So, as I've mentioned in passing a couple of times, I took a six week burlesque class. We learned a cloyingly sweet 50s pinup routine which included glove peels and bra and panty removal as well as a few different types of shimmies.
Shimmies are kind of the bread and butter of burlesque. They're what get all your fun lady parts shaking and jiggling in provocative ways. I need lots of shimmy practice. My motions aren't exaggerated enough and I tend to tense up at some point and that doesn't work. I try to practice at least like 15 minutes every day. I just go through all the shimmies I know and try to do them for a couple of minutes each.
I still need lots of practice on lots of things, actually. And I know for next semester to run through the choreography way more than I did. I never got to that point of feeling so comfortable with the moves that I could inject any personality into it. I sort of felt like a robot doing the motions in the final class when it was my turn to do it on my own. My instructor said I did a great job, but my classmate really pulled out the sass and it was fantastic! I was too busy thinking about what move comes next to do much more than smile. Plus I'm still getting over feeling ridiculous watching myself in the mirror.
So that's that. I was thinking only a couple of weeks into it that I would take another round of 101 after this semester. But all my classmates are doing 201 and I'd really like to stick with them. We've just started getting to know each other and we all get along really well. I had to think about it for half a second after finishing my final run-through of the routine. I decided to commit to this thing and see it through and that I'm going to devote the time necessary to do a better job in 201. Because I know I can. And it's fun and totally worth the effort.
Now to design some costumes...
Monday, October 29, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Compliment Or Crass?
When I first started sharing nude photos with the internets, I took all positive comments as a compliment. Even if that positive comment was something really uncouth like, "I want to lick your pussy." I mean, I'm posting nude photos on the internets. I kind of expect this sort of language thrown at me. But after a while, you get enough comments which fall all across the board that these start to rub you the wrong way (no pun intended). More and more, I notice I'm kind of put off by these, "damn, I want to suck your nipples" comments as opposed to how I feel when someone says something seemingly sincere like, "your husband is a lucky man" or "you're beautiful/sexy/gorgeous/hot" or "I love your poses" or hell, even "I love your tits" is usually okay. When I get these comments, I'm quick to smile and thank the person giving me the compliment. When I get the other sort of comments, I have to really stop and ponder how I'm going to respond. Let's go through a few of the scenarios that play through my head when I'm facing down an "I want to fuck your brains out" comment, shall we?
"Seriously? I mean, I know I'm putting my vagina out there on display, and I like the fact that you appreciate it, but just because I put it out there doesn't mean I want to fuck every person who likes my photos. And really, don't you have something a little better to say than how much you want to break me in half with your cock?"
This is often how I want to respond. It's my first, knee-jerk reaction to those crass comments. They seem so unimaginative. So lowest common denominator. You see a vagina and you want to fuck it, I get that, but does it really need to be said? I don't often respond with anything like this because I'm afraid of getting called a bitch and a tease and someone who can't take a compliment and anything else that might turn it around on me for not appreciating these explicit comments. And that's not okay. I shouldn't be the one afraid to overstep some boundary here. They're my photos. It's my body. And when you comment in this manner, it feels like you don't respect any of my desires at all. You just assume that when I put it out there, it's for anyone to have a piece of it that wants it. It never crossed your mind that I might just enjoy getting naked and taking photos. You assume I want to hear all the filthy things my photos make you want to do. I have a pretty good imagination and I'm perfectly capable of filling in the blanks with what you probably want to do to me even if your comment only says, "hot". Most importantly, it's like my burlesque instructor was saying about a guy she worked with when he found out she danced. He asked if he could stick it anywhere he wanted. And he subsequently got written up for it. Just because I take my clothes off in a fairly public forum doesn't mean I want you to touch me. And hell, I might be really attracted to you, but there are boundaries and I wish people would respect those boundaries. We'd all have a lot more fun.
"Teehee! Thank you for wanting to fuck me. And especially thank you for saying you wanted to fuck me. Because, as a woman, what I really need is for a man to tell me I'm attractive. All the time. As graphically as possible. And that's why I share nude photos.
This is the obvious sarcasm route, which I often type out just to get it out of my system, and then hit Ctrl+A and Delete before typing a quick offhanded, "thanks", usually in all lowercase and with no punctuation. Because really, I feel like I have to say something because you'll just think I'm ignoring you and being a high and mighty slut, but that somehow my lack of effort to engage with you by not even hitting the shift key will convey to you what should already be apparent. That telling a woman you want to lick her pussy right off the bat doesn't often get you any closer to that desire. Women, even we whores, like to be romanced. We want to know you saw something in our photo other than the glistening, wet vagina on display or the fully erect nipples in clamps. We want to know that you saw the woman attached to the lady parts. That you appreciate the composition or the pose or the lighting or anything besides the fucking nudity. Maybe I'm doing this wrong. I don't know. But again, answering in this manner really is bitchy and if I was afraid of getting called a bitch from the first option, then I know I'd get called a bitch for this one.
"Thank you so much for the compliments!"
