Mine's On The 45: How To Compose Your Love (For Yourself & Others)

Tom Sachs, Knoll Turntable
1999
duct tape, phone books, steel
26 x 49 x 27 inches

text by Summer Bowie

Masturbating is a lot like writing a song. I guess sex is in general, but you can’t compose a complete sexual event with another person if you don’t know how to build the structure on your own. 

You want to start out with a strong open. You don’t want to just jump into the chorus with all instruments fired up in full swing. You want to find something minimal and seductive to whet the palette—like the opening bassoon in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” It’s a singular, sumptuous gesture that drips of sex. Be sure to slowly mine that gesture for all it’s worth, check the reaction, and then slowly add each layer of stimulation in an intuitive sort of fashion—teasing in a hook from time to time and then easing back into the groove. Some would describe this as building a wall of sound, and those people tend to make great music, but you don’t want to make music with them.

Each verse is like a miniature orgasm that has its own beginning, middle, and end, only the end is not a real end, because it has to flow seamlessly into a nice chorus. Tempting as it may be in the moment, you don’t want to let it become a full orgasm unless you’re both capable of having/giving multiple, and of upping the ante with each coming verse. This can sometimes be a razor-thin edge, and finding that edge is always a good idea, but you should certainly beware of falling off. Everyone knows when things fell off the edge. That’s what you call a jingle. This can happen both alone or with company. Some jingles are better than others, some are even good, but a jingle is not a song.

The chorus is where you establish the overarching tone and sentiment of the event. It tells you why you even felt compelled to be sexual in the first place. The number of choruses and verses in each song varies, but three seems to be the average. The second or third verse often leads into the bridge. It’s like the hinge to any good scene. We’re mixing metaphors here because it really is all the same. Between two people this can mark a shift of power or control. With one person, it might just be a shift in rhythm, pace, breath. Maybe you’ve been rubbing your clit this whole time and decide to finger yourself a bit. Maybe you’ve been stroking your dick this whole time and decide to finger yourself a bit. Maybe you’ve been laying on your back and you decide to get on all fours. The bridge can lead into another verse, but it’s usually best to jump back into the chorus. This way you can check in with how that bridge changed the overall feel of the chorus. If it’s a good song, it will. 

Finally, you have the end. A great song will take all the building blocks that comprise the song and come full circle in its final verse. It will reach its crescendo like a rollercoaster that builds up slowly and with a suddenly quiet, little rhythm, pulsing and ticking its way up to the top. If it’s a bad or mediocre song, the chorus will just keep repeating itself and slowly fade out. If it’s a good song, that crescendo will suddenly free one from gravity for an extended moment in time and space, and then bring you safely and soundly back to Earth.

The best songs still get recorded on 45s. They’re the ones with an equally strong B side. You can think of that side as the pillow talk. This is why masturbating is never enough on its own. It also explains the phenomenon of the one-hit wonder. The one who comes and goes immediately afterward, never to be heard from again. Most everyone probably has one hit song in them, but you don’t want to invest in making another song with someone who didn’t know how to finish the job. If you ask me, there’s nothing worse than slowly fading out with a repeating chorus. And of course, no hit song is complete without a proper B side. Once you figure out how to properly compose a B side, no one can fault you for the occasional diddy. They even become enjoyable again.

Sweetness and Other Conflicting Attributes of A Domme

text by Audra Wist

I never thought I would think twice about being sweet, too sweet, nice, expressive. I’ve been thinking about sweetness the last few weeks and my complications with the term, the idea, and the enactment of a certain kind of feminine softness. “You’re sweet,” he says.

This issue first came to a head for me when I started out as a professional dominant - I thought to myself, oh, am I not bitchy enough for this? Should I start being mean to people just ‘cause? I realized how silly that thought was and saw my kind demeanor as an ally, not something to distance myself from. Certainly, men see me for cruel and extreme encounters, but these encounters rely heavily on fantasy and developing the fantasy relies on an origin of vulnerability and love, respect, and in a lot of ways, sweetness.

I remember a woman, an artist I looked up to at the time, met me and told me I was “too nice” to be a domme. That really irked me and I seriously questioned (again) my legitimacy as someone practicing domination. Can you be a sweet person and impeccably cruel at the same time? I thought, well, what are the characteristics of a good domme? I made a list: self-aware, intelligent, alpha, controlling, managerial, caring, thoughtful, stern, empathetic, passionate, etc. To be mean, bossy, tyrannical, perhaps more “negative” items on the list - I thought these things all came from a delicate spot, too. Never once was “ultra bitch” or “psycho cunt” mentioned. Sure, those are roles, but to practice domination it requires a wheelhouse of generally positive and sane attributes. I determined her read to be bogus and her perception of me limited. My sweetness actually feeds into all these descriptions and it is a place where I like to be - in contradiction. It is an asset to my sexuality to be a chameleon, not something I have to hide.

