The Queernesss Thread

Your host, Stella Omega.

Queerness is no longer a GLBT issue alone. Many hetero folk are discovering that they too are queer, in one way or another. In this thread I am going to explore those aspects of ourselves that do not conform to society's expectations-- and that is just about every aspect, really, we all of us have found ourselves "abnormal" one way or another.

Some topics:
Gender Roles. We have people here who have fought to become something other than what their bodies would indicate. We have women here who are "manly" and men who feel "womanly" -AND- we have women and men here who are considered too much of their sex. I want to celebrate the far ends of the bell curve.

Queer Heterosexuality.All of us who do BDSM are queer by today's standards, from osg to DVS...

Diversity in BDSM It's not a monolith. What-- you're surprised?

There will be a lot of links, as I find the resources. And I'll edit this post to create a kind of TOS. But fee free to comment, too, remind me that I can be just as full of shit as the next person...

Pictures of naked men

There are as many pictures of naked women out there as there are stars in the desert sky. There are as many pictures of naked hetero men, as there are, say, ducks in a municipal pond. The idea that men are worth looking at, that straight women would rather look at men then at other women-- is incredibly queer. But thanks to the internet, it's an idea that's finding purchase.

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androapurturea brand new blog, dedicated to the male image-- as imaged by women who love men.

Nakedmenhappywomenditto this one, which i discovered via androapurture

Syzygy magazinethis magazine does a pretty good job of showing how manymany women envision men being together. it is sometimes the way men actually are together, and lots of gay men have been subscribing to it, but that's not the point. This magazine is devoted to female visual enjoyment, baby.

Male Submission Art(pretty much the ONLY site that simply focuses on that single thing, Maymay takes images from hetero and gay sources alike.)

Women who dominate on their own terms

see now, this is why I needed to start this thread! I'll add them once I've tracked them down again...

Okay, here's what's left of Bitchy Jones's blog, a great treasure that has been wantonly vandalised by its owner damn it. This woman's words were what made me remember that hetero sex had it's own flavor of queerness.

Delving Into Deviance: “What is it that makes dominant women uncomfortable with femdom? There are a lot of things. One of the biggest is the sexist attitude that is rampant in the BDSM community. It often seems like women have to remain ice queens, untarnished by actually having penile-vaginal intercourse with their male subs. However, if they want to they can become more male, and thus, more dominant by strapping on and becoming – duh duh duh – The Penetrator. This isn’t to say that there’s anything wrong with strapping on (I’m a fan myself), but a sex act does not a Dominant (or a submissive) make and we can’t just superimpose the male-female dichotomy onto Dominant-submissive and expect that to make anyone happy.”

So queer, it takes an extra "s" on the backside.

Practical advice from here and there

I loved this post!
25 Creative Ways to Humiliate Your Slave in the Bathroom

A great way to make a dildo harness on the fly-- from two scarves (or bathrobe ties)

Male voices too

Maymay has a lot to say about the sexism, racism, classism he encounters in the BDSM community.

One post from the blog "Yes means yes" that talks about some problematic aspects of the pansexual BDSM Scene.

Have fun.

teknight said:

Have fun.

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I suppose I am trying to lay some groundwork so that fun will more easily be had elsewhere. But you know what? It actually took some courage for me to create this thread. It's often easier for me to pop off a response to someone's offhand comment. This-- I gotta think about it a bit.

That's one of the problems with not having a predefined role...

Stella_Omega said:

The idea that men are worth looking at is incredibly queer.

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Really?! And here I was sharing my best naked male pics with my female friends way back 35 years ago!! Of course, later when I made a habit of buying Blue as soon as it hit the shelves, they still loved the pics but were torn by the disappointment of knowing many of their favourites were gay, and few were interested in the female shots in the same magazine which for me were often amongst the best and most enticing. As one friend confided to me a few years back, my friends often felt I was too out there in those long ago days, but over the years had come to wich they had been as adventurous as I had when it wasn't quite as acceptable and common place as it is today. I did remind her it was never too late.

catalina_francisco said:

Really?! And here I was sharing my best naked male pics with my female friends way back 35 years ago!! Of course, later when I made a habit of buying Blue as soon as it hit the shelves, they still loved the pics but were torn by the disappointment of knowing many of their favourites were gay, and few were interested in the female shots in the same magazine which for me were often amongst the best and most enticing. As one friend confided to me a few years back, my friends often felt I was too out there in those long ago days, but over the years had come to wich they had been as adventurous as I had when it wasn't quite as acceptable and common place as it is today. I did remind her it was never too late.

