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This is a live blog of KinkForAll Providence, Saturday, February 6th, on Brown University campus. KinkForAll is an ad-hoc sexuality unconference for anyone and everyone, with a goal of creating a repository of knowledge surrounding discussions on the intersection of sexuality and life.

11:03am: Hello, folks! KinkForAll Providence is rolling, exciting, and full of folks. The venue Brown has given us is the entire floor of a building, along with projectors and desks. I’m jealous. I would LOVE to see KFANYC in a venue like this.

11:08am: About 30 people here, but only one presentation on the board for the first slot. Per usual, we start slow and pick up speed. I’ve decided to hide away for the next 15 minutes and finish my presentation notes.

11:35am: Sitting in on Sex Toy Organization, but it’s just wrapped. Quoting Cassandra: “It’s helpful to try and organize your toys beforehand, instead of after you’ve started setting up hooks, etc. It’s fun to designate an area for your toys – keeps everything visible. It was fun to see what I had, what I use most often, and make sure that my favorites were right where I could grab them. It makes scenes go better, because you’re not sitting there saying “Damn! The dildo is still covered in cat hair!”

11:43am: Sitting in on Ritual, Toys and Kink with Zac. It’s interesting to see him speak about how he came to his sexuality; a discussion we’ve touched on together as partners, but never delved into. Quoting him: “BDSM is a personal theatrical ritual…” He’s being recorded, so I’m going to sign off and watch.

“With specific attention to precision and skill, craft can approach the realm of magic. So why does so much of what we use for our rituals look like it came from a 1970s swinger club? For improvisation one needs skill…

“Just imagine an art noveau collar…let’s make our toys as ergonomical and aesthetically pleasing as possible. Let’s not use things that are not quite suited to the task. Let’s make sure that when we appropriate tools, we use them correctly, and well, and beautifully.”

12:08pm: Technical difficulties means Maymay has rescheduled his presentation for later in the day. But, in true unorganized fashion, someone from the audience leaps up to lead a discussion on catgirls, and now the audience is cracking up so hard I can hear them down the hall. Rock.

12:22pm: In Trilby’s class on applying acting to kink. Quoting her: “I think you can use acting principles to strengthen your play. I approach acting through the Stella Adler method, which is through imagination. Basically, I think that acting and kink are very similar things. One thing I want to make clear is that acting is NOT lying. Real acting is learning to create the truth out of a different context than your real life. It’s applying your real desires, emotions and needs to a character that you play.

“A principle of acting: You always have an objective. You play your objective on your partner. So…if your objective is to make them smile, you sing Banana Phone. That’s a clear objective and and a clear action.

“Objectives can change in the middle of a scene, but it’s always good to have clear goals, and it’s always good to do clear things to achieve those goals. The cool thing about kink is that there’s no fourth wall to play with. Your objective and the focus of your energy is all on your partner, not on your audience (if you have one.)

“You need to stay in the moment. Even if there’s no set, no costumes, you need to be completely there with your partner. You can’t be thinking “Oh, after the show I think I’ll go out for coffee with my friend…” No. You need to stay focused.”

Interesting. The audience is discussing the difference between “being in the moment” and “being caught up in the moment”; the distinction there is that one can be in the moment and still be focused and in control, without losing perspective.

1:50pm: The tail end of lunch, sandwiches have vanished and people are curled up in various rooms having discussion on their own. Also on in our building: improv auditions, tutoring. Random students walk in and ask, “What’s KinkForAll?” People love answering that question.

2:00pm: Maymay starts the afternoon. This is the first time I’ve seen someone use the projector screen in our main room, and the screen is massive, towering over us. Quoting him: “I never thought I’d be standing in front of an audience this big in an academic setting. This is the 5th KinkForAll in the 1st year of it event!…Dichotomies are useful; we use them to make sense of the world around us. Some are true, some are false…”

2:46pm: Liam talks about his personal understanding of gender. Quoting him: “Almost none of my friends can tell the difference when I’m feeling more like a dyke than when I feel like my typical enormous gender question. On the whole I don’t really identify with any gender…

“One of my friends was talking to me about how I should get pregnant and have children, completely not realizing how upset and confused that made me. But to her, that’s what it meant to be a woman; to have kids. Meanwhile I was coming to the realization that I’m not a woman…and not really a guy either.

