5 Things That Surprised Me About Making My Own Amateur Porn

Kate Sloan

Filming yourself having sex or masturbating is a laugh and a half. If you haven’t already tried it, but the idea of it piques your interest, I highly recommend it. It teaches you a lot about performativity, your own sexual response, and your tastes in the porn you consume.

Influenced and encouraged by my many friends in the indie porn scene, I’ve experimented a few times with filming my own sex and masturbation. A lot of things surprised me about my own amateur porn when I first started making it; here are a few of those things…

The noises I make. You know that thing where, you think your voice sounds fine when you talk, but then you listen to a recording of yourself and can’t stand how you sound? (As a journalist who does her own transcriptions and also co-hosts and edits a podcast: yikes, I know this feeling well.) I actually find that the opposite occurs with my sex sounds, though: in the moment, I don’t think about them much, but listening to them back, I find them rather more appealing than I expect to.

Partners have variously described my pleasure noises as “cute,” “sexy,” and “a mix between a laugh and plaintive huff.” (I fuck such articulate people!) It’s neat to be able to assess and appreciate my sounds without the pleasures of sex clouding my judgment – and to realize that yes, they are adorable!

My sex faces. Admittedly, I’m less compassionate toward myself about my faces than I am about my noises. Watching myself on video still makes me cringe: “Is that what I look like when I’m coming?!” I’ll think, slightly panicked. “Why does anyone find me attractive?!”

But then I start applying cognitive-behavioral therapeutic strategies to my thoughts. I remind myself that I’ve had many partners who’ve expressed finding me extremely attractive – not only before having sex with me but also after, when they had already become intimately familiar with the deeply human faces and sounds and fluids I produce. They must, therefore, have found those things attractive. And therefore, even if I don’t agree with them that my twisted grimace of pleasure is beautiful to behold, I can at least believe them when they express that opinion. Watching my own porn hammers that point home.

Unexpected squirting! In the funniest solo porn scene I’ve ever shot, I squirted without meaning to. This never happens to me – I always feel a telltale pressure building in my G-spot that warns me of impending waterworks. But in this particular case, I was so focused on the toy buried in me – and maybe on the video camera pointed at me – that I didn’t notice an oncoming wave of vagjaculation. So when I slid the toy out of me, squirt rained down on my floor, and I exclaimed, “Oof!”

Filming yourself in sexual situations can lead to an overly stilted, self-aware performance – but if you manage to capture your own authentic goofiness, even for a moment, it might end up being your favorite moment in the whole scene. You’ll get to see a side of yourself that usually only your partners are privileged enough to witness – and it can bring you a new appreciation for yourself in all your glorious weirdness.

My stillness. It’s funny to observe the stark differences between your inner life and how it manifests externally. When I’m masturbating, my head’s all awhirl with fantasies: submissive predicaments, dominant archetypes, partners whispering dark promises in my ear while fucking me to pieces. It feels highly dynamic – but when I watch videos of myself jerking off, I’m struck by how still I stay. Aside from the hand operating my dildo, and the increasingly erratic rise and fall of my chest, I mostly stay put, my eyes squeezed shut in concentration.

Learning this about myself got me thinking about changes I’d like to make: it might be more fun for both me and my partner(s) if I seem more physically engaged and present during sex, whether by moving around more, or keeping my eyes open more of the time, or focusing more on what’s happening in front of me than what’s happening in my head. That said, there’s something very hot to me about the idea of a partner commanding me to stay perfectly still – while they pound me with a dildo, say, in an attempt to unravel my composure. Making your own porn is so thought-provoking!

Actually finding it kinda hot. There is nothing about my own face or body that I find sexy, to be honest with you. For that reason, watching myself in porn usually makes me uncomfortable at first. But once I’ve acclimatized to the cringeyness of it, sometimes I can actually start to enjoy it. And once in a blue moon, I can even find it hot.

