A picture from a private Kinkfest after-party, with Hannah and three other pals of mine. Note how Hannah is displaying her truly respectful and submissive nature for the camera. (Larger version.)


As befits her scrappy demeanor here, Hannah put up one hell of a fight, and wore out my pervy pals pretty good.

Like the sign in her mouth that says "Use Me"? That was Max's contribution. Hannah has a certain interest in - one might even say a fetish for - laminating things. It just pleases something in her to encase paper in hot plastic. So Max instructed her to go to Kinko's in the afternoon and make that sign and bring it to the party, and she did.

That looked like consent to all of us, so Max actually tied her up to a prominent spot at the party with that sign in her mouth. She didn't spit it out. A couple of people took advantage of the privilege.

Then my three friends got serious with her, tying her up, hitting her with nasty paddles, rolling her around on the carpet, and dodging her kicks and fingernails. I think the sign turned into something of a safeword - as long as she held onto it, these three knew it was a signal that the game was still on. Finally she did spit it out and say, "I'm done!" Which was good, because I think if she'd kept going much longer, they would have had to bring in a fresh team. You have to love a bottom who gives you a good workout.

Speaking Of Women

The new column.... Knowing the tendency for there to be vociferous outcry on this subject, as seen here and here, I am expecting some blowback. I will note that I wrote that column during my recent bout with the flu, when I had a fever hovering around one hundred degrees, and thus it's a bit blunter than usual. However, the basic sentiment is accurate. Enjoy. (Or be outraged, as you prefer.)

By Women, For Women

Event note: This Friday is the Women-Only party at the Wet Spot, and after having had my pals forever telling me about how much fun they are, I’m going this Friday with Miss K. Kinky Seattle women, please come out and join us...

(Also: It's not a women's event, but I'll probably be at the Bondage Is The Point party on Sunday as well.)

***

I was rather surprised, but pleased, to get a note from this blogger, Serpentlibertine, saying she and another woman, KittenInfinite, had done a podcast about one of my columns, 18 Things Sex Workers Should Know. In the course of the podcast, they talk about how this piece (published here in The Stranger) has been widely circulated and talked about. Really? Huh, who knew? I had no idea. I mean, seriously, I just write this stuff, and then it goes off into the world and has a life of its own, and half the time I don’t even know about it until much later. But I’m flattered to know that other sex workers like the piece.

And the podcast itself is quite good - funny and accurate. These ladies are very clearly the real deal in terms of being veteran sex workers. They’re part of SWOP, which is a sex work activism group in Chicago. It sounds cool, and I wish there was more sex work activism here in Seattle. But no, I’m not going to organize it, I did my turn with that in the 1990’s with Blackstockings, thank you. Anyone out there remember the Blackstockings 'zine? I used to write for that as Marcella Grant. But we never really got much momentum, because there were only 4-6 of us who would actually do the work of organizing, and we all eventually got burnt out. So shouldn’t some of you idealistic young things make something happen? I’d come, if you did.

***

I am well, by the way. The Martian Death Flu has been routed. Thank you for your many sweet emails wishing me good health!

What Not To Say

In spite of sometimes-considerable provocation, I try not to talk too much here about the recent, real-life bad behaviors of people I encounter. At least not so that they could identify themselves - it just seems too unkind. I have a lot of power in this forum, and I try to use it only for good.

However, there are exceptions to that rule. So while this is not my story, it's from a reliable source, and it's so breathtakingly bad that I had to say something.

Not long ago, a woman I know moved to a new town - not Seattle - and she went to a munch where she knew no one. A man there introduced himself and was very friendly to her, as men will be. In fact, one might reasonably say he was hitting on her.

Nothing wrong with that, exactly. He just didn’t do it very well, you understand. Apparently he was a bit too forward with the social touching, for example. I have met this man myself, and I have my own observations of his social skills, and what she said lined up with my impression of him. But my friend is a laid-back girl, and so she just shrugged it off.

Okay, fast-forward: the munch is over, she’s leaving, and he’s walking her to her car. And with no obvious pretext whatsoever, he turns to her and says, “So where are you on your cycle?”

She looked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Are you close to your period? You just look kinda puffy, like you’re retaining water.”

My pal told me this, and my jaw dropped open in disbelief. “No, he did not say that to you. He did not.”

She closed her eyes and laughed a little, ruefully. “Yes, yes he did.”

