quizzical pussy

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.

The following personal story can be seen as a supplement to my series on rape and consent, although I didn’t set out meaning to write it. I started relating the experience as a brief example in an upcoming entry and it got longer and longer until I realized it was its own piece. To be clear, I’ve never called this incident rape; I’ve never known what to call it. It was a bad experience, though, so if reading it will upset you, read about tentacle dildos here instead!

______________________________

Reginald Sleeth and I were having a fight again. We fought a lot: snarling, ugly fights. He’d threaten to kill himself, or to hurt me. I’d bawl until the salt from my tears formed little icicles on my lashes. Sometimes the battles started when I’d raised my eyes too high from the ground in public and looked another man in the face, which always convinced Reginald that I was hell-bent on fucking that visibly-faced man. Sometimes they started when I found out he’d been making promises to other girls behind my back again. Sometimes I didn’t even know what the problem was and the fight just seemed to start without me.

We sat on his futon. I was sobbing, and he was only getting angrier. I just wanted things to be okay; I apologized again and again, not really knowing or feeling why. I said the words “I’m sorry” so many times they stopped sounding like words and became a strange background noise interrupted by the gasps and hiccoughs spewing from my wailing, puffy face. The part of me that I considered my personality had been broken for a while, and whatever was left of me seemed to cry a lot.

His face got crueler and he looked more disgusted with every sorry I said. But I couldn’t stop. It was mechanical now; it was the whirring gears that kept me breathing. Finally, I said the “I’m sorry” that tipped him into a rage. His movement was so abrupt and violent that I assumed he was going to hit me, and I flinched. But he turned away–toward the door–not toward me, so then I thought he was going to leave me all alone in his apartment with no car, no phone, no self. That scared me too. I reached out to stop him from exiting, but I realized I was already being pulled, dragged to the floor by my shirt. He ripped it trying to take it off. He tore my favorite bra too but it clung, wounded, to my body. His grip was too tight on me. The air conditioning was suddenly too cold on my newly bared skin. I shook my head, tried to back up, struggled to regain the safety of the furniture, to get away. I was sure he was going to hurt me. Badly. Maybe he would kill me. He was stronger.

Reginald was on top of me, holding me down with his knees while he undid his belt and opened his pants. He was hard and I was terrified. His anger and his force and my misery transformed even the erection I’d always been happy to see into something frightening. He grabbed my hair and moved me around to my knees, facing him. I cowered as he loomed in front of me, and I couldn’t look at him. I pulled away but he had my hair and I was too afraid of him to really fight. I didn’t say any real, human words because I wouldn’t stop screaming, and then he slammed my head down and rammed his cock into my mouth, and it felt like my face was on fire. I choked on my tears as much as his thrusts. My mewling panic was muffled now, less shrill and more like a ragged, guttural hum. I wonder if the vibrations made it better for him.

It didn’t take him long. When I felt him release into my raw throat it was bitter and nauseating. I wanted a drink of water. I wanted to be sick. But then his fingers jammed into me between my legs, raking against the dry flesh there and now a new pain tore through me. I was afraid to tell him no and I’d run out of screams, but I shook my head again and whispered “please”, mute tears running down my cheeks. And he did stop after a minute, and I curled myself into a ball thankful he hadn’t killed me, all the while just wanting to die.

Why why why why why? It kept buzzing in my brain. It was punishment. I’d finally done something that bad, and I didn’t even know what it was. The amount he must hate me is unfathomable I told myself, like hovering at the edge of a bottomless pit.

Reginald sat on the floor with his back to the wall, looking away from me. His presence nearby was ugly, but no part of me was willing to move. I was still and he was still as I tried to ride the roaring whys in my head. It wasn’t until I heard him crying that I looked and saw that he’d covered his face with his hands. I don’t think there were any tears.

“I’m scared now,” he told me, in a shrill voice that threatened hysteria. “I’m scared because I thought you wanted that and now I’m afraid you didn’t like it.”

