Fuck This Sexist Piece of Kindhearted Advice

            Not the first part, that’s like my whole thing. The “let love find you” part.

Last week, I left the library where I worked with Mr. Makeout Music. There were a lot of good reasons for doing so (Work crushes can sometimes be a sign that I need to be doing something more absorbing.) but the main reason was that it was exhausting to keep pretending to be okay around him. I wasn’t. Now that I’ve got the time and space and naps to heal, the pain of him is almost gone.

            Because I couldn’t bring myself to walk past MM one more time, Sweetie went to clean out my desk for me, with Awesome Genderqueer Librarian’s help. In the bag with my collection of kid art and my desk socks was a lovely stack of “We miss you!” cards from kids and coworkers. It was very gratifying to still be valued there, after three sometimes-crying months of love-shame and election grief. The woman who wrote the above advice is one of my favorite humans in the universe, but it unleashed a stream of gleeful annoyance that I’m kind of excited to paragraph.

            It’s partly that she knew (Ugh, everybody knew.) that my leaving was even about heartbreak at all, but mostly it’s this—I’m mad at myself for spending three months crying about a guy who got scared of me because I made the first move. He has tried to frame it in other ways, but from where I’m sitting, he adored me until I took his hand.

            Of course he had the right to decline my advances for any reason, but I hated the way I felt around him after that—too big, too excited, too complicated, too much. About our weird somewhere-between-friendship-and-the other-thing situation, he kept saying “just let things develop organically” every time I had a question or needed a clarification, but I think what he meant was, let things develop on his terms.

            Even the way our flirtation started, with him visiting my department or my office when he could (He had keys to my office, but I certainly didn’t have keys to his.), with me waiting around with an open heart and what I hoped was a pretty face for him to come and be praised, it sometimes made me feel helpless and trapped, even when things were nice. In one of our fights, I said I wasn’t a web cam girl, just waiting around to approve of him. (He probably wished he hadn’t told me his porn preferences…) The way the building is designed, he could see me from almost any of his posts, and it felt really claustrophobic sometimes.

            The “let love come to you” (if you’re a woman) paradigm is part of what makes the traditional structures of dating unworkable to me. When I like someone, I really like him/her/them. When I want ANYTHING, I try very hard to be awesome at getting it. If I’m attracted to somebody, I tell them. I ask for what I want and see if it works for them. I’m not Sleeping fucking Beauty, I’m an adventuress on a quest. On a good day,  I’m a goddess, and men have been known to kneel down for me without my even having to command it. I have a dominant, honest, brave, ridiculous heart that knows what it wants and will always go after it.

            The passiveness of the “wait for love to find you” paradigm takes me to a dark place. It reminds me of necrophila. It reminds me of rohypnol. (When I just Googled that for spelling, the horrifying third choice was “rohypnols buy.”) It reminds me of back when there was MySpace and all of my guy friends liked girls whose profile pictures managed these slack, vacant expressions. I could never have made my face look uninhabited enough to resemble the ghost/zombie girls who were the style of the Mid-Zeroes. It reminds me of the time I was told that I smile a lot for a submissive.

           

            The boxed-in passiveness of the advice reminds me of Moana being told that everything she needed was on this one little island and that all she had to do to be happy was reject the song of her own soul. (Did anyone else see her and her many new islands as a polyamory tale? Maybe it was just me.) Like Moana, I am an explorer, a leader, a navigator. I won’t sit in a box and wait to be clicked on, and I hope to never tunnel-vision myself into any more narrow little islands of gendered constraint.

Like many of my rants, this is really a culmination of an argument with myself. Since my brokeny teenage years, I’ve always “known” in my heart that I’m not passive enough to be loved by a man, that I could never be compliant or compromising enough for a straight cis male. That idea is offensive to one and all, but it didn’t come from nowhere. I would love for it to go away.

When I look at it objectively, I see that Mr. Makeout Music was a rare exception. I am surrounded, past and present, by men who have enjoyed being sought out, pursued, and pounced upon. Far from being a turnoff, my literal and figurative bigness and enthusiasm have drawn the best, most adventurous, most oomph-filled men to me. Some of them have even stuck around.

Though I’ll always appreciate the way that he woke up my body and heart, I think Mr. Makeout Music mostly served to show me what I don’t want—I never want to try and make myself smaller or less in hopes that someone with a narrower scope might see me. I never want to be stuck on an island again.

            I know that romantic love isn’t something that can be to-do-listed into existence, but I WILL have agency. I will not sit in a box and wait. I will not listen to the fears and the family/social pressures that kept me away from the water. I aim to untie myself from the hetero/mononormative shore and learn to sail. My heart knows the way.

