This one made me laugh because... I, um, know some people who doe that thing about storeing food and water and stuff for an earthquake or swine flu or some other emergency. I tease them a little about it. And they reminds me that I'll be singing a different tune if there ever is an emergency when we need it.

My other thought was: I'm sorry, if one of my partner's partners was hanging around my house, drinking heavily at 9am, there would be some serious conversation between he and I about that. It would go something like this: "Take this girl out of the house, and never bring her back." There are a few simple but crucial rules for dealing with me, and one of them is: Do not bring your drama to my doorstep. Because I hate drama. You like drama? You have all the drama you want - somewhere else.

And a woman swilling jumbo cans of malt liquor in the morning and calling it "paradise" is drama waiting to happen. That's not a red flag, it's a red circus tent. No, it's a bright red hot-air balloon, and it's going to fall to earth very unpleasantly somewhere. But not on my house, no no. Because bottled water does not help you when that sort of disaster strikes.

Zombies. They’re sort of like bacon, aren’t they? (No, I don’t mean that you eat them. Everyone knows zombies eat us. We are the bacon, for zombies.)

I suppose you could say that bacon and zombies are alike in that they will both kill you if you don’t run far enough fast or fast enough.

But that’s not what I mean, either. No, I mean, zombies – like bacon - have been extra-fashionable lately.

Granted, I thought the whole bacon craze was a little much. I mean, I like meat-candy as well as anyone. But bacon martinis? No. And bacon on doughnuts? That is just wrong, wrong, wrong. We have to have some limits, people, or where will it end?

However, like bacon, zombies never truly go out of style. And what’s even more terrifying (to me) than zombies? Karaoke!

Thus, I am particularly disturbed, fascinated and highly amused by this blog, which features a bunch of zombie-themed parody song lyrics, with more added regularly. Apparently while zombies have a limited conversational repertoire (“Brains! Braaaaaaaains!), they like to sing. So, for your shambling, rotting karaoke pleasure, I give you: Zombaritaville.

I don’t blog about specific kinky products very much, just because every time I do, I get a flood of email from people wanting me to "review" and promote their kinky product, whatever it is.

There’s nothing wrong with marketing. But if I did a plug for everyone who asked me, there would be nothing but ad copy here, and that’s not what I want.

However, I am going to mention these, because I’ve been playing with one lately: Bodyhose. Now I know, this looks like an inexpensive version of the Wolford Fatal dress. I have that dress is three colors and I love it, but this is not a fashion post, it’s a bondage post. Because these tubes work very nicely for an encasement-bondage scene.

There’s something fun about covering up all of someone’s skin. I’ve tried saran-wrap bondage, duct tape, vet-wrap, spandex body bags, all the usual things. But these tubes are cool for several reasons.

They are easy to carry, and they are easy to put on someone – certainly way faster and easier than wrapping a person all in duct tape, let me tell you. (Not that it wasn't fun.)

And it’s easy to adjust the level of constraint. For someone new to bondage, or nervous about it, that’s a bonus. Basically, the more you stretch the tube out, the less pressure you put on the skin. Scrunching it up, or folding it in half, makes more pressure on the body. On the other hand, stretching the tube out covers more of the person – but thinly. You can see them, they can see out even if it’s over their face, they can breathe, all those things. But assuming you’ve restricted them in some way underneath it, they can’t get out. Big fun.

I will note that I have only put these on men. (I have seen a girl about my own size wearing one of these as a dress, and she looked as cute as could be.) But they are all one size. So a five-foot-five, 120-pound person is going to be less restricted in one of them than a six-foot-two, 200-pound person. Not that it couldn’t work, it’s just going to be a different experience.

If you have the tube stretched over them from head to foot, clearly your own access to them will be somewhat limited - although impact, clamps, and lots of other mean things work just fine through nylon. But if you want direct access to certain bits, then I advise getting two – one above, and one below, and the interesting parts exposed in the middle.

Have fun!

I uploaded a new podcast. In this one, Monk and I read and answer letters about polyamory. First, we talk about the not-so-good idea of comparing your partners. "Why can't my Partner B be more like my Partner A?" (Hint: Because they are actually two different people.)

Then Monk talks a little about his wife Tambo - and explains why he doesn't talk about her very often. (Hint: Because she is actually Keyser Soze.)

This is the last one we have in the chute, so we'll probably go record some more next week. Got complex questions about BDSM, polyamory, sex work, or brightly colored cocktails? Send them in...

(I have mentioned that I'm becoming a brightly-colored-cocktail expert, didn't I?)

I meant to answer some letters today, but I was endlessly tweaking my column right up to deadline. So instead, just some pop culture notes about that eternally fascinating subject - men.

