Sexuality Happens

Another picture from my travels in Florida. I was outside lying in the sun (with SPF 100), reading a book, wearing a leopard print (well, snow-leopard print) sundress, enjoying a moment or two of respite from my family, and decided to take a picture while enjoying this moment.

The result, my long legs, leopard print and a lovely memory of a quiet moment.

Happy Half Nekkid Thursday!

-Essin’ Em

Here is a picture of me on the hotel balcony in Florida…can you tell I was avoiding my family by spending lots of time reading on the balcony, out by the pool, or on the beach? In fact, I finished all 700+ pages of Sherlock Homles, the complete works, volume 2 while there.

So here you see the beach, and the park, and my brilliant left hand, giving you a thumbs up from Palm Beach. Because despite all the drama and family issues of this trip, I really do enjoy spending time reading, and near/in water (odd, being that I’m a fire sign and all…hmmm). You can also see my daily, more utilitarian (but still very pretty) black and silve chain mail engagement bracelet that I’ve gotten to wear on a much more daily basis.

So happy HNT to everyone, and I hope that everyone is having a little bit of a thumbs up in their life as of late,

-Essin’ Em

This is part of my 30 Days of Letters endevor. This is supposed to be a letter to your dreams.  I didn’t know if they meant like dreams you have at night (which I have been having some freaking crazy ones as of late), or dreams like your hopes and goals. I decided to go with the latter.

Dear Dreams…

It’s so interesting how you’ve changed over time. When I was five, I wanted nothing more in the world to be an archaeologist, like Indiana Jones. Then, it was a vet. When I got to high school, I decided I wanted to be a counselor for gifted children, and went into college expecting to do so. Somewhere in there, I discovered sex ed, and dreamed of working for Planned Parenthood, which brought me to grad school. From there, I fell into the world Feminist Porn and Porn for Women, and then into the world of sex toys. I wanted to be a feminist pornographer/sex toy shop owner with a studio/dungeon in the basement.

And now? I’m not sure. I am a sex educator, I am a feminist pornographer, I am a blogger, I am a writer, I am a reviewer, I am a marketer. I’m not sure what direction the tide will take me next; things are always changing in life, and it seems even more so in the sexuality field.

I had dreams of living in Europe…not likely with my three cats and partner now (although a long term visit may be in order). I had dreams of owning a house, which I almost did back in Philly. Now $15,000 of medical debt is going to push that one to the back burner for a while.

I have dreams of being able to easily walk up stairs, and maybe go for a jog. A realistic dream in the long run perhaps, but very expensive and time consuming and difficult to find a doctor who will do knee replacements on someone this young. This dream seems like a more long term one.

So for now, as I look at it, my dreams are:

*Getting out of the epic amount of debt Q and I share

*Moving back to Colorado by May 2011

*Celebrating our love with a wedding in October 2011

*Speaking at more colleges and universities (long term – be as cool as Tristan and Ducky and Nina Hartley and Midori and Megan Andelloux and the rest of the heavy hitters of sex ed)

*Traveling with Q to Europe – she’s never been, and I miss it badly

*Eventually owning our own home (10 years?)

*In the next 10 years, owning a Hybrid

*Add more states to my “I’ve been there!” list

*Try more cupcakeries and vegetarian restuarants across the US

*Figure out what to do about further education. I always thought that I’d want a PhD, need a PhD, have no other plan than to finally get my doctorate. Now I’m not sure.

*Meet many more amazing people, both online and in real life

*Live an outstanding, crazy and fulfilling life with Q and our kitties

*Enact change and fight for social justice and equality.

Dreams, I will try my best to reach for you, and honor you, but I don’t want to be so specific anymore. I want more of a concept and less of the exact science. I want to dream big, and aim in many directions. Thank you dreams, for being there, for changing with me, for helping me grown.

-Essin’ Em

This picture was taken on the balcony of my hotel room while in Florida last week.  It was just so nice and lovely out (aside from the mosquitos, and I have the bites to prove it!), and it felt good to sit out on the balcony and read.

I’ve had many issues with my legs, from knee problems to torn tendons in my ankles, and even issues fitting into boots due to ballet, figure skating and derby calves. However, I’m learning to love my legs (my new tattoo is helping) and even tolerate my feet. This pictures is just a step in the right direction, don’t you think?

Happy half nekkid Thursday!

-Essin’ Em

I’m back. I’m alive, but barely. It was an emotional roller coaster of a trip. For those of you that follow me on Twitter or Facebook, thank you for putting up with the drama.  

