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gender

The Night is Still Young

by treenaorchard November 18, 2021

Sixty minutes before my date is set to arrive and I begin doing crunches on the pink area rug in my office. Jhona brings his ball upstairs and plunks it down a few feet away from me. He stares with huge eyes in the dark hallway. I’m feeling calm and a little uncertain as I prepare for the night ahead. I’m listening to music the new man has recommended, Colter Wall.

I love the dark country jangle and boot stomping sounds that float out of my phone. The singer tells of a Devil who wears a suit and tie and how he saw him on the highway last July. I think of the time my mom told me that she saw the Devil. Hers also wore a suit, grey in color, and he hissed at her from a windowsill. It was when she was a lot younger and given what she’s been through, I believe her.

There’s so much out there.

As the soulful music twangs away, my fingers trace the contours of my left foot. I throw Jhona’s ball over the banister and hear him scramble on the hardwood floors. The furnace hums on and softly fills the air with warmth. I always forget about my feet. The skin glistens when I apply the body balm, greedily absorbing the oil. This feels like an act of kindness.

The night feels right, it’s slow and safe.

It’s early November and pitch-black by 5pm. Whatever time it is, it always feels later. I’m in this small room wondering what will happen. I do a few more crunches and feel my shaved body bits rub up against the unshaved, naturally soft parts. I wonder what it’s like for these two parts of me to meet. Do they already know each other?

Given the teeth-clenching, heart-deflating frustrations I’ve encountered over the past few months, I’ve learned to not get too excited about a date. Sometimes this makes me sad, and I wonder if good love or the kind of things I want from a man will ever come to me. I remain curious though. Will he smile wide at me from across the table and hang on my everything? Maybe he won’t be enthralled.

Will I rush home after dinner to let him touch me? Will he discover the stuffed animal lodged between my pillows? Sometimes I take it out before a date so that if the sheets do get pulled back and my white buffalo stuffie is discovered, they won’t think I’m weird for sleeping with a toy. I leave the faux animal tucked into its spot, like a secret for me to ponder.

Colter sings:

Well, who will bring back my Johnny Boy’s bones
To lay ‘neath the trees of his Tennessee home
A box, a box made of sturdy white oak
With his arms folded up and his blue eyes all closed

The South is so mournful, but we never really bury it.

It keeps getting resurrected through song, food, politics, ghosts, and tourism. I imagine the singer, a young Prairie man of just 26 years, laying down this track in a Nashville studio. A young man in a cowboy hat, with pocketfulls of pain that line each growly note. I add one of the new songs to my PLAY playlist.

November 18, 2021 0 comment

Day in the Life

Is this still available? My adventures on Facebook Marketplace.

by treenaorchard April 5, 2021

PLANTS
2 snake plants, one with pot
3 blooming cacti
1 large cactus and basket

PICTURES/FRAMES
2 picture frames
2 flower-bird pictures
2 huge women and flower paintings

PILLOWS & DRAPES
3 ‘boho’ pillows
2 blue pillows
4 panels of damask drapes

FURNITURE
1 pink office chair
1 “Renaissance” chair
1 green office chair

DECORATIVE ITEMS
1 macrame wall hanging, custom
1 wishbone decorative item
1 candle holder

This is an itemized list of the things I have purchased on Facebook Marketplace over the last few months. I am a late comer to this digital smorgasbord of things old and new, hilarious and cool, and just plain weird. When a cousin of mine said “it’s so addicting” after a post showing off my latest purchases, I thought she was being a bit dramatic, but then I too was pulled into the marketplace abyss.

When sourcing items for my home during lockdown, I was checking the site 15-20 times a day. A bit much? Yes, but keep in mind that items come and go with impressive speed and in the absence of bricks-and-mortar shopping opportunities, it’s an excellent option.

I have come to learn a lot about this digital space, which is not unlike a dating site or app. How? Profile pictures are provided, as are alluring blurbs to garner the attention of the viewer. Most dating apps don’t advertise the sale price of a date or the purveyor of the profile, but they are both competitive, fast-moving spaces. Digital dating is a market, a meat market as some people used to say, a gross term that conjures up the buying and selling of animals. Many of us are vegetarians, but we still partake in the advertising of our wares and selecting those of others on these sites, correct? Food for thought.

The staggering array of items kills me, and I’m often left wondering who made the decision to produce some of the strange things listed. For instance, was there a debate around the boardroom table in Etobicoke, Ontario, headquarters of the famed Canadian leisurewear brand Northern Reflections that is making a comeback, about the production of adult- sized Care Bear t-shirts?

