Identity politics: moral high ground or happiness?

I’ve been reading S/He, by Minnie Bruce Pratt, and also a new blog called Sugarbutch. This post in particular, where she backpedals on an earlier statement on not trusting femmes, really hit home with me.

Reading both these things makes me nostalgic. It’s taken me a long time to figure out who I am. In my early 20s, I tried on a lot of labels. Some of them stuck, sunk into the borg of my sense of self. But my identity changes. It’s fluid. It’s the curse and the… specialness, I suppose… of being a bisexual woman. In this society, it’s hard not to be a self-hating bisexual. Even after all those years of activism, still at the kernel of me is a voice whispering traitor, traitor, traitor.

Because the thing about identity politics is that they’re useless for me. In S/He, Minnie Bruce Pratt talks about a femme being a case of mistaken identity. People think that femmes are straight. Butch dykes claim to love us, but that love is conditional–at least in my experience. Am I still a femme if I sleep with men? Or am I something else? Something so slippery and undefinable that I belong in no camp at all?

Yes, yes, bisexual. That is what I am, ultimately. But even that changes. It slides, the same way my appetites slide. I’m neither fish nor fowl, a member of no tribe, but condemned, like Cain, to wander the earth forever, with no set home.

In relationship with April, with Angie, and with Kristen, I often referred to myself as a lesbian, or a dyke. It was easier than the constant qualifying — lesbian-identified bisexual, woman who has been in love with men and fucked a lot of men but is now in love with a woman, in a committed, monogamous relationship with a woman. Who, while looking gender-typical, is in many ways not because she likes to be on top and in control in the bedroom. But also wants someone to flip her.

At times, I’ve lived the good, virtuous lesbian lifestyle. At other times, I’ve lived the life of a kinky bi poly slut. At times I’ve loved men deeply, faithfully. These things shift. I’d like to live in a world where people don’t make assumptions about my sexuality, about the potentiality of it, by whom I’m sleeping with. I know this post-modern sexuality is all the rage these days. All the kids are going pomosexual, or so I hear. But I’m not a product of those days. Identity politics are still important to me. Useless perhaps in describing my sexuality, but still important.

But not so important that I don’t know a good thing when I see it. Angie, for all that she gave me lesbian cred, was a terrible partner. She constantly shamed me about my sexuality, took advantage of my own shame around it. Worse yet, she was controlling, manipulative, and emotionally abusive. She withheld all sorts of nurture from me and neglected to perform the most basic of courtesies. Not only did she never validate my emotions, but she never held the door for me, or even thanked me when I held it for her.

These patterns present themselves again and again, regardless of my lovers’ gender. On this blog, I mostly talk about the things I do with Bran in the bedroom. But it’s the things that happen outside of the bedroom that have made me love him. He possesses the rare ability to listen to me, to validate my feelings, and to express his own in a responsible, respectful way. He shows up. I’m terrified, of course. I can’t believe it’s happening, and I can’t help but wonder if my own perceptions are blinded by love and hormones. But my inner voice — the good one, the one who knows things, not the one who calls me a traitor — tells me that he’s a rare gift and that I should hold onto him. I think I’d rather be happy with him than unhappy with anyone else.

Found femdom from the diva of pop

Madonna’s new album and the accompanying buzz in the blogosphere has had me reflecting on my own relationship with the diva of pop. The righteous babes at Feministing do an excellent job of summing up my own complicated relationship with this role model from my girlhood. And yes, she was a role model. But I was so clueless about so many things when her first album came out! I was about nine years old, and at the time it was still a toss-up who was going to be a bigger star: Madonna or Cindi Lauper. In many ways, I respect Cindi Lauper’s career more than Madonna’s even though it wasn’t as prolific. I think that Lauper remained more true to who she was; choosing an authentic voice over what will sell in the current zeitgeist requires a tremendous amount of integrity.

But I do admire Madonna as a woman who has always been unafraid to go for exactly what she wants. Her overt sexuality paved the way for other women to come out of the “slut” closet and proudly own the fact that we, too, enjoy sex. But her message is confusing at times.

