quizzical pussy

His hand darts between my legs, toying with my pussy through my jeans as I rock my hips back and forth. I feel my eyes glazing over with lust; it never takes much.

Then Laramy Fuquerton’s fingers make a violent flicking motion toward my nethers that doesn’t quite find purchase and whispers “Yeah. Flick that clit!” huskily.

“No!” I snap my legs shut to protect my precious, minuscule pearl.

“Yes! You like that.”

I sigh dramatically, wearily. “Laramy,” I put on my best lecturing voice, “we need to have a frank and open conversation about sexuality at this time.” He nods excitedly. “There’s a very sensitive part of a woman’s anatomy called a clitoris. It looks kind of like a little man in a boat. Now, when you flick this little man his boat capsizes and a big shark comes out of the ocean and eats him. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”

“Yes!” Laramy exclaims. “The shark’s a metaphor for an orgasm!” And here we just about die laughing. I’m not sure where it started but there’s this huge joke between us where Laramy pretends to think that girls like it when you flick their clitorises and I pretend to be horrified. We’re frightfully mature, you know.

“No no no,” I rally, trying to regain my serious face. “You can’t flick it. That’s a terrible idea. There are more nerve endings in my clit than there are in your entire penis!”

He looks impressed. “Is that true?”

“I dunno. It’s in the Vagina Monologues.” I shrug. We make out more. For the truly dorky, inside jokes are foreplay.

I do a lot of sharing on this blog, probably bordering on oversharing, but if that’s not what sex blogging is all about, I misread the charter. This forthright honesty doesn’t come naturally to me. In real life I’m totally comfortable talking about sex all day as long as I don’t have to get emotionally vulnerable about it. I revel in the abstract and avoid getting personal. It’s easier, for instance, to talk to my friends about the horrors of unbirthing than it is to admit to having a crush on someone, or discuss what I like in bed.

I’ve always tended to be even more reserved with the people I’m actually fucking. My first romantic relationship was a huge cat-and-mouse game, where eventually I hid as much as possible from Reginald Sleeth, unsure which things were going to set him off. This got to be a habit with me. I don’t lie anymore now that the threat of violence is removed, but I’m also not as effusive or direct as I’d like to be.

In my blog I try to push these limits. It’s difficult because a small handful of people I know in real life read this, my boyfriend among them. So being open here actually translates to being open with them, and with him (OMG scary). But I’m finding that I can better discuss things with Laramy face-to-face because of what I write here, whether he reads it or not. Honesty begets more honesty or something. It’s a weird way to approach relationship communication, sure, but it’s helping me get better at it.

I still have some secrets, though, from pretty much everyone. Not necessarily things-which-must-not-be-named; more just things that don’t come up, and yeah, that in some cases might make you think less of me. Like:

• When I made out with my friend’s little brother after he told me he’d broken up with his girlfriend, I kind of knew there was a chance he was lying. Now he’s married to her, and she must never find out. Also, I really like her now that I’ve met her, and lying to her makes me feel like kind of a jerk.
• I’m in favor of safer sex. But giving blowjobs while using condoms does nothing for me and at that point I’d rather just fuck instead. Sorry.
• I tried to convince myself that even though Piers Vitiard forced his penis inside me while I was saying “no” and begging him to stop, it didn’t really count as rape because my reason for choosing not to fuck him wasn’t all that good in the first place.
• After reading that post-sex dopamine supplies fade about two years into a relationship, I’m worried that no one will ever have a reason like me for longer than that. And yes, I do know that’s a silly oversimplification only loosely based on real science. Still.
• I’m not sure what the difference is between a woman being good in bed and just being really enthusiastic. What if I’m only the second and not at all the first?
• According to a friend who lived with him after I moved out of our apartment, Reginald likely beat the girlfriend he had after me. He has yet another girlfriend now and I wonder if he’s hurting her. It haunts me because I never called the police on him.
• At the same time, I have to admit I wouldn’t like knowing that I alone summoned that violence from him, like I somehow turned him into something ugly that he’d never otherwise have been. It double haunts me that any part of me is even a tiny bit relieved that he might be torturing another woman.