I’m reading this book: The Score: How The Quest For Sex Has Shaped The Modern Man, by Faye Flam.
Flam is the science reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and writes a weekly column for that paper called "Carnal Knowledge", about the science of sex. It’s an interesting subject: why are men the way they are? Who among us has not wondered?
Flam has a light, pleasant tone of voice. There’s a bit too much on the discovery of mitochondria and the evolution of sperm, but overall she keeps it moving.
But I will say: she ain’t Mary Roach. For me, when it comes to pop-science, it doesn’t get any better than Mary Roach’s books.

Also, I watched the première of Hung, HBO’s new series about a male-for-female escort. (Spoilers follow, if you care.)
It wasn’t bad. Frankly, it was much better than I thought it would be. The lead actor, Thomas Jane, plays the character of Ray Drecker with a deft touch. Ray is likeable but imperfect, and he’s definitely having a tough streak of luck. In fact, I sympathized with him so quickly, I kept thinking, “All right, all right, we get it. You’re not a slimeball. Go fuck a woman for money, we’ll still like you, really.”
HBO apparently thinks the average viewer might need more persuading. The virgin run of Hung stayed virgin. Drecker’s unseen first client changed her mind and slipped a turn-away fee to him from under her hotel room door. Hate it when that happens, but at least he got something!
This show has been called "Breaking Bad with prostitution", but it's not nearly as dark as that. I haven't seen all of that show, but the minute you saw Walter White, you knew he was a doomed man. Ray Drecker isn't.
And of course now I’m going to have to watch more of it just to see what happens. Arg. TV is such an insidious thing.

EDIT: Several people have forwarded me this story on the Daily Beast, about Hung and male sex workers. It's interesting.

Read or Listen

I uploaded a new podcast, here. First Monk and I read a letter about safewords, and make mention of my two favorite safewords: vomit and lawsuit. I promise, those two words will capture any top's attention, anytime.

We also talk about the challenges of doing BDSM with a partner who is hearing-impaired. I make a verbal slip at one point that I must correct: I mistakenly say, "They can hear ME," which is not what I meant. What I was trying to say was: a hearing-impaired person can talk, and I can hear THEM. Didn't come out right. Whoops.

And I did a short piece of writing for Filthy Gorgeous Things, an online magazine about "sex for artists, thinkers, and sensualists." So enjoy that...

Here's my new column in this week's Stranger. Enjoy!

Here's a confession that reveals me as either an optimist, or a masochist, I'm not sure which: I just read the newest Anita Blake book from Laurell K. Hamilton, "Skin Trade."

I'm sure the irony of that title is accidental, but it's amusing given that the whole series has turned from paranormal action/mystery into kinky soft porn. Not that I have anything against porn of any variety, but I liked the old Anita Blake, who fondled her guns and killed people (or monsters) a lot.

And it wasn't as if they were even good porn. The new Anita did way too much processing with her emo-monster lovers, and had tons of hand-wringing angst about all the kinky/poly fucking she was doing. You'd think a woman who raises the dead and executes vampires for a living would learn to say, "Oh, all right, fine, so I fucked a couple of bloodsuckers and shape-shifters! Who cares?"

What I can say about the latest book is: it is not as wince-inducingly terrible as the last half dozen or so. It's not nearly as good as the first seven books, which were as yummy and addictive as crack-sprinkled brownies. It's... okay. There are good parts and oh-come-on parts. The ending is weak, but endings are never Ms. Hamilton's strong point in these books.

It has Edward in it. Edward ain't the charmingly creepy sociopath he used to be either, but still, I like him. It also has Olaf, the serial killer who has a crush on Anita. And heaven bless us, it's only got three (I think) sex scenes, and they're all not so terribly long and tedious.

So, it's a vampire novel that doesn't suck. For Ms. Hamilton and her creation, Ms. Blake, that's a good step.

Another episode of Family, the polyamory web-cast series... Enjoy. (If you like train-wrecks, that is. Yeek.)



Amusing trivia: I've been to St. Cloud's. It's not terribly far from the Big House. I certainly have not ever witnessed a scene like this one, though.

Yes Means Yes

From the mailbag: This is an edited-down version of the letter, mainly because the original is very long and includes a lot of unnecessary detail.

And actually, I don’t think this letter is real. There are a lot of little things about it that set off my bullshit alarm. All of them could just be explained away, but my gut just says: fake. I don’t believe this girlfriend exists, I think the writer made this story up. It’s possible she does exist, and that she is the one making up the story and feeding it to her lover, but I’d bet money that someone is lying here.

But what the heck, I’ll answer it anyway. Because maybe it’ll be useful for someone else who’s contemplating a bad idea.

***

I'm male, 24, my girlfriend is the same age.… She has problems: Child abuse, substance abuse, alcoholism in her family and herself, huge eating disorder problems, rape. Now she's been raped a second time, and this time I feel like an accomplice. She told me that she'd been getting offers from a guy she'd met who ran a high-class prostitution agency. She has money problems, and it was incredibly tempting despite her revulsion for it.

