How to Approach a Sex Worker, a Woman, a Stranger, or Anyone Else You’d Like Something From

May 31, 2019 by

The following rant is not the way to make money (unfortunately), but hopefully it serves as education and a mental jog for entitled dudes. Yes, in my experience it’s pretty much always dudes who think sliding into my DMs with a “hey” or “I’d love to sit on your table”, and then get all, “oh I didn’t know you’re only here for professional” (or worse, like throwing a tantrum or becoming agro/offensive), when I offer to share my rates, is a way to connect with me or literally get anything they want from anyone ever.

For context, my profiles are very clear about what I’m looking for on Fetlife and other professionally oriented places I advertise my services. I offer: professional Domination; BDSM skills and safety classes; sexuality, gender, identity, and relationship coaching; relaxation massage informed by a background of various dance/physical alignment modalities and from the perspective of sexological bodywork.

Unless a person is capable of actual seduction in an environment where I’m looking to be seduced—not form community and find clients—there’s absolutely no reason why I’d be interested in servicing said stranger, or engaging in some inarticulate thing which takes up my time, energy, and career knowledge. This is especially true considering what these people are looking for is within my industry, and so I have plethora investment and skills in sensuality, BDSM, and sexuality education. I deserve better. So does every person alive. Therefore, to the people who insist on chatting me up in the least interesting and most entitled ways possible, I have this to say:

Your communication is lacking, your profile usually doesn’t tell me anything about you (almost every single time your information, photos, even your kinks haven’t been filled out), and your approach of me is extremely less than considered. Honestly, you’re categorically not my type outside of client relations. You’re not even my type within client relations, but I’ll spend more energy getting to know someone who’s paying me for my time to do so. I’m sure you understand, I mean it’s pretty basic when you consider the fact that I, stranger you find attractive, don’t owe you anything.

Please do feel free to talk to me like a human being who has something you desire and value though. Approach me in a manner befitting someone you are attracted to for reasons. If you decide I’m worth your energy and thoughtful consideration, feel free to try and befriend me without expecting anything other than friendship. Alternately, if you’d like an experience where you don’t have to try as hard, and will compensate me for my time and energy to that end, definitely let me know in your introduction.

When I share my rates with you, it’s best that you either don’t respond because you’re not interested, or respond generously and thank me for my time. It’s even appropriate to let me know you can’t afford my rates, or wonder if I’d ever consider trade or an alternate arrangement. As long as you acknowledge that you’re asking for something of value from me and understand you’ll have to put in energy too if you have any hope of gaining these things you desire, we can at least have a respectful exchange before I decide whether or not I’m interested.

I don’t owe you my time, attention, skills, consideration, or anything else. I enjoy working with patrons who value me, and I share my skills when appropriate and joyfully with people I’m close to—I even share a ton of knowledge for free through my kink blog. You, stranger popping up in my feed, aren’t these things to me. You’re a boring entitled waste of my time and energy, and I delete a lot of you from my inbox daily.

Spend your own energy before you attempt to pilfer mine.

For those of you who are realizing that you yourselves, perhaps, have approached women, queers, sex worker professionals, and other regularly sexualized, fetishized, or objectified persons with such demand or ignorance: I’m glad you can see it. It’s not hard to change, you just have to write a thoughtful sentence before you hit send. Just write one thoughtful sharing thing to say, that might pique the receiver’s actual interest in you as a person. Eventually you might work up to two or three sentences, and someday you very may well knock my socks off with a (not narcissistic or completely self absorbed) couple of paragraphs cultivated in order to let me know a bit about you, why you are interested in me, what you’d like to offer me for my attention, and a bit about what specifically you’re looking for.

We’re both adults (otherwise you shouldn’t be approaching me about such things in the first place), and I expect adult behavior from people who want to engage in adult activities. Everyone starts at the beginning, don’t get stuck before you’ve learned a single thing.

Absolutely no one is into it. This behavior is no one’s kink.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please visit my Patreon, offer one time Support or email me for options. Thank you.