And really, my sweetness comes out in strange ways. Because I want you to be better for me and I care for your betterment, you must take 40 lashes. That’s an element of sweetness in my mind. I’m being generous to that person who needs it. I press my ass up against you when we’re in bed together and grab your hand, showing you how to feel me up that right way. You acknowledge my kindness with a delicate sigh. I will make you a flower arrangement for your birthday, slapping and spitting on you later in bed. I show my sensitivity in all kinds of ways and in varying degrees. It’s what makes a good lover.

Whitman famously exclaims in Leaves of Grass “I contain multitudes” and I subscribe to that fully. I have permission because I am a human being. Something I forget frequently, but remember in times of desperation or sadness at my divided self. Another famous busting passage is in James Joyce’s Ulysses where Molly Bloom exclaims:

“I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

I use this as a cornerstone to describe sexuality: distracted, zipping, direct, sweet, biting - it contains multitudes and that’s what makes it so accurate, all frayed at the edges and a bit urgent. We identify with the fluttering from one thing to another and feeling moments as they come. Sweetness or rage or bliss is never a permanent state. They live and they die but were true for the moment. Perhaps sweetness isn’t a trait inherent or needed in a D/s context, but being able to draw from sweetness in a moment of passionate boundary pushing dominance can amplify one’s read and dismantle their expectations in a pleasant and memorable way.

Sex In A Vacuum: When Good Sex Goes Bad

I somehow found myself in a polyamorous situation and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. In fact, after writing that sentence, I had to laugh, put my face in my hands—predictable. I am self-admittedly the least committed person, and I really do not like any sort of limitations placed on my sexual freedom, whatsoever, no questions. Since I know I am this way, I let my partners know straight up what they are in for: hot NSA one-off fucking. Heart not necessary. But then, some dude strolls along and it spins, I get weak in the knees, heart drops, legs quiver and I’m all systems go. So begins my first foray in polyamory.

Trey Songz “Cake” was making more and more sense as my secondary relationship bloomed and I began to have feelings for the antithesis of my slight and stoic primary partner: a blue-collar guy, busted up truck and all—tall and gentle, a real natural—who puts on D’Angelo without me requesting. The guy who has long gone hopeful exes call him up after years of being broken up, only to request he impregnate them. He’s just that kind of cool. He was great in bed, loved fucking me, worshipped my ass, and bonus: loved me fucking him. Jackpot. He had an uncanny ability to be both effortlessly dominant, and then turn into a slutty bottom in a matter of minutes.

Ah, yes, I was happy. Happily fucking away the month of November with a damn near stranger whom I had taken a very quick liking to, without a care in the world. Admittedly, this was indeed my first rodeo, having no experience with polyamory, but figured this was a the opportunity to give it a go. We kept an open line of communication while having our cake and I was convinced that this was bliss in its truest form, bent over and up against a wall, in the throes with a partner that does you right. But all good things must come to an end. I saw my rude awakening clearly, starkly, in the harsh daylight, in the absence of a good and regular shag.

"My sexual freedom had turned into burgeoning co-dependency and like a shark sniffing out blood in the water, my eyes went white and I could no longer see the world as I once had. I fiended for that good stuff and locked myself away gnawing at the fence of sexual satisfaction."

There’s a reason why most prolific writers and artists of the past are rumored to be celibate. Sex seems to get in the way of work (aside from those who fuck for a living), and for us recreational partakers in intercourse, an oftentimes rare and welcome distraction in large unconventional doses can sully the water and make for resentment and anguish. Where have I gone?

I found myself in a similar situation, fucking myself away it seemed, and suddenly realizing that I was blind. My sexual freedom had turned into burgeoning co-dependency and like a shark sniffing out blood in the water, my eyes went white and I could no longer see the world as I once had. I fiended for that good stuff and locked myself away gnawing at the fence of sexual satisfaction. I started getting attached, paranoid, neurotic. This was a real problem for me. I am interested in sex, I write about sex, I think about sex, I like sex very much. I don’t even have to question it—I’m just there, fucking. And therein lied the problem: reckless, automatic over-investment. By diving head first into something that was supposed to be on particular terms, did I lose the ability to create the framework in the first place?

In an interview, Foucault references The History of Sexuality saying he “very nearly died of boredom writing those books.” Is sex ultimately a bore, something we do to pass the time while we roam and graze upon the earth? I’m curious. Is it only interesting when some element of luck or chance is involved? What is the cost of spontaneity? Even more interesting, do I need to be having sex in order to write about sex?

When the eyes glaze over repeatedly, consistently, continuously, you lose yourself, your mind, your thoughts, the present moment and that person you’re with. I am a proponent of fucking and sexual fantasy to feel good, to reduce stress, to lighten the load, to celebrate bodies—but sex in a vacuum, phony saccharine, unconscious of its specialness breeds possessiveness and ill feelings. We sometimes cling to false ideas about people because it’s safe - it feels good to be together, but really is that togetherness rooted in anything besides fear and carelessness? Lust can negate autonomy. Maggie Nelson says it best when speaking to the highs and lows of Trocchi’s Cain’s Book in The Art of Cruelty: “snapping us back to that nasty animal need—to score, to fuck, to flee, to forget—which is always standing by to nullify mind and heart.” The beast bites back eventually.

