TastyTrixie.com

Archive for the ‘rants’ Category

Ahhhhh . . . it’s webwhore drama time!! I’ve been waiting for someone to call out Alexa:

Reality and Faux Ho Bloggers on Carnal Nation

Kat’s response to that piece

Now that people are publicly airing their suspicions that AlexaRPD is a fraud, I’ll tell you why I started (and continued) linking to her and how/why my irritation with her escalated:

*I’ll pretty much link to any sexy-type blog provided one or more of these conditions are met:

• I’m hit up at the right time (when I have time to check them out & add them)
• they’re already sending me traffic (& I notice it on one of those rare days I check my stats)
• their blogs are told from a personal perspective
• they look like someone my readers/traffic would be interested in

Alexa’s blog qualified on all of those counts. I think the only post I read all the way through was her pet bunny post, which moved me. It also did something very few bloggers have the time or ability to do: it told a whole, coherent story. So . . . sex blog, nicely presented, obviously HAS traffic (and will continue to attract traffic) equals good link exchange for me. BECAUSE PART OF WHY I BLOG IS TO MAKE MONEY/attract members to my site.

At first I tried reading parts of a few more posts — the sexy ones — and while they do not do it for me and struck me as exaggerated and full of shit, I didn’t feel outraged even though I sensed the person writing the posts was manufacturing most, if not all, of the content in her imagination. I have HATED reading mean-spirited accusations about bloggers I’ve loved: that they must actually be men, that they couldn’t really possibly be for REAL, blah blah blah. I didn’t want to be one of those people and frankly I didn’t have the time or interest to read enough of her blog to gather “evidence” on her. I exchanged links with her to get traffic to my site and recognized that her blog is the kind that will have many loyal followers. While I may privately harumph at someone who just can’t ever get enough of throat-fucking (her specialty, if I remember correctly), obviously there are many wankers who eat that up.

I actually experienced what now sounds like a disproportionately higher level of irritation over how much she sounded a lot like another(?) Alexa who had a blog called A New York Escorts Confessions (also charged with being fake). I exchanged links with her once upon a time, too, even though that missing apostrophe right in her title DROVE ME FUCKING BATSHIT. I was way more aghast at her idiotic unwillingness to acknowledge and CORRECT her mistake (claiming instead that she did it on purpose for aesthetic reasons) than I was at her concocting or sexing up posts, but again — TRAFFIC. Those of you who blog purely for fun and attention and sparkling conversations in comments (GAG) may not get it (and be sputtering, “but . . . but . . . *I* deserve those sparkling comments more than FAKEY ALEXA does!!” which is probably true), but if I were to not accept traffic (and even PAY for it with reciprocal links and/or affiliate payouts) from sources I didn’t totally love and/or respect we wouldn’t be able to make a living on our sites. Seriously, whatever wrongs AlexaRPD has committed are incredibly small fries compared to the really foul and depressing shit I’ve dealt with from other “colleagues” so it wasn’t particularly troubling to me or something I felt like I needed to get to the bottom of.

Perhaps I’d have felt differently if she were claiming to be a camgirl, though, rather than an escort and former stripper. On the other hand, probably not. There are lots of sites I link to for money even though I don’t LIKE the people who run them or their work is not my cup of tea or who disseminate wrong/stupid information or whatever. I know some of you may find this appalling, but I only feel the slightest twinges of guilt over that. Like, that guilt is miniscule compared to the irritation, say, of a wayward hair in my sock pulling down on the skin between two of my toes. It’s not a whore sellout thing, either: today I saw that some of our very liberal friends took money from the government to provide training to the US Border Patrol to do some very UNprogressive freedom-eroding shit. When I think of all the civilians/non-sex workers who compromise their ethics for money (sometimes without a second thought) I really have a hard time feeling like I need to be a bigger boycotter and censor and ethical tightrope walker. I do not need to be up on the high horse other people insist on riding, instead I’ll stay down here with the common folk, shoveling shit and making money.

AlexaRPD follows me on Twitter (perhaps will be amended after this post to followED) and I have followed her back not just for the traffic exchange, but because she is constantly reading online and posts lots of pertinent sex worker-y news links before anyone else does. Is that one of the many red flags that she has way too much time on her hands to really be doing all the work and school and travel she claims? Totally. Does it make me want to unfollow her? No. I want to read the links she posts and I want the traffic. Didn’t much give a fuck.

But I *started* to give a fuck. The first time I started giving a fuck was when she posted a “Sex Ed” entry attempting to school  people on transgender and made some really glaring mistakes like writing as though all transsexuals are MTF (male to female) and just take estrogen for hormone therapy. When a transman got pissed about this in the comments, Alexa’s response wasn’t “OMG — thanks for pointing out to me that my information is completely wrong as applies to FTM transsexuals!” Instead it was hostile. Like the no-apostrophe defense, but much worse. I started writing comments but didn’t post them, realizing as the debate raged on in the comments and Alexa deleted sensible feedback without ONCE apologizing or hastening to correct her mistakes that THIS IS A PERSON WHO NEVER ADMITS TO BEING WRONG even when she should be totally fucking embarrassed to pretend that she’s right. And there is absolutely no point in trying to communicate with her. It irritated me so much, though, that I kept the comments I wrote (but didn’t post) in a draft in my mailbox. Here they are:

I don’t know if anyone else pointed it out as far as factual errors go (and I could be wrong too) but I *think* it actually IS uncommon — extremely — for people to be born with “well-defined sets of both genitals present”. I’m not an expert and I don’t think anyone could be, particularly when all of this stuff  (terms, expectations, scientific research) is still evolving BUT I can totally understand why people would get defensive, pissed and call you out on things. Like mostly-defaulting to talking about MTF transpeople and then not getting it when someone pointed out that FTM people obviously have a whole different HRT (hormone replacement therapy) plan. So as far as specific things to correct? The line “This might include surgical alteration, but may also include the commencement of hormonal treatments (estrogen, largely).” I don’t know if you meant to and didn’t get to it, or what. There’s no way to leave that as is and make it sound inclusive of FTM people and that definitely is a pet peeve of mine, that transwomen are fetishized and sensationalized and much more visible in the media like they are THE ONLY transpeople, while transmen are this invisible population — again where the people born with pussies are secondary to the people born with penises whose trials and tribulations and experiences are what all our discussions are built around with the biological cunt-owners being footnotes and exceptions to the rule instead of rulemakers themselves.

