Blunt in the Bedroom

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Book Review: Kinky Sex Tips for Curious Girls by Mona Darling

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My friend Mona Darling wrote a book, and I love it and need to share. Kinky Sex Tips for Curious Girls provides approachable, shame-free pleasure education for adults. Her scintillating sexual honesty paired with kinky puzzles and coloring pages have made this book a favorite in my bedroom. For this vanilla girl, it’s given me a hell of a lot to ponder and challenged my fundamentalism-induced negativity and shame regarding kink and BDSM.

She says, “Society giggles when they are uncomfortable, and kink always makes society giggle. We have all grown up feeling like our kinks are the punchline of a joke. The best way to move past shame is to face it head on. Acknowledge it. Talk about it. Shame flourishes in secrecy.”

Shame flourishes in secrecy – this sentence has been knocking around in my brain since I first read it a couple of months ago. I see religious and cultural shaming as the main source of my own sexual repression, and through this blog and honest (dare I say blunt!?) conversations with my partner and trusted friends in my life, I’m drawing shame out of the shadows. When shame is small, I can look at my naked self in the mirror without fighting the urge to look away or cover up. When shame is small, I can spread my pussy lips for Beard Man and feel fucking fantastic. When shame is small, my pleasure is big.

The biggest paradigm shift I experienced reading Mona’s book came from her discussion of sex as PLAY. Childhood play was never a fun or imaginative pastime for me. Growing up in a doomsday cult, the world was too serious. The end of days were upon us, and I’d be cast into the Lake of Fire if I failed to be obedient to rules set before me. It’s hard to run around the field with friends pretending to be a squirrel collecting acorns, knowing Satan has dominion over the earth and God is poised to smite. I’m thankful to have let go of the bonds of fundamentalism and to have support from my partner, good friends who listen, and cannabis plant medicine, as I work to revive the spirit of play in my life.

The way we play in the bedroom may not be equivalent to the way we played as a kid, but I can see definite parallels. As a homeschooling mom, I spend a lot of time studying how my children learn. Watching my children engage their senses when they are handling slime, sticking their feet in the mud, or running a feather over their own face, I note the value of sensory play in how they connect to the environment and people around them. When my children engage in role play games, I am affirmed of the value of play in developing self-knowledge, collaborative innovation, and empathetic social justice. My children occasionally act out dark scenarios to test what they would do if faced with their fear. For example, they often play role play that their characters are orphaned children, navigating the world without parents, a Boxcar Children mystery of their own design. Play is how children learn and prepare for the future.

As we grow into our sexuality, what if our maturation could retain the best of childhood play, to appreciate sensations and the exploration of pretend, while taking on new content as we deepen our body play? Sex is an adult adaptation of play, with all the same benefits to our growth as lifelong learners and contributors to society. The addition of kink and BDSM has potential to help overcome our insecurities, finding pleasure in our bodies and moaning in defiance of our fears. That sounds like good therapy to me.

In Mona’s book, a chapter titled “The Kinky Cycle of Play” details the pattern of negotiation, play, and aftercare. It reminded me that I get to set the rules, or limits, about my own body, without feeling like I have to be coquettish, falsely sultry, or apologetic for anything I don’t wish to do. Mona had this to say about negotiation:

“A safe space is created when two people trust each other. When neither is worried that the other will violate limits. When neither is worried about their safety, emotionally or physically. When both people know they will not be judged and both people know they are free to speak and ask any questions they might have about interests or fetishes that they don’t fully understand.”

Negotiation sounds like the OG shame-buster.

Since accepting the idea of sex as play, I appreciate my partner’s genitals more than ever, finding my own pleasure as I tug my partner’s foreskin up over the glans and roll his testicles in my hand like a stress toy. We’ve edged toward the kinky side hesitantly, still giggling when we feel uncomfortable. I have tied up his cock with a shoelace, and I’ve purchased a set of some still-unused nipple clamps. The chained nipple clamps do make a fabulous bedroom necklace, however, and we’ve enjoyed the tantalizing idea that someday I’ll be ready to try them.

