Suicide Prevention

Trans March and Queer Playground

Yesterday was the 5th annual Trans March in San Francisco. The rally began at 3 pm in Dolores Park. I got there at around 5:15, after picking up a friend who lived just blocks away. Not as large as the Dyke March (but definitely growing in numbers) the trans march is a beautiful queer event where you walk around, checking out people in all their costumed finery and go "Hmm. Boy? Girl? Pretty!" But the park was cold and I was in my rather skimpy flapper dress and heels, so after wandering a bit, running into folks I knew, and taking a few photos, I went to get a taco. I was carrying a horse whip. The long handle was rigid and would not fit in my bag. As I croosed the street, a short, stout, middle-aged police officer looked at me. His eyes then flitted to my whip and filled with something similar to desire, then flitted back to me, to my eyes. I had caught him looking. Police officers often have submissive fantasies, I have heard. The fleeting sitution made me feel powerful, but it also creeped me out a little bit. I don't like to think of cops as human beings with feelings and libidos.
After my taco, I hopped the 14 bus to the Citadel, a local dungeon. The Citadel was having a party called "Queer Playground" and I was volunteering at the door for an hour so I could get into the party for free. A funny position to be in, me, a predominantly 'sleeps with boys' girl at queer playground, flirting with butches and hoping the subject of sex didn't come up.
Working the door proved to be an experience in itself, especially when a 'medical team' of to butches and a femme showed up.
The conversation went like this:
"Nurse, I haven't been feeling well."
"Is it vaginal dryness?"
(Like in improv, the 'yes and' rule applies here as well.)
"Oh, yes. It's simply horrible, this vaginal dryness.
"Well, you should make an appointment to see Dr. Friedman. That's her specialty."

I stamp the hand of an old college professor of mine, noting the two floggers and single tail attached to his belt. He recognizes me and we hug. I smile inwardly. I always thought he's be comfortable in a place like this. Sometimes it's nice when you get your intuitions affirmed.

Inside, my volunteer shift done, I wander through the upstairs, with it's couches and Hors D' oeuvres, St. Andrew's crosses and live band, to the staircase. Downstairs, the dungeon is not yet crowded. The entire place is so clean you could eat off the carpeted floor. The lighting is attractive, and people are friendly. A older man in a leather priest's robe sets up a fucking machine on a suspended wooden platform. A pair of young women, shirtless, sit in a small cage and pierce each other's skin. The 'Fwap! Fwap! Fwap!' of a heavy flogger is heard. Screams, moans and gasps are heard in surround sound. Walking past a leather sling, I observe that the women reclining in it has lost a whole hand inside herself.

And then I find Dr. Friedman. The nurse says, "You're late. Sit here."
I obey. She takes down my history and complaint (the pre-established vaginal dryness) while I sit on a long, leather table and Dr. Friedman touches first my arms, then my back with her hands and lips.
"We have an experimental treatment we'd like to try with you, but as you were late, we'll have to punish you a bit first."
"Oh, no." I feign distress, but we all know that I consent.
My dress is pulled down and my bra removed. I am slapped, bitten and sucked upon. Every once in a while, the nurse will ask me, "And how's the vaginal dryness? Is it getting better?"
"Oh, yes. The therapy. I think it's working!"
I am asked to lay down first in my stomach, and then on my back, where ice is dripped on my and I am tortured some more.
The scene is very hot and sexy. And safe! Though I don't know these people, I know that nothing bad will happen to me. There are at least 20 other folks in the dungeon, and if something goes awry, if anyone hears the word "safeword" used, there will be help and support. (In public play spaces, 'safeword' is a cal for help from outside your scene.' I don't feel awkward, strange or bad about playing with these people. Not like a one night stand.(Why is it called a one night stand when usually you are lying down?) And we have not done anything that is a health risk. I feel good about the interaction and hope I run into these people again. (Though I wonder how they would feel if I told them I liked boys.)
I play with a few more folks, do a tickling scene with an old friend, flog and get flogged by a few of hir friends. (I'm not sure which pronoun my friend prefers at the current moment. Hir is a combination of him and her.)
At the end of the night, my landlord (who is also at the party) gives me a ride home. At 2 am, I am too exhausted to write this, so I shelf it until morning. I am left with these thoughts swimming in my head.

There are so many negative stereotypes about people like us: queers, perverts, leatherfolk, doms. There is the idea that we are all working through abuse issues, that we secretly have a death wish, that we don't love ourselves. In actuality, bdsm folk use some of the most advanced interpersonal communication skills around and generally have a fairly high self-esteem. We are accustomed to negotiating and understand the importance of respect for our own limits and boundaries. We know how to take 'no' for an answer and generally don't need alcohol to help us ask for what we want. If you don't know any perverts, if this blog post is your first introduction to the bdsm world, I suggest meeting some. Or at least read SM 101 by Jay Wiseman.

