Author Archives: suggestivetongue

The Feminist Grief

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Everything is a script, and I’ve been studying my role since the day I was born.

It’s an exhaustive conversation to have. I feel like the more I repeat myself the less the words have meaning. What does it mean to be a woman, and how are women pushed into being more… womanly? I was looking at a friends photos on Facebook. She is very religious and has been her entire life, and there was never any doubt that she would be anything except a happy christian woman. I enjoy her. She is always very positive, happy, she has good energy. There she is in her wedding dress. Her and her husband have pretty typical banter. She hasn’t cooked dinner yet, but the laundry is always so clean and smells so good he can hardly blame her. She’s just so good with kids. He’s had a hard day at work, so glad to have a loving wife to come home to. She works, she’s independent, she has a career, could survive on her own. But she’s his wife. That’s her thing. That’s the most important thing. It makes her beam.

One time we had a lecture about marriage that struck a cord with me. It’s one I forget a lot because I feel like it doesn’t apply to me. The less I need to use something, the easier it is to forget. The professor was discussing wants and expectations and how that can correlate to satisfaction. If you go your entire life believing that you are going to grow up, marry a man, and become a wife, you’re more likely to be happy when all those things happen to you. If it’s consistently reinforced throughout your life that women grow up, marry men, and become wives - and you see your family as models of this -  you are probably more likely to want it, to desire it.

I think sometimes my life would be easier if I could slip into the role I’ve been taught to play. What if I gave up bisexuality in preference for men? What if I was contented in monogamy, for the rest of my life? What if the idea of finding one person and spending the rest of my life with them was not both terrifying and way too much responsibility but something that made my eyes glisten with dreams of pinterest boards and cake tastings? What if I wanted to be called someones “wife” and what if I wanted to get married and have kids? What if I wanted to get a boring job because I needed income and, even though it hurt, I went anyways and just kept going? What if I never asked for more, never wanted to be a nuisance? What if I never questioned my role as a woman? What if I behaved femininely all the time? What if I wore more makeup? What if I spent more on clothes than I did on books?

This isn’t to say that people who stick closer to the script are somehow ignorant, or taking the easy way out, or are secretly something other than they appear to be. My friend is perfectly happy, and the greatest strength of feminism is letting women choose the way the way want to live. But I do think wonder, for myself, how it would feel if I stopped fighting all the systems that I rest within. If I just gave up and let myself melt into the plastic form. If I did everything that everyone around me, and everything inside of me, is saying you’re supposed to do. Would there be some sigh of relief that sank down through my pores, down into each and every cell?

Or would I be instantly overcome with the grief of a life not lived with intent?

POF, Plenty of Fucks.

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The past few days I’ve been sent several different articles from friends and readers. “You might be interested in this” or “you should write about this!” I love getting these kinds of messages because they help me keep in touch with the material that is out there. I try not to reflect a lot on what other people are writing about (as noted here) but I think that connecting with these ideas that are presented can be inspiring. If you ever have something you think might interest me or you just want to hear more about a specific topic, reach out via email, twitter, or my ‘ask’ box. 

A reader of mine emailed in an article about Plenty of Fish and some new changes they’re making on the site. My boyfriend and I initially signed up for OkCupid – just over two years ago. A year later I was curious about other sites, and decided to sign up for Plenty of Fish. The first thing that I noticed when I started using the site was that it was heavily focused on finding love. A very specific and narrow-minded version of love that, after browsing the site for a few days, made me feel unwelcome.

A few days ago an email was sent out to POF members. Here are some key phrases from the email that was forwarded to me. It is written by Markus, creator of POF.

  • “Today about 70% of POF use is via a mobile phone and unfortunately about 2% of men started to use POF as more of a hookup site mostly due the the [sic] casual nature of cell phone use.”
  • “In sticking with my vision that POF is all about Relationships, I’m going to make a bunch of changes to ensure it stays a relationship-focused site.”
  • “Any first contact between users that contains sexual references will not be sent.” (Users deleted if they break this rule.)
  • “You can only contact people +/- 14 years of your age. There is no reason for a 50 year old man to contact a 18 year old women [sic]“
  • “Intimate encounters will go away in the next few months.”
  • “Of the 6, 041 women, the ones with hot pictures are mostly men pretending to be women.”

