Early on, she discussed the exercise of writing down 100 things you can offer as service. She encouraged us (and the Doms in their session) to break out of the “housework” box! There’s many other ways a sub can serve. For instance, when MasterDoc needs library books or something quickly looked up online, he turns to me. It’s something I’m good at and do all the time and I can provide that service to make his life easier. I think I’d like to take this on as an exercise. I may just walk away from it feeling pretty damn good about my talents. (Another exercise I might work on is what sort of puppy I’d be, and what I’d be called as a puppy.)

For most of the weekend, I reflected on how tolerant, respectful and loving the bdsm community can be. We’re fed this tale that bdsm is bad and religious people are the ones offering love and acceptance. Bullshit. There are tons of varied kinks but since we’re all reviled or denigrated in some way because of our kinks we come together to provide a place where we can just be ourselves for a few days. I see many transgender people at these events – is it that trans people are more kinky or is it simply that they find acceptance (and safety from violence) within the bdsm community?

There was a spa set up with people offering massages. I received a massage on Saturday night after our scene. While the entirety of my life experience with men made me a bit nervous to let a stranger massage me, I realized that most of the time I feel safer around kinkster men since there’s such a big emphasis on consent, respect and safety. The amateur masseuse was totally professional and respectful. My own issues with being able to articulate what I want became a problem as he did a fairly gentle massage that felt nice but didn’t leave my muscles relaxed like a more vigorous one. Not speaking up was my fault. MasterDoc and I identified this as something I need to work on in general – voicing my needs.

Just before I went away I finally heard from someone who worked for the Geeky Kink Event. If this person’s account is accurate, they handled things fairly well – except of course for getting in touch with me and telling me what was going on. One of them wanted to keep the dickhead from presenting but was outvoted. The guy who assaulted me tried to claim in a comment on Good Vibrations that, “It was concluded that she (me) described a consensual act, not assault.” That’s not at all what I heard from the event representative. I was told there were many sanctions placed on his behavior and if he was drunk or otherwise inappropriate he would be tossed out. There was concern and they took my complaints seriously. However, I do wonder at the fact that I asked if I could quote parts of their explanation to me – and they never replied. This paraphrasing will do. But quoting their own words would be more powerful.  It makes me wonder if they don’t stand by their claims. Also, the representative claimed that he told my assailant that there were several complaints – but he figured out it was me right away. (I make no secret of my problem with him.) I knew that I took that risk when I spoke up. It was an overall lousy experience with this, but not as bad as some past ones. I offered to put them in touch with people who were in the room that night, as well as others who have had a variety of problems with him. They haven’t taken me up on it as of yet.

Brimstone Reflections, Part III originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on November 29, 2011.

It’s disgusting that this man still refuses to take responsibility for his actions. I feel certain that there could be clear video and audio footage of the incident – of me telling him to take the speculum out because it hurt and his continuing to hurt me instead – and he’d still deny responsibility. I don’t expect any different from him, but he should realize that he’s not going to shut me up about what I KNOW happened.

It’s also disgusting that it seems the organizers of the Geeky Kink Event told him that I sent them information on him. Hey, it was within their rights to decide to keep him teaching a class, but to tell him that his victim reported him? What the fuck? They could have very well put me in danger. So far harassing comments denying his responsibility are all that he’s done, but they didn’t know what might happen. I’m still waiting for an explanation for this. MasterDoc contacted them and so far they don’t seem to have anything to say for themselves.

I’m refraining from naming the con that approached me discreetly and respectfully earlier this year and decided to ban the asshole. Hopefully it drives him nuts to not know who will be denying his application to teach next year. I had hoped that maybe people were becoming more concerned with consent and better able to handle complaints since things were handled so beautifully with this con. Unfortunately, it seems I can be sure of that with only one grouping. As for the Geeky Kink Event, if you’re a survivor don’t approach them as they clearly won’t honor your privacy one iota (nor worry about your safety). And if the guy who assaulted me is to be believed, apparently they feel qualified to decide if I was assaulted or not.

