Monthly Archives: February 2006

A Perfect Partner’s Top Eight Qualities

Rachel, of Wicked Ink, popped by here to inform me this morning that I’ve been tagged for a Meme. Now, I hate memes. “Answer ‘em yerself,” methinks, “But don’t drag me into the fray!”
But, since appeasing people’s a rather special skill I have, I thought, “Hey. Sure.” It’s a relevent topic, and I think I have a couple different twists to my list. So, I sat my ass down and spent the last half hour doing this. In keeping with my personal feelings about memes, I shall not poke others into the act of doing such a list. But, I invite any readers to do their own and to clue me in if they have.

  1. Laughter – Must have it, mujst engage in it, must produce it. I was once with a man and during the coital act, some sound emitted – a particularly strange slurp or gloop sound – that took me by surprise, like some bad Foley F/X editor had laid a particularly weird sound effect over the sex act. Within a minute, I was laughing hysterically. My partner got all sensitive, even though I was saying, “Well, did you HEAR that?” and stormed from the bed, unable to see the humour. I was never aroused by him again, and the relationship ended within the week or so that followed. I just couldn’t get over his inability to exploit the moment. It was FUNNY. Life is filled with weird, awkward, breathtakingly odd moments, and if you can’t laugh them away, then get the hell away from me.
  2. Sexuality – Must have a high libido and a creative drive. I’m one of those chicks who likes sex a lot (muchos, senior) when I’m involved. Short-term, long-term, just gimme some — every single day, usually. You’d think it’d be a wonderful thing for guys, but oddly, some just can’t keep up. It’d be nice to have someone wear me out for a change – and that I want him to be skillful, open to new experiences, and as much a romantic as I am is just obvious.
  3. Intellect – I can be pretty irreverent and silly here from time to time, but I’m a smart chick and I need a guy who not only doesn’t get intimidated by that, but who can contribute to it by turning my lightbulb on to things I’ve formerly not been aware of. I love long conversations on the beach that hold out until sunrise in the summer. There’s an incredible sexiness about a man who knows things about the world at large, not just his chosen career. Woo me with vast knowledge about Ancient Incan mating rituals, how a star is born, and the dire news of the changing global warming scenario. Yes, it does turn me on. “My, Brad, what big brains you have…”
  4. Compassion / Awareness – I try not to let my heartstrings dangle too loosely on this site. I was recently told that my vulnerable/soft side’s a really endearing thing to share with folks, but sometimes some things need to stay inside until the moment warrants it. I’ve been guilty of living that way, but hey, it’s my choice. It’s also something I’m trying to work on. But I’m a profoundly compassionate woman when the time demands it. I’ve been through a lot in my 32 years and I’ve been taught the hard way what difficulties and struggles can do to a person, and as a result, I’ve changed my worldview drastically. Pairing my eyes-wide-open view on the world with someone who’s lacking that, well, that’d just be dumb.
  5. Creativity – Whether it’s in the bedroom, in making plans for the day, in the kitchen, in his humour and conversation, or in what he does with his hands, creativity is a huge, huge factor in my life. I take new and different routes to my destinations often, even though I’ve lived in this city all my life. I take ingredients in my pantry, mix them together, and invent meals I’ll likely never make again but were awesome for that one experience. I’ve painted and decorated my whole home. I’m a good photographer, I write in every genre. I’ve designed furniture I hope to one day gain the skills to build. Creativity RULES my life. A man absolutely needs to not only grasp that about me, but celebrate it for himself. (Creativity is living life in colour, folks. I long ago tired of grey, black, and white.)
  6. Honesty / Virtue – I’ve been told that my honesty is disarming. Everyone knows I tell the truth. You want an honest opinion, I’ll give it to you – in real life or in this silly cyberkingdom. Honesty is what it’s all about. What are you scared of? Tell the truth and deal with the fall-out. I need a man who gets that I’ll be pissed if I catch him in lies, but if he tells me the truth, “Well, honestly, I just really feel like hanging with the guys and watching a game tomorrow, I just need to be a little stupid for the night,” then I’m almost always gonna let it go. It’s not an issue unless you let it become one, and the honesty is always a great thing to have. God knows he’ll be getting it from me.
  7. Irreverence – I’m irreverent way too often, but I love the way it feels. It keeps me young, fun, and interesting. It keeps my brooding intellect in check, and allows me to still feel like I’m a rebel, even though the system bought and sold me long ago. It’s not just a behaviour, though, it’s a lifestyle attitude, and personally, I find irreverent men as sexy as hell. Sexy in the “oh, God, I wanna take him home and tie him up and teach him a thing or two” kinda way. There is just nothing sexier on a personality.
  8. Articulate / Open – Well, that’s just asking for quid pro quo. I’m articulate and open, and I absolutely need a lover who can express himself and what’s going on in his world, or what he wants from me. I’m not asking that he be Deepak Chopra or Dr. Phil, I’m just saying that it’s hard enough negotiating the big bad world of relationships without having all the required information. The more a man communicates with me, the more I drop these mighty big walls I tend to have around me. If he’s open, expressive, then I will be, too, and moreso than him, likely.

