A workshop about playfulness and sex for us big kids??? We adults can be tough customers; I arrived in my Lacking Sparkle State on a Friday at the end of a work week. Deciding to attend Adult Playtime also seemed harder than signing up to learn a particular skill, such as spanking or rope bondage. In play class, I might be goofy or vulnerable; mastering knots seems simple in comparison. By the end of Knots for Grown-ups, I’m bound (pun intended) to have learned how to secure my partner without reducing her circulation. Although, I’d hate to be so worried about my performance of the perfect knot that I didn’t notice my lover’s eyes or her wicked smile…play and a generous spirit keep any act fun and hot!

 So, Let’s play… said in a sultry voice or a tiny child-like voice…Will you be my teacher and keep me after class??? Play often begins with a request; asking requires mustering courage. During Adult Playtime, we asked to be called by a new name. Just call me Reindeer! Check out my big…antlers? (It was December). Complete your creature and present a gesture of a hobby. Yum, Yum, Yum, Reindeer munches grass!

No wild beast wants to play alone. Remember Simon Says? You go first, I copy you. Will you be my reindeer? In Adult Playtime, we repeated the person’s name and tried to mimic their gesture. We mimic to flatter and jest; I like you enough to try your eyelash batting or imitate your tough stare. You watch and laugh when I both miss and succeed at trying to be you for a few seconds. I discover that I’m not you and might not want to be! However, through these moments of mimicry, we meet anew and learn how we perceive and appreciate each other.

My most memorable attempts at mimicry were studying another person’s walk in a college theater class. Walking behind a person with a hand on their sacrum, at the base of the spine, I tried to study his or her gait, pace, and manner or moving. By attempting to be another body, I “met” my own shape; my hips are lower than hers, feet are more arched but our speed of walking is precisely matched. One of the joys and frustrations of relationships is learning how we are similar and quite different; those skills can be developed through play.

Not all play is as studious as my walking exercise, what about rough play, or play with power? The key to most kinds of play might be learning technique and maintaining some empathy, levity and acceptance of similarities and differences between self and partners. For example, when learning to flog, I was terrified I would harm the person receiving; the person watching me saw the grimace in my face. She smiled at me and suggested that I “offer from my heart.” That sounds wuzzy-fuzzy I realize, but I started to smile and allow my wrist to move in a figure 8 motion so the tails of the flogger impacted and swept over the skin with more precision and generosity than my anxious heart would have been able to offer. The result was a better experience for me and for the person receiving. Even shifting my state of mind from “I am doing this flogging” to “I am offering this flogging to a person who is trusting me,” allows me to relax and focus.

What are your most memorable playtimes, as a child, as an adult, as a lover? Play is good work! As a child, my friend Maureen and I played labor. Inspired by the moans of women birthing on the TV drama, Dr Marcus Welby, MD, we labored many times. We didn’t play with dolls but only blocks, smooth wooden blocks we laid on the bed and on which I rubbed to make babies. There was danger too, sometimes the birth produced a clawed creature, like a crab that gave pain upon leaving my body! More reason to howl!

Whether you prefer a light joke or intense scene, generate a list of how you play. The top of the ScrewSmart worksheet urges: “Ideas from Class Or Life? Jot ‘em down!” Striking is the number of different senses in my list, “Simon Says” from my mouth to your ears… “Scent,” based on an erotica story “Dropping the Hint” in “tasting her” a collection edited by Rachel Kramer Brussel in which a woman welcomes her lover home with a various scents that signal him to respond with different acts. If the nose knows isn’t for you, how about Silence Play!!! Never heard of it? neither had I until my magic marker wrote “Silence Play” on my paper. I love being in the company of a friend or lover and not needing to speak. Not because I’m afraid to communicate but because shared times silence can also be a choice that leads to a different kind of bonding, such as in meditation groups. In art school, I remember a friend trying a speaking fast for a few days to see might experience through note-passing and listening without the burden of talking. Play with your pets! Joke at meetings whenever possible! And of course, play in your erotic life.

For more discussion of the science that supports how we grow and bond through play check out Stuart Brown says play is more than fun!

I offer up exhibit A: it's a Michael Gondry short that a teeny, tiny woman hepped me to. 

