Twin Cities Pride

Just a sampling of some activities that are going on in the Twin Cities during Pride weekend:

• Blue-eyed soul/rocker Tina Schieske headlines tonight’s Bryant-Lake Bowl Pride Block Party.  Other acts include Venus DeMars & All The Pretty Horses, Black Blondie, Dykes Do Drag, and Foxy Tann.  Expect beer, locally produced food and a flea market.  Part of the proceeds go to OutFront Minnesota.
• Queertopia, now in its third year, is a caberet night by Outward Spiral Theatre featuring nine acts from multiple disciplines at Intermedia Arts.  Expect a little bit of everything including break dancing, spoken word, ballet, a drag king, a youth theatre group and even a hula troupe.
• Miss City of the Lakes drag pageant will be held tonight at the Gay 90’s in the La Femme room.
• The Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus has two concerts, today and Saturday, called, “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”
• The Minnesota GLBTA Campus Alliance (the A stands for Allies) presents its first Pride Revue at the Whitney Fine Arts Center.
• An alcohol-free party, The Fruit Bowl, is being held at Elsie’s in Northeast Minneapolis.  The Rainbow Health Initiative and Tobacco-free Lavender Communities of Minnesota are behind the party.
• On Saturday, the headliner for this year’s official Pride Festival in Loring Park is En Vogue, the female quartet that dominated R&B in the early 1990s.  One of its signature songs, “Free Your Mind,” is this year’s Pride slogan.
• The Village People will play at the second annual Splash Bash at Trocaderos.
• A Leather Pride event will be held at Innuendo in St. Paul on Saturday.
• The mammoth Pride Parade will be held on Sunday.  Last year, it attracted 125,000 spectators.

I wish I could attend this year’s Pride events in the Twin Cities.  However, my spouse and I are going to his home town, a three-hour drive away, to attend his 40th high school class reunion.  My workplace is hosting its first booth at the Pride Festival this year, and I would have volunteered for a shift had I been here this weekend.  Next year for sure! 

Temptation

Sometime yesterday afternoon while I was at work, I got an email from Francine.  She said, “I could stop over this evening and bring some wine, a movie, and some massage oil.  I’m not an expert on massage, but maybe it would help your sore back and neck.”

I pretended that I didn’t see that email in time to encourage or decline such an invitation for last evening.  The temptation was there to accept her offer.  I’ve been very stressed lately with a combination of a very high workload right now, repetitive strain injuries that are putting me in constant pain, and a low-grade, chronic ache for some physical pampering and TLC.  I feel very low and vulnerable right now.

I closed my eyes yesterday afternoon and imagined what it would be like to accept her offer to come over with wine and massage oil.  (I knew that in the presence of wine and massage oil, the movie would never be viewed.)  Francine and I have had sex on two separate occasions — during the first week of our relationship!  It was good sex for both of us on those occasions.  I could imagine that the third time would be even better.  She was experienced in making love to a woman, and she had given me much sexual pleasure.  My mind entertained what it would feel like to share some wine and then take off all my clothes.  Maybe a nice, warm bath in the whirlpool would follow with lots of attention to massaging my back and neck as she bathed me with fragrant lather.  She would dry me with a large, soft towel, and then naked on my bed, her oiled hands would soothe and heal as she worked the tense muscles of my shoulders and neck.  I would give myself over to the ministrations until her kneading slowed and stopped.

Turning over onto my back, I would take her in my arms and kiss her, the inevitable shivers cascading down my spine and arms as her lips teased my ears and neck.   Her tongue would run along my collarbone, and soft kisses would trail down onto my breasts.  She was fairly aggressive with me before when she squeezed, pulled, and sucked my nipples, and I liked that!  I’ve developed a taste for nipple stimulation that is sometimes just to the point of discomfort.  It’s highly arousing and I wanted her to do that to me!

By the time she worked her way down to my lower belly, my musky juices would be flowing in abundance, and the merest touch of her lips and tongue to my labia and clit would send me over the edge into immediate and powerful orgasm.  It would be the first of several.

But I didn’t answer her email.  I didn’t invite her over.  One thing didn’t lead to another, and I didn’t have any of that pleasure I craved and imagined.

Why?  Because it means something different to her than it does to me in this relationship.  We’re in different places with our emotions, and I can’t take from someone like that and encourage her to go down that path of disparity with me.  It’s not fair.  It’s not caring.  Sure, one could argue, she’s willing to give it!  You’ve had the discussion.  She knows where you’re at with it.  She’s an adult and capable of deciding for herself how involved she wants to get in a situation like that.  And yet she’s still willing to give you this pleasure!   Take it!

It would be oh-so-easy under those circumstances to just take it, to indulge myself in some pleasure.  I’d make sure she got hers, too.  No worry there.  I’m not a selfish lover in that regard.  She’d go home sexually satisfied as well.

But to do that, knowing that she wants to be in love with me as well as sexually involved with me, I would have to turn a blind eye to that situation and set it aside for the sake of justifying and indulging in my own needs.  She may be a willing partner, regardless of those circumstances, but what would that say about me?  Could I be that self-centered, self-indulgent person?  Could I be that person who doesn’t want to deal with the complexities of the emotions involved, who places sex on a base plane of acts and physical responses, divorced from the concept of emotional intimacy?

The temptation is there to be that person when I’m feeling needy and vulnerable and achy for all of my own personal reasons.  But, no, I’m not that person.

The answer I had to give to myself was no.  By omission yesterday afternoon, my answer to her was no as well.            