The tiny beaded bag featured on the picture associated with this blog also astounds me in ways that are perhaps a little mean but also rooted in wonder. Someone decided to make this wee thing and sell it, using an HB pencil with festive winter designs for scale. Who purchased it? I’m kind of dying to know.

And what of the Mikhail Baryshnikov shadow box, with its three items? A small headshot, a reproduced performance ticket, and a mid-air leaping image are carefully arranged for a dramatic, intimate effect. Was it home crafted or made in Taiwan, the tiny island nation colonized by the Dutch, Japanese, and now China that has long produced consumer goods?

I wonder who originally received this gift and whether it made the recipient pirouette down the hallway instead of walk. Was the shadow box placed on a desk or fastened to a wall?

Curious about the origins of shadow boxes, I discovered that they were display cases presented to members of the military upon retirement to house honorable badges, pins, flags, and other rewards for their service. Veterans would be given a shadow box to commemorate their final rank and sacrifice, a totem to take home with them to be showcased and protected. This practice dates to pre-modern sailing culture when the belongings and symbolic items in the boxes were used to protect retiring sailors.

It was considered bad luck if the shadows of these men hit the ground before they did and by carrying their belongings, a metaphorical shadow of themselves, enclosed within the box they could ensure they touched land before their shadows. Another source indicates that the boxes were returned to the men after they touched land in ritualized ceremony. I daresay that few of us who’ve poked fun at these crafty décor items know anything about their fascinating history.

This reminds us of the life that each of the items listed on Marketplace have prior to their appearance on Facebook. We love our material possessions and often imbue them with profound meaning, which can poke through the surface when it comes time to shed or sell them. So, why do people sell these things? The reasons span the commercial and personal gamut, and include:

1. Decorative items that are “like new” but no longer go with the owner’s design plans
2. Moving, themselves or family members (most often ageing parents)
3. Entrepreneurial craftspeople who are selling their homemade items
4. Entrepreneurial low-level business folks who want to connect FB folks to their Instagram accounts, which feature various second hand boho or antique-oriented ware
5. Flipping the item because they don’t like it anymore or it’s too big for their space
6. The item(s) is of no value to the owner and they give it away
7. Plant propagators who divide and conquer on the regular
8. The item is a mystery to the person who owns it and they want to get rid of it (“I don’t know what it is” often accompanied by a reduced asking price)
9. Car traders are another staple
10. People who have moved through different body sizes and no longer fit the item

What wild, interesting items have you come across or purchased on FB Marketplace?

What would you include in your shadow box?

April 5, 2021 1 comment

Day in the Life

Quo·tid·i·an Musings

by treenaorchard December 24, 2020

Welcome to the no bra holiday club during covid-19 — Welcome to the no bra holiday club

Quotidian is an adjective that means

of or occurring every day; daily.
“the car sped noisily off through the quotidian traffic”
ordinary or everyday, especially when mundane.
“his story is an achingly human one, mired in quotidian details”

With pearls around my neck and not a bra in sight, I sit on my couch enjoying the first official day of holidays. How glorious to not live according to innumerable tasks but by the amber path of the sun, which snakes quickly across winter’s grey sky. With the cats upstairs and the groceries bought this morning long since put away, what to do? It’s a dilemma with rounded edges that feels nice to entertain. Work always seeps in, part gift and part albatross for those of us who live to think and love to write. I wouldn’t know 9-to-5 if it was staring me in the face. I love working, not all the tasks of course, but many of them bring joys of all kind: accomplishment, support, new ideas, collaboration, moving agendas forward, opportunities to expand myself.

Work is also one of the most powerful places to put ourselves, socially and spatially. It represents growth in stature, reputation, and financial standing and it quite literally governs where we situate our bodies on a daily basis.

This is true even in our increasingly mobile occupational settings, where Zoom, emails, and texts dominate professional interactions. Work is also becoming embedded in my body in new ways since Covid and home ownership, two new developments that have seen me type more than ever and engage in different kinds of physical work. I doth love my hedge clippers too much – UGH. But, it’s so satisfying to clip – clip tree branches and when they bob up, with buoyant grace, after each snip it’s like they’re saying “thank you.”