Gondrey points out the site where most of the hard times happen: in bed. I spent years developing painful techniques so that I could have overnight guests. After a while, pulling aside one ass cheek or waiting for my partner to fall asleep began to feel like denial. I decided to give in to the final corporeal comfort and start disclosing at any costs. As you might imagine, this wasn't always well received.

At one time, I was dating the most phenomenal guy. At eight months, I was blue in the face from with-holding farts around him. He was pretty much the essence of cool and I got the silent but deadly message that farting was off the table. When I broached the topic, he told me that I was free to fart around him but he wouldn't fart around me. *Sacre Bleu!* For me, this was like saying: go ahead, be imperfect, but I won't join you there. I sought advice from one of my dearest friends, a sweaty freak, who understood that whenever I inhaled oxygen, it induced farts in my ass. He was newly married at the time and admitted that he wished there was still the chance to rewind the clock and gain back some of the mystery. This I could get on board with. I am a disclose-a-holic. I want my partners to see all my worst parts early so that they can opt out if they want to. Maybe I get this from my brother who told me that he tried to fart on every first date. He said that it weeded out the weak.

So what's the middle ground? One month? Two months? A verbal warning first? A jog out of the room and a laugh from the hallway each time? I still struggle to know.

I've also dated folks that whenever sex queefs and sex farts happen, they're just another reason to high-five. What Mike Gondry calls "girlfriend type-III." While revealing your inner-self and your inner-stink are two different things, I think there's also something that connects the two. Farting may not be romantic, but it is pretty funny. The folks that i most want to beast with are folks who can laugh with/at me like a friend. 

I remember a poem from my high school literary magazine that was titled: It's As If Everyone Wanted To Pretend They Smelled Like Nothing. This continues to stick with me. There's a real divide between folks who want to act like they don't shit, like they don't bleed, or grow hair, or have bad days, or wear make up; it's as if everyone just wanted to fade into the background. I don't love that I'm a fart-machine, well, no i kinda do. But I acknowledge that the only people who might be into it are the one's who bookmark Cakefart. However, there's something i like about someone who celebrates le petite mort with a little smell of death on top.

pumpernickel releasing a wicked one at dyke march

Juan Epstein, my first hispanic jew

Sin Cadena's (Without Chains) was a conference on sexuality and identity put together by MEChA, a radical chicana/o student organization. The day was a collection of workshops and panels kicked off with a commencement speech by Philadelphia's LGBT liaison Gloria Casarez. Students came from all over America to discuss what is was to be young, sexual, thinking folks. I was excited to see what would come of the hour we were given to present.

Together with my friends from Galaei, (an amazing organization dedicated as much to pleasure as it is to sexual health) we put together a workshop, which would be a self-run situation. We all agreed that we wanted to stay away form defining anything about sex- a topic as slippery to get into as a diaphragm. Instead, one of my colleagues suggested we do a fishbowl. This is a facilitation game in which a question is asked to a small group for discussion and folks listening can join by tagging someone else out. She thought it might be good to start with the question "do you ever not feel latina/o enough?" It was a staggering moment. After I crapped my pants, I remembered the lesson I keep having to learn over and over again: everyone struggles with feeling like not enough. For those of us who have strong cultures pulling us in different directions, it’s hard to sometimes feel the smooth blend that all those cooking/culture metaphors refer to. Sometimes you’re less a melting pot than a rock sitting in a bowl of porridge… sometimes the rock is porous, sometimes it is a porridge rock, sometimes the rock is a guy named sue. Wait, sorry, I was taking life seriously again.  But suffice to say, sometimes a mixed experience is merely a fractured one that, in turn, becomes it’s own whole experience.

During the fishbowl, I awkwardly acknowledged not feeling like enough. And I didn’t disappear into a puff of smoke and shame. In fact, I stayed in the fishbowl speaking to these bold and articulate students. I was struck by what one person said after he tagged in on the question “what does queer mean to you?” I had discussed ScrewSmart’s blog uproar around the idea that someone straight could be queer. This guy agreed with the sentiment and went on to liken it to his own understanding of what it was to be Chicano. He said that at a certain point it stopped being about where you were from and became how you politically aligned yourself. My mind was officially blown. Maybe this was a new umbrella term that I could actually begin to own as my own. One that was malleable as, well, as porridge. A global word that could encompass as my own experience as a true whole as opposed to a part of a fractured sum. And so this is me, Juan Pumpernickel Epstein, chicana-at-large, saying thank you to all the brave young thinkers who present us with the words that get closer to being seen.

