I’ve had a few new Eye Candy submissions lately, but generally I’m very low.
If you’ve got a hottie boifriend, butch buddy, best friend, drag king, or other general female masculinity photographs, and want to be featured as eye candy, email me or tag photos with “sugarbutch” on Flickr and make sure they are set to be available with a Creative Commons license.
Ginny from Liverpool, UK writes,
“Sent to brighten my day at work.
But the only one of the photos that was ‘work safe.'”
The most recent Pretty Things Press anthology called Lipstick on Her Collar and Other Tales of Lesbian Lust
I love lesbian erotica books … I think for many queer women, it’s one of the first places where we begin to access the languages of lesbian desire and sexuality, and as such they can be very powerful, transformative books, not just jerk-off material but also an introduction to entirely new concepts and ideas. I’ll never forget some of the early books that did that for me, like Breathless: Erotica
I’m a bit picky about my erotica these days, though. There’s more and more of it out there, and what turns me on is butchtop/femmebottom aligned writings, fairly exclusively. I can read through other anthologies and appreciate the writing, the characterization, the plot lines (no, seriously!), but I don’t tend to find myself putting the book down to go jack off.
This book, though, has an impressive number of butch/femme scenes. This is partially because, I imagine, the anthology includes “lipstick” in its very title, thereby encouraging more of the gendered play than many lesbian erotica anthologies usually include.
Three, in particular, stand out: Kingdom Cum by Scarlett French, about a femme seducing a drag king after a drag show; Femme Princess by Ellen Tevault, about a femme in a bed death relationship who answers a butch’s personal ad and reawakens her sexual desire, seeming to uncover her own gender fetish at the same time; and Now and Then by Barrett Bonden, about a butch’s return to her long-term femme lover, which ranges from quite smutty and dirty (especially in the dialogue – “Get up on the bed, slut. Hands and knees, ass in the air.”) to very sweet and long-term lesbionic.
Don’t get me wrong, the whole book is not butch/femme oriented stories. But there are a few great ones, as well as some femme-femme scenes, a decent story dealing with body ability where one of the characters is in a wheelchair (its inclusion made me realize how very little body-ability diversity there is in these types of anthologies, in general), some strangers, some long-term lovers, and a couple of my favorite lesbian authors, including Skian McGuire and Rachel Kramer Bussel.
It seems Alison Tyler is doing some great books with Pretty Things Press, and I’m glad to see a lesbian anthology with more gender included in their catalog.
Seems like I kinda stepped in it with this entire intentional gender thing! Lots of comments and emails about that one.
(Almost as bad as I stepped in it when I suggested something like “I noticed your gender from across the room” as a pickup line. Yes, it sounds ridiculous. But there’s just no other way to say that without a) objectifying, and potentially offending or b) assuming a person’s gender and potentially offending. Though perhaps that’s speaking more to my underlying Issue of not wanting to offend people than it is speaking to getting someone’s attention by using gender as a flirtation device. Maybe the more appropriate line for most folks is just, “hey, I think you’re hot.”)
I think the mention of “unconscious” vs “conscious” gender are more accurate descriptors than “intentional” vs “natural” gender. I’ve already mentioned this, but: modern gender theory does not believe gender is “natural” at all, it says gender is socially constructed. It can be constructed consciously, or it can be constructed unconsciously.
But there are ways that I can be more conscious about the ways I carry myself. There are ways that I can study and understand how gender works in this highly, highly gendered society, and figure out and choose the ways I operate within it.
So, here’s a bit of a story about what that process looked like for me:
I was raised in a very feminist household. The rejection of traditional gender roles was instilled in me from very young, by my mother especially, who didn’t take my father’s name, never shaves, never wears makeup or dresses or skirts or heels, was primarily the one to mow the lawn and help me with my math homework, etc.
Though this was deep within my family values, I was particularly susceptible to cultural standards as a teenager (I think we all are, and I have some ideas about why I was in particular, but I won’t go into that here), and I ended up fairly gender-conformist, nearly married – to a cisgendered guy – for five years. I think I had to prove that for me, the model of grown-up relationships really wouldn’t work, that all that society says is actually untrue. Of course, for some people it works just fine to be female-bodied, feminine, and attracted to men – clearly, not so much for me. I think it was precisely because I suspected that this wasn’t true that I had to really prove it for myself.
I’m also firmly based in second wave feminism insofar as I believe every person’s unique life experience is valid and important. I believe each of us is already an expert on our own gender, our own lives. I believe we all have valuable, thoughtful things to add to the conversation of gender (or sexuality, or relationships) regardless of our supposed credentials or expertise or level of study.
That’s the thing about gender – we all have it, we all live in a particularly gendered society, we all have been raised with its influence.
Consciousness-raising groups (in my understanding) started for because there was no formal study of women or the female experience. (I can’t really even imagine a culture that assumed that women’s experiences were included in the male norm, a culture that had no feminist cannon, such a lack of sources to study and know and experience. Thanks, foremothers, for women studies, for feminist studies, for all the work you did!)
So C-R groups created their own sources, using the experiences of the women in the group themselves, treating each like a text, a source, from which they could learn, from which understanding could arise and blossom and grow.
This is how I see this writing project, this community, and all of you who participate and who engage with me – as part of a large consciousness-raising group, where we are all sharing ideas, resources, and experiences to gain greater understanding of our selves, our communities, and the world as a whole.
This too is where my love for narrative fiction overlaps, where reading someone else’s story enhances my understanding of the world, where I feel less separate and more connected and, ultimately, where every story has value, especially the voices to marginalized communities, experiences, bodies, and lives.
So: growing up in a feminist household with rejection of gender roles, then going out into the world and living in a hetero relationship where we were playing out very stereotypical gender roles, then coming out as queer – all this lead me to start studying feminist, queer, and gender theory, seeking out language, concepts, and similar stories to help me explain my own experiences. And within gender theory and studies, I finally found places to get some of my questions – gender roles, gender compulsivity, gender norms, gender within relationships, the intersection of sex & gender – articulated, and then answered.
Such as:
What is gender?
How does it work?
Why are we confined to a binary? Why don’t we have three or eight or fifteen genders?
How does the sex/gender binary function?
What purpose does it serve?
Who benefits? Why, how?
How does it get enforced?
How has it changed over the years?
How is it connected with race, class, sexuality, nationality, religion, etc etc?
And once I started getting ideas about how to answer these questions, I started asking more personal questions of myself, and where I fit in to this huge, permeating, practically invisible system of hierarchy, power, and value.
Such as:
How do I feel comfortable?
What makes me feel powerful?
How do I want my hair?
What looks good on my particular body?
What fits with the way I carry myself, how I treat others, how I see myself?
What type of gender am I attracted to?
How does this relate to my sexuality?
I was simultaneously starting to come into my own as butch, partly because of the lesbian initiation process of rejecting femininity and cutting off your hair (which worked for me, though certainly doesn’t work for all lesbians who go through this), and partly because I started immediately liking femmes who dated butches and who recognized a sort of masculine ‘energy’ in me.
Actually claiming the label and identity category of butch was a more difficult quest for me, one I’ve written about a few times, specifically in terms of masculine posturing and rejecting – as a feminist and lesbian – the things that I see are so problematic with compulsory masculinity in both cisgendered men and in masculine-identified women. (More on that another time.)
Regardless of my questions and hesitations about butch/femme roles and labels, the process was definitely underway. And as it has unfolded deeper and deeper, in more and more aspects of my life, I have found such a home in it, in ways that have been seriously transformative to the ways that I operate in the world.
The basic feminist principles of inherent equality, the wide range of human experience, and celebrating the self as it is are applicable to many, many aspects of gender exploration. But I’ve found that these principles aren’t quite so active in most of the lesbian communities. Yes, there are people doing this work, but we are not the majority – compulsory gender in lesbian communities is usually a sort of gender rejection, an androgyny.
And that works for many people – which is excellent! I will always say you should go with what feels good to you, what makes you feel sexy, powerful, beautiful. For many of us, it is not androgyny that makes us feel good about ourselves, it’s another type of gender expression. There’s a huge gender galaxy out there, a huge range of expression and celebration, and so much to play with.
I don’t pretend that I have all the answers to questions or issues on gender. I have concepts, ideas, and resources, and I have reached some understandings, about both the world and system at large (macro) and my own personal place within it (micro).
I also don’t think my answers will necessarily be your answers.
I encourage you to find your own answers. To ask these questions, to decide consciously where you want to be within this pervasive system.
There have been many of you who have emailed me or commented about my recent writings about conscious vs unconscious gender, and here’s the part where I start to actually take an opinion on this: I think it’s very important to discover, stumble upon, find, or create a conscious gender. Doesn’t matter how you come to it, really, but it does matter to me that we do.
What that conscious gender might look like, of course, is highly varied – perhaps all it’ll take is a moment’s consideration, and a recognition that yeah, I’m where I want to be, that’s enough for me. Maybe it’ll take years of deep exploration and personal omphaloskepsis and meditation and therapy. Maybe it’ll take reading lots of books about the subject, or lots of blogs. Maybe not.
I don’t pretend to know what that process looks like for everybody, all I know is how it looks for me – and how important it has been for me to go through that process, which is, obviously, why I am encouraging it in others.
Look, I know not everybody has the interest in this that I do. And I don’t think everyone needs to start a blog (that becomes their part-time job) and dedicate a big portion of your free time to studying how gender works and what it means to you personally, but I really do think we would begin to move forward if we have some small moments of awareness about gender, about compulsive behavior and categories, about discriminating against butches or femmes or trans folks or androgyny.
When we understand (at least a little) how the system works so that we can begin to see how we fit inside it, and we can be empowered to make the choices that are in our own best interests, rather than in the best interests of those for whom this system is designed to benefit.
But it’s not just that. It’s also because when everybody does better, then everybody does better. It’s also because sometimes I’m lonely out here doing gendered work with a small handful of community. It’s also because, though some small circles of consciousness-raising activists are happening, most gender is still compulsory and not letting up anytime soon. It’s because this binary compulsory gendered system hurts us. It’s because trans and gay kids are getting beat up and murdered. It’s because boys who wear dresses are shamed. It’s because tomboys who want to run around shirtless are shamed. It’s because women are not safe walking alone on the streets of Manhattan at night. It’s because I am not safe walking alone on the streets of Manhattan at night. And we should be able to be safe, I want us to be safe, all of us.
And plus? Underneath some of the hard work here, it’s really fun. It’s dress-up, it’s activism, it’s subversion, it’s sexy. It’s a deep celebration of you, of me, of our interaction with the world, and with each other.
if asked of the state of my heart
I would say:
(fill in the blank in a comment or in your blog)
As of 2/8/16 This product is no longer available at Babeland
I was just speaking about packing cocks, so now I’ll throw you a little review of the Undercover Harness from Babeland.
I’m in the market for a new harness. The harness I’ve loved for a few years now is slipping from it’s #1 ranks because it’s not staying tight enough, so when I had the chance to check this one out, I jumped at it.
I need a new good one.
I’m skeptical of two-strap harnesses, because I like how thin one-straps (aka “g-string style”) hit my clit while I’m fucking. But I love where my cock sits in this harness:perfectly over my clit. It’s slung low, and feels great.
It’s comfortable going on & off, no buckles, pulls on like undies. There’s something appealing about that, I guess because it doesn’t take as long to mess with and pull taut and get it sitting just right.
Great for packing under clothes, since it’s smooth, no big buckles to poke into tender or fleshy places.
At first, I thought this harness was going to be too small, as the elastic was tight and even cut into my hips a bit. But when fucking with it, the elastic was even a bit too stretchy (or maybe I fuck a bit too hard) and I didn’t feel the precision that I like, the straining against leather and feeling it pulling and pressing against my hips. I like it to be this push-pull dance of pressure, not just me and my sex partner, but me and my cock, me and my harness. There is some of that with this harness, and it does have a nice push-pull part because of the elastic.
There are some great things about this harness and I’m glad to have it, but it’s not quite The Perfect Harness. I’ll keep looking.
One of my particularly favorite sex toy stores sent me a slew of packing cocks to review – cocks that aren’t necessarily hard enough to fuck with, but which you can wear around and feel that weight between your legs, to tuck into jeans and rub up against your honey when you go out dancing, to get a little squeeze on the ride home, to fuck with gender, to feel more complete, to feel more powerful, just for fun.
Even before I begin this review, here are two cocks that Eden sells that I discussed with the fine sex educators at Eden which we decided that were not even worth reviewing because they’re awful toys.
The Futuristic Flexi-dong I did receive to review, but it’s made with this same substance. As soon as I took it out of its packaging I knew I could never insert it, and I didn’t even want to slip it into a harness and see how it packed because I didn’t want the material anywhere near my cunt. I didn’t even want to hold it in my hand! I stuck it back in its plastic bag, and I’ve barely even played with it. Sorry, Flexi-dong, but that’s a great big FAIL.