I’m wondering where, exactly, the girlfriend met this guy? It’s not the usual bar-pickup line. But here’s the short answer: Anyone who says “Hey baby, I run a high-class prostitution agency, and have I got a deal for you!” is a lying idiot, or worse. Run, run, run away from anyone who tells you that.

Also, if you feel revulsion at the idea of sex work, you should NOT do it. We all do things we’re not crazy about doing in life. But, revulsion? That’s a no. This seems really simple and obvious to me, and yet I do see people acting like deep emotional responses are things they can just dismiss, without consequences, if they’re inconvenient.

Because, in my platonic dreamworld, I believe prostitution should be legal, I told her that I would support whatever decision she made. So, finally, there's an offer of one long night for 12,000 dollars. She decides to do it, torturing herself about it for almost two weeks, going through a whole process (STD screens, photos, waxing) that makes her feel like an animal. He says she needs to sleep with him, that it's standard "quality-control" procedure. He takes her to a hugely fancy hotel, buys dinner, and they do it. She hates it.

Okay, see, here’s where the story goes sideways to me. Twelve thousand dollars? And she didn’t smell a rat? Really? Because a quick search on Google will pull up escort rates for any city, and if one is going to spend two weeks torturing oneself, I’d think that would include a little internet research.

But, more advice, on the off chance it’s real: do not fuck people to get a job - even if that job is fucking people. If anyone tells you that you have to audition for a job as an escort, walk away. Only sleazeball pimps want freebies, and there are some of them around, which is why I always worked for female agency owners. (They weren’t all straight, but they never hit on me.)

Here’s how quality-control works in a good escort service: The first couple of clients they send a girl to will be regulars who’ll give the boss a report. They’re always guys who dig seeing the brand-new girls. They don’t expect smooth patter and practiced moves. If the girl messes up in some truly spectacular way, and the client is angry, the boss sends another lady for free and eats the lost money. But that doesn’t happen too often, because agency owners get good at knowing who’s going to work out, and who’s too crazy. If the girlfriend in this story exists, she is broadcasting “crazy” on every channel. No good agency is going to send a brand-new crazy-acting girl on a 12K-for-one-night date. Even if there were 12K-for-one-night dates to be had, which there are not.

The next day, she goes back to her apartment and finds a 1200 dollar dress. Goes to the hotel, but the client doesn't show. Calls the guy: his phone's been disconnected. This whole thing was a con. He's just a rich FUCK who saw someone he wanted and invented this entire thing. There was even a call from another one of his "girls" saying not to do it, that prostitution was the worst decision she'd ever made. I can't figure that out...maybe sometimes he actually is a pimp and the call was genuine, or maybe it was part of the scheme just to test her, or make her feel worse because that's what get's him the fuck off.

Well, stranger things have happened, I suppose. That seems like a lot of effort, and when I add up the costs of what he presumably spent, this guy could have just hired a lady for the night. But some people do get off on playing games. I can’t figure out the phone call from the other woman, either. But whatever it was, it was a red flag that your partner unfortunately ignored.

So basically she got paid with this dress, is what it sounds like. That's not cool, but everyone gets stiffed for a fee at one time or another in the business. You just have to handle it and move on, and not make the same mistake again.

She can't go to the police because of the humiliation if it got out, because she has no evidence of any kind, because he's covered his tracks too well anyway. Now who knows if he has an STD that maybe she has now. He has pictures of her.

Yeah - no, sweetie, you do not go to the police if you do something illegal and you get ripped off for the fee. That would not be swift.

But wait, wait, wait – STD? Did she have bareback sex with this man? Yes, I know condoms don’t prevent everything. If you decide to be an escort, you’re deciding that you’re willing to take some risks. But not using condoms is extremely stupid.

I could have stopped this at any point; I could have told her no like she clearly wanted me too. I knew how much it was hurting her, but I kept saying it was her decision because I wanted the money for her, because I wanted to be true to my bullshit theories, because secretly it turned me on. I was supposed to protect her, to turn her life around, to make everything better. I used to have daymares about her being raped again and being powerless to stop it...but this is worse. Not only was I not powerless, I helped by being so fucking logical and always talking about "cost-benefit analysis." I was conned just like her, and it was the perfect fucking con: it didn't seem too good to be true because the huge amount of money was balanced by the fucking pain she was feeling!

The last sentence of this paragraph is from Bizarro World to me, I can’t even parse that. But for the rest of it: no, you’re not supposed to “turn her life around, make everything better.” She has to do that. See my previous posts about this: You can’t love troubled people all better. And sometimes help is just the nice word for "control". It’s sweet to be loving and protective to some degree towards your partner, but you are not her parent. For whatever reasons, you thought and hoped this would be okay, so you said you were cool with it. Turns out you were wrong. I hate being wrong, too, but no one is right all the time.

