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This dress

With its candy skulls,

Yellow marigolds,

And bleeding red hearts,

Is my arnor.

I want you

Looking at me,

Glowing,

and taking up space.

My dress,

Will make room for me.

It will announce my arrival

With fanfare fit for a queen.

#notalldogs

Imagine a world very similar to ours, in which dog ownership is a stronger part of the national culture. Almost every family has a dog and there are dog parks in every neighborhood. Dog culture is so ingrained that dogs are allowed to roam off leash and everyone trains their dogs to come when they are called. Nearly all the dogs are mellow and well behaved, but some dogs are not. A small percentage of dogs bite, but society doesn’t like to talk about it.

So now imagine that in this same world one out of every three women you knew had been bitten by a dog or would likely be bitten by a dog in their lifetime. Maybe your best friend has been bitten and two of your friends from college. You remind yourself, its still just a few dogs causing almost all the problems. In addition an unknown portion of men have also been bitten, but most men won’t talk about it so its hard to know how many men. Dog biting is not only not part of the national dialog around dogs, those who do try to talk about are often dismissed as being hysterical, holding an unfair opinion about dogs, or as having enticed a dog to bite them by mistreating the dog or dressing up like a rib eye steak.

Although you have never been bitten yourself a few dogs have growled and snapped at you, while you walk down the street. Then a friend’s dog, which you thought you knew well, starting acting strangely to you and nearly bit you. In fact, you think that dog would have bitten you, if your friend hadn’t been there to stop it. Later, you found out it was because the dog was on medication and “he just wasn’t himself” that day. However, it doesn’t matter, because you were almost bitten and now you are a little more timid around your friend’s dog.  You never allow yourself to be alone with it.

If you lived in this world, how would you behave towards dogs? How would you feel if while walking to your car at night you were approached by a dog you didn’t know? Or on your morning run, a dog started chasing you for just a few blocks? Would you start carrying pepper spray? Would you change the side of the street you were walking on if you saw a small pack of dogs walking towards you? Would you stop wearing leather or anything that remotely smelled of meat?

You know its not all dogs, but how could you ever tell which dog was safe and which dog was a potential threat?

Wouldn’t you want to start to talk about it? Wouldn’t you start trying to change the culture to reduce dog bites?   

you are waiting for me to leave you

leaving is a heavy weight

a millstone of doubt

around the neck

there is no training

no P90X

for those with the strength  to walk away

one cannot prepare to carry it

only to put it down

Clive Owen

I want to fuck Clive Owen

bent over a desk 

skirt torn

panties down

or

up down upon the floor

laid out,

pinned down

groaning in pleasure

but the odds of this happening

are infinitesimal

I mean, how would I ever get to meet Clive Owen?

And who's to say he'd want to fuck me?

not that I am not imminently fuckable

its just that..

I've a better chance of winning the lotto.

I've a better chance of getting you to love me. 

Baby Doll

I can't be your baby doll

waiting on the shelf

in suspended animation

collecting dust

my dress fraying at the edges

as the glue fades 

and my lashes fall down 

When you aren't looking

I'll climb down

risking my fragile limbs 

to jump off the shelf
my porcelain shell
will  shatter whole on the floor

then
like some mythical stuffed rabbit
I shall love myself

into the arms of life
find my legs
and walk out of your playroom for good. 

Chaste to be Chased?

I recently read an article on "Why You Should Always Have Sex On The First Date." The author, who goes by the name "Trophy Wife" espouses the idea that women should "F*ck being coy – go out and get laid." As an ethical slut, I see nothing wrong with women having sex on the first date. I have fucked a handful of men on the first date and gotten naked with far more than that. I think it generally holds true that if man is truly interested in you it won't matter when you have sex. 

However, I have found it true that the more chaste I am, the more chased I become. Men tend to chase what they can't easily acquire. As one lover once told me, "nobody really values the things they get for free, I mean if I offered a nice leather jacket for free, wouldn't you wonder what is wrong with it?" Now before we castrate my ex for comparing a woman to a leather jacket or equating a sexually open woman with a defective object, let's just take a moment and think about where statements like this come from. 

It is easier for women to get laid than it is for men. Just take this article for example, where a both a man and woman asked a hundred people of the opposite gender to have sex. The woman faired considerably better than the man. The truth is that if a woman wants to have sex, she generally doesn't have to work to hard to get it. Provided that the woman is reasonably attractive, confident, and willing to broaden her horizons, she can generally find a man who would not just be willing, but eager to have sex with her. 

This lack of equality in potential sexual availability not only makes men jealous, it robs them of a context for understanding how to relate to sexually available women. There they are, cursed with testosterone driven higher sex drive but constrained by women's general hesitancy to have sex. What's worse is that when a woman is open to a more relaxed approach to sex, the man has no idea how to handle it. Without a proper schema for these situations, they default to the prevailing societal narrative.

This narrative still espouses the idea that men should chase women and that a woman should "hold out" before she "gives it up." So statements like those made my erstwhile lover, aren't meant to be explicitly misogynistic. It's just that they betray the underlying misogyny of this kind of "advice." Since any woman that isn't following these guidelines and is giving her "cookie" up to easily, must be suffering from low self esteem or must in some other way be "broken." Because any woman that is serious about "catching" a good man, will know that she has to withhold sex to maintain her power. This is a form of slut shaming that is pervasive in advice books, most of which are written for women.

So while I agree with the “Trophy Wife” that women should have sex on the first date. I think what’s really needed is not a call for women to have sex, but call for men to respect women regardless of when that woman chooses to share a sexual experience with them.  So written below is the article I would have liked to have seen.

