Arbitrary

new post at my new wordpress blog:

http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com./

Come join me! If any of you have a wordpress blog I will link to it on my page!

X

Questionnaire for potential dominants

1. Are you single? If yes, go to q3. If no, go to q2.

2. Are you and your partner(s) open and honest about the fact you see other people? If yes go to q3. If no, go away.

3. Are you a feminist, or at least an ally of feminism? If yes, go to q4. If no, fuck off.

4. Do you believe we should be making kinky spaces and erotica that is accessible to everyone, including men and women, cis and transgender and gender-non conforming people, LGBQ people, and people from all ethnic origins? If yes go to q5. If no, go and educate yourself.

5. Would you ever consider switching during play or during a relationship? i.e. from D to S, from Top to Bottom? If yes, go to q6. If no, grow a pair.

6. Do you like any or all of Bitchy Jones, Girl with a one track mind, Michel Foucault, Stephen Elliot, Anais Nin, Sappho, Dirty Filthy Things, The Piano Teacher, Michael Hanneke? If yes, go to q7. If no, go and explore.

7. Do you agree with Judith Butler that gender is performance? If yes, go to q8. If no, go to the back of the class. If ‘who is Judith Butler’? just go, and don’t come back till you know the answer.

8. Do you practice safe sex, take responsibility for and talk about contraception with your playmates and partners? If yes, go to q9. If no, get with the programme!

9. Do you think fucktheory is the best thing on the internet since www.drawyourboss.com? If yes go to q10. If no, we need to talk. If ’what is fucktheory’? it is this: http://fucktheory.tumblr.com/

10. So are you going to buy me a drink then?

Moving to wordpress

Hello everyone

I am so chuffed that people have started to comment on my blog, and to use it as a place to discuss a range of issues. Without this interaction with you, blogging would be a lonely business. I have moved my blog to wordpress, where I will focus on the kink and sexual politics aspect of my writing. I will post on here and on the new blog for a while incase you need a bit of time before you come and join me there too! I might leave this here as well in case I still want to write about other stuff.

http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com

Paradox

He says I am a paradox.

People always say that. Normally they mean it is paradoxical that a feminist and a 'strong woman' like me could be submissive. Let a man walk all over her like that. But I don't see any paradox there. It's just sex. You don't have to re-enact all your political views in the bedroom do you? If so, I expect the Christian Right and the environmentalists have a pretty dull time in the sack.

But he means something else. I know. The way his eyes bore into me the way he told me to look at him, but I couldn't. The way I suddenly got embarrassed when I was undressing and stopped until he told me to go on. He knows that there is a part of me that just doesn't want to do it. That is so shy I cannot quite bear to be exposed like this, naked and vulnerable in front of him. And yet I keep coming back, keep turning up in those heels I can't really walk in. Keep bending over. Expectant.

He says I am a paradox and he is right. But paradoxes can be hot, can't they?

Taken Part Two

When we emerge out onto the grubby street the atmosphere changes, darkens. If I thought it was some kind of game before, I know it isn't now. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as fear grips my body. He looks at me again, impassive, unreadable. I think about my flat, the comfy sofa, the bottle of wine waiting for me in the fridge. It seems they are in some other life, that I have left behind. Then I can't think about anything, as he grabs me by the arm and drags me along the pavement, digging his fingers into the flesh of my arm. 'Hurry up bitch'.

An alleyway appears and he leads me in, shoving me against the wall. He parts my legs with his, and pushes his body into mine, with all his strength. Now, I could not escape if I tried. I can feel the hardness of his cock against my clothes. He rubs it against me slowly and deliberately. Then he takes my face in one of his hands and pulls it towards him.

'Look at me' he demands. I force myself to look into his eyes, starting to feel a little faint.

'Tell me you want me inside you'. It almost feels as if I have been drugged. My head is heavy, I want to find the words but I struggle.

'I... I...'

'Say it, whore'. With that he pulls me by my hair, so my head knocks against the brick wall.

'I...'

'Yes?' I feel his cock thrusting into me.

'I want you in .. me'.

'Good girl'.

Suddenly he is undoing his trousers, pulling a condom out of nowhere and putting it on before he pushes up my skirt and pulls my knickers to the side. His fingers find me soaking. There is nowhere left to run.

'You filthy little bitch'

As he fucks me I can feel the back of my legs chafing against the brickwork. I hold onto him as if I might fall. He pinches my nipples and bites my neck, like some kind of animal. There is nothing I can do but take it. Our orgasms come at once, breathless and pained.

