TastyTrixie.com

Archive for the ‘sexual consent’ Category

Once upon a time in the eighties I read a story in Cosmo about a woman who got stuck on a plane sitting next to a guy who whipped out a porn magazine in flight, putting her in a Very Uncomfortable Position.

There was a pretty good piece in The Washington Post about the same thing happening with porn on mobile devices (stupid WP makes you have a login to read, sorry). Normally most coverage of publicly-consumed porn is really biased and weird, but they did an okay job of it: TECHNOLOGY INCREASES CHANCES TO SEE PORN IN PUBLIC.

Listen. I will defend every adult’s right to buy porn, to make porn, and to think whatever taboo sexual thoughts they want, but when you shove it into someone else’s face, you’re sexually assaulting them. You are forcing them to engage in a sexual encounter with you and your fucking porn without their consent. Is it to the same degree as actually jacking off on them on a plane or frottaging(sp?) them on a train or taking your own dick out and shaking it at them? Of course not (and I totally understand FANTASIZING about doing all of those things or FANTASIZING about those things happening to you), but I personally would press charges against someone who did that next to me. It’s unacceptable.

Of course, I say these things having been resentful at times when I wanted to pull up a NSFW blog or my own site when we’ve been on the road and in internet cafes and had to limit myself or do a lot of alt+tabbing, but that’s a far cry from the guy in the story who started watching hardcore, audible porn with not only the woman right next to him, but HER KIDS, too. The thought of it honestly makes my blood boil and my imagination to immediately go to a place in my head where I’m kicking this man’s teeth in and beating him about the head with his fucking laptop.

The shocking part to me is how many people (let’s face it, mostly MEN) think they’re entitled to publicly entertain their dicks wherever and whenever they want. How can you POSSIBLY think that’s okay? AND WHY ARE THEY GETTING AWAY WITH IT? Frankly I think we’re all obligated to publicly humiliate (to an extent that goes beyond what some of them are probably after in the first place) and legally dog these idiots.

Is there a grey area where I’d be more forgiving? Yeah. I know sometimes when you’re rowdy with another person at dinner or something you might flash some pictures on your cell phone at your buddy and someone might see it from a distance, but when your bubble is touching a stranger’s bubble either physically or audibly, you just do NOT insert sex into said stranger’s bubble. If you’re many seats away from anybody and nobody can HEAR your porn, I think that’s less of a big deal. If you make a valiant effort to hide it when someone approaches, I think that’s okay. And personally I wouldn’t care if someone masturbated next to me on a plane as long as they didn’t expose themselves or touch me or make eye contact with me and they did their best to hide it.

I think that I’ve masturbated under a blanket on a plane just to relax so I don’t know . . . maybe I’m drawing my lines in very subjective ways. I know I’ve had conversations in restaurants that were really graphic, loud, and could easily have made people uncomfortable but I think I’ve never done that with kids around. I hope not, anyway. Plus, I *love* listening to other people have conversations like that. UNLESS it’s guys talking trash about women or anybody calling people names. I have been known to ream people out for that. But it’s still different to talk about a sexual encounter and have people overhear you than start HAVING a sexual encounter with your porn and force people near you to have it with you, whether you intend to or not. And when your loud conversation disparages and insults people it’s kind of the same thing; you’ve drawn total strangers into your bullshit in a hurtful way.

