SpanishRed

Going Through Depression Without Treatment Is Like Climbing Everest Without an Oxygen Tank

When you have depression, you will meet two kinds of people:

a)       Those who want to help.

b)      Those who think medication is for weak people.

Going through depression ...

Creating a Sense of Safety Is Easy: Just Pretend Bad Things Never Happen

Did you hear Lucy was violated in public at a play party? And that Gerard’s been stealthing people at swingers’ parties in the next suburb? And Jackie says she was just injured in a scene.

The fear will get to you eventually. You just ca...

BDSM isn't a Slippery Slope That Sinks Into Domestic Violence

In 2016 when I got involved in BDSM, I thought the boundary between kink and abuse was so narrow you could slink right through it in a moment of thoughtlessness. I spent many months asking more experienced people how I could stay on the right side...

If you can convince someone to honour their feelings, they might find the power to get through one more day.

Angry manosphere adherents often rage under my writings because I dare to break my silence; dare to speak about the female experience—the gropings, rape, domestic violence we’re threatened with day after day. The manosphere doesn’t ...

Suicide Always Looks Back, Not Forward

It’s easy to want to die when you’re looking back at years of walking through life with a boulder in your stomach. It’s easy to kill an agonising history, but suicide doesn’t kill the past. It kills the future: that moment you first see yo...

The Kink Scene Made Me Unashamed

Before I met Eric, I hid every nth of my sexuality from everyone, even my partners. I was just that terrified of being seen. Something about Eric was different, though. Something told me he might understand, so I shared a secret. He understood. I ...

I'm Going To Get Sucked Into a Tornado With Glass Shards and Great White Sharks Whirling Around Me. No, Really.

I’m the sort of person who turns every gale into a hurricane. If there’s a fire, I imagine my house burning all the way down to the foundation. Then I never find another home again for some reason. If there’s a storm warning, I imagine a tor...

Why You've Got To Eliminate Triggers From Your BDSM Experience

In mid-March, I managed to walk into a wall with so much confidence I broke a bone. Ever the responsible patient, I continued my regular walking schedule. I decided it was just a sprain and insisted it would heal in time. Every time I made progres...

The Miracle Will Happen If We Don't Quit

When you’re hiking off-path, you must negotiate your route one step at a time, solving each problem as it emerges. Loose rocks, steep cliffs, and white water will block your path, and each solution is unique to your strengths. Maybe you can clim...

And Mind Games Can Never Hurt You

Degradation was my first experience of BDSM. I wasn’t expecting it. Nobody in the kink community would have called it ethical, but if that moment had never happened, I wouldn’t be in the kink scene today. Eric was the sadist in question. He di...

BDSM requires us to break free of tradition. As a woman, I only broke free halfway.

As a blogger, I like nothing more than to make readers suffer by misnumbering my lists and Rick Rolling everyone. Laugh if you like, but I do, in fact, have a sadistic streak. It’s not the sort of sadistic streak that could draw blood at the edg...

Rejection and Celibacy Were Never the Problem

Jennie Young invented a new dating method called Burned Haystack Dating a year ago. The movement “blocks to burn”. We’re all looking for a needle in a haystack, and to find that needle, we must simply burn the haystacks by blocking anyone wh...

At War With My Body

I’ve been at war with my body ever since I was old enough to feel shame. I began to apologise for my imperfections before I reached 13, not because I was criticised, but because my grandmother tortured herself over her own flaws every day—loud...

BlackHippyChick Day: Getting Published

This week, one of my friends was published by our top local newspaper. He’s not an experienced writer. He just set a goal, then worked to achieve it. One day, he had the balls to make a submission, and it was successful. I had a similar experien...

Criticism Week Day Three: All Writers Need Polishing

The pain of criticism is often connected to unrealistic expectations of yourself. If you’re experiencing feedback as a statement of your ability, you’re probably expecting too much from yourself. Some writers spend years writing and e...

Submission Feels Like Stillness

Submission feels like stillness. The instant that fist grabs my hair or my wrists, my entire being turns into stasis and waiting. It wasn’t always that way. When I found D/s outside the kink community, I only had my ignorance to explain what I w...

Getting Criticism From Someone Who Can't Read Will Only Teach You To Create Terrible Work

The writing process requires two entities: The writer and the reader. Writing is a cycle, and without a good reader and writer, the magic of the writing process shuts down. We live in an increasingly aliterate world. People might know how to read ...

Master One Twue Way Never Became a Real Boy

My friend, K, is a gifted photographer. I am not, but I love taking pictures anyway. It helps me to find the beauty in a common sewer drain and the romance in a gutted train. </rhyme> K and I have built a Facebook relationship made entirely ...

Criticism Week Day Two: Coping well with criticism is one of the most important writing skills you will ever learn.

A few weeks ago I endured an awful call from an agent in Germany. I’d written a series of features that were clumsy and full of clutter last winter when I was ill. They’d dug up those writings and needed to address the quality of the work. Thi...

It's Criticism Week!

During my first year in the writing scene, I often left my workshop in tears. I’d pinned all my hopes on success, and sometimes it seemed I’d never get there. I expected myself to get everything 100% right 100% of the time, and sometimes criti...

The 10 Commandments of Sex

Human sexuality comes with a list of rules long enough to traverse the earth five times: Thou shalt get hard on command or we shall declare your sexuality pathological. Thou shalt not take more than 10 minutes to reach orgasm. Thou shalt have a ti...

Short-Form Nonfiction Week: Logical Fallacies

If you’re going to write nonfiction, you’ll need to create a cogent argument. Luckily there’s an entire list of shitty arguments to draw lessons from. You no doubt know them as logical fallacies, and no credible nonfiction writer should use ...

Short-Form Nonfiction Week: The Inverted Pyramid

Short-form nonfiction often uses the same story arcs we explored in fiction week, but other forms come into play as well. We call them “ledes.” Inverted pyramid ledes are probably the most used structure in journalism. They’re also a bloggin...

I Never Wanted To Be Thin. I Wanted To Be Invisible

I’ve always hated my body. It was never thin enough, curvy enough, muscular enough, tanned enough. You could say my anorexia was my solution to those imperfections, but then you’d be falling for the same lies I used to tell myself to avoid the...

Short-Form Nonfiction Week: Are You Writing To Your Audience Or At Them?

I have a friend called Bosco. When I talk to him, I say one of several things:

“Who’s the good boy?”
“Are you the good boy?”
“Yes, you are!”
“Sit.”
And “High five.”

I don’t tell Bosco about what I’...

Proof That Boyfriends Are Hobbitses

Hobbits can’t avoid spider traps for shit because they’re too busy thinking about eating breakfast. Boyfriends can’t avoid brat traps for shit because their entire brain is basically made of bacon.

Have you ever known a hobbit who ...