I remember when “Express Yourself” came out on MTV (yes, once upon a time, Music Television actually showed music videos). I was a sullen drama chick at the time, disdainful of anything remotely mainstream. But twenty years later, the narrative of this piece really stands up on its own. The visuals express in a clear and yet question-raising way the power play inherent in sexual politics. Money, class, gender, and sexuality all bring with them their own kinds of power. It’s important to understand the power of each so that you can decide whether you want to own them, reject them, deny them, or appropriate them for your own purposes.

This was also the first time I saw the sinous muscles of Madonna’s back. Phew. A few years later, I’d realize I was more interested in the singer herself than the hunky guy down in the boiler room sweating away (although I know Bitchy likes that). Twenty years later, I’d realize I was also really, really interested in the woman at the top of the stairs dressed in the traditional trappings of male power.

PS: A tip of the hat to Axe’s awesome collection of found femdom. I could never compete.

When in doubt, lists are good (restoring my freaky cred)

Bran says he’s boring my readers, because no one has commented on the last two posts. “I think they’re only interested when you’re branding me or something.”

Which I haven’t actually done, of course. Although I do have to admit that the idea is appealing, in an entirely fantasy-never-gonna-happen-story-of-O kind of way.

But just in case my last few posts have been too mushy and tame, I present to you the following pieces of evidence that I am still a huge freak.

1. I came on Bran’s face. I can’t entirely tell if he likes it, since there is usually some choking and coughing involved. I actually did this on our first date, and he told me via IM that he felt like we was drowning. The implication, however, was that it was not an unenjoyable experience.
2. Ace will be gratified (he would be more so, perhaps, if he were still in receipt of my attentions) that I’ve come to appreciate the joys of fucking a man up the ass with a strap-on. It’s true. I really do get into this place where I’m going buck-wild, and excited, and energized, and very very in-the-moment. I love not only the power of it but the sensual joy. Sure, it’s an act of giving. That’s why I’m picky about who gets to feel my cock up their ass. But it’s hott. With an extra T. For hottness. Because I can spell.

   All sorts of things I was sort of uncomfortable about before no longer seem to bother me with Bran. Probably because it’s completely reciprocal. And even though I do have a very strong streak of the femdom, there’s a reason why I go by the handle Omnivore. I like reciprocity. Reciprocity is hott, with two T’s. Another thing that happened on our first date is that he licked my little anus all around with that wicked tongue of his and made it feel AWESOME. He’s also mastered the art of fucking my various orifices with his tongue: mouth (which can be sort of creepy and yet turning-on-y at the same time), cunt (heaven), ass (gunh).

   I’ve learned a technique for assuaging my concerns about e-coli infection as relates to anal play. You sort of check out the region with your fingers and nose and eyes first. If it’s all clear, then you can use your tongue. If not, there’s always gloves, which I absolutely love for anal play because cleanup is a breeze (just pull off, and all incidental poop is contained nicely in an inverted latex package). And if you can’t deal with a little poop, as the Midwest Teen Sex Show points out so lucidly, you’re not ready for anal sex.

   Later, after all the sex and in an attempt to make our time together something other than just a booty call (he did arrive before the 9:00 pm this-is-definitely-just-a-booty-call cutoff time), we lay on the couch and watched some anime.

   “Heh,” I said. “You fucked me up the ass.”
   “I did,” he replied. “You begged me to do it.”

3. While I was fucking Bran up the ass with the littlest dildo from the Bend Over Beginner Kit, he said something that made me come all over his leg. I wish I could remember what it was. But coming while fucking him was pretty awesome.
4. Later, he made me come again by saying in that wonderful forceful way of his that he was fucking me while I was tied up. I know the latest magazine articles say that women don’t really make tons of noise when they come, that we’re all concentrating on the sensation of coming and that you can tell because of the tightening of our vaginal walls, but I am in fact a screamer. And I came. Noisily. Gushily. I’m glad one of the comforters was between me and the mattress because I’m out of upholstery cleaner.

   Bran is so shy about tying me up. I had to beg him to do it, and sort of helped him along. But it’s true what one of my subs from last year had to say about bondage. It does sort of intensify the feeling — of intercourse, of orgasm. An extra frisson, a tension between what you want and what you can have. And, I suppose, there’s some sort of Freudian thing about security and being held tightly. I always get excited in the middle of sex with bondage and scrabble to get the bonds off so I can touch the man (or woman) fucking me. This time, when I tried, he pushed my hand away. Which was even hotter. And when I finally did get one wrist free he just pushed me down with those wonderful strong arms of his.