Other things a guy needs to be: Somewhat motivated – not in the “I’ll be CEO by 36” kind of way that honestly makes me ill, but motivated in the sense that he knows what he needs for happiness, and he pursues it. Whether that’s playing guitar, swimming in competitions, cooking, whatever. There’re passions we all have, and doing nothing with them does nothing for us. And he has to be sort of active. I’m not talking “he scales mountains on Saturdays,” or anything, but yeah, he breaks a sweat and helps keep me in line, in bed and out.
Thanks for the Food for Thought, Rachel.

A Shut-in Saturday Night

It’s a my-time-of-the-month movie night tonight. Legally Blonde is playing, followed by Miss Congeniality.
I so suck, I know. Normally, I’m a fan of those crazy things called Subtitles. I like artsy flicks and intellect and drama and suspense and sexiness (hence subtitles: bring on the Latin flicks). But when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I like the stupid shit.*
I screwed up my back again! JESUS CHRIST. What, is this the reality check of “Miss, you’re 32 years old now, you can’t DO that shit anymore”? Because, I tell you, I’m getting pretty choked.
You know what it is? When I’m exercising regularly, I’m fine. Right now, though, I’m trying to get back into exercising after having real life intrude with my willpower/etc. Ever since my bro’s accident, everything kind of just stopped. Workaholic, sick, obligations, all that stupid crap began to interfere, and I was WEAK. I was UNDISCIPLINED.
And I am PAYING for it now.
I’m lucky I’m normally able to feel as well as I am, when I keep active & exercise a lot. In the last decade of my life I have:

  • Been thrown from a horse.
  • Been in accidents where two cars were totaled (both other drivers running red lights and t-boning me.)
  • Been rear-ended twice.
  • Been in a scooter (ie: Vespa-type) accident where I was thrown off and landed on my back in an intersection.
  • Been in two wipe-outs on the scoot.

In short, I’m a fucking catastrophe on legs. I’ve had bad luck in the past, and though that’s all behind me now and life is good, I need to be more vigilant with being regular on the exercise thing. I get really passionate and dedicated, but whenever life turns up the heat, it’s the first thing I drop when I start losing my grip on things, and it takes a long time to get it back. If there’s anything I hope to change about myself, that’s it. I enjoy being active, I push myself fairly hard when I get into it, but this copping out and rough-ride-back bullshit is making me a little too cognizant of being over 30 and what the consequences of neglect-meets-age might be.
But isn’t that the way it always is? We forget how good “normal” can be, we let things lapse, they fall apart quicker than we’d have fathomed, and getting it back to par is a hell of a chore. And sometimes, you can’t help but start thinking it’s unthinkable, or even, “is it worth this?”
And this is what I’ve done, I neglected myself. I started living a lifestyle I hate – one commanded by work and money, not time and passion. And I forgot the little things I need to do to keep myself in the zone of Steff that I love the best, the one where I feel good, up, happy, and like a player. I love the vibe I have when things are good – so why do I stop?
Once I get to this point, I smarten the hell up for a good long time. Invariably, once every year or so, though, this happens.
It brings on another realization, though. The difference between blaming others, and blaming yourself. You’ll notice, I’m not blaming life – I’m blaming my own inability to better manage my time. I know the fault lies on me, and that’s the thing I need to know, because then I know I can change. That’s the beauty of accepting responsibility for shit: You know you’re not a victim, you know you’re in power, you know you can be an agent of change.
So, here I sit, bitter and angry at this world of discomfort I’m in, but I know it’s my fault, and this time is the last time for a while. I am now a stretching fiend. Limber is my name. Heh. Right?
My den of slack and agent of change (aka: living room and remote of control) are beckoning me back to the realm of sloth. I hear my calling, and I choose to accept the task before me. Later, I will go for the loser-slouchy-sore-back-girl walk around the block where I feel like an alien creature has infiltrated my spine, causing me to walk as if I’m auditioning for George Romeros.
How I dream of muscle relaxers. Anybody? Anybody?

*You thought I had something bright to say? Something new, exciting? No, no. It’s just whining.