Being more specific about HRT *is* really important, I think, and it wouldn’t take that much space to add “usually estrogen & testosterone blockers for MTF and testosterone and progestin for FTM”. It’s really important for people to understand you’re not just ADDING hormones, but trying to counteract the ones you’ve already got.

So let’s call that Strike One for Alexa, the whole “never admits when she’s wrong” problem. With a cherry on top of “pretends she’s a ’sex educator’ when she is not”.

Strike Two was/is that she’s a shameless content thief and on top of that brags about all of the traffic she gets. I wouldn’t resent this if she got all of that traffic from her bullshit stories because writing those does take time and they ARE valuable to her readers regardless of whether or not they are true. Okay, I would still resent that a wee bit. But what REALLY pisses me off? That she gets and retains a lot of traffic from posting stolen  content on her erotic buttholes erotic facials erotic this and that picpost blogs. All of those shiny, pretty tumblers she’s so proud of are built entirely on her “collection” of photos she’s not in and didn’t take AND DOESN’T EVEN CREDIT to the real sites, photographers, or models except every so often on accident when the URL stamp hasn’t been cut off.

My ears are burning up just typing this, it makes me so mad. I remember seeing one of my friend’s faces smiling pretty with a load of cum on it in one of the pics Alexa posted with absolutely no mention of my friend’s name or her site and it just brought it home even harder to me that this person who pretends to be a sex worker, who pretends to be a sex worker advocate, is one of those people who thinks she has a right to capitalize on our bodies and our work for her own gain, to just TAKE our work like it’s free and redistribute. She’s like the guys on Craigslist who post that they have hard drives for sale with 437 gigs of porn on them that they’ve spent five years “collecting” or this one guy who wrote to me asking for a free membership to my site in exchange for the “collection” of menstrual porn he’d taken painstakingly snagged from here and there, by hook and by crook. When I angrily said no, he was like, “but I spent all of this time LABELING everything and putting them into folders! MY COLLECTION IS REALLY VALUABLE!”

Listen, I know most everybody’s been there before, very excited about the world wide treasure trove of free porn and bulletin boards and we want to show it off to people, our great taste in porn (or “erotic art”) and our amazing discoveries, but most of us had someone take us and shake us and remind us of a little thing called fucking COPYRIGHT. I am still a lot looser than other people when it comes to blogging on that — I don’t think you need to ask everybody for permission and think it’s fine to post stuff that’s out there for free already as long as it’s just a couple of samples AND YOU PROVIDE CREDIT to the original artist or a link back to where you found it or even just say “I wish I knew where this came from so I could credit the creators and models”. A blog-sized photo or three is like a quote from a book and seems to me fair use. But when your entire blog is comprised solely of uncredited porn? You’re just a thief. I’m apt to be forgiving when it’s someone who doesn’t know any better, but this Alexa person DOES know better, I’m sure of it, if she knows how to parse the language of 2257 laws while deliberately ignoring copyright infringement.

I am somebody who thinks copyright and trademark laws go a bit too far to the point where they constitute culture theft; I don’t want it to sound like I think every Joe Schmoe who posts a handful of pics on his rinky dink blog of his fave porn star should be prosecuted and fined thousands of dollars, but when someone has the audacity to brag about all of her traffic that’s built on stolen uncredited content, then she’s just a Big Asshole. And on top of that to have posted a portfolio that she claimed was of herself but was really photos of Princess Blue Eyez? That takes the theft to a whole other level and proves she’s a fraud (unless she is/was the model for that site).

Strike Three: it’s a petty one. But it was the day she told me I didn’t “get” what Twitter is for because I defended those of us who don’t feel the need/don’t have time to respond to questions tweeted to us. She is one of those “you owe a response to people” types who clearly doesn’t HAVE A REAL FUCKING JOB consuming all of her time the way we real sex workers do, those of us who realize it’s not our obligation to interact with and respond to people for free. Those of us who actually DO set a price on our time. And just goes back to Strike Number One of never admitting she’s wrong, which in this version is “there’s only one right way to do things (in this case use Twitter) and that is MY way”.

It all added up to me developing a blistering rage whenever I saw her saying similar things to other people, lecturing and chastising people who actually DO know what they’re talking about, who actually DO work their asses off and do jobs where we’ve sacrificed our privacy and taken real risks to do our work, all from this person who refuses to admit she’s wrong when it matters, even about little things. This person who doesn’t have the first clue or morsel of respect for our work, co-opting our work for his or herself thinking she can leverage her bullshit and ill-won popularity into a book deal or maybe just doing it because it greases his or her borderline personality disorder.

I’ve been wanting to say all of this for awhile now, but honestly didn’t want to be the one to step up and call her out on it because a person who has this much time on her hands could be the kind of person who will fuck with you indefinitely. And she certainly won’t learn anything from it or admit she’s wrong about anything so I just figured . . . WHY BOTHER?

Because who really cares if she’s a fake? Not her readers, apparently, who love an invisible woman with stolen pictures who never has a tired, stinky, or headachy story to tell about sex and ALWAYS sleeps naked and might invite YOU to a gang bang! And at first I was content to not care, either, until it wasn’t just about amusing herself with hypersexed tales to make ad sales to escort sites.

