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May 23, 2005

Book Tag

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~ Heinrich Heine

I was tagged. So, here it is.

1) What is the total number of books I've owned?

Before 1992 when I was still in college nerd girl mode, I had my books indexed on note cards (then transfered to AppleIIe and then to my first PC) mostly because research pre-web required me to have my own personal library. On August 20th, 1992 I had just purchased books number 1029 and 1030 (Stephen King's Four Past Midnight and Needful Things). Both books had already been out for a while, but I hadn't gotten to them yet. Among the other 1028 were novels of all genres, nearly every textbook I'd ever been issued, three sets of encyclopedias (1971, 1980, 1989), some rather expensive hard-to-get reference books I'd picked up on the cheap from library auctions, and one beautiful 1847 first edition of Henry Longfellow's Evangeline which had been given to me as a special gift when I graduated from High School. The entire collection was wiped out by a mighty wind. I probably have in the 300 - 500 range now but I don't keep track because a) I'm not that anal anymore and b) I figure it would be hubris and bad karma to do so again.

2) What is the last book I bought?

Last book I bought:
Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell (for my Dad)

Last book I bought for me:
American Gods - Neil Gaiman

3) What is the last book I've read?

The First Time I Got Paid For It - Peter Lefcourt & Laura J. Shapiro (eds)

4) What are the 5 books that have meant a lot to me?

I can't do 5. I can scrimp by on 12; listed biographically:

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk - Carolyn Keene*
Curtain - Agatha Christie
My Secret Garden - Nancy Friday
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
It - Stephen King
Thieves' World, Book 1 - Various
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Night in the Lonesome October - Roger Zelazny
Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver
The Norton Book of Science Fiction - by Ursula K. Le Guin, Brian Attebery (Eds)
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctrow

Extra credit question, 'What book would you wish to buy next':

The Gutenberg Bible,
or, better yet,
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, first edition.

Although I'd much prefer to get one of them as a gift than to buy one myself.

TAG! You're all it!

*Stratemeyer/Adams/Benson/whomever

Blather d'Art | Mirth by Doxy at 04:23 PM | permalink | talkback (1)

May 22, 2005

Oh, Danica

Racing is going flat out until you see God, and counting to three before you brake. ~ Unknown

Being a woman is sometimes a huge pain in the ass.

No sooner do I hit "Save" on that last entry about phone sex communities and PSO backstabbing and women who can't get along when something kicks in my belly and screams "you're a traitor to the sisterhood."

Leaving things on a negative and full of all that angst never sits right with me. Or, to be honest, rarely does. I've NEVER been a girl who had to be a part of the shiny happy parade, but when given to gloom or growl, I never want to hold that emotion for too long. There lies madness and crow's feet and wasted energy. Anger/frustration in a dose is powerful motivation and (I believe) healthy. In too large a draught, it's self-defeating. And even if the issue is unresolved, I don't want my mindset (or that of my readers) left with anything so unfulfilling.

So, here's my "power to the sisterhood" redemption post of the moment.

Raise your hand if you know Danica Patrick.

I hadn't heard of her until fairly recently. She's an Indy car driver (or whatever they call them these days) and just about the coolest women on four wheels in my opinion.

She's 5'1" (a height close to my own heart) and qualified for Indy at 225.459 mph (which was good enough for fourth position when I checked, but I think qualifying is still going on today). Note: do not underestimate us short girls. We'll flatten you when you're not looking.

She's also a five-alarm hottie which isn't supposed to matter, but fuck it, she is and it's stupid to pretend she's not.

(*sigh* I'm never getting that full-benefits sisterhood membership, am I?)

I'm not a race car kind of girl. I LOVE old heavy metal machines and I get severly wet panties over old chugging V-8 creatures that my sense of social guilt would never let me drive today. Hemi 'cudas and Mustangs do something to me that makes no logical sense. But the racing scene was never my bag.

But I'm from the South and the male-type units of my friends and family do like racing. So I know enough about it to feign interest when trying to maintain a polite conversation.

Danica might change that.

I haven't quite figured out if that makes me a fair weather fan yet, but she's fabulous and she's only 23 and I HAVE to believe there is a checkered flag not too far in her future.

And what an awesome day that'll be.

There. I feel better now.

I think I deserve a cookie. And a Shelby Cobra.

Groovy by Doxy at 01:11 PM | permalink | talkback (2)

Talkin' Phone Sex Community Blues

It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. ~ Sally Kempton

Ironically, there was no category for "Phone Sex" before this entry in my blog. It seems that a phone sex slut blog would have a phone sex category. Not that those particular words are missing from my site, but, you know, I go to make an entry, select from my little dropdown of Primary Categories and there isn't one. What have I been blathering about all this time?

No one answer that.

Recently, there has been a bru-ha-ha in the one PSO forum that I've remained a semi-active member of. It's probably the only remaining source of legitimate PSO conversation that remains worth anyone's time and I'm pained to see it under fire.

We don't have water coolers. We don't have weekly meetings. What we do have is the occassional on-line forum. And, even under the best of circumstances, PSO forums are a sticky business.

You may well ask why.

Well, first you have the fact that many PSOs (and owners of PSO companies) tend to be a catty lot. Me? I'm catty to the nth degree. Sarcasm running fluent in my veins. But PSOs are a different breed of catty. It's like WWF with keyboards. Roller derby ain't got nothing on the hair pulling that goes on between phone sex sluts at a full rabid foaming froth.

I've often pondered the reason for this and I don't know that there is any one answer. In part, there is the competition factor, and in part I think there is the fact that being your own boss means you're not accustomed to answering to anyone but yourself. Then, there is the fact that because we are forced to fly below the radar of mainstream business, our practices are still a bit final frontier shoot-from-the-hip Kirk-like as opposed to let's-be-diplomatic-at-all-costs Picard-esque. And, unfortunately, there is the bad blood element. Girl X once fucked over Company Y and vengeance was vowed, etc and they both see red anytime the other is mentioned. Believe it or not, there are about a billion other sideline issues. What results is that, even under the best of circumstances a PSO community is no easy row to hoe (npi).

The topics flying loose and fast on the forum lately have included the fact that there are some of us who feel that certain practices drag down the industry and keep us as second-class citizens of the business world. Which is not to say I think I should have final (or any) say over who gets to do what with their own service. It's just that, as a community, you generally have a code of conduct most players agree on. Though there will be variations in marketing schemes and business ethics, we mostly like to believe there are some fundamental majority beliefs / opinions / whatever we can all agree on. But then there are always those who want to play the eternal devil's advocates and say black just because someone else says white. It was always thus, and the debate doesn't really do anyone real harm. Except its tedious. And, as you have probably gathered from reading my blog, I'm like a dog when a bone when it comes to a debate. Also I have an ornery little Southern girl temper and a repertoire of a million different ways to tell you to go fuck yourself.

