Some days I am insatiable. I crave sex and sensation to remind myself that I’m alive. Other days I lose myself in the abstract world, the pages of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the chaos of the internet. I forget I am flesh and blood until my head throbs and my stomach rumbles.
I suspect you feel the same way, caught in a pendulum of not-life and not-death. Without a routine, the distraction of jobs, and constant societal demands, we are forced to contend with the real questions. What is life about? What is my purpose? Is it the apocalypse out there or an elaborate lie? If you think we’re living in a dystopia now, it’s important to note that some people in other parts of the world have been living a version of hell for a long time. What is my part in all of this?
It’s three days before the new year (and the new decade). I was going through my period tracker app, which I also use to log my sexual encounters, and realized that I have been faithfully logging data in it since July of 2010.
This is not a new concept. Since the dark ages, the nuns in my Catholic school taught us to keep a calendar in our sex ed class. They handed out blank graphs for charting our vaginal discharges and basal body temperature. I’ve been logging my cycles and sexual encounters right alongside writing in my diary since.
My teen cycles were unpredictable. Although I was sexually active at 15, it was a good thing I wasn’t having intercourse yet at that time or I would have been a wreck constantly worrying about whether I was pregnant. I got my first p-in-v at the age of 20 and birth control soon after. I quit birth control at the age of 30 and became pregnant within a couple of months. When my cycles resumed about 8 months after birth, my body was so in tune with the moon. Let’s start with my mom-bod numbers:
From July 2010 to November 2013 my cycles were between 26 to 34 days long, an average of 27 days.
December 2013 was a blue moon with two periods. My first cycle was 19 days long, followed by a normal 26-day cycle. It coincided with my first New England winter. From then on I had off-cycles once or twice a year, usually extra long cycles during the winter.
2017 I got extra long cycles in the summer months: 52 days, 47 days, 52 days… in addition to 49 days in the winter. This coincided with getting fitted with an IUD in the spring, which I did because my previous off-cycles were stressing me out. I had been sexually active with multiple partners and no birth control prior.
2018 became even more irregular: ranging from 16 days in May to 51 days in June, average of 32 day cycles.
2019 is the year of very long cycles: ranging from a normal 28 days in February to a whopping 80 days that spanned my entire summer. My average cycle is now 47 days. One word: perimenopause. This is the beginning of the end.
As for sexual encounters, my app has a limitation of only one Yes/No tab per day. I usually have partnered sex more than once a day. I entered more detailed information in the Notes section, but it isn’t quantified by the app, so although I have the data, the numbers are not pre-crunched for me. Even so I hope you like numbers because I’m about to hit you with my slut stats:
I had sex 303 days out of 365 in 2019. I had 1 primary partner for most, if not all, of the 303 days I had sex in 2019. 4 partners I had repeated sexual encounters with throughout the year. Another 4 partners I had only one sexual encounter with in 2019, but had encounters with prior. That’s a total of 9 partners, all male. I had no female partners in 2019, no new partners.
I had sex 277 days out of 365 in 2018. I had a total of 10 partners, 9 male and 1 female. No new partners.
I had sex 316 days out of 365 in 2017. I had a total of 24 partners: 1 primary, 11 male repeats, 8 male one-time encounters, 2 female repeats, 2 female one-time encounters.
I had sex 245 days out of 366 in 2016. I had a total of 25 partners: 1 primary partner, 3 men I had sex with in the previous year that I had repeated sexual encounters with in 2016, 10 new partners with whom I had repeated sexual encounters with throughout the year, 8 male one-time sexual encounters, 2 female repeats, 1 female one-time encounter.
I had sex 220 days out of 365 in 2015. I had a total of 20 partners: 1 primary partner, 1 man I had sex with in the previous year that continued in 2015, 4 new partners that I had repeated sexual encounters with in 2015, 9 male one-time encounters, 5 of them were in a gangbang.
I had sex 190 days out of 365 in 2014. I had a total of 3 partners: 1 primary partner, 1 male partner I had sex with once but had sex with him before, 1 new male partner I had sex with repeatedly throughout the year.
I had sex 215 days out of 365 in 2013. I had a total of 2 partners: 1 primary partner and 1 male partner I’ve had sex with for years prior. This was the year we moved from California to the North East.
I had sex 246 days out of 366 in 2012. I had a total of 4 partners: 1 primary partner and 2 new male partners, 1 new female partner.
I had sex 110 days out of 365 in 2011. I had a total of 4 partners: 1 primary partner, 1 male partner I’ve had sex with for years, 1 male one-time encounter, 1 female one-time encounter.
