Names

Last night I was at a kink event which I had organized, and someone decided to adress the group.  I was fine with this but then she called me by my real name.  Then she apologized.  Then she did it again.

I spoke with her about this privately and she said to me that first names don’t mean much to her.  I told her, maybe they don’t mean much to you but they mean something to me.  Maybe in your line of work you don’t think it’s important. (Oh wait, I think she’s a student who doesn’t even have a fucking job other than modeling for BDSM books.)  But I do something where my reputation is important, and where I have other battles to fight than defending my sex life.  You pose nude for fetish books whereas I don’t have a single face picture online.

She told me, “It’s just I don’t know you by any other name.” This rang hollow to me.  I never introduced myself by that name, I introduced myself as Spoke.  She knew my real name because she was briefly fucking a friend of mine.  She saw me get angry at him for using it in public, for telling her.The claim of ignorance does not stand up.

So was it intentional? Who cares.  And really, what’s worse? The lack of integrity displayed by pretending to forget a limit or the carelessness with private information and boundaries of others?  What a poor display of character.

Taking the night

This post was written in my habit of being hard on myself (and others).  It contains my thinking about the way I see the world, about ideas I have which are not necessarily right, and they don’t make me look that good.  Its subject matter is stranger assault, so if that’s not what you can handle reading about, then skip it.

I was riding the bus home the other night, the ride was cold after a hot night of lovemaking.  It’s not a long ride but it takes two buses to get my from my lover’s home to my own.  I thought I was presenting pretty butch that night, with my pants low, my running shoes, and a boxy pinstripe jacket.  My face was hidden in a scarf and hat which I left on in the bus. I felt good, was I maybe swaggering a bit? Getting on my second bus, I met for an instant the eyes of a man who was sitting beside me on the long seats at the back of the bus, a few feet away.  I didn’t look right at him the rest of the ride but I sensed his attention was on me.  I was not interested in him; he looked not quite sober. A bit drunk?  A bit outside of my reality somehow?

Watching consent fly away (Somewhat eating my hat)

The other night I was implicated in a situation where I did not put my money where my mouth is in regards to consent. Of course as I have bitched again and again about consent issues, I feel like I ought to own up to this and take responsibility.

At a public event I was tying up a man I had never met before, when another woman started teasing him a bit from across the room. I assumed they were friends or perhaps even lovers of some sort. Eventually she came up and poked at him a bit, I think tickled him. I found this weird because earlier he had made a comment to me about not wanting to be tickled when I accidentally touched him a way that elicited this. I thought it was strange she would do that. Eventually she went away.

I asked the man if they were friends and he said that he knew her, but not that well, “Not well enough that she would be touching me.”

Later on she came back to goad him and poke at him some more. He very clearly told her, “No, go away.” a few times and she kept up. She kept making eye contact with me in a way that seemed to suggest she thought I would approve, maybe I would play along. But the more this went on the more irritated I got, and the more unhappy the bottom was getting. Eventually I told her that it’s a bit rude to continue bugging someone after they say No, and she left a bit after.

Afterwards they had a conversation in private, where I understand she communicated that she thought he was at fault in the situation.

By the time I had some moments to process all this I felt ashamed that I had not stepped in firmer, sooner. Sometimes I am slow to process new situations. I had never met either of these two people, I have only ever once tied someone up in a group, and I had never been in this group. At first I was not sure of my judgment. I thought maybe it was OK somehow, that I was missing some part of the dynamic.

While I certainly think and talk about consent a lot, it seems that I have a bit of practice to do regarding my reactions on the ground. Once I had a few minutes to process, it occurred to me that since I was the one tying this man up it was probably up to me to protect him from bullshit like that, as what he had available, his words, were not working for him. I am hoping that if this situation happens again I will step up a little bit more. Often I am not to good at dealing with a new situation the first time, but I am a quick study so its my sincere hope that next time I act differently.

I told the man this, I apologized for not having stepped in sooner. I told him that it was totally inappropriate and he agreed with me, and we talked about it a bit. I asked him if he wanted to tell the organizers about it but he did not. I just wish I had been more of a gentleman.

Gender in this situation

I wonder if this gender had been reversed, if I (and others around) would have let this go on so long.

