Sex Workers and Money Management

"Dear Mistress Matisse... (Edited for length, but some nice compliments, thank you!)... I am in search of advice (of course). I am an escort and a student in Vancouver, BC and was intrigued by what you wrote in your interview with Belle de Jour (who I also love) about "Sex Worker Units" because it seems to be a common way of thinking when you are making so much money in so little time and enjoying yourself to boot.

While I try not to personally think like this, I can see the temptation to buy nice things and worry about my student loan payments later. I try to find a good balance of paying off my debt and enjoying my life but I have no idea how I should be saving and spending when my income fluctuates so much (how much I work depends on my studies). Saving more when I'm making more makes sense, I can figure out that much, but beyond that I am in the dark about what to do with my money.

I have done extensive searches on Mistress Google for financial advice for escorts (almost nothing) and financial advice for when your income fluctuates (more, but not all that informative) and haven't come up with much, especially because there always seems to be the opportunity to be working more or investing better (or at all). I know you are not a financial planner or an advice columnist but I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of some helpful resources either online or what kind of people I should be talking to in person. Although I do not plan on escorting forever, I will probably be doing it for the next few years at least and so should have some kind of plan for the money that I earn."

I am not - by any means - a financial whiz. But I know someone who is, so I asked him for his advice on this subject, and just trust me when I say: this is advice worth taking. Really.

***

He says: "You (Matisse) have actually talked about this when you talk about managing the business as a business. Before one talks about investing, you have to put your financial house in order. Get your credit cards paid, have medical insurance, a couple months expenses in the bank, etc.

For books: I recommend: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s & 30s, 4th Edition. It looks like an excellent starter to me - it starts with "housekeeping issues" then moves to investing, etc.

For hiring a professional: First of all, you want to deal with a Certified Financial Planner - CFP - a fairly difficult credential to get and the gold standard in the industry. They have to pass rigorous test, serious continuing education and maintain professional standards like a CPA or attorney. I believe they have them in Canada as well.

Secondly you want to deal with a CFP that is fee-based, not commission-based. The fee can be a flat charge for a plan, an hourly fee like a CPA or a fee based on the assets managed. At times you will see one person who offers 2 or even 3 of these choices.

Ask for a statement of anticipated fees in writing, using terms you understand, before retaining them.

Finally they need to sign as a fiduciary to you in regard to their work. I think for someone starting out or with limited investable assets they are frequently well served by in independent CFP rather than one at a major investment firm that is pushing their people to have relationships with a minimum level of fees.

Now for a very prejudiced comment - my experience is women CFP's are on the average more focused on helping their clients and more diligent about maintaining their education then men who are more focused on the bottom line. (Mistress’s note: the person speaking is a man.) You can go online and to the national CFP site - get names of people in an area - find out if they are still accredited etc.

The killer is most people never get the house organized and the catch 22 to that is they can't hire someone like a CFP because there is no money to do so. I really wish there was a service that could help people budget but I have never found an affordable one.

The major reasons that you hire a CFP is not that they are geniuses, the next Warren Buffet. Rather, they do three things -

1. Create a plan or structure.
2. Harass the hell out of you to start saving and keep saving.
3. Will hold your hand and keep you from selling out when things are down, and from getting carried away and thinking you are Warren Buffet when things are good.

1 and 2 are critical. Number 3 is far more essential than virtually any client thinks. Effectively, they must be superb tops. I am not kidding on this statement.

Final recommendation - in most major cities you will find that universities, colleges and most frequently junior colleges have continuing education departments - classes with no credits - frequently for 4 or 6 weeks, one night a week - taught by professionals who are building their business. These can be a great bargain and I strongly recommend them. I would not, however, go to one that did not have a sponsorship by a recognized educational institution. Again, start with a financial planning class, then move on to an investment class."

***

Thank you so much to the lovely and wonderful man who gifted us with his expertise!

From The Mailbox

A little over a year ago you wrote a column about connecting with your strap-on and taking control. I did not read this article. My (former) girlfriend did. It set off a flame in her that set our sex lives aflame.

