For science!

One of the unexpected benefits of having multiple sexual partners is that we can talk about and compare our bodies and our sexual preferences; the differences between us are often fascinating.

For example, my vagina is deeper than Lupa's; this is probably why we enjoy different sensations when being penetrated. She prefers ribs and bumps and textures, while I prefer smooth, deep, hard fuckings. As another example, Gene has a bigger clit than I do, which means oral techniques that drive her wild just don't work on me.

The other fun thing about my sexual partners is that I have more people to learn from. Not too long ago I was having sexytime with Lupa and Ume, and when I gestured for Lupa to start sucking off Ume, she hesitated. "I actually don't know very much about how to do that," she admitted.

"All right, lesson time!" Ume said, sitting up. What followed was a brief anatomy lecture on the parts of the male genitalia and the relative sensitivity of each part. He then showed us a handjob technique he called "Five-Star Exploding Palm Technique" that I have to try out on Master next time we're together.

I know that when people say someone approaches sex "academically," they mean it as an insult. But for me and my lovers, it's the opposite; we love learning, we're curious people, and we enjoy engaging each other intellectually as well as - and sometimes at the same time as - sexually. (The subject line is often the "excuse" we provide when we suggest a new sexual activity.)

I don't know how common this attitude is in the population at large. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in our own little kinky/poly world that I forget we're not the norm. For example, I recently read a study that found the median "ideal number" of sexual partners for both men and women was one. Only one?! I thought. That can't be right! It's gotta be two or three. Then I remembered - most people do that whole monogamy thing. Oh yeah...

I need to be careful not to have my worldview lose the wider perspective. That would be unscientific. :)

Academe

I'm currently writing my first academic paper regarding kink. I'll probably post it here when I'm done, as I did with my previous papers regarding sexuality in general.

I can't quite shake my nervousness regarding turning this in. Will my professor suspect my motivations for writing about kink, I wonder? Then I ask myself, why does it matter? I don't get worked up when I speak about bisexuality in class. (Well, I do a little bit; heterosexism is hard to shake entirely.)

I also hope that I do the kink community justice in my writing. I mean, it's not like I'm gonna get kicked out of kink forever if I get a bad grade, but still. I don't want to misrepresent it either.

Fantasy analysis

Another paper for my sociology of sexuality class. This time the assignment was to analyze a fantasy of ours.

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When I was in my teens – particularly my early teens – there was one fantasy in particular that I enjoyed. Not only did it persist longer than most of my fantasies, but it also changed subtly over time as my sexual tastes evolved and (theoretically) matured.

This fantasy is very much a fantasy – that is, it fits into the sci-fi or fantasy genres. In it, the world is not run by humans; instead, large cat-like creatures are the dominant species. Sometimes this was the result of an alien invasion, and sometimes it just always has been that way in this world – it doesn’t really matter which. Either way, the end result is that humans are the pets, while cats (or cat-like aliens, anyway) are the owners.

Naturally, the aliens want to breed their pets. In the fantasy, I am owned by a human breeder, along with several other females. Part of the fantasy is simply living the pet life – we sleep in cat beds on the floor, eat out of dishes, run around in outdoor pens, receive pats from our “masters,” and play on human-sized cat structures. Interestingly, I don’t recall any explicitly sexual fantasies involving the other females. Also, even when our ownership is the result of an alien invasion, there is never any talk or attempt of escape.

The other part of the fantasy is, of course, the actual breeding. The decision of whom I breed with is made without my input or consent; all I’m aware of is being leashed by my owner and led into a room, where I’m locked in with a strange male. He usually looks striking similar to my now-boyfriend, sans facial hair: about my height or a bit taller, wiry, with a small amount of body hair. He is usually white, though not always.

At first he and I are incredibly awkward; we have never even seen each other, except perhaps in passing, but we know that our owners are expecting us to have sex, and we will probably get rewarded if we do (and possibly punished if we don’t). We start talking, and eventually bond because of our shared awkward situation. That inevitably leads to sex.

When I first started having this fantasy, I imagined sex almost exclusively in man-on-top missionary position. However, as I got older, I started getting more imaginative and started incorporating more variety of positions, particularly “doggie-style” and other “from-behind” positions. The furnishings of the room that we were in also changed as I aged. At first, the room had very stereotypical decorations – a large four-poster bed with a canopy, candles, and tapestries on the walls. I was often “forced” to wear sexy lingerie that was inspired by the Victoria’s Secret catalogues I looked at. This was presumably because the alien breeders wanted to replicate humans’ “natural” mating environment as closely as possible. There was also no obvious sign that they were watching the man and I. As I got older, however, I largely dispensed of such trappings until it was just the man and I, completely naked except for collars around our necks, in a bare enclosure with our owners blatantly watching us the entire time.

