Dreams of ex lovers (Sex with yourself post breakup)

So it's been a whole month since the relationship ended and while it's not a long time in the larger scheme of life it somehow feels like it. With all the emptying out of my life I've been left with a lot of free time - to read, to see friends and to ummm get into some sexy self love time. 

The latter has been interesting. It's not the act of masturbating that has been tough but rather the process. After a break up you kind of feel horny but listless - like I would really like an orgasm right now but what am I going to think about, and who? It all seems like too much effort. 

In other words, being fresh out of a relationship there are no men appealing enough to me to be worth the effort of having imaginary sex with. And if it does happen it's more like the exception - for instance a sex dream could prompt it. At the same time more traditional channels like porn seem so vapid and like too much effort. So what's left then is all this time and these hormones and nothing to do about it. I mean I have my fair share of coming out of the shower, looking in the mirror and feeling myself, but this is really not an every day vibe. Real masturbation in single life is waking up super early in the morning, and with eyes still basically closed getting into some half-arsed clit play. 

Use those fingers honey. Get in there.       

This is where the memory bank of ex lovers comes in. Something I never thought I would be grateful for until now. In the process of being lazy and horny and heartbroken it's like there's a little chest in my head with a recorder that's there for me to push play whenever I want to make myself feel sexy. There are memories about dedicated lovers who would without prompting do almost all the work with so much fervor that it was like being a sex doll. Then there are the intense ones, the hot and heavy ones, the ones with special dick tricks, the ones who I almost wrote off because of their little packages but who I've actually had some of the best sex ever with because of their technique. There are the slow lovers, the quick and dirty ones and the kinky ones too. 

Obviously it is only the consensual respectable lovers who make it into the memory bank in the first place. No room for other trash. But yeah, in this lonely post break up phase who would have thought that all those old interactions would come back with so much life. The strangest part about it all, I suppose, is how real it all still feels even though some of the interactions were up to six years ago. I don't know if it's just me and the way I process things but it's like I've stored every little unique trait from each person and have dusted off the memories until they're as good as new. Each time. Even stranger is how I can be feeling myself and boom, something that someone did that seems almost impossible to remember pops into my head. Here's an example, the way one guy put the arch of my foot to his face and caressed it with his beard in the most sensual way during sex. Like I'm pretty fucking sure he doesn't remember it but somehow on the cusp of cumming, I do. 

Oh well. In any case I'm grateful for these experiences and never saw them coming in handy in this way. And I am pretty sure it is a really healthy way to process all my post-breakup post-regular-sex energy surplus. So hey if you're a single woman feeling herself on the regular, an ex lover or have made use of your ex lovers in the same way cheers to that. Here is to healthy lazy sex with yourself forever more. 

The Allure of Elusive Men

CN: cis-heteronormative language. 

I don’t know how many times in my life I have sat down with my friends to discuss why we find certain men attractive. You know the gut-wrenching, belly-flipping, holding eye-contact across the room type of attraction, where with every part of your being you feel like you want to devour this person - like lick their face a la chewing gum type of stuff. Okay maybe not that far, but you get it.  

At the same time we have kind of established that we don’t know whether men feel this way. Like I have never met a guy who has said to me that every time he thinks about me he gets butterflies, or that the mere thought of fucking gives him a semi.  Do men even get butterflies? Is that a thing? Are they even wired this way? If there are any cis-het men who can disclose the dynamics of how men experience chemistry and attraction please hit me up. 

This leads into what this post is about.  It is precisely because we don’t know how men work or what they are thinking that makes them so attractive to us in a lot of cases. It is the allure of the elusive man. You know the stereotypical trope about a dark and mysterious man, or a tortured writer, or a poet, or an artist, oh yes, who can forget the musician (bassist please, thanks). 

I am pretty fucking sure that a large part of what makes a man deeply attractive in the early stages of getting to know them is their elusiveness. For some women, the more obscure, alternative and different they are the deeper the attraction. For other women, the more unavailable they seem to the rest of the world, but available to the woman herself, the deeper the attraction.

