Dorothy, we’re not in Guantanamo anymore…

It has not escaped my notice that I have a hot spot for interrogation scenes. Okay, maybe a wet spot would be more accurate. But there’s a mystery to it for me. While I admit to enjoying the rush of power that comes from hurting someone until they break, the place I more often imagine myself in is the role of the break-ee.

I read this post and its follow-up from Miss Calico and found myself alternately disturbed and aroused. (I sense a new title for this blog coming.) I sent the links to my go-to man for such things, knowing he would get off on it, even as I squirmed with it, even as her words kept rising in my throat like a sickness.

I was not having fun…this was a big mistake…I would rather be somewhere (oh god, anywhere) else – I knew these feelings, and knew, too, the anticipation and memory that bookend and feed those experiences. The amount of pain described sounded horrible to me; I was turned off by what seemed to be the top’s total insensitivity to where she was in her pain, even as I could feel that tension in her words, the place where this was exactly what she wanted even while she was hating it. There is a place of terror for me in all of this: that place where I’m silenced by my pain, and by my pride: where I’ll do anything for my top except surrender. That level of sadism – and masochism – is somewhat frightening to me, even as I somewhat understand it.

Yet I can’t stop looking at the posts, can’t stop picking that scab today. What fascinates me so about this type of play, this place where I’m tied down and begging, and nothing I say will make him stop?

This part moved me in particular:

“I clung to the paternalism in his address. I wanted to be his good little girl. If he was getting off on using his little girl, it wasn’t meaningless torture: he wasn’t going to kill me and dump my body behind the woodshed. Probably.”

I’ve been turned on before by someone telling me how easily he could kill me. Hell, I’ve turned it around and used it to make someone else come. The idea of someone having that kind of power over me, the intimacy of death, so close to sex, his body pinning mine, huge hands crushing my throat as he pierces me with his eyes, his cock…yeah, it gets me hot, the idea.

But there’s a line here, and I’m struggling to figure out where it is. Something to do with the lack of intimacy, the pulling back from it. The coldness in the torturer, who begins to make me believe that he no longer cares, that I’m just another victim to him. Some people fantasize about being tortured, raped and abandoned on the side of the road. I am not one of those people. No, I fantasize about being tortured, raped, and then rocked back to regular consciousness with cuddling and soothing words.

Maybe that makes me some kind of kink wimp, I don’t know.

A commenter on the post had this question: “Do you ever fear that you will go to that ‘it was a long way back’ place and not return? Or return but be changed?”

I like to think that I have a strong mind; I think that’s part of what perversely (how else) attracts me to this type of scene. I want to know how much I can take. I want to know how far I can go. But to what end?

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WTF of the day

So, I’m looking for places to post news of my clips going up (like ya do), and my videographer points me to Mistress Destiny’s Femdom forums.

I’m reading along in the rules of the forum, which all seem relatively reasonable, until I come across this little gem:

Do not dispute the sex of another member on an open Forum. If you are transgendered you are expected to ensure that the membership knows this [emphasis mine]. If you believe a member is misrepresenting his or her sex then bring it to the attention of a moderator in a private message or e-mail.

Wait, what? So, we all know that 47-year-old guys who live in their mother’s basements along with a stockpile of weapons go around on the Internet all the time pretending to be nubile 18-year-old girls. I can understand where this might be a problem if folks on the forums are trying to get together with members of their preferred gender group, and I admire the moderator for suggesting that such disputes be handled privately outside of the boards. I’m sure there’s some great story for why this rule became necessary, though it still irks me in some weird way.

But did I just read that right that transgendered people are expected to disclose their transgenderedness to the members of the forums? What kind of damnfool asshattery is that supposed to be? So, your gender identity is protected from public discussion/dispute so long as you are a cisgendered male or female, but if not you’re expected to tell everyone about it up front?

Um. Okay, this is supposed to be a community about alternative sexuality, yes? Specifically femdom? Right. So…maybe you could be just a tad bit more open-minded than that? And maybe, oh, I don’t know, stop discriminating against people who are a vital part of your community?? You of all people should know that gender is a sticky subject at best, and while I understand your desire to keep the subject of the boards mainly in a femdom context (i.e., no posting male dom videos or whathaveyou), what reason do you have for “expecting” that any of your membership reveal his, her, zir or hir gender to anyone?

I don’t think I’ll be spending much time over there. Or at the least, I’ll be writing an angry letter to the moderator.

