My Mother points to this story when she’s explaining how I’ve always been overly concerned with other people’s feelings. It was 1990, New Kids on the Block just dropped Step By Step (ooh baybaaay). I was 9 years old and that album and my hamster Dusty were the most important things in my life that summer. I was a ridiculously huge fan, my room was plastered in posters and collages I had cut out from Tiger Beat and other such bubblegum publications. I had stickers and t-shirts and even my bed sheets that were graced by the faces of NKOTB. Initially I had a crush on Joey Mac, that baby face, those icy blues, his prepubescent swoon-inducing songbird vocals on “Please Don’t Go Girl”…. 9 year old me was like “THIS IS SAFE AND I FEEL SQUIRMY”. But then I matured a little, as you do, and it was all about Jordan. His smile, and the way he sang “Baby I believe in us…..”. Ohhh and the way he danced, I was lost in daydreams of marrying him and doing things I couldn’t quite imagine as he sang to me.
Later on that year something inside of me shifted. I started listening to other albums that had just come out, fucking Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson,
Pummmmp Up the Jam (pump it up) by Technotronic, Love Shack by the B52′s. I heard Just a Friend by Biz Markie at the roller rink in my shitty neighbourhood. It just hit me. New Kids were shit. It was crappy formulaic pop music and it just kind of… sucked. I mean they were hot and sure they could sing but like, that’s not fucking satisfying me like Nothing Compares (2U) by Sinead O’Conner was. Hallelujah right?
Except at this point being a New Kids super fan was a huge part of my identity and I fretted over how to let my parents know I was undergoing such a big change. Looking back I’m not sure what I was afraid of, that they might be upset with me for suddenly taking down all of my posters and various shrines? That they might criticize me for being so fickle? Either way I was nervous about breaking it to them. Which is fucking adorable right? 9-and-three-quarters me sat my parents down with my most sombre tone and dropped the bomb, “I just wanted you to know, I don’t like the New Kids anymore.” I exhaled a deep breath, my anxiety cresting like a wave now that I’d gotten this off of my chest…
Now this is funnier if you know my parents, who are bonafide hippies and put on such supportive faces while they cringed through *3 albums* at that point of my obsessive pop-tart dance-routine-making hair-brush-microphone livingroom concerts. (My Mama loved Donny Osmond as a kiddo so she understood.) But the bottom line is they didn’t give a fuck! Of course, as parents, they knew my teeny-bop admiration was just a phase. I guess in retrospect I was worried they might not accept me as I grew and changed my mind.
They stifled giggles and assured my furrowed brow that it was okay to change my tastes, and that my tastes would change a hundred more times before I was through.
I remember fighting back tears of relief, because it was okay.
It’s taken a lot of years and a lot of work for me to not feel I have to ask permission to change. To be flexible with myself and my desires. To find partners and friends who can transition through different phases of life with me and appreciate that evolution. To really understand that growth and change and ebb and flow are the only real things you can count on. Nothing lasts forever, thank god.
Art: Romantic Anatomy by Lisa Perrin
Words by Heart
herdirtylittleheart
Heart asked some good questions
StandardAnd so I’m answering them.
1. When you were a child what did you want to be when you grew up? The thing I’m doing right now. And that’s really, really fucking magical.
2. What’s a phrase or word that pushes you over the edge when you’re close to orgasm? Pup sometimes does this kind of condescending “come on, baby, there you go” when I’m close and unf yeah have I mentioned it’s soooo condescending?
3. What’s your favourite colour, and how long has it been so? Blue, since I was about ten.
4. Who is your current favourite adult performer? Mr. Pete is like a sexy Jason Segel and now you can’t unsee it.
5. What song is in your head? Lately a lot of Bowie.
6. Which xfiles episode is your favourite? (You can sub in Simpsons or Seinfeld for this question if needed.) The one where George makes the Yankees’ uniforms cotton and Jerry kills his girlfriend’s doves. (This is Seinfeld.)
7. Tell me one of your most obnoxious habits? I leave clothes on the floor like legitimately in a 2 foot radius around my hamper.
8. Bed-sheets: Tuck or No tuck? No tuck.
9. When someone says “I love you” do you always say “I love you, too”? Hehe, for a certain crowd of people.
10. What word makes you feel sexy? Babydoll.
Maps (Acoustic Version) – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
(Songs you shouldn’t play at 3:19am)
Holy crap.
Raising a glass/slut mug to herdirtylittleheart for her Slutty Saturday, which has been awesome and affirming and had a great activist spin.
The night before Halloween, Pup and I awkwardly scheduled me going over to his place to fuck him. The afternoon leading up to it, I was stupidly nervous. I felt like I was losing my virginity all over again – having sex with a non-primary partner without my primary partner being present. I was worried that somehow both relationships would be weirdly affected and was swilling around a thousand stupid anxieties while I got dressed and did my hair.
“Wish you could hold my hand while he fucks me,” I texted Sir, which was only half true. Part of me really wanted to go this alone. Call it an opportunity to grow and whatnot.
I ended up texting Heart while I did my makeup, going through lingerie options with her and getting playfully badgered about how late I was running. We came up with the idea of just wearing my black lace onesie, a pair of black thigh highs and a pair of black heels with just my coat on top, which ended up proving to be only semi-adequate in keeping me warm as I walked to Pup’s place.
He ended up not getting my text that I was coming over, and when I arrived he was in the middle of trying on his Halloween costume. So, yeah, I show up with my hair looking cute and in a long coat and a sexy pair of heels and then Pup is standing there in a costume. Because I cannot begin to describe to you guys that for however much you all insist my sex life is hot, it’s usually 500% awkward.
When we got to his bedroom, he gently pushed me down onto his bed and unzipped my coat. “Look at you,” he murmured against my clavicle. At that point, I was just a person-shaped cluster of butterflies and raw nerves.
That said, there isn’t much to say about the sex. That’s the thing about sex. We build up a lot around it, puff it up like cotton candy, and when you actually get down to it the real substance is just as gossamer. It was fun and good, but it didn’t change much of anything. It wasn’t revelatory. It didn’t break down my relationship with Sir. It didn’t suddenly bump up my relationship with Pup.
Except, afterwards, we ended up doing a really intense scene. Maybe I’ll tell you about that. It’s one of the darker thoughts I linger on when I’m in a certain mood.
For some reason this reminds me of herdirtylittleheart and thinkivykink.
I’m always open to a nice suggestion like this.
Wishing Miss Ivy a purrrrrfect birthday. <3
Thank you all for the lovely birthday wishes. I had a spectacular day.
I know someone with similar goals.
Mine’s probably arriving tomorrow, but how I wish it would have arrived on Saturday. It would have been perfectly appropriate to have a cup of tea from this morning.
And, for now, that’s all I’ll say about last night/this morning.
(US and Canadian orders can still arrive in time for Christmas!)
When I got a message on my blog that said only “Congratulations, slut,” I couldn’t tell if it was hate or a sincere thumbs up. Either way I thought it would look great on a mug.
Imagine yourself, after a hot night of kinky wild sex, sipping from this celebratory mug with a big smirk on your face.
Better yet, why not congratulate the happiest sluts in your life by gifting them this mug for the holidays?
$2 from the sale of each mug will go to Planned Parenthood. (Because this slut likes to give back.) colleague
Tonight I’m thinking about people I’m grateful for.
One of those in particular is herdirtylittleheart, who has been the best Femme Daddyish, poly buddyish human being lately. We’ve both been extending ourselves in brave and risky and scary ways with ethical non-monogamy/polyamory, and I really don’t know how I’d be able to handle half the stuff that’s been going on.