Sadly, my intense arbor-ing is what created the conditions for tendonitis to sneak into my life. I had to give it up before I could realize all of my clip-clip dreams and get the endless supply of mammoth yard waste bags to the curb. They were too heavy :(. This means that the debris of last fall sits in many tall bags in my basement, next to suitcases, the furnace, an old pool table, and boxes of non-essential personal items I refuse to let go of. When the soft balls of knotted tissue appeared just below both elbows I freaked out and tried to restructure my work to reduce my typing, which is a lot harder than it sounds. I then went to physio, where I learned that my forearms aren’t the ‘problem’. My wrists need to be strengthened and I do this, not as often as directed mind you, a few times a day with a red resistance band.

The cats love when I do these exercises, especially my new kitten Jhona, who attacks the band with feigned ferocity as I quietly do my 3 sets of 10 exercises. For some reason I’ve opted to do these stretches in the smallest of my three bedrooms, the one at the top of the stairs with no door and the most slanted of all the ceilings. It’s cozy with many books, plants, and a large window that looks onto my backyard and those of my neighbours on all sides.

From the Victorian settee, Elliott watches every wrist bend and sometimes gets in Jhona’s way as he battles for supremacy with the rubber band. It’s weird but these bands always remind me of tripe for some reason, maybe because they’re both long, flat surfaces.

Returning to cats, I had to block an errant member of the Cat Club I founded on Facebook. Ours is a cheery place for cute pictures and GIFs, no horrid tales of torture or adoption plugs. I approve everyone who asks to join and have only had two problem members over the years. Both older cat ladies, the malcontents committed the same violation of posting sad pictures and desperate adoption stories. The first one acknowledged the error of her ways and didn’t do it again, but the other one was wild. She responded to my reminder about our good, clean rules with a “thumbs up” emoji, but was at it again the next day. WTF?

When I brought the matter to her attention she asked me which group I belong to and, incredulously, asked me to send her a link and/or screenshot of the group to remind her. UMMMM. I was floored and it took everything in me to not say: (1) Listen Sheila, I have a FT job and am not about to waste my time doing this, (2) How many FB cat clubs do you belong to?; and (3) Maybe you should slow your roll with the feline thing and pick up a less nutty hobby. Instead of saying any of these things I just deleted her from the group in one fell swoop.

After my un-membering, I posted an Instagram story with a picture of He-Man, who had an arm raised, sword in it of course, and a lightening bolt emanating out of the sword…or from the sky. Either way, the effect is the same: righteousness.

So ends my mundane, early holiday musings – no specific aim or plot in sight. It’s nice to write so freely. How are your holidays unfolding in this strange Covid season?

December 24, 2020 0 comment

Sex and Dating

Palm

by treenaorchard October 7, 2020

Love travels a sticky flow of energies that ignite, excite, and sometimes cool. The meaningful relationship I Tindered my way into a year ago has come to a close. My heart is tender but ok. This relationship taught me a lot and was by far my most healthy, which I’m proud of and grateful for. Alongside tears and painful discussion there are words, always words. Part salve and part inside teacher, they lay like grey lace over the screen.

*******

I take a picture of Elliott crouching in the closet beside the bag that holds his things. Toothbrush, lounge pants, 4 pairs of socks, 3 t-shirts, the slippers I bought. An inventory of disappointment. She takes refuge from the sad uncertainty that dribbles from my almost closed heart. The theme song from Big Little Lies is on repeat and playing loud. Repeat. Repeat.

I made this decision several weeks ago, when I put his things in the bag for the first time. They waited in the darkened closet, like me, for word from the reluctant man.

Big talk, sex, and more Netflix brought us to the same place. No lies, just words and the stated wants of people trying to reach one another from opposite sides of life’s room.

I retreat into Florence Welch, who wrote a square book the colour of wine that beats with brilliance. On one black page sits a golden hand with a bright, blinking eye staring back at me. I think of the tedious, ferocious, constant care that love demands, that we demand as we labour to craft ourselves and the things we are told to need and hold up like the biggest fucking accomplishment. RELATIONSHIPS.

Our hearts are like beaver dams
Like nests that we plan and rebuild
While the seasons change

Are they our forever home?

Lovers are branches, shiny plastic, fear
With them we file our teeth and hope for the best
While traveling the length of love’s river

That winds around each finger, each mouth
Each palm
Its final resting place

October 7, 2020 0 comment

Culture and People

Be a Lady They Said

by treenaorchard March 5, 2020

Can you tell this zygote is going to be a feminist?

“Be a lady they said” was written on December 6, 2017 when Camille Rainville, now twenty-two years old, was studying at the library on the University of Vermont campus. Rainville created her blog Writings of a Furious Woman to spotlight the now viral 785-word poem read by Cynthia Nixon during the three minute fashion film released last week by the same name.