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Bitchy made me do it

I was reading back in Bitchy Jones’ Diary last night and was again stirred and moved and amused and made curious by it. I have to be careful over there, as her blog never fails to draw me in to several hours of reading.

When I first picked up on her blog nearly a year ago, it made me start to think hard about the image I put forth as a pro domme – and, frankly, about whether I wanted to continue being a pro domme at all. So much about the culture of pro domming has always been ugly and alien to me, and I spent a lot of time trying to put my finger on why. Is it the exploitation of men? Of women? Is it the obvious fact that most of the men who see me are, in essence, cheating on their wives and partners? I spent a lot of time in my first couple of years of domming figuring out what things made me feel icky and what things don’t, and how to minimize the former and capitalize on the latter.

But Bitchy – looking from the outside of the industry as she is – was able to outline the problem for me perfectly. She writes well on many topics and at length, but her central thesis, if her blog can be said to have one, is something like this:

The image of the dominant woman and the submissive man are broken. The prevailing submissive male culture dictates that said men are worthless, less than men, unworthy to be touched by Women who are Superior, and deserve punishment, enforced chastity, and feminization at the hands of Dominas, whom they should worship as Goddesses. This image, rather than empowering women, pedestalizes them and robs them of their sexuality, locates their power in their appearances rather than in their total persons, and suggests implicitly that femininity is actually inferior, seeing as 1) “forced” feminization is reserved for submissive “sissies,” and 2) dominant women are only allowed to have sex with submissive men if they use a strap-on cock and fuck them up the ass.

Add to this the prevailing notion that certain things germane to being female (getting penetrated being the biggest example) are by their nature submissive, and you’ve got one fucked-up image system going on.

The major problem, that Bitchy goes over and over against the protests of many (especially pro dommes), is that the image of the Big Bad Dominatrix is the only mainstream image of dominant female sexuality there is. As such, it robs women like her of any recognition of their sexuality.

Essentially, the idea of dominant female sexuality – that a woman could actually be in control during fucking, or that she could come from taking a burly, masculine man and causing him pain – is so scary that it needs to be desexualized, dehumanized, the sweat and blood and come taken out of it, and turned into a high-heeled, latex-sheathed, small-penis-humiliating freakfest where a woman’s stilettos are a more powerful seat of sexuality than her cunt.

As she so trenchantly points out, Sometimes I think femdom is like a horrible warning. This is what can happen if you replace actual women being turned on with women’s whose job it is to pretend to be turned on.

Or, as an excellently smart commenter puts it,

Inside kink we have a sexist, distorting, repressive culture which tries to make people like me believe the norm of my sexuality is play for pay, tries to make men believe their submission is shameful and unattractive, tries to make dominance appear unsexy to women.

If you are working as a pro dom, how is it in your interest that this distortion gets changed? It creates a great deal of your demand.

And this:

[T]his is not about deriding sex workers for being sex workers.

Example. If a prodom said “I can’t have sex with clients because it would be illegal where I live” or just “I prefer not to have sex with clients”, this would be from a perspective of sex work. Nothing to make fun of.

But: “A female dominant can’t have sex with a male submissive, because it would upset the power dynamic / they’re unworthy of our sacred shrines / these wimps can’t satisfy a woman anyway”… Are these lies? Do they sound familiar? Are they ridiculous? Do they have harmful effects?

…This is about prodoms knowingly telling lies about sexuality with harmful consequences, and profiting from these consequences….This is about people who claim that their pompous facade, i.e. their sex worker persona, represents female dominance as a personal kinky sexuality. And that is not okay.

As should by now be obvious, all of this is making me think like crazy. I have long been repulsed by the trend in prodommery toward the apparently sexless ice princess who treats her feminized, submissive wiener-men like shit. And it’s taken me a while to figure out exactly why, but I think I know now.

I want to continue to be a pro domme in addition to continuing to live out my personal kinky sexuality. But 1. I want to be more open about who I am as a total person – partly because it makes my life better to do so, but partly to contribute to dismantling this horrid pro-domme stereotype. And 2. I want to restructure how I market myself to reflect the things I love to do in sessions, not the things I’m expected to do as part of this culture.

This is a long time in coming, and I’ve written about it elsewhere in great angsty detail. But Bitchy, as usual, you’ve caught me out. It’s time to stop perpetuating false images that define female dominance as sterile and male submission as shameful. And it’s time to start putting out there what I truly find hot.

