As a teacher who works with children in middle and high school, I understand the relationships and intimacy which can develop between teachers and students. I’ve worked with some of my students for over a decade, seen them grow into confident young adults, and watched them go off to college. Some stay in touch, and some cross my mind from time to time as I wonder what they’re up to today. I hope I do a good job steering them in through tumultuous childhoods and teenage years, and aim to leave them better people than they were when the first came to work with me. I’m also a theatre instructor who generally sees my students once a week, so I have limited impact, but I can still dream of making a difference; I know how powerfully my teaches — even those I saw infrequently — affected my development into an adult.

All these thoughts crossed my mind as I heard that the Arkansas Supreme Court had struck down a law 4-3 which forbade teachers from engaging in sexual activity with students who were under the age of 21. I feel pretty strongly that behavior outside of one’s employment shouldn’t be a factor in how they’re viewed as an employee. I hate the stories of teachers who are fired for having drunk pictures show up on Facebook, and I think drug screening for applicants is inherently unjust and offensive. For me, as a transgender lesbian, it’s all too easy to imagine my “personal life” being viewed as offensive or unacceptable when it comes to my professional life. Indeed, I was fired from a teaching position for being trans, which has nothing to do with my ability to teach a class.

So, my gut reaction is that, yes, if the relationship (in this case between an 18 year old student and her 36 year old teacher) is legal outside of school, it should be legal in school.

Upon further reflection, however, teacher-student relationships create an inherent power dynamic. Sexual activity between minors and adults is forbidden (at least in part) because there’s an inherent imbalance of power. It is impossible for a child to maturely provide consent to an adult in the way two adults (or, arguably, two children) are able to do.

But these lines are arbitrary. No one thinks that a flip is switched at exactly 16 that makes people able to drive, or at exactly 18 that makes people able to vote or smoke, or at exactly 21 that makes people able to drink. Societies create arbitrary lines in the hope that – for the majority of the population – those lines will do a pretty good job of keeping the “too young” on one side and the “old enough” on the other. Yet teacher/student is a more clearcut relationship. You stop being a student when you graduate, not when you reach a specific age. So should a teacher/student sexual relationship — illegal and generally agreed to be a bad thing at 17 years, 11 months, and 30 days — suddenly be acceptable at 18?

From the three dissenting justices: ”For the majority to say that such authority vanishes when a student turns 18 ignores the realities of the student-teacher relationship,” Brown wrote. “I cannot agree that a teacher has a right protected by our constitution to engage in sexual contact with a student.”

Many students turn 18 while in their senior year of high school (myself included) they’re judged “too young” in one way — they’re still in high school school, a place for children — but “old enough” for lots of things as far as legality is concerned. I remember realizing, after I turned 18, that I no longer needed to take permission slips home for my parents to sign. When we went scuba diving in the school pool (which was awesome, by the way) I took the form, signed it myself and handed it right back. I was legally allowed to make that decision, even though I was still a student as far as the school was concerned; I had to obey the period bells, get to class on time, and so on.

And yet I keep returning to the fact that we judge people — rightly or wrongly — to be adults at 18. There isn’t a case-by-case test or a subjective panel or a medical diagnosis. On one’s 18th birthday, they’re an adult. Which, to me, means they should be allowed to sleep with their teacher. Even if it makes me uncomfortable. Even if I question the inherent power dynamic of such a relationship. Even if the school gets really worried about potential liability. They’re adults. Treat them like it.

“If, in cases of antipathic sexual instinct [homosexuality] thus developed, no restoration occurs, then deep and lasting transformation of the physical personality may occur. The process completing itself in this way ma be briefly designated eviration (defemination in women). The patient undergoes a deep change of character, particularly in his feelings and inclinations, which thus become those of a female. After this, he also feels himself to be a woman during the sexual act, has desires only for passive sexual indulgence, and, under certain circumstances, sinks to the level of a prostitute.”

From Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, 12th edition, originally published in 1906, page 297

I just came across this book in a used book store, and of course had to purchase it. Of its approximately 600 pages, almost 150 of them are devoted to “antipathic sexual instinct” (homosexuality), “metamorphosis sexualis paranoia” (trans inclinations), androgyny, and the like. Quick note for the stuff I’m quoting, parentheses () are in the original text, while brackets [] are my notes. From a case study:

At the age of twelve or thirteen, I had a definite feeling of preferring to be a young lady. A young lady’s form was more pleasing to me; her quiet manner, her deportment, but particularly her attire attracted me. But I was careful not to allow this to be noticed; and yet I am sure that I should not have shrunk from the castration-knife could I have thus attained my desire….In my heart I always envied them [girls].

On account of unhappy circumstances, I twice attempted suicide.”

Ibid, page 307 and 309 from an account written in 1890

Sounds like my experiences, and the experiences of lots of other trans women, fifty years before the word “transsexual” was coined. And so, of course, the author describes her (using male pronouns) as “badly tainted.” Heaven forbid such depravity be allowed to spread! From another case study:

“[By age 36] the small talk of the ladies visiting her about love, toilet, finery, fashions, domestic and servants’ affairs disgusted her. She felt mortified at being a woman. She could not even make up her mind again to look in the mirror. She loathed combing her hair and making her toilet. Much to the surprise of her own people her hitherto soft and decidedly feminine features assumed a strongly masculine character, so much that she gave the impression of being a man clad in female garb. She complained to her trusted physician that her periods had stopped, – in fact, she had nothing to do with such functions. When they recurred again she felt ill-tempered and found the odor of the menstrual flow most nauseating, but definitely refused the use of perfumes, which affected her in a similar unpleasant manner. Pages 325-326

Honestly, some of this sounds more like intersex conditions than being trans, but it’s fascinating that they’re all lumped together in the same sections of the book:

Anthropologically and clinically, this abnormal manifestation [things the author puts under the "homosexuality" umbrella] presents various degrees of development:

1. Traces of hetero-sexual, with predominating homosexual, instinct (psycho-sexual hermaphroditism)
2. There exists inclination only toward the same sex (homo-sexuality)
3. The entire mental existence is altered to correspond with the abnormal sexual instincts (effemination and viraginity)
4. The form of the body approaches that which corresponds to the abnormal sexual instinct. However, actual transitions to hermaphrodites never occur…the cause must be sought in the brain (androgyny and gynandry)

Page 337

This one is particularly awesome:

In the majority of cases [of homo-sexuality], psychical anomalies (brilliant endowment in art, especially music, poetry, etc., by the side of bad intellectural powers or original eccentricity) are present, which may extent to pronounced conditions of mental degeneration. -page 339

And:

Those tainted with it, although recognizing it as an abnormality, claim for it the same rights and privileges that are accorded to normal (hetero-sexual) love, on account of its being based upon a freak of nature. – Page 341

There’s more talk of trans identities under “Effemination”:

In this group are fully developed cases in which males are females in feeling; and vice versa women, males. This abnormality of feeling and development of the character is often apparent in childhood. The boy likes to spend time with girls, play with dolls, and help his mother about the house…as he grows older he eschews smoking, drinking, and manly sports, and, on the contrary, finds pleasure in adornment of persons, art, belle-lettres, etc… – Page 382

There’s even talk of tucking (on page 388) with an “artful bandage.”

