If You're Not Angry

Ani DiFranco sang, "If you're not angry, then you're just stupid or you don't care." Almost twenty years ago, as a freshly minted college sex-positive feminist, I was angry. I wanted to change things. Then somehow, that anger faded. I'm not sure if it was the tempering effect of age, the anti-depressants, or the fact that I had other things to worry about, like keeping a roof over my head, taking care of my partner, and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life now that I was a fully formed college graduate.

Likewise, I'm not sure what has happened lately (midlife crisis?) but that feeling is coming back. The feeling that I have to do something about at least one of the many things that are fucked up about the world. Maybe it comes from finally being in a place of comfort and stability. Home life, work life, and social life are all more or less humming along. Now what? I climb the corporate ladder? Yawn. Have kids? Eh. Remember what I was so passionate about back in the day, and try to do something about it now that I'm not freaking out about everything else? Maybe!

A big part of what I am so passionate about, it turns out, is sexuality and sexual empowerment. I used to want to be a sex educator, but I suck at public speaking and I blush when I talk about sex. I'm sure there are other ways I can contribute to creating a more sexually enlightened world, especially in this age of Internets. Maybe I need to join the Toastmasters or something, but I'm just imagining giving impromptu speeches about fisting or whatever in front of a bunch of vanilla folks. Then again, I did write a paper on lesbian porn for my Feminism and Biology independent study, so I guess it's not out of the question.

Kinky "Elevator Pitch" - Do You Have One?

I've been at a couple of parties lately where I bottomed to a person I hadn't played with before. In both cases, the person asked me, "What do you like?" My initial answers were somewhere along the lines of: "Um, *giggle*, geez, um...well, I like...stuff. Hmm...."

Wow. I have to get better at this. I have started to wonder if I need an elevator pitch for my kink.

I can talk about what I like as a bottom in a more neutral social environment. Or if someone else is talking about something and I get kind of turned on, I know that I like that. Also, if I'm topping, I seem to be at least a little better at articulating what I might want to do, possibly because I'm newer at topping, and there are fewer activities I feel I can offer with confidence.

Part of the problem is that, activities-wise, I have liked a lot of things. I think a more relevant question for me is, "how do you like to feel?" That question automatically makes me feel more vulnerable, though. It's easier to say "I like bondage and nipple play" than "I want to feel like I am so desirable that you can't resist tying me down and ravishing me."

Also, I wonder if that puts undue pressure on the top, or if saying how I like to feel even makes sense from the top's perspective. If I were topping someone, that would be information I would want to have, but maybe I'm an anomaly. One of my communication weaknesses, in general, is overloading people with information (you should have heard the driving directions I used to give in the age before Google Maps and GPS). I don't want to do that when negotiating.

Fellow perverts: how do you answer the question "What do you like?" Do you have an elevator pitch? What kinds of information does it include? Do you have any tricks for remembering it when you are in the presence of someone hot who wants to do nasty things to you?

Please comment!

Too Much Information...or Maybe Just Enough

So, apparently I've reached a point in my life where I have decided that I have something to say. This blog is for the sex- and kink-related parts of what I have to say. I have to thank maymay for inspiring me not to confine my kinky web identity to FetLife. Time to dust off that old sex radical hat!

I already had separate email addresses for the "vanilla" and "kinky" parts of my life. Now I have separate blogs and Twitter accounts. I feel conflicted about fracturing my identity this way. Am I compartmentalizing myself or protecting myself? I think it’s always a little of both.

When I decided to be out as queer in all areas of my life, I realized that the closet has the effect of magnifying the perceived threat of exposure. If I were outed as kinky, it most likely wouldn’t be horrible for me. Most people wouldn’t care. But the act of hiding it actually makes it feel shameful, even if that’s not what I believe.

Also, the identity split gives me the feeling of too many keys on my keychain, of trying to remember all the things I need before I leave the house - watch, wallet, umbrella, phone, kinky me, vanilla me.

For now, though, splitting my identity is what works. Maybe something different will work tomorrow.

So what was I going to write about, besides my internal conflict in starting a sex blog? Hopefully it will come back to me.