5. He gave me a lovely spanking as well. I’m glad that he responds to feedback and direction. Not all of my lovers have had the emotional security to do so.
6. I’m still in need of a good houseboy. The one I’ve got actually canceled on me last-minute so he could go do something involving the earning of money. Really, now, where are the boy’s priorities? As we discussed over lunch last week, it’s clear that he’s not really kinky. And the important learning I’ve gotten from his service is that you can’t instill kink any more than you can iron it out. I think he’d make a great personal assistant, but it’ll only work if the payoff for him is sufficient. This is where sub men once again prove their worthiness: sexuality, especially of the unfulfilled variety, can be a powerful motivator for service. ViciousWishes asked me some questions about protocol related to the search for and screening of a good houseboy. I’ll share those in a separate post. Once I’ve got some applicants, I know what to do. But for the time being, I’m stymied as to how to find new applicants. Craigslist has been the best source so far for potentials, but someone on Craigslist has decided I’m either a spambot or a whore and flags my posts within minutes of publication. This really irks me because it is the sexual exchange I’m seeking. My posts don’t belong in erotic services, dammit! Men who clean my house really do make me hot. And I want a man who gets hot cleaning house for me. Who enjoys pain. Ah, well. In the meantime, I’ll soldier on as best I can. And perhaps consider reactivating my profiles on Collarme and Bondage.com. Yawn.
7. Chiquitita and I are still orbiting around one another. In an email this morning, she wrote “Rarely have I met someone whose every message to me would make me want to say ‘awwwww.’” Girls require more effort than boys, but the payoff is almost always worth it.

Hope springs eternal

I posted another ad for a houseboy in the Miscellaneous Romance section of Craigslist.

The last one got flagged off so fast only one serious response came through before it was gone. Some trick-ass bitch on Craigslist must really hate dominant women, or thinks that bona fide bitches who do it for the sexxay don’t really exist.

[EDIT: The post was up for all of five minutes before it got flagged again]

I was corresponding nicely with the one serious inquirer, but he balked when I asked for his first and last name. It’s just protocol, yo. You’re coming to my house, after all, touching all of my intimate things. Don’t I deserve to do a quick Google and sex offender registry search on you first?

I’m sure that you are all weeping for me in the face of my desperate plight, especially you poor submissive men in search of an owner. “Really, Omnivore,” you’re probably saying. “Aren’t you just a tad greedy? After all, you’ve got that delicious Bran playing puppy with you and fucking you hello, not to mention that young new boy who likes to kneel at your feet and sort your mail.”

To which I will reply, “Yes, that’s true. And I haven’t even told you about that sweet, curvy girl with the pixie haircut and the funky sense of style with whom I’ve only been on two dates.

“BUT!

“But,” I will say, “I am indeed a greedy bitch, and after 20 years of dating people, I’ve decided to stop feeling ashamed of asking for what I want. Bran’s too busy with grad school to clean and it’s not really his kink anyway. And while the sexxay is awesome, he’s not a pure submissive. The new houseboy shows promise in the personal secretary department but doesn’t really know how to vaccuum a room properly and doesn’t like pain. And Ace spoiled me forever in that department; I want another submissive boy with a high threshold for pain who will sweat and stretch and scrub until the place is spotless and then take off his clothes and kneel when I order him to. I want him to look up at me with that look, that look that maybe only Ace had but which I’m hoping to see on the face of another sub, a sort of dark and hooded and completely surrendered look that says I’m yours. Use me. Hurt me. I love it. And you love it. Please.

“I’m greedy enough to want two houseboys, not just one. AND a boyfriend. AND a girlfriend.”

Yeah. That’s what I want.

Is that so wrong?

First orgy, worst orgy

It was right around this time of year, actually, perhaps a bit later. I was a junior in high school. We’d just finished our exams, so it was either mid-term or the end of the year. We all jumped into Rich’s car and headed north to April’s house. April, whose mother up in Maine had despaired of ever taming her wild daughter, finally threw up her hands and sent her to live down in Fairfield County with her dad. She lived in a little shack behind the main house. It had no indoor plumbing and relied on a wood stove for heat, but it did have something far more valuable to a wild 17-year-old: privacy.

