Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Monday, March 17, 2014
Cunnilingus Done Right: Part 3
What Should Your Mouth Do?
And now for the dirty details. I know, you’re hard just thinking about it.
Your tongue is a glorious muscle, and some are more glorious than others. I’ll offer some techniques that will work for pretty much everyone no matter how dexterous your tongue is, but some of what I’m about to say will just not be do-able for everyone - seriously, as a matter of genetics. Don’t beat yourself off if you can’t hit the advanced techniques, you can do plenty with just the basics.
How do you know which tier to aim for? Try these tongue exercises out for size to see which level you’re on:
1. Can you fold your tongue in half and stick it out? Flip it over on its side? Alternately, can you tie a cherry string into a knot inside your mouth (in under ten minutes, and hopefully closer to 30 seconds)? If so, congratulations, you’ve got advanced capabilities. Shoot for the moon.
2. Can you form your tongue into a loop? If yes, congrats, you’re still advanced. If not, don’t lose your boner - this ability is genetic.
3. Can you stick your tongue out and touch both your chin (anywhere) and your nose? If yes, try the advanced techniques, but feel confident in using the midlevel techniques well.
4. If you can’t do any of these things, it’s okay. I’ll tell you how you can “cheat” by using your hands a bit to make up for your lack of tongue dexterity (in Part 4), but otherwise you’re best bet is to stick to the basics and reach for the Medium Intensity techniques. If you answered “yes” to 1-3, try NOT to use your hands until you master the tongue-only tricks here, lest you get carried away with them.
The Basics
I’ll start with a few basic rules everyone should keep in mind while going down:
1. Maximize Contact. The biggest mistake dudes (and, occasionally, chicks) make is using what I’ll call the “Sword Tongue.” Sword Tongue is where you jab with the tip of your tongue (wherever you may choose to jab, it’s suboptimal) without making contact with any other part of your tongue or mouth. The classic example is the Bro who goes down and sticks his tongue out and shakes his head “no” with his tongue on the clit. Bro, you’re using a shitload of energy to do something that just feels weird for 99% of women out there and breaks every one of my basic rules. DON’T.
Instead, strive constantly to make contact with as much of her as you can at once, with the occasional liftoff. FLATTEN that tongue on the clit before you rub it back and forth. LAP from the vagina up over the clit and back, don’t poke at it. (NOTE: this isn’t true if you’re using advanced technique). I’ll talk more about techniques in Part 4 and about what to do with your flat tool, but for the moment consider this: what feels better - a chick with your whole dick down her throat rubbing her tongue on part of it, or a chick who touches you only with the very pointy tip of her tongue at once? Don’t answer aloud, I already know.
The sexes’ organs just aren’t all that different. We’re talking about the same tissues and the same nerve connections, ultimately. So, if you’re doing something to her you wouldn’t want done to your penis, check yourself. This starts with working to maximize the surface area of your contact.
2. Change Directions. If you lick with a flat tongue from where her clit/inner labia meet her vagina to the tip top of her slit, you’re probably gonna get a nice reaction. But don’t take that to mean that’s all you should ever do. Of course, when you get a happy moan, note what you did and repeat it. But remember: the more you do that one thing, the less effect it will have. I think the up-down is a solid place to start, but after about 20 seconds you’ll want to start mixing some other things in. Draw a sort of line with the center of your tongue (generally, this should be the point of greatest pressure if you’re going with the basics) in the shape of a Jewish star. Draw it in reverse order. That sort of thing.
3. Change Your Pressure. Heavy press can be great, especially if you build up to it. However, if you hold heavy pressure with as much contact as you’re making now (if you’ve been listening to me, anyway), you’re going to slow bloodflow to the area and that would be BAD. Your tongue should lift off the pussy after a hard lick, at least for a moment. And, if you wanna see her squirm, try thirty or so seconds of really light, sort of teasing licks, maybe in the crevices (see Part 4), and then dive in hard with serious pressure and a very quick tongue flick. Note what the variation did to her. That’s what you’re going for.
And now, if you remember nothing else from this whole treatise, remember this one rule:
4. Suck It! Let me put it to you this way, penis-holders: Which girl blows better - the one who sucks like an overactive Hoover or the one who just licks the head of your penis? Again, don’t answer aloud. Instead, kick yourself if you didn’t think of this before. Because, fucking duh. I’m constantly shocked by not only the number of men, but the number of LESBIANS who don’t do this. In fact, most of you can do basically nothing with your tongue and improve your technique by just sucking her clit (remember how we found that in Part 1?). So, do. Suck her clit. Suck it like you’re really into a Ringpop. Suck it gently like the foam on the top of a latte and hard like you’re siphoning gas out of a tank to flee approaching cops. Alternate these, just like you try to vary everything you’re doing. Try to keep your tongue on her sensitive bits (doesn’t have to just be the clit) while you suck. If you can, you’re ready to move on to the midlevel.
Medium Intensity
Once you’ve internalized the basics (and, be sure to take the time to get these down before you try any of the specifics here), you can try a few tricks that will make you seem like a rockstar even if you’re scoping your very first pussy.
All of these techniques are based on a pretty simple principle: nerve boredom. Something different and surprising is more stimulating than something familiar. This is not to say that you shouldn’t use those notes you made about which of her areas were sensitive to your machinations. This is about HOW you deploy your mouth on those areas. DON’T do the same thing for more than about 30 seconds. If something is getting a wild reaction, do it for 15-20 seconds, switch for a few seconds to something slightly different, then go back to it for 15-20 seconds, rinse, repeat. Don’t ruin it by making it monotonous, and follow useful tangents.
We talked about some of these variation interludes already: make some noises, some vibrations. Exhale through your mouth at least every now and then - the rush of warm air is decidedly different than the feel of a warm mouth. Suck hard and soft, intermittently.
In most cases, your core motion below the advanced level is going to be a circle with the flat of your tongue over the clit, and this circle should flow both clockwise and counter-clockwise. Make this circle bigger and then smaller as you go.
Vary the speed with which you circle, and try to maximize your speed during your faster circles to the extent your tongue can handle it. Think of this circle as your “base,” from whence you will go on some “missions.” “Missions” are things like exhalations, simple kisses of her most sensitive parts, hums, a quick lap or ten (not around the circle - like you’re lapping milk out of a bowl), a venture deep into the pussy in search of g-spot tissue, etc. Think about going on Missions to the advanced areas in Part 4.
Again, I’ve seen a lot of dudes who think if they shake their head “no” fast enough, they win. Sorry to break this to you, but usually that’s a woman faking an orgasm to avoid that kind of discomfort, and you look ridiculous. Don’t break her pleasure with comedy in this particular circumstance. You do want speed, but you want non-constant speed combined with precision. Please trust me on this. You CAN move your head to gel your tongue out, but do it with control to make sure your tongue stays where it can be useful.
At the medium level, there’s only one time I’d recommend Sword Tongue, though I don’t recommend you do it without trying to maintain some other contact with other parts of your mouth and her pussy:
If you’ve ever had a gay man blow you (or a woman coached by gay men, ahem), you might have had the pleasure of a bit of sucking around the base of your penis. You might have noticed that (I hear) it excites thanks to the connection to the inner parts of your organ that usually don’t get much attention. Some clitorii have the same magic button. Sword Tongue, especially when deployed within a suctioned (or at least contacting) mouth, is excellent for finding and caressing the crevices that equal the base of your penis on ladyparts. in my experience, these missions are highly successful.
Master of Cunnilingus
If during our little entrance exam you could loop your tongue or tie a cherry stem in a knot, there’s a lot more in your arsenal. Congrats! Try these tricks:
1. With your tongue flattened against her and your mouth at-or-near the point of a suction seal, move only the tip of your tongue. It might go into her vagina just slightly here, or may tickle the bottom of the clit while the top is under a different kind of pressure. Either way, the variation is a winner.
2. From the point where you have your tongue over her clit, fold the edges of your tongue around the sides of the clit like a hot dog bun, then continue your movements. She will often shudder with pleasure.
3. With your mouth holding suction over as much of her as you can manage, centered on the most sensitive part of the clitoris, roll your tongue from side to side like you’d grind your hips in the club. Think about the flat surface of your tongue forming an arc like a mouthguard just past your lips. This works well without the suction, too, but I promise you’ll get bonus points in your can suck and roll at the same time.
4. Also multitasking with suction, you can use a min-Sword Tongue, or basically a tongue flick, across the center of the clit. By center, I mean the most sensitive part. This isn’t necessarily the geometric center of the bulbous part of her clit, and the exploration you did in part 1 is key here.
5. Pull your tongue across the clit and change both the pressure and the amount of contact with your stroke. Basically, you’re trying to line up a combo of techniques for best results. So, you’re doing a long lap across her clit, but as you move upward you’re going from a flattened tongue to a Sword Tongue. Bonus points if you can do this while maintaing some suction. Ultra bonus points if you can do it with the hot dog bun of number 2 as the starting point, go to flat, and then go to the point. Repeat this as quickly as you can.
6. For a bit of a [good] surprise when you need a variation break, stick your tongue out in folded position with the folded edge against her clit (or other sensitive part) and let it flip unfolded against her.
So, now I’ve given you a lot to work on. Don’t be embarrassed to practice these tricks on your hand in the privacy of your own bathroom before you go down. It’s work that will be rewarded with moans, bucking hips, and maybe a little squirt.