And you’re definitely going to hate this part: I don’t think your girlfriend was raped. I think she was ripped off, but that’s different. She’s a grown person and she consented to the sex. Even if she hated it, he did not force her, correct? No violence, no threats, she wasn’t afraid not to? Yeah – that’s not rape, to me. It’s a lousy situation, and she’s justified in being mad. But I don’t agree that if a guy promises you X if you have sex, and you do, and he breaks that promise, then you were raped. If you retroactively withdraw sexual consent, after the sex is over, because you're angry at your sexual partner, then you render your word meaningless. That’s a dangerous precedent. If yes doesn’t really mean yes, why would anyone bother to get consent in the first place?

Another podcast! Now with extra perviness!

In this episode, Monk and I do letters from readers, and talk about smaller-top/bigger-bottom strategies. Then we branch off into discussing our favorite BDSM implements: canes, staplers and boot-mounted dildo harnesses. As a finish, we argue about whether tits trump all other weapons. Lots of dirty words and graphic descriptions on this one!

Fun quote:
Monk: "You had a glass of champagne in one hand, a stun gun in the other, and a line of boys with their pants pulled down."
Mistress Matisse: "Yeah. That was the best night of my life."

Enjoy!

My take on David Carradine's death, in a new column on The Stranger.

For your listening pleasure, Monk does a podcast with Dr. Dick!

Meanwhile, I'm spending the afternoon at the Little Red Day Spa. I haven't visited there before, so I'm interested to see what it's like. (I've been to LRS for parties and performances, naturally. But not for spa experiences.) Armani and I are going to get nice, relaxing massages - and enjoy a few other indulgences as well. And then I am sure we'll do a lovely dinner somewhere...

Bye!

Recent Reading List


Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, by Frank Schaeffer.

From Publishers Weekly: "Part autobiography, part parental tribute and part examination of how American evangelism got to where it is, Schaeffer tells a moving story… Raised in Switzerland in the utopian community his evangelical parents founded, Schaeffer was restless and aware even at a young age that "my life was being defined by my parent's choices." Still, he took to "the family business", following his dad as he became one of the "best-known evangelical leaders in the U.S." While rubbing shoulders with Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, Schaeffer witnessed the birth of the Christian anti-abortion movement. His disillusionment, when it came, hit hard; while he would eventually achieve modest fame as a filmmaker and author, the initial stages of Schaeffer's post-religious life were anything but glamorous. Schaeffer does not mince words, making his narrative honest, inflammatory and at times quite funny; despite its excess length and some confusing chronological leaps, this story of faith, fame and family in modern America is a worthy read."

The portrayals of the different famous evangelists are fascinating. Schaeffer has the filmmaker's eye for small detail, and he writes in a leisurely, unhurried fashion that I admire because it’s utterly unlike the way I write. I would not say this was a riveting read. But if you’re willing to let him tell the story at his pace, it’s definitely got points of interest.



The Language of Bees (A Mary Russell Novel), by Laurie R. King.

From Booklist: “…the absorbing stories King has written about the young theology scholar and American feminist Mary Russell, who is married to the great detective Sherlock Holmes. Holmes and Russell return to England in August 1924 to find that Holmes’ bees are inexplicably dying and that Holmes had a son by Irene Adler. Damian, the son, suffered as a soldier in the Great War, is a famed surrealist artist, and has a wife and child, both of whom disappear, prompting Holmes to take a case with the most personal of connections. Along the way, we are treated to a great deal about ancient sites in England; a major supporting role from Holmes’ brother, Mycroft; information on an occult set of beliefs possibly related to Aleister Crowley; a terrifying set piece on the horrors of early air travel; and discourse on the queasy pleasures of surrealist art—all in Mary Russell’s wry, brilliant, and occasionally utterly deluded voice. We also see both Sherlock and Mycroft reveal human depths to themselves and to us. Although the novel does have an end, nothing is resolved: “To be continued,” King tells us, in the most frustrating of finales. Readers will want the rest right now, but even without a satisfying ending, they will realize that this is one of the best of a uniformly superlative series."

I love Sherlock Holmes stories - even those not written by Arthur Conan Doyle - and I especially love Laurie King's novels. If you haven’t read this series, you should go back and start at the beginning (The Beekeeper's Apprentice), you’ll enjoy it much more. She's always great reading.

From the Mailbag

Mistress Matisse,

I was wondering if you could help me…I had a really bad encounter with a guy, and was wondering if I should warn the really cool girl I met through him.

