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miscellany

Sugarbutch Star: WINNER!

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I’m back from Salt Lake City & my short Southwest roadtrip! Lots of catching up to do.  

By a landslide: the winner of the 2007 Sugarbutch Star Contest is Essin’ Em, who submitted the scenario for the story The Diner on the Corner.

Congratulations! And thank you, for the fabulous … submission.

Your prize, darling, consists of the following:

  1. Smut books! A particularly fabulous sex toy store has donated On Our Backs Volume 2 and Best Lesbian Erotica 2007 (in which I have a story).
  2. “I was a Sugarbutch Star” tee shirt!
  3. Chapbook containing all of the Sugarbutch Star stories
  4. Last but not least … a night on the town with me, should you chose to accept it, when you visit this ol’ city next … rest assured, there will be dinner and debauchery.

Shannon’s story The Photo Shoot was the second favorite, and I’ve got a few little things for her, too …

  1. Copy of Switch Hitters, a book of smut stories where gay men write lesbian erotica and lesbians write gay male erotica – one of my personal favorite collections
  2. Chapbook containing the Sugarbutch Star stories

Thank you, so much, to all the folks who sent in story outlines, to all the stories I chose to write up: Lady Brett Ashley, bird, Avah, Grey, the Femme Top, Jennifer, Bad bad girl, Madeline, Jefferson. This was a really fun contest, and though it took me way too long to finish up, I think I may just do it again!

essays

Lesbian bed death, Butch/femme dating, and More Femme Worship (Plus Q&A)

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I’m in Salt Lake City for the long weekend, so hopefully I’ll have some time to catch up on writing and these questions. Thanks for asking them! Some of them are very complex and I want to give them good thought.

5. Mm asks: How does one (or more appropriately two) keep passion from waning in a long term monogamous relationship? It’s been done, but how?

Oh man – I won’t pretend to be the authority on this one. I have had two major long-term relationships, one for five years, one for four years, the latter of which was one of those LBD (lesbian bed death) situations. So I seem to be alright at sustaining some sort of time – though ultimately, all my relationships have ended, so I’m not sure I’ve got the secrets here.That said, I do think I have some ideas about what it is that I can and will do to sustain passion in a long-term relationship the next time I get the chance to practice.

  1. Talk about sex. Talk talk talk. It’s fun! It’s sexy, it’s intimate. Let go of inhibitions and let your partner into your dirty dirty mind. Make lists of things you’d like to do. Make lists of things you’ve never done and probably would never do. Fill out sex surveys – like the purity test, or a BDSM checklist – together. Fill out the fill-in-the-blank questions, you may be surprised at the answers. Make a list of things you’ve done and didn’t like but might be willing to try again. Maybe this is just my compulsive list-making, but it’s useful information, and it forms a common vocabulary for you two to both discuss your wants, desires, fetishes, interests. 
  2. Do sexy stuff together. Watch porn, or, if you don’t like porn (though I gotta say, dyke porn is getting better and better and better, you’re missing out if you haven’t tried out some of the recent stuff), read erotica aloud to each other. Go to sex toy shops together. Share your fantasies. Plan some elaborate fantasy scene. Explore!
  3. Figure out what turns you on, and don’t be afraid to own that. Look for someone with complimentary turn-ons, or discuss your newly discovered turn-ons with your partner. It amazes me how few people really know what deeply “does it” for them, or, even moreso, who are in relationships with people they can tell about this stuff. (Oh, you should see the email I get sometimes about this.)
  4. If things are working, we’ll both be growing, individually as well as together. In theory, our values will be so tightly aligned that the interests and pursuits that we meander through will keep each other interested, rather than putting distance or difficulties between us. But, that said, don’t assume the relationship will be between the same people in two, five, ten years. One of my favorite novels of all time, The Sparrow, has a quote in it that goes like this: “I’ve been married five times over the last fifty years to five different people, all of whom were named George.” We should grow and change. We just gotta give each other the freedom to grow, and recognize that that means, potentially, that we may grow apart. 
  5. Ultimately, I think, it’s all about sexual openness. The people I’ve seen who have been able to sustain things long-term have been deeply open. Experiment! Try something you’ve never done, then try it again – just because you tried it once and didn’t like it doesn’t mean you’ll never like it. See which edges you can push. Take a class, take a workshop. Open up, let go.

All this advice is sounding very cliché. I don’t like giving general advice as a rule … wish I had some more specific answers for you here. Other readers? Tips for sustaining a long-term passionate relationship? Hell, if you are IN a long-term, passionate relationship, how do you do it? What makes it work?

6. Dosia asks: What would you say is the best way for a girl to approach a hot butch in a bar/at a dyke march/behind the counter in a cafe/in class? How do we make those connections — not just for sex, but for friendship? Hell, it doesn’t have to be specific to butch/femme dynamics, how does it work, this meeting other queer women?

If there’s only one piece of advice to give about starting – and maintaining – conversations with strangers, dykes or butches or femmes or friends or potential hotties or whoever – it’s this: find common ground and elevate the discussion.

My mom told me that once upon a time about my (former) hostile work environment. And I tell ya, it fucken worked.

Find common ground: that is, when you hit upon a topic with which you are both familiar, attempt to deepen it. When you discover you both like art, go inside of that – elevate the discussion. Ask another question: “what kind of art do you like?” “Have you been to that exhibit at the Met?” “Do you paint?” “What kind of medium do you use?” “What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever done?” “What do you wish you could do?” “What made you get into that?” …see what I mean? Once you hit a common topic of interest, deepen the discussion by asking as many questions as you can about the different aspects of it. It’s hard when you don’t know anything about the topic – it’s hard for me to bullshit sports, for example – but when I actually know something about it, I can ask intelligent questions that, who knows, may even compliment my own understanding of the topic.

That said: there are a few good books I’d recommend here. The Art of Conversation and, cheesy as it may sound, The Game, a memoir about pickup artistry (with many grains of salt and a critical eye, of course).

Certainly there’s not just one way, and the trick is to find your own way, the way that works for you with your unique set of interests and talents. My way and your way are probably different. I know, that’s a lousy answer, but unfortunately it’s also true – what makes you interesting, what do you love to talk about? I am often talking to girls about their gender presentation at bars, and I quickly discover in that conversation which girls share a similar vocabulary for gender that I do (major turn-on), and which are performing some sort of femininity out of some sort of compulsory default (major turn-off).

Lesbians travel in packs, especially to bars, dyke marches, cafes, so it’s really difficult to actually a) gain one’s attention, b) keep one’s attention, and c) have an actual conversation of connection. That’s where the find common ground comes in, but I definitely understand that it’s hard to actually say something, hard to “break the ice,” to make contact.

I mean, I think this is hard for everybody, but particularly difficult because of the ways that lesbians stay huddled with their friends when out at social events, in public. Why do we do that? Maybe it’s a predator-pray kind of instinct, where it used to be so much more dangerous for us to be out on the town, and we remember that, as a community. There is safety in numbers, after all. From the specifically butch perspective, these are some things that would make me seriously take notice:

  • Ask me to light your cigarette (even better if you then say “I don’t actually smoke, I just wanted to talk to you,” because for one, I’m an ex-smoker, and for two, smoking, as romantic as it is (sigh), will severely damage your body and that is, ultimately, a turn-off. I should add that to the list.)
  • Compliment me on my gender (no, I’m serious!) – “hey, I noticed your gender from across the room.” “hey, you look like a old-school butch / faggy butch / dapper dandy / prettyboi – do you have a particular word for what it is you do?” “Your gender is quite noticeable.  You got a gender philosophy?” 
  • Offer to buy me a drink. It’s an easy excuse to get somebody talking. Say, “I wouldn’t want to presume to insult your possible dominant or chivalrous abilities, but can I buy you a drink?” Boy howdy, that’d definitely get my attention. (I’d say: “No. But you can allow me the pleasure of buying you one.” And then you’d giggle, and we’d talk and flirt until I eventually took you back to your place and fucked you in the foyer. Hey wait, how’d this become a sex story?)

These are things that would absolutely appeal to me, not sure how butches-as-a-whole would really respond. But that’s all I can speak to, really, is my own experience – other butches (and any folks who don’t identify as butch): what would get your attention? Don’t be afraid to be a little bold. Lesbians rarely are, but it’s my experience that we respond extremely well to boldness. Also, after you get to talking, it’s okay not to have a plan. And it’s also okay to let your nervousness come through as charming. “Uh, that was my one idea for a conversation. Now I’m drawing a blank ‘cause you’re kinda cute.  Got any topics for discussion?”

7. Cyn asks: … (see the first batch of answers)

8. Duck asks: Could you explain how the remaking of femininity has been “successful?”

Still working on this one ….

9. Miss Avarice asks: Have we yet figured out the subtle differences between straight girls and femmes at first glance? Does it really come down to a hunch in the end? Also, has writing SB changed you?

The only way I can say that I know the femmes from the straight girls is that, sometimes, I “just know.” And hell, I’m not even right all the time! I err on the side of caution, though, assuming someone is straight until proven otherwise – although “proven otherwise” is a broader and broader category, often as broad as “she’s talking to me, must mean she’s queer (in some form).” So yeah, it comes down to a hunch – it’s more than just a hunch though, it’s an energy. It’s gaydar, it’s a sixth sense that I can’t put my finger on. I wish I knew! I’m working on some writings on “gender energy,” we’ll see how those go.

Writing Sugarbutch has absolutely changed me. I was just looking back at where I was two years ago, and while I knew I was butch, I was so much less articulate and able to claim it in ways that I do now. Sugarbutch has been key and essential to my own personal development of gender identity. It’s plateauing a little bit, in the last year or so, but I still have some realms to explore (the “sex” part and the “relationship” part, namely). One big way Sugarbutch has measurably changed me, especially in terms of gender identity, is that I – as Sinclair – exclusively go by male pronouns. I write “Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith,” and in the few interviews I’ve had, I’ve asked to be called by the set of he/him/his. I don’t go by male pronouns in my non-pseudonymed life, though I really love being able to play with both.

It’s changed me in other ways, too, though; I’ve been able to let a persona wander free and explore lots more of that toppy/butch identity, and it’s definitely strengthened my own expression of it.

10. Zoe asks: How did you develop boundaries for your blog? How do you decide what to write about vs what to keep private? Who would you be most worried about finding it?

I established the boundaries early on, with the tagline “sex, gender, and relationship adventures” – that’s what I write about. Occasionally I get the impulse to post links, or media, or general bitchy writing, but I ask myself: is this about sex, gender, or relationships? Otherwise, no. Axed. (I suppose I should add “self-awareness” to that list, though really, usually it’s self-awareness about sex, gender, or relationships, so it applies.)

I don’t have hard rules about what to write vs what to keep private. Sometimes, a date or a situation or a new revelation just begs to be written about, and I do. It’s instinctual, I guess. Occasionally, I hesitate – usually in those situations I write it all out anyway, and then ask one of my trusty advisees to tell me whether or not it’s appropriate to post. Most often, they say no, for whatever reasons, and confirm my suspicions.

Who would I be most worried about finding Sugarbutch … I suppose I wouldn’t want my boss at work finding this blog, especially considering how many hours I spend on it while I’m at work. And while there are many of these entries I’ve written that I would send to my mother, I wouldn’t particularly wish her to find it, either – though, my family being what it is (completely non-confrontational) I’d probably never know she’d run across it.

I would never want to get an email from Callie with her comments about what I’ve said about her on this blog (note to self: when are you going to get around to password protecting the old Callie entries?). I don’t actually know for sure whether or not Callie knows about this blog. My logical self says yes, of course she does, how could she not; but, on the other hand, I can’t imagine she wouldn’t have mentioned it. I guess we had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing going on.

I’m really open about this stuff – sex, gender, relationships – and most people in my life know that I write here. I used to keep it much more of a secret, but as it’s been developing from a personal journal blog to a more thorough non-ficiton-essay blog, I share it more and more. Plus, I spend so much time on it, I like to talk about it and bounce ideas around.

essays

Revised: Music To Fuck To

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I posted a sexmix last year, in August, but I’m constantly revising my playlists. This is the current sexmix tracklist.

This is not, however, the music I put on for a day of sex – I’d rather have a few albums on shuffle. The current favorites are Me’Shell N’degeOcello’s Bitter, as much Morphine as I have on my hard drive (especially the albums Like Swimming, Yes, and Good), and Chris Isaak’s album Heart Shaped World.

