Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture (20 page)

Inside, I remember seeing a sea of nude, half-nude, harnessed and chained male bodies (the bottoms) and muscular men in full leather (the tops) in groups of three, or four, or two, or eight, or more. Some of the tops held whips and paddles of various sorts, and many were noisily using them on their willing victims.

I remember all sorts of sounds: from the bottoms, cries and whimpers and gasps and moans and shrill but insincere pleas of “Stop!,” tops barking orders at their slaves sternly or angrily or calmly, while others yelled numbers for their subjects to repeat, or let out long strings of outrageously profane, usually effemi-nizing, epithets, or simply emitted guttural, primal groans. All the collective words and sighs were punctuated by the unmistakable sounds of flagellation—wooden paddles striking flesh, the snapping of bullwhips slicing through the air and landing sharply on human targets, the ringing of bare hands making contact with buttocks. I stood there transfixed, thinking,
This is what men do when women aren’t around.

I was sure from the moment I entered that I wouldn’t be able to stay long before being found out, so I was determined to take it all in. But my secret was never discovered. After a half hour we reluctantly left to rejoin Saul.

This adventure took place a full year or two before I discovered the Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM), New York’s first and only lesbian SM organization, founded in 1981. I came upon the group just as I was growing convinced that no network existed for women who were interested in exploring SM with other women.

Which brings us back to the Mineshaft. The immediate and intense exhilaration I felt upon getting past the guard and into the main play area came from the liberating realization that not one of the men in that room cared about me—the real me, not the sock-down-my-pants me. I’m sure the overpowering smell of God knows how many bottles of poppers had something to do with this feeling, too.

Even as a woman, I experienced the Mineshaft as my first purely queer sexual space. The club imparted a feeling of immense optimism, opportunity, safety, and community. If you were gay and in the Mineshaft or any of the other queer SM clubs in the Meatpacking District in the 1970s, 80s, and into the early 90s, you felt, often for the first time in your life, completely removed, divorced, immune from socially imposed heterosexual judgment.

Fortunately, a few years later I was able to capture a similar feeling in a purely lesbian sexual space when LSM co-founder Jo A. began hosting Ms. Trick, a series of women-only SM nights at the otherwise gay male Asstrick Club.

These queer SM clubs gave us a place to feel that we were no longer outsiders—or rather, they made us feel that it was better to be outsiders, together, than to force ourselves to be like everybody else. This was long before our self-appointed gay leaders began telling us that getting married was every queer person’s highest goal—though certainly then, as now, there were many extralegal long-term gay couples happily living together.

Back then, many of us believed that gay liberation was rooted in sexual liberation, and we believed that liberation was rooted in the right—no, the need—to claim ownership of our bodies, to experience and celebrate sexuality in as many forms as possible, limited only by our time and imagination. We believed that gay pride was impossible without sexual pride, including leather pride. Though we did not know it then, in the Meatpacking District of the 1970s through the early 90s, we were living in one of the most permissive times in modern history and in one of the most permissive places in modern history.

Today, when I try to explain this history to younger queers, they often don’t believe me. The Meatpacking District during that period has attained an almost mythological status for younger members of the LGBT community that makes it impossible for them to believe the concrete reality many of us took for granted back then. We were kids then, in terms of our experience and the sense of possibility we felt. We fully expected that being gay would only get better and easier as we got older. Ours was the first generation to celebrate and experience our sexuality in all its alternative forms—and that we did as much as possible. Most of us never foresaw a more restrictive world and never imagined that our joyful experiment would end. Little did we know that many of us would never live to adulthood, that this moment would be gone in a flash, and that an era would vanish with it.

Never take your present for granted, because there’s no telling how quickly and how thoroughly it will be erased.

Penis Gagging, BDSM, and Rape Fantasy: The Truth About Kinky Sexting

Rachel Kramer Bussel

“You don’t want to gag a woman with your penis unless you have some serious issues with the way you see women.” So says Kirsten Powers, ex-girlfriend of sex-scandal star Congressman Anthony Weiner, in a piece for The Daily Beast. She is referencing his sexting relationship with a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, which made national headlines. The transcript of their texts was posted by Radar Online, including one bit that prompted Powers’s musing: “You will gag on me before you c** with me in you” and “[I’m] thinking about gagging your hot mouth with my c***.”

This article is not about Weiner. I’m pretty much over political sex scandals and inclined to think that someone like Weiner wants to get caught, consciously or unconsciously. The only positive thing I can say about such scandals is that they do help shed light on just how unenlightened we are about topics like monogamy and BDSM. Powers is an example of a woman making a blanket statement about something she clearly doesn’t know the first thing about, simply because it offends her.

You know the phrase “Taken out of context, I must seem so strange?” That goes double for pulling random bits of erotic conversation, texted or otherwise, and analyzing them as if they told a whole story. Without the motivation of the person sending and receiving them, you really don’t know anything, and yet a default anti-BDSM reaction seems to be acceptable. Our public squeamishness over the fact that some people can eroticize pain, degradation, and being ordered around, safely, consensually, and pleasurably, is nothing more than a prejudice that needs to be eradicated.

For instance, I had an extended kinky relationship with someone where the bulk of our exchanges occurred via email, phone calls, and texting; only a minority of our interactions were in person. We had built up plenty of previous knowledge about each other when he texted me, “I want to rape you.” Now, of course, if someone had grabbed my phone at that very moment and that was all they saw, they might think this person was violent. But there is a world of difference between discussing a rape fantasy and actual rape; a person saying they want to gag another person (or be gagged) would, in a consensual case, mean that both parties are mutually interested in the exchange. I knew exactly what he meant, and he knew that I knew—and that I thought it was hot. That’s not something I’d take lightly, and I’ll admit that even though we’d been talking about that very thing, using the words
force
and
make
were easier for me than using the word
rape
. The truth is, we went farther in some ways than I ever have with a lover precisely because I trusted him so much, and because our fantasies aligned so perfectly, feeding off each other.

