Xan West's Blog, page 7

Free Stories and Poetry by Queer, Trans and Non-Binary Authors

One of the things I often turn to in times of great difficulty and despair, especially when searching for hope, is the work of queer, trans, and non-binary authors. So I put together a list of free stories and poems, available online now, to share with you, gathered by theme.

Love and Revolution:

INTIFADA INCANTATION: POEM #8 FOR b.b.L by June Jordan is a love poem that insists that there can be no love without resistance.

Vital Signs, Part XXIII by Essex Hemphill is a poem about queer men being targeted by politicians to get votes.

Loving in the War Years by Cherríe Moraga is a poem about being queer and finding love in a time where queerness is being attacked.

The Book of How to Live by Rose Lemberg is a novelette centering two queer marginalized women who work together toward revolution.

Straight Jacket by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a poem about her experience of being 19 and claiming queerness in the face of queer oppression, particularly after the 2008 election and the passage of Proposition 8.

How My Best Friend Rania Crashed a Party and Saved the World by Ada Hoffman is a science fiction YA ace story about standing up for yourself and your friends.

Letting Go by Gloria Anzaldúa is a poem about grappling with internalized oppression and pressure to assimilate. It’s read here by Jessica Guerrero.

This Shall Serve as a Demarcation by Bogi Takács is a science fiction story  that centers a service based D/s relationship between two neutrally gendered characters who are working towards revolutionary change.

I Walk In the History of My People by Chrystos is a poem about persistance in the face of colonial oppression.

Family and Community

Heroes by Gina DeVries is a non-fiction story about queer and trans youth creating family together.

The Rivers Children by Shweta Narayan is a flash fiction fable about non-binary love, endurance, and family legacies.

Hiddur Mitzvah by S. Bear Bergman is a non-fiction story about creating queer and trans Jewish family

For the White Person Who Wants to Know How To Be My Friend by Pat Parker is a poem about what is needed to create trust given the realities of racism.

To The New World by Ryka Aoki is a short story about honoring family and grappling with racism and transmisogyny in queer community.

Her Sacred Spirit Soars by S. Qiouyi Lu is a science fiction story set in a psychiatric hospital, about finding love amidst oppression.

Earth Crammed With Heaven by Elena Rose is a poem about finding hope in community and friendship

Confessions of an Uneducated Queer by Lauren Zuniga is a poem about claiming queerness, queer culture and learning about cis privilege in queer community.

When Lovers and Community Break Your Heart

Who Said it Was Simple, by Audre Lorde is a poem about the ways white feminism betrays black queer women.

When A Boy Tells You that He Loves You by Edwin Bodney is a poem about heartbreak.

Rental by Morgan M. Page is a story about transmisogyny and erasure in an intimate relationship between a trans woman and a trans man.

When the Chant Comes by Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poem about cissexism and fat oppression breaking your heart.

Class Differences by Patrick Califia is a poem about the ways class oppression can manifest in intimate relationships.

A Prude’s Manifesto by Cameron Awkward-Rich is a poem about being ace, and the betrayal of sexual pressure in queer communities.

Desire and Recognition

Dear Mr. Sunflower Butch, by Elaina Ellis is a butch/femme love poem about recognition and respect.

Madivenez, by Lenelle Moise is a poem about looking for words that recognize your queerness in your home language.

A Dominant in Lust, Love and Heartbreak by Chanelle Gallant is a series of non-fiction stories about her experiences of queer dominant desire and love.

Seen by Kris Ripper is an erotica story centering a genderqueer character who, reeling from a BDSM scene gone wrong because of cissexism, seeks solace and recognition.

Virgins in Time by Neve Be is a creative non-fiction piece about queer sexuality and reclaiming youth as adult queers.

The Tender Sweet Young Thing by Xan West is my erotica story centering three trans fat disabled queers who get together with their friends to create a group gender play BDSM scene.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha performs in Sins Invalid 2009 at Brava Theater in San Francisco. This performance is about honoring desire, environmental racism, abuse, disability, and queer community.

Part 1 of 3.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha performs in Sins Invalid 2009 at Brava Theater in San Francisco. Part 2 of 3.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha performs in Sins Invalid 2009 at Brava Theater in San Francisco. Part 3 of 3.

Final note: You may find my needed medicine tumblr a comfort in the face of these terrible election results. From the description: “This blog is intended to be medicine. What we need to counter the oppression we face in the world as queer and trans folks. The messages we need to tell us that who we are is important, magnificent, and necessary.”

Tagged: bisexual, book recommendations, community, desire, family, fiction, gay, heartbreak, lesbian, lgbtq, love, poetry, queer, recognition, resistance, revolution, stories, trans, women

NaNoWriMo: Goals and Deadlines in a Time of Strong Emotions

I found this post very helpful and compassionate.

Story Hospital

Dear friends,

It’s hard to write this post in a time of such strong feelings. Whatever your reaction to the results of the U.S. presidential election, the intense emotional atmosphere of the moment makes it difficult to face the blank page. Our thoughts are whirling, our hearts are pounding, and our bodies are feeling the effects of two tense days with insufficient food or rest (and, for some folks, a little too much alcohol).

And yet, I have my commitment to write posts for all of you, and you have your commitment to make your writing goals and meet your writing deadlines, whatever those may be.

View original post 1,463 more words

Editing to Include Top Vulnerability

As a heads up, this blog post describes editing a story that includes edge play, intense D/s, psychological sadism, pain play, humiliation and objectification, and play with misogyny and whorephobia. It contains excerpts from the story that include misogynist and whorephobic slurs. The title of the story also contains a slur. The excerpts are marked by indentation.

At one of the hardest times in my life, I created a character that is perhaps the coldest, cruelest, most distant dominant I’ve ever written. In order to write the story from that character’s point of view, I gathered close some of the scarier places in my own sadism. It was one of the most difficult writing experiences I have ever had, pushed my own edges extremely hard. I wrote in my journal at the time: “I write these things down, and I am trembling, they scare me so much. It is so edgy just to write them. It is like I’m playing with myself, both top and bottom all at once, that careful control, that fearful surrender…”

The story that came from that place centers deep psychological edge play: humiliation and objectification, and play with misogyny and whorephobia. To write those things from the top’s point of view, and to do it in a way I could be ok putting out in the world, I needed to make sure that the story had some key elements: clear consent, awareness of risk, and textual challenges to the oppressions that were being played with.

I was not going to put something out into the world that did not make clear that these characters knew the edges they were playing on and the dangers that came with them, and were actively choosing to reclaim the tools used to oppress and do violence to them, reclaiming for their own pleasure. I needed to make sure that readers knew the ways these characters worked together to create a safe-enough container to hold this sort of play. I also needed the reader to be clear that real-world whorephobia and misogyny are not ok, and to disrupt those things as they might be working in the story as best I could.

It might seem tempting to recuperate this cold, cruel, distant, masculine dominant who is playing with intense and hard shit by making it seem like the top is doing it for the bottom. There are definitely lots of stories out there about tops who facilitate cathartic scenes as a way of creating an experience for the bottom. It’s a very common image of tops as helpful and caring because they are being cruel for the sake of the bottom. Quite like a hero savior, eh? Therein lies the problem. These narratives reproduce the very misogyny I intended to disrupt in the story. No one can be a selfless savior hero here. Instead, what we need is a team working together, where it’s high stakes for both of them.

One of the core things that supports misogyny, especially in stories that center masculine tops and femme bottoms, as this one does, is the image of the inscrutable always-in-control top with no needs or desires of their own. This top needed to be deep in sadistic desire. And also have actual needs and vulnerabilities, ones that could not be ignored or glossed over by the reader.

Because the trope of the inscrutable top that knows everything and needs nothing for himself is so prevalent in kink culture, I needed to assume that readers come with that framework in mind. Therefore, the story should lean heavily toward illuminating the top’s vulnerabilities and needs, and bring that element out immediately and often. In addition, it was vital to match the top’s vulnerabilities with the strength and support of the bottom, not just because they work together in that very human way, but because the matching trope is a submissive who is helpless and weak and needs things facilitated for her. To disrupt either trope is to help disrupt the other; they are a matched set of misogyny.

