NASA Conspires to Halt Gay Rights Movement with Weapons of Cyberskin:
Or, They Know an Army of Lovers Will Never Get Out of the Barracks
The defense department has to be involved. There is no way this product has innocently found its way into the bedrooms of activist queers all over the world, stopping their militant advance toward freedom as they become stupid and subservient to the pleasures of Cyberskin. It is the footsoldier of an eldritch evil, not unlike the Ring that nearly seduced poor Frodo. I had my first experience with it last night, and it has completely wrecked my focus for work, all day. I’m an activist queer rendered passive and content by its high-tech magicks.
What is this new, real (or realistic) evil? Cyberskin ([tm] or Futurotic [tm], AKA Ultraskin, EroSkin, truskin, soft touch, softskin, thermal plastic, or just the palsy-sounding cyber) is a silicone-and-PVC-mix NASA-made insulator that has a distressingly flesh-like texture. Cyberskin’s main diabolical properties are that its atom bonds are hyper-resilient: it warms with body heat, stretching and then “remembering” its original shape; and it has both the softness of skin and the rigidity of erectile tissue. You see, Cyberskin is made using “the Aerospace 601,” a computerized injection molding machine, which makes varying densities of CyberSkin, creating anatomically perfect replicants of various body parts (you can feel the “bone” within the boner).
According to my research, Cyberskin products are nefariously expensive. They are moody, and high-maintenance. They can become moldy if not kept in an airtight, antiseptic, dry container. They can become very sticky-- sticks-to-walls-sticky-- if you handle them for a long time without washing them. They cause erratic, possessive behavior. OK, in me at least. Putting me in touch with my inner Gollum.
I know Cyberskin must be destroyed, but yet I have an unfathomable, ferocious protective urge towards it… Soon NASA will be producing counterrevolutionary hypnotic robotic pleasure-queers out of the stuff. I am distressingly intrigued by the vision of a post-cyberskindroidal world.
Good Vibes’ evil selection of Cyberskin products must be destroyed. Do it now, before another activist becomes compromised.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
For My Thirtieth Birthday I Will Treat You To
Pretty Pictures of Hedgehogs, Wedgwood, and the wily Vrsic Pass.
Because I have so many substantial things I want to write about I just can't choose.
Hedgehog to cure depression.
Immodest hedgehog.
Modest hedgehog.
I love this Wedgwood pattern enough to tattoo it on my behind. Which in fact might be happening soon. Ok, not my behind, but somewhere.
Ooooh. Lookit the salad bowl. I'll never be able to afford it, but it makes me happy to dream.
Yes I drove the Vrsic pass this May, and yes it makes 51 curves like these on a sharp elevation. In the alps. Built by WWI Russian POWs, who left many of their own buried in the snow up there.
Here's a cool aerial view of the tiptoppimost summit point.
Here's some views of the mountain peaks neighboring the pass.
And here's the view of the mountains the pass traverses from a distant point due south.
In case you were planning to attempt to pronounce the name of the pass, it's one of those special Slovenian words with the accent on the consonant cluster. "VRR-sheech."
You can't escape it by going south, they keep accenting the consonant clusters all the way down the Balkans to Greece, near as I can figure. The only way out of the clusters is over the Vrsic and into boring, plainmouthed Austria.
Pretty Pictures of Hedgehogs, Wedgwood, and the wily Vrsic Pass.
Because I have so many substantial things I want to write about I just can't choose.
Hedgehog to cure depression.
Immodest hedgehog.
Modest hedgehog.
I love this Wedgwood pattern enough to tattoo it on my behind. Which in fact might be happening soon. Ok, not my behind, but somewhere.
Ooooh. Lookit the salad bowl. I'll never be able to afford it, but it makes me happy to dream.
Yes I drove the Vrsic pass this May, and yes it makes 51 curves like these on a sharp elevation. In the alps. Built by WWI Russian POWs, who left many of their own buried in the snow up there.
Here's a cool aerial view of the tiptoppimost summit point.
Here's some views of the mountain peaks neighboring the pass.
And here's the view of the mountains the pass traverses from a distant point due south.
In case you were planning to attempt to pronounce the name of the pass, it's one of those special Slovenian words with the accent on the consonant cluster. "VRR-sheech."
You can't escape it by going south, they keep accenting the consonant clusters all the way down the Balkans to Greece, near as I can figure. The only way out of the clusters is over the Vrsic and into boring, plainmouthed Austria.
Monday, July 14, 2003
Again With the Punk Credibility Problems
So it's been repeatedly pointed out to me that I have lost all punk cred for my fancypants misspelling of moshpit (though I swear I picked up "mochepit" being pen pals with Francophone punks at a formative age). Then in the ensuing debate about the difference between moshing (a group dance) and slamming (more of a solo thing) I had to start talking about the slamdance move "doing the pogo stick." Well, my research shows that people DO talk about "doing the pogo stick" but it truly is more punkily-correct to say "pogoing."
From the History of Punk Rock in the UK at www.punk77.co.uk:
So it's been repeatedly pointed out to me that I have lost all punk cred for my fancypants misspelling of moshpit (though I swear I picked up "mochepit" being pen pals with Francophone punks at a formative age). Then in the ensuing debate about the difference between moshing (a group dance) and slamming (more of a solo thing) I had to start talking about the slamdance move "doing the pogo stick." Well, my research shows that people DO talk about "doing the pogo stick" but it truly is more punkily-correct to say "pogoing."
From the History of Punk Rock in the UK at www.punk77.co.uk:
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Another Dispatch From Femme-bottomville
On Bad Top and Happy Bottom Barometers
You know when you're with a good top (because you are trying to pant out your phone number between squeals of delight), you know when you've got an unhappy bottom (she's packing her toys and going home), but how do you discern when a top becomes abusive or inept, or a bottom becomes a total lump of orgasmic joy? We gals aren't taught a lot about spotting hot girl-on-girl live abuse coming at us, or expressing satisfaction from within a rollicking sex scene. I came up with some barometers based on my own experience, and discussions with friends.
On Bad Top and Happy Bottom Barometers
You know when you're with a good top (because you are trying to pant out your phone number between squeals of delight), you know when you've got an unhappy bottom (she's packing her toys and going home), but how do you discern when a top becomes abusive or inept, or a bottom becomes a total lump of orgasmic joy? We gals aren't taught a lot about spotting hot girl-on-girl live abuse coming at us, or expressing satisfaction from within a rollicking sex scene. I came up with some barometers based on my own experience, and discussions with friends.
- Effective and Ineffective Bad Top Barometers
1. Effective barometer: Hostile personal criticism about your or her other lovers' physical attributes (especially if you later see her preening and pointing out her own physical gifts). A good top ultimately is compassionate about a body's frailties.
Ineffective barometer: Dirty talk or use of cuss words / degrading talk in general. Listen for tone: if it's coy, playful, affectionate, targeting your behavior, and suggestive without being really threatening, it's one thing. If it's *hostile,* targeting things you have no control over, and threatening, be sure to check yourself for safety boundaries.
2. Effective barometer: Expressing doubts about whether you are worth her time. This isn't topping, it's adolescent manipulation. She should keep that question in her Inside Head Voice.
Ineffective barometer: Giving you a run-down of her schedule of planned social and sexual activity. Some tops are just really overscheduled and use the iteration of their time management choices to create personal space. It might be a little self-aggrandizing, but it's not a manipulation or a rejection.
3. Effective barometer: Feigned dramatic revulsion when you reveal a wound or vulnerability.
Ineffective barometer: Actual reactions of distaste, usually followed by clarifying questions about what you've just revealed. Hey, everyone has their squick zones.
4. Effective barometer: Real expressions of hostility about something remote to the occasion at hand but directed toward the bottom (like, spanking harder and harder while getting verbally angrier and angier about last month's PG&E bill-- or last month's girlfriend).
Ineffective barometer: Real expressions of sadness about personal loss or misfortune. Don't be a dick to your dick-- tops need to cry too.
5. Effective barometer: Childish ploys for attention about the top's areas of insecurity. I include financial insecurity here. Tops can be so fragile-- especially butch tops who are given the responsibilities of masculinity with only a fraction of the privileges. There are those who are completely broken by their circumstances, and they shouldn't be working on their wounds by creating them on you. They should just get professional help-- from a therapist, a paid domme, whatever. You don't need to try to heal them.
Ineffective barometer: Urgency about knowing your health and/ or relationship status. Don't be suspicious if your top needs to know these safety parameters in order to play. If you don't feel like talking about it, just say so, but try to respect her safety concerns if you want her to respect yours.
6. Effective barometer: Excessive control issues-- good tops actually *have* most of the control they want. They are *in* their power and confident, know their boundaries, and are *not* seeking to prove something, to you or themselves or anyone else, by establishing control over you.
Ineffective barometer: Checking in with you incessantly. She might be recovering from a bad experience with an incommunicative bottom. Tell her if it's turning you off.
7. Effective barometer: Not owning anything resembling a date planner.
Ineffective barometer: Not having e-mail. Also, not sharing all her contact digits and coordinates. Bottoms can be stalkers too. Or so I've heard.
8. Effective barometer: Consciously or unconsciously violating an express boundary established with or by the bottom. Safer sex, disclosure or privacy, pain or intensity preferences, safeword use-- anything.
