Oh my lord, has this been an insanely busy week. Wow. Good, but busy.

While I recover... Read the newest column about polyamorous people and Valentines Day.

So, I was the the Bondage Is The Point party Sunday night at the Wet Spot, and while in conversation with a groups of pals, I remarked, just in passing, that I owned a fuckzall.

"A what?"

"A fuckzall. A reciprocating, variable speed power saw - often referred to as a sawzall - but instead of a blade, there's a dildo on it. You see them a lot on the bondage-porn sites, they're fun."

Much was the amusement and incredulity. (What, doesn't everyone have one?) So I promised to upload a photo.

Lo and behold...


Bigger image, if you're a size queen.

It's fun, but boy, it's a teeth-rattler. For both people! And did I feel a bit like Bruce Campbell when I fired that bad boy up for the first time. "This is my boom-stick!" Yeah, that's about right.

There's only thing you have to know about the fuckzall: back spatter. Even at the slower speed, the action of this thing is such that the operator is going to get sprayed with - well, with whatever is wet. Lube, bodily fluids, whatever. So you need to be okay with that. Or you need to build a nicely kinky scene around a top in a haz-mat suit.

A note about scheduling.... This is the busiest February I can remember! Usually it's a dead month. But as soon as I remarked last week that I had time available, the phone started ringing and ringing... As of right now, I am booked through the 13th. I have had to regretfully say no to a number of boys I really like, but there are just so many hours in the day. Keep trying, please, my calender looks more open after the 13th.

But I love that you all love me so much...whee!

Can I just say how immensely grateful I am that I don’t have to process my relationships very much? You know, the “honey, where is our relationship going?” kind of talks. I know chicks are supposed to be the ones who initiate those, but truthfully, I am usually happy to have, oh, about five minutes of that kind of conversation, and after that, I’m pretty much done with it.

I’m not saying processing one’s relationship is bad. There are stages of relationships where there are legitimate questions to be resolved. I’m just glad when I'm done with that phase.

Now and then in my life as Matisse, I have occasion to touch base with someone about our relationship. Ideally, it looks something like this…

“You’re really awesome, you know that? I love being with you, and I hope we keep doing this.”

“I think you’re great, too, sweetheart. And yeah, this is a very good thing, we should keep doing this.”

That is the perfect little check-in. I like that. And if we really need a course-correction, that’s fine, just let me know - succinctly. I'll do the same.

What I really don’t want to do is get into a big heavy conversation about where the relationship is going, and yeah, once in a great while I meet someone who tries to go there. Interestingly, they’ll usually do it really fast, like the first or second time I meet them. I think maybe they’re trying to impress me as being a really sensitive guy or something? But I’m so not into it. One of the things I like about my career now is that I get to have these fun interactions with interesting people…and then they go back to their lives. It’s one of the reasons you’ll rarely see me pick up a stranger at a play-party. I like variety, but I get all my need for that met in my very own dungeon – and as a bonus, I don’t have to talk about my feeeeeeelings… Because my feelings about erotic-BDSM relationships usually run the gamut of:

A) Mmmm, I like doing this, this is fucking hot.

B) Oooh, that feels good, do that some more. (This often involves my feet, which are a primary erogenous zone on my body.)

Not really much to process there. It’s all hind-brain stuff, very basic. So when someone tries to engage me in a meaningful dialogue about how I feel about it, I tend to furrow my brow at him quizzically and say, “…Fine.”

(Note that this is different than talking about what types of activities/scenes we have done or might do. That’s a delightful type of conversation.)

So if you are moved to ask me where our relationship is going, know that my favorite answer is, “How about to the dungeon?”

Matisse's Blue Period

Shopping rant: why is it so hard to find blue lingerie? It's either black, white, beige, red or pink. Those are fine, but I've got lots of that. I want blue, people. And not pale blue or baby blue, yuck. And not turquoise, I loathe that color. Navy is a bit boring. No, it should be deep, rich sapphire blue.

Speaking of blue, I love this. Roberto Cavalli Blue Silk Minidress. And this is less drop-dead sexy, but a bit more versatile: Elie Tahari Twist Dress. Blue seems to be a theme in my retail lusts lately. Maybe I miss blue sky. Or maybe I've decided I need color in my life, and that blue is the color of choice. I tend to be obsessive about whatever catches my attention. Thus, until further notice, everything will all about the blue!

Hard to believe it’s been a year since I went down to San Francisco and posed for the renowned photographer Craig Morey. But it has been, and I’m thinking it’s about time I did another serious shoot. The trouble is I can’t decide what to do.

I could certainly go back to Craig again, I liked him and his work is great, and now that we know each other, we might do even better work together.

Tommy Edwards is right here in Seattle. He does lovely, lovely work, he’s a consummate professional, and he’s easily the best photographer I have ever worked with in terms of communicating what he wants you to do. That’s an important consideration for a model.

But…everybody in town has Tommy’s photos. (By “everybody”, I mean all the up-scale sex-workers.) It’s a little too much of a good thing, you know.

