If you’ve just tuned in, you are joining our hero, Sinclair Sexsmith, on his ongoing quest for sex, gender exploration, and relationships. This is what happened in August; let’s watch.

SEX:

• Uh, there wasn’t really any smut posted this month. I was single and haven’t been seeing anyone steadily, so there were no real-life adventures, and I’m preparing for the Sugarbutch Star 2008 contest where I write up various fiction stories, so I haven’t been writing much smut lately.
• I did write the suspension of heterosexual belief about reading smut or watching porn with participants who aren’t particularly within your erotic orientation, and being able to suspend your orientation enough to appreciate the technique and skill of the sex in the scene
• I also write on choice feminism and compulsory gender roles, which is something I’ve already referred to often, especially in regards to making all potential options valid in order to make a legitimate choice.
• There’s a sexy seduction story, summer game plan, I posted over at Sappho’s Girls. What, you didn’t know I was writing there?
• Sugarbutch Star Contest!– the official launch! and the announcement of the 2007 sugarbutch star chapbook which you’ll be able to buy from this site soon.

GENDER:

• In praise of femmes: hair & shaving. I start out by talking about the difference between my personal preferences and what I think the options are (or should be) for women in general. I wish more women didn’t shave, honestly. Shaving probably wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me one way or the other, but I do particularly like freshly shaved skin. I see it as being yet another way to increase physical sensation, and as such, it’s a sex toy.
• On butches: hair: “Sometimes I even like my five o’clock shadow. I’ve developed the habit of scratching my chin like the boys do. Feeling when I need a shave. Letting it grow on weekends, on weeks when I don’t have work. When I was in Mexico I didn’t touch it once. Ten days without shaving, I am sure a personal record. I didn’t even know my hair would grow that long, that dark, that thick. … Sometimes, I even like it. “
• Both of these pieces were extensively commented on, by butches and femmes and various folks within the gender galaxy around the blogosphere. The comments & posts are particularly worth reading and I would even say are more interesting than my original posts - it’s fascinating to hear the details about how people keep their bodies, and the reasons for it, and the ways that shaving or body hair is subversive and resistance. Add your own comment to the mix about what you do, or post it on your own blog and leave a link.
• I theorize about romance vs chivalry: What’s the difference between romance & chivalry? The two can look nearly identical, we thought - bringing flowers, pulling out a chair, taking a jacket - but something separates them. …Sometimes chivalry is purely kind and thoughtful, with no romance whatsoever. When I hold the door open for a stranger, or for my mom or sister or a straight girl friend, I do it with no romantic intent. Ah - so perhaps that’s what differentiates the two: intention.”

RELATIONSHIPS:

• Some thoughts on my relationship with love in new place, new learning (protected)
• moving backward, moving forward (protected) where I continue to mull over my relationship history

MISCELLANY:

• Elsewhere: Gender 101 article over at Eden Fantasys; blogs by butches featured over at TLL; summer game plan (actually written in July, but I never featured it here) over at Sappho’s Girls
• English Department at SSU: Define: mutually exclusive; writing prompt: what’s in your box of darkness (from this poem); if I had a red pen; define: transmasculine, writing prompt: if I was being really honest, protected poetry: the solace of solitude.
• Interview: I’m on Bedroom Radio
• Reviews: massage bongers, a preview of the goodfella packing cock I ran a little contest with my review of the erotica book Spanked: with what and where would you like to be spanked?… and here’s the winner
• Eye Candy: that stare, gloves, standing around with that famous butch lean, Dani. Tag your photos with ’sugarbutch’ on flickr and they’ll be featured in the sidebar. Looks like we’ll get some femme eye candy in September!

July was a big month! I’m refining the topics & categories that I’m beginning to consistently write here, and I like the columns I’ve started - on butches, and in praise of femmes.

One of the first things I did this month was ask for money. I’ve been realizing more and more how much time I put into this website - it has become my part-time job. Many people have said that it is significant to them, it’s more than just my personal adventures, it’s also a community filled with ideas and concepts about gender, butch/femme dynamics, lesbian sexualities, etc. I wrote a follow up to why I asked for money after I got a little challenged, but ultimately I was incredibly touched and honored at all the donations I received. Thank you.

I also launched some merch! I don’t make much money at all from this, pennies really, but it’s kind of fun.

On with the rest:

SEX

• Penny & I kept playing in July, and we had some great times. weekend part one, flogging and weekend part two, dancing were quite notable this month.
• I also wrote on telling a girl what to wear as a kink, particularly the ways that it exaggerates the power and gender dynamic between butchtop/femmebottom play.