Friends have offered me cash to stay off message boards. But I'm fueled by dialog and addicted to debate.

Anyway, the PSO community...

Because it's a private Yahoo group, there is a moderator (a good egg, and I wouldn't wish to take the reins from her for all the tea in China). I personally don't want to be a member of a forum that isn't moderated. I believe freedom of speech is most sacred among all our American doctrines, but, while protecting such freedom is the duty of our government (though, obviously not the current administration), it is not guaranteed to us by our peers carte blanche. People who don't understand this amuse me.

Yes, it would be nice to say that everyone has a right to their opinion in every forum, but, for those of us who have borne witness to great forums and mailing lists crumbling, the cause was ever some annoying bastard who didn't know when to leave the table, or who seemed relentlessly determined to play devil's advocate until no one cared anymore, or who just got off being the thorn in the collective side.

I have probably been that person on occasion, given my knack for passionate rhetoric, but that's neither here nor there.

Such freedom of speech has been of issue lately in the forum.

There are a number of phone sex operators (members) who are intimidated by the fact that phone sex service owners post in and monitor the group. We've had a number of owners posing as PSOs and wagging their agendas in everyone's face lately. It gets annoying. Kind of like sipping coffee in the break room and having a bitch session with co-workers only to have the company cheerleader come in and start tsk-tsking you.

The moderator has opted to ban owners/managers/etc from the group and I'm in full support of it, but I also have mixed feelings regarding the practicality of it. My overall belief is that owners, given their experience, could be good contributing members. The problem is all owners have a shifted point of view from the average PSO and, as such, their agendas and "advice" is often tainted. And, owners have the ability to be vindictive and fire ops just for speaking their minds -- an opportunity that ops don't hold against their peers. For a peer community, allowing people with higher powers to be counted as peers defeats at least part of the purpose.

Take for example, the most high profile EZboard community associated with Phone Sex. It's run by owners. Its traffic boosts the Google juice of those owners' sites. Nothing wrong with that, except that I don't think most of the ops who post there and/or link to the place know that. Which sort of irritates me, but then I was a geek girl who always did her homework and was bewildered that others didn't.

On the EZboard there is always an agenda. They have a high censorship policy which boils down to "anything we disagree with, we delete." And they remove anything negative spoken about a company. The official line is some whitewash about legal protection, but the real reason is that owners watch out for other owners. And, let's face it, if you had a policy that allowed other ops to bash services, you'd either have to make the call to delete those pertaining to your own service, or leave them up. That would be a tough ethical choice and I think they'd rather not make it.

So the advice on EZBoard is mostly what the owners want you to hear. It puts forward their points of view, the practices in the industry they want to promote. I've read advice there given to newbie ops that made me want to choke. But, you know, you can't save everyone. Hopefully they get second opinions.

In addition to the EZBoard group, you have other forums that are company-owned, but more undercover about it. This is slink and sleaze to my thinking and the main reason I won't post on a message board registered to a "Domains By Proxy" type crap account. You also have, in addition to the owners, a lot of clients privately reading such boards. Guys gathering info quietly for both benign and nefarious purposes.

As you can see, the players and their purposes get twined and meshed. I don't envy anyone the job of trying to hold order amid such a cast of characters.

But, does blocking those who identify themselves really do any good? On one hand, of course, it will, if nothing else, keep them from opening their mouths. That's a bonus. "Owners will be seen and not heard within this PSO peer group" is a good message and perhaps the only real benefit this change will allow. There are, after all, many owners forums and mailing lists; owners don't really need to intrude upon a PSO community for the conversation (though they will).

Only now that we've barred those who are up-front about their identities, doesn't that just assure that only the most tricky and sneaky will wiggle under the fence? Then again, they'd get through no matter what -- their kind always does. So, is anything really gained?

I feel like I'm swimming upstream against a current made of my own backwash. I try so hard to present a positive view of this profession -- to assure those that I may be a prissy, sexually explicit, dirty little phone whore in playful spirit, but the services I offer are handled with ethical concern.

I wish it was a given in the minds of the mainstream that ethics are not only possible, but as natural in this profession as in any other. In mainstream business there are war profiteers and Enron scandals and any number of other breaches of good practice. There is no inherant lack of ethics in an industry where sex (or its psychological equal) is on the table. That this job is neither inherently bad or inherently good, but just a business that happens to involve some tricky intimacy mines to navigate. I feel a little like being in the sex trade means I have to be twice as ethical because I'm presumed to be unethical. It's not fair, but it is the way of the world. And maybe that's why it goads me so much when petty concerns like this take over the positives in my mind.

Still, I feel I'm right. I think if you took a sampling of about any number of women working most jobs and any same number of women working phone sex, you'd find about the same percentages of behavior patterns, levels of conflict and ethical standards. For every PSO who screws a customer, there is a women working the register at Wal-Mart that's dipping her hand in the till, or shoving items in her purse before she heads home. I know that there are just as many women sitting in cubicals plotting against other women for no good reasons other than personal differences or competition. As Chris Rock says, every woman thinks there's another women who is out to destroy her.

I'd like to think it's only a woman issue -- a quirk of my sex, but there are male phone sex service owners that get in on it, too. I suppose that can be attributed to the strip club owner mindset, tho.

I'm just exhausted by it all sometimes. Working twice as hard to put my best foot forward and still being counted as a card-carrying member of the freak show. There ought to be merit badges for this kind of crap. "See here, this is my PSO message board badge."

Poor readers. I know you've gotten all this way, listening to me rant and ponder and you're probably thinking I'm leading up to some insight or personal position, but I'm really just frustrated and venting and no closer to knowing how to feel about this than I was two days ago when it came up.

The Yahoo group is, literally, the last semi-public place that's worth the time to hook up, converse, and debate with fellow PSOs (imho). I don't want to see it fold in on itself and become incestuous and protection-paranoid (not that I think it's there yet, but we all know how the writing on the wall starts for this kind of thing). At the same time, I don't want to see it tainted by those with agendas against the purpose of the group (I already had to take a breather because the owner bullshit was too ripe for a bit).

Mostly, I'm just glad it's not my call.

Maybe Rome is always doomed to fall against the invading horde. Maybe that's why our government can only come up with band-aid bullshit when they propose homeland security issues.

Isn't there a way to fix it so that invaders can't use your own systems and practices against you?

And, if not, then WHY NOT?

Is a happy medium always doomed to be a fragile temporary thing balancing between over-censorship and every-crazy-gets-a-ticket too free to be useful?

Blerg.

These are supposed to be the little things we don't take too seriously, aren't they? So why can't I get my head around this one and settle on a single position that feels right in my gut?

Fuck.

I really am glad this isn't my call.

Phone Sex by Doxy at 10:21 AM | permalink | talkback (0)

May 20, 2005

My Kind of Mood Icons

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Now THESE are my kind of mood icons.