I know there are lots of local people, who aren’t necessarily as famous as Craig or even as Tommy, who can produce good images. I’ve seen some cool art by those folks. This isn’t about snubbing them. But doing this type of photo shoot is a big investment of time, money, and effort. Frankly, I want a photographer who is the professional equivalent of me: trained, equipped, experienced, a full-time professional who will guarantee to deliver the goods. They need to have the studio, have the set, have the system, and have a CD to me in a week or less, boom.

You see, I know exactly what I need, and I also know it’s probably not the most interesting thing to shoot. Photographers like to play and be creative, and I do not need creative. No artsy black-and-white. No high-contrast, back-lit, out-of-focus images. No funky crops, no extreme angles, no close-ups featuring six square inches of my left thigh, no masks or figure-obscuring outfits.

And I don’t need photos of me wearing a corset and a sneer, brandishing a crop. Can you say cliché? I have a hard drive full of those, and they are stale and boring, and they don’t reflect anything about what I’m really like.

What I need is color, with soft even lighting, a lot of full-length shots, with a setting that doesn’t pull focus or confuse the viewer. I want warm, sexy, glamorous images – portraits, really, with a sense of personality and a touch of humor.

So I’m clicking around, wondering who to go see. It’s tough to find someone who’s the perfect fit. I thought about Ken Marcus, but he seems to have retired from commercial glamour and is only shooting for his bondage website.

There’s this man: Ken Banks. He seems to have a good resume and do good work. I like that he seems to use a lot of natural light, but I’m afraid he might not be edgy enough.

There’s this outfit down in LA. But wow, they are very…LA. Still, it might be worth talking to them.

So I’m shopping. Have a suggestion? Drop me a note.

Okay, this is how not-techie I am. I took pictures on the camera on my phone today, and I have no idea how to get them to my computer. Any suggestions? It’s a Verizon LG5300. (I suppose I could read the stupid manual, couldn’t I? Arg.)

I need to buy an inexpensive little digital camera and just leave it at the dungeon all the time. This is twice now that I’ve really wanted a camera - and mine was at home. (Yes, you were the other time, Musical Man.) Feats of cock and ball torment always make me want to take a photo, and I do hate have having my artistic urges thwarted. And I’m in a shopping mood anyway, recession be damned. I’ll singlehandedly prop up the economy. Isn't that nice of me?

So speaking of politics, it looks like McCain for the Republicans, doesn’t it? I’m almost sorry. He seems like the most reasonable of them all. (Except for being pro-life, bah.) Mitt Rommey? That guy is an empty suit with nice hair. He’s an android. I think they wind him up every morning with a giant key in his back. Huckabee is a Baptist minister, and that’s pretty much all one needs to say about that. I didn't hate Rudy Giuliani, based on what very little I knew about him. You have to like a man who’ll do drag. And at least he has a history of being pro-choice. But I’m told he’s an utter fascist – and that was the opinion of someone who'd lived in South Africa and knows something about fascists.

So I’m almost sorry because I will, of course, be voting Democrat, and I sort of hate to see an even somewhat-reasonable guy on the Republican ticket. The way this administration has slashed and burned the country, it’s hard to imagine the Republicans winning the presidency, but it’s not like the Democrats couldn’t screw this up. No one tops Democrats for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

And I’m pretty on the fence with Clinton versus Obama. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. There’s nothing exactly wrong with Hillary Clinton in my eyes, I just…don’t think I’d like her, if I met her. (I liked her husband, though. Mrrow!) Still, I don’t have to like someone for them to be a good president, so if she gets the nomination, I’m fine with that.

I like Obama, I think he has great vision and passion, but I worry about his inexperience. Hillary knows her way around the track. I think he’d make a great vice-president for her – she’d keep him realistic, he’d keep her idealistic – and he’d be better positioned for the presidency down the road. But that’ll never happen. I kind of like John Edwards, actually, so I hope whoever gets the nomination taps him for VP.

Of course, if the Democrats nominated a brain-eating zombie, I’d put on a full-face motorcycle helmet and cast my vote for a rotting corpse, come November. Anyone but that monkey boy and the Death Merchant we have in there now. I am a pretty moderate Democrat, but as long as the Republicans are bed with the religious right, they will never get my vote for anything. I dislike nanny-state liberalism, but if that’s what it takes to get a secular government, I’ll take it.

No Sex Please, We're British

From a story in the Daily Mail:
Carrie Jones hasn't had sex with her husband Hal, a City banker, for the past four years. Nor does she want to. Sex is something she can no longer summon the effort to endure - with the man she married, at least.

Sex workers love women like this. We should. Their husbands comprise a large chunk of our clientèle. Her man Hal will probably be joining the club soon, if he hasn’t already. If she thinks her husband is going to go, oh, ten years without sex? Well, he might be an unusual guy, but I strongly doubt it. If she’s lucky, he’ll just see escorts and stay married to her until their kids are grown up, which is what she says she wants.

But is it really? Actions speak louder than words sometimes, and this woman has published a book saying she’s planning to never have sex with her husband again. And put her photo with it. That’s not exactly a subtle hint. Jesus, lady, way to embarrass and emasculate your helpmate there. As far as I’m concerned, she might as well write “Divorce Me” on her forehead. Kids or no kids, if a partner of mine did that, I’d be out the door. She thinks it's better for children to be raised in a stable loving environment? Yes, I’d agree with that. However, if you’re publishing a fucking book about how much you don’t love your children’s father, and how you planned to cheat on him, I really don’t think anyone is going to mistake you for Ward and June Cleaver. And your kids are nine and eleven – if you think you’re going to fool them into thinking Mommy and Daddy really love each other, you’re dreaming. They’re old enough to be onto you, even if they can’t articulate it. All you’re doing now is setting them up for a lifetime of therapy and messed-up relationships as they unconsciously replay this situation with their own partners.