No matter what the individual circumstances are these elusive men all fit the same basic profile. I would say that they are all poor communicators, a la the definition of elusive. They let on enough to know that they may be interested but not too much. They have an air of preoccupation, as if they are all about a purpose higher than themselves. Don’t be fooled though, this is not the case, the only purpose they have are themselves. There is an air of douche baggery around them, but then sometimes they seem so sincere that you can’t hold their offishness against them. Actually let me not romanticise it, they treat you like shit, but then don’t when they decide not to. A lot of them have a big ego, and at the core of it are hiding something, usually a large insecurity - perhaps some of their own childhood trauma. In any case it can all be really quite mind fucky and rationally it seems like a waste of effort, and it would be if we didn't have such a vested interest in it through this intense attraction. 

But this is the thing. I want to know why we find these elusive men so attractive. And I have been doing some research and reading, and the first thing that makes sense is projection. It is very intuitive, since we don’t know everything about these men, especially not their idiosyncrasies, we perceive them to be some way, a way that appeals to us, and we fill in the blanks with out own wishes and desires. And isn’t it oh so good…

Then there is this thing that Freud coined, called “repetition compulsion”, which means that basically we reenact (here in a sexual or romantic way) patterns of traumatic behavior from our childhood. So the hook that binds you to that man that doesn’t text back probably has some root to your childhood, for instance you may be a fixer.  This seems all too simplistic for me. But then again every elusive man who I have had a thing with, has had these strange dismissive tendencies, which I have overlooked all in quest for the thrill of the interaction. So maybe there is something to it, something like, oh if I just give this one more go it will be alright.  

The other thing it could be is an ego thing. This is the simplest version, and the one that resonates with projection a bit more. It goes like this, you meet an elusive man and you want to have some of that. You want to possess it. It’s natural selection and you want to win. And you don’t stop until you do, despite the costs, and there are costs.

To make it more interesting, I met a woman counsellor once casually, and we had a conversation about this type of eye locking attraction. I basically said that it is so bizarre that you have all these subconscious signals going off and that like in a split second you, with barely thinking, can pick out who in the crowd you would be interested in getting with. So we talked about whether this was purely physical, like, do women go for the strongest, tallest, toughest looking men, and it is actually not always the case. Then we talked about what it was. And it came down to some very Jungian type subconscious signaling going on. Basically there are stuff so deep down that we don’t even know that send out frequencies, and the person you’re attracted to emits the same frequencies, and then you connect. So this counsellor then says, wait for it… that this type of attraction is ALWAYS DANGEROUS. LIKE POISON. I kid you not. And I chuckled so hard. I was like, hold up, you go out to a club and have vibes with a person and those vibes are DANGEROUS. NO, NO, NO. NOPE. Sorry.

I mean I want to say I understand what she was saying, that given the fuckery that comes with elusive men these vibes can be dangerous. Or, perhaps it was that having vibes like that does not equate to love… But who said that they do? Or perhaps she was saying you can’t build something with someone based solely on those vibes, you need to get to know them first, so as to know that they’re not trash. I don’t know. What I do know is that there are hundreds of thousands of relationships that begin like this, people meet each other and fall into the most scandalous lust and then fall in love, and there are just as many interactions where the latter does not happen and that is okay. 

So then back to the question, what is it about the allure of elusive men? I really think it comes back to the projection thing, we are constantly on the look to validate ourselves. And this happens when we choose extremely attractive people upfront, since it says, hey, look at what I snagged - this Adonis, or really intellectual people, or really quirky, sexy, fun, edgy, alternative, people. You get it. But the key is that they need not just be this. They could actually be anything or anyone. The key is that we perceive their odd or hard to read qualities to be elusive. and this comes down to perception versus reality, in real life they may not be elusive at all. Think about how many times you have crushed and your best friend goes, “I just don’t see it, he’s so (fill in the blank)”.

