-Essin’ Em

*Ties (especially gender queer/butch people wearing them)

*Q, especially when dressed up, and properly mohawked

*Eyeglasses

*Lighting

*Massages

*Thunder

*Dark Chocolate

*Ice Cream

*People passionate for social justice

*Corsets/Cinchers

*Gender queer-ness/Gender fuckery

*Other people packing

*The Hitachi Magic Wand

*Duct Tape on my Moose

*Kisses on my neck

*Knives

*Vampire Gloves

*The smell of books (especially old books)

*Black nitrile gloves

*Vaginal Fisting

*Queer Porn

*Introspective Tattoos

*Train rides

*Hotel beds

*Hot tubs

*Pools

*Being submerged

*Snow/rain/fog

*Fire

*Lilac/magnolias/lily of the valley/gladiolas scents

*Leopard print

*Certain music

*Pedicures (this is new, as of last week)

*Having my head pet

*Cuddling

*Grasshoppers (the drink)

*Breasts

I got a message back telling me that I was not “ready” for this group, as clearly I needed “Trans 101.” Why? Because I was sick of men messaging me with cock pictures asking if I wanted to play, so I directed all “bio/cis men” to my pro-domme site, telling them I didn’t have sex outside of my relationship with Q (and porn), and that if they wanted me to beat them up, I’d be happy to oblige. For money.

I purposely used the term bio in this context because most of the people messaging me on FetLife that fell into the cock-picture/play with me group would not understand the term cis or cisgender. I reached out to them where they were at. Apparently, this means I need Trans 101.

Their other complaint? I didn’t write enough about femme being my gender on my profile for it to be true. Clearly, I was just making that up. Because it’s not like I don’t write enough here and on the Femme’s Guide about Femme being a gender, and an identity, and so much more than just the feminine side of the spectrum. I ALSO needed to put it on a social network profile page for it to be true (please note, I don’t write about it on Facebook either. Why? Because I’d rather write about why I’m there, promote my blogs, and then have people come read my thoughts on gender in a blog format, rather than a note on Facebook or FetLife).

What I don’t think this person realized as they spat out hateful words towards me was exactly how much they’d hurt. I don’t identify as trans, no. I also don’t think anyone (trans or otherwise) can master gender. Why? Gender is ever constant, ever evolving. Anyone who said they know everything there is about gender is a liar, because by the time they say that, something else will have changed as people create and develop their own identities.

But for them to tell me I needed Trans 101?  Ouch. I like to think I have a fairly good grasp on trans and gender queer ettiquite, having had trans partners (and currently engaged to a person who identifies as gender queer), and having many friends of ALL different identities. I have personally chatted with Kate Bornstein as I drove her around Phoenix. I have shot for Point of Contact making sure people of all genders (including someone who identifies as a T-girl) were represented. I start the majority of my classes/workshops talking about how not everyone with a vagina is a woman, and not every woman has a vagina, etc. In smaller workshops, I ask everyone their pronoun preference before they begin. I’m teaching a workshop for TRANSform Arizona this fall on Safer Sex for Transfolk and Their Lovers (named as such by the trans organizers of this conference). I was always pointing out the difference between sex and gender, and the need to not make assumptions throughout my grad school program. I read gender theory on a regular basis. I try to change cisgender centric policies wherever I go, including aruging with local coffee shops and restaurants about creating gender neutral bathrooms.

I try to be as much of an ally as I can to ALL members of the queer community – this includes speaking out against biph0bia, validating those who are lesbian or gay identified (rather than queer identified), using my visible feminitity to educate those who might not listen to someone who presents differently, working to change policies/laws/rules to be more gender friendly, etc. For someone to tell me I need to take “Trans 101″ cut me pretty deep.

Should it matter? No. I have plenty of friends of all genders and orientations, and they were quick to tell me when this happened how much they appreciated me. However, after all my work in trying to support the T part of the queer community, and to educate myself and others, and to just be there to listen, it fucking hurts to have someone say that to me. I’m a member of the queer community too, and have just gotten a slap in the face. I, as a Femme, am apparently not queer enough to belong, unless I rub my Femme gender in everyone’s face (rather than just on here and the Femme’s guide).

And to that, I say fuck you. How dare you police my identity? How dare you tell me I’m not good enough? How dare you create a hierarchy of oppression within our minority community? You are doing us all a disservice. 