Bullshit, Part II originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on November 22, 2011.

Unfortunately, there were few sessions we were interested in attending – either they were too basic for us (such as the anatomy of masturbation) or just not well run. I can’t speak on the myriad sessions I skipped, but that was our general view. Also I run into the problem that I’m often not a geek for things that make up “geeky” events. I don’t watch Dr. Who (though I love Torchwood), or Buffy, or anime. I don’t know how to play many of the games geeks play. I needed a nice corner with Monty Python and popular music geeks to hang with.

I still had a good time. Our friend V. was there for the weekend with her girlfriend and I got to have lunch with them on Saturday. Shane was there, spending some time running (or attempting to run) games in the gaming room, but mostly spending time with an ex who had come along to hang out. (Alas, I did not get naughty naked time with Shane this weekend.) We met a cute, nice young woman who MasterDoc met on fetlife – she’s eager to become a librarian. After my initial advice of, “Don’t do it!,’ I followed that with, “Just kidding. But are you ready for a life of poverty?” It’s funny, I love my work in many, many ways, but knowing how tight the job market is, how difficult and stressful it can be doing more with less after massive budget cuts, I’m not as eager to encourage others into the profession. The profession itself is quite honorable – ensuring access to information to all citizens, regardless of income. (I speak from a public libraries point of view.) Like any customer-service kind of job, you deal with total assholes, but I’d say most people are at least ok to deal with, and others are just lovely.

Plus I get to buy books with money that isn’t mine. That’s awesome.

Friday night in the dungeon MasterDoc gave me a sybian ride – probably the first one I’ve had in months. Me and the sybian have been a little at odds with each other. Despite the incredible orgasms it can give me, I’ve gotten kinda sick of the machine as it eats up too much of MasterDoc’s time at parties. We put our differences aside, however, and I shrieked uncontrollably as I came. I find that I reach a point where I’m so out of breath I think I want it to stop, but then realize how good it feels and don’t want it to stop.

MasterDoc lay with me for a little while in the aftercare room down the hall. It was lovely to have an adorable young butch dyke offer something sweet to eat to help me recover. If I wasn’t such a scaredy cat at hitting on people I should have said she’s the something sweet I’d like. Since the mattresses were taken when we got there we ended up on a blanket on the hard floor. Oh well. The set up of water and snacks was such a good idea – every event should have an aftercare room.

All weekend, I was drooling over all the adorable baby dyke butches around me. I want one! My birthday’s coming up, will someone remember that for me? Mmkay? I got the impression that many of them were subs (collars being a clue) so I suppose I’m not really what they’d want. But if there’s a toppy, boyish, lesbian out there who’s interested, drop me a line. As much as I have a thing for transmen, I find that I prefer my butch lesbians to be boyish rather than manly.

It was fascinating to just people watch at the event. Lots of people wore costumes – Drs. Who and Horrible were pretty popular. One guy dressed as Dr. Horrible on Friday evening looked a great deal like NPH. There was a lot of steampunk aesthetic of course. There were sexy ladies walking around half naked, and even a few guys in that state. The creativity and gender bending was a lot of fun.  Since it was a geek event, there was a preponderance of people who were perhaps social skills-impaired (or style-impaired), as well as a seemingly large percentage of the morbidly obese. (In costumes such as a Hogwarts school girl. Many things were NOT fun to see too. But I do my best to reserve judgement and support the idea that everyone deserves the right to dress up, or get naked in play space.)

We ran into a geeky, kinky woman we know who we haven’t seen in years. She didn’t recognize us because we’ve both lost weight and she had gained a little (in curves really, not fat, her tits looked amazing). MasterDoc finally got the opportunity to give her a sybian ride on Saturday night. I got my second one of the weekend that night as well, and squirted a fair amount. I hadn’t noticed Shane and his ex arrive in the dungeon because I was too busy coming.