But I do care now. WE care. Those of us who pour our guts out for real, who HAVE our faces plastered with cum and other substances all over the internet, who are trying to make ends meet, who insist our time and our sex work is valuable and we should be compensated for it and our time in general, who HAVE gone to the schools we say we have, who are in some cases real educators . . . we care when you steal from us and then have the balls to teach people “sex ed” and gender ed and sex work 101 and scold us.

We care when you insinuate yourself into our virtual midst, insert yourself into our conversations and you can see US and take from US and pretend to be one of US . . . while you hide behind your charade. It’s fucking gross to those of us who are bonafide and verified. Those of us who have real work to do, posing for and/or shooting the pictures you steal, being real advocates for sex workers, actually TEACHING (as opposed to claiming we’re educators in interviews where your credentials are never verified), talking to real clients and customers (as opposed to simply amusing ourselves engaging in hot chat with freeloaders and teenagers who like our blogs). Yes, there are other anonymous sex worker bloggers some of whom I *adore* without question. But the thing is THEY NEVER DID THIS BULLSHIT ALEXA IS DOING. The content theft (to the EXTENT she does it), the hypocritical hand-slapping, and the offensive posturing.

To paraphrase a friend’s complaint, it’s creepy that this person knows who we are, but we don’t know who s/he is . . . and that person KNOWS he has an advantage over us when he talks to us . . . knows that he’s tricking us into treating him like the person he isn’t, like he’s one of us (and by “us” I don’t mean all of us are the same or do the same jobs or have the same identities). Alexa is basically someone who has succeeded in manipulating people into giving him free dances/handjobs/shows/phone sex.

*****

Well then . . . that about does it.

I feel a little ass-y about posting this, but kind of justified because I really wanted to emphasize the thing that matters more, I think, than creating a fake cum-hungry fantasy persona: it’s the hypocrisy of claiming to be a sex worker advocate WHILE YOU STEAL FROM THEM. The hypocrisy of “educating” people on transgender while you delete educational comments and corrections FROM PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ARE. You know . . . stuff like that is bigger and more fucked-up than playing virtual dress-up. And I did want to provide an explanation for deleting my link to her and turning off all that ill-gotten traffic, so there you have it.

Note: I will not think less of you if you’re one of my readers or members and you continue to enjoy her blog (with a grain of salt please?) and I’m not saying that EVERYTHING on her blog is wrong, stupid or patently false; I’ve agreed with many things she’s said, and there WAS that awesome pet rabbit, Hansel. I definitely want to remind you, though, that all those pictures she posts? There are real people in them and real photographers who made them, so stop thanking Alexa for providing you with them, instead insist that she credits those in the images she shares so you can support (I hope) the people who ACTUALLY MAKE visual art/porn/erotica, not just steal it.

Oh man! I almost forgot that one time she told me I really *must* start waxing my twat, that my lovers would thank me for it. If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you probably know that I don’t take kindly to advice on pubic hair removal, even when coaxed with a wink and the promise of someone else appreciating it. Nothing against waxing, which I’m open to, just not so open to being patronized by someone who crows about her eversmooth grooming but has never shown a photo of her biscuit, if she actually has one.

Edited to add: just noticed a midnight post from Mistress Matisse on the subject.

We’ve been working on a new site, TrixieAndFriends.com. Sounds pretty exciting, right? Like maybe it’s all about me sexing up my buddies? But actually, it’s not. It’s much more practical and mundane than that.

TrixieAndFriends.com is mostly just a preview blog showing our most recent updates (and eventually a categorized, searchable catalog of all of our porn going back to when each of our sites opened so that members can find what they want; THAT is going to take weeks/months of data entry to compile). No one will actually be able to JOIN TrixieAndFriends.com, instead it links to each of the sites in our network so people still have to pick who they want to support, but AmberLily and Delia and some of our members are keen to have a members-only forum/bulletin board so we WILL have a protected area on the site for that.

We’ve been using the members-only area of SpyOnUs for members to go to and see network-wide updates, but it was clunky and not very inclusive — DEFINITELY not searchable, so TrixieAndFriends.com is replacing & greatly improving what we were doing there (we also need to totally revamp SpyOnUs.com to make it strictly about voyeurism, our behind-the-scenes stuff, and of course our SPYCAMS). If any of you techy people are wondering why we don’t have a CMS to do all of this for us, the main reason is that each of the sites in our network is unique and independently owned/operated; we have no desire to standardize everything or force everyone to use one of the limited and difficult scripts on the market.

I feel self-conscious and narcissistic about buying and using the domain, TrixieAndFriends.com, for this (like how I keep saying it over and over? TRIXIE AND FRIENDS DOT COM!!!), but wanted to hurry up and DO IT and couldn’t come up with any brandable, inclusive, open-ended domain that would describe our network and allow for indie sites of any stripe to network with us down the road. Anything with the word “webwhore” in it is off-putting to many and brings to mind the kind of hardcore, stereotyped sites that are pretty much the opposite of what our sites are about (not that I, personally, am ever going to stop calling myself a webwhore, it’s just not a good moniker for everyone). I could come up with a lot of generic and good domain names, but they didn’t feel like anything I thought people would remember and associate with us, though IndiePornPass was one we tossed around, but what if we make sites for tech-incompetent little hotties down the road? What then? It might feel a little deceptive. I suppose, though, that we might network with people who aren’t really great “friends”,  but I think people are used to that term being used loosely (and I *do* love loose friends!).

