New loves, and new directions

I admit that the title of this post is, perhaps, a bit of a misnomer. After all, this is not the first time I have posted verse to this blog. Indeed, since I made my confession about the hidden nature of my poetry, I have, somewhat paradoxically, been far more willing to share it.

But, there is new love in my life! Not a new love for me, but rather, a new love for my love, Mazzikin. While I have not talked at length about polyamory, and how I do it, I have mentioned ere now that I have several people whom I love very much in my life, and am involved in relationships with to varying degrees and permutations.

Mazzikin and I are secondary (yes, we use the dreaded ranking system). For us, that means we are not only not exclusive, but do not exercise veto powers over each other's partner choices. He lives an hour away, and visits most weekends. Mazzikin is extremely respectful of the relationship between Paradox ( my primary relationship) and I, and he and Paradox have a firm friendship between them.

Recently, Mazzikin had attracted the attentions of a lovely girl, and was, in fact, quite smitten with her himself. The chemistry was undeniable, at least to those of us observing. Indeed, both Paradox and I felt compelled to remark on the sizzling nature of the attraction. And, what with one thing and another, things have fallen into a lovely poly tangle. As Paradox is fond of putting it: "My girlfriend, and her boyfriend, and his girlfriend."

Recently, Mazzikin wrote about the process of this all coming together in a private post. He remarked that it would be nice if I commented on it (I'm a truly horrible commenter. I feel that unless I have something truly brilliant to say that I should not even bother, and hence, mostly don't), as the lady might like to see an affirmation of my support for this budding romance.

I agreed that it was always nice to have a bit of affirmation, and sat down to write something out. What came out was verse.

Beloved of my love

Know that it is better
than fine,
this new thing
you are weaving,
with a man I love.

We know that love
spreads, and grows, just so:
strawberry plants
with innumerable fruits
all
on the same stalk.

When you look
at each other
you glow, twin suns in an evening sky,
each the other's light.

And I'm still here,
my own light, dancing in reflected glow
of constellations lighting up the sky.

We will be called
"The Lovers"
a cluster of tiny dots
and
intangible lines
drawn together.

An Egg in my Hand.

I hate eating breakfast when I first wake up. My mother made this a moot point: I would eat, or I would not leave the breakfast table. But after I went off to college, like a fledgling bird turning her beak up on the early worm, I slowly stopped eating breakfast.

I knew it was good to eat food in the morning, that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and all that jazz. But I stopped.

I had tea, instead, with cream and sugar.

Then, I started again. Because I was working real jobs, and couldn't just stop when I was finally hungry and have a much belated breakfast. But it was still hard for me, to wake up that little bit much earlier to make sure I had time to make and eat something.

So I boiled a half dozen eggs, one night, and for the rest of the week I walked out the door with an egg in my hand, to be eaten at my desk when I got to work.

An egg in one's hand is a satisfying thing. It is pleasantly curved, ovoid in shape, light brown in color. It is cold, but slowly warms. An egg in my hand reminds me of being a child, living on a farm. We had chickens, and I would carry each egg like a precious thing in my hands into the kitchen. An egg in my hands reminds me of my mother, and my childhood, and being fed.

An egg in my hand is breakfast.

A poem about sex.

If you you don't want to read about sex, please exit now.

I've always had a hard time writing about sex, both in general, and specifically in verse. It seems to easy to slide into cliche, to say something so metaphorically that all impact is lost.

Sex, for me, at least, is not metaphorical. It is not fireworks, or burning loins, or amazing flower laden bliss. Sex is raw, and naked, and silly, often. Sex, if I'm doing it right, is where I get to be my most honest, naked, uncomplicated self.

And that self might mangle a metaphor, or two. But I'm more likely to talk dirty by saying "Fuck me." That is how I want to write about sex.

I think I may have done it this time.

Without further ado, the poem:

I wake from my dream
just long enough to
turn off the alarm,
curl back into blankets
and wait for you.

When you come home,
I beg you
to fuck me
like you did in my dream.

You lay
your head on
my thigh, hidden under blankets
and you're looking at me
while your
cold, cold hands
slide up my legs.

I'm wet, and warm,
and writhing on your hands, fingers in me
warming slowly.

Until I beg you
please, please
to fuck me
and you do.

Psst. Anyone still there?

"Well, Shadowedge," (I say to myself), "where have you been?"