Now here I am a 26 year old honest outgoing man in the dating world. The type of women I attract to date are no where near interested in strap-on play. In fact, when broached I think half-hearted is a much too strong statement.

So what are my alternatives? There are lots of professional services out there. And while I understand this is (at the present time) something considered a specialty. However even understanding that there are only so many times that I can find a couple hundred extra dollars lying around. Where is it possible to find casual strap-on fun? I would love to learn. I have been told to just wait for the right girl but surely there are better ways than trying to date a girl then bring it up and freak out a great girl and start all over again. Thanks for taking the time to read. I've been typing this in a rainy tent. Hard to sleep with your mind on important topics right?

Good lord, did someone really tell you to just wait for the right girl to fuck you in the ass? Seriously? Someday your Pegging Princess will come? I can’t believe that’s the case, but I’ll tell you I find the idea highly amusing.

There seem to be a lot of men out there seeking casual strap-on sex, because I get a lot of letters like this. Now, I think men wanting to get pegged is great – the world would be a better place if more guys eroticized their butts. It’s the insistence on it being casual that baffles me. Given that women who enjoy this seem hard to find, you’d think these guys would be inclined to hang on to a girl who wielded her dildo with skill and panache.

It always makes me wonder if there’s a subconscious Good Girl/Bad Girl thing happening. As in “Good girls – the kind I want to date seriously – are not interested in fucking me in the ass. Only Bad Girls - the kind you don’t marry – do that.”

I can see why the average man would think that. Any woman who deviates from the most conservative standards of female sexuality – very few lovers, only in the context of a committed relationship, sexually receptive but not aggressive, and only engaging in very mainstream sexual activities – can be branded a slut. Mr. Average Guy doesn't want his girlfriend to have been a slut with anyone else. He just wants her to act that way with him. (How she is supposed to learn to do this is a mystery.)

What Mr. Average Guy need to realize is: participating in Good Girl/Bad Girl sorting only perpetuates you not getting what you want, sexually. As long as women fear being labeled Bad Girls, they are going to remain unwilling to do anything that might earn them that tag.

The solution is both practical and politically smart: seek and seriously date Bad Girls. Or, as I prefer to call them: Sexually Adventurous Women. And then you’ll have to sort through those women to find one (or more) that you’d like to be in a relationship with.

This is what I do. This is what almost every person whose sexuality is non-mainstream does. Yes, once in while one gets lucky and just randomly becomes attracted to another person who shares a highly specific sexual taste. That’s a special sort of magic when it happens. But as the letter-writer points out, that isn’t usually the fastest and best way to go about it.

And pray, dear gentlemen, do not tell me that you cannot even begin to imagine how to find sexually adventurous women. You’re looking at the bright square thing in front of you, right? Series of tubes and all that? Start working the web.

No, it will not be as easy as simply seeing someone, thinking “She’s attractive,” and beginning a pursuit. I know that even the most mainstream of relationships is not easy to obtain. But, if you want a more fulfilling sex life, you are simply going to have to put even more effort into it. That means seeking out a certain kind of woman, making yourself attractive to her, communicating about what you want, finding out what she wants in return, and creating opportunities to try that out. Only then you will have transcended the status of Average Guy and become that most attractive creature, the Sexually Adventurous Man.

Since my return from Georgia Tuesday, I've been spending time relaxing and enjoying the sensual pleasures of these late-summer days. More frequent blogging will return soon. But meanwhile, the Twitter feed will keep you up to date on my thoughts of the moment.

Event For The Seattle People: if you're a fan of beautiful women's feet, you should know about this party. Seattle Footnight! Thursday September 9th, from 8pm-midnight. These are fun events, I've gone to several of them before. I'll be at this one, and so will my lovely friend Lady Lydia, as well as other lovely ladies. Check out the site and register for the party!

Ah, the miracle of the internet. From a sunny front porch overlooking the ocean, I give you: a new Stranger column, about a subject dear to the hearts of sexually-adventurous women everywhere. Limits, Conditions, and Consequences.

What Do You Do?

