It's simple, we blog the Batman

Yes, I finally saw the new Batman tonight. Before we begin this little blog, I would just like to formally state that I am not a comic book nerd. Of all the things I am a nerd about, comic books are not one of them. So any points I might make about the comic book universe should be taken with that idea in mind.

First, let's just say that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in the movie. So...

Then Cillian Murphy showed up and I was all:

Between uncomfortable ladyboners, I also got a chance to evaluate Anne Hathaway's chops as Catwoman. Now, bearing in mind what I have already said (the whole part about not being a comic book nerd), Catwoman is one of my favorite female villains. I appreciate that she is sort of a strong female character. She's certainly less of a, "oh noes, she's going to use her sexy wiles to stop 'good' from happening" villain than characters like Poison Ivy or Mystique. I also like that she is sort of goofy, in the way that a lot of times she just causes trouble so Batman will show up and she can be all, "I just created this elaborate plot so you would be here and I could make sexy moves at you." (This time I'm referring a lot more to old-school Julie Newmar or Lee Meriwether Catwoman, although it's also happened in more recent iterations as well.)

Anyway. if you'd like a more intellectually written piece on female superheroes, I point you here.

50 shades of Grey's Anatomy

Because who doesn't love a Jeopardy Before and After?

So, I just finished reading A Mind of Its Own, which is all about the cultural history of the penis. Interesting stuff, indeed. I got it from the library in tandem with The Technology of Orgasm (actually got them inter-library, because my library is not bad-ass enough to have either of them, whatever. Point still stands.) Which is about "hysteria" and it's treatment.

In any case, I'm not very far into Technology yet, but this little comparison fact had me all like this.

From Mind of Its Own, Leonardo daVinci first accurately described the anatomy of the penis in the 15th century. From Technology, it took until the 18th century to "develop a complete and meaningful vocabulary of the female anatomy." 300 years! 300 goddamn years. People knew what a boner was and the basics of how it happened 300 years before anybody was like, "oh, so you're saying there's like...different parts to the vagina?"

The size of that organ

Half horrible pun, half reference to a line from QAF (season 1, episode 1).

Here's a decent article that I actually found on my own this time. The TLDR version is a vanilla person getting butthurt about being called vanilla, and then a fairly reasoned article about how vanilla-ness is more of a mindset than anything else.

Personally, I get in a lot of trouble for being a general bitch to straight people. Which, it's mainly the question asking. Those who have had their lifestyle reinforced for them from day one don't like to answer the hows and the whys about what they do. They probably haven't even ever had to think about it. I'm not looking for something to be amazingly alternative in order for me to accept it. I'm  looking for people who have put more than a moment's thought into what they want and why they want it, regardless of what "it" actually is.

Coming out

I'd like to set a precedence here on "coming out." My mindset on the whole thing involves being honest with people who you feel would be directly and publicly affected by your sexual expression. For example, let's say you're in a collared relationship (either as the one giving the collar or the one wearing it). You can't decide within that relationship on a more "standard company" type collar like a choker or a necklace. (Or you know, get your fine china collar out only for special occasions.)

 
It's ultimately integral that you wear/have the other person wear something like a dog collar or something with large silver spikes at all times. In that instance, yes, you might consider "coming out" to the people around you. Because they are going to have questions. You can be one of those people who answers said questions as they come, or tries to nip things in the bud by doing a little introductory course. Ultimately it also depends on how important you feel people are to you, and whether they really need to know this about you and how you function in relationships.

Now, let's also say that this collared relationship involves quite a bit of S/m behavior as well. My general feeling - if it doesn't directly impact people around you (example: are you going to be bending on one knee to serve him dinner in a public restaurant?), then it's not up to other people to know about it. General social behavior? Coming out worthy. Very specific sexual behavior? Not coming out worthy. I realize it gets murky because things like LGBTBBQ-ness involve a bit of both. As Frank Sinatra once said, you can't have one without the other. However, letting other people know that you might be bringing somebody of the same gender around is not the same thing as creating a detailed list of all the things you like to get involved with between the sheets.

For example, I "came out" today to my mother about Frisbee. (I've decided to start capitalizing these, as it's difficult otherwise to distinguish between a verb and a proper noun.) He's going to be coming home with me in about a month, my mother will most likely meet him, and I didn't want to do the bullshit, "oh, this is my 'friend.' You may notice I hold hands with and sometimes kiss my 'friend' on the mouth, but don't worry. It's nothing we need to discuss." Ultimately, she doesn't need to know the specifics about it. That we met at a gang bang. That I see him usually about once a week, and that I like the taste of his dick in my mouth. All she needs to know is that she is going to meet him, and I'm going to interact with him publicly in the same way I do Now-hubby (i.e. hand holding, cuddling, kissing), and that we're all adults and okay about it.

