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Diversity
October 31, 2004
In my post about sex/gender and the creation of forms, there was quite a bit of stuff happening in the comments, so I decided to address one commenter’s concerns in the longer form of a post. I’ll just quote him in entirety so I don’t butcher his meaning with a paraphrase:
Look - I am kinda conservative. I have had gay friends, I work with gay people, and I like some and I don’t like others.
Just like when Southern Ca starts on an initiative to have dual languages as a law - it insults me. We’re american. Can’t we take pride in Mom, Apple Pie, and the english language? Not spanglish, Eubonics or some other thing.
When does it stop? When do we stop diluting our culture in some inferiority complex way? When do we stop compensating for the greatness that we have? When do we recognize that an opinion (center stream opinion at that) is not a bad thing to have?
Rather than ask what flavor of gender a person is - perhaps ask if they cross dress? Or if they have Transgender issues? Why muddy the waters with Male, Female, Transgender, Shemale, HeFemale, Dog, Poodle, etc…
Did I just alienate everyone here?
This is a very complex issue, for certain, but what I’m going to hone in on is the stuff Kevin brings up around Americanness. Sit tight for some nerdy stuff, as I veer away from sex for a moment.
Yes, we can take pride in mom, apple pie and the English language. However, “some other thing” is also very much a part of what it is to be American – in addition to the aforementioned, not instead of. This is an argument that has come up time and time again in American history – a good example is the incredible influx of immigrants into the U.S. and New York especially between the 1880s and 1924, when new immigrant quotas were established. During this time, there were groups of Native Americans that cropped up, espousing the great American ideals of homogeneity. This is a different and now very antiquated use of the phrase “Native American” – nineteenth century self-proclaimed Native Americans were of mostly British and Dutch descent and thought of themselves as native, real Americans, not immigrants. As the different waves of immigration happened within this time period – Germans and Irish in the early nineteenth century, then Chinese (until the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act), Eastern European Jews, southern Europeans and Sicilian Italians – the presence of each new group brings up questions about what it means to be American and who should be included, and who gets to make that decision.
This past summer, I spent a month traveling in Europe by myself. I kept meeting young lefty Americans who said they were ashamed to tell people that they are American, so they would lie and say they’re Canadian. Although I’m not proud of what my country has been up to of late, I was proud to tell people that I’m American, because I’m a different kind of American, and I think its good for people who have a small perception of what Americans are to meet me, and be puzzled.
So: When do we stop diluting our culture in some inferiority complex way?
Though of course this is (infinitely) debatable, I think that diversity is not necessarily a dilution of American culture, and that it doesn’t connote an inferiority complex. In thinking about the minutiae of identity politics, I think its best to remember that while deconstruction of cultural representations and meanings is useful, at some point things need to be put back together and made liveable. So, it is interesting to “muddy the waters” with a variety of things, but that is only useful in my mind if something happens next, if once the deconstructive homework is done, it does/is something.
I don’t really have concrete answers here, but I do think it’s useful to continue to interrogate the concept of what it is to be American, on both personal and cultural levels. The debate between the “center stream opinion” and various fringes is always potent, and it’s worth giving voice and respect to difference – even (or perhaps especially) if you disagree.
Posted by Dacia at 10:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Fears divided, not conquered
October 29, 2004
Three years ago, I was lucky to find a job (while still in college even) that combined my academic and prurient interests. This meant that I didn’t have to separate the professional and the personal, and the whole thing in a way was a political act of outness.
Two years later, when that job melted down and I found myself somewhere else, I realized how lucky I’d been, and how thoroughly I didn’t know how to lead a secret life, and not bring up unsavory topics at family dinners. But I started to construct these separate pieces of me - a job in Pornoland, a job in StraightWorld. Things once united, now divided. The lines are very blurry, as I’m a vociferous and self-avowed nerd, but these same adjectives can be applied to my personal/professional life in sex.
I am thoroughly enjoying the grad school experience and wickedly appreciating the degree to which I pass as regular, but I feel like I am biding my time until a future point when I can reunite the pieces of my life. That is really the goal - build up my straight job and smut world contacts until I can do a project in which I say, hey everybody, one equals the other.