Only 2 partners are non-binary. The rest are cisgender. Don’t even ask me to do the math for my lifetime tally of partners.
I definitely grew sluttier in the years 2015 to 2017. Maybe it’s the long New England winters. Maybe it’s me hitting my forties and feeling like I’m about to run out of my fuckable years. I grew a bit more sane in the past couple of years, but it’s still way more partners than I ever had in California during my thirties and New York in my twenties.
I’ve contracted an STI only once in my lifetime: chlamydia in 2016, after my gangbang in December of 2015. Fucking Christmas present, huh? It cleared up with a round of antibiotics.
I gave every single one of my partners orgasms each time, but in the past decade only 4 of my partners had ever made me cum. Most of my orgasms I gave myself.
My primary partner accounts for almost all of the days I had sex because he was present whenever I’ve had sex with others, even though he may not always be in the same room. It’s very rare that I don’t touch base with him after an encounter with someone else, and then you can guess what happens when I get back together with him. More sex. So really, multiply the number of days with at least 2 and you’ll get an estimate number of times I had sex each year.
Your turn. Don’t worry, I’m the last person who will judge. And honestly, anyone who reads my blog shouldn’t have any business judging either. So tell me, how often do you have sex? How many partners?
Not gonna lie, I struggled with this year’s Birthday Nude. The entire process was discomforting. I found myself being hypercritical of my aging body. I booted up my images in Lightroom and moved the texture slider all the way to the left to smooth out my spongy middle. I sent the images to Photoshop and cloned my wrinkles and belly folds away. Then in a fit of frustration I closed them all up unsaved.
For the Birthday Nude series to stay relevant in the years to come I’m going to have to post these photos unedited as I always have or I won’t do them at all.
If I continue, I will have to confront my naked self, not just my aging body. My emotional reactions reveal so much of who I am. Posting it publicly adds another layer of confrontation. I will have to ask myself the hard questions. How do I feel? Why do I feel this way? Do I feel shame? What am I ashamed of?
I have come to an age when I am proud of who I am and where I’m at in life. That doesn’t mean I look at my body with rose-colored glasses. As someone who has spent decades creating media with my body, I can look at images of myself with objectivity.
In these photos I wear nothing but make-up. I have not given in to temptations of botox or cosmetic surgery. Yet. Maybe never. I don’t know. No judgement on those who do. I haven’t dyed my hair since four months ago and I’m liking the streak of gray growing out of the right side of my hairline.
I enjoyed celebrating my birthday this year. I feel like I’ve been celebrating for weeks now, random presents, time spent with people I adore.
I look at my healthy, beautiful, smart, and talented daughter and feel successful as a mother. Mothering my child has been top priority for the past fifteen years. Everyone and everything else took the back seat. It’s worth it. I invested my time and energy wisely. Now I’m opening myself up to mothering more of the world.
My co-parent, business partner, artistic collaborator, lover, my Man. How I love my Man. We’ve been through so much, good times and nightmarish ones. For so long I’ve taken him for granted, thinking he doesn’t need my mothering because he’s eight years older than me, bolder than me, everything more than me. I was wrong. We’re holding on for dear life and rediscovering who we are to each other at each stage of the game.
College boy somehow slipped in as one of my favorite people on this planet. We’ve known each other for years and he knows most sides of my compartmentalized life. During those moments when my Man was too emotionally involved in the situation to be my friend, my boy took me in his arms and told me heâs got me. I take care of him, too.
And you… I appreciate you. Thank you for coming along on my journey.
May Ling Su birthday nude in the barn hayloft, sitting on a vintage World War II army cot.
This year marks my 20th birthday nude. We shot at home. The photo above was taken in the barn hayloft, an amazing play space when it’s warm enough. It’s a reminder to seize the moment. Winter is coming. Life goes by way too fast. My time is limited. Soon we will have to leave our 169-year-old haunted farmhouse that we’ve made even more haunted with vintage treasures. I’m a little sad to go, but excited to begin once more.
The photo above was taken in the backyard, lush with wildflowers and this abundant hydrangea bush. Itâs a sanctuary for birds, bees, and butterflies. Snakes and mice. Chipmunks and squirrels. The best approach to mothering nature is to let it be wild (also applies to mothering humans).
This past year Iâve been spending a lot of time in nature, hiking up mountains and swimming in lakes. This summer I participated in a podcast with Agam, for which they paid me by planting four trees in my name. I intend to plant more trees every year for the rest of my life as part of my legacy.
