On Vacation...

Today is my last day in California on a truly wonderful one-week vacation. I did a magical photo shoot with Mim Art yesterday. Photoset is now live!

Sex Toy Smackdown #1: A Tale of Two Clitties

VS.

*Sex Toy Smackdown is a new series at School For Scandal that pits two sex toys against each other, battle royale style, to see who wins. We'll begin with my first vibrator vs. my favorite long term vibrator.

*No I don't have two clits, I'm just a purveyor of terrible puns.

I am kind of a sex toy monogamist. I own a lot of stuff- that's the upside of being friends with people who work at sexy toy stores- but when it comes down to it, I mostly rely on the Johnny Dildo for G/A spot stimulation, and my silver bullet to make me cum. Johnny is the near-perfect silicone boyfriend in my opinion, I've had him 6 years and he's still in great shape, he's bigger than average but no so huge that it's a chore to play with on a regular basis, and he just looks awesome. (The fake foreskin ridge is a nice touch, as a foreskin lover!) And I love the silver bullet because it's intense but small, portable, and affordable since I tend to wear out vibrators in time (usually under $20, depending on where you buy it.)

Recently I went to a sex party where I got to try out a bunch of other people's toys (with condoms, of course- safer toy sex is a must! ;)) and I was reunited with my first love- the Hitachi Magic Wand. Reunited and it felt sooooo good- I came three times! I have a hard time cumming in public for the usual reasons, so the extra vrooom was exactly what I needed.

So here's the thing- the Hitachi was my first vibrator when I was fifteen, to wean myself off my showerhead addiction. (Ok, technically the first one might have been one of those smoothie things which I've never been crazy for- I prefer my smoothie blenderized with frozen berries and kale.) I loved my hitachi a *little too much* and destroyed the motor with overuse within a year. (I was a very horny teenager and needed to masturbate at least once a day, esp. since I was still a virgin at this point.) When Hitachi gave up the ghost, I never bothered to replace it- the silver bullet was much cheaper and seemed to get the job done equally well, even if the sensation was somewhat different. I liked the variable speed targeted stimulation, the cheap price that made it easily replaceable when they died (and they tend to die within a few months depending how often you use it), the fact that it was much easier to travel with, and smaller and more convenient for partner sex since it didn't need to be plugged in. Silver bullet has been my BFF for fifteen years, and I dismissed the Hitachi as overrated. And let's face it- it's prettier and more elegant. The Magic Wand is ugly and looks like medical equipment, and let's face it, that's pretty much its intended use.

Trying the Hitachi again made me rethink my prejudice. Holy shit it's powerful! If the silver bullet is a suave, sexually skilled but easily replaced lover, the Hitachi is like a muscled brute that throws you over his shoulder and rough fucks you in an alley. The oomph is just...so...OOMPHY. I know I used the more intense "puree" setting as a teenager but I can't fathom using it now.

And now that I have a grown up job, I can easily afford the $50 odd bucks for the Hitachi (and my 30-something masturbation habits are such that I am less likely to murder it from overuse.) Once I got one of my own, home alone, I took it for a solo spin.

I confess that I've gotten so used to perfectly positioning the bullet on my clit's sweet spot that having to place the massive groaning tennis ball-like head of the Hitachi OUTSIDE my labia was kind of hard to get used to. I guess I sort of get accustomed to how one toy gets me off and it takes a while to adjust to a different type of stimulation. The resultant orgasm took a bit longer as a result and was a lot more diffuse. I kind of missed my silver bullet.

I am glad to have the Hitachi as part of my toy arsenal since it is a magnificent beast. But I don't think I'll be abandoning my silver bullet vibrator husband for my extramarital old flame Hitachi any time soon.

There's one thing the Hitachi always will have over the silver bullet, however- it gives me back rubs AS WELL As orgasms. If only it did the dishes!

Passing

Hi my name is Bianca, and I pass for a lesbian. And I like it.

Although I do identify as heteroflexible (in a nutshell: I like fooling around with girls but am not currently interested in pursuing a relationship with one...though never say never...) and have identified as "bisexual" in the years before "pansexual," I have never identified as a lesbian.

All it takes to pass as a lesbian: short hair. I am serious. Although I do consider myself an androgyne, my style is frequently femme: lipstick, nail polish, dresses, high heels. But as long as I keep my Wahl on the 3/4" setting, I will be read as a dyke.

And let's face it- I put out a queer vibe. I belong in queer culture, not straight culture, even if I like dick. And it's true that I've probably had sex with more girls than your average straight woman (though many "straight" women have a few sapphic skeletons in the closet...) I have written and published a fair amount of lesbian erotica over the years, though it was always based on my fantasies, not realities. I owned every issues of On Our Backs produced after 1998, I own several dildo harnesses, and I love fisting. Of course, in the years that I really wanted to date women, I never seemed to get lucky. And the relationships I have had with women have been emotionally exhausting, sexually frustrating, and full of the crazy. So I'm pretty happy with my genderqueer penis-lovin' girlfag identity.

I will be honest: I LIKE looking "like a lesbian." I like feeling like I "fit in" in queer spaces, at least superficially. Until the inevitable "having to explain being a girlfag and feeling super awkward and sometimes judged" thing kicks in. So is this a form of passing privilege? Passing for a kind of queer that's easier for people to comprehend than genderqueer (or "trenderqueer" as I've had the pleasure of being labeled by narrowminded assholes in the past?)

Passing privilege is usually framed in the context of femme women and others whose presentation makes them appear "straight," or bisexuals who will appear alternately straight or gay depending on who they're seen with. The idea is that those who pass as straight might have a better time getting hired for straight jobs, are hassled less in general, etc. But I imagine it is stressful in a different way to have people assume you're straight when you're not. I am very comfortable passing for gay when I'm not, but it does give me a sense of imposter syndrome at times, like I'm a spy or infiltrator.

