blowjobs.

i had a really interesting bar-hopping slew of conversations yesterday with a close friend. about sex. about things we craved, and things we were scared to want. and how - as much as we may deny it at times - you really can't fight chemistry.

and i mean, chemistry chemistry. lab coats and brains and stuff. like the energy of attraction being less about abercrombie and more about electrons.

cuteboy, as i will henceforth refer to him, was at the spoon today. startled me a little because he was the first person i saw as i came bounding up the stairs, and as soon as i saw him my heart skipped and i remembered dancing last saturday. and trying to explain to the close friend what i wanted, nay, craved these days: boys.

boy energy. loose around the gender part, but just this zing of sensation i feel around intimacy with individuals more masculine than myself. and yet, not all masculinity, because i have not yet been able to enjoy/desire (or even really pursue) sex with nontrans men.

speaking with this close friend...who needs a cool name too...ummm....teddy. talking with teddy, i learned that she too has a dilemmna involving maleness. teddy has feelings for a nontrans man. has never experienced such a situation. but her identity is very centred around being more or less a 'butch dyke'. what does that mean? she is afraid of entirely letting go with said person because what if she really connects? its scary, this gender thing. this identity thing.

i feel the implications of feeling attracted to trans men and not nontrans men. its not about crushing as soon as i know they are trans. but something in me senses some sort of gender awareness. it is perceivable in demeanor. in energy. it is for the same reason i am oh so attracted to genderqueers and gender variant people that embody that masculine energy that is different than my own.

and then. there's this girl. we shall call her, woolf. woolf is dating a queer nontrans boy. and is really into said person. but seems conflicted as to what that speaks of her queer relatively lesbian seeming identity.

and so. of three of us 'queers' there is this conflict around masculinity. and fair enough. masculinity is given power.

for me, it is not that i see remnents of female identity in trans men. hardly. i very see and feel a masculinity about them. one that i am often attracted to. but perhaps on a chemical level, i am not wired to desire nontrans masculinity, though i often entertain the idea of it and will likely attempt to pursue it again.

i respect woolf and teddy. and their desires. but understand how difficult these waters are to navigate. teddy running away with her beau could be interpretted by the queer community as a loss. and to the hetero world as a gain. and as only natural. and place her past queer history in a box of 'just a phase'. and so it is easy to understand why she would be scared of 'seeing what happens' with this boy.

woolf talking constantly about her queerness is understandable in the same vein. her parents are excitably asking questions about the 'boyfriend'. this can feel like a devaluing of one's queer identity, especially if greater excitement is displayed over a, generally speaking, hetero relationship.

'oh so you broke up with kristen. so are you back to men now?'

'i hear you're dating ben! does that mean you're done with girls?'

blah de blah.

i roll my eyes at myself, because i have written another blog post about sex. but i think its interesting - just like dissecting our human functions on a microbiotic level - that we want what we want. but we deny what we want too. for the sake of the movement. and our identities. and ourselves.

lately i have been dreaming about blowjobs. giving. but i have also desired receiving. i am thankful that i am more excited and less ambivalent about my fluidity.

even cows get the blues.

i hate the employment centre lady. she incessantly harps on me for using the internet for anything other than job searching. what freakin ever. no one else is heeeere. it happpens to be thundering outsiiide. takkkee yourrr mandate and shoooove it.

ahem.

hate is a strong word. i have not been feeling quite so strong lately so using it feels good. artsweek is now over and i must go take my exhibit down and stash 8 large scale super hero self portraits of myself SOMEWHERE in my apartment. seeing as my roommate has decided to move back home with the parentals, leaving me high and dry, so i'm sure having my face all over the living room will aid me greatly in the new tennant shopping department.

win-win.

snarky is coming easy today. why? well...i'd been having reoccurring fantasies about sleeping with a close friend. and simultaneously i have been on-and-off reading this book about open relationships. it talks at great length about intimacy - explaining the topic in one of the most astute ways i have yet to read. and it gets to the topic of friends, and picks apart the notion of "dude. we can't sleep together. we're friends" in a rather smart fashion.

and really. okay. so...in order to sleep with someone, if i can't have no-strings sex with a friend i must:

a) court someone new until we reach date #three/five/nineteen (whatever your holding period is) and we're allowed to bone

b) pick up a random

c) pimp myself

d) pay for sex


c is of no use, as i am living in peterborough and wary of the sex worker scene. d, well, i'm broke. i already tried a this summer. and the romance and stuff was lovely, but immediately after the sex, i was told that they couldn't do the open/poly/thing and were more into someone else.

