Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
via mike larremore photography
+ On buying a first vibrator, orgasms, and control, on the Rumpus:
“‘Stupid’ and ‘failure’ took on an oppositional set of meanings, too, which was paradoxically meant to push orgasm into the realm of irrelevance and frivolity. In the back of my mind, there seemed to be something inexplicably weak and absurd about that mysterious moment of climax. Coming implied a letting go that felt ludicrous and shameful. It seemed to be a relinquishing of bodily control—the very opposite of that mastery I so craved. Orgasms were careless, dangerous moments of surrender, and I wanted to be in control, damnit! On some level, I needed the bizarre agency that faking gave me. I wanted to be the brazen Sally-over-a-sandwich, knowing that I could scream and feel nothing and have everything feel like my choice. I never fundamentally questioned that about myself. I never fucked anyone who asked me to question that. […]
I do a lot of reading about women and our navigation of the whorls of body and mind. Often, I get a thrill from reading pieces that celebrate and claim female sexuality, exalting pleasure and shouting orgasm from the rooftops. Similarly, I find strength and solidarity in the writers who so bravely share their experiences living through some combination of sexual pain, trauma, and self-doubt. But rarely am I able to find stories that speak to both sides of this divide, which—in my case—critically inform each other. Rarely do I read about those of us presently engaged in the search to locate our bodies in the midst of sexual contradiction and cacophony.”
photography by katrinkas secret
+ What it’s like to do erotic hypnosis — which is sort of a fetish and sort of a new type of sex, in which you can orgasm without being touched — by Rachel Rabbit White:
“‘I am going to count down from 10 with the number one being a state of ultimate relaxation,’ she said. ‘Now relax your body down to number nine …’ At first we did a few nonsexual guided imagery exercises—she walked me through a forest, and then I floated into the sky. It wasn’t much different from a counseling session with a crystal-y, crunchy therapist. Until it was.
‘Now you may notice,’ Emily said, ‘that although it is cold outside, this room is suddenly very hot. You are starting to feel uncomfortable. Your cheeks turn pink, your clothes feel too warm against your body.’
Then Emily told me to imagine how nice and cool the air would feel against my naked skin. ‘Now, if you want to, take off your shirt,’ she said. I went ahead and peeled off my top. It was hot. ‘If you want to take off your pants, take off your pants,’ she said.
Oh, why not? I wriggled out of my jeans.”
jessica luxery via tangledupinlace.tumblr.com
+ Open relationships: lots of people have them! Especially lesbians. From Effing Dykes:
“Books like The Ethical Slut and Opening Up have introduced the topic to the general public, and lots of queers (trendy as usual!) were either already doin’ the open-relationship thing or first in line to try it when they heard the news.
And why not?
I mean – we’re already in non-traditional relationships.
Everyone thinks we’re freaky sex-machines anyway – why not push the boundaries a little further? “
via deviantfemme.tumblr.com
+ Speaking of open relationships, The Hairpin has a new column, Ask a Non-Monogamous Couple, which explains why they can be awesome:
“ANML: You know the way monogamous couples have sex after one of them returns from a long trip away? That’s how we have sex all the time.
ANMD: Seriously. It’s ridiculous. The first time I ever saw someone outside the relationship, you were worried that Everything Would Be Ruined between us. Instead, it was electric — I just couldn’t resist you. I longed for the familiarity and the closeness we shared, but at the same time I wanted to frenziedly reaffirm my love. And it was awesome. It’s like makeup sex, but there wasn’t a fight.
And it seems like that’s the way it always is. I adore you. Nobody captivates me like you, and nobody can fuck me like you can. I’m with you because I want to be with you, because you are the best for me.
ANML: It’s really just a game, because we know that at the end of the day, no matter what we do with other people, we’re always going to come home to each other.”
+ Sex worker rights activist Audacia Ray has a must-read article on why the sex positive movement is bad for sex workers’ rights:
“The reality is that people who don’t like sex, or don’t like having sex with strangers, or aren’t sexually oriented toward the gender of the clients they see, or don’t like doing sexualized performances, work in the sex industry every day. And it is just that parenthetical ‘attractively high [fee]’ that is the reason for their actions. For the majority of people who work in the sex industry, money, not sex, is the driving factor. […]
Emphasizing sex and pleasure harms the sex workers who aren’t firmly in the self-defined population of being sex positive and sexually educated, by unintentionally shaming them for not being enthusiastic participants in the sex they have at work. […] [This] makes it more difficult for people who have negative experiences to speak openly about their truths with sex work or sexuality more generally.”
