This post is a part of the Scarleteen Sex Ed Blog Carnival.  Find links to posts from other participants here.  This is veering off the course in which other participants have been headed, since I don't want to write about why sexual education is a good thing, or hit with you my own sales pitch for why Scarleteen and why you should donate, so I've written about a sexual health issue near and dear to me.

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If you have a uterus and fallopian tubes, you've been hearing the same thing since you were in junior high (or earlier).  When it comes to birth control, your options are condoms, the pill, or maybe, if you're feeling unconventional, the shot or the IUD.  But what about those of us who don't want to take hormones or have an IUD painfully jammed up our cervixes?  I got myself fixed four years ago - via tubal ligation - and I couldn't be happier with it.

First, a note on gender and language: for the sake of brevity and smoother writing, I'm going to refer to those who have a uterus and fallopian tubes as "women", but this doesn't mean that I don't consider trans women to be women, nor do I mean to exclude those who do not identify as women, but who may want a tubal ligation.  Birth control isn't only an issue for straight people.  Aside from all the bisexuals, consider, for example, a gay-identified, uterus-having FTM trans guy who fucks men, or a cisgender woman who has an non-op/pre-op MTF trans woman as her partner.  It's just too hard to write inclusively of every possibility and still have concise, readable sentences.

I have never wanted children.  I do not like children.  Where most women light up with delirious joy when they see babies and little kids, I'm just hoping the child doesn't vomit or blow its nose on me.  I choose to focus my maternal energies on my cat-baby and on my various projects.

Our culture demonizes childfree women as profoundly selfish, cold, and unfeminine.  Sterilization for women seems to be more controversial and patently offensive than abortion - I'm not just saying "not right now" to the prospect being a mommy, I'm saying, "absolutely fucking never."  I'd guess there are more places in America that will perform abortions than will sterilize childfree women.

Try on these common responses for starters:

"Aww, you'll change your mind when you hit 30!  Wait until that biological clock of yours starts a-ticking!"

"Sure, you think don't like kids now, but it's totally different when they're your own!"

"Your life as a woman just won't be complete without experiencing pregnancy and birth!"

"Smart and pretty people need to out-breed those ignorant hicks!"

And so on.  All of the sentiments assume, whether overtly or just subtly, that the only reason for me (and by extension, other women) to exist is to pop out babies, that it's where I'll find my "real" happiness in life, and that I'm controlled by a biological clock, incapable of making rational decisions about my fertility.

I've dated a couple of guys who wanted vasectomies.  I went to their mandatory counseling sessions with both of them.  It was easy as pie!  No condescending insults, no pervasive culture of, "Come on, now, all men want to have babies!  You'll probably change your mind anyway, you silly creature!"  They were dudes, and it's natural for dudes to not want to have kids.  No one shames or questions the sanity of men who get sterilized.

I got to watch one of my boys have his vasectomy performed, which was awesome, and took less time than getting a pedicure.  Had I been supplied with a syringe of lidocaine and an autoclave, I could have performed his vasectomy on my kitchen counter using cuticle scissors, a crochet hook, and a soldering iron.  He didn't even need stitches afterwards, and while he spent a few days taking it easy, he didn't need much pain medication at all.  Vasectomy was easy to obtain for him, cheap, and didn't have many risks or a long recovery time.

When I was 22, I decided it was time to get serious about finding a doctor to sterilize me.  If you're looking to get a tubal ligation, I highly recommend doing what I did: get a list of doctors from Planned Parenthood that they refer women to for tubal ligations.  Here in Seattle, I think it was over a dozen doctors.  I called one.  I told the receptionist that I'd like to make an appointment to talk about getting a tubal ligation, but that I wanted to make sure before I even bothered to come in that the doctor didn't have a problem sterilizing young childfree women.  The receptionist put me on hold, then told me it shouldn't be an issue.  My consultation went much better than I expected.  I came in there armed to the teeth to argue about my right to be sterilized, but the doctor was already on board.  He just gave me a short spiel about how tubal ligations are to be considered permanent.  To cap it off, he even ranted briefly about how rude and paternalistic it is that other doctors won't sterilize women who want it.  I was in!

My experience in finding a great doctor on the first try seems to be pretty unique, however.  Talking with other women, or looking at forums dedicated to birth control, you'll see tale after tale of women frustrated at being denied the right to control their own fertility, belittled by doctors and told that no, they actually will want to have children.  I am so glad I didn't have to go through that.

I was scheduled to have a laparoscopic tubal ligation, which means I'd just have one tiny little scar.  I decided that I didn't want a sterilization via Essure or the other new methods of inserting things into your fallopian tubes by forcing things up my cervix and (hopefully) correctly into my tubes.  Firstly, because the multiple procedures involved in these methods sounded more painful and stressful than tubal surgery, and secondly, because my doctor has been doing tubal ligations for 30 years and not once had any failures that he was aware of.  I didn't want to be awake and having someone jab away at my internal organs, I wanted to be knocked out and wake up in recovery when the jabbing was completed.

When my special day in the hospital came, it was a serious, all-day event, not like the "pedicure" my ex had gotten.  I switched into a gown, and got an IV line started to give me a saline drip and antibiotics.  It was done in a real operating suite, with my doctor, an anesthesiologist, and other helpers there to attend to me.  I would have to spend most of the day in recovery in the hospital.  (All this means that a tubal ligation costs loads more than a vasectomy.  My tubal was 10-20 times as expensive as your average vasectomy.)  The method of sterilization my doctor used was placing silicone rubber bands around my doubled-over fallopian tubes, which apparently has a shorter recovery time, and doesn't carry the risk to other internal organs that a slip during a cut-and-cauterization procedure could.  Here are my before-and-after shots, look for the white arrow pointing to the doubled-over sections of tube in the lower pictures:

There was a bit of bruising at the incision area, but after just two weeks, you had to look hard to see the small reddened scar that was barely snaking out of my belly button.  I will probably never have to worry about pregnancy again.  There is a slight risk that my body could "heal" itself, but sterilization beats out other birth control methods for efficacy.

