So my blogging has been a bit off this week, as you may have noticed. You see, I've been being topped by Mistress Lateral Epicondylitis. It's the first time I've ever bottomed to her, and whoo, she's a bitch!

In less formal terms: I have had a bad case of tennis elbow. Like, ow. Serious ow. It started in December and it's been bugging me ever since. What brought it on? Who knows. I had a massage therapist work on it at Kinkfest some, and he earnestly informed me it was too much flogging and caning. That's a pretty thought, but I'm inclined to think a lot of time on the keyboard could have something to do with it.

So I've done massage/ice/brace/ibuprofen and still: ow, all the time. So yesterday I said, "I have had enough of this. Okay, Doc, shoot me up." And got a cortisone shot.

It's my hope that I'll soon be able to type again without discomfort, but right now, my arm is a little extra-sore from getting it poked with several needles. (Even though he was very gentle and careful. But yes, all the people I have stuck needles into can chuckle.)

If not, I'm going to have to start doing a lot more photos and podcasts to keep ya'll entertained. And learn to use my left hand to flog people. Anyone want to stunt-model for that?

You know how you go out of town and you forget about all the not-fun stuff you left hanging in your absence? Or is it that somehow, in a not-really-rational part of your brain, you think that little kinky elves will come while you're away and do all those tedious chores? And then you come home and there they are? Yeah. I hate that.

Like what? Like Ikea, that's what. I have a list of household stuff I require, and none of it needs to be spendy, so Ikea it is. (I know, Miss K, I know - you're going to be mad that I didn't take you with me. But I have to go today, and it's going to be just as quick-and-dirty as an Ikea run can be. Pray god the rug-rats aren't out in force on a weekday afternoon.)

Also, I have to find a dress. Oh, Matisse, you say, you have dozens upon dozens of dresses. Why would you possibly need another one?

It's true that I have a ridiculous number of dresses. But this is a very particular kind of dress. It's a going-to-my-brother's-wedding dress.

I said that to my partners, and they both replied, "What, you can't wear one of those Herve dresses?" Typical men. No! Of course not! Good lord, my mother would keel over if I wore one of those skin-tight, bodda-boom, bodda-bing numbers to a family wedding. (Not that I am not seriously lusting for some of the Spring 2009 offerings.)

No, I need something a Nice Southern Girl would wear to a summer wedding in Florida, in May. You may well imagine that I actually don't have a closet full of such ensembles.

And I'm mildly annoyed to see that my darling brother and his (very nice) wife-to-be have scheduled the ceremony for 6pm. Any well-brought-up lady knows that there's a big difference between what you wear to a daytime wedding, and what you wear to an evening wedding, and 6pm awkwardly straddles that divide. Sigh.

I'm unclear on whether the ceremony is being held in a church. But the bride is Italian, so I bet it is. So there's that, too.

Thus: something not black or white, and sort of evening-y but still not too sexy. Sleeveless is fine, perhaps even preferable since it's going to be hot. But nothing strappy or way low-cut, and the skirt should be not terribly tight and at least near my knee. And yet, with all that, not impossibly dowdy.

I could really use those elves or magic fairies right about now.

A new podcast, in which Monk and I answer two reader letters. The first one is from a woman asking us about dealing with a disparity in sexual tastes in a marriage. Then we have a letter from an aspiring pro domme who asks about attitudes towards sex workers in the BDSM community.

(We also swear a lot. I think we were tired or something.)

About fifteen minutes.

No, I haven't run away and joined the circus. I've just been in full-on leather conference mode for the last three days. If you have ever been to one, you know just how all-consuming they can be.

I say "leather conference" out of habit. That's the term I was taught as a young kinkster. What I mean is a BDSM convention. It works like this: a group of people get together, organize a hotel and a conference venue, invite people to teach classes on various kinds of BDSM-related topics, and throw play-parties in the evenings. There's also a vendor space where a bunch of BDSM retailers will come set up booths and sell everything from whips and rope to books and kinky art.

There are some events with variations on that theme, but that's usually how it looks. So typically one would arrive Friday afternoon, register and mill around in the vendor/social space, and sometimes attend some type of welcoming ceremonies, where the workshop presenters will be introduced to the crowd and some "we'd like to thank..." speeches are made.

The next two days, you spend the days attending classes in whatever topics interest you, and shopping or socializing. Sometimes there are organized dinners, sometimes not. At night, you go to the play-parties.