I think this is an extreme case, but I think the basic premise is pretty common. The majority of the guys I have met through sex work told me the same story. “My wife is a wonderful woman and I love her, but we haven’t had sex in a long time. She doesn’t want it, but I have needs." Since I'm polyamorous, I can totally relate to the idea of having different people in your life that fulfill you in different ways. But I think expecting your partner to go without sex is selfish and dumb. And publishing an unflattering book about your intimate life with him, without even telling him about it first, is astoundingly cruel.

As I said, having her husband go to a sex worker is the best outcome Mrs. Jones could hope for. You see, sex workers don’t break up marriages. Most clients of sex workers could absolutely find non-professional girlfriends on the side, if they wanted them. They avoid that because they know that women in relationships like that make emotional demands. (And justifiably so.) But sex workers don’t do that. So if Mrs. Jones wants to stay married, she should be diverting some cash from the monthly budget into an "entertainment fund" for him. Because if kind, sweet Hal falls in love with a woman who wants him to leave his wife, Mrs. Jones could be freed up to pursue her old boyfriends a lot sooner than she planned.

In the spirit of last week's column, another one from the "Inexplicable Emails" file.

i lo you for the ideal look with sexy and class
I propose you to give me a chance to be the duo to make v i p week end and one new pills to sell in all over the world
Do I have chance to make contract relation avec femme ayant look for give the boy like me shows for have cerebral orgasme with no tuch. tell me what to do for try to serve and love you with no lies but full trust

Yes, that's the way it was formatted in the email, too, all over to the right. I have no idea why. The email came from a net.il address, so maybe this is the hip thing in Italy, I don't know.

So, as brief as it is, there's a lot of messages in this email. The first line is straightforward enough. Grazie infinite, caro.

In the second sentence, though, he's lost me. Does he want to be my slave, or my client? Or does he want to enroll me in an affiliate program for counterfeit Viagra, or does he want to be a male pro dom and come co-top with me? (The "duo" reference. )

Third sentence: What? The word contract - okay, I know what that means. Shows? Yeah, okay, but what's with this French in the middle? And cerebral orgasms? Sounds like another definition of a stroke to me.

With the last line - all right, we're back on familiar territory here. But wow, this letter reads like it was written by two different people. I wonder if Italian boy has a split personality - one who wants to bottom, and one who's a budding sexual entrepreneur.

EDIT: An alert reader has pointed out that the email actually came from Israel, not Italy, and remarked "... which also explains the right-bound formatting quite nicely." Duh, of course! Thanks for clueing me in!

Fans of the silly communications will enjoy this week’s column…

Want to shop? Monk is eBaying off TM memorabilia and some of his now-too-big personal wardrobe. I saw him in this coat, and in this one, and they’re hot. Get them before they're gone.

A reader who misses the comments feature has begun a message board for ya’ll to talk about whatever gems of wisdom have lately fallen from my lips. (Fallen from my keyboard? Doesn’t have quite same ring, does it?)

If you want to communicate with me, email is the way to do that. But if you want to talk to each other, here you go. It’s very sweet of Van to have set this up and offer his time to moderate it, so I hope ya’ll enjoy it.

Hello mistress,

i want to send you my diploma from the university. and you wipe your ass with my diploma. I want you use my diploma like toilet paper. can you do that?

Goodness, someone doesn’t think highly of their old alma mater, do they?

Would I do it? Well, I’m mildly concerned that the gold foil seal that one often sees on college diplomas might be scratchy, but that seems like a manageable risk.

I myself do not have a college degree. My relationship with academia has always been uneven, to put it mildly. I went to a private (Catholic) high school, and the good things about that was that students got a lot of attention, but the downside is that the classes were rigorous. (Plus there was that stupid religion thing they were always nattering on about.) I always did well enough in English and humanities-type classes, but math and science? Forget it. I barely scraped through. I was a pretty well-behaved teenager, but school simply bored me, and I didn’t take it seriously.

I wasn’t much good at being a kid, if that makes any sense. I always had a feeling, when I was small, that I was someone who would prefer life as a grown-up, and that I was just marking time until I got taller. I meet kids now who give me that impression, like they’re twenty-seven-year olds trapped in a fifth-grader’s body. I always try to talk to them very seriously about adult-seeming topics, and not do stupid things like rumple their hair and ask them what they want to be for Halloween.

I was right. I had a pretty Leave-It-To-Beaver childhood, and I’m grateful for that, but I never, ever wish I was a kid again. And I don’t ever want to go back to college, either, although I suppose I may have to, someday. I’ve been to - oh, let me think – four different colleges. Yeah, four. And no, I don’t have a degree.

