Joey, my barber and the owner of Tomcats Barber Shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, took this shot of me on Friday after he gave me a shape-up (apparently that’s the word for a trim). They do classic and retro cuts primarily, though they have a whole bunch of new barbers there these days that do just about anything you could want. Kristen just got her hair colored and cut there and it’s darker and very pinup.
It always makes me feel better to get a good haircut. Thanks, Joey.
Hey y’all:
So I’m interrupting your regularly scheduled relationship processing to tell you what I’m doing in November. I’ve got a whole lot of gigs planned, and it means a lot to me when you readers come out and show up and support when I’m on the road. (I could especially use that right now!)
When was the last time I did one of these calendars? Man it’s been a while. It’s been a rough summer, and fall. I’m glad to be doing more gigs. I’m still booking things in the spring and I’d love to come visit your town!
| Wednesday, 14 November | Radical & Responsible Gender workshop. Academics break down gender- how does one adapt masculinity or femininity “positively”? Come to this interactive workshop to gain a better sense of how to push the limitations of gender restrictions that are hurtful and traumatizing, and how to create and support positive embodiments of gender roles. Dinner will be provided! | LGBT-CRC at 6-8pm, Stanford University, Stanford, CA |
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| Thursday, 15 November | Queer Stories: Writing Ourselves into Existence. Traditional publishing through books, magazines, and literary journals have typically excluded gay stories, characters, revelations, and identity development. Navigating the world of literature can be extremely othering as a queer person attempting to write about queer lives, constantly being questioned for our cultural representations in writing. But Judy Shepard continues to say that coming out is the most important thing we can do, that indeed it is a political act, which encourages and advocates for visibility. Telling our stories is one way to make ourselves visible. Come to this interactive writing workshop and learn about the history of queer stories, what the queer story looks like, alternate forms of publishing such as chapbooks and blogs, and begin to form your own queer story. Bring paper and a writing utensil, please! | Time & place TBA. Stanford University, Stanford, CA |
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| Friday, 16 November |
Lesbian Sex Mafia workshop:
Fucking Forever: Sex in Long Term Relationships. New relationship energy can propel a couple into a phenomenal experiential phase of sexual energy—bursts of passion, exploration, and intensity. Long term relationships, however, face the day-to-day life navigation of bills, scheduling, job and career difficulties or changes, disappointments, changes, and grief. How do we build a long term relationship that keeps the passion alive? How do we ensure we have enough time for our partner(s), and for ourselves? How do we both separate from our partner to have our own rich inner life and come back together to build a loving bond? And what kind of kinky play can be used to keep the fire going? We’ll explore all of these concepts and more at this interactive workshop. $20 non members, $15 members. |
8pm, LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St., New York, NY |
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| Tuesday, 20 November | Dirty Queer Sex Tour: Dallas! Readers TBA, but include Sinclair Sexsmith & Lillith Grey. RSVP on Facebook | VerLes, Dallas, TX |
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| Thursday, 29 November | 101 Introduction to the the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality class | 9:25am, Rice University, Houston, TX |
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| Date TBA | Getting the Sex Life You Want workshop | The Montrose Center, Houston, TX |
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I’m booking gigs for the spring (February through May)! And I have all sorts of exciting new workshops I’m offering. Want to bring me to your college or university or local bookstore or sex toy shop? I’d love to visit! Things that are important to know!
Love is generous. Love is incomparable.
Love is not quantifiable, but
we put numbers and words to it anyway,
because that is our nature, to strive
to express the unexpressable. Love
is letting go. Love is holding
gently. Love is allowance, gratitude,
cheerleading. Love is fluidity, not
rigidity. Love is dishing and sharing
excitement. Love is knowing
no one person is your everything. Love
is persistence and patience and
reassurance. Love is sincere apologies
and fucking up and knowing
you have the space to fuck it up again,
and knowing you have even more space
and support and tools and skills
to try harder. Love is lonely, sometimes,
because you have room to be alone. Love
is smothering, sometimes, because
you have desire to be close. Love is
coming together and going apart
a thousand times a day. Love is learning
to recognize the difference. Love is
asking for what you want. Love is
practicing to be bold and courageous,
sometimes, when we can. Love is
curled under the covers when
refuge is needed. Love is gross
and body fluids and waste and
old moldy salsa jars in the fridge.
Love is the light through the east
window just right on a winter afternoon.
Love is wrestling with deep contradictory
truths. Love is feeling the fear
and doing it anyway. Love is reconciling
daily, sometimes hourly. Love is a golden
bubble bath and a white washcloth
that smells like jasmine. Love is
making a special trip to the store
for eggs and cheese and root beer
and coming back to find no one home.
Love is checking in twice. Love is not
having to explain every feeling or
misunderstanding. Love is planting
a garden
and not knowing what will come up,
what will blossom,
what will bloom. Love
is trying anyway. Love is risk.
Love is undefend,
undefend, undefend.
Love is asking yourself if this
is an act of war or an act of
god. Love is self-soothing
and taking on the world, sometimes
for more than just yourself.
Love is crying alone. Love
is determination. Love is possible—
it has to be,
I chose to believe that it is.
And now for something completely different …
Fisting Day was October 21st, and I’m not sure exactly what I was doing, but I didn’t get something up before it. I think Courtney Trouble did a great job with it, I love the resources collected on the Fisting Day blog. So if you’re curious about it, you should check it out.
Courtney sent along a fisting scene with Cyd and Essex from the new site FTM Fucker, from which I snapped that still above. I’ve been kinda out of the queer porn loop lately, but I am loving that there are more cis men and more depictions of masculinity.
1. Shower ever day. Even if you have to cry through it.
2. Put on clean clothes, even if they aren’t your favorites. Or do laundry, and wear only your favorites.
3. Behave well toward Kristen. She loves you, you love her, even if you are numb and can’t remember.
4. Write. Because it heals you. Because you can’t do anything else. Because it makes the most sense. Because it is your deepest practice, your deepest craft.
4a. Take a class, make some art, take up time.
5. Run. When you want to get away from yourself and these emotions, get them out of your body. Go back to boxing class. Take out the anger on something else.
6. Grow the fuck up. Behave like an adult. Stop the self-pity. Stop the over-indulgence of your feelings. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
7. Read. Read poetry if you can’t get into long things. Read indulgently. Read grief memoirs and buddhist philosophy and ttantra and open up to healing. Ask yourself, what do I need to do to heal today. Read more.
8. Work. Set reminders in your phone for appointment times because you can’t keep track of time. Calendar everything. Make work a priority. Finish projects. Make art. Focus on this, if nothing else.
8a. Don’t publish over-indulgent blog posts that attempt to tell the “whole story” and draw some conclusion. Write poetry. Write about feelings. Write about love and sex and grief and loss and abandonment, how scary it is to watch Kristen bloom, and how much it matters to let her. Learn what over-indulgent blog posts look like, so that when you do write them, you don’t hit “publish.”
9. Go outside. Feel the earth. Drink water.
10. Pray. You are not alone, even though you feel you are. Faith is when you see no hope, and you do it anyway. Times like this are why we practice. Lean on your practices. Everything is temporary.
11. Behave well toward yourself. Take care of your body. Eat well. Nourish. Buy a fancy new soap so showers suck less. Make a list of your favorite foods, then eat them. Start watching a new TV series when you can’t be in your brain anymore. Be alone when you need to be. Practice impeccable self-care. Forgive everyone, and maybe yourself most of all.
I feel so lucky to know a lot of artists, to consider myself part of the larger community of queers who live brazenly and create art out of our heartbreak, growth, struggles, and lessons. Roving Pack, Sassafras Lowrey’s first full-length novel, is a beautiful, fun, and poignant read, and it makes me excited to be part of these queer artist communities.
Roving Pack follows Click, a homeless teenage genderqueer creature struggling with hir relationships with family of origin in addition to hir crushes and relationships with butches and trans guys who are lovers and Daddies and friends. Set in the punk underbelly of Portland, Oregon, in the 1990s, the book is an honest look at the queer youth center, navigating housing as a homeless youth, squats, testosterone injections, straightedge politics, D/s, and a deep love of dogs.
I read it quickly, devoured it really. I came out as queer in the late 1990s in Seattle, and came to a queer identity in a very similar culture. Though I was a bit older and not homeless, the tone and characters and place really resonated with me.
Order it online at rovingpack.com, and read more excerpts and thoughts about the book over there.
I’ve just arrived in Toronto after a loooong day of driving. Kristen and I are staying visiting for Unholy Harvest, and sticking around for a few more events and to visit with some friends, including Mr. Gray at Aslan Leather. I’d never seen Niagra Falls before, it was a thrill this afternoon! As per our usual style, Kristen and I had some good big-picture talks about life, love, and the Sugarbutch Empire on the long (10 hour!) drive up. She made some disco mixes (including lots of Jessie Ware, who Kristen is pretty into these days) and we generally amused ourselves.
As I’m getting ready to turn on the streaming NPR concert that I’m pissed is happening in New York City tonight, I’m reminded that there’s something else exciting going on in New York this evening: a Say Please reading!
The reading series Between the Covers at Happy Ending Lounge is featuring writers from Say Please and The Harder She Comes: Butch/Femme Erotica tonight. If you’re looking for something to do, go on out and say I sent you. (That & $10 will get you a stiff drink.)
Details:
We’re putting the spotlight on Cleis Press, long-time publisher of sex-positive erotica. How? By welcoming editor D.L. King and contributors to The Harder She Comes:Butch/Femme Erotica and Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica to the mic. Joining host Lori Perkins this month with their seductive, steamy stories, with D.L. King, Xan West, Aimee Herman, Elizabeth Thorne.
REMEMBER: Doors open at 7:00 so come early and socialize. Reading begins at 8:00 pm.
Enter our Dirty Word Draw at the reading for prize baskets filled with books, ebooks, and sundry kinky items! For your chance to win, write down your favorite dirty word and initial it (because great perv minds think alike). We’ll toss it in our basket and then it’s the luck of the draw!
Between the Covers
First Friday of the month. 7-10 p.m.
Free. Casual dress.
Happy Ending Lounge
302 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 334-9676
www.happyendinglounge.com
I’ll aim to post some things from this trip, but if not, will talk to you next week when I get back.
I was interviewed for Time Out NY recently (along with Rachel Kramer Bussel and Rachel Rabbit White and some other folks) about my favorite sex bloggers, and the article came out today.
I’ve meant for a while to compile a list of links to have somewhere here on Sugarbutch. Nominations for the top sex bloggers of 2012 were open recently (and closed now) and I meant to put forward a list of my personal favorites, but didn’t get around to it. (Check out the comments for hundreds of sex blogs to search and surf, if you’re into that.) You can also surf through the Top 100 Sex Bloggers of 2011, but there are very few queer bloggers on there, if that’s what you’re looking for. (Where are they?) (I’ve been retired from that list because I was in the top three years in a row, which is kind of too bad, but Sugarbutch is also totally not competitive in that world anymore. Which is a slightly different post.)
I used to have a community page, but I haven’t updated that in (probably literally) years.
I also used to keep my Google reader shared items in the sidebar, which was awesome and I loved that it was a frequent solution to links, because I’d just share the articles or stories or blog posts that were awesome, and other people who used Google reader as their primary RSS feed reader could see what I recommended in their feeds too. Google reader has since been basically rendered useless as they tried to integrate their shared items into Google+, which nobody uses and can’t seem to be embedded into a sidebar. I’ve looked into Feedly and a few other online feed readers, but nothing has that particular feature that I’d love to see revived.
Any suggestions for a tool where I can a) read my RSS feeds, b) share items, and c) embed the shared items into the sidebar of this site??
There is also Tumblr, of course. I kind of wish I could just share my whole dashboard as recommendations of who to follow, but I guess that’s what the reblogging is for. My tumblr is mrsexsmith.tumblr.com and I try to keep up with that.
Meanwhile, here’s the Time Out NY article, and the links below that I sent them (many of which they didn’t include). These are sex blogs specifically—there are many other blogs I read often and eagerly, though I no longer have the daily habit of checking my reader first thing and reading The Entire Internet every day.
