I’ve never (literally never, which is probably weird at my age and player level) given nor solicited a phone number at a random pick-up spot. Flirting from a stranger always shuts me down right away. I know it’s terribly rude, but I don’t mean it that way. I’m just a shrinking violet. Really, ask anyone! (Okay, not really. But I really do hit a brick wall when it comes to flirting.)

But the fact is that with the cell phone number of a near-stranger I’d be tempted to send disturbing, creepy text messages, like “You’re painfully beautiful when you sleep,” and “We’re almost out of milk.” Because at that point in the possible courtship you really have nothing to lose and can really fuck with someone. And I’m afraid that it would seem like a perfectly good idea at the time!

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Oh god, no.

This…

…is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

I’m so sorry, guys. I cannot take her anywhere.

This feeling informs very little of my behavior during actual sex (I have convinced myself, and dearly hope is true), but it dramatically influences–nay, dominates–the way I flirt, or even interact with my friends and the people I fuck. A great example of this is that fact that I do not, will not, can not send anyone sexy/risque/flirty/myspace profile/whatever pictures.

No part of me projects these self-judgments onto other people who take, send, and share sexy pics of themselves. Oh, not by any means. Please feel free to test me on this.

Over the weekend I went to a party at the local goth club. Objectively speaking, I can get pretty tarted up as long as I’m convincing myself that this is “just for fun” and not anything remotely close to trying to be sexy. I do tend to give myself the benefit of a doubt when it comes to dressing. It’s similar to my completely sense-making habit of enjoying wearing cute underwear but being terribly embarrassed whenever I’m found out. This particular night I put on a short skirt, high (as I can manage with my walking issues) heels, a t-shirt I assaulted with a pair of scissors, and these adorable striped thigh highs. And a good time was had by all.

Laramy wasn’t able to come out, having had kind of a shitty day. So as I got home and started to strip off my sweaty clothes, he was on my mind and I had a dramatically uncharacteristic thought process:

1. These thigh highs are kind of cute…
2. Laramy’s mentioned a couple times that he likes my legs…
3. He’s had a super bad day…
4. I never send him pics of me…
5. Ergo… maybe it would cheer him up if I emailed him a picture of my legs in aforementioned thigh highs!
6. I’d better hurry up and do it before I think this through any further.

And I wasn’t even drunk or anything! I’m not going to say that what I produced in the following moments using a camera phone, specialty hosiery, and an inexplicable lapse of inhibition was a “sexy pic”. It really wasn’t. The whole thing was supposed to be a silly “thinking of you” gesture, I guess. But after I sent it, I realized that it was hazardously close to a “sexy pic” attempt. The more I thought about it the more I started neurotically wondering if it was going to come across as entirely pathetic or just mostly pathetic, and by the time I got up the next morning I was grimly expecting the worst.

To his great credit as a gentleman, Laramy’s reaction via instant message was a lot more “I like the thigh highs” than “You preposterous creature, what’s with the flailing abortion of a jpg in my inbox?” But it was a bit of a struggle to resist asking, “So like, that picture is pretty much an embarrassment to everyone involved, right?” I felt kind as if I was watching myself in horror as I proudly brought roadkill pie to the cool kids’ sushi and sake party. My stoicism through all this was an inspiration to both of me.

Mere minutes later, I kid you not, a friend sent me a genuinely super-sexy pic of her amazing bare breasts, asking me to forward it on to Laramy. Which I did, gladly, content that I had actually found a way to at least help brighten up his morning in a much more productive way than my previous attempt.

Last week’s FWB confession made me want to confess this: Sometimes I hope that my former FWB’s current girlfriend will leave him after the kid is born… they’re only together because she’s pregnant, and I really miss his dick…

In relation to your post on penetration. I’m a guy who enjoys the occasional “pegging” by his girlfriend. And I do not feel particularly dominated by the experience. I asked for it, the first time we did it, and it always feels like I’m perverting her, that I am, in essence, controlling and dominating and corrupting her; she never gets off on it, although she comes close. It’s not the case, though, as she quite enjoys it; this had been a fantasy of hers for almost precisely the reasons mentioned in the article – the idea of domination. So we’re both feeling like we’re dominating and corrupting the other. The more confessional part? I haven’t really told her how I feel about it because I’m pretty sure it would lessen her enjoyment of the experience that I’m still feeling in control of the situation.