The year was 1990, and Rich popped in a tape of all five radio remixes of Madonna’s Vogue. There were six of us: Rich, April, me, young Susan (a mere freshman), Hester, and April’s beau Thom. Aside from chiseled good looks, Thom had few redeeming qualities. But I don’t think she liked him for his conversation.

“I’ve got that feeling,” I said aloud as we sped north.

“Like you’re going to be bad?” said Susan. And I nodded. We were thrilled, glad to be alive, free of schoolwork, free of parents and obligations, free to be bad.

Once at April’s place, we clambered up the steps (more ladder than staircase) to the little loft above the main room. Someone produced a case of beer — the cheapest kind imaginable. There was some shotgunning of beers. And then people were passing a joint, tiny, mostly paper, and almost gone before I’d become aware of it. That was most likely the first time I saw anyone actually smoking pot.

And then someone–Thom or Rich, I’m sure–came up with the bright idea of tying up all the girls. We were all in the drama club except for Thom, whom I’d never even seen at school, and Rich was the flymaster. This meant he was adept at tying knots. He demonstrated this skill fairly well, and pretty soon we were all prettily trussed and bound on April’s rat’s nest of a bed.

When Rich first appeared on the scene at the beginning of the year, I’d developed a crush on him. Along with every other single female member of the drama club. Since then, I’d come to realize he was just a conceited ass. And yet there I was, hands bound above my head, undulating as he teased me with his hands.

“I’ve got to have more beer in me to do this,” I said. And shotgunned another beer. That turned out to be a big mistake, because pretty soon the bed and the room were spinning. “I’m going to throw up,” I said. And without further ado, I did. Right next to the bed.

Folks obviously weren’t too pleased, but I was too far gone to do much about it. I clambered downstairs without falling on my head and stumbled through the bright spring sunlight into the main house. I took a shower in her parents’ bathroom, then headed back out to the porch. Hester had quietly excused herself when the rope came out, and the two of us sat there talking and smoking cigarettes. Across the lawn, we heard the noises of our disporting friends through the open window of April’s shack.

April called to me through the open window. “I think I just had an orgasm!” she said.

Strange that she would call it out to me, with two boys and a girl right there in the bed beside her. But she did.

Later, she gave me a full-on kiss, lips, tongue, passion, and all. Hester told me she was surprised, since April had made some comments earlier in the year that expressed a clear dislike for lesbians. In vino veritas.

I made my way back up to our coltish little orgy, intending to clean up the mess I’d left. But my friends had beaten me to it. And then Rich was guiding my hand into Susan’s pants. I pulled down her fly and slid my hands into her panties, felt her wetness, probed further, intrigued and amazed at myself at the same time. “Too hard,” she said, and I pulled my hand out, too awkward and afraid (afraid of what? everything.) to try again. Susan was soft and chocolate-colored, with a fine nimbus of black hair framing her round face and green eyes. I loved her body, had always thought she was gorgeous. But she was also like my little sister. I lay with my chin on her chest and talked. Next to us, April and Thom writhed against each other.

Much later, Hester drove Susan and me back to our crappy little downtown apartments. I watch the green, green lawns slide by. The sky was grey and overcast, like my head in the aftermath of all that beer and transgressive sex.

Friends and lovers

I had a long talk two nights ago with R. He lives down in DC with his partner Z. The two of them are on my short list of friends whom I love with the love of a chosen family. I think R is probably one of the few people I’m still in touch with who knew me when I was a teenager. One of the formative experiences of my young life was a summer program for the gifted. I went for two years: the summer before my freshman year of high school, and the summer after. That first summer, I’d just discovered kissing boys, and proceeded to find and kiss as many boys as possible in the three weeks I was there. My RA (Residence Advisor, or, in this context, glorified babysitter) gave me the “Most Likely to Be Late for a Hall Meeting Because She’s Off with Some Guy” prize at the end of the session.

The SATs were not the only thing I was precocious about.

