anxiety

Down in the Well: Safety in Submission

Kate Sloan

There was a time – I tell you late one night, in one of our verbose phone chats – when I felt safe more-or-less all the time. When the harshest hero’s quest I ever had to face was a 9AM improv class or the first day at a new job.

And then my 19th birthday came, and my 20th, and my 21st, and somewhere in there, my brain chemistry got muddled like a botched cocktail. I became afraid all the time. Afraid of onlookers’ judgments (which never actually materialized), of strange men with knives (who never actually appeared), of calamitous catastrophes (which never actually took place).

“Social anxiety disorder,” a psychologist pronounced, finally, when I was 24. But that still didn’t feel big enough, all-encompassing enough. My fear flooded my brain and permeated my veins. It was with me always, like a clingy friend who can’t take a hint. It fused to my personality to make a new version of me, one saddled with neuroses I never dreamed I’d succumb to. All I could do was try to move forward into this new life of fear.

I don’t recall the first time someone laid on top of me after a spanking, but I do recall the immediate relief. Like a weighted blanket with a heartbeat, their mass pressed me into the mattress and seemed to say: You’re okay. I was guarded on all sides by flesh and memory foam. An old feeling came back to me that I’d forgotten: safety.

You do this to me now, sometimes, because once I asked you to. You do it unprompted, and somehow always at the right times. Your lanky boy-body sinks into me from above, cradling me from neck to ankles, as I sob and breathe and let the pain dissipate. Sometimes you whisper, You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe, but these rumblings are redundancies; my safety is implied. I can feel it in your weight, your steady breath, the very fact that you’re still here.

The silly thing is, I am safe, most of the time – I just don’t feel it. I’m deeply privileged to have never experienced violence on the basis of my race, sexual orientation, or gender. I’ve received death threats, sure – what outspoken woman or LGBTQ person on the internet hasn’t, at this point? – but they’ve all stopped cold at my computer screen. No one is after me with a gun or a knife. No one wants my people dead, except the occasional radical incel in the news or skinheaded antisemite on a street corner. To be in this position is to have won the genetic lottery a million times over.

Like many people with mental illnesses that affect their grip on the truth, I don’t know how to reconcile my reality with my ruminations. I cannot even imagine what it must be like to both feel and be unsafe, if I can barely handle the feeling part.

One night, you push me – as you often do – into catharsis through consensual pain.

It’s one of my very favorite things, and also I hate it. The slaps hammer my face or my ass, harder and faster until my brain can hardly process them. Bad thoughts bubble to the surface. I deserve this. I am trash. No one loves me. No one has ever loved me. Or sometimes my mind is just blank. I like that better.

It is difficult to explain, to anyone who does not also partake of this perversion, that sometimes this sadness is what I want. That to consent to misery and fear somehow makes those feelings more palatable than when they just rain down unbidden. The depths of my submissive sadness are like the bottom of a well – dark, musty, hopeless – but sometimes I want that well. If I’m going to end up there anyway, it feels better to climb down with conviction than to fall in or be pushed.

On this night, it feels like the tears will never end. Like I am sad because I am sadness and sadness is me. Like sadness is the way of my heart, has always been, will always be. The question flickers across my mind: Am I safe? I truly don’t know.

“You’re safe,” you say, as if you heard my thoughts somehow. I cry harder, but not for much longer, because with these words, you’ve tossed a rickety rope ladder down into my well.

Being a masochistic submissive, I date my fair share of sadistic dominants, many of whom are turned on by tears and other signs of distress. Though most have been consent-conscious and good-hearted, in many cases their arousal pushed them to push me. Unlike some submissives, I do not feel sexy when tears are streaming down my face. I feel inconsolable: sad to the point of sickness. It always passes, and then I am often ready for hot mouths and hard cocks – but not before.

You know this. You wait. You give me gentle kisses and ample assurances. And if it is important, then, to blast the panic from my brain with an orgasm, you are well-equipped to do that too.

