Relationships | Ask Garnet

National Coming Out Day

Today is National Coming Out Day. I think that coming out is a concept that a lot of people really don’t seem to understand. Or at least people who don’t have anything to come out about don’t understand.

In general people who vary from the norm have to come out because everyone is assumed to be the norm unless otherwise specified. Heterosexuals, cis-gendered, and vanilla people rarely have to come out if ever. The exceptions being for those who may not fit perfectly into the gender that society expects them to have. Men who are “not masculine enough” or women who are “too masculine” sometimes have to come out as heterosexual, or at least spend time having to try to convince the rest of the world that they’re not queer.

But see here’s the thing that a lot of people really don’t understand. Coming out isn’t something you do just once or twice. Coming out is something you do for your entire life. Every time you meet someone you have to decide whether or not that person should know that you are who you are. It’s often a weighing of pros and cons. What kind of reaction do I think this person will have? Does my taxi driver need to know I’m queer? Does my dentist need to know? Does the woman sitting next to me on the airplane need to know that I work in the adult industry? If I don’t tell people am I hiding or am I just avoiding a possibly awkward situation with someone that I don’t know or care about? Or maybe today I’m just too worn out from explaining my identity and my life to everyone. Today I just don’t feel like having to be the one who explains what queer means, why I call my partner my wife even though we’re not legally married, or how important my job is to me and how I feel like I’m changing the world even if you think what I do is reprehensible. Sometimes I’m just not up for it. It drains you.

It’s a process. At this point I’m pretty open with everyone in my life about my relationship and my sexuality. However, I often let strangers assume whatever they want to unless I feel like they won’t give me shit or I feel like talking a whole lot that day. And, I’m not too open about what I do for work. I’m getting better now that I’m on the west coast. More people seem to be okay with it. But it’s just another thing I do that people frown upon and don’t understand.

So, while it is important for people to come out because it sucks to constantly lie about who you are and it’s important for others to know someone who is LGBTQIA or a sex worker, it’s also important to take care of yourself. It’s important to protect yourself in times of danger and to live your life instead of having to explain it all the time to everyone.

I look forward to a day when nothing is assumed and either everyone comes out or no one does. We just live our lives without having to explain.

I’m Gonna Get Gay Married!

Do you ever feel like the stars are aligning just for you? I’m definitely feeling that way.

Love Letter to My Wife

Today is my wife’s birthday and because our lives are so hectic right now and we’re trying to save money we’ve forgone the bday presents this year. So I thought that instead of buying her something I would write her a love letter. If you’re here for the sex advice skip this entry, but if you like reading about people in love or are just interested in us as people, feel free to read on.

To my wife

I love you so much. We have experienced so much together over the past four years. We met, we fucked, we became good friends, and eventually we admitted our feelings for one another. Once the feelings were released it all went pretty fast. We fell in love, moved in together, got engaged, and married. Not every moment in our lives has been perfect, but I could not have picked a more perfect partner to share my life with. In some ways we are the same person and in others we are polar opposites, but that is what keeps life interesting. But even though we don’t always understand each other, we always try to and that is what is more important.

You are my snuggle monster, my carrier of heavy things, my 1 day of relief from cooking dinner- even though you hate to cook, my provider of warmth or cold depending on what is needed, my pedicurist, my tailor, my therapist, my sounding board, my protector, my Russian nesting doll of crazy, my proofreader, my cheerleader, my toughguy butch who is really just a squishy soft warm loving person on the inside, and so much more. You always strive to make my life easier, more comfortable, and happier and you have made my life richer in so many ways.

Every day I am surprised that I was able to land such a funny, intelligent, interesting, person who shares so many of my values in life. I am so proud of you and your accomplishments. You are going to do great things in life and I’m really looking forward to being able to see them firsthand.

The past four years have been amazing and I cannot wait to see what the next four years bring. I am really looking forward to the next chapter in our life. I cannot wait to embark upon this next adventure with you.

I love you honey. Happy Birthday.

Also, there will be a special birthday dinner :)

Best Couple

There is this woman who comes into Early to Bed. She isn’t really a regular like the ones who come into the shop so often that they always need to ask what’s new. In fact, it took me awhile to recognize her as coming in a few times, but she is one of my favorite customers.

