Sexuality Happens

Looking at my history, pre F and pre Q, I’ve realized that for the most part, I don’t have one night stands very often; I have two-night stands. And you know what? I find that I like the two night stands much better than one nighters.

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

I just found out this past week that one of my pictures has been selected to be part of the 2011 (New York) Sex Blogger Calendar. Unline in previous years that featured only NYC bloggers, this year they did a model search that was national…and models this year include people from CA, WA, AZ, and more! Way to represent.

I’m only one of many sexy and awesome bloggers who will be on the calendar.  See the list here. (Did I mention Jiz Lee and Nina Hartley are also models?!?!)

What is this calendar for?  It’s a fundraiser. In the past, proceedes have gone to many groups, most towards Sex Worker Awareness and Advocacy.  This year, they go to the Woodhull Foundation in the pursuit of sexual freedom.

Why is this important? Because we all rely on having sexual freedom, regardless of whether your monogamous or poly, kinky or not, queer, straight or something else. The fact that there are still states that have laws criminalizing the purchase and/or sale of vibrators, and laws regarding sodomy (did you know in many states, blow jobs and cunnilingus are technically illegal, although these laws aren’t often used to prosecute people). Because lots of students are graduating high school having never heard of a condom, none the less a dam. Because queer youth have an incredibly high suicide rate, and represent more than 25% of homeless youth, despite being 10% of the population. Because people are hated on for expressing their sexuality (what they wear, how they act, holding hands down the street). Because everyone should have the right to be free to be who they are, without fear of intolerence, opression, legal reprocussions, etc.

Sexual freedom affects you when you go to buy contraception/birth control (hormonal, condoms, etc). Sexual freedom affects you when you place your relationship status or “interested in” on facebook. Sexual freedom affects you when you choose to get married or not, or want to get married, but legally can’t. Sexual freedom affects you when your insurance won’t cover a presecription related to sexual health (BC, for STIs, vulvar pain disorders, etc). Sexual freedom affects you when your child’s school refuses to teach them anatomy or even basic safer sex. Sexual freedom affects you when you feel like to have to cover up a facet of yourself.

We HAVE to protect sexual freedom, as it affects each and everyone of us. Without groups like Woodhull and the NCSF, you probably wouldn’t even be able to read this blog.

What can you do? Soon, you’ll be able to purchase days on the calendar. Your birthday, your favorite masturbation day, your blogiversary, your lover’s birthday, the day you adopted your pet, whatever day you’d like. They’re incredibly cheap, and a great way to both support sexual freedom AND advertise yourself/your blog/celebrate life at the same time.  Then, come this fall, you should buy a calendar (and maybe one for each friend?), and possibly even come to the calendar release party in NYC October 1st to meet all the models (including Jiz Lee and Nina Hartley!), get them to sign their page, meet bloggers and educators, and more.

But for now, hold tight, and just think for a moment what sexual freedom means to you. I smell a contest coming up!

-Essin’ Em

I saw a copy of this painting in a local art gallery in Scottsdale.  It’s called the Chameleon, by an artist name Lumbars.

I love it. I want it in my house. No way I have the thousands of dollars to buy a re-production of it.  But they were kind enough to send me a small Jpg so I could look at it.

I think I like it because it brings together the outside and the inside, the self and the projection that you give to others.

This chameleon seems to embody sexuality and energy and beauty and self. 

What do you see?

-Essin’ Em

My friend Maren Bergeson (who doesn’t yet have a website, but is AWESOME) designed me this awesome piece (above) for promoting safer sex. If you like it, feel free to repost it. If you think it’s hilarious, you can get it on t-shirts, tote bags and more on my cafe press site.

I’m a big fan of safer sex, and I love that I now have a super fantabulous and awesome way to promote it.

Thanks Maren, for your super fanabulous and ridiculously awesome (and a little silly) design skillz. Oh yes, with a Z.

-Essin’ Em

Hey all!

