Okay, I have no idea why my column isn't on The Stranger website yet. It's in the paper version, so I know it's not an editorial statement of any kind. As soon as I see that it is up - or if I get any new information - I'll post a link. But for now, I'm as clue-free as you guys.

In other news... Interesting note from a reader.

Dear Mistress Matisse,
I am a 32 year old butch top girl whose had lots of sex with women. I love to dominate, take charge, and "service" a woman for hours… For me, the intentionality, the planning, is wonderfully creative and incredibly sexy. These encounters have been beautiful and hot--and always safe, in that delicious, slightly dangerous way. (I swear I was programmed for this when I saw American Gigolo in my teens---remember how hard Richard Gere worked to make that one woman come?). My question to you: if I can figure out a way to provide this service professionally without running afoul of the law, do you think there are enough women (gay or straight) out there with the desire and the money to spend on it? My impression, from my years of unscientific research, is that lots of women fantasize about being dominated, but haven't found the right person to bring them there. I love being that person.

Dear Butch Top,

Short answer: No. Sorry.

Now, the longer version is: sure, try it, you might get a client once every couple of months. If you can put up a free web page somewhere and you have access to a dungeon, then why not? But don't invest any serious money in it, and definitely don't quit your day job.

Here are the problems. Number one: while I personally quite like butch women, it's not a taste that's shared by every woman in the world - or even most of them. Nearly all of those women who do like butches are lesbians.

Now, from that already-small group, subtract all the vanilla lesbians. The pool just got a lot smaller. What you have left: kinky lesbians (and the occasional kinky straight/bi girl who can appreciate butches) who aren't finding what they need in non-commercial settings and who are open to the idea of seeking out a sex worker to gratify those desires. My call would be: that's actually a pretty teensy group.

Then there's the money issue. Lesbians as a group spend very little money on sex workers. Some lesbians just don't have the money, period, but even more prosperous dykes don't do this in any measurable numbers. And straight girls do not pursue sex workers, of any gender or any variety, the same way men do, either. I recently wrote a column about gigolos, and a lot of it would apply just as much to you as it does to men.

So: a very small potential client base, who don't spend much money. That's not a recipe for success.

Then there are the potential clients themselves. I have played with many, many women in my personal life, and I have had three long-term female submissives, and that's all been pretty great.

But my experience with seeing female clients has been almost all bad - in some cases, really bad. Out of about twenty, I have had exactly one female client who was cool. The rest of them ranged from disquieting to downright whacko. I wrote about my experiences here,and also on this blog here and here.

So I've been stalked by women clients, I've been dissed, and I've had a lot of weird, unsatisfying scenes that didn't make me feel good about myself professionally. Thus, I will no longer see female clients. If you decide you want 'em, you can sure have mine.

(Aside to blog readers: the no-female-clients policy has been discussed extensively here, so please read through all of the columns, posts and comments before you post a question/remarks about my policy, because chances are it’s already been answered/explained.)

BTW, if you have any kind of sexual contact with your would-be clients, you'll be breaking the law. Your chances of getting busted are quite slim, but still, it would be a possibility.

Hope that answers your questions. If you try it and get tons of clients, drop me a note and tell me I was wrong. I'd be pleased to be mistaken about this, as I truly love the idea of a butch pro domme.

I'm devastated by this. I would have campaigned for him!

But I've got a very busy day lined up, so that's all for now...

Thought-provoking dinner with Miss K last night. She tried to explain to me why so many people seem to really want there to be a right and wrong way to be kinky.

I don’t mean the people who try to insist that everyone should do BDSM their way and only their way because it is The Only Right Way. That’s clearly ego and insecurity. We call those folks “One True Wayers” - or OTWs for short.

No, I mean all the people who write to me urgently asking what are the Proper BDSM Rules about how to kneel down/blow their nose/write a love letter/shave their genitals/whatever while in the presence of a dominant/submissive. Not my presence personally, you understand, just a random kinky person.

Is it okay to wear blue jeans while you do a scene, or do I have to dress up? Should I always address my top as "Master", even though he said I can call him Bob? Is it permissable to wear a collar even if you don't currently have a mistress?

What the heck? I’ve been saying for years “You get to do this however you (and your partner) want to.” Come one, people, do you really think there’s some great rule book in the sky dictating every single little activity in kink? Do you think you can look up “dominant nose blowing” and get some kind of spec sheet for that? Forget it. When it comes to configuring our kink, we’re making up most of this as we go along, both as individuals and as a culture. That, to me, is one of the coolest things about the BDSM community. I have never understood why some folks seemed to be begging to exchange one set of restrictive rules of behavior (vanilla culture) for another.

Miss K and I were talking about this and she said, “Look, the thing is, people are convinced that there must be rules, somewhere, and they just want to know what they are so they don’t break them and get in trouble. You try to tell them that they get to invent this, but they don’t trust that. It’s because somewhere, they broke a rule they didn’t know about and caught hell for it."

“Besides,” she went on, “there are rules in BDSM. Like, you don’t touch people.”

"That’s different. That’s etiquette towards people you don’t know well. That’s not about what you do with your partner.”

“I know you understand the difference, but not everyone does. You see having no rules as freedom, but for some people, it’s scary and hard to trust. What if we do it wrong? How will we know if what we’re doing is really BDSM?”

“What the hell else would it be if you put nipple clamps on someone and spanked them?"(I love that I can just rant with Miss K and she know how to take me.)

So I’m thinking about this. The reason that OTWs can convince people that there is a Real and True Way is because the idea that there are no rules scares them. Interesting…

This 'n That...

This is all very entertaining, and possibly helpful for CBT newbies... Except for number fifteen. The Mistress says: Do not twist a ballsack, ever. Pull, yes. Twist, no. You can damage the little tubes that carry sperm if you do that. (And no, it’s not really an effective birth-control method, either.)

Oh my God, do I so want to be his intern.

I thought I had weirdo phone calls. At least no one has ever tried to mail-order me.

Good communication is so important in poly. Or at least good timing. But I would have gladly paid 126 dollars to get out of some of my past relationships this easily. (Hell, I'd of had the triple-bypass operation.)

A snapshot from the party at the Abbey Saturday night. (No, no one else was allowed to take pictures, but, hey, I’m special. Plus it was really late and hardly anyone was still there.)



The picture looks a little weird because I had to turn the brightness way up high in Photoshop. But I kind of like the grainy, gritty look of the image. And the Abbey is an industrial space, so I think it conveys a sense of that.

That’s my sweetheart, Max, getting ready to suspend a sweet young thing, who can identify herself if she wants to. The girl in blue hanging out next to him was a certain bratty young lady who was bold enough to swat Max on the butt, and look what happened to her. Poor thing. We all felt so sorry for her. Not!

Max likes to play at parties, and he and I are frequently among the last to leave if he's on a roll, as he was Saturday night. I think he suspended four different women. They don't call my honey "the Death Star of evil" for nothing.

Other party tidbits: I ran into an old pal of mine, Danielle, who’s been living in Japan for the last few years and who was just in town for a visit. It was cool to catch up with her, and she mentioned that she has a friend there, a boy named Tim, who likes to read my blog. (I think she said he’s a university student?) It’s sort of wild to think of people in Japan reading me, but I like it. So: Hi, Tim! Thanks for reading.

Gord, of House Of Gord, showed up with a truckload of kinky machinery and gave us some dampness-inspiring demos of his nefarious bondage devices. In my fantasy world, I have Gord locked in a laboratory/workshop where he does nothing except invent new toys for me to play with.

The folks from TheThrillHammer.com brought over two really lovely fucking machines, which several women were persuaded to try out, much to our collective delight. I like my fucking machine that Mike made me, but now I think I may need another one.

You can read a few other accounts of the event here, here and I'm guessing there will soon be some remarks about it here as well… I have a few more photos but I’m waiting to get a green light from the people in them before I post.

It was a great party - thanks to Monk and Tambo for throwing it. And thanks a bunch to all the people, many of them blog readers, who volunteered their help to make it happen.

Had a lovely post-birthday date with Roman last night. I think we raised the general perversion level in Seattle a few notches all by ourselves. Knee sex! And needles. Woot. We were quite wiped out afterwards...