Read on to Part 4 for some thoughts on where to hit and in what order for maximum effects, as well as more on how to know if you’ve made her come.
And don’t forget to buy up those copies of No Church in the Wild also on Kindle and iBookstore (great gifts for your bi-curious lady friends to encourage them to experiment) if you want to know how I fuck a girl without using my hand or my mouth.
And now for the dirty details. I know, you’re hard just thinking about it.
Your tongue is a glorious muscle, and some are more glorious than others. I’ll offer some techniques that will work for pretty much everyone no matter how dexterous your tongue is, but some of what I’m about to say will just not be do-able for everyone - seriously, as a matter of genetics. Don’t beat yourself off if you can’t hit the advanced techniques, you can do plenty with just the basics.
How do you know which tier to aim for? Try these tongue exercises out for size to see which level you’re on:
1. Can you fold your tongue in half and stick it out? Flip it over on its side? Alternately, can you tie a cherry string into a knot inside your mouth (in under ten minutes, and hopefully closer to 30 seconds)? If so, congratulations, you’ve got advanced capabilities. Shoot for the moon.
2. Can you form your tongue into a loop? If yes, congrats, you’re still advanced. If not, don’t lose your boner - this ability is genetic.
3. Can you stick your tongue out and touch both your chin (anywhere) and your nose? If yes, try the advanced techniques, but feel confident in using the midlevel techniques well.
4. If you can’t do any of these things, it’s okay. I’ll tell you how you can “cheat” by using your hands a bit to make up for your lack of tongue dexterity (in Part 4), but otherwise you’re best bet is to stick to the basics and reach for the Medium Intensity techniques. If you answered “yes” to 1-3, try NOT to use your hands until you master the tongue-only tricks here, lest you get carried away with them.
The Basics
I’ll start with a few basic rules everyone should keep in mind while going down:
1. Maximize Contact. The biggest mistake dudes (and, occasionally, chicks) make is using what I’ll call the “Sword Tongue.” Sword Tongue is where you jab with the tip of your tongue (wherever you may choose to jab, it’s suboptimal) without making contact with any other part of your tongue or mouth. The classic example is the Bro who goes down and sticks his tongue out and shakes his head “no” with his tongue on the clit. Bro, you’re using a shitload of energy to do something that just feels weird for 99% of women out there and breaks every one of my basic rules. DON’T.
Instead, strive constantly to make contact with as much of her as you can at once, with the occasional liftoff. FLATTEN that tongue on the clit before you rub it back and forth. LAP from the vagina up over the clit and back, don’t poke at it. (NOTE: this isn’t true if you’re using advanced technique). I’ll talk more about techniques in Part 4 and about what to do with your flat tool, but for the moment consider this: what feels better - a chick with your whole dick down her throat rubbing her tongue on part of it, or a chick who touches you only with the very pointy tip of her tongue at once? Don’t answer aloud, I already know.
The sexes’ organs just aren’t all that different. We’re talking about the same tissues and the same nerve connections, ultimately. So, if you’re doing something to her you wouldn’t want done to your penis, check yourself. This starts with working to maximize the surface area of your contact.
2. Change Directions. If you lick with a flat tongue from where her clit/inner labia meet her vagina to the tip top of her slit, you’re probably gonna get a nice reaction. But don’t take that to mean that’s all you should ever do. Of course, when you get a happy moan, note what you did and repeat it. But remember: the more you do that one thing, the less effect it will have. I think the up-down is a solid place to start, but after about 20 seconds you’ll want to start mixing some other things in. Draw a sort of line with the center of your tongue (generally, this should be the point of greatest pressure if you’re going with the basics) in the shape of a Jewish star. Draw it in reverse order. That sort of thing.
3. Change Your Pressure. Heavy press can be great, especially if you build up to it. However, if you hold heavy pressure with as much contact as you’re making now (if you’ve been listening to me, anyway), you’re going to slow bloodflow to the area and that would be BAD. Your tongue should lift off the pussy after a hard lick, at least for a moment. And, if you wanna see her squirm, try thirty or so seconds of really light, sort of teasing licks, maybe in the crevices (see Part 4), and then dive in hard with serious pressure and a very quick tongue flick. Note what the variation did to her. That’s what you’re going for.
And now, if you remember nothing else from this whole treatise, remember this one rule:
4. Suck It! Let me put it to you this way, penis-holders: Which girl blows better - the one who sucks like an overactive Hoover or the one who just licks the head of your penis? Again, don’t answer aloud. Instead, kick yourself if you didn’t think of this before. Because, fucking duh. I’m constantly shocked by not only the number of men, but the number of LESBIANS who don’t do this. In fact, most of you can do basically nothing with your tongue and improve your technique by just sucking her clit (remember how we found that in Part 1?). So, do. Suck her clit. Suck it like you’re really into a Ringpop. Suck it gently like the foam on the top of a latte and hard like you’re siphoning gas out of a tank to flee approaching cops. Alternate these, just like you try to vary everything you’re doing. Try to keep your tongue on her sensitive bits (doesn’t have to just be the clit) while you suck. If you can, you’re ready to move on to the midlevel.
Medium Intensity
Once you’ve internalized the basics (and, be sure to take the time to get these down before you try any of the specifics here), you can try a few tricks that will make you seem like a rockstar even if you’re scoping your very first pussy.
All of these techniques are based on a pretty simple principle: nerve boredom. Something different and surprising is more stimulating than something familiar. This is not to say that you shouldn’t use those notes you made about which of her areas were sensitive to your machinations. This is about HOW you deploy your mouth on those areas. DON’T do the same thing for more than about 30 seconds. If something is getting a wild reaction, do it for 15-20 seconds, switch for a few seconds to something slightly different, then go back to it for 15-20 seconds, rinse, repeat. Don’t ruin it by making it monotonous, and follow useful tangents.
We talked about some of these variation interludes already: make some noises, some vibrations. Exhale through your mouth at least every now and then - the rush of warm air is decidedly different than the feel of a warm mouth. Suck hard and soft, intermittently.
In most cases, your core motion below the advanced level is going to be a circle with the flat of your tongue over the clit, and this circle should flow both clockwise and counter-clockwise. Make this circle bigger and then smaller as you go.
Vary the speed with which you circle, and try to maximize your speed during your faster circles to the extent your tongue can handle it. Think of this circle as your “base,” from whence you will go on some “missions.” “Missions” are things like exhalations, simple kisses of her most sensitive parts, hums, a quick lap or ten (not around the circle - like you’re lapping milk out of a bowl), a venture deep into the pussy in search of g-spot tissue, etc. Think about going on Missions to the advanced areas in Part 4.
Again, I’ve seen a lot of dudes who think if they shake their head “no” fast enough, they win. Sorry to break this to you, but usually that’s a woman faking an orgasm to avoid that kind of discomfort, and you look ridiculous. Don’t break her pleasure with comedy in this particular circumstance. You do want speed, but you want non-constant speed combined with precision. Please trust me on this. You CAN move your head to gel your tongue out, but do it with control to make sure your tongue stays where it can be useful.
At the medium level, there’s only one time I’d recommend Sword Tongue, though I don’t recommend you do it without trying to maintain some other contact with other parts of your mouth and her pussy:
If you’ve ever had a gay man blow you (or a woman coached by gay men, ahem), you might have had the pleasure of a bit of sucking around the base of your penis. You might have noticed that (I hear) it excites thanks to the connection to the inner parts of your organ that usually don’t get much attention. Some clitorii have the same magic button. Sword Tongue, especially when deployed within a suctioned (or at least contacting) mouth, is excellent for finding and caressing the crevices that equal the base of your penis on ladyparts. in my experience, these missions are highly successful.
Master of Cunnilingus
If during our little entrance exam you could loop your tongue or tie a cherry stem in a knot, there’s a lot more in your arsenal. Congrats! Try these tricks:
1. With your tongue flattened against her and your mouth at-or-near the point of a suction seal, move only the tip of your tongue. It might go into her vagina just slightly here, or may tickle the bottom of the clit while the top is under a different kind of pressure. Either way, the variation is a winner.
2. From the point where you have your tongue over her clit, fold the edges of your tongue around the sides of the clit like a hot dog bun, then continue your movements. She will often shudder with pleasure.
3. With your mouth holding suction over as much of her as you can manage, centered on the most sensitive part of the clitoris, roll your tongue from side to side like you’d grind your hips in the club. Think about the flat surface of your tongue forming an arc like a mouthguard just past your lips. This works well without the suction, too, but I promise you’ll get bonus points in your can suck and roll at the same time.
4. Also multitasking with suction, you can use a min-Sword Tongue, or basically a tongue flick, across the center of the clit. By center, I mean the most sensitive part. This isn’t necessarily the geometric center of the bulbous part of her clit, and the exploration you did in part 1 is key here.
5. Pull your tongue across the clit and change both the pressure and the amount of contact with your stroke. Basically, you’re trying to line up a combo of techniques for best results. So, you’re doing a long lap across her clit, but as you move upward you’re going from a flattened tongue to a Sword Tongue. Bonus points if you can do this while maintaing some suction. Ultra bonus points if you can do it with the hot dog bun of number 2 as the starting point, go to flat, and then go to the point. Repeat this as quickly as you can.
