I'm rather busy this weekend - and I don't mean I'm doing housework, or writing, or visiting elderly shut-ins for charity. I mean I am having a weekend of nasty, kinky sexual decadence, and oooh, I got off to a great start last night. (Roman, there seems to be a broken clothespin in my bed. Would you know anything about that?)

So, perhaps I'll talk more about that later, but now I have only a very short time before my next date, and much to do.

But I did run across something I know all of my regular readers will appreciate. When I read it, I felt so…validated. Not that I'm especially needing that, but it’s nice when you read something and think to yourself,"Yes, my sister, yes! I'm not the only one who gets the freaks with no money!"

Politics, Sex, Food, Silliness, and A Public Service Announcement


Oh, this is kinky: Bush Feels OB-GYNs Are Kept From 'Practicing Their Love'.

An impressive diatribe from Garrison Keillor about the Republican party.

A good article about legalizing prostitution from, of all places, The Economist.

Monk is looking for San Francisco restaurant recommendations...

If you've ever read any of the John Norman "Gor" book, and you haven't read this, you must. You really, really must. But don't drink anything while you do, because you'll spit it all over your keyboard. Houseplants Of Gor!



On a serious note...This week I got the second in a series of injections to vaccinate me against hepatitis A and hepatitis B. Like HIV, both these strains of hepatitis can be sexually transmitted, they are very serious diseases, and they can be fatal. And unlike HIV, which is a pretty fragile virus and can't survive for long outside a human body, the hep viruses are very hardy and can live outside someone's body for a long time and still infect someone.

The good news is that they are both entirely preventable. I'm getting the shots specifically because a) I have more than one sexual partner, and b) I touch other people's bodies as part of my job. I think anyone who falls into either of those categories should go, without delay, and start the series themselves. Even if you do just recreational BDSM - not sex - with a lot of different people, you should get vaccinated, especially if you you do bloodsports. In fact, I think everyone should seriously consider getting this done. Look at it this way: unless you have a specific medical contraindication, why would you not? Hep isn't just sexually transmitted - you can catch it from a foodhandler's unwashed fingers. Why take a chance if you don't have to? I procrastinated about doing this way too long, and I'm glad I'm taking care of it now. (Thank you, Max, for continuing to nag me about this, and setting me a good example by doing it yourself.)

Here are some links to more info about hepatitis, and about how to get vaccinated. Please, please, protect yourselves...

About Hepatitis A
FAQs about Viral Hepatitis B

Low-cost vaccination in King County If you live elsewhere, please contact your primary care physician or the local health department.

Me, Max and Strippers

Si reminds me that I promised to talk about Max's latest visit to a strip club…

It happened like this - Max and I usually schedule our dates with our secondaries on the same night. But one night a few weeks ago, I had a date and he didn't. So, being a guy of many resources, he decided to amuse himself by going to a strip club.
Now I wouldn't say Max used to go to strip clubs a lot – but let's say that he was not a stranger to them in days gone by. (Neither was I, of course, but I was on the other side of the rail. And no, that is not where we met!)
So anyway, Max goes along to a local place, gets an overpriced cup of coffee and looks over the available ladies. He settles on one, and when she makes the approach, ("Would you like a dance?") he says yes.
He gets a dance from her, and then afterwards she sits down to chat with him a little.
Presently she asks, "So, are you married?" I don't know why a dancer would ask anyone that, but he says they often do. I myself always tried to avoid reminding guys of the wife and kids at home, figuring it would just spoil the mood.
He said no, he wasn't, but that he had a girlfriend. As a matter of fact, his girlfriend used to be a dancer herself.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"That's interesting. What does she do for a living now?"
Ah, that is the question, isn't it? Max had had to field this query unexpectedly before, of course, as have I. So he debates with himself for a second and then thinks, well, if you can't tell a stripper, who can you tell?
"She's a professional dominatrix."
She stared at him. "Not Mistress Matisse? Omigod, are you Max?"

(At this point, as he was telling me the story, I absolutely broke up laughing. "You can run, baby, but you can't hide," I said, gasping. "I have eyes everywhere.")

