From the Book of Questions: Love and Sex

When you meet people do you ever imagine what they look like naked or they are like sexually?
Oh, hell yes, all the time. I do it with strangers to pass time when I’m doing something boring like standing in line at the bank or running on the treadmill at the gym. I mentally run down a whole list of possibilities. Are they kinky? If so, how? Dominant or submissive? Masochistic, or sensually submissive? Would they prefer rope or handcuffs? What quirky fetishes might they have – feet, furries, farm animals?
I do this with the few-and-far-between vanilla people I have social interactions with too. Oddly, I’m least likely to do with people who I know for sure are kinky – perhaps because if I just wait a little while, I’ll probably get to see them in action, or at least hear some juicy stories about them.

How would you feel if you knew someone was musing about you in this way?
What, you mean they aren’t? Geeze, I just assumed everyone did this. Wow, I feel all pervy now.

Speaking of sexual speculations, Roman and I were lying in bed last night, indulging in some late-night silly conversation about sex. We started off giving the thumbs-up, thumbs-down to various celebrities. He was surprised that I would decline to boff Robin Williams but that I would jump Robert DeNiro. He allowed as how he’d say “No thank you” to Halle Berry but would happily ravish Mimi Rogers. Then I asked him, just hypothetically, which of our friends he’d have sex with, if given the opportunity.
“In a frictionless, gravity-free world? Can I flashy-thing them afterwards so they don’t remember?”
“Oh yeah," I said. "Absolutely, you can erase their memory of it. No bill to pay for this one. What about X?” (You didn’t really think I was going to name names, did you?)
“She’s cute, but, mmnnn, no. What about you – how about X, would you do him?”
I thought about it. “Maybe. Only if I could smack him around while I was doing it.”
“Oh, of course.”
It’s so nice to be poly and be able to laugh and tease with one’s lover about stuff like fucking other people, and have there be no drama about it.

So, I try not to be too political around here, but man, with all the interesting stuff going on, I can't help it.

There's Katrina news, of course: Bush Takes Responsibility. I'm stunned. I never thought I'd see the day when this administration took responsibility for anything. Next you'll tell me there's a Santa Claus.

I'm watching John Roberts tap dance on the issue of abortion rights in his confirmation hearings. You can probably tell I'm not crazy about him, but overall, I think he's better than a lot of people Bushie boy and his pals could have put up there.

You know things are weird when Newt Gingrich is the voice of reason for his party.

"Gingrich argues that the values debate that has divided America so sharply during the past decade is over. There's a broad consensus about most issues, and anyway people realize that the country's big problems aren't about morality but performance. "We're not in a values fight now but over whether the system is working," Gingrich told me. "The issue is delivery." And that's true at every level -- city, state and federal." From WAPO columist David Ignatius.

Hey, I know I'd be much more likely to vote for Republican politicians if they'd just keep their noses out of my uterus, my bedroom and my dungeon. Newt assessed the mood of the nation pretty accurately in the 90's, I'll be interested to see if anyone pays attention to his prophecies now.

Here's a dark joke that covers the top two stories of the day:

Q: What's George Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade?
A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

(Via Balkinization.)

And on a musical note (so to speak) - while you may or may not agree with the basic sentiment, you have to admit it's a catchy tune: "George Bush Don't Like Black People". Inspired by Kayne West, rendered by The Legendary K.O.

More sexy stuff soon...

Back from the trip with mom - Salish Lodge was divine as usual. They do this foot-scrub-and-massage thingie in the spa that I would be happy to have done to me every day for, oh, two or three hours. Really nice. And great mother/daughter time, which is more important.
If you emailed me or called me and left a message in the last few days, I will get back to you ASAP, I swear.
Back to regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow...

It's Friday, and the new column and calendar is up. What else? Well, it's been busy around here. Max is leaving today to go on one of his road trips. He'll be gone about a week, and of course I'll miss him terribly, but I do enjoy having some time alone.

Not that I'll be alone all that much. Mom returns Saturday and then she and I are going up to the Salish Lodge for some mother-and-daughter spa time. Two days of massages, facials, and various other pleasurable things - I can't wait. (Clients, please note: I will not be available Monday or Tuesday of next week.)

And I'll be spending some extra time with Roman this coming week as well, although he's in a frenzy of preparation for Folsom Street Fair. Max and I are looking forward to FSF as well - we're teaching some rope classes at the Folsom Fringe Fest this year.

Seattle theatre fans: Max and I went to see "Vincent in Brixton" at the The Act last night. It's a good show, intense and well-acted. Seeing a play based on Vincent Van Gogh's young life intrigued me, so I think I'll click over to Powells and see if they have a good biography of him. Any suggestions?

Questions

Sometimes, I admit, blogging is a difficult task. I sit down in front of the computer and think, “What the hell am I going to write about?”

Today I came across a little book I’d forgotten I had. It’s called, The Book of Questions: Love and Sex. It's a spin-off from the conversation-starting series by Gregory Stock, The Book Of Questions. I now realize it’s a good blog-prompter as well. So I opened it at random, and here are some questions I found.

When you look back on past romances, do you ever wonder what you saw in a former lover? If so, it is because you have changed or because you have grown to see the person more clearly?

Good lord, yes. When I think about some of my old lovers, I wish I could say I was on drugs at the time, because there is no other good reason for me to have dated them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t.

I’m willing to give myself a pass on lovers I had before I was, say, 22. And it’s not that all my exes are terrible people. (Although, a few of them.... ) But a lot of them were just horrifyingly wrong for me.

Sometimes it was that I wanted them to be something they weren’t, sometimes it was that I was sexually attracted to someone I had nothing intellectually or emotionally in common with, and sometimes I was intellectually/emotionally attracted to someone who was wrong for me sexually.

As for the second question: yes, I have changed, and as part of changing, I see the person – and my reasons for dating them - more clearly.

In the early phases of a romance, how much do you tend to be influenced by friends and family’s opinions of your potential partner?

Not very much. (Which may have led to some of my bad choices.) Not at all by my genetic family, since they know so little about my sexuality. In terms of friends, Miss K probably would have the most influence on me, because she knows me well and she has no axe to grind in terms of my having or not having a particular partner.

But because of the way I do poly, I would definitely listen to what Max had to say about someone I was thinking of getting involved with. But Max and I both know that there’s a difference between “I myself don’t find that person attractive,” and “You shouldn’t go there.” We don’t insist on close relationships with each other’s secondaries, although it’s fine if it happens.

I’d listen to Roman as well, particularly since it would be important to me that anyone I got involved with was respectful to him as well as to Max.

If you had to make love in either total darkness or where background noise would prevent speech, which would you prefer?

The noise. (Especially if it was, say, Rammstein, NIN, and Ministry.) Total – I mean, total! – darkness would be not be a turn-on for me. I have to be able to see a little bit, even if it’s very dim. Although - I have been blindfolded for sex, and while I wouldn’t want it all the time, it can certainly be erotic. For some reason, that seems different than being a pitch-black room. I have no idea why.

Some light relief from disaster news…

Article about poly in the NYT. It’s interesting to see the word and the concept make its way into the mainstream.

And another one in the Baltimore Sun (BugMeNot access: Username: bugmenot90@mailinator.com, password: bugmenot)

Paging Barbara Eden: “Genie Grants Scalia Strict Constructionist Interpretation Of Wish”.