As you may remember, I was working (and still am) on an anthology about sexuality and disability, tentatively titled Sexual Ability. I posted a Call for Submissions, I had people repost it, but got very few essays.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. Similar anthology calls were getting dozens if not more pieces submitted. I’d made sure to mirror mine in a very professional, academic way, covering many of the topics, and all of the requirements.

And a few months back, a message I got on FetLife answered my question. And I feel so stupid for having not realized this.

Because of the subject matter, I was screwing myself over. I wanted people who had disabilites to write about their struggles with them, and how it was sometimes difficult fitting sexuality into their lives…in an academic way, with lots of thoughts and edits and _____.

There are many problems with this. First of all, it was a classist call. Why? Because not everyone has the background and/or ability to write an academically styled essay. If you didn’t have the opportunity to go to college (none the less grad school), how would you even know where to get started?

And secondly, I’m asking people for who (in some case) they may get completely drained just getting to the kitchen to put forth a huge amount of thought and effort. How unfair is that?

So I re-examined, re-looked at my concept, and have decided to do a survey of people with disabilities and their partners, where they can just fill in a sheet of questions when they feel up to it, as much or as little in the way of answers as they’d like. And then I will put this information I gather in this informal qualitative survey and put it together into a book celebrating sexuality and dis/ability. Thank you to Tristan Taormino for her suggestions on survey length, approaching people, etc.

So without any more rigamorale, here is the Sexually Able Call for Participants. Please feel free to re-post anywhere and everywhere. I’d love to get not only a large number of responses, but also a very diverse one.

-Essin’ Em

This is a repost from ShannaKatz.com for the most part. For those who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I’m heading to San Francisco this week. Q will be at a higher ed conference, and I’m going to put on some classes/workshops, as well as meet up with some of my favorite sex positive people.

Hope to see you there!

-Essin’ Em

I’m heading out to one of my favorite cities this week; beautiful San Francisco. While out there, I’ll be presenting not one, not two, not even three, but four classes/workshops AND I’ll be reading erotica with the lovely Rita Seagrave and dashing Patrick Califia.

What’s the 411 on what’s going on? Well, you can always check my schedule, but I’ll break it down for you here as well.

February 25th – I’ll be at the Center for Sex and Culture talking about Relationship Mapping and Poly 101. Click here to get more info.

February 26th – I’ll be presening my famous Vaginal Fisting for One and All at the CSC. Click here to get more info.

February 27th – Today is a busy day, as I’m part of Sizzle at Femina Potens. At 2pm, I’m talking about BDSM 101 (click here for info/tickets). At 4pm, I’m presenting Sexability, about sex and dis/ability (click here for info/tickets). Then at 8pm, I’m reading erotica (click here to get info/tickets).

There you go folks; 5 opportunities to come learn, chat, grown and talk about sex with me. I’ll be available after each class/workshop to talk more one and one, and I certainly hope to see many of you (of those in the Bay Area) at one or more of these events!

Since moving to Arizona, I’ve tried to get involved in many communities, including multiple facets of the kink community here in Phoenix.  Within the first two weeks, we’d joined three groups, been to a kink carnival and orientation, and a women only play party, not to mention a munch or two. I tried to meet people, to make things work, to fit in.

While we made a few select friends, for the most part, we didn’t fit. There are very few queer identified people out and about to start, and even less in the kink community. In several groups, we’re the only queer identified couple.  At the women’s only event, I received a little bit of femme bashing, and Q felt incredibly out of place. And queerness aside, we felt very out of place because we not attach a D/s dynamic to our relationship, and it seems as though almost everyone here is very staunchly identified as top or bottom, Dom(me) or sub, and we don’t.  We don’t even identify as switches.  While occasionally she’ll call me Mistress during sex, or I’ll call her Sir while all tied up, we don’t play with power much. We’re just kinky, and that doesn’t seem to be an option.

