La petite mort… an idiom for orgasm. It makes sense to us because sex and death are inextricably entwined human experiences and no others move us more than these two.

My brother died in a car accident when I was 17. I watched him die. After his funeral and wake I went with our mutual friends to a spontaneous house party where I ended up having sex on the bathroom floor with an ex-boyfriend. His skin against mine, his mouth on mine, his tongue, his fingers, the tears down my face, his arms around me, his cock inside my mouth then my cunt, our sweat, our mingled smells, our pleasure, our fluids, our orgasms… they comforted me beyond words, beyond sympathy cards, way beyond the stiff drink.

I remember feeling ashamed of myself the next day, and for many years proceeding it, for having had sex on the day my brother was put in the ground, for having wanted to have sex that was not about love at all either. I have, thankfully, done a 180 on that feeling since I’ve shed the negativity about sex that fails to see it’s beauty and importance to human social bonding, wellness, wholeness. Death, that which ends a life and separates us from another forever more, is matched only by the other innate human experience that has as much power over us… Sex, that which can begin a life and bonds us with other humans more than any other act. Therefore it is totally natural that when confronted with the disconnect of death we might experience a strong urge to seek reconnection with sex. This seeking reconnection, I believe, is not only with life but possibly with the experience of death as part of the life cycle. When orgasming I am in oblivion. I’ve seen sex in action as a comforter a shit load of times. After crying comes fucking. So many of us have been there so many times.

It is no coincidence or surprise that death and sex are the human experiences that the abrahamic/tyrannical faiths try and deprive humans from fully experiencing and appreciating. It’s fundamental to their campaign to disconnect humans from each other and from how beautiful and awesome life and existence is in and of itself. Their enforced and discordant inequality of men and women in the very first chapter of their sacred texts is a malevolent disconnection between humans to our severe detriment. The description of child birth as a punishment brought on by sin seeks to instil a still further malevolent disconnection between humans and our own ability to procreate and our connection with our offspring, with life’s beginnings. By forcing themselves between us and the innate control we have over our bodies, lives and deaths they seek to create a discord in the human experience that they insist can only be filled with their god and their religion. They spread poison about the human experience so they can make the claims of being the remedy. Yes child birth is painful, death is painful, loss is painful, love can be painful but pain does not mean we are being punished… pain is the fire we can be forged in. It is not an indication that we are born in original sin but an alert to opportunities to grow and feel more of the human experience.

Death has been unequivocally hard for the human race to face, individually and culturally. This is largely why religions exist and hold so much power. The idea of the stoic grief of the family that is particularly English is a ludicrously inadequate way to to grieve. When I came in my 20′s to explore other cultures I found cultural expressions of death that made far more sense to me than repression and keeping up stoic appearances. The Ancient Greeks had large funeral processions where professional mourners were paid to wail, beat their chests and tear their hair along with the grieving. The grieved shaved off their hair, something beautifully symbolic of the beginning and longevity of the grieving process, of endings and beginnings. I wish we could have screamed, wailed, sobbed and torn our hair. I know we all were inside. I am glad I, at least did have sex and gave myself the comfort I needed even if it took me a while to recognise it’s value. I have often wondered why sex and pleasure have been so vilified by religion but it seems to me that a culture that embraces sex and allows humans to feel proud and in control of their bodies and it’s reproductive functions is less likely to be so fearful of death or of sharing sexual comfort with the grieving… so then how would they get their foot in the door?

First off, I should say that NO this is not a dyslexic attempt to announce my retiring from adult entertainment, so never fear. I am referring to bisexual porn.

Secondly I want to clarify that whilst I have had to think about sexual labels quite deeply I recognise they don’t mean the same thing to everyone. For me bisexual means sexual attraction to cismen and ciswomen, and bisexual porn means porn with cismen and ciswomen that includes homosexual and heterosexual interaction.

Myself and almost 80% of my ciswomen friends who’s sexuality include cismale attraction are turned on by the idea of two cismales having sexual interaction and sexual interaction with them. Unlike ciswomen, it is hard to find cismen who identify as bisexual or queer/pansexual (attraction across all gender manifestations) or cismen who experiences their sexuality as heterosexual attraction but are open minded enough to have a threesome that involves their sexual interaction with another man.

