Sexuality Happens

Hey Folks -

I’ve been in Denver the last week or so, very busy (teaching four classes and co-hosting a kinky girls sleepover within four days!), but I am still alive, and will be writing more soon. Thanks for your patience, and I promise, in the worlds of Arnold, I’ll Be Back!

-Essin’ Em

I like Amanda Palmer quite often. I’m still out on how I feel about her Evelyn Evelyn project, which deals with a faux discovered set of coinjoined twins (hence my issue with the project). However, usually, I think she’s pretty rad.

Recently, I discovered this video by AFP (Amanda Fucking Palmer) which is about pubic hair (watch out, it’s very catchy):

Now, the video is awesome, I love the fabulous merkins (vulva wigs), the beat is rocking…but I have some issues with the message. I totally 100% believe that we need to do away with the myths that a shaved vulva is sexier, that natural hair is gross, that shaving/waxing/etc is a cleaner option, and so on. Obviously, these are all bullshit, and just one more way to control women and their bodies.

HOWEVER, I’ve talked about this before and I’ll talk about it again. It is NOT sex positive or feminist in anyway to tell people that what they CHOOSE to do to their body is wrong, or as this song puts it “whack.” Vagina Monologues (which has its other issues as well) has a piece called Hair, in which it says “You cannot love the Vagina unless you love hair.” First of all, this is anatomically incorrect, as the vulva is where there is hair, not the vagina…and secondly, it tells those people that like the feel of having less/styled/different/no public hair that they clearly don’t love their vulva/vaginas or those of a partner.

I have done almost everything that there is to do with pubic hair (except dying it). I have cut it, styled it, shaved it, waxed it (never again — way too fucking expensive), etc. It is certainly NOT for any male gaze. And I identify as a sex positive woman and with parts of the femininist movement. Does this mean that I don’t love my vulva? That I’m wack? NO. I like the sensations of toys and tongues both with and without hair, and enjoy the differences that hair does and doesn’t provide. Some months I grow it out, other months I chop it off. My public hair and how I style it does not define me as a person, or whether or not a love female assigned genitala. The end.

I don’t know what the answer is. How do we reclaim the sexiness of having hair as an option without stepping on shavers/waxers/etc? It’s the same as how can we run the fat positive movement without saying horrible things about skinny people? (some people are naturally a size two, and yet often times the FP movement talks about them as if they are bulimic or anorexic when they are not, or calls them skinny bitches, etc). To be truly sex positive, or the type of feminist I identify as involves elevating global thinking WITHOUT HURTING others. When we step on people, say hurtful things, call them names, etc, solely in order to futher our own thoughts about things, we set all of us back.

So yes, I will probably continue to sing this song under my breathe, and I will DEFINITELY be using Map of Tasmania in the future. But Amanda Fucking Palmer, Eve Ensler, and the rest of you? Please stop judging people for choices that they make. Pubic hair is NOT gross…but not having it doesn’t make you a bad person, a failure as a woman, or even whack.

-Essin’ Em

One of the most hurtful things F told me when we were together was that I was “always in my head, and never in my heart.” She’d follow this with ending a conversation, having sex with someone else against the rules of our relationship, or a torrent of judgemental things about me. That was her way of telling me I wasn’t emotional enough, that I didn’t feel. In her mind, feeling was superior to thoughts and logic, and because I was a planner, and wanted to talk out our issues instead of fighting about them, or worse yet (to me), ignoring them, I wasn’t good at relationships, that I wasn’t emotional enough, that I had no feelings.

I know now that this is bullshit. It’s true, for a long time after my father died, I did hide my feelings. I wrote a few years back about how I couldn’t cry, how it was only through a totally irrevelant conversation with K that I was able to finally break down and cry. I was so scared that if I showed myself crying, I’d be seen as weak, or worse yet, that I wouldn’t be able to stop crying, that everything I’d built up in my life, all my independence and stability woudl come tumbling down with my tears, and that I’d be back at step one.

However, I was beyond that point when I met F. I was an emotional person. I felt. I hurt. She hurt me. I felt hurt by hurt. And because I also have anxiety and a little OCD, which makes me a little more logical at times, she told me that I had no emotions, that I didn’t feel, that I didn’t have a right to ask for my needs to be met in our relationship because I wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth having a relationship.

Now, if you asked Q if she thought I was more in my heart or in my head, more emotional or more logical, I have no doubt the answer would be the former of each of those choices. True, we joke about me being tender and delicate, but at times, it is true. From losing my father to losing multiple close friends throughout my life (some through death, some through their choice), I have a lot of fear and hurt inside me. Sometimes, so much that I don’t even believe I’m worth it, that I don’t believe I deserve to have someone as wonderful as Q in my life. Every now and then, something triggers me, and I burst into tears, convinced that this is the point where Q figures out that I’m a fraud, that I’m nothing, that I’m not worth it.