Moving on, though, to the fun stuff.
I am reviewing these packing cocks in four different categories: material (of which the above FAILED), packing, playing, and realisticness. 
Mr. Limpy – I know, I know, stupid name, it’s as if they have to camp-up the fact that people without penises are making their own, you know, because that’s a step UP in the hierarchy of gender power. Mr. Limpy is pretty darn cool. This material is Superskin, which, though porous, is non-allergenic and doesn’t leak chemicals like the Ultra Realistic. So that’s the material.
Mr. Limpy packs excellently. Mwah – it’s practically perfect. It’s very limp, obviously, but that means it fits so comfortably in just about anything I wore, from tight tight briefs to loose boxers by themselves. I’ll speak to packing straps when I talk about Mr. Right, below, but I do want to note that the easiest way to use Mr. Limpy is to just tuck him into some tight briefs. You just have to be slightly cautious if you go to pull your briefs down, for whatever reason – it’s possible that Limpy will tumble out, and that wouldn’t really be good. Not only might it tumble onto some dirty floor (public restroom), but it also might be very embarrassing to have your penis roll around on the floor.
I love the way this one feels; it’s lightweight, but still has enough of a tug when it sits in my briefs that every once in a while, I remember it’s there, and I feel … comforted by my little secret tucked away.
This is the packing cock that I reach for most weekends, it’s become part of my undergarments, like a binder.
Playing … uh, no. Unless you get a particular enjoyment of receiving blow jobs on a totally flaccid cock, this is not a cock to play with.
Mr. Limpy is realistic, to a degree, but it only comes in this funny cotton-candy pink color. I don’t mind the pink terribly, but partially that’s because it’s fairly close to my beige/caucasian color, close enough that when the lights are low it doesn’t look completely detached from my body. Still, people of color would probably be disappointed with the lack of flesh-tone, and some folks who don’t like pink (I know you’re out there) would probably be put off by that.
Next up is Mr. Right & his packing strap. This is, in many ways, the packing cock that everybody’s been waiting for, and of course it was made by the amazing Vixen Creations, who make some of the very best cocks out there, and are very gender-forward.
The material is silicone. That’s right, silicone. Silicone is pretty much the gold mine of sex toys, because it can be completely sterilized, it doesn’t carry funny leaking chemicals, it can be used with multiple people (because you can sterilize it in between). Aside from Silky, which is not silicone (sadly), I haven’t spent money on a cock that wasn’t made out of silicone in many years. It’s a really great material, it’s got a little give to it, though not as much as the ultra-realistic or elastomer or “vixskin,” but enough that it’s a little bit floppy.
It is very easy to pack with Mr. Right because you can pick up this fantastic packing strap by Aslan leather that was specifically made for Mr. Right. It’s elastic around the waist, so it has some give, and the back of the little pouch is leather. The problem with the strap is that the leather backing is quite wide. I prefer my balls to hang fairly low, almost between my legs, and because the leather is wide, it doesn’t fit there, it has to be worn higher. That’s a bit annoying, I’ve found.
You don’t need the packing strap to pack with Mr. Right, though – you can tuck it into your (semi-tight, I’d recommend) briefs and be good to go.
Also, because Mr. Right is silicone, it doesn’t have the give that the Superskin of Mr. Limpy does. I also find that I hang right, by which I mean, my cock tends to get tucked on the right side of my body at the crease of my hip. Mr. Right is much more rigid and can only really comfortably pack the way it looks in the photo, because that’s the way it’s molded
All that said, though, if you’re new to packing, you can probably get used to how Mr. Right feels – it’s just because I’ve been packing with other products and prefer my cock to feel certain ways that I have a bit of a hesitation here. Despite my critique here, though, It’s still probably the best packing cock out there, and I wouldn’t give it up, I’m so glad to have one in my toybox.
It’s kinda hard to play with Mr. Right. Sure, he’s a bit harder than Limpy, but he’s still not hard. At best, you could probably give/receive a blow job, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask someone to suck such an unhard cock, even for a review. Sorry, just too awkward and a little ridiculous of a request.
Mr. Right is the most realistic of all the cocks I reviewed. It comes in vanilla (pictured, with a nod to acknowledging the race-hierarchy), caramel, and chocolate colors, which are a pretty good range of human skin-tone. The flexibility isn’t perfect – it doesn’t have the hardness of Silky or the softness of Limpy – but it’s a great middle.
Last, but certainly not least: my buddy the Silky. Those of you who have been reading me a while know how much I love this cock, so it’s kind of biased of me to even attempt to review it here, but I’ll try to put it in terms of comparison against the other two.
The material is elastomer, which is pthalate-free (whew!) but still porous, and must be used with a condom every time, because it can’t be sterilized. Keep it clean, people!
It packs well. It doesn’t pack as comfortably as either of the other two cocks, meaning it is bulky in the trousers, and sometimes the base is kind of awkward. It’s semi-hard because it has an internal spine, but that’s also part of what makes it great. The elastomer material is actually quite squishy and gives a little at a squeeze of a hand or mouth, it’s just the spine which makes it a little more awkward to pack with, because it doesn’t mold against the body in the same way. The spine, though, means that it can bend in just about any direction that you like, so I can (and often do) hang right and tuck this under whatever harness strap I’m using to hold it on.
Oh, you do kind of have to use Silky in a harness. It wouldn’t really sit in your briefs comfortably, and it doesn’t fit in packing straps (usually packers are held in packing straps by their balls slipping into a little pouch). I recommend a really small harness like Bare as you Dare because it’s such small material under clothes. Many of the leather ones are hot and uncomfortable when wearing under slacks or jeans.
It plays – oh gosh, does Silky play. It can be bent slightly up to have a wonderful g-spot curve, which I like. It’s a fabulous size for a blow job cock, not too big, but still significant. I’ve found that it’s a very easy size for most girls to take, not too big, not too small (though for marathon sex days I tend to find that girls want something slightly bigger, eventually).
It’s the only cock in this review that you can actually strap on and fuck with. Thank you, oh internal spine of Silky!
Here’s the catch though – the elastomer material combined with the internal spine means that the spine breaks, or even, sometimes that it actually rips through the material. I have never had the spine rip through the material, and I’ve been packing with this cock for about 4 years. I have had the spine break – in fact, I’m currently on my fourth Silky – but I have never had it break during sex. It’s broken when I’ve been packing (probably bending it the same way over & over doesn’t help), and broken when I fell asleep wearing it. But don’t let this discourage you: at this point, I just accept that the cock will last about a year, and then I’ll probably have to replace it. Yes, it’s more expensive than a silicone cock which is pretty much a lifetime guarantee, but you can’t pack-n-play with a silicone cock like you can with Silky.
There’s just nothing else out there that is comparable.
Silky is only somewhat realistic – it is fairly realistically shaped, I like the ridges on the cock, the head. But it has no balls (boo), and it only comes in funky colors – Eden carries blue and purple only. It also has a teeny little smiley face on the underside of the head, which I forget is there and tend to completely ignore. I’ve seen that commonly in from toys made in Japan.
Alright folks, there you have it – six cocks, three useless, three on a very nice scale of pack-to-play, all having their own pluses and minuses. Any questions?
If you pack, what do you use? If you decide to buy one of these to test out, leave a comment or write it up on your blog and share how it goes. We could use more discussion of this type of stuff in the genderqueer sex-positive blogosphere.
Some meditations on fishnets, and femmes:
Alison spoke of fishnets once upon a time, and well, speaking of fishnets … it got me thinking. I have a bit of a fetish.
I have a thing for legs anyway, which is why I try not to surf sites like Sock Dreams at work, because it really does get me hot & bothered in the way that porn does. Photos like this one of the raw-edged fishnet are so very erotic to my gender-fetish brain … I’m not sure exactly what it is about fishnets, but they are just so sexualized in this culture. They’re practically fetish gear, except that they can be worn by women to offices, to fancy parties, to the opera, as dress-up, and it’s also totally appropriate. Maybe that’s it – they can be good-girl stockings, can be fancy and seen as totally normal and even some sort of traditional femininity, but they can also be so dirty, in such a delicious way.
Then there’s that little criss-cross that the net actually does, and the way that garters – if you’re using them, and oh, that’s an entire other bit of lingerie to be in praise of – tug on the net and show just a little bit of strain in holding them up. The way that the stocking gets pulled, which is so very visible on nets where the little diamond shapes get pulled. I like the subtle force there. I like the subtle strain.
I think it might be also why I like corsetry and lacing and the criss-cross ribbons that are on some lingerie, too – it’s an implied little bit of bondage, this implied ribbon that I could use to restrain your wrists or ankles, that I could use to tie your knees up and back.
Plus there’s the idea that perhaps with just one little tug, the whole thing will unravel, and leave you bare.
It’s the hint of bareness that is so much more sexy than the bare revealing itself. There’s really something to that idea of leaving something to the imagination.
And then the skin. Because the thing about fishnets, which is not true of other stockings, is the bare skin that is exposed. I can feel these tiny spots of smooth under the pads of my fingertips, the direct contact is intoxicating. You’re not actually protected by these nets, not actually held in or hidden, your skin is revealed, fishnets aren’t about control-top or nude tinting or hiding, they’re about decoration, about texture.
And oh the implied force of it all. Because fishnets rip, they get holes, they just beg to be destroyed. The stockings are layer I can (possibly, maybe, if permitted, if our relationship allows it) rip through in order to expose your skin bare, use a sharp blade against your skin and pop through the tiny tied nets, use my teeth and pull until I hear the ripping.
For all you RSS readers out there, you probably didn’t notice the new animated gif in the sidebar with the Sugarbutch Chronicles swag prominently displayed.
Get I ♥ femmes, I ♥ butches, and the Sugarbutch Chronicles logo on mugs, hats, tee-shirts, sweatshirts, undies … all sorts. There’s also a few shirts that have “sugar” on the front and “butch” on the back (I like those).
And, of course, there’s some Sugarbutch Star merch as well … including some little one-inch buttons with a star, those are perhaps my favorites. I ordered some for the Sugarbutch Star contest finalists, and I custom-made a shirt for the winner, too. I’m planning to do another contest starting in August.
I’ve got some plans for a few more slogans I want to put up, too, but haven’t finished the designs yet. If you have particular requests, let me know and I’ll consider it!
Couple more things:
I updated the Community page; if you run a blog about sex, gender, or relationships, or queer politics, or gender activism, or if you comment often here, and I am not listing you, please do let me know and I’ll add your link. I don’t keep up with that list very frequently, mostly I’m using the Google RSS reader to share new and interesting sites and articles from around the web (that’s over in the left-hand sidebar).
Someone left a comment recently looking for a tux for a girl in New York City. Cookie writes:
My lady and I are getting married at the end of next year and I’m having an awfully hard time finding a tux to wear. I’m a curvy girl that would like a tux cut for a woman that will fit those curves. Do you know of any queer-friendly places in NYC to buy/have one made?
Any suggestions?
I slid my cock inside her swiftly and she took it easily. Let out a little cry, lifted her ankles around my hips. I was hungry. I could feel her opening, could feel how she could be filled.
“Get up,” I said after a while. I lifted myself off the bed and began switching to my other cock, the bigger one. “Turn over.”
She started to, up on her hands and knees, and I reached my arm around her hips and pulled her off the side of the bed, her pussy at my cock’s height perfectly. I took a palmful of lube and fucked her, hard, deep.
Moans and cries from both of us as I pounded into her. Fucks like that I swear I can feel my cock thickening, getting harder, being restricted and pulled into her cunt by her tight rings of muscles. She’s discovered that she can lift her legs off the floor and wrap them around my waist when I fuck her bent over the edge of the bed if she has the right grip on her hands (because it’s just the right height), which gets my cock ever deeper.
I moved my right hand around to her clit and she shuddered, I took a small grip on my cock to test the lube and moved back to her clit, swollen like a berry on a vine, thick, slick, sweet. I moved my other hand to her hair, pulling and holding her body so I could fuck harder. Shifting my pace, slowing excruciatingly and she was shuddering and gasping, nearly thrashing on the bed.
Faster again, slightly tilting my pelvis to aim for her gspot, fingers working her clit and lips stretched taut as she thrust back against me. I felt her thighs shudder, once, twice, as she squeezed and gasped, then came, nearly yelling into the bed.
We disentangled, breathing hard, little sighs of pleasure. She pulled herself up lengthwise on the bed and I went to her, legs scissored around hers, hand in her hair, one by her hip, head to her breast. She rested her hand on the back of my head and kept it there, weaving through the short hairs on my neck. Her fingers began to unravel me, to pull me apart, so tender, and I let go.
“You’re so sweet to me tonight,” I said, pulling myself up so our faces were next to each other on the pillow.
