quizzical pussy

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.

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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.)

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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.

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.

Sugru seems like a pretty neat development in the world of making your shit a little cooler. A malleable, silicone-based substance that cures at room temperature and comes in bright, happy colors, its tagline is “hack things better”. That’s what it’s for: hacking your stuff and making it softer, stronger, quieter, safer, comfier, better, or less broken. A super cute Irish chick invented it. Her accent makes me feel happy in my pants. Please understand that I’m not trying to objectify her and overlook her accomplishments or anything just because she’s a woman. If a cute Irish boy had developed sugru I’d be minimizing his intellectual merits in favor of leching all over him too. Trust me.

Anyway. Some facts about sugru:

• It’s named after an Irish word for “play”. Hehe.
• Sugru is like modeling clay when you take it from its pack. Once it’s exposed to air, it cures to a tough flexible silicone overnight using the moisture in the air.
• It’s designed to stick to as many other materials as possible. It forms a strong bond to aluminum, steel, ceramics, glass and other materials including plastics like perspex.
• Sugru is resistant from -60°C to + 180°C. It gets hot and cold but it won’t get softer or harder or melt.
• It’s completely waterproof and dishwasher safe.
• It is only a matter of time before people start making awesome, custom, one-of-a-kind sex toys using this stuff.

When there’s a new technology, people will figure out a way to use it to get off. Of all the things we humans like to hack, our bodies and sex lives are perennial favorites. Sugru has some real potential along these lines. Not only can you make an original silicone phallus with hints of your fingerprints all over it (that would make a romantic present, right?), you can also modify your current sex toys. You could enhance textures, add little pockets for bullet vibes…the possibilities number in the many! I’m not sure if it would bond to silicone toys or not, but it would be worth a little experimentation.

The website says sugru isn’t suitable for use in direct or prolonged contact with food, so that might raise some questions about its promise as an insertable. But I really don’t think that’s going to stop people.

Of course the first run of sugru sold out in no time flat. Well, technically 16 hours. But they’re working to produce more, and I can’t wait to see all the dildo pictures start rolling in when the stuff becomes more widely available.

P.S. If you were lucky enough to get your hands on some sugru and have a dirty mind, please send me pics of what you’ve done with it!

My voice gets deeper, huskier when I’m really aroused. Yeah, when I’m in the middle of a screaming orgasm it can get a little shrill, but in general I’m much less “excited chipmunk” than “scary sex tiger ready to fuck you up”.

Which is why I was surprised when I started training to be a phone sex operator. To me, the vocal Viagra archetype has always been along the lines of Kathleen Turner, Scarlet Johansen, Dr. Girlfriend (…too far?): deep, throaty, seductive. When I got hired on part-time at a phone sex company, I was ready to exercise my contralto range. Turns out, what I would consider a “sexy voice” wasn’t my work horse. At all.

Millicent, my boss, was a seasoned PSO who oriented me over the phone. I was sitting in my apartment and clutching the landline phone that I’d bought especially for my new career, leafing through the training booklet she’d sent me in the mail. I was a little nervous to get started; I’d had phone sex with boyfriends before, but who was I to know what complete strangers liked?

“You have a naturally sexy voice,” she assured me, after teaching me how to simulate the sound of fingering myself by using my hands and a little spit. “but you’ll find that guys tend to react better when your voice plays into their fantasies.”

“Like a Jessica Rabbit-type thing?” I offered. I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. Who doesn’t want to play patty cake with Jessica Rabbit?

“Not really,” Millicent dashed my fragile dreams. “Actually, they usually like it when you make your voice higher and giggle a lot.” She demonstrated for me; it was like she was the most vapid demon-possessed helium junky on Earth.

Really? Huh. I followed her lead. I immediately wanted to punch myself in the face. “Perfect,” she said.

I was skeptical, so I decided to split the difference. Millicent suggested I create two stock characters based on the pictures I’d be assigned on the website. (No, fellas: those pics are not actually the broads you’re talking to. Cry for me. Mmmm, your tears are so yummy and sweet!) Faun had light brown hair and a gymnast’s body, and she was a perfect candidate for the squeaky, maniacal rodent voice. Thumper had dark hair and blowjob lips, so I gave her what I considered a sex bomb voice, a little lower and smokier than my regular timbre. We would just see who the men liked better.

Would we ever!

Faun and Thumper had about the same number of calls, but Faun’s shrill laughter and adolescent wonder at everything the masculine mind could think to utter consistently kept the call times longer and the callers happier. Once, a guy actually gave a lame excuse to get Thumper off the phone, called the company back for a new girl, and then talked to Faun for hours.