Above is a picture I took from my hotel room’s balcony of the beautiful beach. I spent all of 1.5-2 hours on it over 5 days.

Highlights of what happened:

*My aunt’s partner is ok. She’s recovering from the double mastectomy and reconstruction. My aunt is not a naturally good caretaker, so a lot of that fell to us as far as getting pudding cups for her to eat, encouraging icing, keeping my aunt from leaving her drugged up partner alone to go to dinner with us, etc.

*My grandfather does know I’m a “lesbian.” I think my aunt blames myself, and the Amelia Erhardt barbie she gave me when I was little. Despite him knowing about this, I’ve been discourage from both my aunt and my grandfather from talking about Q. Needless to say, he will not be coming to the wedding.

*My sister and mother clearly dislike me. At one point, my sister directly told me that my presence makes her life miserable.  10 minutes later, she asked for advice on shoes. They have so normalized their dislike of me that it no longer interrupts their flow when they tell me such things.

*I had amazing food on the trip. Seasons 52 (a restaurant) is AMAZING, as was the Bruschetta with Goat Cheese Creme Brulee I got at O’Gradys in Delray Beach.

*My grandfathers partner/common law wife is mentally and emotionally abusive. To the point where he is scared to go home, but more scared to be late getting home. I don’t know what I can do about this.

*I don’t think my family recognizes my disability, particularly as far as needing to take my meds regularly, and with food.

*I did find two nice cardigans for cheap at TJMaxxx, and bought my sister an outrageously expensive purse for her birthday.

*I finished all 700 pages of the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2.

*I only cried 3 times in 5 days.

*I experienced a horrible case of disability discrimination from a Southwest Airlines gate attendant.  They’ve always been very disability aware, and I filed a complaint. I’m interested to see their response.

*I will not see my family (mother/sister) again until either January or next summer, and my aunt/her partner/my grandfather until next summer.  Will there be phone/email fights? Yes. But will I feel like I’m the worst person in the world for being myself? Not again until January or the summer.

That’s all. Happy to be home with Q and the kitties.

-Essin’ Em

Today, I fly out to Florida to visit my grandfather, my aunt, and her partner. It’s going to be a very interesting trip. Why? Well, for a few reasons.

1. Sometimes my mother is cool, politically active, and involved. Sometimes, she makes me cry and has chosen to not support me in pretty much anything (work, school, medical issues, moving to other states) I do/have done over the past few years. Sometimes, I worry about her health (she’s in her 60s, often tells me the same thing 3-4 times, forgets things, and has some medical issues). It’s an interesting relationship dynamic. We haven’t been close ever, but much less since my father died, and then since I went to grad school in 2006.

2. My sister and I also have an interesting relationship. It can sometimes be fine, other times very rocky, but I don’t know if it’s ever been defined as a “good” relationship. We’ve started saying “I love you” on the phone for the first time this year. We’re sharing a room.

3. My aunt’s partner is having a double masectomy and reconstructive surgery for an aggressive tumor the day before we get there. My aunt is a wreck, and keeps apologizing for messing up our trip. I keep explaining that this is what family does, and we’re happy to be able to help.

4. Said aunt is the one who, when I emailed her that Q and I were engaged, called my mother and told her we shouldn’t rub it in people’s faces, and that our relationship/sexuality needed to be a private thing. Very very very hurtful, and bit unexpected. That said, I think her partner’s illness is making her more open to our open-ness.

5. Despite me breaking down and using the term girlfriend (rather than the preferred “partner”) to refer to Q, I don’t think my grandfather understands that Q and I are dating/fucking/together. He may still think we’re roommates. I plan to explain our relationship as “just like my aunt and her partner” and see how that goes.

6. My grandfather’s current partner (my grandmother died before I was born) is emotionally and mentally abusive. And she refuses to let my aunt in my grandfather’s condo. So all interaction with us + aunt + grandfather takes place in restautants or our hotel.

So as you can see, while most people would be excited about a trip to Florida for four days, and find it relaxing, this is just going to be a ball of stress, diffusion and care-taking for me. I’d really love a real vacation, but for now, this is what I’ve got. 

Wish me luck. I’ll be around on Twitter for sure, so keep in touch there!

-Essin’ Em

Have you heard yet?

I’d like to let you know a little about Momentum Conference 2011 — a conference discussing sexuality, feminism, new media and much more. Created by Tied Up Events and the community at large, and sponsored by Fascinations, it’s taking place in Washington, DC, April 1-3 2011 and should be absolutely amazing!