I’m challenging myself to send in 1 confession a week, even if it means creating adventures just to have something to send in each week.

You’re pretty much the coolest ever.

That doctor who chopped up little girls makes me sick, but Truth: my girlfriend’s clitoris is too big for my taste. I’ve not mentioned it to her,  I definitely don’t want her to be self-conscious about it. It still weirds me out and effects my attraction level. I know part of loving someone is realizing that those details aren’t important in the big picture, but it’s a turn off anyway. And I feel bad about it.

Why don’t you go have an adventure and then tell me about it?

I hate it when I catch my boyfriend checking out other women. When I’m with him and see a guy who catched my eye, I’ve very discreet if I sneak a look, and I’d like him to use the same discretion. It seems stupid, because we both do it, and it’s utterly harmless when I check out another man. I know it’s harmless when he checks out another woman. And why pretend that we’re not doing something we both know that we both do? But I still hate it when I catch him doing it when he’s with me.

I think a major relationship perk of being bi is that I tend to check out chicks with my boyfriends and it’s really fun and bonding. This isn’t advice or anything, just a personal note (see above).

I wish one of my friends would dump his fiance. Mostly because she does shit like get drunk and tell him he’s not good enough for her, but partly because I miss the FWB situation we used to have. I keep thinking about him bending me over the arm of the couch and fucking me until my legs gave out. But mostly, it’s the thing about his fiance being a total bitch. Really.

I’ve been in the position where I’ve felt a friend was making horrible relationship decisions. I’ve also been the one making horrible relationship decisions. While I’ve never had it complicated by mad lust, I imagine that makes it roughly 500 times more frustrating. Why, oh why is it never appropriate to say, “Hey buddy, you’re with an abusive/evil/annoying/incompatible/etc. dead-end. It’s time to go back to the drawing board and also, unrelatedly, bend me over this couch.”?

A few weeks ago I decided to purchase a sex toy (two actually) as a surprise for my wife. I thought she would find it exciting. Was I ever wrong! As for now she is not open to the idea. She asked me a few questions. 1. Are YOU not happy with our sex life? Yes. I am. 2. Do I have, or have I ever had, any problem reaching orgasm? No. You have not. 3. Do I not immensely enjoy our sex? Yes. You do. 4. Then WHY bring home a couple of sex toys?! I was crushed. I also immediately felt stupid for not speaking with her about bringing home a foreign object I intended to place inside her most private of parts. After giving it some consideration, I realized that I had just received an amazing compliment. My wife is very satisfied with our lovemaking. She demonstrated that enjoyment again last night. Mind-blowing to be sure! I haven’t tossed out the toys. Hopefully one day we will be able to use them. If not, I’ll keep on enjoying our great relationship, both in and out of bed!

Sex toys aren’t for everyone. I have a dream where an amazing sex life is, though. Glad you guys found it!

My cum tastes good to me. I’m not sure if it’s the same as not able to smell yourself when you stink, but I like it. The weird thing is I’m a little proud of this.

Dude, own it. Apropos of little, sometimes my sweat smells like chicken soup. FOR THE SOUL. Okay, not for the soul.

Send me your sex confessions!

One night I walked into my favorite karaoke dive wearing this shirt and two guys immediately approached me and sat down at my table. Every time one got up to put in a song or take a piss the other would jump in and try to make increasingly awkward conversation. Later they retired to a corner and seemed to be discussing something with drunken intensity. “They’re fighting over which one gets to ask you out,” my friend Miriam, who is wise in the ways of men, whispered.

In the midst of all this, a guy leaned his chair back and asked me if I was single, which I was at the time. “My friend is in love with you,” he informed me, pointing to an entirely other (intimidatingly good-looking) guy besides the first two, and asked if I could introduce myself because his friend was shy. (Which, if you read my blog, you know I’m too chickenshit to ever do.) Then, as I was leaving the bar for the night, still another guy asked for my number.

This sort of thing never happens to me. I was completely nonplussed. This was almost two years ago, and I still wonder if the bar had coordinated a “Let’s Fuck With Quizzical Pussy!” night.

