On Sexuality

When I was 15, I was determined to die. Just short of actively suicidal, I was sure that one day, very soon, the bus would crash, the booze would be too much, that car wouldn't stop as I sauntered across the street. So, sex was something I had to do before I died.

When I was 16, sex was the inevitable end to a drunken night. Sometimes desired, sometimes not, a few times it was held-down, struggling, not screaming because my friends were in the next room. There was comfort in these overgrown adolescents, the punks who wanted this punk teenage girl, with her shaved head and disasterous fashion.

When I was 17, sex was a game of conquests. I could fuck whoever I wanted to. I never had to say no or settle, because I was determined to fuck the prettiest boy in the room. I wanted to take my control back, to conquer, to attain. My weekends were full of drugs and bright colours, my mornings were twitching comedowns in someone else's house, afraid to go home all sketchy-like.

I lost a year or so of my life, after that. It started innocently enough, another conquest of an older boy. Slowly he stole my soul, my friends, and my will. He stole my sexuality, turning my fetishes against me, turning play-fighting into real hitting. Sex was mandatory, and I despaired and revelled in it at the same time. White powder blurs my memory of those days, when we were always searching for a better high, a crazier kink, another revelation. My squeaked-out words of protest went unheeded, for I wasn't able to survive on my own, or so I thought.

Eventually, I got out. Thats a long story, not entirely sad, but not the one I'm telling here.

I was 19. Leaving for university. Thinking myself soooo wise, so worldly, sooo strong. I didn't know, I think, how weak I was still. I slept with anyone that remotely piqued my interest, discarding them a couple weeks later, or being discarded. I wanted boys, girls, couples, anyone. I wanted to be in control. I wanted to be worth something.

A short, abortive relationship. After we broke up he raped me in my bed, drunk and there under the pretense of "talking." "You'll like it", he said. "You're so beautiful, I have to do this to you." He took advantage of the leash I had handed him, the buttons I gave him access to, even after I tried to take the other end of the leash back.

--------------------------------------------

The common thread of all these years: Sexuality based around submission. Whether it was being dragged out of me or thrown at someone's feet, I screamed, "take me." I drowned in losing myself, in the deep pools of dissociation, in the abjectness of it all.

I even found a healthy, happy output for this sexuality. When I was 20, I met my lover. We learn and grow together, experiment, teach, learn, take things too far, cry, and do it all again.

However, I find myself coming to a new phase in my sexuality. Does it have to do with stripping? Maybe I respect myself more because I have to, I need to maintain my boundaries in the club. Are these walls a remnant of my work persona, staying up too long?

My energies are all off. I feel desire, I feel attraction, but I don't feel passion or lust. My lover and I have slipped into the grind of life; sex happens in quick bursts, or on sundays. (the few sundays we are here.) I've fallen in lust with a dozen women in the past year, but I'm afraid to approach them now, when in the past I would have seduced, cajoled, charmed, and kissed my way into their beds. Now that I look at myself with some measure of respect, rather than careless abandon, it's harder to stand next to them and feel worthy. The beautiful tall damaged redhead. The candy-coloured cutie. The beautiful costumed women I meet at festivals across the country.

Every time I think I've found myself, figured out where I fit in, I feel the growing pains of my skin stretching and shifting again. Pulling over my bones, scraping, too thin here, too thick there.

My lover worries. I seem to be sick all the time. Is it mould in the walls? Anxiety? or simply a missalignment of the chakras? Do I have time to investigate these changes among my crazy life? To meditate on sadness and detachment? Can I convince myself that I am worthy again?

Has anyone else in the industry experienced this detachment of sexuality? I don't know if it is a common problem in general, or if my problem is just the transition from sub to not-sub. An equal (that still loves the whip.)

Perhaps I'm just always crazy, never in balance. Ah, well, where would I be without a quest to improve myself? Bored, I suppose.