What are the acceptable limits of consent?

Consent is something that we obviously value very greatly in modern Western society.  Consent is often the difference between a crime and an unpunishable act.  In the realm of sexual acts, consent (sometimes) is what makes activity acceptable to the law.  When we talk about sodomy laws, we frequently repeat the phrase “consenting adults.”  These are consenting adults in the privacy of their bedroom, therefore the state shouldn’t interfere.  Consent is one way to mark a line between activity protected by the right to privacy and activity into which interference by the criminal system is justified.  If there isn’t consent, then at least one of the parties’ privacy rights – or more broadly, right to individual autonomy – is not being respected.  Autonomy is to right to do as we will with our own lives, as bodily integrity is the right to do as we will with our bodies.  When these rights are breached, the other party can no longer say that he or she was justified by autonomy – the limit to autonomy is where it interferes with someone else’s.

Of course, this is all well and good, and as a general rule I agree to consent as the line we should use.  I don’t think, for example, that the government should interfere due to some overriding “public interest” when consenting adults participate in sadomasochistic activities.  I don’t believe that the public morality, when people are having sex in private, all consenting, and therefore not harming anyone else’s autonomy, can override the autonomy interests of the participants.  But that said, I found an interesting paradox in an essay I was reading for a paper I’m writing on sexual autonomy.  The author gave the example of two gay men kissing in the street.  The men argue that they have an autonomy interest in being able to express themselves affectionately – and indeed, autonomy goes behind a mere geographic sense of “privacy,” so that the interest exists on a public street as much as in a private home.  But then some bystander argues that her autonomy interest is being violated because she doesn’t want to see men kissing.  Where do we draw a line?  If autonomy only goes so far as the limits of others’ autonomy, then they men shouldn’t be able to kiss – but do we want to go this far?  I certainly don’t.  Does everyone in the neighborhood have to consent, or only the “reasonable” ones?  What is reasonable?  A member of the moral majority?  An interesting paradox.

I am an executive lesbian

I’ve been greatly surprised, the more I make contact with various parts of the lesbian community and lesbian pop culture, how much the “butch and femme” dichotomy is alive and well.  I realise that despite all the changes and movements away from binary trends, we still tend to think in twos, but for some reason I thought this was an outmoded distinction.  Then again, among the lesbians I know in real life, most don’t really talk about being butch or femme.  I know some lesbians who are decidedly butch, but then I also know a lot like me, who I don’t think of as butch, but if I think about it I really can’t characterise them as “femme.”

As far as I can tell, femme is often more or less the default for “not butch.”  It seems that butch has a more built-up set of characteristics, possibly because it implies masculinity and differentiating oneself from the norm, from the femininity default that women are born into.  When I think of a butch woman, I think of her in terms of three areas: appearance, activities/mannerisms, and sexual “stuff.”  

Appearance

I think of “butch” as meaning very masculine, but also fitting a number of other stereotypes – often overweight or big boned and very muscular, often doesn’t pay a lot of attention to dress, etc.  But there are other sorts of masculine women.  I find myself very frequently attracted to androgynous women, what I suppose you would label “bois” – petite women with short haircuts who retain feminine features, so that they more or less look like a 12-year-old boy.  There are also women who are very traditionally attractive but wear a lot of boyish clothing.  I find that the more choices I make about my own appearance, the more I start to move away from the traditional feminine.  Aside from my usual suit-and-tie combination, I’ve found that I really like how I look in more masculine casual clothes as well.  Now that I’ve found a good way to style it, I love my extremely androgynous haircut.  Yesterday, I was wearing a faded black tanktop that looks like a “wifebeater” essentially and I found myself flexing my muscles in the mirror and taking my glasses off to blur my feminine features.  When I was a teenager, I used to wonder what my “boy self” would look like.  I’ve been drawn to masculinity for a long time, and I absolutely love dressing in drag.  I just feel really comfortable and really sexy when I’m androgynous.  However, I try not to think too hard about it, because I really don’t want to be a man, or at least, not a heterosexual man. More on that later.

Activities/Mannerisms

Something else that I think bolster’s someone’s “butch” image is the things she does.  This ranges from activities – maybe owns a motorcycle, knows how to change her own oil, likes sports and having a beer with her buddies – to more simple things.  These are an area, actually, where I think femmes affirmatively make themselves femmes – by spending time on makeup and hair, wearing lotion, shopping, etc etc.  I also think this is a place where a lot of people end up falling in the middle.  I don’t look like the stereotypical butch, but I know how to change the oil, I like (not US) football, I never wear makeup or “do” my hair, etc.  It’s hard to think of me as really femme for that reason.

