Sexuality Happens

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.

I did this last year, and think it’s worth re-doing…

-Essin’ Em

I got this idea from the brilliant site Feministing.com. Of course, now that I’m going back to try and find some of their examples of things they could do without, I can’t for the life of me find their posts. Bah, humbug.

Regardless, here is my snarky list o’ the week of things I can do without. They actually aren’t really in any particular order, just as I’ve thought of them.

10. The assumption that the average woman should be a 36-24-26, size 2, 36DD, blonde, etc, what have you. People are beautiful in so many different ways, different sizes, different colors. The average size in America is a 12-14. AVERAGE. Not a 2. 2 is a fine size. So it is 22. Let’s stop being so fucking ridiculous in our expectations and searches for perfection. People of ALL sizes, from 0 on up to 32+ are all beautiful people. The end.

9. The Tea Party movement, and I don’t mean Alice in Wonderland. Some of those people are really scary…like, they make George Bush look like a bedtime story.

8. Straight men who think that they can turn queer women straight. Straight women who thing they can turn queer men straight. Queer women who think they can turn straight women queer. Queer men who think they can turn straight men queer. Monogamous people who think that everyone should be the same. Non-monogamous people who think everyone should be the same. It’s just rude. Kinky people who want to kinkify non-kinky people. In every direction. Why are we so eager to change other people’s identities?

7. Hypocrites. Nuf’ said. They piss me off. A lot.

6. Those who do not recognize their privilege. I understand that you cannot change certain things (race, gender, age, ability, etc), and that you may not *want* to change certain things (class, appearance, etc). However, that does not excuse not recognizing that you HAVE that privilege. Do with it what you will, but at least own it.

5. Laundry. I really hate having to do it. And it takes forever, and I never have enough quarters, and our washer is broken, so I have to carry them to the laundry room, up stairs, and it’s just horrible. If I never had to do it again, I’d be estatic.

4. People who feel like they own the road/bad drivers. You *have* a turn signal. Please use it. Let people in occasionally, especially in heavy traffic, or when their lane is ending. Wave a little instead of flipping people off. Don’t go freaking 20 over, drive the wrong way down one ways, back up the street, drive over medians, etc. Really, it’s easy. Just don’t be a douchehat. Simple as that.

3. Violence as a solution. Violence NEVER has a reason to be the solution. Talk. Go punch a wall. Go have sex. Go eat a pint of ice cream. When I say violence, I mean everything from domestic violence to wars, road rage to genocide. It solves nothing. Period.

2. Spiders. Really. Ugh. I KNOW they eat mosquitos, so I can possibly amend this to “spiders that are inside” or “spiders that are where I are, and/or exist in my personal sphere of life.” But they are terrifying AND dangerous. Especially in Arizona, where we have TARANTULAS.

1. How society drives us to feel better by putting people down. We judge others on their bodies, what they where, what car they drive, where they shop, where they go to school, etc. This tears us apart. We call each other sluts, whores, fat, etc (in non-positive ways). How does taking other people down build us up? And why do we let society control us this way? I do not approve.

What are ten things YOU could do without?

Today, as part of my travels, I will be attending my first ever Folsom Street Fair. It’s like Pride, but for Kinky Peeps, and multiplied by quite a bit. Think people of all genders, orientations, kink roles, and ages (mostly 18+ I believe) taking over good amount of Folsom street in San Francisco, CA. I’ve heard stories, I’ve seen pictures, but I’ve never actually gotten to go there and participate.

Tonight, I’m doing a demo called “Kink Games People Play” at the Venus Tent (women/trans area) at 5pm. If you’ll be there, come say hi.

I’m hoping I get to see Mollena too — she’s one of my favorite San Francisco people, and she’s International Ms Leather, so she’ll be running around being awesome.