Speaking of friends (the great kind, not the loosely used), it’s AmberLily’s birthday! One of the things people don’t seem to notice much about AmberLily’s site is that she does assloads of private webcam shows every week, practically every DAY, and those shows are archived in both streaming video and snapshot formats so her site is basically updated every day with a really wide variety of role plays, masturbation, and hot little outfits and fetish attire like pantyhose, gloves, bodystockings, schoolgirl skirts, shiny satin panties, etc. Whenever porn review sites look at her site this fact is rarely mentioned or, if it is, is given very short shrift. It pretty much happens to all webcam content. Instead of being highly valued the way it SHOULD be, reviewers are so unused to seeing it that they don’t get it and just focus on what they’re used to: generic photos and videos. They don’t understand that webcam grabs ARE jerkworthy even though they aren’t HD. It’s frustrating, to put it mildly.

Anyway, my hope is that at least OUR members will see and appreciate (in that very special way they have) how consistently hard AmberLily works and the range of her special offerings. Before announcing TrixieAndFriends I wanted to have all of our October updates catalogued there, but we’re only maybe halfway through representing the days AmberLily has added archived shows. Still, I think it’s already apparent what she’s doing, even if few people really have a clue how much she puts into it, especially considering the heavy burdens and gigantic stressors she and her hubby have been thrown this year.  She’s not the type to complain or let on when the chips are down and she’s under so much pressure that a normal person would just be curled in a ball in bed with a variety of prescription-strength sedatives so I don’t think most of her fans REALIZE. Also, I don’t think she really WANTS to hash over that stuff — she wants to do a good job on cam for her customers and let her mind be taken off all of that bullshit.

Point is, it’s her birthday, I hope it’s a great one for her and that she is rewarded for all of her hard work (and hotness). The week already started out in tears for her when their favorite cat and beloved pet of many years succombed to cancer, so . . .  yeah. If I could, I would shower her with a trip to Disneyland, piles of Star Wars toys, and as many hugs as she could tolerate.

An amazing MUST-READ piece about Tyra Banks media-raping young, too-smart-for-tv porn starlet, Sasha Grey:

Barely Legal Whores Get Gang-Fucked.

I used to have no beef with Tyra. Before we actually WATCHED her shows. I still think some people get crazy-mean criticizing her, but if they do, this is a perfect example of why. Her double standards and bullshit exploitation of young women is a gross freak show. You can’t help wanting to knock her off her high horse. Some of the things I have seen and read about her doing to young women are despicable, mostly because she sees no problem with having malnourished girls get hypothermic modeling in pools of cold water or in violating codes by forcing inexperienced model-wannabes to live more-to-a-room with fewer beds than are allowed by hotel regulations or with promising contracts and money and work that never come through or just plain exploiting these young women’s bodies, inexperience, stupidity, etc. BUT she somehow thinks porn is SO BAD while she’s some kind of a fucking mother-hen angel rescuer.

Tyra’s shows ARE porn. That article illustrates how manipulative, degrading, deceptive, brainwashing, irrational, insulting, and totally FUCKED UP mainstream media and moral standards are and how SHADY the game is of pointing the finger at the skin trade when the skin is the whole reason people are watching your charade. The hypocrisy is grotesque. They lie to guests, twist their words, misrepresent them, costume them in a misleading manner to try to prove their bullshit points and “seduce” audiences with their bullshit and subject people like Sasha who are smarter than Tyra to what amounts to an emotional stoning. That whole scene reminds me of the time a bible-based cult ganged up on me to try to convince me I was possessed by demons, going to hell, my mind was playing crafty tricks on me, etc. Seriously.

But I’m not here to JUDGE you, Tyra. I’m just here to ask you to CONSIDER fucking off and dying. YOU are a pimp, Tyra. YOU.

PS – starving yourself and wearing high heeled shoes that don’t fit and falling off runways and crap are probably more unhealthy and more unnatural than buttfucking.

PPS – seduced by money? Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

PPPS – after watching/reading that I can say I’m a now a Sasha Grey fan (VOD or DVD – yes, I’m pimping, too).

I’m struggling under the weight of a lot of things right now. Nothing that should be debilitating, but the end result is that I’ve been acting almost completely disabled. Money problems, health problems, overwhelming-to-do-list problems, incompetency problems . . . you know, life.

The struggle on my mind right now is trying to figure out how much energy to expend on conservative friends and family who have issues with my work and/or with my partner being a transwoman. Not that they know that word. And I should be patient because how many people DO? It’s not THEIR fault, right? And with me being in the kind of relationship where I even USE the term “my partner”. My girlfriend. My not-a-man not-a-husband not-a-boyfriend.

My mom has been struggling with how to tell HER mom (my grandma) and her born-again-Christian-asshole brother (my uncle) so I haven’t even seen my grandma in way over a year.

God, it makes me tired even trying to blog about this bullshit.

Now one of my step-brothers, the one I WANT to be in touch with a little, is coming out with his family for a visit next month. My mom visited them in Pennsylvania last year before the election and came back so disturbed by his wacko right-wingerism that she doesn’t really even want to see them again (AND didn’t even want to get into the basics of telling him anything about my controversial-to-them “lifestyle”).

Delia’s family in the Midwest still doesn’t know about her transition. We had a plan for telling them that we cooked up with her therapist who said that ideally you shouldn’t break the news in a letter, but face to face. We tried to get them to come out here last year so Delia would meet them at the airport presenting as a male (a concept that now seems totally ludicrous, uncomfortable and weird to me), she’d sit down with them and tell them all about it, the next day she’d present as a woman, and we’d all go see the therapist so they could learn about transgender. A nice idea, but there’s no way to lure them out here when the REST of Delia’s family is in the Midwest and her dad can’t take time off work; it just makes more sense for us to visit them there.

So Delia’s parents offered to buy us tickets to come out for a visit, like, RIGHT NOW. It would work out perfectly for the whole coming-out-face-to-face (except we wouldn’t be able to take them to our counselor) BUT Delia already changed her name so in order for them to buy a ticket she could actually get on a plane with, she’d need them to know ahead of time her real femme name (or we’d have to buy the tickets ourselves which we can’t afford to do right now). So after some soul-searching and discussion she decided to write a letter which she’s still working on.

