PETa offers actresses the opportunity to pose naked and attract attention to themselves and re-energize or boost their career or rise their decorative stardom. Let’s face it, there are few people who advocate for the kicking of puppies, so a PETA ad is safe and as a bonus, delivers all the attention-whoring punch of a Playboy pictorial without the stigma.

I appreciate Sasha Grey’s effort to diversify her activities and career but while some of my guy friends talk incessantly about how hot she is, they have yet to read her mainstream media articles or interviews or watch her mainstream movies and therefore the Sasha Grey conversation begins and ends rather quickly. I think her fan base is ONLY interested in her lack of a gag reflex so perhaps PETA’s aims to reach the porn gobbling masses with this message will not get much reach. And that is too bad because there is more to Sasha Grey than the extreme and unsafe sexual party tricks she can perform on screen for money (a little bit more…)

The day that the millions of children who are enslaved into work or sexual slavery (espescially girls) get to go to school and get at minimum a 10th grade education, I will start to really care about the general welfare of cats and dogs in North America. People should not contribute to PETA financially because it has no significant effect on global welfare. In North America, pets are products and even people who vehemently scold others about animal welfare dress up their toy dogs and drive the market for questionable practices of massively inbreeding expensive dogs leaving them susceptible to terrible congenital malformations and painful diseases. Treatment of animals is unlikely to change until people recognize that animals are animals and not anthropomorphized accessories that drive a billion dollar pet accessory industry.

While pets will never seek revenge on us for mistreating them, millions of forgotten, mistreated and enslaved children around the world will eventually wreck havoc on a global scale… or at least those who survive to adulthood.

Don’t give money to Peta, instead, foster cats and dogs from the shelter so they are not stuck in a cage for months I’ve done it! If you can’t have a dog full-time, it is a pleasant experience to keep a cast-off puppy from the shelter and properly socialize it. In fact, you should encourage everybody who shows interest in buying a cat or dog to do this for a month just to make sure they understand the implications of ADULT pet ownership.

If they reply: “But I want a cute puppy!” Kick them for me!

ETA: Given that my neutered male cat, can be convinced to have sex by an un-spayed female, the message on the ad wasn’t necessarely true… so I re-mixed it to something factual and straight-to-the-point.

I have been writing articles for my upcoming sex education website paying special attention on outlining my articles on porn. While I will attempt to provide some useful info on a category of 13,000 products that fail to come with instructions, I do not plan on selling porn. Not that it wouldn’t be a great cash cow but I haven’t made money from porn online so far so now is a great time NOT to start. I feel that in a sea of ’sex products’ pornography is the one commodity that adds absolutely no value to consumer’s life. And it’s going to be quite interesting to write how porn fails to deliver on all levels and go through the long list of misinformation that is propagated by porn.

Yesterday I watched BBC3’s 2007 special Teens Hooked on Porn (it is available on Youtube) and I was quite shocked. For the past year I have been keen to progressively kick one of my partners into sex rehab after realizing that his addiction to online dating sites and porn is keeping him back in all areas of life. I was shocked to see these 16-year-old boys progressively destroy their potential for life enjoyment though abusive use of pornography. How sad it is to discover sexuality as a packaged product rather than the old fashion way (secretly making out in the shed!?) When you think about it, us girls still had to put up with old gropey pervs who made inappropriate comments when we were growing up (in the 80’s) altering our perception of adulthood, sexuality and men. And it sucked. When boys tap into pornography they are inviting the same kind of ideas, short-circuiting their brain before they even develop their ability to socialize with their peers and girls. What I have been discovering over the past 5 years of talking about porn and asking questions is that porn is very harmful to men in so many ways.

So about a month ago I realized that I did not want to enter into a lifelong commitment with someone whom I feel is on the road to personal destruction. And I am not talking here about how his addictions are fucking up any and all chances for us to have a normal relationship but how it is first and foremost making him his worst enemy. Sex addiction is tricky because it would appear that it has very little to do with sex and a lot to do with socio-affective anxiety. I live for the day I can take him along when traveling around the world to document that happy, joyful, sad and shocking state of sex around the world today, however, at this stage he would not be able to deal with this and not because of the topic of sex, because of the issues of violence, hate, anger, misogyny and bullying that surround the commercialization of sex as a product.

