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Guess what gets the most play on our satellite? It’s the XM channel called Audio Visions playing new age music. We have it on almost all of the time; our dog LOVES it, curls up right next to the speakers and trances out. During the day they sometimes play annoying cheesy crap, but at night they start up with “Night Visions” and this creepy woman with a vampire accent practically whispers interjections like, “in the TOETull dahknessss of nighyyt you sseeeee nahthing but ah beeelliyawn starssss . . . NAHthing but peeeeeeeeace, sweeet peeeeeeeeeissssssse. This is oddyo veezhuns, and you haf nighyyt veezhuns.”

So yeah, we totally love it and daily mimic her pronunciation of Audio Visions, like when we see the longing look in the dog’s eyes and ask, “awwww, do you want your awwjoveezhuns?”

Audio Visions rocks at night when they play spookier, spacier new age music, including delicious programs from Hearts of Space (note: only new age nerds would be oblivious enough to the world to waste an excellent three-letter domain like hos.com on music that once had such a limited audience it could only find space on public radio, but I digress). I’ve bought a lot of new age mp3’s based on play they’ve gotten on Audio Visions that I never would have heard otherwise.

Because Audio Visions, Night Visions and Hearts of Space have been cheap auditory therapy for our household I’m pretty fucking attached to the channel which is why I’m freaking out today upon seeing the channel name has changed to read, “Spa (replaces Audio Visions)”. Does this mean no more Hearts of Space? No more vampires reading poetry accompanied by the sounds of trickling streams, heartbeats and twittering birds?

Of course, it’s possible that it won’t change, or that if it DOES change it will be for the better, though I doubt it if their recent broadcast of a muzak-styled saccharine rendition of a sickly sweet piano tinkling the precious Beatles’ melody “In My Life” layered over ocean waves is any indication of what’s to come. Apparently there’s some kind of Sirius / XM merger going on which I haven’t taken the time to read about but is fucking up almost all of the music we’ve been enjoying via Directv.

Note added Aug. 8th 2010: I just found this interesting post on the Hearts of Space website with more information about XM, Sirius (who recently dropped HOS), Audio Visions and Spa.

This is even more upsetting to me than when Court TV changed their channel name to the criminally deceptive “TruTV” and amped up their programming with even more super-dramatized crime and disaster “documentaries” with titles like, “Most Shocking” cops and robbers high speed chases with fake sound effects dubbed in. I pray for media literacy to be taught in this country, but I don’t hold my breath. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching all of that shit, but it pisses me off when mainstream media gets away with passing skewed misrepresentations of real events as “truth” without disclosing how they’ve distorted it with artifice, bias, and added “production value”.

“TRU” my ass! Maybe they think the stupid spelling is enough to act as a disclaimer: TRU! Not true in any boring conventional sense of the word. TRU! Because you don’t have time to squeeze in all of those letters, much less all the pesky facts! TRU! As much truth as we can squeeze in between ads from our sponsors! TRU! For people who don’t believe in accuracy of reporting OR spelling! I know, I shouldn’t take the misuse of words like “reality” so seriously. I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way, especially when I suffer from the double standards that allow television giants to distort and shit all over essential words in our vocabulary while I am threatened with federal obscenity prosecution and having my payment processing taken away if I dare to tell the TRUTH about my body (that blood comes out of my pussy and that’s totally healthy and I can and should be able to have sex with myself and others while that’s happening). Instead I am forced to misrepresent myself, women’s bodies and sexuality by hiding my period on my porn sites.

Seriously, is my bloody cunt more dangerous than using words like “truth” so loosely?
How irresponsible is it to degrade the meaning of words that are supposed to be the cornerstones of civilized ethics? I do not trust that all people will intuitively recognize the difference between “TRU” and “true”, “reality show” and “reality”, or porn pussy and real pussy.

How did this post arrive here? This is why most of my blog entries wallow in draft mode. I’m going to have to start advertising myself as The Naked Non Sequitur. Except it’s not really true that I’m naked right now or even most of the time just because I’m a webwhore, but I guess it’s TRU enough.

Last month when Delia was on her way to her laser appointment she encountered a road block situation by the Hood Canal Bridge: border patrol. We were mystified by it since THAT IS NOT THE BORDER and we’ve never seen anything like that before and I’ve lived in Washington state my whole entire life. So maybe there was a terrorist threat to smuggle weapons from Canada and blow up a submarine or something as it passed under the bridge? Far-fetched, but it was the only legit reason I could think of for the border patrol to be fucking around in these parts.