Read about other interesting social events in my life lately…

I saw a young woman walking down Broadway a few days ago, and it made me sad. I don’t know her, but I know who she is. I recognize her from her website photos, although she’s changed a lot since they were taken. And not for the better.

The photos I saw, beginning about a year ago, showed a thin, disturbingly young-looking woman posing on a bed. She called herself “a Lolita” and offered her services as an escort. Now, ya’ll know I support sex work and sex workers. But several things about this woman bothered me. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t convinced she was eighteen, underneath the artlessly brazen sexuality of the photos and the text, she just seemed…dangerously fragile somehow. Not someone I’d pick out as being well-suited to the job.

But I learned a long time ago that I can’t fix people who I think are broken. They have to choose to fix themselves. Or not. I could only hope that she’d take advantage of the resources sex work offers – more free time and more money – to take care of herself and work out the issues I suspected she had.

She hasn’t. She looked like shit, frankly. I’ve seen her a lot on Broadway in the last year, and she always looked a little…odd. But this last time, I would have thought she was a homeless person if I hadn’t just seen a post from her on one of the local escort boards a few days before. She was very dirty - the kind of dirty that takes days of not bathing to really accumulate. Her hair was straggly and matted, and it looked like she’d been hacking at it with scissors. Her clothes were stained and mismatched. And just the way she was stumbling along the sidewalk, slump-shouldered and vacant-eyed... If you looked up “junkie homeless person” in the dictionary, this would be the illustration.

Of course, I thought, I don’t really know that she’s a junkie. But it’s extremely likely. The other possibility is that she has some kind of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness. And it could be a double-header: drugs and mental illness.

I'd seen posts from this little waif - long, rambling, badly-spelled missives inviting guys to just come meet her at a certain rendezvous. Don’t try to call, she said, because by some mistake on the part of the phone company, her cell had been shut off. Yeah, a mistake. It’s just sad, because once upon a time she was a sweet, pretty little girl, and she lost her way somewhere.

Sex work isn’t the cause of her downhill slide, though. I’m quite sure that she was broken inside when she came into the industry. And it’s funny how doing sex work affects broken people in either one of two ways.

For some people, it sort of buoys them up for a while. They feel relieved from the pressure to try to be well, and they just relax into a state of somewhat-functional craziness. If they live modestly, they don’t have to work very much to keep the rent (more or less) paid and have food to eat. The rest of the time they can just feel however they’re feeling, and if that means talking to people no one else can see, or staying in bed with the covers over their head for two or three days, well, they can do that. No need to worry much about appearing normal and showing up for that eight-to-five thing. And even when they are actually working, a certain level of quirky weirdness is okay with clients, as long as one fulfills the job description.

I’m not saying this is a good thing in the long-term, you understand. But I’ve known a lot of women who were able to sort of limp through life in this way, never getting to a place of wholeness and wellness, but managing to avoid out-right implosion.

But for other people – like this little waif - it just speeds up the race to self-destruction. They have lots of time and money to spend trying to numb themselves to the pain they’re in, and there’s a lot of ways that can go badly. They remove themselves from places where people might say, “Uh, hey, honey – you don’t look so good. Maybe you should see a doctor or something.” Their isolation works against them, not for them.

It’s not that clients won’t say something. There are plenty of soft-hearted guys around who’ll try to help out a damsel who’s clearly in distress. But even if she’s willing to accept help from them – which is unlikely - there are limits to what they can do. Their first responsibility is to their own lives, and unless they have some training in dealing with her issues, their efforts are likely to be kindly-meant but ineffectual.

I myself have gotten burned trying to rescue people way to often too get involved with this young person. That’s been a hard lesson for me to learn in this life. But I have learned it, so she’ll have to work out her destiny however she chooses.

But it is sad.

What Am I Looking At?

Oh, I can see that these people meant well – but this just seems in poor taste somehow. (And no, I don’t mean the minty stuff.)

"What happens when a middle-aged man with a beer belly decides to mimic the poses of his models?" This so cracked me up. I’ve modeled for several male photographers who showed me the poses they wanted by doing it themselves, and most of the time, they looked about this silly. But I think it's impressively bold of him to do it and post the photos, and I do totally get the self-portrait thing. It’s handy when you have no models around.

I’ve had several people send me this link. It’s a little video of people’s faces while they masturbate to orgasm. It’s a cute concept, and it’s nicely executed, but I fail to see what makes people think it’s so fantastically hip and cool, exactly? I mean, I have no problem, but - is this really so revolutionary?

God, that was a nice massage last night. It's funny, I've gotten a number of professional massages from different LMTs over the years, and most of them have been pretty ehh. I mean, the part when they were doing my neck and shoulders and back was nice enough, but I was unimpressed with the rest of it. It just didn't feel that great, and I didn't feel particularly different/better afterwards. I thought maybe I just hadn't found the right person, so I kept trying different practioners. But it always seemed the same, and after awhile the idea of paying money for an experience I really wasn't enjoying that much seemed dumb. So I just stopped doing it.

But I have friends and lovers, who aren't trained professionals, give me massages that I loooooove. Go figure. Jae gives great massages, as does Malixe. And Max and Roman both rub me the right way, too. I have no idea why I so enjoy getting massages in that kind of context, but not a professional one. It's not like I'm hung up about having a stranger touch me. And I sure don't mind paying to get what I want. (Remind me to give the "money keeps it clean" speech here sometime.) But that's how it's been: I love getting massaged - but only by generous amateurs.

So last night was a first, although it was sort of a cross-over situation. Mark is a trained bodyworker - although he claims to be retired from massage - but he did this hour-plus massage just as a favor to me, which was very sweet. A little bonding experience with a new friend.

My apprehension was misplaced. Mark Yu sweetly massaged me into a nearly boneless state of relaxation. More later...

A busy weekend around here. We had bondage instructor and body worker Mark Yu up from San Diego, and he taught two cool workshops. I had to miss the Saturday class, but the Sunday one, Bondage Bio-mechanics, was very cool. It was basically about how to assess and cope with individual people’s physical abilities and limitations, in terms of range of motion and flexibility, and how to design rope bondage that works with their bodies instead of against it. I like learning about how to work with people's bodies.

And Mark is definitely a great body worker – he did some acupuncture on Max Friday night, and also some back and body adjustments on him both Friday and Saturday nights. I don’t know exactly what kind of therapy he calls the hands-on stuff – it’s Chinese, I think. I should ask him. But it seemed effective. Max wasn’t in any kind of acute pain, but his body gets tense and stiff, and what Mark did seemed to help. I think he’s going to work on me tonight. I'm looking forward to it, but I’m also slightly nervous, because this is not gentle Swedish massage, it’s pretty intense, almost like rolfing. Pray for me.

We all attended the Bondage Is The Point party at the Wet Spot Sunday night, which was fun. I taught Roman how to do play piercing. I've stuck needles in him, but he’s never been the piercer before. And his wife T. had never been pierced, so it was a first time for them both. I put just one in T, the first one, mostly to make sure if that she had a hard time with it, it would be with me, not him. It’s always harder to deal with your primary partner having difficulty than anyone else. But she was fine, and he did just great, as I knew he would. We went off into a side room with the curtains closed to do this, because we thought if things got intense, we might want privacy. However, we wound up having a really good time and getting very endorphin-high, and all of our friends said the sound of our laughter coming out of the room was very enticing.

Plus, I got a delicious foot massage. Who could ask for a better night?

Call for Volunteers

So, Monk is doing a kinky event next Saturday night - an event at Max and I will, of course, be guests - and he needs some staff. He's looking for smart, reliable people to help out with very basic stuff like being a door person, food and drink support team, and cleanup. In return, you get some fabulous handmade Twisted Monk rope, and you get to hang out at a cool party with me and Max and Tambo and all the rest of the weird, glamorous, sincerely perverted gang. If you'd like to volunteer, drop him a note...

Wow, it's hot. And I hate the Blue Angels. I don't hate them as much as my cat does, but still, we're united in our deep, deep dislike of this whole jets-screaming-right-over-the-house thing. In fact, I pretty much hate SeaFair in general, so I will be a cranky Mistress indeed this weekend. Luckily for you, you can just go read me. Bah.

