A new Stranger column, to amuse you on this sunny Friday: a discussion about the eternal allure of crazy bottoms.

Frankly, I thought it would be a flame-fest by now. The last column, about monogamists dating the polyamorous, is still garnering me hate mail. But apparently it's okay for me to talk about people being batshit crazy, as long as I'm not suggesting that anyone can be happily polyamorous. Good to know.

It's a new podcast! In this episode, Monk and I briefly discuss how the Zombie Apocalypse would affect my diet Mountain Dew consumption.

Then, we read and answer a letter from a dominant woman who feels nervous about her scenes. Key point: she’s eighteen years old. How should a young kinky person build confidence?

And I also have to blow a kiss to Monk, because this is the Official Weeklong Celebration of His Birth! No mere birthDAY for Monk, no no! He has a whole week! (Perhaps longer, if the bourbon and cute girls hold out.) So Happy BirthWeek to you, sweetheart!

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A look back at old posts in the much-beloved silly-phone-calls archive, 2004: A Near-Goddess Experience.

(Follow and read the linked posted first, or this won't make sense.)

The amusing thing is that sex workers and their clients using spiritual mumbo-jumbo as a code for sexual behavior certainly isn’t new. Long before I was ever a pro domme, I worked at some places where we did “spiritual healing” and “chakra alignment and release” etc. Uh-huh. We called ourselves priestesses - I'm serious - and we all had names like Astra and Moon and Gaia. The men who came to us were referred to seekers.

They were okay places to work, but the hardcore Tantra/spiritual-sexuality stuff is really not my thing. I know some people resonate with it. But it just felt silly to me, and frankly, it was a often a struggle for me to keep a straight face during the initial conversations with new clients, when one was required by the management to use that lexicon.

Fortunately, at least half the time, once the guy and I had established to each other that I’m cool/you’re cool, I would confess that I wasn’t really all that woo-woo, and he would give a big sigh of relief and say, “Oh thank god, I’m not either, but I thought I had to pretend to be.”

Honesty. It’s such a lovely thing, and it makes life – and certainly sex - so much easier. Is that a spiritual belief? Namaste.

The new Stranger column, about what happens when monogamous attempt to rustle the polyamorous. It's sure to provoke either winces of recognition or indignant argument. Enjoy!

If you have a cock and a tape measure, I need a little favor from you.

No, I do not want to know the size of your cock. What I want to know is: what the measurement from your mouth to the base of your groin? And here’s the important part – I need the measurement of it taken while you are lying down.

That’s an odd request, isn’t it? Let me explain… You see, I am having a charming piece of kink equipment made for me by some superb local craftspeople. This is a vacuum bed. (Click through for a larger image and an explanation of how it works.)






I’ve been thinking of getting one for years, but I’ve always been put off by the fact that the person inside, while rendered truly immobile in a fashion that does induce an intense psychological response, would not sufficiently accessible to me.

However, lately I have seen examples of vacuum beds with, shall we say, greater access. So I asked Seattle latex designer Tonya Winter if she could create something like that for me. She’s hard at work on it, and her design incorporates a gusset with a flap of latex at the crotch, a few inches around, that could be either opened, to provide access, or smoothed shut and secured in some fashion.

So essentially she is creating an envelope of latex for me, and it will have two holes in it. One to breathe through, and one for access to those nicely sensitive places. So the question becomes: where does one place those holes relative to each other? Latex does stretch, but one has to have some idea of the average distance from mouth to groin.

Naturally I have some boys on hand, as it were, that I can measure. But I’d like a greater sample. Who knows, if that number turns out to vary quite widely, I may end up having more than one envelope made. But I wish to start with the measurement that’s more or less in the middle, statistically. And I’m sure that my lovely readers would enjoy knowing that they had contributed to this design.

So if you'd like that as much as I think you would: lie down – because that’s the position people will be in when they are in the bed – and measure from your mouth to where your cock joins your body. Send that to me, and just for good measure, tell me your height and approximate weight. I’ll be ever so grateful to each and every one of you.

Books I’m Reading Lately

There’s been Sex At Dawn of course, of which much has already been said. I’m enjoying it very much, and I recommend it. But I have other books going on as well.

