System Error

Error Message # 26102009imANidiot

The following blog posting: I love you, you, & you (but mostly me) has been removed from this site for the following reason: TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.



Below are the details of the error report:

• Irreparable communication errors stemming from a stubborn refusal to listen to many hints that if any more obvious would have slapped your stupid ass in the face
• Jumping too quickly into shallow and unrealistic conclusions
• Distance, distance, distance that can’t be crossed by bike, half-dead car, or runner’s legs
• Mismatched priorities

The above errors have led to the following: PARTIAL SYSTEM SHUTDOWN

To fix this problem, please carefully follow these instructions:

• Listen to music that confirms your sadness
• Listen to music that confirms that men are douchebags
• Smoke cigarettes
• Swim in the ocean until when you lay down to sleep at night, your arms feel wiggly like they're still under the influence of the waves
  
• Run until your legs hurt
• Call your number two and kiss him

We wish someone would apologize for the extreme inconvenience this error has caused and also promise to make sure it will never, ever happen again.

Thank You
System Administrator

¡El Paro Nacional y los QUEERS!

As I have grown older, I have become more comfortable with my identity (thank the spirits) even as that identity continues to complicate itself. I remember the good ole days (do you see the sarcasm dripping from my words?) at my bourgie boarding school Milton Academy, when I used to agonize over being one of a handful of scholarship kids and being one of an even smaller handful of people of color. I evaded questions about what my parents did for a living and didn’t talk about what I was doing over vacations—because, clearly, my ass wasn’t going skiing in the Alps or scuba diving in the Yucatan Peninsula. That, however, wasn’t really an identity struggle as much as it was an experience in displaced-working-classness (i.e. what the fuck do I do with these people who don’t know a damn thing about work?) Some of the people I went to school with had farms and they understood what physical labor meant. But they weren’t the farmers who grew food to live; they weren’t the farmers who worried about Walmart and Costco and not being able to compete with lettuce grown in a place they have never had any reason to look for on a map. My classmates had big farms but even bigger cushions to fall on if something went wrong. They had second houses in the city where they escaped to when it got too cold and complicated in the country.

What I really struggled with as a teenager was the combination of my sexual and my ethnic identity. When I came out as bi (back then, I didn’t have the consciousness or vocabulary to be able to come out as queer), I immediately felt the awkward stares from the vast majority of the students at Milton. Whatever. That didn’t matter. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I really enjoy making people feel uncomfortable. Yet I felt alienation from the other students of color and that mattered big time. Suddenly I was faced with a really fucked up question: How can I be happily Puerto Rican and happily enjoy women at the same time?

In college, this was not a problem. Hybridity was hot and I found myself at home in a community of queer folks of color. Yet in 2003, when I started to spend more time in Puerto Rico, I felt the absence of a proud queer identity, especially that of Puerto Rican women. Gay boys were everywhere to be found (well not everywhere but at least they were visible), yet the gay women remained under the radar. This I contributed to the presence of a fierce machismo that all but silenced the vocalization of an alternative female sexuality, one that had nothing to do with men. I mean, God forbid a woman gets off without the help of a dick!

Which is why it is dope to come back to Puerto Rico and see a full-fledged queer movement fucking shit up. This Thursday, Puerto Ricans from all over the island took part in the Paro Nacional. Organized by students, labor unions, and civic groups, including the umbrella organization, Todo Puerto Rico Por Puerto Rico, the national strike was a success because of the approximately 200,000 people that took to the streets. Generally speaking, the demonstration was designed to bring the economy to a standstill, as a way of protesting the recently passed Ley 7. In March, Governor Luís Fortuño announced his Fiscal and Economic Recovery Plan, also known as La Ley 7, as a means of reducing the island’s massive debt. The law led to the layoffs of about 8,000 government workers in May and 16,470 in September. Those layoffs will leave us with an unemployment rate of about 20% yet somehow Governor Fortuño thinks this piece of legislation will help stimulate the economy.