I used to go to two or three leather cons a year, but the last few years I'm a bit less motivated to do that. They are fun, but the travel is a hassle and certainly not inexpensive. And the thing about cons that's both good and bad is that they are like an alternate universe, and one tends to get completely immersed in the social system of them while one is there - to the utter neglect of the rest of the world. Which leads to some "oh, shit" moments on Sunday night when you realize you've let a ton of stuff slide and tomorrow is Monday!

Still, for some people, it's the only time they do get to immerse themselves in a kinky environment. I'm fortunate enough to get to live that way most of my life.

Anyway, I'll post some stories about various things I saw and did over the next few days, and yes, I am going to publish your responses to last week's letter, too! Today I'm driving back to Seattle to re-join my normal kinky life, which I'm actually pleased to say is already in progress.

The new Stranger column, in which I discuss mean dirty talk. As opposed to nice dirty talk. Enjoy it while I get ready to zoom off to Portland!

Answer My Mail

Okay, so if you've been reading me a while, you know that on a regular basis, I publish some annoying email I have gotten and make a lot of snarky comments about it.

And you have probably figured out that I'm often quite annoyed by what I call intellectual laziness. It's rather a hot-spot of mine.

But apparently a lot of people don't know this about me. Otherwise, why would they send me such annoying emails? Like this one, which I received from someone whose email address includes the word mistress, from which I infer the writer is female. Here it is, unedited and in its entirety:

Hi there I read your site its great and would like to kno more. i am new to all this

I have no idea which site of mine she has read. Somehow I doubt she's read any site of mine very thoroughly, because otherwise she'd kno that I am unlikely to look favorably upon such an email.

She doesn't say what, exactly, she's new to. Reading? Googling? No, perhaps it's spelling. How about this: know is spelled with a w.

There, now you've learned something.

Although, I suppose... She's not precisely asking a question, is she? She's simply saying she'd like to know - excuse me, kno - more. Hell, I'd like to know more myself, just in a general way. Like, when is the stock market going to recover? How many calories are really in this order of take-out chicken teriyaki? What is my cat thinking when she stares at me like that?

But she didn't exactly ask me to tell her. Perhaps my hasty presumption is unjust. We all have our emotional hair-triggers. Maybe I should check my responses about this.

So you tell me, faithful readers. God knows you've heard me rant about this often enough. How about I give you a chance? Answer this email for me. Write me the reply you think this gal should get, and I'll post it. Be kind, be blisteringly cruel, be anything you want. Send it along to me and I'll post them on Friday. We'll see how you think this email should be handled.

Let's see, I have a bunch of notes about different things.

There's a new episode of Family...

Classical music fans will enjoy it.

***

Also, I know I twittered about it already, but Alien Trespass was great, and you should all go see it when it opens! Yes, I admit, a dear friend of mine is involved with it, so this is naked propaganda. But I'm quite fond of him and pleased for his success with this, and I'm doing what I can about it. Plus it really is just a delightfully fun movie.

Side note: there's an actress in the movie who so reminded me of a pal of mine, local diva Miss Indigo Blue, that when she came on-screen, I had to look sharply for a moment to be certain that it wasn't actually her! It's the character named "Lana", if you see the film - both her look and her manner are very Indigo Blue-ish.

***

In other film-y notes, I'll be attending this event Tuesday night: the Seattle launch of the arts and culture site The Rumpus, with a screening of the horror film Pig Hunt. (At least, I think I am. I like shoot-'em-up movies, but sometimes I am not so fond of gory horror movies. But I'm going to go prefunk at least, and I'm sure it'll be a cool event overall.)

***

Congratulations again to my pal Lamalani, who just won the International Ms Leather Contest!

***

And speaking of leather events, I am going to Portland for Kinkfest this weekend. So I'm out of town Friday March 27th through Monday the 30th. It should be a very kinky good time for all...

A fresh podcast! Monk and I found a new sound guy - our old one left town - which is great, because neither of us want to deal with recording and then cooking these files.

I fear he may be too good at his job, though. I was wearing a crinkly down jacket while we recorded this (those studios are always freezing), and you can clearly hear me rustling as I shift in my chair during this podcast. Whoops.

Or maybe I was simply dressed inappropriately. A fashion faux-pas, how embarrassing!

But anyway: in this one, Monk and I read and answer a letter from a woman dealing with jealousy in a polyamorous relationship. Also, Monk makes reference to "going nuclear." We don't mean actual bombs, he's using an analogy explained in this column.

Bye!

So in the wake of yesterday's post someone - who shall remain nameless - sent me a teasing email about how, oh, did I need a power tool to deliver a serious fucking?

And the answer is no. I don't.



