TastyTrixie.com

Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category

Here are a few manageable topics I feel like blogging about. Leave comments (if you so desire) to tell me which one(s) you most want to read:

*What I thought about the VP debate/what I think about Palin

*Whores & Soldiers

*Time Management for WebWhores: email

*how I feel about Mad Men

*how I feel about Gossip Girl

*how I feel about alliteration in tv show titles

*Wonderfalls

*Time Management for WebWhores: money on top

*now that my partner identifies as a chick, does that make me a lesbian?

*what’s the latest on our conception attempts?

*how I spent many hours on two days not having hot sexy porno sex, but troubleshooting our sluggish internet connection and buying/installing a solution (and how the tech support kid totally tried to find out how to see me naked)

*how/why I’m loving Al-Anon

Of course, you can also just respond with advice like, “update your outdated FAQs, dildohead!” or ask me to compile all of my tweets about pooping.

I said, “comPILE”. Hehe.

I’m afraid my previous post made it sound like I don’t give a fuck about people’s problems and that as soon as people complain about anything I just plug my ears and run for the hills; that’s totally not true and I feel bad if I made anyone think I am not receptive to hearing about or reading about the shit people are dealing with. I was just afraid that I was coming off as one of those livejournal types where every single post is about how their processed cheese became grainy for some reason and their medication ran out and they didn’t win the ebay auction for that great limited edition Jack Skellington figurine and maybe it was for the best since they lost their job at the espresso stand and had to drop two out of three classes at community college because their teachers were mean and why do their boyfriends want to lick them down there when obviously that’s so gross and they don’t know what to do because they found out their boyfriends looked at porn once. I don’t want to be one of those people and that remark was made out of self-consciousness, not criticism of others (except those annoying livejournal types I described). I was NOT referring to any of my friends or blogs I regularly read on purpose whose troubles I WANT to hear/read about. Not that I want them to have troubles, but I am interested in and care about whatever is going on with them. Fuck, sometimes I actually do care about those LJ folks, too, and am bizarrely interested in their ebay problems.

I’ve had this poll buried in my sidebar for a few weeks where those of you using feedreaders probably haven’t seen it, so I’m giving it a post of its own for fun and greater visibility:

CLICK HERE if you can’t see the poll.

I can’t say for sure whether it will really make a difference in what I post here, but I’m always curious about people’s . . . desires. Feel free to leave comments to elaborate if you want.

*****

THE FOLLOWING IS BORING & BITCHY: READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL:

Today’s been one of those where every little annoying task has been much more difficult than it should have. Even posting this poll, for example, took five failed attempts, edits, logging into other sites for help, etc. before it worked. This whole post-poll part of the entry? Didn’t exist until that happened and I lost it and now just need to vent.

We received our three new 500 GB hard drives because we’re totally MAXED OUT on storage space, especially with our new camera and the huge pictures in two different sizes we’re posting for members. Tried to install one in just one of our Dells only to discover that their funny little proprietary blue mounting bracket/bay rails aren’t in two of our machines. And are apparently impossible to order. Very cute. This discovered after much googling and a long annoying chat with a very slow customer service person.

I tell you these things not because I imagine you want to hear me bitching, but just to shed light on some of the less glamorous aspects of webwhoring and to explain why sometimes I don’t have time to do nice things like reply to emails or, you know, create new content or get exercise so I won’t be a fucking lard ass.

I also tried to do a couple of the bootstraps method of site promotion via webmaster boards where you make posts to try to get some attention to your “program” so you can get people to sign up and promote your sites, and submitting to lists and directories. Because somehow we need to be able to pay for the new camera and hard drives and computers that I speak of and the realistic way to do that is to get more traffic to our sites so we can get more sales. I have to say that really put me in a bad mood today because it is such a joyless, inefficient, uncreative use of my time, especially when I know how much easier and more effective it would be to have money to pay for advertising. That whole “it takes money to make money” adage is so so so true, and the American Dream / pull yourself up by your bootstraps mirage is such a tired old joke. You run up against forums that require you to make 10, 25 or even 100 inane worthless posts on “would you hit it” threads and other more brutally misogynistic topics (or worse, the ones where the people actually are TRYING to be thoughtful professionals but can’t bare to restrain themselves from telling me my girlfriend and I shouldn’t be allowed to have children or that I’m a legal threat to them because I dare to masturbate when I menstruate) or just really BORING stuff before you can make a post with a link to your site or even a fucking picture. TIME SUCK.

