Rejecting The Gender Binary In Fashion » Sociological Images

This new-to-me post strikes close to home because it's a much louder example, visually speaking, of my own clothing preferences.

why are department stores separated in clothes for women and clothes for men? Why is there no clothes section? […] Kasmeneo is a guy who decided that the entire department store is for him. Accordingly, he buys and wears what he wants regardless of the section it is in.

Bravo for that. I've long done the same thing, wearing ostensibly "girls'" tops and jeans, which—despite being biologically male—still tend to make my ass look better than jeans made for guys. In fact, so-called mens' clothing tends to hide male-bodied people's bottom halves, which I've always been supremely disappointed by, since I really enjoy asses, female or otherwise. Also, Kasmeneo says point-blank that equal rights includes a right to clothing choice. I like that.

The Obscene, Disgusting, and Vile
Meese Commission Report

Recall that in 1970, Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Presidential Commission on Pornography” presented its conclusions to then-President Nixon that “research indicates sex offenders had less adolescent experience with erotica[, an] indicator of atypical and inadequate sexual socialization.” The report was widely rejected by Congress and in the 1980′s, Reagan appointed a new commission to study the very same things, but with a mandate to return the opposite results. And that is what they did. What’s interesting to me is the parallel between the Meese Report of 1986 and contemporary anti-pornography crusaders like Gail Dines. This essay by Pat Califia neatly demonstrates the similarities.

Here are some choice excerpts from Pat’s essay that I think draw clear parallels to the contemptible way contemporary anti-porn activists treat the same subject:

In a 1985 press release, the Meese Report’s commissioners said:

the content of pornography has radically changed, with more and more emphasis upon extreme violence.

In this exemplary 2010 article, Gail Dines said:

Boys and men brought up in the internet age have very different tastes than their fathers […] Today, access is unlimited anytime anyplace, from computer screens to cellphones, and this cheap, anonymous accessibility has sent demand soaring. […] As boys and men click around today’s popular sites they are assaulted by images of body-punishing sex that pushes women’s bodies to their limit.

In 1986, two of the commissioners, Judith Becker and Ellen Levine, complained:

The visuals, both print and video, were skewed to the very violent and extremely degrading. While one does not deny the existence of this material, the fact that it dominated the materials presented…may have distorted the Commission’s judgment.

In 2010, the same technique of skewing the material—of showing the extreme stuff and claiming that’s most of what porn is today—is used by Gail Dines, garnering her the same critiques over, and over, and over again.

Echoing the conclusion of the 1970 Report, in 1986, Edna F. Einsiedel, whose writings were excluded from the Meese Report, wrote:

No evidence currently exists that actually links fantasies with specific sexual offenses; the relationship at this point remains an inference.

In 2010, anti-porn activists jumped down the throat of Jason Goldman when he showed the very same thing, writing:

[The] data suggests very strongly that pornography is not a direct cause of aggression against women; rather, pornography moderates the relationship between sexual promiscuity/hostile masculinity and sexual aggression.

In 1986, Califia writes of the Meese Report:

The Commission made skillful use of a vague and ever broader definition of “child pornography” to smear material that depicts and is intended only for the use of adults. Any sexually explicit material which adults might show to children to teach them about sex or seduce them into sexual activity was referred to as “child porn.” […] Commissioners coined a new phrase–”children between the ages of 18 and 21″–who presumably need as much protection as prepubescents.

As if on cue, in 2010, economics professor and anti-sex activist Margaret Brooks advocated for a radical return to pre-1960′s era doctrine for all college students (i.e., children between the ages of 18 and 21) when it comes to anything sexual, writing:

It is clear that many people and organizations claim to be experts in the field of sex education and are eager to gain access to the hearts, minds, and yes, perhaps even the bodies of our college students.

(Emphasis mine.)

And I could go on, but I think you get the point: anti-sex crusaders are an ass-backwards, ideologically-driven set of memory-challenged individuals straight out of the puritanical era whose ideals of government, academia, and public policy have more in common with folks from the 1980′s or, in some cases, the 1960′s, than many folks of today. What’s shocking is that their decades-old ideas are somehow touted as “new” or even worth listening to. They’re really, really not.

A Thai Region Where Husbands Are Imported – NYTimes.com

While the title of this article might make you think of gender role reversal, its contents are profoundly disappointing for anyone with a gender justice streak:

Mr. Davis, 54, did not take his wife home with him, choosing instead to settle down in northeastern Thailand, a region known as Isaan. […] “Thai women are a lot like women in America were 50 years ago,” said Mr. Davis, before they discovered their rights and became “strong-headed and opinionated.”

