The Palimpsex

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A Review, A Reflection, A Wish of Wellness

reflection, review, sex toys, sexuality, storytelling, trans*

I outlined this blog post and honestly debated just leaving it as a messy outline the way I did in a previous post.  But I want to craft it a little.  I’ve been crafty lately.  DIY has always been a big part of my life, whether due to punk ethics, queer community, or disability survival.  When the pandemic hit, narratives exploded around these identities and more, and I knew I had to create a post.  It was just a matter of time and space.  Now and here we go. 

I write most of my posts when everything in life explicitly overlaps to the point where it feels like universes are collapsing into one another and everywhere I look is a sign to put my fingers on the keyboard.  Right now I am writing as the sun sets on my porch, reclined on my Liberator Chaise to ease my back still aching from the six epidurals I received three weeks ago.  I rushed these epidurals, paying out of pocket because my sciatic flare was so bad I could barely walk.  I knew COVID-19 was about to shut the world down, and I invested an entire paycheck knowing that most elective procedures were not going to be available soon.  What I put out of my head until my orthopedist firmly reminded me, is that the five extra shots given due to resistant scar tissue were five extra doses of immunosuppressing cortisone.  This is something I still continue to shove from my consciousness, as my concerns for loved ones have put my sense of self on the backburner.  My mother and father tested positive for COVID-19 over three weeks ago, and my mother has suffered greatly.  It was not until four days ago that her fever finally broke and she was able to breathe without coughing.  I’m not much for prayer, but I pretty much told everyone and anyone close to me with the hopes that we could all send a little bit of energy her way, and I think that might have done the trick.   

Epidurals and Bandaids on Avery's Back

I’m also working every day at PROUD now, answering the phones, helping patients figure out how to navigate telemedicine and listening to their worries and fears during this difficult time.  I’ve had horrible impostor syndrome as media latches on to the notion of “Frontline Heroes,” as I am not technically on a front line, nor do I feel like a hero.  I am here because I need to be.  I am here to support my community and I am here because I need the fucking money.  My coworker, a veteran, blew my mind when she said “How do you think vets feel when they get thanked for their service?  What if they’ve never been deployed?  What if they’ve never been in combat?”  Imposter syndrome, like comparison, is addictive.  I’ve been doing a lot of comparing lately, and in addition to the overlaps with compassion fatigue, it gets dark and suffocating a lot of the time. 

Thank you Doctors nurses and staff sign on someone's lawn
I pass this sign thanking hospital staff on my way home from work every day.

Everything is overlapping whether I like it or not.  The times when I was able to celebrate how interconnected my life is are now becoming very confusing, and I’m having difficulty pulling positivity from it.  I’m lying on the chaise, typing with bookcases in the background filled with literature on sexuality, disability, mental health, and theory.  The sun beats on my face and I smile with gratitude for the Vitamin D and Wellbutrin coursing through my veins, the bowl of medical marijuana awaiting ignition upon completion of this post.  Medical marijuana prescribed to me for back pain and PTSD.  As though those things were mutually exclusive.  As though any of this could ever be separated. 

Avery flippin the bird at work.
These wipes, known as “that good purple,” have been coveted by every part of the hospital. This is our last container.

But something clicked last night during the full moon.  I cleansed the pendulum given to me by my aunt and began a ritual of gratitude, hope, and awareness.  A ritual of existing in the present, moving and breathing with intentionality but also sensing that there is so much beyond my control.  I journaled, writing down thoughts and stopping at moments to realize that the thoughts were aligning with lyrics from Air’s Moon Safari.  I didn’t even register that the word “Moon” is in the album title.  I chose it for how it felt and what it has done for my life in terms of holding ritual, of making space.  I drank my tea in gulps of three, closing my circle with a tea reading that settled into an array of valerian resembling a jaw.  Stubbornness, tension, inability to let go, buckling down onto disintegration to the point of self-injury.  Caz suggested it could relate to my TMJ, which is equally true.  My SLAP tear has been unbearable lately as I chew my cheek with fluctuations of anxiety.  It figures my jaw connects the right shoulder I would normally use to masturbate. 

Avery's spell journal page on their back in the sun
A page from my ritual journal last night.

Which I do, sporadically, for reasons I choose not to name, reasons I choose not to align with this current discourse of masturbation as healing and therapeutic.  I know chemically this can be true, but I wonder where the dissonance is when people speak about trauma and isolation in challenging households, how disability needs more recognition now that we are all quarantined, and yet nobody is talking about how masturbation can trigger a whole world of trauma around those very things.  How baking bread and doing push-up challenges is not only an inaccessible coping mechanism but also potentially downright harmful.   

I push back against bloggers who contribute to the hype of “universally” liked toys or lubes.  I push back against a lot.  So I guess I’m consistent when I say that jerking off has been really problematic with regards to my dysphoria, dysmorphia, and living with my ex. 

Tomato seedlings in cups
Tomatoes and Tomatillos are still growing!

Spring is happening.  A friend mentioned a reimagining of seasonal depression as the flowers bloom and plants grow and yet we are adjusting to a closing in.  The circles of life and death are wobbly in flow; another friend keeps reminding people in his Instagram feed that this is all “temporary,” which stung during the days where I feared my mother was about to die.  My best friend from childhood left this earth voluntarily in 2012, leaving behind an association with magnolias.  I see these trees from my porch and do not wince; I remember Katie as a presence who has never left.  I know they were beginning to bloom into their own understandings of gender before they left.  I wince more at using their birth name, as I know they were considering using a different name but never got the chance.  I can’t fall into imagining what the world would be like for Katie right now.  I couldn’t let myself drown in the “what-if’s” during my mom’s illness.  I can’t speculate when the next time I’ll get to eat sushi is or if Mike will ever want to make love to me again. 