So if I can conclude then, the allure of elusive men is not because they are truly elusive. It is that through the lens of our projections and desires for things intangible we perceive them to be that way.  And a take home nugget of wisdom would be to remember this when you feel bowled over and powerless by just how amazing you perceive them to be. No it is not “dangerous” but yes, it is an illusion. A delicious illusion. 

Lily

Her fingers
parted
the soft folds
of her
malleable molten maze

The warm
scent
of liquid
silk
radiated off her
finger
tips

She didn't know
at which point she
closed
her eyes
and felt

a thousand worlds collide
into a single
exaltation

all seven skies
compress
into
a pin prick of
splendour

a veil lift
from the
heavens

and a breeze
blow
over
her face

Clay

He seemed like
the kind of guy
for whom
eating pussy
could have easily been
a chore
or his favourite pass-time
it was hard to tell

For that matter,
what gave away whether
a man ate pussy like it was
the last slice of cold
watermelon on a sweltering summer day,
or not?

Actually, perhaps it seemed
like it would be a chore.
He did speak in a way that
revealed enough, but not too
much. Was this calculated?

Everything about him screamed
tenderness. Except his hands,
they proclaimed presence.
What they were used for was
wetting clay and moulding
pots. But are pots not like pussy?
I wondered. I guess they aren't.
After all, they can't feel or respond.

Or perhaps they are, because all they do
is respond.
There is no pretense in pottering.
There should be no pretense in petting,
but petting is all pretense.

If these walls could talk (Sex)

Let me start by saying that if you didn't get the Kendrick reference in the title to this blog post, then you shouldn't be here.

And yes, another sex blog. Leave now if you're not ready for this.

I was chatting to one of my besties the other day about what we would want from a sexual partner if we had full control over what we could choose. What is necessary, what is basic, and what is, frankly, just asking for too much.

Talking to her is always fun, because she has a plethora of wisdom in this field from her acute attention paying way of being in the world.

In any case, we basically came up with lists, of what we think are the most important sexual skills that a (cis) man (or any partner) can offer a woman in a relationship.

Okay so full disclosure: when we started out, I had it as a priority that a beautiful dick is what I want and I will settle for nothing less.  I know a lot of people don't feel this way, but really you get penises, and you get penises. And the latter are like a work of art. If you're tactilely sensitive, they feel good in your hands. If you're care about hygiene, they feel so good in your mouth that you will forget that you do. Upshot is, they're things to behold. She thinks it's shallow. Besides, getting to know what someone's dick looks like is a little like a box of chocolates...

So we chatted. And fine, a beautiful penis - not too large, a little on the wide side... I digress - is too much to ask for, especially since it is an endowment that people have no choice over.

So i rolled my eyes and we carried on chatting. And this is what it turns out is not too much to ask for in a sexual relationship:

1- A man (or partner) who loves to eat pussy. With the operative word being love. And you would be surprised at how rare this is. Like I don't know what porn vacuum cis-het men live in, but they don't realise that eating pussy is an integral part of the sexual experience for women. In a world where women take 20 minutes just to let their defenses down and get turned on, eating pussy is not a luxury. It's a necessity. Why do you think gay and bi- women have a almost 100% orgasm strike rate? I mean, you get reasonable men who intellectually understand that they can't expect you to suck them off without them doing the same, but they're doing it as if they're washing the fucking dishes. Like, hold up. Keep your tongue to yourself if that's what you're gonna do with it.  But hey, on the bright side, once you get the hang of it it will only get easier and better.

Take some tips from your homeboy Ryan Gosling -

Here he is eating Carey Muligan out in Blue Valentine

2- CLITERACY! I will say no more... Just read this.

