I was watching QandA last night on ABC. The topic of our newly ‘hyper-sexualised’ society was brought up. First I have to say I find this notion that we are more hyper-sexualised now than we were before to be seriously flawed. I mean in the 19th century anglo-cultures the obsession with sex was bordering on pathological. It was sex phobic but sex obsessed, a society caught in waves of irrational fear and loathing whilst utterly fascinated. Even the shapely legs of the TABLES had to be covered for fear it might excite a man into having sexual thoughts about women. The obsessions with sex pervades every human culture and crosses spacial and temporal borders. Humanity oscillates between bursting out of it’s self inflicted sexual repression and recoiling back into it in fear. However, whether we are embracing sexuality or phobic and repressing sexuality, humanity has and will alway be obsessed with sex one way or another. I challenge anyone to direct me toward one example of a human culture that was ambivalent about sex and its sexual mores. Humans, apart from a small asexual component, are hypersexual to varying degrees. It’s okay for men, women and all gender identities to be so. It’s okay, really, take a deep breath and relax. We just need to admit it and be practical about it and EVEN HANDED, so stop judging some humans more than others for expressing their hyper-sexuaity. 

Last night on QandA Tony Jones asked Silivia Nasar “Do you think we live in hypersexualised society?” and her response was…

“I do judging by the way that young girls dress. I have mixed feelings about it…  on the one hand it’s great people aren’t as hung up, and certainly girls arent as hung up, but I also feel that it also feels like a big step backward that girls feel that that’s the only way they can make themselves interesting, that feels kind of sad”

This is exactly the pervasive gender biased sentiment that lurks behind the term ‘hyper-sexualised’.  Personally, I find Silvia’s assumption that dressing in a way that is sexually provocative must also imply that women do not value themselves or their other qualities to be sad. I think it is that all too common false association that is the step backwards and indeed has it’s roots in the binary gendered double standard around sexual conduct. Why do we assume that women who want to dress in a sexually provocative fashion don’t respect themselves and don’t value their other qualities as just as interesting? It is possible to simultaneously dress as a “hyper-sexual” (the intellectuals slut shaming term) and also believe you have a great intellect and personality.

I hope the fear, the judgement and manipulation masked as concern that is behind the pejorative use of the term ‘hyper-sexualised’ goes out of fashion as quickly as those gross hyper-colour t-shirts that changed colour where you got hot (tits and armpits). The use of the phrase in this current pejorative context of shaming human sexuality, especially female sexual dress and conduct, is as embarrassing as wearing those shirts turned out to be.

Humans like sex, all genders of humans like sex. Some like it more than others but generally gender isn’t the deciding factor in that. Gender is the deciding factor in how we react to other humans expressing overt sexuaity though. Creatures that like sex like to put on displays to attract the sexual attention of those in it’s species that it desires. All genders do this but we seem particularly preoccupied about women doing it as something negative, as implying that we can either be overtly sexual women in dress and conduct or women that respect ourselves and cultivate our other qualities but never the twain shall meet. Whereas men with their top off in public doesn’t imply the same connotations about their other qualities, in fact it doesn’t even require a mention when concerns are voiced about the victims of our ‘hyper-sexualised’ culture. ‘Hyper-sexualised’ is just that hackneyed double standard dressed up in new clothing. That double standard that men can be overtly sexual without any concern for their self respect whereas women do not enjoy the same freedom to be overtly sexual beings.

I can find you countless images of almost every male celebrity of today with his shirt off being happily sexualised and ogled by all genders attracted to masculinity. No one bats an eyelid. However, female celebrities when boob is seen accidentally, on purpose or on purpose parading as an accident what a song and dance we make about it. We create a double standard by insisting that the trend of women willingly showing their flesh is more problematic for society than men showing theirs. We hyper-sexualised women’s bodies by insisting that they be covered more than mens because of this and insinuating negative connotations for women who want to show more skin. We continue to send the message to women that if they’re not covered they should expect a raping or sexual harassment, or loss of social/ professional respect and a good dose of contempt or at the very least some pernicious concern that they’ll loose their own self respect. Fuck that noise. If cis-men can be overtly sexual when they want  without being questioned and still come away with self respect intact and be valued and value themselves for their other qualities too then so can every other gender including cis-women.  

p.s. Can we have a BrokeBack Mountain 2 staring Johnny and Ryan please!