A book which has been really central to my understanding of women and their relationship to power is Kill the Body and the Head Will Fall, an under-read book if there ever was one. The author takes a confrontational and critical stance against feminism in general, which may be a reason it has not been accepted by feminists. However it is an excellent (if a bit dated at this point) study of how women are taught to relate to their capacity for violence and aggression.

In this book I learned about how we are taught systematically to see ourselves as essentially weak creatures. The impacts of this are many, but one is that we don’t know our own strength, and can sometimes behave in quite threatening ways, though the outcomes of this are minimized by a culture that teaches us we have little capacity for violence. I’m sure we can all recall seeing a woman punch a male friend hard in the arm, and how he sort of pretended like it didn’t hurt. I have done this myself though I like to think I have done an alright job of untraining myself from this behaviour.

Of course this might not be what’s going on at all. This could have been a malicious attack with full knowledge of what was happening. My gut tells me otherwise though. I feel like in some part of this woman, deep down, she is thinking “I can’t possibly hurt him” because she has been taught all her life that she is powerless.  But it’s just not true.

Yes, yes, yes! Thoughts about safewords

Well I’ve been working on this for a while. It’s a long one but I think I got out what I needed to. I wanted to elaborate on something I touched on briefly in my post about Kapital Kink:

Someone expressed the opinion that if a bottom doesn’t safeword, a top is absolved of responsibility for their actions, which made me want to scream for various different reasons. It made me feel good that other people challenged him about this, because actually I think that idea is flat out Wrong and Dangerous.  (And this I know from hard Experience which I will not relate here.)

Let’s start from basic principals. What’s a safeword? A safeword is a word that means “no” or “stop” in a context when it has been agreed that “no” doesn’t mean “no”.

I find it weird that many folk seem to consider a safeword essential to power play.  Personally, my kink is on giving away control, so when I say “no” it usually means “no”.  When I get to know someone better, and I think they know me enough, I might want to go to a place where I would say “no” but still maintain consent.  But to me that is much more intimate, and demands the top or Dom to have a much better understanding of me. As I see it, this goes contrary to the conventional wisdom, some of which contends that a safeword is critical at the beginning, but can be dropped more safely as a rapport is created.

(This post focuses mainly on safewords in regards to pain play. It is written from my experience as a submissive bottom masochist.)

Kapital Kink over and done with

Well, Kapital Kink finally came and went.

I had fun setting up for the fetball.  I liked hanging around with the folks I was hanging around with, and I liked putting stuff up and being useful.  I liked working at the door during it because I got to talk with people and hang around.  I am not really one to go out alone into a full, loud room, and make friends. But with something to do and a reason to be standing around cahtting I am happy.   I found out that a fet ball is basically what I imagained it to be and of very little appeal in and of itself.  I am really not a fetishist.

All the workshops I went to were great.

Andrea Zannin’s Dance of D/s workshop was first.  I actually wasn’t intending on going to it, but then I did anyway.  I was glad I did because it didn’t involve the “hands on” that sounded intensely awkward in a group of mostly strangers.

Then there was a discussion about rope bottoming which was a bit interesting.  There was some discussion about consent and rules about obtaining consent.  Someone expressed the opinion that if a bottom doesn’t safeword, a top is absolved of responsibility for their actions, which made me want to scream for various different reasons. It made me feel good that other people challenged him about this, because actually I think that idea is flat out Wrong and Dangerous.  (And this I know from hard Experience which I will not relate here.)

This was followed by a presentation by Morpheous about using finer cords than usual, like yarn and thread, to tie up fingers and toes.  I liked the fingers the best, personally.  It was totally cute when he tied the fingers of his bottom (sub I think?) and then made her go get him a drink.  Maybe I will do it to myself and take a picture, but I will definitely have to get someone to help with the camera for that.

And at the end Sir Dart gave exactly the kind of workshop I wanted to go to about rope: it was about the interpersonal dynamics of tying someone up.  I have to say that out of everyone I met the whole weekend, Dart was the sexiest.  As part of his workshop, he tied my friend up, and I was so incredibly jealous the whole time.

And while all this was going on I got to meet some awesome folks and made some more friends in Ottawa, I think.  I hope to keep in touch with these folks once i get back from Toronto (if I ever get there…).