The book discusses “sexual inversion in woman,” noting that there is little data but “it would not be fair to draw from this the conclusion that sexual inversion in women is rare” (page 395) because (among other reasons) “it is more difficult to gain the confidence of the sexually perverse woman” and, since “sexual perversity” in women often was legal, there weren’t good records. Yet, the book contains a number of cases of homosexual women, women who (by today’s standards) would probably have considered themselves trans men, and more.

I’m still processing all this ridiculous text, so don’t have any conclusions, but do have some more fun quotes to leave you with:

“Cunnilingus and fellare have not thus far been shown to depend upon psychopathological conditions. These horrible sexual acts seem to be committed only by sensual men who have become satiated or impotent from excessive indulgence in a normal way. Paedicatio mulierum [anal sex] does not seem to be psychopathic, but rather a practice of married men of low morality, who wish to prevent pregnancy, and of satiated cynics in non-marital sexual indulgence.” – page 504

Also, tribadism apparently means scissoring. So that’s a fun word.

No fair! My feet didn't come with a flower!

Below the waist. My feet, like my hands, are slightly bigger than I’d like, hairier than I’d like, but I can’t really complain. They’re not huge, it’s occasionally obnoxious to find shoes in my size but never impossible, and hair removal has thinned much of the worst growth. I still have some patches around my ankles that I need to shave when I shave my legs, but no body is perfect. My legs rival my chest and face for the most dramatic success of hair removal. I shave my legs, much more in warm months, but don’t grow the same thick brambly forest that I used to. As of today, I haven’t shaved my legs in at least a month, and while they’re hairy compared to my shaved-this-morning face, they’re night and day compared to when I was in high school, pre hormones and hair removal. My legs are, like my arms, places of strength. I don’t run – it hurts my knees – but I bike and walk and swim and climb ropes and trees and lovers. I’ve been working on strengthening my hips, something a physical therapist said would help my knees, but don’t have much to complain about.

At the same time, my legs and arms have shrunk the most over the course of my transition. I joke that, since going on hormones, I’ve gone up two cup sizes without gaining any weight. All that mass, my previously mentioned boobs, had to come from somewhere – lots of it came from now-departed muscle mass in my arms and legs. I’m still stronger than lots of my girl friends, who knows whether as a result of testosterone or simply genetics, but decidedly less strong than I was before hormones. I’m not complaining, however, other than the occasional struggle at circus or the gym. But no pain, no gain. Or something.

Stretch marks line my thighs where they connect to my hips. I remember in middle school, shortly after the onset of puberty, asking my mom what these strange lines on my thighs were. She laughed and explained how growth impacts the body and the skin. My calves have the occasional scar or mark: Where I backed into a hot camp stove on a family camping trip, the spot on my knee I hit over and over and over the summer I was learning to ride my bike, marks of time and of growth and of pain. (I forgot, in Part One of this map, that my left hand (with the broken fingers) has a small companion scar on my shoulder where I hit the ground when flipped off my bike.)

My hips and my butt have grown over the course of my transition, shifting and changing like so many parts of my body. But, again, like so many parts of my body, not in exactly the way I’d want. But, again, no body is perfect. I’d love for my hips to be a little wider, my butt a little more rounded, my boobs a bit bigger. But I love the curves of my hips and my butt that are there. The way the right dress or tights or shorts hugs my body on the way down. The exact way the suits and pants and clothing I used to wear before transitioning didn’t.

This is exactly what I was hoping to find when I searched for 'cartoon cock.'

Curving around to the front of my body brings me to a part of my anatomy that has absorbed a lot of my mental energy lately. My dick. My cock. My penis. Whatever you want to call it. (Or, if you prefer (as one partner did), whatever you want to call her.) Searching this blog for penis brings up lots of posts. (I want to make a joke about “raising the issue” but can’t figure it out. Someone make an innuendo in the comments.)

Unlike some trans women, I’ve never felt like my penis was a totally foreign part of my anatomy. (Yet another parenthetical: I don’t think that makes me a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ trans woman. There is no hierarchy of transness! This is an observation I’m making about my experience, not a judgement about myself or anyone else.) I never felt like I wanted the dangly bits between my legs, but – starting around the end of middle school – I was able to identify that doing certain things felt good. Occasionally, it felt great. I, like many teens, became a regular and proficient masturbator.

I wasn’t always sure how to fit that within my burgeoning trans identity, though. Lots of the stuff I read online talked about people wanting to “cut off” their penis. I hid it between my legs sometimes, enjoyed the smooth and tucked look much more than the bulge, but not to the point of seriously contemplating taking a scissors down there for a trim.

But my penis and I didn’t have a great relationship. I remember the first time I masturbated, stopping at one point and thinking “OK, I’ll try this again tomorrow.” Then reaching down and finding all this stickiness - I’d cum without realizing it – and thinking, “That’s what all the fuss is about? That was fun, but not great…” Over time I learned how to elicit better sensations, and I certainly enjoyed masturbating and such, but I feel like going on hormones really opened my eyes to my body. (That’s a shitty metaphor, but you know what I mean.)

My first (and really only) girlfriend in high school and I fooled around a lot. There was a lot of dry humping, under-the-shirt play, general teenage fumbling around. We even attempted ‘real’ sex once, although I don’t think either of us particularly enjoyed it. I know I didn’t get a ton out of it, and I’m pretty confident she didn’t either. (And I just broke all social conventions and sent her a Facebook message asking her about it, so maybe I’ll be able to know for sure! Craziness of the Internet!) She was the only person I was really sexual with until my college girlfriend, the one who continued to date me through much of my transition.

And I’ve never really enjoyed being the penetrator in penetrative sex. I’ll do it if a partner wants to, but am not really equipped – physically or emotionally – to do it particularly well. I think doing it with a strap-on might be more fun, but haven’t had the opportunity to try.

But sex of most any kind, during high school and college, seemed unfathomably confusing. I’m sure that’s true for most (all?) people, but I have a suspicion it’s doubly true for trans and queer folks. I didn’t like my body, didn’t want it, and yet it was still able to provide such please. I’d feel some guilt after masturbating, as it if was encouraging this body I didn’t want, this interaction with myself I would never have selected.

Going on hormons hasn’t changed the physicality of my cock – I can still get hard, for example – but it’s sure as hell changed how it works. I’ve discussed this before, so I don’t know that I need to totally delve into it. But my penis is so much more sensitive now. Stroking must be done with some amount of lubricant, or it’s unpleasant. Vibrators, previously uninteresting, have become a regular and important part of my sex life. And orgasms are much longer, more sustained, more difficult to obtain but so much more delicious when they’re achieved.

