Photo

Reblogged from come correct

Betty White, you are my hero.

"The important thing is that we cease treating sex as something shameful, and an aspect of life separate from all the rest. We need to make decisions about sex and evaluate them in the same framework which we use to judge worth of our other capacities, be they our intelligence, intuitions, physical stamina or prowess, or other special talents."

--Lester A. Kirkendall, Premarital Intercourse and Interpersonal Relationships (1961)

(via WYSIWYG)

This person wins today.

"I hate how the phrase 'have some self-respect' is used to shame women who are comfortable with their sex lives. 'Have some self-respect?' I do respect myself; that's why I wanna have a fucking orgasm tonight, thank you very much."

 (via come correct)

All of this.

"I want to talk about intimacy. I want to talk about desire. I want to talk about fucking. I want to talk about touch.

I want to talk about how Black and Brown bodies are denied these things. I want to talk about how Black and Brown bodies thirst for these things. I want to talk about how Whiteness constructs Black and Brown bodies in opposition to these things.

I want to talk about how Black and Brown bodies are rejected by other Black and Brown bodies. I want to talk about how we can't always find comfort in each other because we're so busy finding comfort in Whiteness.

I want to talk about how Black and Brown bodies tear themselves apart for these things. I want to talk about how Black and Brown bodies struggle for these things. I want to talk about how it's never enough.

I want to talk about intimacy. I want to talk about desire. I want to talk about fucking. I want to talk about touch."

--$Store Glitter Lion

(via come correct)

On partying, getting laid, and grey areas of consent.

[TW: rape]

This is a post about alcohol, sex, and consent. I am not writing this post as a person who feels that anything sexually violating has ever happened to her in any state of sobriety. I want to make that clear. To the best of my knowledge, I am also not writing this as a person who has made any other person of any other gender feel sexually violated in any state of sobriety (though, like the author of the article I will reference later, perhaps I have and I just don't know). I also want to make that clear (especially my small feeling of uncertainty).

The place I am coming from writing this post is as a woman who considers herself to be a sex-positive feminist who likes to drink and oftentimes likes to be sexual when she has been drinking, as a woman who has, in fact, gone out for a night of partying looking to get laid and been successful in this pursuit. I want to make that clear, too. 

Coming from and not coming from all of those specific places, I have to say that I...don't understand a lot of the conversation that happens around drunkenness, consent, and the scary things like rape that those conversations tend to turn to. 

Before you start yelling at me, let me say what I do understand. I do understand that consent is important, obviously. I understand that "no means no" is an ineffective rape-prevention strategy, and that one should absolutely never ever initiate sexual contact with someone who is obviously not in a state to say yes or no. So no one who is asleep, or so drunk they can't stand up or just booted all over the place, or so high that they don't make any sense and you can't quite tell whether they're looking at you or through you. That all makes crystal clear sense to me.

But what about someone who we know has definitely been drinking, but does not appear to be too drunk to take care of him or herself or be rational? We can't possibly be saying that drinking totally negates anyone's ability to consent to sexual activity, can we? Where, in the real world where we can't breathalyze everyone we meet a party, do we draw the line of can-reasonably-give-consent? 

Feministe has a big problem with a blog I don't really take issue with that often, The Good Men Project (GMP). Yesterday, GMP published an admittedly fairly nauseating article by a man who has come to realize that in the course of his life of partying, he has likely committed and been the victim of rape. The nonchalance with which he accepts this as part and parcel of the partying lifestyle is appalling, and it surprises me that I'm supporting anything in an article with this title, but I think the author has a few shining pieces of insight buried in all of the general dickishness. I am going to highlight them here:

That is the damnable thing. We all cluck our tongues at those evil bastards who force themselves on girls—or guys—who are insensibly passed out. At the same time, we all acknowledge that a glass or two of wine helps pave the way for a lot of good times. And in the trackless, unmappable gray swamps in between, we cough and change the subject.
In the real world, especially among experienced drinkers, being blackout drunk doesn’t necessarily look like being passed out on the floor, helpless prey for any passing predator. It can look like being drunk, but fully in control. It can look like being passionately excited. It can look like being a great dancer. It can look like being very sexually aggressive.

