reviews

Review: Lesbian Life: Real Sex San Francisco

real-sex-sf-211x300I’m not sure how it happened actually, but somewhere in the last few months I started updating my Twitter account with thoughts when I was watching porn to review. That’s aka “live-tweeting porn.”

A month or so ago, I finally got the Video On Demand on Good Vibes to work, and sat down to check out Madison Young’s Lesbian Life: Real Sex San Francisco, and tweeted throughout. Many other folks on twitter chimed in with their thoughts on the film, and on some lesbian sex tips in general (like, what’s with that twisty hand thing? How come there’s no fisting on DVDs?), and what kind of toys they’re using in this episode.

Lots of the San Francisco queer porn stars are on Twitter, too, so a few times Jiz Lee (@jezinyoureye) and Syd Blakovich (@SydBlakovich) jumped in to add some thoughts about their scene (“@SydBlakovich ps. it is really hard to fuck on a massage table.”)

Here’s a transcript of the Twitter stream as I was watching the film.  If you aren’t familiar with Twitter: the first @____ is the person who is writing this, the second @___ (if there is one) is the person to whom they are directing that writing. Photos were borrowed from Alpine SubDreams’s Lesbian Life review, thanks!

Foreplay ….

SCENE ONE: Jiz Lee (@jezinyoureye) & Lorelei Lee

real-sex-scene-1-300x166

  • @mrsexsmith jiz lee is impressive on the [playground] rings.
  • @EssinEm @mrsexsmith I totally went to that park/playground when I was there!!
  • @mrsexsmith @EssinEm it’s a loooooong park scene. still going on. I’m not that into it. oh wait … lorelei lee just bent over … getting better now ..
  • @hotmovies4her @mrsexsmith Are you watching Lesbian Life – Real Sex SF? haha, I JUST reviewed Scene 3 for tomorrow. it is so so so hot!
  • @mrsexsmith @hotmovies4her yes! I’m still in scene 1 … i’ll look forward to 3 then.

SCENE TWO: Syd Blakovich (@SydBlakovich) & Lorelei Lee

  • @mrsexsmith oh I dig this scene in the bike shop. way hot. STILL no cocks though!
  • @jezinyoureye @mrsexsmith LesbianLife:Real Sex SF cocks in scene 3 (johnny used by @SydBlakovich on Carson) & scene 4 (buck used by me on Dylan Ryan)
  • @mrsexsmith reason #1 why the bike shop is more hot than the park scene: lorelei can make more noise. love the way she whimpers.
  • @mrsexsmith @jezinyoureye YES! good cocks too. yummm.
  • @mrsexsmith holy hell! – four fingers in and HARD too. fuck fuck this is great!
  • @mrsexsmith lorelei has left her red high heels on. mmmm that is my kinda girl.
  • @SydBlakovich @hotmoviesforher & @mrsexsmith glad u like it! Took me a sec to get the grease and cum off of me.
  • @jezinyoureye @hotmoviesforher @mrsexsmith those were my coveralls; @SydBlakovich returned them to me with grease & cum all over them.
  • @mrsexsmith @jezinyoureye :O how rude! hope you took it out on @sydblackovich ‘s ass
  • @EssinEm @jezinyoureye Oh, how awful
  • @SydBlakovich @jezinyoureye whatever u have her cum all over ur face anyways, I was just helping u match.
  • @mrsexsmith @SydBlakovich ohh and here you are doing a bit of primping, getting the grease & cum off. fucking HOT.
  • @jezinyoureye @mrsexsmith Too bad we’re cant show fisting in porn DVDs. We can online though — all the folks in LesbianLife are on CPS, and we fist. :D
  • @EssinEm @jezinyoureye New goal (in addition to everything else on my list): come back to CPS and get fisted.
  • @mrsexsmith @jezinyoureye !! I didn’t know that! though I have suspected. I do know your CPS work well :)
  • @jezinyoureye @mrsexsmith If I had a nickel for every time a queer person was surprised to hear that fisting is not allowed
  • @jezinyoureye @mrsexsmith … I’d buy out the industry and allow fisting for all.
  • @mrsexsmith @jezinyoureye oh I like that plan! i’ll gladly throw in a nickel. who makes these rules?
  • @pazenlavida @mrsexsmith this episode of frontline explains why you can’t fist on dvd’s. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/
  • @SydBlakovich Check out episode 89. Lorelei and I do an interview. http://www.blowfish.com/radio/

SCENE THREE: Syd Blakovich (@SydBlakovich)  & Carson

  • @SydBlakovich ps. it is really hard to fuck on a massage table.
  • @mrsexsmith @SydBlakovich I bet, but you pull it off like it’s nuthin. what harness is that??
  • @SydBlakovich @mrsexsmith I think it was the cloth version of the terra firma but u can take any jock style cloth harness and remove the backing piece.
  • @mrsexsmith great music in this tattoo parlor scene. great music in every scene so far, actually.
  • @mrsexsmith um. omg. blow job. with the johnny. fuck that’s impressive.
  • @mrsexsmith did I mention that I’m watching Lesbian Life in San Francisco via @GoodVibesSF VOD? they’ve got some great flicks available to download.
  • @mrsexsmith dykes often do that twisty thing with their fingers/hands when finger fucking in porn. for me & lovers that has been uncomfortable. thoughts?
  • @EssinEm @mrsexsmith What twisty thing?
  • @mrsexsmith @EssinEm twisting your hand over, basically. ouch.
  • @bailar_vivir @mrsexsmith The twisty maneuver is painful when performed on me. Yoikes!
  • @dolphyngyrl @mrsexsmith I’d have to see what you’re talking about, exactly, but the twist thing can help open things up.
  • @dolphyngyrl @mrsexsmith con’t: The point is getting more in as you twist.
  • @evilgrrlevilgrrl @mrsexsmith – Do the twisty thing SLOWLY and gently at first with LOTS of lube.
  • @EssinEm @mrsexsmith Oh. I like that usually, with enough lube.
  • @aisforalisha @mrsexsmith I was thinking about that the other day.. I’ve never done it, but was curious..
  • @mrsexsmith @aisforalisha well @essinem says it’s good with enough lube – which is a good point. enough lube and any friction is good friction.
  • @Weebeasty @mrsexsmith That always leaves me really sore but not in a good way.
  • @EssinEm @mrsexsmith But I think I’d prefer to just be fucked very very hard.
  • @bailar_vivir @EssinEm I wish being fucked very very hard didnt hurt in a bad way… sounds awesome! :(
  • @mrsexsmith re: the twisty thing: @dolphyngyrl “it can open things up” and @evilgrrl “slowly/gently with lots of lube.” Hmmmmmm

SCENE FOUR: Dylan Rion & Jiz Lee (@jezinyoureye)

  • @mrsexsmith oh, dylan rion and your signature blow job earrings.
    @mrsexsmith aww @jezinyoureye brought a rose! aren’t you sweet.
  • @mrsexsmith ooh @jezinyoureye is wearing my favorite cock (and the white jaguar harness?) and mmmmm dylan’s mouth is on it. that is delicious.
  • @mrsexsmith four fingers and dylan rion is making beautiful noises. ohmygodYES.
  • @mrsexsmith blow job on glass? (or maybe it’s acrylic?) makes me a bit too conscious of teeth.
  • @jezinyoureye Not so much a BJ — we were just licking off the cum.
  • @mrsexsmith and that was the last scene of Lesbian Life in San Francisco, brought to me by @GoodVibesSF … uh, anything else I should watch from there?
reviews

Pleasurists #20

Pleasurists is your round-up of the adult product reviews that came out in the last seven days from bloggers all around the sex blogosphere. Did you miss Pleasurists #19? Read it all here. Do you have a review for Pleasurists #21? Submit it here before Sunday March 15th at 11:59pm PST. Please re-post this list on your own blog if listed.

Want to win some free swag? All you’ve got to do is enter.

Madame Editrix

Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek

On to the reviews… Continue reading →

miscellany

Announcements: Three New Projects

I’ve got three new projects brewing, and they’re finally all just about ready for public launch.

toyswap-copyOne: The ToySwap Network

The idea started when I asked if anyone on Twitter had unused massage candles or massage oil just sitting around, and Dangerous Lilly offered up a nice little Babeland massage candle, and we started talking about how great it would be to have a place to swap the things we don’t use. Lots of sexbloggers are overrun with toys to review, and we end up with lots of things we don’t use or don’t want. So, we started doing some research about how to develop a little network for toy swapping, and after a bit of drama, we settled on Ning.com.

Unfortunately we might still have a bit of a problem here, since Ning.com updated their terms of service to not allow any “adult-themed” groups, but we’re trying to work that out with the administrators. Which is why I haven’t mentioned it yet.

But! Things are looking good! And the group is going strong! And today marks the beginning of our first Swap Week, where we hope folks will flock to do more trades than usual, to keep our lists updated and offer up the best of what we got.

If you want to join, you need an invitation to join our specific group but you can sign up at Ning.com and let me know you want to be a part of it with a comment here and I’ll send you a personal invitation.

Two: The Sugarbutch Recommended Amazon store


Hand-picked books, DVDs, & other products from Amazon.com and recommended just for you.

It’s a little peek into my bookshelves, really, because these are some of the best of the best books about gender, sex, sexuality, and theory that I’ve read, many of which I own. Hope you find some good recommendations and interesting things inside the store.

Three: Mr. Sexsmith Recommends … Hot queer porn movies on demand, through Hot Movies For Her

vodscreenshot

Sign up at Hot Movies for Her and receive 20 free minutes (usually you just get 10), then come back to VOD.sugarbutch.net to check out some of my hand-picked favorites. Quite possibly my favorite scene of all time – Episode 1 from the Crash Pad Series – is now included on HMFH. I also recommend Real Life in San Francisco and Good Dyke Porn and Post Apocalyptic Cowgirls and oh, right, I recommend everything in there, I picked it all out!

Last but not least:

Allyson is featured on Queer Eye Candy today. We’ve known each other for years – she’s one of the few folks still in my life who knew me before I came out. She’s started a new project at The Femme Domestic and it’s quite lovely so far.

The Community page has been slightly updated – I’m not great at keeping up with it, the RSS reader is a better way to see which blogs I’m reading. If you’d like to be added to the Community page, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll get you updated soon.

cock confidence, reviews

Clit Pumping: How to Grow

I wrote about clit pumping in February 2008, and since then, I’ve researched pumping a bit more.

Pumping is most well-known, probably, for endless spam emails: Make her feel your Wang! Make Your Meat-Stick Massive! Give Her Real Lovefest! Turns out, the more you engorge your cis-cock with blood, the bigger it becomes. Similar to working a muscle, I suppose – this is the way you work that particular muscle.

And about two years ago now I heard from a friend that clit pumping was all the rage at a particular trans conference they had attended. Reeeeeally, I asked. How does that work?

Apparently, quite well. Some guys grow inches on their clits from pumping. I did a bit of research (i.e.: googled it, and tried to avoid the nasty sites), which is how I stumbled across a clit pump that I reviewed a year ago, and then a great sex toy store asked me to review multiple pumping products and compare them together.

I feel a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Pumps, trying these out – which one will be just right?

The Clit Pump:

This is the same clit pump I reviewed before – I didn’t realize until it arrived that they were the same. It comes highly recommended, though, now, from multiple sources, so if you’re looking for a clit pump, this is probably a good one.

It was interesting enough that I sought out more information on pumping, but ultimately I wanted more suction and pressure than this little thing could offer.

I’m still not really sure what the appeal of a clit pump is for gals who aren’t looking to enlarge their clits – or, why you would want to enlarge it, I guess. Is it simply an extension of the penis pump? Someone just assumed a woman might want a bigger clit? Bigger = better, etc?

Generally, this pump is weak in pressure, and not deep enough in the cup. The plusi s that it is actually made for my anatomy and thus fits easily over a clit, unlike the penis pumps, whose openings are 2″ wide. On to those next.

penispumpThe Large Pump:

More pressure, more depth in the shaft of the device – depth indeed! Like 12″ of depth! Maybe a bit overkill, I certainly don’t need more than two inches max. The opening is big, too – 2″ around, with a plastic sheath inside – and kind of a challenge to find the seal on the suction. In fact, I often felt like I was pumping my labia as well as my clit, because it’s hard to get a seal just around my clit without getting the labia in there too.

It’s a bit unweildly, feels awkward to have this huuuuge long thing protruding from my clit, so it was kind of uncomfortable. After I got the hang of the suction, it got easier to actually pump: I squeeze the little bulby thing to the point of pressure (not pain) and hold for a few minutes (five, not twenty). The squeeze-pump style is alright, but sometimes felt like it was letting out air rather than making the seal tighter.

So, this one is better with suction … but uselessly too long for a clit, and awkward.

penisheadThe Penis Head Pump:

Aha! Maybe this will solve it – still has the pressure of a “real” penis pump, but it’s smaller, not quite as GIANT and awkward. Let’s see.

Suction: still difficult. This one has a bit of plastic built around the edge of the opening to make sure the seal happens, but that’s, again, only useful if you’ve actually got something to stick inside of the pump itself, which I don’t. Once I get the hang of it, once I get the placement right one time, I can usually get it again and it gets easier. But I’m still pumping my labia (not what I want – at times, that’s painful for my labia piercing) in order to get a seal, and I’m not crazy about that.

Pumping action: This has a squeeze-trigger type of pumping action instead of a squeeze-bulb, which I like better. Easier to add precisely the amount of pressure that I’m aiming for, the bulb feels like it lets some of it out sometimes.

Size: Fine … better than the huge one, easier to wield, but still feels like it wasn’t made for my anatomy. Because, uh, it wasn’t.

In conclusion … Oh yeah – there’s an important question I missed here: does this work? YES. My clit is definitely bigger than it used to be, not so much when unaroused, but it definitely gets larger than it used to when aroused. And this is, well, fun.

The Penis Head Pump is the one that I would keep using, were I to keep using a pump. But, I might not continue pumping very often. After a few months of trying out all three of these in various capacities, I’ve noticed that my clit, though noticably bigger, is also, I think, decreased in sensitivity. I’m having a harder time coming now than I ever remember coming in my life. I’m not sure why, but it could be related. So I’m going to back off for a while (of pumping and of my hitachi, sigh) and see if that helps me get off easier.

Have you tried pumping? What was it like for you? Are you interested in doing so? Leave your two cents in the comments.

cock confidence

Cock Confidence and the KinkForAll Conference

I had a wonderful time at the KinkForAll conference at the LGBT Community Center yesterday. Major thank-yous to Maymay and Eileen (remember her story? mhm I do too) and all the unorganizers and folks who brought food (oh my lord what were those sticky chocolate wafer things?!) and attended and presented – I left with a lot of things on my mind and a lot of ideas to take home.

Some of my favorites? Calico‘s presentation on “Dirty Sexy Money” – I thought we’d talk about sex work, but in fact we were talking about money play and the ways that money can enhance power differentials in role play scenarios. That definitely got my mind going. And also, in Jason’s “What Can’t You Do with Vet Tape?” presentation, I learned that you can’t really use vet tape to beat someone up, but oh boy can you ever use it to tie someone down. I liked the blindfold/gag demo and I am very inspired to pick up some of that. A #kfanyc investigation on twitter reveals that jeffersequine.com is the place to pick it up online. And Barbara Carrellas lead a quick sex magic/tantra presentation that had the whole room breathing, visualizing what we wanted. I will definitely be looking up her workshops and trying to catch one full-length, I’ve heard wonderful things about her and her work for years but have yet to attend.


I did my own presentation as well, and at the last minute called it COCK CONFIDENCE in a butch/femme context. I had some notes, but was also not feeling very well, and twenty minutes goes by so fast!, so I had a lot more to say about the subject that I didn’t get to. Here goes.

1. What is cock confidence?

Particularly, what is it in a genderqueer context, with a strap-on as opposed to a cis-cock?

Most of us who strap on have had those moments of awkwardness when we go from the hot-and-heavy making out to “oh my god, this is really gonna happen,” then the sudden realization: “oh shit, when (and how) do I whip it out?”

Cock confidence is knowing when and how, and doing it smoothly so it doesn’t ruin the mood. This does not necessarily mean taking yourself (or your cock) incredibly seriously, sometimes a little bit of camp and sillyness can be totally appropriate and keep you laughing and connected to the hot lil piece of ass that you’re about to fuck.

(I happen to be a particularly serious lover, so it didn’t even occur to me that taking it seriously was separate from having confidence, though I think those are two different things.)

2. How do I get (more) cock confidence?

Two particular things come to mind here: you can develop confidence solo, with yourself, and you can develop it with a lover.

Lots of us have lovers, but they don’t necessarily validate our cock confidence, or perhaps our cock confidence is so low that we want to gain some of our own before we bring it into play with a partner. Do this on your own! Get to know your cock, get it out, wear it, put it on, clean the house, watch your weekly tv show while you’re wearing it. Get off with it on and see how that feels. Incorporate it into your own self-luuuuv rituals.

The more comfortable you are putting it on and taking it off, the more practice you have at it, the easier it will be to do with a lover present too. You’ll struggle less with the buckles and snaps if you have done it a dozen or fifty or a hundred times already. You’ll get the feel of how long it takes when it goes smoothly, so it won’t feel as long and endless of a process when you’re doing it in front of someone else.

Secondly: practice cock confidence by getting with someone who respects the way you want to wear and wield your cock. This, in my experience, is best done by talking to the person you’re fucking, either the one who you are already sleeping with (an ongoing partner, perhaps) or the one you are trying to get in bed, preferably before you’re in bed together.

And this is where gender discussions as foreplay come in.

I’ve written about gender as foreplay before, but let’s see if I can’t go into a bit more depth here. I find it rather easy to bring up gender during a date, it’s often one of my early talking points when I meet someone new (“What do you do?” “I’m a writer, mostly of smut and gender theory.”), but I’m not sure exactly how it comes up or what I use in order to discuss it.

If I’m on a date, I start a conversation about chivalry and the ways that I use it as courtship and interest, as a way to enhance the gender differences between us, and as respect. Chivalry is so connected to gendered interactions, it leads automatically into a discussion of gender. I like to ask about someone’s gender, about how they came to the gender they’ve got, to tell their gender story.