The way I think about my body has also changed the way I think about other people’s bodies. I’ve had sex with other trans women and interacted with their cocks (read: sucked and been fucked by) in ways I would never have imagined as a ‘lil baby teen. One of the things I’ve been realizing (and discussed in this post about online dating) isn’t that bodies are unimportant - I’m not ready to renounce my lesbian identity – but that they’re less important than I previously thought.

It’s interesting how quickly thinking about my penis turns to thinking about sex and sexuality. Not shocking, but interesting.  Because, to shift topics slightly, that’s not the only reason I’m considering surgery. It’s about body integrity, a sense of self and personal authenticity, feeling comfortable, all the bullshit cliches I’ve talked about before. But yeah, it’s also about sex.

I remember fantasizing that pure and unsullied desire could transform my penis into a vagina. That tucking it between my legs and wanting it enough would create the change. This was also about the time when I started reading trans fiction (something I haven’t posted about in a while…don’t worry, it’s on my to-do list) which meant I was exposed to tons of stories about magical transformations, medical and scientific transformations, totally and completely unexplained transformations. But, reading these stories, one thing was clear: the universe was full of genders transforming.

Ta da!

I didn’t honestly believe any of this was happening, mind you. I wasn’t really expecting to wake up one day with a vagina. To have my parents say “Whoops, there’s been a mixup. This is yours,” and hand me a box with a cunt. But I hoped like help. I even prayed, although I’m not totally sure to whom: Gods and goddesses and life-forces and universal energies and anyone who I thought might be listening and sympathetic.

This drifted away from a body map quite a few paragraphs ago. Maybe that’s OK. My psychic energy seems to be swirling around my crotch these days anyway. My continual (and occasionally successful) attempts to find dates or get laid. My constant ogling of the women around me. For example, the women coming in and out of this coffee shop as I type this. Women walking down the street. Especially women at the gym. I’m not at the point where I was a few months ago, when I thought (correctly, as it turned out) that my hormones were out of whack. But I’m a sexual person. More broadly, I’m a physical person. I like hugging and cuddling and touching, even if it’s non-sexual and simply sharing energy between friends. So yeah, a lot of my mental energy goes into thinking about sex, sexuality, body issues, gender issues, all that jazz.

Right now, my penis and I have an uneasy truce. We like each other, well enough. Being sexual is lots of fun, and I’m still (12 or 15 years later) masturbating regularly, even if the way I do it has changed a bit. But as I research surgeons and go on consults, it becomes more and more clear that our days are numbered. The relationship may not be drawing to a close – all the flesh and blood supplies and nerves will be reused in constructing a vagina, not simply tossed out with the trash – but we’re preparing for the biggest shift since I went on hormones, and probably the biggest change we’ll ever have.

I wonder how my penis feels about all of this. Is it exhausting, this exploration and discovery and potential (lets be honest: probable) surgery? Or is it exhilarating? Maybe I’m thinking about this whole thing the wrong way.

Maybe my cock is just as read to be a cunt as I am ready to have one.

My fingers are a gateway to the world. Typers of words, feelers of skin, players of keys, graspers of all that is in reach. They are long and neither slender or fat, but finger-sized. They have hair between the first and second knuckles, between where they connect to my hand and where they bend. The hair has been hit by lasers, plucked by tweezers, shaved by blades, but still it grows back. Less and less with hormones and lasers and frustration, but still it grows.

The thumb on my right hand is larger than that on my left. My gym teacher slammed it in a door when I was in third or fourth grade. It was an accident, and he apologized, but still told me to stop crying when I went to the nurse’s office. I needed stitches under the nail, one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had.

When I hold my fingers up straight, palm out, the middle and ring fingers pop apart, as if in a permanent Vulcan greeting: Live long and prosper, forever. It’s kind of silly, and makes me incredibly self conscious. When I wave, I make sure to do so with fingers spread. When I hold my hand out, I either cup or spread my fingers to hide this physical quirk. It’s significantly more pronounced on my left hand, presumably because I broke those fingers flipping off my bike sophomore year of college. Ouch.

My arms are long, with a strength that pleases me. They used to be more muscular, but that tissue went elsewhere when I went on hormones. They’re hairy, but not as hairy as they used to be; session after session of laser hair removal has done its job. I still shave my arms occasionally, particularly around the hands and wrists, but less and less as time goes on. My arms pull me up and push me up and support me – at circus, at the gym doing handstands and cartwheels and holding myself above a spent lover.

My chest is a map of the last five years. Four scars, one about an inch long, three much smaller, where my gallbladder is removed. The scars have faded some, but are still quite visible. The lack of sensation along the larger scar, subtle but noticeable if I concentrate while running my hand over my stomach, is somewhat surreal. Traveling up to the mounds of my breasts, the most visible sign of the hormones and hair removal. Smooth(er) skin, but – just like everywhere else – there’s still occasional shaving. Nipple hair doesn’t make me feel attractive.

My breasts continue to surprise me, looking down, looking in the mirror, running my hands over my body in the shower or getting dressed or masturbating. Such simple lumps of flesh, with so much emotional and sexual and identity meaning. The way they move when I run at the gym, or dash up the stairs, or collapse into bed. The previously-foreign and now unnoticed feeling of wearing a bra. (Usually unnoticed, anyway. Underwires aren’t always the most comfy invention, but they sure to make my boobs look great!)

I worry they’re too small for my frame, would they have been bigger had I started transitioning earlier, are they proportioned well on me. Envy friends who are more well-endowed than I. And yet, while having lunch with a trans friend, she asked if I’d had breast augmentation, wondered if my size was “real.” I guess the grass is always greener.

I absolutely do not understand my nipples. Two new erogenous zones, topping flesh which alights with fire when touched the right way. But “the right way” seems ever-shifting, from day to day and even moment to moment. And the lack of language around nipples! A penis gets erect. And nipples can, sometimes. But the rush of sensation they provide when I’m aroused is wholly different. Their warmth or coldness or something, even when encased under a padded bra and layers of clothing. There’s a two-way connection between my nipples and my crotch, to be sure, but my nipples sometimes have a mind of their own, separate from any other part of my body. And (as I’ve said before) I don’t like emotions or sensations I can’t name or quantify or categorize. But I’m not thinking about that when swept away by the sensations they provide.

Moving up, my neck and face find the same relative smoothness, a product of the same hair removal sessions. I shave my face far more often than I need to (at least, according to friends who have seen me when I haven’t shaved) but it makes me feel so much better when I run my hand along a smooth cheek without finding the random catch of stubble which has thus far escaped the laser.

I pierced my ears the summer I lived in NYC, 2006, when I was still presenting as male. I wore simple studs for what seemed like forever, but now have two piercings in each ear (the second one I got with my mom) and my students comment on how ridiculous or fun or silly my earrings are: LEGOs and cats and Scrabble pieces and fly fishing lures. My ears are big (this is really apparent in childhood photos) but earrings and my long hair mean I don’t think about them too much.