Here’s the sexmix:

  1. Come – Kinnie Starr
  2. All Your Way – Morphine
  3. Sexual Animals – Sarah Fimm
  4. Right Now & Right Here – Keren Ann
  5. Sweet The Sting – Tori Amos
  6. Wrong To Love You – Chris Isaak
  7. Slow Like Honey – Fiona Apple
  8. Beautiful – Meshell Ndegeocello
  9. Volcano – Damien Rice
  10. You Look Like Rain – Morphine
  11. Alright – Kinnie Starr
  12. Grace – Jeff Buckley
  13. Tear You Apart – She Wants Revenge
  14. Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums – A Perfect Circle
  15. Forty Six & 2 – Tool
  16. Sexyback – JT
  17. In Tha Mood – Esthero
  18. Satisfy – Meshell Ndegeocello
  19. Swing It Low – Morphine

So, lay it on me: what would you add? What’s your favorite music to fuck to? What’s the best seduction music? What tracks just need to be on this list?

identity

Ask Mr. Sexsmith: Butch Identity & Misogyny

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

4. leo asked: i have a question about butch identity. you’ve written so eloquently about the concerns you faced in reconciling feminism and your gender identity, and especially about rejecting misogyny as a necessary element of masculinity. but you’ve also written that you wanted to throw up (i think?) when someone first called you butch. was that all about feminism? if not, what other feelings (positive or negative) and concerns have been central to the development of your sense of butch identity/female masculinity? did it frighten you at all, apart from the feminism issue, or was it love at first sight, or some combination?

I definitely had a love/hate relationship with what I perceived to be butch identity in the beginning. It appealed to me, but at the same time I saw such misogyny and disrespect coming out of these butches mouths – often the very objectification and trivialization of women that felt so reminiscient of the stories I heard in feminist classes and texts. But, at the same time, I wanted to be more masculine than I presented – I was just very torn about how that identity would be possible without the deep misogyny.

It was the first girl I was in love with – a femme, who, when we were discussing gender, whispered in my ear, “I think you’re butch.” And I did want to throw up a little, but also felt like I’d probably come right then & there if she put any single finger on me. The feeling of sickness and fear was about being seen, being visible, having tapped into something that I wanted so deeply that I was afraid to let anyone know I wanted it at all, for fear of failure I suppose. It wasn’t so much that I was afriad of the identity itself, but I was afraid that it wasn’t me or that I wanted something unreachable.

The feminism confliction with my butch identity was actually a very short-lived argument in my head. Of course I can be butch and be a feminist. Of course I can display and embody a sort of intentional, respectful masculinity. But then: how?

I did have to re-invent masculinity for myself – I actually used to make long lists of “masculine traits” or interests or hobbies, and I had a system of symbols (stars, circling, highlighting in different colors) that would denote different aspects of the identity – things I already was, things I wanted to be, things I rejected about masculinity in general, things that masculinity could be but that I didn’t want for myself.

In the beginning, I distinguished heavily – and still do – between ideas of “external gender” and “internal gender” (for lack of better terms, at the moment at least). External gender meaning what I put on my body, my clothes, my haircut, my physical communication, my physical presence. Internal gender, then, meaning emotional styles, interests, hobbies, personality – I don’t believe those things are or should be dictated by gender.

Gender theorists don’t believe that there’s any sort of “innate” gender, something that comes from inside – but that doesn’t seem to be how most people really experience gender. “I just know,” they say. “I just feel butch,” or “I just feel femme,” or “I just feel like a woman.” Theorists would say there’s no such thing as a woman, actually. But that experience doesn’t necessarily translate to praxis – putting theory into action.

I actually think there is some sort of “gender energy,” something that comes inside of someone that will tell you that’s a butch in a dress or that femme sure looks tough in those overalls, installing those 2x4s. I’m not sure how this is different than “internal gender” or innate gender, but I do think it is slightly different.

That’s a bit of a tangent. Back to your question:

Another reason why butch was difficult for me was because I had very few representations of butch, and what little I did have I basically flat-out rejected. Why would I want to emulate something, to be something, that I had no good model for? But somehow, I persisted in this, I recognized some sort of value in the identity – and some sort of me in the identity – even if I wasn’t sure how to identify it, or identify with it.

I think a huge part of this is because we, as a culture, still need a masculine revolution – a remaking of masculinity much as we’ve had a (successful!) remaking of femininity since the Second Wave feminist movement.

And honestly? It’s no small feat, and it sounds kind of pie-in-the-sky, or maybe cocky as hell, but that’s part of what I consider myself to be doing by claiming a butch identity: revolutionizing masculinity.

identity

Femme Outfits, Fantasy, and more Q&A

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I offered up answering any question that was asked today – you can still ask a question until, oh, let’s say, midnight tonight. These are some of the answers, posted as they’re coming in.

1. muse asks: what is your archetypical, eroticized gender-performance-y, fuckable femme outfit, from head to toe, outside in?

First: nothing too tight, I prefer movement in the fabric. Especially in skirts. Something form-fitting can be lovely and fun, yes, but I so prefer the hint of thigh that comes from the swing in the fabric.

So, this is a bit fancy, the dressed-up going-out showing-off outfit. Funny how much I feel hesitant to get super specific, because I love oh-so-much the display of femme in its many forms. But if we’re talking about archetypical, eroticized, most fuckable gender performance, (gulp) here it is:

Hair – up. I don’t care how, but pulled up off the neck. For one, I love to see the lines of the neck and jaw (very sexy), but also, I want to be the one who rips your hair down, later. I remember watching Ally McBeal as a teenager and being so overwhelmed by Nelle Porter (Portia De Rossi) and the way she wore her hair – she only ever wore it up in the office, but she would sometimes take it down when she was out in the bar after hours. It was so, so powerful and sexy. I also remember reading an erotica story (S Bear Bergman’s piece called “Silver Dollar Afternoon” Best Lesbian Erotica 2006): “I fall in love with her when anyone asks her why she doesn’t wear her beautiful long hair all the way down and she says, with just a hint of coolness: “A woman’s hair is for her husband,” which makes me remember every time she has unpinned her hair for my delighted eyes and even if I’m not quite a husband I still shiver in my blue jeans without fail.” I know there are deep problems with this idea of a husband owning a wife’s hair, but I love the idea of it being so sexual, such a turn on, when a femme lets her hair down, that it’s private, saved for me and me alone.

Dress – or skirt, but something like this flirty hourglass dress from White House Black Market – not necessarily this exact dress (I’m not crazy about the bold pattern, though I can see how it’d work) but this type of shape of skirt, maybe even a little longer, below the knee, not necessarily above. Not necessarily strapless either, I just couldn’t find a good example of what I’m trying to describe other than this one. (Anyone know if there’s a particular name for this kind of skirt?) Layers of skirt are pretty fantastic, too – muse keeps making fun of me for a comment I made, something like, “but oh, it’s nice to be buried in crinoline.”

Shoes – You already know this one: the ribbons around the ankle fucken kill me. They don’t have to be too slutty, as some have told me that shoes like these are – the shoes Missy beautifully modeled are much more subtle and tasteful. (I’ve seen a few girls wearing this type of shoe around lately, but I cannot find them online – any help with links?) Strappy sandals work too. I prefer a couple inches of heels, though honestly, it’s more about how the sole of the shoe – the heel – fits in my hand.

Underneath – bare legs with some of those soft, thin thin thin panties that practically feel like skin, or a garter belt & stockings of any damn variety (preferably without undies). Those panties Belle modeled with the lacing up the back was also particularly impressive, but to tell the truth, aside from a thigh-high stockings of any sort, a garter belt, or freshly shaved bare legs, the details of the lingerie are often lost on me. I prefer simple lines, things that show off the curves of the body. I’m not crazy about bows or lace, but hey, anything can be fun – and everything is so pleasing, by the time we’re at the point where my hands have removed the rest of this lovely outfit.

2. green-eyed girl asks: Is there something that you have really wanted to do sexually but haven’t yet? What is it?

Two things come to mind – tantra, and some of the heavier topping skills. For example, I’d like to learn how to throw a singletail, I’d like to learn how to do play-piercing, I’d like to play (more than I have) with knives.

Both of these things require a longer-term lover who I deeply trust, and honestly, I’ve never actually had someone I could do that with.

3. saintchick asks: Can you please list a new & improved sex music mix? I know that you are dying to update it. Also what perfume is to be worn with above said outfit?

I’ll have to tell you about my updated sexmix from home later, but I off the top of my head: I’ve distinguished between a “sexmix,” which is usually really damn hot songs about sex or which sound like sex (Sexual Animals by Sarah Fimm, that techno French Kiss song, Sexyback – yeah, I said it) and a mix of songs that I want to fuck to, which are often much more subtle, and about crooning voices and excellent rhythm. Right now, my fucking mix technique is a shuffled playlist of many different albums, including Me’Shell N’degeOcello’s Bitter, as much Morphine as I have on my hard drive, and Chris Isaak’s album Heart Shaped World.

I’ll show you my revised sexmix later.

Perfume – I don’t have a specific preference to one scent. Everybody is so distinct, and even the same perfume smells different on two different people. But I do love a signature scent, so whatever you find and like, wear it – every day, continuously, for a long period, like a year at least. Then, eventually, even if you no longer wear that perfume, if I smell that perfume again, it’ll remind me of that time period. I love that creation of sense memory.

I’m not crazy about getting a mouthful of perfume while kissing your neck; not sure if there’s a better place to apply it (behind the ear?) or not – we should ask a perfume expert about this. Some girls do tend to do this more than others – or perhaps their perfume just tastes worse. Sometimes it unfortunately can be quite the buzzkill.

4. leo asked: i have a question about butch identity. you’ve written so eloquently about the concerns you faced in reconciling feminism and your gender identity, and especially about rejecting misogyny as a necessary element of masculinity. but you’ve also written that you wanted to throw up (i think?) when someone first called you butch. was that all about feminism? if not, what other feelings (positive or negative) and concerns have been central to the development of your sense of butch identity/female masculinity? did it frighten you at all, apart from the feminism issue, or was it love at first sight, or some combination?

See ask me anything: about butch identity.

5. Mm asks: How does one (or more appropriately two) keep passion from waning in a long term monogamous relationship? It’s been done, but how?

…

6. Dosia asks: What would you say is the best way for a girl to approach a hot butch in a bar/at a dyke march/behind the counter in a cafe/in class? How do we make those connections — not just for sex, but for friendship? Hell, it doesn’t have to be specific to butch/femme dynamics, how does it work, this meeting other queer women?

…

7. Cyn asks: Do you have a day job and what is it? Yes – sadly, Sugarbutch doesn’t support me (yet). I work as a graphic designer at a finance firm in Midtown Manhattan, so I commute into the city with the nine-to-five office crowd, in my almost-blending-in business casual.

Who is your fav band/musical artist? I am a very big Tori Amos fan (at perhaps some points in my past the word “fanatic” may’ve been more appropriate). My top artists (according to Last.fm) are Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Patty Griffin, Ani Difranco, Morphine, KD Lang, Ingrid Michaelson, Jack Johnson, Joshua Radin, Melissa Ferrick, Imogen Heap, Kinnie Starr, Regina Spektor, Holly Williams, Erin McKeown, the Beatles – and that about covers it. I’m a bit of a music collector, though, and in fact have over 10,000 tracks in my iTunes library recently.

What is your fave dyke/queer blog? I’ve been reading Pure as the Driven Slush by Heather Corinna for years, and have had a crush on her for at least as long. She’s femme, partnered with a guy for the past few years, and completely brilliant. She doesn’t update much anymore but she’s still one of my top queer blogs ever. I aspire to write like Mark Morford’s column (he’s queer, isn’t he? I’m pretty sure. If he’s not, he’s an honorary queer). Those are blogs I’ve been reading for years – more recently, I particularly enjoy Dorothy Surrenders and Lesbian Dad. I don’t read many good gay boy blogs – any recommendations?

Why, as a butch, do you … post butch eye candy on your site? Do you know/believe most of your readers to want/desire butch eye candy? The butch eye candy is, at least in part, about my own ego, because femme readers fawn over the lovely butches, and I breathe a sigh of relief in the validation and desirability of displays female masculinity. Yes, the majority of my readers (or, at least, the majority of the readers who are in contact with me) are femme-identified in some way (perhaps I’ll do a survey one of these days), and they do seem to appreciate the eye candy.

The reasons I started featuring eye candy, though, are specific: there was a particularly nasty thread on New York Craigslist a while back bashing butches – and all masculine-leaning lesbians – and so, posting photos of the butch aesthetic started as a way to celebrate the displays of masculinity. Eye candy got such great feedback, though, that I pursued it, turning it into a regular feature. I especially liked when my straight female audience started emailing me all hot-&-bothered under the collar, saying how hot the eye candy photos are … my response is twofold: “Yes! That’s right!” and also, “Hey wait! There’s not enough butch to go around, we’re for the femmes, dammit.”

