Heartbreak Nymphomania » life

Am I being hypercritical?

Wilhelmina Wang — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:37:16 +0000

So… remember how I was complaining about my local kink scene?

I recently found an event listing on Fetlife about an actual kinky party (!!) that’s being organized here – pretty exciting, as we currently don’t have anything like that here at all.

The downside? The poster and announcements so far aren’t very encouraging as (except for expressing that they welcome LGBT folk and that they’re working with one of the LGBT orgs here) they’re doing almost all the alienating things that I’ve complained about in past entries here:

Enforcing a strict fetish dress code; (Edit: Okay, actually, I take this back since I can sort of see why they’re doing it. There have been “fetish parties” in the city before, but they ended up being like regular club parties with a theme, like an 80s party or other kind of dress-up party, and the people who came were mostly just regular vanilla folk who posed with the spanking benches and took photos, and the kinky folk who showed up in latex or leather etc felt out of place. I guess since there aren’t really any spaces in the city yet where people can dress up in fetish gear and not look awkward and out of place, a dress code is needed.)
Their event poster depicts a white, feminine, attractive woman in fetishwear with a lovely view of her bare ass; there isn’t any picture of a man, let alone a male sub;
Their call for performers specifies that they want girls who will dress up as ponygirls or who will bottom in a bondage performance; and that they want a “master” who will perform a whip show. Yay, keeping the man=dom, woman=sub assumption/status quo intact! (Edit: I left a comment asking the organizers if men could volunteer to be bottoms or if women could volunteer to be tops and their response was “sure, why not?”, which leads me to think the initial announcement was a result of lazy assumptions more than anything else.)

Am I being hypercritical here? Our local scene isn’t even off the ground in any way and I’m already lambasting it – I’m aware of that. I mean, maybe I should be happy that someone is even organizing a fetish party in the first place - god knows the organizers are really putting themselves out there and taking a risk that I, at least, am not brave enough to take. On the other hand, is a scene that I find alienating better than no scene at all? I’m not sure that it is…

All of that said, maybe I’m completely wrong and it’ll be a totally awesome event. I’m curious to see how it’ll turn out.

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Building inclusive spaces & my local “kink scene”

Wilhelmina Wang — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:48:55 +0000

I’ve never really been part of a “kink scene” or BDSM community before. I only started really exploring kink in college, and our campus didn’t really have that much to offer, and neither did the small American town it was in. So I guess it’s only understandable. After returning to Hong Kong, though, I had the chance to become a part of a community in a consistent manner for the first time ever. (I’m not really counting the couple of months I spent in New York, because I don’t think you can’t really build any significant relationships or become significantly involved in something in just a few months.)

The Hong Kong “kink scene”

I have to begin with a bit of context. Hong Kong’s scene is tiny. Tiny. I was actually a little surprised that there was actually one at all. We’re not as sexually conservative as some other East Asian countries, but we’re still fairly sexually conservative in general: no same-sex marriage; a trans woman might be able to get her gender changed on her Hong Kong ID card, but she still can be prevented from marrying her cis boyfriend; if an adult male has anal sex with a person who is under the age of 21, both participants face a life sentence if caught; LGBT material has been subjected to censorship in the media or other public events/forums.

Regarding BDSM, I think most of the time local people just stay in the closet about it. Events-wise, there are only a couple of munches organized by HKBDSMEvents (which I am semi-involved with) and another group; and private parties held at one of the HKBDSMEvents people’s homes once every couple of months or so. There’s also a fairly big pro-domme scene, so I hear, but I haven’t had much contact with that. And there have been a couple fetish-themed parties in clubs around town, but with the theme as merely a gimmick. I didn’t go myself, but I heard from a couple acquaintances that they were just like any other old club party, except with a spanking bench or something, which people kept taking photos in front of and not actually using.

A while back, another of the HKBDSMEvents folk owned a fetish store with an upper floor that was also often used a party venue – they ended up shutting down after they were busted by the police for “running a disorderly house.” The owner ended up winning the case (uh, since she wasn’t doing anything wrong) but lost a lot of money regardless.