About a year later, I was on a road trip. I met up with a bunch of friends in a little college town across the state, and we decided to go to the local gay bar (like you do). It was Drag Queen Bingo night, which is another way of saying the place was packed. I happened to be wearing the shirt. A cute lesbian couple sat at alone at a table with an empty chair, and I asked to join them. We talked a little, marked some bingo squares, they asked if they could buy me a drink, and I told them thanks, but I don’t really drink. They bought all my friends a few rounds instead, still seeming genuinely distraught that they couldn’t get me anything.

After bingo, we all danced for a while, and at least three people came up and told me I was cool for absolutely no reason. This particular college town is either some sort of uncanny hellpit of friendliness, or all this had something to do with the shirt. Yes, those are the only two options.

Okay, so those are just two examples, but it truly seems like when I wear the shirt I have more social success than usual. People find me just a little hotter, more approachable, intriguing, something. Maybe. I don’t really know.

But here’s the thing you have to realize about this shirt: it is completely and utterly unsexy. It offers no cleavage, hugs no curves, and accentuates no waist. In fact, it’s a little boy’s polo, size large, bought at an unfashionable big box store. It has horizontal stripes (which I can say about roughly half my shirts, because I like them). Actually I have this striped boy’s polo shirt in several colors, but the blue-on-blue version is the only one that has ever given the faintest hint of being special. The green/green, the yellow/gray, the white/blue: they hold no mystery.

Last Friday, I saw an actual little boy wearing the same shirt, same version, and I wonder if it renders him magically chaseable to all those little playground vixens.

Now, I know it’s not truly a lucky shirt. It’s likely all down to coincidence or the Dumbo’s feather effect or some such phenomenon. It’s silly to think otherwise. But still, it has gradually become the shirt I tend wear when I’m planning a day that might well turn nerve-wracking or awkward. Some superstitious, primitive part of me believes it might give me an edge.

So, although it’s not one of the sexier pieces in my wardrobe, it’s what I put on when I was dressing to go to my first foursome last week.

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Recently one of my Facebook friends posted the following status update: “Smile, it makes people wonder what you’re thinking.” It’s another quote in a long line of hackneyed “folksy wisdom” gems he’s read or heard somewhere, and just had to share. But even as folksy wisdom goes, this advice is really atrocious.

I can think of countless reasons to smile: a friend’s face, the sun on your skin, the elation of running and jumping and climbing trees, remembering that puppies exist, or getting a new sex toy in the mail, just to name a few. But just to get a reaction from people, to seem more intriguing? Booooooooooring. I can get behind smiling out of friendliness, or to put people at ease, but this stupid cliche goes a step too far. It’s “I want people to think of me in a certain way, so I’ll disingenuously alter my behavior.”

This, gentle reader, is why we can’t have nice things.

Cilfton Overmangle texted me out of the blue recently to ask if three days was still the customary amount of time to wait to call a girl after getting her number (I don’t know why I’m the person he asks, but whatever. I’m here to help, I guess…) I wasn’t trying to be glib in the least when I responded that he should simply call her when it was convenient for him to talk and he would care to have a conversation with her. Has anyone not heard of the “three day” rule? And doesn’t it seem contrived and a touch desperate-not-to-seem-desperate when you can tell someone has purposely waited exactly three days to call? I’m not the mayor of dating or anything, but even my commitment-phobic ass couldn’t muster up a speck of contempt for someone calling me on days one, two, or four, especially if a decent conversation arose from it.

It strikes me that conventional wisdom encourages us too much to fake things, to play games with each other for social rewards. The fact that there’s a “rule” of how many days to wait before calling an individual with a pulse and a mother and unique thoughts and experiences betrays such cynacism. And you know if Quizzical Pussy is calling you on your cynicism you’ve gone too far.

That’s my major issue with Pick Up Artistry: it couldn’t be less like art. Art is human, individualistic, all about sharing a unique and fallible perspective. It’s against homogeneous rules; it runs counter to a jaded, cookie-cutter approach to people and the world. Hell, even if an artist is expressing a misanthropic point of view, the act of creation itself is the opposite of cynical.

In fact, the “art” referred to in PUA is more just at odds with being “artless”, in the sense that has positive connotations of sincerity and being unaffected.

