Sex

I believe in teaching women to erotically dominate men (if they want to learn it!) The thing is, when you teach someone to do this, and you agree to be their practice sub, and she wants to mess with you and see what you’re made of, you may end up being ordered to do all kinds of crazy shit you would never do on your own…

Such as put on a wig, dance to Britney Spears, and worship a banana…

Last week, I shared with you an episode in which I started to teach my platonic friend Celinne Da Costa to Domme me.

In this episode, we discover Celinne’s inner dominatrix, Mystress Trixie… and boy does she come out of the gate swinging!

Before I knew what had hit me, and much to my surprise, Mytress Trixie dominated me into “Michelle”… who is quite a dancer!

And it was all filmed…

So if you’re ready to see the inimitable Mystress Trixie feminizing me into Michelle on camera… get out your popcorn and grab your front-row seat here on YouTube.

You will never eat a banana the same way!

A few months ago, I rang my friend and book coaching client Celinne Da Costa to catch up. Half an hour into our conversation, she mentioned in an offhand comment that she was interested in exploring her dominant side in her sexuality.

I mentioned that I am a switch (meaning I go both ways in the Dom/Sub dynamic) and I since I know both sides, I enjoy and am good at supporting women in discovering their dominant side. It’s fun for both of us. I also like the politics of it: women learning to dominate men subverts the patriarchy.

Celinne was supremely interested in this. We are completely platonic friends, and I supported her professionally in her process of writing her amazing memoir. So I assured that teaching/learning dominance can be done without anything involving sex, or even running erotic energy. Dominance is about progressively taking control in an encounter (with consent) and that can be completely platonic if that is what’s called for, which was the case here.

She asked me how this worked. I explained that many of my female friends in the Bay Area are interested in learning to dominate men erotically, and I have shown them (in fact, I don’t seem to know any women who are not interested in learning dominance. Maybe that’s the kind of women I hang out with! :)

In three cases, women I have trained in their initial phase of learning have gone on to become badass and very successful professional dominatrixes. Two of them have combined BDSM with pre-existing healing modalities they already worked with. One of them supports herself lucratively entirely from this work now, and another recently earned $15,000 in a weekend private immersion.

(Note: I taught the skill of erotic dominance, not the professional/business/marketing side of professional dominance, which is a whole other game and which these women got other mentorship/support from pro-Dommes to learn.)

Celinne is always up for adventure (that’s what her whole memoir is about) so I suggested I give her a training session over video call, we record it, and if she’s comfortable with it, she could release it to her audience on her podcast. (We’ve actually never met in person, though I wrote copy for her and helped her on her book writing for years).

Celinne was a HELL YES to this. So we did it. For 2.5 hours straight. Raw, unfiltered, in a single take.

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One of the greatest positive shifts in my relations with women occurred when I learned to have friendships with women I was attracted to, but who were not attracted to me back. Given that I was constantly attracted to women erotically, and only a fraction felt the same way about me, this shift was as important to make as it was challenging.

It is so easy for a man to remain in a “friendship” of unrequited lust in hopes that he might “get lucky” and “one day” she might see “what a great guy I am.” We men get a lot of cultural reenforcement for these hopes too, as the romantic trope of the guy who “doesn’t stand a chance” but who persists in his valiant efforts to “win her heart” in the face of horrible odds, but ends up “getting the girl” in the end, is the plot line of like 75% of all romantic movies and novels.

But a friendship born of persistence in pursuit of a sexual goal is not real friendship–a friendship with an agenda is a farce. And the attraction ends up coming out anyways, in uncomfortable, unwanted and awkward passes that catch the woman by surprise, make her feel manipulated (as she questions whether it was ever a “real” friendship,) and end up in the man feeling bitter about being rejected and having his desires invalidated yet again in his path towards romance and Eros.

Which–since the traditional Courtship Script has assigned men the role of initiators of romantic and sexual interest and women as the responders–has probably been going on since he mustered up the nerve to walk across the dance floor in the gym at the middle school dance, ask the girl to dance, and get rejected in front of all his classmates. Bitterness and resentment spreads all around, for boys and girls, men and women, and all genders.

Is there a way out? This is an urgent question.