The question is of course of timing and control - and I know I don’t totally own those things, as any number of things could happen that would force me to come out prematurely, or I could be a hot-headed idiot and come out at an inappropriate moment to prove a point. It’s hard to gauge how deep to go, what degree of exposure I want in any of my roles, and how to own my shit without becoming marked and black listed. But perhaps that’s inevitable, and something I need to be less hung up on in its relationship to the straight world. I just want to have options - personal options, career options that may or may not be sex-related. But I’m afraid that might be asking too much of the world.
Posted by Dacia at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Check the box
October 28, 2004
I spent this afternoon at a college health fair as a representative of the AIDS service org I volunteer for. It was your pretty basic scenario, with young men strutting up and taking the large condoms, while the young women picked up the regular size.
I got a really interesting question from a woman who identified herself as a counselor with the school’s mental health services. She said that they were working on an intake form for students who want to see a mental health professional, and were wondering how to pose the question of the student’s gender. She said that the current form has check boxes: “Gender: Male _Female” but that they’ve been criticized for not being inclusive enough, so they were thinking of adding a third checkbox: __transgender.
We started off by talking about the choice of using the word “gender” and making it binary as opposed to using the word “sex” for binary bits. And yes, I know that this binary is questionable, but frequently when an intersex baby is born, someone (not the baby) chooses for the baby to be one or the other.
What I ended up suggesting is the follows: Sex: Male _Female Gender identity: __
I’m sure there are problems with this, but my thinking is that people who think in binary terms will be content to ignore the open-ended gender identity question, and people who are genderqueer will be delighted to fill in gender identity and take or leave sex. And then everyone will live happily ever after.
Posted by Dacia at 10:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Screen time
October 24, 2004
The very first time I saw myself naked, fucking, and jiggling in a moving image, I was freaked out. I thought - shit, do I really look like that, a wide expanse of whiteness that awkwardly folds into itself?
And almost simultaneously, I recognized that while I love to see nice fleshy women in porn, having a good time and getting their jiggle on, it’s much more difficult to be enthused about my own personal jiggle. I didn’t expect to be surprised and appalled by my body on film, but it was weird, this knowledge of that’s me.
I’ve gone over that initial reaction a million times in my head, I’ve thought through those feelings, overanalyzed them as I am wont to do, and in many ways I’ve gotten over that first shock, especially since I’ve since seen dozens of (mostly still, some moving) images of my nekkidness.
But still, I was pretty damn nervous about seeing my ass on the big screen at the premiere of “Alice in Footland” on Saturday. As it turns out, I felt fine about it and it was kind of fun, to know that the shots were coming up and to wait for it… wait for it… and then there I was.
After the screening, I was talking to Brooke Bound, who plays the White Rabbit, about the feeling of seeing ourselves up close and personal on a big screen, and she was very flustered about it. Granted she had a lot more, uh, intimate screen time than I, and her stress over it was proportionately greater. But it was interesting to talk to a seasoned performer who was appalled at seeing her celluloid self.
The experience of my own body is a peculiar thing. It’s one thing to be aware of and comfortable with my body from inside of it or from the vantage point of watching myself in the mirror. It’s quite another to see my body, in a way disembodied, onscreen, taken from a shoot done nearly a year ago. I see my body, I remember things about the shoot. But I don’t entirely remember what my body felt like then – was I turned on? cold? I don’t recall.
Of course I don’t recall every sexual moment I’ve had, but its peculiar to see visual evidence that creates a memory of a moment while I don’t retain the bodily memory of the same moment.
Posted by Dacia at 11:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
"Alice in Footland" premiere on Saturday
October 23, 2004
Oh, look, another plug.
This one’s for CineKink, and more specifically, for “Alice in Footland,” the film which I’ve been ruthlessly promoting of late and which Dirck and I have very minor roles in. The film premieres at 5 p.m. this Saturday at Anthology Film Archives, on 2nd Street and 2nd Avenue here in NYC’s lovely East Village. Afterwards, we’re throwing a party at the Dark Room, 165 Ludlow Street, where there will be an open bar from 8 to 9.
