I Did Not Expect to Feel This Way When a Creepy Guy Invaded the Zoom!

 

These days, what even IS a body adventure? I know I should be working on my No-Contact High Fidelity proj and learning the knots on Thursdays, but the sense of hopelessness that’s pervaded my snuggle-outlook since Quarantine Crush is hard to shake. I think a lot about what quarantine-long lack of touch (Aside from some very special occasion exceptions (Like, say, friends are alive after being boxed in during a police-incited riot…) Sweetie and the cats are the only people I can hug or high-five. And the cats are TERRIBLE at high-fiving!) is doing to my brain and body. I’m not really sure what my psyche is up to, but I think it’s time to figure it out.

 

Yesterday, I was “at” my favorite Zoom book talk, sponsored by our local bookstore/coffeeshop. I like to go and mostly mute myself, hear what some local strangers are reading, occasionally unmuting to chime in about a book or invite everyone to a march. This week though: WHOA!

 

We were listening to a lady talk about the cool workbook that comes with Life Before Slavery when, OHNO! I looked up from my doodling to see: A naked, face-hidden white guy playing with his erect penis!

 

“It’s so small!” Exclaimed the lady who was trying to talk about her book. Though I’m resolutely against size-shaming, I so much admired her bravado and he definitely deserved worse! It was just kind of normal-sized, lovely even though it belonged to an invasive, rapey creep. They muted his video feed and we aimed to get back to books.

 

I felt awful for the moderator and for the rest of the group. After a little nervous laughter and dismay, we went back to our talk. I was a little more chatty than usual and was happy to make some new friends for the first time in a while and add some more books to my TBR.

 

What that guy did to our Zoom was evil, violent, hateful and invasive. I can’t believe anyone could be that callous, selfish and cruel to anyone, let alone a neighborhood bookstore!

 

Stepping back and looking at my own physical and emotional reaction, though, I am shocked, SHOCKED and a little alarmed. Though I guess a delayed reaction may come later, I felt no fear, no triggers, no jangled sense of helplessness. What my body felt about being subjected to this nonconsensual cam guy was:

 

…Yay?

 

It could be an adrenaline thing or a self-protective bravado, but I think my reaction is more base, if I can use that word in a non-judgmental way. What stayed in my body for the rest of the evening and a little bit still today was/is a clear, quiet physical happiness. It almost feels like…health.

 

Against all ethics and reason, I felt a sense of possibility and joy. Later, after the talk was done and I finished the dishes and played my phone games and caught up on the news, I had some very nice personal time, with a further-reaching, more hopeful imagination than I’d had in a long time.

 

There were some more sense-making things contributing to that healthy feeling, to be sure. An old friendship dragged itself up yesterday from the Bernie scrap-heap (Hi Pagan Boy! Welcome back if you’re reading!) and I spent a few hours at my own (not the same one) bookstore job for the first time since March. It was a generally good and progress-y day.

 

But. this invasive, creepy moment was the most personal sexual encounter I’d had since those nights taking Quarantine Crush’s songs the wrong way. It was the nearest I’d gotten to getting friendly with a penis since… when was Comedy Guy? Like a year ago at least! In spite of myself, something was fulfilled in me, a glowing little (yet regular-sized) puzzle piece of joy fitting neatly into my Sacral chakra. I have no excuse.

 

I think the take-away here is this: It’s time to stop neglecting my sex drive and my kink. As creative as I’ve gotten with working and socializing remotely, I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in my virtual sex life, which doesn’t currently exist beyond swiping through Bumble and Hinge. I want whatever I find to be consensual, private, and personal of course, but just as surprising and stimulating. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Holy Crap, I Think I Might Have Mental Health.

Yesterday, I had a really irksome consult with a potential therapist. A few weeks ago, I crowd-sourced for depression advice and a facebook friend recommended a lady in the area who’s supposedly progressive.

It’s hard to compress 38 years into a 10 minute phone call, especially since it’s been such a complicated year. First, the lady said I couldn’t be depressed if I was having a good day—fair enough. Then she remarked that I sounded much younger than my age—maybe she thought I was pranking her? But who pranks by appointment? She was bothered by the fact that I sounded too cheerful: “You’re telling me these terrible things, but there’s laugher in your voice.” Jeez, I told you, I was having a good day and plus, what was I supposed to do, break down and cry about it to a stranger recommended by a facebook friend? Plus, in such a short conversation, I didn’t see there being time for histrionics.

Anyway, I wish this lady had just said “I don’t like you.” and left it at that, but she had to get a judgment in.  She said “I just don’t think I would be a good fit. I’ve worked with gay and lesbian clients but I don’t really work with polyamory—I think you have to be EXTREMELY mentally healthy for that.” The poly friend who recommended this lady can be proud of her squeaky-clean psyche, I guess!