The second summer is when I met R. He was a teaching assistant, which meant that he actually got to develop the minds of the insufferable brats who took college-level courses, instead of having to deal with their hormonal drama. My first memory of him is giving him a hard time while he tried to drive us out of our dorm rooms and off to the afternoon program of “mandatory fun.” I was laying on the grotty carpeting in the hallway, my feet up against the opposite wall, and I think I said something smart to him as he came walking toward us.

He looked at me, and he spoke to me like a fellow human being instead of a child. I was both, of course, but when you’re 14 years old and no longer a virgin it’s vitally important that no one remind you of the fact that you’re still a child. It was that, more than anything, that motivated me to get up off that grotty carpeting.

Later, R took the time to teach me theatrical lighting, something I’d begged our stage manager back in high school to teach me all year. He was always very appropriate with me. But the skater dude I’d been trying unsuccessfully to shag all summer (they scheduled us to our eyeballs just for that purpose!) dumped me because I was spending all my spare time in a dark theater with a grad student. There was, in fact, another teaching assistant who was not as scrupulous as R. He grabbed me once during the weekly dances and made my little 14-year-old knees go weak during a slow song.

I kept in touch with both R and his unscrupulous colleague for a while using this now-obsolete technology called pen and paper. I also corresponded with classmates. But these friendships eventually went the way of all pen pals. Someone forgets to write, someone moves, a letter comes back undeliverable.

When I was in my late 20s, I got an email from R. He’d found me via a website I ran under my given name. Fifteen years later, it was like we’d never stopped being friends. At the time, of course, I was living with Angie, who kept me on a very short leash. She eyed my renewed correspondence with R with suspicion, but Angie eyed almost everything I did with suspicion. Later, I left Angie. And dated Badger. And split up with Badger. And eventually, R and I finally saw one another in person again. The first time, I was down in DC for a weekend sailing trip and we met up in Annapolis. Over dinner, he told my friends what I was like at that summer program. His description was so drastically different than my own memories of the summer, it was like he was talking about someone else. It was very flattering, though.

The next time I saw R, he came to visit me. I was rather lonely, and asked him to cuddle with me. Cuddling turned to kissing, which turned to what kissing usually turns into in my bed. Sex with R was amazing. He’s one of those rare kinds of men: sweet and kind and giving and well-hung to boot.

R and I had already corresponded about his open relationship with Z, but I still blushed and cowered when he called her afterward. My own forays into the world of polyamory had almost always ended up with heartbreak or guilt–although I’m not sure how my forays into the world of monogamy have really differed. She thanked me for making her partner feel so welcome. Later, I went down to visit them both in DC, which is where I confirmed what I’d assumed would be the case: R’s partner Z is bright, articulate, sexy, and sweet. I felt really honored when she invited me into their bed together. Threesomes are a rich treat in my experience, like caviar. They’re delicious, intense, and rather hard to come by.

Everything happened so quickly that year. I’d begun dating Kristen just a few months prior, and after that weekend in DC I came home both glowing from my time with R and Z and guilty. Kristen knew what would likely happen during my visit. But I could also sense it wasn’t what she wanted. And sure enough, she laid it out for me over dinner that night. She never told me I couldn’t do what I wanted, just that if I kept sleeping with other people she wouldn’t take me seriously. She wanted the picket fence and all. I wanted a picket fence with a gate in it. But I thought I’d try to be a good lesbian again.

Three years later, Kristen isn’t speaking to me, but R and Z stood by me through the rough months of the breakup. Last night, R told me he’s been happy to hear me talk and write so openly about my adventures in kink. We got to talking about early indicators of sexual predelictions. “You were always pretty alpha,” he said.

I’m going to see him and Z again in April, and possibly March. I don’t know if sex will be on the menu. If it is, it’s not likely to be kinky. I hope I remember how to be soft and sweet. I hope I get to cuddle with them both. They’re a very special couple of people and I’m glad to have them in my life.

The omnivore’s dilemma

This blog has nothing to do with food. Well, probably not. It’s about sex, raw and trembling on the page. Or the screen. It’s about my sex life in particular, which is perhaps not special or unique, except in that it is mine. And I like all kinds of sex: kinky sex, vanilla sex, sex with women, sex with men, sex with one person and sex with more. Sex with myself. Sex in the head and sex in the body. I set up this blog to talk about it because, really, it’s one of my favorite topics. And it seems to be other peoples’ too.