+ And now, a joke about lesbian sex from A Brown Girl Gone Gay:
“A woman goes to the gynaecologist, and upon examination, the doctor says, ‘Why, it’s immaculate in here! What do you do to keep yourself so hygienic?’ The woman responds, ‘I have a woman in twice a week.'”
via lovelyladylumps.tumblr.com
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I relate so much to the first article. I feel like I really needed to hear all of that, thank you. <3
As per Open Relationships, etc — curious to hear some testimonials from folks who have successfully done this. I’m embarking on it for all the reasons listed in this article and more, but have only a couple examples of really good, healthy, sustained relationships of this kind around me. Lil’ help?
Check out the original Effing Dykes post! It has over 100 responses.
Trying new things FTW!
I’ve been in a non-monogamous relationship for almost three years now and I love it, so, hi! I had a really hard time being monogamous, because I felt like communication wasn’t as open with my partners, which made me pretty insecure and super territorial. Non-monogamy, on the other hand, kicks ass in my life. So! If you have any questions or want to pick my brain or whatever, let me know! God knows I love talking about myself/my partners/things that work.
Side note for everyone, ever: Like with monogamy, I don’t think non-monogamy is for everyone, so sticking to the you do you AS motto is pretty essential.* Also! Like monogamy, non-monogamy can and does look really different to each person/couple/group of people, so then again, you do you, kittens.
*Just putting that out there because one of my friends felt like she wasn’t cool enough/boring/square because she couldn’t do non-monogamous relationships. Total fallacy. She’s awesome, and will make a monogamous lady very lucky one day.
Open relationships: Everyone’s experience is different, and everyone has different needs and boundaries.
The most fundamental rules that apply, I think, to every relationship (open or otherwise) are COMMUNICATION, HONESTY, and RESPECT.
If you actually stick to those 100%, your relationships have a much higher likelihood of succeeding…and sticking to them will also make it more quickly apparent when something isn’t working out, which is just as important.
The healthiest relationship I ever had was open. There were a few completely not negative, unrelated reasons of circumstance that ended it. Totally wanting to do it again, though I can do monogamy as well. Here is my blog posting on it:
http://soyouwanttobealesbian.blogspot.com/2012/02/series-dykin-it-up-episode-6-different.html
Strict monogamy has never felt right to me. I always felt squeezed inn to a box, a role, that I didn’t want. It was like trying to jam an octopus in to a too small tank; some tentacle was always out there waving around embarrassingly . (and occasionally wrapping around someone I wasn’t supposed to be making friends with and getting me in all kinds of tentacle trouble)
When I mention this to people they often mention jealousy. I believe that a lack of jealousy is not required for an open relationship. A willingness to examine jealousy is, because it’s always a symptom of something more complex. Usually the underlying issue has to do with personal stuff, like old and deeply ingrained messages about your human worth. In all relationships it is your job to own this, but this becomes even more true in an open relationship.
Open relationships if you do them well can bring out a lot of stuff about you that you didn’t know. They can bring you love, and satisfaction, and the sweet sense of always having someone to reach out for when you’re lost and scared. These relationships can be ordered and kept healthy in any manner you can imagine. Some people make charts to keep track of it all! Or it can be simple where you and your two partners love to cook and write and spend all night tending big pots of sauce while someone jams away on the keyboard.
Don’t be afraid, is my point. Try and find excitement in the unknown. You’re writing the rules here.
This is MY experience with open relationships and MINE only. Everyone is different, so I am not saying this to shame anyone or say that my single experience can be generalized to all open relationships.
I was in an open relationship for about 10 years in my 20s. The two of us were best friends. No one understood how we could be so close and stay together for so long while sleeping with other women. Our monogamous friends would scoff at us, and when their relationships fell apart, we would use that as another example of how our relationship was more “real” and “honest” – we weren’t kidding ourselves like they were. And so the years went on and our friends started to believe that we really had the secret.
One day everything just all fell apart. Like coming out of a bad dream, we woke up and realized that all of our “truths” were really lies masked by some highly over analytical, academic theories on enlightened relationships. Jealously existed and it wasn’t based in anything other than my partner loved me and I loved her and we made each other feel like crap while one was out screwing someone else while the other was at home watching t.v. For some, that’s a turn on, and if it works, roll with it – I’m all about it. But for us, the jealousy should have been a sign to reexamine what we were doing to each other, not find some hidden philosophical excuse that would enable us to deny the feelings for our own selfish wants. I was also not as free as I thought. I was really insecure, and having sex with other people, both in and outside of relationships, was a way for me to get power, self-worth, and reassurance. Attention from other people made me feel as if “I still got it!” Sex was secondary to the hunt. Most of my sexcapades were really crappy on top of all that, because let’s face it, not too many people out there really know how to kiss, let alone f*ck!
I’m in a monogamous relationship now and I’ve never felt so satisfied. I know that I do not need a lot of bad lays to feel good about myself.
