quizzical pussy

I already tweeted about this, but I couldn’t leave it alone. When I was a kid I used to chew on the inside of my cheek when I got anxious or bored. The skin would start to get ragged and then it would be even harder not to gnaw on, and it became this vicious cycle of livid pink injury. That’s pretty much exactly how I feel about My New Pink Button. And by that I mean it seems a product of anxiety and boredom, it appears completely pointless, and I just can’t leave it alone even though (or maybe because) I already touched it.

My New Pink Button™ is labia dye. Did you ever think you’d see labia dye? Because honestly, I didn’t. Sometimes, it seems, a woman’s labia change color over the course of her life. According to the product’s website, “Yes, it’s perfectly normal and there are many factors that can contribute to this. Ethnicity is a big factor, also age, hormone change, surgeries, childbirth, sickness, health, diet, and medications can all contribute to a change from “Pink” to “Brown” in a woman’s genital area.”

…So, what you’re saying is that it’s perfectly healthy and normal for women of different ethnicities, ages, and states of health and reproduction to have different colored vulvas? And there’s nothing wrong with it that at all…

…that a little cosmetic dye won’t fix?? Awesome!

I’ve never really thought about pussy colors before. I have noticed different pussy colors, but I haven’t really thought of them as having any sort of a hierarchy. I mean, if you want to dye your labia, have at it! The more things you can dye, the more fun and interesting life is. What bothers me here is that while My New Pink Button™ offers four different colors for your labia-dying needs, all four of them are pink. Does that seem right to you?

The four different shades range from a light baby pink (called Marilyn) to a rosy burgundy pink (called Audry). The other two, Bettie and Ginger, are also– you guessed it– pink! If I’m going to dye my vulva, I want more options. I want a crayola box full of labia possibilities. I want an alien pussy, is what I’m trying to say. That’s what I will pay you $30 for: an alien pussy or nothing. Got that? Also, I slightly resent that this product is suggesting that my labia are supposed to be a certain color. Why is pinker better? This is probably the one thing to hate about my body that hasn’t yet occurred to me, and My New Pink Button™ is trying to fuck that up! This is just like the discussion I had with several male friends last summer where I learned that all of them consider large clitorises (did you know “clitorides” is the other plural form of clitoris, by the way?) amazingly attractive, and I suddenly realized– without ever considering it before– that my tiny clitoris is inadequate. And now maybe my labia aren’t “Bettie” enough? Are you just fucking kidding me?

Yes, I’ve gotten out the hand mirror before. Which of us has not? But never specifically to scope out color. So I immediately brandished my trusty mirror and went to studying my naughty bits:

• I’m not familiar with the etiquette involved, so I’m not sure if it’s obnoxious to say that I think my labia minora are kind of cute. They’re not exactly symmetrical, but they fold together like two little petals of a delicate budding flower. I literally just looked at them and said “awwww” out loud. (I suspect my attraction to them has a lot to do with the fact that they’re mine and we’ve had countless orgasms together, which is very bonding.)
• My clitoris is really, terribly small. :(
• Looking at my pussy makes me horny. Is that normal? Oh well. Don’t care. (brb. fapping.)
• Oh right. Color. I guess my labia are pink. I’d say they’re just about EE9572 in hex; fairly close (though not quite so ZOMG pink!) to the My New Pink Button™’s “Ginger” shade. But my skin is so candescently pale that it doesn’t really “do” brownish.
• Are my labia pink enough? Sure. They’re labia, not my sixth birthday party.
• Would I be dismayed if they suddenly became less pink? Maybe even (doom!) browner? I’m trying to imagine this bothering me. I really am. Look, I have trouble walking most days. Kittens are born without homes. Somewhere, someone is mistaking “its” with “it’s”. I have a minuscule clitoris. Please understand, I have enough problems. I really just can’t care about the color of my labia right now.

But some women apparently care, which is why this product exists and has five whole testimonials! And if this makes them feel better about their bodies or lives in any way, that’s awesome and I’m excited for them. However, if “labia must be pink!” is the new “labia must be small, smooth, and even!” I’m about to get grumpy. Although, come to think of it, I much prefer silly pink dye to drastic elective surgery. But can’t it just be time yet to decide that pussies are sexy just the way they are, and natural variety is part of what makes them so? No? It can’t? Didn’t fucking think so.