Instead of embracing the natural, PUAs (and girls that follow The Rules or whatever the kids are calling it these days, or other con artists) devote themselves to running through life like it’s a role-playing game. And the person you’re trying to date isn’t even the princess you need to save or a member of your party. Your “target” is just another monster to vanquish on your way to your goal. So if you don’t get results with one chick, you just need to beef up your stats, or else you threw the dice wrong and luck just wasn’t on your side. Either way, you’ll encounter lots of HB9s on this level, so you’re cool… you’ll get the next one. How is it a good idea to treat a potential partner like a non-player character? Like ultimately, they don’t matter.

There has to be a better way to deal with rejection than dehumanizing people. Can’t a person not want to fuck you, yet remain fully human? Can’t social interactions be more about discovery and less about achievements? Can’t you just relax and see where and with whom you fit naturally, without trying to force perceptions and opinions you can’t control? Can’t you just smile because you feel like it, call when you want to, and acknowledge that if you’re playing a game, we’re all in it together and probably actually all on the same team?

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The day I had committed to shave my head for charity I was so nervous I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t figure out where the nausea was coming from, because deep down I believe that I’m fearless. Deeper down– like in my stomach, I guess I know I’m not.

Outwardly, I was blasé about losing all my hair. It would grow back, I told people, myself. It didn’t matter. But really I was quite attached to my hair. For years I’d been bleaching it out and dying it outrageous colors: orange, pink, purple, blue. It was the first thing people noticed, and most people loved it. Little kids thought I was a muppet; old women thought I was brave. For me, crazy hair took no courage. I can honestly say, even looking back and in the searing light of day, that I was never rebelling against anything, and I wasn’t after attention. I just wanted to dye my hair crayola colors: it felt comfortable, oddly natural. It was me.

There were several reasons I decided to shave it off, but the main one was that I knew the only reason not to do it was fear. Fear wrapped up in vanity, which is perhaps the most repulsive kind. My philosophy supports doing anything that you’re afraid to do when there are no good, logical reasons to back up that fear. A dread of being unattractive just doesn’t count, especially up against raising money for charity. But I couldn’t help being scared that losing my hair meant losing a huge part of my identity. Maybe without awesome hair I wouldn’t be me anymore. Even worse, I might be really fucking ugly.

So my stomach was a mess underneath my cool “What is hair anyway, in the grand scheme of things?” exterior. But I didn’t back out. I sat through the dull-clipper-tearing-my-hair-out-instead-of-cutting-it stage, the these-replacement-clippers-hurt-much-less stage, the oh-dear-I-have-a-mohawk stage, each of these taking roughly five minutes. And then, after all that, I had a really short crew cut, more a faint suggestion of hair than an actual hairstyle.

It feels sometimes like the anger and frustration and anxiety– hell, even the self-loathing– aren’t reactions to what’s happening physically, but actually originate inside this pulsing, livid, struggle of the flesh.

And that’s been my emotional state for the past couple weeks: pain/anger, tension/frustration, constriction/anxiety, exhaustion/self-hatred, they come in these binaries: they stay, they press, they fill me. And somehow I can’t force the emotional ills out of me any better than I can will away the physical issues. They’re wrapped up in each other, not always, but inevitably in the worst times.

So I’m feeling sick, I’m feeling down. Obviously, that makes me feel like a sex goddess. Yeah… not so much. Clearly I still want to fuck (I’m me, aren’t I?) but I feel about as sexy as a windshield wiper, which makes the self-loathing worse, which makes me feel even less sexy, which… you get the point. Of course, getting sucked into cycles like that is probably the worst choice I could make at this point. I need to focus on staying positive, dammit. SO!

This is the part of today’s entry where I stop bitching about my maladies and malaise and make a random, abbreviated list of some things that I find Super Sexy™. Let’s begin!

