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Bawdy Storytelling
Episode 295: ‘Orgasm Leader Board’ (Kevin A. Patterson)
00:26:40
Has a bad breakup ever made you think ‘the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else’? Author and Ethical NonMonogamist Kevin A Patterson is feeling a bit lost and confused, so he grabs his Bang bag and orchestrates his own...
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Transcript18 lines
- [00:02]
Dixie Delator
The following podcast contains true stories of sex, kink, gender, or body image. Thanks for being a consenting adult. Cause here we go.
- [00:12]
Unknown Performer (Vagina Song)
All of my life I've never fit But I won't complain and I won't quit I am enormous get used to it. Everyone tells me I'm too much maybe it's just Just you're not enough for me can't you see I'm the kind of woman I'm supposed to be? Hey, my vagina is eight miles wide. Absolutely everyone can come inside. If you're ever frightened, just run and hide. My vagina is eight miles.
- [00:58]
Kevin A. Patterson
What?
- [01:05]
Dixie Delator
Hi there, and welcome to the Bawdi Storytelling Podcast. I'm sexual folklorist Dixie Delator, and this week we have a story from author and ethical monogamist Kevin A. Patterson. How's your week going? If you've been following along, you know that I am currently struggling with whether or not to stop this podcast. I've kind of set this nice round number, 300 episodes, to make a decision, because it's been over seven years now that I've been working on this, and I'm not sure whether this counts as forward movement. It's a lot of work, and I really want to make the best use of the time I have on the planet. So is it worth it? Well, last week, I got a piece of fan mail from somebody. I read it here on the Dixie Ramble, and I just got another one. These things make me know what it feels like for you. Y' all are telling me your stories, and that's what I need to hear right now while I'm trying to make this important decision. So I'm gonna read you the email. Hey, Dixie. Christy here. I'm a professional pervert, a digital devotee of the Ministry of Pleasure, a super supporter of stories about sex, kink, gender, and body image, and bespoke believer of the power of body storytelling. Back in late December, I stumbled across an online flyer for Body Storytelling on Tour, which I think was shared by Midori. I was at work. I was supposed to be working on saving my business. I was one withdrawal away from going into the red, and the credit cards were maxed out. I had reached the bottom of the barrel. I was feeling so freaking lost, so alone. Everything I'd work so hard to get is slipping through my fingers, and in that moment, I was completely overwhelmed by it. So, of course, I was scrolling through social media instead of trying to deal with it. And there you were. Everything about that post drew me in. True stories told first person about sex, kink, gender and body image. What? Seriously, why am I only finding out about this now? It has always been the rare few who want to talk about these things openly. I never knew that there were so many willing to talk about these things, never mind to an audience. I went headfirst deep into that rabbit hole. I read every word on every page of your website. Then I watched the videos attached. I unearthed everything I could find on YouTube. Since that's where the linked stage videos were. It seemed like I was finding the stories I needed to hear in the way I needed to hear them. Most every one of them resonated. Midori Lark, Dan Savage, Jeffrey Allen Hayes, Kathy Vartulli, Allison Moon, John Woods, Blythe Baldwin. You. I remember so many names of the storytellers who have taken your stage because in those moments I felt connected to each of them. I felt like they had told their story especially for me. Shared experiences from people who think the way I think and do what I do and feel how I feel. From way down in the bottom of the barrel, I felt your love light shining on me, encouraging me to soak it in. It was then that I was able to find my footing on the dark, grimy bottom of the barrel. Everything body was enlightening and inspiring me to keep going. I popped my podcast cherry on body Storytelling. I started listening to the podcast episodes that came up when I was done with the videos on YouTube. A Dixie Ramble has literally kept me going for the past six months. These intimate glimpses into what you are going through make me feel like I'm not alone. Even though it sucks to know that you are going through so much of the same shit in your life, we are hurtling toward all too similar obstacles. I hear you speak openly about loss and loneliness, mental health and connections business, and how painful it can be to follow your passion. The business of personal pleasure, even when you're just talking about it, is especially challenging when we live in a world where the greater societal structure is terrified of us. Your work is vital for the betterment of all sexual health and wellness matters. I followed the trail