Decision to have adult content warning

I have decided to put the "Adult warning" on my blog. This is a weird choice to make, but I feel that it is correct for my style.
What does it mean to have a warning about adult content? I'm not planning on posting pornography or split beaver shots here. I doubt I will even publish any of my extremely well-written and artistic erotica. But I want to be able to report on events that I go to that may not be family-friendly as well.
Communication is important, and in our VERY REPRESSED society, I feel it is important to create a safe space for folks to discuss "taboo" subjects. I'm a sharer. Sharing is an intrinsic part of community. Community is an intrinsic part of being human. The want to be accepted, to be a part of something, to be understood, is contingent to our contentment.
So I'm going to write about it. I'm going to report on pride weekend, from the trans-march to the citadel, from the dyke march to my agitation about having to work on Sunday. You want wild stories about gay X-mas? You will find them here!

Team Lexington Summer Solstice- A 24 hour extravaganza

On June 20th, at approximately 6 pm, Summer began. The marker for the beginning of the summer is called the Solstice. It is the longest day and the shortest night of the entire year. And my beloved performance collective Team Lexington (www.teamlexington.org) was there in full force to bring it in. We began in Dolores Park at noon on Friday with a barbeque, bounce house, and ballroom dancing to Steven Tritto's lovely concertina melodies. Cody Gianotti (pictured above) and Christina Lowery spearheaded this project, and I have never seen such organization amidst the chaos. A group of rowdy, frattish Irish kids joined us for the majority of the day. Our pagan festival was littered with red balloons, tarot readings, cheap beer, hot dogs (vegan ones, too!), impromptu song and dance, interactive performance, and general bacchanalia. Gianotti's created one of his exquisitely bizarre and entertaining headphone shows. Four audience volunteers were chosen to wear headphones and follow the directions on them. It created a sort of 'dance.' They moved in silence for a while, until Cody whipped out his positively mad flute beatboxing skills. Christina Lowery taught us all how to "roll down a hill like a modern dancer." Tom Lazur demonstrated a unique method of repelling mosiquitos which included breathing firem and I held a very silly solstice ritual. Six pm saw about 50 adults rolling down the hill on the South side of the park. At 8 pm, members of the dance group Artface showed up to teach us some simply choreographer with which to make a ruckus on the J-Church metro line. And ruckus we did, up to Church and Duboce where we were met by a marching band who paraded us up to the Caretakers community space at 848 Divisadero for an all night performance salon and dance party! Exquisite! My favorite part was the ridiculous and rigged slow motion race, which I won. Either that, or when two ballet dancers, stripped down to their skivvies because the room was so hot, just started GOING OFF to Evergreen, a band from Sacramento. It was magic to watch.
I am realizing that, though I am (and may always be) poor, I am living the life that I have always wanted to live. And I am able to do so because of my community. We are singers, artists, writers, actors, activists, people who live in the gray areas, who slip in between the lines, who slither through the cracks. We dare to think our ideas are good enough to execute. We challenge failure by not only pulling it off, but rocking it! We tear the roof off the building! We are the new ideas, the comedians, the clowns. We are the clay and graffiti, and we just don't seem to care if the mainstream world thinks our way of being in the world is silly or stupid. We invite them to join us. We invite them to try it. And we invite you, too, to be ridiculous for a day.
Go Team Lexington!

Might as well try it

"You're a writer. Oh, do you have a blog?"

I was tired of hanging my head and saying, "No, I just send emails of things I write." So I decided to try this. It was the next logical step after learning how to use Youtube, which I finally did last night. Get with the times, I guess.

I have been doing the email journal for quite a while. It seems so safe. I am in control of who receives my syntax. Whether anyone wants to read what I jot down or not is another story, but at least I am in control of my audience. Maybe that doesn't go along with the laws of consent I try to obey in my physical world, though. And as the gap between the physical and virtual world diminishes, the laws that governing the two worlds tend to merge. So here is my blog! I'll be writing about stuff that happens in my community, goings on at the Caretakers (a community space at 848 Divisadero) and recapping Team Lexington's Solstice Party (www.teamlexington.com)

Also probably reviewing my rehearsal process for my upcoming show "Madge's Box" that will be in the San Francisco Fringe Festival, making possibly judgmental observations about the world around me, whining about how I want to be traveling, and posting some of my photography.

So, yes, tht is what will be happening here.

Thanks for reading!