Discover more about Mona Darling and shame-free kink education at darlingpropaganda.com.

Pipes over Potatoes: a guide to starter paraphernalia

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Some people have a can-do attitude. I’d like to think I do also, but if I’m being honest, I have more of a make-do attitude. Raggedy or outdated clothing turned into a fashion statement, random leftovers into a palatable culinary experiment. Based on the wisdom of my favorite chef, Alton Brown, and my inclination toward minimalism, I also tend to eschew “unitaskers”, or items that are good for only one job, like those ridiculous plastic banana slicers. Have they not heard of a fucking knife? Anyway, I thought of weed grinders and pipes as unitaskers. Surely I could use something I already had at home to prepare and smoke weed. Every once in awhile, it’s worth proving that we really do learn the most from our mistakes.

When I found myself in a newly-recreationally-legalized dispensary on Alberta Street in early 2016, I was lightheaded with that rule-breaking sensation, the bottoms of my feet tickling and my lungs taking quick half-breaths. Perhaps I was also just a little bit contact high – the establishment was piney and pungent. For moral support, I had persuaded my out-of-state guests, my dear former roommate Dee, and her girlfriend, to come along with me. We were giddy from the heady aromas, and the wonderment that comes from new freedoms, experiencing firsts. The luxury of walking into a storefront for federally-illegal herbs in a hip Portland shopping district was not lost on us. Our faces hovered above several jars of pretty green bud, and we pretended to have an idea of what the right strain would smell like. Dee’s girlfriend threw her head back in horror at a strain called Dogwalker. A euphemism for dog shit in a bag, we all agreed. We made our way home with 3 grams of buds that smelled less like feces, and more like pineapple, supposedly. Dog shit stench still stung our olfactories.

I’d been offered a grinder at the dispensary. No thanks, I’ll use my mortar and pestle. A pipe? Nah, we’ll figure something out. Dee had cut a hole in an apple before with success. Finally, my make-do ways had met their match. Cannabis is no penny-pincher’s bitch. Good buds are tight and slightly sticky, not brittle. My mortar and pestle just squashed the buds, and did not break them up into smaller pieces like we’d hoped. Fuck. Okay, we’ve got this – we tore the buds up with our fingers as delicately as we could, hoping we wouldn’t knock off too many trichomes, the sticky resin-coated hairs that held precious THC molecules. Then, dismayed, we discovered we were fresh out of apples. Double fuck. How about a potato? Sure, it was almost the same, thing, we decided. Dee grabbed a knife and started carving a bowl. I handed her a skewer to create a tunnel to a mouthpiece and a carb hole on the side. It was a spudly work of art. We laughed at ourselves as we tried to light our potato-juice weed with a long-stemmed grill lighter. If you want to feel cool in a decidedly uncool way, I’m your gal.

We may not have actually gotten high that night, or at least not much. But we learned a lot, and played Cards Against Humanity with abandon anyway. It would take me a few more tries, and the purchase of a little lopsided glass pipe before I really got the hang of smoking. I’ve also learned to discern those wide-ranging pot smells, from compounds called terpenes, and learned to love (most) of the stinky ones.

Friends, just buy a tiny grinder and a cheap pipe. Your investment of $20 or less will save your pot from destruction by produce. I promise. Or, as an even easier alternative, pick up a pre-roll for $5, and for the love of goddess, standard lighters are in every corner store. Respect the plant, and get yourself the right gear. Making do can lead you to do some stupid shit with your pot(ato).

 

Beards to Biospheres: a stoned journey

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I’ve always plucked, shaved, or waxed the soft little mustache hairs that cover the corners of my upper lip. Occasionally, I find two coarse curly hairs sprouting from the left underside of my chin. The hairs first showed up once I’d had babies, somewhere in the nursing-bra-spit-up-showerless time of my life. Though at the time I despaired a bit, they came as no surprise, because I distinctly remember cuddling in my mom’s arms when I was little, gazing up at her, spying the hairs and tugging on them. I called them her “beard” and my glee punctuated our conversation. I don’t think I mind the beard nearly as much as my mom did then. My kids love to hear about grandma’s beard, and teasingly scold me when I’ve neglected my plucking. “ack, you have a beard, haha mom!” The legend of the beard has spurred treasured discussions in our home. We’ve learned about heredity and hair follicles, and affirmed a positive, realistic body image.

