I admit that I wasn't in the most stable frame of mind when I deleted my long-running (14 years!) Flickr account last spring - as this was shortly after I'd been fired by Patreon. But I stand by my decision to ragequit Flickr, when they announced in March that artists like myself were going to have to start paying to provide them with nude and/or erotic content. I get that they're a business, selling a product, but I have a product to sell, too. If our goals are aligned - driving traffic to their site - and I'm providing the kind of material they're forcing other users to pay to see, then charging me to do that is exploiting my labor. There are other sites on the web where I can do that for free. Some of them will even pay me to generate that content. Why the hell would I continue to patronize Flickr?
I must also admit that I was rather annoyed by the nature of Flickr's announcement - how it was phrased in that disgustingly hypocritical, Orwellian tone that is so common among tech companies these days. Everything is couched in positive language, and the knife they stick in your back is etched with motivational aphorisms. The most common example is censorship resulting from a "deep commitment to free speech" (I kid you not!). Consider how Flickr described their discrimination against nude artists ("reserved for Pro" really means "forced to pay") in the same breath as calling itself the "most inclusive photography community on the planet." For the last few years, the new owners of Flickr threatened to delete users' art if they didn't delete it themselves first - an act that accomplished the opposite of their promoted goal to "preserve the art, expression, history, stories, and memories of all Flickr members". Though this ultimately turned out to be a hollow threat ("we haven't deleted a single photo"), they managed to spin that lie as an investment in the community, ignoring the fact that it effectively punished all those who followed the new rules, while rewarding those who didn't - a business strategy that hardly inspires trust.
To be fair, Flickr made me the artist I am today. Back in 2008, it was their welcoming community and dedication to free expression (including sexual expression) that gave me an open platform to discover - wholly and without limits (within the bounds of reason) - and grow into the kind of artist I wanted to be. I'll always honor and respect that Flickr and think back on it fondly. But Flickr has changed. It's not even owned by the same people anymore. I hate that yet another piece of my history has been lost, at a time when I was also grieving the loss of the home in which I grew up and spent most of my life. So many memories, the concrete records of which have been wiped clear. The comments. The conversations. The journey of self-discovery. (By the way, now there are a ton of broken links on my blog and elsewhere). But that's the way it is. All I can do now is wipe off the tears, and face forward.
Monday, September 19, 2022
Sunday, September 11, 2022
The Incident With Patreon
or, How Patreon Mishandled Me
Setting The Scene
I've tried to write this post many times. Each time, the wound was still too raw. But I want there to be an account of what Patreon did to me - told from my perspective - because the way they treated me was not only unethical, but unacceptable in a civilized society. I don't want to allow their behavior to be swept under the rug - as countless creators (including nude artists) still use the platform, feeding a behemoth that may tolerate them at their convenience, exploiting their labor for personal gain, but in truth cares no more for them, or the value of the art they produce, than a fly on its back.
One of the reasons this post is so hard to write is that I have to provide a proper context for my experience - without, obviously, writing a full autobiography. Otherwise, it could easily be dismissed as another whining account of a creator complaining about getting burned because they didn't follow the rules. You must understand that I have been producing nude and erotic art, and sharing it online, consistently and without hiatus since 2008. I have never once been banned from a website - until now - because I make a habit of reading the rules of every site I use, and respecting those rules even when I disagree with them (and I do have my disagreements). My behavior on Patreon was no exception.
I first learned about Patreon from a fellow artist on DeviantArt [NSFW]. What piqued my curiosity was the potential to monetize the labor I'd been passionately engaging in on a pro bono basis for over a decade. So I gave it a try. In the summer of 2019, I finally transitioned from being an experienced amateur self-portrait photographer to a professional artist. My Patreon account began to grow only very slowly, but it gave me a sense of purpose, and it reinforced my work ethic. I quickly began producing more and better content than ever before, with a much higher turnover between production and distribution than I had previously been used to.
From the very start, I acknowledged and observed Patreon's restrictions on pornographic imagery - as I had already been doing on DeviantArt for several years. I was careful to separate the work I produced, sharing (and referencing) only nonsexual, nudist-friendly media on the platform. The only run-in I had with Patreon's Orwellian-named "Trust & Safety" team (which polices content violations), was early on (in the fall of my first year) due to a misunderstanding. I had published censored versions of nude images in a series of public newsletters designed to advertise my work, not realizing (on account of it not being included in the Community Guidelines that I had previously combed over), that Patreon had a strict policy on even the implication of nudity in any publicly-accessible areas of the site. After clarification, the issue was rectified, and I never published another image (censored or otherwise) outside of the bounds of Patreon's safety filters.
Trust & Safety?
Although it may seem pedantic, for the sake of establishing my case against Patreon, I'd like to go into a little more depth about my first run-in with the Trust & Safety team (I have the email chain to back up all of these claims). This was in November of 2019, only four months after I started using the site. I was contacted by a member of the Trust & Safety team, informing me of a strike against my account. To start with, the initial email read like a form letter describing a host of general violations, only one of which I was guilty of committing. I had to request that the team member actually review my specific case in order to find out what it was that I had done wrong, as if I could fix anything without knowing that first.
To their credit, the team member was willing to work with me (this time). After reviewing my case, two problems were identified. However, one of these (regarding publicly-accessible links to Patron-only content) turned out to not be a problem at all; but this was only determined after I explained to the Trust & Safety team member (who then agreed with me) why it was not. The other problem was a result of the critical omission of any reference to "implied nudity" in the Community Guidelines. It was not clear from reading the guidelines, and I did not imagine that the kind of implied nudity you sometimes see on the covers of such mainstream magazines as Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Women's Health (among others) would create any issues. The team member acknowledged my suggestion that the guidelines be updated to reflect this unposted rule.