I tend to write stories like this in layers. I can rarely show enough about character the first time around, I’m too busy building the arc of the scene, laying out the framework. Then, I go back and do more showing, less telling, make things clear to the reader that were only clear in my own mind, let the story sit more in the important moments, flesh out the visceral and interior description. Illuminating the vulnerability of the top has become something I specifically edit for, often separately.

Here are some questions I consider before beginning such an editing project:

What are the areas of vulnerability that are likely to come up for the top in this particular story?
What risks is the top taking? What sort of risks are they? What is at stake?
What sort of emotional armor does the top have? How directly is the top likely to touch their vulnerability inside their own thoughts and emotions?
How might the top communicate their vulnerability to the bottom? Is there a history of seeking support from the bottom? Have the top’s vulnerabilities and needs been a subject of prior conversation or negotiation?

Once I get clarity on these questions, I approach the text with that in mind, looking for critical moments of potential reveal. Here are some moments that often present opportunities to illuminate the top’s vulnerabilities and needs:

Choice points
Negotiation
Moments when play is about to or has just leveled up in intensity or risk
Transitions in the scene, including set up, warm up, ramping down, aftercare, change of location, change in play style or tools, and any other transitional moments
Moments when they are approaching edges or have just begun playing on them
Navigating moments with other tops in the scene, handoffs, communication, etc.
Moments of surprise or newness

The idea is not to use every opportunity, but to seek them out and consider. I select a few to flesh out deeply. Then I do a read through, seeing where else I might add just a sentence or change a word or two, just to keep the readers finger on that pulse in the story.

When I approached this edit for “My Precious Whore” (the story I refer to above), I already had a set up for the story. In it, I gave a framework for the risks that each character bring to the play, established their relationship and how they create a safe container together, put the play in a deep context and seeded the reader’s understandings of the top’s vulnerabilities in the scene.

All of that was already present in the draft, so I moved to the part of the story where the characters began play. This is often one of my favorite moments for this sort of edit, because it disrupts the image of the top as inscrutable and invulnerable before it really starts solidifying for the reader. Take a look at the pre-edit version. Where do you see opportunities?

I can see the edges of her stockings peek out from under her skirt, tantalizing me. Her beautifully large body is offered up for my pleasure and I revel in the sight of it. I want her fear tonight. And her breath. I want her tears. I want to split her open, fluids dripping. I want to unleash my cruelty upon her. I want to reach deep inside and wrap her around my fingers.

I stalk over to her, and yank her up by the hair, dragging her stumbling to the wall. I tilt her head back, my body ramming her into the wall, my mouth at her ear, my cock digging into her ass.

“Spread for me, bitch. Yes, that’s it.  You love this, don’t you.  Fucking whore.”

My baton slides between her thighs, teasing.  I ready for the blow. The baton slams into her, hard relentless thud against her ass. It’s pounding her into the wall, thrusting her onto the edge of orgasm. That’s exactly where I want her. I stop.

I yank her up by the hair and turn her to face me. I grip her face in my left hand and she knows what’s coming.

“Dirty whore.”

I saw several opportunities in those 200 words. I had the skeleton of the action in the scene, but the reader doesn’t know what is going on for the top, besides desire, or how the top is reading the bottom’s responses. Here is the moment where I can illuminate the top’s vulnerability to balance that desire, and make it more complex. Where I can show how the bottom is strong and supportive. Where I can actively challenge the misogyny they are playing with. Here is a revised version of this moment in the story, where they first begin to play, where those 200 words have become close to 500 (additions in green), and what a difference that has made:

The edges of her stockings are peeking out from under her skirt, tantalizing me. Her beautifully large body is offered up for my pleasure, and I bask in the sight of it, sinking into my desire. I want her fear tonight. And her breath. I want her tears. I want to split her open, fluids dripping. I want to unleash my cruelty upon her. I want to reach deep inside and wrap her around my fingers.

I stalk over to her and yank her up by the hair, dragging her stumbling to the wall. I tilt her head back, my body ramming her into the wall, my mouth at her ear, my cock digging into her ass.

The first time the weapons are about to leave my lips, I tremble with it, feel slightly nauseous from the fear and adrenaline. I need her to hold me up, to get me through the push to go there. Every time I approach this edge, I need her close, need her body, her warmth. Need to feel her cheek against mine. Need to know we are in this together. I look at her hands, wait for the signal, the confirmation, holding my breath. She crosses her fingers, and I know that she wants this. Okay. I take a jagged breath and force the words out of my mouth, savoring their bitter metal as they emerge.

 “Spread for me, bitch. Yes, that’s it. You love this, don’t you? Fucking whore.”

At first, I float a bit above myself, watching as if it’s not me that’s doing this, watching my hands as if they belong to someone else. My baton slides between her thighs, teasing. I ready for the blow. The baton slams into her, hard relentless thud against her ass. It’s pounding her into the wall, thrusting her onto the edge of orgasm. That’s exactly where I want her. I stop.

I yank her up by the hair and turn her to face me. I ask silently, and she helps, her eyes yanking me back, holding me there with her, full of reassurance and love and desire, helping me to ground in the moment. To stay with her. I need to know she wants this, need to remind myself we chose this. She silently mouths the word “please,” and my name, once, twice, three times, and gives me a small smile, letting me know it’s okay if I can’t do it, if I’m not up for it. I breathe that in, dig my boots into the ground, and close my eyes. I can do this. I can ride this. It’s mine. I know what I’m doing. I’m in control. I meet her gaze and nod. She mouths the words “thank you,” and something loosens in my chest.

I grip her face, and she knows what’s coming.

“Dirty whore.”

How do I know that I’ve done well on this sort of editing? It’s actually much like what happens in the new version of the story: something loosens in my chest. The story feels less like an unsheathed weapon ready to bleed those who pick it up, and instead like something you can handle with more safety. No less dangerous, but with a safe-enough container so you can choose how you bleed from it.

 

Note: You may be interested in my other posts focused on a top’s point of view.

The original version of this was posted on another site as part of my blog tour for my queer kink erotica collection, Show Yourself To Me. As that post has been taken down, I am reposting here so that it is still accessible as a resource.

Tagged: edge play, edgeplay from the top, editing, humiliation, misogyny, My Precious Whore, objectification, top's POV, vulnerability, vulnerable tops, whore stigma, whorephobia, writer's tools, writing erotica, writing process

Writing Sex Scenes With Less Cissexism, Pt 1: Betweeen Characters

This is the first post in a series for writers, especially writers of erotica and romance. This series is focused on writing sex scenes with trans and/or non-binary characters in a way that includes less unintentional cissexism.

This post focuses on cissexism between characters during sex scenes: what it can look like, with concrete examples. Part 2 focuses on bigger picture questions and narrative choices, decisions you make on the story level that lead to cissexism in your sex scenes. Part 3 is about those occasions when you might choose to include cissexism between characters.

As a heads up, this post includes discussion of sex, bodies, and cissexism. It gives many concrete examples of cissexism between characters in sex scenes, but does not discuss them in deep detail.

In my experience, cissexism is intensely pervasive and deeply normalized, in our lives and in our fiction. It burrows deep, and avoids the light. Which makes it rather difficult to notice, a good portion of the time. This post is intended to bring it into the light a bit, to assist you in noticing where cissexism is occurring so that you are better able to write sex scenes that contain less of it.

Let me begin by saying that discerning oppression (like cissexism) and the way they are working in the world (and in your own work) is an ongoing practice, not a one-shot deal. I’ve written other posts that may assist you, though they are not focused on cissexism, but speak more broadly about oppression: one on my own personal practice of discerning abusive power (including oppression); and one on common oppressive ways of thinking.

Let’s start by talking a bit more about cissexism and how it works, before I go into examples of how it appears in sex scenes.