8. Duck asks: Could you explain how the remaking of femininity has been “successful?”

…

Man, these are good questions! I’ll keep working on the answers, didn’t have time to do any writing tonight. Will post these tomorrow.

miscellany

ask me anything

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

… go on, you know you want to.

In celebration of Sugarbutch Chronicle’s second anniversary, I’m going to follow one of my favorite blogger’s Ask Me Anything thread over at Zen Habits and open up the floor to any questions you might have for me. I can’t promise to answer 100 (as Zen Habits’s author Leo did) but I will answer as many as I can.

You already know how old I am (29), my favorite cock (Silky), and a whoooole lot about my relationship history in the past few years (see: every “girl” category over there in the sidebar). But what else do you want to know?

To echo Leo once again: You can ask me anything you want, from the personal to the professional to the philosophical and anything else you can think of. I can’t claim to have expert answers on anything, but I’ll do my best, and will profess ignorance when applicable.

miscellany

sugarbutch’s second anniversary

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

2nd birthdayToday celebrates the second anniversary of the beginning of Sugarbutch Chronicles. Two years ago, I was stuck in a Lesbian Bed Death relationship and felt like I was withering away – we were together four years, and we’d had sex five times during the last two.

That relationship is why I started writing smut. I had to do something with all the sexual energy built up, so I decided I’d either a) write it down or b) go to the gym, and while I did develop a nice workout habit, the smut started growing more and more.

This is how Sugarbutch Chronicles began -discussing  Bed Death, Standard Variety:

What I’m trying to say is this: I’m not getting the sex that I want. No, scratch that: I’m not getting the sex that I need. My basic human needs, basic woman needs, basic self needs, include sex. If asked, I would say at least three times a week, though I can be a little flexible about that. I understand, having had some experience as a couple, that that can’t always happen. But I also know that it can, and does, when both people make the effort.

I’m not exactly sure how I let it get as far as it did – I can’t ever imagine letting it get to that place again.

It wasn’t until Callie came along that I was shocked out of my complacent unfeeling depressed stupor and back into a sensual, feeling reality. I’ll always be grateful to her for that. For the six months Callie & I were together, this writing project turned into two main things: writing about the sex Callie and I were having, and then processing through the difficult emotional “conflicts” that kept coming up. I didn’t have community in New York when we were together, so I had very few friends to go to and talk to about her. Sugarbutch became a major outlet for my psychological explorations of our relationship.

But after that ended, it became something else: exploration of my single sex life, mostly. And as that has developed into something more intentional and less, uh, free-for-all, I’ve been writing less about my own personal dating and sex than I am about gender and sexuality in general.

Going into Sugarbutch’s third year, that’s the general direction I’m going to continue to aim. I’ll still going to write about my own personal processes and developments, but I’d like to focus on more personal essay styles with distinctive reoccuring features (like eye candy) and, of course, smut.

Is there is anything specific you’d like to see more or less of? What’s most useful to you here? What’s least useful? What do you love, what do you skip over without reading? If you have ideas, if you have general praise or critique, I’d love to know.

miscellany

eye candy: “Womyn in Construction” series

Posted on by QEC

womyn in construction 1

womyn in construction 2
Two shots from photographer Laura Placencia’s series,
“Womyn in Construction.”
Laura adds: The two womyn in the pictures are Elsa and Tania,
a pair of lovely butches who helped me build a runway for the
butch/femme fashion show Sappho’s Return did two years ago
at the LA gay & lesbian center … and all I had to do was
bat my eyes and say ‘pleassseee.’

essays, kink

Submissive Impulses & Why I Heart Sadists, Guest Post by muse

Posted on by muse

This guest post comes from Muse, as part of a response to my post on The Sadistic Impulse. She adds this PS: “The quote in the story is direct from Big Bad Daddy Lee.”

The first thing I think of when I conjure up images of sex: a fist in my hair, yanking hard, holding me motionless.

I want to be taken, to be thrown around and kicked down and tied up and fucked and spanked and twisted and slapped and bitten and pinched and pulled and made to endure. But I don’t want you to worry about what I want. I want you to know what you want, and I want you to take it. Without asking. I’m along for the ride, I can let myself go, I can be yours to play with. Trust me, I want you to.

But sometimes, I want to fight. I won’t go down without a struggle. I’ll run, bite, wrestle, kick you away. And I’m very wily, very quick, very strong. I’ll twist out of your grip, force you to catch me, grab me harder, pin me up against the wall or down on the floor, drag me by the hair and throw me into bed. I’ll make you do something to wipe the smirk off my face, to get my attention, to stop me in my tracks. I’ll make you restrain me, so I can’t get away again, even if I try. (I will try, at first.)

Finally I’ll look up at you, eyes and mouth wide, wounded, shocked, and I will relent. I will give up. Give in. Give myself over to you.

When I do, you lean over and growl in my ear: “That’s right. I can fuck you any way I want, whenever I want. I can do anything to you. Because you’re mine, aren’t you. And you like it rough, don’t you, you dirty girl. You are such a bad girl. I’m going to have to teach you a lesson. You’re going to get it now.”

Oh, handsome. What you’ve got to give, this naughty girl is going to take so well.

Please, put me in my place.

I dare you.

miscellany

128: such sexy shit

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I’m sorry, but how fucking hot is this week’s sugasm photo of the girl with the stilettos? Damn damn damn.

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them …

This Week’s Picks:

  • Fellatrices: C-u-n-n-i-l-i-n-g-u-s “Yep, sounds like the boyfriend needs a lesson,” she affirmed. “You just need to show him where to lick.”
  • In Plain Sight “She was laughing flirtatiously and he had a look of a cat that’s about to get the cream.”
  • Succor. The act of suspension removed me from my ego and placed me at the still point.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself (one from the vaults) Ten Things to Thank Porn For

Editor’s Choice: Half-Nekkid Thursday: My Hustler Debut

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

My favorites:

essays

On Piercing: Earlobe, Clit, Cock

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I put an earring in my left ear over the weekend, a simple stainless steel hoop that goes through two of the four holes I have had in that ear since I was 14 – an orbital. I used to want a transverse lobe piercing, because it is unusual and because of the potential to make a sphere out of two rings, I used to find that image beautiful. But I’m liking the orbital. More subtle than anything hanging down below my earlobe.

I haven’t had earrings in my ears for years, since before that red tie photograph. I occasionally stick a post through the holes just out of curiosity, to see if they’re still open, and they always are. I usually don’t leave an earring in though, and now, two days later, I’ve got that dull ache of flesh being forced out of its natural state of being, but instead forced open, forced apart. Difficult to sleep on my left side (as I often do) or cradle a phone on my left shoulder (which I also often do).

I like the awareness that a new piercing brings to a body part. How conscious I am of the way my earlobe feels when I’m doing anything, getting dressed, slinging my bag over my shoulder, listening to headphones.

Last night I dreamed of kissing, shoulder and clavicle and neck and jawline, eventually slipping her earlobe between my lips, feeling my tongue meet it, hot and smooth.

Having this ring in my ear is making me crave another new piercing. I have eleven, all together, though only three – four, now – have jewelry in them. I remember saying at some point that I no longer wanted adornment piercings, only functional piercings.

I’ve wanted a clit piercing for years. Always thought I’d get a vertical hood piercing, and still might – lately, considering the primary way I get off these days is strapped on, clit-against-harness, a piercing might be great for that kind of thing. (Might also make strap-on sex incredibly painful for a while, so that’s a hesitation.) I’ve also liked the idea of a triangle … that is more and more appealing. Not sure I have the anatomy for it exactly, and I hear there are hard to do, and must be done by someone particularly skilled. The story is that Elaine Angel (Buck Angel’s partner, I believe) is a master at triangles, and no longer practices in the US but does recommend a few of her apprentices. Perhaps I’ll make a trip to Philadelphia this summer.

What I’d really like, right now, actually, is to get my cock pierced.

I’ve been thinking about that for a while, but haven’t found someone to do it yet. No, that’s not true – I haven’t really done the research, and I haven’t asked around. I must know a few kinky folks who have piercing kits, and I think I’d trust them to do one of my cocks – what I’d really love to do is pierce my favorite Silky packing cock, but the flesh of it is actually quite thin and splits easily, I fear once it gets punctured it would just rip open and the cock would be ruined. It’s not silicone, but I’m not sure about it either. Perhaps the same thing would happen?

Possibly, then, I should pierce one of my non-playing packing cocks, which would mean that it is much more for adornment than function. That’d be alright, to start with anyway, until I figured out how to pierce one with which I could actually play.

miscellany

eye candy: butchlalis

Posted on by QEC

eye candy from laura

This addition to the butch eye candy comes from Laura: “This is Mari
from the performance troupe Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (based in Los Angeles).”

Sugarbutch needs more butch eye candy! If you’ve got photos of yourself, your lover, your best friend, your sister, your aunt, your co-worker, an acquaintance … send ’em my way! aspiringstud [at] gmail.com

kink

The Sadistic Impulse

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

me: I want to smack your ass
her: that’s exciting to me. how do you feel when you’re doing that?
me: strong, powerful. hard and wanting.
me: but also? completely inadeuqate and in awe of such beauty.
her: that’s incredibly sweet …
me: more in awe than inadequate; in reverence.

That moment of inadequacy is so hard to describe (especially via text message, what was I thinking?) – it’s less about the hierarchy between us or my own self-worth (that ‘inadequate’ implies) as it is about awe and reverance, like looking at the Milky Way and witnessing its spinning, a deep wonder at the beauty before me – and then a deep desire to bite into a destroy something so precious.

What is that impulse? My mom, who works with elementary school kids, speaks of it often – spending a few hours on a beach building a sand castle or a rock pattern only to have some of the fourth grade boys come trampling through and destroy it all. Sure, maybe once in a while there is a girl who does this – and sure, there are boys who never would (do forgive my oversimplification of gender roles here) – but by and large, the kids who do this are boys, and boys alone.

It reminds me of what I’ve read in feminist scholarship about pre-Christian matriarchal and goddess-centered cultures of which we have so little record. Some theories discuss how men were (and still are) so much in awe of a woman’s strength and power in sexuality that their impulse was to put it under lock and key, to control, to regulate. What they could not have themselves, they longed to own, occupy, colonize.

And in moments like my date on Saturday night, with girls like her, I deeply understand this feeling.

What is that? Where does that come from? It is similar to the impulse of destruction I’ve hinted at, the witness of something so perfect, so flawless and lovely, so fresh and baby-green and precious, trembling with new life like the leaves on the trees right now, that after a moment of quiet awe and appreciation I want to caress it, touch my hand gently to it, then wrap my fingers closed around it and squeeze the life out until I hear the last gasp of breath. I want to rip it from it’s branch like meat from a bone.

I don’t like this impulse much, I’m suspicious of it. I’m a pacifist, a feminist – but I’m also a sadist. I get off on the intentional release of pain. That also makes me a healer.

I have control of this impulse, to a point. I don’t actually crush baby leaves, or destroy flowers or people. But there have been times, that I can count on one hand, where I’ve been so deeply in sync with a lover, where they’ve sensed this impulse in me and provoked it, where I’ve nearly tipped over the edge and given in. I don’t really know what would happen inside of it, I’ve never trusted someone else – or myself – enough to find out.

Maybe this is one of the ways that I seek balance on a fairly extreme scale.

This too is why I like classic femininity in my lovers, in femmes: I want to see that supposed innocence. It riles me up, incites in me this impulse to take, to conquer, to overthrow, to destroy.

Consensually, and with such reverance and care, of course, of course.

cock confidence, reviews

Review: Feeldoe Stout double dildo

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

Finally finished my review for Eden Fantasys of the Feeldoe stout double dildo … perhaps you would guess, but I’m actually not quite as impressed as I expected. It’s missing a) control b) precision c) did I mention control?

There’s just nothing sexy about wondering where my cock is going, how it’s behaving, what angle it’s at … even on the cocks that I know really well, I still often keep my hand on it (or under it, or next to it) in order to continue to feel precisely how and where it’s moving. For the same reasons, I keep my harnesses quite tight: much more control that way.

Still, on occasion, I could see the Feeldoe having a very welcome place in my tool box. Pulling it out on a lazy morning in bed, slipping it in and rolling her on top of me … yeah, I’ll have one of those, thanks.

Well, until that happens, I’ve got a few new products to review to keep me busy. Did I mention Eden just got some packing cocks? Aw yeah.

miscellany

‘I sing the body electric’

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I have yet to write up my experiences at the most recent Body Electric Celebrating the Body Erotic workshop that happened just at the end of March (I’m so behind on my writing), but I cannot recommend these highly enough. If you are in the Bay Area, or Seattle, or have access to those two places, it really is worth it.  Ask me if you have more questions, I’ll tell you all about it.