So I’d just like you to imagine for a minute how fucking annoying and difficult it is trying to kick up some sort of BDSM community in a climate like this in the first place.

I haven’t actually been to a munch in months. Partially because the kinky areas of my brain have been shut off for a while – most probably because of the same reasons why I haven’t been as active on this blog – but also partially because I’m not sure if the BDSM community here is something I even want to be actively involved with in the first place. Which brings me to…

A little troubleshooting

Right now, the munches are at a pretty stable point. They happen every month and people come and hang out and nothing has gotten fucked up. I’d also like to add that it’s a nice group of people, and I’ve made several friends through it. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. I think that some of these problems are actually common to kink scenes everywhere, since I definitely remember reading posts in many other blogs addressing the same things.

Anyway, here they are:

1. The community is a fairly homogenous one

Specifically – mostly older, white, heterosexual expats. We have a few local and a few non-white people who come to events, but there aren’t many of them. On a certain level, this is to be expected because it’s easier to be open about sexual topics in western cultures than it is in Asian cultures. I’m sure that there are some people who thought about coming and then decided not to because of shyness or because they’re in the closet and were worried about running into someone they knew en route to the event, or something. But I do think that we aren’t doing enough to reach out or make our events into events that non-western people would be comfortable coming to. I haven’t the first clue about how to do that, though. I’ve thought of translating our site into Chinese, but I can’t really think of anything else.

Besides that, we also have a dearth of younger people (i.e. under 30), queer people, and single women. I remember a couple of women who came to events without a partner, once or twice, but most of the women who come already have a partner, and come with that partner (all hetero couples, too, naturally). Actually, the last munch one of my friends called me and asked me to come because the event that evening was full of dudes with no women. Not exactly encouraging…

All of this can’t be a coincidence.

2. The community is more oriented towards more “traditional” ways of doing kink, which I don’t necessarily like

I use the word “traditional” because I don’t know how else to describe it. I’d like to find a better word, but I suppose this will do for now.

By “traditional kink” I mean:

expecting everyone to have clear-cut roles (dom, sub, etc)

Personally, I don’t think I have a set role. I tend to claim the label “versatile” or “fluid”, if any at all.¹ It’s not like I have a problem with roles in general, but I do have a problem when it’s basically presented as a requirement. People who are new to kink might not know what they identify as yet; others might be into kink but not have a role at all; and others, like me, might have multiple roles depending on the situation. Most of the people I became friends with through the munches are actually quite hard to pin down when it comes to roles. They’re either straight-up switches, or they mostly top but like bottoming once in a while, or they’re dominants but are also experience junkies who like pierce play or being suspended by flesh hooks or whatever.

enjoying BDSM = dressing in fetishwear

Same as above – I don’t have a problem with fetishwear itself, but I have a problem with it being almost like a requirement. I do enjoy wearing corsets and leather and crazy spiked heels sometimes – I kind of love all of those things, in fact – but I don’t want to wear them every time I play. Like I’ve mentioned before, I actually feel most comfortable domming in jeans and a tank top, and I’m somewhat annoyed by the popular perception of a domme as this ice queen in a corset and thong and 6″ heels. Again, it’s not the image itself that annoys me, but the perception that all dominant women must dress that way, and if you don’t – well, then you must not be a real domme! (Which is, of course, complete bullshit.)

And, of course, most people come to play parties in fetishwear. Which is fine, in itself, but the play party dresscode was recently changed to “fetishwear or all black”, and I heard through the grapevine that the organizer had changed it because some of the guests had been complaining about being watched while playing by people dressed in regular street clothes, which made them suspicious of the watchers’ intents (i.e. maybe they’re fake kinksters and are just here to get dirt on people!) or made them feel like animals in a zoo or something. Why not just dedicate a couple rooms in the venue to people who prefer playing privately, then? (Although, if you prefer playing privately you can just do it at home instead…) I didn’t hear this from the organizer directly, though, so this might not be the case, but if it is the case then it’s kind of silly.