We attend a session together about anarchist D/s at a sex conference, and I cry more than I was expecting to. Which, let’s be real: I was expecting to cry a fair bit.

One panelist describes how care and love can look different in power-play dynamics than they do for vanilla folks, but they are still care and love. Case in point: their dom sometimes locks them in a closet to mitigate their panic attacks. I scribble furiously in my notebook: You’re safe in that small, contained space, and you don’t have to come out until someone else makes the choice for you. It would be reductive to say I sigh with relief. My whole body relaxes with a profound and transformative yes.

“You can use the world-building tools of D/s to create a safe space for someone who never feels safe,” the panelist continues. They glance over at their dom and earn a nod of approval. “It’s like: ‘I’m in charge here, so you have to believe what I say, and what I’m saying is that you are safe, because I said so.'”

You grab my thigh with your big warm hand, and I know you’re feeling what I’m feeling. Our eyes dart toward one another’s in silent recognition. Hot tears spill down my cheeks and onto my frazzled notes. Crying in public is one of my biggest fears, but I don’t feel scared now. Your steely blue eyes are holding mine like a wooden ship, like a dustjacket, like a pair of strong arms.

Later, in our hotel room, we wander into the closet, as if magnetically tugged. You shut the slatted door behind us. I breathe in the scent of your suit jacket hanging there, and, closer: you. The man I desperately love.

I think, as you begin to push me against a folded ironing board and kiss me hard, that we’ve messed up this thing we were trying to try. The idea was for you to leave me in the closet alone, see what it did to my anxiety. But, as per usual, you’ve joined me in my darkness. You don’t want me to be scared or to feel scared, to feel alone or to be alone. Your hand on my face makes it clear that I’m not.

There is a big metal safe in this closet, with a combination lock and a sense of heavy justice. But though I’m afraid of everything, I don’t want to lock myself away, because that would mean I’d have to stop touching you.

It is terrifying to rely on a person – any person – for one’s sense of safety, because that person could leave at any time. I learned this all too well last summer when my daddy dom – a role I had thought meant something along the lines of unconditional love and acceptance – dropped me in a flash. Once I had collected the shards of my broken heart off the floor, I vowed never to trust anyone that much again, never to rely on anyone that much again. These are not new or unique promises to make after a heartbreak, but we keep making them again and again because they feel that salient, that necessary.

However, in re-integrating into the world, I’ve come to see that no one is truly independent, nor is that necessarily a state to aspire to. For my sense of safety, I rely not only on you but on my friends, my family, even the characters in shows I watch on bad depression nights. “Needing others is perceived [in modern Western culture] as a weakness,” Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor write in their book On Kindness. “Dependence is scorned even in intimate relationships, as though dependence were incompatible with self-reliance rather than the only thing that makes it possible.”

You speak often of how you want our D/s dynamic to be a mentorship of sorts, prodding me toward my goals and shoring up my self-esteem. You are teaching me, little by little, to feel safe; to recognize and accept when I am safe. My body and brain are practicing this sensation under your watchful dominance. It is quite unlike any education I have ever endured.

BDSM is an infinite imaginative space, one that allows for off-the-wall roleplays and absurd scenarios. You can be a rock star, a pirate, an alien. But the situation I reach for most often in kink – the one that turns me on most potently, in my head and down my skirt – is simply that I am loved and I am safe.

This is telling. This is embarrassing, perhaps. And I don’t want to stop.

A Second Date in a Golden Room

Kate Sloan

Little one: I’m nervous and excited and nervous and excited about tomorrow
Sir: You like me so much you’re redundant
Little one: It wasn’t redundant, it was exactly the right amount of both things
Sir: Ughhhh. I want you. But I guess I gotta sleep one more time.
Little one:😭
Sir: Good night my sweet princess
Little one: Good night daddy. I hope you dream about all the things you want to do to/with/on me
Sir: Gulp. I will.

Our second date is at 7PM and I start getting ready at 2PM.

