And now for something completely different.

Civil disobedience, Canadian style.

Women of the protest rally.

In honour of the G8 and G20 Summits in Toronto

Rogue finally submits.

I accomplished a longstanding goal recently.

I've enjoyed writing erotica for years, but it's been only recently that I've finally decided to take the action that I've been nagging myself to do and send a decent submission for publication. I've been published before, and usually on other topics, but for some reason I just haven't been pursuing my intentions to do more in the sex-positive realm.

A recent submission call by Cleis Press changed that, and I've issued a light femdom, male subbie, first-timer tale entitled "Bad Influences" for their upcoming Sweet Love project.

It was an amusing exercise to twist my brain into male subbie space. Maybe a dirty martini will fix that.

But, exclusively for youse Urban Roguery readers, here's a taste of my, uh, submission...

* *

I bobbed my outstretched palms and fingers on his flesh, feeling his bubble shape and patting him. His ass filled my hands nicely. I slowly drew a finger or two up and along the seam between his cheeks, enjoying how pert he really was. Daringly, I slowly probed a finger inside further, found his anus, and teased it with a fingertip. It was warm and soft and tight, and I gave a little pressure under the very outermost ring of his sphincter when it started to clutch the tip of my finger.

My arms still around him, I felt him tense up as he pulled back just slightly. The quizzical look on his face was precious.

“Um. What are you doing?”

Did I see the hint of a smile under those widened, glittering eyes?

“I’m enjoying my man,” I smirked, looking up. I pressed my forearms firmly against his strong legs and held him, my hands sending a clear message: stay just where you are, dude.

Speaking up for kink and culture.

In a previous post, I cited a mental health website that offered some strong, clinical arguments to suggest that kinky people suffer from a paraphiliac mental disorder.

In the view of these writers, kinkster- and genderqueer people are therefore included among the ranks of pedophiles and presumably other sorts of folk who engage in abusive, non-consensual, criminal, harmful activities in their lives.

"The essential feature of sexual masochism is the feeling of sexual arousal or excitement resulting from receiving pain, suffering, or humiliation," the site states. "The pain, suffering, or humiliation is real and not imagined and can be physical or psychological in nature. A person with a diagnosis of sexual masochism is sometimes called a masochist.

"The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," they continue, "is used by mental health professionals to diagnose specific mental disorders. In the 2000 edition of this manual (the Fourth Edition Text Revision also known as DSM-IV-TR) sexual masochism is one of several paraphilias. Paraphilias are intense and recurrent sexually arousing urges, fantasies, or behaviors."

I finally got around to chiming in on their comments. I reached for my academic mortarboard (or was it my headmaster's cane?) and stepped up to the mike:

While it's always possible that a person suffering from a mental disorder may have an interest in these fantasies, it doesn't necessarily equate that a person engaging in consensual, expressive sexuality need do so because of an existing mental disorder.

Human sexuality of all stripes often includes a cognitive foundation involving power structures and roles. For many people, the deliberate and consensual application of these different power and authority structures (in a conscious and nurturing environment) can add enticing dimensions to one's sexual play. For some, the use of many kinds of physical and mental stimulation (such as spanking) adds another level of excitement.

People who engage in this sort of imaginative and creative sexplay are not the demons under your bed. Most are highly educated people coming from very professional and leadership-oriented backgrounds, with sound and happy families, paid-for cars, and mortgages.

Tragically, yes, there are people in the world who use power-exchange or bondage play or similar elements within the BDSM milieu for things other than safe, sane, consensual adult sexplay between knowing partners. But then, equally tragically, genuinely abusive people can also be found among the clergy, law enforcement, child care workers, and in other places in life where one wouldn't expect criminal activity.

If one thinks back far enough, deep enough, it wouldn't be unusual to find some kind of "kinkyness" (however one might apply that highly subjective term) in one's sexual fantasy life, including as far back as childhood. It's part of the human sexual awakening experience. Attempts to argue otherwise often fail to grasp the whole breadth of human sexual history and anthropology, and simply resort to trying to sell a specific, limited, restrictive idea about what is "right" and "appropriate" from a culturally myopic point of view.

In other words, the world's a lot bigger and broader than you probably think, and just because I spank my grrlfriend, that doesn't mean that I should stand in line for a thorazine shot.

Just sayin.

A kiss for Kara.

It's been a year of new experiences, insight, creation, perseverance,
and the healthiest communication I've ever known.

I'm privileged to escort you into a world of pleasure, expansion, and sensuality. I'm privileged to experience such kindness, openness, awareness from someone as fabulous as you. You are hysterically funny. You are divinely compassionate. You are stronger than you know.

You are the altar whereupon I make my offerings to
love, laughter, life, and vigour.

I treasure you.


Oh yeah.
And I love your pert, spankable ass.



Happy anniversary, baby. Love you.

