There are always new voices in the blogosphere. New stories, new themes, new narratives, and yet, it’s easy to read deeply in a category and feel like, somehow, it’s all the same old stuff.

The bloggers I want to introduce you today don’t have that problem of sounding like someone else. Fiercely original, honest and authentic, they are explorers of sex and identity, gender and relationships in ways I find honest, thought-provoking and engaging.

Not always safe for work, not always writing in a comfortable way, each of these authors is someone I come back to both because of the quality of the questions they are asking and the rigor with which they try to come up with answers.

Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed
MayMay is a 20-something feminist, bi-sexual man in a D/s relationship with a super-bright, dominant woman; his observations about sex and gender are some of the sharpest I have read in ages. This passage is typical of his voice--

“One of my strongest dissatisfactions with many of the gay men I’ve interacted with is their blindness towards gender fluidity and how that affects eroticism. This is perhaps one reason why I find myself having trouble finding these men sexy after they open their mouths. They seem so singularly focused on their own version of the masculine ideal that they ignore what I find to be important pieces of my femininity that are necessary to my own erotic fulfillment.

I think that a D/s relationship could benefit from a construction similar to this. It’s the way I think about my relationship with Eileen. I am at once her friend, her lover, her boyfriend, and her slave. Indeed, I am her slave because I am her boyfriend, and I am her boyfriend because I am her lover, and I am her lover because I am her friend.”

Bitchy Jones diary
Ah, Bitchy, another strong woman whose kink may come in strong flavors (she’s a Dom), but whose ability to write about her truth and her place in the culture is so powerful and strong.

“First of all if a man says he’s a switch that is like him saying he’s gone away and thought about it and, know what baby, I’m just a total fucking pervert. Oh, I love that. I find that so attractive in a man. That sense of, oh, I just want everything that’s dirty and wrong. Bad, bad boy.

I love bad boys. I know what bad boys get.”

Sex Geek
Feminist, bi-sexual, queer, poly and brilliant—Sex Geek Andrea Zanin chronicles both her life as a single and her thoughts as a scholar of the sexually subversive and the social order. A consistently fresh voice, she’s all that.

"After a decade of living with roommates - mostly excellent people, with a few complete deadbeats thrown in for flavor - I’m taking the leap into domestic bliss with my beautiful boi, M. We insist we’re not U-Haul lesbians because neither of us are lesbians and we’ve rented from Budget, but we’ve taken our fair share of ribbing. (Y’all are just jealous ’cause he’s so damn cute.) It’ll be a whole new adventure to live in a new apartment in a new city, especially since we’re really quite a poly couple - both of us have been non-monogamous for many years, but sharing a home with a partner has never been part of the poly equation for either of us."

Pepper Mint, freaksexual
Organizer of Bay area meet ups and workshops for Bay area poly and kinksters under 35, Pepper’s a change maker whose interest is sex and society and whose plan of attack are a series of brilliantly written blog posts and essays, often dense, but inevitably persuasive. If you think people at the edge are marginal, read Pepper and reconsider your own biases—this post-feminist man is awesome.

"Language in particular has gotten tricky. The joke in polyamory circles is that you do not just need to know that someone is polyamorous to date them, but you have to check what sort of polyamory they are doing: group marriage, polyfidelity, poly network, primary/secondary, polysexual? And of course, what are their actual arrangements and plans? Similarly, when someone says they are nonmonogamous these days, they could mean anything from “I can kiss people at parties” to “I want to have sex with you now”.

A place to draw blood laughing
Eileen’s a 20-something New Yorker who’s feminist, bi-sexual and dominant, something you don’t often see in younger women, particularly those as articulate as she is. Partner to the amazing MayMay, Eileen is just as articulate, honest and open—her posts on coming out to her family and then managing through all the subsequent damage will resonate with everyone who’s had to deal with moving away from parental expectations into who they realty are.

“If keeping your sexuality a secret is essential to a portion of your life, using the Internet to express yourself is a deceptively weak method of practicing information security. Even under a false name, even when writing from a false perspective, there is always the possibility that your words will reconnect with you at an inopportune time. It seems to me that if you absolutely cannot handle the consequences of a specific person reading something you’ve written, you should not be posting online.”

Subversive Submissive
A self-described “vegan anarchist in the Bay area” (gee, I know a dozen people like that), Subversive Sub is an analytical West Coast would-be writer, ringing the changes on her evolving sexuality and the relationship she is creating with her partner.

“…while I lived with both of my parents until I was sixteen, I felt alienated and distant from them as well, largely because our family culture was so steeped in avoiding and hiding problems, lying to each other, keeping secrets. When I was let in on some family drama or secret, it was always incredibly awkward and formal, and always with a tone of “I don’t expect you to do anything about this or talk to this person, but you should probably know.
(snip)
It isn’t just that I have little existing connection to them, but that I have no desire to be part of a family in which the acceptable way to deal with problems is not to talk about them, but to deal with them privately and out of sight of the rest of the family; not to get out of bad situations or prioritize one’s own needs, but to do what is necessary to make the family comfortable.”

SubmissiveBoi
This Berkeley-area 20-something woman is exploring her sexuality and gender identity in ways that express her fluidity and interest in being overpowered, but that confuse others. An honest, articulate inside peek.

"My desire for a more clear definition of myself is existent. In the past I have thought I'm not gender-queer or trans. But as more trannies, bio-gay men identifying as lesbians, and other queers enter my life my gender-queerness comes more and more into existence. I guess I have been identifying as a boi for a little bit now as I feel that represents the type of masculinity I'm interested in but I don't really talk about it much. I'm also not asking anyone to change gender pronouns for me. My gender has nothing to do with my sexuality. I'm still pansexual and interested in relationship with hets, queers, and the rest of the bunch which sort of confuses me but makes sense."

Genderfork
Daily pictures of androgynous, gender-fluid, Trans and GLBT people, from a blogger who knows the power of pictures both to teach and to heal. No words, meaningful pix.