This is what I used to write. When I was battling my own self-esteem and body image issues and struggling with every photo to find the beauty in myself, I'd take it and sometimes, I'd even engage in a back and forth that started like this. And a couple of times, I met really great people this way. But, ultimately, this is what I responded with because I guessed that a huge chunk of the audience to which I would appeal would be fetishists who didn't know how to be anything but animals (which is a very small population of the fetish community, in my experience). I mean, I'm not a conventional looking woman and so I thought I just had to take what I could get. I'm learning this is not the case and I'm going to stop responding in this way. No exceptions. If we don't have an established rapport where it's okay for you to message me and say, "come suck my cock," and you message me and say, "come suck my cock," the best you can possibly hope for is getting ignored. Again, NO EXCEPTIONS!
"Heh, I'm married, but thanks."
This has been my resent fallback. As these comments started to irritate me, I still felt I needed to respond and I still felt I needed to play along, or at least be cordial. I needed an out and playing the marriage card seemed the easiest thing to shut down any potential boorish comments or subsequent backlash for me shutting them down. But I shouldn't need to come up with excuses about why I couldn't let you shove your entire fist in my pussy any day of the week you might want to. Bottom line, those sorts of notions are really something you should keep to yourself unless you're sure the other person is down with exploring that with you. How do you find out without straight up proposing it like this? Well, maybe take some time to get to know the person before you make such comments. You can usually gauge the likelihood of your fantasies coming true with them after some conversation. And it doesn't have to be explicit conversation. Just because we're kinky people and you're looking at nude photos of me doesn't mean we have to jump right to the sex. I'm here to make connections as well. I'm everywhere to make connections. Connections to real people I can learn something from and people with whom I enjoy spending time. But by all means, there are people out there who love these comments. They love making them and receiving them and you can find out if that's what they're into the same way. Talk to them. Connect with them. I do not love these comments and I'm getting to the point where I hate them and I need to do better about expressing that. So here we are. Consider it expressed.
[ignoring]
This is what's going to happen from now on. I'm a busy woman and if you don't have the time to come up with a more original comment than, "I want to fuck you so hard," then I don't even have the time for that lowercase, non-punctuated "thanks" anymore. But at the same time, this is kind of unsatisfying. Because these asshats have no idea they're doing anything wrong. And I feel like it's my civic duty to inform them of their social faux pas. But that's likely only going to get me some of that backlash I mentioned above.
See a trend here? I've seen all these essays lately on sexual harassment and rape culture and dealing with creepers in social situations. And there's this ongoing dialog that goes something like this:
Victims of bullshit: "This is fucked up! Something must be done!"
Bystanders: "Don't be so hard on them, they don't know what they're doing. Maybe go the extra mile to give them some guidance."
Victims: "Yes. I will do that. With my copious amounts of spare time and my endless patience and all that personal responsibility I have toward everyone I meet. I will make sure that these penis wrinkles who feel the need to make these obtuse comments leave my presence with a well developed sense of how to interact with their fellow human beings."
Bystanders: "Well, okay, I see you have a point there."
Douche canoes who say stupid shit to naked women: [silence] Or alternatively, they're standing with the bystanders, looking around nervously, saying, "maybe these guys are just socially awkward?"
Victims: "Sure, that's a very likely possibility. But how exactly is that my problem? How exactly should I have to put up with being treated like a blow up doll just because these dick trickles never learned to respect women?"
Douche canoes: [silence]
But that's about where it ends. We're in a back and forth and that's good. It's an improvement, at least. But we need to have some solutions to deal with this. I, personally, need to have a way to politely comment back to these people (and I know I've been really hard on men specifically here, and the comments are overwhelmingly by males, but certainly there are females who do not know how to respect personal boundaries as well, I don't want to seem like I'm singling out men) and let them know that while I appreciate that they appreciate my body, I'd rather them say it in a more appreciative way.
Tl;dr - Just because someone makes their body intimately available for you to look at does not mean they want you to intimately touch their body. And just because you think something doesn't mean you should say it. Test the waters. Get to know them. Figure out if telling them you want to fuck them so hard you'll make them cry is something that will garner a positive response or a restraining order before you say it.
So, that's where my head is today. And this is not at all the recap of my first semester of burlesque classes that I set out to write. But, oh well, I needed to write it.
"Seriously? I mean, I know I'm putting my vagina out there on display, and I like the fact that you appreciate it, but just because I put it out there doesn't mean I want to fuck every person who likes my photos. And really, don't you have something a little better to say than how much you want to break me in half with your cock?"