Now let’s just start of by saying that I’m absolutely certain that there are a lot of people on POF pretending to be women, or spamming women for sex, and generally just people being idiots. That is standard fair for any dating site. What is disappointing is the language used in the email  and how it was very heteronormative, and how it reinforced only one style of relationship. Oh, and the slut shaming.

It seems like they noticed that the site was being used for a different purpose then, perhaps, they intended. A variety of people with a variety of needs looking for a variety of relationships. They could have put more power in the hands of the users to decide how they dealt with these messages. They could have allowed greater sorting to allow users to only receive messages from the kinds of people they wanted to talk to. Instead they said GTFO, we’re going to monitor how you interact with people, we’re going to monitor what kinds of relationships you can form.

A relationship is more than a man and a woman coming together on the internet, going on a few sexless dates, having a first kiss, getting married, and losing their virginity together. Or, at least, that’s what I thought. What’s to say that a relationship that starts as a causal encounter can’t end with a lifelong commitment (if that’s what you, the user are looking for?) It also grinds my gears that there is some arbitrary 14 year age gap. As someone who is 24, who is to say I wouldn’t want to meet a nice 38 year old man, or woman? (Oddly – I have – more than once, and they’re dandy people. We’ve have tea together. Quite lovely.) 

But really. Don’t trust anyone who wants to sleep with you before you meet them. We should all strive to be men, looking for women, looking for that meet-cute first date. But make sure that the person of your internet fancy isn’t too good looking, because she might be a man. Might be. And that would be fucked up, right? (I mean, there’s not even an option for trans* folk, they weren’t welcome to begin with.)

This isn’t to say that any dating site is A+ — OkCupid asks that you select a gender when you sign up, and there are only two options. I’m still wishing for a better blocking system. It sucks that you have to pay to browse anonymously. Other dating sites are more marketed towards a specific audience (Christian Dating Sites or Senior Dating Sites, for instance) and I think that’s OK. If I’m specifically looking for someone who I can have a quiet sex life with, I’m probably not going to join Fetlife. Some of the responsibility is in the hands of the user to join sites that make sense. But as a site that advertises simply as “dating site” … they’re working backwards, and I think they’re putting themselves at a huge disadvantage by looking at their users and saying “we don’t want you.”

 

The Casualness of Group Sex

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A few years ago I went to a free book reading at a little bookstore in Portland. Christopher Ryan, co-author of Sex at Dawn, fielded questions about monogamy, and why his book hadn’t been widely reviewed yet. I sat eagerly in the midst of a dozen others, crammed in the back of the bookstore, hanging on to what I felt was the most important book reading I’d ever been to. It was also the only one I’d ever been to. All book readings are about sex, right?

At this time I’d only just started tip-toing into openness and I hadn’t really explored the realities of many of my fantasy scenarios yet. All I knew was that it was somehow backed in the concepts that this man was throwing into my face. I was trying to collect it all so I could take it home and consider it more thoughtfully. What does this book mean, what is it trying to tell me, and how is it connected to my indifference (nay – excitement) at the thought of my partner and someone else?

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Christopher Ryan linked a recent interview he was in [here] and it is well worth the read. Among bits and pieces of private information, he discusses group sex, and the overwhelming sense of trust and friendship he has experienced. Reading the review reminded me of one of my first threesome encounters, near the start of our open relationship. We discovered pretty early on that threesomes weren’t like they are in pornography. Interactions are more diverse. It’s better than porn. It isn’t scripted, it’s real and it’s honest. Anyways, I think I’d gone to the bathroom, because even in threesomes sometimes you have to pee. It’s just something that happens when you have a bladder and you’re well hydrated. Which I recommend, if you’re going to be participating in lots of sex. So, I go to the bathroom and I come back and the woman we’d invited in was laughing, and naked, on top of my boyfriend. I strolled over to the bed casually and sat down and watched.