I was quite surprised that rather than walk away he has made every effort to address the situation seeking a therapist for weekly sessions and going to SAA group 2-3 times a week. He even deleted all his online dating accounts and porn and has maintained sobriety for over a month. While I am very impressed, it is most interesting to talk about it and see his outlook change from a culture of outside validation to a state of inner satisfaction with accomplishing a bunch of stuff he had put off. Because that is the issue here… not HOW he spends his time (he could be wasting time gaming or drinking… it’s all the same) but the fact that he makes a concerned effort to accomplish things that are important to him and that is what fills the well of self worth, creates joy and attracts interaction with other joyful people.

More and more I feel that addiction to porn or reliance on less mindfull entertainment like video games, movies/TV and online memes is a sign that someone has fallen into the soul killing downward spiral of :

Loneliness and Boredom

Little did I know that when attending an evening of travel presentation at the local Yacht Club with Mr. P., I would meet Tas, a talented baker of perverted cakes. Tas, whose background is computer science and math, is even looking for ways to incorporate advanced features (animated parts) into his creations. Read the rest of this entry »

It is interesting how in the context of getting to know him for the purpose of a romantic connection in the future, I set aside judgment on his issues. I understand that when people do not know each other very well, they can be guarded, defensive or on their best behavior.

However when he said “we were developing a neutral friendship…” Mr. M. did two things (unintentional as usual). He confirmed that he was ‘not that into me’ and he changed the lens with which I was looking at him. Both things are good. I had been looking for a ‘No’ from him so it was very liberating to read it… it could have been less vague and less wishy washy but nonetheless I will gladly take it and run.

The most surprising thing however was that when I started looking at him with ‘friend material’ scrutiny, I was immediately appalled at all that he is and everything he does. It was surprising, shocking and quite sobering. I explained this to Mr. M. and perhaps I sounded full of myself when I wrote that I have absolutely fantastic friends and the competition is stiff in that arena!  So maybe I was full of my wonderful supportive friends. Anyhow, it wasn’t poetic but I don’t expect a response from him…

He has gotten back together with his ‘newish girlfriend’ for the second or third time in the past few months. The best thing that can happen now is for that to work out well for them.

I shall go back to my old way of picking boyfriends, from the list of guys who are into me and seemingly compatible and work my way from there and now I feel even more confident in my recent decisions.

The Bodyguard returns from the Tundra in nine days. The Anchorman is in the middle of Nowhere, Ontario for the summer. The guy who is too young for me is strangely mature-acting and looking for 26. My Daddy is getting better and he can’t wait for us to resume having normal conversations (not that we ever talk about ‘normal’ things.) And last but not least, I am enjoying seeing the BeardedDiCaprio more than usual.

I started watching ‘Hung’ and it is somewhat interesting. Though it has prompted me to launch another crazy Craigslist social experiment. Yes, another complicated secret Craigslist social experiment.

I think Britney Spears met my M0j0D4ddy and wrote a song about him. But all things considered I have developed a comprehensive appreciation of him over the past 9 months. This weekend I woke up to the fact that I have developed really useful skills in relationship building and managing.

I mean I must not have been that bad at it before having juggled the 4 boyfriends BUT I think that having one relationship for the long term with a piece of work, no less, would be A LOT more complex.

I am kind of tortured right now. I am being deluged with flowers, adoration and praise by those who actually deserve my attention and yet, out of the blue, Mr. M. shows up to ask a whole bunch of questions about my current relationships and plans. He seems to love to prove me wrong so he has not disappeared at the first sign of conflict but hey, it’s barely been a week!