The gender story is a big one – how I came to be the way I am – it tells so much about where a person is at, their past loves, past heartbreaks, what they’ve learned from relationships and what they know now to be true about themselves.

Someone asked me how to make this gendered conversation sexy, or sexual – foreplay rather than analytical conversation. The short answer is, I’m not sure I know, since the analytical conversations about gender really do turn me on.

The longer answer is … what about gender turns you on? Talk about that stuff. Does it turn you on to talk about cocks and cufflinks and gender as a form of power play and femme markers like stockings, earrings, makeup? Talk about that. Is it suits and dresses? High heels and combat boots? Or is it some other version of femme and butch, of not conforming to gender, of wearing boxer briefs under a mini-skirt, of genderqueer or head-shaving and how liberating it is to not have any hair, plus it feels good, run your hands over it. It’s more than just physical markers, too, of course. So talk about that – what does your “inner gender” mean, say, feel like? What makes you feel the most like you, the most sexy, the most wanted, the most desire?

All these discussions of sex and gender are absolutely to determine what kind of chemistry and compatibility you might have with this person once you get in bed, to determine whether or not it’d be a good match. You might be very physically attracted to them, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a good match in bed – I’m sure this is not news to most folks, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate.

I mean, I don’t really fuck without a cock. I joked about this at KinkForAll – “I mean, what would I DO?!” Of course, I don’t really mean that (and I hate to perpetuate the idea that lesbians don’t have anything to do together in bed, since there’s no cock involved). I have plenty of ideas about what to do with my hands, mouth, fists, without involving a cock.

But that’s not the kind of sex I prefer.

(Obviously, you already know that, if you read this site.) I prefer strapping on. I prefer a submissive femme girl on her knees gulping my cock down her throat, I prefer throwing her onto the bed before shoving my hand between her legs. And conversations about gender, and how I use gender as part of the sex play, are key to knowing whether or not a girl would be into that before we really start to get it on.

I watch what happens when I mention my cock. I watch her reaction, I watch her eyelids flutter as she checks to see if maybe, just maybe I’m wearing one right now (I am). I watch her skin flush on her neck as heat comes to her body.

And that’s how I get my cock confidence.

Any questions? Class adjourned.

PS: Lolita got a shot of me during the Cock Confidence workshop, thanks Lo!

dirty stories, real life

A Resplendent Image

Some days just the memory of her is enough to drive me wild.

I’ve been holding on to the image of her in my bed last Sunday all week, rolling it over in my mind like I roll my ring on my finger.

We’d already been fucking, all day really. Woke and I couldn’t keep my hands off her, stayed in bed until hunger forced us up after one. Back home and I wanted more. Cradled her, fucked a while, until I wanted to watch.

I’m perhaps more of a voyeur than even I know. And she is such an expert at her own body, I love watching her as her skin flushes, fingers move, hands hover above her own pussy as she shakes, then opens her eyes to look at me: “want me to do it again?”

This time, she was on her back, on my bed. I wished aloud for a spreader bar and then made one, makeshift, from a white-tipped straight black cane and black rope, her ankles as far apart as they could go, she couldn’t close her knees.

Then: clamps on her nipples. Tighter than I expected, but I know she likes the pressure, likes it when I bite hard.

Then: I got a cock out, a big one, the widest I have, I can’t even get my thumb and forefinger all the way around the narrowest part. It is short, so, hard to strap-on. I keep it in my hand as I watch her writhe for one, two orgasms on her own, as she can’t take something that big until she’s warmed up.

I tug at the chain of the nipple clamps, twist them around for more of a pinch. She moans. She likes it.

I watch her come and lube up the cock, slide it in without much resistance, watch her face change, her hips open, as she starts working her clit again right away.

And these are the images that flash in my mind: that thick red cock shoved all the way in; her hands, both, between her legs, upper arms pushing her breasts together as the clamps and chain accent her nipples and swollen aureole; knees up and rocking back and forth, straining against the bar holding her ankles apart.

I’m kneeling at the foot of the bed, knees apart, stroking my cock, still strapped on, watching from slightly above as she writhes and moans.

Then: next to her, my hand working the cock in and out, my mouth at her neck, shoulder.

“Kiss me,” she whispers, as I refuse to close the distance and keep her straining to reach my mouth.

I grin, and slap her instead, three four five six times in rapid succession. She moans, I hit her again. “Or slap me, that’s good too,” she breathes, nearly under her breath, as I continue to make her cheek pinker, and I do, again, and she starts coming, harder, so I slap her a few more times before leaning in to kiss her, until she starts jerking as she comes and nearly knocks me in the nose with her forehead.

“Fuck me, please,” she is unhinged like this and asking for just what she wants, and I love that.

I shift between her legs, the bar holding her ankles apart now behind my knees and I keep some pressure on it so she can strain against it, and slide inside easily, wrap my arms around her, kiss her hard, and we lose ourselves in it, rocking against each other, going deep.

miscellany

Butch/femme in various cities

I got an email recently from a femme looking to relocate, but not sure where yet she’s going to go. Here’s her note:

I’m a young femme looking to relocate to a new city, and I want to go somewhere with a large diverse lesbian community that is very friendly to the butch-femme dynamic.

I’ve spent much of my life in LA, a city with nary a handsome butch to be found! And when I lived briefly in San Francisco, there were many cute butches but few other femmes, and I was always “read” as straight. It would be ideal to live somewhere where I could find both femme friends and a butch partner.

Some cities I am looking into: Seattle, Portland, Brooklyn, and Boston.

I can speak to Seattle and Brooklyn, but none of the others really. So I figured I’d ask you all: where do you live? What’s the butch/femme culture like in those cities?

Chime in regardless of where you live – I’d love to hear about the cultures outside of the US, too.

Some questions to consider:
– Are there lesbian-specific bars, or nights at the gay bars? More than one? Are some of them more known for being butch/femme than others?
– Are there butch/femme social groups?
– Is it gender-forward and inclusive of many expressions?

reviews

Pleasurists #18

I don’t usually submit to Pleasurists – I don’t really consider myself a toy reviewer in the way that others do. I just like to try things out & talk about them. This week, though, I liked how many comments I got about the Jaguar Harness – it’s a widely-used harness, so it was great to hear everybody’s two cents on what they thought of it and whether or not they use it. I think that discussion is really useful! Thanks for weighing in.

Pleasurists is your round-up of the adult product reviews that came out in the last seven days from bloggers all around the sex blogosphere. Did you miss Pleasurists #17? Read it all here. Do you have a review for Pleasurists #19? Submit it here before Sunday March 8th at 11:59pm PST. Please re-post this list on your own blog if listed.

Want to win some free swag? All you’ve got to do is enter.

On to the reviews…

Editor’s Pick

  • Bill and Desiree: Love Is Timeless by Domina Doll on Viviane’s Sex Carnival
  • Everything they do, they do with exhilaration and wild abandon. They explore their sexual love like children who are delighted and amazed by everything they see and touch. I had a perma-smile welded on my face as I watched them make love with such tenderness: their smiles, laughter and joy radiating out of the screen to affect me as well. It was so powerful and beautifully poignant to watch their sweet ecstatic moans and tearful orgasms as they convulsed with ecstasy.

Madame Editrix: Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek

Continue reading →

miscellany

Editor’s Pick of Sugasm #160

This Week’s Picks

More Sugasm | Join the Sugasm | See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

My favorites were showcased in the top three this week! But here’s a couple more shout-outs to some awesome women working in queer porn:

essays

On Butches: Coming Inside

The truth is, it feels embarrassing, really, to come while strapped on and fucking. The amount I have to let go and risk is sometimes too much for my heart to open up.

It isn’t fair to say that she doesn’t have to do the same amount of risk and letting go when I throw her down onto the bed, shove my hand between her legs, push my fingers inside until she’s screaming and thrashing under my forearm holding her down.

But it’s different, isn’t it?

Let’s not say one is harder than the other, it isn’t about hierarchy: only that one is not the same as the other. But, why? Maybe because that’s the way her body is “supposed” to work, biologically it is built to take inside, to be invaded, to tilt the bowl of her pelvis up and open the hinge of her hips back.

I don’t like making generalized statements like that: “women are made to x because biologically, bodies are built like y,” there is so much unfinished in that statement, and there is some sort of deeper, inner sense of gender and self that is discounted because of our binary system of classification under biology.

But there is something, something about the ways that entering inside, being permitted to come inside, being permitted to invade, to be permitted to take and thrust and enter, is not what my body is made to do, so I am on shaky ground, out of synch with what my cells know. There is something so vulnerable about having sex organs (like a silicone cock) outside the body, something so exposing about the ways I get … hungry, desperate for a safe haven, so dependent upon another for fulfillment and satisfaction.

And there is the moment of orgasm: shuddering and losing control momentarily and I don’t even know if my eyes are rolling back and my mouth is lolling open, such a moment of unconsciousness when I usually have such precise purpose when I am on top, fucking her, sliding in and out, rocking against her. I know exactly how this feels and exactly where to put my hands and such confidence in the ways that I am moving. But in that moment I lose that and all I can think of are those guys, those stupid guys in every bad movie where they are completely lost in their own world and the girl is looking up at them with a face like, really? Really. You’re just going to keep going and you can’t even tell that I’m totally disconnected, and that might be my worst fear, that I am alone in those moments of pleasure, so wrapped up in how my dick feels in her pussy that I don’t even know the ways she is not enjoying this.

And then I am spent and small and soft and dribbling and drained.

I know there’s more to it than that. I know.

But there’s a tiny aspect of it that infiltrates my mind when I find myself close, when I feel my cock tighten and balls lift, muscles pinching. I can’t do that, I can’t let go.

Maybe that’s why it has been nearly impossible to come while strapped on with anyone since Callie. It happens, sure, but it is inconsistent and unpredictable, which makes it all the more embarrassing and exposing. Maybe I haven’t trusted enough. Maybe it’s all mental. Maybe I am still terrified to expose myself, now that I see how easily I have lost myself in the recent past. On the inside of every cell wall in me has YOU CAN’T HAVE ME written a hundred times in tiny print. But maybe I need to go in there with a delicate eraser and figure out what pen it was I used, and write something else. Or maybe I need to leave the walls blank and clear so I can see right through them.

Because when I come inside her, and then come back to myself, and to her, like I did on Sunday morning, nearly falling off of the bed, sheets and blankets completely askew, light coming in the slatted blinds behind us, and she looks at me with those blue blue eyes with so much clarity and witness, so much reverence and strength, though there is a part of me that panics, there is also a part of me that has come home.

miscellany

Feminists & Porn

Are you bored at work? Do you love taking surveys? Do you think research about feminism & porn is important?

Cool, glad we cleared that up.

So: go take this survey about feminists’ use of porn:

Hi, My name is Hayley, and I’m a 44 year old MA Women’s Studies student [at Ruskin College Oxford]. I am currently involved in my dissertation year and am doing research into feminists who use pornography. I have an interest in women’s sexuality and sexual expression. I also have had an interest for some time around the notions of sexuality and women’s bodies as sites of oppression and/or liberation.

I am looking for feminist respondents to complete this questionnaire as part of my MA dissertation. This dissertation will be viewed by my MA markers at Ruskin, and may in part or in full at some time be published. In order to preserve people’s identities, I request that you use a pseudonym.

After the survey, there will be a Facebook group you can join to talk to other people who have completed the questionnaire and offer any feedback about it.

If there are questions you would prefer not to answer that’s fine. If you want to explain why you object to them, that’s fine too.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Take the survey here.

(Thanks to Jess at The F-Word for the survey call.)

miscellany

Come to KinkForAll on Sunday!

KinkForAll, a new unconference, is coming up this Sunday, March 8th, at the LGBT Community Center in NYC. I’ve been really looking forward to this and I think it’s going to be incredible.

kinkforall-banner

Here’s the first description from the KinkForAll webpage:

KinkForAll is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people of the kink, queer, sex-positive and related communities to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, presentations, and interaction from all participants. It is inspired by and based upon the BarCamp community.

I don’t know if or what I’ll be presenting on exactly. When I signed up I wrote that I might give a presentation about “gender theory, identity development, butch/femme identity, presentation, and dynamics, strapping on & sucking butch cock, how to fall in love without losing yourself … and probably a bunch of other things …” but it’s also really possible that I’ll just be there as a participant. I mean, look at all the other amazing people who have great ideas about what they can present on?

Vitals
======

What: A no-limits sex-positive gender and sexuality unconference.
Why: To inspire a creative, interactive and open environment where everyone feels comfortable talking, learning, and being inspired by all kinds of sexuality.
When: March 8, 2009, Sunday, 10AM to 5:30PM
Where: LGBT Community Center, Room 310 at 208 West 13th Street, New York City
Who: Everyone
How much: Free (as in beer as well as freedom)

Details
=======

KinkForAll is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people of the kink, queer, sex-positive and related communities to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, presentations, and interaction from all participants. (It is inspired by the BarCamp community.)

ANYONE WITH SOMETHING TO CONTRIBUTE OR WITH THE DESIRE TO LEARN IS WELCOME AND INVITED TO JOIN. When you attend, be prepared to share with others. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

A KinkForAll is a special kind of gathering because there are no spectators, only participants. Attendees must give a talk or a presentation, help with one, or otherwise volunteer/contribute in some way to support the event. This is called sharing and we like it. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen—there are no pre-scheduled presentations or keynote addresses. The people present at the event will select the presentations they want to see.

Anyone can present, on any topic related to sexuality. You do not necessarily have to teach a new skill or idea. You might share an experience, review a product, or read a poem. The goal is to start a discussion, make connections, and exchange knowledge. Presentations promoting specific commercial products or companies are discouraged.

Learn more about what to expect at http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/WhatToExpect

Learn more about the event guidelines at http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/TheRulesOfKinkForAll

Get Involved
============

We need your help in spreading the word. Please help by participating. Here’s how:

1. Get excited by reading the ideas on http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/KinkForAllNewYorkCity
2. Add your name or handle to the list of participants
3. Join the mailing list and introduce yourself by emailing kinkforall@googlegroups.com

Still have questions? Read the Frequently Asked Questions at http://kinkforall.pbwiki.com/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

or email kinkforall@googlegroups.com for more details.

Perhaps I’ll see you there!

essays

Save About Face Theatre

One of About Face Theatre’s many supporters emailed me recently with this call for help to keep the theatre’s doors open, staff paid, and the youth theatre program intact. If you can help, please do.

She writes:

As a young femme fresh out of college, I interned at About Face and learned a lot about making queer art that’s accountable to the community. AFT was a great place to work, and I got to see first-hand the high quality of the shows they produced and the impact they’ve had on LGBT youth through their youth program. This is the theatre group that made I Am My Own Wife into the incredible show that it was by the time it hit New York.

Here’s the call for donations and support:

SAVE ABOUT FACE THEATRE!

“This is a space where youth can come and have so much love and support. This is a place for us to be heard” – AFT youth artist

About Face Theatre, one of Chicago’s leading LGBTQ institutions and the original home of Pulitzer-prizewinning I AM MY OWN WIFE, is in danger of closing.

To confront this immediate crisis, About Face has launched a national “FACE THE FUTURE” campaign to save the organization and ensure its future. The About Face Board of Directors is asking for immediate financial contributions in order to keep its doors open, staff paid, and the youth theatre program intact.

About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity If About Face does not survive, the country will lose one of the few high-profile theaters making new work by and about the LGBTQ experience. The award-winning About Face Youth Theater serves queer youth by providing artistic experiences and leadership training.

In response to the economic downturn and significant debt, About Face has reduced its budget by over 30% by implementing staff and production cuts while also postponing our third show. This is the responsible action to take, but it is not enough. If you help us raise $300,000, we will solve our immediate crisis and build a foundation for ongoing financial health. Here’s what you can do:

— DONATE NOW www.aboutfacetheatre.com

— PERSONALIZE THIS EMAIL AND FORWARD IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES

Donations can be made at www.aboutfacetheatre.com, by calling (773)784-8565, or by mailing a check to the theatre at 1222 W. Wilson, 2nd Floor West, Chicago, IL 60640.

POST A VIDEO Artistic contributions are encouraged as well, as About Face organizes a web-based video forum for testimony on the importance of About Face Theatre, of mentoring queer youth, and the vital need for innovative artmaking in today’s society. To participate, please email bonnie@aboutfacetheatre.com or call the AFT office.

miscellany

What happened in February

February 2009! It was a quick month, but there was still some great stuff going on. And I won this little award you might have heard of

Sex:

  • Sugarbutch Star: Matt (part one) – This was a story submission that challenged me to include specific images for all five senses, and I’ve been struggling with it for a while. I love the challenge, but woah it’s hard. Part two is still forthcoming.

Gender:

Miscellany:

  • The Lezzys are here! Nominations for the Lezzy Awards, the Lezzy Award Finalists, and then … ta da! Two Lezzys? Really?! Thanks, everybody who voted. Check out the other winners & nominees, too, there are some really excellent blogs in those lists.
  • The Best Sex Toy Reviewers of 2008 list via the Pleasurists came out in February, and I ranted a little bit about how sex toy reviews are permiating sex blogs these days. Just to be clear, this was not intended to be a cricism of the list itself – I think it’s quite useful! And I found some great new sites to read by going through it. It was only a reflection on the increased amount of toys that have been going around our sites, and what I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t think we should stop reviewing and I don’t dislike reviewing (I love it!), I just know for myself I want to be more discerning about the companies I work with and the toys (and other books, DVDs, etc) that I accept to review.
  • Semantics: The Do-Be-Do-Be-Do Complex, brought to you by my friend Mr. K. Great comments about this concept, worth reading.
  • Important Calls for Support: Home Alive & Scarleteen If you’ve got an activist bone in ya, these two organizations are looking for support. They’re very important and I highly recommend getting involved, if you feel inspired.

Reviews:

  • Bow Restraints
  • Jaguar Harness has some great comments from people whose opinions of this harness are different than mine, really useful I think if you’re in the market for a harness.
  • Johnny … mmm, a big cock.
dirty stories, real life

What we did on Valentine’s Day

We spent the morning fucking, so we didn’t get on the road until after 1pm, nearly 2. “America’s Oldest Winery” was only about a two-hour drive from New York City, and they had a Valentine Special – a chocolate truffle pairing with their 6-wine tasting menu.