3- And intricately linked to cliteracy is technique.  Okay, so you get men in their thirties who still fuck like teenagers and this is NOT okay. Like, I get it, some men have natural rhythm and others don't, and that's okay because there are positions that work depending what your skills set it. For instance, if you don't have the hip moves, stay away from being on top (missionary) and if you still insist on being on top, maybe try a waltz move (every second beat of the bar should be more intense - you're welcome), but try to do it from the side, or maybe behind (yes, with the waltz - you are not a jackhammer). Also, the last works well if you - let's not sugarcoat it - have a small dick. And if you have a big one, then see point 1 above - it's all about the warm-up.

Gosh, I could gush about technique forever, but from a sample of ample women, I can tell you that guys who do kachabali have the most satisfied sexual partners. It's not always about penetration, sometimes you just have to appreciate the architecture of a good pussy and play with it a little, it's actually about the anticipation of good dick that can have the effect of good dick. I'm not gonna say anymore but watch this and skip to 3:34 to see what you need to do.  Also, God damn the Kenyans, they had it right this whole fucking time. Also bonus points if you can make her squirt. What? You didn't know that all women could squirt?

4- Compromise in terms of who does the work - this is an obvious point, but in a long term relationship it is only fair to divide the effort. It doesn't have to be equal division but division is necessary. I suppose there are dynamics that come into play here, like if you're not adequately turned on as a woman it can be sore to do the work.... I guess it comes back to having that pussy eaten. haha.

5-  Attentiveness and attention to detail: This is where the real work comes in, in my opinion, and women who have lovers who are great in the attention department are the ones who win. It's about knowing your partner's body, and idiosyncrasies so that you can hotwire them. Basically, you can fuck like a professional porn-star (when off the goose - Boom! Kendrick reference) but it doesn't matter if you don't know what your partner wants, or likes, or most importantly prefers.

Some girls like some mild choking while fucking. 

Ain't nothing wrong with dat.

6 - Most importantly, and related to 5, be chilled and humble (Queue Kendrick - be humble).  Like minimise your ego, learn how to take direction. Especially about those subtle things that go a long way to making sex amazing (e.g.: pulling a handful of hair at the nape of the neck for some women). Taking direction in a humble non-personal way is something that comes up in heteronormative sexual relationships all the time, because men tend to feel invalidated by their inability to locate the clit. And you end up having these conversations that go like this:

Her: "To the left, no to the right, no to the left, ah you lost it"
Him: "I'm trying, maybe if you stopped being so BOSSY it would work"....

Like ... hold up, I'm not being bossy, this is my body, i'm not gonna take something and pretend it feels good to protect your ego. Try again, and maybe this time be less defensive.

7- And after all of this if you still can't locate the clit, and fuck right, actually even if you can - invest in some fucking sex toys. They make everyone's life better.

Aight so this turned into a lecture for cis-het males on how to be good lovers. Well lawd knows they fucking need it....

As kendrick would say:
Enjoy it when you're in it. She'll love it when you're in it.

Peace

Guilty as fuck? Crushes when you're in a long term relationship

So, this is not taboo at all. *cough cough*

At the risk of outing the person whose message I'm relaying (consent was obtained) I decided it was time someone spoke about what you do if you develop the feels for someone else while you're in a relationship. See I have this friend, she works in corporate and she has the hots for a barista who works in the building.... and she's freaking out about it.

I mean I get it... Crushes have this way of coming to you out of the blue. Life's good, your relationship is good, the sex with your partner is great and one day you're fucking and boom, the barista from the coffee shop's cute little face pop's into your head.

Creepy shit. It's bound to freak you out. You write it off as a once off thing - you were hormonal (maybe getting your period if you're a cis woman) and it happens. But then you go buy a coffee and your heart skips a beat, or you get butterflies when he's there and you look at his pretty hands or piercing eyes.... A couple of days later you go to get a coffee again, he's not there and your heart sinks. All the while life back at the ranch with your partner is great. There are no sinister undercurrents, and things are going fine...

