Maintaining Sugarbutch Chronicles has become my part-time job. I spend 10-30 hours on it every week, at least, and I spend many more hours working on it in indirect ways - reading books about sex, watching porn, processing relationships with friends, discussing relationships, listening to podcasts, reading blogs, participating in sex & gender & queer cultural events, going on dates, and hey, even fucking.

All of those things contribute to the work that I do here.

And I feel incredibly blessed that what I do is well received. The daily traffic here continues to grow, and I’m trying to keep up with all the requests, ideas, product reviews, features, articles, and topics, but sometimes I just can’t - I have a dayjob, after all, and friends that I do like to see sometimes - it takes a lot of work to keep this site going.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve added some actual ads in my sidebar, some web-based merchant affiliates, and, now, a donation button if you feel like becoming a benefactor. I’m also adding some “Sugarbutch Swag” merchandise in the (near!) future.

Here’s some ways you can support this site:

1. Support my advertisers

I don’t get a lot of these coming through, but when I do (upper left sidebar), click through them and look around. Show your support of the folks who choose to advertise here, perhaps they’ll decide it was useful to them and they’ll advertise again.

2. Support my affiliates

If you shop at Eden Fantasys, Babeland, or JT’s Stockroom, consider using the links in my posts or sidebar to access the site. It won’t change anything in your transaction, but a small part of the sales will go to me, and that helps keep this site in business. If you belong to any web-based porn sites like the Crash Pad Series, Good Dyke Porn, or I Feel Myself, consider going through the links in my sidebar as well. I get a few (teeny tiny) kickbacks through renewals and sign-ups, and it supports what I do here.

3. Personal donations

Donors will be rewarded with Sugarbutch swag, custom smut, autographed photos of me (just kidding), a kiss, or lots of gratitude (to be determined at my discretion).

Here’s one way to think of it: I charge more than $50 an hour for my freelance work in writing, web design and web development. So, donating:

$2 pays for a new pen
$12 pays for a new notebook (I go through 1-2 a month)
$25 pays for me to respond to one comment and answer one email
$50 pays for a average-length post that is simply my personal opinion ramblings (one hour)
$100 pays for a full-length post with links and resources, which requires research (two hours)
$200 pays for the hosting costs of this domain for one year
$1000 pays for my time writing, editing, researching, designing, coding, and maintaining this website for one week

Or, if you’d like to think about it another way, you can support my romps through New York City with pretty girls, which inspires my smut writing, which, in turn, gets you off:

$2 buys a pretty girl a daisy
$12 buys a pretty girl some roses
$25 buys drinks for me & a date
$50 buys dinner for me & a date
$100 buys drinks, dinner … and brunch the morning after
$200 buys a night on the town and a trip to the sex store
$1000 buys a weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods where there’s no Internet, only a pretty girl to play with, which will renew my spirits and enable me to manage my full-time job (which pays the bills) in addition to this unpaid part-time job (which I love).

(I can see it now … dating with sponsors! I show up on the date and hand the girl a flower (”this flower was sponsored by”), go to drinks and dinner (”this glass of wine was sponsored by”), give her a good night kiss (”this kiss was paid for by”) … hah! I’m joking, of course. That’s not exactly the kind of sponsorship I’m looking for here.)

Just some ideas … of course I’ll gladly accept donations in any amount. Special benefactors will absolutely be rewarded above and beyond just their access to this site.

Use the donation button in the left sidebar.

4. Merchandise …

… to be announced, but rest assured, it is forthcoming. I’ve had some requests and I think you’ll like what I’m coming up with. I’m going to need some models for the Sugarbutch Swag eventually.

So, that’s it, for now.

I’m very open to suggestions. If you have particular things you want to see here, ideas, requests, input, feedback, I’ll always listen. I won’t promise I’ll take your advice, but hey, I’ll listen. Email me anytime at aspiringstud(at)gmail.com or leave a comment anywhere.

As always, you can subscribe to Sugarbutch in a RSS reader to follow along with my sex, gender, and relationship adventures in the future. That supports me, too.

June was supposed to be a relaxing month after the chaos of May, but it was quite busy, with Pride celebrations and the PSI workshop.