I’ve also been known to have very noisy sex in apartments and not been modest at all about closing curtains when I’m naked or fucking in my own home to the point where I’ve been chastised by property managers and I don’t think people should have to be quiet in the summer when they’re fucking with the windows open to let in cool air at night (god, I love that sound). But I still think that’s different — there are walls, even though they’re penetrable and rendered mostly symbolic, that symbolism is something every civilized person should be able to recognize that establishes distance and literally marks the boundaries of what’s inside and private and what’s out. It’s an entirely different thing, however, if you stand in your window or  your yard making eye contact with schoolgirls as you’re masturbating. That is ENGAGING people and forcing them to participate in your scene. NOT OKAY. Same with listening to loud extreme porn where a neighbor or passerby could hear the sounds of people in pain or engaging in kinky roleplays (I wish I could find the link to a story about someone calling the police on his neighbor because it sounded like he was raping/killing a woman when in actuality he was “just” watching violent porn for hours at high volume). On the other hand, I think it’s perfectly allright for people to masturbate in their cars on their lunch breaks or whatever, with or without porn, as long as they’re not standing up through their sunroof and ejaculating on their windshield or making whatever they’re doing and/or watching visible to people close by.

Then of course I have to admit I’ve exposed myself in public places, mostly for pictures but sometimes just for the pure fun of it. Again, I’m worried that I have a double standard even though I’m 99% *convinced* that when I’ve done it it was DIFFERENT . . . safe and wholesome even when sexually suggestive. Somehow I just don’t believe a nude Trixie is threatening or dangerous or harmful, and I especially don’t think anything is “assault” if you are in a park or something but attempting to be discreet and someone stumbles upon you. If you’re lurking in some bushes, though, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along so you can expose yourself to them, then THAT is fucked up. I have masturbated in a library, but I didn’t *want* to be caught, so that makes it okay, right? I mean, I would have been mortified if I’d gotten caught! But for some reason I feel perfectly content telling everyone about it, even my friends only an hour after the fact.

So what about the way I have explicit nudity and sometimes sex acts on the front page of some of my sites (like this blog) without a warning page? Is that just as bad? Of course, I still think that’s different. Is it just because it’s ME and what I want to do? I don’t think so. People who don’t want to see porn can block my sites and I have also added metatags to make it easy for my pages to be identified as adult. Also, I’m not SITTING DOWN next to strangers in public places and making them watch and listen to movies of me masturbating and fucking. Anyone who sees me online still has the control to close their browser.

Then again, I’ve taken my top off on a hot day when driving in heavy traffic. I still had my bra on, but I *so* wanted to take it off and felt very irritated that I could get in trouble for that. I still do. I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with rush hour boobs. Or rush hour masturbating. Just don’t LEER at people, you know?

*****

The whole time I’ve been writing this, comparing these different scenarios, I’ve been torn. I want to be honest with myself and challenge myself to think critically about whether or not my boundaries and judgments are consistent, correct and safe BUT I wonder if by doing that publicly, I’m letting everyone off the hook and confusing issues that are actually very clear.

I could mull this over all night, about how it’s different to shove sex in someone’s unwilling face in a confined space versus being off-trail in a state park giving a pal a handjob when someone stumbles upon you and you quickly try to cover up and the other people are easily able to turn around and go the other way. I could sit here and list all of the reasons why it’s BEYOND inconsiderate to make other people watch/listen to porn (and why it’s especially wrong, I’m afraid to admit [and simultaneously uncomfortable with my hesitation to boldly say], when a MAN does this to a WOMAN and/or kids).

*****

Confession: some of the phone sex calls I’ve taken and gotten off to hardest were from guys with this “problem”, or who at least fantasized about acting on those urges. Guys jerking off in their apartments watching the girls walk home from school in short skirts. Guys jacking off in the parking lot and exposing themselves to their coworkers and other ladies just trying to drive away. Guys sitting in internet cafes with hardons.  I mean, pretty much all of the stuff I get off to hardest is taboo stuff I’d never want to happen in real life.

So how do I feel (almost) completely comfortable saying that if I caught somebody doing these things in real life I’d kick in their teeth, BUT when someone confesses it to me on the phone I just coyly call them naughty, FEIGN shock and disgust, and furiously masturbate myself to orgasm?

I don’t think I’m (a big) part of the problem, but I know a lot of people would beg to differ.