The look

There are two types of looks I get on a fairly regular basis from other women.

The first type comes generally from straight women. (Assuming, of course. One never knows. About the straight part. Or I guess about the women part either. Whatever. The world is a confusing place. Moving on.) At some point in conversation, they'll mention something about how silly it is to be a woman, i.e. "don't you just hate how long it takes to put on make-up? But you do it anyway because you want to look pretty tee-hee." Or they'll say something about how completely impossible it is for women and men to relate, because they're just so different. á la, "All he wants to do is sit and watch football, I just don't get it!" Either type of statement is inevitably accompanied by an exacerbated expression and then a sort of, "you get it because we both have vaginas" look. When this happens:

(Side note: Brave was really not that great of a movie. But it's an applicable reaction gif. So there you go.)

The second type happens only in specific instances where another slightly dykey chick and I catch gazes. For example, I was at a job interview today and waiting in the little lobby area thing. Another lady walked in with shorter cut hair, and then this happened to both of our faces.

Alright, so it's never that smooth or obvious. It usually happens a bit more like this.

Like a little, "hi there, I see what you've got going on there and I acknowledge it's sexiness instead of wanting to question it or make you feel uncomfortable."

Vice guide

Now-hubby also pointed me in the direction of this. Really I owe him the majority of credit for funny/cool things I find on the Internet. Every once in awhile I can show him something awesome, but usually he's the one sending me links. Which I love him for.

Anyway. This one is the Vice Guide to Being a Lesbian. Which, the Vice Guide to being Gay is also pretty hilarious. But this little paragraph about strapons from the lesbian one is the best ever.

There’s also something really awesome about being able to gag a girl with your fat cock, and then take it off and wash it in the sink. Imagine having that nonsense in-between your legs non-stop. What happens when it’s hot outside? Where do you put it when you sleep on your side? Makes zero sense. Also, dick slapping a girl with a peen you bought just cause it’s called The Vamp and came in a box with Twilight shit on it is really funny.

The Internet is for porn

Now-hubby pointed this little interview out to me with James Deen in GQ.

Hilariously, he put in the subject line, "James Deen (the porn star)," because, you know, I might have gotten confused.

It's less of an interview as more of a sort of "day in the life" piece, but it's decently done.

The only little twinge I got was when, near the end, there's this line:

Ultimately, for this reporter, I would be frightened that if I weren't able to recall the names of sexual partners beyond the previous two weeks, ideals like intimacy and love would begin to seem gooey and absurd, and a terrible unexamined loneliness would become the natural condition of my life.

There's a bit of judgement/standard narrative going on here. On a second reading, I'm willing to focus on the, "for this reporter," bit and interpret it more as for him specifically those are scary things. He's not necessarily making a judgement call one way or the other if other people should be capable of this type of relationship.

Trigger warning

Subtitle to the post: why you won't ever see it on this blog.

I don't believe in trigger warnings. For those not particularly in the know, "trigger warning" is something that gets thrown around before somebody is going to say something potentially offensive. You know, like "fart burgers" or something. (I'm again being overly facetious, it's a particular habit of mine. You might as well get used to it.) It's supposed to somehow protect people who will get butthurt over words, which is a stupid concept for me. Personally, if anything, I think "trigger warning" gives more power to potentially offensive words.

I'm a big believer in language as a social construct. And the idea that language is malleable depending on the context of who you are talking to and the tone of voice being used. I won't go into the whole idea that you have to be a member of some community in order to use a given word. That's also bullshit. The idea that you need to have some sort of pass code or badge that somehow gives you the right to use words. I have very close friends who can use "trigger words" around me and evoke laughter, and then I have people who have yelled "trigger words" out of their car windows at me just because they felt that somehow I was a lesser human being than they were and I deserved to be upset about it. And I've had instances in my life where things were distinctly shitty because of an emotional/physical thing, and then specific emotional/physical things that have brought me back to those instances in a not very good way. But regardless, trigger words are just words. Sticks and stones and all that good stuff. In any regard, I don't feel the need to put anything in this blog ever about it.

So...you know.