Sex:

• balanced on the tip of my tongue about (what else?) going down on Penny
• you’re going to come for me about a hot encounter with Penny in a restaurant bathroom
• learn to use that safeword, honey
• this is how I want you next

Gender:

• New feature I intend to continue, In Praise of Femmes, which features it’s first installment: Trust
• on butch breasts & more on butch bras, which will probably become part of another new series on butches (still figuring that one out)

Relationships:
Still a few Penny stories …

• I was on the Diana Cage radio show this past month, and had some radio show aftermath
• how suave I really am … uhyeah
• Password protected post, this place of mild panic
• Password protected post: sympathy vs skepticism, dealing with the aftermath of a former lover of mine

Miscellany:

• Eye Candy: Jess: bedroom eyes, Azaan: hot pink hat
• Video: new rope tricks, PSA from Cynthia Nixon for gay women on breast health
• Reviews: Tantric sex for women book, reviewed for Eden Fantasys; gettin’ off, butch style where I review some products for Babeland (yay!)
• PSA: the femme conference in Chicago in August!
• authority on the internet, a little bit about my own authority, where I’m coming from, what my credentials are

July’s masthead came from a reader who mentioned in passing that I’m (temporarily, at least) on her list of celebrity five. Yes, that is my handwriting, and my fingers, and a carefully chosen pen from my slightly obsessive pen collection.

It’s actually pretty hard to come up with a list of butches … most of those who Penny, Muse, Lee, & I brainstormed were musicians rather than actresses, seems there’s more of us in the music scene.

In case you can’t quite see it clearly, the list above reads:

1. k.d. lang
2. Amy Ray
3. Melissa Ferrick
4. Corky in Bound
5. Shane on the L-word
   Sinclair Sexsmith!

Hopefully it’s clear that I don’t know if these folks necessarily classify themselves as butch, but they are in the female masculinity section of the gender galaxy, so they made this list.

I’m told that this originated with perhaps a Seinfeld episode, but I can’t seem to find a link to that (youtube, anybody?). What I did find, in going through some old journals of mine, is a link to dooce’s post on this once upon a time, and my own (old!) List of Five.

I decided it needed updating. It included. Here’s what I came up with as of today:

1. Maggie Gyllenhaal
2. Alyssa Milano
3. Tina Fey
4. Audrey Tatou
5. Gillian Anderson

Who’s on your list? Butches, femmes, both, neither?

a) July’s masthead will be up soon, I haven’t perfected the photograph yet. If you have ideas for future masthead taglines, or photos that you’d like to see featured, now’s the time to tell me!

b) Call for photographs - butches, bust out your swimsuits. After that butch breasts/bras feature, I’ve been thinking about butch suits. It is summer now, after all, and I betcha most of us aren’t in bikinis (mmmm bikinis) or one-pieces. Let’s see how you do it up at the beach or at the pool. Email aspiringstud at gmail.com with your photographs, preferably high quality, at least 300×500px. Include your name, a little byline if you want, what you’re wearing and why.

c) For the record? Lesbianism is not a “lifestyle,” and to call it such is belittling. It’s a sexual orientation or sexual identity.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” - Buddha

I’ve quoted that before, but I’m reminded of it again recently. It’s a quality that I always seek in those from whom I wish to learn.

I’ve been using the internet actively for the past fifteen years, since I was fourteen, and that’s not actually exaggeration; I caught a little bit of the BBS days, but really got my feet wet with the telnet chatrooms that were gaining popularity. I’d use the public library’s telnet system and my dad’s engineering computer to chat - live! with people from all over the world! - in Coffeehouse and Shadowlands.

And, as many have said, including Audacia Ray in her recent study of sex on the internet, new technologies are always first used for porn and sex. So, as a teenager, not only discovering a new technology, but also discovering a new sexuality, my primary sexual awakening was online - writing, corresponding, typing out fantasies, and asking questions to a hive mind of various perspectives and orientations and kinks.

I didn’t experiment a lot in person, it wasn’t appealing; but online, I could do anything, and it was safe. Of course, it wasn’t always safe. But I did pretty well for myself. I learned lessons, got smarter.