Men, "why you should keep seeing the woman you had sex with on a first date."

You've already seen her naked and you liked what you saw. Let's face it gentlemen, chances are you didn't run screaming from the room when she took her top off. If you liked what you saw, why not stick around a see a little more. 

No more first time jitters. We all know the first time with a partner is a little bit awkward, but heightened sexual tension usually allows to overlook the awkwardness. Lust goggles, are very forgiving. So the first time might actually be smoother and the second time won't be the first. Thus, no first time jitters. 

She chose to share a sexual experience with you. Nobody gave up anything, nothing was lost. Assuming you both did it right, everyone should have come away feeling like they won a prize at the carnival. 

Chances are she won't use sex as a weapon. A woman who has sex on the first date is unlikely to see sex as the source of her power. Therefore, she will probably still fuck you even when you forget to take the trash out or leave the toilet seat up. 

Yes, if she had sex with you on the first date, chances are she has done it before. And the concern there is what exactly? If you want to feel special go visit your mother or earn this woman's love. 

Realize that just because you two had sex on the first date doesn't mean that you will have sex on every date thereafter. No she's not playing games, it means she wants to get to know you and not just use you for your body. This is a good thing.Remember, she's just not obligated to fuck you every time she sees you. 

You know a woman's worth is in no way tied to her number of sexual partners. You respect women as equals. So call her up, send her a text, ask her out and let her know that a second date doesn't come with any expectations. 

* note, I know that some people choose to wait until marriage to have sex. That's lovely for them, but for pretty much all the reasons listed by "Trophy Wife" I will continue to have sex with men before marriage.  

Confessions of a woman who falls

My favorite song about falling in love "I've just seen a face"  by the Beatles.  Now I say this fully understanding that nobody really has one favorite love song, and no Beatles fan ever really has one favorite Beatles song. Heck, even as I write this there are little devils on my shoulder all clamoring to mention how much other songs mean to me. And it's true, there are many other songs that I love. But "I've just seen a face" is the best song about falling in love.

 Falling in love isn't the same as being in love. When we are falling in love everything feels possible, when we are in love we know that everything may not be possible but it doesn't matter because we will always have a place to feel safe. Paul McCartney wrote, "I've just seen a face" and its filled with the endless optimism that characterize his happier songs. McCartney was not my favorite Beatle, though he wrote almost all my favorite Beatles songs.

 Nobody does falling in love quite like McCartney in this song. Right from the beginning of the song you know he's in love. He's seen a face and he's always going to remember when and where he was. And with one lyric he's captured something universal, eternal, and ephemeral. I can remember those first moments when I knew I was falling in love.

 In the fourth grade, playing Atari with Danny in his room or playing G.I. JOE on his front yard. I didn't think I could be happier and I just knew I was falling in love. Of course, I was nine and I didn't know shit. By Jr. High I thought I was all grown up and falling in love with Jon as he played Bach on his guitar. In high school I could have listened to Roby's stories everyday and I was pretty sure my admiration of his talent was the same as love. When it turned out I was wrong, well I was sure I'd gotten it right when I met Devon with his linen shirts and his stoic sensibilities. He was reliable, sensible and just silly enough to make me laugh.

 I fell in love with Devon so quickly that I can remember exactly what we were both wearing the night we met. Once we married, I felt my love for solidify like concrete around my feet. Although I was stable I was also suffocating in that relationship. And while the reasons we separated are complex, the love I felt for him remains. He's still a great friend.

Post separation, I was a woman on her own for the first time in over ten years.  Falling for my next lover was like jumping of a cliff into the sea, it was fun, dangerous, and it hurt. When I finally started dating "Sunshine", a friend who I'd met in the last years of my marriage, I thought I'd finally met someone with whom I could enjoy the kind of friendship I shared with my ex-husband but combined with the passion I'd felt for my more recent ex.  Perhaps I tried to get to close to the sun and like Icarus I had to fall back to earth. Because for a variety of reasons just saying that I was wrong about him, is a huge understatement.

Falling in love after my marriage has been different. I  feel a lot more like the girl in Lennon's song "Happiness is a warm gun", lost in carnival like atmosphere where I've become acquainted with the kind of people who wear mirrors on their boots. Everywhere that seems safe isn't.  I need love now in a way I never did before, I need to feel safe again.  I've had love and safety and I want it back. I suppose this makes me needy.

I want to be loved the way McCartney loves the face of the woman he's just met. I want someone to fall in love with me so quickly and so passionately that I am the one who gets to be reasonable. I never get to be reasonable. I fall in love too easily to be reasonable. About 10 months ago, I started dating man. For the longest time I didn't  know if I was in love with him, but I could always remember the shirt he was wearing the day we met.

This man I and I broke up about a month ago and I realize that its not the falling that will kill me, its the sudden stop at earth. McCartney's mysterious woman catches him so that even as he falls she is always calling him back. But that's why "I've Just Seen a Face" is the perfect song about falling in love; because its also a nearly perfect song about being in love. In real life, sometimes falling leads to being caught and other times it leads to a hitting the ground. Alone.



"I've Just Seen A Face"

I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just meet
She's just the girl for me
And want all the world to see
We've met, mmm-mmm-mmm-m'mmm-mmm

Had it been another day
I might have looked the other way
And I'd have never been aware
But as it is I'll dream of her
Tonight, di-di-di-di'n'di

Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again

I have never known
The like of this, I've been alone
And I have missed things
And kept out of sight
But other girls were never quite
Like this, da-da-n'da-da'n'da

Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again

Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again

I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just meet
She's just the girl for me
And want all the world to see
We've met, mmm-mmm-mmm-da-da-da

Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Oh, falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again