“I don’t want to be neutral. I don’t feel neutral. Well, I rarely feel neutral. I should stop making absolute statements.

“I’m just happy when I can get [my mother] to call me Liam.”

3:01pm: Sitting in on Trilby’s discussion on being a better erotic hypnosis subject. Quoting her: “Most classes are on how to hypnotize someone. But what most people don’t know is that being a hypnosis subject is a measurable and improvable skill. Basically, hypnosis is inducing a trance state, or alternate brain pattern. People go through trance states all the time, without knowing it: when you read a book and someone calls your name, but you don’t hear them. When you see a sad movie and cry, you’re in a trance state, reacting to emotions and situations that aren’t your own.”

3:07pm: Jumping classrooms to find out why Marty decided to come out at pansexual, polyamorous and kinky in his law school applications…Marty tells a story about going to dinner with his father, because his father wants to be sure that the two of them will be able to have conversations as adults and peers, and realizes that it hadn’t happened yet. His reactions: he learns much he didn’t know about his parents’ troubles, the conversation is powerful and positive, but “it’s hard to talk to your parents about relationships, money and sex! Surprise!”

3:32pm: Crap. My laptop died. Hiding to recharge. In the hallway, a continuance of my presentation touches upon the reality of the huge portions of the population who are unable to make the kinds of choices we discussed, because the system automatically excludes them from gaining a mainstream cultural footprint, even if they would want one.

3:43pm: Sitting in on Sinclair and Kristen’s workshop on gendering power & spicing up role play. Quoting Sinclair: “For the purpose of this workshop when we speak of gender we’re talking about the expression of masculinity and femininity, and how one might express those. There’s a tantra concept that says that we all have balances of masculine and feminine power, and we each express them in different ways. I believe that we all have lost of aspects of all of those things, and we all have the right to experience them as we like.

“Gendering power isn’t necessarily about exploring a new or different gender, but about exploring uncovered areas of your gender, or taking your everyday gender role and pushing it. So part of what we’re doing is exploring the archetypes of gendering people.

“One way you can explore is to go outside your gender presentation, while another is making your current gender presentation bigger and more deliberate. You might not give yourself permission to explore these things in your daily life – what you wear, how you act, how you treat your partner in bed…role play that exaggerates gender allows to you examine these spaces more fully.

“Aftercare when you’re playing with gender is important. It was very difficult for me too occupy a space both masculine and dominant, because I felt guilty. That lines up so strongly with problems and issues within our everyday culture. It because really important for me to have aftercare and understand that what I was doing was right and good for me and my partner.”

4:09pm: Trilby on the crossover of sex and nerdiness. Quoting her: “I am a sex nerd! We ALL are. We are talking about sex for hours, with papers and references and discussion! This is more than just penis in vagina. We are all sex nerds, and that’s why we’re here.

“I wish we had more time to talk about this, but I think we can all agree that by being here and being willing to talk openly about our sexuality, we all have way better sex lives than the people who made fun of us in high school.”

4:23pm: Emma speaks on sensuality. Quoting her: “I love to indulge and feast ALL of my senses. I love to gaze upon pretty girls, pretty boys, beautiful vistas. I love food; wine, peaches, I love oysters because they taste of the sea. Touch: I love having my head stroked, I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning because I have a down comforter and it is my little cave of awesome.

“I think we can all agree that yea, food is great, music is great, cuddling is great. But what I DON’T think we do is take the time to slow down. To sit in the sun, because sitting in the sun is so great. I close my eyes when I eat, because I’m focusing on taste, and because the visual sense is one of the most overwhelming.