“The women now know they are equal,” said Mr. Davis, a retired Naval officer who has been divorced twice, “so the situation is not as relaxed and peaceful as it is between an American and a Thai lady.”

For those that wonder what nostalgic memories older white men long for, Mr. Davis paints a clear picture. The same picture, differently expressed, as the unease many frat boys express: that their loss of privilege feels, to them, like discrimination, not equality.

Male Submission Art – One man licks the stomach of another whose hands remain at his sides…

In theory, I wanted to surface content created by others, not me. But content is content and I've been getting the impression my out yet technically fragmented online presence may make it hard for all but the technically proficient or the mean-spirited crusader to easily see the whole of me. So I'm taking the opportunity to link to a post I'm particularly fond of.

Reversing assumptions is a precious skill; compassion and empathy are circumscribed without it. Although I first assumed submissiveness in the man whose face we can see because of the way he is licking the other model, once I understood the alternative possibility, I noticed that the man doing the licking is the active partner here. And […] since the man doing the licking is in the stereotypically submissive position, if he is the submissive partner, then it’s his activeness itself that queers this image.

Dear Abby « alphafemme

I wrote a thing as part of this month's Scarleteen blog carnival, and in it I tried to convince people that supporting Scarleteen is important. But my argument, valuable as I hope it was to some, pales in comparison to this one:

unable to talk to her parents and lacking knowledge or awareness of any other resources at her disposal, she wrote to Dear Abby. Asking if she was pregnant. So every day, 11 years old, she read Dear Abby, hoping for a response.

And she got one. Dear Abby printed her letter, and wrote a warm and kind response explaining exactly what would’ve had to have happened for her to be pregnant, affirming that no matter what he’d done, it was wrong and not her fault, and telling her about some books that she could check out at the library for girls about their bodies and their sexuality.

Scarleteen is important. If you want to hear about the kinds of lives it saves, and how, then you want to read this.

Pushing Porn During Anti-Porn Week | Literate Perversions

Apparently, it's Anti-Porn Week according to a group euphemistically named "Morality in Media," whose basic premise seems to be "it's okay to shame you for liking sex; and you're a pedophile, too." (Context helps.) Says the Literate Pervert,

This country does have a problem with porn, but that problem is that so much of it is so stupid. […] Even if you’re pro-porn and love it in principle, you’ve got to admit that as a genre, there’s more crap than even strict adherence to Sturgeon’s Law requires. The truth is that there’s an awful lot of people making the stuff that just don’t give a shit.

Exactly. But "get rid of porn" is not a solution; surfacing the best of it is. So why not make it Anti-BAD-Porn Week? Send your friends a link to MaleSubmissionArt.com or your other favorite porn-for-social-good project. ;)

Skepchick » Sex, shame, and the Tea Party

Apparently inspired by my furious ranting at Christine O'Donnell's anti-sex cultural terrorism, this great post on Skepchicks.org is worth checking out:

[Sexual shame is] a feedback loop, really. People believe that sex is shameful, so they repress their desires, only to have unhealthy sex to fulfill their needs, which feeds into their belief that sex is shameful, etc. Or more specifically, sex outside of their narrow morally acceptable norm is shameful. Problem is, few of us would really be satisfied with that kind of a constrained sex life (hence all of the ridiculous scandals these politicians get themselves into). And they want us to feel bad about that. Well, I, for one, flat out refuse to be ashamed.

I've little more to say other than a resounding amen! Fact is, it's too easy to hate when you can't fuck how you want. Fighting that cause of hate is what I'm all about.

Therefore, I’ve decided to resurrect (for, like, the third time now) the poorly-named “Wednesday Wanderings” installments here, where once-in-a-while, and sometimes even on Wednesday, I’ll offer a short roundup of links for your perusal that I thought were cool.

And today, these links involved aliens and strip clubs, but perhaps disappointingly no alien strip clubs:

TransGriot: The Catholic Church Will Baptize ET But Won’t Do It For Me

Last month, Guy Consolmagno, one of the Pope's astronomers, told The Guardian, that he would baptize an alien—regardless of the number of tentacles it has—if the alien asked. His reasoning, according to Guardian journalist Alok Jha, is because "the traditional definition of a soul was to have intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions."

Here's where it gets hypocritical. Trans blogger Monica Roberts notes:

I find it ironic that you would be willing to baptize ET, but you are kicking transpeople out of your churches and parochial schools with the quickness. You need to phone home to Rome and tell Pope Benedict and the gang to [realize that] what you said about ET also applies to trans people walking on Planet Earth. We are intelligent life inhabiting this galaxy and solar system that has a soul and news flash, some of us are already Catholic.

