Allena Gabosch

The coronavirus is taking its toll on all of us. Many of us are isolated from those we love and care about because of health concerns.  Those of us who are polyamorous may feel even more isolated, since we are probably limited to what partners we can interact with.  Us solo poly folks and those who are just dating may not have access to anyone for intimacy or sex.  Self-care is important and making sure that not only our physical, but our mental and emotional health are taken care of can be daunting.  Add to that, the desire to make sure our partner(s) are taken care of and we may become overwhelmed.  What do we do? How can we have healthy sex and intimacy in a time of social distancing?

Now I realize that much of what I’m going to talk about requires funds and we don’t all have access to do what it takes to do all of it.  However, if you’re reading this, you do have internet access and while physical sex and intimacy may be unattainable, social media has made it possible for us to interact in sexy and intimate ways.  Self-distancing doesn’t mean zero contact, it just means zero physical contact.  Get creative!  Find ways to connect with those you desire by other means than in person.

Most of us are familiar with the five love languages, words of affirmation, time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch.  I suggest we start with these.  Identify what your love language is (it could be a combination of several.  For me it’s time and touch) and what are your partner(s) love languages.  Then find ways to fulfill those needs without physical contact (yes, touch is the hard one).  For those of use who are isolated, letting our partners know what we need is imperative.  What follows are a few ideas on how to get through all this.  Share the ones that resonate with you with those who love and care about you.   If you aren’t sure what resonates with them, ask.  Request that they participate with you in creating a long-distance intimate and sexual connection.

Words of Affirmation:  This is pretty easy.  Taking the time to send texts and messages telling your loved ones how important they are to you is a given.  You can also go old school and send them a letter or card detailing your desire and love for them.  Use programs like Marco Polo to send videos of you speaking to each other.  If they enjoy dirty and or sexy talk, make a recording talking to them that they can play during masturbation.

Time:  This means quality time.  Find things you can do via social media and other platforms.  Playing games, watching movies, watching porn and spending time together, even if it’s online can be enriching and fulfilling.  Have meals together, via Skype or Zoom.  Set the time and dates and stick to them.

Gifts: While it may seem difficult to give gifts while being distance, remember, Amazon (and others) still deliver.  Send cards, small gifts and things you know they’ll love to them on a regular basis.   They don’t have to be expensive, just things that resonate with them.

Service:  This is a little harder, since much of service is about being physically present.  Many of the previously mentioned ideas can constitute service.  Also, you can do something like order dinner and have it delivered to them.   If you’re not in total lock down you can bringing them dinner personally.  And if you are in total lockdown you can make gift certificates of the things you’ll do for them when this crisis is over.

Touch:  This is the hardest of all.  And where you can be the most creative.  Mutual masturbation, with verbal descriptions of where and how you are touching them.  There are some sex toys that can be operated remotely.  Buy each of you one and take turns controlling the toys.  Send virtual hugs and strokes on a daily basis.  This is one time where it may be appropriate to send explicit photos (with permission of course).

And, don’t forget to take care of yourself.  Self-pleasure is more than jacking off.  It’s taking time for a long bath.  It’s being intimate with yourself, by watching a sexy movie, reading a book that turns you on or even meditating on sex and sensuality.

These are just a few ideas to keep the sex and intimacy alive while dealing with the pandemic.  Sex and intimacy in the time of the coronavirus is possible, if you’re willing to step outside of your preconceived ideas of what constitutes sex and intimacy.

Sorry for the months of silence.  It’s been a crazy ride. I’ll tell the story later, however, currently I’m back in the states dealing with my cancer and now the current coronavirus scare.  I’m doing pretty good all things considered.  I’ll post more later as using my phone is a pain in the ass.  Stay tuned!

