miscellany

what sex bloggers do when we get together

Viviane‘s tea party of sex bloggers yesterday was yet again an amazing gathering. The conversation was mostly sex & general geekery like WordPress templates. logo design, site counters, anonymity and blog traffic.And then there was the sex. D/s verses topping and bottoming, penises and balls (I tried to keep a straight face, really I did), strap-on cocks, how bio cocks malfunction, oral fixation, flogging, single-tail whips …

Eileen mentioned that she particularly likes sex play that involves skill, and I have to borrow that from her and agree – skill is hot. Making difficult things look easy is hot. Single tail whips and play piercing are fucken hot. And did I mention that I’d like to be in a room with her again soon? Yes.

In other news:

Avah was adorible and makes lovely noises when tickled; Wendy has a seriously quick wit that included, “Casual sex?! What the fuck, as if the rest of my sex life has a top hat and tails?”

Maymay and I discovered that we were apparently twins separated at birth – well, in the ways that we like women, anyway. Tess was stunning and articulate; Susan and I had lots to talk about regarding anonymity and women bloggers; Selina did not disappoint in her nudist philosophies.

I caught up with the busy lives of Dacia and Rachel, two gals I’d really like to see more of – sounds like Dacia has some new projects and I am definitely submitting something to a new anthology of Rachel’s. Also, Rachel’s got a new Crossdressing Erotica blog and has some great things about gender bending and gender presentation. I’m reviewing her new book, Crossdressing Erotica one of these days (I swear).

It was a particular pleasure speaking to speak to Sissy Maid Stephanie, who talked a bit about cross-dressing in her (his? forgive me if I use a pronoun you don’t prefer) daily life, and I found myself particularly identified with that, as someone who wears men’s clothes, but clearly in a separate category than she is at the same time. I admire her, I’d like to talk to her more about that.

I didn’t get his name, but there was a guy there who was quite impressive with a flogger. Made me want to be his apprentice. I need to practice.

I didn’t have a chance to talk to Jefferson about his recent post on his ex and kids, but I’d hoped to – I emailed him to tell him I empathize. I did get to mention that we should make OLTT/WWJD shirts, and he said he’ll put me in charge of his merch. (Dude, I am a graphic designer, don’t forget I start cafepress stores for fun).

And just before I left, Chris and Mickey asked nicely to see my cock, so I unzipped and showed it off.

I’d brought it for the party, yes; but I’d also brought it for the date I was going to after, a particularly beautiful southern girl (not Belle) who was just in town for a day. But that is a different post.

Sometimes, like this weekend, I fucken love living in this city.

miscellany

modified eros: erotic body modification art show

The ever-amazing Audacia Ray has curated an erotic body modification art show here in New York City, and while I missed the opening night (insert kick-me sign here), I can’t wait to see it.

There is also a play piercing workshop on the 28th of November done by the fabulous Lolita Wolf. Times like this, I am so grateful to be living in this city.

From Dacia’s website:

On November 9, 2007 erotic art and body modification meet in “Modified Eros,” a photographic celebration of bodies modified with tattooing, piercing, corsetry, and scarification. The show is curated by Audacia Ray, features photography from BellaVendetta.com, and runs through January 18, 2008 at Arena Studios, a non-traditional art venue, BDSM play space, and organizer of the Black & Blue Ball, located at 407 Broome Street, Suite 7A.

Some of the photographs in the show have previously appeared on Bella Vendetta’s eponymous website, where she showcases the erotic fantasies of people whose imaginations run on the taboo side. The pieces in the show represent not just the photographers’, but also the models’ predilections. “It’s hard to get a gallery to show images like this because they don’t see body modification as an art form and they don’t think of modified people’s bodies as beautiful,” says Ms. Vendetta.

Audacia Ray, who has curated $pread magazine’s “Sex Worker Visions” shows for the past two years, says, “The photographs I’ve selected for this show invite people to appreciate the erotic beauty of body modification, though some images, like photographs of suspension, blood play, and genital modifications, will make folks squirm a little too.”

During the run of the show, Arena Studios welcomes the public to view the art daily by making an appointment by phone at 212.889.1591 or via email: info[at]arenanyc[dot]com. Arena will also host an evening with Lolita Wolf, a BDSM player, educator, and TES Emeritus Board Member, who will present a hands-on workshop on play piercing in the gallery on Wednesday, November 28th from 7 to 9 pm. The workshop costs $25 to attend and will arm attendees with knowledge about tools, supplies, safety, technique, preparation and aftercare.

Inquiries about the art should be directed to Audacia Ray by email at dacia[at]wakingvixen[dot]com or phone at 718.554.1714.

journal entries

anonymity and a writer’s life

Funny how once one thing changes, one big thing, it seems to cascade and everything else starts changing, too. Understandings of my relationships – from my close, intimate friendships (that’s what she said) to my casual sex (belle) to girls I may be potentially into, to my lovely exes – all seem to have taken a turn these past two weeks, and everything, everything feels different.

I am pretty sure, a week after I received the email from Callie threatening to sue me, that she does not actually read Sugarbutch. Unfortunately, my stat counter only gives me the IP addresses for the last 100 visitors, so I can’t really tell if she’s been here or not.

Any suggestions for counters that will give me better stats? I’d appreciate it! Also, while I’m asking for reader favors, how do I get her IP address from her email? I have a guess at what it is, but I’d like to know for sure.

My therapist said something this week about ‘a writer’s life’ – you know, how we writers, well, we write about those around us. That’s just something that happens. Writer’s families (chosen and blood) can feel thwarted because of it, can feel frustrated because they aren’t necessarily chosing to have the details of their lives exposed. But there is beauty in having your life written about, witnessed, observed, too. And Callie certainly loved it while we were together.

And, ya know, that’s just one of the things about dating me, and sleeping with me, is that I’m probably going to write about it. This is something I have struggled with a lot, so it does feel like a new place for me, to simply say, yeah, I’m a writer, that’s part of the deal.

I want to be sensitive about it, and if someone says, “please don’t write about me,” well, I will respect that. But I guess in order for someone to say that, I’m going to have to reveal that I write about those things in the first place, which I haven’t really done in the past, in the history of Sugarbutch so far, so perhaps I need to start doing that. I will have to think on that more.

I am making a formal study out of sex, gender, and relationships, as I’m newly single for practically the first time in my adult life. I am finding myself navigating new waters, new terms and ideas and intentions, and the way that I tend to make sense of that kind of thing is to read about it, find resources on it, and write about it.

A few people have emailed me recently and revealed that they discovered my real name – they were writing not only to let me know how easy it was to do that, but also saying that they felt a bit guilty for exposing me.

So, a few small things about that.

It’s really okay if you know who I am in real life. I talk openly and honestly about my life and sex and gender to many, many people, friends and strangers alike, and I don’t really want to hide the work I do with sex & sexuality. I admire Dacia and Rachel and others who do this work under their real names for just that reason.

For now, my name is too exposing. It is unique, and brings up a lot of my history with a simple web search. And I do write and publish erotica under that name, I just don’t want my intimate, personal sex life exposed to my current lover, my fourth-grade teacher, my mom, or the girl I’m about to go on a date with, or just met at a party.

So, if you do know who I am, please, just keep it to yourself, and keep it separate from any discussion about Sinclair and Sugarbutch. If you feel like you need to confess that you found me, I will gladly hear your confession, email it on. Actually, it might be useful to me to know how you found me, since I’m trying to erradicate those links to my ‘real name.’

What I’m trying to say is: I am a writer, I write confessionally, I write about my life and friends and community, to make sense of things, to share, to entertain, to create connection and revolution and activism. And that’s just one of the costs. I can’t be sued because I gave an interview talking about my sex life. Well, I don’t know, honestly I wouldn’t put it past her to try. But it’s already taken down, she has no reason to pursue that suit. I’m not particularly worried that she will.

It feels good to make sense of things, in those tiny moments when suddenly those missing pieces fall into place and the picture, my life, becomes clearer.

miscellany

a few recommendations

Well, it’s Saturday morning, and I am partaking in my recent Saturday morning ritual, which includes listening to Dan Savage’s Podcast of his sex advice column “Savage Love” while doing some cleaning.I just gotta plug it for a minute here. Dan is fucken rad. Gay guy, he & his boyfriend of thirteen years have a kid together, he’s out of Seattle and has been doing this Savage Love advice column for a long time – ten years? More? Not sure exactly. He is also occasionally offensive, misogynistic, trans- and bi- and lesbian-insulting – so don’t go into it expecting some PC kindness. Today, he said, for example, to a lesbian: “when you have your arm up her pussy, or when you’re pressing her face into your pussy, or whatever it is you lesbians do in bed, I’ve never been able to figure it out … ” (come on, Dan, really? You can’t figure out what lesbians do in bed? Go watch The Crash Pad or the Crash Pad Series or Sugar High Glitter City or Coming Home or ANYTHING from the lesbian category over on Blowfish and figure it out) and then he went on to discuss Patrick Califia, though made comments about the trendiness of lesbians becoming FtMs (“but I’m not going to go there, because I don’t want my house burned down” … um, you already said it) and proceeded to refer to Patrick with female pronouns – while recommending his books, which I also recommend: Doing it for Daddy and Macho Sluts.

And on the podcast, a lesbian called in asking for some advice about dirty talk in bed, and said that her girlfriend liked to be called humiliating names – and the example she gave? Are you ready for this?

“Cunt-hungry cum dumpster.”

I shit you not. That is amazing. I mean I really don’t think that would turn me on, but hey, YKIOK (your kink is okay … another Dan Savage acronym, like GGG, that I picked up years ago), and I have to admire the boldness and the turn of language that it involves! Wow.

In other news, if you didn’t catch the political (sex) role play video that was going around, check that out too. I’d embedd the youtube version, but it cuts off the last line, and that line is really worth it.

identity

Femme as a Trans Identity

Wish I could embedd this video, but it appears to be disabled – nevertheless, watch the FtF: Female to Femme trailer over on youtube. It’s from last year, and I’ve seen it around before, but wanted to highlight it for this femme discussion I’ve been having lately.Among others, I noticed Jewelle Gomez and Bitch as some of the ones interviewed. The website is over at AltCinema, and has some information about screenings and distribution. I missed it, unfortunately; I definitely want to see it.

I’ve been thinking about femme as a trans identity lately, and there’s some interesting stuff to hypothesize about. Clearly you could argue “butch” goes outside the prescribed gender roles, therefore transitioning between the usual “feminine female” and “masculine male” identities. But femme flies under the radar, sometimes, because of the ways it appears to go along with gender roles – “feminine female.” But there is one key big thing missing in this gender makeup, and that is sexual orientation – and honestly that’s a big piece (the only piece? the central piece?) of what differentiates femme from straightgirl.

This gets into the ways that femininity is compulsory and prescribed specifically for heterosexual purposes. And once a girl comes out as queer/lesbian/dyke, those rules for “getting a man” no longer apply, right?

Along with the rejection of heterosexuality, current lesbians culture tends to reject femininity as well, at least in the mainstream/sterotype. That is why shaving one’s head or at least cutting one’s hair very, very short is a particular rite of passage for most queer girls.

So, adding femininity back to a non-heterosexual female-bodied person, means something completely different. It is an adoption of gender, a serious transition into something new and intentional.

I’ll have more to say on this later …

And because I couldn’t provide you the embedded version of the FtF trailer, here is another one of my favorites from sophisticated sex comics The Wet Spots. Enjoy!

miscellany

even more raunchy than expected

Wow. Sometimes I see lists like this – some of my more interesting search engine keywords – and I realize that this writing project (ugh, blog) is a whole lot more raunchy than I think it is. Interesting, how people have been finding me.

tomboy butch
transmen with a pussy
girl next door short skirt please ride straddle
jenny library suck and fuck
hot fuck
sexblog
sexy butch fucking a femme
cunt spreader
sucking her wet dripping lips
my fingers on her cunt
slut judges at cock contest
your tiny cock
i fuck him with a vixskin dick
working on the ass and the thighs
how to do fisting
butch cock fisting
forty or older lesbian dominatrix
girl with cock in her hand

Traffic has been increasing around this place every month, which is amazing. I hope all you folks who find me via search engine are getting what you came for!

A few people mentioned to me recently that they are too shy to comment publicly, so I want to assure any/everybody that you are welcome to email, if you’d like to further the dialogue. I love the conversation that happens with this site, that’s a huge part of the point: aspiringstud(at)gmail.com.

And, if there’s anything that you’d really like to see here, particular things that you love or hate, topics you want me to expound upon, features I should add, ideas for another contest I should run, I’d love to know that too.

dirty stories, fiction

Her Mouth on My Cock

Madeline was the very first Sugarbutch Star, I could argue, when she made a lovely appearance in the post let go, just let go in October 2006. This honorable mention submission comes from her.

Her Mouth on My Cock

That’s all I really wanted, all night long, in those moments when we touched fingertips and knees sitting next to each other, the one time when I took her slender body into the circle of my arms and wrapped around her, cock tight against her and she could feel it, surely she could, moved her thigh against me and pulled her face away from the nuzzle of the nape of my neck to give me those eyes, those eyes, those pretty eyes and my hand at the back of her neck where her hair is short and thin, delicate, dancing when she shakes her head or laughs which of course she does all night, mouth wide and open, lips pulled over teeth and oh I want to remember what that feels like, a girl on her knees, this girl, this girl on her knees in front of me with that tongue, that suckling throat of hers and she is so good at it, she has turned cocksucking into an art and somehow mine seems that much more real when a girl like this, a girl like her, who treats it as real, she doesn’t care it is silicone, doesn’t care I can’t really feel it, not really, because she knows how I can feel it in my mind, knows that I know how it feels behind her teeth and it’s Debbie Does Dallas and Deep Throat as if her g-spot is at the roof of her mouth, as if she can actually orgasm from my cock, my blue plastic cock, in just the right spot and she’s moaning, god, she’s moaning and her vocal chords vibrate and I can feel it all the way through to my clit and the slick lips of my own cunt, buried, burrowed for a moment underneath this, this way my sex becomes outside my body, this way I become exposed and vulnerable and tender, revealing something of me, unpacking it all, taking it outside and asking to be seen, to be looked at, asking her to acknowledge my inability to do this for myself, to really have this body, to have this real cock, I am without, am not enough on my own, but I want to be this so badly I can create it in my mind, I can create it on my body, I can move within genders and beyond my own birth-assigned limitations to explore whatever it is I want to feel, and right now I want to feel my cock down her throat, I want to come in her mouth and feel her suck me dry, feel her suck the juice from me, shoot into her open throat and she takes me deeper, all the way to the base and her hands on my hips and ass to steady us both and I can barely stand up, my knees are buckling, hips bucking, she’s looking up at me with those eyes again, those eyes, those pretty eyes, and I can hear her plead let go, let go like I’ve heard her say before, and she’s so good at this, so fucking good, that I do, I do, I thrust against her, inside her, within her, and I am shriveled, rendered useless, spent.