If you’re in the area, join us for a fun evening of debauchery. I promise to wear something cute, in my signature colors of red and black.
Steven Speliotis took this picture of Fred Hatt filming me and Dirck making out and fondling each other’s naughty bits. Yes, its true that we are wearing crazy colonial wigs and that Dirck is wearing a crazy red colonial coat. I did mention we are diddling each other in a fantasy realm, didn’t I?
Posted by Dacia at 09:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sex/work
October 22, 2004
Today/yesterday (what day is it anyway), I spent something like 12 hours thinking about sex.
And none of that fleeting, I’m-in-a-meeting-but-images-of-cocks-are-dancing-through-my-head type stuff. No, this was sex-thinking with serious consideration given to dirty matters.
A morning and early afternoon on the phone with press folks, giving my two cents for the editing of “Alice,” dealing with foot fetish forums and folks intrigued and wanting to know more more more.
Late afternoon shopping for things to round out my outfit for Saturday’s premiere, plus assorted sex worky underwear items.
Early evening meeting with my fellow volunteers at the AIDS service org I volunteer for, bitching about the CDC’s choice of wording in a recent report on the effectiveness of male latex condoms in lowering risk for HIV and STIs (more detailed rant on that to come).
Brief evening appearance at the CineKink opening night party. At this point I recognized a throbbing headache, said the hellos I needed to, made a brief stop at the site of our party for Saturday, and went home.
…Home to write an outline of a piece I’m writing for a new sex worker’s mag with deadline fast approaching.
I like working in sex, and I had a pretty great, productive day. But after so many hours (days, really) of all this hustle and bustle, I realized as I got into my pajamas and slippers that I’ve had very little sex in terms of orgasms this week. And that’s just wrong. I must remedy that. And, go…
Posted by Dacia at 12:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Name that moaner
October 21, 2004
Today we’re putting finishing touches on “Alice in Footland,” which means that the sound has to be all synched up. I’m sitting in my corner of the office with Sativa Verte (who plays Alice), and we’re trying to do our work, but the moans are distracting.
So we’ve got a game going - Name That Moaner. I’ve seen/heard fragments of this video so many times that I can almost do this in my sleep. So the office conversation at the moment is like this:
Sativa: “I just heard the sound of your ass getting slapped.” Me: “Oh, now that’s the sound of you getting your pussy licked.”
Posted by Dacia at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Alternative
I’ve been thinking about the connotations of this word a lot recently, spurned by me thinking about and applying to become a model on an alternaporn site, and at the same time discussing alternative porn and alternative sexuality with the lovely Sativa Verte, who is the star of “Alice in Footland” and is also working in the office these days in a non-naked capacity.
Okay, let me back up a bit.
The word “alternative” in my teen years was applied liberally to music – the grunge, the ska, and the pop punk. So that’s how I became acquainted with it.
But now to leap forward a bunch, in the past two years, since I’ve become an avid fan of the online personals ad, I’ve struggled with ways to describe myself – and I’ve tried, really I have, to not be insanely obscure or long-winded in my self representations. Often, I’ve used the word alternative – meaning, alternative in mindset, alternative in physical presentation.
Saying that I’m alternative has always suited me well in ads that are not pay for play. But a while ago, I used the phrase “alternachick” in a ho ad, and I got quite a few responses from guys who were excited that I may be a she-male. A shift in etymology and context.
“Alterna” as a prefix to the word “porn” generally signifies porn that shows models who are different from the models in mainstream porn, and might have body mods, different kinds of clothes, and maybe different body shapes than you see in mainstream porn.
But whenever I speak of alternative porn to Sativa, she focuses on the acts as being alternative. To her, alternative is the kind of video with foot worship, tickling or giantess fetishism.
There’s no easy answer to this dilemma. The word will continue to be used in a bunch of contexts to mean different things.
This post has been brought to you by my personal, slightly perverted Old English Dictionary.