It was a surprise, for Kristen.

I prepped for the mini-road-trip as if I was on the West Coast, old habits I suppose. Most drives over there were six or eight hours, or at least four or five, so I am used to gathering games, books to read aloud, mixed roadtrip CDs, snacks not bought at a gas station. (What I’m saying is, I overplanned.)

I’d asked her to wear a short skirt, and lipstick. She added a garter, over-the-knee thin socks, heels. Her lipstick is sticky and bright. I want it to last, and avoid kissing her for the longest short drive I’ve been on in ages (which takes a lot of willpower, let me tell you).

Arriving too late for the tour, we settle easily into the tasting, even befriend the unimpressed gay boy couple next to us. Sparkling whites, whites, reds, then dessert wines – blanc du blanc, a dry and a sweet riesling, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, the winery’s signature mariage (my favorite and of course the most expensive), port, sherry. They even let us try a bit of mead. It was a wonderful time.

Kristen is tipsy. I am less so, as I am driving (and many pounds heavier). After buying a half-case and carting it to the car, we strategize: I’d planned to bring us to a local cafe for something to eat.

“You know when I drink there’s only one thing on my mind,” Kristen says, sliding her arms under my leather jacket as we stood next to her car.

“Can I mess up your lipstick yet?” I ask, mouth close to hers.

She gives me that shy, sly look. “I’m not sure I want it all over your mouth.”

I clear my throat. “So. Want to go get lost and … park … somewhere?”

“Yes.” She answers before I even finish my sentence.

I open her door, then go around to the driver’s side and start the car.

I don’t want us to be so lost that we (and by we, I mean I) can’t navigate back, but I want off the main roads. I take a few turns, a few long stretches of houses getting farther and farther apart, until there is a small pull-off and I take it, put the car in park, cut the engine, push my seat back, get my cock out.

(There might’ve been some conversation in there too. I’m cutting to the good parts.)

She leans in to kiss me. lets her heels slide off her stockinged feet, and peels her panties down her legs, leaving them on the floor.

“I want to feel that pretty mouth of yours,” I whisper. I grab the back of her head and our lips nearly touch, but not yet, I can feel the lipstick, slick, just barely.

“Not on your mouth,” she says again, shifting a little in her seat to be further on her knees.

Oh my god. Can I even explain how hot she is in moments like this? Eyes all alive and dancing, mouth thick and lips parted just a tad, I want to feel her everywhere. Suddenly this car seems like a bad idea, why didn’t I get a hotel? Or race back to the city to be in my bed with her?

She lowers her mouth onto my cock slow, torturously slow, just her tongue on the tip of it, running along the underside. Kristen is the best I’ve ever seen, paying soft attention to all the sensitive places, taking her time, swallowing it all only after she gets me good and hard, then getting it so slick with spit and sucking in and out with vigor. I’m groaning unselfconsciously, alone and on our own and not afraid to be loud.

I pull her off me when her lipstick is all gone and bring my mouth to hers. Her lips are thick and soft.

“Oh, goddamn,” I gasp, a little breathless. “You are so good at that. So good at sucking my cock, oh my god.”

She kisses me, hard, and pulls back. “I’m not done yet,” she says in that playful whispery girl tone.

I groan. God. Language barely working in my mind. I kiss her again and take the back of her head into my palm, shove her down. “Do it then.”

She moans a little, surprised, gasping, and picks up right where she left off, cock on the back of her tongue, far. I can feel every sweet slick place in her. I work my fingers under the straps of my harness; my clit is as hard as my cock and I roll it gently, savoring, mimicking the way her mouth goes up and down. She makes it all wet and runs her tongue on the shaft, kisses it.

I try not to thrash around in the driver’s seat, but I let myself be loud. No one around except the occasional approach and disappearance of headlights, but surely they can’t see inside, it’s getting darker and the windows are nearly fogged.

I pull her up by her hair and the back of her head again and kiss her, hard. She’s gasping a little, swallowing the saliva in her mouth. “I want you on top of me,” I say, reaching for her.

“Yes yes yes,” she whispers, like a moan. She shifts in her seat and steps across the gear shift to straddle me, short short skirt revealing the curves of her ass, tall socks still held up with the garters.

I hold my cock still as she guides it in, takes the pace and starts rocking her hips nearly right away. Moaning. Hands on the seat next to my shoulders as mine are on her thighs, around her waist, reaching for her ass, spreading her open wider.

She feels so good like this, wrapped around me.

Something she does when she’s on top of me makes me yell with the intensity: a way she moves her hips which feels so deep, so far inside her. I don’t even know how to explain it in writing, it’s so physical, visceral, sometimes blooming and growing in my core and connecting to hers.

I let the waves of it swell and crest and break, rising back in me strong. Hard to move my hips when I’m under her, but it’s easier if I get a grip on her waist, I can get leverage to thrust against. Pressing up into her I lengthen my legs, squeeze my thighs together, feet reaching all the way behind the car’s pedals to the floor, which feels great, adds an extra surface to push against. She curls around me, spine moving in an S shape, mouth open, her hands on my shoulders, then arms around my neck. Gasping and moaning, oh yeah fuck me deep baby, that’s how I like it, you know how to give it to me, god that feels so good …

(Sounds cliche to write it all in a row like that, but oh she says it so sexy.)

I reach for her and kiss her, hard. We’re both breathing hard and the kiss gives us momentary pause to catch our breaths and calm ourselves. I am nearly laughing with the hum of sensation and connection, and she sighs, breathes, gives a low satisfied mmmm, and leans back, awkwardly at first but then she hits the steering wheel and gets some distance between our bodies, still rubbing against my cock, and puts her fingers on her clit.

She’s close, she’s been close for minutes, maybe she’d even already come once or twice, she’s almost always close in that multiply-orgasmic way (if only one could learn how to do that) and as soon as she starts flicking her clit gently I can feel her body shudder, hips twitch and pussy clench down so tight she nearly pushes me out of her.

I loose track easily of how many times she comes. Sometimes I can tell and it’s big and obvious, sometimes it’s small and I don’t even stop, just keep going, and she comes over and over, no way for me to discern a number.

She leans back onto me and works her hips up and down again, for longer this time, and I thrust up into her and push so hard I nearly scream with the pressure and intensity. I want to feel what it’s like to come inside her. I want to feel her tightening around me, really feel it.

After ten, twenty, thirty? minutes like this, after I grip her hips and pump her up and down on my cock, after she comes again, and again, I wrap my arms around her and we quiet. She nestles into my shoulder and neck and hums that low, satisfied hum as she catches her breath. I trail my fingers along her neck and shoulders and back, hold her close.

“We steamed up the windows completely,” Kristen says. “Hey, I bet there are stars out there! We’re in the country!”

“Want to go look?”

“Yeah!” We get out of the car and I cross over to the passenger side. She’s shivering as soon as she exits the warm interior, it’s chilly out here and pitch black, plus her legs are practically bare, just the socks and garters and still no panties. Her skirt has hiked up a little from all of our fucking and my hands go to her ass, peeking out from under the hem, so cute. It’s too cloudy to see stars. I kiss her instead.

“I want to bend you over something and smack your ass a while when we get home,” I say. “Feel your ass as it gets all warm, then hot, and pink …”

“Yes,” she says, curling into me, kissing me again, “can we do that? Please?”

“You’d like that, huh.”

“Yes, yes.”

Somehow, we went from talking about it, to doing it, and she is bent over the hood of the car. “It’s cold,” she complained.

Yeah, shut up and get hit, I mutter. (She didn’t hear me.)

Cars zip by us. It’s dark but we are right in their headlights. I don’t know what they can see, but I stop smacking and just hold her or palm her ass as they go by, then quickly swat her again when they pass. She’s relaxed, she can take a lot; I let my hand come down again and again until her cheeks get warm under my hand and her knees start to shake. The backs of her thighs are cold to the touch, but I don’t want to let up. I dip my hand between her legs to find her wet, open, and slide my fingers in, fuck her right there, in the open, next to her car just off the road as she’s bent over it.

When she comes, again, god does she ever get worn out?, her knees start to buckle and she starts sinking to the ground against the car. I keep my knee up under her thighs and one arm around her stomach as my hand works inside and against her clit, harder, shoving hard into her, against her, until she’s spent and moaning, breathing hard.

It’s cold, we’re both cold by this point, but blissed out, wrapping ourselves into each other and laughing, smiling, playing. We get back into the car, I get out the hummus, wasabi rice crackers, rosemary crackers, delicious buttery brie, and gruyere that I’d brought and we snack, decide to head back into the city and get dinner when we get there. Someone mentioned Thai food earlier at the wine tasting and so I crave going to Song in Brooklyn.

We’re famished, and eat until satisfied, still buzzing from the good wine and seeing stars from the sex. I slide the driver’s seat forward again, put the car in drive, and make my way back to the highway, returning to New York City.

miscellany

What happened in January

I’m so behind on the roundups. I’ve been less focused on Sugarbutch in January and February because I’ve had some personal things going on, not the least of which is the new relationship with Kristen. Here’s what I wrote about on Sugarbutch in January 2009.

Sex:

Gender:

More stuff:

Reviews:

cock confidence, reviews

Cock Confidence: Johnny by Vixen Creations (Review)

johnnyAs of 2/8/16 This product is no longer available at Babeland

In my opinion, the four major things to consider about a cock are: length, girth, shape, and material. Here’s how the Johnny from Babeland measures up.

Length:

Near perfect. Not too long, but long enough.

Girth:

Also near perfect. Thick enough that it makes you stretch a bit, but still narrow enough to get my hand around. Would be a little too wide for blow jobs probably, but I’d like to see her try.

Shape:

Superior. Realistic in it’s slight upcurve and balls, great for g-spot stimulation, nice head.

Material:

Aaaaaand here’s where the trouble comes into paradise. The material is high-quality silicone, sterilizable, which is generally great – the only trouble is that I know something better (Vixskin Vixskin Vixskin) is out there, and I know how much better it feels. This silicone is so hard and solid and doesn’t give at all – it feels so much less lifelike and real, and that matters to me in sex play these days.

So: it’s a great cock, if you like the typical traditional silicone. If you like realistic cocks, skip it and go for Vixskin.

Do you have this cock? What do you think of it?

cock confidence, reviews

Review: Jaguar Harness

jaguarEveryone rants and raves about the Jaguar harness by Aslan Leather – and I get it, I do: the leather is beautiful, it’s incredibly well-made, it feels like a buttery second skin. It’s snug, it adjusts well and easily, stays in place, it feels pretty good to wear – I could keep going with the general praise. You might just love this harness, many people do.

Personally, though, I just prefer one-strap harnesses, so I’m not crazy about this one.

Here’s the thing: I don’t really like my harness to feel like I’m wearing underwear. Maybe it’s because I came across the Barely There harness when I started packing and it feels practically like wearing nothing (except a cock), but I just don’t like the feel of that much material between me and my cock (and a girl). I start feeling frustrated that I can’t get closer.

Here’s the other thing: I can (sometimes – rarely, it seems, these days) get off myself while strapped on and fucking. But the key to this – for me – is pressure against my clit, and a one-strap harness that runs right between my legs is the way to get it. Even if I don’t come (which seems these days I don’t, but that’s another post) I still love the sensation, the pressure and stimulation right at the right spot. Two-strap harnesses don’t do this for me, so I feel all the more disconnected from the fuck.

I adore Aslan Leather in general and I recommend this harness often to folks who ask for help picking one out. It is gorgeous, so well-crafted. If only Aslan made a one-strap version (with thinner straps!) I’d snatch it up quicker than you could say “Jameson rocks.”

Do you have this harness? What do you think?

miscellany

Two Lezzys!? Really!?

It was all the promised photos of my ass that did it, wasn’t it? I knew it! You all are perverts.

Seriously though, tons of thanks to Kelly at The Lesbian Lifestyle for organizing the Lezzy Awards, to all the finalists, with special shout-outs to Jess I Am and I Am Not Afraid of Winter in the Best Gender Bender Blog category and Geek Porn Girl and Tongue-tied blue for Best Sex/Short Story/Erotica Blog. Tongue-tied Blue and Jess I’ve known for a while, but Geek Porn Girl and Carrot Quinn are new to me, I’ve already got ’em on my reader and I look forward to watching their stories unfold. I’m also a big fan of Weese in the Over-50 category, so, shout-out to her, too.

And congrats to Grace the Spot for taking Dorothy Surrenders in the Humor category – squeaking ahead with 48 votes! (Dorothy got two other awards and was clearly a shoe-in for Entertainment/Culture, I wanted to see Grace with ONE at least!)

Winners were:

Best Lesbian Entertainment/Culture Blog
Dorothy Surrenders

Best Lesbian Humor Blog
Grace the Spot

Best Lesbian Parenting/Wedding Blog
Lesbian Dad

Best Lesbian Personal Blog
This Girl Called Automatic Win

Best Lesbian 50 and Over Blog
just eat your cupcake

Best Lesbian Gender Bender Blog
Sugarbutch Chronicles

Best Lesbian Sex/Short Story/Erotica Blog
Sugarbutch Chronicles

Lesbian Overall Blog of the Year
Dorothy Surrenders

It is now your duty to add us ALL to your blogrolls and/or your readers, because these are some of the best dykey-homo-lezbiotic writings on all of the internet.

2008gender-bender-blog 2008sexshort-story-erotica-b

essays

Important Calls for Support: Home Alive & Scarleteen

Two great organizations are in need of support.

I know there are dozens – hundreds – more organizations that also need support, but these two in particular are very dear and important to my heart, they’re community organizations that have provided so much help and support and information to underserved, underrepresented groups.

SAVE HOME ALIVE is a grassroots effort to save a grassroots organization, Home Alive, out of Seattle. They offer self-defense classes to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay, in response to issues of violence and safety in communities. They are particularly aware of those marginalized groups who tend to be more often the victims of street violence, and actively work to call attention to homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. I’d love to see Home Alive classes in cities all over the country. Home Alive needs $25,000 to keep its doors open.

Scarleteen, which I’ve linked to here often and hopefully you already know about, is a sex education and resource center aimed at teens (though I go there – and refer friends there – all the time there to find information on STIs and sexual health). They have some exciting news – they’re now part of the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco! And rom February 14th through March 15th, one of their regular donors has agreed match the donations they receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total. Just ten bucks helps, people! Do what you can, please.

If you don’t have money, you can help in other ways: steal these banners and reprint them on your own websites. Write a post about it. Send an email to all your friends (especially those with money). I’m taking out a blogads ad, and if you’ve got blogads on your site and want to donate to the cause by sending me your free ad code, I’d love to put the banner on your site.

More information on both of these amazing organizations follows.


Home Alive’s Mission:

Home Alive considers all forms of oppression as acts of violence against individuals.Through our self-defense classes, we call attention to homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. We challenge participants to defend themselves and our communities from these forms of institutional oppression.

By standing up against these types of violence-both individually and collectively we an create social change. Home Alive believes that safety is a basic human right. Every member of our community has the right to a life free from violence and hate. We know that, working together, we can create safe families, safe relationships and safe communities.

About Save Home Alive:

Hi there. My name is Jen and I’ve lived in Seattle since 2000. A few weeks ago I found my way to a class at Home Alive and honestly, it changed my life. Read my story here. When I heard this organization was closing their doors I decided to do whatever I could to help. This is my grassroots effort to help save an amazing grassroots org.

“You are worth defending. I am worth defending. In my heels and in my running shoes, in my skirt and cleavage and in my drag king drag. We are all always worth defending.” (Home Alive)

Home alive is worth defending! This is a call for help.

Home Alive, the self-defense organization started by friends outraged at the rape and murder of Mia Zapata, has been deeply rooted in the Seattle community for the last 16 years. They offer sliding scale self defense and boundary setting classes to anyone that wants to learn, regardless of whether or not they can pay. Because of this the organization is dependent on community donations. Read more about the organization here.

Right now, Home Alive is 25k in debt and being forced to close their doors. Realistically they need more than that to recover and rebuild but this website’s goal is to get them back to zero, at least.

Sooooooooo, I’m calling on 25 thousand people to give $1 dollar or for 5,000 folks to give $5 or for 2,083.333 folks to give $12 or for 862 people to give $29… or any creative combination of this really. 

 C’mon people. Don’t you want to help Save Home Alive?  


 

   Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen!

From February 14th through March 15th, one of our regular donors has agreed match the donations we receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total.

This is a great opportunity to amplify your support! You can play a part in sustaining Scarleteen and all of the young adults who need and are helped with our unique brand of inclusive, progressive, holistic and accurate sexuality education. As we finish one decade of delivering the goods we so strongly feel have nurtured and continue to nurture the development of a healthy, happy sexuality for young people, I’m asking for your help as we enter another.

Scarleteen is now affiliated with the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco. The CSC was founded and is directed by Dr. Carol Queen and Dr. Robert Lawrence. Their mission is to provide judgment-free education, cultural events, a library/media archive, and other resources to audiences across the sexual and gender spectrum; and to research and disseminate factual information, framing and informing issues of public policy and public health. We’re thrilled to be the first young adult sex education project they have worked with and are very glad for this partnership. Robert and Carol, as well as other members of the CSC, have been incredibly supportive of Scarleteen and sex education as a whole over the years.

If you haven’t kept up, here are a few pieces we added to the site in 2008 and 2009 to give you an idea of what we’ve been up to:

Genderpalooza! A Sex & Gender Primer
How You Guys — that’s right, you GUYS — Can Prevent Rape
Birth Control Bingo
Shown Actual Size: A Penis Shape & Size Lowdown
Give’em Some Lip: Labia That Clearly Ain’t Minor
Blinders Off: Getting a Good Look at Abuse and Assault
I, Being Born Woman and Suppressed
Be a Blabbermouth! The Whys, Whats and Hows of Talking About Sex With a Partner
Let’s Get Metaphysical: The Etiquette of Entry

We have also had a handful of great first-person pieces added from users or volunteers in our In Your Own Words section. Our voting guide last year helped many users of voting age to find clear, balanced information about the Presidential candidates to best inform (and motivate!) their vote. Our archive of direct, in-depth advice to users who write in with questions is extensive. Lastly, our message boards, which we rolled out in the year 2000, continue to be busy, actively moderated and a place of bustling, supportive conversation (as well as a way to help users manage crises quickly) at a level many teens do not have other opportunities to engage in when it comes to such loaded subjects.