Of course I hadn’t liked it! What the fuck? I probably looked at him like he was speaking Icelandic, like he was a Martian teapot or a huge aphid-shaped gumball. Why would anyone want that?

“Remember?” he sputtered. “Remember how you told me you wanted that? I didn’t think I could, but I wanted to try. For you!”

Oh shit. It fell on me, a cold, dead weight. Months ago I had told him that I’d fantasized about “forced” blowjobs. I had wanted it to be like a game, defined sex play done in fun. Not like this. Never like this. How could a misunderstanding be so profound? But it had happened. He’d done it for me. He’d taken my throat while I cried, while I was terrified. And it was my fault because I had literally asked for it.

I unraveled myself from my fetal position on the floor and gestured toward him affectionately. I could not bring myself to touch him yet. I was fighting back nausea and shudders, and tears leaked silently from my eyes. I was so thirsty I couldn’t afford the tears, but they wouldn’t stop. “I’m sorry,” I told Reginald. My voice sounded tired and raspy, but I tried to make it soothing. I knew I had to say this or worse things would happen. “I’m sorry I made you do that, baby. I know it was so hard on you. It’s okay. You never have to do anything like that again.” I hoped like hell he never would. I stared vaguely at his cheap, stained carpet because I couldn’t look over at him and I couldn’t look down at me. I hated us both too much just then, as I kept purring my lies and his breathing quieted. “You were so good, baby. You were only doing what I wanted you to do, and it was very wrong of me to ask. But I’ll never, ever force you to do those things again.”

Sometimes reunions drip with lust, and not much else. You’re finally occupying space again with a body whose proximity means “get ready for orgasms” to yours. Pheromones seem to hang in a cloud above you both, and he presses into you, seething with the frustration of every time he masturbated thinking about you, each time he reached down to his cock and wished your head was blocking the way. His hello kiss is full of tongue and teeth, mimicking the waxing hardness you feel through his jeans. It’s dizzying, delicious. He doesn’t care much what you have to say; he wants to occupy your mouth in other ways. It’s all very low-stakes and purely erotic, and somehow that’s what makes it hot.

Sometimes reunions are joyous and fun. Like you haven’t seen your boyfriend in a couple weeks and it felt like too damn long for both of you. He hugs you like it’s been months, like he’s been waiting for you– not just your body, not just the orgasms he knows are going to happen. You inhale richly, smelling each other’s mingled scents of detergent and skin and breath and shampoo and other things all intangible and sweet that have become shorthand for contentment. Things suddenly feel more right now that you’re touching, even if you’re just holding hands. There will be fun, and conversation, and hysterical laughter. Also, there will be really amazing orgasms. This one is both hot and warm.. and pretty bloody cool.

Both of these are much, much better than the “I fucked you once, have been avoiding you ever since, and now here you are, looking as horrified as I do,” reunion.

Sex tips are an odd institution. They’re like body mass index or the census: not necessarily useful for individuals. They’re often more just rough indications of averages, helpful tools to know what to expect in the general population. But despite what I may have said in moments of anger, I’ve never had sex with average. No one’s tastes ever perfectly match all the sex tips you’ll find. Hell, not even all the sex tips match up with one another. It’s confusing.

This is why when I write about sex I talk a lot about myself: what sex is to me, what I like, what I think and feel about it all. It isn’t my narcissism (okay, it could partly be my narcissism) so much as the fact that I can’t realistically say “guys like this” or “girls like this”. I often feel uneasy declaring “Laramy likes this” or “Edwin liked this” because how can I get a good enough grip on these things to be comfortable saying I know them to be true from my outside, insecure, biased-as-fuck perspective? I like “Laramy seems to like this” or “Edwin said he enjoyed that” better.

This doesn’t mean I’ll never write a “How to Succeed at Reverse Cowgirl Without Really Trying” manifesto, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take myself seriously enough to pretend it’s going to be widely useful.