The first one I went to right out of high school, like one is supposed to. It was an expensive women's college, and I spent much more time partying with the boys from the neighboring co-ed school than I did studying. You can skate by with a really low GPA when your Daddy is paying big bucks for tuition, but there is a limit, and after 3 years the college and I agreed that I should leave. I felt sort of bad for wasting my father’s money like that, and once I dropped out, I never took any money from my parents ever again, for school or any other purpose. I was twenty.

Over the next couple of years, I enrolled in two different state colleges, paid the tuition with money I made as a sex worker, took classes for a quarter or three, and then dropped out again. I just – didn’t want to be there. I would look at the people around me and think, “I don’t want what they want. And I don’t want to keep pretending that what I’m doing here is meaningful to me, because it’s not, and it’s actually pissing me off.”

Then a few years ago, I enrolled at Antioch here in Seattle, in the BA completion program. That was certainly different from a state college, and it was…interesting. I think the people at Antioch are very committed to what they’re doing. But wow, the hippie/New-Age/let-me-give-you-a-hug thing really got on my nerves. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if I was in a class or a group therapy meeting. As you may well imagine, instructors who invited me to share personal information in a college classroom got either a pack of lies or some responses they really had not bargained for. In such circumstances, I usually give vague answers to too-personal questions. But some instructors and classmates persisted in asking, so I told them who I was and what I did, and I think a lot of them wished I hadn’t. I had one teacher who was so disturbed by my various outlaw identities that she could hardly even talk to me for last few weeks of the quarter. And once again, I thought, “Why am I here dealing with this? What am I going to do with this really expensive piece of paper?” And I didn’t have an answer. So I left.

I like to learn things. But sitting in college classes has, for me, been much like a visit to the dentist: expensive, time-consuming, and extremely uncomfortable. I would do it, if there was a job I wanted that required one, but so far, there isn't. So I am a self-educated person, and I like it that way. I am pleased to see the growing respectability of online-learning. I’m guessing that by the time I’m ready to try that college thing again, I will at least be able to do it alone.

Wow, this is unusual: I have nothing booked for Wednesday. I suspect some of ya’ll are a bit depressed about the latest financial news. Hey, I’m not even going to open my brokerage statement this month. However, if you come see me, I’ll pretend you’re a subprime mortgage lender and do bad, bad things to you….

***

I am publishing this either in spite of, or because, it’s slightly embarrassing. It’s part of my struggle to accept my identity as a musically un-hip person.

Thus, here are the Top Eleven Most Played Songs in my desk-top iTunes:

11. Sugarless, Caviar

10. Come Out And Play, The Offspring

9. Going Back To Cali, LL Cool J

8. Somebody Told Me, The Killers

7. Black Snake Voodoo Hiss, by Chemlab

6. Dream Police, Cheap Trick

5. Gold Digger, Kayne West

4. I Want You So Hard, Eagles Of Death Metal

3. Rock And Roll Nigger, Patti Smith

2. U + Ur Hand, Pink

1. Twilight Zone, Golden Earring

Interestingly, the Most Played list on the iPod proper is totally different. I guess I like different music for sitting at my desk than I do moving around in the world.

So speaking of iPod, I’m shopping for iPod related stuff…. Does anyone have this? (Bose Sound Dock.) Drop me a note if you do and you have an opinion about it.

I also need a cradle or a wire or something that will let me play my 3^rd Generation iPod Nano in the car. I have a wireless sled, but it’s for my older, narrower Nano. And frankly, it was always a little problematic. The connection would wiggle loose, and the sound would cut out. But the choices on the Apple website are limited and unencouraging. Is there really not a good wire-based system? I guess I’d take another wireless sled, if that’s a better bet. Email me suggestions...

A patient man am I, down to my fingertips,
the sort who never could, ever would,
let an insulting remark escape his lips,
A very gentle man...
~ I'm An Ordinary Man, My Fair Lady Soundtrack

That’s right, me and Rex Harrison, we are the gentlest and most patient of creatures. Mostly.

However, there are certain things about my own beloved kinky culture that annoy me. One of them is the phrase, “Total Power Exchange”, commonly shortened to “TPE”.

What does that mean? Well, “power exchange” is another of way of referring to a dominant/submissive interaction, either a scene or a whole relationship. It’s not a term I’ve ever taken to, although I have no problem with it.

But TPE? Well, I looked around for the origin of the exact phrase “Total Power Exchange” and here’s (an edited-down version of) what I found.

Total Power Exchange, or TPE for short, is a derivative of the concept of power exchange in a D/s relationship. The term refers to a relationship where the dominant has complete authority and influence over the submissive's life, making the majority of decisions….

The phrase Total Power Exchange was coined by Steven S. Davis in the newsgroup alt.sex.bondage during his debates with Jon Jacobs in the mid 1990's.

In 1997, Davis gave this definition:"A TPE (Total Power Exchange) relationship, sometimes described as an absolute lifestyle D/s relationship. That such relationships can actually be neither "total" or "absolute" is agreed; these are ideal states to be worked towards but which will not be achieved….TPE a relationship in which no impediment to the exercise of the owner's power is accepted…Such things as safewords, contracts, negotiated limits, and anything else which recognizes / acknowledges / formalizes limits on the owner's power are inimical to TPE."

Full thread here, if you want it.

