Posts Tagged ‘eye candy’
Do you remember the Impossible Couture series, where Najva Sol took portraits and Molly Crabapple added embellishments? Najva did another series of portraits, this time genderqueer (mostly) nudes, and Molly did another series of drawings over them.
The result is Transmography: Thirteen Fairytale Portraits of Queers Beyond the Gender Binary, and I’m one of the models in the show. I might have gotten naked on my rooftop in Brooklyn. Maybe. Just sayin’.
The show opens next week, Thursday June 7th, from 6-9pm in New York and San Francisco Lomography stores.
Transmography: Thirteen Fairytale Portraits of Queers Beyond the Gender Binary
by Molly Crabapple and Najva Sol
Transmogrify, Verb: To transform, esp. in a surprising or magical mannerFrom poets to porn-stars, computer nerds to community gardeners, artists to activists: these portraits capture some of the real gender warriors today. They are trans, genderqueer, or just gender-fabulous, and they deserve their own magical realm.
Each portrait was shot by Najva Sol with a lomo camera, then embellished by Molly Crabapple. Show sponsored by Lomography.
Show Opens At Lomography stores in New York AND San Francisco
June 7th, 6-9pmNew York Lomography Store
41 West 8th Street
Manhattan, NY 10011
212-529-4351San Fran Lomography Store
309 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
415-248-0096
I’m going to do my best to at least stop by the New York show, though it does make me a little nervous to see myself (naked!) on a wall. But the shots I’ve seen so far are stunning, I love that one above. Can’t wait to see them all.
Today is my third anniversary with Kristen.
Photo by Stacie Joy, September 2011
(Here’s the story of how we met (which I told on our first anniversary), our first date (which is the second most viewed post on Sugarbutch), second anniversary and what I got her, and what she bought me. I think there was a dirty story about last year’s anniversary (how could there not be, given what she was wearing) but I can’t seem to find it, I think I wrote it up later.)
I’m a little bit at a loss for words. I didn’t expect us to build this life together, to wrap around each other like we have. To be honest, I expected us to have a one night stand. But as Dan Savage says, sometimes partners are the one night stands who stay.
We knew from the beginning that we are sexually compatible, and that was certainly a very high priority for finding someone to build a life with. That we were long distance for six months meant that I had a chance to adjust my flight responses, to get used to the idea of being with someone again, after being skittish and afraid to get deeply intimate.
But it wasn’t scary with her. And in the three years since, I’ve grown and pushed myself and changed and made all sorts of progress with who I am, how I relate to the world, and where I’m going. I really think we’re more than the sum of our parts, more than just the two of us together, we are also this “us” that combines to strengthen and enliven each of us individually, too.
She’s so willing and eager to communicate, to grow, to change, and to integrate new information, and just that alone has been such a significant difference from any of my past relationships. We go together so well, with complimentary interests and overlapping values and similar ways of seeing the world. That’s not to say it hasn’t been hard, but we’ve been working so well on the things that have been a challenge, and we’ve made some serious, hard-won progress this year. The last few months have been particularly hard, but I think we’ve made it over that bump and I am really excited about where we’re going. I am significantly committed to keeping my sex life vibrant (I mistyped “vibrating”—that too) in something long term, and so is she, so lately we’ve been negotiating just how to have an experimental, fun, and dirty sex life while still navigating all the domestic things of sharing our day-to-day lives and an apartment and our daily stresses.
We keep coming together stronger and more loving than ever before, and it just keeps deepening, improving, getting better—our communication, our connection, and our sex.
Photo by Stacie Joy, September 2011
I love you, Kristen. Thanks for being on this incredible journey with me. I cherish every minute.
Photos were taken by Stacie Joy at Dark Odyssey this year. Thanks Stacie!
In prep for my trip, I had to of course go get cleaned up. Doesn’t Joey at Tomcats do an amazing job? I have never had a bad haircut there. I only wish I could recreate the height after I wash it … though I suspect in part it is because of the handfulls of product he adds to my hair.
I’ve been trying to grow it out a bit, let it get a little longer on top so I can go back to the pomp I’ve had in the past. Winter seems like a good time to do that. The length has been driving me nuts the past few weeks, but I put it off long enough so that it’ll be fresh and clean for my trip out West.
What trip out west, you ask? Well, the one where I’ll be starting a tantra training, the first of five weekends in Seattle over the next year, and then I head to San Francisco for the Outside the Boxes queer Body Electric workshop that has been in the works for the last six or so months. It is definitely happening and probably going to be full, in fact! We might even have a waiting list! And—good news—we are planning to do it twice in 2012, once in New York City and once in Toronto. I’ll let you know the exact dates as soon as I have them.
I’m doing a couple more things out west while I’m visiting—no wait, scratch that, it’ll just be one other event, a Talking Dirty workshop at Seattle’s Center for Sex Positive Culture, known in my day as the Wet Spot. I was going to have a workshop in Oakland but that looks like it’s fallen through, though I’m hoping to do it in the spring.