JUST ADDED – June 20-22
Seattle Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
We heard your requests for more opportunities to experience this amazing workshop. Please come join 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
This workshop starts Friday night and ends Sunday and is for 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.* June 20-22 – Seattle – Led by Lizz Randall – contact Robyn Lynn at 206-579-2603 or robyn@thepresentsense.com
Tuition: $395
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by May 30 and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction

Power, Surrender & Intimacy
After an absence of several years this powerful exploration into the nature of trust, exquisite attention and heightened sensations returns. Join with like-minded women who are ready to go beyond the life ordinary. In a grounded, respectful container discover and clarify edges of liberation, empowerment and embodiment. Learn to recognize aspects of yourself that are continually engaged in power dynamics, and hence become more choiceful about how you can share power with compassion and skill. Led by Alex Jade.
  * June 20-22 – New York City – Contact Debi Soler at 212-726-0679 or
  passionjustice@gmail.com
  Tuition: $395
  Prerequisite: Celebrating the Body Erotic
  Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
  1. Pay in full by May 30 and receive $30 off
  2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction

Oakland Celebrating the Body Erotic
 In addition to the upcoming Seattle CBE, you also have the option of attending a CBE in Oakland if that fits your schedule better.
* May 16-18 – Oakland – Led by Lizz Randall – Contact Ursula Goulet at 510-333-4721 or bodyelectricforwomen@yahoo.com
* October 3-5 – Oakland – Led by Elfi Dillon-Shaw – Contact Ursula Goulet at 510-333-4721 or bodyelectricforwomen@yahoo.com
Tuition: $395
Take advantage of one of two offers (cannot be combined):
1. Pay in full by April 25 (spring) or September 12 (fall) and receive $30 off
2. Register with a friend and you both receive a 10% reduction

The Body Electric School Website 
Contact Information: 510-653-1594, info@theBodyElectricSchool.com

identity

The Red Tie Night, Six Years Ago

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I ran across some photos this week of me and jesse james and georgia from almost exactly six years ago – I remember that night vividly. Aside from georgia’s very grabable curly hair, spaghetti strap tank top, and long string of gin+tonics (that I kept drinking for her), my gang of friends – including jesse james, and Maverick – decided we’d go out “in drag” that night, which meant slacks, button-downs, binding our breasts, ties.

(Interesting how men’s business wear is drag for masculinity, and women’s lingerie is drag for femininity – clearly some cultural values coming through there eh?)

I took many photos that night as we got ready to go – even the preparations were significant, the rituals of masculinity, hair slicked back, knotting and re-knotting my tie. It was one of the first times I wore a tie and packed out in public; in the photos I’m wearing a black shirt, black slacks, and red tie. I’m not even sure where I got that tie, now that I think about it. It just seems like I’ve always owned it. A red tie, solid – my favorite.

Interesting how, then, it was drag, it was rare, it was deliberate performance – I was so self-conscious going out like that, I felt stared at, noticed, in a new way. And I was, particularly by georgia’s attention, the clear lust in her eyes and fingertips as I lit her cigarettes and held her drinks and attempted to kiss her (with little luck – she had a girlfriend back then).

Looking at these photographs from six years ago, though, I catch a glimpse of the gender I grew into – I don’t always recognize myself in photos from that time, but in those … yeah, I think, that’s me.

It took such a long time for me to come to comfortably sit in this butch identity, for me to (if we’ll continue the metaphor) navigate the gender galaxy, and find a comfortable orbit around an identity label. Some of us don’t ever settle into that – some of us are radical little spaceships that explore treasures from all sorts of different worlds and words that we orbit. I guess the trick is, in my opinion, to simply find the routes that are the best to navigate (not necessarily the easiest, but the most satisfying), the orbits where there is plenty of oxygen, the alliances that create treaties and share resources and have excellent adventures.

We basically have to make our own gender galaxy maps. And while some gender mapmaking tools – queer theory, gender theory, postmodern theory, queer literature, smut and the language of lesbian desires – while some tools help immensely, I still couldn’t quite escape the praxis, the application of the theory, because of the ways that the social constraints and social policing affected my own process deeply.

The same friends who went out with me on that infamous red tie night – jesse james & Maverick – were very influential, and I had a lot of criticism about how they performed their own flavors of female masculinity. I don’t remember a lot of discussions about the label/term/identity of ‘butch’ specifically, but we definitely knocked the term around sometimes – mostly I remember saying, “I don’t know. If I’m butch, then am I all these other things that come along with compulsory masculinity – like misogyny?”

I remember one particular time when jesse james and Maverick were joking about attending a community class for and about femmes – identity, privilege, passing, visibility. And they kept speaking of it like it was a place to go pick up chicks – I eventually snapped at them: That’s a special place for femmes! That’s not a convenient pick-up ground! You’re like the boys who heh-heh-heh and sign up for women studies.

[I know it says “women studies” and not “women’s studies,” and that’s deliberate. The apostrophe implies that these studies belong to women, that it is women who study them. When it’s women studies, singular, then the implication is that it is the study of women. This is how my undergraduate Women Studies department operated & how I still describe that particular academic discipline.]

I’m not sure if they got it; maybe they did. I quickly gained the reputation as the hard-core feminist of the gang, and jesse james especially loved to push my buttons about it, to get a rise out of me, to make me laugh, to frustrate me with a scenario. They used to tease me endlessly.

But looking back at it, it was an integral part of my gender identity development. Because feminism, and deep respect for women, and deep rejection of the “oppressive male gaze” and gendered hierarchy, came first, I was terrified of objectifying women, of disrespecting women – and, most importantly, of adopting misogyny as part of a masculine identity. And I kept wondering, over and over: If I reject misogyny as part of masculinity, part of “butch,” then what’s left? Masculinity is, in so many ways, simply defined as not-woman; what else does that identity hold? And what does it mean for me to adopt it, to become it, to be it?

My solution, at least temporarily, was that I could look butch – hence the ties and button-downs and packing – but that I would maintain my hard-core feminist values, my inner emotional landscapes, my interests and personality traits. I didn’t know how far I could take this new idea of a masculine gender. For years, my friends & peers would say, “well, yeah, but you’re not really butch.” I didn’t like that, but I didn’t know how to only pick and choose the traits that I wanted, intentionally, within masculinity. I didn’t know it would mean to have be butch in other ways – for example, emotionally.

Even still, this puzzles me. There is something inward about gender, a sort of “gender energy,” internal traits that run through displays of female masculinity – but I still struggle with articulating that. It starts to run into the grey areas of where gender overlaps with personality, and I start feeling cautionary, not wanting gender to dictate things like hobbies and interests.

I’d like to figure this out, though. It’s on my list of Things to Explore Further.

Incidentally, jesse james – formerly known as The Closet Musician here on Sugarbutch – was known as Ice (from Iceman) back then; Maverick and Ice even had flight suits for Halloween one year. Then we had Mitchell, who joined our gang on occasion, and there were the femmes, Pepper (Maverick’s girlfriend and, later, wife) and Lola (who I was madly head-over-heels about). Who knew all those nicknames were such fabulous practice for anonymous writing?

I never had a nickname that stuck, I always wanted one. Perhaps that’s part of why I created Sinclair all these years later.

Donate to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you – add “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box. (Why?)

essays

Five Tips for Getting Laid

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

These tips come from my hanging-out-with-friends that turned into a date on Saturday night … and these are the Notes to Myself from that evening. Thought they might be useful to you, too.

  1. Make your bed, keep your sheets clean. Invest in linens. Not necessarily super-high thread count (though that’s lovely), but at least replace those sheets you’ve had since college, replace anything more than a few years old, invest in some sensuous throws that feel good against the skin. [To have a slightly feng shui moment: also, don’t keep your bed lengthwise against a wall (unless you absolutely have to – some Manhattan ‘bedrooms’ are really closets, I get it) – the bed should be set up with room for two, two nightstands, two reading lights, especially if you’re looking for that serious LTR. It’s a symbol that says you know how to make space for someone in your life.] Your bed is where the magic happens, baby. Gotta make it inviting.
  2. Pack. For me, it’s not only being ready, it’s the cock confidence for the evening – even if you go out on the town or out with friends without any expectation at all of getting laid, your cock may give you that extra push of confidence that will perhaps get you that phone number, make you ask her to dance, get a little more than a chaste “goodnight” at the end of the evening. If you didn’t pack, don’t be afraid to bust out the strapon early in the evening (see #3).
  3. Watch the signals, and trust your instincts. If you think she wants you to kiss her, she probably does. If you think she’s wondering when you’re going to take her home, she probably is. Just do it. Don’t dwell on it. Be bold. 
  4. When you’ve decided to take her home, don’t hesitate to splurge on a cab.
  5. Morning after: It is best to be able to offer something besides water. Keep coffee on hand, get a French Press (even if you don’t drink it).
miscellany

last of the birthday photos

Posted on by QEC

birthday - lady brett 2
As promised, the second photo from Lady Brett Ashley –
this time, in drag. Gorgeous!

 

birthday - melissa
Special shot from Melissa, who writes: “My picture does not show any skin,
but that’s the beauty of it. Although it does contain 2 of my favorite things:
my ‘baby’ and the shoes that stop them dead in their tracks …
4 inches and a size 5!”

 

birthday - black&blue
Mmm … beautiful stockings & heels from black&blue

dirty stories, fiction

The Photo Shoot

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I know, I know – you never thought this day would come! But it’s true, here it is: the LAST Sugarbutch Star Contest story, from the lovely talented writer Shannon.

I’m still kicking myself for having it take so long, but I ultimately loved this contest, and I’ll be doing another one when this one is completely over (there’s still the voting, the prizes, the announcement of the winner, and, hopefully, a public reading of the winning story!). I learned a lot about the contest, mostly that I bit off much more than I could chew and I need to keep it simpler than I did. I made a lot of extra work for myself taking on the “honorable mention” category (in which you’ll also be able to vote, don’t worry).

Your mission, readers, now, should you choose to accept it, is to review the Sugarbutch Star Contest entries, for tomorrow – Friday, April 11, 2008, a full six+ months after the contest started, and to decide which stories are your very favorites – for you will be the ones who determine the winner.

One more thing: I’m still blogging for RAINN  in April – if you like this work, consider a donation to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you – add  “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box.

And now, without further introduction:

The Photo Shoot

She wants me.

Or, more accurately, I want her, and she’s just starting to notice and respond. To begin to play in her mind with the idea of kissing me. She licks her lips without noticing, watching mine. Tucks her hair behind her ear. Gently blows her bangs out of her eyes.

I’m pinned behind the lens of her camera, which both magnifies me and puts a barrier between us.

But now she keeps letting the camera fall, looking at me bare.

“Shannon,” I whisper. She’s painting the lines of my masculinity with her photographer’s eye. She has her elbow on her hip, camera cocked to the side. She snaps a few at this odd angle as her eye wanders.

The romantic love poem I was reciting by heart – to impress her, and to capture on film – is over. “Shannon.” I say again, moving a step closer to her, out from the grey backdrop, the hooded lights. “Put the camera down.”

Her eyes snap to attention, locked on my face. She moves slow and sets the camera on the nearby chair.

I curl her into my arms in one fluid motion, pull her to me, her back perfectly nestled into my elbow. She breathes in sharply, the weight of her body leaning into me. She brings her hand to my chest, my collarbone, and lowers her eyes, looking at my mouth, my jaw, the stubble on my chin.

She’s waiting. I trail my hand up her back, under her hair, and rest it on her neck. I place my other hand on her hip and push her away from me, bring her to me with the other, hovering her lips next to mine. She breathes in, her lips part, eyes close. I can smell her skin, her hair, her mouth, and I want to taste her.

I watch her struggle to release and resist the urge to lunge, press herself against me. She’s moving toward me with tiny non-movements – her wrist, her thigh – and each time I am amused, aroused.

I am waiting for something.

Shannon doesn’t sense that, and then she does, and her eyes open. She sees me watching her and I grin a little wider. I feel my cheeks pulled and those dimples appear. She makes that little gasp noise in her throat and lets her body go, her head drops, hips press into my hand and she lets me take the weight of her, and that’s it, that’s what it was, so I catch her as she gives in and I lunge.

We kiss. I don’t start slow, but rather cover the full circle of her mouth with mine and pull her to me. She gives in, again. And oh, it is so beautiful.