of breadcrumbs left from your stage to the storytellers, which has helped me navigate my way to the perfect tribe of perverts. I am confident that if they are your people, they are my people and it has proven to be true so far. I have recently signed on for Reid Mihalko and Kathy Vartuli's online workshops. Reid I was familiar with, but I found Kathy through you. I have the highest regard for her because of the couple of stories that I've heard her share on your stage. I want you to be able to continue working Dixie. I want your bills to get paid and for body storytelling to be financially stable. I want the same for me and Thorns of Concord, which is Christie's company. And though I would love to take your workshop, your classes, have you coach me, fly you to New Hampshire for all that in a show, the reality of it is is that I am still financially scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I do have other resources. Please let me know how I can best support you. Thank you for sharing so much of who you are with me and the rest of the world. Your passion and dedication to building a community where everyone feels equally seen and heard in all of their authentic glory is awe inspiring. Your everlasting radiance has brightened my world. With love, Christy. Thank you, Christy. Thank you for taking the time to write that podcasting is not my love language. I love doing it. But live shows are where I connect with people and they tell me their stories. And to have somebody sit down and take the time to tell me what they're going through, that just makes me feel connected to the world. And I haven't had that connection very much lately. Live shows are what I'm great at. I've been producing events for, you know, as a pervert over 25 years, easily body coming up on 18, and I could make a living on it for a long time. And the podcast was something that was financially supported by live shows, and that's just not the case anymore. But as I'm trying to make a decision, this is episode 295. I feel like I need to make a decision by episode 300. Letters like this make me feel like maybe I should continue messages like last week's message that I played here on the Dixie Ramble. All of those make me feel connected to you. And when I feel connected to y', all, I really want to keep talking to you. If you have a story, if you want to send me an email and tell it to me or make a voice recording, let me hear it as a voice memo that I can hear you say it. That's going to help me make this decision, y'. All. I don't want to make this feel like a threat. I'm just being honest about the fact that I really hate it when people aren't transparent about the fact that they plan to stop something. It just goes away and you kind of feel a little gaslit. Did that ever exist? Was that really there, you miss it, but you have that incomplete sense, like we all need closure, right? So I'm just trying to put the pieces together right now, be honest about what's going on and to thank you for messages like this. It means so much, Christy, to read your words and I hope you inspire others to do the same. Now's the time, y'. All. Well, I'm in Portland right now because I'm doing my first Portland body storytelling in eight years and it's this Friday, June 21st. Not only can you watch, if you attend live in Portland, Oregon, you can watch the livestream from wherever you are. This is gonna be a great show. We've got sex geek and relationship coach Reid, Mahalko, Dance Naked and Plan V's Eleanor o', Brien. Everywhere is Queer's Charlie Spinkman, first time doing this. And black man of trans experience Rocky Lane, also doing this for the very first time. Music by Mark Graudin, who used to perform for me all the time in San Francisco, who now lives in Portland. And of course I'll be there hosting it. That's the 7:30 show. That's the curated show. And at 10:30 you can get on the bawdy storytelling stage because we're doing body Slam. It's a competition and there's fabulous prizes. There's links in the show notes to get your tickets. Please tell anyone you know in Portland, Oregon. It's so much better when you're there. I'll see you this Friday. It's time for a story. So let me tell you about this week's storyteller. Kevin A. Patterson is an active member of the Philadelphia Polyamory community. He's been practicing ethical non monogamy since 2002. After opening up a relationship that eventually became his marriage In April of 2015, Kevin was inspired to start Poly Role Models, an interview series for people describing their experiences with polyamory. Poly Role Models was part of a drive and a desire to change the way our lives and communities are viewed. To continue that discussion of polyamorous representation, Kevin has extended the blog's work into the writing of the book Love's Not Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities. Along with co writer Alana Phelan, Kevin has launched a sci fi novel series for Hire Operator that centers characters of color as well as other marginalized identities. This storyteller is Kevin Patterson.