Ignorance is bliss

So, despite all evidence to the contrary, knowing things about sex is sort of important to me. (If you're not catching the overly facetious falsification there, then I'm like this, because you're cute and things.)

Therefore, it's interesting to me to find people in the world who just don't know about sex. These are very different types of people than the ones who know about sex but are repulsed/confused by it ("You mean you let him put his wiener in your butt? Guh-ross.") These are the types of people that actually laugh along with laugh tracks on sitcoms, because if a computer generated approximation of human laughter is telling you something is funny, then it probably is. They accept the standard narrative of sexuality and relationships because that's just what gets talked about the most, so it must be correct. Every once in awhile they might get this nagging feeling that something is missing, or that they aren't quite getting exactly what they want, but they don't even have the words to express what that is.

When I do the online Mistress thing, inevitably I get guys who message me who don't know anything beyond the fact that they want to be dominated. They don't know what type of limitations they have, what type of kinks they're into, nothing. The majority of them just tell me the idea of a "strong" woman telling them what to do is exciting to them.

I guess it has a bit to do with recognizing difference and wanting to know more about it. If you spend your entire life being sort of "status quo" as it were, it's difficult to articulate exactly what you're looking for when you step outside those bounds. If you recognize being different early on, you have to explain to yourself in addition to everyone else around you both why you're "weird" and also why it's okay that you are.

Multiple loves

There's a trope that works it's way around poly. It usually winds up going something like this: "You can't expect one person to meet all your needs, because it's like...you love your parents and you love your friends. But not in the same way. So it's natural to love more than one person at a time."

Putting aside my already stated opinion about having one person vs. many people "meet your needs" (again with the "needs" thing - it's like a tiny irritant at this point). There's something specific about this argument that I disagree with. It's the idea that poly equals purely platonic relationships with others. Not that there aren't people out there who really are just looking for the friendship/romance aspect with other people and not particularly the squelchy bits, but just in my own experience and in my own head I don't see a lot of people going through the communication, the rules set-up, etc. etc. just so they can have a few buddies to hang out with. What does that look like? "You can take them out to the movies, but don't bring them over for board games?" Maybe there's a bit more to the whole idea of "emotional" cheating somewhere in here and that's what I'm missing. Having been the friend dumpee a few times (i.e. somebody who is told by friends that I can't hang out with them anymore because their significant other is somehow threatened by the outside "relationship"), I guess it makes sense in a sort of standard narrative way for people to need to define and somehow protect themselves against platonic things that might turn into something all gooshy (or, perhaps more frighteningly, squelchy?)

In any case, I don't agree with it. Unless we're getting Oedipal about it, of course you don't love the people you're entering into relationships with the same way you love your parents. Of course they meet different "needs" for you. Trying to say the way you form consensual adult relationships with other people is similar to the 3-year old idea of sharing your toys because it's...you know...just what one does is sort of simplifying the whole thing past necessity.

Love you madly

Therapy lady and I discuss a lot the idea of "authentic self." Am I somehow not being true to who I fundamentally am by doing the whole, "oh, I don't have anything planned this weekend" bit when I actually have lots of very fun things planned that make me happy? In the end, it's less about the vernacular and more about whether or not I want to let somebody in and trust them not to hurt me.

I grew up surrounded by my parent's relationship that was fundamentally broken on a lot of levels. I knew that I didn't want that in my own relationship: the codependency, the narcissism, the addiction, the lying, etc. This is a troubling one in a sense, because a lot of people tend to go, "a-ha! That's why you don't trust monogamy. That's why you don't think love exists." etc. etc. It's a nice little scapegoat for what appears to be "problems" in the way I live my life, and therefore it could feasibly be fixed. I had an exemplary model of what I didn't want in my own relationships via my parents. However, I also didn't see anything I wanted in so-called "functional" monogamous relationships, either. When it came time for me to start forming my own relationships, it was essentially like starting from scratch. Therapy lady and I like to equate it to an empty lot of land that you can build a house on. Knock down the old and build the new, don't keep trying to replace and/or fix the old, because it's falling the fuck apart and you'll wind up buried. (In this scenario, the broken house can either be equated to my parent's relationship model, or to the standard societal narrative that I'm trying not to get crushed by. Your choice. Imagination is fun.)

I've never been physically hurt by somebody else just because I was different (in this case, read "different" to mean poly, kinky, queer). I dislike the idea that seems persistent in "counter culture" that being different makes you somehow completely misunderstood by everybody all the time.

