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Archives 8/20 to 9/9/2004 Bonus! SFist! (9/9)
Shout Out (9/8) V is for Virgo (9/7)
Thank you to everyone who has emailed me in the past few days regarding my last post -- wow. Interestingly, there were a significant number of emails from Scotland. Hornboy and I celebrated the departure of his relative and non-relative by drinking many beers, and going to a "men of Hooters wet t-shirt contest" at a gay bar where the proceeds went to the AIDS Emergency Fund. And while I was one of three women in an all-leatherdaddy gay bar, I got my ass grabbed! Hornboy was getting us drinks and I felt a hand slide across one cheek, and pause for a little fondle on the other. I thought, now I'm wearing a dress, and obviously a girl, so someone can't be making a mistake. And I don't know anyone here... and normally, this action would cause a reaction from me, such as an elbow-check to the stranger's stomach, or a quick spin around with a deflection. But it was a leather bar full of the gayest men imaginable... so I turned, and met eyes with a handsome leatherdaddy -- who smiled and sort of shrugged, as if to say, "well... it was there..." I grinned back at him, and he made his way over to the wet towel-whipping frenzy behind the makeshift Hooters Men stage. For the next few days I'll be working with the British TV crew as one of the subjects for their sex/reality/comedy TV show. They want to film me in Golden Gate Park, and I have no idea what they have planned... Meanwhile, I don't have a sex advice column, but I might as well for all the emails I get from people desperately seeking reasonable, useful advice. I am, however a Virgo, represented with no small amount of irony in the Zodiac as a virgin. That irony took a little twist in the beginning of the Virgo cycle over a week ago when I received an email from a young woman through a social networking message board who had just lost her virginity in a painful way, was still bleeding a bit, and quite worried. I realized that I hadn't read advice on this topic for anyone, at least not in a way that wasn't shameful or brief, and certainly not from a woman who could relate. We really need this information out there in a supportive manner -- hear that, sex advice authors? Anyway, here was my answer to her, for anyone else who might want to know: "Tearing is normal, yes, but not so much tearing that you continue to bleed or have tearing on the perineum (the skin between the vagina and anus). How bad is it? Does it feel sore and sometimes a bit sharp, or is it throbbing all the time? Soreness and occasional sharpness is fine; constant throbbing is a concern. If the bleeding is excessive, as in you need to change panties once a day or still see blood when you wipe after peeing, then you should see a doctor. Also talk to a doc if it feels infected (hot, itchy, discharge), or if there was indeed tearing on your perineum. I know that seeing a doctor about sex sucks -- maybe go see a practitioner at Planned Parenthood where they will be more normal about sex (and you'll be anonymous). Keeping it clean is a good idea, but don't overdo it. There is a high concentration of blood vessels in the vagina, and this helps cuts and wounds to heal faster than on other parts of the body. Plus, the vagina is typically naturally self-healing, and cleaning too much might give you a secondary infection such as a yeast infection. Don't use perfumed cleansers or douches. So you'll want to clean it once a day, but no more than that. Swab the vaginal opening lightly with a q-tip and Neosporin ointment to prevent infection and speed healing. Don't have penetrative sex until you feel healed. And believe it or not, clitoral masturbation will speed healing by bringing more blood to the muscles and erectile tissues in your pubic area, so orgasms are good (if you can even get in the mood!). As for your next phase of penetrative sex, you might want to get yourself a thin, smooth dildo and practice on your own a few times before taking the big plunge again. Get yourself aroused, and practice orgsaming around something say, as slender as a finger or two. Then get a dildo close to the size of the guy you like, and practice on that a few times. Use condoms on the dildos for cleanliness. This will gently stretch the hymenal tissue. Even still, the next time or two that you have sex, you will experience a bit of discomfort and a bit of bleeding. Eventually the discomfort goes away, and you can concentrate on feeling pleasure and exploring the whole new array of sensations from partnered penetration. And don't panic if as time goes by, you notice that you have little irregular flaps of skin just inside your vaginal opening. These are called "hymenal tags," and all women have them. *Not* having them is not normal. You just seldom ever see these tags on major porn starlets who typically get them removed with labiaplasty (plastic surgery). Please write me back and let me know what's going on, and if you have any more questions. She did write me back, and said that no one knew what to tell her, so my long-winded response was a welcome relief. She's just fine. Welcome, Virgo. Stepmonster (9/5) Labor Day weekend turned out to be the weekend that my lover's father and stepmother came to town for a visit. I got all prepared to be a San Francisco tour guide and number-one supporter of the man in my life for a pair of Christians who were coming to the city of sin to see some family -- this means I knew I'd need to give the family version of SF history, etc. We started out great; on the way from the airport we chatted and I interjected things like "this is where they filmed the freeway scenes from The Matrix," and "those big cranes are where George Lucas got his inspiration for the big walkers in The Empire Strikes Back." They seemed to be humoring me, but I didn't think much of it. Next stop, the SRL compound, where I gave a tour of the shop and machines, and they met Mark Pauline. I didn't show them the adult male tattooed human skin we have, or explain that it's turning green from mold and is being eaten away by rats, or even dare to explain that it was from the Modern Primitives show we did, or what that means. The stepmonster seemed to be uninterested in all of it, while the dad was pretty excited. As we were leaving he told Mark, "I'm going to tell Violet how belt drives work later." I don't think he