It’s less a “this person is attractive” kind of hotness, and more of a “sympathetic arousal” kind of hotness. As I listen to my breath hitching in my throat, my moans doubling in volume, and the slick slide of toys against my skin, I’m reminded in a Pavlovian way of all the times I’ve heard those things while sex was actually happening to me. And my body responds as if those past experiences were reoccurring in the present. I still haven’t ever actually masturbated to my own porn, but maybe one day I’ll be able to set aside my insecurities enough to do that. Maybe one day, when a partner calls me a foxy babe, I’ll be able to deeply, truly, 100% believe them.

 

This post was sponsored by Smut6.com, but as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 3 Fave Encounters

Kate Sloan

Today’s “12 Days of Girly Juice” instalment sums up my three favorite bang sessions of the year, and I have an embarrassing secret to confess: unlike last year’s diverse trio of fucktimes, all three of these encounters were with the same person.

It’s embarrassing because it implies that he’s the only good partner I’ve had all year, out of the 12 partners I had in 2016, and that none of the others were worth remembering or writing about. That’s not true at all; I had so much good sex this year and all of it was worthy of celebration!

But there are emotional factors at play which affect how I think about all those encounters. Many of those people have peaced out of my life, after messy break-ups, painful rejections, and/or shocking betrayals – and that drama retroactively mars the memory of the sex I had with those folks. What was amazing sex at the time just feels sad in retrospect.

The following three stories are about a fuckbuddy I’m still friendly with, one who doesn’t make me feel sad, resentful, angry, or betrayed. As such, my memories of sex with him have been left untouched by chaotic emotions, so I’m free to recall these memories in their full splendor. They seem every bit as hot, fun, exciting and transformative now as they did then.

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I snapped this selfie for Bex before embarking on my BJ date. “Do I look pretty?!”

Impromptu blowjob date

On the evening of February 11th, I sat in a lukewarm bath, realizing my sex life was about to change.

A few days earlier, I’d blown a fuckpal whose dick just jived with my mouth. Craving blowjobs was a completely new thing to me, so it’d taken a few days to sink in: not only did I enjoy blowing him, not only did I want to do it again, but I couldn’t stop thinking about doing it again. This was, for me, unprecedented.

In a sudden fit of impulsive bravery, I leapt out of the bath, grabbed my phone, and tapped out this DM to the aforementioned good-dick’ed dude:

Apologies if this comes across as crass or un-“chill,” but I have been thinking a lot about going down on you and would 100% be down to do that again sometime soon. Just lemme know. Sincerely, girl who is totally not this much of a BJ perv with most people but just had to speak what’s on her mind(/vag).

His reply was, shall we say, enthusiastic. We hammered out details, I threw on some clothes, and then I ventured out into the icy Toronto evening, en route to dat dick.

I gave him two blowjobs that night: one when I arrived, amid giggles, blushing, and R&B slowjams – and one later, after we’d gone out for drinks and dinner, when he muttered darkly into a kiss, “I’m thinking about your mouth…”

Sexual tastes take time to shift; it’s rare for a kink to spring up, fully formed, overnight. So maybe my descent into the Blowjob Fandom was more gradual than I realized. But for me, this is the night I’ll always remember as The Beginning of My Blowjob Obsession. Some dicks are so good, they make history in your life. Some dicks are so good, they rewire your brain. Some dicks are so good, they conjure desire where before there was only distaste.

Some of the toys I brought with me to our hotel-buttsex date (and a bottle of gin).
Some of the toys I brought with me to our hotel-buttsex date (and a bottle of gin).

Anal sex in a sketchy hotel

When we went out for dinner and drinks between Blowjob One and Blowjob Two (which sounds like a duo of Dr. Seuss characters I’d dearly love to meet), we discussed the possibility of him being the first person to fuck me in the ass.

It hadn’t occurred to me before that night in that Distillery District pub, but this particular fuckbuddy was really the perfect person to usher me into the world of anal sex. I liked and trusted him, we had good sexual rapport, and he had experience with butt stuff from both sides of the dick. He outranked me in the realm of Butt Wisdom, and I trusted him to guide me through the experience.

We booked a cheap hotel for the following Monday night and met up there, both nervous as hell and self-medicating with weed (him) and gin (me). We set the scene by cuddling, talking, and joking around. And when we were ready, we started into a sex sesh that lasted about four hours in total. Four languid hours of messing around, laughing, and trying things out. My butt got fucked at some point during the proceedings, but it didn’t feel like the Main Event; everything else was so much fun that the actual butt stuff felt very low-pressure and almost like an afterthought.