Understanding Cissexism and It’s Properties

Julia Serano has written at length about cissexism, particularly in her book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. That book is a really good place to start. Here is her definition of cissexism from her handy glossary on her website:

“The belief that transsexual genders are less legitimate than, and mere imitations of, cissexual genders. Cissexism is most typically enacted through one or more of the following processes:

trans-fascimilation (viewing or portraying transsexuals as merely imitating, emulating or impersonating cissexual female or male genders),
trans-exclusion (refusing to acknowledge and respect a transsexual’s identified gender, or denying them, access to spaces, organizations, or events designated for that gender),
trans-objectification (when people reduce trans people to their body parts, the medical procedures they’ve undertaken, or get hung up on, disturbed by, or obsessed over supposed discrepancies that exist between a transsexual’s physical sex and identified gender),
trans-mystification (when people use the relative infrequency or taboo nature of transsexuality to mystify, artificialize or to “other” transsexuals), and
trans-interrogation (when people bring a transsexual’s identified gender into question by asking them to answer personal questions about their life story, their motives for transitioning, medical procedures they have undertaken, or when they obsess over what causes transsexuality – such questions reduce transsexuals to the status of objects of inquiry).”

This definition (and Serano’s work) focuses on the ways that transsexual people (particularly transsexual women) are targeted by cissexism. However, it is my belief that the processes that she describes are at the core of cissexism, and that understanding them will assist you in recognizing cissexism that targets non-binary and genderqueer characters as well.

In the next section I will give concrete examples of interpersonal cissexism that might commonly occur during a sex scene, and connect them to some of the processes that Serano lays out.

Examples of Interpersonal Cissexism

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Instead, I am going to name some common examples, for illustration purposes. I’m going to concentrate on a few of the processes Serano names, that are particularly common ways cissexism occurs between characters during sex scenes: trans-fascimilation, trans-objectification and trans-mystification. I’ll give a few examples for each.

Common examples of trans-fascimilation in sex scenes:

A cis character brags about being able to tell that a trick they’re picking up for casual sex or BDSM play is trans and/or non-binary. They sometimes brag to the reader, but I’ve read stories where they say this directly to the trans and/or non-binary character, or to other partners in the sex scene, sometimes as a direct response to the trans character taking off their clothes. This is very directly about treating the trans and/or non-binary character’s gender as a false imitation that can easily been seen through.
A common variation of the first example is when a character is revealed to be trans and/or non-binary late in a date or after sexual activity has occurred (which I’ll discuss in the next post as it is a deeply cissexist plot device), and a cis character talks about already knowing the character was trans and/or non-binary, because they “could tell.”
A character uses gender-marked endearments or BDSM-related honorifics that are counter to the gender of their trans and/or non-binary lover, particularly ones that match the gender that the trans and/or non-binary character was assigned at birth.
A character talks about the trans and/or non-binary character’s gender as if it were part of gender play (without explicit negotiation of this), a role they are playing for the BDSM scene, or in other ways treats it as a fake, temporary, eroticized identity. (Note: it is possible to write about trans and/or non-binary characters doing consensual, negotiated gender play in a way that does not treat their gender as fake or temporary. An example story of mine is “The Tender Sweet Young Thing”, free to read on the web.)
A character refers to the “realness” of cis people’s genders or tells the trans and/or non-binary character that they are not a real ___, or that they can’t help seeing them as the gender they were assigned at birth (this is especially common as a response to nakedness).

Common examples of trans-objectification in sex scenes:

A character focuses on a trans and/or non-binary characters genitals, particularly to the exclusion of the rest of their body, how they are feeling, or the kind of sex that was negotiated. This is about reducing the trans and/or non-binary character to their genitals.
A character talks at length about how difficult it is to grapple with supposed discrepancies between the trans and/or non-binary character’s body and their gender. How they are trying really hard, but anyone would struggle with this.
A character acts and speaks in a way that assumes that no one could be expected to respect the trans and/or non-binary character’s pronouns, name, or gendered honorifics when the trans and/or non-binary character is naked, or once they have seen their genitals, because their genitals are a sign of who they “truly” are.
A character expresses the belief that certain body parts are “made” to do certain things, and an expectation that the trans and/or non-binary person will consent to those acts.
A character uses names for body parts that are intended to match the gender the trans and/or non-binary character was assigned at birth, instead of using the names the trans and/or non-binary character wants used. Most trans and/or non-binary people have names for the parts of their body that they want used. This varies from person to person. Using a name that is different from this is deeply disrespectful, particularly if it is a name that treats their crotch as the ultimate and only real sign of their gender.

Common examples of trans-mystification in sex scenes:

A character hypersexualizes a trans and/or non-binary character, assumes that they are highly sexually active, or that they are always interested in sex. Or, a character describes feeling mesmerized, compelled, or taken over by their desire for the trans and/or non-binary character.
A character expresses expresses fascination, obsession, or wonder about the trans and/or non-binary character’s body and the way it works, particularly citing hormones, surgeries or perceived incongruencies as a source of that fixation.
A character expresses delight or fascination that a non-binary, gender fluid or gender switching character might be more than one gender and wants to dictate (or order, if within a D/s dynamic) which gender they are going to be for this date, sexual activity, or BDSM scene.
A character expresses amazement or disbelief that they are having sex with a trans and/or non-binary person. Or, a character says that they cannot imagine what sex could possibly be like with a trans and/or non-binary person. Or, a character expresses that they could not possibly be expected to follow the gender shifts of a non-binary, gender fluid, or gender switching character and stay turned on at the same time.
A character seems to have a very specific script in mind for what it looks like to have sex with a trans and/or non-binary person, one that often makes a lot of assumptions about the trans and/or non-binary person’s relationship to their body and the ways that they want to have sex. Alternately, the character expresses surprise or dismay about how the trans and/or non-binary character wants to have sex, particularly around the way genitals are involved (or not involved).

The second post in this series will focus on forms of cissexism that occur at the story level, in narrative and plot choices. The third post is about ways to write stories that intentionally include cissexism between characters during sex scenes.

Tagged: cissexism, erotic romance, erotica, interpersonal oppression, non-binary, non-binary characters, oppression, romance, trans, trans characters

A Fisting Day excerpt from Shocking Violet

I love FISTING DAY! It’s a global event celebrating fisting, which was created in 2011 by the amazing queer porn legends Jiz Lee and Courtney Trouble as a response to the overwhelming censorship of fisting as a sex act in pornography.

As a queer kink erotica writer, I deeply value the representation of fisting in erotic material. For the last few years I have been posting fisting excerpts from my erotica to honor Fisting Day. In honor of the sixth annual International Fisting Day, I am posting a fisting excerpt from my current work in progress, Shocking Violet, a poly queer kink romance centering disabled characters. (You can find my fisting excerpts from 2014 here, and from 2015 here.)

In this excerpt, fisting is both pleasure and pain relief for a top named Violet who has endometriosis, whose girl Liliana is quite happy to fist her and give her the pain she wants.

 

“Fuck me, girl. I need your hand inside me, need you to make me come.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Violet grabbed Liliana, squeezing her close.

“Oh, girl…I hurt,” she murmured into Liliana’s hair.

“I know, Ma’am, I know. Let me help.”

She kneaded Violet’s belly, right in the spot where it usually hurt, watching her eyes. Yes, that helped, they said, but that wasn’t what she’d asked for, was it? Good point, Liliana thought, and opened the drawer on the bedside table to grab lube, a chuck and a few gloves. She’d been so much in her own world getting into headspace that she’d just now noticed that Violet had taken off her tights and bra, and was only in the slip. That made it easier, didn’t it?

Damn, she was beautiful. Just like this, all rumpled and achy, eyes demanding that her girl fuck her, help the pain fade. Violet’s eyes filled with heat, and then she slid the slip over her head, tossing it aside, leaning back against the pillows as she watched her girl react. Come on, her body seemed to say to Liliana, you know you want me.

Violet saw her girl’s hands clench, saw the spark in her eyes, the way her lips parted. Naked was how she felt the most deeply in her femme power. Naked and insistently in her desire. Look at me, she demanded with every line of her body, gratified by the way Liliana’s eyes devoured her. I’m here, open to you, wanting you inside me, she thought, parting her thighs.

She waited for Liliana to approach, drawing her in slow, wanting her to reach for it, needing to see hunger on her girl’s face. Yes, there it was, Liliana’s mouth hovering so close, her thigh between Violet’s, waiting for permission, wanting a firm hand. Violet had two of those, and she gripped her girl by the hair, drawing her neck close, and bit down. Salt, and metal, and the sourness of stale fear under her mouth, with the aching tenderness that lived under the armor. Her girl, all grit and stubbornness, nails and teeth, with need leaking out around the edges.