See, I used to bottom to this guy every now and again, but I stopped seeing him since he seemed to have trouble with both emotional and physical boundaries. We started talking again and decided that it might be fun for me to try tying him up, spanking him, etc. So we had a nice encounter, but as I was putting away the rope he pushed me down on the bed. I got up, told him it was late and I needed to go, but he pushed me down again. I didn't struggle, but when he started spanking me I told him to stop (in my "I am completely serious" voice.) He said no and the spanking got harder. I said “stop” again and screamed (I was ridiculously freaked out), which got him off me, but pissed him off. He wound up leaving in a huff, and I wound up promising myself not to see him again.

Ok, so here’s where the question comes in. About a week ago he introduced me on AIM to a really sweet girl who I have a lot in common with. I'm pretty sure they met off an internet personals site, so I'm wondering if I should tell her about this incident. I don't think the guy is dangerous, but he plays in a way that promotes miscommunication. I know part of the problem lies with me, but on the other hand if I don't say anything to this girl and she hooks up with him and has a bad experience she might get upset that I didn't mention anything (and I really want to sleep with her.) So should I say anything? If so, how much?

I scold people sometimes about not taking responsibility for their behavior, because I’m very big on that. However, sometimes I have to scold people for the opposite – taking responsibility for something that isn’t theirs.

So let’s deal with the important part first: if a man pushes you down and spanks you and won’t stop when you say stop, then you are not “part of the problem”. No way. What he did is unacceptable behavior. Not okay, no matter what, ever. He fucked up, and he needs to cop to it, apologize, and never do it again.

Now that we've established that... I am not saying that this guy is doomed past any redemption, a kinky outcast for all eternity. I know a couple of guys who did similarly stupid things when they were new to kink. They got confronted about the behavior, they got straightened out about how BDSM works – like, you have to get consent, you idiot - and they’ve not made those mistakes again.

But here’s the key: these guys got confronted. Someone told them what they did was wrong. If no one tells this guy, he won’t change his behavior. (He may not anyway, but we’re giving him the benefit of the doubt here.)

I assume, because you don’t say so, that he hasn’t either acknowledged or apologized for his bad behavior. If that is the case, here’s what you need to do: you have to tell him that what he did wasn’t okay. And unless he does acknowledge it or apologize, you need to stop having contact with him.

If you didn’t have this out with him immediately after the incident – and I would not be surprised if you didn’t - that makes it more difficult to bring up again now. I understand that. But I think you need to say something to him before you can ethically say anything whatsoever to anything else.

So tell him. Don’t talk about this girl or anyone else, don’t make threats about ruining him in the community, don’t say things like “you’re a terrible awful person!” Stick to statements about what actually happened. “I said stop and you didn’t stop. That’s not okay. I didn’t consent to that. I was really scared and upset by it.” A fundamentally decent guy will say, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

If he doesn’t… well, I’d give him, say, 24 hours after the conversation to come back and say it. No apology? No further contact from you, period. You said that he has a problem with boundaries. If you keep talking to him, then you will also be demonstrating a problem with boundaries. Why are you even talking to this guy now? You are tacitly admitting to him and to yourself that he can behave badly towards you and suffer no repercussions. Don’t do that. It’s bad for your own self-esteem.

Should you tell this other girl? That’s hard to say. I’m usually inclined to say that a reasonable expectation of confidentiality in the bedroom trumps the notion of “warning” people. I have not seen very many truly dangerous people roaming free in the BDSM community because no one talked about their bad experiences. I have personally seen a lot of angry exes using the “I-had-to-warn-the-community” line as an excuse for viciously bad-mouthing a former partner. It’s really not cool.

But my exception to that rule is: cases of physical assault. That's where one's reasonable expectation of confidentiality ends, in my book. And what you described to me skirts the edges of what I’d call an assault. Legally, of course, any unwanted touching is assault. But once again, we are giving this man the benefit of the doubt: he may have genuinely thought you wanted him to do that. He may have really thought it was part of the scene. That might be stupid of him, but based on what you said, I would not quite label the incident felonious.

If this was me, I might try to walk a line here. If he does not apologize, then I would say, “So, CuteGirl, I’m not communicating with ThatGuy anymore. He did something that wasn’t all right with me and I don’t want to be around him or talk to him.”

Don’t look for a way to work this into a conversation, that’s beneath you. Wait until it occurs naturally. Don’t consciously try to be mysterious about it to pique her curiosity. Don’t play guessing games with her about it. Seek to keep the conversation about it brief and calm. If she asks questions, decline to say any more. “I’m sorry, I think it would be unethical of me to say anything else. He did something that wasn’t okay with me and I’m not communicating with him anymore.” You have made no accusations; you have simply stated a fact. Any reasonable person is going to draw a conclusion from that fact. What she does with her conclusion is up to her.

A Podcast And Birthday Wishes!