She went on to say that she'd read all my columns and she thought I was great. It's always nice to hear that, even second-hand. Sometimes especially second-hand.
"So, wow, you scored major John points!" I said. "Did you get some better dances from her after that?"
"Well, yeah," he said, smiling wickedly. "I tied up her hands and had her dance for me like that."
"Tied up her hands? With what? Did you take rope in there?"
"No, just my handkerchief."
I did not laugh. Max has tied up my hands with his handkerchief and you know, it's been pretty damn effective. He's done whole bondage scenes with me with just what we had on us – belts, bootlaces, the hanky, my bra – whatever. Max, the Improvisational Bondage Top.
"Sounds like she's a little kinky herself," I said.
"Well, she's at least curious."
She offered him her phone number, and instead he gave her his and said, "I imagine you have a lot of guys calling you. If you want to talk to me, you call me."
Thus far she hasn't, and Max isn't exactly holding his breath. But I was highly amused by the whole thing…

I Couldn't Make This Stuff Up

From the mailbag...

… I know you must be very busy and your time very precious to you, but I plead with you to please listen to my plight.
I am an 18 year old white male who grew up and is still living in Kansas. Just to give you an idea of who you are talking to. I am about 6'3" and weigh about 145. I have brown hair, my eye color is blue, green, or a mix in between, depending on the day, and I am married with no kids. I have had an extreme passion and lust for bdsm since I was a little boy, but thought I was just a freak until my early teenage years when I started to discover a few things on the internet. Then I realized that the emotions and desires I have aren't experienced only by me. Then I got married to a wonderful, gorgeous wife that loves me immensely. However, she doesn't share my feelings towards bdsm at all. I don't think I can live without it.

So far, this is a very typical email for me to get. That doesn't mean I necessarily believe anything it says is true, you understand. For example, no way do I think the writer is really just 18. But it doesn't matter, since it's already obvious that he's not a potential client. I'm just reading it for the entertainment value.

So, I've been looking for somebody that is very familiar with the bdsm world who would like to make a very small money investment that is 100% guaranteed to return to them 10 times whatever they spend on the investment.

Oh, now this is different. He is starting to sound a bit like one of those Nigerian email scammers.

The investment is to come to Kansas and take me to their home where I would be their slave 24/7/365 truly to be used in any way my owner desired whether it be chores around the house/yard or of the intimate nature or both, whatever the owner wants.

I've been to Kansas, and I can see why he wants to leave. But I wonder if I'd have to dress up like a witch?

Of course I wouldn't be able to get a job at that point because I would be considered missing due to the "kidnapping".

What? Oh, this is nice. He doesn't think he can live without BDSM, but he wouldn't be willing to actually take responsibility for leaving his wonderful, gorgeous wife that loves him immensely. He thinks I should put myself in the way of seeming to commit a felony – a federal crime, you'll note, since I'll be taking him across state lines – to have him as my slave. Not to mention the small matter of completely supporting him…
But wait, it gets better.

The owner's part of the investment is just to pay for and arrange for a full male to female sex change on me. Which consists of hormonal treatment, electrolysis, sexual reassignment surgery, breast augmentation, cosmetic surgery, voice surgery, adams apple shave, and labiaoplasty. Which comes to a total of 10,000 to 30,000 dollars spread out over about a 2 to 3 year period depending on where you go to get the operations done. Of course it would have to be only the best surgeons in order for me to not look like some science experiment afterwards.

Wow. The grandiose sweep of it - it's kind of breathtaking, isn’t it? I've had some amazingly bizarre offers in my time, but this ranks right up there at the top. This guy puts every gold-digger I have ever known in the shade as far as sheer gall is concerned. "Hi, I'd like you to remove me from my presently boring life, take me into your home, feed, clothe and house me, and fulfill my sexual fantasies. In return for this, I will fold laundry and weed the yard - when I'm not in bed recovering from my many expensive surgeries, that is, during which time I'll need to waited on hand and foot. Oh wait, I can't go outside and weed the yard, Mistress, because my picture is on a milk carton! Sorry…"
He also gets a prize for The Least-Researched Sexual Fantasy. Thirty grand for all the male-to-female sex reassignment surgeries he mentions? Yeah, maybe in Thailand, where I understand it's something of a small industry. But for "only the best surgeons" in the US, it would cost way more than that. And besides, you cannot "arrange" for someone else to have anything like this done. The person in question has to see therapists and get letters for the surgeons - there are all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to jump through.

Once I am completely female I would first go and become a citizen of the U.S. in my new body and begin modeling for porn sites. I yearn so much to be used like that and tortured on porn sites.

And how, pray tell, does he think he's going to change his identity from male to female without someone looking at his existing paperwork and saying, "Hey, are you that guy who got kidnapped in Kansas?" He seems to think he's going to get a new birth certificate or something.
He also seems to think he's somehow guaranteed to wind up looking like Jenna Jameson. Now, I've met some tranny girls who were very beautiful. And I've met some who…weren't. They can do great things with cosmetic surgery these days, but bone structure, for example, cannot be drastically altered.

