Searching for Lineage

I would really love to go live in Minnesota for a few months.

Now THAT is a phrase that I never thought I'd say.

Trust me, if I was putting together a top ten list of places I would be least likely to go, Minnesota would be in with a good shot of making it. As a general rule, I am a fan of big cities. Somewhere that is a player on the global stage. Somewhere that is a focus of movies, books, songs, histories. But Minnesota?

The thing is, I have never really felt a great sense of belonging anywhere. I have never actually lived anywhere for more than about five years, and it is fairly hard to put down substantial roots in half a decade, especially if you are aware that by the time you do so, it will be time to pull them up again. So I continue to travel through the world, feeling most at home with others that feel least at home - travelers, mostly.

Despite the bad reputation as weed-addled layabouts, I love travelers. There is something comforting about knowing that you are in the running to be the most informed about a place even if you only landed there two weeks ago. There is something even more comforting about spending time with people who not only support my refusal to accept the mantle of adulthood, but who actively celebrate the idea of remaining footloose and fancy free well into your thirties. Forties. Sixties.

However, my joy at the rootlessness to be found in youth hostels everywhere has everything to do with a feeling of belonging - hey, I am a tumbleweed too! - and nothing to do with the lack of a desire to belong.

When it comes down to it, I desperately want to be part of something larger. Hard to believe, for someone that runs in the opposite direction of small communities, but true, nonetheless. It is just that the larger something I wish to be part of is not contingent on having known the rest of the community since before they discovered jacking off. It has always seemed that age and history are rather arbitrary traits to build a community on, so I would rather find a sense of belonging among those who share my choices, not my postal code.

I have managed to do this in the same way that I have managed to make my living - through that wondrous thing called the internet. I have found a community of like-minded females that I have remained close to despite changes in career and continent, and I care for them with a deep, sincere love.

However. Belonging is not the same as history. And in the same way that people like to trace their family tree, I like to trace my industry tree. Except that the industry I am in is so clouded with shame and guilt that all the branches are faded. Stories are not passed from generation to generation, traditions are lost before they can even be started, and women wishing to start afresh eschew those that came before them, as though women hadn't been revealing themselves to men since Eve first donned a fig leaf, and then took it off again for a taste at the juiciest fig.

I am still left rootless. Lost in a world populated by my peers and my students - finding that at the ripe old age of 27, I am a veteran in my industry, guiding the future without any insight into the past. So I read all that I can. I devour the memoirs of those that have chosen to write them as though they are the dead sea scrolls. I collect and curate a small museum of literature - not just the memories of porn stars and peep show girls, but burlesque history, early theater, famous figures, feminist retrospectives and anthropological studies of sexuality and sin.

I read about those that have gone not too far before me, and those that have worked alongside me, but somewhere else. And still I feel....incomplete. I want to discover if the worlds that are described are the ones that  I will find. I want to connect to the sisterhood that has stretched back to when the first cavewoman decided that getting on her back was easier than breaking it to gather enough food for one more day. I want to feel what they felt, I want to stand where they stood. I want to feel like one of many - connect to all those gone before.

And so, Minnesota. It graces the list of places that I would never feel the need to go, if not for some club, some store - some place that has come up in multiple stories before. There are some places that come up again and again in the memoirs of others - places that I feel compelled to visit, to work if I can. Places that might allow me a feeling of history - that might let me start a breadcrumb trail for others to follow behind me.

These were the places that sex was first sold as a commodity, not just a pleasure.
This is where the greats danced, before they were great.
This is where burlesque hit the mainstream.
This is where porn built an empire.
This is the first of something.
This is the last.

I want, nay, I need. To seek out the last of the peepshows, before the world wide web renders them redundant. To find the one remaining ice box of a porno theater, where no one knows if the state of your nipples is a reaction to the screen or the thermostat. To walk the stage where Mamie Van Doren first licked her lips, to where Tempest twirled her tassels.

I need to breathe the same air. To connect to my history, and ask the ghosts of girly shows gone by if they felt the same draw that I do - the same addiction and power. I may never get to ask my idols what they feel - after all, there is no comic-con for the great flesh trade. No fan-signings for the first to fling their inhibitions and bathrobes to the wind. But I can follow in the footsteps that I can still see, and wonder how my print fits into theirs.

So, in no particular order, these are the places that I would like to visit. To work, if either I or they are still young enough to allow it, in the name of decent indecency. And starting with...