Which brings us to blowjobs. A specific thing about them, really. From time to time I’ll run across a list of oral sex tips or some guy’s account of what makes a blowjob great for him, and often you see the same things come up again and again: lots of saliva, using hands, engaging balls, stroking the perineum. These are all things that have usually enjoyed warm receptions and glowing approbation from my barely-random-at-all sample of the population (read: guys whose dicks I’ve had in my mouth). Often, though, I pause when I read what may be the least-sexual all-star highly agreed-upon oral sex tip ever: eye contact.

I have no problem kissing, fondling, or fucking with eyes open and clamped onto my partner’s. Eye contact can add to the experience. It’s intimate, but doesn’t have to be emotional; sometimes it’s just deliciously intense. But for some reason I feel completely weird about establishing much eye contact when I’m giving head. For a moment of “this is fun, isn’t it?” camaraderie? Sure! But eyes locked on his for a substantial portion of the fun? It seems awkward to me. I’m not saying it should; it just does. I hope it doesn’t make me a bad feminist. I hope it doesn’t make my oral skills too inferior.

Here’s how I see it: I enjoy giving blowjobs, and part of why I like them is because they’re so entirely about pleasing the guy I’m with. I get off on how I’m making him feel in addition to the sensory pleasures of actually performing fellatio. But the point is mostly that I’m focused on him. That’s what many guys appreciate about it (although I’ve heard rumors that it feels kind of good also).

This might be way too neurotic, but I feel like in that sense I should be almost invisible. Or at least unobtrusive. If I keep pulling his attention back to me I’m intruding on his blowjob, even though I’m the one giving it. My mission is to turn my lips, my tongue, my hands, my throat, my larynx, into a chimeral machine of pleasure. This is not the time to make it about me. It’s not even the time to make it about “us”. It’s about him and his cock.

Also, I wouldn’t want either of us to feel bound by this eyelock thing. Looking down at me might get tiresome when maybe he wants to close his eyes and enjoy, or at least stop straining his neck to look at me. And I’d rather concentrate on what I’m doing, frankly. I want to be able to choose position and trajectory based on things like comfort, pleasure, and accessibility, not visibility.

Eye contact personalizes oral sex, of course. It might be a huge turn-on for a guy, seeing the dilated pupils, the raw cocklust pulsing in the eyes of the face with the mouth that’s currently housing his penis. Maybe it makes blowjobs romantic and sweet to extremes they otherwise seldom reach. I don’t know. I’d feel presumptuous. I don’t want to decide how personalized a blowjob needs to be. Maybe he doesn’t like me all that much; maybe he’s closing his eyes and thinking of England and the last thing he wants is me looking up expectantly, all like “aren’t we sharing quite the moment!?”

Now, if a guy tips my chin up gently and instructs “Look at me,” the whole thing becomes insanely sexy and I will fucking lock eyes like it’s my prime directive in life (until such time as the blowjob ends, at which point I go back to my usual prime directive, which is [classified]). But otherwise, eye contact’s not even on my radar.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of male sex toys. I think they’re every bit as good an idea as their female counterparts, and those are canon in Quizzical Pussyland. I even want a Fleshlight of my own so I can fuck it with my Feeldoe. Is that meta or what?

I say I specifically want a Fleshlight because I’m a little wary of some of the other toys out there. Like with any partner, I have some standards for my sex toys. I’m not saying that my masturbation aids have to be charming, witty, and have pretty eyes. I’m saying that they need to not creep me right the fuck out.

Fleshlights are cute, with a range of neat little orifices and inner textures (lotus, twista, ultra tight, vortex…), many of which seem appealing. The coin-slot “stealth” orifice is the closest these things come to being creepy (I can’t help but think it’d be like fucking a Barbie piggy bank, if there were such a thing), unless you find the hilarious “Succu Dry” vampire-toothed mouth off-putting.