Viewed over 20 million times, the praise for and critiques of Be a Lady They Saidare rolling in. Primarily celebrated as a painful testament to the impossible social standards women are subjected to, some view it as a “step back.” Judith Taylor, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto’s Women and Gender Studies Institute, contends that because the film offers no solution to these pressures it is little more than an exercise “of wallowing in self-pity”.

As a fellow academic, Taylor’s reading of the film sounds familiar, steeped as it is in the language of inclusive social action, albeit rather idealized and myopic. Raised white fist in the ivory tower.

As a woman, watching the slick montage of suffering felt familiar. I don’t relate to the models or featured celebrities, but to the routinized oppression of women under patriarchy. This oppression begins early and before I was a zygote inside my mother’s body, it was decided that I will be less important than a man. Although impossible to fully describe what inhabiting my lesser skin is like, the emotions generated by Claire Rothstein’s film come close: jagged, fast, layered, sad, and beyond our grasp to circumvent.

The evil bullshit of patriarchy runs through though every aspect of my life, from the invisible power systems that reproduce gender inequity to the cellular aspirations I convince myself are a good idea: lean, low carb, chocolate if I’m lucky. It’s why I avoid eye contact on the bus and volunteer only on certain kinds of committees at work, mainly the ones with fewer old white men. It shapes how I speak to myself and the way I eat in public, if at all.

Women are constantly made to feel like misfit enemies of a system that wants us to be smooth and silent as well as fiery and forceful. These are the contradictions of an unfree set-up and the solution, Dr. Taylor, is to burn it down.

I relish the day when it’s not just a few thousand of us at international marches and slut walks, but when we all walk the hallways of our lives with the confidence that comes with equality. We don’t need to be men to rule, but we do need men- and others- on our journey towards solidarity. We must stand together to halt the plutocratic greed that is killing us and the bounty of the earth. Perhaps most of all we need to continue reading, writing, and fighting our way through the bio-toxicity we make our girls, our women, ourselves swallow every day.

They can inherit something else if we care enough to make it happen.

March 5, 2020 0 comment

Sex and Dating

Enough of the ideological stuff (for now) let’s get into the stick of it.

by treenaorchard January 7, 2020

So far, I’ve reflected on some of the weird and frustrating aspects of my five months within the Hive. But, now I want to share more of the personal side of my experiences using Bumble in a fumbling attempt to search, flirt, date and do what bunnies do.

Please join me in a tantalizing travel back in time to August 22, 2017, two days after I joined the Bumbleverse. I started to feel like none of the hotties I was swiping right on were interested in the adorable, hilarious Venus Fly Trap I had set up via my very carefully selected photos and bio. But, on this day, that all changed.

On the fateful morning of the aforementioned date, finally one of the men I had eagerly swiped yes on swiped right back – woohoo! In my excitement, I spewed texting vomit all over one of my close girlfriends who had continued to be a reliable confidante during discussions regarding the (mis)adventures I was getting up to on Bumble. I think she, like me, had started to wonder if it was simply my swiping game or something had gone terribly awry in modern matchmaking. So, when we heard back from this tanned cutie, do you think you could hear us cheering and engaging in a digital high five from wherever you’re reading this?

Tell me more, tell me more (cue the “Pink Ladies” from Grease)

He was HOT – said my brain and my friend. Equally as important, he posted photos of delicious-looking food. So, I am thinking to myself, “Yes – to both meals.” With the “OK” from my friend, I moved forward in my seduction and attempted to see if I should set up a date with this sweet male bee.

I would like to say, before you continue reading, that I blame Rihanna for this particular set of events. I make this accusation because I was listening to her “Desperado” when I amped up my flirt game with this Mediterranean Romeo – even though his profile read that he was, “looking for friendship and fun,” aka to bang. Oh well, Rhi Rhi and I responded in chorus, as his advances, which seemed to alternate between bold and boyish, made it seem like we were making it work, work, work, work, work.

100 texts later and we’re both LOL’ing (I think?)

If you’ve been following along with this blog, you know I think I am quite funny. Well, la di da, so did this guy. Or, at least that’s what his rampant use of smiley/crying-face emojis implied. For hours we texted throughout the following week. At one point, I wondered how in the Queen Bee’s name someone could possibly maintain employment when their notifications were always popping like kernels. But, after a bit of a dating hiatus, I was into it.

