Oh, so the worst thing you will read all day.

Posted today on Shakesville was this, which is a link to an article about a "controversial" new book that postulates that feminism has ruined male-female relations and that women need to stop "acting like men" at home and give up on this whole "equal" thing because "men don't fall in love with equals."

If you've got enough sanity points, it's worth reading the article, if only because I cannot make this shit up, y'all.

Feminism does in fact tell women that we do not have to act demure, "sexually available", "complimentary", etc. and so on. 

But feminism does not tell us that we MUST not act that way.  The beauty of feminism is that we have the ability to be individual people, and decide what femininity means to us on our own terms - so far as any of us can have our own terms, growing up and living in the miasma of patriarchy.

Likewise, feminism does not proscribe narrow roles for men and say all men like THIS and think THIS and do THIS and are capable of THIS.  Which is what the authors are saying.  And yet, feminists are man-haters?

Additionally, you know, I am all for clear communication in relationships.  Part of that is because I try to do it myself and I really like the results, part of it is because I think communicating respectfully with people is just part of being a decent person and I have this thing about not being an asshole.  And it chaps my ass that these authors can advocate a healthy relationship skill like communication in the same mothafuckin BREATH as they advocate that women should tone their personalities and accomplishments down so they don't hurt the menz' precious fee-fees.

And while we're at it, could this book get any more hetero-normative?  The entire QUILTBAG community, where are they in all this?  Oh right, patriarchy tells us that only straight relationships matter.  And only those where the woman is properly "sexually available" and "complimentary" (no, the misspelling is not mine).

Oh also, what about relationships that aren't dyads?  Wait wait wait, those don't exist either; sorry my silly ladybrane forgot.

This is the same old WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ LADIES YOU BETTER STAY DEMURE ON THE GROUND WITH THAT BOOT ON YOUR NECK OR ELSE bullshit.  And it is absolutely galling that they mixed in a little bit of actual relationship advice to, what, make it more palatable?  Make it more mainstream?  I don't even know.

Is it possible someone will read this and chime to the "communication" part and it'll change their lives for the better?  Sure.  But why should they have to swallow all of that other shit to get there?

No fucking thank you

So, I don't actually like receiving oral.

Giving?  Oh, I adore giving.  I fantasize about cocks in my mouth on a regular basis.

Receiving?  Not so much.

For the most part I try to be, mmm, nonchalant about it.  "It's nice", I say, "but that's about all it is".  Or, "I can take it or leave it".

That is more where I want to be, where I strive to be, than where I really am.

Where I actually am is Saturday morning, Jay and I had woken up, and I was feeling decidedly frisky.  We started making out, he put his hand on my throat, starting using the paddle on my tits (which have I mentioned?  I love), started using it on my cunt.  I was sprawled on the bed, legs open, really starting to get in to things and thinking to myself "oh god please fuck me" when he bends over me, puts his face between my legs, and ever-so-gently starts licking my clit.

"It's okay, I'm cool" I practically chanted to myself and laid absolutely still.  Yeah, it was cool for about 90 seconds, tops, when it was definitely OHMYGODNOTCOOL and I pretty much freaked.

A couple of things:

1. The better I'm doing on a given day with respect to my body image, the easier it is for me to chill out and not freak out when Jay starts eating me out.  If I'm already anxious in some way about my body, it's far easier for me to be extremely anxious about the state of my vadge.  On Saturday, I was already low-level freaking about the fact that we were due to be going to the beach with friends, and I would be wearing a swimsuit, and my legs were kind of hairy, and none of these friends had ever seen me in a swimsuit before.  Yes, intellectually, who the fuck cares?  It's my body, my body is wonderful, if they have a problem with it it's their problem not mine blah blah blah etc. and so on.  And most of the time, I can maintain that.  But unlearning the self-loathing for my body that I've been marinating in for nearly 30 years is a long, arduous process, and clearly is not done yet.  It was definitely an "EW NO GROSS" moment.  I'm not proud of it, but there it is.
2. At the best of times, oral sex performed on me is pleasant and nothing more.  It does not come close to getting me off, and doesn't do anything to increase the pleasure I'm feeling.  If anything, it decreases it, as it's kind of ho-hum.  As you can imagine, this doesn't provide any incentive to get over myself in this area.
3. I'm really sick of hearing from various sources, such as magazines and the like, that oral is the end-all-be-all of getting off and that women all looooove oral.  Fuck you.  By stating that women are a monolith you do a disservice to women fucking everywhere.  We all get off in different ways and like different things and that's okay.
4. Joseph and I, in our myriad discussions, have discussed oral.  Upon finding out that I actually don't like receiving, his reply was "When we get together, I WILL go down on you, and you WILL like it."  My immediate reaction was "Fuck you, no I won't".  I don't respond well to orders.  SHOCKING, I know.  But that conversation popped in to my head Saturday morning.  It added to the fucked-up-ness, which I didn't appreciate.
5. I also hear about all these women who just wish their guys would go down on them, and I wish mine wouldn't.  How is it that a woman who despises oral keeps attracting guys who love giving it?  What the fuck?
6. Jay's and my relationship is such that should he choose to dominate this hang-up out of me, he probably could.  In other words, he could order me to like it, proceed to do it to me on a regular basis, and basically train my reaction out of me.  He hasn't, and I'm not sure I want him to.
7. My sense of smell has been cranked to 11 lately, so I am hyper-sensitive to odors, and have a hard time remembering this under pressure.

So I got triggered in a bad, ugly way, and proceeded to cry in the shower, and then be unspeakably tetchy and angry the entire rest of the day. We also did not go to the beach, for mostly related reasons.