This is often how I want to respond. It's my first, knee-jerk reaction to those crass comments. They seem so unimaginative. So lowest common denominator. You see a vagina and you want to fuck it, I get that, but does it really need to be said? I don't often respond with anything like this because I'm afraid of getting called a bitch and a tease and someone who can't take a compliment and anything else that might turn it around on me for not appreciating these explicit comments. And that's not okay. I shouldn't be the one afraid to overstep some boundary here. They're my photos. It's my body. And when you comment in this manner, it feels like you don't respect any of my desires at all. You just assume that when I put it out there, it's for anyone to have a piece of it that wants it. It never crossed your mind that I might just enjoy getting naked and taking photos. You assume I want to hear all the filthy things my photos make you want to do. I have a pretty good imagination and I'm perfectly capable of filling in the blanks with what you probably want to do to me even if your comment only says, "hot". Most importantly, it's like my burlesque instructor was saying about a guy she worked with when he found out she danced. He asked if he could stick it anywhere he wanted. And he subsequently got written up for it. Just because I take my clothes off in a fairly public forum doesn't mean I want you to touch me. And hell, I might be really attracted to you, but there are boundaries and I wish people would respect those boundaries. We'd all have a lot more fun.
"Teehee! Thank you for wanting to fuck me. And especially thank you for saying you wanted to fuck me. Because, as a woman, what I really need is for a man to tell me I'm attractive. All the time. As graphically as possible. And that's why I share nude photos.
This is the obvious sarcasm route, which I often type out just to get it out of my system, and then hit Ctrl+A and Delete before typing a quick offhanded, "thanks", usually in all lowercase and with no punctuation. Because really, I feel like I have to say something because you'll just think I'm ignoring you and being a high and mighty slut, but that somehow my lack of effort to engage with you by not even hitting the shift key will convey to you what should already be apparent. That telling a woman you want to lick her pussy right off the bat doesn't often get you any closer to that desire. Women, even we whores, like to be romanced. We want to know you saw something in our photo other than the glistening, wet vagina on display or the fully erect nipples in clamps. We want to know that you saw the woman attached to the lady parts. That you appreciate the composition or the pose or the lighting or anything besides the fucking nudity. Maybe I'm doing this wrong. I don't know. But again, answering in this manner really is bitchy and if I was afraid of getting called a bitch from the first option, then I know I'd get called a bitch for this one.
"Thank you so much for the compliments!"
This is what I used to write. When I was battling my own self-esteem and body image issues and struggling with every photo to find the beauty in myself, I'd take it and sometimes, I'd even engage in a back and forth that started like this. And a couple of times, I met really great people this way. But, ultimately, this is what I responded with because I guessed that a huge chunk of the audience to which I would appeal would be fetishists who didn't know how to be anything but animals (which is a very small population of the fetish community, in my experience). I mean, I'm not a conventional looking woman and so I thought I just had to take what I could get. I'm learning this is not the case and I'm going to stop responding in this way. No exceptions. If we don't have an established rapport where it's okay for you to message me and say, "come suck my cock," and you message me and say, "come suck my cock," the best you can possibly hope for is getting ignored. Again, NO EXCEPTIONS!
"Heh, I'm married, but thanks."
This has been my resent fallback. As these comments started to irritate me, I still felt I needed to respond and I still felt I needed to play along, or at least be cordial. I needed an out and playing the marriage card seemed the easiest thing to shut down any potential boorish comments or subsequent backlash for me shutting them down. But I shouldn't need to come up with excuses about why I couldn't let you shove your entire fist in my pussy any day of the week you might want to. Bottom line, those sorts of notions are really something you should keep to yourself unless you're sure the other person is down with exploring that with you. How do you find out without straight up proposing it like this? Well, maybe take some time to get to know the person before you make such comments. You can usually gauge the likelihood of your fantasies coming true with them after some conversation. And it doesn't have to be explicit conversation. Just because we're kinky people and you're looking at nude photos of me doesn't mean we have to jump right to the sex. I'm here to make connections as well. I'm everywhere to make connections. Connections to real people I can learn something from and people with whom I enjoy spending time. But by all means, there are people out there who love these comments. They love making them and receiving them and you can find out if that's what they're into the same way. Talk to them. Connect with them. I do not love these comments and I'm getting to the point where I hate them and I need to do better about expressing that. So here we are. Consider it expressed.
[ignoring]
This is what's going to happen from now on. I'm a busy woman and if you don't have the time to come up with a more original comment than, "I want to fuck you so hard," then I don't even have the time for that lowercase, non-punctuated "thanks" anymore. But at the same time, this is kind of unsatisfying. Because these asshats have no idea they're doing anything wrong. And I feel like it's my civic duty to inform them of their social faux pas. But that's likely only going to get me some of that backlash I mentioned above.
See a trend here? I've seen all these essays lately on sexual harassment and rape culture and dealing with creepers in social situations. And there's this ongoing dialog that goes something like this:
Victims of bullshit: "This is fucked up! Something must be done!"
Bystanders: "Don't be so hard on them, they don't know what they're doing. Maybe go the extra mile to give them some guidance."
Victims: "Yes. I will do that. With my copious amounts of spare time and my endless patience and all that personal responsibility I have toward everyone I meet. I will make sure that these penis wrinkles who feel the need to make these obtuse comments leave my presence with a well developed sense of how to interact with their fellow human beings."
Bystanders: "Well, okay, I see you have a point there."
Douche canoes who say stupid shit to naked women: [silence] Or alternatively, they're standing with the bystanders, looking around nervously, saying, "maybe these guys are just socially awkward?"