“Most people think that sex is about orgasm. But I am being educated out of this concept.

“I think sensual sex is good. I think non-sensual sex can be good. I don’t think a non-sensual life is good. One of the reasons it’s good to pay attention to sexuality during sex is that sex can hit every aspect of your sensuality. You are hearing your partner, you are smelling your partner, you are seeing your partner, you can be tasting your partner and you are definitely feeling your partner. It’s all there, laid out for you in one gorgeous hunk of humanity.”

4:55pm: Scot on being a fraternity member. Quoting him: “There are a lot of problems with the fraternity culture as it relates to sex, but there are people working to change it – both from within and without.”

5:26pm: Adrien on fanfiction and why it should be written. Quoting: “Fan-fiction has some strengths that no other kind of erotica has. For one, there’s audience participation – you can post something online in the right forum and get 20 comments. That means very quick feedback.

“Also, your fanfiction also becomes part of a community. You can become an expert on something and make friends with people through your writing.

“Also, there’s context. Regular erotica just doesn’t do it for me. It’s like watching Animal Planet. ‘Yay, two people screwing.’ But with fanfiction you have the characters already.”

5:34pm: Sitting in the live-streaming room, and thinking about the structure of the event. KinkForAll struggles with afternoon slumps, at times; I’m personally exhausted and needed a little downtime. At the same time, the pace and adrenaline of the model is often what carries the day. I wouldn’t want it changed. But I’d like to see what would happen if KinkForAll were a multi-day event with a bigger group of participants. That could present an interesting mix of high-speed turnover and ongoing discussion. Presentations feeding from one another and carrying over into longer conversations, call and answer style.

5:47pm: Emma leads an impromptu panel on student sexuality groups. She’s pulled panel members from the audience, and we’re putting questions on the board.
what’s

Q: Why have a group on campus if you’re not going to advertise it broadly?
A: (Bitsy) I feel that campus communities are extremely insular. Even if you have an unofficial group, you’re holding something on the campus where even people who are not as ‘out and proud’ can find a place to go and access resources. People will find you…also, if you don’t want to be out about organizing something to your university, you can access a lot of the same resources that the university might give you, but without funding or official status.

Q: How do you deal with confidentiality?
A: (Rachel) This has changed SO much. 10 years ago when I was an undergrad at MIT, I was given the responsibility of maintaining the uber-secret list of queer students and queer events that were going on around Cambridge. The only way you could get on the list was to email me, and I would distribute everything – and I got a stipend from the school to do this.

Final Q: How do you start? How do you lead your group?
Answers from down the row:
Maymay: Previsualize.
Bitsy: Have a very specific topic that everyone can latch on to at first. Provide some structure.
Scot: Have a time line after the 1st meeting that outlines where the group is going.
Rachel: Let people know they’ll get out of being members. Tell them what they stand to gain.
Aida: Do outreach to other groups that have similar goals and similar interests. Create a network!

6:04pm: Closing communications! Emma and Aida wrap us up. We estimate about 70 people came through today. Remember that KinkForAlls are and will always be free, but that they do take work and resources. Consider donating your time, resources, energy. Make KinkForAll happen in your location.

Signing off, with love.

Tomorrow my advanced poetry and novel classes read our work to a collected audience of classmates, professors, agents, and publishers. I’m awake still, and buzzing because I bought raspberry syrup and have been using it to fuel my novel writing. And all I can think about tomorrow, despite the tendrils of curling panic trying to grab hold of my rough edges, is that I haven’t ever worn the shoes I’ve chosen before. I am afraid they will give me blisters. I am afraid I will drink white wine on an empty stomach and my novel reading will come out with the sprawl of drunken laughter.

