s most amazing to me about what you report is that this predicament of yours has stumped all the physicians you’ve consulted. I suppose that says volumes about how informed most doctors are about human sexuality.

Simply put, Wayne, over the years you’ve habituated your body to respond pleasurably to a particular stimulus. Ever hear of Pavlov’s dogs? Right! What we have here is precisely the same thing. You apply the stimulus: laying on your stomach, putting pressure with a slightly closed fist on the spot where your dick meets the rest of my body, and sliding back and forth, and your body responds with an orgasm.

Most all of us, both female and male, discover the joy of self-pleasuring accidentally. Your first encounter with masturbation, although you probably didn’t know that’s what it was called, was through your boyhood attempts to fly. And fly you did! As you suggest, most other people discover self-pleasuring in a more conventional way, through touch. Thus the more “normal” (and I use that word in quotes) means of getting one’s self off is manually.

Your unique style of self-pleasuring is completely benign, but it doesn’t really lend itself to partnered sex, as you say. I mean, how awkward would fucking be if you had to get off your partner and on to the floor to come? The same is true for the men out there that jerk off with a very fast motion or a heavy death grip on their dick. They will, no doubt, find it difficult to climax during partnered sex.

So is there a solution? Sure there is. And it’s not a particularly difficult nut to crack…so to speak.

Let me tell you about a former client of mine. He was about your age when we met several years ago. He presented a similar concern to yours. He learned to masturbate in the same position as you, lying on his stomach, but he got off by humping a pillow. Try as he might, he never was able to get off any other way. It was driving him crazy. He couldn’t date anyone, because he was too embarrassed about the whole pillow thing.

Over the next four or five weeks, I helped my client learn a new way of self-pleasuring that would lend itself to happy partnered sex. The object was to rid himself of the need for the pillow altogether, and we did this is incremental steps. Luckily, my client was a horny little bugger. He diddled himself at least twice a day—sometimes even more frequently. I decided to use his natural horniness as part of the intervention.

My client had to promise me that he wouldn’t masturbate in his traditional way for an entire week—absolutely no pillow sex! If he failed to keep his promise, he would have to start all over from day one. At first he couldn’t see the purpose of this moratorium, but I insisted. By the time I saw him next, the poor boy had blue balls for days. So he was primed and ready to go. His next exercise was to change position for his first masturbation after the weeklong moratorium. He could masturbate with his pillow, but he had to lie on his back. He was not permitted to roll over on to his stomach. This wasn’t immediately successful, but his pent-up sexual energy finally carried the day and he got off in the first new position—on his back—since he learned to masturbate.

The following week, I gave him a new exercise: While on his back, he could use the pillow to rub himself, but only to the point where he was about to come. At that point, he was to put the pillow aside and finish himself off with his hand. This was only slightly more difficult than the previous exercise, and within two attempts, he finally got himself off with his hand for the first time in his life. The rest of his therapeutic intervention was simply following this behavior modification course of action till he didn’t need the pillow at all.

I assume you see where I’m going with this, right? You could do this same sort of intervention on your own to learn a new and more traditional way of masturbating, but you’d probably have more success working with a qualified sex therapist.

The firm desire to change a behavior or habit is the most important aspect of the process of change. Second is denying yourself the convenient and habitual stimulus—in your case, your flying masturbation style—will drive you to find a replacement means of getting off—a more conventional, manual style. Weaning yourself off one style of masturbation incrementally ’til you are successful in replacing that style with another is the most efficient means of behavior change. I encourage you to give it a try.

Good luck!

Bondage Free of Restraint

 Posted by on September 29, 2011
Sep 292011
 

By Jay Morgan

One of the many reasons I like to play golf is that it is entirely up to me, and only me, to play well. No matter whether you are a professional, amateur, or weekend hacker, every golf course gives each player the same chances to score well. Similar to bowling, billards, or bondage, we are given the same tools to use, its the result that is different. Personality, experience, motivation, and time spent pursuing your hobby of choice play a huge part in the success, or failure, to achieve your goals.

