I feel like it is a cop-out to say this, but I will: be an informed voter.  I will make sure that my ballot makes it to whatever address I am at and I fill it out fully (and remember to mail it, of course).  I will research the candidates and issues thoroughly, so I know that I am choosing people who will represent my interests.  If in doubt, I will consult websites and voter guides that I trust.  I will also question any statement that seems unclear and I will, in the end, think for myself when I vote.  I will give my ballot the full extent of my attention until I am finished filling it out.

If a particular candidate gets my attention by their actions for or against choice, I will be sure to note that, and write on it if it has not gotten sufficient media coverage already.  I will make sure that my friends know my stance on these candidates, whether it be for or against.  If I get the chance I will do any meet and greets I can with local politicians to see if their in-person persona matches their political, public persona.

Previous years of Blog For Choice:
2011 (Didn’t participate/can’t find it)
2010
2009 (Didn’t participate)
2008
2007

First relationship: My first boyfriend, whom I have been with just short of 20 months at this point in time. We have been playing around with kink since basically the beginning of our sexual relationship, with a few mishaps along the way. He primarily bottoms to me, and I top him. Sometimes this borders on submission and domination, depending on how we’re playing.

Second relationship: My second boyfriend, whom I have been submissive to for a little over six months. We have various other anniversaries; we have only officially been bf/gf for a little more than a month now. Our relationship started out as purely D/s. Well, that’s the basic story at least. The big surprise was that we fell for each other–not really expected by either side, to be honest. We’ve had our little roller coasters, but nothing too seriously damaging.

I am cross-posting this on my livejournal (because I think it’s relevant).

But people might read what I do and how I behave, without seeing me, without knowing me and perhaps assume that I am a “slut” or one those nasty words that society uses to describe women it doesn’t like or thinks might have “too much sex”. Despite the fact that no one every defines what “too much” is. My guess is that too much is more than the listener has had.

The average American woman has four sexual partners in her lifetime and the average American man has six to eight, according to the Kinsey Institute. Would too much be more than that? I guess I’ve still had more than too much for a woman–I’m looking at eight right now at 23. Now granted, that’s not a lot compared to some people (a friend recounted her total and came up with around 48 and she’s about four years older than I am). But it is more than a few people I know (many of my guy friends). Who’s counting?

Is frequency what counts? Well, geez, I guess I fit into that category too. Only 7.5% of partnered women my age have sex more than four times a week (same source).

Is it when first intercourse occurred? There’s another category in which I look like a slut to the statistics, though not by much: 16.6 compared to the average American female’s 17.4 (same source again).

But who’s counting, really?

The fact that I am a bisexual queer poly woman, with large-ish breasts would be enough for some people to judge me a slut based on stereotypes, even without knowing the numbers. Not that the numbers matter.

What matters is one thing: I do not define myself as a slut, therefore I am not. Period. End of sentence.

One of the best ways to know that someone has wormed their way into my life in a significant way (usually some combination of sexually, emotionally, and intellectually–two of three is typical) is that I find myself missing them. It’s rarely at any obvious time–it’s usually just something that washes over me when my mind is not otherwise occupied. Or when I have a dream about them. Or if they come up in my News Feed.

Just going to put this out in the universe and see what pops up: if you think you might be someone I’m missing, please send me a message–there are more than a couple of you out there.

I grew up with the Internet. I watched it expand. I was in the know for Internet 2.0. I hear all the news about kids who gave out all their private info on their Myspace or Facebook and get in some kind of trouble because of it and I, like pretty much anyone born in the late 1980s and very early 1990s, thinks that they are idiotic buffoons. We know better. Not to say that we’re perfect–gosh knows, as a generation we’ve done some stupid things. But we also are the ones who have utilized social networking sites to grow social movements–creating groups, event pages and fan pages for our causes and spreading the word to all of our friends to do the same.

My Facebook is PG at most. There are no naked pictures, scandalous statements, or profanity. I have friended my sister, both of my cousins, my mother, my SO’s mother, my uncle, and my grandmother. My politics may differ from theirs, but that’s part of life, and they already knew about that. I know better than to post pictures of any illegal activity whatsoever. My generation is learning that future colleges and employers can and often will look you up on Facebook, so we should keep our pages clean. I do not link to this blog or any other site I am on, mostly because I feel more free to speak my mind on them and I’d rather my family, potential future school, or potential future employer didn’t know about the things in my life that aren’t so PG-rated.