What is interesting to me is it seems like Black women can wear my hairstyle (think young Whitney Houston, Amber Rose, Grace Jones) and not be automatically assumed to be gay. Grace Jones even wears men's suits! It's a totally different socio-cultural concept of femininity, and maintaining long, straight hair is a buttload more work for Black women who have curly hair than your average white girl (my hair looks terrible long TBH), so maybe rocking the short cut is partly pragmatic?

(Ok, TBH I'm not sure if this is a short cut or if it's slicked back. This photo is burned into my mind's eye because we sang "The Greatest Love of All" at my 6th Grade Graduation, and it's still a kind of awesome song because it's all about self lovin!)

And I guess for white women it was cool in the 80's. (I love the amount of short hair you see in movies like Desperately Seeking Susan, Liquid Sky, etc.)

FUCK YEAH, ANNE CARLISLE.

But at this point, I don't see a lot of straight white women wearing my haircut. And I'm cool with that, because it makes me distinctive (I imagine I would have been less so in 1983, so maybe my obsession with women with short hair has to do with being a New Wave lover and child of the 80s.)

And here's another thing that throws a monkeywrench in the gears- I enjoy being sexual with other "straight" (realistically heteroflexible) women more than with women who identify as lesbians. I think it makes sense- realistically it's all about the sex and we don't take it too seriously, so we're all on the same page. I recently went to a sex party that was all women, and most of them WEREN'T lesbians, and it was ridiculously fun. I know that the concept of a bunch of straight-ish women having a casual sex orgy would horrify some gold star lesbians, but seriously, what's the problem? I am kind of squicked by lesbian acts being performed for the entertainment of straight men (and I hate if I'm vibeing with a girl in public that it's viewed/treated this way). But there were no men at this party- it was strictly FOR US. Sexuality is weird and no amount of political correctness is going to fix that.

Slutwalk Chicago DIY Poster Contest: Yr Doing It Wrong

(This piece also appears at Sex Or Television)

So, I'm pretty stoked about SlutWalk Chicago.

For the uninitiated, Slutwalk is an international feminist movement that began in Toronto, that promotes dissolution of "Rape Culture" by emphasizing that men should be taught NOT TO RAPE instead of all the emphasis on teaching women how to "protect themselves from rapists" with advice ranging from don't wear a ponytail, don't go out alone at night, and most horrifying "don't dress like a slut," the comment that sparked the movement in the first place.
This sort of mindset teaches women to view themselves as "victims waiting to happen" (reminds me of that horrible "potentially pregnant" fracas a few years ago.) I think that self defense education for women is important, but so is anti-rape education for EVERYONE.

All around awesome chick Diamanda Galas once said something along the lines of "Women need to stop thinking like prey and starting thinking like predators," and I think that's what SlutWalk is all about. Driving home the point that even if you're walking down the street in a G string and lucite heels, it doesn't mean you "deserve" to be raped. Nobody should be blamed for their sexual assault. Our culture needs to shift in a way that rape is never considered ok, and that there is more support and less victim blaming and stigmatization of survivors.

The following is a list of things that SlutWalk aren't about (to my understanding):

1. Reclaiming "slut" as a positive label or celebrating "slut pride"

2. Dressing/acting "slutty" in public Girls Gone Wild style (participants are encouraged to wear whatever they feel comfortable in, whether that's a mini skirt or sweatpants)

3. Speaking out against labeling women as sluts. (Well, this one is a gray area because of #1. I think this movement is very anti-slut shaming but not necessarily dismissive of positive sluthood and general sex positivity. But people are still wildly divided on whether or not being called slut is a good thing, and I don't think SlutWalk is intended as a debate on the validity of the slut label.)

None of the above are necessarily bad things and possibly incidental to this event, but I don't think they should be the emphasized in promoting this event. I think a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of this event because "slut" is such a loaded word. That's why I'm a little perturbed by the results of the SlutWalk DIY Poster Contest.

I feel bad picking apart the entries, because to be fair, I DIDN'T enter a design. And it's unfair for me to criticize the works of people who did, because they took the time and effort and put themselves out there, but I do feel like I need to speak out when images seem inappropriate/problematic to the aims of a movement I am a part of. I realize this is my subjective opinion, and if you want to argue WHY you think these posters are great, be my guest as long as you are willing keep dialogue open and respectful.

I will not be reposting images here, but you can click here to see them. I like the idea of a DIY poster contest instead of hiring an ad firm, but I am sad to say that I feel like the majority of these posters miss the point of SlutWalk entirely, and some are just flat out creepy to me.

Of the ten submissions, six feature sexualized images of women's bodies where you cannot see her face. With one exception, they are pictures of extremely thin "conventionally attractive" white women. Four are of women with their lingerie-clad asses in sexually available positions, two ONLY show the ass and no other part of the woman, with catchy taglines like "I think you're sexy but I don't want to rape you," and "Slut Yeah Fuck Yeah." I might be ok with pictures of a sexy REAL people where you could see faces as well as bodies, but these pictures appear to be lifted from mainstream advertising/pornography and I suspect that other people might find them alienating/triggering as well.

I am saying all this as sex positive feminist who loves porn, lingerie, and copious fucking. I don't currently identify as a slut, but I have in the past. I probably will wear something sexy to Slut Walk, because I enjoy dressing up. All this said, these posters leave a bad taste in my mouth. This imagery might make *some* sense if the event was actually focused on "slut pride" instead of rape prevention, but instead I see a feminist movement getting the American Apparel treatment, and it bugs me.

The other side of the coin is a poster that says "Don't call me a slut/other perjorative implying promiscuity" (which flies in the face of the women who do self-identify as sluts, and I don't believe SlutWalk strives to takes a hard stance either way.) Another poster features yet another headless woman in a demure, girlish powder blue dress clutching daisies (it's objectification of a different flavor) with the catchphrase: "Virgin or Slut? Love Who You Are." I understand the positive message that the slogan is trying to convey, but it falls down the Madonna/Whore rabbit hole all over again. Many of us fall outside of that limited dichotomy altogether.

