Glitter. Real Stories About Sexual Desire From Real Women (11 page)

Those four years were like a second adolescence. The foundation built inside the club led to my redefining emotional and sexual boundaries. Self-respect. Self-protection. Loving and caring for myself. I don’t pretend it wasn’t a risky proposition. Then, I always did like the deep end.

I think you are either tough going into the sex industry, or you get tough, and tough isn’t a bad thing. Necessity is a powerful motivator. Dispensed of body hang-ups: there is always going to be an appreciator of your particular configuration of parts. Learning to wield the power I had over men…and women. Beyond necessity, the flourishes of intricate, lasting beauty of mind. Owning my confidence unapologetically. Building and holding boundaries in (real or imagined) intimacy. Appreciating rather than being intimidated by other women’s success. Things I rarely see replicated outside the club’s four walls.

Most of all I felt celebrated – and paid – for the exact thing I had felt so ashamed of: my sexuality.

And so I became anonymous yet finally unmasked. In my personal life I was remote from judgement: my own or others’. I no longer felt bound by the constraints of a society that hypocritically judged the industry I worked in, yet paid my bills. The gaze – of family, friends, co-workers – suddenly disappeared. I had one-night stands and affairs, men and women, couples, friends, strangers. I felt the world opening like a citrus fruit between my fingers offering me a euphoric mess of tart odors, sweet flesh, sticky juices. Regret became a memory. I explored the limits of my body and mind. Saying yes or saying no. I was hunter and prey. Incrementally discovered I particularly enjoyed being the prey.

The loneliness of living in shadow crept in. Apart from a handful of close friends nobody knew where I was working. The gulf between myself and others was made more acute in their company. I was constantly lying, scared of being caught out. Apart from the occasional boyfriend, I learnt not to tell those I met outside the club. Perhaps in confessing I could have found peace, but I feared the reality of their condemnation and abandonment, which in my mind would do more harm than good.

By then I’d paid off my student loans and debt and felt I had to move on. It wasn’t hard to say goodbye to the late nights and pretending this drunk, slobbering guy is just the most fascinating, attractive person you’ve ever met. I went back to my ‘professional’ career. Sadly this too involves much pretending the ignorant, ridiculous imbecile you work for is the most fascinating, inspiring person you’ve ever met.

The story doesn’t quite end there. I started dating someone, ironically, who I met the last night I danced at the club. He hated my past, even though he’d met me at the club (I broke my own golden rule, don’t mix business and pleasure, and boy was I sorry). I discovered I was the other woman (he had two other girlfriends). His rationale: that because of the number of people I’d slept with, and having been a dancer, nobody would ever marry me. Despite him clearly being a very dirty pot, trash-talking a lovely shiny copper kettle, I believed him. The simple truth is, most people would say the same thing, and have. Though I’m married now, to someone who loves me and knows it all, it still haunts me.

In the struggle to reconcile with my sexual identity I realized I had to make a choice. I could see my past, all the pieces that make up a very intrinsic expression of my sexual self, as socially and morally unacceptable errors in judgement, and either atone for my ‘sins’, or curl up and die.

Regardless, what do you do with the past? Wrap it tightly and hold it close? There’s no colder sheen than the cruel reflection in a listener’s eyes. Worse still, left untold... Self-censorship is such an effective cutting tool.

Or – my choice – a radical acceptance. I realized there’s nothing more self-affirming than loving yourself for exactly who you are, without judgement.

Through age, and experience, and determination I learned to stand alone, and hell, if you’re judging me anyway, how about I just ask for and do what I really want?

The Ins and Outs of Virginity

Katherine

Erstwhile academic, currently unemployed, always gay.

Came of age in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, technically (I grew up with the media and therefore the mentality, of the ‘30s-‘50s) You can find me on Twitter at @CelluloidTear
s
.

My sex life to date reads a little like the punch line to a joke. Well, rather, television and movie characters who are meant to be particularly socially inept are often endowed with a sex life similar to mine, though I think the guys o
n
The Big Bang Theor
y
get laid more often than I do. Virginity, for whatever reason, has been turned into something to laugh at. Especially if one is twenty-seven and isn’t celibate or otherwise abstaining for any number of accepted, valid reasons (such as religion or health), which, I assure you, I am not. The problem with virginity is, it takes more than one person to change your status and finding an acceptable, willing participant has never been one of my strengths. Such is the peril of being a showtune-loving, drag-queen-emulating, glitter-addicted gay man trapped in a lesbian’s body.