My general understanding of a TPE relationship, gathered from people who say they practice this, is that it’s a relationship in which the submissive has no right of refusal to anything the dominant commands. Anything. At all. Anytime. Ever.

Now, let’s be clear. I am very much in favor of dominant/submissive relationships. But this TPE business? I don’t like it.

I think TPE is positioned on the idea that the submissive having any limits whatsoever is bad, and something to be overcome. I don’t agree with that idea. I have seen people who claim to practice it compare it to a parent/child relationship. They mean that in a positive way, but the logic is flawed. The role of a parent is to grow this little person into a big one and eventually send them out into the world. TPE seems like the precise opposite, in that the goal is to shrink a grown-up functional person down into someone who feels that they no power. TPE people usually insinuate - if they don't just say outright - that they feel TPE is superior to other expressions of d/s. I think putting forth the idea that the best and highest example of consensual, affection-based slavery is one that most closely mirrors real, non-consensual slavery is a mistake.

(Yes, I’m aware that TPE people always say that the slave should never be told to do anything really wrong, like killing their children or suchlike. I believe them. That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.)

Interestingly, I can’t ever recall talking to someone in real life who used that exact expression, TPE, to describe their own relationship. I am sure that people do, but there can’t be that many of them, or I would have encountered them. Thus, my impression of TPE is that it’s mainly a concept that you run into online. And that’s not something that’s going to increase my respect for the phrase.

On one level, it’s just words. Part of me thinks: If it makes you happy to create important-sounding acronyms for your kink, then fine, enjoy yourself. It’s not going to affect my life.

But especially in a shadow world like kink, language can shape the culture. It’s important that we examine them and provide appropriate community feedback to concepts. And as a writer, I think words are important in themselves. In this context, the word “total” is an intensifier, like the words “really”, “truly”, or “very”. Any writing teacher will tell you that overuse of intensifiers waters down your message. It's like saying "extreme", or "hardcore". Advertising-speak has invaded the kink language. I expect to see TOTAL POWER EXCHANGE on a can of energy drink any day now. It bothers me.

And psychologically, it conveys a whiff of desperation. When I read “I’m into TOTAL power exchange”, what I see is someone jockeying for credibility and status that at some level, he’s not sure he deserves. It’s a one-up statement. It's a way of saying "my special brand of dominance and submission is better than everyone else’s.” If you have to say that, to yourself or anyone else, then you have issues.

Everything BDSM people do, we construct in our heads. Once you get past the safe/sane/consensual part, there is no rulebook anywhere on how to do this, and no one gets to decide what kink means to the people doing it. Having limits in a relationship – in any relationship – is normal and healthy. This “Total Power Exchange” concept is silly and a bit pretentious at best, and I think it has the potential to be a negative force in a relationship. You have a dominant/submissive relationship? That’s dandy. The exact parameters of that are up to the two of you. Shape them however you want. But when random people start setting out rules for that, like they were carved on stone tablets, then you lose me. “In a TPE relationship, the slave must always wear purple shirts on Wednesday. The slave can never ever wear green shirts on Wednesday. Otherwise it’s not a true TPE.” Right. Whatever. If I wanted someone else setting out rules for how my intimate relationships must look, I’d could have stayed in the vanilla world, married some nice boy, voted Republican, and gone to church every Sunday.

Oh, I really hate it when this happens. I got an email today from someone who says she’s a sixteen-year-old girl. She says she really loves my blog, it’s taught her a lot about sex work and about her sexuality as a kinky person. She said the two words I really didn't want to hear: role model.

Sweet Jesus Christ. Emails like this greatly disturb me. I’ve written before in The Stranger about how profoundly uncomfortable I am with this, but allow me to expand on those thoughts here, just for the record.

My writing is not suitable for anyone under eighteen, period. I haven’t bothered with a lot of disclaimers and yes-I’m-an-adult-click-through windows on this blog, because I know damn good and well that is not going to stop anyone. Emails like this tempt me to do so, however, because at least I’d be able to point to them and say, “Hey, kiddo, you don’t belong here.”

The reason why under-eighteen people do not belong here is that many discussions of even the most private, vanilla, and monogamous adult sexuality assume a certain level of maturity and sophistication on the part of the participants. No matter how bright and smart and mature-for-their-age a teenager is, they don’t have that.

Now, you can argue that celebrating one’s eighteenth birthday does not automatically confer those qualities upon someone, and you’d be right. However, that is the mark at which our culture deems someone adult, and I think it’s appropriate to make a separation. When it comes to discussions of sexuality, under-eighteen people belong in environments designed for them, like Scarleteen.com.

What I do here is tell amusing stories about some very sophisticated expressions of sexuality. I’m not teaching lessons in a purposeful way - I write to entertain people. I think that perhaps because of my connection with The Stranger, people equate me with Dan Savage. No. Dan is a professional advice-giver. I am a professional dominatrix. Sure, I tell people my take on stuff. But grown-ups proceed through life at their own risk. We don’t let under-eighteen people do that, because they can’t be expected to understand all the ramifications of their behavior. I love my life, but there are risks and downsides that go along with my sexual choices that you simply cannot fully grasp when you’re so young. I’ve made my peace with them, but it’s not right for you to make those kinds of decisions now.