I have blogged and talked about hair so much but I’m doing it again anyway. Human’s are never anywhere at their most illogically animal than their reactions to hair. It lacks any sophistication of thought or character when we are repulsed or perturbed by it but they don’t question their repulsion because usually it conforms with the dominant paradigm. We are all deeply invested in hair whether it be on our heads, under our arms, on our legs or framing our genitals or not be there at all.

In 2006 I shaved my head and to a certain extent my world changed. I had previously had almost waist length long hair. The difference of how I was treated in public was undeniable. Some positive and some negative. Strange men on many occasions who may have just leered at me previously told me how much prettier I would be if I grew my hair. I just told them that was the point and then made some suggestions about what would make them seem prettier to me. I found it harder to get the attention of male bar tenders to get served… much much harder. I was at times screamed at in the street for being a “fucking dyke”. One time when I was out with my seven year old daughter a cis-sexed hetero couple screamed at me that “people like me should not be allowed to have fucking children!” So I assured them she wasn’t my child but actually my girlfriend… needless to say my humour was beyond them and I am sure they ran off to tell their circle of fuckwit mates they saw a “real life pedo-dyke on the street and that’s why gay marriage just ain’t right.” I also noticed that femme women were suddenly attracted to me and would flirt with me. This is a benefit I enjoyed immensely… I enjoyed that like I do a taco feast… delightful flavours and juices all over my face and dribbling down my hands all the way to my elbows and I licked up every tasty drop. 

I notice that when my hair is short I do not get honked at by cars or harassed in the street. Last year when I cut my hair I lost 40% of my website membership too (and there was me thinking they liked me for my personality *grin*). Perhaps a shaved head just doesn’t suit me… I don’t make for a striking bald women the way some do. Interestingly as soon as my hair gets down to within an inch of my shoulders again I will start to get approached by men in the street once more. It has been an interesting experiment with street heckling to change my hair length drastically a couple of times. When my hair is long I get approached a lot more or just heckled but usually all I need to do is raise my arm and show them the hair under there and then they leap away in sudden repulsion.

Growing body hair is the quickest way I know to find out if a person is a total DICKHEAD or not. When a person is repulsed by female body hair you know they are a mindless drone pumped full of sanctimonious trash media shite and without an original thought or grain of active curious intelligence in their head. Having said that I don’t have a preference for hair or not. I like shaved heads and long hair on any gender. I like shaved body hair or natural body hair on all genders too. I do not like body policing from anyone… now that IS a massive turn off.

A young friend of mine who was growing her under arm hair for the first time recently claimed to be assured of their place in feminist heaven where Judith Butler and Simone De Beauvoir would be waiting with champagne. I responded there will be plenty of waxed and shaved people in feminist heaven  with their silicon tits and hyper-femininity or blend/absence of masculine or feminine with any body alteration they fucking wanted.  It’s not really about the hair its more about the policing of people’s bodies. Enforced social conformity about body image, as we experience in our culture, is a battle for minds as much as bodies. If we feel “wrong” externally and spend our time obediently trying to present as “right” we can never feel adequate. Never feel happily ourselves. Never feel that experimenting with changing our appearance can just be a simple choice of our own. We must always go to battle for it. Controlling how people manifest themselves in their bodies is controlling who people are.  Tattoos, implants, hair or no hair… people need to stop telling other people what their bodies should look like. If you find yourself inclined to tell others there is something wrong with their appearance I recommend you stop yourself and ask yourself “why the fuck am I doing this? Why do I feel entitled to criticise that person’s body?”

If once you have asked yourself this you come to the conclusion you should still push your preferences on others well I have two words for you. Fuck off! We’ll look however we damn choose. If it’s not your bag no need to get your knickers in twist about it. Stop being a cretin. Why do you care what a strangers body looks like?