I’m willing to accept the possibility that my Jessica Rabbit impression is crap, but it’s also possible that there’s something more sinister at work. It’s troubling to think that a me with an ice cube thrown down the back of my shirt may be more aurally enticing to the average man than a gagging-for-cock me.

“Another reason we didn’t work… I think I’m a little kinkier than you.” There. I said it. It was a step away from admitting that my sex life with Edwin Pomble had been on the boring side, sometimes.

We’d been broken up for months, and we still had these periodic conversations about why he thought we should get back together and why I disagreed. I was willing– even anxious, for motives that have all but escaped me now, to try being friends. But I couldn’t date him. Not ever again. The reasons were manifold: they covered energy-sucking dealbreakers like his propensity for creating drama out of thin air, and his hobby of always making everything about him. There was the intellectual and educational deficit that echoed between us, parroting back his plaintive “I don’t know what sanctimonious means, so it doesn’t do any good to call me that.” There was also the fact that he’d said incredibly ugly things when I admitted to him that I’d been raped back in college, which made me loath to trust him. Maybe I didn’t even want to forgive him. Somewhere in the midst of all of it, I suppose I sort of stopped liking him. But also, as a little side issue, there was the boredom.

I have no problem with plain old vanilla sex. I love it, actually. Vaginal penetration, maybe a little foreplay beforehand– I’d never want to give that up. The problem is that it gets boring when the feeling that there’s never going to be any experimentation beyond that “no frills” plain sex insinuates itself. Because frills are such amazingly wonderful things. Even splendid traditional sex seems kind of oppressive when you start wondering if it’ll be the only thing on the menu until time beyond knowing. And that had been my relationship with Edwin. When we had plain old vanilla sex it was often good: his penis was just about as big as I could handle, and he often described cunnilingus as his favorite thing to do– many women would be ecstatic with this combination. He wasn’t very imaginative, though.

Whenever I brought up trying new things he never had a single solitary idea. I understand that sometimes these things are hard to talk about, but I don’t think he was hiding any dark fantasies; I really just don’t think he had any. He did mention that he was open to trying new things with me, though.

Once, I asked him to be aggressive during sex: quite aggressive, actually. We all want to be thrown around a bit and called a dirty little slut from time to time, right? Well, I do! I don’t want constant or erratic, unrequested aggression from a partner, but sometimes in a purely sexual context it’s a game I want to play for a little while. He seemed confused by the request, but he tried it out and did surprisingly well. He actually got quite into it after the first couple moments of uncertainty. I got off many times, he got off, and I felt heartened. It seemed a resounding success! “That was awesome,” he breathed. “Yeah,” I agreed. As we held each other in the dark afterward, waiting for sleep to seep behind our eyes, a new optimism flooded me. Maybe this was the beginning of something. Maybe we could start experimenting more. Maybe I’d underestima…Edwin interrupted my reverie with “If all rape was like that, they wouldn’t call it rape, amirite?”

Um. No. Fuck! Way to make it go from zero to creepy in one sentence, buddy. It kind of made my skin want to flip inside out just to get farther away from him.

I’m not going to say I never discussed trying new things with Edwin after that, but I always kept the discourse hypothetical: I never asked for another damned thing. It wasn’t the first bad experience I’d had sharing a fantasy, but I was determined that it would be the last time with him, anyway.

It helped that I didn’t need anything specific. My kinkiness isn’t very exact. I guess I want to try (mostly) everything: I want to take charge sometimes, get used as a fuck toy others. I want to play with an exaltation of toys, roleplay to make myself dozens of different people, and give and accept pleasure in a thousand different ways. As long as it’s safe, sane, and consensual, sex should be rife with boundless and varied possibilities. That’s the way to keep the game fun, I feel sure.

After our breakup, Edwin was angry and had a lot to prove. He talked about wanting to change for me, but I never wanted that. I didn’t want a different Edwin; I just didn’t want Edwin period. He figured if he could convince me that he’d transformed into a creature that contradicted all my stated reasons for not rushing back into his waiting arms, he would never have to feel rejected again. A few weeks after our conversation about kink, we decided to do the “hang out as friends” thing people often seem to try after deciding they were a big fat mistake together (dating-wise) but before deciding that they’re a big fat mistake together (any-wise). He reminded me of what I said with a smug little grin on his face. “You may have underestimated me,” he divulged. “You think I’m not kinky, but lately I’ve been researching a lot of new sexual positions. Don’t you want to try them out with me?” Aww, honey.