From a feminist perspective, I think the reason that I conjured up this fantasy was because it gave me an excuse to be sexual. Hegemonic gender roles say that good women – particularly young teens, like I was when I first started having this fantasy – are not supposed to be sexual. I was very invested in being a “good girl.” I didn’t rebel against adults, I got good grades in school, and I did not outwardly express my sexuality. By setting up a situation in which I was forced to be sexual, I therefore was alleviated of any responsibility or guilt and was able to enjoy my fantasy worry-free. Conversely, as I was able to free myself from the dichotomy of “good girl = asexual/evil girl = sexual,” I no longer needed to come up with excuses for myself, and hence this fantasy eventually fell by the wayside, for the most part.

Similarly, the furnishings of my early versions of this fantasy were informed by the dominant social script regarding what is “sexy.” This script, which I learned from TV shows, movies, and aforementioned Victoria’s Secret catalogues, told me that to set the scene for enjoyable, “ideal” sex there needed to be 1) candles, 2) a large bed with plush pillows and silk sheets, preferably a four-poster bed with a canopy and curtains, 3) lacy, feminine lingerie on the woman – the man could just wear normal clothes, and 4) only man-on-top missionary position. As I got older, however, I realized this script didn’t really appeal to me, and I wasn’t actually beholden to it, either. So I discarded the environment and actions that I didn’t like and replaced it with an environment and actions that I did like, namely one that was very minimalist, even harsh, with elements of voyeurism/exhibitionism.

But I didn’t completely buck my socialization. This is evidenced first in that I never moved beyond heterosexual encounters, even though I can be attracted to women and, as mentioned before, there was certainly a possibility to incorporate a lesbian encounter into my fantasy. Secondly, the fact that I am a pet in this fantasy still fits into the dominant (i.e. sexist) romantic script in an odd way. The ideal woman in this paradigm is ultimately reduced to an object of adoration; she receives gifts, attention, and a comfortable way of life from a man in return for expressing unequivocal adoration of him. In other words, she becomes his human pet. My fantasy takes this implicit idea and made it incredibly explicit.

However, in the fantasy I have sex with another pet – a fellow object – who just happens to be male. My actual owner is an asexual presence, and is female as often as male (when their gender is specified at all). In this way my fantasy deviates from the dominant script. A feminist analysis might say this is because I want to meet someone (a man) who understands and empathizes with my experiences of discrimination and sexism; that I want to be intimate with someone on equal terms even in the face of patriarchal oppression. If we follow this line of interpretation, however, this raises the question of why I never try to escape this oppressive state. Is it because I know/think I can’t, or is it because I don’t want to?

This brings us back to the idea that this fantasy absolves me of responsibility for my sexuality. In a way, I’ve got it made in this fantasy – I get to lounge around all day, have all my food prepared for me, and get to have hot sex with various hot men. True, the point of said hot sex is to get me pregnant, which would be very unpleasant for me, but my fantasy never actually addresses that part. Thus I’m essentially having consequence-free casual sex with a stranger, which is the opposite kind of sex women are supposed to have.

I think that is why I later on included an audience in my fantasy. Despite being apparently oppressed, I’m actually flaunting many of the strictures placed on my sexuality by hegemonic society, and I want to show it off – to rub it in society’s face, as it were. My fantasy allows me to safely be deviant, using elements of the fantastical to make the scenario less intimidating in the same way “fantasy violence” is usually less frightening than depictions of actual violence. I am able to take my reality – I am a woman living in a patriarchal society, with a sexist social script thrust upon me – and twist it upon itself until I create something manageable, even empowering.

As for the cat thing… well, I’ve lived with cats since the day I was born. I just really like cats.

A Personal History of Sex

I'm in a sociology of sexuality course this semester, and our first assignment was to write a paper describing our personal definition of sex and how we came to that definition. I decided it was worth sharing here. Enjoy!

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I distinctly remember the first time I learned what sex was. I was young – probably second grade – and was at my friend’s house. We were playing with a girl a year or two older than us; I can’t recall what led up to the conversation, but at some point she felt she needed to enlighten us younger girls. “This is the man’s penis,” she said, holding up her index finger. “And this is the woman’s vagina,” she added, touching the thumb and fingertips of her other hand together to make a circle. Wordlessly, she poked her finger into the circle.

“EEEW!” my friend and I shrieked, covering our faces with our hands in disgust. At that point, all I knew was that penises and vaginas were for peeing[1], and peeing was gross. Why would grown-ups want to touch things that pee came out of?