This night confirmed what I already knew: that goofy, relaxed sex is my favorite kind, that a shared sense of humor and rapport is vitally important to my sexual enjoyment with a partner, and that – yes! – I like getting fucked in the ass.

I don’t know that it’s always useful to agonize over who should be “your first” when it comes to a particular sexual act. I’m endlessly picky about who I want to fist me first, for example, whereas the first person I ever had sex with was just a friend, for whom I didn’t have sexual feelings. I think the importance of the person really depends on the specific act – and because anal sex is highly intimate, emotionally risky, and physically tricky, I’m super glad I held out for someone I deeply trusted and adored. The experience could not have been any better, truly. I think back on it with immense fondness and gratitude, and I hope my butt gets fucked more in 2017!

28042689031_dbf0210c7d_oBAMF threesome

One night in April, my then-boyfriend was over an hour late to meet me. I complained to Bex, who said, “You know who’d never be late to meet you?” and then they said the name of my fuckbuddy, who, at that time, I hadn’t seen in quite a while and missed a lot.

Bex was joking about my FWB being better for me and nicer to me than my boyfriend, but they were also right. That boyf was disrespectful, unfeminist, and made me feel terrible about being a sexual person. He always wanted me to “warn him” in advance if I wanted sex, acted like it was a favor he’d begrudgingly do for me, and talked about my body less like a hot piece of ass and more like a mildly distasteful science experiment. Though I didn’t want to admit it, I missed having sex with people whose approach to sex was spontaneous, enthusiastic, and joyful. Like that far-away fuckbuddy.

After tweeting about Bex’s remarks, I went to bed, because I had work early the next morning. By the time I woke up, Bex had a) had a conversation with said fuckbuddy about my tweet, b) explained that my boyfriend was basically the worst, and c) established that me, Bex, and the FWB should totally have a threesome. Bex makes dreams come true. They hadn’t gotten the go-ahead from me to set this up, but they didn’t need to: months earlier, on a streetcar, I’d randomly turned to them and said, “Hey, hypothetically, would you ever want to have a threesome with [my FWB]?” to which Bex immediately said, “Yeah!” So there was a precedent. And now that plan had been set in motion.

Over the next six weeks, we planned, brainstormed, sexted, and negotiated. I booked a bus ticket to New York and wrote a decidedly sex-centric packing list. We titled this landmark event “the BAMF threesome” – “Bean (Agender)/Male/Female threesome” – or, alternatively, “The Great Threesome of 2016.” I broke up with my boyfriend, in part because I realized I’d never been half as excited about him as I was about this threesome.

We wore matching rainbow socks, 'cause we knew the dude liked 'em.
We wore matching rainbow socks, ’cause we knew the dude liked ’em.

I took a 10-hour overnight bus from Toronto to New York, and then trekked from the bus station to Bex’s Queens apartment with my little suitcase and backpack full of sex toys. When I arrived, I found that we were wearing the same shirt, which just reiterated the whole “we are gonna sexually team up on a dude tonight” vibe.

The threesome itself was fucking adorable. Dude came over, showered, and the three of us nervously cuddled on a couch for an hour or two, talking and catching up. Then we semi-awkwardly transitioned to kissing, moved to the bed, and took some clothes off. What followed was a blurry mess of blowjobs, fingerbanging, spanking, fucking, biting, dirty-talking, and laughing. It was a magnificent synthesis of two people I love very much and all my favorite aspects of sex. So, basically: the best.

Despite all the threesomes I’ve been involved in, they’re not really my jam – I prefer the unbroken focus and intensity of one-on-one encounters. But sometimes the stars just align, and a magic threesome materializes from the ether like a stroke of genius. This was one of those. More than a sexual encounter, it was a bonding experience, a true test of friendship, some serendipitous playtime. I felt so lucky to know both of those people.

