Classes in Portland, OR in Late July

Posted on July 5, 2010 in events | 1 Comment

I’ll be heading to the lovely City of Roses in late July, and I’ll be teaching two different classes on July 21st & 22nd at She Bop and Fascinations sex toy stores.

Gender & Role Play
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010, 7:30pm
She Bop
909 N. Beech St, Portland, OR
SheBoptheShop.com

Join Sinclair Sexsmith for this workshop focusing on the ways that playing with gender in role play can be liberating for our gender expressions or identities outside of role play too. This class will include Sinclair’s basic gender tenets & philosophies, how to play with gender in role play, how play can deepen understandings of our own personal gender presentations, expressions, & identities, and also some details for playing with masculinity & femininity.

Strap-On 101
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Fascinations
9515 SE 82nd Ave, Portland, OR

Interested in strapping on a cock? Not sure where to start? Come to this interactive workshop with Sinclair Sexsmith, experienced strap-on aficionado, for tips and suggestions on what kinds of dildos and harnesses will be right for you, and how to strap it on with gusto. We’ll talk about how cocks can be played with and experienced by every gender, and how to have more cock confidence.

As usual, check out my Appearances page at mrsexsmith.com to keep up with where I’m going to be and what I’m teaching.

And hey, college students, high school seniors, and other folks who are returning to your college in the fall and may take part in student organizations such as the queer clubs, sex clubs, or feminist clubs: Want to bring me to your campus to speak this fall? I’m planning some travel dates now, and they’ll be solidified in August and September when school is back in session. Please get in touch with me or my booking company, PhinLi Bookings, to see when I can come do one of my workshops at your school.

1 Comment | Category: events | Tags: bring me to your campus, come say hi!, events, is there a dyke bar in portland?, not sure what else I'll have time for in portland but I want to visit spartacus and of course powell's, oh I <3 the west coast, phinli, portland oregon, the strap-on class is going to be FUN, this gender & role play class I've done before but it's different this time, traveling, ways to stalk me

On Masculinity, Mine

Posted on July 5, 2010 in omphaloskepsis, on butches | 4 Comments

From the Ask Me Anything questions from Sugarbutch’s 4th anniversary:

I’m interested to know how you feel your masculinity and your perceptions of masculinity have changed over the time that you have been writing here, and by this name.—Miss Avarice, of Miss Avarice Speaks her Mind

My masculinity and perceptions of masculinity have significantly changed since I started Sugarbutch four years ago. Or, wait. Maybe it hasn’t exactly changed as much as bloomed, you know? It is different than it used to be, both my own presentation and my understandings of it, but I had the seed of it then, even the bud, I just couldn’t quite manifest it the way I wanted to. (I’d be curious what some photographs of me look like from four summers ago, to do a side-by-side contrast. A lot has changed since then!)

So, first part, yes, it has changed. But you asked how has it changed? That’s harder to pinpoint.

I’m not so apologetic about it anymore.

I’m a lot more confident in the differences between masculinity and misogyny and chivalry. I’ve learned to differentiate between consensual chivalry and forced chivalry, and actively read the (verbal or physical) communication around chivalrous attempts and acts.

I wear more vests and suit coats and belts and suspenders and french cuff shirts. I own a (small) cufflink collection and a (kind of unnecessarily large) necktie collection. I don’t receive flower-smelling bath products as gifts anymore. I donated that box of feminine clothing that I was keeping around because I never bothered to toss it out.

I pay attention to men’s style icons and got (more) serious about my haircut. I stopped feeling guilty for wanting my hair short and liking it short, I stopped saying I was going to grow it out again because wasn’t it compulsory for lesbians to be short-haired? and I didn’t want to be compulsory.

I claimed some firm ground on which I feel comfortable standing.

I researched butch icons and butch history and butch characters in tv shows and on films and in novels. I pay attention when the word butch gets used in articles. I challenge the way the word butch gets used in (many) articles.

I started dating femmes.

I always knew I wanted to, but actively partnering with femmes changed my masculinity, finally gave it something strong to forge itself against, to nuzzle into, to be protected by. Gave it a reason to be the protector, sometimes. Gave me a compliment, an understanding of the ways that I-in-this-form am received.