I can’t help it. I’ve been waiting so long for this night to come. An entire month. A month of slow-burn phone calls and scintillating sexts. A month of kink negotiation and feeling our way into our respective roles. A month of vulnerability, self-disclosure, learning, and (maybe) starting to fall in love.

I put my makeup on with precision and care. I step into red lace panties and clasp my matching bra. I slither into my tight black velvet dress, chosen weeks previous for this occasion specifically, tried on far too many times.

The other beau I’m staying with humors me and agrees to depart on our drive into the city at 5PM, which is fucking ridiculous. I know exactly how ridiculous it is. But I just. can’t. wait. any longer.

Sir: Turns out I’m also doing the way-too-early thing. But the café I’m at is closing at 6, so let me find somewhere better where we can meet
Little one: Oh my god that makes me feel so much better, I’m stressing so much about how early I’m gonna be hahah
Sir: Yeah I knew you would be. So I left early so you wouldn’t be alone
Little one: SIR
Sir: Little one. Gregory’s Coffee is open til 7.
Little one: I just read that exchange out loud to Dick and he was like, “Remember that. He’s a good one.”

My beau pulls over on a Manhattan side street and we hug and kiss goodbye. I try not to cry, lest I mess up the makeup I painstakingly applied hours ago. I smooth on some red lipstick in the rearview mirror and step out of the car. And then I wheel my little suitcase off into the night, wearing a cocktail dress and a knee-length winter coat. Stinging tears freeze on my cheeks in the January cold.

I glance up and down skittishly between the map on my phone and the street signs I pass. Two more blocks. My heart skips around wildly in my chest. One more block. I struggle to regulate my breathing and eventually give up. Half a block left. And then I see him.

He’s in an impeccable navy suit and shiny shoes, and he’s holding the door of the café open for me, and I feel like a goddamn princess. A princess who’s sweating through her coat.

We go in and sit down. He hands me his half-drunk cup of peppermint tea, and oh boy do I need it, because I am having an active anxiety attack. “Look at this,” I say helplessly as I hold out my shaking hands in front of me. “Do you see this?” He reminds me to breathe, and I sip the tea, and stare at this person I’ve talked to on the phone for dozens of hours but have only seen in person one other time before. It’s… surreal.

He holds my hand from across the table, calm and calming, as we catch up about our days. I start to feel a bit more normal, maybe. Or at least like I can handle these jitters if I put my mind to it.

As our dinner reservation nears, we pack up, put our coats on, and head out into the night. I’m still shaking a little, but I hide it well.

Little one: You have such nice long fingers. I noticed on our coffee date ’cause I’m a slut
Sir: Ooh, thinking about my hands. That’s hot. You noticed before we even kissed, wow
Little one: If I want to fuck someone, I always think about their hands
Sir: You’re a good little slut
Little one: I just know what I like. And I like your hands a lot
Sir: I wish I had held yours when we were walking back from the Breather
Little one: Aww. Yeah, that walk was weird. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me again
Sir: Oh nooo. Sorry, I was definitely reeling a little and worried that I had been gone too long and you were subspacey. A lot happened real fast. But yes, wanted to see you again aggressively.

He takes my hand immediately and easily once we’re outside. Like he’s been waiting a month to do that. Because he has.

We walk the block or two to Upland, easily one of the prettiest, fanciest restaurants I’ve ever been inside. While taking my coat, he leans in close and says, “Barack and Michelle love it here,” with an offhandedness I can’t quite believe. It just adds to my sense of this evening as something that isn’t really happening to me, but rather, is maybe a decadent hallucination I’m having from my bed at home in Toronto. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.

Our table isn’t ready yet, so we head to the bar and he orders me a cocktail without asking me what I want. It’s the sort of thing that would offend me if someone did it unprompted, but we’ve pre-negotiated this in many late-night chats, so it just sends a thrill through me. It reinforces the D/s dynamic we’ve been building, slowly and deliberately, over the phone. It shows me that his dominance is grounded in my reality.

He smirks at me as I taste it. It’s perfect, of course.

