ABCs Of Kink

Survival for Queers Depends on Cis Education Even as Queerness Uplifts All Society

July 7, 2019 by ABCs Of Kink

My performance as “Sirius Black’ caused waves of discomfort and inspiration…

The concept titled is not a complex thought, however it’s a perspective not spoken of enough within cishet-normative and queer cultures. I’ve been thinking lately about the tension between who I am, who I want to be, how I’ve been told to exist, and what space is left over in which I not only survive, but thrive. Obviously everyone journeys through life figuring out how much social influence feels ok to them, and in what ways they must press into previously unknown discomforts in order to be the person they want to be/feel they are authentically inside. This struggle is not limited to queers and marginalized people, but it does exponentially speak to those experiences, and vastly complicates the mechanisms for survival within society for those people. Ultimately, better understanding the struggles of other people is inherently tied to an ability to thrive for every individual.

Last month was PRIDE, and as usual people started talking about whether or not kinky people should be included under that celebrated queer banner. I wrote my response here. If it isn’t obvious from my blog, career, and openness concerning my identities, I believe “kinky” is absolutely and on no uncertain terms a sexual orientation for a many people—myself included. Kinky play can also be considered a spicy activity, just as sexually experimenting with same sex individuals, cheating or playing at opening a relationship to some degree, or performative crossdressing might be considered experimental behaviors for people who are not interested in embracing LGBT or non-monogamous identities.

As I consider my experience of being actively (as opposed to casually or experimentally) kinky, I would be remiss not to point out how navigating kinkiness is intricately tied to cishet normative patriarchal expectations. In a clear example of how cishet patriarchal values make their way into kink culture as a persistant “norm”, let’s look at how one even locates compatible play partners. I’ll start by saying this though: my experience of kinky people is that they are individually much more versatile when it comes to the Kinsey scale of acceptable play partners than those who identify as vanilla. However, searching through Fetlife groups to find partners who value various types of queerness can be maddening. Example: for every 50 or so groups designed to bring Male Doms and female subs together (cishet normative and centering), there are might be 25 groups offering a home to Femme Doms and their male subs (also cishet centric at face value, though not normative and maybe slightly more inclusive as these groups will often utilize the term “femme” inclusively), after that one will find a scant few generally unpopular groups specifically designed for lesbian, gay, or gender nonconforming D/s kinksters, which are usually welcoming of cishet allies. By the numbers I’m still much more likely to find a local match combing through groups which cater to the dominant paradigm—even though I also encounter a higher (and often much more hurtful) level of rejection and bigoted responses from within their ranks. Many cishet kinky people who are open to LGBTQIA partners are still more likely to join the larger groups reflecting only the values of dominant culture, than they are to seek out smaller queer-defined inclusive ones. Unless a cishet person is a fetishist specifically looking for that version of queer, or a “chaser”*, or a committed ally, the easiest and most populated groups to find are those which reflect the values of our society’s dominant paradigm. In the end even groups which form in order to create space for marginalized people often end up limited in real life opportunities for connection.

[*Here I will note that unfortunately even with some fetishists and chasers one risks contending with objectification as a member of the marginalized group, rather than finding a connection formed from a desire for meaningful allyship (not always, but this is common).]

Being out about my kinky and queer identities does not allow me to cut out of my life people who hold bigoted views against me, which is largely not the case with bigots who would do so. Vanilla people and those who successfully closet themselves or hide their kinky orientation and activities, maintain privileges I cannot. A good example of this is trying to get a job. My presence on the internet as a kinky queer person and as a sex worker (not to mention female and visibly trans) automatically disqualifies me from a huge percentage of work opportunities offered by individuals and corporate entities who do not understand or value, and who may actively hold bigoted views against these parts of me. My identities, experiences, and history hold no meaningful bearing on my ability to do any of the work I would be applying for, yet the boss who knows who I am outside the realm of the office has the power and opportunity to withhold their proximal privilege from me. If I was a disabled or non-white person the number of people able to look past my identities and see value in my potential for work would fall off even more sharply. This is the reality of all queerness, all marginalization.