Of course I have current relationships and plans. Have I ever not had those!? He kind of waltzes in like he’s Caesar or somthin’ asking a whole bunch of personal questions (bringing us right back to square one of what we want/need from each otehr and life in general…)

I have current relationships and plans with guys who are not too impressed with how Mr. M. wooed me and sort of dumped me 10 months ago… look it up! I have an active love-life and while I look forward to focusing on a spouse in a monogamous relationship, I cannot easily be plucked from my life and conveniently divorced from it… Even by the Prissy Emperor.  At least now I much less inept, hapless and uncontrolled around him… I have been working on my secretarial skills with M0j0D4ddy for the past 9 months! I’ve even been working on the silly, silly girl part!

Today, at lunch, I fessed up to The General that while last year he suggested a definite NEITHER when I posed the question: “M0j0D4ddy or Mr. M.?” I seem to be stuck with both. Mr. M. because, well, just because I have annoying inexplicable feelings of wanting him ohhh so very much… and M0j0D4ddy because I have worked my butt off to define a custom-made lifetime relationship that is really cool for each one of us (The stage after our current Boss/Secretary-like thing.)

Scandalously, that relationship is akin to a BDSM Daddy-Girl dynamic (which can mean a million things.) The General, who is a vanilla dad, asked: “WTF, is a Daddy-Girl relationship!?” and I simply answered: “It’s the exact same thing as you and me!!!” That he seemed to understand quite well even in his hyper-vanilla way LOL Originally when I was attracted to The General I did not know that the mentorship-protection-encouragement was what I was actually looking for from him. I pondered this for years! I don’t say that I have daddy-issues… I have ‘no-daddy’ issues hahaha

In the past 5 years I have dissected what I want from that dynamic and the fact that I have been able to maintain healthy and very happy relationships with men over the past 5 years is entirely related to the love and support that I get from The General (and he knows it.) So it would appear that in absence of having a supportive family of my own, this relationship is key to me having the strength and security to deal, intelligently and gracefully, with all those relationship issues that normally arise as well as with personal issues such as parenting, health and work. But The General is moving on this Fall or early next year… hence the opening for a new mentor-type in my life.

So I told my would-be Daddy this weekend that I was seriously considering petitioning him officially for this role. It’s a lifelong leather-bond. In our definition it is non-romantic and non-sexual and not particularly Dom/sub either, simply the close protective emotionally bonded relationship of two people who have projects and goals in common. I once wrote that I wanted a pet lion because I was unaware of the existing Daddy-girl dynamic and I got myself EXACTLY that. I’m not letting go!!! And I have been “Daddy’s little princess that can do no wrong” for a while already and I hear all the time how he is very proud of me.

But there are variables that I do not know of. How do our prospective spouses (that do not exist at this time) deal with this very non-traditional relationship?! We both REALLY want to get married again! I want to be with a man who is strong enough to deal with this and I inform the men I date of my ’special’ relationship with M0j0D4ddy ahead of them becoming attached or possessive of me. But unless M0j0D4ddy and I travel together, which we should do a few times a year, he lives 1000 miles away and doesn’t believe in meddling in my relationships. It is super obvious to me that none of my existing mentor-type relationships, even though they have existed for 1-10 years, would supersede my relationship with my spouse…

So I continue to ponder my decision while my pet lion is already rolling around purring all happy. I think I am going to make and send him something crafty this week as I await for his roar to come back. The poor kitty has lost his voice after breathing particles while isolating his attic.

I think, I formulate hypothesis and then ask a bunch of overly-personal questions… It yields interesting albeit frightening answers sometimes.

I don’t want to be out of touch, I have been really interested how teenagers grow and mature into adults. And I am also interested in generational differences and how people turn out differently depending on the quality of their relationship with their parents. Mind you I do it also to figure out how to raise my child to become a happy fulfilled independent adult. It is not obvious because I have raised 7 boys but now I have a daughter! Maybe I will have a daughter who is well informed on the matter of boys! Right now we talk about friendship and girl-cliques a lot. I am also concerned with age-appropriateness of the things I teach her. We have started talking about the internet, consumerism and cell phones. Next year she will be in third grade and that’s when everything starts to change.