Blowjobs

The last few blowjobs I have given have all been so hot.  Here was one that has made my hungry for more cock in my mouth.

I went over to his house past midnight, and the heat between us was so intense it felt like we were melting. Have I ever looked in someone’s eyes quite like that before?  My heart was expanding and searching him out with my fingertips.  The occasional furtive pinching and pulling of hair were exactly enough to keep my blood flowing fast and my heart opening my whole body.  We tried to stop it but I kept falling to my knees and his cock kept working out of his pants.

The whole situation was perfect to draw all my sexual energy into my face: the narrative we were creating with our words, his fingers in and on my mouth, the kisses we gave in to, the slaps.  My lips and cheeks were red and I actually felt the muscles in my iris contracting to grow my pupils and take in more of him.  I was so greedy that night, I wanted to open every little bit of myself up, so he could take from me.

Drinking his jizz was really the only way it could have ended.  I don’t remember gagging at all.  Maybe I did, I can’t actually recall many details by this point, I was so high on eroticism.  I must have moaned as I felt his pleasure running through his body.  I probably pressed my breasts into his thighs.  I probably kissed him afterwards.  I was satisfied by this service.  I tried masturbating a little while later but there is not use when all the erotic energy is in my face like that: a blowjob is really all that I will want.

I know you will

What have dykes done for kink?

Well, well, well.  I feeling all pleased with What has feminism done for kink? But in the fetlife group where I posted it, after a bunch of nice compliments I got schooled by Playful Pet.  I am going to take some time to think about this and then I will study this further.  Unfortunately I am pretty embroiled in school and completely broke so nothing involving books is happening for the next few months.    She gave me permission to repost what she said here.  It’s really interesting and you should read it.

With all due respect, please read up on The Feminist Sex Wars, also known as the Lesbian Sex Wars.

Those original Consent Arguements were written and argued by LESBIANS, more often then not Feminists. Lesbians, actually Leatherdykes, were the first women to open women owned and operated sex stores specifically designed for women, they were the first women ever to create lesbian porn by women, for women, known as On Our Backs. It was the Leatherdykes who came out of the Closet and sounded the Alarm regarding Women and AIDS during the first Wave of the AIDS crises in the eighties early 1990s, it was Leatherdykes that went around creating a Feminism known as Sex Positive Feminism, along with Leatherbykes, a few out straight Leatherwomen, as well as some more mainstream Vanilla women, especially women in the Sex Industry.

It was Leatherdykes that created the very first Safe Sex Campaigns that talked about Women and HIV, this was back in the day when the Feminist Movement was quite Homophobic, and really couldn’t care less about “bad” women, such as lesbians, women in the sex trade, poor women, etc. were starting to die from AIDS and how there was no research, hell, no acknowledgement regarding Women and AIDS at all, being that it was a “homosexual disease,” a “gay mens disease.”

It was Leatherdykes that had the first ever public Women Only SM Play Parties, It was Leatherdykes who went to the feminist coffee houses and readings and bravely stood up in front of thirty to fifty Feminist women and read out stories depicting BDSM, many times facing a whole room of women screaming at them, “betrayer, abuser, criminal, sexual deviant,” and so forth.

There is also something known as Feminist BDSM and Feminist BDSM principals that has been around for almost thirty years. Read the New Bottoming Book by Janet Harding and Dossie Eastman, to get a concise depiction of Feminist BDSM, and it’s counterpart, The New Topping Book. There is the concept of Full Powered Bottom, and Full Powered Submissive, main building blocks of Feminist BDSM, an alternative version of BDSM. Like I said…been around for, Oh, ALMOST THIRTY YEARS.

With respect, it was also, in Canada, Gay Leathermen and Leatherdykes, who fought almost every single legal fight up through the Supreme Court of our Country, which lead to the reality where it is now safe to have public BDSM clubs in our communities, and safe for all the pansexual folks to come out and play. We did this back in the seventies, eighties and nineties, before the Internet, when straight BDSMers simply, as a whole community refused to Come Out and fight the legal Fights.

Leatherdykes and Leatherbykes have been Leaders in creating and discussing alternative versions of BDSM, FeminisM & BDSM AND Sex Positive Feminism for almost FORTY years now.