I started my first personal web pages in 1996, and have had open diaries, livejournals, javascript notebooks, and finally, blogs, online ever since then, in various forms of anonymity. Sometimes totally anonymous, sometimes under my real name. I understand how these communities build and fall and swell and fade, I’ve watched many of them, I’ve built some of them, I’ve heard stories from others who are interested in these things.

In 2000, two major things happened for me: I went back to college after taking four years off after high school, and I came out as queer. At college, I further my informal studies of feminism with gender studies, queer theory, and postmodern theory. I have two degrees, one in Gender Studies with an emphasis on social change, one in English with an emphasis on creative writing.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading books, watching films, going to workshops and conferences, seeking out mentors, reading blogs of personal expeirences, going to feminist sex toy shops, talking to friends, about gender dynamics, their personal relationships, queer oppression, social change, labeling, sex, sex techniques, sex toys, seduction, pick-up artistry, androgyny, lesbianfeminism, the 1980s sex wars, intersexuality, transitioning, binding, packing, taking T, putting on makeup, shopping for dresses or bathing suits or earrings or purses, shopping for ties or cufflinks or slacks or a tuxedo, radical acts of subversion, generational differences, strapping on a cock, the history of gender in the US, kink, domination and submission, rope bondage, BDSM, and uh all sorts of other things.

Not to mention that I, personally, have experience with these things in my relationships, my life, and my communities.

When I think about it, all of that history makes sense that here, fifteen years later, I’ve finally settled into this small niche of my varying interests - writing, inner emotional landscapes, sexuality, queer theory, gender theory, feminism, butch/femme dynamics, self-awareness, love, and relationships.

I’m not writing this to brag.

I’m writing this to show where my authority on these subjects about which I write come from.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll continue with all this research into these topics if or when I meet someone and develop a successful, fulfilling relationship, I’ll be disinclined to continue, because I can simply live it, instead of theorize about it all day every day. Perhaps I’ll move on to my next obsessive research subject - building alternative families or aging or performance poetry or who knows what. Perhaps all this has just been my own research into How To Be Me - chivalrous kinky writer, queer butch top, and feminist lover of femmes - In This World. Sometimes I feel like once I “figure it out,” I won’t have to be constantly doing all this work all the time.

Of course, there’s no easy way to simply figure this out, and once it’s “figured out” it’ll probably change, anyway, because it’s increidbly fluid; not only my own understanding of it, but the cultural understanding as well. It’s amazing how much has changed in the past ten years - even five years! Things are moving and growing, and I want to be a part of this activism, this forward motion, this quest for us all to be our highest, best selves, accepted by the world in our freakery.

(I digress.)

My point is, I was reminded recently how easy it is to get online and create yourself as an authority about something on which you are not. And it’s sad to me, and disappointing, how easy it is for people to get sucked into something so false.

I know the internet. Know these blog circles quite well, I correspond with hundreds of people, read intimate, detailed blogs, have friends that I’ve never met but whom I’ve followed for years online. There are some amazing, lovely folks here who are using these tools, this digital medium, to express what is the most true and beautiful and real about them.

But that’s not true of everybody. I find I can usually spot those who are not authentic; they stand out, somehow, I go to their site or read their work and think, something’s just not quite right. It puzzles me, because I don’t use the internet that way, and because there’s such a better way to use this digital tool to connect, so why would you do it the other, less effective and more inauthentic way? Probably out of pure ignorance, frankly - but I don’t really know.

For y’all out there reading, especially about things as completely personal and delicate as your butch/femme gender and sexual identities, this is just a reminder not to believe somebody unless you have reason to do so, don’t take them purely on their word, wait until they prove themselves to you. Identities are fragile, and can get damaged so easily when we don’t have adequate support and validation around them. It’s so easy for one big, painful misunderstanding to put someone off of something entirely, when in fact it is not indicative of how it could potentially function.

Dan Savage had a great call on his Savage Lovecast last week (seriously, it’s now the #1 podcast on the internet, and you’re not listening to it yet?) about developing a bionic bullshit detector, which has also got me thinking about all of this.

