Monthly Archives: April 2026

The weight of it takes my breath away

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Content note: discussion of suicide, brief reference to incest, hell I don’t know what else. I write rough shit in with my nice shit.

The other day I was talking to one of my old friends/lovers. He is going through some difficulties in his marriage. Pieces of it feel like echoes of stuff that I have dealt with in my marriage and it was fascinating to me how I felt about his description of being on his side of similar-but-not-the-same challenges. Then he said that he had been talking to one of his (adult) children about mutual coaching of one another towards being better/happier people and he shared that they have a mutual agreement/understanding that if “this” waves hands broadly gets too hard they will both understand and completely forgive if the other has to check out.

The first time I remember specifically thinking that I wanted to die was when I was 7 after a sexual assault followed by a beating by my mother–she didn’t know about the rape. She just knew I was running through the Texas trailer park screaming profanity at the top of my lungs as I tried to get those boys to leave me alone. She was going to teach me a lesson–I was going to stop having a potty mouth.

I swear so fucking much. I know people judge me for it. I don’t give a flying fuck and you can kiss my fucking ass. I have earned the right to speak as I want. I have paid for these words with beatings and blood.

But that’s not the story today. A couple of years ago I realized I had not wanted to die in…. I wasn’t exactly sure. I know I was suicidal well into my early 30’s but somewhere in my mid-30’s I did a bunch of very intensive trauma therapy (including MDMA with a therapist) and then I stopped tracking it and I didn’t notice the precise timing of the shift. But I don’t want to die anymore. I want to live.

But when my friend mentioned that he has this agreement with his children I lost it. I started ugly crying. I had to go hide in the bathroom and run the shower so my kid wouldn’t freak out. I don’t get to commit suicide. I made a commitment when I had kids that I would not take that path. Well, aside from really extreme cancer or super aggressive dementia where I am going to be gone really soon no matter what I have no right to shorten my life. That’s the deal.

Amusingly my friend proved that he has never been a blog reader because when I talked to him about this crying session later in the day he was kind of surprised. He didn’t understand why it was this intense for me. My grandmother (maternal), father, and brother all committed suicide. Suicide is a god damn family tradition. Suicide has been there as the comforting exit for my whole life. I have attempted several times with the in-patient experience that goes with being caught before you finish. So to be slapped in the face all of a sudden with “I do not have an out available to me” was pretty jarring and shocking for my system. When random people/strangers talk about their relationship with the concept of suicide I don’t take it very personally but this is my friend. This is someone who has been inside me and he is someone who has been clear for going on 20 years now that he is very sad that he was not a candidate for co-parenting with me because he loves me very much. So the idea of his possible loss is personal.

I was thinking about this partly because @SkinS mentioned that starting from scratch increases in exercise/fitness are interesting topics sometimes. I don’t particularly exercise because I care about how I look or because it increases the number of people willing to fuck me; if someone won’t fuck me happily when I’m fat I am not interested in fucking them when I am fit. But I have a bunch of stupid health complications. I have to dance along a tightrope–if I manage to maintain a high level of fitness I can decrease how much pain I am in and I can control my IBS and both of these factors dramatically improve my mental health and make me easier to live with. I have to be careful not to over-train or be casual/cocky about how I wear this meat sack because if I get injured I get into this shitty cycle of hurting myself over and over and over and it tends to take 6 months or a year or more before I can do any kind of exercise without more damage. Which makes my body hurt. Which makes me overindulge in comfort foods that are bad for my intestinal tract. Which makes me kinda a raging bitch.

I’m not over here trying to make my kids or husband think “Did she really live a long time or did it just feel like a long time?“

I made a commitment to live as long as I can so that I can be there for these three people in the ways no one is there for me. I don’t actually get to decide what I get to have in terms of time but I have an obligation to monitor my health with vigor and evaluate choices and actions in terms of “is this going to help or hurt my ability to fulfill the promise I made?”

I think about that promise in so many ways. It is one of the reasons I am shoring up a house big enough for my children to share as adults with everyone having adequate private space. I put a 100 year roof on this bitch. I put in fruit and nut trees and I am doing what I can to set up a regenerative food forest. A lot of what I build and make is designed to last long enough for them to be ok after me.

They might stay. They might leave. I don’t get to have any control over that. I don’t want control over that. But I want them to have a home that they can come back to. The weight of the promise I made feels so encompassing and overwhelming that I feel like it is a weight that will swamp me.

Hell. I really have to take it seriously that I have to keep having a good sex life because otherwise I will be one nasty old biddy. I need to keep up my friendships because they fill up my bucket and I can’t pour with an empty bucket. The older I get the more I think finding a balance is necessary for me to be able to sustain the stamina necessary for fulfilling this promise. I want to be here and be physically and mentally well so I can continue to be capable of giving what I promised to give.

It’s all tied up. Wanting to know better and do better in many places in my life are all about trying to deserve a place in their lives in years to come. I don’t understand why it is as important to me to have a specific kinky life and a kinky self that I keep very specifically and deliberately under wraps but it is. I need to feel in myself that I am a complicated person with clearly defined boundaries. I don’t make many jokes about my sex life. I don’t give details beyond “I had a lot of fun and dated a lot of people before I got married because I wanted to figure out who I was and what I liked. It worked. I like who I am and I am happy in my marriage.” That’s the whole damn story.

Well, every so often they will figure out that of course some old friend is someone I dated. Once, years ago they had a conversation that went something like “What do you mean x is someone mom dated?” “Dude, probably every person who comes to the Christmas party is someone mom dated. Well… or dad.” It wasn’t literally true but it sticks in my mind as “Oh wow, that’s what they’ve picked up. Ok.”

The boundaries are important. “If you ever decide to go read my blog I strongly suggest browsing by tags so you don’t see things you really will wish you could bleach your eyes after seeing. But really you will be happier if you don’t read my blog.” So far they believe me. And thus I carry on feeling like I am managing to enact boundaries. After multiple generations of incest I have broken the family tradition. I figured out how to be from my family and still appropriate. It’s a miracle.

So I put a lot of focus on thinking about exercise and I talk about it. I am not worried about my waist line or my weight or my BMI but I am worried about how my heart reacts to stress tests and I do better with a much higher level of exercise. I worry about whether or not I will be exhausted and hurting all the time. I worry about my ability to be patient and kind and gentle. I worry about being strong enough to do all the things. Other than my husband I don’t have anyone who will rescue me if I have a problem.

I didn’t have people who loved me and brought me up with attention and encouragement. But I have to give that. Sometimes the weight of it feels like it will drown me. Sometimes out of the blue I am reminded that no matter how hard this gets I have to just get stronger and keep doing it. No, I won’t get help. No, I won’t have anyone I can call. Instead I have to find ways to build that for myself. I say I build the things I build for the kids. But really it is for me. What I am building is going to perpetuate itself for at least as long as I will live. Even if I fuck up a lot on money stuff I will be ok. I will be able to supplement myself with things that build my body up and help me feel better.

I am not going to say I “feel well”. I could list all the joints that are screaming right now but they don’t matter. I feel a lot better than I did. I will continue to make progress… until my next injury. Hopefully this time I will be smart enough to be more patient through the first recovery because being taken down for half a year is awful. Yes, yes, yes, maybe you can work through injuries without being a raging cunt but I can’t. And it is not fair for me to inflict that on folks.