Click me, baby, and I'll get bigger. Much, much bigger. And I'll stay that way as long as I want. Someone is going to get reminded of that really soon.

A number of alert readers sent me links to some version of this story. Yowch!

I posted a little over a year ago about how I do indeed have a reciprocating saw with a dildo on it - a "Fuckzall," as they are called. (I think Monk has it, actually. I loaned it to him to use on some lucky girl, who did not wind up in the hospital.)



That poor woman! I'm glad she's recovering, but sweet Jesus, people: take the blade off! That's a good place to start, right there!

Then there's a special attachment you can buy to put the dildo on. I would not advise trying to DIY on this one, kids. Seriously.

Good lord. Some people should really just stick to deerskin mini-floggers.

Okay, so I have just dropped a ton of money on this remodel - more money than I have ever spent on any one thing in my entire life. More than the down payment on the damn house itself! Noooo, I'm not even mildly flipped out by that, why do you ask? It's not like investing in real estate is ever a bad idea, right? (Don't answer that.)

And even if I hadn't just done that, this simply does not seem like the time to go running up my credit card balance. I'm still as busy as I've ever been, but hey, I read the papers. (Even though today is the last day for my paper of choice, wah!) I have definitely made my contribution towards propping up the economy - some fiscal prudence seems the best idea right now.

But still. I am made of girlish flesh and blood, and this dress might be more than a mortal woman can live without.

Monk and I had a drink Saturday night with a pal of mine, a lovely woman who is a very successful courtesan. With her was a man whom she introduced as “her dearest friend”. (Parse that as you will, I don't assign labels to people that they don't use themselves.)

Regardless of his job title, he was charming, and I was pleased to see her with such an obviously affectionate companion. But her purpose in bringing him to meet us was not purely social. You see, this man wishes to be a male escort for women.

(We may need to coin a new term for this. Mescort? Mantesan? Those don’t please me, but something.)

Now, up until eighteen months ago I would have said that such a wish was futile. Women, I opined, simply did not hire sex workers the way men do. I have stated this view several times, in print.

Turns out I wasn’t entirely correct. You see, Monk has been doing a small but steady sideline business in professional dominance/escorting for female clients for about a year and a half now.

Note the keyword: sideline. TwistedMonk rope is the main event for Monk, professionally. If he relied upon sex work for his entire living, it would be a somewhat slender living. But still, he’s been far busier than I imagined possible. He says it’s due to my mentorship, which I think gives me far too much credit. But I have been pleased to offer him advice, suggestions and support.

Now I see that this friend of mine is doing the same for her constant companion, albeit from a less pro-domme-y, more courtesan-ish point of view. So they asked Monk a few questions, and we had an interesting conversation about it. In sum: in contrast to women, there is no established network for male sex workers for women to plug into. There is no acknowledged central place where potential clients gather, online or in real life, where a male sex worker can just show up and say “Hi, I’m available. Call me.” None that any of us know of, anyway, and between this other girl and I, we know a lot. Monk has had to invest a lot of time and do a lot of footwork to create his relationships with the women who see him professionally, and this man will have to do the same.

But as we drove home afterward, I amused myself speculating about exactly how - just hypothetically - one might create such a network for would-be female clients. The bare-bones arrangements of Craigslist, etc is sufficient for men. But women, I thought, would need something more personal.

“Well, they have escort review boards, don’t they?” said Monk.

“Yes, but still, I don’t think that’s right somehow.” I snapped my fingers. “Got it. You’d have to have a site written by just one woman who reviewed guys. Like a restaurant reviewer. That way, it’s personal. You develop a relationship with the writer, and thus you trust her and her take on the guys.”

“A male escort review blog? That could be cool, but I think you’d need at least two women reviewing. Like Siskel and Ebert. That way you get a more balanced opinion.”

I drummed my fingers on my chin. “Yeah, that’s a good point. Let’s see, who could do it well? They’d have to be a pair of smart, sexy women friends, and they’d have to be good writers, and they’d have to be comfortable thinking about sex and writing about sexual experiences.” We sat in silence for a moment, and then turned our heads towards each other and said simultaneously, “Hannah and Sparkles!”

Now, I don’t think for one instant that Hannah and Sparkles, whose names I am taking in vain so casually, are really going to do this. Not at all. I'm just kidding them by saying so. But Monk and I thought that if they did do it, they’d be great at it. And they know all the reasons why.

However, I think someone should do it. One male sex worker is an exception, but two is a trend. Women are different from men sexually (thank you, Mistress Obvious), and that means that the whole system will look and function differently from how male client/female sex worker systems function. But I am beginning to think that if a system existed, more clients would pop up to participate in it.