So many little secrets that I just tuck away while I try to present as clean, sane, pretty. You probably have some too.

That’s why I’ve just launched the Sex Confessional. This is like a lazy, less artistic version of Post Secret: I’ve put up an online form (linked on my top menu bar) where you, I, or your mom can anonymously post sex secrets. I’ll receive a form-generated email with your sex secret, but that email won’t have your email address, name, IP address, or any other identifying feature. When I collect a decent number of them I’ll put them up on my blog and we can all gawk at them in comfort and safety. Trust I have a few horrible ones of my own left to sneak in, but hopefully they’ll be impossible to suss out in the swarm. So get confessing! And spread the word because I want to read absolutely everyone’s anonymous dirt.

I did not expect the air hunger to come back.

A few years ago when I was first started getting my stupid fucked-up illness I had this weird, deceptive shortness of breath. I knew I was taking air in because I made a point to draw ponderous diaphragm breaths all the way down, pushing my stomach out with each inhalation. Also, I demonstrably wasn’t dying. But it didn’t feel like my breaths were working. It felt like I was suffocating.

This is the kind of thing that seems like it would accompany a panic attack or something, but anxiety was never a factor… except, you know, the what-the-fuck-is-happening-why-am-I-not-breathing-right? thing that kept coming up somewhere in the middle of feeling like I wanted to tear my lungs out to expose them to open air directly. It’s something neurological, and it’s really disturbing. Fortunately I haven’t had to deal with this air hunger in a while. It went away for a few years as my back-stabbing body moved on to focus on other symptoms.

It came back tonight out of nowhere. While I was masturbating, actually. So here are my thoughts on this situation:

1. It kind of ruined my jack-off session and I’m pissed.
2. It is incredibly hard to sleep through these respiratory shenanigans.
3. (a corollary to #2) It is so terribly late that it is in fact early, but not that early.
4. I want to tear my lungs out and expose them to open air. Good idea?
5. I’m worried that this is not going to be an isolated, aberrant setback.
6. I’m so sleepy. And my hands and lips are tingly.
7. I hope this doesn’t happen next time I’m sleeping over at Laramy’s. That could be super annoying for everyone.
8. I had more orgasms in me, dammit.
9. I would like a trade-in body that works, and preferably has a really nice ass.
10. There should be ten things, since I was already up to nine.

It’s kind of cool when you realize that the positions you like best also seem to be particularly good for your partner.

I’m really super partial to what I guess we’ll call the “folded deckchair“, although traditionally I like to call it “throw my legs over your shoulders and fuck me sore.” For me, that and doggy are to sex what Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are to modern comics. In vulgar parlance, they’re the my baby daddies of their respective fields.

But I also don’t like to ask for things in bed. Ever. You may recall that when I ask for things, it hasn’t always worked out in my favor. I guess with my experiences of it backfiring, my natural diffidence, and my reluctance to rock the boat when someone inexplicably actually wants to fuck me, I just tend to go with the flow instead. It’s to the point where I generally don’t even suggest new positions to try out (zounds but I’m dull!), although I do occasionally maneuver into them with utmost subtlety.

I’m not sure why Laramy and I hadn’t tried the “folded deckchair” yet. (Also, that name is stupid.)  I guess maybe we just hadn’t gotten to it yet, but that night it seemed like a good idea. We were settling into good old missionary when I flung my legs over his shoulders. Oooooh, yes! I thought, I remember why this is awesome now! Suddenly his cock was catching my G-spot from the most delicious angle and my orgasms came fast and urgent, one after another, building.

I have my suspicions that the texture of my G-spot or the grip of my pussy when I come so hard is something that Laramy likes especially, because we both seem to favor the G-spot heavy positions. With my legs like that, he was getting that face he gets when it’s unbearably good, slowing down a little to dial the intensity back. I felt a jolt of joy that we were together on this one: this was Watchmen, this was a triumph. At some points my legs moved down under his arms and he grabbed them for leverage, and at others I’d toss my legs higher again and we’d grimace together at the absolute bliss of that angle. We felt it together. We sucked in air together, except when I forgot to breathe while I curled my head back in climax after searing climax.

