Being Good But Behaving Badly

Despite the onslaught of winter here in Vancouver, I took a nice long bike ride by the river yesterday, capitalizing on the selfdom-seen sunshine while I could. On my way back through the industrial lands along the river, a large delivery truck passed me by. Its paintjob dominated by dirt, I saw a message scrawled into the caked-on dirt on the back door:

“Wish my girl was this dirty.”

I had a great laugh as I continued peddling my way home, but it left me thinking about the dualities that every lover should have, but that many don’t. In writing about something similar not too long ago, I said, “When it comes to the bedroom, I’m able to balance being sensual, doting, and romantic with being pretty wicked and dominant when I feel like it. Sex is supposed to embrace all aspects of our personalities, and it’s the one time in our lives when we really have the chance be the person from our fantasies.”

If I can get personal for a moment, I suspect I can break down the evolution of a lover as it should happen for most people, and did happen for me.

As a kid, I was raised Catholic. My parents felt the religion was important, but as with anything in my life, when I believe something, I believe it with a zealous passion. By the time I was seven or eight, I was taking the priest’s sermon and teaching it to the athiest kids in the neighbourhood. At about nine years old, I was seriously thinking I should be a nun when I grew up. Seriously.

Like I said, passionate. In my mid-teens, a few things happened that made me realize that I might believe in the principles of the church, but that the folks who ran it were pissing me off. It didn’t take me long to walk away from it, and within a couple years I began learning about other faiths and realized we’re all in this together. I lost my dogma, and just kept the ethics.

As a result, though, I grew up with a lot of really religious takes on sex. For me, it was a sin. I never had sex until I was 18, and I felt wrong about it for the first two years. It wasn’t fulfilling, not really, despite my enjoying it, because I felt like I was going to be judged by a higher power or something. Around 20, I met a guy who introduced me to bondage, and I lost a few hang-ups then, but I really never got past myself until my mid-20s.

In my late 20s, I took an extended break from sex while I Dealt With Shit, but slowly began to realize I’d been cheating myself and depriving myself. I realized that I’m by nature a very mischevious person, and a person who needs that intimacy in order to feel whole. Why did that never translate to the bedroom, I wondered? Why was I so repressed and such a good-girl lover when I knew I could sometimes be oh-so-very-bad? I decided to force myself to try out the role of the “bad girl” and see what it did for me.

What it did, was get me off. What it also did, was get my lover sizzling hot. That look in his eyes told me he wanted to devour me whole, then and there. I’d never seen such unbridled passion, though I’d always had a fulfilling sex life. What next, though, I wondered? Would he treat me different? Were we going to have a weird situation after this? I realized that depended on me. Would I act normal when it was all said and done, return to the fun, irreverent Steff I knew myself to be? I had to, I decided. I had to see if I could be both.

I did, and I was. I realized then that the lover I was behind closed doors wasn’t the only person I was at heart. I was both. I was, as they say, every woman. Every woman I wanted to be, I could be. I could be bad in order to be good to my lover, and not have that impact who I was on an ethical level.

This is a dilemma I think a lot of people need to come to terms with -- that playing games and being bad in the bedroom doesn’t necessarily reflect who you really are. Living out your fantasy version of you is something that can co-exist with your reality. The trouble is simply getting past whatever moral code it is that we’ve had imprinted on us by a society that doesn’t really get the fact that duplicity isn’t always a bad thing.

Have you managed to get past your hang-ups? How did you do it? If you haven’t, are you trying to? Let’s hear it, folks.

Kissing: Oh, So Telling

Ah, the kiss.

We all remember those kisses that have left our knees weak, our hearts pounding, and us wanting more, more, and more. There’s something about a well-delivered kiss that can melt the hardest heart. There’s no sexual act that leaves us wanting more, wishing for more, than the kiss.

Me, I rate a good kisser on a curve, no matter what else he offers. I just can’t get over a great kiss. Out of all the things I do well, I think being a great kisser is one of the best things I offer in a relationship. There’s nothing more fun than laying a deep, passionate kiss on a man on a couch and getting into a heavy makeout session.

For all the fuss we make about sex -- the oral, the penetrative, the games -- if the kiss isn’t there, it’s hard to find real satisfaction in the rest of it. In fact, some would say the best way to tell how someone feels about you isn't in the bed, it's just in the kiss. There's even a song that says exactly that. Thanks for the wisdom, Cher.

Does he love me? I want to know
How can I tell, if he loves me so?
Is it in his eyes?
Oh no, you’ll be deceived
Is it in his signs?
Oh no, he’ll make believe
If you want to know if he loves you so
It’s in his kiss
That’s where it is

After all, most sex trade workers will tell you the one thing they won’t do, is kiss a client on the lips. There’s something about eyes closed, tongue-probing that smacks of intimacy like no other sex act does.

The probing, the tasting, the tenderness, it's all so very enticing.

I remember my first kiss, a boy named Josh who was half-German, half-Japanese, who had the fullest, sweetest lips I could've imagined. Oh, this kissing thing, I thought... suddenly, all this fuss about boys made more sense than I ever dreamed.

But I remember the first kiss that absolutely melted me. I was 17. It was a story-book date with a guy who was a poet. We would eventually spend seven years in and out of love, but the first time we enjoyed each other’s company was spent outdoors just like it was for any teenager. We headed to Vancouver’s famed Little Mountain and sat on a small garden bridge, talking the night away. Finally, he decided it was time to lay one on me, and we began to kiss. About a minute or two into it, a transformer in the park blew, and every light exploded into darkness. The full moon bathing the sloping master gardens was the only illumination offered in the night, and I can still, a decade and a half later, remember the shivers that ran up my spine as our tongues darted against each other and we leaned back against the bridge post.

Hell, I have shivers now just thinking about it.

When it comes to being single, I may miss the sex, but I mostly miss the kissing and touching that comes from straight-up intimacy. There’s more to be found in a warm body and a moist, warm kiss than there is in all the orgasms to follow.

Kissing comes down to a few things -- how your mouths fit together, how you taste to each other, quality of breath, moisture, technique. Unfortunately, some people ain’t got the skill. Some people don’t have the hygeine. And some people just don’t have the passion.

Lip shape does play a pretty big factor in how a kiss comes off. If you’ve got thin or flat lips, it does make for a little less oomph, but there are things you can do to compensate.

Coming up next time, kissing techniques to leave ‘em wanting. In the meantime, why don't you guys share your favourite kiss memories with the rest of us? What stands out?