Our kisses build and become longer, more insistent, more full of gasps. I have the pulse of her throat between my teeth, she pushes my suit coat from my shoulders, whispering, “god oh god oh god,” in this low prayer-like murmur.

“Ohh you’re going to fuck me aren’t you?” she says, one leg slung up around my hip, skirt riding up. “Please tell me you’re going to, please …”

“Yeah.” I say and take her lips back into my mouth. “I’m going to fuck you.”

I pull her other leg around my hip, lifting her off the ground and walking to the wall of windows, then place her into the window well, a convenient height from the floor. She catches my eye, looks momentarily shy, and lays back, spreading her legs.

Thigh high stockings, soft skirt to her knees now pushed up to her hips. Her ankles and calves are delicately curved by her low heeled sandals. I pull her cream-colored, thin panties past her ankles and take her thighs in my hands, the soft soft skin of her, fingertips to her body teasingly slow, pressed against her, mouth to her nipples through her thin white blouse and bra, leaving a damp spot when I moved to her throat.

“God, oh god,” she whispers on the exhale, slow and steady. She feels everything, every move of my teeth and lips, fingertips and hips, she responds so subtly and our bodies are dancing together like a waltz, like a tango, back and forth in the rhythm of our blood pressure pumping, our breath synched.

Her thighs are pressed back and she’s pulling me in with magnetism, a force like gravity and my fingers are on her, swollen and sweet and slick, guiding me with subtle circles of her hips and I follow, I hear what she’s asking through her body and I respond: Touch here, no here. Deeper. Harder against my outer lips. Run your fingers up and down. Skate around my clit, dip your fingers in just a bit, just a little bit so I can feel stretched, two then three, then back to my clit and oh yes, right there, right there …

She tells me everything. I watch her mouth, her eyes, her skin flushed with heat.

“Oh yeah oh yeah, oh god yeah.”

She’s so gorgeous like this, all splayed open, head and neck pressed against the glass pane and knees to the deep walls of the window well. Hands pulling on my wrist, pushing on my chest, looped around my neck – yes, there, oh right there – and I feel her tightening and releasing from somewhere deep and I ache to be inside while she shudders, while she squeezes hard and ripples, beginning at the floor core of her, radiating up and out.

She looks at me when her body has calmed. Stares into me in a new way, eyes clear and shining. She swallows something that has dislodged and made its way to her tongue – a raw spark of energy and self and desire.

We slide to the floor; I shake out my forearm.

She’s quiet, feeling exposed, and pulls her skirt back down. We curl around each other, holding, touching softly, my fingers on her shoulder, in her hair, now a mess of dirty blonde around her head. We lay breathing for a bit, then I start asking about her photography.

“Did you get the shot you wanted?” I ask. She rises to her elbows and looks at me again, as if remembering I am her subject.

“Mmm,” she barely answers, tucking her hair behind her ear and then finding the top button of my Oxford with her slender fingers and pushing it through it’s hole.

I watch. Oh, really. Raise my eyebrows. She says, “Well, I would like to see you in a few more … positions.” She giggles, I laugh. I lay back and let her pull my suspenders, peel my button-down, from my shoulders. She tosses it behind her and rises to her knees, taking off her buttoned blouse, knees apart, skirt loose, in her bra. She regards me with her photographer’s eye again, puts her hands up in L shapes to frame the shot.

I grin, sheepish. Shannon reaches for my slacks; I knock her hand away. “Hey!” I feign protest. “What am I, a piece of meat?” She laughs, grabs at me again, unbuckles my belt, unzips my fly. I swat her hand again and she gives me a look, that look, that femme no-nonsense don’t-fuck-with-me look that makes my cock throb.

I like power. I like that she has some. I can begin to taste what it’ll be like to take it away.

I let her pull out my cock. I twist to reach my jacket, a crumpled heap on the floor, and pull a condom from the inner pocket. She watches me and her lips part, mouth waters – I can see it.

She laughs, tossing her hair, eyes alight. “Is that what you think?” she says, playful, but it’s a sensitive enough old wound that I freeze for a second. Wait, what? Isn’t that – didn’t she want – weren’t we going to –

She laughs again at my flustered face, then crawls toward me, straddling my legs as I sit on the floor, leaning back on my hands. She pushes against my chest until I’m lying all the way against the floor.

“You’re going to have to try a little harder than that,” she teases, laying her body on top of mine, our mouths close. I grin, shift my shoulders, wrap my arms around her naked waist as she keeps her hands by my ears, holding herself up. With a swift sudden motion I flip her onto her back and roll on top of her, carefully switching my hips so my exposed cock is between her legs. I leave my hands on the curve of her hips and begin to feel hungry for her again, palmfulls of skin, stomach exposed, breasts moving gently with her inhales and exhales which are increasing as she lifts her hips up into me, which gets me hard.

I groan a little into her neck, teeth to her collarbone, her shoulders. She begins struggling, pushes against me with her arms, attempts to flip me with her legs. I almost let her think she can as she moves the weight of me around; I’m testing her strength. I swiftly stop her by taking both of her wrists in my hands, pressing them into the floor, grinding my hips against hers.

She stops struggling. I feel the grin on my mouth again. I like how she brings the cockiness out of me.

She smirks at my victory smile. “Well, you are at a distinct advantage, being on top.”

“You were on top a minute ago.”

“Yeah, but … uh …”

“Mmm hmmm.” I shift above her head and hold both of hers with one of mine, bite her chest, the tops of her exposed breasts where my mouth can reach under her bra. She inhales, arching her back and attempting to free her wrists from my grip.

“What am I going to do with you …” I mutter into her skin, my mouth on that spot between her breasts, on her smooth stomach, as far down as I can go without losing the grip on her hands. I press harder against her subtle struggling.

“Oh, oh god,” she starts again as I manage to take one of her nipples into my mouth. I let my other hand travel the length of her body, between her legs, and find that she eagerly opens, and she’s wet.

I get distracted, a growl of want lodged in my throat, and she suddenly manages to slip out of my grip and scurries out from under me. I grab for her leg, then ankle, as I see her nearly escape my reach, and she attempts to shake me off, laughing. I scramble after her, grabbing at whatever I can, her knee, her shoes, and get hold of the fabric of her skirt which, she wriggles out of and off. I catch her thigh with my fingers and squeeze, hard.

She gasps – “Dammit, that’s gonna bruise!” – and steals a playful glance back at me. I grab for her hips, nearly wishing I had nails so she would feel me dig into her, my grip as a barb she was clearly rubbing the wrong way.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going,” I grumble, low and strong, which stops her. My grip on her body pulls both me to her and her to me and we match suddenly, my slacks between her legs, stockings felled below her knees, thighs bare and exposed. I lower my face to hers and take one more fist of hair, pressing her shoulder into the wood floor, pressing my knees up under her thighs which forces hers apart. I watch her face for just a moment as she’s pinned under me, and let her feel it.

I lift myself to my knees and rescue the condom from the floor nearby, tearing it open with my teeth. The plastic gives way easily, and I roll it over my cock, holding it in my hand for a moment, enjoying the feel of the girth, the weight of it in my palm.

She’s only breathing, watching me. My mouth waters and I spit into my palm, rub the length of the shaft. Inadequate lube, but it’s something. She’s bending her knees together and looking bashful, feeling exposed again, but her face is full of lust. Her body writhes a little and she tries to keep still.

I stay kneeling and pull her to me, her thighs over mine so I’m under her hips and her ass is just a little off the floor. I tease her cunt with my fingers, lightly, soft, and watch her face. I’ve already done this once, I have a better idea of how she likes it. Slow, with pressure. Harder here when she presses into my hand. Skating around her lips soft and supple. I slide two fingers inside easily, then three, watching her face as she gasps and smiles, working my fingers in her harder, a little quicker. Her cunt thickens, sweet, and she lets me in.

I slide her swiftly onto my cock, switch my hands to her hips, pulling her against me, thrusting.

“Fuck, oh fuck …”

So beautiful, split open by my cock. Stretching her legs wide to take me deeper. She’s so good.

She brings her palms to the floor above her head to keep from sliding and presses into me deeper, mouth open, hair wild and in her eyes. I increase my pace and she follows me, lets me lead her, and we both build until we’re groaning, yelling out, muscles straining in rhythm, my head bent back, back arched.

“Oh god oh god, oh fuck,” she gasps. “Fuck, fuck!” I’m nearly shouting out too, right along with her, grunts of working my body, hands slipping on her hips from sweat.

I collapse suddenly, pushed to a small peak of a limit, over her, and she pushes me and rolls me onto my back, straddling and sitting on top of me, knees by my thighs. I keep my legs close together and she rocks her hips back and forth, writhing, as I take hold of her shoes, get a grip on the heels and pull her to me. She slides two fingers into her mouth and wets her fingertips, then reaches her hand to her clit and starts moving in small circles, closing her eyes and bending her head back. She brings her other hand to her head and pushes her hair out of her eyes, attempts to tuck it behind her ear but it falls right away, rocking harder, squeezing my cock harder, circling harder, and my hips are bucking fast, meeting hers.

“Oh god oh god, god oh god,” she mutters, a long, soft string of words, hips strong and hard against mine. I let go of her heels and move my hands to her hips again which gives me a better grip on our rhythm, and I take control of the pace, fuck her hard from underneath her, fucking up into her deep and she starts screaming, I feel her entire body contract around me and her back arches, mouth opens, head falls back until her body shudders, stomach contracts hard and she shakes, shoulders bowing, falling forward onto my chest as shockwaves roll through her.

I run my fingers through her hair, down her back, over the contours of her hips for a minute. “Fuck,” I whisper into her hair, “that was so damn hot.”

Her breathing has slowed and she lifts her head to look at me, bashful, aware of herself again. She smiles and kisses me, full of tongue and desire and release, skin flushed and beautiful, just beautiful.

“Where’s your camera?” I say. “I want some shots of you now.”

miscellany

beebo brinker on stage

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I’ve got tickets to go see the Beebo Brinker Chronicles in a few weeks … based on Ann Bannon’s series of pulp novels from the 1950s, they’re classic lesbian books reprinted by Cleis in the 90s. Here’s the description:

Fueled by booze and furtive sex, BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES follows the lives and loves of four friends in pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village. Beth and Laura, secret lovers in college, still pine for each other. Before they can reunite, they find themselves entangled in a web spun by Beebo Brinker, a butch denizen of the underground bar scene, and Jack, a flamboyant fop with caustic wit.

Makes me wonder if me & Beebo are kindrid spirits! All those romps, free-lovin’, through this city, makin’ the ladies swoon. Love it! I haven’t read the books in years, I should pick ’em up again.

I’ll be giving my full report after I see the play – if you’re near New York City, consider seeing it yourself – it runs through April 27th. Press release & more info below.

BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES
Continues Off-Broadway run thru April 27 at 37 Arts
** 2008 GLAAD Media Award Winner**

BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES is a stage adaptation of Ann Bannon’s groundbreaking, award-winning pulp novels of the 1950s. It is written by Kate Moira Ryan (25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, 2007 GLAAD Media Award Winner for Best Play) and Linda S. Chapman (Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving) and directed by Leigh Silverman (Well). Performances of this Limited Off-Broadway engagement run through April 27 at 37 Arts Theater in Manhattan.

Fueled by booze and furtive sex, BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES follows the lives and loves of four friends in pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village. Beth and Laura, secret lovers in college, still pine for each other. Before they can reunite, they find themselves entangled in a web spun by Beebo Brinker, a butch denizen of the underground bar scene, and Jack, a flamboyant fop with caustic wit.

The producing team includes Tony Award winner Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe), Harriet Newman Leve (STOMP, The 39 Steps), Elyse Singer (Mae West’s Sex, Trouble in Paradise), Jamie deRoy (Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, Coram Boy), Pam Laudenslager (The 39 Steps), Douglas Denoff (The 39 Steps) and Double Play Connections (Radio Golf).

The production stars Jenn Colella (High Fidelity, Urban Cowboy) in the title role, along with David Greenspan (2007 Obie for Some Men and Faust), Carolyn Baeumler (Trouble In Paradise), Bill Dawes (Gross Indecency / Burning Blue), Autumn Dornfeld (The Graduate), and Xanthe Elbrick (Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominee for Coram Boy). The design team includes Rachel Hauck (set), Theresa Squire (costumes), Nicole Pearce (lights), Jill BC DuBoff (sound), J. Jared Jana/Rob Greene (wigs, hair & makeup), Pamela Edington (stage manager), Bradley Thompson (production manager) and Roy Gabay (general manager). The original production was produced by Hourglass Group at The Fourth Street Theatre.

