The most recent Pretty Things Press anthology called Lipstick on Her Collar and Other Tales of Lesbian Lust landed on my desk recently, and I took my time reading through it.

I love lesbian erotica books … I think for many queer women, it’s one of the first places where we begin to access the languages of lesbian desire and sexuality, and as such they can be very powerful, transformative books, not just jerk-off material but also an introduction to entirely new concepts and ideas. I’ll never forget some of the early books that did that for me, like Breathless: Erotica by Kitty Tsui and Best Lesbian Erotica 1998, which became roadmaps and secret-tellers.

I’m a bit picky about my erotica these days, though. There’s more and more of it out there, and what turns me on is butchtop/femmebottom aligned writings, fairly exclusively. I can read through other anthologies and appreciate the writing, the characterization, the plot lines (no, seriously!), but I don’t tend to find myself putting the book down to go jack off.

This book, though, has an impressive number of butch/femme scenes. This is partially because, I imagine, the anthology includes “lipstick” in its very title, thereby encouraging more of the gendered play than many lesbian erotica anthologies usually include.

Three, in particular, stand out: Kingdom Cum by Scarlett French, about a femme seducing a drag king after a drag show; Femme Princess by Ellen Tevault, about a femme in a bed death relationship who answers a butch’s personal ad and reawakens her sexual desire, seeming to uncover her own gender fetish at the same time; and Now and Then by Barrett Bonden, about a butch’s return to her long-term femme lover, which ranges from quite smutty and dirty (especially in the dialogue - “Get up on the bed, slut. Hands and knees, ass in the air.”) to very sweet and long-term lesbionic.

Don’t get me wrong, the whole book is not butch/femme oriented stories. But there are a few great ones, as well as some femme-femme scenes, a decent story dealing with body ability where one of the characters is in a wheelchair (its inclusion made me realize how very little body-ability diversity there is in these types of anthologies, in general), some strangers, some long-term lovers, and a couple of my favorite lesbian authors, including Skian McGuire and Rachel Kramer Bussel.

It seems Alison Tyler is doing some great books with Pretty Things Press, and I’m glad to see a lesbian anthology with more gender included in their catalog.

Weekend, part one: flogging

I slid my cock inside her swiftly and she took it easily. Let out a little cry, lifted her ankles around my hips. I was hungry. I could feel her opening, could feel how she could be filled.

“Get up,” I said after a while. I lifted myself off the bed and began switching to my other cock, the bigger one. “Turn over.”

She started to, up on her hands and knees, and I reached my arm around her hips and pulled her off the side of the bed, her pussy at my cock’s height perfectly. I took a palmful of lube and fucked her, hard, deep.

Moans and cries from both of us as I pounded into her. Fucks like that I swear I can feel my cock thickening, getting harder, being restricted and pulled into her cunt by her tight rings of muscles. She’s discovered that she can lift her legs off the floor and wrap them around my waist when I fuck her bent over the edge of the bed if she has the right grip on her hands (because it’s just the right height), which gets my cock ever deeper.

I moved my right hand around to her clit and she shuddered, I took a small grip on my cock to test the lube and moved back to her clit, swollen like a berry on a vine, thick, slick, sweet. I moved my other hand to her hair, pulling and holding her body so I could fuck harder. Shifting my pace, slowing excruciatingly and she was shuddering and gasping, nearly thrashing on the bed.

Faster again, slightly tilting my pelvis to aim for her gspot, fingers working her clit and lips stretched taut as she thrust back against me. I felt her thighs shudder, once, twice, as she squeezed and gasped, then came, nearly yelling into the bed.

We disentangled, breathing hard, little sighs of pleasure. She pulled herself up lengthwise on the bed and I went to her, legs scissored around hers, hand in her hair, one by her hip, head to her breast. She rested her hand on the back of my head and kept it there, weaving through the short hairs on my neck. Her fingers began to unravel me, to pull me apart, so tender, and I let go.

“You’re so sweet to me tonight,” I said, pulling myself up so our faces were next to each other on the pillow.

“You never let me be.”

[ Is that true? Maybe. Maybe I'm doing something that she interprets as keeping her at a distance, as pushing her away. I don't think that's how I intend it (is it?), and sometimes I even wish she'd touch me more. I don't wish it enough that I have asked for it (at least, not often, just once, the only time we showered together). ]

We pillow-talked for a while. “Did you like flogging me?”

“Yes. Very much.”