Sexual Stuff

Here’s where my own heebie jeebies come out.  Now of course, everything in this post is a generalisation, talking about stereotypes into which most lesbians probably don’t fit.  But I’ve read a little about fantasies and lesbian sexuality and I have to say some of the butch/femme sexuality really throws me.  The reason is that it seems, to me, to come really close to heterosexual sexuality and really close to the kind of “male oppression” stuff that has become more and more a turnoff to me since I stopped having sex with men.  Of course, I’m sure there are lesbian women who fantasise about choking on a dildo, or being fucked painfully, or having sex with someone who identifies as male.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  It’s just that for me, being on either side of that equation would be a major turn-off.  Being with a man, especially sexually, turned me into a weak, meek person completely unlike myself.  If I were on the “female” side of that equation in a lesbian relationship, there’s nothing to say the same thing wouldn’t happen.  At the same time, if I were on the “male” side, I don’t want to be hurting someone or interjecting heterosexuality in the relationship.  To me, the beautiful thing about lesbian sex is that it’s two women, exploring female sexuality.  I do need to learn to mentally disconnect certain “heterosexual” acts that I actually enjoy from heterosexuality, so that I can enjoy them with a woman.  I’ll admit that.  But when actual roleplay starts up, I can’t see myself as a butch or a femme, because I don’t want that particular dichotomy in my bed.  I want whatever power differential is set up (and believe me, I like power differentials) to be between two women, using our female energies.  Man, I’m a hippie.

That wasn’t supposed to turn into a rant, but anyway, that’s my take on the butch/femme roles.  If you really enjoy fitting into one or the other, more power to you!  I’m just happy as an androgynous, outside-the-box lesbian who likes other androgynous, outside-of the box lesbians.  There it is.

Talkin’ bout my…education?

Cara at the Curvature recently wrote a very thought-provoking post about what she calls “real sex education.”  I’m not going to talk a lot about the post, because I think you should just read it – she makes some really interesting points – but I would like to share some thoughts about sex ed.  Cara’s real sex education involves teaching young people that sex is supposed to be consensual + pleasurable for both parties.  At first I looked at that statement and thought “hey, no brainer.”  Then I thought wait a minute, I may be progressive and all but I don’t want to be teaching kids about sex.  Then I thought, well, you know what, she has a real fucking point.

The big focus now for sex education is on teaching about how to prevent STDs and pregnancy.  There’s a big debate, I gather, between abstinence-only folks and comprehensive sex ed folks, but when they say comprehensive they still mean focusing on disease and pregnancy and how to prevent them.  It never really occurred to me what kind of a role sex ed could have had in my unfortunate early experiences, but now that I think of it, yeah, that’s a good way to start.

I’m not sure if my own sex education would be considered “abstinence only” or not.  In fifth grade, we took a course called “Human Growth and Development.”  It was a one-week part of the science curriculum that required parental permission, and of course everyone was very excited about it because of the sense of taboo that surrounded the course.  We essentially learned about anatomy – I dutifully labelled charts of male and female anatomy, though I know for a fact that a clitoris appeared nowhere on those charts (the focus being “the reproductive system”).  We had a quiz on the anatomy, then for the last class period we were huddled into a separate room from the boys and a female teacher told us briefly what a period is and what a sanitary pad is – my first introduction to the subject.  And that was that.

In eighth grade, we very briefly heard something about AIDS in health class, as part of a list of various diseases that we should be able to identify, but nothing about other STDs or how to prevent them.  In high school, there was a brief unit on the family in health class where we learned that a family is a married man, woman, and children, and though other families can and do exist they are technically dysfunctional.

And then out into the world I went!  

So when I thought about my nether regions, I mainly associated them with periods and reproduction.  My mother taught me that sex was appropriate in a loving relationship.  When I started college and did have a sexual relationship with a man, though, she was uncomfortable talking about oral sex and felt that it was something very intimate, something that while it was not necessarily to be saved for marriage, was only for special relationships and was not to be discussed.  It certainly wasn’t, as my friends had informed me, foreplay, something that you do before intercourse.

I never ended up having oral sex.  Oh, I was on the giving end plenty, as that was something he needed almost every time to have intercourse, but there was never any touching or anything like that for me.  It was very clothes off, let’s go.  I knew how to masturbate, but orgasms were something for alone time.  He asked if it was all right (the intercourse), but never offered to do something in addition.  I did finally get the courage to ask after about six months of sexual activity, and he said matter-of-factly that he “wasn’t interested in that.”  That’s fine.  Maybe he wasn’t.  But it was still disappointing. 