At this point I should declare this circle of thought complete and go find that nice old dude in the house and ask him to bang me before I go to sleep. I would like the chemical high.

Shards and training

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It is funny to me how the ravenous cavern of emptiness inside of me feels different now. I notice that there has been a qualitative change in me in this AN time period. (After Noah, of course.) I’m at 15 months AN. It’s such a short time, really. Progress when measured in reverse is pretty shocking. We are doing ok. I am doing ok. No, I don’t feel “all better” but I can see where I am headed. I can see that I am doing what I need to be doing. More importantly, I can see that I really do need to chill on some pieces of impulsive joy even though I want to say yes to all of it.

I keep dating people who want to go to loud places with me. Why do I do this? Why am I picking loud musicians right now? Where are my Cheese damned priorities? I can’t hear. No, this is not a venue for deep conversation. So we will look at each for a few hours in an overwhelmingly loud space. Ok. This is happening. Also, I am too fucking old to make out in a pub.

It is really funny watching these layers of inhibition unfold within me. I can feel in my body how a younger me would have acted. No, I can’t do that anymore. No, I can’t ignore the whole audience and do whatever I want. No. The audience is desperately important. This is why I want to go to sex inclusive bdsm parties the most. That is literally the only environment where I don’t have to feel fucking paranoid about squelching shit I acted out for 25 years. I know how inappropriate I used to be. I have learned. It took a lot of researching child development for me to fully understand why I was so horrifying as a foster child. Right. That’s why they kicked me out. I was uhm, acting out in age inappropriate ways. I didn’t have much internal inhibition about sexual behaviour of any kind.

I’m 6 weeks away from having seen a whole healthy childhood. That’s been fucking wild. I have learned a lot of inhibition in service to being able to provide this to someone else.

My kids asked who I was going on a date with. I appreciated the wide eyes and big gasp before “Niiiiiiiiiiiiice.”

The show we attended involved a lot of the performers being there with their whole families in attendance. No, I was not going to make out. No matter how much that clearly would have been fine with Pretty Lady. She’s past caring. I am not. If I want to be useful as an ambassador for weird I am going to have to keep a lot of it behind closed doors.

When I was 21 I would have had my fingers up her skirt. When I was 23 I had been teaching long enough that I would have limited myself to making out with hands only around her waist. Now I could feel a shock in my body and I recoiled from her intense kissing. It felt out of place and wrong. That’s interesting and I should pay attention to that. It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea of kissing her, not even a little bit.

There are an interesting large number of power dynamic differences in this relationship. I am trying to pay attention to where I need to manage shit with a tight hand or it isn’t going to be sustainable to me. She has more ability to function on less sleep than I do. I suffer physically for days when I fuck up my sleep schedule. It’s why my pain levels are as bad as they are right now. My sleep keeps getting fucked up. I’m having too many late nights.

As much as I want to be all “Say yes!” I think I am hurting myself in stupid and predictable ways and it’s becoming a choice. I don’t love this form of self harm. It is really uhh crappy. Like, if I could cut and get a jolt of energy and power through my life with good cheer that would be a very small cost to me. Sleep deprivation makes every single aspect of being alive hard.

While the musicians were nice and all I need to say no next time. I need to be having one or two late nights in a whole month not one a week. This is getting really stupid. I am hurting myself and the amount of backlash in my body is exceeding coping methods. I’m struggling with exercise over the last few days. I’m having patches of numbness. Normal tasks are taking longer because I’m physically depleted and I’m dropping important bits of information out of my head.

I can’t keep impulsively adding late night joy. I am doing lots of planning around my body being able to handle specific events. I need to stick to those long term plans if I don’t want to get sick. I’m being stupid.

Saying no is hard. Saying yes is far harder on me.

My therapist asked me who is feeding me yesterday. They noted that I opt in to a lot of mentor type relationships, I offer help for parents who are overwhelmed, and I deliver food to neighbours who are going through tough times. All of this has pretty much resumed a close to normal pace on my calendar. I have a lot of relationships with people who need me to give. It was really nice that I could immediately rattle off a lot of people who are there for me near and far.

I want to get my sleep schedule back on track because it being fucked up means I miss the monthly check in call with my Elders. I don’t like doing that. It means that I don’t get to nurture that connection and it is important to me. It’s important to me that these people love me and believe in me and really want to continue being support to me throughout my life. They have been there through a lot of things.

I think I am messing up the balance and it’s not sustainable. New is good. Old is also very important. The thing about the long term friendships is the way we are witnesses to the arcs of our lives. Being impressed is not based on glamour it is based on experience and earned esteem. It’s like time with Bestie. The people who have known me the longest give me constant verbal affirmation about how far I have come. They saw the story happen. I don’t have to say anything or ask for anything from them. We talk about what has been happening for us each month and they stare at me with overwhelming intensity because I can see them playing the story arc out in their heads. They tell me I am doing so good and I can believe them because they saw how fucking hard I had to work to get to this moment.

I don’t have any scale for evaluating the evaluations of new people. When they give me compliments mostly I shrug. I don’t know how to hear them and understand them. I don’t accept any compliment without thinking really hard about it. I mean, in the moment I say, “Thank you” or if I’m feeling saucy, “I know.” The thing is, I know that each of these opinions is subjective and people vary in how they assign value.

I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but compliments are part of positive behaviour modification. It’s a really common way that people train the folk around them. It’s usually utterly unconscious. I don’t think most people are trying really hard to be manipulative with a plan. I mean, I do but it’s because I’m super fucking autistic and I have learned that I need a detailed plan or I just don’t leave the fucking house. I have to know what is expected and what will be acceptable from me in a given environment. I no longer like places with fuzzy attitudes about behaviour. I have fucking learned the Social Contract like I want to stay out of jail. I will always err on the side of not drawing attention.

Wow. I really am scared in a way I’m not paying enough attention to. I think it is funny that three different woo fuckers have observed that I have a lot of blocked root chakra energy in the last two weeks. My life is hilarious. Yeah. Sure. Why not? Frankly, is that a worse thing to say than Generalised Anxiety Disorder? Enh? It’s funny how much more explanatory root chakra descriptions are than the DSM ones. It talks about where in my body I am experiencing different forms of stress around existing in the world. These things are often common among people. It’s kinda like how I can clock ECSA people by their bathroom habits. If you are raped a lot as a little kid you often have bathroom issues for the whole of your life. “Fun” fact.

I think that this kind of fucking around with my schedule because I want to please people is why I’m going to need to stick really hard with solo poly shit. I need to give people appointment slots. I can perform the kind of behaviour you want from me between these hours. During these other hours, should we be in the same space, I will be fucking sleeping. You can enjoy listening to live music without me. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.

I’m torn because I want to support local artists. Also I feel like starting at 8pm is fucking insane and painful and cruel. Who the fuck are you people? How in the world are you fucking moving around and trying to be engaging at bedtime? What is wrong with you?

This is why I stopped doing theatre at 19. That was not a good career match for my body. I prefer jobs that start between 5 and 7am. I think this is partly because early afternoon is my preferred time for sex. Always has been. Noah and I literally built our life around making sure we spent as much of that time having sex as possible. Nights and mornings were more chancy because of vagaries of the day.