Erotic writings:
http://quickienewyork.com
http://www.writingdirty.com
http://bdswain.com/
Things I keep in my underwear drawer:
http://bedtimestories-daddy.blogspot.com/
Not frequently updated anymore, but influential on me:
http://www.247richardandamy.com/
http://devastatingyet.wordpress.com/
http://afeministsub.wordpress.com/
http://littlegirlyone.wordpress.com/
Writings about sex (more on the theory side):
http://www.charlieglickman.com/
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/
http://www.mollena.com/
http://sexgeek.wordpress.com/
Podcasts:
http://www.masocast.com
http://thestranger.com/savage
Community sites:
http://www.fearlesspress.com
http://filthygorgeousthings.com
http://www.scarleteen.com
Sometimes I feel very removed from the next new thing—I spent so much time marketing and promoting and doing workshops these days, and less and less time on the net. It does seem like there is a big lack of queer erotica writers sharing their work online. Who are your favorite writers or blogs? Are there queer sex blogs that I should be reading, but maybe don’t know about? Who are your favorite butch/femme bloggers? Who do you read every day? I’d love to know.
Lelo sent me the Tiani 2 vibrator to explore with over the summer (quite a long time ago, I admit) and I am finally getting around to writing a review of it.
Here’s my problem: I often forget about vibrators. I think it’s easier for me to embody toys that rely on the motion of my body to animate or be used, which, when I think about it, seems really obvious, but I hadn’t really articulated that until recently. Which is why I like cocks and floggers and canes and paddles, bondage if necessary, my hands, my belt.
But. I fuck with my cock a lot, and I really like to get off while I do that, and I seem to never quite have the magic combination of what it takes to get off while fucking with a strap-on, so I have been eager to try some of these newfangled fancy vibrators to see if that would support getting off more easily.
This one, the Tiani 2, is a little U-shape that is made to have the bottom part inserted into the cunt and the top part sitting over someone’s clit. It is marketed primarily to hetero couples as something the woman would wear while being penetrated, and hey maybe that is awesome, I’m not sure. I didn’t try it out that way (yet). (I mean I probably won’t try it out that way in a hetero way, but I could share it with whoever I’m fucking and see if they like that kind of vibration while being penetrated.)
It is covered in silicone, so a quick 10% bleach solution will sterilize it such that it is shareable. By the way.
I’m particularly interested in using it underneath a harness, on myself, to see if that helps me get off. The harness holds it easily in place, and the vibration is lovely. It fits well. I like the stimulation.
But I still didn’t get off very easily. I got really overstimulated really quickly, actually, and then couldn’t quite calm my body down to get off after that. That has been happening to me a lot lately, though, so I don’t think it’s the fault of the toy, though it is frustrating that this isn’t the perfect solution for me to getting off while strapped on.
Your milage may vary, however! I have heard from many folks who strap-on in classes and via email that this is an excellent tool for them, and they like it a lot. If you like vibration stimulation, this might be something worth exploring.
So one of the things marketed about Tiani 2 that is supposed to be amazing is the “SenseMotion™ technology” remote control. Having a remote I can get behind, since that also means someone can wear it under their clothes out in public and someone else can control the stimulation they receive (hot!). But the “SenseMotion” part means that if you tilt the remote, the vibration is supposed to go up or down, which is very inconvenient for, well, lots of things in lots of ways. You can’t really hold it in your hand while you’re fucking, for example, or you’ll mess up the settings that you may’ve just determined were awesome. I also don’t really love vibrators where I have to read the user manual before I know how to use it—I don’t want it to be that complicated! Just give me an on/off button, that’s all I really need. Maybe a few options for speed settings, but that’s enough.
Conclusion: Impressed with the design, great for use under a harness. Remote was awkward. Didn’t blow my mind, but I’ll keep trying it.
The Tiani 2 was sent to me by Lelo to review. Thanks Lelo!
You are invited to … A night of DIRTY QUEER SEX!
Tuesday, October 9th, 8pm
Glad Day Bookshop
598 Yonge St, Toronto, Ontario M4Y1Z3
RSVP on F
acebook!
Featuring readers from the SAY PLEASE: LESBIAN BDSM EROTICA, and many special guests! Performers include Titus Androgynous, S. Bear Bergman, Drew Deveaux, Dorianne, Carrie Gray, and Andrea Zanin. Hosted by Sinclair Sexsmith, writer of the Sugarbutch Chronicles and editor of Say Please & Best Lesbian Erotica 2012.
In SAY PLEASE, Sinclair Sexsmith presents a cornucopia of queer kink—tantalizing tales rich in variety and saucy details of girls put in their place—and held there firmly. Whether readers dream of surrendering to a lover or of taking control, Say Please offers plenty of erotic inspiration and gives readers exactly what they want! Come hear authors from the book read their stories and celebrate the release of this kinky queer collection.
ABOUT THE EDITOR/HOST
Sinclair Sexsmith has been writing online since 1996 about identity, queer culture, feminism, and self-awareness, and teaches workshops on BDSM, gender, and getting the sex life you want. They produce the award-winning website Sugarbutch Chronicles: The Sex, Gender, and Relationship Adventures of a Kinky Queer Butch Top at sugarbutch.net. Contributing to more than fifteen anthologies, including five Best Lesbian Erotica editions, Persistence: Still Butch and Femme, and Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, Mr. Sexsmith is also on the board of the upcoming 2013 BUTCH Voices conference, and serves the Body Electric School as a coordinator. They are the guest editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012 and editor of Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, both from Cleis Press. More information about their events, workshops, and projects at mrsexsmith.com.
ABOUT THE READERS
Titus Androgynous is a performer, writer and, when time permits, boxer. A contributor to the queer fashion blog, DapperQ, she began writing as a way to explore her emerging dapper-butch aesthetic. She is fresh from an acclaimed gender-bent production of Henry V, and can’t wait to tease you all with some salacious prose.
S. Bear Bergman (www.sbearbergman.com) is an author, a theater artist, an instigator, a gender-jammer, and a good example of what happens when you overeducate a contrarian. He is also the author or editor of three books for grown-ups, two books for kids, four award-winning solo performances, assorted contributions to anthologies on all manner of topics from the sacred to the extremely profane. A longtime activist, Bear continues to work at the points of intersection between and among gender, sexuality, and culture, and spends a lot of time trying to discourage people from installing traffic signals there.
Drew Deveaux, the mischievous activist, has been pushing the boundaries of queer activism from her perch in Toronto since 2005. As an educator, Drew coined the term ‘anti-cissexism’ training to re-conceptualize the way we do trans education and see it through an anti-oppresion lens. Drew has often remarked that “bedroom is the last frontier of social justice”. Seeking to showcase the sweet reality that trans women can be just as sexy and sublime as their cis counterparts, Drew entered the world of porn in 2009 and has since been a part of over 12 features as well as appearing on many websites. The accolades for her work started to quickly gush in, and they include being a Fleshbot Top 10 Crush Object of 2011 as well as winning the Hearthrob of the Year award at the 2011 Feminist Porn Awards.
Dorianne is a queer kinky sex enthusiast who writes in many genres including erotic short fiction. Her dirty work has been featured in The Mammoth Book Of Threesomes and Moresomes (Running Press), Best Women’s Erotica 2012 (Cleis Pres), issue #2 of Up & Coming Magazine, and on www.metanotherfrog.com. She is a regular reader at the Erotica Readers & Writers Meetup in Toronto. Visit her online at www.dorianneemmerton.com
Carrie Gray is a Toronto based BDSM educator, photographer, manufacturer and designer of strap on harnesses, bondage equipment and owner of ASLAN Leather Inc. Carrie has presented at The Floating World 2010, Dark Odyssey Summer Camp, Dark Odyssey WinterFire 2011, and has been teaching his classes through Good For Her in Toronto for over 10 years. Carrie identifies as a Gender Queer, Transgendered Butch and is a passionate advocate of BDSM as a self-empowering form of sexual, psychological and physical play. A lifestyle Daddy and Master, Carrie enjoys the discoveries that come from pushing the psychological and physical boundaries of top and bottom space through role play, the intimate power of spanking, flogging and the beautiful submission and control of bondage. Carrie’s scene experience and sadistic pleasures cover a variety of activities including knives, canes, needle play, single tails and age play. He believes that playing is an ongoing growth process and is always ready to learn new skills to share with others. With over 10 years experience as a BDSM educator Carrie shares his expertise and lessons in an engaging, open and entertaining format that encourages participants to learn through communication, play and participation.
When she’s not working on her PhD in women’s studies, Andrea Zanin travels the world to teach about sex and sadomasochism. Back at home, she co-organizes the annual Canadian leatherdyke weekend An Unholy Harvest and runs a pervy book club called The Leather Bindings Society. Andrea blogs at sexgeek.wordpress.com, writes the “Ask the Sex Geek” column for In Toronto magazine, and pens pervy porn, most recently for Tristan Taormino’s Lambda Award-winning “Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica,” the Leather issue of Salacious magazine, and the forthcoming D. L. King collection “Under Her Thumb: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance.”
It’s that time again! The kids are back to school, and I’m back on the road. Okay, so I never really stopped being on the road—this past year I have traveled more than I ever have before, and I love that this is now part of my job.
I’ve been working on my workshop offerings a lot in the last month or so. I had some photos taken to use as promotional materials, I redesigned both Sugarbutch and mrsexsmith.com and jazzed them up, and I’ve spent a lot of time on new workshop topics, structures, and outlines.
I’ve got some exciting new classes and talks I’m thrilled to start offering! Some of the new ones include:
Check out my updated workshop list with descriptions and details. I’ve also got two new snazzy PDFs—one aimed at colleges with more academic workshops about sex and gender, and one with my kink classes for sex toy stores and BDSM retreats and conferences.
I’m aiming to travel in October and November, and then again in February, March, April, and May. I already have many dates and aims for where I’ll be.
2012
October 17-19, Washington DC
October 20-21 Hartford, CT
October 26-28, Springfield, MA
November 2-4, Albany, NY
November 9-11, San Francisco, CA
November 14-15, Durham, SC
November 16-18, Austin, TX
November 22-24, Dallas, TX
November 25-30, Houston, TX
December 6-9 Seattle, WA
2013
January 25-27, Albany, NY
February 7-10, New Haven, CT
February 15-18, Washington, DC
March 1-3, Philadelphia, PA
April TBA, Toronto, ON
April 10-11, Knoxville, TN
April 18-21, San Francisco, CA
May 10-12, New York, NY
May 23-26, New Orleans, LA
June 14-16, Anchorage, AK
June 19-24, Baltimore, MD
July 17-21, Walton, WV
July 24-28, Albuquerque, NM
August 15-18, Oakland, CA
August 30-September 2, Baltimore, MD
September 11-15, Baltimore, MD
September 29, San Francisco, CA
October 25-27, Albany, NY
November 8-10, Albany, NY
I am looking to visit Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacremento, Reno, Carson City, Palo ALto, Chico, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Portland OR, Seattle, Vancouver BC, Portland ME, Boston, DC, Philadelphia, and wherever else y’all might want to bring me.
Are you in one of those cities? Do you want to do an event with me? I’m particularly looking for colleges and universities, but I am open to bookstores, sex toy stores, community centers, your living room for a house concert/performance, book groups … Email me, mrsexsmith@gmail.com, and I’m glad to discuss options and compensation and possibilities.
The Body Electric School has had an incredible year, and our programming continues this fall with some rare and beautiful offerings for experiential learning. We’ve also postponed a few workshops. Here’s the news.
Sorry to report that these two workshops have been postponed. Right now, the aim is to have Celebrating the Body Erotic II for women at Easton Mountain in the winter, in January or February. I will let you know as soon as I have confirmed dates!
Outside the Boxes: Toronto has been postponed too, but we are working on securing a venue and coordinator in Toronto to help us make this workshop happen. The Outside the Boxes workshop rumored to be happening in Seattle this fall unfortunately won’t be happening either.
The good news is, we will be hosting an Outside the Boxes workshop in Philadelphia early in 2013! I will let you know as soon as we have dates.
CBE in Seattle is happening! Join Lizz Randall October 26-28 for an incredible circle experience of depth and exploration. If you haven’t yet experienced a CBE for women, this is an extraordinary journey into your own erotic pleasure, desires, and the wisdom of the body. Contact Julie, pacnw@b-e-school.com, for more information or to sign up.
Lizz Randall and Mark Fleming will be leading this remarkable journey covering the principles of Tantra. This is an excellent opportunity for folks to learn basic Tantric principles and practices in a community of conscious embodiment.
