My Blue Heaven

My blue obsession continues, and of course certain very sweet men in my life are totally catering to my desires for sparkly blue things. Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am?

So consider this dress. Ignore the hair. The hair is truly scary. And what is that weird little feather-shrug thing she’s got on? It looks like something molted on her. I have worn some unfortunate outfits in my life, I admit. But celebrities are supposed to have handlers who don’t let them show up at photo opps looking like this. I suppose the shrug could have been a moment’s disastrous whim, but that hair did not just happen by accident, someone did that on purpose. This woman’s name is Natasha Bedingfield, and she is apparently a Christian pop singer. Ms. Bedingfield could certainly have used some divine intervention with her hair and accessories.

But let us put all that aside and look at that dress she’s wearing, because unless I am very much mistaken, that is an Herve Leger dress. Herve Leger being another fashion obsession of mine. (An obsession that has also been lavishly indulged. But you know with obsessions, you never get enough.)

So it's an Herve Leger, and it’s not exactly blue, but it’s blue-ish, and it’s completely fabulous. So I think Ms. Bedingfield, in acknowledgment of her fashion sins, should give it to me. You definitely would not catch me blaspheming it with bad hair and hideous feather things.

In most conventional ways, I’m not really the romantic type. For example, if I’m going to watch a movie, I’d usually rather watch people pretend to shoot at each other than watch them pretend to fall in love with each other.

I do not understand why an adult woman would want a stuffed animal. (It’s fine if you do. I’m just sort of baffled by them, that’s all.)

I do not save roses from meaningful floral offerings. Flowers are pretty and all, but when they’re dead, I throw them away.

Someone once gave me a sonnet he’d written about me, and I thought it was sweet, but I still didn’t sleep with him.

So call me a pragmatic sort of girl. It’s relationships that matter to me. How I feel when I’m around someone, and how they treat me. I have often said to guys, “If you show a woman that you think she’s beautiful and special, that is more intoxicating to her than any champagne ever poured into a glass.”

I have some very sweet people who are close to me, guys who treat me like a beautiful princess, and I am very blessed by that. You know who you are. Thank you for all the lovely things you do for me. And Happy Valentines Day to you.

What I’m Doing In The Last Five Minutes Before You Arrive – Or, An Illustration Of Why You Should Not Be Early.*

• Put on chosen dress. Realize that the bra I’m wearing is not the right one for this neckline. Take off dress and dig through overflowing lingerie bureau for correct black bra – examining at least four other incorrect ones before doing so, and dumping approximately half of the Nordstrom intimates department onto floor in process.

• Turn heat up to eighty and note to myself that if the gas company gave out frequent-flyer miles, I’d have enough accumulated for a ticket to the moon. In first-class.

• Make last check of playroom. Leather cuffs? Check. Spandex hood? Check. Spencer paddle? Check. Big black rubber electrical butt plug? Dig through drawers in vain. Remember that it’s in the storage room, in the cabinet given over to the “you buy it, I’ll store it for you” toys. Go to storage room, which is twenty degrees colder than the rest of the house because heating vents are shut to save money. Shiver and look through bags of single-player-only equipment until I find the one marked with proper nickname. Place toy where it should be. Go stand over the heating vent in the playroom until goose bumps subside.

• Cue iPod playlist to “Spanking Music”.

• Examine my legs and wonder if thigh-high stockings - mined from the depths of aforementioned overflowing lingerie bureau - are actually the same shade of black. Wonder if he’ll even notice.

• Put on lipstick. Notice that it makes me appear as though I’ve been dead for three days. Realize it’s actually eye shadow and curse cosmetics manufacturers for being so clever in their packaging. Wipe off and replace with bona fide lipstick.

• Become aware that I have to pee. Pause and consider whether I should just wait and pee on him. Wrestle with my sense of proper dramatic timing versus urinary expediency.

Ding-dong!

• Answer door…

*With a tip of the hat to certain ladies, who inspire me with their private wit.

A pal of mine was talking recently about an upcoming women-only sex party. She’s excited about it, as are a number of my friends. It sounds like a great event, and I wish it much success. Am I going to go? Probably not.

You see, my extensive sexual travels have not left me soured on sex in private. If anything, the confidence I derive from my experiences enhances my private sex life.

