Archive for November, 2006

SexAbility

November 27, 2006 | Cool Links

Two posts in one day! Watch out!

I’m posting to call attention to a comment I got from Playful Fairy a little while back. I didn’t realize that my cyber-dyke.net e-mail address was broken, so I wasn’t getting comment notifications (it was my own fault!) until yesterday when I fixed it. Playful Fairy posted this comment on my “What Makes a Lesbian?” post, which I had originally written for Dykewrite a few years ago. She gives a different perspective to my post, and I think it’s definitely worth a read.

Also worth checking out is Playful Fairy’s blog, SexAbility. She writes about sex and disability from a queer and kinky perspective, which is a great rarity on the web! It’s a brand new blog and she is already doing a fabulous job, and I predict really great things ahead. Again, this is territory pretty much nobody has covered, so if you want to know about sex with disabilities, this is the place to go for it. (Offline options include the books The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability and Enabling Romance.)

Buck Angel

Cool Links, Sex

You may have noticed a new button in the “Partners” section a couple of days ago. That’s the button for Buck Angel’s website, Transexual-Man.com. Buck is the best-known FTM pornstar currently on the web - he’s even been on Howard Stern. Yes, CyDy Blog and Cyber Dyke are sites for lesbians - but I think there might be some women out there who, like me, enjoy trans porn. Buck bills himself as “a real man with a real pussy,” and as his Wikipedia entry says, he’s not ashamed of his female genitalia. It’s refreshing to see that kind of honesty in the trans community - I have trans friends who have destroyed all former ID cards, etc. because they didn’t want to remember who they were before their transition. But Buck freely acknowledges that he used to be a woman, and he’s willing to share his uniqueness with the world. Like many porn sites, the ultimate purpose is money, but he also has the Buck Angel Blog if you want to learn more about him.

Definitely check out Buck Angel if you have the chance - it’s an educational and entertaining experience. And I have to say it - woof!

Share the Love

November 26, 2006 | Sex

Babeland is having a Share the Love contest to win free toys. You can choose from a list of five products, ranging in value from $32 to $290, and you e-mail Babeland to tell them why your partner deserves that product this holiday season. And if nothing appeals from that list, check out the CyDy Blog Toy Shop for other gift ideas!

Happy Spanksgiving

November 24, 2006 | CyDy Network

A very Happy Spanksgiving from CyDy Blog’s heart to yours! I’d like to celebrate the holiday by giving you a full-size sneak peek from Sappho’s Girls. Tess celebrates Thanksgiving in two fabulous galleries, and she does some very naughty things with a corncob. These are really gorgeous sets, with almost 100 pictures overall!

That free sneak peek is right this way…

What Makes a Lesbian?

November 17, 2006 | Pop Culture, Sex

Originally published in Dykewrite, 6 January 2004

My local hometown paper just happens to be the internationally-known Washington Post, which is recognized as a quality newspaper of a rather liberal persuasion. While browsing through this past Sunday’s issue, I turned to the Style section and was confronted with a large headline:

Partway Gay?
For Some Teen Girls, Sexual Preference Is A Shifting Concept

Obviously, this caught my attention immediately. I’d just been reading [Dykewrite’s] forum thread on bisexuality, and last February I wrote a journal entry on the concept of lesbians becoming bisexual. So I read the Post article, by Laura Sessions Stepp, with keen interest.

Keeping in mind that I am a firm believer in the fluidity of human sexuality, I’d like to explore the possibility that lesbians are a dying breed. With the rise of hasbians, LUGs, lesbisexuals, and heteroflexibility, it seems anyone can be a lesbian - even if they’re not lesbians in the traditional sense of the word. According to the article, the word itself is being redefined to include any female who has remotely sexual contact with another female. The article says “[these] girls pack Ani DiFranco concerts and know tATu lyrics by heart.” First of all, Ani DiFranco is bisexual herself - and the girls of tATu aren’t even gay, although they like to pretend for the sake of male fantasy. Which is another thing the article mentions - apparently some girls at high schools in the Washington, DC area make out with each other and sell tickets to boys! It’s obviously cool to have same-sex contact these days, although only for girls - the article does mention that boys don’t practice these experimental activities nearly as much as girls do.