November 2-4 Tantra Level I for All Genders at Easton Mountain
These principles and practices are powerful tools for transformation. This type of Tantra teaches deeply about how to have a balanced, juicy inner marriage between our Feminine and Masculine energies. This work brings about the integration of sex, self and Spirit. During the workshop we teach ways to skillfully and playfully bring receptive and penetrative energies into harmonious relationship, within ourselves and in relationship to others. When we do not embrace these energies in ourselves we often project them out on to partners and lose the power and delight provided by these energies. This workshop will provide a fun, safe, facilitated space to explore and experiment with internal and external experiences of the Feminine and Masculine.
This weekend will also offer an opportunity to experience the healing power of pleasure. In Tantra pleasure is the most healing force in the Universe. This is a radical departure from how our society views pleasure, and can allow for amazing openings and insights. There will be many exercises to explore the pulsation between the delicious density of embodiment and more subtle energies. One reason to practice tantra is to be able to hold a larger energetic charge in the body so that erotically and otherwise we can continue to expand into ecstasy, while staying grounded in the body.
This workshop is open to those who are curious to learn more about themselves and others. Participants should be prepared to work with partners of any sex/gender.
It will happen November 2-4 at Easton Mountain near Albany, NY—you can contact me for more details about that.
Sacred Eros is coming up quickly! If you are curious about doing this work in a mixed gender group, this is an excellent deep exploration of men’s and women’s temple.
with Emaya Dillon and William McMeniman
Women and men have so much to learn from and teach to each other. This retreat creates a temporary community that explores and celebrates the potential healing power of all human beings. We use conscious breath, nurturing and taoist erotic massage to help us remember the connection between sexual energy and spirit. In the supportive community of curious adults we explore feminine and masculine energies within the circle and within each one of us. We celebrate our bodies as the home of spirit and through our heart’s connection we will access collective wisdom that nourishes the soul and enlivens our bodies.
All genders and sexual orientation, the bold and the shy, all are welcome!
Prerequisite: None.
Tuition (includes room and board): $1295 double room with bath; $1245 quad room with bath; $1195 garden cabin (share bath in lodge).
SPECIAL OFFERS
$100 off if PAID IN FULL 2 WEEKS in advance
$100 YOUTH DISCOUNT for those under 30 (use code YOUTH100)
OFFERS CANNOT BE COMBINED
Full tuition is due two weeks before start of workshop.
17-Oct to 21-Oct, Contact the coordinator Nirmal at 347-855-7709
I return over and over to the work of Body Electric and the work of my own body and the teachings of these wise instructors to help me see in the dark. I am eager to harvest my own work from this past year, eager to take in and nourish as I send energies to my roots.
Sending many blessings and juicy explorations during this time of harvest and samhain and the oncoming winter. I hope to see you in circles soon.
Kristen is cooking some sort of interesting cauliflower pasta dish, and I’m trying to get some work done now that I’ve returned from two (more) weeks of traveling. I am sorting through the Ask Me Anything questions, thinking about what new video answer Kristen and I could do, and I came across this:
“Hi Sinclair! This isn’t so much a question as a suggestion. I’ve been reading your blog for a few years, and really enjoy it. Given your tastes in music, I feel like you might like an Australian singer-songwriter called Mojo Juju, if you haven’t already heard of her. She’s just released a new solo album (self-titled) that I think you’d be really into. Here’s a link to her myspace profile: http://www.myspace.com/mjjjmusic
Anyway, check her out and see what you think!” —Darcy
So of course I go check it out—and, whoa. Mojo Juju, I’m a fan.
“Smooth, shiny & loaded with sin. The kind of music that could make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. Mojo Juju sings songs that sound just like that night you can’t quite remember, in that bar you swear you weren’t at, with that girl you promise you’ve never met.”
Yes yes yes.
Looks like she (is that their preferred pronoun?) is from Australia and on tour down there currently, but no dates in the States yet. Her self-titled album was released September 14th (I downloaded it immediately). More info on her over on Facebook.com/mojojujumusic. Check out her other videos, too, including covers of Billy Jean and Papa Don’t Preach, which I totally dig.
This is just what I need to distract me from doing a demo at midnight-thirty. (I mean seriously, do I think I’m 23? I can’t stay up that late.) (Performance anxiety? What performance anxiety?)
Have you ever been to the Submit play party? It’s a women and trans only play party monthly in Brooklyn at an undisclosed dungeon which has all sorts of great equipment, from cages to saint andrews crosses to a medical table to saw horses. There’s a social room and a bootblacking station and lots of gender-neutral bathrooms nooks and crannies if you want a little privacy and a swing and condoms and lube in every room.
I don’t go monthly, but I go often, and Kristen and I have had many great scenes there in the past (almost) four years we’ve been together. Red, the butch who runs it, is a good friend of mine and I love how they keep the space warm, welcoming, and monitored.
This week, Red asked if Kristen and I would do the demo. Usually there’s some sort of demo at 12:30am (last time we went there was a cutting demo, which was beautiful), and this time, we’ll be doing Power Blow Jobs. I don’t have a formal description for the demo, which will only be 20-30 minutes long, and more about a demonstration than about a formal class on technique, though we’ll both be piping in to talk about what we’re doing and give some tips. Or at least I will, Kristen will probably have her mouth full. Just kidding—her perspective is really valuable here and I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say, actually, since often I’m the one talking about my experience.
It’s also been fun to, ahem, practice this week, leading up to it.
SUBMIT Party
Women & trans folks only
September 29th, Saturday, 10 – 3 am (doors close at 2 am)
$15 bucks before midnight, $20 after
RSVP on Fetlife & pre-cruise who’ll be there
for exact location call 718.789.4053 or email Red@submitparty.com
So hey, maybe we’ll see you there?
I’m going to Toronto!
I’m still working out the exact dates, but it looks like Kristen and I will be there October 5-10. I’ll be doing a few exciting things, including attending and presenting at Unholy Harvest, and hopefully getting a little tour of Aslan Leather, and seeing some friends.
Come see me! Here’s the details.
First of all, I still need readers for the Dirty Queer Sex night at Glad Day books! So, hey Toronto! I edited a dirty smutty queer book called Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, and I’m doing a book launch in Toronto on October 9th at Glad Day Books. I’m looking for queers of any stripes to read kinky queer stories—preferably stories they have penned. The dirtier the better! Readings should be 7-10 minutes. Email mrsexsmith@gmail.com with a sample of your writing ASAP. More details about the book: http://saypleasebook.wordpress.com
Unholy Harvest
Saturday, October 6th, 10-11:30am
Cock Confidence
Many of us have experience with strapping on, packing, and playing, but there are lots of new products out there on the market that might be exciting and that you haven’t encountered yet. Writer and sex educator Sinclair Sexsmith talk about what cocks are good for packing, what options are out there for pack-and-play, which harnesses are the most loved, and which to avoid. Plus, she’ll delve into some cock confidence, getting into the psychology of penetration, and discussing what it’s like to shoot from the hip. Come get the nuts and bolts of strapping it on and fucking. You’ll learn about positions and lube, how different products work, what “cock confidence” means, and the psychology behind strapping on and playing with a cock with a partner, or with oneself.
Glad Day Bookshop
Tuesday, October 9th, 8pm
RSVP on Facebook
A night of DIRTY QUEER SEX!
Featuring readers from the SAY PLEASE: LESBIAN BDSM EROTICA, and many special guests! Performers include Andrea Zanin and other sexy queers TBA. Hosted by Sinclair Sexsmith, writer of the Sugarbutch Chronicles and editor of Say Please & Best Lesbian Erotica 2012.
In Say Please, Sinclair Sexsmith presents a cornucopia of queer kink—tantalizing tales rich in variety and saucy details of girls put in their place—and held there firmly. Whether readers dream of surrendering to a lover or of taking control, Say Please offers plenty of erotic inspiration and gives readers exactly what they want! Come hear authors from the book read their stories and celebrate the release of this kinky queer collection.
Bad Boys: Masculinity & Dominance workshop
at Come As You Are
Wednesday, October 10th, 8pm
RSVP on Facebook
Everyone loves a bad boy: they know what they want, and they take it … and probably ride away on a motorcycle afterwards. But how can you be a bad boy without being an asshole? How do you practice that potent combination of masculinity and dominance without misogyny or internalized homophobia and with respect for women? How can you enhance your dominance in consensual, loving ways? On the flip side, how can you bring that dominant side out of someone who may be nervous to let it emerge? How do you become – or find – the bad boy of your dreams? Learn from a pro: Sinclair Sexsmith, kinky queer butch top who’s been writing about dominance since 2006, will teach you how to get what you want.
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I’m starting to work out my fall schedule … more details about that soon, I hope. You can always follow the newest news about my travel schedule at mrsexsmith.com/appearances.
Thanks for all the great book recommendations and thoughts in the Gaga Feminism interview blog tour thread, folks.
Someone commented, “I’m just kind of surprised with all the thinking you do on gender studies and feminism you are uncritically endorsing gaga feminism.” I’m not sure I’d say I am “uncritically endorsing” gaga feminism—but I did like reading the book, I think there was a lot of interesting content, and a lot of things to think about and chew on. I’m not sure I agree with everything in the book—but hell, I don’t agree with everything I wrote on this website. I don’t think that I have to agree with everything. I still think it was worth reading and interesting, especially the parts about how gender studies and feminist thought are evolving to include a less binaristic view of gender, the indicators of that in popular culture, and how we as queers and genderqueers and other outlaws can continue to encourage that binaristic breakdown.
I’m not a theorist, so I’m not going to go through the whole book and write up the parts I think need broken down further or that I disagree with. It’s kind of an interesting intellectual exercise to do so, but frankly, I don’t have time. I’d rather be having kinky scenes that I can write about later, or writing love letters, or planning for my next classes.
So! Hey, there is a winner of the giveaway …
Congrats Emily! Thanks, Beacon Press, for providing the books.
I—like, I suspect, many of you—was first introduced to Jack Halberstam’s work in college, where I read Female Masculinity in a gender studies class. Jack’s work has been largely influential on the gender binary critiques and to many people that I have studied and read since, and of course influential on my own ideas about gender and performance and masculinities too.
And, he’s got a new book out! The book is called Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal and it’s published by Beacon Press, officially released yesterday, September 18th. It’s an incredibly readable book—like Jack said in my interview with him for Lambda Literary Foundation earlier this year, it’s on an unacademic press and intended for a wider audience. So even if you’re not a theory buff—and I’m not, though I do love theory—it’s a very good read.
(It’s intimidating to interview one of your mentors! Thanks Jack!)
1. When you discuss the concept of “gaga feminism,” which you say is a feminism “that recognizes multiple genders, that contributes to the collapse of our current sex-gender systems, [and is] a feminism less concerned with the equality of men and women and more interested in the abolition of these terms as such,” (p25), I find myself identifying deeply. I run in many communities which are more invested in that than in the analyzation of the male-female binary, and often feel disillusioned with the mainstream feminism movements which have less concepts of breaking down the system and more that seem to maintain it. How can gaga feminism help queers and genderqueers and other marginalized communities get our message farther into the mainstream, to continue to influence the larger culture? What barriers keep our gaga feminist perceptions of gender from reaching the mainstream, and do you have any suggestions for how to continue the activism of working to break down those barriers?
Great questions Sinclair! As you say, it is frustrating to see so many people acting as if male and female are totally stable categories and as if all the changes in technology, in social formations, in sexual identities and in the visibility of queer bodies have made no difference whatsoever! I hoped and still hope that GAGA FEMINISM would have some appeal as a more mainstream and readable book and that it would be able to circulate complex ideas about sex, gender and fast-changing technologies of gender in an accessible and fun way. That said, there have been a few books out recently like How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran, The End of Men by Hanna Rosin and Marry Him by Lori Gottlieb that purport to be feminist analyses of men, women, marriage, work, love and family but actually they mostly shuffle around the same old cliches about hetero reproduction and hope for the best. GAGA FEMINISM begins with the premise of taking a longer tradition of anti-marriage, anti-capitalist feminism seriously and joining it to new queer theory and queer forms of life.
2. I loved your writings about The Kids Are All Right (which start on p54). I enjoyed that film quite a lot and have had many elaborate conversations about its construction, but you articulated some new things I hadn’t heard. I am especially curious about what you said about depictions of relatively sexless long term (lesbian) relationships, as I have been theorizing a lot lately about keeping the spark going in a long term commitment. You’ve been with your partner for many years now—do you have any tips or suggestions about staying sexually connected and satisfied while building something long term?