I didn’t know what it was called when it first made me come
The nomenclature’s trivia, it always knocks me dumb
Unless “Oh god oh god oh god”’s superior to mum
If my G-spot is a fantasy, Oh god! Let me succumb

Dear Gräfenberg, you clever chap
Your spot at least, I mean
It’s helped me fuck and helped me fap
Almighty, though unseen
I swear I’ve never doubted you
It seems so simple, tried and true
And I thought everybody knew
But then, things got obscene
The meanest edict to debut
Since herpes and the clap

Some scientists in Britain gave a survey, not exam
These scientists in Britain say the g-spot is a sham
It’s marketing, they argue, it’s a sexy little scam
So stop pretending there’s a magic pearl inside your clam

Perhaps not standard issue like a coccyx or a wrist
But take away my G-spot and you’ll find me fucking pissed
Though time and time again it’s been neglected, scorned, or missed,
My orgasms don’t lie and they confirm mine does exist

Hey Gräfenberg, can you believe?
They think it’s in my brain
They think I’m terribly naive
My dildos curve in vain
But why does it feel so sublime
Consistently and every time
A climax on a ruddy dime
Not fictive or arcane
How could that lofty two-inch climb
Into my cunt deceive?

Just because you have no G-spot, you can’t wrestle mine away
And if you prefer the clitoris, I promise, that’s okay
But recall they came for G-spots on that dark and distant day
When experts say that prostate stimulation makes men gay

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 got food poisoning over the weekend. Or I guess it could’ve been stomach flu. Either way, there was overmuch puking and misery.

I was at Laramy’s when it hit. Our New Year’s Eve/Day had been grand, involving a party with friends, video games and merriment, kissing at midnight (which tradition I had never participated in before, for whatever odd reason), and, upon our arrival home, the kind of amazing, three-orifice sex that seemed to augur well for the coming (no pun intended) year.

Then, Saturday dawned and brought with it what I can only assume was the most treacherous grilled cheese sandwich ever to grace a plate. The fallout wasn’t pretty. You’re actually not here to read the painstaking details of my digestive system’s overthrow, so I’ll stick to what’s relevant. I was completely bricked, to the point where I couldn’t drive myself home (I live over an hour of freeway driving away from Laramy) and had to stay over an extra, unplanned night.

This is the kind of situation I loathe. Of course I hate being acutely ill — everyone does. But specifically, visiting Laramy and suddenly surprise! trapping him with a sick and woebegone me is pretty much a nightmare. I hate hate hate putting anyone, much less someone I care about, in that position.  In my religion, if I had one, imposition is one of the seven deadly sins, along with being boring and driving like an asshat.

It’s sometimes hard for me to fight that “okay, I’ve gotten you off, so I guess I’ll just flee immediately before there’s any chance of me being in your way, if you could please hand me my pants” impulse after sex; many’s the time I’ve practically fallen all over myself trying to make sure I wasn’t overstaying my welcome. I consciously try to be a low-impact partner: never in the way, never a burden. I want to keep things light and fun and never box anyone in. This habit may be a throwback to my first, abusive relationship and trying hard not to do anything too noticeable, but instead recede into the background whenever possible, which was the surest way to avoid unpleasantness… but that’s just a theory. Like evolution.

This weekend, there was no alternative. Laramy was stuck with me, and my shuddering, groaning presence was quite noticeable. I was more than willing to try to stay out of his way as much as possible, but he wasn’t having any of it. He cuddled me, helped me to the bathroom, ran to get me ice cubes. If I’d had long enough hair he probably would’ve held it back for me. He also forbade me from apologizing for inconveniencing him or fretting about the possibility I might’ve passed something on to him (I don’t think I did, happily), which I didn’t observe very well at all. But he was perfectly sweet throughout everything, and even said he was glad that if I had to get sick I’d done it with him around to take care of me.

It wasn’t the way he or I wanted to pass the weekend, but it could’ve been worse, considering. Also, we had no sex in the midst of me feeling completely awful, but we fucked– gently– as soon as I was reasonably sure the worst was over. Twice.

I consider it a sign of my burgeoning adulthood that I now consider the new year to begin in January as opposed to late August, as I did for several years after graduating from University, even. It’s just now feeling natural to me to make New Year’s resolutions rather than new school year’s resolutions.