This is a fantasy of mine, a sadly unfulfilled one, and has been my whole mature sexual life. When I was sixteen I was riding a bus with my bestfriend, another ciswoman, and we promised the boys with us who we were dating that we would make out with each other if they did first. I was elated when, after only minor hesitation they locked lips in a passionate tongue kiss. I was so turned on and filled with hope for where this would progress. It turns out it wasn’t going to go any further than kissing and I have been hunting this illusive but highly sort after quality in cismen ever since. I’ve tried to watch gay male porn, and I thoroughly enjoy it in and of itself but it doesn’t scratch this itch. So I have been hunting good cismale bi porn and I haven’t found any. I want to see lots of cismale/cismale kissing, I mean A FUCKING SHIT LOAD OF KISSING, cock sucking, handjobs, hands all over each other not just cocks, anal would be a bonus but not necessary for me to have found what I want. So this is, in part, a call out to anyone who wants to point me in the right direction of good bi cismale porn.

However, you should all know enough about me to suspect that watching won’t be enough to fulfil this fantasy for me. You’re right I wanna be IN good bi porn. I want to ensconce my queer perverted little body in a bed with two hot cismen who are getting it on with each other and with me. I had started to think I was dreaming the impossible dream and I vented my frustrations in a facebook status… subsequently I was pleasantly surprised to get a number of responses three of which were from Aussie lads… HOT aussie lads. I have a feeling this little smut monger is about to get one of her dearest porno wishes to come true. I can’t wait to get back from NYC and put these plans into action.

This questions is the first on anyones lips when a woman stays in a domestic violence situation or returns to one. It’s a fair question but it is often loaded with judgment and the undertone is “you deserve what you get because staying or going back is stupid”.

I have, on countless occasions, heard someone wax lyrical about how they would leave the FIRST time anyone laid a hand on them. Good for you I say. However, this is always followed by a comment along the lines of “if a person doesn’t leave the first time their partner hits them then there must be something wrong with them/ it’s their fault”.

Domestic violence is complex. Everyone is attracted to people who share common experiences and behaviours. In my first marriage I was very young, a teenager, I was suffering from severe grief from the sudden death of my brother and untreated, undiagnosed PTSD from that and other traumas and I had been self medicating with alcohol and narcotics. My partner was a decade older than me but was of a below average IQ and was also suffering severe, untreated, undiagnosed PTSD from institutionalisation and had serious addiction problems. We had both suffered rape in our pasts, we both had tempers, we both behaved badly towards each other, we both knew what the other had been through, we both wanted to be with someone who empathised with who we were. Two damaged people who don’t know how to heal can do a lot of damage to each other, and we did.

I ended up in a battered women’s hostel. I did not leave the first time he hit me. In fact sometimes after he became violent I would laugh about it afterwards. I secretly liked the bruises and ripped clothes (bear with me I will get to this later). The violence never bothered me beyond knowing that this was socially considered the worst of abuse. For me it was the social, psychological and emotional control that he tried to exert over me with manipulation and verbal abuse that did far more damage. I must admit I have heard of far more severe violence and I do not speak for anyone but myself. To help you gage what I mean I can say none of my bones were ever broken but my nose once fractured nor was my life ever in danger either though it was threatened.

Neither physical or mental abuse made me leave ultimately though. Why? Because I did want to have sex with other people. I wasn’t having sex with others, as he thought and accused me of, but I wanted to. So I felt guilt, shame and responsibility for his jealousy. I had felt this guilt, shame and responsibility since I had first been shamed for masturbating and then for having and wanting sex as a teen. This is when hegemonic monogamy, the sexual gender double standard and sex negativity manifest at their most dangerous. I stayed because I believed I was bad for wanting to have sex with other people outside of my marriage. I stayed because I had a promiscuous past driven by a high libido and I felt like I should expect this behaviour towards me for my sexuality, so incongruous with what a lady was supposed to be like, was naturally going to provoke any partner. I stayed because I was outspoken and would never back down in an argument and be meek or ‘lady like’.