Sweet Jesus Christ. I was dumbstruck with astonishment by this tale. I cannot believe that any man past the age of toilet-training would be so stupid as to actually say this a woman. I mean any man, to any woman, at any time, ever. Neither Max nor Monk would dream of ever saying something like this to me, even though there have been times when I was retaining so much water that I should have had a freaking salmon ladder built over my abdomen. If you have a female partner, yeah, sometimes you can tell when her body looks a little different. But only a flipping idiot would remark on the matter to his or her beloved. The correct response, if your girlfriend says, “Do I look puffy?” is “No, sweetheart, not at all.” If really pressed, you might squint thoughtfully at her and say, “Well, maybe your boobs look a little bigger. Otherwise, nah, you look great.”

That’s how you handle it with a woman you’re intimate with, and it doesn’t seem like you’d have to be real clever to figure that out. So I am astounded at the thickheadedness of a man who thinks it’s cool to tell a woman he just met, whom he is hitting on, that she looks puffy. I mean, what are you thinking? How could anyone imagine that such a remark would endear you to a girl? Saying that kind of thing to women is a really good way to grow cobwebs across your cock.

It's barely possible that this man thinks he's such a True Dominate Master that he can say things like this and women will find it acceptable. He'd be wrong, of course, but it's the only even-slightly-comprehensible explanation I can think of. (I suppose he could be a menstruation fetishist, but he didn't say so, and that still wouldn't make the remark any less horrifying. )

Ready for some extra-bonus-wrongness points? This man is himself a rather large fellow. Nothing wrong with that, but if you’re going to go around telling women you just met they look puffy, you invite their examination of your figure, and if it speaks of a lot of high-sodium snacks, it makes a girl think, Well at least my puffiness will go away in a couple of days, buddy.

Super-extra-bonus-wrongness points: when they got to her car, he tried to kiss her. I am so not making this up. I am not. I could not have made this up if I tried. It’s so wrong. (She dodged it, thankfully.)

No, she didn’t tell him he was a prat, she’s too polite, and plus the whole thing caught her off guard. But you can bet she’ll be avoiding him in the future.

Now, I don’t know that this fellow reads this blog. I hope he doesn't. But in case he does: yes, I’m talking about you. I am sure you’re mortified by this. However, note that I did not name or describe you, or mention the city, and I could have. Unless you tell them, no one but you, the woman involved, and me know that it’s you. Your best response would be to keep quiet and learn something from this. I don’t think you’re evil, but I think you’ve done some socially inappropriate things, and yes, sometimes you’re gonna get called on that. It’s a growing-up process. You seem active in your pursuit of the ladies, so here’s my advice: Your hands should be kept more to yourself until such time as a woman makes it clear she wants you to touch her. And your unflattering and too-intimate remarks on a woman’s appearance should remain unsaid forever.

Hello Dear Readers…

So I decided to just write off last week, blog-wise. But let me catch you up. I did, in fact, go to Portland for Kinkfest. It was very iffy right up until the last moment. Even driving down Friday, I thought, I hope this will not prove to be a serious mistake. It was snowing, for God's sake, and I was too weak to drive, so Max was driving. I lay on the backseat and tried really hard to just not look at the road or think about the other cars or anything, because Max is a much more bold and daring driver than I am, and it makes me nervous. So the omens were not favorable. But I wasn't willing to be left at home, either.

And going turned out to be the right thing. I was pretty weak, and I'm still a little low-energy, but I've gotten steadily better all weekend, and all my pals been even more sweet and attentive to me than usual. Everyone was fetching me chairs, and getting me water, and just generally waiting on me all weekend long. I love my friends.

I did not play, I definitely did not have the strength for that. Which did not keep my pals Miss H, and Miss S, and Mr. SF, from all taunting and goading me. (Their time will come, heh. I am not going to forget a single thing any of ya'll said, and I look forward to reminding you of your remarks when I have you in more compromising positions.)

The conference itself was great as usual, although one of the presenters I was really looking forward to wound up not coming - because he got the flu. Kind of hard to hold it against him under the circumstances, but I was bummed, because he was going to do a "Sounds and Catheters" workshop and I'm always interested in hearing what other teachers have to say about that.

So in the daytime, I mainly just sat in the social area and schmoozed, and in the evening I sat in the dungeon and watched scenes and schmoozed. That's about all I was up for. But I wore my white Herve Leger dress and my new D&G shoes to the dungeon Saturday night, so I looked pretty even if I couldn't do much. I did buy a few new toys, and I did facilitate several of my friends getting to play with other of my friends, and that's always nice. I wished Monk was there, and Jae too, but otherwise it was a nice social weekend.

I also heard a story from a female pal which I will entitle, "The Single Worst Thing I Have Ever Heard Of A Man Saying To A Woman He Was Attempting To Flirt With." It's... Well, it’s just astonishingly, jaw-droppingly wrong.

But I'll tell you that tomorrow. See you in Seattle!