sex warehouse

The answer: A great opportunity to guest post!

Today I am taking my Random Girl self over to party with Kelly at Naked Girl in a Dress. She was nice enough to ask me to guest post and I could not say "yes" quick enough. I am talking about what compels people to take the actions that they do and sharing a little more about myself. I hope you will check it out.

Kelly is an amazing writer and friend. Please take a minute to head over there and see what's going on!

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Virgie Tovar is a sex-educating, cupcake-eating Xicana high
femme iconoclast who lives in San Francisco. She doubles
as hitachi-wielding burlesque starlet Dulce de Lecherous. Crowning
achievements include Best Sex Writer (SF Bay Guardian, 2008), authoring
Destination DD: Adventures of a Breast Fetishist with 40DDs (Sexy
Advisors Press) and The Virgie Show on CBS Radio's 106.9 FM.

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe for Fleur De Lis' Sexy Circus!

As a little girl growing up you are fed all of these images of what you are supposed to look like. Shit, we were all given a Barbie doll at some point, and we came to think that was what a woman looks like. I think we have all read the research that if Barbie was a real person she would not be able to walk. Little girls are given so many things to live up to, so it is no wonder that as women we are all so body conscious.

I hear little girls who say things like, "I don’t want to get fat." I see girls wearing very adult clothes at a younger and younger age. But when you look at what our society defines as attractive- tall, thin, and with big boobs- it seems to be the image we are fed most. Mainly thin.

There are a variety of body types that not just women, but people, have. I cannot tell you how much time I have spent as a woman dissecting what is wrong with my body. The time my friends and I have spent in front of a mirror telling each other what we find wrong with our bodies. Since I have started a blog where I am photographed constantly, I have noticed my attention to detail with what I look like has evolved.

The makeup, the hair, the nails, and the clothes for women are designed to make me look sexy. Now, don’t get me wrong: I like being sexy. Actually, I love being sexy. There is something about putting on an outfit that you know you look good in and walking out of your house. Now, do I find it inappropriate that men eye fuck me, or yell at me from cars, that I can live without, but at least they still yell at me. Sometimes it makes me sick, and sometimes I smile.

It is hard to be a woman and not fit into a particular mold of what a woman is supposed to look like. When I was younger I had huge- and I mean HUGE- boobs, very short hair, and I was, at best, awkward in my teens. I grew into my looks and I learned how to be happy with the woman that I am. When I get dressed up now it's for me, but I do love to put on pretty things and walk down the street. I love being looked at and admired. Who doesn't?

We are judged on how we look. If a woman is not thin, she is judged for it. Have you ever heard “She has such a pretty face, if only she were thinner”? I think that sexy is in the eye of the beholder. I also think that not everyone is a stick figure, and they should not be judged for that.

Women come in a variety of shapes and colors. However, I do think we have it harder than men as far as our appearance. Men can be slovenly or disheveled and no one really says anything, but if a woman does that she has given up, or she is sad. I have been a size 4, and I have been a size 14, but my confidence has never come from my appearance. My confidence has always come from my ability to use my brain. Your looks fade, and you have to have more than that to fall back on in order to be a complete person.

What I don't understand is why, instead of teaching little girls to be pretty, we don’t teach them to be competent? We should encourage them to be anything that they want to be. Women need to feel less pressure from society to conform to a certain look. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and we should be encouraged to look how we want.

Whether you are a size 4 or a size 24, your confidence should be derived from who you are as a person instead of what you look like. I have met exceptionally attractive people who once they open their mouths, they become so ugly that I am repulsed by them. That movie Shallow Hal was a great example of looking for inner beauty. We need to be able to see who people are, beyond what their outward appearance is. I am lucky to be surrounded by a number of beautiful people, inside and out, but it is the inside that counts the most to me.


You can read more from Fleur De Lis SF on her blog. The above photo was taken during a promotional shoot for her upcoming Sexy Circus! Come one, Come all! September 17, 2011 at the Center For Sex & Culture, 1349 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA. Doors open at 8:30 and the show starts at 9:00.

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

Dear Sweet Body,

You are a temple. You are pillars of past, walls of art, high arching doorways of history. You are a place of worship for some and a place to rest weary heads of others. You are for everyone who comes by you honestly and with intention and love.

You are the ocean, your great waves undulating seductively around massive wooden ships. You woo sailors with glints of shiny trick lighting and the sound of sirens in your shallows. You are massive and deep and salty at all of the right times. Your tide pools tremble with tiny discovery.