Another  masturbator that seems pretty cool is the Tenga Flip, which looks like a hyperbaric chamber for your cock, or possibly something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It might seem a little sexless and sterile for some people, but since I have a well-known robot fetish I’d have no trouble putting my equipment in this docking station. Hopefully the tech wouldn’t revolt and the ending wouldn’t be totally inscrutable.

There are other sleeves and masturbators that seem pretty great. But there are many, many toys for guys out there that seem like catastrophically bad ideas. They’re designed oddly, marketed awkwardly, rendered patently unattractive, or just seem weird somehow. I realize that a vulva or a mouth is more aesthetically complex than, say, a penis, and that might account for some of the problems I’ve seen. But let’s face it, it doesn’t explain away all of them. Let’s examine some of these issues a little more closely:

Terrible Marketing Copy

The Super Head Honcho Masturbator has the following quote in its description: “It’s as good as a blow-job. Women will be dancing in the streets.” You know what guys like to think about while they’re masturbating? How much chicks hate giving them blowjobs! If my boyfriend had one of these and we were about to have sex, I’d definitely just hand him his Super Head Honcho Masturbator and a bottle of lube and tell him, “Enjoy your foreplay! Let me know when you want to fuck. I’ll be on the couch playing Pokemon.”

…Except how I like putting cocks in my mouth and the Head Honcho doesn’t have anything to do with that. That quote is just reinforcing the “Hey, consumer, you can’t get a woman to blow you, so you’d better buy this!” stereotype that I already mentioned I hate. This also seems like a rather dim marketing strategy.

Hilarious Details

Some guys are turned on by a full bush. I’ve had zero real guys complain that I shave mine, but I had a phone sex client who would always treat me to a diatribe about how I was hurting my “poor little peach” and crippling my sexiness whenever I forgot his preference and told him my character was smooth. So there’s a market for pubic hair.

The Full Bush Vibrating Cyberskin Pussy isn’t just a clever name: it was clearly meant to cater to the bush-loving demographic. But I can’t help but think that something went wrong in the execution. Something about it seems a little… off. I don’t think that pubic hair grows the way they think it grows. I vote we rename this “The Swedish Cleft”.

…which brings us to…

Dealbreakingly Embarrassing Name

The design could be absolute genius, the orgasmic promise superb. Still, I just don’t see myself buying a Flip A Sister Over or an ATM (not referring to banking) masturbator. Where I come from we try to keep our masturbation devices classy, thank you very much.

Resembles Something Deeply Troubling

I may never learn why anyone would choose to give the Kinky Virgin Masturbator a scalloped detail around its gaping suggestion of a vulva, but I hope they realize that it gives the toy an eerie vagina dentata/hookworm flavor to it.

However, I don’t have time to worry about The Kinky Virgin. I’m too busy praying to Paul Verhoeven Almighty that the My Cocoa Stroker isn’t hiding under my bed. I can confidently state that this is NOT what pussies are supposed to look like. Why why why would anyone put a body part inside something that looks like the brain bug from Starship Troopers? I loathe the people who brought this abomination into the world and I hate everything they stand for.

WHAT?

The reviews for the UR3 Pocket Ass are really good, and maybe I’m missing something, but does the disembodied finger tugging open its “life-sized” anus add something positive to this toy, or is it just really, really funny?

Real Dolls are arguably kind of creepy, but their anime-inspired Boy Toy line is far creepier. “Hey, Dawg. I heard you like the uncanny valley, so I put your sex doll in the uncanny valley so you can be unsettled while you fuck fake women.”

And don’t even get me started on ROXXXY. Robots are keen, but I’m with Holly on this particular one. I wouldn’t touch this “companion” with a ten-foot arc welder.

In closing, dear god what IS this thing?

I may never come out to my parents as bisexual.

I haven’t identified as bisexual for very long. I didn’t actually have sex with a girl until last year, and although I quietly wanted to–was terrified to–for years before that, I never did, and wasn’t comfortable calling myself bi until I had actually interfaced with a pussy that wasn’t my own. I figured that was what the term “bi-curious” was for. Also, for me, if there was such a term as “bi-terrified”, that would’ve also applied. I was fairly certain that I would never actually be able to get together the courage to eat a girl out. It seemed so daunting and advanced and, although this is counter-intuitive…alien.