Sooo, what did we talk about? What does one talk about with a stranger who may just be honey material? Lots of the chats were charged with sex, but not all of them were. We ping-ponged back and forth between the weather and whether we liked to do this or that where the sun doesn’t shine. It was all in good fun, and I thought maybe the texting was turning into something worthwhile. However, as with all the stickiest stories, there were a few surprises along the way.

One of the things we shared in common was that we both like men.

Yes, in thatway. This handsome man, who looked like someone who may carry you along the beach of a faraway place, was sweeping both men and women off their feet. My interesting conversations with him (and others I encountered along the way) made me realize that more straight-identifying guys are experimenting with other men than we think. Of course, gay men have known this for years, but that’s another story! Anyhow, getting these straight men to articulate exactly what these interactions mean is difficult, almost as hard as learning how to screenshot conversations or images to get your bestie’s once over when you’re a complete luddite. Because OF COURSE my new flame had to frame all these sexy “encounters” with non-gay-affirming assertions. Most commonly, he said it was his girlfriend’s idea, even if she just watched. But, he obviously enjoyed the playtime he partook in with dudes because he seemed rather eager to incorporate the possibility of other penises into our chats – and potentially our future encounters.

Well, even if this doesn’t work out, I guess he can set me up?

I won’t lie, but the potential of this guy being a springboard into a pool of hunks definitely crossed my mind when my match provided an eyebrow-raising photo of one of his previous male encounters. HOLY MOLY! And my friend, previously cited in this article, who was basically a text-third-wheel at this point, did not hesitate to emulate my excitement, “Why didn’t he dump his girlfriend and go out with HIM instead? He is a thing of beauty.”

Sexuality is a lot more fluid than honey, so I was more than happy to keep the buzz going.

All jokes aside, I didn’t at all mind that my new fine-feathered friend also enjoyed the company of men and I still looked forward to meeting him myself.

However, I did find it very interesting my match was this forward about not only sex, but aspects of sex that many men might be timid about sharing given how fragile or under threat masculinity seems to be at this point in time. As both a researcher and human being attempting to navigate romantic social structures, I found this fascinating. Mostly, in this case, I was just an admirer of the pizzazz my potential partner had for wrangling men that were in the seriously scorching-hot temperature bracket.

Alas, I was not looking for a threesome (or, at least that’s not what I thought I was looking for until I opened the digital door on hottie number two – just kidding, sort of). So, cutie number one and I teed up a date, and I look forward to providing all the not-so-juicy details of that experience in my next article.

Stay tuned.

And, please, if you have anything to share about the constructs of sexuality, its fluidity and how you think dating apps empower, dis-empower or alter them, give us a shout and we’d be glad to elaborate further in a future post.

January 7, 2020 0 comment

Sex and Dating

Do you ever feel like Bumble is putting the sting back into the sex wars? #MeToo

by treenaorchard January 7, 2020

Samson und Delila – the original not-so-dynamic duo

I chose to go on Bumble because it came with the promise of a fem-forward, sex positive, not-so-stigmatized route towards dating, tristes and maybe something more solid. I appreciated Bumble’s appeal to professionals (or just people with functioning cortexes) and promise of a first-ever feminist-oriented algorithm and method of connecting.

However, as I scrolled and scanned through the app, my happy-go-swipey smile quickly turned into that face you make when someone supports Alabama’s new abortion legislation…Excuse Me??? I was shocked by how many of the male bees were so quick to tell me how to use the app to successfully attract them.Is that called bee-splaining?Whatever it is, I know one thing: it’s super shit being told by guys who are, at this stage, nobodies: “Don’t be lame”; Be fun”; “Swipe left if you’re not chill” or “Swipe right if you know how to hold a conversation.” (Cough cough, meanwhile, some could not carry one in a bucket with child-friendly handles).

Since when did I need to be told how to make the first move? Sorry, let me rephrase that: Since when the fuck did women need to be instructed on how to elicit attraction, hold a conversation, and generate affection from the sex of their choice?

I am quite certain, in real life, I have never had much of an issue initiating a conversation with the hot guy with the sleeve of tattoos or the well-dressed businessman sipping on his *hot beverage that has too many temperature settings and syrups to name*. But, as we’ve discussed in several of our previous blogs, the appeal of a confident woman, somehow, seems to become tainted within the Hive.

More than in real life, the first swipe and conversation initiation seem to set men at odds with their matches, and they struggle to reassert their traditional gendered power dynamics in a number of unsettling ways.

So, why does Bumble create and stimulate this male anxiety about being approached by women?

