Hello Saraid » Rambling

The wisdom of me talking to Epiphora

Saraid — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:19:28 +0000

While talking about being a bad blogger for not updating and wondering what I should write, Piph ¹ and I thought of the most obvious thing. It’s very simple and should become your mantra if you like porn even a little bit.

Repeat after me:

hi world. james is fucking hot. the end.

It’s so, so true.

Who loaned me this fucking awesome picture. Swoon

Busy, busy, busy.

Saraid — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:37:05 +0000

I’ve been absent from everything for a few days for good reason. I moved! I’m now happily on the East Coast close to NYC, but am still getting used to people not being as friendly here.¹ While you wait for a new review, here’s a picture of my badass bookshelf I put together the other night.

New post when the jetlag wears off!

I know it’s somewhat of a myth, but I think it has some truth to it. People in the Midwest are way friendlier so far.

On being a victim-blaming asshole

Saraid — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:31:53 +0000

I usually don’t write up response posts because I feel I don’t have the eloquence to say what needs to be said; however, a certain post written directly as a response to Britni’s attack pushed me over the edge. Victim blaming unfortunately has become a popular sport not only amongst misogynist men, but also misogynist women. Need examples? Take a look over at the first post I linked to and scroll down to the comments.

Which leads us to why people choose to be victim-blaming idiots. Why? Because they want to feel they have control. Nothing like what happened to Britni could ever happen to them, right? They obviously aren’t “asking for it.”

I wrote about my own close encounters with sexual assault a while back and let me tell you, I, like Britni, was definitely not asking for it. Why then did I have this happen to me? Because there are douches everywhere. No matter where you live, what class you come from, or how you dress, walk, or talk there will always be people waiting to take advantage of you and violate your bodily autonomy. You’re sitting there reading this thinking, “Oh, well, I’m not going to go out and act like Britni.” Well, great for you for not going out and having fun like a normal person, but you should know that the majority of sexual assaults are done by people you know and trust. You are, my friend, at risk.

So let’s recap a little bit. So we’ve established that:

People can be victim-blaming douches
Even those people are at risk for being sexually assaulted
Even if you only go out with people you know, you are still at risk for being assaulted by a good friend

Considering all of these things, why is it that people feel the need to keep on blaming the victim? Again, it’s about being in control and distancing themselves from the possibility of this happening to them. Why do men* blame the victim? They want to distance themselves from the attacker because they are also a man.

I’m really sick of victim-blaming sex bloggers. You sit there and claim to be sex positive and you’re making yourself seem like the Tea Party or the “Miniskirt Judge” from Spain. Quit claiming to be one thing and then being so obviously the other.

Britni, I’m sorry you had to go through this shit so soon (or ever really) after an assault. I really respect you for staying so strong throughout this whole ordeal.

*heterosexual cis-men

Want: Can has giant dildo?

Saraid — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:29:21 +0000

I just got a glimpse of this beauty over at SheVibe and have decided I totally need it. The only issue? It’s 2.5″ 2.25″ in diameter, which is bigger than Randy, who weighs in at a nice 2 3/16″.

"Hi, I'm Greta. I will conquer your vagina with my giant awesomeness."

Greta is pretty hefty and apparently not quite as squishy as Vixskin from what I’ve heard, but I still think it needs a home in my vag.

A short interview with Matt from Tickle

Saraid — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:27:59 +0000

Matt, the founder and main guy of Tickle, and I were recently talking and I thought it would be a great idea to do an interview with him so people understand a little more about what Tickle is about and why they should support this awesome company. Matt has been nothing but helpful when I asked questions about the toys I was sent to review and I know he would do the same with his customers.

On to the interview!

Here's a glance at how Tickle's website is designed. Simple, classy and easy to use.

Who are you?

Well, I’m a 23 year old bisexual from North Carolina. I went to Guilford College (go Quakers!) in Greensboro, NC for 3 years before leaving to start Tickle. Before Tickle, I was a documentary photographer and curator of Vewd.org (I had a Wikipedia article, but it seems someone finally realized I wasn’t important enough and removed it). I’m very open and always welcome people to contact me, my e-mail address is mattblalock@myticklespot.com or ask me anything. http://www.formspring.me/mattblalock

Why did you start Tickle?

Everyone asks me why I would get into such a crowded space, but that’s part of why I did it. There are many companies that offer the same products as Tickle, but they don’t support their customers. They just sell things. They stick it up on the shelf and let you buy what you want and you leave. If it doesn’t work or you don’t like it, too bad. I didn’t like that. It didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy about buying something so intimate, so personal. I decided I’d be as good as any to solve that problem. I can’t say I’ve solved it just yet, but we’re very close. I work every day to make Tickle better, one day (hopefully soon!) I think we’ll have our perfect toy store.