I’m going to have to be better about asserting my limits if I am going to date this woman. It’s on me. It’s fine that she asked. I should have said no. I made a bad choice. I’m not entirely sorry. It was nice to be asked. It was fun to dress up and catch at least 15 of the words she said all night. It was a high cost activity though and I am finding myself starting Saturday in spoon deficit. This was not smart. I am going to be limited in what I accomplish today. That’s not what I wanted for the day.

It’s my day to go make the big sweet breakfast for Saturday. I really don’t want to. That sounds vaguely like torture. It’s going to be the kind of day where I either get a burn or cut myself. Woo. I love days when I feel this bad and have no adult in the house to take over. Woo.

I miss Noah. Also, I see what I did to him by over-extending myself a lot more clearly. I see why he got increasingly picky about what I was allowed to do as our life went on. He had to pick up the pieces. I get it. Literally he was devoting his whole life to figuring out how to get me to rest more for the last 4 or so years. He was trying so hard to be a container the size and shape that would force me into healthier patterns. Of course that means there was behaviour other people interpret as abusive, duh. We were weirdos. We needed things other people don’t and we negotiated about them very directly.

Now I have to be an adult and carefully negotiate tiny pieces of interdependence over very long term periods. Itty bitty. Absolutely nothing is mandatory ever. Every step has to be explicitly agreed to. Every breech of decorum and assertion of an aberrant need must be explicit.

I am going to need to write a letter to talk to her. I need it to not sound like a rebuke because it isn’t. I am going to have to find a tone of explaining my needs that doesn’t sound like negative judgment about her. She is in an exciting period of her life. I get that she is going to be impulsive like a teenager. My whole life is dealing with what it means to live with impulsive teenagers. I feel really lucky that the main big impulsive things in my house are cooking, baking, writing, making or otherwise creating something.

Ack. I am summoned.

Users Guide 4.1

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Users Guide 4.0

Holy shit. I’m heading into the 4th chapter of my whore life. That’s pretty intense. Time for a total rewrite.

Decades ago I copied the idea of a users guide from Lee Harrington because I know that I have a different approach to sex than other people. Therefore it seems like a lovely idea to have some sort of cheat sheet about how to handle me in general. Some of these things I have figured out on my own, some of these things I have had pointed out to me by friends and/or lovers/husband, some of these things are constantly in flux and will no longer be true in just a few months. Of course this is a living document and therefore subject to change and revision without notice. Just because something is in here doesn’t mean you should assume that for now and all times this is the only thing I like/want/don’t like etc. After the roller coaster that is pregnancy/giving birth/having chronic health issues, I promise you things change in my body over time.

It’s fairly cis-het centric, but I tried to not lock myself in a ghetto I don’t want to live in.

Index:
A. Before sex (including courtship/getting to know one another)

B. During sex (including bdsm play)

C. After sex (including relationship level interactions)

A. Before Sex

a. General

Never assume that you are going to get to go to bed with me. Yes, I go to bed with quite a few people—that doesn’t mean I will choose you. The phrase is cautious optimism. I expect and require that people treat me as an equal, and more importantly as an intelligent, thoughtful, responsible human being until otherwise negotiated. Please don’t act like I ought to be honored to teach you whatever it is you want to know about play/sex/whatever. I have taught classes, thrown parties, run a conference, and initiated both virgins and newbies alike. I’ve put in my time to the community. I can coast on doing what pleases me and only what pleases me.

b. Specifics in a Having-Kids-Lifestyle

I don’t have a lot of free time. I have even less time for dating. What little free time I have during the day is mostly spent alone exercising because I have a very high intensity life that requires me to be well regulated emotionally. I can’t focus on getting to know new adults in a really concentrated/intense way. It’s not that I am flakey, I don’t have much availability. Well, to be honest I’m a little flakey. My priority at this stage of my life is being nice to my kids. I have to keep the rest of my life quiet enough for that to happen or I have to drop other stuff. That is the deal until 2036.

c. Kissing

This gets a whole section. Way before sex because it often happens long before sex happens. I like to kiss. Kissing is a big thing for me. I think kissing is one of the most intimate activities and if I am going to bed or playing with you I am seeking intimacy. Intimacy doesn’t mean you’ll be my one twue love or that we will settle down. It just means I want to know you. If I want intimate contact with you, I probably want kissing to be part of that. (See below section on STI’s.) I do not like to kiss tobacco smokers.

a. Hair

Once upon a time I said that I prefer clean shaven men, but that has radically changed during my adulthood. My opinion now varies tremendously based on personal attitude, grooming standards, and just plain what suits each face. As for the hair on other peoples heads: I don’t care anymore. I barely notice. I’m interested in your mind. I like body hair on anyone of any gender. Pubic hair doesn’t affect me one way or the other; suit yourself. I sometimes shave or epilate large portions of my body. I sometimes skip shaving for over a year at a go. You have to be totally ok with either or go away.

b. Weight/height

My weight usually goes up and down in a 40 pound range like a yo yo, semi-annually. Over the past three years I have lost 75 pounds from my lifetime high after my second round of cancer followed by lock downs. (I’m sorry that I’m a fucking American, ok. I’ll translate a lot but the body weight one is hard.) You can’t be attracted to me for a specific look of my body. It might be different next month. My health is variable and my body shifts with my ability to exercise. I like people with bodies. I like fat bodies. I am more appreciative of slender/”fit” bodies than I used to be, but I still prefer some heft. I used to be a bit hung up on height (not that into anyone over 5’11”) and now I don’t care. I like people.

c. Gender

I am a cis-gender woman. If you haven’t picked up on the fact that I am queer then you haven’t been reading closely. I have had strong attractions to people at every point on the gender spectrum. I am completely comfortable having sexual contact that begins with, “What words do you want me to use for your body parts and how do you want me to touch you?” because I can’t guess. Everyone is unique.

d. Cocks (What the hell—since I am listing my preferences…)

Everyone should remember that the vagina is all about potential space. Yes, it can technically stretch, but in a normal resting spot it isn’t particularly large. My body doesn’t stretch terribly well or willingly (even after giving birth to three children) so I am not a fan of overly large cocks. If it is going to cause my jaw to be sore within five minutes of oral sex I will probably experience a lot of pain during vaginal sex and that isn’t good for me. I will not even attempt anal if you are large, are you insane? I am not a size queen. I do not have lower limits on the size of cocks I can figure out how to enjoy. Not all sex is about penis in vagina sex. But I do have upper limits. Ow. No thank you. It’s not personal.

e. Race/marginalization

This is complicated. I am aware that I am most comfortable treating heterosexual white men like pieces of meat. If I fuck them and don’t call later I don’t feel that bad. I clearly negotiate and label the deal I am offering. I have major hang ups around using people of color and women and folk of ambiguous gender in the same way. I feel tremendous shame and guilt around hurting already marginalized people and I don’t have a lot to give. Which is to say, I really like having sex with people who are not het white men. I have a hard time approaching them. I don’t want to hurt them and I am less clear on the boundaries. I err on the side of not being a user asshole. But if you are interested, let me know.

f. Oral Hygiene

YES. Bad breath/teeth that look unclean is really really really repellent to me. I generally won’t kiss someone with bad breath. I will elect not to even if you are a nice person. Just no. I smoke pot and that has impact on my mouth. I do not mind kissing other people who smoke pot. I still really am not fond of kissing tobacco smokers. I don’t like the taste at all. Notice how it is mentioned twice? Really not into tobacco smokers.

