Tie Me Up, Dammit!

I wanna be tied up. And fucked. And you might say that’s just because Fifty Shades of Grey just came out, and yes I did think that movie was hot as hell, but that’s not the only reason. It just seems to be something that keeps coming up in my world. I just started listening to an amazing podcast called Risk! hosted by Kevin Allison because my roommate told me I would love the episode where he goes to Kink Camp. And on this journey, Kevin finds that all his preconceptions about kinksters—that they’re a certain type of person, namely not super attractive people who got into kink because they couldn’t get laid rather than just, well, because they’re kinky—that these preconceptions were false. I too had similar misconceptions—that kinksters are all nerds or punks or some other fringe counter-culture group I don’t necessarily identify with. But what Kevin Allison found at Kink Camp was a huge variety of people—young and old, conventionally hot, fringe, and everything in between. Listening to his experience, I thought, maybe this world is for me after all.

Then I listened to another Risk! installment entitled “Slave,” in which self-described “Perverted Negress” Mollena Williams describes her experience with kink. Even though she’s a strong empowered black feminist, she found herself wanting to be dominated in a violent, racially-charged scene that really turned her on until it suddenly went too far and ended rather traumatically.

Although my only beef with Fifty Shades was their need to justify Christian’s kinkiness with a tortured past (rather than just allowing him to be kinky), I find myself posing the same question to myself: why is it that I, a self-proclaimed “angry feminist,” finds the idea of being tied up, called whore, and fucked hard, so fucking hot??

I think back to my long ago experience with BDSM Guy—truly my very own Christian Grey, complete with all-American Jon Hamm good lucks, sparkling blue eyes, crisp grey suit, the whole fucking package. I remember when, within minutes of our very first text conversation, he started calling me “whore” and “slave” and my feminist brain was pissed while my confounded body was wet and excited. And I remember feeling really conflicted about my angry thoughts v. my aroused feelings. And what did this mean for my identity as a feminist? Was I betraying my strong beliefs and the community of women I respected and admired so much? But the more I learned about BDSM, the more I realized that some of the most passionate kinksters are the most progressive, socially-conscious, un-hetero-normative, non-racist, un-gender-conforming, uber-feminist people. In fact, from Kevin Allison’s description of Kink Camp, they seem primarily like a bunch of fun-loving hippies. Perhaps because they have this extreme outlet for their deepest, darkest inclinations, they are more evolved people in their regular lives. Perhaps kink is like a form of exposure therapy.

I wonder how my feminist anger translates into hot sex in the bedroom. And I’ve come to the conclusion that anger and frustration and other strong, heat-inducing emotions are intrinsically linked to arousal. There’s a reason why the people that hate each other most in rom-coms always end up getting together. And maybe the angrier something or someone makes you in life, the hotter things can get in bed. I think about how arguments between couples sometimes end in fucking. And about how the jealous feelings inspired by seeing your significant other flirting with another woman or checking out someone else’s ass on the street can feel both crushing and totally arousing.

Amanda Hess puts her finger on the connection between humor and the erotic in her brilliant review of Fifty Shades for Slate: “Pairing the humorous with the erotic produces a sensation of nervous, off-kilter euphoria; laughter and sex both leave you flushed, tingly, a little out of control. I left the movie feeling like I’d just been on a first date with someone I’d secretly crushed on for a long time.” She also talks about how the haters have contributed to the success of that book as much if not more than its fans. People love to hate-fuck Fifty Shades of Grey. No one is neutral on this subject. And people’s response to the material, be it anger or excitement or frustration—these are powerful emotions full of heat, and I would argue, sexual energy. One of my coworkers called it “the smuttiest piece of filth [she’d] ever seen.” Her face flushed. She looked offended and pious and, dare I say, turned on?

