Under the hand-held shaky cam, a lightning crash blew street litter and white arms and serious chiffon up the former teen idol’s silhouette to fill the frame with her enormous sweeping asshole. She tensed and fell slack under the blast and just as the cavalry roared in to save this helpless twitching doppelgänger from herself, I hit another paywall. I was blowing through photoshop porn reel fails (cue the opening credits of “Pixie Twins Lost in Europe Pt. 2”) with that hallmark distorted scale — where the foreground hides and flattens famous city skylines. With a soft spot for genuine amateurish production, it doesn’t take sophisticated world-building for me to take the bait and thrash around to a two-minute loop of a suggestive open mouth kiss, but the motion blur of bondage on a child sized replica of the Eiffel tower soured me on the tour guide.

I was on week two of an admittedly half-serious sex challenge after a delicious back and forth with a hypnotist on Lex fizzled abruptly. I had deflected a candid caveat about their sub-drop patterns (i.e. can I be trusted with the aftercare of their lousy blood sugar), with some throwaway line about communication being my love language and now my rejection impulse wouldn’t let up. I couldn’t sleep and was panic-stricken that my extreme allergy to sex positivity culture had prevented me from “marketing” my niche brand of kink. Mostly I had chalked my ambivalence up to stifling antidepressants and emotional avoidance. Was I gutted of desire or was this a case of under exposure? As a baby queer, was I in dire need of some semi-prepared schtick or niche fetish in lieu of deeply considered experience? Or was I supposed to own my simpleton truth and scream from a cliff, “I just want to dim the lights and be pegged, goddamnit!”

Illustration by Lauralee Benjamin

I met Gwen on a now-defunct message board for borderlines and functional depressives. She had long stringy hair and compulsively bit on her chunky jewelry. She lived in rural Washington with dial-up internet and we’d play “one-way” where she’d call me at odd hours on her landline and read excerpts from her latest artsy sordid zine while I’d muster an audible pant or strained wheeze on speakerphone to keep from nodding off to sleep. She was so exacting in scene progressions, from where an ankle hold was in relation to furniture, to the potential natural light in her mid-century boudoir. Our time together was forced and cerebral and not nearly sleazy enough, and eventually neither of us wanted to risk our minor physical chemistry by meeting in person.

As a reluctant femme who’s often mistaken for straight, it’s not lost on me that I’m often a magnet for the kink-forward experienced butch. On Lex, I advertised as open for wax play and orgasm denial in a “supporting role,” suggesting that what I couldn’t deliver in content I could make up for with curiosity. After meeting up with consecutive “soft bosses” and passing out under a ripped yogi with superior blood flow, I initiated new non-verbal cues into my repertoire. I remember looking up to find her severe ponytail slapping the side of my cheeks and the darkness of her mouth cooing me back to regulation temperature. I let her take care of me.

Data-driven porn was a hazy low stakes 48 hours. I didn’t have the literal bandwidth to torrent DIY productions anymore so I started scouring porn search engines for dead end combinations (i.e. “nibbles” and “ex- pets” ). I made fish faces into my phone camera and paid an artist $20 to render my face on a serpent’s body and flaked the hardened crust off my vibrator to light my clit up in 3D. When cruising through a r/psyanon rabbit hole about wartime sexual propaganda, I crashed my server trying to unzip a flip book file of semi-nudes pouting “surrender and I’m yours” in climax with disappearing British army chinos. Apparently the Germans churned out the more sophisticated of these operations by marketing see-through postcards (revealing “salacious” cabaret when held to the light) to try and dry up the motivation of rank and file French soldiers during WWII. I sought a second opinion on how ashamed I should feel about getting off to government psyop soft-core pamphlets. I sought a third to join me. My new femme soul mate was late and brushed her seedling leg hairs on her web cam until her battery died.

Every so often an ex would creep back into my life, so I figured it was time for my inner prude to experiment with my first series of nudes. I wasn’t confident enough to be playful, so I went for a conservative femme fatale pin-up look. I aimed to be at the ready with an acceptable five shots on rotation to sabotage an ex’s foray into rebound territory, stage spontaneous arousals, or store a few dick pics locally on my hard drive for revenge, etc. During my excavation for natural light to cast titty shadows, I found a new mole and successfully tied the ends of my headband with my teeth without grimacing. I gave up after trying to time my climax with a stop motion shimmy down the bedroom wall and accidentally firing off A/B test pics to an unsuspecting group chat (I even used the word “engorged” at one point for the more sheepish control group).

Then there was the stint with the hobbyists in hopes that niche fetish taste would save me from myself. Starting with the hot jocks, I advertised my petite frame to be the bulk for strangers’ repetitions in resistance training but I was willing to “support my own weight” if needed. I mostly followed instructions… Lie on your back facing me. Take my left leg (that’s the one on your right) and begin to straighten it. Keep your right knee poised, lock your right angle, etc (until all roads end in an L shape and neutral spine). I toured the soft core ASMR circuit, from labored lotion application visuals to sonic field recordings of low grade humming and “undressing”. I blew out the sound on my puny laptop to hear recitations of grooming habits. I followed a raspy dom through her henna procedure, as she rolled foil cones taped at the top and shut with a pin at the tip, the way her mother did, sealed for later. She’d drop the brick in water to make mud and wrap her scalp in plastic, to keep it warm. The ceremony of it all sent me dizzy and leaning heavy into my forearms until I left a puddle on my wireless keyboard. She was long winded even for ASMR though and despite what she promised of her magic, I couldn’t feel my pores shudder. I saved her collection to a playlist and would mute her on replays so I could whisper yell at my own pace.

I took breaks. I learned less about kink and more about bad art and the crowded “ethical porn” market. I learned again that I’m a sucker for simplistic trope reversals (i.e. anydrongous male on male pairings ) and escapist plot. I didn’t want to know about the democratization of the female gaze. I blocked mentions of “connoisseur” discourse on all social media. I’d still settle for hard bodies gyrating against newly built furniture. I’ll never give up on straight fat dick; it’s my good luck charm. I bought a new compact mirror.

There were people stuck in my head that I would also see again, like Dez. They used to follow me around with their jutting jaw and shitty apartment and claimed I could bring them back to life. I’d jerk awake in the morning to find some new longing and stare into their strange face to will them awake. I’ve met this kind of person fifty times. I’d save my few clever tricks, like straddling their nose or suspending them from the balcony, for the tail end of our two-week attention span. If you were watching in a motel or in a park it would look like two ready and desperate people waiting out an omen together, in a room that had been sealed too long. I know I’m looking too hard at the wrong things and might as well start fresh in the morning.

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