This is about the only poster that I feel accurately represents SlutWalk, so it got my vote. I confess I am let down by the way entrants chose to interpret the meaning of SlutWalk (especially since the movement has been so distorted by the media already) and I hope the winning entry will accurately reflect a movement of women who don't necessarily wish to be labeled in black and white as hyper-sexualized "sluts" or sex-negative "prudes", but complex human beings committed to creating a culture without rape.

I love Glee, and I am not ashamed.

I don't have a ton of time to watch TV these days, but I find it's a good restorative in small doses (preferably with a glass of wine).

From the moment of its inception I refused to watch Glee. I hated the cutesy marketing it and summarily dismissed it as "Twee." Then it came on Netflix instant view, and I discovered it's the perfect antidote for a crappy day. I am not a theater nerd, and I find some of the musical numbers a little grating and smarmy to be honest, but I can't help but adore this show regardless. Here's why:

1. I am a girlfag. Nuff said.

2. The humor is priceless at moments:

I really wish I'd had the one on the right ("My Mom's Bipolar and She Won't Stop Yelling") in high school.

Also I fucking love Santana and Brittany's rapport. "She looks like Pippi Longstocking, except Israeli! That sweater makes her look home schooled!"

3. Emma Pillsbury's amazing fashion sense:

She's a mini Joan Holloway! I cannot get enough of her pastel colored coordinated vintage outfits and adorable shoes!

4. Puck and Santana. Also known as my fantasy threeway:

ESPECIALLY if breathplay is involved!

5. Mercedes as Frank n Furter. When I was in college, I acting in a production of the Rocky Horror Picture show in Los Angeles. The director was an ex-fatty with issues, who tried to be inclusive by casting *some* fat women in the show, but always in hyper de-sexualized roles like Dr. Scott and the Criminologist. (I was cast as the latter, which was fun, but not exactly my first choice.) Readers, I DESPERATELY wanted to play Frank N' Furter, and I could have owned that shit like whoah- I'm basically Frank N' Furter IRL! Reliable male Frank N' Furters are hard to find (which also happens on Glee) and so women were regularly cast in this role, but they were always very thin, conventionally attractive women. LA= Crappy place to be a size 18. Anyway, I nearly wept when a FAT BLACK WOMAN gets to play Frank N' Furter on the show (sadly because she never gets a leading role otherwise, but...) I felt avenged and made me realize that I should have been given a shot at the role, and it wasn't my fault for being thick, but the director's for her own internalized fatphobia.


5. On a similar note, even the show is incredibly politically incorrect, it's also one of the few shows where you see POC, fat folks, Differently Abled folks in every episode and it doesn't feel like outright tokenism, or characters who are either saintly or two dimensional laughingstock. The humor is fucked up, but it's real. This show is the closest I've ever come to something that resembled my own hyper-diverse bizarro high school years.

Good Vibes Magazine

My tribute to Susie Bright's "Big Sex Little Death" is being featured on the front page of Good Vibes magazine! Thanks D!

I have belatedly arrived at the cult of Jay Z

There are three things I write about at School for Scandal, most of the time:

1. Sexuality

2. Gender

3. Hip Hop

I honestly don't know how hip hop dovetails into this equation, but whatever. Disclaimer: I am a white person who grew up in a Black neighborhood. As a result, I hated hip hop growing up because the hip hop fans were usually the same girls who liked to beat me up, but once I left the hood for a rich white liberal arts college I became obsessed with hip hop because it seemed like an appropriate antidote to the suburbs. So I'm coming from a kind of Gwenyth Paltrow place with all this.

Anyway, I am forced today to admit I like Jay Z.

I think my irrational dislike of Jay Z for many years had several factors:

1. I wouldn't fuck him. Beyonces does, but Beyonca wouldn't. I think he's kind of fugly- he lacks Snoop Dogg's stoner charm, Dr. Dre's old school thug attitude (ok, so Jay Z does have this, but it's just a different flavor that I am unaccustomed to), Lupe Fiasco and Common's intellect, Tupac's street poet romance, Kanye's Streisand levels of drama queen. Jay Z is just...stodgy to me, somehow.

2. I sometimes thing he sounds like a constipated old man when he raps.

3. I am kind of anti-east coast in General. I grew up on Death Row California Love- NWA, Tupac, Dre, Snoop, Ice Cube, Nate Dogg- and it will always be my first and true hip hop love. I am totally team Tupac in the whole Biggie/Suga Night/Tupac DRAMA. Then I developed an appreciation for the dirty south and crunk- Lil Wayne, Trina, Ludacris, Outkast, Goodie Mob, and of course Chicago's Kanye, Common and Lupe. But the whole Rockafella thing? Wu Tang? Biggie Smalls? (Ok, I know Kanye is technically part of that, but he's still Chicago in my eyes). Leaves me cold. But I'm working past this.

I was initially introduced to Jay Z via the controversial Grey Album (Gnarls Barkley's Danger Mouse's Beatles White Album/Jay Z's Black album mashup). I kind of hate the Beatles and yet I still listened to this when I lived in Japan because it was kind of interesting. Anyway, my point is that when Jay Z's rapping is taken out of the context of the original beats it's not as good in my opinion. The bellydance music beats on "Big Pimpin" and "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" is like auditory crack to my ears and it WORKS with his vocals. But lay it over the Beatles or some Girl Talk track and I'm like "EH." The original production is perfect- don't fix what ain't broke.

I also appreciate that he acknowledges that "Ladies is pimps too." Yes we is, Jay Z.

Anyway, Jay Z has a lot of good songs. I cannot hate. And he's actually sort of handsome in the picture above. Still probably wouldn't fuck him, though.

Today's WTF Moment

Walgreens now sells sex toys through their website. Not just duckies, Lelos and shit!!!

Thanks for the tip, Sunny Megatron!



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HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACE JONES!!!