Minnesota. Just to work at SexWorld, and see if I could make it as  peep-show girl in the DollHouse, as mentioned in more than one memoir.
San Fran - for the Lusty Lady. Once a bastion of progressive, sex-positive activism, now a kitschy stop on the sex-work tour.
Dallas, TX - the Lodge. Arguably the most luxurious club in the world, at some point or other.
The Moulin Rouge. For obvious reasons.
Stringfellows, Paris. Having worked at the two in London, it seems only right to consider the final one, probably post Rouge.
Cheetas, Las Vegas. Oh showgirls. Doing so much, and yet so little, for sex workers everywhere.
Burlesque Hall of Fame, aka. Exotic World. To get back to the roots of it all.
The Mitchell Brothers O'Farrel Theatre. Thank you, Strip City. Now I have to.
New York. Just to stand and look at what Times Square is now. What Peepland is, now.

I could conceivably keep going, fill out a worldwide itinerary of places that I have heard of, dreamt of.  I do - in my idle moments. And one day,  I am sure that a wide-eyed zephyr will read what I have written and chase them all down, Secrets, Spearmint, Stringfellows, The Penthouse. Streamate. MyFreeCams. Maybe she will search, as I have, for a sense of carrying on a greater tradition. Maybe the taboo will be watered down enough that she can listen to stories of those that came before. Given tolerance, and time, I know that we will be given a section in the library, a history not shrouded in shame. I wish to be a part of that tradition. I wish to create a tradition, so that no more are left like I am, pulling back the curtain to see beyond the last 50 years, and left grasping at the odd memory in a sea of denial.

Why I Hate Suicide Girls

About once a week, I get someone asking me if I am a "suicide girl". To which I reply a VERY emphatic  HELL NO. Suicide girls is the perfect example of site where I wouldn't take a piss on their server if it was on fire.

I am smart, geeky, pretty heavily tattooed (I mean, not for the tattoo world, but for porn in general) and I get naked on the internet. Is it possible that I am NOT a suicide girl?

Well, yes.

For anyone not aware, suicide girls is a nasty little hipster site dedicated to the idea that "alternative" women are sexy, but that they still shouldn't be able to make a living from it. Because, y'know, getting naked on the internet for money is all kinds of progressive and interesting, but actually being a full-time sex worker is anti-feminist and dirty.

In fact, it is damn near impossible to be a suicide girl and a cam girl, (at least, a successful one) courtesy of various "non-competition" clauses in the suicide girl contracts. The following are taken verbatim from the suicide girls website.

"for two (2) years after the full execution of this Assignment, will not directly or indirectly: (i) sell or otherwise provide Internet, photographic, video, film, audio, text, design, artistic or other creative content to any “SG Competitor”

"With the new contract, we just ask that you do not model for competing sites during your time with SG. If you are currently on another site, we ask that you wait to apply until you are no longer modeling for them.










So essentially, you are allowed to model for suicide girls, you are allowed to model for any other physical publication, but you CANNOT model for any website that may be in competition with suicide girls. Considering that suicide girls is PORN....this means that you may not "model" for any other porn site. Awesome. So that craps out any camsites, brazzers, porn sites, clip sites...really, anywhere that you may get naked. Of course, you CAN get half naked or otherwise for tattoo magazines, alt lifestyle magazines, etc. Because then it is LIFESTYLE (progressive). Not PORN (dirty). Riiiight.

But I can still have my OWN site, right? So, a camgirl could be completely indy, run solely her own website, and still be a suicide girl, right? NO.

We ask that you do not model for any sites that feature tattooed, pierced or otherwise alternative models that have a separate, paid-only members section. If you would choose to model for or have your own site like that during your time with SG, we would simply add you to the archive. It is certainly okay to have your own website, but while you are on SG we ask that you do not have a paid, members only section."

Not only does this fully clarify the previous non-competition clause, and make it really, really clear that you cannot be paid for being naked anywhere else on the internet, but you cannot even have your OWN site.....sorry, you cannot have your own site if you intend to make actual money off of it. You can absolutely have your own site, and show your tits for FREE. But make money from it? Act like a serious professional in the industry and have a members only section of your site? Nah. 

Well, I may not be able to work for anyone else, or have a site of my own to make money from...but I can get money from SG customers, right? I can just make my money there! They have enough traffic!

You may not accept any cash from members. You may not solicit members for money, may not request money or gifts from them, and may not plead for donations of any sort on the site

Or not. 

So, to sum up, you can be a suicide girl as long as you do not do anything else porn related on the internet. For at least two years.