Sundaysex | Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex

Laura Agustin is one of the most insightful researchers blogging about the larger issues of commercial sex with regards to migration, and thus intersects heavily with the whole anti-trafficking industry. But in addition to those powerful pieces, she also collects various interesting tidbits much like these posts of mine. Her "Sex on Sunday" posts are brief weekly round-ups ranging from things like Franklin Veaux's, "A Map of the Lands of Human Sexuality", to satirical Onion videos about legislating against loveless marriages, to photo sets of various sex shops across the world. It's definitely an interesting place to browse around for those of you who want a brief injection of rationality to balance the inevitable anti-sex bias spewing from certain other places well-known for Sunday gatherings.

Judge Criminalizes Strip Club, Patronizes Stripper

How America scored "one more pathetic little trophy in its continued obsession to criminalize lust" is a tale of sex, drugs, and a federal judge turned criminal? Actually, yes. As Dr. Marty Klein writes:

A 67-year-old guy is arrested by the FBI for illegally using marijuana, cocaine, and prescription painkillers with a stripper over many months. In addition to purchasing lap dances and sex with her at a strip club, he had a sexual relationship with her outside lasting many months. […] It turns out that the guy is a longtime federal judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan.

And the kicker?

Before his arrest, the judge (Jack Camp) recently ruled on a case involving a Georgia county’s regulating—get this—strip clubs and alcohol. […The] corrupt judge supported the government’s power grab, depriving people of their rights [despite being] a customer of [that] very industry, illegally exercising the rights he had helped steal from local people.

‘Till next week, enjoy your wanderings.

• I realize this will probably be “too techy” for some of my readers, but what the hell. This not-so-recent article on Read Write Web has caught my attention a while ago and I’ve been musing about this sort of thing ever since. Marshall Kirkpatrick summarizes sociology and technology researcher Corinna Bath’s findings as he asks “Will the Semantic Web have a gender?”
  

  […]the architects of the semantic web need to be very careful about the assumptions they carry into the creation of categories of relationships. Bath draws a historical parallel with the first phone books, where listings were organized by the names of the husband in each household. That appeared to the authors to be the logical way to do it at the time. It wasn’t until after years of feminist political organizing led to general cultural change that the phone books changed. Why is this important? Because systems like the phone book help color our view of the world we live in and are the building blocks of basic inequalities.

  Too often, Bath argues, “binary assumptions about women and men are not reflected [upon] or the (gender) politics of [a particular] domain is ignored. Thus, the existing structural-symbolic gender order is inscribed into computational artifacts and will be reproduced by [their] use.”

• Speaking of the Web, Elizabeth writes about her concerns with WordPress.com’s censorship of what it deems “mature” content. This is precisely why I host my own blog on my own server, and part of why I’ve helped Kink in Exile and Essin Em do the same for themselves. If you need tech help doing the same, feel free to contact me, and since I reserve the right not to reply, you should have no qualms about “bugging” me with a request for help.
• Ranat writes what is very probably the funniest and sexiest post I have read in a long time called Pon Farr and Other Ways to Get Away With Non-Consensuality (because we love Vulcans). I’m not sure if I had a geekgasm or a trekgasm while reading it, but some of its ideas could certainly fuel a number of fantasies capable of giving me just a plain old orgasm!
• As he is wont to do, Axe humorously writes about the unequal door fees for women and men at most kink/fetish venues, and quotes my response to his question:
  

  Perhaps it goes back to the age old question: If women are just as into this stuff as men, where are these women? Why are men paying a hundred bucks to get into a swingers event and women can walk in for free? Are the men like myself who want to go to events like these so horrible and disgusting that the only way a woman will go is if she has nothing better to do?

  I posed this question via twitter and a few people responded.

  […]

  Maymay gave me some of his wisdom via twitter. “The reason kink/fetish events are cheaper for women is blatantly obvious: sexism. Women are products, men are the consumers.”

  Oh how I wish this wasn’t true. If only I were being the one consumed and used like a product.

  I also replied to his post in the comments:

  [W]hen I go out to kink events like this with a significant other, here’s how I expect to look at the costs:

  $5 for women + $25 men / 2 people = we each pay $15 entry fee

  I’d consider any woman or man in a supposedly equal relationship, D/s or otherwise, who doesn’t also do that sexist.

• Tom Allen informs us about the Boy Scouts’ decision to include (some) sex ed topics in their program. Tom has this to say about the move, which I can’t second strongly enough:
  

  The sooner we, as a society, can kick off the notion that morality is tied to sexuality (or more specifically, sexual enjoyment among consenting partners), the better off we will all be.