I know I’ll probably regret posting this because it’s loaded with keywords that might bring people from our town and sparsely-populated region to this blog; that’s why I haven’t linked to our local papers’ coverage of it, because I totally do NOT need a trail leading from my porn site to our local paper and back again. But here’s a story on what they’re doing and how totally fucked up it is. Because we live within 100 miles of the CANADIAN border, they’re using 9/11 to justify slowing everyone down to pick out and harass anyone who looks Latino in a line of cars. We don’t live by the Mexican border, and in my whole life here I’ve never heard of migrant farm workers committing acts of terrorism whether they were here legally or not. So WHAT THE FUCK?!?

I cannot believe this is fucking AMERICA in this new century. It’s almost like traveling in time and space to some hideous place where all black people have a curfew and are detained by the strong arm of the law to show their paperwork, etc. “What are you doing on the highway without your papers?” And then the border patrol brags in the paper about how they “netted” however-many “illegals” they caught in their shitty little traps. And the white folk in the line of cars gawk as the men with guns chase the brown-skinned people who leap from moving vehicles to RUN into the woods to try to get away.

Where the fuck am I living? What the fuck is going on? I seriously cannot believe this shit and the people who have the pink balls to defend it. And they gleefully tell us to expect MORE of it. They’re ramping up! Their funding has been increased!

It boggles my mind the way these fuckers act so proud of their horrid, invasive, pathetic jobs. The way they won’t acknowledge for a second that what they’re doing is a violation of civil liberties and pretty much defeats the purpose of living in what we like to call a “free” country. Nothing personal against those who are just following orders and need their crappy job with the border patrol, but it makes me mad when I as a whore am shamed and vilified for my job but these guys? Get to walk around with their chests puffed out for stopping people without cause and wreaking havoc on people’s lives. For reminding all of us how weak this country really is and scaring us all into seeing the horrifyingly distinct possibility that freedom is something that too many Americans are happy to see flushed down the shitter if it means maintaining some semblance of white supremacy.

I can’t even imagine how angry I would be if I were an American Indian stopped and harassed at one of these checkpoints. I think I would lose my fucking marbles at the sickness of it, the US border patrol trying to keep brown-skinned people OFF land they stole FROM brown-skinned people. Where do they fucking get off?

Today I spotted a really good deal for webmasters on a huge stash of hot Russian fetish porn so I bought it and decided to use it to start building a bonus site for our members. Tonight I’ll post a gallery of fifty of my favorites; the following are samples from that gallery:

I bought this package not only because it was cheap, but because it contains so many things I love: gloves, inflatables, peeing, smiling natural-looking girls, outdoor nudity, white panties & socks, and a host of other naughty things. It’s hard to believe the content broker advertised it as his “ugly girls package”. Snort. There’s some insight into the porn industry mentality (in case you need any, which I doubt).

My hope is to make this bonus site to house bought content (non-exclusive stuff I like, but we didn’t shoot ourselves) and be more of a story site with my own little fantasy narrative to accompany my favorite images from each set. I know! WHY am I starting another project? It’s not really a big thing to do, though, and not something I need to crank out or “complete” any time soon; it’s more like adding another feature to our sites and inspiration for me to write more porno stories which are conspicuously small in number on our sites as it stands. I like riffing off of strangers in content other people have shot. It’s fun/hot, plus I feel the need to bulk up on the stories because a) the types of people who dig our sites also seem to dig stories, b) it offers insight into my own turn-ons which is part of the personality people expect from me, and c) to offer a little more of the type of content women gravitate towards (IN GENERAL; of course not all women like their porn in story form, but a whole lot DO rely upon the written word for masturbation fodder and think huge sets of 200 pics are totally fucking boring). Stories are pretty cool because they don’t require a bunch of money or extra people to produce outrageous scenarios; you just need time (which IS money, I know) and a pervy imagination.

Speaking of stories, here’s the latest on the “Red Rose”/Karen Fletcher case in which a woman was prosecuted by the federal government for OBSCENITY. She was convicted of a thought crime right here in AMERICA! I don’t know how to explain this if you don’t already know it, but it should not be acceptable to any of us that the government thinks WRITING about criminal behavior and publishing it IS a crime in itself, no matter how unsavory the subject matter. Even if people are jacking off to it. Especially when there are shows on television like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which is big corporate porn of exactly the same stripe as Karen Fletcher’s, only maybe it’s worse because people delude themselves into thinking they’re watching those fictions not out of “prurient interest” (which is the language the law uses to say certain media is used as jack-off material rather than some more socially-acceptable form of entertainment – I call it the pornography of abuse and it’s how Oprah MADE her fortune) but because it’s somehow good for society. What a crock of shit. You cannot flip past that show for ten seconds without some Daddy creeping into a family bedroom he shouldn’t be in or seeing a child shivering naked in a bathtub or hearing the word RAPE. People obviously get off on that shit in many different ways. Let me clarify, I’m not condemning human nature here (most of us are drawn in one way or another to the horrifyingly sick, scary and macabre), I’m condemning the double standards that criminalize speech that SHOULD be protected by the First Amendment while giving the entertainment industry fucking Golden Globe awards for the same shit wrapped in a different package and set of excuses.

