by Sasha Grey
That they’re different.
That their sex doesn’t count.
It’s not fair or right.
And they can say it’s a percentage thing all they want—that only a small portion of the population is LGBT, so they simply don’t have the time to get into specifics of all kinds. But straight people like having anal sex, too.
I wonder if that was originally on the agenda for sex education classes, and then someone’s sanctimonious wife who thinks sex outside of missionary is degrading to women decided that anal was off limits to talk about. Because this is all run by men. And do you know the percentage of men who want to try anal?
If someone said your chances of winning the lottery were that high, you’d buy a ticket.
Instead, we’re taught that anal is something, within straight couples, that a woman does for the man on special occasions—or, if she thinks his eye is wandering and she wants to spice things up a little. Something that she can’t enjoy because it’s going to be painful and terrible. Women are taught to fear anal, that it’s going to be uncomfortable and awful and to get it over with quickly if you do it at all.
Maybe some people won’t ever like it. A lot of us do. But people are missing out on it because of the programming we’re incorrectly taught. If you haven’t tried it before, go now. Get acquainted with your asshole. Stop thinking of it as exit only and see if you like how it feels when you play with it a little. Or a lot.
Use lube.
This goes for men, too.
There are a few of those butt plugs with long, swishy faux fur tails attached, for if someone wants to take being a sexy kitty to the next level on Halloween—or whenever. I saw an article online once where a mom had gotten one of those “tails” for her daughter’s Halloween costume from Etsy, but didn’t understand how she was supposed to attach it.
Of course, people lost their minds at her cluelessness.
To be fair, I don’t find them that sexy either, but it’s mostly because they’re just kind of…limp. If one stuck up like a squirrel’s that could be cute, but the way most of them are it looks like you’re taking a dump and passing a fuzzy turd that hasn’t fallen yet.
I pass a cabinet with a few different strap-ons, which makes me think of pegging. Strap-ons aren’t only for lesbians to use on each other. See, the male G-spot, a.k.a. the prostate, is inside their asses. It’s like God was saying, maybe you need to take it once in a while too, if you want the really deep orgasm. You’re never going to know what makes you come the hardest unless you commit to a lot of effort and experimentation.
There’s nothing against the law about that.
Speaking of the law, I pass a restraints section filled with all kinds of methods and materials for tying someone up or strapping someone down. Leather D-ring cuffs always bring to mind insane asylums and the things I shouldn’t think are kinky—being a patient there and getting restrained and fucked by a sexy nurse—but I do.
What can I say, sometimes we just really like some problematic shit.
In among the fancier cuffs are a few pairs of good, old fashioned steel handcuffs like the ones police carry. I wonder which came first—handcuffs as restraints or the sexy cop fantasy. Did some kinky fuck get picked up by a police officer and unleash a subgenre of fantasies as soon as the cold metal closed around their wrists?
Were handcuffs always sexy, or did they become that way when strapped to a big, strong cop with chiseled features and a cool exterior you were itching to crack?
It’s funny how an instrument can be sexy or terrifying depending on the context. Handcuffs, blindfolds…duct tape. Everyone’s mileage varies as well. Some people love adrenaline rushes and perceived danger more than others.
It’s the same with pain. Sexual masochists are into pain, get off on it, but I can’t see how something sexy like getting thrashed by a Dominant compares to the pain of someone accidentally stepping on your toe, or getting a tooth drilled at the dentist and the anesthetic wearing off a couple minutes too early. But it’s about choice.
When we want to hone our pleasure with pain, when we want to achieve that perfect balance of the senses, it’s about knowing what we’re getting into beforehand.
Do I want someone to use a cane on me while ramming a vibrator in my pussy?
Do I want to be tied up and suspended and tased on a low setting while someone eats my pussy?
Do I want to be fucked to the point of orgasm and have someone choke me until I almost pass out, only letting me breathe right as I come?
It doesn’t matter if a concept is gross to you. Someone else may love it.
I had sex with a guy for the first time a couple years ago, and gasped because when he took off his shirt, there was a giant eye of Sauron tattooed on his chest. It was very distracting to look up because my eye level was at his chest, so the tattoo was just staring me in the face the whole time, like being fucked by the All-Seeing Eye. It didn’t help that he was as tall as an average basketball player, so my eyes couldn’t look away from it.
Maybe someone else would have wanted to shove a ring in his hole, but the tattoo didn’t do it for me. I’m just saying, there’s something out there for everyone.
My playroom is amazing and I can’t wait to explore every inch of it like a new lover.
I was born to be in this place.
FOURTEEN
I’M LYING IN THE BATHTUB, soaking away the fluids of the day, flipping through Inana’s diary. Inside the back cover, someone has tucked a few pages that were torn out at the end. She’s drawn a few exotic flowers I recognize as being native to the compound.
When I am all that’s left, I’ll be half of what I’ll be, but twice the woman I was. Shedding illusion and other people’s perception like a snake is the key to breathing deeply.