“You never let me be.”
[ Is that true? Maybe. Maybe I’m doing something that she interprets as keeping her at a distance, as pushing her away. I don’t think that’s how I intend it (is it?), and sometimes I even wish she’d touch me more. I don’t wish it enough that I have asked for it (at least, not often, just once, the only time we showered together). ]We pillow-talked for a while. “Did you like flogging me?”
“Yes. Very much.”
Let me elaborate: flogging is tangible power. Energy sparkling and crackling up and down my arms, my shoulders, all through my back. Rhythmic breathing, rhythmic swinging, and everything becomes hyper-sensual, hyper-senstive. I can detect a change in the air current, can hear a door open across the apartment building’s hallway. I feel her breathing, feel her breath, can see it visibly moving through her body. I sense the depth of the blows: that one too light, still too light, ah yes just right. Keep it there. Keep it just there. Then suddenly – too hard, and she gasps. I want to pull back but I so love the way she whimpers and squirms, just a little pain, just a little uncomfortable, then her muscles release, her voice releases when I let up, and that’s it, that’s the moment I crave, the supple giving in, the letting go, the release of what you don’t even know you’re holding on to.
Let go, let go. You don’t need it. All you need is this beautiful body, this beautiful breath.
In pillow talk, the subject shifted to dominance, to submission, to force. She knows I like it when she struggles. She’d like to play with that more, she said. I’d like her to say no, I said.
Then, I’m not sure how it started, but it did. Kissing, probably; isn’t that always how things start?
It’s a blur. Me looming over her, using the weight of my body (I must have more than 50 pounds on her) to hold her down. Force her legs apart. And she let out a string of words: “No no no no no,” whimpering, softly, turning her head side to side into the pillow as she tried to get her wrists out of my grip, “no no no no.”
“Yes,” I whispered, firmly. “Oh yes.”
She arched her back, tried to kick me and I got my calf against her knee and my hips between her thighs. Both wrists in one hand and position my cock.
“You’re going to take it. I’m going to fuck you.”
“Nooo …” Was she crying now? Gasping and her face felt wet when I took a grip on her hair and force her mouth to mine. It scared me a little, maybe I was hurting her (is she in physical pain? Are her knees okay, her shoulders?), and it scared me that I liked how much she was resisting me. How much I liked it when she won’t let me in.
I raised myself arms-length from her momentarily and paused. “You’ve got a safeword now, little girl. You remember what it is?”
She nodded a little, meeting my eyes briefly, and they were almost calm. Dancing. I felt releif.
“I’m not going to stop unless you use it. You’re gonna be mine tonight. My girl.”
And I pushed my thighs up to open hers, my knees sliding under her to force her pelvis up, her legs apart. My weight was shifted forward on my forearm, holding her arms down. She resisted my attempts to kiss her and whimpered more, moaning a little, cries inciting some sort of pulsing urge in my core, my pelvis, my hands in fists, down to my toes where I pushed against the bed firmly.
I slid inside slow and she shuddered, gasped, chest heaved and sank into the pillows and she let out a moan despite herself.
“You’re my girl tonight. Mine.” I said into her neck as I closed my teeth against her tender skin to keep her there, an animal instinct and she can’t move without ripping herself.
“You’re my girl.” I said again. “Say it.”
I felt her breath on my ear, her fingers clawing at my shoulderblades as she pulled me to her as I pumped my hips against her, thrusting, pressing, circling, and she pulsed under me.
Just a whisper: “I’m your girl.”
“That’s right. That’s right, baby. Say it again.”
“I’m yours, I’m your girl.”
I brought my mouth to hers, and we slid into the fuck, rocked together. Rocked deep.
I don’t usually post partial stories, but I am looking at an afternoon of meetings and work which means I won’t get to finish this story until tonight, and I wanted to post it today. Part two will come tomorrow.
Friday night. My roommate was gone over the holiday weekend.
Penny wanted to be flogged.
I stripped her bare and shoved her against the brick wall in my bedroom. She’s smaller than me such that I can place my thigh against the bend of her hips so she can lean against me as I hit her. Not necessarily hard or solid, but subtle, so she feels supported.
I hit her with my hand a while first, bringing the skin on her ass to a nice baby pink color. I kept the flogger draped over my shoulder and let the leather brush her skin a while before taking grip on it and beginning to swing.
She’s been letting me hit her harder lately. Less afraid and more breathing into it, ever since that night of the sex party where I shoved her up against the wall, pushed her dress up, and used my bare hand.
I choked the flogger and let it fall. Left, then right. Working up a comfortable rhythm of backhand, fronthand, like a ping-pong player against a wall and a fast ball. She squirmed. Whimpered a little. Her skin darkened red.
I particularly like flogging the back, but Penny is small, and her ass has more to take the blows.
I gave a few full swings, just a couple, letting go of the choke hold and allowing my arm to swing freely. We were alone in my apartment. She started getting louder with her moans and cries.
“Just a few more,” I’d say, whisper, into her neck when I paused to run my hands over the sensitive skin of her ass and thighs. “It hurts, doesn’t it. But you can take it, just a few more for me, baby.”
She did, she took it so well. I whispered a comforting “shhhhh” when she cried out. “You’re okay, it’s okay.” She started releasing, breathing deep, muscles loosening. A few more swings on her ass, her thighs. Harder and I started grunting with the effort.
She flattened herself against the wall after a couple particularly hard strokes.
“No no no,” I said, coming up behind her and pulling her hips squarely back. “You keep your ass out. Give it to me. Yeah, that’s it.”
She pressed her cunt against the seam of my jeans where she could feel my hard cock straining, and let her lower back curve in that gentle arc.
“Good girl.”
She kept her head turned toward my sliding closet doors which are covered in large mirrors. She told me later she was watching me hit her. I could see her ass and legs reflected as she pressed her arms above her head against the brick wall, and I caught glimpses of me too, still clothed in jeans and a black tee-shirt, arms pulsing as I brought the flogger up and down, gathering the tails then bringing it up and down again.
Her knees were getting weaker, eyes shining but half-lidded as I turned her body and she took her hands from the wall, laying them around my neck as I kissed her, they were heavy, leaden, and she could barely lift them with her muscle strength.
“Darling, you were so good.” I said softly between kisses. I reached around and slid my forearm behind her knees, lifting her in a cradled embrace and carrying her to the bed, laying her slowly on the soft throw blanket I keep on top.
She sighed and kissed me as I let my hands roam her skin, soft touches down her sides, her thighs, her breasts and nipples, my mouth on her neck, her clavicle, her shoulders. When my hand found the V where her legs met she was wet, open, and spread her thighs for me. My fingers slid in easily. My dick pulsed a little. I teased her lips a moment but could barely wait.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, arms reaching up around my neck, oh I love that. “Fuck me, fuck me, oh baby fuck me please.”
I tore at my belt, the button and fly of my jeans, pulled my cock out.
RUFFLEBUTT: a night of femme performance at dixon place
One night only, featuring:
* the world’s hottest hula-hooping duet, Bitches with Barettes (Elizabeth Whitney and Lea Robinson);
* the Larry Flynt of avant-cabaret, Erin Markey
* the moral guidance of the Society for the Preservation of Promotion of Sapphic Social Mores (Rachel Kahn and Maggie Crowley);
* some anti-misogyny moustache advocacy from Ariel Federow.
Come one, come all: rufflebutts, fans of rufflebutts, the rufflebutt-curious, and everyone else who loves a good time.
at Dixon Place, the 10pm show on July 9th — call in fancy to work the next morning!
www.dixonplace.org * 258 bowery, 2nd floor * $15/12 students and seniors
Now, in Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
I kept wondering when gay people would start coming up. Especially when she starts discussing a guy whose genitals were “the size and shape of a navy bean,” (p159) I started wondering if that person was probably in fact intersexed, born with ambiguous genitalia. From what I can tell, this account was in the early 1900s, but I expected Roach to launch into some explanation of why someone might be born with small-to-minuscule genitalia and what and how they would be dealt with today (which would probably be with surgery, although that would depend on the awareness of your doctor). But no: no mention whatsoever of any sort of intersexuality or between-sexes options.
She discusses penile reconstruction and again, no mention of the science behind sex change surgeries like phalloplasties. Page 67 is the first place she even mentions homosexuality, and it’s only in passing, in describing Princess Marie whose husband, Prince George of Greece, was “a latant homosexual.” By page 188, her 2nd mention of homosexuality in parenthesis – “He had never had sex, never had a girlfriend (or boyfriend)” I was beginning to suspect that Roach doesn’t think of homosexuality as more than a tiny side-note.
Then, after reading through three chapters on male reproductive functions specifically (testicles, erectile dysfunction, and penis implants), we get to two chapters on women, “The Lady’s Boner: Is the Clitoris a Tiny Penis?” and “The Prescription-Strength Vibrator: Masturbating for Health.” She mentions a clit pumping device, and I found myself yet again thinking, wow, this subject leads directly into the field of trans men who opt against genital surgery but whom enhance their genitals – often their clit – with a small penis pump (or large clit pump) and encourage their clit to get larger, to become a tiny penis. That stuff is fascinating, and wouldn’t it be great if she lent her investigation, research, and accessible writing skills to that subject?
But again, no. No mention of anything remotely related. I know, these topics could absolutely be books unto themselves, but that she either a) ran into the material and deemed it completely unimportant, as to not even warrant a mention, or b) did not run into these studies or material at all, makes me think that she either wasn’t looking very hard or was deeply heterocentric in her research. If she did run across it, why not mention it? She didn’t have to go into the subjects in depth, especially because the topics of trans, gender, and homosexuality obviously intersect in well, pretty much every single place along the study of sexuality, but simply some acknowledgment of these things existing is, I think, necessary.
So, this is what I’m thinking about halfway through the book. I keep reading the chapters on the female genitals, and then the science of orgasm, and I come across female ejaculation in a footnote. I kid you not, the ONE AND ONLY time she mentions female ejaculation is in a footnote. A FOOTNOTE! A long footnote, comparatively, but still! Isn’t there more science to female ejaculation than simply one footnote? Maybe not – maybe that one footnote is seriously the only scientific study she could find on female ejaculation. But hey, isn’t that significant? Isn’t that an interesting cultural commentary on sexuality, where she’s spent almost an entire chapter on male ejaculation, sperm count, what it is made of, how far it shoots, how much comes out?
But Roach skips over all of this.
She does note, in a footnote again, on p197, that there are “351 ways to say penis … and only three for clitoris: bean, button, and the little man in the boat.” She goes on to make note that the “authors [of this study] felt this reflected society’s disregard of human pleasure, which is probably true, but I simply bemoan the lack of useful synonyms.” Well, the reason there aren’t ‘useful synonyms’ reflects the value in the culture, doesn’t it? It’s not as though we have any shortage of small, round objects in our lives – pennies, marbles, pearls, gemstones, pebbles come to mind. So what does it reveal about a culture that we don’t have a language to describe the primary source of female sexual pleasure?
That’s not what Roach is writing this book for, though, clearly. As I got into the last third of the book, though, I had to wonder: why is Roach writing this book? What’s her point? She doesn’t seem to do much except summarize scientific sex studies with a distinct lack of feminist, gender-positive, sex-positive (see chapter 10, “Masturbating for Health,” and her implied judgment when mentioning “Mr. Fred Jelly Dongs” and “Vibrating Port-A-Pussies” as examples of sex toys), and trans-inclusive perspectives. As I kept reading, I found myself wondering why it was I was trusting this person’s perspective, considering that clearly our values were in such different places.
By the end of the book, much as I had enjoyed her witty writing, I was convinced of it. She begins the last chapter describing a Masters and Johnson study called Homosexuality in Perspective in 1979, which actually addresses directly what lesbian and gay men do in sexual partnerships and how it compares to hetero couples. The penultimate paragraph, though, takes a turn for the worst when Roach writes:
Sadly, the main thing people recall about Homosexuality in Perspective … is that Masters and Johnson spent the second half of the book touting a therapy for helping homosexuals convert to heterosexuality. The team went out of their way to assure readers that they screened clients carefully, accepting only those who had turned to homosexuality after a traumatic experience with heterosexuality (rape or abuse, for instance).
… But let’s give Masters and Johnson their due. … The laboratory study of sex has never been an easy, safe, or well-paid undertaking.
Yes, they are due some credit in modern sexuality studies, certainly. But hey, why don’t we address this blatant homophobia? Is Roach assuming that we are so far beyond homophobia in our culture, and in her readership, that we don’t even need to address how damaging and dangerous perspectives like those are? Perhaps Masters and Johnson were under other pressures from homophobic fundors, perhaps there were political difficulties getting human subjects review board approvals for seemingly “encouraging” homosexuality – there could be various explanations for why they spent half of their book discussing the “cure” and how to “convert” homosexuals.