And for the record: me? Totally a sex worker. Let me say it here and now: what I do is sex work, it is a sexual service, and I don’t have manual, oral, vaginal or anal intercourse with my clients because it’s illegal and I don’t want to. A post is brewing about strap-on sex, which Bitchy tends to write about as part of the problem, but which I count as a sex act for the reason that it totally turns my crank. One day soon I’ll write about the one time I broke my no-strap-on-sex-in-sessions rule…one of the hottest sessions I’ve ever known. But that’s for another day.

For now, picture this: a new site by me that highlights my friendliness, my viciousness as a sadist, my sensuality with touch and voice, my wrestling fetish, my work as a healer and therapist, my human connection with my clients, and yes, my sexual desire.

It’s very likely that I’ll never have the guts to do videos where I play the submissive. That part of my sexuality is too private, too precious to me to share with the world in that way. Probably this is also the result of the sickness in our sexual culture: while I experience submission as powerful, I have the fear that others won’t see it that way, and am still haunted by the notion that taking my clothes off and going into that space strips part of my power. (Is it any wonder, when most of the images we have in porn of female submission are all about humiliation and conquest? Again – another post for another day.)

But I think you can safely stay tuned for more vulnerability from me as a domme. More clear expression of my desire. More scenes with models I care about, or am at least hot for.

And more stories here about the kinds of scenes that actually make me wet.

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Monday Advice: Topping from Below, and Other Tricky Etiquette Matters

I’m answering one question today, since its content seems to have launched me into a complete post about the topic. Given my general long-windedness, this may become a pattern. But please: do continue to send your questions to delilah@dommedelilah.com , or comment here with your kinky queries, and I will answer them in due time!

Dear Delilah,

As a dominant woman, frequently I get approached by guys who think the experience should be all about them and what they want. “I want you to do X, then Y, then Z!” You’ve probably had this experience too. Obviously, I know what I think about it… but what would you say to these guys about why this tactic may not work? What would you suggest they try instead?

This is an interesting question, since it’s more asking me to pass along advice to unnamed submissives than to help you with this problem, which you already know what you think about. But thanks – it gives me a chance to think about this, and pass along my thoughts. Hopefully they’ll be helpful to you as well, but I think you’ll find that answers to this question vary for different people.

For one thing, it is – or at least can be – very different to approach a professional dominatrix as opposed to a dominant in the scene. For me, I rather expect – and even appreciate – a submissive who tells me what he likes and what he hopes I will do to him up front. One of my clients even arrives with a kind of script, which – guess what? – makes my job easier.

However, I don’t like a potential client who approaches with demands and entitlements, which makes me feel like a kinky jukebox and not a human being. Nor do I enjoy clients who pretend that they’re all into only what I like, and then don’t enjoy the session or get upset that I didn’t do x, y or z.

But what you’re talking about is being a dominant woman – someone who lives the lifestyle and only plays that role. As a switch, I can often have a very good time with someone who approaches me and says “I want you to do x, y and z.” I can also imagine that people new to dominance might enjoy the input of a more experienced submissive when planning scenes within a new relationship. But I can well imagine that a “true dominant” would find that really annoying.

So, submissives: some tips – both for approaching professionals, and for approaching dominants in the scene.

Figure out if you really only want particular things done to you, or if you really want to play with a particular person. This can be tricky, since usually it’s a synergy of both. I have often found, both from the dominant and submissive perspective, that I’ve been willing to do something I wouldn’t ordinarily do for the sake of someone I was truly interested in. I have only occasionally found that I really just wanted a particular thing done to me/to do a particular thing, and it didn’t really matter much who the other person in question was.

If you can untangle this, however, here’s what I recommend: if you want acts, go to a professional. A professional dominant is more likely to be able and willing to accommodate your particular kinks and execute them well. When you approach them, however, do so with respect and with an eye to what they might be interested in doing, too. Tell them what you’re interested in, but don’t make it a list of demands.

I absolutely love Mistress Matisse’s page on “slave training.” Read it for a great explication on different types of submission and how to know what you’re really asking for when you approach a professional.

If you want to play with a particular person, well then, that’s a different story: you have to know how to approach them specifically. That’s hard to know, but there are a few rules with which you probably can’t go wrong:

Do not throw yourself at someone’s feet. The last thing a dominant, professional or otherwise, wants is for some yahoo they’ve never played with before to drop to his or her knees and start hurling honorifics like Mistress, Sir, or Supreme Goddess. If you want to play with someone, you need to approach them as a human being first.