I don’t even know where to start.  Over the last several months I’ve been dealing with weird health issues.  They have accumulated into me taking a lot of tests (colonoscopy, endoscopy, various ultrasounds, CAT scans, blood work, X-rays and eventually biopsies.   It appears that I have cancer.  What kind, we don’t know.  I’m lucky that I’m going to the best oncology department in Krakow.  We’ve ruled out breast cancer and ovarian cancer and hopefully by Friday I’ll have the answers.

The health  stuff had definitely put most everything else in my life on the back burner.  However, it’s not going to stop me from living a full and complete life.

My hashtags for this current adventure.  #cancersucksandmylifedoesnot  #Cancer?Whatever.

Recently on Facebook, a friend of mine posted in support of this article https://pjmedia.com/trending/women-to-crazed-feminists-we-will-fight-you-to-defend-our-men/?fbclid=IwAR21T05Db-r282bo6wROWCmLKqspHsE1lHPGYDaWiGatFXYc9Cf1KU6buBk

My friend is a powerful woman who embodies much of what I feel feminism is about, and yet she and her friends were adamant that they were not feminist, didn’t support feminism and felt it was toxic. This isn’t new either, I constantly meet strong powerful women who reject feminism and that breaks my heart

I have identified as a feminist since the late 60’s when I was in high school.  I was so saddened when the Equal Rights amendment failed to be ratified. I marched for women’s rights, for People of Color and against the Vietnam War.  I weas as a radical hippie feminist and I embraced what I consider the real definition of feminism. The belief that all people, regardless of gender, should have equal rights and opportunities.

I know why some of my friends reject feminism.  They get caught up in the vitriol and anti-sex and anti-male conversations of what I consider the Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon feminists.  Also the rise of TERFs ( Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist). Others are part of the BDSM community and identify as submissive or slave and feel that feminism and their D/s or M/s lifestyle can’t meld with feminism (which I believe is the case of my friend).

Years ago, in the 80’s  I went to a Science Fiction convention with my first really kinky partner.  I went in a bride dress and in chains (kind of a Darkover bride) and Jake led me around on a leash.  This was the first time I’d ever done anything kinky in public and I was having a blast. The Science Fiction community was very accepting and fun and it all was good.  Until . . . . I ran into a friend of mine who began to berate and shame me. How could I be a good feminist and allow myself to be subjected by a man? How could I sell myself out to the patriarchy that way?  She berated me for about 20 minutes while I stood there trying figure out what to say. Remember, these kink stuff was new and it was exciting and also very transgressive for me. I was pretty tongue tied at first.  Finally she took a breath and I spoke up. “Margaret, feminism is about choice. Prior to the feminist movement women didn’t feel they had choice. I choose to be in chains and on a leash. I choose to at times be submissive to Jake.  My choice, my sexuality.” Margaret was still disgusted and left in a huff. (I did find out later after their divorce that her husband was kinky and she wasn’t, so some of her issue may not have been just about feminism.) What that taught me that day was that part of being a feminist was about choice and it wasn’t about shaming others for their choices.

The post I referred to at the beginning of the blog was shaming of feminists and also requested that if anyone reading it disagreed to not speak up.  So I didn’t. Which is why I’m writing this.

I am a proud, sex positive feminist.  I look forward to the day when the Equal Rights Amendment is ratified.  (It only needs one more state for a total of 38 to ratify it. There is hope Virginia will become state No. 38 when they reconvene in January.)  I am not a man hating, sex hating feminist and I believe most feminists aren’t. There is a small minority of radical feminists and TERFs and thankfully they don’t represent all of us.

I wish I could say this to my friend on her post.  And because I respect her choice I won’t. I love her and all those other friends who feel that feminism is wrong or toxic.  That is their choice, whether I agree or not. All I can do is embody my feminism in a positive healthy way and do my best to educate others that feminism is about equality and about choice, not about hating men or trans folks or taking over the world in some female-centric  apocalypse (although it would make a good Science Fiction novel).

http://kinkyexpat.com/2018/11/18/budapest-and-huncon/

In January of 2015 I wrote about my rape:  https://allenagabosch.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/rape/

Recently, with the advent of so much talk about sexual violence and the #metoo movement I think it’s time to share a couple more stories.  Warning, they are not easy reads.