Posted by Dacia at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Decisions and debauchery
October 19, 2004
Last night was a whirl of too much bourbon. Oh, the bourbon. I haven’t been this hung over in quite some time.
As I leave my evening class, I fall in step with a very awesome butch woman from said class, and I mention that I have some resources I could share with her that relate to a project she’s working on. As we get to talking, I realize that we probably have a lot more in common than we are addressing directly. We’re talking about break ups and lesbian drama, and in an instant, I decide to come out to her as bisexual and polyamorous. We have a good laugh and say that we probably know a lot of the same people. And there’s some subtle flirtation – I feel like we’re in cahoots now, which is cool. I’m glad I outted myself to her.
We take the train together. The last story she tells me before I get off the train is that last week she performed in drag in the new Scissor Sisters video, which is being shot by John Cameron Mitchell and features lots of trannies, fags and deviants.
I get off the train for a long overdue visit to my friend of the honesty fetish fame, Jefferson. It’s been too long, which is something we say and mean every time we see each other. The first story he tells me is about getting cast as a john in this crazy video for a band called the Scissor Sisters.
After a few hours of talking shit, drinking bourbon and trying to out do each other with our stories of debauchery, this straight boy he fucks calls and wants to come over. Jefferson promises that it will be quick, the boy never wants to stick around and talk, he just wants to be bent over and fucked really hard.
Jefferson and I have never crossed the line. We share stories of debauchery. He’s seen me naked, but only because of art. But, I had enough bourbon in me to want to see him fuck this boy, especially because the boy is a model and I’ve never actually seen live boy-on-boy action.
The boy arrives straight from a live nude modeling gig, which required his body to be completely shaved. The boy is ridiculously hot, in that skinny, beautifully defined muscles kinda way. He’s the kind of boy that I don’t typically find attractive – mostly as a defense mechanism because I doubt that such a boy would find me attractive.
He does. We click hard.
After a bit of adorable pacing around the living room while downing beer, he decides to shower. Jefferson and I follow him and watch. He is truly beautiful.
When he’s done showering, I follow the boy into Jefferson’s bedroom, while Jefferson heads to the living room. I can’t keep my hands off of the boy – his groin muscles point straight to his lovely cock, I follow the arrow. We’re making out, I’m teasing him as he has difficulty unbuttoning my shirt. His hands are shaking a little, and I find it weird that a boy this hot is nervous about touching me.
Jefferson comes into the room. I’m naked and making out with this hot naked boy on Jefferson’s bed. I turn to Jefferson and say, “Hey, remember when I was your intern? That was awesome.” Suddenly we’re all on the bed, and Jefferson is lapping at my girl parts, I can’t get enough of the boy and we’re a mass of heaving straining flesh.
But then, abruptly, the boy has to go. He has to catch a train back to Long Island, where he lives with his parents. We think fast and try to find a way for him to stay. No, he has to go.
“Thumbs down!” I tell him, as I get pouty and stick my tongue out at him.
“But you two can still have plenty of fun together,” he says.
“No, we don’t have sex,” Jefferson tells him matter of factly.
He leaves, our wily charms are for nought.
Jefferson and I are naked and alone together.
“So, eh, um,” I stammer, “I’m going to put my pajamas on and have some more bourbon.“
Posted by Dacia at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My daily SAR
October 18, 2004
Over the last three years of being involved in sex in many different professional capacities, I’ve seen a hell damn lot of porn. Some of it has been great, some of it has been terrible, most has been totally unmemorable and some has made me cock my head to side and think, now how about that.
During this time, I’ve become a firm believer that all people should see porn that features acts or performers that don’t make them all hot and bothered. I think it’s good and healthy to see material that isn’t necessarily appealing, and hopefully understand that just because you personally aren’t aching for a release as a result of watching whatever the video is, someone else is. And that’s cool. This kind of exposure is known as “sexual attitude readjustment” (the SAR of my post title) - showing porn of fringe sexual persuasions has been done at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality’s conferences in the past, so other people think that this kind of viewing is important too.