As I think back on my relationship with F, and how much she did that lead to me questioning myself, to feeling as though I wasn’t able to be part of a long term relationship, to believing that I wasn’t enough for anyone, I realize that perhaps she was looking inside at herself and expressing the worries that she had about her onto me. Doesn’t mean I feel any less fucked up, but I can only hope she didn’t do it out of malice, and that she just never allowed herself to see my tender side, my emotional side.

And more important, I thank my lucky stars every damn day that I met someone like Q, who gets me, who not only thinks I’m worth it, and thinks I’m more than enough, but is working on helping me to believe it too. Someone who will lie in bed holding me until the tears dry up, who will tell me again and again that she wants to be with me, and who will make me laugh by creating shadow puppets to pull Kinsey’s tail. I’m worth it, and she knows it. And she knows that I’m just as emotional as I am a planner, and that one does not exclude the other. How lucky am I?

-Essin’ Em

So, Q and I like to play games. I know the kind you’re thinking, but we also really enjoy playing good ol’ board games like Scrabble, and fun more new fangled games like Apples to Apples. Ergo, when a certain sex toy website offered to let me review Dirty Minds, I jumped at the chance. I had some friends who used to love playing it back in college, but I’d never gotten the change to try it, and I was excited.

One chilling evening in Arizona (read: 45 degrees), Q and I cuddled up in bed, and decided that today was the day to play a fun sex-centric game. Now, note that this game is about dirty clues that lead to totally innocent words. It’s not a game to play in order to have sex, like Behind Closed Doors or Sex Casino, etc. Those games are usually very heteronormative, and not of much interest to us. However, Dirty Minds is a game that can be played by lovers, friends, family, you name it, and so out it game.

The game itself is silly for two people to play. The goal is to gain enough cards to spell D-I-R-T-Y (you start with two, and earn more depending on the quickness of your guesses/need for clues)…and in the two full on rounds we played, the game was over within three or four turns — not too much fun. However, then we took turns reading clues to each other, and guessing the word (without trying to collect the cards), and we had a lot more fun. It’s important to remember that you never have to follow the instructions of any board game; make it work best for you and your partner(s), however your imaginations may run.

Apparently, Q and I have equally dirty minds, as well as were able to figure out the non-dirty item from the clues pretty well. We actually wound up having a good deal of fun, and I can totally see busting this game out at another party we have. All in all, I was impressed. And happy to review something that wasn’t a vibrator – it’s nice to have a break as a sex toy reviewer as well. Upcoming reviews include another game, and a few books!

-Essin’ Em

This is day 18 in my “30 Days of Letters” endeavor. It is supposed to be written to “The Person I Wish I Could Be.” This is a hard one, because I am who I am, and am pretty ok with that for the most part, and think it is futile to wish you were someone else. I’ll therefore write it to the person I hope to be in the future as I continue to grow.

Dear Self-

You’ve come so far, learning to deal with your depression, to function around your OCD and planner-y-ness. You’ve gone through your list of friends, finally realizing which ones are true friends, and have dedicated more time and energy to staying connected and being a part of their lives.

You’ve finally gotten back to the weight you are happy with (and had been happy with for so many years before the Neurontin had you gain 30+ pounds), and have no illusions about ever wanting to be a a size 6, because you’re happy with who you are physically, and realize that wanting to be something else isn’t worth it.

You’ve become successful, what ever that means. In the field of sex positivity and sex education, people know who you are, respect you, and enjoy having interesting discussions for you. Shockingly, you’re able to make your paycheck(s) based 100% on doing sex positive education and sharing with people, changing people’s lives and improving how people look at sex. You’ve paid off your loans, and your car, and your medical bills, and you and Q are living in a small house that you’ve worked together on fixing up.

You’ve found some good method for coping with stress; congrats. Goddess knows you’ve been looking for that one for a while. Thank the mooses you’ve found it, because stress should never be as big of a part of anyone’s life as it had been for you for so many years. Stress isn’t needed in order to accomplish things; I’m glad you’ve learned that.

Self, I can’t wait to be you in a year, in five years, in ten years. I’m proud of you now, and know I will continue to be.

-Essin’ Em

I just got back from Las Vegas on Sunday night, very late. I’d been gone for five very long days.

When I got home, Q had left that morning. Because she’s awesome, she’s facilitating this amazing social justice leadership retreat up in Prescott all week, and won’t be back until Saturday night. The apartment felt so empty without her, the cats all crowding around me for attention that they hadn’t gotten all day, demanding pets and love. All I wanted was to curl up in bed with her arms around me, having been apart almost a week already.

