Mr. Intimidated

I haven’t written in weeks because life and work have been keeping me too busy for the moments of reflection I need to blog about it. I guess the main thing to report is that I got rejected by Mr. Intimidated. Which, although I sort of felt it coming, was still a bit of a shocker.

As a refresher, this is the guy with whom I had three consecutive dates. On the first, we had sex and he initially expressed that he felt intimidated by me and that he was going through a bit of a life crisis. On the second, we saw It Follows and when he dropped me off and I went in to kiss him goodnight, he kept his lips pursed tightly shut. On our third date, we ate ramen and talked and laughed and when he dropped me off, I decided to not initiate the pursed-lip kiss and he didn’t either so instead we sat awkwardly for a moment until I shouted “okay, goodnight!” and ran into my house.

If you remember, I liked this guy a lot despite his obvious baggage and the awkwardly sexless nature of our interactions. I felt that he wasn’t quite what I was looking for and that I had a lot more going on than him, but still enjoyed spending time together and wanted to give it a try.

A couple days after our third date, I booked tickets to see Sleater Kinney perform at the Hollywood Palladium and, with no angry feminist female friends excited to go with me, I invited him. He said yes, that he loved Carrie Brownstein and was excited to go.

“It’s gonna be like an episode of Portlandia,” he said.

“Cacao,” I responded.

Then I didn’t hear from him for two weeks. A mutual friend told me he was out of town at a movie premiere. I texted him “congratulations and have fun” and he sent me a pic of his premiere outfit. I felt something was up when I didn’t hear from him again. A week before the concert I texted to check in.

“Hey, are you still going to the concert with me next week?”

I headed into a meeting and forgot about it. During the meeting, I was midsentence when my phone vibrated and I glanced down at it. I caught the following on my lock screen: “Hey. I know I sort of fell off the map these past few weeks. I appreciate you inviting me but I don’t think I want to go...” My words caught in my throat and I lost my train of thought. I thought it best to wait until after the meeting to read the rest, but having no self-control or patience whatsoever, I couldn’t resist. It continued: “I’m sorry. I’m just not feeling it. I know I expressed to you how I feel this is a weird time for me, and my lack of sex drive. I think I just don’t want to be going on dates, and want time alone to just figure shit out. Hope you understand.”

The coldness of the message unnerved me. It had none of the usual rejection niceties: “It’s not you, it’s me. You’re amazing. I like you a lot but (fill in the blank). You’re too good for me…” etc. I was also frankly surprised to be rejected by this guy who I felt was (I know this sounds douchey) lucky to have my attention in the first place. I wanted to write: “You’re rejecting me? Seriously?” But I didn’t. I wrote: “I understand. Thank you for your honesty.” I did appreciate his honesty. And I actually did understand—after our very first date, in light of his personal crisis and recent breakup, I had told a friend of mine, “He probably shouldn’t be dating anyone right now.” But I was still taken aback by how quickly and cleanly he had cut it off.

And I sort of felt like crying. I thought we had fun together, and that was worth something to me. For whatever reason, I actually liked him more than most of the men I meet. But then I was also grateful, and felt profoundly that I had been let off the hook. I would have let it go on for weeks because I liked him. Even though it was awkward, and I knew I wanted something more, and it clearly wasn’t the right thing for either of us at this moment in time.  

I was also slightly annoyed that he hadn’t told me sooner he didn’t want to go to the concert. Would he have told me at all if I hadn’t asked, or would he have let the day roll around and offered some last minute excuse? I scrambled to fill his spot, and decided to invite my friend the DILF, a 40 going on 25 year old Man Child I had sex with over a year ago. He said yes immediately, although he didn’t know the band. Then, apropos of nothing, he texted:

“I am so angry today. I gotta meditate before shooting this gig.” Immediately, I regretted inviting him. Not knowing what to say, I asked why he was angry.

“I’m just frustrated with everything and blaming myself therefore taking it out on the world today.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied lamely, not wanting to hear any more.