Or you submit one of your sites to a directory and only AFTER adding a reciprocal link to them and studying their directory to determine what wording & subdirectory, etc. would fit in and also garner attention do you hit “submit” and get a totally nonsensical error. These are the parts of my job that I would love to have the money to never ever have to do again, either by being able to pay other people to do it for me or to avoid it completely by paying for advertising the normal and efficient way: WITH MONEY.

And these are the reasons why no matter what anybody says in the poll? My options are limited simply because my time is (simply because my MONEY is). This is not a feel sorry for me post, it’s just part of a record that includes contrast against the ways people who already HAVE money can run a business and/or produce lovely things like porn, art, or other pleasures. When you don’t have a rich daddy or collateral you have small, tiny, torturous steps to make that really do seem like schemes by rich people to insure you never. Do. Get ahead. At least not ahead of THEM, and certainly not without damaging yourself in the process or being a completely manic workaholic on stimulants (and even then you’d shoot holes in your computer out of frustration at having to work so slowly through all the obstacles that a moneyed person could soar over without a hitch).

I think I feel extra sensitive about this today in part because lately I’ve been working pretty hard (not twenty-two year old hard, but harder than I have been over the past couple of years) and been just about as focused as an ADD person can. It’s hard to see where it gets me except that I’m harder to be around (”don’t INTERRUPT me! Can’t you see I’m concentrating?”) and my eyes are crossing from looking at the computer for so many hours at a stretch.

*****

I actually have some really nice, pleasant, heart-warming things to blog about, but this bile rose to the surface tonight instead. My apologies, but I feel better now. Again, I would put this over on my bitchy blog instead of here, but I do think it’s interesting not as leisure-reading, but as documentation of how porn entrepreneurs without startup money have to operate. It’s especially frustrating to me when I have something GOOD to do (example: finishing a private diary entry that I started IN APRIL for members about one of my students, began re-researching/refreshing my memory to finish last night, and have had no time to properly immerse myself in today). And instead I’m spinning my wheels doing drudge work.

aka “Acronyms and the People Who Love Them”.

I grumble whenever I read a blog post, a letter to the editor or anything intended for a general audience using an acronym or abbreviation that hasn’t been spelled out; unless you are writing for a special audience of people you shouldn’t assume everyone will know what you mean when you type out XYXY blah blah blah.

Today I found myself *especially* annoyed when I read this email about who qualifies for affirmative action when choosing delegates for State and National conventions:

*The WA State goals of their 97 delegates is: 6 African Americans, 3 Native Americans, 10 Hispanics, 3 Youth (between 18 and 24), 7 LGBT (if you have to ask- you are not one), 9 Asian Americans, 3 disabled

Sigh. And if you are too busy being cute or evasive that you can’t spell it out, then your email isn’t really helpful in answering people’s FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). FYI: LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi(sexual), Transgender.

I know I’m guilty of assuming my readers understand the terms I use. I know I don’t always explain things as well as I could (and am sometimes just guilty of shitty writing, like the way I totally didn’t explain up there that the reason I *got* that email was because I am an Obama delegate to one of the low-level meetings where they decide who becomes a delegate to the NEXT level and so on; if you’re a minority, you have a better chance of being selected to move on). And I know that other people who drop acronyms without defining them are usually in a hurry or DO write for people who share their specialized knowledge (though I think they can really alienate people who DON’T but are seriously trying to understand the writer; it bugs me when unnecessary hurdles are placed between me and information). This case just REALLY chaps my hide because the person writing it 1) acknowledges that some people might not know what it stands for, 2) decides that the information isn’t applicable to anyone who DOESN’T know, 3) decides to withhold the information when it would take just as many keystrokes to spell it out as it did to deny us the information, and 4) is just really insulting and patronizing to people who aren’t “in the know”.

I’m sure the person writing it didn’t MEAN to be an asshole, but it’s so TYPICAL of Democrats and “Liberals” who are so busy bullshitting themselves and each other with their social awareness and intellectual elitism that they don’t even bother to notice that THEY AREN’T HELPING OR EDUCATING ANYBODY outside of their literati circle jerks. Oh, sure, most people these days probably have an idea of what LGBT stands for and I wouldn’t have even batted an eye at the acronym if it weren’t for the flip secret-password remark afterwards.

I imagine there are a lot of people, older people or even younger people just becoming self-aware, who don’t go to fucking rallies and meetings and parades and stuff and maybe have not even given any thought to the possibility that they are part of a special group. I feel like too many people assume that the whole world is full of social butterflies and they don’t GET that some people don’t identify with the cliques and the crowds and the activists with their secret codes and handshakes. And WHY do you want your readers to have to interrupt the flow of reading whatever it is you supposedly want them to hear and understand just so they can consult a dictionary or encyclopedia or google to find out something you could have explained in four words or less?