The appeal of rope bondage is similar. I have the potential to create what some might call beautiful, or something entirely functional. Just as similar as anyone who plays with rope, the differences in the outcome is what inspires us to keep tying.

The differences in us makes the human species capable of a tremendous amount of compassion, and an incredible amount of callousness. The unique qualities of every individual gives us all the potential to do something great, destructive, or just plain irrational.

In a room with people of many diverse backgrounds, some individuals that you would not give the time of day will draw you into a deep technical discussion of some esoteric tie. In as much as any creative environment artists learn as much from other artists as they would from a teacher.

Its precisely this type of diversity that I am attracted to. The fact that I have a choice to participate as much as I desire leaves me free to explore something on my own. The common knot shared provides an outlet for discovery if I find myself confused or desiring to interact with others to learn.

The investment we put into learning rope, or any other activity, is proportional to the return. As much as a professional bondage type probably could not hit a golf ball to a three foot target from 150 yds away, I cannot easily perform a suspended hog tie. Its not ability, but time invested to become better. Simply put, to me, its the reason why Justin Beiber may be a good singer, but I doubt he knows the first thing about changing a tire.

We are free to pursue our own definition of happiness, without coercion or harm to others; This is the essence of a free market, and all consensual behavior between adults, for that matter.

The free unregulated world of bondage, rope or otherwise; has created and inspired innovation, technique, and a wider availability of materials. For some its a hobby, something to be enjoyed in the confines of a home between two people. Or its something that becomes a pursuit of excellence, striving to learn more, creating opportunity for themselves.

A relationship that involves rope is in the end, no different than any other hobby between two persons. Freely being able to explore, accept failures, and keep trying will help to find that little slice of happiness and contentment that we all pursue.

French Knots

 Posted by on September 28, 2011
Sep 282011
 

By Erin Fae

It’s no secret that I love all things vintage. Show me a scene with 1950s gender roles, and I swoon. Put me in a library packed with books about Victorian mourning and indulge me in 19th century vice. I am in heaven. What I love even more, however, is turning vintage inside-out and upside-down. So, it’s no wonder then that I am extremely drawn to a recent trend in craft: naughty embroidery.

Embroidery has been around in one form or another for centuries. Essentially, it is the craft of thread decoratively stitched on fabric. Today, a number of artists are using needle and thread to craft an erotic world, often fueled by an interest in subverting traditional handicraft.

Amelia Raley of Austin, Texas, learned to embroider from her mother when she was six years old. Her first embroidery was a swan, but now she is more likely stitch a pin-up dear. She designs under the moniker of Tidy Cloths and her creations are “classy little lifesavers for anyone who has ever been on the giving or receiving end of a sticky post-coital situation.” She embroiders topless flappers, obscene phrases and ball-gagged girls on towels and cotton cloth. She has also been known to take vintage lingerie and add subtitles to the hem: “”I Only Fuck to Vinyl” and “Eat My Pussy,” for example. When I asked her about her work, she told me: “To nestle erotic images or bawdy cursive words in the folds of patterned handkerchiefs is to flip the tradition to it’s knees and give it the old what-for.”

Orly Cogan sees herself as a collaborator. She works with printed fabric and embellished linens from the past. Invested in exploring ideas of feminism and gender, she imagines herself in conversation with the women who most likely crafted the vintage textiles she uses. “The Fabric becomes the foundation for a fantastical, exotic extrapolation,” she says in her artist’s statement. “I mix subversion with flirtation, humor with power, and intimacy with frivolity.” The dialogues she creates are graphically erotic while still maintaining some of the whimsy or enchantment of the original fabric; in fact, her work enhances these qualities by playing with the false dichotomy of perceived innocence versus blatant sexuality.

With varying levels of intricacy and a liberal interpretation of color, Kira Scarlet (aka Scarlet Tentacle) creates stunning vulvas that highlight multiple embroidery techniques. These hanging wall pieces are just one example of how the artist weaves sex and stitching together. She uses traditional Redwork, a form of embroidery that uses a single color to draw outlines and simple details, to illustrate BDSM scenes and depict her favorite sex toys. She currently is exploring the “connections between hand embroidery, shibari, suspension and other forms and aspects of rope bondage.”