My girlfriend is turning SIXTY THREE today! HOLY CRAP!!!

I am going to celebrate by watching Vamp!

What we've all been waiting for...

Pejazzling. You're welcome.

Unrelatedly, this deliciously androgynous photo:



Is so hot.Too hot for newsstands apparently.

And you know you want more Andrej Pejic. I know I do.

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Pardon the dust...

My insanely talented friend Suzy is helping me with a design overhaul of the blog so things may be a bit....mutable...for a few days. Content will remain intact!

(and yes, I did give her the works of László Moholy-Nagy as a design concept because I am a pretentious jerk!)

Mad Love for Girlfags

Gah! My long-form essay about being a girl fag is being featured on the front page of the National Sexuality Resource Center webpage!

Also, I just want to say thanks to everyone who has reposted "Queer Enough" on their tumblrs and blogs. The outpouring of support from the genderqueer community has been incredible. There's more of us than I could have ever believed. And we're awesome.

BTWs I have a facebook page for the blog now, so click "like" and you can get updates through facebook! YAY!

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Big Sex Little Death: A Tribute

I had the pleasure of attending an erotic memoir writing workshop taught by Susie Bright a few weeks ago. She was in Chicago promoting her exquisite new memoir “Big Sex Little Death,” and had given a reading at Woman and Children First bookstore the previous evening. The class was great- it woke me up out of my writer’s rut, and introduced me to my awesome new blogging buddy over at Dyke Dick Dyke (we had the trial by fire bonding experience of having to read written-on-the-spot erotica to one another as strangers). Susie had us write about our most recent sexual experience as the main course of the workshop, so I’ll be posting the finished version of that vignette soon (it’s not what you think!) It was just the thing I needed to get back in the blogging and writing groove after two years of dormancy.

I thought about formally reviewing “Big Sex Little Death,” but the truth is I am an unapologetic Susie B. fangirl and don't feel qualified to go over my accidental mentor's writing with a fine-toothed comb. I’d much rather pay tribute to it via erotic memoir- revisiting the ways that the stories in this book have intersected with my own life and character development as a sex-positive feminist writer who came of age in the 1990s.

I will say this- Big Sex Little Death is funny, touching and sexy; it's required reading for anyone who cares about feminism and sex. It's as accessible and entertaining as sitting down to coffee with a beloved friend. It also gave me a new found appreciation of the privileges I have had growing up as third wave feminist, and how much Susie has done to make sex OKAY for feminists after the porn-slamming, no-penetration allowed, personal is political crusades of the seventies and eighties.

The first time I encountered Susie Bright was probably in a copy of Re/Search’s “Angry Women" when I was 14 years old, in 1994. (Oh, how the Re/Search series informed my teenage years!) I spent a lot of time browsing the “mature” materials at Comic Relief in Berkeley, the now-defunct underground book shop where I sold my zine "Conspiracy Comix" from 1993-1998. At 14, I wasn’t quite old enough to completely understand the sex positive work Susie was doing in the early nineties- I would maintain a tenuous hold on my virginity for another year or two- but she became an important part of my cultural lexicon as an nascent bisexual feminist who loved dirty stories and masturbation.

Fast forward to 1999. I’m a sexuality active College student now, lying on the floor of my friend D.’s apartment in North Oakland, flipping through Jill Posner and Susie’s collaborative lesbian photo tome “Nothing but the Girl.” D. had gotten a job at the same “Feminist Vibrator Store” that Susie works at in BSLD right out of high school (and still works there over ten years later). D. showed me that iconic Honey Lee Cottrell “Bulldagger of the Month” photo, and explained how the readers of On Our Backs were alternately offended, befuddled and aroused by the image (a tale also recounted in BSLD). I didn’t see what the big deal is. (Again, this is the Bay Area in the late nineties, there was something wrong with you if you WEREN’T a queer feminist. We all owned vibrators, knew how to have orgasms, and took sex positive culture for granted.)

2001. I was in Tokyo, compiling footage for my senior thesis documentary on Japanese street fashion, and picked up a copy of Susie’s Best American Erotica 1994 at a used English bookstore. (Years later I’d be mailing Susie tiny paperback editions of Herotica in Japanese translation that I found in at a backwater train station book shop in Western Japan.) Books in English were like heroin during that celibate, culture shocked year in Tokyo, and books in English about SEX were like heroin with a crack cocaine chaser. I treasured that precious volume, reading it over and over, furtively masturbating in my attic bedroom at my host family’s house.

I’d become hooked on erotica at the tender age of 12, when I’d discovered a copy of Anais Nin’s “Delta of Venus” squirreled away on a hidden bookshelf in my parent’s house. DOV might as well be called “my first dirty book:” I’d be very rich if I had a nickel for every woman I’ve met who discovered it (and masturbated to it) as a teenager. Luckily for me, I lived a few blocks away from the Berkeley branch of the Feminist Vibrator Store and looked old for my age. I got my hands on a Hitachi Magic Wand at age fifteen, and destroyed the motor in a matter of months by using it too much. I also used my allowance to pick up whatever dirty books they had in stock. My favorite, (which I have carried with me over the course of a dozen moves) was the “Hand of Amun,” published on the British Black Lace imprint, which chronicles the lascivious doings of an ancient Egyptian Sex cult. So I always had it in my head that I would write and publish erotica once I came of age, and picking up BAE 1994 was sort of the thing that prodded me into action (and 1994 was ironically the year I'd discovered Susie's writing for the first time- everything coming full circle again!)

I composed my first published story, “Fugu” in 2001, after returning to Los Angeles from Tokyo. Set in Tokyo, “Fugu” climaxed with a love suicide incited by consumption of a toxic blowfish liver. The suave Yakuza lover enters a state of priapistic paralysis as the neurotoxins enter his bloodstream, spending his seed in his American mistress, who then flees the country with nothing a silk handkerchief full of crisp yen.

To quote Susie: "What a fantasy. Tell it to your vibrator."