A pal of mine asked me a question yesterday, and I’m just going to pop off an answer here. This will not be the most polished and perfected set of remarks I have on the subject, because I’m having a madly-busy week. But it’ll give a sense of my position on the subject.

The pal in question is a girl who became a sex worker (as I recall) about a year ago. She’s struggling with the question of: when to disclose to new acquaintances and potential dates that she’s a sex worker.

She’s the forthright type, which is a nice trait in a person. So when people ask her what she does for a living, she’s been telling them the unedited truth. On one hand, I can see why she’s doing that. We should not have to lie. I love what I do, and I think our profession should be considered as honorable as any other. People who work for the IRS don’t have to lie about what they do. Nor do sales reps for drug companies, or parking-meter enforcement. And sex workers generally make people much happier than those professions.

But in the real world – it’s an issue. If someone has just met you, and in the first hour of your acquaintance, you tell them you’re a sex worker, they are going to make snap judgments about you based on that. It’s just a fact. Occasionally – very occasionally - people say something like, “Oh wow, what a cool, interesting job that must be!” Usually not, though. Neutrality is the best one can hope for in that circumstance, and a lot of the time, they are going to have a negative association with the industry. And you can’t un-ring a bell. Once the information leaves your mouth, it’s out there, and you cease to have control over how people react to it and who it will be repeated to.

So sometimes being perfectly honest right from the get-go is a luxury it’s wiser not to avail yourself of. I recommended to her that she take a little time, get to know people better, and let them know her, before gifting them with this information about herself.

I don’t see this as failing to support sex work activism. There is a difference between doing political activism and conducting one’s personal life. Being a sex work activist is not the entirety of any person. We all have other facets to our lives. Supporting sex worker rights does not mean you have to sacrifice the chance to let people get to know the whole you. You can create connections and trust with people before you start raising their consciousness. That’s an okay choice to make.

She said “I don’t want to lie to people.” Well, no one likes to lie. My response is that it’s not anyone and everyone’s business to know what I do with my time. Just because someone asked me the question does not mean they are entitled to an honest answer.

Still, it’s not usually required to speak a lie, if your conscience is finicky about that. One can just be evasive and vague. In the past, with people who were clearly just casual social acquaintances, that’s what I did. “I’m between jobs right now.” Not technically a lie, since I was never actually on a professional date when I said it.

I have friends who enjoyed spinning amusing stories. “I’m studying astrology through an online school.” Or “I’m a professional babysitter.” The arts are always a refuge: “I’m an actor, a dancer, a musician, a poet.” Frankly, most people are not on fire with curiosity about what new social acquaintances do for a living anyway. They’re simply making polite conversation. It’s usually easy to make a vague reply and brush past the question.

With sex it’s a trifle trickier, because I think if you’re going to have sex with someone, that does entitle them to a higher level of disclosure. Since this girl is polyamorous, she has a little wiggle room here, because I don't think it's an absolute requirement that you always tell people the exact circumstances in which you have sex.

But it is only ethical to tell someone, before you sleep with them, “I have sex with other people. And the people I have sex with, also have sex with other people.” That’s the rock-bottom requirement, in my eyes, for even a casual one-night stand with someone you picked up at a party. Once your potential sexual partner has that information, he/she can make a choice about whether to proceed or not.

(You’d think anyone who was open to a party-pickup would assume their partner of the night was no virgin and make safer-sex choices accordingly. But trust me, I wound up on the wrong end of that assumption more than once before I learned: Say. It. And make them tell you, “Yes, I hear you, I understand.”)

With dating someone you hope might be an ongoing partner, my formula is this: have the first date. Do not tell them about being a sex worker - and don’t have sex. Just have a nice getting-to-know-you date. On the second date, towards the end of the time, tell them. And no matter what, do not have sex with them that night either. Make them go away and think about it. If they come back for a third date, okay, proceed towards sex in whatever fashion the two of you choose.