Of course, that was roughly the feeling I had about sucking cock before I tried it. In fact, to my teenage mind putting a penis in my mouth seemed like a disgusting, degrading endeavor. When rumors went around my high school about any girl “needing a pair of kneepads” as we put it, I always thought, “Poor thing! Why on Earth did she do that?” Remember, blooms just don’t happen much later than mine did. Obviously, once there was finally a cock rearing in front of me all hard and enticing, it finally clicked and I swallowed it with alacrity and without a speck of doubt. Similarly, when I finally had a pussy waiting under me, pretty and beckoning, I was suddenly way less scared and way more bisexual than I had ever given myself credit for. I only ached to make her feel something amazing. I only felt humbled, elated by the way she bucked and moaned as I tried to be less inept, to faster figure out her spots and secrets.

After that experience, I started to shyly define myself as bi. I sort of looked around the couple times I said it out loud to make sure it was okay, to see if anyone objected or called shenanigans on me. No one batted an eyelash (I don’t think anyone I told was all that surprised), and I didn’t get struck by lightning either.

I’ve never had a relationship with a woman. I’ve had weird pseudo-relationships, definitely. My best friend in high school had a meltdown when she learned I was thinking of going to Homecoming with a guy; my other best friend and I used to share chewing gum the fun way. The girl who became my Sophomore year roommate in college decided to become my friend when she watched me during a courtyard session of our Freshman Comp class, my hair backlit by the afternoon sun, and determined that she thought I was pretty. We read books about sex to each other late into the night, gave casual caresses that crackled with sexual tension, and our fights were practically lovers’ quarrels. I spent a lot of time during my late teens/early twenties thinking I could well be a lesbian (I did have a boyfriend, but I wasn’t physically attracted to him so much as in some kind of occult thrall, and I knew it). I was always sure I could date a chick; that was never the question.

Now that I’m no longer afraid to fuck a chick, there is no question. I could easily have a relationship with a woman. But I’m attracted to guys too, and so I have the bisexual privilege of never having to deal with being in a same-sex relationship if I don’t choose to. This makes it really easy for me to just not mention that I lust for, desire, could love women. It makes it easy to have a boyfriend and play with girls once in a while and never have to ask people to confront any facet of my sexuality that might be uncomfortable. And for my parents, my liking women would be a problem. Probably THE irrevocable problem. Maybe even worse than getting… gasp!… an abortion.

My friend Eloise Chestlegrinn didn’t come out to her family when she identified as bi, but as she became more and more sure that she preferred innies to outies it grew into a big issue. She started feeling that not claiming her sexuality was like lying to her very close (and very religious) family. What had been an acceptable deception as a bisexual woman was suddenly intolerable as a lesbian. And that makes sense: once you eschew men you can’t “pass” anymore. The option of camouflaging as straight has disappeared, and you’re no longer hiding what may be one aspect of yourself; you’re now hiding your entire romantic life. The fact that she fell in love with an amazing woman only adds to her yearning to be out. She wants to say “This is who I am and this is who I love!” fearlessly from the rooftops. Of course, she also feels like she’s going to need to add “…and please don’t hate me.” because her parents are probably going to shit bricks and then tell her she’s going to hell.

And that’s more or less what my parents would also do. They would be very, very sad and talk a lot about “urges” and “choices” and “lifestyle”. My mother would cry that she won’t be seeing me in heaven. It would honestly suck, and I don’t want to do it. I never want to deal with the mess it would make. And in a way, they’d be right about one thing: it is a choice in my case. I don’t have to fuck girls; I want to fuck girls. I really want to fuck girls, and it bothers me that anyone is pathetic enough to have a negative reaction to that choice, but I went through over two and a half decades not fucking them, and I can obviously choose not to. I just find that choice insipid and limiting, because my attraction to women is not a choice. And if I ever really fall for one, I may very well want to holler something from the rooftops about it and not get lectured about Leviticus 18:22.