Let me elaborate: flogging is tangible power. Energy sparkling and crackling up and down my arms, my shoulders, all through my back. Rhythmic breathing, rhythmic swinging, and everything becomes hyper-sensual, hyper-senstive. I can detect a change in the air current, can hear a door open across the apartment building’s hallway. I feel her breathing, feel her breath, can see it visibly moving through her body. I sense the depth of the blows: that one too light, still too light, ah yes just right. Keep it there. Keep it just there. Then suddenly - too hard, and she gasps. I want to pull back but I so love the way she whimpers and squirms, just a little pain, just a little uncomfortable, then her muscles release, her voice releases when I let up, and that’s it, that’s the moment I crave, the supple giving in, the letting go, the release of what you don’t even know you’re holding on to.

Let go, let go. You don’t need it. All you need is this beautiful body, this beautiful breath.

In pillow talk, the subject shifted to dominance, to submission, to force. She knows I like it when she struggles. She’d like to play with that more, she said. I’d like her to say no, I said.

Then, I’m not sure how it started, but it did. Kissing, probably; isn’t that always how things start?

It’s a blur. Me looming over her, using the weight of my body (I must have more than 50 pounds on her) to hold her down. Force her legs apart. And she let out a string of words: “No no no no no,” whimpering, softly, turning her head side to side into the pillow as she tried to get her wrists out of my grip, “no no no no.”

“Yes,” I whispered, firmly. “Oh yes.”

She arched her back, tried to kick me and I got my calf against her knee and my hips between her thighs. Both wrists in one hand and position my cock.

“You’re going to take it. I’m going to fuck you.”

“Nooo …” Was she crying now? Gasping and her face felt wet when I took a grip on her hair and force her mouth to mine. It scared me a little, maybe I was hurting her (is she in physical pain? Are her knees okay, her shoulders?), and it scared me that I liked how much she was resisting me. How much I liked it when she won’t let me in.

I raised myself arms-length from her momentarily and paused. “You’ve got a safeword now, little girl. You remember what it is?”

She nodded a little, meeting my eyes briefly, and they were almost calm. Dancing. I felt releif.

“I’m not going to stop unless you use it. You’re gonna be mine tonight. My girl.”

And I pushed my thighs up to open hers, my knees sliding under her to force her pelvis up, her legs apart. My weight was shifted forward on my forearm, holding her arms down. She resisted my attempts to kiss her and whimpered more, moaning a little, cries inciting some sort of pulsing urge in my core, my pelvis, my hands in fists, down to my toes where I pushed against the bed firmly.

I slid inside slow and she shuddered, gasped, chest heaved and sank into the pillows and she let out a moan despite herself.

“You’re my girl tonight. Mine.” I said into her neck as I closed my teeth against her tender skin to keep her there, an animal instinct and she can’t move without ripping herself.

“You’re my girl.” I said again. “Say it.”

I felt her breath on my ear, her fingers clawing at my shoulderblades as she pulled me to her as I pumped my hips against her, thrusting, pressing, circling, and she pulsed under me.

Just a whisper: “I’m your girl.”

“That’s right. That’s right, baby. Say it again.”

“I’m yours, I’m your girl.”

I brought my mouth to hers, and we slid into the fuck, rocked together. Rocked deep.

Yet another case in point: Butch, skinhead, wife-beating, pint drinkers? ”Butch, femme, dyke - what kind of lesbian are you? Jeni Quirke explores the negativity surrounding lesbian stereotypes.”

Hey, sounds like a pretty good idea, exploring negative lesbian stereotypes, yeah? Right away, I’m skeptical of her inclusion of “butch” in that title, but I’m curious. Let’s read.

[L]esbians and bisexual women are also guilty of holding stereotypical generalisations and assumptions about each other based on appearance and personality. The words ‘dyke’, ‘baby-dyke’, ‘lipstick lesbian’, ‘pretend lesbian’ and ‘political lezza’ are too often thrown about the lesbian community, at work, in the pub or even from a friend to a friend in a jokey and cheeky way.

So why is this still happening, in a supposedly very tolerant and gay friendly society? It’s quite straightforward for all involved - stereotypes[.] … [W]hy do lesbian and bisexual women also carelessly use the terms ‘butch’, ‘femme’, ‘dyke’[?] … Is it internalised homophobia? … most women don’t even realise they have it or are displaying it.

So, when words to describe lesbian identity categories - such as dyke, baby dyke, and lipstick lesbian - are used by heterosexual or gay men who are excluded from and based in ignorant assumptions about the group, it is because of stereotyping, but if lesbians actually use these terms, it is from a place of internalized homophobia.