So with all due respect, when you’re talking about “What Feminists have Done for BDSM,” you might want to stop trying to make Mainstream anti porn Feminism look like it is somehow currently and has been in the past, friends of Leatherwomen, and go over the Lesbian History Group, or the Old Guard Group, or hell, even the Leatherdyke threads and say a much, much too late “thank you,” to all of us, who literally got our asses kicked, got shunned from our communities, got thrown out of Feminist communties and groups, face hatred by mainstream feminism, real serious hatred and predjudice, so that all women into BDSM ALL women, of ALL sexual orienations, and ALL women in general, would have an Alternative version of female sexuality, represented to them, one that was rooted in Woman as Sexual Agent instead of Woman as Sexual Victim.

Oh, and by the way, all those silly dildoes you see in your stores shaped liked dolphins, and rabbits, and goddessess and the such? It was Leatherdykes, who taught themselves how to make silicone dildoes, and then went, in their basements many a time, exploring how to create dildoes and other sex toys that didn’t look like male genitalia, in order to help ALL women explore their sexuality more fully, and not feel threatened or frightened by such things as “dildoes.” Or have to face the shaming arguement that you we’re “aping the patriarchy,” and ‘supporting men,” if you dared to stick something up your cunt for masturbation purposes, or desired to fuck your guy or girl in the ass.

Without out the very real blood sweat and tears of the first Leatherdykes who dared to take on Andrea Dworking and her like of Anti Porn Feminists, communities such as Fetlife, both online and offline, would not exist today. Nor would women owned sex stores for women, nor would masturbation workshops, and women created porn, etc. Please, whether your friends with homosexual women or not, acknowledge and show respect to the lesbian and bisexual Leatherwomen who sacrificed and fought so deep, so hard and at times, so angrily, so demandingly, so danm OFFENSIVELY, for the right of all women to define their sexuality and sexual experiences for themselves, by themselves, instead of having a bunch of Pro Censorship and Anti Porn Mainstream Feminists define their sexuality and sexual experiences FOR them.

Thank You and In Sisterhood, Playful Pet

Proud Baby Sister of 1980s/early 1990s Leatherdykes, The original Sex Positive Feminists, and writers of the Original BDSM Consent Arguements.

Then someone challenged her further and she said,

The writer of the thread seems to want to equate all Feminism as being Pro BDSM, Pro Porn, and helpful to BDSM, when the truth is, much Feminist Theory and Sexual Analyses, historically and even today, has been anything BUT friendly to BDSM. Sex Positive Feminism, which Leatherdykes and a few other women, created in response to Anti POrn and Mainstream Feminism HAS been extremely instruemental, and I’ve listed all sorts of examples of that, and simply pointing out that it was not simply Lesbians, that Leatherdykes who were at the forefront of all of this.

Considering that we’ve just gotten the most extreme anti porn laws ever, brought into Britain, which are extremely detrimental to the BDSM community there, as they basically make even taking pictures of your OWN bruises and showing them online a criminal offense, with jail time, and that many a mainstream Feminist Organization helped get these laws in place, I think it’s simply unwise, sending a message that Feminism, in general has been Pro BDSM, when in fact, it has not.

It is also wise, to give credit where credit is due, to make sure that the women whose lives and relationships were deeply affected by the impact of coming out as Leatherdykes and fighting the Anti Porn Feminists, be acknowledged. And that all they gave to us, including a New Brand of Feminism, be acknowledge. Saying they are “all feminists,” erases and makes invisible not just that they were Lesbian Feminists but that they were also Leatherdykes, and some Leatherdykes who weren’t particularly Feminist as well. Our history and our visibility within the larger Feminist History and Womens History is important to us.

And so I was just making sure that it WAS visible. Generally when one says, “Feminist,” it’s heterosexual feminst histories or perspectives that are acknowledged, white, middle class, able bodied, heterosexual feminist histories. Thus it’s not okay to erase the “Lesbian” or the “Leatherdyke” from this history, as it pretty much then returns us to Invisbility status. smile There is such a thing as “revising history,” to erase those deeds or activities that make your own group look bad in the eyes of those reading the history books. Mainstream Feminism and Anti Porn, sometimes known as Anti Sex Feminism, has caused all sorts of women, especially Leatherwomen and lesbians all sorts of harm. It’s not okay to erase that or even imply that this kind of harm has never happened.

