Just Because I’m Slutty Doesn’t Mean I Want to Fuck You

Artwork by Coral Black

“Was I, a feminist blogger who writes mainly about sex and consent, someone who had just sexually harassed one of my friends?”

I love a hibernating flirtation. While I am flirtatious by default, I am respectful in my friend groups to always maintain a respectability. I'm Sense and Sensibility, but with just a bit of ankle showing, and a fire Instagram full of thirst traps. I post sexual content sometimes because I'm a sexual person. I post feminist content because I'm a feminist. I post terrible dog photos because my dog is very dark brown, and also very fast. All of these things I love about myself, but sometimes it leaves me vulnerable.

A couple of weeks ago a friend dmed me. Let’s call him Joe. We had talked previously about wiring in his new house and about getting his cats to start an OnlyFans (OnlyFelines) and whatnot. But this time it was different. This time he led with "would you let me touch your butt." Which was great. I love flirting. And consent. I love when men ask me questions. We teased each other, and he talked about his kinks. We continued the conversation on Signal because it's encrypted and hey, we aren't fucking idiots. Joe sent me a couple of dick pics. He asked me where I wanted him to come. It was sensual and playful and all consensual play in early January between two adult friends. I thought it was chill, until a couple of days ago when I sent him a playful video.

It was set to disappear after one viewing on Instagram, and he told me after viewing it that maybe we should keep it halal, since we were in the same friend group. That's totally fine. However, Joe then went on to tell me that he had been drunk and high a couple of weeks ago when he had first messaged me and that the next morning, he had read over the text messages and realized he had gone too far. At no point did he ever say that to me, and so I had just continued flirting along and thinking things were cool. I felt like a fool for thinking that we were on the same page, and then an asshole, for flirting with someone who didn't feel comfortable with the situation. I hadn't asked the next day about consent because I hadn't known that he was drunk. Was I, a feminist blogger who writes mainly about sex and consent, someone who had just sexually harassed one of my friends?

I worried enough to talk about the situation with my best friend, who wrinkled her eyebrows when I told her the whole story. "Doesn't he have a girlfriend?" was her first question.

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. I had had no idea that Joe was in a relationship. I quickly pulled up his Instagram to see if I had missed the signs, if I had willfully not noticed them, but there was nothing. No vacation photos, no tags, nothing. I was horrified nonetheless and reached out to a mutual friend for confirmation, and the answer was yes. I was in disbelief. He had made me feel like it was me being weird, but really, he was the one who was in a relationship, and who had engaged in our interaction willingly, and deceitfully. I confronted him about it, and he told me that he knew that I hadn't known he was in a relationship, and he had taken advantage of it. I confirmed it with a different friend (who is male) who then told me that "he didn't want to excuse his behavior, but maybe they had been in a rough patch of their relationship, and that Joe had been really stressed about the election."

Time for me to unhinge my jaw and swallow some men whole.

“I was flushed with anger and grief, that I put myself out there as a sexual person because I like sex, but it gets used to do harm towards other people.”

We were ALL stressed about the election. I haven't seen my primary partner in a year due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. But I haven't been a dick about it. I felt disappointed, and angry. I felt awful for his girlfriend, and outraged on her behalf. I was angry that he never told me that he had a girlfriend, and that even when apologizing for taking it too far and making it too sexual, he never mentioned her. Not only that, but I was flushed with anger and grief, that I put myself out there as a sexual person because I like sex, but it gets used to do harm towards other people. I realized that while men fought for the sexual revolution and for the right for women to have more promiscuous sex, it wasn't really for women to be liberated. Here I am, a confident woman in the 21st century, and I keep meeting dickheads to whom consensual, safe, and clearly communicated sexual relationships are not enough for them. For them, the thrill is that it's not consensual. For them, the thrill is exploiting women's sexuality for their own benefit.

I'm tired of feeling like if I'm being sexual, I will get unsolicited dick pics on the internet all day and night. I'm tired of feeling like if I'm being prudish, that I will get mocked, pressured, or teased for not giving in to the whims of men. No matter what I do, it's somehow not the correct move, and that has nothing to do with my sexuality and everything to do with men wanting dominance and power. Men don’t want easy access to sex. They want to have power over women in sexual situations.

“I am demanding more from the men in my life, asking them the ways they’ve planned to take care of me, and how they intend to respect my boundaries, and how they will communicate with me. I am demanding excellence, and respect, both for myself and for my fellow women. ”

How do we move past this power struggle though? These were supposed to be my FRIENDS. These were men who prided themselves on being knowledgeable about consent, about being protective and mindful of misogyny, of patriarchal structures and deep rooted sexism. With friends like these, who needs enemies. As I've always said, women need to treat dating like a team sport. Met a fun man? Invite him to meet all your friends and have them all give you feedback on whether they felt comfortable around him. Know a coworker who once hooked up with the guy your roommate matched with on Bumble? Ask for a report. Now, I’m going to start calling out bad behavior in my friend groups and start asking them to be accountable for it. I am no longer going to try and protect shitty men. We are stronger when we band together, when we can create accountability and call men out on the harm they are doing. It also starts with unlearning the harmful belief that we must protect male feelings above our own. I used to worry that I would blow someone's life up when I called them out on their bad behavior. Now I know that it is not my responsibility to care for them. I told Joe that he had to tell his girlfriend about what happened, otherwise I would tell her myself, and I would bring screenshots. I called my other friend out for making stupid excuses on Joe’s behalf for why he had cheated on his girlfriend with me. I am demanding more from the men in my life, asking them the ways they've planned to take care of me, and how they intend to respect my boundaries, and how they will communicate with me. I am demanding excellence, and respect, both for myself and for my fellow women.