You are a journey. You are smooth brow and sunburned lips. You are saddle ass and sweaty thighs and hard memories wrapped in the finest swatches of silk under heaving breasts. You demand cartographers with years of experience simply to find the terrible softness in your hips, your lips, and your collarbone. You are unraveling miles of surprising shyness, teeth biting into pillows of lips. You are unending. Would be suitors shade their eyes on horizons of your equator.

You are a wild horse. You buck easily. You tame rarely. You run until you are sheen of sweat and lust. You toss your head at danger and leap over obstacles. You are youthful and old and always free. You belong to no one.

Sweet body you are a carriage, a mystery, a puzzle, a long road ahead of me. You support me and rarely protest when I make you do things you would rather not.

You are still glimmering after 4 wars. You are the dazed smile on my lover’s face when asked to disrobe. You are the sun singing against you in your racy red bathing suit. You are the truth of standing up straight like your Papaw always told you to.

Sweet body.
You are a beauty.

Love,
Alysia

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

You can read more from Alysia on her blog.

Morgan's guest post today resonates with me on a very personal level.   My own relationship with food is intimately connected to my sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Being able to embrace a positive attitude toward my own (and others') sexuality is extremely difficult, if not impossible, when the self-esteem is failing me.  I am so pleased to present Morgan's story.  You can follow their culinary adventures on their foodie blog, Chubb Gourmet, and they are a talented photographer to boot!     -Shilo

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

24 years into my life, I’m finally entering into an honest, open relationship with food.

I have been fat for all of my adult life, and most of my childhood. Around age 7 or 8, I started getting “chubby.” By age 12 I was all out fat. It was no fault of my parents. They fed me well-rounded, healthy meals. Junk food was sparse in our household. I was active as a child, too. I don’t blame anyone for being fat. It just happened. I am a great example of the result of a Punnett square with a long line of fat family members. It just happens to be a dominant trait in my particular set of genes.

When I entered my adolescence, my fatness started to impact my self-image and social interactions. It stopped being cute “puppy fat” and started being a “problem.” My first diet and gym membership began at age 12. At 12 years old, when I should have been thinking about school crushes and what I wanted my birthday party theme to be, I was worrying about being the fat kid and why my diet wasn’t working.

This is when my relationship with food really started becoming abusive and problematic. Up until that point, food and I got along just fine. We enjoyed each other’s company in moderation. We had occasional bouts of wild excess, but more often than not engaged in respectful, mutual appreciation. The instant I began calorie counting and thinking “low-fat,” I began binge-eating. I became ashamed of eating in public, began worrying about what people thought about my choices in food, and had to start rationalizing my choices to eat “poorly” by promising those around me that I would be exercising later to offset the calories. At home, my mom worked hard to ensure I was eating “right.” At school, or at friends’ houses, I ate all the junk food available to me in an irrational response to being forced to think about weight loss all the time.

My mom and I tried every fad diet that popped up. We got multiple gym memberships. We tried personal trainers. We bought diet food. At age 16, my doctor prescribed me phentermine, a habit forming appetite suppressant that caused me to feel strung out and anxious. Sometimes we lost weight, but no matter how much we lost, we always gained it back. By this time, I wasn’t fantasizing about growing up to be a politician or graduating top of my class in college; I was imagining how perfect my life would be when I was finally skinny.

My junior year of high school, I jumped on the low-carb diet fad with gusto. I stopped eating bread, rice, pasta and even “high-carb” fruits like apples and bananas. The diet was supposedly most effective if you could force your body into ketosis, a state that causes incredible stress to the liver. I ate nothing but protein for a solid month, and started losing huge amounts of weight. At one point, I lost ten pounds in a week. And my energy levels plummeted. I felt sick, couldn’t concentrate in school, and was always hungry. I began binging on carbohydrates. I felt terrible, both emotionally and physically. I felt like I was failing myself every time I gave in and had my sandwich on bread instead of in between two pieces of lettuce. When my mother realized how sick the diet was making us, we stopped. And we almost immediately gained all the weight back.

I didn’t know it then, but I hated food. I hated eating. I hated myself.

I chased weight loss goals and flirted with diet after diet for FOURTEEN YEARS of my life. It wasn’t until I was introduced to fat-positive and “healthy at every size” movements in college that I finally started to seriously examine my relationship with food. I realized that I was causing myself huge emotional and physical harm by constantly berating myself for not being skinny enough or eating well enough or exercising enough. I started to food as something that could heal and create community.