It seems like you guys stock higher end toys or just nicer toys in general. This makes me so happy since there are many shops that carry all kinds of toys with phthalates and chemicals. What inspired you to decide not to carry these types of toys?

We do stock the best of the best. We made a decision early on that we would not present something that could be unsafe for our customers. We’ve researched every ingredient and every material for every product we offer. If it could be unsafe, based on our research, we will not offer it. As an extension of that, we have a policy regarding complaints. We track every complaint we receive about a product and monitor the reviews very closely. If a product continues to make our customers unhappy, we will stop selling it immediately.

What’s it like being the little guy trying to compete with the big stores?

It’s incredibly exhilarating! We’re competing with companies whose daily advertising budget exceeds our annual budget. Think about that, they spend more in a day than we could in a year! Needless to say, we must get creative. While it is exhilarating, it can be equally exhausting; we know we can offer amazing service and products to people and we wish we could offer it to far more, sadly we’re reaching just a small number of people. On the bright side, our customers are very happy and we’re happy to have them!

Your affiliate program is wonderfully designed and is probably one of the best I have seen. What, according to you, makes your program really appealing to bloggers?

Thank you! We think the best thing about the program is the support we can provide. We don’t just let everyone into our program; for every application we accept, we deny 10. We do this intentionally so that we can support our Partners like a family. We’ll create banners for our Partners, help optimize their websites, and in one case, we even completely rebuilt a website for a Partner. Plus, we do offer very good commissions!

So there you have it. If you haven’t heard of Tickle or have just passed them up until now, I would highly encourage you to check them out. If you click the banner below it will take you to the main page. I’m not even putting my affiliate code in so that it doesn’t appear that I’m doing this for commissions – I just really, really like Tickle and want them to succeed.

New Beginnings

Saraid — Mon, 17 May 2010 01:24:11 +0000

I’m currently sitting in a hotel in Connecticut – it’s officially a new beginning. I’m out of the city that everything bad happened in; I’m away from the people I know and I’m excited. Tomorrow we’re going apartment hunting and Wednesday night I’ll be on a plane to Spain for a 2 1/2 month vacation. A-fucking-men. I need it.

I have 9 more hours of class to take before I have officially graduated, but 6 of those my partner will be teaching me at home, so I’m not too stressed over it. I’m actually excited to have classes I like the subjects of (with little to no work).

To all of you that have supported me through the rough times in the past year, thank you. I love you all and am forever grateful for your patience and caring.

insert witty title here + rar!

Saraid — Tue, 11 May 2010 02:32:38 +0000

The last few weeks it’s been soccer overload at my house. My partner’s favorite team (and the only team worthy of love) is Real Madrid. I like soccer, but usually only watch the World Cup so this has been a new thing for me. In addition to liking the games, well, who am I kidding – the main reason I watch the games is the display of sexy that goes on. Therefore, I decided to post my favorite 10 soccer players (retired and not).

#10 Guillermo Ochoa

#9 Zinedine Zidane

#8 Kaka’

#7 Gonzalo Higuaín

#6 Ezequiel Garay

#5 Fernando Torres

#4 Iker Casillas

#3 Cristiano Ronaldo

#2 José Maria Gutierrez “Guti”

#1 Sergio Ramos

Can you tell who my love is? I may have a minor obsession.

Where the hell is Saraid?

Saraid — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:03:18 +0000

I’ve been really absent lately and for that I apologize. I’m finishing up my senior year of college and everything has been really hectic around here for the past few weeks. I’ll be back with a giant huzzah! in about 4 days. Thanks for being so understanding!

Amazing.

Saraid — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:54:45 +0000

Britni posted this on Facebook earlier and it definitely merits sharing. It is simply amazing and if you need something to brighten your day, watch it.

Fear and Loathing: My experience with male entitlement and sexual harassment

Saraid — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:52:22 +0000

WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRIGGERING MATERIAL

An upcoming post by my good friend Epiphora made me start thinking about my own personal past experiences with male entitlement. Before reading her post I never thought I had run into any harassment from men and was quite thankful for it, but after reading, I realized that I had been repressing certain past events or even erasing whole parts of them to paint a prettier picture. Therefore, I decided that I needed to speak out about these acts, for myself and for other women who have experienced the same.