I’m aware that I’m well-known in certain circles, but celebrity does not equal role model. I don’t even think of myself as a role model for other adults, for god’s sake, and I am really, really not an appropriate one for a teenager. Legally, it’s a very bad idea for me to even write back to a minor to tell them I can’t give them advice. I definitely can not have any type of conversation about sex with any minor, ever.

(Parents, I know you can’t watch your kids every second, but hey! Your child is sending emails about her sexuality to strangers. You can't think that's a good idea. Maybe you should talk to them about that, if you haven’t.)

If you’re under eighteen, I wish you would not read me, but I am sure that won't stop you. So let's make a deal - if you like my writing, and you’d like to do something for me, here's what I want. I’d like you to look upon this blog as a description of a foreign land. Some distant place you might visit or even live some day. But not today, so please, don’t write me and ask me for directions.

An article on MSNBC.com about Seattle's own Wet Spot, recently renamed the Center for Sex Positive Culture. I can't say I'm completely ecstatic about the whole piece. Mr. Alexander seems a bit too eager to underline how he's just observing, you know, he doesn't really do this kind of thing himself. He says:

"BDSM is a lot of work, which may be why I’ve never taken to it. I’m more the “feed me grapes and bring me wine” sort of hedonist."

Doesn't exactly make the author sound like a ball of fire in bed, does it? If "work" equals some planning, some shopping, and some physical effort, then vanilla sex can be a lot of work, too. But many people seem to feel that it's worth it.

Still, perhaps I am too picky. For a conservative mainstream news outlet, it's not a terrible piece. I have certainly seen us portrayed far less flatteringly. I will have to get the book and see who else he met that I know.

I will remark, though, that terms like "sexploration" are tired. They are over. They are so 1990. If you want to write about sex, I beg you, do not just slap an s in front of any word beginning with ex and think it's all edgy and hip. It is not.

(A tip of the hat to Chris and Miss D for reminding me of this article.)

Notes from a weekend
What did I do over the weekend? Well, I went to a pal’s birthday party, where I gave a cute boy an impromptu lesson in “How to Give A Lap Dance”. He proved an apt pupil, but his “customer” was very rambunctious – she kept grabbing him, and everybody knows you don’t touch the dancer! (Unless you tip very heavily. And the manager’s not looking.)

Afterwards, two other way-hot boys, who had apparently been paying attention to my lesson, gave me lap dances. Mrrrow! It was quite special.

Later on, I got to use my stun gun on the sensitive bits of a certain boy. (Photo). I love doing that. It wasn't really my scene, I was just the opening act. (You know it's going to be a good night when a stun gun to the nads is the warm-up. Heh.) People watching us were kidding him a bit about flinching, but let me just say, in my best Samuel L. Jackson voice: “Hey, anyone who lets me use a stun-gun on their cock and balls is a bad-ass mothafucka in my book. You best not tease the man unless you want to drop your pants and show us you can do better.”

(Which one man did. At least, that's what I think he was saying. It was a little hard to hear him inside that leather hood. But his friends said he was, and the muffled noises did seem to be indicating consent. And I haven’t heard from his lawyer, so I figure it’s all good.)

I missed my darling Monk, but he’s apparently doing quite well in Boston, in both the retail and the personal sense. I look forward to the stories.

Auto Updates
What else did I do over the weekend besides zap people with stun guns? I looked at cars. BMW and Audi, specifically. Car-buying is weird in that it’s very technical, and yet also very personal. I have gotten a lot of nice emails from knowledgeable people with good advice on what to buy, and that's cool. But it's sort of like dating - no matter how suitable someone is, if you're not attracted, you're just not attracted.

I drove a BMW 328xi and an Audi A4. They were both quite nice. The BMW was a shade more responsive, but it was an all-wheel drive model, and I couldn’t get over how heavy it felt. Like a tank. I haven’t checked the weight of the various cars, but I would bet the BMW weighs the most.

The Audi felt similar to my Saab – not as powerful, but lighter and more effortless to drive, if that makes any sense. However, the one I test drove had one of those little multimedia screens in the dash, and I would have to have one without that. They’re just annoying. This is a car, not my living room.

I came away liking both the BMW and the Audi in general, although I didn’t fall in love with either of the particular ones I drove. I am also going to go look at some Mercedes C-class. At some level I feel a little crazy even looking at Mercedes, because, you know, they’re Mercedes. I just don’t think of myself as the kind of girl who drives a Mercedes. (Plus, I have heard that they are not terribly reliable and a huge amount of trouble to maintain.) But they’re very pretty cars, and the prices on the baby ones aren’t out of reach, so I’ll go look. I've fallen in love with less likely candidates.

A Note To My Lovely Readers
Can I just tell you all how much I like you? I do. You rock, dear readers of mine. I love that you send me nice emails telling me how much you liked something I wrote. I love that you pass along bits of information you think would be useful to me. I love that when I tell you how someone is messing with me, you all take up for me. That’s really sweet and wonderful. You’re awesome. Thank you.

A new podcast: a reader writes in asking about a specific jealousy issue. No lawn-gnome jokes in this one, for some reason Monk and I got off onto a weird "sex with robot chickens" tangent.