I don't mean to sound like a hippie who's afraid of science, but I'm wary of the long-term effects of women taking birth control pills for 20+ years of their lives.  I've still used condoms for most of the sex I've had in the last 4 years, but I'm happy that my backup method is internal and intrinsic, not something external that I have to rely upon being granted access to.  No one can ever take away my right to keep being sterilized.  It's like a buy-versus-lease question, and I wanted to buy my freedom so no one would ever take it away from me.  Although I think it's highly unlikely the government would de-approve the birth control pill, IUDs, and Depo-Provera shots, I really value that I will never have to leave my fertility up to the whims of politicians and the laws of whatever country I might find myself in.  (And, you know, after the zombie apocalypse, how many years do you think the remaining stockpile of birth control pills will last?)

I frequently meet other women who either already have an active interest in getting sterilized, or dismissed the idea as just too difficult until they met me.  I wish that more people were aware of what tubal ligations involve, and that it's not actually impossible to get them, even if you're young, single, and childfree.  As more women are choosing to not have children, I wish the sterilization was as widely-promoted as other forms of birth control, rather than a method relegated to the end of the list, surrounded by extra caveats and dismissive language.  It's not for everyone (neither are IUDs, the shot, the patch, or the pill), but if you know that having biological children is not for you, don't be afraid to get out there and demand it.  You might get turned down by a doctor or few, but don't get discouraged.

If money is an issue for you, all states have federal funds allocated to providing birth control to those with low-income, free of charge.  In Washington state where I live, this Malthusian keep-the-poor-from-breeding-up-more-welfare-babies effort is called "Take Charge", and in Seattle, you need to earn less than (last time I checked) $1600 a month to qualify.  (The amount varies by area.)  Go to your local Planned Parenthood or other clinic, and ask about funding options if you're low-income.  Also, check with doctors about payment plans - that might be an option if you don't have insurance.

So, this is my own contribution to sex education today: telling you about my choice method of pregnancy prevention, and my hope that in time, sterilization for women will become more widely-accessible, and as stigma-free as it is for men.

A few resources:

* Planned Parenthood's info on sterilization for those with eggs and those with sperm
* The sterilizationqa LiveJournal Community  (Yeah, I know, shocker - people still use Livejournal)
* The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (I highly recommend the "Biology and Breeding" and "Science Fiction and Fantasy" sections)
* The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless (Awesome book)

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Scarleteen is an nonprofit, body-positive resource for young people who are looking for medically-accurate, non-judgmental sex ed.  Good projects like Scarleteen can't survive without funding, so consider making a donation.  I'm happy to say that my smut company is in the list of the top-tier (over $1000) donors to the site.

I realize that I'm a couple of weeks late to the fight in publishing this rant, but I was so angry when people first starting attacking Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project, I decided I needed to let this sit on the back burner for a bit.  Rather than being rendered irrelevant by the passage of time, I'd like to think it's the opposite.  Now that the feminist whine-o-sphere has moved on to bitching about other grievous injustices, the distance actually serves to show how little the haters accomplished, and how beautiful it has been to see It Gets Better grow and touch lives.

Allow me to start with a personal story.

I grew up in a part of the country that's - how do I put it delicately? - well-represented on PeopleOfWalmart.com.  My grandmother and J's grandmother were best friends, they lived on the same street in a middle class neighborhood.  J and I spent a bunch of time hanging out as kids.  He was a gentle, kind, effeminate boy, who always seemed somewhat lonely.  We drifted, as people do.  We went to different schools and spent less time hanging out at our grandmother's homes.  All I knew, beyond our childhood friendship, were the embarrassed whispers of family gossip that he was a homo and had "problems" dealing with it.

When J was 17, he put a gun in his mouth.

One of my only serious regrets in life is that I didn't make an effort to keep hanging out, keep making a point to see him, to hopefully maybe in the best of worlds to have changed the ways things turned out for him.

In 1999, my life was no picnic, but I knew it wasn't going to be like that forever.  My best friend at that point was the most gay-bashed kid in our school, who was repeatedly assaulted by bullies, including while teachers watched without intervening.  Dropping out and fleeing flyoverland was one of the best decisions I've ever made.  Even though I had a thick skin, I saw zero reason to purposefully keep subjecting myself to an environment where people hated me, called me a slut, and threw food at me.  I wish J has still been alive when I left, wish I could have brought him with me, I wish I could have shown him what I suspected all along - that there is a whole world outside of this shithole hometown of ours.

Even though I wasn't able to be there for J, I wish someone would have told him, "It gets better".  And with the rash of queer youth suicides in the media, Dan Savage decided to step up and do just that, for all the other kids just like my childhood friend who ended his own life.

There is not a person alive today with more drive and ability than Dan Savage to tell the world - through his column, blog, podcast, and television appearances - that it's okay to be queer, or kinky, or non-monogamous, and to embrace their sexuality.  Dan Savage a powerhouse of a sex-positivity activist, frequently maximizing his widely-syndicated sex advice column and popular podcast to drum up support for important issues.  I especially appreciate that he's consistently implored straight readers that they need to pay attention to anti-queer bigots and politicians, because those types aren't just after The Gays, they're out to take rights away from straight people, too.  So, with his ability to have an impact on public discourse, Dan launched the It Gets Better Project last month, based around a video channel on YouTube, for anyone to upload messages of love and support for isolated and struggling queer kids who may be thinking of taking their own lives.

The videos I have watched are so moving and inspiring, and positively radiate care and love.  Participants get choked up over telling the world about how they'd tried to kill themselves, how glad they are to be alive today, how they have amazing partners now, how they've come to meet so many other great queer people, and how important it is to just stick it out, because it gets better.  Internet celebrities like blogger Perez Hilton and porn star Buck Angel both tell viewers that they're welcome to email them and they'll gladly offer their personal support.  (It bears emphasizing: I didn't see a single person who was attacking the It Gets Better Project put themselves out there to offer their personal support to queer kids.)