*****

The Washington Post article kind of blows off this behavior as just “too much information” or “socially inappropriate” or shaped by our mobile device culture making people self-absorbed, inconsiderate shitholes (TRUE), but I still think it’s much more sinister and criminal than that in ways that the men MIGHT not get (or totally DO get and that’s part of the thrill). And fuck if I have the patience to explain it right now. Let me know if you want me to, though, and/or if you have some links to people who already have and/or if you want to take a stab at it yourself.

It boggles my mind how I can peck out this many words and still leave so many dangerous gaps.

I couldn’t resist looking at the beautiful man-body chopping wood next door so I did something I think (I thought?) is really, REALLY wrong: I took sneaky pictures of him without his knowledge or consent. And now I’m doing something even MORE wrong: I’m posting one of them here:

He’s not our neighbor, he just delivers and chops wood for our neighbor. And I HAVE to watch him do it, because the guy is incredibly beautiful. Not his face, just his whole old-fashioned working-man’s body with that wedge-hourglass shape. The thick pants with the shiny metal details, the gloves, the white tank top, the cap, the scraggly mullet and those pale muscles built up in the shade and from working outside when it’s raining, because it rains all the time where he works. He’s like an 80’s version of the guys in old propaganda posters like these:

I have always been in love with watching men do physical labor. Even though I felt sort of dreadful about it, I was compelled to run and get the camera. I stood in the kitchen and snapped a few pictures where he could have turned around and seen me. But before that happened, I ran into the bedroom and took pictures of him through the crack between two panels in our shoji screen so he couldn’t catch me watching him through the magnifying lens of our camera. My desire to capture his image forever outweighed the voice in my head reminding me I was doing something wrong. Something I’ve seen/heard of other people (men) doing that sickened me, but that memory didn’t stop me from doing it myself.

You shouldn’t spend time on fetish-oriented forums online if non-consensual voyeuristic photography (and other stuff) bothers you. You’ll find out things that you just don’t want to know and see things you weren’t meant to see. Like pictures of used maxi pads guys steal out of public restrooms or photos a foot fetishist surreptitiously took of his neighbor’s niece’s bare feet while their family unwittingly enjoyed a barbecue in their driveway. The woman was probably in her twenties and the guy who took and shared the pictures described his sneaky method for capturing them and the type of camera and settings he used and how he managed to not get caught.

The freaky part is the way these people usually don’t even acknowledge the line they’re crossing, or worse, act like they’re ENTITLED to snagging these things that belong to other people. Of course, half the time someone with common sense will challenge these people or point out the err of their ways, but most people don’t bother to post any opposition, instead just showing their appreciation for what the voyeur-thief has “created”/salvaged for the members of the board. Or they will critique the spoils, like the guy who complained that the neighbor chick with the bare feet was so fat, how in the world could the spy-photographer possibly think anyone would be interested in seeing her or be aroused by her himself? So not only is this woman with the arched foot and a BBQ rib in her mouth being displayed on the internet without her knowledge or consent, she’s ALSO having her weight criticized. AWESOME, right?

I pretend that I’m not quite as bad as these sociopaths because I know what I’m doing is wrong. But I guess that actually makes me worse because I know it’s wrong and I’m doing it anyway (and those guys on the forums might know it’s wrong too, they just don’t waste time making a big show of acting guilty about it the way I am in all of my gross hypocrisy).

I can pretend I’m conducting an experiment or research. That I’m a writer. That the end result of provoking thought about these important issues of privacy, consent, and all SORTS of interesting things is worth the negligible or nonexistent “damage” I’m doing. And after all, it’s a really REALLY grey area, right? I mean, how many people would even think me taking and posting the picture of the axe man is wrong if I didn’t tell you that *I* think it’s (maybe) wrong? And this isn’t really a blog entry about that guy, it’s about me or the collective us and the image is actually a snapshot of me — the voyeur — and my thoughts, not him. It’s entirely possible to intellectualize it that way. He could be anybody. You can’t see his face. No one will ever know who he is. Probably not, anyway.