The truth of the matter is, everybody's drunk looks a little bit different. My chronology of drunkenness goes a little something like this (assuming a not-empty stomach). At fewer than three drinks, I am questioning whether there is, in fact, alcohol in the beverages I am consuming. Between three and four, my head starts to feel tingly. Ah, it's working. Between five and seven, I appear my drunkest. This stage of the night is when the timbre of my voice changes and my speech patterns begin to lilt, when I am most likely to gesticulate wildly or greet everyone I see with a hug. Wheeeeee alcohol is fun!! But by drink 8, most of that fades away. By drink 8, I am settling into a long night of drinking. I am comfortable in my drunkenness. I remember how it fits, and my voice and speech patterns return to normal. Mmmm, drinking makes me feel so warm and snuggly. Many people think I'm far more sober at 10 drinks in than I was at 5. And that can continue into somewhere around 15 or so, at which point shit will get bad quick and I will probably find myself a toilet to boot into and a couch upon which to fall asleep. Shit, why is the room spinning? This room definitely doesn't usually spin... 

At what point of that progression is a potential sex partner supposed to cut me off as unable to give consent? Obviously once the room has spun and I'm asleep on the couch, but what about before that? I might not have a great sense of chronology the next day, but nowhere in the progression am I blackout -- is there a point at which my consent somehow doesn't count? That seems...restrictive. "No" means no. Non-responsiveness means no. But I'm pretty uncomfortable with any definition of what is and is not okay when one combines alcohol and sexytime that involves qualification of when a "yes" or non-verbal enthusiastic participation means no. I just don't get how that shit is supposed to work. I think that at anywhere between 1 and 12-14 drinks, I am perfectly capable of giving consent.

But many girls (and some guys) would be far past coherent at that number. Many girls (and some guys) would have blacked out (and, like the author of the article points out, blacked out in a myriad of ways that could look perfectly normal) by that point. And we don't all carry breathalyzers in our back pockets at the club. (Imagine it: "Here baby, blow on this first..." No.) So what's a person who likes to drink and likes to get physical, possibly with person(s) he or she may not know particularly well/at all, when he or she has been drinking to do? 

This brings me to the second instance wherein I think the author of the article was rather poignant:

It must be bad manners to admit to being a rapist and to also say one is a rape survivor, all in one article. I don’t know any set of social mores where that’s okay. I certainly don’t feel like a rape survivor, whatever that’s supposed to feel like. I just can’t quite find a workable standard where I’m one but not the other.

I think one of the strongest points of the article is here, where the author reminds readers that when you're drinking/drugging yourself to delirium, you can fall on either side of the blurry line of consent. He tells us of one instance in which he was informed that he'd had sex with a woman he wasn't interested in involving himself with sexually or otherwise days after the fact by multiple witnesses. That, by definition, constitutes rape. Regardless of the fact that he doesn't view himself as having been victimized, I don't think he blames himself and his drinking for the actions he doesn't remember in this instance. I don't think he blames the women he may or may not have had consensual sex with in the past or their drunkenness for his or their actions in the past either. I don't think that what we are supposed to take from this article is that partying causes rape, or excuses it. I think that what we are supposed to take from this article is that there is a muddiness in this particular sphere wherein sex often happens in the presence of consent that may not be worth its breath.

And this brings me to the third instance wherein I feel some valuable insight was laid on the page:

The ones that bother me are the ones where I got loaded, had some fun with a lady, and then she never wanted to contact me again. Messages go unanswered, social contact is dropped.
There are men, rape-apologist pieces of shit, who will tell you that women cry “rape” every time they have sex they later regret. I carry no brief for those assholes. What eats at me is that there’ve been cases, more than one and less than six, in my life where either explanation would seem plausible. If a woman had consensual sex with a guy because they were both drunk, and later she decided he was a loser and she regretted it, she might refuse to have further contact with him because, hey, awkward. But if a woman was raped by a man who thought she was still capable of consent when she was too far gone, she might refuse to have further contact with him because, hey, rapist.

Once, on campus, a guy started dancing with me at a party. I didn't know him, and he hadn't been at this party for most of the night, so I had no background knowledge of how drunk or not drunk he was. He started kissing the back of my neck and feeling me up, and being receptive to all of this, I turned around and actually kissed him. We'd been making out for a while before the music stopped and I decided to ask his name. We both ended the night with orgasms, and a few days later I used the minimal amount of information I'd gathered about him that night to friend request him on Facebook. It took him 10 months to approve my request. 