My final complaint regards the solution that was proferred to me by the Trust & Safety team member, in order to remove the strike on my account. Their requirement was to mark any post containing the offending content Patron-only (so as to restrict public access) - even though this would render those posts (designed to be public advertisements) completely pointless - rather than considering the possibility of simply removing the offending content and preserving the rest of these posts. I suggested the latter approach, which the team member agreed would be satisfactory, and so that's what I did. Problem solved. My case was resolved. I continued with no further issues, until this year.
I understand that these people on the Trust & Safety team probably have a huge workload, and that they can't pore over every detail of every case they come across (although I think that's what justice requires), but I think I've pretty clearly demonstrated that, other than what I couldn't know - because it wasn't passed on from Patreon to its users - I understood the rules of the site even better than the person hired to enforce them. That doesn't inspire confidence, and it lays the groundwork for the Trust & Safety team's later mishandling of my account, which had much more devastating consequences.
A Screeching Halt
Meanwhile, I needed another outlet for the more erotic-oriented works that I was continuing to create. For that reason, I also started an OnlyFans [NSFW] account. I consider it my right to advertise both aspects of my art - "simply nude" and "erotic" - on a third party site which permits that content; such as Twitter [NSFW], which I have been using to build my brand and grow my fanbase. Fans have always had the choice, based on their tastes, to either subscribe to my nude art on Patreon, or my erotic art on OnlyFans. I never attempted to cross the two accounts, nor confuse users about what they would get from each one. OnlyFans never expressed to me any resentment that I produced a different kind of content for a different site, nor have they tried to police my behavior on a third party site. However, I cannot say the same for Patreon.
In March of this year (2022), after nearly three years of consistent productivity, providing hundreds of videos' and thousands of images' worth of content for Patreon (none of it ever cited by Patreon as being unacceptable or violating the Community Guidelines), out of the blue, I receive an email from a Trust & Safety team member on the way out of the office for a long weekend without correspondence, casually informing me that my account is in jeopardy. But it's not my conduct on Patreon that is the problem. It is content posted to my Twitter account (!) that has violated Patreon's guidelines. And the solution is to either remove any connection between the accounts (thus hamstringing my ability to advertise my work as an artist), or to "remove any violative content that's being shared on Twitter."
In other words, as a user of Patreon, the service was trying to police my behavior outside of Patreon, effectively trying to control the kind of art I was sharing on other platforms. This goes far beyond not permitting pornography on their platform (a rule that I always respected), and extends to not permitting known pornographers (with no consideration as to the delicate distinction between outright pornography and erotic art - we're not talking about explicit depictions of intercourse, mind you, but artistic portraits that merely do not shy away from "signs of arousal", as Patreon would describe it) to use their service, even within their guidelines. I instantly recognized this as an unreasonable demand, and prepared for the worst. Any hope of wanting to work with Patreon to resolve the issue was dashed by my resentment that they were willing to discriminate against me for my refusal, as an artist, to contribute to the further stigmatization of human sexuality.
Rather than scaring me straight, Patreon's objection to my involvement with pornography ironically left me with little recourse to continue on, professionally, as an artist (something I'm far more passionate about), as opposed to continuing to produce pornography for the more tolerant platform that has not rejected me - OnlyFans. Quite apart from encouraging people to pursue more socially-acceptable vocations, this is a pure example of how the shame and stigma of sex work actively discourages sex workers from leaving the very work for which they are condemned. Or, as in the case of my purpose as an artist, from attempting to raise the medium of sexual expression to a higher plane of sophistication.
Another difficulty in writing this post is expressing my emotional devastation without sounding melodramatic - the truth is, losing my Patreon account really hit me hard. If this had been any other site, I would have been disappointed, but I would have moved on. This was more like losing a job - a job that I really enjoyed, and one at which I thought I was performing well. Patreon didn't just rob me of a paycheck. They robbed me of a sense of purpose; of the feeling that what I'm doing is valuable - that it means something. Pulling the rug out from under me crippled my work ethic. I was legitimately depressed for months afterward. And for what? Not because of my behavior, but because of my sex-positive beliefs.
I may be a sensitive soul, but isn't that often the case among those with an artistic temperament? I'm not speaking metaphorically when I say that the impact of the way Patreon treated me brought me to my knees. I remember lying on the floor, my heart pounding through my chest. It exacerbated an arrythmia that sent me to the Emergency Room, where I had to have my heart shocked back into a normal rhythm - a procedure I am still paying for. And all the while my livelihood was being gutted, the Trust & Safety team coldly wished me "warm regards". I would have been less offended if they'd just been honest and told me they didn't give a fuck about me. Is it really worth it to treat other human beings this way? Is our phobia of human sexuality that important? And - perhaps the most poignant question of all - should we continue to patronize a platform that treats its own artists this way?
Setting The Scene
I've tried to write this post many times. Each time, the wound was still too raw. But I want there to be an account of what Patreon did to me - told from my perspective - because the way they treated me was not only unethical, but unacceptable in a civilized society. I don't want to allow their behavior to be swept under the rug - as countless creators (including nude artists) still use the platform, feeding a behemoth that may tolerate them at their convenience, exploiting their labor for personal gain, but in truth cares no more for them, or the value of the art they produce, than a fly on its back.