6. For a bit of a [good] surprise when you need a variation break, stick your tongue out in folded position with the folded edge against her clit (or other sensitive part) and let it flip unfolded against her.
So, now I’ve given you a lot to work on. Don’t be embarrassed to practice these tricks on your hand in the privacy of your own bathroom before you go down. It’s work that will be rewarded with moans, bucking hips, and maybe a little squirt.
Read on to Part 4 for some thoughts on where to hit and in what order for maximum effects, as well as more on how to know if you’ve made her come.
And don’t forget to buy up those copies of No Church in the Wild also on Kindle and iBookstore (great gifts for your bi-curious lady friends to encourage them to experiment) if you want to know how I fuck a girl without using my hand or my mouth.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Cunnilingus Done Right: Part 2
Part 2: Wait - Why Are You Doing This?
There is one word that describes every single above-average cunnilictor: ENTHUSIASTIC. This is why I told you in Part 1 you have to want to go down to do it right. If you’re afraid to get a face up in it, these techniques won’t work. On the other hand, they’re going to be WAY more effective if you show your ladyfriend how happy you are about pleasing her. Be obvious. Vocal. Hum with pleasure. Sigh with pleasure. Do it for at least two reasons:
1. Women come ONLY when their BRAINS are in the right place to come.
This happens when they feel safe, happy, comfortable. If they think you’re saying “oh this shit is NAST,” they will NEVER orgasm. On the other hand, if you make them feel safe and comfortable and think you find their pussy utterly irresistible, their pleasure can increase exponentially AND they will generally come more quickly and with greater frequency over time, as they become continuously more comfortable. (Pro Tip: If you make a woman come with your mouth and THEN penetrate her, she’s more likely to come from penetration, and will probably come more quickly. Plus you'll have figured out how to tell when it's happening.)
2. Vocalizations require vibrations, and vibrations are GOOD.
Purring, good. Sighing, rush of warm air, good. Even a little “mmm” hum, good. Don't sing the national anthem or anything, but be vocal. All different vocalizations in succession, even better. This isn’t just about women; I’ve hummed while I sucked a dick sort of whimsically and the dude basically had a pleasure seizure. His knees buckled. Here’s why: Any vocalizations will vary the part of her nerve endings that are activated and the way in which they are activated. This variation reawakens nerves that have become used to the other sensations you’re pimping. After you’ve thrown down those variations, the stuff you’re doing before will feel even better. (More on the power of variations coming up).
Unfortunately, I can’t teach you to be enthusiastic. I can only encourage you to be open about whatever enthusiasm you may have. All the techniques I discuss in this little treatise are going to work infinitely better if performed enthusiastically.
In the last chapter, I offered some suggestions on how to feel your lady friend out. If you took the time to complete that process, you’re already on the road to solid cunnilingal performance. Hopefully during that process you learned a few things about her:
Does she like you focused in one spot or did she respond to teasing in several different areas? If she responded elsewhere too, consider those spots your “secondary targets.” If you’re lucky, you have a few to work with.
Did she yelp or moan particularly when your tongue went inside her (just a little)? If she did, you may wanna start doing some lingual pushups, cause you can score big with an occasional trip inside.
Are her nipples really sensitive? If she was bucking when you touched her boobs (and, lordy, massage them. DON'T GRAB or SQUEEZE them like water balloons unless she's told you she likes that expressly, and keep the nipple-pinching occasional and teasing), get your hand up there every now and then while you’re going down. Because:
From here on out, you should be thinking about how you can stimulate her from as many directions as possible at once. Here’s a quick note on how the sexual brain works: When a human is aroused, s/he uses almost none of her reasoning brain and fires up the primordial, instinct based brain. When a human orgasms, the focus on the primordial brain is so strong that humans almost LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS (some women actually do, for an instant). If she starts paying an awful lot of attention to her phone, the TV, whatever, that’s your cue to start varying your technique. I’m going to talk at length about that in Part 4, but first, in Part 3, I’m going to tell you how to wield that enthusiastic little tongue of yours.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
CUNNILINGUS DONE RIGHT, Part 1
Recently a ladyfriend and I found ourselves in a late-night Mardi Gras game of Kings Cup with a swinger straight married couple, two of us drinking from 2-foot Jester-shaped daiquiris. I know, I know: how could a night like that NOT end well?
Two days later, I found myself alone with the husband while ladyfriend and the wife were in the bathroom. As soon as they walked away, he'd turned to me and said "So, I think you should give me some tips."
"Tips on what?" I replied.
"On how to do whatever it is you did to make her scream like that the other night." Ladyfriend had, indeed, had a pleasant response to my overtures. But nothing unusual. Uneventful, even. I was drunk, with something of an audience... I wasn't at my best. Then I thought <i>this poor boy!<i> and I decided to explain a little bit about cunnilingus for the poor gents out there who don't have their own vagina to use as a reference.
Then I thought I'd make it a game - see how much boys really want to know (1) how to make a girl shake with and electrocution of orgasm and (2) how girls really are when they're getting it on with other girls.
And, thanks to Rap Genius, I can illustrate and share. I'll answer (1) here in this album - new chapters posting regularly. I'll answer (2) if I know people are interested, which I'll know if I sell more than 20,000 copies of my novel (links upon click), in which I begin to describe it.
How to Eat a Pussy Right
I’m gonna start with a preview: exhale through your mouth whenever you can remember to, but don’t pant. See, I’m giving you details. More to come. But first, some background, and a word of caution: you gotta like pussy to eat it right. If the thought of going down on a woman grosses you out, consider sucking a dick. Remember: THE MORE DESPERATELY YOU WANT TO EAT A PUSSY, THE BETTER YOU CAN BE AT IT.
Part 1: Know Her Anatomy
The first thing to understand is that there's more than one answer to this question, “Bacchus, how do I eat pussy right?” and it's your job to find the right answer (hang onto your boner, I'm gonna tell you how you go about it).
Every pussy is different, on the whole:
(Read a discussion about this piece and artist here)
Spend some time looking at the sculptures. Notice the diversity, the range. Some labia cascade out of the vagina cavity like dams bursting; some clits stay nuzzled totally inside along with the labia while she’s at rest. Most will change in appearance somewhat when they get aroused.
In men and women alike, some portion of the genitalia is internal. How much is internal depends on the person. Almost no women get the most achievable pleasure from a laser focus on a small area of the clitoris, including the classic and horrid rapid-fire poke some of you poor bastards attempt. Usually, a greater contact area that could include the folds around the clitoris, the inner and outer labia, the bridge to the ass, and the inside of the vagina is ideal. Yes, some of your tongues can get there, up in that vagina, all the way to the (sometimes) g-spot. Most tongues are bigger than Ken Jeong’s penis, and much more nimble. But not all women want you to go there, remember that.
Every clitoris is different, too. Some stick out more, others curl back heavily toward the vaginal wall on the opposite end. Some get more engorged than others. HOWEVER, if you notice NO swelling in the clitoris or the vagina as a whole while you are performing cunnilingus, YOU KNOW YOU ARE DOING A SHIT JOB. I’ve never seen one that didn’t swell just a little when it was happy. I’ll talk about what to do if you realize you’re doing a shit job later.
Don’t confuse the clitoris with the inner labia, please. Yes, they’re connected, and when the inner labia are about as thick as the clitoris you can expect that a woman will feel pleasure if you lick them, especially at the intersection point of clitoris/inner labia.
You’re probably going to get more results by identifying the scope of the clitoris and training your efforts there, however and attention to the clitoris should be, even if non-exclusive, more of a priority than tinkering with the inner labia. The clitoris will probably be the part that swells the most, and will probably be the most sensitive part. I’ve circled the clitoris and inner labia in different colors in a number of different pussies below. Note that you can’t always see them. Some folds gotta be pulled back. (Hint: inside these folds is where the vagina happens.) Try get an idea of what to expect, won’t you?
All the teal circles are clits; all the orange circles are inner labiae.
If a woman doesn’t shave/wax, you probably can’t do much with the outer labia. If she does shave, an occasional tangent in that direction might be beneficial - or totally unwelcome. After you understand how to use your tongue properly (See Part 3), try such a tangent out and see how it goes. I’ve circled the outer labia in a number of different pussies here to show you what they might look like.
In fact, the first thing you should do as you make your way down on a new woman (and, for the love of the gods, take your time getting there and show some love to the nipples/hips/thighs/etc. on the way) is get to know her in a sense more biblical than the biblical.
If you don’t know where to begin, think of her body as a dartboard with the clitoris at the center and her mouth at the upper edge, with about a million rings of scoring in between. You want your mouth to kiss along the edge of the dartboard in an inward spiral until you get to the bullseye, and then you just keep on kissing. We’ll talk about how to vary your intensity later.
This process is really about getting to know this particular woman, and if you’re in a rush, you should save it for when you have more time. Once you know the woman, you can skip the outer rings or start with intense stroke. But you’ll never do a good job if you don’t know this particular pussy well enough to please it, and it takes some time to get there. it’s worth taking the time to figure out what works for this lady first.
So, YOUR KISSING MOUTH SHOULD START SOFT. As you make your way as far around the dartboard spiral as you can on her body, try slightly harder strokes of the tongue, harder kisses, a little sucking. She may show pleasure by moaning or crying out or purring or simply with a tensing of the muscles. Pay attention to what she responds to positively, and, more importantly, if she responds to any level of pressure or particular action negatively. If she does respond to something negatively, eliminate it from your repertoire immediately, and note what it was about her reaction that seemed negative so you can be sensitive to it going forward.