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

And the moment I resolved to stop dieting and exercising for weight loss, my life changed. I started cooking for myself, and learning about amazing foods like quinoa. I started getting excited about vegetables and learning which ones were local and in-season. I became more connected to local and slow-food movements, and learning about the science of food and how our bodies process it.

And when I stopped thinking about exercise for weight-loss I learned that I really enjoyed yoga and bike riding. I started training for long distance bike rides, and talked with a nutritionist NOT about how to lose weight, but how to nourish myself as I became more active. I started discovering new whole grains that made me feel full and energized. I learned how to cook in ways that were exciting and different and most importantly NOURISHED ME.

In short, I came back to healthy relationship with food. I’m still working on strengthening things. I’m trying to slow down, learn to savor every moment with the food I eat and stop when I’ve had my fill. And no, the pounds aren’t melting away. This is not a story about how I lost 100 pounds and kept it off. It’s about discovering what foods power me or make me feel satisfied. It’s about how I’m building a healthy, sustainable relationship with the food I put into my body and how this new relationship is making me feel better, mentally and physically. This is a story about how as soon as I started loving food again, I started to love MYSELF again.

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

Today I am hanging out at Cinderita's place...it's always sunny in Cinderitaville! That lovely lady truly makes each day brighter for me and I am beyond thrilled that she is letting me crash at her place for the day.

Come check out my Friday guest post and stick around to catch up on some her shenanigans...that girl has some stories, and that is coming from me so you know it must be good stuff!

Ready for the weekend kids?? I sure am!

Here we have a final adieu to National Masturbation Month 2011. I'm pleased to offer a guest post by my friend M. Christian.  It was the title of this piece of writing that inspired me to name my month of masturbation photos "I masturbate..." 

Thanks to everyone who helped to make "I masturbate..." such a success. I can't wait for May 2012! 
-Shilo


Sure, I masturbate. Yeah, I jerk off. Damned straight, I yank it, pull it, stroke it, rub it, and jerk it. Lube, soap, shampoo or split. Left hand, right hand, frotage (look it up), other’s hands, sheets, and gizmos (manual, electric, and even diesel). Like it, love it--do it a lot.

Let’s get this straight--we all do it. Sure, yeah, right: “not me” someone says. Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. We all do it. Nuns do it, dogs do it, cats do it, bees do it, Newt Gingrich and Jessie Helms do it (god, what a thought!). You say you don’t do it, you mean it when you say you don’t do it. Well, who leaves the wet spot on the bed, a topless Tinkerbell?


I masturbate. Come on, let’s say it together, enunciate those syllables: “I” --rounding chorus of self identification. Come on, belt that fucker out--“I”--mean it now, say it true--“Mast-ur-bate.”

I masturbate. He masturbates. She masturbates. They masturbate. We all masturbate. That out of the way? Breathing maybe a bit easier now? Let me tell you this, the old cliché of imagining folks in their underwear has zilch over thinking of all of you sitting there rubbing stroking, jacking, jilling yourselves into a grazed euphoria of self-love. Makes saying that I do it real easy.

I masturbate. Bullshit on that “self-abuse” nonsense: think of them sitting on the toilet in some sleazy dive yanking their pull little wieners with two embarrassed fingers, groaning like taking a shit, popping off an eye-dropped full of fun cream, wheezing like an asthmatic marathon runner (oooooh, sexy!) then going out onto the pulpit to tell you that “it’s bad for you”, “it’s sinful”, “it’s detrimental.”

I do it. I’m proud that I do--because I do it well (hell, I like it) and I do it often: horny, need to sleep, need to relax, wanna get off quick, wanna get off slow, got a cold, don’t got a cold, at home, at parties (the right kind of parties), driving, sleeping (“Yeah, Tinkerbell, yeah!”), for myself, for others--available for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, etc.

Been doing it for years (first time think something like twelve--late bloomer), will do it for many more. Do it tonight, do it probably tomorrow, do it with my wife, do it with my playmates, do it for pay (if anyone’s interested), do it for free. Ask me to, go on, ask me.

You can see me do it, you can hear me do it (the movie’s out there somewhere--sorry they never told me what the title was going to be) and I write about doing it ...