• Last but certainly not least, today FetLife.com announced the addition of a “Fluctuating/Evolving” option was added to the list of possible options for users to list as their sexual orientation on their profiles. John Baku had this to say about his choice to add the option:
  

  Things can not get simpler then being a straight guy which to be honest I find is a bad thing in my position. It basically means I have to wait until someone opens up my eyes to the different types of orientations and as well the issues and politics behind the different sexual orientation.

  I believe FetLife is the first site to get this right. Ever. Congratulations to them, and I hope more sites follow suit, not just for sexual orientation but for gender identity and other options as well. I eagerly anticipate the day when the notion of radio boxes for “male” or “female” will not be the only options!

• A Pleasurably Versatile Experience – This is my latest sex toy review published on EdenFantasys.com. I think you’ll find it quite interesting, especially considering it’s a review for a toy that is ostensibly made for the purpose of hanging weights off one’s testicles, and I’ve shared my opinion on that almost laughable practice before. Here’s a choice excerpt:
  

  Cock and ball toys are without doubt one of the most unfortunately stereotyped of all sex toys. Those made out of leather and metal, even more so! The Large Parachute’s description doesn’t help any here, citing that “this original cock and ball torture accessory…provides a firm grip over the package” and “has a 6” long jewel chain that lets you attach additional weights for an increased cock and ball tease.”

  […]

  The good news is that I discovered other uses for the Large Parachute. The bad news is that it’s still mostly useful only for the types of CBT play you’d expect because it’s not as durable as it needs to be for some of the more inspired uses I came up with for it.

  If you’re so inclined, I’d very much appreciate a positive vote on my review(s).

• When I Was A Boy – this is one of my good friend Switch’s latest posts that I read tonight and just about fell weak at the knees over. It’s so good and full of queer gender-bending hotness that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to link to it. My favorite part:
  

  In this submissive position, my cock meant a whole other thing. It never occurred to me that I was a girl in that context: I was a boy, submissive to a bigger, stronger Boy. And I LOVED it. I had never been a boy the way I was like that, even though vaginal intercourse made my girl parts very apparent. Nor had I ever felt submissive in the same way I did, with my hard silicone cock pushed into the bed and the base pushing against my pubic mound, turning me on even more as Boy fucked me.

  Guh!

• Also, just because I can, a pair of links go out this week to KinkInExile.com and Essin-Em.com, who have simply been on my mind a bit lately.

On a completely unrelated note, I think it’s worth a mention that Conversio Virium is receiving an ever-growing amount of email on a wide array of topics. In the past week alone, we’ve received email from:

• three event organizers to let us know about their events (whom all got responses with instructions for how to contribute to the public calendar of sexuality events that CV hosts),
• another two emails from people who want to write about the group in other publications, one from the Columbia University Spectator newspaper seeking content for sexuality-related articles,
• another from a student of a non-Columbia-affiliated NYC-based University interested in attending CV meetings,
• an admittedly random email about some cross-campus game of Risk (WTF?),
• and another from what seems like a random visitor concerned about her daughter’s safety because she is “into S and M.” (This was the email that prompted me to add a link to the Kink Aware Professionals list hosted by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom on our contact page.)

That’s no less than 9 emails this week, more than one per day on average, and I’m pretty confident that CV’s email load will simply continue to grow as it gains more exposure.

Just…food for thought. Okay, that’s all. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming, kthnxbai.

As it turns out, my initial instincts were (yet again) right on the money, and I’m utterly disappointed in the Aussie kink scene and its inhabitants. When it comes to the sexual and social aspects of my life, I am becoming increasingly eager to leave this very large island.

Thus, imagine my surprise when I found myself on a list of 100 “Top” Sex Bloggers of 2008 that Rori of Between My Sheets recently put up. On her list, which includes some absolutely fantastic sex bloggers, I’m apparently “number 36.”

Being called the “36^th top sex blogger of 2008″ by anyone’s standards actually makes me think this is not really an ordered list, because there’s no way I’m the “36^th most” anything sex blogger of 2008. I mean, seriously, I’m not having anywhere near enough sex, nor am I talking about my lack of said sex enough, for that ranking. I think Rori got a bunch of submissions and then just started listing the top 100 of these bloggers one after the other, not in any particular order. (By the way, thanks to whomever told Rori about my blog. You totally get brownie points.)

Nevertheless, it’s certainly an honor to be placed in the company of such fine bloggers, and in light of the fact that this list doesn’t just constitute a cool honor but is also a fantastic list of sexy links, I’m totally stealing it from her to use as one of my very sporadic Wednesday Wanderings. (I don’t care that it’s not Wednesday, can’t you tell I’m being lazy?)

So here it is, without further ado, an enormous list of provocative, sexy, inspiring, and downright fun things for you to check out this weekend. Enjoy, and thanks again, Rori!

