Story by Nina KaPow
Illustration by Bailey Meyers
Holy shit, it’s sunny outside! I don’t know about you people, but I am grateful as fuck to have the sun back. This means that sundresses and board shorts are coming back…mmmm, yummy. I don’t care what you are or what you hump, the more skin showing the better. Not hootchiness—naturalness. I love seeing the back of a knee or a collarbone. And the back of someone’s neck can drive even the most pussy-obsessed man crazy if displayed properly. That, my friends, is the glory of spring. It’s the season when we take off our winter skins, and display our real selves to the world again.
Send your sex and relationship questions to [email protected]. I can’t act as your shrink or doctor, but I can certainly be a bitch-whine-receiver. Just be prepared to hear: “Just dump her ass already. And pour me another lemonade vodka.”
This might sound stupid, but it’s really been bothering me: What happens when you and your partner look weird together? I’m a big gal, and my boyfriend’s really skinny. People look at us all the time when we’re together, just because we’re so opposite. I know people usually expect guys to be bigger than their girlfriends, but this is just how we are. It makes me feel weird. Any advice? —Offbeat Girlfriend
Honey, this isn’t stupid. You’re just not thinking about what’s important.
People stare at couples who are different. Of course they do. We’re a species that has experienced a lot of very recent mixing. Couples of different races, of different religions, body types you wouldn’t think would work in bed-these are all relatively new things. People stare because they’re interested! We’re all animals!
That being said, this is my advice: Work your difference. Kiss your man in public, mess with people’s heads. If you’re part of a size-skewed, kinky-looking, how-on-earth-do-they-work-in-bed couple, celebrate that fact! Couples like you are how the human species evolves. Work that shit.
I’m in my last term of college, and I’m so psyched. I have a job all set up for after graduation, in a city across the country. Only problem is, my boyfriend wants me to stay behind until he graduates, so that he can move with me. That’s six months! How do I tell him that I can’t wait that long? I don’t know when this opportunity’s going to come again. —Sleepless Senior
Let me be the first to tell you, Sleepless: You are not wrong for wanting to leave, even if it means leaving your boyfriend behind. Women are encouraged to pull a Madame Butterfly in these kinds of situations, waiting and being loyal to their men at the expense of themselves. They stay with their man no matter what, thick and thin, job offers or no job offers. While this is noble, and completely appropriate at times, it can be a dangerous mindset. Just like a young man, sometimes a young woman just needs to pack up a bag and hop on a plane.
Tell your boyfriend that you’re taking the job. If he whines, he whines. But if you tell him you love him but you absolutely must take this, it’s his duty as your partner to try to understand and work through that. If he tries to cajole, manipulate or make you feel guilty, ditch him. That kind of man, that kind of person-not worth your time.
Nina, why is it okay for girls to call each other ‘bitch’ but it’s not okay for guys to call them that? My girl friends have tried to explain it to me, but I still don’t get it. I’m their friend-why can’t I use that word even though I’m a guy? —Confused Man-Biyotch
As a Feminist it pains me to say this, but it’s true: You can’t use ‘bitch’ in the same way because you don’t have a pussy.
‘Bitch’ is one of those extremely loaded terms in the gender-language world, because it can only really apply to a woman. If you call a guy a bitch, you’re implying that not only is he a woman, but it is a derogatory thing for him to be a woman (as opposed to a man). It is a word originally used as an insult to a woman, used to imply that she is only good for breeding.
Recently, a lot of women have tried to come together and reclaim this word. Take it back, so to speak. And that movement is in its very early stages, Captain Confused. Meaning men using the term casually is still a no-no. This will change over time, I promise. You just gotta wait for all the deustchbags who shouted ‘bitch’ at their ‘hos’ to die. Or be slapped by a few drag queens.
This is really weird for me to admit. I’m a straight woman, happily married to a man!! But lately I’ve been really really aroused by other women. Just being around a hot woman for a long amount of time, if a woman checks me out, if I’m sitting down and a woman’s standing right by me and her ass is close to my face… it drives me nuts. My husband and I don’t have as much sex anymore, but it’s still okay when we have it. I don’t bear him any ill will! Maybe I’m looking at women because I’m bored with my sex life right now? What do you think’s happening? —Fun With Just Jane
Okay, I am sick of all the straight people this week. LGBTers, where you at?
Jane, you sound lonely. You’re probably experiencing a change or blossoming in your sexual identity, brought on by a very slight dry spell with your husband. There is nothing wrong with what you’re going through. Despite what we’ve been told, curiosity kills no one. It only makes us live better.
Is it possible for you to talk to your husband about this? If your emotional life together is stable, and you’re giving the impression that it is,  he might be very open to hearing this. Just be sure to encourage him that you don’t intend to leave him, and that you’re still discovering this interest in yourself. You might be surprised by how supportive he ends up being during your period of discovery. Many men express that they wish their female partners showed some interest in women (or at least appreciated feminine beauty and sex appeal). I hope that you can come around to embrace that part of you. You might not end up being a lesbian-just a more honest and complete woman.
 
What’s Ruffling Feathers This Week: I guarantee this will be the most-discussed topic at Rennie’s Landing this week- TIME magazine has confirmed that the length of a man’s penis can be estimated by the length of his fingers. All the girls in the bar say, “Duh!” But it’s more complicated than it sounds. Hold up your hands, boys: See the difference in length between your index and ring finger? If the former is shorter than the latter, that correlates to a longer penis length at full erection(on average). And the science seems fairly sound on this one-the study was only conducted on Korean men, but the data was gathered by different researchers (one got dicks, one got fingers), and all the men were measured were under anaesthesia when they were measured. That’s probably the only circumstance I can see a young man allowing someone to measure his penis both when it was flaccid and it was erect. Unless he was a particularly awesome individual.
 
FOR MORE FROM NINA KAPOW, READ OUR PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF RUFFLED FEATHERS:
RUFFLED FEATHERS #24
RUFFLED FEATHERS #23
RUFFLED FEATHERS #22