3. Women are always the ones on display, regardless of their “role”

This is also connected to the popular assumption of woman = submissive, man = dominant; and to the invisibility or perceived undesirability of the male submissive. (Source 1; source 2) I have to point out that I don’t mind women’s bodies being on display… but I want to see more men on display and playing the coy, attracting role, as well…

Some examples:

I know of a number of male subs who go to munches, but only two female dommes. I only know one female-domme-male-sub couple. I’ve seen male-dom-female-sub scenes at play parties countless times, but I’ve only ever actually witnessed a woman topping once – and she was topping another woman. I’ve never seen a man bottom at any of these parties… although I have frequently seen the aforementioned male sub do tasks for his mistress, like fetching her drinks and other errands. At one point I started looking for male sub acquaintances I could top at one of the parties (this was before my boyfriend L was here), just so that there would be such a scene happening, for once.
At the parties, I frequently saw naked, scantily clad, or otherwise seductively-dressed women; women dressed in such a way that would make them the “attractors”. I never saw any of the men dressed up in a “sexy” manner that showed off their bodies… unless they were cross-dressing.
At one party, I pulled a Maymay and tried to count all the paintings and sculptures in the venue that depicted naked women. I think I got up to 11 or so? Definitely not a hard number – I wasn’t really keeping a tally and I was having conversations and doing other things at the same time. But I’m pretty confident about the number. There were no similar images of men. Since the party was taking place in the home of a male-dom-female-sub couple, though, I can hardly fault them for putting up art that they like. It’s their home after all.
Overheard remarks, mostly from straight male doms, like “everything’s better if a naked girl is involved!”, when two topless girls were brought into an introductory workshop/demo type thing at one of the parties; and a discussion about a potential pony play session on a nearby beach where it was automatically assumed that all the pony girls would be women. What about some cute pony boys, I thought…

These are the big three. There are a few more changes that I’d like to see, but those are more just personal preferences of mine, not changes that should happen because the existing model is problematic.

But creating an inclusive, inviting space takes time, energy and effort

The trouble with problematic communities is that they perpetuate themselves. E.g. a certain type of person is more likely to come to a space if there are already people like them there; they are less likely to want to come if people like them are not there, or not made welcome there.

This quote – actually about including PoCs in fat acceptance activism – sums it up well:

Creating a project or atmosphere of any kind that is welcoming to people of color involves more than an invitation to participate. That’s the tiniest step you can take in getting people of color involved. What you actually have to do – and if you don’t know how, that’s again why google is so very useful – is make your project or atmosphere actually welcoming. You have to create a space that invites diverse people to participate without fear of ridicule or hatred.

That is hard damned work. And I don’t think anyone is perfect at it.

- The Rotund

To get more young people, more queer people, more non-white people, more women and more non-traditional folk – and many more, besides – we will have to actively cultivate a space that is comfortable and welcoming to these people. And that takes dedication. And I can’t be the only one trying to do it, because if it’s just me it’ll be useless, not to mention exhausting. And, to be honest, I really don’t know if I have enough time and energy for something like this, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing and I can’t be sure of a positive outcome. It might just end up being an abortive attempt to bring more people like me to the local BDSM community – maybe it would be easier for me to just find a different community altogether.

I think it’s important for Hong Kong to have some sort of BDSM community, since there’s so little in the way of alternative sexualities here – but a kink community that conforms to the same problematic systems as many others around the globe, or something that’s entirely new and different?

I dislike the label “switch” – more on that later.

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life update (march ’12)

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:26:41 +0000

A quick update to say that I’m still here.

I haven’t posted in—wow—six months, due to a number of new changes in my life that are totally positive, but still took some time to adjust to.

That aside, I haven’t actually had all that much to write about lately; my own sexuality has more or less stabilized and nothing is really shaking that boat anymore. Which may sound negative at first, but it’s really not. It just means that I’m more knowledgeable about myself as a person. It does also, however, mean that I’ve less of a need to hash things out in writing in order to figure them out.

