Yes, Virginia, there IS a Satan.

The state of my birth, Virginia, has decided that it's going to inform all of its state universities that they're no longer allowed to have anti-discrimination policies that mention sexual orientation. Not that they're no longer REQUIRED, but that they're actively PROHIBITED. And presumably, any college that doesn't rescind their offending policy is going to lose funding.

If anyone is reading this, if anyone gives a shit, please do something about this, or at least stop and think for a minute about how this is going to affect YOUR life. The LGBTQ folks in your life are basically being slapped in the face by a government that says that their pain and problems mean nothing.

I mean, earlier this year we saw a U.S. congresswoman say that she didn't think gay marriage should exist because anal sex is gross. That's basically saying that someone's human rights are worth nothing because you personally are grossed out by what they like to do in their free time. Not even that--by what you IMAGINE that they're doing in their free time.

If you're at all interested in my blog, I'm guessing you're kinky. If the government can come after queer folk, they can come after you. These policies are reactionary, intended to undo decades of work on the part of activists. This is, for Virginia, a last-ditch attempt to get anti-gay policy back on the books. If this fails--maybe we can finally be done with this nonsense.

The Vagina Monologues, or Sisterhood! Yeah! (A review of sorts)

So I went to the Vagina Monologues tonight. Because my friends all chickened out, I went alone. I mean, what kind of self-aware young feministe am I if I can't even go to a play by myself, right? I'm kind of embarrassed that I even considered not going if I was going alone. But I went, and I had a blast. It was standing room only in the theater, and I found a seat on the aisle stairs just above a butch girl with an afro. Just me and my vagina, taking in a show.

The Vagina Monologues isn't a problem-free work. There's a pretty heavy emphasis on this imaginary "they": i.e., the they who make tampons, thong underwear, and douche sprays. And I think this imaginary they is male. It's strongly implied. So there are some anti-male sentiments, but luckily some pro-male as well. There's this one monologue at the beginning called "Because He Liked To Look At It." And it's about a woman who meets a guy for a one-night stand, and this man LOVES her vagina. He spends easily an hour just examining it and looking at it with an expression of total reverence, and this experience changes forever the way she sees her body.

And I can get behind that. I know that if I'd had some of the negative experiences described in the Monologues, even some of the more minor ones like getting rejected by a guy for having a wet vagina, I'd probably not be anything like as enlightened and body-satisfied as I am now.

The stories they told were incredibly moving, and I encourage people to check out the YouTube videos of the different acts if there's no show in your area. Some of them are painful, and some of them are funny, and some are both. The music acts are the only part of the show that didn't seem to fit. There are three songs, and none of them are vagina-centric enough for me to feel like they fit the theme. I spent the song sequences trying to read my program in the dark and thinking about my vagina.

Maybe that's what those interludes are for. The quiet acoustic guitar, the warmth of the cramped theater, and me, staring at my crotch, thinking about how neat it is that I'm finally beginning to appreciate this strange, magical thing I've got. I never really appreciated my vagina until recently, and this show couldn't have come at a better time. I feel energized, and happy, and ready to go on new adventures in life. Me and my vagina (cunt, coochie snorcher, pookie, pooter, pussycat, snooky), taking on the world.

P.S. This production of The Vagina Monologues was raising money for RAINN (The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.) If you want to donate to them, you can do so at

Basics of BDSM

This is the piece I put together for my friend Em's presentation on sexuality for a bunch of teens and young adults. While I'm totally unqualified to speak to them (I have maybe six months of experience with kinky shit), I think that I've absorbed enough helpful advice to compile the basic Safety Tips list. So here it is:

BASICS OF BDSM
(A thoroughly non-comprehensive guide)

