Bad Things

I'm sure I'll be back to posting again sooner than I think right now, but I figured I should post this rather than just disappear.

Some things have happened between me and Jack the past few days that have left me less than enthusiastic about...well...our relationship, BDSM play, sex with Jack, sex with anyone else. You know, pretty much everything I blog about here.

Consider this notice of a possible hiatus.

Victim

I was reading Amanda Hess' wonderful blog at TBD the other day, and she's been doing this feature where LGBT victims of hate crimes in the D.C. area tell the story of their assaults. And reading this one, well, I guess how I felt is best described by the word "triggered"--for whatever reason, all I could think about for the rest of the day was The Day I Got Jumped. I was trying to run errands in Manhattan, shopping for books for my one year old niece, and I kept expecting someone to just walk up to me and punch me. By the time I got home, I was freaking out a little.

I started wondering if things would have been different if I'd tried harder to get the girl who jumped me arrested. I started thinking about the first time something like this happened to me, thinking about my personal history of victimhood. Breaking down why I always feel so helpless when something like this happens.

It was sometime in the first few weeks of my sophomore year of high school--I would've been 14. My (horrible, abusive) then-boyfriend and I would go to the park after school and make out. That day, we were approached by four guys from the neighborhood, one who lived on my street hung back. They demanded my boyfriend's watch, a tacky knockoff his dad had bought him in New York. He refused. They asked if I had any money, and when I said no (because I didn't) they turned their attention back to him. He kept refusing to give them his watch--they took his glasses, then punched him in the jaw and took the watch off his wrist.

I didn't want to tell anyone, not even my parents. Technically, I was only a witness, as I hadn't been touched and they hadn't taken anything from me, but I was terrified and shaken up. We went back to the school, where it turned out something like six kids had been mugged by the same group. The police were called, we went and gave statements, they arrested the muggers.

I didn't go to school the next day, I was too shaken up. When I did go back, a girl who was friends with the muggers threatened me. People made fun of all of us for talking to the police, for making such a big deal out of basically having our lunch money stolen on the playground. When one of the muggers plead not guilty and his case went to trial, we all had to testify and the defense attorney tried to make me look stupid, tried to make me out to be a ditzy girl who couldn't keep her story straight. There was a story in the local paper where the reporter talked to the mugger's family, who called us racists and whiners, said it was ridiculous to make such a big deal out of nothing. They didn't talk to any of the victims (at least one of whom was the same race as the muggers).

Years later, when I got groped on the bus, I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to stand up and yell, punch the guy, make a scene--but I looked around the bus, and all I could think was "no one will think this is a big deal. They'll think I'm freaking out for no reason. They'll think I'm a racist." So I didn't tell anyone (except, later that night, Jack), especially my mother, who I knew would want to call the police.

When I got jumped six months after that, and my mother did call the police, all I could think was "Oh, no, not again." I was actually relieved when the officer couldn't find the girls or any witnesses, glad that I never had to deal with any of it again.

And while it seems like I can't shut up about my victimhood here online, I almost never talk about these things in real life, except maybe sometimes to Jack. I'm scared that if I mention them I'll be brushed off, because I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I'm whining. In a world where something like 1 in 4 women has been raped, who cares that some guy grabbed my leg and ass, tried to touch my genitals? It's not a big deal, right?

A friend of mine asked for help online figuring out how to deal with street harassment yesterday. She said it wasn't something she'd ever really encountered before and she didn't know what to do, and she was worried that she was making a big deal out of nothing. I keep wanting to say that it is a big deal, it's not nothing, and if we don't make a big deal out of things like this, they continue. But that makes me feel like a hypocrite.

Shameless Bandwagon Jumping

I signed up for Formspring. On the one hand, I doubt anyone will even use it or ask things, on the other I'm vaguely worried because encouraging any sort of anonymous commentary makes me nervous. I'll probably delete my account when I get bored with it. But for now, go ahead, ask me anything.

Happy Birthday to one of my Favorite Organizations...ans also, sex party.

So last night was the one-year anniversary party for NYC TNG, the organization that changed the way I go to parties.

For folks not in the scene, TNG stands for, well, The Next Generation. Yes, just like "Star Trek." TNG groups exist to introduce younger kinksters (usually between the ages of 18 and 35) into the public scene. Our own TNG group here in New York runs munches before a lot of the major parties, providing a chance to meet people in a diner and actually talk in a fairly low-pressure environment. It's so much easier to have a for reals conversation in the diner over pierogies than to try to talk to someone in the club at the party, over the music and the other ambient noise.