I guess most people, especially those who tend toward any form of psychotherapy, would love to attribute my ‘repressed’ sexuality to my upbringing, which may be partially true, but I hardly think it completely accounts for the way my attitude toward sex ultimately developed. I was raised in a small, suburban city in southeast Wisconsin to parents who married “until death do us part.” Divorce in our extended family is relatively rare and always a little shocking. My cousins continually having children is less so. Have you see
n
Leave It to Beave
r
? My childhood was a little like that, only if the Beaver (ha) had been a girl and June had had a drinking problem. I was raised Catholic, only not like the devout kind, but rather the kind that goes to church on Christmas and Easter. Maybe.

In spite of my cliché upbringing, my parents were almost shockingly progressive for their backgrounds and location. My dad stayed at home with me when I was a baby while my mother worked. My mother kept her maiden name when she married. My parents (and my mother’s parents) were incredibly supportive of any extracurricular I showed interest in, whether it was sports, art, theatre, or something fantastically nerdy like film history. Though she did occasionally try to get me into dresses, my mother did, for the most part, allow me to express my gender however I wanted. She’s more pleased now that I have grown up to love makeup, jewelry, and glitter, but there were some rough, awkward years in between.

When I was just barely seventeen, quite out of the blue, one day I discovered I was attracted to women. There really hadn’t been any hints or clues over the years, it just kind of happened. Where I went to high school, there weren’t even whispers of a gay/straight alliance or anything like that. The only whispering that happened was if someone was rumored to be anything other than straight. I hadn’t done much (read: any) dating before my revelation, and I did even less after, an aspect of my life that has not changed. Everyone assured me college boys would appreciate me (and I hoped college girls would, too), but college came and went fairly uneventfully, which is a little shocking in and of itself considering I went to a notoriously artsy, liberal-minded, and, frankly, gay college in New York. There were a couple of drunken occasions where making out may have turned into more, but something always held me back. For fun, let’s label it Catholic guilt.

After much contemplation, what I’ve come to realize is that the reason I didn’t just ‘lose it’ in college like so many do is because, for me, it has to mean something. It’s not that I don’t want to have it (because I do) or am even waiting fo
r
the on
e
(mostly because I don’t believe in ‘the one’), it’s just, for me, there has to be some something behind it. If I were to find a woman crazy enough to date me for any extended period of time, yes, I would sleep with her. Happily. However, considering it’s been the better part of six years since I even made out with someone, I’d say the chances of that happening in the near future are slim to none. C’est la vie.

The weird part about being a twenty-seven-year-old virgin is that you get these virgin superpowers that allow you to see into all the dark corners of your mind that other people get to hide behind clouds of sexual gratification. In the corners of my mind there are abandonment issues and the accompanying trust issues that have allowed me to push pursuing romantic entanglements aside for my career path. Recently, my career path went kaput and with it went the masks for my issues. My issues and lack of time have, in the past, kept me from dating (ever), which has kept me from sex. Honestly, the lack of emotional intimacy bothers me far more than my lack of physical release, particularly because my lack of sex rarely bothers me at all. This fact has puzzled many over the years, as, from what I understand, sex is very enjoyable. Sometimes you can’t miss what you never had.

What I think is possibly unique about my own sexual journey is that I didn’t have to have sex to go on it. Will I learn more about myself once I start having it? Undoubtedly. But, in the meantime, I continue to grow and learn about myself and my body, in some respects, more thoroughly than people who have a lot of sex. Virgin superpowers, I have them. Also, I’m unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands.

In spite of some of what I’ve said, I feel the need to assure you, gentle reader, that most days I’m not actually bitter about and have never been embarrassed by being a virgin. I think about sex often, but it’s never been a real part of my life, and that doesn’t bother me. I don’t think it means I know less about my sexuality, either. Without having sex, I can still know what turns me on and what I’m interested in. I can tell you that shower sex sounds dangerous but intriguing. That I’ve fantasized in public places…and about them. I can tell you that breasts are amazing and that even though I’ve never done it, I imagine kissing someone you care about must rank pretty high on the Best Feelings Ever list. I don’t have to have sex or even the intimacy that leads up to it to know what will work for me. And I certainly don’t have to have sex to be comfortable talking about it. I would say the fact that people are generally shocked I’m a virgin speaks to that. Or maybe it’s just because no one believes someone can last this long without having sex, who knows.

Yes, I would like to have sex someday, preferably sooner rather than later. But I’m not in a rush. I’d rather it be right than it be right now. I’m stubborn that way.

Sex Worker Mommy

Penny Barber

Penny Barber has been a San Francisco-based dominatrix, adult actress, and writer since 2003. She is pansexual, an atheist, an avid reader, lover of animation and also the mother of two brilliant children. Find out more about her at itsmyurls.com/PennyBarber.

I had been working in the adult industry for five years and as a professional switch for three when I found out that I was, well, knocked up. I was unmarried, uninsured, and, though I'm pro-choice, knew with all my heart that I wanted to be a mom.