If Karen Fletcher was DOING the things she wrote about or printing the stories up on fliers and distributing them at elementary schools, well OF COURSE she should be not just prosecuted, but locked up for life. But she wasn’t. That’s not what the Department of Justice went after her for. They went after her for sitting at home in complete isolation, putting words on a computer and then onto the internet. WORDS. She thought about bad things and shared those bad thoughts with a whopping audience of twenty-nine people who sought out and chose to read them. Would I want to be her friend or have her over to babysit? Of course fucking not. What I want is for us all to prosecute and put people in prison WHO ACTUALLY COMMIT CRIMES. Not just imagine crimes in their heads.

Yesterday I walked across a field with my eyes closed. After the heavy grounded feeling of walking in wet sand for almost an hour, walking blind on hard-packed dirt with sunburned grass felt like flying with the wind in my face, blowing my hair around. Or floating, at least. The only other people in the field were three black-robed figures sparring with each other using long sticks. With my eyes closed they sounded like three people playing football. The field was so big it was easy for me to avoid walking into them even without the benefit of sight.

*****

We’ve been having some private stress around here (on top of the published stress of trying over and over again to get pregnant) so yesterday Delia canceled her show and we *finally* went to see The Dark Knight. I wasn’t nearly as excited going into it as I was Batman Begins and didn’t feel the same attachment to this one, maybe because I preferred the more solitary focus on Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and the whole emphasis on creating and finding an alter ego for himself. The imagery in Batman Begins was also darker and more appealing to me in a sort of Robert Louis Stevenson way than Dark Knight, which everyone keeps describing as “darker” than BB but really was just more hideous, brutal and scary. Yeah, the humour was darker and everything felt more tragic because of Heath Ledger’s potent brilliance, but that diverted so much attention from Christian Bale that it wasn’t really about Batman or anybody except for Heath Ledger’s Joker. Oh yeah, I do love the whole commentary on human nature being a dual thing of dark and light, I’m just saying that it didn’t speak to me on a deeply personal level the way Batman Begins did.

As I get older, it’s harder and harder for me to watch movies without being bored and annoyed by what seems like derivations from other movies I think are “better” or strike me as more original just because *I* happened to see them when I was younger and was first introduced to certain themes. There were a lot of familiar elements in The Dark Knight, but it really was awesome enough that it didn’t annoy me, especially since I recognize that there are *no* original ideas (plus, having no familiarity with comics or specialized movie knowledge I KNOW I’m completely ignorant of where some of these things “originated”). I felt like I recognized stuff from In the Line of Fire and freaky cross-dressing a la Silence of the Lambs. Since I know nothing of the comics and never even saw Jack Nicholson’s Joker, I couldn’t help totally associating the smile/scar with the Black Dahlia, especially since I just picked up another book (with the ghastly pictures) about the case.

Anyway, I loved the magic trick with the pencil and lines like “whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you… stranger.” Favorites aside from Heath’s performance? Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Rachel Dawes was SO much better than Katie’s — LOVED her, and the chase scene/shootout with the semis. We also loved the political commentary on whether or not the threat of terrorism justifies spying on people, etc. Still, I don’t feel compelled to see this one more than that once in the theater (unless we could see it in IMAX). I really wasn’t prepared for the violence, and of course it always annoys me when there’s no swearing in a movie but there’s plenty of freaky brutality (I could not hack the part at the end when the dogs and Batman were being beaten with the pipe) and it gets less than an R rating; just having the knowledge in my head that our government is prosecuting people for “obscenity” even for just writing taboo stories and that they refuse to let COPA die makes me resentful when I see how violence in movies is embraced in America as totally acceptable for young people to watch. I can’t watch this stuff without thinking, “so THIS is okay for thirteen year olds to see but the sight of my clitoris will scar them for life?” Whatever. It’s not that I want kids to see porn or that I don’t appreciate a movie without swearing or that I think violent movies should be boycotted, it’s the nonsensical double standards that drive me up a wall.

So does Christian Bale’s alleged assault of his mom and sister ruin my appreciation of his acting? Ummm, no. Just like a president cheating on his wife has absolutely zero to do with whether or not he’s a good president, whether or not Marky Mark is a homophobe or a racist has nothing to do with my enjoyment when I watch Boogie Nights or Entourage and I still think PYT is a fucking awesome song whether or not Michael Jackson is a pedo. Given the rant I just made, it probably surprises you to hear that I don’t relate to people who can’t enjoy a celebrity’s work because of their crimes and supposed personal flaws (which may or may not be true, but we will never know). It’s not that I don’t enjoy juicy gossip about famous people, but it’s just another form of entertainment to me that is separate from whether or not I enjoy their actual work. Like, is it really a surprise to Christian Bale’s fans that he’s a freak? The guy wanted to starve himself to 100 pounds only eating an apple and can of tuna a day for The Machinist; were you really not aware that he’s fucking mental? Apparently, because I’ve been reading whining from women who think they can’t adore him anymore. YOU ARE WATCHING HIS MOVIES, NOT DATING HIM!