I’m a little nervous…sometimes I feel like I’m told that I’m not “kinky enough” because I don’t do nearly as much power play as people. And sometimes, I’ve been uncomfortable in kink settings because they’ve been very heterocentric, cisgender centric and queeraphobic. However, at the very least, I know that will NOT be the case here (I mean, look at where we are), and so I shall go forth, kinky and queer pride held high, and enjoy this hopefully awesome of awesome festivals.

May the kink be with you,

Essin’ Em

I read parts of this at Sizzle last month while in San Francisco presenting at Feminia Potens.  It was for an open mic dealing with sexuality and disability, and this is what I came up with (as well as an erotica story).  I thought I’d share…

-Essin’ Em

I’m here to talk about the intersections between sexuality and disability.  I want to tell you about the man in a wheelchair who was suspended in rope, wheel chair and all, and was ecstatic at the chance to be flying high above the dungeon. I want to tell you about the woman who was in so much pain from sculliosis, but discovered that when her sir gave her a good beating, she could eroticize the pain and work through it.  I want to tell you about the quadrapelicic woman that spent a good chunk of time exploring and trying new things with her partner, and eventually could experience sexual pleasure when he stroked her cheek in just the right way. I want to tell you about the first time I found someone who understood me, and check in, but didn’t try to do everything for me, and made me feel like a sexual goddess, despite not being able to do many of the sexually constructed things that people do when they fuck.

But how can we speak of intersecting sexuality and disability when we can’t even validate people’s sexuality or disabilities? When we create this hierarchy, we prevent people from exploring the rest of themselves, from getting to figure out who they are and how all of this fits into other parts of them. Instead, people are fighting to even be seen as who they are.

I sat in my hotel for a few hours this morning, trying to place my swirling thoughts onto paper, to share with you what I so often say. To sound cool, and interesting, and part of performance piece.

Do you know how hard it is to pull words out of your head, put them down, and make them sound right when you’ve got a cloud of painkillers fuzzing up your brain and pain radiating up through what feels like every joint and your entire body?

It’s difficult to say the least.

We’re in the technology age, so rather than crumpled pieces of paper all over the floor, I have minimized word documents, all begun so well, and then trailed off into a narcotic induced rant of the parellel between my Femme identity and my identity as someone who is disabled.

What it all boils down to is the fight for recognition, and the desire to just be, and not fight anymore.

My gender is often invisible to others. People see me as alternative, and often times as straight. I experience more anti-Femme hatred and bigotry in the queer community than I have experienced anti-queer sentiment in the rest of the world.

My disability is often invisible to others.  Unless it happens to be a day where I’m walking with a cane, or someone sees the epic travel pill pack that follows me everywhere in the deep depths of my purse, people don’t see me as disabled. In the community, I am told that I should consider myself “lucky”  that I’m not MORE disabled, not more visible.

I don’t want to fight to be who I am.  I don’t want to wear rainbow necklaces or name-drop “my ex-girlfriend” in order to be seen as queer in the queer community, and I don’t want to go flashing my handicap permit or show off my scars in order to be recognized as someone with disabilities by others in the same boat.

I fight the mainstream every day just to have accessible buildings and parking, and to get the same rights as everyone else; to share insurance, to not be fired for my orientation, and more. I do not have the time, energy or patience to fight within my own community.

When did we create a hierarchy of oppression?  I look more queer than you do, therefore I’m a BETTER queer.  I have a disability that affects more areas of my life, therefore I’m MORE disabled than you are.

If we cannot support each other as members of the same community, how can we work on intersections of identity. I’m a queer femme sex educator kinky perverted disabled Jewish awkward snarky cat loving tea drinking oh so horny person. How can I accept all these part of me, if the individual parts themselves are rejected by the community?

How can I even start to think about my sexuality and how it relates to others when others cannot relate to me based on who I am?

I am disabled, but that doesn’t disable who I am. I am still sexual and fun and deep and witty and queer and kinky and all these parts of ME. I want to be who I am, not spend my energy fighting to be seen, but rather, integrating all of me into my sexuality, into my life, into this magical and wonderful world.  I wonder, is it really that hard to do?