The black cloud of the weekend was seeing the guy who sexually assaulted me several years ago. I knew he was going to be there since he was slated to teach one of the sessions (just the person you want to give some sort of legitimacy to by having them present at your event, no?) but it was still a shock and trigger when we went to the hotel bar for our free drink and there he was. I felt panicked and grabbed MasterDoc to tell him who was there. We got our drinks and sat down away from the douchebag and the poor unfortunate woman he undoubtedly got to pay for his hotel room. I had some PTSD to deal with when we hung out in our room waiting for dinner to be delivered.

He later appeared in the dungeon while MasterDoc was giving sybian rides, but I had popped a xanax by that time. He steered clear of me (if he recognizes me), I steered clear of him. Thankfully, I only saw him those two times. I was hoping I’d luck out and not see him at all. As I carried our heavy toybag down the hall Saturday night, I had a momentary fantasy of coming across him and feigning an accidental plowing into him with the bag. I’d say, “Oops. That was an accident. Don’t worry, it was just a bad thing that happened to two good people.” (He fed me that line while refusing to take responsibility for his actions after the assault.)

The shopping was fun – I mostly window shopped but I also bought a waist cincher that fits me. I need to sell off the two larger corsets I have. V. would like to try them on and maybe buy them from me. Fingers crossed they fit her. The hotel room had a full length mirror, and I rarely look in one, but I had to gaze at my transformed body for a bit. I understood how it is that people have told me I look even taller now. I do somehow. I guess because I’m narrower than before but still every bit as tall.

My new thinness gave me a certain boost of confidence, but my skin heard it was a geek event and decided to have a small breakout. Gee, thanks skin! Nothing like a big, red, cystic zit on the side of my neck, eh? There were a couple of equally red but much smaller pimples on my face. My bangs mostly hid those though.

Overall there were lots of nice and interesting people there. We didn’t end up playing with anyone we didn’t know (with the exception of MasterDoc giving a few ladies sybian rides). Our geekiness does translate into a little social awkwardness too. DeeDee is the social butterfly, but she wasn’t with us. I got to see intense scenes – one that I would NOT want to do myself, but it was intense and gripping to watch. A Dom used a staple gun to shoot staples into his subs upper arms. Youch. I cringed repeatedly, hopefully they didn’t notice or didn’t mind the reaction. There was a long-lasting flogging and spanking that was fun to watch too. MasterDoc gave me a caning before Saturday’s sybian ride, but that was our only bdsm play over the weekend.

A Geeky and Kinky Weekend originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on November 6, 2011.

If you’ve hung around here for any length of time you know that I was sexually assaulted six years ago at a sex party. I’ve written about the triggering and post-traumatic stress issues I can still encounter after all this time. I probably have also written that the shitty way I was treated after was just as bad as the assault.

And if I haven’t, I should.

The dark secret of the kink/sex-positive community is that not everyone plays by the rules. And even those who do often fail to call out the predators on their bullshit. I’ve submitted a proposal for a panel discussion at Momentum next spring on finding ways to address this rather than sweep it under the rug. I feel like I’ve healed to the point where I’m ready to be an activist. Because I sure wish I had had an activist on my side when all that shit was originally going down. I’ve spoken to various women over the years who have been somehow abused or violated within what should have been a consensual, mutually enjoyable kink scene or sexual experience. (I don’t doubt that the men who have experienced abuse don’t even try to come forward. Being realistic, the majority of survivors are women, but I think the men who experience this need us to listen too.)

As a brief aside here, I like the term “survivor” rather than “victim.” I was a victim for the duration of my assault. I’m not always a victim. I have survived people ignoring my clearly stated boundaries on two occasions. I’m bitter that they have both changed my life forever (the first was totally outside the scene) but I have prevailed and found myself a wonderful Dom who takes care of me, not violates my boundaries. (Waxing poetic on this will be the next post.)