This has been long overdue ever since I wrote this blog I haven’t been able to shake the idea that something on my ‘To Do List’ was not getting done. This is not a particularly unfamiliar feeling for me but I was plagued by this one more than the others. So… I haven’t made a stencil of my own cunt but I have printed off this delightful little poster and I’m about to hit the ladies toilets of Melbourne with it this week. I shall, of course, photo document it and share it with you all too.

So I have been continuing my exploration into the different ways and means a person can work in the sex industry. My current foray has been into independent private escorting and I have to say I like it, I like it a lot. Compared to working in a brothel it is just in another league for quality of sexual experience.

Obviously there is more work to be done finding private clients and then arranging and scheduling times to meet them than in a brothel. However, I can’t say that I think it’s much hassel. I guess I’ve had a lot of practice chatting with my website members for years and I enjoy interacting with people and strangers about sex. I don’t find it a chore and I don’t mind if a date never comes to fruition even after spending sometime chatting over email.

I’m also in quite a privileged position of not needing the money so I can afford to be very fussy about who I see. I have only seen two private clients now and I have thoroughly enjoyed both experiences. On both occasions the bookings went WAY over the originally agreed time as I was having so much fun we lost track of time. For me personally that’s the benefit of the vetting process via email and text first. I can already gage whether I’m going to get along with someone before I meet them unlike the short intro at the brothel. I also set my pricing to encourage a longer booking because that’s my preference and that’s when I think a punter will get the best service from me. A large part of my package is personality, playfulness, fun and intelligence as well as sex and sensuality and it’s hard to build that rapport in one hour, let alone the thirty minute brothel bookings I got. I have set my fees as $400 for one hour bookings, $600 for two hour bookings, $750 for three hours and $1000 for a whole night. As I said, what I disliked most about the brothel was that a lot of the bookings were 30 minutes and there was no time for any connection at all. That’s just not sustainable or even remotely enjoyable for me. I want to interact with someone when we’re going to fuck. I want to have the luxury to take that time to engage and decipher what our reciprocal sexual energy will be and explore it.

So, independent private escorting gets the thumbs up from me so far. I found one date through porn connections and another date through punterplanet.com. I’ll be doing this for just one more month before my explorations move on. I’m starting pole dancing classes soon so I can find out what it’s like to be on the otherside of that interaction too. I’ve certainly experienced it plenty as a punter over the years so it will be very intriguing to be the dancer instead.

As this exploration of the sex industry continues I’m going to try a more high end Brothel just to see if that’s a better experience than the mid to low range one I tried previously. I’ll also be working through a private escort agency but at this point I think I would find it quite hard to not see my most recent punter again… we really had a spark and he really brought out my submissive sexual side. One of the toughest thing about sex work is kissing. Personally I can’t imagine having sex without kissing… and lots of it is my preference. Unfortunately good kissers are few and far between. However, my most recent booking was an outstanding kisser and we had sizzling sexual energy too. It’s not often you meet a man who can kiss like that and I literally swooned. He was also a great conversationalist, gave a pretty damn good spanking and shared some of his fine whiskey and cigars too. It was a night I won’t forget in hurry. I did not anticipate that.

The truth is though that even though I’ve enjoyed it because I am privileged enough to be able to pick and choose and work very infrequently I would hate it if I had to do it out of economic desparation. I hated the brothel that one day and I would hate escorting if poverty took my choices away from me. That’s the truth for me with sex work and its something I work hard to get my head and philosophies around in regard to the industry. The other truth is that I would not be happy if financial struggles pushed my daughter into sex work either… I wouldn’t be happy if it pushed her into cleaning or any job she didn’t actually want or choose to do. I would be happy for her if she wanted to do it. I wanted to make porn regardless of the money. Yes, of course I wanted the money too but I have made porn for free. I was not paid when I worked for Jennifer Lyon Bell, we made other swapsies arrangements and for the right experience with the right filmmaker I’d shoot just for the thrills if it meant the difference between them being able to make the film or not. If sex work is a free choice I am all for it and I support it 100% but how often is it? I suspect a very small amount of the time.