But there’s a long way ’til the end of high school and college still. And right now I’m doing some research with university students to assess their needs for self-defense classes, notably Patrick’s Modern self-denfense class that addresses recent statistics of acquaintance sexual assault and rape.

I was very fortunate to have a conversation with a recent university grad last night and when he saw the course ware for Modern Self-Defense for Sexual Situations that become Non-Consensual, he said quite matter-of-factly that this was a sorely needed class. This class was originally developed for people involved in the BDSM lifestyle and those are usually more self-aware and negotiation-oriented than your average vanilla peeps. However, Patrick and I are re-working it for an audience of people who seem to need it way more notably college & university-aged women as well as sex workers, transsexuals and gay men. For each clientele the documentation and the communication has to be adapted because this is a touchy subject and it is really hard to convince people to take this compulsory life class. People would rather not think about it or talk about it.

I asked my recent university grad a bit of a downer question… But it is the basis for the current documentation I am writing for the college version of this class.

Out of all your girlfriends in your Facebook list, 20-25% of them have been sexually assaulted or raped. Do you know who they are?

He answered: “Unfortunately, yes…” It was interesting for me to listen to his take on the matter.

Self-defense classes are available but there aren’t enough instructors who specialize in real-world situations faced by young people today espescially young women 18-25. Let’s face it, women are sexually active and therefore encounter guys who range the scale from clueless to careless to just plain dangerous. And then there are those who are simply bad. But much harm is done by the first category and girls should learn to avoid or protect themselves against all bad sexual situations that could become non-consensual.

Over the years I’ve listened and and heard…

I told him to put on a condom but he tricked me and didn’t use one.

He bit me too hard.

He came once, didn’t tell me and we kept having sex. This is likely how I got pregnant.

I have a stupid random question, Is is rape if you were under the influence?

I believe that a happy safe sex life for men and women is born of sex education and sexual confidence. There is a lack of sex education if these kinds of situations keep happening every few seconds.

Self-defense is only one part of the puzzle but it is necessary and should be pursued on a regular basis. This is something women should be involved in on a yearly basis if one does not want to pursue a regular weekly martial arts program.

Patrick will be coming back to Montreal and hopefully Ottawa to teach. You can write to me to be notified when that happens at evavavoom [at] gmail.com. There will be separate and specific clientele-based classes and the curriculum is based on three years of listening to the specific questions of students in the class and the most recently available statistics from various rape-crisis center in North-America’s colleges and universities.

In Toronto, Sex educator Viktoria organizes Women’s REALISTIC Self Defense classes with her martial arts and self defense instructor. Write or call Viktoria for info ladyviktoria [at] ymail.com or 416-887-5621.

*Photo by nyki_m

There is little I have to say about Bullshit with Penn and Teller because it is usually informative, right on the money and entertaining. However, I do have something to say about their first show this season. They took on “The Big O” or the female orgasm and all those services that are supposed to help women achieve bigger and better orgasms.

This was perhaps the most poorly researched episode in seven seasons. Very little of the show was devoted to sex toys or sex tools as I tend to call them, most of which are crap for various reasons. Instead they focused a lot of air time on a few ’sex coaches’ who offer teaching on sexuality’s function and pleasure.

We need more devoted and skilled people to teach adults how to have an enjoyable sex life! Three of the most important aspect of our adult lives are money/credit, sex/relationship and raising children and those skills we still acquire by fucking up along the way.

I suck tremendously at managing my money, I was fortunate enough to practice raising other people’s children as a nanny before I had my own. However, when it comes to sex, it took me 15-20 years before I hit my stride. And to think I have been obsessed with the topic for 25 years! In the past 5 years I was lucky to have access to an expert on sex and threw myself into every adult sex class she and other experts gave, just for the fun of it. It helped!