Ineffective barometer: Expressing concern about a boundary that has been set. Concern doesn't mean the top intends to violate it, so don't take a question about boundaries as a violation of boundaries. Unless you've set boundaries about asking questions about sets of boundaries (ya freak!).
- Effective and Ineffective Happy Bottom Barometers
1. Effective barometer: Reduction to lizard brain activities (grabbing random things to chew on, ripping fabric, falling onto the floor -and maybe not noticing she's fallen, biting, scratching, etc.).
Ineffective barometer: Departures from bed to see if there's anything to eat in the kitchen. She might just be hypoglycemic, you never know.
2. Effective barometer: Very inarticulate loudness.
Ineffective barometer: Very articulate loudness ("holy cow does that vibrator remind me of the last time I was in Prague!"). She might not have good bringins-up about what is good pillow talk. She might just be nervous.
3. Effective barometer: Preternatural silence and stillness while sweating with a racing pulse, especially if uncontrollable twitching is involved (and the person doesn't have a history of epilepsy or high blood pressure, and isn't experimenting with dangerous mind-altering substances).
Ineffective barometer: Actual brain death.
4. Effective barometer: Marriage proposals, or, stalking proposals. (Just don't take her up on anything. ANYTHING. said in flagrante.)
Ineffective barometer: Prior marriage (or commitment) confessions. Really, don't take this as a complement or an insult. She's just got too much on her plate already and this is how she's telling you.
5. Effective barometer: Offers of specific sexual services.
Ineffective barometer: Offers of specific housekeeping services. Even if she is a service bottom, it's not a good sign if she's thinking about *your* hygiene at this point. Then again, with some clarification, it might be some kind of personal kink for her.
6. Effective barometer: Nonsensical profanity (unless of course your safeword is a piece of profanity, which means you have a stupid safeword).
Ineffective barometer: Profane personal criticisms. (See note on number 2. Bad bringins-up is sometimes just all there is to explain it.)
7. Effective barometer: Stopping you to tell you explicit instructions or ask questions about what you like: yes this is a good thing. This means she's enthusiastic and comfortable with you and doesn't fear top-down reprisals for helping you help her get off (or helping you help her get you off)-- if you want, you can quickly reassert yourself by making a thrilling counter-proposal/ counter-inquiry (the Socratic method can be a turn on for those brainy types)-- but absolutely do take competence-promoting feedback as a good happy bottom barometer. Only bad bottoms fail to give any guidelines for their own pleasure (giving or receiving) preferences.
Ineffective barometer: Stopping you to tell you about her abuse history. Abuse survivors getting triggered in sex play is par for the course in this community where one in five is supposed to have survived rape. Stopping doesn't mean she's happy or unhappy with you as a person or as a sex partner, but it does mean you should (without you grumbling- AT ALL) take time to talk. Negotiations about boundaries can start there, from scratch: that's when you'll find out if she's happy or not.
8. Effective barometer: Wetness in combination with any one or more of the above.
Ineffective barometer: Wetness or dryness alone. Sometimes a gal is just plain dehydrated-- from sun, or alcohol consumption, preferring 24 ounces of espresso to water as her daily liquid intake, etc.-- or she's just not genetically descended from the fountain-people as some are. Think of it in terms of normative male anatomy where a guy can ejaculate but not orgasm: while always (always) honoring requests for "more lube!", and monitoring the slickness of the roads, don't *just* go for the juice-- go for the radiant smile and twitchy fingers.
Tuesday, July 08, 2003
So You Think You Can Outsmart Tokelau
Tokelau is one of the few (83) countries of the world with a federal law against same-sex consensual private sex between adults. They also have a free web domain referral service. So you might think of taking advantage of their islander good naturedness and get www.slackerstalker.tk for your blog, ha ha, associating their little suffix with practices they officially punish with ten years in jail. But you would not have outsmarted little Tokelau, no ma'am! Because when someone enters a ".tk" address, a phone rings. A modem picks up somewhere in a dusty store room on one of the 127 islands that compose Tokelau, and prints out an order for a certain computer to be connected to another site. The next morning a nice lady collates the orders and photocopies it twice, filing one copy, faxing another to her boss, and mailing the original to the office of web page referrals on one of the other atolls. All of the letters are date stamped and one by one child laborers trained in Javascript enter the order for the user contacting the website at ".tk" to finally be granted access to its assigned site. Then I'm sure they beat the children for taking too long to enter the code. Well, you want to go to Tokelau to prove me wrong?
Lonely Planet on Tokelau:
Tokelau is one of the few (83) countries of the world with a federal law against same-sex consensual private sex between adults. They also have a free web domain referral service. So you might think of taking advantage of their islander good naturedness and get www.slackerstalker.tk for your blog, ha ha, associating their little suffix with practices they officially punish with ten years in jail. But you would not have outsmarted little Tokelau, no ma'am! Because when someone enters a ".tk" address, a phone rings. A modem picks up somewhere in a dusty store room on one of the 127 islands that compose Tokelau, and prints out an order for a certain computer to be connected to another site. The next morning a nice lady collates the orders and photocopies it twice, filing one copy, faxing another to her boss, and mailing the original to the office of web page referrals on one of the other atolls. All of the letters are date stamped and one by one child laborers trained in Javascript enter the order for the user contacting the website at ".tk" to finally be granted access to its assigned site. Then I'm sure they beat the children for taking too long to enter the code. Well, you want to go to Tokelau to prove me wrong?
Lonely Planet on Tokelau:
- Want to get away from it all? Head off to Tokelau, where there's no capital city, no airport, no harbour, no cars, no banks, no guns and no tourism.
Monday, July 07, 2003
Ah, 1987
So, Merriam-Webster's dates "mosh" back to 1987, and says it is a variant of "mash." I find this unsatisfying, but look at the definitions for yourself-- they don't vary much. The only question is if moshing is a synonym for slamdancing, or if slamdancing is more violent than moshing. I think in 1987 I would have cared.
So, Merriam-Webster's dates "mosh" back to 1987, and says it is a variant of "mash." I find this unsatisfying, but look at the definitions for yourself-- they don't vary much. The only question is if moshing is a synonym for slamdancing, or if slamdancing is more violent than moshing. I think in 1987 I would have cared.
It Has Been Called to My Attention
By a concerned reader that I have egregiously misspelled "mosh pit," less commonly spelled "moshpit," but never by anyone but me spelled "mochepit." I have now been given my new obsession for the week, stalking the origin of the word "mosh," in the hopes of finding out why I internalized a French spelling of it. I vaguely remember hanging out with some French Canadian punks at orchestra camp in 1990. I think I thought I was a real punk for a while around that same year. The origin of my misspelling may prove more interesting than the origin of the word.
What moshpit move are you?
By a concerned reader that I have egregiously misspelled "mosh pit," less commonly spelled "moshpit," but never by anyone but me spelled "mochepit." I have now been given my new obsession for the week, stalking the origin of the word "mosh," in the hopes of finding out why I internalized a French spelling of it. I vaguely remember hanging out with some French Canadian punks at orchestra camp in 1990. I think I thought I was a real punk for a while around that same year. The origin of my misspelling may prove more interesting than the origin of the word.
What moshpit move are you?
Saturday, July 05, 2003
Aunt Stalker's Advice to Adventurous Butch Tops
Yes it is appropriate to give your date remote-controlled vibrating panties for your second date. Just remember, having the control device, it's your responsibility to not turn it on when your date is walking down stairs or steep hills.
Yes it is appropriate to give your date remote-controlled vibrating panties for your second date. Just remember, having the control device, it's your responsibility to not turn it on when your date is walking down stairs or steep hills.
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Report Back from San Francisco's Sodomy - I mean - Pride Week
Dear readers: this has been a week of being in full body contact with the queer community of San Francisco during our sodomite celebrations. If you are my mom, dad, or grandma, please stop reading here.
Also, I'm sorry I'm having to post everything in tiny chunks, since I last blogged Blogger has started to super-suck for its unpaid members. You can't post more than a few paragraphs at a time.
=====================================
Thursday, June 26th, 2003:
The Day the US Supreme Court Fell On Its Knees Before the Country's Sodomites
I spent part of that celebrated day at my (FTM top) lover's pot dealer's house, where she (a butch top) asked me:
Q. “What’s so great about being a femme bottom?”
I couldn't answer very well at that moment, for marijuana-related reasons, but I thought and wrote about it in the ensuing days of encounters with other femme bottoms whose opinions I respect.
A. Becoming transcendental shimmering egoless light under the touch of a good, understanding top, who takes pleasure in your pleasure.
A. Getting to choose to be vulnerable on your own safe/ sane/ consensual terms, a relief when every day on the streets you are forced to act strong on the terms of a misogynist, hostile, aggressive bio-male-centered world.
A. Being admired for qualities like tolerance and femininity that make you a second-class citizen in the patriarchy.
A. If/ when you are a service bottom: the challenge/ delight of succeeding in pleasing someone, maybe healing the absent/ disapproving/ detached father (and mother!) wounds so many of us carry.
A. If/ when you are a stone bottom: the challenge/ delight of taking whatever is dished out to you: releasing a negotiated amount of control of your circumstances that you are forced to try to completely control all day, maybe healing the exhaustion and burnout that comes with being perceived as a public target all the time.
A. Submitting to someone else’s will under controlled circumstances exposes you to certain health risks, but it is mentally therapeutic. Even tops seem to have to bottom to something for mental health—usually god, liquor, or some other controlled substance. Oh, and for all you tops reading this: that “we do all the work” crap doesn’t sound so valiant when you look at our parallel complaint-- “we get all the infections.”