So yeah . . . sometimes I can separate things. Other times? Not so much.

*****

In addition to taking the night off for a movie, I also made emergency reservations for a three night stay at the beach next week, so our Sunday, August 10th and Monday, August 11th shows will be canceled. We will do some shooting while we’re there, but mostly we just need to get away. Yes, we have a beach here, but Puget Sound and the Strait aren’t the same as the actual ocean. I didn’t know it until Delia told me, but the timing is perfect because we’ll be out there for the meteor shower. She also just happened to order some things from REI before we made these plans so it all fell into place perfectly since the days I happened to find open rooms and camping spots weren’t my first pick before I knew these things, but just happened to be after the REI stuff will arrive and during the meteor shower.

I almost decided to boycott American Idol last night. The only time I’ve been so disgusted with a television show that I refused to watch it was in response to the Wayne’s World skit on Saturday Night Live when they made fun of Chelsea Clinton when she was just a tween.

I know my refusal to watch something on television doesn’t lead to positive change, but I reached my boiling point last night with Idol’s continued sickening encouragement to viewers to be crazy fucking stalkers when they not only aired that disgusting phone call from some insane woman asking David Cook for a date, but presented it in their typical irresponsible, cutesyfied manner. I cringed watching him forced into the position where he had to act gracious and then they told her to stay on the line so they could get her contact information and make it happen.

I despise the way they display hysterical young people in the audience holding up signs with marriage proposals. The way they forced little twink angel David Archuleta to have physical contact with some random girl in the audience. The way they broadcasted some grabby freak snatching Jason and KISSING him; I’m sorry, that’s not funny or cute — it’s assault. Presenting it as something charming, desirable, laughable, and/or welcome is sickeningly irresponsible especially when you know you have an audience of deluded young people. No wonder you find horrible people writing shit like this:

The first question of the evening was for David Cook, who was oh-so-busy wearing a smug expression. The caller entreated Cook to take her on a date, and because he thinks he’s a huge rock star he didn’t ever actually agree. It’s the woman’s birthday, jerk! And to that lady – sweets, you can do better.

Yeah. You must really have an inflated sense of self to not want to go out with a total fucking stranger who’s developed an insanely shameless crush on you. Don’t you know you owe all the women in the world a date on their birthdays and if you deny them you must be a pompous shitstain? FYI: the first celebrity stalker was a young woman. Oh giggle, titter, hahaha. It’s all very cute and harmless until someone gets shot in the chest.

I’m also always left freaked out by the coverage of celebrity stalker cases like the recent crimes against Uma Thurman; they always seem to treat it less-than seriously, like it’s all just a gossipy fun little personal tidbit to shove in the entertainment section, not a real crime exposing a peculiarly modern outlet for sickness. We’re taught that celebrities have forfeited their humanity, privacy and personal time for fame and money; THEY BELONG TO *US*! They owe us!! Who do they think they are to reject us? Some people might perceive media coverage of this shit as “objective”, but given how UNobjective, how obviously biased they are, in covering other stories their lack of overt concern or judgment in discussing celebrity stalkers feels like a chilling omission. Celebrities are presented as products we’re never encouraged to empathize with. One of the few times the public is encouraged to sympathize with the severely mentally ill is when they target celebrities for abuse. What do the stars expect? They *asked* for people to love them, hahaha! Adding insult to injury, the stalkers are practically rewarded by getting to enjoy courtroom meetings with their victims. How fucking nasty is that?

My angry reaction to Idol last night might have been partially fueled by this nugget of sickening anti-pornography legislation from some asswipe congressman claiming he’s “committed to protecting the constitutional rights of every American”:

. . . designed to stem the sale of pornography on military installations. Broun’s legislation, the “Military Honor and Decency Act,” closes a loophole in current law that is allowing the sale of sexually explicit material on American military installations located both within the United States and around the world . . . . “Allowing the sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by: escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes; feeding a base addiction; eroding the family as the primary building block of society; and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad. Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit”.

Yeah, there’s no greater way to honor a soldier than by telling him he’s a sick dickless fuck who’s too fucking stupid and morally retarded to decide for himself what kinds of pictures he’s grown-up enough look at. And GOD FORBID those sleazy moguls should PROFIT from a war! How funny is that when both Playboy and Penthouse have been in dire financial straits for years while the defense contractors and other war profiteers make obscene amounts of money that make Hef’s and Flynt’s bank accounts look infinitesimally tiny.