One of the reasons this post is so hard to write is that I have to provide a proper context for my experience - without, obviously, writing a full autobiography. Otherwise, it could easily be dismissed as another whining account of a creator complaining about getting burned because they didn't follow the rules. You must understand that I have been producing nude and erotic art, and sharing it online, consistently and without hiatus since 2008. I have never once been banned from a website - until now - because I make a habit of reading the rules of every site I use, and respecting those rules even when I disagree with them (and I do have my disagreements). My behavior on Patreon was no exception.
I first learned about Patreon from a fellow artist on DeviantArt [NSFW]. What piqued my curiosity was the potential to monetize the labor I'd been passionately engaging in on a pro bono basis for over a decade. So I gave it a try. In the summer of 2019, I finally transitioned from being an experienced amateur self-portrait photographer to a professional artist. My Patreon account began to grow only very slowly, but it gave me a sense of purpose, and it reinforced my work ethic. I quickly began producing more and better content than ever before, with a much higher turnover between production and distribution than I had previously been used to.
From the very start, I acknowledged and observed Patreon's restrictions on pornographic imagery - as I had already been doing on DeviantArt for several years. I was careful to separate the work I produced, sharing (and referencing) only nonsexual, nudist-friendly media on the platform. The only run-in I had with Patreon's Orwellian-named "Trust & Safety" team (which polices content violations), was early on (in the fall of my first year) due to a misunderstanding. I had published censored versions of nude images in a series of public newsletters designed to advertise my work, not realizing (on account of it not being included in the Community Guidelines that I had previously combed over), that Patreon had a strict policy on even the implication of nudity in any publicly-accessible areas of the site. After clarification, the issue was rectified, and I never published another image (censored or otherwise) outside of the bounds of Patreon's safety filters.
Trust & Safety?
Although it may seem pedantic, for the sake of establishing my case against Patreon, I'd like to go into a little more depth about my first run-in with the Trust & Safety team (I have the email chain to back up all of these claims). This was in November of 2019, only four months after I started using the site. I was contacted by a member of the Trust & Safety team, informing me of a strike against my account. To start with, the initial email read like a form letter describing a host of general violations, only one of which I was guilty of committing. I had to request that the team member actually review my specific case in order to find out what it was that I had done wrong, as if I could fix anything without knowing that first.
To their credit, the team member was willing to work with me (this time). After reviewing my case, two problems were identified. However, one of these (regarding publicly-accessible links to Patron-only content) turned out to not be a problem at all; but this was only determined after I explained to the Trust & Safety team member (who then agreed with me) why it was not. The other problem was a result of the critical omission of any reference to "implied nudity" in the Community Guidelines. It was not clear from reading the guidelines, and I did not imagine that the kind of implied nudity you sometimes see on the covers of such mainstream magazines as Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Women's Health (among others) would create any issues. The team member acknowledged my suggestion that the guidelines be updated to reflect this unposted rule.
My final complaint regards the solution that was proferred to me by the Trust & Safety team member, in order to remove the strike on my account. Their requirement was to mark any post containing the offending content Patron-only (so as to restrict public access) - even though this would render those posts (designed to be public advertisements) completely pointless - rather than considering the possibility of simply removing the offending content and preserving the rest of these posts. I suggested the latter approach, which the team member agreed would be satisfactory, and so that's what I did. Problem solved. My case was resolved. I continued with no further issues, until this year.
I understand that these people on the Trust & Safety team probably have a huge workload, and that they can't pore over every detail of every case they come across (although I think that's what justice requires), but I think I've pretty clearly demonstrated that, other than what I couldn't know - because it wasn't passed on from Patreon to its users - I understood the rules of the site even better than the person hired to enforce them. That doesn't inspire confidence, and it lays the groundwork for the Trust & Safety team's later mishandling of my account, which had much more devastating consequences.
A Screeching Halt
Meanwhile, I needed another outlet for the more erotic-oriented works that I was continuing to create. For that reason, I also started an OnlyFans [NSFW] account. I consider it my right to advertise both aspects of my art - "simply nude" and "erotic" - on a third party site which permits that content; such as Twitter [NSFW], which I have been using to build my brand and grow my fanbase. Fans have always had the choice, based on their tastes, to either subscribe to my nude art on Patreon, or my erotic art on OnlyFans. I never attempted to cross the two accounts, nor confuse users about what they would get from each one. OnlyFans never expressed to me any resentment that I produced a different kind of content for a different site, nor have they tried to police my behavior on a third party site. However, I cannot say the same for Patreon.
In March of this year (2022), after nearly three years of consistent productivity, providing hundreds of videos' and thousands of images' worth of content for Patreon (none of it ever cited by Patreon as being unacceptable or violating the Community Guidelines), out of the blue, I receive an email from a Trust & Safety team member on the way out of the office for a long weekend without correspondence, casually informing me that my account is in jeopardy. But it's not my conduct on Patreon that is the problem. It is content posted to my Twitter account (!) that has violated Patreon's guidelines. And the solution is to either remove any connection between the accounts (thus hamstringing my ability to advertise my work as an artist), or to "remove any violative content that's being shared on Twitter."