B. During Sex

I will say clearly and plainly that I want to have sex with you. Consent will be clear. Once consent has been established, game on. If I say no later, I mean no. I am not looking for resistance/rape play at this time. I don’t intend to pretend I don’t want to be there. I want to be there, probably quite badly.

The first thing that ought to happen before foreplay is a discussion of STI testing patterns and safer sex expectations. I don’t have habits at the moment because I’m just starting. I’m still adjusting. Depending on my rate of whoring I will go back to either every 3 months or every 6 months.

I have had HPV. I tested positive in 2003. I had cryosurgery. I have tested negative since.

I also test positive for HSV1, commonly known as oral herpes. I have had a few cold sores as an adult but they are rare and I feel them coming. If you think that HSV1 is a deal breaker for you for oral sex or for kissing, we are probably better sticking to being friends.

I am a big proponent of the idea that we are having “safer” sex. The only safe sex is with your hand. There is risk involved in the play I do and I acknowledge it and try to minimize it. I do not have a desire to play with people who are in denial about said risk. I like the current acronym: RASH. Risk aware, shit happens. We’ll all do our best but at some point something will happen to someone. Let’s cope like adults. Test often, use barriers.

I have gloves with me in my whore bag. I will be using them and asking partners to use them. I also have dental dams and flavoured condoms and lube.

Condoms are not negotiable for vaginal penetration with new partners. I have chosen to fluid bond with my boyfriend. I take it very seriously that I am responsible for his health. I will be operating like everyone is positive for multiple bugs and I will use the appropriate barriers. Safety is important, y’all. Luckily I’ve taken a bunch of classes on making sex fun while using barriers. San Francisco was a great place to become a pervert in the 00’s.

Blood play requires extensive blood testing in advance and long-term negotiation. I do not do it casually. It would require a long-term serious relationship and given the limits of my life I can’t imagine being able to get there any year soon.

a. Breasts

This has morphed so much over my life. Dang. What I like can vary dramatically over the course of my menstrual cycle. I like everything from mild sensation to extreme pain but all pain play requires a warm up. If you act like you can just yank super hard at my boob out of nowhere I may elbow you as hard as I can. However, if you do it right, hurting my nipples gets me off a lot. But you have to do it right. On the right day of the moon. It’s a moving target. Always a fun adventure of discovery no matter where the journey takes you.

b. Ways to turn me on

First and foremost: talk to me. Tell me how hot you think I am. Tell me what you want to do to me. Tell me what you are doing while you are doing it. Just hearing you narrate how wet I am when you slide your finger into my cunt will increase the quantity of wetness. Read me porn. Have me read you porn. My brain is the most potent sexual organ in my body. Pay attention to it. Do you know why I like having sex with my friends? Because the ones I have sex with are the ones who have spent years buttering me up talking about what they like from sex.

Stroke my legs, particularly behind my knees. It is very easy to turn me on when I am lying on my stomach and my legs and back are stroked lightly. This is by far the most sensuous activity for me. I love having my neck and head stroked gently. It’s not a massage–it’s a waking up to sensual contact type of touch.

Receiving biting is hard. I like it when it is gentle but if it hurts too much it can cause me to go to dark mental place and I am prone to dissociation. To be fully clear: I haven’t done any experiments with biting in over a decade. I have done a lot of work on dissociation in other areas of my life but I haven’t done the work on biting specifically. It never hit the top of the triage list for fixing between Noah and I. It isn’t off the table but it’s complicated. Be really careful. Watch me. Make sure I am still “there”. Probably don’t try this on a first or second date because we should have some established trust first. I fucking love biting other people.

Tell me how to please you. I love having someone tell me how to get them off—it will usually be enough to get me off. An awful lot of what I get out of sex with people is that thrilling feeling of, “Yay!” We are feeling alive together!” So lots of instructions about what you want and how you want things to be done to you turn me into butter. (Once you have permission to talk to me like this. If I indicate a boundary you had better back off like you hit an electric fence or you’ll get the full force of my fury and I promise you won’t like it.)

Orgasm control is a complex part of my life. I tried to eliminate it from my body before and had poor success. I am going to continue to try to make progress on this but for now it is what it is. Guess what folks, long term M/s relationships have side effects. If we have sex you need to give me permission to come. You need to do it every time. “Yes” is a good enough answer. “Please?” “Yes.” is a great way to manage this with the least amount of embarrassment for me. Having to give the full freaking explanation every time because you forgot gets embarrassing. If you tell me to wait that is a D/s interaction. If we have not negotiated that you are jumping a fence. If you tell me that you won’t give me permission, I just have to come when I feel like it you are telling me that I don’t get to come. What happens is my body shuts down that part of me. I become a hole for use but I won’t feel almost any of it. I have a really extreme trauma history and dissociation was once a nearly full time survival tactic.

It’s not a fucking casual scene for me.

I like giving oral sex. A lot a lot a lot. I like it the most if there is some degree of being strongly encouraged involved. I’m not talking about serious forcing, but pushing my head down toward your cunt is going to get me all wet. Telling me to suck your cock will get me all wet. Asking me politely is a complicated thing now that I live in the UK. The level of manners is just different and I am having to find a new normal. I have no idea how this will shake out down the line. Given that my vanilla shagging skills are on the rise I expect I will find a way to cope.

For the record: if I have given you oral sex I consider you one of my sexual partners. None of this “oral sex doesn’t count as sex” crap. Don’t bloody ever tell me that we haven’t really had sex. You have fucked my body or I have fucked yours and probably (hopefully) you have come inside or on me. We have had sex. Sure, it was a different hole. Whoopie. It was still penetrative sex. Don’t worry about asking me if it is ok to come in my mouth. If I like you enough to let your dick in my mouth, I’m happy to have you come. I do prefer being told when it is happening so I can sync my breathing, but it is just a preference.

I do have a strong gag reflex and if I seriously fight to bring my head back after you have forcibly shoved my head down on your cock, for the love of Cheese let me go. I may be on my way to run to the bathroom and vomit. It has happened. It will probably happen again. I accept this. Please don’t let the possibility of this happening prevent you from fucking my mouth with enthusiasm. It is great for me. This being said, I’m not terribly thrilled with having a relationship centered solely around me giving blow jobs. I will feel used in a way that isn’t fun for me.

Since I’m talking about dicks so much. I haven’t played with someone who has a cunt in many years. I remember them fondly. I would like to believe I will figure it out with gusto if given the opportunity but there is the chance I am lying to myself. I could totally fail to be fun.

Also: I really like getting oral sex while wearing a strap on. That is fucktastically hot. The grinding is good for me.

Receiving oral on my pussy is a thing I do because I like you. You kind of have to have a magic wand to get me off that way. Some of you have one. I like you. It starts with the thighs. Stay on the thighs for a very long time. You think you’ve done long enough and you are ready to go for the little man in the boat? You are wrong. Stay on the thighs. How long? Three times that long. And then you touch the lower labia. You stay the fuck away from the little man in the boat. Am I making myself clear? You go back and forth between the labia and the thighs for a whole lot longer. Eventually I will indicate, yeah, go for it. Then and only then do you go for the little man in the boat. Being impatient will only make it suck in a not fun way for me. I guess we’ll see whether you are doing it for me or for yourself. Fingers are a very important part of this process.