Ah, the dreaded blogger fatigue.... I do feel this way some days. So maybe I'll take a break today. Back tomorrow...

PostScript: But wait - this is hopeful news. Goverment may back down on some parts of new adult entertainment regulations 18 U.S.C. 2257.

Still Catching My Breath

Whew. It’s been sort of crazy around here since we got back from Denver. Last week the gods of all things mechanical definitely frowned upon me, as first my car went dead and then my computer was infested. Luckily, I got both issues resolved fairly easily. (The car was easier to deal with than the flipping computer. I’m still plucking small bits of adware out the innards, but it’s way better than it was.)

And we’ve had Midori here as a houseguest for the last few days. She’s stayed with us so often, though, it’s now kind of a non-event. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just mean that she’s become like one of the family, which is nice. I was too busy fighting viruses to go to a certain barbeque that she and Max stopped in on Sunday night, but he tells me I had some readers there. So: Hi, sorry I missed meeting ya’ll. But yes, that was MY Max. He said the food was amazing, BTW, so kudos to the chefs.

And no sooner will Midori leave us than we’ll have another guest. Bondage instructor Mark Yu arrives Thursday to stay with us for his weekend of workshops. It’s like Hotel Kink around here, I swear. But it’ll be interesting to meet Mark, since both Max and Roman speak highly of him at seeing him at ShibariCon. I’m sure his classes will be great, I’m looking forward to them.

And hey, ladies: Mark’s single, and he’s looking for pretty girls to tie up while he’s in town. I haven’t seen him, but Max and Roman say he’s nice-looking, and he certainly knows his way around a suspension point. So show up and bat your eyes at him, who knows what could happen.

That’s all for now, I think. I’m still getting caught up on my life. But I have a long post brewing in my head about sex work for later this week. It’ll talk about why doing sex work can be good for some people, but not so good for others.

I'm about to head off into my afternoon, but I had to put this up: If you go to college in Wisconsin, stop fucking! Unless you want to get pregnant and/or an STD. Contraceptive Rights Rolled Back In Wisconson.
Amazing. It won't stop there, either. Wait for it.

Okay, I think we have it under control. Finally. You guys were extremely helpful, thank you. Max liked your suggestions and booted in Safe Mode and twiddled some stuff, renaming and so on, and I think it worked. I'm being cautious and waiting before I declare certain victory. But I think we may be okay here.

God, spyware software writers are scum, aren't they? Maybe next time someone wants me to do a scene where I'm mad at them, instead of pretending they're Karl Rove or Rick Santorum, I'll pretend they're malware people. I'd tear them up...

We'll return to non-emergency blogging tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm going to do all the stuff I was going to do this past weekend, instead of wrassling with my machine.

The Perfidy of Spyware

All right, here's an appeal to the software geeks out there. Friday night, after I clicked on an ill-advised webpage, a huge flock of adware/spyware - and one Trojan virus - settled onto my computer and proceeded to wreak havoc. Grrr. (No, I didn't agree to download something - I'm not that stupid. It just leapt on me. I wasn't wearing a short skirt or anything.)

Now, after many, many tedious scans and sweeps with Norton and Spysweeper and Ad-Aware and SpyBot Search and Destroy, I've quarantined and deleted nearly all of the offending parties. But there is one thing, though, that keeps popping up and throwing SpySweeper into a panic. It's something called "system service62". Every time I reboot - and there's been a lot of rebooting in the last 36 hours - up pops SpySweeper telling me oh, oh, oh this is something bad. But whatever it is, it craftily evades our attempts to isolate and kill it. Thanks a bunch, SpySweeper, you're a regular Cassandra.

What is this and why is it freaking out one of my spyware program ? I've googled it, but found nothing comprehensible. I've checked with these guys and they don't recognize it. But it seems like it's something nasty, because while I think I've mostly got things under control, there are still some little glitches that make me think there's some funny stuff lurking under rocks. I'm definitely running a little slow, and something keeps changing my desktop background, re-arranging my icons, and resetting my IE* home page to MSN.com, all of which is highly annoying.

Suggestions? Other than "get a Mac" or "get Linux" which aren't helpful at the moment.

(*Yes, I should try a different browser, yeah yeah yeah... Up until this moment it's not been an issue, okay?)

More reader questions answered in the column this week....

And geeze, who knew ya'll would be so curious about the Sunday post? I probably shouldn't have said anything, because I am not going to give you any more information, sorry. It was a purely personal event, and a rather minor one in the grand scheme of things. It was just a happy, pretty day, with many happy, pretty people saying happy, pretty things to me that made me feel good. And I just felt like expressing my good happy prettiness.

This will be the last Thunder post, I swear. The lovely R., who Max and I played with Saturday night, sent me some snapshots of her marks, and I thought I'd share them. (I have her permission, of course.)

Now, if seeing bruises upsets you, DON'T go look. R is a high-capacity girl, especially for someone so new, and she took a lot from me and my David Morgan singletail. I don't get to play this hard very often, and I enjoyed it a lot. So did she - she smiled and laughed a number of times during the scene. And it was all completely safe, sane and consensual.

And just to give you an idea of how she felt about it, here's a little story. After the scene was over, I was sitting with her doing aftercare. She looked at me and said, "So, do you know any way to make the marks..."

She paused, and I thought she was going to say, "...go away faster", so I started telling her about taking arnica montana, a homeopathic remedy.

"No," she corrected me, "I want them to last longer."

Well. How completely charming.

Picture One
Picture Two ( The unscathed part in the middle of her butt is where the suspension ropes were. She allowed as how she was pleased she had an unmarked spot to sit on.)
Picture Three

I definitely don't play this hard with everyone, but I'm very pleased I got to do it with R.

The good news...I bought some new toys at Thunder…




Other Stuff...

This sounds like a dandy idea to me. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, folks. Charleston's a nice town, but I'd be willing to give your North Carolina, too, if you just go away and leave the rest of us alone. The bad news is: it's not likely to happen.

More bad news: If you like reading my blog, and other sexually-related matter, this should upset you. It's not just about big commercial porn companies. Your tax money is going to be spent censoring people like me for talking about sex and kink. Happy about that? I didn't think so. Give Barbara and the NCSF a few bucks so they can appeal the case.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
Contact:Susan Wright, NCSF Spokesperson(917) 848-6544

Communications Decency Act (CDA) Lawsuit July 26, 2005 - New York, NY
A three judge panel has made a decision in the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and acclaimed photographer Barbara Nitke's challenge against the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which criminalizes free speech on the Internet. According to the court, the plaintiffs presented "insufficient evidence" to support findings that the variation in community standards is substantial enough that protected speech is inhibited by the CDA.

According to the decision handed down by the Federal District Court for the Southern District of NY, in case #01 CIV 11476 (RMB): "The plaintiffs have offered evidence that there are at least 1.4 million Websites that mention "BDSM" (bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism)... The plaintiffs have submitted images and written works that represent material posted to a small number of Websites, that they contend may be considered obscene in some communities but not in others. These examples provide us with an insufficient basis upon which to make a finding as to the total amount of speech that is protected in some communities but that is prohibited by the CDA because it is obscene in other communities."

The court agreed that NCSF members and Barbara Nitke are genuinely at risk of prosecution under the CDA and that their speech has in fact been inhibited. According to the decision: "Nitke's fear that the CDA will be enforced against her is actual and well-founded. She has submitted objective evidence to substantiate the claim that she has been deterred from exercising her free-speech rights, and this fear is based on a reasonable interpretation of the CDA... NCSF has submitted objective evidence that one of its member organizations, TES, has been deterred from exercising its free-speech rights and that this deterrence is based on a well-founded fear that the CDA would be enforced against it."

John Wirenius, attorney for the plaintiffs, says, "We are disappointed that the court did not act on the uncontradicted evidence we presented that artists and citizens who are sexual minorities are disproportionately censored by the Government's ability to pick its own forum and standard for obscenity cases. The government brings obscenity cases where it knows it can get convictions."

"I am appalled by this decision," says co-plaintiff Barbara Nitke, a fine art photographer who explores sexual relationships in her work. "It is vitally important to keep the Internet free for education, the arts and open discussion on sexual topics. This law is a form of unfair censorship that must be stopped. I am absolutely going to appeal this."