Friends- I know I'm late on the uptake.  Bonk: the Courious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach is a sex-nerd's wet dream that was published in 2008.  I don't know why I've been twiddling my thumbs instead of obsessively reading and re-reading this book at least 4 times a year since it came out.  

The good news is that a friend, who cares about the thoughts that jostle around in my dome, DID give it to me a few weeks ago.  Jenny- you win the prize.  I LOVE.  Ahem.  Let me repeat.  I FRIGGIN' LOVE...this book.  It is chock-full of sound research all about sexuality and science about sex.  This is a book that was BOTH enjoyable to read AND about my very favorite subject.  But my love comes also from the little activist inside of me that I should let out more often, feed better, and definitely let play in the sunshine more.  That little activist is currently doing a celebration dance because they're realizing how important it is to have books out there that approach sex from a serious point-of-view that aren't preachy, aren't too dry to finish, and aren't only aimed at academics.  This is a book that Joe-the-plumber (remember him.  Oh my god, I just did, and wished I hadn't) could happily pick up and read in excerpts while he moved his bowels every morning.  

Bonk points out how hard it is to try and seriously study sex and sexuality in this world.  What do I mean by "this world".  Let's just say that this morning getting on the train I heard a woman shouting, "DON'T HAVE SEX BEFORE YOU'RE MARRIED!! YOU'LL GET AIDS! GONORHEA, CHLAMIDIA, AND GO TO HELL!!" At that moment, I was living in "this world".  Sex is central in all of our lives.  But I bet it is easier for people to study duck migration than it is for them to study dick dilation (that is unless they work for a pharmacuetical company).  Sex is: THE behavior that keeps our species continuing on through the generations, one of the most important ways that we socialize and create bonds (I would hope it's assumed, but my definition of sex is not limited to penis in vagina here people), and is a huge portion of content on the internet (though not as big as I thought...).  However, it seems like people who want to study it are seen as being weird for being interested in the subject.  I think that the importance of sound scientific information about sex and sexuality can be easily linked to quality of life issues, social justice philosophy, and basic human curiousity.  But than again...I live in a self-constructed sex-positive bubble.  

Besides giving a shout out to how small the scientific literature about sexuality is compared with it's importance in the human experience, Roach also has an amazing historical look at sex science.  From a woman who had her clitoris surgically moved closer to her vaginal opening in the early 1900's (because she believed this is why she could not experience orgasm during penetrative sex), to the classic cure for "hysterical women" (orgasms!), she covers so much interesting history of how we know what we know about sex.  Like did you know that testical implants were a fad at the turn of the 20th century?

Anyway I'm starting to ramble (maybe I'm getting hysterical! Maybe I should go "treat" myself for that before it gets out of control...) and so I thought I'd leave y'all with some of MY favorite sex facts! (some are in the book, some are not...you'll have to read it to find out!!)

-people with XX chromosomes have the same amount of erectile tissue, on average (if you count all the tissue beneath the surface!) than folks with XY chromosomes. That being said...

-1 in 100 people are born with some sort of male/female ambiguity (kinda taking the air out of my previous fun fact)

-70% of ciswomen are unable to reach orgasm from penetrative sex (if they don't have clitoral stimulation).

-Dan Savage claims (but I'm having a having a hard time finding evidence to back it up) that ciswomen report on average greater sexual satisfaction if they're sleeping with cismen with micropenises than they do when sleeping with cismen with average or above average sized cocks.

Do you have any other interesting sexual trivia? Sex facts?  Share, please?

With love!