I have to say, I loved this movie. I went by myself on a Thursday night, bought myself a seat in the last row, and sat back with a large popcorn and soda to enjoy. I loved the sheer camp of amazing lines like "I'm fifty shades of fucked up." I found myself turned on to the point that I considered rubbing one out in the movie theater. I felt the thrill of girlish delight as Christian takes Ana up in his helicopter and Ellie Goulding's Love Me Like You Do swells as they soar over the city. In fact, I loved the whole damn soundtrack. If it hadn't been for the asthmatic mouth breather sitting next to me, it would have been a totally perfect date with myself. A girlfriend of mine described going to see Fifty Shades with her boyfriend, and while she wanted to enjoy the campy pleasure of it all, he just laughed through the whole thing. My advice, ladies: See This Movie Alone. With lots of salty sweet things to put in your mouth while you're watching it.

In my life, I’m always in control. I work hard. I’m responsible. I take care of my shit. And all I want in the bedroom is for someone to take control. To render me powerless and truly dominate, to have their way with me. But I honestly don’t meet many men that I think are capable of dominating me. Because a lot of the men I meet or at least the ones I usually end up in bed with, I think tend to be a bit intimidated by me, or at least I find myself calling the shots more often than not. It’s hard to imagine a man who could really gain status over me in the bedroom. Perhaps the last person who did was BDSM Guy, and it was fucking hot and I wanted more.

When BDSM Guy first started rolling out the “slave” narrative, I asked why he knew I would be down for something like this. He said he “[knew] the type who [needed] it.” When I probed further, he shut down the line of inquiry. His slave was asking too many questions. I had requested that he “ease me into this BDSM shit.” Then, when we were having sex that he would later describe as “vanilla” and I thought was amazing, I told him “you can call me whore if you want.” He slapped my face and said, “I’ll ease you into that.” That was it. No more BDSM shit for me. The red ropes he had sent me a photo of earlier never came out. There was no more talk of master and slave. Apparently I had blown it with all my questions, and he had already concluded I would not make a good slave after all. A couple days after we had sex, I texted him that I wanted to be “tied up, blindfolded and fucked hard.” I never heard back from him, and I haven’t seen him since.

But how did he know that I even had it in me to want to be part of his slave narrative? Was it because his introduction to me was seeing a play in which I had the role of a young actress who used sex to manipulate situations in her favor but underneath it all was oozing insecurity? Was it the catfight at the end of the play in which the other actress straddled my back and yanked on my hair? Did he see something deep inside me that I didn’t even know was there? Or is it just that every woman secretly wants to be dominated? That might be true. Why else would Fifty Shades be so fucking popular? Maybe my coworker and all the other haters are really lying to themselves. That wouldn’t surprise me, considering how little we still know about female desire, and how much shame is still associated with what really turns us on.

Having blown the opportunity to have my very own Christian Grey, now here I find myself, dying to have all four limbs tied to the bedposts, rendered a helpless starfish, and where is he now?

I was listening to my other favorite podcast Guys We Fucked last week and, whaddaya know, Krystyna shared that for V-Day her boyfriend tied her to all four bedposts and she came harder than she ever has in her life. Meanwhile, my Best Guy Friend recently attached a permanent restraint system to his bed. Even my ex-boyfriend told me just the other day he was practicing Shibari—a Japanese form of bondage—on himself, getting ready for the scene he was planning to play out with his girlfriend that very night. So, literally everyone’s getting tied up but me.

The last time I wrote about BDSM Guy in my blog, a friend from college reached out with the name of a mutual friend of ours who has apparently mastered the intersection between BDSM and feminism. I didn’t reach out to her at the time. Probably because I wasn’t ready. My interest was purely intellectual. But now, it’s personal and I think it might be time to make that long-awaited phone call. What will be my first voluntary step into the BDSM world? We’ll have to just wait and see.

My Favorite Things: 2014

As I look back and reflect on 2014, I realize it was a great year for women's voices and stories, especially in entertainment. Feminism became cool this year and there were so many moments of inspiration. And by feminism I mean not only the movement, but also just the general equality of voices heard and stories told. Here were some of my favorite moments in entertainment...