Another time, in DC, I met up with a guy I'd met recently and a friend of mine from school to celebrate the guy I'd met recently's birthday. When I got there, it was clear to me that he'd started celebrating quite a few hours earlier, because he was far more animated than he'd been the first time we met. Within ten minutes of my arrival, this guy started dancing with me, which led to him kissing the back of my neck and feeling me up, which I was overwhelmingly receptive to, and we wound up pressing each other against the wall of this club making out with no holds barred. We haven't really talked since.

I had not thought this prior to reading this article, but am now wondering, did I take it too far with either of those guys? Should I have deemed their consent invalid regardless of the fact that they initiated our sexual contact? If a guy that I know has been drinking or is relatively drunk takes my hand and puts it on his dick, am I allowed to touch it, or have I just admitted to being on the other side of the blurry line?

In the post explaining why GMP decided to publish this post, female editor Joanna Schroeder says,

But the real world is a harsh, cold place full of mixed messages, drunken desire, Ecstasy-fueled touching, and the rush of cocaine. The real world is a place where “no means no” simply isn’t enough.

I agree with her. Wholeheartedly. I don't really agree when she later says that the author of the article is "deeply troubled," because again, he comes off unsettlingly content with his realizations. I think this guy is an asshole. At the same time, though, I don't think he's wholly wrong. And at the same time, I don't really agree with Feministe and other critics who have called this post and the why-we-posted-this post "rape apologies," because I think that, for better or for worse, they come from a point of questioning and cross-examining, rather than from a point of saying "I'm sorry." If the author of the article is saying he's sorry for anything, it's that he's sorry it has to be like this, and that's not an apology.

What I think is that we as feminists, as men, as women, as people who drink, as people who have sex, and just as people, need to be willing to have conversation around what happens when you mix drinking and/or drugs and sexual desire. I think we'd be doing a disservice to ourselves and the people we care about not to. I think the point of this article was to show that we can't have productive conversations about rape culture without having conversations about party culture and the complications of consent therein.

""I taste her and realize I have been starving."

--Jodi Picoult

"If the guy doesn’t want to fuck a fat chick, don’t fuck a fat chick! It’s not about being able to look past anything. It’s not ‘Oh, wow, this girl’s so confident that I’m able to forget about her fat belly and focus on her other features.’ No. If a guy wants to fuck me, he has to love that I jiggle. If he wants my body, he wants my whole body, okay. If he’s not squeezing every bit of me he can get the fuck out of my bed."

(via Tudo Bom(b))

On "virginity".

"I think the concept of virginity was created by men who thought their penises were so important it changes who a woman is."

--Prettieandsick

(via come correct) 

My first reaction to this quote was like BAM! *clap clap* Cheers, all around. 

But then, even though I'd been personally sexually active for a decade before I actually did anything sexual with another human being, and had already worn out the motor in my first vibrator before I had a real live dick in me, I remember feeling kind of wholly changed after I had sex for the first time. We did it for the first time in the morning, on a Sunday, and after we snuggled, he got up to go to church, and I called my girls in quick succession to tell them I'd finally done it. And it wasn't nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be. And oh my dear lord, I wanted to do it again ASAP. And because it wasn't a big deal at all, I went on to have sex with a good friend, a stranger, and then another friend, and become the proactively sex-positive person you see before you today. 

Let's unpack that for a second. My ex and I "losing our virginities" to each other taught me that sex is not, in fact, a huge THING, fundamentally changing my attitude about a lot of things in life and generally causing me to be a lot more fulfilled in certain areas because I realized this was just one more way in which our patriarchal Puritan society had lied to me and kept me from fully enjoying my womanly human self.

So, in other words, in re this statement, BAM! *clap clap* Cheers, all around. 

So it's no secret 'round these parts that I'm pretty pro-porn

I identify with a lot of this:

The first time I read porn on the Internet I was eleven; by the time I was thirteen I was writing porn, which was one of my major hobbies throughout high school . What horrific damage did it wreak on my sexual life?
Self-acceptance. The vocabulary to conceptualize myself as queer, a sadist, a submissive, rather than just knowing that something was weird about my sexuality. Greater familiarity with sexual anatomy and how to safely and pleasurably perform several sex acts. An appreciation for the diversity of human sexuality: some people were trans or poly or whatever, and that was cool. A better understanding than most people of how consent worked and the difference between fantasy and reality. Orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms.
I’m not saying that it was perfect, but porn gave me a hell of a better sex education than school did.