So why play with power and boundaries in sex at all? Because it leads to good processing (and transcendance?) of the world's underlying invisible structures that disempower dykes. Plus, it's just fun.
=====================================
Saturday late, after the dyke march, notes from a great conversation with M. about transsensuality versus transfetishism:
On transsensuality:
We bonded over being bi-femme-bottoms who like living around/ discussing trans identity, grey-area complexities of masculine and feminine mixtures, women’s issues and lives and histories in male-shaped life/bodies. We are both afraid of being seen as FTM-fetishizers, but are constantly getting involved with FTMs, and so we are starting to come out as transsensual. This is a quality/quantifier of our attractions, not a requirement for admittance to our bedrooms. We decided we'd probably be in straight relationships if we hadn;t come to the SF Bay Area. But in the SF Bay Area, when not with FTMs, we tend to get involved with other dykes, femme and butch, not bio-men. We are distrustful of the het privilege temporarily conferred on the streets to a femme dyke with an FTM partner, because we know it can backfire violently in a heartbeat. We seek friendships in and act in solidarity with the FTM transgender community. But in the privacy of our own company we examine our own motives.
On the problem with the FTM fetish:
There is an FTM fetish that is the attraction to (or shallow obsession with) the ideal of the formerly-female having a physical male shape and attitude. That fetishism can be alienating and unsupportive to the realities of FTMs (who don’t attain or retain the ideal body/ attitude 24-7), and frightening to butches (who see femmes with FTM fetishes and have body issues triggered by it).
On femmes who leave their butch lovers for not being butch enough, or for having aromatherapy candles instead of beer bottles on their coffee table:
Femmes with the FTM fetish aren’t usually prepared to stick around for the hard real issues of having a woman-shaped history (or current woman-shaped life) with a male-shaped body. They can be drawn to the joys of girlsex in private with the benefit of straight privilege on the streets, and then flee when all
the complicated mixtures and imperfections within the glamour come to the surface. These femmes mostly haven’t yet had intimate, nonsexual, supportive, friendship-based relationships with people who have transitioned FTM. But they probably will, and then the fetish will turn into understanding and a more
finely-honed taste in partnership material (i.e. not just based on appearance, or interior decorating choices).
On FTM sexuality surprises:
Confession: I once was involved with an older FTM who had a heinously old-school lesbian separatist music collection. It was almost enough to end the fling when he put some boring 70’s sisterhood-is-powerful folk on the tape deck. Not to impress me. These were his people. He was singing along. And let me tell you, those 70’s sexphobic lesbian separatist types can unearth some pretty weird sexual pleasure paths when they start dropping T (testosterone). You femmie FTM-fetishizers better put on your seatbelts before you get on that wagon. Hello, strangulation fantasies! And another thing: T can give (very) high blood pressure, which makes sex impossible. It’s like watching a dog chase its tail: they take the
T, get horny, and then feel like a balloon about to pop and are too nauseated to stand up, let alone mouth-kiss. All these issues and more can be yours along with your FTM fetish! In my opinion it’s worth it if you can love the person beyond their physical appearance and health negotiations.
On hot FTM-on-FTM action / FTMs rejecting femmes because “Girls are too complicated”:
It’s true, someone experiencing a testosterone high isn’t really good at verbal processing. Sometimes girls (or girl-like-creatures) are too complicated for people buzzing around on a testosterone cloud, feeling like fucking or fighting all the time. This state of affairs can look like a good time to some butches, like being FTM-identified gives you a license to act like a 14-year-old boy, a most prized license to people who often spent their 14th year terrified someone would beat them up for acting like a boy. Like their 14-year-old boy counterparts, having a “girls not allowed space” is powerful good fun. For some it’s even a long-term preference-- the faggy-boy FTM identity we’re seeing so often now. Sexual pleasure paths are a personal matter: I can’t say I want to waste my time trying to turn out someone who prefers boys (or boy-energy). I try to filter my jealousy over certain hot FTMs who only like other boys into a healthy admiration for their stigmatized and hence brave choices. Anyway, lust is ultimately an urge that is only concerned with itself, so jealous arguing over someone else's body as though it were property to be negotiated is a selfish act independent of the urge to make an individual (you or anyone else) truly happy.
On transsensuality:
We bonded over being bi-femme-bottoms who like living around/ discussing trans identity, grey-area complexities of masculine and feminine mixtures, women’s issues and lives and histories in male-shaped life/bodies. We are both afraid of being seen as FTM-fetishizers, but are constantly getting involved with FTMs, and so we are starting to come out as transsensual. This is a quality/quantifier of our attractions, not a requirement for admittance to our bedrooms. We decided we'd probably be in straight relationships if we hadn;t come to the SF Bay Area. But in the SF Bay Area, when not with FTMs, we tend to get involved with other dykes, femme and butch, not bio-men. We are distrustful of the het privilege temporarily conferred on the streets to a femme dyke with an FTM partner, because we know it can backfire violently in a heartbeat. We seek friendships in and act in solidarity with the FTM transgender community. But in the privacy of our own company we examine our own motives.
On the problem with the FTM fetish:
There is an FTM fetish that is the attraction to (or shallow obsession with) the ideal of the formerly-female having a physical male shape and attitude. That fetishism can be alienating and unsupportive to the realities of FTMs (who don’t attain or retain the ideal body/ attitude 24-7), and frightening to butches (who see femmes with FTM fetishes and have body issues triggered by it).
On femmes who leave their butch lovers for not being butch enough, or for having aromatherapy candles instead of beer bottles on their coffee table:
Femmes with the FTM fetish aren’t usually prepared to stick around for the hard real issues of having a woman-shaped history (or current woman-shaped life) with a male-shaped body. They can be drawn to the joys of girlsex in private with the benefit of straight privilege on the streets, and then flee when all
the complicated mixtures and imperfections within the glamour come to the surface. These femmes mostly haven’t yet had intimate, nonsexual, supportive, friendship-based relationships with people who have transitioned FTM. But they probably will, and then the fetish will turn into understanding and a more
finely-honed taste in partnership material (i.e. not just based on appearance, or interior decorating choices).
On FTM sexuality surprises:
Confession: I once was involved with an older FTM who had a heinously old-school lesbian separatist music collection. It was almost enough to end the fling when he put some boring 70’s sisterhood-is-powerful folk on the tape deck. Not to impress me. These were his people. He was singing along. And let me tell you, those 70’s sexphobic lesbian separatist types can unearth some pretty weird sexual pleasure paths when they start dropping T (testosterone). You femmie FTM-fetishizers better put on your seatbelts before you get on that wagon. Hello, strangulation fantasies! And another thing: T can give (very) high blood pressure, which makes sex impossible. It’s like watching a dog chase its tail: they take the
T, get horny, and then feel like a balloon about to pop and are too nauseated to stand up, let alone mouth-kiss. All these issues and more can be yours along with your FTM fetish! In my opinion it’s worth it if you can love the person beyond their physical appearance and health negotiations.
On hot FTM-on-FTM action / FTMs rejecting femmes because “Girls are too complicated”:
It’s true, someone experiencing a testosterone high isn’t really good at verbal processing. Sometimes girls (or girl-like-creatures) are too complicated for people buzzing around on a testosterone cloud, feeling like fucking or fighting all the time. This state of affairs can look like a good time to some butches, like being FTM-identified gives you a license to act like a 14-year-old boy, a most prized license to people who often spent their 14th year terrified someone would beat them up for acting like a boy. Like their 14-year-old boy counterparts, having a “girls not allowed space” is powerful good fun. For some it’s even a long-term preference-- the faggy-boy FTM identity we’re seeing so often now. Sexual pleasure paths are a personal matter: I can’t say I want to waste my time trying to turn out someone who prefers boys (or boy-energy). I try to filter my jealousy over certain hot FTMs who only like other boys into a healthy admiration for their stigmatized and hence brave choices. Anyway, lust is ultimately an urge that is only concerned with itself, so jealous arguing over someone else's body as though it were property to be negotiated is a selfish act independent of the urge to make an individual (you or anyone else) truly happy.
=====================================
Friday night at the Sexcapades -- a carnival of perversion for dykes and FTMs (and the stray well-behaved bio-boy):
My femme bottom friend M. and I working at the masturbation booth to our voyeurs:
“We’re sodomizing ourselves in honor of the supreme court ruling yesterday.”
We provided details of the ruling as we bounced away on the air mattress, surrounded by purple x-mas lights.
One lanky butch from out of town:
“I’ve never come standing up before, thank you.”
At the coat check line, the tired old running joke:
"Mine's the black leather jacket."
=====================================
Saturday night marching with the sex worker contingent in the dyke march:
I'm not a sex worker, but people paid to see me Friday night, so M. invited me to join her in the sexiest
contingent at the march. It felt so great to run into ex-girlfriends with my contingent of femme dykes proudly displaying our dominion over our explicit sexual dyke bodies.
Our Chants:
Sodomy, sodomy, rah rah rah!
Yaaay- hos!
Whose streets? Whores’ streets!