Today I'm feeling:

I've never done this before:

And I'm not sure I have the calves for it.

(Props to Good Shit)

Mirth | Naughty Bits by Doxy at 09:36 AM | permalink | talkback (2)

They Got Me With Chewbroccoli

May the farm be with you! ~ Store Wars

Okay, I'm sorry for the Star Wars double post, but this is utterly too hilarious not to share.

I'm neither an organic rebel, nor a Star Wars freak, but you know when new age propaganda is this entertaining, it's hard not to like it.

Mirth by Doxy at 07:01 AM | permalink | talkback (0)

May 18, 2005

Help Me, Obi-Wan

I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brain. ~ The Empire Strikes Back

Princess Leia??? Princess Leia? Fuck this. I am so not Leia.

Take the Quiz (Flash with annoying music warning)

I blame you, Karl.

Ha! Take #2. This is much better:

Mirth by Doxy at 12:11 PM | permalink | talkback (2)

May 17, 2005

Satyrs, Sex & Cookies

If you gave me a million dollars
I know just what I’d do –
I’d get a new stereo
And buy out Nabisco
And make sweet love to you.
~ Michael Spiro, “Music, Sex, and Cookies”

My new e-book, Satyrs, Sex, & Cookies is, at long last, available. It houses both a few old favorites and a smattering of never-before-read lewd treats.

Buy one or I'll start posting nothing but blog entires about Diaper Boys ;-) Unless you like that kind of thing in which case I'll post about how much I love duckies and bunnies. Okay, I won't do that either. I don't know what I'll do. But it will be horrible, terrible, wicked and wretched. And, erm, somehow it will be horrible, terrible, wicked and wretched in ways that are different from my regularly scheduled phone slut blather.

Seriously.

Naughty Bits by Doxy at 10:56 AM | permalink | talkback (3)

My Own Private Black Dahlia

From the moment I was six I felt sexy. And let me tell you it was hell, sheer hell, waiting to do something about it. ~ Bette Davis

Many of my own personal fantasies often employ elements of competition with other female characters. I’m not sure if it stems from my family history of women not getting along with other women, but it’s been there as long as I can remember.

These women manifest themselves in many authority figure roles including “Mommy” and “Teacher.” In such fantasies I am compelled to try and get the better of them, or submit to them – to put my sexuality on the mat against theirs, or take whatever they dish out.

These fantasies can be simple or complex.

Simple Examples:
1. “Daddy” choses to come into my bed instead of “Mommy’s” and the female character is merely implied but not active.
2. I am held after class and forced to suck the cock of the teacher’s pet while she bullies and harasses and criticizes me with the both of them making fun of how inexperienced I am. While I gasp and gag, her role is very hands-on.

Complex Examples:
1. I am a neophyte prostitute who has unwittingly incurred the wrath of an older/wiser/jealous veteran prostitute who sabotages and sets me up for trouble such as being raped by clients, etc.
2. I am a new member to a harem who is the flavor-of-the-month for the male power figure in question. Incited by a ringleader, the other concubines all beset upon me and I am forced to service the other male/female slaves in punishment for being said flavor of the month (Roman and Turkish settings feature heavily in such fantasies).

I’ve told you, I’m a twisted little screw.

When the female character in question has a distinct role (Mommy / Aunt / Teacher / Headmistress, etc) their title becomes their name. But, in those cases where the female character is a peer, or person in a place of power over me without title, I have taken to naming that person “Dahlia.” I have no idea when this started. Probably in my early or pre-teens when I got on my serial killer kick and was first exposed to the Black Dahlia mystery.

Somehow in my mind this tragic woman took on a mystique of sexual energy and intrigue and her name seemed dark enough to embody these phantom women of my psyche. No matter who they are – courtesan or roommate or any of the other dozens of roles I cast them in, they are always ebony-haired plotting vixens named Dahlia. Sometimes I’m smarter than them, generally, I’m not. They are always more wicked and twisted than I could ever hope to be.

There is a Freudian wet dream somewhere in this regarding my inability to bond with most other females, but I’m tired of examining that particular part of myself. It doesn’t haunt me; I’ve incorporated it. It works for me.

Doxy's Lady Dahlia has been played in my mind by a good number of women. Remember the video for George Michael’s “Father Figure?” That woman had a long run through my teen years (I think it was the riding crop in the catwalk scene).

Famous women that have filled the role include: Lara Flynn Boyle, Bettie Page, Sherilyn Fenn, Famke Janssen, Linda Fiorentino, and Dita Von Teese. Every so often, I find a raven-haired cam model on the web and she takes over. I’d be very hesitant to name names and give examples because who knows if they’d take it as a compliment or not. Pretty women who expose themselves on the internet have enough to worry about without considering what they’re inspiring in my freaky head. I’d like to think they’d be amused and/or flattered, but I know that there’s a fine, fine line between flattering and creepy.

It also doesn’t appear to bother me if the model in question is generally a submissive or not. Maybe I somehow naturally see submissives as competition because they’re peers. Who knows where my subconscious gets this stuff.

Regardless, I’ve GOT to share my latest girl-crush.

“Alsana Sin” is so fucking Pretty in Pain it ought to be a crime. And she’s been doing time as my fantasy Dahlia for quite a while now.

If I’m a very good girl, and I do all my chores and eat my veggies, can I have her, please?

Please?

Doxy

Naughty Bits by Doxy at 06:19 AM | permalink | talkback (2)

Thou Shalt Be Ashamed

Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven. ~ Mark Twain

I think I finally understand the anti-sex rabidity of the fundamentalist right. For years I've been bewildered by and afraid of them. For so long, I've considered them to be simply deranged, but they appear to have tapped into something in "the homeland" and that power has to be respected. It's easy to laugh them off, but then you think about things like Waco and Jonestown and you realize it's not funny, and either it's just my paranoia kicking in, or it seems to be getting worse day by day (save the "darkness before the dawn" speech, please). Now, with a self-declared evangelical president who may be getting rid of the filibuster to make way for evangelical judges that will hold lifetime seats and influence US law for generations...well, my sense of humor on the topic has dwindled.

And just when I thought I'd never "get it" the proverbial light went on.

Today, I read a post on Hullabaloo about "anti-abortion extremist" Neal Horsley. He's one of those nutbags that harasses doctors and clinics and thinks the "do not kill" part of his rhetoric applies only to a fetus and not the doctors who get killed by his "pro-life" buddies.

And I'd like to make something clear at this point. When I say "fundamentalist right" I'm talking about just that. Not the average Republican nor the average Christian. I'm using the word fundamentalists literally, not for sarcastic effect.

At any rate, the Hullabaloo article (which cross-refs NewsHounds)provides a semi-transcript where Horsley admits to fucking farm animals (seriously) during his "hedonistic" days of youth. I had a lot of trouble believing that a Jesus freak who considers Bush a radical liberal would admit to fucking a mule in a national radio interview. But, sure enough, an excerpt appears right on the Alan Colmes Show page.