I stayed because I was raised in a two parent family that didn’t separate because of religious and societal mores about divorce. Thus had parents who were subsequently full of misery and depression and parental hate towards each other and resentment towards their children. I didn’t know what healthy love looked or felt like. I stayed because I liked wearing clothes that showed my skin, I liked my skin, I liked that it made people admire me and I refused to conform and cover up. I stayed because I had been told so many times to expect and feel responsible if my clothing caused violent or abusive behaviour in men toward me. I stayed because I liked fighting with him and it felt cathartic because I had always been fighting to be me against something with no face or physical form that was both outside and increasingly and insidiously internalised within. I didn’t know how to fight the weight of a society that tried to insist that everything about me was wrong/bad/shameful so I fought him instead.

I left the first time my daughter saw him do it. He was holding her under one arm whilst he dragged me across the room by my hair with the other.

Three years later I was in another abusive relationship though we never lived together. I was completely besotted beyond anything I had felt previously. The sexual chemistry was visceral, the passion was violent. The level of physical abuse was mild compared to my marriage. In comparison, the good times were WAY better and the bad times were way less. The psychological and emotional abuse was intense. We played mind games with each other that made my feelings so intense and made the sex wild and combative. We played sex games that became sexual abuse because safe boundaries were never set.

We explored an open relationship without parameters or discussion and hurt each other often but pretended not to give a fuck. This time I took him back 10 times after he hit me, pushed me, shoved me, pushed me too far sexually, verbally abused me or tried to break into my house because I wouldn’t let him come over. We descended into something ugly and hateful because we were both hurt, ignorant and foolish yet both still in love with each other. We did not know how to play safely with our sexual desire for sado-masochism. Leaving this man permanently was as difficult for me as getting off heroin is for a junkie. I got a restraining order as much for myself as for him. One year into the order I took out against him I violated my own order and called him. He reported me to the police. I was grateful.

I have had sexual relationships with women before, inbetween and after these two abusive relationships and though there have been recurrent issues they have never been habitually violent and believe me there can be a lot of serious domestic violence in same sex relationships. So I’ve found that I have sado-masochistic desires towards men that I do not have towards women. I have known this for 9 years but I have never spoken of it until now. Through my introduction to rope I explored BDSM play as a masochist. I’ve realised that my desire towards men is firmly ensconced in sadism and masochism as a switch. I am not submissive but I am masochistic. I am not dominant but I am sadistic. In the BDSM community, if I am cautious to avoid those using BDSM as a means to find someone to abuse, I can find men who I might explore this play with safely and respectfully with total control.

I tell you all this and I ask you to imagine if I had been given sex education as teen that included information that sexual desire for more than one person is natural and common.That there are alternative relationship structures and how to manage them. That masturbation is good for you and common in girls. That skin is beautiful and showing it does not mean you are inciting sexual violence. That being a sexual female does not mean that your “no” means less than a more prudish less sexual woman’s no. That your body is worth as much as hers, that your life is worth as much as anyone elses regardless of your sexuality. That there are myriad forms of adult human sexuality and gender and this is all natural. That there are safe ways to explore sadism and masochism and where to find resources and guidance. That abuse is common and complex in sexual relationships and were to find resources and help. Knowledge is power and we deny this to each generation we fail to give full and appropriate sex and sexual relationship education to.

I have done vast amounts of work personally to change my inclinations towards abusive relationships, to recover from PTSD, to end my self medication and to take responsibility and to improve my behaviour towards others in my relationships. I have to be intellectually vigilant about it but it is becoming second nature to give and demand respectful love, communication, honesty and compassion. I have also done vast amounts of work to love my body, embrace my sexuality and to discard the sexual shaming this culture abuses women with. I feel that the societal repression and shaming of female (also LGBTQAI/non-monogamous/kinky) sexuality, desire and pleasure is abuse. In a society that abuses women, the women are more likely to allow and accept abuse in their personal relationships.