Little one: I’m really happy we’re going on a dinner date before we bang… because I think otherwise the immediacy of the banging would make me too nervous to enjoy the banging
Sir: Yes, I agree. Dates are underrated. And now I’m thinking about the place I’m taking you. And the specific kind of table I want. And the appetizers I wanna order you.
Little one: I’m so exciteeeeeddd!!!
Sir: You’re little and this place is big and fancy, but I think you can handle it
Little one: I’m gonna dress like a grown-up lady and be so good for you

Once we’ve been seated, I peruse the menu and notice a detail immediately that he no doubt meant for me to notice. One dish on the menu is cacio e pepe, the cheesy al dente pasta I fell in love with when my mom and I visited Rome last year. I asked him, on our first date, where one could get a decent cacio e pepe in New York, and he rattled off several answers from memory, impressing me immediately with his knowledge of this city I found so enchanting. And now he’s taken me somewhere beautiful that makes my favorite dish.

By my estimation, romance really boils down to enthusiasm, effort, and attention. I can see all three in his decision to take me here, specifically. It sets me swooning.

“She’ll have the cacio e pepe,” he tells the waiter, and I giggle irrepressibly like the spoiled princess that I am.

Sir: God I like you. Help.
Little one: I know a way I can help
Sir: Tell me more
Little one: I can come to New York, have flirty dinner ‘n’ drankz with you, and then maybe fuck you in a hotel? If that sounds doable?
Sir: You sound doable.

I haven’t called him “Sir” in person yet. This handsome besuited stranger across the table from me still feels disconnected in my mind from the playful, mysterious voice I’ve grown to adore on the phone. The boy who texts me puns and calls me “babygirl” over FaceTime is someone I know and trust; the person in front of me is… someone else. But I’m trying to bridge the gap.

It’s easier when he starts hurting me. Once our food has been ordered, he reaches across the table, as if to take my hand, like we’re any vanilla couple. But then he digs his nails into my skin, pinches me there, bringing the thrilling tension I’m feeling inside to the surface. “Sirrrr,” I say, for the first time tonight, wincing and smiling, both at once.

For sadomasochists like us, there is an intimacy to the exchange of pain – even moreso here, in public, where anyone looking at us must think we’re “normal” but inside we’re both screaming for him to bruise me, pummel me, lay me bare. I feel closer to him suddenly than I have all night, and my heartbeat hastens in half-pleasant panic.

But it is definitely still panic. I’ve never felt this nervous on a date in my life. Pre-date nerves are a thing, sure, but usually they melt away once I figure out who I’m dealing with. This distress has persisted, beating a hammer against my ribcage from inside me, shouting: You’re not supposed to be here, you know. This place, this boy, this night is all too nice for the likes of you. I dab my lipsticked mouth with my napkin and excuse myself. In the all-too-fancy restroom, I sit and tweet and try to breathe. I’m with someone who will keep me safe, at least. I know that much. I trust this stranger, because he isn’t really a stranger.

Little one: I feel like I’m floating and not real
Sir: You are floating and you are real.
Little one: Why does that make me want to make out with you? Answer: everything does
Sir: Yup, pretty much. Making out always makes things feel more real also. Because warm skin pressed against yours is hard to ignore.
Little one: Truuuue

I can’t finish my dinner because my stomach is clenching with fear and excitement about what comes next. But it’s okay; he likes me anyway.

We get our coats and my suitcase and huddle in the foyer, waiting for a Lyft. He stands so close to me, like our proximity is an inevitability. Like we’re magnets. He kisses me a little. I want to be kissed a lot.

In the car, we sit at opposite ends of the backseat, and he lifts an arm and says, “C’mere.” An effortlessly intimate gesture, and a much-needed one. I slide across the leather and settle against him, safe and warm. Maybe he can feel my heartbeat rat-tat-tatting under my coat.

I don’t know where he’s taking me. The hotel he’s chosen is a surprise. I don’t know what we are yet. Our future is a mystery.

But as New York City slides by outside the window, I decide it doesn’t really matter. I’m happy now, nerves or no nerves. I’m happy to be here with him.