The use of words such as ‘dyke’, ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ from a lesbian individual or group are almost always meant in a negative way. Often, the only positive times you will hear the words spoken will be from a lesbian who is referring to herself, such as ‘Yeah I’m a butch dyke, but so what? It’s who I am.’ For the individual and for onlookers this proud and defensive statement will seem a very noble and bold thing to say. This it is, but it could also encourage the use of such stereotypes by heterosexual and non-heterosexual people.

So here she’s saying, when I define myself and call myself what I want to be called, when I reclaim the words for myself, it appears to be “very noble and bold,” but really it’s encouraging stereotypes. Who cares if it’s empowering to me in a development of my own gender identity, in putting myself in a historical and cultural context where I recognize the gendered struggles of my foremothers and forefathers and and forebabas and forepapis, really it’s just an invitation to oppress me. Not buying it.

If we are using offensive terms to one another in our own community, then what chance is there that straight people and gay men will stop using them? Are we re-enforcing the terms? And if so why are we doing this to each other and to ourselves? … Possibly the thought that ‘stereotypical’ lesbians such as ‘butch dykes’ are re-enforcing people’s generalisations and giving lesbians a bad name. … Could it be that society on the whole has become addicted and accustomed to using labels or labelling[?]

So now this author claims that butch dykes are giving lesbians a bad name and reinforcing stereotypical lesbianism. Oh, I recognize this tune.

And also, a word about labels: where we are in our cultural identity history, right now, in the West in the early 21st century, we reject labels. Pretty much entirely. Constantly, people are saying “don’t box me in,” “don’t restrict me,” “I’m bigger than that box,” “I’m more than a label,” et cetera. We are not addicted and accustomed to labels. I absolutely think it’s true that labels can be restrictive and limiting when applied without any leniency, and I think it’s true that culturally, we used to have more of a sense of defining people by their gender, age, race, economic status, ethnicity, family history, class, social status, religious beliefs, et cetera - by all of the factors of social hierarchy. But this is precisely what the various activist movements of the 20th century have been working to change, and in many ways, it absolutely has changed. Labels are generally now seen as bad and restrictive.

The well-known and common female stereotypes such as femme , butch and dyke are only there so other people and sometimes even ourselves use to categorise all the ‘types’ or ‘breeds’ of lesbians neatly away into a fileable drawer. [Emphasis added.]

Oh, now I’m just sad. The only reason butch exists is so others - or “sometimes even ourselves,” (implying, of course, how sad that is, that our internalized homophobia is so bad that we limit ourselves so awfully) - can categorize us?

Goddammit, this is just so inaccurate. There is a long history of butch, femme, and genderqueer WARRIORS who are changing laws, making strives, marching in protests, fighting for rights, being visible, working hard, raising kids, making families, contributing to thriving communities, loving, living, and being ourselves.

And now, this perspective of the author of this article becomes even more transparent: the things she is saying here are flat-out gender-phobic. Probably out of ignorance, rather than intentionally malicious, but still. This author clearly cannot imagine that any femme, butch, or dyke would ever be authentically empowered by these labels (as opposed to falsely empowered through internalized homophobia) or claiming them out of some sort of intentional, conscious, educated, contextualized narrative of queer culture, life, identity, and empowerment.

I haven’t even started about the power of reclaiming words, here, which this author completely discounts as even remotely possible. Yes, the word “dyke,” for example, has been used by outsiders to marginalize and oppress people within that group. But part of the process of legitimizing that identity is to take the words that have been used to oppress us and revision them to be valuable, which, by proxy, revisions the identity as valuable as well. This also deflates the potential of the insult: if the word no longer has any negative connotations, and someone shouts “dyke!” from across the street, we can recognize that he’s a) being blatantly and ridiculously homophobic, b) attempting to insult us, and c) stupid and ignorant if he thinks homophobia is acceptable. It’s much easier for this type of encounter not to sting, and not to be taken seriously, when we are used to throwing around the words that are attempted to be used as insults.

Aside from that, there’s the linguistics of it all: “lesbian” sounds like the technical term, like dentifrice instead of toothpaste. It sounds like something you could contract or pick up, it’s long - three syllables - and fairly awkward in the mouth. “Dyke,” however, is short, powerful, with strong, shit-kicking consonants that pops on the tongue. Stronger, tougher, thicker, more powerful.