But in my own experience, it's made me a little more cautious about everybody all the time. Who do I tell about certain aspects of myself, and who do I not tell?

Standard Narrative

Every once in awhile I've been known to frequent a little website called Reddit. For those of you in the know, yes, I do more than lurk and browse gw. For those of you unfamiliar, check it out.

Today, I found one of the better examples of the standard narrative and why I hate it over on r/sex. In a nutshell, a gentleman was caught masturbating by his pregnant wife, and it did not go well. You can find the actual post here.

I'm going to just go point by point of the things that annoy me. Strap in, motherfuckers.

But, I don't know, I still have needs.

"I have needs" should be the three words that are circle slashed, cut out, verboten, however you want to say just not fucking allowed anymore. This is a completely narcissistic view of relationships, and clearly states that regardless of what the other person in the relationship is feeling or doing, it shouldn't really matter. Because, you know, boners. It makes me imagine a telethon. You know. Sad music playing against Ken Burns style cuts of crying heterosexual men with raging hard-ons. Their frigid bitch wives just can't satisfy their needs anymore. For only two cents a day you can help these poor souls get their needs met. Call now. Operators are standing by. 

The previous night, I was willing to get it [sic] a shot and asked her if she was in the mood/up for it, but was turned down. It's been a solid 2 weeks.

Oh ho ho dear readers. See? It's really not his fault at all. He offered to "get it a shot" and try to get it up for his fat pregnant wife. It reminds me a bit of this. Give this man a fucking medal. He tried, folks. And then she said no. So, really, I think we can clearly see whose fault this whole thing really is. Also, two fucking weeks! That's an unheard amount of time for a man to have to wait to have sex with somebody. I've read science books - it's like, hard wired in their DNA or some shit.

Even as newlyweds, we'd only have sex maybe once a week. So, as unbelieveable as it was for me to do so, I had turned to masturbation fairly soon in our marriage to take care of my needs.

Again with the needs. Also, how the fuck do you get married to somebody and not realize that your sex drives are so completely incompatible? I'm not talking about, "oh geez I like to have sex in the morning and you like to have it in the evening." This is clearly, "I like to fuck whenever I feel the 'need' to." (And when you have needs, that's a responsibility.) vs. "I only feel we need to have sex maybe once a week." I don't think it's unbelievable that the OP had to "turn" to masturbation, I think it's unbelievable that he made a lifetime commitment to somebody who he clearly doesn't agree with on a fundamental level that is important to him.

...during the 4 months that we were apart, she didn't feel the need to rub one out herself...but I digress.

Indeed you do. We've now passed the bridge from moderately passive aggressive (you're not meeting "my needs," even after I so generously offered to fuck you the other night) into total and absolute passive aggression (not only are you not meeting my needs, but you don't even know how to meet your own, and that makes you worthy of pity and scorn).


...it was like watching an infant who just fell down and scraped their knee...

I like the implication here that his wife is literally an infant. As in, not an equitable adult who he would have to treat with a modicum of respect or acknowledge her feelings. I mean, kids fall down and all you have to do is not freak out about it. Then they don't freak out about it. Kids and women are so easily emotionally swayed, right? Let's disregard the fact that infants generally don't fall down, as they aren't typically that mobile yet. Maybe something more like a toddler or a small child. Still, the implication is here that his wife is more of something he now has to deal with and fix.


Again, no porn was involved here.  

Again, this does not mean you get a gold star. This is not a legitimate argument as to why you are in the right here.


Now, I'm no dummy...I'm sure that a lot of what was at play here was just pregnancy hormones. 

Me to now-hubby: "If we ever get pregnant, and you blame something I do on 'pregnancy horomones,' I am going to rip the fetus out and then beat you to death with it."

At one point she said, "why couldn't you have turned to me?" Well, hun, I did last night and you said no.

Stellar. Just stellar. He tried!! And you said no. Therefore, anything he does after that point is completely justifiable and should not need explanation or discussion at all.


***

Overall, the entire thing just is so "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" that's it's abjectly painful.  I'm not a big fan of monogamy, but I'm an even lesser fan of heteronormative bullshit like this post. It's very difficult to believe that he didn't know about his wife's strict religious upbringing, or ideas about sex and masturbation before they got married. If it was clearly such a conflict, why do you nevertheless decide to go through the steps of being somehow contractually tied to this person?

