Open up my little 1960’s stewardess-chic traincase, TSA, and find these this morning lurking beneath my tiny toiletries:

Speaking Sex to Power: The Politics of Queer Sex, Patrick Califia. Galpal and queer writer Gina de Vries lent me this for my flight today, and I’m so avoiding going up to the gate to remian curled up around tight prose like this: “Like camp, promiscuity is the pink badge of queer courage, our defiant way of whistling past all the graveyards that, for us, dot the heterosexual landscape. And we do know where the bodies (and live naked dicks) are buried. Every cocksucker is well aware that the same man who puts on a badge to arrest him probably just gets his blowjobs at a different truck stop.”

The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction, Rachel P. Maines. I picked this up in Seattle a few weeks back to dig into on the way home to San Francisco, but of course ended up cracking the cover early and lapsing into eager undergrad summary-mode to my host (“So the vibrator was one of the first consumer electronic goods to be marketed to women, as early as the turn of the last century, in ladies’ magazines and doctor’s offices, but once blue movies in the 20’s cast vibrators as sex aids, that all began to disappear. Did you know that all the early electrical engineering trade publications used to track vibrator sales? But the Smithsonian didn’t have any in their collections even in the 90’s? Here, let me show you these… schematics…”) as we drove around Capitol Hill (and ps, “C.C. Attle’s”? Worst. Gay bar name. Ever.)

The Leather Daddy and the Femme, Carol Queen. A classic, if there ever was one. I added this back into my carry-on for my flight to Philly, and it’s remained a constant companion — and truly, this book has been, for just this side of a decade. No one else writes genderfuck sex so good, so passionate, so raw. Normally I’m far more turned on by critical theory than your average erotic antho, but this is no average bit of smut. In fact, it’s likely the closest thing there is to a mashup of the two that there can be, and still be devastatingly hot. Begs the question, Miranda/Randy (the femme/boyfag protagonist), great queergirl hero of futuresex, or greatest queergirl hero of futuresex?

The inimitable Rachel Kramer Bussel points to this ABC news piece on what seems to be the perils of Halloween sluttiness (short version: the one day a year any woman can be a slut and get away with it… or not?) but is really one of the better critiques of Ariel Levy’s backlash-tastic blockbuster, Female Chauvinist Pigs.

Snip:

…in its October issue, Jane magazine addressed the trend toward skimpy, scanty Halloween costumes. In “Enough With the Slutty Costumes,” Stephanie Trong writes, “Girls love to dress like sluts on Halloween. Whatever their costume, they always find a way to stipperfy it, no matter how ludicrous the concept. Like ’sexy cop,’ ’sexy zombie,’ ’sexy Army cadet,’ or … ’sexy shoe saleswoman.’ It’s always one big pleather, vinyl and fishnet stockings fest everywhere you turn.”

(N.B.: none of those sound particularly ludicrous to me, but then again, I used to be a dominatrix.)

Somehow, the whole thing comes together with this, as close a rallying cry towards sex-positivity as ever found in the mainstream. Clip this one for the fridge next to the Dear Abby’s warning of razor blade apples and other forbidden fruits:

A culture of sex doesn’t have to be accepted in its entirety or not at all. Women can partake in what they like and ignore what they don’t. They can wear a French maid outfit one Halloween and a rabbit suit the next. They can get comfortable in a culture of sex because they can handle it.

I’ll let RKB have the last word, and not just because I’m hot for her brains for this one. (No, that doesn’t mean I’m going as a Theory Zombie for Halloween. But you never know… a Susan Sontag costume would be slutty, right?)

“Sex equals power” does not a feminist manifesto make. There are so many ways our sexuality is powerful, and that goes for men as well as women. Power is not inherently bad, and it’s not necessarily “power over.” We don’t need to fall into the “empowerment” vs. “objectification” debate for the umpteenth time either. It’s about choice.

(Image: powkang, via Flickr)