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Ask Audacia Anything #1

June 03, 2005

How do you view your relationship to your readers? Is there a relationship, or do you view your writing as a solitary endeavor?

This is a great question to start off with; since I’m interested in reader participation, I must be interested in my readers, right-o? My relationship with my readers has become increasingly complicated since I started blogging and went from writing for a world of unknowns into the now. These days when I write I know I’m being read by a number of my real life friends, friends I’ve met since I’ve started the blog, folks online that I correspond with on a fairly regular basis, and people who may cast or hire me to do as yet unrevealed things. As a result of this, my relationship with my readers has changed a lot over the ten months I’ve been blogging. Initially, I felt like I was very much writing into the void, sometimes with a confessional-style, just writing my self out and seeing what kind of responses came back at me. Lately I’ve been less interested in emotional exhibitionism, so I’ve been tailoring my posts in a different way, to reach a variety of readers. I don’t write to one kind of reader – this is evidenced in the variety of things I write about, and I’m certain that not every post interests every reader.

I’ve found it really interesting that I’ve connected with readers very much like me and very different than me via the blog. Though of course I’m happy to find other people who are somewhat like me, I think the greatest personal value of this blog has been corresponding from people who are very different than me, people who I wouldn’t meet otherwise. I think that more than many other forms of writing, blogs are meant to create a relationship between blogger and reader – after all, you’re reading along as I experience my life and process my feelings about it, so the connection in some ways is much stronger than if I were to write a book about this time in my life another 20 years down the road. Point being – I love my readers, and even though often I suck at following up on email correspondence, I read and cherish most of the emails I get. I even love the hate mail.

Do you ever have days where you just lounge around in sweatpants with your hair mussed watching The Breakfast Club on DVD and eating cheetos or something of a similar nature?

I read this question out loud to Jane while we were sitting in her bed watching Wayne’s World and eating chocolate cupcakes, so the answer is a big fat yes. One time Jane and I were in bed watching movies (naked of course) and eating cookies and I got cookie crumbs in my belly button, but I didn’t notice for a while. Embarrassing right?

Though of course I try to write about the more thrilling and blogtastic parts of my life, there is plenty of downtime. Seriously, except for all the sex stuff, my life is really not that exciting. In general, I would take an evening spent in my pajamas, eating cake and watching movies with Jane or other friends over many other activities (and sometimes that even takes precedence over the crazy sex). I probably spend more time being lazy and goofy than I do being sexy, I just don’t write all about it.

My question - seems like at the sex parties anything really goes. Did [Jeremy] get freaked out when he [saw] the guys touching each other - Does this really turn women on?

Oh, right, back to the sex. At Jefferson’s parties, anything goes in terms of partner combinations because most of the people who go to the parties are bisexual. However, it’s not like you’re thrown to the wolves as soon as you walk in the door. Jeremy knew that most of the other guys at the party were bisexual before he went to the party (mostly because of Jefferson’s extensive efforts to convince him that a mouth is a mouth no matter who it belongs to). Jeremy is comfortable with his sexuality, and once he was assured that he wasn’t going to get grabbed by dudes, he wasn’t at all uncomfortable with seeing guys interact sexually. I can’t speak for the entire female population as to whether or not seeing two guys together turns the ladies on – sexual tastes are very individual – but I can say with certainly that it puts my personal panties in a twist.

One item of interest is your opinion and/or experiences with swing clubs versus the types of parties you have written about. There is a club [in a southern city] that I frequent, but it is certainly geared toward couples (as I assume most are). That’s ok unless you are single male (and wanting to get in on the action!) Are there clubs that are more open to group activity or is the couple inviting the single male more of the norm?

In my experience, most clubs are very much couple oriented, and if by group action you mean the opportunity for a single guy to enter the fray, you’re probably shit out of luck. Most swing clubs have lots of rules for single guys – if they let single guys in at all. This definitely sucks for the nice, respectful single guys who are interested in group sex, but you have to understand that there are plenty of very pushy single guys who make women feel uncomfortable. Your best bet is probably to try hosting your own parties – though there is a lot of leg work, screening and hoping that personalities will combine in a good way and people will have chemistry, it might be worth it. Chances are very good that as in most sex party situations it will be a challenge to reach a gender balance – you’ll always have a bajillion willing single guys at your disposure and many fewer coupled and single women.

As a single a guy in a swing club situation, you’ll have a tough time, but if you’re very nice and polite and give people their space, then you should fare well. I guess ideally you’re supposed to wait for folks to approach you, but if that gets frustrating, you might try approaching couples. When you do approach a couple, be sure to address both people – if you just approach the woman, her date might get protective and if you just approach the man, his date might feel like she’s on a auctioning block. You could ask if the couple would like company as part of your approach (cheesy, I know, but sometimes helpful). If you hit it off well and would like to play with them, tell them so and then say that you’ll give them some time to discuss between the two of them and tell them you’ll be at the bar (or whatever) if they’d like to play.

Okay, maybe that was getting sidetracked a little, but the point is that there is a way to be tactful and not creepy as a single guy. As far as the type of clubs goes, from what I’ve seen and heard, the vast majority of clubs are focused on couples and swapping, though of course each night is different. If you feel comfortable, keep going to the parties, but perhaps not with the goal of getting laid in the here and now. Work on meeting likeminded people and then do a party to your own liking, or try to connect with and play with couples outside of the swing clubs.

I’m greatly amused by featuring a range of the questions that came in, and I’m happy to entertain more questions for next week, though I already have quite the backlog. So – keep ‘em coming, it just might take me a while to get to your question.

Posted by Dacia at June 3, 2005 08:06 AM

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Comments

Posted by: figleaf at June 3, 2005 11:15 AM

Posted by: Dial B for Bastard at June 3, 2005 03:09 PM

Posted by: jane at June 3, 2005 05:23 PM

Posted by: Tony Comstock at June 5, 2005 04:52 PM

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