Why are all the men I attract carrying so much baggage, and why do they all feel the need to take it out and show it to me without my asking to see it? Why do I feel more like a mother figure to these lost boys than an equal, a partner, a lover? Where is my equal and why can’t I find him? I went on Facebook seeking distraction and soon found myself stalking the Hot Guy I slept with at my Housewarming Party back in October. I found a photo of him lying on the beach next to a girl kissing his sweet bearded face, #staycation. A wave of sadness passed over me. Not because I necessarily want to be with this guy, although I did have a slightly desperate moment of trying and failing to see him again after that night we slept together. And I haven’t seen him since. But I suddenly viscerally felt the reason people feel sorry for single folks, and this is not a feeling I usually relate to. In a way, I also felt relieved. Because I could let it go—that weird distant hope in the back of my mind that I might someday run into this incredibly hot man I slept with once, and we would go on that follow up date. 

“You’re strong, you’re like a sturdy tree, that’s why these guys are attracted to you,” said a wise friend. I guess that’s true, but I also think these men somehow think I’m stronger than I am. They don’t see my vulnerability and therefore feel intimidated or insecure around me. Maybe this is my fault. I know I do present with a lot of confidence and bravado, and maybe I’m looking for a man who has the strength and confidence in himself to help bring out my vulnerable side.

I was chatting to this guy on Tinder, a kinkster looking to get into some dom-sub play. Naturally, he wanted me to dominate him. He said he was into “feet, ass worship, objectification, voyeurism, domestic servitude, to name a few.” When I shared that I was from NorCal, he shot back: “I was just telling my roommate how San Fran women are so masculine. They need men to inspire their feminine side.” At the time I thought this was an incredibly dumb thing for him to say and showed an extreme lack of good sense. What kind of man thinks it’s a good idea to call the woman he wants to sleep with “masculine”? Masculine to me means I have a mustache and big calves. I value people putting thought into how they communicate, and his word choice was so thoughtless it was virtually irredeemable, and a big reason why I never ended up meeting up with him.

Now I think part of my strong reaction might have been that, poor word choice aside, maybe this guy was actually onto something. Maybe I do need a strong man to bring out my feminine side. The best relationships I’ve had with men have been when they could see past my feminist rants and loud mouth opinions and crude jokes into the sensitive and thoughtful person underneath. They have been with men who feel empowered, rather than belittled, by my strength. Despite my know-it-all personality, my ex-boyfriend always knew how to find the softness in me, and he always understood his value in our relationship. Best Guy Friend will debate me all day long—he knows how to find the weak spots in my seemingly ironclad arguments and enjoys poking holes in them. This is the kind of give-and-take I need in a man. I think I often like to be right and I get frustrated when people argue with me, but conversely it’s hard for me to respect anyone who doesn’t have their own strong opinion.

I realized after my second date with Mr. Intimidated that I didn’t know what he thought of the movie we had seen. I didn’t remember him saying one way or another. I asked him about it on our third date, shoveling ramen into my mouth.
"I just realized I don't know what you thought of the movie."
"What?" He looked surprised that I would bring this back up.
 "I don't think you ever said what you thought of It Follows."
"Oh. I loved it," he responded flatly.
"You did? Really?! You didn't tell me that."
"Well, you just seemed so weirded out by it I guess I just didn't know what to say."
I stared at him. Something in me felt disappointed. I couldn't imagine being in a relationship with someone whose opinion they wouldn't share for fear of disagreeing with me. I would eat that person alive. I pictured a future of me monologuing and him nodding vaguely by my side. This image made me shudder. I should have called it right then and there--at that moment, I knew instinctively that this would never work.

It's a Match!

I went on two dates last week. With the same guy. They were real dates, not just sex dates. And he planned them, which was awesome. On Monday night we met for drinks at a classy whiskey bar and ended up sharing a pizza. The conversation was varied and flowed easily. He listened intently as I talked, seemingly very interested which inspired me to be even more interesting. At some point, we moved from the bar to the lounging couches in the corner of the restaurant. I started touching the veins on his arms (I love the veins on men’s arms). He smiled and lost his train of thought. We kissed a little bit. He smiled more. It was nice.

We shut down the bar and he walked me to my car. I then drove him the two blocks to his car. I parked and left the engine running, music blaring as we made out furiously. I felt his crotch and he pulled my tit out of my shirt. I could feel he was hard in his pants and I started to unbutton his fly. I pulled out his dick and decided to put my mouth on it right there in the car. What can I say, Florence and the Machine’s Only If For a Night was blasting and I felt inspired.

“Can I invite myself over?” He asked.