I actually hadn't realized how much NYC TNG has changed the way I interact with people in the scene until I was listening to the most recent Freedom of Fetish podcast. In answering the question of how to meet people in the scene, the host (the fabulous Raven Lightholme) and her guest say not to try to meet people at a party. Go to munches, they say, join groups on FetLife, talk to people. And I realized that before NYC TNG, meeting people at parties, playing with them far sooner than I would now, I blundered into lots of awkward situations. I've made most of my friends through TNG--not just scene friends, but friend friends, people I go out to dinner and to bars with.

So happy birthday, NYC TNG, you and your moderators kind of changed my life.
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The other night, Jack and I went to a sex party. Like, a for reals sex party at an apartment where people were fucking as well as getting beaten up. It was very fun and friendly and there were cookies and dildos and I saw a girl actually get DPed right there in the room and I was naked in front of people I'd only just met, which was new and scary for me.

The main thing that stuck with me from the sex party, though, is how awesome everyone was about using barriers. There were gloves and condoms everywhere, and toys and hands got covered before they went in on on anyone's genitals. It's something that I am not always that careful about. It's very different watching everyone conscientiously putting on gloves and condoming toys from hearing from my friends in college "Well, he put on a condom before he came..." I'm resolving to be more diligent about barriers.

Sometimes, after an intense scene or something new and exciting that I haven't done before, I feel...icky. Emotionally wrung out, but also weird and nervous and like people somehow will magically know exactly what I've been doing and will judge me and won't respect me. I used to almost always feel like this after anal sex, I felt like this after I got Eiffel Towered that one time, and I'm feeling kind of like that right now.

Jack and I just had a fairly intense scene. He made me cry and grovel and beg and it was wonderful while it was going on, but now I feel kind of gross. It's like I'm slut-shaming myself inside my head--nice girls don't do this, if people knew it'd be all over, they'd be so disgusted. It's like the end of 9 1/2 Weeks, the horrible, shaming end sequence that I hate. I feel so exposed and all I want to do is hide. Even with lots of lovely aftercare, even with hugs and kisses and reassurances it happens.

Getting dressed again helped, but I'm still a little icky-feeling. I kind of just want to be alone. Jack went out and I'm making mac and cheese, because comfort food seems like a good idea. But I really, really want to know if anyone else ever feels like this. Hey, fellow bottoms, does this happen to you? If it does, how do you deal with it? I could use some advice.

So last night I went out for a few drinks with some friends. Jack had an appointment early this morning, so he stayed home to go to bed early. I knew he wanted me to polish his shoes for said appointment, but wasn't sure if I should do it when I got home or just go to bed.

I came in at around 2:00am, still a little bit tipsy. I unlocked the door, went down the hall towards the bedroom and there, in the middle of the hall, were the shoes and the shoe polish kit, with a post-it note attached that read "<3 ATTN: PET <3" Apparently I was still expected to polish the shoes. I went towards the living room, to plug in my phone which had died while we were at the bar. As I reached to turn on the light, I happened to look up at the ceiling. Before even turning on the light, I saw it there on the ceiling--a centipede.

Now, as a kid I was utterly terrified of any sort of invertebrate creature--ticks, spiders, and any and all bugs. Terrified. Even a closet moth would flip me the fuck out. These days I'm usually pretty calm, but there are two things I am still completely, ridiculously, unreasonably afraid of--black widow spiders and centipedes. Black widows, of course, are fuckoff huge and creepy looking and full of hemotoxic venom that can kill you, so I feel like my fear of them is pretty reasonable. And, of course, I've never seen a black widow in person. Centipedes are really creepy looking, but the kind that live in New York are not at all harmful to humans. Centipedes, however, appear in our apartment all the goddamn time and I am so scared of them I can't cope with it at all. One time, when there was a centipede in our bathtub, I went to the library to use their bathroom. i am unreasonably terrified of them.

So there's a centipede, a creature of which I am terrified beyond all reason, on the living room ceiling. And it's 2:00 in the morning, and Jack is sleeping, and I'm a little drunk and I have to polish Jack's shoes.