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

Trash Fires

May 13, 2019 by

Deep breath. Slow, in and out. Let go of the tension. Calm the nerves. Allow my cortisol levels to drop… Steady. Grounding. Coming back to the moment I’m in. It’s going to be alright…

If I took the time to do this for five minutes everytime I read about or experienced an injustice which directly impacts me (much less the ones I read about and witness others who are less privileged than myself endure) I would be in a constant state of meditation. I would live the life of a monk. I would never be able to stop paying attention to my breath and body. Understandably, there are many days I don’t have the bandwidth to post about or speak on the subjects I find demeaning and unfair.

I am exhausted that so rarely people who aren’t directly targeted by a particular social issue speak up about it on my or other’s behalves.

When someone is hit by a car they are generally not the one calling 911 and managing the scene of the accident. If you were lying there, trying not to paralyze yourself, focusing on managing your broken physicality, amped up emotions, and fearful mind until help gets to you, other people—people who were not directly effected by the accident, and perhaps the person responsible for the harm—are the people who manage response. They are the people who call for help, who ask you if you’re ok, who make sure that whatever information needs to be gathered is being taken care of, and that you are out of further harm’s way.

For some reason racism, sexism, and other human rights issues are only treated when the victims of these crimes take responsibility for everything related to response and cleanup of the crime—even to the point of educating perpetrators and managing their resistance to compliance within our social order. There are so many problems with the world that we live in, this cannot continue to be the way we make meaning or allocate our resources.

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Racism: Anyone and everyone harbors bigotry somewhere inside. It is every individual’s job to examine their personal issues and learn to grow and share this planet we live on. Because our country (and the world) is a place which has hundreds of years of institutionalized bigotry directed specifically at nonwhite people (therefore unfairly, disproportionately, and over generations exponentially profiting white people), racism cannot be thought of as anything other than a problem for white people to examine and solve. Consider it a disease if that helps, and seek treatment. We white people must educate ourselves about what to do in situations where racism is evident (and to see evidence of racism), regardless of whether or not people of color are present. We must challenge ourselves when we are called out, and begin to see the racism we ourselves perpetuate. Until white folk are as clear about what oppression looks like as the oppressed are, racism and the enculturation of violence by it shall persist. As long as there is institutionalized bigotry, every single white person will profit off of racist behaviors in one way or another. We should not want those things.

Sexism: See “racism” above. Apply to sex and gender based bigotry.

Abortion Access: AMAB folk, and people not able to get pregnant must speak up in favor of bodily autonomy for women and AFAB people who risk both wanted and unwanted pregnancies. Not only does the law in the United States state that abortion is a private medical matter, but access to abortion is protected until and, in cases that threaten the life of the mother, through the third trimester. Access to safe abortion is an issue which directly effects ONLY marginalized populations. Not a single person who can get pregnant is of the highest and most privileged ruling class. Something to think about: what does it mean if you support taking a marginalized person’s bodily autonomy away from them?

Anti-Choice: If you are anti-choice because you believe yourself to be pro-life, that is entirely your own right, and please do not have any abortions. I beg of you to follow your heart entirely in such matters. In the meantime, it’s obviously a primary directive of yours to ensure that all children who are born have access to affordable healthcare and medication, healthy food and nourishment, safe housing, and safe family situations or adequate alternative parental support. It’s clear that you care deeply about access to top tier education for all regardless of class, and honest discussions about sex alongside comprehensive (definitely not abstinence only) sexuality education offered to young people. It’s wonderful that you voted for increased state funding for easy access to free birth control, as this method has proven to drastically lower the rate of teen pregnancy, as well as the rate of individuals under 30 seeking abortions—yay! I assume you rally as hard against the school-to-prison system as you do Planned Parenthood, as prisons rob families of two-parent households and the income they need to rear children sufficiently in alignment with the wild abandon you celebrate every embryo’s right to life. Thank you for being so active and vocal in the fight against immigrant children being taken away from their parents, and being as intolerant of detention centers as you are. I really appreciate all of the hours and money you pour into anti-gun violence legislation, your sincere efforts to keep weapons out of schools, and your pledge to keep all children who have been born safe, healthy, out of abject poverty potentially leading to a life of crime, and alive.