As the word “transition” implies, it’s a process. And part of that process is . . . all of this bullshit of informing, educating, explaining, confronting, and dealing with loved ones and not-so-loved ones.

It made me feel sad when my mom said she doesn’t know if she wants to see my brother / can’t handle his fucked-up views. And I know it makes HER sad, too, but I feel like it will only be a few hours and it would be wrong to shut him out completely. I wouldn’t say this about my other stepbrothers or about my ex-stepdad, but this brother? I would. So I wrote him and his wife an email about “my lifestyle” so they wouldn’t be hit with surprises and wouldn’t ask about my job in person if they aren’t comfortable hearing me talk about what it really is (and told them, in short form, that I make adult websites). And the wheels are turning and they’re paying lip service to not judging other people, but copping to being “REALLY conservative”. And expressing concern over their seven year old daughter. He doesn’t want her to have to “learn too much about life” at this tender age. Like, what aspect of life does he feel he needs to shelter her from or that I’m going to so-inappropriately expose her to?

As usual I can’t help comparing my apparently depraved lifestyle with other people in our family and in Delia’s family. In both of our families there are those who have HUGE problems with my job, yet think nothing of letting the children be around people in the family who’ve actually sexually molested other family members. Nobody objects to the lifestyle of the family members who worked for the chemical company that made Napalm and Agent Orange and other killers and cancer-causers. When I had a husband who worked for Boeing, it never bothered anybody in the slightest (including me) that a family member worked for a company that makes machines of war. Their job is something to be proud of, but MY job is a big, scary, society-eating disease. Excuse me, but as much as you try to fallaciously connect porn depicting consensual sex and non, I DIDN’T DO THIS TO KIDS. Not even close. My brother doesn’t have a problem with his kids being around one of his other brothers who has stolen cars and served in Iraq and laughs with glee at videos of US soldiers beating and kicking the shit out of Iraqis. But oh, GOD!! WHAT will we tell the children about Trixie and her tranny girlfriend or that she has a job making grown-ups feel pleasure?

I know it’s hard, but it’s not THAT hard. Especially given the truly fucked up things that people are perfectly willing to ignore, live with and even brag about. He’s a soldier! He’s a chemical engineer! He works for the military industrial complex!! So easy to boast about. And even those other people who have actually HURT people — kids — get the benefit of the doubt: He deserves a second chance. But how many people boast about “my daughter, the pornographer!”? Actually, my mom does and my dad did. In small amounts, but still. They are extra ballsy and good. And I guess if all these little things are hard, I still have that to be extra specially grateful for and don’t know what I’d do without it.

*****

It would be easier in the short run to just say we’re going to be busy. Too busy to see my step-brother and his family. Too busy to fly out to the Midwest. Too busy to communicate on any deeper level with old friends than filling out those email quizzes about what our favorite colors and drinks are and coming up with a different reason than the real one for the last thing that made us cry.

I could do that (and have and still will to some extent), but sometimes you have to TRY. Because they’re family or because you really need a better reason than fear and exhaustion to sever ties with them. No, you have to try your hardest to be patient with their ignorance and fears and confusion (thankfully people have been patient with MINE). You have an obligation to make yourself fucking vulnerable to being told that what you do — whether it’s selling pictures of your beaver on the internet or it’s defying the status quo of letting your genitals define your gender or it’s being in a non-straight relationship — that you’re destroying the moral fibre of the country, tearing families apart, degrading humanity, and damaging our sensitive youngsters and oldsters who shouldn’t be EXPOSED to our depravity and perversion in their fragile mental and physical states!

You have to be gentle with them while they insult you and beg for your protection. Oh but mom is just too old to understand . . . oh god, I just don’t want to upset Grandma Seriously? These women have televisions and they’ve all HAD SEX. When I’m in my eighties I hope people don’t think I’m too stupid to understand new shit or that I can’t handle knowing that some women charge men money to get their dicks hard. I think they can handle it, and if they can’t? OH WELL. I wish someone would protect OUR feelings for a change. Like maybe not insulting the girl on the television for having “too masculine of a jaw” right when you’re sitting next to my trans girlfriend
who might feel self-conscious enough as it is about her OWN masculine jaw. Like maybe not saying that I’m going to warp your seven year old when YOU are the one warping her with your stupid, bigoted views.

I know I’m being a baby to complain about it because so many people have had it so much worse, but I’m *sick* of coming out to people and trying to hold their hands through the process when I just want to scream at them. It feels like such a gigantic waste of time and energy for me, personally, when I don’t even LIKE socializing with people. But I know it’s not healthy to take the easy way out and be isolated. I know that talking to people makes a difference, not just to us, but in teaching tolerance and understanding on a broader level.

*****

Basically I just feel bogged down. Getting together with family is expensive enough, emotionally & financially, and communicating with old friends that you aren’t sure you have anything in common with anymore takes enough of a toll, that having to pay all these extra costs is really draining. It’s like walking through a field of land mines every time you connect with someone who doesn’t know who you are and what you’re doing lately. Are they going to freak out or pat me on the back and laugh? Should I brace myself for them to say something inadvertently hurtful or let myself trust them to be wiser than that?

Once I started writing this blog entry I realized that the most important thing we can do when it comes to friends and family right now is to cultivate our relationships with people who FUCKING GET IT. Our porn friends, our trans friends, our not-so-straight friends. I’m not very socially energetic but there’s no way I can cope with some people’s bullshit without having the comfort of other people’s understanding and similarities. And I can’t help sort of resenting the amount of energy I’m putting into the one camp when I could be pouring it into the other. OR WORK.

Jesus, I can’t afford this bullshit. Including my own — all I want to do is sleep and read and eat and listen to music. I feel sort of guilty and wretched and oh-so fucking tired.

