on being a grown-up

I spent Christmas this year with my partners and family of choice. My parents have just moved overseas (which makes it slightly easier to have a porn career, I'll admit), and while I'd normally want to spend Christmas with my lovely brother and sister-in-law, this year their filial duty required that they visit her family. My sister-in-law is practically my sister, and I love her to bits. I was sorry not to be able to spend the day with them, and as soon as my first glass of champagne was poured on Christmas morning I phoned them up to wish them merry Christmas.

We gossiped for ages, and I chatted about how weird it was not having my mum and dad around. But it was balanced out by how awesome a time I was having, sharing Christmas just with friends and lovers. "I mean, we could have sex on Christmas day and everything!" I exclaimed, "it's a complete novelty!" My sister agreed enthusiastically, saying that this was exactly why she and my brother had gone on a dirty weekend just before Christmas.

Of course, because this is us, my Doms and I didn't just have Christmas sex. I was the happy recipient of two Christmas spankings this year, one from each of them. My sister isn't quite close enough to want to know about them in detail, but hey, that's why I have a blog.

For D, I wore a figure-hugging minidress in festive red, fully-fashioned stockings, and my new Christmas shoes. I'd made him and Tom stockings this year as a surprise, traditional red velvet with white fur trim like the ones my mum made for me when I was little.

After D. had opened all his presents I was fooling around wearing the empty stocking on one foot, and making bad puns about being a stocking filler.

"Go on then," he quipped, expecting me not to have brought stockings with me, but I had. I'm good like that, me. So I grinned and nipped next door and got dressed up, and he sat down on the corner of the bed and he tied my red ribbon around my neck, the one that I wear to remind me I'm his. It matched the dress and made me feel like a present ready to be unwrapped. Then he kissed me and pulled me over his lap, and gave me a firm and sensual spanking that pressed all my buttons and made me more than ready for the fucking he then gave me, with my reddened bum lifted for him and my face pressed into the bed.

Yum.

I saw Tom the next day, and we had langourous morning sex with the sunlight spilling into his room - giving his bed, with its white cotton sheets, a profound sense of peacefulness. This we proceeded to thoroughly disturb with a slow, hard over-the-knee spanking that had me moaning. Every other stroke he paused to rub my tingling cheeks, and I clung to his thigh and wriggled in delight.

No edgy play, no implements, no scene formalities. (No santa hats, either, despite the photo.) Neither of them sought to push me and the mood was joyful, celebratory. I may even have laughed with delight, inbetween yelps. It was simple and loving and perfect.

If this is what being a grown-up means, I'm all in favour.

Affinity

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone's having a brilliant holiday. Today was my first day "back at work", but I'm afraid I haven't achieved very much. Having spent the last four days drinking, carousing and staying up all night with my family of choice, I'm still recovering. I got up this morning, blearily checked my email, cursed my freezing cold flat, and at the point I discovered I had neither hot water for a shower nor milk for tea, I gave up on the day and went back to bed.

I absolutely don't regret this decision, as I can catch up on work later in the week, and my morning was delicious. I didn't go back to sleep, but I ate all of a Thorntons Eden box of very sinful chocolates, and finished reading Affinity, the new Sarah Waters novel which was my Christmas gift to myself.

Sarah Waters' books perfectly map a substantial part of my fantasy landscape. The only difference is that her Victorian London is queer, and mine is queer and kinky. The queer relationships she describes tend to be tragic and complex; full of repression, oppression, changing alliances, dysfunctional power dynamics and unrequited longing. As a queer woman I kind of wish she applied her formidable skill as a storyteller to describing healthy, cheerful lesbian relationships ... but hey, they make much less interesting stories. (And, I'll be honest: her portrayal of same-sex relationships pretty much matches my own experiences so far. I hope to meet a woman one day with whom I can enjoy romance without unnecessary drama, but haven't yet. This might say more about me than anything else though.)

The lesbians aren't the main reason I love Waters' work, although as a submissive I adore the unjust power dynamics in her romances. And I admire the sophistication of her narrative techniques, her twisting, thrilling plots that never fail to surprise me. But her main appeal, shallow though this may make me, is the immersive, compelling way she writes about Victorian institutions.