I've only watched a dozen or so of the videos, but the ones I've seen are just so damned beautiful and filled with love for lonely and bullied queer kids.  I've cried watching some of the videos I've clicked on.  It's one of the best, most direct, and most effective activist projects I've seen in ages.

So, in harsh contrast to all that support and hope, I witnessed many people in the feminist whine-o-sphere predictably became enraged at the offensiveness of it all.  The nerve of that asshole Dan Savage!  Using his fame and popularity to reach out and try to prevent queer kids from killing themselves!

The two key arguments against It Gets Better seem to boil down to a) "privileged" bullied queer kids thinking of killing themselves don't matter anyway, and b) if an activist project doesn't instantly fix all problems for everyone, it is therefor a horrible idea and shouldn't be done at all.

Dan Savage has addressed critics by blogging,

To the angry folks: I admit that IGBP doesn't do the impossible.  It doesn't solve the problem of anti-gay bullying, everywhere, all at once, forever.  The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope.  The point is to let them know that things do get better.  For some people things get better once they get out of high school, for others things get better while they're still in high school.

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Nothing about letting kids know that it gets better excuses or precludes us from pressing for the Student Non-Discrimination Act, demanding anti-bullying programs, confronting the bigots who are making things worse, or supporting the Trevor Project.  But we're not going to get legislation passed this instant or get anti-bullying programs into schools in rural areas—particularly private Christian schools—before classes start tomorrow.  Doing all of that is going to take years of hard work and dedicated activism.  In the meantime, while we work on all of that, we can get these messages of hope in front of kids who are crisis right now.  And we must use the tools we have at our disposal right now—social media and YouTube and digital video—to get these messages of hope to kids who are suffering right now in schools without GSAs and kids who are trapped schools that will never have GSAs and kids whose parents who bully and reject them.

There's nothing about this project—nothing about participating in this project—that prevents people from doing more.  Indeed, I would hope that participating in this raises awareness and leaves people feeling obligated to do more.

When I saw people expending their energy attacking It Gets Better, the dynamic felt all too familiar.  Just another group of elite politically correct liberals who prefer to focus on honing and touting their perfect theories, rather than taking real tangible actions.

My childhood friend I mentioned earlier?  J was a white guy, middle class, able-bodied, and presumably cisgender.  In the eyes of the feminist whine-o-sphere, I guess it that this means his life wasn't worth saving, and he didn't deserve receiving a message of hope and support during the darkest days of his life.  After all, he was just some privileged gay kid, not a caricature of perfect oppressions, a lab-created layer cake to salivate over, like a transgender wheelchair-bound black queer kid who grew up in a slum in Rio.

J's suicide is a very personal reason I want to slap every insipid armchair pundit who devoted time to attacking Dan Savage and the It Gets Better Project.  These critics blithely dismissed the campaign because they viewed it as only reaching out to privileged queer kids, which tacitly argues that those kids don't really matter and don't really suffer. Activists in first world countries often forget - while ironically often accusing others of being "too privileged" - that there are actual lives involved in the issues they theorize and pontificate over.  Kids who get bullied to death and are physically attacked by tormentors are not abstract concepts to me, they're people I've known and cared for.  They're living, and dead, reminders of why I didn't need to read The God Delusion to form an analysis of how religion poisons everything.

Growing up as a picked on queer kid isn't easy for anyone, even if they are non-poor caucasian able-bodied cisgender boys.  If life is so gleefully "privileged" for them, why do these queer kids kill themselves?  What if my friend J had been deaf?  What if he was Hispanic?  Would his life have been worth caring about then?  What does it take to get some simple fucking human decency towards the misery of people like J, or my other "privileged" friend who dealt with assault at school on a regular basis?  When you dismiss reaching out to "privileged" kids (and I dispute the accuracy of that allegation anyway), you dismiss and belittle the pain of those kids, plain and simple.

Samuel Johnson famously quipped a delightful observation - that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.  I shall now famously quip that "activism" which centers on accusing others of being too privileged is the last refuge of the lazy.

You know what's not lazy?  The It Gets Better Project.  Go submit your own video message, support initiatives in your area that address bullying in schools or provide funding for queer youth services, and donate to organizations such as The Trevor Project or  The Ali Forney Center.

Stick it to the feminist whine-o-sphere: actually do something.

I was feeling angsty and sad one night over the weekend, ranting to New Boy about my issues with Old Boys.  Poor sweet New Boy, he listens so patiently, even though he's no doubt sick of hearing me bitch about this topic.

Like every other sex worker - whether they'll talk about it openly or not - some of the people I've dated/fucked have treated me un-awesomely, to one degree or another, due to my occupation.  Earlier this year, I was involved with two men who had argued that it could screw up their careers if it was found out that they were linked to the likes of me - as though I'm some kind of wanted Taliban operative who plays target practice with babies in my spare time.  I think both of these guys were just using the work excuse as a bullshit cover for not have to deal with the risk of personal embarrassment over sleeping with a girl who takes her clothes off for money.  (This sort of issue is not confined solely to sex workers; see Violet Blue blogging about her similar experiences as a sex writer here.)

I recently posted a half-serious ever-so-web-2.0 relationship/friendship definition on Twitter: "It only exists if it's on the internet and indexable."  This year, I've gotten increasingly stubborn about the idea that I am done hooking up with anyone who makes a show out of the importance keeping things off-the-grid.

Part of me wants to declare that we sex workers should all stand up for ourselves and our dignity and stage a big boycott of dating/fucking people for free who are too cowardly to associate with sex workers outside of the bedroom. But, I realize that's impractical for a lot of sex workers (such as the ones who are still in the closet themselves), and I'll probably break my boycott someday anyway, since I'm lousy at dogmatism.  But still - imagine if more sex workers did make that decision right now and stopped enabling people to reap the rewards of sleeping with sexually skilled partners, while refusing to "give back" by being our most intimate of allies.  A partner who exhibits behaviors to let you know they are ashamed of you is inflicting a form of emotional abuse, plain and simple.

I'm a fairly public person who lives on the internet and blogs and Twitter.  I am not saying I have no sense of privacy or discretion when it comes to my personal life and the wishes of my partners, but that's a whole different matter than being curtly confronted about how I am not allowed to tell people that we've slept together.