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Have you been hearing debates about “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” and wanting to understand the debate in more depth? I’ve got you covered!

I did a deep-dive on this debate last year. If you just want the net-net (and this is my concurrence with numerous feminist writers I cite, who I think make a conclusive case- not particularly original thinking on my part):

In 1944, when the song was written, it was absolutely unthinkable within “polite society” for a woman to spend the night at a man’s house if she wasn’t married to him. If you look closely (and understand the references in their historical context) this is a song about an unmarried pair on a date who want the night to continue at his place, and are coming up with reasons why she should stay over that will be acceptable to the woman’s strict family and nosy community. The song is a cheeky rebellion against what we would now call the “slut shaming” of the era, celebrating a woman’s desire to stay over at a man’s house if she wants, family and slut-shaming community be-damned.

I am thrilled to announce that a short indy docu-porn I co-produced, “Luminous Lust,” is premiering at Dan Savage’s HUMP! Film Festival – indy porn festival – in San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. Screenings of the entire festival go through November 17th.

Here’s our description of our film: “Luminous Lust is an erotic short film directed and written by the 2018 class of Madison Young’s Erotic Film School. In this sizzling short film, real-life couple – Dylan Ryan and T. Pfister [in photo] – boldly bring the audience into the most intimate parts of their lives, sharing with the camera how the couple fell in love, what about their partner turns them on, and how they first met. This intimate sexual portrait of this passionate couple gets steamy when they open the door and let the viewer into their lustful and luminous sex life.”

Madison Young‘s Erotic Film School was one of the greatest educational experiences of my life. Over 2 days in Oakland, CA in August, four of us beginning film students–a diverse mix of genders, nationalities, races and orientations–gathered under the guidance of master feminist porn producer Madison to create a concept, develop a shotlist, and shoot a short “erotic portrait” based around this amazing real-life couple and their love and passion. (Dylan has been a pro performer for many years. This was her girlfriend T’s first time on camera for adult, though that’s hard to believe from her razzling performance!)

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The Consent Pledge
(for men who have sex with women)

I’m a man, and by signing here, I am publicly making this “Consent Pledge” going forward:

I commit to making sure all my sexual encounters are fully consensual. I commit to getting a clear verbal or non-verbal “yes” from my sexual partner(s) before sexual escalation. I commit to not pressuring her to say “yes,” to stop if she says “no,” and to ask if I’m unsure. I commit to stopping if–in my most honest assessment–I don’t believe that she is sober enough to give full consent.

Guys–sign the Consent Pledge here.

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(Screen shot from the first film interpretation of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” in “Neptune’s Daughter,” 1949)

The “Courtship Script” is a set of assumptions–with a long history and widespread social acceptance–about how heterosexual men and women go from being strangers, to lovers and/or long-term romantic partners.

In its most basic and caricatured form, the Courtship Script goes something like this: Boy meets girl. Boy desires girl. Boy chases girl. Girl may or may not desire boy back, but either way, she rejects his advances, and “plays hard to get.” Boy persists in hot pursuit, in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Eventually, girl gives in to his devotion, submits to his penetrating desire, and surrenders to the love/sex she actually wanted all along.

There’s no question that many men and women find some version of this basic Script “hot” and “romantic.” There’s also no question that it flies in the face of the new standards of consent—sometimes called “yes means yes” or “affirmative consent”—that are fast becoming consensus on the liberal side of the political spectrum.

What happens when a newly-evolving standard of consent flatly contradicts widely-held notions of romance and eroticism? Do we de-prioritize romance, sexual tension, seduction and eroticism (which I refer to loosely as “Eros”) in the name of safety? Or do we develop new notions of Eros that fit with our evolving standards of emotionally-safe, non-coercive sex? And what do we do about the fact that, for thousands of years, it was precisely the unsafety of Eros–its adventure, forbidden temptation, wildness, unpredictability, tension, and transgression–that made it so damn hot?

I don’t believe there are easy answers to any of these questions. I do believe, however, it’s crucial that we start discussing them more widely.

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There is perhaps no better entryway to understanding the Courtship Script, and the problems with it from a consent perspective, than by examining the annual controversy that occurs—right around this time of year—over the holiday classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” written by Frank Loesser in 1944.

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