Many of us place our trust in people too easily. And when it comes to the very personal and delicate subjects, such as what I discuss here on this site, I really hope you do (respectfully) disagree with me sometimes, I hope you don’t assume I always know what I’m talking about, I hope you question me sometimes, I hope you ask who the man (ahem, “man,” don’t get the wrong idea) behind the site is, I hope you check authority credentials and expect proof of authorty.

I also hope I’ve earned it, from you, from visitors to this site, from readers, from friends, from acquaintances, because I work hard to do so, to stand behind my philosophies by living inside of them, to have a consistent personal narrative, to have reliability in my character, to admit what I don’t know, to speak on things that I know well. In some ways, I’ve made a formal study of these things too, since the one particular ex who manipulated me into such a frenzy.

There’s no easy way to know who’s conning you and who is authentic except to be cautious, I think. (Dan Savage and his caller had a few ideas, too; see, now you really have to download the podcast, don’t'cha?)

As much as I have made a semi-formal study of these topics, and as much as I do have some authority here, I also will always say that everyone needs to figure it out for themselves. I’m thrilled that my process is useful to others, and I’m curious about the processes that don’t look like mine, too. This is me, doing this work, going through the processing, reaching these identities for my own self - now, you go do yours.

May was an incredibly busy month for me - not only did I take two trips out of New York City, I also had visitors, performances, writing deadlines, and started seeing Penny a bit more seriously. I took a break mid-month and didn’t do any writing here for more than a week, so it was a fairly light month in the number of posts.

The new masthead quote comes from a conversation with Ally, long ago. The photo is a snippet of my tie collection. Kind of a departure from the usual black-and-white I’ve been going for, but hey, it’s summer now, seems fitting.

Here’s what happened in May:

Sex:

• SUGARBUTCH STAR CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED! - and it’s an easy win with Shanna’s story The Diner on the Corner. Shannon’s story The Photo Shoot was second. (Apparently the ”shan” names were particularly appealing?)
• protected: open up for me. you’re mine today

Gender:

• On misperceiving someone as femme or butch, and then a follow up further clarifying was the hinge of this past month. In fact, I got so frustrated by the conversations around these posts that I stopped writing for a while and took a break. It’s hard to do this kind of gender writing and work sometimes, I guess I just needed to step back and think about it, and attempt to get to a place where I was not taking it so seriously.
• Eventually, I posted gender frustrations and clarifications about my response to those two posts, and some round-up thoughts on onward & upward, gender explorers. I’m not going to stop writing entirely, but I do need slightly more structure and, occasionally, self-protection around this work, because sometimes, clearly, it gets to me.

Relationships:

• Protected: free falling instead of bracing myself, where I panic about dating someone, then talk myself down

Miscellany:

• Eye Candy: triple scorpio, extra dirty, lauren
• Interview with stylist ariel? ariel!
• Review: Crossdressing: erotic stories
• Review: not really a whole review, but a recommendation for a couple of products. Get ‘em while they’re hot
• Video clip from the film Tough Guise about compulsory masculinity
• Call for interviews with lesbian couples
• Pink & bent: queer women art exhibit in nyc

Leave a comment if you’d like to be added to the list to receive the password for protected posts.

Lots of great comments on Tuesday’s post about my own frustrations with the discussions on this site - I’m replying to the comments in the thread, too, with more information, so read the comments if you’d like to know more about my thoughts around this issue. You can also subscribe to the Sugarbutch Chronicles RSS comments feed (but that’s really just for the hardcore fans).

I’d like to say two quick things about it, then I’ll move on to more random miscellany:

1. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That post was not meant as a request for praise, of course, it was just an update on where I’m at and what I’ve been going through - but I appreciate the praise, and I appreciate the clarifications about what this site and these discussions have meant for you.

2. I’ve mentioned that I’m implimenting some changes in how this site works, but don’t worry, I’m not planning on changing it drastically. If you have particular suggestions about what you’d love to see more of, what your favorite parts have been, what you hate, I’d love to hear that as I go forward. Really, though, the biggest change will probably not be on the published-side of things at all - it’ll just be in my own psychic process toward the site, and hopefully, in my own boundaries about frustration and internalizing criticism.