An expanded repertoire of ways to have no-frills vaginal penetration? Wow, somebody call the kink police immediately. Also, no. I do not want to try them out with you. I can actually find sexinfo101.com on my own, thanks.

When guys learn that I have and use sex toys, they often want to try to involve them in our playtime. Once or twice a guy I’m boning has adorably suggested that I bring “it” over, betraying his naive belief that I have a single vibrator or dildo. This is clearly misunderstanding the scope of my not-immense-but-respectable collection. I tend to ask “which one?” in response, with an innocence that belies pure evil, because it’s fun to watch the sordid truth dawn on them. Sometimes, when I know someone a little better and may have described my menagerie a bit, he’ll have a specific request. Sometimes I’ll be asked to bring whichever is my favorite. Usually, though, in whatever form, there’s interest.

I’m not sure if it’s an insecurity thing where they want to insert themselves into that hemisphere of my sex life, checking it out to see how intimidating it really is, or if they’re genuinely curious. People being the precious snowflakes they are, I’ll go ahead and take the safe bet: some have the former motive, others the latter, and still others have both in various proportions. I’m mind-blowingly intuitive, right?

I relate to the curiosity part. That would be me, all the way. When someone gets a new phone, puppy, blender, car, or pair of nipple clamps, it’s hard for me to resist the urge to want to see, and play, and maybe make smoothies. I guess the other motive makes sense too, though. For instance, I think every guy should have his own masturbator, just on principle. There should be some kind of secular, sexular bar mitzvah: turn thirteen, memorize Closer by Nine Inch Nails, get your first fleshlight, and start practicing ennui: now you are a man, or at least a teenager. But, as much as I want every guy to have a sex toy or fifteen, part of me still hopes it doesn’t make my pussy feel less awesome by comparison.

My first boyfriend, Reginald Sleeth, bought me my first vibrator, which is pretty enlightened considering he didn’t actually seem to like sex (…or at least sex with me. I really never have grasped the depth and breadth of the problem there.) It was a purple insertable, a little thicker than a man’s thumb, with a curve at the top to hit the g-spot. We went to an “adult book store” to pick it out together. I was cowed by all the lurid packaging under the too-bright lights and the smiling woman at the counter trying to help me decide what would feel good, while I squirmed. Maybe Reginald tried to sooth my intimidated deer-in-headlights psyche by suggesting only slimlines and clit vibrators, but it’s also possible there was something else at work. Maybe, considering the fact that he was human (and not anybody’s definition of secure) he also wasn’t comfortable with me having a phallic presence in my life that threatened or even thrashed his penis. Either way, it was a nice gift that I put to very good use.

It’s always interesting to see how a partner uses a toy on me as opposed to, say, how I use a toy on myself. When I masturbate with something that vibrates, I usually apply it with steady pressure directly on or adjacent to my clit (depending on the intensity). It isn’t fancy, but the orgasms come in delicious waves. In my experience, a toy novice will try to tease me with the toy, running it lightly over nipples, clit, and labia, not giving the vibrations much purchase in any one place. I realize that’s more visually interesting for the person wielding the tool: tracing along the curves of the body, watching muscles tense and skin moisten along the path… it probably beats just holding a gadget in place while my clit silently laps up the tremors. But the visually interesting method supplies a psychological and physical tease, but it doesn’t actually feel all that good. There’s little hope of getting me off that way. I’d rather just have hands exploring the skin of my breasts or neck or back: that will turn me on more and has an excellent chance of giving me an orgasm as well.

Personally, I’d prefer to watch a woman get herself off with a toy before I used it on her. It’d be an excellent education in pleasuring her, and I can’t think of a better didactic tool than to get to watch a sexy woman come, preferably while making out with her between the being attentive parts. Or I’d at least ask her how she generally likes pressure, vibration, position. The questions wouldn’t have to be too clinical; when you know the nuances of how a toy can kiss a body (and I’ve certainly made a study of that), a husky “you like that?” can actually take on a wealth of meaning, in context.

But really, I’ve never found toys necessary with a partner. They’re fun to experiment with together, but I don’t miss them when they’re not in play. While battery operated devices are a vital part of my solitary sex life, and if you try to take them away from me I’ll cut you, sometimes a real, warm, aroused person proves the best possible sex toy there is. I mean that, of course, in the least dehumanizing way possible, you pretty snowflake, you.