And would he care if people DID know? Maybe he’d WANT to be credited and known far and wide as The Woodsman Who Got Trixie Hot. Of course, that brings me back to the obvious trespass of not asking for his permission to photograph him in the first place, but speaking of consequences, *I* certainly don’t want to pay them. I don’t want *him* to know he was chopping wood next to TASTYTRIXIE and therefore knows about our websites and where I live and can tell everyone how to find me (I’d have to tell him about our sites in order for him to give INFORMED consent, though that disclosure would be out of ethical, not legal obligation; you don’t have to specify where or when something will published on a consent form, just that you as the photographer have all rights to the photos which legally you don’t REALLY need to do anyway since in our country the photographer automatically owns the photos, not the model). I don’t want to tell a big strong stranger with an axe and a cock that he gives me a boner and I want to take pictures of him — LOTS of pictures. Well, I do sort of want to tell him that, but I know it’s not such a good idea/could cause problems. He might be weird or scary or even if he isn’t, then our neighbor (a decent neighbor, not our scary neighbor) would know about us and that would make everyone on the block uncomfortable. Most of all us.

If it were my actual neighbor out there making me hot chopping wood, I wouldn’t have taken the pictures. Because that would be violating the good neighbor code of pretending each other doesn’t exist. And I certainly wouldn’t take pictures of his young daughter! Even if it were to record how she trespasses on OUR property, walking just three feet past me sitting in our window. Well, maybe I would (for proof of trespass only!), but I wouldn’t post them on the internet. But maybe only because I’m a pornographer and could get in trouble for it just by virtue of that fact.

When I pondered these things aloud to Delia, she doubted my assertion that if it were a woman out there, hanging laundry or washing a car, I totally wouldn’t have taken the pictures. She’s probably right. After all, I took this picture (without her knowledge/consent) of a hot redhead fishing because she had a really great ass:

It’s the kind of picture you can get away with taking in public and even sell prints of in local galleries that don’t have any artistic standards. It’s the kind of picture no one (except other wankers) would bat an eye at as long as you keep up the appearance of it being completely innocent. Even though I know that I took it purely out of sexual/sensual interest. And I know that any straight man with a camera would have taken it for exactly the same reason (or to prove to himself that he wasn’t) whether he would admit it or not, and there are tens of thousands of men with cameras with hobbies or professions doing exactly that. I know a lot of people who take completely g-rated innocent-loo
king pictures and jack off to them later even if they didn’t intend to when they snapped them.

Part of me feels justified in posting this because there are so many writers and artists and reporters and network television stations getting away with doing so much worse with absolutely no compunction. It’s only people like me who openly call ourselves pornographers who are recognized for exploiting and objectifying others even though we play be much stricter rules and are faced with much harsher penalties for violating them than any other industry would be. But that train of thought is just another diversion from asking myself how *I* would feel if my neighbor were peeping through a crack in the blinds taking pictures of ME doing yardwork or thinking he’s not home when I sunbathe naked on our deck when actually he’s hidden behind a tree and rubbing his crotch against its bark. Of course, I’d feel totally different about it if I had a teenage son or daughter being spied on. But the guy chopping wood is clearly an adult. And he wasn’t sunbathing naked. And again, I don’t think I’d care if my neighbor secretly stood in his kitchen taking pictures of me as I walk around OUR kitchen at night topless (which I do sometimes with the blinds open, not because I’m an exhibitionist but because I just don’t care) as long as he didn’t hang them in the post office with our address printed on them or something.

Meh. Now that I think about it, I really don’t care. As long as someone stays on their own property (not sneaking onto mine or a stranger actually stalking into the neighborhood to spy on us or putting on an obscene display of masturbating and shooting cum into our yard) and is only taking pictures of what I do outside or with the windows open then who cares. It’s kind of fucked up, but not a huge deal. It’s not like I’m lying in wait every day, conducting surveillance on everything that our neighbors and their visitors do.