Majority culture setting default social values is problematic insomuch as it actively limits and tries to legislate all who are not “like” and in its comprehensive reward system for those who are. These problems compound as they train all people to repress their own questioning and offset desires in order to “pass” or “succeed” as they develop and grow. In a word: repression. The individual journey of each cishet person to understand, accept, and value diversity, coupled with active work to dismantle damaging community-wide preferences is antidote to the oppression of all, especially “other”. Therefore it is largely up to majority identified people to create a world which invites all people to coexist and profit equally. As such, it is the work of marginalized people to educate and to protest. That is all we have in the end at our behest.

Why would a profitable imbalance be rectified through the actions of those profiting? Cishet people may not consciously know that they need people who are not like them (just as white people may not clearly understand their need for people of color), however they deeply and primally do in order to be more whole. Cishet people need queers of all stripes not only because we’re fabulous and bring color and joy to the world, but because we understand at a primal level a lot of issues and subtleties about the workings of society they probably haven’t spent the time to examine or articulate for themselves. Those disparities when understood fully offer a more comprehensive world for everyone, leading to each person’s opportunity to experience and hold more options within their own lives.

Alternately, the queers and I need cishet people because, well: paycheck, food, shelter, healthcare, social services, and not dying. I’m talking about primary resources for staying alive, as those things are largely owned and dispensed by the dominant group vs. more subtle opportunities for joy, self-actualization, emotional growth, increased empathy, and an individual’s more expansive core sense of peace and harmony within the world. We all have work to do. Queer people, women, people of color, disabled people, immigrants, etc. hold information (complex knowledge and experiences) which can uplift, educate, and expand options for everyone. Those who have not done the work to find these things within themselves have usually not done so exactly because they have not needed to in order to survive.

When I mention that the usefulness of cishet people is a paycheck, what I mean is not only the obvious, but also comprehensive. Taken literally I’m saying cishet people (and exponentially men who are also white) take home the most disposable income. Those are the people, as a sex worker, artist, and entertainer (jobs I’m able to navigate relatively successfully without asking patriarchally approved employers to accept my resume and very “out” online footprint), from whom my income is mainly derived. I absolutely need cishet and questioning (especially white and often male) people to value and be accepting of trans masculine-ish nonbinary (aka not traditionally femme presenting) queer females in order to make meaningful income. By the numbers this is absolutely true. The more people there are in dominant culture who understand, accept, and become interested in my specific minority categories, the more business opportunities come my way and the opportunity for my very survival increases drastically.

Invisibility = Death.

Visibility within a hostile and bigoted society = Death.

Visibility, understanding, and acceptance = an opportunity to not only survive but also and equally to thrive.

Minorities serve to expand consciousness and advocate the gifts of diversity, whether that minority group is visible within dominant culture or as a subset of a minority culture. There will always be differences between individuals in any community, yet within those differences are opportunities to continue questioning ourselves and grow stronger, more to the light of who we are and who we wish to be. We are all in this together.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please help me pay rent: join Patreon, offer Support or email me directly. Thank you

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: cishet, is kink queer, learning about privilege, minority education, passing privilege, patriarchy hurts everyone, survival sex work

Memories of Swimming Naked

June 30, 2019 by ABCs Of Kink

When we were children there was this game that was played. 4th grade. I was in a new school, new town, with new “friends”. Football, drugs, and church summed up this new place. At least one Minister was known for indiscretions. Maybe with kids. I don’t know what those parents payed attention too, just the stories children told. Still, it seemed the churchgoers weren’t listening.

