I want to spin off a remark made by the ever-observant Remittance Girl. In the context of talking about how difficult it is to maintain a 24-7, live-together, high protocol D/s relationship, she said: "The times I have had a Dom take out their mood on me in play, they have felt horribly guilty about it afterwards."

Well, yes, I can see why they might, if they were doing it from a not-very-self-aware place.
But blowing off steam through your BDSM play doesn't have to be a negative thing. However, it does require the clear awareness that, 'hey, I had a pissy day today, and I just want to beat someone's ass'. And it requires that you communicate this mood and this desire to your (potential) partner, so that they can say yea or nay.
Lots of masochists, of course, will selflessly volunteer their butts (or whatever) for such a thing. I have guys who specifically ask to see me when I'm PMS, just so I'll be in the nastiest possible mood. They enjoy the idea of me venting my pent-up tension on them.
But even a submissive person can usually find a place for themselves in this scene, if you frame it as them serving your need for emotional release, and keep reinforcing that motivation throughout the scene.
I can imagine creating a whole fantasy role-play scene around it. One could have one's partner play the annoying person du jour, and then you could fulfill those inappropriate, non-consensual fantasies about smacking around your co-worker/neighbor/friend/whatever.
That's what I think is so cool about kink. If you can figure out how you're feeling and what you want, and then communicate it honestly and openly to your partner, almost any mood or motivation can be okay. Clearly, not every fantasy can be realized. But if you exercise some creativity around it, you can do a lot.

I had a rather late night with Jake last night, so I don't think I'll be writing anything scintillating today. But you can go read my latest column, which is here...
Note: there's something odd with the formatting on the page, so I'll be dropping a note to the webmaster of the site about that. The other odd thing is that they keep changing the link to the "current column" page, which is annoying. So hopefully I'll get straight with them about that, too...
Now I think a nap may be in order...

Peer Counseling

When you've been doing something a long time, you forget, sometimes, how it felt when it was all new and you had to learn each piece of it step by step. But when you see others doing it, it makes you appreciate how far you've traveled. And it's nice to be able to help people just a little, even someone like this caller, who is a woman I don't know particularly well…

Ring ring!

Caller: Hi, Matisse, this is Chloe. (Not the name she actually goes by.) Can I talk to you? I kinda wanted to get your opinion about something.
Me: Sure, honey, what's up?
Chloe: So I have this client, and he's a nice guy. He's been seeing me pretty regularly for about six or seven months. But he said something to me that made me really uncomfortable and I don't know what to do about it.
Me: Okay, tell me what he said.
Chloe: Well, see, we had a session and I told him, just conversationally, that my boyfriend was going to be out of town for a week, and he didn't say anything then. But later on he called me up and left me a voicemail saying he wanted to make another appointment to see me – but he wanted to come see me at my house. He said since my boyfriend was going to be out of town…that we could do that. He said he wanted to have sex with me in my own bed, that it was a fantasy for him to be in my apartment.
Me: You usually do outcall, right?
Chloe: Yeah, and it's totally weirding me out to think about having a client come to my house. That's just not what I do. I mean, I don't think he'd, like, stalk me or anything, it's not that. It's just… (she pauses, groping for a word)
Me: It's just a boundary.
Chloe: Yeah! Yeah, it's a boundary. And the way he was talking about was so not cool – it was like, he just assumed I'd let him come there, so he wasn't really even asking me, he was telling me, 'I want to come over to your place'. Plus the fact that he also just assumes I'd be willing to lie to my boyfriend about it, too.
Me: Well, if you're asking me what I think, I think you should just call him back and say that you prefer to see him in the way you've been doing.
Chloe: Yeah?
Me: And I think some of what you're feeling is being uncomfortable with the idea of saying no to him. But it probably won't be that big of a deal, unless you make it one. Just say 'no thanks, I don't want to do that', and that's the end of it. If he tries to push it, then you'll have to get more firm with him. But I'm guessing he has absolutely no idea he's run into a boundary with you, and you just say you don't want to do it, he'll accept that.
Chloe: You think?
Me: Yeah, I do. Sure, it would have been nice if he had been able to intuit that the reason you weren't inviting him to your place was because that wasn't something you wanted to do. But it's okay to tell him no.
Chloe: I just hate having to say no to people. I always think they're going to be mad.
Me: Oh, honey, you need to be able to do that. That's important.
Chloe: I know.
Me: Well, I tell you – this job is a crash-course in assertiveness-training. You'll get lots of practice saying "no, thank you, I don't want to do that".
Chloe: Yeah?
Me: Yeah. Or else you'll burn out in six months.
Chloe: No, thank you, I don't want to do that.
We both laugh.

