Sexuality Happens

Holy Guacamole has life been crazy lately!

My partner Q and I moved back to Colorado, a few months earlier than originally planned due to Q’s new job, and it is fucking fantabulous…at least the six days I was able to spend there before I headed out of Providence, RI to speak at the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (on Ethical Pornography), and now at Brown University (On Body Positivity and Autonomy as Sexual Freedom and then with Megan Andelloux on Being a Sex Educator in the Real World). I’m then back in Denver for about 48 hours, if that, before I head out to Portland to teach at KinkFest (Safer Sex for Kinksters, Poly and Kink, and Communication in a Kink Context). Then thank the mooses, I’m back for about 10 days before heading to Washington, DC to speak at Momentum (on Intersections of Identities and on 3 panels about ethics and blogging, feminism in the adult industry and public vs privacy in blogging) and Sugar (Sex positions for EVERYONE!). Phew.  Then it’s back to AZ twice in April for a class and Phoenix Pride, and then to San Diego for AASECT. Finally, I get to chill a bit in May, really get to re-settle into Colorado, work a little more on planning the wedding, etc.

In the midst of all this, I also had to help my mother put down our family cat of eleven years, the wonderful and caring Anastasia, who was a rescue cat from a dementia patient who was abusing her back in 2000. It was incredibly tough, especially with all of the emotions running high still from the move, some of the body pain I’m dealing with, and then traipsing across the country…

Anyways, I’ll try to be better about putting more posts up here, and you can also check out thoughts, Q and A, upcoming workshops and more on ShannaKatz.com.

-Essin’ Em

Now that Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and that I’m back in the scheme of things (which includes planning for our wedding/celebration of love this October), I have to say that I’m sick and tired of the Love Industry.

What, pray tell, is the Love Industry? It is the capitalism in our society has found that by making people (particularly women, but people in general) feel back about not being in a relationship, not being in a “serious enough” relationship, not having the “perfect wedding” etc, that they will then rush out to spend tons and tons of money on ridiculous things. The worse you make people feel about their relationships (or lack thereof) with others, the more money they will spend.

Look at Valentine’s Day — people spend so much time and energy trying to make sure they have a partner on Valentine’s Day, and then once/if they do, they spend all this money trying to impress their partner and “show their love” by buying outrageous gifts that may or may not even suit their partners tastes. Clearly, every woman in existence wants a diamond necklace, right? I sure as heck don’t.  And then, when people say things like “I don’t think Valentine’s Day is important — I think love should happen year round,” they’re then told that they are just being jealous, petty, wishing they had a partner (or a partner that did better things for them, bought more expensive things, etc) and so on.  And of course, I work in the industry that hops onto this bandwagon — Valentine’s Day is one of our biggest seasons (but at least a vibrator lasts a lot longer than a bouquet of flowers, and can be used together).

This year, I picked up some pre-made food from Whole Foods and we ate it, cause I wasn’t in the mood to cook. Then we watched TV we’d missed, and worked on our duo-presentation for the National Collegiate Leadership Conference. Oh, and drove to the post office to drop off our application for a residence in Denver. Why? Because it was a Monday, and that is what needed to happen that Monday. My best friend and her husband went to Qudoba for dinner, and he wound up buying her a 6-pack of blueberry beer. It had nothing to do with money — they just decided that THAT was what they wanted to do. And that is how it should be.

Don’t even get me started on the wedding industry. Other than the fact that they are totally not queer inclusive (which they need to work on, given all the states passing same-sex marriage and civil unions), but honestly, this industry is vile at times. I keep getting sent wedding magazines, bride magazines, nesting magazines, where the “budget” dresses are one thousand to three thousand bucks. A “budget wedding” apparently comes in between twenty and thirty thousand. a BUDGET WEDDING means keeping it under a grand in my mind. We’re capping ours at $5000, and that includes outfits, locations, food, flowers, DJ, cupcakes, pumpkins for decorating, etc. We’re doing a cheap wedding of sorts, the way we like it (whether or not a burgundy ball dress is traditional, whether or not a DJ with a Rainbow Mohawk is appropriate, etc). But clearly, so many people buy into this fantasy that they are selling, this concept that with out an expensive white dress and prince to sweep you away, that we are nothing. Why? What is it that says this is “right” thing, other than the companies trying to sell it to us in the first place?

As I am one of my own primary partners (I mean, I contribute a lot of time, energy and resources to myself, right?), I’ve bought myself a bouquet of flowers, and a red vase that I love.

I hate the concept that only a lover can give you flowers, chocolates, etc. I spent this weekend on my own with the kitties, delicious food, lovely flowers, and chocolate covered ginger. I miss Q, yes, but I am also responsible for treating myself well and seeing to my own happiness, which occasionally means fresh flowers in the house.

-Essin’ Em

I love my job. A lot.

There are some days I like it less. It is often entirely stressful, it can be frustrating, and working in the field of sex education often leads to me being questioned as an educator, told I’m not enough not a real educator, etc.

However, some days are just wonderful – I realize I’ve changed people’s lives, I’ve helped to save people’s relationships, I’ve helped people to discover things about themselves.

And somedays? Wow.

At my last Let’s Talk Sex workshop in Phoenix, after the class, a young woman came up to me. She looked familiar — I realized that she was a Fascinations Facebook Fan, and commented often, as well as attended classes. She told me that her sister had died in November, and that was why neither of them had been at my November class. She told me how much my updates on social media had meant to her sister, how much she loved attending my classes, reading my facts of the day, etc. She told me, through tears, that she was just hanging in there, but that her sister would have wanted her to tell me how much I had meant to her during her life.

I went home, driving 45 minutes thinking about this. Q was out of town, so I made a cup of tea, tucked myself under the covers with the kitties, and cried.

What I do, what people in my field do, changes lives. Period. We often present to people that we never seen again, never talk to again. Unlinke a college professor, or a therapist, we don’t have a lot of continuity with the people whose lives we touch. But this? Hearing from someone’s family member how much what I did had meant to them? It’s both very heavy and very lightening at the same time.

Sex education remains a difficult field…but things like this? THIS is what keeps me going, every single day, despite the frustration and the tiredness and the being broke and the getting called out and the long days and longer nights. What I do matters.

-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