I did what any reasonable adult would do--I ran into the living room, grabbed my laptop to protect it from the centipede, then grabbed Jack's shoes and the polish and went and hid in the bathroom (which is roughly the size of a closet, since of course this is a New York apartment) and polished the shoes.

I feel like the Allie Brosh of consensual D/s.

My life is so difficult...

Eve, who I mentioned in the previous post, is having a party tomorrow. Eve's parties are always awesome, filled with amazing food and awesome beer and attractive, smart people and I always have a really good time (well, except for that one time with the tequila, but that was an anomaly). Also, we haven't hung out with Eve in a while, because she's been out of town.

Tomorrow night there is also a play party, and through the magic of modern technology, I just got a message from a friend who is super hot and also gives awesome spankings, saying that her hand misses my ass.

Damn. What do I do now?

A Whole Bunch of Stuff

I know, worst post title ever.

I haven't blogged in a while. A lot has been going on, I've been cranky, Jack has been around the house more which is less conducive to writing, and since he's been on a less regular schedule we've both been partying more. Basically, I am full of excuses.

While I was busy not blogging, a new Carnival of Kinky Feminists came out! And they included one of my posts again! And lots of other peoples' posts that are far more interesting than mine, so you should go and read them!

While I was reading the various posts in this second Carnival post, I came across one entitled "What We're Expected to Be" over at Beyond the Hills and found it really fascinating. Roles are so complicated, and they get more complicated (for me at least) all the time.

You see, Jack has a bit of a masochistic side--sometimes he likes some pain and attention. And I have no problem providing pain, but I tend to freak the fuck out if I perceive a power shift. Basically, if a scene is going on, I am submissive. I do not want to be in control, I don't want to have the power. Order me to hurt you, and I'm game, but don't put me in control, that makes me really uncomfortable. Once, while discussing this, Jack said "The role of submissive, of being owned by me, so comforting that you don't want anything to threaten that." And it's true.

A story: So Jack and I have this friend, let's call her Eve. Eve and I once went dildo shopping together, and later I fucked her with a strap-on. While said fucking was going on, Eve told me to spank her. "What?" I said, thinking I'd misheard her. "SPANK ME!" she repeated, slightly more emphatically. So I did, while fucking her from behind, grinning from ear-to-ear the entire time while Jack watched. It was fun!

Now, it's possible to see all of this as me switching. I fucked a girl, I spanked her, clearly the roles here are obvious. But in my mind, I spanked a girl because she told me to, and that makes all the difference. I like taking orders, I like doing what I'm told. I will totally hold someone down, or hit them or bite them, but I'm not topping them, I'm helping or following orders. I like helping, but I have no interest in topping.
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Jack and I have been working on reworking the nonmonagamous aspect of our relationship. The break down of our rules has been, for the past year and a half or so, that I get to have sex with women, either in threesomes or by myself. And Jack gets to beat people up. Which...um...kind of wasn't that fair to Jack, despite the impressive mental contortions I kept going through to explain why this arrangement was totally fair and fine and anyway it works for us so it's really not your business and why are you questioning me and grrrrr.

You may have detected the confrontational tone there. Obviously I was having some trouble with things. But we talked the other day, and re-drew some boundaries (Oral sex for everyone! YAY!) and established a compromise in which, well, we both get to have sex with other women, for certain definitions of sex, but we'll also be doing more D/s stuff together.

We used to do a lot more D/s and service-y type stuff before we moved in together. Have I mentioned that here before? It was fun and hot and made me feel close and connected to Jack even when we only got to see each other on week-ends. I had lists of things to do! I kept a journal! And a lot of my fantasies have been D/s oriented, even before I knew I was kinky. But when we moved in together and actually shared a living space, lists of household tasks that I'd thought were super hot before abruptly became anything but sexy.

It also didn't help that I, not knowing about FetLife had fallen into an unfortunate Maledom/femsub community online where 24/7 was kind of viewed as the only real, authentic way to do D/s. It was kind of like how things were with my college boyfriend, when I was convinced we needed to get engaged because that's what people did and that's the next step and so why haven't you proposed to me yet? I (in my naive, deluded state) thought 24/7 total power exchange was the direction in which our relationship must inevitably go!

Now I realize I don't have to get married if I don't want to, and that D/s and service can be a part of our relationship without my being confined to a cage or not allowed on the furniture. Not that there's anything wrong with relationships where someone is confined to a cage or has to sit on the floor, it's just not for me. Like how marriage and 2.5 kids and a house in the suburbs aren't for everyone.

