Life is a Mystery

We were playing truth or dare at the St. Patrick's Day Parade the other day, as we are often wont to do, and a friend leveled an impossible question at me: "What's my best sexual experience?" She might as well have asked me what my favorite meal was. Would it be the $125 seven course gourmet meal at Stella in NOLA during one of the best weekends of my life? Would it be the orange-glazed duck with Okinawa sweet potatoes from Central Park in Hot Springs, AR, which cost pennies in comparison but which I've somehow never forgotten? Would it be the chicken and dumplings made by a good friend and passed down from her grandmother, on a cold winter night in my kitchen, when I celebrated Christmas with three people who became pivotal in my life? Would it be one of the hundreds of meals I have cooked for friends? Would it be the 3am pizza from a dirty shop underground on my first trip to New York City? I don't know. How do you compare experiences that have so little in common?

I have been blessed to have so many fantastic sexual experiences. Was it good because of how many times I got off? Was it better because I gave more, received less? Was it the toys that counted or the location? Was sex with a partner I loved better than someone whose company I simply enjoyed? Was it better because multiple people were involved? I don't know. I don't know how to compare these things. And to be honest, these aren't the details that stick with me in my memory. I remember the way she laughed in the dark. I remember the way it felt to look at her in the moonlight, sitting in my lap in the back of the car, naked from the waist up. I remember how it felt to really see her for the first time. I remember how scared he felt underneath me; I remember now that he wasn't ready. I remember the way she kissed me in the front yard. I remember the way he told me I was the 8th person he kissed, and I remember how that scared me.

I take with me the curves of her hips, the tattoo at the base of her neck, the fears she told me in the dark, the questions she asked between kisses. It's not a scale or a competition. I always go into sex looking for something; often I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. It changes. Sometimes I come away with it, and sometimes I come away with something else -- or more questions than answers. If I'm content, it's good. If I feel connected, it's fantastic. If I come away wishing I had done things differently, haunted by the experience, then I find myself trying to understand why.

I don't know what my best sexual experience has been, and even more so, I hope I haven't had it yet. I hope my exploration and experiences continue to expand and deepen, as they have over the past few years. I still have so much to learn.

Ask me a question  it doesn't take a damn blog post to answer. My truth? Nothing is cut-and-dried, nothing is simple.

All of the Lights

I can feel her tensing up. It's incredibly subtle, but my complete focus is on her body. Her legs are spread wide across my bed, lower back arched, shoulders and braids burying into the pillows. My tongue is wrapped around her clit, and I'm caught mid stroke, trying to interpret what I need to change. She's so difficult to read. It doesn't help that I've barely heard a sound from her.

I pull my fingers back, slightly, releasing my grip on her g-spot. I want to play this very carefully. I pull my tongue away, but it's not a complete disconnect. I move slowly, climbing over her, kissing my way across her body. Leaning in, toward her neck, I catch the lobe of her ear between my teeth. I whisper, between biting her neck, "Don't be afraid to tell me what you want."

She shifts a bit, stiffening but moving her hands onto my thighs, and I swear I can hear the wheels turning. I don't know how she will respond, but I can tell, clear as day, that she knows exact what she wants. I just want to coax it out of her. I move back down her body, scratching my nails down the outside of her thighs, and pulling her legs roughly apart so I can tease her. She breaks her silence, as I'm leaning down to find her clit. Her voice comes out rough, unsure, "More head. Less penetration."

I crack a smile. "I think I can handle that." I push my shoulders up against the insides of her thighs, locking my lower arms around her hips, and run my tongue deep inside her. "How's that?" I get so fucking cocky sometimes. But damn. I just want to feel her melt. I get a soft moan in response, and she cups my head in her hands and pulls me back into her. I don't stop again  until she comes, bold and unforgiving.

********

I'm sitting up on one end of the bed in a position that can only be described as awkward. I wish I could see her in the dark, and I curse myself for a second for turning off the lights. She's still spread across the bed (how does that usually end up happening?), and I've got her clit between my right thumb and forefinger. I'm not used to anyone who can take this kind of direct stimulation, and I'm enjoying the hell out of the opportunity while I have it. I can feel her swelling under my fingers.

"That feels really good." I'm grateful for her praise, simply because it means I'm doing the right thing.