Victims: "Sure, that's a very likely possibility. But how exactly is that my problem? How exactly should I have to put up with being treated like a blow up doll just because these dick trickles never learned to respect women?"
Douche canoes: [silence]
But that's about where it ends. We're in a back and forth and that's good. It's an improvement, at least. But we need to have some solutions to deal with this. I, personally, need to have a way to politely comment back to these people (and I know I've been really hard on men specifically here, and the comments are overwhelmingly by males, but certainly there are females who do not know how to respect personal boundaries as well, I don't want to seem like I'm singling out men) and let them know that while I appreciate that they appreciate my body, I'd rather them say it in a more appreciative way.
Tl;dr - Just because someone makes their body intimately available for you to look at does not mean they want you to intimately touch their body. And just because you think something doesn't mean you should say it. Test the waters. Get to know them. Figure out if telling them you want to fuck them so hard you'll make them cry is something that will garner a positive response or a restraining order before you say it.
So, that's where my head is today. And this is not at all the recap of my first semester of burlesque classes that I set out to write. But, oh well, I needed to write it.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Guilty Pleasures: Tentacle Hentai
I fucking love hardcore tentacle hentai. The more non-consensual and extreme the better. But I don't like egg laying or girls getting fucked so hard they split in two or explode because they're filled so full of cum. That's a bit too extreme for my tastes. But this scene from Bible Black is like the Goldilocks of tentacle porn for me.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Do you miss me?
Life seems only to be accelerating. But I'm in burlesque classes now and I'm having a lot of fun. I have much more to say about it than that, but not more time to say it in.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Coming up for air.
So, I've been reading more books and essays and watching more porn to do more reviews. There's that. Plus I've been working on photography again, but mostly using badly lit cell phone pics just to try out poses or get an idea of what something looks like.
Mostly I've been running around momming. I thought I was supposed to have more time after school started, but I'm finding I have less and less time as my days quickly fill with new commitments.
Plus I just started a 90 day workout program that will have me alternating strength training with cardio six days a week from 30 minutes to an hour a day. I report in every 30 days so they can take measurements again and add more stuff. But it'll be worth it. I'm about to go do a run in the park I think, if it's not about to rain.
Mostly I've been running around momming. I thought I was supposed to have more time after school started, but I'm finding I have less and less time as my days quickly fill with new commitments.
Plus I just started a 90 day workout program that will have me alternating strength training with cardio six days a week from 30 minutes to an hour a day. I report in every 30 days so they can take measurements again and add more stuff. But it'll be worth it. I'm about to go do a run in the park I think, if it's not about to rain.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
How I would vote if I was a prostitute.
Mitt Romney seems like the type of guy who would accidentally kill a hooker while he was fucking her. Like he'd figure out I like to be choked, but he'd do it without asking and without a safe word or anything and he'd go too far. I'd think, "fuck, I can't breathe. Fuck, that's my windpipe being crushed!" And as he'd shoot his load inside my cunt, I'd think, "that fucker agreed not to!" And he'd finish me off and that would be my final thought. Hell of way to go.
Barak Obama, on the other hand, seems like he'd be like fucking Isaac Hayes before Scientology. He'd finesse you even though he didn't have to since he was fucking paying you. You'd actually want to give your body to this man because he makes you believe he wants it. But for all his silken words in the beginning, he'd just toss the bills on your ass as you lay there still in the afterglow and say, "thanks baby," over his shoulder before walking out the door without even looking at you.
But I'm probably too drunk to be making these comments.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Porn Review: Power Fuck (featuring Jesse Jane and Stoya)
I love Stoya. I love Stoya. I. LOVE. STOYA! She's amazing and gorgeous and super ultra sexy and I love her in everything I've seen her in. In fact, in something like this, where she's only got one scene, I get impatient waiting it out for the other stuff to see her.
Luckily there was only one scene before hers and that was with Jesse Jane, Breanne Benson and Mick Blue in a threesome. Ordinarily, I'm a fan of threesomes. I've been in a few and they multiply the fun exponentially. But I didn't like Jesse Jane's look in this movie. At all. In fact, I found her difficult to look at. It's a personal preference thing, really and she's just not my type. Breanne has a gorgeous, natural looking body, though I like her better with her natural dark hair and she gets the lion's share of Mick's cock as well as the screen time as Jesse sometimes takes it upon herself to film their adventure. This scene, overall, just really didn't do much for me. There was just something a little off about the chemistry, maybe. Or maybe it just wasn't my thing. The beautiful thing about porn is that there's something for everyone and the next couple of scenes were definitely for me.
Enter Stoya in a gorgeous see-through black dress being followed up a staircase by Manuel Ferrara with a camera. Most of their scene is a point-of-view shoot which keeps it natural and simple and uncrowded by plot or premise. In fact, none of the scenes have anything but sex in them. It's wall to wall sex and maybe I'm going against the female grain on this one, but I prefer it that way. When they try to throw plot in, it just always comes across as cheesy. Let them do what they do best and nothing else: fuck.