- [11:17]
Kevin A. Patterson (Storyteller)
I'm going bringing it all the way up. There we go. Here we go. How's it going, everybody? Sorry, you're going to get like Three stories in one, so apologies for that. So I needed, like, I'm on my back and I needed to check the time. Like, usually, like, I'm really shitty at rolling up my own sleeves so they always come undone. Like, I'm not able to look at my left wrist, but then also my left hand is buried inside somebody's badge about Riz Deep. And like, usually that's not a big problem. You know, you can switch hands, roll up the sleeve, but my right hand was also buried in someone's vag. But, like, I really needed to check the time because, like, I had like two or three more appointments after this. So, like, backing up 2018, 2019, I had a lot going on. Like, it was all just happening. Where 2018, like Dixie said, I had a popular polyamory blog. I had the book Love's Not Colorblind. I was touring all over the country. I was on every podcast, including Timorese, like multiple times. But also, like, I was going through a really shitty breakup. I'm not gonna bother, like, giving a real or fake name because fuck her, but I had a breakup that left me, like, really disoriented, really confused, really sort of lost. And I sort of follow the old adage of the best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody else, you know, and like being like a 20 plus year veteran of consensual non monogamy. And now I'm all over the country doing book tours and shit, like, there was a lot of opportunity for sexy fun all over the place. But the most important or sort of like the high point was right here in the Philadelphia area. So this leads me to my girlfriend Frenchie's 40th birthday party. Now Frenchie is like a thick, tattooed roller derby chick. Like, she's the life of the party. Every party she goes to or at no parties, still life of the party. That's just how she rolls. She wanted to do the whole birthday bruises thing. So for the uninitiated, birthday bruises is basically you gather up all your people. Everyone you know, friends, partners, people you feel safe and comfortable with. Everybody gets some impact toys and everybody goes to town. Yeah, so like, you know, people brought like floggers, people bought riding crops, those paint stirs they give you at Home Depot. I'm a sports guy, so I have like a hockey puck on a stick and a cricket bat, you know, so it's like Shaun of the Dead, except instead of a zombie's head, it is a butt. So now we're at this party, it's Very well intended. And one of the people who attends is our friend Lexi. Lexi's got that sort of Marisa Tomei, my cousin Vinnie, Isabella Soprano thing happening now. Like to explain when I go to these sort of events, I've got what I call my bang bag. It's a nice little canvas bag. It's full of condoms and lube and nitrile gloves and vibrators small enough to fit inside of nitrile gloves. Lexi, on the other hand, Lexi has a full size Craftsman tool chest full of toys. The kind of shit with wheels and a telescoping hammer. I got a bang bag, she got a fuck truck. So we're at this party and, you know, it's impact toys and all of that, but it gets really sexy really quickly, you know. And at some point, Lexi and I are holding hands inside a Frenchie and I'm like, you know what? We should just do this. Like, you're good with your hands, I'm good with my hands. Like, we both have a reputation for being really good with our hands. I'm like, we should just provide this as a service. And Lexi's like, you're right. A quick sidebar. That's the origin story of my polyamory, where I made a joke about a threesome, and 20 years later, I'm still with that same threesome chick. You know, it's a longer story. I'll tell it at the next body. Anyway, so Lexi takes it seriously so that I start taking it seriously. So we start talking, we start dming, we start reaching out to everybody we've ever put hands on around in. And we basically, like, we pick a date in April. And that's how we became this gender nonspecific traveling hand orgy. And for this one day in April, for about 12 hours, 10:00am to 10:00pm, you know, we drove around giving hand, you know, tag team hand jobs. And like, I took it really seriously. I made a whole Excel spreadsheet. You know, I'm charting down mileage times. You know, orgasm counts for the people who are willing to count orgasms for us, you know, and like, so we're over in Fishtown and Northern Liberties, and we're over in Claremont and Center City and West Philly. Like, we're, you know, we're really spreading it around. But the sort of high point was over at Philadelphia Music Hall. If you were unaware, Philadelphia Music hall was basically like a kinky clubhouse. It was a big house, big house, three floors, lots of separate spaces. You walk in, they got like St. Andrew crosses, all sorts of rigging implements, baskets full of condoms and lube and, you know, puppy pads all over the place for moisture. And then, like, there's, like, a big wrestling mat for their wrestle Fuck events. I don't feel like I need to explain wrestle Fuck. So we decide to. We decide to just go for it there. Like, basically, we told everyone, if you can't host us in your homes, meet us at the music hall. Because we knew people who could let us into the place. So people show up. About seven people show up to the music hall. And it starts as just, you know, hand sex, because that was the thing we were doing. You know, my sleeves are rolled up hand sex. And sometimes that's, you know, I'm playing with a clit while Lexi's playing with. You know, playing with a G spot or, you know, I'm stroking somebody off while Lexi's making out. Or, you know, I've got, you know, I'm in a vag and Lexi's in an ass. And we're going through, like, all of the. All of the stranger things closed captions. You know, moaning intensifies and electric vibrator thrumming and squelches wetly, you know, and it all sort of builds to Ivy. Now, Ivy. Ivy is like, if you've ever watched Powerpuff Girls, where, like, bubbles is sometimes, like, sweet and sensitive, but then also, like, badass and mischievous. Like, Ivy is like, what happens if bubbles just get growed up and sexy? And we've only been dating for a couple of months, but I guess at some point, and I'm just sort of describing the thought process here, because we've never had this conversation, even though they're in this room, but at some point, they were just like, you know what? I'm dating this guy. His dick is unattended. It's mine now. And that's the sort of, like, go for it that I love. The sort of, like, rock, saddle entitlement to my dick that I really appreciate. So Ivy comes over, places me in a position, whips me out, gets me hard, sits on my dick and just rides me to completion. And, you know, my hands were unattended at this point, so other people came over. And now, like, I'm all over the place, and Ivy just goes for it. You know, maybe they were falling behind on the. You know, on the orgasm chart, there was a whiteboard. There was dry erase markers. We were keeping track. And, you know, good job. Ivy catches up to. Catches up on the leaderboard. And, like, the leaderboard is actually on My Instagram, like, if you scroll five years back, you'll find like a whiteboard with a bunch of initials and tallies and like a big pile of gloves and chucks and used condoms. And like, I'm down at the bottom of the orgasm leaderboard. I'm up two. So good for me. You know, it's 20 and 15 and 10. Two. And I killed it. It was a good two. But we did this, you know, and like there was a couple other stops after this. But it felt like this was the high point. Like, you know, because it turned into this sort of impromptu orgy.