One of the tenets of embroidery over the last hundred years has been the ability to share and reproduce images. This is no exception in the world of naughty needlework. Sublime Stitching sells iron-on patterns so that anyone can cover their table[cloth] with the pinup girls of Gil Elvgren. Scarlet Tentacle sells digital patterns and kits for the more salaciously inclined.

Embroidery is a sensual craft, even without the erotic additions. Close your eyes and run your hand over a piece of hand embroidery. I know I get a certain pleasure in feeling French knots with my fingers…especially when those stitches are punctuating something sinful.

———–
You can purchase a Tidy Cloth on Etsy (link: http://www.etsy.com/people/tidycloth)
See more of Orly Cogan’s work here

Dressing for your body type: The Pear

 Posted by on September 27, 2011
Sep 272011
 

By Nina Love

I read yet another fetish fashion blog – I won’t name names – that was complaining about so and so wearing such and such to the dungeon. The gist of the article was that so and so was wearing a bright pink polo shirt of all things. And to make it worse, she was wearing it layered with another brightly colored polo shirt. Now, I am the first to protest that regardless of what Vogue says about Honeysuckle being the color of the year, bright pink should only be worn in moderation and layered polo shirts should stay in the eighties.

However, I am also the first to say that throwing on a negligee does not make fetish attire. But if you aren’t built for a bustle skirt, what exactly do you wear to pull off a fetish look and look good doing it? Believe it or not, it’s easier than you might think and there is indeed a formula to follow. Last month we took a look at the “Rectangle.”. So now, let’s take a look at the “Pear.”

Does your body form a triangle? Are your hips wider than your shoulders? If so, than you have a “pear” shape. There are several types of pears, but what it comes down to is that you face some unique challenges:

Narrow shoulders don’t scream sexy;
Your butt is isn’t sharing the attention that your bust deserves and
You have trouble finding skirts that don’t add ten pounds to your weight.

Concentrating on what looks good on your body and not what the community says your fetish wardrobe should look like is the goal to dressing for your body type. Next time you’re tearing through your closet trying to find that perfect outfit, remember these ten tips on what to wear and what to avoid:

1. Choose the sweetheart neckline over Victorian cut in corsets.

2. Off the shoulder tops that widen the shoulders are a good bet. This includes v-neck, scoop necks, boat neck and u-neck.

3. Avoid the circle or bustled skirt that adds volume to your bottom. Instead try a pencil skirt with princess seams that help slim your hips by creating a long vertical lines.

4. Ditch the crew neck t-shirt. If you’re a t-shirt person, fret not. You do not have to give up any of the cute kinky sayings. Look for scoop or v-necks and, if that fails, grab a pair of scissors and open up your neck line to show off your shoulders and collar bone, which will create a wider, more balanced look.

5. Add volume on top with military style jackets, boleros, and mutton sleeves.

6. Keep your bottoms and skirts simple. Avoid features such as pockets, studs or patterns that draw attention to your hips. Dark and simple is better on the bottom.

7. Peep toe and pointy toe heels draw out your legs and make you look taller and more slender. Avoid ankle straps or platforms that add weight to your bottom.

8. Avoid ankle length skirts or dresses. Instead opt for asymmetrical skirts or mini/mid length skirts.

9. Add fare at the neck to draw attention to the face. Try scarves and collars.

10. Avoid tops that drape over the hips. Tops and jackets should end at the natural waist or higher. Likewise, avoid dresses that have contrasting features on the waistline. Monochromatic is better for you.

Next time: The Hourglass.

Schrodinger’s Heart

 Posted by on September 21, 2011
Sep 212011
 

By Graydancer

“It’s hard to wait for something you know might never happen, but it’s hard to give up when it’s everything you want.”
– SexCigarsBooze, via Twitter

Change is hard.

It reflects an uncertainty to life that we don’t like. We like to feel like we know what’s going to happen, even when the fact is, we can’t. Physics says so.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (and I apologize in advance to those far more educated than me who will be appalled at this generalization) basically says that you can know a particle’s location or you can know the direction it’s going but you can’t know both.