I love my friends. Sometimes I even love my friends, if you know what I mean. But that’s another entry or four.

The feeling seems to be universal among us. Sometimes I’ll get home from a party or from hanging out and someone has tweeted or blogged it; sometimes it’ll be expressed aloud in the moment. It’s always that exact sentence: I love my friends.

And it doesn’t just mean that we’re always there for each other, or that we share important life events, that we work on nifty projects together, or that we always have plenty to chatter and laugh about. When we say it, it means something slightly more specific. When we say it, we’re saying “Thanks, you guys, for being such big, dirty perverts.”

There’s this whole disapproving world out there where most of us are expected to be reserved about sex, to behave nicely and not paw all over each other in the glaring light of day. I mean, there are social niceties, sensibilities! Won’t somebody please think of the children! And that’s cool, I guess. I have this really convincing innocent face that I need to keep in regular circulation, lest I forget how to use it. And I do have many rich and wonderful friendships with people who don’t need to know that I’m obsessed with sex; that wouldn’t get it if confronted with it. And that’s cool too.

But it’s great to have people in my life that do get it, and are possibly close to as fixated as I am. I love having a close group of friends who can invite one another to participate in threesomes without making things weird. I love that I can give my male or female friends lap dances while their partners watch, and we all get a little turned on but mostly just giggle. I love the fact that I medaled in Saturday’s great impromptu Totally Huge Dildo™ suck-off (I didn’t get the gold, sadly. Maybe guys really do give better blowjobs, after all…) and came home with a sample of throat-relaxing gel, because friends share.

I feel privileged to have seen some of their come faces. It feels comfortable and oddly poignant that I know the exact expression the slightly reserved and delicate brunette in the corner makes when she’s being spanked (it’s thoughtful and appreciative, like a person who brings her notebook to a wine tasting), even though I haven’t seen her naked (yet). It’s fun to teach my boyfriend how to tug a girl’s hair on the scruff right where her hairline meets her neck, and watch him practice on a lovely nymph with freckles on her shoulders.

I can talk about politics, petitio principii, and pony play with these people, and everything in between. Where else could I ever really fit in?

I’m not afraid of much. I love heights, I relish the chance to get up and make an ass of myself in front of a crowd. When I’m walking alone at night it crosses my mind embarrassingly seldom that I might get jumped. My grandma bought me pepper spray as a high school graduation present, and I never bothered to bring it with me to university: it lay scorned in a desk drawer in my old bedroom until my little brother discovered it while snooping and unleashed its wrath on his own face. I’m not afraid of snakes, spiders, or ceolacanths. Maybe I’m a little afraid of commitment (commitment and velociraptors), but even that bogey doesn’t leave me in a cold sweat. I’ve had my share of ugly experiences. I know that bad things happen, and I’ve learned that this isn’t a safe world. I still just can’t manage to work up much day-to-day fear about things; I have this bizarre and baseless confidence that I can manage whatever nasty surprises come along in life.

That said, fisting scares the shit out of me.

Sometimes I’ll watch a video or read a first-hand account of a woman experiencing vaginal fisting, and it’s obvious to me that the pleasure involved is transfiguring, transporting. It’s all so over-the-top and sexy. The apparent intensity of it is incredibly erotic, and that makes me think “Hmmmmm, what if I…” for a split second. But then, my inner realist shuts me down with “Surely any sex act that would require an episiotomy needs to come off the table, sweetie.”

Okay, medical intervention is probably hyperbole here, but I literally do not understand how an entire hand would fit in me. Four male fingers is the most I’ve ever attempted, and my vagina felt like a clown car. A ripping, throbbing clown car. Three fingers is usually too intense, if I’m catching knuckle. Where would the thumb even go? And it isn’t like my vagina is freakishly small. It’s accommodated some beautiful penes in its day (no, never more than one at a time). I’m pleased when a partner remarks that it’s nice and tight, but I’ve always thought that was more a function of my mighty pelvic muscles than an indication that I’m anatomically much smaller than average. So I put it to you, speaking as the possessor of roughly normal-sized equipment: where would the thumb even go?

Also, I don’t think I could feel right about being the fister unless I was absolutely sure the chick was a seasoned veteran. I have huge hands for a woman. Whenever I consider the possibility of fisting someone I look down at my gargantuan mitts and flinch in sympathy. And I haven’t even gotten started mentioning anal fisting! I can’t even grok that at this point, although I’m thrilled that people are having their fun.