Of course, that could still work. Theoretically, it is possible to make a living off suicide girls alone. The site gleefully tells you that you SG pays someone $500 every 24hours for photoset of the day!! Woo Hoo!!! $500 a DAY! Well, fuck me sideways, that's a good living!

Except, well, you don't make that.

According to the site, there are currently just over 1700 girls on the site. There are 365 days in the year. You do the math. However you seduce your calculator, the chances are that you will make "set of the day" more than a few times a year are pretty fucking slim.

Essentially, suicide girls is about as misogynistic as they come.

A gal should be seen as sexy, even when she is heavily pierced and tattooed.
If said gal is progressive, ironic, anti-establishment and awesome, she should whip her tits out for the masses. For money.
But, y'know, not a LOT of money.
I mean, not the kind of money that would make it a career.
God no.
She is a MODEL. Not a....hooker...or something.
Ew.

To complicate things further, SG is all about the "smart" woman. Except, well, no "smart" woman that I know would work for them. Because to me, being smart means reading a contract, and I can't imagine a thought process that validates the idea of signing away your rights to be naked on the internet for two years for $500. Being smart would mean considering the idea that potential employers don't give an organic rats ass if your photos are "progressive" "fetish" "non-nude" or "ironic"...they will still fire your ass for doing porn. Being smart means realizing that baring your lady bits on the world wide web means that they are out there for all eternity, and your grandson will be able to see your cooch with a little google-fu. A SMART woman would decide that internet porn better be damn well worth it...and the vague chance of $500 every now and then? NOT worth it.

Want to see silly hipster tits who want to buy into a lifestyle for pocket change? Join suicide girls.

Want to see hot, tattooed, pierced, professionals getting fucked senseless? Burning angel. 

Ruined For The Real World...Monies

Whenever I bring up sex work with someone, the first thing they almost inevitably say is:

"Wow - you must make SO MUCH MONEY!".

But the thing is...that I actually don't. At least, I don't think that I do, or that many sex workers do, when compared with what people expect us to make. There is some kind of ridiculous assumption that anyone in the sex industry is quite literally rolling in hundred dollar bills...for the record, I have, once, taken home my cash from a week's dancing and rolled around in it. It was epic. It was movie-worthy. It was awesome. It was once.

For the record, most industry pros I know, whether they are dancers, camgirls, porn "stars", or escorts, run the gamut from barely surviving to being nicely off. But none of them are exactly on the road to beating out Bill Gates in terms of earnings. Even at the peak of my earnings, in pre-recession London, when I was earning somewhere between five hundred and a thousand pounds a night...well, I wasn't working that many nights!! It sounds very strange to people who work 40+ hours a week, every week, but one of the things that I have always loved about the industry is that I have the ability to just work a night or two. I can live for the week on what I earned Monday night, and be done with it...or I can go on a spending spree, and then just head back in the next day and do it all over again.

And therein lies the problem.

The major, monetary issue that I have with a vanilla job is that at this point, the concept of regulated and limited earnings scares the living bejeesus out of me. I would, quite literally, rather risk my grandmother stumbling across a clip of me with a giant dildo in my ass, than deal with the idea of a cap on my earnings.Of earning the same amount every day, every week - and having someone ELSE decide how much that is going to be.

The idea that some crazy stalker creep could hunt me down and introduce me to the intricacies of restraining orders? I'll cope. The idea that I would have to actually, gulp, budget? Sends me screaming for the hills.

The great joy, the great appeal of stripping, or camming, or whatever, is not that you necessarily DO make vast amounts of money, but that you CAN. Although I may end up making a couple hundred in a day, I start every single day with the awareness that it is perfectly possible that I will make ten grand that day. Or twenty. Or a hundred.

When I was dancing, the club I was at tracked the highest earning girl on a single night, and kept it posted to "inspire" us - the highest night came in at just under $30,000. I have personally watched a girl get 10K dropped on her. I watched at the end of the night as she asked for another envelope, and another, to fit all the money into. I saw the look of absolute shock and awe on her face - she couldn't believe it. I can barely believe it, but I was there. I was at the next table when the customer casually called the manager over to ask him to pull that much. And that whole night, I just kept thinking - that could have been me.

For the record, I have finally begun to approach my earnings like a real grown up, for once. I actually DO have budgets, and savings plans. After many years, I have figured out a way to make myself work every day, even when I have already made my rent. In fact, it looks like I will soon be making myself a tidy little living - even enough to warrant the assumption that I light my cigarettes with twenties.

Although the industry can be fickle, if someone offered me a vanilla job, working the same hours, with the same flexibility, for that same average earning - just guaranteed....I would turn it down. I wouldn't think twice. Even though I know that there will be weeks where I make less. Even though I know that there could be days where I make nothing.