Watching television with Tammi and Joe.

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Just sayin.

Sexblogging colleague Rori has recently announced that nominations for the Top 100 Sex Bloggers of 2010 are currently up and running. Last year, this blog was pleasantly placed on the list at #68.

This is a fun and creative way to circulate the word about the more popular sexblogs in the blogosphere, and I hope youse guys will enjoy perusing all the nominees and enjoy yourselves. Nominations close on July 31.

In vino veritas.

I know that it's a shocking thing to suggest, but there actually is more to life than sex. Like, Ontario's Niagara region wine for example.

Which, you know, is kinda like sex.

Yeah.

Last weekend, sexy Kara and I enjoyed a surprise birthday party for a friend (a minister's wife, no less) featuring a wine tasting. It made for a deliciously sensual evening, even with a brood of birthday-cake laden kids running around.

I had already known that I preferred varietals to blends, so I was surprised by a 2005 Henry of Pelham cabernet sauvignon/merlot when enjoyed with some Quebec oka classique cheese. The resulting flavour came wickedly close to a hazelnut chocolate, leaving me to ponder its possible use during a sensual night of candlelit caresses. Their 2006 baco noir reserve (a varietal) brought out a more peppery flavour to the same cheese, and with its slightly earthy, almost tulip nose, struck me as being ideal for venison. A slightly sharp 2007 pinot noir possessed a strong cranberry nuance that seemed perfect for a roast turkey (despite being a red) if it were bulging with a rich cranberry stuffing.

Yum. (But Henry, what's with the "cheap prescription" stuff on your website?)

Lailey Vinyards' 2007 meritage (a 54% merlot, 31% cabernet franc, 15% cabernet sauvignon blend) disappointed me at first with an almost "plastic" bouquet. Blends. But its light, slightly buttery flavour compensated for it, especially when combined with some Quebec havarti or Ontario "comfort cheese," where its creaminess was richly enhanced. I could easily see Kara held in suspension rigging, swaying creakily under some heavy oaken beams, as I gently brought slivers of this cheese and the barest of sips from Baccarat stemware to her lips. After I'd had my fun with her bare, pert behind. Of course.


Another blend, a 2006 "red blend" (ooo, imaginative!) from Stratus Vinyards, would go superbly with my deepdish, Brooklyn-style lasagna. Its length was bitter and slightly salty, which seemed to bring out the better elements to provolone. Yet the varietal fan in me can't see enjoying this for drinking's sake if another option was available, being a dizzying (for me) fusion of merlot, gamay, malbec, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, syrah (shiraz), and petit verdot. What, is this what became bottled from the slush barrel near the rear cellar door? Evil.

Truth be told, I'm not really a wine snob. But I am, so to speak, a wine symbolist. To me, wine can tell a story of a place and a time, like a pressed flower in an old book or a scrip of paper bearing an old note that's been slipped behind a framed photograph. I like to mark special events in life with the purchase of a new bottle, tag it with the date and a note about the event, and then save them in what passes for my cellar. I savour the memory as I savour the grapes when the time comes to re-celebrate or re-mark a connecting occasion, and then I uncork one in my personal, ritual way.

Two years after mentioning it here, I still have that last 2002 Boordy coastal claret that I picked up in Maryland. I bought two originally, and they marked when I met The Grrl.

"We drank its sister on (our) last night together," I wrote here then. "I've thought the bottle would make a fitting offering to Aphrodite but I have yet to uncork it for such a purpose." Somehow, I still haven't brought myself to do it, although I think now that that has less to do with attachments to my former partner than it has to do with the fact that I've held it for so long. Or so I tell myself.

Sometimes, in no less a personally sacred sense, that ritual and energy and symbolism backfires on me. I haven't had a bottle from Cave Springs in years, which is a shame because they're really very good. But it was at their winery where my betraying ex-wife, so long ago, and I had what passed for our honeymoon.

There was a bottle that marked Shayne, although looking back on this blog I find that I didn't actually acquire it until one of her visits to Toronto. My normal habit would have been to get one during our first meeting, which would have been when I drove to see her in Chicago. I think it's because, in some ways, that rollercoaster ride helped me persevere through some lingering post-Grrl attachments that gave me the timeliness to imbibe that bottle when our End seemed apparent. I enjoyed it as part of a pleasant dinner, as I recall, where I gladly and heartfully toasted both her and myself. Her, for the pleasures and personal gifts she had indeed certainly brought to me, and me for the recognition and ground to take those gifts with appreciation and kindness as I stepped forward from there.

It pleases me that we're friends now, and I feel perfectly at peace that that bottle was so "properly" enjoyed.