Some Days My Government Really Frightens Me…

I’ve been reading about Katrina all weekend. What a shameful debacle. Local, state and federal government sure fucked up on this one, and a lot of people really suffered because of it. I predict some officials will be paying the price in the next elections, which is much less of a penalty than some of them deserve. The unmitigated stupidity of the President saying, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”, when it’s been predicted for years is just unforgivable.

And Condoleeza Rice taking in Broadway musicals while people in her home state go without clean water? Badly done, Condi, badly done. But why should we expect you to be any better than your bosses?

And now that Monkey-Boy gets to select another Supreme Court Justice. Shit! Given the anti-sex agenda of the Shrub’s administration, one shudders to think who he’ll choose. Roberts isn’t my dream date, but he’s amazingly sort of, almost, kinda rational, when you compare him to some of the other people Bush could have chosen. Now those far-right whackos have another shot at it. I'm thinking Bush will be catering to the hardest core of his crumbling base on this one, given that he's lost a lot of political goodwill over Katrina. It won't be pretty.

The greed and the misdirected energy of this administration disgusts me. I think of myself a political moderate, but the callousness and the rank inefficiency of much of the current Republican party leadership leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I don’t need far-left liberals to create a nanny-state to protect me from myself, but good Christ, at least they wouldn’t leave the poor, the sick, the old, and the babies to die in a ruined city.

Another great list of places and way to donate to Katrina victims.

I feel so bad for those poor people who have lost everything. And for myself, I'm glad I got to visit New Orleans and experience it before this happened - and I'm sad that the beautiful, sensual, seductive city I knew is gone, and it'll almost certainly never be the same again.

I've had a nice Round One of my visit with Mom, and thank you to everyone who asked. Now she's off to Alaska for a week, so I'll be returning to my usual pervy activities until Round Two begins.

Here's this week's column, and yes, I did borrow heavily from some examples of bratty bottoms I know personally to write this. I just hope to god it doesn't give them fresh ideas. I'm sure that someone would blame me for that.

And by the way: No, Max did not write this. But he approves of it.


On a serious note... I'm appalled by what's happening in New Orleans. Those poor people - how awful. I've already made a donation to the Red Cross, and I encourage you to give what you can to the charity of your choice.

While my mother is here visiting, I'm going to have less time to write. So instead, please enjoy some of the Blog Greatest Hits. Be aware that that although the "comments" link may not reflect it, all the original comments are still there, so if you want to read them, click it.

If you're not familiar with the ways of kink, here's a good place to start: The Ethics of BDSM

My opinions, experiences, and general musings on life
Human Interest Story
Thoughts On Being A Pretty Girl (One of the more controversial early posts.)
BDSM Word Of The Day
Mr. Defensive
Open Secret
The Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question (Another "Most Controversial" candidate.)
and the follow-up post: Comments On Female Clients
What I'm Not
Word Whores: The "Not My Dog" post
Poly Stars In Alignment
Public Encounter
You Dirty...
French Farce Weekend
Sex Positive? I Don't Think So!
Sex Index
Looking at Women
Demeaning To Women (And Men, Too.)
Female Trouble
Gym Guy, Part One
Gym Guy, Part Two

About Max:
Fifth Anniversary
More About Max

About Roman:
The Naked Truth
He's Just A...

Playing with my boys:
Flying High Again
My Idea of a Good Time

Conversations about the biz:
Advice on Clients
More Advice
Dinner with Miss K: Furniture Fantasy
Conversation with Miss K: Her Weird Phone Calls
Tips For New Sex Workers
Feminism and Sex Work

And, everyone's favorite category: Strange Communiqués From People: The phone calls, the emails, and the voicemails. There will be no more of these, so enjoy the oldie-goldies.

The Thirty Seconds Rule
Near Goddess Experience
Sexual Darwinism
And This Would Be My Problem Why?
Legend In His Own Mind
New Cell Phone - Old Memories
New York State Of Mind
Master and Commander
Weirdass Email Of The Week
Phone Messages
I Couldn't Make This Stuff Up (I know everyone likes Ryker Blackstar, but this guy is actually my personal favorite.)
From The Malebag
More Email Silliness
Freakazoids
By Rights He Should Be Taken Out And Hung
Barbie Reborn
Mentoring
Don't Worry, Be Happy
Sex Machine

The Maternal Invasion begins today. The Mominatrix arrives!

So, I’ve gotten some “when are you going to do another weird phone-call entry?” emails lately. Sorry, I’ve stopped doing the phone-calls entries. Not because the supply of weird phone calls has dried up (trust me!), but because apparently it was intimidating normal guys and preventing them from calling me.

In vain have I tried to point out that you have to reach a very high standard of weirdness to make the blog, and that calling to inquire about rates and availability is not the same thing as calling to announce that you’re slave zaptor from Planet Nine, and you’re here to worship my elbows. No, no, they wouldn't want to bother me. Uh, gentlemen, this is how I make a living, so legitimate phone calls are not "bothering" me.

Such hesitancy baffles me, especially when one considers how men are often capable of ignoring every “no” signal that a woman can give off. Apparently potential clients of dominatrixes are a more sensitive breed than your average guy. Which can be a nice thing, provided it's not taken to extremes.

But I do have to share just this one.

Ring Ring!

Me: hello?

Caller: Yeah, hi, is this Mistress Matisse?

Me: Yes, can I help you?

Caller: Yeah, I got a question for you. You do dominance and submission sessions, right?

Me: Yes.

Caller: Well, how much are your submission sessions? I mean the ones where you submit to me.

Apparently the significance of the title “mistress” is rather lost on this guy.

Me: No, I don’t do that.

Caller: You don’t? But it says...

Me: No, I’m a dominatrix. I do the domination, the people who come to see me do the submission.

Caller: Well, do you know any dominatrixes who are submissive?

Moral of the story: you really need to learn some basic terminology before you jump into the game.

Linky Linky

It's Friday, and the new column and kink calendar are up...

An interesting post about managing jealousy in poly relationships....

I don't agree with everything this guy says, but some of it I do, and it's nice to see moderate voices in the polarized political world we live in today. (There is some mild formating weirdness, ignore it, he says it's not fixable.)

Another tribute to the sweltering kink fiesta that was the Kirk/Spock relationship.

A very helpful letter to novice dominants who ask, "How do I do this?" The "role models" part is a little odd to me, but otherwise, good info.

Speaking of Parties

A post copied from my friend Joe, the coodinator for the "Bondage Is The Point" parties. This is going to be big fun. We're definitely going, and I'm pretty sure Max is going to do some kind of demo. Come see my honey in action!

Bondage in Paradise 2005
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
4:00 PM to 10 PM

Free-range Bondage Party at The Longhouse (Wet Spot in Paradise) located Southeast of Redmond at 23301 Redmond - Fall City Road.

(Note for those you who don't know: Wet Spot in Paradise is a week-long campout for the sex-positive community. It encompasses not only BDSM people, but swingers, nudists, poly people, gender-queers and various other sexually diverse folks.)

Ever fantasize about tying someone up to one of the majestic standing stones of Stonehenge? How about a quick chase and hogtie in the grass? Or a beautiful submissive, tightly tied to the branches of a tree and available for your devious inclinations? Maybe perhaps just the simple joy of bondage under the open sky, warm rays of the sun beaming down through wisps of cloud, the way the cowboys used to play?

"Bondage is the Point" has been graciously invited to join Wet Spot in Paradise for the first Sunday in September!