I think what’s going to happen now is that I’m going to change tacks a little bit. I do still have the odd observation about gender and sexuality, but more importantly, it’s just dawned on me that I’m in the unique position of being one of few (possibly only, at least in English) people in Hong Kong who is both sexually liberal and a blogger. There are plenty of food and shopping blogs here, but I can’t say I’ve seen any blogs about sexuality. I’ve also connected with the (paltry) “kink scene” here, which has been interesting, so definitely some stuff to say about that.

Stay tuned.

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How to deal with annoying Fetlifers

Wilhelmina Wang — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:34:34 +0000

Trigger warning: racist & sexist slurs

A chatlog? Haven’t done one of these in a while. Anyway, here is a chatlog between me and one of my (white, straight, cisgendered, male, top) friends.

—

Wilhelmina: i wish random fetlifers i don’t know would stop trying to come on to me via messages

Wilhelmina: this one older guy messaged me once asking if i was “oriental” and wondering if i was a switch “because i was a woman” (???)

Friend: hahaha, oh man- and then I think of all the least appropriate responses ever

Friend: but he probably wouldn’t have understood the sarcasm in the response I would have sent

Friend: Dear Sir, Actually, I prefer the term “chink,” or if you really must generalize- “slanty-eyed whore.” You are right of course on the matter of my being a switch because I am a woman- I would like to be dominant, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot overcome the fact that by being a member of the weaker sex, I can never truly hope to dominate a man. The very idea of standing up to a man, much less a white man such as yourself, who is so much better than me… I shudder to think. No, I can only hope that some day I might, with the proper guidance from a gentleman such as yourself – whose wisdom and skills no man of lesser experience and seniority could ever hope to rival - and towards the furthering of said gentleman’s pleasure, have the skills and confidence to assert my authority over other members of my same gender, assuming they were not of a superior race.

Wilhelmina: hahahahahhahahaha

—

Seriously though, I keep getting propositioned even though I’ve specified on my profile that I’m, um, not looking. I’m toying with the idea of simply responding to all unwanted messages with a link to something really gross.

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I’m not comfortable talking about sexuality in a public forum.

Wilhelmina Wang — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:58:02 +0000

It’s sad, but true.

I was going to write a post that was more or less the opposite of the above title. A few months ago, me and L had a threesome with another guy (who I’ll call X in this post) at our college. Since our college is on the small side, there aren’t ever many degrees of separation between me and somebody else, and soon enough I saw X’s best friend at a concert. He gave me lots of weird looks. Probably because X had told him about said threesome, and maybe the friend was judging me a little bit. I don’t know.

Typically, I don’t like drawing attention to myself. I prefer to blend in with the crowd. But, at that moment, I realized that while I wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way to announce to people that I’m down with threesomes, if someone asked me about it I’d be completely candid. Because of the small chance that my lack of shame might convince the asker that liking sex and liking group sex was nothing a woman needed to be ashamed of. And because of the small chance that a woman overhearing the conversation might secretly like “risque” sex, as well, and might feel somehow reassured by hearing someone else talking openly about it.

I’m not sure how true that is anymore.

Being in the working world has changed a lot for me. When I’m at work I try to be as appropriate as possible. I never talk about my sex life, about going out and drinking, I don’t swear, etc. Not even when I’m hanging out or having a casual lunch with my coworkers. You never know if people will end up gossiping about you to someone influential, right?

The problem is that it’s becoming increasingly evident to me that work doesn’t just stay at work. It takes over your life. Example: I’ve heard that to be successful in the PR world, you need to network constantly, not just by going to work-related events, but by going out to bars frequented by people related to your work, and, you know, “bumping into them” and getting in that face time. I feel like it’ll end up that I’ll only be completely comfortable being myself and being open about my views with people I trust and who I’m already close with, because when out “socializing” I’m never going to know if something I say will spread to someone who might be in a position to hire/fire me.

