the old "Dirty" me

Because I've been a little lax about organizing my virtual book tour for Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women, I'm giving myself the spot today. ANd it seemed appropriate to repost an essay called "Dirty" that was published at Scarlet Letters in 2003.

I hate rereading my work, especially old work. I know that some of this has changed, some has stayed the same. I feel weird even posting it, and will say that, uh, if you're related to me, you probably want to stop reading now. Anyway, though, the thing about writing is is that it's there forever, and yet we change. The thing with blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc., is that people who thrive on them, I think, are fast-paced. Fast talkers, fast thinkers, fast doers, for the most part. We, or rather, I, don't have time to sit around and be sentimental cause we're always onto the next (big?) thing. I'm tryign to slow down, I swear, but I also don't relive the past (except those moments when I do). I'll always be infinitely more interested in the next thing I write or am writing than something from the past. But if you've never read this, or just want to, as kindof a companion to my book Dirty Girls, here goes. Me, circa 2003:

"Dirty"
by Rachel Kramer Bussel

What makes me feel dirty? I know, and yet I don't know. Some things that make me feel dirty are crystal clear to me, while others are more elusive, only knowable in the moment, constantly changing and evolving. There are parts of the puzzle I know all too well, have fantasized and created and recreated over and over again. And there are parts that no amount of detail will ever fully explain, those I wouldn't want to explain even if I could.

But this is what I can explain, what does make sense. I feel dirty when someone tells me I'm dirty - someone who I want to believe knows the truth about me, someone who I want to show my dirtiest, naughtiest, bad girl self to. The truth is I am wicked and dirty and can spend whole days dreaming up explicit fantasies, and often do. I'm often much dirtier in my mind than I am in my daily life, but I don't always feel driven to share these fantasies with my lovers. There's often that underlying fear that they won't be able to handle what I have to say, or I just don't want to go down that road with them, hoarding my fantasies inside my head, waiting for that "perfect" lover to come along. When I do share and it turns out well, I'm pleased, but the possibility of them dismissing my innermost desires as trivial or silly is quite scary. One of the greatest compliments a lover's ever paid to me occurred after a vigorous round of phone sex when he said, pleased, "I didn't know how filthy you really are." I liked that I'd surprised him, that with my dirty mouth and mind I'd shown him a new side of myself, and he liked it.

Being looked at like I'm dirty makes me feel dirty, almost all by itself. I like it when a lover takes a risk and pushes me, coaxing me into possibly emotionally dangerous territory, making me push myself and my own fears and fantasies to the limit. I like being "made," however subtly or unsubtly, to tell things I never thought I'd share with anyone, to be forced to realize how much, deep down, I really want to be manhandled. There are some things that it's hard to verbalize, or even think about, but that I definitely want to happen during a sexual encounter. It's often easiest for me to open up in writing, but in person I freeze up and settle for a fun but not mindblowing experience because I'm too nervous to take a risk. When I find someone who is also willing to take those risks of exposure and daring, I feel more comfortable sharing my own sexual dirty secrets.

For me, sex is best when it's unexpected, when something happens that isn't planned or thought about or really prepared for in any way. Since my mind is always racing, I generally have trouble thinking only one thought at a time, instead wanting to jump to the next thought immediately. So anyone who can get me to stay completely in the moment, to shut off my galloping brain and relax, stay still (mentally and physically), and submit, can have me. I like to be jolted out of my complacency, shown new ways of fucking and relating to someone else, introduced to things that I never would've thought would get me off. I want whole new worlds to open, ones I don't have time to fully comprehend because I'm too busy feeling something - pain, orgasm, fear, excitement.

It's not always so clear-cut, this process of arousal, the things that get me shaking and trembling and wet and wild. It can be unexpected, taking different forms each and every time. What works once might leave me cold and dispassionate in another situation. Sometimes it's a whisper, or even a word, told to me when my eyes are closed and my body is floating in ecstasy. Then, I'm open to anything, and words reverberate through my head and skin, touching parts of me that sometimes never recover. That's when a lover's words become a brand, searing themselves into my skin, forever a part of my erotic self. If in this heightened state of bliss, my lover tells me I'm a dirty whore, a tease, a slut, I lap it up and wait for more. I want to be all those things, not in some absolute objective sense, but for my lover, in that moment. For them, I'll transform myself into whatever they want, to gain their approval, win their affection, be their most special and sexy girl ever. I'm at my best as a lover when all I want, all I know, is pleasing my partner, because always, always, in return I please myself. That's why it throws me for a loop to sleep with someone who can't articulate what they want; I'm left in a hopeless guessing game. Even if I can discern what they want by my own devices, that doesn't fulfill me in the same way as being told what to do, as taking a command and turning it around into a very personalized sex act.

Though I can't precisely define what gets me into this core dirtiness, here are some examples of what triggers it for me. When a lover makes me come while we're fucking, causes me to squirt right there all over his cock, in a moment of unexpected bliss, a pleasant shock to both of us, I am dirty. He has me on my back, legs spread wide, clothes hastily shucked away. He's above me, knees pressed into the carpet, pulling my hair, biting me, fucking me as hard as he can. His sweat is dripping down onto me. He pulls my hair, slaps my face, pinches my nipples. He looks at me, runs his eyes up and down, focuses on my face, my breasts, my cunt, and back to my face, with a look of awe and lust and passion and drama. I don't need any words, just the look that makes me flush far beneath the surface of my skin, the look that sends shivers running throughout my body.