I am old, cranky, and I have chronic pain. There are times when I am up for acrobatic porn-star sex. There are days when it is, “I am here. What more do you want from me?” I can be fun enough whatever my range for the day. But you will have to respect where my body is on a given day. Your fantasies take a back seat to my physical limitations. I have disabilities. Such is life.

Holy moly this section is changing. I might have vibrators in my whore bag. If you want them to come out, ok. I am unlikely to bother. I would prefer you. I am there because I want you.

This needs a whole section. Slut and whore are both words I have intensely positive associations with and they do not feel like degradation for me. They mean I embrace pleasure in this life and feel a sense of responsibility around sharing that with people. That’s not something that makes me bad. I’m very good because I do this. They are both affirmations of parts of myself that I am proud of. They do not belittle me. They do not mean I am bad or unclean or gross or shameful. Being both a slut and a whore is connected to how I am good.

However, I am not a bitch. I am not being mean. I am not gross or dirty or bad. I am a very nice woman who has come over to make your life a more fun place for a little while. I need you to pay me respect for doing so.

In short: “Slut and whore: good. Bitch: bad.”

Complicated. Once upon a time I spent a lot of time tying people up and being tied up. I miss it fiercely. I really like being tied up. I really like being suspended. I really really like being suspended and fucked. Oh the good old days.

I’m in a weird spot with group sex. I am theoretically open to it but I would need to feel like everyone involved was there as a completely autonomous adult to have fun. I am not ok with ever feeling pimped out again. Don’t fucking ask me to bring you women or I will want to burn you to the ground.

We need to be equals.

a. Choking

Choking is completely off the table. I have a long and storied history of head trauma and pre-stroke symptoms that are very concerning. I have children who need me. I cannot risk my life for your orgasm.

b. Impact play

I like punching and kicking. Those are basically my favorite things.

I thought being hit with a giant rubber mallet was absolutely awesome. Single tails are harder than they used to be, but I am open to learning how to process them again. I have a long-term love/hate affair with canes. Sting from a broad hand slap is really hard for me. I like thud. I dislike floggers because they impact too much skin at once.

c. Pinching

Don’t pinch me. Don’t pinch me. Don’t pinch me. I will fucking hate you. (Other than nipples. Do that slowly.) Grabbing a whole big handful of muscle/fat is different though. It can be really nice sometimes.

Due to some of the stuff that happened when I was very young I have a whole lot of scar tissue throughout my vagina/labia/anus. Scar tissue is like a dotted line in the skin that means, “Please tear here.” Despite my very strong desire for rough, and rougher, and rougher sex… I can’t actually handle all that I would like to handle. (Damnit.) Don’t pull roughly on my labia. Don’t pull my ass cheeks apart with any speed or force. Just DON’T. The skin has the potential to tear open and it will hurt and that might curtail sex for hours if not days. It sucks ass and so I try to avoid massive tearing. Gentle handling of the bits is important. I am delicate in a way you would not expect from someone with my overall temperament. I’m a fragile toy. Treat me with care.

But also finger bang me like you are playing the fastest game of ping pong in your life because I can squirt like a motherfucker and apparently that is amusing/satisfying/something.

Because we will be having sex with condoms lube must be very close by. It is my friend.

My third kid wrecked my asshole. I’ve had multiple surgeries to repair the area. It’s still not perfect. I do like anal stimulation it’s just fraught. I am interested in finding out what I can handle in the future after the last round of surgery but it has to be done with extreme care and deliberation.

C. After sex/play

Immediately after sex/play I will want to breathe and hug for a few minutes. I will probably want to spend an extended period of time talking and making out. I will want a check in email afterwards for any bdsm play–I do not need it for vanilla sex. I like being friends with people but that has to happen around my schedule. It is highly limited. I’m not rejecting you. I’m dealing with the fact that right now my life is about figuring out how to be healthy around my kids and that is much harder for me than you might think. It takes a lot of time and energy. It is very important to me that I do this right because now I am all they have. It will remain my focus for quite some time.

For the foreseeable future I am going into any and all sex or play with the mindset that there are no promises to be made. All encounters are done if they are fun for all involved and they work in that moment. I would like it if things started out with the option of being open ended if we both have enough fun, but no pressure if we don’t. I am not looking for anything that is a conscious one off from the outset. Vetting is laborious. I do not relish doing that much work for only a couple of hours of reward. That’s super low cost to benefit ratio. I want to have consistent and predictable sex with people who are going to be kind to me.

I have a boyfriend. I have a nice lady I am courting. I am solo poly with a hard bent towards relationship anarchy. I want more connection than I am capable of maintaining without giving up sleep. It’s going to be a balancing act for the next few years.

If you are already a part of my vanilla life with my children then I am probably going to decline sex with you for the foreseeable future. I need that community to stay stable for them. Sex is a catalyst for all kinds of change. Those changes can wait for a different season. I need to preserve the stability of my family above all.

Old shit and new shit

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It’s been on my mind a lot lately how much Noah resented me having a lot of friends in the kink community. He acted like them liking me meant he wasn’t really part of the group. He did have his own friends who came to kink events, but he considered them more “visitors” to kink from computerland. He thought of himself and his friends as weekend warriors who “didn’t really count” in the eyes of the Leather people. He wasn’t all wrong.

He didn’t want to put the time in to go sit at munches or go to parties without any hope of play. For him if there was no payoff there wasn’t a point. Then he resented that I had so many friends. He resented that I had so many opportunities to play when he didn’t.

I practically lived at scene events for 5 years. I was at scene events at least 4 days a week and often 7. These events would last anywhere from 2 hours to all weekend. I was spending probably a minimum of 15 hours a week at scene events. Then there were the immersive conferences I went to many times a year that lasted 3 or 4 year. Even more rarely (but ever more precious) were the ones that lasted 7 days.

Of course I had friends in the scene.

If you assume 15 hours a week (totally ignoring conferences) and giving me two weeks off a year for illness, that is 750 hours a year. Given that a weekend event would add at least 50 hours to that and I went to several most years I hit at least 1,000 hours a year at scene events for 5 years running.

No fucking shit I made a lot of friends. That’s not including the time I spent with friends. I was one of those assholes who “only knows scene people” for a few years. I was grateful my vanilla friends forgave me for being a neglectful asshole for a while after I came back. I made a lot of them take minor walks on the wild side and they learned that they were not kinky. Oh well. At least they can say for sure that they didn’t like being tied up all that much. I have some very funny pictures that are on paper and will never be on the internet. I like that. In the old days, privacy was a much easier thing.

Some things are great to remember forever. Some things should be forgotten because they were only meant to live for a moment in a very small container.

I do really wonder about sending my buddy one of the pictures of him tied up and suspended. He is very very very very Catholic with his 7? 8? children. I wonder how old man him would feel about our youthful games. It was good clean fun. Sure, it was sex but it was the kind where everyone stays fully dressed and nobody touches any junk.

It was wholesome, damn it!

I could send other pictures to the dear old friend in Utah doing his best to expand the tolerance level of the Mormon church. He believes God brought me into his life and his heart for a reason. He is militant about advocating for people like me.

A long time ago I was learning and exploring and I was brand new. I didn’t feel responsible for the outcome.

Now I feel really shitty that I bumped into someone at the munch repeatedly in a playful way without ever having a conversation about such things first. I am grateful that he has accepted my apology but I’m too fucking old for this shit.