I'm not a huge fan of Manuel Ferrara. He's better in front of the camera, I think. Then I can't hear him as much and his pretty face distracts me. I've learned to love dirty talk during sex and porn, but something about the way he does it just has a desperation to it that I find to be a turn off. But I like his kinks. I like the way he poses her and watches her and just takes her in as a stunning specimen of a woman. I love how he dominates her with a light touch. I love how he pushes her down with her face on a nightstand where he's set the camera at one point as he bends her over and fucks her from behind while choking her and slapping her. She loves it too and you can totally tell. I just love this scene. It's one of my favorites of Stoya's. She's just so fucking gorgeous in it. Her eyes are just amazing and they hypnotize me every time.
Next up was James Deen with Hilary Scott. James Deen is another one I love to watch fuck. He's a machine! His hands are all over her from the very first second and he just gropes and takes total possession of her whole body. I love the way he dominates a scene. He's a dirty fucking bastard and it is awesome. This is one of the longer scenes. He just keeps going and going, moving her between a couch and a table and positioning her in all sorts of ways. And man, does he love anal sex. And man, do I love to watch him have anal sex. I'd love to see a behind the scenes interview with what was left of Hilary Scott after this scene. He just seems so relentless. But I love how he looks at her. How he holds her gaze. How hungry he looks and not the least bit desperate. And how he always looks like he wandered in off a construction site.
The next scene is Kasey Chase and Manuel Ferrara (he's in three of the five scenes). It takes place in a locker room. I don't really get the jockstrap fetish and it's a bit distracting to me. But Kasey Chase is gorgeous and I love the way he throws her against the lockers and just fucks her brains out.
Finally, we have Manuel Ferrara again with Faye Reagan in the last scene and I think after this scene she's one of my new favorite porn stars. She's just so lusciously sweet! Her face is lovely and delicately freckled and I love her strawberry blonde hair and her big doll eyes and god damn can she fucking suck some cock!
There aren't many extras here. Just a gallery of stills and a cumshot recap. Three out of the five scenes are fucking stellar. One of the remaining two is still pretty rocking, despite the man-smell fetish I wasn't into. And lastly, I just really didn't care for the opening threesome scene much. I'd probably skip it on rewatches. So, I guess I'd give it a 4 of 5 on the grounds that I will watch the hell out of the Stoya and James Deen scenes.
So, I have a Tumblr now.
Because I needed a place to post nude photos that didn't require people be members to see them. You can find me there at the unsurprising location morwennouveau.tumblr.com
Friday, July 27, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Book Review: My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up by Stephen Elliott
A friend of mine had read this after I had introduced her to Stephen Elliott's writing by giving her a copy of The Adderall Diaries. It was my hope that showing her that a person who has lived through hell and come out okay would perhaps help to rescue her on some level from her chronic alcoholism, bulimia, severe depression and anxiety. It turns out she has bi-polar disorder and is being treated accordingly now, but that's not the point of this. The point is, she told me she had to stop reading this book at night because she had violent, bloody dreams and her main comments when she finished were "that poor, poor man."
I don't get that. I mean, I kind of get that. But there was never a point where I just threw out all the other value of this book and his experiences with finding his way through BDSM in favor of pitying him. I don't pity Stephen Elliott. He's in an alright place, I think. I mean, we're all struggling. It's the human condition. But dramatized or no (as the foreword suggests, that he's neatly wrapped things up in a narrative and that it can't be believed to be 100% true by the reader), he found something really valuable here. He found peace with himself, even if that peace only resides on the page. And with a foreword like that, I have to take every bit of it with a grain of salt. Truthfully, I don't even care to know what's true and what's fiction. To me it's a story of a journey through finding a genuine sexual self and becoming okay with who you are.
He goes a step farther to say that he's not even kinky for wanting what he wants. That what he does is just another shade of normality. And there's something just wonderfully enlightening about that perspective. No, I can't sit here and pity the man for his torturous childhood and adolescence or his early experiences with an uncaring domme who used him as a whipping post in an unloving way. I can't because what he gained from those experiences can not be duplicated without them. Without the hardships he's endured, he couldn't have found this level of comfort with himself.
This is territory we all struggle in navigating. Exploring sexuality in any sort of genuine way is bound to be fraught with tribulations both self-inflicted and imposed on us by others. In my short foray into something people would consider kinkiness, I've found myself in positions where I was in over my head and had chased a rabbit down a hole I never really wanted to go into. And the backpedaling is sometimes very painful. But in the end you learn something about your limits and more importantly you learn something about your wants.
I told someone once that I wouldn't want to swoop in and take away someone's hurts and make everything okay for them because those hurts are just as much a part of the whole as the triumphs they've experienced. I hold a lot of hurts myself and I guard them just as closely as my happiness. I wouldn't let anyone take them away because each one has served a purpose to teach me something valuable about myself or the world at large.
