Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating. To support my work, buy a subscription, follow me on OnlyFans, or just share this post!

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I took a week and a half off Twitter. One of the worst things about being hate mobbed is being forced to recognize the existence of people who fill their time by direct messaging strangers hateful messages and ginning up their followers to harass people they didn’t know existed five minutes ago. It’s extremely sad and somewhat scary.

In the interim, I’ve exchanged checking the pulse of my corner of the internet with a keen interest in the lives of some of the people in physical proximity to me. And not for many years, if ever, have this many people been in such close physical proximity to me.

I ended up staying at my sister’s place longer than expected, including four days with all four (4) of her children. It was overwhelming. Every few minutes there was some unpleasant sound, an alarm, a kid coughing, a dog barking, a kid yelling, kids fighting, mom yelling at kids. They were all sick, and then of course I got sick.

It was a whirlwind of chaos, and I felt more out-of-control than in a very long time. Since I had Covid right before moving here, I’ve felt extremely out-of-control. Staying with people is discombobulating. I’m extremely grateful multiple people were willing to host me. And also I nearly cried when I learned the kids were staying two extra days before going to their dad’s. I’ve gone from spending most of every day in a room by myself to being in at least one person’s company nearly 24/7.

Loneliness is a big part of what made moving to SF difficult. In Alabama, it’s the exact opposite so far. There’s a bunch of people around me almost all the time. But at the same time, I only know two people here who use Twitter.

Finally in my condo, today is my first day in Alabama totally alone. Well, I didn’t wake up alone. Another change from SF. But since he left, I’ve been alone. I spent two hours cleaning. Pro-tip: Don’t triple your floor space until you can afford a cleaning service.

But it’s been interesting tuning into the soap opera that is other people’s lives. I like thinking through their relationship difficulties. It feels like I get to know myself better to think through how I think I would handle similar situations.

It’s also been interesting noticing the differences between SF and Huntsville. Like hearing Contemporary Christian playing in the nail salon, with an ad for an attorney talking about his relationship with Christ.

For a few days, the little pocket in my purse that used to hold baggies of drugs contained the extra key to my niece’s journal that she kindly entrusted to me.

As alluded to earlier, I’ve been seeing someone. He’s the person who broke up with me right before I moved here. There was a moment when he was driving my sister and me to get Chick-fil-A and I just laughed. It was a Thursday night, I want to say. And it was just so different from my typical Thursday night in SF. They don’t have Chick-fil-A there.

But then on Friday night I was sitting on my couch, stoned on Delta-8 (which is legal here), watching trash TV. I felt myself exhale. This was a typical Friday night for me. It was a life raft of normalcy in a sea of change.

The compatibility with this dude is questionable, but the chemistry is not. It’s been interesting getting to know him and myself. I’m enjoying learning where we align and where we do not. For instance, he doesn’t describe himself as a feminist. Shocker, in Alabama, I know. But it’s not just conclusions we differ on, but some values. For instance, he values whether or not something is “natural.” I could generally give a shit. “Cities are unnatural,” he said to me one night. “So is indoor plumbing,” I retorted. (It’s amazing anyone has sex with me.) If anything, I’m skeptical of considering naturalness because of the naturalistic fallacy. I think the conclusions one comes to is less important to me than the path they take to come to their conclusions. He’s willing to update his priors in light of new evidence, and understand where evidence can and should be employed when making decisions.

I’ve enjoyed having thorny discussions with people outside my filter bubble. This dude I’m seeing really wants more kids but doesn’t want to use a surrogate or adopt. I really don’t want to ever be pregnant, so I was asking him why he doesn’t like surrogacy. Of course, it was because it’s unnatural. Then my sister piped up with the fact that surrogacy often involves selective abortion. Now I’m pro-choice all the way for other people’s uteri. But for myself I’m on very effective birth control because I would really hate to evacuate my own uterus. So that’s something to consider that I hadn’t before.

I still can’t say whether I like it here. I still haven’t walked to Trader Joe’s yet. It’s not feeling like it was a terrible choice. I haven’t saved any money on net. Everything is cheaper here, but buying a condo and just the bare minimum to run a household is expensive. But I’m hoping buying instead of renting will turn out to be a wise decision long-term. And I really, really love having a dishwasher and washer and dryer. Rents are crazy here, and seem likely to keep rising. As I’ve been saying, sooner or later the housing crisis will hit every growing US city.