When we were done fucking, we ordered Mexican food, ate it while sitting unselfconsciously naked on Bex’s bedroom floor, and then climbed into bed for a cuddly three-way snooze. I’ve rarely gone to bed so happy, comfortable, and satisfied in my life.

 

What were your favorite sexual encounters of 2016?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 4 Fun Events

Kate Sloan

This year I was officially diagnosed with social anxiety disorder – a pronouncement so obvious to me and anyone who knows me that it was hardly necessary at all. My friends have seen me hyperventilate on the stoop outside a party, walk around the block six times before feeling ready to enter a gallery opening, smoke weed on my way to a networking event to make my presence possible, and break down crying in a busy Starbucks because I physically couldn’t walk into the newsroom at my school. Suffice it to say, events can be hard for me.

While social anxiety is moreso a curse than a blessing, it does make me extra grateful for events where I actually feel comfortable. It helps to have friends accompanying me who understand the anxieties I deal with, and I’m fortunate that wonderful friends accompany me to events more often than not these days. All my favorite events this year were favorites because of the fun, kind, welcoming people I got to hang out with – some of whom may not even know how much I appreciated having them there. Here are those events…

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#HaveDildosWillTravel is the official name and hashtag Taylor, Caitlin, Bex and I gave to our cross-country road trip in the springtime, after rejecting other options like #CarOfQueers, #RoadTripOfBabes, and #HitTheRoadJackOff.

Planned meticulously in Google Drive documents (mostly by Bex, my hero) over the course of several weeks, our trip began in New York, then meandered through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, until we reached our destination, Minneapolis. Along the way, we attended a sex conference, bought kink implements at a toy store, oohed and aahed at the Leather Archives, introverted at queer cafés, ate artisanal donuts for breakfast every day, shopped at the Mall of America, ogled Colin‘s sex toy studio, and visited multiple queer-owned sex shops. On the morning of my 24th birthday, I woke up in Bex’s sister’s femme-as-hell bed in a Pennsylvania farmhouse; that night, I went to bed in a swanky hotel in Chicago.

The cast of characters on our wacky trip included, among others: a diner owner’s mother who didn’t understand our collars, an enthusiastic leather archivist who complimented my vulva ring, a helpful moustachioed hotel clerk, a hot domly dude who owned a kink-themed coffee shop, a beardy Tinder boy who owned far too many nerdy snapbacks, a self-identified radical fairy named Dragon who had once made “consent-based vegetable porn” on a commune, a friendly Tinder stranger nicknamed Face Tattoo, and a lifelong hero who kissed me on a sunny side street.

Although I’m 24 and have therefore theoretically been an “adult” for quite some time, it’s only within the past year and a half that traveling without my parents has become a frequent and normal thing for me. This feels like a rite of passage, a bastion of grownupdom, a milestone in my journey toward self-sufficiency. But though it makes me feel independent, I don’t have to do it all alone. Traveling with friends is so damn much fun. We laughed practically all day every day during #HaveDildosWillTravel, about everything from sex to scenery to selfies, and it’s a trip I will always remember fondly.

Photo from Smut in the 6ix’s Facebook page.

Smut in the 6ix sounded like a literal dream come true when I first heard of it. A collaboration between Playground and Spit, Smut was a day-long celebration of the burgeoning indie porn scene in my hometown of Toronto. During the day, porn nerds gathered for panel discussions about the technical, social, artistic, and political facets of porn creation. At night, there was a big gala with live performances, porn scene screenings, and lotsa dancing. Told you: a dream come true.

I was lucky enough to be asked to moderate a panel at Smut, and was also invited to perform some music at the gala. It was a terrific honor to be involved. I’m so grateful to Caitlin K. Roberts, Samantha Fraser, and Claire AH for organizing the whole shebang; as always, it was a delight to convene with my fellow sex-positive weirdos and get nerdy together!

In 2015, it made me super sad to see my favorite sex bloggers social-media’ing about all the fun they were having at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit. I resolved to do my very best to make it to the Summit in 2016 – and I managed to save enough money to make it happen. Hooray!

I flew to Washington by myself without having an anxiety meltdown (success!) and checked into the hotel, where I was sharing a room with Sarah and Artemisia. I hadn’t met either of them in person before, but they were so delightful, and totally ideal roomies for me!