My first knee-jerk reaction was the same thought that pinged me when it started being revealed that so many high-profile anti-gay figures were closet cases: they're a bunch of fucking hypocrites. But that isn't the important lesson to take from this.

By and large I feel there are two types of hypocrisy. The first is a liar saying one thing and doing another just because he wants to get away with it. Intentional falseness with an agenda; premeditated hypocrisy.

The other flavor is just incidental hypocrisy and it happens everyday to most of us over the course of simply being a human being. I'm viciously opposed to child labor, but I'm a choc-o-holic. I loathe Wal-Mart and everything they stand for, but they're close and sometimes I just don't have the time to drive across town to the mom and pop shop that has the same thing. You can only read so many labels and do so many good deeds. So you make little compromises of your ideals and, let's face it, it's simply one of the costs of living. If you try to live every moment of every day abiding by all your "line in the sand" views on morals and integrity, you're going to find it's a full time job and end up missing out on many of the joys the world has to offer.

And I think it is the second type of hypocrisy that most of the people who scare me suffer from. I think in their lives, during formative years, they were damaged and brainwashed into believing that sex is dirty and wrong. In some cases, apparently, missionary sex is okay when engaged in with a spouse. But missionary sex that can only be performed while married doesn't fulfill everyone's sexual needs -- I'd argue most people's sexual needs, but I don't have the science to back up that statement. Certainly, however, it does nothing to appease the sex drive of the average puberty-crazed teen.

So, when these people experiment to find pleasure they are self-tortured and filled with shame. It pushes them to desperate acts -- like sexually harassing the family pet. This is so hard for my mind to wrap around. I've been touching myself since before I could spell and I was never once made to think it was dirty or wrong. I never got that memo. The idea that someone could feel that way by acts I consider as necessary as breathing ... it must be a tremendous burden to bear.

Now, obviously, most people don't engage in sex acts with animals as a major outlet, no matter what Mr. Horsley has convinced himself of. But I'm sure there are those who feel that masturbation or premarital sex makes them just as filthy as fucking a mule. Their shame must be palpable and the pent frustration it produces must be funneled into other outlets. For some, obviously, it crystallizes into a cause.

Causes can be healthy (Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation), but they can also be a pulpit for tunnel-vision crazies (:::cough::: Fred Phelps :::cough:::). And the validity of rallying cries is tainted by the nature of the cause. For those who are sexually crippled by shame, it would appear that the rallying cry is to influence and limit/prohibit the potential actions of others.

In their minds, it must make sense. They have learned from their sins. The joy they experience now is a sense of social fulfillment that replaces sexual release. And I'm sure, in their minds, they must think they're trying to save the rest of us from the pain and self-torment they've experienced.

Obviously, enough Americans (I refuse to believe the majority) have sufficient levels of this shame hiding within them to feel beholden and afraid of sexual freedoms. And, like all fears, these spring from ignorance.

The mainstream sex industry isn't going to be what gets through to these people. Streaking pranks and topless car washes don't address the problem. It will not make these people any more comfortable with their bodies or their personal sexual inclinations. It won't make them feel any less dirty inside. It isn't going to be accomplished through bombardment. I think the healthy celebration of sexual freedom we've seen over the last 30 years has served as inspiration for the backlashes we're experiencing today.

We all celebrated OUR joys of sexuality and sensual expression, but we forgot about those who are more reserved, uncomfortable, or traumatized by sex. And the most horrific of all of this is the realization that we've allowed fundamentalists to continue their insurgency into our educational system. Basic sexual education has been under fire for centuries and organizations like Scarleteen can only reach so many.

It's probably too late to change the minds of those we're fighting against now. But we have to keep this lesson close and make sure we're getting through to kids -- even kids in "the heartland." Sex is not wrong. I'd almost like to get in a car and drive through Iowa spray-painting it on the sides of barns just to get the people talking about it who need it the most.

Without the guilt and stranglehold fundamentalists hold over their base, there wouldn't be a culture war. Because, let's face it, we can argue our political differences all day, but when the big guns want to distract from actual civic issues, they always play the sex card.

If people weren't terrified of becoming homosexuals (or being labeled as one) then there would be no reason in their minds to restrict gay rights. And that's the key. We've got to defuse the sex card so that there's no place to go with it; no fear to garner and no shame to exploit. We've got to liberate these people from their own shells. We've got to remove the stigma and the shame.

At least that's my theory.

How to accomplish it? Aye, there's the rub. But I have to admit, I feel somewhat more empowered understanding the problem for the first time.

Enlightenment achieved by listening to an anti-abortionist talk about getting it on in the barn. That's got to be a new one.

Dox

Poli-Sci by Doxy at 12:35 AM | permalink | talkback (1)

May 15, 2005

Comments

Comments are free but facts are sacred. ~ Charles Prestwich Scott

Buckling under peer pressure, I'm going to try an experiment and take away the typekey registration requirement to comment here on the blog. It really isn't about being an elitist and I don't mind if I get many comments or no comments at all (my overstuffed, unanswerable inbox assures me I'm being read). However, I know that phone sex industry comment spammers have soaking wet panties at the idea of getting a link on my site and, of course, the nasties are ever-lurking.

But, fuck it. Maybe it won't be near the problem I worried it would be. Let's find out. Comment Nazi disengaged. Have at thee.

Internal Combustion by Doxy at 08:38 AM | permalink | talkback (0)

Phone Sex Slut Diary...Blog...Diary...BLOG

Choke me in the shallow waters
Before I get too deep
What I am is what I am
Are you what you are or what?
~ Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, "What I Am"

A lot of fans/friends/clients/total strangers have written me in confusion regarding the fact that I have both the Diary and the Blog. It’s confusing and stubborn to keep it this way and I’ve decided to retire the Diary.

Initially, the concept was that Blog would be here for my day-to-day rambling thoughts and the Diary would remain the place where I would deliver industry information and resources. The Diary by itself had grown a little stagnant for me; there was no real personal part of myself within it. It was the “all business” me and I wanted to evolve beyond that boundary and show that a phone sex slut is more than a moan-on-demand fantasy beck-and-call-girl. Yes, I’m a woman who talks on the phone with men about sex, but I also like foreign films and science fiction novels and cheesy television programs and most things Disney and quite a bit of other silly errata. I thought if I presented a more rounded picture of myself, it would humanize both me and my industry instead leaning on the “sex worker” mystique that simply must wear thin after a while.

What’s resulted is that I put off updating the Diary and focus exclusively on the Blog. So all the phone sex industry information that I would ordinarily share, is withheld on the pretense that it’ll go in the Diary. And what results is a Phone Slut Blog with no sex or phone sex information and a Phone Slut Diary that isn’t being updated. Which is amusing right now, but needs to stop before it becomes a sad state of affairs.