Greg Wharton picked up "Fugu" for his iconoclastic anthology “The Best of the Best Meat Erotica” in 2002. I got a check for $50 (maybe it was $75, it was spent a long time ago) and the warm, glowy validation of being a PUBLISHED AUTHOR AT LAST!!!

This initial triumph gave me the confidence to continue publishing erotica. I got in touch with a friend who had worked as an editor at Hustler in the 90s, and he introduced me to the fiction editor at Barely Legal Magazine, an adorably twee she-hipster who played flute and sang in a band called "Candypants." She liked my writing, and handed me a plum gig writing “tell all” erotic fiction for $500 a story. Barely Legal was easy because the writing didn’t have to be good, just follow a format- minimum of three sex scenes, the protagonist must have celebrated her 18th birthday within the past thirty days, and you could never use the same word for penis/vagina more than once. I once read an article about writing erotic fiction that stated one should restrict genital descriptors to toggling between cock/dick and pussy/cunt to avoid gross cliches. Barely Legal broke this rule to an extreme: I got creative with a litany of unappetizing genital euphemisms like chatch, snizz, dinger, dork, and vajayjay.

I did my best to subversively queer Barely Legal by writing in as much realistic lesbian sex as possible, references to punk and geek culture, and the occasional pegging scene. It was a fun gig while it lasted, and I even got an invitation to Larry Flynt’s Friar Club Roast (with a $600 cover charge for small potatoes writers like myself.)

I continued to publish “literary” erotica for markedly smaller sums in the seemingly endless stream of anthologies that were being pumped out in the early aughties. I got to work with the some of the best editors in the business- the aforementioned Greg Wharton, Dr. Carol Queen, Rachel Kramer Bussell, and Marilyn Jaye Lewis, an amazing writer and editor who has become a wonderful friend. But all along, I kept my eye on the brass ring: I wanted my writing in Susie's Best American Erotica. My story “Paradise City” was accepted in 2006, just two years before series was discontinued.

“Paradise City” is the tale of a nameless lesbian who accidentally attends a Narcotics Anonymous meeting instead of a lesbian support group. She fabricates a pill addiction in the hopes of hooking up with her sponsor- a tough butch lesbian named Karla. Karla makes the protagonist give her a strap-on blowjob at a $2 movie theater, has her wear Payless hooker heels in bed, cooks her greasy southern food, and even supports her when she loses her job. The protagonist ultimately fakes a relapse into her fictional addiction to force Karla to break up with her. It is a story I am still proud of six years after writing it, and that’s saying something.

Ironically, “Paradise City” is one of only two erotic stories I’ve submitted that were turned down flat by editors. (The other was a story about a pet octopus who murders his sadistic, narcissistic owner mid-coitus. “Cthulhu Sex” didn’t want it. ) About a year before I sent the story to Susie for BAE 2006, I had submitted it to an editor I desperately wanted to impress, for an unpaid website gig. She dismissed the story as “too quixotic.”

“I’ll tilt at your windmill, hater!” I thought after reading her rejection email. “I’m going to get this story published in Best American Erotica, and then you'll be sorry!"

Ah, the classic “just you wait, I'll show you!” lament of the rejected! But amazingly, my butthurt vengeance scheme actually worked! I got a nice paycheck out of it, as well as bragging rights for being in the same anthology as David Sedaris and John Updike. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Quixote hater!

It just goes to show that just because one editor thinks your writing is crap doesn’t necessarily mean that it's objectively crap. There's something to be said for F. Scott Fitzgerald wallpapering his office with rejection slips.

I met Susie in person for the first time a few months after BAE 2006 came out. She was reading a memorial for anti-porn crusader Andrea Dworkin at the Francisco public library, clad in overalls and sports bra. I lurked in the back of the auditorium, a dykey stalker disciple in faux fur and fauxhawk, smitten, and had the pleasure of introducing myself afterwards.

Susie once asked “Am I a MILF?” on her blog (“On the internet, the most heavily trafficked MILF sites feature women who look like they're in their 20s, but who've been smoking and drinking heavily,” she observed) and yes, Susie, while you don’t look like a substance abusing 25 year old, you are definitely a MILF in the truest sense of the word. Susie is as much a pleasure to talk to in person as on the page- she has an irresistible charisma that is somehow glamorous yet down to earth, commanding and soothing all at the same time. She showed me the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s on the road the library had on display, written on what appeared to be a roll of toilet paper. A week later she contacted me to do an interview for her blog, where we discussed R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” at great length. I ran into again at Charlie Jane Ander's intoxicating San Francisco literary series "Writers With Drinks," where I read "Paradise City" in slutty army girl gear in May of 2006.

I fell off the erotica writing wagon after moving to Chicago. Truthfully? I was having way too much amazing sex in real life to devote the time needed to write good quality sex fiction. Now I like to write sex non-fiction. Sometimes the stuff that happens in real life is weirder and more enthralling than anything my brain can cook up.

It is strange how meeting Susie again in 2011 and reading her memoir has helped pull me out of my sex writing slump. Big Sex Little Death reminded me of the importance of telling one’s story for yourself, and actively participating in the creation of sex-positive history and culture.

I am reminded of a line the introduction to Nan Goldin's incredible photo collection "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (something I read as a teenager that stuck with me ever since):

I don't ever want to be susceptible to anyone else's version of my history.
I don't ever want to lose the real memory of anyone ever again.

Participating in the dialogue about women and sex is too important not to write about.

Read this book and watch it change the way it makes you think about sex and yourself.

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Sex Positive Fun This Summer...

Fuck, I am SO ready for it to get warm (icy winds are currently blowing outside, and it's MID MAY.) I am really ready for it to get warm, and have some sexy fun. Here's some of the things I'm excited about for this summer.