The author of this article closes with this:

We should all join and work together to end other people’s preconceptions, generalisations and stereotypes by not doing it in and to our own community.

Yes, I agree in part - we should end preconceptions, generalizations, and stereotypes. But what this author is describing is not “doing it in and to our own community” necessarily. People - everyone, women and lesbians and yes, even dykes - have our own agency, our own ability to define for ourselves who we are and what we are doing with it. To speak from outside of a community who uses this language intentionally about the choice of using this language is belittling and offensive, implying that I couldn’t possibly know what I’m doing by using this language.

And I know some of you are thinking, “well, Sinclair, you’re a bit different than the average butch, after all,” but ya know what? I haven’t found that to be true. I have found that most butches I know are incredibly intentional about their identities, and have beautiful things to say about what it’s like to navigate the world as a butch-looking woman, often even if they don’t identify with the label, culture, or politics. Same with the femmes. Butch and femme are no longer default identities to which one gets shoved into the minute one comes out as a lesbian. Queer, dyke, butch, femme - those words are marginalized, othered, looked down upon in many ways. It takes work to come to them, work to claim them, and work to keep them functioning.

This author, like the majority of folks out there - lesbian communities notwithstanding, unfortunately - are missing some key elements and understandings of the history of gender radicalism, what it means to reclaim language, and what it means to adopt these identities. Articles like this really get my boxers in a twist because they appear to be a conscious, intentional analysis of what’s difficult or challenging within the lesbian communities, but in fact, they are reinforcing gender misunderstandings and further marginalizing those of us who do play with gender intentionally, celebrationally, and beautifully.

Cynthia Nixon has sent a message to us gay women: learn the facts & take control of your breast health.

Don’t forget those breast exams too - they say it’s so important to detect cancer early. (Doesn’t it feel sometimes like it’s not whether or not you will ever get cancer, but when, and how early you will find it? Sometimes I feel like we live in a scary time, when we’re so susceptible to such mutations of our bodies.) So don’t forget to do those breast exams, your own, your girlfriend’s, your lovers, your fuckbuddy, your booty call … I do find it’s best if you ask first. Just sayin’.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has lots more information on their site at komen.org.

The opening reception for Pink& Bent: Art of Queer Women is tomorrow night here in New York City. One of the contributing photographers, Sophia Wallce, sent me a few of the shots that will be in her show. I love them all, but this one might be my favorite - the colors in the background are so stunning.

I first saw Sophia’s work because of her project called Bois and Dykes, which has some beautiful photographs of female masculinity shot in New York City. It was fascinating to look through this project of hers; the photos are just so familiar. She even shot my weekly happy hour watering hole and the barber I see about twice a month.

Here’s the information about the exhibit.

Pink& Bent: Art of Queer Women
Curatated by Pilar Gallego & Cora Lambert

Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation presents
Pink & Bent, an exhibition of international artwork by queer women.
Exhibit runs May 21-June 28th

The Leslie/Lohman Gallery
26 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10013
(between Canal & Grand-closer to Grand)

Hours: 12-6pm, Tues-Sat, closed Sat-Sun
Tel. 212-431-2609

Opening reception: Tuesday, May 20, 6-8pm
Panel discussion: Thursday, May 29, 6:30-8pm
Women in the Arts Speak Out
$7 suggested donation at the door

Just got this from Felice Newman, author of the Whole Lesbian Sex Book (which is fantastic, by the way). She’s conducting interviews for her next book and is seeking lesbian, bi, and queer women couples who have been together for 5+ years to talk about your sex life.

If this is you, do it! We need more voices talking about our honest stories out there. Contact information and more detail follows.

[Read more →]

Sometimes I hear people say they wish they lived in the 50s and 60s so they could experience the butch/femme dynamic, or they “miss” it even. Team Gina has that line in their song: “Sometimes I miss the butch/femme dynamic / ’cause only girls in carharts make me panic.” When I think about it, it’s kind of odd, coming from a couple of twenty-something girls. It’s an interesting sort of nostalgic feeling for a time that we didn’t actually witness.

Can you really miss something you didn’t actually live through? Seems like there’s a better word for it than “miss” or “nostalgia,” because it’s actually longing for another time. But it’s deeper than that - it’s a historical connection to that time, an inhereted lineage that I really do miss and sometimes long for.

Though the gender revolution/s that are currently happening - especially around butch/femme - are a resurrection of something of the past, maybe it’s actually more more accurate to call it something new - a similar idea resurfacing in a new way.