This includes “vanilla” blogging, as well. I’ve started a vanilla blog under my real name, where I talk about stuff that interests me. The only things I really keep off of there are anything X-rated and stuff about my personal life. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that I don’t feel comfortable talking about certain things on that blog. My queerness is one of them. I feel like I should be okay with talking about being queer openly, but I don’t think I’m the “right kind” of queer, i.e. I don’t want to settle down and get married to a woman necessarily. I can easily be perceived as the stereotypical “promiscuous bisexual” who is just attracted to and enjoys having sex with lots of different kinds of people. I’m also not comfortable talking about anything that’s related to sexuality or sex-positivity, my anxiety/social anxiety, or anything that’s overly liberal (e.g. how I’m anti-censorship, pro-corporate-social-responsibility, and that I prefer small independent businesses to huge corporations). I recently was speaking to a mentor from my college, who said if she were a recruiter, she wouldn’t hire me because of a picture I had re-posted on said blog. After she told me that, I took the picture down.

I don’t like admitting these things, but honestly, I have too much to lose right now to just live in the way that I think is right. I’m a fresh grad with a liberal arts degree who comes from a lower-middle-class family that doesn’t have any useful business connections. I have enough going against me as it is. I think it’s horribly unfair that I’ll be penalized for being sex-positive/being “promiscuous”/whatever when that has nothing to do with how well I work, but I can’t think of how I’ll be able to change that. I don’t think being completely open and candid no matter what the consequences will do any good.

TL; DR: I want to be the sort of person who is speaks up for what I believe in, but I’m just… too cowardly (pragmatic?) to do it. I really hope that someday I find a way to change this.

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The Wonderful World of Slashfic and Yaoi, and How it Informed my Awakening Sexuality

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:22:34 +0000

Or: The “Porn” I consumed as a 14-year-old.

Disclaimer: I don’t profess to be an expert on this topic. As with practically everything else on this blog, it’s all drawn from my personal experience, and the examples I’m giving are in no way representative of the fandoms as a whole, since there are millions of works out there and I’ve probably read a tiny handful of them, cumulatively. Yaoi and slashfic culture are also, really, two separate things, but I’m addressing them at the same time here because I had pretty much the same relationship to both. I was/am primarily a consumer of these works and never really participated by commenting or posting on forums or anything like that. In short: if you want a Yaoi 101 or Slashfic 101 or heavily researched analysis of either, you should probably look elsewhere.

I can’t remember the exact event that marked when I first started to become a sexual being. I do know that it started when I was 14. Sure, I had had sexual thoughts before then, but they were quick and fleeting and I had no idea that they were sexual at the time. No: 14 was the year that I became aware of my sexuality and started thinking about it in a coherent way. It was when I fell in love for the first time, got over my homophobia, realized that I was bisexual, and started consuming pornography or erotica.

Except I didn’t look at porn videos and pictures online, or at smut mags. No, my porn came in forms that some may consider unexpected: manga and fan fiction.

Yes. I used to be (and still sort of am)… a yaoi fangirl.

For those who don’t know: yaoi, shounen-ai, slash and Boy’s Love are all terms for pretty much the same thing¹ – media created and consumed primarily by women that features gorgeous boys who make out with each other a lot. They range from fluffy and innocently romantic to raunchy and plotless, but most of them incorporate the characters’ dynamic and build up emotional tension so that the sex scene is 100x more delicious when it finally happens.

How it all Began

I found my first slashfic by accident on Fanfiction.net. I was skimming through the Harry Potter section and didn’t know any of the slash jargon used in the story descriptions,² so I ended up reading a steamy twincest scene between Fred and George Weasley.

At first, I was shocked by what I had read. I felt like I had done something bad and forbidden, and I didn’t understand how anyone could write things that were so awful and wrong. Of course, soon enough the guilt turned into fascination, then thrilled, then not being able to get enough. This was around when I started getting into anime, as well, so I started reading slashfic based on anime series I liked – sometimes even before I had finished watching the series themselves. I discovered Adult Fanfiction and Media Miner and fan archives and started downloading original yaoi manga from scanslation directories like Aarinfantasy. Sometimes, during the weekend, I stayed up really late – often somewhere between 3 – 7am – consuming slashfic for hours after everyone else had gone to bed, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing what I was doing.