Donkey

terrifying suburbs

Pumpernickel at 14, buffalo

bells supermarket in buffalo, nyJamey Rodemeyer in his room, 14, buffaloThis week, Jamey Rodemeyer, 14, took his life in Buffalo. He was both part of my Buffalo community and part of my gay community. He went to the neighboring highschool that I used to watch Peter and the Wolf and the growing christmas tree at during the holidays. I know his hallways and I know the gas stations and grocery stores he used to walk around. I can't shake the insidiousness of our shared experience, because it’s so easy to imagine being in that town again, a place that always feels like it’s holding its breath. Maybe everyone’s hometown feels unyielding because you’re rarely as powerless as you are when you’re a child. I believe this is why individuals who offer help in a child’s life make such an impact: for adults it’s simply an extra effort, but for kids, it can be punching through a seemingly impermeable force-field.

In my time studying Social Work, I have certainly focused on how to deliver services to families who have experienced economic destitute but have rarely discussed how to reach families who have the means but not the will. There is a belief that to accept help is particularly weak and that the face of need couldn’t possibly be privileged face. The truth is that the folks who most commonly commit suicide are older white men, and for young LGBT folks, this risk is 5x as high. Suicide accounts for 12% of all deaths among 12-24 year olds, the time before the frontal cortex, or the part of the brain that weighs repercussions, is fully formed. Some of the saddest news for me is that Rodemeyer was seeking help from social workers and therapists. He had made a It Get’s Better video. He had hope, which, in my suicide assessment training, is the main component that one must try to instill in someone who is considering suicide.

One thing that I am personally latching onto in terms of hope was that Jamey was inspired by Lady Gaga's message of being "born this way"- so much so, that his mother is burying him in a shirt with these words printed on. After his suicide, Lady Gaga made a public announcement over twitter and followed it up with a message to the president that bullying must be made illegal. Ironically, Jamey killed himself on the same day that the president was at the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit. In response Gaga started the #MakeALawForJamey trend, asking for folks to step up to what she rightly refers to as a hate crime.

I don’t think there’s any easy answer. I just know that my community members, the young folks who are supposed to be in training to help us keep up the work are dying off. I can’t bear to think about suicide taking away a stratum of my family the way that AIDS took away a whole stratum of thinkers, artists, activists and everyday folks in the 80’s. With this said, perhaps some of these resources could be of help to you or someone you know, please do feel free to write in with more.

• If you know someone who may be a danger to themselves: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• If you're in Philadelphia and need to contact a Emergency Crisis Center so that a friend can get an assessment, West Philadelphia: 215-748-9525 or Center City 215-829-5249
• If you’re a teacher please consider downloading a safe space kit: http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/1641.html
• If you’re a guidance counselor please read more about how to talk about suicide with LGBT folks: http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/news/record/2736.html
• Support for Gaga's anti-bullying effort #MakeALawForJamey
• government anti-bullying page: www.stopbullying.gov

In all seriousness this transition had a huge impact on me.  Below I recall the importance of that change...

I had a low-grade eating disorder from age 12 to age 18.  This disorder was best defined by a cycle of varying degrees of restricted eating and times of bulimia.  This disorder was deeply entwined with my passion and commitment to ballet.  I had been dancing at least 25 hours a week since fifth grade.  I was very tight with my ballet friends and longed to be seen as successful and talented within the group. I am naturally a very small boned person, but during those years I was straight up tiny.  However I had a very distorted view of myself.  I can remember spending time in front of the full-length mirror in my room, pulling on “extra” skin and feeling extremely disgusted by the size and shape of my body.  As I began to grow out of clothes I had worn in my prepubescent years I started to feel like my body was huge.             

At this time in my life my mother was also trying very hard to loose weight.  She went on 3 different diets that seriously effected what kind of food she ate.  I started sneakily going on different diets that my mom was also on.  Atkins, South Beach, and Jenny Craig were specific diets that I remember dabbling in.  This started my obsession with controlling and restricting what kind of and how much food I ate.  These diets would be mixed in with times where I would restrict my food intake to under 500 calories a day.  I would only eat a nutrition bar for lunch and then have a sandwich or carrot stick packed dinner in between school and ballet.  It’s amazing looking back how easy it was for me to limit my food so extremely without having anyone notice.  When I wasn’t dieting or restricting my food I was also regularly binging and purging food.  Often when I would sleep over at someone’s house, or be involved in a social situation I would make a really big deal about “how much food I could eat”.  It was with delight that mothers of my friends would comment about my “hollow leg” and that it was amazing I never gained any weight!  I would eat many plates full of food at dinner, enjoy two servings of dessert, and run off to play with my friends.  Little did anyone know I was also regularly becoming disgusted with myself and within a few hours I would quietly sneak into a far bathroom and force myself to vomit all the food back up.  I think nobody ever suspected anything because of a combination of my happy and energetic exterior, the fact that all my friends had houses large enough that there were bathrooms out of the way, and my utter silence around this behavior due to my shame.