He followed me home in his car and we huffed and puffed as we struggled to walk up the incredibly steep hill I live on. When I got him in my bed, we proceeded to continue where we had left off. Only problem was, he was no longer hard.

“Ahh, my dick!” He lamented.

I reassured him it was fine. It happens. He was clearly nervous around me. We had talked earlier in the evening about the phenomenon of emasculation.

“Do you feel emasculated by me?” I asked now.

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“You’re just such a sexy woman,” he declared, grabbing my ass.

Obviously, this was the right thing to say. I was flattered. But I also wondered why this keeps happening to me—the fact that my being a sexy/strong/ambitious woman actually makes guys lose their erections. This has happened before. With men that were apparently really into me, and then when push came to shove, they had trouble performing and claimed to be “intimidated.” 

I pulled out some tried and true sex-ninja moves and managed to successfully get him hard. We had sex and we both came, and I felt more satisfied than 90% of the time when I first sleep with someone new. But he obviously felt embarrassed and frustrated and in his head about the penis thing, and I couldn’t get him out of it. We fell asleep and in the morning we talked in bed for awhile. He shared that he had recently stopped watching porn because it was fucking with his self-esteem (you know, the big dick factor).
"Porn is ruining men for real sex!" I declared, vindicated.
It was nice to lounge in bed with someone—it had been awhile for me. I made us eggs and coffee and we had more good conversation over breakfast. All in all, it was a lovely 14 hour date.

On Thursday, he asked me out again. He picked me up, which impressed the hell out of me (it doesn’t take much) and we went for a couple drinks and then to see a late night showing of It Follows. After the movie, he drove me home. And then it suddenly felt awkward, as if the ghost of last night’s sex loomed over us. As if there were some weird expectation on us now—we’d already had sex, so we should probably do that again. But he was still in his head about how from his perspective it had not gone very well. I leaned over to kiss him goodnight. He kept his lips pursed tightly shut.

The next day, via text, I brought up the awkwardness I had felt at the end of our date and he was very forthcoming about the fact that he’s been "going through some stuff" and that he just came out of this relationship that left him feeling less than confident about his manhood. He expressed his hope that this wasn't "TMI." I reassured him that, in my book, there is no such thing as TMI. I appreciated his vulnerability in telling me the truth. It was a welcome reprieve from the posturing I usually encounter from insecure men who, instead of admitting their insecurities, overcompensate with this big macho act that is really off-putting and I can completely see through anyway.

I talked to my Best Guy Friend about this. About the fact that I actually really like this guy. I like spending time with him, I love our conversations, I like myself when I'm around him, and I appreciate his candor and transparency. But if I'm being honest, this is not the person I see myself dating. I have had this fantasy of dating someone as ambitious and driven as me, possibly more successful/farther along in their life and career. Best Guy Friend has had a similar vision for himself. We’re both looking for the opposite-gender equivalent of ourselves. But I don’t know if that’s possible—I don’t know if that would truly be a match. Maybe every relationship needs that yin and yang, perhaps both partners can’t be equally ambitious because that would never work, maybe we both need to accept the fact that we are destined to be the more powerful partner in the relationship, that we will perpetually be in the driver’s seat calling all the shots.

If I’m honest with myself, I say I want a partner who makes decisions so I don’t have to, but the truth is I actually enjoy calling the shots. In every aspect of my life, I am in control, and I like it that way. This comes naturally to me. I’ve been looking for a dominant, but maybe I am the dominant. I don’t know if I could actually let someone else be dominant over me.

I’ve always had this fantasy that with the perfect match, we’d have like this mutual admiration society. But maybe admiration flows more naturally one way or another. I have to say, I love to be admired and appreciated. My favorite interactions with men are the ones where they want to hear a lot about what I’m doing and think it’s really cool and interesting. My least favorite interactions are the ones where they show off and talk about themselves the whole time and learn nothing about me. Maybe it’s not meant to be equal. Does my preference for being admired point to the fact that I’m naturally dominant?

I think of my mom. My mom is very ambitious and strong and opinionated, she is a leader and a control-freak. Like me. And she married my dad, who is much softer—he acquiesces, he takes her side, he is her support system. And although when she’s frustrated with him, she likes to complain that she wishes she were with someone more ambitious, driven, “successful,” I don’t think she would actually be a match with that person. And I don’t think that guy would put up with her shit. I mean that endearingly—I don’t know if that ideal mate I envision for myself would put up with my shit either. My parents probably have the best example of a marriage I have witnessed, and they’ve been together over thirty years.

