I have a new column in The Stranger about a topic I'm frequently asked for help with: handling intense jealousy.

***

And a calendar note: I'm out of town from March 15th to March 22nd. I'm going somewhere warm for a few days, which should be lovely. And then I'm going to Kinkfest!

It is Thomas Cromwell’s fault I have a bunch of new books.

What? Yes, I know he’s been dead for almost 500 years. Cromwell being the sort of guy he probably was, I’m sure he’d be pleased to know he was still influencing people. Especially a woman like me.

It happened because I wanted to read Wolf Hall, a novel about Thomas Cromwell by Hilary Mantel. So I went to That Big Electronic Bookseller and found it. Easy, right? I should have been gone in sixty seconds. But no. On the same page was this:

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles.
“A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. We see Vanderbilt help to launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the modern corporation—in fact, as T. J. Stiles elegantly argues, Vanderbilt did more than perhaps any other individual to create the economic world we live in today.”

I am a total sucker for biographies. Not quite as bad as I am about “The History Of…” books, but close. So okay, into the cart. But you know how it goes. The crack dealers then showed me this one:

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
“Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Rockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation's history. Critics charged that his empire was built on unscrupulous tactics: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officials. The titan spent more than thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.”

Well, hell, if you’re going to read about Vanderbilt, you have to read about Rockefeller, right? Click. Oh, look, on the same page: business books!

Selling in Tough Times: Secrets to Selling When No One Is Buying by Tom Hopkins
Hopkins lobbies for a return to basics to maximize sales in an economic downturn. The first step is to save existing business by going the extra mile, making human contact, and initiating loyalty-building campaigns. Hopkins shows how to quickly tell if a client is right for you, reduce sales resistance, woo clients from the competition, and cut costs while continuing to appear successful.

Yep, that’s my dirty little secret. I don’t read a lot of BDSM porn. I read sales-technique manuals, and they make me kinda… hot. Look, don’t judge me, okay?

But that one led me to: Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod and then Fascinate by Sally Hogshead. I did not ignore. I was fascinated. And it is very dangerous for me to have a Kindle and a credit card.

Mistress Matisse’s Tips For Happy Polyamory, #17

Thou Shalt Not Oust The Incumbent Partner from his/her living space so you can have a date with the mutual lover. This is a violation of important poly tenets Root For The Home Team and (the self-explanatory) Be Very, Very Nice To The Primary.

I have come to the conclusion that one of the reasons my poly life runs rather smoothly is that we have physical space to spread out in. The Big House is, as you may have inferred, fairly big. And I have my own domain as well. (Don’t think for a minute having space for my poly adventures didn’t figure strongly into my choice of workspaces.)

Because nothing creates disgruntlement like a situation where Partner A wants to come home from a long day at work, flop on the couch, eat pizza, and play video games, and Partner B is running around lighting candles and putting on sexy music because they have a date – with someone else. Partner A may very well be able to go over to a buddy’s house and flop/eat/game over there, but there’s probably going to be some resentment about that.

And resentment is what kills relationships. People think it’s the big things, but it’s not. You can forgive your lover One Big Mistake a lot more easily than you’ll forgive ten thousand niggling little irritations.

For one thing, petty resentment is what erodes the sex in relationships. (Any romantic relationships, not just poly ones.) It’s because it’s the easiest thing to deny a partner without actually having to cop to there being something wrong. Most of the time, people don’t consciously think, “Oh, fine – make me wash your dirty dishes again? Turn the TV up to eardrum-shattering levels even though I asked you not to again? See if you get laid tonight.” But the resentment takes root, and it is subtly poisonous.

Everyone annoys his/her partner sometimes. But if you want to be happily poly, you should strive not to let your other involvements impinge on your sweetie’s preferences and comfort, and that starts with not denying them the simple creature comforts of home.

If you're the non-domestic partner, make sure this isn't happening. You do not want the resident partner to be feeling resentful about something as easily fixed as physical space/privacy and start associating that feeling with polyamory in general and you in particular.

Therefore, if you want to have a hot date with someone who lives with a partner, have the date elsewhere.

It's time for a new podcast!