A photo taken beneath a giant blossoming magnolia tree

What I can do is put my belly into the sun (thank you Shayne), squeeze a giant prismatic unicorn (thank you Simon), and sift through these photos of the items I am about to review (thank you Kathleen). 

In terms of alignment and overlap, I am in the process of revamping a previous sex toy presentation for my LGBTQ+ Issues Social Work course due in a few weeks.  I aim to talk about sex toys and sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and how they are richly indicative of the evolution of the field as a whole.  I am also crafting a presentation for PROUD about gender affirming products and the companies who provide them.  Which reminds me, I’ve just recently affiliated with NYTC, which was a collaboration long overdue. 

Avery Putting Their Belly in the Sun
Took this selfie for Shayne but it was too good not to share.

Every year I write a blog post about Pride in June, usually picking a toy as a vehicle for my thoughts.  I don’t even know what Pride is going to look like this year.  Everything is online now, condensed to any media consumable from the fingerprints of our phones, to mice, to remotes.  Pride has already exploded into media over the last years with rainbow capitalism, and now that it’s likely to be entirely digital, I cannot fathom the oversaturation we are about to experience as a community.  How Pride coverage informs accessibility will be fascinating and mercurial.  I figured this post might as well talk about Pride before that point of inundation. 

People are right when they say communities have been taking advantage of online formats long before the pandemic.  I think about lying on the beach in Asbury Park this summer as I tuned in to Lizxnn Cobalt Chrome’s Collaboration with Colleagues presentation for Ducky Doolittle’s Sex Ed Skillshare Series.  The webinars were free, they were formed by our unique specialties and intersections with the field of sexuality, they were transcribed and recorded, and they were absolutely fucking brilliant.  They were also sponsored by amazing companies like Blush, SheVibe, Kink Academy, and Peepshow Toys.  This meant that each webinar featured a giveaway to those attending.  And since I attended damn near every session, I won a couple of awesome items from Blush.  One was a body-safe dilator kit with soft, rounded silicone for comfort, perfect for all types of bodies, even ones like mine which have experienced “vaginal atrophy” (blech I hate that term) after going on testosterone.  The straight and narrow flexibility of each dilator, plus the rounded tip means nothing pokey, nothing unnecessarily scraping against a G-spot, just a range of fit in four different sizes.   

Blush Wellness G Curve in a bed of yellow flowers
Blush Wellness G-Curve

My favorite win, however, was the Blush Wellness G-Curve.  Strong vibrations with plus and minus buttons to cycle through strength and modes, plus vibration modes that don’t make my junk feel like it’s being jolted by an alarm or forced to keep up with a cha-cha.  It’s made with silky smooth silicone, a light lavender color as per the branding of the Wellness line, and holds a charge really, really well.  The curve of vibrator isn’t so drastic that it scrapes my insides, but the head is nicely rounded with a broad distribution of vibes to make it really wonderful externally.  The vibes are strong but quieter than any other vibrator I’ve ever had.  It’s a no-nonsense vibrator and it just feels right to have it in my life. 

Blush Wellness G Curve nestled into yellow wildflowers

Blush has done a lot for the LGBTQ+ world, not just because their Avant Pride line is all different colors of gender and sexuality flags, but by how they have touched deeper parts of these communities.  Their fundraiser for local LGBTQ+ youth organizations last year provided a generous donation to both the Masakhane Center and the Ali Forney Center.  I know at Masakhane this has meant so much for us as many of the toys we use during our toy trainings and condom demonstrations come from Blush.  The fact Blush makes their products so affordable and body safe, plus the multifunctionality of each item, combined with their missions in social justice leaves me again in adoration and gratitude.   

I previously reviewed the Avant Beyond, a plug made with the colors of the genderqueer flag.  Being genderqueer and queer in general has been the closest identity I have ever understood, and although purple and green are my favorite color combination, it has been a challenge to find genderqueer flag representation in a lot of Pride products.   

Blush Avant Pride True Blue atop a bed of yellow wildflowers
Blush Avant Pride True Blue

I recently bought the True Blue from Blush’s Avant Pride line, a dildo using the colors of the transgender flag with unique curvature and a slim profile.  It was a crucial addition to my collection of Pride-themed toys, but it wasn’t until I first used it when I appreciated how interconnected it was in terms of aesthetic and function.  Frankly, I can’t take thick dildos anymore.  I either end up sore and achy for days or nursing brutal urinary tract infections from the friction, no matter how much lube.  The True Blue is thin enough to fit perfectly inside of me, long enough to help me feel like I’m actually being penetrated, and the placement of the curves offers just enough G-Spot stimulation without too much pressure.  It has the added squish and bend to conform to my innards, but somehow still has a suction base with enough heft to grab onto when thrusting.  It’s a perfect blend of shore, length, width, and usability.  A perfect overlap. 

Blush Avant Pride True Blue on a hoe
The suction is no joke. Alright, kind of a funny picture, but still…no joke.

Time has been exploded for a lot of folx lately.  People I talk to are experiencing Circadian disruption for what may be the first time in their lives.  Some days fly by where others are brutally slow, mushing together until we forget what a “case of the Mondays” may ever have meant.  We’re all traveling through this differently, figuring out what works and what doesn’t at our own pace, making memories while forgetting others, grasping for comfort and pleasure through familiarity, newness, and everything in between.  I may not masturbate the way I used to.  I do and don’t know what’s in the future.  I know I have this toy presentation due, I know I am taking a shower in fifteen minutes, I know Masakhane just got our presentation approved for Sex Down South in September, and yet I don’t know the struggles of tomorrow or what people are feeling on levels beyond checkout lines and social media.  I don’t know if anyone will read this post, but as I am slowly coming to re-realize again and again, some things I just need to do for me.  Whether that is rediscovering the erotic joy of writing this the sunlight as the good Lorde intended or listening to my mind/body when it tells me it is time to end this post.   