In other words, as a user of Patreon, the service was trying to police my behavior outside of Patreon, effectively trying to control the kind of art I was sharing on other platforms. This goes far beyond not permitting pornography on their platform (a rule that I always respected), and extends to not permitting known pornographers (with no consideration as to the delicate distinction between outright pornography and erotic art - we're not talking about explicit depictions of intercourse, mind you, but artistic portraits that merely do not shy away from "signs of arousal", as Patreon would describe it) to use their service, even within their guidelines. I instantly recognized this as an unreasonable demand, and prepared for the worst. Any hope of wanting to work with Patreon to resolve the issue was dashed by my resentment that they were willing to discriminate against me for my refusal, as an artist, to contribute to the further stigmatization of human sexuality.
Rather than scaring me straight, Patreon's objection to my involvement with pornography ironically left me with little recourse to continue on, professionally, as an artist (something I'm far more passionate about), as opposed to continuing to produce pornography for the more tolerant platform that has not rejected me - OnlyFans. Quite apart from encouraging people to pursue more socially-acceptable vocations, this is a pure example of how the shame and stigma of sex work actively discourages sex workers from leaving the very work for which they are condemned. Or, as in the case of my purpose as an artist, from attempting to raise the medium of sexual expression to a higher plane of sophistication.
Another difficulty in writing this post is expressing my emotional devastation without sounding melodramatic - the truth is, losing my Patreon account really hit me hard. If this had been any other site, I would have been disappointed, but I would have moved on. This was more like losing a job - a job that I really enjoyed, and one at which I thought I was performing well. Patreon didn't just rob me of a paycheck. They robbed me of a sense of purpose; of the feeling that what I'm doing is valuable - that it means something. Pulling the rug out from under me crippled my work ethic. I was legitimately depressed for months afterward. And for what? Not because of my behavior, but because of my sex-positive beliefs.
I may be a sensitive soul, but isn't that often the case among those with an artistic temperament? I'm not speaking metaphorically when I say that the impact of the way Patreon treated me brought me to my knees. I remember lying on the floor, my heart pounding through my chest. It exacerbated an arrythmia that sent me to the Emergency Room, where I had to have my heart shocked back into a normal rhythm - a procedure I am still paying for. And all the while my livelihood was being gutted, the Trust & Safety team coldly wished me "warm regards". I would have been less offended if they'd just been honest and told me they didn't give a fuck about me. Is it really worth it to treat other human beings this way? Is our phobia of human sexuality that important? And - perhaps the most poignant question of all - should we continue to patronize a platform that treats its own artists this way?
Saturday, September 10, 2022
Overlooked Gems
(Not to oversell the case, but...)
In the course of porting my blog to a SFW Mirror, I've been looking back through the history of this blog, and I've come across some (actually, lots of) unposted drafts that may be of interest. Some of them are indeed a jumble of unfinished thoughts, but others appear to be more or less ready for publication. Perhaps I intended to revise them at a later date and simply forgot, or wanted to add further thoughts that I never got around to formulating. Some of them lack satisfying concluding paragraphs. Others may have been held back due to the inclusion of sensitive topics, or to spare the target of my frustrations. But they are well-written articulations of my thoughts, and I think they deserve to be read, at least as much as anything else I've published on this blog. I've backdated them to the time of their writing (as everything I write is a product of my thought processes at the time I put them down), but since I don't want them to be completely overlooked, I'm providing links here. These posts are listed in reverse chronological order (getting older as you go down the list), with entries from nearly every year going back to within a year of the blog's start.
Exhibitionism al Dente
From about a year and a half ago, this essay is a crystallization of my frustrations dealing with "the nudist community" online (especially on Twitter and Reddit), with their overly judgmental, sex-negative attitudes. It's rather long, and while I was trying to write it in an academic style, maybe it comes off as being overwrought (it didn't test well). In any case, it has some good points to make.
Fixation
This is a short treatise on the side-effects of body acceptance, and what happens when tolerance of diversity turns around and begins to discriminate against what is (or used to be) popular. It's not a very PC perspective these days, but it's one that I stand behind (and reflects the foundational principle of this blog, which is being truthful about what you find beautiful).
Social Nudity and Consent
This post is a bit long, and lacks a satisfying conclusion, but it's a good discussion of a controversial subject that bothers me, relating to some nudists' assertion that you must acquire a person's consent before appearing before them unclothed. Personally, I think that makes nudity sound like a sex act, which is counter to the nudist ethos, but I have more to say at the link.
Closing the Season
Wistful ruminations on a season of social nudism ending leads to another discussion about the controversial subject of finding nudity (especially that of young bodies) visually appealing, and how that conflicts with the pristine public image of nudism.
Naked Public Dares
I no doubt withheld this post originally because I had less than nice things to say about the type of "nudist exhibitionist" who is preoccupied with sharing pictures of him/herself, despite not being the sort of person others typically want to see naked. I wasn't trying to be mean, I was just trying to be honest with my feelings - not solely as an exhibitionist, but as an aesthetic artist. I'm posting it now, since the original link is dead, providing some measure of distance from the target(s) of my comments.
Sexual Safety vs. Sexual Liberty
I've probably articulated this opinion elsewhere, but this is a pretty good writeup of my frustrations with so-called "sex-positive feminism", which in my opinion often seems to be more sex-negative than I'd like.
Outfit of the Day (#ootd)
This was a simple #ootd (outfit of the day) post that turned into a long ramble about the frustrations of fashion while being transgender. I had to go through and parse it into paragraphs to make it readable.
Sex-Positive Education
This is, I believe, a solid post about sex education in the context of teaching your kids from a sex-positive perspective. Teaching kids about sex is an incredibly controversial subject, all the more so when what you're suggesting they learn is positive things and not the usual scare tactics. Which is unfortunate, because it's a critically important subject, and kids are left vulnerable to being harmed in any number of ways when they don't get the right messages from the right people at the right times in their lives.