Swallow Your Fear: A Deep Dive Into Deepthroating

Kate Sloan

Author’s note: A few weeks ago, I complained to my Sir that I wished I was better at deepthroating, and he mused, “Maybe I should design a curriculum.” He put together a list of resources (see the end of this post for the list, if you’re curious) and issued me an assignment: “Read, watch, and listen to the following media, and prepare a written reflection on what you learned and how you plan to incorporate these ideas.” What follows is that written reflection. (I got a grade of 90 out of 100, which is an A+, by the way!)

“Feel the fear and do it anyway.” –psychologist and self-help author Susan Jeffers

“Jump into the fear; it’s super fun.” –improvisor and improv coach Matt Folliott

“I have learned that there are two things I need in order to comfortably jump into a fear: a supportive, loving, respectful environment, and a little push.” –my journal, 2011

Over and over in my sex life, I have resolved to overcome a fear, pushed through it, and arrived on the other side blushing, grinning, and safe.

Sexual anxiety is a microcosm for anxiety I experience in my life more generally. Each discrete fear has a period of development and simmering, a point at which it reaches its terrifying zenith, and (provided I ever find the nerve) a moment when I face the fear head-on and inevitably learn, once again, that nothing is ever as scary as I initially believe it to be. When I conquer sexual fears in this way, I see afresh that any fear worth conquering can be conquered like this: through incremental efforts and then one big leap.

I’ve long feared deepthroating, despite it being a significant kink of mine for several years. The discomfort of cramming a foreign object into one’s throat, the subsequent panic when one’s gag reflex is tripped, and the sense of failure when it doesn’t go as planned all contribute to my view of deepthroating as more daunting than arousing (and I find it plenty arousing, so that’s saying something). However, in devouring the deepthroating curriculum thoughtfully prepared for me by my Sir, I encountered countless iterations of an idea I already knew but had never really applied to deepthroating before: that sometimes, the way to get over a fear is simply to wade into the intense feelings it brings up, stay there, and sit with those feelings awhile.

Much has been written on the technical skills involved in deepthroating. Many guides recommend isolating and becoming aware of your throat muscles, through methods such as yawning and swallowing, so as to be able to relax them voluntarily. Many also recommend certain positions, like the classic “head hanging upside-down over the edge of the bed” pose, which align the throat with the mouth to minimize gagging. Most also suggest practicing on a dildo, so you get the hang of coordinating throat relaxation with carefully-timed breathing and head-bobbing before bringing a partner into the equation.

But beyond physical tricks, almost all these guides insist that you relax, stay with the discomfort instead of running away from it, and push yourself a little further each time. This advice is easy to dismiss – “Tell me something actually helpful,” I’d often think with an eye-roll while reading these so-called tips for the umpteenth time – but it’s a process you shouldn’t knock until you try it. It’s also the same process I’ve used to face – and successfully overcome – almost every fear I’ve ever vanquished.

This recurrent advice also forced me to realize how much of my deepthroating apprehension relates to what a partner will think of me if I deepthroat him “unsuccessfully” or clumsily. Will I look silly? Will he be disappointed or annoyed? Will he think me sexually unskilled? As with most of my sexual anxieties, these are largely unfounded: most folks are thrilled to receive enthusiastic oral sex, even if it lacks technical finesse. Besides which, sex is best when there is a mutual agreement – whether explicitly stated or implicitly understood – to accept each other as you are, in all your potential silliness and ineptitude, because sex is about your connection, not arbitrary benchmarks you try to hit like sexual athletes.

Part of what appeals to me about other intense sex acts, like spanking and fisting, is the mutual trust and vulnerability involved in one partner consensually pushing the other to their physical and emotional limits. I see no reason I can’t view deepthroating through that same lens: as something I attempt, and may find scary, and may fail at, but will be supported in my fear and my failure by my partner (and, hopefully, myself).

It is okay to be bad at things. It is okay to find things scary. Just push yourself a little further, try a little harder, relax a little deeper, and be a little gentler with yourself. Day by day by day, you will probably improve. And also it’s okay if you don’t.