Avery's belly in the sun showing their moon ritual journal
The other page from my full moon journal.

I wish you wellness, pleasure, safety, and peace.  These may not be realities, but I can hold them in my heart as wishes.  Take care of yourselves and survive in the best way you know how, if you can, if you want.  I love you. 

This one’s for me. I think.

Uncategorized

Content Note:  Broad and ranty discussions of eating disorders, body dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, death, abuse, and mental illness.   

The following post is likely going to be extremely triggering.  I left out a lot of perseverating details in how my disorder manifests, ways that are particularly personal in method and thought.  I still included the specific process of how this post came to be on this very night, so please take care of yourself should you continue to read.  I say take care of yourself when this subject is about my own self-care hypocrisy, so I can only hope I don’t create unbearable pain if you read on. 

It’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week.  I don’t think I was ever really aware this week existed, or maybe I was and deliberately stuffed it away like I do with everything eating disorder related.  I’m dreading writing this.  I’ve been thinking about this week for months now, seeing how it lines up with my Clinical Assessment and Diagnosis module for Eating and Eliminating Disorders which just happens to coincide with this week as well as every other fucked up triggering thing related to food and body image, all perfectly enmeshed with Mercury in Retrograde which, yes, I believe in fully.  I’m not editing this.  I’ll probably reread it once, post it, and try to forget it exists.  I’ll promote it once on Twitter and regret it instantly (I already regret it).   

My tits hurt.  They’re swollen from my weight gain, they hang heavy on my bloated body and I’m nowhere near my period.  I have nothing to blame it on hormonally and I’ve been off Testosterone for months.  I’m sucking the sugar from my teeth still left over from the half of a Kings Cake I polished off before my shower, making sure to rub extra lotion on my belly and breasts to reduce potential stretch marks from these last few pounds.  What the fuck am I doing writing this?  I’ve been dreading writing this more than I’ve ever dreaded writing anything in my life.  More than hundred-page curriculums, more than painful revisitations of abuse and trauma, more than writing about dead best friends or relationship nightmares still alive and unwell.  This is the last skeleton in my closet, and it hangs there because I simply don’t know how it will fall apart once it hits the sunlight.  I don’t understand my eating disorder.  Okay, fuck it, moving on, digging in.  

I put on makeup before writing this post, like I always do when I am about to do something tear-jerky and the risk of ruining my mascara or eyeliner is supposed to protect me from falling apart into water.  But I’m going to cry.  I’m inevitably, and possibly at this very moment, going to cry.  I can spend hours in therapy pouring my brain out, content that might make another person cry but just comes into analysis and feeling without a saline breakdown.  I don’t talk about my eating disorder often.  To anyone.  My loved ones, my therapist, anyone.  Or maybe I do and I just don’t remember because my trauma brain is really good at erasing things.  Maybe I stuff those away, too.  But I’d like to think I’m a pretty open and vulnerable person, and this, this I just cannot touch.   

I don’t want to touch it.  It is ugly and uncomfortable and triggering as fuck for me and so many people around me.  It is poison and I don’t know what to fucking do with it.  My new therapist says this is what we are going to unpack from now on.  And every time we talk about it, a new closet opens, more bones exposed, a reality that this skeleton belongs not to one body but many, many ugly morphs of dysmorphia from which I don’t understand their birth or origins, creatures I cannot name.  When I talk about my ED to my therapist, even for just a moment, I am reduced to tears, completely out of control. 

I need you to understand I have an eating disorder, but mostly, I myself need to hold a better understanding of this eating disorder.  My heart and all its SVT quirks is palpitating right now, appropriately so.  I am horrified.  “This eating disorder.”  “MY eating disorder…”  all thoughts I had when anticipating this post…would it be a history when I have no linear conception of how and why this has manifested throughout the entirety of my life?  Do I get generational and write about friends and family for their own past contributions and how I see it cycling through their own lives to this day?  How I know we all suffer and how lonely it must be?  Do I get cultural and talk about what a fucked up world we live in, where even someone like me who claims to be a sex-positive person can feel so much hatred toward my physicality?  How my idea of “body positivity” applies to every other human I see but myself?  How it relates to gender feelings, how I’ve always felt ugly, how my sexuality has been a crutch, a shield, a transaction, a mirror to understand myself in reflection of how others see me, want me, use me?  How once I start to pick apart the bones, I have no idea which ones will crumble to dust and disappear or which ones will stab me and splinter, how this weight piles onto my chest to the point where I’ve forgotten to breathe?  

I have an eating disorder.  I am deeply ashamed of it.  I am ashamed of how hard I try not to have one, how I know I’ll live with this for the rest of my life just as I have lived with it thus far.  When can it transform?  When will it mutate?  When do I get the chance to shift this from a burden to another disability, something that can define me but in enlightening ways?  My therapist wants to focus on this from now on.  I feel terrible for him.  I feel terrible for everyone and anyone who reads this.  I told two other people in my life that I was considering writing this post.  Coming out, so to speak, after years of feeling unworthy of the diagnosis and simultaneously drowning in it.  These people have seen me in it.  They’ve seen the suffering and they’ve suffered with me.   

I’m sick.  I’m addicted.  I have an eating disorder, and I’m hoping by typing it over and over, by naming it, by putting it naked and exposed to the universe and saying “something’s gotta give” that I can’t hide it anymore.  That no matter how much I exercise or eat “clean” or cook fresh meals, I will always see these as punishments, remedies to “fix” how I look.  Food is decadence, it is decay, it is hedonistic and lush and sexualized and immoral in all these contradictory ways that make zero sense to me, even theoretically.  My body is not my own and never was.  I don’t know if it ever will be, even when I try to reclaim it through a vector of sublimated sexual autonomy.  If one day, I’ll be able to massage lotion onto my belly and actually feel my hands touch my skin.   