"ummmmmm... On the Moon. With Steve.* "

"Oh really? And the Moon, I suppose, has no Internet?"

At this point, I realize that things have degenerated into silliness, and stop. But here I am, at long last.

Did'ya miss me? Did you notice I was gone?

And why am I posting tonight, of all nights? Well... I've been contemplating hope. The last evil in Pandora's box, after all the others were released into the world. I could use a little hope. But I'm trying, according to Slovotsky's** law (the number of which I cannot remember) : "When you really want something, try to want it a little less. "

This is my second presidential election where I have been of age to vote. After my first attempt to elect someone I liked failed miserably, I'm crossing fingers, toes and everything else that can be crossed. Yes, that includes my legs. But if things go well, there will be some celebrating. If things go badly... well, there is a lot of rum with my name on it waiting for me.

Wait... Really? Obama won? While I was writing this?

McCain is making his concession speech...

Oh my. A rush of relief breaks over me. And that is enough for now.

Thank you, everyone who voted.

* This is a bit from an Eddie Izzard show. I recommend it highly.
** From Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series.

A post in which I talk about being "nice."

This was originally a comment on Unspeakable Axe's post about the disparity between the number of books and other resources aimed at introducing female to topping, versus introduction males to bottoming.

My comment turned into an essay against the concept of "nice." So for posarity, and on the off change I have any readers left after the long summer hiatus I'm reposting it here.

I’m going to try and explain all the thoughts that are fluttering around in my head on this issue, but since I’m on day #3 of a horrible headache, it may not go so well.

I could really get to hate “nice.” I, like most females I know, was raised to be a “nice” person. The definition of “nice” shifts from person to person, but a few things seem to be constant: “nice” girls don’t hurt people , and “nice” girls don’t like sex. Needless to say, getting hot and bothered from hurting people while having kinky sex is right out.

Sadism is the refined art of being not nice. Exceedingly not nice. (And yes, not all tops are sadists. But let me get to that.) So is it any wonder that there are fewer female sadists around?

Now, as I said earlier, not all tops are sadists. But tops do take control of the power dynamic, sort of by definition. And that’s not “nice” either. Telling someone what they are going to do, to you, or for you, or in general is not “nice.”

“Nice” is putting up and shutting up, and doing what needs to be done, and not enjoying one damn bit of it. Or, at least, this is my understanding of the phenomenon.

To enjoy sex at all is breaking the “nice” paradigm. To enjoy kinky sex, more so. To admit to oneself that one enjoys things that hurt (oh so good!) is to warp “nice” all out of perspective.

But let’s be clear here. The glass (a little more honest) MY glass is only half full. Because for all that I like to think of myself as having broken the “nice” paradigm it lingers.

I’ve been reading Ellie Lumpesse’s (http://www.lumpesse.com/) masculinity interviews with great interest. In several of them, the men talk about the need to make peace with topping. This consensual power play we do SEEMS to go against the egalitarian feminist sensibility that most of us (I do hope!) hold. It doesn’t, I think we can agree. We do it from a place of informed consent, often warping the cultural perceptions around gender, power and sex, and it is a fulfilling part of many of our lives.

Take the feminist angle, and a dose of “nice” and no wonder there are not female tops coming out of the woodwork. Admitting that one likes to hit people and listen to them gasp on that edge of pain/pleasure: that is scary stuff. Even if the people you are hitting want it as much as you do, consented to be there, and are enjoying the heck out of it.

Getting out of “nice” is work. Work: reading, and thinking, and reading some. Finding a voice to say what one wants. Finding other voices who think like you.

And even then, even if you get that far, you find yourself back at “nice” sometimes, wondering if it will ever feel like it’s alright to want to what you do.

I could get to hate “nice”.

Exhibitionism, or why I spent most of Friday night naked.

At this point, I work on the expectation that when I visit C and C's place for a party I will, at some point, end up naked. The why of this is not so much complicated as lost in the mists of time, poor memory, and a drunken haze.

This description, I realize, makes it sound like a drinking game gone awry and into depravity. Certainly, in one sense it was. But there are fundamental differences between how social nudity is handled at C and C's events and others I have attended.

In my experience, nudity at other events (specifically, in my case, high school parties years in the past) is characterized by a sense of shame and (sometimes) humiliation, paired with a conflicting set of social mores which simultaneously encourage one to get naked for the pleasure of the male gaze and condemn one for doing so. A girl, in this situation, is supposed to be drunk, and tricked out of her clothing. Wanting to be naked is right out. Or, if one does get naked of one's own volition, one is branded as sexually available in the worst way. Really, once one is naked, in these situations, one is tagged as sexually available, whatever the circumstances of disrobing were.