Sex-positive events are where I feel most able to be myself. My anxiety mostly melts away and I throw caution to the wind: I dress weird, speak my mind, laugh loudly, and go on adventures. It helps that people actually know who I am at these events, making me feel like a powerful little starlet! Woodhull had also thoughtfully set up a “bloggers’ lounge,” perfectly appointed with coffee galore and sex toys to fondle. I felt truly in my element.

I wish I could’ve gotten to know everyone at Woodhull, but like many bloggers, I’m an anxious introverted weirdo and could only do what I could do. Luckily, though, I did make several new friends. April offered to let me borrow her lipstick for blowjob purposes; Mandi‘s laugh lit up my life; Lorax‘s dark sass slayed me; Sarah was so adorable and clever I wanted to high-five her constantly; I quaffed wine with Mary and Harry; I cooed over Crista‘s killer eye makeup and bought an Ethical Misandrist sticker from her; Polly‘s sex stories kept me on the edge of my seat; I finally got to ogle (part of) Lunabelle‘s epic dildo collection in person; I delighted in Girl on the Net‘s hilarious sexy poems; and Sugarcunt frequently made me laugh so hard I thought I might choke to death. Plus I got to spend time with several treasured blogger friends I’d met before: Suz, Piph, Lilly, Caitlin, Hedonish, JoEllen, and of course, my bestie Bex.

I spanked a beautiful butt, learned about sex ed and sexual freedom, attended a fancy gala, and snapped selfies with femme friends. It was truly – to steal a phrase from Lilly – “like sex-blogger Christmas.” I’m already daydreamin’ about Woodhull 2017, and it can’t come soon enough.

Photo via Taylor J Mace.

Bex wanted a spanking party for their 25th birthday, and so, #BirthdayBruises was born. It was lovely to celebrate this milestone with sex-savvy friends both local and far-away. I put on a ridiculous outfit and pranced around our cozy Airbnb playing hostess – a role which involved everything from serving drinks to administrating the livestream to spanking the birthday bean. When Bex had taken all they could take, they were accosted by cuddles on the couch and I brought them some refrigerated mint-chocolate truffles. Sex bloggers really know how to party, y’all.

I’m so glad that this experience was affirming and uplifting for Bex. It was for me, too, even though I barely got hit at all. It’s always comforting to marry my sex blogger life with my IRL/offline life, to blend those two friend groups together, to embody all my favorite parts of myself without needing to compromise or hide any of them. This party also demonstrated my friends’ immense generosity: guests helped us with tech troubles, took over hosting duties when Bex and I were otherwise occupied, and (of course) harnessed their brawn to make Bex’s birthday-spanking fantasies come true. Gosh, I love my friends.

What were your favorite sex-positive or sex-adjacent events in 2016?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 5 Sex-Savvy Superheroes

Kate Sloan

One of the reasons I love the sex-positive community so much is that it’s chock full of excellent mentors and role models. At 24, I am but a baby in the grand scheme of things, and there are so many people who know more than me, and have more experience than me, and have learned things the hard way so that people like me can learn them the easy way. I find that reliably comforting.

Here are five people who’ve particularly influenced my sexual evolution this year, all for the better…

14474500_776431015829192_2600787072084082688_nTina Horn. It’s surprising Tina wasn’t on my list last year, actually; she’s been one of my favorite voices in the sex-positive sphere for a long time. But this year she did so much excellent work and introduced me to so many useful new ideas and fascinating new people. In fact, two of the other folks on this list, I discovered primarily because they guested on Tina’s podcast!

Tina’s book Sexting helped me get better at that titular act, while giving me a more nuanced understanding of the theory and ethics behind it. Her writing on sexual morality, porn, and sex work is always captivating and well-crafted. And her podcast often introduces me to kinks I’ve never heard of or haven’t thought about very deeply before – like latex, fire, bootblacking, and puppy play – in discussions that are as nuanced and nerdy as the kinks themselves. Tina is certainly one of the cleverest brains in my community and I always look forward to seeing what she’ll come up with next!

cl0mlyrvyaaciocJillian Keenan. I first heard of Jillian on the spanking episode of Why Are People Into That? and was immediately taken with her: the frank way she discusses her lifelong fetish, how nerdy she gets about kink, and her brave stance that spanking your kids is sexual assault. As someone who has a spanking kink and was also nonconsensually spanked a lot as a kid, her work instantly resonated with me.