After completely overthinking this, I absolve myself from guilt. It’s harmless and legal. But I guess if I give myself permission to be an opportunistic voyeur-perv-photographer that means I have to stop being shocked and offended by other people who do the same thing. I’m reluctant to do that.

Here’s a couple with a sleeping bag and no picnic basket that I shot entirely because I knew they were setting out to lie down together and *do things*:

If I hadn’t admitted that and had posted the picture somewhere else, like on a stock photo site using woman-approved keywords like “young love” and “spring romance” (and cropped out our cracked windshield & wipers giving away that I’m like a dirty old man doing a drive-by) it would probably be perceived in a totally different way. It would just be a bad snapshot. But because of who I am and what my site is and my confession that I’m a voyeuristic pervert who sees sexual potential everywhere, it seems more DIRTY and exploitative than it really is. What if a local television station were doing one of those weather “stories” about how people were still going to the beach even though it’s overcast, and those two lovebirds were in the background? Would the station be committing an evil deed? If not, why does it seem so evil when I do it and admit that I see erotic potential? And why would it seem so much grosser and more evil if I were a man instead of a woman?

Bah.

Speaking of double standards and being a horny woman, check out this post by Goddess Glory where she describes her friend getting mad at her for drooling over a waitress’s ass at dinner:

“. . . my mind was completely focused on fantasizing bout our waitress’ beautifully ginormous ass sitting on my face, cutting off my air supply.”

After my rant about ending violence against sex workers, here’s a hysterical bit from Extras featuring Clive Owen (it’s about prostitutes and actresses):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4xDrGA2nK8&rel=1]

Taken out of the context of the show, it probably wouldn’t be funny to me if we weren’t already fans of Ricky Gervais. Too scary-true.

Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Here are some of my thoughts on why violence against sex workers happens and some suggestions for helping to end it:

Violence against sex workers boils down to two things: a woman who demands money for sex is a woman who is saying NO to sex without money. For all of our fancy talk and progress, our society STILL does not wholly support women’s right to say NO. Our problem is not just with women charging money for sex, our problem is with women SAYING NO to sex with men unless the men meet conditions set by women.

We still do not wholeheartedly agree that women own their own bodies. We still do not wholeheartedly agree that women should have the right to determine the circumstances under which we choose to allow people access to our bodies. We still think that one woman’s individual sexuality is responsible for wreaking havoc on men’s behavior, on other women’s happiness, and on children everywhere. We still blame individual women’s sexual agency for bringing about the downfall of all that’s good for the Christians’ cause, for the feminists’ cause and for unraveling the the moral fabric of society. We still believe women shouldn’t be allowed to capitalize on natural resources the way that men do — we fear the complete disintegration of order in our society if women are allowed to openly capitalize on and dominate the biggest demand in the marketplace.

Violence against sex workers is all about refusing women the right to NOT consent to sex; this refusal is RAPE. We’re all (as a society) accessories to rape by not supporting sex worker rights.

Violence against sex workers is violence against women. Violence against sex workers is often an act of angry insistence that women are of no value except what men, their brainwashed handmaidens, certain hysterically irrational feminists, and society place on them or allow them to be, and that a woman who values her body enough to deny someone access to it unless they provide her with money or material compensation is a woman who has stepped so far out of line that she deserves to be punished or committed to the care of Concerned Women who insist no woman in her right and undamaged mind could have chosen sex work willingly.