Kate Moira Ryan’s critically acclaimed collaboration with Judy Gold, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother won a 2007 GLAAD Media Award Winner for Best Play. This past spring, Voice/Hyperion published a book based on the play and it was recently nominated for the prestigious Quill award in the category of humor. Linda S. Chapman co-created and played Alice B. Toklas in the Obie Award-winning and GLADD Media Award Nominee Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving. Leigh Silverman is the critically acclaimed director of Lisa Kron’s Well on Broadway, David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face at The Public Theater, Brooke Berman’s Hunting and Gathering at Primary Stages, and From Up Here at MTC later this season.

BEEBO BRINKER CHRONICLES runs through April 27 with performances Tues. at 7pm; Wed, Thus. & Fri. at 8pm; Sat. at 5pm & 9pm; and Sun. at 3pm & 7pm. 37 Arts is located at 450 West 37th Street (between 9th & 10th Aves. — accessible from A,C,E trains to 34th St). Tickets are $46.25 – $56.25. To buy tickets call 212-307-4100 or visit www.TicketMaster.com.

essays

Clitoral Anatomy: Make a Wish on That Bone

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

At the Body Electric workshop during the last weekend of March (about which I haven’t written yet, I know, but I will), I was reminded about how little we are educated about female anatomy – especially in regards to the clit.

This is a video of sex educator and badass Betty Dodson drawing the cunt from the inside out – starting with the internal parts of the clitoris (did you know it’s got a shape like a wishbone?) and then drawing layers out to the external.

The book to which Betty is referring is The New View of a Woman’s Body, and many writings on feminism account this book as the first official medical reference to the internal clitoris -it’s definitely the first one I ever came across. The drawings in it are still fascinating to me, and definitely worth studying.

Ah, sex ed is so fun.

(I won’t ruin the end for you, but I just want to say, I like it.)

It has also been speculated that the so-called “g-spot” or “urethral sponge” are actually part of the clitoris, as well. Rebecca Chalker writes about this in her book The Clitoral Truth, though man, doesn’t it seem like this is important knowledge? Doesn’t it seem like somebody would’ve studied this by now, and figured it out? Even just a few months ago, I remember yet another study coming out saying “aha! We’ve proved the G-spot exists!” and I thought, huh. Pretty sure somebody already did that, for one. And for two, I’m pretty sure what you’re calling the Gräfenberg spot – named after the man who discovered it, of course – is actually that little bitty organ with 8,000 nerve endings that you’ve thought was smaller than a dime all these years.

I guess it goes to show you there’s a lot of work to do in sex studies, still.

identity, starred

How to take butch cock seriously

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I often get asked about how to start playing with strap-on sex, how to get your partner to stop laughing during strap-on sex, how to take your partner’s cock more seriously, how to strap it on and not feel like an idiot.

I’ve written a lot about my own experiences here, but I haven’t written a lot of the more straight(ha)forward advice on it – advice seems so variable based on the individual situation, so it’s hard to distill. So, here’s some of the ideas about cock-centricity, cock confidence, and taking butch cock seriously.

For the record: there are many femmes who strap on, many genderqueers who strap on, many who have a cock and don’t call it “butch.” I don’t mean to butch-centricize the gender play, but it is my own experience and that’s primarily the perspective of this writing project of mine. So, for the purposes of this post I’m writing it from the perspective of the butch as the wearer, and the femme as co-conspirator to this gendered sex play. But hell, some of the most skilled strap-on wearers I’ve ever seen were femmes – I certainly do not intend to leave anyone out!

  1. Call it a cock, dick, prick, pecker, schlong, johnson, even penis. But don’t call it “fake” – it’s not. (Calling it a “dildo” or “plastic” aren’t really turn-ons, either.)
  2. Touch it. Caress it, taste it, lick it, kiss it, suck it, fuck it. Treat it like it’s a part of me – it is.
  3. It’s not silly to suck butch cock. (I mean, sure, laughing during sex is fun – but really? If you giggle through the blowjob? I’ll probably loose my hard-on, especially if that’s what you’re laughing at.) I have plenty of nerves in my cunt that I can feel when you press it against me; you have plenty of nerves in your mouth where I can fill you, can slap against your tongue, pop into the back of your throat. And the mental turn-on I get seeing you in that position makes me crazy with desire. Don’t underestimate it’s power.
  4. As a lesbian, loving butch cock does not make you straight. Let me say that again (and perhaps you should repeat after me): loving butch cock does not make you straight any more than wearing one makes me a ‘man.’ There’s more to an identity than one act. It’s okay to be cock-identified! Just because you don’t to sleep with (bio/XY/flesh-and-blood-penises) men doesn’t mean you have to reject cock from your sex life. Our bodies have holes, and our muscles and nerves respond to them being filled and played with. That’s okay, and you’re still gay as a three-dollar bill, I promise.
  5. Consider getting a flesh-colored, realistic-looking strap-on cock. I know this is practically the biggest faux-pas of lesbo-land, as we’re supposed to reject men and therefore penises, and strap-on cocks are only okay when they’re swirly marbled colors or shaped like dolphins, but if you want to play with gendering a cock, consider something more realistic. It will enable you to take it much more seriously. Consider Vixskin (silicone, so you can boil/sterilize it! Feels real – even gives a little in your mouth, mmm), consider a thin leather or barely there harness, consider it yours.
  6. Packing: do it. It’s hot. Nothin’ like being able to pull your cock out at any time, and I think all y’all know how hot it is to feel it in your pants (or your partner’s pants) all night long. Get the right tools for it, though; you can’t just strap-on with your thick leather harness with all the buckles and belts with your favorite hard cock. My vote is still the infamous Silky, which bends and will fit comfortably close to the body in briefs, but is still hard enough to fuck with.
  7. If you don’t pack, then you will probably have to navigate That Moment of Strapping On. That can be tricky: the making out starts getting all hot and heavy, and I always felt so awkward even bringing up the idea, especially with someone new – let alone someone I knew well. I tend to use the phrase, “so, can I get my cock out yet?” which gives the impression that of course we’ve both been waiting for it, but it also lets her call the shots if in fact she just wants to make out (or trib, or fingerfuck) a while longer. And! – when it’s you’ve seen that gleam in her eye and it’s time for you to strap it on, don’t be embarrassed, apologetic, or shy. At that point, she’s gotta wait for you to disrobe (possibly) and re-buckle, test the weight between your legs, get comfortable. Don’t rush. Take your time. Savor this part; remember that you’re both salivating at the idea of what’s to come. Let her see you pulling it on and getting it all ready, if you can – that’s part of this whole process of your female body becoming able to fuck her. [And for goodness’s sake, once you’re strapped on, go back to the making out, don’t just attempt to slide it in & start goin’ to town. You already know that, though, right? Right.]
  8. You don’t have to – and shouldn’t – apologize for liking it, for wanting it, for craving it, for asking for it.
  9. Muse says: “Femmes who like cock are not unicorns – they’re everywhere.” Same goes for butches who like cock. There is a bit of stigma around gender play in lesbian communities; it might take some work to find someone who understands how to take butch cock seriously. But don’t fret, you will.
  10. Our gender and sexual identities don’t exist in a vacuum – especially butch/femme, I think, relies so much on the experience of the other complimentary person to bolster and develop and enhance our own identity. So what do you do if you don’t have someone with whom you can play with a cock? You can still play with it and learn to take it seriously – strap-on and learn to jack yourself off. Wear it all day Saturday when you’re cleaning your apartment, running errands. Learn to appreciate the weight between your legs, learn how to shift it right or left when it gets sweaty or itchy or uncomfortable. Give yourself permission to play with it, explore it, even if it’s on your own. Build your own cock confidence!
  11. This is a particular kink that not everybody likes – and that’s okay. When you’re selling it to someone, remember that it’s an asset of yours, a strength, something fun that you get to experiment with – not a weakness or a bad thing. You’ll find somebody who will appreciate you not just in spite of it, but precisely because of it.

Got more tips for building cock confidence, taking butch cock seriously, or re-valuing cock-centricty? Leave ’em in the comments.

Donate to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you – add “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box. (Why?)

miscellany

another round of birthday wishes!

Posted on by QEC

Wow! Birthday wishes are still coming in, four days after my birthday now. I’m honored by your thoughtful photos, indulging a fetish (or maybe two) of mine. What else are birthdays for, if not some indulgence? Thanks.

birthday - peach
Sexy cute red shoes from Peach!

birthday - muse
Strappy sandals from Muse

birthday - lolita
Ooh la la boots from Lolita (sir)

birthday - tonguetied
Tongue-tied blue (who just had a blogiversary! Mine is coming up at the end of April) attempts to one-up my own hairy legs with this shot … perhaps I’ll have to post one of my own to retaliate.

birthday - colleen
Sexy shoe shopping from Colleen

essays

The personal ad I’m not posting

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

You:

Tree-climbing dirty jeans and sneakers femme. Frisbee in the park and a picnic femme. Jogging in the rain femme. Dancing sober all night femme. Occasional martinis at home because it’s Tuesday femme. The come-fuck-me-now-eyes femme. Take me down femme. Turn over now femme. High heel shopping on a Saturday with lattes femme. Custom made jewelry femme. Beliefs and convictions and spiritual femme. Deep values of care and kindness femme. Recognition of your own shit femme. Able to articulate where you’re coming from femme. High sex drive femme. Occasionally needs to get roughed up femme. Always has a safeword femme. Just as comfortable in Chucks as you are in Maddens femme. Garter belt femme. Toolbelt femme. Brings me to my knees femme.

Me:

Chivalrous feminist butch. Suit coats and ties and wingtips butch, khakis and polos at work butch. Boycut #4 butch. Takes you out, then takes you down butch. Up against the wall in dirty alleys butch. Under the table at a fancy restaurant butch. Knows how to wield a paddle butch. Knows how to drive a stick butch. Packs most weekends butch. Always has a pen and a rock on me butch. Carries your shopping bags, opens your doors, offers my jacket butch. Stays up late talking or fucking or both butch. Love notes at work butch. Butler and Halberstam and Rednour and Hollibaugh and Bergman and Califia and Queen butch. Rich and Clifton and Siken and Oliver and Hafiz and Ackerman and Doty butch. Dapper dandy faggy butch. Hardcore respectful high butch.

Us:

Slow and steady love. Intentional, honest, and kind love. Responsible, passionate love. Both grounded and floating love. For each other and for ourselves love. Able to walk away at any time and be okay love, but we don’t, we stay because we want to love.

(I haven’t yet given up that you are out there.)

miscellany

ribbons around her leg …

Posted on by QEC

birthday - missy
Damn … I’m speechless on this one …
and if you think this is good, you should see the one she sent
for my personal collection. Holy hell. (Thank you, Missy.)

miscellany

just what I wanted

Posted on by QEC

I’ve been busy, the last few days! My birthday this year consisted of red velvet cake, prosecco, a queen, the film 21, dinner & drinks, dinner & drinks, and dancing! I feel oh-so-blessed to have great friends & community around me.

29 is going to be a fabulous year!

Thank you, everybody, for the lovely birthday wishes, in print & in someecards & in photographs of your fabulous accessories. I guess I didn’t make it clear, but any shoes or hats or glasses or belts or bags are welcome – or hell, any photos for that matter. A few folks have mentioned that they’re going to send me photos, but haven’t yet – if you’d still like to, please do! I’ll post ’em in a second roundup.

Without further ado … thank you:

birthday - ladybrett
Lady Brett Ashley, who also does drag
and hinted at sending another photo … yes please!

birthday
“My Vintage Puma Romas, My favorite belt – D&G Seatbelt
(yes, real men wear pink), Prada Sunglasses –
and being butt naked when taking the pic.” – Marcello

birthday - sam 2 birthday - sam1
“I’m not a huge fan of the strappy sandals, I much prefer boots and heels.
And another one of my favorite accessories, jeans” – Samantha

birthday - greeneyedgirl
Delicious silver heels from Green-eyed Girl

birthday - curvydee
“In honour of this auspicious occasion,
a rare event indeed – me in heels.” – Curvaceous Dee

birthday - avarice
Cutie heels from Avarice

birthday - einstein
Last but not least, Molly found this one!

miscellany

another year around the sun

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith


Pussy’s Black Ribbon -Ties, originally uploaded by pussyinboots.

It’s true, today’s my birthday. I’ve turned 29.

So I’ve got a little birthday request. If you feel so inspired, take a nice shot of your lovely strappy sandals and send them on to me with whatever birthday wishes on the image.