– We rank in the upper 25,000 of all sites online internationally
– We consistently rank in the top 11,000 – 12,000 of all sites in the United States
– 65 million page loads have occurred at the site from users since 2006
– We now have over 40,000 active message board users

Support Scarleteen now! Visit www.scarleteen.com or take a look at more information (and the rest of this letter that I’ve reprinted excerpts from here) at Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen.

reviews

Review: Bow Restraints

bowAs of 2/8/16 This product is no longer available at Babeland

“I feel like a present,” Kristen said, and whispered, “I kind of like being objectified.”

I like the bow restraints. They came to me from one of my very favorite fabulous sex toy stores. The bow itself, and that it is locked with a key – very hot. Unfortunately, they’re not so easy to get on and off, and they were a bit uncomfortable to wear, too.

First: the bow. When I saw these I thought, okay, that’s either going to be a HOT femmey accessory, or it’s going to look stupid. And we all know I’ve got a bit of a fetish for ribbons and ties, right? I don’t know what it is exactly, but something about bondage and femininity together. And the bow works. I like the look of it.

It’s more like an accessory. I kind of want to throw a bondage party and ask her to wear it all night, not sure she would, but it would be hot to watch her struggle to eat, drink, host.

The lock: also cute. Heart shaped and little, comes with two keys. Clicks open easily.

The trouble comes into paradise here when putting all these things together – the loop that holds her hands, the bow part (which is purely decoration), with the lock holding them both together. That’s three layers of material, and the lock, though very small, doesn’t slip in very easily. This isn’t much of a problem at first – “okay, I’ll just be patient, work it in,” I am thinking. [Do I have to say it? ‘A boy’s gotta know how to be patient and work it in.’ Yeah, I know, I couldn’t restrain myself.] That worked fine, but later, in any moment of panic, they couldn’t be removed very quickly, which could make things much worse and could even be a bit dangerous.

Maybe I just need to break ’em in a bit more. Maybe there are ways to pull them less tight, so the lock is easier to manouver. I don’t want to give up on these bow restraints just yet – but I know I probably wouldn’t just impromptu grab them from the toybox without preparing to use them, making sure I had the keys handy. Especially when I could use my bondage belt in two seconds, and I know exactly how easy and uncomplicated it is to put on and take off.

dirty stories, fiction

All Five Senses (Part 1)

Did you forget about the Sugarbutch Star Contest? I didn’t – not that you could tell, since the last story was in October. I’ve been working on this one since I finished Maze. Here’s part one – part two will come later this week.

Sugarbutch Star: Matt
ALL FIVE SENSES

It started in the Brooklyn library, the back row, the classics section; the air so thick with ink and brittle paper and crumbling paste. I pick up a worn leather copy of Antigone, its cover so oiled down with decades of fingers and hands opening, turning its pages, breaking its spine. So soft it feels like suede.

I sit on the industrial carpet and flip it open, easily absorbed: Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonor, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.

When I look up, a few minutes later, there she is: sitting on the floor in a row I can hardly see, at first she is only visible by her bare legs on the dirty carpet, seated like I am on the floor, knees all bent, one tucked under her gray skirt which is a small mess of cover for her thighs. I slowly shift my body further into the aisle. Her back is to me, and she holds up a mirror in front of her – I catch glimpses of her face reflected. The dark nerdy frames of her glasses, the line of her jaw, her chin, then her mouth.

She takes out a tube of lipstick, twirls it erect, and paints the perfect outline of her lips. Slow, real slow. She presses them together and presses them forward in a kiss, makes an O with her mouth and touches just the tip of her finger to the edge.

I hold my breath.

I find my hand brought up to my face without really noticing. Pads of my fingers against the butch stubble on my chin, I didn’t shave this morning, I didn’t think I’d need to, and now the tiny hairs are strong as teeth and my fingertips are burned with the day-old five o’clock shadow. I watch the soft smooth pillow of her lips over her shoulder in the mirror. I imagine smearing that lipstick across her cheek with my thumb, hard enough that the trail of red would feel like it was made without paint.

Carpeting scratching at the palms of my hand, I’m leaning so far forward that if I was in a movie, this is the moment I would knock over a pile of books and she’d look up at the crash. Instead, I feel a tickle in my nose and the ink and paper and dust smell is suddenly amplified. I scurry back to my small stack of collected books and satchel, but I don’t get to my handkerchief in time, and I let out a strong sudden sneeze.

“Bless you,” I hear, softly, from across the aisle. I can hear each letter in her words. I imagine the way her red mouth looks forming the shapes of the sounds.

I swallow, blow my nose gently, mumble, “Thanks.” I don’t look back over to her, but go back to the library stacks, sifting through the Dewey decimal numbers on the spines, fingering the worn covers, the different textures, letting my fingers stroke the books as I take a few steps and follow the books around the corner.

Soon I’m in the next aisle from her. I can see right through it and I try to justify that I’m here looking for books, classics, something to support a recent article’s thesis that there were some butch/femme roles for women in ancient Greece and Rome. The library is so quiet, I can hear when she shifts on the floor, still reading, now with her back to the stacks of books and both feet on the floor, knees bent and separated, short skirt sliding up her thighs.

I’m going to get caught, I know it.

But it is as if hands are pressing on my shoulders and I sink lower, eyes wide, praying my knees won’t creak or pop as I crouch, strain my eyes to get a look at her thighs. I quickly grab a big picture book out of the stack to flip through, to cover up my voyeurism.

She’s pinching her dark brown hair that is falling over her shoulder between thumb and forefinger, swirling her fingers around it, twisting. I see her eyes darting across the page of the book she’s holding in her other hand, the cover against her thighs. I can’t tell what the book is, but it looks modern, it does not live in the dust of the classics section, it is paperback and skinny.

She glances to where I just was and sees my small stack of books, but she lost track of me. Her eyebrows curl for just a moment, and she glances around the other direction but there’s no one there either. We’re alone – she thinks she’s alone. I hold my breath and try not to move. I know it’s voyeristic of me, but she is in public. She must know someone could possibly see her. That must be part of the thrill.

She shifts, knees together, pulls her feet closer to her body, and I catch the sight of her simple white cotton panties between her legs, thin, so thin I can nearly see through them. She pushes her skirt up her thighs just a bit farther and slides her hand into them. The fabric strains.

Her fingers move slowly and she keeps her eyes on the pages of the book. Clearly a good one, I wonder what she’s reading, if its contents are queer or kinky, if she’s thinking about the taste of sweat and salty skin, the sounds of moans that emerge out of places where bodies collide, the sight of a fist disappearing at the wrist, the sting of an open-palm smack on the ass or cheek or cunt, the scent of desire, like musk, like the ocean, like a fertile ground.

Her fingers move faster. Hair falls into her eyes and her jaw drops open just a little. (Really, this is really happening?) Her lips pinken, eyelids flutter as her eyes dart across the page. Her strong thighs are quivering a little and I can see if I fucked her she’d want them pressed together, bent deep at the hips. It’s the way her knees want to close but her hand is in the way.

My hand goes to my zipper. (Should I?) Hard packing today, as I often do on weekends, just for me, to feel the weight and bulk between my legs, the strain of the seam of my jeans. No one has to know, no one usually does; just a private, personal experience between me and my cock. I run my finger down the shaft of it, through my jeans, remember its girth as I watch her bite her lip, hand still moving slow and vigorous between her legs. I thumb the head, the little ridge, catch it in the instep of my hand between thumb and forefinger. I get enough of a grip to press it back into my clit and start pulsing against it.

I feel a stab of guilt and fight the impulse to unbuckle, unzip. Nearly unbearable. I can barely breathe.

She’s getting lost in the sensations, spreading from her pelvis to her thighs and belly and down and up. Her breathing is getting faster, hand is faster between her legs, fingers working her clit, I can see through the thin white cotton through the stacks of books. She leans her head back and closes her eyes entirely, lets the book start to slip from her lap as her thighs squeeze and close and she presses her hips forward. I have a perfect visualization of how her back would arch if she was on her stomach on my bed, ass in the air, thighs and knees strong together, my own hand buried in her cunt.

I stroke my own cock harder and feel my breath quicken to match hers. She’s gasping as she breathes in, I can hear her. I watch her hips buck, face flushing, as she comes in a quiet flourish, calm and sudden, eyes closed, head bent back. She brings her fingers to her lips and sucks, then opens her eyes, looking straight forward for the first time, right at me.

Panic. Does she see me? She glances right back down to her book as her eyelids flutter and adjusts her skirt and glasses, gives herself a minute to catch her breath, picks up her book and purse, and, slightly wobbly on her feet, leaves the classics section.

I let out a breath, lean back against the stacks, take my hand out of my pants, zip up, and head toward the checkout.

It’s nearly dark outside by the time I gather all my things and make it through the line. I finger the spines of the books and flip my wallet in the palm of my hand, remembering my cock just minutes before, thinking of this girl and her strong legs, swift fingers.

That should’ve been the end of that.

But ten minutes later, picking up take-out extra-hot red curry at my favorite thai place, I hear behind me: “Well, well.”

… continue reading Part Two of All Five Senses.

essays

Gendered Sources of Physical Power: Beauty vs Strength

I don’t know exactly where I first heard it, but somewhere I read once: men want to feel powerful, and women want to feel beautiful.

Now: calm your “oh my god social construction of genderrrrr!” self and let’s start with some further clarification. Women feeling beautiful, in this expression, is also actually a source of power; and men feeling powerful, here, actually means “feeling physically strong.” At least mostly. Agreed?

So really, it’s saying that men want to feel strong, and women want to feel beautiful. These are two – of many – major sources of power based in the physical body.

I know this is a cliche. I probably read it in the context of gender deconstruction and the socialization process of gender. I know this goes along with conventional, normative, often damaging gender role assumptions that value men for their physical strength and women for their physical beauty.

And as much as I am aware that those concepts are socially constructed, I also have seen the ways that they are played out and real for many, many people. So maybe we’ve internalized the values of the culture. This is one of the problems with social constructionism in general – if something is created socially, then in theory it can be uncreated socially, right? But just because something is done socially – rather than biologically, say – doesn’t make it any less real or “authentic” or deeply ingrained in many of us.

And this gendered source of physical power is amplified, I think, in butch/femme culture, where we go inside these roles with purpose to explode them, exploring the socialization and de-essentializing traits said to be inherent in biology. Is it as easy as explaining that we are continuing to internalize the compulsory mutually exclusive gender paradigm? I don’t know, maybe. Certainly that probably accounts for (to pick a completely arbitrary number) 45% of it. But there is something else in there, something deep-seated underneath in me that swoons and grows and stretches its wings and feels so greatly alive when she whispers, “you are so strong, so strong” like she did last night.

And I remembered all the times I gazed in awe at her beauty (every time I see her) and remember the ways she swoons to be seen, femme and whole and holy, and I wondered if I should be saying more about strength and less about her physical attractiveness. Am I just buying into what the culture tells us we should be or say or value?

[ Yet – oh I do tell her I value her other qualities (don’t I? Yes). The depth of her calm understanding and respect feels like such a gift each time I encounter it. I fear it could so easily go the other way, yet she has the connection to the world at her core which means she values others’ experiences. And she’s strong enough in herself to know that my feelings are not about her, and to accept that with grace and clarity. And then there’s her wonderful good moods, her energy, her interest in keeping the spark lit behind her eyes. Her deep ability to feel, to observe, to respond. Her analytic skills, and how she can dissect things into pieces (while still respecting the whole!) and look at how it all fits together. There is much more to her than her beauty, heaven knows I know this. ]

And yet: in the deeply intimate moments, this is what comes out of my mouth: pretty girl, pretty girl. you are so gorgeous. I love the curves of you – here, and here. your skin glows so beautiful in the morning light.

And in that moment last night, when she commented on my strength, my heart swelled and burst like a wave cresting, and the inner cavern of my chest was smooth as a sandy beach, just for a minute, perfectly even, soft, made up of a thousand tiny grains, the breakdown of everywhere I’ve ever been.

I don’t know why it matters so much that I am seen as strong. But it does, it does.

miscellany

Where to Find Me

I’ve got a lot of performances coming up in the next few months in New York City. If you’d like to say hi, please do! I’ll have my spoken word CD and copies of the Sugarbutch Star Chapbook, if you’ve wanted to get your hands on those.

Tomorrow! Thursday, February 12th, 9:30pm
AuralFixia: An erotic blend of spoken word, porn, and burlesque
Performances by: N * JZ Bich * Bunny Nose Best * Ami Uzi * Sinclair Sexsmith * Tess, Urban Gypsy * Audacia Ray
WOW Cafe, 59-61 e. 4th street, 4th floor

auralfixiaposter

*

Tuesday February 24th 7PM – 9PM
$5 suggested donation
Open mike – sign-up at 7 pm – 8 minute limit
Hosted by Vittoria repetto
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen St. (between Staton & Rivington) NYC
212-777-6028 info@bluestockings.com
www.bluestockings.com

*

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I won’t be at Gayety this weekend – it’ll still be a great show, I’m sure!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Gayety! A Queer Comedy Cabaret!

gayety.wordpress.com
9:30 PM
Re/Dress: 109 Boerum Place, Brooklyn, NY
with Femmecee Bevin Branlandingham, Kelli Dunham & Sinclair Sexsmith, and other Gayety Guests
February’s theme: Halfway to Michfest! Love it or hate it, Fest is part of dyke culture and we’ve all got something to say about it!
Gayety Queer Comedy Cabaret has its triumphant return the last Saturday of each month. Accessible, interesting, and compelling comedy is just what the doctor ordered!

*

Saturday, March 28th
Gayety! A Queer Comedy Cabaret!
gayety.wordpress.com
9:30 PM
Re/Dress: 109 Boerum Place
Theme: Sailor’s Delight

*

Thursday, April 16th
In the Flesh Erotica Reading Series
Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street, New York,NY
8:00 PM
Virgin (new) authors and first-time readers grace the In The Flesh stage. With Jenny Block (Open), Sarah Wendell (Beyond Heaving Bosoms, Smart Bitches Trashy Books blog), Sinclair Sexmith (Sugarbutch), Gideon Levy (Kinky Jews). Hosted by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Free candy and cupcakes will be served
inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com

*

Saturday, April 25th
Gayety! A Queer Comedy Cabaret!
gayety.wordpress.com
9:30 PM
Re/Dress: 109 Boerum Place, Brooklyn, NY
Theme: Formal Gayety!

*

Wednesday, April 29th
Visible: A Femmethology book release party
www.femmethology.com
7pm
Bluestockings Bookstore 172 Allen St.(between Staton & Rivington) NYC
212-777-6028 info@bluestockings.com
www.bluestockings.com

miscellany

Lezzy Award Finalists!

Sugarbutch Chronicles is a finalist in the 2009 Lezzy Awards, for the categories of Best Gender Bender blog and Best Sex/Short Story/Erotica blog!

Voting: begins TODAY, Wednesday February 11th 9:00 am EDT through February 18th at 11:00 pm EDT
Winners Announced: On Monday February the 23rd at 9:00 am

sex-short-story-erotica-blo 

vote3

 The Top 3 Nominees, with my picks in bold:

Best Lesbian Culture/Entertainment Blog:
1. Queerky
2. Dorothy Surrenders
3. Grace the Spot

Best Lesbian Humor Blog
1. Dorothy Surrenders
2. Grace the Spot
3. Your Daily Lesbian Moment

Best Lesbian Parenting/Wedding Blog
1. Up Popped a Fox
2. Lesbian Dad
3. Irreverent Mother

Best Lesbian Feminism/Political Blog
1. Be Yr Own Queero
2. Pam’s House Blend
3. AngryBlackBitch

Best Lesbian Personal Blog
1. Peaches & Coconuts
2. A Brown Girl Gone Gay
3. This Girl Called Automatic Win

Best Lesbian 50 and over Blog
1. CO-GrumpyGranny
2. Weese
3. Just Eat Your Cupcake

Best Gender Bender Blog
1. Sugarbutch Chronicles
2. Jess I Am
3. I Am Not Afraid of Winter

Best Lesbian Sex/Short Story/Erotica Blog
1. Geek Porn Girl
2. Tongue-tied blue

3. Sugarbutch Chronicles

Best Overall Lesbian Blog of the Year
1. Dorothy Surrenders
2. Grace the Spot
3. Up Popped a Fox

Hmmmm, what can I promise you to entice me to voting for me? Photos of my ass?

vote3

miscellany

Nominations for the Lezzy Awards

The Lesbian Lifestyle, a collaborative blog that I (let’s be honest, rarely) contribute to, holds a yearly contest awarding lesbian blogs. The past few years, they’ve had one singular award, the Lesbian Blog of the Year, but this year it is expanded to The Lezzys and includes multiple categories.

Nominations for the Lezzys ends tonight, Monday February 9th, and 11pm EDT. Top three in each category will then go on to be finalists, and voting for that begins on Wednesday, February 11th.

Did you catch that today is your last day to vote? Here’s some of my favorites in each of the categories.

Best Lesbian Culture/Entertainment Blog
Blogs that focus on lesbian culture and the entertainment world

Dorothy Surrenders – I mean, is there any other choice, really?
After Ellen & Our Chart – both kind of large pop-culture blogs, but I don’t know about a lot of little ones.

Best Lesbian Humor Blog
Blogs that take a humorous spin on lesbian life

The LOL Word
Grace the Spot

Best Lesbian Parenting/Wedding Blog
Blogs about lesbian parenting or lesbian weddings or engagements

Lesbian Dad is actually the only one I read. Any other suggestions for me?

Best Lesbian Feminism/Political Blog
Blogs that tackle feminist and political topics

Oh man. I’m completely drawing a blank here. I’m looking over my blogroll and RSS feeds and everything I’m coming up with are political gender blogs, and I know that’s not quite what they mean with this category.