and so i'm left with b. again. and pick ups have their fun. and sexy. but sometimes, i crave a little more than that. a little more intimacy. like wendy points out in her book, intimacy can be a really connecting conversation. and sometimes sex can, well, be like a handshake. or doing laundry. or eating a sandwich.

anyway. now said friend is all upset at me for putting them in the place of having to reject me. and also thinks i value our friendship less for proposing sex. ugh.

it's fine. no really, its fiiiiiiiine.


in other news, i am off to guelph soon soon soon to give an anti ableism workshop. you can even register online (a fact that i discovered when googling my name. vain. yes.)

<>

i am excited but also nervous. i have given many a workshop at this point. but i mostly stick to sex (as a reoccurring theme). so i will undoubtedly bring up sex, and hope that is okay.

speaking of, my good friend iris (who now lives in guelph...which is happy/sad...i miss her...and if she is reading this, so does elliot, and we gushed about you at a bonfire party quite drunkenly...straight gin = direct transit to sloppy town....but happy also because it means i have fun people to visit when i come to do my workshop!) is doing a paper and needed a topic.

one of those, pick your own adventure kind. so she wants to discuss accessbility in a philosophy way (since that is her major) and i brought up blindness and porn.

sites like porn for the blind are indicative of what exists out there. mainstream hetero porn 'adapted' for the visually impaired. iris found the actual voiceover hilarious, but resultantly unsexy. and i talked to her about how its quite an accurate testiment to how we view 'dis-ability' in the first place.

i would like to keep going with this conversation, but the employment centre is closing soon, and bitch lady will probably tell me to leave because i am breaking the rules again. even though no one is in here. but me. as per usual.

next post. sound porn. and the question of whether or not i can get grant funding to create my empire. maybe if i file it under 'experimental art'. or even...um...'sexual health aid for the blind'

xoxo my darlings.

terracotta

a friend posted a photo on my facebook wall the other day, of a woman named Florence Pickner, dated 1912. no face, back to the camera- just a picture of her back. scoliosis about as pronounced as mine. 

and i don't know why but the picture made me uncomfortable. 

perhaps it bore too much resemblance to some of my own work. or maybe it was because, in trying to find the original source, i googled 'scoliosis' only to find dozens of images of the same vein. 

faceless. spines either intact with curve or wearing scars and correction with a sort of brazen-reversing pathos. 

the search led me to flickr pools of scoliosis spines, scars, befores and afters, and comment upon comment praising God, other sources of beauty, and perseverance. 

why am i angry?

i am hardly the only one here. maybe i'm sort of sick of humans sometimes. her scars but still rebellious spine in one picture. her 'unaffected' face in another. 

"hunny, you're still a pretty face" (blogger)

right. 

gahh. this girl...left a comment on her artsy self portrait. to the effect of:

Went to bed last night crying over everything scoliosis related. Being frustrated at the fact I can't lie flat on my back. Frustrated at the fact I still feel like a hunchback and my back feels heavy. It ached so bad, my spine felt like it was still twisting, despite being healed for just over 7 years now, and ripping out of my skin. 

where's the room to be a hunchback and like it? where's the room to not cry yourself to sleep because your body is resisting the surgery you desperately wanted to correct the curve?

i am not trying to sweep over anyone else's experience here. yeah, pain. yeah, hurting. but what about the ways its not those things? what about the spaces for great?

and of course all of this got me thinking about sex and gender. how i embrace my trans friends desire to transition. how that surgery should be free. but how there is this part of me that squeaks and squirms from somewhere deep inside. for those who want to say that sometimes their body isn't home, but because of other people. how i'd like to be in between. in between the tiles. 

and there's privilege there, granted. being okay with being perceived as girl because of my boobs, my height, my femininity.

i think about cultures that (before colonized with the white way of gender dichotomy) esteemed those who felt themselves to be two-spirited, pan-gendered, and differently gendered. 

i get called a lesbian. i get told how i'm supposed to behave accordingly. by queers. by allies. its easier at times to interact with the 'ignorant hetero world' for this reason. because its like drag for me. i use the body i have and the garments and i play a role. it is a believable act and no one questions my authenticity. it is assumed.