Good dick imprisons me this way. I can only be held captive by my own accord for so long until I recoil, aghast at the time spent in a deep double-penetrative delirium. Whoosh! So quick to be enveloped by the fantasy that the pornographic provides me, my eyes rolling back in my head quivering into the next cum, and I forget the thinking part - the honesty part! - that is so dear. Only upon reflection now, out of the opium haze, do I see my own dimly lit descent into temporary loveliness. My advice? Read a book before you endeavor to add another dick into your life.

Audra Wist is an artist, writer, social commentator and provocateur - she is also an avid collector of erotica and erotic ephemera. She is also a professional dominatrix based in Los Angeles specializing in all sorts of punishment and humiliation. As Autre's sex editor at-large she will be covering all sorts of naughty content in the realm of sex and sexuality – from masturbatorial musings to photographic editorials. Follow Autre on instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Transient Underbellies or Learning to Let Go

text by Sarah Louise

For years I was too self-conscious to let a man go down on me.  Perhaps it was about control. In between my legs he was gone. I couldn’t kiss, touch or guide any part of him. I couldn’t see or smell what was happening. I knew I was supposed to lay back and close my eyes but instead I imagined swirling, gym-class odors repulsing him. Perhaps it was that I was sleeping with 20 year-olds with directionless tongues. It wasn’t until I was sweaty in a strange bed that I learned to let go.

Two summers ago I went to Havana semi-legally, before Obama and Castro learned to share their toys. In Cuba romanticism and pragmatism collide in a quaint but sad way. There are more grey Toyotas from the 90’s than baby-blue T-birds now. The food is bland, mealtimes become like listening to a James Taylor CD on loop. There are lazy fans and tropical fruits and cigar smoke, that’s the communism in the air.  But the elevators and hospital equipment pre-date the embargo and you question the pervasive happiness. Still it was sticky and romantic in a mosquito-bitten way.

I stayed at the nicest hotel in Havana. I forget the name. As a teenager I watched the ill-advised remake of Dirty Dancing, Dirty Dancing Havana Nights. This implanted a certain sultry and tropical image of Cuba. Since then I imagined a trip to Cuba meant beachside rendezvous with a Diego Luna type and soft groping in warm seawater. Maybe we’d go salsa dancing at night.

Towards the end of my trip I was by the pool when a tall, curly-haired man approached. His suit was wrinkled and his glasses smudged. He’d noticed my Clyde’s Chemists bag, a shop in New York City where they give you a bag if you buy over $50 worth of cosmetics. He was a discombobulated, 30-something, Jewish filmmaker from New York there on assignment. After a candle-lit dinner the second night we knew, though we took our time getting there. We smoked cigarette after cigarette and drank scotch mixed with a cloyingly sweet local soda. We walked to the beach and he kissed me. I wasn’t even attracted to him until then but suddenly I didn’t want anything else.

Ever since 8th grade when Sam Cash fingered me backstage and everyone called me a slut I feign modesty. I told him I didn’t want to have sex that night. His answer, like our beach, was perfect. He asked if I’d roll around and kiss him underneath the mosquito net in his room. If ever a man knew what to say it was that. I said yes.

He kissed my neck and breasts. I’ve always been enamored with large, wooden fans and the one overhead was perfect, splashing us with nipple-hardening wisps from time to time. He kissed the depression between my stomach and hips. He asked if he could go down on me. I told him I didn’t like that that it made me self-conscious. He persisted. Maybe it was the Scotch or the fan or his touch but I said yes.

It was slow at first, circular, like a rabbit chasing a fox on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs. I watched the fan. He told me I tasted amazing. I liked that. My fears dissolved, so did his tongue. It felt warm, the way the metal underbelly of a truck heats up on a highway in Nevada. He kissed my thighs and slipped a finger inside me. I reached for his shoulders not because I wanted him inside me, not yet. This was sensuality with no endpoint. I needed to kiss him. His lips were glazed and slippery. I’d never tasted myself. It was sweet and I let go. Malcolm Gladwell calls vibrant focus ‘flow.’ I propose those moments of focused, free lovemaking be called ‘overflow’. At 4am we fell asleep in a tangle of satisfaction. He left the next day and I went to Santiago.

We met up back in New York City. He bought me dinner in Harlem and went down on me in Brooklyn. We went away one weekend while it was still warm. I came looking up at a fan in a wood-paneled room on Block Island. But it wasn’t Cuba. It wasn’t the foam waves leave behind after crashing it was just an imprint in the sand. Slowly the tide filled it in. I stopped calling or perhaps he did. 

Now, when a man asks if he can go down on me I say yes. I invite it. It’s not always good or arousing but I know what it can be, and that’s enough. It took being somewhere else with someone who knew nothing about me to let go. Or perhaps it was just the Mojitos and bug-spray. Either way I’m free now, able to surrender to the feeling of butter melting between your legs.