Discovering yaoi and slashfic was like discovering a buffet of impossibly beautiful boys who I could mix and match together to create an infinite amount of new and exciting flavor combinations.

Doujinshi of Heero Yuy & Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing. Possibly one of my most favorite yaoi pairings of all time³. Pictures via 1x2x1.org.

I never masturbated when I looked at yaoi. At that point I didn’t know how to. I attempted “masturbating” only once: while laying in bed, without fantasizing about anything, I put one hand inside my underwear and pressed it against myself. Nothing happened. Exasperated, I decided that masturbating must be overrated. I didn’t try masturbating again until three years later, when I started dating and had a better idea of what to do.

I didn’t masturbate, but I of course got pleasure from what I read. These warm, fuzzy, exciting feelings built up towards a fever pitch and I’d go to bed thrumming and content. There was this one time where I’m pretty sure I read myself to orgasm – I reached a climactic point in one story after at least a couple of hours of reading, and I shuddered as my eyes widened and liquid fire spread all the way through me.

The Context: a Catholic, All-Girl’s Secondary School

The backdrop to all this was a primarily Catholic, all-girl’s secondary school, i.e. middle and high school. We never interacted with boys. We didn’t have any male friends. Going on dates was completely out of the question, let alone experimenting with sex.⁴

I never spoke about my fascination with my friends. I didn’t want them to think I was strange. It wasn’t that we never talked about sex – we did. But we never talked about doing it, wanting it, fantasizing about it, or of the actual mechanics of it. Our conversations about sex consisted of nervous giggling and making random nonsensical jokes about boobs and balls. I’d giggle along with the rest of my friends during these silly, perverted discussions; all the while thinking about my “secret.” Looking back, the frequency of these conversations probably meant that all of my friends had “secrets,” too, that they didn’t feel that they could talk about in the open.

Fanart of a young, naked Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl) coming onto a young Walter Kovacs (Rorschach) from the Watchmen graphic novel. Found via the Watchmen Kink Meme on LJ. I have no credit for this picture, so if you know who drew it, let me know.

Women as Observers in a Perfect Fantasy World

Most mainstream porn videos and magazines are geared towards straight men. Consequently, most of that porn consists of unrealistic ideals like drop-dead gorgeous babes with slim builds, big boobs, and a love of being jizzed on. Or whatever. Likewise, yaoi manga is full of idealized romantic relationships that are for the most part completely unrealistic and unrepresentative of actual Japanese gay men. Just like women in porn all look mostly the same (white, thin, busty, feminine, made-up, etc), men in yaoi manga are all thin and beautiful, fall into several typical character types, go through some sort of convoluted relationship drama before they actually get together (and have sex), and think about their passionate loving feelings amid falling roses and shoujo bubbles. For the most part.

The interesting thing about yaoi manga is that women are rarely present in the stories, and hardly ever appear as main characters. Sometimes women take on “best friend” or sisterly roles, but more often than not if a woman plays a large role in a yaoi story, it’s as a villain – an ex-girlfriend or a love-rival who is preventing the main couple from getting together. I read one story – Zankoku Yuugi – where Man A was romantically pursuing Man B, but Man B already had a girlfriend. So Man B indirectly causes the girlfriend to get into an accident, and she ends up in the hospital. And Man A and Man B end up dating at the end of it. Even though Man B knows that Man A put his girlfriend in the hospital⁵

A page from Zankoku Yuugi Ch.1 , scanslated by dokidoki. Remember to look at the panels from right to left!

Within the Gundam Wing yaoi fandom, the main female “threat” to the Heero x Duo pairing was female lead Relena Peacecraft. While she and Heero weren’t a canon couple, it was heavily implied that they were interested in each other, or that one was interested in the other. Among the Heero x Duo fanfics I read, I encountered countless stories where Relena was demonized beyond belief, ridiculed, traumatized and, in some cases, killed off.