Event #1: Asshole Concert-Going Guy

I was at a show in 2004 (I was 15 at the time) at about this time of year with a small group of friends. We got let in early because one of my friends had dated the security guy. It was a relatively small venue as it held only 400 people at maximum capacity, so we pressed ourselves against the stage waiting for the waves of people that would eventually crush us. Somehow I end up in front of a guy who seemed nice – not overly good looking, but he was “normal” looking and was with a couple of friends. However, I soon realized he was drunk. This guy wasn’t just your average fumbling drunk though, he definitely had a routine that he had practiced before.

As the show started the crowd pushed forward, so in what I at first thought was a good gesture he stood behind me, planting on hand on the stage as to prevent people from completely crushing me making it difficult to breath (which I soon found out was something I much preferred to this asshole). After a few minutes he wrapped the other free arm (the left, yes, I still remember) around my waist. I thought, “Okay, whatever, just to keep me from falling over.” Soon I heard him laughing and mumbling something to his friend, which I later found out was a bet to get me to have sex with him by the end of the night. The next 45 minutes to an hour were filled with this guy not-so-subtlety trying to get his hands up my shirt and down my pants. I’m not sure what he thought this would accomplish considering we were in a room full of 400 people.

Luckily, I eventually got the attention of my friend Christie and she came over and pulled me out of there.

While it was going on I was scared shitless. This was my first encounter with harassment, and to be honest I didn’t even know how big a deal it was until recently thinking about it and writing this. I was a victim. Just because he never got to rape me (as I’m sure he would have) doesn’t mean that I was any less objectified and abused. I now realize this and am better for it.

Event #2: Mr. “All women should bow to me”

While this case is nowhere near the first one I have presented here I think it is still relevant to the post. I went to Mexico for two months in 2006 on a study abroad program. It was absolutely fabulous, but what wasn’t fabulous was a certain guy’s sense of entitlement and his idea that all American women are “sluts.”

He was a good friend of my host brother who I had met a couple of times, and oddly enough I have no hard feelings against him even though I should. José Pablo was probably not a bad guy, but through an injection of machismo they must be giving every Mexican boy at birth, he thought he was the gift to women that we all needed. One day when my host parents weren’t home my host brother brought him over and we chatted for a while, but something was odd – You know those smiles guys have on their face when they are scanning you up and down like a piece of meat? Yeah, he had one. But I was so used to the construction workers yelling obscene things in bad English to me on the streets that I ignored it.

Little did I know that my host brother had been “commissioned” to play matchmaker. Matchmaker not so much – it seemed like he was more my pimp than anything else. Against the rules of my program I got in the car with them and drove around. The time I started to get nervous was when I noticed we were going up into the mountains which are very sparsely populated with absolutely nothing in them – why were they taking me there?

We got out of the car, José Pablo tried to get me to smoke, I said no thanks and he automatically called me “fresa,” which in a nutshell is high-class, stuck-up, not giving up anything to just any guy. Yeah, we were already off to a bad start. After that he pushed me up against a wall and started kissing me. I honestly wasn’t too into it, but figured it would be easier to go along with it than tell him no – besides, it was only kissing, right?

Well, soon my host brother got tossed the keys to the guy’s car and was told he could drive away for a while. Keep in mind that none of this was done with me in the conversation – I was standing right there, but they acted like I was some kind of property. Soon, I got scared. I was alone in this isolated place, up against a wall with a guy I barely knew who obviously wanted more than I did. Thankfully, he didn’t do any more than kiss me, for the moment. We went back home and I got ready to go out with friends.

Later that night I was out with my friends for dinner and he came by and dropped me a phone without saying anything. The first thought in my head, “Oh fuck. Not this shit.” He then called me and asked me to come outside – I found him there on the sidewalk with my host brother asking me to get in the car. This time I tried to stand up for myself and say that I didn’t want to go with him. I went back inside and finished out the night. When I was done I went over to my host grandmother’s house waiting for my mom to come pick me up, but the thing is, my host brother had called my mom and said to pick me up at José Pablo’s house an hour later.

He ended up getting me on the couch and repeated trying to get my underwear off (I was wearing a skirt) even though I was plainly saying no. He then couldn’t believe that I didn’t at least want to give him a blowjob. A few minutes later my mom showed up to get me, I’d never been more relieved to see her.

In conclusion

I’m fortunate enough to currently be in a stable, loving relationship with a guy who sees me as more than just a piece of meat. I’m also fortunate that the worst didn’t happen in those situations and that I wasn’t raped. But the fear I felt was defintely real.

If you’ve ever had anything similar happen to you, please speak up and write about it. This happens more than we care to believe and until women start voicing what has happened, it won’t stop.