I whimper; whisper, Madeline, Madeline, Madeline, again and again, and she wraps her arms around me, says shhh into the nape of my neck, and holds me close.

essays

The Gender Code

I’ve been reading up on gender recently, especially the “gender spectrum” (which, of course, implies a linear and hierarchical classification) and the recently introduced term “gender galaxy.” I graduated from college in 2005, but I am still apparently not up on the theory that is still unfolding and progressing – which makes me wish I was in school, actually.I keep reading articles about the sex-gender distinction and the ways it is disempowering, about gender binaries, gender definitions, gender this, gender that, gender flavors of ice cream. Lord! There’s a lot going on with this gender stuff, I miss studying it within a community and formally. I guess that’s part of the purpose of this project, now isn’t it?

All this is to say, these articles keep saying how useless the gender binary – the categories of male/female or man/woman – is, and that incombination with a disruption of the sex/gender distinction got me thinking: what would it look like if we no longer had these systems in place? Could we classify 6 or 8 or 12 genders instead? Could we categories people without that distinction at all?

I wonder what some sort of Gender Code would look like, something like the late-90s Geek Code (or one of its many spinoffs). Categories would include bodily adornment with makeup and nail polish, body modification with tattoos and piercings, footwear choice, hair – both hair length and body hair, physical features like breasts (including options for falsies) and cocks (ditto), hormones perhaps (as if that is easy to measure), accessories, preferred pronouns … what else? What other things are included in one’s gender?

So I’d end up with a code like this:

G++v^c+d++m–j*t+x-e++

And that would be my gender.

Hmmmm. I’m just playing with this idea really, I’m don’t think I’d propose something like that. I mean, what use would it really have?

But I still kinda like the idea, in a way. I like the “secret code” part of it, that you have to either be very familiar with the symbols, or you have to stick it into a decoder. If I had all sorts of extra time to make a form that would generate a Gender Code, I would make one, just for fun.

reviews

Review: Chemistry 3 (DVD)

Chemistry, Volume Three
Directed by Tristan Taormino
Produced by: Smart Ass Productions and Vivid EntertainmentIt’s hard to review porn, because what turns me on visually and what turns you on visually may be very different things. So while I could go on and on about how hot the brunette – Roxy Hart – and her scenes were, you may not think so at all, and might prefer the petite blonde and the way she would perch on a guy’s lap, feet tucked under her, when straddling him.

So, instead of speaking to the contents of the sex scenes – of which there are many – nine – over three hours – I’ll speak to what makes this porn flick different and worthwhile.

Honestly? It’s the plot. There is no ridiculous plot in this film. And as much of a turn-on occasionally role playing can be, I can’t stand those dumb porn plots that attempt to give context to a sex scene. Just come the fuck on, already.

So the premise here is that these six porn stars are thrown together in a house by Tristan Taormino (who I happen to be seriously crushed out on, both herself and the incredible work she does), who then films them – as they also film each other – doing whatever they’d like. Hell, they are professionals: they know how to fuck, and clearly it is a good time to see them going at it, getting into it.

The other piece of the film that is unique and notable is the confessional interviews, where each person speaks to some question about their experience in the industry, doing scenes with people you click or don’t click with, what scenes are fun, what scenes are lousy. It’s a job – and it’s got it perks and downfalls like any other.

I especially enjoyed these segments. I like to know a person, know the context of someone’s desires, as well as to know what’s behind things, and how things work.

I was skeptical when turning on this film because I’m queer, and though I do like watching women in porn, I tend to not like the mainstream porn – even “lesbian” porn – because it usually seems less than authentic. And then there’s the whole penis thing in hetero porn – I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get past that, but really the chemistry and play is so present in these scenes, that it was really easy to get into.

Well worth watching.

Alright, I can’t not say it: the first sex scene between Roxy and Derrek – when they are so hot for each other that they practically lunge at each other out of desire, and the chemistry is through the roof – that scene is seriously hot. There is choking, smacking around, some pain, some mild domination & submission. I’d re-watch that – I have since, and will again.

journal entries

a star on my wrist

Last week, as I mentioned, Belle got two new tattoos, small ribbons tied in bows over her hip bones. I’ve been feeling particularly inspired to get my own tattoos lately as well, my first choice would be to get the flock of birds I’ve been wanting for almost two years now, but since that is probably going to be more expensive than I’m able to do at the moment, I may settle on a small star on the inside of my right wrist.

I’ve even attempted to make consultation appointments for these two tattoos, to try to figure out how expensive they’d be and how long they’d take, but I haven’t been able to find The Right Artist yet.

So when I saw Belle’s new tattoos, and heard that the guy in Williamsburg is quite reasonably priced, I was practically ready to get tattooed the next day.

Of course, I am not really that impulsive. And I decided it was more important to pay bills (and go on a date on Saturday) than to get a tattoo. But I am really ready for it, for both of them, and I’ve really got the bug for some new body modification, something to mark this huge transitional space that I’ve been in for the last year.

I told Belle about this star tattoo and she got all excited, and has wanted some star tattoos of her own. And yesterday, she got them done: five small stars at the top of each of her breasts, basically under her bra strap. They look incredible.

More about that later.

The star on the wrist has been something I’ve wanted for a while, more than two years, but I’ve been hesitant because I often get comments about how generic that is, how common, and wouldn’t I want something a little more unique. Which has given me great pause in the past.

But upon thinking about it for the last few days, I’ve decided that that is entirely the point: this tattoo symbolizes a connection to the lesbian – and, specifically, butch/femme – communities and history, and I like that being stamped that way is specifically about my placement within and conmnection to that community.

It’s hard to find many resources about this star on the wrist as a symbol of butch or queer identity, but there is a particular passage in a book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold which I do recommend:

During [the 1940s and 1950s], the cultural push to be identified as lesbians – or at least different – all the time was so powerful that it generated a new form of identification among the tough bar lesbians: a star tattoo on the top of the wrist, which was usually covered by a watch. … The community views the tattoo as a definite mark of identification … the Buffalo police knew [that] the people that had the stars on their wrist were lesbians and they had their names and so forth. That it was an identity thing with the gay community, with the lesbian community. … The stars presage the methods of identity created by gay liberation. In fact, the mark has become something of a tradition in local circles and has seen a revival since the 1970s.

From “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community” by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeilne D. Davis, © 1993, p189.

I think I cut out the part where they talk about it being a blue star, but I tend to hear that associated with this legend. I also hear there was a group of women suffragists that called themselves the Blue Star Cadets in around 1920.Mine, though, I’m not sure if I want it blue. I’m not sure I want something so obvious on my wrist. And after I saw this image of white stars on the wrists over on Flickr, I was totally sold on the idea of doing it in white ink. I don’t want mine to be exactly like that – I want it smaller, probably solid white, and just one wrist. But I really love the way it looks. Almost like a scar. Perhaps a hint of blue would be nice, pay homage to those who came before me, my history, my lineage, my inheretance.

real life

this is how it goes

You think, I’m not ready for a relationship, not even an ongoing sexual one with clear emotional boundaries.

You think, there’s no way I can even adequately interact with other human beings intimately without causing or receiving some sort of heartache.

You think, I must be more restrictive and conscienscious of my interactions.

Then, someone comes along, someone unexpected maybe, and for a minute, an hour, four hours, over Thai food, over a bottle of Presecco, over take out from Song, over a walk on the promenade, over a tattoo, you remember that there is more to an interaction than simply confusion and ache, and sometimes you can hold small shards of yourself up to someone else’s light and discover a shade of yourself that you’d never really seen until someone else was there to provide illumination.

journal entries

post-script on what I’m calling things

PS: Omphaloskepsis means “the contemplation of one’s navel.” Also known as navel-gazing, or an inward gaze, or self-examination. One source even says “an idiom usually meaning complacent self-absorbtion.”

It’s kind of a joke: look how self-absorbed I am, that I write about myself and my process all the time.

There have been a few questions. Just thought I’d clear that up.

miscellany

what I’m calling things now

I’ve been doing some maintance & upkeep to the labels here at Sugarbutch, if perhaps you noticed. I don’t think the labels actually get used all that often by visitors – let me know if you disagree, will ya? – and some of them were basically duplicates, so my aim was to simplify the categories into which I’m writing.

I’d still like to pare it down more, actually, but I’m beginning to obsess over systems of classification and organization, so this is good for now.

There are a few changes you should know about, though. First of all, the Sugarbutch stars – the girls I’ve dated, not the contest – have their own categories now (in order of appearance): The Ex, Callie, Joy, Belle. Under those labels you should now find a chronology of our relationship. And aspiring stud is now the label with posts about dating.

What we call ourselves is the new category for all sorts of things about gender, identity, and labels.

Gatherings covers both parties and workshops.

Colophon is the general term for anything Sugarbutch admin-related, a catch-all for these “about this site” updates that I do occasionally (but I know you’d rather read about sex, so I don’t do them all that often).

The label for stories to turn you on should be somewhat self-explanitory, but I want to also mention that these stories are the posts that I consider to be the most polished, to be stand-alone pieces about a particular sexual interaction or play. If you are new here, or if you’re just looking for some good butch/femme queer smut, start here.

Omphaloskepsis is the catch-all label for my general occasionally eloquent musings, processing, and rantings, primarily about myself and my relationships.

I’ve left most of the sex & kink labels in place, partially because they’re fun and partially because I want to keep filling up those categories more intentionally.

In going over all of these old posts, I found a few of my favorite old writings that I thought I might briefly plug.

In June of this year, I wrote out some details on my relationship history while musing about the tattoo that I want.

And in February of this year, I gathered a list of role playing scenarios, many of which I never got to act out, but which will hopefully, in the future, serve as good inspiration for more stories and scenes.

And as hard as it was to read, this time that Callie and I had sex was probably my very favorite, and it was kind of nice to remember, just for a second, how lovely it used to be.

identity

Motivations behind my butch identity development process

Yes, it’s true, I said “how do I get THAT kind of girl?” when looking at the femmes, and have studied the butches that they have been with. But it’s much more than that. Here’s some of the other reasons.

  1. I hated shopping until I discovered the men’s department. The clothes actually fit the way my body is built – my broad shoulders, for example. I could never find something simple, plain, butch enough in the girls’ section, even when I was a kid I hated the back-to-school shopping because I hated the way my body looked and felt in the girly clothes.

  2. Chivalry: a big piece of butch identity, for me, is chivalry, and the ways that I get to spoil femmes – and other butches, straight women, gay boys, and, hell, straight men – by opening doors, pulling chairs out, helping to put on a jacket, stepping aside. This trait makes sense for the ways that I navigate the world, as a particularly strong observer. Could I be a chivalrous femme (or genderqueer or androgyne)? Absolutely, and I know a few gals who identify as such. But for me, the combination of the masculine presentation and chivalry is explosive, and particularly comfortable. I love the sweetness that comes from chivalry and the hardness that comes from the masculinity.

  3. I love the butch accessories: big ol’ belt buckles, leather bracelets, motorcycle boots, wingtip shoes, golf umbrellas, flasks, cufflinks, vests, suits, ties. Ohh the ties. They make sense to me – I know how to put it together, and I not only have confidence that it actually does look good, looking this way also feeds into my confidence.

  4. Contradiction: I find contradiction particularly sexy. I wonder if that has influenced my combination of female-bodied with masculine/butch stuff. I like that it doesn’t necessarily go together, I like that it is inherently subversive because it disrupts the sex/gender paradigm.

  5. Femininity never came easily to me. Yes, I wore skirts and dresses, but I never felt comfortable, solid, capable. I have wondered if this is because that was primarily the time when I was an adolescent and young adult – doesn’t everyone feel that way during this time? I guess I don’t know. All I know is, though femininity never came easily, masculinity has felt like slipping into a second skin, and has felt more comfortable – and more vulnerable – then any feminine expression ever did.

  6. The cock. I’ve been asked by two different places recently to write about my relationship to my cock, so iI’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. This is absolutely a major piece of my butch identity. But let me clarify: though my butchness is somewhat dependant on my cock, I don’t think the cock is dependant on being butch. And, would I still be butch if I could never – for whatever reason – use a cock anymore? Yep. No question. So, more on my cock relationship soon.

  7. I love that it is subversive to be a butch woman in this time and place and culture. I think it’s important to support all sorts of gender expressions, no matter what the biological sex of the person is, but that is actually still a radical act. Also, it is in vogue to reject labels (“they’re so limiting,” “I’m just me,” etc) in the dyke/queer communities, and if I can speak intelligently and clearly about the reasons behind my choices, I may be able to pave the way for someone else to exercise his or her or hir preference to dress or act the way he or she or ze wants, someday, in the future.

  8. Identity politics, though controversial and arguably outdated and problematic, and gender theory, are fucken hot. They challenge, excite, give language to concepts that are incredibly difficult to articulate, and are, ultimately, a sort of poetry for the inner self. I just love all parts of it.

  9. It’s hard to describe, but I just make more sense this way. I don’t know why it took until I was twenty to come to my butch identity, and why for others it happens from the time they’re toddlers. I just know that from the time I started understanding what who butches are, and what they (we) looked like, and what this identity meant, I was fascinated, and coveted that presentation. I was scared of it all, too, and stared open-eyed at any butch walking by, wishing I looked like that. I wasn’t sure I could ever really be that myself – but I was definitely going to try. And I did. And here I am.