One of them I consider half professional training – given that I do speak in public on occasion - and half sheer curiosity about what must be a challenging way to make a living: Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun.
"Confessions of a Public Speaker provides an insider's perspective on how to effectively present ideas to anyone. Highlights include: how to work a tough room, the science of not boring people, how to survive the attack of the butterflies, and what to do when things go wrong, the worst-and funniest-disaster stories you've ever heard (plus countermoves you can use). Filled with humorous and illuminating stories of thrilling performances and real-life disasters, Confessions of a Public Speaker is inspirational, devastatingly honest, and a blast to read."

And then there is my penchant for anything historical, lately expressing itself in the true-crime genre: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective, by Kate Summerscale.
"Summerscale delivers a mesmerizing portrait of one of England's first detectives and the gruesome murder investigation that nearly destroyed him. In 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent was found murdered in the outdoor privy of his family's country estate. Scotland Yard Det.-Insp. Jonathan Jack Whicher was called in and immediately suspected the unthinkable: someone in the Kent family killed Saville. Theories abounded as everyone from the nursemaid to Saville's father became a suspect. Whicher tirelessly pursued every lead but with little evidence and no confession, the case went cold and Whicher returned to London, a broken man. Five years later, the killer came forward with a shocking account of the crime, leading to a sensational trial. Whicher is a fascinating hero, and readers will delight in following every lurid twist and turn in his investigation."

And also: The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century by Harold Schechter.
True-crime historian Schechter delivers a thrilling account of a murder case that rocked Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. Roland Molineux was a proud member of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, where he was considered a talented but snooty sportsman, repeatedly instigating spats with the club's athletic director, Harry Cornish. Roland doggedly wooed Blanche Chesebrough, but when one of Molineux's romantic competitors, Henry Barnet, died, Cornish was poisoned (he survived), Roland topped the list of suspects. The sensational trial became one of the costliest in New York State history. Schechter expertly weaves a rich historical tapestry—exploring everything from the birth of yellow journalism to the history of poison as a murder weapon—without sacrificing a novelistic sense of character, pacing and suspense. The result is a riveting tale of murder, seduction and tabloid journalism run rampant in a New York not so different from today's."

A New Podcast

In this podcast, Monk and I riff about phallic-looking microphones, and then read and discuss a letter from a reader pondering how to begin a polyamorous relationship. How do you treat the Other Significant Other? Monk says "Treat them as you'd wish to be treated." I agree - with some qualifications. Also mentioned: the value of just keeping your mouth closed.
Listen to it here... (About ten minutes.)

Linkage to this and that...

The new Stranger column, in which I wax nostalgic about flying blood, and reveal the problem with Mormon vampires.

And Monk's latest video-blog on Carnal Nation. Leather History: Bound To The Past, about the Leather Archives And Museum. (Located in Chicago, serving the world. Yeah, I was there when Joe Bean trained us all to chant that phrase back to him whenever he mentioned the place in a speech. I think he eventually got sick of hearing it. But hey, when Joe trains you, you stay trained.)

And - I have fresh podcasts! So look for those in a day or so...

From the 2004 archives: letter from the infamous Tampon Man.

Now this? This is a good old-fashioned weirdo letter. It’s sort of sad - I hardly ever get this kind of email anymore. (And god knows I don’t get actual snail-mail letters like this anymore, although once in a great one, The Stranger forwards some entertainingly strange missive sent to me at their office.)

What makes it a classic? It’s not the fetish itself. I have known perfectly charming men who found bloody women erotic.

No, it’s the writing style. The bludgeon-like use of capital letters! The insistently interrogative multiple question marks! The jarring juxtaposition of the flowery, hyper-submissive phrases with slightly offensive made-up words like “cuntsume”. And the bizarre rhetorical questions, that remind me of advertisements for snake-oil, or personal-injury attorneys.

Sheer length also counts – the original of this letter was about four pages long. I do not lie.

He also gets bonus points for the use of then-current events as emotional reference points to sell his concept. Menstruation = Weapons Of Mass Destruction? That’s bold branding, people. Bold!

I just think it’s a shame people don’t put the same sort of effort into writing oddball letters as they used to. Now they just Twitter or text. Sigh. Passing of an age.