I decided to start a new group here; AlternaKink. For those of us who don’t play within the typical power structure of BDSM, those who are queer or have different gender presentations and don’t feel comfortable in the current spaces, for those who like to laugh while playing, and who are alternative.

And cue the storm of “oh my god, you’re a horrible person, you’re not community oriented, you’re fracturing the community.”  Never mind that I specifically noted that I respected the other groups, planned to stay of member of them, and was just trying to create a safe space and additional options.  There aren’t even parties every weekend here, none the less a choice of “should we go here, or here.”

Apparently, everytime someone has tried to start another group here, they’ve been shouted down, told that they’re community wreckers, and been sabotaged in a variety of ways. Well, that actually comes after the guilt trip; I had comments, messages and wall posts telling me that the current (and only) public dungeon in Phoenix IS a safe space, is queer friendly, has no problems, and that I should just shut the fuck up (essentially). Then, there where the offers of having my new group meet at and rent space from the current (and only) public dungeon.  Why branch out? Stay here, with this dungeon, in the community. Don’t do your own thing. Don’t create a space. Here, come, drink the kool aid.

Please don’t tell me a space is safe if I don’t feel safe there. If I, who am stubborn and annoying and go out of my way to meet people, feel uncomfortable, judged, and unwelcome, don’t tell me that is invalid. If when I suggest going to a play party, my partner tells me she does not feel comfortable going there, do not tell me that I’m just “making things up” or “haven’t tried.”

Communities thrive when there are lots of branches of the same tree. In this anaology, the tree is kink. If there is only one big branch weighing down the whole tree (said public dungeon), nothing new grows, nothing thrives, and eventually, the tree falls over and dies.  If there are lots of groups, that create new opportunities and spaces (both physical and conceptual), their is constant growth, and the tree continues to grow and thrive over time. New buds come (new members joining the community), old buds bloom, and everything is well and good. I can be a member of and support a community by creating a new place for people who feel they don’t fit in the old one.

Sometimes I meet people who have been to one kink event, and hated it. They don’t want to go back because they don’t identify as D/s, or as part of a leather family, or because they got stared at for having full sleeves, or short hair cuts, or for appearing gender queer.  Instead of just telling these people (myself included) to fuck off and kick them to the curb, why not create a new space in the community, and welcome them with open arms.  While they may not be on the same main branch of the tree, they are at least IN the community, instead of feeling like outsiders.

I know, I’ve set myself up for a lot of crap coming my way. Yes, it’ll be a struggle. But our first coffee/tea meet up is tomorrow, and I have hope.

Why? Because I WANT to be part of this community. I don’t want to feel like I don’t fit in. I want to grow and change and have fun and play and light people on fire and beat them up, and hope is what makes change happen.

Lots of people have been asking me about how my new job at Fascinations as their Resident Sex Educator and Online Media Specialist is going. The answer? Just swimmingly.  As you can see above, they got our sex ed department a full sized vulva puppet, who we’ve named Vivian the Vivacious Vulva. Side note: a reader bought me a mini vulva puppet, who is ADORABLE, and who I’ve named Veronica, for when I do my own sex ed classes.

Anyways, the above picture is at a Let’s Talk Sex open house. We’ve been doing some sex ed classes, with Tristan Taormino and Oh Meghan, and are really looking to expand this spring.  We’ve got a whole list of awesome educators that I can’t tell you about till they’re confirmed, but it’s going to be super cool.

Obviously, I went to Vegas for the AEE and AVNs.  It was awesome. But we’ve already talked about that.  Let’s talk about new things.

We’ve stopped selling anal eaze, shrink creams and numbing balms on our site. You can read about it here.  Taking it out of stores will be a longer process that involves educating the customer, but we’re on that too.

We’ll be working with Sex 2.0 on sponsorship of this awesome event.

We’ll be doing video reviews on our blog.

We’re sending out other items to be reviewed and or given away on other blogs.