I mean, he's gone on to say in interviews that this moment of clarity at the end of the book is something that was specific to that relationship and wasn't a permanent level of comfort he found or anything. But I think at this point with him, I just have to look at the book as a single entity and anything that comes after it is separate. That's the tricky thing with memoir. The book stands as you as you were when you were writing it. But once it's published and your life goes on, things are going to change and you may find the memoir is not as true as it once was. That doesn't discount it, as long as you look at it as a snapshot.
In spite of that, the fact that he even wrote this book and put it out there with his name on it is kind of a victory for him and for kinky people in general. In the introduction, he challenges kinky people to out themselves to their non-kinky friends. Currently, I find this to be an insurmountable hurdle. I'm not there yet. I'm not ready to be looked at with those uncomfortable stares by my friends and loved ones. The uneasy shifting in their seats as they try to process what they think I'm telling them. I'm not ready to endure judgement by parents who won't let their kids come play at my home because they think I'm some sort of sexual deviant just because I like to be choked in bed. I might not be ready to out myself until my son is grown, quite honestly.
There's a lot more at stake for someone like me than there is for Stephen, perhaps. And I've heard him address that. He's totally aware and fully admits that it's easy for him to be so out about his sexuality. That he doesn't have family to disapprove or wouldn't care if they did, given his relationship with his father. That he doesn't have a typical day job where a company might fire you for the image you portray in public not serving their best interests. I think of Pamela Madsen and her losing her beloved job because of outing herself as kinky. But in the end, she says it was worth it. And he's said the same thing. That you might have to sacrifice some things to be out, but that in the end, the power that the community as a whole gains from your being out is worth it. That we have to be recognized and understood and accepted as a group or else we'll be demonized instead. I understand and respect that and I'll continue to be a cheerleader for that sort of activism. But everyone has their own timing and my worlds are not yet ready to collide.
But ultimately, it was a really fabulous read and there are some very important messages right in the beginning about playing safe and how to go about this in the right way (mostly from his experiences of doing things the wrong way). And I think the way he wrapped it up in a tidy narrative presents an important image of what can be if we let it. Plus there's a really awesomely described anal scene near the end which made me shout, "OH GOD, FUCK YES!" mostly because it is exactly everything I love about anal. That point where you let go and it feels amazingly good for the first time and these astonishing things involuntarily come out of your mouth. But everyone's mileage may vary.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Idols: Amanda Fucking Palmer
Amanda. Fucking. Palmer. If you don't know who she is, well, go here and here and here. She makes herself more than available for you to know her. And that is one of her most endearing qualities.
So many artists withdraw from their community when they gain a little bit of popularity. But Amanda digs in and engages with her fans in a way that builds a community around her instead of lifting her up on a pedestal. She's in the trenches, so to speak, pulling more and more people into her world wide party. And it's tons of fun to watch her do what she does, maybe even more so than it is to listen to her music.
But really, what I admire about this woman the most is the balls she has. I mean huge, whopping cojones. Just to be who she is and put herself out there, raw and honest and without a hint of timidity for people to either accept her, love her, criticize her, or cast her aside. And I'm sure all of those things happen to her every single day, just like they do to each of us. But most of us walk around with our eyes half skipping over the people we encounter hoping not to be noticed. Amanda Fucking Palmer struts down the street hoping you're watching. Hoping you'll love her. But not giving a flying fuck if you don't. Because there are plenty of people who do.
It's all there in her music. In the lyrics she writes. It's in the absolutely perfect commencement speech which every person ever needs to listen to (it's on her YouTube channel linked above, but here, I'll make it easy for you) about the Fraud Police we all contend with inside us, telling us we don't deserve what we have because we're just faking our way through life. I would have called them Doubt Monkeys, but that's just me. But her point was that even the most confident peacocks amongst us have these moments of self-doubt and questioning and wondering when people are going to figure out that we have no clue what we're doing. That it's all a part of being a human adult. When we're kids, we think we've got this mythical time to look forward to when we'll have the whole world figured out. I'll wait until he's twenty or so to tell my son that's bullshit. Until then, I'd rather him think I've got a handle on things.
In My Mind is probably one of my favorite songs. In fact, I can't sit here and talk about it without directly embedding it here for you to watch, mostly so I can listen to it as I type.
And despite the Fraud Police who don't seem to skip her house when they're knocking on doors, she still puts herself out there and she still reaches out and beyond her boundaries every single fucking day to find new and better ways to be awesome.
"Fuck yes. I am exactly the person that I want to be."
We should all be just an ounce of that fearless.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Book Review: Shameless by Pamela Madsen
I was instantly pulled in by the title. I mean, what woman wouldn't be? But what I found was that this story could just as easily be my story. And if it could be my story, it could just as easily be the story of any number of women. In fact, I'm going to buy copies for my two closest girlfriends because I feel like every woman could get something good out of this book. Really, she didn't tell me anything I hadn't figured out on my own. Mostly I found validation through her experiences as I shouted "me too!" at the pages.