I know these laws and regulations are nothing new and there’ve always been similar restrictions on the military, but lately they seem to be making it even worse, writing new laws against visiting sex workers in foreign countries, etc. It’s so contemptibly insane the way these shitheels don’t care about killing soldiers or making them kill others, but they’re really concerned about how even the tamest jack-off fodder is going to destroy their vulnerable little minds.

My brain never stops being boggled by people defining for us what is decent and what is obscene who throw celebratory parades when real atrocities are committed. And the crazy contention that sex crimes and violence never happened before mass-distributed pornography came along? What the fuck ever. When are people going to see how irrational it is to make porn the scapegoat for men’s dick-driven crimes? When are we going to be able to WEIGH indecency in a rational manner?

I feel safer knowing there are heaping loads of bukkake porn on the internet and more women every day getting paid to take gobs of cum on their eyeballs than I do in knowing that millions of children are watching American Idol which teaches them to be so distanced from reality that they could be personally rewarded for stalking someone they see on television. They’re *both* dehumanizing but one is intended for ADULTS and features people who were PAID to get cum on their faces; the other is marketed to children and histrionic adolescents who are being enculturated that it’s not only acceptable but DESIRABLE to selfishly and unrealistically harass, stalk, and violate anyone they want who’s in the public eye.

These kids sign on to be singers and American Idol turns them into their unwitting whores, pimping them out to all the deranged fanatical, hormone-riddled viewers. Give the lady a kiss, David! Isn’t that cute? Oh David, don’t worry; we’ll set up your Philadelphia date for you . . . we’ll arrange *everything*! Is it in their contracts that they should expect to be physically mauled and publicly humiliated by total strangers? David Archuleta is underage, but it’s okay for Fox to push him into the arms of “adoring” fans. God, can you imagine if it were Joe Francis instead of Ryan Seacrest doing that?

After my rant about ending violence against sex workers, here’s a hysterical bit from Extras featuring Clive Owen (it’s about prostitutes and actresses):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4xDrGA2nK8&rel=1]

Taken out of the context of the show, it probably wouldn’t be funny to me if we weren’t already fans of Ricky Gervais. Too scary-true.

Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Here are some of my thoughts on why violence against sex workers happens and some suggestions for helping to end it:

Violence against sex workers boils down to two things: a woman who demands money for sex is a woman who is saying NO to sex without money. For all of our fancy talk and progress, our society STILL does not wholly support women’s right to say NO. Our problem is not just with women charging money for sex, our problem is with women SAYING NO to sex with men unless the men meet conditions set by women.

We still do not wholeheartedly agree that women own their own bodies. We still do not wholeheartedly agree that women should have the right to determine the circumstances under which we choose to allow people access to our bodies. We still think that one woman’s individual sexuality is responsible for wreaking havoc on men’s behavior, on other women’s happiness, and on children everywhere. We still blame individual women’s sexual agency for bringing about the downfall of all that’s good for the Christians’ cause, for the feminists’ cause and for unraveling the the moral fabric of society. We still believe women shouldn’t be allowed to capitalize on natural resources the way that men do — we fear the complete disintegration of order in our society if women are allowed to openly capitalize on and dominate the biggest demand in the marketplace.

Violence against sex workers is all about refusing women the right to NOT consent to sex; this refusal is RAPE. We’re all (as a society) accessories to rape by not supporting sex worker rights.

Violence against sex workers is violence against women. Violence against sex workers is often an act of angry insistence that women are of no value except what men, their brainwashed handmaidens, certain hysterically irrational feminists, and society place on them or allow them to be, and that a woman who values her body enough to deny someone access to it unless they provide her with money or material compensation is a woman who has stepped so far out of line that she deserves to be punished or committed to the care of Concerned Women who insist no woman in her right and undamaged mind could have chosen sex work willingly.

Gary Ridgeway, The Green River Killer, did not just target prostitutes because he knew crimes against people who work the streets are harder to solve; that makes it sound like he would have been happy killing just about ANYbody when that’s not the whole truth. He didn’t want to and never did kill homeless veterans or women who consented to having sex with him for free. Gary Ridgeway said, “I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex.” That hatred of sex workers and the belief that charging money for sex is loathsome, unjustifiable, immoral, indecent, “devalues” women (the most absurd charge of all), and/or somehow dirties or corrupts a society that would otherwise be asexual outside of the bonds of married love or male ownership permeates our culture and is not unique to serial killers. Gary Ridgeway was able to talk openly with his neighbors about his desire to exterminate prostitutes without them batting a fucking eyelash; chances are you yourself have tolerated similar hate speech without objection when you would certainly have responded differently had the target of the hatred been twelve year old Catholic schoolgirls or boy scouts or soccer moms.