"Is there anything else you'd like?" I lean down to punctuate the question with a bite to her thigh.

She cocks her head to the side. I can see the motion faintly in the reflection of the street light outside the window. "I like you. In bed, I mean."

I can't follow her train of thought. I don't know her well enough. "What do you mean?"

"I like that you tell me to say what I want. I like that you ask me." I don't know what to say. It's a deeply flattering comment, simply because it's taken me so long to get here, too. But I always feel like I've got so much left to learn, to experience. I want so badly to ask about her history. I want to know where she comes from, what she thinks about her body, what she secretly desires. I want to know what she fears. But I'm already significantly pushing her boundaries. Any more could be overkill.

"I'll tell you a secret." I'm still rolling her clit between my fingers, tracing her labia, dipping around her vagina. There's nothing quite as sweet as the feeling of someone get wet in my hands. "I had the same reaction the first time someone asked me that question. I remember clearly I had to stop and think -- what was it that I wanted? Really? And where could I get the courage to say that out loud? It's why I ask. I can't give you what you want, what you deserve, if I don't know." She falls silent as she focuses into her body and comes again, her clit pulsing.

I pull her up after she finishes, reaching to bring her into my lap. But she stops me, telling me no, and pushing me gently toward the other side of the bed. "Lie down," she tells me, and for once, I don't put up any resistance. "Now tell me, what is it that you like?"

I'm on the Right Track

This post will be super short because I'm exhausted, but so it goes.

I spent my Pride weekend not in the streets or in a parade, not getting arrested in Russia, not having lots of sex or dancing to Lady Gaga or writing political advocacy letters, though all of those things are well and good.

I spent my pride weekend surrounded by queer family. I spent it being honest with someone I care about. I took a queer friend to the hospital. I caught up with a queer friend I haven't seen in months. 

I've been in and seen Pride parades, festivals, and marches. I've written letters and worked on political campaigns. I've done queer public health advocacy and gotten trained in conducting HIV testing and counseling. I've attended gay and lesbian weddings and raised hell in doctor's offices. I've responded with open arms and an ear to strangers who sent me emails and facebook messages, looking for someone to talk to as they came out. I've created a Safe Zone program and put on programs on safe sex and safe bondage. I've conducted three research studies on LGBT issues, and I've spoken on panels and at queer conferences and to rooms full of people I've never met about some of the most intimate details of my personal life. I've danced in queer clubs and drank in queer bars around the world and visited Stonewall and the Castro. I've gone to PFLAG meetings and gotten queer scholarships and read queer theory and become a trans advocate. I have immersed myself completely and totally in queer culture throughout my life.

But the power and the pride and the love I have for this community comes not from most of those things, but from my queer family. Some of them are very close friends; others are acquaintances that I've taken a particular affinity to. I disagree with most all of them on one subject or another. Some I see only sporadically -- at a wedding or on a fluke. Some of them I haven't seen in years (much like many of my blood relatives), but I still think of them as family all the same. A handful of them would do anything for me, and probably every one of them would, at the least, buy me a beer. 

I'm blessed, so completely and utterly blessed, to have these people as a part of my life. If I could have them all in one place, at one moment, I'd have my own damn Pride party. But they're spread across the country (and possibly the world), celebrating Pride in their own ways and raising hell and being awesome.

I don't often get the chance to pay tribute and honor to the things they've done for me. The people who've been there when I was in the hospital, struggling through a breakup, morning the loss of a friend, or fighting with my family. The people who make weekends fun, who make sex fantastic, who know how to make me smile. I love ya'll. Happy Pride. I'm proud of the community we've built, the one we're a part of. I'm proud that I can be there for you, some more than others. I'm proud to share my life with you. I'm proud of the person you've helped me become. 

So maybe I didn't do anything big and crazy this weekend. Maybe I wasn't surrounded by thousands of my lgbt friends. But I did find love and support, I did give love and support, to my queer family, and for that, I think this weekend was definitely a wonderful Pride. 

Relationships, Queered

So. I like this girl.

(which sort of sounds like something I would have said when I was 15.)

