Additions to the Queer Lexicography: Ages and Dating and PR

There’s been a trend amongst my friends lately to date ten years up or ten years down. My friend Heather told me once, her voice dramatically raspy like an aged actress, holding a drink and wobbling a little bit with the truthiness of alcohol, “You gotta get ’em before or after they’re in the thick of their shit. 29 year olds are weighted down with issues.”

I have to say I’ve found some seduction in that idea. When my fiance and I broke up I was a little obsessed with finding a 39 year old butch divorcee. My theory was that it took the end of at least one significant adult forever releationship to season someone enough that they could do it better the second time. Also, I had a couple of friends at the time who were dating 39 year olds and they seemed like breaths of fresh air compared to the crop of 28 year old scoundrels I had been dealing with.

Of course, it’s not that simple. A year later it turned out at least one of those 39 year olds was a super powered douchebag and I never should have looked to her for any sort of relationship idealizing.

However, I will say age and experience are an important factor in how compatible someone is with you and what kind of match you’re looking for. But now there’s a new crop of Queer Lexicography to explain the big giant age difference!

A Tiny is someone who is in their barely twenties.* Tinies can be great. They are someone you can be really tender with because of their stark vulnerability in contrast to your older jadedness. They can be really fun to corrupt. They can also help you not take things so seriously. Tinies sometimes have more active sex drives. They can make you feel really old when they don’t understand your Jem and the Holograms references.

Because they are tiny they are fresh faced and full of energy, and you can train them to suit. Basically it’s like you want to enjoy them and be the hot older woman who teaches them things. When a tiny doesn’t act right you have to understand that this is your opportunity to not only help the tiny but also help the community. Pay it forward, if you will. I’ve had a few lovers who definitely benefitted from prior experience with someone much older. I got to reap those benefits, too!

Someone who is in their barely twenties is probably much less likely to be the marriage and kids kind of forever dater the way same age people are. That’s a nice relief and a lot less pressure. More emphasis on dating for the fun of it and less on the dating with expectations.

Of course, like with all relationships, you have to be careful with your Tiny. You don’t want to ruin them and make them jaded like you are.

Being someone’s Tiny is great. Instead of dating someone else in their barely twenties where you’re just sort of fumbling through things with a soundtrack of Sarah McLachlin and don’t know any better between the two of you, someone shows you the ropes of how to be in and communicate in and have fun in the queer community.

Being someone’s Decade Down, is sort of like a Tiny, except you’re not in your barely twenties and have some life experience, have done the Saturn Return and thus have a lowered tolerance for bullshit. You can be the young one in their friend crowd, who is fun and full of energy and wants to go out dancing more than once a month. Your Decade Up is your connection to a certain part of queer history that you didn’t live but maybe read about in Michelle Tea novels. They can teach you more tricks in the sack because hopefully they’re more experienced. They are over being the wandering panty chaser and want to settle down a little bit. Maybe.

Experience always trumps age. But unless you’re a crazy overachiever or chronically unable to learn from your mistakes, age makes a difference in how you relate to people and life. I’ve also learned that just because someone is older it doesn’t mean they are automatically good in bed, but that is true more often than it is not.

You shouldn’t mess up a good thing by getting bogged down with age stuff. Heather likes to say “Who fucking cares? Shut up you’re ruining everything.”

In other words, age, like other relationship differences, is sexy and fun to play with when appropriate. Like zodiac signs. But there’s no way to say just because someone is a Scorpio they are definitely going to fuck you over, though it’s quite possible.**

I got another addition emailed to me by Mira Bellwether the other day that I’ve already rolled into my Queer Lexicography.

Pussy Response: PR

This is a term my friends and I have been using for a while now, frequently or usually abbreviated to PR, especially in polite company, and for the sake of coding (and abbreves.) The appeal of Pussy Response to me is that it describes an active process/state of being that belongs to the person who expresses it, rather than a passive state of being or one that is done to someone (“she makes me wet.”) The latter is sometimes accurate, but I like having a term that puts things in terms of my desire rather than what someone else is up to. PR also doesn’t necessarily rely on wetness to gauge sexual response or arousal, but it can be part of the whole pussy response experience. We also talk about PR campaigns, and PR can be an exclamation like “Hot!” that focuses on what the speaker’s body is doing rather than stating something about the object of desire.

Examples:

“The bartender at that place gives me total PR!”

“Did you see her arms? PR!”

“I have such PR for that boy.”

“You look amazing tonight, you’re sending me on a PR campaign!”
“Oh really? Well, you’re going to feel my PR all over your face as soon as I get you home.”

I’ve also heard tell of at least one butch using the modified “CR” for cock response, but the association with consciousness-raising makes me slightly uneasy.

I, on the other hand, love consciousness raising, so CR will work around me. Thanks for the addition Mira!! The deviled egg hair fascinator you made me is creating a PR campaign in the queer fat femme community.

*Sugar plums, let’s keep it 18 and over, always.
**That’s a shout out to my good friend who shall remain nameless. USE YOUR WORDS to break up with people, not the ignore button on your iphone!!