Response to BDSM Safety Discussion

This is a FetLife post I just did in response to a BDSM safety talk we attended last weekend. The talk was given in response to local predator issues.The letter touches on a lot of the stuff I’ve been working on here.

"What a great night (Sweetie) and I had on Saturday. Rope class, the discussion, and the play party were all so much fun. Thank you for having us.

I’ve only been in parts of the various safety discussions that have been going on, so I’m sure I’ll repeat some stuff that’s already been said. Feel free to correct me if I heard anything wrong…

First I wanted to say a bigbig thank you to (Rope Boss and Party Mistress) for hosting the talk, and to the people who participated, too. It was wonderful to get to sit around and talk about some of the things that had been concerning me, and it made things seem less scary in general. I was worried that I might not want to play after a discussion that deep, and the fact that I was ready to strip right down after speaks highly of the feeling of safety you’ve created.

A lot of the advice that I heard is so valuable, especially the need for subs/bottoms to know how to say what we want and don’t want. Being reminded to treat ourselves like we are worth caring for and protecting is good advice for anyone. I liked the insights that I got about others’ relationships, and I’ll be glad to keep learning more about you and yours.

However, I did feel like the talk was a bit unbalanced. In addition to what bottoms can do to make ourselves safer, I would like to have heard more about what tops’ responsibilities are beyond just the physical “don’t break your toys” rule. Those kinds of conversations would be really helpful to me because I would love to know what the norms are, what’s reasonable to expect.

Focusing mostly on what bottoms can do to protect ourselves had the (unintended, I’m sure) effect of feeling a little bit like blaming the victims. I think it’s important to say that no lapse in judgement, no rookie mistake, no foolish leap of faith will ever mean that someone deserves to be violated, physically or emotionally. Whether we’ve known someone for four months or four minutes, the right to be safe is the same.

I was especially bothered by the advice of “Don’t go over to a guy’s house unless you are ready to have sex with him.” First of all, it sells guys so short—I would have missed out on so many good relationships and friendships if I looked at life that way. Even if I’m ready to have sex, there might be aspects of play that I still need to say no to. Besides, I may be ready for sex, but I’ll never be ready to be raped. It’s just not the same thing.

For the most part, people don’t hurt each other on purpose. It seems like a lack of respectful communication leads to the majority of troubles between partners. For that reason, I feel that fear-based prevention ideas such as and “Warn people of what the consequences are if they violate your limits” are not the way to go. Approaching someone like an adversary doesn’t seem like a good way to begin a trusting, collaborative relationship. Fear may be a way to keep us safe in the short run, but in the long run an us-versus-them attitude is just going to lead to more miscommunication and hurt.

So I guess what I’d ideally like to see is kind of a team-building approach. What are the ways that men/women tops/bottoms, etc can work together to foster more communication and respect?

Thank you again for the discussion and everything else that you do. I look forward to more talking and more fun in the future."

Some Fears I Would Like to Grow Out Of

Yesterday I was having breakfast with a friend who is in the process of transitioning from female to male. I was telling him about my recent dating adventures and subsequent fears. He told me that a lot of the fears I have about men, he has about being a man—they’re things he was worried about turning into. That really made it hit home that my fears are prejudices—no one should have to be scared to become a man because of stereotypes, and I shouldn’t be afraid to date them, either.

I work in an afterschool program with elementary students who are very dogmatic about gender. At least once a week, I give them a rousing speech about how limiting gender generalizations are. I’m a social justice-y egalitarian-minded girl and I’m ashamed to be walking around with my own terrible generalizations. Part of the reason I started this project was to learn my way out of my terrible ideas about men, so maybe listing and debunking some of those fears will help.

1. Doll-phobia.  Most of the fears are me-specific. For example, I don’t think that guys want every woman to be a sex-doll, I’m just afraid that my emotions are so ugly and crazy that men will only want to enjoy my body as separate from my personality. As with all of these fears, I’m not sure why I don’t apply them to women—Sweetie seems perfectly fine with my mess of a personality, just as I adore hers. Also, I have lots of platonic guy friends, so I guess that this fear only applies to men who are attracted to me. Which brings me to:

2. Attraction feels like aggression. Whenever a guy is attracted to me, especially in the toppish way that I crave, it feels very dangerous. I guess I have a hard time thinking that guys are capable of feeling genuine affection towards me, so the pursuit I’m craving feel scary and I worry that it is just a way to hurt me. This is a terrible thing to think about people. I always wished I could have gotten to know Bill separate from this idea, but maybe I sought him out because he proved the fear—I’ll never know, because I never really knew him.