Pamela finds her sexual reawakening by visiting Sacred Intimates, which was something she found while looking into sensual massage as a way to keep her marriage vows intact, but at the same time fulfill her desire to feel another man's hands on her body. That little pebble was what began the avalanche for her and opened so many exciting doors into her sexuality and ultimately her finding her self-worth. She honestly had no reasons not to feel fabulous about herself, as a successful career-woman and a devoted wife and mother. But these are things that plague all women at some time or another, I think. We all have times when we become down on ourselves. We need that occasional reminder that we're goddesses. And sometimes, we need to initiate it because it just won't come on its own.
My means were different than hers, but have produced similar ends. I began taking nude photos of myself in the spring of this year and already, I've felt such a transition in how I feel about myself and it shows to the people who are closest to me. They've noticed this inexplicable glow that comes from feeling good about yourself. By stepping in front of the camera and bearing all, I've been able to stop and really look at myself and find beauty and even sexiness where I never saw it before. Before long, I found that voice inside me that would pick apart everything I thought was wrong was being drowned out by all the voices that were saying, "you know what, I'm pretty freaking hot!" So many women are hyperfocused on what is wrong with our bodies. If you can turn that on its head and look at all the things that are so right, it's amazing the transformation you can't help but go through.
Once I began posting my photos online, the comments I got (and am still getting) only served to reinforce what I was already starting to believe. It's a frightening thing to put yourself out there. But I was met with love and compliments and even adoration. Men and women have seen my body in its most vulnerable state and have nothing but good things to say and that's a huge ego boost. One I sorely needed at the time. All the things I believed to be flaws have become things that people desire and they openly express that desire in comments and messages and my confidence grows with each one. All it does is make me want to take more photos and even look for professional photographers to work with. I want to see how far I can take it, just like Pamela did.
Her epilogue carries just as much value as the rest of the book, I think. She talks about how she lost her career as a result of her openly sexual lifestyle and I think that's an important aspect to a narrative such as hers, and potentially mine. It shows what's at stake for those of us who are sex-positive. It also shows how desperately we should work to become crusaders in our culture to change minds about how we should talk about sex in our society. She makes sure to point out that she has no regrets about living her life transparently, even though it cost her the career she was so passionate about. Through her sexual explorations, she was able to become a whole person, rather than just a fraction of who she was meant to be. That's an important message to anyone who's living an inhibited life because they're afraid of what people would think of what they want to do in the bedroom. I'm a big fan of the mentality that if it's between consenting adults, no one has any right to say that what you're doing is wrong.
So, between the body image issues that I know so many women struggle with and the sex-positive attitude she conveys, I highly recommend this book to anyone on any stage of their sexual journey.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Five Names, One Person.
Stoya recently posted something about personas and being fake/real and pseudonyms and such which struck a chord with me. A chord that screamed, "FUCK YES! EXACTLY!" But, I have a propensity to find excuses to scream the word fuck regularly. Her point was that she is always who she is whether she's going by her stage name or going by the name on her birth certificate.
I love that woman dearly. Seriously, go read some of her posts and tell me you don't find her adorable and intelligent and awesome. I'll wait.
Done? Okay. Here's what I have to say on the subject, and it doesn't differ much from what Stoya had to say, but I have to tailor it to me because my situation is rather different from hers, even though we have some similar interests and similar facets to our lives.
For one, I'm a wife and mother first. That puts me in a certain box instantly with most people. Except I don't fit in that box. I don't fit in most boxes actually. I'm six feet tall. But seriously, people expect you to act and behave in a certain way when you're a mom in the suburbs. It's not generally acceptable in these sorts of circles to post nude photos of yourself online. So I have a name for that and I have a circle of friends for that.
Another thing that's kind of weird is costuming. I love making and wearing costumes from movies and comic books and literature and cartoons and anything that strikes my fancy really. But that's the sort of thing that gets you labeled as "geek" and "nerd" and "weirdo" and "obsessed". Not something I really want to share with the general, judgmental public. Aside from that, I'm trying to make a business with that. Or at least with the replica accessories sort of thing. Not so much complete costumes for sale. So, I have a business name and a nickname I'm generally known by in the costuming community for that.
I also like to write. I like to write about myself and I like to write about other people and I like to be extraordinarily candid about it. I feel like my writing is the ultimate honesty and it helps me to build my reality and sort things out that would just float around in my head otherwise. And I hope to one day be published. And again, I'd like to be able to control what seeps into my suburban housewife life and what doesn't. And so I have a name for that, too.
And there's yet one more facet which requires yet one more name, though this is more a business name and I do actually put my real name on my business. This was my first business. The first place where I found I could express my creativity in a practical way. And that's my jewelry business. And it's attached to my real name because I don't mind the whole world knowing that it's me who makes the jewelry.
But it's also me who makes the amateur porn. And it's me who makes armor from pvc sheet and painstakingly applies latex elf ears. And it's me who writes about my first lesbian experience with a girl in high school and about the highly personal topic of grief and all my philosophical ramblings. And it's me who shows up to mom's group playdates and makes small talk with women with whom I have nothing in common except the fact that we gave birth to little human beings. I never stop being me, no matter what name you know me by or what industry you've met me in or what context I'm functioning in at that moment in time. I'm always being me. There's no persona I put on and take off depending on what name I'm going by that day.