I am going to keep my insta DMs open for now, because I don't want to feel like I've been shamed into abstinence or that I am self-censoring because men have abused the privilege of my feed. But I am going to write about this, and blare it loudly across my platforms. I am going to put a head on a pike outside my inbox as a warning. Yes, I am sexual. I may show my ankles and maybe even my tits and ass. But I still deserve respect, and honesty, and I will no longer settle for anything less.

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The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.

Artwork by Coral Black. Coral received her BA from Western Washington University in fine arts and interdisciplinary studies. She specializes in figurative and landscape oils, photography, and block printing, all with an emphasis on texture. When she’s not in her studio, Black is—who is she kidding, she's always in her studio. Black lives with her family in the PNW where she operates an illustration and design business. You can find more of her work at coralsuecreative.com

Dick Pics and Why I Want Them

“Rather, they were tentative offerings of themselves, saying, ‘this is how I see myself, this is what I like about myself, and I hope that you like it too.’ They are feminine, and thoughtful in a way they never were before.”

In a time of quarantine, sexting has made a raging comeback. It’s easy to see in terms of the raging increase of the use of dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, as more and more people turn to socially distanced outdoor hangouts, or zoom dates, Netflix shared streaming and texting marathons. Everyone needs a dedicated friend to shelter in place with, and you gotta admit, there’s something kinda sexy about the end of the world. 

I hopped on Bumble before the shelter-in-place order came down, and stayed in touch with two or three guys after it started. It felt dangerous to feel like there was a person in the city who was into me, and that I couldn’t have them. Or, for the one who lived by himself, it was comforting to know that if all hell broke loose, I had someone to save me. (ahem, I’m a feminist, but if the purge is about to happen, I’ll take the guy with muscles, please and thank you). 

For the most part though, I’ve spent lockdown alone in my apartment with my computer and my vibrator. Before, it was so easy to invite guys back and watch them leave in the morning while I sipped my coffee, but now, not so much. Now, I felt like I have taken fifteen years off of my life and reverted to being the geek I was back in high school. I can no longer rely on body language or facial expressions to read a man. Now, I had to hang onto every single word of his text messages, which were always timed a strategic two or three hours after I had sent mine. The weeks stretched into months, and I was glued to my phone, waiting for the next ;). 

I was climbing up the walls and I needed some relief, and that came in the form of dick pics. Almost all of them were unsolicited, and some sent around the distasteful hour of 3am, but each one was received with delight and immediate, careful examination. I’m dating men who are solidly in their thirties, and I’m impressed with the exponential improvements in penis photography since the last era I got dick pics, which we will not mention except to say it was the before times.

No longer is there dirty laundry in the background, or a stack of pizza boxes just beyond his thigh. Now, there were tasteful rugs and private bedrooms (not private apartments, mind you… who are we kidding, I still live in San Francisco). Now, I’m getting mood lighting. Now, I’m getting Armani boxers pulled down, and manscaping. 

One photo in particular, is one of my favorites I’ve ever received. Taken from mid thigh, it’s a tasteful upshot of the bottom of the shaft all the way up to the head, with a tuft of tissue paper placed in anticipation on his stomach. His shirt is pulled up to crop-top level, and gloriously, part of his face is peeking out from the right side of his glorious dick. This was not a hastily taken photo, it was a carefully staged shot that had taken an extra layer of dexterity, most likely a timer, and care. I was absolutely delighted. It meant he cared! And more than that, it meant that he cared about what turned me on.

These dick pics hit different during quarantine. They aren’t a taste of things to come, but a careful and vulnerable exploration of what that man things I would find attractive. There was no text that accompanied any of them that told me exactly what holes he wanted to shove himself into, because gross. Rather, they were tentative offerings of themselves, saying, ‘this is how I see myself, this is what I like about myself, and I hope that you like it too.’ They are feminine, and thoughtful in a way they never were before. 

In a world in which many guys will ask girls for nudes, no matter what, and have the nerve to get annoyed when girls don’t comply, it’s been nice to be on the receiving end. Maybe in some ways quarantine is the great equalizer. While I’ve sent a number of nudes myself, I no longer feel the pressure to do so, and I almost always ask for compensation in the form of a dick pic. With ample amounts of time at home, the men in my life have no excuse except to finally, carefully, pose. I wanna see the family jewels, boys.

When the pandemic ends, who knows if I will see dick pics in the same way again. Will they go back to the drunken and frenzied, aggressive and unwanted photos of before? I hope not. I’ve grown to love these dick pics for their nuance and care. Let’s create the space where men can send a sexy nude, where they can be the object of desire. I want to sit back and see.

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The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.