My first #metoo moment

I was a pretty lucky person growing up, as I didn’t deal with much, if any sexual harassment or improprieties until I was in my late teens, other than high school juvenile crap.  I tried to have traditional sex at 16, with this very hot biker guy and sadly he was way too big for me (think beer can) and so we just did other fun things and he taught me how to be a very attentive lover, even without PV sex.  And that’s how I proceeded for a couple years, until I was 18. My father kicked me out of the house, shortly after my 18th birthday so I was a single high school student with her own apartment.  Needless to say, we did party a bit and yet I did retain my technical virginity for another month.  And then I went to the ballgame.

There was a crazy baseball game at a local park between a rock band and some other group (I was one of the band’s followers).  There was a beer on every base, a case or two in the dugout (where I was hanging out) and of course lots of pot. To say I get messed up is an understatement.  The last thing I remember was asking the guy next to me if he’d make sure I got home (I was within walking distance and wasn’t sure I could make it by myself). The next thing I remember was waking up in a strange bed with that guy.   I looked under the covers and saw I was naked and figured that we’d had sex, which we had. To be honest I never really felt uncomfortable about the whole thing. He was sweet and cute and we both were fucked up.  And yet, technically I do not know if I gave consent, even in my drunkenness. I kissed him goodbye and headed home to get ready for school.

Now, I was best friends with these two girls, Cheryl and Katie.  Of the three of us, I was the wild girl; Katie was the prude; and Cheryl floated in between.  We all knew I’d be the one to “lose my virginity” (god I hate that phrase) and I had a chain ring, I called my virgin ring that I wore on my ring finger.  I told them that when “it” happened I’d move the ring to my middle finger (don’t ask why I did this, I do not remember). So, as I was getting ready for school I moved the ring to my middle finger.  When I got to school, Cheryl notice right away and eagerly asked for details which I couldn’t give. Katie didn’t say anything until later that day, between classes in the crowded hall, when she loudly proclaimed “Well there’s the girl who isn’t a virgin anymore”   Needless to say I was mortified and that was the beginning of the end of our friendship.

I didn’t consider what happened anything horrible.  In fact, it made it easier to explore my sexuality. I was able to finally have intercourse with my “beer can” guy.  That was fun. And with a wonderful hippie guy, sex in a VW bug in the front seat sitting up (complicated and fun) and my sexual journey began.  And yet, it was a #metoo moment. No matter what my reaction at the time.

My second #metoo moment.

Shortly after graduating in 1971,  I took off from Nampa, Idaho (where I had grown up) and headed to southern Washington where a boyfriend of mine had moved to.  That didn’t work out (he did way more drugs than even I was comfortable with) and we parted ways. I spent the summer exploring my sexuality, living in a commune and hitchhiking around Oregon.  By the end of the summer I was surprisingly homesick so I called my Dad and asked if he’d buy me a bus ticket home so I could back to Nampa. And equally surprising, he said yes.

My ticket was from Portland so that morning with my backpack, ticket and a few dollars I hitchhiked to the Portland bus station.  I got there way early and decided to go hang out at Washington Park and chill and hopefully find someone to get high with (I loved my pot and psychedelics).

I put my backpack in a locker and headed to the park.  It was a hot day and I was wearing my favorite summer outfit, cute little purple and white hot pants (hot pants were very popular in the early 70s).  Needless to say I got lots of attention and found some good pot and a met a couple sexy guys. And, I didn’t pay attention to the first clues that I was hanging with the wrong crowd.  One of the older guys looked me up and down and said “Mama, you could make some money looking like that.” I just laughed it off. I continued to flirt with this younger guy, named Jay Jay and we eventually went to his room in this old hotel where he lived.  We had great consensual sex and afterward a couple of his buddies came over to shoot up some heroin.