1-2-3-4- I’m a dyke and I’m a whore
5-6-7-8- not all working girls are straight
(or: “working girls are never straight,” as one woman commented to herself)
2-4-6-8 I get paid to masturbate
Our Signs:
A graphic of a stiletto heel wreathed by the words “San Francisco Sex Workin' Dykes Got Pride" (text in attractive big black scratchy-font print on white), with purple feathers glued to the sides of the white foamcore which was glued to a flat short wood stake. Since I work at a queer rights organization, I felt completely honest carrying this sign, because the back read:
"We’re here, we’re queer, we get paid for it."
This may have been one of the best ever protest signs, and I am a discriminating customer in the
activist signage department. Read my blog on signage here - written during the anti-war protests in the spring.
Some of Our Stickers:
(We gave these out freely. Black text on bright neon sticker paper.)
Boobs not Bombs (--the most popular)
US Out of My Underwear! Support Sex Workers' Rights! (--and)
SFPD Out of My Underwear!
Feminists Fuck Better (--and)
Dyke Feminist Sex Workers Fuck Better
I’m not a whore but my girlfriend is (--the most popular for straight couples-- the boy would take one and then the girl would read it and say "Hey, I need one too.")
Sex worker rights = women’s rights = human rights
Dykes and sex workers UNITE: our bodies, our rights!
Support Your Local Lesbian Sex Worker: Ask me how! (--I think I gave this one to a grinning Jewelle Gomez.)
Some of Our Pins:
(These were also free to all takers.)
Dyke Whore
A cute little pin-up girl image
A cute little dominatrix image
M’s sign from the bombshells-not-bombs contingent in various peace marches:
Easy on your eyes- hard on your empire.
=====================================
Friday night at the Sexcapades -- a carnival of perversion for dykes and FTMs (and the stray well-behaved bio-boy):
My femme bottom friend M. and I working at the masturbation booth to our voyeurs:
“We’re sodomizing ourselves in honor of the supreme court ruling yesterday.”
We provided details of the ruling as we bounced away on the air mattress, surrounded by purple x-mas lights.
One lanky butch from out of town:
“I’ve never come standing up before, thank you.”
At the coat check line, the tired old running joke:
"Mine's the black leather jacket."
=====================================
Saturday night marching with the sex worker contingent in the dyke march:
I'm not a sex worker, but people paid to see me Friday night, so M. invited me to join her in the sexiest
contingent at the march. It felt so great to run into ex-girlfriends with my contingent of femme dykes proudly displaying our dominion over our explicit sexual dyke bodies.
Our Chants:
Sodomy, sodomy, rah rah rah!
Yaaay- hos!
Whose streets? Whores’ streets!
1-2-3-4- I’m a dyke and I’m a whore
5-6-7-8- not all working girls are straight
(or: “working girls are never straight,” as one woman commented to herself)
2-4-6-8 I get paid to masturbate
Our Signs:
A graphic of a stiletto heel wreathed by the words “San Francisco Sex Workin' Dykes Got Pride" (text in attractive big black scratchy-font print on white), with purple feathers glued to the sides of the white foamcore which was glued to a flat short wood stake. Since I work at a queer rights organization, I felt completely honest carrying this sign, because the back read:
"We’re here, we’re queer, we get paid for it."
This may have been one of the best ever protest signs, and I am a discriminating customer in the
activist signage department. Read my blog on signage here - written during the anti-war protests in the spring.
Some of Our Stickers:
(We gave these out freely. Black text on bright neon sticker paper.)
Boobs not Bombs (--the most popular)
US Out of My Underwear! Support Sex Workers' Rights! (--and)
SFPD Out of My Underwear!
Feminists Fuck Better (--and)
Dyke Feminist Sex Workers Fuck Better
I’m not a whore but my girlfriend is (--the most popular for straight couples-- the boy would take one and then the girl would read it and say "Hey, I need one too.")
Sex worker rights = women’s rights = human rights
Dykes and sex workers UNITE: our bodies, our rights!
Support Your Local Lesbian Sex Worker: Ask me how! (--I think I gave this one to a grinning Jewelle Gomez.)
Some of Our Pins:
(These were also free to all takers.)
Dyke Whore
A cute little pin-up girl image
A cute little dominatrix image
M’s sign from the bombshells-not-bombs contingent in various peace marches:
Easy on your eyes- hard on your empire.
=====================================
Saturday night: continuing the notes from my conversation with M. on transfetishism versus transsensuality
On “Butch Flight”:
Susie Bright coined this phrase for butches running away from their female bodies into the decision to transition F to M. Of course, it trivializes the real and painstaking decisionmaking process people go through. But there are dilettente FTMs, people who aren't transitioning in any direction, and who ten years ago would have been happy identifying as butch.
These same butches sometimes choose to start identifying as FTM without actually a) passing as men, b) trying to pass as men, c) wanting to pass as men, d) taking hormones, or e) even considering hormones (never mind surgery).
These butches may or may not be FTM in a long-term transitional sense, they may be 3rd gender, intersexed, and/or simply lacking a better term than FTM for what they are. They may not be transitioning in any direction whatsoever but see that calling themselves FTM will help get them play (with girls and/or boys). Other motives for taking on the FTM moniker in the absence of transitioning gender can include trendiness, wanting to act in solidarity with an oppressed minority (being a political FTM but living a butch dyke life, the way so many women are political lesbians while living a straight woman’s life), actually liking being in FTM spaces (in the tradition of femme fag-hags, there are butch FTM-hags), and liking the way femmes flock to FTM spaces like so many grandmothers picking over the tomatoes at a market.
Probably the two main motives for identifying FTM without being in transition from F to M come down to sex and friendship. If we are going to be a sex-positive community, we need to be happy that people are exploring their sexual boundaries, and (if we prefer butches to FTMs) contain our anxiety about the scarcity of butches. OK, I have found myself needing to contain my anxiety about the scarcity of butches. Specifically good butch tops. It’s hard to watch a good butch top dematerialize into the faggy orgies going on in the back rooms of the FTM community, sometimes never to return, but I can always just pocket those thoughts and turn them into positive sexual fantasy fodder. And as for friendship— in general this community needs to be more supportive and friendship-based. Building a movement through extended families of ex-lovers is not exactly a sustainable long-term plan for revolution that we want to pass on to our replacements. They are filtering even now into the queer bars out of the pre-teen gender mochepit and they are looking to their elders for values systems to follow. Do we really want to teach sex first, friendship second?
I’m not saying don’t have sex with these juicy youngsters, I’m just saying that we have to model respectful behavior towards eachother’s ever-changing identities that we impose on the 3-dimensional sexual animal we each carry in our core. Let whoever call her/him/hirself whatever, and ask respectful questions about what you don’t understand about her/his/hir choices.
=====================================
On “Butch Flight”:
Susie Bright coined this phrase for butches running away from their female bodies into the decision to transition F to M. Of course, it trivializes the real and painstaking decisionmaking process people go through. But there are dilettente FTMs, people who aren't transitioning in any direction, and who ten years ago would have been happy identifying as butch.
These same butches sometimes choose to start identifying as FTM without actually a) passing as men, b) trying to pass as men, c) wanting to pass as men, d) taking hormones, or e) even considering hormones (never mind surgery).
These butches may or may not be FTM in a long-term transitional sense, they may be 3rd gender, intersexed, and/or simply lacking a better term than FTM for what they are. They may not be transitioning in any direction whatsoever but see that calling themselves FTM will help get them play (with girls and/or boys). Other motives for taking on the FTM moniker in the absence of transitioning gender can include trendiness, wanting to act in solidarity with an oppressed minority (being a political FTM but living a butch dyke life, the way so many women are political lesbians while living a straight woman’s life), actually liking being in FTM spaces (in the tradition of femme fag-hags, there are butch FTM-hags), and liking the way femmes flock to FTM spaces like so many grandmothers picking over the tomatoes at a market.
Probably the two main motives for identifying FTM without being in transition from F to M come down to sex and friendship. If we are going to be a sex-positive community, we need to be happy that people are exploring their sexual boundaries, and (if we prefer butches to FTMs) contain our anxiety about the scarcity of butches. OK, I have found myself needing to contain my anxiety about the scarcity of butches. Specifically good butch tops. It’s hard to watch a good butch top dematerialize into the faggy orgies going on in the back rooms of the FTM community, sometimes never to return, but I can always just pocket those thoughts and turn them into positive sexual fantasy fodder. And as for friendship— in general this community needs to be more supportive and friendship-based. Building a movement through extended families of ex-lovers is not exactly a sustainable long-term plan for revolution that we want to pass on to our replacements. They are filtering even now into the queer bars out of the pre-teen gender mochepit and they are looking to their elders for values systems to follow. Do we really want to teach sex first, friendship second?
I’m not saying don’t have sex with these juicy youngsters, I’m just saying that we have to model respectful behavior towards eachother’s ever-changing identities that we impose on the 3-dimensional sexual animal we each carry in our core. Let whoever call her/him/hirself whatever, and ask respectful questions about what you don’t understand about her/his/hir choices.
=====================================
The Slackerstalker Shimmy Down Market Street in the Pride March Sunday:
Yes I marched, without expecting to. I was hanging out among the contingents about to depart, where a wonderful (Lebanese) femme friend was playing finger cymbals, so I was shimmying along, when the (Egyptian) contingent leader (also a friend) needed someone to hold the "Strong Middle Eastern Queer Women" sign, and I was the only female nearby without something to carry.
Which is how I ended up marching with the South West Asia North Afican Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ)--- still wearing my sex worker rights stickers and little slutty black leather outfit from the night before. So, I was a middle eastern sex worker for a day… I told a friend this in the neighboring South East Asian contingent, and he made the "rock on" hand gesture and said "the more the merrier!"