Deepthroating curriculum as prepared by my Sir:
• “What are some good tips for deep throating?” (Quora thread)
• iDeepThroat instructional video (starring my fave, Heather Harmon)
• “17 people reveal how they learned to deepthroat” (ThoughtCatalog article)
• “Learning to deepthroat and relax your gag reflex” (Slut Academy article)
• “3 women get super honest about deepthroating” (Cosmopolitan article)
• “Adventures in deepthroat” (Girl on the Net guest post)

Terrified to Run Into Your Ex? Here’s How to Deal…

Kate Sloan

‘Cause I know I am! [Laughs a joyless laugh that eventually peters out into sad awkwardness]

One of the ways my anxiety manifested, in the months after my last break-up, was a near-constant fear that I would run into my ex – on the street, in a store, in a coffee shop. This was exacerbated by the unfortunate fact that I moved into an apartment coincidentally near his, mere weeks after the break-up. Worst.

In working through this anxiety with my therapist, talking to friends about it, and journaling about it, I came up with a bit of wisdom on this. Here are a few questions to ask yourself if the thought of running into your ex terrifies you. It’s not much, but hopefully it’ll help you if you’re going through something similar.

What’s the worst that could happen? One of my best friends is a social worker, so she knows all the smart questions to ask me when I’m spiralling into anxiety – and she asked me this every time I mentioned this fear to her.

Here’s my personal “worst that could happen,” with regards to running into my ex: I could run into him while he’s with a partner of his, and while I’m rumpled/makeupless/depressed-looking, and they could both look at me pityingly and/or attempt to talk to me. This could result in me bursting into tears, which would, of course, make the whole situation even more embarrassing and pathetic.

Stating my “worst-case scenario” makes it clear to me that even if the worst happened, it wouldn’t actually be that bad. I’d get through it. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve cried in front of someone it’s embarrassing to cry in front of, nor would it be the first time I’ve seen a former flame with their achingly gorgeous new paramour. I got through those other times. I didn’t fall into a chasm in the earth from pure and total humiliation. I’m still here. And the same will be true if I run into this ex, too.

Do you really have anything to feel bad about? This is another question my social-worker friend posed to me, and she’s so right. She picked up on my feeling that it would be shameful for me to run into my ex – like I should hide from him, because the end of our relationship was somehow a failing on my part. But the thing is, it wasn’t! He ended the relationship, for reasons personal to him, and it wasn’t my doing or my fault. I have nothing to feel ashamed of. I can reasonably hold my head high if I do encounter him.

Even if you did do something wrong in your relationship, it’s likely by now that you’ve either owned up to it and apologized for it or that enough time has elapsed that both of you have moved on with your lives for the most part. If you feel you still owe your ex an apology, maybe you can reach out and issue that apology. But otherwise – why feel bad if you run into your ex? Why hide your face like you’re a pariah to them? There’s no reason for it!

Could you get away if you needed to? A friend reminded me that even if I did run into my ex and he did try to talk to me, I would always have the recourse of simply ignoring him and walking away. I would not be obligated to enter into that interaction if I didn’t want to.

If escaping your ex is an actual safety concern for you – i.e. if they had/have abusive tendencies and/or you think they’re upset enough with you that they might try something violent if they saw you – you could try using a safety app like bSafe whenever you’re in a neighborhood where your ex might be, and maybe consider some self-defense options if that’s your style. (Pepper spray isn’t legal where I live, and sometimes, when random men follow me down the street late at night, I wish it was…)

What would make you feel stronger? A lot of the cognitive-behavioral therapy I’ve done has focused on the practice of accepting the things I cannot change and changing the things I do have control over. In this case, that means figuring out what would help me feel less freaked out about running into my ex, and putting those measures into place.

I used to wear dark sunglasses and headphones when I had to walk in the direction of my ex’s place, so I could plausibly ignore him if I did see him. I’d put on clothes and makeup that made me feel strong. I’d often text a friend about my situation so I felt emotionally supported in what felt like a brave act. I’d listen to music that made me feel happy and badass. And for the most part, it worked!