Now is when things get really dark.  In my youthful stupidity I wanted to shoot up too!  Luckily, they didn’t have enough smack for me so they offered instead to melt down some meth tabs and shoot me up with them.  I said sure and suddenly I was speeding my ass off.

His friends left and Jay Jay turned to me and said.  “I noticed how all the guys in the park were looking at you.  We could make some money.” I was dumbfounded and shook my head “no” and said maybe it was time to leave.  “You’re going to make me some money” and he grabbed me and threw me across threw room. The rest is a blur.  I tried to fight and he overpowered me. He’d also taken my money, ID and ticket. I begged and pleaded but no way was he going to let me go.  A bit later, his friend and his friend’s wife, Vicki, came over and Jay Jay informed her that she was taking me with her to walk the streets and that if I got away she would pay for it.  Then the four of us went downtown to a very sketchy part of Portland. I was too afraid to say anything and I just stood there looking miserable which is probably why none of the old men who approached us bothered to engage us.   Vicki kept telling me to smile and I kept telling her to leave me alone. After an hour or so, our pimps came and grabbed us and told us they had found us a couple clients, Job Corps boys,  and they escorted us back to the hotel.

Jay Jay took me into the room, stripped me of my clothes and said you’ll fuck him or else and that he would be right outside so not to try anything.  This kid, not much older than me came in and undressed and started fucking me. I cried through the whole ordeal, which didn’t faze the kid one bit. After he was done, he left and Jay Jay came in angry that he didn’t ask for seconds (like the kid’s friend did who was with Vicki).  Then he pulled me into bed and fell asleep.

I laid there for hours, not sure what I was going to do next, still speeding my ass off.  Just as the sun was rising I got out of bed and quietly began looking for my ticket and ID and locker key.  The upside of Jay Jay being a junkie was that he slept through everything. I only found my ID and locker key  and that was enough and I left (to this day I don’t know why I didn’t take the money I’d earned).

I got to the bus station and got my backpack.  I always kept a dime in the backpack just in case I needed to make a phone call (only a dime in 1971).  I called my stepmom’s cousin, Larry who lived in Portland and made up a story about being robbed and asked if he could come and get me.  While waiting for Larry I looked up and who should be at the station door scanning the room? Yup Jay Jay. I began crawling on my hands and knees so he wouldn’t see me.   I crawled under people’s legs, around the room, doing my best to not be seen.   It was like a scene from a bad movie. Finally I saw the restroom and decided to make a run for it. He saw me and ran after me. When I got the bathroom door I turned around and said “Leave me the fuck alone!” “Chill” he said.  “I just wanted to know if you’d like your ticket back.” “Yes” I said. “Well come with me and we’ll get it” he replied. I laughed and said “I was stupid yesterday and I’m not going to be stupid today.” and I went into the bathroom.  After washing my face and realizing it was packed enough that I should be okay I went back out to wait for Larry. I noticed Jay Jay talking to some hippie dude and keeping an eye on me. Eventually the dude came up to me and said that Jay Jay wanted to know if he could have Vicki bring me my ticket.  I looked up and saw Larry walking towards me and I told the guy to tell Jay Jay to “Fuck Off” and I grabbed Larry’s arm and walked out the door.

These two events along with the  rape a few years later were not the only things that happened to me over the years, just the most notable.  As a young hippie girl in the 70’s I put up with a lot (the “free love” concept was seldom free) and I became wiser and more capable of taking care of myself in the process.  And it still didn’t always protect me.   While I’m saddened that there is even as need for the #metoo movement and that we are still dealing with the crap that we’ve been dealing with for centuries; I’m glad that at least we are talking about it in a way that may bring some solutions.

Once I figure out how to move this whole blog I won’t be doing this,  Until then here’s the link

http://kinkyexpat.com/?p=116&preview=truehttp://kinkyexpat.com/?p=116&preview=true

http://kinkyexpat.com/2018/08/17/a-quick-update/