Linky Goodness…

The new column and the Kink Calendar are up, so check those out…

Apparently I've been nominated – a couple of time – for a BOB Award. (That's Best Of Blog.) I seem to have a lot of company, but still, that's nice. Plus, the link-list of the other nominees makes for interesting surfing.

An award I hope I never get: The Literary Review Bad Sex award, given for "the worst description of sex in a contemporary novel." This year's winner, Tom Wolfe, declined the invitation to accept the award and his prize, a statue (of what, I do not know) and a bottle of champagne.

I've read a bit about this before, but it's nice to see the history of the vibrator making mainstream news…In the "Health Features" section, no less. (Link snagged from Amorous Propensities)

A note to clients - I'm out of town from the 20th to the 27th. I'll be checking email at least daily and phone messages every couple of days, so if you'd like to see me after I get back, drop me a note, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Speaking of travel – I'm looking for suggestions. I've got two trips in mind for the late winter/early spring, and I'd be pleased to hear ideas from ya'll.

Trip number one: a low-key weekend getaway – so, let's say someplace less than four hours drive from Seattle. Something on the Oregon coast, maybe? I had in mind something like a cabin or a cottage, rather than a hotel, something on the beach or in woods, that kinda scenario. Something rather private and quiet - comfortable, but not necessarily fancy.

Trip number two: I've never been to Mexico. (Well, Tijuana, but that doesn't really count.) So I was thinking about a vacation down there, but I don't know where to go. And finding the right destination is going to be tough, because I'd be quite happy to lie on an empty beach with a drink in my hand and read trashy novels for a few days, but Max would quickly get bored with that – he likes to do things on a vacation, and he generally prefer a more metropolitan atmosphere.

Of course, Miss K and I have been saying for several years we should go on a vacation somewhere warm together, so it may wind up like that…Not as sexy as going with Max, but good best-friend-bonding time.

Either way, for this trip I'm not looking for anything too rustic - I don't speak Spanish, and I'll go into withdrawal if I can't check my email everyday, so no remote villages with mud huts.

Ideas?

Lucky Girl

I write a lot about the silliness I deal with from would-be clients via the phone and email, to amuse both myself and you.

But what I don't write about as often is how really, really fabulous my regular clients are. I'm always aware of what wonderful guys I have, but I'm thinking of it more than usual right now, because I have been on the receiving end of some incredibly sweet and thoughtful gifts lately. Between my birthday last month, and now Christmas presents, several of my favorite boys have turned up with gifts that they obviously took a lot of time and trouble over, from the careful choices to the pretty wrapping (that they did themselves!). It's immensely touching to me that they did that for me. I've gotten great books, a plushy, velvety-soft black bathrobe, David Yurman jewelry, a vintage camera and some lenses, a bunch of high-end electrical toys, and a beautiful bustier, not to mention more than the usual amount of flowers, candy and wine. One of my best boys has actually offered to send Max and I on a trip to New York. (And I know he means it!) How amazing is that?

And even the less-traditional things touch me – one sweet boy turned up with a bunch of gorgeous tomatoes in the wake of my post about them. I like it when people pay attention to what I say and use that knowledge to do something I'd like.

And you know, it's not the things themselves that are so important, although they're quite nice. I'm just so touched that my clients would go out of their way to do this for me. They don't have to. You don't need to buy me presents to be a favorite of mine. That only requires that you treat me with respect, behave towards me with integrity, and communicate honestly. (It also helps if we have big fun playing together.) That's what I want from my boys. And having guys who give me that, and bring me lovely presents…Well, it just really knocks me out sometimes.

I always say I don't believe in luck. We make our luck – it's called hard work. But when I look at what sweet boys I have, I have to admit – I think there's some plain old good luck involved here…

Okay, who remembers the Top Secret Date? I've gotten a few plaintive emails about this, but not until now could the secret be revealed. So here it is:

Yeah, that's a plaster dick. It's made from a mold of an actual person, though, and that person is, of course – Roman.