So I guess I’m finally a grown-up (yay?)! And as such, my resolutions should be very, very adult. That just follows! Anyway, I’m me… it’s always going to come back to sex.

So here they are, my 2010 New Year’s Sexual Resolutions:

1. Flirt with strangers. Over the holidays, my aunt was talking about her personal philosophy and said, “My friends always want to know why I have such good luck with men, and I tell them, ‘I just smile!’ That’s all I do. I smile at a man, and he comes up and talks to me.” Simplicity itself! Of course, she’s five foot naught, blonde, has the skinniest legs I’ve ever seen on a human, and eyes so luminous they could power Nebraska, but I’m sure that all her romantic success is really just due to the fact that she puts on a friendly expression. Nevertheless, I’m going to try it. I smile a lot generally, but not at people. I realize I’ll have to talk to them as well, but maybe I’ll hone that next year.
2. Start initiating sex. Not with strangers. Maybe just with my boyfriend, and it doesn’t have to be all the time. Just ever.
3. Allow myself to admit when I’m attracted to someone. Even just to myself. Hopefully, eventually, to the someone.
4. Fulfill at least three [3] new fantasies. I’d like to try a FMF threesome, try pegging and/or getting a blowjob, try packing in public, play around with dominance. Maybe explore sex with women more. Actually, I should do all of these things immediately! But as a goal, at least three this year.
5. Perform in my first drag show. There is something so sexy about drag kings. I want that something to be about me, too.
6. Try out at least five [5] new sex toys. Use at least three [3] sex toys with a partner. And tell you wonderful people all the gory details!
7. Become more comfortable wearing “sexy” stuff in front of sex partners. I hate feeling like I’m trying to be sexy, and so I’ve gotten into the habit of trying not to wear my cutest underwear, etc. in front of someone I’m fucking. It’s to avoid feeling like I’m parading around and demanding “look at me”, but at the same time, it’s a silly prohibition. If you have matching bra/knickers sets, you shouldn’t only wear them when you’re sure no one will see them.

Like a wise person should’ve once told me, the best resolutions are the kind you’re going to enjoy the hell out of keeping. Happy New Year, all!

Reginald Sleeth and I sat in his Pontiac, dully admitting our powerlessness against traffic. It wasn’t rush hour; just L.A. The ribbon of cars in front of us was inexorable, unmoving.

The evening before the roads had been open enough that we could flout the speed limit as the good Chief intended. We were young and stupid enough that we played all these risky sex games while driving: let’s see how many times you can get me off between the restaurant and movie theater; how fast can you go without getting us killed while I give you a handjob? I’m not sure if it was that teenage myth of immortality or the teenage reality of barely caring if we died.

That night, Reginald had been at the wheel and somehow me taking my top off came up. I think I said that I wasn’t too scared to, exactly, but I just didn’t really like the idea. I’m naked shy. (Yes, the crowing sex blogger is naked shy and has been for some time. But in all fairness, you’re not reading the intrepid pussy blog, so if you’re disappointed you have only yourself to blame.) I don’t remember if he dared me or commanded, but somehow the conversation didn’t get much farther before I was down to my bra.

It was nearing twilight but not dark yet, and I knew any motorist who cared to look could see a swath of pale skin where all respectable people were keeping their shirts in those days. It wasn’t much worse than wearing a bikini top, of course, and those were practically de rigueur in the California sun, but this was psychologically different. Also, my bra was a very sheer orange mesh, and the nipples underneath it blushed and reared, making a living, lurid, double sunrise diorama on my chest– orange and pink, effulgent to me in its blistering horror. But at least the bra wasn’t off. I still had something to hide behind.

“You’re not really topless,” Reginald observed.

“Errrmphlmsssht,” I groaned. I was as topless as I was comfortable with, but I had already committed halfway. Fuck it, right? I reached around behind my back and unfastened the single hook. I watched the tiny piece of cloth that protected me flutter to the floor mat.