For the same cost as the usual admission to the usual Bondage is the Point party, you can come out to Wet Spot in Paradise and play with your fellow bondage enthusiasts. There will be dungeon furniture in an outdoor setting, and acres of geography for your creative desires. Since we'll be outdoors and among other Paradise attendees who may be playing anywhere on the premises, the usual guidelines for non-obtrusive, noisy play will be suspended. So obtrude away! Pull out that single-tail, make 'em scream and jump!

WSiP provides dinner to paying attendees at 5:00 PM. For an additional $10, BitP attendees can join them. You are also free to bring your own food and snacks.

So come on out and join us. It'll be a fun and unique bondage party!

Wet Spot membership is not required for this special bondage party, so bring all your curious friends.

Note that for this party only, we're shifting the time 2hrs earlier to enjoy more daylight.

$10 for bondage party & demo only, $20 for party, demo and dinner. For more info, go here: Wet Spot, or Wet Spot In Paradise, or call 206-270-9746, or email bondage@wetspot.org

It’s funny when you’re out in the world and you suddenly encounter…yourself. Or at least, an image of yourself in time. I was at a party this weekend, and at one point a bunch of us (me, Max, Roman, Tambo, Silk, NerdyGirl, Peanut, etc) were being given a tour of the host’s extensive collection of medical equipment, much of it antique, that he incorporates into his kink play. (It’s not all antique, though - the man has a set of defibrillator paddles. They’re just for show. I think. And you thought I was edgy.)

Anyway, he’s got quite the little room all fitted up for this kind of play, but the one distinctly non-medical note is the art. He’s got large framed pictures of beautiful women all around the room. As we all looked around and listened to his explanation about just what all these nasty-looking implements were, he caught my eye and grinned. “There’s a picture of a girl I’d like to have as a victim,” he said, gesturing behind me. We all turned around and lo and behold…

Me, 11x17, matted and framed. Malixe took this picture of me a couple of years ago, and I think he’s sold more than one of them. I’d forgotten our flirtatious host had one. And while I wouldn’t let him (or anyone!) use those menacing instruments on me for all the tea in China, it does amuse me to think of my dildo-harnessed image hanging over his gynecological escapades.

No long post today, because I'm currently obsessed with looking at this site. Yes, I am considering b-b-b-buying a... You know.

That's a very strange thing for an socioeconomic outlaw like me to consider. Real estate. Me. What a concept. Like non-sex-industry jobs, the world of real estate is a world full of strange words, cryptic acronyms and baffling rules. But my mother - who will arrive in Seattle in precisely eight days, tick tock, tick tock - tells me that if I invest in real estate, she'll stop worrying (audibly) about the fact that Max and I aren't married. This is a classic example of how my very dear and beloved maternal parent's mind works. It does make sense, in an odd sort of way. But it takes a blending of the romantic and the practical that is unique to my mother to spontaneously arrive at such a conclusion.

(As a side note: Isn't it sort of sweet though, my mother fretting about my not being married? It's sort of like Countess Bathory's mother worrying about her getting too much iron in her diet.)

Hence my profound interest in real estate in general and this site in particular. It’s very amusing, actually, the way it’s done. I feel very powerful and godlike zooming around in the sky over the city, swooping down on this address or that. I shall enjoy that feeling as long as I can, because I imagine I shall feel substantially less omnipotent when the time comes to start signing things and writing checks.

About a year ago I noted, with horror, that something called “A Submissives Prayer” was being posted around the web. I remarked at that time that I had never seen a dominant’s prayer.

Would that I could still make such a claim. Because what did I stumble upon yesterday but this appalling little sermonette: “A Dominant's Prayer”.

“Teach my beloved to worship through her submission…” What, getting an electric butt plug up her ass is worshipping god? Twelve years of Catholic school, and I never learned about that? How could it be? Maybe I was out sick that day.

“...suffer us not to mislead the young or ignorant and help us to safeguard them on their journey…” - into our dungeons and bedrooms, where we can exploit their youthful ignorance most effectively.

“Counsel me to learn more and improve my technique so that she will never suffer needlessly…” Yeah, God, because seeing as how you so inconveniently put her kidneys right in the way of my flogger, you better help me avoid making my slave piss blood after our scene. She gets really cranky about that.

In case it's not obvious, any combination of Christianity and kinky sex really disturbs me. (Any serious combination, that is. Monk using a Gideon bible to spank people is charming.) Using the words of a blatantly sex-negative religion to pray for your kinky relationship? That’s just – so wrong.

And one cannot help but note that this “prayer”, like the submissive one, assumes a male dominant/female submissive arrangement. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think you’ll find too many female dominants praying to Jesus for divine kinky guidance. We’re all pretty hip to the fact that the god the Christians are praying to thinks that we’re scandalously uppity bitches, and he is unlikely to look kindly on our requests for heavenly favor. "Dear God, guide my hand as I stick this needle into the scrotum of my slave, and let him rejoice in his sufferings as you rejoiced in yours." Mmmmmm - no. I think not.

This is particularly eerie to me because I just finished reading this book: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer, which "…delves into a world that is misunderstood by most of America, the world of Mormonism and Fundamental Mormonism. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith….Krakauer's journey into Mormon Fundamentalism could be about any Fundamentalist belief, religious or non-religious, and focuses on how these beliefs are formed and how they affect a whole society…"

It’s very interesting, and I learned a lot about the Mormon Fundamentalists I didn’t know before. It certainly sharply clarified the difference between secular polyamory (like what I do) and MF polygamy! For example: marrying thirteen-year-old girls to forty-year-old men and telling them that they - and their whole family- will go straight to hell if they don't obey and submit meekly to being raped by those men.

Thomas Paine said it best: “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

As has been noted, the Stranger column is now up...
And life is good today. The bank balance is high, the scale is low, and I've got two parties to go to tonight. A good day to be me.

Okay, I have no idea why my column isn't on The Stranger website yet. It's in the paper version, so I know it's not an editorial statement of any kind. As soon as I see that it is up - or if I get any new information - I'll post a link. But for now, I'm as clue-free as you guys.

In other news... Interesting note from a reader.

Dear Mistress Matisse,
I am a 32 year old butch top girl whose had lots of sex with women. I love to dominate, take charge, and "service" a woman for hours… For me, the intentionality, the planning, is wonderfully creative and incredibly sexy. These encounters have been beautiful and hot--and always safe, in that delicious, slightly dangerous way. (I swear I was programmed for this when I saw American Gigolo in my teens---remember how hard Richard Gere worked to make that one woman come?). My question to you: if I can figure out a way to provide this service professionally without running afoul of the law, do you think there are enough women (gay or straight) out there with the desire and the money to spend on it? My impression, from my years of unscientific research, is that lots of women fantasize about being dominated, but haven't found the right person to bring them there. I love being that person.

Dear Butch Top,

Short answer: No. Sorry.

Now, the longer version is: sure, try it, you might get a client once every couple of months. If you can put up a free web page somewhere and you have access to a dungeon, then why not? But don't invest any serious money in it, and definitely don't quit your day job.

Here are the problems. Number one: while I personally quite like butch women, it's not a taste that's shared by every woman in the world - or even most of them. Nearly all of those women who do like butches are lesbians.

Now, from that already-small group, subtract all the vanilla lesbians. The pool just got a lot smaller. What you have left: kinky lesbians (and the occasional kinky straight/bi girl who can appreciate butches) who aren't finding what they need in non-commercial settings and who are open to the idea of seeking out a sex worker to gratify those desires. My call would be: that's actually a pretty teensy group.

Then there's the money issue. Lesbians as a group spend very little money on sex workers. Some lesbians just don't have the money, period, but even more prosperous dykes don't do this in any measurable numbers. And straight girls do not pursue sex workers, of any gender or any variety, the same way men do, either. I recently wrote a column about gigolos, and a lot of it would apply just as much to you as it does to men.