Mike peeks his head into the living room as I write this.  He knew I was going to try, but he didn’t know when.  I’ve got the lo-fi beats on the TV and a cat curled up next to me; I’m pantsless and in tears.  He doesn’t ask if I AM okay.  He knows I’m not okay.  He knows what I’m doing, he doesn’t need to ask.  He just simply says “I love you.”  I love you, too.  I love all of you and any of you that trudge through this mess in whatever way you do, I admire you for existing even if I don’t know you.  This shit is fucking hard.  I have an eating disorder.  It still doesn’t feel real.  Maybe this will help and maybe it won’t.  But the work has to be done; life is too fucking short to pretend a huge chunk of it doesn’t exist.  So here it is.  Guts and all.   

unedited bc fuck it

Uncategorized

Ah yes, that time of the year, when scorpio season ends and mercury gets the fuck out of regrtrograde, thinkfeeldoers moult from their inertia into a confettied celebration of DO THE THING DO ALL THE THINGS because the energy is explosive and contagious and I found myself rehearsing the intro to this blog post on the toilet the same way I rehearse how I’m going to begin a session with my therapist on the car ride there like “Yes! This sounds so good, let’s not forget it!” and I recite it over and over in my head until it’s reduced to phrases that make absolutely no sense but sounded poetic in my head.  And then I plop it all somewhere or forget it with regretful intentional amnesia because would it have been authentic anyway?  And I can’t shake Cameron’s most recent Sex Ed in Color podcast about how not being ready is a shitty, lazy, excuse and part of me immediately kneejerked into an anxiety maelstrom about ablism and feeling shamed, part of me was like, is this an unapologetic call to action to get out of my funk?  and what the hell is the funk anyway?  I’ve been writing papers nonstop HOORAY finals and midterms, working my ass off at HiTOPS and doing Masakhane stuff, spending the lull hours at PROUD researching articles about pleasure based LGBTQ inclusive sex ed policy, and experimenting with a batch of new toys I want to review but also don’t know where to begin.  From bullets to buttplugs, a thrusting toy I hated but Mike graciously rehomed into his collection, an oak paddle that basically embodies my entire identity, a g-spot toy in transgender colors that actually feels good on my post-testosterone nethers…I don’t know.  There’s just so much.  I’ve neglected blogging, even within my identity, still habitually comparing myself to the dedicated action of fellow bloggers and grappling with the idea that I am not defined by what I create, and how capitalist white supremacy makes me feel obligated to curate content towards demand and appeal when really I just want to write.  if it makes sense, wahtever, if there’s spelling errors, whatever.  it’s a glorified livejournal with dildos and politics, which I think, if lj still existed, would have been what mine looked like anyway.  what an evolution that would have been, from taking quizzes about WHICH L WORD CHARACTER ARE YOU to talking about the empowerment of identifying with toys.  I have an entry I want to write about with regards to punk and ska, how adolescence in the late 90’s/early 2000’s taught me so much about finding community, actively putting your heart on your sleeve, using your body to exist weirdly in weird spaces, doing it yourself but knowing when, wehre, and how to ask for support.  how a break from the pit sitting on dirty stairs and sharing a bottle of water with a total stranger could look like self-care.  how screaming lyrics with a middle finger in the air in a sea of middle fingers, shouting about fuck the man, fuck authority, don’t judge us, don’t give up could look like activism.  how finding bands on mp3.com but understanding the importance of buying the whole cd and hanging around merch booths could look like supporting local creators.  how teaching someone that getting a leg up to crowdsurf to the front was an easy way to get out of the pit if they started feeling exhausted was a skillshare, and that tapping the people around you with the universal “up” gesture as they lowered their two hands for your foot could look like consent communication.  how a circle pit of skanking kids organically choreographed so nobody accidentally swung into each other could look like a ritual dance.  how pissing in the boys bathroom without a second glance could look like gender euphoria.  it all makes so much sense now.  I know my sexuality was always fucking weird, gender too.  I knew I was just weird in general.  but I wonder how much of me identified as punk before identifying as queer.  or maybe, as language evolved, I was always those things and will always be.  how there was so much power in this little jersey scene, and when I wear my battle vest, I am making a call for recognition but also alliance and reflection.  I rarely tell people how I chose my affirming name back in 2008.  there was a band in the scene, one I actually helped book at my local church, called avery.  there were a few bands back in the local scene with girls, but avery stood out so much to me.  I felt right at home with my brothers, but avery extended a new possiblity I had never considered outside of the riot grrl scene and a few female-fronted punk bands from the west coast.  avery showed me what local diy looked lke from a girl’s perspective, and even though I never really identified, something inside of me resonated so strongly with the confidence to represent themselves, to own their shit and have fun on the ride.  I reached out to nina saporta recently from avery after binging many, MANY episodes of mike doyle’s this was the scene podcast where steve from lwl was talking about his stint in avery and how he ended up naming his little girl after the band.  it looked like this: 

Subject: in a nostalgia hole, thanking you for it. 

Message: So I don’t know how I hadn’t discovered This Was the Scene, but I’ve been binging episodes and just hit the one with Steve from LWL. He starts off talking about your band, his stint, how he named his daughter after it. My legal birth name is Amanda. I helped the boys from Something 2 Say/The Consequence organize that show with the Bank Robbers and Socratic at my old church in Roseland, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. Also volunteered at EPOCH at the Madison YMCA when one of my co-volunteer babes first introduced me to your sound. 
 
Growing up a little punk in the early 00’s scene, being perceived as a girl, queer girl, whatever, in a mess of dudes, it was so empowering to discover yr band. I saw you at Bloomfield Ave Cafe, a few other places… When I transitioned and came out as genderqueer in 2007, I chose Avery as my new name. Folx asked me why, and I always included you guys in the rationale. I’m just grateful, so fucking grateful to have had such a supportive environment as a teenager…I don’t think I would have ever held my identity so close if not for the NJ scene. Thank you for being a part of what makes me me. 