And just because I'm withholding a certain part of me from you doesn't mean I'm being fake. You wouldn't go to your grandmother's house on the holidays and go on and on about the mind-blowing sex you had with your husband or whomever else last night, would you? Likewise, you probably wouldn't go on and on about life philosophy to a client who just wants to buy some jewelry. I'm not being fake, I'm just giving you what you're looking for. If you want the whole package, you can find that. But most people really don't want everything about someone as widely varied as me. They could care less about how inaccurate my Princess Leia costume is or how many hours it took me to do my latest wire wrapping project. They might be highly interested in my life philosophy but would rather not see me naked. It's a common courtesy I provide by separating it all out.
My audiences are as varied as my interests and I'm not about to bore one to appease another. So, I give many different options to follow along to what has become the whole narrative of my life. You can pick and choose the ones which interest you the most. But don't ever, EVER accuse me of being fake or not giving the whole truth. Because I can't be bothered if you're not following the whole picture.
I am me. I am always me. Never forget that.
I love that woman dearly. Seriously, go read some of her posts and tell me you don't find her adorable and intelligent and awesome. I'll wait.
Done? Okay. Here's what I have to say on the subject, and it doesn't differ much from what Stoya had to say, but I have to tailor it to me because my situation is rather different from hers, even though we have some similar interests and similar facets to our lives.
For one, I'm a wife and mother first. That puts me in a certain box instantly with most people. Except I don't fit in that box. I don't fit in most boxes actually. I'm six feet tall. But seriously, people expect you to act and behave in a certain way when you're a mom in the suburbs. It's not generally acceptable in these sorts of circles to post nude photos of yourself online. So I have a name for that and I have a circle of friends for that.
Another thing that's kind of weird is costuming. I love making and wearing costumes from movies and comic books and literature and cartoons and anything that strikes my fancy really. But that's the sort of thing that gets you labeled as "geek" and "nerd" and "weirdo" and "obsessed". Not something I really want to share with the general, judgmental public. Aside from that, I'm trying to make a business with that. Or at least with the replica accessories sort of thing. Not so much complete costumes for sale. So, I have a business name and a nickname I'm generally known by in the costuming community for that.
I also like to write. I like to write about myself and I like to write about other people and I like to be extraordinarily candid about it. I feel like my writing is the ultimate honesty and it helps me to build my reality and sort things out that would just float around in my head otherwise. And I hope to one day be published. And again, I'd like to be able to control what seeps into my suburban housewife life and what doesn't. And so I have a name for that, too.
And there's yet one more facet which requires yet one more name, though this is more a business name and I do actually put my real name on my business. This was my first business. The first place where I found I could express my creativity in a practical way. And that's my jewelry business. And it's attached to my real name because I don't mind the whole world knowing that it's me who makes the jewelry.
But it's also me who makes the amateur porn. And it's me who makes armor from pvc sheet and painstakingly applies latex elf ears. And it's me who writes about my first lesbian experience with a girl in high school and about the highly personal topic of grief and all my philosophical ramblings. And it's me who shows up to mom's group playdates and makes small talk with women with whom I have nothing in common except the fact that we gave birth to little human beings. I never stop being me, no matter what name you know me by or what industry you've met me in or what context I'm functioning in at that moment in time. I'm always being me. There's no persona I put on and take off depending on what name I'm going by that day.
And just because I'm withholding a certain part of me from you doesn't mean I'm being fake. You wouldn't go to your grandmother's house on the holidays and go on and on about the mind-blowing sex you had with your husband or whomever else last night, would you? Likewise, you probably wouldn't go on and on about life philosophy to a client who just wants to buy some jewelry. I'm not being fake, I'm just giving you what you're looking for. If you want the whole package, you can find that. But most people really don't want everything about someone as widely varied as me. They could care less about how inaccurate my Princess Leia costume is or how many hours it took me to do my latest wire wrapping project. They might be highly interested in my life philosophy but would rather not see me naked. It's a common courtesy I provide by separating it all out.
My audiences are as varied as my interests and I'm not about to bore one to appease another. So, I give many different options to follow along to what has become the whole narrative of my life. You can pick and choose the ones which interest you the most. But don't ever, EVER accuse me of being fake or not giving the whole truth. Because I can't be bothered if you're not following the whole picture.
I am me. I am always me. Never forget that.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Nude yoga
I hereby vow to do one hour of yoga in the nude every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in perpetuity, as long as the will shall hold.
I'm convincing.
But it seems like something an aspiring burlesque performer should be doing, so I'm going to try.
That's what this is about, after all. An aspiring burlesque performer's blog, beginning at the very moment that the inkling took hold for me to do burlesque. No actions have been made, but the wheels are in motion and they can not be stopped.
I'm convincing.
I'm convincing.
But it seems like something an aspiring burlesque performer should be doing, so I'm going to try.
That's what this is about, after all. An aspiring burlesque performer's blog, beginning at the very moment that the inkling took hold for me to do burlesque. No actions have been made, but the wheels are in motion and they can not be stopped.
I'm convincing.
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