Strike up conversation first. How do you know if you want to play with someone if you don’t even know anything about them except how hot they look? Find an opportunity to start a conversation about something ordinary – preferably something that doesn’t have to do with kink. If you’re in a kinky setting, this might be difficult; on the other hand, it might lead into hotter topics sooner if the chemistry is there. If you’re not in a kinky setting, ease into it.

Observe them playing. If you know a person you’d like to play with, and know that they do in fact play, you should find an opportunity to observe them doing so. If this isn’t possible (you/they don’t do play parties or go to clubs), then find a way to slip it into conversation once you’ve opened up to each other a bit. Find out what they like doing. If you can get them talking about it, there’s a good chance of your getting a sense from their tone about whether they’d like to do it to you.

Talk about what you like without demanding it. This is likely to come late in the game, when you’ve already started talking about playing together. Before you start, or when you’re planning your session, talk a little about what you like. This can be difficult and embarrassing, but sometimes that can be part of the fun. I know I enjoy watching a submissive blush and stammer as s/he talks about his or her kinks.

Talk about what you don’t want. As a submissive seeking to play with a new partner, what you don’t want can be even more important than what you do. After all, if you get to play with that hot new person, and you already know that they’re into some things you like, then it’s probably going to be good for you so long as they know what to avoid. Make sure you make your hard limits – things that you absolutely do not want – clear, and also mention things that you don’t generally like, with the caveat that some dominants will enjoy pushing those boundaries for their own amusement.

For further thoughts on this, see this marvelous recent post about communication between kinky partners. Remember that sometimes you have to talk to each other, especially at the beginning, even when it’s embarrassing or uncomfortable; even when it sucks.

It all kind of boils down to the usual: don’t be a dick. Treat other people like human beings, not machines. Have respect for other people’s desires and boundaries as well as your own. But it’s amazing how often some people need those simple reminders.

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New video clip alert! OTK, anyone?

There’s a new video clip up at my clips store of me spanking the crap out of a sissy over my knee. Bare hand, hairbrush, paddles, you name it. He whines hilariously, too.

.wmv and .mov formats are up; more are coming. Enjoy!

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Two days later – really? Also, more safeword contingencies.

Went to a marvelous party the other night. Friends abounding, getting naked and fucking with abandon or doing deliciously evil things to one another in an atmosphere akin to Burning Man parties I’ve been to in the past. There’s nothing quite like watching someone get spanked under a shiny-mylar-fringed tent-thing amid color-changing LEDs.

I was exhausted and not much in the mood for anything, except maybe a beating. Getting one, I mean. A friend of mine is a great play partner for this; he and I flirt and kiss a little, but the full sexual spark doesn’t seem to be there: he just enjoys my masochistic side when he’s in that special kind of sadistic mood.

It’s always funny for me to play with casual partners in that kind of setting: I’m always thinking about what they’re doing with the cuffs, what their equipment is like, how well they’re managing my safety, and so on – it’s the curse of the professional. But it’s also fun, and good to see that my choice of partners is usually right-on.

He has a nice collection of non-traditional toys: floggers made of nylon strings, smooth for thuddy impact, braided for brutally stingy. Near the end he unzipped a long case, by which time I was floating in endorphins and adrenaline and was only able to ask, “What’s that?”

“The percussion section!” he quipped.

And the coup de grace: two metal canes about a half-inch thick.

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. He told me I didn’t have any marks afterward, but that bruises would probably come up from those canes in a couple of days.

He was right. No, there aren’t pictures.

I was very appreciative, too, of his sensitivity to my safeword problem. It was getting to be too much for me at one point, and he said, “If you need me to ease off, just give me a yellow.” I squirmed, screamed, breathed hard, and finally gasped, “I. CAN’T.”

To his eternal credit, he stopped, checked in, then eased back into the scene.

Sometimes it’s subspace and a desire to please that keeps me from safewording. But sometimes, it’s just plain old stubborn pride. I so appreciate tops who can feel this and navigate it well.

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Monday Advice: Reluctant Partners

Today I answer two letters that deal with the question: what happens when one of the partners in a desired BDSM scenario is reluctant for one reason or another? It’s a tricky one, but not unsolvable.