Mutual Masturbation: Why to Rethink It

I don’t know if it’s the new rage, but there’s something pretty hot about it, you know? Sitting around, toying with yourself as someone repays you in kind. It’s the ultimate in voyeurism. You’re there, front and centre, watching – and satisfying yourself in the process of – someone experiencing the deeply personal act of giving themselves an orgasm.
I had a man recently ask me if – since I didn’t engage in sex-for-sex’s-sake sex – if I might be interested in masturbating for his pleasure.
Now, you have to realize that, before this point, this was one of the sexiest, most intelligent, and thought-provoking conversations I’d had with a man in a while. If there’s an iota of truth to the brain being the largest sex organ of all (and there’s plenty more than an iota to that) then suffice to say that I was about as aroused as I’d been in a while. (Unfortunately, he was married. I don’t go there.)
Some chicks look for big cars, some chicks look for big words. Which am I?
So, he asks me this. And I seriously considered it. I know it can be a really intense experience, if you can get behind the walls of bullshit we all conjure for the world at large, then yes, it’s a pretty intense experience to share with someone.
So, I was giving it due consideration, and then I realized that, for me, it would be as intensely intimate as fucking him would be, something I considered incongruous with my own ethics, as much as I really did want to do it. And I thought, wow, what a gift I’d be giving a guy I didn’t feel like I could afford to be that way with. Just, yeah… a gift, really.
The nature of masturbation, when you get down to the heart of it all, beyond that fleeting sense of ecstasy, that arrogance of knowing you’re always able to make yourself feel like that, the prideful sense of independence… beyond all of that lies the very, very simple truth of being literally absolutely naked with yourself. You think true thoughts, have real fantasies when you masturbate. I think there’s seldom a time in which we’re more brutally true to ourselves than when we masturbate… for good or for ill. It comes down to what it takes you to go there, the imagery you need to form, the thoughts that find their way into you.
To lie there opposite each other, and get there in the manner you would if you were naked and alone, it’s a very eye-opening, fly-on-the-wall kind of moment.
Yes, it can be incredibly hot.
But yes, it can also be incredibly weird. There are those out there who believe there’s no sense in bothering with the mutual masturbation – letting your partner start & finish fully without touching them, this is the definition of mutual masturbation. And they would be wrong. It really is about the ultimate in vulnerability with your partner. Not because you need to submit to their touch, but instead, you must submit to their scrutiny in your moment.
With that experience comes a different kind of bond than one just forged by sex and love alone. Vulnerable is the hardest thing to be in a relationship. I struggle with it. My independence and strength have been towers of power in my life, and to submit to vulnerability is to give up all that’s gotten me through to now. A small little seemingly insignificant act like mutual masturbation is enough to bring all that to the forefront. In sex, it’s easier to hide behind those eyes-closed moments.
Anyhow. I just need to clarify, as much as I believe mutual masturbation is a really important stage in your sexual evolution as a couple, and as much as I think it benefits on an emotional level, too, it can be a really intense emotional experience sometimes, and you sort of need to anticipate that, particularly if trust issues are something you’ve had in the past.
I honestly think, though, that it can do nothing but good for a relationship. And, hey, if you’re single, it’s truly safe sex.
In the meantime, please feel free to comment on experiences you’ve had with it, thoughts you have on it, whether I’m right / wrong, why, and if it applies, why you won’t / will be doing it anytime / sometime soon.

Guest Posting: EA's Account of His First Self-Gratification

One of my favourite male erotic bloggers is Easily Aroused. I like him for his lyrical prose that often, for me, evokes the intimacy of the encounter. The reason why you go over for one blogger, one author, over another is pretty simple, really. It comes down to style. Some have it, and some wish they did. He does, and I’m feeling quite privileged to have him along for the self-love ride.
With his ode to discovering how good he could make himself feel through exploring his body as a teen, here’s Easily Aroused. (Thanks, EA.) For obvious reasons, the photo is clearly not of a teen.