“Experimental” is the key word. I suspect that the vast majority of these girls, once they grow a little older, will fall into traditional heterosexual relationships not because they love women less, but because it’s what society expects them to do. Supposedly these girls are flaunting society, claiming they don’t have to follow societal rules, that society’s vision of sexuality doesn’t apply to them. To that I say: bullshit. Right now, it’s cool to be lesbian. (Being bisexual is hip too, but it’s better if you show off the girl-on-girl action.) I think the major difference between these girls and how I usually define “lesbian” is political. Gays and lesbians continue to face discrimination, abuse, and trauma in the United States just for being who they are. These girls are unaffected by this (with the possible exception of Stephanie Haaser) because they are lucky enough to live in an area where they can express themselves freely. And although the article doesn’t mention butch/femme issues, I suspect the majority of these girls are femme - simply because butch lesbians are easier to identify and therefore discriminate against. (Cary Trainor, a college sophomore quoted in the Post article, is pictured in the print edition and fits a traditional butch look; also pictured are Chandra Harris, who looks more femme, and Chloe Root, who has a sort of androfemme look.)

Maybe in ten years, when these girls are old enough to get married and settle down, gay marriage will be legal in the United States and marrying a man will no longer be the “safe” choice. If that happens, these high school girls will be free to continue their current sexual expression. But as long as they’re expressing the view that sexual orientation doesn’t matter, they probably won’t be part of the gay and lesbian community and can’t serve us in political causes. Self-identifying as lesbian or bisexual may not be enough, and telling people (or showing them for $10) may not be enough. Solidarity is essential to the continuation of the lesbian community.

Lesbian Sexuality 101

November 6, 2006 | Sex

Originally published in Dykewrite, 4 December 2003

I was all set to write about “lesbian bed death” again (in more detail than last time), but then I got the latest copy of On Our Backs in the mail. There was plenty of inspiration there - a how-to on choosing a sex toy, a scene report about genitorture, an all-dyke roundtable discussion about dating bisexual women, and the usual genderfucking OOB always features. (Interestingly, the androgynous drag king spread was headed “Hot Femme Fags” - but I’ll discuss butch/femme/genderfuck in another article.) I came to realize that the trouble was now I had too much to write about! In keeping with the relaunch of Dykewrite, I’ll bring my sexuality articles back to basics and start with a broader overview of lesbian sexuality and the things two (or more) women can do in bed (or on the kitchen counter, or wherever!).

Back in the 1970s, the politically correct way to have lesbian sex was often cunnilingus. There might be some clit-rubbing involved, but penetration was seen by some as mimicking heterosexual intercourse, and there was a strong drive to get away from that. While plenty of dykes continued to have a great time fingerbanging, strap-ons were an even greater no-no (although of course many women used them anyway). These days, we’ve come to realize that lesbian sexuality can be expressed in a grand variety of ways, some seeming to resemble het sex and some utterly different. But just because lesbians do a lot of the same things between the sheets that straight people do does not mean we are in any way mimicking them - especially not out of a secret desire to be straight! A girl doesn’t want her to fuck her with a dildo because she secretly desires a penis, but rather because she likes it.

There are a few sex acts that are usually limited to lesbians, tribadism being one of them. Although some sources claim tribadism is simulating intercourse, it’s really just a pleasurable intersection of thighs and vulvas. (I’ve heard people claim that only clit-to-clit touching is tribadism, but that’s such an ungainly position that I prefer to define it in a more accessible way.) It also seems that same-sex sixty-nine is more common than the male-female kind, although I don’t have any numbers on this - in any case, though, many people feel that oral sex is better when performed by somebody who has the same parts and knows just what to do to them.

There are a lot of other activities two chicks can share, generally ascending the scale of kink. Everything from backdoor sex to temporary infibulation is available to lesbian couples, along with a whole lot of things in between. There’s no reason for women to become bored with or shy about having sex - the possibilities are endless for variety. Whether a woman is seeking one night stands, enjoying serial monogamy, or in a committed long term relationship, anything goes.

While I’ll be covering more specific topics in the future, I also welcome any questions related to lesbian (and bi) sexuality and would be happy to address them on Dykewrite or in private conversation.

(Please note that Dykewrite is now defunct but you may view partial past issues courtesy Archive.org.)