Happy birthday, World Wide Web! I still remember the sound my dial up modem made, the raspy cry of a newborn baby web. Little did I know that soon after, a baby web whore would be born: ME!
đŸ Here’s to my first photo shoot, Rainy Girl in NYC, which was shot in film, scanned to digital, then UUencoded and posted on the usenet newsgroups in 1996.
đ„ Here’s to my first digital camera and nude photos posted on my AOL home page under the screen name MrsWiggles, shut down for nudity and racy content in 1997.
đč Here’s to moving to California and starting a tripod site called clix.to/lolita, shut down for XXX hardcore content in 1998.
đž Here’s to my first webcam and webcasting on iFriends as MAYCAM in 1999.
đ„ Here’s to creating my first members only pages through the Adult Check password system and hosted on the iFriends server free for video chat hosts in 2000.
đș So here’s to you, World Wide Web. Look at you, wireless, mobile, social, deep, and dark. How you’ve grown! You’ve changed the world as we know it, for better in some ways, for worse in others. You’ve shaped the way I live and love, make a living and make love. You’ve made me your whore. A toast to the World Wide Web! Cheers! đ»
My daddy forbade me to get naked for a college play. He didnât realize it was not his call to make. I was eighteen. I could make my own decisions about my body.
I had just finished a run of my first professional theatre gig. âBy George!â was a musical revue of George Gershwin starring Dulce and directed by Behn Cervantes. I was a wispy little chorus girl, but I had a solo part after Michelle Gallaga in the song, âI Got Rhythm.â It was a showstopper!
Throughout the run and for weeks after it, I hung out with Dulaang UP kids. Even though I went to Ateneo, I auditioned for a part in the play âFili,â adapted by Floy Quintos from Jose Rizalâs âEl Filibusterismo.â Director Tony Mabesa must have been amused by my novelty because he cast me in a big part, the role of Kontessa, the Kapitan-Heneralâs whore.
Sisa was Eugene Domingo, who had briefly changed her name to Geena Domingo to assume a more dramatic persona. She was a student then, not the big comedy star she is now. Dolly de Leon, who later in life got a plum part in the international movie Triangle of Sadness, was her alternate for the role. But this was long before they became superstars. Back then, the big star of the show was film director Mario OâHara as the protagonist Simoun.
Rehearsals were exciting. I was getting a master class in theatre performance from the best in the Philippines. I tried my best to keep up when we read through the entire script. I was in one big scene with chunky monologues and several lines back and forth with the Kapitan-Heneral. I was off-book and ready when it was time to get the scene up on its feet.
Sir Tony had me enter with a lit candelabra in each hand. I recited my lines, projected my voice as big as I could make it. My scene partner, the Kapitan-Heneral, was played by a flamboyant opera singer. I couldnât let my voice drown alongside his. At center stage I was directed to hand the candelabras to the Kapitan-Heneral, kneel in front of him with my back to the audience, and undress.
Undress?
Sir Tony was serious. I would be getting naked onstage.
My heart raced. My face heated up. I felt small. Literally. I had no tits. I was very self-conscious about it. We werenât even onstage at the time. We were in a rehearsal room with unforgiving flat fluorescent lighting. I sheepishly removed my street clothes and returned to my spot center stage. The Kapitan-Heneral looked down at me. He was enormous.
âDrip wax on her,â Sir Tony directed from behind a desk. The stage manager sat next to him coldly taking notes on her script.
I continued my lines, gasping every time hot wax hit my bare skin. I felt all eyes on me. Cast and crew held their collective breath as a virgin had her first taste of Dominance and submission. Public humiliation. I didnât know any of them and none of them knew me. I was an outsider. Just a doe-eyed girl from Ateneo who thought she could run with the cool kids at UP. I felt so alone.
As the scene drew to a climactic end, Sir Tony said, âThis is where you have an orgasm.â
âWhatâs an orgasm?â I asked.
Sir Tony laughed a big booming laugh that echoed throughout the rehearsal hall and in the back of my head for years to come.
âYou poor girl.â
Sir Tony took out a cigarette and stood up. The stage manager called a break.
We worked the scene in the succeeding rehearsals. I grew in confidence each time we ran it. I was determined to conquer this role. Eventually, though, Sir Tony decided to get someone else to play Kontessa, a woman named Grace, who rumor had it was a Muslim princess. She was a grown woman with full breasts and dark hair down to her ankles. She fit the part more than I did. She knew how to have an orgasm.