Delia told me today’s Star Wars Day so I thought I better post something. About how my own life force has been idling; maybe my new estrogen-heavy birth control pill is making it so it takes ten hours to wake up and all I want to do is gobble up food. MAYBE. Or maybe I’m just a Very Sleepy Lard Ass.

Anyway, everything is sort of on hold here while we wait for my sister to go into labor. Due to our far-flung location on the Olympic Peninsula and our usual route to Seattle being severed by a major bridge being closed for six weeks, I’ve been really anxious about how we’ll manage to get to Seattle in time to see our second nephew being born. I’m finally calming down about it now, but I did go on a late-night rampage through our town channeling my mother as I stood on the dock screaming, “ALL I WANT IS A FUCKING FERRY SCHEDULE!! GODDAMN IT I HATE THIS FUCKING TOWN!!”

Okay, I didn’t really do that, but I totally WANTED to, which made me start laughing hysterically in the same exact way my mom does after she’s loudly expressed her feelings in a public place, much to the shock and awe of all spectators. Sometimes people in this town are helpful in every single annoying way they possibly can be without being at all capable of delivering the one thing you do want. Yes, I fucking KNOW the ferry schedule is online. Actually we CAN get to Bremerton with the bridge being closed, it will just take longer (you may be older than I am, lady, but have you ever looked at a fucking MAP?). No, I do NOT want your six-month-old schedule nor do I want to call the Department of Transportation for the schedule. I want the fucking fold-out piece of paper that does not require speaking to anybody or having an internet connection.

Ferry schedules are one of those types of items that are always littering your cars and house when you don’t need them but are impossible to locate when you do. And the people in this town are lovely, they just really drive me batshit sometimes. I don’t feel the need to reach a group consensus with strangers on the best way to get to Seattle. I can still see the tortured looks on three people’s faces as they begged me to stay at the quickie-mart so they could offer their useless advice on guiding me to the right ferry even as I told them they couldn’t possibly help me unless they know the exact time my sister is going into labor. Because there are at least five different routes we could take that are all dependent on what day of the week and time of day we leave and whether or not the wind is blowing hard enough to knock out the closest ferry.

Okay. I promise to stop ranting about this to every/anyone who will listen (unless someone has the audacity to try to make a travel suggestion to me in the comments; if that happens, I will recommence ranting). I’ve procured the schedule (which totally conflicts with the information online) and the only thing we can do now is wait. Or leave early and be stuck there for days since watched pots never boil.

*****

I have a sneaking suspicion my gigantic hunger, lethargy, and the mild cramps I’ve had all week will go away as soon as my sister delivers. Until then I’ve been spending more time off cam than I usually do, hiding in our “secret” rooms, getting some private time before we have sleepless hours of family time that includes watching my little sister go through immense physical trauma and then experiencing the amazingly beautiful emotional wreckage that goes along with welcoming a new member of the family into the world.

Or maybe I just need to readjust my sleep and work schedule and give in to my night-owl tendencies. Sometimes I’m able to behave normally, sometimes not. Could be a seasonal thing. Or allergies. Or that I’m just insane in the membrane. Or all of the above.

As usual, I’ve got more interesting (to you) posts to make and pictures to share, but I wanted to spit out the quick and dirty daily details before going to bed. More of them here on DailyTrixie.

I wish I had more time and brain power to consume other people’s blogs because when I do, I come across provocative and revealing entries like these two about class:

Keeping San Francisco Safe From Prostitutes?
Melissa wrote this back when SF voters had the chance to decriminalize prostitution. They didn’t, of course, and her post explains a lot of reasons why even a supposedly-progressive, liberal, educated population is ignorant and afraid of sex workers running amok:

“The biggest opposition to Prop K isn’t anti-prostitution feminist groups. It’s ‘neighborhood associations.’ Unlike even the most socially conservative feminists, they never say, I don’t want sex workers to be raped. They say, I don’t want to see sex workers. Don’t want to see them on their front steps. Don’t want to see their clients or ‘pimps’. Don’t want to see condoms, or syringes. In short: don’t want to see poverty, don’t want to see poor people. . . . What K opponents will never say in public, is that it’s not prostitutes that are hard to live next to — it’s poverty.“

On a more personal note, Amber Rhea posted an extremely intimate entry yesterday sharing her memories of class-consciousness developing in childhood and young adulthood and reflections on all of that jazz (like how attending private school probably saved her life).

“My mom was a bartender until I was 7 or 8 years old. When I’d go spend the night at friends’ houses, I’d take my toiletries in a purple Crown Royal bag (we always had tons of them around the house). We also had a lot of extra beer/liquor T-shirts that I used as nightshirts . . . . it wasn’t until I was in my teens that it dawned on me why [my friends'] parents might think it’s weird for a 7-year-old to carry a Crown Royal bag and sleep in a Finlandia T-shirt.”

Without going into a lot of detail (just because I don’t have time to write that book right now), I can’t overemphasize how much my socioeconomic background shaped my identity and values. More than being female. More than being white. Even though both of those things are a big huge intrinsic part of it, the money stuff and place my family occupied (pretty low down) in the hierarchy colors the way I see and respond to pretty much everything, I think, and in such insidious ways that I’m constantly chipping away at my lack of awareness at how deep it goes and how far back and how much it continues to effect my options and choices today.

Sometimes I feel like discussions about race and gender are just big polarizing distractions to keep us from addressing the BIGGER, all-encompassing issue of class. They’re not, but sometimes I feel that way (and I know some other people do, too).

*****

A related note: right now I resent the way blame is laid for the recession. Instead of saying that banks ass-raped tons of people who probably COULD have made their mortgage payments if not for the usury/deception/inflated interest rates and doubled/trebled payments, every comment seems designed to tell us that banks simply LENT MONEY TO POOR PEOPLE. Like, THAT was the big mistake. As though those borrowers could never have made FAIR payments on mortgages with FAIR terms. As though people wouldn’t have felt the need to take out second and third mortgages to be able to pay credit cards with ludicrous, unjustifiably-high, ass-raping interest rates.

