These instructions are text-only. One of these days I’ll get around to taking pics.

Read everything before you actually start, so you know what decisions you’ll be making.

Materials You Need:

a few rolls of duct tape
a non-sticky bodysheath, like a tight cotton T
heavy-duty scissors or shears
something for boning material
a helper-human
a hole-punching tool
lacing material

optional but recommended: a lot of eyelets and an eyelet-pounding tool or setter.

First Step: Wrap yourself

Put the tshirt or tank, or bodysheath on over your naked self. Say goodbye to it, you’ll never see it whole again. Decide where your corset will go on your body, and mark it on the sheath.

Second Step: Boning

Cut the boning material to the correct length, and tape it to the sheath.

I used inch-wide strips of the vinyl stuff that goes along the bottom of a wall in an office building. Six strips seemed to work for me, running vertically. If my body, seen from a vantage point directly above my head, were a clock face, with my nose pointing to midnight, the strips would have been placed at 10, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 9.

Third Step: Wrapping

Here’s where your helper human will come in handy.

Take duct tape, and wrap it tight around your body. Snug, not pinching. Keep wrapping. You’ll need several layers to be firm enough. Break the tape and wrap in the other direction frequently, because one-way wrapping will make your assets shift in a wierd twisty way.
Make the last, top layer as smooth as you can, or heck, tape a design if you like. Make sure the upper and lower edges are even.

Fourth Step: Removal

Take your shears, and cut the corset, and the now integral sheath, off your body. Use a very straight line down either your spine, or straight down your front.

Fifth Step: Make it two sizes smaller

On both sides of the slice line where you cut the corset, trim away 1 inch (or 2 or more) of the duct tape material. If you wanna get fancy, you can take slightly more corset away near the waistline, so the finished, cinched corset is more pinchy in the waist area.

Sixth Step: Finish the Edges

Using more duct tape, finish the edges with a couple layers of tape folded over the top and bottom edges of the corset, and the longitudinal cut edges.

Seventh Step: Make the Lace Holes

Using a hole-punching thingy, punch holes down both sides of the longitudinal cut. Make sure both sides match exactly in hole placement, so you’ll end up with an even number of holes.

If you’re wanting the corset to last more than one or two wearings, hammer eyelets / grommets into the holes you made.

Eighth and Final Step

If your lacing material is long enough run laces though the holes in the corset, step into it, and tight it up tight.
If you only have just enough lacing material, you’ll need help lacing it up while it’s actually on your body.

Final Notes

Duct tape comes in some pretty fancy colours. Do experiment.

Hardcore corset lovers may wish to open the front *and* the back to lacing.

Try it for size before punching all those holes and placing all those eyelets.

Use a thicker kinda material for the sheath-thing. If you use really thin or lace-like material, the tape glue will seep through and getcha.

Really, I do not write poetry. [grin]   But I’ve been known to write songs.

I Know You Are But What Am I, by Elaine Miller

I’m beginning to suspect it
I don’t know if it is true
But I’m surer every day now
and I don’t know what I’ll do

chorus1
My lover shows these signs, you see
I’ll detail them right here
I’m watching very closely
Because… I fear that she is queer

Not only, on our second date
she drove a UHaul van
I’ve listened to her music, she’s
a big Anne Murray fan.

chorus2
My lover shows these signs, you see
on each and every day
I’m watching very closely
I’m pretty sure she’s gay

She eats tofu, brown rice and sprouts
and drinks these.. herbal teas
She goes to poetry readings
where admission’s “sliding fee”

chorus3
My lover shows these signs, you see
I know I’ve seen their like
I’m watching very closely
I’m convinced that she’s a dyke

Her best friend’s name is Riot Grrl
they both wear boots of black
her favorite shirts are flannel
there’s leather on her back

chorus4
My lover shows these signs, you see
maybe I’ll ask her friends
I’m watching very closely
she’s positively .. lesbian

She speaks of women’s issues
as she bakes for a potluck
her friends all like to gossip
they know every time we …

There can’t be any doubt now.
I’m as sure as I can be
but… if my lover is a DYKE…
then WHAT does that make ME?)

Now this ain’t sayin’ I’m cheap, but I’m Scots through and through, and when I can make a whip for almost nothing, it pains me to pay someone $200 for the same product. Here’s directions for the marginally craft-enabled.

Make-Your-Own-Flogger Directions

A good “quick-and-easy-and-cheap; even” flogger. I’ve been trying to get these directions down as text… hard to draw a pic in ascii text. Let me know if any point is unclear.

Basically you need:
doweling or some such handle material (about 9-12 inches)
maybe a strip of lead for the non-tail end of the handle, maybe not..
glue (rubber cement)
upholstery tacks (or broad-headed screw/nails in a pinch)
a bunch of soft leather (like an old coat).

You need a square of leather as long as your desired flogger tails, (I’ve seen as short as 14″, as long as 30″. I’d start with 16-18″ to keep it manageable.) plus about two inches, and as wide as you can make it (the wider the piece of leather, the more tails you’re going to have.) You also can put two leather squares side by side, (try different colours!) but don’t try to make a *whole bunch* of different pieces go together unless you’re better at this than I am.

You can wind the same leather or a different one around the handle, (or not at all, depending on how you want your handle to look). Upholstery tacks and glue work well here, too. Some folks use braiding techniques, or cross-stitching for decoration and grip, but if I wanted that much of a professional looking flogger, I might then go and buy one… Unless I had more time on my hand than I actually do.

Cut the strips about 1/2 inch wide, (1/4 to 3/4 inch is a common range) as desired, but don’t cut them *off* the chunk of leather. Leave a strip of two inches uncut all the way along the top, and slice the tails only that far… like fringe for chaps, except longer… You know you have enough when you temporarily wind the two-inch strip part of the tails fringe around the last two inches of the flogger handle and it feels like you have enough. (some folks like only a few tails, some like a whole bunch…)

When you ‘ve completed the handle (however you want it to look and feel) fix the tails on by anchoring one end (staple, tack, glue) and winding/gluing the strip on *tightly*. Drive a few upholstery tacks through the resulting knob, spacing them around the circumference.