Phone Slut Diary will remain as-is with archives intact. The phone sex resource pages and phone slut worker / phone sex john information will keep their URLs as they are. The erotic stories and free erotic art galleries will stay, too. At least until such time as I do a re-vamp which isn’t being planned anytime soon. The phone sex marketing pages will most certainly remain as they are. But the “most recent” Diary entry will mirror this Blog entry and refer readers to the Blog portion of the site. I’m going to be meshing phone sex resources in with the other stuff I’ve been blathering about, which means a new category or two here at the blog and less work-safe entries (not that were you looking at my site at work what with the bright pink frame and "SLUT" in big graphics all over the place).

And, to those who've been worried, don't fret, I’m going to be sharing more of my naughty thoughts. Part of the purpose of this site will still be to promote myself and my services, but I’m not apologizing for that. Hopefully, that purpose will be tempered with the rest of the matter that stews in my noodle.

I'd like to thank you all for bearing with me despite the fact that it took me a few months to figure out what the fuck I was doing with this new endeavor. The kind words have meant a lot as I move on with this strange project that started on a whim and progressed into a unique opportunity I’m now addicted to.

Internal Combustion by Doxy at 08:07 AM | permalink | talkback (1)

May 13, 2005

Sledgeweb's Lost...Stuff

A man once told us that no man is an island But I know a man that thinks he’s an island Drifting out to the sea, sand in his ears and lies on his tongue. Jungle grows in your mind when you’re an island. Welcome to the Island of Fear ~ Pain

Yeah, I know it's tacky to follow up a heartfelt entry with a cheese sandwhich link. So sue me.

For those of us hooked on ABC's Lost..., this site by Sledgeweb offers some interesting facts (timelines, profiles) that would have taken too much time for most of us to bother compiling. Gotta love the net for giving us time-wasting entertainment manna like this.

Blather d'Art by Doxy at 08:56 AM | permalink | talkback (1)

Disney Envy

You can never go home again...but I guess you can shop there. ~ John Cusack as Martin Blank (via Tom Jankiewicz)

*Warning* : This is one of those War and Peace length entries plum with sincere personal info. You may want to skip if you're not in the mood ;-)

Karl recently accompanied his family on a WDW trip. This inspires both a huge surge of jealousy in me and a desperate pang of melancholy.

Disney World represents an unusually large chunk of my childhood nostalgia. WAY more than any one person should resonably lay claim to. As insane as this will sound, although Disney World was never my home, it is a close second to Miami as my “hometown.” The way I think of it is much the same as Rod Serling expressed with this quote: "Everybody has a hometown…in the strangely brittle, terribly sensitive make-up of a human being, there is a need for a place to hang a hat, for a kind of geographic womb to crawl back into. Binghamton’s mine." Sterling had Binghamton and its Herschell Carousel. I have Disney World and all its many wonders.

Yes, that sounds clinically insane. So let me supply some necessary background.

I had a very transient childhood. For reasons too numerous to mention most of my early youth was spent in the company of my grandmother who was a sort of Southern Auntie Mame character. She never wanted to stay in one place very long – never stuck with a hobby once she’d gotten all she wanted from it. Sure, her home-base was Miami where her house and husband were, but we were always visiting family/friends in one place or another for months at a time. And, if there was no one in need of visiting, then we went on adventures to places she’d read about in magazines. Or, more likely, we strayed to Disney World. Sometimes for weeks, months, or lengths of time that overlapped so as to make it feel semi-perminant. On occasion we stayed at the park hotels (just for the delight of it), but generally we set up in some rented house in Kissimmee. Yes, it was a youth of odd experience and rare privilege, but I had no say in that. I was a child of the wind and wind blew where my grandmother’s inclinations bade it. I consider myself the better for it, but it has resulted in some truly oddball results embedded within my adult psyche.

It's also worth mentioning that there is a legacy of women not really getting along in my family. My great-grandmother and grandmother could barely be civil to each other. My mother and grandmother didn’t get along so well. I could go on with epic tales of the battles between great-aunts and such, but I won’t. Suffice to say, my mother and I have the healthiest all-female relationship that has existed on her side of the family for many generations, (my teen years notwithstanding).

This is of absolutely no consequence except that ALL the women in my family loved Disney World. It was the one location and topic that could be counted on to maintain the peace. So the menfolk embraced it heartily, and were happy to make the money, or employ the creative financing that kept the womenfolk civil. This meant that at least two or three times a year (and most often more) the great-aunts and the grandmothers and rest of my mother’s ilk would pool their resources and take trips to Disney World.

As luck would have it, I just so happened to be the only grandchild of spoiling age on hand. This put me in the company of a bunch of older, constantly bickering and competing Southern women vying for the affection and attention of one, small, towheaded girl. Yeah, you could say I was a spoiled little slut.

Now, maybe that helps when I say WDW is my second hometown, because you must understand I spent as much, if not more time there than I did in my actual hometown. And my time in the Mouse's House was spent being favored with attention, trinkets, sweets, and princess treatment any child would revere. Therefore, I allot myself a certain ration of silly emotional attachment and reverie.

I know it’s a commercial encampment. I know it’s an unreal place. But there is this blurry line where the unreality and reality of it merge for me. When you dwell within a place for a certain amount of time, however false the front, it takes on a context of its own type of reality. Shouldn't that, then make it real, or at least as close to real as anything else? I’ve had friends who get nostalgic over office buildings they worked in for years, or college campuses they attended, or houses they grew up in. I think of this as the same thing, really. Only it’s a bit like growing up at Stonehenge. Everyone's heard of it, and it means something different to each one of them. Plus it's been visited by billions and every one of those people who visit think they know the place.

When I was *very* teeny (I’m dating myself, but oh fucking well) admittance to WDW came in an $8 ticket book that had your coupon for transport to the park, admittance into the park, and a number of A – E tickets (of which there were never enough E’s, so you bought extras at 90 cents a pop from little kiosks that have mostly been turned into souvenir stands these days). Staying in the tower of the Contemporary was $33/night. Staying in the Polynesian was $25/night. And those were the only two hotel options you had “on property.” If you weren’t in a hotel, you were camping at Ft. Wilderness and as far as I was concerned those people were just crazy because they didn’t wake up to Mickey-shaped pancakes in their room, or get to run down and play pinball and air hockey in the "game room" until midnight. It was pricy for the time, but it wasn’t “take out a loan” pricy. And the gaggle of older women with children grown, or no children at all had little else to spend their time and pocket money on except travel and visiting...and me.

So, I grew up in the reality of unreality. That probably explains a lot.