In contrast, C and C's events are characterized by an explicit respect for everyone's comfort zones, especially in the amount of clothing that one chooses to wear, or not. One friend of mine will happily sit around wearing nothing but her bra, while another friend declined to take off any of her clothing, but was happy to watch the rest of us caper about in nothing at all.

In the same vein of difference are the individual reactions surrounding the process of getting naked. In my perception, there is a distinct lack of shame, and an attitude that most often shouts: "Ta Da!" The exception might be Char, who's approach might be characterized as, "I'm so shy. I'm so shy. I'm naked! I'm very shy, indeed."

And while large amounts of intoxicants are usually involved in these parties, I am of the opinion that that has relatively little to do with the nakedness, except, perhaps, as an excuse for the commencement of the exercise. (Not that we need an excuse, really. But it does make the transition from clothed to naked more explicable.)

I like being naked. (As anyone who has lived with me for any length of time [hi Keathwick!] can tell you. ) Left to my own devices, I would most likely wear a bra and underwear, or less all of the time. I don't, for a host of reasons, including that it would make some people uncomfortable, but that is my general inclination. This has little to do with exhibitionism, and a lot to do with liking to be naked.

For years, in fact, I would disclaim a liking for exhibitionism, despite a penchant for having sex in semipublic locations. However, it is no longer deniable: I like people looking at me. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard: actors (as I am from time to time) adore the spotlight, the attention, the knowledge of being watched.

To quote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, by Tom Stoppard: "We're actors! We're the opposite of people!"

Of course, Paradox would claim that it is my essential Scorpio nature has something to do with the desire for attention. I could claim that Moonkai's fondness for my exhibitionistic tendencies warped me.

Regardless, it seems that I have acquired a fondness for being naked that goes beyond the joy of not wearing clothing.

"That kind of girl" Reprise

After my contemplation of what kind of girl blogs, the exhibitionistic possibilities, and the shaping of a blogger in this post, I have a new take on the subject.


Via Pharyngula (a recent addition to my blog roll), this post from EvolutionBlog (who has now joined the rapidly expanding ranks of blogs attempting to take over my reader), which quotes from this article from Scientific American,* which examines "the explosion of blogs" in the light of neurological explanations for the rewards of blogging.

There are well documented rewards for expressive writing:

Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

(...)
According to Alice Flaherty, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the placebo theory of suffering is one window through which to view blogging. As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly.

Flaherty, who studies conditions such as hypergraphia (an uncontrollable urge to write) and writer’s block, also looks to disease models to explain the drive behind this mode of communication. For example, people with mania often talk too much. “We believe something in the brain’s limbic system is boosting their desire to communicate,” Flaherty explains. Located mainly in the midbrain, the limbic system controls our drives, whether they are related to food, sex, appetite, or problem solving. “You know that drives are involved [in blogging] because a lot of people do it compulsively,” Flaherty notes. Also, blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art. (Emphasis mine.)

All of this is terribly interesting, I admit. And there must be a reason why those of us who blog do so. Self medication for a host of reasons is not out of the question. But it is the final paragraph of the article that I find most relevant, especially in light of the previous post:

Some hospitals have started hosting patient-authored blogs on their Web sites as clinicians begin to recognize the therapeutic value. Unlike a bedside journal, blogging offers the added benefit of receptive readers in similar situations, Morgan explains: “Individuals are connecting to one another and witnessing each other’s expressions—the basis for forming a community.”

Ha! Community. And the most interesting aspect of my experience of the blogasphere is that people with vastly different backgrounds, cultural contexts, genders, sexual identities, areas of interest and expertise have given me a window into their lives, and thereby enriching my own. How each of the blogs on my blog role have changed my world view is food for thought and a post for another day.

* When one is blogging about things which science bloggers are blogging about, it is important to cite attributions correctly. Well, this is important in general, actually. But specifically in this case, lest I look like a big plagiarizing idiot. **


** Speaking of big academic idiots: Do not, as you value the respect of your professors, EVER turn in a reading response to an article which the professor neglected to hand out in class. Making things up at length to cover the fact that you did not read the assignment that was not given out is a new level of pretentious stupidity.