Most of us could do ourselves a huge favor and stop taking the little shit so seriously. I swapped facial hair tales with a friend at dinner tonight, with our partners and kids at the table. No embarrassment, no hushed tones. Why spend so much mental energy to follow a cultural or religious ideal that doesn’t pass the logic test? My mother’s dismayed reaction to a few chin hairs robbed her of laughter in that moment. I would rather my ordinary chin hairs connect me in memory to my mother, in joy to my children, and in solidarity with my friends.

If insecurity over a stray hair could prevent my mother from experiencing the joy and connectedness that was right in front of her, what other negative mindsets could we have that are unknowingly blocking us from a fucking glorious life?

Ten years ago, mired in manicured suburban evangelical church culture, obedience was the ultimate virtue, and my slick Vaseline smile belied my struggles. Though I had broken away from the doomsday cult of my childhood, I still didn’t realize “none” was a viable religious option. I was never one to shirk my assignments, but I eventually wearied of living my life through a litany of do’s and don’ts. Don’t do drugs. Get good grades. Get a college degree. Go to church. Tithe. Marry a godly man and fulfill your wifely duties. Take your babies to church to gaslight them into belief in a caring, engaged, supreme sky being. I stepped into the gray when I acknowledged that the promise of reward and the threat of punishment is a method of control, not a haven for a broken world. Evangelical kool-aid has a bitter aftertaste.

My head was so far into the ass of church culture that my politics, social values, and personal morals were entirely based on my perception of what it meant to be a good Christian. I had no opinions of my own. Once, before a Sunday worship service, I was shocked when I overheard a burly, bearded middle-aged man explaining that abortion should, in fact, be legal and accessible, so fewer kids would come into the world unloved and poor. It blew my mind to hear someone flouting the fundamentalist line. He had thought about his position, and wasn’t fearful of God’s wrath. It may have been an early catalyst to my charismatic undoing. Once I challenged my own world view with research and opposing ideas, the shift in my perspective was inevitable, and rapid.

Before age thirty I recognized the folly of religious zealotry. I began to see Christianity as a mythology, not dissimilar to how I viewed Zeus and his cohorts on Mount Olympus. The scales began to fall from my eyes through educating myself in world views unlike the one I was served. I craved details about our universe, and found myself captivated by the work of Neil De Grasse Tyson and his fellow astrophysicists. The most beautiful phrase in the world – we don’t know – is uttered regularly by Tyson as he shares breakthroughs in his field. We. Don’t. Know. For my whole life, those in authority over me knew the answers, knew the origins of the universe, knew how to be saved. Not knowing is what drives us forward, maintains a growth mindset. We must seek answers to our unknowns, or we will languish.

I am so close to being de-churched completely, finally free of the mental prison of fundamentalism. I revel in my own feelings of smallness, knowing I am woven into the mesh of this harshly stunning and mysterious universe. The atoms in my body are as old as the universe, and have been recycled through gaseous stars, terrestrial structures, and the carbon-based life forms that preceded me. I am not disconnected from the universe. I am made of the universe. And so are you.  For as long as we’re around, we get to marvel at the wonder of that thought.

It’s not divinity, it’s just science.

 

Quickie: Vile Vernacular

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How did we start on this crazy nonsense idea that a boy committing minor violence against a girl means he likes her? WTF is wrong with us? From Gilbert dipping Anne’s braid into an inkwell, to bra snapping, to whatever it is that we mutely accept now, violence has this treasured place in our romantic vernacular that has to go, right this damn minute! Don’t tell your daughters that he’s teasing her because he likes her. And for the love of all things holy, “boys will be boys” is not an excuse for bad behavior. Teach your sons that every person owns their own body and touching someone else’s without permission is assault.