--Ozyfrantz, of The Good Men Project

For me personally, I will say that reading porn especially helped. True life: I like, researched blowjobs when I was preparing to give one for the first time. Scoured the internet for the best descriptions in various erotica I could find. Porn reminds me that I'm not weird for liking what I like. Anatomy lessons were way better than the diagrams we got in class. There's tons of crappy porn that is bad for both the women involved and the public perception of women--I'm not denying that. But porn does some good in these streets too. 

Things that evidently really turn me on...

me: *leans over [guy I've slept with] to put in my wifi password on his laptop*

him: You wear the same perfume you wore in college.

me: *swoons* *fans self* *tries not to drool in front of other company*

Ryan O'Connell knows my life.

It is possible to occasionally sleep with your friend without it turning into some big ol’ thing. Why is there such intense debate about this? Why did Hollywood have to poop out two identical movies that explore this STRANGE and TWISTED phenomenon known as, “friends with benefits”? “OMG,” a fearful woman screams. “Is it true? Can you REALLY sleep with someone and not want to have 10,000 of their babies afterwards?” Yes. Friend sex is tricky but it can work on a case by case basis. I would just advise that the person you’re boning not be your best friend and that you only have sex sporadically. There. Bingo. Now you can sleep with most of your friends!

--Ryan O'Connell

Excerpt from "10 Thoughts on Being Loved by a Skinny Boy"

Full text here.

The phrase “Big girls need love too” can die in a fire.

Fucking me does not require an asterisk.

Loving me is not a fetish.

Finding me beautiful is not a novelty. 

I am not a fucking novelty.

--Rachel Wiley 

"The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure. The clitoris is a simple bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise. That's a higher concentration of nerve fibers than found anywhere else in the body, including the fingertips, lips, and tongue, and it is twice the number in the penis. Who needs a handgun when you've got a semi-automatic?"

--Natalie Angier

(via come correct) 

GPOY

Reblogged from Serenity in Perspective

No lie I kinda want this shirt.

Reblogged from come correct

"Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It's about a willingness to see all other taboos broken down. Sure, many of us start on this path when we first feel 'same sex' or 'same gender' attraction (though what is sex? And what is gender? And does anyone really have the same sex or gender as anyone else?) But queerness doesn't stop there.

"This is a somewhat controversial stance, but to me queer means something completely different than 'gay' or 'lesbian' or 'bisexual'. A queer person is usually someone who has come to a non-binary view of gender, who recognizes the validity of all trans identities, and who given this understanding of infinite gender possibilities, finds it hard to describe their sexuality any longer in a gender-based way. Queer people understand and support non-monogamy even if they do not engage in it themselves. They can grok being asexual or aromantic. (What does sex have to do with love, or love with sex, necessarily?) A queer can view promiscuous (protected) public bathhouse sex with strangers and complete abstinence as equally healthy.

"Queers understand that people have different relationships to their bodies. We get what it means to be stone. We know what body dysphoria is about. We understand that not everyone likes to get touched in the same way or to get touched at all. We realize that people with disabilities may have different sexual needs, and that people with survivor histories often have sexual triggers. We can negotiate safe and creative ways to be intimate with people with HIV/AIDS and other STIs.

"Queers understand the range of power and sensation and the diversity of sexual dynamics. We are tops and bottoms, doms and subs, sadists and masochists and sadomasochists, versatiles and switches. We know what we like and don't like in bed.

"We embrace a wide range of relationship types. We can be partners, lovers, friends with benefits, platonic sweethearts, chosen family. We can have very different dynamics with different people, often all at once. We don't expect one person to be able to fill all our diverse needs, fantasies, and ideals indefinitely. 

"Because our views on relationships, sex, gender, love, bodies, and family are so unconventional, we are of necessity anti-assimilationist. Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed.

"Queer doens't mean 'don't label me,' it means 'I am naming myself.' It means 'ask me more questions if you're curious' and in the same breath means 'fuck off.'

"At least, that is what it means to me."

(via Tranarchism)

I dislike saying "people of this identity ARE [any subset of qualities]" because no they all aren't. So I'm going to replace the word queer in all of this with the phrase "people with healthy attitudes towards sex, love, and identity". Otherwise, ALL OF THIS OMG YES.