These are my hands:

(Left-top, right-top, left-palm, right-palm)

What could my hands tell you?  Well I have short stubby fingers and small palms which doesn’t tell you much except that it runs in my family and I could tell you it comes from my dad’s side.  I would also tell you that the general shape of my fingers comes from my mom’s side and when my nails are long my fingers start to resemble hers more closely than my father’s.  You could see my cuticles which might generally tell you that I don’t get manicures that often and don’t really care to do them myself.  The wrinkled skin and wrinkled knuckles would tell you that I love using my hands and have for quite a while.  If you look closer my fingernails show little to no signs of bruising, which shows that I generally take in enough vitamins to keep my nails healthy.  You might also see the little scraped scars from my roommate’s cats which might indicate that I scar fairly easily since those normally heal rather easily.

My rings indicate lots of symbolic things and you can read those if you know what they mean.  Beyond that though, I might tell you that my mother’s side of the family loves to wear rings, especially my grandmother, and that I have gone from wearing two rings back in high school to the four I regularly wear now, with a fifth I wear on special occasions.  If you move my rings you’ll see indents that the rings have left in my fingers from long usage and at this time of year tan-lines, which shows that I tan pretty easily.

If you look at my palms you’ll see well-worn lines from being a musician, writer, lifter of various objects, typer, and nervous fidgeter, some of which you might actually be able to guess.  I also have permanent callouses on the pads of my middle and rings fingers from the above activities.  I still have very slight callouses on the tips of my fingers built up from years of being a string musician.  You would also see that I am actually fairly pale when I am not tan, since you can see the veins in my hands.

And you can tell all that from just looking at my hands.  Pretty amazing stuff, huh?

I love holding hands.  It is my favorite in-public thing to do with someone I’m in a relationship with/sexually involved with/intimate in some way with since I have some boundaries on PDA.  Kissing is okay as long as it’s just pecks, don’t put your arm around my shoulder because it makes me feel owned, please don’t grope me in public because it makes me feel like an object, et cetera.  Holding hands there are no restrictions on, other than who I do it with.

I love holding women’s hands. They are generally softer and smaller and fit better within my own than any man’s ever could. To this day, my favorite person that I’ve held hands with was a gal I dated a couple years back. Her hands fit perfectly within mine, which gave me a certain kind of joy. Never found anyone since who could hold my hands like she could.

Which brings me to the inspiration for today’s post: a podcast from Sex Is Fun. Which you should listen to if you don’t already. First link goes to the particular podcast I’m talking about, second goes to the actual website. This particular episode is on non-sexual touch and how prudish our society is about it. They talk about how we don’t tend to hold hands with our friends, just generally the people we are intimately involved with in some way, which tends to be true.

I subscribe to this idea: [www.gendersanity.com] where a lot of descriptors are separated from one another. To use myself as an example: I am biologically female (biological sex–far right); have a gender identity that is close to woman (gender identity–right of center, but not far right); express my gender in a way that on average is sorta androgynous (gender expression–near the center); and have a bisexual orientation slightly favoring women (sexual orientation–slightly left of center). I am both cissexual and cisgender.

Cissexual: my mental and physical sexes are aligned (biological sex and gender identity). I am not transsexual.

Cisgendered: this is a little more complicated. It also means gender normative. By the strictest definition, I am not 100% cisgendered, but I consider myself to be. My gender expression does not exactly line up with society’s expectations of how I should perform my biological sex. Society is conflating bio sex with gender expression in the term gender normative.

The first wedding I will be going to as a friend and not a family member is a very non-traditional one, since there will be two brides, both of whom are already married (to men), and no marriage afterwards–just a celebration of their love, which is a very sweet thing I think.

Then my favorite site has to do a feature on the idea of fathers walking their daughters down the aisle, since that is what the Princess of Sweden will be doing at her wedding.  That left me wondering a little about what my thoughts on the issue are.