________________

My love affair with my cock started in earnest after my twelfth birthday. However, my desire for women (a desire that I anticipate prevailing until my final breath slips from between my lips) began to crystallise a little earlier than that.
It’s quite possible that its origins lie in the moment that I saw Sean Connery using a dermatome to cut the straps on Anna Dor’s evening dress in ‘You Only Live Twice’. As I watched him ease her zip down the line of her spine, the camera teasingly fading out just before her waiting buttocks were exposed, I was captivated.
I’ve been bewitched ever since.
It was at middle school that I first sought to emulate the brawny Scots spy. From somewhere deep in my genetic makeup came the nascent desire to explore and enjoy women with the same philandering style that Bond did. The problem was: how to do justice to such grandiose designs when you’re only ten years old? Beyond kissing – and by ‘kissing’, I don’t mean something Valentino would have nodded approvingly at – I had little idea what I was meant to be doing with the girls I dallied with; no concept of the true effect they were meant to elicit in me.
In senior school, the real differences between men and women started to become apparent to me. For one thing, girls matured faster when it came to sex. Much faster. It wasn’t long before the fairer sex was turning its collective attention towards older boys. By the time I’d reached my teens, the more sexually assertive girls in my class were dating school leavers, surly youths who sported Don Johnson stubble and driving licences. How the hell could my peers and I possibly compete?
And that was a problem. The girls I stood the best chance with were shy, demure creatures. They didn’t share the adventurous appetites of their more desirous sisters. They wanted to hold hands and giggle, to kiss with tightly pursed lips and their tongues safely out of reach. They swiftly moved your hand away if it got within a foot of their bosoms, slapped it sharply away if it dared stray towards their thighs. The sad truth was that they couldn’t hold a candle to the bad girls. Not at that point. So the mere fact that the bad girls had less than zero interest in me didn’t deter me from being drawn to them like a moth to the scorching dangers of a naked flame.
I don’t recall how it started, but I began writing fantasies about the girls who piqued my interest the most. My scribblings were confined to a hard-bound book which I secreted at the back of my wardrobe. There were no real favourites as such: my lustful attentions tended to flit between the most pronounced objects of my adolescent desire. I don’t remember the scenarios as being especially explicit, either; they were mostly concerned with undressing the girls to their underwear (and beyond) and indulging in some foreplay. Either I lacked the knowledge – or the confidence – to take things further, even when my desires were confined to the literary world.
Yet despite the naivety of my written fumblings (who knew what was to come, eh?), I found myself aroused by the words dancing across the pages, by the images that accompanied them in my mind. They provided my first self-delivered, earnest erections. I’d be lying on my bed, or sometimes the floor, my ears ever alert for sound of feet ascending the staircase, writing feverishly away. Without realising it, I’d be pressing my pelvis into the mattress or the carpet, my cock hard against my belly, trapped, squirming and thrusting as my excitement built.
Inevitably, on a warm summer’s evening, my excitement reached an entirely new stratum. The sensations emanating from my loins went from being ‘good’ to being unbelievably good, utterly consuming in their deliciousness. I began to thrust harder and faster as I wrote, until I reached for the first time what is now an unmistakeable peak. I didn’t realise what had happened right away. I saw the semen squirting from my cockhead and wondered, “Have I broken something?” But how could something that had damaged feel *so* good? And finally, the light bulb flickered on. I’d done it, achieved that mythical goal I’d heard about in the locker room. I’d ejaculated. I’d *come*.
Of course, in doing so, I’d circumvented the more traditional route to masturbatory success. The next step in my private education was to learn how to produce the same effect by using my hand.
And that is a whole other story…

________________

BACK TO ME: I must say, EA, I’m always quite the fan of a good tease. Nicely done.