I certainly didn’t grow up with any sort of model of the butch/femme dynamic, not in my own family - where actually there was a strong rejection of gender roles, falling on the not-rare 70s feminist argument that gender inequality is based on gender difference and gender expression. And yet, I feel connected to the butch/femme dynamic, I feel like a part of it, both currently and along some sort of historical axis.

I’ve been reading Riki Wilchin’s book Queer Theory, Gender Theory lately, and one of her major arguments (so far) is that gender activism got pushed out of both the feminist and gay liberation movements of the mid-1900s because of the ways that the conservative right backlash was using gender deviation as personal attacks against the people in the movements. Now that both of those movements have come so far, and been so successful, we are finally able to unearth this genderphobia that has been prevalent all along and attempt some activism around that.

What’s interesting about that to me is the ways that genderqueerness had to go underground, hidden, shameful, through these liberation movements, and now we - quite often it’s the folks like me, twenty-something, queer, children of the revolution movements of the 60s and 70s - are picking up the torch in our own, new way. And hell, the gender revolution happening seems more radical now than that butch/femme nostalgic time for which some of us long - look at the trans movement, the trans rights, the genderqueer and intersexual activism and knowledge that is getting more and more mainstreamed.

I’ll entice you with the one key little detail here, then you should head on over to Eden Fantasys and read my full review.

Here’s the thing about this harness. It’s gorgeous & comfortable, and you can strap a cock on, la la la, just like you usually would, but then … then? The way the front leather triangle is built, you can add a second cock that will slip right inside the harness wearer (assuming the wearer is female bodied).

It’s like an instant double, with any of the two cocks you choose.

I discount my own penetration pretty easily … but this reminded me how different orgasms are when my own cunt has something to grip.

Take a look at more photos, specs, and my full review …

An acquaintance of mine sent this on to me, she is going to be playing Santa at Sylvia’s Place Homeless Youth Shelter again this year, and they need donated gifts for queer youth.

If you want to be a Gay Santa, they’ll send you a “dear santa” letter from one of the youth, and then you an drop off or mail the gift with their name on it back to the shelter. if you’ve got the means, it sounds like a really fun process to be a part of! I’m excited to participate.

More information about Sylvia’s Place: We provide emergency shelter to homeless LGBTQ youth in New York City. A 2006 report from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force estimates that a third of homeless youth identify as LGBT. In New York City, this means that something like 8,000 to 10,000 youth are without shelter every night. This has led many to refer to this as an “epidemic” of homelessness among LGBTQ youth. Find out more…

Gay Santa wrote:

Happy Holidays from Sylvia’s Place Homeless Youth Center! We are hoping you will consider being a ‘Gay Santa’ this year.

To participate, send us your postal mailing address and you will be sent a “Dear Santa” letter from a homeless young person asking for a gift. Wrapped gifts, labeled with the young person’s name, can be mailed or dropped off at the shelter: Metropolitan Community Church , 446 W 36th st, NYC NY 10018

Our goal is to make sure each of our young people receive a gift this Christmas. With your support, we know this goal will become a reality.

Many thanks and warm holiday wishes,

Kate Barnhart, Director
MCCNY/Homeless Youth Services
446 W 36th St, NYC NY 10018

1. There’s that whole fucking women thing. Yeah, I like that.

2. It challenges all sorts of compulsory hegemonic systems and encourages new ways of acceptance, tolerance, living, and loving

3. The community! We have such fighters, artists, activists, lovers - I love our arts and culture, our philosophies, our theories

4. Drag kings, drag queens, and queer burlesque

5. That we are a lineage of kisses; because we do not inheret our legacies through our blood-related families, we must claim our heritage through our desire, love, play, and kisses

6. Getting over the “ick factor” - which is what I’d call a lesbian’s aversion to men (and masculinity) or a gay boy’s aversion to women (and femininity) - and creating alignments with all sorts of genders within the queer spectrum

7. The synthesis of feminism, gender, and sexual revolution

8. The brilliance and hilarity of our (mainstream) queer celebrities - Ellen, k.d., Harvey Feirstein, John Waters, George Michael, Jenny Shimitzu, Rosie - and our media - Better than Chocolate, But I’m a Cheerleader, Bound, Queer as Folk, Brokeback Mountain, Will & Grace … and dozens more. They really are forging through.

9. The Pride Parade & Dyke March. Stonewall. Knowing where I come from. Honoring traditions, and making new ones

10. I do have a great toaster oven from all those young’uns I’ve converted …