Kink in exile

Notes from a kinky nomad

What she said

Chaos said it best here and in fact you should read the 3 or so posts that follow as well. While I wasn’t looking, Chaos and Fizz gave words to the things I was still trying to put my finger on and made a space for the jeans and t-shirts domme.

There are so many strings to pick apart I’m not sure where to start, but it reminds me of a moment when I was 17 or so and up in Montreal when I realized I wasn’t a lesbian, I was a geek. The realization came from back to back socio-sexual interactions one in a lesbian club (negative) one in a goth club (positive). I almost want to sum up my current thoughts as I’m not kinky, I’m just a geek. I’m not into bad grammar, black leather, and hitting pathetic unwantable men with expensive sticks. I am into jeans, witty t-shirts, the capitalization suggestions of Strunk and White, and hitting smart beautiful men with metal pipes.

I don’t see this as a problem. In fact, because I was socialized around geeks and tend to have a conscious and analyzed relationship with social cues my sex has always started with “so, how do you like to have sex?” A proper child of the internet I believe that 1) I am not alone and 2) all fetishes have their mirror it’s just a matter of finding yours. So imagine my surprise at realizing that the (North American) BDSM tradition has systemically disparaged, shut out, and scared off my fetish mirror while telling me that my ideal partner should be a dime a dozen. Yes ladies and gentlemen…I may be a sexually dominant woman, and that may make me kinky, but I’ll be hanging out at the hacker spaces and HCI talks if you want to find me; I’m the blue-haired girl with glasses.

And yet…

And yet between the first writing of this post and now, I’ve gone back and tracked through the comments to The Cost of Devaluing Male Submission: One Token and I have followed the links and read the threads and much as I try to drown out the voice in me that was born an activist it keeps coming back with “and yet…”

And yet what does it mean for me in this world that the person I want to play with most, that beautiful strong geeky smart sexually submissive man, comes wounded because the world got to him before I had a chance? I have been known to speak to the fact that men are hurt by the rape of women because their sex life can not help by be effect by a one in four chance that their female partner is a survivor of sexual violence. Is this the BDSM parallel? There are no submissive men and also there is never a line for the ladies room in the engineering building? Are submissive men and women in short skirts equally public property?

And if I believe with everything I have (good child of the internet age that I am) that I can not be alone, then isn’t there value in shared experience?

So tell me, where are the dominant women in jeans and witty t-shirts? Where are the ones that _like_ sex, and respect their partners? And how do I invite them to a picnic?

Written by kinkinexile

September 1, 2011 at 3:33 am

Posted in Uncategorized

20 Responses

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  1. *raises hand and waves* Here! I’m one!

    Love the post. Let me know when the picnic is. I may be wearing a sweater set instead of a witty shirt with my jeans but I’ll be there!

    Mistress Lilyana

    September 1, 2011 at 4:47 am

  2. “I have been known to speak to the fact that men are hurt by the rape of women because their sex life can not help by be effect by a one in four chance that their female partner is a survivor of sexual violence.”

    I was going to rant and rave about how cool other sentences are in this post. But this one’s really, really, really good.

    It’s good because like a good rhetorician you put it in terms of the interests of the person you’re trying to persuade, and it’s good because in the process of making it non-accusatory you make it even more obvious why we should care intensely about your subject.

    Nice.

    I’m so glad you’re blogging again, K.

    figleaf

    figleaf

    September 1, 2011 at 6:07 am

  3. I like the line that figleaf called out, but this bit is my favorite:

    “I almost want to sum up my current thoughts as I’m not kinky, I’m just a geek. I’m not into bad grammar, black leather, and hitting pathetic unwantable men with expensive sticks. I am into jeans, witty t-shirts, the capitalization suggestions of Strunk and White, and hitting smart beautiful men with metal pipes.”

    As for the picnic, hell, do it on a day I’m free, I’ll be there in a heartbeat. 🙂

    Thanks so much for the shoutout, by the way. I’m really glad you’re enjoying LC&L. Here’s hoping our respective school schedules allow the Professor and I to keep living up to that.

    Fizz

    September 1, 2011 at 9:01 am

  4. @Fizz: That was my second favorite line!

    I think I’ve mentioned this before (possibly, err, repeatedly) but the magician Penn Jillette has argued bitterly that top-hat-and-tails outfit that now distinguishes stage magicians from ordinary audience members was originally chosen by early stage magicians to look exactly like the regular clothes men in their audiences wore. He said that’s why Penn and Teller wear regular men’s clothes instead of tuxedos today.

    Well, same with fucking BDSM! Victorians wore black, used leather and silver or nickle harnessing, and whacked each other with floggers and buggy whips because those were more or less the style of clothing, and that was the ordinary equipment people used for transportation.

    I mean, jeez, if BDSM had first become fashionable in the 1970s instead of the 1870s would practitioners still be wearing platform shoes, polyester leisure suits, and macrame vests and blow-drying their hair?!?!?!?

    Speaking of macrame, isn’t it nice that there’s a fancy sounding Japanese name (dating back, naturally, hundreds of years) that “cutting edge” kinksters can call intricate rope bondage today?

    It would be nice to see a little more toleration for creativity in the kink community. Kink.com’s bias in the direction of more contemporary clothes and for contemporary equipment is one of the few areas I give them credit for.

    figleaf

    figleaf

    September 1, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    • I mean, jeez, if BDSM had first become fashionable in the 1970s instead of the 1870s would practitioners still be wearing platform shoes, polyester leisure suits, and macrame vests and blow-drying their hair?!?!?!?