I love the whole world…

1. You know what’s sexy? Getting wet with someone: swimming, shower, rainstorm, ooh hot tub! As long as it’s not uncomfortably cold I’m into it.
2. Girls in boys’ underwear. Yum.
3. When someone gets wicked excited and geeks out about sex toys, that’s sexy.
4. Playful little nips in the middle of long, deep kisses.
5. Hidden, surprising tattoos are sexy as long as they aren’t the embarrassing, ill-advised sort. Okay, good visible ones are hot too.
6. It’s Super Sexy™ when someone has better MTG decks than I do.
7. When a guy is really getting into a blowjob and starts thrusting without really realizing it, I am overcome with the sexiness.
8. Adonis belts (a.k.a. “hip thingies” or “Apollo’s belts”) on guys and butch/gender queer girls. Likewise nice lats.
9. Play wrassling.
10. Freckles on a girl’s shoulders. And nose.
11. A twisted imagination. Not mean twisted. Nice twisted.
12. Watching two people kiss while one of them looks straight at me makes me swoon a little. You know, as long as it’s not in a creepy/cheaty way, obviously.
13. Infectious enthusiasm tends to make me wet. Even if it’s for something I’m not really all that into.
14. A good singing voice.
15. Knee socks, preferably striped, on cute girls.
16. Feeling an erection through a nicely fitting pair of jeans feels like… I dunno, like your character in NetHack just ascended. It feels awesome.
17. Doing something to a sex partner’s body that s/he never knew s/he liked before…getting that “Whoa! Do that again!” face flashed at you… that is fucking marvelous.
18. Large vocabularies are, um, you know, good.
19. Drag kings!
20. People with sex drives that match (or, hell, exceed) mine are bona fide Super Sexy™. Call me.

Okay. That actually sort of cheered me up. Boomdeyada boomdeyada boomdeyada boomdeyada…

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Ancient Egyptian Deities <3 sex toys. Ask anyone.

International Buy A Sex Toy Day is fast approaching (it’s June 4th!), and I’m contemplating what to buy. I want to make this sex toy purchase count (toward mad orgasms). I’m not above buying cheap-ass sex toys, no, but in honor of the first annual BAST day I want to get something special, something I’m sure I won’t regret. So I’ve narrowed my current wishlist down to five top contenders. And here they are…

1. Sqweel The way oral sex simulators are described always irks me. For instance, the marketing copy for this toy on most sites says: “Luckily, the Sqweel won’t give you any excuses. No tired jaw, no early meeting the next morning, so it’ll keep going as long as you need.” Ooh baby. Nothing makes me horny like thinking about how much people hate to go down on me! Nevertheless, this toy looks like fun, and completely unlike anything else out there. In partnered sex, I tend to prefer oral sex with hard fingering right on my G-spot, so I’m curious as to whether I’ll feel the need for some penetration while using this.
2. We Vibe 2 The We Vibe is made specifically for wearing while fucking, in the sense that it’s supposed to go inside you (and also outside you) while a penis is also inside you. That promises like a million and seven standard units of stimulation for everyone involved! A while back, Laramy and I visited a sex toy shop and the We Vibe 2 was sitting there all coy on a glass shelf, begging to be picked up and fondled. Once we figured out how to turn the damn thing on, the vibration patterns were mesmerizing, and my imagination was captured: I wanted to put it in and fuck him right there on the floor immediately. Unfortunately, it was not that kind of place. Two misgivings: I don’t really know if the added friction against something shiny and silicone (even though it is, as advertised, quite soft) is going to be a problem for my partner’s penis, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep up with the plot of the sequel without first seeing We Vibe 1.
3. Njoy Pure Wand This is the G-spot toy, apparently. I want it both for personal use and for its great potential in the realm of girlfucking. It should come with a t-shirt that says “I will make you squirt”. Or wait, would that be tacky? Oh wait, don’t care.
4. Lelo Ina So my Impulse Jack Rabbit all kinds of died. It’s pretty much a mere shadow of its former, bliss-giving self. We had a good run so I’m not mad…I’m just disappointed. But if the rumors are true, Lelo has taken the winning Rabbit vibe formula and elevated it to high art with the Ina. I feel like that might just help me through my mourning process.
5. Eroscillator As a huge fan of clitoral masturbation, ever since I read Epiphora’s review of this technological marvel I’ve been consumed with desire. I burn, I pine, I perish. For reals. Plus, this is the only vibrator ever recommended by Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and you may recall that BAST day is on her birthday. It’s fate or something, I swear. Of course, the package I want goes for $240.90, so I’m starting to think that fate is cruel. Realistically, I’ll probably start saving up now so I can buy it for BAST day 2011. Still, it’s a beautiful dream.