However, if we hypothetically removed poverty from the equation there would be a hell of a lot less sex workers and that is a truth. There would also be no cleaners and no waitresses (and the almost endless list of jobs people do not because we want to but because we have to) and probably quite a few less wives too.

On that note I shall leave you all and these ruminations. I should mention I’ll be exploring working as a Pro-Dom very soon. I have had one previous experience with this as a private client arrangement and I am about to explore it again and I shall report back my ruminations on those experiences shortly.

Is the myth that couples should share a bed one of the biggest ‘romance’ lies we’re telling ourselves? Is this expected sleeping arrangement the best thing for happiness in couples who live together?

I find myself wondering these things… mostly I come to the conclusion that the decision to share living spaces and bedrooms with primary partners and spouses is mostly economic not romantic. However, it is packaged to us as romantic, as how ‘normal’ couples behave. If people aren’t sharing a bed we assume that there’s trouble at home or the relationship is no longer sexual. That can be true, because people who are desparately unhappy will often try quite a number of things to stay toegther. It can also be toxic bullshit. Often if you ask a partner for separate sleeping space there is often a lot of respective fear, anxiety and guilt attached to that request.

I am a light sleeper. I didn’t used to be but it happens to many as they grow older and this is definitely exacerabted by the biological and physiological changes of motherhood. I know this only anecdotaly but I know it to be unequivocally true for myself and a vast amount of other mothers I know. So when I share my bed with someone I am woken up everytime they snore and everytime they move. This is a truly awful situation to be in on a prolonged daily basis and if I just quickly list a few of the effects of sleep deprivation you’ll see why.

1) Tiredness causes clumsiness, memory loss, loss of concentration and accidents.

2) lack of sleep reduces your intelligence and rationality.

3) Lack of sleep reduces your patience.

4) Sleep deprivation lowers your immunity and causes health issues… prolonged deprivation can lead to chronic health issues.

5) Lack of sleep kills your sex drive.

6) Persistent tiredness leads to depression.

7) Lack of sleep ages you more rapidly.

8 ) Sleep deprivation can slow your matabolism and lead to weight gain.

9) Tiredness impairs judgement.

10) Tiredness makes you irritable.

So… this seems like a forumlar for relationship meltdown. I wonder how many good relationships have ended before there time because of continual sleep deprivation? However, I am yet to have a primary partner who is not offended and hurt if you do not want to share a bed with them every night.

Yes of course I think the affection and intimacy of spooning and sleeping in each others arms is a vital part of a primary partnership but not at the cost of our lovers health, wellbeing and sanity and to the detriment of our own relationships. There is so much we just learn by rote without question about how to conduct our relationships. This is a disaster for many and for others just means a failure to thrive in their primary partnerships. We need to question everything we’re told we should do, that’s expected or ‘normal’. To be free thinkers seeking what actually makes us happy as individuals and in relationships rather than following spoon fed formulas.  For me this needs to apply to everything not just sex but in the daily monotonies and intimacies and conduct of love and commitment also whether we’re monogamous or not.

I have relieved myself of active porn peddling duties. I had to. I had a broken heart to attend to. Last year as my short marriage disintegrated  my sexuality was retreating, as it does when I am suffering emotionally.
My ability to orgasm is like the canary in the mineshaft. When its dying I should know that I am enduring suffering beyond my limit. Quite often I keep going down that mine shaft prodding my dead canary and convincing myself it’s still alive.

I kept forcing myself to have sex with my partner when I didn’t want to because I was hurting emotionally. I kept forcing myself to orgasm through masturbating inorder to ‘destress’ when all I wanted to do was cry and I kept feeling obligated to have real orgasms on camera too because I wanted to enjoy running my own adult website as much as I thought I should be. My mind was trying to force my body to comply with its denial of my circumstances. I was trying to exert the reality I wanted to be living over the one I was in.