I have to say, you are almost a dead ringer for my fiancee. She is also six feet tall, size 12-13 shoe, shoulder length naturally curly brown hair, and with a sensually curvy athletic gorgeously feminine but strong body. I have a question for you, if you don’t mind. She is a sweet, sweet girl and I’m a huge trampling fan. I’m a little over six feet tall and weigh about 155 lbs. I’m kind of wiry and thin. Being a tall strong girl like you are, you probably know where this is going. She’s not a dominant person and I would like her to be more aggressive to help her out in life. I want so much for her to trample me, but I know she thinks she’s too heavy, her feet are too big, blah, blah, blah. What is a good way to ask or warm her up to walking on me? I asked her once about a year ago. She very, very tentatively did so and then quickly stepped off. I’ve been afraid to ask her since. I’ve told her that I’m going to drag a dominant side of her out someday, someway (Marshall Crenshaw anyone?) and have slooowwwly warmed her up to resting her feet on me while laying on the floor. She’s still a bit shy about it. But I want her to take the plunge and walk on me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks so much for listening!

MJ

Dear MJ,

Marshall Crenshaw notwithstanding, this is a territory where you must, if you’ll forgive the pun, tread lightly. I’m hearing that you have a particular desire from your fiancee – namely, that she trample you. This seems like something that the two of you could work up to, and I’ll talk more about that below. But be careful about the other thing I’m hearing, here: trying to force your fiancee to be a dominant.

In my experience, there’s very little more annoying than a submissive male trying to talk his female partner into dominating him when she doesn’t want to and it’s not in her nature. It’s not that people cannot be taught to dominate, and there are beautiful examples of experienced submissives training “from below,” as it were. But the would-be dominant must be willing – and wheedling, offering submissive gestures in the hopes that she’ll pick up the role, or suggesting that you’re going to “drag” her dominant side out, is probably not going to help you, and will probably just make her feel anything from annoyed to inadequate.

The good news is that you have a specific desire, and having your woman trample you does not sign her up for becoming your full-time Mistress. It doesn’t even have to mean that she’s being dominant – there is a difference between being a “top” (i.e. the “active” partner in a sexualized activity) and being “dominant” (i.e. the one holding the power in a power-exchange roleplay dynamic). You may find that she has a dominant streak eventually, but the first thing for you to do is guide her, safely and consensually, toward the activity you desire, without pushing for the whole enchilada.

As far as asking: you say this is something that really turns you on. If you’re not shy about that fact, she may be more able to get into it if she’s interested in your pleasure. You say that she’s shy about her size; she may be afraid of hurting you. Try setting up a safeword with her, and let her know that you will definitely say the word if she is truly hurting you. Try starting, as you said you have, with you lying on the floor while she puts her feet on you, and work your way up to her fully standing. She can start by just pressing you with her feet while sitting, then resting part of her weight on you with one foot from standing. Make sure she has something, like a wall, to hold onto for balance, and make sure she’s only stepping on safe places on your body: upper back, chest, butt, and thighs. Hopefully, she’ll find that she enjoys it for its own sake, and if you’re really lucky, she may eventually find that dominant streak in herself. If not – then at least you have a new piece in your sexual repertoire.

And don’t forget to keep telling her how incredibly sexy she is. I appreciate the compliments, MJ – but it sounds like your foxy fiancee needs them more.

My boyfriend is a self-proclaimed Dominant. Okay. I’m not what I’d call a naturally submissive person, but I’m really, really ready to give it a go with him. Really. Very much so. BUT – in my trying to explain that it was going to be quite a step for someone like me to engage in that side of the “play” I somehow managed to convince him I’d not truly like it. He doesn’t believe in “switches” he says, and any attempt by me to try to engage provokes comments like “But I know you don’t really like that” from him. DO I HAVE TO TIE MYSELF UP MYSELF! WTF?!?

I don’t understand the “no switches” rule; the idea that he doesn’t want to do anything I don’t truly WANT is… well… nothing short of sweet but I don’t know how to convince him I want to when I do want him to take the “this is hard for me, but in a good way” part seriously. And plain old “how to get it started” advice. A guy acquaintance suggested handcuffing myself to the bed, but… that seems hamfisted, pardon the pun.

Here’s what I’m hearing, and I’m sorry if it sounds harsh to your “self-proclaimed Dominant:” he’s insecure, and he’s misinformed.