Well, my point there was that straight culture likes the idea that lesbian long-term relationships are more prone to “fizzle out” that others because women are the kindling rather than the spark when it comes to romance…pardon the metaphor but you get my point. Heterosexual mainstream conversations about desire love to depict women as the ones who create an environment for love and romance and men as the ones who set the whole thing on fire. For this reason, when you have two women, the old narrative goes, you have a lot of love and cuddling but no real…spark! So, The Kids Are All Right feeds into that narrative and assigns all the sexual energy to the sperm donor dad. But that was just one of many reasons I found the film disappointing. As for tips on staying sexually connected etc…sorry dude, I am a terrible advice columnist!!
3. You talk quite a bit about butches and butchness in this book (p86). I do a lot of organizing around butch identity and community, including some work for the BUTCH Voices conferences (and of course your book Female Masculinity has been a huge influence on my understandings of genders). You mention the concept of stone and melting the stone in particular, which is something that I discuss and think about often. I tend to define stone as “having control over how one’s body is touched,” which is not quite the same as impenetrable or not ever receiving sexual pleasure or stimulation. Have you noticed that the caricature of stone butches as “rigid or immobile or frozen” (p86) has changed as we are entering an age of gaga feminism, with more depth of understanding and multiplicity in our definitions of gender roles in general? How can we continue to break down those frozen stereotypes and build something unique and open, with more room for people to be expressing themselves authentically and not feeling stuck in limitations of labels?
Yeah, definitely. I was just using the example of the stone butch in GAGA FEMINISM in order to say that we assign pathological narratives to masculine behavior when it appears in the butch (inflexibility or impenetrability becomes neurotic) but not when it appears in a man. If the man does not want to be penetrated, then he is, well, normal! And in fact, if he does want to be penetrated, then he is suspect. I think GAGA FEMINISM is about recognizing the rapidly generated new forms of desire, embodiment, orientation that proliferate all around us and developing new systems for naming them, owning them and inhabiting them.
**
J. JACK HALBERSTAM is the author of four books, including Female Masculinity and The Queer Art of Failure. Currently a professor of American studies and of ethnicity and gender studies at the University of Southern California, Halberstam regularly speaks and writes on queer culture and gender issues and blogs at BullyBloggers.
Thanks to Beacon Press, I’ve got an extra copy of Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal to give away. I’ll pick a number at random on Monday, the 24th of September, and the corresponding commenter will get the copy.
In order to enter, simply leave a comment on this post and tell me one influential book you’ve read about feminism, or one book about gender, or something you love about Jack Halberstam, or something else entirely. Make sure you leave a valid email address; anyone can enter. I prefer to mail the book to someone in the US, because I’ll be paying for postage—so if you are outside the US, I might ask you to kick me a few bucks to cover the cost of mailing you the book.
Tomorrow’s Gaga Feminism Blog Tour post will be at The Qu—check it out.
Gaga Feminism was sent to me from Beacon Press to review. Thanks Beacon! Pick up your own copy at your local feminist queer bookstore, or, if you must, from Amazon.
Photographer Bill Wadman has taken numerous shots of me in the last few years. Most recently and notably, he took the photo of me against the brick wall with the black and red flogger that I’ve been using as my avatar on most sites. He also took the shot of me shaving Kristen’s legs with a pink razor in the claw-foot bathtub with my sleeves rolled up.
He came over yesterday to take some more shots of me, partly for my upcoming fall and spring 2012-2013 travel promotions, and he wanted to take some Avedon-inspired shots up on my roof against a white backdrop. These are the best of the best results, and I think they are amazing. There are a few more of me in front of my gender/queer bookshelves; those will be in the PDFs that go out to colleges next week.
Thank you, Bill!
This story contains Daddy/girl language, rough sex, and lots of body fluids. This has been your trigger warning.
“Will you pause it for a minute? I have to pee.”
Kristen gets up from the couch and I grab for the remote, hitting pause on the second porn flick we turned on tonight. We’d shared a bottle of wine. I knew she was bleeding, since earlier in the first film, unimpressed by one of the girl’s one-finger banging techniques, I shoved three into her to illustrate that cunts can take more.
Well, maybe not all cunts. But hers, obviously.
She was wet, and moaned a little, making a little mewl of protest when I slipped them out. My fingers came away with just a little blood and I wiped them on her leg. Continue reading →
Oh, San Francisco.
Why you gotta be so cool? I am having trouble enough keeping our relationship long-distance. And now, this …
I can’t be there this time, but please, please, go for me and have an amazing time.
You are invited to indulge in an evening of deliciously BUTCH revelry… Bask in the decadent sights, bold sounds and the brilliant energy of everything BEAUTIFULLY BUTCH*! The mystique and myth are nothing compared to the raw beauty of butch truth…
Saturday September 15th, 2012
7:00pm – Midnight
at The City of Refuge UCC
1025 Howard Street – SF CA
$5-15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds
7:00pm – Doors Open
7:30pm – Butch Briefs Part Deux – a Mini Film Festival
8:00pm – Beauty and the Butch Live Performances and Fashion Show
9:00pm – Butch Ball with DJs JacATac, Black and Ryan
FOR ADVANCED TICKETS
RSVP HERE: http://beautyandthebutch.eventbrite.com/
BUTCH ATTIRE defies simple elegance… we have a swagger all our own that many have tried to duplicate but few have achieved
BUTCH ART breathes a magnificently unique masculine
mixture of the sacred and the profane into what is much more than a label… it is an experience
BUTCH MUSIC gives us all permission to dig deep into our spirits and howl our TRUTH, our TENDERNESS, our unabashed BRAVERY and our brash movement without boundaries! Continue reading →
Hello!
The summer has flown by and I have barely updated this place. I have been traveling tons since March, if you’ve been keeping up with me on Facebook or Twitter you probably know that I’ve been in Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, San Diego, Boston, Portland, Albuquerque, Baltimore (twice), and Los Angeles in the last few months.
I have been having a wonderful time promoting Say Please—if you came out to a reading or event, thank you! I met so many people and taught workshops on Cock Confidence and Writing Dirty and all sorts of other fun things.
I kept thinking that I have August and September off from traveling, but in truth I’ve got a bit more to go. I’ll be near Baltimore for Summer Camp and then back in Seattle for my very last Tantra training, then I’ll be back on the road visiting colleges. Want to bring me to speak at your school? I’d love to go! I’ll be posting more details about that soon.
I’m starting to gear up for the fall in a serious way. I’m getting some new workshops together (including So You Want to Be A Daddy, Feminist Kink: You Can Have It All, D/s Protocol, The Sexual Politics of Topping, Butch & Femme for the 21st Century, and others!), and I’m getting together my tour list for the fall. I’m aiming to be in Boston, San Francisco, Hartford CT, Springfield MA, Albany NY, Austin, Chicago, Durham, Dallas, and more.
The other new exciting thing for this fall is that I’m starting to see people individually for sessions. I know “sessions” is incredibly broad, and that’s also accurate—content for these sessions can be widely varied. In general, I’m starting to work with people who want more of a one-on-one approach to learning some of the things that I have been teaching about, things like embodiment, sexuality, sensuality, pleasure, shame, writing about sex, self-actualization, touch, energy, and the many facets of queer tantric lineage I have been learning through. I’m not sure how to talk about this or advertise it yet, really,
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women in Seattle, October 26-28
More information about tuition, details about dates, how to contact the coordinator.
Facebook event!
Power, Surrender, and Intimacy for Queers in San Francisco, September 28-30
Learn to recognize aspects of yourself that are continually engaged in power dynamics, and hence become more choiceful about how you can share power with compassion and skill. Learn ways that power and sensation can be wielded for a healing intention, and experience the intense fire generated by a surrender to trust. Expect heightened awareness of your body’s capacity for sensation, a greater sense of personal empowerment, and appreciation for the connection between the divine energy of power and the human energy of surrender.
The program begins on Friday evening 6:30PM-10PM and runs 9AM-6PM Saturday and Sunday.
Prerequisite: Celebrating the Body Erotic or equivalent experience. Contact coordinator to see if this workshop is right for you.
Tuition: $495
Event on Fetlife
Girls Who Score has my first butch/butch published erotica story included in it, about an encounter in a locker room. Check out my entry from the book’s blog tour for more about my process writing it. Anything For You: Erotica for Kinky Couples features a story about a threesome with Kristen and a (now good) friend of ours. Stripped Down: Lesbian Sex Stories reprinted the very first erotica story that I ever published, which was about packing to yoga class and staying after for some, ah, “adjustments.”
I’m still writing elsewhere online, primarily for Fearless Press and Lambda Literary Foundation these days. Here’s a couple recent articles.
Clipped from: www.fearlesspress.com (share this clip)
I’ve got a long list of writing ideas, and I really want to actually write soon instead of spending all my time on marketing and promotion. I miss writing. I have so much to tell y’all about my poly experiment data collecting, sex, my dad and family, my ecology of desire, and all sorts of things.
One of my best friends, Amy Butcher, published a mystery novel this summer called Paws for Consideration. It’s about a wheelchair-bound woman named Daisy who lives in the Castro and loves dogs (more than people, most of the time). She stumbles upon a dog whose owner is dead on the street and vows to solve the mystery of his death when nobody else seems to be doing much about it—and stumbles into a world of BDSM play parties and leather and queers.
It’s such a fun read, pretty quick, hard to put down, and full of San Francisco references and internal dog dialogue (I have a theory that pretty much all that any/every dog thinks is, “I’m a dog I’m a dog I’madog,” but Ames is convincing me otherwise). I highly recommend it—it’s on Amazon!
This Thursday—tomorrow!—Ames is doing a big release party/scavenger hunt in San Francisco at the women’s building for this book. I wish I could be there! I was trying to figure out some way that I could, but it didn’t work out. Please go in my place and say congratulations to her for me—you can say I sent you, then you’ll have an excuse to talk to her. (She’s a hot silverfox butch, if you hadn’t noticed that yet, so you might want an excuse to say hi.)
Details:
Join us in celebrating the publication of Paws for Consideration, the debut mystery novel from former Women’s Building board member Amy Butcher. Performers, readings from the book, an optional scavenger hunt with prizes, premier of the book trailer video . . . and more! All proceeds from book sales will go to support The Women’s Building.
Scavenger Hunt—How to participate:
The scavenger hunt will take you to real locations straight out of the mystery novel. In order to participate, you’ll need a QR code reader for your smart phone and an old-school paper Clue Sheet. Links for both of these are below.
At each site you’ll find a placard with a QR code (that’s how you know you found the right spot). Scan the QR code and it will bring up a video. The video will tell you about where you are, pose a challenge to solve, and then provide clues as to your next destination. In all, it should take you about 45 minutes and it should be fun!
The placards will be in place by 6:00 pm on Thursday, August 30th. Remember to bring your completed clue sheet to the party no later than 7:15 to qualify for great prizes. Doors open at 7:00.
Watch this video for more information.
More details, links, suggested QR code readers, over on amybutcher.com
Does that not sound like SO MUCH FUN? How often do you have the opportunity to attend a scavenger hunt around San Francisco? Hope you can make it, and hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.
Jessica Halem hosts FemmeSpeak, the spoken word night
Fran Fucking Varian reads at FemmeSpeak
my outfit for Saturday
Kristen + Liz from Rhino Girl Media + B
Maggie (of the Femme Show) & Dora, both organizers with MadFemmePride in Boston
Shilo McCabe’s hanky flowers for flagging at the vendor room
flyers for Summer Camp at the femme conference play party, featuring artwork by rife
Bulldagger caucus, organized by Sasha T. Goldberg
butch butts after post-bulldagger meetup coffee
Kristen + Jessica Halem in lace at the FemmeWerq performance night
wait, how’d that photo get in here? our hotel bed was comfortable …
I’ve got an erotica story in a new anthology, Girls Who Score: Hot Lesbian Erotica edited by Ily Goyanes, and I’m taking part in the book’s blog tour at girlswhoscore.com today.
My story is called “A Good Workout,” and it’s one of the first butch-on-butch erotica stories I’ve ever written. Despite my #gymbunny hash tag on Twitter, I’m not much of an athlete, and never have been. But a few things came to mind when I started thinking about the scenarios that I’d possibly find myself in that would be sexy and somewhat athletic: the locker room at the gym, other butches in that locker room and the way we don’t really acknowledge each other even though we have some gender solidarity in a mainstream women’s space, and the lesbian story from My Secret Garden edited by Nancy Friday that I read fifteen years ago about an anonymous encounter in a steam room.