Perhaps the most problematic facet of the legislation is the fact that it gives the government the power to suspend any agreements established through the collective bargaining process, thereby taking power away from workers and placing it solely in the hands of those of the privileged ruling class. It also paves the way for the further privatization of government services since those jobs that are being eliminated in the public sector are now being redeveloped by private industries. For sure Puerto Rico has not seen the end of the destruction of La Ley 7. Hundreds of millions of dollars still have to be saved and that will probably mean that the Fortuño administration will attempt to layoff more workers.

What does this have to do with the burgeoning queer movement here in Puerto Rico? Everything! At the national strike on Thursday, I was pleasantly surprised by the presence of radical queers spray painting phrases like “Cambio de Sexo Legal y Gratuito,” “Dile No al Discrimen por Orientación Sexual,” and “Los Gays También Somos Obreros.” Thursday’s strike, and all the organizing that led up to it and will follow it, was not just a manifestation of class struggle. It was also an expression of the desire on the part of many different kinds of Puerto Ricans to take back Puerto Rico and redefine it in radical terms. And the government knows that. That’s why Marcos Rodríguez Ema, the Secretary of State, called those who participate in the protests “terrorists.” He said of workers’ threats to close Puerto Rico’s ports: “Ya esto se está tirando hacia una anarquía, hacia los sabotajes del pasado.” Rodríguez Ema is equating grassroots organizing with terrorism because he knows the power that that label holds. He is criminalizing the ordinary Puerto Rican, pissed off with the way shit is going down, calling us anti-Puerto Rican when really we are defending the Puerto Rico we want for the future: A Puerto Rico that doesn't give in to corporate interests; a Puerto Rico that is anti-racist, anti-homophobic, and pro-woman; a Puerto Rico where everyone has a job and can support themselves and their families. Terrorists? Really?

The police know it, too. The superintendent of police, José Figueroa Sancha, attempted to dismiss the actions of students who blocked one of San Juan’s major highways, el expreso las Américas, by saying, “[el grupo de estudiantes universitarios] no representa al estudiantado porque son unos pocos.” Additionally, he tried to paint those students not just as enemies of the police or the government but enemies of the entire country: “Estaban preparados para hacer daño a la Policía de Puerto Rico y a personas que estuviesen ajenas allí. Incluyendo la Prensa.” Of course activists are going to disagree on how to bring about change. Maybe not every student or every union leader would have laid down in the middle of a highway to protest a law that attacks people in a time of fiscal crisis instead of helps them. The bottom line is, however, that the students of the University of Puerto Rico have been organizing for quite some time against the privatization of the university and have placed their fight clearly within the working class struggle. To say that the students were “unos pocos” is to ignore the purposeful association between student activist groups, unions, and civic organizations.

But back to the queers…

It is significant to me that the queer community had such an active and militant presence at the march on Thursday because it made the struggle for queer rights part of the national struggle. Suddenly, just like every Puerto Rican has the right to a free and public education or the right to join a union, every queer Puerto Rican should have the right to adopt a child, marry whomever they wish, or identify with whatever gender they wish. On Thursday October 15, 2009, queer politics were put on the national agenda in a loud and visible manner and it was dope. On that day, activists proclaimed that being queer was just another way of being Puerto Rican.

My good friend and roommate, Leona, used the occasion of the national strike to make a statement about President of the Senate Thomas Rivera Schatz, gender, police brutality, la Ley 7, and the current state of Puerto Rican politics in general. Leona decided to protest while all dolled up in a military-green dress, a Hitler mustache, and a red armband with a swastika. Yes, it was shocking. No, I wasn’t completely comfortable with the image but yes, I totally supported the act of parody. She walked around proclaiming that she was wearing “one of Rivera Schatz’s uniforms!” For Leona, the act of vistiendose, of dressing up in drag, is intrinsically a form of protest. And a drag queen Hitler/Rivera Schatz, representing both the turn of the Puerto Rican government to the extreme right and the increase in violent acts committed by the Puerto Rican police...well that just brings that protest to another level, huh? Leona was just one representation of the growing visibility of Puerto Rican queerness at the general strike. I have a feeling that one day soon (very soon, keep your eyes peeled), Leona will be back and a hope that this is only the beginning of the inclusion of queer politics on the Puerto Rican activist scene.

