Gratitude

Lest those last few posts left you thinking that this whole endeavor has just been horrible, let me disabuse you of that notion.

Starting this blog was one of the most exciting things I think I've ever done. I did it with the encouragement and support of my husband, and I can't imagine what it would have been like without him. Overall this blog has been great for our relationship. With only tiny, limited exception D has never asked me either to remove or not write something. Occasionally he edited something, or asked me to hold off on posting something until he was more comfortable with it, but on the whole it's been anything goes. We explored a lot of new things in the last year and a half or so, and we're both really very happy to have a chronicle of sorts.

Insight. Anguish. Fear.

Insight.

I'm preparing to shut down the blog. It's been a long time coming, almost half the life of the blog, if I'm honest with myself. I spent several months either in denial or bargaining with myself as to what to do, how to do it, where to go. Each time I came to the answer "let it go," and each time I found an out for myself. Something that I decided was important enough to keep it going.

Earlier this week I decided to start backing up the important posts. The little bits and bobs that only had photos or that were silly ruminations on nothing aren't worth saving. I'm not sure what I want to do with these posts, or if I'll do anything with them, but I want to save them. One day soon I'll delete the blog, and I want to keep my archive.

The process of going through the posts has been interesting and a little bit difficult. I'm definitely grieving, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm grieving. Is it the impending loss of the blog? The loss of the platform, the speaker's stage? The loss of desire? I suspect it's a combination of these things.

e[lust] #39

Photo courtesy of Ava Grace

Welcome to e[lust] - The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at e[lust].  Want to be included in e[lust] #40? Start with the newly updated rules, come back September 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

 ~ Top 3 ~

 Never Pinch a Sadist: 50 Shades of Plaid – If you don’t know kink, don’t feel pressured into it.  If you wonder what it is about, join Fetlife  and find local event to teach you about it.

Collars & closure & owning myself – there is triumph in realizing that your paths are diverging, repacking your shit, and moving on with dignity and respect.

The Quarry – We agreed to meet up on the weekend and go out to the quarry. It was an old, flooded quarry. I didn’t know it, but the queers had taken it over.

 ~ Featured Post (Picked by Lilly) ~

The Pussy Pride Project

~ e[lust] Editress ~

“I can’t orgasm without a vibrator” So What? – Embrace it. Bring it in to your partnered sex life. Be happy that you can achieve orgasm whatever way that works for you.

All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy!

Is This Thing On?

Yeah, it's on. I've been ridiculously ill, but finally starting to feel better.

My Body

I think I got lucky in the parts department. I don't have a "perfect body" according to Western beauty ideals, but I'm pretty happy with most of my parts and with how they go together. I haven't always been, and I am occasionally prone to crippling insecurities. Maybe crippling is too harsh. Still, I'm prone enough. I spent many years feeling pretty bad about myself, reinforced by participation in body-conscious extracurriculars that encouraged eating disorders and total body dysmorphia. I've mostly grown beyond that.

My legs are long, I guess. Like most girls, I've always wanted them to be longer. Except for those girls who want theirs to be shorter, I guess. Usually, though, they are just right. Skirts hit me in all the right places. I almost never have to have pants hemmed.

Girl Parts

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know when I say that being the owner of girl parts is generally a pain in the ass.

I love my girl parts. I love being a girl. But as has already been established, I really fucking hate pubic hair maintenance and the annoyances that go along with it. Therefore, I was quite gratified to read a piece that popped up in several places online about why waxing and shaving may be hazardous to your health. I must admit that I've been looking for a socially acceptable rationale to just give in on shaving and waxing and now I have it! Which is hilarious since hardly anyone sees my coiffure below the belt.

Stolen Hours

I get up earlier than one should on a Sunday morning, but the light is streaming through the shades and despite tossing and turning and trying to hide, my brain is fully awake and ready to start the day. I steal out of bed softly, trying not to awaken D, but he sighs and turns and places a hand on my leg as I'm moving. He settles back down and I slip out.