I wanted the characters to be taken with each other in a mirroring kind of way, seeing themselves reflected in each other’s body. They have a few moments of gender solidarity, not quite acknowledging each other but still recognizing that they both go through odd gender pinprick encounters with the women in the locker room on a regular basis. And then, what happens in the steam room … it isn’t so much about overwhelming desire in each other with romantic interest, but about curiosity, almost like the commonality of same sex encounters that many straight people experience as pre-teens and teenagers.
Here’s an excerpt from “A Good Workout.”
You quicken under me.
I pull you back against me and our bodies slide against each other, your back against my large chest, my nipples still hard, my stomach against your lower back, your ass against my pelvis. If I had a cock it’d be in your ass right now, and as soon as I think that I can feel it, and you press back against me as if opening up, squirming, and I keep my grip as I reach around you to jack you off. You aren’t easy to get off, I can feel it, that barrier between us, but I can feel how you like to be taken, how you like to be a boy under my touch, how you like to bend over and give it up for me, because that’s how I like it, too.
Our bodies are talking to each other without our heads getting in the way. Our cocks are hard and thrusting, and I am thrusting, and you are thrusting into my palm. Your hand pushing my fingers deeper into your mouth though it is open and you’re breathing around it, I feel your breath cooler than the air. My arms are dripping with sweat and steam, I can feel it rolling down my skin.
It was fun to use second person for the other character, I don’t usually do that in my stories but I like how it reads, I think it’s a bit more intimate.
There’s quite a bit more about the other stories in the book over at girlswhoscore.com, and the blog tour is continuing through the end of August, so keep your eyes open for even more excerpts and writings. Pick up the book on Amazon.com or at your local independent queer-friendly bookstore.
So you’ve heard about Summer Camp, or at least, about how I met the boy there. And you heard about what happened at Fusion this year, which will give you a little more context (and a photo!) for the beautiful camp where the Dark Odyssey summer events are held.
Have you thought about attending?
In a purely selfish move (because I am completely invested in having very, very sexy hot queer, butch, femme, genderqueer, trans, and gender-aware folks in attendance) I want to extend you an invitation to come this year.
(And yes, that is the kind of come I mean, pervert.)
They’re starting to call it “Dark Odyssey’s intimate family reunion,” and aside from that, it’s the most queer of the four events that DO runs. Or at least, it seems the most queer to me—it’s the smallest, so the ratio of number of queers to general perverts is bigger.
I have been kinky for a long time, since before I was really out and queer even, but my experiences with the leather and kink communities when I was young led me to believe that that world wasn’t really for me. Seems a lot has changed in the last ten (gulp—fifteen) years, though, and I’m really glad I took the chance and went to Summer Camp last year. It’s introduced me to the leather world in a way that I didn’t even know I was missing, but of course that’s part of me and what I do. Being immersed in it for a whole weekend has changed how I interact with kink and leather worlds, and I’ve attended a lot more events, meetings, workshops, and conferences in the past year than I have before.
But, want to know a secret? Summer Camp is still my favorite.
Not only because of that cute boy and that we met there (and will be celebrating one year together there this year), but also because it’s queer, casual, so gender-accepting, full of sexy people, full of amazing workshops (that I swear I will attend more of this time), full of tons of equipment to play on … and OUTSIDE! I love listening to the trees and watching folks wander around outside topless (or completely nude), love the fire pits in the evening.
Details from Dark Odyssey:
Summer Camp is Dark Odyssey’s intimate family reunion. A place where, surrounded by other experienced players, you can go deeper and more intense than anywhere else. All happening in an immersive play-centered atmosphere that blends our darkest desires with the fun and whimsy you’d expect from someplace called “Summer Camp.”
We’ve got a fabulous line up of events, presenters and workshops that you won’t want to miss:
Events Include: The Full Monte Carlo Kinky Casino & Auction ~ Cruising in the Dark ~ Whose Kink Is It Anyway – a lifestyle improv show ~ The Asylum of Love & Lust ~ Kinky Crafting Fair ~ Explore & Taste ~ Jim Deuder’s Bootblack Hour ~ Switch It Up! ~ Erotic Massage Party ~ Sex-O-Rama Night ~ Bare Stories ~ Breakup Bonfire ~ Guided Anal Self Exploration
Presenters: Capt. Gordon ~ Del ~ Finn ~ Fire Tashlin ~ Jefferson ~ Jim Deuder ~ Lee Harrington ~ Lolita Wolf ~ Murphy Blue ~ Slutress ~ Sinclair Sexsmith ~ Sir C ~ Strap-On-Jo ~ Vesper ~ Wintersong
Selected Workshops: Water Wrasslin’ ~ Needleplay as S/M ~ Sewing It Shut ~ Art of the Not-So-Deep Throat ~ Chewtoy – Erotic Biting ~ Going Deep ~ Shapeshifter: A Journey in Astral Gender and Desire ~ Sensory Deprivation & Control ~ Hojojutsu and Take Down for the BDSM Practitioner ~ Fucking Forever: Sex in Long Term Relationships ~ Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Sex Ed ~ Plays Well With Others ~ Rough Housing & Kinky Wrestling ~ Improv in the Dungeon: From Roleplay to Dirty Talk ~ Event Survival ~ Hands-On Caning ~ GenderQueer Bondage ~ Hot Stuff: Fire Play ~ Predicament Scenes ~ Cock Confidence: Strap-On 101 ~ First Impressions: How Not to be a Douchebag ~ David vs Goliath: Rough Body Play for Tops and Bottoms of Different Sizes ~ Talk Dirtier ~ Speed Bondage ~ And Plenty More …
Did you spy my workshops up there in that list? I’ll be teaching:
Fucking Forever: Sex in Long Term Relationships
New relationship energy can propel a couple into a phenomenal experiential phase of sexual energy—bursts of passion, exploration, and intensity. Long term relationships, however, face the day-to-day life navigation of bills, scheduling, job and career difficulties or changes, disappointments, changes, and grief. How do we build a long term relationship that keeps the passion alive? How do we ensure we have enough time for our partner(s), and for ourselves? How do we both separate from our partner to have our own rich inner life and come back together to build a loving bond? And what kind of kinky play can be used to keep the fire going? We’ll explore all of these concepts and more at this interactive workshop.
Cock Confidence: Strap-On 101
Many of us have experience with strapping on, packing, and playing, but there are lots of new products out there on the market that might be exciting and that you haven’t encountered yet. Writer and sex educator Sinclair Sexsmith talk about what cocks are good for packing, what options are out there for pack-and-play, which harnesses are the most loved, and which to avoid. Plus, we’ll delve into some cock confidence, getting into the psychology of penetration, and discussing what it’s like to shoot from the hip. Come get the nuts and bolts of strapping it on and fucking. You’ll learn about positions and lube, how different products work, what “cock confidence” means, and the psychology behind strapping on and playing with a cock with a partner, or with oneself.
Talk Dirtier: How to Let Your Tongue Go
Talking dirty in the bedroom can be terrifying at first, but once you unlock your tongue, you’ll find yourself saying all sorts of delicious things! Come to this workshop and we’ll figure out what’s tying our tongues in the first place, what’s holding us back from being more free with our language in the bedroom, and what the heck we should say to enhance our sex and intensity our sensation. The brain is the biggest sex organ, after all, and the more we can turn on our minds, the better our experiences will be.
Flirting, Foreplay, & Fucking
We all want to get laid. But making it happen in real life can be a lot harder than we want it to be. Do you wish more people would hit on you? How do you make yourself more available? We can all use some practice asking for what we want, but how do you escalate from flirting to foreplay and foreplay to fucking? Learn to perfect the art of the tease, draw out your potential lover’s interest, and make sex even hotter in the process.
What do you think? Want to come? Early registration rates end on Monday. darkodyssey.com/summercamp
So I got my hair cut at Tomcats, Kristen painted her nails with black-white-and-blue stripes and a red heart (wonder what that means?) on her fourth finger, the car is full of gas, I’ve perused the schedule, I’ve got a list of folks I want to make sure to connect with, the catsitter is booked—I think this might mean I’m ready for the Femme Conference tomorrow.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals in attending, or my purpose in going. I’m not presenting anything, not doing any official workshops or meetups or events near the conference. So aside from going with the intention of having fun (which I definitely am), and supporting my femme girlfriend by both showing up, participating, and learning things about identity (which I am eager to do), what do I want to get out of it?
I adore identity theory. I love the way we construct ourselves. I love these labels, despite the fact that labels seem oh-so-gauche right now. I love the history of butch and femme (and butch/femme) and I love how the queer communities are exploding gender in all 360* directions right now.
The first Femme Conference I went to in 2008 was themed “the architecture of identity” and I wrote up just about everything I learned about that when I got back. I am still so curious about what constructs femme identity. Earlier this year, in New York, as preparation for the Femme Conference, there was a femme event here called Beyond Visibility, and I am really curious about that, too—about what femme identity issues there are beyond the ever constant issue of being recognized and visually categorized as queer.
I’ve written On Femme Invisibility & Femme Invisibility & Beyond—I don’t want to give the impression I’m not sympathetic to that issue, I get that it is a huge hurdle. And I also know, from femmes in my own life who have been exploring femme identity for a while, that they get bored with that issue and want to move on.
So what are the other issues around femme identity? What is beyond visibility? What else gets discussed at a Femme Conference, anyway? I know plenty of that stuff isn’t exactly for me, as an ally and someone not femme identified, but as someone who loves the construction of identity and how these identities in particular work in this current culture in this current era, what else is going on?
I suspect the Mean Girls topic is a big one, considering some of the conversations I’ve had leading up to the conference. I know there are some topics like cultural and racial diversity, sex positivity, and parenting that have come up, but those seem fairly universal and not necessarily femme specific—then again, what is the take on those through a femme lens? I’m sure there will be many, many other interesting things. I have been kicking around a theory about the connection between masculine privilege and femme invisibility, maybe I can see if I can hash that out any further. Autostraddle has a great write up today called Beyond Lipstick that I want to read over again and think through. And I’m sure there will be dozens more things to ponder and chew on, once I get there.
My goal is to have fun, first and foremost. To support my girlfriend. To connect with the people that I know and adore and don’t get to see very often. To hopefully attend some good sessions and have some good conversations, to meet some new folks with interesting things to say. And to continue being curious about identity building theory in general, and about femme identity construction in particular; I’ll do my best to take copious notes and write up some thoughts about what happened and what I learned when I get back. (You can always follow my twitter feed @mrsexsmith to hear my immediate thoughts.)
And, oh yeah: to appreciate the brilliant firecracker amazingness that is femmes.
See you at the Femme Conference!
So maybe you’ve heard, but I’ve got an exciting (official) announcement: I’m on the board of BUTCH Voices working up to the 2013 National Conference as Media Chair. This is my second board position and I’m really excited to work with this organization. I don’t know if I’ve ever attended a conference as diverse as BUTCH Voices, both in race and in ability and class and culture and perspective and all sorts of other things, and I’m thrilled to be part of the team.
We’ve got a lot of exciting things in the works between now and the 2013 National Conference (which will be in August in Oakland, exact dates TBA). We won’t have Regional Conferences this year like we did in 2011, but we are working on some Community Conversations, which will be gatherings for folks who want to come together and discuss butch and masculine of center identities, and conclude with some sort of party. The first scheduled is in San Francisco on September 15th and more details on that will come soon (the organizers are still looking for folks interested in performing, entertaining, or donating raffle prizes).
We also have some open positions on the board, steering committee, programming committee, and media team, and I’m looking for bloggers who are interested in posting or cross-posting to the BUTCHVoices.com blog. Want to get involved with that? Email me, sinclair@butchvoices.com.
I’ll also be helping to put on the New York City Community Conversation, so if you’re interested in being involved with that—performing, donating raffle prizes, etc—let me know.
Here’s the whole of the newsletter. Subscribe here and be the first to receive the next newsletter.
Greetings, BUTCH Voices attendees, participants, presenters, lovers, allies, sponsors, and more!
You haven’t heard much from us since the 2011 National Conference in Oakland, but we’re beginning to get our ties out and polish up the wingtips so we can hve some exciting events and productivity between now and our 2013 National Conference.
In this (new!) BUTCH Voices newsletter, you will find:
BUTCH Voices Organization Updates
First, because obviously you’re dying to know, here’s what’s new at BUTCH Voices!