            When I was 18, I decided to take a year off between high school and college.  I had decided not to pursue ballet as a career because I realized how unhealthy the culture of ballet was.  I spent the year living in England and working at a college for young adults with developmental disabilities.  One month of that year I went and took a yoga teacher training in the Bahamas.  Part of this yoga teacher training was learning ancient Indian “purifying” rituals that were meant to cleans the body.  There were 80 people in my class and we all went through the bizarre acts of pouring salt water in one of our nostrils and watching it dribble out the other.  We swallowed a piece of soft cloth soaked in salt water and pulled it slowly back up our throats.  The final exercise was to swallow about 8 cups of salt water and then consciously vomit up this water as a way of cleansing the body.  I remember standing on the picturesque platform we all used to do yoga everyday and feeling waves of shame and panic wash over my body as I prepared for this “cleansing” activity.  After swallowing the water I felt naked as I prepared to force myself to throw up.  I had never had anyone watch me force myself to vomit.  As I joined the other people who had moved to the edge of the ocean and started throwing up the excess water I could not break the feeling of being seen at my worst.  Even though there were 80 of us, and nobody knew that I had a history of bulimia, I couldn’t help but feel like everyone was aware of my shame.  I finished the ritual and fell on the beach crying.  A friend of mine stayed with me and held me as I rocked back forth and admitted my past and gave voice to my shame and self-hatred.  I remember finally coming to place of calm sitting on the beach, now deserted.  I promised myself I would never force myself to throw up because of a desire to control my food intake ever again.

            I finished the retreat and returned to England.  I continued to feel shame and disgust towards my body, but kept my promise to myself.  Even when I ate more than was within the bounds of “ok” I never attempted to correct the situation by throwing up.  A kind of pride about making that change was deeply ingrained in me at that point.  I left England and came home and started college that fall.  I immediately signed up to play rugby. 

            In rugby there was a huge shift in how bodies were valued.  Coming in as a tiny and thin woman many people immediately began joking around with me.  I was going to have to put on weight, and fast, if I wanted to be successful in this new and exciting group of women.  Instead of competing against each other for a small number of spots like we had in ballet, this team needed everyone to push each other and work hard together for the success of the team as a whole.  Within a very short period of time my self-image began to shift.  Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing a huge, fat, and disgusting body I started to work out and eat massive amounts of food with the goal of gaining weight and muscle.  I still had a dysmorphic view of my own body.  I still believed that I was bigger than I was, but in the rugby community this was seen as “spunk”, “drive”, and “determination”.  Nobody could tell me I was little because I no longer wanted to hear that.  I played second row, which is a position that traditionally goes to the larger bodied players on the team.  They have to hold up the weight of the scrum and are the work horses on the field.  I was proud of the fact that I was as strong and as effective at the position despite the fact that other second rows in our league out-weighed me by at least 50 lbs.  People would laugh and tell me how little I was.  I would smile and say, “No, this is just a disguise, inside I’m really huge”.  The idea of being big was not disgusting or horrible anymore; it was a sign of strength and pride. 

How do we make the important changes in life?

         First, I believe that I needed to have the experience of deep and shattering shame as I was first actually seen performing the activity that represented my hatred of my body.  The emotional reaction that I had that day on the beach is like very few other moments in my life.  I remember being panicked and scared and not realizing why.  I had never before been hit by the force of feelings pushed down for so long.  At the same time that it was terrifying, I have never been so relieved to let something out and finally be seen.  This event was not only emotionally charged but was also set in a space that lent it to being memorable.  The view of the beach and being surrounded by people throwing up is not ever going to leave my mind.  I also had support immediately in that moment so that I could continue processing what was happening for me.  Also the fact that I was involved in a deeply reflective process of yoga training also opened me up to be hit as hard as I was by this situation. 