As you follow the spiral down, make the concentric circles progressively smaller, but keep thinking like you’re kissing her mouth. In fact, you should try to make the last concentric circle with one unified, even-paced circle of the tongue that maps the border of the clitoris as it falls into the body. Let your tongue slide here; it’s one of the only times pointing it works well, and the pointed end should travel the circle around her clit so that it touches only the edge of the inner labia. Congratulations, you’ve found the clitoris. I hope you took some mental notes on what parts of her were also responsive on the way there. You’ll need those notes for Part 2, to follow, and don’t forget to check out the book here (free preview here on Rap Genius or on your Kindle).
Get ready for Part 2:
Two days later, I found myself alone with the husband while ladyfriend and the wife were in the bathroom. As soon as they walked away, he'd turned to me and said "So, I think you should give me some tips."
"Tips on what?" I replied.
"On how to do whatever it is you did to make her scream like that the other night." Ladyfriend had, indeed, had a pleasant response to my overtures. But nothing unusual. Uneventful, even. I was drunk, with something of an audience... I wasn't at my best. Then I thought <i>this poor boy!<i> and I decided to explain a little bit about cunnilingus for the poor gents out there who don't have their own vagina to use as a reference.
Then I thought I'd make it a game - see how much boys really want to know (1) how to make a girl shake with and electrocution of orgasm and (2) how girls really are when they're getting it on with other girls.
And, thanks to Rap Genius, I can illustrate and share. I'll answer (1) here in this album - new chapters posting regularly. I'll answer (2) if I know people are interested, which I'll know if I sell more than 20,000 copies of my novel (links upon click), in which I begin to describe it.
How to Eat a Pussy Right
I’m gonna start with a preview: exhale through your mouth whenever you can remember to, but don’t pant. See, I’m giving you details. More to come. But first, some background, and a word of caution: you gotta like pussy to eat it right. If the thought of going down on a woman grosses you out, consider sucking a dick. Remember: THE MORE DESPERATELY YOU WANT TO EAT A PUSSY, THE BETTER YOU CAN BE AT IT.
Part 1: Know Her Anatomy
The first thing to understand is that there's more than one answer to this question, “Bacchus, how do I eat pussy right?” and it's your job to find the right answer (hang onto your boner, I'm gonna tell you how you go about it).
Every pussy is different, on the whole:
(Read a discussion about this piece and artist here)
Spend some time looking at the sculptures. Notice the diversity, the range. Some labia cascade out of the vagina cavity like dams bursting; some clits stay nuzzled totally inside along with the labia while she’s at rest. Most will change in appearance somewhat when they get aroused.
In men and women alike, some portion of the genitalia is internal. How much is internal depends on the person. Almost no women get the most achievable pleasure from a laser focus on a small area of the clitoris, including the classic and horrid rapid-fire poke some of you poor bastards attempt. Usually, a greater contact area that could include the folds around the clitoris, the inner and outer labia, the bridge to the ass, and the inside of the vagina is ideal. Yes, some of your tongues can get there, up in that vagina, all the way to the (sometimes) g-spot. Most tongues are bigger than Ken Jeong’s penis, and much more nimble. But not all women want you to go there, remember that.
Every clitoris is different, too. Some stick out more, others curl back heavily toward the vaginal wall on the opposite end. Some get more engorged than others. HOWEVER, if you notice NO swelling in the clitoris or the vagina as a whole while you are performing cunnilingus, YOU KNOW YOU ARE DOING A SHIT JOB. I’ve never seen one that didn’t swell just a little when it was happy. I’ll talk about what to do if you realize you’re doing a shit job later.
Don’t confuse the clitoris with the inner labia, please. Yes, they’re connected, and when the inner labia are about as thick as the clitoris you can expect that a woman will feel pleasure if you lick them, especially at the intersection point of clitoris/inner labia.You’re probably going to get more results by identifying the scope of the clitoris and training your efforts there, however and attention to the clitoris should be, even if non-exclusive, more of a priority than tinkering with the inner labia. The clitoris will probably be the part that swells the most, and will probably be the most sensitive part. I’ve circled the clitoris and inner labia in different colors in a number of different pussies below. Note that you can’t always see them. Some folds gotta be pulled back. (Hint: inside these folds is where the vagina happens.) Try get an idea of what to expect, won’t you?
All the teal circles are clits; all the orange circles are inner labiae.
If a woman doesn’t shave/wax, you probably can’t do much with the outer labia. If she does shave, an occasional tangent in that direction might be beneficial - or totally unwelcome. After you understand how to use your tongue properly (See Part 3), try such a tangent out and see how it goes. I’ve circled the outer labia in a number of different pussies here to show you what they might look like.
In fact, the first thing you should do as you make your way down on a new woman (and, for the love of the gods, take your time getting there and show some love to the nipples/hips/thighs/etc. on the way) is get to know her in a sense more biblical than the biblical.
If you don’t know where to begin, think of her body as a dartboard with the clitoris at the center and her mouth at the upper edge, with about a million rings of scoring in between. You want your mouth to kiss along the edge of the dartboard in an inward spiral until you get to the bullseye, and then you just keep on kissing. We’ll talk about how to vary your intensity later.
This process is really about getting to know this particular woman, and if you’re in a rush, you should save it for when you have more time. Once you know the woman, you can skip the outer rings or start with intense stroke. But you’ll never do a good job if you don’t know this particular pussy well enough to please it, and it takes some time to get there. it’s worth taking the time to figure out what works for this lady first.
So, YOUR KISSING MOUTH SHOULD START SOFT. As you make your way as far around the dartboard spiral as you can on her body, try slightly harder strokes of the tongue, harder kisses, a little sucking. She may show pleasure by moaning or crying out or purring or simply with a tensing of the muscles. Pay attention to what she responds to positively, and, more importantly, if she responds to any level of pressure or particular action negatively. If she does respond to something negatively, eliminate it from your repertoire immediately, and note what it was about her reaction that seemed negative so you can be sensitive to it going forward.
As you follow the spiral down, make the concentric circles progressively smaller, but keep thinking like you’re kissing her mouth. In fact, you should try to make the last concentric circle with one unified, even-paced circle of the tongue that maps the border of the clitoris as it falls into the body. Let your tongue slide here; it’s one of the only times pointing it works well, and the pointed end should travel the circle around her clit so that it touches only the edge of the inner labia. Congratulations, you’ve found the clitoris. I hope you took some mental notes on what parts of her were also responsive on the way there. You’ll need those notes for Part 2, to follow, and don’t forget to check out the book here (free preview here on Rap Genius or on your Kindle).
Get ready for Part 2:
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Sofia Petrillo Smokes a Blunt
Thanks to some major public demand, the Golden Girls series continues to Sophia.
For those of you who missed Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner, this is all happening because I wanted to show my "gay" male friend how not weird it is that he idolized a Golden Girl growing up, because - as I told him in No Church in the Wild and most other times we spoke - the dicotomies between gender and sexuality are actually onerous bullshit.
So, here's Sofia. The model who thought of himself as "a Sofia" generated this pose when asked to act her out, and I matched a concomitant facial expression from a real episode of Golden Girls.
She's showing live at the Poptag.it Gambit Pop-up Store + Gallery this Black Friday, where your drinks are free if you want to check her out. If she makes you feel a little weird, imagine how a trans person might feel looking in the mirror....we imposed that weirdness as a society with all our hardcore, unnecessary dichotomies...
PS - if you download the Popt app use the invite code "bacchus" for $5 credit to spend...
For those of you who missed Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner, this is all happening because I wanted to show my "gay" male friend how not weird it is that he idolized a Golden Girl growing up, because - as I told him in No Church in the Wild and most other times we spoke - the dicotomies between gender and sexuality are actually onerous bullshit.
So, here's Sofia. The model who thought of himself as "a Sofia" generated this pose when asked to act her out, and I matched a concomitant facial expression from a real episode of Golden Girls.
PS - if you download the Popt app use the invite code "bacchus" for $5 credit to spend...
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Where have all the Bathrooms Gone?
I got into a fight at JT/JZ. Seriously.
I drunkenly screamed at a dude seven inches taller than me and said very not nice things in his general direction. Because I was in the men's bathroom, and I didn't wanna leave. Instead, I've decided to crusade for my right to use it.
I was at the Jay Z and Justin Timberlake concert at Candlestick. It was a shockingly open and anti-discriminatory place. Example: at one point they played "Forever Young." For Trayvon Martin. And the above tribute occurred. But before that, JT intro'd "Mirrors," and he begged everyone to sing along if they felt it, whether they were a guy with their girl, a girl with their guy, a girl with their girl, or a guy with their guy."
What was not at all open about the evening were the stalls in the women's restrooms. The event was 70% woman in a venue designed for crowds of 25% women. More importantly, all bathrooms were so crowded that no one could have so much as coughed without 30 people hearing about it, and therefore no one was in danger of any kind of assault. Except from me.
Because I really don't get why under those circumstances [cisgender] men would have the audacity to yell at a long line of desperate women about to piss themselves that the "men's room" was somehow sacred space, that the men's stalls were not available to women. Well, fuck that. Bitches gotta piss too. And it's about time we stopped pretending like gendered spaces are culturally important; they maintain distinctions that are totally unnecessary. And they made 50,000 women nearly piss themselves during the Legends of Summer Tour.
