The uncomfortable position of real life power dynamics

I’m unsure about posting this situation yet at the same time I need to rid myself of it through prose in order to purge its power over me. It makes me wonder if I give off mixed signals and if this is just one of the dangers and dilemmas of being a woman. Mostly though, it pisses me off!
There is a professor who I worked for before I went back to graduate school. He was a little off, but was always very friendly and generous with his time. I always saw the relationship as something like a mentor/mentee type of thing. Now he is a little odd, socially awkward and nervous, but he has always been pretty kind to me, so I thought that maybe he’s just not used to having students work for him and this is just his bizarre way of engaging in the student/teacher relationship. He doesn’t look like the type that has many people clamoring to work with him. I always thought he was just looking for a young up and comer with strengths that he doesn’t have to explore issues he finds engaging, particularly deviant sexual practices. Apparently I am a bad judge of situations, which does not bode, well for my future career.
So this past weekend we went to dinner, nothing out of the ordinary, shared what has been going on in our lives, work we’re doing. We start talking about BDSM and I explain what I want to write about. How I want to use queer theory to understand the binary of deviant/mainstream sex, what is that boundary and why certain behaviors are considered deviant. We talk about things, and he told me how he has an interest in spanking, I said that that was ok, that what I have been figuring out is that nobody needs to fit into stock images of alternative sexual desires, that it is creative and generative and that I am personally enjoying figuring these things out. So the meal finishes, I say thank you and go to head my way.
He then says, “well I have a proposition, I would invite you back to my apartment but its quite dirty right now, how bout we go to this motel around the corner that rents by the hour and have a scene”. Now at this point I was floored. How do you respond to something like that? Instead of saying I have no interest in engaging in behaviors like that with you because there has to be a level of physical attraction and desire for me to want to engage in any behavior that I find stimulating. This is not about you, and you cannot expect that since you want it and I am studying kinky sex that I want to have kinky sexual activities with you that it will happen. I am an active agent in my own sexual desire and stimulation and spanking a man who is shorter than me and probably in his 60s don’t do it for me. How dare you even conflate my interests, research agendas and personal choices with an interest in you!!
Unfortunately I am not as eloquent or direct, I mumble how I have a busy day and need to get home. What type of response is that? Now I didn’t ask what exactly he wanted, because I didn’t care. But it totally ruins any sort of working relationship we have. I am still haunted with images of his naked ass bent over wanting me to spank him **shudders** Everyone is entitled to their own interests, but just because I have a desire to study something, maybe even a personal interest in its behaviors does NOT mean or give you the right to think that I want to do it with you. Its like saying that a woman in a short skirt asked to be raped, I did not ask for this.
What bothers me the most besides the blatant disrespect of boundaries and social relationships is the fact that he thinks that an interest personally as well as professionally would turn into something sexual and stimulating between the two of us. He’s going to rationalize my response and say that I just don’t have the chops, stones, balls whatever to study something of this nature. And that seriously pisses me off. I fully admit when I think things are over my head, and this is not one of them. My biggest personal as well as professional hurdle, the reason I went into social research is to make myself uncomfortable and always test myself and push myself in situations. And he is going to hit me where it hurts saying that I just couldn’t take it. And how do you tell someone its not the behavior that they want you to participate in, its them? How do you say that without being rude? Its not the activities, I’m not going to put myself in situations that make me feel uncomfortable and you cannot use your power and position to make me feel awkward.
What happens now? I don’t want to bring it up, my friend recommended that I just treat is as if he invited me to go for ice cream afterward and I respectfully declined. I think I am just going to ignore the situation and if he tried to rationalize or discuss it, explain what I explained above, that an interest in behavior does not mean that any partner will do.

Wonder Leah/Train Rides with Mom

Thursday evening I went to “In the Flesh” the monthly reading series @ Happy Endings lounge to meet and hear fellow blogger Marcelle Manhattan share some of her naughty stories. She did a great job and it was wonderful to finally meet the woman behind it all. Thank you to all the writers and readers who had the courage to stand in front of a room full of people and talk about the intimate goings on of your sex life including a romp with Santa, the exact shaving style of one’s “bits”, an erotic haiku, a walk down memory lane to an S&M restaurant with Topaz and her mystery man and much more. I had a great time and I am grateful that you guys have the stones to get up there and share. It truly does help timid old me break through some of my insecurities to see women talk so candidly about being turned on. It definitely got my writing gears turning, expect more from me in 2008! Talking with Marcelle it really got me thinking…she mentioned how she never felt like she belonged growing up in the south. I think if we all step out of our kinky closets no woman (or outsider for that matter) would have to feel uncomfortable for ascribing to a different set of social norms. I was going to post about where are all my positive dominant female women role models? But I need to be that person for myself, for all the little M. Leah’s out there who are still in college trying to figure out this stuff. If I can help one girl avoid an awkward hookup, complete with blowjob and no satisfaction then perhaps I have made a difference ☺. But seriously, I don’t know why we teach women to be afraid of their sexual desires and package them in tight little boxes that are to be exchanged for either gifts or feelings. I am not saying you shouldn’t be a considerate lover, but things do not end with male ejaculation. I do not know who spread this belief, but women need to reclaim their sexual practices for their own benefit and remove this awful idea of gift exchange from their orgasm and critically examine the way we interact when the lights go down and the clothes come off. I think this is the new barrier. The uncontested sexual mores of hook-up culture and the social environment we are bringing our girls into.
** Excuse me while I get off my soapbox**
The best part of the night however was not the reading or exposing my mother to erotic literature; it was the train ride home on the long island railroad. Oh did I forget to say that m mom came with me? Silly me. My mom came with me to an erotic reading. She grew up in a different time in a different culture, but she has a little bit of the voyeur bug in her. I do too, but I also stick my toe in from time to time (ok, sometimes I just go skinny dipping, but you get the metaphor, I don’t need to kill it). We got little bottles of wine and boarded our train home. We talked about the readers, we talked about men, and we talked about sex. She still is trying to come to terms with the fact that heterosexual people would want to do anal. Bless her little heart. Imagine having this conversation with your mom, it was hilarious. I was trying to educate her and shock her at the same time. She’s such a tightly wound person that I was hoping that this entire experience would help her loosen up a little. And of course under the influence of my train station libations I probably said a little too much. I explained the joys of prostate massages to my mother. I had my mom blushing and giggling like a schoolgirl. Yes, I basically told my mom to stick a finger in my dad’s ass. What type of daughter am I? Maybe she’ll be a little happier and perhaps being more adventurous in the bedroom will make her more adventurous in the world. I wonder if she’ll try it, wait…I don’t want to know. There are some things that are still sacred.
Merry Christmas!!!