And furthermore

Sadly, there has been alot of revising and full out erasing of the 80s and 90s years of Feminist History, especially where the Sex Wars are concerned, it seems, at least in Canada. That also takes out all the politics of the Pride Movement, which is a cultural movement, separate but connected to the Human Rights Legal Movement. For a really good description of Pride MOvements in General, I recommend www.disabledandproud.com which discusses both Black Pride and LGBT Pride Movements in its discussion of the fledgling Disability Pride Movement which is in its Baby Steps of Creation.

Regarding Feminsm and BDSM, again, for some strange reason, there’s been almost a complete erasure of it from the Internet, but there’s a Great Leathercrip by the name of Trinity (I personally coined the term “Leathercrip,” in order to bring issues of sex, disability and lgbt pride issues together, and those of us trying to be a “second wave,” so to speak of Freedom of Sexual Choice Warriors who happened to be people with disabilities, mostly women with disabilities actually.) Anyways, Trinity like me, is feeling pretty burned out these days, but she has a great Web Site, Let Them Eat Pro SM Feminist Space which is GREAT for intellectual and academic arguements. I’m not an Academic Feminist myself, more of a Street Feminist. I also have a blog, which has other writers on it as well, on Sex and Disability called SexAbility It’s waaaay less academic, and when I share, it’s much more emotional, raw, and well, “street level,” I wouldn’t have a chance of holding my own academically the way Trinity does. I discuss alot of BDSM, Feminism, Sex Wars, etc. related topics on that at times as well. I’ve been taking some time off writing on it, as of late, because I’ve just felt so burned out, trying to keep the memory alive, and doing my part to fight this second wave that is rising, with the focus being on Internet Porn, but, as always, they use alot of the BDSM websites, and gay porn especially, to make their points that it’s dangerous to women and children.

Lesbian Sex Wars by Emma Heally

Lesbian Sex Scandals Quite “heady” this one is, very academic, but interesting if you can wade through it.

Coming to Power THIS is a classic, and every Leatherwoman entering into BDSM, regardless of sexual orientation should read it, simply because it’s part of Leatherwomen History. I haven’t read it myself, because it was out of print for a long time, and I’m thrilled to see that I might be able to buy it online! SQUEAL of excitement LOL

I am by NO WAY an ‘expert,” at all on this period, being that I was coming out gay and growing up during it. You could say my memories and perspective is that of a “Civilian,” during the war, and because I have been poor and struggled with disabilities most of my adult life, therefor living on the margins of society both lesbian and straight, until recently, I guess in my experience, those “wars” never really ended. Certainly, as I say, not with whats happening over in Britain, which, should be of special concern to Canadian Leather Folks as we’re currently negotiating to get into the European Union, not simply free trade, but equalizing some of our laws, etc. as well, so we can all work over there and them over here.

Here’s some info on that:

Englands Extreme Porn Laws and BDSM

Feminists Against Censorship

Surviving the Extreme Porn Law

SCOTLAND: Jail for Downloading extreme sex images

I am a sleazy old lady

Last night I was tying someone up, and though we had agreed to keep it to ropes and not D/s or anything else, I found myself falling a bit into top space.  (I kept checking in with that being OK, which it was.)

I was thinking about the slight changes in my character which happen when I am topping.  Not changes even, more like increased emphasis.  My Dom persona seems to

• Want to rub my my body against the bottom
• Want to nuzzel and kiss and bite
• Be a bit patronizing
• Feel quite confident
• Feel very comfortable squeezing and groping near strangers
• Want to make approving hummy kinds of noises
• Want to jerk the bottom around once he’s bound
• Want to make my bottom uncomfortable (or cause him pain) and then talk about how he’s feeling uncomfortable, and I know it, and I am going to let it continue
• Desire stillness, especially  through force
• Try to find out how the bottom is feeling, and demand an adequate answer
• Love knowing I have monopoly over sexual aspects of the scene (like I can kiss and grope and rub and lick, or demand these, but I get to say when and how always)

These are all aspects of myself which I carry around with me all the time but they seem to come to the surface more when I feel like I am in charge.  The way I am seems to remind me or a really dirty, sleazy old lady, which is an aspect of myself I have known about for a long time.