Iâm trying to imagine my 18-year-old self as the Kontessa. Not yet five feet tall, a tit-less waif. I would have been the child prostitute version, which is not without a visceral power of its own.
I was demoted to the part of a common whore. I wore a blonde wig and a big poofy dress. I had a couple of lines and got to kiss Sir Mario OâHara at the beginning of the play.
Â
I got asked out on dates a lot during the run of the play. Maybe I was fresh meat from Ateneo. Maybe it was the challenge of giving me my first orgasm. Maybe that very first wax dripping scene rehearsal played in their imaginations more often than they could bear it. More than my naked body on display, I like to think it was my innocence, vulnerability, and courage that captivated them that day.
This is an excerpt from the memoir I am currently writing. I am so proud that I got to work with Sir Tony Mabesa, who recently won the MMFF award for Best Supporting Actor in the movie Rainbow’s Sunset.
Puki was attempting to jump to the windowsill. She was there for a long time yesterday, watching who knows what outside. Squirrels? Whatever birds were left around? Or the remaining leaves still shivering on the branches.
I held my little Puki close this morning and whispered to her, âToday I will take you to a place where there are many other cats and kittens for you to play with. Sometimes itâs going to be fun and sometimes it wonât be. Sometimes it will feel absolutely horrible. I donât know if theyâll put you in a room with other kittens or put you alone in one of those cramped little lockers. They likely will take you to the vet and get you your shots and get your ovaries and uterus removed. It will feel weird, even painful, but hang in there, wild thing. I will miss you. I will miss having a little wild animal in my life. You were born here, under our couch. I remember fearing that you were dead because you werenât moving. I touched you within the first hours of your birth and you heaved a big sigh and I knew you were alive. Now look at you. A little wild thing to remind me of what wildness is like.”
I want to nurture that wild creature within me. I love it. I love that wild side. I would never want to tame it.
“I will miss you, wild thing. My little Puki. Your scaredy cat Mama. I wish you both the best. This is why I’m giving you up before Christmas. There are so many people who want to take kitties home for Christmas. Let it be you. I hope you get a good family to adopt you and you get to explore another exciting home, a forever home. And when youâre done exploring and things get a little boring and all you do is sit by the window looking out at the snow, maybe youâll think back to our crazy haunted home where you were born, the magical place where you and your Mama were together. I hope there are stairs in your coming home. You were so intimidated at first but later you raced up and down and tripped us up constantly. May you have many Christmas trees to attack and shoes to shove your face in.”
“Will you remember me? Remember us snuggled under lots of thick blankets? Will you remember that I will love you always? I give you a piece of my heart. Keep it. Take it for a walk or a run sometimes. Let it dance around your head when youâre feeling sleepy. I want you to never once think nobody loves you. I love you. When youâre at the vet and surrounded by nurses and people who donât know what a kung fu kitty you are, that you know how to give secret handshakes, that you get up on your hind legs like a lemur, remember that I love you and that we share that secret, your secret identity: Kung fu kitty.”
Jay packed the Mama cat into the carrier. She fought him hard and cut him many places in his arms. He never liked it that we kept going to the shelter even though we couldnât adopt. He didnât want to fall in love and not be able to take the cat home and keep it forever. I donât mind. I have no time to protect my heart from love. I donât mind breaking my heart. We were born on this earth to break our hearts over and over until we die. That is our purpose.
Have you broken your heart? If you havenât broken your heart, then you havenât lived. What are you waiting for? Wear your heart on your sleeve. Break it. Million tiny pieces. More. Donât play safe. Be a fool. Love.
If you are here, you are part of a strange and loving community. I am grateful that you confide in me. This is a safe place. You are accepted just the way you are. Even if you’ve never commented, I want you to know that I count myself lucky to have you. You have saved me.
You may already know that last week, my dear friend died unexpectedly. Gina brought so much life to everyone she touched – always so present and generous. She wore herself out giving. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I can’t keep living and not give as much of myself as she believed I can. I will be the best version of myself I can be, but I will also forgive myself for not being perfect. I hope you’ll join me.
Take every opportunity to be kind and generous, even if it’s just a compliment, a smile, or a facebook “like.” Tell people you love them. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh out loud. Play music. Dance. Make love. That includes making love to yourself. Yes, that’s love, too.
I’ve been working on Book 3 of the Lilith series for a long time, struggling with the Impostor Syndrome way longer than I should have. Lilith: Beyond the Deluge is now available on Amazon Kindle. I hope you enjoy it. I would truly appreciate it if you leave me a review.
Hereâs to starting my blog, 