It’s good (IMO) to have a strip wrapped around the non-tailed end of the handle, (about a foot long, one inch-wide strip forming a kind of knob) to hold the keeper loop *and* to stop the flogger from slipping out of your hands. If you want to counter-weight the flogger, this is where you’d hide the weight. Wrap and fix it the same way you do the tails-end, for aesthetic appeal.

Free end of tails can be square-cut, or at a 45 degree angle, depending. Leather oil will add weight, often improve the way it flies… and the more uniformly you are able to cut the flogger tails, width and length, the better it will fly. The more tails, the more thud. The slicker the surface, the stingier it gets. Ditto if the tails are very thin. Experiment with leathers and colours and lengths and weights and widths, and .. and.. have fun making your whip!

Here’s some instructions for making a good, wearable dick harness. It’s somewhat awkward without pictures. If people email me and bug me, I’ll remember to take a few digital pics and slap ‘em up here.

Update — August 2008. I took pictures. Hooray! The discolouration on the green strap below is water, as I couldn’t seem to wait for it to dry completely after laundering.

Do-it-Yourself Stretchy Dil Harness

Ingredients

– Stretchy waistband elastic, 3″ (or more) wide (yes, it comes in black, at your local fabric store)
– Stretchy waistband elastic, 1″ (or more) wide
– 6 regular size snaps (about 1/2 inch or larger) (found in handy little kit in same local fabric store) (instructions in package)
– bit of glue, or needle and thread, or interfacing or some such
– piece of leather (or leather-wannabe like thick rubber) about the shape and size of a bicycle seat (maybe 6″ - 7″ long, 5 - 6″ wide at the top, 2″ wide at the bottom)
– knife or scissors, an awl or hole punch

How to

The leather piece is the codpiece/dil-holder, and the elastic stuff will snap to it, and hold it in place.
The thick elastic goes around your waist, pulled snug, with two snaps on each end of the band attaching to the corresponding two snapettes at each side of the codpiece. (the wide part of the leather shape goes at the top, the skinnier part at the bottom.)
Two straps of the thinner elastic get stitched on to the waistband at the back, one at each side. (Sorta like a jockstrap) These straps cup the buttcheeks, get pulled between your legs, and snap (with one snap each) to the bottom of the codpiece.

What it looks like

If the codpiece were a clock face, the snaps woud be at 1, 2….5,7….10,11 o’clock. All the “snappy” parts face up when it lies flat, face down.

You’ll need to put a hole, corresponding to your preferred dil size, in the codpiece. Best place for it seems to be fairly close to the bottom, or small end, of the codpiece.

The strap part, sewn together, also has all snap attachments facing the same way when you lie it flat. You’ll have one broad strap with two smaller straps sewn perpedicularly at about 1/2 and 2/3 of the length of the bigger strap.

Hints

Tight is good.

You’ll need to reinforce the elastic material where you put the snaps through it, or it will fray something awful. Interfacing, glue-and-leather-strip, zig-zag stitching… I’m still experimenting.

Fit it to youself with strong safetypins through the straps first, then cut and sew.

Strap can be laundered easily by detaching it and chucking it in the washing machine. (Yay!)

Not that I think there’s folks out there with no sense of humour. But, hell, there’s folks out there with no sense of humour. So, to those of you who are irony-deficient — better stop reading now.

You’ve heard of murderers of queers getting off on a “homosexual panic” defence? Well…

Heterosexual Panic by Elaine Miller

Elaine Miller, notorious Vancouver lesbian-about-town, hopes she’ll be out of jail soon. You see, she’s got a rock-solid defense lined up, which she says will get her absolved of all blame in the murder.

“My lawyer told me all about it.” she chirps happily. “It’s called the ‘Heterosexual Panic’ defense.”

Diligent reporting work brought up the following facts:

On the evening of January 5th, 2005, Miller was engaged in cheerful converse with fellow lesbians in a local and well-known “dyke bar” — that is, an alcohol-serving establishment catering primary to homosexual woman — when Peter Smith, a heterosexual gentleman posing as a queer man, offered to buy her a drink.

“I looked at him and thought, Oh, what a nice fag.” says Miller. ‘I told him ‘Sure, I drink cranberry juice.’”

Witnesses state that the muscular Smith talked his way into the group of women with Miller, who looked at his tight tank top, fashionable jeans, and short clipped mustache and accepted him as just another queer.

“Sure, he was a bit more coarse-mannered than your usual fag.” says Spike Butch, one of the lesbians who was in the group that night. “But I thought maybe he’d had a fight with his boyfriend or something.”

The crux of the entire evening came when Smith allegedly followed Miller to the bathrooms when she went to check her lipstick.

“He pushed me up against the wall.” shudders Miller, remembering. “He attempted to grope my breast through my flannel shirt, and then he said… he said… ‘Hey, Baby, wanna fuck?’”

According to witnesses, that’s when all hell broke loose in the ladies’ washroom. While Miller confesses she doesn’t remember much after Smith’s clumsy advances, many of the bar’s dyke regulars will never forget that night.

“God, it was messy.” says Shara River, a local softball player. “Elaine just started screaming and beating this guy with a toilet paper dispenser.”

“He had the toilet paper all wrapped around his throat. It was great. I mean, horrible. It was horrible.” says Spike Butch, who dates Miller regularly.

Other witness came forward about Miller’s attack on Smith, telling about Miller’s yelling over and over “I am not your fucking spritz-head girlfriend!” and “Straight man! Straight man!”, seeming in great anguish as she beat Smith with everything that came to hand, including a toilet plunger and a rapidly disintegrating urinal puck.

All in all, it took 35 minutes for Miller to beat Smith to death, there on the floor of the dyke bar.

“We tried to intervene.” said lesbian V. White “But it just was over too fast.”

So far, attempts to interview the prosecution have not brought fruit. Pardon the pun.

Stay tuned!

I’m gonna pose a few questions. Warning: I have no answers, myself…

Defining Dyke Sex

Is It (dyke)Sex or not if:

(1)
Two grrls in a relationship leap upon each other with fingers, fists, dicks,
lube, buttplugs, they stay in bed for hours, emerge sweaty, satiated,
and having both had many orgasms?

(1a)
What if one woman doesn’t have orgasms, or chooses not to?
Bonus question: What if neither do?