Anyway, in my recent incarnation as porn reviewer, I get piles of peculiar porn, stuff that I would probably never purchase on my own (especially since I get tons of the stuff for free). My last shipment included 4 she-male DVDs. Prior to this delivery, I’d never seen a she-male video, partly because of the insensitivity of the word “she-male,” which irks me. I was interested in seeing the videos mostly out of scientific curiosity.
This weekend, I watched a she-male flick, and like a good little reviewer, I settled down with my clothes on, notebook and pen poised to analyze! I watched intently and seriously until I got to the fifth scene and had to confess to myself that despite my professional veneer (I had my pants on, for fuck’s sake!) I was, shall we say, in the mood. A quick rummage through the toy box, and I’m half naked (I left my shirt on, because I was working dammit!), lubed up and shuddering from premonitions of an orgasm, masturbating frantically but carefully holding out so that I could come simultaneously with the performers on screen.
I kept my notebook within reach though, and stayed cognizant enough to write things like “b gets on his knees and sucks both g’s cocks.” I smeared lube on my notes.
Posted by Dacia at 09:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Housekeeping
October 17, 2004
Unlike the typical red blooded porn watcher, I have my porn in stacks all over my room and living room, not tucked away in some secret hiding place. I have several bottles of lube on my bedside table. I have an overflowing box of sex toys under my bed, and sometimes the toys make their way out in to the living room as well.
There are problems with this - mainly that these naughty things are such a part of my natural landscape that it is difficult to do what I call a smut sweep when, oh say, my parents visit.
Now, my parents know that I work in porn. There have been embarassing incidents of vibrator exposure with my mom. Basically they know I’m a perv. But I still try to keep most of the stuff away from them visually, out of respect for their comfort level, and because my dad is a major perv and I fear what he will have to say about it or what stories he may tell.
I knew my parents were coming over yesterday afternoon, but I didn’t jump in the shower and do the smut sweep until half an hour before their arrival.
So I missed some things. Namely, the box cover to “She Dreams,” my latest she-male reviewing task, was on my desk next to my computer. I noticed it just as they were coming in the room, and tossed it out of the way. But then, my mom sat down on my nice cushy armchair, the one with lots of pillows. She sat on something, reached between the pillows, and pulled something out. She held it up, laughing and said sarcastically “And what might this be?”
I had no choice but to reply, “That - is a butt plug.”
Good times, my friends.
Posted by Dacia at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Researcher, researched
October 16, 2004
For the past bunch of years, I’ve been in positions that have made people want to interview me, and I’ve been in commmunities that are considered research-worthy. At first I found this wildly exciting - I’m important, people are interested in my voice. But I quickly realized that especially in the world of sex, people who research sexual communities and come from “the outside” (from a differen suexual perspective) usually have their biases. Of course this is true of all researchers, but biases against sexual issues are somehow different, almost more buried in a way. This knowledge has just made me wary, it hasn’t made me want to stop being an interviewee and opening myself to help other people understand sex better. But I’m cautious.
Yesterday, I started an interviewing project for school, which is great fun even though it has nothing to do with sex. But suddenly, I was on the other side of this thing. Suddenly I was beeing treated with caution, suspiciously, like I have a good chance of misunderstanding or using my interviewee’s words for evil.
It’s good to see both sides of the coin. This makes me a better interviewer and a better interviewee.
Posted by Dacia at 09:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Laura's Bush
October 15, 2004
I don’t often plug things here, but this is worth plugging. On of my Pornoland comrades (though she isn’t directly involved in the smut-making) is starring in the titular role of the play “Laura’s Bush,” which is being performed this and next weekend at the Vital Theatre Company:
Theatre companies across America are joining in the world premiere of Laura’s Bush, an apocalyptic lesbian sex farce by America’s most undercover playwright, Jane Martin. Like last year’s Lysistrata Project, which encouraged theatre companies across the world to stage the Greek anti-war play in response to the pending war in Iraq, Laura’s Bush comes to us just in time for the presidential elections. Along with the New York premiere, it will be seen in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Atlanta, and Detroit. The play follows an absurdly prudish librarian as she enlists the help of a small town dominatrix to break Laura Bush out of the White House. Sexual and political hi-jinx ensue as they uncover a plot so evil and over-the-top that it just might be true. While Fahrenheit 911 raised eyebrows, this raunchy satire may raise other parts of the anatomy as well.
