My Blue Heaven

My blue obsession continues, and of course certain very sweet men in my life are totally catering to my desires for sparkly blue things. Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am?

So consider this dress. Ignore the hair. The hair is truly scary. And what is that weird little feather-shrug thing she’s got on? It looks like something molted on her. I have worn some unfortunate outfits in my life, I admit. But celebrities are supposed to have handlers who don’t let them show up at photo opps looking like this. I suppose the shrug could have been a moment’s disastrous whim, but that hair did not just happen by accident, someone did that on purpose. This woman’s name is Natasha Bedingfield, and she is apparently a Christian pop singer. Ms. Bedingfield could certainly have used some divine intervention with her hair and accessories.

But let us put all that aside and look at that dress she’s wearing, because unless I am very much mistaken, that is an Herve Leger dress. Herve Leger being another fashion obsession of mine. (An obsession that has also been lavishly indulged. But you know with obsessions, you never get enough.)

So it's an Herve Leger, and it’s not exactly blue, but it’s blue-ish, and it’s completely fabulous. So I think Ms. Bedingfield, in acknowledgment of her fashion sins, should give it to me. You definitely would not catch me blaspheming it with bad hair and hideous feather things.

In most conventional ways, I’m not really the romantic type. For example, if I’m going to watch a movie, I’d usually rather watch people pretend to shoot at each other than watch them pretend to fall in love with each other.

I do not understand why an adult woman would want a stuffed animal. (It’s fine if you do. I’m just sort of baffled by them, that’s all.)

I do not save roses from meaningful floral offerings. Flowers are pretty and all, but when they’re dead, I throw them away.

Someone once gave me a sonnet he’d written about me, and I thought it was sweet, but I still didn’t sleep with him.

So call me a pragmatic sort of girl. It’s relationships that matter to me. How I feel when I’m around someone, and how they treat me. I have often said to guys, “If you show a woman that you think she’s beautiful and special, that is more intoxicating to her than any champagne ever poured into a glass.”

I have some very sweet people who are close to me, guys who treat me like a beautiful princess, and I am very blessed by that. You know who you are. Thank you for all the lovely things you do for me. And Happy Valentines Day to you.

What I’m Doing In The Last Five Minutes Before You Arrive – Or, An Illustration Of Why You Should Not Be Early.*

• Put on chosen dress. Realize that the bra I’m wearing is not the right one for this neckline. Take off dress and dig through overflowing lingerie bureau for correct black bra – examining at least four other incorrect ones before doing so, and dumping approximately half of the Nordstrom intimates department onto floor in process.

• Turn heat up to eighty and note to myself that if the gas company gave out frequent-flyer miles, I’d have enough accumulated for a ticket to the moon. In first-class.

• Make last check of playroom. Leather cuffs? Check. Spandex hood? Check. Spencer paddle? Check. Big black rubber electrical butt plug? Dig through drawers in vain. Remember that it’s in the storage room, in the cabinet given over to the “you buy it, I’ll store it for you” toys. Go to storage room, which is twenty degrees colder than the rest of the house because heating vents are shut to save money. Shiver and look through bags of single-player-only equipment until I find the one marked with proper nickname. Place toy where it should be. Go stand over the heating vent in the playroom until goose bumps subside.

• Cue iPod playlist to “Spanking Music”.

• Examine my legs and wonder if thigh-high stockings - mined from the depths of aforementioned overflowing lingerie bureau - are actually the same shade of black. Wonder if he’ll even notice.

• Put on lipstick. Notice that it makes me appear as though I’ve been dead for three days. Realize it’s actually eye shadow and curse cosmetics manufacturers for being so clever in their packaging. Wipe off and replace with bona fide lipstick.

• Become aware that I have to pee. Pause and consider whether I should just wait and pee on him. Wrestle with my sense of proper dramatic timing versus urinary expediency.

Ding-dong!

• Answer door…

*With a tip of the hat to certain ladies, who inspire me with their private wit.

A pal of mine was talking recently about an upcoming women-only sex party. She’s excited about it, as are a number of my friends. It sounds like a great event, and I wish it much success. Am I going to go? Probably not.

You see, my extensive sexual travels have not left me soured on sex in private. If anything, the confidence I derive from my experiences enhances my private sex life.