Gary Ridgeway, The Green River Killer, did not just target prostitutes because he knew crimes against people who work the streets are harder to solve; that makes it sound like he would have been happy killing just about ANYbody when that’s not the whole truth. He didn’t want to and never did kill homeless veterans or women who consented to having sex with him for free. Gary Ridgeway said, “I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex.” That hatred of sex workers and the belief that charging money for sex is loathsome, unjustifiable, immoral, indecent, “devalues” women (the most absurd charge of all), and/or somehow dirties or corrupts a society that would otherwise be asexual outside of the bonds of married love or male ownership permeates our culture and is not unique to serial killers. Gary Ridgeway was able to talk openly with his neighbors about his desire to exterminate prostitutes without them batting a fucking eyelash; chances are you yourself have tolerated similar hate speech without objection when you would certainly have responded differently had the target of the hatred been twelve year old Catholic schoolgirls or boy scouts or soccer moms.

When people say that women’s bodies and sex are SO VALUABLE and precious that it’s taboo to put a real dollar amount on sex acts, they are talking irrational, brainwashed rubbish, pure and simple. Violence against sex workers is not so much about women charging money for sex as it is about women having the right to WITHHOLD sex and to define the terms under which they will CONSENT to sex. Any of us who deny sex workers the right to set the terms of consent is effectively denying ALL WOMEN their right to consent or not consent to sex. Do not tell me or any other woman that she can only have sex when she loves someone or is attracted to someone or is sex-positively horny for someone or is in the politely prized possession of a husband. Do not tell me or any other woman that she is “too good” to work in the one industry that women naturally should dominate. Do not tell me or any other woman that it’s more respectable to do ANYTHING for money other than turn a trick. All of that bullshit is part of the the same belief system that claps people on the back who perpetrate violence against sex workers and says, “what you did to her? SHE’S A PIECE OF GARBAGE AND SHE FUCKING ASKED FOR IT.” And that? That’s part of the same belief system that enables violence against ALL women. It’s also part of the same belief system that leaves women in helping professions like teaching, nursing, and mothering grossly underpaid and overworked: because women should not do the most important jobs in the world for MONEY, we should do them for LOVE. You know what that I call that? A BIG FAT CROCK OF SHIT.

If that’s not enough for you to think about, here are some suggestions for behavior I think would go a long way in changing this mindset that promotes violence against all women via endorsing violence against sex workers/subverting sex workers’ rights:

*Don’t sit in mute and complicit witness when your friends, coworkers, acquaintances, partners, etc. use hateful speech against women and sex workers. Use peer pressure by expressing disapproval of expressions of hostility towards sex workers. Challenge them to rethink their prejudices. Tell them they sound like crazy fucking assholes. Tell them you don’t want to hear that shit and walk away from them. Just do *something* instead of accepting that it’s okay. Even if they respond initially with belligerence or defensiveness, it will give them food for thought and make them think twice the next time they feel like saying that. Anything you can do to break down the assumption that prostitutes and sex workers are “fair game” is a step in the right direction.

*Never, EVER, shortchange a sex worker, refuse to pay a sex worker after receiving service, demand or force a sex worker provide services she doesn’t want or hasn’t agreed to, or tolerate someone bragging who does any of those things. Stealing service from a sex worker IS RAPE. Also, make sure our justice system knows that assaulting or forcing a sex worker to perform or endure sex acts without meeting her (or his) terms and conditions IS RAPE, not some lesser charge (read this story for an example).

*Buy time with a sex worker. Pay your sex worker with the same respect and appreciation you give any other person who provides you with service. Hell, pay your sex worker with GREATER respect and appreciation than you’d give other service providers because sex workers do their work at greater social costs and legal risks. Act as proud of supporting your favorite sex workers as you are proud of supporting your favorite record store, restaurant, mechanic, or chiropractor.

*Let people know you support sex workers, and have the balls to say that you proudly patronize sex workers (if you do). Be vocal in your support for sex workers’ rights. Let people know you think sex work is a valuable service and that women own their own bodies, are capable of making their own decisions about what to do with them, and should not be denied the right to set the conditions (and prices) to access them under their own terms. Insist that NO ONE — not the government, not other women, not their husbands or boyfriends or jealous stalkers, and not their customers — should tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body, either for free or for money.