Yes, she thought. Use all that to fuck me, to drive into me, give me all of that, make me come. I need to come, need this pain to relent and nothing else has fucking worked today. I need to be intertwined with you as close as we can get even with all that damn armor you wear. I need you to take care of me.

She grabbed her girl’s gloved hand and took three fingers into her mouth, licked her way down and then sucked, hard and fast holding her girls eyes, savoring the sound of her gasps. Then Violet bit down gently, saw the heat burst. Oh yes. She began thrusting her mouth down onto her girl’s hand til she gagged, gripping her girl with her mouth and her eyes, and pulling off slow, so the fingers dripped.

“Get inside me now,” she growled. “You know what I need.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Liliana said fervently, and thrust those fingers into her cunt, twisting, then curving them up to stroke. Violet groaned. She wanted hard, now, wanted to be rammed, and she demanded it with her hips. Liliana got the message, and started jamming her hand into Violet, exactly how she needed it.

Violet’s fingers went to her own nipples, pinching, twisting, needing the pain to take her deeper, to let her open, and then Liliana pulled out to put on a generous slurp of lube, and in seconds she had four fingers inside her. Her girl’s hand was twisting and it felt so good and too much and exactly right and then not enough not enough not enough. Liliana leaned over her, getting more leverage, and grabbed Violet’s breast in her mouth, between her teeth, yes that was it, she had it now, just one more twist with that fucking amazing hand of hers and damn! It was inside. Still and huge all of a sudden, and Violet felt something rise in her chest, an ache and a burn there, needled by those sharp teeth. She grabbed Liliana’s shoulders, dug her nails in, because something was letting go and she wasn’t fucking ready for it.

Her girl began to move inside her, slow at first, small and twisting and deliciously teasing. The teeth on her chest felt so fucking good. She just wanted to curl around that damn fist and hold it deep inside. She was shuddering and her breath was going faster and faster and she wasn’t sure she could do this anymore. She gripped her girl by the hair and pulled her head up to meet her eyes and said, “I need…” And couldn’t complete the fucking sentence, but Liliana saw the tears swimming and said, “I’ve got you, Ma’am. It’s ok to let go. I’ve got you.”

The world just stopped for a minute, hovered on the moment, her eyes locked on her girl, and she filled up with love and fear and trust and all of the rollercoaster of this long fucking day and it felt right again, felt necessary and right that she was here, all wrapped up in her magical girl who wanted to give her what she needed.

“Fuck me, girl. I need you to fuck me hard.”

“Gladly, Ma’am,” she said with a grin, and Violet knew somehow it would be ok.

It was more than ok. It was hard and rammed her exactly right, that perfect fist blasting her open with the perfect combination of pain and fullness that twisted round to pleasure and release. There was nothing like punchfucking to take the fuck over everything that was stuck and open it the fuck up. Violet adored it, loved that she didn’t need to coax and plead it out of Liliana, didn’t need to convince her that she really wanted it, could take it, loved that her girl would fuck her as hard as she needed, slamming into her cervix just right, until she came so fucking hard she felt her uterus let the fuck go and relax.

The pain washed out with her orgasm, with her tears and shudders, until she was all loose-limbed and cuddly and felt like a cat that had licked a bowl of cream, savoring every last drop. Liliana began to clean up, fetching her a warm washcloth from the bathroom, letting Sweet Pea in. He leaped up on the bed, demanding pets and complaining about the door being shut and Violet not giving him all her attention. Then Liliana was in bed with them, and Violet was petting them both, curled up and finally finally at ease. Oh yes, she was going to sleep well tonight.

(cross posted to tumblr)

Tagged: chronic pain, endometriosis, fisting, fisting day, Liliana, pain relief, Shocking Violet, Violet

A Roundup of Things I’ve Written About Trauma and Abuse

So I thought I might do a roundup page of links to stuff I have written about trauma and abuse, especially since more people may be coming to my website looking for that content.

A bit of background:

I am a survivor of multiple different kinds of abuse and trauma. I have complex PTSD as a result of that. I have had many close relationships with trauma survivors.

I also spent close to 20 years in the trauma field, where I did a range of things from training for professionals to evaluation to research to direct service work to supervision, primarily focused on services for survivors of intimate violence (e.g. sexual assault, intimate partner violence, intimate partner stalking, child abuse). Ten years of that was full time work at a large victim assistance agency in NYC. I left the field a few years ago.

In addition to my personal and professional experience, I facilitate community workshops for survivors, particularly sexuality & kink focused workshops for queer, trans & kinky survivors of intimate violence.

I also write queer kink erotica and romance that centers survivor characters, specifically for survivor readers. On occasion, I do sensitivity reading for books with trauma survivor characters.

General Posts About Abuse & Trauma  

Discerning Emotional Abuse in Relationships : This post describes common tactics of emotional abuse and gives concrete examples. It is intended to aid folks in discerning whether emotional abuse is going on or has been part of their relationships.
In Support of the Practice of Discerning Abusive Dynamics and Behaviors : This post describes why I think it’s important to practice discerning abusive dynamics and how I do that. It also contains links to resources that may assist you in this.
Emergency Emotional Safety Plan : This downloadable PDF is a resource I have used when teaching workshops for survivors. I use it myself to manage being triggered. It lays out ways to recognize whether you are triggered, and a plan for how to manage that, which you can personalize.
On #WorldMentalHealthDay, talking about stigma and internalized ableism : This is a personal post about why I prefer to use the language internalized ableism instead of mental health stigma, that talks about my own internalized ableism around PTSD and some things that help me grapple with it.
On Taking Space In Romantic Relationships And Getting Clear About Abusive Dynamics : A storify of tweets discussing the importance of taking space and how it helped me get clear about abuse in relationships.
On Being Trans & Non-Binary & Abusive Relationships: A storify about abuse tactics commonly used to target trans folks, how we survive abuse, and the long term impact of abuse on the kinds of things we dream about.
One Trans Response to “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds”: A post discussing transphobic abuse by partners, and my response to a story by a trans author that centers a cis character grappling with her transphobia.
On Self Esteem and Imagining the Relationships We Desire : A livejournal post about the Self Esteem episode of My So Called Life and on wanting more from relationships than not being treated badly.
Physical Reactions to Trauma : a storify of tweets about physical trauma symptoms and how difficult they can be.

Posts About Reading & Writing Stories that Center Trauma Survivors

My blog series on writing trauma survivor characters . Currently, there are 3 posts with more to come: one defining trauma & PTSD; one describing what it’s like to be triggered, one describing ways trauma survivors manage being triggered.
A dialogue between two survivor erotica writers , myself and Oleander Plume (hosted on her blog), about trigger warnings and writing erotica as a survivor.
Making My Kinky Erotica Accessible to Survivors: A guest post on Radical Access Mapping Project, about the strategies I used in putting together my erotica collection, Show Yourself To Me, to make the book accessible to survivors of trauma and abuse.
Going At My Own Pace: The Impact of Rose Lemberg’s “Geometries of Belonging” : A post talking about pacing and the ways I have been impacted as a writer by Geometries of Belonging, particularly around the representation of disabled characters, including characters with PTSD.
Illustrating Verbal Negotiation of Consent in Sex Scenes: A post that discusses the importance of illustrating verbal consent and shares an excerpt example.
Do you have to directly depict abuse?: A storify in which I discuss my thoughts on this question.
A compilation of quotes from the blog tour for my recent book , focused on writing survivor characters and writing as a survivor.
How Partners Respond to Survivors Being Triggered in Romance Novels : a storify of tweets discussing the ways partners of survivors in romance novels often respond to survivors being triggered.

My Fiction that Centers Survivor Characters

Show Yourself To Me : My recent queer kink erotica collection has many stories that center survivor characters. For more information about survivor representation in this collection, you can see this post.
Shocking Violet : This is a work in progress, a queer kink polyamorous romance centering 5 characters who all have PTSD. All excerpts are collected here. A few that talk specifically about trauma and coping with trauma: Chapter 1 (both audio and text), and this excerpt showing Jax coping with trauma symptoms.
Jonah’s Book: This is a work in progress,  a novel about trauma, desire, music, gender, disability and ghosts. It centers an autistic physically disabled kinky queer genderqueer character named Jonah, who loves musicals, has survived awful shit, and is having a very hard year. It doesn’t have a real title yet, so right now I call it Jonah’s book. Here is a short excerpt that describes how Jonah thinks about trauma.