It would not take up a great deal of time in a woman’s life right now, because the field of potential male escorts is still rather small. But I have a hunch that’s going to change. And in a female-dominated industry, a guy who wants to be successful will need all the help and advice from women he can get.

Open To Suggestions

I was talking to Monk last night about the whole 12 second video thing. He and I have both been saying for a while that we'd like to incorporate more video clips into our content. But somehow, we're just not feeling clear about what that would look like.

I'm never going to go all-video, all-the-time. I'm a writer. But the 12 second format attracted me because I thought, "Okay, 12 seconds - I could just do that from the phone cam and accept that it would be low-rez and unpolished."

Thus, I walk around in the world thinking "Well, I could video this. But no, this is boring. I have to wait for something interesting to happen." And then something interesting happens, and I'm busy doing it, and I don't video it. Sigh.

And it can't be anything pornographic, anyway. I would definitely not video any of my sessions - even the parts without anyone naked - unless someone begged and pleaded for me to do so, and even then I'd be hesitant. You put something on the internet, and you lose control of it. I'd have to be really sure someone was one-thousand-percent all right with that before I did any such thing.

I thought: Maybe I need a theme, to kinda get me started with this. For example, I could go through my toy cabinet, and show you, one by one, my different toys. It would take a while, believe me.

And then it occurred to me - I could just ask you. Since you're the people who are going to be watching it, after all. So tell me, what would you like to watch 12 seconds of?

Remember, this is via phone cam, so think low resolution and bad light. And since I'll be holding the camera, it's going to hard to get to see me doing much of anything. It's more like: what do I see that you'd like to see?

(Note to the clueless: no, you don't get to watch me do anything sexual. That is so not going to happen.)

I look forward to some inspirational emails.

Here's the new Stranger column.

Now I'm off into a busy day of errands and shopping, and then some spa time at Banya 5. Bye!

The newest installment of the web series about a polyamorous triad, Family.

I was pleased to see that they got some good press in the Seattle Times. Nice when art overlaps with activism. Enjoy...

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Over the years, I’ve gotten used to some wild swings in my activities and surroundings. This weekend was one for the books, though. On Friday night, Armani and I had a very luxurious and decadent day and night at a local resort, with 90-minute massages, Chateaubriand, a hot tub, lots of wine - and lots of other things.

Saturday morning we woke up to snow – quite a lot of that, too. Now, I don’t know what it is, but it seems like whenever Armani and I leave town for a getaway, some dramatic weather-related thing happens. Like the ferry ride that we took in the windstorm of ‘07 – yeah, that ferry! Just our luck, we seem to stir up Mother Nature.

But Armani is a talented man, and he got us down off the mountain and delivered me home at noon. Whereupon I discovered that the cleaning people I had engaged – the highly trained team of professionals who were going to remove the heavy layer of nasty post-construction dust that was coating every single surface and every single object in my whole house – were not coming. At all.

So I was looking at a busy week starting Monday, with lots of people coming to see me, and a very filthy house. So guess what I was doing for nine hours alone on Saturday and for another four, with Monk, Sunday? Yeah. I looked like a chimney sweep on Saturday, only grayish-white instead of black.

People did offer to help me Saturday, but I’m hard to help sometimes. Certain types of things I can easily give clear directions about, but some things – well, I know how I want it done, but the effort of conceptualizing and then clearly communicating exactly what to do and why to do it that way? Oh, I’d honestly just rather do it myself. Unwillingness to delegate - it's a failing of mine. Control issues, me? Why would you ever think such a thing?

If the team had come, I would given them the keys and walked away - and then come back later and re-done whatever they didn’t do right. But directing another person, moment-by-moment for hours, in a huge and vaguely defined task, that’s actually composed of ten thousand tiny little tasks? Oh, no. As exhausting as it was to do alone, I would have been twice as stressed trying to do it and simultaneously manage someone else.

So Monk came on Sunday, when I had a clear and specific list of things I needed him to do, and that’s just exactly perfect. This is why I don’t have “apprentices” - and what a silly term that is - or personal slaves. I do not enjoy labor management - even the labor of people I’m very fond of.

I'm off today on a little overnight retreat with Armani. We're going to a secret location to have some spa time - hot stone massage, mmmm... And then a decadent dinner together. A lovely mini-vacation.

And - I'm not taking the laptop. I know! Shocking! 24 hours without a computer, me? That never happens. I'll have the B'berry, so I won't be totally cold turkey. But still, it's a slightly edgy choice.