Plus there’s all those other identity labels I have been actively not only identifying with but developing, challenging, studying, and attempting to embody: like kinky, sadist, top, daddy, dominant. Even non-sexual words like misanthrope, HSP or highly sensitive person, buddhist. Plus that ever-evolving one: writer. And now, trying to make a living as a writer. Interacting with all of these various identities, spaces, versions of myself, and weaving them into each other, has all affected my masculinity and gender identity.

Studying tantra has changed the ways I think about masculinity, too. I’m far from an expert at tantra, I’m just beginning to study it seriously and take it on as a path, but I know that what we in the west have usually been presented as the concepts of yin and yang as feminine and masculine are too simplified and a bit misleading. It has very little to do with men and women, but rather different types of forces of life and energy, and it’s much more complicated than yin/yang = feminine/masculine.

Being in a new, serious relationship has changed my masculinity, has I think softened my edges, has inspired me to open up in challenging and messy ways. It has brought things to question, made me wonder how or if they are connected to my masculinity, and how or if they should change.

Just talking about my masculinity on a regular basis, through spaces like Sugarbutch, through my Carnal Nation column on Radical Masculinity, and through my friends and lovers in recent years, has changed my relationship to my own masculinity and to my observation of others’ masculinity. According to quantum theory, observing an object changes it (I can’t find out if that theory or principle has a particular name, though, and I’ve been reading through Einstein quotes and Googling “copenhagen interpretation” for a while now. If you know what this is called, pass it on, please? I have a whole theory about blogging based around this and I’d like to know what it’s called!)—and I think that’s true of gender and sexuality, too. Just the very act of observation, of watching oneself, of taking note of how one works, will bring about some change and movement and, inevitably, growth.

(Oh, also: For more on this topic, take a look at My Evolving Masculinity series from a few months back.)

4 Comments | Category: omphaloskepsis, on butches | Tags: ask me anything, buddhism, chivalry, coming into my own, dating femmes, hair has been a big part of it for me, how I got here, how things have changed, HSP, masculinity, misanthrope, misogyny, personal questions, poetic musings, quantum theory, that string of identity labels I identify with

“There’s a Man in the Woman’s Room NOT” by Kelli Dunham

Posted on July 4, 2010 in PSA | 2 Comments

I can’t resist posting this. Kelli Dunham, comic, former nun, friend of mine, and nerd extraordinaire, posed a question on her Facebook page about what genderqueer folks do when needing to pee at Penn Station: go into the woman’s room, and get yelled at? Or brave the men’s room’s grime and row of urinals?

In response, a friend of hers suggested she write a catchy song, and voila, she did. Here’s the whole explanation, and the song, in the video:

Check out more Kelli Dunham online at kellidunham.com and on Twitter at @kellidunham.

If you’d like to see her live, she’s got a show coming up with Cheryl B. (who you may know as my co-host from Sideshow), Katie McCabe, Elizabeth Whitney, and Lea Robinson, aka the Famous Lesbian Comedy Roadshow* (*famous lesbians not included) at Stonewall Inn this Tuesday, July 6th. It’s the DIRTY FILTHY RED HOT SUMMER SHOW, clearly not to be missed.

2 Comments | Category: PSA | Tags: bathrooms, catchy tunes, cheryl b., events, famous lesbian comedy road show, gender, kelli dunham, kelli is a genius, new york city, public bathroom gender dilemmas

Lesbian Cowboys Erotica Giveaway … The Winner Is:

Posted on July 2, 2010 in giveaways! | 1 Comment

Winner of a copy of the sexy new erotica book Lesbian Cowboys: Erotic Adventures by Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia, which recently won the 2010 Lammy for Best Lesbian Erotica, is #13, a.!.

Thanks to Random.org who always supplies me with a “true” random integer when doing these giveaway contests. And thanks to Cleis Press and Lambda Literary Foundation who provided me with two copies of the book such that I could give one of ‘em away.

Thanks, everybody, for adding your favorite role-play ideas or reasons why cowboys are hot into the mix, that was fun to watch as the comments came in. Consider picking up a copy for yourself at your own local, queer, feminist, independent bookstore (assuming that you’d like it to be there next time you need a book) or, if you must, order it from Amazon.

1 Comment | Category: giveaways! | Tags: cleis press, cowboys are hot, indiebound, lambda literary foundation, lesbian cowboys: erotic adventures, rakelle valencia, random.org, sacchi green, support your local independent bookstore!, winner of the giveaway!