As I got older I still maintained a brat-like “I can’t hear you, I’m not listening” mentality when it came to the obvious transformations taking place in the parks (“park” became plural in my preteens with the opening of EPCOT). I could ignore the tacky commercial intrusions into the magic because I knew my way around them. I dodged and parried. I infected countless legions with my stubborn powers of Disney-induced denial. The friend who grew up in South America and hated all things capitalist? I converted him in one trip. The one who was a stewardess for an international airline and insisted she wouldn’t be impressed with anything an “amusement park” had to offer? I converted her, too. Travel agents couldn't wheedle the deals I did, or put together the itineraries I outlined. And they weren't "walk your guts out and wear your feet to nubs" itineraries.

(Aside: Sometimes you have to whiplash people to make them enjoy their own vacations. If you're inside a WDW park on a Summer day before 4pm, you're an idiot. Sleep in. Take the kids to the pool. Go play a round of Goony Golf. Then, when the heat index drops enjoy a late lunch and hit the park just as the Florida twilight creeps up. You'll still have hours to spend, you won't have to scout for shade, the crowd will be thinner -- the fools who showed up at the crack of dawn will be exhausted and headed out -- and you get to see the park AT NIGHT. Yeah, it'll be hell getting the kids back on their sleep schedules once you get home, but you won't be sunburned and cranky for 90% of your trip.)

Anyway, the peers of my cynical generation are no match for me in my element with the Mouse. No one is. I’ll turn you five years old faster then you can say “bah, humbug.” I know where the hidden little nooks and crannies are that house all the charming little details artisans labored and agonized over. I know the secrets and the history. I know the stories and the urban legends and the shortcuts. I know which line moves faster, which side of the boat is better to sit on, where the cameras are placed that take pictures and where the others are placed that simply watch. I know where to find shade on a 105 degree day when the parks are jammed to the gills. I know it all. Or, at least, I used to know it all. These days I still know *enough* but there are a lot more blank spaces than there used to be. Like any stranger to their own hometown, I’ve been away more than I’ve been back and it has evolved. And I’m not really happy with the evolution, so I visit less and less.

After the last time I went to Disney, I wrote an essay. This entry is already a mile long, but I’ll put the essay after the cut for those masochists that might be interested in any more of my blather on the topic. When I reread it, it is far more morose than I started out intending. It was flush with my feelings of disenchantment and some strange flavor of betrayal that barely makes sense. WDW isn’t the place I grew up in anymore. But it looks enough like it to be emotionally confusing. The ghosts dance through it enough to tease and wound.

Which is not to say I've ever stopped loving it. Or ever could. But you don't exactly WANT to see a beloved relative all tarted up if you can avoid it.

If you go, you can still wake up at 3am and get in your car and slowly drive the strangely deserted streets of the property (just smile at the guards and tell them you’re headed off property because you have a sudden french fry craving). If you do, you'll likely spot deer or wild rabbits beside the paved roads, especially in the areas near the Old Key West & Port Orleans Resorts. They’re so tame and unafraid you’ll think they’re animatronic when you stop your car, but then they'll scamper off in a timid way and you realize they’re living, breathing things.

So, there are little sparkles of charm that still exist for me. But those sparkles of pixie dust are less and less in the parks themselves and more and more on the fringes of the “Disney experience.”

The parks are just ten seconds short of joyless in comparison to what they were. Now every new ride exit is designed like a casino to make you walk through gift shops. Before the only ride even close to such a thing was Pirates and it spilled out into the Disney version of a Caribbean-style bizarre, with wood-carved cap pistols, gypsy skirts and blouses, costume jewelry, eye patches, shrunken heads, fragant wicker chests of chocolate coins, multicolored lollypops as big around as Frisbees and steel-drum band music. It wasn’t just t-shirts and plastic and enameled pins. Now every ride has a movie tie-in, or is reworked to do so (My Tiki Room and Mr. Toad. I can't even tell you what they did to them -- it's horrible.) The parks are less about hope and whistfulness; they're less about inspiring or captivating children with neat effects or new technology and more about catering to ADD attention spans and convincing kids to whine for one more toy before they leave. There have been improvements here and there. I can't say it's all bad news. But by and large the changes have been made in the wrong places for the wrong reasons. At least for me.

Getting a Mickey-shaped balloon used to be one of my biggest thrills as a baby slut. I always got pink. And the balloon vender with his marvelous bobbing bouquets of helium knew how to tie the string around my tiny wrist so that it wouldn’t end up clinging to the ceiling of Small World. The last time I was there, I’m not even sure I spotted a balloon vendor on Main Street. Explain that to me. Do we really live in a world where five-year-olds don’t care about Mickey-shaped balloons anymore? Or did some suit just decide they didn’t make enough money to justify the wage of the vendor walking around? God, that’s depressing.

At any rate, I’m jealous Karl got to go -- got to spot something that wasn't there the last time I went -- got to kick around my old stomping grounds and play in my old haunts.

Part of me wants to hop in the car and be there tonight. I still feel the pull of the place that strongly, despite all this ridiculous self-examination about what is, no matter how I feel about it, only a theme park.

*sigh*

Pilgrimage: An Essay

When I was very young, they handed out ticket books at the Transportation and Ticket Center. There was one ticket for admittance, prestigiously positioned at the forefront of its A- thru E-ticket brethren.

I was pigtails and pastel-hued polyester shorts and exuberance that physics can only contain in a vessel of the smallest mass. Holding hands with whichever adult in my herd was going to get me to the turnstiles faster. It was my first visit walking on my own two feet and not stuffed into an institution blue stroller rented at the park for $2 a day.

We took the Ferryboat always, but this time it was a difficult sell to a four-year-old. The beckoning of the stream-lined color-coded monorail was nearly enough to warrant a full-blown Keds-stomping hissytantrum. But I was a Florida child raised with water in my veins, there was a second-story on the boat to make it appealing. And we could always take the monorail back later.

So, the ferry is the route I choose on my approach whenever I return, though the journey to my personal Mecca is less and less frequent. Still, my affections haven’t shifted to the whisking, efficient, pre-recorded greeting of the monorail, but remain with the lull of the rumbling Ferryboat with its engines that spit fumes into its wake. To most, it’s a boxcar merely floating the herd to their new pasture, so they can graze and consume, but for me, it was once a slow, gentle jamboree of anticipation. Growing slowly closer to the brightly-colored spires of Cinderella Castle, to the imposing and yet bland functionally muted girth of Space Mountain. Leaning like a lunatic pilgrim over the deckrail, watching the sun reflect in tentacles across Seven Seas Lagoon. The illusion growing closer – taking on form, no longer a spectral promise of fun, but a mortar-and-bone reality.

These days it is not only throw-back pilgrims that take the Ferryboat across. The monorails cannot beckon with the epic power they once commanded. Little more than air-conditioned elevated trains with comfortable seating. If the line is too long, or the crowd too fickle, the double decker boat will do for them as well as anything else.