And then, to end the entire book with these paragraphs, given the blatant disregard of gay and lesbian sexuality, sex-positivity, or progressive gender understandings, leaves me with an awful sense of injustice.
Mary Roach, I love your writing. I really do. But there were many ways to validate and acknowledge perspectives that you do not understand without actually incorporating our experiences into your study of human sexuality. You were so very broad that you missed some huge, gaping holes. Hope your next study is more honed, thoughtful, and inclusive.
I did not ever mean to attempt that there is some hierarchy in having an “intentional gender” verses a “natural gender.” Actually, I’m kind of mad that anything I wrote even sparked those two differentiating terms, I really don’t like that distinction.
Contemporary gender theory says that there is no such a thing as “natural” gender, that all gender is a performance of some sort of impression of what gender is, of what physical cues for mating, attraction, sex, and physical communication between people.
Some people spend time studying gender, some do not. One of these things is not better than the other. I am not better because I study gender than someone who does not. It’s just something that I do, something others do not do.
I find it to be a fascinating, near endless, relevant, and insightful pursuit. But others may disagree with me – others, still, say that flyfishing, or American football, or taxidermy, are fascinating, near endless, relevant, and insightful pursuits; I don’t necessarily find that any of those things resonate with me, so I don’t study them.
But in choosing a romantic partner, a sex partner, a (dare I say it) girlfriend, I have some requirements. Yes, I know my standards are probably ridiculously high. But what can I say; I haven’t been single all that long (Callie & I broke up just over a year ago – it continues to feel like it’s been five years, three years, two years at least!), and I am not in any hurry to get heavily involved (read: monogamous) with someone. One of the requirements that I have – at this point – is that someone I date have things to add about all of this gender stuff that I kick around on a near-daily basis. I’d like those conversations to be collaborative, or at least complimentary. A slow building of an understanding of how this specific language of physical codes and symbols works.
I’m going to say it again, here, just in case it wasn’t clear enough: there’s nothing wrong with not being “intentional” with one’s gender.
I mentioned Penny’s lack of intentional gender not with judgment but thinking that this is something that I require in my relationships, and that perhaps it is not an interest she wishes to spend her time on and explore. We are both interested in sex, my interest and expertise is gender, and her interest and expertise is in relationships (she wants to go into couple’s counseling). Actually, I probably know about as much about relationships as she does about gender – I know quite a bit, in some ways, I’ve read many books, I’ve taken classes, I’m even familiar with much of the psychological theory, but it’s less my field of focus. Ditto to her and gender. She’s read the books, taken the classes. But it’s not necessarily a tool she uses to see the world on a daily basis.
As a small footnote, I had that difficult conversation with her on Friday, and we spent a lovely weekend together. We talked openly, things deepened, we got closer. I was half-expecting things to end, but instead, they got much better.
I’m working on writing up some sex stories from the weekend. I’m increasingly impressed with Penny’s kink, eager exploration, drive, and sexy fucken mouth … as a friend of mine said tonight, not only is she keeping up with me, she’s giving me a run for my money.
In celebration of my ticket to the Femme Conference, I thought I might dig out this photo of The Femme Top, who sent this to me after my call for birthday photographs. She lives in Chicago, now, where the conference is being held.
“They’re not strappy sandals, but my legs and my bruise (if you’re gonna play with other tops…) can make up for that.”
“This lovely buxa – Chicana butch – is E-lo.
She loves to make art, listen to cumbias and norteñas,
and to play butch/femme dress up with me! She’s oh soo yummy!”
– from Laura, who also sent in the Womyn in Construction eye candy
I’d like to clarify something about that last request for support: most of my income is not made in this freelance/fifty-dollars-an-hour variety. I think what I said was a bit misleading. (If I did make my money that way, I might call that my career and not keep up a part-time job that paid me nothing.)
What is going on is this: I have a 9-to-5 office job in midtown Manhattan (like thousands of others). I spend my days knee-deep in financial prospectuses, calculating portfolio performance data, creating pitchbooks – I’m a graphic and layout designer. (Actually, the only reason I’m qualified to do that is because I had websites and blogs online for the past twelve years, and I’ve taught myself everything I know.)
Lately, I’ve been becoming slowly aware, however, of my real talents and my real worth. Call it a quarterlife crisis, a Saturn Return by-product. It’s also self-awareness and self-knowledge, it’s asking for what I’m worth, and not accepting less-than. I’m lucky this way: I’ve had contacts, I’ve had support, I’ve had access to education (not that my degree in gender helped me get a job in finance, that was all purely computer/design skills, a hobby of mine through college).
Sugarbutch has done nothing but grow, and I have more ideas than I can keep track of. And while I made it sound like my hobbies – fucking girls, processing with my friends, watching porn – are what fuels this site, there’s a lot more to it than that. The July masthead I just posted took three hours and three dozen shots before I got one that was good enough. I research HTML and database coding issues, plugins for greater productivity, I network with other bloggers and sex bloggers, I strategize, I watch my statistics (but not overly-obsessively), I create advertisements, I write dozens of drafts, I write and rewrite and rewrite and edit and rewrite.
I’ve been keeping more track of just how much I put into Sugarbutch lately, as I’m attempting to get better control of my time. I really had no idea how much I was working on it. And as I’ve been realizing how much time I spend on it, and how I don’t get any monetary compensation from it, I find myself asking: what would I be doing with my time if I wasn’t writing Sugarbutch? I’m not saying that to freak you out, but honestly, I can’t afford to be spending all my free time writing this site. I’m stretched very thin, easily tipping over into too-stressed-to-function, and I need to find a balance.
I love this work. I do this work purely out of the love of it. I don’t do it because I expect to get paid or make a living this way, but people in my life lately have been encouraging me to see if it might be possible to do so. Maybe, if Sugarbutch starts actually paying me for the part-time schedule that I spend on it, I can downgrade my dayjob to being part-time. Maybe eventually I could work on Sugarbutch full-time! Maybe it would support me! That seems impossible – but hey, I am putting it out there to the universe.
Imagine how much more I could do here if I wasn’t spending eight hours a day on financial pie charts and stock holdings! I mean really, is that contributing to the world? Is that subversive and progressive and messing with compulsory heteronormative paradigms? (It is, insofar as that job allows me to work on my Real Work, which is this site. Maybe I should put an ad up for my company to say thanks, hah.)
It’s hard to ask for money. It’s hard to figure out what I’m worth. I may have made it sound like I make $50 an hour, but I don’t – what I’m saying is, the work I do on Sugarbutch, I give away, grateful that there is anyone there to receive it and add to the discussion at all. But I am beginning to sell this same work, writing articles, web and logo design, and blog setups and consultations, and I am beginning to understand what it’s worth, what people will pay for the expertise I bring here. I’m beginning to see the ways that I can make steps toward making this work – my Real Work, all along – my full-time job.
I know how blessed I am to be in this position, I really do. I’m so grateful for this site, this community, this audience, for everyone who visits and emails and comments and links to me and reads my ramblings, for everyone who’s told me that something I said connects with them. What more is there, really, than displaying my inner emotional, psychological, and sexual life, and to have someone say not only, wow, I get it, but wow, your understanding of that has altered my understanding, too.
So all this monetizing is an experiment – let’s see if I can actually make enough money to focus on this job, my Real Job, my real (dare I say it) purpose. It’s a custom-made dream job, just for me, after all.
Maintaining Sugarbutch Chronicles has become my part-time job. I spend 10-30 hours on it every week, at least, and I spend many more hours working on it in indirect ways – reading books about sex, watching porn, processing relationships with friends, discussing relationships, listening to podcasts, reading blogs, participating in sex & gender & queer cultural events, going on dates, and hey, even fucking.
All of those things contribute to the work that I do here.
And I feel incredibly blessed that what I do is well received. The daily traffic here continues to grow, and I’m trying to keep up with all the requests, ideas, product reviews, features, articles, and topics, but sometimes I just can’t – I have a dayjob, after all, and friends that I do like to see sometimes – it takes a lot of work to keep this site going.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve added some actual ads in my sidebar, some web-based merchant affiliates, and, now, a donation button if you feel like becoming a benefactor. I’m also adding some “Sugarbutch Swag” merchandise in the (near!) future.
Here’s some ways you can support this site:
1. Support my advertisers
I don’t get a lot of these coming through, but when I do (upper left sidebar), click through them and look around. Show your support of the folks who choose to advertise here, perhaps they’ll decide it was useful to them and they’ll advertise again.
2. Support my affiliates
If you shop at Eden Fantasys, Babeland, or JT’s Stockroom, consider using the links in my posts or sidebar to access the site. It won’t change anything in your transaction, but a small part of the sales will go to me, and that helps keep this site in business. If you belong to any web-based porn sites like the Crash Pad Series, Good Dyke Porn, or I Feel Myself, consider going through the links in my sidebar as well. I get a few (teeny tiny) kickbacks through renewals and sign-ups, and it supports what I do here.
3. Personal donations
Donors will be rewarded with Sugarbutch swag, custom smut, autographed photos of me (just kidding), a kiss, or lots of gratitude (to be determined at my discretion).
Here’s one way to think of it: I charge more than $50 an hour for my freelance work in writing, web design and web development. So, donating:
$2 pays for a new pen
$12 pays for a new notebook (I go through 1-2 a month)
$25 pays for me to respond to one comment and answer one email
$50 pays for a average-length post that is simply my personal opinion ramblings (one hour)
$100 pays for a full-length post with links and resources, which requires research (two hours)
$200 pays for the hosting costs of this domain for one year
$1000 pays for my time writing, editing, researching, designing, coding, and maintaining this website for one week
Or, if you’d like to think about it another way, you can support my romps through New York City with pretty girls, which inspires my smut writing, which, in turn, gets you off:
$2 buys a pretty girl a daisy
$12 buys a pretty girl some roses
$25 buys drinks for me & a date
$50 buys dinner for me & a date
$100 buys drinks, dinner … and brunch the morning after
$200 buys a night on the town and a trip to the sex store
$1000 buys a weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods where there’s no Internet, only a pretty girl to play with, which will renew my spirits and enable me to manage my full-time job (which pays the bills) in addition to this unpaid part-time job (which I love).
(I can see it now … dating with sponsors! I show up on the date and hand the girl a flower (“this flower was sponsored by”), go to drinks and dinner (“this glass of wine was sponsored by”), give her a good night kiss (“this kiss was paid for by”) … hah! I’m joking, of course. That’s not exactly the kind of sponsorship I’m looking for here.)
Just some ideas … of course I’ll gladly accept donations in any amount. Special benefactors will absolutely be rewarded above and beyond just their access to this site.
Use the donation button in the left sidebar.
4. Merchandise …
… to be announced, but rest assured, it is forthcoming. I’ve had some requests and I think you’ll like what I’m coming up with. I’m going to need some models for the Sugarbutch Swag eventually.
So, that’s it, for now.
I’m very open to suggestions. If you have particular things you want to see here, ideas, requests, input, feedback, I’ll always listen. I won’t promise I’ll take your advice, but hey, I’ll listen. Email me anytime at aspiringstud(at)gmail.com or leave a comment anywhere.
As always, you can subscribe to Sugarbutch in a RSS reader to follow along with my sex, gender, and relationship adventures in the future. That supports me, too.
A few of you have asked about the Sugasm and why I post it … basically, in order to be part of the Sugasm, blog writers submit one of their entries from the past week and then everyone who submits votes for their top favorites. When the three are chosen, the weekly Sugasm roundup is released, and everyone who participates is required to repost the top links of the week as a thank you for their link being included in the Sugasm roundup. Basically, it’s a way for sexbloggers to show off what they’re writing, to feature the posts that we think are the best, and to direct readership to some of the best smut on the net.
It is a major source of visitors and readers from the sexblog sphere. Sugarbutch’s niche is kind of at the intersection of feminist blogs, lesbian blogs, gender blogs, and sex blogs, and as this blog continues to grow, I am continually attempting to encourage the overlap of all of those spheres.
This Week’s Picks
More Sugasm | Join the Sugasm | See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.
My Favorites:
June was supposed to be a relaxing month after the chaos of May, but it was quite busy, with Pride celebrations and the PSI workshop.
Sex:
Gender:
Relationships:
Still a few Penny stories …
Miscellany:
July’s masthead came from a reader who mentioned in passing that I’m (temporarily, at least) on her list of celebrity five. Yes, that is my handwriting, and my fingers, and a carefully chosen pen from my slightly obsessive pen collection.
It’s actually pretty hard to come up with a list of butches … most of those who Penny, Muse, Lee, & I brainstormed were musicians rather than actresses, seems there’s more of us in the music scene.
In case you can’t quite see it clearly, the list above reads:
Hopefully it’s clear that I don’t know if these folks necessarily classify themselves as butch, but they are in the female masculinity section of the gender galaxy, so they made this list.