And remember: the vast majority of these works are created and consumed by women.

I can’t really begin to address the sinister negativity with which women are sometimes treated in yaoi. But I can address the absence a little bit. I’ve come across articles arguing that one reason why women like consuming gay male porn is because the absence of women in that porn is actually a relief. For me, it definitely was a relief. It took me quite a while before I was comfortable including myself in my sexual fantasy fodder; imagining someone else doing things to me or with me, and not just being a detached observer in my own fantasy. Imagining myself would just make me think of all the aspects of myself I felt insecure about. I did not think of myself as hot or charming or sexy and therefore I could not possibly think of myself as sexual.

Consuming yaoi was a form of escapism. I knew it was a fantasy world; that it wasn’t real. And because it wasn’t real, it was a safe space where my curiosities and potential turn-ons could come out to play, without any consequence or responsibility. I could be sexual without… actually being sexual.

In the world of yaoi, women are the ultimate voyeurs of a perfect fantasy.

10 Years Later

So yaoi played quite a big part in shaping my sexuality. This post doesn’t really have a conclusive point; except that after writing this I find several things worth noting. As a teenage girl:

the Internet was probably the most important tool I used to develop my sexuality – not magazines or talking with my peers
I didn’t feel like consuming porn or talking about sex were things that were appropriate for me to do
I didn’t really involve myself very much in my own sexuality – I didn’t touch myself or even picture myself in my own sexual fantasies

I wrote this post both to include yaoi and slashfic in “lady porn” and to prompt a discussion about it; but also, I guess, to prompt a discussion about teenage girls and porn. When most people think “teenage boys,” they think “sex-crazed horndogs” and assume that of course they’re looking at porn. Or they’re trying to. Which isn’t exactly a positive picture and probably isn’t completely true, either. But what about the girls?

This post is part of a blogosphere-wide carnival called Lady Porn Day! Read more Lady Porn Day posts or keep up with the discussion on Twitter under the hashtag #ladypornday.

Except yaoi and slash are usually more explicit, and slash refers to fan fiction, not anything canon
e.g. lemon = explicit sex scene; using an / or x between two names denotes a pairing
I somehow found out about the pairing before the series they were from, probably because they’re such a popular pairing. I didn’t really like Gundam Wing, the series, all that much. Too much mecha and war and politics for my taste
Although my school ended up having a lot of lesbian, bicurious and queer women in it. Go figure.
In order to persuade Man B to date him, Man A also basically took Man B hostage, blackmailed him, and once or twice forcefully coerced him into doing sexual acts against his will. So it was a fucked up story, in many ways. But oftentimes in yaoi manga, destructive and extreme acts performed by a character are just taken as evidence of how strong and passionate that character’s love really is.

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“Kink” is a Matter of Perspective

Wilhelmina Wang — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:12:09 +0000

Ask a BDSMer if they think strap-on sex is “kinky” and the answer is often no. Ask a “vanilla” college student the same question and the answer is almost always “yes.” That’s a telling and important difference and I urge us to honor that reality, for our own benefit, and the benefit of the sexual freedom movement as a whole.

The above quote, from this article written by Maymay, perfectly articulates the discord and discomfort I feel when discussing “kinky” sex with a group of mostly vanilla acquaintances. Maybe I’m missing a point a little bit; maybe the point Maymay is making is that strap-on sex doesn’t necessarily fall within the definition of “BDSM” since it doesn’t have to involve bondage, D/s, or sadomasochism at all. However, that quote struck a chord with me because I often find myself in a position where everyone else perceives certain sex acts that I partake in as kinky/weird/risque/naughty, whereas I just perceive them as… normal.

I read the aforementioned article around the same time that I found another article published in my alma mater’s daily newspaper.¹ The article was about an orgasm workshop organized by the college’s sexual health peer advising group². The author of the article was apparently offended by the existence of the workshop and by the emails and fliers posted to advertise it. He said that the group should stick to educating students on safe sex and not spend their resources on teaching people how to have satisfying sex.