• 1. Sinclair Sexsmith http://sugarbutch.net
• 2. Radical Vixen http://www.radicalvixen.com
• 3. Curvaceous Dee http://curvaceousdee.blogspot.com
• 4. Always Aroused Girl http://aagblog.com
• 5. Ellie Lumpesse www.lumpesse.com
• 6. Catalina http://catalinaloves.com
• 7. Selena Kitt http://selenakittyn.com
• 8-9. Wifey and Hubby http://wifeytalk.com
• 10. Roger http://dirtyboy2.blogspot.com
• 11. Essin’ Em http://essin-em.com
• 12. Amber Rhea http://www.beingamberrhea.com
• 13-14. Richard and Amy http://247richardandamy.com
• 15-16. MJ and MJ’s Slave http://www.aslavestruenature.blogspot.com
• 17. Thursday’s Child http://thursdayschildhasfartogo.blogspot.com
• 18. Narration by D http://narrationbyd.blogspot.com
• 19. Andrea Zanin http://www.sexgeek.wordpress.com
• 20. The Provocateur http://theprovocateur.wordpress.com
• 21. Violet Blue http://tinynibbles.com
• 22. Autumn http://dreamsofaneroticaqueen.sensualwriter.com
• 23. SSS http://sweatshopsissy.wordpress.com
• 24. Storm http://ambientstorm.blogspot.com
• 25. Sub lyn http://longdistancesub.blogspot.com
• 26. Tara Tainton http://www.taratainton.com/tarastrysts/index.html
• 27. Jake http://factsandfriction.blogspot.com
• 28. Cherry Bomb http://cherrybombnyc.blogspot.com
• 29. Lakey http://fairelaffaire.blogspot.com
• 30. Scarlet http://feministfucktoy.com
• 31. Glenpreece http://lastbreath.wordpress.com
• 32. Lolita Wolf http://www.leatheryenta.com
• 33. Vixen http://blue-eyedvixen.com
• 34. Tom Paine http://perverselypoly.blogspot.com
• 35. Tongue Tied Blue http://tonguetiedblue.blogspot.com
• 36. Maymay http://www.maybemaimed.com
• 37. Miss Bliss http://blog.blisswarrior.com
• 38. Mistress Maeve http://7d.blogs.com/mistress
• 39. Nadia http://www.kinkylibrarian.net
• 40. Luka http://barbedwireboudoir.blogspot.com
• 41-42. Odysseus and Penelope http://marriedexploits.blogspot.com
• 43. Eileen http://bloodylaughter.com
• 44. Calico http://dominatrixnextdoor.com/blog
• 45. Caroline Shepherd http://feministsexcarnival.blogspot.com
• 46. Kathleen http://polyspace.wordpress.com
• 47. Packing Vocals http://packingvocals.blogspot.com
• 48. Audacia Ray http://www.wakingvixen.com
• 49. Axe http://unspeakableaxe.com
• 50. Baccus http://www.erosblog.com
• 51. Chelsea Summers http://prettydumbthings.typepad.com/chelseagirl
• 52. Debauchette http://debauchette.wordpress.com
• 53. The Butterfly Temptress http://thebutterflytemptress.com
• 54. Dirty Little Girl http://dirtylittlemind.blogspot.com
• 55. Sexy Whispers http://sexywhispers.wordpress.com
• 56. Wendy Blackheart http://www.heartfullofblack.com
• 57-58. Padme and Anakin http://darkside-journey.blogspot.com
• 59-60. Him and Her http://sexcakes.blogspot.com
• 61. Slip of a Girl http://aslipofagirl.blogspot.com
• 62. Blowjob Babe http://strokesuckswallow.blogspot.com
• 63-64. Dirty Debbie and CJ http://dirtydebbie.blogspot.com
• 65. Scorpio http://adventuresofascorpio.blogspot.com
• 66. Charlotte http://charlottethorpe73.wordpress.com
• 67. Bitchy Jones http://bitchyjones.wordpress.com
• 68. Anastasisa http://www.chaosnoir.com/anastasia
• 69. Alice http://anonymous-alice.blogspot.com
• 70. Anita Wagner http://practicalpolyamory.blogspot.com
• 71. Jack http://writingdirty.com
• 72. Mistress Matisse http://mistressmatisse.blogspot.com
• 73. Mariella http://wannaplaymariella.blogspot.com
• 74. O http://eros-logos.blogspot.com
• 75. Shasta Gibson http://shastagibson.com
• 76. Gwen http://www.pop-shot.blogspot.com
• 77. fivestar http://www.iamfivestar.com
• 78. Lilly http://dangerouslilly.com
• 79. Penny http://birdsaresmart.blogspot.com
• 80. Figleaf http://www.realadultsex.com
• 81. Tony http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony
• 82. Viviane http://www.thesexcarnival.com
• 83. Six http://sixelaborates.wordpress.com
• 84. Bob http://bobsbestboobs.com
• 85-99. Fiammetta, Jill, Robyn, Scarlot, Melissa, Kitten, Karly, Holly, Surgeon, Stacey, Tara, Jessica, Gina, Wendy, and Tori http://deepthroated.wordpress.com

• Dig a Tech Girl
• Dig a Tech Guy

Firstly, let me just say that I might go to sleep tonight and have a wet dream.