Show notes: First of all, I was not playing with my nipple while we were recording, all right? Let the record show. The bomb shelter we’re doing these things in is freezing cold, so I was actually wearing a leather jacket. A motorcycle-style jacket, so that’s two layers of leather over my chest. You could not have found my nipple with a sonogram. That’s just Monk being silly.

Our first question is a letter from someone who asks what to do when you’re caught in a sexy, kinky situation and you want to do bondage, but you have no rope? Monk and I free associate about improvised bondage equipment. (We did not use the microphone cables for bondage, though. The sound guys frown on that.)

Then a BDSM newcomer asks: explain to me why exactly I should get involved with the BDSM community? The short answer is: they’ll teach you things you might not otherwise know, and they’ll be support for you when things are tough.

Lastly, a sex worker asks a question about emotional relationships with clients. It’s a nuanced issue, and I get sort of uncharacteristically woo-woo about my feeeeeeeeelings in this one, so don't say you weren't warned.

Enjoy!

Today I'm observing the 6th anniversary of this blog. Yep, I've been writing here steadily for six years. That's practically forever, in blogger time.

When I started doing it, I had no idea how popular this blog would get, and how much it would change my life. In my cranky moods, I often compare this blog to the alien, blood-sucking plant in Little Shop Of Horrors: constantly demanding my precious time and energy.

And blogging is not the shiny cool new thing it was when I started writing here. The constant work of it, combined with the general decline of blogger-chic, has thinned the blogging ranks. I have observed other sex bloggers fall by the wayside over time - including several who were once loud in their disdain for me. Naturally I would never lower myself to publicly sniping with such people. I simply recalled to myself a line from the novel Gone With The Wind, where Rhett Butler remarks to Scarlet O'Hara, "Nothing annoys the godly so much as seeing the ungodly flourish like the green bay tree."

But as much trouble as it is, my little blood-sucking pet here has me brought me many amazing people and fabulous experiences that I would not have had otherwise. And equally valuable, it’s given me a place to examine and organize my thoughts on those things, which is good for my personal growth.

Starting the Stranger column, nine years ago, was also a hugely pivotal point for me. I love being part of The Stranger, and I believe being published in a print publication granted me much local popularity, as well as some real-writer credibility in certain circles.

However, I would have to say, while I don't get anywhere near as many hits as the Stranger site does, this blog seems to have disseminated more widely than the column. I base that only on the number of people I've spoken to who know about the blog, but are surprised to learn of the column. It may be that I just don't talk to as many folks for whom the reverse is true.

But it gets around, this blog. People from all over the world send me the sweetest, kindest, most touching letters imaginable, telling me how much they like reading it, and what they’ve learned from it and especially enjoyed about it. Those little notes mean a lot to me. I can’t always respond personally to each one, but I read them all, and they make me smile. So thank you all for that.

Another year. I’m still here, and I’m still flourishing.

Art Imitates Life



Or is the other way around? I can never remember. But I was thinking about it last night, when Monk and I did our second appearance at the Peg-Ass-Us show. That photo? I brought that very harness and dildo with me to the show and displayed it to the audience. Everyone seemed to enjoy seeing it, although no one volunteered to let me actually demo anything on them. Too bad.

The show is fun and sexy and educational and simply delightful in so many ways. And John and Sophie are the cutest, sweetest, most winsome pair of sexual outlaws in the world, you just want to pet them and cuddle them and take them home and... do evil things to them.

But I digress. We went out for drinks after the Sunday show with John and Sophie, and I got to talk to them about how they handled putting their very real, intimate lives out on a stage for everyone to see. Because as I was watching the show, I was thinking that in some ways, Monk and I do a written version of this on our blogs and podcasts.

Obviously for us the topics are different. We do reveal a lot, though, and sometimes that gets uncomfortable. Particularly because we are not anonymous bloggers. We put our faces are on our blogs. Our professional names and reputations on riding on this. The stakes are high for us.

But we don't want to be too safe, because that's boring. So it's a continuous dance on the edge between regrettable TMI and the same-old, tame-old stuff. And I for one think Monk has nothing to apologize for, because when it comes to busting out of the stereotypes about straight male tops, he will go there. Even when there is right up onto a stage to talk to an audience full of people about pegging.