I travel a fair amount, but with my disability and relationship, I try to keep it down to less than a week a month. When it’s longer, I try to come home in the middle for at least a night so that we can regroup and reconnect. This almost two week period is the longest amount of time that we haven’t slept together in almost a year and a half, and shockingly to me, it’s harder than I thought. I was such an independent person for so long, rarely spending the night or letting others spend the night, that it seems odd to me that just a few days apart from my partner makes me feel weird and lonely. But if I’m honest with myself, which I try to be, it does. It bothers me. I feel lonely in bed without her pressed up against me, or her heavy breathing in my ear.

I never expected to be in a mostly monogamous, long term relationship. When I pictured my future, it was never a part of it. Now, I’m incredibly happy to be in one now, with such an amazing person, but it certainly goes to show how much you never know, and how different the future may be than what you expect it to be.

7 Days down and 4.5 more to go until I have someone to hug and cuddle with, someone else to cook for, someone to laugh at my jokes and swat my butt while I’m cooking. I never thought I would miss that, because I never had it to begin with…but now that Q is such a huge part of my life, the space that is there when she is gone is so much more noticable than I ever would have thought.

-Essin’ Em

Essin' Em at the AVNs

Check me out at the AVN awards, wearing a sassy blue dress (my first ever One-Strap Dress), and the awesome 3-D glasses for the 3-D segment of the awards. Yep, I’m that cool.

Like last year, lots of queer and sex positive movies were nominated for the awards, including CrashPadSeries.com for best alternative website, Courtney Trouble’s Seven Minutes in Heaven for Pro-Am, Dangerous Curves for best niche movie (starring April Flores, directed by Carlos Batts), Good Releasing for best company, Jamye Waxman’s Sex Positions for Couples, etc. None of them won, sadly (although Good Vibrations and Babeland did win the two categories that Fascinations was nominated for…if we had to lose, what great companies to lose to!). JeJoue won both best small toy company and best toy for women with the JeJoue G-Ki.

Also, I got an Njoy Eleven. Get ready for my entire life to change. Well, I mean, at least the sexual part and art collector part of it. I also now have a La Palma harness from Spareparts to try, which I am super excited about, and a sample of one of Buck Angel’s new AWESOME glass toys! I can’t wait for his whole line to come out.

Smitten Kitten threw a fabulous party on Thursday night, and I am incredibly grateful to them. In this field, it can be extremely hard to be a sex positive person, particularly since many of us are the only people in the industry in our area. We are often alone in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, LA, or wherever it is we happen to be. Outside of San Francisco and New York, there are not many groupings of sex educators, sex positive toy store owners, etc. However, attending this party was like coming home, meeting all sorts of other awesome people in the field, sharing triumphs and tribulations, asking questions that related to our own ethical views of certain toy lines, talking about the latest this, and the most interesting that. My hat goes off to Smitten Kitten for organizing such a great event (and with such delicious vegetarian and organic food/drink options to boot!) and helping to connect sex positive people in the adult/sex industry in a way that rarely has happened before. Plus, their crew is awesome.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m straddling the mainstream world and the sex positive world, and I don’t quite fit either. Where I work is sex positive, but we also have 16 stores and a website, so we do things very differently than a small company with just one or two stores. On my own, I am as sex positive as I can possibly be, but when I’m seen as part of Fascinations, I feel like I’m sometimes shunned from the sex positive community for having chosen to work with a more mainstream company, and that the literally dozens of free classes we offer, sex educators we employe, products we choose to carry (and not carry) don’t even matter, because it’s not my own store, or a well know store in the sex positive world. It’s tough. I felt that same way working for HotMoviesForHer, because at the time, few people were ok with the fact that many women DO like porn, and like more than just super touchy feely couples porn at that. I’m always feeling a little like a black sheep…but at least black is my favorite color, and I think sheep are cute. I do look forward to moving back to Colorado for many reasons, and one is being closer to other sex positive people in the adult industry, and the folks at the Denver SK are awesome.

That’s it for now…I’ll try to get back to posting more regularly from now on.

-Essin’ Em

It’s that time of year again, where I’m heading to Las Vegas for the AEE/ANE shows and the AVN awards (think “Oscars of Porn”).

This year, it’s a little tough. I’m heading to Vegas today through Sunday afternoon. Q heads up to this awesome social justice-y leadership program she’s helping to facilitate on Sunday morning…and will be gone for a full week. Then once Q gets back, we have a week together before I’m off to do classes and house hunting in Denver, and then I get back the day before Q heads to Minneapolis for Creating Change.  Usually I’m so good about planning my travel, and keeping it to less than a week per month, but these four weeks, both of us are travelling twice. I mean, I guess it is kind of good that we alternate, so that we don’t have to find a cat sitter…but on the other hand, that’s the most time apart that we’ve spent in a while, which is tough.