Podcast fans: listen to the Part II of a podcast Monk and I did with Richard Wagner of Dr. Dick's Sex Advice.

And, a plug for a show opening this weekend. SHINE: A Burlesque Musical. From the web page...

Internationally-acclaimed comedy cabaret duo The Wet Spots (John Woods and Cass King), in collaboration with Theatre Off Jackson and the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, will present 12 performances of SHINE: A Burlesque Musical July 8 to 18, 2010 at the Theatre Off Jackson.

A recent winner of a Vancouver Ovation Award for “Outstanding New Work”, SHINE is a tassel-twirling original, full-book musical about an infamous burlesque theatre and the family of talented misfits who try to save it from demolition… or worse, respectability.

It looks like a great show, and I know that some of the performances are sold out already, so get your tickets soon!

I just finished polishing the final draft for the next Stranger column, so in honor of that, my answers to a few often-asked questions about me and The Stranger.

I get a lot of emails telling me the columns are too short. I love hearing that you like my column. I wish it was longer too. Writing something interesting in 490 words is very, very challenging. Very.

But, The Stranger sets my word count, and I cannot exceed that. It's a business decision. Each dead-tree page of the paper costs money to print. In order for The Stranger not to go bankrupt, the paper can only be so many pages long. On each of those pages, there is a certain percentage of space dedicated to editorial content (like: my column), and a certain percentage of space dedicated to the advertising that pays for the paper. Removing an ad so my column could be another hundred words long would make you and me happy, but it doesn’t make business sense for The Stranger. And I’d like them to stay in business.

So there is no wiggle-room on the column length, that's it. If I write it too long, someone else will cut out parts to make it shorter, and ooooo, writers hate that. So it behooves me to make it the right length.

Maybe you should just print the first part of the column and put the longer version online. We tried that a while back, actually, and I didn’t like it. I had a lot of people coming up to me saying, “Hey, I read the first part of your column, but I keep forgetting to go online and read the last part. What did it say?” This is the sort of question that makes a writer want to scream. Apparently The Stranger didn’t like this system either, so we scrapped it, for which I am profoundly grateful.

You should write one version of a column for the Stranger and do a longer version of the same column for the blog. That would be a rather unprofessional thing to do to The Stranger. They don’t pay me a lot of money, but they do pay me, god love ‘em. And when you pay me to write something, you get an exclusive.

The fact that certain words are printed in bold? I get many emails about this. No, I don’t do that, it’s not under my control. Someone at The Stranger does that. If you have an opinion about it, I’m sure they would be happy to hear it.

There's about a 7-day gap between my submitting a column and it being printed. The column I turn in today, for example, will be in the paper published next week. There's some cushion there, time-wise, in case an editor reads what I turned in and decides he wants a big revision of it, but that very rarely happens for short pieces like mine.

If you're imagining me at The Stranger editorial offices, verbally sparring with the other staffers like a kinky Rosalind Russell in His Gal Friday, I fear I must disabuse you of that charming notion. I am very rarely in The Stranger offices. I just email them a column when it's due.

The person I submit to (yes, yes, I said submit!) will show me whatever edits he's making to what I turned it. But our exchanges about it are usually pretty brief. My mother was an editor for years, and I learned from her that while all writers think every single word they write is like the perfect tear of a unicorn falling upon a golden page, editors... don't. They are not butchering up your precious creation just to be mean, it's their job. And they get cranky if you spend a lot of time arguing with them about the placement of a comma or some such thing, because they're on a deadline and they have a damn paper to put out.

Most of the time my column doesn't get edited very much. It galls me only slightly to say that the edits that do get made are usually an improvement, because the editor has a fresh eye.

I choose my own topics, too. Very occasionally someone from The Stranger will make a suggestion to me about an idea, and when they do, I usually do it.

Can I reprint this very recent column of yours in my small publication? I cannot grant you permission to do that. Obviously people do, and I cannot stop them, but once again – The Stranger paid me to write that for them. It’s rude, at best, for me to then turn around and immediately give it away to someone else.