We have a revised board, consisting of:
Joe LeBlanc – Board Chair
Mary Stockton – Finance Chair
Redwolf Painter – Strategic Impact Chair
Sinclair Sexsmith – Media Chair
Adriana Batista – Resource Development Chair
We held our 2012 board retreat in April in Oakland, and in it we solidified our goals for 2012 and 2013, which include adding some organizational structure, getting our media plan going, and working on events for our off-year (more on that later). We are still looking to add a Member At Large to our board, and various other positions to the Steering Committee (more details about our open positions below).
We are also excited to announce that we have a new Advisory Board, which consists of people who have been super supportive and involved in varying capacities with the work here at BUTCH Voices in the past. They are joining us in an official advisory capacity for the organization and our communities at large.
Advisory Board members:
Krys Freeman
Q Ragsdale
Sharon Bridgforth
Rajkumari Neogy
Tobi Hill-Meyer
Jun-Fung Chueh-Mejia
Ryann Holmes
B. Cole
D’Lo
Read their full bios here on the BUTCHVoices.com site.
And of course, we are moving forward with the ultimate goal of organizing the BUTCH Voices National Conference in 2013, which will take place in August in Oakland. We are still solidifying the exact date and location, but you will be the first to know!
Open Positions
The BUTCH Voices Board of Directors are currently looking for volunteers to add to the BUTCH Voices Board, the National Conference Steering Committee and Subcommittees. If you’re looking to volunteer time on a ongoing basis and want a specific role on the team, we have a few that are open. Priority will be given to folks identifying with the butch, stud, masculine of center identities, but allies should also feel free to apply. All positions are unpaid and volunteer based.
Two BUTCH Voices Board positions currently open: Secretary and Member at Large. Multiple BUTCH Voices National Steering Committee positions currently open, including: Performance Chair and Co-Coordinator, Sponsor/Vendor Chair and Co-Coordinator, and Media Coordinator. We are currently also seeking volunteers for a Media Team for communications and online projects, and Programming Committee.
For detailed descriptions of the open positions, and for information about how to send your resume to BUTCH Voices, see http://www.BUTCHVoices.com/opportunities-available-with-butch-voices/
Community Conversations
BUTCH Voices is excited to announce that during our off-year, 2012, we will be holding regional “Community Conversations” in various cities around the United States and Canada to promote connection, elevation of conversation, and community building for masculine of center folks and our allies.
We are aiming to hold Community Conversations possibly in, though not limited to, the following cities: Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Portland OR, San Diego, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Oakland, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Vancouver BC, and Toronto. We are currently moving forward with Seattle and New York City in fall 2012, and we will get those dates to you just as soon as we can. We hope other cities will soon follow!
SAN FRANCISCO has already been announced: Save the date! September 15th 2012 will be a Community Conversation and afterparty, Beauty and the BUTCH, featuring entertainment, fashion, and a raffle with many exciting prizes. More details on the BUTCH Voices website.
Topics will be generated by the individual groups who attend, and we expect regional differences to affect which subjects, philosophies, and concerns each group will focus on. We expect 20-50 people attending each Community Conversation gathering, and we hope to encourage conversation, connection, and networking as we gear up for next year’s 2013 BUTCH Voices National Conference. The Community Conversations will also serve as fundraisers for BUTCH Voices, and funds will be split between local organizers to assist their attendance at the National BUTCH Voices conference and with BUTCH Voices National.
If you are interested in being involved in hosting, fundraising, or coordinating a Community Conversation in your city, contact BUTCH Voices outreach at volunteers@butchvoices.com.
In August 2013, BUTCH Voices will present our third bi-annual national conference located in Oakland, CA, exact dates TBA.
Call for Contributors – BUTCHVoices.com
BUTCH Voices is seeking writers, bloggers, vloggers, photographers, and multi-media generators to contribute to www.butchvoices.com. Posts are ideally 500-750 words, 5 photographs, or one video with short description. Content should include something about masculine of center identity in any capacity, be it promotion for an art project, musings, or calls for contributions or collaborations. Contributions are unpaid but do you will receive a byline, which includes a one-line bio, link to your project, exposure to our thousands of followers, and our gratitude. Content may be cross-posted and do not have to be new, so long as they are relevant to masculine of center identities, adhere to our mission statement, and follow anti-oppression fundamentals. Contact Sinclair, media chair of the Butch Voices board, sinclair@butchvoices.com for more information. If you are interested in contributing, send Sinclair one sample works, your one-line bio, and your any relevant links to your work.
The 2013 BUTCH Voices National Conference
… is in progress! We are securing a venue and exact dates in August, 2013, even as you read this. For now, keep it in mind and plan to be in Oakland to join hundreds of masculine of center folks and our allies to continue discussing, connecting, playing, partying, philosophizing, laughing, and crying together.
Thank you for your ongoing support and contributions to BUTCH Voices!
Sincerely,
Joe, Mary, Wolf, Adriana, and Sinclair
The 2013 BUTCH Voices Board
In addition to wanting bloggers for the BUTCH Voices website, I’m also looking for a Media Team that will work under me:
Media Team’s tasks (Reports to the Media Chair)
Interested? Want to work with me for a year? Want to learn what I know about running a community website, butch identity, outreach, and communications? Want to take part in forming the 2013 BUTCH Voices National Conference? I’m looking for some committed, smart, flexible folks who are interested in contributing—get in touch with me at sinclair@butchvoices.com.
I am excited about this trajectory for BUTCH Voices, and thrilled to be part of it.
I am a series of
stories and stories and stories
I tell myself and others
secret truths and whole-hearted lies
until they are more me
than the skin I wear. Some
stories are collectively lost, looking
for a home. Some stories leap
with fists locked tight enough
to fuck, some stories weep
and unravel the fabric of my
baby blankets. I am desperate
for meaning. Something bigger
than my wild and precious, stupid
little life. Some context for my
bleeding throbbing heart and cunt
and dick. Some balm for
this ache of mortality, of perfect
imperfection. Take me on as your
protege, graveyard; take me on as your
benefactor, temple. I seek to build
monuments to and out of love. I seek
to make meaning. I seek to make
movements. I seek to sit still, to smile,
to blink, to put pen to paper, to tell all.
Shh, listen. My story has gone out
to play.
TranZwear sent me three different packing undies—their most popular models—to check out: two different models of boxers, and one jock strap type. TranZwear alters already existing briefs, boxers, and jock straps to get them to more securely hold packers. In this case, the Dockers are the TSW PackRight Harness with the secure packer, which means it’s got elastic bands and an o-ring sewn into the front of the briefs that will keep a packer in place. The Champion black boxer briefs are the PackNGo athletic boxer briefs, so instead of cotton they’re “moisture wicking” and have that slick nylon feel. Instead of a harness inside these, the front pocket is sewn shut. TranZwear describes it: “Modified performance mesh interior pouch provides support and ventilation, and holds your packer secure without any movement during the day.” The jock strap has a security strap to hold the packer in place.
I’m totally in love with the Dockers briefs and they fit so perfectly well that I’m going to look them up and get some more of the same in the same size. The others aren’t quite as much of a perfect fit, though I do like the sewn-shut “interior pouch.” After losing a packer because it rolled out of my briefs into an East Village toilet, I pretty much never pack without attaching it somehow, either in these briefs, in the SpareParts Pete undies, or with a packing strap or pouch, and I do go back to these TranZwear products frequently. They’re simple, and high quality work. I frequently forget I’m wearing anything modified or special and just feel like I’m wearing regular undies—which is exactly how it should feel.
I kind of prefer having a packing strap or harness, something that keeps the packer attached to my body rather than attached to my underwear, since it feels more like clothing or an attachment when it comes off, but I would still much rather have it secure than not, and these are great options. Thanks, TranZwear.
I’ve started crying on airplanes. It used to be ginger ale, now it’s wine. I probably should have eaten more than a bagel, should have had more for dinner last night than a whiskey flight and a kiss, but now I am crying and beginning to hear the beat of a second heart in my chest.
I am exhausted. I’d like to sleep for a year. By which I mean, I’d like to turn down my consciousness in order to have some rest. My rest has not been deep enough, has not penetrated my bones. Too much has happened in the past year. I opened up my chest from the back and wings sprang out, and now I cannot wear my shirts or binders or coats or old patterns anymore. Nothing fits. I am running, running to catch up with myself, when really I’m supposed to be flying. Why else would I have these new tools?
But sometimes my pen won’t move. I love and love and love, aching to make sense, make meaning, make love with my every movement, and sometimes all I can do is collapse because I’m overfull and not full enough. An underactive nervous system prone to depression and shutting down, a blank page. Still I ache and move and nourish and detox and meditate. Still I feel this pulsing in my chest, faint like something coming from within the walls, this second heart beating and every once in a while blinking a tiny little light like a pulsar star. I want to build. To do something with all of this love and throbbing energy and heat and pure life force I am lucky enough to have. I hope to never forget to be grateful for every breath of air I magically take in, every moment of reception, penetration, release, surrender, power. I can’t help but course it all through my every vein.
I am starting to cry on airplanes. It is a place I can rest, so high above my email inbox and big loves (I count five) and the ground floor surface of earth’s crust. I am lightheaded up here, stripped of the daily needs of the world, and when I drop down under my days I find this ache. This exhaustion. This ongoing fear of misunderstanding. This curse of a body, of mortality, of injustice. I haven’t reconciled. I miss the clarity and discovery of youth, of innocence. I’d like to make sense of so many things, like how the black holes grow within us and what it could ever take to fill them, like how stone can trickle away through consistent gentle water, like why humans destroy each other from the inside out. I can’t seem to find meaning in wars, but still I engage, sometimes late at night with the ones I love most. Sometimes silently stowing my own cocks in empty boxes unworthy. Sometimes desperate sorrow. Sometimes the silent blank faith of the line without the next word.
The first day I had wings, it was awkward and inconsistent. The second day I toppled over, top heavy. The third day my errands were effortless.
I guess that’s all I want. Less effort, more sweetness. Less struggle, more radical empathy. To cry because it feels good to release, above, hurdling through the sky, the taste of wine on my tongue.
I’m in Chicago this week, I return back to New York City tomorrow, and I keep talking up the Femme Conference that is coming up in Baltimore in just a couple of weeks—August 17-19.
I’m not sure why it keeps coming up—maybe because it was an all-femme lineup at the Dirty Queer Sex Tour: Chicago Say Please reading last night, and so all three of the femmes who read with me came out with their various friends and posses last night? Maybe because the friends I have here are primarily femmes, so naturally the conversation rolls around to femme identity? Maybe because I think these folks are cool and I am curious if I’m going to run into them again at the Femme Conference? Or maybe because my only experience of attending the Femme Conference, until this one upcoming that is, was the 2006 Femme Conference which was held in Chicago?
Whatever the reason, it keeps coming up.
And while some folks are well aware of it and (usually) have strong reactions to it, either “Hell yes! See you there!” or “No, uh uh, absolutely not,” there seems to be an even bigger group of folks in the middle who are obviously intrigued by the idea of attending, but are skeptical.
“I don’t know,” they say, hesitating, but sparkling a little bit at the mention of an entire conference devoted to this complex femme identity. “I mean, would I fit in there? Is it going to be a big judge-fest? Would they even recognize me as femme?”
These questions are so common. I mean, I remember hearing some of that around the BUTCH Voices conferences too, but the fear around one’s identity being policed didn’t feel quite so … panicked.
I think the bottom line is that it’s incredibly complicated to occupy a socially-recognized identity like butch or femme, because while we have stereotypical versions of what those things “should” look like in our minds, we don’t necessarily have the complex deconstructions (and reconstructions) necessary to be able to see that person as butch or femme and all their other pieces of self too. Or, if the person doesn’t quite look like the stereotype, we don’t recognize them as “legitimate.” These queer cultures still see someone, recognizes them as butch or femme or neither, and draws all sorts of conclusions based on that.
People are probably always going to do this. I don’t mean that in an I-give-up kind of way, just in a this-is-probably-true-and-I-will-have-less-strife-in-my-life-if-I-accept-that kind of way.
And y’know, fuck that. I mean, I completely understand that that is a challenge and hard and sometimes makes me return home defeated after a night and just kinda cry and whine for a while, I also think part of the work of having these identities is recognizing that we are trying to rise them above stereotypes, and that the cultures we’re in still largely use big fat markers to draw pictures of these identities, not slim exact-shaded pencils. And part of our work, I believe, part of the work of occupying these identities, is uncoupling them from the heteronormative gender roles, and making them big enough and accessible to anyone who feels a resonance with them. They can be liberational, and the benefits of identifying with a gender lineage, a gender heritage, feels so important to me, putting me in a historical context with people who came before me, so I feel less alone in my forging forward. I’m not doing it exactly as they did it, I’m doing it my own way and in the context of my own communities and time and culture, but I am able to remake it and make more room for freedom and consciousness and liberation within it because I am on their shoulders, using the tools they left for me—us—to pick up.