And no, in the event you're asking yourself, there hasn't been a bottle (to date) to mark when I met Kara. But I think the reason is solid, if it may change very soon now. At least, no wine has as-yet been specifically added to my cellar to mark her, although I do enjoy the memory that it was a 2008 Duboeuf beaujolais we enjoyed on the night of her first playparty, one of her first introductions to kink. We've also found a special relationship with Pelee Island's blanc de blanc, which I served with salmon during our first homecooked meal together.

In a very Buddhist way, I've learned a great deal through my myriad of relationships, and most usually about myself as I enjoy them. I've had a tendency to invest too much of myself too quickly. Since The Grrl, most of what I've learned is about the that kind of attachment, and the ability to Be At Peace with what comes, as it comes, without "needing" to impose preconceived ideas of what I think it is. I've learned, for my own mental and emotional health, to retain a small amount of objectivity in the early days of an affair, and it's a lesson that I didn't want to forget when I had begun dating this sexy, punky, high school math teacher I had met online.

To me, a relationship doesn't "fail" if, should it end, something can still be gained in learning a new element of yourself, how you perceive others, how you can do things better next time. In this way, and as I've often shared with friends, one's future partner(s) become the beneficiary of everything you've learned up unto that moment.

And so I didn't get a bottle of wine after I started dating Kara because I had learned lessons after drinking the one I had saved to mark the time when I had started seeing Shayne. And because that bottle from Maryland still lingered in the dark (both in cellar and in self) to remind me about where those attachment senses were coming from. I didn't get a bottle of wine right away to mark things with Kara because I didn't want to spoil it if things with Kara got spoiled. I had become tired of spoiled. I wanted some sense of longevity between us first, since previously I would buy the wine out of slightly rote habit and often before I really knew what investmentswere possible between me and 'the new partner.' Maybe I thought I was being practical, but in hindsight, perhaps I was just being overzealous and impatient.

Is this a slight against her?

Nah.

An unconscious acceptance that maybe it wouldn't work out?

Ok, probably, although only at first, and in no way reflecting on her. I wanted to retain a lesson learned.

Because things with Kara have not become spoiled. So far, it has been working out. Kara is, hands-down, the most supportive, generous, kind partner I've known in years. I've been in some personal angst lately, and she's been incredibly helpful as I adapt and overcome. I've also learned that while some things can and will try her patience (as some things can and will try mine), we enjoy an enriching sense of communication that often floors me with how deeply it works, resonates, and nurtures. We've had disagreements, but they have yet to really become a problem. We don't have all the same tastes, but we still find common ground and have a blast. We relate, and where we don't, we listen and find space in ourselves, mutually, to take those moments as plateaus we can challenge ourselves with to grow and become stronger, better, as people.

That's really damned cool.

And next Wednesday, it'll be our first anniversary. Now, I think, it's time to buy a 2009 bottle of Ontario. Perhaps we'll buy it together, and from some online source since, again, we met that way.

Women of the World Cup.

Finding tribe.

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Truth in advertising.

I'm at work when she texts me, excitedly.

Kara: Ha! Growers Cider is advertising with poster of nudists at a picnic! I KNEW I liked that product! ;)

True enough, Grower's Cider from British Columbia is probably our favourite relaxing-after-a-long-day drink, and while it's very rare that I plug a commercial product in this blog, clothing-optional themes definitely get my attention. Especially if its from something the grrlfiend and me actually do like.

It seems the people at Grower's teamed up with Toronto advertising firm Huxley Quayle von Bismark who ingeniously took Grower's 'natural cider' ball and ran with it. "We created this trans-media idea based around the simple concept that since Growers Cider is all natural," cites the firm's website, "it would appeal to the most natural of people – naturalists. Fun ensues."

The advertisers then approached the very open and very natural people at the Bare Oaks naturist community in rural Ontario, who were delighted to participate in the ad campaign. But the firm didn't stop there, and tweaked Grower's own website to permit viewers to upload and "nudify" their own personal images. Fun definitely ensues.

Kara and me really should pay a visit to Bare Oaks sometime. Meanwhile, we're gonna get nekkid now and have a few drinks. Wanna join us?

Conduct unbecoming.

That being said, it intrigues me that recent news reports indicate that Canada's commander of Joint Task Force units in the deserts of Kandahar, Brigadier General Daniel Ménard, was recently relieved of duty for having an "inappropriate relationship" with a fellow soldier.

Initial reports were elusive as to the gender of the other soldier in question, leaving people like me to ponder as to the general's preferences. But no, the man is straight, and apparently married to a female Canadian soldier. However, and unlike in an American military scenario, General Ménard has been ousted from his command not so much because of the 'adultery' involved but for the intimacy itself. Canadian military policy prohibits even an act as seemingly innocent as hand-holding between partners while in uniform as a breach to unit discipline and morale.

As much as I can understand the policy's rationale, I can't help but ask myself: The man is in the desert. For the love of God, let him get laid.

Kind of reminds me of Larry Flynt's argument about which was more offensive: sex or war?

War stories.

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