My hair is one of the few things I like about my body without reservation. A product of the same Russian Jewish genes which gave me body hair gave me thick brown hair which is incredibly easy to take care of. I sometimes wish I could wear it shorter, particularly in the hot summer months, but admit I worry about looking too much like a man. And, if not that, then just looking bad. My eyebrows are thick and bushy, unruly and untamed. I get them waxed on occasion, and will pluck when I see them trying to join forces over my noise, but I spend more time ignoring them than taking care of them.

My lips and tongue and voice are tools, of performance and of pleasure. I don’t have an Adam’s apple, for whatever lucky reason. I wonder if it’s because I had a benign lump removed from my throat when I was five or six, but I don’t really care. I’m just happy not to worry about it creating a gendered perception I don’t want. With a genie’s wish, I’d knock my voice up a few notes, but can’t really complain. I know how to use my voice from a decade of performing in classes and workshops and on stage, and can get it to do what I want. I rarely get ma’am’ed on the phone, even though that sometimes requires me to pitch my voice up a hair. I worry sometimes that my voice is really a “giveaway” to my transness, but then I remember its been ages since I got sir’ed and tell myself to relax.

And, of course, my lips and tongue are sexual organs. Like my nipples, the pleasure of something on my lips has gone up significantly since going on hormones. It’s a similarly difficult experience to describe, other than (pun slightly intended) yummy. They’re also givers of pleasure, on the lips of others, on necks and nipples and hips and clits and cocks and cunts. Yummy indeed.

My profile explicitly lists that I’m trans:

DISCLOSURE: I am trans. If that’s a problem, don’t message me.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t think I’m under any obligation to provide the above disclaimer. However, I am waaay to lazy to deal with the coming out conversation at this point in my life, so am willing to deal with the ramifications of disclosure.

GEEK: The above disclosures and disclaimers were originally written as HTML-style tags, but OKC apparently edits fake tags out, leading to this final stylistic choice.

And that pretty much says it for me: My disclosure on OKC is as much a result of laziness as of politics. But recently I’ve started using OKC in a different way, as a self-esteem–booster and emotion-explorer. And to do that I’ve done something radical. Something crazy. Something I feel extremely conflicted about and am continually second-guessing. I’ve changed my profile from ‘Lesbian’ to ‘Bisexual.’

To be clear, I don’t identify as bi. I hate being one of those too-cool queers who complains about OKC’s options, but I don’t think any of their sexuality choices – straight, gay, or bi – totally fit. I’ve described myself as ‘homoflexible’ (from the more commonly used of ‘heteroflexible’) but I’m not sure that works either. I enjoy flirting and dancing with guys, could imagine myself making out with one and enjoying it, don’t know that I’ll ever want to sleep with one but am not inherently opposed to the idea. For all of that, my primary attraction is to women. But after talking with a friend about the dearth of women contacting me on OKC, she suggested I try changing my profile to bi, as everyone knows bi women get contacted by shit-tons of guys.

And she’s right. Almost instantly after switching my profile to bi, I started getting ‘liked’ by guys, getting messaged by guys, getting propositioned by guys. And while I’ve instantly deleted nine out of every ten messages I’ve received, for one reason or another, its been a confidence boost and a self-esteem boost. I’ve gotten compliments on my performance videos, gotten into discussions about books listed on my profile, and just generally been flirted with. (I will say, from this very unscientific survey, guys are more likely than girls to send messages in which there’s no indication they read your profile. Which is obnoxious.)

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, though. Flirting is fun and all, and I realize that online dating profiles aren’t exactly expected to be flawless examples of truth and honesty, but I feel somewhat uncertain about what I’m doing. Part of it, I think, is from having invested so much time and energy into thinking of myself as someone who is only attracted to women. With so much of my identity and my presentation and my social interactions shifting over the transition, my sexuality has felt like a constant, even if I’ve gone from being perceived as straight to being perceived as gay – the people I’m attracted to hasn’t changed. And seeing guys at the gym doesn’t do it for me the way women do…this very afternoon I was working out on a treadmill and having a difficult time keeping my eyes off of the woman next to me, something that never happens with men.

But I could imagine saying ‘yes’ if the right guy on OKC asked me out, something I never would have considered a year ago.

It makes me think of a scientific study which said “ both heterosexual and lesbian women tend to become sexually aroused by both male and female erotica, and, thus, have a bisexual arousal pattern,” in contrast to men where their “sexual arousal show patterns that clearly track sexual orientation.” In short, men are turned on by what their sexuality would suggest – gay men turned on by men, straight men turned on by women – where women are turned on by everything, regardless of their sexuality. Now, it’s a small study, and it was conducted by the jackass J Michael Bailey, so I’m taking it with a grain of salt. Yet, as time passes, I’m realizing more and more I simply like being appreciated, regardless of the source of appreciation. I’d rather be hit on by a hot woman, but I’ll take a hot guy hitting on me over no attention at all.

I think.

So we’ll see. Maybe nothing will come of this, and in a day or a week or a month I’ll change my profile back to “lesbian.” Or maybe I’ll go on a few dates with guys, find the experience miserable, and do the same. But, regardless of the outcome, I plan to learn something about myself.

She can't even read that! It's facing away from her! Stop looking so shocked!

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine, Rose, about pornography and acting. She is involved in the sex industry, has worked as a prostitute and escort, and occasionally does both photographic and film pornography. She mentioned she’d recently finished a shoot where she had earned more in five hours than I’ve yet to earn in all of January.

Curious about her experiences, I asked what being in porn was like. Specifically, whether she viewed it as a sexual experience or a ‘this is an action I’m doing because I’m getting paid’ experience. Rose said that it was the latter: really not much more enjoyable than serving coffee or collating copies, just quite a bit more lucrative.

The conversation got me thinking about what we – as audience members – ask of actors. Because going to a play almost always involves some suspension of disbelief.  Perhaps Chicago’s Neofuturists toe the line  of theatre which requires no suspension of disbelief, but they’re in the minority. For the most part, going to a show involves allowing ourselves to believe that the actors are their characters. That they’re falling in love, planning for battle, forging alliances, destroying relationships, and on and on and on. When I go to a play I could sit there the entire time thinking, “Well, she’s not really in love with him. He doesn’t really find what she says so funny as to laugh out loud.” But that would make me miserable, so I suspend my disbelief and allow their actions to read as true.

That’s not how viewing porn seems to work, however. For whatever reason, audiences want to believe the people they’re watching are really attracted to each other (even if only on a physical level) and do reach a real, satisfying, climactic (natch) orgasm.

Why is that?