There are more reasons to my being butch than simply gaining the attention of femmes who, I have come to realize, are where my primary compass of attraction points. It’s more internal than that, too – it has to do with the way that I move through the world, my actions on the sidewalk, on the subway, in the elevator, at the restaurant. And it has to do with activism, and social change, and smashing the gender binary, and human evolution, and trans politics, and even fucken revolution.

miscellany

If Mick Jagger was a literary, 30-something woman

Speaking of places where Sugarbutch was mentioned, Susan Mernit called me “The Toppe” in her BlogHer Sex Bloggers 101 article:

Another New Yorker, this lesbian feminist writer/sex educator has so much heart — and the daring and passion to make her chronicles very, very interesting. If Mick Jagger was a literary, 30-something woman, instead of whatever he’s become, Sinclair might be the one to get those comparisons — judging by this blog’s good ideas and juicy stories, she’s a rockstar.

Well, thank you! I might quote you on that, Susan, if I may. (Susan & I haven’t actually met, but I hear tell that we are going to be in the same place at the same time sometime next month. Can’t wait.)It’s a little weird to be described as a “lesbian feminist” since that calls to mind a very particular time and ideology. Of course, I identify as feminist – and I wouldn’t disagree with someone calling me lesbian, but I don’t tend to use that term to describe myself. It feels almost clinical – like vagina instead of cunt.

Funny, how much those lables mean, and how much variation there can be within the smallest changes in terms.

Also, for the record, I’m still 20-something for a few more years.

identity

Gender Identity vs Sexual Identity

Within a larger post about the Tila Tequila reality dating show on MTV discussing butch identity, a reader on After Ellen mentioned Sugarbutch:

[F]or some, “butch” is a gender identity, and for others it is a sexual kink (for more on this idea, check out the totally awesome sugarbutch.blogspot.com. but probably only if you’re a grownup as it has some erotica alongside the political/language stuff). So being butch could be interpreted as being overtly sexual.

And, wow! I am flattered to be mentioned! But, I’m confused. Do I explain butch as a “sexual identity” here, as opposed to a gender identity? This is definitely a sex blog – when it boils down to it – my ‘sex, gender, and relationship’ chronicles. And yes, butch is a huge piece of that, and yes, butch is a huge piece of how I communicate physically, and sex is the primary place in my life where I practice that physical communication overtly.

But: butch is a gender identity. Always, I think. I’m not even sure what it would mean to have butch as a “sexual identity” without the gender identity. That even reminds me of that horrible phrase “butch in the streets, femme in the sheets” (which I’ve written about in a post called what gender is).

I’m also not sure how all my elaborate discussions of gender expression and the identity development proces would lead someone to conclude this about me … is it because I talk about sex and gender together, often interwoven? Because being butch is part of my sex life?

I so appreciate the shout-out. I think it’s part of that James Dean complex of being misunderstood – I don’t think I agree – or, perhaps more accurately, I’m not sure I understand – so it’s weird to hear someone else describing me that way.

identity

Butch Stoicism

This past weekend, a friend reminded me that my sensitivity manifests in this butch body, this gender performance, as stoicism. I forget that about myself. I think it is obvious that my feelings are hurt, that I am withdrawn or sullen, yet externally it appears as anger, hard walls, and judgment.I forget that’s how I’m seen.

See, this butch thing is still relatively new – less than a third of my life – and I am treated and perceived differently because of it. I’ve written this before, but: I was never “one of the boys,” I was never the athletic jock, the girl who wished she could join the football team, the one with the toy truck collection. I was the ragamuffin hippie child, making daisy chains, playing in the mud at recess and then changing into mary janes when I got back inside. I was the girl with the handmade dress and the holes in the knees of my wool tights.

Back when I had long hair, this same expression of emotion in me was perceived as something else – hurt, pouting. But now, with my boycut #4, it is stoic anger.

I changed, yeah. But I also am just the same. Don’t forget I used to be the girl on the playground that built rock sculptures and then would sneek into the library to read Jean Fritz and Madeleine L’engle and Anne of Green Gables and The Babysitter’s Club. Don’t forget that this gender doesn’t mean that I don’t feel, too.

journal entries

learning to love the rituals of letting go

Yesterday, October 29th, was the birthday of the first girl I loved. I haven’t actually spoken to her in years, not since long before I left Seattle. I’ve sent her a few emails, called her when I came through town, but we haven’t actually talked.

I almost emailed her yesterday. Nothing heavy, just hi, how are you, hope all is well, happy birthday. I’ve done this on every birthday of hers, I think, since we met seven years ago.

I didn’t send it, though.

I am still sad that she and I are not friends, and do not keep in touch. If she made an effort to contact me, I would meet her energy. But clearly, if she wanted me in her life, she would put some sort of bid for connection out to me, and she hasn’t, she doesn’t.

Funny that it corresponded with the last post about The Ex-Girlfriend and how I need to let her go. This ex, too, I need to let go.

It’s a challenge – I would really love to be friends with my exes, and I’m not actually friends with any of them. We’re on speaking terms (all except Callie). It seems strange to me that we fall in love, we value someone so deeply, want to spend all our time with them, consider them to be one of the most important people in our lives, but then we don’t – or can’t, or aren’t capable of – keeping them in our lives, maintaining a friendship and relationship. And I’m talking about the short-term people I dated, really, but the real deals: the significant ones, the ones I deeply loved and who I thought deeply loved me. Isn’t that enough to maintain some sort of connection, some sort of friendship?

This struggle for me is not new, really; since my first major breakup with the boy I’d been with for nearly five years, I’ve wanted my exes to be in my life. I understand now, better than I used to, that there needs to be some time apart, some separation to re-discover ourselves individually and to re-calibrate ourselves.

I wish we could at least stay in holiday-card touch, communicating a couple times a year with the significant updates.

But meanwhile: I am attempting to let go of expectations of someone else behaving in a particular way. We aren’t in touch anymore. It’s sad. I am letting go of that last bit of hope I’ve been holding on to, tossing it off a bridge, letting it take flight.

miscellany

sugasm #102: top three!

The Sugarbutch Star story from Bad Bad Girl has been chosen as one of this week’s Sugasm picks!

—-

Sugasm #102: This Week’s Picks


She Told Me
“She told me she had a headache.”
Fantasy: If you can’t stand the heat… “You set the ice cube down and force my legs apart.”
Sugarbutch Star: Bad Bad Girl “I brought my lips down on hers hard, crushing, devouring, insistent.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself Upskirt Video from V Magazine
Editor’s Choice Blog Action Day: Sexual Activism or Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice

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

dirty stories, fiction

The “Straight Girl” at the Dyke Bar

I know, I’m extremely late on this. I’m attempting to breathe some new life into the end of the Sugarbutch Star contest, so I can finally end it and hold a poll for the reader’s favorite!

This honorable mention submission comes from Bad Bad Girl … thank you. (Featured in Sugasm #102 in the top three!) 

The Straight Girl at the Dyke Bar

I was out back, in the alley behind the dive dyke bar, when she found me. Busted through the door with a fruity indulgent mixed drink in her hand and I feared for her balance.

“There you are,” she said. “I thought I saw you come this way.”

I was puzzled. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes flashed and she let the back door close on its hinge with a bang. “Yes,” she said. “Clearly.”

I took one last drag of my American Spirit and flicked the butt into the dumpster. “What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she slurred, just a little. “I’m trying to seduce you.” She was right next to me, my height, but she kept her eyes low and looked up at me with submission. My internal butch cock stirred.

“You’re drunk,” I said.

“Yeah.” She stepped closer and bit her lips, looking at mine.

“Are you here with friends? Maybe they should take you home.”

“I don’t think so. I’m not ready to go home.”

“You’re drunk,” I said again.

“Not so drunk that I don’t know what I want,” she snapped. “Only drunk enough that I can go after it.”

She inched closer to me. My mouth watered. I wanted my hands on the curves of her waist, her hips, her ribcage. I struggled to keep control. “What are you doing … here?” I almost said in a gay bar.

She sneered. “I know, I’m the only straight girl. I usually am. Well. Whatever.” Her tone changed. “I know how this sex thing works,” she purred, palm of her hand against my crotch where my cock was hard, straining against my zipper. The pressure of her fingers felt exquisite.

I knocked her hand away. “Hey.”

She withdrew and then slowly moved her fingers up my arm, felt the muscles, tendons. Circled her fingers around my wrist. “Come on,” she whispered. “I saw you watching me.”

Her neck was dangerously close to my mouth and I could smell her, sweet and thick. I wanted a mouthful of her perfume. Teeth on her skin. My hands moved – practically involuntarily – to the curves she laid out for me, the precise placement of her body next to mine inviting my touches.

She tilted her face toward mine. Half-closed her eyes. I didn’t even know her name. My friends were still inside, probably waiting for me. It was getting late. The alley was filthy. She smelled so delicious. The desire between us was pooling and tangible.

Her body was small, my hands with fingers spread covered her back. I brought them up under her hair, pulled her toward me, took hold of the back of her skull and neck. She leaned into me.

“Okay,” I said, watching her face as our lips barely brushed while I spoke. “But we’re going to do this my way.”

I brought my lips down on hers hard, crushing, devouring, insistent. She whimpered, back curving. I held her body at the precise angle and distance that I wanted, and she went limp in my arms, gave over, arms and shoulders falling back, on her toes.

Pulling away, I grinned. Took a step back. Kept my eyes on her, touched my lower lip with my thumb and felt that stirring in my stomach, that desire, that power. Her eyes got a little frightened and she attempted to keep her tough look, but it was a mask I would unpeel.

I closed the distance between us. Traced my fingers down her left arm until I reached her hand, still holding that delicate glass of fruity alcohol, and took it from her, tossed it hard, overhand, arm flexing, at the blank space where the building met the concrete in the alley. It shattered brilliantly, a cascade of glass, the sound filling the narrow space between the buildings.

She watched my arm, the glass, the crash. We turned our eyes back to each other, hers open, mouth open, small of her back arched. Her mouth watered and she moved her jaw, I could see it. Subtle. She wanted to lunge for me. Good girl, she stayed still.

Hardening my glance, I moved toward her, thick, keeping distance between us, and she stumbled back, her low heels catching on the uneven pavement, thrusting her hands out behind her but I kept her eyes, kept two fingers on her waist and led her back, back, until she was against the dumpster. She swallowed. It was wider at the top than the bottom, slanting out; she cowered under it a little.

I lifted my chin, once. “Hold that.”

She did. Lifted her arms to grip the edge of the dumpster. Made a face. “It feels gross.”

“Mmm.” You’re getting fucked in an alley behind a dive bar. What do you expect? I thrust my hand between her legs. She wore a tight skirt – I pulled at it, shoved it up her thighs to expose her. Pulled tight against the lacy fabric of her panties and pressed two fingers inside. Smooth. She inhaled, moaned.

“So wet,” I said, mouth against her cheek. She kept hold of the edge with her hands, arms raised. My body perpendicular to hers, cock against her hip. I worked my fingers inside, slick and slow and deep, thumb on her clit, on that spot below her clit, my hand gripping her pubic bone.

She moaned, knees weakening, hips dipping down to take in more of me. I added a third finger. “You know how to get fucked, don’t you.”

Mouth gaping, she breathed heavily, turning her head and biting her lower lip. I could feel my fingers working a good spot inside her and she was increasingly sensitive, reactive to my pressing and curling, thumb flicking a little lighter and faster on her clit. Her thighs shook and she lifted one leg off the ground, bent her knee, pressed her legs apart and against me, body shaking, pressed against me, until she gasped hard and I felt the ring of muscles grip my fingers, grip hard, her clit fat and sensitive and pressing against my thumb, throbbing, until she shuddered hard, bucked her hips, began to lose her balance and leaned against me, gasping, little moans coming from her throat.

She looked up at me, arms around my neck now. “I don’t usually come so fast,” she said, a little apologetically.

I shook my head, don’t worry about it. “I’m not done with you yet.” I didn’t wait, but took her wrists in my hands and put them back up onto the dumpster’s edge, then twisted her body so she faced away from me, pulled her skirt up over her ass, and unzipped my fly. Pulled my cock out. Sheathed it quickly with a condom from my back pocket.

With one hand I pushed aside her panties, slightly stretched now anyway; with the other I pressed her ass apart, then guided my cock into her wet hole. Stretched her lips as I pumped in and out, smooth slow long strokes, hips in circles, working the cock against my clit as much as inside her.

My release built easily in me after the way she came and it didn’t take long for me to grip her hips like handles and begin pounding, shifting my feet to stabilize my movement, muscles in my thighs hard and contracted, groaning and grunting with the physical effort of it all. She pressed hard with her hands against the disgusting dumpster, arching her back and pushed against me, receiving me as I fucked harder, hard, pulling almost all the way out and then slickly entering her again, the length of my cock, pressed tight against her ass and hips in rocking little thrusts, until I found that sweet spot and my clit contracts and I see myself exploding in her, which made me come harder, muscles thick and shuddering, gasping, slowing my pace against her until I came to stillness and peeled myself off her back.

She watched me over her shoulder, all eyes and hair, desire still in her face, painted over her cheeks, then rose and straightened her skirt, smoothed her hair. I tucked my cock back into my briefs and zipped my jeans.

She smiled at me, then started giggling, then laughing hard, full-bodied from her stomach, eyes sparkling. I was amused, and puzzled. “What’s so funny?”

“So,” she giggled, wrapping her arms around my neck and tossing her hair, “you’re awfully cute. Come here often? Can I buy you a drink?”

I laughed, pulled myself out of her embrace. “Sure. Why not.” I stepped up the three low rickety back stairs and opened the back door to the bar, let her step in first. Jukebox tunes and pool cues and women’s laughter spilled out.

I saw a few of my buddies at a table in the corner, they watched me come back in with my hand on the back of the girl. They made faces and gestures and raised their eyebrows. I shushed them with a look, turned my attention back to her.

“I, uh, I didn’t get your name,” I said.

“That’s cause I didn’t say,” she answered, hips switching as she dodged through the crowd and stepped up to the bar and immediately had the bartender’s attention. She ordered, glancing at me sideways: “Jameson rocks, for Sinclair.”

journal entries

what do I do with all this heat?

I’ve been hard for days. Ready to fuck. I take long luxurious laps at the briefest contacts to my pelvis – the moment of walking through the subway turnstyles. Leaning up against a table. My hips tilt upward in wait, like the center of a plant revealing to the blue sky. Magnetic and animal and it’s all I can do to keep from growling, sharpening my teeth on the skin of the girl next to me, behind me, in front of me.My cock is hard. That internal butch cock that raises and piques when I feel that rush to my clit, that swelling between my legs.