What I know for sure:

• I would ideally like to have both of my parents walk me down the aisle were I to have a wedding.  Or to walk down the aisle or whatever with my partner beside me.
• I would not want it in a church nor performed by a religious official (with the possible exception of a UU minister).
• I am ambiguous about the idea of weddings and marriages as a whole.  I don’t like how one piece of paper that is often only granted to a man and woman can determine so much, like tax status and whether someone has to testify against you in court.  Why not allow consenting adults to form whatever partnership(s) they think will most benefit them with whomever they like and have that be legally binding?
• My parents said that as long as they had met my partner they would be okay with us eloping.
• I’m not wearing white.  Not a big fan of the color to start out with and I’d rather wear something I can wear again.  My general thoughts have been a midnight blue overbust corset underneath a black pantsuit with heels so I can look taller.
• Open bar at the reception or party or whatever afterwards.

What I don’t know:

• What I would say if just my father wanted to walk me down the aisle.
• What I would do if my partner insisted upon having a church wedding (though I would hope that at that point they would know me better than to think I’d be okay with that.)
• Whether I would want flowers–it just seems like a rather unnecessary expense.
• Whether I really want to get married in the first place because of my above-mentioned ambiguity about the institution as a whole.

These are my ideas for some I would consider getting should I ever decide to do so:

1. The Celtic symbol for the maiden, mother, crone triad, like this.  This is one of the ultimate symbols of female power and celebrating the circle of life.  I would get this at the spot where my neck meets my skull–on the other side of my neck from the fifth chakra and up a bit.
2. The shield of the city of Siena.  This city has a hold on me unrivaled by any other foreign city and matching the city I live in now.  I don’t know where exactly I’d put this, but I’m thinking somewhere along my right side.
3. The poly infinity heart.  I wear this symbol daily around my neck since it resonates so deeply with me.  It would be asymmetrical and have a red heart and a blue infinity sign.  I saw a design once that I loved but have been unable to find it since.  I would put this in the far left corner of my back, on the fat deposit right above where my back becomes my butt.
4. The claddagh.  This ideas represented by this symbol are some of my core values:  heart for love, hands for friendship, and a crown for loyalty.  I would put this diagonal from the infinity heart, somewhere near my right shoulder.
5. The title and the most repeated line of one of my favorite poems: Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas.  The whole quote would be the last two lines of the poem:  Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  This poem is written in a complex form called a villanelle.  I’m not sure where I’d want this, but I’d want it somewhere where each would have their own line.

That’s it, really.  Not sure whether I will ever get any, but this just establishes some possibilities.

This is meant to be part of a two part series on attraction and attractiveness, both written close together because both are in my mind at this point in time.

As a bisexual woman, I find myself attracted in certain ways to both men and women. However, and this is a big part of me, more often to women. Big secret time: about 95% of the time, maybe even more, I do not find men physically attractive when I first meet them. Women I can be physically attracted to from the moment I meet them. With women that physical attraction does not often change–either you are or you aren’t. With men, I find that they grow on me.

I am usually first drawn to women by their looks. I think maybe this is not such a good thing–this is how society conditions people to view and judge women, on their looks first and foremost. I know this is not how I want to be judged by anyone–I’d rather people find me attractive because of my mind than by my looks. However I am starting to think that maybe this is a function of where I usually meet women, which is at bars. One of my friends I was drawn to because of her personality–I met her online and talked to her for a while before I ever met her in person, and the first time I met her it was at a board game night at her house. She is not conventionally attractive, but in my eyes she definitely is because of personality and appearance, in that order.

Men, I am drawn to because of intellect, usually. To get my attention as a guy you definitely have to be able to hold my attention in a conversation, which usually involves talking about something that engages my mind. What happens after a while is that I decide whether what a guy talks about is interesting enough for me to want to talk to him again and then I will give him my number. Looks usually don’t come into the equation until much later. After a while, usually a month or so, though it has been more and less, I start realizing that I am becoming attracted to them physically. However, with my boyfriend things were a little different. I was first drawn to him because of a physical resemblance he bears to someone I was thinking about at the time. Then the rest of the process unfolded.

I have been emboldened by reading Look Both Ways by Jennifer Baumgardner in describing my attractions. The book inspired me to not be afraid of saying that yes, I am attracted to men and women in different ways and for different reasons and there’s nothing wrong with that. It is all a natural (and fluid) part of human variation.