I thanked the therapist for being honest, wrote her a strongly worded email (I really am becoming Greenberg…) and argued with her in my head all evening. Sweetie, being Sweetie, thought the lady was so wrong that she shouldn’t even warrant a mention, but she accidentally got me to some fantastic conclusions. Sometimes therapy happens in spite of incompetence, I guess.

First of all, having gone through a bunch of stuff doesn’t mean I’m not mentally healthy. In the past year, I’ve worked my ass off getting certified to teach, got hired right after graduation, and navigated several new relationships and breakups without major aftermath. By writing through it, I processed a lot of junk from the past on my own. My job is a nightmare sometimes but I end most days feeling happy anyway. I may need to find a better school but I know teaching is what I was meant to do.

And what The Man did was shitty, but it came nowhere close to breaking me. Yes, I cried, I freaked, I had pointless arguments on FetLife, but I also fought to change something that wasn’t right and I’m proud of that. When the fight was over, I walked, slept, read, hugged Sweetie, and went back to yoga and church.

I think that’s what mental health looks like. As I write this, I get a warm feeling in my back and shoulders that tells me it’s true. What I took for depression is just a transition, just a fucked-up breakup and a hard job.

There's nothing in my past or present that makes me unqualified for love, however I want to express it. It’s probably okay if people who don’t know me want to think I’m nuts. Yes, I have a lot of work to do. I have to practice hearing myself think, adapting to and working with jealousy, and being kind to myself in the presence of man-smell. But those things won’t be accomplished by delving into the past or by taking myself away from people. They’ll be accomplished by getting closer.

As a new teacher, people want to give me lots and LOTS of ideas to try, but I don’t need a mountain of ideas of how other people think I should be. What I need is to stop drowning out the voice inside me that knows what to do and how to get where I need to go. So thanks, mean stranger therapist-lady, for helping me realize that I had what I needed all along.

Yay, I Got to Top Sweetie!

I was really inspired by some of what I saw at the party Saturday night, and also by the fact that I accidentally learned how to do some handcuffs when I was at rope class with Mister Hazel Eyes. Sunday morning after breakfast, when we were lying around with coffee and library books, I got an image in my head and said:

“Take off your clothes and I’ll be back in a minute. I have to go make something.”

What I made was this:

I think I see an Etsy store in the making. Sweetie likes soft touch, so I made it more as a tickler, but it turns out it works very well as a flogger, too.

I left it in the other room while I was blindfolding her so she’d have to guess at what she was feeling. Once she was all nice and blindfolded, I told her to put her hands over her head and did this:

It’s not tied off quite right, but hey, I did handcuffs, go me! *proud*

She looked beautiful laying there in my pink blindfold, handcuffed wrists up to her chest, boobs flushed and excited. She still had her socks on—we often do.

I went and got my DIY ribbon flogger and started to drag it lightly over her. She didn’t like it on her feet, but everywhere else, she oohed and sighed. She said she couldn’t figure out what it was, even though, you know, ribbons seem kind of obvious.

She always likes a little sting to the nipples, at least in biting-sucking-pinching ways, so I gave her right nipple a little thwack. I liked it, and she groaned. A little growly aggression rose up in me and it felt good. I flogged her nipples gently and then harder, alternating with dragging the ribbons softly over her neck, arms, thighs. Standing over her all powerful like that, I started to smell like sex, and I lifted up her handcuffed hands and said

“Feel that.”

She scrabbled around desperately trying to get her fingers inside me, but I pushed her arms back down onto the pillow.

I told her to turn over and smacked her with the ribbons some more. It felt good to hit her like that. I found a good spot at the center of her freckled upper back and just struck there lovingly for a while, making sure she knew who was in charge. I reached down for her breasts and she grabbed over her shoulders for mine. My pussy was slippery and throbby against her back and I was moving against her. I would have come right then if I hadn’t pushed her hands away and made her turn back over.

I kissed her neck and bit hard on her nipples, over and over. I pulled the back of her hair gently but firmly so that she couldn’t move. She said “I want…” but got distracted and trailed off. A few minutes later I asked:

“What were you trying to say that you wanted?”

“I want you to..haha…”

“What.”

*giggle* “I want you to put your fingers in me really hard.”

“And what is that called?”

She hesitated.

“Say it. I’m not going to do it unless you say it.”

“I kind of want you to, well, fuck me.”

So I happily obliged. Later I got to bend over and find out what the ribbons felt like smacking my ass. The rest of the day was full of ropes, library books, snuggles, and triumph. I love bottoming and all, but I guess I can admit to being just a liiiiitle bit of a switch.