I am a battery charged. Plugged in and there is much I would do for the chance to spend a weekend in bed. Or a day – I’d settle for a day.

Cock so hard I could force it through brick. Through plywood. It could puncture glass, plastic. What would it do to you?

identity

“Femme is Pure Strength”

But what is femme? For me, femme is the confident way I move through space. It is the soft outside that couches a tough-as-nails interior. Femme is my unique strengths, the way I wear my clothes, the way I fuck, the way I create, the way I structure my relationships, the way I live in my body. And femme is the way I want the world to treat me. I love having butches open doors for me. I love having my chair pulled out, assistance with my coat, a strong hand on the small of my back guiding me through a crowd. But Femme is also the way my voice carries when I’m wanting to be heard, the way I can take charge of a situation and handle a crisis. Being femme is having a core of pure steel and being able to lay it down and be vulnerable- because of, not in spite of, my strength.

via moxie’s flickr. Any idea where this comes from?

poetry

an aspiration

Sex Without Love
Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other’s bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health—just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

journal entries

further workshop revelations

I brought my butchness to this workshop in a way I never have before. On Saturday, I wore a button-down and tie in the morning. It has never even occured to me in the past to wear a tie (in fact, in one of the workshops, five years ago now, I felt inspired to bring my only pair of high-heel shoes for one of the rituals, although I never wore them) but this time it did, and it was lovely. I got a few compliments and I felt like myself, not like dressing up.The thing is, this workshop is very goddess-yoni-vulva-womyn. In a wonderful way, really; the rituals and energy ground me in my body, often purge some major things I’ve been holding onto. Hard to describe. But it has meant that it’s hard to bring the butch/masculine energy into that space for me sometimes, because it doesn’t exactly fit in. It stands out, sometimes dramatically. I also think it might put off some of the participants who are very suspicious of masculine energy, and who need the circle to be an especially safe space, which, for many women, means completely free of that masculine energy.

There were a few differences in recent years – I am different, of course, my butch identity has grown and solidified over the past year in a very new way. Also, the instructor is genderqueer – she even referred to herself as trans-gender, at some point, not in a ‘transitioning from one to the other’ kind of way but in a ‘occupying both, transferring between genders’ kind of way. She made me feel particularly empowered to bring the butchness.

What is also interesting about that is the ways that some attendees seem suspicious of me – likely because of my butchness – but by the end of the weekend treat me a little differently, since they’ve seen me warm & open.

I packed on Sunday. I’d brought my (pink bendy) cock & harness for the altar, but during a morning meditation I had some revelations about the ways that I identify with my genitals outside my body, and the ways that that means for me that I have worked really hard to take a good look at what’s going on for me “down there,” my history and relationship and connectiont to my cunt. It’s also about how cock-centric I – and my sex life – currently is, and after that revelation, I really wanted it on. I took it from the altar during lunch and didn’t take it off the rest of the day, wore it under boxers.

It wasn’t obvious, I don’t think – the few people I revealed it to were surprised – and I felt a little embarrassed or even guilty about wanting to wear it. As though I should be complete without it. As though I shouldn’t want and need this extra thing that is me but isn’t me, that is more me than anything else but is not a part of me, that comes to life when I am and it is touched, but has no nerve endings, no real sensation. Wanting it so badly is also a recognition of that which I do not have, of my defiency, and when my cock is acknowledged as me and touched as part of me, I am seen as whole, and I am recognized as having that cock, in all its reality – as a separate-but-connected extraneous and integral piece of me.

If I summed up this workshop in two words, they would be cock and heart.

Aside from the revelations on butchness and my cock-identification, I was consistently reminded of how closed down my heart is (was?). One of my intentions for the workshop was to connect my cunt and my head, which are working quite well, really, via my heart, which is not working so well.

My heart feels like a nest of needles. Tied tight with thick scratchy ropes like a boat moored. (What is tied to it? Can I let that drift out to sea?) Tethered like a hot-air balloon held to earth when it’s impulse is to float and lift.

Another intention was the small mantra, “I already have my wings,” which spoke to not only the ways that I needed to remind myself to open my chest, open my chest, open my chest, but also the idea that I am already complete, that I don’t have to look outside myself (Callie) for answers and validation.

My heart is not healed yet. That’s okay. I kept making the gesture when talking about the workshop of my hands over my chest, peeling back my ribcage – and that feels lovely, vulnerable, tender. I’m sore, yes – but keeping my heart wrapped up tight like this is a bit suffocating, and just makes the soreness worse.

There’s more, there’s so much more about this workshop. But this is a start.

journal entries

workshop revelations

The workshop this weekend was phenomenal, as this workshop always is. This is my seventh time at a workshop through this same school, my third time as an assistant. It’s different every time, though the structure is very similar, mostly because I’m different I suppose – it brings up and heals and expells and calms different things in me depending on what is happening in my life.I had a lot of revelations this weekend. It’s different to be back in the “real” world now.

Let’s start with Friday.

I realized how little I breathe, and how much I’d like to do some serious study of breath on my own, not just in workshop. We did some tantric breathing, including a “pelvic lock” which seriously rocked my world, and after being blown away I swore to myself I’d look for some lesbian tantric resources. I also very much remember thinking the same thing last year, as I went to this same workshop almost exactly a year ago, and I started wondering why it was that I didn’t follow through on that.

Which is when a list of things fell into place. (I’ll give a little recap.) I split with my girlfriend of four years over the summer, in July, after I met Callie and went on a date with her. I have often described Callie as a “defribrulator for my heart,” as she jolted me awake in a huge new way – I hadn’t even realized how numb and hiding I was in my relationship with my girlfriend (at the time, often referred to as “the girlfriend” or “the ex-girlfriend” in the archives). Callie made me feel desire, lust – made me feel interesting, fascinating. I fell in love with her that first date. But, I had a girlfriend, and Callie found out, and refused to date me until I figured it out, said she wouldn’t wait for me, etc. Which, you know, makes sense. I spent the next three months getting my life in order – leaving my girlfriend, moving into my own apartment, fucking around – mostly so I wouldn’t be completely lost in my lust for Callie if/when we started dating.

And then, in October, on a Wednesday, I put up a person ad – the same one she had put up, to which I had responded, only in reverse – and then sent her flowers on a Friday. She called, almost immediately.

And that was the weekend of the workshop last year – so I couldn’t meet her that weekend. We had lunch on Monday, the day after the workshop.

I barely remember anything about the workshop last year. I remember lunch at the South Street Seaport, talking about Callie. I remember having a hard time focusing, because I really just wanted to be with Callie. I spent three months dreaming and preparing and wishing Callie back into my life, and there she was, ready for me, too – so I skated through the workshop and probably even used it to fall deeper in love with her. On my own, without her even there, without knowing her.

Dangerous, dangerous.

So, on Friday, I was remembering the feeling of wanting to study breathwork and tantra last year, and wondered where that energy and inspiration went, then realizing it was all focused into that relationship. Sex always worked with Callie (see: all of October to May, explorations from desire and role play and force, to lingerie and topping and ten times in twenty-four hours) and I always assumed that because it worked so well, better than I’d ever had in my life! Which was a combination of Callie being a femme bottom (finally, finally) and coming out of a sexless four-year relationship with a girl who didn’t really like sex, among other things. Because things worked so well between us, sexually, I quickly took that to a spiritual level – of course I did, coming out of this workshop the day before our relationship began! – and thought that that meant something much, much more than it did.

It didn’t mean that much. It wasn’t a spiritual connection, it wasn’t a “meeting of the souls.” Or, I don’t know, maybe it was a little bit, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t also unstable, seductive, and manipulative.

I’ve said this about Callie before, too, but it rings particularly true: she is beautiful for the same reason that puppies and babies are adorible – because if they aren’t, you would murder them for their horrible, life-shattering annoyances.

So. That was Friday, and throughout-the-weekend revelations about Callie. Things I took away: I want to make a serious study of some tantra and breathwork; and I feel like this relationship with Callie is further coming into focus.

(Saturday & Sunday revelations to come.)

miscellany

fisting in time out

Sinclair Sexsmith – ahem, that would be me – has been quoted in this week’s Time Out New York magazine (thanks to Viviane) about fisting.It’s under the Pick-a-fetish megachart, the penultimate of the list, almost at the end.

Not a bad quote, entirely:

“Go slow, slow, slow and use lots of lube,” says Sinclair Sexsmith, a Bed-Stuy-based sex blogger and femme fister with seven years’ experience. “It’s gonna be messy. Just put a towel down and get over it.”

It’s kinda hard to give someone beginning fisting advice without getting too much into the down-and-dirty. It’s so hard to be quoted, I would’ve chosen other things to highlight. And while I did say water-based lube is often slicker, in my opinion, it implies that the lube should be thin rather than gel-like, which is backward: I find the gel-like lube often stays wetter longer, though I do like how I can kinda pour the liquidy lube into my cupped hand and get things all nice & slick without pulling my hand out entirely. That’s helpful.

miscellany

PSA on being GGG

Alright, folks, let’s have a little chat, shall we?

It has come to my attention through a series of conversations with friends and lovers recently that, very often, we are not getting what we want in bed – but not for lack of trying. Many people I’ve talked to lately are saying that they are explicitly asking for what it is they want in bed, sometimes in the heat of the moment, sometimes beforehand, and their lovers aren’t doing it.

And, I mean, their lovers aren’t doing it out of lack of interest, or lack of being GGG (as far as I know). They are simply being non-responsive.

I have a motto for those of you who are this type of lover. Memorize it. Repeat it to yourself. Live it: you don’t have to tell me twice.

Come on! If a lover is bold enough to ask for something, which is no small feat – it takes guts! courage! lots of practice! to be able to ask for something that you want in bed. If they are bold enough to ask for it, you better well do it (unless you have an actual objection to the act).

When the Southern Belle said “harder, fuck me harder,” do you think I paused, thought about it, considered it? Uh, no. When Callie said “pull my hair,” did I decide to do it another day, later? No. And I’m not trying to say this to further prove that I am good in bed, all I’m saying is, it is a good thing when a lover requests you to do something. It means they’re comfortable enough with you to empower you to do more of what they like, which will make them all the more grateful to your fabulous skills.

So, people, repeat after me: you don’t have to tell me twice.

Seriously.

This has been a public service announcement for better sex. You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled Sugarbutch Chronicles.

miscellany

sugasm 97

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #98? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks
The Manifesto of the Cuntcentric Hedonist “I’m not being selfish, I’m being altruistic when I open my legs and offer my body up.”

No reservations, part 4 “By this time, said balls felt twice their normal size and very full.”

Sex Work And Religion: The Violent Priest “We were to seduce one of the young ladies in the church’s choir.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself JBS Underwear
Editor’s Choice The Top 10 Reasons to avoid “Pregnancy & Sex” bulletin boards

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

See the rest of the posts in Sugasm 97

reviews

review: the Crash Pad DVD

The Crash Pad
2005, Directed by Shiner Louise HoustonThis is, hands-down, my favorite dyke porn film that I have ever seen. And while I don’t tend to talk a lot about watching porn, I actually do, fairly often in fact. There is a lot of bad lesbian porn out there, most of which I would lump into the category of “porn made for straight men” rather than porn made by dykes for dykes.

This is definitely in the latter category.

The plot (hah) of The Crash Pad is set in an apartment in San Francisco, to which if you have the key, you can go there and have wild, fabulous sex. Many of the scenes feature real-life couples and their chemistry is through-the-roof gorgeous. I am particularly fond of the opening scene, where a couple is fucking and doesn’t answer the phone, which is a check to see whether or not the Crash Pad is occupied. Another couple enters, and a threesome ensues, complete with fabulous fucking.

Also incredibly noteworthy is the butch-femme couple scene, where the femme actually cries out “oh I love you! I love you!” in ecstacy. So sexy! And, later, a boi-boi scene where there is some wrestling, ejaculation, and batman socks, which seems to be a favorite among my friends.

Some have criticised this video because the sex is too “heterosexually reproductive” – meaning, there are a lot of strap-ons in this one. If that’s not your thing, it may not be for you. But considering you’re reading Sugarbutch, I suspect you might actually like that kind of thing.

Watch the trailer here, order it from (the distributor) Blowfish or (my personal favorite dyke-owned & operated, sex & gender positive sex toy store) Babeland.

identity

More on Butch Identity, Mine

An old friend of mine sent me an email recently, and said I could post it & my responses.

So I’ve been following your Sugarbutch blog for quite some time now and the whole Gender Identity thing certainly confuses me. I mean, some of it I get, ok, a fair bit of it I think I get. I mean, for instance in life [my wife] is a goodly deal more masculine than I am and I’m a deal more feminine than she is.

I think you’re speaking of these terms differently than I would. By “more masculine/more feminine” you mean she takes charge, does the outward, social, money things, and you are more domestic, yes? You don’t mean that you bat your eyelashes and coo and wear skirts? She’s in charge, perhaps, yes, but that is not the same thing as masculine. That’s sexist, in fact; aligning all things in control with masculinity.

Do correct me if I’m wrong, but these are different things in my head.

When we’re in the bedroom we reverse that dynamic. I dom and she subs and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Those things are separate from gender to me, too. That’s power, rather than gender. And really that all sounds very similar to my own makeup – I want a femme girl who is extremely powerful, especially socially, partly because I prefer to be the observer, to fall back and watch. But I want to take her down in the bedroom.

However…..the extent that you discuss it…it sounds like a LOT of work. I mean really. a LOT. I guess for me I figured out who I was and my wife figured out who she was, we figured out who we were together and we have this sort of…be-ing. We just are. I mean…am I missing something?

It is a lot of work. You’re right. And here’s why, and why it’s okay: for one, the work is fun. I so get off on this. The work is not necessary – at least, it is not consistently necessary, there is a degree to which I’d say it is necessary – for just going about my day. But I enjoy this kind of exploration of sex, gender, kink, and sexual dynamics, and I’ve made a formal hobby of it, you could say.

I understand what you’re saying about how you “just are” and I think that’s great. Me, however … I have been doing a bit of a life overhaul, what with the two major breakups in the last year, and I need to make a study of myself, the way I function in relationships, and the things I want, because I was with the wrong girls. Now this is not to set up a hierarchy and say that you are where I wish I was, that your place in this is better than or superior to mine. It is only different, we have our own paths.