This isn’t true for every porn. There’s a great movement of feminist porn that attempts to portray actual, pleasurable, orgasmic, sex (links obviously NSFW): Crash Pad, No Fauxxx, and Doing It Ourselves, to name a few. (Please share more in the comments if you know of any.) But those are the minority. Most porn is filmed the same way any other film would be: actors are told what to do, and they do it. Regardless of whether or not they really cum. That’s what I’m talking about when I use the word ‘porn’ in this post, even though I know it’s a subset of all porn.

I’m also talking from my own cultural understandings and assumptions about porn and American gender dynamics. This is a topic for a 300+ page thesis, not a little blog post, so I’ll be making a lot of unsubstantiated and unresearched claims about why people (mainly men) watch porn, and what they think while doing it. I’m also not focusing on kink or fetish porn. Feel free to correct me if you think I’m way off base at any point.

PORN!

The place to start in answering this question may be the perceived audience. This type of porn is primarily produced by men, for men. There are cultural expectations and understandings around the ease of the male orgasm and the difficulty of the female. Porn feeds into the first, but somewhat contradicts the second: a woman is going to get off because that’s how the audience wants to be projected into the story. The (male) viewer wants to imagine himself with the woman in the porn, easily and handily getting her off.

So there’s no desire for examination of the actors’ ability to portray getting off. Someone might come out of a theatrical production saying, “Wow, you could really feel the emotion on stage.” But – if they stop to think about it – they don’t assume the actors were all actually mad at each other, or in love with each other, or whatever. In porn, though, similar examination leads to questioning one’s own partners: If that porn actress was faking that orgasm, how do I know my own partner wasn’t doing the same?

There also seems to be a parallel with the use of stunt doubles in Hollywood. Audiences are impressed when there aren’t any stunt doubles. “She does all her own stunts” is a high compliment to pay an actress. Because we know what they’re doing is fake. There isn’t really a Nazi chasing Indiana Jones. Salt wasn’t really running from those assassins. And for sex scenes, the love interests aren’t really having sex.

In porn, though, there is actual sex happening. Someone is being penetrated, and someone is penetrating. Or licked/licking. Sucked/sucking. You get the idea. But why go that far if you can’t go the step further? Why aren’t they actually achieving orgasm? It seems more difficult to separate the fiction from the reality. Or to even want to separate the two.

Porn also generally serves a different, more (ahem) utilitarian purpose than non-sexual film or theatre. While audiences certainly view actors to evoke an emotional response, the expectations are generally more open ended. When I go to a comedy, I may laugh at the actors or with them. Likewise, a drama may evoke my pity or tears at love-lost or happiness at love-found-at-last. I don’t always know going in, except in the broadest of fashions. Porn, though, is different. The viewer is expecting a specific physical response.

Justifying any of these assumptions would take research that I don’t foresee doing anytime soon. But thinking about when and why I’ve watched porn, all of the above makes sense. I don’t watch much porn these days, but when I have I wanted where the women looked like they were enjoying themselves. Something I could imagine participating in, either causing the woman’s reaction or having the woman’s reaction (a whole different topic). And if pressed, I’d admit most of those women – perhaps all – weren’t actually enjoying what I was watching as much as they portrayed enjoying it. As much as they acted like they were enjoying it.

I guess my final thought is about whether or not this – the shared desire to believe women in porn are actually cumming – is a good thing. No one says “Dexter sucks! He’s not really killing people!” At the same time, women faking orgasms in porn seems to feed into all of the second wave feminist ideas of why all porn is inherently bad for women and creating unrealistic and overly-sexualized expectations around women. And – both as an occasional viewer of porn and a friend of people who work in porn – I don’t buy into that.

So I’m left not knowing what to think. I’d love to see a move toward more actual orgasms in porn, but some fantasies viewers want to see may simply not evoke an orgasm in the actor participating. And I’m hesitant to say that there should never again be porn of Situation X simply because they can’t find an actress who cums from it. But I don’t know how to balance that with encouraging healthier views of female sexuality. And male sexuality, for that matter.

Any thoughts?

On behalf of myself, and on behalf of all non-normatively-gendered individuals, I apologize. I am sorry for being confusing. For being scary. For being strange. For being icky. I am sorry for raising awkward questions about what female and male means. I am sorry for not fitting into one box or the other. I’m sorry for questioning the need for boxes at all. I’m sorry for androgyny and ambiguity and flexibility and spectra and rainbows of infinite possibilities.

I’m sorry for my body. I’m sorry for having breasts that are the result of orally-taken hormones and not of gonadally produced hormones. For having skin that is smooth due to those hormones and thousands of dollars of hair removal. I’m sorry for having a penis between my legs, being able to pee standing up, being an outie instead of an innie. I’m sorry shopping is such a chore, that I can’t wear those yoga pants or that ever-so-cute dress without tucking my cock up between my legs and securing it with medical tape, I’m sorry my boobs are nice and perky because they came in at 23 instead of 13. I’m sorry for my physical strength, something I’ll always doubt it’s from working out and assume it was from the testosterone coursing through my system for twenty-plus years. I’m sorry for my wide shoulders, my big feet, my hairy toes. I’m sorry for my occasionally ambiguous voice, for still occasionally getting “sir”ed on the phone, for causing double-takes. 

I’m sorry for being a sexual person. For enjoying to fuck and be fucked. In my mouth, between my legs, up my ass. For bending partners over and being bent over. I’m sorry that the sex is better than it ever was before transitioning, that my moans might keep you up at night, that the drawer next to my bed is filled with lube and vibrators and straps and butt-plugs. I’m sorry that I know my sexual topography better than you will ever know yours, because I’ve been forced to explore mine, blessed to explore mine, like a brave adventurer entering a strange new land. I’m sorry that my nipples grow like my cock grows like my need grows until it makes me want to scream and orgasms wreak my body until I vibrate like a tuning fork. I’m sorry for turning you on, making you wet, making you hard, for confusing your sense of sexuality and your sense of your self. I’m sorry you have to “figure some things out,” that you “aren’t sure what this means,” that you’ve “never been with someone like me before.”

I’m sorry for being so insistent. For refusing to use the private, single-stall bathroom and demanding to use the women’s room. For making a stink about names and pronouns. For calling you out when you get it wrong, over and over and over again. For being a voice of frustration and angst and depression.

I’m sorry for being so angry. For letting it boil and bubble and spill out of my mouth and onto the page and the stage and into my voice and through my spine. For standing tall and walking down the street. I’m sorry for my bitter tone, my condescending look, my frustrated sigh. I’m sorry my anger has crept up my body and through my veins and into my hair and my fingernails and my tear ducts until, like play-doh being squeezed through a tube, every pore of my body exudes my rage.

I’m sorry for wanting more. Legal protection, medical coverage, equal rights, safe bathrooms, safe jails, safe treatment from police and teachers and students and peers and strangers on the street. I’m sorry that I won’t step back, step aside, step down. I’m sorry, but that isn’t enough, it’s not good enough, I don’t see your point, I can’t compromise. I’m sorry that I’m tired (exhausted, really) of explaining at great length to you what seems so obvious to me.