I’m aware that from afar it might be hard to tell the difference when all you have is someone’s words, stark and disconnected—which is why I wouldn’t presume to jump in and tell someone else how to behave, or how to fantasize. I can tell you that when I read Powers’s words, I felt slut-shamed, because I’ve had exchanges just as risqué, just as perverted (and I use that word proudly). The art of verbal degradation is a fine one, and it’s not for the fainthearted or those who have poor social skills or misogynists or those who simply want to spout out their fantasy without acknowledging the other person.

Another lover, with whom I’d engaged in rough sex, straight-out asked me how far was too far, what names I liked to be called, thereby both establishing some boundaries and, in my opinion, making for some hot foreplay. Far from detracting from a dominant’s power, checking in, as well as making a submissive acknowledge exactly what it is that floats their boat, can be very hot.

Again, I am not talking about nonconsensual exchanges. But I think it’s important for those of us who are kinky, or who have engaged in kinky play, to stand up for our right to do so. That doesn’t mean you have to post the highly personal details of your exchanges online, and I wouldn’t recommend running for office and leaving a paper trail of things you wouldn’t want your constituents to know, but it does mean speaking up for yourself and not letting ignorance rule. It also means checking our own inner censors and making sure we don’t turn around and make unwarranted judgments about other people’s sex lives, especially where we don’t have all the facts.

Please note that I’m not saying anyone has to participate in BDSM or even fully understand it; I’m all about keeping a live-and-let-live attitude. But when having an opinion about a specific case morphs into having an opinion about anyone, anywhere, who might be into the kind of sexual fantasy that you’re not, you need to step back and analyze how your own prejudices come into play.

The point of fantasies is that they come from somewhere that isn’t always logical or rational. Some people might be inclined to investigate where their fantasies come from, what they “mean,” but I tend to think of them the way I think of art, where there are multiple interpretations, where the point is to make us feel something stemming from somewhere beyond our brain. To me, that’s what makes fantasies hot, and it makes me quite certain that my brain is my biggest sex organ and that someone’s filthy mind will likely impress me more quickly than any other body part.

Drawing a direct, judgmental line, as Powers does, between a fantasy expressed consensually between adults and one’s own politics and interests should be offensive no matter what you think of Weiner or BDSM. Maybe it’s not for you, and that’s perfectly fine, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for everyone, and I’d hate to live in a world where someone else reigned supreme and told me what I could and couldn’t do in bed, or on my phone. It’s all too easy to sound morally superior when you are personally put off by some behavior, especially something sexual, without ever considering that others could be equally justified in being outraged about your personal peccadilloes. So for all of us who are into things like gagging, choking, and giving or following orders, don’t let anyone tell you that you have a problem. I’m not assessing your sex life, or your psyche, so please don’t make sweeping judgments about mine. Anthony Weiner may or may not have issues with women. He’s certainly not alone in what he fantasizes about, but the only assumption you can make from what he texted is that he’s into sending dirty, kinky texts. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

Adrian’s Penis: Care and Handling

Adrian Colesberry

Adrian’s penis has many manually operated functions and is designed for people who like to engage with a penis. Maybe that makes it seem like a lot of trouble, but if you think your snatch is some low-maintenance dream, you’re operating under a delusion. It might help you adopt the proper attitude if you think about Adrian’s penis the same way he thinks about your ass. Stop thinking of it as
his
penis and start thinking of it as
your
penis. Not yours in a trivial capitalist sense, like it’s property, but more like it’s a field of beans that a farmer has planted right behind her house. She cares for the field all year long. She knows when to feed and water it, when to work the field, and when to let it rest. In the following, find instructions on how to feed, water, work, and rest Adrian’s penis.

Adrian’s Shy Erection

Sexually demanding reader, please don’t envision a constantly floppy Adrian Colesberry daily inventing new excuses for his defective arousal mechanism. Aside from occasionally being knocked out by drink, his cock has proven reliable over the years with two exceptions: in the getting-to-know-you part of the relationship and again when the relationship is going badly.
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A typical first time with Adrian Colesberry plays out like a physical comedy routine where every time the thirsty heroine bends down to the water fountain, the stream retreats to a dribble. He’ll go down on you until he gets his erection, but he’ll lose it as soon as he reaches for the condom. If you’re kind enough, you’ll get him hard again in your hand or mouth, but right when he tears open the condom, he’ll go all floppy again.

You may be perfectly willing to keep sucking his cock, and while your generosity will be more than welcome, it’ll just make Adrian feel weird after a bit to be in your mouth without getting hard enough fast enough.

Tip:
When Adrian is having his first-time erection problems, there is such a thing as paying too much attention to his cock.

The generous reader might have been looking forward to sucking Adrian’s flaccid penis to erection. But not knowing how to judge whether he’s getting “hard enough fast enough,” how will you know when to abandon your project of making him hard in your mouth? You needn’t be concerned about the timing. Adrian will remove his cock from your mouth if he’s getting self-conscious and switch you to another activity. Another activity means, of course, more pussy-eating. As long as his shy erection is in town, he’ll eat your pussy until his tongue cramps up completely and even his neck, where all the tongue muscles are attached.

The sensitive reader may be overly worried about what exactly to do when Adrian’s shy erection shows up. Don’t be. You can do anything that makes you feel like you’re helping out, because Adrian’s erection problems will go away on your second or third time regardless of what you do.
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