Have you ever been afraid to run into an ex? How did you deal with it?

3 Versions of Myself I Access Through Fragrances

Kate Sloan

“John Varvatos” by John Varvatos

I am a cisgender woman, but it is just not that simple. Gender never is.

In high school, I used to describe my eclectic personal style as a mix between a 1950s pinup girl, a 1980s teen queen, and a British schoolboy. Elements of the latter only snuck into my outfits occasionally – a collared shirt here, a silk striped necktie there – but I always felt that schoolboy somewhere below the surface, particularly as I came into my queer identity. Pursuing girls, giggling and blushing at girls in the school cafeteria, training my gaze on girls in an unabashedly desirous manner – these all brought out a butchness in me, for lack of a better term; a hard sharpness on the edges of my otherwise plush femininity.

I wondered – and still sometimes wonder – whether my once-in-a-blue-moon dalliances with dapperness are more an homage to a person I want to be, or a person I want to fuck. But then, maybe those two categories are always a Venn diagram, and it’s just a question of how much overlap exists in your personal version.

When I peruse fragrances online, I’m most drawn to notes I associate with masculinity: leather, oak, tobacco, sandalwood. It all sounds terribly sexy, for much the same reason I sigh and swoon when I encounter phrases like “blue striped button-down with the sleeves rolled up” or “freshly shined leather wingtips.” These aesthetic elements sit right in the centre of my Venn diagram of attraction and aspiration: a sweet spot where I can equally imagine myself pinned against a wall by a ravishing man who is kissing me, or being that man.

I ordered a sample of John Varvatos’ self-titled fragrance because a male xoJane writer described it as smelling “[like] you spilled a chai latte into an old leather jacket.” I could see it so clearly. Flirting with a leather-clad heartthrob in a bustling café, all waxy hair pomade and smug bravado – or being that heartthrob, and not needing to ponder petty concerns like gender, because chai and leather and flirty nerve are genderless and always have been.

There are some “men’s” fragrances that feel like drag when I wear them, coming off incongruously boyish on little ol’ femmey me. But John Varvatos melts into my skin and my gender with an uncomplicated ease. It’s masculine and powerful and sexy and bold, but coexists peacefully with my femininity and softness and docility. It’s like a men’s leather jacket I might steal from a boyfriend, that looks beefcake-handsome on him, but adorably spunky on me. It’s masc but it’s not a mask. It’s the brashest kind of boy this cis femme lady can ever be.

I love it. I want to wear it every day. I want to feel this attuned to all my gender-peculiar facets at every moment. I don’t ever want to lose that.

“Carnal Flower” by Frederic Malle

Like anyone who’s lived in a particular city for a long time, I have personal rituals tied to certain places and activities in my city. Like any introvert, many of my personal rituals involve being alone.

There are some activities I will not do alone. Though I love attending improv shows at places like Comedy Bar and the Bad Dog Theatre, I cannot go to a show solo; sipping a beer in a claustrophobic bar before the show cranks my social anxiety up to eleven, as my bad brain hallucinates judgmental eyes lingering on me from across the crowd. Likewise, I will not go to local sex club Oasis Aqualounge unless I am meeting at least one person there; the libidinous glances and bold advances of disingenuous lotharios aren’t worth enduring, even to languish in Oasis’ beauteous heated pool under the stars.

One thing I do love to do alone, however, is go to the theatre. In particular: Soulpepper, in the Distillery District.

There is something classy, mysterious, and refined about attending the theatre alone, at least in my imagination. I select shows carefully every year, spacing out my tickets so I never have to go longer than a couple months without one of these pilgrimages. It’s a special, pre-planned night out, like taking myself on a date. I get dressed up, do my makeup, spritz on some scent. When I used to live in the east end, I would get on the King streetcar, clutching a little leather purse and walking with purpose, and ride it down to the Distillery. Once there, I walk along the dimly-lit cobblestone streets, sometimes wobbling in heels (the theatre is one of the only occasions I deem worthy of heels), until I reach the warm, bright, elegant lobby of the Soulpepper theatre.