One of the reasons our paths are different, I’d bet, has to do with the ways that our genders are so different because I’m queer/butch and you’re hetero/male. It took me a long time to figure out who I was – and while I’m sure it took you a long time, too, I still bet you knew all about your gender in high school, or earlier. And after I came to my own gender, it took me a while to learn that I wanted to be with a femme – a femme bottom, no less. My particular flavor/brand of desire took me 25-27 years to come to full fruition.

And because I am in a marginalized place, with few real mentors, all of my moves and identities and gender development took longer, and was more complex and tumultuous than a more mainstream, less oppressed or marginalized identity.

ALso, re: this is my hobby: this is also my passion. Sugarbutch is a culmination of what I studied in college: social change, gender, writing – all wrapped into one.

One of the things that kind of threw me for a loop in reading was the comment you made that part of your inspiration was when you asked “what do I need to do to get a hot girl like that?”. To me that just smacked of what most boys go through in high school. Most boys change radically who they to get the hot girls. My friend Dustin for example. He told me once, while extremely drunk, that he used to be nice, sensitive, blah blah blah just like I was but he wanted to get laid and so he changed everything about himself. And then I read about how you want to up the notches on your bedpost. …

Here’s the thing. I changed, yes, but I did not become an asshole who no longer respects myself or the people I’m with. I became more myself than I’d ever been. My butch identity development – as related to wanting to be with femmes – was less like your high school friend and more like me finding my ideal perfect job I wanted to have the rest of my life, then researching where it was that the people who got that job came from, how they got there. I am still nice and sensitive. I will not – I refuse to – sacrifice my personality on the basis of any gender. I separate those things, actively, intentionally, in my approaches to gender.

When someone first said to me, “I think you’re butch,” I nearly fell over. I wanted to be, so badly. I wished and wished and then worked my ass off when I got more confident, more capable. And I spent years feeling “not butch enough” – and I got increasingly interested in the social policing of gender, and identity construction, and the places gender & sexuality intersect, all of that.

Re: “notches in my bedpost”: it’s true, I do want this. But it is about gaining experience and knowing myself better, not about some macho conquest thing. I tend to fall for girls I sleep with, at least a little, but I want to learn to have casual sex. I want to find out what I really want and like so I won’t get stuck in another awful soul-crushing relationship. I want to know what’s out there. I don’t want to settle.

I know that you must get extremely tired of “expalining yourself”, so I apologize. And really you probably don’t HAVE to explain. I love you anyway and that goes beyond any lack of understanding, at least by my reckoning. So this is just an “I’m slightly lost” kind of thing.

I will always gladly answer any questions, and I am flattered you feel comfortable enough to ask. I hope this explains a little better, and I hope it doesn’t feel like any sort of attack against you or your identity. This is really hard for me to articulate, I’m just trying to work through it.

dirty stories, real life

broken, breaking

I walked home with my thumb slung in my blazer jacket pocket, fingering the tip of my favorite pink packing cock, the ridges on the head, mostly to keep it from poking out of my pocket. Its spine is now broken at the base but I think I could still fuck with it.But, if it’s broken, well, what a way to go.

And really, opening this story with discussion of my cock is very self-centered. The night wasn’t about me at all. Once the boundary was broken, once the floodgates were open, the last six hours of foreplay and teasing rushed to the palms of my hands, and the only thing I could do was take her down.

“You’re going to come for us, aren’t you. Aren’t you, pretty girl.”

She moaned and writhed and melted. I held her down by her wrists and shoulders and whispered in her ear. “You like the way she’s sucking your clit?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yeah? I like the way you say yes. Say it again.”

She paused, swallowed. “Yes.”

“Say it louder.”

She resisted me a little. “Yes.” Told me later that she had to add her own twist to what I told her to say. I liked the way she took direction.

She wriggled her way from one end of the couch to the other, head eventually pressed against the arm, the living room a mess of clothes and blankets and pillows thrown everywhere. Gasping and twisting.

“Oh my god, oh, my god. No one has ever – fucked me – like this before. No one has ever – I mean ever – ohh, my god.”

She was stripped bare, skin flushed and freckled, mouth red and open, lord, she has the most gorgeous mouth I’ve ever seen.

“I like the way you suck my fingers,” I said, working two fingers in and out, pressing a little on her tongue, holding her jaw with my thumb under her chin. She bit down on the nail of my fingertip. More than once. Hard. Ow. Oh I loved it.

Those were my favorite sounds she made. The way she moaned through whatever was in her mouth. Fingers. Especially my cock.

I worked her mouth and my aural skills while her friend worked her clit and gspot for an hour, almost two. Hips slung over shoulders, arms underneath, wrapped around to her hipbones. Sounds from her throat, mumbles, delicious little noises, mouth full, eyes open.

Two butches and a femme. I was not in charge, did not orchestrate the evening. In fact, it never occurred to me that we would actually return to her house and fuck. I spent the six hours – six! – at the second bar resisting their advances, allowing them both to play with my packed cock, her butch friend grabbing my cunt, working her fingers under my harness, and later biting my neck; and then there was that moment where my hipbone place just below my waistline was exposed and the femme licked and sprinkled salt for a body shot. Her mouth so close to my cock. That pretty, pretty mouth.

Later she took it in her mouth. Not properly, on her knees in front of me, but me above her, sliding it in.

It happened the third or fourth time she was oh so close to coming. I kept whispering things like let go and come for us, pretty girl and I want to hear you scream. There was (forgive me) something happening energetically, and I moved down behind her butch friend and grabbed her short hair, ran my hands over her back and ass, still covered by her cute boxer briefs.

And oh the view from below her. Getting fucked on her back on the couch, body all smooth and soft, curves and I could see the muscles rippling under her skin when she contracted, when her butch friend thrust harder, when she found the good spots and didn’t let up.

“Is that it?” I’d ask as the femme writhed more, reacted, moaned. “Did she find the right spot?”

“Oh she’s got it, she’s got the right spot, she’s had it all along. Ohh, my god. Seriously. God, oh god.”

I liked her hips all splayed open, thighs exposed and pressing her pelvis deeper into her mouth, stomach doing that crunching-contraction thing, shoulders off the couch, arms reaching gripping pressing into anything around her, head and neck hitting against the edge of the couch.

“Move back,” I told her friend, pulling on her thighs. She slid backward a foot or so. “Slide her down, too.”

They gave me just enough room to come back up to the head of the couch. I took the femme’s wrists in my hands again and pressed them over her head. She opened her mouth, closed her eyes.

“I want to fuck you,” I told her. She opened her eyes, looked at me clearly. “I am grinding my hips into the couch right now, I want you so bad.”

She reached for my cock and gripped it, milked it with her fingers. “Ohh, that’s good,” I said. “I like your fingers around my hard cock. I like the way you touch me.”

“You could put that in my mouth again. That would not be a bad idea. Seriously, you could put that cock in my mouth, right now.”

I did. Of course I did.

I don’t prefer blow jobs from above because I like her to control how deep to take it (despite my occasional fantasy otherwise – it’d need to be layed out, consentual. I digress; more on that another time).

But. She took it. Impressively.

“Ohh I like watching my cock slide down your throat,” I said. “So beautiful, watching you suck my cock, oh god, yes, suck it, suck my cock, fuck, fuck.”

I locked eyes with her butch friend, mouth still full on her cunt, watching us. Can you fucken believe how hot she is? we asked each other with glances.

“She is hotter than the center of the goddamn sun,” her friend told me later.

She was a defiant, wily bottom, but good, so good, at submitting, at taking what we gave her. Later, when I told her I liked how she took direction, liked telling her what to say, and she told us both that she had to make it her own, I had the urge to break her of that. I want to direct her, I want her body to be my tool, my instrument to play. I want her to feel the consequences of stringing me along at a bar for six hours, of her tongue on my hipbone.

She is powerful, so commanding and present, in charge, all heart and command, that I want to take her down, I want to break her in.

miscellany

put your money where your mouth is

This is a call for donations for Scarleteen.

If your values align with Scarleteen’s, and if you are willing and able to keep this necessary resource afloat, please consider helping any way you can.

Here’s the link: Donate to Scarleteen and win tickets to “My First Time” … read on if you’d like more information about what Scarleteen does.

Scarleteen is a labor of love: a site dedicated to providing teens with accurate, supportive information about all aspects of sex and sexuality. As all of you know, I bet, because you have al searched for sex ed info online (what is the first thing for which new technology is used, for example? porn), it is actually quite difficult to find accurate and supportive information on sex, especially for teens. Scarleteen is a major resource, and so important.

And they are struggling immensely.

Heather Corrina, the founder, editor, & designer, works immeasurable hours on this labor of love, and it shows. Her heart & soul are in this project. Hell, I might go so far as to say she was born to do this. She is not exactly a close friend of mine – in fact, I’ve never met her – but I have followed her work online for many years: her writing, her photography, her activism. I have such admiration for her work and dedication, and for this project.

If this doesn’t appeal to the do-gooder in you, perhaps I can use sex appeal?

Or perhaps the promotion Scarleteen is currently running – “The first 18 donors who give the largest donations to Scarleteen from September 1st through September 16th, will not only help us provide sex education and information for teens and young adults worldwide — which is reward enough! — but will also receive a voucher for two tickets to My First Time to be used between now and the end of October. Valued at just under $120.” – will entice you?

Any way you can, Scarleteen needs support. Please help keep this invaluable educational hub thriving, and help support healthy, consciencious sex & sexuality information for teens & young adults.

There is also a Scarleteen book s.e.x.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College. Buy it for the kids in your life. better yet, buy signed copies of the book direct from Scarleteen, by either “making a donation of over $75 to help sustain Scarleteen, or purchasing a signed copy for $22.”

blurb:

Get your hands on S.E.X.: the in-depth and inclusive young adult sexuality guide by Heather Corinna! Covering everything from STIs to sexual orientation, body image to birth control, masturbation to misogyny, the anatomy of the clitoris to considering cohabitation, and written for you whether you’re male, female or genderqueer; straight, gay or somewhere in between, this is THE everything-you-need, comprehensive, progressive sexuality handbook to get you through high school and college.

This ends your public service announcement; we now return you to your regularly scheduled Sugarbutch Chronicles.

identity, Interviews

Butch & Trans In Conversation: Interview with Cody

When I went on that gender tirade back in August, Cody & I talked a bit about the butch/femme identities, and I was really curious about the ways that my arguments translated into arguments for why trans identities are subversive genders as well. He was graceous enough to agree to be interviewed about his gender opinions. Here’s the transcript.

Sinclair: I’m looking over the transcript of the chat we had a few weeks ago about butch/trans identity…

Cody: Okay. Are we beginning the interview? Should I put on my game face? Not that gender is a game or a construct. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that Id joke about something so serious.

Sinclair: That’s a great place to start. If gender is not a game or a construct, or a “role,” what is it?

Cody: Well, Actually, I was kidding. I think it’s all of those things, and none of them really. Gender is whatever you make of it. I also think (and I’m going to get a little woo woo here so bare with me) that gender is also this internal thing something you feel, some, internal energy that informs you about yourself. This is obviously informed by outside forces etc. But not completely. Does that make sense?

Sinclair: That absolutely makes sense. I’ve been writing a lot on Sugarbutch about the ways that butch/femme are not reproductions of some sort of heteronormativity, and I came up with a couple of major arguments about why those genders, though appearing to be hetero, are actually subversive of the whole sex/gender binary, and compulsory gender as a whole. And while I was writing this stuff out I kept thinking, you know, I bet these same arguments apply to the trans identity as well. It’s frustrating – I still hear so much transphobia kicked around in the queer/dyke communities.

Cody: Yeah, there’s a lot of that. But watch out, we all THINK about kicking back now and again.

Sinclair: Oh yes. I kick back, that’s for damn sure. So my question is, how do you think those arguments translate? More specifically, how is the trans identity subversive? Because it appears to be a heteronormative reproduction, especially (obviously) when the trans man is straight, or dating femmes or straight girls.

Cody: Well, the simple answer is that simply by the nature of my physical body [my trans identity] is subversive. And when I am dating femmes, the identity is subversive for a lot of reasons, but if we want to get down to bones here, I’d say the ways in which we have sex are subversive. Also, here’s something I realized the other day that made me laugh: I can never ever have straight by the book hetero-sex. It is physically impossible for me to do so. If that doesn’t make me fucking goddamn subversive I don’t know what does!

Sinclair: I love it! Hell yeah!

Cody: To get back to the question: what I mean about the nature of my physical body, is actually something I’ve been having a weirdly large amount of dialogue with folks about lately. This discussion of my junk (and by junk I mean my genitals) because that’s really what it comes down to in most discussions about trans shit: “What have you got between your legs?” Which has, frankly been making me very angry lately. Because, hell, I’m not a shy dude, but when people (even people in my queer community) are asking me about my dick (or my cunt) I feel kind of well, a little put out. But then again, this is how we end up understanding each other. By our genitals and how we use them to fuck, and how all of this informs who we are presenting to the world (meaning our gender).

Sinclair: Interesting – so that equation is, genitals plus fucking equals gender presentation. That seems accurate, although I would say that’s not everything that goes into gender.

Cody: No, of course not. But for the purposes of this particular vein, yes.

Sinclair: Would you tell me more about what you said about the nature of your physical body? I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that yet. By the nature of a trans body? Born into one sex, but altering it physically?

Cody: Yes. I mean, the fact that I’ve altered or am merely presenting my body in a different way from which I was told upon birth it was, makes the mere nature of it subversive. I mean, it’s a small part. But it’s an argument I like to use, because it’s easy to understand, and If people make you feel uncomfortable (which you totally aren’t, just an example) it’s a good shut down.

Sinclair: Ah I see. And it’s subversive because our sex/gender binary paradigm says that your body informs your nature? Or – your biology informs your self, perhaps is a better way to put it? I don’t want to put words in your mouth here.

Cody: Exactly! No you’ve got it. The binary says that my body should inform everything, right? So if I change my body, I’m fucking with the entire paradigm!

Sinclair: I like that. I know what you mean, I feel that way about the butch identity, too. And that’s one piece of that “butch/femme are not reproductions” argument, definitely. That it fucks with the sex/gender paradigm, by its very nature.

Cody: Definitely. The fact that it is NOT what it seems on the surface makes it so subversive.