But here’s to Vegas, queer porn stars, sex educators, new sex toys, sex positive people, networking, seeing old friends, making new ones, and having a great time!

-Essin’ Em

I’m not particularly big on New Year’s Resolutions, given the likelihood that they’ll be broken some way, some how, in the very near future. I mean, really, how many people ‘fulfill’ their resolutions?

Q has decided to eat predominantly vegetarian/pescitarian. Which is awesome. Our house is pretty much vegetarian anyways (aside from the occasionaly sliced turkey for Q’s sandwiches), but this means it will be 100% veggie, and that we’re going to both be vegetarian, at least for a bit while Q tries this out. As someone who has been vegetarian for 19 years, it’ll be nice having a mostly veg partner. I’ve never ever been the preachy type — I’ve only ever dated one other vegetarian. I don’t judge, and I don’t tell people what they shouldn’t eat (especially as long as they don’t tell me what I SHOULD eat), but it’s nice having someone on the same page as me.

I’m thinking that next week, when I get back from the AEE/ANE/AVNs in Vegas, I’m going to try a raw diet for a week while Q is off teaching at a social justice leadership program. My old migraine meds (which I’ve finally titrated off of) helped me to gain 30+ pounds over the past year. Now that I’m off of them, I’m hoping a week of raw food might jumpstart my body into starting to lose some of those…and if not, at least it’s a very healthyl, vitamin filled week. Plus, we just bought a living social deal for 20 sessions of Hot Yoga each. I’m a little nervous, as I’ve dislocated my knees doing yoga before, but there are so few types of exercise I can do without massive pain that I’m figuring anything is worth a try right now.

My goals (NOT resolutions) for 2011:

*Book more lectures/workshops/classes at Colleges/Universities and Kink specific events (if you’re interested in having me, check out ShannaKatz.com for more info!)

*Finish at least one of the 4 books I’m currently working on and get it ready for publication

*Get more sex coaching/relationship counseling clients, both face to face and via skype.

*Move back to Colorado with Q and our kitties

*Help my mother get her house packed and ready for sale in 2012

*Have a fabulous queer celebration of love/wedding to the love of my life in October without going into any debt

*Make enough money to finally pay off medical 2008 and 2009 medical bills, so I can finally work towards paying my student loans

*Get an Njoy Eleven. No, seriously. It’s a goal. And heck, I really want a Spareparts La Palma harness too.

*Once back in CO, join a gym with both recumbant bikes and a pool so I can work on getting more cardio in. If I lose a little weight to where I was, I know my knees will feel better.

They are goals of sorts, but much more year-long and less number specific. I find that when I set goals like “lose 10 lbs by _____” or “make _____ money” or “get in touch with ________ friends,” I am less likely to follow through than when they are life changes.

Best of luck to everyone in the new year!

Essin’ Em

Date: January 28th 7pm-ish to January 29th 10am-ish

Location: The RACK Room in Denver

First and foremost: This is a “girls”-only event, and since the ladies of the RACK room believe strongly in gender inclusion, “girls-only” is not limited to girls born with a vagina. Transfolk, gender queer people, and anyone else who identifies in the realm of girl or grrl or woman or womin or womyn will be welcome. All orientations welcome!

Cost: $10 (to cover space rental)

This is going to be a super fun, inclusive night of both kinky and vanilla fun, from games to play time, gift exchanges to lots of munchies. 18+ ONLY, as both kinky and sexual play will be allowed. That being said, lets have a great night of kinky, naughty fun girls!

Everyone that is coming should bring:
A DISH: This is a potluck! bring deserts, a drink, anything sleepover-y! Liquor will be allowed, but if you are going to drink, please do not play, or wait until after you play to drink. This event is open to those under 21, but they are NOT allowed to drink. Sorry gals, that’s the way it has to be!

A sleeping bag or blankets

A GIFT: We will be playing fairy godmother! Bring a small gift (or gift bag) of LESS than $20. Please do not have any particular person in mind as we will probably be white-elephanting gifts!

A movie or music if you are so inclined. This does NOT mean Sex and the City

Your imagination! We will be playing a plethora of games both kinky and vanilla. If you have ideas for games, bring those!

Your toy bag. If you would like to play, then bring toys to do so!

A stuffed animal and some rope (if you have it). There will be a competition during the night (for bear bondage/stuffy shibari)!

A change of clothes — this party ends at 10am Saturday morning! Make sure to bring something to change into, a maybe a towel or two for those of us that enjoy communal showers with the kinky girls in our lives ;)

If interested and needing directions to the RACK room, please contact Shanna or Mistress Saskia via FB or shannakatz @ gmail dot com or DaSozz at aol dot com.