(1b)
What if they started, and 10 minutes into their time together, they were
interrupted by a fire alarm, before anyone had gotten really going, or had
an orgasm (which they both were capable of and wanted)?
Bonus question: What about if they were interrupted in the first few
*seconds* of lovemaking?

(1c)
What if two grrls in a relationship leap upon each other with fingers,
fists, dicks, lube, buttplugs, with the kinky intent to make one of the
women have an orgasm in under three minutes? (Timed, and she’s out
of luck if she can’t come by that time?) Is that sex?
Bonus question: What if she can’t quite make it in time?

~~~~~~~~~

(2)
Two grrls in NOT a relationship leap upon each other with fingers, fists,
dicks, lube, buttplugs, they stay in bed for hours, emerge sweaty,
satiated, and having both had many orgasms…

(2a)
Two grrls in NOT a relationship leap upon each other with fingers, fists,
dicks, lube, buttplugs, they spend less than 5 minutes in bed, and then
one of the women’s non-poly, surprised and decieved partner/girlfriend
walks in. Did the two dykes in bed have sex? Does it differ depending
on whose viewpoint one is looking at it from? (Is there ever an end to my
dangling participles?)
Bonus question: Does it change if they were in the backseat of the
aggrieved lover’s car?

~~~~~~~

(3)
Two grrls in a relationship, who do SM, get together to play. One
woman can have orgasms from BDSM activities, without being touched
genitally. While being touched genitally, in a way she perceives as
sexual, she can’t. The other woman has orgasms from genital touching,
but not from BDSM.
Is there ever a situation where one woman could be considered to have
had sex, and the other hadn’t? What if they each hated the alternate-to-
orgasm activity, and did it only to please their partner?

~~~~~~~

(4)
Is any of it ever about orgasm?

~~~~~~~~

(5)
Does the relationship factor change anything in your mind?

~~~~~~~

(6)
Is cyber sex “sex”?
What if it’s with your RL, long term, live-in-the-same-house partner,
who’s off on a business trip?
What if it’s with a stranger, who turns out to be a man masquerading as
a woman? Can a dyke become an accidental cyber-bisexual?
What if it’s with your best friend?
What if a remote-control vibrator (which is controlled by your cyber
partner) is involved?

~~~~~~~~

(7)
Is it sex if two dykes sit in the same room and jerk off while watching
each other?
Is it sex if two dykes sit on the same couch and jerk off while watching
each other?
Is it sex if two dykes sit in each other’s laps jerk off while watching each
other?
Does it count if one helps the other? In order to be “sex”, does it have to
include the moment of orgasm, or can it just be, like, holding the lube
bottle, or maybe a spot of nipple-pinching?
~~~~~~~

(8)
Is it sex if two dykes are in separate rooms, wherein the common wall
is made of plexiglass?
If they are pressed up against each other, with the glass between them?
If the plexiglass transmits heat?
What if the plexiglass has glory holes? Big enough for a dildo? Big
enough for a fist? Big enough for a woman’s head to poke through?
What if the “barrier” is soft and pliable, like clingwrap — or latex?
What if it’s very soft and pliable, but is opaque and soundproof?
How do we feel about dental dams, anyhow?