1. The SEX+++film series at theJane Addams Hull House Museum(which is a really neat place in general). I attended this for the first time last week, and it's a really neat, intellectual, feminist environment to watch some underground films about sex and relationships, and discuss it with like minded folks. It's curated by Clarisse Thorn, a Chicago-based sex positive, feminist blogger and activist. I am doing some flyering for them, so I figured I should promote through the blog as well! Next film is a "docuporn" entitled “Trans Entities: The Nasty Love of Papi’ and Wil," check out the complete schedule here.

2. The Leather Archives and Museum, and International Mr. Leather! I just started volunteering at the LA&M, and it's AMAZING. You owe it to yourself to visit if you're ever in Chicago. Visit the museum and check them out at International Mr. Leather on May 27-30,- sadly I am missing IML this year for a trip home to the Bay Area, but their phenomenal leather vendor market is open to the public has been described as "kinky christmas"- an AMAZING selection of fun kinky shit for sale. (Shibaricon is also taking place memorial day weekend in Chicago if you're more into rope.) I am also SUPER stoked about the LA&M's tribute to body modification/modern primitives pioneer Fakir Musafar on June 24th, I bought VIP tickets (only $25, gen. admission is $10 and includes the film screening the following day) and you can too.


3. EdenFantasys. Last weekend I attended a strap-on workshop, attended an all-girl sex party, and had coffee with DDD. One of the positive results of all this was I got to try some amazing new sex toys, and my wishlist got a whole lot longer. I was also turned onto the fantastic website EdenFantasys that has an awesome selection with a ton of honest reviews, user forums, and a blogger review program, so expect a lot more sex toys reviews in future. Check them out!

4. The National Sexuality Resource Center website is so damn good, I can't believe it took me this long to disover it. Add them on facebook! I submitted my essay "Queer Enough" to a zine they're putting out called Queer Enough! Fantastic! Also, check out the (unrelated) Girlfags and Guydykes group for those of us who are Queer Enough.

5. Slutwalk Chicago, June 4th! Slutwalk is an international movement that focuses on shifting away from victim blaming women for rape (such as telling them they shouldn't "dress slutty" in order to avoid being raped) and towards other, more progressive forms of education and prevention of sexual assault. The Walk will leave Thompson Center Plaza at noon. There's also going to be an educational play piercing event that night at LA&M sponsored by TNGC for folks 35 and under and their partners, so check that out after!

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Blogger blows

Yeah...it apparently not only ate the previous post and comments (fortunately I had a backup through my RSS feed) it picked the morning where I'd spent 2 hours reformatting and tweaking my blog to crash and delete all my hard work. GRRRR...

I am considering going to Tumblr, except I still like posting thinky long format things, sooo...I dunno.

Girl Crush: Amber Rose

I know very little about Amber Rose, other than she's a model and served as a beard for dated Kanye West, but I am always blown away by her personal style which is a femmedrogynous mix of hip hop, punk and 40's pin up. Also, people of Cape Verdean ancestry seem to be invariably and uniquely gorgeous.


It's possible that I enjoy her androfemme style because it has a lot in common with my own: cropped blonde hair (I just love this look on girls, period), big tits, red lips.

Theres also something a little bit evocative of my beloved Grace Jones:


Though I ain't gonna lie, no one can ever do that photo better than Grace can.

Girl Fag: The Long Version

WTF, Blogger ate this post. So I am reposting it.-B

This is the first essay about being a Girl Fag that I wrote 6 years ago, originally published in Lavender Lens magazine. I changed/updated a few things. It's a bit long, but I wanted to post it here for posterity, as I intend to post a Girl Fag resource guide soon.

Gender fucked: A Fagette's Queer Odyssey in Japan

By Bianca James

Disclaimer: All names have been changed to protect the innocent, some situations have been mildly fictionalized.

The summer of 2002, I was living at home, scraping by working two days a week at a corrupt temp agency, and in a dysfunctional love triangle with a guy and a girl. I wasn't the kind of stereotypical bisexual who had to be involved with both a man and a woman to feel sexually fulfilled. When my acquaintance Lucy's lover John made it clear that he was interested in dating me, Lucy decided she would feel more comfortable if she was dating me too, but things didn't work out as well as we'd planned. "Maybe you're not really into girls," she said when I broke up with her. I had been involved with several girls prior to Lucy, but I'd be the first one to admit that even if I strongly identified as bisexual, I didn't really have great track record with lesbian relationships.

Where shall we begin? My first female love was a former speed addict who dumped me so she could take a different girl to prom. I lost my dyke virginity to a woman who said as we were cuddling on her porch: "You shouldn't have come home with me. For all you know, I could be an axe murderer!" She wasn't an axe murderer, but she succeed in killing the mood for me. The bulk of my collegiate lesbian sex experiences consisted of drunken hook-ups with experimenting straight girls. Ten years after coming out as bisexual at age 14, I was starting to question my sexuality a second time. It seemed so much easier with men, even if it was a challenge to convince my straight boyfriends to let me fuck them up the ass. Maybe Lucy was right after all, maybe I wasn't as into girls as I thought I was.

In the midst of all this drama, I received a phone call one afternoon that offered me a way out. "Can you come to Japan for a contract position?" I went shopping for a business suit that very afternoon, lured in by the prospect of a regular paycheck and a fresh, drama-free start on life.

I knew when I agreed to move to Japan that I was trading in more than my spiked jewelry and fishnet stockings for pearls and pantyhose. I was also prepared to relinquish my identity as a queer, kinky freak for a year or more. Having witnessed the well-sequestered and gender-segregated Japanese queer scene during my year-long stint as an exchange student in Tokyo, I had no illusions of Japan as a queer mecca. As much as I idolized Japanese queer icons like Yukio Mishima and cross-dressing rockstars, I knew they were the exception in conformist, duty-driven Japanese society. And I understood that by taking this job, I was essentially signing myself up for a year or more of heterosexuality-by-default. But after the queer heartbreak and dyke drama I had endured over the years, I figured it couldn't hurt to take a break and "play it straight" for a while.