Let's Talk About Pubic Hair
Pubic hair grooming habits are a weirdly controversial subject, but they're also highly particular. I have preferences, but my opinion is that "to each their own". That's probably why I never published this post. But in hindsight, I guess it doesn't hurt for me to weigh in on the debate. Also, I feel like lots of hate is thrown toward both ends of the spectrum - "smooth" and "bushy" - with the ubiquitous "landing strip" being accepted as the norm, while my opinion is the opposite: I think the landing strip looks ridiculous, and I'd prefer either extreme to it.
Freedom and Anarchy
This is a pretty fascinating stream of consciousness that starts with me considering my position on the legality of public nudity and then detours into a thought experiment on progressivism that explores the limits of freedom and the righteousness of imperialism. It doesn't really end up anywhere in particular, but it's quite good (if I may say so myself) while it's going.
Try A Little Tenderness & Revenging
Being sex-positive often entails becoming the devil's advocate, because the anti-sex crowd (I like to call it "the forces of chastity", after the tagline to the movie about Kinsey) will use any means to drive a wedge into our sexual freedoms. Nobody wants to be seen as the bad guy, but we have to be vigilant every time our freedoms are curtailed, or pretty soon we'll find that we have none left. "Revenge porn" was apparently in vogue in 2015, and I never dove fully into the subject at the time due to its sensitive nature. I understand that not everybody thinks the way that I do, but the very concept of "revenge porn" bothers me precisely because porn can only be used as blackmail if you're ashamed of it, and porn isn't something we should be ashamed of. So, instead of giving prudes more ammunition against porn, we can render revenge porn completely powerless by doing something we should already be doing anyway - accepting and acknowledging our sexual natures.
The "Social Psychology" of Sexting
A short reply to an article on sexting, which straddles the line between making the mistake that everybody makes - assuming there's something wrong with sexting to begin with - and focusing on the real problem, which is the violation of privacy that occurs when those photos are hacked.
Both Sides Now
Dunno why this one never got posted - it's a quite good exploration of the phenomenon of being a model and an exhibitionist, and the value of receiving sexual compliments from people you aren't necessarily going to be reciprocally attracted to. Something I remember writing about (again) just a couple years ago.
Realest Tumblr Posts About Being A Woman
I would hazard a guess that I refrained from posting this due to concerns over expressing an opinion about "being a woman" (considering that I wasn't born one), but to hell with that. I'm entitled to my own opinions, too. Sadly, though the original article is available, all the linked posts (which include the relevant quotes) are gone (remember Tumblr? Me neither, lol), so you'll just have to guess what they said via the context of my replies. In fact, it adds a little mystery!
The Recurring Problem of Sexualizing Nudism
This is a fairly long treatise on the popular problem of people sexualizing nudism (and why I think nudists make more of it than they should - which is to say that, people should be allowed to fantasize about nudism in a sexual context, as long as there are nudists around to remind people that this fantasy does not reflect reality). It kind of fizzles out at the end, but I've appended an additional snippet from another draft that dovetails amazingly well with where the first discussion ended up.
Fantasy vs. Desire
I have no desire to pretend that I don't have dark sexual fantasies sometimes - although in truth it's not a place I go to frequently. Still, there is an inherent vulnerability in admitting that. I have no idea what the fantasy was that inspired this post, all these years later, and actually, I think it's better that way. It's important that we don't become defined by the most extreme limits our imaginations permit themselves to go to.
A Brief Guide to Slut-Shaming
This is a short exploration of different examples of varying degrees of slut-shaming. I'm not generally in favor of the use of trigger warnings, but if you're sensitive to the topic of sexual abuse, you might want to avoid this post. If, however, you don't take it seriously, I think it's actually a little humorous, in a darkly comedic way.
Correlating Homophobia with Transphobia
This post explores an observation I've had about the correlation between homophobia and transphobia, as a result of the confusion between sex, gender, and orientation. It ends with a humorous scenario that I think perfectly illustrates the point.
Business and Pleasure
This is a pretty interesting hypothetical discussion about doing porn - in a more professional sense than I've done (although I think the standards are changing, in this post-OnlyFans world - and that's a good thing). Few things annoy me more than when pundits and their puppets cite the problems in The Industry (r) and use it to stain the very medium of sexual expression on the whole. Like as if porn is a unique case and it's not the very soul of capitalism that's "degrading". I support reform over abolition.
National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month
Teen pregnancy is one of those weird issues, where I kinda agree it's not a great idea (but it's not always a bad idea, either), but methods and approaches toward the issue are either muddled or completely misguided. At the end of the day, it's a choice a person has to make for themself, whether we agree with it or not. But apart from pretending we know what's best for another person, the emphasis needs to be on education and making contraception more widely available. The worst threat in the "problem" of teen pregnancy isn't teens having sex, it's religious conservatives getting in the way of teens 1) having access to contraception, and 2) learning to appreciate it.
Shit Girls Say About Sex
This is a reactionary piece to a magazine article I read that's designed to function as sex education for teens (specifically, girls). Actually, it wasn't a bad article, but I'm fond of niggling over minor details (and I apparently had a lot to say about contraception, peer pressure, and the institution of virginity). In re-reading the post, I thought that it was unfinished, but I dug out the article in question, and it's actually shorter than I imagined.