When he has finished he does up his trousers and waits while I try to straighten myself out.

Neither of us speak but he beckons and I go to him. He kisses the top of my head.

'Thank you' he says. 'Thank-you girl'.

And then he is gone. I stumble out of the alleyway onto the street, trying to remember who I am and where I live. As I walk home my tights ripped and my legs sore, I feel a throbbing in my cunt and I smile.

Taken

It is hot in the city. But underground it's a furnace. My tights are sticking to my legs as I clamber onto the tube with all the other sweating commuters. Hanging from the rail above my head, my underarms are not as fragrant as they were when I left the office. There is nothing I can do about it now.

The doors slide open to let another bunch of wilting workers onto the train. I squeeze myself further back into the vehicle. I am someone who likes her personal space, so the tall, muscular man that pushes himself right up against my body has well and truly invaded. I try to scowl at him but end up staring pleadingly into his dark, inscrutable eyes. His look says 'I will stand where I damn well want'. I cast my eyes down and keep them facing my shoes for the rest of the journey.

When we finally reach my stop I fight through the crowd onto the platform and and over to the escalator that will lead me back out into the humid evening. I do not turn back to look, but I sense someone behind me, so close I can feel his body lightly brushing against my back. I hold my breath. At the station entrance I hesitate, suddenly unsure which way to go even though I have made this journey a thousand times before. 'Hello' says a voice, deep and self-assured. It is him. What happens next is inexplicable, and completely out of character for me. My whole body is screaming at me to run, to ignore this stranger and get myself to the safety of my home. Maybe it is the heat, but I ignore my instincts. I smile weakly at the man, who has now placed his hand on my arm and is squeezing it firmly. 'Hello'. I am now disoriented and don't know where I want to go. Sensing my indecision, he says 'follow me' assertively, and starts to march down the street in the opposite direction to where I live. I do not disobey.

At the entrance to a pub he stops abruptly and so do I. Looking me dead in the eye he tells me, 'You are free to go. It is your choice. You do know that don't you?' I nod, in some kind of daze.

Before I know it I am sat next to him in a dark corner, sipping a glass of white wine, my fingers shaking slightly as I try to look composed. He on the other hand is as relaxed as if we had known each other for years. He wears a shirt but no tie, and the top button is undone to reveal the top of a hairy chest. I don't even know his name.

Suddenly I feel his hand between my knees, pushing them apart. Not roughly, but not gently either. He leans in and whispers in my ear. 'I want you. Now.' The words make me panic. I look around me, feeling slightly nauseous. I am in a public bar. I could get up to leave. I could alert a member of staff. I could scream. But I do none of these things. I am not in danger and yet I am terrified. I am terrified of what he might do to me. I am terrified of what I might let him do to me. I take a gulp of wine and feel his hand move up from my knees along the inside of my thighs. Oh God. I blush red crimson. I wriggle to avoid his fingers reaching in to find me. When I dare to look at him he is grinning broadly. 'Good girl' he says. 'You're a good girl.' Then he grabs my hand, pulls me from the seat and marches me out of the pub into the hot, humid night.

To be continued...

Riding The Third Wave

Feminism has had a resurgence recently. The third wave is finally here! In the UK there are feminist organisations sprouting up everywhere, dealing with issues such as equal pay, violence against women, objectification in the media, sex-work and lap-dancing.

And there's the rub. I do not identify with these feminists, because my attitude towards sex, sexuality and sex work is almost diametrically opposed to that of the 'third wave feminists' around me. If I feel so differently from them on these important subjects, maybe I am not in agreement on many others either.

Two new pieces of Uk legislation, achieved through lobbying by high-profile feminist groups serve to underline my point of view. The first means lap-dancing clubs now have to apply for a special 'sex establishment' license, which costs money to obtain. The second criminalises clients of coerced sex-workers. I oppose these laws. The feminist lobbyists did not consult sex workers about their proposals. The laws will mean sex-work will go further underground, and will probably lead to sex-workers being forced to work in more dangerous unregulated conditions. Also, these feminists seem led by puritanical motives: they feel offended by sex work, and they want to remove it from their sight, from their nice suburban neighbourhoods.

My kink has become more and more important to my feminism as time goes on. Sexuality is a vital aspect of how we express and identify ourselves. When the UK also made a law criminalising viewers of extreme pornography, which passed unopposed by most feminist groups, I realised kink is more than identity politics; it involves the politics of civil liberties and minority rights as well. So now I wear my kink proudly, along with my support of sex workers' rights, my belief in the equality of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people, and my campaigns against racism and prejudice everywhere.