- [20:13]
Dixie Delator
We were.
- [20:13]
Kevin A. Patterson (Storyteller)
We were just good doing the hand sacks. But it turned into something else. It turned into sort of a free for all at the music hall. And we did this in April and we did it again in June. And we had meant to run it a third time in like October, September while it was still vaguely warm. But then August happened and in August I got invited to speak at a sex ed conference. And the topic, not my topic, but the topic, the prevailing topic of the weekend was emotional abuse, where it wasn't intentional. Like, I was hanging out with a friend and she was going through like a high profile thing with an abusive ex, and I was hanging out with another friend and she was actually at the conference to teach about emotional abuse. So, like, the topic keeps coming up and they're sitting there spelling out all the things that my ex was doing. They didn't know they were doing that. They were just having a conversation about the topic. And that whole getting over someone by getting under someone else. It's fun to stay in isolation till you have somebody sort of spelling out all of your, like, your anxiety right at you. Which was fun. And it wasn't lost on me that my instinct was, boy, this is stressful. I wonder if there's someone here I can fuck. It was like, oh, this is the bad place. This is the pain that I'm falling away. And it started me on like this journey of healing and growing and fact finding. And I can honestly say that, like, I'm back to just being a regular slut again. And while, like, I wouldn't say no to a third hand over fist road trip. Cause that's what we named it. I'm good. Leaving it as, like a bunch of wild memories and this commemorative shirt that says Fist of Fury. Thank you.
- [22:13]
Unknown Performer (Trophy Song)
I want to win. I want that trophy. I want that trophy. I want that trophy.
- [22:30]
Kevin A. Patterson
Yeah, bitch, I'm here to take that crown. Make it move it up and down. Pull up Pull out the tangerine dreams Step out of that limousine we walk in and we floss it yeah, we keep the pink and we bounce hey it's like I told you so no one take the ground shut it down Bounce us to the show Shoot this guy I'm a boss never let my go all the girls round the world now we in control all the girls around the world want to be let go Take the gunshot and jump back just to the show Shoot this.
- [23:17]
Kevin A. Patterson (Storyteller)
I.
- [23:17]
Unknown Performer (Trophy Song)
Want that trophy I want that trophy I want that trophy I'm here to.
- [23:34]
Kevin A. Patterson
You up wanna make your bottle pop I'm about to drop why we spending Cuz we got dollars out of my pocket in the sky so high I'm here to you up want to make your bottle pop I'm about to drive looking like what we got of my pocket in the sky so high.
- [24:19]
Kevin A. Patterson (Storyteller)
I.
- [24:19]
Unknown Performer (Trophy Song)
Want that trophy I want that trophy I want that trophy Coming up, coming.
- [24:39]
Kevin A. Patterson
Up, coming up, coming up, coming up.
- [24:48]
Unknown Performer (Trophy Song)
Coming up I want that trophy Y'.
- [24:51]
Dixie Delator
All, the situation has grown desperate. We're in a decision making phase right now. So I really need you to support this podcast. I can't do this myself. You can Support us on Patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com BODI. You can support us on Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, Zelle, any of those ways. But it makes a huge difference. We had one listener this week who decided to give a dollar for every episode that I've put out. And that helped a lot. If you could do that, if you could do whatever you can do, maybe we can keep going at this thing. So it's up to you. Send me an email if you have any questions. There's links in the show notes to all of those ways to support this podcast and thank you for considering it. Well, we're at the end of the episode, but once again, I want to implore you, please send me an email. Tell me a story, write me a review. You can write it wherever you listen to podcasts, that comes to me and I get to hear what's going on for you too. I really want to know and it makes a huge difference in my ability to keep the doing this podcast. I want to thank you for that and I also want to say thank you to the people who make this podcast possible. Thank you to Mohsa Maxwell Smith, Donal Mooney, David Grossoff, and podcast producer Roman Den Haudeker. I'm sexual folklorist Dixie Delator. This is episode 295 of the Bawdy Storytelling Podcast. Thanks for listening.
- [26:29]
Kevin A. Patterson (Storyteller)
LA.