One or two weeks pass and when you find yourself with idle time this beautiful barista's face pops into your head. It's getting annoying now... Like being in high-school all over again. You secretly fantasize about what your kids would look like, or what the barista looks like naked.... Your tummy turns, and you feel excited. That oxytocin is a killer. Maybe you think about him when you masturbate, or wonder if he thinks about you while he masturbates. You probably have a good (really quick) orgasm, then you feel...

Guilty as fuck. 

You think about your partner, what you built and where you are and feel pretty fucking awful and a little angry at your body for betraying you by giving you the feels for someone else.

Issa could have avoided fucking up what she had

with Lawrence if she just rubbed it out.

But... A crush - even an outrageous tummy-turning, sex-dream inducing, head spinning, stuttering crush - is natural, and normal, and this is why:

1. We are, at the best of times, animals. Just because we choose to rise above our base instincts and pledge monogamy to one person does not mean that we become asexual or out of tune with the world around us.  Any time after about two years in a relationship the hormones wear off and it is normal that your interest is piqued subsconsciously around a person who evolutionarily would make a good mate.

2. Attention is nice. We all long to be desired, and wanted, and part of this is validating ourselves by wanting the attention of someone whom we can't actually have.  The whole forbidden fruit thing is legitimate.

3. You gotta learn to trust yourself. Just because you have sexual thoughts about someone does not mean that you are going to act on them. Society teaches us to be ashamed of these kinds of feelings, even though they are involuntary and to a certain extent random  (there is nothing special about the barista at the coffee shop no matter how much your infatuated mind tells you there is, you could have a crush on anyone). However, because of this shame having a crush fucks with your mind because you keep the fear of infidelity alive. But you have to learn to trust yourself, a few benign feelings does not have to mean the end of any number of years you spent building something with someone you love. Your self-trust will trump the transience of these feelings.

So a crush is normal, what do you do about it then?

The answer is simple: nothing. 

You certainly do NOT tell your partner about it - it will hurt their feelings unnecessarily and create drama over nothing.

In my opinion I don't believe in fighting the crush to make it go away - harmless flirting and light entertaining of it doesn't equate to infedility to me. You can enjoy someone's conversation, be sexually attracted to them, and safely not act on the latter. It isn't a slippery slope, and is something that can be nipped in the bud. Besides, while these thing work two ways - you have complete agency.

Finally, just sit with the feelings and don't over-analyse them. They probably don't mean anything deep, and they will pass.

This is really simple advice, but I can see how in a culture of paranoia and mistrust in hetero-normative patriarchal relationships people view something as natural as having a crush in a relationship as something that must be hush-hushed. And this where the guilt stems from. I guess it depends on what your objective is - if your objective is to put your partner's feelings before your own at any cost then hush-hushing it may work for you. If your objective is to live a healthy balanced life, and one in which you may encounter numerous situations like this, then honest acknowledgment of where you are and mild entertaining of it can be truly harmless. Ultimately however, the risk comes from people not being self-aware enough to truly believe that their actions are harmless. In this situation it is not the crush that is the enemy but LYING TO YOURSELF - about your motives, agenda and your feelings.

Predicated on a healthy sense of self-awareness, trust and a palate for a little spice. A crush is healthy. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Can't Find It? Cliteracy In (Heterosexual) Relationships

Cliteracy - Juicy word isn't it?

I suspect just the title will give this blog more hits than any I have ever written. But this is no sensationalist click bait. This is an important issue inherent to our lives as womxn. Inherent to our sexuality, identity, and often most intimate relationships. 

I'm going to ask a very personal and intimate question now. Be prepared for a range of emotions to come up that may not be expecting to feel. Take a deep breath. Relax.

Could you ask yourself this question and answer it honestly?

How many men have you been with who are CLITERATE?

What do I mean by cliterate, let's see:

"Cliterate. (Adj. clit-uh-rit) A person able to locate, stimulate and successfully bring a womxn to orgasm using their clitoris, either in conjunction with or without penetration, but with no help from said womxn themselves."