The guy I refer to as Mr Personal Assistant had his employee relate to me that "his career is just too important right now", and that "with the media all over him", he just couldn't be linked to a sex worker.  I wanted to scream at him - had he had the nerve to actually tell me this himself - "Who the hell do you think you are?  One article about you in Wired Magazine does not mean the media is 'all over you' like an insatiable swarm of tabloid paparazzi, eager to catch you in a headline-making sex scandal."  (For those of you know know who I'm talking about, you are no doubt laughing hysterically right now.)

While not a single photo ever existed of that asshole and I - whether on our iPhones or the cover of Us Weekly - it's a different story with the long-term ex.  He wasn't a legendary douchebag like the other guy, but his more subtle behaviors still chipped away at me.  We both love photography, and took plenty of photos of each other.  When we went on vacation, for example, there were many "us in front of this thing" touristy images, candid glimpses we'd catch of each other, or just photos of us making silly faces at each other when we were bored.  I knew, without needing reminding, that photos like these were not pieces of my life that I could upload to my Flickr account.

Being a sex worker has meant knowing exactly how many times I've appeared in publicly-viewable photos with a person I've dated/fucked. And that answer is often "zero".

With the long-term ex, the one with a camera ever-present around his neck, I know where all six of his photos of me are.  Two are at a conference, two are at a large party, and two are from our vacation.  All of these photos imply that I'm just some person who happened to be in the same place, perhaps a casual acquaintance, or the back of the head of a tourist who obtusely wandered into the frame of his perfect shot.  Never, ever, is there a photo of us together, and gods forbid, certainly not a photo that implies we were "involved".  If you're someone who knew us, and looked at his prolific photo-taking, I would think it actually stands out that he has oodles of photos of all of his friends, including other women he's been involved with, except for me.  That still stings.  (It reminds me of the scene in The Village where one character informs another that he knows a certain man is very attracted to her.  She asks him how he could be so certain of that.  The answer?  "Because he never touches you".)

This summer, I've been trying to up my game on my "scare 'em away plan" of sorting new potential mates.  This weekend, I disclosed to New Boy that I had been testing him a bit.  When we met, I liked him right away, so I immediately set about trying to seduce him - and, of course, see if he was going to be scared away.

On the first night we were getting to know each other, a friend took a photo of us together at a club, which I found in her Flickr stream.  Throughout the coming weeks, I kept at it.  I not only stood next to him in photos, I put my arm around him!  I exhibited body language that suggested sexual attraction!  And, New Boy passed this simple-but-vital test of mine with flying colors.  He uploaded these photos alongside all his other photos, like there was something totally unremarkable and non-shameful that his friends, family, and coworkers would be able to see us together.  This sounds trivial to civilians, but after my last year of problematic mating, it makes me feel stupidly warm and fuzzy.  No one knows if or where things will progress with New Boy, but he's certainly set the bar high for everyone who comes next, just by being sane and normal towards me, rather than acting like he's an evangelical preacher cheating on his wife and I'm an underage gay hustler.

After the end of the conversation wherein I revealed my photo test to New Boy, I was curling up in bed, and texted him my closing thoughts for the night: "Thank you for treating me the way I think I deserve to be treated."

And thanks to all the other slut-lovers and ho-lovers out there for simply acting like we are regular human beings, not plague-infected, career-ruining embarrassments.  You all rule.

[Edited to add: I worry this post comes across like I'm throwing a major pity party for myself and that my love life is completely shitty.  It's not at all, and I also recognize that I have had much, much better luck with the dating scene than many other sex workers.  It's just that this last year contained some notable unpleasantness in my personal life for me, and two guys who represent different ends of the spectrum of how partners of sex workers can react poorly to our work.  One, overtly, one, more subtly.  While I still really want to punch Mr Personal Assistant in the face, I only harbor minor resentment towards my longer-term ex, who was, in most ways, a really awesome partner.]

I sometimes worry that I come across online as a mean and spiteful person.  This is an inaccurate picture of me, but it's my own fault for not creating enough filler content about myself.  The thing is, I simply don't feel moved to write an impassioned treatise about a great marinara sauce I made, or a funny video I saw on YouTube, or even a hot fantasy that popped into my head while masturbating.  (I'm simply awful at trying to translate sexual experiences into arousing and readable text.)  I'm someone who writes about things that really upset and engage me.  My mental subtitle of my blog is a quote from one of my heroes' standup routines: "This is just a series of things that are pissing me off."

To balance that out a bit and make me seem less like an insane bag lady always yelling at buildings and statues, here's a more harmonious post on my life as a pornographer.

The time: 6 months ago.  The setting: a Russian boat doing a cruise of the Antarctic peninsula.  The goal: editing a lot of porn and seeing a lot of cute animals.  (The resulting non-pornographic photos?  Here.)  The following are a few thoughts I wrote during my voyage and have had hidden away in my drafts folder.  Now that it's oppressively hot outside, it's time to remember getting cold.

To start, here's a snapshot of me in my small top bunk, editing a scene for Cocksexual.com with Bella Vendetta, Jiz Lee, and Syd Blakovich:

On our first day of sailing in open seas, passengers didn't have much to do besides attend lectures on things like different types of seabirds and why global warming is bad, which I mostly skipped so I could do some work.  I was in the middle of editing some photos of Calico when an announcement came on that a group of three female humpback whales was off the side of the boat.  I closed my computer, put on my fuzzy boots, and joining dozens of other people racing up the stairs to get a quick glimpse at the whales as they moved into the distance.  It's a strange and wonderful thing to be interrupted from editing pornography by whale sightings.

It had been my intention from long before my cruise was booked that I make strapon porn in Antarctica.  I had wanted to do it actually out on the ice, but during our off-ship excursions, we ended up being much more supervised than I thought we would.  (Which is a good thing- I'm glad staff told people to not try to harass penguins or scramble around on delicate areas.  Though, it was amusing to watch the Japanese couple repeatedly pretend they didn't understand English only when they were told to not try and pet the penguins.)  As the days went on, I also couldn't sniff out any real perverts or oddballs on the ship to help me out behind the camera with shooting some naked or strapon photos.  I asked the cute Australian guy I'd been chatting up and he got all blushy and said that would be too "awkward" for him - despite my repeatedly asking him.  Poor normal boys - scared of my cock.