First, the misinformed part: switches exist. In fact, if he’s been paying attention, he might notice that a large part of the overall BDSM culture grew originally out of the gay leather scene, in which, in olden days, every dominant was a submissive first. That was the way you came up in the ranks. So by the very nature of old school leather, every dominant is also a submissive. Even laying history aside, you can let your boyfriend know that I and many of my kinkiest friends are personally insulted by his assertion that we switches simply don’t exist. It’s like negating the existence of bisexuals. So: Dear Boyfriend: come join reality! It’s fun over here. We have cookies. And lots of sex.

Laying aside my own pet peeves, though, is the larger point that will probably be of more use to you: he’s scared. He probably wants to do things to you that he finds really hot, but he’s still afraid that that means there’s something wrong with him. BDSM dynamics require boatloads of trust, and it tends to be the dominant’s job to hold a lot of that trust. It is very, very easy to make a mistake and break trust in this type of dynamic, and so sometimes dominants are reluctant to play with people they’re not sure about. What if he hurts you and you hate it? What if you laugh at him? What if you find out something he’s into and freak?

Clearly, your words aren’t enough in this scenario to convince him that this is what you want. Tying yourself to the bed is a little hamfisted, indeed. But you might try something similar. Different triggers, when you’re being sexual with him, might open that headspace for him and indicate your availability. Some classics include kneeling at his feet, crossing your arms over your head when he’s on top of you, or undressing in front of him while he’s still clothed and watching. Try one of these if any of them turn you on, or something else simple. And keep talking: if you care deeply for him – and it sounds like you do – let him know that you’re not going to think less of him for wanting some nonstandard things. Have him introduce some of the things he’d like to do to you in dirty talk before actually doing them. Tell him to write you a letter or email with a fantasy scenario he has in mind, and pledge to yourself not to react badly to it, even if it’s not totally your cup of tea.

It may seem ironic, with him being the dominant and all, but you need to draw him out and make him feel safe.

Let me know how it goes, folks! I’m always reachable here at the blog, or at delilah@dommedelilah.com!

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Showgirls: Two Hours and Eight Minutes I’ll Never Get Back

I finally got the opportunity, if it can be so called, to watch Showgirls last night. My very limited knowledge of this movie was limited to 1. its being unstoppably awful, and 2. its being a cult classic, especially admired by the drag queen set. My boyfriend has a habit of having the TV on all the time – a habit I do not share – and decided to select this cinematic gem from On Demand to watch while we sat and did work.

My boyfriend’s wife and I sat there with our laptops, she cruising LiveJournal or FetLife, me attempting to write a very serious blog post about race play. But to no avail: however many times our jaws dropped at the incredible shitpile that is this film, however many snarky remarks we made about the Z-movie dialogue, we could not take our fucking eyes off this movie. It’s like a train wreck with tits. Lots and lots of tits.

I poked at my computer. I wrote some desultory emails and tried to find good news coverage of the Craigslist murder. But my eyes just kept wandering upward, to gaze once more on the marvel of horrid dancing, plastic nudity, and bad sex. It was mesmerizing.

I looked at IMDB just to get some info to write this review, and got sucked into the user comments. Some of my favorite lines:

“[I]t’s the kind of world where we, the audience, are expected to be emotionally invested in the trials and tribulations of a knife-wielding, doggy chow-eating, bipolar crack-whore with aspirations to radically improve her life by becoming a titty dancer.”

“If I remember correctly, Joe Esterhaus [sic] was paid a ridiculous amount of money for the screenplay for this film. As penance for creating this abomination, he should be required to wander the earth, giving money to anyone who sat through it.”

“I guess that Joe [Eszterhas] and I must have different ideas about female empowerment because his idea seems to be to portray women as hookers, strippers, killers and raging lesbian predators (anything outside those four categories and they’re fishfood). He apparently thinks that their best activities for empowerment are knives, lesbianism, sex for cash, violence and nasty sneers.”

That last quotation struck me especially, since I agree with the sentiment that creating female characters that are just as violent, vindictive, petty and power-hungry as the male characters does not a feminist movie make. However, I am curious about the complexity of the empowerment (or disempowerment) of sex workers, and the complicated yet ham-fisted way in which this film treats it. It’s one of my pet peeves when people – especially sex workers themselves – put sex work in a hierarchy of legitimacy: “Oh, I’m a dominatrix – I’d never be a prostitute, or, “She’s not a real domina, she’s just a stripper with a whip.” Well, what’s wrong with being a stripper, or a prostitute for that matter?