We’re back for Eye Candy this week with one of my favorite queer-tastic, kinky as fuck and sexy as anything queer porn star Madison Young. This red head runs her own kinky bondage site, but also models for other sites, such as Hogtied.com, which is where this week’s pictures are from.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet and hang out with Madison multiple times, and she is just as sexy in real life. Add that to her ridiculous sexy brain and cutting wit, and you’ve really got the full package. I’m in awe of her and her life in general, and this shoot just shows off how much she loves what she does, plus her incredible kinkability.

Click here to see the rest of the pictures and the video from this hot bondage shoot with Madison Young.

One of my favorite sites, back when I worked at HotMoviesForHer, and Kink had their stuff up there, was WaterBondage.com, and I was really sad when they discountinued it.  I have a lot of love for water and sex; between my hot tub fetish, and using the massaging shower head to masturbate while growning up, I love water.

However, I stumbled across these photos the other day. It’s Lorlei Lee, old school style, on Water Bondage. She’s super hot, queer as fuck, and ridiuclous intelligent and well spoken. Plus, I mean, just look at the way she’s looking into the camera! Enjoy her wet and wild scene…

Click here to see all of Lorlei Lee getting hosed down, dunked, and coming oh so hard!

Behold, I have rope. More specifically, Japanese Bondage Rope, thanks to the folks at SexToy.com.

Why rope? Well, as we all know, I’ve always loved stuff of a kinker variety, and of all the BDSM/Fetish toys I’ve tried, I’ve never really done rope. Yes, I’ve review a few rope bondage “how-to” books like Two Knotty Boys Showing You the Ropes and Midori’s The Seductive Art of Japanese Rope Bondage. I’ve tied up, I’ve even been suspended a time or two back in Denver…but honestly, rope has never held much of an allure for me.  I like things that get stuff going quickly (like pretty restraints) so that it is both fast and easy to get someone (usually Q) restrained, and then just as fast and easy to get them undone at the end.

But I like the look of rope in some of the decorative ways, and I really like that this rope is already black, so it matches everything I have, no dying needed. Plus, I recently attend Lee Harrington’s basic ropes class at Fascinations. And it was cool. And I wanted to learn more about ropes and playing with them, and all that jazz.

So while I usually review sex toys, this week, I’m reviewing rope.

The rope itself isn’t hemp or nylon and anything shiny and fancy like rope enthusiasts tend to love. That’s ok; I’m a rope newbie, and I’m not willing to spend $10 a foot for some rope of fancy-ness before I figure out if I even like the damn stuff.

It’s 32 feet long, which seems like an awkward number, since most of the rope books I’ve read require lengths of 10, 15, 25, 50 feet, etc. I haven’t seen a lot of “32 feet” or “16 feet” lengths required. So basically, I wish it had been 50 feet, so I could cut it into more useful and more managable lengths of rope. However, better 32 feet than some of the cheap-o rope I’ve seen for sale that is all of 8 or 10 feet, with which you can do very little.

My other problem was that the ends were fraying. Now, with my nylon rope, I just burn the ends, voila.  However, with natural fibers like cotton, it’ll just light up on fire. There is some special way to end ropes by wrapping string around them, but you know me; when it comes to bondage, I’m more of an instant gratification kind of gal.  Ergo, I just tied really small knots. Did this make it a little more difficult to actually use the rope? Yes. But it was easier and quicker and I just got the damn thing done.

As far as using the rope, I made some pretty gauntlets on my arm, and then I used it for quick bondage; speed cuffs, tying Q’s wrist restraints together, and those kind of things.

The rope is great beginner rope. Obviously, it’s nothing amazing, and so if you’re going to be a rope slut, I might go invest in some high quality, frou frou stuff. However, for someone just starting in? This rope is brilliant, it comes in black, purple or red, which I LOVE, and it’s a decent amount. I’d give it 3.5, or maybe even 4 stars, out of 5.

Click here to get your own length of rope!