Spit or Swallow?

Dear Dude,
I am not, under any circumstances whatsoever, no matter how drunk, high, or horny I am, no matter how many pornographic movies I watch and wish to learn from, going to eat your cum. No, you can’t win me over with that shit. Don’t rub my knee, say “come on ma, just a little taste,” and try to tell me it doesn’t taste bad because you know what? I’ve tried it. And you know what else? It’s gross. Fucking nasty. Slimier than okra. With the consistency of watered-down mayonnaise. And the taste…ugh the taste. The taste is like one of those shitty pretzels you get at the mall, only thing shittier and more stale: sweet and salty—which is usually one of my favorite flavor combinations but not when it comes to this guys, not when it comes to this.
In a story that I recently wrote, I included the following memory. I’m going to include it here but don’t be mad when my book of short stories blows up and I’m more famous than Junot fucking Díaz and you realize that you’ve already read part of it; it’s only a little part anyway. Once when I was in eighth grade, this massive girl (massive, like a big, fat girl) named Janice came up to me and asked me the following question: SPIT OR SWALLOW? I hadn’t yet been presented with the opportunity to give head but I answered the best way I knew how to: I thought about it hard but only for like five seconds because I didn’t want her to know that I had to think about it. I wanted her to know that I knew. Spitting seemed awkward. Where to spit it? How to do it in a way that didn’t belie the high level of sexiness that of course I possessed at 14 years old? Swallowing seemed like the only logical answer. So I said, “uh, swallow?” And she said, “of course, right!?” and gave me a pound. Clearly I answered correctly and she marked my answer down in her Spanish notebook.

Since then, I’ve swallowed my fair share of SEE-MEN. I won’t say how much, mostly cuz I don’t know. But it’s not that much. But then again, what is a lot of cum to swallow in one’s lifetime? A cup? A gallon? A barrel? I do not wish to weigh myself against any porn star because, as we all know, porn is about excess—of course swallowing fifteen loads of cum at once is a lot but who does that on a regular basis? (Oh my God, you do? Wild.) And no one is ever going to say, “you know what, I’ve eaten so much cum in my life I have like a fucking 20 layer cumcake in stomach.” Ugh. So we’ll never really know how much cum the average person who likes to give head has swallowed. The point is, I’ve done it and I AM SO OVER IT, papa. Been there, done that. Hated it. I mean, a little.

But you know what, mi amor, I’d much rather swig your stale pretzel, liquid mayonnaise load then eat your semen when it tastes like fucking “Hard Apple.” WTF? Apparently, these supplements, called Sweet Release (the play on words alone makes me want to vomit), claim to naturally “enhance” the taste of your jiz. I hate that. Wanna know why? Of course you do, here’s why:

1. It further alienates us from the natural state of our bodies. Raise your hand if you’ve tasted your own cum. If you didn’t raise your hand, run to the nearest bathroom and jerk off right now. Do what you must to get yourself turned on but you have to bust a nut right now and taste it. I’ll give you a few minutes. (...Twiddle my fingers, whistle a tune...) Are you back? Good. What’d it taste like? You liked it, didn’t you, you nasty freak? The taste of cum is not the best in the world but I was exaggerating a bit before; it’s not the worst thing ever. It’s certainly not worse than okra. But there is a certain deliciousness in knowing that that flavor comes from our bodies. If it’s not delicious then that’s probably because you’re not eating delicious things (see # 3). We should know what our bodies smell like, taste like, and look like when they are healthy. If we don’t, how are we going to know if something has gone wrong and we have to fix it?
2. It supports our awful addiction to all things artificial and makes us believe that the natural taste of our bodies is bad. The really shitty thing is that as I am writing this I am drinking a Diet Coke—God, I hate myself—but no one’s perfect right? So, if you haven’t noticed it on my profile, I live in San Juan, Puerto Rico. One of the things one notices immediately about Puerto Rico—that is, if s/he has even the weakest critical thinking skills—is how awful our diet is. I’m not talking about all the malanga, ñame, and yuca we eat. The Taínos survived for centuries on that shit. Remember, it wasn’t heart disease or Type 2 diabetes that killed the Taínos. It was colonization and its concomitant massacres and small pox plagues (Rule #1 for people of color: never EVER accept a blanket from a European). I’m also not talking about the irresistible 2:30am empanadilla de pizza that one must eat after a long night of drinking. No, I’m talking about the fact that Puerto Rico’s land is more fucking fertile than the octomom after her “treatments” but yet its people don’t eat what naturally comes from the land. Puerto Ricans eat fast food, pre-packaged food, and frozen food con cojones even though everything we need to survive and be healthy is at our fingertips. As a people, Puerto Ricans are alienated from nature and the food it brings us. Puerto Ricans prefer Yellow #5 to bananas, partially hydrogenated soybean oil to beans, mono- and diglycerides to rice, sour apple flavored cum to cum flavored cum. Clearly, I understand the relationship between US colonialism and the ubiquitousness of fast food chains and pre-processed foods and how those foods are generally cheaper than buying the products that are grown here. I could write about that shit too. But what concerns me in this article is how that addiction to artificialness has turned into a scorn for things natural. I think that is connected to our desire to scorn the natural state of our bodies, including our natural taste. What tastes natural is bad but Hard Apple is good. What the fuck is Hard Apple anyway? There is no such apple that is called the Hard Apple. But I guess if Sweet Release gave the pill a Granny Smith Apple flavor that wouldn’t be sexy.
3. It is a quick fix that teaches us nothing about the value of nutrition to a healthy state of sexual being. Wanna know a secret? Come closer, closer, yes, let me sit on your lap. Now listen up: some leche already tastes better than others, naturally. It’s true. For instance, I’m sure if I swallowed the cum of the guy who I’m seeing now, a vegetarian, it would taste a lot better than the leche of say, the sweaty, fat fuck two cubicles down from me in the library. I have nothing against sweaty, fat fucks but don’t ask me to drink your Sweet-and-Sour Shrimp-Snickers sperm ever, like, EVER. Certain foods are known to naturally enhance the taste of your jiz and guess what, they’re the same foods that are known to be really good for you in general. Most important is water; drink lots of it to rid your body of toxins that can potentially wind up in your cum. After that try some of these: papaya, mango, grapes, melons, parsley, celery, cinnamon, peppermint, pineapple and lemon. They’re never going to make your cum taste fruity and fresh but these foods have been known to make your cum a little sweeter. On the other hand, there are foods that one should avoid if he wants better tasting spooge. Red meat, dairy, broccoli, onions, garlic, cauliflower, and asparagus are the biggest offenders. Red meat and dairy are especially known to make your ejaculate more salty—that’s exactly what we DON’T want, guys. If we rely on pills like Sweet Release to make our cum taste good then we are cheating ourselves out of the knowledge of how to make ourselves more healthy. It’s like not showering but using cologne and expecting it to cover the smell of your B.O. Soon all your going to smell is your cologne and you’ll never really know that you smell like shit.
   

In closing, dudes, yes alright fine, I’ll swallow. But not under all circumstances and not just any leche. Like, I’ve decided that I really have to know you in order to swallow. It’s definitely NOT a sex-on-the-first-date thing, or even the second or third. It’s more like our first-STI-test-came-out-negative-and-let’s-celebrate thing. Y tú me tienes que mamar bien rico antes. Si no, pueh…sorry, you’re out of luck. And so let’s say I like you and you’re a great, big pussy worshipper, I still won’t drink your cum if you have poor hygiene and/or eating habits. And let’s say I like you and you’re a great, big pussy worshipper and I happen to be convinced that I should swallow (which, may I remind you, has nothing to do with your skills of persuasion and you should NEVER EVER ask me to swallow cuz if you do I’ll fuck you up; it’s MY decision, okay?). And if I swallow and it tastes like “Hard Apple,” I’m gonna be really pissed because you would have adulterated my palate with your phony phallic ejaculate. Keep it natural, keep it healthy and if you’re nice to me and smart and funny and good in bed, oh yeah, I’ll lick it up without question.