Three Fave Films: 

Wild
Besides the fact that this is just a great human story and a beautifully written/directed/photographed/acted movie, I was particularly struck by how groundbreaking it felt. I suddenly realized how rare it is not only to see a female adventure story, but also to simply see a major movie with a wide release that is centered around a real, complicated, flawed woman character. Now that I've had a taste of this "genre," I want more.

Obvious Child
I love everything about this movie. I love Jenny Slate, I love seeing a hilarious woman tell fart jokes, I love the fact that it's a comedy about abortion where the main tension of the film is not will she or won't she get an abortion. She's getting one--that's just the set up. It also portrays a particularly beautiful and honest relationship between two people and has one of the most likable romantic lead male characters I've seen on film in quite some time.

Boyhood
As a child of the 90s, this movie feels particularly sentimental to me, in the best way. Even just the soundtrack, which traverses everything from old school Coldplay to contemporary Arcade Fire, sent me on a bittersweet trip down memory lane. This movie somehow captures the human condition so beautifully in its literal slice-of-life storytelling. The scenes have incredible tension but, like in life, most tension peters out and doesn't end in the big explosion I found myself expecting. And Patricia Arquette's performance is such a beautiful representation of all the complication of what it is to be a mother.

Fave Doc: The Empowerment Project
"What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail?" In 2013, Sarah Moshman asked herself this question. Her answer was, she would take an all-female crew across the country to interview "ordinary women doing extraordinary things"--from an astronaut to a mathematician to Miss USA 2012. This doc is truly empowering and should be required viewing for every young person everywhere, particularly young girls.

Fave New TV Show: Transparent
There are so many awesome things about this new Amazon show, created by Jill Soloway. What strikes me in particular is the representation of female sexuality, which is shown in all its wonderful complication in a totally unique way I've never seen before on television. The cast is perfect, the writing is hilarious and heartbreaking, LA looks beautiful. I just want to live with these characters awhile longer.

Fave Periodical: Bust Magazine
Bust is not a new magazine--it's been "BUSTing stereotypes about women since 1993." But I'm still shocked that not everyone I know reads it. I myself stumbled across Bust when I moved into a new apartment in New Orleans and the woman who lived there before me had a subscription. That was back in 2011; I've been hooked ever since. Bust always seems to be talking about exactly what I'm thinking and feeling at that particular moment in my life. It has its finger on the pulse of the coolest developments in feminism, pop culture, entertainment. I'm constantly introduced to new female voices that soon become my faves (like the Guys We Fucked podcast, see below).

Fave Podcast: Guys We Fucked: The Anti Slut-Shaming Podcast
Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson. I love these gals. Every week I tune in to their podcast to hear them candidly talk about my favorite subjects: sex, masturbation, porn, you get the idea. Their desire to unveil female sexuality is totally in line with everything I believe in. Not only that, but they are also fucking funny and I simply enjoy hanging out with them as they riff on everything from monogamy to butt plugs. They're my kinda gals.

Fave Fiction: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
There is nothing feminist about this book--it's just a great story with great characters and it happens to be written by a woman. The story unfolds gradually and surprisingly in an unexpected and compelling narrative. It reads like a young woman's memoir with an incredible twist, and through her telling of events, we gradually come to realize she may not be the most reliable narrator. I don't want to give anything away--you just have to read it for yourself.

Fave Non-Fiction: What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire by Daniel Bergner
I was convinced a woman wrote this book. The deep exploration of the many extraordinary facets of female sexuality is endlessly interesting. Some of the experiments Bergner writes about made me realize things I didn't even know about my own sexuality. If you've ever been curious about the inner workings of female desire, this is a must read.

Fave Epic Moment for Feminism: Emma Watson's UN Speech
I don't know what to say about this that hasn't already been said, but I just appreciate that this happened in 2014. I appreciate that one of the most popular 20-something actresses of the moment stood up for feminism this year. That was pretty fucking great. Especially in making "feminist" a cool thing to be, an identity younger generations of girls and boys can get behind.