Secondly, let me point out that only among techies do I often see the evidence of equal opportunity, even if cultural overtones are still in full force. Seriously, in what communities other than the realms of utter geekdom does a “Dig a Tech Girl” web site give rise to a “Dig a Tech Guy” web site in literally under a day?

For those wondering how I know these ideas were cemented within a day of each other, the answer is geeky (obviously)! I checked the whois records for the creation date of the domain names. :)

Perseus:~ maymay$ whois digatechgirl.com | grep Creation
   Creation Date: 29-oct-2007
Perseus:~ maymay$ whois digatechguy.com | grep Creation
   Creation Date: 30-oct-2007

Yes, my machine really is named “Perseus.” Yes, my username really is “maymay.”

In case it hasn’t become common knowledge yet, in exactly four weeks I will be leaving the United States on a jet plane headed towards Sydney, Australia, where I will be living for at least the following year. This marks the very first time in my life when I will not have lived in New York City. In fact, it marks the only time in my life when I’ll have to call some location outside of the island of Manhattan my home.

I’m so excited, I can’t wait. But I’m also going to miss so many people and things about New York City and the East coast in general so, so much. In this last month in the States, I don’t expect to be writing every day anymore, and would like to echo the things Eileen said about the stress of moving.

But it’s Wednesday, and I want to keep the commitments I make to myself, so I wanted to post a Wednesday Wanderings link-fest for everyone reading. This Wednesday Wanderings post is going to be a little different because instead of wandering all over cyberspace this past week, I wandered around meatspace. Specifically, I went to the Rhode Island Fetish Fair Flea-market.

Part of the goal for this blog—making myself feel more visible, more heard, more seen, and more listened to—has been a major success. People are finding their own kinds of value in what I have to say, and they do so by finding their own motivations for listening in the first place.

Going to NELA‘s Rhode Island Fetish Fair Flea-market this past weekend felt very much like that. I decided to go at the last minute, for my own reasons, to turn the event into an opportunity for personal exploration and experimentation of a sort I choose to keep my own, for now. I had some successes, some pain, some very frustrating dashed expectations, and some disappointments, so it was not the sort of spectacular experience some people might expect it to be. That said, I’m glad I went, and I don’t think I did too badly on my own.

The Flea’s primary purpose for me, an opportunity to practice (among other things) taking the bad with the good without Eileen present was something I accomplished in the end. As I mentioned, for now I choose not to show you (all) the bad parts. I don’t want to talk about them right now, especially since I’ve covered lots of them before.

It should come as no surprise to long-time readers how frustrated I am with the persistence that women’s bodies are the sole subject for fetish photography and how combative I feel around asshat mandoms. The Flea had its fair share of these things.

I’ve been to this Winter event two times before and each time it felt like, well, like going to a kink event. This time, however, it felt far more like I was just going to Providence to see some friends, who all happened to be congregating at a kink event. That was much, much more fun.

I didn’t make it to a single class or workshop. I never made it through the entryway of the Fetish Art Show, even though I passed by the entrance at least a dozen times. I didn’t make a single significant purchase, though I did pick up a small, spontaneous gift for Eileen that I’m hoping gets used on me soon. And I’m not at all disappointed about any of those things.

I do wish I had gotten to spend more one-on-one time with my friends, especially Switch, whose insightful self-reflection was the source of my original motivation to attend the event in the first place.

Switch and I travelled to Providence with Dov on Saturday morning who, like both of us, had made similar last-minute plans to attend two days before. Conversations with Dov are always at least entertaining and at their best are very interesting. At the Flea, we couldn’t walk more than five feet in any direction without one of us stopping to say hello to someone we knew. Midori was vending near the entrance to the infamously gigantic vendor’s area, so she was one of the first people Dov stopped to talk with, and he introduced her to Switch. (I just said a brief hello.)

It wasn’t long after that when Switch and I met up with my good friends Maja and Týr, the marvelous Mischief and the enchanting Estra, as well as a few of our other friends without blog names. Together, we swept through the vending area at least three times over. I also said hello to David King, maker of the excellent Coyote Whips single tails, was introduced to Leah and Scott of Big Head Studios, and waved to Hilton manning the Purple Passion booth.