We’re consistantly rocking out on our facebook and twitter, including giveaways.

In many of our stores, we now carry Good Releasing titles, and will have them online soon!

Soon, we’ll have an awesome new affiliate program where we’ll have a 30% commission payout! (info coming on that).

We’ve brought some great sex education writers on board as well.

I got to go give an awesome safer sex/general sexuality talk to a dorm on the ASU campus…including tons of free condoms, lube, some dams, and toy giveways.

I also got to go with Q (not pictured obviously) to the Arizona Fetish Ball, as seen below:

Plus, we’re giving members of local kink organizations in AZ and CO 10% off of all in store purchases.

Yeah. While the whole getting up ridiculously early to get to work thing is frustrating (my ideal work schedule; 10am-7pm), I do love this job, and I’m so excited about the change we’re enacting at FunLove.com.

-Essin’ Em

Photo Credit: Hawksdream

To those of you who may have missed the multiple but sometimes not attention grabbing memos, I am, when not writing under this pen name, a fabulous Sexuality Educator and fisting faciliator and all that jazz.

In order to find out where I’m going to put on classes/workshops/trainings,etc, to hire me to teach/consult/train/lecture/etc, to learn about me, to find out about sex coaching I can provide, to contact me regarding sexuality education, etc…

I’d like to present the new, and oh so improved (thanks to the lovely AAG!), and accented with leopard print (of course!),

www.ShannaKatz.com

That is all. Please enjoy. I have some blog posts there (more educations/news based/informative) than the ones on here, I have my schedule, contact info, and so on.  Have fun, and enjoy your Saturday.

The lovely Thursday’s Child posed a question to me on my formspring the other day. Well, a few weeks back. It took me a while to answer, because I really wanted to figure out how to say what I meant.

And now I want to share it with you.  This was her question:

How has coming out in public as Essin’ Em affected both your personal and public life? Would you encourage other sex bloggers to come out and live openly as you do?

And this was my answer:

I’ve been very lucky.  And some of my luck was lucky (accepting friends/family, finding jobs I like within the adult industry, etc), and some of it was determination/stupidity (I am determined to make things I care about and find important acceptable enough for people to be able to talk about, and I don’t really give a flying moose’s ass if people don’t like me because I’m sex positive).

That said, sometimes it’s hard. When I broke up with F, I lost some readers that were her real life friends. But I don’t write for readers per se, so it was ok.  Conversely, when Q and I started getting serious, she asked me to take my blog link off of networked blogs on Facebook (it would post new content daily) because she didn’t want her friends reading about the sex we had. Now that Essin’ Em and Shanna K are much more synonymous, many of them have found my blog anyways. So Q and I talked, and she’s ok with that happening…but I can’t put it on FB now, cause I’m connected to her mother.

I understand that not everyone has the ability to “come out” as I have. Not everyone has a job that reveres (or even understands) their sexuality background. Some people have jobs that would fire them.  Some people have families that might reject them or judge them (AAG has had this issue). There are many reasons not to.

However, I never live in fear of being revealed. I never have to decide who gets to know my real name vs. my pen name. I never worry about what happens if I accidentally sign the wrong name, or if an affiliate program (goddess forbid) gets hacked. I can be proud of all the work I’ve done, including my blog (and as we all know, writing a regular blog IS a lot of work).

For those who can’t come out for safety (mental/emotional/physical) reasons, including family/work/etc, I validate. But to everyone else, if you CAN come out as someone who is sex-positive/queer/kinky/poly/etc, as someone who enjoys sexuality, as someone who talks about it in a non hush-hush way, then please do. The world needs to know that people have sex, and enjoy it, and that diversity amongst sexuality is ok.

I have the privilege of being able to “come out.” So I did. It’s hard at times, when I’m trying to protect Q, or when people who might creep me out add me on my Shanna profile (I’ve since taken off more specific location info). But all in all, it’s worth it.

-Essin’ Em