That is all to say, you are femme enough to attend the femme conference. Or, you know, if you don’t identify as femme but you have some interest in learning more about femme identity and being around femmes and folks who are puzzling through femme identity, you can come too.
I’m not going to promise that nobody is going to give you shit about your identity, about being femme enough, about whether or not you belong there, or about what you wear (because as much as I’d like to say it’s not true, there is a particular focus on aesthetics in femme communities). I don’t know if they will or not. But I’ll also say this: By the end of the conference, you probably will not care as much.
That, more than anything else, has been such a key piece of learning around these identity conferences, the Femme Conference and BUTCH Voices.
And I’ll be honest with you: there will probably be drama. There almost always is at small, incestuous community conferences, and this is definitely one of those. There are not that many people who self-identify as femme. There are not that many people who date and are into and fall in love with and are fascinated by people who identify as femme. There will probably be people there that I don’t want to run into. There will probably be people there who have particularly bad opinions of me, even. I don’t anticipate that being easy. But I care more about the philosophies of this identity, the many folks in my life who identify this way now, and the forward movement of radical genders in this era than I do about being worried that someone will talk shit. I’m bored with that. I’m sick of letting that affect what public spaces I’m involved in.
I submitted a workshop proposal to the Femme Conference—so did Kristen. Neither of us were accepted. I could let my mind roam and draw conclusions about why, but who knows what the actual reasons were. I chose instead to brush it off as not fitting with the conference, for whatever reasons, and I’m still planning to go and have a great time. So many amazing people I know are planning to be in attendance, so many more than I knew when I attended in 2008 (can’t believe it was that long ago!), and I am so looking forward to seeking out the ones that I think have amazing philosophies, meeting new folks, talking about new ideas, and enhancing the ideas I’m already chewing on.
I don’t really know how to explain all of that to people who say, “Would I fit in there? Am I femme enough?” Maybe you would feel like you found your people. Maybe you would be super excited to be around all of the talking about femme identity, but only really connect with one or two other people. Just because we’re all talking about femmes doesn’t mean we’ll get along! But maybe you’ll find a sense of self, in between all of that, that you didn’t know you were seeking, that missing piece that caused you to ask would I fit in there in the first place. And maybe, after attending the conference, you wouldn’t ask that again, because somewhere, deep down, in a soothed and solid place, you’d know.
—
Registration is still open: The Femme Conference happens August 17-19 in Baltimore, MD.
I kind of suck at blogging lately. I have been doing all these offline things—events, trainings, readings, workshops, traveling. Tons of marketing and promotion, very little writing. But I want to—and plan to—get back to more of that, soon. Maybe this week, even.
I leave for Chicago tomorrow and I’ll be doing three events Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night before returning to New York on Thursday. Hope y’all will come out and see me while I’m there! I’m trying to get the word out about this book every possible way I can, and that has included doing all sorts of workshops and performances in every place where the book has contributors—I’ve been in Atlanta and Portland already this month, and now Chicago! I am still kinda in love with this book, so I hope it’s helping to get it into your hands.
I’m not sure if you know, but it’s kind of a misnomer that people make money from writing books. I mean sure, the bigwigs make money, when they’re at major presses and have print runs in seven digits, but Cleis Press, while very widely distributed and respected, is still pretty small. I actually owe them money right now because I bought some copies of the book (which I have to pay for—at a discount, but still, out of my pocket) to use as promotion in the Amazon reviews and blog tour. I have been paying that off slowly while still trying to buy plane tickets to places like Chicago and Portland and Atlanta—which also come out of my pocket, Cleis doesn’t pay for those things. Most of these trips I have broken even, but none of them have I made any significant money.
So it really does make a big difference if you come out to these events. Your presence helps. I love a packed room, at workshops or at a Dirty Queer Sex Tour performance. Buying copies of the book helps—from me directly, at a reading, or online, it all helps. It’s where all my energy has been going to, so much so that I haven’t been keeping up with my writings here.
Hope to see you in Chicago!
New relationship energy can propel a couple into a phenomenal experiential phase of sexual energy—bursts of passion, exploration, and intensity. Long term relationships, however, face the day-to-day life navigation of bills, scheduling, job and career difficulties or changes, disappointments, changes, and grief. How do we build a long term relationship that keeps the passion alive? How do we ensure we have enough time for our partner(s), and for ourselves? How do we both separate from our partner to have our own rich inner life and come back together to build a loving bond? And what kind of kinky play can be used to keep the fire going? We’ll explore all of these concepts and more at this interactive workshop.
RSVP on the Fetlife event or Facebook event
$20 per person ($15 low income/students). All adults welcome.
This workshop is being held at Early to Bed, at 5232 N Sheridan Road
7:30pm
Preregister and save your spot by visiting http://bit.ly/spark4ever or calling us at 773-271-1219
8-9pm: How to Write About Sex
To write about sex well, you need both the boldness to describe the dirty and delicious acts we humans explore, and the basic technical skills of plot, setting, and character. In this pen-to-paper writing workshop, we’ll look at some examples of successful and unsuccessful erotica, discuss how to write steamy love letters for your sweetheart, and discover how to take your blogging to the next level. We’ll also explore where to submit your erotica for publication, and some quick basics for editing your work.
9-10pm: Dirty Queer Sex Tour: Chicago
For the release of SAY PLEASE: LESBIAN BDSM EROTICA, come join us in Chicago for dirty queer readings from contributors to the book and special guests!
ABOUT THE READERS
Christina is a Queer, Capital-S Submissive LeatherFemme with masochistic tendencies. She holds a Master’s Degree in English and Comparative Literature, and her writings often focus upon the complexity of the feminist Leatherwoman’s journey. Her free time is spent serving as the new International Ms Leather (IMsL) historian and archivist.
Vie La Guerre is a femme wordsmith who lives in Chicago with her kittens, Foxy Brown and Zora.
Lyzanne Trevino promotes sex-positive community health education and exploration of kinks and fetishes in her project SexPositiveBlog.com. She is also an LGBT youth advice columnist at AskGayWrites. She works with the Hot Queer Porn Fest committee in Chicago to ensure a place for trans* and queer porn, and although this queer femme is a newcomer to the world of writing queer erotica, she is a long-time reader and enthusiast.
RSVP on Fetlife or on Facebook for How to Write About Sex and the Dirty Queer Sex Tour
Preregister at The Pleasure Chest
at The Pleasure Chest
3436 North Lincoln Avenue
Come learn the nuts and bolts of strapping it on and fucking. Writer and sex educator Sinclair Sexsmith will reveal the best cocks for packing, which options exist for pack-and-play and the ins and out of selecting a harness. You’ll learn about positions, how different products work, what “cock confidence” means, and the psychology behind strapping on and playing with a cock with a partner, or with oneself.
RSVP on Fetlife or Facebook
8-10pm
at The Pleasure Chest
3436 North Lincoln Avenue
Thanks, e[lust], for featuring my recent story about the Tantra “three minute game.” I like thinking about it spreading throughout the sex blog readers and queers and kinksters, and how we can all get a little more of what we want.
—
Welcome to e[lust] – The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at e[lust]. Want to be included in e[lust] #39? Start with the newly updated rules, come back August 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!
~ Top 3 ~
Wrong On Every Level – “If you wouldn’t ask them to borrow $20 bucks, how the fuck is it ok for you to ask them to fuck you? Oh right, it’s not.”
Good Girl – “She nearly melted into me. When I finally released her, she exhaled–she had been holding her breath.”
The Three Minute Game – “The timer went off and I breathed out, both a sigh of relief and disappointment that it was over.”
~ Featured Post (Picked by Lilly) ~
Bitch– “I don’t let her run the show…but she’s always around. She’s in the background saying: Bullshit”
e[lust] Editress: Dangerous Lilly
All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy! Continue reading →
What is a #pornparty, you ask? Well, it’s a worldwide gathering on Twitter of folks who like queer porn. Simply tune in, press play, and then follow the hashtag #pornparty while you watch for commentary and discussion. If you want to join in, make sure you have your own Twitter account, too (and make sure it’s unlocked for the evening if you want others to see your tweets!) and tag your posts with the hashtag so we’ll all see them.
We’ll be watching something through Hot Movies For Her, and viewing this film will be completely free. You don’t have to buy it or download it or purchase VOD minutes to watch it with us. You will need a HotMoviesForHer.com account (which requires a credit card for verification purposes), and simply use the access code (to be announced). When you sign up and you’ll receive 95 minutes free to watch! Those 95 minutes will expire the next day.
So don’t you want to know what we’ll be watching?
Hotttt. Here’s the description:
“Doing It Ourselves” is a hot collection of trans women and their partners of all genders engaging in sex the way they want to be represented. Starting with a group of trans women who are tired of the way that they have seen trans women portrayed in porn, this film tells the story of its own creation when they decide to, well, do it themselves.
So how do you tune in and watch this video for free with us?
NOTE! If your Twitter account is private, we won’t be able to see your #pornparty tweets show up under the hashtag. If you want to join in on the conversation (hope you do!), you may have to unprotect your Twitter account.
So all you have to do is:
1. Make a HotMoviesForHer.com account, if you don’t have one
2. Use the code “DoingIt” to get 95 free minutes
3. Tune in Thursday night, July 19th at 6pm PST, 9pm EST
4. Enjoy the film with us
5. Follow & contribute to the Twitter discussion with the hashtag #pornparty
You can also follow me (@mrsexsmith) as well as some of the porn stars in the film, like @tobitastic, @mzjuneday, @drewdeveaux, and of course our fabulous #pornparty host, @hotmovies4her on Twitter.
So, are you game? Who’s in?
Update! Tobi Hill-Meyer is currently doing a Kickstarter for Doing It Again, a sequel to Doing It Ourselves, and while it’s met its basic goal, there are still “stretch goals” for the project to raise. Support if you can!
Kristen & I answered Laura’s question on video this morning from Seattle … hopefully our colds don’t make us sound too weird.
Laura asks: “I am a kinky queer femme bottom/sub and have read your blog for a long time. The thing that strikes me most is how open you, and also Kristen, are about your explorations and your celebration of your gender and sexuality. I am only 23 but have known I was queer and a submissive since pre-adolescent years, and it feels like I will never be comfortable fully expressing myself or finding my voice except with my partners, because I still get ashamed/embarrassed about all of it sometimes, especially when I think about my family or straight and/or vanilla friends finding out. How did you overcome those feelings to be more open, if you ever had them?”
Come hear Sinclair Sexsmith and local authors BB RYDELL, JOE LEBLANC, WENDI KALI, SOSSITY CHIRICUZIO and ALEKS STEFANOVA read kinky, dirty, queer smut including their stories from Say Please and celebrate this kinky queer collection. In Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, editor Sinclair Sexsmith presents a cornucopia of queer kink: tantalizing tales rich in variety and saucy details of girls put in their place — and held there firmly. Whether readers dream of surrendering to a lover or of taking control, Say Please offers plenty of erotic inspiration and gives readers exactly what they want.
Sunday, July 8th, 2012, 7:30pm
at She Bop the Shop
909 North Beech Street
Portland, OR
RSVP on Facebook
Sinclair Sexsmith has been writing since 1996 about identity, queer culture, feminism, and self-awareness, and teaches workshops on BDSM, gender, and getting the sex life you want. They produce the award-winning website Sugarbutch Chronicles. Contributing to more than fifteen anthologies, including five Best Lesbian Erotica editions and Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, Mr. Sexsmith is also on the board of the upcoming 2013 BUTCH Voices conference, and serves the Body Electric School as a coordinator. They are the guest editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012.
Sossity Chiricuzio is a working-class/fat/poly femme who hosts and produces Dirty Queer, a monthly X-rated open mic, fund-raiser, and community gathering. She has a CD, Hand to Mouth, and has released Stir the Juice, a book of erotic poetry about queer passion and adventure, in 2011. She lives in Portland.
Wendi Kali is a part-time writer and photographer and full-time motorcycle-riding butch. She is currently working on a manuscript about her life as a gender-bending butch. “First Ride” is her first publication. She currently resides in Portland.