And the response… 

Re: Form Submission – Nina Saporta website contact form – in a nostalgia hole, thanking you for it. 

Wow, this message really stopped me in my tracks. I’m so grateful that you took the time to share this incredible experience with me.  The thought that we could have empowered you in any way is so moving.  Janet and I had been going to shows for a while (ALL DUDE BANDS) and it didn’t even occur to us that we could have our own band until we saw a band called Pillow at the Summit Christ Church, who had a frontwoman. It blew our minds. We had to see it happen before we could have even imagined that we could do it. To hear that we then were able to empower someone else in that sort of way is pretty amazing. And I’m going to guess that you have empowered someone else along your journey as well.  

I really get your appreciation of our scene- it was so utterly transformative to have a purpose and space outside of school to come into our own. I’m so happy to hear that you felt supported during that time, and hopefully as you transitioned. I love that you chose Avery as your name!!! If we play another reunion show (we did 2 this summer!) please come!! I’d love to give you a shirt and some stickers with your name on it, and get to give you a hug.  

Again, thank you so much for articulating and sharing all of this with me. We often tend to keep these experiences to ourselves, and miss out on the chance to connect in these really deep, meaningful ways. I appreciate your vulnerability and am so happy to know you!  

Have a wonderful day AVERY!!  
 

Love, 

Nina 

It just sealed it for me, sent it straight home into the feel center of my heart.  The ethics of the punk scene in NJ were always so damn accessible.  You could walk up to any band, any person at a show and just get into these amazing conversations about literally fucking anything.  It didn’t have to be music, or punk, it could be about wombats, or cutty sark, or what fucking ever and it was still valid and usable.  it taught us as kids the merit of interaction, of taking that risk of saying hi, grabbing a free sticker, offering a handshake or a “great set dude” and the reward of feeling seen, appreciated.  it was all reciprocal, full of fucking gratitude and passion, and it’s something that imprints on us forever.  it’s a payphone-using, wayne firehouse loitering, having 5 extra bucks for disco fries at peterpank diner after the show once youve found your missing shoe, stub-collecting tribe of fucking weirdos and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

Well shit.  I guess I just wrote the blog post anwyay.  unedited.  spelling mistakes and all.  because fuck it.  thanks cameron.  needed that fire under my ass.  <3 

Review of Mantric’s Rechargeable Rabbit

review, sex toys, trans*

I feel like a fucking movie montage on repeat. Get up, shower, chug a cup of coffee while putting on my face, throw on some khakis, go to work, go to class, somewhere along the route house a sandwich in my car, come home, shower (maybe), get in bed. Literally rinse and repeat. Interchange work with internships, pop those internships into a Saturday slot, throw some Masakhane board meetings in on Sundays and BOOM, I had two actual days off during the entire month of September. 12 hours, 5 days a week, occasional weekends. I. Am. A. Zombie. Appropriate for spoopy month, eh? But for whatever reason, I’ve been making really meaningful connections with folx from my past, past jobs, past degrees, past conferences, past lovers. The connections I’m making at school are few so far, but one in particular has zapped my heartbrain in the most delicious ways and I feel like we’re going to do something magical together. I’ve been volunteering for Ducky’s Sex Ed Skill Share series, which again reinforces the importance of extending, but not overextending our resources just enough to pool them into a mess of passion for like-minded work. So that’s the update, in a really, really small nutshell. Maybe like, half a pistachio.

Mantric in the sun on a map of Aruba
Heh. “Arikok.”

I wanted to write a review of a toy I’ve had since spring, but hesitated because it is so physically alike two toys I’ve already reviewed, the Jopen Vanity Vr6 which USED to be my all-time favorite before testosterone made my front hole accommodate different shapes, and the We-Vibe Nova, which is still tolerable for insertion but the slippery-wiggly external part feels like it’s in a constant arm-wrestling battle with my clit whenever I’m sufficiently lubed up and hard. Dual points haven’t really been my go-to lately, but for some reason, maybe the slight difference in a less bulbous g-spot angle or a fraction of space between the shaft and the arm? I don’t know… it just works. Pre-T the Mantric was sort of an “eh” version of what I already liked, though it certainly had a few unique perks. Post-T I’m all for it.

Mantric Rabbit standing up

For starters, it stands on its own. Literally. Propped upright, it rests like the L’Amorouse Prism V, except even more stable. The base flares out with a little lip to balance it nicely, which makes it a great addition if I’m going on a rotational session with different toys and I want to revisit the Mantric without gooping my nightstand or picking up cat fuzz. The lip of the base also helps my grip, which makes the handle easier for thrusting. The single button is featured on the lip, but it is inset just enough that I have not once accidentally pressed it during use. The button cycles through different vibrations after its initial pale blue standby mode. It changes in strength as the colors switch through the clicks, then eventually goes into different vibrational rhythms. I know I’m not alone when I say that vibrational modes can be excessive, complicated, and especially frustrating when the only way to get back to a desired mode is by clicking the button and cycling through again. Something about the Mantric, though, maybe because there’s only like, four different modes and they’re all wildly different, makes me not mind them so much. The vibration patterns also seem to make more sense than you’re average “cha-cha slide” or zapping so quickly you feel like you’re being tased through the crotch. The yellow, for example, features a vibration for internal stimulation that almost feels like the toy is is being thrusted into me while the arm stays on a constant buzz. I’m for it.

A pretty hilarious mashup of Mantric’s vibration modes.

So I’m a sucker for the colors. The Mantric is a pretty bland purple, almost “winey,” but it has this dual panel at the base that looks really fancy even when it’s not on. It’s a clear bubble that reminds me of the bottom of Nike Air soles, and the colors transition smoothly into one another so it doesn’t blink brightly or obnoxiously in the dark. It’s definitely a bonus feature and probably shouldn’t be the main reason I love the toy so much, but to be honest, it kind of is. It gives a new sensory tangibility for transition, and being a visually-oriented person, there’s no guessing which mode I’m on because the color is right fucking there. It also helps me associate via memory which mode I like best which takes out additional guesswork.