Surprisingly, or rather not so surprisingly, almost every friend I have asked who has a clit, has told me that they have encountered a disappointing number of cis-het men who are cliterate. 

I don't know about you, but for me this brings up a flurry of emotions. Mainly because from the time we hit adolescence, and sometimes even earlier, we are bombarded with images and messages on how to satisfy a man by taking any phallic shaped thing and jerking it, rubbing it, sucking on it, or grinding on it. It's everywhere, in movies, in ads, in magazines. There is no shortage on articles in Cosmo on how to give a mind blowing blow job, how to learn to swallow and let's not even talk about deep throating - the number of porn stars giving ordinary womxn YouTube tutorials is RIDICULOUS. We've seen them all. And honestly, to say the least, it hurts my feelings, that men have not done the same. 

There is an il-cliteracy problem. To gauge the exent of it I have asked a number of my female friends about their sexual experiences with cis-het men and with women. Almost all of them have answered similarly. Here is the upshot (Get ready!): 

1. Out of many womxn who've fucked many men, almost all said that most men were not cliterate. Only one or two, at most three could bring them to orgasm using their clitoris.
2. Out of these a few more men they were kind of good at oral the rest were okay with handwork. 
3. None of them brought the womxn to clitoral orgasm during penetration by using their hands.
4. Of the womxn who fuck womxn, their is almost a 100% satisfaction rate. Like one friend said "Honestly though if you want a proper oral sex session - women". Preach sister! 
5. Almost all of the men they have fucked, cliterate and non-cliterate, expected the womxn to give them oral sex, and often bring them to orgasm. 
6. Of the womxn who are in serious relationships, there is some consensus that if their partner brings them to orgasm using their hands or mouth, it is inconsistent and feels like a fluke. 

Not so surprisingly I can tell you that womxn on the other hand, have no difficulty locating the clitoris and bringing their partners (and themselves) to orgasm time and time again. 

So what's the deal. Why are men so bad at cliteracy? Wait, wait, let me rephrase: why are men so USELESS at clit-work? 

Well, it must be because the whole world revolves around them and their dicks. No I mean it. Men think they can just show up with their penises and its game over.  Sex revolves around penetration and once you've been penetrated and have gotten a good pounding they think that's it. 

Second - porn. I don't think I need to say more but clits don't exist in porn err go they don't exist in the real world. 

Third - excuses. "Ah my jaw is cramping" "Ah, I keep losing the spot" "You keep saying left then right, then left, where is it". Mother fucker, don't you think my jaw cramps when I have to shove your fat dick down my throat? 

Fourth - men have issues with womxn pointing them in the right direction during sex. Often they call women "bossy" when womxn make their needs heard. 

Five -  A fundamental misunderstanding. Men think that clit play is a nice "extra". They don't understand that it is inherent to sex, as inherent as penetration. Imagine what they'd feel like if they could only dip their tips, then stop after 90 seconds. For a womxn that's what sex is like with a cis-het man. You stop at your peak if you aren't going to take the responsibility to finish it yourself.  

Six - this is really an extension of five. Men have not grasped the problem. They are completely unaware of our level of dissatisfaction... Where they are aware of it, have not taken it seriously. For some reason it doesn't seem to matter to them whether or not a womxn is satisfied as long as their dick has graced her vagina. 

To put it bluntly, men have no incentive to learn how to play with a clitoris. This is a sad and unfortunate realisation. And come to think of it we haven't even touched on the case of the man who gets offended (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) at the prospect of a woman needing clitoral stimulation. I remember one guy calling an orgasm during penetration reached through clitoral stimulation "fake". As if the true test of masculinity is what a dick can achieve by itself.... This all brings me to my next point - we need a cliteracy revolution. 