I don’t know that any of this is directly related to the lack of sex education in my life, but I can’t help but wonder if it might have helped.  I’m just now learning about safe sex for lesbians, and even there all the sources wildly conflict.  I think a few things could help.  1) Comprehensive safe sex information for gay and straight sex in high school.  2) Include the clitoris on the damned diagrams.  3) Teach the consent + pleasure model that Cara advocates.  4) Be realistic about sex.

I think that a huge problem with my education is that I masturbated from the age of eleven or so, but I always assumed that sexual intercourse would be this big things with fireworks and even more amazing orgasms.  When I learned that it’s kind of all right, and no orgasms whatsoever, I was disappointed.  I can’t imagine what it’s like for a woman who’s waited until marriage and then suddenly realises “fuck, I signed on for this?”  I also assumed that the actual process would be easy, tab A into slot B.  It was actually a little difficult, and clumsy, and took a lot of maintenance on my part to keep the guy ready to do his job.  This was a bit of a let down.  After sex with men, I started feeling that sex was pointless.  I mean, nothing can be better than the orgasms I give myself, so I should just give up.  Sex with women is basically going to be masturbation with someone nice to look at.  Then I started re-thinking it, and realising that it doesn’t have to all be orgasm driven.  A lot is about the touching someone, tasting someone, kissing someone, and loving someone.  I think the same could be true for heterosexual couples, especially if the woman doesn’t enjoy intercourse.  But you’d never know that from sex ed.  I think they should be frank.  Ladies, you deserve to enjoy sex.  You might not enjoy intercourse.  That’s okay.  You should search together for other ways to derive pleasure.  Etc, etc.  I think just re-framing the norms about sex that we all carry around with us would make for a much more enjoyable experience when the time comes.

No really, I’m gay.

My new favourite dykeblogger, Card Carrying Lesbian, posted this the other day about people constantly challenging her gayness, and it really resonated with me.  I haven’t had a lot of outside challenge to my lesbianism, but I have had some internal struggles, and I hope that I eventually reach her level of confidence.  Now it’s time for a long personal sexual history rant.  Ready?  Let’s go!

When I was, oh, about ten or so, I wanted to be a boy.  This decision was very vehemently attacked by both the boys and girls in my fifth grade class, and my best friend physically fought me on the playground.  Shortly thereafter, I gave up on the idea.  When I was about twelve, and my body hair started growing in, I was briefly excited about shaving and then decided that shaving is stupid and stopped.  A little boy in the neighbourhood made the highly intelligent comment, “what’ve you got trees growing under there?” when I lifted my arms one day, and I started shaving again.  I was not by any means a popular child.  I didn’t dress attractively and I didn’t hang out with the popular kids.  I wanted to be popular though, and so I latched on quickly to boys, shopping, and makeup.

I was definitely boy crazy.  I know hindsight is 20-20, and maybe I’m seeing things differently now because of my “enlightenment” about adult me, but I’ve noticed some things looking back about my boy craziness.  One is that I liked really pretty boys.  It was almost entirely about aesthetics, as it probably is to most girls that age.  I was into the Backstreet Boys and NSync.  I realise now that when I masturbated I thought about straight couples and particularly focused on elements of the woman’s body (funny that I can still remember some of those teenage fantasies).  Anyway, I didn’t have any actual experience besides one exploitative five-second “relationship” that I blocked out so much that I forgot about it for a while.  

When I was sixteen, I came out as bisexual.  I couldn’t not like boys, I mean come on!  They were so pretty.  My mom was sceptical about the liking girls part, if only because I had so adamantly liked boys, and talked about how cute boys were for so long.  But at seventeen, I started my first relationship, which lasted six months, and it was with a girl, so she believed me.  In college, I ended up in another relationship, this time with a man, and it lasted a year in a half.  I won’t tell the entire story, but the basic idea is that I was looking for love, he was looking for love, and I believed that a relationship could work on that alone.  And it did, and we got along pretty well for a while, and we decided that we loved each other.  We had very little in common, but it worked.  He was very sweet, and sensitive, and I still think he’s a great guy.  We ended up losing our virginity to each other, and had sex together for about a year.  I’ll come clean.  I kind of enjoyed parts of it.  I even kind of enjoyed intercourse.  But I became a closed off person, ridiculously meek, and lots of other things I’m not proud of.  It’s not like I was having orgasms, or anything like that. 

After we broke up, I had sex with two other guys, and fooled around with a few girls.  I matured a lot in a couple of years, and I started thinking about it.  I realised that my interest in men really was mainly aesthetic.  They look kind of nice.  I kind of like sex with them.  But at that point, I didn’t want sex with them.  If I had a choice, I’d never have sex with them again.  And over martinis in a foreign country, my dear friend Kat broke it to me.  Yeah, I think you’re a lesbian.