Sinclair: Are there places that you feel the trans identity does become reproductive, perhaps sometimes in a negative way?

Cody: There are all kinds of ways that the transmale identity can become negatively heteronormative.

Sinclair: You mentioned before that you have noticed trans men rejecting the butch identity when they transition, perhaps because butch never fit them, and yet that’s something that you have held onto.

Cody: Yes! [I did not] reject the butch identity in favor of my trans identity. It’s more about embracing it because it INFORMS my trans identity. I figured about butch stuff (re: myself) around a similar time in my life that I was discovering trans stuff.

Sinclair: The identities seem closely aligned – or can be. Some of my best trans guy friends have explored so much about butchness with me.

Cody: Its funny, my best friend and I would sit down, and he would tell me about butch stuff, and it was SO HARD for me to understand it (because I was scared I think) and I would explain Trans-ness to him and he would balk. Now, well, now we are both butch trans men.

Sinclair: What changed? Was there a moment when butchness “clicked” with you?

Cody: Well, I think we were both scared, of all of it, of identity politics. Of talking about all of this. I don’t even think we knew at the time, that what we were talking about was so huge. We were just trying to work things out with ourselves and the people we cared about. God, saying that makes me feel like it used to be so much easier before we had to worry about a whole community, too! I mean, it wasn’t suddenly I passed the butch test with myself, but over a period of time, things started happening that helped me to nurture that part of myself, and understand that’s what I was doing. The other thing [that happened was] that I started meeting femmes. Something that I had never really experienced before. Where I grew up there was an incredibly small pool of queers.

Sinclair: How did that start altering your identity?

Cody: While now my butch identity is strong enough to stand alone, in the beginning [of its development], in order to build yourself up, let’s be honest, we need femmes. Let’s be really honest and say, butches need femmes all of the time. [What changed was that] I stopped feeling so ashamed of the ways in which I was masculine, and the ways I wasn’t. I worked out how to feel less shame about being a butch, and about being a man. The man part took way longer.

Sinclair: What was different about the man part & the butch part?

Cody: The butch part I think was easier, because honestly I had more support from those around me about it. The man part, well, I got a lot of shit about. The man part made me into a patriarch. Dykes, butch dykes, femme dykes, lesbians, straight feminists… In the small community I was working shit out in, the backlash was INCREDIBLE. I didn’t call myself a ‘man’ until I had been out as trans for years, partly because of that. I identified almost exclusively as a Butch-Trans-Boy

Sinclair: That [backlash] is so sad. We need to be allies!

Cody: It is [sad]! I had this idea, that if I didn’t align myself with the identity of being a man, I didn’t have to take responsibility for any misogyny.

Sinclair: Yes! I think that’s the same reason it took me so long to come to a butch identity, because I was picking and choosing very carefully what traits of masculinity I wanted to adopt, and I was scared as hell about betraying my feminist politics and enlightenment.

Cody: Funny, when you are trans, when your gender is male, no matter your history, you’ve got to ‘step up to the plate’ about it. It was like, white guilt. Plus, being a boy is all about fun and flirting and whatever. It’s easy!

Sinclair: That’s a huge concept. So, dare I ask? How does one do that? Step up to the plate about it?

Cody: Take fucking responsibility for yourself! Stop forgetting about your feminism because you have passing privilege. I think it’s almost more subversive to be butch, or to be a man, and be a feminist, if you are stepping up to it.

Sinclair: I like that. Is this why we have a serious lack of butches (and/or trans feminists) but we have this new fad of “boi” and “bro”? So many dykes I meet who I would perhaps label as butch tell me they don’t identify as such, but sometimes do identify as boi.

Cody: I think so. I think that’s a big fucking part of it. It’s fear. It’s [seen as] not hot to be a butch, or a man. Because you have to work for it.

Sinclair: It amazed me how much I felt socially policed while I was still coming to this butch identity. All those comments from other butches about toughness, competition, objectifying women. I still get those comments – they just don’t effect me as they used to. One comment would throw me for a loop for days.

Cody: Every time someone put down my butchness, or my male-ness, I regressed like YEARS in my discovery and comfortability with it.

Sinclair: [Masculine identities are] so sensitive! I wonder if this is also what teenage boys go through, all that fag/pussy-bashing stuff.

Cody: Homophobia: the deconstruction of masculinity. Homophobia is all about the construction of masculinity. It’s more about gender than sexuality – sexuality is a part of it, but its more about gender. It’s all about ‘othering’

Sinclair: And [it’s about] misogyny. I would say that’s perhaps because masculinity has historically been defined as not-woman, not-female, not-feminine, and as the gender revolution opens up more and more places for women to occupy, and expands the definition of feminity, that the space that masculinity can occupy becomes smaller and smaller.

Cody: Instead of cutting out any way that it’s okay to be masculine, why can’t we just look at better ways to be masculine?

Sinclair: Which is why I still think we need a masculine-gender revolution. It’s brewing, I think, and trans guys are at the forefront.

Cody: I think you are so right! But we aren’t alone, I think butches are up there on the line with transdudes about this masculine gender revolution. I think we have to hold each other up. This may all sound very idealistic, and utopian, but you’ve got to dream right?

Sinclair: Absolutely. This is what I aim for, even if I feel that it’s going to be a hard bumpy road to get there.

Cody: Oh, man, is it EVER.

Sinclair: So how do we encourage the butches & trans men to be aligned? For some reason, we are often so threatened of each other.

Cody: I think by doing what you and I are doing right now: by fucking talking to each other. By realizing that we’ve got a lot in common, even if it’s scary. By being okay with the fact that this doesn’t mean either one of us is presenting ourselves wrongly. Trans men aren’t ‘abandoning’ the community, and butch women aren’t too scared to ‘man up.’

Sinclair: Well said – that neither of us are presenting ourselves wrongly. That’s a big part of the intimidation factor, isn’t it? That these identities are so fragile, so hard to grow and to maintain, but then when we see someone with something so close to us but very different it becomes a worry that somewhere I’ve made a mistake.

Cody: Exactly. Also, we’ve got to keep in mind, that for some trans men, the ‘trans’ part of our identity fades once we have passing privilege and we’ve all got to respect that. I think that the queer community has a serious peter pan complex going on. Butch ‘bois’ and tranny ‘bois.’

Sinclair: So, you’re talking about respect a seeming rejection of queerness?

Cody: To be honest, there isn’t a cut and dry answer to it (which I think you know and is why its so hard). Every single trans man is different. Sometimes, it IS about rejecting queerness.

Sinclair: Of course. I definitely agree with you about the Peter Pan complex – especially when it comes to the butch/male/boi/tranny boy identities. It’s safer to stay young, perhaps? Not as much examination of identity is required?

Cody: Exactly, and its CUTE, right?! It’s so cute to never grow up.

Sinclair: It’s safer, too. And cute means not threatening. Because when women move into a masculine identity, they are moving UP in the hierarchy, which is threatening.

Cody: Uh huh. Not threatening means no need to examine masculinity means no responsibility. “Oh! Isn’t it cute that that little butch boi just called his partner a bitch?” Gross.

Sinclair: That’s an aspect of masculinity that I don’t want to take on, that I have worked SO HARD to reject. This is why we need a masculine manifesto and revolution!

Cody: You are very right! Also, the word revolution gives me such a hard-on for change!

Sinclair: Oh, that is seriously hot.

Cody: Of course! T-shirts anyone? Also, I really appreciate you even asking these questions about how to not hate on the trans. :)

Sinclair: Thanks! And likewise I really appreciate you answering my questions! I suppose the last thing I want to ask you is something I hesitate to bring up, which is that idea about trans-ness as a fad. it is definitely becoming more prevalent, and it does make me sad to loose the butches, and I am concerned about it as a ‘trend’.

Cody: Mm…Okay. Well, I want to tell you first that I’m glad you brought it up. It’s a hard question to answer/dialogue about.

Sinclair: It is hard to talk about. ‘Cause, you know, I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s identity. But it definitely comes up in conversation; at least, it does with the dykes. Not so much when I’m talking to trans guys.

Cody: Because I think this is why butches and transmen have a lot of disconnect sometimes, this issue puts us all on the defensive.

Sinclair: But at the same time, I know people who have transitioned and then transitioned BACK, I know people who have ALMOST transitioned and then at the last minute decided not to. It makes me nervous that younger and younger kids are doing this seemingly on a whim.

Cody: Here’s the thing. I think that in some ways it is becoming a fad. Just like when all the girls in high school I knew were bi. Yes, I’m comparing the two. This is VERY controversial of me to say and if a lot of dudes read this they might vote me off the island. But sometimes I feel like my personal struggle is getting fucked with and devalued because dudes are making this whole trans thing into a big goddamn joke. Like its something fun. Here’s the secret: Being trans ain’t fun most of the time. It’s not fun to realize that you feel fucking uncomfortable in your skin, or uncomfortable with the way your gender is in the world. It SUCKS. It ain’t fun to get your shit cut open and cut out and stick yourself with a needles every two weeks for the rest of your life. But, young (and by young I mean, new to transition) dudes are making it all into this GAME. It makes me very …well, it makes me very angry. My fucking life and experience isn’t a game, and it ain’t fun. It wasn’t EASY for me to, figure shit out, to be alone, to find a doctor who would give me T, to pay for surgery, etc. Also, I think its GREAT when people fuck with gender for themselves, when they work out how they feel most comfortable, I think that’s AWESOME ‘cause that’s what I did, am doing. But don’t make me feel like shit ‘cause my struggle doesn’t align with your PARTY.

Sinclair: So what is that other part for you – you don’t align with the party?

Cody: I just got so hot under the collar. Okay, I guess what I’m saying is, when people turn all of this gender business into a big game, it’s a way in which they aren’t willing to examine their privilege. Because that’s hard, right? My struggle don’t play. My life is hard, and I’m down for it. I’m down to work on it.

Sinclair: Ah, so it’s about privilege and examination? That makes sense. That’s exactly the places where gender is the most frustrating for me, skating by on some sort of butch/masculine privilege without even realizing that’s what it is, no examination, no understanding of what you’ve taken on.

Cody: It’s like walking around with a bandana tied over your eyes, and putting your nasty little fingers everywhere.

Sinclair: I don’t know, maybe for some people this identity comes more “naturally”? I just feel like I really really had to WORK at mine.

Cody: I mean, its all ‘natural’ in a way, cause it ends up making sense and feeling like you are at home when you work it out. It takes a much stronger person to realize something about their identity, feel comfy in it, finally! After all of this time! And then KEEP working on it, to keep improving upon what is there and makes you feel good.

Sinclair: Yeah, it really does take constant work, I definitely agree. Everything can be refined, everything is a process, all that. And gender is so complicated! We live within this huge gender system, and it is the source of major agony/pain for pretty much everyone involved, in my opinion. Those places where gender is liberational, and subversive, and fabulous, they are worth navigating the fucked up system for. But man that takes a lot of work.

Cody: Very, very true! All of it. Why can’t we take the shit we need to work on, plop it right down into a comfy space, get out the glue sticks and go at it?

Sinclair: Glue sticks! I love it. I guess first we have to MAKE a comfy space, for everybody involved, right? A forum in which to discuss these things, for as many people as possible. Which is definitely one of the goals of Sugarbutch — to bring this stuff TO LIGHT so that people feel more comfortable exploring, sharing, and articulating to begin with.

Cody: Which is hard, cause we are an exclusive goddamned bunch, aren’t we? Our communities are so INTENTIONAL, that I’m not willing to compromise. But, if we keep creating dialogue and space for those we WANT to work on this with, it will bow out. Get bigger. We are talking grass roots here. But that’s where I operate best. With my hard-knuckled fists working the wood of the problem. Yo! That’s why we butch! That’s why femmes are femme! Because we WORK.

Sinclair: It’s that old quote from Airen Lydick: “Femme is knowing what you’re doing.” As in, being aware and conscious of the identity you are developing and presenting and taking on. And maybe that comes back to other gender questions I have, too, about how to view these roles as celebratory rather than confining, as liberational rather than limiting — by creating dialogue and space to explore all aspects of these complicated identities.

Any closing thoughts?

Cody: Just that this is the beginning of the conversation. Include my email address (codycoquet@gmail.com) and my blog address (codycoquet.blogspot.com), and encourage people to write if they want to discuss/ask anything of me.

Sinclair: Thank you, so much, for the conversation.

dirty stories, fiction

The Hitchhiker

Thanks to bird for this Sugarbutch Star scenario submission. I’ve been working on this for a few weeks now, it proved harder than I expected because I was determined to not ever use gendered pronouns for the driver. Worth a try, though now I know better than to do that again.This story was featured on Fleshbot‘s sex blog roundup. Thanks Jefferson!

The Hitchhiker

“Get in,” the driver said, after flipping the dial on the stereo of the small blue pickup truck, quieting Big Black’s “He’s a Whore.”

Alice leaned her elbows on the window, made her legs into an A frame, tipped her ass to one side, and flipped her wheat-colored hair over her shoulder. She took a long look at the driver, the blond fauxhawk, messy overalls, lean defined arms in a life-partner beater, dark tribal tattoos peeking out from the collarbone. A dark, worn-in cowboy hat sat on the passenger’s seat. The driver flashed a nice smile. Simple, a little mischievous.

The scent of grass and sod wafted from the back of the truck. Alice spied power tools, a lawnmower, some rakes and shovels secured to the racks in the back. She gripped the handle, opened the door, and slid onto the vinyl bench seat, taking the cowboy hat into one hand and easily sliding it over the crown of her head.

“My friends call me Jack.”

“I’m Alice.” She slid her eyes sideways to watch Jack maneuver the stick shift as the pickup pulled back onto the Pacific Coast Highway.

“Where you heading?” Alice asked.

Jack watched as she adjusted her long legs and ran one ankle against the opposite calf. “Wherever.” South on the PCH was good enough for now. Alice wanted to end up in the city somewhere, it didn’t matter where. Cliffs and beach rolled by their windows. This was as good of a direction as any.

The cab smelled like grass, too. Grass and dirt, but in a clean, organic earthy kind of way. “You been working in the sun all day?” Alice asked, tossing the hat onto the dash, then flipping her hair again and strategically placing her elbow over the back of the bench seat between them. Her fingers were dangerously close to the overall buckles. The skin beneath was tan, a little pinkish.

