Best Sex Writing of the Year

by Jon Pressick

  Kinky, Sober and Free: BDSM in Recovery

  Rachel Kramer Bussel

  What’s the link between BDSM—the catchall term for bondage, discipline, domination/submission, sadism and masochism—and sobriety?

  Can you be clean and sober and still engage kinkily? For those who identify as clean and kink-friendly, the answer is a resounding, “Yes, please (may I have another?).” The connection is being borne out as supportive communities of like-minded people are springing up around the country.

  The issue goes beyond physical safety; as one woman told me, “Who wants to be flogged by a drunk guy?” While a number of interviewees reported they have attended play parties—often in private homes—where alcohol and drugs abound, most organized play parties frown on, or explicitly forbid, such substances and often turn away players who show up intoxicated. (This is also a common complaint of professional dominatrices, who often have to turn away drunks.)

  Mollena Williams—a BDSM educator and the coauthor of the guidebook Playing Well with Others—founded San Francisco’s Safeword, which offers a “12-Step modeled approach to recovery for kink-identified people.” She began the group in 2007 in response to her lukewarm reception at traditional AA meetings. She recalled that her tastes were considered to be incompatible with her sobriety: “People are often ready to attribute your desires to do kink or BDSM as part of your addiction.” She added that many 12-steppers “equated that high you experience within a scene as a result of a dry drunk. I was accused of substituting one drink for another. They didn’t see that for me Kink and Leather were the last bastions of my sobriety! ”

  The majority of interviewees emphasized the positive effect BDSM has had on their sobriety, going far beyond the realm of the dungeon or kinky world. Theener, a thirty-five-year-old New Yorker who’s been kinky since she got a birthday spanking in 2004, feels like she had to “learn how to be kinky all over again” after getting sober in 2008.

  “You have to learn how to have fun without alcohol and drugs being the center of your fun,” she said. “When I wasn’t sober, I wasn’t interested in spaces like [S&M club] Paddles and [support and information group] Lesbian Sex Mafia meetings because there wasn’t booze. I had to appreciate later that those places were alcohol free.”

  Theener makes an explicit link between how BDSM and sobriety work together in her life. “I describe myself as having a dopamine problem; one of the things that’s been integral with me in sobriety is figuring out healthy ways to experience adrenaline-creating activities,” she said. “BDSM is a way that I can get all the chemicals in my brain revving and it keeps me busy and learning. It’s somewhat risky but because it’s surrounded on all sides by boundaries and negotiations, it’s a safe way of engaging in some risky behavior that’s helpful in my sobriety.”

  Jonathan, thirty-five, of Brooklyn, got into kink after sobering up. He found that exploring BDSM “dovetailed nicely” with a 12-step program. “The thing that surprised me and made me really happy when I started to explore this world is how healthy and sane the people are,” he said. “From the outside you’d think BDSM freaks would be damaged misfit toys—and there are those people—but there’s also a community of people who are very aware of who they are, very aware of the boundaries and of the consequences of their actions.”

  Similarly, Jackson, thirty-six, of San Francisco, sought out the kink scene specifically as a way of coping with sobriety. “Part of my motivation for exploring play parties is because after I lost my favorite means for medicating my social anxiety, it became much more difficult to navigate daily, run-of-the-mill interactions,” he said. “I figured the one place where everyone would be both open-minded and accepting of awkwardness would be a pansexual play party space. It offers a respite from shame, guilt and judgment. The party I frequent, Mission Control, is not a sober space, but I’m comfortable around alcohol at bars so it isn’t a problem.”

  As BDSM has become more and more mainstream over the years, the resources for sober kink have also increased. The kinkcentric networking site FetLife has a “clean and sober pervs discussion group” where posters can seek local sponsors, list sobriety dates and, of course, hook up. Recovery in the Lifestyle is a fellowship of BDSM lifestyle people who are in recovery—or would like to be—and serves as a hub for those looking to find meetings or start them. Kink Aware Professionals List, put out by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, is a directory that can provide you with a kink-friendly therapist. Even Princeton University’s newly formed BDSM/kink support group PINS (Princeton in the Nation’s Service) has a strict no-alcohol policy. And if you are put off by the style of Fifty Shades of Grey, Kinked Sober is a terrific—and free—Story of O-type e-book with a sober twist, by the very anonymous-sounding Lauren L.