My concept of sex stayed about the same through the beginning of high school. Though I’d discovered masturbation by sixth grade, that wasn’t sex – there wasn’t anyone else involved. I’d heard of fellatio, but that sounded disgusting; I still couldn’t get over the fact that guys peed with their dicks. Cunnilingus never even entered my sphere of awareness.[2] Anal sex was something gay guys did because they didn’t have vaginas to stick their penises in.

Then, during tenth grade, I came to the realization that I was bisexual.[3] Suddenly, sex with another woman became a viable option. Awesome! But… how does that work? Obviously I’d need to do some research. Since I was a total anime nerd, I turned not to live-action lesbian porn but to yuri, its anime equivalent. There I discovered cunnilingus, which seemed pretty neat, but the two dominant acts depicted were frottage and using a dildo.[4]

These made sense, given my current definition of sex. If “normal” sex is putting two genitals – i.e. the penis and the vagina – together, then lesbian sex is either a) rubbing two female genitals together, or b) bringing in a synthetic penis to do the penetration. Since I never actually had sex with anyone – male or female – during my high school years, this rough definition was good enough to satisfy me.

When I came to college, though, several things happened that influenced my definition of sex. First, I became sexually active with both men and women – sometimes simultaneously. As I explored my sexuality, I discovered that I liked being tied up, ordered around, and beaten. This conflicted with my liberal, quasi-feminist upbringing, which said that women needed to be strong and confident and not let men boss them around. Perturbed, I began researching feminism in earnest for the first time in my life, and I discovered not only were my sexual preferences totally okay[5], but maybe I should rethink what I mean by “sex” in the first place.

Why, feminism asked, does society think a penis needs to be involved for something to be “sex”? Why is male orgasm the definitive ending point of sex, while a woman doesn’t necessarily have to orgasm at all? And what’s with our culture’s obsession with virginity, anyway? We can’t even agree on what a “virgin” is!

These questions blew my mind. The mainstream definition of sex was sexist! And heterosexist! And generally not very good! I’d need to change this.

I decided to leave masturbation as something separate from sex. While it was certainly sexual, my emotional and physical relationship with masturbation was distinctly different from sexual situations involving other people. It’s like having a good relationship with yourself vs. having good friends; both are important, and they are related, but they’re not the same.

So, sex involved at least two people. Looking back on my sexual experiences, I noticed there was a distinct difference in intimacy/emotional intensity between encounters involving genitals (meaning the penis, testicles, vulva, and anus) and those that were restricted to kissing and caressing other parts of the body. This is no doubt because of the societal importance placed on genitals; they must be covered at all times in public, and even most of the time in private, and they generally shouldn’t be touched, either, except by people whom you were very emotionally attached to and trusted a lot.

However, I didn’t see anything particularly wrong with this cultural importance attached to them, so I decided to include it in my new definition of sex: touching of someone’s bare genitals[6] must be involved. But, taking a lesson from feminist critique, a penis does not have to be involved. Indeed, only one set of genitals is required – the other person might use their hand or their mouth or some other implement, but it’d still be sex. Also, it has to be consensual for all parties; otherwise it is rape and an act of violence. And, finally, gynecological examinations are excepted because they don’t bring pleasure to either the doctor or the patient, and pleasure is the biggest reason why we have sex – now that we have effective contraception, that is.

Thus I came to my current definition of sex: consensual, pleasurable activity between two or more people that involves touching of at least one set of bare genitals, whether with another set of genitals, a different part of the body, or with an implement like a dildo. This definition is considerably broader than many people’s, as it includes oral sex, anal sex, hand jobs/finger banging, rimming, and frottage. However, I prefer this definition because it doesn’t erase homosexual partners and it elevates everyone involved to equal importance. I also hope that more people come to a similar definition of sex as the queer and women’s rights movements gain momentum.

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[1] I didn’t learn that the vagina and urethra were separate things until fourth grade. Suddenly tampons made a lot more sense!

[2] Thanks, patriarchy!

[3] That’s a whole ‘nother paper.

[4] Or many, many dildos. All at once.

[5] Well, depending on which feminists you ask. I prefer the ones who say I’m not a sick freak and/or a brainwashed tool of the patriarchy, which is admittedly a very biased opinion on my part.

[6] I stipulate bare genitals because having a layer of clothing between them and whatever is doing the touching is not as intimate. Also, despite not technically being “bare,” I still consider it sex when someone is wearing a condom or dental dam because the latex is so thin it doesn’t impede sensation anyway, and the emotional level of intimacy is about the same.