A week doesn’t go by without one of my friends telling me I should teach classes on relationship 2.0 and advanced sex. I really like getting sex questions from my vanilla friends. I get more questionning about sex that I think I should be getting. It’s not as if there’s no info out there but it’s easier and more beneficial to ask a person because by definition, a sex question should have follow-ups. Sometimes friends ask curiosity questions about my sex life but most of the time they ask about bettering their own sex life. Our conversations will often circle around relationship building that allows for more and better sex.

Two months ago I spent 5 hours in a Toronto living room with ten 25-year-old women and I was scandalized by how little they knew about sexuality, sex tools and sex toys. I was a fly on the wall and I kept my kinky mouth shut while my friend Viktoria gave a wonderful presentation. As Toronto’s premier sex toy confidente she gave the girls information on the latest toys and which are toxic and which are safe and also answered a million questions. Each woman was then able to see her one-on-one and purchase whatever they wanted. It was fun and the shy-ness about asking questions decreased tremendously as the wine bottles emptied. I learned so many things… about women One of which is that young women are generally very uncomfortable about talking to their partners about the specifics of sex. And they do not negotiate or plan ahead. It would seem that there is stigma attached to being knowledgeable about, talking about or planning sex. After hanging out with other women sex geeks for years, this realization was quite sobering.

Being around people who are knowledgeable about sex and have a very positive non-judgmental attitude tends to lower sexual shame and increase sexual confidence. So I will re-iterate that we need more sex coaches in the world not less!!

Do you remember when porn had merit as an art form? When performers seemed sincere and situations, while a bit contrived, were fun and realistic. Do you remember when porn actors looked like you and me? When male actors were filmed above the waist? When performers were rather nice to each other and were not expected to perform a series of parlor tricks, most of which are unpleasant and unsafe? Probably not because that was a LONG time ago!

I started watching ‘porn’ on television in the late seventies. I wasn’t even a teenager back then but I began seeking out and watching ‘adult’ entertainment. I don’t mean porn per say just things that were made for a more mature crowd. It was kind of hard to find but I persisted. I remember when Playboy TV came on and, low and behold, guests were allowed to use the Fword in interviews on the station’s ‘Late Night’ show. I remember one of the guest in the late eighties, he used to pick up chicks off the street and film himself or another actor having sex in a very amateurish way. His name was Buttman a.k.a. John Stagliano. He gave us Gonzo, imported Rocco Siffredi and, unfortunately, a market for copycat Max Hardcore.

Sometimes my encyclopedic knowledge of porn kind of spills out in vanilla settings and causes a bit of an uncomfortable moment. The first time I saw Rocco Siffredi on screen, in Night Trip II (1990), I thought he was so hot that I mentioned it to my girlfriends at school the next day. My college girlfriends knew I was a bit ‘different’ because I submitted anonymous ‘confessions’ to our college papers and eventually came out to them… But they were not fans of porn.

While I started watching erotica at a very young age, I am glad that sex was not yet packaged as a product. A product so different from reality that it would have prevented or ruined my enjoyment of it. Sex in older films looked more sincere, more real. It was attainable! Sex in old porn looks like my own sex life! Yes, even the freaky threesome parts! Sex in current porn I could have but why?! And I am perfectly comfortable with explaining to a partner why I don’t care to have ‘porno’ sex.

I don’t think porn is demeaning to women in general. The oversexualization of everything else might be. But porn is porn and the performers are paid to act out unrealistic sexual encounters which are supposed to be male sexual fantasies. Based on my research they are more based on a system of one-upmanship than actual fantasies of your average guy. Porn is one of many industries where profit is king and people are used, abused and thrown away quickly. There are a few male porn stars who appear to be skilled sexual tops (one of which is Mark Ashley) but all in all men in porn seem to have sex AT a woman rather than with her. These nuances are not obvious to teenagers who start watching hardcore porn at a very early age today. I think that watching porn hurts a man’s enjoyment of sex, lowers his self-esteem and provides little usable skill. But, having had a few partners who have grown up with access to Internet porn in their teenage years, I cannot say that I have noticed ‘porn damage’ anymore in men in their 20s over men in their 30s through 50s. Porn hurts women by making men annoyingly insecure. It takes away their ability to enjoy regular women over twenty. Of all my male friends and lovers, those who do not watch porn much or at all report having and enjoying a normal sex life. They are generally more happy people.