But I have had plenty of “public” sex – by which I mean, sex in front of lots of other people, at private gatherings held specifically for that purpose - and frankly, I’m now really bored by it.

It’s probably mostly from my work as a stripper. If people are going to watch me be sexual, then I’m going to stop focusing on the sex I’m having and start performing. Which I’m perfectly comfortable doing, you understand. Hey, get me a sound system, a disco ball and a fog machine, and I’ll put on a hell of a show. But if no one is going to stuff money into my g-string, then why would I stop just enjoying the sex in order to perform for them?

I’m aware that some folks find it arousing to be watched, and that’s fine for them. I certainly have no objection to other people fucking in sex-appropriate spaces - it can be quite pretty to watch. And there was a time when I found the idea titillating enough to experiment with myself. I went to some swing clubs, when I was just barely old enough to legally get in them, and then I went to a lot of women-only sex parties (we called them “raves” back then) in the early nineties. I never had any bad experiences… But you know, I never had any amazingly good ones, either.

No, I take that back. I had some fun times – when I went off in a corner and had sex with people I was already having sex with anyway!

So these days I prefer my sex in private. There is, however, one reason I might go to this event, and that’s my friend Miss K. You remember Miss K, don’t you? No, I don't mean Miss K likes sex in public, either. She probably feels more or less the same way I do about it.

She is, however, recently single. And I am totally making it a goal to get her out of her all-grad-school-all-the-time rut and out to some social events – especially events where she could, possibly, maybe, just happen to meet a cute, sober, sane, single, kinky butch boi that she might like. I’m not trying to fix her up, or anything. I’m just saying, you know, make room for the universe to send you good things.

We’ll see if I can convince her to come to this party. Thus, if you see me there, I’m not shopping. But have you met my friend Miss K?

There are certain questions I get asked a lot, and while I’ve addressed many of them before, I keep getting asked, so I will make some remarks about them once again. Here's one from the FAQ...

Can big girls make money in the sex industry?

Well, define big.

This is a delicate issue. There’s a lot of controversy raging about body size these days – it seems like more than ever before. So let me say now that I’m not passing judgment on anyone’s genetic fate or chosen behavior around that. Let us simply speak of the market as I know it. And recognize that I have never been above a size ten, so I can’t speak from first-hand experience, only observation.

Stripping is probably the most unforgiving area of sex work when it comes to bigger girls. In most of the clubs where I danced, a lot of the girls were a size six or smaller, and anyone over a ten was really at a disadvantage. In smaller towns with fewer strippers, or at lower-end clubs, you can bump that up a little. But still, stripping is not the best gig for a curvy girl, because it’s a very visual job, and the current beauty ideal is thin. If you lived in Renaissance Italy, you’d be the pin-up girl, and those skinny chicks would be out of luck, but that’s not the way it is just now.

I think porn – by which I mean any visual depiction of you, be it web-cam stuff, photos, videos, whatever – is sort of middle ground. There are specific big-girl markets, but not as many as for skinnier girls. And porn thrives on extremes, so if you’re a slightly-curvy but not really-large woman, you might find that you’re too slim for the plus-size porn sites and too chunky for the other ones. I encountered this situation a lot when I was photographing girls for porn mags. I think you’d be wise to consider porn a potentially profitable hobby, but don’t quit your day job unless you really get a sweet ongoing gig.

However, bigger girls can do very well as escorts, sensual touch practitioners, and pro dommes. In that world, I would say that anyone smaller than a size eight is considered petite. Average/normal is anything from eight to about fourteen. Fourteen to eighteen or so is considered a bigger girl, but not in a bad way.

Above size eighteen, you’re really getting into a niche market of men who have a specific big-girl fetish, and I think your options will be limited. That’s not to say you have none, but it’s not a branch of the industry I have much information about.

Understand that this is just one person's opinion. Being skinny is not a sure-fire guarantee of success in the industry, and being bigger does not mean you’ll fail. At any size, a lot has to do with all the other aspects of your looks, and equally important, your personality, your attitude, and your business skills.

A note to Belle De Jour: Congrats on the fiction-writing deal. It's the type of thing I'd like to do myself someday. Also, I seem to have lost your address. Drop me a note? I have another matter I'd like your take on. MistressMatisse AT aol.com.