Immigration: No people came to this piece of land we call the United States seeking home because they weren’t looking for a better life. The white people who first colonized this land did so violently, and it is not acceptable that we continue perpetuating their inherited violence onto those who would peacefully do only what our forefathers, foremothers, and forezaddies have already accomplished. Waging a war primarily on brown people in the name of protecting our country is unconstitutional and definitely unpatriotic. US citizens: we must do better. Our national birthrate is dropping, and the economy requires an influx of working citizens to sustain itself and keep up growth.

Orientation, Sex, and Gender Diversity: Who the fuck cares about defining the private bodies or affections of others? If you find that you do, I implore you to get a job so that you might have less time to squander on such trivialities. To what end does disrespecting someone else’s stated pronouns or other identifiers benefit you in any possible way? If you’re not LGBT or genderqueer, what possible stake might you have in denying someone their pronouns or preferred name within conversation? Why do you care who “Jess” brings to the company picnic, as long as their +1 offers up a delicious peach pie? These are not brain surgeon level complications regarding the work of adulting. Get the fuck over your personal shit and act like a community member and fellow individual. At least fake-it-till-you-make-it as a well adjusted human being for the sake of the rest of us.

Sexual Appetites and Relationship Styles: Since when is someone else’s relationship style or interest in various sexual or sensual activities (between consenting adults) any of your nevermind?! If you aren’t being pulled into a scene you don’t want to be a part of, it’s not your goddamn right to act out about it. If someone is pulling you into something that feels uncomfortable: you’re an adult. State your boundaries, negotiate shared space if you must, and move along for Lilith’s sake. I believe in you. If you are an employer you certainly don’t need to know about any of these things, however if you are privy to privileged information you certainly shouldn’t be running a business based off of someone else’s afterwork bedroom/kitchen/dungeon plans. I absolutely believe in your ability to effectively compartmentalize—how else did you ever become a boss to begin with?!

Human and Sex Trafficking: Shame and classism are primary ways we institutionally regulate people’s access to healthy sexual expression and response, as well as to social status including upward mobility. If this wasn’t the case I’m pretty sure trafficking would be MUCH less prevalent worldwide. Children, women, and other people unwilling to share their bodies with you should never be put into situations leading to abuse and enslavement. Do your due diligence when contracting illicit work from a marginalized person, make sure they are not under someone else’s control. Learn to report trafficking where you actually find it.

Sex Work: Speaking of demand for service… those people who participate in the workforce surrounding consensual sex and sexuality, are people who have some stake in the healing of sexual wounds and shame—not only their client’s, but in some cases their own as well. What happens between two consenting adults within a respectfully negotiated sexual/sensual scene, even when money is involved, is not the business of anyone who isn’t participating. People engaged in sex work should be protected just as enthusiastically as people of any other workforce are. Don’t contribute to violence against sex workers through your own words and behaviors.

Rape: Stop trying to control others. Your sexual release is your job to advocate responsibly for. Masturbation is your friend and well within your means. Self love is an important step toward treating others equally. Rapists should definitely not have their sentences forgiven because being convicted of rape is embarrassing. Rape could be understood as a crime which fucks up the lives of perpetrators exponentially more than that of their victims… Let’s get with the program.

Abuse: Be the end of abuse by breaking the abuse cycle. Get help if you’ve been affected. Get help and learn not to abuse if you’ve perpetrated. Evolve. The only way to heal the world of the poisons we’ve ingested is by turning our knowledge of adversity into motivation to become the sort of person who’s able to hold space for the complicated reality of humaning as it effects others who are in need. We can do epically more positive work in our lives when we examine and heal from our own maltreatments and misfortunes.

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This is the end of my rant today… I’m sure it’s evident that my bandwidth is pretty low right now. I’m angry. I’m hurt and I’m furious. I’m mortified and deeply sorrowful. I’m impassioned and I will not step aside. We must look at the wrongs ourselves and our communities perpetuate, and we must each commit to furthering the (r)evolutionary: positive growth, peaceful coexistence, and radically humane change.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please visit my Patreon, offer one time Support or email me for options. Thank you.