In my own defense, I was never one of those happy go lucky trendy bisexuals who turn it on or off at the drop of a rainbow hanky. I was a loud and proud dedicated activist for ten years, waving my blue-and-pink triangle flag in the faces of those purist gays who dared accuse me of "straddling the rainbow dildo fence" (as one insensitive gay acquaintance had referred to bisexuality in a college creative writing class). I was a devoted-if-controversial employee of my college's Queer Resource Center for two years, raising money to bring Patrick Califia to talk about transgendered activism and evolving queer identities to a room full of privileged college kids. I had made out with girls AND guys to the hip-hop stylings of "Rainbow Flavored Sound System" at the annual Fencesitters Ball, I had suffered a weird asymmetrical sunburn after marching in a corset and angel wings with the Anything That Moves contingent of the San Francisco Pride Parade.

And yet, something was off. I felt weird every time I went to a GLBTQI event and defaulted to gender neutral pronouns when talking about my boyfriend (I didn't like the uncomfortable silences that followed the b-word, even though my boyfriend was essentially gender-queer). I was out to all of my straight friends about being bi, so why did I feel so closeted within the queer community? Why did I feel like sham? I felt SO QUEER, but I was forced to admit that even if I liked girls, I preferred boys. Maybe the problem wasn't that I liked boys, but the fact that I liked boys so much that I wanted to be one. In the eyes of most people, to be queer and female meant being a dyke, or a bi-dyke at the very least. The reality was, I didn't want to be a dyke at all.

I wanted to be a gay man.

I adored gay men. My feelings for gay men went beyond fag hagging, I wanted to BE a gay man. I identified with gay men more than I had ever identified with lesbians. We just clicked. I loved going out for cocktails with my gays, cruising boys, then going out for brunch to gossip after to compare conquests. I loved how smart and handsome and charming all my gay boyfriends were. They smelled so good!

And thus, I was forced to realize that my queer identity had sprung less from an attraction to gay women and more from an attraction to gay men. It all made sense in a historical context: most of my boyfriends had been lanky, long-haired bookish types, delicate boys who had flunked P.E. but excelled at painting and writing. I remember confessing to my first bisexual boyfriend at age fourteen that I felt attracted to men in a way that a man would, not in a straight-female way; and the peculiar delight I got from cruising boys with him. I had a subscription to XY in high school, a magazine geared at adolescent gay boys. I even submitted a picture of myself in male drag with my male lover (my bleach blonde hair cut in an aptly faggy short spiky style) in the hopes that I could "pass" and be selected for their reader's photos page. (alas, I didn't make the cut). But there was still one unreconcilable problem. No matter how much I admired and identified with gay men, I was biologically female.

Not only was I biologically female, my body was most definitely a woman's body, and no length of ace bandages was going to change that. There was always sex re-assignment surgery, but I knew that such a drastic step would probably create as many problems as it would solve. As much as I envied and admired male bodies, I wasn't entirely uncomfortable with being girl-bodied either. I could have tried to be straight, but I wasn't attracted to most straight men the way I was attracted to gay men. I needed a boyfriend who wouldn't be freaked out by the strap-on under my miniskirt, who preferred Pierre et Gilles to Football et Beer. And so, not knowing quite how to label my skewed sexuality, I adopted the moniker "faggette": a female bodied gay man.

Enough of that segue. How does this all relate to Japan?

Moving to Japan was in some ways an escapist strategy for dealing with my gender angst, but there were benefits as well. I was lucky enough to live in a metropolitan area that seemed to offer a limitless wellspring of lithe, man-purse toting Japanese metrosexuals with $200 hair cuts and excellent fashion sense. And the best part was, they liked girls! (In theory, anyway). Could it be that I could buck the system, get my cake and eat it too?

Unfortunately, this divine scheme was flawed on multiple levels. Firstly, these metrosexuals had an extremely limited shelf life. By the age of 25, most of them had gotten sucked into a lifestyle of cheap polyester suits, overtime and alcoholism as salaryman drones at Japanese companies, which was not really so sexy. Secondly, most of these men were accustomed to 90 pound Japanese girls who hid their teeth when they giggle, and were scared of loudmouth big butt foreign women. Thirdly, although these boys cultivated the an appealing androgynous façade, most of them still had straight boy personalities indoctrinated with sexist bullshit and expected their girlfriends to make them tea and take the passive role during sex, which put a damper on my fantasies.

I indulged in occasional short term flings with Japanese men during my three years in Japan, but mostly I was stayed single. I spent a lot of time alone, thinking. I wrote a novel where the protagonist was an 18 year old androgyne who considered himself to be heterosexual, even though his only sexual experience had been with another male. The book focused on his friendship, and later romance, with his best friend, who was a lesbian. This male character represented both my altar-ego and my masculine ideal. My intention had been to create a queer version of boy-meets-girl scenario.

I had been isolated from any kind of queer scene for almost two years when I attended the Stonewall Japan meeting as a Tokyo Orientation Assistant in 2004. I was surprised by how good it felt to be surrounded by the queer community again. As the only woman who knew her way around Shinjuku's Nichome gay ghetto, I volunteered to take the female newbies to Kinswomyn, Tokyo's best-known lesbian bar. I had been looking forward to revisiting the bar that had been a popular haunt during my student days. But my insecurities kicked in once I was surrounded by gold star lesbians who bragged about how they had "never touched a dick in their life". I knew that for them, this was a rare opportunity to celebrate their lesbian sexuality with likeminded individuals, but it only served to remind me how little I could relate to the lesbian community. Not only had a touched dozens of dicks, I had dick-envy! I suppose I could have played myself off as a straight girl along for the ride, but that didn't seem right either. My gender dysphoria was forced back into the spotlight again. I wanted to be with my gay male friends, but if the gay bars in Shinjuku barred entrance to female bodied people, where the hell did I belong anyway?