It all kind of started to make sense.  

In another post soon, I’m going to start talking about my views on choice in this arena, but for now I want to quote something from the post linked above.

I’m not saying boys are yucky. I’m just saying I prefer women so much so that I’ve excluded men from the realm of my dating possibilities.

Yet for some reason many people will never believe that I’m a lesbian because I can admit that sex with certain men didn’t suck. 

Wow.  I’ve never heard another lesbian put it that way, but YES!  Exactly.  I prefer women.  I prefer how they look, how we relate, how friendship and sex can intertwine, and so many other things.  I’ve made a choice, and that’s that I don’t ever want to be in a relationship with or have sex with a man again.  And lately I’ve been feeling a great defensive need, and been putting that one long-term relationship with a man in a box, talking about how bad the sex was and laughingly thinking that he “turned” me, but that isn’t true.  Yeah, the sex wasn’t great.  We weren’t open with each other, we weren’t sexually compatible with each other, I was generous in bed but he wouldn’t kiss me below the neck… et caetera, et caetera.  But that doesn’t mean I never liked being with him, and I think I should stop lying about it.  

The funny thing, too, is that my sexual history is so unlike my sexual preferences.  I’ve never had good sex.  I’ve never had sex with a woman.  You’d think that I’m sexually immature, but no, not really.  It just so happens that when I broke up with him, I got way pickier.  I got pickier about the gender I have sex with, and also about the people I have sex with.  I have a new rule that I have to really like a person, and I have to trust them, to have sex with them.  So far, that’s worked brilliantly for me!  I love being single, and I know that when I meet women with whom I really connect, I have the option to have sex, and the option to pursue a relationship.  But I’m in no hurry.  A relationship really is about more than love.  It’s also about someone you connect with, and enjoying being around.  So the fact that my sexual history is skewed in a very masculine direction means nothing about my sexuality.  The ending of the linked post, I think, is perfect for this one as well.

Dude. I kiss girls!  ONLY.  :-D

Book Reviews: Two Lesbian Sex Guides

The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us

by Felice Newman

I can’t rave enough about this book, really.  It’s extremely informative, with an excellent resource section, and best of all it’s inclusive.  You finish this sex manual feeling that there is no “wrong” way to go about lesbian sex, and that says a lot for the book in my opinion.  It’s trans and kink inclusive, and addresses issues such as sex with a disability, sex during depression, and safer sex in a comprehensive way that few guides tackle.  I thought that there was really nothing new to learn about lesbian sex, despite my very limited experience.  It seemed fairly straightforward to me, but this book gave me some ideas I’d never really considered.  I especially like how some of the anatomical myths are debunked – I had no idea that I was so confused about my own anatomy until I read the first couple of chapters.  I ended up grabbing a flashlight and mirror for the first time and was a bit amazed about how confused I’d been.  I highly recommend this guide for anyone looking for a comprehensive, straightforward, unapologetic look at lesbian sex.  Also, I wanted to note that Newman has asked me to help spread the word about a study she’s doing in preparing for a new sex guide that looks very interesting.  The message itself is a bit long to repost, but if you’re interested just e-mail me at judithavory@gmail.com and I’ll send you the whole thing.  She’s looking for female couples who have been together five or more years and have a satisfying sex life on the whole.  It’s very inclusive – poly, trans, bisexual, etc, are welcome to participate.  Let me know if you want the details.

On Our Backs Guide to Lesbian Sex

edited by Diana Cage

I have mixed feelings about this book.  I found some of the articles really interesting – it’s basically a compendium of articles from old issues of the magazine, arranged by topic – but I also found that some of them could be a bit too strongly opinionated for my taste.  One article, for example, on shaving, speaks in a way that makes me feel guilty or embarrassed for being a hairy girl who has no interest in shaving.  There isn’t a whole lot of “whatever you want is fine” in this book.  That said, there are a wide range of perspectives and some of the interviews, especially, are quite fascinating.  I found the roundtable discussion on class particularly interesting.  I do think that the book, the images, and probably the magazine in general, are very butch-femme centric.  Someone noted in one of the articles that butch-butch spreads are the least popular in the magazine – most pictures are butch-femme or occasionally femme-femme.  That had a weirdly heterosexual connotation to it in my mind.  Does it really matter whether we’re butch or femme?  Aren’t we past that.  Apparently not, and I found that a little disconcerting.  I also found a lot of talk about butch-femme fantasies that seemed to me very much like the types of heterosexual relationships that irk me.  That said, if this is your cup of tea, I’m sure you’ll love the book.  There’s just something about prolonged discussion of cocksucking that makes me feel a little queasy.