3. I’ve always worried that I’m missing some essential quality that would make me appealing to men. I’ve always felt like other women just had some secret that I wasn’t let in on.

As much as I enjoy being a bottom, one of the qualities that I worry about being without is compliance. I’ve been really shocked and hurt by the way that men have tried to control me outside of scene situations. Not ALL of them, of course—the Mayor of Kittentown was a loyal reader and was super supportive of all of my other endeavors as well. He never displayed jealousy, but instead, like Sweetie, seemed to genuinely root for my other adventures to be fruitful. He never made me feel like I had to change or hold anything back. I also have so many wonderful and generous guy friends who have supported me every step of the way. I guess this fear is also top-specific, but I know that the right top would not expect me to be compliant outside of scenes.

4. I’m-Not-the-Pretty-Sister Syndrome: I am afraid that there will always be a woman that he loves better, and that means that I’m afraid that I can’t ever have a relationship with a guy who truly belongs to me. That is a dangerous fear for a polyamorous woman to have—feeling like I’m always going to be less-than is going to be a nightmare if I end up in a constellation. I think the key to this is to make myself start dating only guys who are emotionally available, whether they are in other relationships are not. When I feel loved, validated, and free, I don’t feel competitive.

5. I’m afraid that my size makes me unlovable and untoppable (again, by men). When I first started thinking about dating men, I had strong fantasies about being taken, especially just being shoved into a wall and kissed. But I had this idea that because I am so big and bossy I could never feel what it’s like to be pursued, for someone to want me enough to take the initiative and the lead.

When I was in middle school, my drama teacher told me I was too tall to ever be the leading lady, and I certainly have watched men respond more positively to smaller women.

When I first joined FetLife and started going to play parties, I started to see the reality that men like all different shapes and sizes of women, and that every woman can be a hot showoff sex goddess the way that I want to be. I started to feel that for myself.

Yet somehow, I still get the idea, that guys see me as less than other women because of my size, maybe not les fuckable, but less datable. I was convinced that Bill wouldn’t go out in public with me because he thought I was too fat, and I never had the courage to ask him.

Society does seem to teach us to value fat people less than skinny people, big women less than little. Being not-skinny does come with all kind of stereotypes and assumptions.

One of the worst of these, and one I have to fight myself from thinking, is that a fat girl better fuck anybody who asks, because we’re lucky to be asked at all. That’s part of what makes it difficult for me to wait for the right person/people to come along, even though I want to feel like I deserve the right connections.

6. The other night at the poetry reading, a guy read a story that suggested that the plain woman had to give up the idea of finding a guy she’s attracted to, or she would deserve whatever heartbreak she gets. I’ve felt guilty these past months because physical attraction is important to me, not the only thing that’s important, but still.

7. And I am very worried that I am too ugly for a man. I don’t have a pretty little face; it’s very pronounced and expressive. Remember MySpace profile pics? I never could master the slack, dreamy, passive look we were all supposed to have in those, any more than I can stop myself from smiling in photos where I’m being submissive—nor should I ever have to!

I know that men are not shallow automatons who choose whatever face and body type they are told to. I see all different looks and bodies on women who are in happy relationships with guys. Again, these fears are mostly me-specific.

I hope that by naming some of the fears, I can start to move past them. They seem pretty stupid when I write them all down. I would love to let guys in to prove the fears wrong and start moving towards real connections. I want to stop selling guys so short, give them time to get to know me, and let myself get to know them. Like Sweetie always says, I have a lot of dreams.

How I Found Out I’m Kinky Part Six: Love in a Time of Erectile Dysfunction

Odds are that before too long, I’ll be headed back towards submissiontown, and that’s got  me thinking fondly/confusedly of The Song Sender I’m still winning the Not Googling Him Award and I fight the urge to forward him these posts mostly because I know Sweetie’d be superworried if I got in touch with him. As much as I would like to reach out to him, I don’t think I could risk the progress I’ve made in the months since Christmas.

This next part of the story is for the most part something I’ve already posted. I added in some details I originally left out. Whenever I get frustrated that I haven’t gotten over him fast enough, I remember what he meant to me, and that I really did love him.

Love in a Time of Erectile Dysfunction

All of my adult life, I’ve been afraid of men. Because they could hurt me, sure, but mostly because I’ve always felt at their mercy, desperate for their attention, angry and resentful that they had something I needed. But it is, they are, something I need. So when I recently returned to men after more than a decade, I was determined to confront and master these fears. I sort of regret that the fears took the form of a person, not because of what happened, but because I would’ve liked to have known who he was outside of the role I/we created for him.