I drunkenly screamed at a dude seven inches taller than me and said very not nice things in his general direction. Because I was in the men's bathroom, and I didn't wanna leave. Instead, I've decided to crusade for my right to use it.
I was at the Jay Z and Justin Timberlake concert at Candlestick. It was a shockingly open and anti-discriminatory place. Example: at one point they played "Forever Young." For Trayvon Martin. And the above tribute occurred. But before that, JT intro'd "Mirrors," and he begged everyone to sing along if they felt it, whether they were a guy with their girl, a girl with their guy, a girl with their girl, or a guy with their guy."
What was not at all open about the evening were the stalls in the women's restrooms. The event was 70% woman in a venue designed for crowds of 25% women. More importantly, all bathrooms were so crowded that no one could have so much as coughed without 30 people hearing about it, and therefore no one was in danger of any kind of assault. Except from me.
Because I really don't get why under those circumstances [cisgender] men would have the audacity to yell at a long line of desperate women about to piss themselves that the "men's room" was somehow sacred space, that the men's stalls were not available to women. Well, fuck that. Bitches gotta piss too. And it's about time we stopped pretending like gendered spaces are culturally important; they maintain distinctions that are totally unnecessary. And they made 50,000 women nearly piss themselves during the Legends of Summer Tour.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
An Evolutionary Reason You Get Off From Getting Head
One of my many flaws is reading far too many pop science books and drawing conclusions. Here's one such conclusion, drawn after receiving something of an overshare from a friend:
I think we evolved to feel pleasure getting head because it fights STDs. Not kidding.
I'm not quite talking about the lower incidence of HIV transmission from oral sex as opposed to vaginal or anal sex, or the claim that saliva carries a sparser population of the HIV virus. Though that is certainly interesting.
I'm talking about saliva's generally antibiotic properties. Like, if you're trapped in the desert and you cut yourself, you should probably spit on it. For an entertaining discussion about the many capabilities of saliva, check out Mary Roach's Gulp. Since Mary Roach has editors, I assume I can use this antibiotic property as a baseline. Now for a little story.
My friend [Bella] is dating a newish girl, been a couple months. They see each other weekly or thereabouts at this stage, and the oral sex is great. Suddenly, Bella finds herself with what she suspects is a UTI. Seems they've been riding dirty. Now there's a dilemma, she says. Should she tell this girl not to go down there and miss out on the VERY excellent head, or do just keep her mouth shut and risk an infection but enjoy the face-ride?
My response will anger fundamentalist Islamists, Baptists, ancient Roman senators and perhaps certain Jews alike: Definitely let her eat it! Tell her to lap it wet. Mary Roach says saliva is like a microbial brigade of awesomeness. It might make it better!
Worth a shot, we concluded.
And it worked! UTI faded with more-frequent head.
So now, armed with this singular piece of anecdotal evidence, I've begun to wonder... Is this a novel trick?
Take, for example, two prehistoric women, one who really enjoys - craves - oral sex and one who doesn't care for it any more than doggy style or whatever. If there's an antibacterial effect to having someone salivate all over your pussy, wouldn't natural selection pick the lady who craves head?
That's even if the head doesn't easily lead to procreation...
I think oral would similarly clean house for men. Especially with those old diseases they used to have before humans made medicines that made the diseases sturdier. So why not crave it? It's good for you, you were born to love it! That's one more thing religions get wrong about sexuality.
I think we evolved to feel pleasure getting head because it fights STDs. Not kidding.
I'm not quite talking about the lower incidence of HIV transmission from oral sex as opposed to vaginal or anal sex, or the claim that saliva carries a sparser population of the HIV virus. Though that is certainly interesting.
I'm talking about saliva's generally antibiotic properties. Like, if you're trapped in the desert and you cut yourself, you should probably spit on it. For an entertaining discussion about the many capabilities of saliva, check out Mary Roach's Gulp. Since Mary Roach has editors, I assume I can use this antibiotic property as a baseline. Now for a little story.
My friend [Bella] is dating a newish girl, been a couple months. They see each other weekly or thereabouts at this stage, and the oral sex is great. Suddenly, Bella finds herself with what she suspects is a UTI. Seems they've been riding dirty. Now there's a dilemma, she says. Should she tell this girl not to go down there and miss out on the VERY excellent head, or do just keep her mouth shut and risk an infection but enjoy the face-ride?
My response will anger fundamentalist Islamists, Baptists, ancient Roman senators and perhaps certain Jews alike: Definitely let her eat it! Tell her to lap it wet. Mary Roach says saliva is like a microbial brigade of awesomeness. It might make it better!
Worth a shot, we concluded.
And it worked! UTI faded with more-frequent head.
So now, armed with this singular piece of anecdotal evidence, I've begun to wonder... Is this a novel trick?
Take, for example, two prehistoric women, one who really enjoys - craves - oral sex and one who doesn't care for it any more than doggy style or whatever. If there's an antibacterial effect to having someone salivate all over your pussy, wouldn't natural selection pick the lady who craves head?
That's even if the head doesn't easily lead to procreation...
I think oral would similarly clean house for men. Especially with those old diseases they used to have before humans made medicines that made the diseases sturdier. So why not crave it? It's good for you, you were born to love it! That's one more thing religions get wrong about sexuality.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Transgender Summer Camp
If you are an 11 year old born with a penis who likes to dress in makeup and pink dresses, there's a camp for you. The only sad part is that I can't tell you where to find it, because it's name and location have to stay secret to protect the campers.
The owner calls it "You for You," which isn't the real name, but it is the real idea. The idea is that if you are the parent of a gender nonconforming child, you can come to this camp with your child and allow your biologically male child to participate in beauty pageants and wear heels with other kids who like to do the same thing. Nobody's judging them.
Bu my favorite part of the whole article describing this heretofore-secret camp is that the manager doesn't expect (or encourage or discourage) these kids to grow up to be any particular way. She accepts that some may want gender reassignment surgery one day just as she accepts that some will stop wearing girls clothes in the next few years, marry women, and identify as straight at 30.
She doesn't think of gender as polar and permanent, and that's exactly what the rest of us need to notice. Because her point of view allows these kids to be really happy. (Check out her photos, because these kids do look like they're having a blast).
I painted Blanche Devereaux with an erection and wrote No Church in the Wild to make the same point. We have to stop thinking about gender and sexuality in terms of permanent polarities that don't really apply. It's much easier for a boy who wants to dress as a girl to say "I feel like wearing heels today" than it is to say "I want to be a girl forever." Just because the former is true doesn't mean the latter is. Describing only the present circumstances is much easier and much more honest than "coming out" as an identity or orientation. And it's much easier for us bisexuals to say "I want to date this [same-sex person] right now," which is about an action, than to say, "I'm a bisexual," which is a lifetime label with a number of nasty connotations that discourage the vast majority of bisexuals from ever coming out or using it.
So let's talk about our actions, now, instead of trying to cabin ourselves into permanent identities.
 |
| Credit: Lindsay Morris |
The owner calls it "You for You," which isn't the real name, but it is the real idea. The idea is that if you are the parent of a gender nonconforming child, you can come to this camp with your child and allow your biologically male child to participate in beauty pageants and wear heels with other kids who like to do the same thing. Nobody's judging them.
Bu my favorite part of the whole article describing this heretofore-secret camp is that the manager doesn't expect (or encourage or discourage) these kids to grow up to be any particular way. She accepts that some may want gender reassignment surgery one day just as she accepts that some will stop wearing girls clothes in the next few years, marry women, and identify as straight at 30.
She doesn't think of gender as polar and permanent, and that's exactly what the rest of us need to notice. Because her point of view allows these kids to be really happy. (Check out her photos, because these kids do look like they're having a blast).
I painted Blanche Devereaux with an erection and wrote No Church in the Wild to make the same point. We have to stop thinking about gender and sexuality in terms of permanent polarities that don't really apply. It's much easier for a boy who wants to dress as a girl to say "I feel like wearing heels today" than it is to say "I want to be a girl forever." Just because the former is true doesn't mean the latter is. Describing only the present circumstances is much easier and much more honest than "coming out" as an identity or orientation. And it's much easier for us bisexuals to say "I want to date this [same-sex person] right now," which is about an action, than to say, "I'm a bisexual," which is a lifetime label with a number of nasty connotations that discourage the vast majority of bisexuals from ever coming out or using it.
So let's talk about our actions, now, instead of trying to cabin ourselves into permanent identities.
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
Reply to Anonymous
Due to technical difficulties, I'm responding to the following comment via post:
I have don't favor labels, generally. I am comfortable with my body in my birth gender most of the time and would never want to remove my breasts, though sometimes I desperately wish I had a penis. I exhibit many "masculine" behavioral characteristics, but I don't think that I act "like a boy" when I watch football, I think I act like a person who likes football. So it's fair to say it's inconsistent to refer to myself with both labels - "gender queer" and "cisgender" - but in some circumstances both could be said to apply. That's the problem with labels, I guess.
Anonymous1:29 PM
Do you identify as both cis gender and gender queer in this posting?