  Practitioners still have to be wary, however. “The flip side,” warned Jonathan, “is that a lot of people in recovery have also had problems with sex addiction. Any substance or behavior can be abused. If you want to explore your desires, how do you do it in a way that is healthy and doesn’t start to tip into compulsive behavior?”

  Williams proclaimed that kinky and sober people are “fortunate” in another respect. Alcohol and drugs are “pretty much a nonissue in the majority of BDSM spaces, in contrast to the time when bars were the primary meeting place for the leather community. Kink space is, more often than not, sober space.” Given that sensory play offers its own high, she insists, alcohol and drugs become less relevant. She added that many of the kink, leather and BDSM conferences “even have their own recovery meetings slated into the event schedule, and if they don’t, will usually give up free space for such gatherings.”

  Theener found one such meeting on the agenda at South Plains Leatherfest, an annual Dallas weekend event, and calls it one of the best meetings she’s ever attended. “I had no idea there was going to be sober support there at all, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a 12-step meeting on the agenda,” she said. She had been planning to seek out an outside meeting, so this space was especially welcoming.

  Others have had differing experiences. Paola, thirty-five, of New York, who’s been openly kinky since 2005 and sober since 2006, is partnered with another sober kinky person, but hasn’t found the scene as welcoming. “I wouldn’t say the BDSM world is not supportive to sober kinksters. I just think that the BDSM world doesn’t go out of its way to think of events for us or to keep us in mind when planning. Most of the sober kink events are boring and unimaginative. It seems like in the kinky world a sober space / event is synonymous with ‘not any fun.’”

  For Paola, this lack of fun was not about danger so much as the lack of action. “Workshops!” she declared. “I love learning, but after a while you want to get together to play.” She cited events and spaces such as Paddles in New York. “I love that this space is available,” she said, “but it has to be one of the cheesiest and most boring BDSM venues in the city. The price is just not worth going there to play. The fun events there tend to be private ones that do have alcohol.” Ouch.

  For those thinking of exploring BDSM, before jumping headfirst into play parties, Theener recommends attending casual, nonsexual gatherings called “munches,” where “you can meet up with people in their normal clothes at a diner and everybody can get to know each other. It’s a low-pressure environment and reminds me of fellowship after an AA meeting.” Look up your city and “BDSM munch” to find one near you.

  If you decide you are ready to negotiate some play, “Justine,” an anonymous twenty-eight-year-old San Franciscan who’s been sober since 2006 and involved in BDSM since 2008, offers some hard-won advice: “If you are negotiating play with someone, be sure to specifically bring up intoxicant use. While it is generally frowned upon in the wider kink scene to engage in SM while totally inebriated, many people do participate in various forms of kink while using, and one cannot assume anything about a potential partner’s habits.”

  Paola’s advice for newbies? “Ask a lot of questions! You m
ay think a potential play partner is sober but they may have a different definition. I’ve experienced folks who are ‘sober’ but still smoke pot or do ecstasy. Be very clear about any parties you go to and what drugs/alcohol will be there. A lot of people assume you will be fine playing with inebriated folks. Stand up for yourself and be clear that is not what you are looking for.”

  Williams warned, “Be aware that there are some places where alcohol is a central feature to the play. Some fetish nights are so booze fueled, it can feel risky to be there—not in terms of your sobriety being at risk, but in terms of your actual physical safety being compromised. I do not choose to be in an enclosed space where an intoxicated individual is swinging a six-foot bullwhip, or a drunk bottom is flailing around the dungeon wearing stainless-steel manacles. Be who you are! Be proud to be sober, and don’t compromise your sobriety or integrity for anyone. Ever.”