Huge households, where the family and staff form an insular hierarchy, with the lowest servants at the mercy of those above them. Asylums for the insane, where women are straitjacketed, subjected to electroshock and cold water treatment, have their hair cut and are punished for not conforming. More indirectly, she also writes about the intricate, written social institutions of the Victorian underworld: the theatre; sex workers; families of thieves. In Affinity both these trends are continued with a story that threads between three settings: the dark circles of Victorian spiritualists, dabbling with ghosts and mysticism with their own set of rules and expectations; a miserable great house rife with tensions between aristocrats and servants; and a ghastly, towering women's prison cut off from the rest of London on its own grim island.

I bought the book since writing my last post, without even realising what it was about. Having finished it, I'm finding it harder than ever to get my image of prison out of the 19th century.

Affinity doesn't contain any mention of CP, but every scene seems to be pregnant with the possibility of it. The strict rules of the prison and the ogreish matrons who patrol it. The tragic stories of the women who find themselves there - abortionists, attempted suicides, prostitutes, pickpockets - most of them poor, few of them with other options. The aristocratic ladies in Waters' books are rarely sympathetic, and her working-glass characters tend to be far more real and interesting.

My fantasies tend not to focus on deserved punishment, but on unjust mistreatment; what better setting than a barbaric, miserable prison populated for the most part, not by criminal masterminds, but the gutsy victims of misfortune?

Affinity is packed full of details to delight the kinky imagination. The rigid structure of the prison day; the lessons given twice a week from tattered textbooks, in which the grown women stand with hands clasped before them to recite their Bibles. Visits to the prison chaplain; the chief Matron's office with its wooden posts and shackles. Cruel forced exercise; pointless work that makes your fingers bleed and your eyes itche; stockrooms full of chains, hobbles and handcuffs; tiny, damp, freezing cells buried deep below the Thames where rebellious women are straitjacketed and shut up for days in the absolute dark.

Or maybe the details aren't important. Maybe the point is the system, the institutional structure intended to shut down all humanity ... and yet, conversely where the tiniest glimmer of kindness seems to glow all the brighter.

Sadly, I don't have the budget to make a spanking film set in Millbank Prison. But if it's possible to make a film that captures the essence of the institutional context - the controlling, oppressive, punishing atmosphere and the inspiring way that the human spark can respond to it - then, I think, I'll be on the way to expressing one of the most important internal narratives of my kink.

All I need now is for Waters to write a book set in an educational seminary for young ladies, and I'll be set.

prison stories

Christmas is approaching surprisingly fast. Particularly if you're me, and only started getting ready a week ago. I bought most of my presents online in a panicked spree, and am now sitting at home with one postal day left, despairing that any of them will arrive in time. That'll teach me.

What with that, planning and shopping for TWO Christmas dinners (one with each of my partners) and all the complexities of seasonal poly house-hopping, I haven't had much time to think about spanking films. Which is starting to worry me a little, as Amy Hunter and I are flying out to Eastern Europe in the first week of January to film with Pain4Fem / SpankingServer, and I haven't come up with a story yet.

If I understand correctly, we'll be doing one day shooting clips and one day shooting a longer film. They've said they want to do a straightforward movie with a prison theme, using the cane and some of their infamous spanking furniture. I haven't been told anything else yet, and probably if I did no more planning between now and then we'd improvise a simple punishment story on the day. But Pain4Fem have high production values, and may well be open to suggestions - and I've been thinking that it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to make a truly memorable film.

The problem is that I'm lacking inspiration. If I think of spanking in prison, my first thought is of reformatories, Dickensian workhouses, Magdalen laundries. Birching blocks and dirty petticoats. I don't really have imaginative set-pieces based in clean, modern Eastern European rooms with well-made furniture and good lighting. Of course there are the classic juvenile detention, smuggling stories but I'd like to do something a bit different, if Pain4Fem are willing.

You're an imaginative bunch - have a think about it over the Christmas break and let me know if you have any bright ideas. I can't promise anything, of course, because any suggestions will have to be okay with Amy as well as the producers, and I don't know what limitations they have in terms of sets and so forth. But if you're familiar with Pain4Fem's work and know what you'd like to see, I'd be very interested to hear your ideas...

on dialogue

I'm a sucker for plot in spanking films. It doesn't need to be jam-packed and twisty, but the characters need to interact in a meaningful way, with discernable motives. There's nothing worse, for me, than a punishment clip which doesn't bother to explain what the punishment is for, or a "naughty girl" whose disobedience is completely inexplicable. Dialogue is one of the most efficient ways of developing character development, and the more engaged I am with the characters, the more powerful the scene is to watch.