The reason people like to read us, and like to see shows like Peg-Ass-Us, is because it is real. We're just talking about things lots of people either really do, or really want to do. That blurry, low-rez camera-phone snapshot of mine? Almost seventeen thousand views since I put it up less than a year ago. (And that's just on Flickr, God only knows how many people have it posted on a website somewhere.) I'm quite clear that many of even the straightest of straight male tops are not utterly uninterested in having a woman touch their ass. You've still got two nights to catch the show, guys. Go there.

Primary/Secondary, BDSM Scene Interruptions, and Kink Celebrities

A fresh new podcast! By popular request, we’ve gone to a slightly longer format for this one, it’s about eighteen minutes.

In this episode, TwistedMonk and I answer a variety of your questions. The first one is about primary/secondary partners in polyamory – can one person in a relationship be a primary partner and the other person be a secondary?

The second question is about dealing with unexpected interruptions during a BDSM scene.

The last question: how do you introduce yourself to a kink celebrity (perhaps like me or Monk, but definitely not limited to us), and other general social tips for BDSM culture.

Not at all safe for work!

A new Stranger column about the way to your lover's heart: fear!

In the column, I make mention of the fact that I'm appearing at the Annex Theatre this Sunday, February 14th, and Monday February 15th, as a guest expert for a show entitled "Peg-Ass-Us." What's the show about? Well, here's a video clip...

(From their website) "John Leo and Sophie Nimmannit, a real-life couple, have crafted perhaps the silliest, most heartfelt romantic comedy about strap-on anal sex ever. Their beginner's guide to “pegging” (as coined by Savage Love readers) - complete with sing-a-longs, how-to’s, puppets and soul-baring striptease - offers a hilariously penetrating look at queer sex for straight folks. But as the lesson probes deeper, it devolves into a lover's quarrel that tickles qualms, exposes scruples, liberates desire and comes to a climax where everyone gets off!"

Monk is appearing with me, so it should be highly entertaining. See you there!

Fire Away!

Monk and I are going to record some podcasts tonight. Got lengthy and complex questions about BDSM, polyamory, sex work - or pretty much anything else? Send them in, we'll try to answer them for you. Granted, we will also exercise our sometimes-dubious sense of humor on you, and we do not sugar-coat our responses. But we do also try to give sincere and useful advice about whatever people ask us.

So fire away, Monk @ twistedmonk.com or MistressMatisse @ gmail.com.

I had some letters lately about the whole women-only sex party discussion. So I chose this one as an example to use in addressing them.

(edited for length) "I was struck by Kate's assertion that "there is nothing morally or ethically wrong with being gender-exclusionary for the purpose of self-perceived safety," as long as the exclusion is not executed in a "mean" way.

The first thing I notice here is the use of "self-perceived" as a modifier for safety. I think if someone's safety truly was at stake, then all possible and reasonable precautions should be taken. While perception of safety is also important, I don't find it as compelling of a notion on which to be exclusionary.

Taken one step farther, I could very easily imagine this statement with some substitutions:
1. "There is nothing morally or ethically wrong with being race/ethnicity-exclusionary for the purpose of self-perceived safety."
2. "There is nothing morally or ethically wrong with being sexuality-exclusionary for the purpose of self-perceived safety."

In all of these cases, all of the "excluders" have an extremely real perception of their risk; that is, they were not just excluding other groups "for the fun of it," but because they truly believed themselves or something very important to be at risk in the presence of the excluded group. This perception makes the exclusion justifiable, perhaps, but does it make it right?

Just the same, as some women have the perception of risk around individuals with male genitalia (or around all subgroups of transgendered peoples), does this make it OK to exclude them? And is exclusion OK as long as it is delivered in a nice way?

I know that these subjects are very amorphous, which makes it hard to define boundaries. And I know that "slippery slope" arguments are often very slippery.... and yet, I still DO think that it is a slippery slope from saying that "there's nothing morally or ethically wrong with being gender-exclusionary for the purpose of self-perceived safety," to saying that "there is nothing morally or ethically wrong with being X-exclusionary for the purpose of self-perceived Y."

I got several letters with the same basic type of argument: because it’s wrong to exclude a certain kind of person in a certain kind of situation, then it’s always wrong to exclude anyone, ever.