This school system’s rival was two towns over. These cities might have been like your own hometown. If you’re older than 35 and female, was always one of the boys even though you enjoyed dresses, and if you were from a rural area too you may already be familiar with some of this story…

The game was boys against girls. It was kind of like tag (or training for future drunken assault). Boys chased girls around the schoolyard and captured them, dragging them into boy-jail against the fence. A few of them kept guard so you couldn’t get away. It was supposed to be sexy (I think?). Forth grade hormones were kicking in, and we were all starting to be scrambled up by the simplest, awkwardest things. For example, Kirk Cameron was a poster you could get through The Reading Club and everyone had him.

I wasn’t turned on during this recess game though, I was terrified. I didn’t want to be owned by a boy, put in his jail, and told I couldn’t leave to spend my recess how I wanted.

Maybe it was the ethics of 1987 imprinting on my young mind, but that year I also had dreams of getting breast implants. Dolly Parton was pictured in lace in a magazine being passed around the classroom to smirks and stares as we learned about the vas deferens and fallopian tubes. It’s too bad they never told us they’re the same things, just in different bodies…

During that game I’d sit on the tar, knees to my chest, arms clenched by my sides when a boy caught my eye and start running towards me. On the basketball court, which rarely saw basketball played, I’d tighten all of my muscles as hard as I could, clenching my jaw and squeezing closed my eyes. I made myself heavy and dense. I willed my body to be immoveable. Unpickupable. Sheer intention through physical lockdown was my ritual. After plenty of tries, by the end of our time, I proved too big a hassle, and would be left alone. Uncaptured.

I was a boulder in a dress.

No fun.

Next recess I’d find other friends, always girls at that age. I still wasn’t safe from the games I didn’t like that they played, but at least I liked them enough to engage.

This is to say that I was a child. I taught myself these things, ’cause it seemed the teachers weren’t listening.

I was stranded further out each time I stood with my gut against the grain. I was mocked and bullied or beat because this kid had a crush on me, or that kid had a crush on them, and I was too oblivious and awkward, too weird to understand the mating rituals of teenagers and their often violent endings.

A couple grades later added male teachers to the list of people trying to look down my dress or up my skirt. Boys learned to sneak glimpses loitering by the girl’s bathroom entrance. It was Freshman year. I went to the mandatory (because I was in marching band) football pep rally. There I witnessed our rival team’s mascot being burned in a raging bonfire while drunken townsfolk cheered. I went home early with a stomachache, not understanding this type of revelry. That school district was hell, and the sports fans definitely weren’t listening.

###

The mascot burned that night was of high school number two that I went to. Sophomore year. I joined Latin Club, and went to their social to meet people. During potluck lunch they learned I had come from enemy territory. By the end of the social I’d been sold at highest price to bidders. You see, new club members were considered merchandise for a mock Roman slave auction fundraising activity. The following day at school I was charged with doing whatever my new “owner”, a popular Senior, desired. So in 1993 I sang on cafeteria tabletops, crawled on my knees to Math, and other less palatable things. The entire school was complicit, so “it was ok”, and I was excused for my sore knee’d lateness to class.

At this same school I was assaulted by my gym teacher while sitting on the bleachers waiting to play my trombone for pep band at “the game”. He continued to harass me during gym class after a meeting between my parents and the Principle didn’t change anything. No, the authorities were not listening.

###

School number three was a smaller more artsy school, nestled directly between the prior two. There was no football team, instead Soccer ruled their day. They had an intramural hockey team captained by a few kids who became my friends—they were Jazz Band geeks too. They had named their hockey team “the Scrodominators”, and I’d met most of them over the summer in community theater. They started a battle-of-the-bands ensemble, so I joined and played trombone and back-up sang to Weezer’s “Undone”. We won, and were given a performance slot at the bandstand during our town’s yearly Summer Holiday. We wore peach and green tie-dyed t-shirts, newly silk screened, to unabashedly announce our group’s name to the city: “The Fuzzy Apricots”. (We thought we were pretty funny.)