Emptying yesterday's stale coffee down the sink, I rinse the pot and fill it with water. I used to worry that grinding the coffee would wake D, but years of experience have taught me that it doesn't bother him in the least. Measure, grind, tap, pour, flick. The coffee begins to brew.

Photo courtesy of Call Me Balthazar.

Dressed in our Sunday Best

Trying on a different outfit. Slightly funky, with a little more wit and personality showing through.

UPDATE: by which I mean blog design/theme. I never got out of my pajamas today.

Trying on New Clothes

Trying out a new look. Whadaya think?

Shit About to Blow Up, Yo

I've been struggling. If you are one of the handful of readers who have stuck around during this less than fecund period, I am truly grateful.

I don't want to be one of those sex bloggers who just dribble off and disappear into nowhere, popping up every so often with a random disconnected post. But I know that this blog now is not what this blog was. And I'm at a bit of a loss on what to do about that. I feel a little like a child star: lots of early success and adoration, followed by a period of no new work and a sense of being adrift.

Cuz here's the thing: a lot of what I write is very serious. It's almost never just fun and joyous, and I have a sneaky feeling that might have been bringing me down just a little bit. Wondering how in the world I could write another big, meaningful, sexy, passionate, intense personal essay without it sounding like the 100 that went before it.

Also, I went through a period where I really treated this like my j-o-b. I can't do that anymore. For starters, my actual job has become more demanding, and part of my disappearing act has been down to increased work travel. But more importantly, why the hell should I treat what is meant to be a fun endeavor like a second job with unnecessarily imposed structures and deadlines? For page views? For the hope of some external recognition that, frankly, is pretty meaningless when you are anonymous and can't shout it from the rooftops?

So instead of wallowing in whatever-this-is, I'm taking action and making some changes. Some will be visible to you. Some will be meaningful only for me. And hopefully they will bring with them some clarity about how to proceed.

Another Worthy Nominee

Here's another nominee for top sex bloggers of 2012. One of the blogs I've read practically since the very first post appeared online is The Sex Experiment. I found it because of Fleshbot, and if I didn't start reading the week the first post appeared, it was soon thereafter.

Mr. X, the blog's author, has a very unique construct. He secretly and anonymously sent his wife a sexual dare in the guise of Mr. X and asked her to comply and write back to him, detailing her response. The dares are still going, although it seems Mrs. X knows that her husband is Mr. X. But we still don't know for certain.

Always well-written, always inventive, it's on my must-read list.

Oh, also, I was dared by Mr. X and had a fantastic time.

Collected stories from The Sex Experiment's first year.

Sex-positive, Child-negative?

As I sat on a park bench and watched the passersby, a woman caught my eye. She had that carefully coordinated faux boho look, meant to look uncoordinated and slapdash. She wore funky, chunky shoes that couldn't have cost less than $300, had a messy but studied topknot, and cool, ethnic jewelry graced her throat and wrists. She also had a kid strapped to her body by means of a baby sling.

In the quick read of the semiotics of her dress and babywearing, I made a whole host of judgments about this woman and seemingly out of nowhere a thought flashed through my head: why are so many people who claim to be sex-positive so anti-child?

There's a lot of background to that thought, some of which I'm exploring in detail here. But quickly by way of background, recently I've found myself reading a bit about the concept of attachment parenting, spurred by a blog I recently found, The Sexless Father. I'd never heard the term until reading his blog, and then it seemed to pop up everywhere, so I read a few things to better understand it. Turns out, attachment parenting freaks a lot of people out. Mostly people without kids, it seems. This becomes relevant later. Promise.

Back to that fleeting thought that then occupied my mind for hours. I know I'm using a LOT of generalities in that thought. After all, it was just something that popped into my head, not a well-thought out profession of brilliance or anything like that. And it's loaded with judgment. But there it was. And I had to mull it over.

Let's break it down. By "so many people" I mean the relatively small world of people I encounter via Twitter, blogs, and media that deals with sexuality and relationships. That does encompass thousands of people, surely, but it's still a relatively small world.