Air is life. Life is an illusion. Lies are an illusion.
Where illusions die, real life explodes into conscious color, revealing the trappings in the shadows you never knew were there.
He’ll be there.
We’ll be there.
The further I go in this journey, the farther I want to go.
I wonder where I’ll be…someday.
I’m wondering what things Inana would have done if she’d lived. Would she have moved on to another form of expression? Unless she’d become one of those artists who cut themselves and literally make art from their blood on a canvas, she didn’t have much room to take things further.
There’s always a pinnacle when it comes to art until it gets ridiculous or becomes a caricature of itself.
A raw meat dress.
Showing up to an exhibition in a limousine full of turnips.
There’s something to be said for shock value. It wakes us up and gets our attention. It’s a creative slap in the face that can startle us out of our comfy ruts. It makes a statement that things are shitty, or getting shitty, and need to change now.
But there’s a line between a statement and a mockery. Sometimes people try to provoke a reaction, they’ll go as far as they can until people say something. Others eventually get so fed up they’ll do anything to try to get you to see how ridiculous their product is. Depending on who you are, people may never say anything, instead applauding louder and louder until you can’t think and even you buy into your own lies because you can no longer hear the truth.
It’s like the old story about the Emperor and his new clothes. It was ridiculous, but he wasn’t called out for a ridiculously long time because no one wanted to be the one who couldn’t see the value in the illusion. They couldn’t pretend to see it so they’d continue to fit in. It’s amazing how scared people are of going against the grain, of standing out, when so many want to be famous or celebrities.
Dolly the sheep, ready for her close up, Mr. DeMille.
People don’t want to see what they’ve already seen, what’s already been done unless they’re looking for a train wreck that’s going to be entertaining as hell. That’s why people were so eager to share the n
ews about my video. I’m visible enough for people to sort of know who I am, more importantly they now perceive me as being some sort of celebrity and enjoying privileges they likely don’t. There’s the perception that I can be torn down from an ivory tower, as it were.
If you heard that an acquaintance had been filmed during sex without her permission and the tape was released, you’d likely be horrified and outraged, putting yourself in her position, thinking how you’d feel.
But when it’s a celebrity, you become ravenous. You want to see the videotape, see what she looks like naked, see if her body is as perfect as it is when it’s been airbrushed or if there’s secretly bands of cellulite beneath her ass, or stretch marks on her hips. If it’s a guy, you want to see how big his cock is, if it goes left or right, is he cut or uncut. Does his cock “justify” his cockiness.
You want the flaws. You feel entitled to them as if they were your own and you’d paid for them. You want to see if there’s a scar to prove she had implants. You don’t feel bad because celebrities have no privacy—they waived that right by putting themselves out there.
Having your life and every moment of it scrutinized and your character and image ripped to shreds every moment of every day is a small price to pay for the lifestyle they have.
Or so you think. I don’t even enjoy that lifestyle, as I’m just a reporter and work my ass off, but because people think I must surely get to since I interview some of the people who live behind the velvet rope.
They’d be shocked at some of the celebrities and what they’re really like behind closed doors. Paranoid, insecure, petty. Down to earth, friendly, genteel.
They’re all different. Some are true narcissists. You have to be if you’re in any kind of art or field where you’re creating a product for others to consume. Otherwise you’d never think people wanted what you were selling and you’d never bother trying to create it. Others only know how to live as another character. Sometimes we trap others with our perception of them, with the expectation of what we see.
People in uniforms, for example, have a way of becoming fetishes. The sexy cop, the sexy firefighter. They become the service they provide. Wink.
But there’s one profession I’ve been thinking about more recently, getting off to, even fucking a few of them.
Servers. Specifically waitresses. There’s a familiarity with them, a sort of interchangeability because of their uniforms: white top, black skirt or pants—I find the pants sexier than skirts, personally. More utilitarian and unconsciously sexy than a skirt with heels. Despite the fact they’re all unique human beings with a whole life behind them, most of the time they’re unseen by those they strive to serve, fading into the background by choice or design.
Their whole purpose is to make your experience smooth and enjoyable and they take so much bullshit from those people a lot of the time. Rude behavior, outright abuse, condescension, shitty tippers, the list goes on. But they’re there with a smile and a refill and if you’re a) not rude to them, and b) attracted to them, there’s a connection that can happen with them.
The anonymity of it all is a turn on. You get to create a narrative about who they truly are behind the uniform and script they’re forced to say.
Is the lady bringing the ketchup also a dancer, and beneath the clothes she’s got an ass you could bounce quarters off of, and those unfortunately ugly ballerina feet?
Is the woman filling your glass doing this to save up for college where she’s studying particle physics and that’s why she didn’t need to write a word of your table’s complicated orders down?
Virgin, insatiable sex fiend, sparkly wit, or studious nature, we get to choose what we see. We get to create their background and place that inside their uniforms along with their bodies. The uniforms make everyone equally mysterious and sexy. They’re an equalizer. It’s fun to take one of them home and make them scream your name, and then discover if the story you made up for them matches the reality at all.
