Tiffany Kagure Mugo - Touch: Sex, Sexuality and Sensuality

Compiled by

Tiffany Kagure Mugo and Kim Windvogel

Kwela Books

A note on the content in this book

While there arent many specific references in these essays around safer sex practices, we highly support the practice of enthusiastic consent, of using internal and external condoms and various forms of protection, good lube, and all the other amazing things that make us feel safe and ready to play. For more information on safer sex practices check out the free How to Touch manual online, available from @thetouchexperience on Instagram.

Some of the essays contained in Touch contain graphic mentions of rape, drug use and assault, but not to worry, there are trigger warnings (TW) ahead of any piece that may require one.

Enter the lair, if you dare: The beginnings of Touch

Tiffany is in the bath, doing self-care shit and contemplating life.

Kim is having wine and reading through a book titled The Unbearables Big Book of Sex .

Kims phone lights up, its a message from Tiffany.

Tiff: Hey, bii I was thinking we should work together again.

Kim: Funny you say that, I am literally reading this collection I bought in Philadelphia and thought of compiling another book because narratives matter. LOL.

Takes a swig of wine and snaps pictures of the book to send to Tiff.

Tiff: I mean, you compiled They Called Me Queer and I just released Quirky Quick Guide to Having Great Sex and hello? Did you just send me a picture of three dicks tied together and suspended mid-air?

Kim: Yes!!! It might help get our creative juices flowing.

Tiff: Now, getting people to write about sex thats a hard one. And writing about sex within the pandemic eisssshhh.

Kim: Yeah! No one is getting great sex. Folx just stressed fucking outchea. We are all isolating and who the fuck is feeling for a fuck during a pandemic?

Tiff: Imagine writing about busting a nut just to be depressed and all alone in real life? Also, Kwela will not publish three dicks suspended in mid-air, Kimmy-pops!

Kim: True ... but sex is much more than that. LOL, its not just about busting a nut. Its about our insecurities, our desires, our bodies, our depression, our upbringing, religion ...

Tiff: assigned sex at birth, marriage, polyamory, monogamy

Kim: Yeah, the brief can literally just be: SEX. Now go make magic. We could always try for two dicks?

Tiff: Are we really doing this? LOL

Kim: Yes, we are doing this. We have good working chemistry

Tiff: Actually yes! and between the two of us our networks have authors, artists, poets, sex positive thinkers and workers so

Kim: I think we should also move outside our usual suspects ... make sure this showcases different voices. TCMQ relied too heavily on certain parts of South Africa, lets branch the fuck out.

Tiff: I can reach out to folks in other parts of Africa too, spread it outside of South Africa? Have that continental flava!

Kim: The wine might be getting to me, but reading continental flava made me reach for my vibrator LOL.

Tiff: Damn

Although the idea for this collection came from bath bombs, being isolated and too much wine, we took the plunge to curate this anthology because, you know what: we love sex, our work revolves around sex and we like to do things in collaboration with the communities represented in these pages. We did it because sex is tricky. Its wild, its fun and sometimes its sticky. Sex can confuse us, please us and allow us to explore. It can cage us, drive us or be something to fear. There are the moving body parts, the uncertainties of whether to stroke or flick and the (un)fortunate inability to read your partners mind. But there are also the times when you are on your A-game and you feel like you can give your partner(s) a world of pleasure.

No matter your age or sexual orientation, sex is tough to talk about. Pleasure is rarely, if ever, a topic of conversation. Touch is a cornucopia of ideas, notions and feelings. We wanted this anthology to be a space for our contributors to write and create work that engages, expresses and unpacks the topic of sex, in all its complexities. What is sex when it sits in the mind, travels through the body, and escapes through our pleasure or remains stagnant in our pain? As we continued to chat about all the possibilities, we realised it wouldnt be fair to box the contributors in. We needed to allow them to flourish outside of our narrow view of the word sex during that first night of excited initial WhatsApp exchanges.

We wanted something that brought this vortex to the fore, something that explained their experiences of sex in their different voices from their different perspectives. Some wrote about their sexual experiences, their abortions, or even their challenges of being assigned a sex at birth that did not affirm their gender identities. Some wrote about heartbreak, depression, love, one night stands, crossing the world for the hope of love, and even virtual and lockdown sex. Some wrote about squirting, skirting past anal and orgasms. The pieces you will read in Touch are vast, real, expressive, sad, poetic, touched by trauma, touched by god, cathartic and, dare we say it, sexy.

Here is something that is sometimes dark, sometimes delicious, sometimes seductive and sometimes super chill, but always beautiful and intimately queer.

Tiff & Kim

Mind Fuck

Sarah Franc

My fingers know their way around a keyboard.

I dont stop to think.

We know exactly where I am going with this, and the lust I am whispering into you

A moments pause, only to hear myself edge towards you.

I am on these pages now for your eternal consumption.

I would never pressure you to stare

Your eyes may eat and swallow ... at your own pace.

Whether you want to

look me over, tear at my form or dirty my lines.

My composure is being surrendered to you.

Do you like it?

I observe my own submission. With the tap of a key, the lightness of a finger, Im touching myself Full stop.

!

I cant stop staring at you. My hands spelling out how I long for you to touch

I want to reach at you from behind this ink and surprise you with (I bite my lip)

the coolness of my tongue, that flicks firmly on your imagination.

Maybe there are many of you at once; maybe we are alone.

Maybe I am reading this to you, maybe youll wonder what else Im thinking.

... Right now Im open and I am yours,

I am completely focused on you

Let my text be your meaning. Allow my words to find your spot. Let my want fill you. And then do as I please.

Sarah Franc is a wild mystic trapped in the city by an evil global system. She rarely mentions her wondrous achievements.

Ill take a dozen or more soul ties, with whipped cream on the side

Kim Windvogel

He said he wanted to make love. I said no. He said he was used to getting what he wants. I said that its not like Im waiting for marriage. He asked me what I was waiting for, I said that I didnt know. A few weeks later we were in bed, playing Spider Solitaire. I felt something building between us. I climbed onto his big stomach that stood like a proud mountain, kissed him deeply, tasted gin. Then I rolled off him, onto my back and proclaimed that I was ready. He smiled annoyingly knowingly, opened his drawer, muttered something about condoms, grabbed his wallet and left the house whistling a happy tune. After he left, I realised what I had done, I panicked and put on one of his hoodies and proceeded to position myself on the bed in various sexy positions in case he returned abruptly. By the time he came back, I was hiding in his closet cue closet jokes. He said my name twice before I came out of the closet, smiling, acting like I was not hiding, that this was not scaring me, that this was just my way of teasing before we fucked. He put on Sunday love jams and kissed me, then led me to his bed. It did not hurt, nothing tore, no blood and no regret.