  Crazy Trans Woman Syndrome

  Morgan M. Page

  My doctor, who is a trans woman, and I had a conversation today about the guy who raped me earlier this year. At first she was like “did you charge him?” When I explained that he’s a trans man of color, she immediately got why I hadn’t. Not because I couldn’t bear to put a trans person, especially a trans person of color, in jail (which I can’t), but because it would cause me to be completely ostracized by the queer/trans community in Toronto. I’d be “just another crazy trans woman.” It was an uncomfortable realization for both of us to sit there, as trans women, knowing that we have literally no recourse when violence is enacted on us within the community (though if the same violence conveniently came from a white cis straight man, we would be celebrated as heroes for standing up to such an easy target, at least within the queer/trans community).

  She and I both, as professionals in the community, are well aware of the fine line we have to walk in order to be taken seriously in the queer/trans community. We not only have to look a certain way (both in terms of passing and in terms of conforming to queer normative acceptable standards of appearance), we also have to make sure not to rock the boat too much. We have to appear as sane and calm as possible, no matter the circumstances. If we show too much emotion at any time (read: any inconvenient emotion), we get hit with a double whammy of misogyny and transphobia, quickly written off as hysterical “crazy trans women.” Accuse the wrong person of something, anyone too close to queer-home, and that’s the end of our credibility and the revoking of our entrance passes to Queerlandia.

  It’s exhausting having to walk such a fine line. I’ve found that there are so many “danger zones” to watch out for. Trans women have to not only be queer-literate (knowing queer social justice language), we have to be exceptionally good at using it. Any minor slip of language or politics and we’re labeled “crazy trans women” by cis people while trans men nod knowingly in agree-ment—rarely standing up for us, and just as often perpetuating the “crazy trans woman” stereotype themselves.

  I became aware of this initially through cryptic warnings from an older queer trans woman friend of mine, years before I became involved in the queer community, but I didn’t realize the extent of it at first. That is, until I was invited to participate in it. When I first became involved heavily, I befriended two trans men whom I looked up to a great deal, and one of the first conversations we had in private was a gossip session in which they “warned” me about various trans women and got me to agree that they were “crazy.” I’ve found similar conversations throughout the community, often used in a way that makes me wonder if what’s really happening is that they’re subconsciously testing my loyalty to the queer Zeitgeist. Am I a good tranny or a bad tranny? Am I willing to be part of their clique, giving them the ability to deflect any and all criticism of transmisogyny, or am I a “problem”?

  Before I realized that this was a system, that trans women were being systematically tested and written off, I engaged in it myself. You get a self-esteem boost, knowing that the cool kids don’t count you among those trans women. Those trans women who stepped on the wrong toes, who take up “too much space,” who don’t have the right guilt-producing identity complex to be worthy of space (disabled young trans sex workers of color who vogue are considered highly prized friend-accessories, to be seen but not really heard beyond the occasional “gurl” for comedic effect, but only if they have the right haircut and the right clothes and are working towards a bachelors of gender studies or similarly useless degree).

  Who are these “crazy trans women”? Often they are incredibly sincere activists who haven’t had the privilege of being taught all of the ins and outs of anti-oppression social justice practice that is a prerequisite to membership in this queer community. Often they are labeled “too emotional” and “too angry,” “loose cannons” who are out of control when speaking about our experiences of sex work that don’t fit into the easily digestible “I do queer feminist porn on weekends to pay for my Fluevogs while I’m in grad school” vision of sex work that the queer community has deemed acceptable. Often they are trans women who are said to take up “too much space,” while everyone whispers about how “you know, I know it’s wrong to say, but she just seems like she has male privilege, you know? Like you can just feel it. Not that I’m saying she’s a man, but, you know, you never know.”

  At the end of the day, this whole complex of issues is simply misogyny, ableism, and transphobia dressed up as “community accountability.” It holds trans women to impossible standards, opening us up to vulnerability to all forms of in-community violence (physical, sexual, social), and creating a fear within the minds of so many queer trans women that our second-class position within the queer community could be ripped from our hands at any time for any minor infraction.