And you have to accept that you’re going to lose a lot of potential partners after that second date. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is. This is one of those times when I say, “If being a sex worker was easy, everyone would do it.” Pursuing a career in sex work is not a consequence-free choice. Naturally, nothing in life is really consequence-free. But one sees the effects of this choice rather sharply. However, it does make you deeply appreciative of the people who do truly accept you.

Today I'm running an article that was originally published in online magazine Filthy Gorgeous Things. It's on how I feel about the space in which I play.

***

They say you remember lessons best when you’re in the place where you learned them. I believe that, because when I walk into my dungeon, I always remember the lessons I’ve learned about who I am, and what I can do.

I said “dungeon” – but actually, I rarely use that word, because it isn’t one I much care for. I’m a dominatrix, a consensual BDSM player, not a priest in the Spanish Inquisition. The rooms where I play are not cold, hard, impersonal spaces. They are an extension of me, of how I play, and what matters to me. I’m not a cold woman, and I am not distant. I’m not interested in trying to scare you with a space that looks like a jail cell. If I frighten you with anything in a scene, it will be with the heat and the intimacy of my gaze.

So rather, call these rooms my salon, my boudoir, my private chambers. The walls are deep red, and the ceiling is black. When I told the painter what colors to use, he looked at me quizzically and asked, “What kind of room is this going to be?” The thick carpet is black, too. When I bought it, the salesman said, “Black? You’re sure you want black carpet?” I gave all of them the stare I use to quell unruly submissives. They didn’t question me further. My word is law in these rooms. I do not apologize for who I am, nor do I have to justify my wishes. You don’t challenge me here - you do as I say, or you leave.

I have heavy curtains over my windows, because I want the outside world to go away when I’m here. I have large mirrors on my walls because I want to see everything, and I want you to see it too. I will not allow you to think that your desires are ugly and should be hidden. In these rooms, we will speak of them and look at them and love them.

There is furniture of a special kind – furniture that’s tautly upholstered in slick, shiny black and trimmed with gleaming metal. A table large enough to lie down on, a tall chair with a seat that forces you to sit with your legs spread wide apart, and something that looks like a particularly large and sturdy prayer kneeler. I designed all these pieces, and they were built especially for me by a man who wanted to occupy them.

I was already an experienced dominant when I met him. But in the scenes I did with him on the furniture he crafted for me, I went deeper into my capacity for sadism than I’d ever been before. He trusted me enough to tell me where he wanted to go – right up to the brink of unendurable pain. I trusted him enough to take him there. My challenge was to listen to him and not to the disapproving voices in my head that said Stop! You’re going too far! On these pieces of furniture, I learned how to really call forth, direct, and trust my talent for taking people’s bodies and minds through intense sensations.

I carry a sense of power and an awareness of what I am capable of with me everywhere I go. But I am told by people who know me that a subtle change comes over me when I walk into my space. In the rest of my world, I can be as polite and correct as a diplomat. Here, the filter of socially acceptable behavior comes off me. I feel utterly myself in these rooms. I do nothing I don’t wish to do, I say whatever it pleases me to say, and I indulge myself in whatever pleasure take my fancy. Paradoxically, the more license for selfishness I permit myself in these rooms, the more generous to my partners I become. When you call yourself “Mistress”, most people assume you’ll be a mean bitch – and I can be. But when I am freed from any expectation of kindness and compassion, I find that I also have much of those traits to bestow.

I can play in other places, and I do. But this space is special to me. I’m proud of what I have created here. These are not just rooms. When you’re in my space, you’re inside my head. And if you’re in my space, it’s because I want to get into yours.

A new podcast! First, Monk and I have a brief discussion about our ability to fight off an attack by maniacal clowns.

Then we answer a letter from a woman who wants to be a sex worker, but who made the mistake of asking strippers for advice about being an escort. I discuss my thoughts about sex work hierarchies, and how sex work businesses are like Fight Club. Hope it’s educational… (About ten minutes.)

(Note: I'm aware the show is not currently showing up in iTunes. I don't know why. I'll investigate and fix that as soon as I get a chance, but that probably won't be instantly. This is a direct-download link, if you prefer that to the above one. Hope that holds you for now.)

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!