As much as I love this image of ribbon ties (man o man, they are my favorite kinds of shoes) above that I found on Flickr, it’ll be all the better when the legs are belonging to some fabulous queer femme. I can imagine them wrapped around my waist a little better that way, mmm …

Butches, bois, & other folks – I don’t mean to exclude you from the shoe fetish fun! Take a shot of your motorcycle boots, your Madden loafers, your favorite Birkinstocks, your cuff links, your tie – whatever you feel inspired to do. I guess it’s a call for accessory shots more than shoes.

Post ’em on your own blog, or email them to me & I’ll round ’em up and post ’em here.

I don’t know why the wrapping around the leg and ankle heats me up so damn much … it just does. Delicious.

Donate to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you – add  “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box. (Why?)

journal entries

falling in love is still cheating

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I wrote a post about Callie, and how we met, how we started dating, over at The Lesbian Lifestyle for their March discussion topic about cheating (see how I got it in under the wire? Seriously, it was practically 11pm on March 31st before I finished writing it. Ah, deadlines): falling in love is still cheating.

The beginnings of the relationship with her was quite a good story, it’s one I almost enjoy telling, except for, of course, the unfortunate way things turned out. Regardless though, it was interesting to revisit that part of our relationship and remember how excited I was to find her.

If you’re new to Sugarbutch, this short essay might be a good introduction to the 139 “A girl: Callie” tags and the six month relationship that required that I write every day in order to try to figure out what the heck was going on in that girl’s head. (Though this TLL post is definitely the short-n-sweet introductory version – the post ends with the time when we start dating, so none of the actual relationship is in there. Whew, not sure how to even start writing up a short-n-sweet version of that.)

At this point, nearly a year after we split, I just feel kinda sorry for the girls who walk around with this kind of filter on the world. Unfortunately, I can’t quite forgive her or wish her well, I’m still too bitter and feel so damn wronged, but I can firmly recognize it as a burdon she bares. I’ve seen and heard from many other women who have said “wow, I’m so like Callie” through the writings on Sugarbutch and my discussions with friends, and that makes my heart hurt a little. It’s such a long, difficult process to heal ourselves sometimes, and the particular coping mechanisms Callie has picked up along the way seem to really hurt her more than help.

(Not that I don’t have some of those myself – surely, I do. We all do. Hers just seem … more pronounced, perhaps, and more malicious.)

Here’s hoping we can all become aware of, and perhaps eventually get over, our own shit.

Donate to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you – add  “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box. (Why?)

miscellany

blogging for RAINN

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

Donate to RAINN & let ’em know I sent you – add  “GBBMC2008” and “Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box.

In April, I’m taking part in the RAINN fundraiser and book marketing campaign for Carly Milne’s recently published Sexography (great cover, right?). I’ll be writing about sex (a stretch, I know) and encouraging all you readers to donate to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network – but here’s the catch, you gotta tell ’em I sent you! put “GBBMC2008” and “Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box when you donate, and they’ll track which bloggers get the most donations, and there are some fabulous prizes – grand prize is over three thousand dollars worth of goodies.

And considering most of it looks to be femme-type gifts (hand cream, necklace bracelet & earrings, lingerie, lipstick), I will definitely be re-gifting them to all you readers, if in fact I win. Perhaps that’ll entice you?

About RAINN:
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network is the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline with a nationwide partnership of more than 1,100 local rape treatment hotlines, providing victims of sexual assault with free, confidential services around the clock. The hotline helped 137,039 sexual assault victims in 2005 and has helped more than one million since it began in 1994. RAINN’s goal is to expand its hotline services with the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline, which will be the nation’s first secure web-based hotline that provides live, secure and completely confidential help to victims 24/7 through an interface as intuitive as instant messaging. RAINN educates more than 120 million Americans each year about sexual assault. RAINN also publicizes the hotline’s free, confidential services; educates the public about sexual assault; and leads national efforts to improve services to victims and ensure that rapists are brought to justice. RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization and has been ranked as one of America’s 100 Best Charities by Worth Magazine.

About Sexography:
By turns serious and playful, Sexography maps the coming of age, tragedy and rebirth of one woman’s sexual self. From “making out” with imaginary Hollywood stars in her closet (and getting busted) to coming to terms with abuse, assault and rape, from embracing her curiosity enough to become a sex toy tester to accepting and dealing with her tumultuous past, Carly Milne paints a brutally honest – and, at times, amusing – picture of what it’s like to learn about and experience sex in every sense of the word. From the earliest experiences in her childhood homes in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta to present day Los Angeles, Milne guides readers through the sometimes troubled waters of female sexuality with a mixture of candidness and humor. Whether you’ve been through similar experiences or just know someone who has, Sexography will change your mind about why and how survivors survive.

Pretty damn smart advertising, & way to get the word out, I gotta say. I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to approach this yet, but I’ll be doing something somewhat special. Got any suggestions?

Here it is again – you’re gonna be sick of this tag by the end of April: Donate to RAINN & let ’em know I sent you – add  “GBBMC2008” and “Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box.

miscellany

what happened in March

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

March was jam-packed here at Sugarbutch Chronicles; it was the second highest month of posts (37) and included various topics and discussions. Thank you all for your contributions, your comments and emails, for reading, for disagreeing with me at times, for challenging me.

Subscribe to Sugarbutch Chronicles via RSS, leave your email address to receive the password for protected posts, or subscribe via email (in the sidebar).

The new April masthead:

  • The quote – “What’s that I hear? The sound of a thousand girls sighing in cyberspace?” – comes from a comment Janie made on in praise of stretchmarks (thanks Janie! It made me laugh out loud). That stretchmarks post is also the most commented on piece this month … I’m surprised at how much notice that one got, actually. It’s funny how sometimes it’s the little notes scribbled on napkins that end up resonating the deepest.

Sex:

Gender:

  • Femininity & heterosexism discusses gender, specifically the unwanted male attention of femininity, and passing as a femme
  • A rather hateful post went up on the New York Craigslist women-for-women personals in March, with some very strong words about butches and our inadequacy in the lesbian communities. (“Inadequacy” doesn’t describe it – the poster basically blamed butches for all lesbian oppression.) I started writing this up at “lesbian does not =”, and Jesse James responded with a guest post responding, a la Lorde (Jesse started her own blog, too). I finally weighed in with careful, your prejudice is showing.
  • I introduced the new masthead feature with bringing butch back and a rather quick note about how chivalry is deeply feminist

Relationships:

Eye Candy:

Miscellany:

Elsewhere:

miscellany

the universe received the memo …

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

… that Sinclair is single again, and dating. Spring is hovering just around the corner, and New York as a whole can feel it. The girls are already pulling out their swishy skirts, bouncy hair, strappy sandals. I notice. Man, do I notice. I try not to stare.

All that cliche shit is true about spring – fertility, rebirth, lust. The newness of those baby-green leaves are raw and luscious enough that sometimes I just want to bite them right off the tree. Destroy them with my mouth. Mmm.

At the last minute, I’m going to the Body Electric workshop that starts tomorrow (in fact, I need to leave in about four hours). I have some very particular intentions going into it, especially about the things that I’m holding on to. I want to let go. Leave it all be. Wipe the slate clean. (Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum.) I want to decline politely to the world’s human messes, to learn to say ‘no, thank you.’

My other intention is to bring the masculine butch boyishness again. It was a huge revelation for me last time, especially in a womyn-goddess-yoni kind of sacred sexuality space. But I learned so much. I need to take that with me again.

This is brief, I know; unfortunately, my schedule is only looking to be more packed in the near future. I will do my best to keep updating. Meanwhile, got any more butch eye candy to send me? I’m nearly out. C’mon, you/your girlfriend/your wife/your best friend/your lover/your favorite crush wants to be some Sugarbutch eye candy, I know you do.

Regular Sugarbutch writings will resume on Monday.

journal entries

declining politely

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I saw a girl on the subway this morning so beautiful that I have considered writing a Missed Connections ad on Craigslist:

Red bag, paper cup of coffee, black tank-top, silver necklace, boots with two rows of big buttons marching up the front. Tossing your slightly feathered hair, talking to your friend, then when she got off, you pulled out your compact and began applying face powder, lipgloss. It was such an intimate act, and something about it felt so familiar, like I could see you at your mirror in the morning, getting ready for the day, me pulling my tie through the knot, slipping on my jacket, sipping coffee, pretending to read the paper, legs crossed, at the kitchen table, when really I’m watching you in the reflection of the mirror in the hallway while you’re in the bathroom. And, though perhaps I don’t want to admit it, I felt a little crackle in my chest when I watched you.

Probably it was just my being half-asleep on my commute that gave more meaning to this girl than I would otherwise attach. But this is not the first time this has happened to me lately – I see sudden, recognizable familiarity in a femme and think, maybe that’s her.

I’ve been sleeping awfully this week. Every night, I’m having restless dreams, vivid and sometimes lucid, often full of imagery and messages.

Tuesday night, I dreamt I was stuck in my family’s crypt, a small mosoleum of some sort, which was above ground, walls covered in stained-glass colored mosaic windows. I couldn’t leave this crypt, though there seemed to be some sorts of tours going on, with people in small groups of twos and threes coming in and out. Some of my family was there, my maternal grandmother and her mother, I specifically remember – and things somehow began to turn horrific, and the crypt tourists were zombies, or dripping blood, or other horrible things. I had some sort of perch in a corner, somehow removed, they couldn’t see me, but I was terrified.

I woke myself up at this point, and lulled myself back to sleep only to re-enter right into the same dream, the same crypt. This time, my mother was there, talking to me through the gated door, saying that it was my responsibility, my job, to stay there, that I inhereted this, that it was passed down through generations and all culminated in me.

I awoke feeling that I had remembered something, rather than dreamed something.

Two personal asides: in my astrological chart, I have many planets – Venus, Mars, and Mercury – in the 12th house, and also in the sign of Pisces, which is the 12th house’s natural ruler. The 12th house is often spoken of as the unconscious, and also baggage. In fact, it’s specifically related to family in many ways:

The 12th house may also likely have connections with “family life issues” or “gifts” that our parents (and perhaps our parents’ parents) were given… but they refused or were emotionally unable to give expression to and/or resolve these “family life issues” during their own lifetime. And now it’s been left up to the child (you) to experience and resolve these energies for the parents. (source)

Second aside: I am the fourth generation of first-born daughters. My mother, her mother, and her mother were all the eldest child in their families, and there’s actually a word for that (which I can’t remember or find) and some sort of significance of, again, inheritance.

I spoke with a friend the other day about this, and she said, “The thing is, you don’t have to “inherit” it. You can politely decline the ancestral karmic stuff. It’s not your baggage. You can honor it and honor your ancestors, but it doesn’t have to define your life now. You don’t have to live in a tomb of their making.”

Politely decline.

Decline politely.

Right. If only I could remember that lesson – and, clearly, it is a big one for me. I don’t have to take on everything from everyone, I don’t have to save the world.

I do, however, have to save myself.

miscellany

portrait: aversión

Posted on by QEC

Aversión, originally uploaded by JV_UY.

That’s my kind of afternoon: a cigar & bourbon. Love it.

miscellany

introducing: jesse james

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

You asked for it: The Closet Musician has a new name, and is now writing over at just like jesse james.

After the hoopla about the angry, anonymous girl, jesse james’s response, and running into a particularly nasty post on Dooce which examined a bunch of hate mail, jesse james takes on the anonymous hate that gets spewed on the internet and poses her own theories and ideas about it all.

jesse james is one of my dearest & best friends … I’m trying to encourage her, so she’ll keep writing. Just wait until she gets going about the queer community, her own faggy boi gender, her international long-distance relationship turned LTR, wanting a puppy, her own (distant past) slut phase, gardening, or her deep appreciation for Cher.

miscellany

a girl in a tux

Posted on by QEC

The video for “I stole your wishes” features Abby and Amanda, the lesbian couple who make up the Ditty Bops – and I’ve never seen Amanda looking more butch! She’s sporting a tux here, with Abby in a sweet white dress. I usually would put them in the lesbian twins category as far as gender goes, they tend to be quite similarly dressed.

I don’t have the new album Summer Rains yet, but I hear the album packaging is fantastic, and features Amanda – nude – in the lyrics book. That might entice us to actually go out and buy it, instead of downloading, eh?

reviews

what I’m obsessing over

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

A small installment of what kept me busy surfing the net this weekend …

Yael Naim: New Soul (video) – “I’m a new soul / I came to this strange world / … Finding myself making every possible mistake.” It strikes me as quite appropriate for this gender exploration, and the social policing that means that our delicate gender identities take a while to fully form and solidify. See also: Yael’s cover of Britney Spears’s song Toxic – fantastic. I can’t say I know much about Britney in general, but like anyone who lives in the US, her songs are pretty much impossible to avoid, so I do know a little about her. Yael’s cover also reminds me of this cover of Britney’s new-ish single Gimme More, where suddenly I hear the lyrics in an entirely new way.