A big issue going hand-in-hand with the violations happening is that most people in the scene won’t listen when someone speaks up about it. These assaults (I’m using it as a general term for rape, sexual assault, physical assault, abuse, etc.) are whispered about at most. Those who speak up loudly, as I did via my old blog right after the assault happened to me, get branded as “crazy,” “drama queens,” and “troublemakers.” Often they do what I did for a few years – they disappear from the scene, disillusioned that a community that gives so much lip service to consent could turn a blind eye. The predators doing this do it more than once. I know of at least three men within the NYC scene who have violated boundaries more than once. On twitter this week one of my twitter pals was furious and frustrated when she tried to speak up about another woman’s assault within her local kink scene. She must have received mostly the same sort of bullshit I had.

“It’s a he said/she said thing. I don’t want to get involved.”

Or they make up excuses for the person. “Well, he was drunk.” The support I’ve received over the years from people within “the community” has been minimal. But it is increasing and I want to lend my voice to those speaking out.

Let me start with this, if you don’t get involved, don’t take sides, then you are by default supporting the perpetrator. Silence lets this cancer flourish in the community. Sometimes, the predatory people are the ones running parties and educational sessions at conferences. This will not end until we speak up and hold our fellow kinksters responsible for their actions. I don’t give a shit if “that guy” seems nice and throws fun parties. If you keep quiet you are enabling him. (I’ll bet there are a few women who violate boundaries, but because of our socialization, it ends up being men far more often.)

I had the pleasure of meeting a kinkster guy recently, and we somehow got onto this lovely topic. He filled me in on someone being predatory that I didn’t know about, and I filled him in on the one I know about first hand. We compared notes and he too has seen women who speak up dismissed as “crazy.” Branding someone as crazy is an effective way to silence them. I’m sure this tactic has been used to silence women (and other minorities) for centuries.

But this guy I met up with brought up a concern we must address. He pointed out that in his experiences as a Dom he has made mistakes. People do make mistakes. But you know what? If you make a mistake you apologize, try to mend the hurt as best you can and learn from it. There are men like himself who hesitate to get involved in lambasting a predator because they fear that a simple, unintentional mistake on their part will place them in that position.

I know this can be difficult for nice guys to believe, but the chance of that is small. People who apologize and try to fix the harm they’ve accidentally done are not the types I’m talking about here. I spoke online with the guy who assaulted me a night or two after the event. I wanted to believe it was a mistake. I wanted an apology so I could do my best to forgive and move on. I didn’t get an apology. I got excuses. I got a scared little man trying to deny his responsibility and getting angry with me when I called him out. Soon I was one of those so-called “crazy” women in the scene. The few who actually listened to me and agreed that what happened was wrong were usually afraid to speak up. The predators among us manage to snag a few friends who will stand up for them, not really knowing what they’re like. The person who’s been assaulted, and their allies, get their voices drowned out.

Since I’ve seen this time and time again, I have to call all of you out on one bullshit excuse item: the idea that women make up stories of being assaulted to retaliate against someone.

Seriously? Go back and read my description above about what happens when someone speaks up. What would making up a story accomplish? Absolutely nothing. False rape reporting has been a red herring thrown about by the media for years. With 60% of ACTUAL rapes not being reported because of the dismal reaction victims of sexual violence usually get from law enforcement, how many women can be stupid enough to lie about it? There are a few of course, but the estimate of “unfounded” reported rapes is just 8%.

From Wikipedia:

FBI reports consistently put the number of “unfounded” rape accusations around 8%. The average rate of unfounded reports for Index crimes is 2%. However, “unfounded” is not synonymous with false allegation and as Bruce Gross of the Forensic Examiner explains,

“This statistic is almost meaningless, as many of the jurisdictions from which the FBI collects data on crime use different definitions of, or criteria for, “unfounded.” That is, a report of rape might be classified as unfounded (rather than as forcible rape) if the alleged victim did not try to fight off the suspect, if the alleged perpetrator did not use physical force or a weapon of some sort, if the alleged victim did not sustain any physical injuries, or if the alleged victim and the accused had a prior sexual relationship. Similarly, a report might be deemed unfounded if there is no physical evidence or too many inconsistencies between the accuser’s statement and what evidence does exist. As such, although some unfounded cases of rape may be false or fabricated, not all unfounded cases are false.” (Emphasis mine)

Kitty Stryker has been tackling the topic:
Safe/Ward: A What You Can Do Guide

Safe/Ward Blog Carnival (trigger warning) This link will lead you to a cornucopia of blog posts by kinkster women who have been violated at some point or another, often not speaking out until years later.