I would be more sympathetic if the authors of these things were writing a fucking telegram or a tweet or something else short and sweet BUT THEY NEVER ARE!! These people invariably have the time and energy to write at least fifty-nine exhausting paragraphs telling you more information than you could possibly ever want or need, letting you know what they had for breakfast and how many hours they slept the night before and every single model of camera they’ve had since they were in Kindergarten, but they refuse to trouble themselves with two to ten words that are actually fucking relevant. You torture yourself reading these people’s writing, you know they have something important to say, and while you’re giving yourself a migraine staring intently at your monitor they HURL these sharp pointy rocks at you every so often just to break up the monotony: ASFW! MRPQ! WOS-VINA!!

Anyway, I shot myself in the foot (as I like to do) by writing back to the person who sent the email:

It *is* possible for someone to be “LGBT” without knowing the politically correct and cool acronym that goes along with it. I’m not sure what is accomplished by acknowledging some people might not know what it stands for and then denying them the explanation. Also, people who AREN’T queer or transgender might like to be in the know; it would help raise awareness where it’s lacking. Just because people are interested in participating in this particular process doesn’t mean they are politically savvy about every special interest group out there.

I’m sure whoever wrote this didn’t mean to be insulting or maybe they were just in a hurry when writing it, but it would have taken about the same amount of keystrokes to spell it out as to dismiss the information as inapplicable to anybody who doesn’t already know. I feel like a lot of communiques (not just this one) from the Dems assume readers have information that many do not; it alienates people by making them feel like they’re not part of the in-group and undermines real communication and education when all it would take is a couple extra words typed out to introduce acronyms. If the goal is to make people aware and invite them to become involved then why not spell it out instead of withholding the information?

I know it seems like a small thing and I’m not trying to make anyone feel badly about it; but it did chap my hide a little. It’s not a big deal, but it can be frustrating when I (and maybe other people) read these emails and feel like they’re not really written for everyone who identifies as a Democrat in this county, but are intended for people who are already super-involved and up-to-speed on everything. I don’t need a reply or anything, and I do know what LGBT stands for . . . just offering it as food for thought.

I know, I know — you have to be living under a ROCK to not know what LGBT stands for, right? But there are lots of people living under rocks, many of them quite happily, and they are JUST the people who DO need to know what LGBT stands for so when you alienate them? It’s really counterproductive.

And you know what else? If I hadn’t read that email I wouldn’t have known that I actually have an on-paper edge for going to the next level; yes, I *did* think about my sexuality and my partner’s gender identity as things that make me special/representative of a minority group, but I totally hadn’t thought about it being, like, OFFICIAL. And seriously, I actually have had and will continue to have qualms about counting myself as part of that minority group because I believe the *majority* of people are bisexual and I don’t believe I’ve “suffered” enough personal persecution because of my pansexuality to “deserve” to check a special box; this might come as a shock, but I spend a lot more of my time thinking about porn and sex work and promiscuity and making money than I do about the intersection of my comparatively mundane sexual preferences with personal political privilege (I think about it with regards to OTHER people and I think about how scary it is to live next to violent misogynist rednecks while in an “alternative” relationship but I just didn’t happen to wander across thinking about affirmative action having anything to do with me *personally* in an up-and-coming kind of way; I think about the ideas of things and sometimes the reality of them comes as a total shock). So guess what? If *I* have trouble knowing how to identify myself, I of the blogs and websites and ope
n-mindedness and college-education and whatever, then it’s not hard for me to imagine a whole lot of other people are unsure too. I mean, I’m pretty sure that at least half the individuals in the world know less than I know (individually, not combined!). Not to be an asshole, but seriously. FWIW.

WTF? LGBT FTW.

Oh, I know similar complaints could be made about using “big” words that the average reader doesn’t use on a daily basis (if ever), but I honestly think big words are different from acronyms; you can usually suss out the meaning of a big word based on context clues and familiar-sounding PARTS of the word. If not, the reader has only missed out on ONE word, not a whole batch like those contained in an acronym which is often the subject of the sentence, not just some fancy-sounding adjective thrown in for its saucy sound.

Here’s what I did last week:

Remember how I bought Trixie.com a couple of years ago and haven’t really done anything with it? Well, I am finally making it useful.

As I keep on creating new blogs it’s felt like I needed a better way to collect and post more of my blogging in one place, so that’s what I’m doing on Trixie.com. It’s not that I want to abandon my individual blogs because a lot of people are only interested in one of them and they SHOULD stay topical, but other people might be interested in having MORE all in one place/using one RSS feed.