“Yep.”

“It was nice today. Not too hot for August.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re a gardener?”

Jack downshifted through a tight curve and held the clutch in a moment too long. “Landscape architect.” Pressure on the engine.

“Of course. You enjoy that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Alice let her fingers drift onto the muscles of Jack’s upper arm. Soft skin. “You look like you’re good at it.” She let herself picture Jack shoveling, digging, big bags of fertilizer slung over these broad shoulders, squinting in the sun.

Jack didn’t answer, just smiled softly, looking out at the road. The silence was comfortable. Alice lifted her small satchel bag from her shoulder. “Do you smoke?” she asked.

“No.”

“Mind if I do?”

“Go right ahead.” Such a gentleman. She rolled the window down a crack, lit an unfiltered Lucky Strike from a soft pack. Only a few more left. The small cylinder felt good between her fingers, on her lips. She slipped her slender tan feet out of her white beach sandals and brought them up onto the seat, exposing her creamy caramel inner thighs. They rode in silence as Alice smoked, Big Black still soft on the stereo. Jack watched her from a sideways glance, one hand on the stick shift, palm starting to sweat. Alice’s tank top exposed her toned navel and hip bones peeking out from the top of her tiny jean shorts. She brought the cigarette to her lips deliberately.

Jack took a breath, still not looking at her. “I like the way you do that.”

“Yeah?” Alice leaned against the door, moved one leg further up onto the seat between them. “I like the way you drive.”

The corners of Jack’s mouth curled. “Thanks, darlin’.” Her toes shuffled toward the exposed side of the overalls, the thin, thin fabric of the undershirt. Jack shifted in place, thighs adjusting.

Alice watched, considering Jack’s hard body, the sweet smell of sweat and physicality. She flicked her cigarette out the truck window and rolled the window back up, pulled her knees up underneath her, leaned in close to Jack’s ear.

“Any interest in a fuck?”

“Uh,” Jack’s eyes flashed. Alice already had her hand on the bulge in the crotch of Jack’s overalls.

“I’d like to see what you’ve got under there.” Jack unsnapped the shoulder buckles. Alice pulled a thick, marble-blue colored strap-on from soft gray Calvin Klein briefs. Bigger around than her hand would fit. She milked it with her fingers. Jack’s eyes never left the road.

“Looks good,” said Alice. “Big and hard already.”

“Gave me quite the boner, you on side of the road like that.”

“Oh yeah? Little ol’ me?”

“Soon as I saw those legs, I wanted them wrapped around me.” Alice bobbed her hand in Jack’s lap, dipping her face nearer to the cock. Small murmurs coming from her mouth. Jack left one hand on the wheel and didn’t slow down, hugging the curves of the road with precision. Her lips grazed the head. Licked it like an ice cream cone with her long tongue. Sucked it into her mouth while she left her hand pushing into the base of the silicone.

Jack groaned. “Damn, you’re good at that.”

Alice smiled and sucked. Swirled her tongue. Worked the head against the ridge at the back of her mouth. Applied pressure.

Jack moaned again, deep, from the gut, hips thrusting a little. Heavy foot on the gas pedal, not slowing, eyes on the road. Jack took a blind curve around a cliff, suddenly swerved into the dirt pull-off overlooking the beach, and cut the engine. Alice didn’t stop, head bobbing on the blue cock. Jack leaned back, feet on the floor, hips lifting, hands gripping the steering wheel and then the ceiling of the cab. Pressing against the truck at every angle to get the cock farther down Alice’s throat.

“Fuck.” Jack shuddered, bringing a hand to Alice’s long hair and pulling her off of the cock. She wiped saliva off her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes wide, lips swollen.

“Come with me.” Jack threw open the door to the cab and half-guided, half-dragged Alice out of the driver’s side door. The sun hit them both, insistent and thick on its fall into the ocean. Jack pulled the tailgate down and hopped into the back of the truck with one quick leap, then leaned and offered a hand to Alice. Barefoot, she climbed in.

Not much room with all the tools. The lawnmower was covered in flecks of grass and a dark petroleum lubricant for its rusty engine, and sat next to a red gas can, a strong pungent smell. Dirt under Alice’s bare feet. She made her way up to the cab of the truck and pressed her stomach to it, lifted one leg at the knee and stared out into the beach and setting sun. Waves lapping. Pretty much deserted this far out of the city. A sporty two-door car zipped past, then it was quiet again.

Jack let go of the overalls and they fell. Alice had her hands on the waist of her shorts, twisted around to face Jack. “You’re gonna fuck me with that big thing of yours, aren’t you?”

Jack’s mouth watered. “Yes.”

“Do it then.” She bent over the cab of the truck, slithered the shorts down over her ass and left them at her knees, creamy tan beach skin exposed, cunt exposed, neck twisted to watch Jack approaching.

Jack slid the cock into her in a swift gasp, stretching her taut. Alice lifted onto her tiptoes to tilt her pelvis, curve her back. Jack took hold of her hips and thrust, hard, and again, and again, thick inside her.

“Tight little pussy,” Jack murmured, one hand on her ass, spreading her cheeks. “Feels so good to open you with my big cock.”

Jack thrust harder, grunting. “Aw yeah, aw god yeah.” Alice gasped with each hard thrust, impaled, in a bit of pain but also exquisite sensation, hips pressing apart, back arching deeper, mouth open and gasping. She lifted one foot up onto the three piled bags of garden dirt in the corner of the truck and spread her legs for Jack.

“You like that, don’t you. Dirty girl. You’ve been waiting for someone like me to come along and fuck you right, haven’t you. Haven’t you.” Jack thrust harder, slower, then sharp.

“Yes, oh god, Jack, fuck me,” Alice moaned. Jack slid one arm around her waist and twisted, pulled out and shoved her onto the fertilizer, dropping her on her ass harshly and she reached down to catch herself with her hands, her legs slightly tangled in the fabric of her tiny shorts.

Alice reached up and gripped the bar of the lawnmower next to her, lifting her feet off the ground, legs together, balancing on her ass. Jack slid the shorts down her tanned, slender legs and stepped between them, squatting, pushing her knees back against her chest, their faces inches apart.

Her big blue eyes were wide open.

Jack slid the cock insider her eager cunt again and tried to keep looking at Alice, tried not to miss a minute of this, sun and surf behind Alice’s head, California traffic zooming by on the PCH, Alice’s face flushed, neck arched, hands gripping, pulling, steadying. The lawnmower shook as Jack thrust and thrust, harder, gaining speed, getting faster.

“Your pussy feels so good,” Jack mumbled. “So tight around my cock. Squeeze me, oh god yeah just like that, feels so good, feels so fucken good.”

“Oh yeah, fuck me,” Alice breathed. “Come inside me, oh yeah, you can do that, can’t you, big boy? Fuck me hard until you come inside. I’ll pump that come from your cock with my tight pussy. You like that? You can feel that, can’t you, Jack?”

Jack bucked against Alice, tight and hard, shoving into her over and over until Jack came, swearing, and softened, slowed. Alice caressed the back of Jack’s head, the short short hairs and longer ‘hawk in the middle, until tentatively Jack met her eyes and stood.

“Strip.”

Alice’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“We’re going in.” Jack nodded toward the beach and lifted the A-shirt up and off, revealing toned chest muscles, the swirls of dark tribal tattoos, California brown skin. Hopping out of the truck, Jack jogged toward the cliff’s edge and found a path down, through the beach grass and lines of rocks against the road. Another car zipped past, an old sedan, then the sound faded around the corner of the PCH.

Alice followed reluctantly, watching as Jack awkwardly stripped off the CK briefs while attempting to run in the sand toward the water. Alice nearly laughed. She let her body pick up speed while gravity pulled her down the path of the cliff’s edge and broke into a run when she hit the sand. Her shorts were still in the back of the pickup somewhere, legs bare, feet bare, only her cut off tank top remained, and she pulled it over her head, dropped it near an obvious large boulder.

Jack splashed into the water, tossed the words over his shoulder: “Come on!”

Alice hovered near the edge of the surf, ankle deep in lolling waves and wet sand, kicking at the water. She watched Jack immerse and surface, strapped blue cock and leather harness wet and becoming looser around Jack’s hips, hands running through the wet ‘hawk falling in both eyes, and Alice dove into the surf, slid through the water, cool and soothing against the heat of the day. She surfaced and couldn’t see Jack, then let her body float, weightless, on the rolling waves, until something abruptly pulled her under.

She opened her mouth with a startled “oh!” and then it was full of salt water. Her arms and legs flailed as she struggled back to the surface, gasping at the air.

Jack was smiling, stifling laughter, next to her.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”

Jack’s laughter stopped suddenly and changed to a falsely serious playful face. Alice closed the distance between them quickly and, smirking, grabbed for the strapon, pulled hard, forced Jack under the water, both of them struggling, Jack grabbing onto Alice for support as they were both pulled deeper under the water.

They detangled, emerged, gasping and laughing. Jack lunged for Alice in a taildive, took hold of her waist, lifted her legs. She leaned back into the water as Jack found her clit, slid fingers inside, held her hips up.

“Ohh, that’s good,” she crooned. “Oh god. Damn. That’s perfect … oh fuck, your fingers inside me feels so good. I can’t – I want –” she had no leverage. She could feel the sandy ocean floor with her toes, but wanted her ankles up on Jack’s broad shoulders.

Jack pulled-pushed her further toward shore, half walking, half swimming, bodies touching everywhere, Alice being pushed backward as Jack walked along the sand, holding each other’s eyes and bodies up in the water, Jack’s cock bobbing against her leg. She bit her lip to keep from sucking her tongue in her mouth, remembering how that blue cock tasted and felt.

The ocean rocked around them, then she hit sand with her butt first, soft, sand, ground, then Alice was laid out as the wave receded, kissing, nude, Jack’s hands between her legs, greedy, pushing her thighs apart, thick fingers entering her and she gasped.

“I think it’s time you came for me,” Jack whispered gruffly, mouth rough on her cheek, pressing Alice against the sand, pushing her legs apart. “Come on, pretty girl, open up that cunt for me, squeeze my fingers. You feel me deep inside you?”

Alice gasped, body balanced on every sensation. Heels in the air, thighs pressed back against the wet sand. Jack worked her clit with expert precision, slow circles, a slick thrumming, and another wave broke at their feet.

“I’m gonna make you come so hard,” Jack breathed into her neck, fingers moving harder, faster, between her legs, pulsing over her clit. “You’re going to come just for me, just for me, pretty girl. Feel my fingers workin’ your pussy? You’re gonna do it for me, aren’t you? Let go, pretty girl, just let it all go, and come for me, come on girl, fuck yeah, do it.”

Alice, gasping, toes curling, swollen cunt pressed hard against Jack’s hand, felt her muscles tighten and vibrate, swell and then explode, thick and fast and deep, Jack’s fingers thrusting, pressing hard against her hard clit, as her stomach contracted and body shook. She screamed a string of profanities and gripped Jack’s wrists, clawed at the muscles of Jack’s shoulders. She moaned and yelled, eyes open and suddenly aware of the darkening sky, the bright stars beginning to be visible outside of the city, twilight fading fast to blackness.

Jack touched her thighs and stomach for a minute as her body calmed. Alice became suddenly aware of her wet feet, bare body, cool breeze coming from over the ocean, the sound of the water, waves still tickling her calves and knees, cooler than the air and soothing.

“I, uh,” Jack stammered, suddenly shy again. “Guess we should get back on the road.”

Alice nodded. She wanted another Lucky Strike, was beginning to feel chilly. And she wanted to blow Jack behind the wheel again.

Jack offered her a hand up and they both brushed sand from their bare skin. Alice watched the toned muscles of Jack’s chest and arms, the dark curly tattoos. Jack began making his way in the sand, and Alice stood for a moment, watching the shimmering reflection of the rising new moon in the surface of the water, listening to the crash and rush and whoosh of the waves, when she saw something break the surface, a fin, and another, then a tail, the dramatic swoop of the back arch of a dolphin.

“Jack!” Alice called. “Did you see those dolphins?”

Jack turned and looked, then laughed. “That’s so gay.”

Alice smiled, then couldn’t help but giggle. She turned away from the water and watched Jack’s firm ass and thighs moving along the path ahead of her, wondering how long Jack would resist before she could get fucked again.

dirty stories, real life

ask for what you want

I want you to only address me as Sir.

I want you to start playing with your clit ten minutes before I arrive, but under no circumstances are you allowed to come.

I want you wearing high heels and a short skirt with nothing underneath.

I want your safeword to be carnation, which means, you can yell no all you like, but I will not stop.

I want you ready to bend over my lap struggling as I spank you. Lift your dress up and turn your ass-cheeks red until my hand hurts. And then you’ll kiss it, suck my fingers, make it better. I’ll scold you for making me all hard and wanting, and you’ll straddle me and ride.

I want your explicit consent. I want your permission and submission.

I want you to know how to draw it from me. I am afraid of my own power. I want you to pull these cruelties from me, to beg for them. I want to take your energy and mine into one huge fireball that I will weild and you will receive. I want your surrender. I want you to make me feel like the biggest, baddest top in the room, even if I’m not.

Can you do that for me?

dirty stories, real life

I top on the third date

Oh, yeah, I had a date last Tuesday. A week ago now.I showed up, six-pack in hand, at her apartment on Tuesday night. She answered the door in a black tanktop and tiny skirt, very short, kind of an army-green color, which was quite lovely for her light blonde hair and fair skin. Bare legs, bare feet. Have I mentioned this girl is beautiful? Fantastic legs. Wonderfully curvy body, still toned and slender but not very angular. Soft, still strong.

She made chili, and cornbread, which was more savory than sweet, and delicious. We ate, chatted on the couch about our days, drank a few beers. I said a few stupid things and noticed myself getting more & more flustered and un-suave. She tucked her feet up onto the couch and fingered the hair on her neck. Sexy.

We were talking about our days at work, and I said a couple things (that I won’t relay here) that made me sound kinda like an idiot, which I immediately regretted. I attempted to shift the conversation to something better, namely, sex, dating, and being picked up by her.

She said something about being silly or bold or drunk enough to pick someone (me) up in a bar and make them take her home with them, at which point I said, “well, clearly, I wasn’t going to do it,” which … uh, oops … as soon as it came out of my mouth, I realized it sounds not at all as I meant. What I meant was, I didn’t have the guts to attempt to fuck her. It barely even occurred to me that it was a possibility, she seems out of my league.

