a nostalgic love note to myself and joe, in bygone days.

remember those days?
(so many millions of miles away now… )

of slow dancing to patsy cline
in small-town dive bars and
grieving to great ghosts..  

of singing
juana molina refrains 
across the moonlit lake
at midnight,
rain pouring down,
baptizing us
in the sacredness
of our 
shared soul-cloth..

of drinking cheap liquor and 
practicing ways of
caressing the 
melancholy because.. 

that was all we knew.




how beautiful it was,
my love,
painting melancholy
with you.

pleasure begins at home: the wonders of masturbation

post-orgasmic nude, by betty dodson
post-orgasmic nude, by betty dodson

masturbation (that nasty, shockingly perverse word… not to mention the act of!!!) is one of my favorite activities. it defined the beginnings of my sexual consciousness, taught me what gave me pleasure before anyone else had a chance to mis-teach me, shame me, or pass over me, and has continued through my life to give me comfort, pleasure, and moments of deep realization. i wish i could teach every child (and especially little girl!!) about self-pleasure. i think this knowledge should be a basic human right. i believe it is that deep and integral to who we are and how we relate to ourselves and to others in the world.

wendy strgar spells out this connection on a theoretical level beautifully in this article on the art of masturbation.

Perhaps the best reasons to let go of all the judgment and history surrounding this normal  sexual behavior is because having access to your own pleasure and orgasm teaches a profound inner lesson, which is that the ability to orgasm is your own. No one else gives it to you or has power over you having it.      

                                             -“the art of masturbation: theory to the practice.

in other exciting news, a study has now shown that masturbation may (keyword: may) “help” your immune system. the cover image for the article being a box of kleenex, with a number of used kleenex wadded up around it (unclear if used kleenex are cum-filled or snot-filled…), it may or may not be implying this applies more to men than women. hard to say. maybe other women have different self-pleasuring practices than i. surely they do. perhaps some that involve wadded-up tissues. at any rate, i do imagine the relaxation one derives from masturbating/cumming would lower stress significantly, and stress is a well-known strain on our immune systems.

it’s cold season; by this logic we’d best all get a-pleasuring!!!

queen nicki

i bow down (again) to the prowess and badassedness of nicki minaj. she has once again caused a delightful media frenzy with her newest video, anaconda, mostly focused on the air time given to her ass in said video. a number of sources questioned if this was “too racy for [nicki’s] own good” and one even called anaconda the most explicit video ever made (no double standards here, naturally….)

[youtube=http://youtu.be/LDZX4ooRsWs]

even socially liberal, more radical folks critique nicki’s bombacious and overt show of feminine sexuality. and i think there is always a place for fair-minded critique through various social lenses, etc… but in the spirit of many truths existing simultaneously, and a goal of living in the messiness, i salute and adore nicki minaj for the power and i-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude she consistently displays.

my own read on her subtle subversiveness: a simple, superficial interpretation of some of her work is that she is molding herself into a sexual object for the desirous fantasies of men. and this isn’t necessarily false. we are all women socialized from birth to be sexualized, objectified beings; it is unreasonable to believe that this doesn’t intertwine and play into absolutely everything each of us does– either propping up or opposing this social more. there is a power, however, in an individual from a societally disenfranchised group grabbing what is “expected” of them and turning it on its head.. using it to their own devices. in some regards i see nicki minaj doing similar things to artists such as kara walker.

the cherry on top of this video’s sunday is nicki walking off-screen, leaving drake high and dry at the end…

dear wayne: meditations on humiliation

a dear friend of mine bought wayne koestenbaum’s book “humiliation” while we were together in winnipeg, this winter. we decided a fur background felt most fitting for some reason for an impromptu photo shoot…

20140806-214300-78180013.jpg

it is a pretty fascinating and on point read, from the excerpts i have read. then i found out about a youtube series of “dear wayne” dillemnas… if nothing else, wayne poses some interesting situational decisions…