If you’ve been subjected to assault or abuse, RAINN is a good resource for information. I found that even being at a sex party didn’t make the professional counselors I went to dismiss what happened to me. (I tried coping for 2-3 months on my own because I was afraid I’d be blamed.) I’m sure a few asshole therapists out there would blame the victim, but most professionals do not.

I’m one of those kinksters who will lend an ear to any survivor who needs to talk. There are a few more out there. Let’s make THOSE voices the ones that are heard.

The Dark Secret originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on August 11, 2011.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Blogger Drama or Real Issues? originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on October 24, 2010.

Safety originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on July 13, 2010.

Mental illness is something that you can’t just wish away. I’m as able to wish away bouts of post traumatic stress as much as I’m able to wish away a bout of diarrhea from ingesting dairy without lactaid. It’s frustrating. My rational brain can grasp the fact that I’m not in danger like I was during the trauma that gave me PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It can grasp the fact that MasterDoc takes care of me now, and the same scenario wouldn’t happen again as he would never let it. But the primal brain, the part that was traumatized, can’t be reasoned with and so I go into a bout of panic, anxiety and helplessness as if I’m re-living the the trauma all over again. And again. And again.

Various things can trigger a bout of PTSD and it’s not always (or even often) possible to determine ahead of time what might set me off. I read stories about sexual violence regularly in feminist blogs; I think it’s vital to discuss it and that silence will only perpetuate the problem. But sometimes something hits me just the wrong way, or just on the wrong day, and I find myself struggling with the same feelings I had right after the assault.

What set me off this time was a combination of things: reading comments on a post about outing sexual predators was the big thing. People were telling the survivors that they should always go to the police and that if they didn’t report the incident then they were somehow responsible for the sexual predator attacking the next person (and yet they shouldn’t publicly name and shame the person). This of course is utter bullshit as the only person responsible for the inappropriate behavior of the attacker is the attacker. But it struck me deeply as I agonized for a long time over pursuing legal repercussions after I was sexually assaulted 5 years ago. I worried about the women who could be affected in future by this asshole who was incapable of empathy or taking responsibility for his actions. I ultimately decided not to file a report because in talking to the NYPD I found out that unless they were sure they could convict they wouldn’t even prosecute. At the time people who were there that night were making all sorts of excuses for the guy who traumatized me. (He hosted fun sex parties, no one wanted to be uninvited. From what I hear he still hosts parties. Yes, New York sluts, you may in fact attend the parties of someone who committed sexual assault without remorse.) I felt like I would be completely alone in my accusations, and considering I was barely keeping my head together at that point I knew that pursuing legal action would only serve to damage me more. I also worried about harassment from his friends if I spoke up. (I did receive a little harassment just from speaking up within the circle.) Now, it’s past the statute of limitations (I can’t tell you the agony I went through that year the statute was going to be up. Do I report? Do I not?) but in the past two years a few people have come forward from that night to tell me that, indeed, what that guy did was wrong and they have felt terrible about what I went through. It’s comforting, but I wish they could have spoken up when I could have gone to the police.

As for the guy who did it, well he’s still a part of the sex blogger community. He’s on twitter. He’s on Fetlife. Part of my trigger was thinking about how many of my blogger friends believe his facade of “nice guy” and don’t realize what he did to me. I feel like the world should know, but in this society we protect the perpetrators of sex crimes. Had he hit me, or mugged me, I wouldn’t hesitate to name him. But since it was sexual and I know that being at a sex party when it happened would be enough for the slut shaming to begin, I don’t feel safe hollering his name from the rooftops. Oh privately I have told many, but publicly I’ve been mostly circumspect. I’m sure if anyone questioned him about the incident, he would deftly turn things around and make me look like the bad one. (Just as he did after the assault. Nice guy, huh?)