but female drag in a queer event? swooning over gay boys? no no. you like pussy. you like lumberjack attire. wait- you're wearing plaid and going to go practice salsa? where is your dress. tsk tsk. 

rambling again.

but back to backs. 

my back is my back. i don't know it any other way. it curves a fuckload. and it tires me out sometime. but its mine. sure, i could try and 'correct it' too. but surgery is painful. and expensive. and it would change me. maybe i'd be happier. maybe i'd pass under the radar a little more. i'm no 'pretty face' so perhaps i could use the pretty normal points. 

i've been asked when i'll move on from what i've been doing artistically. explore a different subject. and my response has always been 'when it feels finished' but i half worry that it never will in my lifetime. 

i like the world at my angle. 

its not inspirational. its not even that fascinating. but my back invites conversation, which sometimes inspires me and sometimes offends me. either way, my body is how i know the world, and how i've become able to assert the importance of my presence. 

blah blah. so my art is provocative. its only half provocative because i'm showing people shit they don't want to see. or so they say. but they love looking. and seeing someone who isn't sad at all. its weird. its quirky. i'm fucking with you, and i know you realize that on some level. 

can't a kid just being a hunchback? 

i guess its tied to my appreciation for artists like Lady Gaga. sure she's just as vapid and blonde as the rest of the A-list celebs. but she likes wearing things and saying things that people feel weird about. and i like that. 

today i am wearing red pants and a terracotta shirt. its yummy.

busted knee

what a whirlwind.

thank god it's over. i love pride, but jeez - maybe its the small town in me, but the sea of thousands of faces gets exhausting. and courtesy of the woman who decided to plow her bike into my weak knee during the QUAIA contingent of the pride parade, i am still a little worse for wear.

good news found me when i returned, however. my proposal for artsweek was accepted!

here's the finalized summary for the guidebook:

The Justice League of Gawkamerica is an installation of several to-scale photographic foamcore superheros, assembled en masse throughout The Spill (414 George Street). The figures - each a self-representation of the artist - comprise a comic-style narrative about disabled imagery.

also, pride weekend wasn't without its highlights. including, but not limited to:

• my lovely professor carla finding me sitting on wellesley at 1am smoking and drinking wine from a cup (classy broad).
• marching in the FIRST fucking trans march. so many people. such awesomeness.
• a fellow QUAIA marcher being punched in the face by a disgruntled man.
• being kicked out of the washroom at woody's for being in a stall with someone else (teehee) only to have the staff member (upon seeing my, ahem, appearance) gratuitously apologize  to my companion, and tell my companion that i could use the accessible washroom upstairs, for which we would need a key from the bar. well i got the key. and took a few liberties. 
• not spending more than $20!
• wearing a mesh shirt, booty shorts, a leather vest, and a sailor's hat. together. in public.
• dancing, dancing, and more dancing.
• my brother's first pride! and having him march along the sidelines of the dyke march.

also also...in other pride-ish related news...

i went to my first pride bathhouse, courtesy of the lovely Women & Trans Bathhouse Committee organizers. unfortunately for anyone reading, i can't quite kiss and tell (confidentiality), however i will say that it was an unforgettable experience.  a few steamy encounters, a few passionate conversations, a lot of tickling and tantalizing sights and sounds, and one little genderqueer raised in uxbridge left with a mindful of ideas and the anticipation of future exploration.

it wasn't entirely positive times for all, sadly. there was a fair bit of backlash from certain attendees regarding the transmale presence at the event. some bickering can be found on craigslist. read at your own discretion. transphobia and racism abound, these attitudes are troublesome, as a trans ally with a body nearly exclusively read as female, though i am far more gender variant.

the waging war over the sanctity of women-only spaces. ultimately, the event was advertised as trans-inclusive. ultimately, there are even FEWER spaces available to trans people to sport their sexiness than nontrans folk. and some of us came to the event PRECISELY because of its promise of being a gender cornucopia, so to speak.

everyone should have access to such a sexy space...and later run-ins...complete with a smile and a wink.