I have don't favor labels, generally. I am comfortable with my body in my birth gender most of the time and would never want to remove my breasts, though sometimes I desperately wish I had a penis. I exhibit many "masculine" behavioral characteristics, but I don't think that I act "like a boy" when I watch football, I think I act like a person who likes football. So it's fair to say it's inconsistent to refer to myself with both labels - "gender queer" and "cisgender" - but in some circumstances both could be said to apply. That's the problem with labels, I guess.
Cynthia Nixon Speaks
Lovely quote from her piece in the documentary The Out List:
"There are a lot of people who really don't believe people when they say they're bisexual, so I try to avoid the bisexual label because it just brings so much grief down on you. People think you're faking, wishy washy, or people think you're a sex addict or something who doesn't wanna make up their mind, I wanna be a political fighter, and I wanna be in there fighting, so I call myself gay. And certainly I'm delighted to be in the gay club. People all the time talk about you know when I came out, but I don't feel like I came out. I feel like I fell in love with someone and that person was a woman, and I don't wanna minimize that in any way. What I'm attracted to about Christine is her butchness and her gayness. But I didn't feel like all of a sudden there was a part of me that was denied or living in the shadows that finally could come out. gay people are fighting really really hard for our civil rights. What's important is that the world looks at all of us and sees us as gay and so we need to be cohesive and we need to fight...it can't be us and them anymore, we have to understand, we're all us."
"There are a lot of people who really don't believe people when they say they're bisexual, so I try to avoid the bisexual label because it just brings so much grief down on you. People think you're faking, wishy washy, or people think you're a sex addict or something who doesn't wanna make up their mind, I wanna be a political fighter, and I wanna be in there fighting, so I call myself gay. And certainly I'm delighted to be in the gay club. People all the time talk about you know when I came out, but I don't feel like I came out. I feel like I fell in love with someone and that person was a woman, and I don't wanna minimize that in any way. What I'm attracted to about Christine is her butchness and her gayness. But I didn't feel like all of a sudden there was a part of me that was denied or living in the shadows that finally could come out. gay people are fighting really really hard for our civil rights. What's important is that the world looks at all of us and sees us as gay and so we need to be cohesive and we need to fight...it can't be us and them anymore, we have to understand, we're all us."
Let Me Explain Myself
I painted a gay boy's aroused figured with a face reminiscent of Blanche Devereaux for a reason, as I've explained before. In response, I got an uproar of vicious Facebook messages. Some claimed that I had insulted the actress with my work. Some claimed that it was trash and I was not activist, just a "cockroach." I've never been called a cockroach before. Fortunately, some members of the community spoke up to say they appreciated the message I was sending.
So now I want to explain a bit about why I chose to send that message.
It certainly wasn't meant to insult the actress. The character of Blanche Devereaux was a childhood idol of mine, and I've often noted that it was my idolatry of Blanche that made me feel comfortable exercising my hypersexual tendencies. [Bobby], the model, felt the same way. This painting is a celebration of the love and taste he and I share for Golden Girls, and Blanche in particular.
But I assumed most people would find the painting at least a little disturbing. Why? Because the image feels "wrong" or "gross" to a cisgender person - one who feels they are physically and mentally their birth gender - because it mixes genders in a way that puts them off. For a transgender person, they could see this SAME kind of "disturbing" or "disgusting" disconnect when they look at the bodies they were born with in the mirror because they feel so alienated from their birth gender (more on why/how science explains that trans and cisgender persons are born as a result of the same quirks of the gestation processes in a moment). So, imagine taking any disturbing sensations you got from this painting to the bathroom mirror with you every single morning.
One guy on the web accused me of making the word "cisgender" up when I told him why I made this painting. I assure you, I did not. It has been used academically for quite a while. I didn't know the term myself until recently because I am cisgender and never had a reason to define myself as different until I began interacting more deeply with the trans community as a result of No Church in the Wild. Cisgender is just an academic way of referring to persons whose birth gender and "psychological gender" match, as opposed to trans or gender queer persons who identify as a different psychological gender. "Cisgender" is left off most speech for the same reason "white" might be: Most of society would say "I saw a man running" if they meant a white dude but would say "I saw a black man running" if they meant a black dude.
A cisgender bias is a manner of thinking of the world with reference to persons who feel a "match" - as a white person sees the world without reference to the difficulties minorities experience - but I'd argue that oftentimes parts can match and parts cannot. As I have argued with my painting of Bobby as Blanche, which is a physical male's embodiment of a female-stereotyped persona.
You may have noticed that I'm opposed to dichotomies like "gay vs. straight" and "male vs. female." In my scale of sexuality fingerprints, I use "active to passive" instead of "male vs. female." A human's graph point on the fingerprint mold below moves according to the extent to which one is "same-sex interested to opposite-sex interested" - or, "hypersexual to asexual." Each rating is just a point along an axis, an one's graph point may change over time as our brains age. I don't have a point for "Trans to cis" gender because I don't think personality/sexuality characteristics need to be thought of in terms of gender at all to understand sexuality (or sexual compatibility). Here's where the figure in my previous painting of Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner falls on the graph, with the curve representing the range necessary because the face and boy have different birth genders.
Birth gender is set by your genes during your first trimester as a fetus. The traits that place a human in a particular spot on this graph all develop later in gestation, across genders, when the makeup of the fetal brain is structured, in part, by androgens. Androgens are sex hormones (estrogen, testosterone, etc) coursing through a pregnant woman, and they depend on the mother's environment, mood, biology, etc rather than the child's sex. Specifically, later brain development, when we get traits like aggression built into our neurons - which people often simply identify as a birth gender trait - is guided by the mother's androgen levels rather than the child's sex. I've blogged before about the scientists who first made this claim and suggested why it explains my bisexuality and my gender queer traits. If you don't think in terms of birth gender, Blanche doesn't look so creepy.
So, I've painted to make the world aware of how deep-seated their misconceptions and biases of gender really are. If you hate it, I hope you'll at least think about why.
So now I want to explain a bit about why I chose to send that message.
It certainly wasn't meant to insult the actress. The character of Blanche Devereaux was a childhood idol of mine, and I've often noted that it was my idolatry of Blanche that made me feel comfortable exercising my hypersexual tendencies. [Bobby], the model, felt the same way. This painting is a celebration of the love and taste he and I share for Golden Girls, and Blanche in particular.
But I assumed most people would find the painting at least a little disturbing. Why? Because the image feels "wrong" or "gross" to a cisgender person - one who feels they are physically and mentally their birth gender - because it mixes genders in a way that puts them off. For a transgender person, they could see this SAME kind of "disturbing" or "disgusting" disconnect when they look at the bodies they were born with in the mirror because they feel so alienated from their birth gender (more on why/how science explains that trans and cisgender persons are born as a result of the same quirks of the gestation processes in a moment). So, imagine taking any disturbing sensations you got from this painting to the bathroom mirror with you every single morning.
One guy on the web accused me of making the word "cisgender" up when I told him why I made this painting. I assure you, I did not. It has been used academically for quite a while. I didn't know the term myself until recently because I am cisgender and never had a reason to define myself as different until I began interacting more deeply with the trans community as a result of No Church in the Wild. Cisgender is just an academic way of referring to persons whose birth gender and "psychological gender" match, as opposed to trans or gender queer persons who identify as a different psychological gender. "Cisgender" is left off most speech for the same reason "white" might be: Most of society would say "I saw a man running" if they meant a white dude but would say "I saw a black man running" if they meant a black dude.
A cisgender bias is a manner of thinking of the world with reference to persons who feel a "match" - as a white person sees the world without reference to the difficulties minorities experience - but I'd argue that oftentimes parts can match and parts cannot. As I have argued with my painting of Bobby as Blanche, which is a physical male's embodiment of a female-stereotyped persona.
You may have noticed that I'm opposed to dichotomies like "gay vs. straight" and "male vs. female." In my scale of sexuality fingerprints, I use "active to passive" instead of "male vs. female." A human's graph point on the fingerprint mold below moves according to the extent to which one is "same-sex interested to opposite-sex interested" - or, "hypersexual to asexual." Each rating is just a point along an axis, an one's graph point may change over time as our brains age. I don't have a point for "Trans to cis" gender because I don't think personality/sexuality characteristics need to be thought of in terms of gender at all to understand sexuality (or sexual compatibility). Here's where the figure in my previous painting of Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner falls on the graph, with the curve representing the range necessary because the face and boy have different birth genders.
Birth gender is set by your genes during your first trimester as a fetus. The traits that place a human in a particular spot on this graph all develop later in gestation, across genders, when the makeup of the fetal brain is structured, in part, by androgens. Androgens are sex hormones (estrogen, testosterone, etc) coursing through a pregnant woman, and they depend on the mother's environment, mood, biology, etc rather than the child's sex. Specifically, later brain development, when we get traits like aggression built into our neurons - which people often simply identify as a birth gender trait - is guided by the mother's androgen levels rather than the child's sex. I've blogged before about the scientists who first made this claim and suggested why it explains my bisexuality and my gender queer traits. If you don't think in terms of birth gender, Blanche doesn't look so creepy.
So, I've painted to make the world aware of how deep-seated their misconceptions and biases of gender really are. If you hate it, I hope you'll at least think about why.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner
Blanche Devereaux with
Giant Boner
Read on for the story of its making:
My friend Bobby (name changed for anonymity’s sake, although
given the above I’m not sure why he wouldn’t want a bit of credit) read my book,
and we had a bottle of wine between us and started chatting about it one night.