Best Lesbian Personal Blog
Blogs written like a journal about an individuals life experiences

Oh, this is a hard one to narrow down. I listed many of my personal favorites when I asked for that call for contributions to the Feminist Carnival recently, so there’s a good list. Also check out Community for a big ol’ list of many things I read.

Some of my favorites, that I would make sure to seek out:

Just Like Jesse James
Green-Eyed Girl
Don’t Let’s Talk
Jess I Am
Tina-cious
Femme FATale

Best Lesbian 50 and over Blog
Blogs written by lesbian women over 50 in all categories

Kate Bornstein’s blog for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws – is actually the only one I read regularly
Got any other recommendations?

Best Gender Bender Blog
Blogs that discuss gender topics and challenge gender as a whole

Let’s not forget that gender challenges & topics are also femme, right, and not just butch, mmkay?

There are many, many, many blogs I love and read daily that fit into this category.

Freedomgirl
Leo McCool
Packing Vocals 
Femme is my Gender
Essin’ Em
The Femme Show

Best Lesbian Sex/Short Story/Erotica Blog
Lesbian blogs that talk about sex or publish any form of erotica

Tongue-Tied Blue and her fabulous enjambment
Packing Vocals & her other project, Butch/femme BDSM (which isn’t updated very often)
I really liked the smut of Fatgirl Femme, but she’s not really writing or updating much anymore.

Best Overall Lesbian Blog of the Year
The best of the best in lesbian blogging spanning all genres

I’m going to keep my answer to this one quiet. Plus, I think I’ve voted for a different one each time I voted this past week. There are some great active lesbian blogs out there!

Who’d I miss? Who are you voting for?

Halfway through the nomination process, the top three were announced in each category and, as I’m sure you can guess, Sugarbutch Chronicles is listed in both Best Gender Bender Blog and Best Lesbian Sex/Erotica Blog. If you’d be so kind, please do nominate me in one or either or both of those categories. Thank you!

essays

Define: The Do-Be-Do-Be-Do Complex

I’m going to go ahead & swipe this phrase from a friend of mine, who I’ve heard use it a few times (though whom I haven’t heard if it’s okay to make reference to, so I’ll just thank him anonymously for now).

The Do-Be-Do-Be-Do Complex referrs to getting involved in relationships where (especially in retrospect) you were drawn to the person because you wanted to be like them, not necessarily do them.

For example, as a baby butch, I dated a butch for a while, and I think it was more about my own fascination with butchness than it was my own orientation toward wanting to partner with and/or date and/or sleep with butches.

The Do-Be-Do-Be-Do Complex is, I think, especially applicable to butches and femmes, though I’m sure it extends to other identities.

Is this a useful phrase? Have you gone through phases of dating the folks you wanted to be instead of who you were, perhaps, ultimately attracted to?

miscellany

Courage Campaign’s “Don’t Divorce!”


“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Have you heard that Ken Starr — and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund — filed legal briefs defending the constitutionality of Prop 8 and attempting to forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year? The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on March 5, 2009, with a decision expected within the next 90 days.

The Courage Campaign has created a video called “Fidelity,” with the permission of musician Regina Spektor, that puts a face to those 18,000 couples and all loving, committed couples seeking full equality under the law.

After you watch the video, please consider joining me in signing the letter to the state Supreme Court and passing this video on to your friends. The more people who see this video, the more people will understand the pain caused by Prop 8 and Ken Starr’s shameful legal proceeding.

miscellany

Sugasm #158: drinking in the sensation

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants.

This Week’s Picks

More Sugasm | Join the Sugasm | See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

More of my favorites:

reviews

Best Sex Toy Reviewers of 2008

topstr1The Best Sex Toy Reviewers list was published today, and on it, at #7, with a bullet, is yours truly. Thanks y’all! I’m glad the reviews that I do are useful for you.

So … now that I’m writing about sex toy reviews, I have a few things to say before getting on to the list. Our sexblog communities are currently flooded with sex toys. Go figure, sex toy shops have figured out that it is quite profitable for them to give us not-so-expensive products, which in turn gives them sales. Sex bloggers are happy – free sex toys! – and sex toy stores are happy – more sales!

Okay, but what about the readers?

I’m sure some reviews and recommendations are very helpful – especially when you’re not so used to shopping for sex toys, have no idea what’s out there or where to start. Great! Happy to help, happy to provide some information and ideas about certain products and how they worked for me.

I have a couple complaints about this, though:

  1. Some blogs seem to be taken over by reviews, and the reflective, personal writings are becoming background content.
  2. Some bloggers never write bad reviews. This kind of makes sense, since for the most part, the toy comes by request of the blogger, and we’re not really about to request things that we dislike. But how can I trust the good reviews, if there aren’t any bad ones?
  3. Some sex toy sites are sketchy, and bad business. I cringe at their awful objectification of women and hetero-centric gaze. I wouldn’t want to support them with my money, and I do sometimes feel judgmental about supporting them with links and promotions.

I did a lot of reviews in 2008 – thanks to my lovely assistant Alisha, I’m working on a round-up of reviews from the last year, especially focusing on which toys I still use (and which are just sitting in a box). I admit, I was wowed by the options of getting sex toys in the mail (yay!) in exchange for my opinions on them. I reviewed for Eden, Babeland, Spartacus Leathers, and even got a harness from Good Vibes. And I was asked by at least a dozen other companies to review things for them, but I usually felt too strange and uncomfortable about their politics for me to follow through.

For me, it comes down to this: our sexblogs are profitable promotional tools for sex toy sites & companies. I want to be intentional and consciencious about the politics and policies I’m supporting. Toys with phthalates cause cancer and are a problem. Lack of gender and queer diversity and knowledge is a problem. A non-feminist approach to sex, sexuality, and sexual health is a problem.

I have been limiting myself to one review a week (max!), and I’m going to continue to say no to a lot of the review requests that come through. I will absolutely accept review requests for gender-bending products, for cocks and harnesses, for BDSM toys, and for occasional other fun stuff that I’ve been curious to try out, but I’m saying no a lot more than I was last year. I don’t want toy reviews to overwhelm the content of this site.

If you’ve got opinions on the ways that I review things, now’s a great time to speak up!

  • Any toys you would love to see me review?
  • Any specific questions about toys that I’ve reviewed, sex toys in general, how to use a harness, which cocks to start with, etc etc? Ask away, I’ll see what I can do to answer!
  • Any ideas about how I can make reviews more useful?

And now, without further ado: the Best Sex Toy Reviewers of 2008.

Congrats, Essin’ Em, for the #1 slot! You definitely deserve it.

Best Sex Toy Reviewers is a new annual list compiled by Domina Doll and Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek. Only reviewers who reviewed during the year of 2008 were considered, there will be a list for 2009 next year.

  1. Essin’ Em
  2. Domina Doll
  3. Beautiful Dreamer
  4. Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek
  5. Epiphora
  6. Gabe and Elizabeth
  7. Sinclair Sexsmith
  8. Catalina Loves
  9. Agent Ansley
  10. Betty Rocket
  11. Carnivalesq
  12. J.D. Bauchery
  13. Toygirl
  14. Thursday’s Child
  15. Dame Demi
  16. Shay
  17. Shasta Gibson
  18. AlwaysArousedGirl
  19. Freddy and Eddy
  20. Dangerous Lilly
  21. Jack
  22. Erin Leone
  23. Sleeping Dreamer
  24. Ellie Lumpesse
  25. Wendy Blackheart
  26. Ducky Doolittle
  27. Curvaceous Dee
  28. The Porn Librarian
  29. Lux Alptraum
  30. Kyle
  31. Naughty Secretary
  32. Monkey
  33. Nadia West
  34. Alpine Subdreams
  35. Bulma
  36. Radical Vixen
  37. The Beautiful Kind
  38. Toys for Tarts
  39. Sienna
  40. Audacia Ray
  41. Mariella
  42. Ang
  43. Lucy Vonne
  44. Holden
  45. Coy Pink
  46. Backseat Boohoo
  47. Bad Bad Girl
  48. Jimbo Jones
  49. Tess
  50. BOX: Les Petites Morts
  51. Zephyrine
  52. N
  53. Phaedra Fallen
  54. Jiz Lee
  55. Alisa
  56. Syntax
  57. Panthera Pardus
  58. Red
  59. Sommer Marsden
  60. Mollena
  61. The Countess
  62. Adriana
  63. Madeline Glass
  64. Hussy Red
  65. Trouble
  66. Roxy
  67. Sexorcism
  68. Roxanne Rhoads
  69. Amber
  70. Roxi
  71. Kinkerbelle
  72. Sylvanus and Mina
  73. Dark Lady
  74. Sex Is Fun
  75. Adrie Santos
miscellany

The Lezzys are here!

Nomination for the Lezzy Awards are now open!

During the month of February The Lesbian Lifestyle is happy to host The Lezzys, the webs only all lesbian blog awards! We would like to take this time to welcome new readers to The Lesbian Lifestyle and thank those that have been with us since 2004. TLL is a blog comprised of over 250 lesbian authors that post their stories and tackle monthly topics. The Lezzys are a great way to highlight the best of the best in lesbian authored blogging. For more details on the awards please click here.

2009 Lezzys Time Line

Nominations: Monday February 2nd from 9:00 am EDT through 11:00 pm EDT on the 9th
Voting: Wednesday February 11th 9:00 am EDT through 11:00 pm EDT through the 18th
Winners Announced: Monday February the 23rd at 9:00 am

The categories

Best Lesbian Culture/Entertainment Blog
Best Lesbian Humor Blog
Best Lesbian Parenting/Wedding Blog
Best Lesbian Feminism/Political Blog
Best Lesbian Personal Blog
Best Lesbian 50 and over Blog
Best Gender Bender Blog
Best Lesbian Sex/Short Story/Erotica Blog
Best Overall Lesbian Blog of the Year

Nominations are now open! Click here.

A confirmation email will be sent to the email address you provided within the nominations and voting form. Please make sure to click the link in the confirmation email to make sure your nominations and votes count. If you do not receive a confirmation email please check your email filters and spam folder. The email will be sent from awards @ thelesbianlifestyle.com

miscellany

Come Together Gift Basket – winner!

cometogether2

Thanks for all the beautiful comments about your Valentine’s Days and ideal gifts and wonderful things you’ve received in the mail.

Jodi, commenter #33, is the official winner of the Come Together Gift Basket! Congrats Jodi, hope you enjoy it!

Valentine’s Day – or Single Awareness Day – is coming up, and I think we’re going to do something special over on Queer Eye Candy, still trying to figure out exactly what.

I especially liked the comment that ephraim left:

on a commune where they initiated a tradition of “Validation Day” on Feb. 14th to be a community-wide celebration of all the different kinds of relationships people have instead of just the romantic ones. Preparations begin sometime in mid January; people sign up to make each others cards (usually elaborate and 3 dimensional affairs with lots of collaging); the cards go into a box alphabetically; and people spend the week or so leading up to V-Day gathered around the box thoughtfully signing them and usually feeling much happier about their fellow communards – an important thing in the midst of winter doldrums and restlessness when everyone is all cramped up inside. After V-Day dinner, there’s a playful round of trying to guess whose card is whose based on randomly selected comments and then they’re distributed (after which a rockin’ dance party commences).

That sounds SO fun and lovely, and what a great way to validate *all* relationships and not just the romantic ones. Maybe you might feel inspired to send Valentine’s Day cards to your mother or best friends or the mentors whom you adore, this year, instead of just your romantic interest.

dirty stories, real life

Wait for me on your knees.

Two weeks ago:

I arrived at her place late – I was delayed, but I won’t go into that – but still in time for dinner.

I don’t remember what she wore, what I wore. I remember what she made for dinner: caramelized onion and gruyere tart with roasted broccoli, and peanut butter & chocolate pudding for dessert. (And she made scones in the morning.) I remember her lived-in kitchen, the way she looked at me with passion and want, the way her body felt under my hands again. I remember I brought wine.

She gave me the quick tour of her apartment.

“I want you in every room before the weekend is through,” I said.

“Even the bathroom?”

“… There are ways.”

I started with the kitchen, before dinner was even ready.

*

The next morning:

On her bed, after hours of fucking, in the bright light of midday because her room has no curtains. I study every inch of her.

Inside her, on top of her. Riding the waves of energy between us, sometimes strong and steady, sometimes collapsing to kiss her neck and whisper sweet nothings. Not so much “oh you’re beautiful, you feel so good” as much as “you little slut, you feel my hard cock in you like that?” – though the former is sprinkled into the mix, too.

We come down together from a peak, panting, I’m shivering from my body’s own heat and sweat in contrast to the cool air, and rest against her, still inside.

Her legs around me.

Her arms around my neck.

And she shifted, and suddenly I was coming, right then. Don’t mind the tantric-hippie moment here, but it was all energy, her pelvic bowl opening to catch me, pull me deep inside her. I can still feel how the contractions shook me, eyes rolling back, so sudden – and it started from stillness! – so sweet. Gasping in her ear and shuddering.

We lay wrapped in each other for a while after. Talking touching, fucking more, her insatiable body able to take more, more, more.

And then: “I’d like your fingers in me. Would you do that?”

She nearly froze, as to not disturb whatever was aligned for this delicate moment. “Now?”

“Please. Now.”

We shifted, I took my cock off, she got on her side next to me, hand on my thighs, between my legs. Gentle and sweet and slick.

“I know you said inside,” she whispers, mouth close to mine, “but I want to feel you.”

“Feels good. Don’t stop.” I whisper back.

Slowly: her fingers in me, pressing deep and stretching full, my hand on my clit, calling it my dick in my mind, and keeping my eyes open, watching her, as long as I can, until I come, screaming, hard and big, a release a year in the making, and pull her close against me.

*

Later:

At the dining room table in her living room. She sits on my lap, kisses me. I pull her hair and move my mouth to her neck.

“Ohh yes, yes,” she breathes.

“Mmm, I like it when you say that. Say yes again,” I demand softly, next to her ear. She hears me, and says nothing. She bites her lip and looks right at me, which tells me she’s refusing to say it. Am I pushing her too far? Does she know – she must know – that saying yes is playing with consent, that I am warming her up for saying no. Does she feel pressed? Pressured? I study her face, wait for her to say it for what seems like minutes. “Say it,” I say again, low, with a grip on her hair, desire and dominance building in me. I pull back a little to get enough distance between us so I can hit her. I wonder how fast I’ll have to do it for her to not see it coming. I want her to be surprised.

Underneath her resistance, she’s got that tiny self-satisfied smirk on her face.

She is surprised. A quick, hard smack against her cheek. Then five, six, softer, in rapid succession, warming her up. And another, stronger. Another. Her whole head turns on impact. I don’t stop. Harder. I vary the rhythm and let her have a breath, a quiet moment in between, when she straightens her body and feels the sting.

This is the hardest I’ve slapped her, but I can feel the way she can take it, now, differently. She’s not scared or wincing but open and accepting, drinking in the sensation.

I stop. Pull back a little and watch her recover.

When she can, she whispers, “yes,” hand to her stinging cheek, eyes dark and smoky and submissive, that look, that look, that strong and active giving over that makes my knees weak (and oh I’m glad I’m sitting down).

I kiss her. Smooth her cheek with my fingertips, feel the warmth with my lips. “Good,” I say between kisses. “Good girl.”

“Yes,” she says again with her breathe out, chest shuddering.

I want more.

“Get off me.” I say quickly, pulling away and pushing on her body. “Down. On your knees. Now.”

She does. Slides onto the floor and I unbuckle, unzip, pull my cock out. “That’s right, suck my cock. Oh that’s good. Yeah, that’s so good.”

And she is so good at this. Lips pursed, tongue flicking softly, eyes looking up at me, hand gripping the base of it and sucking hard into her mouth. I take hold of her hair. Pull her up by it and shove my fingers in her mouth. I like how her tongue gets wide and flat. I like the gulping noise she makes when she swallows.

“Up,” I say, and stand, pulling her to her feet. “Take these off.” I tear at her clothes and so does she, pull her shirt over her head and her jeans, socks, undies off, then embrace her briefly for kisses on her swollen mouth. I bend her at the waist, swift, over the dining room table.

I start spanking her, hard. Harder than I usually would without warm-up but she’s warm, the blood rushing through her, veins dilated already, I can see it in the flush of her skin and in the response each time my palm makes contact, landing with a satisfying smack. She’s moaning and squirming off the table, wants her pussy touched. I haven’t even felt how wet she is yet, how have I resisted this long? She’s pushing back against me so hard, her torso is nearly off the table. She lifts herself up and stands, presses back into me, reaches back for me.

“Who said you could get up,” I growl in her ear and bend her over quickly, her palms landing hard on the table to catch her. “Stay there.”

She likes direction. And oh do I like to give it to her. I like it even more when she does what I say.

She stays put. Breathes. I pause, run my hands down her back and thighs, tease her cunt only slightly with my fingers on her soft hair, then bring my arm back and down in a smack right to her cunt and she gasps, winces, sighs. I go slow with taps more than slaps and build up to a couple sweet ones, hand landing just right, her body responding, so smooth and open.

I keep my tongue unlocked throughout. I wish I could recall better now what I was saying. [Kristen, if you remember any particular good phrases, perhaps you could leave a comment, or tell me?] I know she wanted to be called names, so I began a narrative about how much she loves sex, look how wet you are, you like it when I hit you don’t you, slut. Bad girl. You like this, look how wet you are, feel that?

… And by time I got about to there in the talking I couldn’t wait, I had to have her, I was practically growling with lust.

Still unzipped and unbuckled, I pulled my cock out, only to realize: I left the condoms in the bedroom. I try to keep one in my back pocket so I have it at the ready, but I think I hadn’t replaced the one we used earlier.

Mouth next to her ear, bent over her: “I want to fuck you, but you’re going to have to wait,” I sneer a little. Then … yes. Let’s make her wait.

I pull her up from the table and cradle her close, her naked body against me, still fully clothed. Kiss her tender and run my hands along her skin.

“Now: down.” I command. “On your knees.”

She didn’t quite respond quickly enough, still looking at me heavy-lidded and getting her brain to catch up with the sensations in her body. I push on her shoulders. “Down.”