NCSF challenged against the CDA law because personal websites and chat groups that include discussions and images of SM, swinging or polyamory are at risk of prosecution. Membership groups that maintain educational websites about adult sexuality are also at risk.

Under the Bush administration, nearly 40 prosecutors, as well as investigators and FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Obscenity is judged by "local community standards," which means that a religious political extremist in the Midwest can claim that a website from San Francisco is obscene and therefore illegal. NCSF is dedicated to proactively challenging the rise in obscenity and pornography prosecutions, including filing an Amicus Briefs in support of Extreme Associates, and supporting the Free Speech Coalition's injunction filed against the expanded record-keeping provisions of 18 U.S.C. B' 2257.

To contribute to the expenses of the CDA lawsuit, go to: www.ncsfreedom.org/donations.htm
Every dollar goes directly to ensuring free speech on the Internet.
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom - www.ncsfreedom.org
Barbara Nitke - www.barbaranitke.com



But wait, there's even more bad news! Apparently, you (or your partner) don't actually have a right to take doctor-prescribed birth control pills. You just thought you did, says (right-wing-whacko asshole) Rep. Steve King (R-IA). He and a bunch of other Republican buttheads are fighting for pharmacist's right to deny birth control pills to women with legal prescriptions for them. It's stunning, really - these are the same people who don't want you to have an abortion. You'd think they'd want you to not get pregnant! Go here and tell them you want women's right to take birth control pills protected.

Still recovering from a fabulous weekend of debauchery and no sleep. I spent some time with many really sweet and wonderful people at Thunder this year, both veteran kinksters and charming newcomers. I met Loki and Jewels, two readers of Roman and I, who are just great people and I hope to bump into them again sometime, even if they are on the other coast.

Also on the hit parade: the cute red-headed R, who let Max and I thrash her quite thoroughly at the dungeon party on Saturday might. Well, Max did the suspension part, I did the single-tail and flogging part. She's new to the community, but she certainly jumped in with both feet.
I just love being mean to cute girls, and they don't have to be new, either. At the Sunday night party, I stuck eighty-something needles in a sweet friend of mine, ably assisted by her boyfriend. It was lovely!

Everyone loved my Imp of Satan catsuits - I wore a red one Friday night and a silver one Saturday night, and everyone ooohed and ahhed at me, to include Ms. Nina Hartley. And when a porn icon tells you you look good, you know you're doing something right. Rossi was looking hot in a blue one, and we agreed that Rose should have given us business cards to pass out.

So when Max and I got our luggage back yesterday, we found that one of our bags had been searched. I wonder what the baggage inspectors though when they opened the bag and found this?




I'm sure it enlived their day….

Just walked in. I got three hours of sleep last night, my suitcases seem to have mysteriously doubled in weight since I left, my cat is climbing up my leg complaining of her terrible neglect, and I have thirty-one new phone messages.

I think I'll take a nap....

I love my life so much at this exact moment. Oh my God, do I love being me today.

The whole weekend's actually been tremendous fun, and I have stories to tell. But - yeah. Good day at the leather con today, yes, indeedy...



Postscript, five minutes later: Wow. Now I really, really love my life. Yes!

So, we're safely in Denver, after a slightly bumpy plane ride, during which I was pleasantly distracted by Harry Potter. (Mostly pleasantly, that is. Damn, I figured Ms. Rowling was going to kill off someone, but - wah!)

Now I intend to throw myself into enjoying the conference. Meanwhile, please be entertained by the new column and calendar... See you Monday!

So I'm leaving on a jet plane…

But here's another event announcement. I'm teaching a Spanking 101 class at Toys In Babeland on Sunday October 16th. It'll be from 7:30-9:30pm, and tickets are $35. We're calling it "spanking", but in fact, I'm going to talk about all manner of butt-impact stuff, from hand-spanking to flogging. If you've been wanting to meet me live, now's your chance.

And a moment of silence for the late James Doohan.

I'm busy packing and taking care of other last-minute details so Max and I can bug outta here Thursday - Denver, here we come.

Meanwhile, if you're wondering about that bachelorette party Roman and I did last week, here's what the bride-to-be had to say. (There's pictures, too - although they're not terribly flattering.)

Supreme Court nomination? Well, I knew there wasn't going to be anything I liked there. So much for a woman or a minority, huh? I'm sure by the end of the day, we'll know a lot more about this guy - from what kind of underwear he wears, to what he thinks about Jessica Simpson's descent into moral turpitude.

I bet Susan Paynter would look really good in a whalebone corset and a bustle. And if she's going to espouse such Victorian-paternalistic attitudes about protecting strippers from themselves, then she should wear them. It has nothing to do with hipness, Susan. It's about the fact that each individual person gets to decide what's "debasing" for themselves. The goverment is not the keeper of my personal integrity. You may not like what I choose to do with my body, but in this scenario, it's none of your business.

Bookshelf

Yes, I do have the new Harry Potter. But I haven't opened it yet - I'm saving it for the plane ride to Denver and back. I don't really like flying, you see. I'll do it, because it's the fastest way to get places. But I'm always a little nervous, and if there's any turbulence, I get very, very unhappy about that indeed. (Max claims he often has a bruise on his arm after bumpy plan rides with me, from me squeezing it so hard.) Having a good book to read is a little panacea for all that. So if you've already finished it, don't tell me anything!

What else am I reading?

Krav Maga: The Contact Combat System of the Israel Defense Forces, by David Kahn.
I don't expect to really learn anything from the book, but I wanted a greater understanding of what's involved. There's a local class in September that I'm planning to take.

Martial Arts for Dummies, by Jennifer Lawler. More research. I love the "For Dummies" books. I've got all kinds of them, on topics from World Religions, to Digital Video Editing, to Weight Training, to Home Buying. They're great.

Dancing With The Devil: The Windsors and Jimmy Donahue, by Christopher Wilson
From Publishers Weekly: Those interested in the empty but privileged lives of American Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) and her husband, the duke of Windsor (1894-1972), who renounced the British throne for her in 1936, will be absorbed by this gossipy story of the strange love triangle. Basically, the Duchess of Windsor had an affair. Having seen pictures of the duke, I can see why. (Apparently he was submissive and had a foot fetish, though, which might have made him my kinda guy.) Fun, historical-gossip fluff.

The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
Friedman writes well about a controversial subject – economic globalization. I got this as a gift, and I'm only a few chapters in, but it's very interesting.

Masquerade, by Walter Satterthwait. I liked Escapade so well that I bought this one. Satterthwait has given his protagonist, a Pinkerton agent, an appealing tough-guy-with-a-heart tone of voice. It's set in Paris the 1920s, so I'm expecting some allusions to the various expatriate artists and writers who were thick on the ground in that period.

False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes, by Thomas Hoving
From Library Journal: The former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art discloses shocking details of major art forgeries and the intricate chicanery of con artists who have duped the world's most prestigious art institutions, art experts, and collectors.
I get on these odd literary tangents, and the history of art forgeries is one of them. I don’t know why I find this interesting – I just do. It's sort of a backwards art history lesson.

Some Of Your Questions

Everyone has days where they feel like a "mental health" day but have responsibilities and can't take the day off. Do you cancel appointments in that case? Or can you (pardon the pun) whip yourself into the mood?

It's extremely rare for me to cancel appointments. You see, one of the things you learn over time in this business is exactly how much energy you've got to give your clients. For example, I know precisely how many hours of client time I can book for myself each week. I know that if I try to do more than that, I won't really want to be there, and those clients won't get as much as my energy as I feel they should. Therefore, I only book so many appointments per week, and so I never get to that wrung-out place. And I don't book people on weekends, so I know I have that time to rest and relax. It's important to pace yourself. If you plan ahead, you are far less likely to get to a place where you need to cancel appointments.

Occasionally, life does interfere with one's well-laid plans. At the height of the drama around my divorce a few years ago, I cancelled a few people because I was so very, very stressed-out. But in general, I don't think that "oh, I just don't feel like it" is an acceptable reason to cancel appointments. Unless there is a serious emergency, I honor my commitments. I admit, there have been some days when I really didn't feel so red-hot. But I take pride in what I do, so – I get my game on, and I do it. And 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. I actually have a whole little rant about how I feel about sex-work professionalism here.

