Tag: masthead

Shiny and New

On August 14, 2010

For a while now, really ever since I switched from Femmeinist Fucktoy to Femme Fagette I’ve been unsure of that blog name. Even when I made the switch I was hesitant because my identities are fluid and I tend to shift and change and rearrange myself often. I have wanted something a little less identity based and a little more solid. I couldn’t figure out what, though, and I liked (and still like) Femme Fagette, so I went with it.

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I was thinking about changing my blog name but didn’t yet know to what. You may or may not have noticed the switch yesterday from Femme Fagette to Purveyor of Pleasure. The URL changed as well to ofpleasure.com (I also got purveyorofpleasure.com and it’s pointing to this blog as well, but ofpleasure.com seems much simpler, easier to remember, and cleaner). It is less identity-based and a phrase I’ve been using for a while on my business cards. Of course now I have to get new ones printed. Dammit.

Hopefully, if you’re reading this through RSS, nothing should have changed for you since you should be getting my RSS feed through feedburner. Also, if you came here via a link from another site or are looking at the main page the URL should be different but it should still take you to the right place. This change will mess with my pagerank for a little while, but I think it’ll be worth it.

So, please, if you’re reading this, update your links if you haven’t already. Although it will automatically redirect to the right place it’s still best to have the correct link and title.

Also I put up a new layout on Wanton Lotus, so take a look at that as well.

Ever Changing

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 2, 2010

In Discourse, Introspection

My life seems to be shifting in new directions all over the place, and with that comes the need for change in other areas. I have far too many things on my docket and I’ve mentioned before about needing to get organized, unfortunately I can’t seem to do that. It’s a common scenario, and I can blame the last week of non-accomplishment on my mother visiting and doing things with her, but even before that I wasn’t getting everything done that I wanted to.

It would be less of a big deal if I didn’t actually want to change. I’m trying to learn to focus with joy but I seem to not be prioritizing the way I would like to be. How does one get on top of this sort of thing?

On the flip side, I’m thinking about a new name for this blog. Something more androgynous, maybe, or something less identity based. I kind of like the idea of going back to The Feminist Fucktoy, except I’m having some weird feelings about the term feminist lately, mostly it’s connotations. While I think it’s important to reclaim a word I also don’t like the things carried out in the name of feminism that seem overtly non-feminist (in the way I understand it). There’s a longer post in there somewhere, and one I plan on writing… eventually.

What does that mean? The header might change, I might add another URL to the long list of ones that point to this blog, you’ll still be able to find me. My RSS feed will be the same. I just don’t know what I want to change it to. Cuntpet also has it’s draws, not to mention the added bonus of already having the domain, but I’m also currently and often in the mood to have someone call me Daddy, so that would be too limiting and narrow of a title. I want something that is all of me while also being flexible enough to incorporate new aspects as they develop, is that too much to ask? Well, yes.

In other words, don’t be surprised if you come to this blog one day only to discover it has moved to another domain, another phase in the blog complete, shifting in a new-yet-still-the-same direction, letting this blog evolve as I do. In some ways I’m tempted to start over, something new and different, shed this persona that is not separated from me in any way and do something more anonymous, more free. In others, I embrace the brand I’ve built up around myself and want to continue it. I just need a new phrase for this period.

New Masthead

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 24, 2008

In Site Specific

I hadn’t planned on changing my masthead tonight, although I’d been trying to find a new image to use for quite some time but stumbled upon this one by accident. It’s called Femme en Vogue I by Bertram Bahner. I don’t really know who that is, but I saw this via google images and fell in love with it a bit.

Why do I do This?

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On September 16, 2008

In Sex Blogging

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately, specifically regarding this blog, but also generally in my life. I’ve come to many answers, and I wanted to share the blog-related ones with you all. The questions I’m really asking are: what am I gaining from writing this blog and what am I trying to say with it in addition to why am I writing this.

This blog came from a resurgence of activity on my livejournal. I got to the point where I was posting two or three times a day about just about everything. I had it all tricked out, paid account and everything, with tons of information and personal insight. I started stepping off of livejournal and reading other blogs on blogger and domain-based blogs and such, and I realized that the community on livejournal wasn’t the right one for me to be in, I wanted to be in this blogging community.

I had loved the personal nature of livejournal, the ability to have friends-only or private posts, and I still retain my livejournal (though I don’t post in it as often as I’d like or as often as I used to, most of my energy is directed toward this site). I was heavily involved in the livejournal community, including moderating multiple groups and being involved in many others in addition to my own private blogging. I don’t remember what sparked it off, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to buy ofpleasure.com (which turned into ofpleasure.com and now ofpleasure.com), and one which I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with.