~~~~~~~

(9)
Is it all about insertion? Clit-rubbing?

~~~~~~~

(10)
Which case is “more like sex”?
a) Two dykes on a private couch kiss for an hour, stroke and caress,
pinch, scratch and pull hair, are totally into each other, completely
focussed, but remain dressed even though they get so wet that their
boxers will never be quite the same…
or
b) Two dykes fuck lackidaisically, (dick and harness) bored with each
other, simmering with hidden resentment, both wishing the other would
come already, so they could feign a leg cramp and stop. One is
fantasizing about k.d. lang, the other about Ellen Degeneres. It’s not
helping.

~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, I could go on for hours like this, but this seems oh-so-much-more
than enough.

Interested in seeing some folks draw lines — write me with your opinions?

-Elaine

Background: I had a little, intimate party at my home on a Saturday night during September 2001 with several *very* wonderful women as guests. My then-8-month-old Siamese cat, Random, as all who know him know, is a little freaky. He also loves people a little more than is quite normal.

Pondering Play Party Pussy Problems — by Elaine Miller

As guests arrived, we gathered in the kitchen, chatting and drinking coffee, and eating some yummy pizza that had been thoughtfully brought by the guest of honour. Random the Cat grew more and more agitated, leaping indiscriminately upon even the allergic folk, and trying to talk to and be on everybody at once.

Since he is clumsy (and pointy, too), I stuck him in the bathroom to relax and let the guests mingle without having a Siamese stuck to their chests. (If you think I’m exaggerating… please allow me to assure you that I am not)

When folk started to filter downstairs into the basement/rec-room for games, someone let him out… and discovered that he’d chewed a huge section of wood off the bottom of the door. The bathroom was coated with wood chips and paint slivers.

Once everyone was downstairs, we caught Random (he was climbing the recroom furniture, yelling with excitement), sequestered him upstairs, alone, and closed the door at the top of the stairs.

Some time after I had started a small game with my Loved One, people jumped and said “Is that knocking we hear?” As host, I went to investigate - perhaps it was the long lost missing couple of guests? the landlord? the neighbours?

I opened the door at the top of the stairs, tripped over my cat as he brushed by me on his way down… and found nothing out of the ordinary. I returned to my interrupted game, my guests - and my cat attempting to see exactly what about this recroom thing was so interesting. He was once more summarily ejected to have the run of the whole house - upstairs. Over the course of the next while, the noises coming from the door ranged from querulous meeps and mrrrrraiaows, to a sound I can only describe as similar to a full-grown adult human without the knowledge of doorknob technology trying to get through the door. He even knocked, I swear it.

I ignored him. My Loved One ignored him. We were busy. The other guests had congregated around a nice-sounding game in the next room, further from the stairs.

Suddenly I heard a noise that I could not quite believe. It was the rather unmistakable metallic sound of the *doorhinge pin* hitting the floor and rolling around, then the door’s scrrrrrtch as it was pulled open. “My god, he’s taken the door off its hinges” I said to my Loved One as Random romped down the stairs, and jumped on her chest, painfully squashing one nipple in the process. We were too stunned to move.

He left us then, and moments later the social sounds from the next room stopped… and one of the women walked by, dangling my cat from his armpits as she took him back up the stairs.

“Door appears to be off the hinges” she said on her way back to play. Neither my LovedOne nor I could speak. v

Moments later, the door rattled hard several times, then scraped open, and again my cat seemed rather proud of himself as he loped down the stairs and strolled in to examine the proceedings.

This time I got up from the table, took the cat upstairs as he complained bitterly that he just wanted to help, really. I bunged him in a heavy-duty cat carrier, fixed the hinge and the door, swept the splinters up, as they seemed like a hazard… and went back to restart my whole game…

So my only question is: Does anyone have a lion cage for sale? Cheap?

-Elaine, who has pussy problems.

For Random, who did eventually sorta grow out of it. Well. Not really.

Sex Kitten

Is he usually like this?
Umm, yes. But he’ll grow out of it.
This can’t be normal.
It’s just a stage. They all go through it.

Put him outside.
Can’t. He’s too young, it’s a new neighbourhood…
We’ll put him in his carrier.
He’ll howl. You know what he sounds like when he screams like that?

Maybe it won’t be too distracting.
(pause)
OK, it’s too distracting.
No, kiss me again. Mmmm.

Ow. You’re on my hair.
That’s him. He’s standing on your pillow.

Don’t move!
Why?
He’s looking devilish.
Close your legs — slowly.

I can’t do this.
Why not?
He’s standing on your shoulder, looking at me. He looks amused. We have to stop.

OW! Ow! Yaoow!
What!?
Bloody animal! Where’d he go?
What happened?
He bit my toe.

Let’s just make hot chocolate.
Sounds good.

SM vs Abuse: Compare and Contrast

SM is done for positive reasons: personal growth and erotic pleasure. It requires the knowledgeable consent of each player, and is often carefully negotiated beforehand. In SM, the situation is controlled. SM play stops immediately when someone uses a safeword, in any scene, at any time, for any reason–physical or emotional. SM players do not make an assumption of the right to control another’s behavior. Players follow guidelines for safe, responsible, positive play, and to act out each player’s desires. After play, both parties feel fulfilled. Good SM play brings players closer together, and is often initiated or requested by the bottom. It is done with the support and knowledge of friends and community.

Abuse temporarily satisfies one person’s need to control or hurt. With no rules or agreed limit, abuse is an uncontrolled act, with out-of-control emotions. A victim of abuse has no rights within the relationship, has no control over when abuse ends, and feels used and hurt afterward. The abuser decides what will happen, and does not respond to the needs, desires or limits of the person they abuse. Abusers mistakenly assume their right to control another by virtue of gender, income, or other similar artificial scale. Done in isolation, a dirty secret, abuse divides relationships and fractures trust.

- Elaine Miller, Feb 2001

Note: The wording and arrangement is of the above piece is the product of my own skull-sweat, and much coffee (It’s meant to be the sidebar of a much larger article on BDSM). I read several sources on the web to get some background ideas for this, including LSM NYC’s page, and some of Jay Wiseman’s excellent work. I also, of course, spoke to several players I knew to get feedback, and then wracked my brain to come up with more. If I can think of any more salient points, I’ll weave them in.

Scarring may be permanent. You never know.

There Must Be More Than One Way To Worm a Cat — by Elaine Miller

Has anyone ever noticed that the directions of the package of worm medicine for cats goes something like “simply give the cats the pills… pink ones first week, fawn ones next week, and pink ones again for the last week..” Just simple little instructions. “Give the pills to the cat.”

The little pink pills went down nicely last week in tuna, so I had high hopes this morning. The fawn pills, may I add, are flat, round pills of about 1/3 inch diameter.

They give you a nice l’il dosage chart, which shows that, for instance, my fat 12 lb tabby Frodo needs five fawn pills on the second week, and my slim 9 lb Siamese, three. It helpfully suggests that the fawn pills in particular be given after a day’s fasting.