And she slides to her knees. I take a fistful of her hair. “Put your hands behind your back.” She does, eyes shining, blinking.

“Wait for me. Be right back.”

I walk the ten or so paces to her bedroom slowly, deliberately. Pick up two condoms from the nightstand. I hear her cry out softly. Can feel the desire rising between us, even from the next room. I pause a moment. Feel the dominance rushing through my body like a drug. Quickening my blood pressure, the pump of my heart. I can see her so distinctly in my mind, kneeling. I breathe, put my hand on the wall for support, to gather myself.

I have no idea what I’ll do when I get back to her. Fuck her, eventually. But I want to play first.

She’s waiting so nicely for me. Knees apart, head down. When I approach she looks up at me with such fierce submission my knees go weak: eyes heavy, smoky, dark; mouth and tongue swollen.

Cock at the ready, I press it right to her mouth. “Suck my cock, again, while you’re down there,” I say, and touch her cheek, her forehead as a sweep her hair back, palm the back of her head.

She does. Takes it deep and long with the first stroke in. I start groaning, moaning, pressing into her farther, down her throat. “That’s right, so nice, feels so good,” I’m babbling but I don’t care. I have her tipped backward and she’s left her hands behind her back, I’m throwing her off balance. My hips start thrusting – she gags a little with the depth and breathes hard with her mouth full. I don’t let up, but keep shoving my cock in, down her throat.

I nearly come. Can feel how her mouth and throat would tighten as I pulse and shoot. But I can’t, I can’t quite get there, just not quite enough, so frustrating. I pull out fast and shove my fingers in her mouth before she can notice her mouth is empty, kneel down between her legs and push her back onto the floor, lower my mouth onto and cock into her beautiful body.

I slide in easy. Easy, slick. God I love the way she takes me in. Deep, deeper, I keep her pressed open all the way, laying back, legs spread wide, hands grabbing at my shoulders until I grab her forearms and hold them above her head. Perfect leverage. And I thrust, fuck her hard, burn my knees against the hard dark wood of her living room floor.

Damn, the floor is hard. No give whatsoever. I haven’t fucked her lying on a floor ever – I’ve forgotten how it feels. She can’t squirm as much, she doesn’t slide as much, stays where I put her and the impact is harder, I do like that. But there’s less give-and-take, less sensuous connection, and goddamn my knees are going to be wrecked after this, probably it’s the sheet burn from earlier more than the floor itself, but I’ve got to change positions.

I lose myself in the hard impact of cock against cunt for as many strokes as I can muster before I lift myself up, sit back on my heels, and breathe. She’s vibrating, head lolling side to side.

“Get up,” I say. “Bedroom.”

I change cocks when we get to her bed, and pull the two lengths of rope from my bag. She sits near the pillows and reaches for me as I sit on the edge of the side, and I kiss her but don’t move.

“Look at you, all ready. You really are insatiable, aren’t you. Slut. You can’t get enough cock, can you.”

She moans, drops her head. I bring one hand between her legs and the other keeps stroking my cock. “So wet. What, you want me to fuck you? You want it? look at you, can’t think of anything but sex, but getting filled. Can you.”

I slide two fingers in and watch her face. “You want it, don’t you.”

“Yes,” comes out in a small breath.

I know she does, I can feel it. I want to hear her say it. It turns her (and me) on to hear her talk and I want her to do it more. “Tell me.”

“I want it.”

“You want what?”

“Your cock. I want your cock, please, fuck me, please.”

I lean in to kiss her and take my hand away. “No.”

She whimpers.

I pull out the rope. She hands me her wrists, I secure one, then the other, to the bed frame, fuss about the tightness and my poor knots (I really need some better techniques.) She is writhing. I could fuck through steel, I’m so hard. I can’t make either of us wait any longer and I position myself between her legs, slap her inner thighs to get her to open up. We’re both so smooth and slick and desperate for it, we can’t wait, I can’t stop myself from plunging in, hard as I can, hard as I dare, and fucking, thrusting, pounding into her, kissing her face and neck, hands in her hair, on her chest, pulling her nipples and sliding my arm underneath her to grab at her waist and shoulders.

I’m babbling again. Her name, dirty things, take my cock, slut, you’re so tight, I love to split you open like this, and she comes, twice, three times, I loose track and she doesn’t collapse yet so I keep going, reach between us and slide my fingers along her clit and she gasps, bucks under me, I feel her tighten so hard around my cock that she nearly shoves me out of her and I work to stay inside. She’s holding her breath so I keep my hand and hips steady, hard, and then she shudders, body quaking, and I feel her squirt while I’m still inside, clit quivering under my fingers as she pushes my cock all the way out and lets out the breath she’s been holding, a gasp in for desperate air, and comes hard, shaking.

I watch. Witness. Feel her body quiet, tender and open. Holy, holy. (Holy shit.) Feel her breath as I lay my body against hers, holding tight, touching everywhere.

“Hey,” I say after a minute, lifting my face to see hers.

She sighs and opens her eyes, fingers trailing along my shoulders, on the back of my head. “Hey.”

And we nap the afternoon away, sunlight streaming through the window, though it’s cold outside we’re warm in her room, satiated, spent.

reviews

Review: Butch Jamie (film)

I watched Butch Jamie recently – you can imagine why I was intrigued, there are so few butches on screen, at all!, that I like seeing my kind represented and tend to seek out the queer films anyway, so of course I picked it up. And by picked it up, I mean, Wolfe Video was kind enough to send one to me.

Here’s the trailer:


Cute, right? And I stand by my original impulse – it’s really fun to see a butch in a film. I’m pretty critical of film in general, especially queer films, so I definitely have some criticisms of the way the plot developed. Some of it was just silly and unbelievable, in a kind of annoying way. But I actually really enjoyed Jamie’s roommate, I thought her character had probably the most integrity.

Have you seen this film? What’d you think?

miscellany

Want to win a Come Together Gift Basket?

cometogether2

Valentine’s Day is coming up quick. I know, I know, we only just finished the winter holidays, but it’s true, it’ll be here way before I’m prepared for it, I’m sure.

It’s a stressful one … don’t get me wrong, I’m a romantic, I love making wonderful little gift things that are sweet and romantic and red & pink for this (cheesy) holiday. And then there’s the whole S.A.D. thing – Single’s Awareness Day – where we shouldn’t discriminate against those who aren’t partnered! Right? Right. Oh it’s a challenging holiday.

So hey, let’s do a little give-away, shall we?

Come Together Gift Baskets specializes in sexy, sensual gift baskets made for lesbians by lesbians. These are perfect for saying, “Thank you,” “I love you,” “I want to see you again,” “Happy Anniversary,” or “I’d really like to tie you to the bedpost and have my way with you.” The majority of our products come from woman-owned companies who do not participate in animal testing.

(I’m pretty fond of the Rescue Me basket, myself.)

The fabulous queers behind this site have offered up the controversial (their word, not mine) I Kissed a Girl gift basket, which includes:

Soy Massage Candle
Massage Oil
Lip Butter
Lips Pillow
Silver Bullet Vibrator

Perfect for Valentine’s Day! Give it to your sweetie, or keep it as a lovely gift to yourself!

So: here’s whatchoo gotta do to win this bad girl:

Leave a comment in this post that tells me either:

– The best gift you’ve ever received in the mail
– A fabulous Valentine’s day present you received
or
– Your ideal perfect Valentine’s day gift

Winner will be chosen from the comments randomly on Friday, January 30th.

Three … two … one … go!

miscellany

Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy #15

carnivalWelcome to the 15th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy! I’m your host, Monsieur du Sexsmith, as we wander around the sex, feminist, queer, and gender blogospheres to bring you some amazing reading, writing, introspection, self-reflection, and inspiration on the subjects of sexual freedom and sexual autonomy.

[If I missed your link, I’m so sorry – it was a challenge to keep all of these organized! Email it to me, aspiringstud at gmail dot com, or leave a comment with your link in this post. Thanks!]

I’m going to start with a reproduction of the entire poem from pomegranate pen called temararious. Don’t worry, I won’t reprint everything in its entirety, but this was particularly beautiful and I have such a soft spot for poetry. It’s so incredibly sexy and I really felt the inner conflict of BDSM, of coming to one’s own with power and surrender. Make sure you leave comments over on pomegranate’s blog. (ps: I had to look up temerarious. What a fantastic word.)

    you make me want to do
    what i shouldn’t,
    which is to give

    in. to stay up all night
    for the company of your warm and breathing body,
    to keep my eyes open in case

    you should want to meet my gaze.
    you make me want:
    to succumb. to surrender, hands above my head.

    (reckless abandon,
    they call it,
    i think.) you

    force me to my knees and
    you
    make me feel every second
    in my body –
    we are connected –

    every atom suddenly becoming
    something of us
    the sharp focus of my eyes
    and your breath filling my lungs
    my own blood pounding
    faster with each place you touch and
    my hips leaning slowly

    in –

    these are the things you do to me
    from across rooms and rivers
    (you make me want to do
    what i shouldn’t
    and you make me want to whisper

    please.)

I asked some very specific questions about sexual freedom and autonomy, and these are the 18 particular responses to that question. I know that’s kind of atypical of these feminist carnivals, but I have long thought that this carnival was full of fascinating concepts and was hoping to get some of the folks in my queer sex & gender circles to participate.

I was incredibly touched reading each one, witnessing people’s stories of coming to their own sexual power and understanding their own sexual journeys. Writing and examining our own stories is such an incredibly powerful way to witness our own lives unfold, and that is one of the reasons I adore the writing medium of blogging so much.

I have so much to say about each of these contributions, each of which held revelations for me. But I’m going to let them speak for themselves, with a small excerpt from each piece.

Without more fanfare: let’s get on with the contributions and excerpts.

When or If: When Your Heart Holds You Back

A friend asked that I write about sexual freedom, and being as I am a pretty sex-positive queer kid I figured I’d write about how I got my freedom. What obstacles I’ve overcome to reach the place in my life where I feel free to express my sexual desire, show off my sexuality. … But I couldn’t. I can’t write about that, because it hasn’t happened.

Running Away with the Spoon: Crossing Over

Earlier in our relationship, after we have talked about fucking, we wander into a conversation about how I am her woman, and I say, uncertain of her response, “I want you to be my man.” She pauses for a second, a little surprised, and then says evenly “I am your man. You are my woman and I am your man.” My heart jumps. I have so longed for this, someone willing to cross over into that genderfucking territory with me. but I can see that this is new for her to vocalize, new words for her to speak. So we tread slowly.

Butch Girlcat: Sexual Freedom, Autonomy, & Stone

I accepted the label of stone around the same time I embraced the identity of butch. In both cases it seemed like a matter of accuracy. I’ve written pages and pages now about being butch but very little about being stone. Which only makes sense. We do silence well. She does give me pleasure, oh my god she does, but you won’t hear about it from me, not even if you’re standing next to the bed. I know my face gives me away to her. That’s my version of surrender.

Freedomgirl: Some Thoughts on Sexual Freedom

The word ‘freedom’ is incredibly powerful and meaningful to me, hence the title of this blog. I titled it, and myself, at a moment when my life changed completely; I was realizing just how unfree I had been, for a stretch of time in my relationship, and more largely during my whole life. Unfree to be me, unfree to want the things that I oh so much wanted, unfree to express my sexual desire. […] it’s more than just opening the chains of my relationship; it’s also removing the limitations that I imposed on my own mind and my own desires. Sexual freedom is the new joy in my own body that I’ve found this year. It’s claiming my sexuality for myself, not for my partner or in opposition (or conformity) to some societal ideal.

Miss Avarice: Sexual Autonomy & Sexual Freedom

For me, Sexual Autonomy means having age-appropriate access to the wealth of information that exists about different types of relationship styles, different sexual activities, fetishes, and interests, as well as safer sex practices and contraception. I think this will only happen when we live in an environment that encourages open communication, mutual respect, and an understanding of the important role that sexuality plays in every person’s life.

Uncommon Curiosity: Straight Talk

At this point, keeping track of all the gradations of gender involved in living my life would take an accountant, three maps and a well-trained sheepdog. But I only say “pretty much” because there is still a small spot in my heart that yearns to join the club, to earn my queer patch – if only so the 11-year-old inside me could make it right.

Tina-cious: Freedom is Rarely Free

I thought, at first, [this was] a no sweat kind of question. Turns out, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Truth is — my sexual “freedom” hasn’t – for the majority of my life – been mine at all. What it had been was the will of my lovers. … All of a sudden I knew what it meant to be allowed to have a say in what sex meant to our relationship. My ideas for new things to try all of a sudden were met with enthusiasm. EVERY sexual deviance I could come up with was open to me for the taking. I just had to vocalize them. Games, role playing, toys, positions, apparatus, anything. All of a sudden I actually felt sexy. Wanted. Lusted after.

Jess I Am: Then And Now

True sexual freedom came to me when I started fucking women. I was the initiator, the aggressor, the top. I felt like a whole new world of possibilities opened up for me and soon after, it did. I discovered the online queer community and before I knew it my inner perv resurfaced and I began to own my sexuality and my body once again. I started to come to terms with my gender identity and understand that sex was going to be something I would only enjoy if I was doing things that I desired. I realized that I could experiment with role play, kink, and even a bit of pain. To this day, there is still so little that I am not open to trying, and there is nothing about sex to fear because everything I do is on my terms, and I am 100% in control of it all, even when I choose to surrender that control.

Femme is my Gender: Shame

When I came out in my twenties I felt myself very liberated. And in some ways I was. However, shame was certainly preventing me from exploring my sexuality freely and in its entirety. I did make progress in some areas though. … Now in my forties and in the ridiculously late flowering discovery of my essential sexual nature, I feel less shame than ever before. That is not to say I am freed from it, but it certainly withers as my confidence grows.

Packing Vocals: What If

So what does “sexual autonomy” and “sexual freedom” mean to me? It means that I can enjoy, appreciate and express my sexuality and gender without fear of rejection or ridicule. It means that I finally have the access to knowledge, the experiences of others and the support to explore my emotions, fears and desires. It means that instead of standing still and stagnating, I can move forward, learning and growing as a person. It means I can be me.

Don’t Let’s Talk: “One of the virtues of not being puritanical about sex is not being embarrassed afterwards.”

[H]aving sex with girls has given me the freedom to access other aspects of my sexuality. Because coming out as gay was easy, but being gay is what gave me the ability to come out (at least to myself) as slutty, kinky, and maybe a little less than gay.

Butchtastic: Don’t fence me in

For me sexual/gender autonomy and freedom are ultimately about self-determination. We should each have the freedom to not only choose our identity labels at any given time, but change them as we wish. I don’t know about you, but my notion of who I am has changed a helluva lot since I came out as a lesbian at seventeen. For the first part of my sexual life, that label and the expected behaviors associated with being a lesbian fit me. I had no desire or need for men in a sexual way. At the same time, I also didn’t relate much to ‘butch’ because of what I saw as a restrictive set of behaviors associated with that label: being less open sexually and emotionally, and taking on what I saw as mostly negative masculine behaviors.

The Verbosery: Finding my Pieces

A woman who personifies the masculine spirit but still craves being fucked like a woman? To me, personally, that’s just about hotter than the surface of the sun. … Part of my journey in understanding my personal relationship with femme was coming into the realization that the stereotypical femme bottom role did not apply to me. I had to come to terms with the fact that femmes top, too. Not only that, but I had to revisit my own personal understanding that I don’t, have never, fallen neatly into given categories. I have always endeavored to forge my own trail, to find the pieces that fit best and felt right for me, personally.

Three-hole Punch Me: On Sugarbutch Chronicles, Sinclair Asked …

To me, sexual autonomy and sexual freedom are synonymous with “owning” my sexuality. This means that I am responsible for putting myself into sexual situations as well as removing myself from those situations when I need to. It means that I decide when I want to have sex, and what kind of sex I want to have. No one else pressures me into it, and I am not forced to do things that I don’t understand or don’t want to do. It means that I am honest with myself and honest with my partner(s) and that we communicate openly and honestly about what we will do together and what the boundaries are. It means that my partner asks for my CONSENT and I do the same for the other person.

Green-Eyed Girl: Sexual Freedom

If asked a couple of years ago what my thoughts on sexual freedom were, I would have laughed and said, “A whip, silly. A whip in one hand and my fingers wrapped around your hair, pulling tightly – that is when I feel most sexually free.” That’s the person I used to be – very much in control & a touch on the violent side (sexually). I don’t know when it changed, I can’t give a specific time when I came to the realization that I am no longer that person. I am fully aware of it though, this huge difference in my sexual behavior. I am also fully aware that it is because I trust her and that is the reason why I have shifted from being a top to a bottom.

A Feminist View: Freedom & Autonomy, Part 1: All Places are Not Alike

[M]y journey to sexual freedom (and autonomy?) is synonymous with my discovery of consensual and safe BDSM sex, and of consensual D/s relationships. With reference to my own past, it is clear that I had no freedom or autonomy as I grew up, and it was only when I came to understand other ways of seeing what was innately in me that I came to have any sense of having control over my own sexuality – that I could own it in every sense of the word. [Also check out part two.]

Sugarbutch: Sexual Autonomy & Freedom

I’m supposed to be writing about sexual autonomy and freedom – so let me tell you this: I cannot untangle gender from sex from power. They are all the spiraling sugar-phosphate backbone in the DNA of my sexuality, and it wasn’t until I unlocked my gender that my sexual liberation truly lived in my body, that my sexuality was truly realized and in practice. It wasn’t until I had a cock – no: it wasn’t until I had a girl who knew what to do with my cock. My gender is the language of my desire, my attraction. The ways I communicate physically. Say gender is a drag, but also say this: I wasn’t me until I discovered my own gendered space.

… and yes, I know this is the longest post in the history of long posts on Sugarbutch, but it’s worth it, I promise.

Read about 20 more posts after the cut.

Continue reading →

miscellany

Sugasm #157

This Week’s Picks

More Sugasm | Join the Sugasm | Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup Tuesday and Friday

My personal favorites:

(A Quick Fuck in a Shadowed Corner was also included in #157.)

essays

Sexual Autonomy & Freedom

Written for the 15th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy. Thoughts in response and reflection to my own call for contributions.