Fave Male Feminist: Aziz Ansari
Thank you, hilarious man person, for clarifying the definition of feminism for those who are still unclear--that men and women should have equal rights--and for encouraging people who believe that to call themselves feminists. "Because that is how words work."

Full Disclosure

When you strive to share every personal experience about your body and sex life with the world at large, the response is inevitably mixed. My grandmother recently watched this short film I co-wrote/directed/produced which opens with three young women (me being one of them) talking about sex and masturbation in the kitchen while the men are outside by the grille talking about babies and fatherhood. My grandmother wanted to know if us girls really talk that openly about sex. Yes, I said. We do. This scene was based entirely on real things that my girlfriends and I actually said. My grandmother was amazed.

“In my day, my girlfriends and I just didn’t talk about that stuff,” she said.

But she wasn’t put off by it like I thought she might be. She was simply in awe.

When I was home recently, we had some of my parents’ friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. Our guests included the parents of my best friend growing up. They too had seen my film. The mother of my friend, after a couple glasses of wine, openly expressed that she found it to be a little shocking. That we would actually talk like that. She too wanted to know if it was based in reality. She mentioned that she also found Girls to be shocking in the way they talk about sex. I weighed my options: change the subject or engage. Obviously, I chose the latter.

“I personally love this new openness. I feel like sex has been cloaked in shame for so long, especially for women, and I think it’s good to talk about these things,” I said.

Two of the older women at the table piped up in unison: “We weren’t ashamed. We were just embarrassed.”

“I just feel like, sex is the most natural thing after, what, eating and peeing.” I couldn’t help myself. My parents laughed and shared a look between them, uncomfortable and embarrassed. “Why is something so natural still considered so shameful and like we shouldn’t talk about it?”

My friend’s mother asked her younger daughter (early 20s), also at the table, if she talked as candidly with her girlfriends about sex.

“Yeah.” She blinked, unfazed.

Her mom looked surprised. “Oh. Okay.”

Someone brought up the recent attack on Lena Dunham for being a “sexual predator” for looking into her little sister’s vagina when she was seven.

“I’m so sick of that name Lena Dunham,” said the father of my friend.

“That made me so mad,” I ramped up for my tirade but, looking around the table, realized I had lost my audience. They’re of a different generation, and no matter what I say, I won’t convince them that we should all be talking about sex and masturbation over Thanksgiving dinner. The topic changed to Ferguson and the decision to not indict the cop who shot Michael Brown, something we could all agree was fucked up.

When I first told my mom I was going to write this blog, she was concerned for my safety.

“You’re really going to write about your sex life on the Internet?”

I chose to make the blog anonymous. Not because I was ashamed, but because I wanted the freedom to write about the guys I fucked and if everyone knew I wrote the blog, I felt it would skew my subjects’ behavior towards me or I wouldn’t be comfortable being utterly candid about my experiences, knowing they might read it.

In the early days of the blog, Mom used to read it. Then she called me one day, outraged. She had just read about a particularly heinous interaction with Gaffer Guy that left me crying on the floor, covered in hot soup.

“Why are you sleeping with this asshole who treats you like shit?” She rightfully wanted to know. I didn’t know how to explain the animal magnetism between us, the fact that I couldn’t get enough of him, despite the fact (or maybe because of it) he was a complete asshole.

As I tried to justify myself, Mom started crying. “It’s really hard for me to read about this. I just don’t understand. I mean, do you have to write about this stuff?”

This made me mad and I exploded at her, “Yes, I do! This is my experience! And you know what, you just shouldn’t read it anymore.”

“Yes, I don’t think I will,” she sniffled into the phone.