Us women and our awesome fore-sisters and brothers have fought hard to achieve some semblance of sexual, economic, legal and social equity. We’ve come a long way, and I think we need to be wary of a so-called feminist app that leads many men to feel intimidated by powerful women because they believe that they can’t offer us anything.

Even typing that last sentence out gives me the heebie jeebies. Do you also have the sense that a creepy crawly just entered your spinal cord? Well, you should because the archaic concept that men cannot engage in affectionate, mutually-rewarding exchanges with empowered women has not been foreign to me or my Bumble-aficionado friends. Or, at least, what we perceive to be the symptoms of this anxiety seems to run rampant amongst the not-so-sweet social system of the honeycomb. Men on Bumble, more than any other online or app-based dating apparatus, seem to be pretty confused about how they feel about women in control.

How ironic is that? You come onto an app that is apparently all about feminism and then you refuse to swipe right on a woman you may like because she is too smart, successful or out-of-your-league? I typically hate short forms but can we all just chime in on an LOL!?

Empowered babes on Bumble represent digital castration for male bees.

You know those men who insist the #MeToo movement means they can’t have sex anymore without the fear of being accused of rape? Those are the men who use Bumble as a way to manipulate women and, in a very passive aggressive –or just aggressive–*cough pathetic* way, reassert their sexual dominance and reinstate the gender status quo.

This isn’t all men, to be sure. Some of them are perfectly cool with us hitting them up first. Indeed, it’s a huge turn on for more enlightened guys who like their girls to take the lead in the boudoir too. Wink wink.

I’ve previously explored some of the reasons why I believe Bumble is creating a space that disempowers men and women and encourages them to engage in what seems more like a power struggle than a sex-positive dating app.

But as I continue this blogging-venture, I hope to further investigate why women, who are seeking (and therefore instigating) real connections, are being relegated to Bumble outcasts when we should be thriving on an app that was supposedly made for us. However, my next article is going to take a slightly different and, perhaps, controversial look at one of the age-old constructs behind romance: chivalry.

All my feminist sisters, please stick with me – I promise dating apps, which compromise our equal access to sex, love and romance, are the only dragons I hope to slay for you. And, I know we’re all capable of wielding the proverbial swords against our own subjective experiences. This blog is a space for safe, smart contemplation about things that affect a lot of us. I may not always be right, I may strike some chords and ruffle some wings, but I want to hear from you and welcome your challenges.

Please read, share, shoot me a message and let’s get to the bottom of Bumble’s complicated hive, so we can all start having better sex, more equitable and lusty relationships, and maybe – just maybe – find that mushy gushy stuff.

January 7, 2020 3 comments

Sex and Dating

Welcome into my humble abode – and body, Mr. Bumble.

by treenaorchard January 5, 2020

Welcome to the stickier side of the birds and the bees

When I signed up for Bumble, I assumed my first date would look a little more like a fun and flirty modern Rom Com and less like the “dead-man walking” wander towards my door that I was on. Alas, on- or offline, not every date is a smashing success and not every sexual encounter needs to be hotter than hell (a place that, during some moments of this interaction, I felt I may be in).

So, despite my internal monologue, which hinted I may be better off getting off on my own, my little companion – with the rather large mouth – and I walked 15 minutes back to my place. As his travel stories and, “Bet you’ve never done as much cool stuff as me” banter didn’t really hold my attention, my thoughts had lots of time to wander and wonder the following things:

If he comes home with me, do I have to sleep with him? Do I even want to sleep with him? I wonder what it’s going to be like – body, chemistry and all.

Sometimes, these questions are exciting – electrified by mutual interest and the not-so-subtle encouragement of each other’s nether regions. Not this time though: Mostly I was just teetering between disinterest, social awkwardness and contemplations of the proper decorum associated with digital dating and the expectations of my male counterpart.

Let’s see how the sexting translates into…sex.

Remember how Mr. Frisky talked a big game about his sexual encounters and affinity for experimentation? Well, despite the disappointing dialogue during the date, I still held out hope that my first Bumble encounter would be, at least somewhat, lucrative in the lust department?

Drum roll…it was NAT.

But first, the big reveal!

Stripping down in front of a soon-to-be partner, sometimes, holds all the sexy potential a single gal could hope to salivate over. Sometimes, however, it is more like going through some not-so-momentous motions. The latter was certainly the case with this perogy-shaped prince.