That’s denial and its never a sustainable way to live without shutting down. I did shut down. I felt I was dead on the inside and faking life on the outside. I was exercising till my feet bled, I was on strict ‘healthy body = healthy mind’ diet. All I had was a grim determination that if I could force myself to be healthy I could be happy thus I could endure what was happening in my marriage long enough for it to get better. I’m not sure what drove me to do this. I’m sure there was some guilt and internalised judgement about a failed marriage that motivated me. This guilt most accutely felt about putting my daughter through another break up.

However, having grown up with a mother so crushed by the misery of her marital circumstances she could not share affection with her children but would not leave the marriage I knew the cost of being that mother to my daughter too. I decided that no matter what people’s judegments are regarding longterm v’s shortterm relationships that have children involved I wasn’t going to march to that miserable tune. I know there is better music.

I decided to listen to my body. I left my wife, I stopped making porn, I stopped masturbating. I stopped worrying about how small and hard to come by my orgasms had become. I stopped caring what anybody thought of me as a mother and focused on my happiness and my childs happiness. I just left my sexuality utterly alone and I didn’t judge it or worry about its longterm implications. I focused on getting my external circumstances where they needed to be. For three months there was nothing. I continued to be dead from the neck down. I just didn’t think about it.

I put my identity as a hypersexual orgasmic being away. I had adventures with friends. I went skinny dipping. I bonded with my daughter. I wrote stories and poems. I saw live music and I danced and danced. I told people I had no sexual inclinations at all. I admitted it aloud. I had Betty’s words “if you don’t want to have sex, don’t have sex” in my head. I didn’t feel I was missing out even if it never came back because I had thoroughly enjoyed such an orgasmic and ecstatic sexual life for the last 20 years that I would always be grateful for. I surrendered to my body and I told it “you’re okay exactly as you are.”

Sure enough my canary came back to life. *grin* In fact its singing right now… almost constantly. It started about a month ago. I woke up inside. I tingle with excitement about being alive and I’m almost constantly horny and my orgasms are growing in size and strength. I haven’t felt like this sexually for amlost a decade.

Yesterday I was walking along and the world seemed brighter and more beautiful than before. I couldn’t stop smiling, my skin was tingling and I had permanent butterflies. I thought to myself “this feels like I am in love but I am not falling in love with anyone” then I thought “I love my daughter, my sisters, my mother, my brother, my father, my friends, my Melbourne, my home, my job, my plans and myself. That’s when I realised… I’m falling in love with my life.

I recently got asked my opinion by a blogging friend about a controversy in the good old US of A. Apparently a Anarchist organisation is holding an event at The Armoury, the home of Kink.com this has upset people and a number of folks have pulled out of speaking at the event because they believe that their is no such thing as consensual torture. I wanted to post my 2cents worth here but please read the blog below to get the context.

http://blog.historyisaweapon.com/post/42514007208/roxanne-dunbar-ortizs-letter-on-the-bay-area-anarchist

My opinion is this; Gail Dine’s hates porn and kinky porn particularly is an easy target because the closest most people get to it is some handcuffs, a blind fold and perhaps a spanking and some whipping.

Gail has real anecdotal experience with women who have had a bad time in the US porn industry. This is 100% of her experience because she refuses to talk to women who have had different experiences. She dismisses women who don’t agree with her about porn as having some kind of stockholm syndrome. Gail believes that what she believes is right for ALL women. This is a miserable trend of Radical Feminism that is a bigoted and prejudice load of shit that does not seek to respect women’s choices but seeks to assert itself over patriarchy as women’s judge, jury and jailer.

I don’t know kink.com and I can’t express an opinion on whether it is corporate and also ethical towards it’s workers. I have heard that it is in a few pay disputes but I don’t know anyone involved. However, I do know women who engage in consensual torture as a part of their sexuality and it is Gail Dine’s who is degrading these women without their consent and not their consenting sexual play partners.

The sex industry can be a shitful place that chews both men and women up and spits them out (as many nonsexual industries do too). It is important that unethical conduct in the industry is aired in the light of day but this gets harder and harder for people to do from within the industry when the debate is constantly framed with the women in the industry thought only as mindless passive victims unable to thoughtfully consent to the work they’re involved in and always the dupe of active and whiley men who’ve clearly got the better of them.