Okay, so what about non-traditional sex, you ask? What about the weird stuff with the whips and the chains and the women in the spiky boots and the…well, the S&M? You can get all kinds of information about it on the Internet, but what do you really need to know before you can start trying it out for yourself? If you’re gonna be swinging a riding crop around, here’s some basics of how to hurt people without, you know, HURTING PEOPLE.
1. Consent. Don’t spring this on anyone. Talk about it beforehand. It doesn’t have to be a scary discussion. Just say what you wanna do and see if they’re all right with it. This is true for all sex, but especially for the kinky stuff.
2. Safewords. At first, I suggest just using “stop”. Have something that means “this is too much and I need it to be over NOW.” Respect it.
3. Get informed! Mistress Matisse at thestranger.com is one of the friendliest dominatrixes on the Internet and she often writes columns about the basics of BDSM, and answers questions like “how do I talk to my partner about kinky stuff?” Scarleteen.com, a site for teen sex ed, has some information about BDSM as well.
4. NO CHOKING. I can’t stress this strongly enough. The people who beat people up for a living, who do all kinds of crazy stuff? Most of them won’t do choking or asphyxiation. No ropes around the neck, no plastic bags on your head, no hands on anyone’s throat. It’ll kill you dead, and then you can’t have sex anymore. And that’s no fun at all.
5. Start easy. Want to spank someone? Don’t just haul off and whack ‘em. You can always go for more intensity later.
6. Stay away from vital organs. If you don’t know where they are, check a medical chart. If you can’t find one, stick to the butt and upper thighs. Also, don’t cut off anyone’s circulation. If you can’t fit two fingers into a binding, it’s probably too tight.
7. Fun stuff. Get an outfit together. Practice your dirty talk. Try walking in your thigh-high boots beforehand. And wave your implements of pain with confidence, knowing that you’ve got a partner who’s willing to try something new and exciting with you. If that last sentence doesn’t apply to you, see step one.

I hope this is useful to the lil' ones (and by lil' ones, I mean kids from probably 16 to 21 or so.)

Man, I don't even know when this event IS and I've got performance jitters. But that's okay, because I'm now the proud owner of a HOLLOW STRAP-ON. It's a pretty neat idea; you put it on and use your man or male-organed partner as a human sex toy. AND it has very elastic straps, so it fits me AND my beloved (but giant) Tim. I've been hankering to try it out...

Not that I've been here recently, but...is it too late to try again?

So, the blog and I have been taking a break. Seeing other projects/project-doers, you know how it goes. But I think it's time I return.

I've had a weird month or so, between school and trying to venture out into new territory socially, and the blog fell by the wayside. But I think it's time to start saying sexy, sexy things again. And dear (abandoned, loyal) imaginary readers, the things I can tell you now!

For example, I just got my first job writing about BDSM. Well, not that it paid. My dear friend Em is one of those people who likes to educate young folk, and she's planning a sex ed discussion, Q&A event in her own city. She's invited me to come and lead the discussion on the kinky stuff, and I wrote her up a little blurb talking about the dos and don'ts of BDSM which I'll probably post here soon. So I have a day trip in my future.

Tim and I have been up to shenanigans, and we finally went back to the fetish club last weekend. The weekend before I'd told the frightening lady who kissed him that she'd overstepped her bounds, and this weekend she wasn't there, so everything went smoothly--er, except for the part where it took me three trips between the club and my house to get my ID. Important lesson, children: if you're wearing clothing with no pockets, give your housekeys to the person you're going home with, not your dancing-happy friend.

More news is on the way, I promise. There will be sexcapades, and humorous anecdotes, and probably a list of what I'm reading now that I'm reading again. Well, maybe. This is a trial reconciliation between me and my blog. We'll have to see how it goes.

The Incredible Busyness

So in the past week, I've been up to my ears in new classes and have generally had no time to write. On top of that, my next blog post will feature me in a submissive role (super sexy, I assure you) and that's not something I quite know how to write about yet. So in the meantime, I'm going to talk about time.

Time is an odd thing. It's elastic, in that an hour can stretch out to last an eternity and twelve hours can pass in a blur and leave you saying "You have to go? So soon?" Time has been running oddly for me since I got back to school. I'm constantly exhausted for no particular reason and can't remember why, until I realize that I've been up for at least 18 hours and it's really time that I was sleeping again. Tim's schedule runs almost diametrically opposed to mine, so that as soon as I'm ready to sit down and relax, he's packing his things to head to work.