Best Guy Friend and I came to the conclusion that maybe the reason we’re looking for that support system in a partner is because we don’t feel 100% confident in our own ability to support ourselves. And once we truly find a sense of security within ourselves, we’ll let go of needing it from another person.

In my new favorite (and now cancelled) show, Looking, there is this great storyline in which the main character Patrick, an upper-middle class, college educated white boy, starts to fall in love with a lower class, Hispanic hair dresser, Ricky. And he feels really conflicted about it—he did not imagine himself with this person. And he can’t deal with it. He ends up cutting it off before it can go too far. And then throughout the rest of the season, the what-if of what that could’ve been hangs over his head. Every time he sees Ricky with his new boyfriend, there’s this sense of that could’ve been me.

I relate so profoundly to Patrick’s conflicted emotions about Ricky. Because this might have been a true love-match for him, and indeed it sure felt that way. But Patrick’s idea about the kind of guy he should be with came along and sabotaged any potential future he might have had with this person he could’ve loved. I feel this level of conflicted about most of the men I have chemistry with—they’re actors and bartenders and waiters, and they’re hot and they like me and there’s an obvious attraction. And whereas when I was younger I would have pursued it at least just for the sex, now I find myself looking into the future. Do I really want to be in a relationship with another struggling actor? Not really, no. But why do I keep attracting them? Why do I never seem to attract that incredibly successful, powerful “man of my dreams”? Am I destined to be that person in my relationship? Should I just relax into that role and embrace it rather than constantly holding out for this imaginary powerhouse I have yet to meet? This person that supposedly “matches me.”

I guess this is my fundamental issue with online dating. Because online dating is all about being good on paper. And it doesn’t account for chemistry. When I think about my ex-boyfriend, whom I was with for four years, if I had seen him on an online dating site, I probably would have dismissed him. Because on paper, we are not a match. But in life, we were. It ran its course, we’re not life partners, but my relationship with him was wonderful and I don’t regret a moment of it. As much as I like to think I want to be with the male equivalent of myself, I probably would find that person completely impossible to be around. My first boyfriend was very similar to me—intellectual, ambitious, Type A—and we fought all the fucking time. I ended up hating him in the end. So I guess in conclusion I’m going to try to keep an open mind—to not be so quick to write people off because I don’t think we’re a “match”. Because you never know. My true love match might turn out to be the opposite of what I expect.

Single For Life

I know I’m supposed to be writing about sex this week. And BDSM. I was supposed to have gotten myself into some epic kinky fantasy adventure so I could come back and report on it. That didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I find myself presently more celibate than I have been in quite some time. I’m not sure why. Probably because my focus of late is on other things besides cock, which I know is shocking and appalling to all of you. I even recently tried to get back into Tinder and the one guy I started chatting with turns out is good friends with the roommate of High School Lover, so I kind of had to put the kibosh on that one.

I’ve also been in a bit of a strange state because my dear friend Heidi is moving away to North Carolina with her husband and the baby boy I watched come out of her body nine months ago. On Sunday we had a little impromptu going away party for them at their house in the valley, and looking around the backyard, a melancholy rendition of Baby It’s Cold Outside playing out of my ex-boyfriend’s iPhone, I realized I was the only single person at this party. I found myself surrounded by five couples, one of which was my ex and his girlfriend. And I didn’t feel bad for myself or that I particularly wished to be part of a couple, but I did suddenly feel like an outsider. Like I didn’t belong. This was no longer my tribe. And that was an odd feeling.

Earlier in the day, we had all gone out to Barney’s Beanery for some goodbye nachos and beer. As we headed for the car, I was planning on riding with Heidi, her husband, and the baby. As I got to the car, I realized our friend Adrienne and her boyfriend had the same idea. Without missing a beat, I headed for Heidi’s brother’s car instead, asking if I could ride with him and his wife. I thought no one had noticed this small moment of single person awkwardness, but Heidi, being an ultra-sensitive observer, spoke up when we got to the restaurant.