(Now, I have to do a sidebar here. Would those of you have not yet figured out that Roman = Monk of Twisted Monk please raise your hands? Okay, you, you, and you over there, listen up: "Roman" is the pseudonym I gave Monk when we started seeing each other, and that worked fine for a while. However, lately Monk and I have decided that we actually don't care who knows our little secret anymore – we know we weren't fooling many of you, anyway. I think we'll probably continue to use the pet names we gave each other on the blogs for the sake of continuity, but yes, the secret is now officially out. Okay, back to the regularly scheduled program.)

So, at some point in the past, Roman's lovely wife had apparently made some remark to him about how it would be cool to have his dick cast in plaster. Actually, I was told there was also some conversation about having one cast in a nice flexible silicone, too – "for when he wasn't around"….And what a charming idea that is.

Loving husband that he is, Roman decided to pursue this idea as a birthday gift for her. So one fine weekend when she was out of town, he called me and said, "Hey, I'm going to go get a dick casting – wanna come with me?"
"Can I bring the video camera?" I asked.
"Sure," he replied.

So off we went to see Cosmo, plaster body-caster extraordinaire. I did indeed bring the video camera, and I've uploaded a 4-minute video clip of the adventure. The video-hosting site, Onfuego.com, isn't down with anything too sexy, so it's a pretty PG-13 version of the afternoon. (Although streaming a huge video file would be problematic for us, Roman and I are considering making the adult version available on a limited-edition DVD or something…)

Because, you see - the thing about doing a dick-casting like this is that, well, you have to be hard. (Now you see why he asked me to come along.) The unexpurgated version shows me doing various things to encourage that state – not that Roman needs much encouragement – and then tying his dick up in some nice hemp line to help him maintain the erection while he had cold, gloppy alginate goop poured all over it.

And then of course I had to offer the sweet boy some comfort while he had his dick trapped in a PVC tube full of what looked like lumpy baby food that was slowly hardening into a solid state. Mwah hah hah hah ha…I may have to get some of that stuff for the dungeon – talk about cock and ball bondage!

Luckily, Roman was able to detumesce enough to get his dick out without messing up the mold, and while art takes time, he recently took delivery of several lovely plaster replicas of himself. Mrs. Roman's response? "This is AWESOME!"
So I think that counts as a successful gift.

It's apparently a sucess art-wise, too - I understand that Cosmo will probably be displaying Roman's cock in the next Seattle Erotic Art show.

Oh, and why did he get more than one, you ask? Well, I wanted one, too, naturally. Doesn't that picture look nice, with the rope all wrapped around it?

Trust Me – I'm a Professional

This is a written version of a small rant that, for some time now, I've been delivering to my cool sex-worker friends whenever we get to talking about certain behaviors we see in the larger sex-work community. I'm quite sure they're all tired of hearing me go on about it, so hopefully posting it here will exorcise me of some of my tendency to harp about it in person. One does hate to be tedious.

There are lots of women in the world who do sexy stuff for a living, and while I support their right to do so, from a business standpoint, they are definitely not all created equal. I have a way I categorize it. To me, there are people who are professionals, and then there are what I call the "lifestyle girls".

A professional sex worker is someone who cares about doing what she does to the best of her ability, and to that end, she looks beyond the money that's in her hand right this minute. She asks herself: What about tomorrow? What about next month, next year? Where do I want to be, business-wise, and how can I make sure I get there? What are the best strategies for running my business?

Me, I'm a professional. For example, I have a schedule – it's been the same schedule for years now. My boys know when I'm available.
I have an office. Yeah, it's a dungeon – but it's my dedicated space for what I do.
I make appointments with carefully chosen clients, and unless I'm all but spurting arterial blood, I keep those appointments, on time, every time. I admit, there have been some days when I really didn't feel like playing. But I take pride in what I do, so – I get my game on, and I do it. And not in a half-assed manner, either. There is such a thing as chemistry, and I do click with some guys more than others. But if I agree to an appointment with you, and I take your money, I will do my damnedest to deliver a good experience, every time. And you know what? 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. It's deeply satisfying.