And we pilgrims mix with the herdfolk. Their exuberance is in a more contained dynamic within their physics. Often more engrossed by their gameboys and cell phones than anything akin to my innerspace jamboree. Their objects-in-the-rearview-mirror-may-appear-closer-than-they-are indifference is the jaded privilege of a generation’s sins not their own. Their glee is genuine, but it is a muted merriment. An unimpressed expectation of the promise of entertainment that they feel they’re owed. Which is fair, for they’ve paid highly for it. They’ll hurry to get to the big rides. They’ll complain about the heat and the inevitable afternoon showers. They’re in a flourish to see everything – ride everything – as many times as possible. They’ll exhaust themselves to get their money’s worth and they’ll miss the only real richness the place has left to offer.

It’s not their fault.

They never jealously guarded edge-perforated E-tickets with ants-in-your-pants eagerness. Never saved the best for last. Never stood leaning, forehead-pressed to the glass of the Pinocchio restaurant window wall, watching smiling faces float on neatly lined boats into the archway of It’s a Small World, stomach knotted in indecision and dread, attempting to calculate if there were enough tickets left to ride Peter Pan’s Flight just once more.

For them there have always been day passes and park hoppers. For them park has always been plural. Options of where to go and what to see. The spires and the bland functional blue and white is all just a blur, their enchantments as foreign to them as the concept of anticipation. For them Tomorrowland has always been outmoded and never marvelous. They never waved at the boy and his RCA Victor dog filming them and got a kick out of seeing their faces on television screens. It’s nothing they haven’t seen in the electronics department at Wal-Mart.

They cannot be pilgrims; they have never known faith.

Their indifference has always seemed so hollow to me. The ignorant bliss that I so often heard spoken of and felt flooded with revulsion toward. Despite the historic reprove of my mind, on more recent occasions I have but one cause to envy them: those with no faith can never lose it, or feel the clutch of it withering within their guts.

These days, I might still lean over the deckrail, if it weren’t roped off to keep the throng of passengers a safely calculated distance from gazing down into the tentacles of sunshine on dark water. Facing forward, the spires still manage to coax a dull thud out of me. They command at least that. They have earned their respect honestly. Though, more often than not, I find them tarted up in some ridiculous guise to celebrate one manufactured anniversary or another.

A pilgrim no more, but a borderline heretic with a bellyful of bile and cynicisms and little hope of washing the grime of my soul away in the man-made tide. It wasn't always this way. I've baptised others here and christened them with the faith. I can't help but wonder if I gave away too much and kept none for myeself.

They say there is no convert like a fresh convert. I’m not exactly sure where that leaves me.

It is not the park of my youth. It’s not the place I grew up with. It shouldn’t be. To expect that is unreasonable even by my unreasonably childish romantic standards. But somehow I can’t help feeling that the spirit of the place should survive, even if the details pass on and evolve. I can’t help thinking that if the spirit were preserved I could still be a pilgrim, finding charm in the changes, instead of betrayal.

I know that life doesn’t play like the depicted fairy tales. The few girls who get a chance to feel like princesses don’t get to live happily ever after in castles. The promise of the place is broken for me, which is as it should be. There are other little girls to carry on that propaganda which, if it is a sin, is at least a gentle sin.

But the rampant peddling reeks from the bowels of the place, cheapening any hope the fables have of grooming fantasy illusions within the minds of children forced to be far too practical by the weight of the world outside and now within. It’s hard not to picture the father of its architecture and purpose rambling down Main Street, tossing the wares of the Emporium asunder, crying about how they have turned his temple into a den of thieves.

How do we reconcile the romanticism of our youth with the paint-fading porticos of our adulthood? Is it possible for me to just try not to take it all too seriously when it meant so much to me once? Can the blatant commercialism be set neatly aside in the name of enjoy-it-while-you-got-it escapism? How much should it cost to leave the real world behind, and why should that privilege go only to those with the wealth to do so?

Maybe it is the realization that I have grown into a woman who also charges a price for the fantasy and illusions I cast that cheapens and saddens it for me. Maybe I spent too much of my childhood in fantastical places. Maybe you’re supposed to hurt for the things you loved the most in childhood – to keep them dear.

Or maybe the lesson is far simpler. To invest emotion in a collection of fiberglass façades and polymer costumes is a foolish, foolish waste.

But I was young. And it was glorious. And sometimes in my sleep and my memories and my heart, it still is.

Da Mouse by Doxy at 08:28 AM | permalink | talkback (1)

May 12, 2005

Slut

A normal man, given a group photograph of school girls and asked to point out the loveliest one, will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them. ~ Nabokov

Recently, a topic on Eros Blog inspired me to make my first comments on his site. Oddly, the subject is still resonating in my head.

Bacchus (who I still refer to mentally as "Eros" *sigh* -- eventually I'll have room in there to cross-reference Bacchus with Eros, but, you know, I have to forget a few critical essays about The Canterbery Tales first) was complimenting Donovan Phillips of Donny's Ramblings on voicing his distaste of using the words "slut or whore" to categorize the female of the species. Donny is a great read. I'm not sure my social views and his line up on all sides, but he's up front and appears to demonstrate a clear code of ethics -- which puts him in the minority in the adult industry as it stands, though I think our numbers are growing. His blog is one of substance and not just a marketing ploy -- in fact, his has less promotion material than mine does, and I consider myself pretty balanced when it comes to such things. Besides, he understand that King's Dark Tower series is some of the best literature written in our age, so I'm willing to spot him as good people unless he proves otherwise.

But, to return to the topic, Donny made a post in which he states: "I fucking hate going to websites that use words like whores and sluts."

My first thought reading this was "here we go again." Why? Well, because I have an ego the size of Florida and the little voice in my head is sometimes an arrogant asshat who reacts as though everything I read is meant to address me directly.

Hard to believe I'm not a dom, sometimes, isn't it?

The thing is, slut has become such a positive word for me that I hardly ever think of it as a negative anymore, and whore is such a throw-away playful pejorative for me that I forget there are people who think of it differently. Hell, I’ve even infected my own parents with the words. Their pets are all kibble sluts or attention whores. One of the phrases you are most likely to hear out of my mother’s mouth is “do you know what that little slut did?” And my mother is not hip. She considers Barry Manilow the height of pop music. Seriously, the woman lived through the sixties without a single Beatles album to her name.

So, yes, I grew up in Miami, and, yes, I had a non-traditional and somewhat free-thinking childhood . But I've put in my time in the Midwest and the deep South and I know there are people who don’t think outside the boxes society hands them. I am WELL aware that there are those who do not "get it" when I call myself a phone slut. There are less sharp blades in the communal silver drawer of society who will think I'm just cheap trash (well, not if they're paying my rates...). And there are those on the other end of the spectrum; the erudite of our ilk who will think I'm exploiting my sex and my use of language for shock value. I'm not above shock value. I love shock value in minimal doses. But, they are no more correct. I don’t call myself a slut because it sells, or because I consider my body good for nothing except being a fuckfest machine.