-Essin’ Em

It’s a busy week; I have a bridesmaid lunch, an orthopedic surgeon’s appointment, a wedding rehearsal dinner, my best friend’s wedding, fondue with Q and my mother, getting a new tattoo on my calf (and Q is getting a new one on her forearm), having dinner and lunches with lots of friends, speaking at the LGBT Center’s Womyn’s circle, holding two employee for Fascinations, teaching a class at SKALES,  visiting all 5 Denver area stores, holding a free workshop on full spectrum sexuality at the Arvada store on Thursday night, meeting with an event director at a hotel to talk about possible wedding plans, and then, a whole weekend at Thunder in the Mountains before heading back to the heat of Arizona.

Looking forward to being home for so long, because Denver still remains home to me in my heart, and Q’s as well. We’ve both been feeling pretty home sick lately. I’ll miss our kitties of course; that’s always the hardest part.

I’ll have internet on and off, but if I’m slow in replying to comments, emails, tweets, etc, please excuse my delay. And if you’re local in Denver, I’d love to see you at one of my classes/workshops/seminars, really!

-Essin’ Em

This week, we’ve got a nice variety of hot and sexy shots from Furry Girl’s newest porn site, Cocksexual. This site features pictures of hot women and trans people strapped on and giving it in the cunt and ass to people of all sexes and genders. From shiny and sparkly to more flesh colored and very realistic cocks, every one is rocking the cock, and those on the receiving end are enjoying giving blow jobs and getting some good old fashioned (and new fashioned) fucking.

Click here to see all of the hot pictures and videos of the Cocksexual models getting it on!

Why?

When you have a one night stand, you only get that night to figure out what your new (and very short term) partner would like, what they enjoy, how the two of you are sexually compatible. When you have a two night stand (two nights of sex fairly close together, although they don’t have to be back to back), you get to have a bit of a learning curve. The first night, you treat like a one night stand; you’ve just met, or perhaps you’ve known each other forever, but it’s your first time having sex. You get to learn a little bit about what this partner likes, what you like them to do to you, what each of your communication styles are, etc. Then, you return for a second night. This time, you know the basics. You know some of these things they like, and don’t like. You know what you can improve on from the last night you spent together. You get to communicate what YOU’D like more of, less off, harder, softer, in a different way.

Then it’s over, like a one night stand. Maybe you’re on vacation, or maybe it’s a two-night doozy with a long time friend that just wouldn’t work as a relationship, or maybe you’re not interested in a long term relationship. Whatever it is, you’ve gotten the thrill and excitement from the concept of having a one night stand, but it’s also likely that you have much better sexual interaction than if you’d just done it for one night.

I had a two night stand with the hot one I met at Dinah Shore…the one who helped me discover both my queerness and femme-ness. 48 hours of what was up until that point the best sex of my life.  We explored by body, I learned how to orgasm with a partner, I learned how much I liked queer sex (and that it was more than just oral and a finger rubbing a clit). By the second night, this person knew my body so well, and I was coming dozens and dozens of times, like I’d never come before. Their learning curve? Ridiculously short.

When I hooked up with C in Philly, the first night was a lot of communication, a lot of talking, and exploring each others’ bodies. While there was sex, it was almost secondary to the connections we were creating. Then, the second night, I fucked her for hours, my last night in Philly, plus lots of hot make out time. Second night, yet again, better than the first.

With K, we played twice before I left Philly; once at the Submit party in New York, and then one day where he had me wear nipple clamps to the art museum, and tried out canes and paddles on me in New Hope. It was fun and light hearted, and far less scary than the first time we played.

When M was in Denver the summer I moved back, we hooked up twice…once, it was everything but sexual activity. Making out and grinding and desire. The next night, hot sex and lots of orgasms, all night long. Two night stand? Definitely a winner.

Then there was L. While we went on a few dates, we only made out/had grope-age twice, and the second time, far more comfortable and easy and enjoyable than the first time.

So I am a fan, a proponent, a supporter of the two night stand, the double hook up, the back to back boogie. I’ve found that it worked incredibly well for me, and like my rules of my manifesto, the two night stand has definitely led to better sex.