Now just let me say: I think this reader, and the other readers who wrote to me, mean well and are good people who want to be kind and fair. Okay? I acknowledge that. I also support safety, respect, and acceptance for all trans people, however they wish to express their gender.

But let’s just deconstruct this argument, because it’s intellectually lazy, and I cannot abide that. It is a popular one, I’ll give it that. I have certainly heard this line before – oh, so many times - about any sort of “blank-only” space.

And Kate Bornstein has certainly heard it too. There is probably damn little that Kate hasn’t heard of or thought of about gender issues, so even if I didn’t viscerally understand something Kate said, I myself would be inclined just to take it on faith.

That aside, this argument just makes me snort and roll my eyes. To me, this does not even rise to the dubious level of a slippery-slope argument. (Which are by definition, wrong.)

This is just nursery-school thinking. The rationale for this type of argument is: all identities are the same. Race = gender = age = sexuality = nationality = religion. In this worldview, all those statuses are precisely the same weight, the same importance, and they all have exactly the same effect on both the individual who wears them.

And that’s clearly not true. Those identities all have different histories, and they are all different in how they affect us. For one thing, some of those social groups confer certain types of power upon people within them. Others don’t. It is not wrong for a socially less-powerful group to create space for itself and specifically bar the presence of a socially more-dominant group. Especially when in doing so it in no way robs the dominant group of something it has both a need and a basic human right to equally access: education, housing, transportation, medical care, jobs, ect.

Men, as social group, have historically been dominant over women. Obviously there are individual exceptions, and the level of dominance has changed gradually through the course of recorded history, but that’s mostly been true and to some degree still is. Thus, we do not need to protect men from the injustice of not being able to access a certain social gathering.

Here’s what I would ask anyone who thinks that any exclusion of anyone, anytime, is wrong: how come you’re not all upset about public restrooms? Because those are gender-segregated. You ask any trans person, and I predict they will tell you that public restrooms are a difficult issue, and much more pivotal to their day-to-day life than an annual sex party.

So how about it, ladies - are you going to use the men’s room at the mall, or the airport, or the movies? If you’re really opposed to women-only spaces, you would. And you wouldn’t be the least upset about having a man come into a women’s restroom, or a women’s dressing room in a clothing store, or a women’s locker room at a gym. I am willing to bet that some of you would say “But that’s different!” I don’t think it is.

It is true that some people would like to unfairly discriminate against less-powerful social groups. That’s wrong. But that’s not what’s happening here. The fact that women-only sex parties occasionally happen actually does not mean the terrorists have won.

Extended Remix On Women-Only Parties

Oh, I was bad, I did not post this follow-up material to my column on Friday as I said I would. Here’s the rest of what gender activist and completely fabulous person Kate Bornstein had to say about woman-only spaces…

Kate: The notion of women-only events is horribly knotted-up. I think there should be events for women only if that's what makes the women who attend feel safe enough to play. But the wording is critical. The folks holding the party can no longer expect to say "women only" and expect trans women to accept the party-holders' notion that trans women are not women. That might have worked 20 years ago, but it doesn't fly today. And the wording can no longer be "No transgender women allowed." Because there are many trans women who don't consider themselves trans women and who would be within their rights to attend; not to mention the trans men who could attend based on that warning.

Matisse: What is your opinion of women-only sexually-oriented events?
Kate: There's nothing morally or ethically wrong with being gender-exclusionary for the purpose of self-perceived safety.

Matisse: How do you think they should handle the issue of who is permitted to attend them?
Kate: The guideline on handling exclusion boils down to DON'T BE MEAN. It's inexcusable to be cruel in the wording of any exclusion. You can't say "women only" or even "trans women excluded" because then you'd be defining another person's gender for them and expecting them to accept your definition. These days, that doesn't fly. The only wording that might work would be "Cisgender Women Only." That's clear, and not mean at all. Personally, I wouldn't want to attend any sort of party who wouldn't want to include me because of my identity. I don't think I'd like the people there any more than they'd like me.