So: a very small potential client base, who don't spend much money. That's not a recipe for success.

Then there are the potential clients themselves. I have played with many, many women in my personal life, and I have had three long-term female submissives, and that's all been pretty great.

But my experience with seeing female clients has been almost all bad - in some cases, really bad. Out of about twenty, I have had exactly one female client who was cool. The rest of them ranged from disquieting to downright whacko. I wrote about my experiences here,and also on this blog here and here.

So I've been stalked by women clients, I've been dissed, and I've had a lot of weird, unsatisfying scenes that didn't make me feel good about myself professionally. Thus, I will no longer see female clients. If you decide you want 'em, you can sure have mine.

(Aside to blog readers: the no-female-clients policy has been discussed extensively here, so please read through all of the columns, posts and comments before you post a question/remarks about my policy, because chances are it’s already been answered/explained.)

BTW, if you have any kind of sexual contact with your would-be clients, you'll be breaking the law. Your chances of getting busted are quite slim, but still, it would be a possibility.

Hope that answers your questions. If you try it and get tons of clients, drop me a note and tell me I was wrong. I'd be pleased to be mistaken about this, as I truly love the idea of a butch pro domme.

I'm devastated by this. I would have campaigned for him!

But I've got a very busy day lined up, so that's all for now...

Thought-provoking dinner with Miss K last night. She tried to explain to me why so many people seem to really want there to be a right and wrong way to be kinky.

I don’t mean the people who try to insist that everyone should do BDSM their way and only their way because it is The Only Right Way. That’s clearly ego and insecurity. We call those folks “One True Wayers” - or OTWs for short.

No, I mean all the people who write to me urgently asking what are the Proper BDSM Rules about how to kneel down/blow their nose/write a love letter/shave their genitals/whatever while in the presence of a dominant/submissive. Not my presence personally, you understand, just a random kinky person.

Is it okay to wear blue jeans while you do a scene, or do I have to dress up? Should I always address my top as "Master", even though he said I can call him Bob? Is it permissable to wear a collar even if you don't currently have a mistress?

What the heck? I’ve been saying for years “You get to do this however you (and your partner) want to.” Come one, people, do you really think there’s some great rule book in the sky dictating every single little activity in kink? Do you think you can look up “dominant nose blowing” and get some kind of spec sheet for that? Forget it. When it comes to configuring our kink, we’re making up most of this as we go along, both as individuals and as a culture. That, to me, is one of the coolest things about the BDSM community. I have never understood why some folks seemed to be begging to exchange one set of restrictive rules of behavior (vanilla culture) for another.

Miss K and I were talking about this and she said, “Look, the thing is, people are convinced that there must be rules, somewhere, and they just want to know what they are so they don’t break them and get in trouble. You try to tell them that they get to invent this, but they don’t trust that. It’s because somewhere, they broke a rule they didn’t know about and caught hell for it."

“Besides,” she went on, “there are rules in BDSM. Like, you don’t touch people.”

"That’s different. That’s etiquette towards people you don’t know well. That’s not about what you do with your partner.”

“I know you understand the difference, but not everyone does. You see having no rules as freedom, but for some people, it’s scary and hard to trust. What if we do it wrong? How will we know if what we’re doing is really BDSM?”

“What the hell else would it be if you put nipple clamps on someone and spanked them?"(I love that I can just rant with Miss K and she know how to take me.)

So I’m thinking about this. The reason that OTWs can convince people that there is a Real and True Way is because the idea that there are no rules scares them. Interesting…

This 'n That...

This is all very entertaining, and possibly helpful for CBT newbies... Except for number fifteen. The Mistress says: Do not twist a ballsack, ever. Pull, yes. Twist, no. You can damage the little tubes that carry sperm if you do that. (And no, it’s not really an effective birth-control method, either.)

Oh my God, do I so want to be his intern.

I thought I had weirdo phone calls. At least no one has ever tried to mail-order me.

Good communication is so important in poly. Or at least good timing. But I would have gladly paid 126 dollars to get out of some of my past relationships this easily. (Hell, I'd of had the triple-bypass operation.)

A snapshot from the party at the Abbey Saturday night. (No, no one else was allowed to take pictures, but, hey, I’m special. Plus it was really late and hardly anyone was still there.)



The picture looks a little weird because I had to turn the brightness way up high in Photoshop. But I kind of like the grainy, gritty look of the image. And the Abbey is an industrial space, so I think it conveys a sense of that.

That’s my sweetheart, Max, getting ready to suspend a sweet young thing, who can identify herself if she wants to. The girl in blue hanging out next to him was a certain bratty young lady who was bold enough to swat Max on the butt, and look what happened to her. Poor thing. We all felt so sorry for her. Not!

Max likes to play at parties, and he and I are frequently among the last to leave if he's on a roll, as he was Saturday night. I think he suspended four different women. They don't call my honey "the Death Star of evil" for nothing.

Other party tidbits: I ran into an old pal of mine, Danielle, who’s been living in Japan for the last few years and who was just in town for a visit. It was cool to catch up with her, and she mentioned that she has a friend there, a boy named Tim, who likes to read my blog. (I think she said he’s a university student?) It’s sort of wild to think of people in Japan reading me, but I like it. So: Hi, Tim! Thanks for reading.

Gord, of House Of Gord, showed up with a truckload of kinky machinery and gave us some dampness-inspiring demos of his nefarious bondage devices. In my fantasy world, I have Gord locked in a laboratory/workshop where he does nothing except invent new toys for me to play with.

The folks from TheThrillHammer.com brought over two really lovely fucking machines, which several women were persuaded to try out, much to our collective delight. I like my fucking machine that Mike made me, but now I think I may need another one.

You can read a few other accounts of the event here, here and I'm guessing there will soon be some remarks about it here as well… I have a few more photos but I’m waiting to get a green light from the people in them before I post.

It was a great party - thanks to Monk and Tambo for throwing it. And thanks a bunch to all the people, many of them blog readers, who volunteered their help to make it happen.

Had a lovely post-birthday date with Roman last night. I think we raised the general perversion level in Seattle a few notches all by ourselves. Knee sex! And needles. Woot. We were quite wiped out afterwards...

Read about other interesting social events in my life lately…

I saw a young woman walking down Broadway a few days ago, and it made me sad. I don’t know her, but I know who she is. I recognize her from her website photos, although she’s changed a lot since they were taken. And not for the better.

The photos I saw, beginning about a year ago, showed a thin, disturbingly young-looking woman posing on a bed. She called herself “a Lolita” and offered her services as an escort. Now, ya’ll know I support sex work and sex workers. But several things about this woman bothered me. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t convinced she was eighteen, underneath the artlessly brazen sexuality of the photos and the text, she just seemed…dangerously fragile somehow. Not someone I’d pick out as being well-suited to the job.

But I learned a long time ago that I can’t fix people who I think are broken. They have to choose to fix themselves. Or not. I could only hope that she’d take advantage of the resources sex work offers – more free time and more money – to take care of herself and work out the issues I suspected she had.

She hasn’t. She looked like shit, frankly. I’ve seen her a lot on Broadway in the last year, and she always looked a little…odd. But this last time, I would have thought she was a homeless person if I hadn’t just seen a post from her on one of the local escort boards a few days before. She was very dirty - the kind of dirty that takes days of not bathing to really accumulate. Her hair was straggly and matted, and it looked like she’d been hacking at it with scissors. Her clothes were stained and mismatched. And just the way she was stumbling along the sidewalk, slump-shouldered and vacant-eyed... If you looked up “junkie homeless person” in the dictionary, this would be the illustration.