With a number of people around all the time, I accepted that getting naked off the ship would mean exposing myself to them.  Not a worry - I'm not shy.  So, on a "warm" day, I asked the nicest guy on the cruise, "Can I borrow you for a minute?"  We tourists were always doing this - flagging someone down to take our pictures in front of something.  He knew the drill and trudged over as I handed him my camera, asking, "You're not offended by nudity, are you?"  He was not.  I quickly stripped off my many layers , including my boots and two layers of socks, and ran out into the snow.  He quickly shot some photos of me as a staff member looked amused but slightly uncomfortable, and then I raced to put my clothing back on.  My feet hurt for the rest of the day - not officially frostbite or anything, but I felt like I was walking on pins.  But look at the glory that resulted:

I think I became the gossip of the trip after this.  I even had one woman pull me aside excitedly a few days later and ask ,"Is it true what they're saying - that you got naked?!"

So, my first pornographic mission was accomplished, but I was running out of time and desperate to make use of my pretty new white Joque harness.  While it's one thing to ask a person to shoot some nudes of you, it's another to ask him to shoot photos of you jerking off a big strapon.  I ended up taking those photos myself, aboard the ship.  These were shot off the coast of Deception Island, which is off the northern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.  I returned on an early boat from that morning's outing so I could make use of the side decks while people wouldn't be milling around on them.  I don't know if anyone saw me, but it would have amused me greatly if one of the elderly couples decided to go for a stroll on the deck at that moment.

Success!

(See more of the nudes by joining FurryGirl.com, and the rest of the strapon set by joining Cocksexual.com)

"Wait - didn't he know what you did for a living before hooking up with you?"

That's the confused, am-I-missing-something-here question almost everyone has interrupted me to ask as I explained the first of my two nasty splits from the last two months.

The answer is that yes, he knew exactly what I do.  He knew before our first drunken makeout session at a party last summer, before our first date last fall, before he ever put his dick in me this spring.  In fact, he went on and on, profusely about how much he supported my decision to be a sex worker and how people ought to treat us with more respect.  He told me that my then-boyfriend was "classless" for having asked me to go with him to a work function as a "web designer" rather than a "pornographer".  He once even used the phrase "honored to help" when presented with a way to do something for the sex worker community.

You can tell where this is going, right?  It's like waiting for the punch line in the latest news story that begins with, "One of the nation's most prominent evangelical anti-gay activists was recently caught..."

This guy made himself officially my first split based on my job!  I can't believe it took me 8 years in porn to find - and copulate with - a guy to drop me like toxic waste for no other reason than fear of personal embarrassment about my work.  (I've seen other sex workers cycle through these assholes more regularly.)  I got the full bullshit parade.  "Look at me!  I adore and respect sex workers!  I'm such a good guy!  I can't lie to anyone!  I respect you and think you're wonderful!"  Until, that is, a couple of weeks after our long-distance half-year flirt-fest was sealed with several days holed up in my place fucking.  Ohhh... so that's what it feels to have a guy manipulate and lie his way into your vagina!

Here's the real punch line, though: the guy had his personal assistant do the dirty work rather than tell me himself.  Aspiring yuppie douchebags take note!  A girl will never forget that special first time when a man's personal assistant calls to lecture her about how his career is just too important right now for him to risk being publicly associated with a girl like her.  Kicking a girl in her most sensitive areas via text message is so lower middle class.  A true gentleman has an employee do it.

Or, if you like cruel jokes with two punch lines: he later did bother to tell me himself that he hoped we could still be "good friends" in spite of his decision.  Since we were never "together", I'm taking "good friends" to mean "I'd still like to put my penis in your holes when I'm in Seattle."  Honey, if you want to fuck sex workers, but don't want to be connected to them in broad daylight, that's not referred to as "close friendship".  It's calling being a paying customer.

Sigh.  And I was doing so well.  I'd only had one other asshole in the last three years, which feels closer to 30 in a sex worker dating years.

Split two was with the boyfriend, which was a more complex situation.  It was my longest relationship.  We'd been in this weird grey area for 6 months leading up to the final breakup in May, when I just couldn't handle dealing with his problems any more.  It called to mind an image of a dangerous attempt by a non-pro to rescue a wildly thrashing drowning person.

Both splits hit me hard enough to knocking the proverbial air out of me, but in different ways.  Thinking of suitor number one makes feel me angry and used.  Thinking of suitor number two makes me feel exhausted and sad.  It's resulted in my neglecting work and focusing on tending to myself, which means in an already recession-plagued economy, the last two months have not been too profitable.

One of the things I've heard many sex workers say over the years, as another is going through a breakup, is "invoice him!"  It seems to be one of our fallback jokes.  I've had half a dozen people implore me of that lately.  But, it's not the sex I want to invoice them for.  I wish I could invoice them for the less tangibly quantifiable degrees of emotional distress and subsequent distraction from work they'd both put me though this spring.  I wish I had something to show for it all other than being wiser in mate-selection in the future.  You can't take that consolation-prize sentiment and spoon it at night, or pay your bills with it.

I needed to get some fresh air.

I headed off to Mexico for 8 nights - unfortunately, though, not at the expense of either of the boys.  (I believe that people who drive you to necessitating stress-related vacations should be responsible for at least half of the cost, like an abortion.)  I'm now settling back in at home, but I had a lovely time on the beach in a rural part of the Yucatan.

I still can't really take much comfort in chalking it all up to experience, but at least I got a tan and some time to disconnect.

One of my favorite musical groups is VNV Nation.  As a fan of industrial, synthpop, electronica, and "goth" music of its many niche labels I can't keep track of because I'm not cool, one thing I love about VNV Nation is that its lyrics can be quite supportive and positive for "goth music".  As much as Nine Inch Nails will always be an old favorite and remind me of being a teenager, I can only listen to a rich famous white guy sing about how awful life is for one album before I've gotten my fix for a couple of months.

