I am really enjoying the commentary in this thread. I don't agree with all of it but it has certainly given me a chance to re-examine my own perspective. This is just how i see it- but to me a cock isn't a toy. I realize not everyone is going to agree with that and think i am rilly lala. And while it's true I can't get into a butch's head about how he thinks & uses his body and/or extensions what it means to me is tied very securely to the psyhic sync I have with him and some kind of deep primal need I've yet to decipher. So when it comes to what he uses as his cock it's not considered by me a toy in any way..although I totally respect everyone does not see it like that. I don't use gloves because I've never fluid bonded with many. For me the idea is a total turn off on many levels. I understand this probably makes me look irresponsible to those here, you're probably right. If you are dating & having sex with someone you haven't known for a long while you can't be too careful when I was younger sex wasn't this complicated.

Warning: T.M.I.!
 

This may not be PC but this is how it went for me and my husbutch:

For BB and me at the beginning, BB was like, "So, how do you think the sex is?" and I was like, "Great, but your dick's too small." BB was like, "But it's MY cock." Some degree of processing ensues, and then flash to:

We go to a sex toy store together, and I pick out a porn star type cock. We go home and BB puts it on and says with a smile, "So how do you like my new cock?"

I look it at from various angles and say (with my traditional tendency to be neurotic), "Actually I think this one may be too big."

BB says, "Well, now that's your problem, because I like it." Wowza! Hot! The new cock stays and we both still love it after eight years! The best butches know when to give in and when to stay strong!

As far as new toys in reference to hygiene reasons, I have only been with three partners who used toys. Two of the partners had brand new toys, just by chance, I was not involved.. another partner was very against fluids, so there was safe sex involved and it only happened a handful of times so we were not together long enough to even have that conversation. It was a part of him, as opposed to being a "toy", so that would of been a big factor.

I talked this over with the wife, and she said she would get new toys as a show of respect. I never had to think about it before, so I can not say for 100% what my view on it would be. I think ideally I would want new toys for a hygiene/old memories reason, but would be realistic about it and realize sometimes that is just not possible - and go from there.

Someone mentioned buying a new bed.. The wife actually bought us a new bed frame once we got serious [as in coupled for two years, together every weekend, now moving in together], we got new bedding somewhere in that time frame [it was faded, change of color scheme was desired], and we just got a new mattress [old mattress be old and worn out!]

She says she got the new frame because she wanted to make new memories.. The frame had prior owners and she wanted it to be OURS.

:blush:

So, we say sex toys in our case are purchased for memories/pleasure reasons as opposed to health reasons, and have been since day one. We are, what's the term, fluid bonded? Condoms are the best thing next to microwave popcorn, so those are always used too! Don't realize how important those are until you roll over in a big wet puddle on the bed from over-application of lube.. and honestly [TMI ALERT] I don't know about y'all but I HATE lube trickling down my ass.. It takes like 100 paper towels to get it all off!

I get that cleanliness and safety are indices of self-respect and respecting others.

I don't get the rest of it. What does owning a new anything or a "just ours" anything have to do with respect? And, if one doesn't do that, is one disrespecting oneself and others?

It sounds puritanical to me. If something is clean, it is clean. But people are attaching meaning to the fact that an item has been used by or touched another person. OK. People do that sort of thing. But that has nothing to do with "respect" by any definition. It is not respect or disrespect to choose any of the options discussed in this thread. It is personal preference.

To me this kind of comment seems to invoke some standard of purity that we have inherited from a patriarchal ideology. Why must the stuff be new? Is the idea that fucking is somehow polluting and that the things we fuck with have been contaminated and could pollute others?

Really, if there is no health risk to the new partner, how is buying new a sign of respect? It might be a sign that you are willing to spend money on her, which could mean that you value her. I wouldn't call that respect, but it does indicate regard. But you could buy anything to show that, and it's not anything you are buying.

I have not had a serious discussion w my lover to be but i must admit i live life on the edge...at least in my mind i have never made love to someone I didn't love.

Quite frankly I am amazed at how much conversation this topic gets here especially since it was hashed and rehashed in the butch cock thread.

I am not getting the whole purity thing here and it has undertones of "slut" shaming. If I am going to have sex with a woman who has had someone else's cock inside of her how does that impact me? What if they did not use protection? What if they had children? What if the guy fucked around on her with multiple partners?

Answer: So what. This is life. Practice safe sex. The end.

While I am trying hard to absorb the info here, I see the term "toy" and the term "cock" and do relate with the understanding that some here strap on a cock and some strap on a toy.