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

Did You Mean “Female” or “Fem/me”?

May 6, 2019 by
Sensual woman wearing rope around her neck
From my “Ropes” performance. Photo by Rudy Aguilar

In today’s writing, I am asking that we stop using the words “fem” and “femme” as a shortcut for “female”—or at the very least reallllly think about what we’re communicating if we do. At best it’s lazy and/or ignorant, and at worst it perpetuates violence against people’s expressed identities by conflating two very different identifier realities. It’s also disrespectful to histories of people who both do and do not identify as fem(me) for political and survival reasons. Confused? Let’s talk it out…

The words “fem(me)” and “female” have little to do with each other when we take the time to examine their contexts, especially in light of how we use gendered language more inclusively and specifically these days. While technically “fem” can be used as an abbreviation for “female”, it is by far most commonly used to mean “womanly” or “feminine”. From its latin roots, “femina” translates to “feminine”. These days fierce fems of many sexes and genders claim their stake in femininity with this shortened version of “feminine” falling from their lips.

Back before it was cool for cis straight white people to identify as fems (back about 70+ years ago), the word femme developed its own meaning in lesbian, queer, and leather communities. I’ll add here that black women have historically wrestled with what passes as femininity. The definition of that word has explicitly emphasized and embraced traditionally white European physical features and attributes, and has used those definitions against black women who frequently aren’t viewed as feminine by white standards within western society or its sphere of influence. Black women’s complex connection to femininity comes from a place of sex and gender marginalization within a history of slavery, bigotry, consistent dehumanization, and lack of resources. White women’s contention with femininity has been centered around the limitations of being female within the patriarchy: marginalization and lack of resources. For the purposes of this essay I’m specifically highlighting recent histories of LGBT and BDSM definitions of femininity as a way to explore how we make meaning of contemporary fem(me) identities, without muddying the differences between “feminine” and “female”. This essay is a conversation about sex vs. gender. Still, I believe it’s important to note that there are even more complex conversations to delve into when these perspectives intersect with race.

Lesbian, queer, and leather femmes have been claiming (or reclaiming) their feminine energies, behaviors, aesthetics, and power as something which defines them since as far back as the 1940s for the purpose of visibility within a dominant culture which would erase or exterminate them. A major reason for claiming a femme identity, even in circles where heteronormative male/female binaries aren’t relevant, is to hold safe space for a marginalized way of being even within minority cultures: ie. not all lesbians are butch, androgynous, or “not attractive to men”.

A femme lesbian generally identifies as such out of her own desire to, and is someone who often appears feminine, or aligns with feminine energy and aesthetics, yet has no interest in heteronormative male attentions.

Queer femmes are people, regardless of gender or sex, who identity with femininity. This group includes transfeminine people, men who identify at least a little with their feminine sides such as twinks, crossdressers, or dandies; it can also include genderfluid people, fem-of-center individuals, and femme lesbians, bi, or trans women, etc. In gay male culture “fem” is frequently used as a derogatory term. Keeping the patriarchy alive and well, it’s not unheard of to read the singsong tagline, “no fats, no fems” as a common closer to gay men’s personal ads—or like one I read just yesterday, “I like men, no hard feelings fems” (which I could point out is simply incorrect, as fem men are still men. What this person seems to be desirous of are masc behaving and identifying men).

The leather femme is generally someone who finds power in feminine energies, their female sex, or feminine-of-center gender identity within BDSM and kink communities. These particular femmes can often be seen performing as top, switch, and Dominant. The “FemDom” is a common leather archetype. Femininity in these circles is often seen and celebrated as hard, sadistic, queenly, diva, Goddess, etc.—a femme to be worshiped, pleased, and to take orders from, rather than to top or enslave.