When you have dozens of orgasms, scores of orgasms, a motherfucking shoal of orgasms, the odds get pretty damn good that you’re going to have a simultaneous orgasm with your partner. Laramy and I come at the same time often, and it honestly doesn’t get old. It’s like twice the orgasm. The feeling of his cock pulsing and pouring its heat into me sometimes sends me over the edge even if I’m not quite there yet. But this time I really, really was. It was like Michael Bay was directing my vagina. I swear.

Laramy and I were both sweating and spent. He hung over me, draped on the frame my legs gave him. He was panting and grinning and blinking like a big-budget explosion had just torn through the bedroom: it was kind of adorable. I grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs back to my own shoulders, lowering him right over my lips, and then we kissed, which made us laugh. “I didn’t know you could do that!” he cried.

Piffle. Of course I can!

Don't make this weird.

Happy International Women’s Day, everybody!

In honor of this highest and holiest of high holy days, I’m going to reveal something that may shock some people, and here it is: We’re really actually not living in a post-sexist age. Your mind’s blown, isn’t it?

I’m not here to tell you it necessarily sucks to be female, although concerning some parts of the world we can certainly make that argument. For me, though, in all my incredible comparative privilege, I more or less like being a chick and I’m not ready to turn in my pussy card just yet.

But even nestled in the bosom of Western culture we haven’t attained the basic equality that women set out to achieve generations ago. We’re closer, but we’re so not there. Equal pay for equal work is still a goal rather than a reality. Our culture produces children who believe that violence against women is easily justified. One in six women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime, and all too often it’s perfectly acceptable to blame her.

Women are still sexual objects, not just to some people, but to society as a whole. I know 20-year-old women who have anxiety over being “too old”. Too old to have a kick-ass career? Too old to make a difference politically or socially? Nope. Too old to be a doe-eyed ingenue; too old to be Miley Cyrus. Apparently legal is the new expired. And realizing that being pretty gets us more appreciation and success than any other positive trait, way too many of us have a near-religious conviction that we’re ugly: too fat, too tall, too short, too flat-chested, too pimpled, too muscular, too pale, too dark, too scrawny, too imperfect. We think that our toes are weird or that our stretch marks mean that no one will ever love us. And if no one is going to love us, we are somehow worthless.

If we mention that these things are unfair, we’ll often get called unbalanced, emotional, or irrational. There are still so many things to tackle, but as a small nerdy she-fish in an ocean of crap I wish women didn’t have to deal with, I’m starting tiny.

I’m starting with sexual harassment at the Sci Fi Conventions I go to.

Here’s an imagination exercise: Take a bunch of people who likely faced romantic rejection and isolation growing up, making sure that a healthy percentage of these are shitty at recognizing social cues. Add a common interest they may not get to talk to real people about all that often, and all the excitement and adjacent libido that would naturally result. Put some of these people in costumes designed to make the wearers look (with varying success) like cartoon and video game characters, and put others in corsets. There will also be people inexplicably wandering around wearing cat ears.

Hi there. It looks like you have a Fan Convention on your hands. You realize, of course, that with all those roiling factors in play, someone is going to try to fuck up this nerdy utopia by being super creepy, right? Some guy will inevitably think that the hot costumes exist only for his personal enjoyment and that any woman who likes the same TV shows he does must be praying nightly for someone just like him to appear and grope her tits.

Which is why I’ve taken on the daunting task of organizing an anti-harassment project at my local con. The convention has a sexual harassment policy in place already, but it hasn’t been implemented all that well, and some creeptastic geek-on-geek crimes have been perpetrated.