My usual technique of giving cat pills consists of encasing the pill in a stiff blob of butter, sneaking up on the cat, and abruptly poking a finger down the cat’s throat from the side, pushing the pill ahead of the intruding finger. This provokes dirty looks from the cat, but gets the pill down without a great deal of hassle. You can imagine how that would simply not go over with 5 huge, nasty pills that would never fit down a cat’s throat. Cut them in half and we have 10 repeats of the finger-poke thing? My cats are smarter than that.

As you can see, I had a problem on my hands.

I mashed the pills into a fine powder and adulterated them with a small amount of tuna. They had a nastier smell by far than the pink ones, and I worried slightly. I put Frodo “Fat Boy”s plate down first. He dashed at it, frantic for food after a day’s separation anxiety. He skidded to a stop a foot from the plate, shot me a despairing look, and set up a renewed wailing for something to eat. Random, sequestered in the bedroom, had much the same reaction when he was presented with the doctored fish..

OK, so I was going to have to be helpful.

I tried Random first, placing him between my legs and speaking nicely to him… I opened his mouth, took a fingerful of adulterated tuna, and stuffed it way at the back of his mouth. I then tipped his head up and spoke gentle, encouraging words as he attempted to run backwards through my leg, and spit tuna at the ceiling.

At least a tenth of a teaspoon went down, the rest flew about the room, making nasty splats on my sweater, my lap, the floor. I would have needed the jaws of life to get Random’s mouth open again, and strange bubbles of saliva were leaking out the corners of his mouth. He looked forlorn. I left him in favour of “helping” Frodo.

In the kitchen, Frodo must have overheard Random’s culinary review of today’s entree, as he approached me suspiciously, hoping I was hiding real food somewhere in my pockets. My attempt to quell his appetite with the poison-laced tuna were met with violent struggles, and similar huge ropes of saliva and loud gakking noises.

I’ve given up temporarily. I am surrounded by drooling, glaring cats, and I am thinking of pureeing the tuna mix and perhaps running an IV tube with it…

Therapaphobia was written as a humourous short-short, for my hobby site, Psycho-Ex.Com (now defunct). It’s painfully true. Every word.

Therapaphobia, by Elaine Miller

Once upon a time, in the saga of the Axe-Wife, there came a time, when I was still committed to Making it Work, yet despairing of making sense out of the relationship. We were in dire straits as a couple, and she came up with an idea.

“Honey I think we need to go see a therapist. Together.”

“What?!”

“A therapist. I have one in mind. It’ll be sooo good for our relationship.”

“You don’t understand.” I said, panicked. “I can’t go see a therapist. I have therapaphobia. I have so many issues with therapists, that I’d have to go to a second therapist to deal with the issues from seeing the first one….”

Now, to keep the story straight, I had never seen a therapist. I just have this perfectly British horror of saying personal things to a bloody-damn stranger - who is being paid to seem interested, yet! I don’t wish to be insulting to someone who makes a lifework out of helping others, but I’d rather spend three days in an isolation water tank with a chronic drip, you understand?

“If you really loved me, you’d do this one little thing for me.”

“Uhh…”

I was sunk. Doomed. Hooked in by the oldest line in the Manipulation 101 Course Study Book. She made the appointment.

…

The following Monday, we arrive at the therapist’s office, which is a nice high-rise with a view of downtown Vancouver. As the initial greetings are disposed of, we are seated at a comfy little kitchen-type table. I am offered, and nervously accept, a cup of tea. Herbal.

She assumes the listening position. We begin to outline our situation - and she stops us.

“Before we start,” she says, with just the right amount of heavy portent in her voice, “I need to know some important details about each of you.” She turns to me, pauses, and says…
“What is your astrological sign?”

I think the tea cup will shoot skyward from my sudden death-grip, but it survives as gaze at her, wide-eyed, waiting for the punchline. When none is forthcoming, I say in a strangled voice; “I’m sorry. That’s classified information”. (This is polite shortspeak for: ‘Help me. I’m in quack hell’)

She pauses, sniffs meaningfully, and turns to my axe-wife, who eagerly offers: “Oh, I’m triple Aries!” They exchange meaningful glances and nods. They’re members of the same club.
“OOOhh.”
“MmmmHMMMm”
Both women turn looks of withering scorn and pity upon me. I am the Astrological Unbeliever, trapped in the temple of the star-crossed.

They spend the next hour in animated conversation about how the stars influence one within relationships, with pointed segues into Certain Stubborn Zodiac Signs. I spend much of the next long, painful hour wishing for tea-leaves in the bottom of my cup so I can show ‘em a thing or two. Perhaps if I’d read my horror-scope in that morning’s paper, I might have had better warning.

Piece written to be read aloud at Harry’s Cafe on the occasion of the “Women on Wheels -Rolling Feminist Library” launch. (mid-nineties) Still untitled.

Women on Wheels Reading

As children… although not only as children… we are fascinated with measuring ourselves against others. We seek to define what makes us uniquely us and what makes us just, comfortingly, the same as everyone else; drawing lines - this is me, this is you.

We compare ourselves with other children, and form a detailed model of ouselves, almost a set of performance specs.

And our model is made up of many things:

Everything we can see or measure -

I’m 8 and 3/4 years old. I’m 4″ tall! That’s average for my age. I have brown hair and funny kind-of-greeny eyes. I can run faster than Stephanie and not as fast as Allison, and not nearly as fast as the older kids.

Our model is also everything we are told about ourselves:

I am scottish and canadian, too. I am really smart and I can spell well. Or maybe: I am selfish and I am far too wild and I don’t listen. I am so spoiled.

And our model contains all the things we want to be. I’m going to be big, strong and confident. I can’t wait to grow up so I’ll know everything and never be afraid of the dark.

Using others as mirrors to see ourselves more clearly seems to me to be a necessary piece of growing up. It allows us to form our model of ourselves and with each new growth spurt, we use yesterday’s model as the root system, the foundation on which we build ourselves anew.

I began to read for myself when I was three years old. From tests in high school, I know that my reading speed is in excess of 687 words per minute. That’s way above average for my age. It works out to about a page every half minute, or a normal-sized paperback in three or four hours. Or a textbook in a day. That’s my cruising speed - in a hurry I can scan for a word or a phrase on a page almost as fast as I can… turn over a new leaf.

You didn’t need to know those numbers, but they might give you an idea of how many books I read, spending most of my childhood in a pink-carpeted suburban bedroom with mostly my library card for company.

I was a lonely child, and an odd one, and I looked through the pages of my books for an echo of myself, for a role model, for someone like… me.

In all the stories I read, there never was anyone quite like me. But I did know what I wanted to be, ‘cos when I was really little, everyone told me that a good person was someone who was brave, strong, intelligent and funny. When you grew up you knew the right answer for every question.

But then only a few years later, I was found out that a woman, a young lady, a… girl… was soft-spoken, shy, self-effacing, and emotional. She cared for others in a gooey sort of way, and waited to be rescued when trouble happened. That was the only way a girl could possibly be.

Fuck that. I was never going to grow up to be a girl.