More dialogue isn't always better - I realise the advantages of minimalism. Non-stop chattering during a punishment isn't always realistic, and silence can create intensity. In TV and film all dialogue serves a purpose; the same rule applies to the best spanking films. In real-life scenes as well as on-camera ones, it's generally a good idea to only say something if you've got something to say - talking for the sake of it will just weaken the emotional impact of the scene.

But I can get very bored watching long action sequences where nothing happens. If not dialogue, then please let's have some variation in tempo, some struggle, some unpredictable response from the spankee.

And since dialogue in most spanking films is improvised, there's a pressure on the actors to come up with something witty and interesting. If the cameras are rolling and I can't think of anything to say, does that mean that nothing needs saying and I should keep my mouth shut, or does it suggest a failure of imagination?

Last weekend I was filming with Northern Spanking, and - unusually - we only shot one film all day. The rest of the time was spent with Paul, creating classic Blushes-inspired photostories. Stills involve a very weird kind of acting. Slow-motion, silent, interspersed with off-camera asides. And yet, like moving through yoga poses, I can get really immersed in my character for stills. I'm much more likely to make myself cry for stills than video, because I have so much more time and space to imagine myself in my character's situation and work up an emotional response.

When we started shooting the film, a straightforward period maidservant punishment, I wasn't really warmed up for video. I'd been told to answer the Master of the house back, thereby earning a more severe punishment, but I've done quite a lot of historical maid roleplays and you really don't talk back. You say yes sir and yes miss and you bob curtseys and don't make eye contact and you don't say a word you don't absolutely need to until you're back downstairs and among your peers.

I was being punished for failing to make the beds properly, among other things, and beforehand I was trying to think up excuses. I decided to pass the buck and claim that I'd been shown how to do it differently, but Michael Stamp (who was playing the Master) pre-empted me with the line, "I know you know how to do it properly, don't try and tell me you don't or you'll be sacked on the spot." So I was a bit stuck, really.

I risked an outburst (of the "it's not fair!" variety) which was really quite ridiculously out of character and would have instantly lost me my job, and then during the punishment itself I really couldn't justify any further cheek. It would have been unrealistic, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. So I just reacted to the strokes, and said "yes sir" a few times at the end, and felt a bit like a failure as an actress.

When I confessed my anxiety to Lucy she reassured me that it was fine, that my character wouldn't have argued back - and Niki told me that she thought I'd been outrageously rude. I don't know if I was too submissive or too rude. I expect that a lot of the people watching the film won't be bothered either way. But as an actor it's hard to judge, sometimes, how much dialogue is enough. Films which crackle with witty banter are very satisfying to make. Quieter films can be very immersive if you've planned them that way, but if it's just that I can't think of a plausible line then I worry that viewers will lose interest.

The thing is that when I'm playing at home I'm usually pretty obedient. I do as I'm told, most of the time, and I certainly don't say much once I'm in subspace. When I'm bratting on camera my mind is constantly racing to try to provide material. It's a lot of fun, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

I know dialogue isn't the only thing that matters. If I'm watching a spanking movie I'd rather no dialogue than unconvincing or corny lines. The photography, the quality of the CP, the context, the spankee's reactions are all just as important. Non-verbal communication is very powerful, and I always try to be physically and vocally expressive - it's just as important at home, when I need to communicate my responses accurately and respectfully to my Dom but am disinclined to do so verbally, as it is when I'm working. But when I'm on camera, dialogue can seem like the most important part of my job, and it's easy to worry I haven't got it right.

The Australian Governess

I've had a few requests from readers lately asking where they can buy DVDs starring me. I'm extremely flattered to be asked, and somewhat frustrated to tell you that while I've filmed six feature-length DVDs over the last two years, only two of them have actually been edited and released thus far. (I'm working on the others - I want to see them!)

'The Australian Governess' was released in four parts by Northern Spanking just over a year ago. I'm not, in fact, the star. The stars of the piece are Faith Andrews and Zoe Montana, who show off their beautiful figures and fantastic acting skills in two power-switching roles that completely steal the show. I defy anyone to watch this film and not fall half in love with one or both of them. Two sensual women who are equally capable of dishing out stern discipline or submitting to it - what more could you ask?