Honestly, it's a lot more than "like." I'm well past that. I mean, we've been sleeping together for almost four months. Sometimes she sleeps over, and we don't even have sex -- because we're too exhausted -- and I don't even care. I just want to be able to wrap my arm around her and fall asleep. Clearly, this is not a friends-with-benefits kind of thing. She's cute and funny and sweet and smart and all those good things, plus a whole lot more. She's got a huge heart. And enough music on her iPod to last for a roadtrip. She's a mess of contradictions and passions (which always gets me). And she lights up when I walk in a room.

(Did I mention we have fantastic sex?)

But best of all, when she falls asleep in my arms or kisses me on a streetcorner, my heart melts into a big puddle. 

Then there's me, who is sort of gunshy and twitchy about commitment (even the low-key forms). I go from fiercely independent to cuddly and sweet at the blink of an eye, and it's a bit unpredictable. I struggle to voice my feelings -- and sometimes to even just identify them. (Feelings are HARD.) I stay busy constantly. I stress often. I either have very strong feelings about something, or no feelings at all. Oh, and I'm a Leo... which translates to "pain-in-the-ass." 

Amid all this what-is-a-relationship mess that has been going on in my head, I found this chart on Autostraddle, which definitely made me laugh. 

So for all of us who have been in a situation without labels and without definitions, I give you this :)

Pretty Is as Pretty Does

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend, Jamie, at a birthday party. (I have to set the stage a bit for this story to make sense.) The party was a mix of people -- around 10 queer women and the birthday girl's family, including her sister, cousins, parents, nieces and nephews, and others. Jamie and I were sitting on a swing in the back yard, overseeing a game of beer pong and shooting the shit over some beers. Jamie is thin, about 5'4, and more androgynous than me. I don't know if she identifies as butch, but she'd definitely be masculine-of-center. That day she had on jeans and a t-shirt, nothing fancy. I was dressed up for the St. Patrick's parade that morning, wearing a low-cut pastel green cotton dress and green eyeshadow, and I had beads from the parade around my neck and a green silk flower in my hair.

We were talking about having children and our own families when a young girl, around six-years-old or so, walked up to us. She had a t-shirt and shorts on, and her long hair pulled into a side pony tail. She sat down between us, looked at Jamie, then looked at me. She turned back to Jamie and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?"

Jamie didn't hesitate. She replied quickly, "I'm a girl."

"But you look like a boy," the child insisted.

I don't remember Jamie's response, but I don't think she had one. The child got up, ran off, and found someone else more interesting to play with. Jamie turned back to me and began to talk about how much she hated when children asked her that question. "Can't they see that I have breasts?" she asked me, and then she got up to find another beer.

A minute or two later, the child returned. I invited her to sit down next to me on the swing, which she did. I gifted her some of the beads I wore from the parade, and she reached out to touch the flower in my hair.

"You're really pretty," she said.

I found myself choking. I wanted to say a thousand things. I wanted to rewind her gender education. I wanted to offer her an answer that didn't replicate the binary she had so succinctly recognized between her interactions with Jamie and I. I wanted to show her that I appreciated the compliment, but at the same time, offer her a space that didn't equate beauty with femininity. I wanted her to know that "pretty" isn't what she should aspire to, and that worshiping femininity as an ideal for beauty is dangerous and masochistic. I wanted her to know that my gender expression isn't the only valid one.

By then, she had run off. I wondered... who am I to decide what this child should believe about gender? Should I try to influence the way she looks at gender, when she's not my child? I tossed this question around for a few days in my head until I found an answer I was satisfied with.

Yes, we are influenced and educated by our parents. But we're also socialized by friends and family, by strangers, by teachers, by social structures and pervasive beliefs held by the dominant majority. We're educated by TV and the internet, books, movies, music. My thoughts would probably be but a drop in the bucket compared to how much media influences her ideas on beauty and gender. This child could one day be my neighbor, my child's friend, my co-worker... who knows. She'll be a voting citizen who decides if those who don't conform to the gender binary deserve rights and respect. She'll possibly be a parent, a teacher, an influence on another child. She's not yet old enough to truly decide if my opinion -- or anyone's -- is valid. But she's making these decisions every day, accepting and rejecting and buying in to beliefs and opinions. She's affected by those beliefs every day. Any and all influence matters. Her beliefs affect mine, my recognition in this society. So yes, it's a careful and thin road to walk, but I do think I should talk with her.