Update: the photo-theft situation has been dealt with...Thanks so much to everyone who went out of their way to be supportive and offer suggestions. And thanks also to the webmaster Paul O'Regan, who - once we got in touch with him - responded quickly and appropriately to the matter.

Trouble is, I'm not really sure who deserves the prize. Ms. Jane Duvall was actually the person who gave me the webmaster's email, but many of you were extra-helpful in other ways - Monk, 00Goddess, Neko, Jackie, Sunny and the other folks who emailed me and left comments both here and on the offender's blog. Monk is a local, so I can deal with him personally (heh heh heh), but I'm guessing the rest of ya'll are too far away to collect a reward in person. So if you'd like the URL for my fine art nudes gallery, drop me a note and I'll give it to you. Or you can just walking around in the world, knowing I think you're way-cool.

News Roundup

Okay, it's official. My Mother Has Left The Building. It was a good visit, and all good things must come to an end. Thank God.
Max and I still do have other houseguests for a few more days, but they're much lower-impact ones.

A Reminder: There are two links on the right: one is a text link that says: "Cunning Linguists Journals" and one is a black box that says "Clix" on it. They are Top List links, and if you click on them, my site moves higher up the list…Hint, hint.

Here's a challenge: Smart girl Jane Duvall sent me a note telling me that some rude twit stole a picture of me - one of my self-portrait series - and is using it to decorate their blog. I really hate image thieves – especially when it's a picture of me! Here's the page where the image is placed – it's the second photo from the top, a b/w shot of a kneeling woman…

A quick lesson in copyright law: this is illegal - not to mention morally reprehensible. To add insult to injury, she's thrown some kind of filter on it to make it appear blurry, and the size ratio is skewed, too - it's too wide.
I left an irate comment on the blog, but it's obvious the blog owner doesn't come around all that much - and I'm damned if I can find an email link for her on the page anywhere. Even more annoying, I can't even get to an email address for the webmaster to complain to them. At least, not without registering with the site, which I don't particularly want to do.
So, I will give a big wet kiss OR a smack on the ass OR an even nicer (digital) image of my nekkid self to any web guru who can track down a working email for either the blogger OR the webmaster of TheSuburbs.com. (Whose idea was that name, anyhow? Un-sexy.) Let your personal predilections and/or your geographical limitations be your guide. Caveat: the email you come up with must work - meaning: someone replies to it - in order for you to collect the reward. Good luck.

I'm too insanely-busy to write much…So I'll just present you with yet another Stupid Phone Call.

Ring ring!

Me: hello?
Caller: Hi, is this MAL-tiss-EE? I saw your ad in The Stranger.

I'm already stressed and edgy today, and this beginning doesn't dispose me kindly to the guy. How people can mangle my name so badly is really beyond me. It's one thing to mispronounce it, but adding in letters that aren't even there? Jesus. It's in 18-point type, for god's sake. And I know he can see - he got the phone number right, didn't he?

Me: My name is Mah-teece.
Caller: Oh, I was calling for Mal-tiss-ee, is she there?

Good Christ. I seriously toy with saying, "Yeah, hold on a minute" and just putting the phone down and leaving it.

Me: No, you're saying my name wrong. It's Mah-teece.
Caller: Oh! Oh, well…So, that's you in the picture, huh? You're really pretty.

The picture is about one and one-fourth inches long and three-fourths of an inch high, and while it is me, the fact is that it's so small that it could, actually, be Adam Sandler in drag, or a computer-generated avatar, or one of the Bush twins. So complimenting it is not an effective way to flatter me. Strike two, buddy.

Me: What is it that you're calling about?
Caller: Oh, I, uh, had a question.
Me: Okay. What is it?
Caller: Do you ever, like, uh, just go out on dates?

Now, I seriously doubt that this guy's just conducting a survey for the American Dating Council. But he doesn't even have the balls to ask me straightforwardly, and his use of oblique approach has set him up for the classic reply: "Yes. But not with you!"
Or I could say, "Why, yes I do, handsome! Why don't you meet me in the men's bathroom at Volunteer Park tonight about ten? Get in one of the stalls, take off all your clothes and wait for me!" …And then just let whatever adventures that might befall him unfold. Charming thought. It's the kind of object lesson that might give him a tiny glimmering of how excruciatingly asinine it is to call up random sex workers and ask them to date you.

But no - it's not really fair to the gentlemen who are there with sincere intentions. So instead I say...

Me: Why are you asking me this?
Caller: Oh, I don't know, I was just bored.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, has got to be the worst answer I have ever heard to such a question. I realize I am helpless in the face of such penetratingly gauche cluelessness, and thus, I do the only thing I can do.

Click. I hang up.