I regret, now, the prose piece I chose to read. I had two pieces in mind. One was about sex, and the other was about ghosts and boats, and I confess, I took the easy way out. I wish I hadn’t; I wish I was going to stand up and read the better piece, not the safer one. But it will be all right. I love the poem I chose. I think it might be the best thing I’ve written to date. I submitted it to The New Yorker, because I am a chronic over-achiever.

I think I might do a voice recording of that poem, one of these days. Perhaps I’ll post it here? I’ll have to figure out how to do that. Also, how to wear heels, swim laps, cook cupcakes, fight crime. And sleep with sugar in my veins.

I’m approaching the end of my year-long creative writing program, and as I reflect back on the past few months there have been some very stellar moments, and some very frustrating techniques. I am more easily frustrated in a classroom setting than I used to be. Perhaps this is because I expect more rigor from a graduate program. Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown older and wiser. Perhaps I am just easily frustrated. But in any case, here are my four top “don’ts” for professors in advanced writing programs.

Don’t assign busy work.
I have several texts on my reading list. I have a certain number of pages to read before each class. In one class last semester, I read every word. In another, this semester, I haven’t even started.

I have not been doing my reading in the recent class because a. I won’t be tested on it, b. the reading takes away from time I would rather spend writing, and c. I don’t need to do my reading in order to take on the lessons of the class. I am often assigned short stories, usually because they demonstrate a certain kind of story structure.

I do not, at this point, need another example of these story structures. I should point out that these are very simple ideas. For me, being initially grounded in a simple idea (such as an “outsider” story structure) does not require four examples or a long discussion.

I find it more useful to reference these stories, and read them in my own time when I encounter a problem with the specified structure. This is the difference between being initially grounded in an idea and exploring how an idea applies to myself.

Don’t read aloud.
Sometimes we are given handouts in class, or asked to reference from one of our textbooks. While I think it can be helpful to read out a sentence or short paragraph before discussing it, if the text is any longer than this I find reading aloud to be a waste of time.

I know that reading aloud gives people who do not read quickly a chance to absorb the information being presented. And I know that reading slowly and dramatically can be good fun. But when some of your students read 4x faster than you speak, these long monologues will do nothing but stall your class’s energy. This is a perfect example of dumbing the class down to meet the lowest level of student. Classes should rise to the highest students; that way, everyone tries harder, everyone is more engaged, everyone gets more value. And I stay awake.

Don’t avoid peer critique.
I know critique is hard. I have mentioned before how much I get tangled in my own work, and how devastating a bad critique can be. But how am I expected to write professionally if I can’t take a tough critique?

One of my fiction classes has sworn off critique entirely, under the (absolutely true) justification that bad critiques can crush blossoming writers. And yes, they can. But not getting peer critique can stunt more developed writers. Being able to give and get constructive feedback on my work and the work of others like me was one of the core reasons I joined this program.

Don’t make every student take the basic classes.
This is really the culmination of the above three points. Every one of my criticisms is springing primarily from a single class. And although it’s been a nice class, and I have gotten some good moments out of it, on the whole it has been my weakest experience in this program. It is a beginning fiction class.

I shouldn’t have to take this class. I will not say I wouldn’t benefit from a really fast-paced, focused, quickly developing fiction class targeted to beginners. I have not written that much fiction. But I’ve realised in this class that my concerns as a writer are not my classmates’ concerns. I want to talk and learn about novel structures, work processes, fine editing, complex themes, honing my language like a laser beam. Instead, I hear about the rudiments of dialogue and the question of what kind of writing is “appropriate” for authors. I didn’t know what a headache I was getting into when I signed up.

I wish I could have tested out of this class somehow, but I don’t think I could have. There is no structure in place in my program to sort candidates into skill levels. And because writing is a creative activity without clearly designated, widely recognized levels of skill, people get the idea that no matter what level one is at, one can always gain something from a class, a story, a lesson.

In a small way, that’s true. But it’s not true enough to make this class worth my time.

Portrait of Annabelle
2008
Digital print

Spring
2008
Digital print