A fresh podcast, in which we read some follow-up letters about kinky relationships, and then Monk rants about the joys of creating a business selling kinky products. If you ever toyed with starting a business selling something to the kink community, you'll wish to listen to him, the voice of experience in these matters.

Speaking of kinky relationships - today is the birthday of someone very dear to me. I'm thinking extremely fond and sadistic thoughts of him...

Wow, This One Got Long

I’m in a letter-answering mood this week, let’s see what else we can pull out of the mailbag…

Mistress Matisse…
I have a question. I remember you mentioning in a column that your clients tend to be conservative. I have this idea that many guys with sex-negative, homophobic views are secretly seeing sex-workers. Maybe you even recognize some conservative politicians amongst your clients. Do you ever feel like you're betraying your fellow sex-workers or the queer/poly-community? Because you're supporting, in a way, the hypocricy of those conservatives? i realize my question isn't exactly fully thought out, but do you understand what I'm trying to say, or am I way off?

Maybe it helps to clarify my question when I explain how I came up with it. I (male and gay) recently met a gay guy who is a musician recording for a christian label (which forces him to stay closeted). I understand that he is religious and that recording under that label is his way of expressing his believe and supporting the good things his church does (like helping street children) but I still feel like he is betraying the queer community somehow, by working for that homophobic institution. Isn't your situation somehow comparable?

Goodness, how very Lysistrata-ish of you. Short answer: No, I don’t. No, it’s not. And no, I do not have any prominent conservative politicians (that I know of) among the people who come to see me.

You can find people in the queer community, and the poly community, that are sex work positive, but you can also find lots of people there who are strongly opposed to sex work. I do not feel that I need to consult their wishes - or anyone else's - in making my career choices. And I can assure you that other sex workers do not feel betrayed by me having conservative clients, given that they all do too.

If you want to get into long-winded political philosophy, then read on…

My dear earnest young man, your assumption here is that "liberal" equates with “sex-positive, non-homophobic, supports sex workers.” You are correct: this reasoning is not fully thought-out. It’s superficial and unexamined at best, and mainly just wrong.

(You also assume that I would define myself as a liberal. I don’t. I’m not a conservative, either. I am a complex blend of leave-me-alone libertarianism, it-takes-a-village progressive, and free-market conservative.)

Now, I will grant you that someone who calls himself a liberal is more likely to say he supports gay rights than someone who calls himself a conservative. However, I have known liberals who paid lip service to the party line, but carried around a lot of unspoken homophobic assumptions. And I have known secular conservatives who honestly didn’t care who slept with who. Or who married who, or who adopted children, or whatever, as long as they didn’t frighten the horses.

However, liberals as a political group are no more likely to be supportive of sex work than conservatives. I have seen just as much dismissal, condescension, and vitriol towards sex workers from the far left as the far right. In the view of many liberals, sex workers are simply victims. And if they refuse to be victims, then they are just bad, evil people. They’re like – oh my god – capitalists! (To be pronounced in same tone that a fundy-christian would use when crying “whores!”)

I'm curious what exactly you think liberals do that’s so supportive of sex work as a job choice? Because I am not aware of any legislation introduced by a mainstream liberal politician to decriminalize my career. I don’t mean citizen’s initiatives like Proposition K, I mean a sitting elected official making a clear effort to repeal laws prohibiting sex work. I don’t know of any. If you find me some, I’d be pleased to hear about it, but my experience and observation is that liberal and conservative politicians may phrase it differently, but they both get to the same conclusion: keep sex work mostly illegal and heavily stigmatized.

On the other hand, my experience and observation has also shown me that thinking individuals of either side can often be educated. Both liberal and conservative people have told me that knowing me changed their opinion of sex work and sex workers, because I was happy and smart and had my shit together.

But only if they're open-minded. I’m remembering one extremely liberal man, who I knew for several years back when I was an escort, who simply could not let himself believe that no, I wasn’t a drug addict, and no, I didn’t have a pimp, and no, I wasn’t abused as a child, et cetera. He was a very nice man, but his continual anxious hand-wringing about whether this was really, really something I was okay with doing got on my nerves. It certainly was not conducive to a good fuck.

No, if I was going to screen for political affiliation, I might very well choose secular moderate-to-conservatives, if for no other reason than they generally sympathize with my work-ethic and entrepreneurial bent, and my desire to be mostly left alone by my government. They see that I am not a victim, and that no one is forcing me to do anything.

And that guy you’re sprung on, the closeted one? He isn’t being forced, either, unless his christian employer is holding a gun to his head. He is choosing it. He may not like everything about the choice he’s made – I can tell you don’t - but he’s a grown-up, and he gets the responsibility for his decisions.