There was nothing that could have prepared me for the strangeness of group sex. The strangeness being, of course, how natural it felt. As though trusting someone enough to invite them in to that situation made it all seem perfectly normal and natural. There was no need to prove oneself, no requirement to arch ones back and toe-curl on command. If someone didn’t come, they didn’t come, and like in any other sexual encounter there are a variety of ways to handle that.

This isn’t to say that any and all group sex experiences are completely without flaw, but it was the comfort level that was unexpected, and it was that which lead me to want to continue having those experiences. Some of the best friends are, after all, naked friends. Where touching goes where touching might, and stops just when you want it to.

It was with such books as Sex at Dawn that I started to uncover the true potential of exploring non-monogamy in a healthy way. Where being comfortable with myself, my relationship, and my body were all possible. Where I was able to welcome others into my life to have these experiences with me. Not to sound too much like a crazy sex hippy, but that’s pretty special. And yeah, it’s pretty hot too. If one person can read this and believe that it’s possible for them too, that’s good enough for me.

If you have not yet read Sex at Dawn, I highly recommend it. Pick up a copy here and devour it. There are more books that I read following Sex at Dawn linked at the top in my Resources page.

Things I’ll Never Be, And Haven’t Been Yet.

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No one has ever thought to ask me “were you always bisexual?” But I ask myself. I wonder sometimes in small moments of silence how my own sexuality progressed. How it took shape. If it was always there or if I created it myself, or if I am a product of my environment.

I often speak with the knowledge of someone who is heterosexual because I feel like I used to be heterosexual. Was I straight, or was I only straight because I had not yet realize that I was bi? There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to your own personal experiences with sexuality. Some people say they always knew.

I can look back at a series of events and say that I was most certainly less-than-straight as long as I have memories. But am I simply applying this knowledge that I’ve accumulated onto those memories? Am I viewing my heterosexual youth through bisexual glasses? I felt straight. I did. Until I learned what being bi-sexual meant. And then I had a new label to use, and that fit too.

Later on I learned what “sexually fluid” meant and I proclaimed with absolute certainty that that’s what I was. Fluid. I was never straight or bi and I wasn’t gay, I was fluid. Later I learned queer, and after researching it on the internet, I realized that’s what I was, queer. But then I met some people who were queer and I never felt quite queer enough. Had they shaped that label to exclude people like me, or had I never really belonged there to begin with? Was there some new word waiting around the corner?

I can relate to heterosexuality because I spent the first 18 years of my life as someone who was heterosexual. That’s the easiest way to put it. I certainly don’t think I became bisexual but I hadn’t figured that all out yet. Can you be bisexual if you aren’t being bisexual? Or, better yet, are you being bisexual even if you don’t know you’re bi? Oh, now we’re getting confounding, what does it all mean?

Labels only have meaning once you take them on. Until you take that label on, you can’t possibly be judged by the collection of your behaviors, your mentality. You can’t be judged by your dating history or your sexual resumé. It just allows judgement to seep in through the cracks. It allows other people to say “Well, I can do the math, you’re definitely gay. Look at your male to female sex partner ratio!”

So I was living hetero, but I don’t think I ever was hetero. Does that make sense? It was a comfortable place for me to be because it was what I was taught was normal. I could easily slip into it. Not everyone can, and not everyone does, but I did. And then when I grew up and got wiser I began to have the ability to explore all those other things that were out there.

Labels are tricky because you don’t always fit into them just right. Sometimes you’re this, sometimes you’re that. I feel like I’ve been all kinds of different people crammed into just this one little body.