*Think critically about sex work and prevailing attitudes towards sex workers. Question media portrayals of sex work, and
do so OUT LOUD to get other people thinking and talking about it too. Ask yourself whether or not your positions on sex worker rights are consistent with your other positions on women and women’s rights (example: if you believe no one should interfere in a woman’s right to an abortion, why is it okay to interfere with her right to charge someone money to touch or be touched by her?).

*Recognize and publicize that not all sex work is the same while also acknowledging sex work for what it is, wherever it is (in many marriages, for example). DO NOT equate sexual slavery with sex work performed by consent. Feminists: don’t get all hysterical and irrational by insisting that all sex work is intrinsically bad; it’s horrible when women and girls are kidnapped, forced to act as sex slaves, are raped, assaulted and killed but you just sound like fucking morons with your inability to separate those crimes from sex work done by women who CHOOSE to do it on their own terms. EVERYTHING A WOMAN DOES WITH HER BODY OR INVITES SOMEONE ELSE TO DO WITH HER BODY SHOULD BE DONE ON HER OWN INDIVIDUAL TERMS. It is unacceptable for anyone, man or woman, to set those terms for another woman (or man).

*Read about sex work, sex worker rights, womens’ rights and feminism (from as many sources/voices as possible). Be open-minded. Be rational. Decide what’s right for you and let other people decide what is right for themselves. Understand that sex worker rights are a gender issue and educate yourself about other gender issues. Do what you can to understand and prevent rape (that’s right, ESPECIALLY if you are a guy).

*Let your elected representatives, local law enforcement and government agencies know that you support sex worker rights and that discrimination against sex workers is intolerable and counterproductive. Have arguments handy that illustrate the perverse double standards used to regulate socially acceptable industries vs. the sex industry. Learn what a “victimless crime” is and do not tolerate people trying to turn bullshit abstractions into crime. Write to the media and complain when you read or hear biased reporting on sex work-related stories.

*Demand higher wages for ALL work traditionally viewed as “women’s” work: mothering, caretaking, nursing, teaching and WHORING.

*Support womens’ right to reject men. It is crucial to women’s right to choose that they be allowed to choose other women as mates and be given the same rights and privileges that heterosexual partners enjoy. Women should not have to insist that they didn’t “choose” to be queer and that it was all decided biologically. Lesbians should not be obligated to soothe ruffled feathers by promising that they really love and appreciate men, just not in that “special” way (even if it’s true). Stopping violence against women mostly means stopping men from perpetrating that violence, and the first step in doing that is insisting that men are not ENTITLED to our bodies. The second step is making everyone believe it. We do not need to make excuses for saying no and those of us who DO say no (whether by not having sex with men, not shacking up with men, or by specifying the conditions under which they will have sex and/or specify the TYPE of sex they will have with men) should not be punished for it.

*****

Here are posts on the same subject by Audacia Ray and Seska.

Anyone else with posts on the subject can provide links in comments.

AFTER SHE FALLS ASLEEP

I may be developing a (bad?) habit; Delia keeps falling asleep at night way before I’m ready to nod off so I’ve been reaching over to fondle her while she’s sleeping. I get her cock hard in my hand and play with it until she wakes up, and then we have hot, steamy sex.

Last night I first tried getting myself off with my eroscillator. I mean, I *did* get off with it. But all that did was make me very ready to fuck and get off again, hence another episode of taking advantage of Delia in her sleep.

Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to mind.

Note: I do not condone sexually touching (or touching in any way) a sleeping person who cannot give / has not given prior explicit consent that it’s okay to do so. Even in a committed sexual relationship you shouldn’t assume that it’s okay to stroke, lick, or mount your partner when s/he is sleeping. Find out how your partner feels about it first and be prepared for him or her to change her mind about it down the road. I’m totally not joking — this is one of those boundary issues where consent gets very blurry.