Can’t we call it cock? (article) by Diana Cage over on the OurChart blog about sex. Okay, so maybe I have a crush. I was on Diana’s radio show this week and she’s just so articulate and funny and fucken brilliant. (Of course, she’s taken, so I’ll be my chivalrous self and admire her from afar with boundaries.) After this article, you won’t be able to call it a “dildo” again without a firm Hobbit reference in your head.

Dungeon Beds (website & product for sale) – ohh my my. Secretly, I’ve always wanted a fancy four-poster bed, but I never quite envisioned one that wasn’t all girly and canopy-like. I can’t believe these. It never even occurred to me that something like this exists, but now that I know, I feel like it must be my goal in life to not only have one, but to have an adequate bedroom in which to house one. Wow.

I was reminded of the lovely cluster of sites I Feel Myself, I Touch Myself, I Shoot Myself, and Beautiful Agony. They aren’t exactly porn, even though they do feature people (mostly girls) getting off. They’re tasteful, erotic, real, sometimes so beautiful and raw that I get breathless. Watching one of the free previews on I Feel Myself: this girl is on the edge of a train car, gripping the metal of the door behind her, wearing thigh highs, cowboy boots, a thin slip of a dress, and a hat, with the trainyard in the background. It is gorgeous. It’s rare that I come across art that is made or written so well that I wish I’d done it, I get jealous of the artist’s very ability to create something so stunning. 

Dyke Tees (sponsor & product for sale) is Sugarbutch’s first official sponsor – that means advertisement, yes. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve added some advertisements and affiliates over in the left sidebar. I’m doing this because I am spending a lot of time on SBC, and if I could somehow make some compensation, between that and freelance writing, perhaps I could eventually make even more time to work on it. I have more ideas for posts than I have time to write them out, many products to review, lots of smut stories I wish I’ve written up for you. So: Dyke Tees! Thanks for your sponsorship. They’ve got some good tee shirts over there, I’m particularly fond of the Good Girl design with the image of a girl bound by rope … the caption says, “it’s only kinky the first time.” Hah! I also like the winged heart design on the tee shirt Love Without Labels, but we all know I like labels, and think they can be incredibly celebratory, so I probably wouldn’t actually wear it.

identity

High heels lead to a stronger pelvic floor

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

I love heels. Stilettos, kitten heels, boots, even wedge heels. I love how they enhance the S-shape of a woman’s body.

Growing up in a feminist household, it was ingrained in me early on that high heels are bad for women’s feet and hips, that they cause shinsplints and hip problems and weak knees and all sorts of things. It took me a long time to come to my own acceptance of liking high heels on femmes … even having a bit of a strappy sandal fetish, I might say.

Diana Cage and I were talking last night on her radio show about my turn-ons, and I mentioned heels, though not without the caveat of the feminist knowledge of how damaging they can be to a woman’s body.

But, Diana told me about a recent study where wearing high heels actually improves the muscles on a woman’s pelvic floor, thus making her, you know, tighter.

I looked it up. From the BBC – High heels “may improve sex life”: An Italian urologist and “lover of the sexy shoe” did a recent study which showed that women who wore a 2″ heel or higher had as good posture as those who wore flat shoes, and also showed “less electrical activity” in their pelvic muscles, which are not just useful in the organs of the body (like the bladder) but also in increased sexual satisfaction and performance. “This suggested the muscles were at an optimum position, which could well improve their strength and ability to contract. The pelvic floor muscles are an essential component of the female body.”

Probably most of us have heard of PC muscle exercises, “Kegels,” as they’re called, to strengthen the pelvic floor – same idea. It makes sense that heels would improve these muscles, when I think about it … and I think it’s another subconscious way that heels sexualize a woman’s body.

This also reminds me of an exercise we did in the Body Electric Celebrating the Body Erotic workshop last fall, the mulabhanda pelvic lock, or root lock, in which you keep your pelvic muscles tightened and breathe in a particular pattern. It was surprisingly difficult and incredibly hot.

I’m sure it’s still possible to damage your body by wearing heels constantly, this can’t undo all the other potential damage. But I’m also glad to know that there is some physical good that comes from wearing heels.

miscellany

I like to pack

Posted on by QEC

… and Ivan E. Coyote does too.

From ivanecoyote.com: Ivan Coyote was born and raised in Whitehorse Yukon and is the son of a welder and the daughter of a government worker. Ivan is the author of three collections of short stories, a monthly columnist for Xtra West, and a CBC lovechild. Ivan’s work has also appeared in the National Post, the Georgia Straight, Geist, Shared Vision, Nerve, and Curve Magazines. Ivan’s first and truest love is live storytelling, and over the last ten years she has become an audience favourite at music, poetry, spoken word and writer’s festivals from Anchorage to New York City.

I came across Ivan in the queer spoken word circuits of the Northwest, Seattle and Vancouver primarily, and have seen her perform in various places, devouring every book of hers I can find. Ivan grew up in Canada not far from where I grew up in Alaska, and much of the landscape of his stories are familiar and very home-like to me, with which I really connect.

He goes by either she or he pronouns – “whatever you’re comfortable with,” I’ve heard him say – and is an incredible storyteller, the best I’ve ever seen. I highly recommend the CD You’re a Nation that she made with Richard Spencer. Download a few mp3s of Ivan’s stories from the CBC’s website.

And, in case you can’t tell by the video, he’s quite handsome.

(Thanks to Kim for the link to the youtube video.)

miscellany

request: feminist sex resources

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

Jess over at the F-word blog in the UK is interested in compiling some sex resources from an explicitly or implicitly feminist perspective. Read on for the request:

Following on from Laura’s post at The F Word about the poverty of sex education in the UK, we got thinking about ways to fill in those gaps (and then some) for adults.

Me and Laura are looking to compile a listing of resources on safe, pleasurable, consenting sex, relationships and sexuality, for the over 18 set, who can no longer benefit from whatever wisdom HMG and the national curriculum might impart. Can you help us?

Of course, we’re particularly interested in anything which is coming from an explicitly or implicitly feminist perspective. And we’re interested in making this as inclusive as possible. That means regardless of/aimed at all levels of experience (beginner to advanced!), sexuality, gender, kink or lack thereof, etc.

Book, blog, website, workshop, feminist/women’s sex toy store, DVD, audio tape – whatever it is, we’re interested! Not porn though, at least partly because that gets into contentious territory we’re not really interested in for this one.

A few words on why you are making the recommendation would also be great. You can tell us anonymously if you so wish in the comments on the blog post we put together announcing this.

I sent this list, which is somewhat American-centric, I admit, but that’s all I got:

books 

s.e.x by heather corinna

the strap-on book by a.h. dion

fetish sex by violet blue

sex for one: the joy of selfloving by betty dodson

the good vibrations guide to sex

the topping book & the bottoming book by easton & liszt

erotic bondage handbook by jay wiseman

SM 101 by jay wiseman

the ethical slut by easton & liszt

websites 

scarleteen.com

sexuality.org

the savage love podcast

sex-positive & feminist sex stores

babeland.com

goodvibes.com

early2bed.com

blowfish.com

stockroom.com

workshops

the body electric school – level one is “celebrating the body erotic”

Additional resources to add? They’re not looking for feminist smut, but rather for resources & knowledge. Add ’em in the comments (I’d love to know, too!) or leave them in F-word’s comments.

identity

In Praise of Femmes: Stretchmarks

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

Stretchmarks are one of the most gorgeous features of the body.

I like scars and beauty marks too – all tell the history of where the body has been, what it has been through. These are not things we are born with, but things that are painted upon the naked canvas of us as we grow and change and develop and blossom.

I love skin. Who doesn’t? The body’s largest organ, home of countless nerve endings, housing the sensations we all crave, touching and being touched, sensations from sandpaper to silk, from friction to feathers.

On women’s bodies, we tend to get them in delicate stretched lines around the edges of our breasts, and over our hips. Two of my favorite places to grip and take palm-fulls of flesh for stability and movement, two of the most sensitive curves of the body, ripe and ready to be directed, pushed, persuaded, maneuvered.

Stretchmarks record the pulling of skin over muscle and bone, remembering the change in the curve of the body. Oh, that is so beautiful. Sometimes I can feel these tiny indentations in skin where the turgidity changes, just a small ridge to the fingertip where there is a slightly lighter pigmentation to the eye.

They so often follow the curves of the body more intricately, more delicately, more beautifully than any tattoo or cutting, because the body itself made them.

Sometimes they run in such gorgeous lines [original here] around a curve that they look like the mouth of a river, they look like a tributary, stunning, the way a river hugs the earth, the way the skin stretches around bone, around sinew and muscle, around experience, around knowledge, around growth.

miscellany

march masthead: bringing butch back

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

A few weeks back, Muse & I went to a meditation group and I held her jacket for her when we were heading outside. She dipped down to let me more easily slide the coat up onto her shoulders, and I laughed.

“You’re not supposed to move,” I said. “Just let me do the work. This chivalry thing is designed to make you look good.”

She laughed too. “Ah, right. How would I know that? Nobody holds my coat for me. You’re bringing butch back.”

I like that. I like the alliteration, three b’s in a row, and the second epitrite of poetic meter in the phrasing. I really can’t take credit for bringing butch back – honestly, I don’t think it ever went anywhere, I think if anything it just went a bit underground during the gay and women’s rights movements, and many folks are now reimerging to problematize and celebrate gender, myself included. And youth these days are more open to gender and sexuality differences than we ever have been, so aside from some old-school activists coming out of the woodwork, the youth also have a hand in opening up these conversations, refusing to be limited by labels or definitions, and yet finding value in the historical contexts of labels and words as well.

Chivalry is deeply feminist to me. When in femmes, I expect femininity to be deliberate, done with the whole knowledge of the compulsory heteronormative restrictions which dictate that women must be and do certain things, particular that we must wear high heels, delicate cloth, restrictive clothing. Femininity is not made for comfort or movement, it is made to accentuate the sexualization of a woman’s body – and that’s why things like holding her doors open (so she doesn’t dirty her white gloves or expensive manicure), pulling her chair out (so she doesn’t have to awkwardly move a bulky piece of furniture, and risk getting it caught on her skirt or stockings and ripping something) or holding her coat (so she doesn’t have to reach around and risk ripping the tight seams in her shoulders or upper back) are necessary to me, as an acknowledgement of how restrictive femininity can be, and of how difficult it is to walk around the world in these clothes, as a celebration of the beauty of femininity on the body, and with deep respect for the courage to costume and perform femme to begin with.

There’s a long history of these gender roles, these accentuations of the body as a flirtation, as a mating ritual, as peacocking, to attempt to attract a lover.

All this is to say, I’m really not taking credit for “bringing butch back.” But I like the phrasing, and I’d like to think that I’m encouraging it. I’ve written it before (& I’ll write it again): I would never tell someone what their identity is, I would always wait for them to tell me how they choose to identify. But because I’ve found such play and liberation and fun and self-empowerment inside of butch, I do want to encourage and support it.

So, I made a masthead. Those are my hands and the bird tie, in a portrait taken last summer by Bill Wadman. With a nod to dooce, in theory the mastheads will rotate monthly with a different tagline. 

I tend to follow the wheel of the year, so I wish you a happy spring equinox today:

The Spring Equinox celebrates the return of life and growth to the thawing earth.  For the first time since the Fall Equinox, the time of light and dark in a single day are equal. From this day forth, Spring will arrive, and with her, a wild spurt of growth begins. Shoots of young grass appear, leaves sprout on trees, birds and their songs return. Winter and the dark time have finally been put behind us, and the season of growth has begun. This holiday is truly a celebration of life and nature.

Since the Spring Equinox represents new life and growth, this is the perfect holiday for planting seeds of your own on the path of your life.  New ventures may be aided by the spirit of life and growth that abound, and many people decorate eggs at this time with symbols of fertility. All is new and possible. In addition, this holiday is an ideal time to break the last of the chains that may halt our growth.

So that’s what I’m thinking about today: what chains may be halting my own growth, and how to let them instead be little sprigs of pure green.

miscellany

sinclair on the radio! – tomorrow

Posted on by Sinclair Sexsmith

Well, Diana Cage has asked me – as “Sinclair” – to join her on her Diana Cage show on Sirius OutQ radio tomorrow, Thursday March 20th, from 10pm-1am. She wants me to come prepared to talk about my sex life, quickies, dating, sex blogging, and what it’s like to have my intimate sex life online for the world to see.

Sirius is a subscription radio (pretty cheap though, $12.95 a month), but you can get a 3-day trial for free if you’d like to listen in.