I have never been gay, I will never be trans. I won’t know what it’s like to take hormones. I’ve never been kicked out of my home, and my risk for homelessness is very small. I’ve never done drugs, never been an addict, I’ve never known what it’s like to lose someone to all. I don’t like to drink to forget who I am. I don’t smoke. I’ve never been beat. I’ve never been abused. I’ve never had a penis, nor have I ever had the brain of a man, with all these different hormones. With all these different experiences. No, never lived as a boy. Never had to confront my masculinity. I’ve never had to act stronger than I really was and I’ve never had to hold back tears. I’ve never been poly, I don’t think, not really, although I tip toe on the line and I wonder what it would be like. I wonder if I’ll ever be there. Not “there” as in progress, but “there” as in a different place. A different destination. I’ve never been black. I’ve never been latina, asian. I’ve never been handicapped. I’ve never felt like I didn’t belong in the country that I live in. I have all my limbs. I am mostly sane, as sane as can be, I think. I’ve never won any real awards, not really. I’ve never had some high paying job. I’ve never felt like money wasn’t an issue. But I’ve also never felt hungry. I’ve never felt worried I wouldn’t eat.

There are a lot of things I’ve never experienced a lot of things that I will never experience and the only experiences that I can talk about are my own. The strange bout of heterosexuality, the discovery of bisexuality, the confrontation of my somewhat-queerness. The serial monogamy, and the ethical non-monogamy. The desire to learn more and more, the frustration that knowledge cannot be calculated, that wisdom is worth so little. I can speak as a college student, as someone who writes, as someone who had all these little bits of experiences. I’m white and I’m cis and I’ll always be those two things. I am frustrated by my privilege because I never know how to properly confront it. How to admit that I am both so lucky and both so tired all the time, because I know others are more tired than I am.

No one has ever asked me why I am the way I am or when I figured it out, and that’s probably because I’m still figuring it out. But I do know all these things that I’m not, will never be, or have had the great pleasure of avoiding so carefully thus far. And I know that every experience is different. I know that the stories people have are important. That each story can add something new. Can teach you something. I know that I am the only person that is capable of telling my story, and you are the only person capable of telling yours.

WIthin the small little details of what you eat for breakfast and how you manage to make it to the end of the day is some greater lesson about how we become to be who we are.

Threesome Humps.

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A friend, who I’ve had a casual sexual relationship with, wants to participate in a threesome. I know you’ve experienced a few, what are somethings to look out for, be aware of and what do you suggest to get the most out of the experience?

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The first thing that I noticed, as a re-occuring theme, was the hump that we experienced immediately prior to having a threesome.

As indicated by the doodle above, we’d get dinner and drinks. This allowed everyone to kind of relax and chat a bit. Prior to dinner and drinks we had already had conversations about safety, boundaries, and hopes for the threesome. We were ready to go, basically. It was pretty “structured” for a threesome. We didn’t just find ourselves in the same place at the same time and decide we’d have sex. We’d planned it a bit.

After food we’d head back and listen to music and hang out. This is when the tension starts to build. You all know you’re there to have an experience together but you’re new and you don’t know exactly how that starts. You can notice the positioning. Where people sit and how. If I could tell inexperienced me one thing it would be “sit close to them and act super smooth” not “run around in circles like a hamster offering your fuck buddies tostitos.”

Then comes some good tension. You’re like, fuck this nervousness, I want to have a threesome tonight. So you start moving in closer and touching curiously and then all of a sudden a bubble pops and you all laugh because it’s so silly to be nervous. Then there’s usually a five second window before everyone is naked. Congratulations, you’re having a threesome!

Here’s my advice, given those initial experiences I had, and where I’m at now. Make sure you get all the conversation out of the early on. Safety, condoms, birth control, hard limits, things you really want to do. Make sure you feel comfortable with the person. Remember that each person is there to get something out of the situation. Remember that it’s just like having sex with one person, really. You might have to go pee, get a drink of water. You might get tired or sore and want to stop. Not everyone might come, or come at the same time. You’ll want to talk to one another. Enjoy the good tension that comes from a new experience. Smile and laugh and have fun. Don’t be afraid to sit on the sideline for a minute and watch, if that’s part of the arrangement. In a threesome there is always something for everyone to be doing, so jump in. Don’t wait to be invited to do something. Touch your partner/s. Kiss them. If you’re not getting what you want, ask for it. Don’t be afraid to say “I’ve had enough.”

I would suggest that you just go to have fun and not have any expectations for what it’s supposed to be like. Just go get naked and tumble around and do what feels natural. You’ll learn the most that way.