The Mantric has strength, it has a reasonable amount of options, it has physical balance, it has manual usability, and it is colorful as fuck. Overall, not bad, not bad at all.

Review of Uberrime’s Night King

review, sex toys, trans*

I typically put off writing blog posts for the usual five reasons:

1.) Life is immensely busy

2.) My mental health is not great

3.) My physical health is not great

4.) I haven’t had a chance to test a product

5.) I have nothing to say about the product

I haven’t gotten around to reviewing Uberrime’s Night King, but none of those reasons really factor in. I mean yeah, I’ve been busy as hell and not in the best headspace lately, but I’ve been itching to write this review for months now. As in, my mom was giving me GoT 101 back in May to explain the name of this toy. I brought it with me to Aruba for a photoshoot in June. It’s been my absolute go-to for penetration these days. In my mind, I’ve reviewed it over and over. It’s time to get the brain-thoughts into a post.

The Night King checks off all my marks and then some. It’s beautiful, featuring Marco’s signature marbling and flowery-spun colors at the base. Like Ice and Fire, the rich sparkled blues transition perfectly into reds, oranges, and a creamy yellow that drips over the top in an unapologetically suggestive way. It looks like a sunset, a beachy cocktail, a wand of superpowers, each color ribboning with complexity the closer you look at each detail. It’s visually the most striking toy in my collection, the contrast of cools and warms making it grab the eye. I keep moving it from shelf to shelf each time I use it to see how it looks in different angles, different light, among different toys. Every aspect of this toy is breathtakingly gorgeous. And yeah, sometimes it’s not about how a toy looks as long as it feels good, but the aesthetic is truly part of what made me fall in love with the Night King. And I fell hard.

Look at lil pre-T me with no jawline awwww…

Like I’ve said in previous posts, being on testosterone for 5 months has changed my junk. I have bottom growth, which was pretty inevitable, but I also am having increasing difficulty penetrating with harder toys. G-spot toys with bulbous heads are becoming too pinchy. Toys with firm texture are becoming intolerably uncomfortable even with generous helpings of lube. When I saw the length and girth of the Night King at first I thought it would be damn near impossible to use it. And like many of my other favorite toys, it proved me wrong in the best possible way.

Propped Night King
Balancing this thing on a fifth floor balcony railing was precarious at best.

The Night King is textured as fuck. It’s ridged in seemingly random arrays entirely down the shaft, a slight tilt at the head with a bit of a rim, just enough to nuzzle my G-spot on entry and exit. Which for me, is half the fun of insertive toys anyway, that moment where something first slides in and my body re-remembers the sensation of being filled. But the Night King doesn’t stop there. Each inch that goes deeper inside of me brings a new ridge with a new angle and a new stimulation I can never fully prepare for. Like, fuck, you know a toy is good when you get horny just writing about it.

Night King Base

It feels like fucking, like straight up fucking. The squish of it makes the texture absolutely delicious, and the length of it makes use so much easier. I don’t have to cramp up my hand or hold it at awkward angles; I can get as carried away as I want when going at it hard. And the length, which is great for grip, is also incredible for deep penetration. Whenever I use the Night King I end up taking it as deep as it can possibly go, having convulsive orgasms as I hit my A-spot and push up against my cervix. That dull ache of being completely filled, my kegels squeezing the toy while it’s inside me, feeling the ripples move themselves against my swelling insides, the lush silicone warming up orgasm after intoxicating orgasm, ughhhhh. This toy is SO good and I wish I were home right now to use it.

See THAT’s why I haven’t gotten around to writing about the Night King. I can’t stop using it. I can’t stop finding new things I love about it each time. I typically masturbate with something vibratey on my clit combined with a dildo. I use the Night King without a vibrator these days which is definitely a first. I’ve never just used a dildo and nothing else. It’s not quite enough to make me orgasm on its own, but it brings me so close I don’t even care. Well shit, I have the hugest boner right now. I finally own a sex toy that I’m not just obsessed with, but actually attracted to. Like if I could have a relationship with a toy, any toy in my collection, the Night King would be bae. It is seriously the best dicking I’ve ever gotten and I can’t stop using it. I have not one negative or critical thing to say. I’m infatuated with this dil and cannot thank Marco enough for its creation.

Night King Chess

If you like girthier, longer, squishier, more textured toys with heft yet ease of use, do your body a favor and grab a Night King. If you’re not sure but you have any ounce of curiosity, do your body a favor and grab a Night King. If you just want to swing around a floppy dildo for fun but also secretly want to test it out once or twice, do your body a favor and grab a Night King. Just grab a Night King… not mine of course, otherwise I’d stab you with Valryian steel and shatter you to pieces.

Thoughts on the ConCane(TM)

geekery, introduction, reflection, sex toys, sexuality, storytelling, trans*

So this testosterone thing is real.  4 months in and the changes are weird.  I can’t think of a better word.  Sometimes they’re subtle like a high note I can no longer hit in the shower, sometimes they’re more obvious like body acne, and sometimes they’re downright triggering.  Everything that is happening was expected at some point.  I knew my smell would change, I knew my downstairs would change, I knew I’d have different emotions and that I’d gain weight.  What I didn’t expect was the rate of these changes.  Nothing could have prepared me for the feelings I feel, the way I relate to my sexuality, how I carry my body now.  Testosterone is just fucking weird.  I used to hate pressure wave toys, now I love them.  I used to love hard glass and silicone, now I can’t really tolerate rough penetration.  I expected to be a horny teenager wanting to hump everything that moves, but now it’s a yearning for touch, comfort, and warmth. I definitely masturbate a LOT more frequently, typically 2-3 times a day.  My redistribution of muscle mass is taking its toll on my lower back and WHERE the HELL did the carb cravings come from?   