2a. I’d particularly like to grow the SSU category here on Sugarbutch - “Sinclair Sexsmith University,” the custom sex, gender, and relationships “program” with 101-level articles and information. I’m not sure exactly how to begin building that, but I’m working on it.

A little bit more housekeeping, random things to mention & file under colophon:

I

Help! Michelle - you emailed me that great article & I have a long response to send you, but your email keeps getting bounced back. Email me again from a different address, so I can send some thoughts back to you?

II

I just found out that sugarbutch has a livejournal syndication. If you use LJ, you can add Sugarbutch as a friend & keep up with me that way.

III

bzzzgrrrrl emailed me to let me know she’d nominated Sugarbutch for a BlogHer Hero award. She says, “You won’t get it, I’m afraid. The official rules prohibit material that is “inappropriate, indecent, obscene,” etc., and who knows what that means, but I bet Sugarbutch Chronicles qualifies.” Ah, she’s probably right - but I’m still really flattered, thank you for the nomination.

She sent me a very flattering, humbling blurb that she included with her nomination, and I’m reprinting it here with my thanks & gratitude:

Sugarbutch Chronicles changes lives — mine, at least. Sinclair writes frankly, openly, and playfully about gender. My generation of feminists just Didn’t Talk Like That: Transfolk made us uncomfortable. People who deliberately declared themselves “butch” or “femme” but weren’t trans made us more uncomfortable. Sinclair is as sexy as she is smart, and she opens dialogue for and between her readers that inspire us all. Since reading her, I’ve had better sex, better conversations, better jumping-off points for challenging my own ideas. SBC isn’t the only blog about queer theory or gender theory, but it’s the best I’ve found.

I’m attempting not to blush, and instead practicing my “thank you”s with all this praise recently - instead of deflecting I’m just trying to accept. I’m really glad that some - any - of my own thought processes, approaches, and philosophies are useful to others, and I’m extremely grateful to all the comments, emails, questions, and folks out there with blogs & books & further writings who are exploring these topics.

It’s a nice community we’ve got goin’ on here. My gender conversations are a lot less lonely than it used to be, thank you for that.

April was incredibly busy! This past month held my 29th birthday, and the second anniversary 0f beginning to write here at Sugarbutch Chronicles. I was blogging for RAINN, I finished up the Sugarbutch Star Contest, and I started dating somebody new. I also introduced a new category, SSU, which stands for Sinclair Sexsmith University and includes slightly more formalized articles about sex, gender, & relationships.

May’s masthead is up! The quote comes from various conversations, primarily with Colleen and muse, about my gender standards. Photo taken by my younger sister in her backyard in Salt Lake City; if you look closely you can see the orbital in my ear. (The “about” page has the list of past mastheads.)

Sex:

• The Sugarbutch Star Contest’s very last entry, The Photo Shoot!
• Five tips for getting laid
• The sadistic impulse … inspired by Penny, the new girl I started dating
• Password protected: a potent alchemy, also about Penny

Gender: 

• How to take butch cock seriously 
• The red tie night, six years ago - a reflection on my gender identity process
• Ask me anything: about butch identity

Relationships:

• Password protected: I’ve seen you do that, about the relationship aftermath with Datedyke
• Password protected: Such a beautiful submissive impulse, about the new girl, Penny

Eye Candy:

•  ho hum (later removed), butchlalis, Pharoah, Womyn in Construction series … I’m running out! Submit some photos of your favorite butch, please?

Miscellany:

• I was blogging for RAINN in April, though I didn’t write as much as I would’ve liked. I have much to say about sexual assault & violence, but couldn’t get everything done
• It was my 29th birthday on April 3rd, so I put a call out for birthday photographs. Wow, did I get some good ones!  
• Review: the feeldoe double dildo
• On piercing
• Guest post from muse! Submissive impulses, and why I heart sadists
• Ask me anything - open call for questions that I then answered: part one, part two (and I still have a few more to answer)
• Music to fuck to - my revised smut playlist, just in case you need to breathe some life into your seduction & sexmixes

Today celebrates the second anniversary of the beginning of Sugarbutch Chronicles. Two years ago, I was stuck in a Lesbian Bed Death relationship and felt like I was withering away - we were together four years, and we’d had sex five times during the last two.