Forget particles. It applies to our kinky relationships too too.

The romantic view in the kink scene is that you have a magical scene where everything clicks and endorphins and woo squirm and wiggle out your eyes and into the gonads of your partner and suddenly the world has changed. This is the person who who groks your ill desires and feeds them back to you. Your paths, however meandering, have been leading you both to this place and this moment at this time.

However, just because your paths have intersected doesn’t mean you’ve come there from the same direction. This moment of together may stretch months, years, decades, but it still may only be a tangent – a point at which your paths meet, but then diverge and head in other directions.

We’d like to think we can tell. We try all kinds of communication tricks to do it, but Heisenberg reminds us that the second you do figure out where you are you have no idea where you are going.

Because change happens. People change, circumstances change, everything changes. Octavia Butler wrote an entire fictional religion around the idea that “change is God”. The Parable of the Sower is a harsh and beautiful work: “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.”

That’s where Schrodinger’s cat comes in.

If you’re unfamiliar with the idea (again, apologies to physics majors) it was a thought experiment. Imagine a box, inside of which is a cat and a device that will release poisonous gas the moment a particular particle is emitted from radioactive material.

The point of the experiment was that there was no way to predict whether or not the particle was emitted, the gas was released, and the cat was killed. In fact, as long as the box was closed, the cat was in a strange state of being both alive and dead. Part of the mindfuck is that only way to find out the poor pussy’s fate was to open the damn box.

At that point, you would know the poor pussy’s fate. But here’s the real mindfuck: if the emperiled feline could have been either alive or dead right up until you opened the box…wasn’t opening the box, in a way, the very thing that killed the damn furball?

Any sensible person would say no, it was the particle with the poison. But Schrodinger was not a normal person, he was a scientist. Like most scientists, he was inherently kinky and I believe he was talking about us. Schrodinger’s heart, if you will.

If you have a great scene, you can know where you are. You can know where your partner is. But you can’t really know where you’re both going. This can become an agonizing state of uncertainty and bewilderment. Is this a meaningful relationship? Is it just endorphins? Am I really a [INSERT ROLE] and are they really a [INSERT COMPLEMENTARY ROLE]? Your mind and your heart and your emotions go up and down like a Hokusai painting, making Hamlet look like David fucking Allen compared to you and your Heisenberg relationship and your Schrodinger’s heart.

The only way to collapse that wave function – to really know where this tsunami of emotion is taking you – is to open the damn box, climb in and get down with the pretty pussy, the poison particle, and the glowing rock. Even if opening the box didn’t kill you, you sit in the box aware that at any moment that particle of doom may be released.

That’s what change is. It will happen, you can count on it. What you can’t count on is that it will change in the direction you expect. Even less likely is the idea that it will change in the direction you want.

This uncertainty is the thing that makes life so shiny and vibrant that we almost can’t bear to breathe because we are so filled with joy. It’s also the thing that makes us huddle in fear, tired of the unpredictability of life not meeting our expectations.

Change doesn’t care. The sooner you come to terms with that, the happier I suspect you’ll be.

If you happen to figure out how, exactly, though, will you do me a favor and let me know?

Genderqueer Identity #3

 Posted by on September 20, 2011
Sep 202011
 

By Shanna Katz

This month, Tracy discusses their genderqueer identity, and all of the complex processes surrounding this identity.

This interview is about your Gender Fluid identity…What are some other identities of yours?

Lesbian (although I prefer to the term “gay”), white/caucasian, atheist, middle class, liberal democrat, English-speaking, athlete, partner.

Define your Gender Fluid identity – what does it mean to you, how long have you had this identity, how was the process of getting there?