Posts about Trauma, Consent, Sexuality & BDSM

A guest post on F. Leonora Solomon’s blog where I tell a story about my experience bottoming in a cathartic scene soon after leaving an abusive relationship.
One Sadists Consent: A post describing my experiences with consent and my approach to consent as a top, particularly around sadism
Being a Disabled Top in Kink Community : A post where I talk about my experiences being a disabled top, that includes discussion of PTSD.
The Spaces Between Desire and Action: A guest post on Rebekah Weatherspoon’s blog, about the complexities of consent, specifically discussing the way that naming desires does not mean you are consenting to act on them, and how taking a breath between desire and action can be an important part of honoring consent.
The Importance of Context: A livejournal post on the ways context matters to me a great deal, and outside of the context of consensual BDSM, things that might be read as kink are read as violence.

Tagged: abuse, abuse tactics, abusive BDSM relationships, abusive relationships, consent, consent violations, erotica, intimate partner violence, kink, Shocking Violet, Show Yourself To Me, survivor, trans, trauma, unpacking internalized oppression, writing, writing characters who are trauma survivors

Discerning Emotional Abuse in Relationships

As a heads up, this post will discuss emotional abuse tactics in detail. I encourage you to take care of yourself as you engage with it. If you get triggered while reading this post, this emergency emotional safety plan may be useful in managing that. (It’s a downloadable PDF.)

About nine months ago, partly in response to that notorious fuck off fund article that made the rounds, I tweeted a bunch about the importance of taking space for yourself, especially as a strategy for getting clear about potential abuse in intimate relationships. When I posted the storify on tumblr, I got an anonymous ask from someone who said that my storify helped them get a bit more clear about the emotional abuse in their recent relationship. This anon talked about how hard it is to discern emotional abuse. In my response, I discussed this as well, saying:

“In my experience, emotional abuse is particularly difficult to discern. For me, it has helped to look at patterns, instead of individual instances of behavior. It has also helped to think about how a behavior might be rooted in an attempt to control. But these are larger over-arching things. Part of what makes it hard to discern emotional abuse is that it is hard to get clear on what it might look like. Especially since we get so many messages from media that a lot of these behaviors are romantic and a sign that someone loves you. Especially when many of us come from families where emotional abuse is present.

So, what I want to do is to put together a post describing some common tactics of emotional abuse, describe what it can look like. My hope is that such a post might be useful. I will post it here on tumblr, and will tag it “emotional abuse”. I can’t promise to put that together right away, as I may not have the spoons. But it is my intention to do it.”

This post is for that anon, and for anyone who might be trying to discern whether emotional abuse is occurring in a relationship. As someone who values multiple sorts of relationships, I am attempting to write this in an inclusive way, so that it might be useful for discerning common emotional abuse tactics in friendships, in familial relationships, and in intimate relationships.

This post will not discuss what to do if you read this and recognize that emotional abuse may be present in your relationship. These things are too complex, risky and situational for me to make useful general recommendations. Instead, this post will focus on assisting you to discern emotional abuse tactics, because it is often difficult to get clear about them.

For context, my perspective on this comes from my own (rather vast) personal experience in abusive relationships where emotional abuse was one of the main types of abuse, my close relationships with survivors of emotional abuse, and my work in the field of intimate violence and trauma, which began over 20 years ago, and included a decade of full time employment.

For further context, you may wish to read my post on discernment of abusive dynamics and behavior. It is a good companion to this post.

One of the general things I want to recommend is that you look for patterns of behavior, when trying to figure out if an abusive dynamic is happening. So, if you recognize tactics here, think about whether they fit together into a pattern. I have found it to be particularly helpful to think about whether there is a pattern that is oriented toward setting up non-consensual control.

Emotional abuse can occur in relationships that do not include other forms of abuse, but it often goes hand in hand with things like physical abuse, stalking, sexual abuse, and threats. That said, it is not uncommon for folks to be in abusive relationships where the primary modes of abuse are psychological. I am going to talk about emotional abuse tactics in a rather wide way, because I think that will be more helpful. I am going to break it into categories, using language that will hopefully help you google things and get good resources. There are other tactics, and not all tactics need to be present for a relationship to be emotionally abusive.

Ten Common Emotional Abuse Tactics

This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. I did want it to have enough examples to be useful. My guess is that it is likely overwhelming to read all at once. I encourage you to go at your own pace.

Coercive control : this is about establishing control over things that seem kind of small. (This excludes things you consented to as part of a D/s dynamic; it is about non-consensual control.)  It’s hard to spot at first, and often grows incrementally, kind of a like a web, where you don’t see right away til you are caught. Examples:

Setting up specific rules for how things are done around the home (there is only one right way and specific time to do the dishes or clean the toaster and you must do it perfectly)
Expecting you to account for how you spend your time, when you leave the home, who you talk to
Criticizing the way you do things in specific detail, and demanding that you change them or refusing to engage with you until you change them (how you dress, how you speak, how you prepare food)
Giving you presents that are oriented toward changing something about you that they have decided needs changing (how you dress, the music you like, the kind of sex or kink you are into, the way you take care of your body, your grammar)
Not allowing you to have time alone, or space away from them. This may take the form of granting you time and space that somehow usually gets disrupted or is a special privilege that you seem to keep losing.
You frequently avoid doing everyday things or change how you do them, so there won’t be a fight or you won’t upset them


Gaslighting : This tactic is about intentionally working to get you to doubt your experience of reality, make you feel like you cannot trust your perceptions, memories, experience, or knowledge. In short, it is a tactic that is built on making you feel like you have new or more intense mental illness. It is a tactic that uses ableism targeting folks with psych disabilities as a weapon both against folks who have psych disabilities and folks who do not. (The term comes from the film Gaslight). Examples:

Lying, especially about small things (like when something happened, or whether they turned the lights off, whether they hear a noise)
Making contradictory demands, and acting like it’s your fault you don’t understand.
Doing unrequested favors for you and insisting that you asked for the favors or owe them favors in return.
Insisting that your memory of events or perception of reality is incorrect, that you are imagining things
Searching for inconsistencies in your stories and talking about how they can’t trust your memory, you could not possibly be correct about how that happened.
Insisting that you consented to kink or sexual activities you do not remember consenting to. Blurring or confusing the lines between when you are in D/s dynamics or not, or when you are in scene space or not.
Hinting or outright saying that they have doubts about your sanity, particularly as a response to you talking about the abuse. Similarly, suggesting that you need mental health support or acting worried about your mental health as a way to change the subject or blame you for something. (This can be particularly confusing to discern for folks with mental illness; what is genuine concern vs. gaslighting?)
Following the letter of polyamory agreements while violating the spirit of them, and insisting that this is not a problem.
Deliberately triggering your psych symptoms repeatedly. (Remember, we all get triggered inadvertently; this is about a pattern where someone knows the trigger, and uses it as a weapon.)


Verbal Abuse: This is a tactic that is a bit easier to recognize, particularly as a pattern over time. This is about someone using words to hurt you. Examples:

Calling you names (e.g. racial or ethnic slurs, homophobic, misogynist, or transmisogynist slurs, ableist slurs, sexual or whorephobic slurs, calling you ugly or worthless)
Saying negative things about a trait you like about yourself
Contradicting or undermining positive things others say about you
Telling you no one else would want you
Constantly accusing you of infidelity. Belittling your sexuality, your kink desires, or your polyamory practices.
Insulting or belittling your values and beliefs
Using things they know about your past as a weapon


Manipulation: This is one of the harder things to recognize. There are so many different kinds of manipulation tactics, and they are generally oriented towards control, particularly around getting you to do specific things, orienting you towards them and away from your own well being, and keeping you off balance so you can’t think clearly. Examples:

Hinting at or threatening suicide when called on abuse, or as a response to you leaving or talking about leaving the relationship
Denying that your basic physical and emotional needs exist or are important
Asking you high stakes questions, often in a leading way that has only one “right” answer (e.g. don’t you trust me? you want us to have an open relationship, don’t  you? do you even love me? can’t you do this one thing for me? will you marry me? you want to push your BDSM limits for me, right?) at inappropriate times (e.g. when you only have a couple minutes to decide, immediately after you ask them for something important you need, during a BDSM scene, right after an instance of abuse, in a chaotic public place where it would be hard to decide, immediately after sex, right before you leave for an important family event or a date with another partner)
After abusing you, expressing so much sorrow, guilt or self-hate, that you become the one who comforts them
Refusing to assist or threatening to leave when you get sick or are in crisis
Hinting at the probability of drinking or using again, unless you do what is required and be certain not to upset them
Raising the stakes when you talk about the abuse, or refuse to do something, or do something for yourself, so it becomes about whether they are going to end the relationship
Telling you that if you really loved them you would…(do X, or be X or want them to do X)
Ignoring you or grunting absentmindedly when you begin a conversation. Groaning, complaining or ridiculing you, when you cry, worry, or ask for emotional support


Humiliation: This is a common tactic, and rarely talked about, because it can be so painful to share with others. This is about making you feel ashamed or degraded. (This excludes consensual humiliation within the context of BDSM; it refers to non-consensual humiliation.) Examples:

Forcing you to do things that are against deeply held religious or moral values
Revealing or threatening to reveal private information about you to others
Making you do, say or witness things that you find disgusting
Using the wrong pronoun, using misgendering words to describe you or your body, criticizing or joking about your gender expression, or doing other things to belittle your gender identity or misgender you
Saying or implying that they find you or your body disgusting
Talking you into doing something and then making you feel ashamed about doing it
Deliberately embarrassing you or belittling you in front of people who are important to you
Jabbing at your soft spots, even if it seems to be lighthearted teasing or joking (making fun of things you feel particularly vulnerable or ashamed about)


Sabotage: This is about a pattern of behavior where your well-being, basic needs, important events, and obligations are disrupted or ruined, often in an indirect way. It can be difficult to spot, and often involves an emotional roller coaster. Examples:

Becoming angry or upset, or dampening your enthusiasm, just before a social event you’ve looked forward to
Interrupting your work, your creative process, your time with your family, or other things that are important to you, to get their own needs met
Keeping you up late, asking about real or imagined sexual or romantic incidents
Getting upset, wasted or suicidal while you are at an important event, so that you miss much of it or need to leave early
When you are preparing for an upcoming test, job interview, evaluation, or important event, you are often distracted and worried by a crisis in their life or work that seems more important
Having an emotional meltdown right before you are supposed to leave for a date with another partner
Forgetting to do the thing they offered to do to take stuff off your plate while you focused on something important to you


Minimization, Denial, Blame, and Justification: This is about the tactics they use to make the abuse seem unimportant, not a problem, or all your fault. This is an incredibly common tactic, and it’s goal is to shift responsibility away from them for the abuse and make you question whether the abuse is happening. Examples:

Making light of the abuse. Minimizing the seriousness of abuse, saying “it wasn’t that bad”. Ignoring your concerns about the abuse. Belittling you for being upset about abuse, says you are “overreacting”.
Denying that abuse has occurred
Apologizing for the abuse in a way that doesn’t take responsibility for it, or turns it around on you
Blaming others for the abuse (their boss, their family, the kids, mutual friends, etc.)
Saying the abuse is your fault, that you deserve the abuse because…
Using jealousy, trauma history, gender, drugs, or oppression to justify or excuse abuse
Accusing you of “mutual abuse”, or saying you are the abuser, not them


Using Privilege and Oppression: This is about them using your experiences of oppression as a weapon, exercising their privilege in the relationship, or using the realities of the oppression they are targeted by as a way to manipulate you. This is one with wide and varied tactics so I am going to list more of them. Examples:

Refusing to allow you to participate in cultural events or express your identity
Threatening to report drug use, sex work, polyamory, kink, criminal history to ACS or police
Treating you like you are inferior or a servant because they have more privilege
Shaming, infantilizing, hypersexualizing, or desexualizing you based on your identity
Taking away disability aids (crutches, wheelchair, hearing aid) or medication, denying access to medical care
Telling you that nobody would believe you because of your identity, and there are no services to help people like you, that nobody else would want you because of your identity
Threatening to out your HIV status, gender identity, sexual identity, kinkiness, polyamory, disability, immigration status, drug, crime, or sex work history to others, or threatening to use it to gain custody
Using oppression to justify abuse, as a way to get you to avoid others, or as a reason to not seek support, medical care, or call the police.
Belittling your culture, language, educational background, race, gender, sexual identity, religion. Using epithets.
Criticizing, joking about, or belittling your ability (or inability) to pass, offering unwanted advice about how to pass better
Questioning your status as a “real” member of your community, religion, or identity
Threatening to report to immigration, get you deported. Threatening to report you for parole violation, or to the police.
Denying that your illness or disability is real, belittling you for being disabled or ill


Isolation: This is about keeping you alone and away from others. Both because that makes you more vulnerable and reduces your support, and also because it cuts you off from other sources of information. Without others to help you to reality check what you are experiencing and hearing from them, it can be more difficult to get clear about the abuse that’s going on. Examples:

Denying phone, mail, email, or internet access
Limiting, disrupting, or sabotaging your time with others
Insulting the people close to you, warning you about the ways other people will or have betrayed or hurt you
Talking about how they are the only one who understands you, who doesn’t judge you, the only one who would want you
Not allowing you to leave the home, sabotaging your access to transportation
Monopolizing your time. Refusing to spend time with you in social situations so you are forced to choose between them and spending time with others. Wanting to spend every moment together with just you.
Talking a lot about how terrible or cliquish or judgmental or oppressive or unwelcoming the community is, discouraging you from seeking out others who share your identities and beliefs
Gossiping about you, spreading rumors. Insulting you to folks who are close to you. Embarrassing you in front of your friends and family.


Occasional Indulgence : Emotionally abusive relationships rarely feel bad all the time. Part of how this works is that abuse is intertwined with the things that are often part of relationships that feel good: love, affection, thoughtfulness, care, great sex, and sweetness. That’s one of the tactics that keeps you confused, that creates doubt about the abuse, that makes it easier to let the abuse go. Examples:

Giving you presents, right at a time when you are doubting the relationship or thinking about leaving
Being sweet to you sometimes, in unpredictable ways, so it’s hard to know whether you will be met with compassion and sweetness or an abusive response
Making big romantic gestures at a time when the relationship feels particularly shaky, or right after an abusive episode
Ignoring your requests for emotional support for a long time and then offering it at a random time, like it’s a special treat
Doing something you particularly love, as a surprise after a fight
Reminding you of that one time when they did something you needed or wanted or were particularly good to you, as a kind of leverage to make you feel small, or ungrateful, or doubt your sense of what’s happening in the relationship

I encourage you to take care of yourself after reading this, and to be gentle with yourself as you think about whether it resonated with you. If you got triggered while reading this post, this emergency emotional safety plan may be useful in managing that. (It’s a downloadable PDF.)

Tagged: abuse, abuse tactics, abusive relationships, discernment, emotional abuse, intimate partner violence, trauma, violence

On #WorldMentalHealthDay, talking about stigma and internalized ableism

I had a conversation with my (fairly new) therapist recently. I was talking about a situation that had triggered my internalized ableism around my mental health in particular. I used the words internalized ableism. She was confused. Said she understood what internalized ableism is, but didn’t get how it applied in the situation. Turns out she thought of ableism as being about physical disabilities (which I had discussed in therapy before). She said, “Oh, you mean mental health stigma.”

This is the word that is commonly used. Stigma. There are campaigns to end mental health stigma. It is not an inaccurate term, in some ways. Stigma is a real thing, a thing that is studied in psychology and sociology, and that research is useful and important. For example, folks are still using the frameworks laid out in Goffman’s book from the 60s to understand how stigma works with regards to intimate partner violence. I saw a presentation on that at a conference fairly recently. The research on stigma, and the framework that it offers, is probably helpful to a lot of people like my therapist. I get that. This is a framework that helps people understand the experiences and behaviors of folks with potentially concealable stigmas, folks like me. (I am a mentally ill survivor of intimate violence who has multiple chronic illnesses, is autistic and often passes somewhat as nuerotypical, is Jewish but often passes inadvertently as gentile. I am also queer, kinky, poly and trans. And I write dirty books. Lots of potentially concealable stigma there.)