Jillian’s debut book, Sex With Shakespeare, is equal parts memoir, kink missive, and Shakespeare analysis. It tells the story of her enduring obsession with spanking through the lens of the Shakespeare geek she’s always been. Not only did this book help me dive more fearlessly and fervently into my own spanking kink; it also made me want to write more fearlessly and fervently about the stuff in my psyche that embarrasses me. If Jillian could confess her spanking fetish to her husband and the whole internet in one New York Times-sized fell swoop, surely I can write about roleplay and mental illness without cringing and blushing, right?!

cyvgqb3weaabiseAlana Massey. I truly believe Alana‘s cultural writing is some of the most important of this decade. Though she went to divinity school, she now writes about a broad range of topics: sex, love, labor, femininity, and technology, to name but a few.

Though you may or may not be familiar with her name, two of her most well-known pieces went so thoroughly viral that you’ve probably read them or at least seen them on your social media timelines. “The Dickonomics of Tinder” spelled out the central problem with men on Tinder – that hardly any of them seem willing to put in the effort to seem charming and bangable – and also popularized what has become a dating mantra among many millennial women I know: “Dick is abundant and low-value.” I reread this piece periodically when I’m bone-tired of Tinder and need a cathartic rage-laugh and some hope that good men do still exist, somewhere.

Alana also penned “Against Chill,” an impassioned defense of enthusiasm and decisiveness in a culture that seems to want us laid-back and laissez-faire. As I’ve told you before, I have no chill, so this piece resonates deeply with me each time I read it again. Some of my other favorite Alana essays are “The Unlikely Appeal of the Dick Video,” “A Woman’s Right to Say ‘Meh,’” “Feeling Lonely When You’re Single Doesn’t Mean You’re Weak,” “The Monetized Man,” and “Stop Wasting Your Time on Bad First Dates.” I wanted to limit myself to only three links in that last sentence, but I could not; Alana’s writing is too good, too thought-provoking, too perspective-shifting. She’s one of the great writers of the 21st century thus far, and I think far more people will realize that when her book comes out in 2017.

imageSarah Brynn Holliday. I met and befriended Sarah at Woodhull this year and I’m so glad our paths crossed. She’s incredibly brave and strong, a badass social justice advocate whose activism takes many forms. This year alone, she’s written about Lelo’s baffling decision to hire abuser Charlie Sheen as a condom spokesperson, sex toy safety as health justice, fatphobia in sex toy marketing, women’s right to privacy, and self-care methods that don’t require money, among other things. She’s always calling out companies when they do terrible shit, highlighting ethical companies, and centering politics in her sex blogging because the personal is political. I admire Sarah enormously.

Though there’s been a lot of debate this year about the term “BlogSquad” and who it comprises, to me, it has always simply signified sex bloggers who are dedicated to intersectional feminism, social justice, sex toy safety for consumers, and so on. Sarah’s a new-ish blogger, having started her site in mid-2015, but to me she completely embodies the goals and values that sex bloggers can exemplify when we’re at our best. I love her and her work and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

crjsy1rwcaag-neLilly. I’ve been reading Lilly’s blog since before I even started mine; she’s a stalwart of the sex blogging world. I was mildly starstruck when I met her last year at the Sexual Health Expo in New York, and I continue to be mildly starstruck every time I remember she’s my friend now.

An incomplete list of the brave, badass things Lilly has done in 2016: When she won the #1 spot in Kinkly’s annual list of top sex bloggers, she wrote about the flaws in the ranking system and why these rankings can be hurtful. She has allocated her Kinkly prize money for scholarships to help other bloggers get to Woodhull, instead of just pocketing it (which she would have been well within her rights to do, given how hard she works on her blog). She has worked to build bridges between communities of sex bloggers and values our community enormously. She’s actively using her platform to help less privileged bloggers get to sex conferences so we can all hang out and learn together.