When people say that women’s bodies and sex are SO VALUABLE and precious that it’s taboo to put a real dollar amount on sex acts, they are talking irrational, brainwashed rubbish, pure and simple. Violence against sex workers is not so much about women charging money for sex as it is about women having the right to WITHHOLD sex and to define the terms under which they will CONSENT to sex. Any of us who deny sex workers the right to set the terms of consent is effectively denying ALL WOMEN their right to consent or not consent to sex. Do not tell me or any other woman that she can only have sex when she loves someone or is attracted to someone or is sex-positively horny for someone or is in the politely prized possession of a husband. Do not tell me or any other woman that she is “too good” to work in the one industry that women naturally should dominate. Do not tell me or any other woman that it’s more respectable to do ANYTHING for money other than turn a trick. All of that bullshit is part of the the same belief system that claps people on the back who perpetrate violence against sex workers and says, “what you did to her? SHE’S A PIECE OF GARBAGE AND SHE FUCKING ASKED FOR IT.” And that? That’s part of the same belief system that enables violence against ALL women. It’s also part of the same belief system that leaves women in helping professions like teaching, nursing, and mothering grossly underpaid and overworked: because women should not do the most important jobs in the world for MONEY, we should do them for LOVE. You know what that I call that? A BIG FAT CROCK OF SHIT.

If that’s not enough for you to think about, here are some suggestions for behavior I think would go a long way in changing this mindset that promotes violence against all women via endorsing violence against sex workers/subverting sex workers’ rights:

*Don’t sit in mute and complicit witness when your friends, coworkers, acquaintances, partners, etc. use hateful speech against women and sex workers. Use peer pressure by expressing disapproval of expressions of hostility towards sex workers. Challenge them to rethink their prejudices. Tell them they sound like crazy fucking assholes. Tell them you don’t want to hear that shit and walk away from them. Just do *something* instead of accepting that it’s okay. Even if they respond initially with belligerence or defensiveness, it will give them food for thought and make them think twice the next time they feel like saying that. Anything you can do to break down the assumption that prostitutes and sex workers are “fair game” is a step in the right direction.

*Never, EVER, shortchange a sex worker, refuse to pay a sex worker after receiving service, demand or force a sex worker provide services she doesn’t want or hasn’t agreed to, or tolerate someone bragging who does any of those things. Stealing service from a sex worker IS RAPE. Also, make sure our justice system knows that assaulting or forcing a sex worker to perform or endure sex acts without meeting her (or his) terms and conditions IS RAPE, not some lesser charge (read this story for an example).

*Buy time with a sex worker. Pay your sex worker with the same respect and appreciation you give any other person who provides you with service. Hell, pay your sex worker with GREATER respect and appreciation than you’d give other service providers because sex workers do their work at greater social costs and legal risks. Act as proud of supporting your favorite sex workers as you are proud of supporting your favorite record store, restaurant, mechanic, or chiropractor.

*Let people know you support sex workers, and have the balls to say that you proudly patronize sex workers (if you do). Be vocal in your support for sex workers’ rights. Let people know you think sex work is a valuable service and that women own their own bodies, are capable of making their own decisions about what to do with them, and should not be denied the right to set the conditions (and prices) to access them under their own terms. Insist that NO ONE — not the government, not other women, not their husbands or boyfriends or jealous stalkers, and not their customers — should tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body, either for free or for money.

*Think critically about sex work and prevailing attitudes towards sex workers. Question media portrayals of sex work, and
do so OUT LOUD to get other people thinking and talking about it too. Ask yourself whether or not your positions on sex worker rights are consistent with your other positions on women and women’s rights (example: if you believe no one should interfere in a woman’s right to an abortion, why is it okay to interfere with her right to charge someone money to touch or be touched by her?).

*Recognize and publicize that not all sex work is the same while also acknowledging sex work for what it is, wherever it is (in many marriages, for example). DO NOT equate sexual slavery with sex work performed by consent. Feminists: don’t get all hysterical and irrational by insisting that all sex work is intrinsically bad; it’s horrible when women and girls are kidnapped, forced to act as sex slaves, are raped, assaulted and killed but you just sound like fucking morons with your inability to separate those crimes from sex work done by women who CHOOSE to do it on their own terms. EVERYTHING A WOMAN DOES WITH HER BODY OR INVITES SOMEONE ELSE TO DO WITH HER BODY SHOULD BE DONE ON HER OWN INDIVIDUAL TERMS. It is unacceptable for anyone, man or woman, to set those terms for another woman (or man).

*Read about sex work, sex worker rights, womens’ rights and feminism (from as many sources/voices as possible). Be open-minded. Be rational. Decide what’s right for you and let other people decide what is right for themselves. Understand that sex worker rights are a gender issue and educate yourself about other gender issues. Do what you can to understand and prevent rape (that’s right, ESPECIALLY if you are a guy).