I’m sorry, but I lied. I’m not sorry at all.

Yum!

Way back September, I won a gift package from Early to Bed as part of their anniversary giveaway. Since I’ve been making such good use of my prizes, I figured I should share the love with all of you. The best part of the prize pack was undoubtedly the rechargable Vibratex Mystic Wand. Now i realize it looks a whole lot like the Luxe Magic Massager I reviewed back in 2010. And the general size and form factor are about the same. But where the Luxe was a poor-quality, loud, non-silicone, un-sexy toy, the Mystic Wand is awesome.

Lets start with build quality. The Mystic Wand has a removable silicone head, which allows for better cleaning and for the head to be replaced with other attachments that Vibratex makes. EDIT: I misread something somewhere. The rechargeable Mystic Wand does not have a removable anything. That said, it’s all silicone so easily cleaned with soap-and-water. END EDIT. The head is firmly attached to the body by a flexy-bendy neck, giving good control without feeling like the vibrating part is going to snap off. The body is coated with what feels like the same silicone as the head, but I’m not positive enough to want to stick it in my body. But you wouldn’t want to, so no worries.

The body is easy to hold, and feels well-made and not too heavy. There are two buttons – one to turn on and one to cycle through the 6 different vibration patterns: three that are a solid vibration at various strengths, and three that are different patterns of on and off. There’s also a blue light, which is a little bright, but I’m not looking at it while I’m using it… The version I got is rechargeable, and there’s a little rubber nub at the bottom to cover the charging port. Vibratex says it’s “splash resistent,” but I’m not going to risk trying it in the shower. It does feel pretty watertight, though. All in all, it feels like a good piece of equipment in ways the similarly-shaped Luxe never did.

Not my hand...

But how does it feel? Quite good, thankyouverymuch. The different vibration options offered enough variety for me, without being overwhelming. I particularly liked the mnn-mnn-mnnnnn setting. It’s also quite enough that I didn’t feel like an airplane was taking off under my covers, or that my roommates were going to burst in at any moment to check why I had a blender in my room. The rechargeable batteries inside also last for quite a while. I’ve recharged it a few times since September, but with regular use I’m still not having to plug it in every week. Which is good, since it can’t be used while plugged in, a real bummer.  The battery compartment isn’t user-accessible, as far as I can tell, so hopefully whatever battery it has will last a good long while.

All in all, this has become my go-to toy. I haven’t had a chance to try it with anyone else, so this is all my opinion. But it’s a high opinion, and I’d definitely recommend this to anyone out there. Early to Bed doesn’t carry the rechargeable (yet?) but has the standard Mystic Wand for $60, and if you’re looking for a vibrator that isn’t also a dildo I say it’s a great buy.

I do like my pink one, though. The non-rechargeable colors just don’t do it for me. ::grin::

No one looks like they're enjoying this situation, to be honest

In Which A Question Is Asked

What does it mean to be a sexual trans person? A sexual trans woman?

Sidenote: I’m looking for my copy of Fucking Trans Women, an awesome e-zine available at http://fuckingtranswomen.com/. I know I bought and downloaded it, but am having trouble finding it. I emailed the site owners, tho, and hopefully they’ll be willing to send me another copy. At the very worst, I can spare another $5 for their great project.

Back on topic, I think being trans and sexual is tough for me (gonna try to use ‘I’ statements in this post, and not make generalizations) in part due to the huge variety of mixed messages I’ve received over the last 27 years. I’m sure I’m missing some categories, but here’s what I’ve come up with:

• Messages about male sexuality, even though I didn’t identify as male
• Messages about female sexuality, which I picked up even though I wasn’t yet presenting as female
• Messages about heterosexual sexuality, mainly from when I was presenting as a straight male
• Messages about queer sexuality, both before and after I came out
• Messages about specifically lesbian sexuality, again from both before and after I came out
• And last-but-never-least, messages about specifically trans sexuality, limited primarily to ‘chicks with dicks’ and ‘she-male’ porn

Again, I want to clarify that this post is going to be about my experiences. I’d love for people to chime in, but I’m not attempting to speak for anyone else, of any sexual orientation, gender identity, personal experience, etc, etc, etc. On the way I may make some wider generalizations about The Trans Sexual Experience, but my goal is much more to bring some clarity to my sexual experience, identity, and so on. So there.

I also think this is a good time to link to the these three posts I did on sex and the effects of hormones, back in late 2009. (Wow, two years ago?) Those used to be password protected, but are now public. Funny how my attitudes on privacy have changed in two years…hopefully posting all that stuff won’t come back to haunt me, but I gotsta say what I gotsta say.

Things I Wish I’d Known

TERRIFYING SEX ED DOLLS

I just re-read all three of those posts, and everything about them still stands as it relates to my early experience with sex and sexuality. Looking back now, I do think I was a lot more awkward than I thought I was at the time. That’s probably true for lots of people’s budding sexuality. But I think I owe my first major girlfriend an apology for what I can only imagine was a mediocre experience for her. I wish she’d spoken up, but I also wish I’d known how to ask what she wanted.

I also wish I’d come to an earlier realization that I don’t like being the penetrator in penetrative, penis-in-vagina sex. I don’t know if it’s the mental aspect of how I relate to my body, or the physical size of my ‘equipment,’ but I’ve never really enjoyed that kind of penetrative sex. I’ll do it, and – to clarify – I enjoy it enough that I’d rather do that than nothing… Mediocre sex is better than no sex, in my mind. I’m not totally sure – from my admittedly limited sample size – that the experience was great for my partners, either.

That’s perhaps the biggest thing I can point to and say “this was a lesson I learned being socialized as male, in a primarily heterosexual society.” I simply didn’t have a concept of sex outside of penis-in-vagina. Foreplay, fooling around, hooking up – there were lots of other ways to be sexual, but only one way to have sex.

Likewise, I imagine my (now mostly faded) hangups about anal sex and anal play came from being told – implicitly by culture, if never explicitly by anyone – that anal play was dirty, unpleasant, something for the penetrator and not the penetratee. That it was gay.

Fortunately, I’ve been honest enough with myself and with my body to realize that A) it’s not tooooo dirty if you do it right, and B) it (at least for me) it feels really good.

There’s still some lumped in baggage I possess, swirling around the ideas I picked up concerning male and female heterosexual, cisgender sexuality – basically my first three bullet points – which I’m going to lump together and call heteronormative : Who is supposed to initiate a sexual experience, how power dynamics are supposed to work between partners, all that stuff above about penetrative sex and anal sex and the definition of ‘real sex.’

As I become aware of those lingering hangups, I try to address them and think them through. Something I think I’ve really managed to turn around is my definition of sex: It’s not a specific act, it’s an experiential thing. My straight friends sometimes laugh when I call them out on this, but in my mind a blowjob or mutual masturbation or whatever is just as much sex (or, at least, can be just as much “sex”) as penetrative, penis-in-vagina, “real sex.”