Approaching sexuality with this "never give aid and comfort to the enemy" mindset disregards the power of body and soul. And if you’re going to say that no one from a less-powerful social group should be sexual with someone of a more-powerful social group, then you’d have to say women should not be sexual with men, period. Nor any person of color with a white person, nor any working-class person with a middle- or upper-class one. Not a realistic premise.

So think about it: Are you really saying we should put pressure on people to keep their sexuality strictly in line with, and segregated by, their political affiliations? I don't think that's the way to make the world a more sexually progressive place.

Letter from a reader:

A community I frequent was recently invaded by someone who claimed we had driven a friend of his to suicide. Less than 48 hours later, he finally admitted that it was completely fictional. He does this about once every year or so just for the attention, so it was kind of obvious. It got me wondering, though. I know you have your share of trolls, but have any of them ever tried to claim that a friend committed suicide because of you in order to make you "change your ways"?

Oh wow, talk about drama. I assume this writer means an online community. There’s nothing like the safety of a computer screen to really show the crazy in people, is there?

No, I haven’t had this particular episode of insanity directed at me personally. But I have also seen people try out various versions of this story in online communities. It's a perennial favorite, I think. I’m going to kill myself, my friend is going to kill himself, my friend did kill himself, et cetera. One ambitious lad claimed that he actually had killed himself, and that the post we were seeing had been cleverly delayed to appear after he was dead. Now we’d all be sorry, wouldn’t we!

I don’t think it works as well one-on-one. People who do this seem to crave the mass outpouring of attention that only a large group of total strangers can give.

The idea that such an event would change someone’s ways is odd to me, anyway. If someone I’ve never met is unhappy enough to kill himself, then that’s very sad for his loved ones and I wish it hadn’t happened, but that’s not about me. But then, I’m one of those people who doesn’t accept that (for example) my being happily kinky is somehow contributing to some other woman, completely unconnected to me, being raped or battered somewhere. I think you’d have to be the sort of person who took responsibility for other people’s feelings, and that’s not something I do.

I also just do not understand suicide, in general. I’ve had some unhappy times, but I have never even considered ending my own life. There have been a few moments, in my distant past, when I mused pleasantly about ending someone else’s, but… (No, not really. At least, not in any sort of legally-actionable kind of way. )

So no suicide threats. I have had strangers do what I call “having a relationship with me when I’m not there.” That goes like this: they write to me. I probably read it, because I try to read all my email. But I don’t respond, because I get tons and tons of email, and I can’t possibly answer them all. (Or, I respond just very briefly.)

They take offense, create a whole set of reasons for my non-response, and project them onto me. “How dare you! Obviously you hate me and wish me ill! You're a terrible person! I was going to be your best friend, but now I’m never going to speak to you again, and I’m going to tell everyone how mean you were to me. ”

Um, yeah, okay - you go right ahead and do that. I will just sit here and consider how disappointed I am at not getting to have you for a best friend. Or, not.

A therapist I once had told me, “We’re all so self-centered, we worry that everything others do is because of us. Consider how often you think about yourself during a day. Now consider about how often you think about other people. You think about yourself much more often, right? If someone is acting funny, odds are, it’s not about you or something you did wrong. It’s about them, about something that’s nothing to do with you. So ask, if you really want to, but when in doubt, assume that it isn’t about you unless they say so.”

And sometimes even if they say it’s about you, it isn’t.

***

I have known, slightly, two people who committed suicide. In both cases it was a terrible tragedy, and I do not take it casually. Please don’t kill yourself, and if you’re thinking about killing yourself, go here and call someone to talk. They can help.

Believe. In Gravity.

Last night Elvis and I got to observe something you don't see very often: a very high-budget, high-tech Las Vegas strip performance go spectacularly wrong.

Apart from this incident, I could review the Criss Angel/Cirque Du Soliel show, Believe, in two words: don't go. It's pretty bad. I don't like to say that about performers, because I know what it's like to put yourself out there, but - yeah, it's just pretty bad.

I've never seen Mr. Angel before, so I don't know what he's like on TV. But he doesn't really do much of anything in the show. I mean, he pulls some doves out of his sleeve, and otherwise he mainly runs around the stage and strikes poses while dressed like a Hot Topic store blew up on him. The whole thing was sort of like a bad homage to Nine Inch Nails videos, only without the music. Occasionally he'd put drapes over things and make them disappear - which is really not an awe-inspiring feat on a stage fitted out with wires and trapdoors. We could see the lines sometimes. Sloppy.

And there were giant bunnies. Very creepy giant bunnies. Matisse no like weird giant bunnies. Uh uh.

But Elvis and I were having fun anyway, because we always have fun, so it wasn't tragic. We were seated in the second row, right in the center, and we had cocktails, and we were cracking jokes to each other. And some of the Cirque Du Soliel dance numbers were okay. (Although, only some, and only okay, which is highly unusual for Cirque Du Soliel.)