I have a few friends. My sister, of course. That dude’s friends. A couple I knew from Twitter live here and are awesome. I’m looking forward to meeting more people and asking more questions and walking around and paying my taxes and starting to save again.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating. To support my work, buy a subscription, follow me on OnlyFans, or just share this post!

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As I was deplaning in the Huntsville, AL airport, an older gentleman asked me, “Does the ‘decrim’ in ‘decrim sex work’ mean decriminalize?” Now, this would have been a very weird question but my backpack does say “Decrim sex work,” so I answered brightly, “You got it!” He laughed. And I wish this had been where the encounter ended, but I followed up with, “I don’t own myself if I can’t rent access to myself.” At this point he looked like he was sorry he asked. But, in fairness, don’t ask someone about a political message they (or their best friend) have clearly affixed to themselves if you don’t want an earful.

People not having heard “decrim” as an abbrev is not the only difference I’ve noticed between SF and HSV. We have Kroger here, and they’re enormous. It’s like the size of a Walmart but brightly lit and clean. Easter stuff had its own football field.

I saw a koozy that said “I <3 the USA” but it was neither for the Fourth of July nor ironic.

This week I’m at my dad’s because my sister has her kids. I left her house just in time, apparently, since at least one of them is sick. Again.

At my dad’s there’s nowhere to walk except for a Piggly Wiggly (a much smaller and nastier version of Kroger) an hour’s walk away. In desperate need of cardio, I got my dad to take me and Clarabelle the dog for a walk to the pond on his property.

In contrast to the Tenderloin, I only encountered non-human fecal matter on this walk. No one was camped on the sidewalk, if for no other reason than that they don’t seem to believe in sidewalks in this part of Alabama. I did get viciously attacked, though. The sticker bushes here are not playing.

I get pangs of FOMO when I get notifications on Facebook about parties I’m missing in SF. But my sister and I threw a pretty great little get-together on Saturday. I’ve already met some amazing people. And HSV is a lot more progressive than I assumed. There’s pole dancing classes and an active kink scene. I think there might even be a dungeon.

I have this fear that I’m going to fall out of step with the broader culture here. That I’ll retreat into this backwater and when I interact with anyone from outside I’ll be this sheltered bumpkin that everything has to be explained to.

But I think I want to embrace it. I think I want to go into every visit, every interaction, really, with a beginner’s mind. I want to ask stupid questions. I want to stop the conversation when something doesn’t make sense or I don’t get the reference. Better to learn than to seem like I know. Better to learn whether I fit in than to seem like I already do.

But it’s hard. My first few days I kept forgetting I’d moved. Once, sitting around the fire with my sister and a few of her friends someone brought up “Sweet Home Alabama,” in the context of karaoke. I started to say, “You’ll have to dedicate it to me.” Because I’m used to being the only person from Alabama in the room. Then I laughed. Everyone I was talking to lives in Alabama. Most of them are from here.

It’s hard to balance being awkward with wanting to learn. It’s hard to know which questions are going to make someone uncomfortable. But I want to get better at it. Especially since I’m going to be pretty awkward regardless. So I might as well learn something while I’m at it.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating. To support my work, buy a subscription, follow me on OnlyFans, or just share this post!

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Being home has been surprisingly wonderful. After I wrote last time about how I never re-watch anything, I remembered the movies I’ve watched a million times. Super Troopers. Pineapple Express. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Stoner comedies are my comfort food of film. 

I think of myself as always being whatever I’m currently being. I like to be alone. I like my space. But being here, sleeping next to my sister, I’m remembering that I also love closeness. I love that my nephew asked me what he should write about for his ACT prep essay. My sister and I have fallen into a rhythm where we each play to our strengths. I turn the dryer on when she loads it and then gets distracted. She cleared off a sink for me to use. 

I read this quote in the post that inspired me to start podcasting my posts:

“[T]he ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. The ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone, and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them, and to have believed in them, and sometimes, just to have accompanied them, for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.” 

My sister knows me. She knew me when I was eight years old. She knew me through my divorce, my moves, and my religious and ideological shifts. And she knows me now. She’ll say things about me and I’ll just respond, “I hate that you’re right.” 