So my scottish, landed-immigrant, old-country parents were a little concerned at their wee lassie running aboot the hoose pretending to be a pirate. Or a thief. Or a woods-wise forest adventurer. Or a spaceship captain.

My sister, five years older, had dutifully grown into a real girl, loving frilly dresses, keeping doilies under decorative miniatures, and waiting for her shining knight on a doe-eyed unicorn to come knocking at the door of our middle class, single family dwelling.
(I think she was reading my mother’s Harlequin romances…)

I slew knights like hers in fair combat a thousand times over. *And* I rode their unicorns. I imagined saving poor travellers from robber barons and in a gentlemanly way, returning them to their homes unharmed and thankful. I was Robin Hood, I was Errol Flynn, I was Peter Pan and I was the leader of the resistance and I fought for the downtrodden and the underdog.

And of course, there was always my fascination with the requisite fair maidens,… although.. I was not sure what one did with them after the rescue.

To my parent’s dismay, I continued to be nothing like my sister. Her barbie dolls had fashion shows and smootched with ken dolls. I threw out the funky seventies clothing, threw out the Ken doll, made little leather outfits for my barbies, and they flew spacecraft, or rode horses and fought villains with swords. They had treasure and trading goods and adventure and when they caught the bad guys, they… well, they tied them up.
(I was starting to figure out what to do with the bad guys. I still didn’t know for sure about the fair maidens.)

I didn’t really know it then, but I was trying to set myself up with an identity to live up to. I wanted to be a hero, just like in my beloved books, and it was painful for me to learn that I was not strong or brave enough to be the hero I wanted to be. I tried really hard to become stronger and braver.
At the same time I was realising that perhaps the heroes I strove to be were not quite real enough to be adequate role models.
I couldn’t imagine heroes writing letters to their aunties in scotland, for instance, thanking them for the dutiful long-distance birthday present of underwear. (A guess which was always wildly inaccurate both in size and fashion sense)
And the heroes never had a mother like mine, to whom the grass stain on a childish knee was the equal of wickedly defacing her neat and tidy ideals of girlishness and scottish motherhood.

“Your sister never gets covered in filth, why don’t you take a leaf out of your her book?”
Take a leaf out of your sister’s book… A scottish saying apparently meaning “Why can’t you be more like her? She’s a nice girl”
I never told my mother it was because *she’d* been reading Harlequin Romances and *I’d* rather be run through with my own sword.

I can’t imagine - can’t begin to count - the number of cities I’ve visited, the people I’ve met, the sights I’ve seen - in my mind’s eye… When I began to read science fiction at the age of twelve, it got even better - now I ventured out of our solar system, into new worlds where there were races beyond my comprehension, new ways of getting along on a small planet… and grand vistas of What If. I inhaled a rarified whiff of hard science here and there too.

I had no basis of conversation with the people and other children I met every day. They were quite a bit more alien to me than the book-bound bug-eyed monsters I hurried back from school every day to meet.

I was a geek.

I dreamed the dreams of people I had never met. My first love was a fictional character by a grand master of science fiction. No one, then or since, has ever quite measured up to that gloriously three-dimensional, happily imperfect, vibrant character who sprung to life for me every time I picked up my well worn paperback.

And my heros….changed. Science fiction was years ahead of its time in gender equality (once you got past the Space Bimbos and their string-bikini-spacesuits) and I could identify with a woman, the heroine of a novel as she thought carefully, made descisions affecting whole planets, or races and acted with authority. restraint. And bravery. This was who I wanted to be…

As I grew older still, and my always present but never discussed sexuality came to the surface of my thoughts and actions, none of the people I had met in my books, none of the few friends I had, none of the people I had *been* as a child - were anything like the person I now felt I was. I had no-one to discuss it with, and even if I had, I had no words for me, or what got me off. I couldn’t even say the words I knew. To mangle a common turn of phrase; I couldn’t say the word cunt if my mouth was full of it.

At the age of fourteen, physically sexually mature, and woefully ignorant, I was as tightly a sexually-repressed child as my doting old-country parents could have wished. On the outside.

I was too shy to expose my body, even in underwear, in front of another person. I could not discuss sex, or breasts, or masturbatory daydreams and the area between my navel and my knees was somehow invisible. Years of my mother screwing up her face and whispering about “down there” when the subject became necessary had instilled in me a deep distrust of all things to do with my… what? I don’t think I even had a word I could use in front of my parents. As if I would ever bring it up.

All I knew was what was inside my head made me the only person in the whole world who felt the things I did. No-one else could get hot and wet at the idea of power and sex games, of spanking, of tying up the bad guys… and of tying up the good guys. It was filthy, perverted… and invisible.
And so I did what I could, what I had always done - I did my research and looked for echoes of my sexual self in books. I looked for years.

Along the way I learned, by trial and error… er, mostly error. I taught myself to open up, to love my body and not to be ashamed. I got that idea from books. Sex turned out to be great, a good physical feeling and a fun game. I got real good at it; books helped here, too. You’d be surprised what you can learn about what not to do from popular fiction.

By sixteen I had *finally* figured out what to do with a fair maiden.

But boy or girl or man or woman, there was always something missing from “normal” sex. I experimented with tying people down, endlessly teasing, or spanking them. My poor lovers. I don’t think they knew what… hit them.

I kept catching a hint of myself in books - at people’s houses, the paperbacks hidden under stacks of playboys in the back closet in the bedroom. Some of the characteristics were right: sadistic control freaks, sex that wasn’t sweet and kind. But they were mostly just the stereotypical Real Man. And then still more princesses, victims, ravished heroines.

I couldn’t identify with them. I wanted to be female, but by my definition, on my terms. I wanted to be My kind of woman. But I was still the only one I knew of.

You see, as a *female* intelligent sadistic caring aggressive warm cuddly non-monogamous dominant bisexual control freak nymphomaniac slut, there wasn’t much in the way of role models or peers any more. Robin Hood fell way short.

I found lots of non-fiction about human sexuality. Learned and detailed, I *knew* these books must cover every little sexual quirk or identity in the history of humankind.

Well, I found out I didn’t exist.
There is no such thing as a sadistic woman. Bisexuals are some kind of odd people who can’t make up their minds and float from man to woman to man to woman. You can’t, apparently, be powerful and sweet. Women are naturally monogamous. Women are not kinky, but forced into degrading roles by their mates. All women really want to be controlled, taken, freed of their guilt so they can find absolute pleasure in the arms of their strong, brave, (sometimes thrillingly cruel) male lover. (sigh)

Now, I don’t knock the right to choose this path - my sister recently came out to me, told me she was and had been for years a devoted submissive, a fantasy fair maiden, the rescuee. But I always knew I wasn’t her.

Just like I knew I hated Harlequin romances.