... stroking my long, proud self, feeling the soft skin and the ridges and bumps of the veins. Feeling the skin of my hand rise and squeeze around the thick head. The pressure, the wonderful feeling of the strong muscle that cranks me up and away. The strength in my balls, the pulse at the head as my hand cups then pulls back from it. The tiny pulls and tiny sharp plucks of my forest of pubic hairs getting caught in my hand. My asshole getting nice and tight. My grip getting tighter as my cock gets harder. When it’s good it’s very good and my cock is a iron putter wrapped in fine silk. My cock is a diving rod pulling my brain this way and that with images and sensations: entering, sucking, licking, biting, beating, feeling, touching, and more, much more.

I love to start the trip to see where it might detour. Start out with a fuck-film in your head, maybe the feeling of that one night, that one day (satin, silk, polyester, latex, leather, cotton, elastic waistbands--) and let my cock take me that way that this way through side-trips of past fucks: just that sensation, that picture, that image, that fantasy, that lover, that glimpse, that night (or day). I might start with the Standard Number Four (A) fantasy: big black tits in my face while she jumps on my rigid cock and might end up at in a mobile home somewhere below the Mason-Dixon with a scummy pre-teen (all zits and no tits and gum and smelling of piss and booze) on my face an some guy named Joe-Bob bathing my cock and balls in spit that’s mostly cheap beer.

It’s ain’t so much the destination as it is the trip.

I jerk off when I’m horny. I stroke it when I’m excited. I pull it when I’m turned-on. I also yank it when I’m bored, can’t sleep, have a cold, have a headache, or can’t think of anything else to do (or there’s nothing good on TV). I do it in bed, on the john, in my living room, at my computer (I give good email), in the backyard (that was a fun party), and everywhere in between. I’ve done it driving, in planes, in porno houses, on trains, and when I shouldn’t have been doing it and I’m damned lucky no one caught me.

Don’t act so fucking surprised, either, a lot of you have done a lot worse--or a lot better.

Stigma? Masturbation should be prayer. It should be the way we show our love for the God/dess in ourselves (how better than to show him/her/it a really good time?). We should have it fucking institutionalized. No more of this bullshit white-haired old men yelling at us from inside their million dollar temples about a hateful god who doesn’t want you to yank it or jill it. Nah, we should tune in every goddamned morning to the right kind of prayer--”Put your hands where they belong, Brothers and Sisters, and give unto you the pleasure that is the God/dess’s gift to you--your genitals. Rub them with me, dear people, and feel the rising power of prayer in you (and remember to clean up afterwards).”

Jerking off should be a fucking sporting event! “Live from the Superbowl the longest ejaculation, most powerful orgasm, most orgasms (women and men’s divisions), most female ejaculate, and quickest (longest takes way too much time for television).” Personally, I favor the San Francisco Queens (got ten bucks riding on them, too).

It should be taught in school, it should be continuing ed, it should be an extracurricular activity (“For today, class, we are going to examine the social, personal, physical repercussions of long fingernails--”). It should be part of the glee club (high notes), cheer leading, and shop (bookend, sailboat, coat rack, dildo, butt-plug ...). We should be told and shown how to do it well, safely and effectively.

Maybe it will. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But for certain it is safe, harmless, natural, comfortable common, and--best above all else--hellava lot of fun!

I know you masturbate. I know you do, because I do. A lot. So get off it, get on it and--

--love thyself. Damnit!

The End

M. Christian

www.mchristian.com

I masturbate. I polish the pearl, tickle the taco, rub the nub, grope the grotto, stroke the banjo. Or, what I find to be the most accurate, I practice self-love.

My 20-something year old life is divided into two parts: pre-masturbation-induced orgasm, and post.

Masturbation was not an option that I ever knew existed as a child. I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school for 9 years, until I entered high school. Our abstinence-only curriculum made no mention of sexual desire amongst us horny, hormonal, just-entering-puberty young’uns. Sex was for marriage, and for procreation. End of story.

This led to a series of confusing years. I was a very aroused girl. I recall when I was young, pausing “Edward Scissor Hands” in the hairdressing scene to show my grandmother, because it “made me feel good”! As I got older, I would lie in bed at night, wondering how to ease the throbbing sensation in my groin. A few times my hands would venture south, but to no avail. I was always overcome with guilt or fear of being caught before anything actually came of my wanderings. I was doomed to be sexually frustrated for life.

I decided that I was ready to do the deed when I was 18 years old, in my last year of high school. All of my life force and energy had slowly started to gravitate around my loins, until sex was all that I could think about. There was no way I was going to be a productive college student if I decided to abstain from sex until marriage! I think that due to my lack of education around female masturbation and orgasm, self-pleasure never became a viable option for me. So sex it was!