I feel this overwhelming responsibility to do it “right” all the time and I don’t.

I am having a hard time with the amount of personal space awareness the kink scene requires. I have fucked up several times since I came to Scotland and I am really upset with myself for being so messy about these things. They are small mistake size but there have been a couple and I don’t like it. I am not reticent enough. I am not contained enough.

I struggle, often, with how reticent and wary to act folks are locally. I have the polar opposite problem. I am overly comfortable with the idea of acting. I am the exact kind of asshole who, when someone is passing, will bump into them and say “oops” a couple of times. I don’t do it hard. I don’t try to hurt anyone. I’m playing. But I don’t have the right to be familiar with anyone’s body.

Noah wanted me away from my friends and he got his wish. I have very little time in a room with anyone here. Even the people I’ve spent the most time with I’m still awkward and I feel like I don’t understand the boundaries. I sometimes wonder if Bestie and I like to dance together so much because that is the only way we can manage to be in that kind of proximity to each other. We aren’t snuggly at all. I touch my kids. Gentleman and I have sex.

Noah touched me for hours and hours and hours every day.

I feel desperate for kinesthetic, tactile relationships. Being sober is the fucking worst. I don’t feel sexy and I’m not going to initiate sex. If I look anything other than horny he doesn’t initiate.

My body aches with the desire to be in contact with humans.

It is feeling a little rocky as I start adding stuff back into my life because I desperately need more fucking contact than I am having. Most of the time I’m filling is kid-stuff adjacent so it means very minimal physical contact and only that initiated by short people.

It is the size and shape of life I was allowed to have with Noah. He allowed me to have more than a full time job worth of socialising while he was working because I could justify pretty much all of it for the kids. It is literally my fucking job to socialise these children. That was well done of me to get my whole life set up around filling my particular needs.

As it gets warmer I keep thinking about the fact that I have about 5 months to go until It’s 2 years out from the rape. The last year and a half have been brutal on my sense of community. I am so lonely. I don’t get out enough. We don’t get out enough. Home educating is harder here. The community is spread out so far it’s a real problem since I don’t drive.

Building community here is a much harder path than it was in California. The population density is small. Also: I used to drive. This whole fucking process is a fucking nightmare sometimes. I choose this. I can’t go back, not for a million reasons. This is where I have to bloom. Maybe it’ll be ok. This country does glorify the thistle.

I’m not going to be able to get to scene events very often and when I go I am going to want to be fully present with the people in the room. I’m not going so that I can have a place to do public scenes with my partner. I mean, yes, that’s on the list of things I’m happy to do. It’s not The reason.

I’m having to think about this really hard because both Gentleman and Pretty Lady are making comments about wanting to be part of this. That’s fucking complicated. Because when I go to a party I want to see the people I don’t get to see all the rest of the time. I don’t go to a party to be watched. I go to meet people and talk and play with new people. I need to build a bigger friends network in this country. I need it. I am not saturated in terms of relationships. Nothing of the sort. I don’t know how much more serious dating I have space for at this point. Definitely not with anyone outside the radius.

My life is constrained. I want to get to know people who live on the coasts, and Borders, and central belt. (I am honestly not sure how I should be capitalising that sentence. Feedback? I go back and forth on whether Central Belt should be capitalised. I think “Borders” is a specific region and thus a proper noun? I’m trying to guess based on how people speak and I’m forking confused.) I only have chances to see those people at parties. Like, I’m not going to spend the whole time hanging out with my Kids either.

Mama is going to play. If I can. If not, I want to make new friends. It is less important to me that I find play all the time. I must feel the freedom to be able to get into a really deep, meaningful conversation with someone without checking my watch.

I am tetchy as all fuck about this. I’m being defensive when I don’t have to be. Maybe this is a bad month for a tolerance break. I am going to have to have a lot of control over my tone of voice in ways I’m not doing great at today. My kids don’t tell me to use this medication because I am easy to live with without it. “With your medication you are a very happy mama. Without your medication you are rather a fucking bitch. Go take your medication.” Direct quote.

I feel bad about that.

I don’t know how my relationship with Gentleman is going to survive a tolerance break. Maybe this month is not a good idea. We are going to have to talk through me going to a party on my own and going to a party with him. Maybe I am going to need an amount of control I just literally don’t have available while sober. My choice is not speaking at all because no, I am not going to be able to say it as nice as you need me to. I can’t. I literally fucking can’t. This is why I take medication. So that I fucking can.

Drug dependence is fucking real. But the thing is, I have all these issues without the medication. I’ve had problems my whole damn life. On the medication I am a moderately functional human being.

I remember when I went on the road trip I got into an argument with my Utah pal’s mother in law. She was taking something like 18 different medications. We talked about them a great deal. I went through the research on cannabis and how using it would probably knock her down to 1 or 2 pills. She said, “No. It’s illegal because it’s bad for you. Nothing about it could ever work or be useful.” The conversation went on for a while. She said a lot of things. I found it really amusing. We make ourselves believe so many things.

Literally 8 fucking doctors all signed on that cannabis is the most useful medication that exists for me and I should use it for the rest of my life. That included a fucking pediatrician and ob/gyn who worked with me through multiple pregnancies and I breast fed for 7 fucking years. That’s not good enough for this country though. I have to wait through the waiting lists then get rejected by the NHS for multiple kinds of treatment having no effect before I can get capsules here.

Life does not give a flying fuck about anyone. These things are silly.

I’m feeling oppressed and pieces of it are mildly reasonable even if they aren’t personal.

I feel exhausted to my soul.

One day of break. I don’t think this is the month. I think that’s going to go poorly. I don’t think I have that resolve to give. I think I will be too snippy and bitchy. I don’t think I have enough relationship capital in this relationship to be allowed to have a bad mood. That’s good to know. It is very important for me to respect the limits of a container. When I understand what caliber of self is required I can select the timing of my performance and make sure I don’t exceed my limits.

Noah and I took turns taking tolerance breaks and being grouchy shitheads. We knew to sigh deeply and ignore each other for a while. It will pass. Every feeling passes.

I don’t think I have space in my life for volatility right now. I don’t think that self is acceptable. That’s a hard thing for a bunch of reasons. Physically I do need the break. I don’t do them for fun.

I think this is one of those times when I have to pick what kind of selfish I am going to be. I can either be sexually selfish or I can be selfish about being moody. I don’t think I get to have both right now.

I think I’m getting close to 15 people with whom I’ve had enough conversations to fill more than 24 in person hours of friendship. That’s 6.5 years in.

I’m not popular here. I have an asshole telling people wild stories about me and my dead husband. I’m kind of an abrasive bitch and I’ve already had a messy falling out with one dude and that’s not great. Someone dislikes me for very good cause. I was far too aggressive in questioning them about a rapist. I was really selfish and it was wrong.

No, I don’t have a bunch of fucking friends right now. Well, I do, but my friends are mostly thousands of miles away. I don’t have a community here that I have built with time and shared connection. I have a bunch of strangers and a lot of hope. I have a desperate need for the kind of communion I have found with Leather people.

It’s not the same here, but it’s close enough. I’ll accept kinksters instead of Leather. I’m not snobby.

Now I have more like 12 hours in this month where I get to be around kinky people. Last month, because of the house party, it was like 72 hours of being around kinky people. Most months 10 or 12 hours.