Also, on a personal note: at Woodhull this year, there was one particular afternoon when I hung out with Lilly and Epiphora in Piph’s hotel room, and told them semi-tearfully about a romantic interest who was treating me badly at the time. They both confirmed for me that his behavior was unacceptable and that I should call him out, set some boundaries, and expect better from him in the future. It was surreal and deeply appreciated to receive romantic advice from the two sharp-tongued bloggers who made me want to start my site in the first place. I can always, always use more people in my life to remind me that I’m awesome and worthy of respect, so I’m super grateful to Lilly and Piph for the support they gave me that day.

 

Who were your sex-positive heroes, idols, and role models in 2016?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2016: 6 Journal Entries

Kate Sloan

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April 11th

So here’s what I learned from this break-up:

Firstly, sex and feminism are two hugely important issues for me and they need to be ironed out with a partner before we get serious, put labels on each other, make promises, etc. I can’t date someone who denies or perpetuates the patriarchy, and I can’t date someone who’s not as libidinous, sexually adventurous, and communicative as I need them to be.

Secondly, I need to stop rushing into things. I jumped on this opportunity because I desperately wanted a boyfriend and S___ seemed (through my rose-colored glasses) to fit the bill. My mind filled in the blanks and paved over some problems to round him up to boyfriend-worthy material, when he is so clearly not a good match for me. In future I should give people a trial run of at least a month before we jump to labels and/or commitments, because that’s how much time I need to get a sense of compatibility and problem areas.

Thirdly, like many people in our sex-shaming culture, I have internalized the notion that sex problems aren’t a “good enough” reason to break up with someone. As if sexual resentments don’t bleed into the rest of the relationship. As if sex isn’t an important mode of expressing affection, attraction and adoration. As if sex isn’t vital to my career, my community, my identity, my happiness. I should not let anyone bully or slut-shame me into de-prioritizing sex, because it is important to me and that is not a bad or unreasonable thing.

Fourthly, maybe I am not as desperate for an emotionally committed partnership as I thought I was. Being emotionally intimate with someone is work and it requires time, effort, emotional labor, and vulnerability. I will be ready to go there again when I meet the right person and when my mental health steadies a bit more, but at the time being, I’d kind of rather my sex life be primarily fun and flirty and light and breezy, rather than weighed down with partners’ feelings and baggage. (Cruel, perhaps, but true.)

Fifthly: my friends and family’s opinions on my beaux are of great importance to me and color how I perceive said beaux. For the most part this is good, because they have my best interests at heart. But I should be careful not to introduce beaux to the other people in my life too early; it makes it even harder to end things if I need to. They feel so entangled in my life.

 

August 20th

This morning C___ and I talked over a Sneaky Dee’s breakfast about how I think I have to break up with B___. I lamented to C___ that I fear I’m too picky – I never seem to stick with anyone lately, no one’s good enough for me – but he told me that a lot of unhappy marriages and nasty divorces could be avoided if folks were pickier. He also said (I’m paraphrasing hugely) that every relationship has a cost attached to it – time, energy, etc. – and if it doesn’t replenish/uplift you, then the cost may not be worth it.

It’s amazing how C___ can be such a wise mentor to me at times, despite often being a key source of my emotional distress. I started to feel nauseously heavy and sad while discussing B___ with him and it was partly because of the words at the back of my throat that I couldn’t say: “No one is as good for me as you. I’m scared that no one ever will be as good for me as you. I’m sad that you still don’t want me.”

The way in which I like him is dumb and all-consuming.

 

August 31st

I am constantly and newly amazed by the ongoing discovery that the way I think about a thing – the words I use to describe it, the mental categories I sort it into, and so on – can have such a huge effect on my perception of that thing. See, for example, how drastically my opinion of blowjobs changed when I sort of just decided I liked them. See, too, how these past couple days I’ve sort of just decided that C___ isn’t my crush anymore, and it seems to be working.