Eventually, after also connecting with Calico, the group of us went to the Bondage Lounge, where we hung out with Sascha, and I spent a fun few minutes as Switch’s ball of human and hemp.

Later, our group swelled to ever larger proportions, including the addition of yet-more-non-blog-people. Also included in the mix was a specific attractive and dominant woman who I was very happy to get to see again—and whom I hope to be able to see more of in the very near future—but unfortunately didn’t get quite as much time to speak with as I would have liked. (You know who you are; I’d rather not call you out by name without prior notice, though if that’s something you wouldn’t mind then I’d be happy to do so from now on.) Eventually we all made it to dinner in spite of a wait well over an hour.

At the hotel room, emotional issues struck at night alongside insomnia of sorts. None of us got much sleep, but the conversation with Switch was heartening and was the highlight of my day, however mixed it was with exhaustion and other sadness.

The next day back at the Flea-market, I was happy to get the chance to meet the brilliant blogger from over on Kink in Exile, who has finally returned from physical “exile” and is back on the East coast just in time for us to cross paths. The two of us wandered around a bit, and I got introduced to some of her friends, like Mr. Pet (who makes incredible custom couture pieces), Steve of Circlet Press, and a few others who also don’t have public blogosphere identities.

I also had the pleasure of seeing Margaret, the absolutely unabashedly, astonishingly adorable founder of Wolf Princess Designs, a company that sells vegan sex accessories for the extremely enjoyable niche of human animal roleplay (aka. pet play). The fact that I’m not going to get the opportunity to get to know Margaret better is one of the reasons I’m sad to be leaving New York City. Not that opportunities were abundant seeing as how I’m from New York City and she’s based in Providence, but still.

After Kink in Exile and I finished making the rounds, I reconnected with Switch over at Monk‘s booth to find her literally tied to Maja. Dov snapped a few pictures as Týr’s massive frame provided a background that would hide other people from the camera, an important thing to be careful of at kink events.

I took the opportunity created by the impromptu bondage photo shoot to speak with Monk’s self-described Twisted Mentat, Alex. I had a thoroughly enjoyable conversation about Seattle, the scene there, and stuff to do there, with her, as well as shared a few words on each other’s personal history, and (of course) bondage, hemp rope, and all the fun things you can do with it.

For me, getting to meet Monk—but especially getting to speak with Alex—was probably the best thing about the whole vendor’s area. As it turns out, I might get the opportunity to actually visit Seattle for few days in early February, so making a good local connection ahead of time was simply wonderful. That, and Alex is clearly full of awesome: outgoing and outspoken, energetic and fun.

Unlike me, Monk and Alex were at the Flea on business and so I tried not to get in the way of the constant flow of customer’s questions. Instead, I spoke with Viviane, and then to Rita Seagrave. I was very happy, and flattered, that Rita made it a point to say hello to me (and to compliment me on this blog! Thank you, Rita!) because her own writing is filled with intelligent observations just as mine is, but it’s also polished into some of the most evocative poetry and prose-poetry I’ve ever come across, and I really admire her communicative ability in that style. If you haven’t yet peeked at some of Rita’s blog, you should.

And that, as they say, was that. The overall uneventful affair was ended with some fond farewells and retracing most of my steps back to the city, with a stop to see Boy for just a couple hours along the way.

The takeaway from it all is this: kink is not some kind of magical mystery tour, some alien or foreign experience devoid of the mundane and—gasp!—normal human interaction. For many people, especially the vendors, kink is a part of the daily grind, and is remarkable largely for its unremarkable quality. And I guess that’s really what I wanted to add to my blog when I started writing this entry.

My writing is typically full of the extraordinary, of the moments of epiphany and none of the drudgery of the thought process, of the sex without the foreplay. Of course, this has been by design. I want readers to come here with the expectation that they’ll get their proverbial rocks off, a reliable orgasm (metaphorically or otherwise) with minimal personal effort.

However, this blog is just the selfish highlight reel.

• For a long, long time I wished I had been sent to a Montessori school when I was younger because one of my tried-and-true learning techniques comes from making associations between things other people would not typically realize could be applicable to one another. I made one such connection when I started reading Susan Mernit’s excellent blog about social media, social networks, citizen journalism, web technologies, sexuality, online dating, and so, so much more. Reading her blog makes me feel like I’m discovering, and continually rediscovering, value in so many places; I feel like Susan’s a sort of kindred spirit, and would recommend her blog to everyone.