More info about tickets, show times and whatnot here. I should also mention that the play features my very own riding crop as a prop. And, contrary to popular opinion, said riding crop was not purchased with prurient intent, but was actually intended to be used on a horse. No one believes me, but it’s true.
Posted by Dacia at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Body vs. mind
October 13, 2004
| First off - thanks so much to everyone for saying nice and supportive things to me about my last post.To clarify, my struggles of late are mostly related to the actual act of eating and the effects various foods have on my body. My attitudes about my actual body shape and size have improved vastly over the past few years. Kim said this best in the comments: Just when you’re all comfy with your self and you can just enjoy your little part of the world, something kicks the apple cart over. This kicking thing has been my health as it relates to my diet. But I’m taking steps to fix it, trying to learn more about creating a healthy diet, all that good stuff. The mental problem part of it is just that dealing with my body and food in a very head on way makes things bubble up abit more than I’d like - but I’m trying to squash the ugly beasties not by ignoring them and hoping they’ll crawl back underneath the slimy rock they live under, but by working through it. The eating and body stuff is definitely a problem, but it doesn’t feel like high drama because I’m making a conscious effort to stare this thing down and confront it dead on - no lying to myself about what it’s doing to me, no lying to other people about what I’m eating and feeling. Sometimes being honest with myself is the toughest thing. |
Posted by Dacia at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mediated me
October 11, 2004
I developed early. Period at age 10. C cup boobs I couldn’t ignore by age 11. I hated my body then, felt betrayed by it. Bound my breasts with an ace bandage, my dad’s flannel shirts draped over me. Didn’t want to accept the ugly, weird visage of womanhood, the pubescent tricks my body was playing on me.
By the time I was 14, I had full on, banging curves and a bit of a tummy. I was so obsessed by that tummy. I started to starve myself.
I wasn’t starving myself to look like the girls in the magazines. I wasn’t a cheerleader or a dancer. I was a tomboyish, gothy punk kid, full of the self hate. I was starving myself to fight the emergence of this freaky womanbody that I didn’t ask for, didn’t want.
I gave up my virginity just before I turned 15. I’d already been starving myself for a few months, and refused to get completely naked. I never got naked with a male partner until my college boyfriend; I got naked with my girlfriends though. That was different, less like war.
The dude I fucked was 28. I told him I was 17.
I hated sex. It hurt.
It made me feel powerful, desired.
But I hated my body so much, hated my femaleness, it was like a weird, alienating joke - this desire others had for me. I loved being casual about sex, saying that I’d fucked someone. “Fuck” - a great word. I claimed it as a feminist act, but now I realize that it was more about fucking like a man than being a liberated lady. I fucked out of anger and self-hatred, wanting to be wanted.
By the time I got to college, I had fucked more than 20 people. I didn’t enjoy it physically, but it gave me a sense of… Something Big.
I don’t quite know how I got healthy about sex. A lot of it had to do with having a boyfriend for four and a half years who I was very comfortable with, who encouraged me to grow and explore sexually, who loved my body more after I broke out of the pattern of my eating disorder a few years into college. Ironically, my sexual appetite and bodily comfort level grew beyond what he could deal with.
But sex aside, I killed that thing inside me that worried so frantically about controling my body’s size and shape, that thing that hated being a girl. If I don’t embrace all of femininity, I’ve at least learned to like my parts, my hips and tits.
But then.
Last spring, I became lactose intolerant. I went to Europe for a month over the summer and between the limited diet and the walking, I lost probably 20 pounds. I’ve lost at least another 10 since returning from Europe.
My body is pulling some more anarchy. Just when I thought body and brain were cool with each other, everything is fucked. I liked my round and chubby body - I don’t mind this thinner version either. But the thinner version brings weird things with it, especially because this body is getting sick when I feed it, and it’s not just lactose anymore.