What is the incidence of clients desiring electo-play, in your experience?
Well, I haven't made up any statistics on the matter, but off the top of my head, I'd guess about half. I usually introduce them to it, although once in a while I meet someone who's done it with someone else. It's a great way to play with people who cannot have any marks left on their body.

What do you think about sex workers who use Craig's List?
Ah, Craig's List - a democratic forum indeed, and some people may sneer at it for just that reason. It is rather like the wild, wild west on the "Erotic Services" board - definitely a caveat emptor situation.
But I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it. It's a boon to the part-time ladies who don't necessarily want to put up a website or pay for an Eros ad. And while the escort-review message boards that allow ladies to post are great in some ways, they usually want the women who post there to conform to their standards in terms of what information she gives out, how she conducts business, ect. And if you post there, you should expect to be reviewed there. I know some honest and trustworthy ladies who steer clear of those boards because they aren't comfortable with that. Naturally, if you own the site, then you get to make the rules, and I don't think honest guys should be ripped off or treated badly. But I also think that women should work how they wish to work, and some of the guys (although certainly not all of them) can be very quick to nit-pick at women who don't do things exactly as said guys think they should. Since I'm more about doing things exactly the way I think I should, that's not a model that works for me.

What kind of movies do you like to watch? Suspense thrillers, or reasonably intelligent comedy. (Or, really good silly comedy, like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", or "A Night at the Opera".) Max and I watched "Be Cool" last night and I was disappointed in that. I liked "Get Shorty", but this was a lame sequel. Odd in a movie that had so many talented actors.
I also like movies set in certain historical periods – it's a source of annoyance to me that I still haven't seen "Vanity Fair". I like the classics: "Some Like It Hot", "The Thin Man", "Rear Window", and "My Fair Lady".
Overall, I like tight plots and quick, witty dialogue. And don't go killing off my favorite characters.

Happy Friday, everyone... a quick post, because I only have a minute before Roman and I need to check out of the motel we're in. We're in Eugene, of all places. What are we doing in a small college town in central Oregan? Two words: bachelorette party.
It was completely wild. I think we ratcheted up the general kink quotient of this town several percentage points last night.
So more about that - and hopefully pictures as well - later. For now, go read my column and see how to make some kink happen in your own life.

Just a brief note, because I'm getting ready for a road trip. Roman and I are off to do something special. I can't say anything about it now - it's Top Secret. But I'll tell you about it tomorrow. For now, I've got music, a diet Mountain Dew, and a bag full of Rainier cherries. It'll soon be time for us to hit the road, vroom...

To my boys: I won't be back in town til late afternoon Friday, so no appointments today or tomorrow, sorry. Next week, I'm here in Seattle til Wednesday the 20th, and then I'm out of town at Thunder In The Mountains from Thursday the 21st to Monday the 25th. Because of all this traveling, I am considering taking Saturday or Sunday appointments this weekend only. So call me or email me if you're interested in that.

Oh, by the way: Does anyone know what language this is?

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An observant reader noticed my comment in yesterday's post and asked: "You say you don't usually have sex with your submissives. But you have sex with Roman, don't you? What makes him an exception?"

Good lord, let me make something clear right now. Roman is not my submissive. Roman is so very, very, not my submissive. Roman is not anyone's submissive. And that's because Roman is not submissive. At all.

And – if it even needs to be said – I'm not his submissive either.

He's my lover, which is an entirely different thing. And we do really kinky things with each other, because, well, we're just perverted that way. It gets us off. So I like sticking needles in him, and punching him in the chest and on the back with my fists, and biting him really hard, cutting him with a scalpel – you know, the sweet, loving kinds of things all lovers like doing to each other, right?

And he likes me doing that to him. It gets him an endorphin high, for one thing. And just last week, he had this big knot of muscle tension in his back from work and various other stress factors, and after I punched it for a while with my sharp little knuckles, why – it was gone. It's kinda like high-impact massage. The biting probably helped, too.

If you're new to kink, you may not yet understand that what someone does with their body, and where someone goes with their head, may be two very different things. But check out this little diagram I made.

See, two different scales. Dominance/submission is about the purely emotional/psychological aspect of BDSM. Sadism/masochism is about what you do with your body – the physical stuff. Every kinkster is at their own special place on these two lines. You might be at the far end of both scales – very dominant and very sadistic. (Did someone mention Max's name?) Or very submissive and very masochistic. But you can be any place at all on these scales, to include being say, very sadistic and very submissive, or very masochistic and also very dominant. Such a combination makes it more challenging to find appropriate kink partners, but not by any means impossible. And it's not at all uncommon to be not emotionally/psychologically submissive at all, but to enjoy some intense physical sensation. (What vanilla people would call pain.) Or maybe you don't like any intense sensation, but you do like to submit. Wherever you are, it's okay. And of course, where someone finds themself on this scale will often evolve over time.

So, is Roman a bit of an erotic masochist? Um, yeah. (Not that I know anything about that myself, oh nooooo.) But my god, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who's less submissive. This is the man who, as I was unsheathing needles to pierce him with, was laughing and taunting me. Like this…

"Oh, is that all you got? I thought you were going to do something seriously mean."
"Jesus, you are so asking for it," I replied.
"I mean – I thought you were some kinda nasty sadist. You're an Avon Lady, you know that. You're like – a Hummel Figurine collector. You're duckies and bunnies. You're –." He broke off and howled as I put the needle through his skin.
"Duckies and bunnies, am I?"
He gasped for air and took a few quick breaths. "You - are - little - pink - bunnies. With big pink bows on. Ow! Shit! That fucking hurt."
"Good. Look, I've got bigger needles. See this one? This is an 18 gauge. Looks like a railroad spike, doesn't it?"
"God, you are an evil bitch. Never change."
"I won't." I kissed him.

Essentially, Roman and I are both dominants, but we're dominants who like to play with sadism/masochism in the context of our sexual relationship. The brief moments of dominance/submission we sometimes have are playful, and they usually shift back and forth between us from one minute to the next. We do have dates where one of us is the official top for the evening, but a lot of the time, whoever has an idea will simply say, "Hey! Why don't I attach these clothespins to your naughty bits and then we'll have sex?" And the other person will say, "Sounds great!" It's pretty far from traditional, high-protocol BDSM, but why should we get hung up on rules at this stage of the game?

Some other day, when I'm feeling ambitious, I'll attempt to explain my relationship with Max... Now that's complicated.

Bio

Max and I are going down the Bay Area in September to present at the Folsom Fringe Festival. We haven't been to this particular conference before, but they asked us to come down, so we decided to give it a try.

Folsom Fringe is a relatively new con, being put on to coincide with the annual Folsom Street Fair. I've been to FSF before, of course. It's kinda like going to Jerusalem - every leather person should go at least once. FSF has been called "the grandaddy of all leather events", and that's true, as long as you understand that ol' granpappy will be wearing a studded leather jockstrap and not much else. And oh, there will be four hundred thousand people at grandad's house on the day of the party.

Yeah, I said four hundred thousand. It's really overwhelming. The streets are mobbed with people - mainly gay men, but other leather people too - cruising, shopping the vendor's booths, flirting, snapping pictures. I've been twice, and at the time I enjoyed prancing around downtown San Francisco with my shirt off - because this is very much a done thing at FSF - but that was a number of years ago, and I haven't had a strong desire to go back.

For one thing, I actually get sort of edgy in heavy crowds. And plus, the non-kinky tourists are becoming more of a presence every year. If you're dressed up fetishy, or doing anything at all interesting, random strangers will snap pictures of you like crazy and then do who-knows-what with them. I've run across refrigerator magnets at tourist stands at the Fisherman's Wharf with photos of my friends being spanked. I'm sure there are videos and DVDs with the kink equivalent of "Girls Gone Wild" out there somewhere. No thanks – if you're going to exploit my image I want to be paid for it. Last time I was running around topless at FSF I had a Super Soaker that I aimed at anyone who pointed a camera at me without asking permission. That scared most of 'em off, but I'm told the looky-loos are so prevalent now that it's impossible to deter them. So I will not be dressing up, or stripping down, this year. At least Roman will have a booth, so if the crowd gets to be too much, I'll have a sanctuary to escape into.