 

Amusing Dilemma

Years ago — about nine, to be exact — my girlfriend at the time started shaving her pubic hair because the man she was engaged to marry also shaved his pubic hair and they both liked the way it felt.  That got me to thinking about it, too, and so I tried it.   You know, they were right: it’s an incredible feeling!  Shaving my labia smooth from my perineum to just above my clitoral area allows a whole different level of sensitivity by exposing all that tender, erogenous skin.  (An aside: shaving my mons completely would make me feel like an eight-year-old, and I don’t like that!  Some trimmed hair on my mons always stays, even if the labia majora is smooth and bare.)

I don’t always keep up with this hygienic ritual because it is labor-intensive.  In order to keep that skin silky-smooth, shaving needs to be done daily or it gets stubbly and abrasive — yes, just like a man’s beard!  I hate the feel of that, and if anyone else were to come into contact with it, it wouldn’t be pleasant, either, so it’s either do it everyday or let it grow out, perhaps only trimming it now and then.

When I’m in a sexual mood and anticipating a nice encounter, I will often shave carefully to make my entire bottom very soft and smooth.  I find it arousing just to do it, let alone what may follow! 

Now, for my dilemma: my husband and I have our wedding anniversary coming up in about ten days.  We are going away for a long weekend to a luxurious Bed & Breakfast.  With any luck, there will be sex — hopefully some very GOOD sex — in commemoration of the occasion.

He left a couple of weeks ago on an international trip, and just before he left, I arranged a nice encounter and shaved myself smooth.  I’ve been maintaining the smooth effect these past two weeks because sometimes it’s easier to maintain than start over.  I would like to keep the smooth, silky condition of a shaved vulva at least through our wedding anniversary weekend.

I probably wasn’t thinking when I did this but I have the appointment for my annual checkup the day after we get back from this trip.  I NEED to get in because I’ll need medications refilled.  It’s too late to reschedule such an appointment in a timely manner now.  So what’s the problem?  Well…..some folks think that a shaved pubic thatch falls within the realm of “kinky.”   I’m seeing a new doctor this time around.  Do I want her to think that I’m ”kinky” by exposing her to my shaved pudendum?  Or do I really care what she thinks?  She’s probably seen more outlandish things, such as piercings and tatoos, so that a simply shorn beaver probably isn’t going to impress her much.  Still…..

I need to decide what I want my new doctor to witness soon, one way or the other.  If my husband and I are going to have enjoyable sex at all on our anniversary weekend, I need to either let it grow well past the stubble length or keep on shaving it smooth daily.

Oh, the big decisions in life!            

Fantasy

The role of sexual fantasy has always been important in my life.  My imagination is rich and diverse and travels many colorful, interesting paths.  In my younger years, I could fantasize for hours, maintaining an incredible arousal as I visualized the imaginary participants in my scenarios.  These fantasies were so vivid and real to me that it was more like directing a movie in my mind.  The “movie” would be completely improvisational, though, aside from a rough sketch of the situation.  I would literally say to myself, “Here is the outline of scene.  Here are the people involved.  Take it from there.”  And I would watch it unfold and act it out.

This is the basis for the erotic stories I’ve written in the past.  I have watched my fantasy actors play out a scenario in my mind, and later, I’ve written it down, coloring in the details.  (Usually I have to stop and masturbate while I’m trying to write my story, which sometimes makes for a long process in trying to get a story in tangible form!)

I used to be able to immerse myself in a complex, realistic fantasy fairly effortlessly.  Now, unfortunately, it doesn’t happen very often.  The levels of hormones have dropped off from what they were in my teens, twenties and thirties.  Make no mistake about it, I was heavily influenced by circulating levels of sex hormones then, particularly at the start of my period and when I was ovulating.  My body at both of those times was at a hypersensitive level of sexual awareness.  I had some of my best sexual fantasies then and wrote some of my best stories at that time.

Now…. not so much.  I’ll be 53 in two months, and my ovaries don’t do much anymore.  I’m on a minimal level of hormone replacement therapy to control hot flashes and depression.  My brain often feels fairly sluggish and apathetic about sexual matters.

Imagine my surprise when a genuine stretch of heightened sexual awareness came my way recently.  I even have suspicions that I ovulated last month, judging from the five days of pain I had in my belly that didn’t seem to have any other explanation. 

I was home alone over the weekend and I took advantage of the privacy to see where my mind would go if I encouraged it.  I took a long, warm bath, shaved myself smooth from pits to ankles, and then stretched out on the bed.  I found some body lotion in the nightstand drawer that I had forgotten about.  I bought it a year ago at a boutique.  It’s a sensuous scent, a mixture of sandalwood and citrus, and I love it.  I smoothed it over my entire body, breathing deeply of the heady aroma.  I let my mind go….

Randy and Peggy came out to play.  Briefly, Randy is a man who professes to be gay and has lived with his male partner for a dozen years.  However, he and Peggy love each other and have a dynamic, imaginative sex life!  As their relationship matured and deepened, Peggy became a part of Randy and Vince’s life together, and she witnessed and shared Randy’s intense pleasure as he welcomed Vince into his body in that way that two men can.  (I’m being somewhat discreet!  I don’t want this blog censored!)

Later, she shared with Randy that she would like to experience what he experienced that night with Vince, that it would be a way of knowing what it felt like to be in his skin, to feel what he felt when he accepted his man into his body.  She wanted Randy to do the very same thing with her.

And for an hour, I watched in my mind as Randy guided her down that earthy, unexplored path…

I reveled in my creativity, my sensuality, my vitality, excited and aroused as I felt what Randy felt, as I felt what Peggy felt.  I love my sexual fluidity at times like that!

I must appreciate the occasions when this still happens rather than lament that those times are all too few and far between!