=====================================
Sunday night at the girl rock-n-roll movie “Prey for Rock and Roll” at the Castro:
Gina Gershon, the star of the movie, was there answering questions and fending off brazen offers from the local dykes.
On picking out the hottie for the movie's lezzie sex scene: “I saw her picture and said- please god let her be able to act.”
Gina was very sassy, even talking back to Linda Perry (of 4 Non Blondes, former band also of Cheri Lovedog, the writer/ protagonist of the movie) who was asking about the research she had to do for the sex scene: "Shut the fuck up Linda."
Cheri's only instruction to Gina for the sex scene, apparently, was, "this isn't making love. There's no candles, flowers, soft music. You are fucking her." And then when the scene rolled around, Cheri was nowhere to be found, so Gina just had to figure it out for herself. I'm not saying this movie is perfect, but that sex scene is completely realistic. Rock on, Gina! Oh, and she does her own singing in the movie. And the band that came together for the movie is going on tour in support of the movie, so watch out for Gina Gershon on your local punk dive stages, America!
=====================================
Yes I marched, without expecting to. I was hanging out among the contingents about to depart, where a wonderful (Lebanese) femme friend was playing finger cymbals, so I was shimmying along, when the (Egyptian) contingent leader (also a friend) needed someone to hold the "Strong Middle Eastern Queer Women" sign, and I was the only female nearby without something to carry.
Which is how I ended up marching with the South West Asia North Afican Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ)--- still wearing my sex worker rights stickers and little slutty black leather outfit from the night before. So, I was a middle eastern sex worker for a day… I told a friend this in the neighboring South East Asian contingent, and he made the "rock on" hand gesture and said "the more the merrier!"
=====================================
Sunday night at the girl rock-n-roll movie “Prey for Rock and Roll” at the Castro:
Gina Gershon, the star of the movie, was there answering questions and fending off brazen offers from the local dykes.
On picking out the hottie for the movie's lezzie sex scene: “I saw her picture and said- please god let her be able to act.”
Gina was very sassy, even talking back to Linda Perry (of 4 Non Blondes, former band also of Cheri Lovedog, the writer/ protagonist of the movie) who was asking about the research she had to do for the sex scene: "Shut the fuck up Linda."
Cheri's only instruction to Gina for the sex scene, apparently, was, "this isn't making love. There's no candles, flowers, soft music. You are fucking her." And then when the scene rolled around, Cheri was nowhere to be found, so Gina just had to figure it out for herself. I'm not saying this movie is perfect, but that sex scene is completely realistic. Rock on, Gina! Oh, and she does her own singing in the movie. And the band that came together for the movie is going on tour in support of the movie, so watch out for Gina Gershon on your local punk dive stages, America!
=====================================
More notes from Femmebottomville after this last week’s festivities:
I know Shar wrote the book on this stuff, but remedial femmes like me might need some even more basic pointers:
-- Use two different tissues to correct your mascara and to blot your lipstick.
-- Remember how last time I wrote about doing your nails and then fixing your hair? Don't do your nails right before flossing either. Ew.
-- Never run on yellow. If you are a femme bottom, you are either barefoot or ridiculously shod and shouldn’t be playing deer-in-the-headlights at crosswalks. If you are late to an appointment, you should still strike a relaxed pose and wait for the green. Your date may be somewhere down the street watching, and s/he doesn’t need to see you falling ass over teakettle.
-- I’ve (re)discovered that a lot of femme-chasers like a little something to hold on to. Don’t diet for attention— diet to look good to yourself. Looking at yourself should turn you on. It’s the surest way to attract people turned on by who you are. I thought I’d gotten over those issues, but I have been watching a lot of Buffy this past year and one starts to wish one could fit into those little
gauzey slip-thin numbers she wears to such great effect…
-- Bring an oven mitt if you ever anticipate marathon use of your Hitachi Magic Wand. That little motor gets pretty hot.
-- I highly recommend wearing lace-up leather arm cuffs with slippery nylon laces that are always coming undone as a way to test-drive potential personal knot-tiers.
=====================================
I know Shar wrote the book on this stuff, but remedial femmes like me might need some even more basic pointers:
-- Use two different tissues to correct your mascara and to blot your lipstick.
-- Remember how last time I wrote about doing your nails and then fixing your hair? Don't do your nails right before flossing either. Ew.
-- Never run on yellow. If you are a femme bottom, you are either barefoot or ridiculously shod and shouldn’t be playing deer-in-the-headlights at crosswalks. If you are late to an appointment, you should still strike a relaxed pose and wait for the green. Your date may be somewhere down the street watching, and s/he doesn’t need to see you falling ass over teakettle.
-- I’ve (re)discovered that a lot of femme-chasers like a little something to hold on to. Don’t diet for attention— diet to look good to yourself. Looking at yourself should turn you on. It’s the surest way to attract people turned on by who you are. I thought I’d gotten over those issues, but I have been watching a lot of Buffy this past year and one starts to wish one could fit into those little
gauzey slip-thin numbers she wears to such great effect…
-- Bring an oven mitt if you ever anticipate marathon use of your Hitachi Magic Wand. That little motor gets pretty hot.
-- I highly recommend wearing lace-up leather arm cuffs with slippery nylon laces that are always coming undone as a way to test-drive potential personal knot-tiers.
=====================================
Sunday, June 22, 2003
Reportback from Femme-Bottomville
I mark today six weeks into being sexually active again, and two weeks into dating again, after a year and a half of heavy grieving from my girlfriend's suicide. I have to say, it's a bad time to run out of antidepressants. But, on the other hand, I'm enjoying rediscovering my femme-bottom identity after being a tentant of Celibate-Misanthropolis.
Some new discoveries about my femme-bottomhood:
Reprising my teenage experiments with makeup and nailpolish -- where the goal was to be punk and different -- are useful for knowing the color-combination DON'Ts. Punk is an aesthetic that is ready to be put on its pension. Especially if you don't like to make the first move (i.e. are trying to look approachable).
Losing my compulsion to locate someone on the socio-political activist spectrum in favor for operating from my gut reactions -- essentially subjugating my intellect to make it bottom to my sexual instinct -- was the best new thing to come out of the complete crash-meltdown that was/is my grief-process. Butch tops often have sordid personal histories leading to interesting political insights that are not positioned in relation to the rest of the progressive movement, but all the same are valid and worthy. Being less judgemental makes me a better, happier bottom.
Asking my date what I should wear, something my ultraliberated mind would never do before, is now fun. Ultimately, I don't care what I look like as long as it doesn't fall under the rubrick of "embarrassing to my date."
And lastly: do your freakin' hair BEFORE your nails. Good god you'd think I would be smart enough to have figured this out by now. But just now with the putting in the bobby pins with the wet nails. FYI, there's no better way to completely and instantly ruin a nail job.
By the way, thank you Shar Rednour for being a beacon of good sense in femme self-caretaking. I keep remembering parts of your book The Femme's Guide to the Universe. Especially the advice about not cheaping out on things that go on your skin.
Some historical discoveries I've been mulling about femme-bottomhood:
I just have to say, the days of the Lesbian Avengers were good days. But the L.Av. are dead and it's because we were the sorts to challenge labels and gender/ sexual identity, so when we looked around and the entire group here in San Francisco was identifying as FTM or MTF or bisexual or a supersized combination order of these, and nobody's first choice of identity was lesbian, we tried to change the name and the group dissolved. Honestly, I bailed before the name change. I just didn't care enough to sit through endless processing about the word "lesbian." But BEFORE we all gave up on identity politics and were happy to be assumed to be lesbians, we had a kissing booth fundraiser at the Folsom Street (leather kink) Fair where all the bisexual femme bottoms (me among them) made a rule. We would not kiss a strange bioman, anyway not as a cheap-ass $5-per-kiss fundraiser. The butch tops, on the other hand, were all gung ho (ahem) to give the boys a taste of a lipsticked shaved-headed manly-woman. They wanted all the money we could get.
So what was that about? You'd think to us femme bottomy types it wouldn't matter whether we kissed another boy. But we had all been in some way or another scarred by consensual bad boy top experiences. I don't think I was able to completely embrace my femme bottom identity with a feeling of empowerment until I extended this Folsom Street Fair Kissing Booth rule into the rest of my life: no kissing of bioboys I don't know. It's a good rule. Especially since I've extended my definition of "know" to require one calendar year of being around the person. It effectively makes me a lesbian. But I can't rule out bioboys, even under these conditions, so I still call myself bisexual. I think I used to think that these rules made me a coward, but now I know it makes me a good bottom. Good bottoms make their own rules and make their rules known, and then abandon control from that seat of power.
Why I think femme bottoms don't have a special community support network like every other damn microdemographic:
We should, but we don't have a lot of spaces to ourselves. We are essentially the most private/ invisible sector of the queer community, partly because we tend to pass as het. Also because - even though most of us are politically or socially very active - we tend to be really very independent and reluctant to go outside our inner circle of friends for support. In other words, you don't find a lot of femme bottoms in support groups. In mountain climbing clubs or circles of artists, yes, but not in a place where we advertise our weaknesses to potential caretakers. We know the power of the caretaker, and we select our caretakers (tops) with extreme care. So, it's not that we wouldn't do well to have some unity among us, but wherever we make ourselves a public demographic, we become the targets of bad tops. So, we are quiet and grateful to find eachother where we do.