At first I misjudged her. I try not to be judgmental, but I do that kind of self-defense judgment of people where I’m always on the lookout for people who may be offensive or judgmental themselves. So if you look like you belong in a frat I will probably assume you’re a beer drinking douchebag until you prove me otherwise. I never said I was perfect.

So at first I misjudged her. The first several times she came in her hair was blonde, now it is brunette. She used to look like a sorority girl and with that slight southern accent of hers and her classic good looks I thought she would be a giggly girl with not much knowledge of the sexual world. It is people like her that remind me that I should not judge others.

It took me a few times to recognize her. All I realized about her the first few times is that she looked familiar. It probably took til the 3rd or 4th time of her coming in for me to remember that she is incredibly awesome. She is so open about her’s and other’s sexuality. She does not judge. She is extremely curious about experiences outside of her own, but not in an othering way. She just genuinely is interested in people. And she’s nice. She’s so nice.

This past weekend she came into the store with a man. Apparently this man had some history at the shop as well, but I do not ever remember seeing him previously. But you knew he had to be an incredible guy once you found out that he was married to her. This intelligent sweet woman. And he did not let me down.

They both wandered around the store sometimes talking to each other, sometimes talking to me and my coworker. Always having such engaging conversations about things they enjoyed, but never getting too personal as some customers seem to do. It was always light and fun. He enjoys ass play. They love watching queer porn. They want to see more real couples in porn. They read erotica together. He is extremely interested in any sort of theatrical works and therefore must watch The Curse of MacBeth.

Both of them so comfortable in their sexuality. Both of them in what appeared to be an egalitarian loving relationship.

As they left the store both my coworker and I found that we had smiles on our face. We decided that they should win the best couple award if there was one.

How Do You Define Your Sexuality? Contest!

Sexuality is an extremely complex thing that we try so hard to define in one or two word answers. But it’s just not that easy. There is who you are attracted to, what you are attracted to, what turns you on, what you fantasize about, what you wish didn’t turn you on, who you become romantically interested in, how high or low your libido is, how you achieve intimacy, how many partners you prefer to have, how your body responds or does not respond, etc etc etc. And unfortunately, most of us are not taught to explore what our sexuality is beyond straight/gay/bisexual or kinky/vanilla. And some people don’t even get that much exploration.

So I’m curious, how do you identify? What makes up your sexuality? Do you just choose to use simple words or do you feel that your sexuality is more complex and maybe even fluid? Have you not given it a whole lot of thought? Why not?

Leave me a comment letting me know exactly how you currently identify and maybe even the path in which you’ve traveled to reach your sexual identity. To make the deal a little sweeter I’ll throw in a copy of Fluid: Women Redefining Sexuality. One of you will be chosen at random to win this sexy DVD which I reviewed a couple months ago. The DVD is provided by Good Vibrations, but unfortunately does not have the DVD case, just a paper sleeve. But really, you just want the porn anyway. Who needs a case?

You know what? Lets make this deal even sweeter. The second runner up will receive a free hour of video on demand porn from HotMoviesForHer. Yeah, I just decided that right now. That’s how I roll.

For more ways to enter check out Mistress Kay’s blog. She’s the one who motivated me to throw together this contest anyway. In her contest post she also explores what her sexual identity is and what it means to her. So what are you waiting for? Enter!

Or stick around and read about how I define my sexuality and then enter. Either way.

Like I said earlier, sexuality is complex and mine is no different. In fact my sexuality has often frustrated me. You see I’m more physically attracted to women, but more emotionally attracted to men. This has often made relationships difficult for me since I often fell in love with men, but was more attracted to women. At one point I was completely madly in love with a man but when we’d have sex I’d sometimes lick his perineum like it was a clit and finger his asshole like it was a vagina. He never seemed to mind, but I don’t think he really knew what was going through my head anyway.

Don’t get me wrong though. I love having sex with both men and women. And in fact, often enjoyed having sex with men more. I blame this on the fact that I just had so many more male partners than female ones. When you have a bigger pot you’re picking from you’ll probably get more fantastic lovers … as well as awful ones.

For a very long time I was only attracted to people with pretty standard gender presentations. I didn’t really understand being attracted to people who defied gender norms until a)I became a gender and women’s studies major and b)I met my wife. Both opened my mind a whole bunch and led me to change my orientation label from bisexual to queer. I love the word queer because it is all encompassing. Now I tend to be attracted to a lot of different gender representations. I even often find that when people play with gender it’s fucking hot. I’m really only not attracted to douchebags and sorority girls. And yes, I actually think of those as gender identities even if they don’t. It makes sense to me.