It’ll be ten years this fall that I’ve been writing for The Stranger. Ten years. That’s hard to believe when I stop and think about it. I’m grateful they took a chance on me then, given that I had no noticeable writing credentials when I pitched them the idea. And the way the newspaper industry has gone, I’m damn lucky to still see be seeing my name in ink-on-paper. I have no plans to quit, so we’ll see what the next ten years bring to me, in my adventures in tabloid journalism.

To entertain you... My new Stranger column is on the site, about Seattle's pro domme houses. (Or, the lack thereof.)

Also, a podcast I did with Dr Dick of Dr. Dick's Sex Advice is up. It's fun, it's kinky, and it's also very silly. Go listen!

Special People

Dear Mistress Matisse,
I am contacting you for some advice about getting started as a courtesan. I've been trying to navigate into this world, but keep getting lost. I'm wanting to get myself through acupuncture school, and I have this idea that I'd like to share my excess sensual and healing energy with a very special clientele...people who want what I have to offer. How do I go about finding my niche here?

Let me begin by saying your motivations for getting into sex work, and your ideals about how that’s going to look, sound lovely. Sharing sensual, healing energy with special people? I thoroughly approve of that idea.

Now that we’ve established that, let me correct you on some points, my dear little special snowflake. No one “gets started” as a courtesan. That word is not a job title, it's a professional accolade. Saying one wants to get started as a courtesan is like saying one wants to get started as a movie star or a supermodel. It is a status conferred upon a woman by the people she meets, and I for one do not say it lightly. I have met a few women I think genuinely merit this description. But not many.

So, you want to be a sex worker to put yourself through school? All right then, you must begin as everyone else in your job description does. I’m not sure if you want to do sensual touch (ie, massage with a happy ending) or be an escort. But I’ve written a lot about how to get started in all types of sex work, so search and ye shall find.

As for finding very special people? That too takes time, and a lot of careful sorting. Obviously there are people in the world that simply aren’t suitable. Then there are people who are harmless, but just… weird. But you know, for the most part, I would not wish away my meetings with the emotionally incomprehensible people I have encountered in my travels. They are educational. They keep you rooted in the reality that world is full of people who see things quite differently than you do.

Every sex worker deals with a certain number of clients who, whether they know it or not, are wounded in some way. The thing is: people who seek sexual healing are not always the easiest people to deal with. They are not always happy, or self-aware, or seemingly appreciative of what you give them. If this was easy, everyone would do it.

But if you never have a client who’s a challenge, you’ll never develop the emotional skills necessary to become a courtesan. I’ve had some amazingly satisfying sessions with people who initially did not make a good impression on me. You see, I consider it my job to find something special and likeable, something I can connect with, in every single person I play with. With people I click with right away, that’s easy. There have been times in the past when I’ve had to work really, really hard to see something special and likeable in a client. But - those were the people who needed it the most.

And when you really, truly do see something good in them, they can feel that, and they respond. That’s what a courtesan does: she shows people that they all possess something special, and by showing them that, she heals a little of the hurt done by an indifferent world.

So it’s true that you do sometimes just find special people. But in a certain sort of way, you have to be the one who makes both of you know that they're special.

Archives
I went back through the blog archives to see what I was writing about around this date in years gone by. I found an entry talking about the soundtrack to “Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead”, and my forays into a legal brothel in Nevada in 1995.

I also ran across this helpful list of “50 Tips For The Working Person”. By working, the author means sex-working, although I suppose some of them would apply to everyone…

Letters To The Mistress

Dear Mistress Matisse,

I am in a poly relationship with a man I’m engaged to. We’ve been together almost three years. He is very, very vanilla and I consider myself “mocha chip”. I’m not overly kinky but it is a very important part of my sexuality.

The problem is this: we have a “no marks” policy. The rule was created back when we first started dating and he was still with his ex-girlfriend. She would get extremely jealous at any hint that I existed so bite marks and scratches were a huge no-go. We’ve kept the policy since she left, although I’ve tried to revisit it a bit lately. I have recently found a man who has…one particular toy I’m interested in trying, a violet wand. The wand can unfortunately leave a bit of a sunburn-like burn.

My partner says he’s okay with marks as long as he doesn’t have to see them; which basically means that if I play with the wand, I can’t have sex with him until the burn has gone. His argument is he doesn’t want the reminder of the things I’ve done with other guys.