Max told me I needed to send the Folsom Fringe folks a bio and a picture, since I'm co-presenting. Going through my "bio" folder, I found this. J and I wrote and submitted these as our presenters bios for the Living In Leather conference in 1996, as a humorous protest against a wave of unbelievably pompous, overblown, and self-aggrandizing bios. Some people got the humor part, some people didn't... This isn't the one I'm sending to the Fringe folks. But J's part is very sweet, isn't it?

Mistress Matisse invented SM and everything about it. In her younger days, she did 4 to7 at the California Women's Penitentiary for lewd and lascivious behavior in conjunction with an assault with a deadly weapon. With the help of Thorazine, she has been acquitted of all felony charges since then. (Just don't get your hands too near her mouth…)

Her book, How I Invented SM And Everything About It, is forthcoming from Domlier-Than-Thou Press. But in spite of her massive international fame, to the SM community, she is simply and fondly known as Mistress Matisse - The Illuminated Imperial Goddess of All, Empress of All She Surveys, I'm-King-Of-The-World!, Domina of Dominas, Queen of the Nile, Princess Most High, Hostess with the Mostess, Defender of the Faith, Belle of the Ball, Genuflect-When-You-Speak-Her-Name, Czarina of all the Russias, Sultan of Swing, Miss Congeniality, Void Where Prohibited, Some Restrictions May Apply…

j belongs heart, soul and body to Mistress Matisse. She would like to add that her Mistress has, out of modesty, failed to mention that she is also...Genie of the lamp, lily of the valley, creature of the night, eye of the storm, and the heart of the matter. She once broke the backbone of society, and tipped over the pillar of the community. She is the leader of the band, inventor of the wheel, the salt of the earth, the life of the party, the rest of the story, the ghost of Christmas past, the singer of the song, the Fuck of the Century, the hair of the dog that bit you, the Secret Square, a lighthouse to others, the jewel on the crown, and the moral of the story. She has snatched the pebble and walked the ricepaper- has the keys to j's heart and its immediate surroundings. Most recently she is noted for hanging the moon and lighting the stars.

Hate those London bombers. Hate 'em. If you're one of my Brit readers, please pipe up and let us know you're okay. I wish Belle would post so we knew she was all right.

However, in spite of fresh evidence (as if we needed it) of truly evil people in the world, I'm still a happy girl. For one thing, I got to be very, very nasty indeed to Roman last night. He's got some really charming bruises and bite marks and needles marks on his chest and back, and my knuckles are a little sore from pounding on him. We had a great time.

Meanwhile, go read my newest column. And don't forget about that porn contest we're having, I want to see some of your nasty fun.

This Is A Test...

I saw this on Ketzl's LiveJournal and decided to steal it. I don't know Ketzl personally, but I know who she is, if that makes sense. Kink is a small town sometimes.

It's a humiliation purity test, and apparently I'm pretty damn impure. Ketzl says, "Some questions are phrased from the point of view of the dominant, others from the submissive. Give yourself one point for each no answer if you were at either end of the event. Also, the event must have occurred within the context of a romantic, sexual or sadomasochistic relationship; you may have had an evil drill instructor but that does Not Count."

So the questions are hers, the answers in red are mine.

Humiliation Purity Test
Have you ever made someone do the following, or been made to do the following:

1. Engaged in fornophilia (turned someone into an ottoman, coffee table, bookshelf, lamp, etc)
Oh, yes. Have you met my friend Jeff Gord?

2. After orgasm, making sub eat his/her own cum (It's good for you, you know.) Yes.

3. Always address you as Sir, Ma'am, Lord Vader, etc. Yes.

4. Been made to wear a buttplug under your clothing? Yes.

5. In public? Yes.

6. Engaged in Age Play (any kind of age play)? Yes.

7. How about Infantilism? (Let's say up to 2 years, so we're really including Toddlerism here.) No, not my kink.

8. Helpless Old Person Play? (Ewww.) Ew is right, no.

9. Made someone wear a diaper? Yes.

10. Had a baby pacifier tied around your neck in public? In-teresting. But no.

11. Enforced bathroom control? (Guns don't kill people, bathrooms do.) Yes.

12. Bathroom use in front of others. If you did this of your own volition it doesn't count, peemeister. Do you have no shame? Yes.

13. Become a human ashtray? (Soon to be banned in New York.) Yes, even though I don't really smoke.

14. Been made to beg for cigarettes, drinks, a higher spot for your show on TiVO's recording priority list, etc. Yes.

15. Worn a blindfold? (Hey we had to throw an easy one in.) Of course!

16. Indulged in boot worship at odd moments. Yes.

17. Had a cavity check in private? Yes.

18. Cavity check in public? ("Waiter, check please-- ooh I didn't know it was THAT kind of restaurant".) Define "public". But I think yes.

19. Been caged? Of course.

20. Been caged and then ignored for at least 20 minutes? Yes.

21. Been forced to carry a doll or toy around? Define "forced". She didn't protest...

22. Forced someone to suck their thumb? No.

23. Crawl on all 4s? Dur - of course!

24. Had someone cum or urinate into your food? No, although it's a nice idea.

25. ...and then eaten it? (see #2) Nasty, nasty people!

26. Been the target of curse words? (Whore, Slut, Worthless-- all in good fun though.) Too easy.

27. Made to curtsey in public? (And not at a Renn Faire, wench.) Yes. Jae was a debutante and we used to make her show us her curtsey.

28. Do a dance/strip tease? A number of times.

29. In public? Yes.

30. While naked? What's the point otherwise?

31. Had someone else pick out your food? (The waiter doesn't count.) Yes.

32. Dictate your clothing? Is this dominant? I do this for Max all the time. Although we call it "suggesting".

33. Had someone pee in your bathwater? No - does peeing on someone while you're in the shower together count?

34. Eat from a pet dish? Yes.

35. Eat from the floor when others were sitting at the table? Yes.

36. Eat without utensils when the food required them? (Pizza does not count.) Yes.

37. Made someone assume embarrassing positions? Too easy.

38. Gave someone an enema? Yes.

39. Enforced eye contact restrictions? Yes.

40. Been fed from someone's hand? Yes.

41. ...in a restaurant? (aww how romantic) Yes.

42. Indulged in foot worship? Oh, just like ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME!

43. Forced to exercise? (Your physical trainer's verbal humiliation doesn't count) Yes.

44. Forced nudity? Yes.

45. Been made to masturbate in odd places? (Currently accepting write-in suggestions for what counts as odd.) Yes.

50. Were up for bid in a slave auction? Yes.

51. Forced to sell lemonade in the street? (No one's getting 100% on THIS test, smarty.) Well, no.

52. Forced to wear an embarassing sign ("SLUT", "SLAVEBITCH", "I VOTED FOR BUSH", etc)Yes.

53. Forced to be a slave (if you're in graduate school, your advisor DOES count. On your knees student!) Once again, define "forced". But I think so.

54. Forced to wear a leash? Yes.

55. Given a golden shower? (You know what I'm talking about.) See answer for number 42.

56. Been made to wear handcuffs in public? Yes.

57. Been handcuffed to a shopping cart while shopping? Isn't that against the fire code?

58. Been part of a harem? Can two people be a harem? I'm not sure about this one.

59. Made to wear a hood? Yes.

60. Used as a human garbage can? Yes.

61. Been tied up? Yes.

62. So you couldn't move? Yes.

63. Back to bathroom use again. Have you ordered someone to leave the bathroom door open while they use it? Yes.

64. Left a note for someone with embarrassing instructions? Yes.

65. Been whored out? Not 100% sure how to call this one, but I think yes.

66. I mean really, for money? I think the phrase is "Busman's Holiday".

67. Been made to deliver Maid services? Yes.

68. Forced someone to wear your dirty underwear? Yes.

69. On their head? Yes.

70. Made someone wear nipple clamps in public? Yes.

71. Under a see thru top? Yes.

72. Been subject to orgasm control? Yes.

73. How about orgasm denial? Yes.

74. Been made to role play an animal? (Act like a dog, cat, etc. Woof!) Yes.

75. Ordered to pose for naughty pictures? Yes.

76. How about naughty videos? Yes.

77. Been scolded? Yes.

78. Spit on? Yes.

79. Slapped in the face? Yes.

80. Sent shopping with an embarassing note you had to hand to the clerk? ("We're out of milk. He's kind of slow, please point him to the dairy section".) No, not quite my style. Cute idea though.