This pack of boys who caused mischief were my crew. Senior year they even came to my ballet classes and learned choreography for a recital or talent show or something… I was kind of an honorary “one of them”, often serving as the bridge to the girl’s group who hung out with us too. On nights when I felt the blood stirring restless in my veins, I’d call the guys to get invited out. We’d skate on a nearby pond, hike around private property exploring abandoned quarries, or play hockey in the road in front of my house until the police (having little else to do), would pull up in the middle of my epically empty street and threaten county jail for our “illegal street activity” which was “impeding the (nonexistent) flow of traffic”. I literally and metaphorically lived on the wrong side of the tracks, but my friends had parents who were lawyers. We were lucky, and most of us were white in this tiny city with only one flashing yellow light.

Summer nights after Senior year were filled with breaking into the ironically named “Yacht Club”. Ironic because it was on a small lake where the townsfolk kept their canoes and a sunfish or two locked away. After midnight we’d go naked swimming—everyone knew the combination on that gate. Ravenous by 2am we’d hit up Dunkin’s, the only 24/7 joint within an hour’s drive, and then maybe grab a cigar from someone’s house to share while playing overtly flirtatious rounds of Mao in a barn attic down the street from my house until dawn.

We were drunk on each other.

On daring to play and make up games.

Fed by hormones and creativity.

In my teenage years my friends and I were busted up by local cops while lovemaking in the forest, on beaches, and in fields. You see, country is country, and under a black sky filled with billions of stars, smoking shitty 1990’s New England weed on the javelin mats out by the high school track, or on a lake in some friend’s no electric no plumbing summer shack, or in the attic bedroom where our whole Senior class almost got mono, that was pretty much what there was to do. With nothing but time and youth on our side, we were searching out the Deities of pleasure. Pleasure was the only thing we knew of to get us out (funny how I long for that mundane and gorgeous land today).

I wanted to move to the city and be an artist.

For college I ended up in Boston.

The rest is history.

###

What I’m saying is that artists have been the only folks even remotely safe for me to explore with, well the artists and the queers. Dominant culture still scares and never ceases to surprise me. How does one survive, so shut down and seemingly full of hatred? How does one not see misogyny, racism, rampant queerphobia, transphobia, and other oppressions—they’re established and practiced cornerstones of our severely limiting and dangerous patriarchy?

It is 2019.

Online I read, typed out over and again: someone begging for understanding of violent rapists or those who overtly undermine the bodies and rights of people who contend with pregnancy; the chalking up of this burned cross or that dead trans woman of color to sticking out “inappropriately”; adamant red-faced tales describing border detainees as “illegal” versions of humanity; not to mention politically manipulative redistricting defined as “permissible” constitutionally.

I live in a neighborhood full of people with skin different colors than my own, yet our bank accounts are probably quite the same. I’ve empathy, though I’ll never know firsthand my neighbor’s specific struggles or feel the exact grief in someone else’s bones for what they’ve lived through and had passed down as trauma generationally. We don’t have the same privileges in this society, and so we live together suspicious sometimes… until we’re not. Sometimes all you can do is sit in your car or drive, stereo loud enough to beat down repression before it catches up.

My experiences aren’t dire compared to many of my neighbors’ when that repression takes the form of cops.

According to politicians and people of means, we’re meant to be caged like animals for daring to survive.

Those with power are actively choosing the behavior of never listening.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please help me pay rent: join Patreon, offer Support or email me directly. Thank you

Filed Under: Brain on Download Blog Tagged With: classism, latin club, playing Mao, poverty, racism, rural living, teachers who molest students, when the cops come

Emotional Literacy

June 26, 2019 by ABCs Of Kink

Parsing the information of emotions from how emotions feel…

Yesterday morning I was listening to WBUR and the anchor introduced reporter Tamara Keith. She then transitioned into the interview by asking “Tam” a question. “Interesting”, I thought. I wondered if this was an example of familiarity between friends which slipped out in a professional environment? I wonder if it bothers Tamara to be called that on air? I reflected on whether or not it was a branding choice, “Tam” seeming more like an approachable, light and easy person to discuss complex subjects with? I mused over whether if some reporter named “Robert” was called “Bob” during a story, would there would be hell to pay? Was this nickname permissible on air because Tamara was younger than other reporters, or was this person being called Tam as a test to see how it was handled? I wondered if it was an indication of our culture showing less respect to female reporters?… Most of these particular questions probably came to me because of my own struggles within office workplaces as a younger female (in other words, my perspective is more about me than the subject of my intrigue—an important note).