I call myself a phone slut because that's what I am in my own mind. It’s how I feel. I'm a slut. When I'm happy, I'm a happy slut. When I'm wicked, I'm a naughty slut. When I’m silly, I’m a playful slut. When I'm angry, I'm a pissed off slut. And, on special occasions, I am a whore, but those times are for me to decide and if you’re going to call me that you either better be smiling and winking, or fucking me very, very hard with my hair wrapped around your fist.

I’m a slut by my own definition because my sexuality is by my own definition. There are a million different ways to be a feminist, a million different ways to be a bitch, a million different ways to be a slut, a goddess, a whore, a vixen, a brat, a cunt, a mother, a crone, a queen bee, a temptress and a billion other factors I can’t begin to list. That means there are a limitless array of combinations to what makes a woman. I am an unfinished equation of my femininity and more than the sum of my parts. And I’m not a slut because of what that word means to anyone except me, myself, and I.

To me, those sites who flash and pimp “whore this” and “slut that” without touching on anything more are not demeaning to me as a woman. They are demeaning to the men they’re marketing to. And for that reason, I understand Eros and Donny’s outrage. Their thoughts are that they, as men, want more from a woman than a demonized, disembodied single dimension of her sexual identity. The exploitation on those types of sites is not one of language, but of sentiment and it insults male and female, both.

So, I’m going to continue reclaiming slut in my own way on my own terms. And those who don’t get it can try or not try. And those that will can approve or disapprove.

A slut to me is a girl with a certain awareness of her sexuality. Not necessarily a comfortable relationship with her sexuality, because I definitely had my awkward teen years along with the rest of my tribe. But there is an innate fascination, attraction, and curiosity with sexuality that was in me from childhood. There has, literally, never been a time I haven't thought about, fantasized about, or wanted to learn more about sex.

The old man in that book by Nabokov would have put it thus: "...There occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as 'nymphets'."

The problem with that passage is not the accurate realization that there are girls who, from young ages have an instinct to behave and think like a nymphet, but that such a trait is demoniac. But then, Humbert Humbert was hardly an everyman character and it is that part of his sentiment that is worth exploring.

I agree that women should not be demonized for their sexuality, innocent or otherwise, at any age. But many men do it to fulfill their fantasies. And, so long as they’re aware that they are fantasies, there’s no harm in it.

True, there aren't really any little girls who "want it" or "know what they're doing to a guy." Men who think that need therapy. But there is an aphrodisiac element for many of us that is wrapped up in innocence – similar to the flavors in certain foods that can only be liberated with alcohol. In my fantasies I want to be the innocent that gets ill used or seduced by the wicked old soul down the street (or the hall). But, just as often, I want to be the sexually awkward youth just aching to learn the secrets humming through my body.

In those fantasies, I am a little slut; the same way I was when I was young.

Little girls like attention and especially when hormones are going haywire in the pre-teens, part of that enjoyment seems to stem from a sexual instinct that male-type creatures can seem to scent miles away. But the girl's potentially seductive actions are generally no more intentional than a flower busting out in brightly hued petals to catch the attention of bees.

The problem is that the responsibility to guide that energy without inspiring trauma does not lie with the girl, but with those responsible for her guidance. And too often, those are adults terrified by the emerging sexuality of their child. So they defer to the misguided traditions of religions who are, in turn, guided by books that cast women as weak temptresses, vindictive Gorgons, or, at best, still merely "filthy" because of a once-a-month biological function we have as much control over as the weather.

It's a complicated issue. I've wrestled with it my whole life. And I appreciate these two very well-intentioned, sexually positive men thinking in terms of consideration and kindness. But the words are not the problems -- the intentions are; it is not the language at fault, but the sentiment. And the exploitation is not just aimed at the women on the pages, but at the men viewing those pages as well.

Yes, sites that plaster gynecologist views of partial body shots that effectively reduce the being on screen to that of a sex object void of humanity irritate the living hell out of me. I don't understand a guy who finds a woman's sexuality to exist only in her reproductive organs. How can a twat be exciting if you can't see the expression on the model's face? Regardless of what your kink is, if you can't hear it or taste it, or see the expression, or sense the reaction (or repression) from the other party, what part of that is sex?

But when those types of webmasters plaster the words "whore" and "slut" all over their sites, they're playing to an idea. And that idea has always been around, and will always be around. No matter how educated we get, there will continue to be those who think that sex is dirty and women who like sex are dirtier than men who do. Just as there are those who will continue to think that white women who engage in sex acts with black men are dirtier than those who engage in sex with white men. Those minds are closed and the sad truth is that re-education of them is highly unlikely.

It is what it is. We are where we are. And, for as long as I’m around no matter how the morality tide shifts, or the feminists applaud or rail, I’m going to remain a slut.

And if you hate it, or it offends you or if you just don’t get it, don’t worry. You don’t have to like it or approve of it or get it. It’s mine. I’m willing to share it, but you don’t have to partake.

That just leaves more for me, anyway.

Naughty Bits by Doxy at 03:59 AM | permalink | talkback (4)

May 11, 2005

Sipping Saki

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. ~ Saki

Being a recovering English Lit major means that there is a lot of stuff taking up room in my head I will never be able to use. The Canterbury Tales, or Beowulf, for example, take up hard disk space on my gray matter that I'd like to defrag and reclaim.

You know how you get a piece of music stuck in your head all day and can't get rid of it? That happens to me with dialog, or snippets of prose. It's maddening. The Internet has, I think, gone a long way to keeping me from being a clinically insane person up to my chin in tomes muttering things like "I bet it was Dickens! Now, where is my copy of The Pickwick Papers?"

But every now and then a ghost whispers in my shell that takes on a life of its own and cannot be Googled. Not enough data retrieved from the source code for a valid search. Something like: "it was his to take." Yeah, Goggle that. Or I'll have a key word wrong, or only remember the gist of the phrase but not the wording.

This was the case in recent conversation while trying to recall Saki's short story "The Open Window." I remembered the gist of the infamous last line, and the impact it had on the rest of the tale -- completely transforming it from the type of story you thought it was when you started reading it. But the actual line of impact eluded me. As did the author. Or anything else about the fucking story.

Then, randomly, I was listening to a little TMBG and the song "Window" came on and -- just like in the movies, it hits me -- "The Open Window." One Google search later and it's on my screen, mocking me.

These brain candy reward discoveries should really be more satisfying. It should top orgasms. But it's more just a moment or two of intense "AH HA" followed by a very dull feeling of "Okay. One less mystery in life. Now if I can just find out what happened to Amelia Earhart..."

At any rate, the story is now in the public domain, so I'm posting it after the cut for you to read should you so desire. May it live on your hard drive and haunt you forever.

The Open Window
By: Saki (H. H. Munro)

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly Hatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

"She has been very interesting," said Framton.

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton was saying.

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

Romance at short notice was her speciality.

Blather d'Art by Doxy at 05:42 AM | permalink | talkback (1)