Matisse: How would one throw a sex party and include transwomen while excluding opportunistic/unethical cismen?
Kate: Back in PowerSurge days*, there was the dick-in-the-drawer rule. The event was for women only. If a woman had a dick, she could attend if she could take her dick out of her pants, put it in a bureau drawer, and then slam the drawer. That's practical, but it's still cruel to pre-op and non-op trans women, so even the dick-in-a-drawer rule won't work any more. How to handle opportunistic cismen? I haven't got a clue.


*A women-only BDSM conference held in Seattle in the 90's.

The new Stranger column: What Is A Woman? This is an emotionally loaded question, and as even-handed as I tried to be, I'm still expecting some pushback.

But regardless of what you think of my take on it, Midori and Kelly B. throw one hell of a sexy women's party. Check it out, and if you don't want to go play this Saturday night, you can still contribute to the AIDS/Lifecycle program.

I'd like to thank the beautiful and wise Kate Bornstein for giving me her thoughts about this. I may not know a lot about male-to-female transgender issues, but much of what I do know, I learned from Kate Bornstein. She's amazing, and I admire her immensely.

I have some words from both Kate and Midori that would not fit into my word count in the Stranger piece, so I'm planning on posting that tomorrow, just for extra dimension.

Meanwhile, I'm driving up to Bellingham for an overnight adventure. Bye!

From The Bookcase

I reflected today that the word bookcase might just become an anachronism in my lifetime, mightn’t it? One doesn’t need a whole case to store an electronic book. A singular bookshelf would do, and not a very large one, either.

That seems like a shame somehow. I am very pleased with my new Kindle – it’s rather like having one of those IV’s in my arm, where one squeezes a trigger and gets an instant morphine fix - but I still like real bound books. (Although I admit, my office would be considerably easier to navigate if I did not have knee-high stacks of books on most of the available floor space. It goes without saying that I have bookcases on every inch of available wall space and that those shelves are very, very full.)

Still, I try to be optimistic about it. I imagine that people who read from parchment scrolls probably thought those newfangled printing presses were an indication of the End Times, too.

But for today, a couple of books I like that are not available on Kindle. Just to keep things even.

I'm currently reading this book: Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory, by Roy Blount.

This book is a word person’s pornography. It’s sort of hard to describe other than that, except to say that it’s written in dictionary-style, which means it’s a book you can pick up and nibble for a few pages at a time. And that’s handy.

Speaking of writers I enjoy - like Roy Blount - I unearthed my battered copy of this book the other day: Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, by Florence King. It’s an autobiography about the author’s childhood and young adulthood in the nineteen-forties and fifties.

I like auto/biographies in general, but I really like this one. It’s funny as hell, and as smart and often as stinging as a whiplash. (Also hilarious: Southern Ladies and Gentlemen.) Ms. King was a curmudgeon long before being a curmudgeon was cool, and she represents the Platonic ideal - so rarely attained by we mortals – of snark.

But it’s more than just funny. If I had to point to books I read as a young woman that had an effect on who I am now, Ms. King’s memoir would be listed high among them. I am deeply grateful to Ms King for impressing upon my soft young mind that one could be a sexual outlaw without ever being, you know, trashy about it. She did that economically and yet with vivid example, with lines like, “No matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street.”

A role model indeed.

You’ve Got Questions, I’ve Got Answers

Dear Mistress Matisse: I have listened to a couple of your podcasts and enjoy them, however I was wondering if you might know if downloading the podcasts to my ipod is possible through the program you use? I listen to the Savage Love podcast (downloaded from ITunes) while walking the dog or working out and would love the opportunity to do the same with yours! If it turns out that there is a simple fix to this I apologize, I am techno challenged...

I’m mildly techno-challenged myself, so I understand, but there is an easy fix for this. Go to the iTunes store and search for Mistress Matisse’s Podcast. I’m there.

Dear Mistress Matisse: A couple years ago you wrote about a man who enjoyed getting kicked in the balls. A man I like revealed that he is looking for someone who can do this for him. I don't remember the actual post, but I do remember you writing something about how you have to be very careful about how you impact so as not to do actual damage. So, as much as I want to be able to do this for him, I am nervous that actual damage can be done. I am generally pretty vanilla when it comes to my experiences, but this man makes me feel safe and comfortable to explore and I want to try this. Can you point me to this post again? Or any advice you may have would be really appreciated. I wasn't able to find a search function on your blog. Thank you for your time and consideration in this.