Testosterone has flattened my affect.  I still can’t cry.  My ups and downs are more frequent, but less drastic.  So much of my desire to write comes from manic episodes, moments of brilliance and inspiration I now fear I’ve lost.  I’ve felt the urge to blog almost every day and yet I can’t craft something coherent.  I never used to care about that; I’d just pound it out, edit it for grammar, and hit “Publish” with the intention of raw and unfiltered content.  I see all these awesome things bloggers are doing.  Going to conferences, hosting workshops, publishing amazing books, reviewing new and innovative products.   It’s beautiful and makes me proud to be a part of this community but I’m also teetering into a hole of doubt.  One of my fellow board members at Masakhane imparted a wonderful Theodore Roosevelt quote during our last picnic together: Comparison is the thief of joy.  I think about how I navigate this world and how comparison can be intoxicating and extremely damaging to my sense of well-being.  I’ve always had a certain respect for competition, my Aries tendencies reveling in the energy competition can create.  To extricate comparison from competition is so deeply rooted in my own neurodivergences and traumas, I’m not even sure where to begin.  I also see this narrative amplified through the macrocosms of corporations, particularly those who claim to advocate for gender and sexual minorities.  Authentic collaboration is entangled in capitalism, and that’s a reality I am sinking into more and more with age. 

https://twitter.com/ThePalimpsex/status/1132281350436921344

So clearly, my brain/body connection has been very, VERY fucky lately.  I’ve seen a quote circulate Instagram lately from Jamie J. Leclair about how “Intellectualizing your trauma is not the same as working through or processing it.”  For me, it rings true.  Intellectualizing is my defense mechanism.  And so here we are, wading through it again.  I need to be more vulnerable.  I need to fuck up.  Blu Cameron said in a Disability After Dark podcast with Andrew Gurza that sometimes it’s more about getting the content out there.  For me, I think I need to stop thinking in binaries.  It’s not the opposite of intellectualizing that will light a fire under my ass, it’s just thinking creatively.  I put together my ConCane last week.  It’s something Cameron and I came up with at the NSEC conference where I used a cane to help with my sciatic flares.  I found a hollow acrylic cane with a clear Lucite handle on Etsy.  For the NSEC conference I filled it with the sheds from my recently deceased snake, Princess Buttercup.  I kept every one of her sheds preserved in Ziploc bags throughout her life, knowing I’d create something beautiful out of them one day.  Buttercup passed away in March in the peak of her pubertal years.  She was only 5 and became eggbound due to her spinal lesions.  She was so severely kinked and arthritic that passing eggs was too painful for her.  We tried warm baths, anti–inflammatory injections, massage, but nothing worked.  Her death shook me in ways I hadn’t connected during the stress of the moment.   Here is this creature, my kin, suffering with similar disabilities and chronic pain, destroyed by her capacity to reproduce.  I’m still getting my fucking period on testosterone.  It is wreaking havoc on my back.  Hot baths, epidural injections, uterine massage…I miss you Buttercup. 

I had written a lengthy post about the ConCane last Friday during a 9 hour workshift where I was the only one in office.  I thought I had saved the post via Dropbox but it turns out I had only saved about half of it.  It’s not the first time I’ve lost a post and surely isn’t the last, but it broke me and I’ve spent the last week grieving, emotionally drained.  There was so much more I had written.  There was an outpour of gratitude to the companies, artists, and retailers in the field that donated minis/teenies for my cane.  There was a synthesis of how this cane has come to represent my identity in the nebulous frameworks of mind, body, and soul.  I am a collector.  I collect stones, toys, figurines, books, ticket stubs, patches, all from different moments in my life that help me remember who I am and why I’m here.  Layered on to WHAT I collect is HOW I collect these treasured identity-markers: a rotating wooden zodiac altar for my stones, a lit cabinet for my toys, a DIY converted DVD case for my figurines, my father’s bookcase from his years at Princeton for my books, a triple goddess triptych made out of my tickets (after taking this picture of them I am now realizing I hung the waxing and waning backwards yikes), my “battle vest” for my patches and buttons…the methods are performative as vehicles of self-expression, decades of evolution with threads of consistency validating my embodied existence.  As someone who frequently dissociates, these are quite often literal touchstones to keep me grounded.  It resonates through my cane, a device used to brace my existence on all planes, a rod to channel my understandings of sexuality and disability, a display for the symbols of support within my community, a means of saying “thank you” every time I take a step.   

I am rewriting the remains of this blog post on another Friday 9 hour workshift, one where I was supposed to be at the Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference.  I’ll be there tomorrow, but I’m experiencing a dose of FOMO for missing the first two days, though I’m doing my bit here.  I’m fielding phone calls, some from patients who are at the conference this very moment. I’m organizing care for my community in the ways I can.  I’m adapting to a limitation, where being “stuck at work” during a major event related to my identity is still an opportunity to subvert, reach out, and process.  I am so excited to see familiar faces tomorrow, to connect with new communities, to learn new perspectives, and best of all, to show off my new ConCane(TM).   

Want to see how I did it?  I livestreamed the process on Instagram.  Saved it to Youtube.  Added CC’s.  Enjoy!

Special thanks to:

Funkit
Uberrime
Lust Arts
Pleasure Forge
Phoenix Flame Forge
Strange Bedfellas
Monster Maxim
Hole Punch
SarahJGoodnight

So I’m Engaged?

reflection, relationships, sexuality, storytelling, trans*

Well shit. It’s been some time, all. Life has taken some strange, albeit lovely courses lately. I ran a poll on Twitter last month asking what I should write about on vacation in Aruba. The results were mainly split between a review of Uberrime’s Night King and my ConCane, both are still works in progress. The ConCane is going to channel a pretty in-depth discussion of disability, community, interpersonal support, and reconstructing physicality. It’s going to be a great post, but it’s not time yet. The Night King is a beacon of positivity and everything about it sparks joy, but I want to wait until I can do it justice with a gushing (ayyyy, puns) review.