Creeps have been routinely grabbing or hugging people without permission or warning, commenting on their bodies uninvited, flirting aggressively… you know, the things that you might have heard about cons that make you reluctant to ever go to one, but that shouldn’t be tolerated. Worse, the injured parties have been afraid to report these incidents to con staff because they’re worried about seeming hypersensitive, or like trouble-makers.

But how fucked up does a culture (or subculture) have to be to alienate the victim and make the offender feel justified? Just because men tend to outnumber women at these things doesn’t mean they get to make it a boys’ club where the women attending are just so many sacrifices to the communal hard-on. And neither do women get to harass men, nor men men, nor women women. Let’s just be universally uncreepy.

Of course, nerds flirt at conventions. They get laid at conventions and have glorious, debaucherous times in an environment where free love and free energy drinks reign. I don’t want to put a damper on that, but seriously, the creepy people need to back the fuck off, practice common respect, and only put their hands where they’re expressly invited.

So I’m going to work to make sure the harassment policies are accessible to everyone, to educate the con staff and the con guests how to deal with creepy person encounters, witnessed or experienced, and to open a dialogue about this stuff. I’m going to try to make my little corner of fandom safer for catgirls and cosplayers.

In reality, though, there’s a good chance I’ll set a terrible example for everyone by shouting off-color jokes all over the place. But at least my horrible behavior will be a good talking point for whichever brave warrior takes over my post after I’m escorted off the premises.

I know at least six people who reached adulthood before realizing that narwhals are real animals and not mythological creatures like griffins and hot, single bisexual women. I’m just about at that point right now with narwhal dildos. I think they should exist, but I’m not sure they do yet. And if they really don’t, who dropped the ball on that one? I can get a replica kangaroo penis but not a narwhal tusk toy? Fuck yes I’m judging you, world.

A recent conversation with my friend Lucian Treblewood follows.

______________________________________________

Lucian: So ummm, hey there… watcha wearing?

Quizzical Pussy: A bearskin! (note: If you ever ask me what I’m wearing you’ll likely get an absurd kind of answer. Fair warning. -Q.P.)

Lucian: Sweet! Like with the mouth and teeth?

Quizzical Pussy: Of course. And I’m holding a narwhal tusk as a scepter.

Lucian: Well wearing just a bearskin rug, I hope you will not be innapropriate with your narwahl tusk… *tisk tisk

Quizzical Pussy: We may have different ideas about what qualifies as “inappropriate”.

Lucian: Perhaps I would find it more or less appropriate only due to the fact of the instrument in question (I don’t even know what this means, which is why I’m about to answer with “Narwhals are sweet, man.” Watch… -Q.P.)

Quizzical Pussy: Narwhals are sweet, man.

…I should design a narwhal dildo.

Lucian: Bet its been done

Quizzical Pussy: I’ve found ones branded as unicorn horns, but not narwhal horns. Or tusks. Whatever.

Lucian: Hmmm, now I shall be on the hunt. If I can’t find you one, I will craft you one. (I can guarantee you that Lucian has forgotten this promise by now, but I have not. -Q.P.)

Quizzical Pussy: Even though you find it inappropriate???

Lucian: I only asked you… I said it could be more or less. You will find, I am pretty open and accepting.

Quizzical Pussy: Oh, so you’re a fencesitter!

Lucian: Hardly

Quizzical Pussy: Okay. It’s time to come down on one side. Narwhal horn fucking: pro or con?

Lucian: It would be hip cuz it’s exotic

Probably not on the narwhal

Quizzical Pussy: Well, no. That’s turning the corner into bestiality town. And it should be fake because they’re an endangered species. (Actually, I guess they’re not, but I’ve never met one, so… -Q.P.)

______________________________________________

Now, I realize that narwhal tusks are pretty damn sharp and way too long to be at all comfortable for insertion, so a realistic one might not be a super great idea, but it’s a helical tusk, people! That’s nature’s “ribbed for her pleasure”. If Viking women of yore didn’t carve dildos out of those things, I feel like they should stop calling themselves Vikings because they’re abusing the privilege. So, we could just chunk up the design and round it out a little, and maybe the blowhole should be incorporated somehow. Honestly, I haven’t really worked out the details… but, but, narwhal dildo! The idea sells itself.