So how does fisting work for these courageous women who welcome it enthusiastically into their sex lives? I guess, like most things that are potentially awesome, it requires training. It’s probably like gauged piercings: you work up to larger and still larger sizes until finally you’re absolutely guaranteed to never have a career in corporate America again. I mean, until you can fit the whole thing in. And I know there’s skill involved: the whole “silent duck” entry with all the fingers tapered to a (relatively) comfortable point (aside: is it still a silent duck if I’m screaming in agony?), the copious lube, the necessity of relaxing. It all just seems like it’s a lot of time and effort to put into making sure I’ll have to order a diva cup in size 2.

Fisting might be one of those things I’ll just have to file under “not for me”, along with water sports and nu rock. Although, what if I tried it with a really small-handed woman? That could be sexy. I mean, I hate to think I’m missing out. You know, fear is the mind killer.

I want it. No, I don’t lust after it. Masturbating with a tentacle dildo would be more a matter of novelty than actual desire. While cephalopods are super awesome, and ever since I saw The Future is Wild I absolutely believe that they’re going to inherit the Earth, it’s hard for me to sexualize them, or their appendages.

It would be more in the family of giving a foot job: something to try just so I could say (mostly to myself, and possibly to the internet) that I have.

I get why there’s tentacle porn. Kind of. Apparently sex with octopodes has been a theme in Japanese literature and art since the early 19th century. So when hentai creators were faced with the prospect of forever turning penises into pixelated blobs to comply with censorship regulations someone cleverly dipped into the historical vault and pulled out a writhing, slithery tentacle that was all too willing to get down to business. For the greater good.

I don’t get why that should be hot, per se. I also don’t really like coffee, but I’m not thrown every time I pass a Starbucks. I figure it’s just a personal choice. Some people get off on watching women popping balloons; some people get off on watching cartoon women with balloon tits being forcibly penetrated by tentacle monsters. Or maybe everybody actually just finds both things funny. I mean, even if you did find this stuff unbearably erotic, part of you would realize that it’s hilarious, right?

And that’s why I need this toy. It just can’t get around being funny. I want to bring this tentacle dildo on adventures with me. I want to take vacation photos of the tentacle dildo: in front of the Louvre, gravely contemplating the heretical MacDonald’s there; taking advantage of perspective by pushing his mighty suckers against the Leaning Tower of Pisa to keep it from tipping over. I want tourists everywhere to pose with my tentacle dildo. I want virgins to flee from it. “It’s okay, virgins!” I’d laugh, “he’s friendly.” But they don’t understand English very well. My tentacle dildo and I would have a laugh about the misunderstanding over tea and Turkish Delight.

But the really compelling thing about owning this tentacle dildo is that it empowers a person to say “my tentacle dildo” a lot. You know, without having to do so much imagining. My tentacle dildo. It should be a show or something. Things being what they are, probably an anime.

You know what’s frustrating? Entitlement. Or, I guess I should say a misguided sense of entitlement. I don’t like it when I run into it on the freeway or at the grocery store, and I sure as goddamn don’t like it when it burrows into my sex life.

A sense of entitlement, in my experience, can be the biggest distinction between a date and a rapist. It often transforms a partner into a bully, a disappointment into a snit, and if it doesn’t let up your sense of entitlement will make me want to stop touching your naughty bits, without fail.

Not too terribly long ago I used to mess around with Clifton Overmangle. He proved a challenging playmate. If we interacted on a purely platonic level, we were fine. Mostly. Sure, he mocked my voice, my clothes, my mannerisms, and my lack of coordination ruthlessly, which wasn’t totally fun, but tolerable. When bathing suit areas come into the equation, though, mockery became one small element in a constellation of issues. His only two settings were “not touching me” and “hurting me”, omitting all the luscious possibilities that lie between. Sure, roughness has a place, but more importantly it has a time, and that time is not always. Additionally, his interest in my pussy was conspicuously outstripped by his involvement in my ass. I’m absolutely up for anal play, but I hate feeling like my genitals are either going to be neglected or considered a chore.

Also, he was a “virgin”, only interested in oral and possibly saddlebacking at some point. I’m not a fan of technical virginity in concept. Feel free to do whatever you like on your own timeline, but when you’re sexually active and claiming that you’re a virgin because of which orifices are involved, I have to ask, what are you protecting? A hymen you could’ve broken in a hundred comparatively boring ways? Some magical brand of virtue I’m unaware of that doesn’t tarnish when mouths and asses are substituted for vaginas? A pretend superiority over the rutting masses… you know, the ones who rut in a slightly different way from you? In addition to all the other ways that it’s silly, insisting that digital and oral sex aren’t real sex is tantamount to saying it’s impossible for me to fuck a girl because I have no penis. It’s an absurd construct, and I feel hypocritical enabling it.