I’ve gotten to the bad brain place where I’ve lost the ability to see how thin I’ve gotten from inside my skin. But when reviewing pictures with Jane last night, I said aloud, “Where the hell did my ass go?”
My perception of me, mediated through the fucked up places in my brain, mediated in a different way by seeing images of myself.
I was sure that I liked my body either way. Now I don’t know. I’m afraid to eat.
I escape into sex, where I understand my body. Its a different escape this time around, not built on hate. I’m not afraid of being naked, I actually feel more at ease naked than in clothes. But those triggers are there.
I wrote this post earlier this afternoon, and then decided to sit on it a while. Initially I wanted to write about my relationship with my body and my eating disorder. This evening I tried to get the sex bits out. Then I tried to leave the sex bits in but get the eating disorder stuff out. Then I realized how silly that is because it’s all a connected jumble.
Posted by Dacia at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Vanilla me?
October 08, 2004
Last night I went to Submit with Topaz and Jane, where of course I ran into several lovely locals, including the ever-fabulous Rachel KB.
In theory, I like kinky sex parties. At the very least, I like to be around sexually open minded people, and the idea of being in a place where you can not just think, but also DO sex is pretty damn cool.
In practice, I’m shy and a chicken to boot. Well, that’s at least part of it.
The other part of it is that I don’t know where or how I fit into any kind of community, sexuality-based or otherwise. In fretful moments, I think this is because I don’t have a well articulated or defined identity. But in reality, I know this is just because I’ve chosen fluidity over concreteness. Which puts me… where?
I’m not a femme; though I like skirts and heels, I’m hopeless with makeup. I’m not a butch, though I do adore a good pair of boots and adore pinstripe pants. I’m clueless about BDSM, and frankly a teeny bit bored by it (obstuse youth?). I like all kinds of people in all kinds of gender presentations, but recently I’ve been identifying as bisexual so as not to reduce the importance that biological men have in my sexuality.
It’s nights like last night that make me feel vanilla, like maybe I am just a mostly straight girl who happens to be open-minded but not really gung ho about queerness and alternative sexualities in full practice. Or maybe I’m letting the role-playing of nice straight girl that is my working persona seep a little too far into my brain.
Maybe I feel like I don’t fit in because of my very limited experience in going to play parties at clubs instead of at folks’ homes where I know most people there. Or maybe I’m too suspicious of the idea of community and collectivity to ever really be a joiner. Maybe other people who go to play parties feel the same sense of not-belonging that I do. Or maybe I draw up this fantasy of belonging in my head, and when an experience doesn’t quite deliver, then I just don’t know what to do with it. There are lots of maybes.
Posted by Dacia at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
On being "real"
October 07, 2004
The issue of realness has come up on several sex and escorting blogs: A NY Escorts Confessions and Postmodern Courtesan most recently, but I recall the hunt for Belle de Jour last spring and I’m sure others have gotten the baffling comments or emails that question the veracity of the writer.
I too have gotten these emails and comments, usually written in a dismissive tone of “well, that is hot but too bad you made it all up.” Truth is much stranger and often more interesting anyway.
It’s puzzling. Maybe the average Joe (or Josephine!) reading sex workers’ or sluts’ blogs feels so far removed from the experiences of the writer that they just can’t conceive of a person existing in a world full of sexual experiences, paid or otherwise.
Trying to negate or deny my truths entirely is certainly an interesting way to go about critiquing my lifestyle. Usually I can conjure up some snappy and well-thought out responses to other forms of critique and questions about my lifestyle, but when I’m accused of not even being real - the best response I can muster is “I am too real!”
Posted by Dacia at 12:44 PM
Precious moments
October 05, 2004
Q: What’s more embarassing than my iPod turning itself on in my bag during class?
A: My vibrator turning itself on in my bag during class.
