A while ago I was working in a private show booth at a peep show.  I had a guy come in with a special request.  He walked in, locked the door, and starting putting 20s into my counter — clearly a regular, but not one I’ve seen before.  So I start playing up my school girl theme of the evening, and asking him what he wants to see.  I always give customers a chance to tell me what they want even though most of them stutter along about wanting to see whatever I’ve got.  This guy knew exactly what he wanted.

“Dominate me.”  It wasn’t a command; more like a whispered plea.

How do you dominate someone through a glass wall?  I’m sure it can be done, but with a complete stranger, I’m not the girl to do it.  Still, I was on the clock.  I went straight for the fantasy talk and he kindly provided the fantasy.  Either my dirty-talk skills benefited from the on-the-job training I’d been getting, or some men come on command, but a few rounds of “don’t you just want to lick my shoes you filthy little slut” later and I thought I had another satisfied customer under my belt.

But as soon as the guy’s orgasm was over he turned beet red.  He practically burrowed into the wall while trying to simultaneously put his pants on, shove a very generous tip into my box, and apologies for making me do that.  Pants on, he ran out of the both faster than any customer before or since.

It breaks my heart that anyone would be so ashamed of their desires.  I swear, I want to take them home like lost puppy dogs.

A while ago I made an off-hand comment to a friend: “why do the gays have nicer things than we do?” “Double income, no kids,” he replied without a pause. It’s easy to think that more disposable income converts to a higher quality of life. But it’s not about the money. It’s about the lifestyle. It’s about being part of a community that has stood up in the face of opposition, repression, and abuse to say that our desire is more important than our acceptability. It’s about valuing desires, legitimizing desires, and prioritizing desires. It is about hedonism being an intrinsic part of our every relationship, and about scandal as price of admission. Privilege is a belief system not a bank balance.

Isn’t it time you claimed your desires?

Recently I had a wonderful conversation with Sexgeek about the nature and use of protocols in a D/s relationship. I’ve wanted to incorporate protocols into some of the things I do for a while, but it’s always a challenge coming from a very liberal and fluid place to make that meaningful.

One of the things Sexgeek kindly pointed out is that protocols are an expression of something that is already there. Following protocols does not make important emotional work happen. However, when important emotional work has happened or is happening using titles and protocols can be a good way to codify it. It creates a structure around something that is already there, and doesn’t that just sound more organic than kneeling because you saw it in the porno?

So what protocols have you used in this context and what have they meant to you?

I broke a nail taking my computer out of its bag, which made me think of the good old days before my nails were brittle. Before I lost 15% of my body weight in a month, and before I learned to ignore all instances of food poisoning not accompanied by fever. Those same good old days before my arm was peppered with little white scars from all the things that populate my WHO card – Japanese Encephalitis, Yellow Fever, Hep A. Those days before I realized that shampoo is a luxury item, or tried to shave my legs in an outhouse.

Four months later and I am still in culture shock. Initial culture shock, initial adjustment, secondary culture shock, final adjustment. Final adjustment can take up to a year, and this is not an unfamiliar process. Palo Alto makes me uncomfortable not because of its wealth but because if its lack of perspective. America makes me uncomfortable for the same reason – it’s so easy not to know.

Bullshit.

This is a sentiment that flowed through many of the emails I got in response to my houseboy search, and it made me cringe every time. Sexism does not magically become acceptable when it puts women in power. Furthermore, describing one group of people as fundamentally superior to another for the purposes of one individual’s sexual or emotional gratification plays into a history of oppression I would prefer to leave outside my bedroom.

This is the kind of thinking that has aided in the oppression of women and minorities, and fueled genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. On a more personal level it disregards the experiences of submissive women and switches, and puts an undo pressure on dominant women.

A naked man kneeling in front of me waiting to do my bidding is a hot fantasy. Being able to buy one at a slave auction is a hot fantasy. There is a difference, however, between fantasies of slavery and reality and I have this nagging fear that some of the people who responded to me are not aware of that. We have tried slavery, and we as a society have decided against it over a hundred years ago.