Occasionally, yes, there are unforeseeable circumstances that are beyond my control. But I think I've canceled maybe five appointments in the last eight years. (And it goes without saying that I do not "no-show".) This is the way I run my business, because I am a professional person.

The lifestyle girls, well – that's a different story. That's what I call the women who derive their income from sex work, but who seem to just drift from moment to moment, without any kind of plan about what they're doing. They don't run their business in any ongoing, organized manner, it seems to revolve around whatever the next financial crisis is. The rent is due tomorrow? Oh, guess I better try to work tonight.

So they put a post up on Craig's List, shove their kid's toys under the living room couch, and start sending out their address via email. Or they get a motel room, or whatever. And some guy shows up, and maybe they do what they said they would, or maybe they just try to get as much money as they can, while doing as little as possible. She doesn't take any pride in what she's doing, he sure as hell isn't made happy by his experience, and because the whole thing just doesn't feel right, she tries to numb the critical part of her brain by drinking or getting high. And, as financial responsibilities inevitably come due, the cycle repeats over and over. Unprofessional sex worker has unhappy interactions with dissatisfied clients and resorts to unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with it all. Not good.

Now, on an emotional level, I have some compassion for people who, for whatever reason, are caught up in negative patterns of behavior. There are a lot people doing sex work who, though they are not emotionally equipped for it, feel like they have no other acceptable options. I think that's a damn shame.

But on a professional level, these women drive me nuts. Not the truly desperate ones, you understand – the girls on the street, or the really low-end escorts – because I don't ever have any contact with them. But I have dealt with a lot of other women from what I call "the middle-class of sex workers". Nice girls, who were plenty smart enough, and pretty enough, to create a safe and stable business that would support them comfortably.

But a lot of them just can't seem to do it. They'll go along all right for a few weeks, and then you begin hearing about the problems. They make appointments and then cancel them at the last minute, or just fail to show up at all. They don't return calls or emails to make new appointments. If they do see clients, they don't fulfill the job description, and the client is unhappy. Word of all these things spreads a bit, and the phone doesn't ring as often.
And then they realize that, oh shit, the power is going to be shut off if they don't pay the bill right now! So they panic, and in that state of panic they accept a date with a client who, if they were thinking clearly, they would know better than to go anywhere near. They have an unpleasant experience – anything from just emotionally icky to downright dangerous – and coping with that just sets them back even further on the road to stability and physical/emotional safety as a sex worker.

Over the years that I've been doing sex work, I have watched so many different women go through this loop so many times, I can now spot it a mile away. When I was younger and more optimistic, I used to try to mentor women who were engaged in the cycle. I mean, it didn't seem like rocket science to me. Plan ahead, I'd say. Figure out how much money you need to make each week to meet your bills. Schedule yourself days on and days off, so you don't get either burned out or too far behind.

Yeah, that's a good idea, they'd reply. And then the next week they'd tell me about how they blew off an appointment because they were so stoned they forgot about it. Oh, and could they borrow a hundred dollars to pay the phone bill?

I realize I may be coming off like some kind of sex work Uncle Tom here, but that's not what I'm about. There are lots of smart, together women doing sex work. It's just frustrating to watch people squander an economic opportunity for no discernable reason. I'm not saying anyone should do anything they don't want to do. It's crucial to figure out where your personal boundaries lie and work within them. But allowing for that, choosing to stay perpetually on the edge of financial crisis, even though you're capable of generating an adequate income, is inconceivable to me. Why the hell would you do that?

So now when I see someone who's in the lifestyle loop, I just steer very clear of any involvement with them. It may seem callous, but it's like that old adage about teaching a pig to sing. I'm not so concerned about annoying the pig, but I definitely dislike having my time wasted.