Interested? Read below and check out MomentumCon.com for more information, to apply to present, and much more! I’ve already submitted my application, and I know others have too; it’s going to be an AMAZING conference!

-Essin’ Em

The phenomenal growth of online communication has given rise to an amazing amount of sharing, learning and experimenting with different expressions of sexuality, relationships and feminism. MOMENTUM provides a safe place to listen, discuss and learn about the ways the web has impacted our sexuality without the fear of reprisal or shaming. It is a space for acceptance and appreciation of diversity, including for those in the LGBTQ, sex-work, BDSM and non-monogamous communities.

During MOMENTUM we will discuss ways to bridge the baffling dichotomies our culture creates around sexuality. While on one hand we have unprecedented sexual freedom, on the other we continue to police sexuality with a frightening vigor. Abortion laws, restrictions on gay marriage, abstinence programs, medicalization of sex, fear of pornography and prosecutions for teenage sexting are examples of one side of the spectrum. The discomfort that strives to make us keep our sexuality hidden conflicts with the use of sex — especially the female body — to sell everything from food to cars to “performance enhancing” products.

Each participant will leave the conference with new perspectives, new connections, and a plan to carry the MOMENTUM forward into 2011 and beyond.

Another post-Thunder in the Mountains picture from my night as Super Queer, showing off both my rainbow-tastic socks (bought while checking out the pier in San Francisco with the lovely Margaret and her family) and amazing rainbow zebra print shoes (apparently, they are called Zebracorns, due to the rainbow zebra unicorn inside, and come in both flats, which I am wearing, and heels).  I was so glad that the socks fit over my giant swelled up legs, post SynVisc injections, and that they continue to make cute shoes in flats, as I’m not longer allowed to wear heels for many medical reasons.

I have thoughts on rainbows; I don’t quite get why some people are so obsessed with wearing them for the queer/LGBTQ movement, and why some people are so incredibly against them as a symbol of this same movement. I have my own thoughts on them, but for now, I wear them where I am Super Queer, the queerest super hero/moose topping machine of them all.

And with that, Happy HNT to you all!

-Essin’ Em

A Single Tail

I have tried a whole bunch of different fairly “traditional” kink stuff. I mean, the stuff you see being bandied about on an average dungeon play night. I’ve bottomed to almost everything you see on a regular basis, and learned to top on most of these things too. I’m talking rope play, bondage, fire play, violet wand play, flogging, TENS unit e-stim, spanking, punching, caning, piercing/needle play, service, fisting, orgasm control, humiliation play, paddling, rope suspension (haven’t topped with this), etc. 

One of the few things that I see on a fairly regular basis, that I have never ever tried, is a single tail. They scare the hell out of me. I mean, you spank someone wrong, and they’re going to have trouble sitting for a week (and some sore ligaments).  You humiliate someone in a way they don’t like, and you probably never play again (and they made need therapy).  But you fuck up with a single tail? You can literally flay someone in half and kill them.  And there are a lot of people in the kink scene who say they know what they’re doing, and don’t; that is how many many many accidents of all types of play happen.

For a while, my moose was dating someone who was actually pretty good with single tail, whipping in general. He had a lot of them, he’d gone through training by many people (including members of my kink family), and lots of people I trusted also trusted him. I told him more than once that if I ever decided to try out a single tail, he’d be the one I’d let do it to me.  And then he did somethings during his relationship with Evey that I didn’t find particularly trust worthy, or ethical, and decided that I was never going to let him touch me with his whips.  This was an activity where I needed a lot of trust, and I just didn’t have it in him.

So I’d put single tails out of my mind for a good, long time. I decided I wasn’t anti-single tails, just anti single tails for *me.*

And then, at Thunder in the Mountains, I watched an amazing single tail scene. It wasn’t about pain, or leaving bloody marks; no no. It was almost a dance. This woman, who I’d never seen before, and probably might not have noticed in any other context, was dancing, almost in an entrancing manner, as her partner single tailed her. She stared him in the eyes as she walked towards him, making him back up. Then she swayed into the hits, almost rhythmically taking them. She danced as he hit her, and she made him dance as he lashed out against her. While not particularly attracted to either member of this couple, nor to the type of play at hand, I thought it was one of the most beautiful scenes I’d ever watched, almost a dance rather than a scene.

