memoirs #14

Bikini Kill (Part #1)

2 December 2022, San Diego, California, USA

In my fraught, perilous journey toward womanhood, I think buying my first bikini today frightened me most of all the steps I’ve taken to date. Had to confront serious body image issues in addition to duress about how I’m going to deal with my “hardware”.

Bikini Kill (Part #2)

5 December 2022, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

I bravely wore said bikini in public today.

R.A.C.K.

15 December 2022, San Diego, California, USA

Kinksters frequently speak of “RACK” (risk-aware consensual kink). Works for me.

But I’m modifying it for my life in general: “Risk-aware consensual kindness”.

Giving radical kindness is dangerous—it is easy to get hurt when you become attached to the one whom you are giving kindness. They simply might not understand or be able or even willing to return the kindness. The peril becomes even more fraught with radical love, the unconditional kind. You might give much and receive nothing.

It follows that my choice to give love and kindness is “risk-aware”.

But for me there is a bit of a thrill involved in this game. I enjoy the danger. Perhaps in my world “RACK” best stands for “recklessly adventurous comprehensive kindness”.

On Risk

15 December 2022, San Diego, California, USA

Ninety percent of the risks I take produce no outcome, good or bad.

Five percent of these result in disaster: I’ve been fired. Windows smashed. Discrimination. Artistic flops. Heartbreak galore.

But the remaining five percent of the risks I pursue produce outcomes so incredible and awesome that the danger proves worth facing.

Privilege and Shame

15 December 2022, San Diego, California, USA

Shame, when experienced by those of us holding substantial privilege, is still shame. Having privilege does not invalidate this feeling, nor does it invalidate the discomfort and unhappiness that shame brings.

All of us, from the wealthiest to the most impoverished of us, fall short of our own and/or society’s expectations in some way. Most of us feel shame when we do. We carry this burden no matter how much our life “should” seem “easy” to those less fortunate than us.

Shame alone is difficult enough without piling the additional shame of “my problems are nothing compared to those less privileged than me” on top of it.

Sure, it pays to keep perspective, but use it to your advantage: Our fuck-ups, debts, addictions, etc. are certainly minor compared to the war and famine experienced by many of our brethren. But let that knowledge become a source of progress-oriented inspiration rather than despair.

What we want to do is diminish the following vicious cycle:

Here shame about some matter compounds shame we feel because we believe there are bigger problems—that we “shouldn’t” feel the shame or even have the problem to begin with due to privilege—which in turn feeds the initial shame. We can diminish this cycle by focusing on the initial shame; by saying “so what?” to the compounded feeling that privilege invalidates it.

Confessions of a Sex Party DJ (Part #1)

10 December 2022, San Diego, California, USA

A discotheque DJ’s job is to keep the dance floor moving.

By contrast, my job is to make you horny. Then I keep you horny. Then I cool you down after your intense scenes.

In either case, we use sound to take you out of your day-to-day mindspace.

It’s aural sex, baby!