Someone needs to sit these  idiots  men down and tell them that they need to learn about pushing buttons. But more than that they need to centralise the experience of their womxn partner. Without this centrality sex is going to be a game thats eternally in favour of the man. It is true that a happy sex life is not about keeping score about whose had more orgasms, and even though women do come by stimulating themselves it is actually necessary and political that they too could enjoy the experience of being stimulated by their partner.  So many men are keen to showcase their dick-tricks like making their partner squirt and that's all good and well but if only the same zeal could be put into the clitoris and the female orgasm. 

Deep down I'd like to believe that men have the capacity to recognise and value the importance of a consenting and satisfied sexual partner. And if they did, then they'd be willing to learn. So, if what we say isn't heard then men, here is a link to a video by a fellow man man-splaining to you how a clitoris works.

Like MLK, I have a dream, and that dream is for womxn to find sexual partners who can eat them out while they just lie there. Just like MLK's dream, mine too is for now going to be unrealised.


*Please feel free to comment,  share your stories or find me on facebook at
 https://www.facebook.com/indoafrikanqueen/

Song for a lover of long ago

I suppose public fora are generally not the places one should pine over lost lovers. Not that I'm pining.

The great thing about writing anonymously is that one can be truly honest. And I intend on making the most of it. Inherent in all of us is this part of our psyche that tends to activate after some slight inebriation. This zone that activates makes us think about lovers that were and what we would do to be able to just let them know x, y, or z.

This happens to me every now and then and I suppose Valentine's day is a sort of catalyst for it happening again. So...on this note, and not inebriated at all, but after much thought if I could say something to my lover of long ago, it would go something like this:

"I miss your hands and your laugh. I miss the detachment and the thrill.

I miss your muscles. I miss your shoulders.  I miss your technique. I miss your general douchebaggery and that feeling when you were - fleetingly - not a douchebag. Ahhh the satisfaction of knowing that I can get you to be nice.

I miss how I thought you were so dumb but didn't care because I was insanely attracted to you. To the point where I may or may not have fantasised about our beautiful kids and compromised with myself in my head about their intellect.

Do you know that you were my best? I didn't even know... Until a couple of years later when I realised that you were so good it didn't even register... I really want you to know it - even now - but I can't admit it to you because we're not there yet. In fact we would never have ever, ever been there.

I remember the disappointment when you were less than I bargained for, but ended up being more than I bargained for in terms of execution. Well done.

I remember caring so little that I could just drunk dial - no - sober dial, text and facebook you not giving a fuck if you thought I was desperate.

Then I remember what a big part of the game was getting you under my control. And I don't miss it that much anymore... except that I do. Especially two weeks before my period, when my hormones are out of control."

Ofcourse in no real world would one ever let ex-lovers know these things. In  reality a lot of these exploits were just temporary distractions from deeper realities. And that is precisely what makes them so fucking awesome. So fun.

I recently learnt that the thrill of the chase actually activates the same center of the brain that cocaine does. And let me tell you... I have felt it. And still feel it. Even chatting to exes makes me excited. Not sexually. Maybe excitable is a better word. There's a rush. Do you like hearing from me? Do you still think about me?

It's all really ego-centric. To the point that it is shameful.

But - I have come to accept it as my guilty pleasure. I mean I know, and I am sure every person who asks themselves the question will know, that these are fictitious characters. They are so fictitious that the pining for a lost lover of long ago is not the pining for one  particular lover at all. It is a pining for the combined feelings that these pursuits have given birth to. The spontaneity. The fun. The excitement.

However, with the honest reflection comes... well, the honest reflection. It definitely does not take too much digging to realise that these humxn beings were never going to be deeper connections. There is a beauty in that kind of non-attachment and freedom to be oneself and concerned with oneself fully that means attracting people who we are just not going to invest in. And that is okay as long as there is a sense of self-awareness, and restraint. As long as there is not a pathological component. As long as we are able to weigh up the costs and the benefits and put self-care first.

Ofcourse I could write about how unglamorous these interactions really are. But who wants to read about that - especially on the Saturday night before Valentine's day.