That relationship is why I started writing smut. I had to do something with all the sexual energy built up, so I decided I’d either a) write it down or b) go to the gym, and while I did develop a nice workout habit, the smut started growing more and more.

This is how Sugarbutch Chronicles began -discussing  Bed Death, Standard Variety:

What I’m trying to say is this: I’m not getting the sex that I want. No, scratch that: I’m not getting the sex that I need. My basic human needs, basic woman needs, basic self needs, include sex. If asked, I would say at least three times a week, though I can be a little flexible about that. I understand, having had some experience as a couple, that that can’t always happen. But I also know that it can, and does, when both people make the effort.

I’m not exactly sure how I let it get as far as it did - I can’t ever imagine letting it get to that place again.

It wasn’t until Callie came along that I was shocked out of my complacent unfeeling depressed stupor and back into a sensual, feeling reality. I’ll always be grateful to her for that. For the six months Callie & I were together, this writing project turned into two main things: writing about the sex Callie and I were having, and then processing through the difficult emotional “conflicts” that kept coming up. I didn’t have community in New York when we were together, so I had very few friends to go to and talk to about her. Sugarbutch became a major outlet for my psychological explorations of our relationship.

But after that ended, it became something else: exploration of my single sex life, mostly. And as that has developed into something more intentional and less, uh, free-for-all, I’ve been writing less about my own personal dating and sex than I am about gender and sexuality in general.

Going into Sugarbutch’s third year, that’s the general direction I’m going to continue to aim. I’ll still going to write about my own personal processes and developments, but I’d like to focus on more personal essay styles with distinctive reoccuring features (like eye candy) and, of course, smut.

Is there is anything specific you’d like to see more or less of? What’s most useful to you here? What’s least useful? What do you love, what do you skip over without reading? If you have ideas, if you have general praise or critique, I’d love to know.

March was jam-packed here at Sugarbutch Chronicles; it was the second highest month of posts (37) and included various topics and discussions. Thank you all for your contributions, your comments and emails, for reading, for disagreeing with me at times, for challenging me.

Subscribe to Sugarbutch Chronicles via RSS, leave your email address to receive the password for protected posts, or subscribe via email (in the sidebar).

The new April masthead:

• The quote - “What’s that I hear? The sound of a thousand girls sighing in cyberspace?” - comes from a comment Janie made on in praise of stretchmarks (thanks Janie! It made me laugh out loud). That stretchmarks post is also the most commented on piece this month … I’m surprised at how much notice that one got, actually. It’s funny how sometimes it’s the little notes scribbled on napkins that end up resonating the deepest.

Sex:

• The last time I saw belle, part three. This story happened in November and was written in December, but not posted until early March.
• I keep threatening to finish the SBC Star contest, but haven’t yet. (Fuck.)

Gender:

• Femininity & heterosexism discusses gender, specifically the unwanted male attention of femininity, and passing as a femme
• A rather hateful post went up on the New York Craigslist women-for-women personals in March, with some very strong words about butches and our inadequacy in the lesbian communities. (”Inadequacy” doesn’t describe it - the poster basically blamed butches for all lesbian oppression.) I started writing this up at “lesbian does not =”, and Jesse James responded with a guest post responding, a la Lorde (Jesse started her own blog, too). I finally weighed in with careful, your prejudice is showing.
• I introduced the new masthead feature with bringing butch back and a rather quick note about how chivalry is deeply feminist

Relationships:

• Tips for dating via personal ads
• Protected: reflections on exes
• Protected: depth of variation

Eye Candy:

• Cate Blanchett, I <3 LDN Girls calendar, Amy, Em, Jack, kt shorb, Portrait of a couple, Ivan E. Coyote, Lee, Aversión.

Miscellany:

• Sugarbutch was a Lesbian Blog of the Year finalist, and Dorothy Surrenders was announced as the winner by a long shot.

Elsewhere:

• Consent is Sexy and falling in love is still cheating over at The Lesbian Lifestyle