            I do not know if I would have been able to keep my promise to change my behavior if I had not joined the rugby team so soon after that life-changing event.  The rugby team had totally different values than I had grown up with as a ballerina.  Also, I had moved into a brand new circle of friends who had never known me before.  I had the ability to shape the person I could become based on new information and desires.  I no longer had to be accountable to the values and pressures of the ballet community.  The rugby team was an environment that encouraged feminist values and body positivity.  I happily jumped on board and starting going with this new flow.  It helped me so much to re-envision my body and work hard to become healthy and proud of myself.  I got a lot of positive attention as someone who was talented and skilled despite my small size.  In a way I wonder if I took all the force of will I had been using to hate and control myself, and instead used that energy fully on becoming a good rugby player.  I cannot imagine my life carrying around as much hatred and self-loathing as I used to.  It took so much energy to keep up, and in the end it was just hurting me.  I know for myself the importance of being in a community of caring, healthy, and positive people is huge when I assess my ability to make positive and lasting changes in my own life.   

To the ruggers in my life- I love you for so many reasons.  Not only for the laughter we've shared, the times you've been there when shit gets hard, but also because now every time I look in the mirror I actually like the person looking back.  Thanks guys...

I have been thinking a lot recently about the words that people use to describe their sexuality.  I think it really started when I heard my friend Kim describe herself by saying, "I'm not gay, but I'm not straight either.  I like to think I'm curvy!"  I loved that moment.  I loved hearing the individuality and play that went into describing this wonderful woman's sexuality in a unique and personal way.  I thought about how once, in a class with Buck Angel I had somehow found the courage to raise my hand and say- I'm awesomesexual I guess.  If you're awesome, I'll probably be attracted to you.  This week on the ScrewSmart facebook page I asked people how they described their sexuality.  I loved hearing back, "Lady Luva", "Pansexual", "twisted and bent", "Open to Suggestion", and "homoflexible" among others.  

I could almost hear the cardboard boxes labeled [L] [G] [B] ripping at the seems as people slowly demand that even the words used to describe their sexuality be seen as more individual to them and their experience.  I started looking around the big wide web- and I found so many things.  Little bees are really busy putting their thoughts about gender and sexuality out there.  This person denies that anyone can really say they are straight or gay or anything without being cisexist.  Now, I'ma be honest- I'm in the sexuality field and I didn't know what cisexist meant.  It sounds/looks like cis-exist...but turns out it's more cis-sexist in actual meaning. Ok, ok.  So Donkey the slow poke is catching up with new lingo.  Cool.  But then I found a website/project called The Sexual Fluidity Project.  This is what really took my mind and just blew it.  There are so many videos (I focused on the ones labeled, "How do you describe your sexuality") done by YOUNG folks talking all about the unique and personal sides of their sexuality.  It is both wonderful and slightly painful to watch in the same way that teenagers are often fantastic and painfully awkward.  As I flipped through the videos it took this one of a very charming and sweet 16 year old who says multiple times and with such earnestness, "I'm a pansexual" to finally break through my natural tendency to feel distaste for teenagers.  I stopped being a judger (it's a bad habit I'm trying to break, even in the privacy of home) and realized that there are a whole generation of kids who are feeling free to explore a wide landscape of sexual possibilities.  

This is the point! Right?  The reason ScrewSmart is in business is to encourage people to think openly about sex.  The kids (almost everyone I saw taped for this project seemed pretty young, right?) in these videos are doing this all on their own- because something in our culture educated them about it, and motivated them to give a damn.  It reminded me of my blog post about pondering whether or not being a freak is becoming cool.  To these young folks- it seems like owning a sexuality that is typically logged under the freak heading is at least worth enough social capital to video and put up on the web for strangers like me to wonder at.  

So this week, my tip of the Donkey Cap goes to the generation born in the 90's.  You're not that much younger than me- but I think you're living in a different world than the one I came up in.  You will change what typical is with this brazen openness to explore, your willingness to put yourself out there, and by diving into conversations about such a complex topic so eagerly.  You've certainly made me believe for this moment (oh, how the pendulum swings) that there are really important changes happening. Thanks!  And keep making those awkward and charming videos!!  Here are a few more:

Love!