I believe this is a re-reblog. It deserves it.

Reblogged from

18° 15' N, 77° 30' W

This may slightly contradict my comment on Choosing Pancakes's post the other day, but I still think that good in bed is a valid concept--just that it does not necessarily refer to the physical aspects of being in bed directly.

Sex is not a goddamn performance. Sex should feel as natural as drinking water. It should not require confidence. Sex should happen, because the moment is ripe. Ripening lips, ripening labia, ripening cock, ripening pupils, ripening state of being. Ripe and augmented and brimming. Your energy goes to your pumping heart, then to every external nerve, then to theirs, on fire. You bask, roll, play in it. You sigh, moan, laugh. It’s not about being “good in bed”. It’s about being happy. One should never worry if they’re doing it “correctly.” Sex is not factual. I don’t want your cookie-cutter sex, I don’t want your meticulously crafted, calculated, fool-proof fuck. I don’t want a show. I want you. Let your instincts, urges and whims define that. It’s enough. What do most girls like? Forget about it. Statistics are meaningless when there’s only one. Hello, here’s me. Here’s you. Don’t worry about taking it too slow. We got time. We got infinite rhythms, combinations, possibilities. Explore each fuck. Take our time. We can do a different one later. Don’t worry about making me come. I’m here. Right where I want to be. I am overwhelmed by wanting; you don’t have to convince me. I want you because I like you. So don’t put on a front. Don’t taint this. I’m frustrated—it’s just authenticity I want. It’s originality. It’s passion. It’s joy. Don’t say that something I like is ugly. Don’t compare yourself to the rest. You will live and die with and within your experiences like everyone else. If someone thinks you are amazing, they are not wrong. Their universe is as real as any other; it is forged through perception. I don’t care if you accidentally slammed my head into the wall, if you slipped out, if my arm cracked, if the delightful pressure of your wet lips on my anything made a silly sound. There is no right way and no wrong way. “Good in bed,” what. You’re good in my bed. I’m pleased you’re there. I feel it suits you. Shove your technique. Let your memory swallow it. Fuck me like you’d fuck me, fuck me like you feel. This isn’t a test.

(via come correct)

Towards the bottom, I feel like she was losing agency, and I don't feel like technique needs to be thrown out the window from the get-go. Maybe what has been pleasurable to other girls will be pleasurable to me. Maybe it won't. Try it--I'll tell you.

Nail. Head. Bang bang bang. (Hahaha all of those are euphemisms for sex.)

The problem comes not with casual sex in and of itself, but with people who engage in casual sex without exercising the prudence that it, just like ANY OTHER behavior, merits.

It becomes clearer that this is a misguided reaction when you realize this: when someone gets burned in dating/love/Relationships, (outside of the idiosyncratic college age bracket,) you are much less likely to hear, “OMG love sucks. You should try sleeping around. That works out A LOT better.” So much less likely!

--Choosing Pancakes

This whole post, really. 

Dear Libido,

I know, I know...sometimes we go through dry spells. It's unfortunate for everyone involved. I'll think about you as two months turns into three and hope you know the neglect isn't intentional. I want better things for us! 

Then as soon as a hot guy we barely know but are wholly intrigued by comes along and kisses us on the back of our neck and licks his way up to nibble on our earlobe, WHY do we lose all sense of decorum and make out like we're highschoolers in the backseat of a borrowed car in the middle of the club? Someone else's tongue touches our skin and we're like, kisses and squeezing and hands in places they shouldn't be publicly, wheeee! 

And then we go home alone feeling quite satisfied with our accomplishments, but by the next night I'm laying in bed trying to watch The L Word and you're thinking about things that only got to be felt through pants and wanting to feel them/let them be felt with less restriction. I'm trying to pay attention to this lesbian strap-on scene and you're this constant WAIT BUT PAY ATTENTION TO ME! I'M HERE AND I WANT THINGS! I WANT KISSES AND TOUCHING AND GROPING AND STROKING AND NIBBLING AND LICKING AND WHY DID WE FORGET HOW GREAT SEXYTIME IS?!?! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!

You are going to lead us to make possibly bad but definitely fun life decisions. I can feel it.

All of this is to say, I'm glad you're back.