The hot queer eye candy this week is none other than the oh so sexy  and totally fierce femme Stacy Staxx on one of my favorite kink sites; WaterBondage.  You can also find her in a really hot scene with August on CrashPadSeries.com with some hot wax and lots of fun. Without further ado, enjoy!

Click here to see more of Stacy on WaterBondage.com!

SO for this week’s HNT, rather than a picture, we’re to choose holiday wishes to wish upon three bloggers. Not actually something, but something we’d give them if we had the time/money/opportunity/ability/etc.

Number one:

I’d give Britni (britisstillshameless.blogspot.com/) the ability to be with her partner/Dom/Master all the time.  There are so many things keeping them apart right now, and I see the pain that this causes her. If I had the ability, I’d bring them to the same location, with the legal ability to be together with no problems, and all of that awesomeness.

Number two:

I’d give the lovely Curvaceous Dee (curvaceousdee.blogspot.com) an all expenses paid trip to come on a vacation (with as many or few of her partners as she’d like) in the US, so I can finally meet her, and she can enjoy some good,  and much needed relaxation.

Number three:

I’d give Jiz Lee a win at the AVNs in January. Here is the list of nominees.  It includes lots of awesome queer people and companies (which is AWESOME), but I feel Jiz Lee has done so much not only in the queer and porn communities, but for all of her communities as a whole, and it would be great if he got recognition for all of hir amazing actions and performances.

And here is a picture, just for you, since it’s Erev Christmas and all of that.  It’s our holiday shrubbery (Q is Christian, I’m Jewish, and we both enjoy Monty Python). See if you can find Kinsey hidden in the picture.

Happy Half Nekkid Thursday!

-Essin’ Em

I’m not sure if anyone watches Rachael Maddow (if you don’t, you should, and not just because she is incredibly witty and ridiculously hot). However, if you haven’t you should check out her site.

Last week, she had a couple of shows that talked about the anti-gay bill in Uganda, and Richard Cohen’s “gay fixing” program that inspired this whole thing.

This post isn’t about that.  However, his book/CD set title “Coming Out Straight” made me think.

I hate that coming out is specific only to what is currently minority populations.  One comes out as queer, as kinky, as non-monogamous. It’s very rare to come out as straight, as monogamous, as vanilla (unless your community is queer/non-monogamous/kinky, in which you ARE then the minority).

Why do we have this default of “you should only come out/express your sexuality if you’re not the norm?”  I mean, really, what’s wrong either with no one having come out, or having everyone come out? Why is it so specific?

I mean yes, I understand why people in the minority choose to come out.  Living your life as it is, instead of hiding things, is freeing.  As is strength in numbers. But what if we could just love who we wanted to love, and fuck who we wanted to fuck, and commit to who we wanted to commit to without having to fly our flag?

At Sex 2.0 last year, Sarah Dopp said something about not all people (I think specifically queers, but also talking about kinksters, etc) want to wave their flag high, and they shouldn’t be made to out themselves, or even stand up and be counted. Not everyone is for a cause — some people just wanted to be who they are and not have to fight the battle everyday.

Conversely, what if we started a bigger dialogue about sexuality, so that everyone was talking about their journeys, regardless of the type of sex they like to have, or who they’re attracted to. What if instead of the default of straight/monogamous/vanilla, we actually encourage people (kids, teens and adults) to think about their sexuality, and share it with their friends, partners, families (birth and chosen). 

I know I speak of a much more utopian society, and that many of my questions on this are rhetorical. If we live in a society where we continue to be unequal (as of late, think of New York and New Jersey), how can we ever expect to be anything other than the “other” (in contrast to the default/norm)? What is it about our society, our culture, about humanity that we have to box things in, segregate things out, make the normal and the other?

Just thoughts. I know there is no answer to any of these questions. But I would like to hear a dialogue about coming out as a non-minority. Have any of you done it? Told your friends/family/partners/co-workers that you’re hetero? Or that you’re monogamous? How was it taken? How did it feel?

-Essin’ Em