Despite all this, we had some good times. On rare occasion, there’s some appeal to the prospect of having a few anal orgasms, getting bruised up all over, and ending up with a penis in my mouth. Eventually, though, the inarticulate rage that I sensed behind his roughness got to me: I became more and more convinced that it was coming from a hostile rather than a playful place. It felt like he was working out his internal choler on me just because I was there and physically weaker. When I tried to talk about it, he opined that I was a control freak and wanted to micromanage his behavior. When I explained that it was upsetting me, he argued that it shouldn’t. Yeah, well, it did. So I went on a Clifton sabbatical. This wasn’t an attempt to punish him by withdrawing sexual favors or acting out of pique; I just felt like our emotional tendencies were poorly matched. Anger distresses me, and he seemed consumed with it.

It wasn’t long before Clifton decided I could help him in another way. I should send him pictures: pictures of my ass, my tits, my feet, my pussy (even my pussy, of all things!). He reasoned that it shouldn’t be emotionally taxing for me, and he would be less bothered by the fact that we weren’t sexually interfacing anymore. It was, he asserted, the perfect solution.

Um no.

“With the glut of good porn out there, I’m sure you’ll manage without me,” I responded, unimpressed. I didn’t understand, he protested. He needed my help; I was more of a fantasy object for him than I knew. My body, my expressions, my blowjobs… there were times when he wanted to get off to me, and his usual porn was no help. He needed dirty pictures from me, and he needed them immediately because he was turned on now and it was getting late. These are arguments perfectly situated to thud against a skeptic’s mind with the true ring of bullshit. How can a fully aroused male not have a plan B? Especially when plan A hasn’t even admitted to owning a camera. Even if he was incapable of finding satisfaction without an image of me to wank to for some occult reason, that didn’t make it my problem. Invoking the already stupid fallacy of “You gave me blue balls, therefore you owe me _______.” at a distance of several miles insults everyone’s intelligence.

He was upset that I refused. I was selfish, arbitrary, cruel, unfeeling, and more willing to indulge my insecurities than help out a friend. For months he repeated his request, and this was the new complexion of our “friendship”.

There are people out there who enjoy trading racy pics over the internet with friends, strangers, partners, whatever. I’m not one of them. I’m not any kind of exhibitionist. When it comes to photographs, I haven’t evolved much past the loathing I cultivated during my adolescent awkward phase. I’ve spent entire years of my life avoiding cameras: I literally cannot provide visual confirmation that I was on this planet in 2004, and I’m okay with that. For me, giving someone sexy pics is a big deal, and it requires perhaps more trust than bondage would.

Now, it didn’t irritate me that he asked for pictures. It irritated me that he did not stop asking. He became pushy, plaintive, and disrespectful about it. I never understood when getting a picture of my ass became his inalienable right. When did desire become entitlement?

After literally hundreds of denials from me, he recently suggested we start meeting up again as a way to alleviate his preoccupation with pics. Circular? Not to be believed! In addition to the old problems, I didn’t want to physically deal with someone whom I routinely had to remind over and over in text that my body is subject to my choices, and that no means no. Even for a “virgin”, you’d figure this stuff is pretty elementary. Thus we found ourselves at a total impasse, and at that point each of us had a moment of crystalline clarity:

1) I realized that as much as I like to give people multiple chances before I cut off contact completely, I actually already had in this case, and things were only getting worse.

2) Clifton realized that I wasn’t going to give him naked pictures or blowjobs in the foreseeable future.

My insight made it a great deal easier to take the insults that flowed from his; I was done, he knew I was done, and now it was just a matter of hearing why I had been really, horribly, inhumanly unfair about all of this. I sat through it because I find that when you deprive a guy of his parting shot, he never feels quite fulfilled enough to leave you alone after that. And Clifton and I were at last on the brink of the exciting and glorious prospect of leaving each other the hell alone for good and all.

I’ve had to deal with this type of thing too many times: just because you’ve had or think you could have fun with my body doesn’t make it yours. I’ll decide what I want to touch, where I want to be touched, whom I want to invite inside me, and whether I want to send images of any part of me. If that’s selfish, then… fuck that. It’s not selfish. It’s my birthright. It’s non-negotiable and as true for me as it is for everyone else. To these few but precious things, I am justly and unquestionably entitled.