A little back-story of my online history as well: I started my first website in 1996 on angelfire (yes, that’s right, angelfire–back when it didn’t have ads!) and have been online in various places ever since. I bought my first domain pretty far back as well, probably around 1998, but I’m not sure. I started a blog, started up my domain, got into a little community and started a fun group blog with some others around my age. I had a wicked crush on someone in my group blog, she was smart, butch, and older than me. I still think about her sometimes. I’m actually still in touch via-LJ with a couple of the other bloggers from that group blog so many years ago.

I’ve had various different domains, some of which I still own, some of which I do not, most of which have faded away with time, as online projects do. I have taken long periods of time away from the internet, mostly for school purposes but not only. I had a long break two years ago when I first moved to SLC and was getting everything sorted out here as well as crazybusy with school and the like. Most of these years I was also on IRC as well, and on my Livejournal (which I’ve had since 2000), and Diaryland for a brief time, and various other sites.

I mention all this to highlight that I’m not new to blogging or to analyzing my life through writing, and that brings me to my first answer to this question. The reason I started this blog was to create a more focused environment for me to explore and analyze my relationship with Dominus Onyx. I started it at a time where we were having a lot of issues, and it seemed bigger than livejournal as well. It was my place to get out ideas and feelings about our relationship, where he could read them too because I can express myself through writing much more easily than I can through regular conversation.

The other big reason for starting this, as I mentioned earlier, was the community factor. I felt like starting this blog was entering into a whole different community, one I embrace wholly and which I feel embraced by. I have made some amazing friends through my explorations of sex, gender, poly, relationships, etc. most of whom I’ve never met face-to-face, but I hope to someday.

I think this answers the questions stated above (what am I gaining from writing this blog, what am I trying to say with it, and why am I writing it), but that’s not all. As you may have noticed, if you’ve been reading for a long or short time, my identities have been changing dramatically since I started this blog. This blog is not only for relationship exploration and community acceptance but it’s also for exploring all sides of myself in a free environment, though I still post the extremely personal stuff in LiveJournal on occasion.

When I started this blog I had just started calling my submission style “cuntpet,” before that I had embraced slave and slavehood. My mastheads have had this progression:

“The ramblings of a sex-positive femme queer poly feminist fucktoy cuntpet”
“The Feminist Fucktoy – The musings of a sex-positive femme queer poly 24/7 submissive cuntpet”
“The Femmeinist Fucktoy – The musings of a sex-positive fat femme queer poly 24/7 submissive cuntpet”
“The Femmeinist Fucktoy – The speculations and escapades of a sex-positive fat femme queer poly kinky switch (24/7 cuntpet and Domina)”
“The Femmeinist Fucktoy – The speculations and escapades of a sex-positive fat femme queer poly kinky switch (cuntpet and Domina)”

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding “fagette” or “boi” into the mix of identities, but I haven’t found a good place for them yet. Perhaps you will see it in the future.

The point of going through these is to show how my identity has changed over the months I’ve been writing this blog. Although the first post is technically from 15 August 2007, I didn’t start this incarnation of the blog until 25 February 2008, that’s really not a long time for these changes to be occurring. While some of the main identities I’ve had for years have been constant (sex-positive, femme, queer, poly, feminist) there are new ones like “fat,” a word I used to detest, and switch, cuntpet, and Domina. Although I’ve been exploring BDSM and specifically my submission for about ten years cuntpet is still a new identity, the identity this blog was based around.

Now, why am I sharing all this? First, it’s something that has been on my mind a lot lately. How did I start writing this blog? Why I started to write about sex, sexuality, relationships. and gender specifically, simply to explore my own interactions with each and my thoughts on the subjects. I know from some of the feedback I have gotten that I am making others think, helping others in discovering their own identities, or simply discovering someone that is similar to them or thinks in a similar way.

That’s another of my reasons for writing this blog, because I believe individual stories are powerful and getting to know individuals is important. I started this as much to get to know you as for you to get to know me. I want to share my own discoveries and views of the world and see who echos those views back to me, and hope that I may help inspire others toward their own discoveries.

Semantics Sunday: Fucktoy

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 17, 2008

In Discourse, Identity: Submissive

So it’s not exactly Sunday, but I can fake it.