-Essin’ Em

This whole project is done by a undergrad student named James, who is running this project to collect pictures of queer bodies, however they may be; butch, femme, boi, grrl, different abilities, different sizes, different gender presentations, etc. Here is a little info from the queer bodies project page about the project:

Queer communities counter, reject, and reinvent ideas of family, home, love and beauty. We try to make spaces for ourselves: for bodies and desires and lives other than those we were taught. Our bodies become our stories of assimilation and resistance and redemption and gender and love. They bear the scars and stretch marks and laugh lines of lives in progress, and I feel such love and pride for each of us, these queer bodies, these people who are so marked.

I want to document the variation and ferocity of queer experience. I don’t want to situate queers in opposition to straight people. This isn’t about them. We do not need to justify our existence. We are people, and that is enough. I want to paint people who are making and working and loving and becoming whole, happy, and healthy. I chose portraits because I know that there is no one person or image that shows the whole of queer experience, it is different for each person. There are only small snippets, pieces of the greater picture, that can be found in each individual queer life.

I’m collecting images of queer people to paint so that I can document some part of queer experience. 

I think this is a brilliant idea, and I highly encourage everyone who is willing, to partcipate and bring more visibility to queer bodies.

-Essin’ Em

Here is my queer body…Photo by Michael Barone

I am a bit sadistic sometimes. Not in the way that you hear/read/see about with serial killers. Not in an evil kind of way (although I do laugh a lot, which might make me seem a little bit more evil). I don’t like hurting people that don’t like being hurt.

When I play with my moose, I like to play rough. I get a little bit more sadistic. Why? Because she makes the most delicious noises when I run my knife across her smooth skin, when I smack my hand across her perfectly formed ass, when I rip the duct tape bonds from her…whenever I do something that I don’t think I’d much like on myself, she makes she squeaky, happy coo-ing noices. She laughs, she smiles, she makes me feel like I am fulfilling her.

When I am with Q, I am a different kind of a sadist. Q doesn’t like pain really, although she occasionally likes her nipples pulled. No, no, I’m much more of a situation sadist with her. Playing with her nipples is a) an instant way of making her horny, but b) is a great way of frustrating her…I like to play with them right before we leave the house, doing it sneakily while we’re out and about, play with her right before we fall asleep. Even though it’s not a pain situation, she makes these delicious moans and squeaks and tries to push me away and we tussle and I love trying to best her. She wins about half the time, I win the other half.

I never really thought of myself as a sadist. I mean, compare me to K, or someone who leaves someone bloody from time with a single tail. No, I’m not in that category.  But that doesn’t *not* make me a sadist per se. I can be sadistic (and very much ENJOY) being sadistic when in the right situation. When I’m teasing Q to the extreme and making her want me and know that she can’t have me at that point in time (because she knows that she can always have me in the end), I feel a rush. When I have my moose in front of me and I’m hitting her or biting her or tickling her, I feel a rush.

I’m not always ready for that side. It’s not always a part of me. It comes and it comes, and a lot of it is based on who I am playing with in that moment in time. Q and Evey (le moose) tend to bring it out in me more than anyone else ever has, and I’m slowly, but surely, learning to embrace this side of myself, this fun, amusing, laughing, fun loving, rush-filled sadistic at times side of me.

How do I find you sexy? Let me count that ways…

*When you open the car door for me, and close it after I’ve eased myself into the seat, I find you to be chivalrously sexy.

*When we lie in bed at nice, and you are the big spoon, holding and protecting me, the little spoon, your whole body up against me, skin on skin, I find you to be comfortingly sexy.

*When you make silly faces with me, or quote Glee and How I Met Your Mother, and our eyes connect, and there is that spark, I find you amusingly sexy.

*When you’re fucking me silly, and I look at you, deep in concentration, a bead or two of sweat rolling down your face, I find you earth shatteringly sexy.

*When I’m fucking you, sliding in and you, making you moan and groan and make those noises I love, I find you just fucking sexy.

*When we cuddle afterwards, and we are just a pile of skin and sweat and shakey-ness, I find you handsomely sexy.

*When you talk to our cats although they were our children, I find you fatherly sexy.

*When you are in my life, you make it so much better from making me food to stroking my hair, from keeping the worst issues at bay and celebrating the best. Everytime I see you, my heart jumps just a little bit. I still get those butterflies in my tummy when I see you in a tie, or you kiss my neck. You are, without a doubt, the sexiest person I know, and when I see you, or hear your voice, or get a text from you, I find you sexy. Always.