I’ve heard from someone else that they heard the story of that incident from him and his telling is completely different. In his mind, I was a woman who decided to try to “destroy him online.” I find this rich considering I didn’t name who did it or hint at who did it in the aftermath (for at least 2 years). I merely blogged about the hell I was going through and from this dickhead I got things like emails telling me to stop using him as “blog fodder.” Most readers of the blog I had at that time didn’t know who had done it, so I don’t see how he was persecuted by my trying to process my feelings. (He sure didn’t like the comments people left about what an asshole he was. But these people didn’t know he, specifically, was the asshole.) He refused to take any sort of responsibility for his behavior, and one or two people close to him made excuses (“He was drunk.”) or one even went so far as to call me crazy. I’m not crazy. And this man who did this to me is clearly incapable of empathy. I’m not the only person to observe him and come to the conclusion that he likely has some sort of personality disorder. So while a part of me wants to hear an apology (5 years later and one still hasn’t appeared) I don’t really expect to ever get one, because he is so focused on how this incident affected him. (Isn’t that simply amazing? He traumatized and assaulted me and he feels that he’s the wronged party.) I’ve seen him concoct huge, involved, false stories about people I know because he imagines that they are persecuting him in some way. I’ve heard about others who have spoken out about him who have been incessantly harassed by his minions. Intellectually I know this man will never feel remorse for what he did to me. And this is supremely frustrating because his actions can still affect me deeply 5 years later. When will it stop? I don’t know that the flashbacks will ever stop. I don’t know that the self-blaming will ever stop. I don’t know that my fears of him hurting other women will ever stop. A few years back a woman I was dating turned out to go to his parties. I felt panicked for her because I was afraid if he knew I knew her then he’d do something to her too. That incident was a total trigger for me. I went home and cried.

I’ve spent the past three and a half days trying to distract myself from the feeling of being re-traumatized. But it’s not something that can be simply ignored. I keep going through endless cycles of panic coming on, followed by extreme frustration that I could be happy and having hot sex right about now, but instead I’m feeling violated and fearful. When I’m triggered, I live the trauma all over again. Over the weekend I was psychically in the space where I was during/after the assault: scared, helpless, panicked, angry. I find myself questioning if going to a sex party makes it somehow okay for someone to put a speculum inside you without having negotiated it (or ANY play) with you beforehand. I find myself angry that I didn’t stop him before he put it in my cunt and jabbed me with it. (I had a tender spot inside my vagina for about a year after the event.) But at the time I firmly believed that if I said stop he would stop. He didn’t. And you can’t just jump up and run out of a room with an open speculum inside you. I had to rely on this asshole taking it out of me. With enough panic coursing through me I decided to end things there and then by drawing all attention to what was going on. And while I’m proud of the strength it took for me to do that, I was already traumatized at that point.

It’s been a long trip back from there to where I am now (on most days). It’s taken a long time for me to trust my dark fantasies to MasterDoc. I often fear that someone will use these fantasies against me, like how after the assault someone commented on my blog and cited my talking about using a speculum to see my cervix as an indication that I consented to this guy, who I had never played with before, to use one with me sexually. (Keep in mind any discussion of speculums on my blog were related to viewing my cervix and not at all sexual fantasy-related.) I find myself often afraid to admit to things especially without putting in the caveat that I want to do them “with MasterDoc.” He’s the only person I feel safe enough with to indulge the dark, kinky fantasies I’ve always had.

Simply talking about something does not equal consenting to doing it.

I’d name this asshole right here, right now and link to his blog, only I fear the harassment that would ensue. I’ve dealt with enough hell from this person. Right now about the only thing I can do is hope he dies a slow, painful death. And I hope that I can move past this anger that plunges me into depression whenever I’m triggered.