Yes, I said perogy, and not with any intention of being mean. The only reason I am drawing attention to this half-baked human’s appearance is because his profile not only exaggerated his height, but it also asserted he was a frequent gym goer and interested in someone who mimicked an interest in physical fitness. So, when his unveiling revealed a preference for chips, rather than chin-ups, I had to laugh at the illusions Bumble profiles allow us to curate.

But, softness is not a deal breaker in the bedroom. Except, well…you know when – and even then, there’s a blue pill for that! So, my unyielding positivity and hopefulness unbuttoned my outfit in response to his.

Hours of mental endurance culminated in less than 15 minutes of physical entwinement

And thatis all I need to share about that.

As I lay there, unsatisfied, beside my very satisfied acquaintance, I thought, “Now what?” Realizing, to my horror, he had made a long drive in for the visit, I wondered, “Does that mean he is going to ask to sleep over? Please. No. There are only so many travel clichés a girl can handle!”

Luckily, Mr. Perogy did not force me to come up with a fictional narrative about early morning responsibilities or a sudden emergency cat food run that would pull me from the mattress of post-coital awkwardness we currently lay upon.

As he collected his belongings, I figured I would hasten his recognition that this was a one-time occurrence. So, I gave him the universal visual cue of disinterest: I literally slipped into something more comfortable. Instead of opting for my dress clothes or a naughty nighty, I put on track pants and a worn-out t-shirt, sans bra. Hopefully, he would understand that both my wardrobe and I were bidding him a permanent adieu.

And, he actually seemed to. Although he promised to message me when he got home, I knew he wouldn’t – and he didn’t. So, despite his excitement during our short-lived triste, perhaps I wasn’t the only one piecing together a completely one-sided cons and pros list during the previously listed series of events.

Even though Bumble interaction numero uno was a bit of a dud, not long after I didn’t hear from this gentleman, did I find myself reaching for my phone to see what was out there to swipe on. Was I horny? Lonely? Bored? A masochist?

Find out the answer to these questions and so much more during my next Sticky, Sexy, Sad quest.

January 5, 2020 1 comment

Sex and Dating

When I got the short end of the stick(y)

by treenaorchard January 5, 2020

Last time we left off with my first personal foray into the (sometimes) wonderful world of Bumble. I believe my last few rambling sentences hinted at the potentially titillating situation I found myself in when I discovered my first Bumble meet-up was as interested in men as he was the digital version of me and bragging about his geographical accomplishments.

Fast forward to our first in-person flirtation. At the risk of sounding shallow, I am about to explore a component of app dating that many women shy away from for the exact reason I just stated: we don’t want to seem like size-obsessed human beings with the depth of a kiddy pool. But, let’s face it, height matters – at least to some extent. Not only to most ladies, but also (and actually seemingly much more) to our male counterparts.

How the pressure to measure up to your dating profile affects your interactions

When it comes to app dating, height is a contentious issue. Not only has my anecdotal evidence proved this, but a statistical analysis of the app clearly shows height is one of the most commonly displayed attributes on fellas’ profiles. This shows it’s not only women who are wondering about whether we will need to ditch the heels to greet the likes of Lord Farquaad for a post-workday drink.

I am average height – about 5’4 – so I don’t typically have any trouble meeting men taller than me. Plus, I usually prioritize brains over brawn, so whether they can reach the mug on the top shelf is not a top concern. However, when the sometimes-romps-with-men-Romeo showed up for our first date, I quickly realized he had embellished his stature on his Bumble profile: the very first thing that matched were our eyes and this is because he was the same height as me.

The more I took note of the “exaggerated” nature of his profile, the faster the filaments dimmed, and his prospects shrunk. While, romantically this wasn’t ideal, it did remove any sense of fear I had about not measuring up to my digital presence. I had nothing to worry about now because there was nothing to lose and the bar was set very low (yes, sorry, that’s a tasteless play on words – I couldn’t help myself).

Unfortunately, his height was, by far, not his greatest shortcoming.

I love language! I like to paint vibrant images with what I say and am passionate about a wide variety of topics. So, when I am sitting across from a human being who has very little to contribute linguistically (intellectually, comparatively), I cannot help but feel my eyes narrowing into bored slits and my brain…shutting…down…or, at the very least, flitting from one internal critical commentary to the next.

Does his voice really sound like a contaminated version of Mickey Mouse? Is his tongue doing something dog-like between his robust canines? What is going on with that upper lip – is it unintentionally curling in accordance with the exertion of brain power he requires to formulate these lacklustre sentences?

Oh lawd, I am terrible. While I felt guilty in the moment, I feel even worse now that I am revealing my salacious subconscious to you.