So I’ve turned on my vacation auto-responder, and my flight to Seattle leaves tomorrow afternoon. I may have some time to write while I’m gone, but things may be a bit quiet over here while I’m traveling. You can always follow me on Twitter or on Facebook if you want to know what I’m up to on a slightly more daily basis.
Photographer Shilo McCabe, who took some photos of me while I was visiting the Bay Area in August, also makes hanky flowers—and they are available on Etsy:
“An answer to the question that plagues the flagging femme: How does one creatively flag without back pockets on your outfit (or without an outfit on at all)? How about a hanky flower in your hair, belt, boot, or anywhere else you can think of? Wear it on the right or left to show your colors!”
So of course, I ordered one for Kristen.
I decided hunter green wouldn’t quite look right as a flower, so I went for light pink. (Don’t know the color codes? Look ‘em up. I’m sure you can find a few that would suit your interests.)
I probably don’t have to tell you this, but they look great. Kristen gets a lot of compliments on hers when she wears it. Shilo also just mentioned to me that she will be putting up a smaller size, so keep an eye for those in her Etsy store soon.
When I visited the Bay Area in the end of August I met up with Shilo McCabe, the photographer who is behind The Sex Positive Photo Project, and we wandered around my friend’s houseboat where I was staying.
I had a great time and she made me feel very comfortable in front of the lens. These are my favorites of the photos she’s sent me so far.
This one is my favorite.
Thank you, Shilo.
Gotta look snappy for Dark Odyssey! I thought I was going to head down to Baltimore tonight for that workshop at Sugar and head right to camp, but instead I’m going to stay in New York for two more nights and head in early on Thursday morning. I definitely want to be there for the first workshop (uh and I think I am teaching a workshop that hour, so I better be), and preferably for orientation at noon, so I’m going to aim for early. Earlier than I like to get up. As much as I would have liked to be at Sugar tonight, I’m glad to have two more nights here at home to prepare and get some more details for my workshops worked out.
Tomcats is still my favorite barber shop in New York. Joey is my favorite, but Olivia did a really amazing job with Kristen’s hair on Sunday—I’ll see if I can snap a good shot of her new haircut and show it off for y’all, it looks fierce and fun and serious. Plus, her hanky flower came last weekend, so I want to show y’all a photo of that anyway.
I see from my Facebook feed that a few friends of mine have started going to Tomcats regularly … I hope they’re treating you as well as they have me.
Somehow in May I had two beautiful photographs of me, both taken by professional photographers, published. And in case you aren’t following me in the regular social media places, or by my RSS feed on mrsexsmith.com, I figured I’d share ‘em here.
Photo by Bil Wadman, ontakingphotos.com
The first is by Bill Wadman who first took my photo for 365Portraits.com in 2007. (I wasn’t ‘out’ as Sinclair then so I kept it under my other name.) A few weeks ago, he tweeted that he was bored and wanted to take portraits, and I replied, how about me? And it was on. He came over and we chatted about what I was planning to do that weekend, which was to attend a BDSM erotic energy retreat. He paused a second: “You’re into that?” Me: “Yep. In fact, I have some good equipment if you’d like to see it …” and out came my flogger. After he saw my new (since his last shot of me, anyway) tattoo, the shot soon made itself.
Speaking of the tattoo: many people have asked me what it is. It’s a ruler, it measures 6″, and if you measure from the flat palm of my hand, it measures 8″. There are numerous meanings to it (as with all the best tattoos, don’t you think?): I’m a graphic designer, for one. I’ll always have 6″ with me (ha ha) and I can measure high heels a lot easier this way. I can now measure how far into you I can reach. I’ve been thinking about this tattoo for a while, since I saw a photo of someone who had one on Flickr years ago, but the thing that made me go and do it was taking the Buddhist Refuge Vow in spring 2010. During the meditations, it came to me that this path, the Buddhist path, is actually incredibly linear, and has been walked hundreds of thousands of times for thousands of years. Considering that so, so much of my life is about forging my own path, making my own direction, this felt so incredibly comforting and I knew it was time to get the tattoo.
Photo by Yi Ching Lin, www.yichinglin.com
This next shot was for the DapperQ He Said/We Said May edition, the shoot for which happened in April, with photos by Yi Ching Lin. I was there with four other models, all of whom were reinterpreting a current high-fashion men’s runway look in our own way. The photos turned out beautifully. Susan Herr, DapperQ hirself, has called this photo “the best butch photo of all time,” and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
There are others over at DapperQ.com from this shoot, and there’s a video of all 5 of us models talking about our fashion inspiration as well.
It’s Kristen’s 28th birthday tomorrow!
I am as ever grateful for her in my life. I’ve never been so in love, I’ve never been in a better relationship, and though we are in some rocky growth struggles, I am confident we’ll get through it and be better people because of it.
This is the third birthday I’ve been able to spend with her so far, and I love the ways that she is growing and blossoming and stepping into her power and doing amazing things in the world, and I know it’s just going to be more exciting to be with her as all her adventures continue.
Love you, darling. Happy birthday.
Lenore on 
Shereen on 