I need someone to push me past my fears, and push he did. His phone’s wallpaper was Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles, and that’s how I saw him. Before our first date, I drew a tarot card, and got the Devil card reversed: “Release from bondage, throwing off shackles…the first step towards enlightenment.” I told him about the card and he said, “Oh, like a catalyst.”

I wanted someone I couldn’t control, and that is what I got. He was intractable and unreadable and definitely incorrigible. At every turn, he pushed me further than I would’ve thought to go. He called me names I’d always been afraid of, and it was always a relief. One day at work we were watching “Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron,” about a horse that couldn’t be broken; I blushed because the lines all kept reminding me of him.

After a little while, I started to feel uncomfortable with the way things were going. When I first started dating men again, I’d begun to see myself as hot in a way I never had before, but that eroded. He kept breaking dates to go places and only wanted to see me if nakedness was involved, emailed me songs that implied I was fat, old, worn out. He called me “Dummy” and I’d happily agree that he turned my brain into a test pattern, but of course that didn’t sit right. I didn’t complain because I didn’t want to control him, and also because I didn’t want him to get frustrated and go away.

And I still wanted to know what rough sex felt like. I have been having sweet, wonderful adorable sex for all of these years and I can’t complain too much about that, but I’ve always wanted to be taken, it’s both my worse fear and my strongest fantasy. Since he generally seemed to want me so much that I sometimes thought he might eat me, he seemed like the guy for that. So even though things weren’t sitting right with me, I wanted to keep him around for at least until that happened. Well, I really wanted to keep him around forever and ever, but I think I knew that wasn’t possible.

The day that it was supposed to happen was a revelation I didn’t expect. I expected the angry-hot guy who’d so expertly and emphatically ripped off my jeans on the third date, the one who sometimes pounded my arms down onto the couch when I tried to hold him. I expected to feel the way I’d asked to feel, like I had no choice, but instead he was tentative. His façade dropped. He still made plays at ordering me around, but he became self-conscious in a way that I took for tenderness. The guy who’d grabbed and shoved and hair-pulled his way through bases one to three was gone and here was this…friend of mine.

It was hard to find a place to be since we could only ever get together at my apartment and Sweetie has a strict (and very reasonable) no-boys-in-the-bed-policy, we had the choice of either the couch or the floor. He pulled me on top of him on the couch and I pouted a little but climbed on and gave it a go. He wilted soon after I started. I sat on the floor beside the couch and tried for some combination of soothing but not emasculating.

Next we tried the floor—I spread out a Care Bears blanket and down we went. After an awkward moment of “Is it in?” in it went and it felt great, but he lost his erection again after a few minutes. He climbed off and lay beside me, apologetic, and I have to say that’s the moment when I knew I loved him. He was clearly mortified and frustrated, but I couldn’t resist petting his hair and telling him what I believed in that moment, which was that he was perfect. He wasn’t any of my fears or the scary guy he tried to be, he was just a boy trying to do a good job for me. He lay there claiming my body as he liked to do, talked dirty and told me to come until I did.

After that, I thought I could really trust him, and I got up and reached behind the Christmas tree for his present. It was a stylish black gift bag with some pretty Christmassy ribbons to tie me up with. Some said things on them like “naughty or nice” and others were just nice bright colors that could be used any time of year. It was too early to be giving presents, but I am what I am. He never got to use the ribbons, and in fact I’m still looking for my Ribbon Guy.

I was so happy that day because it really felt like we meant something to each other, like we truly were friends. He told me he’d find room for me in his life even when another woman comes along, which is kind of what a poly girl hopes to hear from a single, not-poly guy. We snuggled and played and kissed and watched a whole bunch of Party Down episodes, and I was happy.

His interpretation of events was different from mine, and he was gone from my life by the following week. I’m not sure that I can see him as a remover of obstacles, since the experience brings up more questions than it answers. But I am trying to take the lesson of that day to heart—I am not at the mercy of men. We are all at the mercy of each other, and beneath even the snarliest of us there is a sweet vulnerable human being just trying to do his best. I can’t take back the role I placed him in or the way things turned out, but I can learn to open myself up a little more to men. I can admit that I love him and hopefully find a way to let him go. The song I most associate with him is “Close to Me” by The Cure, and the thing I most want to remember is that aside from all the fetishes, fantasies and fears, closeness is my dearest wish, the thing I truly hope to find again.

Next: The long goodbye.