They come to Monday night karaoke at the pub sometimes, and when they arrive the party considers itself brought.

They’re a middle-aged couple. He’s husky with a Van Dyke goatee; she’s short and slight and definitely shops in the juniors’ department. Often they have costumes on: a cowboy hat and loud print button-up for him, platform boots and mini-skirts for her. The first time I saw them they were wearing matching gold lamé outfits, so to me they’ll always be the Gold Lamé Couple. I can’t explain how intensely I adore them.

The thing you have to understand about the Gold Lamé Couple is that they take karaoke very seriously. The other thing you have to understand about them is that they are not strictly very good at it. Their singing isn’t anything to write home about, but they commit. You think you’re committed to karaoke? Do you bring your own CD case full of Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga karaoke tracks? Do you have a prop bag? Is there a harmonica for every conceivable key in your prop bag? Have you ever pulled out a whip and set a hula hoop aflame whilst performing “Circus” by Britney Spears? Yeah. Didn’t think so. The Gold Lamé couple comprehends all these wonders and more.

My friend Miriam likes to play a little game when she’s at bars. She looks around at the different couples and tries to guess what kind of relationship each pair has and how long they’ve been together. She’s either pretty perceptive or great at bullshit because she can usually back up the reasoning behind her guesses with details about  body language and other visual cues. She thinks the Gold Lamé couple found each other fairly recently, perhaps a second marriage for each. Miriam suspects they were tired of decades of boring relationships and their exuberance about karaoke mirrors their glee at finally finding someone to really cavort with.

Eloise, another friend of mine, surmises that they aren’t even together romantically but decided to form a platonic partnership, knowing that they had the potential to be a gestalt karaoke tour de force. They do it just for the love of performing…in front of thirty or so pub patrons. Their electrifying chemistry is limited to what they do on the mic. And with props. And the choreography.

The one thing everyone agrees on is that they probably practice their act for hours every week at home. You don’t mess with hula hoop fire without a trial run or six.

But I prefer Miriam’s theory. I want the Gold Lamé Couple to be a real couple. It makes me smile to know that maybe these two people have something beautiful and playful and oddly fearless. They don’t care what they look like to each other or the pub at large. They go balls out and have fun, wasting no time being self-conscious. If they ever settled for boring before, they certainly don’t anymore.

And if that’s what they’re like about everything, I think they might just have the perfect relationship. Life, and especially love, should be like music you don’t care if anyone else likes… and definitely like a motherfucking flaming hula hoop.

Watching a guy play with himself fascinates me. But I’m not interested in a long, lingering, self-conscious tease that acknowledges that I’m watching and attempts to give me a show. I like to see how a guy gets himself off normally, without frills. I revel in the businesslike, perfunctory action; I like noticing the parts of his penis he focuses on and the places he ignores. I want to understand what it means for him to possess his genitals, to spy on his relationship with them. And sometimes, I find myself relating to him as much as I’m turned on.

And this is why I bought my Feeldoe. I wanted a cock of my own. Specifically, I wanted to jack off. It did occur to me– casually– that I might want to fuck another person at some point. Also, that it would be hot to slide my pretty purple cock between a set of lips, provided I could find someone to agree to give me a blowjob. But I wasn’t holding my breath or my order for any such opportunities to emerge: they were like the wacky roadtrips you might envision when you get a new car, but you’re really getting it for your day-to-day driving. Basically, I got it for day-to-day wanking.

A few of my male friends have remarked that buying the ingenious strapless strap-on to jack off with is perhaps the purest and most excellent reason to get one. It’s always nice to get unique compliments. I’m pretty sure my reason is simply the most penis-envious. Of course, if I were male I’d likely consider penis envy pretty pure and excellent myself.

I adore my pussy. I love my small-but-mighty clitoris. I write poems about my G-spot. But a cock is a beautiful thing to have, as an accessory, and I picked an especially good one.

