Monday, June 30, 2008

Daily Acts of Sexual Activism



Peeing in Public and/or semi - public places


On Friday night after the San Francisco Trans March I marched my way into San Francisco's premier dyke bar, The Lexington, with my friends Donna and Lorelei. We proceeded to lend our selves to debauchery and a cocktail which we slurped in the corner of the bar. But what does a girl do when it is time to visit the little ladies room and there are 25 ladies standing in line all trying to do the same? My solution - grab two plastic cup which have been discarded after the consumption of alcohol, walk into the ladies room, stand in the corner, unzip your pants, squat as needed, and release urine. I was amazed at how many girls in line were amazed by my action. It seemed quite practical to me. Why is it that we think we must pee behind closed doors? That we must pee in a porcelain receptacle and not a portable plastic one? Men feel confident in their bodies and genitals and pee in front of one another on a daily basis. Their sex hangs outside of them on display to be viewed by all while women's sex is hidden under jeans or dresses and we squat over toilets barely making contact with our genitals - if at all - in this ritual which we perform every time our bladders fill. The women's jaws dropped, some of them smiled, a couple girls said I was their hero, and one woman said "I thought I had seen everything in San Francisco." All this over exposing myself in a ladies room to urinate.

At the Trans march Donna pulled down her panties as she squatted in the grass like a perfectly manicured spaniel and her friends circled around her to shade her from the public gaze. It was a friendship circle. A circle of protection and love that supported her in her decision to make her private act public.

At the AVN Porn Awards Annette Schwartz sits next to me talking to our agent while she casually hikes up her evening gown and pees into a plastic cup. Her confidence in her body and sexuality fills a room. She is powerful and in control of her body and in know way afraid of her fluids.

Perhaps as porn stars dealing with fluids,fluid exchange, bodies and sexuality on a daily basis have made us immune to the social commentary on where our fluids belong and just how we should dispose of them. So much of the private has become public and we have come to embrace our bodies and fluids and not fear them. Instead we roll around in them in celebration or in the very least we capture in a cup.

5 comments:

Gomez said...

People have found it curious when I've used the (completely empty) male toilets to avoid waiting in line for the ladies' facilities. After the shock wears off, they usually follow suit.

love mary

Sadie Lune said...

The transition from being amused/grossed out by golden showers to practicing peeing standing up in the bathtub-to-pissing all over pagandom standing or squatting or into a friends pint glass-to-arranging a alleyway piss date-to-coming out about it all is one of the most straight-forward experiences of self-acceptance and liberation that I have undergone. It's true, I'm biased, I'm a fan of urine; both so benign and so taboo. But the pragmatic and purely visceral joys of peeing wherever is convenient and respectful, especially in nature, makes so much sense I think most women's strict adherence to a toilet (with a figure in a dress on the door) really tells our cultural temperature with regards to feminist body/sex acceptance. Pissing "inappropriately" is definitively un-ladylike, so no wonder many of the ladies I know (especially queers and sex workers, already skirting the fringes of gender/body/sex acceptability) relish the act. The last such pee I had was during a tour of Sutro Baths with my mother. We both had to go badly and were a hike away from a bathroom, so I led us through the tunnel by the sea and said "lets just go here" at the end where waves were crashing into boulders. My shamelessness gave my mother permission to some immediate comfort. I stood raising my skirt and she undid her pants and squatted, and when I was done I stood lookout for her because I knew she'd feel more comfortable with a semblance of privacy. It felt like no big deal, like intimacy, like a strength shared between us.

Anonymous said...

I work outside for the telephone company and have been using a funnel for years now. Keeps your ankles dry.

Suzanne Forbes said...

OMG I love your blog Madison! Awesome! I also love the convenience of peeing standing up in a plastic cup, it's amazing to me how much it simplifies things in a variety of situations!

Mx. Lilithe said...

I have been doing urine therapy for almost a decade now, and have come to enjoy the medicinal nectar of it (when appropriate - sometimes it is a waste product).

At my first fetish ball in Phoenix, AZ, I had to piss like a racehorse and the line to the single unisex bathroom was at least 30 people and an hour's wait long. I was glad of my ability to find a large beer cup and a dark corner to take care of myself.

The cup was easy to procure, but the dark corner was another matter, as it was a fetish ball, and all of the secret spaces were appropriately occupied!

The assembled revelers were focused on the stage show, so I crouched down between the back wall and the back of the crowd and assumed the position (in heels and very long fetish garb, mind you).

All of a sudden, I heard above me "Wow!" I looked up, to see a fine young lad turned around and watching me. Being in mid stream, I was not to be thwarted in my endeavor, in spite of my sudden self conciousness.

"You should do that on stage!", he exclaimed. Alas, it being my first fetish event, and in spite of my exhibitionist tendencies, I declined. But I was relieved...