But I have had plenty of “public” sex – by which I mean, sex in front of lots of other people, at private gatherings held specifically for that purpose - and frankly, I’m now really bored by it.

It’s probably mostly from my work as a stripper. If people are going to watch me be sexual, then I’m going to stop focusing on the sex I’m having and start performing. Which I’m perfectly comfortable doing, you understand. Hey, get me a sound system, a disco ball and a fog machine, and I’ll put on a hell of a show. But if no one is going to stuff money into my g-string, then why would I stop just enjoying the sex in order to perform for them?

I’m aware that some folks find it arousing to be watched, and that’s fine for them. I certainly have no objection to other people fucking in sex-appropriate spaces - it can be quite pretty to watch. And there was a time when I found the idea titillating enough to experiment with myself. I went to some swing clubs, when I was just barely old enough to legally get in them, and then I went to a lot of women-only sex parties (we called them “raves” back then) in the early nineties. I never had any bad experiences… But you know, I never had any amazingly good ones, either.

No, I take that back. I had some fun times – when I went off in a corner and had sex with people I was already having sex with anyway!

So these days I prefer my sex in private. There is, however, one reason I might go to this event, and that’s my friend Miss K. You remember Miss K, don’t you? No, I don't mean Miss K likes sex in public, either. She probably feels more or less the same way I do about it.

She is, however, recently single. And I am totally making it a goal to get her out of her all-grad-school-all-the-time rut and out to some social events – especially events where she could, possibly, maybe, just happen to meet a cute, sober, sane, single, kinky butch boi that she might like. I’m not trying to fix her up, or anything. I’m just saying, you know, make room for the universe to send you good things.

We’ll see if I can convince her to come to this party. Thus, if you see me there, I’m not shopping. But have you met my friend Miss K?

There are certain questions I get asked a lot, and while I’ve addressed many of them before, I keep getting asked, so I will make some remarks about them once again. Here's one from the FAQ...

Can big girls make money in the sex industry?

Well, define big.

This is a delicate issue. There’s a lot of controversy raging about body size these days – it seems like more than ever before. So let me say now that I’m not passing judgment on anyone’s genetic fate or chosen behavior around that. Let us simply speak of the market as I know it. And recognize that I have never been above a size ten, so I can’t speak from first-hand experience, only observation.

Stripping is probably the most unforgiving area of sex work when it comes to bigger girls. In most of the clubs where I danced, a lot of the girls were a size six or smaller, and anyone over a ten was really at a disadvantage. In smaller towns with fewer strippers, or at lower-end clubs, you can bump that up a little. But still, stripping is not the best gig for a curvy girl, because it’s a very visual job, and the current beauty ideal is thin. If you lived in Renaissance Italy, you’d be the pin-up girl, and those skinny chicks would be out of luck, but that’s not the way it is just now.

I think porn – by which I mean any visual depiction of you, be it web-cam stuff, photos, videos, whatever – is sort of middle ground. There are specific big-girl markets, but not as many as for skinnier girls. And porn thrives on extremes, so if you’re a slightly-curvy but not really-large woman, you might find that you’re too slim for the plus-size porn sites and too chunky for the other ones. I encountered this situation a lot when I was photographing girls for porn mags. I think you’d be wise to consider porn a potentially profitable hobby, but don’t quit your day job unless you really get a sweet ongoing gig.

However, bigger girls can do very well as escorts, sensual touch practitioners, and pro dommes. In that world, I would say that anyone smaller than a size eight is considered petite. Average/normal is anything from eight to about fourteen. Fourteen to eighteen or so is considered a bigger girl, but not in a bad way.

Above size eighteen, you’re really getting into a niche market of men who have a specific big-girl fetish, and I think your options will be limited. That’s not to say you have none, but it’s not a branch of the industry I have much information about.

Understand that this is just one person's opinion. Being skinny is not a sure-fire guarantee of success in the industry, and being bigger does not mean you’ll fail. At any size, a lot has to do with all the other aspects of your looks, and equally important, your personality, your attitude, and your business skills.

A note to Belle De Jour: Congrats on the fiction-writing deal. It's the type of thing I'd like to do myself someday. Also, I seem to have lost your address. Drop me a note? I have another matter I'd like your take on. MistressMatisse AT aol.com.

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.