Love,
Lola

Bend Over, Boo; It's Your Turn (Verse 3)

God for-fucking-bid, a dude gives up some of his power. Okay, I get it, you have a dick and, if we’re going to define sex as penetration, then your dick needs to be hard for us to be able to start. And, alright alright, I also get that you essentially get to decide when the shit is over, too. And pa’ colmo, even though this has nothing to do with sex, you get to pee wherever the fuck you want. Dudes, alright, your dicks are pretty cool. But you know what, motherfuckers? I get to cum as many times as I want. So when you get off and I’m not done and I think I wanna bust a nut just one more time, I’m gonna masturbate, right in your face and stick my tongue out at you as I do it, just to rub it in your sweaty face. Wait…you want me to rub it in your face?

Sorry. The point is that dudes think that just because they have the dicks they get to do the penetrating, they get to have all the power. Uh uh. No fucking way. That’s fucked up for the following reasons:

1. It’s based on the stupid, archaic belief that there can only be sex with penetration, which is why foreplay only counts as “calentando” and dummies always ask lesbians how they have sex.
2. It makes the penetrator the powerful, masculine role and the penetrated the weak, feminine role. This breaking down of sex into gender roles is limiting, not fun, and totally UN-sexy.
3. If we reduce sex to penetration, then we are essentially equating sex with procreation. And therefore we are delegitimizing not just anal sex but other kinds of queer sex as well.

WTF, dudes! Give it up and bend over cuz here is my finger and it’s coming straight for your ass. Okay, okay, okay…Let’s just forget about the power dynamics involved in anal sex for a moment and think about pleasure pure and simple. Hombres, if I told you that I could give you something that would make you feel so pleasurable, you’d cum almost instantly and it’s not heroin, crack, or some weird substance that will make mushrooms sprout from your back, wouldn’t you say “dale! Let’s do it!”? Of course you would. You’re not stupid, are you? Well that’s what anal sex is.

Clearly the real banal sex queens out there are dudes, so concerned about preserving their masculinity, that they have created a cage for themselves. And not some kind of sexy cage like in wrestling matches or that absurd Shakira video but like one of those cages in which they put baby cows to fatten them up to turn them into osso buco. You can’t move, you’ve paralyzed yourselves with your own masculinity and now all you can have is boring, banal sex. Considera las palabras de Anabel Ochoa, sexóloga, psicóloga, y escritora española: “entre varones, en el hombre que es penetrado supone impactar directamente la estimulación de la próstata (el llamado punto G masculino [I didn’t know y’all had one of those too!]) de modo que provoca una eyaculación automática en escopeta casi sin quererlo por automatismo de esta glándula.”

!!!

An orgasm so hard and intense, you can’t control it when your prostate is poked just a little?! Word?! That’s the dopest shit I’ve read in a while, like since I read Milan Kundera’s thoughts on poo. Come on guys, you know you wanna try it.

However (sigh), I understand the strength of social roles. I also understand that masculinity is nothing if not a performance. And for a straight dude, getting it up the butt is not part of that play. But remember, gender identity was not created to make us feel more free. In fact, gender norms only serve to limit our possibilities by making us fearful of breaking them. The gender police suck and we shouldn’t listen to them. Since when should we take advice on how to have fun from a fucking cop? When was the last time you looked at a cop and wanted to ask him/her where the party was? Never. That never fucking happens. So why are you letting some invisible force police your goddamn gender when you could be having some dope sex right now?

If there is anything that I hope for my readers to get out of this (very long) manifesto on anal sex, and indeed my blog in general, it is that good sex requires a lot of trust. And I am not just talking about trust between you and your partner but trust in oneself. I have to love myself enough to trust that my desires are valid, important, and deserve to be fulfilled by someone who respects me and finds it is sexy and beautiful that I am a human being with desires. As I said in Verse 1, if I can’t talk to my partner, I shouldn’t be having sex with that person. Okay, okay…God knows I have had my share of random sex and I will probably have a few more (hopefully not too) awkward sexual encounters with someone who doesn’t know me—or care about me, for that matter. But those are not going to be the times when I divulge how to really turn my ass out.