For those using their own cocks, buy some condoms. Be a clean freak. Not just with your cock/sex toys but with everything. Nails, oral hygiene, and so on. Clean is clean. Learning how to sanitize and keep things as clean as possible is going to have to happen after the first time you use any object or prosthetic device.

Did you know that every pronoun you used for a butch is clearly without a doubt a male pronoun?......HE......I hope you do not believe butch=he.

I'm curious what the turn off is about gloves? I used them for anal sex long before HIV came into existence..... It was easy just to add vaginal penetration with gloves. What I highlighted in red is confusing to me. Can you explain it?

I think this is semantics to a point...

How does someone define what is respect? *humming Aretha now

To say that for me it's a matter of respect is my personal definition. I don't throw it on anyone else unless we are swapping fluids - then it becomes personal.

If others do not define it as imperative/a matter of respect, then it's not. If others define respect differently and set their own parameters for what encompasses safe sex, then that's okay to me, at least.

I started this thread because I was curious what others do, how they feel, and perceive this concept. It has been interesting to see what people have posted.

*P.S. No, it's not just you ....

I am new and did not realize another thread had already addressed this topic. I do think it being in both forums is a good idea, though (both femme and butch). I feel more comfortable speaking my mind in the femme forums, perhaps because I am new. I may not be the only femme who feels that way.

Now about that banana ice cream :balloon:

I think this is a really interesting and valid point Martina.

I was recently at a meeting with some of the heads of the DOH here and other people in key positions and I was really really surprised by how not liberal about sex they were. The shock was because considering what we do for a living, we've heard it all and then some........One colleague expressed shock at someone hosting a sex party and another epidemiologist couldn't get over the concept of someone being bisexual AND poly. "Why can't they just be normal" was actually said at one point. I was surprised that sex work wasn't talked about openly and when it was there was a whole cloud of shame and stigma around it. Your politics may not be the same as mine, but shame and sex are absolutely about patriarchy, religious fundamentalism, myths and stigma.

I fully realize I'm in the minority and some of my liberalness about sex is because I grew up in a highly conservative environment and part of how I acted out against it was by being sexually and politically liberal as hell. I get that I see sex and many other things humans do through a lens that I purposefully smashed as much shame and judgement out of as I can.

So here lies the problem as I see it in our community of queers who dig the butch/femme label, identity, etc. Sex in most all communities has an element of shame involved in it, some more so than others but it's not as much of an individual opinion as it is a insidious social one. In my opinion when the queer community places "respect" on a toy or cock being new we add to the problem not take away from it and here's why in my opinion.

If I go back and read this whole thread I see a dividing line come pretty clear. Those who think sex is sex and doing it safely is what's paramount and those who think respect, class, love, etc is tied to the newness of object used to reach orgasm and the infrequency of one night stands being important to them.

The unsaid remark I feel is that those of us who are more liberal are slutty. Slutty because we don't place relative importance on buying a new cock or toy for a new partner. Slutty that we are less loving, respectful, classy and slutty because one night stands or sex for the sake of sex doesn't cause us moral or emotional dilemma. That we love less deeply because we have had more than a select few lovers/partners.

So in closing this note that is sure to be irritating to some what I will say is....examine the value judgements you make around sex. (I'm including myself, I need to examine my own since I got a little judgy-mcjudgerton by people expressing more conservative and emotion based opinions than I have.)

Same sex marriage is illegal based on arguments about how we have s.e.x and who we have sex with and to add additional shame around sex to me adds legitimacy to the argument that what we do in our beds is somehow not normal when it is.

Sex is normal and fun and messy and sometimes safe and sometimes unsafe, but either way you slice it sex, queer sex, het sex, kinky sex it's all sex and sex is a normal human thingy! (Yay for not science words that get the point across!)

I'm fairly certain the shaming attitude is less what people are thinking or writing openly and on purpose and more something that has evolved and come to light as a result of this thread which is both beautiful and important.

Personally I shall endeavor to spend more time having sex this week than I do talking about it which means I had better stop writing! :eek:

I think most subjects are worth discussing more than once!

I agree that having this thread in the femme zone makes me more likely to participate. As a personal rule I am less likely to be as opinionated in "zones" that aren't part of my definition of myself. My opinion about butch cock in a butch thread usually stops at my imagination and doesn't flow to my keyboard.

I'll add coconut to your banana ice cream and see you some chocolate chips.