Granted, things may be different when I see him in person again. But I’ve been so good. I haven’t looked at his tweets. I haven’t texted or sexted or snapped him, though I’ve wanted to. When songs of his have come up on shuffle, I’ve shouted “NOPE!” and skipped them. The times he’s crossed my mind, I’ve felt less smitten and more annoyed, disillusioned.

And interestingly, I’ve felt sane, even lacking the anchor of a central focus on this man. I’ve been reflecting on how, for a literal year, this crush has felt like the biggest thing in my life. Nothing else has received so much gossipy dissection, creative unpacking and mental energy, so many tears, journal entries and hopeful daydreams. A year is a long time to be that singularly focused on something that was never going to lead to anything. It feels like I’ve – at least for the moment – broken the spell, escaped the thrall, untangled the web and stepped out of it. It feels like such a relief. It feels like I have so much more love to give and so much more emotional energy at my disposal now that I’m not actively spending it on some insensitive dingus who doesn’t deserve it.

_1ftk3e5

September 2nd

Reflecting a lot lately on the patriarchal myth that the romantic and sexual attention of men is a scarce resource for which women should clamber and compete. It’s such bullshit. “Dick is abundant and low value,” as Alana Massey would say – and also, the abundance (or lack thereof) of dick in my life is not a reflection of my worth as a human being.

This past year, a year of sluttiness, has taught me many things, including that I am more than capable of attracting dudes – and now that I know that, I can kind of relax. I don’t have to constantly prove my desirability to myself or to the world. I can be pickier in my romantic and sexual decisions because I know I have options. Good dick isn’t a resource I have to desperately grasp at whenever scant handfuls of it appear ephemerally in my vicinity; it’s a free-flowing river, and I can dip into the constant cascade any damn time I want.

 

September 4th

T___ was flirting with me on Twitter last night, and I was into it, and it made me ponder my own (limited) gayness. I still don’t really have a sense of how much of my vagina-reticence is an actual lack of attraction and how much is just anxiety and uncertainty. After all, there was a time, just a few short years ago, when the idea of sex with dudes held very little appeal for me, because it scared me – and now I’m like, GIVE ME ALL THE DICKS! So I wonder if I would take to pussy like a fish in water if I were to dive in and try it out already. Frankly T___ is a total babe and I would be DOWN. Hmm.

What I’d really like is a situation I briefly talked about with C___ earlier this summer: I want the two of us to threesome with a pretty lady (N___ or T___, ideally) and for him to watch over me and give me advice/direction as I do stuff to her. I don’t know what it says about my kinks or my “daddy issues” or my concept of C___ that I want him to play a watchful-mentor role in my sexytimes, but to me that just sounds so lovely and comforting.

(I know, I’m not supposed to be writing about him or thinking about him, etc. but this is in a mentor capacity and not a person-I’m-in-love-with capacity, soooo…)

 

October 24th

So, I don’t feel especially romantic or sexual toward C___ anymore, but I do still feel emotionally fixated on him, and it’s weird to parse and process that distinction. Every moment I spend with him feels critically important and worth memorizing, and once I say goodbye to him, I typically enter into a mini-depressive episode that lasts 12-48 hours or so. I keep trying to figure this out. I think it’s for two reasons:

1. My brain is just used to responding to him in this way, like how alcoholics probably get a little boost of dopamine when they see or smell booze. Habit and conditioning and all that. Bex compared this to how my iPhone thinks I mean “duck” when I type “fuck”; there’s nothing for it but to keep gently correcting its mistake until it learns. And likewise, I just have to keep gently reminding my brain that C___ is not the perfect, everlasting source of comfort, happiness and rightness that I once believed him to be.

2. We have almost the exact same sense of humor; he is really funny and smart in a way that just jives with my brain – that’s not my dumb crush talking, that’s just factually true, unfortunately (?) – so the emotional “drop” after that intense level of joy and amusement can be rough. But I guess I just have to reorient my thinking around that. When I go see an improv show that makes me laugh a lot, I don’t mope around afterward because the show is over and I’ll never get to see it again; I just appreciate that I DID get to see it, and I pursue yet more things that will make me happy. Life is a processional; you can’t stop or look back. It doesn’t work. You trip and fall and get trampled and hurt yourself. Keep walking, ya dummo.