This had always thrown my coworkers, whether photographers, clients, or fellow adult actresses or dominatrixes, but I have a strong maternal side and love kids. I even worked as an au pair and at a nursery school when still in high school. So who knows? That shy teen you hire to watch your two-year-old may one day be available to spend a little quality time with you!

I didn't think that there was anything incongruous about my desire to breed and my feminism, my desire for raunchy sex and my desire to nurture a child. My boyfriend, now ex-husband, agreed, but I was often met with doubt and disbelief when I said that I wanted to be a mommy. Why on earth would I have chosen to be a sex worker if I wanted kids? Didn’t I know that it was inevitable that I would scar my children? That I couldn’t do anything but have sex forever and ever? That it was sex or motherhood
–
not both?

Beyond getting married in a hurry
–
my conservative Catholic mother has had enough surprises and I wanted to at least give her a legitimate grandchild, which I now realize is an awful reason to get married
–
I had to decide what I wanted to do with my career. In fact, a lot of us did. Right before I found out that I was expecting, another prominent, local Mistress told me that she had a bun in the oven, and two more pregnancy announcements followed shortly thereafter. It was a kinky baby boom!

It was amazing to have other women to talk to who were experiencing the same confusing, judgemental mess that I was. Most of the dommy mommies I knew had their babies years before they began adult work. They never had to waddle around the dungeon in six-inch stilettos, rushing off to pee every five minutes because a fetus was pushing on their bladders. Speaking of which, pregnancy is great for golden shower scenes!

Out of all the decisions that had to be made, I was always very clear about one thing: one way or another I would keep working. I stopped switching with my clients, but it was better than quitting.

First of all, I worried that I would lose my slot at the gorgeous dungeon I session at, la Maison de la Maîtresse. It's one of the most beautiful venues I've ever seen and is perfectly equipped for the domestic discipline and sissification scenes that I'm so fond of. I was not about to go back to playing in someone’s converted garage, thank you very much or, worse yet, cheap motel rooms.

Second, I needed to build up a nest egg for my time off. There are many wonderful things about being a self-employed sex worker, but paid maternity leave is not one of them.

Lastly, my partner wasn’t the kinkiest guy on earth. Even if he had been, I thrived on variety, but was not interested in the emotional investment that would accompany finding a personal playmate to keep me busy. Oddly enough, it seemed as though it would be easier for me to wait for men who would pay for the privilege of playing with a pregnant woman than to find one who would do it for free, though I knew it would still be a challenge.

To keep working, I had to build a fetish wardrobe that would encompass my quickly swelling stomach. The other pregnant pro dommes and I frantically searched for lingerie that still looked dominant, trading shopping links and handing down corselets, and I stuffed myself into my leather pants for as long as I could, until they ripped down the back. Eventually I had to settle for a black jersey maternity dress that I wore over and over again. I paired it with the craziest shoes my subs could find to try to make it new for each session. Expensive latex and leather were out of the question and vinyl cracked unbecomingly at even the slightest stretch.

Telling clients of my delicate condition was another hurdle. I lost all my dominant clients overnight. I could no longer be beaten, electrocuted, pierced, or tied in uncomfortable positions. Submissives who had been with me for years expressed concerns over our activities somehow affecting my unborn baby, at least until I informed them that I sure as hell wasn't going to be celibate for the next nine months, so they should enjoy our time together while they could. Others opted to spend hours rubbing my swollen ankles rather than let me click around in my beloved stilettos, but most were simply in awe of the fecund goddess before them.

My breasts, already surgically-enhanced, inflated like balloons. My twenty-four-inch waist grew lush and unrestrained, maxing out at almost fifty inches. My ass plumped and my hips broadened, rendering me a living Venus of Willendorf. I finally had the maternal figure to match my maternal nature and I began attracting more and more clients who wanted to be mothered as well as disciplined. Pregnancy turned me from a thin fetish model with a barely legal schoolgirl look into a voluptuous sex goddess.

I also started doing a lot of cuckold scenes, which was a whole new venue for me to explore. When my first client, a long-term playmate that I still see regularly, asked me to tell him that the baby I was carrying wasn't his, I wasn't sure what he was talking about. The bab
y
wasn'
t
his. He'd probably never even seen me completely naked, certainly not in person, anyway. Still, he enjoyed having it rubbed in his face that I was with someone else and I found the idea so amusing that I just went along with it. For those into cuckolding scenes, pregnancy can really drive home the point. The fantasy that a guy would be so hopelessly devoted to me, even when I'm telling him that I'm having my lover's baby and he's just going to have to deal with it, thank you very much, really churns my butter, even if I wouldn'
t
actuall
y
want to start a family that way.