I would turn it down just for the chance, the possibility that one day it could be MY day. One day I could be the one stuffing envelopes with a stunned look on my face. 

Have you ever bought a lottery ticket, and really, truly convinced yourself that you might just win? Got a little bit excited, a little bit twitchy? Had a little daydream about what you would do with the money, or how you would react when you found out? Don't you just love the spring it puts in your step, the butterflies in your stomach?

That is the joy of possibility. That is my every single day. That is yet another reason that taking on a vanilla job would feel like giving up on happiness, like purposely draining all the color from my world. Like seeing the rest of my financial life stretched out in front of me, flat and dull and predictable.

Like giving up on hope.

Bad Sex Positions: The Mother Theresa

Remember last time, when I talked about how trying really, really hard in bed can actually be a bad thing?

Well, it turns out that there is more than one way to be a little TOO "generous".

While some men are pounding away mercilessly at their victims (ahem. Partners.) as per their instructional porn, there are others who have swung so far in the other direction that they have practically gone full circle. These are the ones who would never dream of pounding away - not even if you beg them. They don't want a good ol fashioned dick sucking - they are different. They truly want to go down on you, instead. For hours. They want to take you to new heights. They want to make you orgasm so many times that your vagina just falls off right there and then, thus guaranteeing that no other man shall ever, EVER, make you feel so good.

Whether you like it, or not.

That is the thing about the Mother Theresa. He's still not listening to what you actually want. He's not responding to your body, or recognizing that maybe you have done enough exploratory research to have a general idea of what you like.

Nope. He has heard that the porn stars are doing it wrong, and has figured out that magic formula for doing it "right". It's simple, really. Do the exact, polar opposite of the porn star. Which means lots of lovely stroking....LOTS of oral.....lots of gentle sex. And if you suggest, for even a second, that you don't actually LIKE oral sex that much - well, you haven't had HIM do it yet.

Which is, frankly, just a little insulting. Why not tell him that he should let you fuck him with a strap on while connecting his nipples to a car battery and spraying whipped cream up his ass. Not into it? No, no no, honey. It's not that you aren't into it, it's that you just haven't had the right person do it yet.

Guess what? By the time that we get to a certain level of sexual experience (which is, really, any level) we have probably figured out what we really do like, what we really DON'T like, and what we aren't sure about yet. Deciding to override that in order to prove your dominance over the female orgasm is not, in fact, a generous act.

In reality, there is nothing charitable about giving your jaw a cramp to try and force a woman to orgasm, or refusing to let her near you while you slog away for hours on end trying to make her see God.

Yes, it seems fairly counter-intuitive. Yes, I can practically hear men tearing their hair out in response to the idea that not only do women not want what porn tells you they want, they also don't want the opposite. (This is why so many men are bald, but so few women. Men are easier to figure out in the sack, apparently.)

Put the follicles down, boys, and lean in while I tell you a secret about what women want.

It. Depends. On. The. Woman.

In fact, even with just one woman, it depends on the day, time, phase of the moon, movie she just watched and how many glasses of wine she just had. You will never, ever, find a magic formula for how to make every woman in the entire world cum. Because every woman in the entire world does it differently. Sorry.

Actually, I'm not sorry. I won't apologize for asking a man to be constantly aware of, and interacting with, the person he is having sex with. Sex is still a pretty intimate thing - and everyone should really be fairly cognizant of the responses of the person that they are currently having sex with.

It isn't a competition. It isn't a chance to prove that you are the "best she ever had". Even if it was, "best" isn't a keyword for "most consecutive orgasms". Seriously - the best sex I ever had is definitely not the leader in number of orgasms. Not even second. It also isn't a charity case, where you have to do penance for having a dick, and make it all about the other person, all the time. If she is really into you, then she probably would really like to make you happy, as well. Taking away that opportunity for yet another session of pussy-licking is actually pretty selfish. Ignoring her requests and responses in favor of what you just KNOW she will like "once she's had you do it" is definitely selfish - it is trying to prove that you are Number One. This isn't generosity, it is grandstanding. It is trying to elevate yourself above everyone else that she has ever had sex with, and really, doesn't that just seem like you are trying too hard? She's having sex with you now, buddy, isn't that enough? Do you really have to prove yourself, instead of just enjoying yourself? And if you do, well isn't that level of insecurity just a little bit sad?

 Are you so determined to mark your territory with her cum?

You may as well just pee on her and have done with it.