“You just had one of those single moments. When we were back at the car. One of those moments of, I have nowhere to go,” she laughed compassionately, clearly feeling for me.

“It’s okay. I’m the leftovers,” I joked back.

Something strange is happening now that I’m in my late 20s. People are pairing off in a more serious way and it suddenly feels like the party is ending and everyone is trying to find someone to go home with so they don’t end up alone or paired off with the only other person that remains: everyone’s last choice. I found out today even Gaffer Guy is engaged. Fucking Gaffer Guy?! Truly the last man standing. Even Mr. Sociopathic alcoholic womanizing misogynist doesn’t want to go home alone.

Heidi and her husband moving away to build a cob house from scratch and start their real life as two adults with a child, that feels like a new chapter for all of us—a chapter that for me feels a million miles away. And I wonder what that means for these friendships. All of these people are going to start getting married and having children probably years before me—it’s already starting to happen. Where does that leave me in this group? Am I forever to be that single friend that is perpetually called out when a group of hot firemen walk by? Am I really going to be that cliché?

Sometimes I feel like the gals in Sex and the City when they go to their friend’s baby shower and they remember her as this wild single lady and find she’s now a stay-at-home mom living in a no-shoes-allowed house in the Hamptons with her husband and two kids. When Carrie arrives at the shower, the woman asks her to take off her Manolo Blahniks and Carrie’s like, “but this is an outfit.”  Sometimes being the kind of woman with screaming babies and toys lying around the house feels so foreign and far away, I wonder if that’ll ever be me.

Last year, one of my girlfriends had a birthday party for which her boyfriend organized a scavenger hunt and assigned each of her friends an hour to take her on a surprise adventure. I didn’t know about this. I was invited to the “after party” later that evening. I arrived at the apartment where a group of their friends sat around reminiscing about the fun they had had that day taking my friend through her various birthday activities. As I tried to laugh along with the general merriment of the group, I found myself instead feeling like a tourist and asking myself, why as one of her best friends, was I left out of the scavenger hunt component of the day? And then I realized that every single other guest at the party was part of a couple. I probably hadn't been left out on purpose as a punishment for being single, but it didn't matter--at that moment, I felt like the last girl in middle school to be picked for kickball teams. I sat there watching the couples ooh and aah as my friend unwrapped the giant set of luxury pots and pans her boyfriend had bought her for her birthday, and thought: this isn’t my world.

Less than a year ago, the six core members of our particular group were having a dinner party in the very dining room now filled with packing boxes. My ex and I were still in a rather undefined post-relationship stage in our friendship. His girlfriend was still a pretty new presence in his life, and he was resistant to even calling her that. Now they live together and I swear I can see marriage and kids on the not-so-distant horizon. Seeing how much has changed just this past year, I can’t imagine what this group will look like a year from now.

It’s interesting how defined we are by singlehood or coupledom. Lately I feel my identity is so entrenched in being single that I literally can’t picture myself in a relationship. And when I’m with other single people, I feel more connected, less alone. I can’t help it, surrounded by couples, I usually feel like the odd one out, no matter how close we all are. One of my girlfriends recently told me that if she’s invited to something, she just assumes her boyfriend is invited too. This drives me insane. The couple of times it's happened that I’ve had plans with a girlfriend and she’s showed up with her boyfriend, I become so irrationally angry. To me the time between friends, particularly girlfriends, is sacred and to assume you can invite your boyfriend is like admitting that you’re so codependent he’s essentially just another appendage and therefore barely counts as a separate person. It’s like when people become part of a couple, they have amnesia about what it was like when they were single. I guess I do too. I can remember back to a time when most of my decisions were made as part of a unit, but that time feels ever so long ago. I can’t imagine that for myself now.

There are so many seemingly inescapable qualities of coupled people that make me want to never be part of one again. Certain subtle freedoms that simply don’t exist, and as a single person I completely take for granted. Like the fact that if I want to leave a social gathering, I don’t have to quietly negotiate with my partner and decide in hushed tones when we want to leave and if we want to have another drink and who’s driving. I can just say goodbye and walk myself out of the house and drive my ass home. There are none of those awkward public disputes where you have to go off to the side to quietly fix whatever the issue is, or passive-aggressively pretend that everything’s fine when everyone in the room can tell by the shift in energy that something is up between you two. The fact that if there’s a hot single guy at the party, I can flirt with him openly and unabashedly without keeping an eye on where my partner is or feel his eyes watching me across the room, monitoring my behavior. The list goes on.

