May 19, 2000, Disney released a new movie called Dinosaur, a really creative name, I know. It was pretty successful at the box office, earning about 350 million dollars. Like most hit features, the movie had a tie-in with the big boss of child marketing — McDonald’s.

Along with a cheeseburger, small fry, and a McDonald’s cookie package was a plastic bag containing something that would absolutely alter the trajectory of my life. I yanked open the corner of the packaging with my loose teeth and stared back at the devil-red, horned antagonist of the film: the rubbery-plastic hand puppet of a Carnotaurus. I know you’re probably wondering, “When does this get sexy?” Truthfully, it doesn’t. My very first sex toy came out of a fast-food drive-thru window, packaged in a red box with a smile on it. That’s one hell of a happy meal.

I finally graduated from the corners of desks to something more tangible. Something I was able to take with me to the privacy of my unsupervised bath time. I’m fully convinced I’m patient zero for microplastics inside the body. This is where the exploration of my body began. I skipped the boob stuff and went straight for my treasure box being munched on by the jaws of a dinosaur puppet. I walked into the new millennium as a five-year-old freak.

I realize now that this probably explains my obsession with Mickey D’s nostalgia, bad guys, and puppets. Also, why it’s best if Bob Baker’s Marionette Theater doesn’t hire me.

I could almost see the butterfly effect crawling out of its fate cocoon, and 20 years later, as it spread its wings and soars straight into the sun, I would become what would be every immigrant parent’s worst nightmare: a porn writer and producer. And I’m not talking about some small content creator stuff; I’m talking page one of Pornhub.

The words “step-sis” and “cum-swap” landed on the top ten list of words I said the most in those four years. If you think that sounds easy, I need you to know porn is HARD. I was busy for hours upon hours trying to come up with scenarios to keep holes filled on film and within budget. My eyes were bloodshot from staring at gay penetration, frame by frame, with the precision of a surgeon.

I was constantly finding new ways to keep these losers happy: hot clown girls, smut spoofs, Kylo Ren’s lightsaber up three different pussies, blowjobs for Biden, mouth-fucking carved pumpkins. Not to brag, but I was the mastermind behind the infamous “Step-Sister Rips Her Covid Mask Open To Suck Her Brother’s Dick Through It” video. If you’ve seen it, that probably means you spent most of Covid lockdown with your pants off, and for that, I salute you.

I was the token queerdo in my office, highly respected but questioned when given large-budget productions. How could a fat, strange, little they/them possibly come up with anything sexy and worthy of the spankbank? The perfect solution was basically to use me to make scenes that serve as clickbait on the sites, not necessarily for fan approval or high ratings.

All these fucking Viagra-brained retirees were more concerned with how far we could push the boundaries of incest without getting the company in trouble with the card companies. While I was concerned with making sex as camp as possible.

Internet comment sections on any platform are a complete cesspool. Now, take a second to imagine the types of comments that men over the age of 50 write one-handedly cuz their other one is too busy yanking their chicken neck. Like a pie on a windowsill, I tortured myself reading every single one under my videos. Some stiff cumrag left me one that said, “This is porn, tell whoever made this that he isn’t Martin Scorsese.” Bold to assume I’m a he, and that motherfucker is lucky Goodfellas is one of my favorite movies because if he had said someone like Woody Allen, that would’ve been my last straw.

I think I’ve always battled with a skewed vision of what sex was or wasn’t. Let’s rewind back to my first year of college, at a theater conservatory. I mean that derogatorily. I don’t even have to explain, IYKYK.

It’s freshman year, and I’m a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, beer pong newb making small talk with some dude in my class, and like most small talk with cis men goes, he just randomly asks me, “Are you a virgin?” Which was a stupid question considering I used to skip school all senior year to eat pussy. In typical Cis Dude fashion, he responds, “A girlfriend doesn’t count. You’re still a virgin.”

What kind of logic is that? The rejection of queer intimacy by the hetero perspective made the Pabst rise up my esophagus. But, like the impressionable 18-year-old I was, I made it my mission to fuck a dude as fast as possible, and I actually did it, actually in no time. Not a mission at all. I won’t waste my breath or your time retelling the story, so I’ll sum it up in five words: Of. Course. I. Didn’t. Cum.

Had I learned from this experience about the pitfalls of men IRL? Nope, because the tomfoolery continued on, searching now instead for cybernetic ones with the grave mistake of logging on to FETLIFE DOT COM. Can I just say I would actually love a shirt that says, “I survived FetLife and all I got was the lousy T-shirt,” or maybe one that says, “Someone who spits in my mouth got me this shirt.” I wouldn’t be surprised to see them on Shein in a couple of weeks now that I said that out loud.

ANYWAY— so I signed up for an account in search of someone to treat me like absolute shit because I’m a piece of shit too, and pieces of shit gotta stick together. I thought I was so clever and made my username “Puke Princess,” rationalizing in my feeble 20-year-old mind, like, I’m a huge John Waters fan, he’s the Prince of Puke, so I can be the princess.

I didn’t think that multiple men would be in my inbox with offers of money and flights just for the chance of having my stomach bile pass through my body and out onto their cocks.

That’s not the kind of treatment I was expecting from the site, but I did give it some thought, though. That’s when I learned that there are levels to this whole “piece of shit” thing.

Today, I’m just like anyone else: tired and horny. I have my ritual: I lay my little towel down on the bed, I borrow my boyfriend’s vibrator to finish, and think of simple things that can get me off.

Once you’ve seen every angle of human sexuality, you tend to pass over the novelty kinks like they were small towns on a highway. Driving through “DirtyWhoresville,” “Step-Parentsberg,” and the “BukkakkeBoroughs” like “Damn, I shouldn’t have taken that exit.”

I’ve been there, done that, bought a souvenir. Like, I want a new destination. Someone, please give me directions to the “genuine love and affection” porn category!

There are levels to smut, right? And I think I’ve gone so pro that I’m just ready to cash out my 401K and kick rocks. But you will never take my breeding kink away. That one stays. You’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead, Carnotaurus puppet hands.

Mariana Rodriguez (they/them) is a writer, performer, and general neighborhood menace born in Miami and now based in Los Angeles. Their work lives somewhere between a fever dream and a voice memo you forgot you sent at 2 AM: equal parts tender, unhinged, and full of snacks. They write about memory, identity, queer monsters, and the weird little rituals that keep us alive. When they’re not writing, they’re thrifting for something fuzzy, talking to their stuffed animals, or spiraling in public (artistically, of course). If you like what you read, please seek psychiatric help or just follow them on Instagram @mamiissues6.