Chastity as Purity
I can see how this post could be read as sour grapes over an actress refusing to appear topless in a movie, but really, it's about our attitudes to nudity and how we treat people who show off their bodies. I don't want anyone to feel pressure to do anything they're uncomfortable with, but if there's a role that provides an opportunity for nudity, and you come in and change that role, then you're taking that opportunity away from other people who could have appreciated doing it the way it was intended.
Guilty of Perversion
Yet another treatise on nudism and sexuality, and the psychological harm that nudism's appeal to sexual purity does amidst a wider culture that stigmatizes and shames people for their sexual feelings. It's weird, and a little disheartening, to read me complaining about the same things ten years ago, knowing that nothing significant has changed (other than my own confidence, I guess). So if I get a little frustrated sometimes, you'll have to forgive me.
Awakening
This is another discussion of sex education and teen sex, but from the novel approach of my own youthful experiences. I will never forget the feeling of lying naked in bed with my girlfriend as a teenager in high school, and thinking, "what is so broken in this world, that this experience which is so beautiful" - and we weren't even technically having sex! - "is treated so harshly and with so much fear?"
Death Sound Blues
As an unconventional thinker, and someone who's fascinated with the topic of sexual desire, sometimes I like to perform thought experiments about socially-reprehensible fetishes, in an attempt to discover whether it is possible (and ethical) for persons who discover that they have these fetishes - through no choice of their own - to 1) have a positive self-concept (I'm already convinced that having such a fetish doesn't short-circuit one's humanity), and 2) attain sexual satisfaction (whether or not that's limited to one's fantasy life alone). It's easy to think of problematic fetishists as some scary other that's better off not existing, but is it really fair to say that there are some people whose lives simply don't matter? God forbid you should ever find yourself in that position, but what can we learn by exploring what that might be like? I just think that's a better approach than knee-jerk condemnation. I don't always feel comfortable sharing these thought experiments (for obvious reasons), but I thought this one was exceptionally well written - it really commits to its premise. I only wish it had kept on going, instead of ending abruptly (I don't know, ultimately, where I was headed, or if there was really anywhere to go). And I know it's up to you to decide whether you trust me or not, but as a disclaimer, I want to state unequivocally that I do not experience any necrophiliac tendencies. This is all purely hypothetical.
Obscenity (noun)
This post may be a little rough, but it's a fairly decent point-by-point takedown of the Miller Test which is used to identify obscenity, a bizarre legal concept that singularly discriminates against sexual expression, and is as unconstitutional as it is inexplicably tolerated by both the government and the public alike.
Sex as Rebellion
It's hard to talk about sex openly when you fear people making snap judgments - especially in the realm of fantasy where the imagination thrills to wander. In this post I explore the appeal of transgressing taboos, and the distinction between fantasy and reality, inspired by comments I saw while browsing photos on flickr.
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Damn! There were a lot more than I anticipated. It was fun going back through these unposted drafts, though. I feel good having the opportunity to give them new life. I hope it was worth it.
In the course of porting my blog to a SFW Mirror, I've been looking back through the history of this blog, and I've come across some (actually, lots of) unposted drafts that may be of interest. Some of them are indeed a jumble of unfinished thoughts, but others appear to be more or less ready for publication. Perhaps I intended to revise them at a later date and simply forgot, or wanted to add further thoughts that I never got around to formulating. Some of them lack satisfying concluding paragraphs. Others may have been held back due to the inclusion of sensitive topics, or to spare the target of my frustrations. But they are well-written articulations of my thoughts, and I think they deserve to be read, at least as much as anything else I've published on this blog. I've backdated them to the time of their writing (as everything I write is a product of my thought processes at the time I put them down), but since I don't want them to be completely overlooked, I'm providing links here. These posts are listed in reverse chronological order (getting older as you go down the list), with entries from nearly every year going back to within a year of the blog's start.
Exhibitionism al Dente
From about a year and a half ago, this essay is a crystallization of my frustrations dealing with "the nudist community" online (especially on Twitter and Reddit), with their overly judgmental, sex-negative attitudes. It's rather long, and while I was trying to write it in an academic style, maybe it comes off as being overwrought (it didn't test well). In any case, it has some good points to make.
Fixation
This is a short treatise on the side-effects of body acceptance, and what happens when tolerance of diversity turns around and begins to discriminate against what is (or used to be) popular. It's not a very PC perspective these days, but it's one that I stand behind (and reflects the foundational principle of this blog, which is being truthful about what you find beautiful).
Social Nudity and Consent
This post is a bit long, and lacks a satisfying conclusion, but it's a good discussion of a controversial subject that bothers me, relating to some nudists' assertion that you must acquire a person's consent before appearing before them unclothed. Personally, I think that makes nudity sound like a sex act, which is counter to the nudist ethos, but I have more to say at the link.
Closing the Season
Wistful ruminations on a season of social nudism ending leads to another discussion about the controversial subject of finding nudity (especially that of young bodies) visually appealing, and how that conflicts with the pristine public image of nudism.
Naked Public Dares
I no doubt withheld this post originally because I had less than nice things to say about the type of "nudist exhibitionist" who is preoccupied with sharing pictures of him/herself, despite not being the sort of person others typically want to see naked. I wasn't trying to be mean, I was just trying to be honest with my feelings - not solely as an exhibitionist, but as an aesthetic artist. I'm posting it now, since the original link is dead, providing some measure of distance from the target(s) of my comments.
Sexual Safety vs. Sexual Liberty
I've probably articulated this opinion elsewhere, but this is a pretty good writeup of my frustrations with so-called "sex-positive feminism", which in my opinion often seems to be more sex-negative than I'd like.