Let me say this: I don’t think, in this culture which vilifies sex and punishes especially female sexuality, that I will ever be “done” reaching my own space of sexual freedom and autonomy. It is probably an endless task, a lifetime battle.

Let me also say this: I have crawled up out of shame by my bloodied fingers and I am not going back. I stand on my own two legs, strong-cunted, and I am not going back. I drive the engine of my body hard, glide it through passageways I have previously thought unnavigatable, and I am not going back.

Maybe ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is freedom.

I would not have had the sexual awakening I’ve had if it wasn’t for feminism: the feminist health movement, the theories of consciousness raising, the lesbian sex wars of the 80s that produced porn and smut and BDSM with theories of liberation at their roots.

I am so grateful for all the things that have contributed to my gaining of sexual autonomy and freedom, to my sexual awakening. Nancy Friday’s book My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies. My high school boyfriend telling me kink was great and fun and he respected me, too. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio and Cunt Coloring Book by Tea Corrine and Femalia and Nothing But The Girl; The Blatant Lesbian Image and the entire series of Best Lesbian Erotica (especially 1998). Kitty Tsui and that one scene in Breathless with a knife. S.I.R. Video and Hard Love / How to Fuck In High Heels and Sugar High Glitter City. Babeland, which taught me more than I thought there was to know. Body Electric, which woke me up to my own power, and still does. The Topping Book and The Bottoming Book. The Ethical Slut, which changed how I see relationships. Pink & White, which finally made porn I wanted to own and watch over and over again. My academic studies and my degree in women studies which taught me how social change works. Dan Savage and Savage Love.

The fucking INTERNET. From BBSs to chatrooms to the web to Wiki After Dark to Scarleteen to RAINN to the amazing sexblog communities. The connection to marginalized community despite distance and fear.

Let me say this: I don’t know how any woman grows up and develops her sexual autonomy and freedom, let alone a queer woman, let alone a genderqueer butch or femme. These are not things that are built into us, no matter how progressive our families, no matter how much our parents loved us. There are so many layers to the damage, and the length of the legacy is long and wide, the depth of those wounds are long and wide.

Let me also say this: for me, the first step had to be seeing those wounds, recognizing the damage. By beginning to feel what a “healthy sexuality” (uh, whatever that is) felt like in my body, I could more easily differentiate between the damage and the strength. And I learned to use erotic energy to heal those places in me still reeling, still healing.

Why do you think gender dynamics are so erotically charged for me? I was damaged as a girl. As a girl, I was damaged. And I don’t mean “I was abused when I was young” but rather, that this culture hurt my girlhood. That’s why I turned to feminism as soon as I began to understand the power of social conditioning and gender roles: to learn how to undo the damage.

And why do you think I love femmes something fierce? Our wounds run parallel. We are the same, but opposite; opposing, complimentary, full of traction and friction when we rub against each other. Lay your wounds here next to mine, they fill and warm and comfort each other.

Why is gender so erotically charged for me? Because it has been the site of so much discomfort, so much damage. Not just for me: for my friends and lovers, for my sisters, for my parents, for the one boy I ever slept with, for our collective unconscious. So when I take it and corral it and tame it, when I become the Gender Whisperer and see the thoughts in its head despite our different languages, when I learn its language and teach it mine, I become strong. I take the lead. I win.

I know, I’m supposed to be writing about sexual autonomy and freedom – so let me tell you this: I cannot untangle gender from sex from power. They are all the spiraling sugar-phosphate backbone in the DNA of my sexuality, and it wasn’t until I unlocked my gender that my sexual liberation truly lived in my body, that my sexuality was truly realized and in practice. It wasn’t until I had a cock – no: it wasn’t until I had a girl who knew what to do with my cock.

My gender is the language of my desire, my attraction. The ways I communicate physically.

Say gender is a drag, but also say this: I wasn’t me until I discovered my own gendered space. Butch – but not just butch, high butch – but not just high butch, capital-H High capital-B Butch. My body has never made as much sense as it does, now, in button-downs and ties, in sweater vests and cufflinks, hell, even tee shirts and jeans feel right now that I buy them in the department that cuts them to fit my body, square, even lines, corners, dark colors.

It’s not that I want society at large to treat me as male. It’s not that when I put on men’s clothes, I liked the way I was subsequently treated differently – though I was. But the difference was greater than that: I gained autonomy. I gained agency. I gained my own voice, my own stride, my own body, my own control. And I love the disconnect that most people see – female body, masculine presentation – I love witnessing the subtle struggle of random passers-by.

Just by living in the world, walking down the street, I set out a challenge. I work hard to make this masculinity, this presentation, an acceptable way for a woman to live.

Say gender is constructed, but also say this: something in me lines up and sees clearly when I get to express myself just the way I want to. I know how to deconstruct – I know how to break down and examine and look from various angles and research and consciousness-raise and bounce ideas around. And I’m learning how to construct, how to create, how to make myself anew from the inside, all the way out.

miscellany

What happened in December

I’m way behind on the end-of-the-year stuff. I want to do a 2009 roundup, too – that is, hopefully, coming.

Meanwhile, here’s what happened in December:

Sex & Relationships:

Gender

Community

Personal

  • Letter to a friend was about my own personal power, and is password protected.
  • Probably my favorite piece of writing from December was My Father’s Son, a prose-poem about my relationship with my dad and my gender.

Semantics

Colophon

Reviews

And that, as they say, was that.

reviews

Review: Pink & White’s Champion

To all of you who just complained that there are no butches or real sex on the L Word.

To all of you who don’t have a favorite porn star.

To all of you who think that lesbian porn is hetero-made and consists of two pretty girls with French tips tongue-kissing.

To anyone who likes hot butches, bois, trans guys, femmes, and other genderqueers.

Watch this film.

Buy it, and watch it, and tell your friends about it.

Watch it, and praise it, and buy and support the other amazing things that Pink & White does, too.

Queer porn director Shine Louise Houston’s new indy flick CHAMPION was released on DVD by Blowfish this week, and last night I sat down and turned it on.

I twittered some of my immediate reactions:

  • oh my god, the noises that Madison Young makes. oh. my. god.
  • what cock is it that Syd & Madison are fucking with in this second scene in Champion?
  • I am loving the original score on this Champion film.
  • @blowfishtwitter oh I <3 you.
  • :O what is that behind-the-knees spreader bar used on Dylan Rion?!? oh I so need one of those.
  • shit – it’s a golf club? and rope!? jesus, note to self.
  • why isn’t there more dirty talk in porn? just lots of moans & grunts … that’s sexy too, but c’mon, let’s hear some good words.
  • I actually had a dream that crash pad series #4 was already out and published. dammit. at least there’s #3 and Champion!

Toward the end of the flick, my jaw still hanging open in awe and having barely moved from the spot where I sat down, I realized: no one but Syd Blakovich could’ve played the lead role of Jessie. I imagine it was made for her – she’s worked with Houston in the past, and so Houston must know about Blakovich’s MMA and Ultimate Surrender credentials, plus precisely how skilled Blakovich is as a top in scenes.

I loved the training sequences, Blakovich’s punching and kicking at gym equipment with hard, concentrated looks on her face, muscles straining and rippling. Especially juxtaposed with the sex scenes – almost all of which feature Blakovich – the bodily similarities were heightened and the fighting sequences were amazingly erotic.

Speaking of sex:

Blakovich pairs with an amazing cast of porn stars throughout. Her real-life partner Jiz Lee makes more than a few appearances (as Jessie’s ex), and it is so obvious that they know each other’s bodies.

The scene with Blakovich and Madison Young is amazing. Amazing. If Champion had a spine, I would surely break it right at that scene. Young has orgasm after orgasm, and I actually wondered at one point if she was going to be torn apart from the intensity – Blakovich does not let up, and oh my god what Young can take as a bottom blows my brain. The power and strength with which Blakovich was pounding away at Young’s inner thigh, at one point – and Young just opened and took it, gasping, and holy fuck it was hot.

Morning after, Blakovich delivers my favorite line to Young: “No one’s keeping you here, honey.” I gasped at the screen. Did she just kick Madison Young out of bed?! Shit.

(Remember that time I wrote about Avah fucking Madison Young? Yeah, me too.)

Blakovich is also, eventually, paired with her character’s rival, Dallas (playing Violet), at the end of the film (not to, ahem, give away the plot or anything). The scene is more tender than others, but still very hot. I really love the way Dallas makes noise, very low-pitched and incredibly hot.

Blakovich is not the only one who gets to fuck – Dylan Rion gets her chance with Javier, in a hot hot scene in a van involving an impromptu spreader bar at her knees made of (I think?) a golf club and rope. She’s one of my personal favorite bottoms in all the porn I’ve seen, so that scene definitely sticks out.

And plus? Rion leaves her heels on.

Even Houston makes an appearance, briefly, as a reporter.

Pink & White – Houston’s production company – and Houston herself – have been hailed again and again as innovative, cutting edge, and authentic, and though it is starting to sound redundant, I can’t not praise her vision: she directs real genderqueer porn, with butches, femmes, bois, and trans folks, in real scenarios with real sex that both inspires and reflects my own sex life. I never saw myself reflected in porn until I started watching Houston’s work – and for that, I will pick up every DVD Houston releases, to support her.

Buy the DVD from Blowfish or from your local women-owned sex-positive sex shop.

Watch the NC-17 version of the trailer, or the PG-13 version, below:

reviews

Review: Gee Whiz, the Hitachi Upgrade

(It’s actually a little challenging to write about vibrators … seems very personal, which is weird, compared to all the rest that I write about. But how I get off in private, alone, is not something I usually share.)

I was in college when I invested in the Hitachi Magic Wand. It is the Grandmother of All Sex Toys, and unless your clit is super super sensitive (in which case the VERY strong vibrations will simply be too much), I recommend one for every toy box.

The first time I brought it home and used it, though, I just couldn’t get the pointed stimulation I was used to or liked. I like the strong vibration, but I still wanted more concentrated focus in … certain spots.

I was complaining about this with some of my fellow Women Studies students, and one friend of mine said, “The attachments are where it’s at. That’s what you’re missing.”

“Huhwhut? But I don’t really want internal penetration …”

“No, no. Use it on your clit. It’ll just be more … gathered attention this way. Trust me.”

I did. She was right.

The Hitachi and the G-spotter attachment (shown left … I guess Babeland doesn’t carry them anymore? I can’t find it on their website) have been my nightcap for many years now.

I’ve seen the other attachments – like the Gee Whiz, silicone, a little fancier, more sculpted – at Babeland ever since, and while I was somewhat curious, I wasn’t sure it would be worth it. They seemed more made for penetration and I didn’t think I wanted that. The

Alright, Babeland: I stand corrected.

The best part about this innocent little attachment is that it’s got this nub on the underside of the cap that is perfectly situated for clit stimulation.

Time will tell if this attachment will stay at the top of my toybox or get buried, but for now, I’m damn excited about it. And considering this review is done, and I have a little time before I have to grab a shower and get going with my day, I think I might just get back into bed. Mmm yeah.

(If you don’t have a Hitachi yet, you can get the Hitachi & Gee Whiz together and save some money.)

miscellany

L Word Serenade

By comedian Rebecca Drysdale, aka Beck D. Posted in honor of the L Word’s last season, premiering today.

I am one of the many dykes who has a love/hate relationship with the L Word … sometimes the sex sure is hot (Sherry Jaffey, Carmen) but oh my god the drama (Jenny) and the ridiculous characters (Jenny) and the horrible character arcs (Jenny, Max, Shane, Tina, and uh … everyone else) make me want to throw things at my TV. Yet, like many of us, still I watch, mostly for the cultural references and the community knowledge. It’s all we’ve got, I guess.

But then there’s spinoff art like this rap video, above, and I am so glad I get at least most of the inside jokes.

miscellany

Call for Contributions: Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy

The Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy, edition #14 is up at Silent Porn Star, and Sugarbutch is hosting the next Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy, edition #15, here.

That means, I am on the lookout for links about sexual freedom and autonomy. Email them to me to submit your site to the upcoming Carnival, which will be posted – here! – on Monday, January 26th.

That gives you almost TWO WEEKS! to write something. Get crackin’.

UPDATE: Deadline for submissions for the January 26th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy #15 is this Friday, January 23rd. This’ll give me the weekend to read and compile the posts. Thanks!!

So, I am thinking about sexual freedom and autonomy. What does that really mean? How does that apply to feminist butches and femmes, to queers in this particular time (and place), to this community that I’m involved in of lesbian feminists exploring gender within the sexblog community?

I’m into words, so I have to start with what these terms mean.

Sexual Autonomy

Google helps me out with the definition of “autonomy”: personal independence; the capacity to make an informed, un-coerced decision; a person’s ability to make independent choices.

I’ve thought a lot about autonomy and choice, especially in terms of gender roles, of butch/femme, and the ways that exploring these gender dynamics often appear to be reproducing a compulsory gender hierarchy. One particular thing about choice that I want to reiterate is that I believe that all options have to be empowered and equally valued in order for it to be a real choice. The consequences to both choices have to be comparable.

If someone says, “Either you can eat this pile of dog poo, or you can eat this pile of carrots,” uh, that’s not really a choice.

So, sexual autonomy has to do with the ability to make choices based on all options being empowered, instead of having sexuality dictated upon you by cultural or gender stereotypes. Sexism is rampant, and androgyny is somewhat required in queer communities, so butch/femme roles are misunderstood, mistrusted, belittled, seen as archaic, and dismissed.

But autonomy in choosing to explore gender can come through 1) deconstructing the cultural expectations, identity alignment assumptions, and compulsory roles, especially regarding the ways that those things are destructive, hierarchical, and marginalizing; and 2) reconstructing selective parts in ways that have inner resonance, that “just make sense,” and are empowering.

I’m talking about gender autonomy here, I guess, not so much sexual autonomy – sexual autonomy would more be along the lines of … what? Choosing your sexual partners? Coming out? Claiming a kinky sexuality? The concept of autonomy automatically calls to my mind questions and issues about gender development and identity, perhaps because I feel that is more fragile than sexual autonomy – I think there is more discourse on sexual autonomy, claiming your own sexuality, learning yourself and your own sexual needs, etc.

Sexual Freedom

What does this really mean? What does it mean to be “sexually free”? The stereotype that would perhaps come to mind is someone promiscuous, sexually “liberated,” who has a lot of sex. And hey, that person might be sexually free, sure, but that’s not necessarily true, and definitely not the only way to look at it. What other ways are we able to exercise our “sexual freedom?”

So, considering these two concepts – sexual autonomy and sexual freedom – I have some questions for you:

What does “sexual autonomy” mean to you? What does “sexual freedom” mean to you?

Are there any particular stories you want to tell about gaining (or losing) your own sexual freedom or autonomy?

How does your knowledge of feminism play into the concepts of sexual freedom and autonomy?

How does your sexual autonomy or freedom conflict, interact, or engage with your feminist beliefs?

Any other questions or ideas you might have about these concepts?

I’m open to all sorts of posts – your submission to the Feminist Carnival does not have to specifically answer these questions. In my ideal dream world, here’s a list of folks who I would hand-pick to contribute to this conversation. Please consider writing something on these questions – or, at least, submitting something that you’ve worked on during the month of January.

Leo McCool
Freedomgirl
Butchtastic
Green Eyed Girl
Natt Nightly
Packing Vocals
Femme is my Gender
Queer Fat Femme
Fatgirl Femme
Just Like Jesse James
Ladies in Waiting
Miss Avarice
Femmeinist Fucktoy
Lesbian Dad
Jess I Am
Tina-cious
Don’t Let’s Talk
Essin’ Em
When or If
The Femme Show

(These are some of my favorite blogs, if you didn’t get that, so if you aren’t reading them already I highly recommend them. These folks keep me thinking, engaged, and conversing about sex and gender in ways that make my head twist in knots and light up and feel alive. Send my love to ’em all.)

Let’s queer (and butch/femme) up this Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy.

dirty stories, real life

Rocking Chair Blow Job

To our right, on the futon extended down into a bed, there was a spanking scene with a small black paddle. To our left, on another extended futon, a threesome.

Kristen sits in my lap in a low chair that rocks.

“I could do it right here,” she suggested, lowering her eyes a little.

When asked earlier what she wanted to do tonight, she bent one knee a little, her tiny plaid skirt tilting, over-the-knee socks hugging her thighs. “Suck some cock,” she answered.

“Yeah?” I search her face a second but feel my butch cock jump to alert. Her mouth on it. Sucking. Her eyes. Yes. When I took this seat, the same thought had occurred to me.

“Do it.”

I use my hands to push her off of me, not that she needs the encouragement. She kneels between my legs and I unbuckle my belt, unzip my slacks, pull out the cock I’d brought.

“Go on, suck it.”

She does. Swallows the head and presses her lips down the length of the shaft. I shift it, keep my hand wrapped around the base so it is in place over my clit, my little dick.

I can feel it when she sucks.

“Harder,” I say, fisting the hair at the back of her head, pulling but not forcing, adding resistance. She gulps a little and her cheeks go taut as she pulls me into her mouth harder, and I feel it, groan, “Oh yeah, oh fuck yeah.”

She’s good at this. Head bobbing up and down on my lap, I lean back and take in the view, concentrate on the feel of this girl’s lips wrapped around my dick. I can see the whole room, her back is to them; people shifting to watch us and shifting away to watch other scenes. She wanted to be watched. She looks so pretty with my cock in her mouth.

Her knees are splayed a little and I am hard, getting harder. I pull her head off all the way by her hair and shove my fingers into her mouth, two of them, in and out, pressing against her tongue gently, so she can feel it, so I can remember what it’s like to have a dick against a wet tongue.

“Again,” I say, and withdraw my fingers, shove her mouth back down to my cock.

Those little noises, gulping, panting, breathing through her throat, mouth watering and swallowing.

“That’s right baby, suck it.”

I lean back again and my dick swells, puckers when she sucks hard and fast. She keeps it deep in her mouth and pulses and I cry out. Fuck.

I pull her up again and lean forward to kiss her, mouth swollen and red, opening for me as I keep my hand on the back of her head, on her cheek, on her jaw, holding her just where I want her, tongue in her mouth and she sucks that too. I reach my other hand down between her legs and push the thin fabric of her panties aside, enter her easily with two fingers and swirl them over her clit. She gasps.