To me, identifying as gender fluid or genderqueer essentially means that you’re not cisgendered, which I’m not. However, I can’t say that I truly identify with terms like gender fluid or genderqueer. I don’t know if I don’t identify with those terms due to some internalized homo/transphobia, or if those terms really just don’t fit who I am. When I think of “gender fluid,” I picture somebody who can slide between a male identity and a female identity—essentially, being comfortable with either a male or female identity and appearance depending on any given situation. When I think of “genderqueer,” I picture someone a bit more androgynous who upon first glance one might not be able to place them in a male/female box. It’s possible that I don’t truly identify with either label because I don’t fit my stereotype of
either. Basically, when it comes down to it, I don’t mentally identify as female, and therefore have a genderfluid/genderqueer identity for all intensive purposes; however my sex is female and for official purposes (official documents, doctors, etc.) I say I am female.

The process of getting to this identity was quite confusing and actually very uncomfortable. Ever since I was a young child, I never really felt fully female, but at the time, I didn’t think I had any other options to identify as. As I got older and became more familiar with the LGBTQ community, I knew what transgender was but never thought that I applied to me as I believed that, in order to be trans, you had to fully hate your gender identity and wish to be the “opposite.” As I progressed through college, and then through graduate school, I began to allow myself to explore a more masculine identity—something that I had vehemently opposed for years, yet secretly yearned for. This took the form of cutting my hair to what some would call a men’s haircut and allowing myself to wear men’s clothing, both of which made me more comfortable with and within myself. While I am more comfortable like this, and oftentimes wish I could pass as a man, I don’t want to actually become a man. So for me, I don’t feel like a true female since I don’t fit the stereotypes of what a woman should be or is, but I also don’t feel like a male, since I’m not one. When it comes down to it, I’m just me, and that’s something that there is no label for.

Talk about some of the language surrounding this identity – what terms do you like/dislike?

I think there are many terms surrounding a non-cisgendered identity that the general public doesn’t understand and therefore these terms have negative stereotypes and connotations. Overall, I get the sense that either being genderqueer/gender fluid or trans is grossly misunderstood, and even those simple terms are taken to mean something they’re not. I haven’t told many people about my gender identity (not because I’m ashamed or scared, but rather because I don’t go broadcasting other things that “just are” about myself to others, like my height, weight, birthday, etc.), so it’s hard to comment on any personal reactions. Yet from stories I’ve heard from friends and comments in and from the media, it seems like many people think not identifying with either male or female means that you have a mental disease, are a pedophile, want to become a man/woman (if you identity as genderqueer/gender fluid;
essentially, you want to become the “other,” which is obviously not necessarily the case). I also dislike the term androgynous as for me, that provides a medical or clinical connotation and isn’t very user- friendly, if you will. Overall, I’m not truly comfortable with any of the terms that exist for somebody who has a non-cisgendered identity and prefer to just identify myself as “me” as that’s really the only term that I can find that really fits who I am. At times this is very discouraging and depressing as I feel like a freak who is so outside of society’s boxes that I don’t even have a label, but other times it can sometimes be refreshing when I realize that I don’t have to ascribe to one of society’s predefined labels and required stereotypes to fit that label.

What are some common questions you get about this identity? How do you answer them and how do they make you feel?

As I previously mentioned, given that I haven’t had too many encounters about this identity, I don’t have too much insight. However, the few people I mentioned this to automatically asked me if having this identity meant I wanted to transition (to male). That’s something that I’m wholly undecided about, but have thought about. Regardless, while I know these people, who are very close to me, are just curious and don’t fully understand what it means to be genderqueer/gender fluid, it was still a frustrating question to hear as I find it frustrating and irritating that society needs to label people or put them into boxes. However, I am aware that it is our brain’s natural inclination to do this to help us better understand our surroundings, yet there are times where I still can’t help but become frustrated and wonder why who I am now isn’t okay and why me not being cisgendered automatically implies a full transition.

What are some of the positives of having this identity?

Until this survey, I haven’t really thought about this identity being positive at all as it’s a continuous struggle. Unfortunately, in today’s world and with the worldview that I have (living in the U.S., a heteronormative society, etc.) I can’t say that I can think of any positives to being genderqueer/gender fluid.

What are some of the struggles that have come along with this identity?