Consuming Porn of Other Orientations

Posted on July 1, 2010 in sex | 6 Comments

From the Ask Me Anything questions from Sugarbutch’s 4th anniversary:

My question is more on the philosophical/political side of things.

Do you feel that, as I am a male, it is exploitative for me to enjoy queer porn so much?

Porn is filled with many different dynamics, and it is within it’s nature to exploit the ‘exoticism’ of anyone who appears in it. We’ve seen this a thousand times, especially with Asian-American women ( forced to play up an exaggerated stereotype in order to get work ), and I wonder if I myself am guilty of such a thing. Queer porn is this amazing, foreign thing to me. I love it dearly. And I understand that, as far as the exploitation from the production side goes, it is nearly nonexistant, but I worry.

I’m always on the road to improving myself and trying to further myself from the patriarchy, and this question has kind of been tickling my brain as of late.

And, since we’re on the subject: Favorite porn star? Like, if you’re given the chance to have one night of just no holds barred fuck, who are you choosing?—Erudite Hayseed, Confessions of a Southern-Fried Kinkster

I think only you can answer whether you’re being exploitive by enjoying queer porn. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying porn where the people in it are an orientation or sexuality or gender identity that you are not—I have watched my fair share of gay male porn, and I don’t think that makes me exploitive of them or their sexualities at all.

I think the exploitation comes in perhaps about how you interact or react or treat queers outside of consuming our porn. If you look at queer people and see nothing but our sexualities, that might be a bit of a problem. If someone was consuming queer porn in secret and feeling guilty and gay-bashing, uh yeah, that’s a problem. But paired with some understanding of queer culture or history or struggle, and as an ally of this movement, I don’t think anyone should feel guilty about watching the kind of porn they like to watch.

Being the analytical & processing person that I am, I would probably ask myself what it is about this kind of porn that is so appealing. Other folks in the kink community might disagree with me about this—some people say we just like what we like and do not need to come up with an explanation for it, and in fact should not examine it too hard, nor ask others to explain the ‘source’ of where their desires come from. Plenty of desires don’t have a ‘source,’ so perhaps that’s a worthless pursuit, regardless. But when it comes to really loaded play, or the consumption of certain types of porn, like for example, as mentioned above, exclusively watching Asian-American women in porn, I think it’s probably worth asking the question of why. Why is this something that I am consuming? What do I get out of this? What am I projecting? Someone may uncover the racial assumptions or associations they are making, which may be good to untangle.

This could also be true of consuming queer porn, or porn of other orientations. Perhaps a queer person always consumes straight porn because they have some hang-ups about their own sexuality. Perhaps a lesbian always consumes gay male porn because gay male porn tends to depict no-strings-attached fucking, and this lesbian has experienced lesbian sex as too emotional and not hot and lusty enough. These are untrue assumptions, however; they are based in stereotypes, and though they may be

I don’t know if I want to speculate on what a straight cis male consuming queer porn could mean. I do know plenty of “lesbian” porn is geared toward straight men, and often those porns are pretty gross, in my opinion, and I could take a few guesses at what the straight men who consume that type of porn are looking for. But I’m not sure what a straight, kinky, cis guy consuming the recent smart queer porn means … aside from that that is some of the very best porn available, in my opinion. Don’t discount the possibility of the answer being “nothing,” too—it might just be what you enjoy, and that’s fine.

Also, take a look, if you don’t already, at Jack Stratton’s Writing Dirty, since he’s a mostly-straight kinky cis guy who does occupy some space in the queer worlds, and does it quite well, and respectfully, in my opinion. (Besides, his writing is just good, and hot.)

And to answer your second question …

That’s a tough one. Madison Young, Dylan Ryan, Carson, and Joline Parton all come to mind. How could I choose between them? Carson is pretty damn toppy, so probably I’d rather chose someone who is a bottom. Dylan is quickly becoming a friend of mine, and after a certain point, fucking a friend is kind of weird for me. So that leaves two beautiful, curvy redheads, Madison & Joline. Madison would probably be incredibly intimidating, since she’s so experienced and so into pain, so I might go with Joline, she seems a little more shy, and I like that. It seems like she’d be great to throw around, she’s got great curves, great legs, and that cute mouth. Okay, final answer.