  Two pieces of Susan’s writing was also picked as BlogHer‘s best picks of December 2007. One was called Breaking up: When do you stop loving someone? and the other was titled Not choosing monogamy: Why exclusivity doesn’t matter. Both of them are excellent pieces that I think are worth your time. Her blog is a fantastic read if you’re at all interested in Internet culture and technologies, sexuality, and especially if you’re interested in both!

• One of the writers who sometimes makes me feel as though she could have been a fly on the wall of every conversation I’ve ever had with myself is the Subversive Submissive. As a female submissive, many of the issues she writes about are not the ones I have, yet every once in a while, I’m perusing my news feeds and something she wrote will just stand up and grab me.

  One of these posts is this post of hers in which she talks about her personal approach to BDSM and why it’s put strain on her relationship:
  

  I have something of a history of (a) not feeling comfortable with my own sexuality and kinks, and (b) not trusting that my sexual partner is actually interested in the sort of sex and the sort of relationship I desire.

  […]

  But I realize now that I’ve been disappointed in him for not coming at this in the same way that I do; I’ve been disappointed that he doesn’t write about all of this, doesn’t comment here, doesn’t read any BDSM nonfiction, doesn’t initiate taking classes with me. And that’s just holding him up to an absurd and unrealistic expectation. There’s no reason why he should have to approach BDSM in the same way that I do.

  Or this one, about what it’s like not to feel submissive sometimes:

  It’s the nights when the same thing we did two weeks ago not only fails to arouse me, but irritates me. It’s the nights when I have zero interest in any kind of sex at all. And it’s also the nights when I find myself wanting to just climb on top of him and fuck him until I come.

  She works out issues so carefully and intelligently that, if she really is anything like me, I’m certain of two things. First, that she is shielding readers like me from the incredible turmoil that she must go through to reach such insightful moments of clarity. Second, that what she has to say is going to be valuable regardless of your orientation.

  It’s nothing short of a real delight whenever I see a new post appear from her corner of the Web. Go check her blog out. You can get there from my blog roll.

• This week the ever-thoughtful Richard Evans Lee came out with an excellent, must-read post called Femdom Kink is Vanilla. His observations, that kinky people and vanilla people seeking relationships with one another have the same complaints (women wanting conversations, men wanting stereotypes), have been made before but never seem to subside. In this post Richard is able to map the vanilla versions to the kinky versions of these facts to one another and back again and the result is an illuminating entry that deserves a spot in your “send this to the hopeless stupid submissive” bookmarks folder. (What? Doesn’t everyone have one of those?)
  

  In talking with other kinky people about BDSM relationships it has been nagging at me for some time how closely what I say is what I would say to anybody looking for a romantic partner.

  And how annoyingly the words map into gender stereotypes.

  […]

  Where BDSM departs from vanilla is that the former is never going to be satisfied with bodily beauty. The latter can be satisfied – if only for a single night – by arrangements of muscles and bodyfat. The former will never be happy without some meshing of minds.

  That heterosexual male bottoms often don’t grasp this is why even though there are probably far more of them than female tops the limitations of the former are an equalizer of the wrong sort.

• Dovetailing perfectly off the last item, the latest post by Joscelin, an intelligent and young submissive man whose blog has been on my blog roll for a while, posits a possible (at least partial) solution to the problem of ignorant submissive men that is so obvious it bears repeating: sex education for the adolescent submissive man. Joscelin says:
  

  I feel like now that I’m 24, my sexual education is finally getting started. I finally realize that intercourse has never been a big priority for me; I’m more interested in scenes anyway. This has had the convenient side-effect of making me appear not to be a sex-crazed loser who only wants a score. I am, I just have a differeing definition of “score.” As such, traditional sexual education failed to even address most of my questions, let alone answer them correctly.

  […]

  The marginalization of female dominant’s sexuality involved limits the females that are willing to dominate men. Additionally, a substantial unmet demand is created, i.e., a professional market, which in many ways worsens the problem. One obvious solution that I’ve never read before is sexual education of adolescent submissive men.

  I sincerely doubt I’ll see this happen in America in my life time, especially with the Federal government actively sabotaging attempts at fairly balanced sex-ed, but one day I hope this obviously positive thing won’t be such a radical thought. Like Joscelin, I first learned the majority of information about my sexuality from Internet pornography, ninety-nine percent of which was absolute bullshit and, thankfully, had a noticeably weaker impact on me than the vast majority of other submissive men out there. It shouldn’t be a mystery why I want better for the next generation.

That’s all for now. A lot of my time and energy at the moment is being spent scheduling my last month in the United States before the big move to Sydney. I’m at the state where I can just begin to feel the winds of change gaining strength. They’re not gale force yet, but they’re getting stronger.