Faith plays the glamorous young wife of Stephen Lewis, who hires a modern young governess (Miss Bell, played by Zoe) in an attempt to instil some discipline in her new husband's spoiled and bratty teenage daughter. Who is played by yours truly ;) I'm deeply hostile towards my father's new wife, who is almost as young as I am, and resent her intrusion into my over-privileged little world. Miss Bell is, at first, very reluctant to use corporal punishment, which she views as misguided and barbaric, but after spending a short time with her new ward she quickly starts to see its advantages.

I'm only in the second scene of this ambitious four-part film, and I had tremendous fun with it. Zoe and I are old friends and we had a great time with the improvised dialogue. My character has, during her short life, gleefully sent numerous nannies and tutors packing in tears, and is determined that this one will be no different. But her attempts to get a rise out of the relaxed young Australian governess are met with a casual, incredulous indifference. My character just ends getting herself into a tizz, and by the time Miss Bell pulls her over her knee for a well-earned spanking the teenager isn't at all sure of herself.

I'm not a natural brat, and Zoe didn't make it easy for me. She's the embodiment of unflappable calm, and trying to provoke her into spanking me was far harder than I'd anticipated. My character ends up bent over the school desk for a strapping and caning - but Zoe never loses her cool, and as she quietly scorns my adolescent posturing she definitely comes out on top.

If you're still not convinced, I hope Northern Spanking won't mind me reposting the summary of the film from the website, and a small selection of stills:

'The Australian Governess'

Starring
Zoe Montana as The Governess, Miss Bell
Faith Andrews as The Stepmother
Pandora Blake as The Stepdaughter
Stephen Lewis as The Father

CHAPTER ONE - MISS BELL'S INTERVIEW

Miss Bell is attending an interview for the position of new Governess for an unruly teenage girl. Interviewed by the girls' stepmother it is made abundantly clear that the woman has very little time for her step daughter and expects her Governess to apply some fairly strict discipline. Assuming the stepmother slightly batty, Miss Bell goes along with it for the sake of securing the job but has no intention of carrying out these bizarre rituals on her charge...



CHAPTER TWO - MISS BELL MEETS PANDORA

Her first day with her unruly charge, Miss Bell decides to tackle her straight on with a sense of humour and not taking the gobby little Madam too seriously. However, even the laidback antipodean Miss Bell has her limits - as Pandora swiftly finds out when she continues to challenge her new governess.



CHAPTER THREE - FATHER COMES HOME

As Miss Bell cracks the cane with a satisfying thwack across Pandora's stinging bottom, Pandora's father comes to the schoolroom. Outraged to find some stranger whacking his daughter, his temper snaps and Miss Bell finds herself quickly upturned before she can explain herself. If only he would listen to what she has to say...



CHAPTER FOUR - REVENGE
Stephen and Miss Bell confront the wicked stepmother and it is not long before Faith is facing the most utterly humiliating 20 minutes of her life as the Governess she spurned and her husband make her pay.



As it happens, I was filming with Paul and Lucy last weekend, and when I mentioned that I'd had some interest in DVDs they very kindly lent me a small pile of these to take home with me. Members of Northern Spanking can download it from the website, but if for some reason you haven't signed up and would like to treat yourself to one of these for Christmas, let me know - you can buy it via Paypal and I'll post it to you personally. They're priced at £25 each, which is a bargain for an action-packed hour and a half featuring three very different spankees. And if you know someone who might appreciate a kinky Christmas gift, make sure you let me know by Saturday, because there's still time for it to reach you in the Christmas post :)

unexpected consequences

D's style of dominance is inherently intuitive and unstructured. He likes being unpredictable, to keep me guessing.

Despite keeping our D/s relationship deliberately unstructured, in certain other ways he's very methodical. His housekeeping, for example, while not always tidy, is painstakingly precise. Everything needs to be in exactly the right place. We don't have many "rules", but the ones we do have all relate to how I should behave in his flat. Putting the toilet seat down, that kind of thing.

We were out last weekend and chatting about random stuff when he suddenly remembered something. "By the way, I have something to tell you," he said. "When you left my house this morning you not only left all the doors open, so the heat in the lounge and the bedroom escaped and wasted loads of energy, you also left lights on in both rooms all day."

I was confused, and immediately became defensive. "I don't remember going into the lounge this morning," I argued. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. You left the toilet door and the lounge door open. And the lights on. You did remember to double lock the front door behind you, though."

"I was going to say!" I hesitated, realising that it was silly to argue with him ... and, from the expression on his face, that he wasn't just mentioning this to be critical. "Does ... this mean I'm in trouble?"