About a year ago I was looking at strap-ons online and thinking how none of them really seemed all that tempting. I could see how the act of penetrating someone could be kinky and erotic and all, but I couldn’t imagine any harness/dildo combo feeling all that good from the fucker’s end. There’d be some clit stimulation against the harness, but it probably wouldn’t be all that different from dry humping, would it? But then. Oh, then! Then I saw the Feeldoe.

Naive as I was, to me a double dildo was a long, straight, two-headed phallus used only in porn and Darren Aronofsky movies. But this was different. This was brilliant. “Surely,” I declared to myself, “a woman designed this marvel.” Turns out, yup. It has a bulb that the top puts inside her pussy so she can feel every thrust she makes with the external dildo, and ridges that press enticingly against her clit. I could imagine the Feeldoe propelling me toward real, joyous fucking, compelling me to push faster and faster into my fuckee like a man in the grip of his impending orgasm. I also immediately realized that if I had this wondrous device I could jack myself off, and that possibility made me dizzy with longing.

I tried to reason with myself: there was no point in spending all that money on a two-person toy if I was only ever going to use it by myself. I might not even enjoy wanking like a guy, maybe I just liked the idea. But the image of stroking my own cock kept creeping into my brain, eventually camping out as a persistent fantasy. I couldn’t explain it: I wanted a cock. It didn’t matter if I never penetrated a single orifice with it, I wanted it and I would make my own fun.

So I decided to stop being a jerk and to let me have my penis. And when it came, all my wildest dreams came true. Not about fucking with it, or even getting a blowjob, because none of that has happened yet. But jacking off with my Feeldoe is fabulous. The ridges that work my clit (which I consider the major tell that a woman designed it, by the way) feel amazing when I pull on the shaft, both ends of it feel great inside me, and the little bullet vibe is a mind-blowing enhancement when I want a little something extra.

The only problem is that when I come especially hard my pelvic muscles tend to contract and push out whatever’s inside me, be it warm, pulsating flesh or slick violet silicone. So I have to concentrate on keeping it in if I want it to stay put. But the beauty of a detachable penis is that you can take it out and put it back in with ease. I do so love having it all.

I would like to think that emotions can usually be controlled. That’s not to say it’s easy. And maybe we can’t always keep them in check… not like actions, but often we can. Emotions follow thoughts, thoughts acquire speed, lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. Or something like that.

But I also can’t get past the fact that it’s all biology. Hormones and neurotransmitters and shit. It’s kind of humbling how little control we have over these impulses that can blindside us. A chemical imbalance can compel you to injure yourself; a surge of dopamine can make you instantly giddy… or it is giddiness, I’m not even sure. I was a liberal arts major.

Even when we want to think that we have control, a chemical signal can fuck that right up. Sex is a perfect example: Penises wax rampant at awkward times, or you suddenly feel inconveniently bonded to that person you were just using for sex.  The honeymoon phase of a relationship often wears off predictably at the precise moment that the natural swoon stimulants runs dry. And (I love this one) you can take a tiny little pill to trick your body into thinking it’s already got a little zygote passenger on board so you can have crazy monkey sex with reproductive impunity.

I started a new birth control pill last month. I liked my old one just fine, but my insurance dropped it and not getting knocked up is pretty expensive when it’s not subsidized, although it’s nothing compared to getting knocked up.

So I switched to something that was still in my formulary. When I say “new pill”, that’s a little misleading because it’s actually the same one (Ortho Tri Cyclen) I started on when I was 19, until I was put on a lower hormone dose (Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo) a couple years later because the lady at Planned Parenthood said it was better.

I was more nervous than I would’ve been with an untried oral contraceptive, though, because I couldn’t help but remember being miserable for nearly every single day that I was on regular Ortho Tri Cyclen. The only exceptions were the bright patches that coincided with the months when I was off-again with my abusive boyfriend. Oh, also, I was miserable for roughly a year before I started taking any contraceptive pill, which eerily began a few months after we started dating, when I found out he was OMFGcrazy. But despite all this, I asked myself: what if the misery was all down to the hormones making me crazy? What if I’ve vilified him in my memory to rationalize that crazy? What if my female hysterics made him hit me and do other not-so-nice stuff? Or what if the hormones contributed even just a little to the whole accursed business? I didn’t want to go back to any part of that.