I’m told that this originated with perhaps a Seinfeld episode, but I can’t seem to find a link to that (youtube, anybody?). What I did find, in going through some old journals of mine, is a link to dooce’s post on this once upon a time, and my own (old!) List of Five.
I decided it needed updating. It included. Here’s what I came up with as of today:
1. Maggie Gyllenhaal
2. Alyssa Milano
3. Tina Fey
4. Audrey Tatou
5. Gillian Anderson
Who’s on your list? Butches, femmes, both, neither?
a) July’s masthead will be up soon, I haven’t perfected the photograph yet. If you have ideas for future masthead taglines, or photos that you’d like to see featured, now’s the time to tell me!
b) Call for photographs – butches, bust out your swimsuits. After that butch breasts/bras feature, I’ve been thinking about butch suits. It is summer now, after all, and I betcha most of us aren’t in bikinis (mmmm bikinis) or one-pieces. Let’s see how you do it up at the beach or at the pool. Email aspiringstud at gmail.com with your photographs, preferably high quality, at least 300x500px. Include your name, a little byline if you want, what you’re wearing and why.
c) For the record? Lesbianism is not a “lifestyle,” and to call it such is belittling. It’s a sexual orientation or sexual identity.
Yet another case in point: Butch, skinhead, wife-beating, pint drinkers? “Butch, femme, dyke – what kind of lesbian are you? Jeni Quirke explores the negativity surrounding lesbian stereotypes.”
Hey, sounds like a pretty good idea, exploring negative lesbian stereotypes, yeah? Right away, I’m skeptical of her inclusion of “butch” in that title, but I’m curious. Let’s read.
[L]esbians and bisexual women are also guilty of holding stereotypical generalisations and assumptions about each other based on appearance and personality. The words ‘dyke’, ‘baby-dyke’, ‘lipstick lesbian’, ‘pretend lesbian’ and ‘political lezza’ are too often thrown about the lesbian community, at work, in the pub or even from a friend to a friend in a jokey and cheeky way.So why is this still happening, in a supposedly very tolerant and gay friendly society? It’s quite straightforward for all involved – stereotypes[.] … [W]hy do lesbian and bisexual women also carelessly use the terms ‘butch’, ‘femme’, ‘dyke’[?] … Is it internalised homophobia? … most women don’t even realise they have it or are displaying it.
So, when words to describe lesbian identity categories – such as dyke, baby dyke, and lipstick lesbian – are used by heterosexual or gay men who are excluded from and based in ignorant assumptions about the group, it is because of stereotyping, but if lesbians actually use these terms, it is from a place of internalized homophobia.
The use of words such as ‘dyke’, ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ from a lesbian individual or group are almost always meant in a negative way. Often, the only positive times you will hear the words spoken will be from a lesbian who is referring to herself, such as ‘Yeah I’m a butch dyke, but so what? It’s who I am.’ For the individual and for onlookers this proud and defensive statement will seem a very noble and bold thing to say. This it is, but it could also encourage the use of such stereotypes by heterosexual and non-heterosexual people.
So here she’s saying, when I define myself and call myself what I want to be called, when I reclaim the words for myself, it appears to be “very noble and bold,” but really it’s encouraging stereotypes. Who cares if it’s empowering to me in a development of my own gender identity, in putting myself in a historical and cultural context where I recognize the gendered struggles of my foremothers and forefathers and and forebabas and forepapis, really it’s just an invitation to oppress me. Not buying it.
If we are using offensive terms to one another in our own community, then what chance is there that straight people and gay men will stop using them? Are we re-enforcing the terms? And if so why are we doing this to each other and to ourselves? … Possibly the thought that ‘stereotypical’ lesbians such as ‘butch dykes’ are re-enforcing people’s generalisations and giving lesbians a bad name. … Could it be that society on the whole has become addicted and accustomed to using labels or labelling[?]
So now this author claims that butch dykes are giving lesbians a bad name and reinforcing stereotypical lesbianism. Oh, I recognize this tune.
And also, a word about labels: where we are in our cultural identity history, right now, in the West in the early 21st century, we reject labels. Pretty much entirely. Constantly, people are saying “don’t box me in,” “don’t restrict me,” “I’m bigger than that box,” “I’m more than a label,” et cetera. We are not addicted and accustomed to labels. I absolutely think it’s true that labels can be restrictive and limiting when applied without any leniency, and I think it’s true that culturally, we used to have more of a sense of defining people by their gender, age, race, economic status, ethnicity, family history, class, social status, religious beliefs, et cetera – by all of the factors of social hierarchy. But this is precisely what the various activist movements of the 20th century have been working to change, and in many ways, it absolutely has changed. Labels are generally now seen as bad and restrictive.
The well-known and common female stereotypes such as femme , butch and dyke are only there so other people and sometimes even ourselves use to categorise all the ‘types’ or ‘breeds’ of lesbians neatly away into a fileable drawer. [Emphasis added.]
Oh, now I’m just sad. The only reason butch exists is so others – or “sometimes even ourselves,” (implying, of course, how sad that is, that our internalized homophobia is so bad that we limit ourselves so awfully) – can categorize us?
Goddammit, this is just so inaccurate. There is a long history of butch, femme, and genderqueer WARRIORS who are changing laws, making strives, marching in protests, fighting for rights, being visible, working hard, raising kids, making families, contributing to thriving communities, loving, living, and being ourselves.
And now, this perspective of the author of this article becomes even more transparent: the things she is saying here are flat-out gender-phobic. Probably out of ignorance, rather than intentionally malicious, but still. This author clearly cannot imagine that any femme, butch, or dyke would ever be authentically empowered by these labels (as opposed to falsely empowered through internalized homophobia) or claiming them out of some sort of intentional, conscious, educated, contextualized narrative of queer culture, life, identity, and empowerment.
I haven’t even started about the power of reclaiming words, here, which this author completely discounts as even remotely possible. Yes, the word “dyke,” for example, has been used by outsiders to marginalize and oppress people within that group. But part of the process of legitimizing that identity is to take the words that have been used to oppress us and revision them to be valuable, which, by proxy, revisions the identity as valuable as well. This also deflates the potential of the insult: if the word no longer has any negative connotations, and someone shouts “dyke!” from across the street, we can recognize that he’s a) being blatantly and ridiculously homophobic, b) attempting to insult us, and c) stupid and ignorant if he thinks homophobia is acceptable. It’s much easier for this type of encounter not to sting, and not to be taken seriously, when we are used to throwing around the words that are attempted to be used as insults.
Aside from that, there’s the linguistics of it all: “lesbian” sounds like the technical term, like dentifrice instead of toothpaste. It sounds like something you could contract or pick up, it’s long – three syllables – and fairly awkward in the mouth. “Dyke,” however, is short, powerful, with strong, shit-kicking consonants that pops on the tongue. Stronger, tougher, thicker, more powerful.
The author of this article closes with this:
We should all join and work together to end other people’s preconceptions, generalisations and stereotypes by not doing it in and to our own community.
Yes, I agree in part – we should end preconceptions, generalizations, and stereotypes. But what this author is describing is not “doing it in and to our own community” necessarily. People – everyone, women and lesbians and yes, even dykes – have our own agency, our own ability to define for ourselves who we are and what we are doing with it. To speak from outside of a community who uses this language intentionally about the choice of using this language is belittling and offensive, implying that I couldn’t possibly know what I’m doing by using this language.
And I know some of you are thinking, “well, Sinclair, you’re a bit different than the average butch, after all,” but ya know what? I haven’t found that to be true. I have found that most butches I know are incredibly intentional about their identities, and have beautiful things to say about what it’s like to navigate the world as a butch-looking woman, often even if they don’t identify with the label, culture, or politics. Same with the femmes. Butch and femme are no longer default identities to which one gets shoved into the minute one comes out as a lesbian. Queer, dyke, butch, femme – those words are marginalized, othered, looked down upon in many ways. It takes work to come to them, work to claim them, and work to keep them functioning.
This author, like the majority of folks out there – lesbian communities notwithstanding, unfortunately – are missing some key elements and understandings of the history of gender radicalism, what it means to reclaim language, and what it means to adopt these identities. Articles like this really get my boxers in a twist because they appear to be a conscious, intentional analysis of what’s difficult or challenging within the lesbian communities, but in fact, they are reinforcing gender misunderstandings and further marginalizing those of us who do play with gender intentionally, celebrationally, and beautifully.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” – Buddha
I’ve quoted that before, but I’m reminded of it again recently. It’s a quality that I always seek in those from whom I wish to learn.
I’ve been using the internet actively for the past fifteen years, since I was fourteen, and that’s not actually exaggeration; I caught a little bit of the BBS days, but really got my feet wet with the telnet chatrooms that were gaining popularity. I’d use the public library’s telnet system and my dad’s engineering computer to chat – live! with people from all over the world! – in Coffeehouse and Shadowlands.
And, as many have said, including Audacia Ray in her recent study of sex on the internet, new technologies are always first used for porn and sex. So, as a teenager, not only discovering a new technology, but also discovering a new sexuality, my primary sexual awakening was online – writing, corresponding, typing out fantasies, and asking questions to a hive mind of various perspectives and orientations and kinks.
I didn’t experiment a lot in person, it wasn’t appealing; but online, I could do anything, and it was safe. Of course, it wasn’t always safe. But I did pretty well for myself. I learned lessons, got smarter.
I started my first personal web pages in 1996, and have had open diaries, livejournals, javascript notebooks, and finally, blogs, online ever since then, in various forms of anonymity. Sometimes totally anonymous, sometimes under my real name. I understand how these communities build and fall and swell and fade, I’ve watched many of them, I’ve built some of them, I’ve heard stories from others who are interested in these things.
In 2000, two major things happened for me: I went back to college after taking four years off after high school, and I came out as queer. At college, I further my informal studies of feminism with gender studies, queer theory, and postmodern theory. I have two degrees, one in Gender Studies with an emphasis on social change, one in English with an emphasis on creative writing.
I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading books, watching films, going to workshops and conferences, seeking out mentors, reading blogs of personal expeirences, going to feminist sex toy shops, talking to friends, about gender dynamics, their personal relationships, queer oppression, social change, labeling, sex, sex techniques, sex toys, seduction, pick-up artistry, androgyny, lesbianfeminism, the 1980s sex wars, intersexuality, transitioning, binding, packing, taking T, putting on makeup, shopping for dresses or bathing suits or earrings or purses, shopping for ties or cufflinks or slacks or a tuxedo, radical acts of subversion, generational differences, strapping on a cock, the history of gender in the US, kink, domination and submission, rope bondage, BDSM, and uh all sorts of other things.
Not to mention that I, personally, have experience with these things in my relationships, my life, and my communities.
When I think about it, all of that history makes sense that here, fifteen years later, I’ve finally settled into this small niche of my varying interests – writing, inner emotional landscapes, sexuality, queer theory, gender theory, feminism, butch/femme dynamics, self-awareness, love, and relationships.
I’m not writing this to brag.
I’m writing this to show where my authority on these subjects about which I write come from.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll continue with all this research into these topics if or when I meet someone and develop a successful, fulfilling relationship, I’ll be disinclined to continue, because I can simply live it, instead of theorize about it all day every day. Perhaps I’ll move on to my next obsessive research subject – building alternative families or aging or performance poetry or who knows what. Perhaps all this has just been my own research into How To Be Me – chivalrous kinky writer, queer butch top, and feminist lover of femmes – In This World. Sometimes I feel like once I “figure it out,” I won’t have to be constantly doing all this work all the time.
Of course, there’s no easy way to simply figure this out, and once it’s “figured out” it’ll probably change, anyway, because it’s increidbly fluid; not only my own understanding of it, but the cultural understanding as well. It’s amazing how much has changed in the past ten years – even five years! Things are moving and growing, and I want to be a part of this activism, this forward motion, this quest for us all to be our highest, best selves, accepted by the world in our freakery.
(I digress.)
My point is, I was reminded recently how easy it is to get online and create yourself as an authority about something on which you are not. And it’s sad to me, and disappointing, how easy it is for people to get sucked into something so false.
I know the internet. Know these blog circles quite well, I correspond with hundreds of people, read intimate, detailed blogs, have friends that I’ve never met but whom I’ve followed for years online. There are some amazing, lovely folks here who are using these tools, this digital medium, to express what is the most true and beautiful and real about them.
But that’s not true of everybody. I find I can usually spot those who are not authentic; they stand out, somehow, I go to their site or read their work and think, something’s just not quite right. It puzzles me, because I don’t use the internet that way, and because there’s such a better way to use this digital tool to connect, so why would you do it the other, less effective and more inauthentic way? Probably out of pure ignorance, frankly – but I don’t really know.