Now, I have found traces of his other girlfriends in his room. Once I had to point out a necklace one of his girlfriends had left on his bed. This happens fairly often given that he’s a messy person (so am I) and I’ve gotten used to it. The necklace was from a girlfriend I didn’t like so I had some trouble with it and he told me I’d have to get used to it as it would happen from time to time.

So I’m seeing a double standard here. He can leave traces of other girls in his room and I have to get used to it (which I have) but I’m not allowed to leave traces of other men on me (which I haven’t, yet). I’ve tried to broach the subject with him and he doesn’t seem to get the double standard. Recently when he brought up the no-marks policy I flat out told him “so I’m not going to find any more necklaces then?”

I’m getting to the point where I’m thinking of refusing to have sex with him whenever he leaves traces of his other partners in his room. I don’t want to do this as I know its passive aggressive and silly; especially since it doesn’t bug me that much.

I worry that this is a sign of things to come. I went to a kink-themed party at a local bar and he refused sex with me for almost a week after, citing it felt “weird” to have my sexual energy from the party transfer to him.

Is having sex with a t-shirt on my only option to have my kink and fuck him too?

Here's the technique part of my reply to this: Violet wands do not always leave marks. Occasionally they do. But - especially if you keep moving the wand around, and don’t keep it in one place for more than a few seconds - it probably won’t. I bet you could have this man test your skin someplace inconspicuous, like your lower leg, and see if you seem terribly prone to being marked by it. That would inform your future play choices.

That said: your fiancé needs to get right on over himself. This is indeed a double standard. And yes, you’re right, it’s a bad sign for the future, so draw a line in the sand. I don’t think you should refuse to have sex with him over things that don’t really bother you. I think you should just do whatever kind of kink you want, and if Mr. Vanilla can’t handle the “energy”, then he just won’t get to look at (or have access to) your pretty naked self, will he? The loss is his, not yours.

It is rare for anyone to willingly give up a situation where they are getting everything they want (like: having sex with more than one person and not having to hide anything), and nothing they don’t want (like: seeing some evidence of your partner doing the same, and having to handle some feelings of jealousy about that). Some people would rather field irritated remarks from a lover than relinquish such an arrangement.

Luckily, you have complete power over the only thing that matters: your behavior. Tell him, calmly and kindly, that you are going to do BDSM play that may occasionally leave a mark or two. If he is offended by looking at you, you can fuck him with the lights off. Or you could blindfold him. Or – and I think this is the best option - he can just grow up, work out his issues, and give as good as he gets.

Online translators are responsible for a lot of unintentional comedy in the world of email. I got this note recently, and I will preface my remarks about it by acknowledging that no, I don’t speak French, so I probably couldn’t do any better.

That doesn’t make it any less silly-sounding to read, though. It’s entitled “Gynarchy.”

…you can enhance your role as a dominatrix is a dream to be able to worship your gorgeous. You seem to be the incarnation of female supremacy. We would be happy to support you through our site as we do for free.

It is a small team that is dominating the initiative on this site gynarchy. We strive to make it as close as possible to the values we wish to defend. We try to find independent dominatrix could recognize themselves in the gynarchy.

Our universe is female domination and we made some changes to make it more ergonomic and more dynamic future. We plan to continue this adventure in improving a little closer making it accessible to a wider audience, including women.

We would like to add your site to ours with your comments, or your photos. Know that we are far from the BDSM community and that we operate quite independently.

The team gynarchist

It took me a minute to understand that the sender was inviting me to place photos and ad copy on a French website for professional dominatrixes. I was too busy thinking: “gynarchy? Is that really a word, or is this some made-up kink slang like domme?”

So I looked it up, and to my surprise, it is a real word. I had not heard it before. It means, of course, “rule by women” and matriarchy has always been the word I’ve heard used to refer to such an idea.

The Universe of the Gynarchy! Kinda sounds like you’d be entering The Matrix, doesn’t it? Similar outfits, I imagine. And similarly righteous goals, as apparently The Gynarchy defends the values! Of what, I’m not sure. But I'm glad The Universe of the Gynarchy is going to be available to women, too - that seems like a good move, PR-wise.

And it’s ergonomic as well. No RSS in The Universe of the Gynarchy, nosireebob!