For myself, the stigma framework is not particularly helpful, much of the time. I think and talk about this in terms of oppression. Stigma feels like it barely gets at some of the picture, partly because it ignores structures, but also because it removes responsibility on an interpersonal level, and gives me fewer tools for thinking about internalization and passing. Stigma is more external, and also just seems to kind of float there and belong to nobody and nothing. Oppression, on the other hand, feels more concrete and grounded, and gives me tools for thinking about internalization and passing. Thinking about this in terms of oppression helps me fit my experience into a larger framework that I know well and that I use to understand both the world and myself, and have been using for over 25 years. Thinking about the ways structural oppression of disabled people includes structural oppression of mentally ill people also gives me a broader more complex way to think about ableism, which I find really helpful. I draw connections that I might have missed, if I were just thinking about stigma.

And the thing is, I still really struggle with internalized ableism, particularly around psych disability stuff. I was raised in a family that was full of mental illness and was also incredibly intensely ableist around mental illness. It was one of the most intense forms of oppression that was constantly maintained in my family, on par with the level that my fat family constantly maintained and taught me fat oppression. But, I was politicized around fat oppression in the early 90s, and have been grappling with my internalized fat oppression for about 25 years. My analysis of ableism came later, and I am still doing a lot of unpacking of my internalized shit, especially around psych disability.

 

I keep uncovering new pockets of it, and that is partly because I have spent many years investing in passing as not mentally ill, something I learned to do as a young child. My family taught me to be deeply afraid of a certain level of mental illness, both in myself and in others, and so I learned to mask signs that I might be that kind of “crazy”. Those lessons and the constant reinforcement of them run really deep, and definitely contribute to the hidden pockets of internalized ableism I keep finding.

Ironically, I worked in the trauma field full time for a decade, while being closeted about having PTSD, because there was so much prejudice in my workplace (and the field in general), and folks who were out about being trauma survivors were not trusted in their work or their expertise. While that job helped me access a lot of information about trauma and treatment options, it did not help me grapple with my internalized ableism around my own mental illness; it reinforced it. One of the main reasons I left the field three years ago was because I could not tolerate that particular closet anymore, not while working in a field that was trauma-focused.

So, I have a lot of unpacking left to do. And my experiences of unpacking other forms of internalized oppression helps me do that. It doesn’t make it easy, but it makes it a bit easier, because I have ways to notice and discern oppression at work, tools and practices that I can apply.

And I need to unpack my internalized ableism, because it has been a destructive force in my life. Internalized ableism made it hard for me to try psych medications. Internalized ableism made it hard for me to accept and recognize my own mental health crisis. Internalized ableism made it hard for me to leave an abusive relationship. Internalized ableism made it hard for me to seek psych treatment when I needed it. Internalized ableism has created so many obstacles for me, those are just the starkest largest examples. There are also the daily struggles, where part of what I manage, when I work toward taking care of myself and managing my PTSD, is my own internalized shit around psych disability. My fear and my judgment and my shame are part of this struggle, and they are not easy to disrupt and unlearn. I’m working on it. Just like managing my PTSD, unpacking my internalized ableism is a lifelong project, that has rougher and smoother patches.

One of the things that helps me is connections and relationships with other mentally ill people, particularly folks who are politicized around ableism. It also helps me to read #ownvoices work by other mentally ill people, particularly work that is interested in challenging ableism. Work like Rose Lemberg’s Geometries of Belonging (which I wrote about at length), an anti-cure narrative that centers a character who is mentally ill, and a healer, and invested in the consent of those he heals. I loved this story for so many reasons, and one of the biggest ones is that Parét is clearly and openly mentally ill, and taking action in his life to avert war, honor his D/s relationship, and heal those who wish for healing. I need stories like this, where characters are mentally ill and doing things, taking care of themselves, caring for others, taking action in the world, seeking their desires. I am excited for Lemberg’s upcoming novel The Upholding, which also centers Parét, at an earlier time in his life when his mental illness is particularly intense. In it, he works together with other mentally ill queers to save the world.

It is also helping me to write mentally ill characters. My current work in progress, Shocking Violet, is a queer kinky polyamorous romance novel which centers multiple characters with PTSD, many of whom are disabled in other ways as well. Working on this book (which is not about mental illness, but centers mentally ill characters doing activism and building relationships with each other) has helped me ground in daily reality of managing trauma symptoms, and the diversity of ways that we approach this. This work, honing my intent to write a story that feels real and is hopeful, integrating and using my deep knowledge about trauma both from my own experience and my career in the field, has a continual impact on me personally. It is a practice that is about honoring myself, and challenging my own internalized ableism, and I am grateful for the ways that it is rippling out in my life.

Tagged: ableism, Geometries of Belonging, internalized oppression, mental health, mental illness, oppression, Rose Lemberg, stigma, unpacking internalized oppression

Chapter 1 of Shocking Violet

Now you can listen to me read the first chapter of my current work in progress, a queer poly kinky romance novel called Shocking Violet!

Shocking Violet is a queer kinky polyamorous erotic romance novel. It begins when a tg stone butch meets a high femme queer cis woman, and focuses on the ways this new relationship and their exploration of D/s is a catalyst for change, both for them, and the other folks in their poly networks. This novel is set in NYC amidst the intensity of trans inclusion activism, and revolves around a group of interconnected queer disabled people who are risking connection, building trust, deepening access intimacy and seeking the changes they need in their relationships and communities.

Text of the chapter appears at the end of this post.

Go here for more excerpts and information about Shocking Violet.

If you want to hear me read live, I am going to be reading a BDSM scene from the novel at Feelmore 510 in Oakland on Sunday October 30! (I will be reading from the scene that is excerpted in my queer kink erotica collection, Show Yourself To Me, titled “My Pretty Boy”.)

Chapter 1

Jax

It all began when she took down her hair. Sure, Jax had noticed her before then. The luscious curve of her neck, the big boots so firmly planted on the floor, the way she radiated calm. It was a pleasure to sit behind her, to focus on the nape of her neck throughout twenty five minutes of community announcements that seemed to begin every dyke-centric gathering of queers Jax had ever been to. It was just part of the culture, that the one who announced things was a rambler, and 17 people in the audience had something they had to tell everyone before anything could get started. Sure it cut into the open cruising time after the demo, but Jax didn’t mind. He preferred the silent kind of cruising he could do from his favorite spot in the back corner of the room, even if it was mostly from behind. This femme sure looked good from behind, her dark hair twisted up, revealing her neck, with just a few tendrils teasing along the back of it. By the time the announcements were over, Jax had memorized every curve of the femme’s neck, felt like he knew it, could close his eyes and trace along it, could imagine wrapping his hands around the femme’s throat, what her pulse would feel like under his fingers.

Oh, Jax had noticed this stranger who dressed like she was from San Francisco. Jax knew almost everyone else in the room, so he let himself linger on this newcomer, who seemed anything but a novice. Just because she hadn’t been to a meeting before did not mean that at all. No wide eyes, no rapid pulse, no nervous twitches on this one. Novices always looked like little ones in the Times Square Toys R Us, mesmerized and intimidated by the hugeness of the possibilities. Jax was sure this femme had been around the block, knew the kink scene well, if only because she was so damn calm. Where had she been spending her time? It’s a small queer kink world, especially when you’re poly, and Jax let himself consider. New to NYC? Part of a tiny pocket of a scene in Brooklyn that Jax didn’t know? Burnt out from the scene and dipping her toe back in?

The room burst into laughter at something the presenter said, and Jax decided to pay attention. Laughter was a good sign. Yup, this dyke from Canada knew her stuff. Funny, insightful, offering a useful framework, and it seemed like a few concrete tools for getting deeper into the psychology of play. She had a great rep, so Jax wasn’t surprised exactly, but sometimes a great rep is more about how hot the demo is than whether someone can actually teach. This class had both going for it, and Jax decided to focus on it, taking out his notebook and writing down a question he wanted to think about later, and a phrase that might come in handy. This was why he kept coming back to LAP, not just the cruising, but because he always found a nugget that made it worth it. Something that invoked new lines of thinking about kink. Or if he was lucky, something that inspired his play.

