Today, not only is there a new column and kink calendar, but you also get to bid on something fun for Christmas: me! And not just me - me and some of Monk's finest hemp rope. It's Strangercrombie 2005, The Stranger's fourth annual holiday auction to benefit Northwest Harvest. They've got a lot of cool and unusual gift packages, and some time with me is one of them.

But there's lots of cool stuff, so buy something! It's for a good cause.

Another good cause: helping women get the birth control pills they've been prescribed. As you have probably heard, some pharmacists around the US have taken it upon themselves to refuse to fill prescriptions for BC pills, because they think contraception is morally wrong. This is bullshit. It's a legal prescription, and a pharmacist has no right to interfere with a medical decision made by a woman and her doctor.

Some pharmacy chains are not supporting a woman's right to choose to take The Pill. Target is one of them. So this site has started a photo petition to show Target the faces of people who won't be shopping there because of their failure to protect pharmacy customers from the interference of unethical pharmacists. I'll be sending them a picture. I hope you do too.

An example of how Max is so much nicer than I am…

The other day, Max goes into a busy bank on Capitol Hill and gets in line for the teller. There’s a woman, a stranger, standing in front of him, and when he joins the queue, she turns around and looks him up and down. Not politely, either. Kinda like: what the hell are you doing there?

Well, Max thinks, I’m standing in line behind you, obviously.

Her gaze alights on the logo on his t-shirt.

And she says, “'Thunder In The Mountains' – what’s that?”

Now, as I said, Max is a much friendlier and kinder person than me. My response to being questioned like this - and yes, it’s happened - is generally to fix the person with a cold eye and say, “I think you’ve got all the information I’m interested in sharing.”

Or, if I’m really feeling pissy, “Why don’t you explain to me just exactly why you think I should answer your questions?” I almost never talk to strangers in public places, and I very much resent having my thoughts intruded upon by rude people like this woman.

But Max said, “It’s a conference in Denver.” A polite but brief answer that should have been her cue to be quiet.

She didn’t take it. “I know that,” she said in this very exasperated tone of voice, as if he were being just so tiresomely obtuse. “What kind of conference?”

Now, she’d be way into “it’s none of your business” territory with me. But both Max and Roman have a sometime charming, sometimes alarming, willingness to come out to random strangers, if said random stranger asks enough questions. I will not do this. I think it’s a gender thing.

So Max replied, “A rope bondage conference.” (Technical note: yes, TITM is actually a BDSM con, not just a rope-bondage con. Max knows that. He just didn’t feel it was a really crucial distinction to make at the moment.)

When Max was relating this story to me, I laughed out loud and said, “I can’t believe you said that to her! What did she say then?”

“Her eyes got big,” he replied. “And she just looked at me for a minute and then said, 'I gotta get out of this town. It is just way too weird here, I gotta get back to Portland'.”

Huh. I wonder if she knows about this….

More news on Heidi Fliess’s plan to build an all-male brothel in Nevada. Color me very skeptical about the whole venture, although it certainly would be amusing if she actually did it.

I’m struck by this quote from Fliess, though:

"I have heard from very wealthy, very beautiful women who say they'll be first in line...”

Very beautiful? Hmmm, why the insistence on the women’s looks? If they’re paying the boys, why does it matter? Just take some Viagra and get the job done, gentlemen.

No, I think Heidi is playing to the gigolo fantasy that a lot of boys have, sending them the message that they’d get paid to fuck women they found attractive anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if she’d cooked up some scheme to make money off the would-be male prostitutes, perhaps charging them a very high “room and board” fee, or something like that. That’s not uncommon in the industry – Lord knows the strip clubs right here in Seattle make the vast majority of their money off the “house fees” that the dancers pay to work there. The cover-charge and the soft-drink revenue is chump change by comparison.

I’ll be watching to see if any ground ever gets broken on this, or if it just dwindles into smaller and smaller news items.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

And that’s always a weird time of year for me. I like Christmas, don’t get me wrong. But I think I’d like it a lot better if the whole “holiday season” was about a week long. Maybe two weeks. But six plus weeks of being beaten over the head with it? Bah humbug. By the time December 25^th actually rolls around, I’m over it.

Then there's the whole present thing. I like giving people I love presents. But in the past, I have sometimes had a hard time accepting them. I’ve gotten better at it, but still, I have to remind myself from time to time that people give gifts because it honestly gives them pleasure to do so, and I don’t have to put pressure on myself to instantly reciprocate in some way, just because I think I need to keep some invisible set of scales neatly balanced. I know if I give someone something, it’s just because I think they’d like it and I enjoy the act of giving it to them and seeing them be happy about it. But that’s been something I’ve had to learn to trust in others.

All that said, I do have some very sweet and generous boys who have asked me for a Christmas gift list. So, okay, here goes.

Books are always good. Here's some stuff off my Amazon list I'd like to read over the holidays:

Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz

The Girl in the Glass : A Novel, by Jeffrey Ford

London 1849 : A Victorian Murder Story, by Michael Alpert

The Virgin's Lover, by Philippa Gregory

A Breath of Snow and Ashes, by Diana Gabaldon

The Kinky Girl's Guide to Dating, by Luna Grey

Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless & Hopeful, by Anthony D. Ravenscroft

Something more personal? Well, I love this bracelet. (Of course this is nice, too, but it seems a bit excessive. I don't really move in a diamond-wearing crowd.)

I am also lusting after this jacket. This coat is pretty as well, although I've never worn such a long coat. But it looks warm, and I am a girl who's often wearing skimpy little outfits when it's cold outside. I'd have to have it in black, of course.

Boots. I love pretty boots. Love 'em. Size 8.5, if anyone's wondering.

Then there's kinky stuff. It's great when people bring me naughty things, because my rule is: you bring it to me, you're asking me to use it on you. Heh.
I do seriously want this sling. And while I have one fucking machine, this one looks uber-cool.
I could play some wickedly fun games with this little device, too.

Geek stuff? Gee, Santa, I want a laptop. Do the elves makes those? I also want one of these, although I'm still researching brands and models.

Of course, I'm not sure exactly how good of a girl I've been this year, but we'll see what the guy in the red suit does for me. Hey, even if he puts switches in my stocking, I'm sure I can think of something fun to do with them.