Well, I’m using Firefox and for me, the search box is in the upper left hand corner. A better way to search is to use the advanced search function on Mistress Google.

Also, if one is looking for my words of wisdom on any given topic, one should remember to look through the Stranger archives.

The real answer here is: I can’t teach you ball-kicking electronically. Some things that I know how to do are so tactile, so experiential, that even though I love words, words alone simply do not convey them adequately. If I had you in the room with me, I could show you. Since I don’t, what I can say is: yeah, you can damage someone if you do this wrong. Every man’s body is a little different, so you have to start lightly and be very careful. Some people can handle a light tap - about the level of force you’d use to push a beloved-but-annoying cat out of a doorway so you could get by. Other people, if you do it in just the right area of their groin, can handle a kick that would do David Beckham proud. I once did a scene where I kicked someone so hard and so many times that my foot was bruised and quite sore afterward. I’m serious. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t broken a little bone somewhere. My victim? “Eh, I was a little sensitive the next day, but not much.” So, results vary.

Start like this: have him lay on the floor, spread his legs, cup his balls with his hands and pull them upwards towards his stomach. You stand up between his knees, hold onto something for balance, and just tap the top of your foot, above your toes, on his taint. See how that goes.

I haven’t read these for awhile, so I’ve forgotten if they get into kicking. But education is never a waste, so try these books: The Family Jewels and More Family Jewels. (I am highly amused to see that they are available on Kindle!)

Happy kicking!

...One more thought: you can kick women, too, and it's also fun. Same advice - you can do damage if you don't do it properly, so be very careful, and start very lightly. Have her put her hand over her clit to protect it and her pubic bone, and just tap the top of your foot below it, on her perineum.

I amused myself by going into the blog archives to see what I was writing about on January 20th in 2005. It turned out to be one of the Silly Phone Calls posts. You can read that here, if you like: link opens in a new window.

The Silly Phone Calls posts were always a big hit - with certain people. I flatter myself that some of them are very funny stories. But still, I officially stopped doing Silly Phone Calls some time back for two reasons.

Firstly, I had mined a lot of my best material. Monk and I have often observed that many of our best early blog posts were the stories we’d told before. Even a writer can hone a story out loud, get the best turns of phrase, gauge the audience's reaction, and tune up the tale based on that. Many of the most popular early Silly Phone Calls posts were written versions of anecdotes I’d regaled my friends with already.

Granted, I had many years of talking to weird strangers on the phone to draw from, so I had plenty of well-polished stories. But eventually, every well runs dry. Since I no longer have a public phone number – and oh, how I do not miss that – I have no fresh material.

But the deeper reason was: I found that sometimes those posts hurt people’s feelings – not the random callers, but people that I know and like in real life. That surprised me. See, I know I’m a dominatrix and all, but inside my own head, I don’t think of myself as a scary badass. I think I’m a pussy-cat. And not even a particularly sharp-tongued one, at that. I just thought I was being cute with those posts. But mere text on a page robs one’s words of certain nuances, so people interpret it differently than intended.

When sex workers talk about our dealings with clients, we tend to position ourselves as the potentially vulnerable ones, and our clients as the ones who must prove themselves to be not dangerous, not disrespectful, not unkind. And certainly there’s plenty of evidence to back up the wisdom of that. I’m not suggesting otherwise.

But – I decided that I wanted to be more sensitive to their vulnerability, too. It’s easy – and often satisfying - to crack jokes at a population we often see as having more power than we do. But when I heard about some of my guys being hurt by things I said, I realized - they actually don’t feel as powerful as an outside observer might assume.

It was one of those moments when something you already know crystallizes into a new form. I’m a dominatrix - I put people into vulnerable positions when they are in my dungeon. That part is obvious. But it sharpened my understanding of how, even in a professional situation, my emotional power over my clients doesn’t end when they leave my house.

I have power, and it’s not necessarily the type of power I set out to get - but I have it. So I have to use it carefully, and not leave bloody weals on boys I like. Unless of course I mean to.

***

EDIT: True, I occasionally sharpen my claws on people who write me letters and ask for advice. But that's different - they generally say, "You can write about this." That's consent, in my book.