We eventually processed it all out (at 3 in the morning, when we both went to bed, wheee!), whereupon I cried again.  Jay had gotten blindsided when I freaked in the morning, because one, he had no way of knowing what kind of headspace I was already in, and 2, when we had last discussed this topic and I had said "it's not unpleasant?" I had not made clear that that was more in the way of being a goal than my default state of being.

Having processed and reconnected, we were both feeling better, whereupon he proceeded to apply the new clips I bought at Ikea to my nipples, which, I have to share, was DIVINE.  Which will teach him to doubt my purchases!  And lo, it was good.

Still do not have any desire to be eaten out, ever though, thanks.  Just... no.

Using words like grownups

It's sometimes surprising to me how much the cliche of "communication" in a relationship really is true, and really is  helpful.

Case in point:  Wednesday night, Jay and I were up until 4 in the morning (FOUR IN THE MORNING.  ON A WORK NIGHT) communicating.  On various levels.

It started out with a discussion of what we'd done recently that we'd liked, what hadn't worked so well, and so on.  Then it moved on to things we thought we'd like to do more of, things we liked but found scary, things we fantasized about, things we're pretty sure we'd like to do but maybe are better left as fantasies, etc.  Basically updating our kink checklists, without the formality of a written checklist, and checking in on where our relationship is.

It was pretty fucking hot.  I am continually reminded that I am extremely lucky to be married to a man with whom I am a matched fucking set.  And I do mean fucking in both senses it could be taken there.  Our kinks don't exactly overlap, but if there were a venn diagram of our kinks it would look pretty similar to this one:


see more Funny Graphs

(oh graphjam, I <3 u)

So again, pretty lucky.  We compliment each other fairly well.  But even with that, I like having these discussions.  One, kinks change and evolve as people change and evolve.  Two, even after ten years, there is still no way that I know everything about Jay, and vice versa.  There is always more to explore.  Three, it's a hell of a lot easier to please each other when we are clear on what the other wants.  Four, even if it's something the other isn't necessarily interested in, it's good to know that, and I find that for me, bringing it up in this context is a good way to get me thinking about it and possibly engaging in it.

Then after being up until 3 talking about kink and sex and kinky sex, naturally we were both just a bit turned on and had to engage in some.  I wound up on my knees at the side of the bed giving Jay a blowjob, with his hands in my hair, whereupon he gave me a choice.  I could finish the blowjob until he came, and we could go to sleep, or I could get back in bed, masturbate until I came, and at such time as I did come, he would then fuck me.  I tend to get extremely sensitive after orgasm (as in, don't even fucking touch me), so this was not the pure treat it sounded like.

I opted for door number two anyway.

It was a lot loud, and a lot intense - both for the circumstances as well as for the actual act - and we both passed the hell out shortly afterwards.  Work on Thursday bit, but whatever.

This whole communication thing really has done nothing but improve our relationship.  And not just in the form of better, more frequent, or more intense sex, which are all true.  It's given us a lot of intagibles as well.  We trust each other.  A lot.  We know each other well.  And honestly, having had the discussion, I'm a lot less stressed, and just generally feel closer to him.  Not that I didn't feel close before, but, you know.

So yeah, cliche, maybe, but damn are we fans of this whole "communication" thing.

Everything about you

You know, I don't know how I feel about this whole "honesty" thing.

"I wouldn't mind moving back in with you," he says, as we are cuddled in bed, more or less meaning "I would like to move in with you as soon as is possible".

I freeze; he notices. My upbringing is telling me "Divert! Divert! Divert!" I really shouldn't tell him what I'm thinking. That'll scare him away. It's easier to lie and say something else, or change the subject entirely. I am two hairsbreadths away from completely losing. my. shit.

"I don't know how I feel about that," I reply.

The crux of the problem is this: living together severely smacks of "Relationship!", and I am so not even close to ready with that. I like things as they are right now with Jay - few expectations, needs getting met, open communication, and private space for myself during the week. However, I do miss him during the week, and wouldn't mind more time with him.

To give myself more time to organize these thoughts in a manner that is not offensive, I ask him why.

"Sex." He's only half-joking.

"Seriously though. I like spending time with you. I like being with you. I like falling asleep next to you at night and waking up with you in the morning. I like when you cook for me, I like when we talk, and I really do love the sex. And it would avoid instances of you texting me things like 'WHY AREN'T YOU FUCKING ME RIGHT NOW' in the future."

(N.B., I did in fact text him that at some point last week. I believe I was at work. It was a bad situation. I wished I weren't at work, and that wherever I was, so was he.)

"Yeah, I get that. But I don't know if I'm ready to live together again. It seems like every time we do that, it ends up bad."

He looks at me curiously, and I amend.

"Maybe it's not so much the living together, as the whole 'relationship' thing. Because living together definitely says 'relationship', with a capital 'R'. That's scary, in a bad way."

I can't look at him as I say this; my face is half-buried in his chest, my body curled up tight. He strokes my hair and waits.

"It just seems like every time we're in a Relationship, I wind up angry and hating you, for whatever reason. And right now I like you. A lot. And consistently - like, even when we argued the other week, I still liked you. I don't remember the last time that's happened." In other words, I used to listen to "I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace a whole fuckton.

"Okay. I love you," he says.

I hate when he does that. Okay, no I don't, but goddammit, being honest is scary. Then again, it would be a lot worse if he didn't always take it well. And return the favor. Goddammit. It's nice to be heard, and get my needs met, and all of those other things, but it sure puts my heart rate into the stratosphere to do it. And the best (or worst) part of it is, the bastard knows that it does, every single time. And he's okay with that. And he's patient enough to wait.

Ugh, maybe I do hate him.