White Power: Teeth Strips and Other Beauty Addictions

I want to be a sex goddess.
I know: I’ll buy teeth-whitening strips. That’ll do it.
Skill? Who needs skill? Communication strategies? Pshaw! No, I just need white teeth.
This is what the media would have you believe, isn’t it? Hey, she must be an all-American girl. See how white her teeth are? Geez. She really is the driven snow, but hey, I’d let her drive me.
Ahh, the media and beauty. If ever there was a more bastardly combination. Sigh. Where to begin? Where, oh, where, oh, where, oh, where?
Well, let’s go back from whence we came. Teeth-whitening. Well, I’m a cute gal. I’ve got a gap-toothed smile, though, you know. Just one gap, and not in the centre. I like it, actually. Character. I also have this one eyebrow with a crook in it, which leaves me easily delivering “devious” gazes in times of seduction. Those, and a small scar on my nose from when I had a tete-a-tete with a paintcan in grade two, are my flaws. But despite those, I have pluses. I’ve got warm green eyes that emote brilliantly, decent cheek bones, and even with their itty-bitty flaws, my teeth are pretty darned white, ergo I have a nice smile, and I’ve got nice, plush, full lips to frame ‘em. I’m all right, gap and all, ‘cos I’m just who I’m supposed to be, right?
Still, I did it. Those fuckers sucked me in. I bought them. I did. I justified it, though. ”I’m buying generic. I’m not a sheep. And hey, it’s on sale!” And I forked out $25 of my last dollars to pick up the fabulous, oh-so-now box of GLAM, BABY. Yeah, I bought the strips. What’s more, I bought the possibility of a less-flawed me. That’s what they’re really selling, after all.
Have you done this shit? Seriously. All right, we all know that getting sexy is an ugly, ugly business. Hair removal? Not attractive. Some ugly things go down when we’re alone and trying to get all sexed up. The things we inspect, the preening we strain to do. Oh, dear. It’s a wonder we come out of that with any self-esteem at all (even more mysterious considering those who willingly use the 10x magnification uberflaw-exposing mirrors — shudder).
But these strips? Dear, god. Insert them, and become a drooling mass of incoherence, a moisture monkey. Sex factor? Nil, man. I did one individual set of strips a couple weeks back and haven’t been back to do another set since.
I swear, you drool like Lenny when George has let him pet the rabbits too much. “But, George, I like to pet the rabbits. They’s so soft, George.”
Slurp, drool. It’s repulsive, really. Do not do this around your lover. It’d be so inconvenient to have them conjure a drooling-mass in-coital image of you arise to shatter — mercilessly — any hope of orgasm for that foreseeable moment.
And this ain’t no “God, I’m being pleasured ORALLY!” slurp of sexual satiation we’re talking about here. This is along the lines of “Granny’s having soup again, put her teeth on the counter”. So, unless you’ve a geriatric fetish…
But you know why they keep sucking us in? Insecurities. Beautiful means loved means admired means successful means laid, laid, laid. Oh, yeah, I’m in for the Kool-aid. Gimme some of that.
It’s our insecurities. I mean, hell, if you could find the ego as a bodypart, you could go and put an X for “hit me here” right on top of it. Our psyche’s one big soft spot. We’re all vulnerable in one way or another. We’re all judging ourselves a little on the harsh side, some people excessively so.
All our lives, we’re told to be better. Doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, you’ve been told one of two things: Be better, or conversely, forget better — you’ll never be any better, you’re trash. It’s all the same, still boils down got to look better, act better, live better, do better, speak better, better, better.
The cosmetics industry is playing that up like you wouldn’t believe. And now they’ve gone and gotten the boys all worked into a frenzy now, too. The last bastion of oblivion has been shattered, giving way to the rise of the metrosexual. Such pretty boys. I hate to admit it, I do like ‘em. They got that ready-to-eat look that conveys “yummy” and “sink teeth in” to me. Come on, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Some people are edibles. Some have “food group” and “recommended part of a balanced diet” all over ’em.
But there’s a lot to be said for rugged men, too, though. They clean up, and well. I like doing the cleaning, too. Rinse-and-repeat. Mostly repeat.
But you see? This is what they’re doing. Men are getting as compartmentalized and as stereotyped as women have always been. It started a couple decades ago, probably even as early as the ‘70s, but it’s blown out of the water in the last five or so years. Now guys are getting just as silly as the girls have been, via spending insane amounts on cosmetics and other beauty fixes. (Surgery, anyone?)
I’ve always been that type. My insecurities seemed tethered to my expenditures. “But it’s expensive, I’ll be beeyootiful the instant it touches skin!”
I’ve spent so damned much on the myth. I’ve always had a little bit of problem skin. I’m of Irish descent, so my complexion’s really fair, right? So, I’d often get blackheads on my nose. Every product I bought would do jack all about the problem, and I was spending $40 a bottle for this crap.
These days, I use a variety of skin cleansers, but when I want to exfoliate, I throw some sugar into it and lather up. My skin’s the best it’s ever been, my rosacea is completely gone for a more porcelain (ergo more corruptable, ergo good) look, and I’ve been looking five years younger since I started cheaping out. And my face is softer now, too. Truly. (Which is no mean feat since I ride a scooter and get exposed to the elements year-round.)
The irony is, They (the Man, et al) used to tell men that sugar was a great face scrub. I always thought, “Damn men, they’ve got all the luck.” I was gullible. But I put two and two together when the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy guys came along. At the start of the series, they’d tell the guys to scrub with sugar. It didn’t take long for them to be selling the “men’s exclusive facial care products” crap to the guys, though. “But it’s crushed avocado seed. It’ll give you…” rosacea, actually. Geez. That’s not exfoliation, that’s abrasion, dudes.
It took being broke to give me the best complexion I’ve had since my teens. Fuck H20, the Body Shop, and everyone else. Some things are worth spending money on, for sure, but I think the face-washing thing’s getting a tad out of control. My skin’s proof.
And this rant all started from me brushing my teeth before bed and eyeballing, guiltily, the box of whitening strips. My point? It’s a sad fucking thing that our insecurities cost us so much both financially and chronologically. Ah, if only being a sex god was simpler.