Outfit of the Day (#ootd)
This was a simple #ootd (outfit of the day) post that turned into a long ramble about the frustrations of fashion while being transgender. I had to go through and parse it into paragraphs to make it readable.
Sex-Positive Education
This is, I believe, a solid post about sex education in the context of teaching your kids from a sex-positive perspective. Teaching kids about sex is an incredibly controversial subject, all the more so when what you're suggesting they learn is positive things and not the usual scare tactics. Which is unfortunate, because it's a critically important subject, and kids are left vulnerable to being harmed in any number of ways when they don't get the right messages from the right people at the right times in their lives.
Let's Talk About Pubic Hair
Pubic hair grooming habits are a weirdly controversial subject, but they're also highly particular. I have preferences, but my opinion is that "to each their own". That's probably why I never published this post. But in hindsight, I guess it doesn't hurt for me to weigh in on the debate. Also, I feel like lots of hate is thrown toward both ends of the spectrum - "smooth" and "bushy" - with the ubiquitous "landing strip" being accepted as the norm, while my opinion is the opposite: I think the landing strip looks ridiculous, and I'd prefer either extreme to it.
Freedom and Anarchy
This is a pretty fascinating stream of consciousness that starts with me considering my position on the legality of public nudity and then detours into a thought experiment on progressivism that explores the limits of freedom and the righteousness of imperialism. It doesn't really end up anywhere in particular, but it's quite good (if I may say so myself) while it's going.
Try A Little Tenderness & Revenging
Being sex-positive often entails becoming the devil's advocate, because the anti-sex crowd (I like to call it "the forces of chastity", after the tagline to the movie about Kinsey) will use any means to drive a wedge into our sexual freedoms. Nobody wants to be seen as the bad guy, but we have to be vigilant every time our freedoms are curtailed, or pretty soon we'll find that we have none left. "Revenge porn" was apparently in vogue in 2015, and I never dove fully into the subject at the time due to its sensitive nature. I understand that not everybody thinks the way that I do, but the very concept of "revenge porn" bothers me precisely because porn can only be used as blackmail if you're ashamed of it, and porn isn't something we should be ashamed of. So, instead of giving prudes more ammunition against porn, we can render revenge porn completely powerless by doing something we should already be doing anyway - accepting and acknowledging our sexual natures.
The "Social Psychology" of Sexting
A short reply to an article on sexting, which straddles the line between making the mistake that everybody makes - assuming there's something wrong with sexting to begin with - and focusing on the real problem, which is the violation of privacy that occurs when those photos are hacked.
Both Sides Now
Dunno why this one never got posted - it's a quite good exploration of the phenomenon of being a model and an exhibitionist, and the value of receiving sexual compliments from people you aren't necessarily going to be reciprocally attracted to. Something I remember writing about (again) just a couple years ago.
Realest Tumblr Posts About Being A Woman
I would hazard a guess that I refrained from posting this due to concerns over expressing an opinion about "being a woman" (considering that I wasn't born one), but to hell with that. I'm entitled to my own opinions, too. Sadly, though the original article is available, all the linked posts (which include the relevant quotes) are gone (remember Tumblr? Me neither, lol), so you'll just have to guess what they said via the context of my replies. In fact, it adds a little mystery!
The Recurring Problem of Sexualizing Nudism
This is a fairly long treatise on the popular problem of people sexualizing nudism (and why I think nudists make more of it than they should - which is to say that, people should be allowed to fantasize about nudism in a sexual context, as long as there are nudists around to remind people that this fantasy does not reflect reality). It kind of fizzles out at the end, but I've appended an additional snippet from another draft that dovetails amazingly well with where the first discussion ended up.
Fantasy vs. Desire
I have no desire to pretend that I don't have dark sexual fantasies sometimes - although in truth it's not a place I go to frequently. Still, there is an inherent vulnerability in admitting that. I have no idea what the fantasy was that inspired this post, all these years later, and actually, I think it's better that way. It's important that we don't become defined by the most extreme limits our imaginations permit themselves to go to.
A Brief Guide to Slut-Shaming
This is a short exploration of different examples of varying degrees of slut-shaming. I'm not generally in favor of the use of trigger warnings, but if you're sensitive to the topic of sexual abuse, you might want to avoid this post. If, however, you don't take it seriously, I think it's actually a little humorous, in a darkly comedic way.
Correlating Homophobia with Transphobia
This post explores an observation I've had about the correlation between homophobia and transphobia, as a result of the confusion between sex, gender, and orientation. It ends with a humorous scenario that I think perfectly illustrates the point.
Business and Pleasure
This is a pretty interesting hypothetical discussion about doing porn - in a more professional sense than I've done (although I think the standards are changing, in this post-OnlyFans world - and that's a good thing). Few things annoy me more than when pundits and their puppets cite the problems in The Industry (r) and use it to stain the very medium of sexual expression on the whole. Like as if porn is a unique case and it's not the very soul of capitalism that's "degrading". I support reform over abolition.
National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month
Teen pregnancy is one of those weird issues, where I kinda agree it's not a great idea (but it's not always a bad idea, either), but methods and approaches toward the issue are either muddled or completely misguided. At the end of the day, it's a choice a person has to make for themself, whether we agree with it or not. But apart from pretending we know what's best for another person, the emphasis needs to be on education and making contraception more widely available. The worst threat in the "problem" of teen pregnancy isn't teens having sex, it's religious conservatives getting in the way of teens 1) having access to contraception, and 2) learning to appreciate it.