Last summer, I had a chance to see two amazing shows.  Peter Murphy, at god-knows-how-old-he-is, put on one hell of a performance in San Francisco last June.  In Seattle in July, I saw VNV Nation for the first time, and they tied Murphy for best live show I've ever seen.  It's inspiring for me to see performers who've been around a while who still give 110% to their fans and look like they truly love the fuck out of every minute of what they're doing.

Off VNV Nation's latest album, Of Faith, Power, and Glory, there's one song I have listened to many times in two months: Verum Æternus.  I think it's a lovely ode to outsiders and people who go through hard times - especially the first stanza - so I'm going to leave you with it as I skitter off to Mexico for a week to try and relieve some of the stress problems I've been dealing with lately.

If you and I had been
Anything less than these tormented souls
We would never have gone so far
To become what we are

If you and I had never seen the world
Through the eyes of a child
We would never have wanted to stop time
Sleepers passing by

If you and I had been anything less
Than these disenfranchised minds
We would have looked the other way
As we passed each other by

And for the things I know
From the broken, all I ask
Is to look beyond this place
Stop staring at the ground
Thinking only what went wrong

I know there are days
Too dark or hard to take
I hope you know
This is just one day you have to face
This is not the whole of your life

This is one day
This is one day
This is one day
One day out of the whole of your life
One day out of the whole of your life

In the last month or so, I've done some none-too-subtle waving and pointing at my Amazon wishlist.  Hey, if I had any sense of shame, do you think I'd be where I am today?  I am a defective human being in that I seem to lack both the "fear of 'authority'" and "shame" centers of my brain, which seem to be the driving forces behind all-too-many people's decisions.

So, I wanted to give a public thanks to the several lovely people who sent me some cool books.  It's nice to feel appreciated for the energy I put into my writing and being a naked chick on the internet.  I've received:

* The History of Sexuality Volume One by Michel Foucault

* A Woman Speaks: The Lectures, Seminars and Interviews of Anais Nin

* Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction by David Hopkins

* The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia by Elizabeth A Wood.  (This came without contact info from the gifter, sorry I can't email you personally to say thanks!)

* Planet Ice: A Climate for Change by James Martin

* Rebel Lives: Albert Einstein edited by Jim Green. (This also came without contact info from the gifter.)

Throughout my life, I have repeatedly had my beliefs and politics put to the test, which tends to end in me doing this thing that terrifies most people: bridge-burning.  Here are three of those stories - most notably, why I refused to speak at last weekend's Sex 2.0 conference due of the involvement of Carnal Nation, and why their presence made event an unsafe spaces for sex workers.  Bear with me - I know this is a frighteningly long post, and it's about my personal experiences as well as just the main controversial issue.

Years ago, I stood in a friend's kitchen on my cell phone, staring intently at his spice rack in disbelief.  I'd just found out that someone I'd considered a trusted friend committed a horrible violation against another person. Later, I burst into tears outside on the street, feeling so sick and pissed off.  Most of this man's friends stood by him.  They made excuses.  They told outright lies.  They came up with explanations about why what he did wasn't actually that bad - if he had done it at all - and why him being such a "good person" basically negated what he might have done anyway.  A man who was very popular in his social circle victimized a lesser-known person, and I was one of the only voices publicly standing up against him.  One of his defenders was perplexed by my anger.  It didn't happen to me.  Someone else continued to live in fear and torment, so why did I care so much?  I was given the choice between many personal friendships, and the political/ethical beliefs I have espoused for years about standing up against those who take advantage of others.  It was theory versus reality.  I made the right choices.  And I lost friends over it.

Last year, a guy in the San Francisco nerd scene posted a "humorous" guide on his blog about how to drug and date rape women.  I Twittered angrily about it.  I asked people to confront him in person at the monthly event he organizes.  I hoped he'd be kicked out of his scene for being such a blatant misogynist.  Nothing happened.  Months later, I brought it up again, and some people who are friends with both myself and Mr. Rapejokes stopped following me on Twitter immediately.  So, given the choice, a sect of the San Francisco nerd world stood by someone who thinks the idea of raping drugged women is hilarious.  I bluntly forced a mutual friend to pick between us, and she picked Mr. Rapejokes and dismissed the topic as "drama".  I was the one who lost friends over what he blogged, not him.  Theory versus reality, and again, I made the right choice and I'm glad I spoke out.

Last week, as my Twitter followers and many others are already aware of, I boycotted the third Sex 2.0 Conference.  I'd attended the first two Sex 2.0 conferences, loved them, and spoke on two panels at the previous one.  I was scheduled to be a speaker this year on a panel about sex work, and I pulled out days before the conference because I refuse to participate in an event that is not a safe space for sex workers.  I've been a sex worker for 8 years, and in case it needs mentioning, I'm big on the idea of places where we can chill out and talk about our lives and our work without dealing with verbal or even physical attacks from those who don't look kindly on us. Real safe spaces for sex workers matter to me.  Sex 2.0 used to be one of those spaces.

Sex 2.0 stopped being a safe space for sex workers when it welcomed in Carnal Nation, an online media company that caters to the sex-positive community.  You see, a while ago, a stalker popped up offering cash rewards for anyone to out/stalk/harass sex workers at their homes.  Carnal Nation defended endangering the lives of sex workers as important "free speech", giving promotion to the stalker and belittling and mocking the women being stalked.  Because of this stalker, people were, and still are, genuinely scared for their safety.

Whatever that official or unofficial connection was, Carnal Nation was allowed by Sex 2.0 organizers to be present at the conference in spite of the criticism of many people.  They could have picked the concerns of sex workers and our allies over a bit of publicity for the conference - barring Carnal Nation from covering the conference - but the organizers picked publicity.  The consolation prize was that if anyone wanted to talk about why they resent Carnal Nation for endangering the lives of sex workers, they were allowed to be interviewed about it. Yeah, I'd love to give Carnal Nation free content for their web site, that's exactly the aim of my boycott.