Honorable Mention: Fleshlight Ice I can’t emphasize enough how dearly I want to fuck a Fleshlight with my Feeldoe. It would feel so deliciously postmodern. And the Fleshlight Ice is the clear favorite for this activity because of the visual treat of seeing every inch of my beautiful cock as it slides in and out. The only problem is that I mostly want it for novelty because I’m not sure it’ll beat jacking off with my Feeldoe one iota sensation-wise.

So there’s my shortlist. Each of my top five occupies a different sex toy niche, which makes the choice both more interesting and harder. As always, your input is welcome.

I hope you consider going online or visiting your local sex shop to buy a sex toy on June 4th, or at least spreading the word about BAST day! Blog it, tweet it, whatever! I think it would be wicked fun if it caught on.

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I wanted to fade away, be smaller, tiny, unnoticeable. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to somehow become insignificant and non-threatening enough that he wouldn’t need to hurt me anymore. This was living in a kind of poverty of self. Nothing about me seemed to have substance in those years. Everything was transient and flimsy as his ever-changing moods.

When I finally left him, do you think it was because I’d dug down deep and found strength from a vital, indomitable place? Do you think I finally howled “ENOUGH!” to the universe, myself, and that floppy-haired sadist, showed him my back, and slammed the door on the terror that consumed me for so much of my youth? I wish. Want to know why I finally left him? Want to know what the real final straw was? I wasn’t getting enough sex.

Kind of.

I love sex. My sex drive is nigh maniacal. It was the one part of me that I couldn’t shut off, even when everything else was floating. Reginald, on the other hand, didn’t seem too interested in it beyond his ability to control me with it, which was considerable. He was my first everything: my first kiss, my first non-masturbatory orgasm, my first attempt at anal. Until I was well into my twenties, he meant sex to me, and that’s a powerful thing to a horndog like me.

Abusive relationships often function like an addiction, really. The euphoria of the love fable is followed by the punishment phase, which is like a withdrawal or a crash, like coming down off a high. It’s an ugly cycle that hooks you with the highs then slams you against the bottom. While you stay in your broken relationship, you try to get back to the high of feeling loved. I was a fragile, naive and sensitive teenage girl with the hormones of a teenage boy when I met Reginald, and to me the euphoric crest of our wave was always, from the very beginning, wrapped up in sex.

Before we had penis-in-vagina intercourse, he was an enthusiastic partner and lots of orgasms were had. But when we finally “did it”, it seemed like something shifted. I don’t know if he resented me for deflowering him or if by then he’d realized my will was broken down enough that he could control me in non-sexual ways, but little by little the sex dried up.

That’s when I started feeling like my sex drive was disgusting. That I, as a sexual being, was disgusting. Reginald told me as much, and in those days I believed what he told me. When I masturbated he accused me of “raping [my]self” and threw tantrums. I was base, mammalian, and greedy, and I was no longer worth touching.

The guilt was overpowering. I still shyly asked him for sex, but never pressured him into it. I didn’t want him to do something he didn’t want to. But even just wanting sex, I was suddenly repugnant. I even tried going on Prozac, chiefly to dampen my libido, but also because I sort of wanted to die and thought maybe I should do something about that besides, well, dying. But eventually I woke up one day and realized my high was gone. That was how I started gathering the strength to get away.

Despite therapy and personal reflection and triumph of the human spirit and being a basically happy and functional person (I like to think) I still have a few hangups. Maybe, possibly more than a few. I’ve mentioned before that I can’t flirt, don’t ask for things in bed, have trouble admitting that I’m attracted to someone, and am basically a great big chicken. I’m realizing that I’ve never really gotten over the feeling that my sex drive is disgusting and that I, as a sexual being, am disgusting. It’s so deeply internalized I don’t know how to shake it. Maybe I’ll always try to hide my sexual interest from people until they unmistakably initiate. Maybe I’ll always feel like I’m getting away with something when someone appears to be attracted to me. Maybe I’ll never really believe I’m worth touching. Maybe it’ll never be okay to want things.

And lately I’m getting really fucking sick of it.