In the weeks following the dyke bar disaster, I began to wonder if maybe I really was trans after all. It didn't quite make sense- after all, I was so femme that I could be mistaken for a drag queen on a good night, with my fake eyelashes, platinum blonde hair and neon pink lipstick…Wait a minute- maybe I was a drag queen trapped in the body of a biological female? I feel a Victor Victoria complex coming on…

But realistically, I worried that I wouldn't be taken seriously if I came out as a femme FTM. Most of the FTM transsexuals I knew at that time cultivated big muscles and facial hair in order to look as butch as possible, and while I felt like a guy, I felt like a femme guy. [2011 note: I've since met quite a few femme T guys and y'all are awesome!] The men I felt most attracted to wore skirts and eyeliner, so why couldn't I? And even if I did change my physical sex, there was no guarantee I would be accepted in the gay male community as an equal.

I tried talking about my gender dysphoria to a few of my friends in an attempt to gain some clarity, and often came away feeling more confused. I had a hard time explaining to anyone how I felt because even I didn't understand it. My gender identity was as nuanced and surreal as a Dali painting, and there was no cut and dry label to explain how I felt. A straight female friend asked me "Why does this even matter?" and a dyke friend suggested that my desire to be male was based on "stereotypical notions of what it means to be a gay man". This sort of response only added to my feelings of being excluded and misunderstood.

But fortunately, I had friends who did understand. Interesting enough, my gay male friends were sometimes the only ones to hear me out and offer a positive response. And I began finding role models in the strangest places: the writings of Patrick Califia and the comedy of Margaret Cho, to name a few.

I learned about the label "gender fluid", a term that implied the freedom to express both male and female traits without being locked into one or the other, as well as the term "FTX" as an alternative to "FTM", X representing a non-gendered identity. I felt more comfortable having an gender identity option that allowed me to identify as both male and female, instead of being forced to pick one and conform to a set of socially-defined standards.

During my final year in Japan, I was fortunate enough to meet someone who enabled me to feel comfortable in my gender identity in a way I had never felt before. Simon was a friend of a friend visiting from San Francisco. We shared a hotel room in Tokyo and spent most of the night talking. I was compelled when Simon told me that he was primarily attracted to lesbians and identified with lesbians more than gay or straight men, as a "guy dyke", even though he didn't consider himself to be an male-to-female transsexual. For the first time I had met someone who understood how I felt without having to stumble over hours of awkward explanations. He told me about a livejournal community (http://www.livejournal.com/community/girlfags/) for women like me, who identified not as oft-maligned "fag hags," but as "girl fags", or "fagettes" (as I had often referred to myself). Learning that I was not alone was the first step to accepting myself. It was tremendously reassuring to meet other people who understood the way I felt, firsthand. Part of the pain of coming out as a woman with a gay male identity was the reality that gay men were not an actual romantic prospect. But I realized there was an entire of spectrum of men between the rigid definitions gay and straight such as metrosexuals, dutch boys, genderqueers, bi guys, transmen, and guy dykes, men who were interested in queer flavored "boy-girl" relationships.

There would always be people who wouldn't understand and criticize me for my choices, but there would also be people who would understand, accept and identify with me, and that's all that mattered ultimately. It made all the difference for me to know that there was a community somewhere that would accept me as I was instead of shoehorning me into a label that didn't fit. As strange as it was to live in the (relatively) hetero-centric Japanese society for three years, my self-imposed exile forced me to take a step back society's rules, listen to my own personal truth, and learn to be comfortable in my unconventional queer identity.

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MTF Butches Tumblr

Right here.

I love this, it's just the kind of uber convoluted genderfuckery that I embrace in my own self.

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A short tribute to Nicki Minaj

I really love Nicki Minaj.

I admit I kind of love WHO she is more than her music, although I like her music enough for what it is- she is a genuinely fantastic rapper, and I love her disassociative disorder menagerie of alter-egos. I think she is one of the most gorgeous, stylish women to appear on the scene in years. She makes Christina Hendrickson look flat. She makes me feel proud of my enormous ass. Her personal style may have some things in common with Lady Gaga and Lil' Kim yet is it still all her own. She is like a cross between a Christmas tree, Cutey Honey, and Cleopatra.

My shaman Blanche (she's phenomenal, go visit her if you're ever in Chicago) once did a past life regression with me to work on some of my relationship issues. (We discovered I was a sexually frustrated gay zen monk in Kyoto in the 1940's, which is why I'm still kind of a sexually frustrated gay man in this lifetime.) ANYWAY Blanche told me that all your past lives happen at the same time- that time is a illusion, and we're all really living dozens of lifetimes simultaneously. If this is true, I was Nicki Minaj in a past life, or vice versa. Margaret Cho, too. Possibly Cherie Currie as well. These women are so me, it's just eerie.

The thing that really made me think that Nicki Minaj exist in the same oversoul group is that WE BOTH HAVE A GAY MALE ALTER-EGO NAMED ROMAN. See, my pen name Bianca James is an amalgam of my girl side, Bianca, and my boy side James Roman, aka Roman Scandal. Nicki Minaj's gay man is Roman Zolanski, which is wrong and wonderful for so many reasons. (My only regret is that she let Eminem spit a lot of boringly misogynist garbage on the otherwise excellent "Roman's Revenge.")

One night I was standing at a bus stop after an excellent kettlebell workout with a hot trainer at my gym (great for building that booty, yo), listening to "Moment for Life" on my ipod in the cold, starry winter night and I was like "YEAH LIFE IS GOOD, I AM SINGLE AND FIERCE." Then I saw my horrible ex on the train on the way home and was like, "DEAD TO ME."

I told my therapist about this and she said "I imagine you in a video game with a Nicki Minaj soundtrack, running around and shooting the people in your life who keep you from being happy."

Damn right.

(Incidentally, a friend once made a video game character in my likeness named "Delicious James Flow" after my pimp name generator name. It looks nothing like Nicki Minaj but it's a decent likeness to me, and pretty fucking badass:)