For y’all out there reading, especially about things as completely personal and delicate as your butch/femme gender and sexual identities, this is just a reminder not to believe somebody unless you have reason to do so, don’t take them purely on their word, wait until they prove themselves to you. Identities are fragile, and can get damaged so easily when we don’t have adequate support and validation around them. It’s so easy for one big, painful misunderstanding to put someone off of something entirely, when in fact it is not indicative of how it could potentially function.
Dan Savage had a great call on his Savage Lovecast last week (seriously, it’s now the #1 podcast on the internet, and you’re not listening to it yet?) about developing a bionic bullshit detector, which has also got me thinking about all of this.
Many of us place our trust in people too easily. And when it comes to the very personal and delicate subjects, such as what I discuss here on this site, I really hope you do (respectfully) disagree with me sometimes, I hope you don’t assume I always know what I’m talking about, I hope you question me sometimes, I hope you ask who the man (ahem, “man,” don’t get the wrong idea) behind the site is, I hope you check authority credentials and expect proof of authorty.
I also hope I’ve earned it, from you, from visitors to this site, from readers, from friends, from acquaintances, because I work hard to do so, to stand behind my philosophies by living inside of them, to have a consistent personal narrative, to have reliability in my character, to admit what I don’t know, to speak on things that I know well. In some ways, I’ve made a formal study of these things too, since the one particular ex who manipulated me into such a frenzy.
There’s no easy way to know who’s conning you and who is authentic except to be cautious, I think. (Dan Savage and his caller had a few ideas, too; see, now you really have to download the podcast, don’t’cha?)
As much as I have made a semi-formal study of these topics, and as much as I do have some authority here, I also will always say that everyone needs to figure it out for themselves. I’m thrilled that my process is useful to others, and I’m curious about the processes that don’t look like mine, too. This is me, doing this work, going through the processing, reaching these identities for my own self – now, you go do yours.
In lingerie like tonight. Black stockings, seamed. Strappy sandal heels. Fresh red predicure. Pushup bra.
But unlike tonight: hair tight up off your neck. A clip would be good, chopsticks would be better. A wrap-around dress with no buttons, only ties.
Greet me at your door like this. Have my drink ready – you know what it is. Be ready to bend over for me. Be ready to get on your knees. Be ready to say please in that lovely aching way you do – with desperation, longing.
The Femme Conference 2008, taking place in Chicago in August, is put on by the Femme Collective. Take a look at their mission statement: Femme Collective is committed to creating conferences by Femmes, about Femmes, and for Femmes and their allies. We understand that Femme is more complex than just being a queer person who is feminine; it is a part of how we interact with and shape our world as queer academics, activists, artists, homemakers, parents, professionals, students, teachers, etc.
I really hope to attend the conference … we’ll see if I can make that happen. More information at femmecollective.com.
Here’s the press release:
Queer Femmes from all over the Globe to Gather for Conference
Femme 2008: The Architecture of Femme will take place August 15th-17th in Chicago
(CHICAGO, IL – JUNE 12, 2008) The Femme Collective proudly presents “Femme2008: The Architecture of Femme,” an international conference celebrating queer femininities August 15th through August 17th 2008 at the Chicago Wyndham O’Hare: 6810 N. Mannheim Rd. near O’Hare International Airport. The conference will feature three full days of programming, including keynotes, workshops, panels, performances and even a film festival. Regular registration is $75 through July 15th, 2008 and then registration will go up to $95 for late registration, which is open through the conference. Registration covers all of the conference events and can be made by going to www.femmecollective.com.
How do I love Babeland … let me count the ways.
Well, so first, they asked me if I’d like to review the Papillion vibrator. And of course I said sure, I’d probably review a paper cup for Babeland if they asked me to, and I’ve been looking for a small-but-powerful vibe when I don’t want to power up the Hitachi. The Papillion is a little girly in some ways … the butterfly is not exactly my style, but they don’t really make butch vibrators. But hey, if it works well, it doesn’t matter so much what’s painted on it.
Turns out, part of the proceeds from this sweet vibe goes directly to the Living Beyond Breast Cancer organization, which is pretty darn cool. I didn’t get a cute little butterfly vibe to review, but instead, the fine folks at Babeland sent me a few other treasures – and both in black! Much more butch, I appreciate that.
First, the Laya Spot vibrator. It’s small, cute, discreet, easy to control, pretty powerful. It’s got three different “buzz patterns,” gentle pulses of vibration that are pretty fun to play with. Still not as powerful as the almighty Grandmother of vibrators, the Hitachi (you have one of those, right? It’s up there with the bunny as Toys That Should Be In Every Toy Box). It’s kind of an upgrade to the Silver Bullet – better looking, much more suave, better vibration power, better grip. It’s like the Silver Bullet’s suave older brother who has his own car and comes home from college on the weekends with a different blonde and his laundry. Still needs something else to really get the job done, but it’s a great start, and coupled with a few other goodies – like jacking off with the Share – mmmhoney yes.
Okay, so. The Share double dildo. I reviewed Feeldoe’s version of this dildo recently and wasn’t particularly impressed, but the Share has subtly altered a few things that make a big difference.
The material is much nicer, for one. The Share is silicone, as is the Feeldoe, but the Share is a kind of matte finish which is silky and lovely, where the Feeldoe feels like slick plastic (not so sexy).
I’m pretty particular about how I want to have control of a cock with which I fuck, so controlling a double without a harness was very difficult. The internal part of the Share – the one that goes inside of me – is thicker than on the Feeldoe, and differently shaped such that it stays in much easier. I still have to exercise my kegels a bit, but I can tell that I have a much easier, better grip on it, which – hopefully – will mean that my precision will be better with this one.
Can’t tell you yet, exactly, because I’ve only used it to jack off so far. I probably won’t be busting out the Share with Penny – it’s too long, too thin. And honestly, I don’t know any girls who prefer to get fucked long rather than in girth; it’s that feeling of being stretched open that, in my experience, female-bodied folks want. If a cock is too long, it starts hitting against the cervix, which actually can be painful.
Long & thin is really great for anal play, though … hmm, ideas.
I’ve got a few more things coming from Babeland soon, I hope, which I’m excited to keep exploring. They are very queer- and gender-friendly, many of my friends have worked there in the past, their staff is really super smart and knowledgeable. They’ve gone through some changes in recent years, but they still have tons of great books, resources, and a sex-positive environment to explore sexuality, sex toys, gender, play, sensation. And yes, I know they’re sending me toys and all, but I’ve always adored them – when I moved to Seattle ten years ago their store was one of the first things I sought out. I credit them with much of my adult sexual awakening, and love the work they’re doing.
Thanks, all, for the feedback and comments on that last post. Butch breasts and binding and female masculinity are all so deep in this topic, and as one reader mentioned, too, this is also an issue relating to females with large breasts in general. Sure, the gender stuff adds a slightly different dimension, but many women go through this and are challenged by having the right, comfortable bra.
A few more tips, and also some recommendation, since I’ve had a few emails about where to get these butch bras.
First: get the right size of bra. Sports bras obviously are a little less precise in their sizing, but even if you don’t intend to wear any regular bras anymore, figure out your size. It’s amazing how hard it is for us to figure that out. There really is a difference between a 34D and a 36C, and they are not the same size. This seems to be a particularly difficult one for many of the butches I know, because bra shopping is just about The Scariest Thing Possible, and going in there and asking a professional to help figure out what size you really are is pretty much like walking into hell. But, let me just say, it has made a really big difference in my bra-buying since I actually got measured properly, figured out why the sizes are different, and what size I really am.
Now, some product recommendations:
Bras & binders are primarily held in place with material like elastic, and the stretch on those does give out pretty easily. I’m finding that I need a new one every few months (although, I suppose if I had more of them, I wouldn’t wear them out so quickly!).
Suggestions? Recommendations? What products do you all use? Any particularly good online resources for figuring out your bra size, or that explains why the sizes are different?
I’ve returned to earth – mostly – from the altered state of consciousness of the Power, Surrender, & Intimacy workshop by Body Electric that happened here in New York City over the weekend. I have so very much to say about it, but that’ll have to wait for now, I need more time.
What I do want to write about is breasts. Specifically, mine – more generally, butch breasts.
Last week, I went for one day without my binder, which is really just a tight sports bra that clasps in the back rather than being a solid over-the-head slip-on. I wanted it laundered for the workshop, since I’ve been wearing it practically every day since I bought it.
I wore a backup bra that day, and all day long I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror, in storefront reflections, in my button-down work clothes, or when I looked down. I remembered how I used to hate the uniboob problem, which many of my friends and lovers deemed unsexy or mannish, and it’s not that I like the uniboob look particularly, but as my gender has changed and grown and dropped into itself, the uniboob doesn’t look like a uniboob anymore: it looks like a chest.
It is not that I want to do away with my breasts. Don’t misunderstand me here: I think breasts are butch, just as I think the menstrual cycle is butch and pregnancy is butch and cunnilingus is butch – everything the female body does can be butch, because butch (in my use of the word*) has to do with masculinity on a female body.
And because I believe that the things a female body does are butch, and because my gender philosophies are deeply rooted in love and acceptance of my body as it is and in not classifying human experiences as owned by one gender or another, I have been holding back my desire to delve farther into my own masculinity. I’m afraid of it. I’m afraid it means I’ll be leaving my roots in female-ness behind, I’m afraid of being seen as reproducing the heteronormative paradigm or embodying penis envy. I’m afraid of being rejected by feminist and lesbian communities for being too masculine, for becoming the ‘enemy,’ for rejecting femininity instead of reclaiming it.
Breasts are a big piece of this fear for me. Mine are not so small – part of why I rarely pass: a 36DD, and have been since middle school. I’ve said since I was a teenager that a breast reduction is the only surgery I would consider. I read about Jess’s surgery – or others’ surgeries and body alterations – and I’m jealous.
But I’m afraid of what it means to want that alteration, to want to physically change my body to better fit a gendered idea.
After that day last week of wearing a regular bra, I started wondering: why do I even have this in my closet anymore? Why do I own this? My exploration of my own masculine/butch/boy/male embodiment is young – I’ve been calling myself butch since 2001, but only in the last three years have I really embraced it and actively, consciously developed it. And now, the farther I get into my explorations of gender, the farther I want to go.
It takes time to cycle through a wardrobe, and I don’t quite have the disposable income to go purchase all new bras – but I certainly won’t be buying any regular ones anytime soon. I’ve gone through this with my underwear already, years ago now, have cycled through all the old girl undies and haven’t owned any of those in years, only have boxers and briefs now. But that feels less obvious than binders and sports bras – no one can tell I wear only briefs except my lovers, I guess, but everyone can tell I bind my chest.
And see, what’s what it is now: my chest. Very different than boobs, breasts, tits. I have those, sure, but they’re underneath, they’re the other layer, the inner ring, something that now gets protected and covered, not out of shame or denial but simply out of layering, complexities, performance, a rich inner life, a duality, a whole person – me.
* Some say men can be butch, that “butch” is a term for a queer masculinity, or a non-traditional, progressive masculinity. I’m not certain I agree, but we definitely lack language to discuss different types of masculinity, and I have definitely observed some men who have a sense of butch energy.
Wear a short skirt or dress, the shortest you have. Nothing underneath. Bare legs. Bare feet.
The extent of force will be up to you. If you want me to enter unannounced, unlock the door to your apartment at 9:28. I’ll be arriving at 9:30.
If you want to let me in, keep the door locked, and I will knock. But we won’t speak. No small talk, no chit-chat. You can say things in character – however much you like. You don’t have to pretend you don’t know me, you can still ask what are you doing and you can say no. You can struggle.
But I won’t stop.
You have a safeword now. You’re going to have to use it.
“Harder,” she whispered. “Fuck me harder, please, please.”
In a dingy bathroom in the downstairs of a Tibetan restaurant. Her cheek against the peeling greasy paint, legs kicked apart, stockings pulled down just to below her ass, dress shoved up around her waist, in front of the filmy bathroom mirror where she could see my arm flexing as my fingers – two, three – thrust inside her. Photos of the Dalai Lama on the wall. Penny joked about her being a bad Buddhist.
But I couldn’t resist.
An hour, more, of discussion: I’d send her a BDSM checklist about possible things to play with; we spoke about how much anger came up for her last weekend when I was hitting her; we spoke of my upcoming workshop and the BDSM techniques I’m hoping to practice with her, she was especially interested in the breast rope-binding ritual.
I imagined her, bound. Wrists behind her back, whimpering.
(Witness of that moment of giving in stirs something in me that nothing else does.)
I couldn’t get the angle right. I know well enough now to know how she likes to get fucked, to know the pressure she needs to come. Palm of my left hand holding her tailbone, working three fingers inside, right hand reaching around on her clit, pressing between the two like I’m cradling her pelvis.