*Let your elected representatives, local law enforcement and government agencies know that you support sex worker rights and that discrimination against sex workers is intolerable and counterproductive. Have arguments handy that illustrate the perverse double standards used to regulate socially acceptable industries vs. the sex industry. Learn what a “victimless crime” is and do not tolerate people trying to turn bullshit abstractions into crime. Write to the media and complain when you read or hear biased reporting on sex work-related stories.

*Demand higher wages for ALL work traditionally viewed as “women’s” work: mothering, caretaking, nursing, teaching and WHORING.

*Support womens’ right to reject men. It is crucial to women’s right to choose that they be allowed to choose other women as mates and be given the same rights and privileges that heterosexual partners enjoy. Women should not have to insist that they didn’t “choose” to be queer and that it was all decided biologically. Lesbians should not be obligated to soothe ruffled feathers by promising that they really love and appreciate men, just not in that “special” way (even if it’s true). Stopping violence against women mostly means stopping men from perpetrating that violence, and the first step in doing that is insisting that men are not ENTITLED to our bodies. The second step is making everyone believe it. We do not need to make excuses for saying no and those of us who DO say no (whether by not having sex with men, not shacking up with men, or by specifying the conditions under which they will have sex and/or specify the TYPE of sex they will have with men) should not be punished for it.

*****

Here are posts on the same subject by Audacia Ray and Seska.

Anyone else with posts on the subject can provide links in comments.

FAST FOOD PORN NATION
Why I haven’t finished reading the book, my childhood experiences with fast food and eating out, and my current fast food addiction:

I didn’t grow up eating fast food. For one thing, it didn’t exist in our town; neither did stoplights. On very special occasions we might stop at a McDonalds out of town, but between Dairy Queen, Burger King and McDonalds, I probably ate fast food less than twenty times before the age of twenty. Oh wait, we did go to Skippers and Kentucky Fried Chicken more often (my grandpa even brought home KFC a couple of times) so I could probably add another twenty or more onto that number. I think we ate at Skippers quite a bit; my mom loves fish & chips. Skippers now seems to be the grossest, dirtiest fast food restaurant around — a shame. We also did eat burgers out, but generally at actual non-formula drive-ins that did old fashioned grilling or were local destinations with a sense of regional history, like Dick’s. Also, my mom hated soft-serve ice cream and didn’t want to spend money on milkshakes or cones unless they were made with hard ice cream.

When our family would really “go out” to eat, my stepdad would take us to obnoxious pizza places. Shakeys in Redmond was one, and Showbiz Pizza was another. My stepdad LOVED the animatronic band way more than we kids could possibly relate to. Showbiz was always pathetically underpopulated, so I picture my stepdad’s chortling head hovering in an empty room, the garish red stage lights reflecting off his glasses while he stared, mesmerized by the inhuman display and echoing music.

We did go out to eat a lot with my dad when he had visitation on the weekends, but he took us to diners and family restaurants. In the seventies and early eighties, Guadalajara #3 in Crossroads (Bellevue/Redmond area) was an early favorite; my dad would always order a side of corn tortillas which they presented hot wrapped in a royal blue cloth napkin. He would butter them for us. I always got a cheese enchilada. Eventually that restaurant closed and I moved on to ordering chicken enchiladas instead.

We also ate at VIPs in Issaquah where my sister enjoyed coloring their wacky bunny heads and I learned to copy my dad by ordering my eggs sunny side up. After VIPS died, we went to Shari’s where my dad usually ordered steak and eggs. To this day, that’s still one of my favorite breakfast meals.

Our dad was also partial to Chinese food so we went to Andy’s in Issaquah a lot. We were such regulars that once my sister and I even went to Andy’s house and on an outing with his daughter and some other kids to Chinatown where we went to Oujimaya (why can’t I fucking find anything in google for oujimaya to find out if I’m spelling it right?) and ate out. He scolded us for using too much soy sauce on our noodles. Last thing I heard he was embroiled in an immigration scandal where he was accused of bringing a bunch of illegals over and had them working in near-slavery and living in inhumane conditions.

As we got older, we wound up eating at Red Robin a lot with our dad. I also remember a restaurant called Casa Lupita. I can’t remember many of the other places, but they were your regular suburban dining spots. He never took us to Denny’s, but we did go to The International House of Pancakes where he would order the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruitie. Lately I have been wondering a lot about my dad’s real gender identity and sexual preference.