As you can see there’s also a long column of thumbs leading to free porn galleries I’ve handpicked that I hope people will find entertaining when my blogging is not.

Anyway, I still have a lot of behind-the-scenes fine-tuning and tedious tasks to do to make it work AND a few more important pages to write, but I still think it’s worth visiting as-is. The design is nothing fancy, just a free wordpress template, but I actually really love its format and like the idea of letting the content speak for itself.

I want people who go there to a) remember my name, b) sense that I am a real person and know a little bit about who that person is (and recognize that they could know a whole lot more by sticking around or returning), and c) want to come back.

My favorite Christmas present was having Juno come to our town’s theatre and getting to watch it with Kris, and seeing Diablo Cody win an Oscar last night for writing Juno was like an early birthday present.

Here’s a video of Kris and I at the movies GUSHING over Diablo:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9hpT-R0pA4]

For me, Diablo represents the very best of what the blogosphere and web voyeurism/exhibitionism offer: the opportunity to watch another human’s story unfold and experience success along the way. To develop high hopes for someone and cheer for them when things go well. To recognize someone’s talent, observe that recognition snowballing, and see her REWARDED for it. It’s very fulfilling, and not in a vicarious I-can-now-imagine-it-happening-to-me way, but just in the basic sense of caring about someone and being extremely happy for her.

Of course, she *is* also a symbol to me, too (on top of just being an awesome human); seeing a woman on that stage who has stripped and worked the peeps doing hardcore masturbation shows for money now getting respect for her non-sex work while everyone knows about her stint in sex work is Pretty Fucking Cool.

Anyway, we have (one of) her shining moment(s) recorded on our DVR now and have watched it about 35 times in the past 23 hours; I have cried every single time. And can I just say that she looked fucking fabulous, too?

I have a feeling I’m going to regret posting these little video rants with my thoughts and reactions to the whole “Letters from Working Girls” debate. And you may very well regret listening to them; honestly, they probably won’t make sense to you unless you read the back story here:

*Audacia Ray’s reaction (and discussion in comments) to Letters from Working Girls

*The discussion on Bound, Not Gagged

*The Letters Collector herself on the debate (a nice try, but still didn’t settle my stomach)

Can I just apologize in advance for being a sputtering asshole? Oh, and I realize by posting this I’m probably just driving my own little slice of traffic to her; in spite of how my blustering sounds, that’s more than fine with me. Also, I am NOT speaking for anybody or on the behalf of anybody but myself.

You can DOWNLOAD MY WHOLE (.14 GB) RANT FOR YOUR IPOD or watch smaller chunks of it right here (and I promise the next vlog or audio post I make will NOT be so long & burbling):

PART I:

Download File

PART II:

Download File

PART III:

Download File

PART IV:

Download File

PART V:

Download File

PART VI:

Download File

Oh, you know how I said I couldn’t find a picture of Susannah Breslin? I *did* find a video of her:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLe9JA3FI7I&rel=1]

She reminds me of Selma Blair (hot!) which makes me even MORE interested in finding out exactly what type of sex work I can hire her to perform. Watching her talk about a book of short stories she wrote and hearing her blur the line between truth and fiction to the point where I can’t tell if the book is, indeed, short (fictional) STORIES she wrote about “aberrants” like “midget porn stars” OR nonfictional essays about real people. Does anyone know? The promo piece reinforces my sense of her as someone who’s less interested in being true to people’s real stories in the sex industry and more interested in harnessing our curiosity about them to market entertaining tales of our perceived deviance for her own gain. Again, I don’t so much mind someone exploiting a resource (I’m not someone who thinks there’s no room in the world for pimps) as I mind someone bullshitting everyone about that being their primary objective.

And hey, I don’t want to make it sound like my own hands are clean; I’ve used a lot of the same tactics (or would if I could unclutter my mind long enough to APPLY the techniques of efficient exploitation), just not very well. So go on, everybody! GET that publicity! GET that traffic!! USE WHAT YOU’RE GIVEN!!! Wankers send you material? THAT IS BLOG FODDER! Someone wants to give you content without getting anything in return except the pleasure of putting it before an audience? TAKE it and USE it! Let Susannah Breslin be your guide!

Oh, and I wouldn’t argue with her about Susie Bright being a sex worker. The quickest reason I can give (which still probably doesn’t make sense)? She has confessed to her own personal fantasies that are so taboo as to be considered obscene by our government just to talk about them. Maybe Breslin has, too, though and I’m just not familiar enough with her (sex?) work to know.