A good friend of mine, years ago, told me that if I was going to do this work, I’d have to accept that I was a sex worker. I tried on that moniker and found I didn’t mind it. While I personally would never be able to have “actual sex” for money, I respect those women and men who can and do. And I accept that what I do is a kind of sex for money, though I don’t have what the law calls sexual contact with my clients. For me to look down on strippers or escorts would be hypocrisy of the highest order.

This film, in the midst of all its other faults, manages to bungle this one as well. It attempts to glorify the main character’s goal to become a dancer (why she didn’t move to New York instead is a total mystery), and in spite of the horrid audition process, clearly sees dancing in a topless hotel show as a big step up from doing nude lapdances at a strip club. Yet the one thing the main character, Nomi, will not “stoop to” is whoring. When Gina Gershon (the only character in the whole damn thing with no illusions, and who plays her role with relish) tries to prove to Nomi that she is a whore – not because she literally has sex for money but because she sells her sexuality – she will have none of it. A nude lapdance to climax for $500 is one thing; fucking for cash is quite another.

Right.

Now granted, since the movie is so blantantly awful, it’s hard to tell exactly the point that is being made. That Nomi, in spite of being a sociopathic screwball who steps on everybody who gets in her way, is still redeemable because at least she doesn’t fuck for money? That she is actually a whore and that makes her, and everyone else in the film, part of a huge, corrupt, horrible industry? Or the old saw that every sex worker is actually a victim of a male-dominated system that seeks to chew up the best part of your life and them spit you out – to hell if you survive or not?

It’s kinda hard to tell.

But wait, there’s more.

– The rape scene. OMG the rape scene. I could forgive almost everything in this movie up to this point as over-the-top camp, complete with catfights, casual sexual harrassment, horrifying lapdances, and women throwing shiny marbles on the floor for fellow dancers to slip on. But when one of the only African-American characters in the movie, and possibly the only sympathetic character, gets brought to a room and gets beaten and gang-raped – and yes, we have to endure the entire scene – that’s where the whole thing falls off the cliff.

-The “eroticized” bad stuff. There is scene after scene in this movie where the corruption, misogyny, backstabbing and general horror of Vegas is meant to be revealed, in some sort of pastiche of the “corruption of the innocent in the name of fame” theme. The result of these scenes is doubleplusungood: first of all, each scene is played slow, for the greatest possible erotic effect. Witness the scene where the director tells Nomi to put ice on her nipples to make them perky for the dance number. The whole thing, meant to invoke disgust, succeeds admirably not by actually making it uncomfortable, but by attempting to eroticize the moment and yet managing to make it entirely unsexy.

Which brings me to my next point:

-The general unsexiness. Oh dear gods, is this movie the opposite of hot. Cold, clinically gyrating robot-girls. Ridiculous costumes. Horrific sex scenes. So much nudity that it loses all novelty and appeal. There is a continuous debate amidst the user comments on IMDB as to whether the movie is intentionally bad, intentionally funny, a satire, and so on. This is one instance in which I may agree: if you’re going to make a satire about the merciless world of Las Vegas showbiz, it might as well be completely unarousing.

There are a million more things I could say about how the idea that this is a depiction of female empowerment is a huge steaming pile of fail, how sad I was to see my secret boyfriend Kyle MacLachlan starring in this piece of trash, and how unfunny even some of the moments that were supposed to be funny were. But I don’t feel like wasting even more hours on this crap.

Instead I’ll just finish with the main thought I kept having every time the luminous Gina Gershon appeared on screen.

Now if only her character, instead of a creepy, predatorily bisexual “star” trying to drag a young fresh piece of meat down to her level, were actually a nurturing dominant woman seeking to mentor her replacement using the model of leather D/s…ooo, now that’s a movie I ‘d pay to watch. I’m just damn glad I didn’t lay out any money for this one.

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Boston Area Sex Workers Beware

There’s a murderer trolling Craigslist for women offering massage, or so the pattern seems to show. He’s killed one in a hotel room and apparently robbed another at gunpoint.

Please ladies: be careful out there.

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New clips up at my clips store!

I’ve got a new trampling clip up in several different formats at my clips store. Please to enjoy.

Next week there should be a new OTK spanking clip, and then if I can keep my videographer hoppin’, we’ll get many more clips up (I’m hoping for one new one per week) in the next few months.

Enjoy!

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