And where do we find eachother? In kink-positive space. I was a fan of the famous "Fuck Fests" here at the dear, departed Castlebar in San Francisco, where we separated the room into two sides, top and bottom, and it was your choice to define yourself as you wanted to be for the duration of the party. There were tables on which we could extend ourselves (from neck-down) under a thick black curtain, on which we would pin (on the "top" side) our list of limits and desires. The tops weren't allowed to communicate directly with us, only through dungeon monitors who were standing on guard on both sides of the curtain. I found such amazing sisterhood among the (butch and femme) women/ FTMs on the "bottom" side of the curtain. We took care of eachother, we enjoyed eachother's pleasure, we gave hugs and butt-slaps where they were needed, and we fed eachother complements and food. It was the most powerful, pleasureful, sexually secure space I've ever been with a group of people, and it still strikes me what a rare feeling that is. There won't be any more Fuck Fests (the venues for such things are basically gone from the city), but I will always cherish that memory of bottom-bonding. It was like the hard workers of the non-management part of staff getting together to just see our numbers and temporarily unionize-- viva the struggle of the hard working bottoms!
I mark today six weeks into being sexually active again, and two weeks into dating again, after a year and a half of heavy grieving from my girlfriend's suicide. I have to say, it's a bad time to run out of antidepressants. But, on the other hand, I'm enjoying rediscovering my femme-bottom identity after being a tentant of Celibate-Misanthropolis.
Some new discoveries about my femme-bottomhood:
Reprising my teenage experiments with makeup and nailpolish -- where the goal was to be punk and different -- are useful for knowing the color-combination DON'Ts. Punk is an aesthetic that is ready to be put on its pension. Especially if you don't like to make the first move (i.e. are trying to look approachable).
Losing my compulsion to locate someone on the socio-political activist spectrum in favor for operating from my gut reactions -- essentially subjugating my intellect to make it bottom to my sexual instinct -- was the best new thing to come out of the complete crash-meltdown that was/is my grief-process. Butch tops often have sordid personal histories leading to interesting political insights that are not positioned in relation to the rest of the progressive movement, but all the same are valid and worthy. Being less judgemental makes me a better, happier bottom.
Asking my date what I should wear, something my ultraliberated mind would never do before, is now fun. Ultimately, I don't care what I look like as long as it doesn't fall under the rubrick of "embarrassing to my date."
And lastly: do your freakin' hair BEFORE your nails. Good god you'd think I would be smart enough to have figured this out by now. But just now with the putting in the bobby pins with the wet nails. FYI, there's no better way to completely and instantly ruin a nail job.
By the way, thank you Shar Rednour for being a beacon of good sense in femme self-caretaking. I keep remembering parts of your book The Femme's Guide to the Universe. Especially the advice about not cheaping out on things that go on your skin.
Some historical discoveries I've been mulling about femme-bottomhood:
I just have to say, the days of the Lesbian Avengers were good days. But the L.Av. are dead and it's because we were the sorts to challenge labels and gender/ sexual identity, so when we looked around and the entire group here in San Francisco was identifying as FTM or MTF or bisexual or a supersized combination order of these, and nobody's first choice of identity was lesbian, we tried to change the name and the group dissolved. Honestly, I bailed before the name change. I just didn't care enough to sit through endless processing about the word "lesbian." But BEFORE we all gave up on identity politics and were happy to be assumed to be lesbians, we had a kissing booth fundraiser at the Folsom Street (leather kink) Fair where all the bisexual femme bottoms (me among them) made a rule. We would not kiss a strange bioman, anyway not as a cheap-ass $5-per-kiss fundraiser. The butch tops, on the other hand, were all gung ho (ahem) to give the boys a taste of a lipsticked shaved-headed manly-woman. They wanted all the money we could get.
So what was that about? You'd think to us femme bottomy types it wouldn't matter whether we kissed another boy. But we had all been in some way or another scarred by consensual bad boy top experiences. I don't think I was able to completely embrace my femme bottom identity with a feeling of empowerment until I extended this Folsom Street Fair Kissing Booth rule into the rest of my life: no kissing of bioboys I don't know. It's a good rule. Especially since I've extended my definition of "know" to require one calendar year of being around the person. It effectively makes me a lesbian. But I can't rule out bioboys, even under these conditions, so I still call myself bisexual. I think I used to think that these rules made me a coward, but now I know it makes me a good bottom. Good bottoms make their own rules and make their rules known, and then abandon control from that seat of power.
Why I think femme bottoms don't have a special community support network like every other damn microdemographic:
We should, but we don't have a lot of spaces to ourselves. We are essentially the most private/ invisible sector of the queer community, partly because we tend to pass as het. Also because - even though most of us are politically or socially very active - we tend to be really very independent and reluctant to go outside our inner circle of friends for support. In other words, you don't find a lot of femme bottoms in support groups. In mountain climbing clubs or circles of artists, yes, but not in a place where we advertise our weaknesses to potential caretakers. We know the power of the caretaker, and we select our caretakers (tops) with extreme care. So, it's not that we wouldn't do well to have some unity among us, but wherever we make ourselves a public demographic, we become the targets of bad tops. So, we are quiet and grateful to find eachother where we do.
And where do we find eachother? In kink-positive space. I was a fan of the famous "Fuck Fests" here at the dear, departed Castlebar in San Francisco, where we separated the room into two sides, top and bottom, and it was your choice to define yourself as you wanted to be for the duration of the party. There were tables on which we could extend ourselves (from neck-down) under a thick black curtain, on which we would pin (on the "top" side) our list of limits and desires. The tops weren't allowed to communicate directly with us, only through dungeon monitors who were standing on guard on both sides of the curtain. I found such amazing sisterhood among the (butch and femme) women/ FTMs on the "bottom" side of the curtain. We took care of eachother, we enjoyed eachother's pleasure, we gave hugs and butt-slaps where they were needed, and we fed eachother complements and food. It was the most powerful, pleasureful, sexually secure space I've ever been with a group of people, and it still strikes me what a rare feeling that is. There won't be any more Fuck Fests (the venues for such things are basically gone from the city), but I will always cherish that memory of bottom-bonding. It was like the hard workers of the non-management part of staff getting together to just see our numbers and temporarily unionize-- viva the struggle of the hard working bottoms!
Monday, June 16, 2003
Stalking a Social Life
Well, my dear readers, I have been slacking on blogging because I have been stalking a social life. I think I have it effectively cornered and I am figuring out how to feed it. Here are some morsels I have thrown at it that were tasty:
The Monterey Bay Aquarium - I went with friends to grovel before the Cthulic cuttlefish, but they did not demand a sacrifice... this time.
The Ruby Room - I've been trying to log hours under the red lights to get my hipster quotient up out of the negative numbers. Some mighty dykey bartenders, who (bonus!) are also usually my neighbors in East Oakland.
Exodus - I was honored to organize a reading/ performance thingy with this incredibly talented, young and powerful lady hiphopster, the author of these words (the poem "My dinner plate/ grandma's back yard"):
Rock on, Exodus!
Another tasty tidbit: the PornOrchestra -- a recent development in the East Bay, they improvise music to bad mainstream porno flicks. I'm afraid I have to say it is an idea that is better on paper: in practice I found the music and the porn both a little tedious. The highlight was a 70's porno with the female figures blotted out, and some particularly thoughtful jazzy instrumental accompaniment. If you want a taste of this sort of thing, improving/ innovating soundtracks to original film is much better done by the Sprocket Ensemble. But hey! I got out of the house, down to that amazing Oakland cultural institution the Parkway Speakeasy Theater with all my fingernails and toenails painted (all the same color purple- I'm such a vamp!) and a nice slutty outfit to go with. I even had a date.
The SF Lesbian & Gay Film Festival -- which I stupidly eschewed for years because they don't have "bi" and "trans" in the title of the festival -- and the National Queer Arts Festival -- hopefully these two festivals will keep my social life fat and happy for the rest of the month. The only drawback is the initial immobilizing shock of sudden immersion in seas of queer people (including exes who I enjoy not seeing) that exhaust one with their combination of unfathomable optimism with unfathomable cattiness. You know, there you are, crying at a touching low-budget movie short about coming out to your family and someone behind you says "that is so GAY." I mean, I'm glad we're reclaiming "gay" as an invective for our own saccharine white-washing tendencies, but really. A little after-school-specialness isn't going to make queers irrelevant to the counterculture.
Or maybe it will. At an event Saturday Kate Bornstein gave a heady lecture about the poisonous nature of assimilation that seemed very old (can I say retro-90's yet?) which was followed, as if to illustrate the point, by a slide show by some ladies who have bought a farm in the country and got married there (and wanted to flaunt a little apolitical propertarian privilege). Going from Kate Bornstein to the married farmers gave me some serious vertigo: one, throwing her speech's pages angrily on the floor, shaking a fist at the violating nature of marriage constructs, and the other waving her spotless (still price-tagged) chrome hay hooks at the audience, boasting about how she had actually figured out how to use them to move hay. *I* never had hay hooks. I got hay burn all over my arms and legs every spring, loading hay with just gloves. God how we hated the dilettante cityfolk who fled NYC to the far reaches of the north to recover their sense of humanity by buying shiny toys and white-washed fences that would be auctioned and abandoned after five years. They never rode their horses enough to warrant owning the purebreds they invariably bought. But yet, at the end of the night, I still had more to talk about with the farmer wives than the communist demagogue. These awkward social mixes are just a necessary hazard of social life husbandry, I guess.