I do not feel like this is all happening super fast. This feels glacial to me. I’m not going to have a lot of time in public kinky gatherings. I am going to talk to people and get to know everyone I can. Even the ones you don’t like. Even the ones I end up not liking. I still want to meet them all. This is a fucking small pond and I want to know who is in the ecosystem.

Why?

Because that makes me feel like a whole person. I don’t want to tell you what to do or boss you or decide who is good or bad or moral or ethical. I want to feel like there are a lot of people who are going to need to come together for my funeral. I want to be part of a lot of stories. I need it. I won’t be a main character for them, don’t be silly. I will be a recurring walk on with a scenery chewing personality. You can’t keep me around too much because I will steal the show. I shove people into building their own lives as hard as I can.

I can’t help being loud and sometimes difficult. I can make sure that people don’t have to put up with me when I am feeling like that. There are reasons I wanted a detached house so no one has to hear how obnoxiously loud and American we are.

I am feeling intensely harsh and imperfect. Feelings. Feelings I can’t word. Feelings that I would regret wording.

There is no fair to the fact that I am still over reacting to the repression Noah enforced. It’s not nice for Gentleman that I’ve had a lot of years of the same damn argument and I react like it’s the thousandth time instead of the sixth.

I think one of the big differences in my mind is that kink is for individuals more than couples. It’s not like swinging where there is the priority on enforcing the outside dyad dynamic. There are couples who are intensely together and monogamous entirely who are active in the kink community. That’s a fine and dandy thing. Most people are at least play poly even if they are otherwise monogamous. We come to make friends and share time exploring a mind bending hobby. It’s better than drugs.

My order of safer sex supplies arrived. I had been missing a few things. This is good. I sincerely doubt any of them will get used this weekend. I would put it below a 5% chance. It’s not a sex party. I like serendipity though. Chance favours the prepared mind. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Or plan to get cock/cunt blocked by their own stupidity and laziness.

Realistically I’m going to be lucky if I can get past feeling anxious as fuck and even talk to people much. I am opening a door Noah didn’t want opened. This feels existentially terrifying and hard and painful.

The thing is, I’m on the other side. I want to be fully me again and I am feeling inhibited. I am feeling like it isn’t ok.

The fun thing is, I won’t be going as a piece of meat. I’m too old and picky and bitchy for that shit. I’m a bitch who expects people to jump over hurdles for me. I can’t expect to find that at a random party. One can always maintain hope though. There are a lot of ways I can think that through to find some fun.

It all depends on who is in the room and I don’t know yet. I don’t know if I might as well rock up in my stretchy leggings and a prairie dress because comfort is over fashion while I’m chatting and getting no action. I’ll dress up if I have to. I am very lazy though. I like being comfortable so I’m not sure the kind of dressing up I’m up for will even count these days. I’m old and in pain and I don’t give a shit if I look like a fetish model.

If I run a lot more and maybe uhhh cut back a tiny bit on the cake I might be able to fake that shit for a couple of nights. I have some really cool leather dresses. Amusingly, Noah bought them both. He never wanted to go anywhere with me where I could wear them. That was always so strange to me. He knew that wearing these made me feel like a fancy bitch. He thought that owning them was the same as wearing them. He was so smart and also really stupid.

This is one of the things I am going to have to get used to and react like a grown up. I will never have a Daddy again. Daddy’s have to tolerate their children being moody and petulant sometimes. It’s part of the deal. I don’t have a Daddy anymore. I should be in bed. This is when Noah had an alarm. He’d come and get me and give me a stern look.

He took care of me in so many ways. He made me believe that I was worth an awful lot of effort and then he left me alone.

I think solo poly is awesome because I can appreciate a relationship without needing to be upset about all the things a relationship is not. In my home I will always be safe to have all the feelings without having to constrain them to what people want them to be. Come over when you can handle me. Go home when you are done with my bullshit for the day. It seems quite reasonable to me.

Oh shitballs.

Tonight has been a lot of screaming and sobbing. I don’t think I can do a month off right now. It doesn’t matter how much I hate this cough. No, I don’t have better options. Don’t bring them up. You can’t fix everyone’s situation. Your resources are different. We all have to figure out our own shit and it fucking sucks.

I am so tired of curling inward with shame because existing as what I am hurt Noah so much. I did. That’s a fact. I also made him beam with love and go out and do really cool things with his life because he wanted to fund our adventures as a family. He wanted to support us doing cool shit.

He’s gone now. I don’t expect anyone to be patient with my bullshit. When I am given grace it is a gift. I need to work very hard to make fewer mistakes. I need to practice more. It’s really hard finding the time. Typing at people doesn’t actually count, not really. Not for what I need.

I need to know which people in the room I can walk up to with great enthusiasm and throw myself at them because they enjoy that kind of thing. I need to know which people I should smile and wave at, maybe we will chat a little while snacking. I need to know who is going to light up when they see me.

I won’t find out if I am looking at the floor and bouncing my eyes. I hate that I feel like I am fighting against intense pressure. Oh wait, there were literal hundreds of hours of hypnosis about this topic. I’m not supposed to do this.

I’m going to have some feelings as I do it. It’s going to be fucking gnarly. I will be torn between crying and grinning like my life depends on it. Like I will get hit if I don’t.

I don’t believe anyone in this environment would strike me if I had resting bitch face. This is not rational. I am fully aware, thank you very much. The thing is, what I need is to be a positive force for folks. I have to show up when I can show up.

I have seen a lot of people live life to the fullest and I have seen a lot of people squander their precious time. The older I get the more blessed I feel that I had to move so many times. It’s funny how I don’t want to give that to my kids. It was a trauma, sure, but it gave me insights into the similarities of humans that not everyone sees.

I want all of you. Even the ones I don’t like. I need you. I need you to need me too. That means I need to show up and be open to serendipity.

I have to go meaning to say “yes”.

Energy

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I am going to be pesty to one of my pals because they do not like the term energy because it is excessively woo. I have no idea if this essay will get published because the last few days I have been dropping posts into drafts without posting.

Let me start by saying that I am not an initiate witch. I am not real into being told what to do and while I love working with teachers who share what they know/experience I don’t deal with being told what I have to do/experience. So I figure shit out as best as I can on my own. I learn from a lot of different sources. I am probably one of those shitty Americans who are appropriating from everything under the sun. Guilty as charged. I think every faith contains elements of truth and I want to follow truth wherever I can find it.

I was noticing this today while I was running. Your moue of distaste at the contemplation of woo was on my mind while I was noting a paradox in how I’m experiencing running this year. For a bunch of good reasons I want to mostly focus on a 5k. I don’t really have it in me to be going a lot further than 3 miles because it takes too long and my childcare is being pushed to the limit. The thing is, I don’t really turn on and fully engage for the first two miles. I can feel it. There is a difference in my pelvis.

For the first two miles I can feel my pelvis being cranky and critical of my efforts. It sends many strongly worded letters of complaint about what a horrible bitch I am. It’s not a lot of fun. I call it “running” but I start going up a really fucking big hill for the first 3/4 of a mile. Right now I am super fucking happy with myself if I can beat 16 minutes for the first mile. Like, 15:55 means I give myself literal pats on the back. Maybe I am less of a “runner” and more of an enthusiastically lurching jogger. The second mile I can usually knock down to 13 minutes, even though it’s still a bitchy amount of uphill. By the third mile, which alternates a lot of down and bits of uphill I feel different.