Monogamy is not for everyone!!! It is for me. Unfortunately, I had to learn via a very painful and humiliating process that open relationships are not for me. So, long story short, examine why before jumping in. And after you’ve done that, if you feel like you can have your cake and eat it too, f*cking go for it!
I feel like you have to be a pretty strong person (mentally and emotionally) to not only want to be in an open relationship, but also be able to make it work. As someone who can’t even let herself be vulnerable enough for one person, much less two, an open/polyamourous relationship would never work for me.
that first article … yes!
When I hear about open relationships or am asked if I would ever…I’m reminded of my report cards all through grade school: “Does not share well with others”
LOL I agree! For me it would be, “Sharing is not caring; fuck you.”
That made me laugh out loud.
Me too!
my grade school report cards kept commenting that I spent too much time with my best friend and wasn’t socializing with others. Apparently I’ve been a monogomous homo forever.
Instead of a U-haul attached to a Honda CRV..Little mkr was sporting a Radio Flyer little red wagon hooked up to her Big Wheel!
Gah, commented twice with auto-fill on my computer. Feel free to delete the above.
Thank you for introducing me to Audacia Ray! I consider myself sex-positive, but I recognize that there are flaws in that movement.
Open relationships can totally work. I’ve done it. I wrote them off for awhile, because I had to develop some self confidence before being secure enough. As I said upthread, one of the best relationships, and arguably the healthiest..was open.
Damn, that lesbian sex joke is hilarious. Now I’m going to be trying to find the right person/context to retell in for weeks.
Pictures #4 and #5 make me feel so mesmerized/happy that I keep intending to read the entire content of this article but still haven’t been able to finish it because I keep scrolling back up and just staring.
Thank you thank you thank you for the article about sex workers and sex positivity. This explains more eloquently some of the reasons that “sex positivity” has always felt dangerous to me personally.
Communication, honesty and respect are necessary to all relationships.
I have had partners tell me they wanted to be monogamous with me, only to get back togther with their exes before telling me that we were done.
I have had women in open relationships approach me, and immediately let me know their primary partner knows they are approaching me.
I have had women let me know (after we had sex and they indicated continued interest in me)that they were in an open relationship and an affair.
I have had cheaters lie and tell me their affair was an open relationship.
I have friends both in beautiful monogamous and open relationships.
I prefer monogamy, but I am starting to feel that it is unrealistic to hope for it!
Rachel Rabbit and Autostraddle in one day? Lovely <3
READ THIS PLEASE. I feel it’s important.
I think the best way to describe my polyamourous nature to monogamous people (especially those that maybe had never considered polyamoury and did after I explained it in this way!) was the following:
KEY POINT ONE – I don’t like, spend my time LOOKING for people to fuck or date or fall in love with. If I find someone, that’s nice, and if I find another person to date simultaneously soon after, holy shit, wow, that’s nice too.
The main thing is that I want to be able to live my life focused on myself – which sounds crazy when you are actually dating MORE people. Some things I love to do with one person, some things I love with another. It really enables me to explore all aspects of MYSELF, as well as experiencing things with different people.
There are so many kinds of love you can have for people. Some are all equal, some are different or more labeled as passion or lust or liking the same weird/specific shit. These relationships ALREADY EXIST in your life. Think about it. They overlap. They are your friends. Or friends you develop feelings for. Or that cute fucking barista you see every day. Or someone you are sitting next to at that Scott Turner Schofield “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps” performance (sidenote: highly recommended; he’s funny and sweet and intense; think a trans Andrea Gibson). ANYWAY. They are long-term relationships spotted by simultaneous one-night-stands and summer flings. WHY NOT DO IT WITH PERMISSION AND HONEST COMMUNICATION?
TANGENT: That “jealousy” happens. You may eventually realize that it is insecurity. “She never does that with me” becomes “she does this with me, and I don’t even like (that thing she does with someone else)”. MAYBE. It worked for me. Telling your partner/partners when you feel jealous is okay, too. Work through why. Instead of waiting to be pissed and eat the cookies her lover made. (I DON’T KNOW, AS, I COULD WRITE SO MUCH.)
END TANGENT.
It’s NOT not NOT for everyone. Again. NOT. FOR. EVERYONE.
YOU GUYS, BASICALLY…
KEY POINT TWO – I just don’t want to be having a beautiful moment with like, a stranger or a friend or whomever and then maybe like, we want to kiss or fuck or we fall in love or want to go to an intimate performance art event together and I don’t want to go with my monogamous partner. I don’t want to hesitate RE: guilt because I shouldn’t feel this feeling with someone who isn’t my monogamous partner or society telling me I should feel that guilt, you know?
tl;dr
“I’m not unfaithful, but I’ll stray.”
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