Of course, I thought, I don’t really know that she’s a junkie. But it’s extremely likely. The other possibility is that she has some kind of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness. And it could be a double-header: drugs and mental illness.

I'd seen posts from this little waif - long, rambling, badly-spelled missives inviting guys to just come meet her at a certain rendezvous. Don’t try to call, she said, because by some mistake on the part of the phone company, her cell had been shut off. Yeah, a mistake. It’s just sad, because once upon a time she was a sweet, pretty little girl, and she lost her way somewhere.

Sex work isn’t the cause of her downhill slide, though. I’m quite sure that she was broken inside when she came into the industry. And it’s funny how doing sex work affects broken people in either one of two ways.

For some people, it sort of buoys them up for a while. They feel relieved from the pressure to try to be well, and they just relax into a state of somewhat-functional craziness. If they live modestly, they don’t have to work very much to keep the rent (more or less) paid and have food to eat. The rest of the time they can just feel however they’re feeling, and if that means talking to people no one else can see, or staying in bed with the covers over their head for two or three days, well, they can do that. No need to worry much about appearing normal and showing up for that eight-to-five thing. And even when they are actually working, a certain level of quirky weirdness is okay with clients, as long as one fulfills the job description.

I’m not saying this is a good thing in the long-term, you understand. But I’ve known a lot of women who were able to sort of limp through life in this way, never getting to a place of wholeness and wellness, but managing to avoid out-right implosion.

But for other people – like this little waif - it just speeds up the race to self-destruction. They have lots of time and money to spend trying to numb themselves to the pain they’re in, and there’s a lot of ways that can go badly. They remove themselves from places where people might say, “Uh, hey, honey – you don’t look so good. Maybe you should see a doctor or something.” Their isolation works against them, not for them.

It’s not that clients won’t say something. There are plenty of soft-hearted guys around who’ll try to help out a damsel who’s clearly in distress. But even if she’s willing to accept help from them – which is unlikely - there are limits to what they can do. Their first responsibility is to their own lives, and unless they have some training in dealing with her issues, their efforts are likely to be kindly-meant but ineffectual.

I myself have gotten burned trying to rescue people way to often too get involved with this young person. That’s been a hard lesson for me to learn in this life. But I have learned it, so she’ll have to work out her destiny however she chooses.

But it is sad.

What Am I Looking At?

Oh, I can see that these people meant well – but this just seems in poor taste somehow. (And no, I don’t mean the minty stuff.)

"What happens when a middle-aged man with a beer belly decides to mimic the poses of his models?" This so cracked me up. I’ve modeled for several male photographers who showed me the poses they wanted by doing it themselves, and most of the time, they looked about this silly. But I think it's impressively bold of him to do it and post the photos, and I do totally get the self-portrait thing. It’s handy when you have no models around.

I’ve had several people send me this link. It’s a little video of people’s faces while they masturbate to orgasm. It’s a cute concept, and it’s nicely executed, but I fail to see what makes people think it’s so fantastically hip and cool, exactly? I mean, I have no problem, but - is this really so revolutionary?

God, that was a nice massage last night. It's funny, I've gotten a number of professional massages from different LMTs over the years, and most of them have been pretty ehh. I mean, the part when they were doing my neck and shoulders and back was nice enough, but I was unimpressed with the rest of it. It just didn't feel that great, and I didn't feel particularly different/better afterwards. I thought maybe I just hadn't found the right person, so I kept trying different practioners. But it always seemed the same, and after awhile the idea of paying money for an experience I really wasn't enjoying that much seemed dumb. So I just stopped doing it.

But I have friends and lovers, who aren't trained professionals, give me massages that I loooooove. Go figure. Jae gives great massages, as does Malixe. And Max and Roman both rub me the right way, too. I have no idea why I so enjoy getting massages in that kind of context, but not a professional one. It's not like I'm hung up about having a stranger touch me. And I sure don't mind paying to get what I want. (Remind me to give the "money keeps it clean" speech here sometime.) But that's how it's been: I love getting massaged - but only by generous amateurs.

So last night was a first, although it was sort of a cross-over situation. Mark is a trained bodyworker - although he claims to be retired from massage - but he did this hour-plus massage just as a favor to me, which was very sweet. A little bonding experience with a new friend.

My apprehension was misplaced. Mark Yu sweetly massaged me into a nearly boneless state of relaxation. More later...

A busy weekend around here. We had bondage instructor and body worker Mark Yu up from San Diego, and he taught two cool workshops. I had to miss the Saturday class, but the Sunday one, Bondage Bio-mechanics, was very cool. It was basically about how to assess and cope with individual people’s physical abilities and limitations, in terms of range of motion and flexibility, and how to design rope bondage that works with their bodies instead of against it. I like learning about how to work with people's bodies.

And Mark is definitely a great body worker – he did some acupuncture on Max Friday night, and also some back and body adjustments on him both Friday and Saturday nights. I don’t know exactly what kind of therapy he calls the hands-on stuff – it’s Chinese, I think. I should ask him. But it seemed effective. Max wasn’t in any kind of acute pain, but his body gets tense and stiff, and what Mark did seemed to help. I think he’s going to work on me tonight. I'm looking forward to it, but I’m also slightly nervous, because this is not gentle Swedish massage, it’s pretty intense, almost like rolfing. Pray for me.

We all attended the Bondage Is The Point party at the Wet Spot Sunday night, which was fun. I taught Roman how to do play piercing. I've stuck needles in him, but he’s never been the piercer before. And his wife T. had never been pierced, so it was a first time for them both. I put just one in T, the first one, mostly to make sure if that she had a hard time with it, it would be with me, not him. It’s always harder to deal with your primary partner having difficulty than anyone else. But she was fine, and he did just great, as I knew he would. We went off into a side room with the curtains closed to do this, because we thought if things got intense, we might want privacy. However, we wound up having a really good time and getting very endorphin-high, and all of our friends said the sound of our laughter coming out of the room was very enticing.

Plus, I got a delicious foot massage. Who could ask for a better night?

Call for Volunteers

So, Monk is doing a kinky event next Saturday night - an event at Max and I will, of course, be guests - and he needs some staff. He's looking for smart, reliable people to help out with very basic stuff like being a door person, food and drink support team, and cleanup. In return, you get some fabulous handmade Twisted Monk rope, and you get to hang out at a cool party with me and Max and Tambo and all the rest of the weird, glamorous, sincerely perverted gang. If you'd like to volunteer, drop him a note...

Wow, it's hot. And I hate the Blue Angels. I don't hate them as much as my cat does, but still, we're united in our deep, deep dislike of this whole jets-screaming-right-over-the-house thing. In fact, I pretty much hate SeaFair in general, so I will be a cranky Mistress indeed this weekend. Luckily for you, you can just go read me. Bah.

Ah, the dreaded blogger fatigue.... I do feel this way some days. So maybe I'll take a break today. Back tomorrow...

PostScript: But wait - this is hopeful news. Goverment may back down on some parts of new adult entertainment regulations 18 U.S.C. 2257.

Still Catching My Breath

Whew. It’s been sort of crazy around here since we got back from Denver. Last week the gods of all things mechanical definitely frowned upon me, as first my car went dead and then my computer was infested. Luckily, I got both issues resolved fairly easily. (The car was easier to deal with than the flipping computer. I’m still plucking small bits of adware out the innards, but it’s way better than it was.)