So how about we keep it light and all you humans go make a new song for a lover that will one day be lost too.

John - The "potential" rapist.

This blog is new. So I want to start with something a little less contentious. An issue that womxn everywhere face and have experienced at some point in their lives.

This is a story about the time I did not get raped, but was violated.

A few summers ago I met a person named John. John is a white male. John is in a public profession, a noble one at that - teaching.

We met through an acquaintance and as these things go, hung out a couple of times. We did not have sex on the first date, but on the second after going out for cocktails and me offering to split the bill. John was funny. We laughed a lot.

When we got to John's place we had a rendezvous that was not very memorable. Aside for one thing that I just can't forget - he refused to wear a condom, and after my insistence did not put one on and stuck it in. I tried to stop him and eventually did, but he succeeded in getting it in for a good few seconds.

I gave John the benefit of the doubt, and decided to see him again. The second time I saw him, I was not in the mood to have sex but felt like watching a movie. He asked why I came to his place if I wasn't interested in sex, but I ignored the comment. He thought I was playing coy  and kept trying to hike my skirt up. Eventually some of John's friends showed up. A rowdy bunch of characters, and they suggested we go out. I joined. They said things like, "Why are you wearing heels? John doesn't like heels". In any case. We went out. Did shots. Got drunk.

We got back to John's place where I intended on sobering up. We ended up hooking up, and when I asked him to put on a condom - no demanded it, he accused me of having a disease that I would give to him... I mean, I thought this only happened in the movies, not among intelligent conscious men. Not among white boys whose parents' were struggle allies and gave them middle names like Keketso or Fezile. Not among school teachers.

The next morning I got up and as I was about to leave, I said - "Hey my head hurts, you pulled my hair really hard last night". And he said "Well, you wanted it".

I left, got home, cleaned up and went to a braai with my best friend. I told her all about it and she instructed me to cut all contact with him, but not before confronting him for what he did.

I could not muster the strength to confront John immediately, or at all. After a few days I removed him from facebook and a few days later told him to leave me alone.

It never made sense to me why I felt so dirty and disgusted after what happened. I was certain that me being there implied that there was some form of consent and I did reciprocate - there was no brute force. Still, writing this makes me feel grimy and gross and all I can recall is his lispy voice saying that I was going to give him a disease.

I bumped into John twice after that incident. John does not know that he is rapey. He does not know how he violated me. The last time I bumped into John he asked me where my boyfriend was and why I looked so nervous, then pulled up a chair next to me and crossed boundary after boundary of personal space, stroking my hair, making intense eye contact - until a male friend showed up. John then disappeared into thin air.

I don't know what's going through your mind now - maybe similar things to what go through mine every time I recount this episode:
-Why didn't I leave sooner?
-Why did I keep believing he was a nice guy when the signs were there that he was not?
-How the fuck did I let this happen?
-I am a feminist and an independent womxn, I coudn't have seen this coming, but why did I not leave when it got awkward.

Probably because of just that - it was awkward. I slipped into flight, fight or freeze. And froze. I am so curious to know how many victims this happens to? I wish I had a superhero alter-ego that could have done the intellectually right thing - kicking the pig in balls and fleeing, but not before wrecking his life. Unfortunately, the response was primal, programmed and deeply emotional. And I stayed. And I let what happened happen. I primally compromised me.

I feel dirty every time I see or think of John - like there is a layer of grey muck on my skin. I wish I could scratch it all away. And as a liberal womxn, one who owns the responsibility of her choices, especially the risk associated with enebriated sexual behaviour, I just have to ask: Is John a rapist?

Even if he isn't. He definitely has the potential to be. He probably will never know it but John violated me, and I am still recovering from the trauma that he imposed on me. And it is not even like there has been a catharsis, I feel today as I felt the first day it happened - hollow in my gut...

P.S Names have been changed.
P.P.S John had no technique, was tiny, is a terrible lay and a generally horrible humxn being.