***

Edit, Noon: Because of the persuasive words of you, my readers, the image has been removed. Have I mentioned how much I love you guys? I am, however, leaving this post up so that I can refer to it for future situations like this.

***

And from the Annoying Person Department: this woman refuses to remove my photo from her site. (EDIT: Link removed, since she has now done so.)

I sent her the email I send everyone, which just says, Hi, that's a picture of me, and I actually haven't given you permission to use it, so would you take it off your site, please? Her replies are as follow, edited down slightly.

I'm sorry to inform you that i recieved that picture from the front of a greeting card that was sent to me years ago. Everyone I know has that picture. Also if you look on the picture that you sent me.. there are no copyright signitures or watermarks at all. Once you put a picture over the internet you have to stamp them with your mark or they are anyone's to take....(snipped for incoherence)... Do you have the copyrighted picture or negative? I will look up the copyright and authenticate and also then apologize to you and my readers... It is not my intention ever to hurt or steal from anyone. That goes way beyond anything I'm actually capable of.

Yes, I'm aware everyone you know has that picture. It is one of the great regrets of my life that I ever put that damn picture online. And why is it that no one who's stolen it ever has it on a cool, intelligent, interesting site? At least this is better than the last guy I had to speak to about it. He had a page for a "Christian D/s" social group. No, you do not use my naked body to promote Christianity, thankyouverymuch.

I sent this person a reply stating again that yes, it definitely was a picture of me, and asking again that she take it down. She responded:

This picture is not of you. I found the owner and the site it's displayed on... Again.. I'm sorry for your trouble though you've been through it .. it seems to me "a million times" as you said that's how many times it's been stolen. I see this photo all over the place.. it's on greeting cards .. and on a million profiles.. and erotic sites.
Again,, if you still believe this photo is yours please send me the copyrighted number to be authenticated and i will take it down.... Im not trying to steal and am certainly not making money off of the picture. But the site i got it from is a FREE site. Please do your research and take it up with them I do not want to be involved in your battle with them.

She then blocked me from sending her any more emails. So much for being all loving and open.

I don't know why she thinks I'd say it was me if it wasn't. I can assure you, I do not get off on emailing strangers to ask that they remove a photo from their (badly designed and rambling) websites. I don't find it so entertaining that I'd do it just for kicks. Given that she's also displaying the complete text and images from, "The Little Prince, " I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that she doesn't understand copyright.

Or at least pretends not to understand it. But for those folks who do - here's the original image from my camera. (Note: really big file!) No one else can produce this, because I never posted it full-size anywhere. But I suppose you could enlarge a tiny one and try to smooth out the jagged edges, so here also are two other (big) images from the same shoot. One, two. It's the same set, lighting, camera angle and model - me. No one else can show you these images without the red edits, because I have not posted them anywhere before now.

It pains me to have to present my work defaced with the cutouts and X's, but it's obviously the only way. I don't expect that this woman will get it, but now that I've posted it, I can link back to this post in future emails to similar image-thieves.

Okay, I didn’t get around to uploading a podcast. But I will! However, there’s a new column up about rocking your strap-on.

If you just want sexy stuff, click over and read the column. But lest some ya’ll think I never have to deal with the inconveniences of the real world, let me tell you about my unsexy day yesterday. My car is sick, and my cat was sick.

My car is very sick and I’m cranky about it, because it shouldn’t be. It’s not very old – faithful readers of the blog will recall my buying the Saab 9-5 in 2004, and it was only two years old then. I was amused to be buying a Swedish car. I joked that I’d had a Swedish husband, and that hadn’t worked out too well for me. But it was a good deal for what seemed like a good car, and I really liked the way it looked and the way it drove.

Well, my second Swedish romance has also gone sour. In my crankier moments with the Saab, I have called it “The Swedish Revenge”, or more specifically, “(My ex-husband’s name) Revenge.” The Saab has proved to be a fussy car, and I do not like fussy cars. When I got a quote for the latest projected repair, I said, “That’s it – this thing is outa here, I’m getting a new car.”

I have been in obsessive research mode for the last week or so, trying to decide what kind of car I should get. Frankly, I do not enjoy the process of shopping for a car. It’s stressful. It is better this time around, because now that I have a mortgage, everyone and their brother wants to loan me more money. Very odd, to a girl who spent many years functioning in an all-cash, off-the-grid system of personal economy.

So I’m checking Kelly Blue Book and I’m filling out loan applications online and I’m readings car reviews on Edmunds.com and Consumer Reports, and in the middle of all this, I look up and see my cat doing something that bodes ill: she's piddling on the floor in a corner of my office.

I said a rude word and jumped up. Of course she ran away, but I watched her for a little while and determined that yeah, she's acting like a cat with a UTI. So, I get on the phone and cancel my plans for the rest of the day, while I simultaneously stuff my unwilling pet into her cat carrier, because we are going to the vet right now, before she gets any sicker. Unlike my car, my cat actually is quite old – she’s nineteen. So I do not dally in these matters.

We get into the Saab, and I cannot tell who’s making the most noise – my cat, who strongly disapproves of this whole plan and is saying so, loudly, or my car, which is screeching as badly as the cat. It is not a pleasant ride.