And that was that. Mom stopped reading my blog. Which was good actually, because it allowed me a new level of freedom to be even more honest and uncensored and not worry about her getting upset. I actually admire the incredible self-control she exhibits in knowing her daughter writes a sex blog and choosing not to read it. From time to time, if I write one I think she will like and that is light on the sex-with-assholes factor, I will recommend it to her.

As for my dad, he too knows I write the blog and he too chooses not to read it. Actually, that second part was my mom’s idea. But one day, Dad called me out of the blue and said, “I read your last blog.”

“Oh, really?” I held for his reaction.

“It was hilarious. The writing is great, and I love the way the story unfolded. That guy is ridiculous.” He was referring to the Studio Exec who picked me up in the park, fresh off his trip to Burning Man.

Dad laughed and started quoting the blog. “I love when [your ex] says ‘rock the cleavage’.” I couldn’t believe Dad was repeating my lines back to me, and laughing about it. I felt so moved I almost cried.

I suddenly feel the powerful urge to “come out,” to put my face on the blog, to publicly become the Slutty Feminist. Because I don’t want to hide. And it’s a different time than when my parents were growing up. My generation is one of disclosure. Any and all information about everyone and everything is at our fingertips, and nothing is private anymore. This is a mixed blessing, but one thing I find wonderful about it is that there is a resource now for shared experiences, and I think people are realizing they’re not alone. There’s a community for everyone, no matter your kinks or weirdness, to be found on the Internet. This is a great thing for female sexuality in particular, which has been shrouded in mystery and ignorance for so many generations. There is finally an outlet for women to share their stories and realize what they thought was weird or unnatural is actually totally normal. God knows sex education isn’t doing a great job of teaching us about our bodies and our desires, so we gotta figure it out for ourselves, on the Internet.

I listen to this wonderful podcast called Guys We Fucked: The Anti-Slut Shaming Podcast and these gals are not hiding behind a pseudonym. They are Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson and they are loud and proud about it. Every week, they have a guest on the podcast—usually guys they’ve fucked. It seems from the comments they read in the beginning of each show that a lot of their audience consists of teenage girls, which at first seemed a little dubious because they talk so candidly and explicitly about sex. But then I was like, no, this is good that these young girls are getting this perspective on sex. Because most of their sex education is probably coming from the endless steam of porn on the internet, most of which is made for men by men. I’m glad they’re getting a female side to the story, from two smart funny 20-something NYC gals. At least if they’re being prematurely exposed to sex, they have a chance at a balanced perspective, which is more than I can say for previous generations.

The more I read memoirs like Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants by Jill Soloway and Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham, I realize there is a community out there for women like me. I think that Jill and Lena would relate to my weird musings. Like the fact that every time I’m on a public bus, I imagine everyone as giant genitalia and I can’t help but picture the bus filled with enormous penises and vaginas; the sheer amount of genitalia surrounding us at any given moment never ceases to amaze me. I think about how so many of our interactions in the world can be linked back to our genitals, and how it’s amusing to me that this is the one thing it’s most socially unacceptable to talk about.

Although I’m sure it would make my parents and their friends cringe, I look forward to a time when we can all talk openly about fucking at Thanksgiving dinner. There’s something amazing that happens when people come out of the closet about sex and really start to hash it out. People’s faces light up. They get excited. I get the sense that this is the one thing people have been waiting to talk about, but they’ve never had permission or they’ve always been too embarrassed. It’s amazing to me what happens when I talk to strangers about my blog, because my candidness seems to give them permission to open up and suddenly I’m hearing about the sex lives of people I don’t even know. There’s an instant connection because we’ve skipped through the bullshit small talk and gotten to something real. Sex is something we all do and we all think about a lot of the time—it’s something we literally all have in common. So let’s fucking talk about it! Every time I get together with my girlfriends, of course sex always comes up, and every time we talk about it, I feel like real progress is being made. Sex is a powerful force, and something that women haven’t had ownership of for far too long. Owning it will be the final frontier for women’s equality and liberation. That’s what I think. (mic drop)