I'll be back Saturday afternoon, whereupon I will immediately get started unpacking the dungeon and getting things ready for Monday, when the grand unveiling of the remodeled space will begin.

Not a minute too soon, either. This has been a rather stressful time for me. My space - emphasis on the my - is important to me, and having it all in turmoil and unavailable to me has been... Well, it's worked out okay, but I've had to expend a fair amount of energy to make it work out okay, if you know what I mean. My dear close pals have been extremely helpful and accommodating about this whole process. I get by with a little help from my friends.

So if I owe you emails/phone calls, please bear with me for the next few days, as I get my normal routine and surroundings, that I am so very fond of, back online after a month of construction.

I myself often look at random people and try to imagine what they'd look like naked. Sometimes I do so while waiting in line at the bank or the dry cleaners, just to pass the time. I also do it with people I know are soon going to be naked in front of me, and then when they are, see how accurate my mental image was.

If you'd like to hone your skill at this, I have a website for you: http://www.naked-people.de/ It's all in German, so I have no idea what the text says. But click enter, and then click on the picture of the clothed person, and presto, their clothes melt away.

Maybe someone who speaks both German and English fluently will tell me what the heck this site is saying about itself. (I get a lot of letters from non-English-speaking people who have obviously used online-translators, and it's almost impossible to understand what they are saying, so I'm not even going that route.)

But these are obviously regular people - not professional models or porn performers - all ages, shapes and genders. Perhaps this is some sort of statement about showing us what non-model people look like nude? Or maybe it's just someone saying, "Hey! Check it out, I got all these people to take off all their clothes for me!"

Hat Tip to Gander!

EDIT: I have had a lot of very cool people send me translations of the site text. It says:

"Clothes are your second skin. They cover, they reveal, they are able to express what we feel inside or, on the contrary, hide it. Clothes can enable us to show what we work as, what our social standing/class is or they express our emotional state. A suit may lead us to peg someone as being a banker, an office worker or an insurance salesman, etc. In our society, this is a characteristic of "being serious".
But to what extent is this judgement correct? Can we blindly trust the shell? What is really underneath it? Can the illusion be shattered if a tattoo is revealed underneath the suit or does the person remain inscrutable? Here, you have the possibility of experiencing the different effects a clothed or naked person make on you.
If you are interested in participating in this art project as a model, please write me an email. If you want to sponsor the project by donating, you can do so by pushing the PayPal button."

Thanks to German speakers Anna, Nina, Nils, Lu, MK, Kari, Tom, Art, Lief, Aviva, and two nice people who didn't sign a name, for translating it for me!

Literary Masochism

I recently finished the Dan Simmons novel, Drood. And that is no mean feat, my friends, even for a devoted (and fast) reader like myself. It's 785 pages. I browsed it in a bookshop, weighed it in my hand, and thought, I'm not sure if I should read this or use it as a boat anchor. Thank god for my Kindle, tamer of bursitis-inducing tomes.

Here's how the New Yorker describes Drood.

"In this creepy intertextual tale of professional jealousy and possible madness, Wilkie Collins tells of his friendship and rivalry with Charles Dickens, and of the mysterious phantasm named Edwin Drood, who pursues them both. Drood, cadaverous and pale, first appears at the scene of a railway accident in which Dickens was one of the few survivors; later, Dickens and Collins descend into London's sewer in search of his lair. Meanwhile, a retired police detective warns Collins that Drood is responsible for more than three hundred murders, and that he will destroy Dickens in his quest for immortality. Collins is peevish, vain, and cruel, and the most unreliable of narrators: an opium addict, prone to nightmarish visions. The narrative is overlong, with discarded subplots and red herrings, but Simmons, a master of otherworldly suspense, cleverly explores envy's corrosive effects."

Now, I like history, so Simmons's meanderings into historical trivia about London and Dickens did not bother me overmuch. Simmons clearly indulged himself with the length of this novel, and of course, it suits the period he's writing about.

And I agree, it's a very deftly done portrait of seeming friendship being poisoned by envy. The Wilkie Collins that Simmons portrays is sympathetic - at first. The bombastic Dickens, who was indeed the literary rock star of his time, is pretty condescending to Collins, and you feel both his anger and his impotence over it.

But then, as you get to know him, Simmons shows you that his Collins is actually a nasty piece of work. And then the story shifts from being mostly about the petty slights and insults that two dear friends can inflict upon each other, and takes a turn into a very Collins-esque sort of horror.

So, yes, it could have been cut down quite a bit. But I enjoyed getting to know all the vile twists and turns of this fictional Wilkie Collins. Makes me want to re-read The Woman in White.