I know better than to leave batteries in my vibrator. But - well, I’m feeling a little under the weather today and I decided that the best pick-me-up would be rubbing one out in an out-of-the way bathroom I discovered recently on my campus. In my post-orgasm haze, I forgot to remove the batteries. Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want. I’m accustomed to embarassing the shit out of myself on a regular basis.
Posted by Dacia at 04:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My passing fetish
October 04, 2004
From junior high school through most of college, I was a messy punky gothic kid: funny colored hair, painted and studded leather jacket, smeared makeup, jewelry from the hardware store, ripped up clothes sewn back together with leopard print patches and dental floss… you know the drill.
This kind of alterna-drag gave people a very limited perception of me. They didn’t see the kid who launched into the local poetry reading scene at a very young age. They didn’t see the kid who was an accomplished equestrian. They didn’t see the kid who was the founder of her high school literary magazine and an honor roll student. They saw the freak, the bad kid.
In the last few years, I’ve grown away from the freak caricature into something different, more subtle. The change has been partly due to laziness and unwillingness to stain my bathtub with every color of the hair dye rainbow. But the bulk of this change is due to the fact that I’m more secure in who I am, and I know that the rebellion that really counts is in the mind. Granted, I am not against body modification in all its glory - after all, I am “discreetly” tattooed and pierced (I put that word in quotes because in so many ways I loathe its implication of hiding and concealment).
I don’t scoff at those who choose to decorate themselves with symbols of countercultures. But I’ve gotten really really fascinated with my ability to pass amongst the norms. This passing fetish happened accidentally - so accidentally that I didn’t know what was going on.
Three years ago, when I met Jane for the first time - she was interviewing me for a job - by her own admission she couldn’t figure me out, because I seemed like such a “nice” and well behaved girl, not the deviant I’ve since proven myself to be. I didn’t realize at the time that I gave this good girl impression, because I think I was walking around with this kind of residual identity, assuming that people would react adversely to me, and judge me harshly immediately upon encountering me.
I’ve recently begun to really play with this passing business - especially within the realm of my life as a sex worker. It seems that I can really capitalize on the “good grad student on the outside, dirty dirty slut on the inside” thing. In some respects, this is kind of hot - its this very thing that attracts me to my boyfriend Dirck, who essentially looks like an Aryan nation twink.
Maybe the reason I’m questioning this game of passing is because over the weekend it dawned on me that my whore persona is the same persona I put on when I’m at school. Well, you know, except without the incidental detail of the fucking for money. As both a whore and as a grad student, I conceal my vibrant sexual life of sex educator, porn promoter, polyamorous slut and collector of sexual accoutrements. I’m not sure if I should be mining this for meaning, or just letting it be.
Posted by Dacia at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's only natural
October 03, 2004
This afternoon I did a spontaneous and awesome thing - I abandoned my homework and went into Manhattan to meet up with Topaz, the Kinky Librarian. It was, in a word, awesome.
We met up at (where else?) Toys in Babeland. This seemed like a natural meeting place to us, and so we got acquainted while shopping for sex toys. Maybe “get acquainted” isn’t the right phrase, since we’ve been emailing and reading each other’s blogs for a while now. After some sex toy shopping debate, I settled on a new buttplug, because I can’t seem to get enough of odd-shaped things to stick up my ass.
But anyway, less about my ass, and more about the afternoon with Topaz. We talked a lot about sex and relationships but also shared a lot about our StraightWorld jobs, which was cool. Not much to my surprise (or hers, I suspect), we have more in common than our penchant for fuckery - we also both are obsessive about books and research and whatnot.
The whole afternoon just felt nice and relaxed and good. Because we already know all the dirt about one another, it was easy to just fall into conversation, tell funny stories about ourselves, laugh and have a good time. I mean, it isn’t that it’s supremely difficult for me to get comfortable with people, but this was just a different level of knowing comfort.
In my humble opinion, people who are sexually deviant are just the best people. They understand what it’s like to be an outcast, what it means to have to size people up for their level of tolerance, and they learn self-awareness and communication really damn well. And when we get together - look out! Discovering a like mind is such a lovely thing.
Posted by Dacia at 10:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