Things to know: my first sex partner was also my “first love”. I was able to orgasm during P-V sex with said partner. Partner and I broke up when I was in college.

For those of you who experienced your first snap, crackle, pop, explosions in the sky, “holy shit!!” orgasm with a partner, you know what kind of emotional breakdown that can cause when you are no longer with that partner. “Where did my orgasm go?” The fact that another person was the one that enabled my body to experience such wondrous, beautiful, extraordinary sensations that finally gave me sexual satisfaction, and had helped me to embrace my sexuality, made it very difficult for me to understand my body once I was alone.

I had sex with other people but I couldn’t come again. I didn’t know what to do! And dammit, I wanted to come again! In addition to feeling “broken” because I wasn’t orgasmic with other partners, this also made getting over my first lover very difficult… I tried revisiting my pitiful attempts at masturbation, but my fingertips lacked the magic touch.

Concurrently, I was training to become a peer sexual health educator at my college. In hindsight, that was a very interesting experience, as I was really getting my first comprehensive sex education while being trained to teach others. One of our lessons was on masturbation. “Yeah, yeah,” I would say. “It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure!” We took a trip to a local sex-positive adult store, Good Vibrations, where I would later end up working. On our trip I decided to buy a vibrator, to enable me to be a better educator and know what I was talking about when speaking with others about sex toys. And thus began the rest of my life.

Masturbation was not an intuitive process for me. While I knew a bit more about my body at this point than I did when I was in high school, I still didn’t really know where to start. Purchasing that vibrator was a step in the right direction, however. It made me reflect on why I gave up on masturbation so easily, and I eventually became determined to give myself an orgasm if it was the last thing I did!

I remember fondly those initial attempts at masturbation, trying to decide what would hopefully, maybe, just this once work for me. I tried using my vibrator in the shower, at one of my roommates’ suggestion. I tried different positions on my bed – on my back, on my belly, on my knees. I tried reading erotica. Nothing was working. Then I tried closing my eyes and fantasizing about being with a partner – the only way I had been able to orgasm thus far. I tried to be as vivid as possible when creating the image of someone on top of me, fucking me, at the angle that I was always able to come in. I used the vibrator as a dildo, pretending it was my partner, and then used the vibration settings on my clit. Shazaam!

Words cannot express how I felt after being able to give myself an orgasm. I remember being flushed, running out of my room holding my vibrator, exclaiming, “I did it!!!” I felt so accomplished, and I also felt so much more appreciation for my body and the wonderful feelings I was capable of having. The realization that I did not need to depend on anyone to be able to give me a mind-blowing orgasm was so empowering, and I only wished I could have figured it out earlier.

While this was a very goal-oriented process, focused solely on orgasm, I think it was necessary for me to be able to recognize what other types of sensations I enjoyed beyond the orgasm itself. I learned that I am a very visual person, thus the fantasy was what I needed to push me over the edge. I later opened myself up to watching porn, and now that is a regular masturbation practice that I use and love. I discovered that I need more internal stimulation than a lot of other women, and do not tend to orgasm from clitoral stimulation alone. I found that I love the feeling of vibration, which no fingers, tongue, or penis feel like. I realized that I am capable of expressing my love for myself and my body in this way, and nothing else makes me feel more at peace with myself.

After figuring out what types of stimulation I needed to be able to orgasm, I was capable of orgasming during sex from then on! It is incredible what a difference it makes, discovering what you like during solo sex and how that positively impacts the pleasure during partnered sex. Being able to orgasm on my own also changed my experience during sex with a partner. I became less expectant, and more of an equal and present partner. It stopped being about hoping I would orgasm, and instead I could enjoy the entire process, and pay more attention to my partner as well.

I now masturbate on a regular basis, and am a masturbation advocate. It was a life-changing process of getting to know my body as well as my sexuality. While I would never tell someone that they needed to masturbate, I think that it has the potential to completely shift one’s view on sex and pleasure in a positive way, and is something worth considering. Three cheers for masturbation!


Three cheers for Jenna Talia, too! You can follow her on twitter: www.twitter.com/askjennatalia

Sunday, May 1st begins National Masturbation Month and the launch of "I masturbate..." here at The Sex Positive Photo Project blog. Check in daily for sex positive masturbation photos and stories. Masturbation! Rah! Rah! Rah!