"Yes." He gave me a Look, and refused to say anything else about it.

I hate waiting.

We spent the night together at my place, but I didn't get the threatened punishment that evening. In fact we were both stressed out and tired that weekend, and the next day we ended up bickering. I made a bratty comment about the fact he hadn't made good on his threat. "You shouldn't say you're going to do things and then not do them."

"I never said when I was going to do anything," he retorted. "You shouldn't leap to assumptions."

I shut up. If he wants to make me wait, there's nothing I can do about it.

I next saw him a few days later. I'd had a really hectic day and turned up at his flat very late, intending to just curl up to sleep. We were going to bed, and I realised I'd forgotten to fetch a glass of water. I'm a light sleeper and like to sip water during the night. When I came back from the kitchen D was sitting up in bed, looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

"What?" I asked, feeling self-conscious.

"You left the door open. Again. There is a heater on in this room. The warm is in here, you shouldn't let it out."

"Oops," I said guiltily as I got into bed, "sorry."

"Uh huh." He shot me a sideways glance, half exasperated and half amused, and reached over the side of the bed to the toybox stored underneath. "Roll over."

I turned onto my front obediently, sneaking a peek. He was holding the wooden paddle. My heart was racing.

I was under the duvet; he reached down and peeled it up from the foot end, exposing my legs but folding it over my waist so it covered my upper body. Then he fetched a blanket and draped it over my legs. I was grateful for the warmth - it was a freezing night - but the coverings also served to make my exposed bottom feel more vulnerable. I felt objectified, reduced to just two unmarked globes awaiting the crisp sting of the paddle. I buried my face in the pillows.

"This is for leaving the door open just now," D said, and delivered a swift volley of smacks to my cold cheeks. No warm up, just six brisk whacks in quick succession. I cried out and twisted my hips. After the sixth stroke he paused and stroked my stinging bottom. It felt covered in goosepimples.

"And this is for leaving the doors open the other day," D continued, applying the paddle again. Six more strokes, without a pause. I grabbed at the duvet and wailed.

He put the paddle down, pushed the duvet aside and drew me into his arms. A smile played on his lips. "I can't work out what you deserve for leaving two lights on all day," he said, "so maybe you should try and placate me before I decide..."

I thought that sounded like a much better idea than more punishment, and pleasured him with all the enthusiasm a freshly spanked bottom can muster. I love belonging to someone who never ceases to surprise me. :)

a tribute

Earlier this week I saw an article saying that Bettie Page had suffered a heart attack at the age of 85, and was in hospital near San Francisco. She never regained consciousness, and died this morning.

Bettie's story is a poignant one. She was a secretary before she turned to modelling, and her free spirit and joyous, unashamed sensuality took the world by storm. She made a name for herself as a a glamour pin-up, as a fashion and lingerie model, as a switch in bondage and spanking shoots. She was one of the first nude Playboy centrefolds, and one of the most photographed women of her time.

From what I've read, she wasn't particularly kinky. Rather she was fascinated by human sexuality, endlessly curious and a versatile actress. She delighted in trying new things and enjoyed the silliness of fetish modelling. When fans, on meeting her, expected her to behave like a Domme or sub they were usually disappointed.

When she was subpoenaed to appear in court as a witness in an obscenity case, in which certain of her pictures were condemned as pornographic and damaging, she never recovered. She withdrew from public life for fifty years, becoming a born-again Christian and refusing to let anyone take her photograph. She struggled with mental health issues.

These days Bettie Page is praised for her self-determination and sexual liberation. Her work is iconic among vanillas and kinksters alike. She's credited with influencing the sexual revolution of the sixties. But her retirement was a troubled one, and she may have lived with anxiety or regret about her modelling career for the rest of her life.

We know there's nothing unhealthy or damaging about kinky pictures. We know that Bettie's exuberant celebration of sexuality found the same joyful expression in her BDSM work as in her radiant outdoor nudes. We know that she didn't have anything to be ashamed, or embarrassed, or troubled about.

I hope she came to realise that as well, in the privacy of her old age. and I hope she came to accept and celebrate her sensuality, her exhibitionism, her wilder side. Rest in peace, Bettie Page. You changed the world, and you deserve to feel good about that.

welcome to the blogosphere

Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere.

We're in there somewhere!