Hopefully soon the gods of Time will line up and give me what I need, which is a little more stretchy time. Blocks of time where I can sit down and write, or actually have a conversation with my boyfriend that doesn't end in one of us saying "I've got to sleep" or "I've got to leave." Time to go and buy some textbooks, and get out to the store and pick out some new socks.

I have it much better than my roommate, of course. She's working 40 hours, taking classes full time, and she just bought a dog. But right now, and for the next week or so, it feels like there's simply no time for anything but collapsing into sleep.

Baby's First Fetish Gathering

So on Saturday night, I went to my first-ever fetish club. A good friend of mine isn't particularly kinky, but he has a membership because he's realized that it's a great place to meet nerdy women (further discussion of the overlap between nerds and kinksters can be found on Mistress Matisse's blog.) I was, of course, there to meet kinky people, talk some shop, and maybe get to watch someone play. I've always been interested in public play (something Tim is NOT into) and so this was my chance to see a little of that.

Well, for a first impression, I think I did okay. Especially since I think I got hit on by at least four different people, most of whom are part of this sprawling polyamorous family. I met Jack, easily the world's most charming and handsome trans man, who apparently grew up going to the same comic book shop I did.

And I got to watch a guy get whipped, flogged, and paddled. Of course, I also got to watch him pass out from low blood sugar.

What I noticed when this man hit the ground was this: instantly, he had six or seven people at his side, lifting him, checking his breathing, getting him orange juice from the bar and a plate of cheese fries. His dominant, a woman in a floor-length red dress, sat him down and held him and told him that if he was going to diet (which apparently he was) he needed to actually eat, and he needed to warn her before he got to the point of fainting.

And then of course there were the people rushing in to assure me, the new kid in town, that this was not at all normal and that the man would be fine and that I shouldn't worry about this happening to me. I'd say that about 90% of the people there were personable, charming, and fascinating. Although they all seemed to be under the impression that I was very submissive. Maybe I'm just shy.

The only thing I didn't like about the evening was this pushy older woman who tried to convince me to bring Tim inside when he came to pick me up. She followed me outside, and when I told her that he was incredibly shy and wouldn't want to come in, she asked if she could at least talk to him. So when he pulled up at the curb she got INTO THE CAR, kissed him, and basically got all up in his spot.

I'm angry at this woman for a variety of reasons. First, she didn't listen to me the first time I said no to her. Second, she didn't ask Tim before she touched him, which is a standard rule of politeness in any circle and even more so in the BDSM world. But I'm more upset with myself than with her. I should have been firmer with her, should have told her that she needed to not get in his space, and I didn't. Why? Because I didn't want to be rude. But setting clear physical and mental boundaries is so important in this kind of situation that I feel like an idiot for forgetting it.

Overall, I had a great time. I liked the people. But if I'm going to go back, and if I'm going to try to get involved in this community, I need to teach myself how to say no, how to say it firmly, and how to stick to my guns.

Come v. Cum

All right, I have a confession to make. The word "cum" irritates me to no end.

I know it's meant to distinguish between the action and the substance produced. "I felt myself beginning to come" versus "The cum ran down her upturned face and into her hair." And yet, every time I look at it, I feel like the person who wrote it is illiterate. It sounds like text-speak at best.

And yet, as a word, I have to admire it. "Cum" has seized a position of prominence as a word, becoming widely-used and regarded as the correct word almost simultaneously. Hardly anyone anymore says "The line of white come shot from his member as he gasped out her name." So until the language changes again, perhaps to an even simpler term, I guess that "cum" is here to stay.

As Tim points out, the word "cum" has a nice visceral look to it. It's short, to the point, and is pronounced exactly the way it's spelled. Cum, and words of its ilk, are the wave of the future. As our language becomes more straightforward, more coded and less nuanced, more technical, words like cum may crop up everywhere. And in the name of simplicity and ease of use, I may have to concede.

But I blatantly refuse to say "cumming."