And as an aside, the last man who said “I’ll do anything, mistress” was relieved of his pants and sent down the block to fetch coffee. You might want to consider the range of anything before saying something of the sort.

Just as I was winding down from talking May’s ear off about my domming angst I come across this post by Bitchy Jones.

I am so glad there is someone else out there who stands around putting foul things in her mouth to see if it is doable. And maybe I am not the only woman out there whose response to burning herself with a too hot candle is “oh, I’m glad I tried that first.” It’s outrageous that I actually waste time wondering if I am not bitchy, demanding, and heartless enough to be a good domme. I panic about not being able to cause enough pain and then the next day look at my handiwork and panic about the fact that I seem to qualify for a job with the Chinese riot police.

I find it frustrating that tops aren’t supposed to ever be flustered or unsure. Of course “oops” is the last think you want to hear when you’re tied up, but for the love of god do you think I was born knowing how to throw a single tail?

</rant>

This is adapted from the poem For Every Woman by Nancy R. Smith. Artwork by the anarchist collective CrimethInc.

Just a random shot from the shoot that had me up at 5am this morning. I might post more as I get them.

I went to a reading on Thursday night from Best Sex Writing 2008. It’s an excellent collection of essays covering topics from circumcision to racial identity in human sexuality research. I am really impressed by the work that is being done in sexuality. We’ve come a long way since Freud. We’ve even come a long way since Foucault addressed the nature of identity thereby (in my opinion) creating the foundation for modern research in human sexuality.

As anyone who has ever written, in an academic fashion, about human sexuality can attest it is a fine balance between professional and boring; between sexy and lewd; and between mass market appeal and pop-psychology. It is a balance that I believe is very important to this field because I am not interested in writing sex for men in white lab coats. I am not interested in recording data in the annals of scientific journals. No, I want my work to be accessible and influential on an individual level. Foucault gave us the parameters in which to do our research. However, it is contemporary authors such as Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, and Dossie Easton who gave us sexual non-fiction that penetrates our own lives. They laid the foundation for a sex-positive culture, and for the acceptance of sex work. They addressed our own desires, and challenged our established notions of morality. This is not social science research in the tradition of Freud, it is a personal narrative steeped in the methods of women’s studies courses, and second wave consciousness-raising. As such, I would not call it science. Though there is some excellent scientific research being done on topics such as the physical phenomena of orgasm, the effects of circumcision, and spread of sexual transmitted diseases, the field of human sexuality emerges from an interdisciplinary curriculum and must broach the spectrum from biology to fine art.

A couple of days ago I was slightly drunk and planning the rest of my life with a friend over drinks in the Mission. It had been a toss-up as to whether, come Fall, I would be applying to graphic design programs or human sexuality/sociology programs. My reaction to the idea of putting off a graduate program in human sexuality demonstrated to my own satisfaction that this is what I want to do with my life. I don’t actually know what I would do with a master’s in human sexuality. I suspect I would get a PhD and sell my soul to academia. My mother did it, and her father before her – it’s a family tradition. Hell, in my family you sit at the kids table until they can call you doctor. “Could you pass the potatoes, Doctor.” It’s really interesting to work with sex in a non-sexual manner. It makes perfect sense to me, but it’s hard to explain to other people. Maybe I’m over saturated, after all sex isn’t just a fun thing I do late at night, it’s my work, my writing, and my art. To do that, and still be able to interact with society at large, requires some compartmentalization, but I think that’s a post onto itself.

I got poetry. I got pictures of penises. I got some very heartfelt sounding propositions and at least one statement of “bitch, you crazy.” I got advice from friends, along with a list of recommended interview questions.

All this is because I posted a craigslist ad looking for a houseboy. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for ages, and I think my own life is stable enough right now that I can bring in people that are dependent on my whim to some degree or another. My ad contained very little information about me, no physical description, and a request that I be spared pictures of penises. By and large I think this worked out well, though I have yet to make an actual decision, and have spent the last two hours sorting through email and trying to reply to as many as I could.

Anyone else care to share their houseboy experiences?