I can feel heat and openness in my pelvis between the cradle of the bones. It’s when I feel like I could climb up a telephone pole then sit on the top and take the whole damn thing. It’s an amazing feeling. It’s where I feel the forever place get started and I can drop to 12 minute miles and keep going for another 10 miles without feeling much of a problem.

I don’t have the kind of time it takes to be running half marathons on a regular basis this year. It’s just not on the table. So even though I know that this magical sensation of wanting to take the entire world in through my vagina is living there, curled up and waiting to be accessed I don’t have much time to explore it this year. Not really. I get like 12 minutes of this glory then I stop and have to go on with my day. It honestly kind of sucks.

This specific feeling inside me is different from most of the other kinds of feelings I have. There is no anxiety in it. There is only intense ravening need to be filled. Is this just a “I want something in my vagina”? No, not even a little bit. I don’t actually need to put something inside my vagina after this to find satisfaction. The wanting is deeply satisfying. It makes me want to create, deeply connect with people, and it makes me want to run forever. It’s energy. It’s a connection to the energy that shivers under the top layers of the planet. You want science words for these things but I’m just some California woo whack job. I cannot give you that explanation. Bark up a different tree.

I can only tell you that there is a feeling of being connected to the earth, to the soil, to the magma at the core of the planet. It burns in a chain up through the ground into my legs and up into I’M GOING TO JUST SAY IT, OK the root chakra. Go ahead and be mad at me. I don’t have better language for this. Do I feel a bit like a person who should shut the fuck up? Yes and no. You have asked me how to understand this and I feel a lot of responsibility for answering questions long past when the asker is satisfied. This is one of my fatal flaws.

Running is one of the best ways I know to raise this energy outside of sex, for me. I can get there with meditation stuff and breath work with enough work. The best/fastest/quickest way to get there is ritualistic sex.

I feel like a giant dipshit. I went and saw a neighbour recently. She is a Reiki practitioner and she’s mentioned before that she’d be happy to do work for me since she knows what has happened. I demurred for a long time but eventually it seems like a good shout seeing as we share a fence and all.

I’m really amused by two specific comments, one was just telling me that my solar plexus is incredibly hot (linked to chronic pain and historical trauma, naturally), and that she was shocked by how open my entire channel was. She doesn’t usually see something like that.

I really do feel like I am mostly living at the self actualisation level of Maslow’s Hierarchy so that makes sense to me? I do speak my truth. I do take action to be the person I want to be in the world. I have a level of safety that feels utterly impossible to me.

This feels connected to me.

That energy I feel in my pelvis, it’s hotness, it’s both a new kind of tension and a release from the old/standard unpleasant painful knotting. It’s the difference between activating your core muscles and sucking your stomach in but it’s happening lower down in my pelvic girdle. I can feel it in the viscera. My body feels like it is all of a sudden slightly less weighed down by gravity. It just turned down by .5% or 1%. Not a lot, just enough to make everything feel able to twist and wiggle and undulate in ways I usually couldn’t quite manage.

It feels like freedom and strength and savage need to stay alive. It’s different than the kinds of energy feelings that I get in my chest. Amusingly, a lot of my drive towards being a whore comes from the heart chakra. I don’t feel drawn to hurrying out to find new people to connect with when I’m running. It’s not the same kind of energy. They feel differently.

I don’t want to whore because I want to acquire numbers. I am out of that game. For me (I don’t apply this to anyone else!) if I were to feel like I really wanted to go out and start hitting swingers parties a lot because I wanted a lot of variety that would feel like being slutty. I’m enjoying rereading The Ethical Slut because they are very clear that it’s ok for someone to be slutty while only masturbating. They are not saying that slutting is chasing numbers. This is about me and my body and how I feel when I use words.

I love being slutty, don’t get me wrong. That season of my life was pretty fucking epic and I’m glad I have all the stories in the hopper. I haven’t felt slutty in a long time. I should feel like last year when I was hunting on Fab was being slutty but I don’t. In retrospect I can say that in a way I was less looking for pleasure in all the slutting than I was speed running looking for someone to give me enough sex to not lose my shit in my life. I wasn’t looking to explore and enjoy variety for the sake of variety. I was a woman on a mission. I have a quota of fucking to fill or I am hard to live with.

Just getting up to functionality doesn’t feel like being slutty. Even though it meant auditioning more folks than many have sex with in ten years.

This energy that I get in my pelvis, this intensity, this feeling of heat and force towards life allows me to get a lot more done. It improves my ability to perform work for my life. It makes me feel alive and ready to show off how awesome my big mammal meat sack is as it does ALL THE THINGS. Can I enjoy it through fucking? Enh? It’s always worked better in theory than in practice. When this energy comes from ritualistic sex it still isn’t about fucking, it is more related to intense bdsm energy–I can be sadistic or masochistic either is fine. It’s about creating an energy loop with another person and the genitals are slightly a distraction.

The urge to connect emotionally, the need to whore comes from my heart. It comes from the centre of my being. I feel it as heat and also I see savagely bright white light radiating out from the core of me. I know this sounds fucking insane. I’m sorry. You want to know what it feels like. This feeling makes me want to meet every person I come across during my entire life with my entire full self spread open. They can take the parts that are appropriate and move along. I will never run out of self. The more they take the more I grow. Sometimes this is about sex but it doesn’t have to be. I really do walk up to strangers in public and start conversations. It’s how I make a lot of my friends.

“Hello. My name is Krissy. I am sorry to be so forward but I’m still working really hard on meeting people. Even from across the room something about you strikes me as interesting. I had to come say something to you or I wouldn’t forgive myself.“

That’s actually how I met Bike Lady, and the Coyote, and Vicki and… a lot of people. All through my whole life. I’m a forward motherfucker. At some point in my life my social feed got turned to permanently at full blast. I want far more connection than I can actually sustain. The way I do this is to make very careful tiny deposits in lots of buckets with deep apologies for being unable to promise when or if I will return. We will see how the wind takes us. I will turn to you with joy whenever I see you again.

I can’t promise much more.

This energy fuels me through a social life that looks more like a full time job. We are still getting back up to speed after Noah’s death but it is looking a lot like by the time we hit the 18 month mark we will be back to full schedules. It’s feeling kind of intense lately. We’ve added a lot.

The more contact I have with people, the more this energy in my chest grows. It’s really not all about sex. I get a lot out of teaching children. I get a lot out of being a good neighbour and I sure as shit am not hunting on my block for sex. That would be unthinkable. Boundaries, bitches.

Different kinds of energy in my body grow from different sources. These are the two, for me, that feel both life giving and related to sexuality even when no sex actually happens. I don’t have another way to describe the way these manifestations feel beyond energy. It feels like the raw energy of life. It feels like the heat that comes from a compost pile while it breaks down. It feels like raw potential energy that drives me through life. It feels like energy the same way lava streaming down a mountain feels like energy. Energy is about potential.

When I run I feel full of potential. I feel strong and capable and full of drive to succeed. When I allow my heart to be at the forefront of what I do every day I feel embiggened. I feel increased in space and time and potential. I feel like I am manifesting everything in myself.

I need to feel allowed to love. I need it or this energy hurts me. Trying to contain the force of an exploding volcano is incredibly painful. It is energy. It is energy that has to go somewhere or it breaks the container.

I don’t know what to call it if not energy.