One of the defenses of Carnal Nation's presence at Sex 2.0 is that no one had to be interviewed - it was just a media outlet that you could talk to.  I've never said I was opposed to Carnal Nation's involvement because I thought they'd force all attendees at gunpoint to give interviews, the point is that Carnal Nation was allowed in the door at all.

What if Carnal Nation was a company known for mocking gay-bashing and dismissing groups that advocate violence against queers as "important freedom of speech"? I have no doubt that such a media outlet would have been barred from Sex 2.0.  Sex workers, however, are apparently not a vulnerable minority that deserves to come together in a space free of media companies that think our safety makes for nothing more than an amusing libertarian argument.  Well, sorry, Carnal Nation, but the women being stalked are not abstract philosophical constructs.  Two of them are my friends - not debate fodder about the importance of yelling fire in a crowded theater.

As a scheduled speaker, I felt as though refusing to attend was the biggest stink I could make as just one person.  (I got a refund for my Sex 2.0 ticket and donated that money to the Desiree Alliance conference - a sex worker event going on this July in Las Vegas.)  This did get people talking: online, on the Sex 2.0 email discussion list, and at the conference itself - both in sessions and unofficially.  I wish I had something prepared for public dissemination last week, however, I've been mulling over exactly what to blog and gathering input from others.  I hope this full explanation makes more sense of the issue to those of you not already familiar with what happened.

I won't be linking to the exact article because of its menacing content, and I ask that if you comment about this issue, you don't link the article, either.  I ask that you not name or link to the web site offering cash for people to out/harass sex workers.  I ask that you do not state the names of the women who are targeted by the stalker's web site without their permission.  Basically, be the opposite of Carnal Nation - be respectful and responsible.  When and if Carnal Nation posts a defense of itself on its own web site, I hope you will ignore it, rather than pouring your energy into their comments section and giving them traffic.

John Pettitt, owner of Carnal Nation, wrote in his short article about the controversy,

While we regard [stalker] as repugnant CarnalNation believes in the right to free expression, if Larry Flynt can offer a bounty for cheating Republican politicians it's equally defensible for somebody to pay for information on sex workers. Neither is a morally defensible position but morals are personal and free speech transcends personal morals. It comes down to a simple truth It's the unpopular speech that needs protection.

In the spring of 2010 CarnalNation will begin letting our users publish their own content in personal blogs. One of the reasons we decided to provide this service is the fact that a well orchestrated mob can cause a service like blogger to remove content they don't like by flagging it for terms of service violation. We won't do that. In fact if it's legal (that is a court hasn't told us to remove it) it will stay up no matter how much we disagree with it. That doesn't mean we won't be critical but it does mean we can only disagree with attempts to silence [stalker].

So, according to Carnal Nation, the most important thing in this situation was that stalkers need "protection" to harass sex workers, because a stalker's "free speech" rights trump safety concerns from a highly vulnerable population that is regularly attacked, raped, and murdered?  Further, that the stalker is the real victim in the situation because people had been trying to get the stalker's blog taken offline?  Of course, John Pettitt tried to cover his ass by saying the site is "repugnant", but he still still gave it tons of free publicity and defended how important it is that we stand up for "unpopular speech", aka, harassing/outing sex workers.  Having the stalker promoted and legitimized on a well-known "sex-positive" web site was done, in my opinion, simply to get a lot of comments and traffic.

And comments there were!  In a section a mile long condemning and debating John Pettitt, sex-positivity super-heroes and sex workers including Monica Shores of $pread Magazine, Heather Corinna, Tasty Trixie, Kat of Kat's Stories, Mistress Matisse, Melissa Gira, Sarah Sloane, Annie Sprinkle, Jill Brenneman of SWOP East, and Sadie Lune spoke out against this irresponsible and dangerous behavior from Carnal Nation - and that's just on Carnal Nation's own web site.  Much more has been said elsewhere.

Carnal Nation has proven that they are happy to cover sex workers as titillating new items, but will quickly kick us in the teeth when we're down.  (Hey, that sounds exactly like the hostile mainstream media!)

Speaking of using sex workers to make a profit, former writer for Carnal Nation, and $pread Magazine editor, Monica Shores, has been involved in a multi-month battle trying to get paid for articles she'd written for the company in the past.  She believes Carnal Nation is refusing to pay her because she's criticized the company, and as of now, has still not be paid for work she did months ago.  Whether or not she ever will ever be paid still remains to be seen. [Update on 6/15: Monica has finally been paid.  But, I've heard from another sex worker and former Carnal Nation writer who is owed money by the company.  It's an interesting trend.  Are there any more people out there who've worked for Carnal Nation and not been paid as promised?]

In speaking out on the issue of Carnal Nation at Sex 2.0, I lost friends.  I made sure I'll never be welcome in the Seattle kink community.  I even received a not-too-thinly-veiled threat against myself if I continue to speak out against Carnal Nation. But you know what really fails to motivate me to shut up about my concern for creating safe spaces for sex workers?  It's threats to my personal safety.

I hope that this whole mess will allow more people to take a moment to think about what it really means to create safe spaces for sex workers.  You would think it wouldn't be that hard for supposed allies to grasp the basics like, "Don't allow in companies that defend violence against us", but apparently, it is.  This was an instance where I felt the need to point at one conference as the perfect example of how not to make an event safe and welcoming for sex workers.  This is a bigger fight than just Carnal Nation, so while I do hate to give them so much attention, and will no doubt be called a hypocrite for doing so, I also want my community to know their true face, and to be on the lookout for more wolves in sheep's clothing.

I feel like an activist cliche to write profusely about a problem, but offer no concrete solution.  I hope all sex-positive people can talk about ways to make more spaces welcoming and safe for sex workers, because it's not just about one offensive web site or one stalker.  It's about living in a culture that has no regard for our safety, our human rights, our dignity, and our lives - and trying to change that culture, bit by bit.  My little bit to add right now is publicly calling out Carnal Nation and hoping that in the future, they will be banned from spaces that are supposedly safe for sex workers.

