And thus concludes the Great Reader Mini Interview series of 2013!
Thank you, everyone, for your comments and engagement and ideas. I have loved reading every one of your responses and recommendations. I have dreams of compiling a big list of blog URLs and recommended books and sources that changed your lives. We’ll see if I can get that done. I have such limited time and SO many project ideas, ya know? Everything I choose to do means choosing NOT to do something else.
And likewhoa, the Submissive Playground has taken up way more time than I expected. I mean, of course it did, doing a course for the first time always takes so much work to create the curriculum, and having something ongoing means I have even more room to tweak it and change it based on what the participants need, as it goes on. Which has been amazing, but also a lot of work. I am almost seeing the end of the course now, though, since there’s only one more full week of materials to prepare, and then the wrap-up call! (I’m still behind on grading homework, however. That’s on my MITs for today.)
If you sent in a mini interview for this series, and you haven’t seen your name here, I’m sorry! I very well may have overlooked it, somehow. Or maybe it didn’t get into the Google forms spreadsheet, somehow. I promise it was an accident—the only folks I didn’t include were those of you who wrote to me and specifically asked not to be printed. I would welcome you writing me with, “Hey, I submitted a mini-interview, but I didn’t see it; do you still have it?” kind of question if you want to (you probably know how to reach me, but my email isn’t really on the site anymore because I’m trying to get my inbox under control).
I love reading your advice and resources, so much. Thank you, everybody. I would really love to keep the conversations going … do you think if we had a monthly chat, in an online IRC kind of chatroom, y’all would come and talk to me? Rife & I were talking about it like a “fireside chat” kind of thing, so there should be tea or cocktails or something, but y’all would have to provide those for yourself.
Okay! On to the mini-interviews:
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What’s your relationship with sugarbutch.net and Sinclair?
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I started reading your blog over a year ago. I had just come out to a dear friend– a very conservative straight female friend. Being the woman she is, she decided to google many things LGBT and found your site. She asked me about it, and since I hadn’t seen it before, she insisted that I read it and get to “know” you. A true friend.
—Annie Anthony, http://annieanthony.com
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I won a copy of Say Please at a burlesque show and it opened the flood gates. And I’m not just talking about how wet it made me. I realized what I had been missing and the kinky, leather, submissive, masochist inside me would be ignored no longer! After reading The Harder She Comes, and Sometimes She Lets Me and seeing your name in all three I landed here. So obviously my favorite parts of Sugarbutch are the naughty bits. I love erotica because I always get to play the leading lady in my mind when I read.
—Summer, https://www.facebook.com/summer.r.banks
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I have, as you know, been a long-time reader. I began reading Sugarbutch when I was in a hetero-relationship, maybe about 5 years ago (have you been publishing that long? I know you had been around for a little while already because I devoured the archives when I found you.) I was somewhat questioning my sexuality at the time, knew I was attracted to women- and so did my partner- but I was not out to many other people. … It’s been an interesting trajectory, to say the least, and I have also gone through some of the same stuff as you over the same-ish time frame, in terms of leaving my long-term partner and staying with a new partner who I met & started dating while in the long-term relationship. It was through being a reader of Sugarbutch that I first started to create this active fantasy life, including the desire for a Daddy/girl relationship (I believe you introduced this concept to me) which I now am living out with my partner.
Not only was your writing a great outlet for yummy lesbian smut and D/s dynamic when I was not getting any of that kind of sex, but your honest writing about your own relationships and your thoughtful introspection about power/self/learning/loving has been essential to my own growth and moving through what I needed to move through during that time in my life, in order to come out and to be comfortable with who I am.
—cravatica, http://titlesareeasy.Blogspot.com
What advice would you give your younger self about sex, gender, or relationships?
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Don’t worry, it’ll all sort out, one thing at a time. Oh, and Lesbians do totally exist; so you are fu**ing normal.
(Just as a small explanation: as a teen I was kind of questioning my gender, since I am a woman attracted to woman but only knew (at the time) that it was not okay to feel this way (hello Homophobia). So I spend a lot of my time thinking about gender, power and such stuff. Which is okay, since it is a really fascinating topic, but I just wished that back than someone would have told me that it is okay to be butch. And that there are a quadrillion ways to express oneself, so you don’t have to become the girl next door stereotype.)
(I hope I made sense!)
—Max Vague, http://droemmelig.tumblr.com
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Don’t spend too much time in relationships with cismen because they aren’t really your thing. You know you’re not satisfied w just girls on the side and you’ll get to the good stuff if you stop cockblocking yourself with cisdudes. Don’t spend too much time with people who don’t want to help draw out & make real your dirtiest desires from your shy self.
YOU ARE (mostly) A BOTTOM; DON’T DATE OTHER BOTTOMS!!!