I knew these questions weren’t rational (I was irrationally afraid of becoming irrational! Can you stand it!?). The difference is literally 0.01 mg of fake estrogen a day. That might make a subtle difference, but it’s probably not going to make someone’s emotional well-being unravel entirely. But however absurd, I was trepidatious about going back to the higher dose. My Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo had been like a grisgris, a talisman protecting me from the dark, ominous mysteries of female hormones and their mind-bending wiles.

It is profoundly sexist that I was swallowing any form of “estrogen makes you crazy” line. I realize that. I don’t think that estrogen makes people crazy, irrational, or emotionally fragile. I don’t even think that fake estrogen does. I was just a little worried, in the back of my mind. Because of internalized sexism, obviously. And beaten girl syndrome. Thanks, patriarchy.

However, I certainly wasn’t going to let all this stop me from taking an oral contraceptive that I could actually afford, so of course I sucked it up, filled the new  prescription and started taking it. I enlisted Laramy to alert me to any strange, “crazier than usual” behavior. He agreed to tell me the absolute, brutal truth, as long as I wasn’t holding anything sharp at the time.

A month in, no perceptible emotional changes have surfaced. I feel vindicated. I was never hormone crazy. I was just abused, and that probably made me depressed, but that’s a fairly natural and sane reaction. I have noticed some physical changes. I was a bit nauseated for most of the first month, which seems to be abating, and my boobs hurt more than usual before my last period started, but that’s fake-out pregnancy for you.

On another hormone tip, I recently adjusted my thyroid medication and I’ve been masturbating like crazy all week and humping the furniture and shit. Which I guess we should call “back to normal” for me. I love science.

Stranger rape is kind of like a shark attack. Most people are alert to the dangers of sharks. They’re something that we learn and agree to fear (Jaws, news articles, Shark week), and sometimes we avoid places and activities just to better our chances. Swim in the ocean? Walk down a dark alley? Are you mad? On the other hand, sharks can’t get to me if I’m in Albuquerque. If I stay in tonight with my Mastiff I’ll be safe from scary rapists. Well, safer. I hope.

Can you always maneuver around these things? No. Albuquerque has an aquarium, and when an evil psycho wants to hurt someone he usually finds someone, and sometimes there’s not a lot you can do can make sure it’s not you.

When you get attacked by a shark, there may be a few people who say that you weren’t observing proper shark safety, or that you must’ve been dressed to look like a seal or something, but most people are correctly going to blame the shark.

Date/acquaintance rape is like a dog attack. There’s an adorable puppy in the park who looks perfectly friendly, and his owner says it’s okay to pet him. Everything seems okay, so you approach him and give him a friendly pat. Then, he tears your face off.

People will have a lot more opinions about a situation like this. You might hear a well-meaning “Did you let him see your hand before you touched him?” or a rueful “You should’ve known better than to try to pet a dog you didn’t know!”, even “You must’ve scared him!” It suddenly gets so much more complicated. Most people will be sympathetic, but a part of their minds may just work overtime to figure out how you were responsible because it’s scary to think that it could happen to them. And hell, they can’t imagine their dogs doing such a thing! Must’ve been something you did wrong. That makes it easier. But they’ll usually agree that you no longer have a face, that things went awry.

To be clear, I’m not saying that stranger rape is worse than date rape, although shark bites might tend to be more damaging than dog bites. I’m also not saying that rapists are like sharks and dogs. They’re actually like people…horrible, horrible people, and they’re completely responsible for their actions in a way that animals aren’t. I’m talking about attitudes here: the similes are about peoples’ beliefs and reactions to these events. Got it? Cool. We’ve got one more…

To some people, partner rape is like a Bigfoot sighting. It’s a ridiculous myth, a concoction beloved of the media and hyped beyond all reason. No harm was done, nothing out of the ordinary actually happened, and only lunatics and members of weird fringe groups believe in it.