Gynarchy! It’s the word of the day, people. As the nuns used to tell us: “Say it three times and use it in a sentence. Then it’s yours forever.” Whether you want it or not, because this is a Gynocracy!

In my last column, I talked about sex (or at least, dating) without BDSM. In the new Stranger column: a discussion of BDSM without Sex.

Wow, a lot has happened!

Which is pretty much always the case with me, so let me try to catch you up. The Naked Girls Reading? Much fun. I wish I had an audiotape of it, because no description of mine can do it justice. Except to remark that it was great to meet a lot of new people - and that I loved hanging out with Tamara the Trapeze Lady and Jo Weldon. Tamara and I have known each other for years, we danced together at the Lusty Lady back in the day. Jo Weldon and I have not spent a ton of time with each other (although with Jo, it's always quality time), but we have such a seamless consciousness-of-kind that she can just about finish my sentences, which is almost spooky.

You see, I consider women like them my professional peers, although they both have different career paths than me. Both of them were sexual outlaws who decided what they wanted, saw that it didn't exist, went out and worked really damned hard, and created it. I love being around people like that.

And aside from just respecting their accomplishments, it is immensely cool to be around other women who have also lived lives that are much less-ordinary, and who are perfectly at ease about that. After the reading, Jo Weldon addressed a question from an audience member about class structures and hierarchies in sex work by remarking matter-of-factly, “Going from taking off your clothes in front of a roomful of people to pissing on people for money? That’s a lateral move.” If I hadn’t been on the other side of the stage, I would have kissed her.

The whole event was great, the producers are wonderful, and I’m super-pleased to have been asked. Perhaps I’ll be asked back again sometime. But whether I’m there or not, you should definitely go, so here's a link to the calendar.

What did I read at the NGR? The theme of this was: "Evolution As Sex Workers", so I went through my stacks and found the books I read when I was just starting out in the industry. One was a sex worker memoir I got a hold of when I was a teenager, called “Working”. The author’s name is Dolores French, and it’s a great book. French writes with both candor and compassion about her lengthy career as an escort. I read a bit about how French got started finding and screening clients her client, via snail mail, in the seventies.

And I read two selections by Patrick* Califia. I knew from the start that I would read something by Califia, because when I was very young, and very sexually different, and utterly clueless about how I was going to construct the life I instinctively knew I wanted to live, Califia’s writing, both the essays and fiction, had a huge effect on me. It was from her/his writing that I learned how to be a sexual outlaw with dignity, honor, integrity and kindness. "Melting Point" is one of the books I read from at NGR. The story is entitled What Girls Are Made Of, and it's about three peep-show dancers who hijack a bratty butch-dyke for certain nefarious purposes.

My other selection was from an essay that is the preface to Califia's short story collection, "Macho Sluts". Califia’s essays are about the sexual-minority politics of the late 80’s and 90’s – which means now they seem like Ancient History. But it’s very useful to understand where the kinky/queer/gender-queer/whatever community has come from. I see the ghosts from these bloody battles over gender and sexual behavior hanging around even now. I have a fantasy about teaching a class entitled “The History Of Sexual Minority Community Politics, or, How To Not Spend Countless Hours Bickering Over The Same Old Bullshit”, because I see some of the newer activists getting caught up in some of the same old arguments that I heard when I was a little baby sex radical.

So, while some of the specific incidents and publications Pat refers to are long-gone, the way s/he analyzes and critiques the various debates are quite useful. If this interests you, I’d start with a book called "Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex."

Whew! I think that's enough for one day. More about nakedness tomorrow...

*At the time of publication, Patrick was Pat, and identifying as female. Since then, Patrick has gender-transitioned from female to male, so the same author has different writings published under both names. I have not yet figured out a way to express this that isn't terribly unwieldy.

As God is my witness, I am going to blog again soon. Like, within 48 hours. Highlights will include:

• My thoughts on performing at The Naked Girls Reading

• Things a beautiful woman said to me while we were naked. (And not at the reading.)

• My thoughts on IGNITE Seattle and why polyamory would be a great topic for that.
  

• The concept of wingmen (or women), and on the Pick-up Artist philosophy and books in general.

Indulge me just a bit longer, faithful blog readers, and you shall be rewarded.