However I do not think the male landscape has changed that much. I’ve always thought that only one guy in 20 is worth fucking so rather than fuck the next 100, I have decided to develop skills to spot a keeper and then… well keep him, at least for a while.

But back to the fake sex…

There are a few people in porn that I admire. They are the ones who take it up a notch or have a real insight into their work in the grander scale of things and are truly enjoyable to listen to and watch.

In 1982, Annie Sprinkle, already a frequent performer in x-rated loops, directed her first full-length movie. When I saw this recently I thought it was adorable and I have included the first few minutes of it. Dr. Annie Sprinkle has explored human sexuality for 30 years and is still active as a lifestyle educator today.

[...video removed...]

Why am I revisiting vintage erotica? Well, I have have been thinking of putting my observations of alternate human sexuality over the past 30 years on paper and… well in the meantime a sweet bit of iconic 70s erotica is trying to resurface. We are talking here about the most recognized franchise in erotica for the past 35 years… I don’t know if it is faith but it’s on my desk and I feel what Tom Cruise must have felt when he snagged Mission Impossible… Now I just need to write down my ideas and find me a Paula Wagner!!!

A few months ago I wrote about the issue with teens using modern technology to get into more trouble than I could when I was their age. I’m glad that teenagers who are being prosecuted for making or distributing “child porn” are fighting back in court and that mainstream papers are talking about the issue. Because there are a lot of issues packed into this habit of classifying pictures of teenagers in underwear as ‘Porn’ and also charging teenagers with a serious crime for making a stupid decision that does not cause actual physical injury to anyone.

Was that a crazy plan? Bringing over dinner to my favorite overworked coder!? It didn’t actually work in so much that I got what I wanted over the phone without having to spring for food LOLz But I didn’t get a beard cuddle though I got interrogated by TheBaku even more specifically this time. He better be careful because I will gladly answer ANY questions he asks and it just seems to make him more bewildered about me. But that is fine. He’s the guy I have a crush on so he can ask any question he wants about my relationships and intentions towards any bumblebee that buzzes around me. But he doesn’t ask about my intentions towards him which is kind of funny. Though he has spies to tell him all about that I think. But my intent to drop over with some food was just that because I had dinner plans.

Tonight I had dinner with Lloyd Jr. I found him without motherly intervention and he replied immediately. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to schedule something until today. I was expectinghim not to care too much about getting together but he’s always been the one to ask or try to get a hold of me. I realized yesterday morning that he is the first person from the ‘legacy life’ who is going to get the unedited news. By legacy life I mean all these people from my hometown, family, school and work from years ago that have no insight into my life other than as a geeky mom. Lloyd Jr. and I haven’t spoken in 5 years. In fact the last time I ran into him I was on my way to the opera with A., my best gay. It was a few weeks before A. talked me into gay-crowding the fetish party at Cream. We went with his bf and 3 gay friends. And then the rest is history!

OMG!1! He’s still so friggin’ cute. He looks like a man now (wider!) We had the most fascinating of conversations blowing the lid on so many things we were never supposed to tell each other. I am now scandalized about the secret life of Lloyd Jr. It’s like I know him but I don’t because we both feel that our time together was hindered by going through tough crap and not yet knowing who we were (being under 20.) I told him about Mr. M. and he noted the similarity telling me to go to London where he said he had run into many twins of his LOL He says he is now open to ‘new things’. Guys should never tell me THAT hahaha. I’ll most likely nag him to come to a workshop in March, probably the BDSM relationship one, that will shed some light on the lifestyle for him. He’s still an exigent top control freak, always has been, always will be! I want him in my life and I told him. He’s a stickler for follow through and HE follows through having driven our getting together since I wrote to him a few weeks back. Oh and that thing I wrote that I wanted to do with him (it’s a secret), well HE brought it up first so we’ll see where that goes.