Ugh, what struggles don’t I have with this identity? The biggest one (most prevalent and most frequently occurring) is the struggle of feeling completely uncomfortable with who I am and in my body. Since I was young, I’ve struggled with an eating disorder and the older I get, I feel that my unhappiness with my body and my awfully poor body image is related to me not identifying as female or male. I’ve never truly felt like a female, but since society has told me that’s what I am from the day a nurse wrapped a pink blanket around me, I am somehow striving to be more feminine, even though it’s not really me. I’ve been seriously into recovery for the past two years and through my hard work I’ve realized that my gender identity plays a huge role into both the eating disorder and the recovery process. When I think of myself as a woman (which I what I look like on the outside), I look at myself in the mirror and hate everything I see (I’m too fat, too curvy, breasts too big, etc.). When I think of myself as a man (the only other option society gives me), I feel much better about myself, but hate other things I see (i.e., large breasts). My body image and the concept of body image play greatly into my mental health and this comprises a large portion of my eating disorder. Sometimes I wonder that if my gender
matched my sex, would I have had an eating disorder to begin with? That drive to fit in (coupled with family issues and mental/emotional/verbal abuse) was a huge factor in the development of the eating disorder as a young pre-teen.

Pretty much, I can sum it up as such: every morning I wake up and I put on my men’s clothes to go to work. I work in a professional atmosphere (that is very LGBTQ friendly) and at times, my apparel might not be obviously men’s, but more often than not, I feel like it is (and in my head I know it is). Many days I struggle with feeling inadequate and out of place at my office because all of the other women wear skirts, dresses, heels, tighter fitting clothes as is typical for a women, more jewelry, etc. And there are many days where I wish that I could dress like that as well, however it just doesn’t feel right, which is upsetting. I often feel like I need to make a choice—man or woman—and stick with it and take the necessary steps to “become” one or the other (so either fully transition, or do what women “do”—diet, exercise, etc…which would then fully engage my eating disorder). It’s very difficult to wrestle with this and I have to constantly remind myself that I’m okay as I am and I don’t have to pick one side or the other.

Other things exist that aren’t exactly struggles, but are general annoyances, which include things like “male” or “female” being the only options on forms and official documents, or the lack of verbiage for one’s partners. I’m most certainly not my partner’s girlfriend, nor am I her boyfriend, so what am I? Our affectionate term is that I’m a “not-woman,” something that makes me smile as it’s quite silly sounding but something that I feel which adequately describes me.

How does this identity fit or not fit with your other identities?

Overall, I think it fits in okay except when it comes to the sexuality piece. Being gay or lesbian implies being attracted to someone of the same sex/gender. Yet when I’m not on one end of the continuum, what does that make me and what label do I get? Technically, I guess I wouldn’t be a lesbian because that implies a woman who is attracted to other woman. Since I’m not a woman, but am attracted to other woman, what am I? I’ve also recently discovered (well, allowed myself to acknowledge) my attraction to some gay men, but in a sexual sense only. So now I’m a “sort of kinda lesbian,” who also is sexually attracted to gay men…so now what does that make me? And to top it off, my partner, who still identifies as “she,” has started testosterone and is transitioning. And I’ve found that the more masculine she looks, the more attracted I’ve become to her. So now what? Bottom line—super confusing.

How do you feel this identity is received in the sexuality and/or sex positive communities?

I actually haven’t really explored this identity within any sexuality/sex positive communities. But, I do feel like overall, things that are outside of the norm (i.e., anything other than vanilla sex) are more acceptable in sex positive communities so I would feel more comfortable identifying as non-cisgendered within a sex positive community than outside of one.

What else do you want people to know about this identity?

I think I’ve pretty much said it all in the above 3 pages! Seriously though, I think the one thing is that this really is a confusing process. For some, it’s an end process and for others, it’s just a stop along the way to a full transition. I’m not sure exactly what it is for me, but whatever it is, it can be a huge struggle that carries a lot of negative stigma. In an ideal world, this would carry so much less negative stigma and could be a topic of conversation and accepted as a viable option rather than something that needs to be hidden and lied about for the sake of society’s own comfort.

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