These are my thoughts before slumber tonight:

Our sexuality is an extension of the very core of our being. It is intertwined with our beliefs/hopes/dreams/self-identities/fears/the list goes on and on. My 'respect' definition is my own. It is based in patriarchal puritanical ideologies. I have no problem with that. As such, my sexual practices/lifestyle also reflect this. By owning this as me, it necessarily excludes other lifestyles. I can't be both puritanical and sexually liberal at the same time. That doesn't mean shaming of someone who lives differently than I do. I may not truly understand it. I may not appreciate it. I may not know how to process it. But, it doesn't mean a judgment per se. What someone thinks is on them.

I think this is the pearl of this thread, one I did not see when it started. You get to see how others feel about themselves, how they perceive others, and where their own definitions lie. To me, this is how you learn to grow as a person, expand your mind/heart and thus character.

:wine:

Disclaimer: I ask this in a most respectful fashion and in no way am I attacking you. I'm by nature a very curious person (ask anyone on BFP who knows me IRL) and articulate, respectful discourse with people who don't share my points of view, politics, etc. is incredibly interesting and valuable to me. Additionally I use the term "queer(s)" in it's academic meaning: to include the whole gender/LGBT spectrum.

Question: How do you reconcile being wherever you place yourself on the queer spectrum and being OK with/embracing of patriarchal and puritanical ideologies that have been and continue to be responsible for the subjugation, stratification and repression of minorities, very specifically targeting women and queers.

(I'm assuming because this is a butch/femme site that you do place yourself on the LGBT spectrum and don't identify as str8.)

:glasses: <---nerdy pink is nerdy :)

Pink,

I loved what you wrote in your earlier post. I didn't take it offensively. I took it as I am in that category and that is the basis for my self-definitions. Being okay with it means I don't war with it, struggle with it (anymore, anyway).

No, I am not straight; lesbian femme - came out at 26, but I've only had 4 female sexual partners in that time.

Question: How do you reconcile being wherever you place yourself on the queer spectrum and being OK with/embracing of patriarchal and puritanical ideologies that have been and continue to be responsible for the subjugation, stratification and repression of minorities, very specifically targeting women and queers.


I have many issues with patriarchal systems. But, I still believe in them. I know that many, if not most, Christians do not act as Christ would, they are not Christ-like. That is very saddening to me, but it's true, in my experience. I look at it that the male persona (mostly bio male religious fundamentalists) have made the systems the way they are. And they are based on fear, mostly, I think, then followed by a sense of entitlement. I see the diamond in all the coal, and there is a lot of coal to brush aside to find the gem. I'm really pooped, but I wanted to respond before I went to bed. I will add more tomorrow. Thank you for responding.

As for toys I prefer to replace them. Most the time people don't cover their toys for play. If it is something that is hers alone and I might tease her with it I don't think it has to be replaced but if she has something that has been used on people other than myself and her it needs to go.


As for my cock, it is my cock. A bio guy can't replace his so there is no real reason why I should replace mine. I don't expect my partners to buy a new vagina if they have slept with someone else. I use condoms and have sex responsibly. If this makes anyone uncomfortable then they have the right not to sleep with me. While I understand some people might say that being able to choose your size is a good thing (and I agree) however, it should be by choice not just because your partner wants it a certain way. It should mesh well with your body and make you feel comfortable and happy.

Thank you for responding and not taking offense by my curiosity. I should be asleep but I'm not and this whole thread has me writing a blog post which I'll regret when I have to be up in 3 hours.

I still not sure I understand your point, but we might be talking at cross points given that it's so late. I understand you are Christian and that for many/most that is a more conservative value system regarding sex etc, but I think one can be a Christian and still not subscribe to the patriarchy/puritanical rhetoric of minority oppression. I have many many Catholic friends who are allies and social justice workers, and I'm fairly certain that they would rail against their faith as a subscription to the patriarchy.

I have a professor who was a Methodist preacher for a huge congregation in Arizona. She jokes that all the gays came to her church. I'm going to have to ask her what she thinks about the intersection of religion and subscribing to the patriarchy. She's really progressive, was a sex therapist and teaches women's studies so it's not like I have the most conservative sources to ask.

Thanks for fab discourse. It will certainly lead to some incredible conversations with friends.

:blueheels:

ok my 2 cents is......

Personally when in a new relationship I prefer to go and buy new toys. I like going shopping with my partner to buy them . I think it makes it that more personal and special. Plus I get to pick the type I like (some femmes like length and some of us like girth)

Safety first! Whatever means you need to achieve, do so.

I can understand being frustrated when varying opinions don't mesh well in conversations and it seems as if your opinon is not being heard but if this comment was addressed to me in a conversation, I would be pissed. It's offensive, not only to whom it was addressed to but the rest of us in the conversation too.

By posting online, we all open ourselves up to others who may counteract our opinions or have questions about why we feel as wel do. The act of posting consents to this.