Note: with the amount of time and energy I’ve wasted on this compared to the MAJOR stuff I ignore in my blog, you might think engaging in this little brouhaha is somehow more important to me than other things; it’s not. It’s just one of the few “discussions” I’ve been involved in lately and enjoyed, probably because it was mostly smart women doing the discussing (and yeah, Breslin is one of those women, too).

It’s been a long time since I participated in one of these sex-blog circle-jerks; I’m surprising myself by posting the entire list since a lot of the ones I thought were really great or worthwhile did not earn top props — I’m sort of amazed at how many fantastic sex bloggers are out there, not all of them my cup of tea but a lot of them ARE. Those of you who’ve found my own blogging less sexy than in the good old days might find some new favorites amongst the links collected here:

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants:

This Week’s Picks:

A Fable
“They start touching her, gingerly at first, wondering what magic is in her.”

Fiction: The Island Princess and the Monkeys Who Tie Knots
“You naughty, naughty, NAUGHTY monkeys!”

Sexy Is In Your Mind
“Sexy is an attitude and really all in your mind.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Chickipedia

Editor’s Choice
Take a walk on the wild side.

Join the Sugasm
See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Erotic Writing and Experiences
Ass-tastic!
Crave – Connect
Dreams
Good, Good Morning
It was worse than I thought!
Learning to love strap-ons: A Friday night bedtime story
Marital Stress
My first blowjob was with a she-male whore
Polite
The Scent of Nostalgic Sex
This post is cold
Threesome on a golden afternoon
Whispers, after

Sex News, Reviews & Interviews
Best Erotic Comics 2008
Kinky Movie: Julie Simone’s Babes In Bondage (Madison Young, Shibari, Ballet Heels, Fetish)
A Match Made For A Super Orgasm! Just Add a Vac U Lock Adapter and a Hitachi Attachment
Review: “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity” by Robert Jensen
Review: Sex Workers Art Show
Ron Jeremy Reviews: 2 Girls, 1 Cup

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Does Abstinence Make Orgasms More Intense?
Dominant Paradigms
The female “gaze”
Nose-picking, groping, domestic space, books, muscles, and so forth
Padme amidala: Submission and blowjobs
The Risks of Internet Sex

Sex Advice
Going Down Anyone? How To Give The Best Head
Help! Intercourse Feels As Exciting As a Handshake

NSFW Pics, Videos & Audio
Audio Story: All the time in the world
Braces Fetish Pics From Beauty And Braces
Catalina loves Pictures (and Nikki Nefarious)
Half-Nekkid on the Exercise Ball
I Feel Myself
In Her Bedroom
Kyla Cole
MC Nudes’ Big Breast Special!
Public Viewing Of Vintage Nude
Regina Ice (Twisty’s)

Sex Poetry
Intoxicated
Mmmm Mmmm Sexy!

BDSM & Fetish
Anniversary Bondage
Art Show Maintenance Spanking part 1
The Joy of Assymetry
Let me talk to you about Ms Danger
A Masochist Afraid of a Leg Wax?
Princess in Chains
SoRORIty
Take a walk on the wild side.
Try to be a good boy or you’ll be punished

Here are three recent blog entries I appreciated from my fellow webwhores:

*Mina on the annoying aspects of advertising online for female companionship:

“My last attempt at hooking up with a chick led to her becoming utterly put out with me because I wouldn’t take a $40 cab ride to her house to immediately rape her. This, by our second conversation.”

*Mistress Matisse on her college education and lack of a degree. It was a blissful moment, realizing that I never wondered for a fucking second what kind of schooling Matisse did or didn’t have, and knowing that no one who reads her has to wonder whether or not she is EDUCATED. Schooling can be wonderful, but it’s also overrated; I treasure stories from happy, successful, smart people who dropped out of school somewhere along the way.

*Dacia questions Reverse Cowgirl’s co-opting of sex workers’ stories. It’s worth following all of the links, reading the comments and giving it some thought yourself. I think I vaguely recall Reverse Cowgirl’s blog going down for a period of time years ago (2003?) after which I abandoned reading it (shortly after discovering it, so I never got really “into” it). I do not relish the idea of someone who deletes blog history or is in the habit of abandoning her blogs compiling a bunch of stories by other people only to have them mysteriously disappear or be gathered up, deleted, and perhaps be republished in a book. Since she *is* a published author/more experienced (and, I assume, more ambitious) with publishing than your average hobbyist blogger, I’m curious if she has plans beyond the blogs for these stories she’s collecting and, if so, if she gets permission from the contributors for future/other uses (my guess is no, since the contributions are anonymous). Just thinking out loud and hypothesizing here.

*****

Okay, bedtime for me.