And we laugh. She makes fun of me for being obvious and oblivious. I make fun of her for being a space cadet. 

The state of her house gives me hives. Sharing a bed with anyone is not my favorite. I’m looking forward to moving into my condo. But I’m also enjoying being embedded in her life. And embedding her in mine. I loved having our parents over for dinner. Laughing and ranting about politics like we’ve always done. 

I have a good feeling about everything. I’m still nervous. But I’m optimistic. I’m grateful. A lot of people move to SF because they don’t want to or can’t be near their families. I understand that. I think it was really good for me to be away for a long time. But I think it’s really good for me to be back nearby. At least for a while. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating. To support my work, buy a subscription, follow me on OnlyFans, or just share this post!

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Alright fam, I think it’s really happening. On Tuesday, God willing and the covid don’t resurge, I’m actually going to leave SF. (I accidentally didn’t email out my last post, Last Friday did not go as planned. TL;DR, I got Covid the day before I was supposed to fly home.)

Today, a friend of mine was texting me about his recent “career pivot into sex politics.” It got me reflecting on what I’m proud of when I think about my time here.

I remember walking Nob Hill with this friend years ago. He was working on environmental activism at the time, not yet “face out,” with regard to his non-monogamous, kinky proclivities. I encouraged him, as I do all my friends who I think can cover the costs of coming out. Now I won’t take full credit for him joining the board of Orgy Dome and starting this new path. But you bet your assless chaps I’ll take some.

When I think about what I’m proud of, I think about the people who told me they never really thought about zoning or land use policy before I became obsessed with it. I think about bringing Maeve into the Bay Area sex-positive community. I think about being broke, dumped, living off my Bitcoin holdings, crying in my nasty-ass Tenderloin shower feeling semi-suicidal and then managing to find another tech job just in time. I think about hustling. Making porn. Making it work in the most expensive city in the world. Forced femmeing a billionaire. Accidentally taking way too much molly at my first post-pandemic play party. The machine learning researcher who ate keto and didn’t drink at all because he wants to live forever. The community input meetings where people were as openly racist, bigoted, selfish, and small-minded as anything I’d ever seen in Alabama. All the dicks at Folsom. I think about living between worlds. Not a gutter punk, a burner, or a tech bro. Neither fully wonk nor fully philosopher. Never rich enough for the rich kids nor poor enough for the poor ones.

I think about the two friends who came to see me when I was sharing a living room with two college students in Park Merced, which, if you don’t know the Bay Area, is bumfuck Egypt. It was $550/month and got me out of an untenable living situation ASAP.

I think about how it took not one, but all two of my SF Black friends to tell me that my main sex party community wasn’t as inclusive as I’d thought. And taking the byline, and doing the edits, so no one else had to take the heat when we wrote about it publicly. I might have been slow to see something, but I did say something once I did.

Realizing my relationship was probably over when he talked shit about YIMBY. Hearing him tell me much later that he was wrong and I was right. YIMBY-pilling at least two high-net worth individuals who are now donors.

I love cities’ sense of high variance. One minute I’m walking down the street. The next I get a phone call from a friend telling me to hop into the Orange Element. An hour later I’m smoking meth and getting introduced to the Bay Area sex-positive scene. After two more tries I decided meth wasn’t for me. But the group sex was.

One minute you’re cleaning your friend’s shit out of your white shag rug, the next you’re eating at one of the fanciest places of your life as a thank you.

It’s so hard for me to stay interested when I think I know how something’s going to turn out. I rarely re-watch, re-read, etc. anything. I hate watching previews of movies I intend to see. It’s hard to maintain sexual interest once I’ve figured out someone isn’t going to be a great love story for me. I love high variance people. One of my favorite people in the world is probably going to prison, going to be a billionaire, or both.

I’ll always love San Francisco. I’d always prefer to live here to absolutely any other place, money and family aside. It’s the highest variance place I’ve ever seen. It’s where I’ve seen the worst dehumanization and the heights of human achievement, all in less than 50 square miles.

I know variance exists everywhere. I know I’ll find adventures in Huntsville, Alabama. But for now I’m just happy to remember some of the variance I found while I was here.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/subscribe