In other news:

• My friend gave me a digital camera which I am trying to find batteries for (I had them last night, where did they go? I blame The Kitten.)
• Tying with hemp is fun.
• I was having fun making masks out of tenser bandages.

A terrible date

A short while back someone messaged me on fetlife, a dom guy who had a vague profile but seemed able to articulate himself well enough in writing. Actually too well in writing, his emails were really fricken long.  But given how much I complain about short and uninsightful emails I was not about to count that to his detriment.

I basically use messaging to determine if I am not interested in someone.  A lot like the concept of speed dating.  I’m not too interested in protracted correspondence, which I often fail to keep up my end of, so I opt instead to just make a coffee or beer date once I have the time.  (If anyone is reading this who I at one time simply failed to reply to, it’s not necessarily because I am disinterested so much as I am terrible at keeping up my emails, which is a reason why I tend not to want to rely on them much.  Don’t feel offended, just remind me about you if you are still interested.)

So anyway I said, OK let’s meet up.

We met up and I knew right away that I was not going to be interested in this person.  I am good at reading compatibility with people and this guy didn’t have it.  But I will always give a person a fair chance, if we both schedule time out of our lives to get together, I give the benefit of the doubt, because I do enjoy being proved wrong in such matters.

So we made our way to a pub, ordered a drink.  He ordered a respectable beer which was a point for him.  I will not number the points against him except for the final part of our conversation which would have had the exact same end result no matter what he had done or said or appeared as previously.

It started innocently enough, although somewhat contentious, which is how I like my introductory conversations.  We were talking about religions.  I mentioned Judaism as being fairly harmless.  (Although I did that more because I was interested in his views on the matter than because it’s exactly what I believe.  There are certainly many crimes and much blood on the hands of the Israeli state, but that is complex and not the same as Judaism.)

Then he told me this story about how on Second Life (yes) some Jews had been raising a stink because someone had set up a pretend store selling “second world war memorabilia from the German side.”  Now I am savvy enough in the ways of neo fascists to challenge him on this lame euphemism; I said, “You mean nazi stuff right?” which was of course correct.  So he complained about how these poor people had gotten banned just because of some mischievous Jews.  I basically said, “well fair dues.”  Basically in real life things exist, that’s a reality.  but in a fake world you cannot make that argument, things only exist because you create them.  If you create nazi paraphernalia you cannot make these same arguments.

He took off a ring and told me, “I wear this every day because I am German, and I think it’s important to remember.” He then explained all the different parts of it.  He knew the words in German for the skulls and stuff, told me the significance of it all.

Views of different sides of an SS honour ring. Read more about SS honor rings.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t paying entirely too close attention, because I was so shocked at the situation.

I said to him, “You wear a ring with a swastika on it every day?  Dude that’s fucked up.”

He argued about how it was just a symbol.  I said it’s symbol associated with a lot of fucked up shit.  To tell the truth I couldn’t quickly articulate an argument about this.  I don’t know that I have ever had to explain why you can’t go around wearing nazi paraphernalia to someone.  It just doesn’t come up.

So then he started a sentence with, “Now every day I wear boots with swastikas on them…” and I had had enough.  I told him he was fucking disgusting, which I stand by.  I left half a beer, which, for the record I do not think I have ever in my life left half a beer at a pub.  But this was too much.  I will not have a beer with someone like that.  I told him he should be ashamed of himself, he should not show that, etc etc.  I quickly paid the waitress and left.

I got him and phoned my parents to tell them about this, because I was so upset about it and I knew they would understand.  (No I did not tell them the nature of the site I met him on. )  They had good advice.  My mom said I should have left him to pay for my drink.  My dad said, “Well you better tell him he should be glad I wasn’t there.  Because I would have decked him, or worse.  You’re grandfather was German and he risked his life and lost many friends and family members fighting so those kinds of ideas would not spread.”  I thought that was well-put.

Myself, I wish I had picked the ring up off the table and dropped it down a sewer or something.

For the record, the person who I was out with is known as ShiftyCentaur on fetlife.  Yes, I believe in outing assholes like this.  There is no privacy when it comes to hate and bigotry.