Here's a brand-new podcast! (Even though it’s only Monday. I’m busy writing a column.)

In this one, TwistedMonk and I answer a letter from someone who is new at being the top in a scene, and who is struggling with what to do when people don’t disclose important medical/emotional before the play starts. Short answer: it's not perfect, but even when you ask them, people do that. Roll with it.

Then we hear from someone who wants to know how to cover bruises, so we discuss strategies for that. I talk about my stripper days of putting make-up on my ass… And mention some other kinky activities that leave marks on socially-visible areas of the body.

Enjoy listening!

Oh, The Media!

First, I have a new column over at The Stranger. And yes, it's about the "Alexa Dicarlo" issue. If I had had my way, this column would have come out two weeks ago. Alas, one cannot always have things as one would wish. Still, it's my hope that if I inspire any fresh debate on the matter, it will be calm, civil and reasoned. Although really, there's not much more to be said, is there? Perhaps my remarks will serve as a finale.

On a much sexier subject: last weekend, my darling Monk went to Vegas for the Adult Video News awards - the Oscars of porn, if you will. He taught a bondage class at the Erotic Heritage Museum, and he arranged with Carnal Nation to be their roving reporter. There's lot of fun videos of him, including one where he interviews Bobbi Star and they talk about me. Eek!

More clips:
A Look At Male Chastity Devices
Talking to the makers of wireless, musical vibrators.
Monk interviews Princess Kali
Monk talks to the Porn Church - and remains amazingly polite.
Monk putting "I Love Anal" stickers on people.

There's lots more on the CN site, so go check it out...

Time for a new podcast!

This one's a lulu. Let me preface it by remarking that Monk and I are practitioners of safer safe, and we want to help people learn how to do safer sex. We are sympathetic to people who are nervous about STDs.

That said, there is a right way and a wrong way to handle this conversation with a new partner, and in this podcast, we read a letter from someone who definitely did it the wrong way.

I don't usually sum up podcasts, but the take-away lesson from this is: if you have STD questions, ask them before you fuck. Asking someone about their health status before sleeping with them is a reasonable thing to do, provided you exercise some tact and charm about the matter.

On the other hand: Wooing someone online, meeting them, having a date, fucking them, going home, and then IMing them to ask them about those red spots on their leg? Gauche and insensitive is the kindest way I can describe that. I wouldn't speak to you again either. Take the spanking and learn a lesson from it: open your mouth before you unzip your pants.

Letters and Snark
I get a lot of unsolicited offers to be my slave, and most of them are about as eye-rolling as you'd expect. Anyone who sends me letters like that has clearly not troubled themselves to learn much about me.

(Most eyestrain-inducing? Emails asking to be my slave that are copied to a bunch of other mistresses. Because that's how you make a woman feel special, yeah.)

This one was a bit more creative - which is not always a good thing. First of all, it was a font so curly that I couldn't read it at first. And it was formatted this way, with the center-alignment.

So, without further ado... Complete and unedited letter of the day.

I am a slave woman of Paris.
I will be in USA for vacation of six months.
I look for Mistress or BDSM club for mine total training of Pain culture.
I also have to be available to be taken back in photo and video
I think to be your interest to have a woman of Paris as me I am.
Can you help me ?
with devotion
chienne

I am a Mistress woman of Seattle.
Six months of vacation? Incomprehensible to Mistress woman.
For Parisian, six months of US food, fashion, and art equals total training in Pain-ful Culture.
Sorry, for photo and video, must ask Mistress woman of Japan.
I think to be baffled by your English, and I also have to be mock you, since Parisians have to be mock Americans as me who can’t speak French as I am.
With confusion
Mistress

It's Wednesday, and it's a new podcast!

Monk starts off with a letter from a busty sex worker asking how to handle phone calls from men curious about her exact bra size. I’m embarrassed to say that the word “motorboat” is mentioned. I also talk about my oft-repeated bit of sex work advice, “Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want read out loud in court.”

Then we hear from a reader who thinks that only male dominants (not female ones) get teased, or harshly critiqued. I laugh for a while, and then I explain how that’s not true. Although I do offer an admittedly harsh critique about people who say “dom-may”.

About 12 minutes, not work safe.