Or this. She tells me to make myself come, something I've never done in a front of a lover before. Her tone is one I haven't heard from her; it's not admiration or a compliment or a question; it's a command. I look up at her breathlessly, so eager to please her, more eager to make her happy than myself (which in turn makes my heart race). She's taken care of that though, by telling me to come, and I hold my breath as I play with my clit. I want to come for her, for me, for us. I look up at her as I play with myself, waiting for her smile, wanting to please her. Or maybe I don't, maybe I want to fail in this task, and have her punish me. Either way, knowing that she is there, watching, waiting, for me, makes me feel dirty and warm and slutty and happy.

When I want to explain my erotic desires to a new lover, I'm often at a loss because mere words are just not enough. Sometimes I feel like my plans will lose some of their magic if I have to spell them out in too much detail. And it's not just what I want that matters; I need them to want what I want too, or else it doesn't work. I don't relish the idea of someone doing something simply to please me, but want my own desires and theirs to mesh.

There's no magic formula for me to get off; it's truly unique every time, even with the same person. That's part of the thrill for me, the way old dramas get played out, new discoveries are made, my body revealing itself to me over and over again, showing off different parts of itself, yearning for new adventures. And I want it to last, not just for an hour or eight, but far beyond that; I want every minute to seem like twenty. People talk about the earth moving, but I don't really care about this planet, or city, or even my room. I want my head, my body, my brain, to spin around, landing somewhere new. That can take seconds or minutes or hours or days, but what I find transcendent is when I emerge from sex feeling like a new person, my mind and body racing, replaying my lovemaking as my own personal porno in my head.

What I want from my lovers is more than just words and acts and orgasms, though it's all those things too. It's a sensation, an overall feeling that I look for, that aids and abets all the words spoken, body parts stroked or pulled or kissed, orgasms reached. I want to be coddled on the one hand, and chastised on (or by) the other. I want to be a little girl, a bad girl, a slut, a dirty whore, a naughty troublemaker, a temptress. I want to be decadent, innocent, coerced, tied up, helpless, fragile, raw. I want to be over her knee, the paddle in her hand, a threat in her voice, uncertain of what words will come out of my mouth or what emotions and sensations will well up inside of me. I want the pain to leap across my skin, to center in my pussy or my ass and spread outwards. I want to not be able to think to not be able to guess or even desire, just to feel, for a few moments. I want sex that surprises me, that's unlike anything I've ever done before, even if it's exactly like something I've done before. Because ultimately, that's why we keep coming back to sex again and again, why some of us concern our lives with it; the fascinating mystery, the beauty and pain and freshness of it, make it continually arousing. Sex is as old as time yet it can be totally new, and can make me feel like an eager and nervous 17-year-old virgin again (albeit with the wisdom of experience, but it's the same feeling).

I want to be at a lover's mercy, wanting more and more, with every cell in my body, but unable to ask for it. When I open my mouth, they put something in - a finger, a tongue, a toy, an ice cube. They fill it up, just like they fill up all the other parts of me that are empty. They fill it with their tongue, and can take that tongue away at any time. Their teeth scamper across my body, searching for the points that will best respond to their bite. Like my nipples, for one. My lover's teeth sink into them like the most tender of meats, mincing, pounding, chewing. Sharp but not fast; I want to feel that exquisite pain for as long as possible, and I want to not be able to escape it, even when I try. I want to be nervous, a little bit scared, uncertain. I want my clit and my pussy to be scared too, to try and anticipate what will happen next and be thrown off guard by a slap or a pinch or a pull. I want the pain of a hand falling full force against my ass, making it burn and seethe, and knowing that there's more waiting for me. I need that fear, that edge, to hover over. I need my lover to act differently with me than they do on the street, to treat me rougher or meaner or more fiercely, anything that distinguishes our sex from our average conversation. I want them to focus only on me, on us, on our pleasure. I want them to make me do things and want things I've never wanted before, to plant wholly new erotic possibilities in my head, to sweep me away and be there to catch me.

I want to be "forced" to do the things I secretly want to do but don't get to do alone, or don't allow myself. I want to feel the ache all over for days afterwards. I want to not be able to think of anything else. When I'm at work, watching tv, cooking dinner, reading, talking on the phone, I want to not be doing those things at all, but instead hearing my lover's voice whisper in my ear as s/he pulls my hair and makes tears form in my eyes. I want to not be able to control the rate of my breathing: pant, pant, gasp, pant, hold breath, pant. I want sex to sweep me away from the rest of my life, to make everything else irrelevant and unnecessary, for a little while, to give myself wholeheartedly and intensely to an all-encompassing passion. Sometimes I want to be deliberately foolish, to be drunk on sex, letting it move me in ways that my rational mind might not agree with.

When I am my dirtiest, sluttiest, naughtiest self, I feel at home, happy, safe, wanted, loved, sexy. I want to stay in that space forever, and even though it doesn't last forever, those moments seem to take up more than their fair share of time, kidnapping my thoughts and seizing my fantasies. They expand, take over, fill me with a warmth that I'm hard pressed to find elsewhere. Those moments can make me cry, for lack of a better way of showing my devotion to them. Every day, I search for those moments, those lovers, those parts of myself that can bring me there. And when I find them, I rejoice.