Luckily, there was one saving grace from this less-than-glorious interaction, and they came in the form of two beautifully hazel-coloured eyes. My date’s greenish orbs acted as a means of distraction from the fact this man walked like Danny DeVito when he played Mr. Penguin in Batman Returns. And, it gave my mind a place to swim when what I really required was an intellectual buoy within this sea of vapid discourse.

But, a girl – especially one whose brain works – cannot live or love on eyes alone.

Time ticked on, and I began to look for the nearest cliff (I mean exit)

Yet, despite my raised eyebrows and rolling eyes, I did not jump. Even though I was completely disenchanted with this rather dismal date, I actually decided to walk the Green Mile to my apartment with my Bumble-verified wide-gaited gentleman.

To say the lack of attraction between us also managed to meander into the bedroom would be a laughable understatement, but let’s save that sticky story for another day. If you don’t want to miss my next naughty narrative, be sure to follow Sticky, Sexy, Sad on Twitter and Instagram @stickysexysad.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to hear from us!

January 5, 2020 0 comment

Sex and Dating

Putting the “D” in app dating

by treenaorchard January 5, 2020

MUCH has been written about the dick pic as a harmless rite of passage for sexually active young adults and an often-unflattering mode of sexual communication used by men to the dismay of most women on the receiving end. Indeed, a culture of resistance to the dick pic has emerged over the past few years, including hundreds of YouTube videos and online posts that have been viewed millions – yes millions – of times.

So, let me share with you just ONE of my experiences on the full-frontal nudity front.

Not long after I began my foray into the land of dick and honey, I came face to phone with the much talked about (and much less anticipated) delivery of an unsolicited picture of an erect penis into my inbox. This man wasn’t a complete stranger per say; we had sent several messages prior to the dick pic. But, his rather quick draw on the “dictures”, if you will, made my nose crinkle.

I would like to emphasize the “s” on dicks here because his deliveries were certainly plural in nature. All of a sudden, instead of scrolling through black and white texts and yellow emoticons, I was basically up dick’s creek, floating around without a life preserver, as confused as I was intrigued by the intention behind this proliferation of penis.

To be honest, I was a little grossed out when they arrived during our fleeting dating experience. As a newbie in the digital dating pool, I thought to myself, “Why is he sending me these? Why so many?” Meanwhile, as an anthropologist, trained to explore the cultural practices and behaviours of different societies, including our own, I also found myself fascinated by them: What is really being transmitted here?

Instead of wondering, I asked him. To put it gently, his response was less happy-go-lucky than his rather enthusiastic member.

The sender bristled at my inquiry, and instead of telling me why he was sending them, he made an off-hand comment about women who do not find them appealing being “lame.”

Hmm, I thought, if a man were to expose himself unprovoked in public, it would be considered a crime. And yet, now I am being made to feel like Old Mother Hubbard because I expressed surprise at my digital cupboard suddenly being overwhelmed with dicks. Modern dating is weird.

My dick pic sender also informed me that a woman’s reception of these images is a proxy for the man’s evaluation of her as a prospective partner. Apparently, if a woman recoils and expresses said disdain with the sender, she’s not someone worth pursuing.

Does he not realize that most of us, the washed masses, typically delete, gag in silence and share these images with friends while screaming with laughter?

Both women and penises are victims of the preemptive dick display.

While dick pics are typically a great source of comedy, there’s also a more a sinister underbelly that drives theses acts, which they should KNOW we don’t want.

There is much emotional and psychological work thrust upon the poor penis, which typically appears alone in these images and in a constant state of craving. Who can appease this digitized dick? Of course, the sender can, but then why engage the female to begin with? Is her pleasure at all a consideration or is she just being used as a conduit of self-satisfaction and ego inflation? How intertwined is the man’s sense of self with his dick selfie? What are the consequences of this conflation?

And, what of the man who encounters an icy reception to the photo? Is his masculinity somehow softened or called into question? What about his feelings towards women? Will his future objects of desire be contaminated by his feelings of resentment about the women who previously decried the dick pic?

Cultural interests in the prominent place of the dick pic in the global sexual economy aside, I am also curious about the gaping disconnect between these tech-mediated displays of prowess and the rather flaccid reality we are sometimes greeted with in the flesh.

But, my experience with this last contemplation will have to wait for another day – it’s time for me to buzz off and for you to detail your dick-ventures in response to mine!

January 5, 2020 1 comment

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Dr. Treena Orchard

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