Now, I obviously took issue with his assertion that sex ed had to be full of STDs and pregnancy scares and negativity, and that nothing else about sex was important or worthy of running a class or discussion on. Besides that, though, he also said something about how he didn’t expect the student body to be at all interested in a workshop about orgasms and, like, butt plugs; which I assume he found completely outlandish and bizarre, from the tone of the article. The high turnout at the event shows, I think, that people definitely were interested.

Since I started this blog, I’ve reviewed butt plugs of all shapes and sizes and materials, and I’ve not only learned how to give myself a G-spot orgasm, but I’ve participated in various “kinky” activities like threesomes and pegging and sex in public and, obviously, none of that is at all weird to me. All of it is merely a part of my life. An exciting part, maybe, but a part of my life nonetheless. Not a dirty, back-alley secret. I wish people like that guy would remember that the world is made up of all kinds of people and maybe not everyone sees the world the same way he does.

Also, the rest of Maymay’s article is definitely worth reading. Another gem:

The general impression of kinky people is that they are a special, identifiable group, different from the schoolteachers, dentists, grocery clerks, and bus drivers we encounter every day. Different from “us.” And unlike “us,” dangerous.

This idea hurts everyone.

[Re-quoted from a keynote speech given by Dr. Marty Klein.]

Yes, yes, yes.

I don’t want to link to it here, so please don’t ask me to.
And headed by one of my close friends, who I was very proud of!

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I don’t much like playing games

Wilhelmina Wang — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 02:37:55 +0000

During my “wild” college days, one thing that bothered me about the flirting dynamic, or whatever you want to call it, was how I would say “I’m sorry, I’m not romantically/sexually interested in you” and sometimes the other person wouldn’t take me at my word.

Instead, they’d take that as an indication to try harder (?!) and that I needed to be “won over.”

Or they’d assume that I was being coy or playing hard to get.

Or that I was putting them up to some sort of challenge.

Or that I could somehow be persuaded to change my mind.

I mean, if I ever were to give in, it would be out of desperation; because I really wanted to have sex and there was nobody else available. But does anyone really want to be fucked out of desperation?¹

Some of this probably stems from the assumption that men always want sex, but women either don’t want sex and need to be talked into it, or can’t admit that they want sex because then they’d be branded “sluts”, and everyone knows that’s a horrible thing for a woman to be.² Oh, and that dating used to (and in some places still does) involve the man “wooing” the woman. I also think some of it also stems from people sometimes playing “hard to get” because they’re afraid of making themselves vulnerable, or because people value things that take more work to have, or whatever.

I’ve never really cared for, or been very good at, games like those. I either completely ignore or avoid the person I like because I’m too chicken to do anything about it, or I come right out and tell them how I feel about them.³

I don’t think I make a very good pursue-ee. But one day I discovered I could be the pursuer, and the world got quite a bit brighter for me.

I only did this once and, while I don’t act like it never happened, I try to put it out of my head most of the time.
I’m being sarcastic, clearly.
The first time me and L slept together, we were making out when I suddenly stopped and told him I really wanted to get naked with him :/

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Shoe Slut

Wilhelmina Wang — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 01:28:32 +0000

A little shoe porn for you. I have an unhealthy attraction to utterly ridiculous shoes. Low, sensible heels just… don’t do it for me. Maybe it stems from the fact that I’m short? Not that I’d be able to wear any of these in real life, ever, but I can dream, right?

Camilla Skovgaard

ACNE

Alejandro Ingelmo

…and the grand finale:

Alexander McQueen

These make me want to swoon. I’m not usually one to masturbate over objects, but these? I just might.

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Banners & Commissions

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:52:37 +0000

Just a heads-up that I have two new pages. If you want to link to me for some reason, now you have banners to do it with! Also, I recently started writing copy for two sex toy stores (fyi, this has absolutely no bearing on reviews or content that appears here), so I thought, what the hell, maybe I can try and do more of it. I’m also offering to write personalized erotica stories. More info here.

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