After that moment of musing, my queries passed and I listened to the rest of the news story. When the story wrapped though, it happened again—”Tamara Keith” was introduced to us, the listening audience, and then “Tam” was personally thanked for the interview. This time around I wondered if Tam was maybe trans? Had the reporter known as Tamara started asking people to speak with her/them/him on air as “Tam”, as a way to established familiarity for the audience so it might be easier to transition into an introduction of “Tam Keith” one day? [Note: I know no personal details or information about Tamara Keith, and have not looked up any answers to these questions. This specific story is not what my article is about.]

Why am I writing about the random questioning process I went through, and the stories I’ve (obviously) made up about a situation I know nothing about (and which doesn’t really concern me)? I guess the first point I need to make is that when I noticed the juxtaposition of names on the radio, I had a feeling. That feeling could have been responded to by me being annoyed or pissed off or by getting righteous or judgemental… By asking questions though, I took the time to gather a level of information before responding. With no first hand knowledge or other research on the subject, I found myself speculating, and I let my speculations go. The information I gathered was about the nature of my own questions and assumptions, not meaningful answers about the situation. Without meaningful information answering my questions there was no response to be had.

Practicing the behavior of questioning distanced me from immediate reaction or an unjustified action—I could have assumed WBUR didn’t care about gender or people’s preferred names. That space I created though, between noticing something which seemed out of place and then acting on it, allows me to wonder instead of react. Simply put, I’m giving myself a chance to understand the situation from multiple points of perspective rather than running with the assumption I feel the most clearly. Chances are that the feeling I’m having most clearly is more about me than it is about the situation I’m questioning.

My mother used to say, “Feelings are feelings. Feelings aren’t the truth”. Of course saying this in the midst of my hot and passionate, youthful and viscerally felt emotional outbursts, I did nothing but protest! My feelings certainly felt like the truth—the only possible truth! AND DON’T YOU WANT ME TO NAME MY TRUTH?!?!!! … In time though, with maturity (surviving adolescence helped a great deal), and the gathering of new experiences and perspectives in my life, I began to understand that what she was saying wasn’t, “You’re a drama queen who needs to stop acting on your emotions because you’re wrong”, but, “Feelings are a natural part of reacting to a situation and processing it; feelings contain really important information, however they aren’t the final answer you’re probably looking for concerning how to behave or address the situation at hand”.

In short, feelings are information. Feelings often preempt and fuel reactionary behavior. Reactionary behaviors have a wide variety of consequences and responses depending on how appropriate or destructive they are to the people receiving them. If I look at feelings as information, I can mine them for potential answers. I begin to develop a practice of slowing down and examining what my feelings are telling me, rather than how I feel about what I’m being told. Slowing down, creating space around a thing that pricks me emotionally, and figuring out what that emotion is “about” for me, is a process which has taught me a lot about what I need, want, am capable of, and even how to hear other people and their differing perspectives better. I become invested in my own mechanism of meaning making, rather than subject to kneejerk responses.

In the shower this morning I was thinking about my failings and learning curve. I’m still learning how to evolve from where I’ve been to where I would like to be. Lately, for instance, I noticed I care more about people calling me “Creature” instead of “Karin”, and using they/them pronouns. It’s more tiring and I find it more jarring when people refer to me now as they have in the past. What grace I have for other people’s learning curves is dwindling when it concerns those topics.