The yellow number 5 on the left is supposed to be us:

No discussion of the blogosphere would be complete without a nod to online smut. This outlying island of blue represents the linked-up world of bloggers who traffic in the latest news and gossip from the world of pornography. Oh, yeah, and pictures.

Only a few of us link back in to the glowing white hub, which represents a truly boggling number of links and readers. I'm surprised the sex network isn't bigger. I dunno though, it's kind of nice out in our little outlying porn system. :)

sex work and the right to choose

I was recently fascinated to read this article, in which a sex worker ('Lara') tells her story in response to the recently-published "Big Brothel report" on non-street-based sex workers in London. This report lands at the same time as new legislation making it illegal to buy sex from a trafficked or exploited woman.

I am pro-choice when it comes to sex work. That doesn't mean that I don't think situations where choice is genuinely removed aren't horrific - of course they are. But all sex workers are often lumped in together as if they were incapable of consent - or as if it was impossible to consent to something so unpalatable as sex work. (It's worth noting at this point that the same attitude led to legislation making it illegal to consent to ABH. Of course consent is key and we all have personal choice and personal responsibility, but didn't you know that our consent isn't valid if it makes normal people feel uncomfortable?)

This interpretation is obscured by claims that the majority of sex workers in the UK are victims of trafficking or exploitation. This makes the issue nice and straightforward: of course trafficking and exploitation isn't okay, therefore clearly sex work isn't either.

But it's not that straightforward, and it's not true that most sex workers don't have a choice. For a start, it has been demonstrated that Julie Bindel's article in the previous paragraph indulges in exaggeration when talking about the figures of migrant sex workers (and migrant does not necessarily mean trafficked). There are no binary categories here: sex workers are not divided into kidnapped victims and Belle du Jour. For most people life is more complicated than that.

Lara's voice is just one voice from the broad range of experiences. Not all sex workers are their own boss, and not all of them have their own home. There is as broad a range of experience within the sex industry as within any other industry - retail, for example. Exploitation is a danger in any industry, particularly if you are from a marginalised or oppressed group. Very few people obliged to work long hours for little pay would choose to do so if they suddenly became rich and powerful. And yet generalisations about sex workers, painting them universally as victims incapable of making informed consent, abound.

I don't think Lara's story is representative of the majority of sex workers - it represents a point on a spectrum. But the more that spectrum is revealed, the better. The illegality and taboo nature of sex work has forced that spectrum underground: on the surface of society we are left with only the most misleading, sensationalistic generations about it. I applaud Lara for standing up and challenging those generalisations. The more voices are heard, the better.

Lara's story resonated with me, particularly when she described abandoning her soul-destroying, exploitative PA job to be her own boss. I can sympathise with that. I can tell you now, having just spent another two months giving it a go, that I find being a PA far more exploitative, unpleasant and oppressive than being a professional porn actress. For me, spanking modelling is a far better option.

I'm not a prostitute. I don't mean that to sound defensive - there'd be no problem if I was, but it would be misleading to put that name to what I do. But I am a sex worker, just as a stripper or a cam girl or a pro-domme is a sex worker. My business is getting people off - and because this is me, I try to do it as creatively and responsibly as possible. And, of course, to have as much fun as I can get away with while doing so.

So this is me, standing up and challenging those generalisations: I'm a sex worker, and I freely choose to be one. Don't try and tell me that choice is invalid, that I must be oppressed or desperate or exploited to consent to what I do. I have quite a range of options. This is the one that suits my temperament, my talents, my likes and dislikes best. It is a real choice, no less real than your choice to pursue whatever it is you do for a living. It is no less a real choice than my choice to be a self-employed designer, or writer, or artist or musician, or any of the other myriad ways I make money during the average year. If my choice to freelance as a web designer is my own then so is this choice. There is no coercion here.

I'm not saying it's an unproblematic choice. I live in an imperfect, patriarchal world, and of course it's not ideal that for a lot of women their highest worth is placed on their body. It's not ideal that young, educated, middle-class women who conform to patriarchal beauty standards have more options available to them than women who don't conform, or who are from oppressed groups. I'm not saying it's okay that vastly more women than men have the option of freeing themselves from wage slavery by making Lara's choice; and it's not okay that that imbalance arises from the objectification of women's bodies and sexuality through patriarchy. I'm not saying it's okay that single parents find it so soul-destroying or impossible to earn enough through socially-approved means that they have to seek risky, underground, illegal options. I'm not saying it's okay that so many workers are so underpaid and exploited, enduring such crushingly long hours and commutes, that selling sex seems like a more palatable choice.