And we’ve had Midori here as a houseguest for the last few days. She’s stayed with us so often, though, it’s now kind of a non-event. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just mean that she’s become like one of the family, which is nice. I was too busy fighting viruses to go to a certain barbeque that she and Max stopped in on Sunday night, but he tells me I had some readers there. So: Hi, sorry I missed meeting ya’ll. But yes, that was MY Max. He said the food was amazing, BTW, so kudos to the chefs.

And no sooner will Midori leave us than we’ll have another guest. Bondage instructor Mark Yu arrives Thursday to stay with us for his weekend of workshops. It’s like Hotel Kink around here, I swear. But it’ll be interesting to meet Mark, since both Max and Roman speak highly of him at seeing him at ShibariCon. I’m sure his classes will be great, I’m looking forward to them.

And hey, ladies: Mark’s single, and he’s looking for pretty girls to tie up while he’s in town. I haven’t seen him, but Max and Roman say he’s nice-looking, and he certainly knows his way around a suspension point. So show up and bat your eyes at him, who knows what could happen.

That’s all for now, I think. I’m still getting caught up on my life. But I have a long post brewing in my head about sex work for later this week. It’ll talk about why doing sex work can be good for some people, but not so good for others.

I'm about to head off into my afternoon, but I had to put this up: If you go to college in Wisconsin, stop fucking! Unless you want to get pregnant and/or an STD. Contraceptive Rights Rolled Back In Wisconson.
Amazing. It won't stop there, either. Wait for it.

Okay, I think we have it under control. Finally. You guys were extremely helpful, thank you. Max liked your suggestions and booted in Safe Mode and twiddled some stuff, renaming and so on, and I think it worked. I'm being cautious and waiting before I declare certain victory. But I think we may be okay here.

God, spyware software writers are scum, aren't they? Maybe next time someone wants me to do a scene where I'm mad at them, instead of pretending they're Karl Rove or Rick Santorum, I'll pretend they're malware people. I'd tear them up...

We'll return to non-emergency blogging tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm going to do all the stuff I was going to do this past weekend, instead of wrassling with my machine.

The Perfidy of Spyware

All right, here's an appeal to the software geeks out there. Friday night, after I clicked on an ill-advised webpage, a huge flock of adware/spyware - and one Trojan virus - settled onto my computer and proceeded to wreak havoc. Grrr. (No, I didn't agree to download something - I'm not that stupid. It just leapt on me. I wasn't wearing a short skirt or anything.)

Now, after many, many tedious scans and sweeps with Norton and Spysweeper and Ad-Aware and SpyBot Search and Destroy, I've quarantined and deleted nearly all of the offending parties. But there is one thing, though, that keeps popping up and throwing SpySweeper into a panic. It's something called "system service62". Every time I reboot - and there's been a lot of rebooting in the last 36 hours - up pops SpySweeper telling me oh, oh, oh this is something bad. But whatever it is, it craftily evades our attempts to isolate and kill it. Thanks a bunch, SpySweeper, you're a regular Cassandra.

What is this and why is it freaking out one of my spyware program ? I've googled it, but found nothing comprehensible. I've checked with these guys and they don't recognize it. But it seems like it's something nasty, because while I think I've mostly got things under control, there are still some little glitches that make me think there's some funny stuff lurking under rocks. I'm definitely running a little slow, and something keeps changing my desktop background, re-arranging my icons, and resetting my IE* home page to MSN.com, all of which is highly annoying.

Suggestions? Other than "get a Mac" or "get Linux" which aren't helpful at the moment.

(*Yes, I should try a different browser, yeah yeah yeah... Up until this moment it's not been an issue, okay?)

More reader questions answered in the column this week....

And geeze, who knew ya'll would be so curious about the Sunday post? I probably shouldn't have said anything, because I am not going to give you any more information, sorry. It was a purely personal event, and a rather minor one in the grand scheme of things. It was just a happy, pretty day, with many happy, pretty people saying happy, pretty things to me that made me feel good. And I just felt like expressing my good happy prettiness.

This will be the last Thunder post, I swear. The lovely R., who Max and I played with Saturday night, sent me some snapshots of her marks, and I thought I'd share them. (I have her permission, of course.)

Now, if seeing bruises upsets you, DON'T go look. R is a high-capacity girl, especially for someone so new, and she took a lot from me and my David Morgan singletail. I don't get to play this hard very often, and I enjoyed it a lot. So did she - she smiled and laughed a number of times during the scene. And it was all completely safe, sane and consensual.

And just to give you an idea of how she felt about it, here's a little story. After the scene was over, I was sitting with her doing aftercare. She looked at me and said, "So, do you know any way to make the marks..."

She paused, and I thought she was going to say, "...go away faster", so I started telling her about taking arnica montana, a homeopathic remedy.

"No," she corrected me, "I want them to last longer."

Well. How completely charming.

Picture One
Picture Two ( The unscathed part in the middle of her butt is where the suspension ropes were. She allowed as how she was pleased she had an unmarked spot to sit on.)
Picture Three

I definitely don't play this hard with everyone, but I'm very pleased I got to do it with R.

The good news...I bought some new toys at Thunder…




Other Stuff...

This sounds like a dandy idea to me. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, folks. Charleston's a nice town, but I'd be willing to give your North Carolina, too, if you just go away and leave the rest of us alone. The bad news is: it's not likely to happen.

More bad news: If you like reading my blog, and other sexually-related matter, this should upset you. It's not just about big commercial porn companies. Your tax money is going to be spent censoring people like me for talking about sex and kink. Happy about that? I didn't think so. Give Barbara and the NCSF a few bucks so they can appeal the case.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
Contact:Susan Wright, NCSF Spokesperson(917) 848-6544

Communications Decency Act (CDA) Lawsuit July 26, 2005 - New York, NY
A three judge panel has made a decision in the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and acclaimed photographer Barbara Nitke's challenge against the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which criminalizes free speech on the Internet. According to the court, the plaintiffs presented "insufficient evidence" to support findings that the variation in community standards is substantial enough that protected speech is inhibited by the CDA.

According to the decision handed down by the Federal District Court for the Southern District of NY, in case #01 CIV 11476 (RMB): "The plaintiffs have offered evidence that there are at least 1.4 million Websites that mention "BDSM" (bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism)... The plaintiffs have submitted images and written works that represent material posted to a small number of Websites, that they contend may be considered obscene in some communities but not in others. These examples provide us with an insufficient basis upon which to make a finding as to the total amount of speech that is protected in some communities but that is prohibited by the CDA because it is obscene in other communities."

The court agreed that NCSF members and Barbara Nitke are genuinely at risk of prosecution under the CDA and that their speech has in fact been inhibited. According to the decision: "Nitke's fear that the CDA will be enforced against her is actual and well-founded. She has submitted objective evidence to substantiate the claim that she has been deterred from exercising her free-speech rights, and this fear is based on a reasonable interpretation of the CDA... NCSF has submitted objective evidence that one of its member organizations, TES, has been deterred from exercising its free-speech rights and that this deterrence is based on a well-founded fear that the CDA would be enforced against it."

John Wirenius, attorney for the plaintiffs, says, "We are disappointed that the court did not act on the uncontradicted evidence we presented that artists and citizens who are sexual minorities are disproportionately censored by the Government's ability to pick its own forum and standard for obscenity cases. The government brings obscenity cases where it knows it can get convictions."