Lola’s 10 Point Program to Having Great Anal Sex:

Here it is. Print this shit out and put it on your refrigerator, yeah your refrigerator, because you should definitely be having butt sex in the kitchen.

On behalf of all people who wish to liberate themselves from the shackles of sexual banality and enjoy the pleasures of anal penetration, I declare the following:

1. We deserve to find someone chill and made up of at least 75% wonderfulness. The other 25% cannot be assholeness but it can be awkwardness, bad dancing skills, or a random sense of humor. This ratio assures that you can always talk to your partner about having to maybe deal with shit and that they will listen if you have to tell them to stop if you no longer feel comfortable.
2. We will use lube so as to not tear our rectums. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. It’s really hot if you have a vagina and you’re already so wet that you can just transfer some of that natural lube to your ass but if that can’t happen then you definitely need to make sure that you have some lube on hand—and I mean real lube not lotion, especially not if it’s perfumed; our assholes are sensitive and you don’t want to put some harsh frangrance or chemical up there.
3. We will practice breathing exercises. We all know how important breathing is to achieving orgasm. Don’t we all hold our breath when we feel it there, right there? And when we need to relax, aren’t we told to “take a deep breath”? Well lets put these two together and we can make sure that anal sex always feels good. The last time I had anal sex, there was this moment in which it started to feel a little uncomfortable, then I breathed in deeply and found that I could take his entire penis in my ass. And I totally got off and he did too and it was fucking glorious.
4. We will try to poop before and clean up. Just because you have to face the reality that you might encounter poop if you’re sticking something up your ass doesn’t mean that you have to expect it or swim in it when you’re fucking. Nah, try to let it all out before you expect to have sex and make sure the area is as clean as possible. You should also make sure to clean up afterward. There are gross things that live in poop and those gross things can give you gross things. Yuck. You could even take a shower together after; I love that!
   
5. We will use condoms. It turns out that our bums are like sponges and are more susceptible to sexually transmitted infections than other areas of our bodies. Unless you and your partner have both tested negative and have both made the (sober) decision to not use condoms, don’t risk it. Wrap it up, kiddies.
6. We will make sure everything is stimulated. The very talented among us are capable of getting off just through anal penetration. Many of us, however, need some extra help. Here is where I good toy comes in handy because the best is when I can be penetrated both anally and vaginally (damn, I sure am an open book, huh?). Play with my clitoris; that’s always awesome. But be forewarned, that’s how Becky uh, lost control.
7. We will always make sure to give and receive. It’s always best this way. To get anally penetrated is awesome but it’s also great to know that you are giving someone one of the best sexual sensations of their lives. Besides nobody likes a sapo in bed; you know, someone who just lies there como un sapo while the other person does all the work.
8. We want you to play with and tease our culos first. Remember? SUA-VE-CI-TO. Teasing doesn’t just heighten the dopeness that is sex, it also serves the very practical purpose of getting us ready for it. By playing with the anus before actually penetrating it, you can make your partner relax as well as want it more. This is especially true for those who are new to anal sex. Use a pinky, a tongue, some nice vibrating anal beads (oh yeah, they make those. Anyone, wanna buy me a Christmas present?), whatever; just make your partner want it.
9. We want the lines of communication open. Before, during, and after anal sex. Before: talk about poop and about your desires. During: do you like it? Was one position better than another? Does it hurt too much and you want to stop? After: What did you like/dislike? What do you want to try next? ¡Habla, coño!
10. We recognize the political, social, and emotional implications of what we’re doing and feel awesome about fucking outside of the box. The supreme level of relationship incredibleness is not reached simply by having great sex. It’s when you can have great sex with someone who thinks about what that great sex means. I love it, love it, love it when I can fuck someone’s brains out while saying “fuck it” to the world and “fuck you” to my insecurities.

Well, there it is darlings. I hope you have learned something or at least feel more vindicated in your desires. If this post gets just one person to love anal sex, I know I have done my job. And if you're that person, please let me know so I can die in about 100 years knowing that I truly am an agent of change.