Well, my dear readers, I have been slacking on blogging because I have been stalking a social life. I think I have it effectively cornered and I am figuring out how to feed it. Here are some morsels I have thrown at it that were tasty:
The Monterey Bay Aquarium - I went with friends to grovel before the Cthulic cuttlefish, but they did not demand a sacrifice... this time.
The Ruby Room - I've been trying to log hours under the red lights to get my hipster quotient up out of the negative numbers. Some mighty dykey bartenders, who (bonus!) are also usually my neighbors in East Oakland.
Exodus - I was honored to organize a reading/ performance thingy with this incredibly talented, young and powerful lady hiphopster, the author of these words (the poem "My dinner plate/ grandma's back yard"):
Simple greens
Verses frozen beans
Corn meal
Knee- d- ed into corn bread
Light Mango spread
On Banana bread
Eat your spinach like your mother said
And charge your chard
Paint the rainbow with your squash
And cry like the Nile with
Saboas
Lentil jump around in my
Arroz con pollo
Tauro, Tauro, Tauro
Ahora usteds....
Con Orchata
Simple greens
Verses frozen beans
The last of the mo-ji-cama'
Dance the rain dance in my tang
Pina y pina
The ripe co-co-nut on the floor of the cut little hut
Simple greens
Verses frozen beans
Don’t taste like the skillet of my grandma hands
In her southern ways
Too much pork fat in those days
Caused her to sing simple
Songs
'Bout simple green verses
Frozen beans
In California....
Rock on, Exodus!
Another tasty tidbit: the PornOrchestra -- a recent development in the East Bay, they improvise music to bad mainstream porno flicks. I'm afraid I have to say it is an idea that is better on paper: in practice I found the music and the porn both a little tedious. The highlight was a 70's porno with the female figures blotted out, and some particularly thoughtful jazzy instrumental accompaniment. If you want a taste of this sort of thing, improving/ innovating soundtracks to original film is much better done by the Sprocket Ensemble. But hey! I got out of the house, down to that amazing Oakland cultural institution the Parkway Speakeasy Theater with all my fingernails and toenails painted (all the same color purple- I'm such a vamp!) and a nice slutty outfit to go with. I even had a date.
The SF Lesbian & Gay Film Festival -- which I stupidly eschewed for years because they don't have "bi" and "trans" in the title of the festival -- and the National Queer Arts Festival -- hopefully these two festivals will keep my social life fat and happy for the rest of the month. The only drawback is the initial immobilizing shock of sudden immersion in seas of queer people (including exes who I enjoy not seeing) that exhaust one with their combination of unfathomable optimism with unfathomable cattiness. You know, there you are, crying at a touching low-budget movie short about coming out to your family and someone behind you says "that is so GAY." I mean, I'm glad we're reclaiming "gay" as an invective for our own saccharine white-washing tendencies, but really. A little after-school-specialness isn't going to make queers irrelevant to the counterculture.
Or maybe it will. At an event Saturday Kate Bornstein gave a heady lecture about the poisonous nature of assimilation that seemed very old (can I say retro-90's yet?) which was followed, as if to illustrate the point, by a slide show by some ladies who have bought a farm in the country and got married there (and wanted to flaunt a little apolitical propertarian privilege). Going from Kate Bornstein to the married farmers gave me some serious vertigo: one, throwing her speech's pages angrily on the floor, shaking a fist at the violating nature of marriage constructs, and the other waving her spotless (still price-tagged) chrome hay hooks at the audience, boasting about how she had actually figured out how to use them to move hay. *I* never had hay hooks. I got hay burn all over my arms and legs every spring, loading hay with just gloves. God how we hated the dilettante cityfolk who fled NYC to the far reaches of the north to recover their sense of humanity by buying shiny toys and white-washed fences that would be auctioned and abandoned after five years. They never rode their horses enough to warrant owning the purebreds they invariably bought. But yet, at the end of the night, I still had more to talk about with the farmer wives than the communist demagogue. These awkward social mixes are just a necessary hazard of social life husbandry, I guess.
Monday, June 09, 2003
Another Stake in My Innocence
I have been doing personal ads on Craigslist and finally got curious enough to research what "420" meant. Of course I thought it was something much more interesting, involving more people and fewer clothes. The origin of it is pretty funny.
Said former pot-smoker Steve to the LA Times (from this article)...
I have been doing personal ads on Craigslist and finally got curious enough to research what "420" meant. Of course I thought it was something much more interesting, involving more people and fewer clothes. The origin of it is pretty funny.
Said former pot-smoker Steve to the LA Times (from this article)...
The group [of friends] agreed to meet that afternoon after school at 4:20 p.m. by a campus statue of Louis Pasteur, he said, and head out to search for the marijuana patch [one of their brothers-in-law had given them]. "But one thing led to another," he laughed, "and suffice it to say we never found it. Every day we'd meet at 4:20 by this statue, and every day we'd just end up getting high and driving around for hours." Over time, the mere phrase "four-twenty"--exchanged in a hallway, or discreetly mentioned in the presence of teachers and parents--became their personal code for "time to get high," he said.
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
More Reasons Why The US Doesn't Completely Suck
The Banjo - our first indigenous instrument! Here is an article about women in the "banjo craze" of the 19th century.
Edward Gorey - indigenous Victorianesque weirdness! Here is the quiz to find out which Edward Gorey book you are.
Baseball and Softball - strangely relaxing, superstitious, and supremely geeky! Here is a nice and weird list of ways for baseball players to get good luck. Not through practice and hard work, silly.
Immigrant Pride - every Columbus Day! From the home of Gay Pride and Pagan Pride! Here is the lovely "Who's the Illegal Immigrant, Pilgrim" poster by San Francisco's own Yolanda M. Lopez -- this poster is usually widely wheatpasted for Immigrant Pride day, especially since the anti-immigrant legal changes in California in the mid 90's.
NYC Dyke Immigrant Jewish Theater At the Turn of the Century! Who would believe that the first depiction of homosexuality on the US public stage was in the early 1900's in the Jewish emigre theater: "The God of Vengeance" by Sholom Asch, featuring a lesbian relationship between a Jewish woman and a prostitute. Here is an article about "Schtick" by Sara Felder, the San Francisco show that brought this play's existence back to light a few years ago. The censors didn't go apeshit about this play until it hit Broadway in 1923, when I think the playwright was actually thrown in jail for his depiction of explicit lezzie love-- even though it was actually a conservative cautionary tale.
And now, the Slacker Stalker Guide to the Best in US Children's TV Entertainment:
Science Court aka Squigglevision - when I first got my own television in 1999 I was addicted only to Xena and Science Court. It was an instructional kids' television show illustrating complex science concepts in a satirical take-off on Law and Order, Ally McBeal, and other such self-important social commentary/ legal shows. I heart(ed) Science Court. Here you can sing along with some of their rockin' learning songs.
The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse - short-lived in the 80's: it was cancelled after John Kricfalusi (of later Ren & Stimpy Fame) had Mighty sniff some white powder and regain his strength. Wonderful, wonderful camp.
Count Duckula - ok, this one was British, not US-made. But such a goddamn hoot-- a flamboyantly gay vegetarian vampire duck. I love how he redecorates the family castle and has a flair for show tunes.
The Tick (cartoon) - no, I didn't have a TV when The Tick was on, but I was friends with fans with TVs and VHS recordings. I was a frequent houseguest. Maybe the better way to describe it would be "indigent waif." There are so many sites devoted to this cartoon, I'll just give you the adoring Jump the Shark list of gushing comments.
Reboot - ok, this isn't a US show either. It was made in Vancouver. But I include it because I had a crush on Hexidecimal. Here is a well-linked up page about this, the first TV series produced entirely with computer graphics. The characters had slow and wooden movement, but the voice actors were really witty. The main super evil villain was revealed to have a secret ambition to be a rock star at one point.
The Real Ghostbusters (cartoon) - just thinking about this cartoon brings back warm memories of curling up with a mug of cocoa and a honey sandwich after school. It was my evening ritual before going out to feed the horse and check the fence. It was my daily dose of candy-corn parapsychology. Sometimes they even had real little bits of myth and magic lore that would send me into research frenzies. Like on Buffy, much later, the demon hunters were often friends with the demons.
and of course
Pinky and the Brain - of course, who couldn't love the little mousey take-off on Orson Welles with a mousey goofball sidekick/ lifepartner who is gay, gender dysphoric and telekinetic. Here is a list of those ever-useful Are-you-pondering-what-I'm-ponderings. When Pinky gave the Brain "the world" (a globe keychain) for Christmas one year, I actually cried.
The Banjo - our first indigenous instrument! Here is an article about women in the "banjo craze" of the 19th century.
Edward Gorey - indigenous Victorianesque weirdness! Here is the quiz to find out which Edward Gorey book you are.
Baseball and Softball - strangely relaxing, superstitious, and supremely geeky! Here is a nice and weird list of ways for baseball players to get good luck. Not through practice and hard work, silly.
Immigrant Pride - every Columbus Day! From the home of Gay Pride and Pagan Pride! Here is the lovely "Who's the Illegal Immigrant, Pilgrim" poster by San Francisco's own Yolanda M. Lopez -- this poster is usually widely wheatpasted for Immigrant Pride day, especially since the anti-immigrant legal changes in California in the mid 90's.