'yeahhhhh...we were hot in that stairwell, weren't we'

;)

strange disease

i just watched 40 days and 40 nights.

god, that movie is terrible. minus the terribly hot flower scene and the lovely sasha mossman.

mmmm. anywaaaay, josh harnett's acting aside, it did get me thinking about the things we (ab)use in order to avoid dealing with our shit. 

its been pretty tough lately, dealing with unemployment. its even stunting my creativity. though i was able to complete three paintings today. i definitely keep using alcohol to avoid over-thinking my life. but it doesn't quite work. and comes with the added bonus of never really being able to stop when i start. which leaves me hungover and lethargic the next day...and so it goes.

i'm sure i'd be using sex if i wasn't so in my head. or maybe if there were more a pool in this town. 

sigh. 

sometimes the hardest thing is to admit that you're still licking the wounds of your last heartbreak. nonetheless, i think today marks day one of my abstinence from alcohol. and if i get sad...i'll just....paint things?

in other news, i stopped by the CMHA building today and picked up some resources. turns out they have a help line for people with mood disorders where they will actually come and meet you in person if you need to. pretty cool, eh? and i nabbed a calendar of events. next tuesday there's a workshop on healthy relationships. bam!

things are lookin up.

the coffee's on

i like days like today.

the sky is bluer than blue, the trees are tall and leafy, with foilage that seems to spread like fingers through hair, and i am up.

up early from bed, yes. surprising after spending an evening drinking scotch. but also up as in not down.

so i figured i would write myself a note on here for when this is not the case:

dear jes. chill the fuck out. let the world fall over you. love me.

film project

my buddy kate and i are working on a film. it's going to be about 30-60mins and focus on disability, sex, queerness and smut through a narrative-docu lens. i'm super excited about the project but only now am i realizing how HUGE an undertaking these things are. 

so we were sitting down for brunch with her pal who was giving us advice on how to write a budget, etc, and she said 'you know, you'll probably get asked why sex? isn't sex oppressive/dirty?'

and it's funny how the most obvious questions can be the most difficult to answer. 

sex. its that thing that we all have in so many capacities. stolen. empowered. but it plays a role in defining us a people. personally it was the battleground on which i lost legitimacy in my humanness.

Can you even have sex? Can you even kiss? Did god make you to be celibate? 

i'm a survivor, so its not as though i don't realize sex isn't always pleasure - isn't always empowering. But isn't validity something we all chase?

if i meet you under the sheets instead of on the street, the rules change. we're naked and fucking and it's forgiving and about getting off, rather than pretending we're normal. i can see every freckle, mole, stretch mark you hate. and my business is loving your body - if only momentarily.

it changes things. its the proof i need to demonstrate what my tired words never suffice. telling you i'm 'normal' is bs. telling you i'm just like you is also bs. telling you i wanna fuck and it'll be hot, is not. 

sex is that place of infinite contradictions. you can fuck someone you hate. you can fuck to express love. you could fuck and rather be doing your laundry.

i'm sick of having to smile and play the part of some two dimensional helpless, white quasimodo girl just to get respect. respect doesn't get me laid, i'm sorry. and yeah, sex isn't everything. but goddamn it, i like a good fuck as much as the next guy. 

so i look at porn and think - well yeah, this isn't me. no hunch backs. no facial differences. no clubbed feet. i can't go around telling you i'm 'just like' these porn stars, cuz i'm not. my body maps different curves. and jesus. i don't want every crip to have to go through as much therapy as i did to unpackage the ableism they're swimming in, just to realize 'hey - i'm fucking sexy' ten years and several thousand dollars later.  disability should not be a scapegoat for self deprecation and masochism - an excuse to not let yourself be happy. 

and sure, not everyone's gonna listen to me. we're a breed hell bent on destruction. but some of you will. and if that gets a few more sexy crips laid, then i'll die a satisfied queer.

i mean really. who wants to waste any time wondering if the sex they do have is just a series of pity fucks? 

i'm worried too. i know that putting myself out there like this has risks. a lot of which are due to the fact that we are all on different pages when it comes to what acceptable behaviour when it comes to being naked for public viewing.

but when i stand in a doctor's office and let him touch and examine my body i do not feel ecstasy. nor when i stand in a naked in a gallery, on the walls. but one is expected of me. regularly. the other, rarely. 

you're allowed to look at me in text books at the library and its science but in a magazine behind the counter its filthy? what is oppression, anyway? 

it's control. 

when i get naked for my lens, its mine. when i am depicted as sexual, its mine. when i force you to deal with my sexuality, gender, privilege, scars, your fetishes, your fear - its mine.