—keta, http://papismija.tumblr.com
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I would tell myself that there is less need to wait, that you are already whole and that the parts of yourself that feel freaky, incongruent, vulnerable and broken will be amongst your greatest beauties (especially when they awaken compassion). I would encourage my younger self to keep up the sexual self-exploration, that it will pay off in spades. I would encourage that younger self to honor that precocious gender-resistance and keep the girl-boy-girl-feral internal parts in conversation and alive; you’ll find others soon enough. I would also encourage my younger self to open up, share and to trust those few friends a bit more, that healthy, joyful, hot, loving relationships *are* possible, despite what you see all around. Oh, and PS, Austin is full of queers. Call OutYouth Austin, right now.
delightful wigglepuss, https://www.facebook.com/kim.lasdon
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Dear Baby Summer,
You are going to spend a lot of time looking for the right penis. You will be convinced if you just sleep with enough men you’ll find the one that does it for you. You want so badly to find the nice man to marry and make babies with in a gated community. Here’s the thing… you don’t ACTUALLY want that, it’s just the only thing you’ve ever known. The moment that you meet people who have a different model for love and life your eyes start to open. The reason you are obsessed with the movie But I’m a Cheerleader is you’re fucking gay. This was the first example of young, queer ladies you’d ever seen in film and you latched onto it like a fucking gay life saver in a sea of hetero. It still takes you a few years to realize you don’t just “think girls are pretty”. Even after fucking a few you aren’t convinced you want to be in a relationship with a lady. And that’s ok. All in good time my pretty. You will eventually realize the right penis is actually a strap-on cock and while you weren’t sure you wanted to be in a relationship with a lady, being a butch’s girl is right where you belong. You are going to be so happy when you open your mind and your heart. And you’re going to cum a lot more.
—Summer, https://www.facebook.com/summer.r.banks
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Fuck gender; do what you want. Pronouns aren’t the important things, or names, and breasts come off regardless of gender if you find the right surgeon. Love vintage hair cuts because they are comfortable and awesome, and your voice because it can do so much, and being a member of a community of women because there is similarity, strength, vulnerability and kinship there. Don’t worry what labels any of those things earn you; the labels matter to some people, but it’s okay that they don’t. Gender is a myth built around embodied truth, but still just a myth, and your truth can be something the myth-writers never imagined.
As for relationships, as wonderful as it feels to be someone’s whole world, that’s what puppies are for. There are things called “boundaries” and you really ought to develop some or you will lose yourself attempting the impossible. On the other hand, don’t be afraid of heart break. There are worse things than a broken heart.
Finally, there is no such thing as a “failed” relationship; there are just relationships that end (sometimes long after they stop being a positive force.)
—B., https://twitter.com/liminalgamer
What one resource has had the most impact on you, and why?
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Hoffman Process, hands down. And I’ve done a lot of work in many forms. It helped me extricate and fundamentally alter the roots of old patterns that were lodged deeply in my somatic and neurological pathways. It offered me tools to continue the work on my own beyond the retreat. It also worked because I was fiercely ready to do the work and surrendered myself to the transformation despite and beyond the aspects that my rational, critical intellect would have dismissed.
—delightful wigglepuss, https://www.facebook.com/kim.lasdon
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Insight-oriented therapy with a smart therapist. It took nine therapists to find one who clicked, but it was so very, very worth it. In addition to the obvious up sides, therapy taught me skills of self-reflection and intellectualization that have been way more adaptive than my previous coping mechanisms. It taught me to listen to my emotions and body, letting them tell me what I needed to care about or work on or empathize with. Even if one is completely emotionally and psychologically healthy, I still think insight-oriented therapy can be useful [since] we aren’t teaching that kind of emotional intelligence to everyone.
—B., https://twitter.com/liminalgamer
Anything else to add?
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Ever think about coming to Ireland Sinclair? Plenty of LGBTQ groups to visit!
—CTD
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I really love your site and the information and passion you share with the world. I’d really love to see you promote yourself more, to a wider audience. I think some of your stories and blog posts are so intelligent that you can appeal to a very academic audience. Yet your subjects are so interesting and fun that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy the blog. I’d love to hear audio transcripts of some or all of your workshops and also see more interactive content, pictures, etc. Overall, highly entertaining and interesting work!
—Annie Anthony, http://annieanthony.com/
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I am awed and inspired by your bravery to share so much of yourself in a medium that can often feel completely one-sided, and I love that you opened up these questions to your readers in order to encourage a different kind of dynamic with your reader. Thanks for sharing yourself so openly for all these years.
I look forward to seeing you in person one day, if you ever come to do a talk in Phoenix, please let me know! I’m starting off my classes in gender and gay and lesbian studies this spring at ASU so if I ever come across an opportunity to bring you to campus for a speaking engagement, you can bet I will be trying to book you!
—cravatica, http://titlesareeasy.Blogspot.com