Things like this I remember about being in a relationship, and I see with my coupled friends, make me want to stay single forever. But the truth is that, obviously, I don’t want to be single forever. Who does? But I know myself, and my track record. I don’t date people casually. I fuck people casually, and then I meet someone I actually really like and I end up seriously dating them for four years. Although I would like to meet someone I like, I’m not in a big hurry to give up my hard-earned identity as an independent single woman. Being on my own has become so a part of who I am, and I’m proud of it. I think it’s made me a stronger, better person. I like that I can show up at a party by myself and find someone to talk to and I don’t need a familiar crutch to lean on. I like who I am when I’m single. I like not having to compromise or check in with anybody. I like that I can do what I want 100% of the time.

That said, I do get tired of making all of my decisions alone, and generating all of my own energy, and never having anyone to lean on. It does get tiresome, and lonely. I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I watch Heidi and her husband take this next step in their life and relationship.

When Heidi met Alex a couple years ago, she was already entrenched in a relationship with her first boyfriend and they lived together and seemed to be in it for the long haul. Then she met Alex and her world got turned upside down. Within a short time, she broke up with her longtime boyfriend, he moved out, and Alex moved in. Not long after that, they got pregnant and decided to have the baby. And then within a year they were making plans to leave LA and start a new sustainable lifestyle in North Carolina where they found they could fully commit to the living off the land model they had been trying to create in the backyard of their home in the valley. I think about if Heidi hadn’t met Alex, how her life would be different now. Meeting him changed her world and her priorities, allowed her to fully commit right now to a dream that felt very far in the future.

I feel like it is often the woman in a relationship who will adjust what she wants to compromise with what her partner wants in their life together. I guess one thing I love about Heidi’s relationship is that the opposite happened. She had this dream of building a cob house out of the ground and living a sustainable lifestyle, and Alex totally got on board with that dream, and it became their shared purpose. Now Alex is going to be the one doing the internship and learning how to build their house from scratch, as Heidi takes care of their baby.

“I had this idea, and I thought I would be the one doing it, and now he’s doing it instead,” she marveled. I could tell she had mixed feelings about this, part of her wanting to be the one to execute their dream. But I suppose that is constantly the balance and dilemma of motherhood: wanting to be with your baby all the time while they’re in those first precious couple years you’ll never get back, but also wanting to live your full life and continue feeding the passions you had before the baby came along. Mostly, Heidi seems in awe that she has found a man who shares her vision and wants to put his whole self into living it with her. She knows how rare that is.

I realize, watching them head off on this journey, that this is the kind of relationship I want. The kind of relationship that will inspire me into the next chapter of my life. Someone I can truly co-create with. Someone who supports my dreams and whose dreams I want to support. Or better yet, someone who has the same dream as me. I know now that at this moment in my life, I won’t settle for anything less. Until I find that, I’d rather be alone. 

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.

Valentine's Day

“You look like a present,” says my roommate. I’m wearing a cherry red, skin-tight dress with a big bow in the back and lots of tits in the front. It’s Valentine’s Day and we’re throwing a big ol’ house party. Per usual, I’m dressed to attract a mate for the evening. It’s V-Day after all and the evite instructed each guest to “bring a single friend, or 7 single friends.”

As I wander through the party, searching for someone to bone, I’m surprised by my own lack of interest in the various prospects. There are indeed several attractive, single men in my midst, and yet I continue to wander rather than setting my sights on the most promising option and digging in for the night, as is my custom. I find myself dodging a handsome, somewhat boring insurance guy who is probably my best bet. I realize I’m less interested in sealing the deal with him than chatting with friends I see all the time and generally flirting with no one in particular.

Where is my usual ambition to get laid no matter what? To find the hottest guy in the room and focus on him all night until he’s completely incapable of walking away? To tenaciously manufacture chemistry even when there is absolutely none? I suddenly realize that, oh my god, has the moment finally come when I am actually bored of the random hookup?