And then Mr. Angel started gearing up for what was obviously The Big Trick. They put a white leather straitjacket on him (I liked that) and hoisted him up in the air by his ankles, a la Harry Houdini. I'd say he was about, oh, maybe thirty feet up in the air? Or more.

Then they flew him out over the audience, so he was actually behind us, more or less centered over the house. And they shone a spotlight on him as he dramatically wiggled out of the straitjacket. Ta-da.

So that was fine. Then the house and the stage all went dark for an instant, and then... Things went wrong somehow. There were some voices yelling, and the house lights came up to show us Mr. Angel still up high in the air, still upside down by his ankles. He was closer to the stage, but he was still out over the seats. And he was not happy. Not at all.

The obvious end of the trick was: they were supposed to fly him back to the stage in the dark, and drop him into a waiting trunk, from which he would then triumphantly emerge a moment later. "Ha ha! Look, here I am!"

However, something went wrong, and what we heard Mr. Angel yelling was: "Don't use the automation, don't use the automation!" It was not the voice of a man making a casual suggestion. I inferred that he meant: "Don't move this line I'm hanging from." I don't know what happened to make Mr. Angel think he was in imminent danger of falling thirty feet straight down onto his head, but that is clearly what he was afraid was going to happen.

At first we thought it was part of the show. But after a minute, it was clear that no, this was serious. A voice came over the loudspeaker, "Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated while this problem is taken care of...." A dozen tech guys with headsets swarmed around the edge of the stage and the house floor, barking orders at the booth and reassuring Mr. Angel, who managed to stay reasonably calm.

But I myself have done a lot of inverted suspensions with Max. I have hung by my ankles with my head at least twenty feet from the ground, and I know what it felt like when I was afraid that I was going to fall. No one I have played with has never dropped me, or even come close. But still, it was really not a pleasant feeling. Elvis and I were close enough to see Mr. Angel's face, and he looked like he felt exactly the same way about it as I did.

I looked as carefully as I could, but I could not tell what was wrong with the rig. I don't think it was the ankle harness, and the hardware connecting him to the line looked okay. But all the techs seemed to agree with Mr. Angel that something bad might happen. This was not an: "Oh dear, Mr. Angel's trick went wrong, how embarrassing. But he's perfectly safe." No, the energy was definitely: "Criss, don't move, we're going to get you down, but do not move."

To rescue him, they dropped two more lines down to the techs, who hooked them together into a U-shape and put a big wide padded strap on them. They flew that up to Mr. Angel, who instantly seized it in a death grip, slipped the strap around his torso, and unclipped himself from the bad line.

The whole incident took about six or seven minutes. That's a long, long time when you think you're about to fall. To his credit, when Mr. Angel landed on the stage, he turned and thanked us for our utter silence and stillness during the rescue. He cracked a joke about the joys of doing live entertainment - but he had that pale, cold-sweat look to him.

There was a brief "intermission" and then - they went on with the show. Because that's what you do. I thought, "Well, it was already pretty bad before, so at least they don't have to worry about it being bad now."

But it makes you think. I've heard about a couple of bad suspension-related falls lately in the national bondage scene. Not fatal, luckily, but bad. This is a Vegas production costing millions of dollars, and employing highly trained people who lift things up in the air professionally. And still, something went wrong - something I suspect had the potential to be very bad indeed. Thank god it didn't, because whatever one thinks of Mr. Angel as a performer, one would not want him to fall on his head. He didn't seem to feel that his magic powers would save him if he did fall. I don't think yours would either. Be careful, people. Be very careful.

Having a wonderful time in Sin City, sinning. Meanwhile, the new Stranger column is up. It's about the recent changes on Craigslist. Enjoy!

Travel Notes (In Which I Am Very Parenthetical)

I'm off to Las Vegas today, to spend some time with Elvis... (That's a nickname, by the way. I am not going to actually hang out with a dead person. I am not that kinky.)

We're staying at Encore again, which we both loved last time. (Writer's dilemma: using the phrase "encore again" feels redundant, even though it's not. Hmmn, how about: We are staying at the hotel called "Encore" for a second time? No, clunky. We are staying at Encore, the same place we stayed last time? More correct, but I just don't like it. Oh well, to heck with it, you know what I mean.)

We have tickets to the Criss Angel/Cirque du Soleil show, so that should be a lot of fun. There was also some talk about going to a gun range where they let you fire machine guns, which seems noisy but entertaining. And I plan on getting some serious bikini time. (Probably not while I'm firing a machine gun, although that seems like a highly amusing photo op.)

I'm back late Saturday, so if you want to see me next week, drop me a note or a voicemail. (It seems like I should have something in parenthesis here, just to keep the rhythm. But I don't have any additional thoughts. Bye!)