She was up on her toes in her heels. Hands pressed against the wall, gasping, pressing back against me.
“Goddammit,” I swore softly into her hair, her neck, biting her shoulder, pressing into her harder, faster, “you’re going to come for me. Do it.”
She moaned. Couldn’t. It wasn’t going to happen. She needs a deeper bend in her hips, bent over or legs up. Something about how the muscles stretch and open.
But oh she was open for me last night. And I love the way she lets me shove her against walls, lets me fuck her in bathrooms in restaurants, up against trees in parks, up on my roof looking at the Manhattan skyline, Prospect Park, the South Brooklyn police precinct three doors down. Cars on the BQE whirring by, her hair dishevled against dark blue sky.
She’s even more of an exhibitionist than I am. This makes me want to test her limits, and mine. To find the places she won’t go and challenge her.
What an honor, such an honor, the ways she lets me in.
We attempted to leave the restaurant smoothly, the walk of shame past steaming plates of hot food and waiters and waitresses eyeing us suspiciously. Outside I caught her hand, laughing down the East Village streets, occasionally twirling her into my arms for a deep kiss. Supple, she gave in so easily, so eagerly, so sweetly at times my knees went weak and my throat growled with power.
She knows how to make me feel strong. Which makes me want to take her down all the more.
These mid-week dates are the tease, the warm-up. They get me going and keep me hard for days until I get to fuck her, for real, bent over something, on her back, head banging the wall or falling off the bed, arms up and grabbing for the headboard behind her, pressing against something, anything, for better leverage and pressure and power, oh the way she gives in.
Like last Friday, after mojitos and making out on the roof, she walked slowly, deliberately, into my room and bent over the edge of my bed, forearms in front of her. I think she would’ve stood up fairly quickly, really, but time slowed and the desire that swelled up in me in those few tiny moments were enough to keep me going for hours.
Swiftly I came up behind her and smacked her ass. “Bending over for me, are you? Just so eager to get fucked.”
“Yes,” she whimpered, barely audible.
I shoved her panties down – cute, a muted vintage pink and cream, lacy on the edges – fast, was ready to rip them apart, her dress up above her hips, held her cunt open while I unzipped and pulled my cock out, quickly unrolled a condom, spit on my hand, thrust inside her. Fast. Hard. Not even my fingers first.
I like the noises she makes when she’s caught off-guard. Thick moans from deep inside somewhere.
And did I mention the dress? Summery, cream-colored, halter top that tied behind her neck and behind her chest, shoulders bare, two knots, skirt below her knees. I kept hold of the ties and pressed her into the bed. Head down.
Hand pressed around her hips and onto her clit, just how she likes it, slow and soft as I fuck her hard and deep, and as soon as I started working her clit harder, faster, I could feel it swell, could feel her body shuddering, and she came, fast and hard, still working my hips to stay thick inside her, until she collapsed with her low hums of oh god ohh baby ohhh.
It’s the release I crave to hear the most. The letting go. The body stores things hidden inside joints, muscles, sinewy tendons, veins. How else to get the energy, the prana, moving again than to up the heart rate, force you into all the edges of your skin, sensation everywhere, pleasure bursting from the core of you?
What an honor, such an honor, to be received. To be allowed to go inside and touch those untouched, unlandscaped places which hold secrets, soft and dark, and dangerous raw beauty.
The Sugar Butch in the photo is Azaan Kamau – the author and publisher of
In The Midst of My Blackness. Azaan loves jet skiing, writing, boating,
taking photos, and fighting for LGBT Rights! (Photo Credit: Azaan Kamau)
My piece about going down on Penny was featured on Sugasm today. Thanks!!
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More of my personal favorites:
My Tantric Sex for Women book review went up over at Eden Fantasys today.
I really wanted to like this book, I did – I want to know more about tantra and I’m even open to the woo-woo new agey aspects of it, but I just couldn’t get over the ridiculous aspects used in the exercises in this book (which is what makes up the majority of the content). There are some interesting things, but ultimately it’s not worth it.
Read my full review, and, if you feel like helping me out by upping my “reviewer rating” by commenting on or rating my reviews, I certainly wouldn’t mind.
“You could come to my house. I have a dress you could borrow for work tomorrow.”
“Uh, I appreciate that, but, ya know, I think your clothes would be too small for me.”
“True.”
“We really need a teleporter. We could go to my place, get my clothes, go back to your place …”
“And get your cock.”
“Oh, I have that on me.” I’d been packing all night.
“You do?!” She grabbed my fly for proof.
“Yeah. You know my motto – I’d rather have a cock and not need it, than need it and not have it.”
“Dammit, what were we doing? Now I feel like the whole night’s been wasted.”
“You didn’t want to talk identity politics and buddhist philosophy and BDSM theory? I knew it, you’re just using me for my socks.”
“…”
“I mean sex. Cocks! Fuck.”
Penny laughed. “I’m going to have to start writing for Sugarbutch to show how suave you really are.”
My hot papi Jess of HouseofJero.com. She’s bringin’ butchly back. – Tina
Tina sent me three shots of her partner Jess because, she said, she couldn’t just choose one. It was tough! This one is so smooth. I actually met these two at Curly McDimple’s queer blogger weenie roast last summer (and there will be another one!), and I gotta say, they’re really sweet together. Tina’s quite the eye candy herself.
And, uh, didja notice that headboard? Looks very … functional.
Texts on my way home, before the show:
SS: I am still so hot for you. (this is ridiculous)
Penny: I was just thinking of you baby. xo
SS: Oh? something dirty I hope. I want you up against a fence, where everyone can see how you flush when you come.
Penny: Dirty boy. I want your head between my legs where it belongs.
… and that did it. God I love it when she says things like that. This is some of the dirtiest sex I’ve ever had, with Penny, and she keeps pushing me, pulls topping from me in new ways.
I had to get off before going back to Midtown for the radio show last night. I kicked off my shoes and shorts, strapped on, jacked off.
I came fast, swearing fuck and oh god with a string of dirty language in my head: that’s right. take my cock in deep. I like it when you struggle against me. Go ahead and resist, I’ll just go harder. You can take that can’t you. Can’t you. You like my cock in you. You like it when I come inside you. That’s right. … but eventually it was the memory of her clit pulsing in my mouth, my fingers tightly squeezed inside her, the way her thighs shake, that sent me over the edge.
(It occurs to me now that I’ve rarely seen her face when she comes. She likes it from behind, my fingers on her clit. Moaning into the mattress. Then there is mymouth on her, quickly becoming a surefire way to get her off. I rarely see her face. I’d like to. Like to see her eyes, her mouth open and gasping.)
So I jacked off. And – crap, lost track of time. I sped into Midtown, still strapped on* with my favorite Silky.
I got out of lateness free because my name wasn’t at the security desk out front – sometimes it’s under Smith instead of Sex, but this time it was just not there. Diana blamed security, but I knew it was because I’d spent that extra minute with my cock in my hand.
Diana looked great. Penny tuned in, and I read an excerpt from open up for me, a password-protected post from May. Diana went right to commercial, blushing, and said, “Damn, that is dirty! Dirtier than anything you’ve read on the show before … ”
And she’s right. That girl is filthy. I love it.
Plus? I was having the best hair day ever** – too bad it was radio.
Things I meant to mention on the radio last night:
* #1
** #2
Cynthia Nixon has sent a message to us gay women: learn the facts & take control of your breast health.
Don’t forget those breast exams too – they say it’s so important to detect cancer early. (Doesn’t it feel sometimes like it’s not whether or not you will ever get cancer, but when, and how early you will find it? Sometimes I feel like we live in a scary time, when we’re so susceptible to such mutations of our bodies.) So don’t forget to do those breast exams, your own, your girlfriend’s, your lovers, your fuckbuddy, your booty call … I do find it’s best if you ask first. Just sayin’.
The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has lots more information on their site at komen.org.
I’ll be on Sirius OutQ Radio for The Diana Cage Show tonight at 10pm EST. You may know of Diana from such fabulous things as books like Box Lunch, Girl Meets Girl: A Dating Survival Guide, or formerly editing the fantastic dyke sex magazine On Our Backs. And now, she blogs at OurChart.
Get a 3-day trial for OutQ radio – news, interviews, and music for the queer community 24/7 – online at SiriusOutQ.com. Listen in tonight to hear me ramble about really good sex with Penny, dating, being an aspiring stud, butch identity politics, and who knows what else.
Jenny Shimizu is also scheduled to be on the show tonight, and I hear Diana promised to wear strappy sandals for me. It’s also nearly a hundred degrees in New York City – it’s gonna be fun.
I’m going to attempt a new series of writings in praise of femmes. This is the first officially, but it follows in line with in praise of stretchmarks.
This past weekend and some amazing time with Penny (more on that later) has me thinking about trust and femmes. I wrote recently in a dramatical moment, “I just don’t trust femmes anymore” – with immediate caveats and retractions – and I want to expound.
It is femmes that I perhaps trust the deepest. The way I am received – not just cock-and-cunt, not just my fist inside the muscular bowl between your legs, but all of me: when my strong hands weaken and flutter, when I cry, when I laugh too loud, when I give up give in let go, when I feel my power slipping and you put it right back into place with a gentle flick of your wrist.
It is within your embrace that I make the most sense. Callie was the first femme I ever dated, the first relationship where my affections were returned tenfold (before that, I’d loved a femme, my best friend, for years, but that was tragedy. After that, The Ex, who I thought was more femme than she was and that caused constant tension between us).
I know who I am around you. My carefully manufactured, deliberately manifested masculinity suddenly has a purpose, a function, a use, and it excites you, makes you cry out and give in and let go, turns you on. My gestures are held by you, witnessed, caught gently and cradled, and oh my god thank you for that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This dynamic runs deep in me. Who knows why – nature, nurture, socializing, fetish. I need it, ache for it, me a teenaged pretty-boy (you say), you a powerful goddess. And you must know I never use words like goddess to describe women (too cliché, too overused) but yes that really is what I mean here: magical, strong, miraculous, seductive, creational.
I was made against you. I can think of a couple of you specifically against whom I break and become myself: Callie. DateDyke. Muse. Strong enough to catch me, strong enough to let me sharpen myself against you.
And it is this power that scares me, that now brings these feelings of mistrust. Because I love this dynamic so much, fetishize it even, it touches deep primal nerves in me. I become carried by it and have trusted it – the dynamic – more than I trusted the person. I let her use her femme-ness to get what she wanted, I let her use beauty, seduction, soft skin and flirty submissive eyes. I watched it, I even knew what was going on, and I let it happen anyway.
I know better now, I guess, I hope. I should pay attention to the red flags of constant “conflict,” I shouldn’t have gone to Mexico, I should’ve been more honest, I shouldn’t have fucked her if I didn’t have the aftercare in me.
I’ve said it before – it is one of my greatest flaws: I trust what people tell me. I am convincible.
There really are charms that only femininity, only femmes, only queer femmes who know how to treat sugarbutches like me, possess. Charms that unravel me deeply, that pull me apart. When it’s good, it clears out the cobwebs, shines light into every dark corner, exposes all the cracks and flaws and structures that hold me up, and then, even, fixes them, or attempts to. I am made more whole, more complete. When it’s bad, I have been destroyed foundationally, or attempted to be. Piece by piece picked off and explained in a new way that suited her. My dick in a mason jar under a sink, punished. My every action her fist closed tight around.
It is good I am strong. I come from a strong family who gets along, a queer lineage of kisses, teachers who respected and taught me, who sheltered me and pushed me hard, who said I was worth something, who said we all are, who said stories of marginalized groups and communities must be told, who said I could and should change the world, who said I could do anything, who encouraged me to come alive, who said they liked what I had to say. And I have this place – this personal writing project I refuse to call a “blog” because it is so much more than that, it is revolution, it is community, it is self-awareness and witness and a very lighthouse.
I have built up these tools around me so I don’t fall prey to this problem of trusting femmes. It is because femmes are who I love, who I partner with, for whom I deeply ache that they are capable of such unraveling. If I partnered with butches it would be a problem trusting butches, if I partnered with straight boys or trans women or blondes or tennis players it would be a problem trusting them. And perhaps this is why women as a whole – and femininity – are seen as untrustworthy, sneaky, manipulative in our culture: because men – hetero men – are the ones who partner with this, and men are the ones who have held the pens to write our histories, to write their great love stories, which have involved many broken hearts and many malicious women, because love is scarce and precious and delicate.
Femmes are not untrustworthy. Femmes are who I trust the very most, with whom I make the very most sense, with whom I am more myself than anywhere else.