It always comes back to fantasy vs reality. Even with Hollywood and celebrities, they cultivate their brands and feed your expectations.
Inana knew her brand, knew her market and eschewed expectations, which should have made things harder or put her at risk of alienating her fans, but it didn’t. When you don’t care about alienating people, you gain the freedom to do the things you want to do—and you’re the reason they started following. Not everyone will like everything you do, but stay true to your vision and you’ll gain new followers to replace ones who part ways with your journey.
But the places Inana could have gone…I bet they’d have been outstanding. The places Anna could have gone would have been outstanding. I’d have liked to have seen her and Inana together.
I wonder if she’d have liked me. Would we have clicked when we met, if we’d met at a TJS party? I think she’d met Anna, but I don’t know if they hung out. I can’t imagine people inside the society doing something casual outside of it. The experiences are too intense for that. When you’ve caught a glimpse of the fire in someone else’s belly, it’s hard to dim it down, fade it, to talking about the mundane over a coffee.
But what about if we’d met at a party, at an event put on by and for The Juliette Society? We’d recognized in each other the spark of willingness and daring, but I’m stronger in myself now than I was with Anna as my sort of leader in those experiences. What if that happened now?
What would that be like?
I picture those eyes of hers, piercing and flirty, making contact with mine across the room. Her lips would stretch into a smile mirroring my own, and I’d be drawn towards her as she was drawn to me, each recognizing in the other that we are the same.
I cup my breasts and play with my nipples a little, pinching the tips until they’re darker and tingling.
Anna would move in that sinuously graceful way she had, like a cat on the prowl even though she was most content on her knees instead of being the hunter. She flowed. I’d snap and flicker, the fire to her water, energetic and mesmerizing because I’d rise to the occasion to be as beautiful as her.
Maybe I’m already as beautiful as her.
My hands skim down my belly to my pubic mound, and I knead it, not allowing myself to touch my clit yet.
In my vision of Anna and I there’s actual fire and water, waves of heat and coolness rippling and dancing along with us as we weave around each other, naked in the darkness now, twisting around each other in a complicated dance we both somehow know the steps to. I splash warm water over my crotch, feeling it trickle between the lips of my pussy, adding heat to my skin, increasing circulation, making me throb before I inch my hand closer to my clit.
The light glimmers off our glistening bodies and there’s a wall of bodies all around us, watching and waiting to see what we’ll do next, people in black bottoms and white tops. There’s an electricity in the air that almost crackles to the beat of the music that seems to originate with our feet stomping on the floor.
I slide one wet finger, then another, inside myself, letting the warmth flood me from within, pulling at my hole so the water enters me, and I slosh it around with my fingers, mixing it with my come.
Smiling at her, I trace my collarbones and nape of my neck, feeling the weight of my hair as I pull my fingers through it and let it drop down, the ends tickling my back. Anna does a spin, her hair whirling out, sending ripples of blue in an arc, splashing against the skin of the spectators.
My fingers punish my pussy, slamming in and out, working my G-spot and my clit at once, and I stretch my legs up and rest them on the wall.
The energy we create together with our dancing, simply by being in the same place at the same time together again, is electric.
Anna’s lips part. “Come, Catherine. Show them all.”
Her words wind around my throat and down between my breasts, sliding between my legs, making me come in concentric waves of pleasure that crash over me again and again and again.
The image breaks ap
art, morphing into the sage green walls of my bathroom.
A tear slips down my cheek as I pull my fingers out from my pussy.
We could have been amazing together.
But now I’ll never know what that might have been like. When someone dies before their time, we lose their potential as well. And we will never know what connections we could have made that may have led to another, enriching our lives in untold ways.
I get out of the tub and slather lotion on my skin, inhaling the delicate freesia scent.
I once went on a double date with a co-worker. Neither she nor I went on another date with either of those guys, but a few months later I ran into them. They’d become roommates, strictly platonic, even though they’d never met before the night we’d all gone out.
You never know which connections you’ll forge for other people or through them. Anna and I may have grown apart after the honeymoon period wore off, and gone our separate ways. We may have become best friends who lasted until our bones crumbled. We could have been catalysts for other people in ways that rippled out, changing the world in myriad ways.
But she was taken from the world—and she’s not the only one.
I mourn the loss of the women like Inana and Anna and myself men take out along the way because they can’t possess us and it’s the worst thing in the world to them. Instead of choosing another partner, they destroy us.
I can’t let Dominick win. I’m tired of the man being the one standing at the end in a position of power, laughing over the ruination of a young, sweet, thing.
I don’t know what his motivation is, why he would try to discredit me or ruin my life this way simply for turning him down. All I know is I won’t let it happen. There’s more to me now than that girl in the chair on the video that night. More grit, more resolve, more steel in her spine. She was all submissive, no dominant. Not even a switch although the switch inside her was there, waiting, watching, hungry for both.