You can imagine my surprise when I actually heard back from them. They loved my story, and wanted to know more about me and Q (my partner), and get more pictures of me, and of the two of us. I sent them.

The casting producer seems to really like me, and Q and I were actually getting really excited. However, I had only budgeted $500 for my outfit, and while we could probably save $1000 for it, that was it. The dresses at the store on the show (which is on TLC) start at $1500. Ergo, my budget needs to be $1500-2000 to get to go on the show.

At first, I was like “this is crazy. Spending over a grand on a dress that will only be worn once (or a few times, for costume parties, etc, in my case) is out of control. I guess I just won’t go on the show.” But then everyone I talked to pointed out the importance of having a plus size woman on TV, and a queer woman (with a gender queer presenting partner), on NATIONAL TV.

So I’m going to try to do it. Many people offered to put a few dollars towards the dress. I’m going to use my frequent travel miles to get there, and stay with my partner’s family. So the cost is all the dress. Ergo, I’m trying to raise as much as I can towards the dress, and hope to bring attention both to size diversity and same-sex marriage on national TV.

I just spoke to the producer, and my filming date is June 12th in NYC.

If you’re willing to help me find the perfect red dress, and queer weddings shows on TLC at the same time, and have a couple of bucks lying around, I’d love it if you’d be willing to donate. If not, I completely understand. Just please don’t threaten me (one person on twitter said he’d like to shoot me in the head for being a queer plus size woman trying to get on TV). If it’s $5 or $50 (or $500? *looks around hopefully*), every little bit counts, and I would appreciate it very much. Please don’t donate anonymously — if for some reason this doesn’t go through, I want to make sure everyone gets their money back.

So without further ado, here is the donation button to get a queer, plus size (disable) woman on national TV trying to find her wedding dress. Please, and thank you, and please pass it on if you’re willing.

Thanks,

-Essin’ Em

She wanted to know what that meant, and pointed out we didn’t have a lot of extra money running around (and this was even before I was robbed, which cost us $400+ in glass relacement fees, replacing cards, IDs, the cash stolen, my camera, etc).  It was hard to say what it looked like. It was Dylan Ryan tweeting about her partner bringing her a “almost done with your thesis cake.” It was other people talking about massages before bed, or wildflowers their lovers had picked to cheer them up. I had no easy answer, just that it didn’t have to involve money, just SOMEthing romantic.  Big help I was, I know.

Wednesday, she texted me that she’d been driving all around town looking for a sunshade for me. It’s 90+ degrees in Phoenix, and apparently, it’s still too cool for place to sell sunshades for cars. So she went around, desperately trying to find one.  She couldn’t, so she texted me again, telling me that THIS was why she wasn’t romantic, that THIS was romance FAIL.

But it wasn’t. To me, it was more romantic that she cared enough to try multiple places to find me a damn sunshade, more so even than if she’d found and bought one at the first place she stopped. Romance was the fact that she faced adversity and frustration trying to find something for me that would help make my life better.

Romance was when I woke up to find my car window smashed and much of my life (all in my purse) stolen, and she stayed home from work, calling the insurance and glass companies while I cancelled my credit cards.  It was her lending me money to replace my IDs, and still taking me out for Dining Out For Life that night, because she new how important it was to me.  She told me that this is what anyone would do. I beg to differ. I had an ex (F) who wouldn’t even postpone a weekly kink mentorship for an hour to come comfort me when Athena died. Yet here was Q, my knight in shining armor, helping me fill out the police report, and arranging for my window to be replaced within 3 hours of finding it smashed.

So what IS romance? I don’t know. I feel like I sound like good ol’ Justice Stewart when I say “I know it when I see it,” but it’s true. Romance is what happens when relationship go outside of the head, and trickle back down into the heart, when routine is broken, when someone goes out of their way to show their love for you. It doesn’t have to involve a single cent (although I’m still holding out for a bouquet of black calla lilies one day…for now, I buy myself my own flowers), but it does have to involve heart.

And Q is no Tinman. Her heart is there, is beating, and is plenty big enough for me. And her romance? It’s just my style, even if I don’t quite know what my style is.

What is romance to you?

-Essin’ Em