If kink are found to be unethical then I think that should be spoken out about on those terms only and they should be held accountable and boycotted but if kink.com are not found to be unethical towards workers and the only means to criticise them is for people like Dine’s to deny the women working there credit as human being capable of choosing their own careers, equal to men in their capacity to decide what they want to do sexually and who can make their own decisions and choices regarding their bodies then I think FUCK YOU GAIL DINES YOU SEXIST TWERP.

Producing my own porn had it’s ups and downs. So… no frills… here is the long and short of it.

Pros

• Total creative control
• Total financial control
• Total ethical control
• ULTRA flexible parenting friendly hours.

Cons

• The necessity of self promotion
• Feeling over exposed.
• Lack of funding.
• The legal status of creating porn on Australia.
• An added sense of responsibility towards co-performers in shoots that inhibited my enjoyment of performance no matter how thorough my ethics.

On tangent from my ruminations on what I like and dislike about my experiences in the sex industry I am enjoying a break from porn right now. If you think of me now imagine me inside a cocoon. Something different is going to come out the other side of this, its not likely to resemble a butterfly though.

p.s. Reading is sexy. Get off the internet and go bury your face in a book.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein from Liandra Dahl on Vimeo.

I’m not sure if I ever divulged a totally honest depiction of my experiences working in Alt-Porn both the positive and the negative so before I move onto my blogs on other areas of the industry  I thought I would jump back a step and cover this sex profession. I’ll start where I started… performing; getting my nekid freak on for the cameras and cash.

Performer

Positive;

1) I found that working in alternative porn that was inclusive of all body types helped get over any dissatisfaction I had with my body. This especially made me feel better about my breasts with their large areola and my vulva. Ishotmyself.com in particular was good for this. I would say trawling through the images on that site was entirely responsible for curing me of loathing those parts of my body. That alone fills me with gratitude and makes the entire experience worth it.

2) I became much more comfortable claiming my sexuality as neither gay nor straight but fluid. It was a work in progress and I oscillated between the two like a vibrator with only two speeds neither of which really get you off.  Eventually I realised I did not have to pick a side or accept my sexuality being belittled by those who deny protean sexuality as valid.

3) I learnt a bunch of new masturbation techniques to add some variety to my ‘alone time’ and I spent more time exploring masturbation per session rather than just always just having a quickie.

4) I worked with some of the most awesome human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet (If I broke this down per person there would be about 50 additional positives so this gets bonus points)

5) I had some kick ass sexual adventures and lived out some fantasies. At the peak of this I was having super massive multiple orgasms and I believe the inhibition that working in porn had given me caused that to be possible.

6) High level of peer sex education within the sex industry that has benefitted me and my child immeasurably.

Negatives:

1) Two stalkers who threatened me with violence.

2) Alt-porn consumers who did not respect women or their many sexual preferences and were not respectful towards contributors/models/performers and were not then banned from the sites for their disrespect.

2) Strain on romantic relationships.

3) Negative attitudes to sex work in our culture coupled with repressive anti-porn laws means there is a lot of self censorship of people within the industry preventing them from speaking out about bad practices in the industry for fear of causing trouble for those with good and bad practices alike.

4) Once I became immersed in alt-porn as a fulltime job at the Feck offices it felt like it started to drain my sexuality and subvert it… so that porn was always on my mind whenever I was fucking someone or myself. Eventually the pervasive presence of porn in my sexual psyche subverted it and burnt it out.

5) Members preference for how lesbian sexual acts should be represented taking paramount import over what a woman’s expression of her sexuality actually was. This only really mattered with performing in alt-amateur porn that claimed to be facilitating the honest non-fiction expression of the individuals sexuality; thus capitalising on uninhibited women’s sexualities whilst simultaneously curtailing it to meet the preconceptions of the membership bodies about what part of it were desirable to watch. Of course it does not matter when askedby an alt-porn producer to perform a particular fictional role/character/situation.