Same-sex attraction isn’t a choice. Behavior is a choice. My father has worked with churches his entire adult life (does it surprise anyone that I’m a preacher’s kid?), and has counseled many well-meaning people who were terrified of hell on how to modify their behavior and “resist homosexual urges” by becoming half-hearted heterosexual spouses. You know how that turns out? Fucking badly! When I say behavior is a choice, I’m talking about Eloise’s parents, and potentially, someday, mine. We can’t change the fact that we want to touch boobies and lick clits and make pussies quiver and their owners writhe. And we shouldn’t be the ones to adjust. It’s a lot easier to choose to react to the news that your child’s gay or bisexual with understanding and love than it is for that child to eternally resist her truth. Our parents could modify their judgmental behavior and choose to embrace the parts in the Bible (if Bible-thump they must) that deal with not condemning others, loving everyone, and leaving the tough questions about who and who is not damned for all eternity to the great big Dom in the sky rather than focusing on the couple places that say “OMG fags are evil!” right next to where it says that eating shrimp is an abomination. How about THAT lifestyle choice?

I love going to parties with someone I’m fucking because the entire evening is foreplay: rubbing up against each other like animals in heat, teasing each other surreptitiously (more or less) while laughing with friends. It just heightens everything a little, makes it that much more fun. The best part of it all might be leaving at the precise point where we’ve had tons of fun, are both horny as hell, and have just enough energy left for spectacular sex when we get home. It makes it seem like even though the party’s ending, it’s kind of just beginning.

Laramy and I had driven to the New Year’s Eve party separately, so we each took our cars and met back at his pad afterward. The drive was what such drives always are: like in Jurassic Park when everyone’s eyes fixate on the rippling water in that little plastic cup as the T-Rex approaches. Knowing what’s about to happen but having to wait is the best possible way to heighten tension both in movies and in pants.

I like it when Laramy breathes “wanna fuck?” in my ear. It’s not dirty talk. It could be, I suppose, but it isn’t. It’s not waggish or jaded either. It’s just a straightforward question, spoken softly but holding within it something sonorous, clamoring. Oh yes. I really, really wanna fuck.

“Did you bring your toy?” he asked. He’d wanted to get me a sex toy for Christmas and I specifically asked for something that seemed suited for use with a partner. Of course I’d used it on my own, just to make sure it was… um… safe. Yeah, safe.

The Fukuoku 9000 is the best compact vibrator I’ve tried so far. Like eggs and bullets, it makes it easy to incorporate clitoral stimulation into partner sex, but I think that the finger-hugging design of the Fukuoku makes it particularly clever. I find it rather easy to drop things when I’m distracted by a violent orgasm, so slipping this on my finger instead just makes sense. It has only one vibration setting, which is moderate but actually a very good level for me. If your clit can pick up a dramatic difference between the three included textured sleeves then you’re a terribly delicate princess who must be protected from peas at all costs (although I do have a nominal favorite, and it’s the one with horizontal ridges). It comes with a little carrying case that amusingly looks like it’s meant to slide onto a belt. I can’t imagine taking advantage of that last feature, but I certainly want to meet someone walking around with this attached to his or her belt, for both comedic and personal reasons.

…And of course I’d brought it! I quickly redeemed it from my bag, set it on the bed for later use, and took off some clothes. His mouth found my nipples almost as soon as they found air. Then I dropped to my knees. It’s not that I absolutely have to put a penis in my mouth before putting it anywhere else. It isn’t policy or anything. But it’s very fun to do and generally seems like a good way to start things off. Laramy’s belt is ridiculous, frustrating. I’m used to belts that fasten in the front and come off easily. His doubles halfway around his torso, releases with a mighty velcro roar, and can allegedly be used to repel down cliffs or some shit. But finally, the pants were off and his cock was in my mouth. Somehow sliding it down my throat (though I haven’t been able to deepthroat him yet) is both soothing and exciting at the same time, like fingering a cabochon while on a roller coaster. I wasn’t sucking, flickering, lapping at his pretty penis for long when his voice, husky with arousal, stopped me. “I want to fuck you.”