Your feminism is not my feminism and that's ok. But in setting up this Blog Carnival, I am delighted and relieved to find myself amongst people whose feminism IS similar to mine. I am also looking forward to exploring the diversity of our kinky interests in a safe and accepting space. Let's ride the third wave together and change the way it rolls onto the shore.

A Small, Good Thing

The sun is shining on London's suburbs. A funfair is in town. People are wandering into the park to take in the atmosphere, try their luck on the coconut shy, or brave the ghost train. The cool lads are hanging about by the park gates, pretending not to care. But secretly they feel like running over to the scariest looking ride and jumping on like the kids they still are. Two girls approach from across the road, heading towards the candyfloss and sawdust, the thrill and dingy sexiness of the fair. One of the boys, he seems like a ringleader of the group, he's taller and louder than the others. He turns and looks the girls up and down, deliberately resting his eyes on their chests, the bare skin of their bellies where their tops don't quite reach. 'OH yes.' he says, for the benefit of his mates. 'You are VERY sexy. Hot.' He doesn't go so far to block the girls' way into the park, but he thinks about it. They faulter a little in their step. They know he could do whatever he wanted. But they walk on by, trying to ignore the whistles and catcalls that follow them.

I have witnessed this scene or versions of it, a thousand times before. Sometimes I am one of the girls, other times I am just present, maybe a few feet away, but within earshot and full sight of what is being said and done. I have never intervened in such casual, seemingly 'innocent' banter. It is just what boys do isn't it?

But this time the story didn't end there. One of the lads, quieter than his friend, looked at his friend and said in a clearly disapproving tone: 'don't be stupid. You don't even know them'. Then he turned away from the agression he'd perceived from his mate, and walked down the street, a couple of the other boys following him.

It wasn't much. A girl was harassed on her way to the fair. A boy challenged his friend, showing he opposed this harassment, of girls, who the boys didn't even know to say hello to. It didn't change the world. But it made me stop in my tracks. I had never seen a man speak out against the sexist behaviour of his friends before, let alone such a young man. It was a small, good thing, and it made me proud.

The Deal

Friday May 7th, 9pm

London. Rain.

The atmosphere is tense in London but also heavy with boredom. We are caught in a political limbo. Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has lost his footing and is starting to slide down the mountain. He and his family are squatters in their own home, and will most likely be evicted by Monday morning. He knows that history is being made, but not by him. Someone else is holding all the cards.

Britain is crawling towards what will probably be our first coalition Government in over thirty five years, only this time the cameras are rolling. Everyone is glued to their TV. This has been the first truly televised election, as the Labour administration succumbed and allowed live TV debates between the leaders of the three main parties. We could only tell them apart by the colour of their ties and the slight nuances in their accents. One of them, Nick Clegg, came out from nowhere to wow the audiences with his stylised sincerity. Suddenly, though his party came third in the actual election, he is holding the balance of power. It's a post-modern tale of the little guy catapulted onto the big media-dominated stage. And it is also a race against time. 'I love you Liberalism, but I've only got 48 hours to save my career and gain the power I crave'.

But now that the most important and intriguing action of the election is underway, we are not allowed to see. The real deals are being made behind heavy oak doors, by civil servants we have never heard of, wearing grey suits, high on adrenalin and lack of sleep. There are no pictures of planes flying into buildings, nobody is vandalising McDonalds. We have forgotten that Athens is burning, that the markets are plummeting, that somewhere high above us the sky is still full of volcanic ash. We are sat semi-comatosed on our sofas, watching tired TV anchors talking straight to camera, reporting on what we already know. There is nothing to report. I blink at the screen, slowly bringing my glass to my lips. I have a deadline tomorrow; I should really be getting some sleep.

Saturday May 8th, 10.30 am,

London. Grey skies

The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are rumoured to be in 'talks'. Between them they would hold a majority of seats in Parliament, and are desperately trying to find some common ground, after telling us all they had none. The LibDems were sold to us as the party of social justice, promising electoral reform, environmental responsibility, public services and fairer taxes. The Tories never pretended to be much more than the upper-class peddlers of neo-conservatism that they so obviously are. The liberal 'twitterati' are up in arms about the way the dice are being shaken. #Hashtag after #hashtag is being produced, as if Nick Clegg might actually be sat in the back of his limo, reading the messages on his i-phone, being persuaded by these online opinion leaders, that actually this deal with the devil is not such a good idea after all. But within minutes #dontdoitnick has morphed into #dontdoitblix and #dontdoitdick until it becomes the inevitable #dontdoitrick. Democracy is rick-rolled as the internet turns political protest into a meme. Labour supporters say 100,000 Retweets are needed to achieve electoral reform. Skeptics like me are ROFL.