Shit Girls Say About Sex
This is a reactionary piece to a magazine article I read that's designed to function as sex education for teens (specifically, girls). Actually, it wasn't a bad article, but I'm fond of niggling over minor details (and I apparently had a lot to say about contraception, peer pressure, and the institution of virginity). In re-reading the post, I thought that it was unfinished, but I dug out the article in question, and it's actually shorter than I imagined.
Chastity as Purity
I can see how this post could be read as sour grapes over an actress refusing to appear topless in a movie, but really, it's about our attitudes to nudity and how we treat people who show off their bodies. I don't want anyone to feel pressure to do anything they're uncomfortable with, but if there's a role that provides an opportunity for nudity, and you come in and change that role, then you're taking that opportunity away from other people who could have appreciated doing it the way it was intended.
Guilty of Perversion
Yet another treatise on nudism and sexuality, and the psychological harm that nudism's appeal to sexual purity does amidst a wider culture that stigmatizes and shames people for their sexual feelings. It's weird, and a little disheartening, to read me complaining about the same things ten years ago, knowing that nothing significant has changed (other than my own confidence, I guess). So if I get a little frustrated sometimes, you'll have to forgive me.
Awakening
This is another discussion of sex education and teen sex, but from the novel approach of my own youthful experiences. I will never forget the feeling of lying naked in bed with my girlfriend as a teenager in high school, and thinking, "what is so broken in this world, that this experience which is so beautiful" - and we weren't even technically having sex! - "is treated so harshly and with so much fear?"
Death Sound Blues
As an unconventional thinker, and someone who's fascinated with the topic of sexual desire, sometimes I like to perform thought experiments about socially-reprehensible fetishes, in an attempt to discover whether it is possible (and ethical) for persons who discover that they have these fetishes - through no choice of their own - to 1) have a positive self-concept (I'm already convinced that having such a fetish doesn't short-circuit one's humanity), and 2) attain sexual satisfaction (whether or not that's limited to one's fantasy life alone). It's easy to think of problematic fetishists as some scary other that's better off not existing, but is it really fair to say that there are some people whose lives simply don't matter? God forbid you should ever find yourself in that position, but what can we learn by exploring what that might be like? I just think that's a better approach than knee-jerk condemnation. I don't always feel comfortable sharing these thought experiments (for obvious reasons), but I thought this one was exceptionally well written - it really commits to its premise. I only wish it had kept on going, instead of ending abruptly (I don't know, ultimately, where I was headed, or if there was really anywhere to go). And I know it's up to you to decide whether you trust me or not, but as a disclaimer, I want to state unequivocally that I do not experience any necrophiliac tendencies. This is all purely hypothetical.
Obscenity (noun)
This post may be a little rough, but it's a fairly decent point-by-point takedown of the Miller Test which is used to identify obscenity, a bizarre legal concept that singularly discriminates against sexual expression, and is as unconstitutional as it is inexplicably tolerated by both the government and the public alike.
Sex as Rebellion
It's hard to talk about sex openly when you fear people making snap judgments - especially in the realm of fantasy where the imagination thrills to wander. In this post I explore the appeal of transgressing taboos, and the distinction between fantasy and reality, inspired by comments I saw while browsing photos on flickr.
---
Damn! There were a lot more than I anticipated. It was fun going back through these unposted drafts, though. I feel good having the opportunity to give them new life. I hope it was worth it.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Trans Life Hack - Bikini Bottoms
If you're like me, you love wearing women's bikinis. But you probably encounter a frequent problem. In most standard bikini bottoms (that is to say, ones that are not thongs), the back panel is larger than the front panel, just because a woman's typically got more to cover in the back. Now, if you've got male anatomy, you're going to run into a problem, where the tiny triangle of material in the front just doesn't adequately contain you. Sometimes the sides come down too narrow and your balls hang out. Other times, the low cut, coupled with the stress of your bulge, leaves a conspicuous gap between the top of the suit and your skin, creating a dangerous peekaboo effect that is most obvious from the perspective of anybody standing directly in front of you at eye level.
[description: a man stands outdoors in a black, flower-patterned bikini bottom with ruffles]
Well, there is an easy fix for this problem that will have you out on the beach in your bikini in no time, and it requires no tucking at all! All you have to do is just rotate your bikini bottom and wear it backwards! The fuller back will now be more than adequate at containing your bulge. Plus, as an added bonus, the smaller front will now effectively act as a thong! You can be sexy, and street legal! (Provided thongs are street legal where you're at - although if you look at what women are wearing these days, in my experience, it's de facto accepted even where there are rules against it).
[description: the bikini bottom is worn backwards, for fuller coverage in the front than back]
How great is that? Now get out there and have some fun in the sun!
[description: a man stands outdoors in a black, flower-patterned bikini bottom with ruffles]
Well, there is an easy fix for this problem that will have you out on the beach in your bikini in no time, and it requires no tucking at all! All you have to do is just rotate your bikini bottom and wear it backwards! The fuller back will now be more than adequate at containing your bulge. Plus, as an added bonus, the smaller front will now effectively act as a thong! You can be sexy, and street legal! (Provided thongs are street legal where you're at - although if you look at what women are wearing these days, in my experience, it's de facto accepted even where there are rules against it).
[description: the bikini bottom is worn backwards, for fuller coverage in the front than back]
How great is that? Now get out there and have some fun in the sun!
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