“I like the way you suck me off,” I say, low, into her ear. “Your mouth feels so good. Oh god you’re so wet,” I trace my fingers along her lips and flick her clit, swollen, thick and sensitive. She moans.

“I want you to stand up, bend over, pull off your panties and hand them to me. Understand?” I pull back and remove my hand and she nods. “Do it then.”

She does. Stands and this chair is so low that her thighs are right in front of my face, that little strip of skin between her socks and her short, short skirt. She pushes black lace undies down over her legs and I help her keep her balance as she steps out of them. I hold out my hand. She gives them to me and I put them in my back pocket.

“Down.” I say, and grab her hips with both hands, moving her back to her knees.

(“Are your knees okay?” “Yes, for another minute.”)

Her thighs splay on the floor between my legs and I’m at a perfect angle to cup her pussy and slide my fingers in, now unhindered, open, exposed. “Damn, you feel so good,” I murmur, hand in her hair again, across the backs of her shoulders, around her waist holding her close and in contrasting leverage to the pressure of my hand between her legs. She moans, gasps, mouth open, blue eyes shining.

I want to fuck her. Want my cock in her, want to feel her come and pulse while I’m inside. I look around. I want her bent over something, want to leave her socks on and push her skirt up over her hips, grab her hair. There’s no free space except a piece of wall. Fine.

I get her up and lead her over there, press against her at the wall. She is so sensitive already and I work my fingers in her easily, hard, fast. “I want you to come for me, here, in front of everyone,” I start whispering into her ear, holding her arms above her head with one hand, pressing her legs apart with my thighs, hand working against her cunt. “Come on, do it for me.”

She does. She comes gasping, shuddering, knees going weak. When her eyes meet mine her face is open, shining. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her, deep and sweet.

cock confidence, reviews

Review: Simply Sexy Leather Harness

The reviews for toys that I loved aren’t a problem – I just write, hey, I loved this, and here’s why (with lots of detail).

The reviews for toys I didn’t like are so much harder. For one, I always feel that I didn’t adequately give the toy a chance, and if I just used it better, differently, again, warmed up to it, then I’d like it. Or, at least, I’d see it’s full purpose and write huh, it’s really good for this and this function, but that’s not a function I’ve ever needed or have ever anticipated reading.

gv_harness1But, nonetheless, I try to report what it was like for me to use any given toy, my observations, how I think it would be useful and how it didn’t work for me, with the hopes that it is a lot of data and not as much opinion, so you can make your own decision.

So, given all that:

Good Vibrations sent me the Simply Sexy Leather Harness, a one-strap harness with leather straps and a leather panel behind interchangeable O-rings. And I was not impressed. Let me tell you why:

  • The back piece is too big and thick, and felt, when I had it on, like I was wearing underwear or a shield (which perhaps some people would like, but I don’t)
  • The O-ring is a problem. A big one. Because of the way it attaches with small leather straps to the back piece, there is very little room under the O-ring. This means cocks with a particularly thick base (like, say, oh, the Silky, which I think we all know is my cock 75% of the time) does not fit. At all. Making the harness practically useless to me.
  • Okay, so maybe I can use it for another cock, right? This is what I was thinking. Just because it is a no-Silky-zone doesn’t make it useless. But no: aside from Silky, my next go-to cocks are much larger in girth and need a larger O-ring. This harness’s O-rings are interchangeable, so I just get out a bigger one, right? No … the same O-ring problem again. The straps that hold the O-rings attach to the leather triangle backing at a fixed distance, not to the harness straps themselves, and it is near impossible to fit a 2″ O-ring comfortably. It will fit, but it doesn’t sit right and it isn’t tight enough or comfortable. It also feels like it’s going to snap off.
  • The straps are also a slight problem. The center between-the-legs strap is nylon, but hte around-the-waist straps are leather, and very hard to tighten or loosen as needed. Maybe that’s a good thing really – once you get them where you want them, they won’t move – but as a packing harness, where I don’t want it biting into my hips all night but I want to be able to tighten and go when I’m ready, it wouldn’t work.

It is rare to find a solid one-strap, and I do like those; I also like the combination of leather and nylon, and I like that the O-rings are interchangeable. I had high hopes for this Simply Sexy Leather Harness but I can’t imagine it being useful – especially not when I have harnesses like the Jaguar, the Barely There, and the Joque in my sex toy arsenal. And this is not to say that Good Vibrations doesn’t have other fabulous harnesses to buy, too … it’s worth checking out what they’ve got available, they’re a great feminist sex-positive sex toy store.

dirty stories, real life

A Quick Fuck in a Shadowed Corner

The club is dark enough that no one can tell Kristen is on her knees in front of me. She found a particularly shadowed corner. Her back is to the wall, my hands up against it, trying not to leave my head dipped down to watch her lips close around the shaft of my cock.

Her skirt short pushed up on her thighs. I run my hands through her short hair on the back of her head and straighten out my neck to see a friend approaching me.

“Sinclair! I haven’t seen you in … ” she stops a few feet away and I twist my head, but not my body, keeping my hand on the back of Kristen’s head. She hears my friend and starts hesitating, but I keep my grip firm and catch her eye, just for a second: don’t you stop.

She doesn’t. Swallows me even deeper and brings her hand up to my thigh for leverage. I keep my hand on her jaw so I can feel her open and full. I try not to groan.

“Uh, hi,” I manage to say, looking back to my friend. “Can I find you later?”

Wide-eyed, she chuckles a little, “Sure, man,” and backs off, glancing over her shoulder as she disappears back into the crowd.

“Good girl,” I say, caressing her hair and cheeks with my fingers. She’s taking me deep, looking up every so often, her lips closing around me and sucking. She takes me almost to the base, deep, then slides it out of her mouth and lets her tongue lap all the way down the length of it. My hips are moving, grinding against her gently, I want more, want to pull out and fuck her up against the wall, bend her over the pool table on the other side of the room, I can see other butches with sticks hitting balls across felt in precise angles by the lamp swaying. Everyone going along with their Saturday night, not noticing this dark corner we’ve found.

“I want to fuck you,” I say quietly, fisting her hair for grip. “You get me good and hard, and I will.” She buckles a little, a jolt goes through her body and she ripples, I can feel it. She wants it now, but she’ll have to wait.

She flicks her tongue around the crown, then wide on the underside of the shaft as she takes the head in her mouth again, keeping her mouth open, and I rub it against her tongue with a little shift in my hips. She lets me slide it all the way in, pressing her shoulder against the wall with my shin and holding the back of her head again, filling her mouth up.

Kristen knows how. She’s damn good at this. Sometimes she goes too deep and it gets hard to breathe, she pulls out and gasps, then goes in to swallow me again, deeper, tighter. I feel her throat close around my cock, tongue pulsing, and I thicken in her mouth, hips start tensing and that’s it, I have to have her, here, now.

I pull out fast. Pull her up with my hand still on her jaw, kiss her hard against the wall as I push her skirt up, shove the fabric aside and find her slit. I keep her pinned between my body and the wall.

“Oh please, I want it so bad,” she whispers next to my ear. I keep a tight grip on her shoulders, my forearm against her clavicle, gripping her thighs, my knee bent and under hers, holding her legs apart. “I want your cock in me,” she gasps.

“Damn right you’ll get my cock. After you made me all hard like you did? With that sweet little mouth of yours? You’re going to get it.”

Tiny moans from her mouth. She’s waiting, hands clawing at my shoulders, hips writhing. I find her slit with my fingers and tease her lips. She’s so wet, so wet, I can feel it just on the outside, stickysweet and I can’t stand the wait, it’s making my eyes blur and head spin. I grip my cock in my fist and circle her lips and opening with the head.

She moans, louder.

“Shh,” I say. “Someone could come over here any second. We’re barely concealed.” I should be faster, this should be just three thrusts and it’s over, we’re in public for goodness’ sake, in a room full of people, barely concealed by shadow.

But I’m waiting, again, now. I want to hear her beg. I want her tongue working again with language like it was just working against my cock.

“Oh, baby, I want it so bad,” she breathes in my ear, pressing with everything she’s got against me. “I need you to fuck me, come on, you fuck me so good.”

I keep circling, teasing the open hole of her cunt with my cock, and bring my thumb up to her mouth to circle and tease her mouth the same way. She gasps, gulps, tries to take it into her mouth but I won’t let her.

“You know I’ll do it. I’ll fuck you right, right here, against this wall, with all these people watching,” I growl low against her neck as I bite, a little too hard, and she gasps, gives in. “You don’t even care that they can see, do you. You need it so bad.”

“Please,” she says, and looks me right in the eyes, that look bordering on desperation, eyes wide and open, lips parted, a hint of a smile and so much wanting. “Please,” she says again, drawing out the vowels, and I give in.

I murmur, “Yes, yes,” soothing, and slide inside her slow, so slow, but strong, and all the way, tip to balls.

The first stroke takes the longest and she’s moaning already, a long low sound that corresponds, and she breathes in when I get to the base, both of us tight, clenched, pulsing. She wants it hard, she wants it fast, and I know just how she likes it, but I’m taking my time, taking every delicious inch, thick, just how I like it.

I can feel her everywhere.

I pull almost all the way out, a little faster, and she gasps. I cover her mouth with mine in more of a controlling move than a kiss, to quiet her a little, but I don’t really care if people hear, or see, anymore. My hands are on her hips and I control how fast she moves against me, she’s writhing, trying to ride me faster, but she can’t, I keep her inches away from me, keep her shoved against the wall, hard, and control the depth and speed.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” I mutter. She squeezes me tight in resistance and desperation, and it gets me so hot, so hard, I start building up faster, harder.

I place my hand over her mouth as she gets louder. I’m groaning too, fucking harder, and I just can’t keep her quiet when we get to this point, I can’t, she starts moaning and gasping and a few heads turn, but we’re oblivious to where we are. People steal glances over to our dark corner, squint, try to make out our figures, shifting their angle a little to get a better view, tapping their friend and nodding over toward us. I’m hoping my pants won’t fall down past my ass any further, hoping her skirt is concealing us a little, her leg up and wrapped around my hip. I can only see the room from my periphery vision, but Kristen has a good view and she wraps her arms around my shoulders and looks out at the room as if for the first time, makes eye contact with someone, just for a second.

She shivers. Runs her fingers through the hair on the back of my head, grips my shoulders.

I can’t stop, I’m working in her harder, again, and again, getting all worked up, and we lose ourselves in it. We forget where we are.

Suddenly she’s close. So close. I can feel it, her legs shake and open in a different way. I wrap my arms around her strong, shove inside her hard, fast, and she’s coming, suddenly, it washes over her without anticipation, just suddenly unleashed, muscles quivering and she’s gasping, trying not to yell, in my ear, clawing at my shoulders. Her cunt grips so hard when she comes I have to work to stay inside, grunting a little, I can feel sweat on my neck and lower back from the physical exertion, and I press hard into her, I don’t let up, and she keeps coming, gasping one more time, surrendering, then releases against me with a long sigh.

We stay wrapped in the bliss of it all for a minute longer when we notice a waiter approaching, doing rounds. Kristen straightens up a bit, smooths her hair, her skirt, I step back and zip.

“You two okay here?” he asks, as he does his drive-by.

Kristen picks up her gin gimlet, catches my eye as she sips on it.

“We’re great,” I say, and swig the rest of the melted ice in my glass of Jameson.

miscellany

Blog for Lesbian Health Day

nlhs_smallLet’s talk about our health.

Personally I am extremely grateful to have grown up in a culture where the women’s health movement had already had significant effects and waves. I went to teen-positive health centers for my first annual exams and birth control prescriptions, I went to queer-positive centers after I came out who didn’t blink twice when I checked “lesbian” on the forms.

And, honestly, Lesbian Health and Women’s Health are big – huge! – topics on which I am not so well-versed. Breast cancer, cervical cancer, HIV prevention, the myths around lesbians being less susceptible to STIs, safer sex practices, gender discrimination, transphobia … these are huge topics, each of which are worthy of their own examination.

And lucky for us, there are many wonderful people working within these fields to make it more lesbian-inclusive, queer-inclusive, gender-inclusive.

Today is Blog for Lesbian Health Day in honor of the upcoming National Lesbian Health Summit taking place March 6 through 8, 2009, in San Francisco. It’s only $30 registration for both days.

(Anyone have any plane-fare hookups? I’d love to go, but can’t afford to actually get there. Note to self, get an airline sponsor.)

I’ve been in touch with Cat, one of the organizers of the conference, and she writes:

Instead of it being just a boring conference, we want to use it as a place to build grassroots, community-based conversations on our health and what health issues affect us. AND most importantly, how we can be leaders in championing our health and getting TPTB to pay attention to our health. This is a critical moment in our nation’s history and we want to make the most of it.

The thing that is probably #1 on my list about health, as a, ahem, sexually active queer person, is STIs and safer sex. It’s something that I always intend to write about more here, to address issues how to keep your toys clean, reminders to wear gloves and use dams and condoms, but it’s a topic that – again – is HUGE, and I tend to feel like I need to do a whole bunch of research on something before I write it up, and I can’t seem to make the time to do the research. (I do practice safer sex, and I try to include it in my write-ups … but that’s not quite the same as opening up a specific dialogue about it.)

So let me take this little opportunity to say: EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT SAFER SEX. There are many ways to do this. I recommend Scarleteen – though it is geared toward teenagers, the information is clear and straightforward, basic, and in-depth, and I often use it as a resource when I come across health questions that I can’t answer.

So, instead of writing about my own experiences with the healthcare systems (which have been mostly positive, actually) or speculating too much about the community questions, I want to ask you:

What health issues are you concerned about? For yourself and for your community?

What information do you need to make better decisions about your health?

And what experiences have you already had with your health and the healthcare world (the good, the bad, the ugly)?

What do health issues do we need to take on and how?

How can we better grapple with how we form who we are (allowing for all of the ways we see ourselves) and let that lead our conversations on health?

What do you want to see this summit address?

Do you want to take them to task for calling it the Lesbian Health Summit? Is it welcoming to your particular identity?

If you’d like, leave your stories in the comments, or write it up on your own blog – and please do leave a link to what you write here.

Register online for the Summit now, or visit their website for more information.

dirty stories, real life

I woke her in the middle of the night

Kristen spent the night in my bed on Saturday, and by five am, after waking up every half-hour or so half-hard and wishing it was morning so I could fuck her again, I give in. Shifting against her, I roll us both from our lazy sleep-embrace to her back, one of my legs between hers, right hand on the soft hair between her legs, fingers on her lips, pressing gently, caressing, opening.

I’d asked her about waking her up to fuck her – I wouldn’t presume to do it without permission. Not only did she agree, the shift in her eyes and near imperceptible movement of her hips betrayed that she would very much like it if I did so.

Her body responds immediately, swelling and cresting, though she can barely open her eyes. My mouth at her ear: “I can’t resist you any longer.”

She moans sleepily, little murmurs, body beginning to writhe, not awake. Little nips with my teeth on her neck, just enough for her to feel, not enough to wake her fully. I like her bodily responses, what her animal brain let her do while most of her cognizant self is still off.

She starts moving her thighs apart, hips circling and pulsing a little, pressing against my hand. She is so responsive. I work my fingers inside, slowly, finding the angle, finding that spot she loves, finding the sweet O of her mouth with mine.

Those small, thin moans every time she breathes get inside me like smoke. No comprehensive sound, just small ohs and mmms as her body moves.

Sweet nothings in her ear as my fingers are slick, in and out of her: “Those little noises you make get me so hard … the way your hips move when I’m thrusting against you … I want my cock in you again …”

She gasps, thickens, swells in response. I don’t let up. My mind is racing and I nearly keep talking, but she’s still practically asleep, barely hears me. I let my fingers trace a V along her lips to her clit, sticky and slick with the wet of her. She gasps, shudders, tenses at the stomach and thighs, pulses and shakes, moans louder.

Again, I flick my fingers over her clit, a little harder, steady, steady. Her arms come up around my neck. I bring my mouth onto hers again, she kisses back this time, deep and hard, and I bite her lip.

I pull away to better focus on her clit which is hard and pulsing under my fingers and she gasps, eyes wide open, wide open, as she comes, shuddering, moaning, gasping.

She wraps herself around me when her body calms, humming in low satisfied tones, her eyelids already heavy, closing again, laying back on the pillow as my hands trace her skin.

I sigh too, shift my weight off of her and she turns with me to snuggle against my shoulder, arms pulled in close to her body between us, mine around her.

We slumber a few more hours. Resting, until I wake around ten and cannot resist any longer, must have her again.

reviews

Review: Leather Paddle

leather-paddleNew Year’s Eve has inspired me to revive this review of the Spartacus Leather Paddle, which somehow slipped through the review cracks this past year. I think I got this in the late summer last year, and I’ve had very few opportunities to try it out, which is why I’ve been waiting to finish the review.

The paddle itself is lovely – 16″ long, thin enough that it bends easily but still solid enough to make a very satisfying smack.

I don’t really like the handle … it’s a little uncomfortable to grip, since it’s so flat. The edges dig into my palms a bit. Someone suggested I wrap it with something (tape? fabric?) but I haven’t done that yet. I may do, especially now that this paddle and I are getting along quite well, and I’d like to spend some more quality time with it.

I recently took my wooden paddle to a birthday party, and I’d nearly forgotten how completely hard and stiff the paddle is – I can’t hit as hard as I’d like because it doesn’t absorb the blow at all, unlike the slightly-bendy leather which bounces a bit more, so I can hit harder. And, yeah, I like that.

Spartacus Leathers, in case you haven’t heard of it, has a store in Portland, Oregon in addition to their online store. Aside from being a retailer of various products, they create their own leather products … and oh they are beautiful. This paddle is sturdy and luscious, and I very much look forward to using it more.

(Surfing around on the site I’ve just found that you get your very own Mistress Bear with orders over $100. That is really tempting, they have way more than $100 of gear that I am coveting.)

The paddle also comes as a black and blue frat paddle (but I think they’re the same other than color). And did you see everything on clearance?