While the heteronormative and queer (as opposed to historically gay men’s) BDSM community is often more open to LGBT, queer, and non-monogamous identities, there still exists a predominance of expectation surrounding: male=Dom vs. female=sub, reflective of our heterocentric binary world order. Leather femmes, a subculture within the subculture of kink, are known for flipping these gender norms. Fierce FemDoms command their (frequently) male subs and slaves, further subverting the idea of what “feminine” looks like. FemmeDom groups have often welcomed and included trans women and crossdressers who top, switch, and Dominate, as well as trans men and masc-of-center AFAB people who refuse to be told what their role in D/s is allowed to be based on their assigned sex or gender identity.

Some facets of the kink community also practice worshiping the “divine feminine”. This role is seen as both nurturing and capable of causing some serious damage, not deemed lesser than masculine or androgynous energies, but equal to each in its own right.

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“Female” is a scientific label put on babies with genitals that pass as vulvas, clitorises, and vaginas—whether or not that label reflects the baby’s full biological sex in terms of hormone levels, gonad development, chromosome arrangement, or their brain’s sex development. It has nothing to do with whether or not that female-labeled person at any point in their life will feel/pursue/exhibit or behave in connection with fem(me)(ininity) as an identifying energy, or even as an observable characteristic.

###

To make this conversation a bit more reflective, I ask my cis and heterosexual readers—especially those who are both female and fem identifying or those who have never been expected to perform femininity at all in their daily lives—to consider on behalf of your queer, trans, lesbian, and nonbinary friends: has the expectation of femininity (or the expectation that you are not allowed to express your inherent femininity) ever been something which wholly disrupted your life or made you feel deeply uncomfortable molding yourself after?

When one throws around the term “fem(me)”, it calls into focus a series of articulations which have grown out of necessity for certain people’s respect, visibility, and survival. Dominant femmes have had to create an entire persona to keep Dominant male attentions (and hands and whips) at bay. Queer femmes use the term to help others understand and respect their identities and to see and honor femininity where it isn’t necessarily expected. Lesbians weren’t considered equal to, or even largely visible within, dominant society until they were viewed as “butch and femme”—two women who looked just like a straight couple due to their utilization of heteronormative gender binary expectations. While this was useful for a time within our culture’s social progress, it was extremely limiting and created unsettling expectations within queer communities for a long time too. Like the misogynistic “no fems” chant in gay hookup ads, there was a long period of time where it was “gross” for butches to be attracted to one another, which only shows how eager some people are to join the patriarchy while carrying the pungent scent of homophobia squarely upon their own homosexual sleeves.

The necessity of identifying with or against, or passing as someone who’s allowed to express femininity, is an important factor in the history of what fem(me) stands for and means. For a cis female to claim femme as part of her identity is a statement of self-acceptance, equality, celebration of a marginalized part of herself, and power against the patriarchy. For a cis man, a trans woman, or a trans man to identify as fem is these things as well, yet also carries with it certain social dangers from breaking with patriarchal expectations—unspoken misogynistic contracts signed with access to (asked and unasked for) initiation into male privilege. It is dangerously taboo. In an equitable society, fem, masc, and andro energies are accessible to every person and used against no one in order to keep them in line or discredit them within society. Unfortunately that is not the society we currently exist within.

By all means, I think everyone should embrace their inner fem/me! I ask that we please use the term with an understanding that a biological label (male/female) is in no way, shape, or form the same thing as an identity based on the energies one feels in their body, the way one intentionally expresses themselves, or how one chooses for the world to see them so that they may experience being in their own power—seen, respected, and celebrated.

If you are female or AFAB and femme, good for you. If you’re male or AMAB and fem, lovely. If you’re andro or butch or masc—whichever way your junk is formed—fabulous! Take a moment to give weight to the reality that these words, “fem(me)” and “female”, do not mean the same thing and they haven’t for a very long time. These words have been used to depict a variety of identities for so long that it’s bizarre people consider “trans”, “queer”, and “nonbinary” as new ideas or anything other than many people’s common realities both presently and historically. If it makes sense to, please join this beautiful and varied lineage, but honor why these articulations matter and exist.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please visit my Patreon, offer one time Support or email me for options. Thank you.

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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