This is when we always seem to get oddly polite. “How do you want to do it?” I ask. “Well how do you want to?” he echoes. Or vice versa. And then there’s this little awkward pause, like neither of us wants to be the bossy one. We tend to do the same thing picking restaurants. Next time we have sex maybe I’ll just push him around into position and have my way with him. But this time I remembered my Fukuoku, and realized that rear entry was a natural choice. “Wanna do doggy?”

The thing you have to realize about Laramy and I is that we pretty much always want to do doggy. That’s not to say that we don’t have fun with other positions, but I think doggy style is the mutual favorite. Although I’m cuckoo for clitoris, there’s nothing in the world like the feeling of a penis catching my G-spot (which exists) just right as it pounds into me. Laramy swears that the angle of doggy style just hits every spot perfectly for him and that it feels excruciatingly good.

We fucked that way for a little while and I came several times, which made me forget that there ever was such a thing as the Fukuoku 9000. Fortunately, Laramy had the presence of mind to remind me. Now, I’ve known for years that G-spot+clitoris=fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, but it honestly never gets old. The Fukuoku, which can get me off on its own in about 15 seconds flat in the privacy of my bedroom, while watching reruns of Oz, suddenly made the actual hot sex I was having almost completely unmanageable. My mighty pelvic muscles tend to force Laramy out of me during an intense vaginal orgasm if I’m not really paying attention. I think I ejected him three times within the first few minutes. I was roiling, collapsing, caterwauling. I had to take periodic breaks from the Fukuoku while we fucked to keep my brain from shutting down altogether.

Cooler still, he could feel the vibrations. And from what I understand, my pussy feels even better when it vibrates. Imagine!

I was sort of slumped over with my eyes rolled back into my head after my kegel muscles had yet again shoved his cock out. He didn’t slam it back into me this time. “I want to fuck your ass,” he told me. It seemed like a very good idea.

It was only our second time doing anal. I’ve just recently started enjoying it. For a long time I’ve liked the idea and I’ve definitely appreciated anal orgasms, but trying anal intercourse without lube is probably not the best possible introduction, and that’s the only way I’d ever tried it before Laramy. With-lube ass fucking is a revelation. We lay on our sides (which seems so far to be the most comfortable way of fitting a penis in my ass) and his finger opened me gently. “You’re so smooth and tight,” he said, his voice a little rough. His breath was hot on my neck. This is the closest Laramy actually comes to dirty talk, and it boosted me halfway into orgasm. Then he eased his lubed cock inside.

“Yes. Yes. YesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesYES!” I just wanted to make sure my point was made. It seemed about five times better than the first time. I suddenly wasn’t concerned about pain…there was no pain; there was just intensity and delirious sweetness. I wanted him harder; I wanted him deeper. I forgot my toy again. Once again, Laramy didn’t. I think he really just wanted to know what my ass feels like when it vibrates. Turns out, kind of awesome.

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?

You know that perpetually amused observer that lurks in your head, noting every perception, action, or thought that might possibly have a funny slant to it? Mine noticed something recently.

I’ve felt pretty rough this week. I had this infernally sore throat, complete with ugly, swollen tonsils. My stomach was unhappy with life, food. I had a sore, stiff neck, felt feverish, and was kind of useless in general. But still, the image of having my mouth fucked danced across my mind each and every time I masturbated, and damned if I didn’t consistently arch my back, tense my limbs, and moan deep into the thought of it.

It’s not always a good idea to actually give a blowjob, but it’s pretty much always a hot idea.

Also, I think I’m feeling better now. Cock, please.

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.