NYC Dyke Immigrant Jewish Theater At the Turn of the Century! Who would believe that the first depiction of homosexuality on the US public stage was in the early 1900's in the Jewish emigre theater: "The God of Vengeance" by Sholom Asch, featuring a lesbian relationship between a Jewish woman and a prostitute. Here is an article about "Schtick" by Sara Felder, the San Francisco show that brought this play's existence back to light a few years ago. The censors didn't go apeshit about this play until it hit Broadway in 1923, when I think the playwright was actually thrown in jail for his depiction of explicit lezzie love-- even though it was actually a conservative cautionary tale.
And now, the Slacker Stalker Guide to the Best in US Children's TV Entertainment:
Science Court aka Squigglevision - when I first got my own television in 1999 I was addicted only to Xena and Science Court. It was an instructional kids' television show illustrating complex science concepts in a satirical take-off on Law and Order, Ally McBeal, and other such self-important social commentary/ legal shows. I heart(ed) Science Court. Here you can sing along with some of their rockin' learning songs.
The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse - short-lived in the 80's: it was cancelled after John Kricfalusi (of later Ren & Stimpy Fame) had Mighty sniff some white powder and regain his strength. Wonderful, wonderful camp.
Count Duckula - ok, this one was British, not US-made. But such a goddamn hoot-- a flamboyantly gay vegetarian vampire duck. I love how he redecorates the family castle and has a flair for show tunes.
The Tick (cartoon) - no, I didn't have a TV when The Tick was on, but I was friends with fans with TVs and VHS recordings. I was a frequent houseguest. Maybe the better way to describe it would be "indigent waif." There are so many sites devoted to this cartoon, I'll just give you the adoring Jump the Shark list of gushing comments.
Reboot - ok, this isn't a US show either. It was made in Vancouver. But I include it because I had a crush on Hexidecimal. Here is a well-linked up page about this, the first TV series produced entirely with computer graphics. The characters had slow and wooden movement, but the voice actors were really witty. The main super evil villain was revealed to have a secret ambition to be a rock star at one point.
The Real Ghostbusters (cartoon) - just thinking about this cartoon brings back warm memories of curling up with a mug of cocoa and a honey sandwich after school. It was my evening ritual before going out to feed the horse and check the fence. It was my daily dose of candy-corn parapsychology. Sometimes they even had real little bits of myth and magic lore that would send me into research frenzies. Like on Buffy, much later, the demon hunters were often friends with the demons.
and of course
Pinky and the Brain - of course, who couldn't love the little mousey take-off on Orson Welles with a mousey goofball sidekick/ lifepartner who is gay, gender dysphoric and telekinetic. Here is a list of those ever-useful Are-you-pondering-what-I'm-ponderings. When Pinky gave the Brain "the world" (a globe keychain) for Christmas one year, I actually cried.
826 Valencia -- Another Reason to Love the US
Granted, Dave Eggers' brainchild 826 Valencia (where I volunteer) and its fundraising store - "the pirate store" - for which these fabulous piratical signs were written - wouldn't have such a booming business if our public schools had smaller classes and kids had more options for extracurricular language skills development. They have something like twenty kids coming in for their free tutoring help after school these days.
Granted, Dave Eggers' brainchild 826 Valencia (where I volunteer) and its fundraising store - "the pirate store" - for which these fabulous piratical signs were written - wouldn't have such a booming business if our public schools had smaller classes and kids had more options for extracurricular language skills development. They have something like twenty kids coming in for their free tutoring help after school these days.
Friday, May 30, 2003
A Coupla Reasons to Stay in the YouEssAy
I am not alone in thinking it's time to take my anti-war patriotic ass away from this country for a while, while it recovers from its recent blight of warmongering and regime-changing. So as I'm readjusting to speaking nothing but English all the time (today I spelled the name "Maureen" Marine and didn't notice it until later in the day when I reread my notes) I am finding myself grasping for reasons to stay here. It would be an awfully lot more convenient to stay than go.
Today's reasons to like the United States:
Black Mary - a tough 6-foot tall cowboygirl who was an ex-slave sharp-shooter bar-brawler and enterprising sort of woman. She died in 1914 in her 90's. They don't make role models like this in EVERY country.
the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission - I know, it's self serving, since I work here, but really, I wouldn't get to know how much I dislike the US if this organization - founded in the US - didn't support me galavanting abroad to promote a human rights agenda.
I know I know it's a cliche. But I can't help it. She's one of my role models and she is not only a product of the US but of North-Western New York, not all that far from where I grew up. I'm so glad the RBRmy finally got that freakin' web page going. And look! I didn't know that Ani had signed Bitch-n-Animal! How very cool.
And now a scattershot list of things that occur to me that I put together in a brainstorm session with a few friends.
The Chicago Manual of Style - the exquisite, nervous, extreme fringes of geekiness!
SpongeBob SquarePants - this is a site ONLY for serious fans. SpongeBob is soooo gay. I ate a whole box of SpongeBob SquarePants CheeseNips the day after I got back from Slovenia just to ground myself in the neon orange food group for which the US has become famous.
The Nation - unconventional wisdom for the uppity intellectual.
The Daily Show With John Stewart - oh how John Stewart makes me doubt my lesbianism. In a brainy sort of way.
The Boondocks - the gospel of Huey Freeman, the little black intellectual version of Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes), from the pen of Aaron McGruder.
The Wild and Massive but Rather Untranslatable Popularity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer That link is to "Buffy the Patriarchy Slayer." One of my (gay) college friends did a thesis on the movie the year it came out-- about how the vampires represented rapists and Buffy represented the new "take back the night" generation. I thought he was so silly to be so obsessed with that movie. And now here I am, obsessed, turning on the TV at 7 am to watch Buffy reruns on FX. Every morning. At 7 am.
Zora Neale Hurston - said Zora I want a busy life, a just mind and a timely death. Well, two out of three ain't bad.
-- I was at an activist meeting about getting California Native American History incorporated into the gold rush centennial celebration studies going on in California public schools, and this cool 5th grade teacher had this poster on her wall. That smile captivated me. I had no idea who Zora Neale Hurston was, but her smile was the smile of a genius, a troublemaker, a confident thinker and mover and shaker. So I wrote down that name and over the years picked up her books and searched out her story. I blogged about her and her connection to Santeria and the creation of zombies here. Zora is now featured on a US stamp, which kind of astonishes. It's like the Vatican producing rainbow flags. Didn't anyone do their research?
I am not alone in thinking it's time to take my anti-war patriotic ass away from this country for a while, while it recovers from its recent blight of warmongering and regime-changing. So as I'm readjusting to speaking nothing but English all the time (today I spelled the name "Maureen" Marine and didn't notice it until later in the day when I reread my notes) I am finding myself grasping for reasons to stay here. It would be an awfully lot more convenient to stay than go.
Today's reasons to like the United States:
Black Mary - a tough 6-foot tall cowboygirl who was an ex-slave sharp-shooter bar-brawler and enterprising sort of woman. She died in 1914 in her 90's. They don't make role models like this in EVERY country.
the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission - I know, it's self serving, since I work here, but really, I wouldn't get to know how much I dislike the US if this organization - founded in the US - didn't support me galavanting abroad to promote a human rights agenda.
I know I know it's a cliche. But I can't help it. She's one of my role models and she is not only a product of the US but of North-Western New York, not all that far from where I grew up. I'm so glad the RBRmy finally got that freakin' web page going. And look! I didn't know that Ani had signed Bitch-n-Animal! How very cool.
And now a scattershot list of things that occur to me that I put together in a brainstorm session with a few friends.
The Chicago Manual of Style - the exquisite, nervous, extreme fringes of geekiness!
SpongeBob SquarePants - this is a site ONLY for serious fans. SpongeBob is soooo gay. I ate a whole box of SpongeBob SquarePants CheeseNips the day after I got back from Slovenia just to ground myself in the neon orange food group for which the US has become famous.
The Nation - unconventional wisdom for the uppity intellectual.
The Daily Show With John Stewart - oh how John Stewart makes me doubt my lesbianism. In a brainy sort of way.
The Boondocks - the gospel of Huey Freeman, the little black intellectual version of Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes), from the pen of Aaron McGruder.
The Wild and Massive but Rather Untranslatable Popularity of Buffy the Vampire Slayer That link is to "Buffy the Patriarchy Slayer." One of my (gay) college friends did a thesis on the movie the year it came out-- about how the vampires represented rapists and Buffy represented the new "take back the night" generation. I thought he was so silly to be so obsessed with that movie. And now here I am, obsessed, turning on the TV at 7 am to watch Buffy reruns on FX. Every morning. At 7 am.
Zora Neale Hurston - said Zora I want a busy life, a just mind and a timely death. Well, two out of three ain't bad.
-- I was at an activist meeting about getting California Native American History incorporated into the gold rush centennial celebration studies going on in California public schools, and this cool 5th grade teacher had this poster on her wall. That smile captivated me. I had no idea who Zora Neale Hurston was, but her smile was the smile of a genius, a troublemaker, a confident thinker and mover and shaker. So I wrote down that name and over the years picked up her books and searched out her story. I blogged about her and her connection to Santeria and the creation of zombies here. Zora is now featured on a US stamp, which kind of astonishes. It's like the Vatican producing rainbow flags. Didn't anyone do their research?