Donkey

There have been so many unsettling events in my community of West Philadelphia in the last week.  It is important to note that the sense of unease goes much deeper than just the 2 natural disasters that have struck this woefully unprepared and prone to panic part of the country.  The things, you know- OTHER than the two natural disasters, that have left me with crawling skin include such headlines as Missing 2-day old boy found in Philadelphia, which turned out not to be a devious and bizarre baby snatching, but a mother who's rights had been terminated trying to keep her son.  There was also an ENTIRELY burned out car right in front of dear Pumpernickle's home.  This shell of a car could have easily been a seriously dangerous situation if it had exploded or caught fire.   Finally, the thing that has been most on my mind was the death of a young woman in the West Philadelphia community.  I do not know enough about what happened to speak about the incident with respect other than to say that someone in my community died this week.  Her name was May, and from pictures of her it seems like she fit into a lot of the same identities that I see when I look in the mirror.  These things have all been individually disturbing, but all together have left me with an unshakable sense of fearfulness.  

In direct response to my own fear, I would like to look at what good has come out of these incidents. They have shed light on the important aspects of my community that I don't always take the time to appreciate. Communities have their own personalities- just like people.  I think West Philadelphia is the first community I have lived in that I would describe as warm, caring, and personal.  I had never personally met May.  We had lots of shared friends, and she definitely existed in this small community of West Philly folks that I recognize from around town.  Within a few hours of her going missing (which preceeded the news that she had in fact passed away) I had seen multiple facebook about her, seen missing fliers up in local shops, and had had conversation with many people about the fact that there was a missing person from our community.  Even though I did not know May or talk to anyone directly looking for her- I was invested and cared about her well-being.  She had many people looking out for her, and trying to help.  I felt it was an organic and community wide effort that was fueled by caring. The news that her body had been found was also shepparded in by many concerned calls, processing conversations, and collectively sad hearts.  

I have never lived in a neighborhood that really connects people as intimately as West Philadelphia does.  I feel like people really are connected here in the way that makes it feel small in a good way.  I can't walk down Baltimore Ave. without stopping to say hi! to a few people I know.  Whenever I have visitors in town, they always comment about how amazing it is that we see so many people I know well enough to stop and say hi to.  "It's just the way that West Philadelphia is," I always truthfully respond.  

Even as I am working overtime to process the amount of news that has shaken my world over the last week- I am thankful to look around and see that I'm in a community that supports me in these hard moments.  Hard moments are going to come no matter what- but I would much rather bare the weight of those hardships being surrounded by people who care.

I just returned from a clothing swap where an example of how to build community was modeled perfectly. The event was already pretty fantastic seeing as the hostess provided a shelter and champagne for our wardrobe switch-a-roo. Another friend schlepped enough chili to feed more than a few hungry mouths, whiskey to share, and oooodles of amazing clothes on public transportation from Northern Liberties (that's a long journey!) for our enjoyment. Her generousity and love reminded me of the small/big ways we can all work to make those connections that sustain and support us in the hard moments.  

Here's a really cheezy poster to get a list started. I would really love to hear people's stories of how their communities respond to hard times.  What do you do to build community?  Has someone shown you love and support in a way that left a mark?  This world just keeps getting crazier and scarier, and sometimes I feel like the only thing we have is each other. 

Love! Donkey

It is at times like this that I think back on the many jobs i've held for non-profits so snaggletoothed and crazed that there was never any time for reflection let alone fidget toys and sweat glands. Its a wonder to me that some organizational machines can stay in motion without this kind of care. Inevitably new goals are set and old ways get re-examined. How can any boss think that this is time poorly spent? It is moments like these that i am thankful that this labor of love exists in our hands, that we get to decide what is healthy and what comes next. We may well decide to facilitate all of our workshshops in giant owl and pastry costumes. We may decide that stilts are the way to go. We may decide that we simply must invest in a mobile sex-toy vending machine that fits on the back of our new ScrewSmart mascot weiner dog. 

Please rest assured that whatever we decide on our retreat, we've got our flies down and our brains lit whilst we decide on it.

oxxo

Yep, and get paid to do it!