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Exactly.

Thirty five years ago I was drawing, as best I could, the male images I wanted to see, which were not the gay male stereotypes in Blue. I was writing the erotic fiction I wanted to read, which was not "Penthouse letters." I kept it absolutely to myself, in the surety that no one wanted to know how out there I really was. Now-- it's easier. But still not easy. And you're kinda... queer.

Do you have any resources to add to my lists, catalina?

Hey Stella, nothing to contribute at the moment, as I'm headed out the door. Just wanted to say kudos to you for starting this thread. Yes, it is much easier to react than to act, and the latter involves a lot more 'putting it out there', which can be scary.

I've never felt that I fit into anyone's traditional definitions of pyl. Not sure if that makes me queer in any way, though.

I'm pretty sure I fit basically any definition of "queer" that you want to throw out there, but I really, really hate the word, LOL. Sorry, Stella!

BiBunny said:

I'm pretty sure I fit basically any definition of "queer" that you want to throw out there, but I really, really hate the word, LOL. Sorry, Stella!

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Har!

I LOVE the word, because it's the ONLY word I know of that is completely genuinely inclusive.

On a good day I can feel generous. You can be as cool as me!

On a bad day... I love it that I can attach it to people, instead of being the one that gets the label attached to me.

My daughter threw the word "weird" at me when I told her I was bi. She's been staying with us for a month and knows I have a regular female play partner but she thinks it's "wrong" that I go outside my marriage for this.

I don't know what she'd say if she knew about the D/s side of things

*sigh* There are no shades of grey with this one, she thinks in black and white.....she still loves me though

Bandit58 said:

My daughter threw the word "weird" at me when I told her I was bi. She's been staying with us for a month and knows I have a regular female play partner but she thinks it's "wrong" that I go outside my marriage for this.

I don't know what she'd say if she knew about the D/s side of things

*sigh* There are no shades of grey with this one, she thinks in black and white.....she still loves me though

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I have two step daughters, and one of them was like that.

At thirteen years of age, we took her to a party that got a little bit adult, and she was utterly offended that one woman had kissed TWO DIFFERENT MEN. After seeing "Ten" she said that Bo Derrick's character was a whore for sleeping with Dudley Moore's character. (Me and her father kind of jumped all over her for that one-- since Dudley Moore's character was willing to let her husband DIE so HE could sleep with the lady, and you know what? She hadn't even noticed that.)

After the party episode, I had this dream in which I let myself be tied up and... "explored" by a couple of prepubescent girls. I woke up feeling horrible, humiliated, and the message from my subconscious was as clear as a subconscious can possibly make it: CHILDREN DO NOT BELONG ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR SEX LIFE.

I got kinkier as I got older, and when I had my own kids i was deep in my local leather council. But although my kids saw me in my chaps-and-boots, and the Mohawk, and the queer "aunties and uncles" were around a lot-- the kids stayed right out of the sex side of things.

Stella_Omega said:

Your host, Stella Omega.

Queer Heterosexuality.All of us who do BDSM are queer by today's standards, from osg to DVS...

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I actually know a lot of people in queer communities who really dislike het/pan people claiming the word queer, kinky or not. I waffle on it. I try not to steal people's preferred labels from them, but sometimes when I'm in those spaces they feel so aggressively straight--and this is as a queer vaguely cisgendered female in a het relationship--and it's really frustrating and discomfiting.

When a het male dom is teaching a class and describes women in the same old unexamined fratboy kind of way and the entire discussion is in Mdom/fsub discourse, it doesn't feel like a space I'm welcome in, doesn't feel like that inclusiveness I associate with the word queer.

dexwebster said:

I actually know a lot of people in queer communities who really dislike het/pan people claiming the word queer, kinky or not. I waffle on it. I try not to steal people's preferred labels from them, but sometimes when I'm in those spaces they feel so aggressively straight--and this is as a queer vaguely cisgendered female in a het relationship--and it's really frustrating and discomfiting.