Ride the pain into the pleasure

Found on one of my new favorite tumblrs: http://bit.ly/OqPFIi

When I'm subbing, I like pain. I also like being what some would call "bratty." This means that I often get quite a bit of pain, which is awesome. There have been times when I've orgasmed strictly from impact play. Let me rephrase that a bit - I typically orgasm when subbing for impact play. Like, almost every time. 

Sometimes I get in trouble in the "scene" as it were for being too sexual about things. Which, in the long run, winds up being that I'm in trouble for being a woman who enjoys sex. (There's actually quite a few good parts in Sex at Dawn about how stupid the fight against female sexuality is.) Or, I guess, it's okay for me to be a woman who likes sex. But I'm supposed to like it in it's clearly delineated and approved methods that exist to turn on the person that I'm with, not actually serve any purpose of my own. When I'm hit, I'm just supposed to cower and mewl and be all, "Yes, Sir. Whatever you ask, Sir. Your every wish is my command, Sir." When I'm hit, I'm supposed to say, "Thank you, Sir." Or possibly be counting the strikes. Or, you know, start crying or something. But I'm not supposed to moan, or be too into it.

Impact orgasms are good orgasms, too. I once wrote a very interesting internet comment about the difference between orgasms from nipple play (which can happen, usually when I'm on my period), and vaginal orgasms, and orgasms strictly from clitoral stimulation. I guess what it comes down to is being a woman is freaking amazing, because all of those are completely separate orgasms, and they all feel entirely different when they're happening. Impact orgasms are the kind that once they happen, I have to either call out the safe word or completely stop play, because any touching of any kind is too much stimulation at that point. Impact orgasms are a slow build-up and happen almost without me being aware of it. Impact orgasms are the kind that completely wipe me out afterward. I just want to cuddle soft things and feel fuzzy and awesome.

Very close friends

When now-hubby and I were first getting together (sit down, children, it's story time apparently), we met because we worked the same summer job during college. Funny side note: I was talking with the Mouseketeer this past weekend about how pretty much any story from this time period can be appropriately summarized by just saying, "it was college." As a clearer example, I was telling him about one of my better sexual experiences, involving pot, a trampoline, and blood. He asked for more details, and that's how the story started. "It was college...." Really, that should be the end of the story right there.

Anyway! Back on track with the choo-choo story train. In addition to now-hubby and myself there were at least 12 to 15 other people who were also working this same summer job. Since we all worked together during the day, we usually also all hung out together after hours as well. Also, college towns in the summer are decidedly empty, so there weren't really that many other people to be around anyway. Reference your willful girl blog textbooks where I've already discussed how I tend to relate to people on a sexual level. It's not that I do it as some sort of cover, or that I don't have anything else to talk about. You should see me at vanilla work Christmas parties. Decidedly demure. Business this and nuclear families that. It's quite shockingly ironic, actually. It just feels like a very natural progression for me with people. I think somebody is interesting - I get to know them a bit better - they turn out to be actually very interesting, and also funny/charming/adorable/insert very positive adjective here - we hang out as friends for a bit - I let them know a bit more about who I am - they don't run away in fear - eventually I will want to have sex with them. I want to make it clear, though, that this is also definitely not the same thing as, "oh, boys and girls can't be friends because eventually they're just going to want to fuck each other." In a way, it's sort of true because if I am friends with somebody and I've let them in and trust them enough, I will probably want to fuck them. However, there aren't the implied, "and then they'll be in wuv and together and it will ruin the friendship" aftereffects. Really, for me it's more of an, "I think you're an alright person and I like you. Maybe we should express that in a more sexual manner than we have previously."

In any case, back to the story. Me being who I am, and now-hubby being who he is, we sort of got together. I made it fairly explicit from the beginning, in the sense that, "We can date, but I am most likely going to fuck other people. I will tell you about it, we will have rules between the two of us that will make us sort of more 'exclusive,' but it's going to happen." This was awkward a few times with the whole mutual friends involvement, as those are some of the people I wound up fucking. I feel as though it's gotten less strange for now-hubby and I - where he has friends that I also sleep with. Of course, I'm just speaking for myself. I perceive it as being less weird. However, it's always something to negotiate, as I also always sort of tend to wind up with people that are in some way also similar to now-hubby (which is really just a more elegant way of saying I attract nerds). Is it okay for him to be friends with the people I fuck? Is it okay for me to fuck his friends? (In the former situation, the fucking happens first. In the latter, friendship first.) It's just another one of those awesome things in our relationship to talk about an consider.