Bobby identifies as predominantly into
men, cisgender (for those playing the home game, a cisgender trait is where
one’s behavioral/mental gender and birth gender match in a given circumstance),
hypersexual, mostly active. I’ve blogged
about why we might exhibit these characteristics before,
and it’s not about birth gender in the least.
“[The book] made me think about what attractions I do have
to women. And I really have none,” he
said.
“Everyone’s different.
Sexuality is more like a fingerprint than a gender or an
orientation. Like you, you’re hypersexual,
predominately same-sex interested, very active/toppy. But you still exhibit some behaviors that are
stereotyped as ‘feminine,’” I told Bobby.
“Like a love of Golden Girls?” he asked, and I think he might
have been joking…
“I know you’re really only into dudes, but you do that same
kind of rewriting and reconceptualizing that pervades No Church in the Wild because you neglect to consider all the parts
of you that aren’t a perfect match for your birth gender. I like football,
that’s not really ‘feminine’ in the stereotypical sense. And loving Golden Girls isn’t stereotypical ‘manly’
for you either. But if you destroy the
dichotomy of gender and stop trying to fit yourself into one of two imperfect
boxes with everything you do, you’ll see your have more in common with the
Golden Girls than you have different. Did
you ever identify with a biological female? Like, have a female heroine? Maybe,
divaesque?”
“Indeed. Blanche Devereaux,” Bobby said.
At that precise moment in our lives Bobby happened to have
much free time. I am a painter from time
to time, and I haven’t had a good live model in about eight years. In the interim, I’ve painted myself. But now, I had a thought.
“Would you model for me?” I asked him. It was too good to be true. His sexuality (though obviously not his birth
gender) - hell, even his personality - was pretty much identical to that of
Blanche Devereaux. Playful hypersexual
who pursues men actively and frequently.
Only men.
“Naked?” Bobby asked, tentative.
“Ideally.”
“I don’t know if I want people to see my face.”
“They don’t need to see your face…” I explained. Because it would be Blanche’s.
I told Bobby he could keep his clothes if he needed to when
he showed up at my apartment to sit. But
we both agreed Blanche would be naked.
We’re all ultimately, naked, after all, if we’re portrayed
realistically. Clothes hide a painful
amount of expression. As he sat, I asked
him what struck him about Blanche and watched as his body followed his
thoughts, waiting for the perfect Blanche moment.
“What about my penis?” he asked.
“Is the part of you that identifies as Blanch Devereaux
sexual?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I suppose this being would be erect… I want to paint
the part of you that feels like Blanche Devereaux. That being is genderless and both genders at
once…if you’re comfortable with that?”
“No,” Bobby said, “ I think you’re right. She’d be erect.”
“She’s pretty much always erect, as far as I can tell.”
Bobby was eventually able to manifest Blanche’s erection,
but only if he handled the erection piece outside of our modeling session,
during which he reclined on my bed, interchangeably smoking weed and drinking,
with gay porn on in the background, while I photographed him until the perfect
Blanche moment emerged.
I chose an image of Blanche from an episode where she was
extra-flirty, as she comments flippantly about a lover. It reminded me of Bobby.
So, here you have it – my painted expression of the end of
gender and sexuality dichotomies a la No Church in the Wild. If you like, comment. I plan to do a series of gay men channeling
Golden Girls. I’ve already got a
wonderful expression for a Sophia.
Happy Gay Day, Castro!
When there is a landmark court case for gay rights, the City breaks into a rave, generally. But, when TWO landmark decisions come in one day...well, that's when Muni stops even trying to travel through the Castro.
This is what the street looked like around 7:00PM yesterday, the ecstatic funeral of DOMA and of Prop 8. One friend was photographed by a news crew in a wedding dress as he walked down market, an "Equality Now" sign in the background. Another walked down Castro street randomly hugging strangers. The atmosphere of communality was pervasive. In fact, as I waited for a bus to take me to the Castro, I found myself in a group of happy travelers with a similar wait, all updating one another on the Google maps arrival time status, all smiling, and someone actually said, "well it may take us a while to get there, but we'll get there, and we'll have each other along the way." I'm starting to understand how "gay" and "happy" are truly synonymous.
Perhaps the best part of this eruption of joviality was the newbie gays: boys and girls recently transplanted to San Francisco for work or play or desperation and had no idea what kind of party they were joining, who all wore bright-eyed wonder smattered on their faces at the sight of their new San Francisco Reality.
It's going to be a hell of a Pride weekend.
This is what the street looked like around 7:00PM yesterday, the ecstatic funeral of DOMA and of Prop 8. One friend was photographed by a news crew in a wedding dress as he walked down market, an "Equality Now" sign in the background. Another walked down Castro street randomly hugging strangers. The atmosphere of communality was pervasive. In fact, as I waited for a bus to take me to the Castro, I found myself in a group of happy travelers with a similar wait, all updating one another on the Google maps arrival time status, all smiling, and someone actually said, "well it may take us a while to get there, but we'll get there, and we'll have each other along the way." I'm starting to understand how "gay" and "happy" are truly synonymous.
Perhaps the best part of this eruption of joviality was the newbie gays: boys and girls recently transplanted to San Francisco for work or play or desperation and had no idea what kind of party they were joining, who all wore bright-eyed wonder smattered on their faces at the sight of their new San Francisco Reality.
It's going to be a hell of a Pride weekend.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Friends of Amina
Amina Siboui made news last year when she posted pictures of herself topless on the web with the slogan "My Body is My Own" painted across her chest. She was speaking out against the web of patriarchy she and most other women in the world live under. She felt so threatened afterward she began to carry pepper spray at the behest of a friend.
When the Tunisian government arrested her after a later protest in May, they charged her with carrying a weapon (the pepper spray) in addition to public indecency and some other totally fabricated charges.
But it seems like all Amina was trying to say is "hey, I'm a chick, but I have human rights too." Like, no shirtless male Tunisians are getting arrested for indecency, are they? What's with the double standard?
I was in Tunisia before the Arab spring, in late summer 2008. It had beautiful Mediterranean beaches, striking deserts, wonderful Roman ruins. It was also the biggest sausagefest I've ever seen in my life. All the cafes and stores were full of men, just men, especially at night. Women, we were told, were safely at home. We did see women, covered, on the streets occassionally, but not once during my trip did I have the chance to talk to one. What I suspect Amina was trying to say is, "hey, you treat all your women like prisoners! That's not okay!"
And now, she's been found guilty of public indecency, etc. In response, a number of women throughout Europe and the Middle East have taken to the streets in topless protest, like the one pictured above. many are being tortured on the streets as they protest for the same chauvinist reasons Amina is in jail. If you see them, please help them out. They do us all a service.
 |
| Image from BBC |
When the Tunisian government arrested her after a later protest in May, they charged her with carrying a weapon (the pepper spray) in addition to public indecency and some other totally fabricated charges.
But it seems like all Amina was trying to say is "hey, I'm a chick, but I have human rights too." Like, no shirtless male Tunisians are getting arrested for indecency, are they? What's with the double standard?
I was in Tunisia before the Arab spring, in late summer 2008. It had beautiful Mediterranean beaches, striking deserts, wonderful Roman ruins. It was also the biggest sausagefest I've ever seen in my life. All the cafes and stores were full of men, just men, especially at night. Women, we were told, were safely at home. We did see women, covered, on the streets occassionally, but not once during my trip did I have the chance to talk to one. What I suspect Amina was trying to say is, "hey, you treat all your women like prisoners! That's not okay!"
And now, she's been found guilty of public indecency, etc. In response, a number of women throughout Europe and the Middle East have taken to the streets in topless protest, like the one pictured above. many are being tortured on the streets as they protest for the same chauvinist reasons Amina is in jail. If you see them, please help them out. They do us all a service.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
SwingerTown Kauai
Last week I visited a lovely little hamlet out in the middle of buttfuck Hawaii, complete with serene views and ocean breezes and lanai a la Golden Girls. The only problem: it was otherwise stocked with married couples, most of them carrying children in tow. This was of course a beautiful display of familiar affection, but more than that it was a real cramp in my gay guy friend's and my licentious style.
Looking about the sea of couples, we decided early on to look for swingers on Kauai who could entertain both of us with one web message. Targets were otherwise just too scarce on the island. In case you didn't know, Kauai is pretty small, though not so small as to totally lack swingers. We found a veritable smattering of couples touting at least one bisexual member. The problem: they were mostly over 50, and they were uniformly, well, non-sexable. Like, not even approaching the mediocre attractiveness of the folks in the above photo.
We tried harder; we signed up for a swingers' commune on the web as a couple, but still no dice. Then, we had an epiphany. Thanks to the grand power of the Internet, we were not restricted to finding a swinger's spot on the island; we could make one. All it would take is a few well-placed Yelp reviews and some comments on other swinger sites. We could pick any hotel, any destination, any week, and publicize a swingers' week at the chosen hotel coming up next year at the "same time" with all the casual sex your heart desires for the taking.
So, I challenge you, fair reader, to elect the sexual delight you are most likely to desire on your next vacation and use the hashtag #swingergeneration to tell everyone you can that your delight is featured at the lodging of your choice. This shall become a grand experiment in viral media likely to get at least one of us laid.