Fucktoy is a word I have been struggling to find my own definition of. When I started this blog I originally bought ofpleasure.com which I still own and which points to this domain. I then changed it to ofpleasure.com and now to ofpleasure.com. The change from cuntpet to feminist fucktoy happened when I realized that cuntpet was an identity, and it would be like owning slave.com or submissive.com and having that as my personal blog, that is, it would be centering this blog around one identity when I am many. I wanted to change that.

I found a shirt from dyketees.com which says “Feminist Fucktoy: Don’t hate the player – Hate the shame” and I absolutely fell in love with it. That shirt is what inspired me to change the name of the blog and website to The Feminist Fucktoy (and then femmeinist came later, of course). I chose the name before I started embracing my Domina side, and so fucktoy has been somewhat difficult for me to embrace as a Domina, but that’s why I defined it the way I did originally in the masthead.

I don’t believe that a fucktoy is someone soley used by another for their pleasure, which is what a common definition of fucktoy is (from what I can tell). Fucktoy is similar to slut in that sense, the common definition of slut is someone who fucks around but who isn’t gaining pleasure for themselves, only giving pleasure to others. In reality a slut can be many things, but the way I choose to view it is that it is someone who embraces hir own sexuality and chooses to engage in sexual activities in order to experience pleasure, both giving and receiving of pleasure. That is how I view fucktoy as well.

A fucktoy isn’t necesarially the one on the bottom, either, despite “toy” being part of the term, which we often equate as something being used. The beauty of a term like fucktoy is it combines an action with a (seemingly) inanimate object: fuck with toy, but toys are not always inanimate, they can do wonderful things (the SaSi comes to mind) and can embrace their given purpose, which is to bring pleasure in one form or another.

So, my (new) definition of fucktoy is as follows: a person who enjoys sex and sexuality with the purpose of giving and receiving pleasure for the benefit of all involved.

Are you a fucktoy too?

Because That's What All Feminists Are Like

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 17, 2008

In Equality, Site Specific

I’m going to add my definitions of femmeinist and fucktoy to the masthead shortly, and I pondering adding “femmeinist” to the Urban Dictionary, so, of course, I took a look at how feminist is defined in there.

At this point in my life I really should not have been surprised at the definitions which were posted, which basically call all feminists sexist, hypocritical, mean, man-haters, etc. all those wonderful negative stereotypes. I really should not have been saddened or surprised, or have thought that it might be any different.

At least the #2 entry reads:

someone who believes the radical notion that women are people.
if you believe that women and men should have equal rights, you are a feminist. there’s nothing “extreme” about it.

That’s something, right? I urge you all to go to the definition of feminist in the Urban Dictionary and vote for that entry and vote down all the other entries which perpetuate negative stereotypes. While, yes, there are those feminists out there, they are not the majority (at least, not in my experience), they are just the ones which get the most coverage.

*Sigh* So, look for my definitions of femmeinist and fucktoy on the new masthead, should be coming within the hour. Also, I may add femmeinist to the Urban Dictionary, but I wonder if people would bash it as well? I definitely will add my definition of fucktoy (on UD as both fucktoy and fuck toy) however, since the definitions there are all degrading. I’m definitely not using it in a degrading manner.

Also, as a note since I’m mentioning site changes as well, I recently added a weekly poll to the top left sidebar, as well as links to my various wishlists (Amazon, VibeReview, Eden Fantasys, JT’s Stockroom, and Extreme Restraints) on the right sidebar under the buttons to my various profiles on other sites. I also added a list of affiliate links on the left sidebar (such as VibeReview, Eden Fantasys, Babeland, JT’s Stockroom, Extreme Restraints, and Amazon) which look rather similar to the wishlist links, of course, as these are the sites I often frequent and also highly recommend. I will shortly add a paypal donate link, just in case anyone feels generous.

New Masthead Info

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On June 16, 2008

In Site Specific

You may have noticed, there’s a new masthead for this blog. I set it up last night, and I’m still tweaking with the colors. I love it, thus far. I first encountered it as an icon on livejournal, and the image itself is by Vlad Gansovsky who is a simply amazing photographer.

One thing I love about the cropping of this photo (which is similar to how I saw it the first time) is that although the person in the foreground is pretty much definitely a woman, or at least someone with breasts, the person in the background could be a man or woman, and it’s fairly ambiguous either way. I imagine myself as the woman in the foreground, of course, and a lover as the person in the background. Of course, I’m not only attracted to masculinity, but it does seem like a more common occurrence in my life than a feminine partner. More later.