I write this for me. I write this because I feel better having gotten it out. Douchebag, this ultimately has nothing to do with you. If I wanted to persecute you I’d be going about it in an entirely different way.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on May 10, 2010.

Earlier today, MasterDoc showed me something on fetlife that he thought was sick and twisted, but sorta funny. I won’t put it here since that would require me looking for it, and that would not be good for me to do. I cannot read it again. To sum up: it was a sp0of on “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a rhyming tale of a man who chloroforms his wife, invites his girlfriend in to help him fuck his wife while she’s unconscious, (the wife comes in the story while she’s unconscious), he slips her a roofie when she starts to come to, films the entire thing, and then when she gets up in the morning and relates to him the “dream” she had, he tells her that wow, that sounds hot, wish I could have been there. Now, granted, different people read things differently. I had to point out to MasterDoc the fact that nowhere in there was any indication at all that this was consensual. No indication to the reader that this was a D/s relationship where consent has already been given for activities like this. Call me a stuffy old feminist assault survivor, but I don’t find rape funny. He had assumed consent, but when I pointed this out he read it again and agreed, there was no clear, or even implied consent. (And the whole bit about her coming during the assault is typical “women enjoy being raped” bullshit.)

I wasn’t inclined to post a comment myself, as I’ve seen too often that women will be dismissed as lacking a sense of humor for calling this shit out. But as a survivor of non-consensual sex I was really upset after reading this. I burst into tears while talking to MasterDoc about it. It’s an indication of the rape culture we live in that this is seen as humorous and acceptable by otherwise reasonable people. (Someone else we know posted a positive comment on this thread. Women posted positive comments on this thread.) MasterDoc decided to post a comment pointing out the problems with the post but the thread owner opted to delete it. He did, however, write to MasterDoc essentially explaining that he thinks that people on fetlife are all adults and able to look at a poem like that and appreciate that it’s not non-consensual. I disagree.

I wondered aloud if the following poem would have gotten the same level of appreciation: a woman chloroforms her husband without his consent, ties him up, invites in some guys to peg his ass while he’s unconscious, and then she lets him think that the whole experience was a dream (but meanwhile she’s filmed it). Would people find that as amusing? But you know, I don’t think that would ever be put out there as humor. I also think that most people are so conditioned by the rape culture that only other survivors would “get” the problem with it. (I worry that the scenario I just related would trigger a man who’s experienced sexual violence.)

The triggering for me was the way that raping the woman was treated like a big joke. When I was assaulted and wrote on my old blog about it, while most people were appalled at what happened one or two told me that I was blowing it out of proportion. They basically told me that I didn’t have the right to feel traumatized. That it wasn’t assault. The guy who did it to me tried to convince me that it was just an “accident.” While I did get support, the few people who dismissed my trauma as inconsequential did a tremendous amount of damage to me.

In all fairness, I don’t think there was any malice in the posting on fetlife. Not true malice. And MasterDoc felt terrible for showing it to me and said that he should have known better. I’m not at all mad at him as he had no intent of harming me. (Had he thought for a second that this post would upset me so, he would have never showed it to me.) I don’t think the author meant to convey a true non-consensual experience. After all, I can understand the fantasy of intoxication play – where one partner is heavily intoxicated, consensually, and the other person then has their way with them. Done consensually, I could find that really hot. Some people would still be triggered by this.

Driving home today, I started thinking that perhaps I was too sensitive about this. After all, the guy tells the wife that her story is so hot when she relates it to him; one would hope that if she was anything but enthusiastic about her “dream” he wouldn’t say that. But I don’t know – am I thinking this only because I’ve been conditioned as a woman not to cause shit? I’m not naive enough to think that the world is safe and that I shouldn’t ever come across something thoughtless and triggering. Shit happens. And what triggers me won’t trigger the next person, and vice versa. (Over on Shakesville this week there was an open thread about bdsm. I enjoyed reading the discussion concerning bdsm and feminism. But the moderator had to shut down the thread because she was triggered. And I think if she was triggered she totally did the right thing – took care of herself. Just because it didn’t trigger me doesn’t mean it can’t trigger someone else who has had different experiences.) But I do think that times like this are valuable moments to raise the consciousness of others.