Feeling very drunk, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, thinking I might throw up. Instead, I stare at myself in the mirror over the sink: long, kinky blond hair; cleavage to the chin; red bow framing my ass. I come to the sudden realization that I may have outgrown this party costume. I do feel sexy but also with perhaps a sprinkling of trying too hard. I stare at myself in the mirror and wonder, who is this peacock?

Then I have the double realization that this costume positively screams one night stand. Why did that never occur to me before? I’m fond of asking myself and my friends, why am I attracting this certain kind of guy over and over again? Two kinds actually: the skeezy loser who likes me more than I like him, or the upstanding guy I go to bed with and then try to parlay the one night stand into a real date and never hear from him again. Why has it honestly never occurred to me that this dress and the attitude that goes with it might have everything to do with who and what I’m attracting?

Yes, dudes pay more attention to us when we dress sexy. But I think T&A is honestly so distracting for them that they are fundamentally incapable of seeing past the basic instinct to fuck. Obviously. When I’m shoving my tits in a guy’s face, what do I honestly expect? And I’m not slut-shaming myself. I think maybe I just didn’t realize until this moment that what I’ve been working to attract is actually not at all what I want.

I’ve had this fantasy that when I finally meet the right guy, he will see past my cleavage-baring dresses and loud mouth outspokenness to the thoughtful and smart individual underneath. I guess it didn’t occur to me to lead with these qualities. Probably because in these instances, I’m usually looking for sex, not great conversation. But the fact that I often feel dissatisfied by these encounters has never before made me think I need to change anything about my behavior. I think my belief that attracting men is all about dressing as sexy as humanly possible has actually been attracting the wrong kind of man. Shocking, I know.

I think back to New Year’s Eve night when I zeroed in on the hot bartender who was giving me lots of exciting mixed messages. I pleaded for a midnight kiss and, when he wouldn’t give it to me, asked if he had a girlfriend. “Yeah,” he scoffed, “If I was single, your face would be wet right now.” Obviously, I didn’t leave him alone for the rest of the night. Later, as we shared a joint outside with a group of my friends, I stuck my hands in his jacket, feeling on his chest. I pushed my body into his and reached for his crotch. You might say I was being a little forceful, but the smile on his face made me believe he was very close to giving in. Naturally, I was rocking my gold sparkly ensemble and, per usual, lots of cleavage. My animal instincts told me he was barely able to resist.

About a week later, I returned to said bar and parked myself right in front of this same bartender’s station. He barely looked at me all night. I don’t know what I was expecting—for him to leave his girlfriend for me? No, but I thought we could at least have one night of fun, no strings attached. I realize now what this must have looked like: a very sexually uninhibited girl who keeps trying to have sex with a guy even after he’s made it abundantly clear he lives with his girlfriend. What kind of future could there possibly be and why on earth would he jeopardize his relationship to be with me for one night? He wouldn’t. Especially when he’s probably reading the vibes that this girl has no intention of making him her boyfriend, she’s truly just in it for the sex. Even man’s deep and primal instinct to fuck is not strong enough to overcome the doubt and uncertainty inspired by this situation.

All this to say that, when I dress up as the Barbie, I think I might be sending a confusing message, because although I know how to peacock around, I’m ultimately playing a role that is not who I am. I am not going to be some perfect piece of arm candy. That’s just not me. I'm too loud and opinionated for that shit. And it is not by pretending to be that person that I will find the right guy for me. Because there are plenty of women who actually fit that description and the guy that wants that woman will get a real one, not the one who’s just flirting with the role for tonight and in the morning goes back to being very serious and career driven.

And please understand, I am by no means saying that being sexy and strong are mutually exclusive. Because obviously those are both qualities I admire and hopefully embody, but I’m coming to realize there are different kinds of sexy. And some kinds are more understated, not quite so in your face, leave a little something to the imagination. Like Gillian Anderson in The Fall. So strong, so sexy, so doesn't give a fuck. But I digress...

My mom’s favorite expression “mutton dressed as lamb” is suddenly hitting home in a very real way. While she has always used this expression to refer to women who dress too young for their age, it suddenly seems to me that it is actually more about maturity. Maybe that’s what being a grown up woman is all about—being so confident in yourself and your sexuality that you don’t have to flaunt it like you’re 21, you can simply know what you want and say it out loud.

As I stand in front of that bathroom mirror, staring at the "present" reflected back at me, I think I'm only 28 and I already feel too old for this frock.