And yet ... In a sense, Lara is more free than most people in this society. None of us are free, but she is at least empowering herself to the best of her ability within her range of options. The way our society structures work is completely dysfunctional. But it is not wrong or invalid, in this imperfect world, for Lara to make the choice she has, any more than it is wrong or invalid for a migrant person to take risks that compromise their safety in their desire to move to another country.

A migrant who ends up working as an underpaid, illegally hired kitchen cleaner is in danger from the law and at risk of exploitation. So is a migrant who ends up finding work as a prostitute. That's not to say that the passive victims of kidnapping and rape don't exist. But "coercion" is a complex issue, and not every "trafficked" woman is a hapless prisoner.



(This poster on "rescues" performed by law-enforcers on migrant sex workers illustrates the point poignantly and succinctly.)

What we have here is a spectrum, ranging from very poor or oppressed women living on the poverty line, with children or a drug habit to support, to Lara and Belle du Jour.

"Trafficking" does not only refer to hapless victims; it includes a range of people who are making complex choices in an imperfect world. Sex sellers are, for the most part, doing the same thing, and I don't think taking their livelihood away by making it illegal to employ them is going to help anyone.

My story doesn't trump the women in this country who are abused, exploited, or raped. My story does not invalidate the reality that a substantial proportion of sex workers in this country would do something else if they had better options. But even someone turning to sex work out of desperation is going to suffer if we take that option away from them too. And the invisible spectrum of people making complex choices, making the best choice they can, will have that choice compromised in the process.

I'm not deluding myself that all or most sex workers are happy hookers, who are as privileged as I am. But I think legalising and regulating prostitution, and offering increased structures of support to the whole spectrum of sex workers, is the best way of helping those who aren't.

Frederic Fontenoy

My friend J recently sent me this link, and I liked it so much I couldn't resist passing it on.

Frederic Fontenoy is a photographer. Specifically, he takes edgy, erotic, black and white photography of women in fetish heels and fully fashioned stockings, tied to beds, blindfolded, and being threatened with terrifying canes.



But there's a sense of the theatrical and the ridiculous to his work that makes it, inexplicably, even sexier. Or maybe it's just the effortlessly complex compositions, the perfect lighting.





And that's just from one gallery. The next one is even better - especially if you like animal play, enemas, corsets, single-tail whips, whole-body suspension, carpet beaters and body art.

Go, explore, enjoy.

back from reality

Hi! I'm back! At least, I'm not working at the Job of Doom any more, and am back in the self-employed saddle, making ambitious plans to start my own spanking paysite. Which I think means I'm going to be blogging regularly again. Hooray!

I'm not going to go into the many, many ways in which the Job of Doom was Of Doom, but suffice it to say I'm not going to be comfortable playing "evil boss bullies vulnerable secretary" scenes for a while. Turns out they aren't so hot in actuality. Especially when the evil boss is an insecure, wrong-headed, loudmouthed prick rather than someone with any sort of natural authority. He restrained himself to verbal abuse, and indeed if he'd tried to raise a hand to me he'd have got my stiletto heel sharply in the crotch, right before I stormed out of the building and phoned the police, but still. Power abuse in the workplace might be sexy in fantasyland, but I think office scenes can wait until I've recovered from the trauma of experiencing it for real.

Unless they're office scenes with sexy lady bosses. I might be able to cope with those.

The good news is that I've been offered a juicy freelance contract, so could hand in my notice to the Job of Doom safe in the knowledge that I wasn't going to starve. Or at least, that I wasn't going to have to fly to far-away countries to let strangers thrash and beat me in exchange for money to buy food. I mean, what kind of sick and depraved person would consider that okay?

No, I'm very lucky. It looks like I might survive the recession without starving or having to stay in shitty office jobs with awful bosses. Except, of course, that I'm still going to be flying to faraway countries and letting strangers (whom I'm reliably informed are lovely people) thrash me mercilessly. The fact that I get paid has only ever been the icing on the cake of this particular hobby of mine.

I'm tempted to illustrate this post with a picture from a boss/secretary scene now, but I'm worried it'll contradict my "Real office bullying = REALLY NOT HOT. No, not even a little bit. I'm not even kidding" statement. So have a totally unrelated picture instead, celebrating hot consensual spanking from a man I love. Which is definitely the best kind.