On the spectrum of monogamy and non-monogamy I’m not really sure where I’m at. I’ve always tended towards monogamy in my serious relationships, but my relationships have often been very short lived. Now I find myself in a marriage with a woman I have been with for almost 4 years. That’s a long time. So we plan to explore. I figure that infidelity ruins a lot of relationships and I don’t want it to ruin mine. It just seems so unlikely to expect someone to be able to remain completely faithful for such a long time. I prefer to avoid that all together by opening things up and creating that trust.

My turn ons are things that I am not supposed to be turned on by. That’s what really gets me going. I like inappropriateness. If I’m supposed to be somewhere else, if I should be doing something else, if the location is all wrong, if it’s really really bad porn, or a stranger I don’t even find attractive whose body is pressed up against mine in a crowded train. All of these things make my genitals tingle probably because I keep yelling at them in my head to stop.

I’m also really turned on by seeing other people turned on. It doesn’t tend to matter who it is. I just love to see the look of ecstasy on people’s faces. Mix this with inappropriateness and we have a whole new game of awful things to be turned on by. You have no idea.

I’m turned on by sex toys, Old Spice deodorant, necking, big round booties, suggestive visuals, laughing, feeling powerful, the way different fabrics feel on my naked body, intelligence, longing, playfulness, flirting with cute strangers, being seduced, dorkyness, trashy boys, and androgyny.

I don’t tend to consider myself to be kinky, but am open to kinkiness in general and have participated in many acts that are far from vanilla. I have no interest in group sex as I prefer to focus my attention on one person at a time.

I have chronic pain that interferes with my sex life a great deal. At the top of that list is having arthritis in my hands and wrists. This can make sex very difficult especially on days with lots of pain. Luckily for me, I have a very understanding partner who doesn’t need a whole lot of warming up and doesn’t mind finishing herself off.

So that’s just the tip of the iceberg with me. How about you? You don’t have to go into the detail that I did if you don’t want to.

Oh and the rules:

contest ends at 11:59PM CST on 6/6/10
winners will be picked at random
leave a comment here telling me how you define your sexuality
leave a comment on Mistress Kay’s blog telling her why you want the DVD
Tweet up to twice per week (on different days) mentioning the contest with a link to either mine or Mistress Kay’s blog as well as an @ on one of us (I’m GarnetJoyce and she’s mistress_kay). If you tweet more than this you will have points deducted for being annoying.

Get crackin!

EDIT: Apparently comments have been getting caught by my spam filter. If this happens, just send me an email with your comment and I’ll post it myself. I will look into fixing this, but it may be difficult since I get a TON of spam and I don’t want to turn anything off.

My Identity is Erased

I hate that this even needs to be said, but apparently it does. I am not a lesbian. I have never been a lesbian and I will never be a lesbian.

For most of my life I identified as bisexual, but for the past few years I have identified as queer because bisexual didn’t feel like it fit anymore. I identify as queer because it is a big old umbrella term that allows me to be me. Bisexuality implies there are only two sexes and I do not agree with that. There are more than two biological sexes. If you don’t know this then I highly recommend you read through this website. Educate yourself. Also, sex and gender are two separate things and I believe that there is a whole spectrum of different gender representations and identities and I’m attracted to a whole lot of them. I do not believe in limiting myself. And I believe that sexuality is a complex and fluid thing.

I also stopped identifying as bisexual because I felt like it was a pejorative word. I was judged a whole lot when I would tell people that I was bi. Lesbians didn’t trust me, heterosexual men always asked stupid questions, and society as a whole thought I was going through a phase.

But even if I did identify as bisexual it wouldn’t really matter because the truth is that when I’m in a serious relationship my sexuality is always erased. When I was with a man I was assumed to be heterosexual and being married to a woman means that I’m assumed to be a lesbian. It is so frustrating to have your identity erased.

Am I qualified to teach about how to please men? Um yeah! Hello! I have sucked more cock than probably 90% of you reading this.

National Coming Out Day

I’m Gonna Get Gay Married!

Love Letter to My Wife

Best Couple

How Do You Define Your Sexuality? Contest!

My Identity is Erased

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