The mainstream discussion about it and language referring to sub-prime mortgages, etc. is all backwards; it *pretends* to call the lending institutions and big mucky-mucks greedy while using language that continues to make it sound like the banks’ problems were making bad bets on bad people, when really they fucked vulnerable people dry, butt-ramming them straight into the ground. Let’s just bleed these people dry. When you make financially troubled people pay exorbitantly high interest rates and double their minimum payments, etc. what the fuck do you THINK will happen? Unless they win the lottery, they’ll never be able to keep up or dig themselves out of the deep grave the lenders dug for them.

I’m not making these comments as someone who thinks she has all the answers or understands the complexity of all of it or is well-read on the subject. I’m making them as an average joe butt plumber based on her own experiences with banks and mainstream exposure to superficial news with a little bit of deeper reading here and there. My intention isn’t to spark a big-ass discussion about it, just web-log some stuff. The above paragraphs are only a small chunk of reflection, not a complete or coherent argument. I won’t publish comments from people assuming I’m claiming to be an expert or assuming that because I haven’t written this or that or included another bit or piece, that I must not agree with this or that bit or piece, nor will I publish comments demonstrating a lack of comprehension regarding what I already wrote. HATE that.

For the record, my interest isn’t really in “punishing” rich people (even when they DO *deserve* to be hung from the highest tree) or placing limits on how much money people can make, it’s on making fair regulations and restrictions on how deeply people can be abused. It’s on little things that would change a lot. LIKE NOT LETTING CREDIT CARD COMPANIES MAKE YOUR PAYMENT DUE ON A WEEKEND OR HOLIDAY, THEN CHARGING YOU A LATE FEE AND RAISING YOUR INTEREST RATE BECAUSE YOU FAILED TO PAY ON TIME WHEN YOUR PAYMENT ARRIVES ON THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY FOLLOWING THE DAY THEY DEMANDED YOUR PAYMENT, BUT CAN’T EVEN RECEIVE IT/WON’T EVEN PROCESS IT. It’s a pretty fucking simple matter — we have the technology at this point to automatically reject a date that is a holiday or weekend and chose either an earlier or a later date, or to have a FAIR regulation that doesn’t even ALLOW lending institutions to punish you for not delivering a payment on a day when delivery of said payment IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Seriously. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t talking about things like this. Everyone. All day. Until something happens.

Just one example. I know *some* people are talking about it some of the time, but it’s not on headline news, etc. every five seconds the way Chris Brown is. Instead everyone just ignores and skirts around these tangible, obvious bits of fuckery. It just keeps adding up, but I don’t hear anything except “bail out”. If anyone has links to proposed regulations tightening this shit up, I’d love to read it because as it is right now I’m too busy bitching about it to look the shit up (I know! I’m an ass!). I know awhile back congress was talking about putting an end to the credit card companies burying high interest rate balances under the lower interest rate balances, but I don’t know whatever became of that/if they are in fact now forced to automatically apply payments to the balances with the highest interest rates first.

Why am I still sitting here blogging about this? Seriously, all I was going to do was post two links. Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh . . . hate myself for not keeping up with the news on this stuff better.

Just a quick entry to say we’re busy getting ready to be gone for a few days trying to shoot something specific. Outside. And it’s WINTER. But that’s when it needs to be shot. Mostly we’re just trying to get ready (much more complicated than you might imagine unless you’ve done our kind of work and the same way we do it) and it’s been snowing (again).

I anticipate having cold fingers, legs, buttocks, etc. a lot on Thursday and Friday. And then we’re going to celebrate a late Christmas/early Valentine’s day/Friday the 13th dinner with my mom. I’m looking forward to it, but also dreading certain things and am practicing stress management techniques while I’m not actively working.

Yesterday we went shopping for additional costuming for aforementioned shoot and after hours of sifting through second-hand clothing my nasal passages, throat and head already felt invaded by that weird, unsettling thrift-store smell that makes you feel like you’re coming down with some old-lady sickness. Then we went to the drugstore where a lady was coughing. AND COUGHING. And hacking.

I’m not the type who’s EASILY grossed out by random germs, sneezing or coughing people in public, but my mucous membranes were already feeling vulnerable after searching through three thrift stores and this woman was really projecting her spittle. She made half-assed attempts to cover her mouth with her hand by holding it up six inches from her face and coughing TOWARDS it, not into it, and then she walked around briskly touching every single thing in the store with that hand. On top of that there’s something unsettling about this woman; I’ve seen her around town before and she’s like a fascinating fifty-seven year old dolly with long, youthful dark-blonde hair in waves worn in a loose asymmetrical ponytail. Her face is powdered porcelain with spots of rouge on her cheeks. Her lips and eyes are lined and her features are girlish except for the wrinkles around her mouth. Nothing about her says middle-aged, which is probably what she is; instead she’s a duality of eleven-year old girl and seventy-nine year old woman. I’d totally follow her around the store to stare if she didn’t give off such an aura of contagion.

When we got to the checkstand she got in line behind us and it suddenly started pouring down snow outside. The cashier kept interrupting our transaction to answer the phone and I felt totally hemmed in by winter, like she wasn’t going to give up until she infected us with post-nasal slush.

Because I DO NOT want to get sick right when we’ve got time and money invested in shooting, I came home and started swilling down emergen-c until I was totally high (see this tweet followed by this). I rarely get colds (I think I’ve averaged maybe one cold or flu every other year, if that, in the past fifteen years) but I’m still paranoid enough to often feel like I’m coming down with one.

So. The goal today is to get a million things done, not get sick, stay calm, and leave as early as possible tomorrow so we can arrive at our destination safely while there’s still daylight so we can plot our shooting locations for Thursday and Friday.