Actually, that's why actually being on FetLife and being part of a live-and-in-person kink scene and having kinky friends is so great--because you get to know people who have all different type of relationships that work in all kinds of ways and it's easier to avoid falling into the trap of reading one group on the whole internet and thinking everybody does it this way, so I have to do it this way, too.
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More stuff about body image: I have gained back some weight. I realize this is not supposed to bother me, and I actually thought it didn't. I'm working on eating better, not out of a desire to lose weight but more because I've realized I'm a grown up and I need to stop eating like a teenager whose parents aren't home. Also, I got tired of my coworkers making fun of my Hot Pocket addiction.

Like I said, I thought it didn't bother me. Sure, I've gained ten pounds, but don't my tits look great? I was feeling pretty awesome...

...until I found myself in bed with a friend who is totally conventionally attractive (which is to say, attractive in a way agreed upon by most of society, not necessarily conventional-looking), and she kept telling me I was pretty. Every time she said it, I felt awful and embarrassed and like I might cry. I wanted to shout "Stop saying that!"

So yeah...so much for being totally over my body image issues. I need to work on this.

THIS! So much THIS!

So, um, this post on the Pervocracy. You should totally read it! You should read it RIGHT NOW! Because everything it says is true and perfectly put.

And then you should read this grouchy quiz post. Because these two posts basically say everything I've been trying to say with my kinky Miss Manners posts, only they sum it up way better and less angry-to-the-point-of-incomprehensibility than I do.

The thing is, I'd been kicking around the idea of doing little posts about the people and blogs I link to over on the sidebar there for a while, and hadn't gotten around to it, and then these two posts came along and I just had to link to them.

Reconciling the Guilt

Since moving to New York, I've discovered that I really enjoy scratch baking and cooking.

I like making delicious things from basic ingredients. I like knowing that I can make these things, that I can produce buttercream frosting as good as the buttercream frosting served at overpriced cupcake shops. I like how old fashioned it feels, how pretty desserts can be, how it feels like making order out of chaos. I like that it makes me feel close to my great-grandmother, whose kitchen skills were locally famous in her small hometown.

Sometimes, I worry about my kitchen proclivities. Are they regressive? Are they anti-feminist? Is my desire for yummy food made from scratch, food like my great-grandmother made, a sign that I secretly want to return to the times when a woman's place was in the kitchen? Is the pleasing, desirous feeling get while looking at the Joy of Baking somehow a sign of creeping, covert sexism? Because I swear to god I feel something like lust when I see that picture of the vanilla cupcakes on that site, with their perfect, perky paper wrappers and charming blue frosting. And feminist women aren't supposed to lust after the ability to make perfect cupcakes, are we?

And then I realize I'm being a jackass. My obsession with perfect, pretty baked goods or extra-delicious mac and cheese made from scratch is because...I like baking, I like cooking. I like making things. It only becomes bad if I decided that all women have to love making perfect baked goods. Actually, in my parents' house when I was growing up, my dad did most of the cooking and was really into making things from scratch with fresh ingredients, and my mom and I would bake bread with dark beer on her days off from her various interesting jobs. Also, um...I like food? I love eating, most of my best friends are really into food, and eating and sharing delicious things is one of my favorite social activities. And if you're a lady who doesn't love baking, that's awesome. It's totally your right and choice to bake or not.

It's all about choices. Feminism is about having choices. If I want to bake things, I get to bake things. Baking is not inherently sexist just because it's sometimes reminiscent of a time when women didn't have choices. If I don't want to bake, I can do any number of other things...like go bowling, something my other great-grandmother loved to do. When she wasn't busy riding motorcycles, that is. And if you're a woman, you should totally have a choice to bake or bowl or sew or ride motorcycles if you want to do any or all of these things.

So why is it so hard to apply these things to sex? Much like I know lots of dudes who like cooking or baking, I know plenty of guys who are submissive or masochists. Like cooking, BDSM only becomes a problem when someone decides all women everywhere are inherently submissive and should bow before all the inherently dominant men. It's also all about consent. If I'm not in the mood to cook, Jack can make dinner or we'll order take-out. If I'm not in the mood for a scene, or decide I don't want to play, I can safeword and say "Hey, not right now."

Sometimes I think that saying all BDSM everywhere is inherently misogynist is just as silly as saying that about all baking.