  I’m tired of trying not to be a crazy trans woman in the voyeuristic eyes of the queer community.

  Let’s Talk About Interracial Porn

  Jarrett Neal

  Historical and cultural tensions surrounding issues of masculinity, race, violence, sexuality and miscegenation commix in both allblack and interracial pornography. Black men in gay porn customarily inhabit a position of power that has roots in racialized fetishism. To be blunt, black gay porn stars, when they are engaged in sex with white, Latino or Asian costars, almost always perform as “tops,” the penetrative partner. Anatomically, these men possess athletic physiques, very dark skin, and penises that are much longer than the average five to seven inches most men’s penises measure when erect. Dwight McBride states:

  In the all-black genre and in the blatino genre, black men are represented as “trade”: men with hard bodies and hard personalities to match them, men from or tied to ghetto or street life in one way or another, men possessing exceptionally large penises…and, more often than not, men as sexual predators or aggressors.

  Bobby Blake was a veteran black performer who, over the years, unleashed unbridled ultramasculine dominance over the many white men he had sex with on camera. A towering man with a solid Herculean physique, inky dark skin, plump lips and a broad nose, Blake has never been anally penetrated on camera. Blake maintained a long, successful career in gay porn and cultivated an avid fan base, but in 2000 he retired from the industry to become a minister. His stern, menacing appearance contrasts with those of black men who work in straight porn who must “be nonthreatening enough to appeal to...white men who [want] to jerk off to images of little virginal white girls being deflowered” (Poulson-Bryant). The black men hired to work in gay porn appear to be chosen for the opposite reason: the more threatening they appear and the larger their penises, the more popularity they garner.

  Bobby Blake was no exception. His final film, Niggas’ Revenge, boldly transgresses virtually every social, political and sexual taboo in Western culture. Blake, along with two other African-American co-stars, exacts revenge on a small group of backwoods white racists by imprisoning, torturing and sodomizing them. The actors in this film inhabit their roles convincingly, shouting racial epithets and embodying the
worst stereotypes of both African-American and Caucasian men. The marriage of extreme cruelty and outré sex in Niggas’ Revenge, which includes BDSM, fisting, urolangia and biastophilia, rather than making me feel uncomfortable, tantalized me. Sex aside, language is much more provocative than most sex acts and has the potential to cause more damage to an individual. Not only does Niggas’ Revenge confirm the deep-seated beliefs of closet racists, it “referenc[es] the ugly historical and ideological realities out of which [black and gay sexual identities] have been formed” (Reid-Pharr). The verbal assault in Niggas’ Revenge—even the title, which supposes a white racist gaze—is far more incendiary and repugnant than the debauchery that takes place on screen. Unlike the all-black genre of gay pornography, interracial gay pornography has the potential to provoke hostile encounters among its participants simply because it stubbornly relies on a white patriarchal rendering of black male sexuality and the full inventory of racist stereotypes ascribed to black men to fuel the lust of participants and viewers alike.

  The catalogue of black gay porn, in which all of the participants are of African descent, ascribes to conventions that are common in gay porn: straight male seduction, muscle worship, and exhibitionism can all be found in gay porn specifically marketed to a black viewership. Yet leather, bear, and fetish porn for black men is nonexistent: these films make no distinction between races. Any black men who perform in these films do so alongside men of other races and ethnicities. Moreover, black gay porn includes scenarios that are not found in porn for Caucasian, Latino or Asian gays. In all-black films issues of class—the street thug conquering the middle-class black male, for example—and economic and social stratifications abound. The thug, outfitted in baggy jeans, an oversized white T-shirt and Timberland boots, has become the twenty-first century’s symbol of reckless and raw masculine sexual energy. As such, he appeals to many gay men regardless of their race, economic or social status. He is viewed as rebellion incarnate, a repository of the culture’s racial tensions and sexual repression.