Conferences are about like-minded people getting together, talking about common interests, meeting old friends, making new ones, and that buzzword that's everywhere now: networking.  In an age where people treat "networking" like it's the only currency that will ever matter, we get nervous about speaking out on controversial issues, even when we know something is wrong.  We don't want to lose a friend, a blogroll link, an ability to use a connection to ascend social or career ladders.  So, what does "networking" mean to you?  Does it include overlooking things people do that are dangerous or abusive, or allowing people to defend those who are dangerous and abusive?  Will you keep your mouth shut so as to not come across too angry, oversensitive, and socially ungraceful?

I'm not afraid to do battle about the issues that matter to me - and every time I do so, I know I'll lose friends and burn bridges.  I do it anyway.

I don't even know what a fucking bridge looks like any more and how easy it must be to have a world filled with them.  But after a lifetime of being a loud-mouthed cunt, I'm a damn strong swimmer.

* * *

(You can read Sequoia Redd's blog post for her perspective on this issue.)

I guess that's what everyone wants in a book, right?

For most people, that's not hard to find.  Take any average computer programmer, carpenter, pastry chef, archeologist, or soldier, and there will be books from authors more skilled in their field, ready to offer philosophical insights and practical information.  I don't think there's anything like that out there for me, unfortunately.

What I want is thoughtful, aggressive, non-misogynistic, and secular critique of feminism.  It doesn't really seem to exist.

Today, I went browsing around on Amazon - with its wonderful recommendation engine - in search of any anti-feminist sorts of books that I'd actually want to buy and read.  What I get are piles of books written by overgrown frat boys, religious people, and hardcore conservatives who think women should have never been allowed out of the kitchen in the first place.  I'm in earnest search of The More Awesomely Eloquent Me, and all I'm getting is stuff about Jesus, abortion, the homosexual agenda, the dangers of communism, and an out-of-date collection of essays by Phyllis Schlafly.  (Whose work I suppose I should read anyway, just for a historical perspective from someone who fought second wave feminism.)

Although I didn't find anything that was exactly what I'm looking for (criticism of feminism), I'm considering these three books:

* Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture by Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young.

* Venus: The Dark Side by Roy Sheppard and Mary T Cleary.

* A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce by Alec Baldwin and Mark Tabb.

Already in my collection, but as of yet unread, are these other two that I hope will be interesting.  Both of these authors have a bunch of books out, and I bought one of each to test the waters, and the Jesus-ness of their politics:

* The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom by Phyllis Chesler.

* Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women by Christina Hoff-Sommers.

Edited to add: I also have in my existing collection The Myth of Male Powerby Warren Farrell.  I should have included this book in my original post, but my "to read" stack is embarrassingly tall, and I forgot about it until a commenter reminder me of him.  I've only read the introduction so far.  I was bracing myself, from the title, for an angry douchebag rant, but instead, I got a well-thought-out "this is what I've learned after being a professional feminist" from a former board member of the National Organization for Women.

So, what else is out there?  Where's the secular non-conservative criticism of feminism that I want to read?  I asked this on Twitter, but what I suppose I didn't make clear is that I'm not looking for feminist-identified authors criticizing other factions of feminism, or feminist-identified people who acknowledge issues they have with parts of feminism.  I am looking for something outside the echo chamber, outside of pots calling kettles black.  Things not written by feminists.  I realize that, on the left/liberal side of the political spectrum, if you fail to identify as a feminist, you're treated as though you enjoy microwaving baby kittens for amusement.  But come on, there have to be plenty of other assholes like me, right?

While checking out a friend's Flickr uploads, I came across a photo that instantly took me back almost 9 years.  It was the smiling face of a girl who had once looked down her nose at me for being such a slut.  She was a technical virgin back in those days, bouncing from guy to guy faster than I did, doing everything except letting them put their penises in her vagina.  A holier-than-thou cocktease.

If you're like me, you will always remember the teen girls who were catty bitches to you, even if they've grown up, perhaps matured, and through some holy-shit-it's-a-small-world twist, gone on to become friends with someone you know.

This is one of many examples of why I'll never, ever get the "sisterhood" bullshit espoused by feminism.  Most of my experiences with women prior to sex work were them picking on me - for being a tomboy, for being the chubby girl, for being a slut.  The feminists would like to dismiss this sort of bad behavior by saying it's all just because of the evil patriarchy conspiracy, but I happen to know first-hand that women are capable of doling out plenty of oppression and emotional violence all by themselves.  When people refuse to acknowledge that, it makes me assume they must have grown up skinny, popular, chaste, and otherwise entirely conforming to the unwritten laws of the tribe of teengirldom.

Seeing the photo today made me think of a segment from Fast Girls by Emily White, a book I recommend.  The author interviews different women who were labeled sluts in high school.

She was out on the town in Seattle, at a new martini bar.  "Me and my friend Meg were out with these guys from a really cool band.  We were dressed to the nines, so people were looking at us and we felt totally hot.  All of a sudden this girl comes up and she is being real nice, probably 'cuz she wants to get with the guys in the band, and she is like, 'You're Madeline, right?  Remember me?  We went to high school together.'  I was drunk but then all of a sudden I remember who she was, this really popular girl who was one of the worst offenders.  Telling lies about me all the time.  Yelling names at me from her car when she was driving away from school."

The popular girl came up to Madeline that night in the bar offering an apology for the crimes of the past.  According to Madeline, the girl said, "I am really sorry.  I think the reason we did it has something to do with how, when something is beautiful, you want to destroy it."  Madeline rolls her eyes when she tells me that the girl went on and on, an alcohol-fueled confession, a monologue.

Madeline didn't buy it.  The forgiveness this girl was asking for seemed to puny, so late.  Madeline stared at the girl for a moment.  Then she punched her in the face.

[Edited to add: As an addendum- I pestered my friend about the girl in his social circle, and he told me he's gotten in arguments with her for being anti- sex worker. Ah, I guess some mean teenage girls never grow up- they just re-channel their sexual insecurities at new targets.]

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