"I am appalled by this decision," says co-plaintiff Barbara Nitke, a fine art photographer who explores sexual relationships in her work. "It is vitally important to keep the Internet free for education, the arts and open discussion on sexual topics. This law is a form of unfair censorship that must be stopped. I am absolutely going to appeal this."

NCSF challenged against the CDA law because personal websites and chat groups that include discussions and images of SM, swinging or polyamory are at risk of prosecution. Membership groups that maintain educational websites about adult sexuality are also at risk.

Under the Bush administration, nearly 40 prosecutors, as well as investigators and FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Obscenity is judged by "local community standards," which means that a religious political extremist in the Midwest can claim that a website from San Francisco is obscene and therefore illegal. NCSF is dedicated to proactively challenging the rise in obscenity and pornography prosecutions, including filing an Amicus Briefs in support of Extreme Associates, and supporting the Free Speech Coalition's injunction filed against the expanded record-keeping provisions of 18 U.S.C. B' 2257.

To contribute to the expenses of the CDA lawsuit, go to: www.ncsfreedom.org/donations.htm
Every dollar goes directly to ensuring free speech on the Internet.
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom - www.ncsfreedom.org
Barbara Nitke - www.barbaranitke.com



But wait, there's even more bad news! Apparently, you (or your partner) don't actually have a right to take doctor-prescribed birth control pills. You just thought you did, says (right-wing-whacko asshole) Rep. Steve King (R-IA). He and a bunch of other Republican buttheads are fighting for pharmacist's right to deny birth control pills to women with legal prescriptions for them. It's stunning, really - these are the same people who don't want you to have an abortion. You'd think they'd want you to not get pregnant! Go here and tell them you want women's right to take birth control pills protected.

Still recovering from a fabulous weekend of debauchery and no sleep. I spent some time with many really sweet and wonderful people at Thunder this year, both veteran kinksters and charming newcomers. I met Loki and Jewels, two readers of Roman and I, who are just great people and I hope to bump into them again sometime, even if they are on the other coast.

Also on the hit parade: the cute red-headed R, who let Max and I thrash her quite thoroughly at the dungeon party on Saturday might. Well, Max did the suspension part, I did the single-tail and flogging part. She's new to the community, but she certainly jumped in with both feet.
I just love being mean to cute girls, and they don't have to be new, either. At the Sunday night party, I stuck eighty-something needles in a sweet friend of mine, ably assisted by her boyfriend. It was lovely!

Everyone loved my Imp of Satan catsuits - I wore a red one Friday night and a silver one Saturday night, and everyone ooohed and ahhed at me, to include Ms. Nina Hartley. And when a porn icon tells you you look good, you know you're doing something right. Rossi was looking hot in a blue one, and we agreed that Rose should have given us business cards to pass out.

So when Max and I got our luggage back yesterday, we found that one of our bags had been searched. I wonder what the baggage inspectors though when they opened the bag and found this?




I'm sure it enlived their day….

Just walked in. I got three hours of sleep last night, my suitcases seem to have mysteriously doubled in weight since I left, my cat is climbing up my leg complaining of her terrible neglect, and I have thirty-one new phone messages.

I think I'll take a nap....

I love my life so much at this exact moment. Oh my God, do I love being me today.

The whole weekend's actually been tremendous fun, and I have stories to tell. But - yeah. Good day at the leather con today, yes, indeedy...



Postscript, five minutes later: Wow. Now I really, really love my life. Yes!

So, we're safely in Denver, after a slightly bumpy plane ride, during which I was pleasantly distracted by Harry Potter. (Mostly pleasantly, that is. Damn, I figured Ms. Rowling was going to kill off someone, but - wah!)

Now I intend to throw myself into enjoying the conference. Meanwhile, please be entertained by the new column and calendar... See you Monday!

So I'm leaving on a jet plane…

But here's another event announcement. I'm teaching a Spanking 101 class at Toys In Babeland on Sunday October 16th. It'll be from 7:30-9:30pm, and tickets are $35. We're calling it "spanking", but in fact, I'm going to talk about all manner of butt-impact stuff, from hand-spanking to flogging. If you've been wanting to meet me live, now's your chance.

And a moment of silence for the late James Doohan.

I'm busy packing and taking care of other last-minute details so Max and I can bug outta here Thursday - Denver, here we come.

Meanwhile, if you're wondering about that bachelorette party Roman and I did last week, here's what the bride-to-be had to say. (There's pictures, too - although they're not terribly flattering.)

Supreme Court nomination? Well, I knew there wasn't going to be anything I liked there. So much for a woman or a minority, huh? I'm sure by the end of the day, we'll know a lot more about this guy - from what kind of underwear he wears, to what he thinks about Jessica Simpson's descent into moral turpitude.

I bet Susan Paynter would look really good in a whalebone corset and a bustle. And if she's going to espouse such Victorian-paternalistic attitudes about protecting strippers from themselves, then she should wear them. It has nothing to do with hipness, Susan. It's about the fact that each individual person gets to decide what's "debasing" for themselves. The goverment is not the keeper of my personal integrity. You may not like what I choose to do with my body, but in this scenario, it's none of your business.

Bookshelf

Yes, I do have the new Harry Potter. But I haven't opened it yet - I'm saving it for the plane ride to Denver and back. I don't really like flying, you see. I'll do it, because it's the fastest way to get places. But I'm always a little nervous, and if there's any turbulence, I get very, very unhappy about that indeed. (Max claims he often has a bruise on his arm after bumpy plan rides with me, from me squeezing it so hard.) Having a good book to read is a little panacea for all that. So if you've already finished it, don't tell me anything!

What else am I reading?

Krav Maga: The Contact Combat System of the Israel Defense Forces, by David Kahn.
I don't expect to really learn anything from the book, but I wanted a greater understanding of what's involved. There's a local class in September that I'm planning to take.

Martial Arts for Dummies, by Jennifer Lawler. More research. I love the "For Dummies" books. I've got all kinds of them, on topics from World Religions, to Digital Video Editing, to Weight Training, to Home Buying. They're great.

Dancing With The Devil: The Windsors and Jimmy Donahue, by Christopher Wilson
From Publishers Weekly: Those interested in the empty but privileged lives of American Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) and her husband, the duke of Windsor (1894-1972), who renounced the British throne for her in 1936, will be absorbed by this gossipy story of the strange love triangle. Basically, the Duchess of Windsor had an affair. Having seen pictures of the duke, I can see why. (Apparently he was submissive and had a foot fetish, though, which might have made him my kinda guy.) Fun, historical-gossip fluff.

The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Friedman writes well about a controversial subject – economic globalization. I got this as a gift, and I'm only a few chapters in, but it's very interesting.

Masquerade, by Walter Satterthwait. I liked Escapade so well that I bought this one. Satterthwait has given his protagonist, a Pinkerton agent, an appealing tough-guy-with-a-heart tone of voice. It's set in Paris the 1920s, so I'm expecting some allusions to the various expatriate artists and writers who were thick on the ground in that period.

False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes, by Thomas Hoving
From Library Journal: The former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art discloses shocking details of major art forgeries and the intricate chicanery of con artists who have duped the world's most prestigious art institutions, art experts, and collectors.
I get on these odd literary tangents, and the history of art forgeries is one of them. I don’t know why I find this interesting – I just do. It's sort of a backwards art history lesson.

Some Of Your Questions

Everyone has days where they feel like a "mental health" day but have responsibilities and can't take the day off. Do you cancel appointments in that case? Or can you (pardon the pun) whip yourself into the mood?