And it was supposed to be funny, like, god, it was so clear and exasperating to her that I wasn’t going to be The Butch in the situation and make a move toward the physical, so she had to do it, but that’s not at all how it sounded. It sounded like, pshaw, I wasn’t going to pick you up, so you were gonna have to throw yourself at me. Guh.

But in this moment, my head just prickled and tied itself in knots and I realized what I’d said and tried to cover my face and my embarrassment with my hand while grinning like an idiot, stupid me, god, what the fuck. She says, “Oh, yeah, well, that cute smile is buying you some time, but you better come up with somethin’ good to say,” at which point I stumbled, said something about her being out of my league, until she was nodding, saying “uh-huh, sure,” and I gave up trying to explain and shifted my body wait above her, and said, “Alright, shit. I’m going to kiss you now.”

“About time,” she muttered, and we kissed. She is a good at kissing. Soft, smooth, slow, sensual. Simple, even, though not in a way where anything’s missing. Just – clear.

It didn’t take long for us to both realize it was clear we wanted to, and were going to, fuck. We moved to the bed. She altered the lighting and the music to set the mood. I tore her shirt off. Tore her skirt off to find a dark pink satin thong.

She doesn’t let me stay clothed. As soon as her clothes start coming off, she starts on mine. It’s okay, but I’m not used to it. With previous lovers, unless I took my clothes off, often they didn’t even come off. (This is, perhaps, an indication of topping tendencies?) I don’t mind being naked, really, though, so it’s not a big deal. It just puts me in a slightly more vulnerable position than I am used to, from the beginning.

Clothes get strewn. I’m touching her, fingers inside her, kissing, holding her down on the bed, taking more control than I have in our past encounters. Perhaps I need a lot of explicit permission to let my toppiness come out. “Don’t hold my wrists,” she whispers. “Hold my hands instead.” No problem.

Eventually, we break apart, she goes to the bathroom, I get up to get my cock out of my bag. “The good news is,” I say when she gets back, “I brought my bigger cock. The bad news is, I brought the wrong harness, so I can’t strap it on.”

She shrugs, eyes my cock, slides her slender fingers around it. “I have a harness.”

She opens the bottom drawer of her bureau and rustles around. Toys and equipment go flying as she searches for her harness: vibrators, attachments, little bundles of rope, cocks, feather ticklers.

I laugh. “I guess that answers the kink question.”

“What kink question?”

“You know. The Kink Question.”

“Ah. Yes.”

She found the harness. I strapped on. It’s still a little uncomfortable to have something that large dangling from my clit & hips. I get shy, embarrassed at the way I love its weight between my legs.

Lube and fingers and she was wanting, took that big cock all the way. I loved the way she gasped under me, the way her legs gripped my waist. Scratched at my shoulder blades and gasped in my ear.

I fucked her, hard, like this, for a while. Quite close to coming, myself, when we paused again, caught our breath, heads together on the pillow.

I said, “So tell me about sex, Joy,” and we talked. I asked her about kink. Likes, dislikes? At the top of my list, which I relayed, are spanking, rope bondage, and flogging. She got shy.

I said, “My sister would laugh so hard at me right now. Look, I’ve got this gorgeous girl, in bed, naked, next to me, and I’m saying ‘let’s talk.’ Sometimes I am such a capital-L Lesbian.”

She got more comfortable. Said she has four hard no’s: bestiality, children, human waste, and extreme pain/humiliation. She’s willing to explore most everything else. I am pretty much with her there, although there is a bit of a blurry line there for me with some age role-play (dangerous, to me, but can be cathartic and hot), and pain. I like pain. I would like to play with that more. So, we talked about that a bit.

Later, we talked about kink again. What’s the difference between kink and preference? I’m not sure I have an answer to that, I’m still kicking that idea around.

She brought up topping & bottoming, or maybe I did, to say I was sorry to have decided she was a top so vehemently. “It bugged me for a couple days,” she admitted, “but then I realized that I didn’t really even know what you meant, and if I didn’t really know what it was, but somebody else recognized me as such, that meant I could be doing it wrong.”

Ahh yes, I do understand that feeling. But certainly I shouldn’t impose my judgments about identity on anyone else, & I said so. I tried my best to describe what I mean using the terms “topping” and “bottoming,” but they’re really hard to define. (Post on that to come.)

These conversations interspersed in our sex play were quite short, really, generally during which I would keep my hand on her body somewhere, or she would keep her hand on mine, and when she gave me a bit more of a reaction with her body I would increase pressure, frequency, and build the energy again until starting to fuck her again.

I like the way she comes. On her back, fingers flicking over her clit for a while, swirling, she likes the figure 8s, increasing pressure, until she gasps, eyes roll back, hands grip my arm and her body contracts and releases until she opens her eyes and demands fuck me, now, hard and I do, fingers inside her, more, more fingers, two, three, harder, and that ring of PC muscles grip my fingers hard and she groans, cries out, whimpers into quietness. After, I hold her. Sometimes we find I’ve opened something gaping in her and she gets tender, sore, exposed, and I cover her body with mine, sew it up with my fingers on her skin, until she’s contained again.

I like her in these moments. This is perhaps why I am a top. I adore seeing women – especially powerful, put-together, coiffed, impenetratable femmes – in this state. I love creating it, causing it, contributing to it, holding her through it. I love the breakdown behind her eyes, the way her voice changes, softens. I love when she cries after she comes.

I cut her off twice after that, times when she began touching my hips or stomach, making moves to get me off again. I was satisfied. I didn’t want more. It was hard to ask her not to, but it’s what I wanted. I could’ve kept fucking her, though; that, I am not tired of.

Joy asked me to stay the night, I declined. She walked me to the subway, said it was hard to see me go. It was sweet, but I was – and am – worried that she wants more than sex from me. We haven’t quite had that conversation yet, it is definitely on the agenda for our date on Saturday.

miscellany

if that’s what you’re into

I’m exploring this conversation about GGG – good, giving, and game. Dan Savage describes it this way:

Dan Savage and his readers often use the abbreviation GGG. This stands for “good, giving and game”, and generally refers to Mr. Savage’s ideal for healthy human sexuality: that a partner should be “good, giving and game” when presented with a person’s fantasy, however kinky or unusual. In his March 1, 2007 column, Savage summarized “GGG stands for ‘good, giving, and game,’ which is what we should all strive to be for our sex partners. Think ‘good in bed,’ ‘giving equal time and equal pleasure,’ and ‘game for anything—within reason.'”

And so I’m taking a lesson from Flight of the Conchords:

journal entries

a couple things to clarify

Re: why we need to examine our lives:I do not think that heterosexual relationships are bad. All I’m trying to get at is that in this culture, in this time and geographic location, we have culturally dictated gender roles for men and women, males and females, masculine-types and feminine-types. And any or all of us can buy into these gender roles, reproduce them, and limit ourselves and our loved ones by forcing us all into positions of responsibility that detract from our Selves, our unique beings, our authenticity, our integrity. This happens for everyone, because of the ways that gender is so extraordinarily prevalent in every single aspect of our culture.

In that examination of gender dynamics in the queer (specifically, lesbian) communities as a reproduction of male/female gender roles, the point I’m trying to make is that just because one is butch or femme doesn’t mean that one is not reproducing these roles. Sometimes we are. There is a lot of nasty garbage that comes along with compulsory gender, for heteros or queers or anyone in between, and if we don’t examine how gender works and functions and interacts, I don’t believe we will get to the place where gender is liberatory, as opposed to limiting.

Re: top 10 things I love about femmes:

One of the things I wrote is: “The struggles with not being visibly out, which also brings the privilege of hearing what people say when they don’t know someone queer is listening.”

Here’s what I am getting at: the bottom line is, as a butch, as a visible queer, I don’t have this ability. I don’t hear what people say when they don’t know somebody gay is listening to them, and that has made for some fascinating conversations with my (femme & passing) lovers & friends. I find it interesting. It’s a place where butches and femmes differ greatly, and that’s all I was trying to acknowledge – unique pieces of a femme identity. By writing that post, I tried to say, hey, I see you, I notice you doing this, I actively witness you: I validate your identity.

I got a bit of grief for this statement. I used words like envy and privilege, which I definitely understand are loaded. I do not want to glamorize this aspect of femme identity, which I do absolutely understand is very complicated, and which is the source of pain and sorrow and frustration.

Okay, that’s all for now. Just a few clarifications. I hate being misunderstood. It is one of the biggest reasons I am a writer: to make myself clear.

miscellany

susie’s survey

Susie Bright posted the Bathroom Sex Suvey over on her ever-entertaining blog. Here’s my answers.

What is your gender, at least at the moment? kinky queer butch top. they all greatly influence my gender.

Have you ever had sex in a public bathroom? What did you do? (Define “sex” as you like). yes. strapped on with a girl sucking my cock, fingering a girl till she came, on my knees eating her out

More than once, several times, every day? several dozen times, though it was years ago now

Did you have your t-room sex with a man or woman? women

Did you know them, or were they a stranger to you? I knew them

Have you ever had sex in a “private” bathroom— but one which wasn’t at your house? hmm … I don’t think so

Have you ever had sex in your own darn bathroom? absolutely. showering together is fun

Have you had bathroom sex fantasies, never acted upon? can’t say I really have that many bathroom fantasies, aside from sex in public bathrooms, which I have done a fair amount of.

Have you ever run into anyone having bathroom sex, while you were just “doing your business?” Have you ever been propositioned and turned someone down? Was it hard to say, “No, thank you?” no! but that’d be hot.

Have you ever run into a high level Republican pol having bathroom sex? not that I know of …

Are you gay? (Just kidding). sure – gay, lesbian, dyke, queer, I use ’em all.

essays

Why we need to examine our lives

I went back and re-read the article Lina posted, and I’m pleased to say, it didn’t frustrate me nearly as much as it did the first time I read it. I have various responses at the ready and I feel like I could easily defend my position & claim.

During this gender discussion we’ve been having, I was reminded of this quote:

Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
– Sidney J. Harris

… and I think it is fitting in this situation for various reasons. This argument of “butch/femme as reproductions of the patriarchal compulsory gender roles” et cetera is old, nearly forty years old at least. It strikes me as ignorant and arrogant and young to go around spouting opinions about things which one knows very little. These are old ideas, they are not radical, they are recycled, get your facts straight.On the other hand: there is much value in observation. And there are many, many butches and femmes who – I believe – to fully pass judgement here – are NOT using these identities as subversive tools, but rather ARE reproducing the heteronormative paradigm (gasp! I said it!).

Mostly, I feel like I have no ability or right to draw conclusions about how other people occupy and use their gender. However, occasionally I get the chance to actually converse with someone about it, and I am often shocked at the ignorance and thoughtlessness.

So, here’s what I haven’t said during this gender rant exploration yet:

Sometimes, butch/femme is a reproduction, a mimicry. And honestly, I disapprove of that. I believe that because of the grand amount of gender injustice that happens, because of the prevalence and acceptance of misogyn, because of the objectification and damage done by compulsory gender rules, we must – MUST – do some deep searching and analysis as to how institutionalized oppressive structures function and effect our lives. Especially the big ones: race, class, gender, sexuality. It is life-altering to understand how they work. I honestly think feminism and women studies played a huge role in my dealing with my depression, and the shock of becoming an adult woman in this culture.

But I digress.

This help that gender analysis and theory offers is where feminism comes in. And 1907s US lesbian-feminism – also closely related to what I tend to call “white western feminism,” WWF – was limited in its view at times, dismissing all butch/femme representations as hetero or all hetero sex as rape (coughDworkincough). Obviously there are some issues with these limitations.

BUT!

Though this may be a mainstream understanding of What Feminists Think, it is not the only understandings of sex that feminists hold. And to dismiss feminism as only viewing things this way is also limiting.

So. In summary: sometimes butch/femme is a reproduction of the compulsory misogynistic heteronormative gender roles. This is why we must examine the hierarchical structures in which we operate and make conscious choices about how we participate or resist.

And, not everyone’s participation or resistance looks the same. That’s why I try to talk to people about this stuff. Ask questions, listen, be aware. I feel like that’s all I can do, is attempt to understand the wild and precious ways we all live our lives.

identity

Top 10 things I love about femmes

  1. Strappy sandals, roman sandals laced up the ankle, legwarmers, flowery skirts – the legs, the legs, the legs

  2. The moments of subversion when I expect gender to be aligned with compulsory femininity, and I am surprised

  3. Delicate jewelry, fingernail polish, pierced ears, garter belts, purses, glasses

  4. The way she walks in high heels

  5. The under-the-eyelashes fuck-me look

  6. The feminine curves of cleavage and the clavicle

  7. The struggles with not being visibly out, which also brings the privilege of hearing what people say when they don’t know someone queer is listening

  8. Holding the door open, holding your umbrella, ordering for you, pulling out your chair, that moment when you take my arm, carrying your heavy burdons, cradling your delicacy …

  9. The examination, overhaul, and eventual reclamation or rejection of “traditional femme hobbies”

  10. When a boy actually turns you off … but I turn you on

miscellany

thank you ladies. you didn’t have to say that*


Team Gina, Butch/Femme

I like butch girls and I cannot lie
you other femmes can’t deny
when a butch walks in, all the femmes wanna fuss
’cause there’s like one of them and thirty of us …

Brilliant! I don’t usually post media here, but this is oh so relevant to the current topics of conversation.I really wonder what kind of conversation happened on the set here. Where’d they find all these butches? Do they identify as butch? Were they hesitant to be involved in this video because they didn’t identify as butch?

And how about that part at the end, when the butch is “flaggin’ a bottom” – she vehemently denies it: “I’m a top, I swear!” – I like the subversiveness of the lyrics there, the femmes singing “I ain’t trying to be predictable, but you’re gonna have to pin me against this wall” (I would like that), but it is a tiny moment where I wonder about the reinforcement of the butch/top femme/bottom dynamics.

Really though, this shit is fucken brilliant.

* Flight of the Conchords

journal entries

don’t you know it

“Oh fuck –
God – yes – fucking hell –
holy shit – oh god – god –
oh fuck – oh god – oh – yes –
fuck –
oh fuck –
god –
holy shit … “

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you, Mr. Sexsmith.”