When a het male dom is teaching a class and describes women in the same old unexamined fratboy kind of way and the entire discussion is in Mdom/fsub discourse, it doesn't feel like a space I'm welcome in, doesn't feel like that inclusiveness I associate with the word queer.

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So glad you started this thread, Stella, because I had thoughts similar to the post above. I feel uncomfortable coopting the word "queer." Does it really mean more than LGBT?

Hi guys This is me splitting hairs again...

This is more my personal opinion, but I've been using the word this way for mmm... fifteen years now? And I know many people who are essentially heterosexual, but not in a normative way-- who don't see the entire other sex as "other", or who want to climb on the wrong side of the bed.

Men who are intrinsically passive. Women who want to seize and take.

Women who can only feel comfortable with men IF they can think of themselves as another man-- at least inside their own mind.

Men who wear panties to express a side of themselves that men don't normally get to show-- but are hardly interested in men.

I don't know what else to call those folks!

I know gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals who totally buy into normative notions about: gayness, lesbianness, bisexuality. Those folk are totally, legitimately GLBT but not much queer by my standards...

thoughts?

Drags in my lounge chair and my book shelf and prepares to start reading.

Thanks Stella~

I have felt out of step with most of the BDSM community (Real world and on line) because my sexuality can not be easily defined as one or the other. The way I play isn't one or the other...so for the most part I stay quiet and say nothing. But FINALLY, there is something I can learn about that fits ME.

*slips on reading glasses*

Also~I self identify as queer...because I am...in every way. Hell even when I thought of my self as more straight than not, I still used the word queer. It fits anyone who isn't completely in step with the *norm* and that would (in my opinion) include just about every friend I have ever made on line, in the leather community, or queer fetish lifestyle.

*shrugs and goes off to read*

Whoo, boy. I gotta be careful what I read. Where I identify. A person could get really fucking exercised, yanno?

In my meanderings today whilst i was pretending to be hard at work I came across the blog Yes means yes and found a topic that is exactly what I've been noticing -and wishing weren't true-- in the L.A. Scene, and to an extent here on the lit BDSM forum; the phenomenon of Domism.
The author says, and I would concur:

The Scene is the community of BDSMers in major cities oriented around heterosexual men, and heterosexual, heteroflexible and bisexual women. Overlap, particularly in play environments, between gay men’s and lesbian scenes and The Scene is limited, and while queer men and lesbian women are not excluded, they’re marginal within these spaces.

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So, yeah.

Lit is heterocentric, and no one will be surprised at that. You all have been very kind and welcoming to a few dykes, especially the brassy bossy one here.

But--I haven't seen much discourse here when gay men-- or sub men-- or especially, gay male subs-- show up. Someone Pm'd me today, asking if he could just talk with me privately since his comment in one thread was so ignored. (whyyyy am I suddenly so concerned with the sorrows of het male subs?I hear these stories and I just want to take them all into my arms and paddle their bottoms until they feel brighter-- and fuck if that's me. I must be identifying. What a shock.)

The whole post is worth reading. And very affirming to my ego, because he touches on nearly everything I've been ranting about recently.
For instance:

there are a lot of folks who still hold the stated or unstated opinion that submission ranks somehow above “mere” masochism and that there’s something unseemly or less authentic about “service topping."...

...Much like service topping, badass bottoms occupy the lowest status among bottoms; terms like “do-me bottom” and “just a masochist” illustrate the perspective that without claims to powerlessness, SM play is less meaningful.

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Yeah. I know how many hets here are caught up in the desire for a forever partner, and I can sympathise with that. But I will never stop stating that physical play without an absolute commitment is plenty meaningful. Cut it out, guys. Stop denigrating the funtiem kinksters. Tom goes on to say:

As with service topping among tops, badass bottoms are also more likely than other bottoms to be switches. The lower relative status of switches in the scene, then, is not, as is commonly understood, simply about switching itself, but about the challenges that switches pose to the top/bottom-man/woman paradigm that underlies much of SM play.

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Anyone remember awhile back when I started a thread about women growing older and finding a capability to switch? Some people got pretty upset at the notion. I was surprised, actually.

Also, "badass bottoms" FTW!