81. Made to serve others (supervised) Yes.

82. Made to serve others (unsupervised) Yes.

83. Served as a human urinal? Yes.

83. Served as a human toilet? (EWWWW not safe.) No thanks.

84. Had your head shaved? (Obviously more traumatic for women.) Yes. I even have pictures...

85. Made to shave your body hair? Yes.

86. How about your pubic hair? Yes.

87. Been given a temporary slave tattoo, or other temporary humiliating body art? Yes.

88. Been given a permanent slave tattoo, or other permanent humiliating body art? Define "permanent". Cutting scars fade over time.

89. Spanked someone in public? Yes.

90. Been under speech restriction? ("Don't say a word to my parents about my grade in biochem" doesn't count.) Yes.

91. Spelled "Slave" or other choice phrase on someone with suntan lotion & made them get tan? I squandered an opportunity when I was living down South, didn't I? No.

92. Made someone stand in the corner? Yes.

93. Been cuckolded? I think this is a yes.

94. Cum on someone's face? Yes.

95. Made them wear it til it dried? (Oil of Olay's secret ingredient!) Yes.

96. Been forced to wear slutty clothes? Yes.

97. Made to piss yourself? I think yes, although they were naked at the time. Does that count?

98. Made to vote for someone you disapproved of? Now that's sadistic. No.

99. Forced to take a purity test? Yes.

100. Forced to take a purity test over and over, updating your score until you got 100%? Will this be the newest kink trend?

Text of a not-uncommon type of email for me...

Mistress M.,

First of all, let me say your blog is a beacon of light on an otherwise dreary afternoon. I'm sure what I'm about to ask you is a fairly commonplace scenario, so let me apologize ahead of time for boring you. My fiancee and I...(edited for privacy)...live in Seattle, and I haven't figured out how to advance my social network... I've ventured out a bit, but what I find here is mostly either people who are overly intrigued with non-sanitary piercing/knife play, or else swing clubs filled with older suburban types who are engaged in the most unnerving displays of rote debauchery imaginable. Here's my question...how would we meet you or somene like you? I'm not sure you have a dopelganger here in Seattle, but maybe if I knew how you were finding interesting people here, I could do a better job of finding such people myself.

Hmmn. I'm pleased, of course, that this gentleman likes my blog - that's always nice to hear. And I salute him for wanting to add kink to his life and the life of his partner.

But I think he's got some mistaken assumptions about me. You see, I myself enjoy non-sanitary piercing and knife play. In fact, a great many things I like could concievably be labelled "non-sanitary". They're often slippery, sticky, or wet. I can think of enjoyable kinky things that you could call "sanitary", but I wouldn't want to rule out my more messy pleasures.

Rote debauchery? Eh, not so much. No, I prefer my debauchery to be sort of spontaneous, or even anarchic. Much more fun that way, I find. But I don't think that being over 30, or living in the suburbs, should bar you from enjoying whatever kind of sex you like, even if lookers-on don't find it esthetically pleasing.

The clever among you have inferred from this that I don't approve of being overtly snobbish about other people's pleasures. Naturally one does not partake of anything one doesn't care for. God knows, there are lots of sexual things I have no interested in doing. But except in really extreme cases, I prefer the "My Kink Is Okay/Your Kink is Okay" way of looking at things. Writing me and dissing people like this doesn't impress me.

So the author is mistaken in assuming I share his tastes. And he's also mistaken in thinking that there are some secret places in Seattle frequented exclusively by those whose taste he would approve of. That's simply not true. There are no secret fetish clubs in Seattle. (Or if there are, they are so very secret that I don't know about them - an unlikely notion.)

It's relatively easy to access the local kinky world - I publish a list of sexy events every week in The Stranger, and it's only a small portion of what's available. I'm betting the author has been to the Wet Spot, and that it's one of the places he's ruled out as not being his style. He's allowed to do that, of course. But if he's looking for people like me - well, I go there on a regular basis, and so do most of my interesting friends. My guess is he went once, didn't like what he saw, so he left and never went back. That's the most common mistake I see people making in their attempts to get a kinky social life. I think they're expecting a party at the Spot to look like a scene from an Andrew Blake movie. No, not everyone you see will be young and beautiful and doing the kinds of kinky things you'd like to do yourself. But my advice to people is to let go of that and think about making friends. I know lots of people who do stuff in their scenes that I personally don't wish to do. That doesn't mean we can't be pals, and it definitely doesn't mean that they have nothing to contribute to my continuing evolution as a kinky person. And you see, once you start making kinky friends, then - tah-da! - then you're on your way to creating your own social network, based on mutual interests and personal style.

That's how this is done. Yes, it takes time, and it takes some effort. Good things usually do. I'm always a bit surprised that people who are obviously smart and educated need me to tell them that one finds interesting kinky people by a) not snap-judging them based simply on appearance or taste in kink and b) by simple perseverance and patience. I sincerely hope that's a beacon of light for someone.

Here's an ABC News story out of Australia about "types of sex workers."
Huh, color me skeptical. The trouble with these kinds of studies is that the numbers are based on women who've been arrested or, in this case, women who have STDs. It's not really a representative sample, so the study is invariably flawed.

It's certainly interesting to hear that professional dominance is "unique to wealthy countries". Presuming one accepts that as true, it raises the question: Is that because men in poorer countries don't feel the need for kink? Or is it just that the women there find it better to be generalists than to specialize in one area?

It may have to do with the legal structures of different countries. One reason why a Mistress in the US might stick to domination exclusively is because it's more-or-less legal in many (although not all) areas. If one lived in a poorer nation, where laws against prostitution were not in place, or were not enforced, one might offer a range of services in order to maximize one's client base.

And in a different but related study: get out your rulers, it's the average sizes of men's penises...

Are There Any Questions?

I'm thinking of writing a "reader's questions" column soon, so if you have a question you've been wanting to ask me, drop me a note, or leave me a comment...

A rare Sunday post…

Lately, I'm feeling a yen to do something different with my body. No, not like that! I mean something athletic. I've been working out in the gym for years and it's getting a bit boring - I'd like to work my body in a different way. (No, this is not because Gym Guy is bothering me - I actually haven't seen him since our conversation.)

The last time I felt this way, I started taking trapeze and aerial rope lessons from a woman who performs in Circus Contraption. It was something I'd always wanted to try, and it was great fun, although the trapeze bar bruised the backs of my knees like crazy. I was actually considering installing a (low) trapeze in my studio for a while. But after a while, I realized that I didn't really want to take it to a performance level, so I let it drop.

Now I'm thinking about martial arts, so I'm looking for some opinions about styles and classes in Seattle. I've never studied any martial arts, but I've always thought about it and I feel like it might be time to explore this more. I'm hoping to get Max to do it with me, too, although I think he's more attracted to the spiritual/mental discipline aspect of martial arts, and I don't care so much about that. I'm looking for physical development - not aerobic stuff per se, because I can run for that. But strength and coordination, plus some fighting techniques.

I doubt I'd want to compete formally, so that's not something I'd be looking for.

I've heard good things about Aikido and Tae-Kwon-Do. Someone suggested Krav Maga classes for self-defense, although I understand that’s not a real martial art. I know that Karate is considered a good fighting technique and that Judo is an intense body workout. Still, there are seemingly endless lists of sub-forms and lesser-known disciplines, and I'm open to those, too.

I do know some folks who do various forms of MA, so I'll be talking to them, too. (Yeah, I mean you, Dog_Walker.) But if any of ya'll have suggestions about local schools and teachers, I'd be interested in hearing about them.

Photos, Continued...
Wow, I'm loving all the feedback about the pix, thank you. (And yes, Malixe, we do need to shoot. It's been too long.) Since my comment system locks at 50 comments, I'm starting another post so that comments can continue. Have at it.