I’ve recently began a new relationship with a fantastic fellow for whom I feel quite strongly.  He shares the same amount of perviness that pumps through my own bloodstream and it has been a treat to explore and go on adventures together.  One of these adventures is watching porn.  A few weeks back, I mentioned a bunch of movies and stars I wanted to bring to his attention because they are really fucking awesome.  Don’t get it wrong, the man is no porn novice, but I just happen to be so overtly inundated with dirty movies that I’ve somehow crawled myself up to an ‘expert’ level in some regards.  Not only was he super game to watch, he was excited to watch with me.  Apparently he had plenty of experience incorporating porn into his sex life in the past, but never with porn that he necessarily could identify with, and I had little to no prior porn viewings with partners, so we were both excited to give it a go.

 Brunch Bunch... yum!One of the kinds of porn I really wanted to share was queer porn.  I wasn’t sure of his experiences with queer porn, especially since it’s a pretty niche and new genre, and I really wanted to show specific movies and scenes that I found über hot.  Also, we are both big old queers, and I liked the idea of us watching people like us fuck on screen.  And now that the queer porn market is growing, there are a whole bunch of different movies to choose from that feature my kind of femme ladies getting busy with his kind of hot, tattooed trans dudes.  (You have no idea how flushed I got just writing that sentence…)  So on one particular date night, we ordered in a pizza, and settled in to take a look at Dolores Park Studios’ Brunch Bunch, one of HM4Her’s newest queer additions. (Note: This is NOT a commercial for HotMoviesForHer, it's just where I work and I knew where I could easily find the movie.)

It turns out that he didn’t have too much experience with queer porn at all.  He’d been watching porn for years and years, but mostly mainstream and fetish movies, which is what I had figured the case would be.  Apparently queer porn isn’t all that well known, especially to a different generation of queers.  While on one hand I get that, I am still so saturated with hot queers on film that I am a little surprised when folks don’t know what I’m talking about.  It just goes to show that my job is doing the important work by getting hot dirty movies to the masses.  I’ve never felt more like Mother Theresa… anyway, back to our regularly scheduled smut consuming discussion.

So yes, this was my guy’s first experience watching trans guys fuck on film, and not only did it make both of us wicked hot (he by watching it, me by watching him watch it), we ended up with a deeper result as well.

April and I in Toronto for the Feminist Porn Awards!For him, seeing trans men on film getting fucked (just the language I am using, not the words other folks may use*) and still maintaining their masculinity helped ease his mind about what enjoying those types of experiences means when it comes to feeling like a man.  Hell, just seeing someone who has a body/identity like yours in a sexy role and being sexually desired can be transformative.  I know that watching zaftig hotties like April Flores and Courtney Trouble have amazing sex has positively influenced my own sexual self image, so I can somewhat understand those pangs of recognition.  I also can’t forget to mention that it’s a real fucking turn-on to watch folks like you get off.  Well, at least we really liked it.

It felt really special and intimate to share this experience, as well as got us both totally rearing to go, which we soon did.  I don’t even think we made it past scene two before getting frisky on the couch and heading to the bedroom, which clearly means there is definitely a second viewing in our future.  I really loved that I was able to offer him something that made him feel so good – and made him feel as sexy as I think he is.  We had some wicked hot action that night (and every other night, to boot!)

I am a firm believer that porn can be totally empowering and thought-provoking and really help people get to a higher place sexually.  It’s one of the reasons I love my job and spend so much time preaching the porno gospel.  And because I have dedicated my life to fighting the sex positive fight, I took the lessons of this personal experience and offered it to a larger group, bringing queer and trans porn to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, where I did a workshop with the amazing Drew Deveaux (who is actually in Brunch Bunch!).

To make this long story short, I learn new things about porn all the time, and I am so excited that I get to share them with the people I love, including you guys. 

[*As a side for readers that may not understand what I mean – being fucking in a vagina does not make you a woman.  It just means that you are enjoying genitals that get you hot.  Many trans dudes still use the bits they were born with, even if they don’t necessarily call it the medical names they are given, or even identify with it at all.  There are also trans dudes that love their vaginas loudly and proudly – just look at our friend Buck Angel, the self described Man With A Pussy!]

Thanks for taking the time to read this.  I hope it sticks with you and plants seeds about the ways porn can do more than just get you off.

xoxo
-J.D.