Last Friday Night

Friday was a good friend’s birthday. A bunch of mutual friends had dinner, came back to my apartment for some drinks, and went out to a club. Usually I don’t join for that last part (something I’ve mentioned before). But this weekend, for whatever reason, the stars aligned and I was ready to go out. So we all headed down to The Apartment, a bar/club in Chicago near the wealthy Lincoln Park neighborhood. The dancing was kind of ridiculous (as dancing tends to be) but the music wasn’t horribly obnoxious, I had my first experience taking a drink from an ice luge, and was generally having a good time.

I'd like to imagine we looked something like this

Our group was dancing in a little clump, and whenever a stranger would come up and start to dance with me I’d politely (I hope!) turn or move away to make it clear I wasn’t interested. I’m realizing that in and of itself probably would have freaked me out a few years ago, so it’s a sign of how far I’ve come in my comfort presenting as a woman that it didn’t phase me.

But I was a few (more) drinks in and feeling loose when I felt someone’s hands – a stranger’s hands – on my hips from behind.

A pause to say that nothing bad happens. I feel like this story is progressing to the point where it seems everything will end badly, but it doesn’t: I’m not raped or sexually assaulted, my friends don’t abandon me, nothing bad happens. This is just about my processing a new experience, and my emotional reactions to it. So you are absolved from worrying about my safety for the remainder of this story.

We continue dancing, this strange man pressed up behind me. His hands go up and down my hips, and I gently move them when I feel they’re getting too frisky. I’m still facing my group of friends, regularly making eye contact with them and non-verbally communicating that I’m OK. (They kept doing the raised-eyebrow checkin, to which I’d smile and shrug.)

After a few minutes dancing, I decided I was done and turn to the guy (much shorter than I expected, but then I’m already tall and was in heels) and said I was going to the bathroom. He actually asked if he could join, which I think is kind of hilarious, but I declined and we parted ways.

Two of my friends followed me to the bathroom to check on me, for which I was grateful but didn’t think I needed. But then while I was in the bathroom (actually in a stall; I don’t think either of them know this part) I had a mini panic attack. Suddenly, those two big worries I’d pushed aside came to the forefront:

• What if he found out I was trans?
• What did my enjoying dancing with a (presumably) straight cis man mean about my own sexuality?

Questions Beget Questions

The first question is more pragmatic. I was in a very public place, surrounded by friends (including some large men who look intimidating) and wasn’t reeeeaaalllyyy concerned for my physical safety. I could have been emotionally hurt, quite severely in fact, if he’d moved his hands a little too far south and subsequently freaked out. But I don’t think there’s a realistic chance I could have ended up as an other Trans Day of Remembrance statistic. Which feels kind of good, that my friends were providing that (literal) safety net.

The second question is a lot more difficult to tease out.

I'm going to recommend AGAINST performing a Google Image Search on 'transgender sex' with SafeSearch disabled

I have lots of straight, cis, female friends who enjoy dancing with other straight, cis, females. (Some of them were doing so at this bar on Friday.) But no straight, cis, male friends who enjoy dancing with other straight, cis, males except when being silly. But I don’t think simply enjoying male attention inherently “breaks” my lesbianism. At the same time, there’s a different between being ideologically OK with some action, and then finding yourself in a situation where you have to evaluate how it actually makes you feel.

What I’m leaning more and more is that I simply enjoy attention. Period. I’m not sure how to respond to male attention, what to do about it, where I want it to go, but if I’m being honest with myself I do enjoy it. But there’s something scary, for me, to be on the receiving end of it. First is all that trans baggage of physical safety and stories of rape and beatings and death. Something which is also true for cis women in many ways, but I don’t think there’s quite the same cultural acceptance of violence and sexual assault against cis women as there is against trans women At least not so explicitly: You can find talking heads on news stories to cast doubt on the inherent sanctity of a trans woman’s body in a way that few are willing to do (publicly) about cis women’s bodies.

So what do I do with that male attention?

Coupled in with that is my continuing surprise and delight at being perceived as a ‘real’ woman, let alone an attractive one. I’m still so doubting go my appearance, in spite of all reassurances to the contrary, that there’s an aspect of shock that some random dude at a club would want to dance with me.

More importantly, though, is that bullet-point list of baggage from the beginning of this post. There’s still some hindbrain part of my psyche which thinks of me as male, as dancing with “another” man as a (male) gay act. Which is bullshit, and something I was able to drink myself out of believing, when my inhibitions were down and I wasn’t over-thinking every little thing. On the flip side, I’ve invested quite a bit of emotional energy into defining my sexuality as ‘lesbian,’ and while I’ve been recently question that for the more open-ended ‘queer’ I’m still not totally sure what that means for me.

That Whole Surgery Thing

Then there’s the final bit of this post’s title: Surgery. I’m still doing my research, but have basically narrowed down my selection to Drs Bowers (San Fran), McGinn (Philly), and Brassard (Montreal). I’m moving right now to schedule consultations with all three.

But what does surgery mean? There’s a part of me that – only somewhat jokingly – thinks that I’ll feel permission to slut it up, with my major worry of being ‘discovered’ as trans inverted up inside me. There’s exploration many people do in high school and college that I feel I missed out on.

At the same time, surgery becomes one more terrifying (and awesome and exciting, but also terrifying) ‘virginity’ to lose, both metaphorically and literally.

So, returning to my initial question, what does it mean to be a sexual trans woman? Hell if I know. I think it means all of this: this discovery, this forging my own path. Not only do I not want to follow a prescribed path to my sexuality, I don’ think there is one. There aren’t enough trans narratives to feel like I have the ability to find many ‘just like me’ role models out there. That isn’t to say I haven’t drawn from the experiences of others. Whipping Girl, Yes Means Yes, The Ethical Slut, How To Get What You Really Really Want, Cunt; these books (and authors) have all heavily impacted how I think of myself as a sexual being.

But I think I have to find the rest of the way myself.

REBECCA KLING: For how long has this book been bouncing around in your mind? In the introduction to WYRRW, you talk about an interview surrounding the release of Yes Means Yes (released in 2008) which you co-edited with Jessica Valenti. In that interview, a reporter asked how women are supposed “to figure out what we want to say ‘yes’ to in the first place.” Would you place the creation of this book around that time, or further back?

JACLYN FRIEDMAN: That was definitely the question that first planted the seed. Honestly, I didn’t give a very complete answer at the time. I think I said, basically, you have to try things, and follow your intuition as to which things to try and who to try them with, and then learn from your experiments. And that it had taken me, personally, a long time to figure things out, and that in some ways I still was, and might always be. Which I still stand by, but is wildly oversimple. And then when I started hearing it over and over from different women as I toured for Yes Means Yes, I realized that I had a lot to share about what I’d learned along my own sexual journey, through personal experience, reading and talking with other people, all kinds of things. That’s when I realized that the answer to this crucial, recurring question was really a book.