This presenter was on to something, with her idea that you could mean so many different things when you slapped somebody, that being conscious of what it meant to you was a key to more connected intentional play. Something he wished he’d thought about before getting involved with Dinah. But he wasn’t going to think about her right now. That was done. She was gone from his life, gone from his home, Gone Daddy Gone. Something he was more grateful for every day that passed.

Jax rested the soles of his boots on the floor, and pressed down with his feet, hard. In his head, he named five colors he saw in the room. Mahogany, the femme’s hair. Black, her sweater. Burgundy, her lipstick. Cobalt, her glasses. Light blue, the hanky tied round her right wrist. Yum. Light blue and on the right. Wasn’t it lucky that Jax was packing tonight?

Wait a minute. The femme was asking a question. She sounded so stern and nurturing at the same time, as she invited the demo bottom to share her interpretation of what it meant to have the top’s hand on her throat. Her voice was so fucking sexy, and that warm sternness…damn. The whole room went silent to hear what the demo bottom had to say. It was rare that anyone asked demo bottoms real questions. This femme was really something. She had just gently challenged the power dynamic that happened way too often at LAP, where tops are the only ones with voices. And she had done it so gracefully. Jax couldn’t stop looking at her now. That tone as she addressed the bottom…was she a switch? That opened up a range of delightful possibilities.

Then, she took her hair down. First, her hands trailed up her own neck like a lover, teasing her throat from the front as if she was imagining a hand there, then sliding round to the back to rest at the nape solidly. Jax held his breath as he watched. Then dark curls came tumbling down, and with them a shock of dark purple. Jax’s hands fisted in his lap. Damn. That surprise wash of color on the top layer of her hair just flat did it for him. He wanted his hands in her hair, right this fucking second. Wanted to hold on as she begged for an orgasm, to grip it tight as he watched her obey his command to come, to caress it as she sat at his feet. He didn’t just want to hurt her, he wanted to claim her. He wanted her submission. He made himself taste his desire, savor it, for it was new and electric and he was fucking scared of it. No one had drawn out that level of dominance from him in over a year. Not since it went so sour with Dinah.

This felt different, he told himself. This femme was not a big-eyed girl, she was a grown up woman. She wasn’t looking for Daddy to take care of her, or take over her life. She might not be looking at all. She had steel in her core, and would only bend if she needed to, wanted to, ached to. On her own terms.

The littles had come flocking when Jax had first re-emerged from his cave after Dinah moved out. They fluttered their big eyes at him and watched him with awe, hoping. He had gently, respectfully, turned them all away. He was done with that. Daddy had retired. He didn’t want the kind of D/s that would leak into everything, didn’t want to take on the care of anyone full time. He had been considering something else, something different, over the past couple months. A new approach to D/s, one with a hell of a lot more boundaries.

He wanted to see if it made sense to try it with Violet, if she was game. That was her name. Violet. The presenter had called her that, had known her, spoken to her with respect, one femme top to another. Oh yeah. This one was no novice.

*****

Violet

The class was wrapping up. Violet was glad. Sitting still for that long was wearing. She needed a good stretch. And a look behind her to see who had done that sharp inhale when she had taken down her hair.

She stood, stretching with her eyes closed, savoring the heat of a gaze on her body, knowing it had to be the same person who had reacted so strongly to her hair coming down. She eased out of the stretch, slowly opening her eyes. And met the butch’s gaze.

Heat, right from the start, a sparky delicious heat zinging back and forth between them. Violet let herself melt a little. There was nothing like an old school butch who knew the power of the gaze. She felt her lips parting in anticipation, and let the silence continue. Those moments before it all began, when it was just their eyes talking, were her favorite. Oh these eyes, they had so much to say to her. Her tongue ran along her teeth as she just held the moment, until she was breathless with it, the room fading out into black and white and the only color the blue of the butch’s eyes on hers. Her cunt started to clench, like it had something it wanted to say to this butch who held her captive with just those eyes.

She had felt those eyes on her during the class, had felt them savoring her neck, eating up the few inches of skin that were bared to others tonight. Her fingers reached up and caressed her own throat as she kept her connection to those eyes, testing, teasing even. Was this butch flirting from the top or the bottom? Would the butch hold her gaze, or be drawn to stare at her throat? If this one wanted to bottom, Violet would be a bit disappointed, but probably still game. But no, those eyes held hers, as a brow raised, and then they hardened. Whoa. She felt a blush creep up her chest and she had to look at her own boots for a moment. Had to, that’s how it felt. Ok. Ok. This was new. But she could handle it. Because it was…Violet couldn’t find the word. She licked dry lips and swallowed. Since when was she lost for words? She settled herself more solidly in her boots, took a breath, and looked up, meeting the butch’s eyes again. They were smiling.

“I’m Jax,” the butch said in a gravelly voice that made Violet’s cunt spasm. And reached out a hand.

“Violet,” she got out. She couldn’t resist, reached out her hand. Jax picked it up, and held it gently, lifting to give her a kiss on the base of her palm. Whoa. This one had moves.

“Very nice to meet you, Violet.”

Violet just swallowed. It was like her throat was stuck.

“Violet, I would like to take you out to dinner tonight, just the two of us, at the Chinese restaurant down the street. Would you do me the honor?”

Violet blinked. Tilted her head, considered.

“Give me a moment,” she said. Jax nodded gravely.

Violet walked over to Roz and gave her a hug, telling her how great the class was. Roz grinned, still high from topping the room.

Violet leaned in and asked, “So this butch named Jax wants to take me to dinner. Do you know them?”

“Not personally, but yeah I’ve heard of him. You know how I told you about the trans butch that was working with these femmes here to remove that horrible party rule at LAP? That’s Jax.”

“Know anything else about him?” Roz always knew everybody. You had to if you worked the queer kink circuit like she did.

Roz grinned at Violet, her black eyes dancing. “He’s poly. A dominant, and the kind of sadist that is known for playing hard.”

“Oh?” That had promise.

“He’s got a few boys he plays with regularly, but no serious partners, not for a while. Used to teach classes about Daddy play, but I heard he stopped flagging hunter green. Might just be a rumor from a girl he said no to, though. He hasn’t taught in like a year.”

“Hmmm.” No serious partners. Not a good sign. And a Daddy. Were all the hot butches Daddies? Well, maybe a retired Daddy. That might be ok. Those eyes sure were something.

“You should go for it. Honey, you seem all aflutter, and that’s a good thing. Let him flirt and see what happens. If he asked you, he ain’t looking for a little girl, is he?”

“No he is not. No one ever mistakes me for one of those.”

“Mmmhmm. That’s the truth. Now run along and enjoy your dinner. I gotta greet the public. See if you can show up at Lust tonight. This girl here has earned a reward, and I know she’d love to get kicked around with those hot boots of yours.” Roz stroked the back of the girl’s neck.

“I’ll see what I can do. I’m so tired these days. You know.”

“Yeah. I know. Well, if you show up with that hot butch, I’ll know the dinner went well. If I don’t see you, let’s talk soon, ok? I miss my personal Violet time.”

“I know, sweetie. I miss you too. You will be at Brunch Sunday, right?”

“As if I’d miss a chance to attend the famous Femme Brunch. Oh I will be there, in my finest.”

“Can’t wait to see it. Enjoy your public, darlin.” Violet kissed her cheek, and then walked back to her chair. Jax was there in his chair in the corner, watching her walk towards him, his eyes on her hips. She took a breath, and decided to leap. How else do you know?

Tagged: audio, butch, butch/femme, disabled characters, erotica readings, excerpt, femme, kink, My Pretty Boy, poly, romance, Shocking Violet, Show Yourself To Me

Listen to me read “A Large Full Meal”

It’s the anniversary of the release of my queer kink erotica collection, Show Yourself To Me! To honor it, for the next three months, I will be posting audio recordings from the book, one per month.

This month, you can listen to me read “A Large Full Meal”, a story about two transmasculine queer tops doing a scene in an all gender single stall bathroom at a queer conference. As a heads up, this story contains descriptions of semi-public sex, rough body play, knife play, and fisting.

I hope you enjoy this story; it is a personal favorite of mine.

To read more about Show Yourself To Me, check out the blog tour, or take a look at the reviews!

Tagged: A Large Full Meal, audio, fisting, kink, Knives, queer, rough body play, Show Yourself To Me, top's POV, trans, transmasculine, Xan reads smut