*******

I remember, as a child, feeling fat. I was five, maybe six, years old, and I would sit on the toilet or in the bathtub, staring at my stomach, and hating it.

I remember my neighbor, Miss Susan, telling my mother that if her daughter, Jessica, didn't fit in a size four dress for homecoming, then she would make her lose weight or she couldn't go to the dance.

I remember the girls at summer camp making fun of me for not plucking my eyebrows when I was in 6th grade.

I remember my high school teacher, Mrs. W, catching me in the hallway and telling me that ladies don't wear clothes that show their shoulders. Instead, she said, I should learn to dress like a lady.

I remember dance class, as a child, when the leotards didn't fit me right and I couldn't move my feet and arms gracefully like the other girls. I was distinctly aware of how everything I did was ungraceful. I remember taking another dance class, at 15, at it was like those years of controlled movement suddenly sunk in all at once -- my body could do things it couldn't, years before. But in my mind, I still didn't have the talent, and sometimes, I still hear my teacher telling me that I'll never be any good at ballet, tap, or jazz.

I didn't do femininity right.

There are a thousand moments in my life that are and have been a lesson in gender. For me, for many women, most of those are negative. Girls shouldn't go barefoot or yell too loudly or wear pants with holes. Girls shouldn't have sex, because that's what sluts do. Girls shouldn't wear low-cut clothing or date boys with piercings or smoke cigarettes. Women shouldn't be single. Women shouldn't be childless. Women shouldn't hold the door for men. Women shouldn't walk alone at night.

That's not to say that men don't get lessons in gender -- of course they do! -- or that lessons for men aren't negative -- some definitely are.

The ideals for girls are extremes of femininity. Models. Princesses. Beauty queens. It's how companies sell make up and clothing, cars, beer, and just about every product on earth -- put a "sexy" woman on an ad, and you'll sell it. Women want to be her, men want to be with her. But what does she want? Does anyone care?

I'm reminded, every day, that I carry a certain privilege due to my gender expression. No matter how carefully I walk that line, no matter what my words and actions and beliefs are, my body is marked by gender cues and clothing, and those cues are read and responded to by people who believe strongly in a gender binary. I'm reminded that I face different risks, but more often than not, my gender identity is unquestioned and therefore, less marked and less risky. I'm reminded that the terms we use as compliments -- pretty, beautiful, charming, handsome, gorgeous, cute -- are gendered in a ways that make me profoundly uncomfortable. (I'm still learning how to create my own language out of what is available and to reject using these terms). I'm reminded constantly of my gender expression in queer bars that question my sexuality, and in heterocentric spaces where I pass but still get sexually harassed or feel extremely tokenized and isolated.

At the base of all of this, my experiences and those of many others I've talked to, I find that there's a very harmful ideal of who/what is feminine and who/what is masculine. No one -- trans or cis, male or female, queer or straight, genderqueer or androgynous -- can live up to a binary system of ideals. No woman will ever be "pretty" enough. Yet so many will do anything to achieve that. No queer community which defines its members as only gender normative (like some of Los Angeles bars) or gender non-normative (like places here where I get static) will provide a safe space for all those who are queer. Yet we define and identify those in our community by using gender cues.

If I have a child, I couldn't shield hir from media and strangers, from family members, from all the influences that teach us what gender is and isn't, what's acceptable for hir gender, and how to "properly" express gender. But I know that there are studies showing that adults respond differently to infants depending on their perceived gender. Our ideas of gender start at -- if not before -- birth, and those influences are so very persuasive and strong on young children who can't evaluate and reject opinions and ideas the same way adults can. If I have a child, I would want hir to understand and respect gender expressions of all types. I would want hir to embrace any -- or reject any -- aspect of gender ze wished. I would try my best to make sure ze doesn't feel crushed by a beauty norm ze can't live up to. I would want to offer more than two options, but instead, endless possibilities.

I would want my child to keep having conversations, keep questioning those ideas that we are told to assume.

What I know about gender, my own expression and gender as a social norm, comes from years of experiences and much unlearning. It is an ongoing process. I hope my understand of gender continues to evolve and change as I age, and yet, I hope having these kinds of interactions someday becomes less taxing.

I can imagine a world that doesn't operate within a gender binary. I can. I want to live to see it.