The crowd is different there from my usual haunts; it’s a lot of older people, married couples, mature professionals. Whereas swilling beer alone in the crowded Comedy Bar makes me feel like people are staring at me and think I’m weird, sipping a pint of Tankhouse in Soulpepper’s lobby gets me almost no attention at all. Everyone bustles softly around the space, waiting for the house to open, cooing gently at the posters of coming attractions, greeting each other with warm enthusiasm. There is no culture of cruising, scoping, judging or partying. I am almost always the youngest person in the room, but am otherwise invisible.

Stripped of other people’s projections, then, I am free to be whomsoever I please, and to be that woman in peace. And at Soulpepper – a brick and wood haven full of quiet theatre devotees – I am a mature, sophisticated young woman, elegant in my little dress and little shoes. I am precious and put-together, confident and collected. I am a nonexistent but aspirational vision of myself.

Frederic Malle’s Carnal Flower is often described as a “dangerous” or “sexy” scent, but I don’t get that from it at all. On me, it’s floral, summery, and feminine in a way I have never quite been. Helena Fitzgerald describes the woman evoked by this perfume as “the kind of woman I had once thought could wear perfume while I couldn’t… I am not her; through perfume I could try on her life as a costume.” I feel this too: when I wear Carnal Flower, I can gather up my guts, my smudged eyeliner and scuffed boots and crooked teeth, and compress myself into a lither, lovelier little lady. A lady who might – for example – waltz up to the bar in the Soulpepper lobby, order a glass of white wine, and sit sipping it on a leather chaise without once worrying what anyone thinks of her.

“Acqua di Gio” by Giorgio Armani

I’ve told you before about my conflicted love affair with Acqua di Gio. It’s the signature scent of someone I used to love, who never loved me in the same way. My heart’s year-long tussle with this man was all wild hope tempered with crushing disappointment. One followed the other, like a dance. We’d have a good night out, laughing over beers and sandwiches – and then I wouldn’t hear from him for days. We’d share sex so intimate, it made me believe those who use “intimacy” as a euphemism for sex – and then he’d declare how much he valued my friendship. He’d tell me that we were on the same wavelength, that we were meant to stick around in each other’s lives, that our connection was special and deep – and then he’d go off grinning goofily on dates with random women from OkCupid, looking for “the one.” I remained the one he left behind.

If I’d never been in love with someone who wore Acqua di Gio, probably its inhalation would strike me only as mildly pleasant. It might remind me of oceans, cucumbers, or musky muscled strangers fresh out of the shower. But I have been in love with someone who wore it, so when Acqua di Gio crosses my nostrils, it’s a guilty hit of glee. An endorphin rush I quickly work to suppress. Wild hope, as I’ve said, tempered with crushing disappointment.

This is a problematic reaction to have to a fragrance as ubiquitous as Acqua di Gio. I rarely go a week without passing someone on the street who’s wearing it. Every time, every damn time, I’m struck with the pins-and-needles feeling that haunted me throughout that ordeal: Will he ever love me? Why doesn’t he love me? How do I make him love me? Why doesn’t he love me? That love has since faded, but the scent is a time trigger, dragging me back into that pit I spent so long clawing my way out of. It’s a lot to grapple with, on a street corner, surrounded by strangers.

So I became interested in reclaiming the scent, reworking its fraught associations, like exposure therapy. I read an xoJane article about this a while back, and the idea resonated hard. When friends go through breakups, I tell them to make new memories in the locations that remind them of their ex – why not do the same with a scent?

There are times, while I’m wearing Acqua di Gio, when I catch a primal whiff and sink back into nostalgic sadness, wanting that Prince Charming and the promise of happiness he dangled just out of my reach. But then there are other times when I breathe deep and realize I am that Prince Charming, I can be happy, and I can and will save myself. There is hope. There is always hope.