But in reality, partner rape is more like a bite from a disease-carrying mosquito, spreading something really nasty, like the ugliest kinds of malaria or West Nile Virus. It is very real, and it’s a global problem. It can be invisible to the casual observer. The victim may have reasons to minimize the event or even think it’s commonplace, but the fallout is devastating. It is also, like a mosquito bite, not the victim’s fault.

People often dismiss partner rape. They’ll call it a gray area, or say that it’s “crossing a line” or “not cool” rather than saying it’s “illegal and disgusting”. It’s hard for many to grasp that a person can be raped by someone they’ve already consented to sex with in the past. It’s hard for victims to grasp that (see: my reluctance to call this rape); it’s hard for many experts-of-everything on the internet to grasp it. It’s obviously especially hard for the rapists to grasp it.

But when consent is absent and sex is happening, that’s rape. Consent must be clear before sexual activity starts. Assume a lack of consent until you have a clear positive indication that something’s okay. That’s the way human beings are supposed to treat other human beings. If you have to wonder whether your partner consents to a sexual activity, you should ask rather than assume. Nonverbal agreement is very possible (e.g. enthusiastic involvement, affirming grins, decisive nods), but if it isn’t obvious, you ask. And for the non-initiator, if you’re the kind of person who thinks consent questions “ruin the mood” and you prefer aggression from a partner, please become an emphatic nonverbal consenter or confirm what you agree to before things start, because an occasional “is this okay?” is a good, sexy habit that I’d prefer you not go around squashing. Consent doesn’t kill the mood. I promise.

After you get to know someone, consent cues can and do get subtler. You can relax a little when you trust each other. But if there’s hint of a “no” signal– verbal or nonverbal– everything stops. It’s your responsibility as a sexually active adult to ensure that you have consent. Every time.

That’s why the old tropes of “wifely duty” and “frigidity” and “compromise” are red herrings in the partner rape debate. There are lots of reasons someone might consent to sex when he or she doesn’t necessarily feel like it. A relationship is sometimes about compromise, and part of that might be agreeing to fuck your husband when you’re exhausted or to bone your girlfriend when you feel too fat. Sometimes it means that the partner with the lower sex drive tries to meet the partner with the higher sex drive halfway. All these things are okay. When you’re part of a loving couple, you often want to take care of your partner’s sexual needs even when you’re not precisely in the mood for it. But consent still needs to happen to get to that point. Compromise never means that the person who wants to have sex gets to force or pressure the one who doesn’t. If the pro-sex person wants to enact a compromise, it’s called “masturbating in the bathroom”. Only the anti-sex person gets to decide that sex is on the compromise menu.

Another thing people tend to say is that false rape reports are common, especially when a woman wants to hurt or punish a lover or gain the upper hand in child custody battles. It never fails. If you talk about rape, someone will probably eventually bring this up. About 2-3% of all reports of sexual assault are false, which is similar to percentages of false reports of burglary and grand theft auto. Lying about being raped is never okay, but this is not exactly an epidemic.

Those who are anxious for the continued safety of partner rapists can rest assured that victims are still reluctant to bring justified charges against their rapists, especially in cases of partner rape. It’s obviously hard to tell how underreported partner rape really is, but very, very, very is a good estimate. Women who are raped by their boyfriends, husbands and exes have a lot of shit to wade through, and sometimes pressing charges is just one thing too many. In addition to all the physical, emotional, financial, and sexual legacies the rape can leave, the victim may be dissuaded from prosecuting even if the police believe her. And if she gets that far, what are the odds that she’ll get a conviction against a man with whom she’s had consensual sex countless times before? Unfortunately, while the myths of gray areas, compromise, and rampant false rape reports persist, the convicted partner rapist is sort of like, well, Bigfoot. Or at least the Barbary Lion.