By "claim to be sex-positive" I mean people who have either written publicly about their perception of themselves as sex-positive, people who are sort of public intellectuals on the topic, and/or people who run in what I'll loosely term sex-positive circles. By that I mean people who, at the very least, are not ashamed about having or talking about sex.

By "anti-child" I mean just that. People who quite vocally express everything from benign annoyance to vocal hatred of children, as individuals and as a segment of society. A paraphrase of something I encountered recently: "Why outlaw [some toy I've never heard of]? Why not outlaw kids instead?" And then there were comments following it up along the lines of "here, here" and "yeah, right on!"

The vibe I get from these sources is that kids ruin everything, especially sex. I completely get that not everyone wants or especially likes kids. But when I read some of the things out there and replace the word "kid" with "gay" or "woman" or "African-American" in the phrase, and you get where I'm going with this, the sentiments would be considered appalling to the people who are uttering them. Am I reacting to a somewhat vocal minority? Or is it especially liberated to be loud and proud about one's animus toward children?

I'm not a parent. But I'm not anti-child, either. I cringe at screaming kids on airplanes as much as the next person, but I love splashing in the pool with my cousins, nephews, nieces, and friends' children. I love playing games with them, and watching them learn and discover new things. I love watching them grow up and become "real people" I can hang out with and not pout too much when they, maaaaannnyyy years younger than I, beat me at Scrabble. Must be that SAT vocab practice they're doing.

However, as I watch some of these same parents whose kids I like as people, I realize that they are engaged in some variation of attachment parenting, and I wonder whether they are still having sex in the family bed while they are co-sleeping, or whatever the correct term is for these arrangements. I get a bit sad when my friends say, in various ways, that they are putting their own lives and professions on hold while they raise their children. And I do wonder if I could ever fit in with them if we were to have children, since I don't feel attracted to parenting in the same way many of them do (let's say there's a bit of hovering and leave it at that). It does then beg the question, do kids ruin everything, especially sex?

But back to the question that started this. I'm turning the tables and asking you to respond this time. Am I alone in my perception that a vocal segment of sex-positive people are quite child-negative? I hope I am. I hope I'm just oversensitive to it lately. Because if the sex-positive people aren't having kids and aren't being good influences on their cousins/nieces/nephews/friends' kids because they can't stand to be around them, what's next for us?

The Best of the Best of the Best, Sir!

I love that line from Men in Black. And I love when J makes fun of it.

I just wanted to give some love to N. Likes and Dumb Domme. I nominated their blogs for the 2012 Top Sex Bloggers List compiled by Rori. There are others I'll nominate as the month goes on and I'll mention them as I put forth the nominations.

N. and D are both what I would call friends in this little secret world of the sexy. I value that quite a bit. As writers they aren't afraid to examine the mundane and embarrassing aspects of sex and relationships mixed in with the incredibly hot, and that endears them to me. They're also both whip-smart and have lacerating wits. And they are both incredibly engaging writers. Add them to your reading pile, please.

Changes Afoot

Things have been quiet around here. There's a reason for that. If you've been paying attention over the last few days (which you probably haven't, because there's been nothing new to see), you might have noticed that all the lovely photos that used to decorate this blog are gone.

One of the things I have enjoyed most about this project is the hunt for hot, sexy photos to accompany my words. And almost from the beginning people have warned me about the dangers of using images found randomly on the web via Tumblr and other sources. And I listened with half an ear and went on my merry way.

And then this blog post by someone in a related blogging field (romance and erotica) appeared and it scared me. A lot. For all the precautions I've taken to remain anon, I realized that getting even a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) takedown notice would open the door a crack, and getting sued...well, let's not think about it. And then I thought about how pissed I'd be if someone started using my work without my permission, and my conscience got the better of me.

So I've spent much of the last week removing images from the website. I'm fairly certain I've got them all down, with the exception of photos that are mine or that I have the permission of the owner to use. This has significantly changed the way I think about blogging, and will definitely impact how I practice it going forward.

UPDATE 10/21/12: I have spent a bit of time identifying some great photographers of erotic images, and have begun posting their work with permission and credit.