I was not an IHOP fan, probably because they didn’t have good booths at the locations we went to; there was something disturbing to me about sitting in the IHOP with those high ceilings and the fish bowl plethora of windows with no good partitions inside so every single person in the joint was highly visible. I think good puffy booths with high backs and a table layout that affords some privacy are appealing to children for their fort-like atmosphere and sense of glamour. I haven’t outgrown my love of booths and I hope I never do; I’m guessing that our early exposure to restaurants, as modest as they might have been, instilled a preference for being waited on over grabbing fast food. I also suspect that my dad’s (undiagnosed except by me) ADD made him fear ordering fast food; I understand this fear — the menus are overwhelming, everyone’s clamoring for their turn, the rules and rituals seem so regimented and difficult to decode. Everyone around you seems to know exactly what they want while you stand there alone adrift in a sea of confusion, beeping machines, and teenagers incoherently mumbling their customer service lines. It’s much less stressful to have time alone with a menu at your own table with your own waitress who will answer questions or just go away if you need more time.

The only fast food our dad ever took us to was Wendy’s; he loved their chili. Wendy’s never did it for me, and fast food in general didn’t do it for my dad. He seemed to be opposed to it. I learned to be a responsible and proud tipper from my dad and I think my sister and I are healthier people today because our weekday family was too poor to go out to eat much but did have STANDARDS when it came to burgers, burger joints and ice cream, and because Daddy took us to actual restaurants instead of grabbing us happy meals.

*****

I started reading Fast Food Nation, but it was so good I couldn’t get past the preface; my head got busy making parallels to porn. How most porn is made and presented like fast food. How people would never say that all food is intrinsically bad because FAST food is bad, but they will irrationally say all pornography is bad because some sucks ass, or has a few ass-suckingly unhealthy characteristics. Not that all forms of ass-sucking are bad or unhealthy . . . it’s just a figure of speech. How people feed their children extremely unhealthy, addictive, and eventually life-threatening fast food and call it good without a moment of critical thought going into the decision, but think that PORN is somehow a gigantically dangerous threat to their children’s lives.

That’s why I don’t read nonfiction as much as I’d like to. MY HEAD STARTS SPINNING AND I CAN’T KEEP READING FOR THINKING TOO MUCH.

*****

At twenty years old I finally moved to a place with fast food restaurants ALMOST within walking distance. I became addicted to Taco Bell, and it was good. I ate a great many chicken soft tacos without ever feeling too badly about it.

Lately I’ve become addicted to McDonald’s, though. Our town has restrictions on formula stores, so McDonald’s and Subway are the only fast food places that are grandfathered in. McD’s is the only place I can go late at night to get a hot and tasty treat; once I started taking advantage of this I started doing it more and more. It’s only become a frequent (once or twice a week) thing in the past four or five months.

Just the other day I got suckered into playing their little Monopoly advertising game and went TWICE IN ONE DAY. We strategically planned our menu choices to get the most “game stamps”. I am even online right now entering codes from my game stamps on their site. On top of that, I’m considering doing research online to find out which stamps are the hardest to get, and starting new “collector” boards to fully maximize our chances of winning a big prize; I mean, I wouldn’t want to throw away a large-prize-winning property to turn in a board for a $50 prize!

I feel like a sucker.

I wish we had a Taco Bell in town — if we did, none of this would ever have happened.

“BUT WHO LET THIS HAPPEN??!!”

This is SO sad:

Despondent Fort Lewis GI fell through system’s cracks to his death

The thing that mystifies me, though, is this bizarre train of thought asking “who could have let this happen??” instead of even acknowledging for one fucking MOMENT *why* the guy wanted to blow his fucking brains out. He’s DEPRESSED BECAUSE HE IS/WAS IN A FUCKING WAR ZONE AND SEEING BLOWN UP CHILDREN. Where’s the mystery? What is there to be confused about?

I don’t understand how you can responsibly cover that story without providing even one morsel of a statistic on, you know, depression among soldiers. Before you go blaming the people who supposedly failed out of carelessness or some deference to (what everyone likes to consider) those PESKY privacy laws, try blaming the people who keep these guys over there. The people who THREW the country into civil war. TRY THAT.

It boggles my mind how willfully we refuse to look at REAL issues. Fell through system’s cracks to his death. Yeah, because if the “system” would have caught him his whole life after this traumatic ordeal would have been so perfect! A regular bed of fucking roses.

I’m sure the pro-war folks PREFER for these folks to wait at least a few months or years before they off themselves. And notice how you’ll never see a mainstream newspaper run a story entitled, “GI fell through system’s cracks into homelessness and mental illness”. Bwahahaha!!! It goes without saying, right? Errrr, no . . . that’s not the SYSTEM’S fault. I forgot. That’s just something much easier to ignore, when someone kills himself with a bottle or freezes to death or is lit on fire by some punk teenagers while he’s trying to sleep on a park bench. I’m not making this up — you might be surprised how many homeless people are beaten and/or SET AFIRE and it’s never reported in the papers, but you know FLAG BURNING — there’s an issue that deserves some attention, right?

The “news” most people read/hear/watch is just a bunch of diversions. I’m not trying to insult the intelligence of those of you who already know this. I just never stop being mortified by it.