Right now I’m riding a plane back from Aruba to Newark Liberty. Everything seems connected these days with a very present recognition. Driving past the Newark Marriott and being flooded with memories of Masakhane’s workshop at NSEC, rereading old posts about Pride, registering for my MSW courses at Rutgers, wearing my staff shirt from PROUD while walking with Mike on the beach… I could never have expected the levels of synthesis in so many aspects of my life.

Avery Mike Engaygement
Still rocking that rainbow bracelet from Newark Pride last year.

Perhaps it’s just that time of year when everything comes up rainbows, maybe it’s just a matter of moving, starting my new job, preparing my internship for HiTops, whatever. The world of queers was always a paradoxically woven one for me. Queer academics even more tightly woven. Queer academic activists working their asses off, even more recursive. It’s a matter of time and space, I guess. I’m almost 15 years in the field, still ambiverting my ways through various professions in hopes they might one day inform one another with crystal clear dimension, rerouting through past professional encounters and networking those beyond the exchange of a business card or LinkedIn.

I’m actually manifesting kinetic plans that build into each other instead of reducing their complex application to one single mission. I shouldn’t be surprised by the success. I shouldn’t be humble. I should be celebrating. The shifts in my life have been pretty drastic, and yet I still find myself marveling each day at new, subtle changes. I’ve been on testosterone for over a month, intramuscular injections each week that sometimes leave me limping in pain, bloodwork bruising my arms, my voice gradually dropping, a sudden inability to cry. Words come so much harder, my mania has subdued into a different species, something foggy and nonconforming to my baseline analysis or comprehension.

I stutter a lot now. I stumble over myself in person and online, and writing this post has been pretty daunting, if not for all my life changes than the reduced lexicon which once trademarked my writing for its verbosity and derailing. I worry a lot about this now that I am going back to school for my final Master’s degree. My thoughts, conceptions, and ontologies are my most confident parts, an intellectualized defense from years of being bullied at a very young age.

I got a lot of backlash from my classmates for taking on this project. That smile has fear behind it.

I did not understand how to hide my queerness in elementary school and programs like “Talented and Gifted” as well as switching to a private school, though pretentious and extremely fucked up in rhetoric and social strata, were the few institutions protecting me against almost daily physical and verbal harassment from my peers. Anyone who says children are incapable of truly harming one another is completely unaware of how harmful that very declaration can be.

It took me a long time to honor my queerness and simultaneously took me the same amount of time to learn how to code switch into straight culture. I spent my vacation week with an engagement ring around my finger, silver oak leaves entwined with a sparkly green gem. For me, queerness is a lot like this gem. I want it to shine and I want it to be seen, but I don’t want it to make sense to everyone. I don’t want it to be read as feminine, but with everything society attaches to what it’s supposed to look like, I’m left wondering how to reclaim its meaning.

engaygement ring
People see me and Mike and some may think “straight couple.” They may see us and think cis, abled, monogamous, whatever. It’s not us. It’s not me and it’s not him. I hashtagged our engagement photo on my Instagram, saying #enGAYged, then wondered if that would lead to a critique of our queerness. I want to not give a fuck. I want to cherish this moment, to hold his hand in public and not fear the misinterpretation of heteroperformativity, but the reality of my life is that this misinterpretation IS privilege in and of itself. It does not carry the same risks of being read as queer, the inherent harm and discrimination against “visibly” LGBTQ folx.

View this post on Instagram

Ready to hit the town.

A post shared by Avery (@thepalimpsex) on

But what constitutes the parameters for”visibility?” Who gets left out from that definition? I once said to be “anti-man” requires more unpacking at what signifies “man.” Do I deserve to get pissed at people misgendering me; do I deserve that discomfort or centering myself in that discourse? Am I reproducing inequalities and privilege by even writing about this?

I started this post on the plane ride home from Aruba. Mike accidentally spilled water on my laptop, so I saved the document and shut it down immediately. I wonder sometimes about fate, luck, higher beings, universes, whatever, because I really needed time to process and reflect. Three days have gone by, reconnecting with my neighbors, coworkers, gaming buddies, folx who want to see “the ring” after they saw my announcements on social media. And I find myself hesitant to show them. As though me, of all people, is not supposed to have a sparkly gem added to my already compulsory heteronormative token of perceived matrimony.

Congratulations dessert
I mean, we’re going to milk free desserts as long as we can.

I want to say fuck the norms, I want to say I can have any damn gem on any damn ring of any damn finger and it means fuckall with regards to my sexuality and gender identity. I feel this need to tell people “no this doesn’t make me straight, or cis, or monogamous, or institutionally religious”…but that need just reinforces the duality of “normal” versus “subversive.” OMG like “nonconformity is just another conformity,” paging adolescent punky Avery covered in rainbows writing Anarchy symbols all over their locker… It feels like a projection, like I’m protesting too much. I aim not to justify my engagement when I know what feels right, but I also feel exhausted at the identity shifts that happen when I’ve become “permanently paired.” At least “fee-ahn-say” is pronounced the same no matter the gendered spelling.

I knew at a young age I never wanted kids but I never had many thoughts on marriage. I think everything’s still the same…my cat is my baby and a marriage is just an excuse to throw an awesome party celebrating a love that queered futurity. I see queer folx all the time in relationships with cis dudes and I don’t identify with these specific dynamics, but I also respect them so much. I’ve lived the “not trans enough” and “not queer enough” narratives to understand that my relationships are just another color to the spectrum, not necessarily a compounding layer of invisibility. I hope it stays complicated. I’m not sure I’d have it any other way.