Looking about the sea of couples, we decided early on to look for swingers on Kauai who could entertain both of us with one web message. Targets were otherwise just too scarce on the island. In case you didn't know, Kauai is pretty small, though not so small as to totally lack swingers. We found a veritable smattering of couples touting at least one bisexual member. The problem: they were mostly over 50, and they were uniformly, well, non-sexable. Like, not even approaching the mediocre attractiveness of the folks in the above photo.
We tried harder; we signed up for a swingers' commune on the web as a couple, but still no dice. Then, we had an epiphany. Thanks to the grand power of the Internet, we were not restricted to finding a swinger's spot on the island; we could make one. All it would take is a few well-placed Yelp reviews and some comments on other swinger sites. We could pick any hotel, any destination, any week, and publicize a swingers' week at the chosen hotel coming up next year at the "same time" with all the casual sex your heart desires for the taking.
So, I challenge you, fair reader, to elect the sexual delight you are most likely to desire on your next vacation and use the hashtag #swingergeneration to tell everyone you can that your delight is featured at the lodging of your choice. This shall become a grand experiment in viral media likely to get at least one of us laid.
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
What Made Me Bisexual
I always sort of thought that most women watched porn and just didn't disclose that fact, but A Billion Wicked Thoughts has not only clarified that issue, but has explained why I would have guessed as I did:
Only a minority of women watch porn, they say, but "One particular group of women reported higher amounts of porn viewing, larger porn stashes, greater comfort with their partner watching porn, greater enjoyment of bondage, and more interest in using the Internet for porn. Who were these women? Self-identified bisexuals."
Oh. I see.
And then, "On OKCupid, the pattern of bisexual women's responses to questions was distinct from straight women and lesbians- but quite similar to the responses of heterosexual men, as shown in the figure below." In fact, their chart displays bisexual women's answers as almost the perfect midpoint between those of straight men and those of straight women. In addition, "Among registered users on the visual porn site Fantasti.cc, 38% of the women identify as bisexual." Actually, it looks like bisexual women are more into lesbian porn than lesbians; and, all women are WAY more into GAY PORN than anyone has ever suggested ("In Japan, almost anything homosexual can attract an all-female audience," for example) - why is this?
The authors suggest that (1) the fact that women like gay porn is not really surprising because it removes the gender dynamics that women can find distasteful and therefore that turn women off from porn; it keeps the power dynamics and hot male bodies they like; and (2) bisexual women may watch porn more like straight men because their brains are more like "straight" men's than "straight" women's brains.
Let's unpack this, because this last bit is what I draw from what they wrote rather than an explicit claim the authors make. They talk a lot about the physical difference between the stereotypical male brain and the stereotypical female brain, but they also explain that brain structure is determined in large part by pregnancy hormone balances; while your sex organs are determined early, the bulk of brain development that might give one a taste for masculinity or femininity, as well as a toppy nature or a bottomy nature, happen later - and may happen at slightly different times. Hormones called androgyns course through our veins during pregnancy (ultimately we're talking about estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, but depending on how much we have of each one hormone might be automatically converted by the mother's body into another). You might have already guessed the implication of this claim: these hormones vary with every single pregnancy, so no two sexualities are ever going to be completely alike!
A fetal boy, therefore, can be subject to androgyns that trigger the development of aggressive brain structures popularly associated with men OR, at a certain point, androgyns that develop communicative, perhaps more passive brain structures - the type we find most commonly in males who identify as "gay." They might be subject to both types, too, along the way (maybe ending up as a gay top). The authors don't talk about women here much (they have less evidence on women because of the smaller sample set of porn-watching and searching women).
But it can be easily extended, I think, and I'll use myself as an example. After my first trimester I had my little vagina just growing along already, but somewhere in the next 6 months I got a heavy dose of testosterone at the precise moment it would make me slightly toppy and more aggressive than your average gal. As a byproduct of this process I am more willing than the average woman to watch porn (I got me some brain structures that react to visuals alone without as much female-associated contextual need for a story). The fact that I respond to the sight of either kind of sex organ doesn't appear dependent on this process, though - it turns out women have a physiological reaction to graphic imagery of members of either gender even when it turns them off psychologically - what's changes is what actually has the capacity to turn me off psychologically.
The combination of my male-like search for more partners over quality partners (experience has definitely borne this one out) and my indifference to sex organs makes me closer to the hypersexual pole of my graph. I retain more of my ability to STAY turned on psychologically by sex images of any kind, which causes me to fall right in the middle of the hetero-homo axis. My cocktail of androgyns building up aggressive brain centers makes me more toppy.
Now let's take the graph of my character Jackson from No Church in the Wild - a self-identified gay man who says he's grossed out by pussy.
Jackson is equally interested in topping and bottoming (the authors make a point that a bottomy nature may be the result of the greatest influx of testosterone during gestation, interestingly, perhaps converted to estrogen to explain the development of female-like reward cycles). He's not particularly hypersexual or asexual, but he is a great communicator. In fact, as teens, I talked on the phone with the man who inspired this character almost every day (the authors note that this is very common among young girlfriends, but almost no young men talk to friends on the phone for fun). So, it seems that an influx of feminine-making androgyns hit him later in development, enough to make him communicate in a more "feminine" way, but not so much that he came to be stimulated entirely by passivity.
None of the axes can be determined with just the development circumstances that affected the other; you need a different calculus for each one. But it does work if you split the analysis up...and the logical conclusion would be that MOST people actually get a little bit of hormones that trigger the development of male-like AND female-like brain characteristics.
Cue lifetime obsession with the effect of androgyns on fetal development!
Only a minority of women watch porn, they say, but "One particular group of women reported higher amounts of porn viewing, larger porn stashes, greater comfort with their partner watching porn, greater enjoyment of bondage, and more interest in using the Internet for porn. Who were these women? Self-identified bisexuals."
Oh. I see.
And then, "On OKCupid, the pattern of bisexual women's responses to questions was distinct from straight women and lesbians- but quite similar to the responses of heterosexual men, as shown in the figure below." In fact, their chart displays bisexual women's answers as almost the perfect midpoint between those of straight men and those of straight women. In addition, "Among registered users on the visual porn site Fantasti.cc, 38% of the women identify as bisexual." Actually, it looks like bisexual women are more into lesbian porn than lesbians; and, all women are WAY more into GAY PORN than anyone has ever suggested ("In Japan, almost anything homosexual can attract an all-female audience," for example) - why is this?
The authors suggest that (1) the fact that women like gay porn is not really surprising because it removes the gender dynamics that women can find distasteful and therefore that turn women off from porn; it keeps the power dynamics and hot male bodies they like; and (2) bisexual women may watch porn more like straight men because their brains are more like "straight" men's than "straight" women's brains.
Let's unpack this, because this last bit is what I draw from what they wrote rather than an explicit claim the authors make. They talk a lot about the physical difference between the stereotypical male brain and the stereotypical female brain, but they also explain that brain structure is determined in large part by pregnancy hormone balances; while your sex organs are determined early, the bulk of brain development that might give one a taste for masculinity or femininity, as well as a toppy nature or a bottomy nature, happen later - and may happen at slightly different times. Hormones called androgyns course through our veins during pregnancy (ultimately we're talking about estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, but depending on how much we have of each one hormone might be automatically converted by the mother's body into another). You might have already guessed the implication of this claim: these hormones vary with every single pregnancy, so no two sexualities are ever going to be completely alike!
A fetal boy, therefore, can be subject to androgyns that trigger the development of aggressive brain structures popularly associated with men OR, at a certain point, androgyns that develop communicative, perhaps more passive brain structures - the type we find most commonly in males who identify as "gay." They might be subject to both types, too, along the way (maybe ending up as a gay top). The authors don't talk about women here much (they have less evidence on women because of the smaller sample set of porn-watching and searching women).
But it can be easily extended, I think, and I'll use myself as an example. After my first trimester I had my little vagina just growing along already, but somewhere in the next 6 months I got a heavy dose of testosterone at the precise moment it would make me slightly toppy and more aggressive than your average gal. As a byproduct of this process I am more willing than the average woman to watch porn (I got me some brain structures that react to visuals alone without as much female-associated contextual need for a story). The fact that I respond to the sight of either kind of sex organ doesn't appear dependent on this process, though - it turns out women have a physiological reaction to graphic imagery of members of either gender even when it turns them off psychologically - what's changes is what actually has the capacity to turn me off psychologically.
Now let's take the graph of my character Jackson from No Church in the Wild - a self-identified gay man who says he's grossed out by pussy.
Jackson is equally interested in topping and bottoming (the authors make a point that a bottomy nature may be the result of the greatest influx of testosterone during gestation, interestingly, perhaps converted to estrogen to explain the development of female-like reward cycles). He's not particularly hypersexual or asexual, but he is a great communicator. In fact, as teens, I talked on the phone with the man who inspired this character almost every day (the authors note that this is very common among young girlfriends, but almost no young men talk to friends on the phone for fun). So, it seems that an influx of feminine-making androgyns hit him later in development, enough to make him communicate in a more "feminine" way, but not so much that he came to be stimulated entirely by passivity.
None of the axes can be determined with just the development circumstances that affected the other; you need a different calculus for each one. But it does work if you split the analysis up...and the logical conclusion would be that MOST people actually get a little bit of hormones that trigger the development of male-like AND female-like brain characteristics.
Cue lifetime obsession with the effect of androgyns on fetal development!
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