Rape Culture and Triggers originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on December 20, 2009.

Staci Haines specializes in the somatic approach – “an educational and transformational approach that assumes that the body, mind and emotions are one interconnected biological system.” (p. 15) She discusses a great deal the concepts of being aware of what you’re feeling, or indeed being aware if you’ve dissociated and stopped feeling. Being present during your sexual experiences is a major first step towards healing. Being aware of your body and reactions helps get you away from dissociating – “checking out” – during sex.

Haines is realistic about the conflicting emotions that survivors may feel – they may feel guilt or shame when they feel sexual pleasure, they may love and hate their perpetrator at the same time. Being triggered during sex with a partner may cause a survivor to take their anger out on their partner. She doesn’t paint a picture of recovery as being all hearts and flowers – but she does point you towards the wonderful future you can have if you take the time to heal. As they say, nothing worth doing is ever easy.

The approach is entirely sex-positive. She explores different types of sexual expression, everything from oral sex to S/M and in between. There’s chapters on sexual anatomy, creating boundaries for yourself, partnered sex, navigating your way through triggers and how to work on healing them, and even the use of sex toys. Many of these chapters have interesting sex-positive information that would be useful for anyone. (The book is aimed at women survivors, of any sexual orientation.) While she discusses the problem of survivors sometimes becoming sexually compulsive in reaction to the abuse, she makes clear the point that being a fully realized sexual woman with a stronger sex drive than our society thinks you should have is NOT the same as being compulsive. She then goes on to discuss the real difficulties with actual compulsion. She also doesn’t glamorize sex as being the perfect image we see in porn or read about in books. Haines is clear that we bring our quirky human selves to our sex lives – there will be times when things go wrong and you and your partner end up laughing. Sometimes you may need to stop the action for a time and get back to it after dealing with difficult memories.  There’s even a chapter for partners of sexual abuse survivors.

The final chapter in the book is a phenomenal collection of resources – everything from healing sexual trauma, to dealing with any sort of trauma, to women-friendly sex-positive sex toy stores (Babeland is on the list).

One minor gripe: this book has more than an average number of typos that were not caught and fixed. If you’re a grammar nut like me this may irritate the heck out of you.

Book Review: Healing Sex originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on September 7, 2009.

I’ve kept mostly private about issues I’ve had with Davey, and I don’t want to go into details here (sorry, some things I do keep to myself) but we had a breakthrough in our sexual issues on Tuesday night. (No small thanks due to MasterDoc.) I’m feeling better about things than I have in months (the only real issues we’ve had have all been sexual or related to the sexual issues) and hopefully things will get better now. I may write in more detail at a later date, but for now I’d like to keep quiet about it.

With MasterDoc gone, I hope to explore here some fantasies of mine – and share them with you of course. Ever since Floating World my mind has been filled with dirty, kinky fantasies and I need to get them out of me. I think I might somewhat be in subfrenzy, lusting after all sort of kinkiness – desperate to make all my fantasies come true. This month would be a good time to calm down and reflect. Luckily, I’m already with MasterDoc, and he wouldn’t let me go overboard in exploring my fantasies.

Soon, I will write and post a review on Staci Haines’ Healing Sex, a book which I’m finding very enlightening. It’s taking me into my sexuality in a new way, and despite the focus being healing from sexual trauma, I find myself looking at other issues I’ve had since before being raped at age 25 and sexually assaulted at 32 – issues with speaking up about what I want, not saying no when I’d really like to, and other things. It should produce a thoughtful post in the near future. I also have another dyke porn dvd to review – rowr. How I’ve held off watching it this long is beyond me.

So stay tuned, more of the dirty, sexual talk you’ve come to love and expect from me will ensue. For now, enjoy your Labor Day weekend and make some stories of your own!

Reflections on the Week originally appeared on Diary of a Kinky Librarian on September 5, 2009.