Happy holiday weekend, everyone. Through my open window, I'm already hearing the scattered pops and bangs that means people are experimenting with fireworks. I'm not a big 4th-of-July fan, but last year Max and I spent an enjoyable evening at a friend's apartment overlooking Lake Union, and we'll be there watching fireworks again this year. Cross your fingers the deck doesn't fall off the building as a dozen or so of us squeeze onto a structure probably designed to hold four people.

What else? Go read my column, of course. I'll be listening for a few wails of despair from disappointed guys.

And an opinion poll: I did a shoot with Tommy Edwards last week, and I'm starting to sort through what images I should use on my site. So tell me which of these photos you like best.
Number One
Number Two
Number Three
Number Four

I Love Porn

So if you read many adult blogs, you've probably heard of the new 2257 rules by now. If you haven't, you should, because it's going to affect the lives of a lot of Americans. I'm talking about the proposed new Federal record-keeping and labeling regulations, 18 U.S.C. §2257.

Short version is: I'm totally against child porn, as any decent person is, but none of these regulations are going to do shit to stop it. It's just the Bush administration's way of trying to suppress free speech. I feel reasonably sure that it'll be overturned in court, or at least heavily watered down, because it will have a very chilling effect on free speech, and there's a great deal of case law about this sort of thing. But it's going to be a huge pain in the ass until that happens.

There's a ton of links to info about the new regulations and how it's going to affect what you see – and believe me, it's definitely going to affect what you, as a supposedly free adult, can see. Here's a link that explains it in simple terms. What more info? Go here, or here, or here. And then go contribute some money to the Free Speech Coalition, who are fighting for your right to look at porn.

What else should you do to combat this wave of sex-negative sentiment? Why, you should make some porn of your own! The Stranger is having an amateur erotic video contest, and you should enter. Read all about it here. They want all kinds of stuff - serious, silly, weird, straight, queer, kinky, soft, hard, whatever. If you think it's sexy, make a tape and send it in.

I myself am judging this lovely event - and am I looking forward to that? Oh yes, I am! - so I can't enter it. But don't you like the idea of me watching you do the nasty? I wanna see some good hometown smut, Seattle, so get those cameras rolling, pronto!

So, remember the Gym Guy? He did, finally, make the approach. It was last week. I was alone, walking out the door after a workout, when I saw him walking quickly on a course to intercept me before I got to the elevators. Okay, here we go, I thought. But I still didn't make eye contact or slow down. No sense giving him any false hope.

Now, since he works at the gym, of course he knows my real name. He called it out after me - several times - so I stopped. Courtship Tip Number One: Trotting after a woman you don't really know calling out her name in a public place = bad manners.

"Yes?" I said coolly.

"Uh, yeah, I kinda wanted to talk to you. Um, you know - about your ad."

Okay, let's be clear – I don't think Gym Guy is a bad person. But this is very, very bad form. Do not chase me down at my gym, or the supermarket, or my dry cleaners, and ask me about my ad. If you know I have an ad, then just call the bloody number in said ad. That is proper procedure.

I raised one eyebrow. "My ad?"

"Yeah, uh, you know." Gym Guy is very muscular. He's not exactly eloquent, though. I was short on time, so I cut to the chase.

"My ad as Mistress Matisse."

He nods. "Yeah." And then he just sort of stares at me.

Christ, this is just like one of my phone calls. "Okay – first of all, what's your name?" Courtship Tip Number Two: Introducing yourself to a woman you're hitting on is also considered basic good manners.

He tells me his name, and I hold out my hand and say, "Nice to meet you." We shake hands. I believe in forcing people to observe the social niceties, it's part of living in a (soi-disant) civilized society.

"Okay, what do you want to know?" I say in (I hope) a patient voice.

"Oh, uh, I don't know, like – what's it all about?"

There's no way I'm going to give an SM 101 lecture to this guy while we're standing in the public corridor. So I give the phone rap:

ImakeappointmentsMondaythroughFridayfromaroundnoontoaroundeightpm, It'stwohundredandfiftydollarsforaonehoursession, andI'mgeneallybookedabouttwodaysinadvance.

Gym Guy looks confused.

"Have you seen a professional dominant before?"

"No, uh, I wasn't really thinking about that so much, you know, just, you know, general stuff."

This is one of the least well-organized attempts to hit on me that I've ever experienced. General stuff? What the hell does that mean? He wants to talk about John Vines?

"Well, if you're looking for basic information about the Seattle BDSM community, I have some links on my website, the URL's in my ad."

He shakes his head. "No, I'm computer-illiterate."

Thank god for small mercies. At least I know he isn't reading this.

"I was just thinking, you know, that you'd be cool to hang out with."

Okay, so in spite of the fact that he began the conversation by asking me about my ad, he's actually looking for a social encounter, not a professional one. Wow, zero points for this whole attempt, my friend, you pretty much screwed up from the get-go.

And what's this hang out with stuff? Friends hang out - but I'm quite certain Gym Guy didn't chase me down the hall because he's looking for a platonic friendship with me. Courtship Tip Number Three: If you're asking someone out on a date, have the courage of your convictions and say so. Don't pussyfoot around with vague terms like hang out. I have been know to hang out with my mom. Saying hang out when you mean go on a date is candy-assed. Use your words, people.

When I related the "you'd be cool to hang out with" line to Max, he laughed and said, "You shoulda said 'You're right!'"

Of course, I didn't. What I did was give Gym Guy a small, closed-lip smile and Polite Brush-Off Number Eleven. "Well, that's very sweet of you, but I'm actually quite busy. It was nice meeting you. Goodbye." And walked away.

Not that I think that's the end of it. Roman's opinion is that he'll try at least twice more. "Guys are dumb, it takes us a couple of thwacks before we stop hitting our heads on walls."

Interesting: he didn't mention the column at all, just the ad. Has Gym Guy not actually noticed that I write the column? But if he hasn't, is he then not aware that I'm poly? I am paraphrasing the conversation, but he also made no mention whatsoever of Max, although he's seen me with him more often than not. Odd.

Let me head off some of the well-intentioned comments: I do not think that Gym Guy is in any way dangerous. He was hitting on me. That's what guys do. Granted, it was a wildly clumsy hit and I'm indulging in some eye-rolling, oh-what-you-could-have-said about it. But I have no sense that he presents any threat to me or he's going to act seriously inappropriate about my refusal. And I predict that I'll actually be less tense around him now that that I know I wasn't incorrect in my assessment of his behavior.

Call For Victims - Er, I Mean, Play Partners...

So, Roman and I are going to Thunder In The Mountains in July, and we're thinking that we might like to gang up on some sweetly masochistic person and be very mean to them. No, we're not going to do another contest, sorry. The Weakest Kink contest was big fun, and we did get to meet the charming and lovely Krystal, but we're opting for a simpler route this time: if you're going to be at Thunder, and you'd like to bottom to us, you're welcome to drop us a note, or just come talk to us at Thunder.
What you should know: I can't speak for Roman, but I myself am seeking someone who can take a good hard flogging/singletailing. I don't get to do that too often and it's fun to do in a public dungeon. You will be marked up.
I'd like to do bloodsports as well - needles or cutting - if you're into that, although it's not a requirement.
Your gender is immaterial to me, although Roman also has a vote and he generally likes girls.
No sex - although I would happily do genitorture, if asked.
I'm unlikely to commit firmly to a date via email - I'd prefer to meet people in person before saying yea or nay - but you can get a head start by introducing yourself to me electronically before the con begins.
I'm sure Roman will be posting his own grocery list, so check for that in the next few days...

Now it's time to get back on the road to Seattle, as our little mountain idyll has come to an end...

Hello from the mountains. The weather here is cool and wet and rainy and we haven't set foot out of the cabin since we arrived, unless you count sitting in the hot tub. But then we didn't plan on getting out much. (Although I just know Roman really wants to go see the albino alligator and the two-headed turtle at that small-town reptile farm we passed...)

Roman has already cooked me way too much yummy food, and I can't even go running because of the rain. Oh darn.

We can hear the rushing of the river from our bedroom. There's a peaceful sense of apart-ness here which we're really enjoying.

In short, we're having a perfectly lovely time.

Fixed! Thank you, brilliant helpful person, She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named!