I won’t be checking email while we’re gone, we have webcam shows and chat scheduled when we get back (on Sunday and Monday), and I’ve only responded to maybe 3% of my email over the past year, so . . . yeah — if you want to talk to me any time soon you’ll probably need to be a member who shows up to one of those live cam events next week. Wish us a productive trip!

*****

Speaking of my limits, two seconds before I hit “publish” on this post, I got a comment on my last blog entry from a guy who has a problem. Here’s the comment:

I hope someday that you will reply to my comments. Forever seeking your feedback, Furry Freak Bro, aka4JerryGarcia, Merry Pranksters, etc.

He might be a nice guy (if memory serves he acts normal during camshows), but he is one persistently demanding motherfucker who cannot take a hint. Facebook, twitter, email, blog comments — they all say basically the same thing: Hi there – respond to me PLEASE; I await your response. Please write back to me. If you commented back it would make my day. Your fan, xoxo blah blah blah
WHAT. THE. FUCK!?!?!

First of all, you’ve said nothing to me that warrants a response. Second, if you’re a fan of mine you’ll see that I don’t engage in a lot of idle chit-chat, particularly the hi/good morning/waving/hugging/emoticons variety and if you have any reading comprehension you can see that I’m KIND OF overwhelmed, constantly talk about not having the time or energy for email, trying to keep my hours at the computer limited to a healthy number and use that time productively, etc. How long would it take if I said “hi” or “good morning” or “YES! I fucking SEE you!!” to every single person I encountered online? I would have no fucking life and no time to respond to people who actually put a lot of thought and effort into writing to me.

So I blocked him on Twitter so I wouldn’t be bombarded by his pleas for attention, but now he has the balls to make that comment on a blog entry that essentially says I’ve been feeling like shit and have barely had the energy to drag myself out of bed and now that I’m feeling better it will take awhile to catch up on everything. But listen; even if I were all caught up and had ample time on my hands, the last thing I would feel like doing is encouraging these incessant, self-absorbed, petulant guilt-trips seeking acknowledgment.

I really try to not be mean and to consider that even wonderful people have blind spots, bad habits, etc. Before I ream someone’s ass I sometimes try to imagine the person might be borderline retarded or otherwise lack the skills or comprehension to function at a higher level; maybe all they know is that the internet is a friendly place where you can look at pretty girls and get them to say ‘hi’ to you. And seriously? There are a lot of pretty girls online who make that their sole job/function in life; collecting myspace friends, saying ‘hi’ and ‘hugs’ to everyone, making a name for themselves that way. BUT I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE GIRLS. Get it?

Honestly I try to just ignore this person and others like him (ex. No one’s responded to my messages — I guess no one loves me) because I don’t have the time or mental capacity myself to discover a nice way to tell them to STOP ACTING LIKE CREEPY STALKERS (when they’re not really even BEING particularly creepy or stalkerish, just obnoxious) and understand that from my perspective I just feel bombarded by people who want think they deserve to have me interrupt my life to instant message them. I don’t care if it’s only two letters. H. I. Obviously it won’t stop there. Next it will be “what’s up? Do you like me? How’s the weather?”

You wanted my feedback? You’ve got it, fucker. Try to see things from other people’s perspectives. I don’t *expect* people to waste their personal time empathizing with me or reading my long-ass blog posts, but if you send me hundreds of messages asking ME to waste my time on YOU, especially by begging for warm fucking fuzzies in the comments on a post where I admitted I felt like I was losing my fucking mind, you’ve got another thing coming.

An appropriate comment from him would have been, “wow — I’m so sorry I’ve been sending you guilt-riddled whiny-posts on virtually every social networking site where you appear asking you to respond to NOTHING when you obviously have a lot of other things going on. What was I thinking?” Or, “man, I know what mental illness is like because I am compelled to pester women online; now we finally have something in common we can talk about if you ever have time; ’til then I totally un
derstand if you don’t want respond to me. I mean, sheesh — if you did that to everyone your whole twitter feed would be, @wanker hi!, @dipshit hi! @asshat I see you there, bugging me! Boy, that would be silly! I’m so sorry for thinking only of myself.”

If you’re a true fan of mine it should be obvious that my JOB is not to sit around sending individuals empty messages of bullshit for free to verify to you that you exist. Find another way to add meaning and affirmation to your life because your current method is insulting and dehumanizing; I’m not a fucking robot or video game where you press buttons on your keyboards and I do a little puppet dance or a doll with a string on her back that you pull to get her to say one of eight pre-determined messages. I like you! Thanks for being my fan! You’re number one! Good morning, sunshine!

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarf!! Seriously, I do not want to insult everyone who sends me thoughtful messages, shares themselves with me, wants me to know they appreciate what I do, etc. What I’m complaining about is a very particular brand of bullshit that fuels the empty “interaction” passing for “socialization” online. It’s gross. A total waste of time. Say hi once or twice to me this way if you want, but don’t incessantly needle me to respond. I was going to say, “don’t needle me to reciprocate” but if reciprocity is what you want, THIS IS IT. Complete and utter selfishness. My little wants and desires trumping yours. I would send virtually the same message every day: Send me ten dollars, please? Hi it’s me, Trixie — still awaiting your dollars. I found you again! When WILL you join my site? It’s Friday. Write back with the dollars. Even five would be nice. Say good morning to a good girl with seven dollars? Hello. Do you get these? If so respond with fifteen dollars. Your friend online, needing your dollars. Actually, that would make a billion times better sense than what he’s doing, but it would still be way too boring and time-consuming for me to enjoy. I don’t want to do data entry, I want to do MY. WORK.

And tweet about picking my nose and pooping. These witticisms don’t grow on trees, so don’t interrupt me! I’m trying to fucking THINK.