Joe LeBlanc is a genderqueer poly butch who is the Founder and Board Chair for BUTCH Voices, a social justice organization for by and about butches, studs and masculine of center individuals. He is a lover of language and writes poetry while also advocating for gender and racial justice both as a community organizer and as a local Portland activist.
BB Rydell promotes queer visibility, expression and grass roots community building through writing, filmmaking and performance. This native New Yorker co-produces “Seattle Spit,” Seattle’s longest running monthly queer spoken word event, and is a member of the Producers Collective, an intentional artist and producer community that values social justice, camp, and diversity. BB is published in Tales of Travelrotica: Volume 2 and Penetalia, and has two self-published zines.
Aleks Stefanova Is a poet, activist, and a full time dreamer. The creator of Q Poetry, a network for queer poets, artists, activist, and other folk, she is on a journey to unite all queers through the art of poetry and spoken word in one safe but free for all zone. In July 2010, she recorded her first poetry CD titled 9 tales of love and loss. Recent Portland transplant she runs the monthly queer poetry slam (A Q Poetry Night) that features some of the best queer poets around the nation. She’s currently working on several different projects some of which are a collection of erotic poetry, a poetry chapbook, and a new CD all to be finished by the end of 2010. For more information, and some of her poetry go to q-poetry.ning.com/profile/aleks.
Topside Press announces the release of “My Awesome Place: The Autobiography of Cheryl B” … I don’t know what else to say.
Contact: Katie Liederman
Media Representative, Topside Press
+1 212 457-5660
katie@topsidepress.com
“MY AWESOME PLACE: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHERYL B” TO BE PUBLISHED BY TOPSIDE SIGNATURE
Official Publication Date October 23, 2012
New York, NY (June 26, 2012) – Topside Press imprint Topside Signature has today announced that October 23, 2012 will be the official release date of My Awesome Place: The Autobiography Of Cheryl B, the highly anticipated book by poet and curator Cheryl Burke based on the manuscript that remained incomplete at the time of the author’s death in 2011. The autobiography offers a rare authentic glimpse into the electrifying arts scene of New York City’s East Village during the vibrant 1990s, through the eyes of the young writer during her rise to prominence as the spoken word artist known as Cheryl B.
In the months following her death, members of Burke’s close-knit writing group, who had met continuously for nine years, worked to compile her drafts, essays and emails into a completed manuscript which was eventually synthesized into its final form by Burke’s close friend, novelist Sarah Schulman. The book’s narrative, from a liminal space between fiction and memoir, tracks her struggle to translate her working class New Jersey roots and define herself as an artist against the backdrop of an unforgiving city, a series of disastrous girlfriends and boyfriends and an intense, intimate relationship with drugs and alcohol. By the time Burke emerged, sober, in 2001, she had witnessed–and made major contributions to– one of the most remarkable artistic transformations that New York City has ever experienced.
“Historians are only just now beginning to deal with the transformations in art and culture that the East Village experienced in the 1990s,” said publisher Tom Léger. “My Awesome Place will quickly earn a place as a seminal text from this turbulent period in American art.”
Cheryl Burke (1972-2011) was a journalist, poet, performer and playwright who came of age in the vibrant 1990s East Village art scene. Her performances at the Nuyorican Poets Café, Bowery Poetry Club, the National Arts Club, P.S. 122, St. Marks Poetry Project established Burke as a young luminary and during her career she performed at venues throughout the US and abroad. Her work was published in Ping Pong, BUST, KGB Bar Lit, Go Magazine, Velvet Park, a dozens of other journals and magazines, and anthologized in Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution (Seal Press, 2007), Reactions 5 (Pen & Inc, 2005), The Milk of Almonds: Italian-American Women Writers on Food & Culture (Feminist Press, 2002), The World in Us (St. Martins Press, 2000), Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache (Alyson Books, 2004), His Hands, His Tools, His Sex, His Dress (Haworth Press, 2001), among others. Burke was a graduate of both New York University and The New School. She passed away at the age of 38 from complications related to treatment of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. My Awesome Place is her first book.
# # #
Topside Signature is an imprint of Topside Press, and is based in New York City, New York. Topside Signature will publish a select number of superb literary works of exceptional cultural significance to queer and feminist communities. The first title issued will be My Awesome Place and publishers expect to release 2-3 titles per year beginning in 2013.
My Awesome Place: The Autobiography of Cheryl B
By Cheryl Burke
$25.95 (hardcover) / $15.95 (paperback)
Published By:
Topside Signature,
228 Park Avenue South,
New York, NY 10003
Format: Hardcover, paperback
Size: 5.5″x8.5″, 208 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9832422-4-6 (hc) / 978-0-9832422-5-3 (pb)
Date of Publication: October 23, 2012
Distribution arrangements: Ingram
Tuesday, October 23, 2012 7pm
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen Street, New York, New York 10002
Facebook event
The official release event for “My Awesome Place: The Autobiography Of Cheryl B”, the highly anticipated book by poet and curator Cheryl Burke based on the manuscript that remained incomplete at the time of the author’s death in 2011. The autobiography offers a rare authentic glimpse into the electrifying arts scene of New York City’s East Village during the vibrant 1990s, through the eyes of the young writer during her rise to prominence as the spoken word artist known as Cheryl B.
Please join us to celebrate the publication of Cheryl’s first book.
About MY AWESOME PLACE
In the months following her death, members of Burke’s close-knit writing group, who had met continuously for nine years, worked to compile her drafts, essays and emails into a completed manuscript which was eventually synthesized into its final form by Burke’s close friend, novelist Sarah Schulman.
The book’s narrative, from a liminal space between fiction and memoir, tracks her struggle to translate her working class New Jersey roots and define herself as an artist against the backdrop of an unforgiving city, a series of disastrous girlfriends and boyfriends and an intense, intimate relationship with drugs and alcohol. By the time Burke emerged, sober, in 2001, she had witnessed–and made major contributions to– one of the most remarkable artistic transformations that New York City has ever experienced.
Holy cats, Hotlanta! It’s like 100* today. But at least Kristen and I have had some grits and really good biscuits already (Flying Biscuit cafe, folks, dang that was good). We flew out of New York at 6am this morning and have been slowly melting in the heat ever since we got here … but we’ll be in Atlanta until Monday morning, when we fly to Seattle for a little memorial for my dad with my family.
Meanwhile, though, I’m very excited to be visiting friends and seeing the queer version of Atlanta, I’ve never been here before and I’m looking forward to getting a sense of the city. I hope I will get a sense of the city, given the heat! Any recommendations for local things that we just must do?
Hope to see y’all out at Charis books tonight or tomorrow night, Friday the 29th or Saturday the 30th. Saturday we’ll be doing a Dirty Queer Sex Tour appearance with an all-femme lineup (except for me, of course)! And Kristen is going to read one of the dirtiest stories in the book. Here’s the info about the events.
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Join us for a two day Stonewall weekend extravaganza celebrating queer sexuality and embodiment with butch blogger and sex writer Sinclair “Sugarbutch” Sexsmith. On Friday night Sinclair will take us on a wild ride towards body confidence for folks on the self-identified queer masculine side of the gender spectrum (butches, bois, transmen, studs, FTMs, Masculine of Center, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, or anybody in between!) .
Sinclair will return on Saturday night for a raucous reading from Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica. Sinclair will share stories from the anthology, talk about the state of sex blogging today, and offer tips to ignite your inner erotica writer! Learn more about Sinclair at www.sugarbutch.net. This event is sponsored by Charis Books and Atlanta Pride. There is $5 suggested donation each evening but no one will be turned away.
Friday, June 29th, 7:30-9pm: Radical Masculinity workshop
Saturday, June 30th, 7:30-9pm: Dirty Queer Sex Tour: Atlanta Edition
Charis Books and More
1189 Euclid Ave NE , Atlanta, Georgia
Facebook event
Performing on Saturday night will be:
Adriana Chiknas is a multifarious femme who is drawn to intensity. She loves her partner, crazy conventions, costumes, heavy metal, food, fantasy, and fucking. Adriana writes the stories of her life…primarily so that she doesn’t forget them. She believes in the power and importance of stories…and wants to hear yours too.
Big Red is an equal opportunity gender queer, fierce femme, who is a performance and Spoken Word Artist celebrated for her ability to “wear many different shoes”. In one pair of those shoes she is dedicated to facilitating personal and communal connection and healing, and in another equally empowering and self-embracing pair of red stilettos she works on various ways to encourage, support, and evoke opportunities to accept and create verbiage, experiences, and culture that is raw, creative, authentic, sensual, deeply intense, just, and intent on empowering, healing, and transforming self, relationships, and communities. With a proven and long standing commitment to education and training, one of her current passions is creating new connections while presenting at various Community events.
Kathleen Delaney is a Queer High Femme spoken word writer whose provocative & smutty performances ignite, shock, challenge, and eroticize Butch/Femme, Queer, and BDSM dynamics. A National touring veteran, Kathleen is the founder & producer of BODY HEAT: Femme Porn Tour, a collective of Femme porn performance artists. A 1950’s Housewife at heart, Kathleen is celebrating day 49 as a newly-wedded bride.
Kristen is a kinky queer femme bottom who occasionally contributes to Sugarbutch.net. She enjoys bruises, disco, and wearing as little clothing as possible. Follow her on twitter @kitchentop. You should try her cookies.
The Dirty Queer Sex Tour for my book Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, published by Cleis Press this past spring, has taken me to San Francisco, Seattle, LA, New York City, and Boston so far, and there is still more to go. This summer, I’ll be in Atlanta (this weekend, actually) and Chicago in the next month, places that have generously requested I come and do a reading, but I don’t have a full set of contributors to the book to read with me in those two places.
Are you in Atlanta or Chicago and write kinky queer stories? Or are you a fantastic performer or reader who would like to read someone else’s story? Are you available June 30 in Atlanta or July 24th in Chicago?
I’m looking for others to share the stage with in those two cities. Send a brief sample of what you would read (1-2 paragraphs) or a video clip of your reading to mrsexsmith (at) gmail.com and I will get back to you. Each reading has a limited number of slots and will be filled first come, first serve.
PS: My Tour Calendar has been updated! I’ll be in Chicago for a week at the end of July doing many workshops, including Writing About Sex, Fucking Forever: Sex in Long Term Relationships, and Cock Confidence. I’ll be stopping in Milwaukee, too!
“Initially, I entered the field of writing through a desire to heal, but what’s been surprising is that while sowing my own transformation, my work seems to aid others’ healing,” Tara Hardy says in GO Magazine’s 100 Women We Love. “And what a privilege to be part of people healing themselves. Call me a zealot, but I believe this is a central opportunity offered by the act of creating something.”
Yeah. That.
Meditating on that today, sitting with it, swishing it around in my mouth to get every last flavor burst. I’m losing sight of my goal, my intentions, in doing this work a little bit these days. I struggle to find the right words. My life is so full, always so much going on … but I am so called to this, this writing, this way of working out my world, this way of making sense of what’s around me. The Internet and communities online are so rapidly changing, I can’t keep up, though I am trying. I’m moving toward more coaching and one-on-one work with people, and doing more workshops and teachings, but I want to keep up my writings here. I know—and Kristen is constantly reminding me—that the only way through is through, but still I struggle with being stuck.
So thanks, Tara, for that quote, and reminding me that there is a “central opportunity offered by the act of creating something”: that it aids others, as well as my own, healing.
I’m thrilled to see Amber Dawn, Miss Indigo Blue, Patricia Manuel, Jessica Halem, Sassafras Lowrey, and Shanna Katz—in addition to Tara Hardy—and other folks in my communities on the GO magazine hot 100 list this year. Congratulations.
Welcome to e[lust] – The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at e[lust]. Want to be included in e[lust] #38? Start with the newly updated rules, come back July 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!
Top 3
Coming to Terms with Being Gay – From the time I was seven I was raised Mormon, which meant I wasn’t allowed to have a girlfriend until I was 16 or to have sex until I was married.
What I Want – I want to be humiliated. Call me a slut. Call me a whore. Slap my face. Expose me.
Dinner Party Entertainment – At that moment, J’s eyes went wide–he finally realized I was leaving him there, tied to the bed.
Featured Post (Picked by Lilly)
My Abstinence Only “Sex Education” – The speakers were a married, Christian couple, and the man told us about how he had pledged to stay a virgin until he was married.
e[lust] Editress
Your Crappy Writing Turns Me Off – Your written words are your clothes, your power, your voice, your facial expressions and that by which we measure intelligence, personality and even attractiveness.
All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy! Continue reading →