RK: WYRRW is by no means aimed exclusively at young women, but throughout the book you discuss the cultural messages aimed at young women. How has what you “really really want” when it comes to sex changed from when you were growing up to now?

JF: I long ago stopped faking orgasms, so that’s a big change! In a funny way, I behave less “certainly” in my sexual interactions now than I did when I was first dipping my toe in those waters. Back then, I thought I needed to be “good at” sex in order to please my partners – and as much as I enjoyed sex when I was younger (and I really did, that’s for sure), I was heavily invested in pleasing at the expense of my own satisfaction. In some ways, I got lucky — my early sexual partners were decent people who also cared about pleasing, and honestly, everything about sex was so exciting then that I was getting a lot out of it without having to do much self-centering or self-reflection. But I’ve also just stopped caring so much about being magically, seamlessly “good” at sex, because I’ve learned two key things. The first is that that’s a meaningless concept to begin with: everybody likes different things, so the only real way to be a good lover is to get better at communicating with your partner(s) about needs, desires, preferences and boundaries. It’s really all about learning how to pay attention to yourselves and each other. Well, and it’s all about the other big thing I’ve learned since then, which is that the experimentation and discovery that you can only enjoy if you come to sex clear that there aren’t “answers,” and even if there were, you don’t know them, that sense of playfulness and co-creation is one of the best parts of sex. I wouldn’t trade it for all the certainty in the world.

RK: There have been a number of books in recent years attempting to tip sex and sexuality on their head. Your co-edited Yes Means Yes would top my list, along with others such as The Ethical Slut and the more anthropologically-focused Sex At Dawn. How do you see WYRRW fitting in with this trend?

JF: Well, Ethical Slut has been out for 14 years, so I don’t think it can be counted as part of any current trend. I’m not sure there really is one – I wish there were! I think a lot of our cultural beliefs about sexuality need to be upended, obviously.

RK: What areas of sex/sexuality/gender still need their own books?

JF: Oh, gosh, so many. This book itself should also exist in a version for folks who are on the male-identified side of things. I’d love to see a shame-free workbook for younger folks who are just discovering the idea of their sexuality, too. There are very few books that get published explicitly about women of color and sexuality, and that’s an area that sorely needs the space for a more productive conversation. I’d love to see a book about sexual “mistakes” and experimentation, demystifying (and taking the terror and shame out of) that whole very normal ongoing process. I hear that there’s a trans* Our Bodies, Ourselves in the works, which I very much hope and expect will have a lot about trans* experiences of sexuality. I could go on and on. For a subject that people seem to fixate on so much, it’s woefully under-explored in smart, helpful ways.

RK: I just finished reading The Ethical Slut, so the politics of the word ‘slut’ has been on my mind. You’ve been a big supporter of the Slut Walk movement, and ‘slut’ appears as early as page 3 of WYRRW. How would you define ‘slut’ as an identity?

JF: I don’t. I claim it sometimes politically as a shorthand for “unapologetically sexual woman,” and sometimes for “I’ve had a lot of casual sex, and I don’t give a shit what you want to say about that.” And the original definition, which [is] “untidy woman.” Ultimately, I’d like to see it used infinity ways until it becomes meaningless, and therefore harmless.

RK: As a followup, would you consider yourself a slut? Why or why not? Or, at least, is ‘slut’ part of your larger identity?

JF: Eh. I don’t think these things are as fixed as the wider culture imagines them to be. As many people know (because I wrote about it), I recently enjoyed a period of my life in which I behaved in ways that could be described as “slutty” by many definitions. At the moment, I’m in a monogamous relationship. Is “sluttiness” a behavior, or an attitude, or an immutable characteristic? Again, I’m in favor of all definitions, as long as they’re not used to hurt or “other” anyone, because I ultimately want there to be no definitions. So, sure. I’m a slut. And also, no. I’m not.

RK: Shifting gears slightly, I was fortunate enough to participate in some of the group discussions and activities surrounding the creation of that book. Did anything about that process surprise you? On the whole, would you say it did more solidifying of preexisting outlines, or did we muck everything up and make you go back to the drawing board?

JF: Your group really breathed life into the the whole process, and therefore, the book. I connected the group to help make sure that the exercises worked, to make sure that the book was helpful in the ways I wanted it to be. But I got so much more out of the experience. First of all, as a writer, y’all kept me so grounded. I could never really spin off into “oh, god, why am I even doing this, this is worthless,” you know, that self-indulgent place that lurks at the edges of the creative process. Any time I felt myself slipping over there, I would just remember, no, I am doing this for eleven real actual human beings who are counting on me to guide them through a process I asked them to start with me, who are working hard on this and are counting on me to do the same, and who have actual challenges that I want to help them with. Being accountable to you was the best thing that could have happened to the book.

Even more, the group of you really did shape the book. I created two chapters (“Freaks and Geeks” and “Do Unto Others”) that I hadn’t originally planned, purely due to what issues kept coming up in our discussions. And including your voices throughout the book are also such a gift – I think of all the people using the book who won’t have access to a supportive group like ours, and I’m so comforted that those readers will have the support of all of you — your honesty, your vulnerability, your anger, your humor, your hope — along their journey.

RK: da Vinci apocryphally said “Works of art aren’t finished, they’re abandoned.” In any creative process, it seems there’s always more to tweak, to add, to expand upon. What didn’t find its way into this book? What was hard to leave out? Put another way, what are things you think you might want to revisit for the second edition? (Sorry! I know you just finish one thing, and I’m already asking you about the next!)

JF: I was very sorry that the chapter that Thomas MacAulay Millary wrote for readers to give the men in their lives got cut for space — it’s on the web at wyrrw.com/just-for-men, but I wish it was in the book proper. I also wish there had been more space to talk about how to deal with the sexual attitudes of all the people in our lives who are important to us or who influence us, but who aren’t our actual sexual partners. And how to pass on positive messages to the next generation. And…

RK: In WYRRW you talk about many of the conflicting messages about female sexuality: don’t be a slut or a whore, but don’t be frigid or a prude, and so on. What are some conflicting messages you think men receive?

JF: I think men get a lot of limiting messages. Primary among them is the idea that men always want whatever sex they can get, and they prefer their sex without emotional intimacy. Also that they’re supposed to know — without even asking — what their lovers want in bed, more than their lovers even know. And of course the sick double-bind that says a) all they have to do is be “nice” and all women (and it’s always women, of course) owe them sex, and b) women don’t want to sleep with nice guys, so they should be assholes in order to “get laid.”

RK: And to finish it off with a somewhat silly question… Why two “Really”s in the title? Why not three? Or seven? Or none?

JF: Blame the Spice Girls. I can’t resist a cheesy pop culture reference to save my life.

Thanks so much to Jaclyn Friedman for taking the time to speak with me, and for all her hard work. Check her out on the web at http://www.jaclynfriedman.com/