I would continue to be a slave of my owner for the period it would take to pay back 10 times whatever it cost to do all the things involved in changing my gender. All of my income would go directly to my owner until I payed my owner back completely upon which time I am free.

It's sort of medieval, isn't it? Indentured servitude. I haven't bothered to actually run the numbers for what kind of money he's talking about here, but I have a feeling it would take a looooooong time for him to pay me ten times what he owed me for everything.

I bet you here schemes like this all the time. You being such a beautiful lady and so sensible and intelligent.

Oh, no, honey, you are quite unique, I assure you. And yes, I am sensible and intelligent. They say opposites attract.

I just wish it could not be a dream, but become a reality. I would be very obliged to receive your advice on my situation. Is something like what I want even possible? I am so anxious to hear from you, but I am patient at the same time.

So I read all this, I laughed disbelievingly, I forwarded it to Max, listened to him laugh from his office down the hall, and then I put it in my "Wacko Emails" folder and dismissed it from my mind. People like this are getting off on sending their fantasies out into the world, and they don't really expect an answer.
But here's the kicker – this guy actually wrote me again about a week later, asking me if I'd had time to consider his offer!
I didn't respond to that one either.
He wrote again!
Amazing. Simply amazing. So I sent him a one-line "No thank you" email, and I haven't heard back from him.
So if you're a wonderful, gorgeous woman in Kansas and you're missing a husband, don't call me.

An encouraging quote from a gentleman calling himself Sir William...

There are 2,500,000 people in the Seattle metro area. Of those, 10% are alternative. Of those 250,000 alternative people 10% are attractive. Of those 25,000 attractive alternative people certainly at least 10% are in the mood for fooling around. That should leave you with 2,500 potential playmates.

Perhaps I should have this printed on the back of the business cards for my (entirely mythical!) match-making business.

It's incumbent upon me, as a highly visible representative of the BDSM community, to remember to be tolerant – in public, at least - of other people's way of expressing their kink. I will not always understand it or agree with it, but it's important to try to give them the respect I want for myself.

But my god, this kind of thing really makes me want to hurl.

The Submissives Prayer
allow me the strength to answer questions i cant fathom,
allow me the spirit to know His needs,
allow me the kindness to choke back retorts,
allow me the serenity to serve Him in peace,
allow me the love to show Him myself,
allow me the tenderness to comfort Him,
allow me the light to show U/us the way,
allow me the wisdom to be an asset to Him,
let me show Him each day, my love of my service to Him,
let me open myself up to completely belong to Him,
let my eyes show Him the same respect, whether i sit at His side, or kneel at His feet.
let me accept my punishment with grace of a woman,
let me learn to please Him beyond myself.

I found this on a male-dom BDSM discussion list. (Hence the capitalized male pronouns and the "with grace of a woman" line.) The woman who posted it thought it was, "so beautiful and so true". I was polite and did not say that to me, this looks like nothing so much as a codependents to-do list. I always try to be polite in other people's spaces.

But this is my space, so: Jesus H, what the fuck with this kind of shit? The Submissives Prayer? This reads like something composed by Phyllis Schlafly for the Southern Baptist Convention. They could engrave it on little lacquered plaques and sell them at church socials.

And to whom, exactly, are we praying? There seems to be an eerie kind of fluidity in perception here – it almost reads like the dominant is god. That's fucking spooky.

No one on the list in question responded with a prayer for dominants, which I found significant. Although now that I think about it, I'm sure someone could compose one of those that I'd find equally appalling.

Look, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be kind and serene and tender and respectful. Those are all good traits to bring to any relationship - when they're used wisely.

And while it's not my bag, I know a few people who are engaged in a relationship where one person considers themselves to be owned by the other, and that's how they like it.

But for a submissive/slave to afford their dominant this god-like status…well, I don't think that's generally healthy.

I'm a pervert, people - a big ol' sexual pervert. I do nasty things to people because it makes me wet. There is no other good reason to do BDSM. This sickly-sweet little paean sounds like it was written by someone who was desperately trying to pretty up and smooth over the sticky sexual reality of what BDSM is about by making it sound like some kind of personal-growth regimen. But I sure as hell don't want anyone praying to me, the idea of anyone praying about me makes me extremely uneasy, and I think the notion of anyone praying to be a better pervert is just fucking weird.

Postscript: an alert reader has turned up a webpage with a very similar version of the above "prayer" with a copyright on it. Being the respectful artist that I am, I will now note that here - Author: Screamer © 1996