Saturday May 8th 2.45 pm

London. More rain.

A flash-mob demo has started in Trafalgar Square, in the name of electoral reform and Proportional Representation. Irritated tweets are arriving from demonstrators who can't see or hear the speakers because they are being obstructed by Morris Dancers. When given the chance, the true tribes of England march on Parliament, with bells and ribbons and sticks. The demonstrators find their way to the building where Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are planning their bargaining strategy. Calls of 'Come Out Nick!' ring through the air. Eventually the Liberal leader emerges on the steps and tells the protestors he is on their side. But he suggests they go home and carry on their campaigns somewhere else. He has got a deal to broker. He doesn't need this right now.

As The Queen stands by her phone, waiting to be 'activated' like a character in a computer game, the salesmen continue their pitches. Everything is still to play for. But also the game is long-since over. The real Faustian pact was made back in 2003, when Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, simultaneously cementing the 'special relationship' with the Bush administration, and securing his lucrative career in the 'peacemaking' business when it was all over. Blair's mercenary, cold-blooded, wild-eyed ghost has haunted this election, along with those of thousands of Iraqi people; he came back to remind us there aren't any good guys left. So it is now down to whoever offers the best package at the lowest price.

I don't know how the story ends. I have to submit my copy before the men in suits close the deal. Their hands are grubby from rooting around in the mud. I can see them now, wiping them on their trousers before looking each other in the eye and shaking on it. 'Nice doing business with you’ they will say, before heading back out onto the street. Maybe the demonstrators will be waiting for them again. Except nobody will be Morris Dancing, or tweeting. This time the people might be ready for a fight. We have nothing to lose.

Stiletto Rage

Arguing about gender roles is something I love to do. I have realised that I particularly enjoy doing it with dominant men, even when I am within striking distance. Foolish maybe, but I cannot help myself.

A typical argument might go along these lines:

Him:'I would like to see you in stilettos and a tight pencil skirt'.

Me:'That's such a fucking cliche. Why does the collective imagination of all the male dominants in the world get reduced to a woman in heels and a revealing outfit?'

Him:'Because it looks good. And you would be restricted and exposed at the same time'.

Me: 'It's not fucking fair. Women submissives have to fit into this cliched stereotype of femininity in order to fulfil their need to be submissive. And I am a feminist and it makes me angry to be forced into a role I have been resisting all my life'.

Him: 'Oh good. So you might find it humiliating as well. Excellent'.

Me: 'GGGrrr. That's not the point. Why can't men think of other ways to objectify women apart from the ways they are already objectified in society?'

Him: 'Shut up and put those shoes on, bitch'.

Keeping Away My Lonesome Blues

A twitter friend in another country recently asked me to comment on the UK election. Unfortunately, this election has rendered me speechless. Unlike Gordon Brown, whose supporters have been excitedly posting youtube clips of the moment he 'found his voice', I have remained unable to articulate my real views on this depressing spectacle. I think that's what depression is in some ways, an inability to express one's feelings.

So, whilst me and them lonesome blues collide on the eve of the conclusion to this seemingly interminable election, I'm handing over the mic to some braver, more eloquent souls than me. As seen on twitter:

'On the eve of #ge2010, I'm featuring the election blogs that have inspired me most and which have made my election 'media coverage' bearable

First up @chris_coltrane on 'None of the Above' http://chris-coltrane.livejournal.com/

Next in my election blog special, @brokenbottleboy 's letter to his 13 year old self, 13 years after 1997: http://tinyurl.com/36rmxnv

And this brilliant demolition of the BNP by @andshesaidithttp://tinyurl.com/3xensry is one of the best things I've read on the election!

Finally, a blog that really resonated with me, by @mistertumnusabout the power of being quietly subversive:http://tinyurl.com/3y5hxpd '

Thank-you, and goodnight*.

*I hope that Friday I will be back to my motivated, verbal, politically angry and active self!

A Long Time After Niemoller

First they came for Gillian Duffy

But I was not a bigoted woman so I did not speak out.

Then they came for Philippa Stroud

But I was not a homophobic evangelical Christian Tory so I did not speak out.

Then they came for Nick Griffin

And I was not a fascist so I laughed as they tore him to shreds.

Now the world is a better place.

And the bastards can't get us anymore.