Finally, in the last five years I have met others like myself - strong women making choices about how they want to live, and love, and fuck. At the same time I read with awe books and stories and articles by Carol Queen, Robin Sweeney, Sallie Tisdale, Pat Califia and others. So many others… Strong, sexy, brave women thinkers. Now that I know where to look, there are magazines for everything… Anything That Moves, Black Sheets, Lezzie Smut, Lickerish, Bizarre, O, Boudoir Noir, BadAttitude, Brat Attack, Metropolitan Slave…

And of course… Diversity.

I started the magazine because I grew up in a book. And I have grown up. I can be strong and brave, and I try really hard to be funny… I’m not afraid of the dark, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have way too many questions to ever get the answers straight. I’m grown up and I want to give something back - to entertain and titillate and educate, and provoke sparks of thought… maybe there’s someone out there like the younger me, wondering… if she is all alone inside her head.

I had many, many mentors through the medium of print, and I’ll never forget that I am the product of the ideals and imagination of a thousand people I’ve never met. But I know I’ve come an epic journey through all those pages to end up here… and I can look around at all of you - not the same as me, but in some ways, just like me - and I know that I am home.

This is another piece that was written to be read aloud. And it has. It’s been heard all over this town. It’s kind of trampy that way.

Sexuality, Gender, and Labels, Oh My! - Elaine’s Token Bisexual Piece or: Bisexual Bygones.

I used to be bisexual. Now I’m cured.

Bear with me and follow my logic…

The word “bisexual” brings up the memory of a statement of fact that I read back when I was an information-deprived budding teen. The book in question was a highly recommended volume on human sexuality.

(This is the same one that told me there was no such thing as a sadistic woman.)

The bisexual person, by definition, is one who has a relationship with a man, then another with a woman, then the next with a man, then a woman, and so forth. Riding a serial monogamy gender pendulum, if you will.

Way back when I read this, I had a brief image of myself, sitting down with my checklist, and saying “Ken, Barbie, Ken, Barbie, Ken… Ah! Time for a woman!” Then I would go out and find a pretty, feminine woman with long tresses and a mysterious thing under her skirts that smelled of talcum powder, form a lasting, empowering relationship, and until the next swing of the pendulum, make sweet love in a tender, feminine, butterfly-like fashion.

This was obviously not for me, ‘cause I like to fuck

Despite this, bisexual was the only word I had, so I kept it near and dear. And I went through some confusing times. Since the day thirteen years ago when I happily announced that I was Bi, I have been bombarded with the strangest comments from people, sparked perhaps by the myths that abound in the great monosexual world.

One woman told me that I was not a real bisexual, because in her opinion, since I was in a long-term, committed relationship with a man, I favored men by about a 70/30 split. This, I suppose, made me not bisexual, but 70% heterosexual - or, if she took an optimistic view; 30% lesbian. I wondered if 50/50 was the only way I could be Bi, or if she’d maybe settle for 55/45.

A few years later, another friend informed me that I was not bisexual, I was a dyke; because I was in a long-term, committed relationship with a woman. She was even worried that I might shave my head or begin to wear army boots. For her sake, I considered the mechanics of actually being straight, then gay, then straight, then gay… here we go with the pendulum theory again. Imagine a series of one-night stands - the identity swaps alone would make me quite dizzy.

Swinger, indeed.

A question often put to me by perfectly heterosexual men “What the heck do you see in women, anyhow?”

This makes some long-standing points of confusion suddenly clear in my mind, but is still, on the face of it, an odd thing to say.

I have been asked by a lesbian feminist not to openly admit my bisexuality because it would be bad publicity for the lesbian collective of which we were both a part. We were lovers at the time.

And then there’s a few “positive” myths, like this one:

“Bisexuals are so noble and open-minded! They love people for themselves, not their bodies.”

Oh yes, you are absolutely right, there. It’s not your smooth, warm skin and your beard stubble scraping my thighs, not your tight little round butt or the curve of your hips. Not your sweet, hard prick, your amazingly perky nipples, or my fist in your warm, wet cunt. Not your head thrown back in pleasure as I fuck your ass, run my hands through your chest hair, over your soft breasts, along the line of your jaw, and pull your hair. Pretty boy. Handsome girl. No, it’s not your body. It’s your mind I want. Really.

Apart from these types of myth-information, there’s another hurdle to being bisexual. Many professional sex-therapists, such as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, don’t really believe in bisexuals. Nor do many people on the street, who may have been listening overmuch to Dr. Ruth.

I just have not yet made up my mind, you know. Or is it that I am denying my real self? Maybe I haven’t met the right man - or woman yet. Enjoying heterosexual privilege, and afraid to give it up? Goddam fence-sitters.

Back then, being told I didn’t exist made me want to form a Doubted-Existence support group for the likes of me, Santa Claus, Bigfoot, and Elvis. I imagined us all sitting about sharing our painful coming out experiences, and the disbelief from family and friends. “Oh, sure, you are. Yes, dear. Whatever you say.”

Part of Doubted-Existence angst is this: You can’t tell who and what I am by looking. People tend to include me automatically in whatever grouping we both *appear* to be a part of – whether that be dykes, straight girls, bar flies, dominant women, or drag kings.

Don’t assume for a second that I don’t enjoy being accepted or acceptable. The welcome is wonderful. It’s just that the assumption limits me… by definition.

So, back to the term “bisexual”. It, more and more, seemed not to describe me the way I saw me. It wasn’t big enough, didn’t cover enough ground and at the same time wasn’t precise enough.

I tried using the term “Sexual”, but that sounded too much like cheesy porn. “Hi, I’m Bambi, and I’m Sexual”

I toyed for a while with being “gender-indifferent.” But that didn’t fit. ‘Cause whatever I might be indifferent to, it’s not your gender. Although if I were to feel attracted to a person of indeterminate gender, I need not label that person man or woman, male or female, to validate my desire. I can simply save it for a surprise, for when we get home. Or I might never know or need to know, at all. But that flavour of indeterminate gender, I’ve come to realize, can be seen as a special gender all its own. And it’s not indifference that I feel towards it.

If I wanted to be obnoxious–and let’s face it, I usually do–I might say that I have no gender-dependency issues. That, at least, is a little closer to the truth. What I look for may be your subtle wit, your way of moving, your willingness to play at inopportune times, your kisses stopping time…. It may be the feel of your skin, your cynicism, or even your uninhibited insatiability. You know what you want, and that turns me on.

None of these are qualities inherent to only one of the many genders. Still, “I have No Gender -Dependency Issues” takes a long time to say, and requires a certain amount of explanation, and even if it fell into popular use it would become an acronym in no time at all… NGDI.

I shudder at the thought.

Bigendered is a concept I’ve recently stumbled across, the idea that is not precisely of one gender only, but that a person can be either masculine and feminine on different occasions. The flavour’s right for me in many ways but again I dislike the implied polarity, the either/or. For I can tell you that a woman can experience her sexuality from a thousand different places along the gender spectrum.