GENDER

• Long piece on intentional vs natural gender, then a follow up on creating conscious gender, which is also long, but worth reading.
• In praise of femmes: fishnets
• On butches: butch style: briefs
• packing cocks 101 was a big review guide I’ve been working on for a while

RELATIONSHIPS

• Protected post on my issues + her issues, where I discuss a little about my relationship with Penny
• What happened with Penny, where I announced that we’d split up.

MISCELLANY

• Eye Candy: buxa, work safe, noir, and a bruise & heels, the first femme eye candy. I think we’ll do some more of those in the future.
• Reviews: Bonk by Mary Roach, undercover harness, Lipstick on her Collar edited by Alison Tyler. And a big one: packing cocks 101.
• Prompts: I’ve done a few of these lately, and had a lot of comments, so I’m going to keep that around for a while. if asked of the state of my heart (& my response: I would say) and if I could speak. The comments and responses are really emotional and intense, I feel honored that you all would reveal like you do here in this space, thank you.

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

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

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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

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.

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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

Sex

• The Therapy Session: she took my fingers deep into her mouth like she does, letting me feel her throat and the back of her tongue and her soft palette with my fingertips. Two, three fingers. Her tongue, her teeth grazing my knuckles. [...] And then on her knees. Her beautiful eyes looking up at me, cock deep in her throat, her hands on my thighs, on my ass, pulling me deeper into her. I’m moaning and gasping aw fuck and she takes my hand and puts it in her hair, I grip a fistful and hold her there, steady, as I pump my hips and fuck her face.
• Upon Leaving Mexico: I rip open the fly of my jeans and shove my hand under my briefs. My clit (that she calls my dick and oh I love how she engenders me) is half-hard and has been all week that I’ve been next to her. I roll it in my fingers, remove my hand and spit onto my fingertips, then replace it and start jacking off.

Gender

• Passing, privilege, & butch/femme: Yes, passing is sometimes a privilege, but not always. Just like my visibility is sometimes a privilege, but not always. Tell me about times it was a privilege for you, and times it wasn’t, and then ask me about my stories, too. Tell me what it’s like to walk in your shoes. Let me learn from your experience. It’s hard sometimes to be a queer in this heterodominant society, and it’s hard to be a butch or femme in a lesbian community rooted in androgyny and which associates gender oppression with gender expression. [...] Can’t we share this burdon? Can’t we pass this weight around, let it be a little lighter between us? I mean, I know I’m a hippie-feminist-do-gooder-pacifist and all, but I believe in the power of community, deeply.
• Further thoughts on privilege & gender: Thank you for swooning over my neckties and collared shirts, my perfectly messy short hair, my heavy belt buckles and swagger and the way I order wine for you. Thank you for having my favorite whiskey at your house for me, just for me, thank you for dressing up and looking your best, celebrating the costume of femininity, for putting time into your hair and makeup and outfit and shaved legs and stockings and lingerie straps that bite into flesh and shin splints from high heels and freezing legs from short skirts and the eyelash batting and the way I feel like a million bucks when I’ve got you on my arm. [...] I appreciate your gender expression, deeply, because I make more sense when I’m next to you. To quote Cody: “Let’s be honest: we need femmes.” I didn’t get who I was until I started dating femmes. This identity does not exist in a vacuum, and, for me, requires the duo dynamic inherently.
• Nostalgia for the butch/femme dynamic: 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.
• Definitions on sex & gender: including the terms “butch flight,” gender galaxy, dress-up test, and GGG
• Guest post from the muse: An argument for butch/femme, which tells the story of how she came to a femme identity: After seeing the toppy look on her face that gets me instantly wet, makes me tilt my chin down and look at her wide and expectant through my eyelashes, my mouth dropping open a little, just before she leaned over and kissed me hard, interrupting whatever I was saying. After making out wildly in an overpillowed winebar, her hands running up my skirt and finding the baby pink band of my thigh-highs, looking at me surprised and saying, “oh, that’s nice.” After a shameless PDA marathon along 14th street, grinding up against brick walls and in the middle of the sidewalk and in dark corners and on subway platforms. [ ... ] After all that, I was convinced of the utility of skirts. And heels, two and a half inches or more, that put her cock just below my clit when I’m up against a wall. Fuck yeah. A (high-minus? medium-plus?) femme was born.

Relationships

A couple of password protected posts discussing my latest lover, and the end of that relationship:

• Occasionally practically
• Revision
• and Tendencies

Reviews

• My favorite harness
• Clit pumping
• Jimmyjane blindfold
• Some music, for a change! kd lang’s Watershed