So, two hours at the vet’s office, and my cat is on her way to being fixed. At significantly less cost than the Saab repair shop wants, I might add. She’s a much older model, but at least in this case, American-made seems to trump imported.

I seem to either be posting looooong rants or very short snippets, don't I? And the more sex-work advice posts I write, the more questions come in. Seems like a lot of women have questions about this, which actually does not astound me.

I've got a couple more in the chute for later, but hey, I have to talk about poly and kinky stuff, too. So I'll upload another silly podcast today and link to it shortly...

Meanwhile, Monk has a very cute video-blog post up....Enjoy.

Advice For The Ambitious Escort

Let me just start by saying braaa-vo. I just got hip to you recently and I like what you are about... I have been an exotic dancer on and off for six years and i'm done with that, at least in seattle I am. I want to escort because I want to make ALOT of money this year. I've contacted several agencies and never hear back??? So I try craigslist but feel like I need a set guideline for how to go about it. 2 major problems. The rates are too low. I am seriously hot and know I can do WAAAY better than 2-300a visit (no offense to u or anyone else out there who may have had those rates) . The second problem is that several times I had a man on the hook about to pay 1000$ then he finds out i'm black (ethiopian) and bails out. I am a mess. Please help. If you know any UPscale places I could get n touch with and or suggestion...

Thanks for reading, I’m glad you like what I have to say. Yes, I do have some advice for you. Here’s what I think...

I believe you. I am sure that you are so hot that your time is worth a thousand dollars an hour. In fact, I’m sure it’s worth ten thousand, or a million, or any sum one cares to name, because you’re beautiful and special. But you see, every woman is worth that, because we are all beautiful and special and infinitely precious in our own way. That is what’s true in, shall we say, the spiritual realm.

Now we’re going to leave the metaphysical realm and talk about business. And in the business world, you’re not being realistic. Two to three hundred dollars an hour is the average rate for an escort here in Seattle, and the idea that you are seven to eight hundred dollars worth of better than all the other local ladies, just because you say so, is silly. You may be hot, but hotness ain’t all there is to being a high-end escort. Far from it. You need a better grasp of how this business works, which I’m about to give you.

First, understand that escorting is not a con-game. At least not in my book, and I’m the one you asked. I am somewhat skeptical about your good intentions here, because of what you say about your would-be clients “finding out” that you’re black. Are you not saying so up front? What, do you think you’re going to sneak that fact by them somehow? If you honestly want to do well as an escort, then the key is creating good experiences for your clients, not getting someone "on the hook” and scamming them. I’ve been a dancer myself, so I know that’s how it works in clubs, and that’s probably true for the lower-priced women too, but that’s not the market you’re trying to break into.

(Also, you are looking in the worst possible place for high-rollers. Craig’s List? My dear. No. Sell a used couch on Craig’s List. Or find a guy to haul your trash away. But do not expect to find clientele for a high-end call girl.)

The fact that you haven’t heard back from agencies can be due to one of two things. A) many escort agencies are not exactly run like Fortune 500 companies. Especially if they’re not looking for new staff, they may just blow you off because they’re doing other things.

B) You may be making a bad impression on them. If you’re telling them what you told me, I bet that’s probably the case. No agency is going to take you on if you’re telling them you’re not willing to work within their fee structure. That doesn’t make you seem like a hot woman with a lot of confidence, it makes you seem like a troublemaker who’s going to piss off their regular clients by trying to demand more money for the same service. No agency wants that, no matter how pretty you are.

When it comes to high-end escorts, Seattle is a clubby, insular town. There’s a very active escort-review board. (Or two, perhaps. I only keep tabs on the one. I’m not going to link to it, because it doesn’t need the attention, but a Google search would find it.) Most guys who see escorts regularly – and a lot of guys who are just curious – read at least one of the boards and use the reviews as their buying guide. There’s also a lot of private-channel discussions between the guys. This is not a bad thing necessarily – once you gain a good reputation with this in-group, you don’t have to market a whole lot in other places. But most guys with money to spend shop among the ladies who are well-known and who have very good reputations. You don’t have that. You’re an unknown woman, advertising on Craig’s List - which is generally regarded as low-rent and full of scammers - and asking a very high price. That’s not going to work. I know some ladies who charge upwards of six hundred dollars an hour for their time, which is high-end for Seattle. They all started out as new girls, charging the same rate per hour as everyone else. You have to prove yourself, create a reputation for excellence. Then you can raise your rate.

On the other hand, if you don’t give what is commonly regarded as good value for the money, you will quickly get a bad reputation, and that’s a very hard thing to shake. In some matters clients are rather forgiving – see Sunday’s remarks about flaky indy escorts – but they react very badly to the feeling that they’re being deliberately hustled. And who can blame them? So if you over-promise and under-deliver, word will get around about that, and the client pool will dry up quickly.

So, you asked me my advice, and I’m giving it to you. I’m guessing it’s not what you wanted to hear. But at some level, you must know it’s true, because you have not succeeded in getting anyone to pay you a thousand bucks within your current system. You sound like a determined woman, and that’s a good trait. So, get off Craig’s List and get an ad here instead: www.eros-seattle.com. If you put your energy into honestly being a really good escort, then I predict you will indeed make a lot of money. I wish you very good success in attaining your goals.