I find it funny that for an entire lifetime before coming out as a genderfluid/nonbinary trans person, I often joked, “I’ve never been a lady and I’m not going to start now”, when servers would flash by my table with a, “Ladies, can I get you anything?”. When I found myself down South for a couple years the use of that word, lady, was sooooo pervasive I fell out of practice with this line. It felt rude, more dangerous, or like I was battling a deep tradition I didn’t want to push against so constantly. It probably also felt more personal, as that was the period of my life where I was coming to terms with my own gender more deeply and articulately.

Sometimes we need examples to figure out how to advocate for ourselves calmly, instead of through the use of vitriol, exhausted shortness, thick judgement, or anger. A friend of mine recently advocated for our genderqueer table at a restaurant when we were “lady’d”. My friend asked the server if he’d heard of they/them pronouns, and explained that only one of the people at the table uses female pronouns so if he wanted to refer to us as a group, using gender neutral terms would be the most appropriate and respectful way to do that. The server listened and asked questions, it turned out to be a nice experience which loosening the tension most of us felt while being referred to outside of our identities. Instead of feeling bad and then scared about speaking up, I was shown a way to ask for what I want and educate, if need be, to a positive end.

Back to my learning curve. When I talk to anyone “official” over the phone, I’ve held back from asking them to use the name “Creature” or telling them it really bothers me to be referred to as “miss” or other feminine titles. I’ve stifled myself mostly because of fear—not wanting a negative response, or to deal with the person doubling down on misgendering me from spite or bigotry, or for something even more important to be held against me as a result of my asking to be addressed as I prefer. After being given an example of what it could look like to carve that space for myself out, I decided to get better at self advocacy.

So, ungracefully, in the middle of phone calls I started blurting out, “Don’t call me miss, I don’t use female pronouns”. I’m sure I had an agitated voice and spoke rather harshly. I didn’t like the way it felt, and I didn’t like the result (which was usually some sort of “whatever” response and dismissal of what I was asking). After a few botched tries though, I managed to create that space inside of myself. I was eventually able to pause in the conversation and bring the subject of pronouns up, and my preferred name. I was able to calmly, and in a sharing manner interrupt the conversation to say, “So you’re aware, I don’t use female pronouns, and do not enjoy being called lady or miss. You can call me Creature though, as that’s the name I use. If you need to use pronouns, I prefer they/them”.

Most of the time when I’ve been able to approach the subject this way, I’ve been apologized to and thanked for the information. One time though I very clearly shook the person I was speaking to and their own reaction was fascinating for me to observe. Their voice faltered and they mentioned they had to use the name that was in their system, they then quickly said that they didn’t want to get anything wrong, and would I please be kind if they made a mistake? They sounded small, and like they cared, and also afraid… So I can see that fear works both ways. When we both slowed down and spoke from a place of understanding our own emotional worlds, we became better at hearing each other and advocating for ourselves.

I know I’m defensive and angry and bothered and a whole host of other difficult emotions to work through at times. Sometimes what those feelings are telling me is that I’m not asking for what I need, so I’m not getting what I need, which is why I’m feeling angry or disrespected. Sometimes an upsurge of anger is telling me to get far away from a person or situation because their behavior is indicating I’m not safe. Sometimes I’m just in a bad mood and every little thing feels overwhelming, in which case I check in with myself to make sure I’ve eaten, drunk enough water, had enough sleep, and assess whether I’m coming down with something (unless the reason for my bad mood is clearly evident already, in which case I probably know what steps I need to take to fix it). The point is that not every nail needs to be pounded with a hammer. I’ve diversified my skills.

I love that I get to feel a whole range of feelings alongside the joyful and pleasurable ones. Each emotion helps me understand myself and interact with other people more efficiently. Feeling is a huge part of the information I need to function in society alongside masses of different people living different lives and making different meanings than I. Feeling helps me understand how to be happily autonomous, yet not an island.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please help me pay rent: join Patreon, offer Support or email me directly. Thank you

Filed Under: Brain on Download Blog Tagged With: advocating for pronouns, emotional literacy, emotions are information, how not to deadname, how to advocate for yourself through fear, mistakes aren't the end of the world, mistakes help us learn