You know, I think I’ve finally decided about these words: bisexual, bigendered, sexual. I’ll take them all. In fact, every word that will possibly describe even a small piece of me; I want.

So I’ll take slut, too. And polyamorous, and sex worker. I’ll take sadist and top and pornographer and professional dominatrix and gender-bender and rebel, as long as I can have tea-drinking philosopher, loyal and loving and ethical-as-I-can-be, romantic and sappy, and nerd, which describe me just as well.

I’ll take these words, and more. These words, all of them, they’re meant to be descriptive, so I’ll write them on something nice and sticky, and slap ‘em on. That’s what labels are for, right?

And I want everybody else to do the same. The rule is, you can’t stick (pardon the pun) at one, though, can’t let your world be bounded and described by one little word (whichever one that is) that no-one can agree on. You have to take all of them, wear every label that will stick, every one that describes even a secret piece of your soul.

I suspect what will happen is this:

Once we all have all our labels: the ones we choose for ourselves and the ones we are given by those around us, starting with the major ones and working our way along to the awfully minor things, the things we might not even think to talk about… we might all by that time have so many labels attached that we can’t see over them, can’t be seen around them, can’t touch another without them getting in the way. Then what I suspect will happen is this: We’ll all have take off the labels. We’ll all have to start again, naked.

I used to be bisexual, and now I’m cured. If you want to know what I really am, peel off my labels and look at the person inside.

This piece was written specifically to be read aloud, circa 1994 (grin)

Left-Hand Keys by Elaine Miller

I wear my keys on the left.

Even though I am right handed, and the left side of my black leather belt is sometimes a more than a little awkward to reach, I wear my keys on the left.

There is a reason for this seeming idiosyncrasy. (I’m sure there is.) I am advertising my Topishness for those fluent in the language of leather-woman-key-placement. Simple. Just a signal to other women.

I wonder, though, why I feel; bound; by a convention I’ve never voted on, when I have spent so much time during so many years putting a real effort into ignoring convention, and disregarding rules of conduct.

I’ve been putting some thought into it. And asking myself some questions.

It can’t be a fear of social disgrace, can it? What if, by chance, I am found dangling on the wrong side of the buckle? Perhaps my Top Membership Card will be canceled, my floggers tied in knots, my boots un-polished and my spanking calluses gently exfoliated to softness. I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t imagine that–after all, I do read Science Fiction –what I have difficulty with is the believing.

And what about the theory that hanky and key codes are passé, old-hat, out-of-style? Now I’m flagging my age as well as my orientation; Maybe if I got respect for having reached the venerable age of 27 years, 13 of which, in as much leather as I could collect and wear, maybe then I’d consider that enough of a reason.

Am I trying to become a babe-magnet? Because I tell you truly that I have never, not once, had a woman face me, her keys a mirror image of my own, and say “Ooooh, I notice your keys hanging there, dangling coyly. I never would have dreamed, were it not for the keys; Please take me home and spank me, sir.”

Also, on the flip side, I have never had a top heave a sigh of relief, steered away at the last second by the sight of my awkwardly placed keys–although it’s true that the one time a top did approach me, she hadn’t seen my keys. She was a very nice woman who’d just seen me in a magazine, and had liked my; ah; bottom. See, the reason she couldn’t tell where I hung my keys is that I was, at the time of the photo, naked.

I’m sure there is some lesson to be learned, there.

Perhaps I am simply sensitive about being a top; insecure. Maybe I have developed a burning, almost adolescent need to prove myself because I have been told over and over by so many near-strangers that I couldn’t possibly be a top, not me, not friendly, smiling, laughing me. I just don’t seem; mean enough. Not a sadistic bone in my body.

Such a quiet girl;

Maybe I am following an intense desire to teach passers-by about the intricacies of SM as I know it. Perhaps I invite a question & answer period starting with “Why do you put your keys in such a stupid place on your belt?” and continuing on with all the theory behind the motives behind the wishes behind my actions, my politically pure sadism, my squeaky-clean need to control, my sanitized-for-your-protection desires. I have all the safesaneandconsensual reasoning right on the tip of my tongue, really, come closer and I’ll let you read what’s written there;

That one sounds good, actually. A fashion martyr to the cause of education and enlightenment. A selfless teacher of naive newcomers and curious acquaintances.;;

OK, maybe not.

I’m worried that I may actually be limiting myself. If my keys say I’m a top, do I have to act like a Top all the time? And what does a top act like? I tell you, I’ve seen all those subtitled German SM porn flicks and I don’t think I’d have any friends if I acted like that.

“You will eat your ice cream immediately! Do not allow it to drip. Enjoy it or I will make you pay dearly.”

I don’t think I’d have too many successful relationships that way. Although I might make a mint in the movies.

If I decided to be a “top” all the time, where would I keep my attitude when I pet my cat? And does it mean that I can’t ask for a hug? Or we can’t play friendly, silly games and make faces? Or that I always have to decide on the movie, know the answer, keep my dignity? I can’t keep swapping my keys from left to right just because I’m feeling easy-going. What if there was an emergency and I forgot where they were in the panic?

I don’t want that limitation on my behavior. I don’t want you to think, for instance, that because I wear my keys this way; that I don’t want to - love to - be fucked. Don’t think that I won’t spread my legs for you and let you fuck me ‘til my throat is hoarse from screaming and I can’t think to form the words to say “Stop, I don’t think I’ve been breathing for the last ten minutes.”

I don’t want you to assume that at all.

But some of the things you could assume from the sight of my keys dangling at my left hip just might be right. They are a hint about my personality, telling you that I may have the desire to ride you to places that I will only know through the taste of your sweat. That I might possibly want to feel your throat under my teeth, my fingernails in your flesh. Perhaps I love the sound of my cane tearing the air–and all the other sounds associated with it. And it just could be that no matter how much I like to get fucked, I love to fuck you even more–feel you move for me, hear you scream for me, smell your lust.

I guess sometimes assumptions can be good things. What else would you guess?

That when I give an order, I want it carried out - but when you say “Make me”; I like knowing I can. You can guess that you should be in my lap - but whether snuggled up and telling me a secret or draped over, counting spanks - that remains to be seen.

Where I wear my keys tells you that your pain makes my skin come alive, and your tears are a gift to me. Just like your cunt wrapped so fuckin’ tight around my wrist, your hot wet mouth on my dick, your willing surrender, your trust. You feed a strange part of my soul, you give me what I need.

Yeah. I think I’ve got it. Maybe it is important that you can guess some of these things about me before we strike up a conversation - what with looks being deceiving and all;

Perhaps women like me should come with warning labels. Hanging my keys on the left of my belt is the best I can do, for now.