Transcript
Dixie De La Tour (0:15)
Heroes and villains.
Poetry Performer (0:20)
We're going to talk about heroes later.
Dixie De La Tour (0:22)
For.
Poetry Performer (0:32)
Darth Vader, autorotic, asphyxiator, workaholic, and a deadbeat dad. Puts his testes in a torture probe, sticking his mask up the emperor's robe. His death starmer's poor puckered and sad. People all say he's the bad guy. But feelings need to get their feelings, too.
Dixie De La Tour (1:14)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Body Storytelling podcast. I am sexual folklorist Dixie De La Tour, and this week we have stories about cosplay. Cosplay is a word that's a contraction of cosplay, costume and play. And it is a really fun way to be somebody else for a little while. It's liberating if you're an introvert. It's a great way to get out there and be somebody else and feel powerful for a while. And a great byproduct of that is you can be any gender you fucking well want. Our first story is from a first time. I've only ever had her once storyteller who told on stage in front of hundreds of people. And the great thing about when you tell a story about cosplay is you dress up for this stage. She had the tiniest, most adorable outfit. And you're gonna listen to the story and you're gonna find out what that outfit was. This story is from Kara Adele, and it was told live on stage in San Francisco.
Kara Adele (2:22)
So not only is this not a story that I've ever told on stage, up until recently, it wasn't a story I'd ever told, even to friends. So I figured, you know, why not get up here and share it with all of you guys? So, all right, so I'm standing in an apartment. Pretty generic, cookie cutter type of place. It's in Arlington, Virginia. It's a suburb outside of D.C. and there's a, you know, a lot of beige. Not a very exciting place, but it's packed wall to wall with women dressed in superhero costumes. This is the graduation party from my master's program. I went to, as Dixie said, School for Expressive Arts Therapy, and we decided to do a costume party for our graduation. And that field is predominantly women. So at this party, there's a handful of guys, friends, boyfriends, husbands, but it's mostly just us girls. And I'm standing there in this party, and my friend Alison has taken my hand, and she's dressed as the Black Widow. She's got the body for it, too. And the Black Widow is a Russian spy turned avenger. She's very femme Fatale, very sexy. All clad in skin tight black leather. And Alison has just taken my hand and asked me to join her in the bedroom. Let's take a breath real quick. So the first time I think I realized that my interest in girls was a genuine thing as well as it was for guys. In high school, I developed a crush on this girl in my art class. And she was very Hot Topic. She had big blue eyes and dark hair, pale skin. She wore these pleather corsets, tutu skirts, these big creeper boots. She used to file her fingernails to points. You can think Zooey Deschanel goes emojis. And as a person in high school who was very obsessed with Tim Burton and Rocky Horror, she was just so creepy and weird and I was totally into it. So nothing ever happened with Zoe, but it's alright, it gets better. But it sort of made me realize, okay, this is a thing. And then I went to college and I started dabbling, you know, being intimate with women. But it wasn't until I got to grad school that the whole thing kind of came to fruition. Grad school was a really interesting place for me because as a bit of a sapiosexual shout out to last month's theme, I was very stimulated to be around all of these brilliant, creative, empathic, just caring women. And I immediately fell in love with a couple of them. Also, as artsy types. We decided to have a lot of costume parties. Like a lot. Like every single party we had was a costume party. So for our first Thanksgiving, we did Going Native. You could dress as a native to anywhere. And I was Snooki and I was native to the Jersey Shore. We did Christmas from the Future, which I can't really explain, but there was a lot of weird hairdos and face paint and recycled sequined dresses from the 80s. And to bring in the next year of students, we did diamond denim and mustaches. And we all wore jeans and glitter and fake mustaches because why the fuck not? So then for our graduation, we decided to do something. Superheroes. And one of the things about our parties was we were grad students, right? So we didn't have a lot of time or money. So there was no effort put into the decor whatsoever. It was just bare bones apartments and balls to the wall costumes. So the superhero party was just like that and everyone really got into the theme. And I'm in this party and I'm looking and I see Catwoman taking jello shots with the female version of Captain Planet, Popeye and Zorro. I Look over and there's Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman, deeply engrossed in conversation with Quailman and Quail Dog, slightly more obscure superheroes. And I went as Buttercup. Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls. Now, the Powerpuff Girls is an animated series. It's about these three little girls who were created in a laboratory by their father, this guy who just really wanted children, but he accidentally gave them superpowers. And they all kind of embody these stereotypes or archetypes. There's the cute, bubbly, kind of simple one. And there's the very level headed, practical leader. And then there's the bad bitch. And Buttercup's the bad bitch. She wears lime green and has this very raspy voice. And she definitely got a little more spice than sugar. And the mix that makes little girls what they are. And maybe if I didn't necessarily identify with her, I always really wanted to. So I went as Buttercup. And we're at this party, everyone's drinking copiously. We're all reveling in this time. That's going to be some of the last moments we have all together. And my friend Allison, whose apartment it is, as I said, is dressed as a Black Widow. Now, along with being very curvaceous, Alison has this beautiful pixie like face. Think Audrey Tatto or tattoo in Amelie or Christina Ricci. But she's got this long dark hair. And we're chatting. And one thing I should mention is that for me, the finishing touch on a costume is lipstick. I don't know what it is, but until I put that on, I don't really feel like I'm ready. And when I do, it just transforms me into whoever I'm being for that night. So I take out my lipstick and I put it on in this bright cherry red. And Alison sees this and she asks me for a kiss on the cheek. And of course, an opportunity to give the Black Widow a kiss. How can I turn that down? So I take her delicate jaw in my hand and I pull her face towards mine. I give her a little soft kiss on her cheek. Alison's wearing this deep plum red lipstick. And I ask her to return the favor. And she does. But we linger in that moment, our lips just resting on each other's cheeks. And for a second, it's just us. So then the party kind of comes back to us. We keep talking, but there's definitely flirting happening now, and that kind of casual but very deliberate touching and flipping the hair and looking at each other's mouths a lot. And Alison is the type of girl who always has a boyfriend. She doesn't seem to care about them much, but they're always around. And this party was no exception. So at some point in this flirting, she takes my hand and she looks deep into my eyes and she says, do you want to come back to my bedroom? Yeah, but there's this boyfriend in the corner. And I gesture. She goes, don't worry about it. What is that they say about female spiders eating their mates? This poor guy had no idea what he was getting into. So, you know, normally I'm not a proponent of infidelity. You're doing something with someone without knowing their partner's feelings about it. But every now and then, when an opportunity presents itself, you have to have sex with it. So we go back to her bedroom, we close the door, and we start to kiss. And it's very soft and sweet and wonderful, but not exactly what I'm feeling. So I reach back to where her hand is in my hair and I give it a good tug. And her eyes kind of open. And that's it. We just start making out like crazy. Like the type of making out where your teeth are clashing together and you're licking the roof of each other's mouths and we're biting ears and necks and just all over each other. And then we start peeling our costumes off. And my hands are on her chest and her hands are on mine. And we're pulling and pinching and our hands work lower, and I peel her black leather leggings off, and she takes down my tights. And then our hands are inside each other and we're both just so wet. And I had been intimate with women before, but this felt different. Maybe it was because she was a friend of mine, but none of the usual doubts, insecurities about my body, or what does this mean? Thoughts were there. I was just so in the moment, and all I could think about was how warm her skin is and how wet her tongue is. And my inner buttercup just took over and I threw her down on the bed and I pinned her arms above her head with one hand. And I just start working my mouth down her body. And I let go of her wrists and I drag my hands down her ribs and I'm kissing all the way down her thighs. And I start going down on her, and it's so hot, and she's just kind of writhing around. And she stops me for a second. I look up, she's reaching to her bedside, and she pulls out her vibrator. Now I don't know if you guys have ever had this happen, but sometimes in the heat of the moment, if someone hands me a sex toy that they own, I'm like, look at it. Like, what is this devil magic stick? And how do I harness its power? I don't know how it works. So she turns it on for me and I start using it on her. And I have it inside her and I'm going down on her and I look up and she's biting her hand to keep from making noise. And I keep moving it in and out of her and my mouth is on her. And then I feel it starting to build. And then she comes, and she comes so hard I feel her whole body just vibrating. And for a moment, everything is electric. And then she collapses against me and then onto the bed and I collapse on top of her. Because I'm the type of partner where if my partner is satisfied, I am satisfied. So we're laying there, our limbs are all entangled, we probably look like two extras in some Renaissance painting about a Roman orgy. And the sounds of the party start coming back to us through the door. And we start kind of laughing because what just happened? And there's a knock on the door. It's the boyfriend just wanting to know where she is. She looks at me, rolls her eyes and giggles. Such a black widow. And she just yells, oh, it's alright, we're just talking. We'll be out in a minute. So we pull our bodies apart and at that moment we realize that we're covered, earlobe to thigh, in bright red lipstick. So we raced to the bathroom and we're scrubbing each other off with baby wipes and washcloths, and we're just laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole sit. We finally get clean, go back to her room, help each other get dressed, freshen up our lipstick, and we return to the party. To the best of my knowledge, none of our friends ever found out about this. But it was still a really big night for me. Not because I fell in love or had the best sex of my life, but because I did something. I really did something. Something that if someone else had told me they had done, I would have said, oh, man, I wish I'd done that. I learned to live vicariously through my. And I realized if an opportunity presents itself, you should seize it, because you never know where it will take you. So seize the opportunity. But just remember to take off your lipstick first.