I am scared, and skeptical, about what it may mean for me to trust, to explore, especially around the specific ways that I can lose my head in this dynamic. It’s new to me, and it affects me deeper than any relationship ever has – I’ve never lost myself so completely in a lover before. So now comes the fusion: the combination of the intense, passionate sexual dynamic that comes with gender play, and the knowledge of relationship tools that I have been collecting and building upon since I began dating fifteen years ago (half my life, now. Amazing). I have the support, the community, the friends, the knowledge, the inner strength.
So.
Bring it on.
Here’s a secret: I’m quite insecure about my ability to go down on a girl.
There are a few clear reasons for this.
The Ex, from the infamous LBD relationship, didn’t get off. I used to go down on her for hours, and … nothing.
Since she & I split nearly two years ago, I’ve been fucking around, and in my efforts to practice safer sex, I’ve only gone down either when we were fluid-bonded (rare), or with protection (also rare, actually).
And I hate to be “That Guy,” but going down on someone with protection just isn’t as fun. It’s hard to be detailed, hard to feel the right pressure or wetness or subtle, small ridges in the delicate tissue, which makes it all the more frustrating.
Going down on a girl, I think, is actually one of the most intimate sex acts. I will do all sorts of things before I’d go down, partially because of the fluid/safer sex issue, and partly because it takes a lot of vulnerability – for both giver and receiver – to have someone so completely focused with her face between your legs, your face between hers.
I also have a tongue piercing, and while I would like to think that it makes me more skilled at things like kissing and going down, but I don’t really have proof of that. sometimes I am paranoid that I don’t really know how to use it, or that really it’s just getting in the way. I’d like to think it enhances what I do with my tongue, but I’m not really sure.
So because of these things, because it’s an intimate act for me, because I’ve been fucking around, because my ex couldn’t get off that way at all, I actually don’t have a lot of practice at it. No one’s ever told me I’m actually bad at it, don’t get me wrong – and once I know how to get a girl off, I can usually reproduce it in various ways: fingers, cock. It should extend to tongue, too, right?
But I’m insecure about it.
(I actually picked up Tristan Taormino’s DVD Guide to Cunnilingus at her launch party for her book Opening Up, but haven’t watched it yet. I should do that.)
So, on Sunday – after a lovely date with Penny on Saturday night where we watched the Sex and the City film, had dinner, drinks, dessert after, went to my place and kept each other up until 3am – we were lounging, satiated from a morning of breakfast and sex, talking about her plans to move to San Francisco.
Penny was lying tucked under my arm on the couch, and asked, “What’s on your mind?”
“Going down on you,” I said. I felt her body pulse in response.
We talked. Safer sex, my history, hers, why I don’t go down, that I wanted to with her. This conversation, inevitably, led to kissing, my mouth on her neck, clavicle, nipples, which was suddenly such a heightened sensation because we were both so aware of the idea of her clit in my mouth.
Pushing her into the bedroom, I stripped her bare swiftly, laid her out on the bed. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me to her in the sweetest gesture of vulnerability and desire; it was one of the strongest moments of the weekend.
“I want to taste you,” I murmured into the skin of her neck and cheek. “I want your clit in my mouth. I want to get you all wet, then fuck you, get my cock out and slide it in deep …”
(This was actually my backup plan in case I couldn’t get her off with my mouth. I had no idea if it would be easy or hard, if I was any good at it, if I could get her off this way at all. But at least I’m pretty good at getting her off with my fingers on her clit while fucking her, now, so that was the backup.)
Her back arched in response, pressing against me. Mouth opened, breath thick.
“You’re going to have to wait.” I said, pulling myself up and hovering over her. “Just for a minute, so I can get up and put my cock on.” She nodded, a tiny gesture, eyes wide and liquid and full, a look I see rarely on her. So sexy.
I rinsed my cock, fast, still sticky from fucking her that morning, and strapped on. She pulled me to her again, eager, kissing me open-mouthed and supple in a way that made me melt.
Softly, I slid my fingers inside her. Maneuvered down her body to touch my tongue to her clit. Light and soft with a wide tongue. I hadn’t had that close of a view of her cunt before, and she was beautiful.
She moaned. Whispered, “oh baby,” and I kept going. Looped my arm under her thigh and brought my hand to her pubic bone, pulled her cunt open with my fingers from above, leaving two fingers of my right hand inside, gently curled, light pressure and thrusting but not heavy. Just a little, just so she could feel it, just so she could feel stretched and full.
Her clit strained in my mouth, so clearly, so subtly but I could feel it, and I hardened my tongue and began moving it back and forth quicker. Pursed my lips around it to push the flesh away and let my tongue touch that one spot, that tiny spot, pulling back the hood and balancing her every nerve on the tip of my tongue.
Nude and strapped on, legs half-on and half-off the bed, I attempted not to let my hips shake and thrust involuntarily, but once she started pressing against my hand and mouth in rhythm I just couldn’t help it, my body responded accordingly. I wanted inside her, I wanted to fuck her, hard.
Of course, I didn’t move. Kept my mouth just where it was.
She tightened on my fingers and I pushed my fingers faster, a little fuller. Steady and thick with pressure against her gspot, pubic bone, the underside of her clit, I could feel it between my fingers – inside – and tongue.
And she came. Shuddering, gasping. Quickly, in fact. Sooner than I’d expected, thighs shaking, then her fingers around my wrist of the hand that was inside her and I pulled out slow. She pulled me up to her breast, pulled me to her.
I didn’t want to stop, not yet. I wanted her over and again, and again.
She laughed that little laugh that sounds like joy, the one that echoes in my mind after she’s gone. “I didn’t like that.” All sarcasm.
I laughed too. “I didn’t think so. Well good, because I didn’t like doing it.”
“I’m like a teenage boy,” she said, eyes open, skin bare, feeling exposed, referring to how fast she came. I pulled a soft throw blanket over us.
I kissed her again, soft, deep, she was so supple in that way that only a long day of sex makes you, and I could’ve done anything, for hours, could’ve done whatever she wanted, felt a superhero strength, an inexhaustive dominance that could’ve gone on and on.
Then there was my mouth back on her skin and neck and soon my hand back between her legs, the eager way she parts. Between her legs I gathered lube for my cock, but she was sore, a little hesitant when I slid inside her.
So I brought my mouth to her again instead. Slight tongueful of lube in the beginning, but I didn’t care. I caught her clit between my tongue piercing and the tip of my tongue and flicked it, kept it taut.
After a minute, I nearly panicked. What if I couldn’t get her off again? What if that first time was just a fluke, what if she was already bored? What if I actually wasn’t any good at this? What if I was being cocky thinking I would do it again, just like that?
And then I heard her moan again, baby, ohhh baby, which she rarely says, rarely calls me, and I worked my fingers inside her again, not too much but a little pressure, gently, sweet, tongue hard against the soft folds of her, eager, lapping, the ball of my tongue piercing tracing her hood, sucking her into my mouth.
So sweet.
And she came again. Pelvis and spine rolling on the bed, thrusting against me, thighs clenching around me and shaking, stomach contracting. I wished I could see her from far away, all of her, observe, watch the way her body builds and releases.
I wrapped myself around her again, kissing her, fingertips feather-light along her body, bare skin flushed and heated.
“I’m going to have to practice that some more, I think,” I said. She laughed and sighed, rolled to her side as I pressed against her back, cradling, and she pulled my arm around her, held it against her chest.
June 20-22 – Seattle
There is still time to experience
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
Led by Lizz Randall
Dear Friend,
This Solstice Weekend I invite you or a woman friend to join me in a circle of women in a safe, serious and playful space to explore and celebrate empowered sexuality and spiritually integrated eros. Through breath, movement, communication, touch and massage:
* Feel more alive, curious and safe in your body
* Deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit
* Expand awareness, sensation and pleasure
* Receive and give without losing yourself
* Release fear, shame and negative patterns
* Communicate your desires and boundaries more clearly
* Accept yourself just as you are
* Enjoy sex more and have more fun
* Discover the healing potential of sexual/spiritual energy
The workshop runs Friday night 7-10PM, Saturday and Sunday 9AM-7PM both days. It is non-residential and held in a convenient Capitol Hill location. I welcome women of all ages and sexual orientations who are open to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sensuality and sexuality. Please share this email with any friends who might be interested.
Tuition: $395 (Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction)
Robyn Lynn
206-579-2603
robyn@thepresentsense.com
TheBodyElectricSchool.com
May was an incredibly busy month for me – not only did I take two trips out of New York City, I also had visitors, performances, writing deadlines, and started seeing Penny a bit more seriously. I took a break mid-month and didn’t do any writing here for more than a week, so it was a fairly light month in the number of posts.
The new masthead quote comes from a conversation with Ally, long ago. The photo is a snippet of my tie collection. Kind of a departure from the usual black-and-white I’ve been going for, but hey, it’s summer now, seems fitting.
Here’s what happened in May:
Sex:
Gender:
Relationships:
Miscellany:
Leave a comment if you’d like to be added to the list to receive the password for protected posts.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about rope.
I have tied Penny, spread-eagle, to my bed, and she has said she would not be opposed to doing that again (actually, her words were probably more like, “I didn’t like that at all. I’d hate it if you did it again” because she’s so damn snarky like that).
And, the Body Electric School course on Power, Surrender, & Intimacy is coming up in a couple weeks, and I received the supply list:
1. One (1) length of 40 feet of ½ inch thick soft rope (nylon, polyester, or mixed cotton/nylon)
2. Two (2) lengths of 13-15 feet of ¼ inch thick soft rope
3. Sex toys of any kind that you would like to use are welcome including cuffs, feathers, floggers and spanky toys.
I did PSI years ago – maybe 2002 – and had such revelations (I’m a top? Really? And other people perceive me as butch?) that I’ve been watching for it ever since. You have to complete the Celebrating the Body Erotic – level one – course in Body Electric to do PSI, so all of you who are currently salivating, to you I say, you should’ve done the CBE! (There are CBEs coming up in Seattle and Oakland in 2008, it’s not too late.)
So, I’ve been thinking about rope. And I’m a big fan of Two Knotty Boys, so here ya go – a fun little rope trick for handbinding.
Lots of great comments on Tuesday’s post about my own frustrations with the discussions on this site – I’m replying to the comments in the thread, too, with more information, so read the comments if you’d like to know more about my thoughts around this issue. You can also subscribe to the Sugarbutch Chronicles RSS comments feed (but that’s really just for the hardcore fans).
I’d like to say two quick things about it, then I’ll move on to more random miscellany:
1. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That post was not meant as a request for praise, of course, it was just an update on where I’m at and what I’ve been going through – but I appreciate the praise, and I appreciate the clarifications about what this site and these discussions have meant for you.
2. I’ve mentioned that I’m implimenting some changes in how this site works, but don’t worry, I’m not planning on changing it drastically. If you have particular suggestions about what you’d love to see more of, what your favorite parts have been, what you hate, I’d love to hear that as I go forward. Really, though, the biggest change will probably not be on the published-side of things at all – it’ll just be in my own psychic process toward the site, and hopefully, in my own boundaries about frustration and internalizing criticism.
2a. I’d particularly like to grow the SSU category here on Sugarbutch – “Sinclair Sexsmith University,” the custom sex, gender, and relationships “program” with 101-level articles and information. I’m not sure exactly how to begin building that, but I’m working on it.
A little bit more housekeeping, random things to mention & file under colophon:
I
Help! Michelle
II
I just found out that sugarbutch has a livejournal syndication. If you use LJ, you can add Sugarbutch as a friend & keep up with me that way.
III
bzzzgrrrrl emailed me to let me know she’d nominated Sugarbutch for a BlogHer Hero award. She says, “You won’t get it, I’m afraid. The official rules prohibit material that is “inappropriate, indecent, obscene,” etc., and who knows what that means, but I bet Sugarbutch Chronicles qualifies.” Ah, she’s probably right – but I’m still really flattered, thank you for the nomination.
She sent me a very flattering, humbling blurb that she included with her nomination, and I’m reprinting it here with my thanks & gratitude:
Sugarbutch Chronicles changes lives — mine, at least. Sinclair writes frankly, openly, and playfully about gender. My generation of feminists just Didn’t Talk Like That: Transfolk made us uncomfortable. People who deliberately declared themselves “butch” or “femme” but weren’t trans made us more uncomfortable. Sinclair is as sexy as she is smart, and she opens dialogue for and between her readers that inspire us all. Since reading her, I’ve had better sex, better conversations, better jumping-off points for challenging my own ideas. SBC isn’t the only blog about queer theory or gender theory, but it’s the best I’ve found.
I’m attempting not to blush, and instead practicing my “thank you”s with all this praise recently – instead of deflecting I’m just trying to accept. I’m really glad that some – any – of my own thought processes, approaches, and philosophies are useful to others, and I’m extremely grateful to all the comments, emails, questions, and folks out there with blogs & books & further writings who are exploring these topics.
It’s a nice community we’ve got goin’ on here. My gender conversations are a lot less lonely than it used to be, thank you for that.