Stella_Omega said:

Men who are intrinsically passive. Women who want to seize and take.

Women who can only feel comfortable with men IF they can think of themselves as another man-- at least inside their own mind.

Men who wear panties to express a side of themselves that men don't normally get to show--but are hardly interested in men.

I don't know what else to call those folks!

I know gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals who totally buy into normative notions about: gayness, lesbianness, bisexuality. Those folk are totally, legitimately GLBT but not much queer by my standards...

thoughts?

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Many thoughts!

Those 'het' people you just listed, for one thing, are not usually the people whose use of Queer makes me uncomfortable, and it ties into LGBTs buying into alt-sex norms. I think that because LGBT relationships are still outside of cultural norms there is an inherent level of examination that usually (though admittedly not always) takes place. There aren't necessarily those widely accepted gender roles to fall back on as a relationship model.

And people in het relationships who are examining their sexuality and relationships and really taking the time and energy to carve out their own pathways instead of falling back on the same models are doing the same thing.

That's where the queerness lies, to me.

And it's why the Capital-S Straightness of those presenters I mentioned makes my skin crawl, because it is so unexamined--so lazy--and that bothers me enough on its own even without them co-opting a word that to me symbolizes challenge and transformation.

Resources? Think most of mine are buried deep in boxes, yet to be unpacked.

As to the heterocenticity of Lit, and lack of gay and/or sub males, I have to agree. It is not for want of trying to attract them to this forum, but as I found out, you can only do so much. If that is undone by others who do not embrace the idea, it ends up with a drifting away of more fringe groups. I have in the past tried encouraging some people to stick around, pointing out that while numbers are not in their favour at that point, it won't change if everyone keeps leaving because of that, but that is the problem of trying to be all inclusive I guess....some will love it, others will find it too confusing or challenging.

I don't think the problem is endemic to Lit though. I once started an LGBT group in an area which was highly homophobic. First hurdle I encountered was a lesbian who had tried it herself and failed telling me I could not do it as it was impossible to get all groups to mix and I would only succeed if I restriced it to one group of people of one preference, and a set age group, as she put it. LOL, she did much later make me break out in a breathless sweat when she idly ran her hand up my thigh in a lesbian nightclub while we were chatting....oh the memory. Anyway, I was successful to a point in getting the group running, and it continuing to run, but there was a noticeable lack of lesbians in the group....members from all other groups including some supportive hetero people were regulars though, and we even had some interesting leather evenings. It isn't always so much about the place as preconceived expectations and a reluctance to give it a go.

Catalina

Wow. I've honestly always thought "queer" was synonymous with, well, first "gay" and then "LGBT." Using the weird queer to describe myself would make me feel as awkward as if I used the word "person of color" to identify myself because I'm Jewish (there was some discussion about this amongst my peers when I was in college, fwiw). My initial thought is that if my sexuality is bent (arguably -- wasn't there a recent study that suggested virtually everyone is a little bit kinky?), but the public face of my relationship is, well, a straight, monogamous marriage, could I ever call myself queer? And then there is the ongoing question for me about how much one should reveal if one has kids -- are we in the closet, or are we being mature, responsible parents?

As to the Domism/sexism in BDSM -- there is at least one group (in my city) that has crossover between different communities and is not overrun by M/f D/s relationships. There must be something like that in NYC too -- we get a lot of NYC folks down for our major events, and they don't seem primarily M/f, unless I'm missing something. I don't really go to anyone in my local community for D/s questions. I come here. My local scene is for kink, skill-building, friendship, play, etc. On the other hand, I have often heard the organizers of local major events complain that it's hard to get gay men to come to events. Lesbians, gender queer folks, no problem. Gay men? Not so much.

I rarely take part in or offer any response to purely BDSM discussions here, to be honest. Gay, het, sub male, sub female, etc. Mostly because I don't feel I have anything worthwhile to add because my experience is limited and I am not part of the 'lifestyle'.

In that way, I guess I exclude everyone?

I do love an unabashed, outspoken opinion, though, whether I agree with it or not. You're always good for that, Stella.

The blog you posted, Stella, makes me *really* happy I'm not in "The Scene." It's so much easier to ignore the asshats when you're not stuck in a room with them.