It's extremely rare for me to cancel appointments. You see, one of the things you learn over time in this business is exactly how much energy you've got to give your clients. For example, I know precisely how many hours of client time I can book for myself each week. I know that if I try to do more than that, I won't really want to be there, and those clients won't get as much as my energy as I feel they should. Therefore, I only book so many appointments per week, and so I never get to that wrung-out place. And I don't book people on weekends, so I know I have that time to rest and relax. It's important to pace yourself. If you plan ahead, you are far less likely to get to a place where you need to cancel appointments.

Occasionally, life does interfere with one's well-laid plans. At the height of the drama around my divorce a few years ago, I cancelled a few people because I was so very, very stressed-out. But in general, I don't think that "oh, I just don't feel like it" is an acceptable reason to cancel appointments. Unless there is a serious emergency, I honor my commitments. I admit, there have been some days when I really didn't feel so red-hot. But I take pride in what I do, so – I get my game on, and I do it. And I usually find that I feel extra-good about myself when I can make some magic happen for someone even if I'm not feeling much like a rock star. I actually have a whole little rant about how I feel about sex-work professionalism here.

What is the incidence of clients desiring electo-play, in your experience?
Well, I haven't made up any statistics on the matter, but off the top of my head, I'd guess about half. I usually introduce them to it, although once in a while I meet someone who's done it with someone else. It's a great way to play with people who cannot have any marks left on their body.

What do you think about sex workers who use Craig's List?
Ah, Craig's List - a democratic forum indeed, and some people may sneer at it for just that reason. It is rather like the wild, wild west on the "Erotic Services" board - definitely a caveat emptor situation.
But I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it. It's a boon to the part-time ladies who don't necessarily want to put up a website or pay for an Eros ad. And while the escort-review message boards that allow ladies to post are great in some ways, they usually want the women who post there to conform to their standards in terms of what information she gives out, how she conducts business, ect. And if you post there, you should expect to be reviewed there. I know some honest and trustworthy ladies who steer clear of those boards because they aren't comfortable with that. Naturally, if you own the site, then you get to make the rules, and I don't think honest guys should be ripped off or treated badly. But I also think that women should work how they wish to work, and some of the guys (although certainly not all of them) can be very quick to nit-pick at women who don't do things exactly as said guys think they should. Since I'm more about doing things exactly the way I think I should, that's not a model that works for me.

What kind of movies do you like to watch? Suspense thrillers, or reasonably intelligent comedy. (Or, really good silly comedy, like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", or "A Night at the Opera".) Max and I watched "Be Cool" last night and I was disappointed in that. I liked "Get Shorty", but this was a lame sequel. Odd in a movie that had so many talented actors.
I also like movies set in certain historical periods – it's a source of annoyance to me that I still haven't seen "Vanity Fair". I like the classics: "Some Like It Hot", "The Thin Man", "Rear Window", and "My Fair Lady".
Overall, I like tight plots and quick, witty dialogue. And don't go killing off my favorite characters.

Happy Friday, everyone... a quick post, because I only have a minute before Roman and I need to check out of the motel we're in. We're in Eugene, of all places. What are we doing in a small college town in central Oregan? Two words: bachelorette party.
It was completely wild. I think we ratcheted up the general kink quotient of this town several percentage points last night.
So more about that - and hopefully pictures as well - later. For now, go read my column and see how to make some kink happen in your own life.

Just a brief note, because I'm getting ready for a road trip. Roman and I are off to do something special. I can't say anything about it now - it's Top Secret. But I'll tell you about it tomorrow. For now, I've got music, a diet Mountain Dew, and a bag full of Rainier cherries. It'll soon be time for us to hit the road, vroom...

To my boys: I won't be back in town til late afternoon Friday, so no appointments today or tomorrow, sorry. Next week, I'm here in Seattle til Wednesday the 20th, and then I'm out of town at Thunder In The Mountains from Thursday the 21st to Monday the 25th. Because of all this traveling, I am considering taking Saturday or Sunday appointments this weekend only. So call me or email me if you're interested in that.

Oh, by the way: Does anyone know what language this is?

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An observant reader noticed my comment in yesterday's post and asked: "You say you don't usually have sex with your submissives. But you have sex with Roman, don't you? What makes him an exception?"

Good lord, let me make something clear right now. Roman is not my submissive. Roman is so very, very, not my submissive. Roman is not anyone's submissive. And that's because Roman is not submissive. At all.

And – if it even needs to be said – I'm not his submissive either.

He's my lover, which is an entirely different thing. And we do really kinky things with each other, because, well, we're just perverted that way. It gets us off. So I like sticking needles in him, and punching him in the chest and on the back with my fists, and biting him really hard, cutting him with a scalpel – you know, the sweet, loving kinds of things all lovers like doing to each other, right?

And he likes me doing that to him. It gets him an endorphin high, for one thing. And just last week, he had this big knot of muscle tension in his back from work and various other stress factors, and after I punched it for a while with my sharp little knuckles, why – it was gone. It's kinda like high-impact massage. The biting probably helped, too.

If you're new to kink, you may not yet understand that what someone does with their body, and where someone goes with their head, may be two very different things. But check out this little diagram I made.

See, two different scales. Dominance/submission is about the purely emotional/psychological aspect of BDSM. Sadism/masochism is about what you do with your body – the physical stuff. Every kinkster is at their own special place on these two lines. You might be at the far end of both scales – very dominant and very sadistic. (Did someone mention Max's name?) Or very submissive and very masochistic. But you can be any place at all on these scales, to include being say, very sadistic and very submissive, or very masochistic and also very dominant. Such a combination makes it more challenging to find appropriate kink partners, but not by any means impossible. And it's not at all uncommon to be not emotionally/psychologically submissive at all, but to enjoy some intense physical sensation. (What vanilla people would call pain.) Or maybe you don't like any intense sensation, but you do like to submit. Wherever you are, it's okay. And of course, where someone finds themself on this scale will often evolve over time.

So, is Roman a bit of an erotic masochist? Um, yeah. (Not that I know anything about that myself, oh nooooo.) But my god, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who's less submissive. This is the man who, as I was unsheathing needles to pierce him with, was laughing and taunting me. Like this…

"Oh, is that all you got? I thought you were going to do something seriously mean."
"Jesus, you are so asking for it," I replied.
"I mean – I thought you were some kinda nasty sadist. You're an Avon Lady, you know that. You're like – a Hummel Figurine collector. You're duckies and bunnies. You're –." He broke off and howled as I put the needle through his skin.
"Duckies and bunnies, am I?"
He gasped for air and took a few quick breaths. "You - are - little - pink - bunnies. With big pink bows on. Ow! Shit! That fucking hurt."
"Good. Look, I've got bigger needles. See this one? This is an 18 gauge. Looks like a railroad spike, doesn't it?"
"God, you are an evil bitch. Never change."
"I won't." I kissed him.

Essentially, Roman and I are both dominants, but we're dominants who like to play with sadism/masochism in the context of our sexual relationship. The brief moments of dominance/submission we sometimes have are playful, and they usually shift back and forth between us from one minute to the next. We do have dates where one of us is the official top for the evening, but a lot of the time, whoever has an idea will simply say, "Hey! Why don't I attach these clothespins to your naughty bits and then we'll have sex?" And the other person will say, "Sounds great!" It's pretty far from traditional, high-protocol BDSM, but why should we get hung up on rules at this stage of the game?

Some other day, when I'm feeling ambitious, I'll attempt to explain my relationship with Max... Now that's complicated.