I kept working until two weeks before my due date, and after that continued working from home, which kept me from going stir crazy as the baby coasted along to two weeks after my due date, only making his grand entrance into the world when my doctor began to plan for induced labor. My new husband tried to get me to stay home sooner, but I felt fine and had been raised on stories of my mother's pregnancy-defying diligence. She worked until the day she had me and was back in the office a week later. I was already planning on taking off a month for post-delivery recovery, which would later turn into six weeks before returning part time. I didn't want to be lazy and a number of my childless clients were just as in need of attention as they ever were. Being a first-time mother, I wasn't sure how to explain to them that I needed time to go to lactation classes or get my things in order or just sleep in preparation for many months of sleepless nights and days with an insomniac baby.

All the time that I continued working around my puffed out belly, adjusting my whipping stance to my new center of gravity and using my now superhumanly thick nails as weapons, I only had one uncomfortable, though thankfully not unsafe, experience with an over-enthusiastic Dutchman.

I don’t recall his face exactly, but he was fair, just entering middle age, and slender. He was interested in an adult baby session and arrived with a gift for the baby, a blanket made to look like a flattened lamb. You know the ones I mean: the ones that look a bit like roadkill where the only uncrushed bit is the still-attached head. It was a more or less routine session with one exception: he wouldn’t stop touching my belly. I told him to keep his hands off my fundus over and over again, but I finally had to tie his hands down. After the session, he started talking about the different sexual practices in other cultures that involved children. Eventually he started talking about how he thought it should be considered normal for an adult to use his penis as a pacifier for a crying infant. I couldn’t get him out of there fast enough.

The next day, he sent an email dripping with compliments and offering to buy me gifts if we could stay in contact. “I felt completely accepted.” “The least fear happens when you have done everything that you want in life.” “I am happy I met you.” I ignored the email and, when he wrote again, I told him simply that I was not interested. Thankfully, he left me
–
and my baby
–
alone after that. I thought about reporting him to the police, but was worried about drawing the attention of the police and what that would mean for my child and, in all fairness, talking as he did was not illegal. The services that I provided, however, might be.

Other than that one extremely uncomfortable and creepy experience, my clients were wonderful. Their support was surprising, and gave me a jolt of faith in humanity, which I needed after the Dutchman. Not only did the relationships that I'd built mostly stick, but new clients were just as appreciative of my skills whether or not I was a mom-to-be. Some even went the extra mile, contributing to my children’s college funds, shopping around for and purchasing a great diaper bag, remembering my children’s birthday with presents, and one went so far as to buy each of my children a beautiful, hand-painted, porcelain box from Tiffany & Co.

Of course, I did lose my best client, S. My experience with S was the closest that I ever came to dating a client. He was very much my type: older, with a full beard and an earring. His circumcised, straight member measured just under nine inches and he came like a bull. He flew to San Francisco from the east coast every few months for long, elaborate sessions and expensive dinners. He always brought gifts, including a bespoke leather collar embossed with my name. He took me to have my navel pierced and paid for the procedure as well as the white gold barbell. Looking up into his eyes as he held me down on the table, his hands pressing my shoulders to the padded leather, as the handsome, young piercer thrust his needle through my flesh, was one of the most intense and erotic experiences of my life.

I told him that I was pregnant with my first child as he was planning a trip out to see me. He'd just taken one, but he liked to start planning them immediately, and considering his almost constant flow of gifts, I didn't mind his desire for extra attention, though I sometimes had trouble keeping up with the lengthy fantasy scenarios that he would write and email to me.

I broke the news to him that I would not be able to submit to him for almost a year. Also, S had a thing for women under the age of twenty-four who were slender. I knew that even though I was only twenty-three, I was nearing the end of my attractiveness to him and becoming pregnant would probably just age me further in his eyes. His belief that women had an expiration date on their asses kept my relationship with S from becoming anything other than professional, despite our easy back-and-forth, shared interests, and sexual chemistry.

Though he was so tall and imposing, S was extremely shy. I may have been the first person with whom he had ever shared his kinky fantasies, and though I encouraged him to seek out his local community, he preferred to fly across the country to see me
–
and occasionally my co-worker, Mistress Ren. My pregnancy changed that and he finally became part of his local kink community and started dating kinky women.

He tried to turn his abandonment of me in my time of need into a compliment. “I just can't go nine months without this!” I understood. I had always thought that I was the one who kept him at a distance, that he was more devoted to me than our interactions really warranted, but this reminded me that, while a client may say that he wants to be something more, when reality comes calling, only very few answer. S and I only talked a few times after he moved on. He sent a few gifts for my first son and got a young girlfriend who looked uncannily like me, down to the glasses and strong chin.

After I had figured out how to balance my first child with my career, the second one slid into his place in my life easily and surely. I was the mother I had always wanted to be, while still supporting myself and my little ones as a sex goddess. There were losses along the way and there will be more, but I am experiencing every kind of love that there is, and that makes my life very grand indeed.