Reginald’s speed slipped from 110 to 96 as his right hand strayed from its regular six o’clock position. Some guys like to roll nipples between their fingers, some like to pull, some like to brush them reverently with the backs of their hands, as if the pads are too common to provide the right type of touch. Oh, and there are others. There are countless others. But Reginald was all of those three, and he somehow managed to do all of them and not kill us. I squirmed, of course. Everything suddenly seemed thick, like how they used to photograph old film stars through gauze. Reginald, the dashboard, the road, all became remote as I felt the searing bliss/pain radiate outward from beneath his hand. I felt my eyes glaze over; I was no longer seeing anything. I often have orgasms just from having my breasts played with, but this one might’ve been just as much from all the eyes I didn’t want to be, and couldn’t even have seen, seeing me.

Nobody had been looking when just my shirt was off, but in between orgasms I thought I noticed drivers noticing my very bare and highly satisfied tits. But we passed them too quickly for me to be sure that it wasn’t just my paranoia, my arousal, my mid-climactic feeling that somehow the entire world was mine.

But now, the day after, we weren’t moving at all, and I wore a short little dress and big fuck-off boots, all very much still on. My bra and all that lurked beneath was safe.

We seldom ran short on conversation. Reginald loved to talk, and I loved to listen to him; I’d been infatuated with him since I was 15, and thought that everything he said was both marvelous and true. I was frequently wrong on both counts, but that’s all part of growing up more than it’s a part of this story. I got to talk too, though. Sometimes he’d ask me questions, although he often phrased them in the imperative.

“Tell me a fantasy,” he said as the car bumped forward briefly, like a sigh.

“I… I’ve always wondered about what it would be like to be with another girl,” I confessed shyly.

Stay tuned to The Pussy Philes to learn of Reginald Sleeth’s reaction to my earliest out-loud admission to same-sex attraction, which couldn’t possibly go wrong in this, an unhealthy relationship between two impossibly immature people. Could it?

Laramy was about to get up from his computer chair to do something that was probably a medium amount of pressing when I suddenly grabbed the armrest, wheeled him around and pulled him toward me. Then I kissed him… not super roughly, exactly, but not gently either.

“You know you could just ask me to come over and kiss you, right?” he cocked his head like a very quizzical puppy. Laramy thinks I’m silly. He’s likely correct.

“Sometimes it’s more fun to manhandle you a little,” I admitted. “You know you like it.”

“Yup,” he gave me a reassuring whisper of a kiss; then, pulling back, his lips curled into a little grin. “Hey, do you remember when we first started hanging out, and you were so timid? We just cuddled and kissed a little for weeks and weeks…”

“Yeah. So did it surprise you when you figured out I’m a sex fiend?”

“It did. But it was a good surprise.” I’m usually one of those infuriating people who don’t know how to accept positive statements about themselves without a struggle, but I took his word on that one. I’m sure it was a relief when we finally stopped just cuddling.

Freaks are the best. Whenever there’s a possibility of playing with someone new, I always hope I have a sex-crazed maniac on my hands. Because honestly, if you don’t have a stellar sex drive I’m going to want eight of you. But I’m sure I would be dismayed evaluating myself at first… you know, if I were hoping to fuck myself. I’m a stealth freak. On a first date, for instance, I’m basically just a little warmer than my basic non-flirting technique. I’m not very physical; I probably end up talking less about sex than I do with random strangers or my coworkers. Sadly.

I think I’m almost afraid of how much power sex, orgasms, and by extension anyone who provides me with them, can have over me. I’m also worried about unleashing the full weight of my sexual desire on people. I’m concerned that it will crush them into a bloody, quivering pulp, or worse, turn them off. I guess you could say that my sex drive actually intimidates me, so I don’t hold out much hope for a near-stranger. I’m glad not everyone has hangups like these because then human reproductive activity for sport or species would be like Vogon paperwork: there would be so much senseless delay and complication that nothing new would ever get started.

And that would make the quizzical pussy very sad, to the point where maybe she’d have to suck it up and grab some crotches! Respectfully, of course.

I’m actually horrible about initiating sex, for the aforementioned reasons. I simply don’t do it at all. Being more or less always up for making the beast with two backs, I’ve fallen into the unhealthy habit of always letting other people decide when they want me and just waiting, doing calming breathing exercises, and praying to Our Lady of Thwarted Libido in between these times. It’s not a flawless system, so learning to initiate sex is yet another thing on my “To work on” list. Making out initiation, though? That I can manage to do without an order, signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months.

Happy birthday to Jesus, Horus, Dionysus, Krishna, Mithras, and Rod Serling. You guys rock. Seriously.

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.