Does this mean I’m ready for someone to bust my single tail virginity? Not yet, no. But it certainly put it in a whole new perspective for me.

-Essin’ Em

When I got into Phoenix after my trip to Denver, I could not walk on my own accord, and had to rock the airport wheelchair not only to the baggage claim, but even to my car. When I woke up on Sunday morning at the hotel, my left knee was literally the size of a melon; a cantaloupe to be more specific. I couldn’t bend it.

Luckily, at Thunder was a friend who happened to be a nurse. I bought some vet wrap for a non-kinky purpose; I used it for compression. When I got “home” to Phoenix, we had a quick bit to eat, and then headed to a local ER. The one my friend recommended was more than 35 minutes away, so we chose one in a hoity-toity area near us, assuming that because the area was rick, they’d be able to hired decent staff.

Boy, was I wrong.  Not only did they not have anyone on staff to help me with a wheel chair, but once I waited the few requisite hours to make it to triage, the nurse there not only had no idea what synvisc (my injections) were, but couldn’t seem to figure out how to put my sulfa drug allergy in my chart. Sulfa drug allergies are incredibly common, yet she had no clue, and finally gave up, just writing it on my allergy bracelet. It got worse from there. 

We were put in a room with no pillows (forget my neck — I wanted to elevate my leg), no ice pack, and no way to press a button or get ahold of a nurse. Once the nurse finally came in, he rattled off a list of things it could be, and possible solutions. Not so with the doctor — he gave me more percocet (despite the fact that I told him I already was ON narcotics to handle the pain), and said that if I didn’t have a blood clot (which I didn’t), then it wasn’t an emergency, and it didn’t matter. No offer to drain my knee, or deal with the fact my foot was as large as my calf.  In fact, when I pointed out I thought my allergic reaction to the red in my tattoo might be infected, he told me “no, that’s just the ink spreading out.” I had circles of reddish-purple irritation ONLY around the red leaves, yet his brilliant answer was that the ink was spreading out. Right.

Finally, after the ultra sounds (negative for blood clots), and waiting for another 3 hours with no nurse checking on me (no one ever asked me my pain level — every ER I’ve been to has always asked CONSTANTLY where I’d am with pain), and Q having to ask not once, not twice, but three times just to get a pillow for my knee, I was sent home. I asked the doctor if he’d be willing to drain my knee, or put some sort of anti inflammatory in it, but he looked me in the eye and told me it wouldn’t help. He told me doctor’s don’t like to touch other doctor’s patients. I pointed out my doctor wasn’t in state, so he told me to find a surgeon here, but I’d have a hard time.  I explained back to him what he just said, and asked him to drain my knee, PLEASE. I reminded him that it took forever to get into an ortho as a new patient. He told me later on that he talked to an ortho in the ER, and he had promised to get me in his office in the next few days, and that he was “obligated” by the referral to see me.

I found out the next day when I called that he was under absolutely no obligation to see me, at any point, and that his next “new patient” appointment was more than two weeks away, and that ER doctors (at this ER) lie to their patients about this all the time.

I caused a stink. I explained that this wasn’t just random knee pain, but that I couldn’t even bend my knee enough to sit down on the toilet, that I couldn’t function at all. I called my ortho in Denver; mooses bless him. He was in surgery, but his PA called me back right away, and he texted her from outside the OR with his suggestions (draining/aspirating the knee, and injecting it with cortisone to alliviate the swelling). The PA had the ortho tech call SynVisc to see if this was a common reaction, and they called me back to let me know it was unusual (especially in one knee) but not unheard of. And finally, I snuck in on Tuesday to the Ortho in AZ.

What did he do? He looked at it for about 15 seconds, told me the only thing for immediate relief was to drain it right away, and inject it with cortisone. Surprise. When he drained it, he literally drained almost a full cup of fluid from it.  You know those cups you have to pee in? Full of fluid of grossness from my knee.

Suddenly, I could actually bend my knee. It still hurt, and I still needed the cane, but I could actually put a slight amount of pressure on it without it giving out on me. 

I was so angry at that ER doctor. And then I found out that I knew someone who’d gone to the same ER; he had a blood clot, and they sent him home because it was a “small one.” Two days later, he had an embolism in his lungs. So I guess that not having a cup of fluid drained from my leg isn’t that big of a deal, because it couldn’t have killed me.

But this whole experience made me question how Q viewed me, whether she’d given up, whether she’d finally realized how difficult it was going to be living and dealing with someone like me.  But that’s a whole new post.

-Essin’ Em