Dearest Readers,
Did you miss me?
Like most of you, the last month-ish-plus has been a whirlwind of holiday ridiculousness, new years resolutions and getting back with the swing of things. Which is to say, busy! But never fear, new palomita columns are coming soon! So tune in & keep sending in your questions!
(And for those of you whose questions have been in my queue for weeks & weeks, my sincerest apologies. One of my resolutions this year is to be more prompt!)
xoxo
La Palomita
Greetings, La Palomita!
OK, here’s my question. You know how this community is less “six degrees of separation” and more “one degree of separation?” That’s not my question. You know how it is. My question is, would you discuss some strategies one can use to put on one’s big girl panties and act right when faced with scenarios like:
1) going to the same party as an ex (whether ex-lover or ex-friend)
2) experiencing social ostracism when one, say, dates the wrong person’s ex and suddenly stops getting invited to things
3) navigating such experiences with acquaintances when one doesn’t want to talk smack but doesn’t want to lie about why one won’t be in attendance at Queer Event This Weekend, either
or
4) being on the flipside of the above - how to deal when someone one knows (perhaps biblically) dates one’s ex, about whom one may not have the warmest feelings, etc.
Just asking.
Love,
Sticky Wicket
Dear readers,
(The few of you there are so far!)
I am super excited about this column, and from the little feedback I’ve gotten, seems like y’all are, too. One small catch though: I need questions! So, pelase, send them in! Problems big and small! For real, they can be about anything. & you don’t have to be queer! While I am dedicated to centering the experiences of my community and challenging the dominant culture’s notions of who is “Other”, I can totally advise straight folks too!
You can submit questions via tumblr’s question feature (click “ASK” on the left-hand column) or email them to me directly, asklapalomita[at]gmail[dot]com.
xoxo
La Palomita
Palomita:
All right, I’ll just say it: I’m feeling sexually blocked.
I love sex, and I love intimacy, but for the moment, I’m not very interested in anyone’s pants going anywhere exciting, or heads banging against headboards, or any of the like. That said, I’m meeting lots of wonderful of people whom I feel excited about, and I want to develop these connections further.
Any advice for a (usually) super sex-posi queer who finds herself stuck at second for the moment?
Stuck at Second
Dear Palomita,
I’m a domestic violence/repeated sexual assault survivor. I’m currently in a relationship with a sexually submissive woman. This is the first sexual relationship I’ve been in since I was abused, and our sex life has been rocky and mostly vanilla. It’s gotten to the point where for my partner, it’s important to branch out into her kinky interests, and I’m totally willing. As we started talking about the kinds of scenes she’s be into, we quickly realized that they are almost exactly the same as the sexual abuse I experienced - the things she wants me to do/say to her are things that were non-consensually done/said to me, and the way she wants to respond to those things are the way that I responded to them almost exactly. Once she realized she was asking me to act out past abuse, she became guilty about asking for it, worried that it would be triggering. The truth is that it might, but I really want to give this relationship my best shot (things are otherwise great but she’s currently quite unsatisfied sexually). These scenes aren’t a turn on for me - but being the person to get her turned on really is. So is it a reasonable thing to do to give these scenes a shot, or am I just fooling myself?
Willing But Worried
The aforementioned, amazing podcast episode on courtship. I highly recommend browsing through the archives in their entirety (the break-up & asking for help episodes are two of my favorites).
Dear Palomita,
As a queer, feminine-presenting woman, how do I negotiate my partner’s maleness - and therefore my assumed heterosexuality - with my own identities? How do I cope with losing my queer legibility?
Transparently,
Tired of Femme Invisibility
Dear Palomita,
I am badly crushing on this girl who is bi/queer, has had queer sex and has been in queer relationships, hates labels—BUT insists that if forced to answer to a label, it would be “straight.” Is it a bad idea to pursue her? This is sounding like a bad rhetorical already, but she says her sexuality is complicated, she likes both genders, has fallen in love with women & men, and that her sexual orientation is merely ‘sexual.’ I am really not sure how to go about communicating/seducing/physically and otherwise relating to someone who doesn’t accept the queer mantle.
Confused about what I should do,
A Queer Girl Who Rather Likes Labels