      That would be awesome! Perhaps that’s what they’ll be wearing in 2070. 😀

      Amai

      September 7, 2011 at 12:33 am

  5. […] Then tonight, maymay posted a related link, from KinkInExile, who had responded to Professor Chaos, with something equally well-written, about being a geek female dominant who breaks stereotypes and has a hard time finding a male submissive partner, here: https://kinkinexile.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/what-she-said/ […]

  6. This is just all kinds of awesome. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say you’re a “geek.” You’re just you. You like what you like.

    There’s a quote about Robert Heinlein that goes something like, “His books taught us that every custom is local, and no custom realizes how local it is.” — William Patterson, (I think but I’m not sure.)

    I’m a guy who uses a wheelchair to get around because I prefer sitting down to falling over all the time. I used to think I hated sex. Turns out I just hate that some women are afraid of hurting me during sex, so they won’t initiate it.

    For me there’s nothing worse than, “I would have sex with you but I don’t want to hurt you,” except maybe a kiss on the cheek. Actually the kiss usually follows that statement.

    If you “would have sex with me,” we’ll eventually be having sex. If you just say you “would” and we don’t have sex then you weren’t really attracted to me in the first place — which is fine.

    I just wish I knew more women like you who have the courage to say what they want and be who they are. I’m not into being hit metal pipes, but if I find someone who is I’ll send them in your general direction.

    Thanks for letting me vent. 🙂

    Sexually Accessible Fantasy Lover

    September 1, 2011 at 5:07 pm

  7. Yes! I am also often a t-shirt-and-jeans dominant. 🙂 I love the idea of a picnic!

    Professor Chaos

    September 1, 2011 at 8:04 pm

  8. Yes, yes! I’m here and so frustrated that I am having to carve my own damn geeky, nerdy, what-the-hell corner off of BDSM. Let’s go eat pie and do geeky things.

    Peppa

    September 2, 2011 at 1:40 am

  9. […] Then tonight, maymay posted a related link, from KinkInExile, who had responded to Professor Chaos, with something equally well-written, about being a geek female dominant who breaks stereotypes and has a hard time finding a male submissive partner, here: https://kinkinexile.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/what-she-said/ […]

  10. “I am into jeans, witty t-shirts, the capitalization suggestions of Strunk and White,”

    This alone is priceless.
    🙂

    Tom Allen

    September 2, 2011 at 4:33 pm

  11. “I mean, jeez, if BDSM had first become fashionable in the 1970s instead of the 1870s would practitioners still be wearing platform shoes, polyester leisure suits, and macrame vests and blow-drying their hair?!?!?!?”

    There is another component to this that we sometimes overlook. Tight, dark clothing enhances the lines of the body while diminishing visual flaws (i.e., wrinkles, lines, skin folds, muffin top, etc.) that would be noticed on bare skin. Leather, vinyl, and latex gear is somewhat compressive, and so reforms the body shape into something more symmetrical and hourglass shaped. Harness gear accentuates the muscles of the upper body (pecs, shoulders) to help give men a more V shaped definition.

    So, it’s not simply a matter of certain fetish wear being chosen at random. But it’s certainly worth asking why certain “uniforms” (i.e., corsets, boots, masks) continue to be associated with *both* femdom and femsub signaling.

    Tom Allen

    September 2, 2011 at 4:45 pm

  12. I’ve loved all the posts bouncing around the blogosphere on this, but have avoided weighing in directly because so many others have said it so much better than I could.

    I have chosen instead to contribute by collecting and posting positive F/m relationship stories, you know, the real ones, with real honest to god well rounded fully functional people who relate to each other with love and happiness. The ones where women value and adore their amazing submissive men, and where men feel valued by their partner. I think we don’t hear or see enough of that to counter all the bullshit that we DO see.

    I think the roundup is a great idea and if you don’t mind, I would love to pinch it when you have done it. The more noise the better!!

    And please please please invite me to your picnic!! I will wear every single piece of fetish gear that I own (um, exactly none), and maybe my Mr Grumpy t-shirt and my pyjama pants with skull and crossbones on them… (because, you know, pirates!).

    Ferns

    Ferns

    September 3, 2011 at 12:02 am

    • you know, the real ones, with real honest to god well rounded fully functional people who relate to each other with love and happiness.

      Ah hah hah hah hah hah heh heh heh hee hee… Come on, Ferns, I stopped believing in Santa Claus decades ago.

      Tom Allen

      September 3, 2011 at 12:46 am

  13. Ah hah hah hah hah hah heh heh heh hee hee… Come on, Ferns, I stopped believing in Santa Claus decades ago.

    I’m still waiting for your story, Virginia… *impatient tap tap tap…*

    Ferns

    Ferns

    September 3, 2011 at 12:50 am

    • I’m still waiting for your story, Virginia… *impatient tap tap tap…*

      Well, I’ve got the evening to myself. I could either start writing, or click through the pictures on Tumblr.

      Hmm, which to choose, which to choose…

      Tom Allen

      September 3, 2011 at 1:50 am

  14. Yay, another t-shirt and jeans dominant! I would freaking love to go to a picnic for people like us.

    Stabbity

    September 3, 2011 at 1:39 am

  15. […] affirming Chaos’s sentiments, Kink In Exile wrote: [W]hat does it mean for me in this world that the person I want to play with most, that beautiful […]

  16. Hoody, jeans, and sensible shoes dominant here. I’m down for a picnic before the weather turns too cold!

    Amai

    September 7, 2011 at 12:39 am

  17. […] on.  Four years later and I’m cold, annoyed, and utterly disenchanted with the kink scene.  As I’ve said before, my sexual identity should read as “geek.” I am hitting my head against the kink scene […]


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