meant it to sound condescending, or seem like a "little lady, between us guys" comment. But there it was. As he continued, Mark got a bemused smirk on his face and looked at me the whole time, both of us making eye contact. It was one of those moments. We both know that I'm an 8-year veteran, a mechanic and roboticist. So I did something I rarely do -- I smiled, and secretly winked at Mark, prompting him to break into a full toothy smile. One thing the dad did say that stuck with me was when I was showing him one of the many nooks and crannies we have machine tools stashed in he said, "Wow, you really could get lost in here -- I bet the whole world just fades away when you're in here." I said, "Yes. That's exactly why I come here." Little did I know it was one of the last times I'd be able to get a full sentence out, or make a comment without being interrupted or having the subject changed every time I said something -- for the rest of the weekend. The stepmonster wanted to go to Fisherman's Wharf, which is gross, but we smiled and took them there next. The stepmonster could not be made happy. She stopped talking to me directly. When I'd ask her how she was doing, or suggested we could stop and rest with some iced tea, she just waved me away and kept walking. After the third or fourth time, I gave up. Left alone with her, she did not respond when I would start a conversation. A couple of times over the weekend, when left alone, she would simply walk away from me and go somewhere else. Everyone talked about the weather, the family, their dogs, their cars, but no one really talked to me. Even my supportive conversational comments were interrupted. Was it my breath? My tattoos? We took them to dinner at a cheerful Italian restaurant, and I was feeling dejected so I ordered a beer. The stepmonster was rude to the wait staff. I was embarrassed. I gave up trying to start conversations, or even join in, and the beer made it easier to just sit there and keep my mouth shut. Their flight experience came up, and the stepmonster told us in a hushed tone, "There was an Iraqi on the plane." (to her husband) "I was so scared, when I saw that turban." (to me) "Do you have them here?" WHAT!? Do we have what here, exactly? I was totally freaked out by the naked racism of the question, one that I was now expected to answer. I was dying to ask her, just how did you know they were from Iraq -- please tell me, and take your time. This woman works for the correctional system (she later said, "you don't need a degree to work with criminals."). Instead, as if to a child I said, "San Francisco is a very international city. We are home to a very diverse population, including many people (and families) from the Middle East." (See -- dealing with TV interviews and shock jock radio hosts *has* given me a real-life skill.) That was the end of her dinner conversation with me, and I was okay with that. A few minutes later a big African-American man came into the room, and the stepmonster halted mid-sentence to glare. Then I got it -- it wasn't just me, after all. After dinner we came back to the apartment I share with my lover. Our house, though mostly my stuff in it. They sat on my couch, my knockoff designer chairs, drank out of my glasses. They didn't care to leave the living room, though I really wanted them to see the pictures of me and Hornboy all over the house smooching in various California locations. I especially wanted them to see the picture I keep behind my office chair of the Bible next to a can of Coca-Cola. So after over 8 hours of time together, the stepmonster asked me, "Violet, what is it you do for work?" I thought about the bookshelves full of books behind me, one shelf with seven titles bearing my name. "I am an author." "Oh!" she said. "For my day job I am the staff writer for a woman-run sex toy store that has been in operation for over 25 years. I write book and video reviews, and help write educational materials that our outreach educators take to give workshops to all kinds of people, from colleges to Planned Parenthood, to teaching high school students and developmentally disabled adults about safer sex." The dad stared at the floor, my lover did too -- but he was smiling. The stepmonster was shocked, so I continued. "In my personal life I have over seven books out, most are books I've written about sex education. The seventh one just came out last week and I'm very excited about it. You can find my books on Amazon, in Barnes and Noble, everywhere. A couple are even best sellers." (you could hear crickets, so I went on) "I've been in dozens of major magazines, interviewed by news media and next month I'm in Oprah's magazine." She asked, "Oh, which magazines can we read your articles in?" I said, "I don't write for these magazines -- I am interviewed as an expert." Then they said something nice about picking up O Magazine next month, and changed the subject to the dad's other son. I knew that even though I was stating facts, it probably sounded incredibly vain. But I knew it was my only chance to try to share who I am. And I was right. I was never spoken to again about my job, what I do, what I care about, and spent the rest of the weekend being ignored or interrupted when I spoke. My lover was in pain. After I had given my big speech in the living room, and the subject changed, I went to the kitchen to get everyone water and popped a Vicodin. I have an unusual concept of family. I don't really know how to behave around family, and I am trying, through my lover, to understand traditions and hanging around people that you have nothing in common with. My mother had an engineering degree from Stanford, but fell in love with cocaine when I was 8 or 9. By the time I was thirteen she was a crackhead, and had taught me how to cook her rock. She was a drug dealer for most of the time I knew her, and I was a straight-A student with a freakishly high IQ (I started in 4th grade reading classes instead of kindergarten). I knew my grandmother, an aunt, and an uncle for only a very short time (my memories are dim) because they didn't want anything to do with my mother. Until I was ten she told me my father died in Vietnam, then she told me he was actually alive somewhere. I never knew any of my family, only my mother, and I ran away from home when I turned fourteen because I was worried for my life living with her -- I knew I'd be safer on the streets, and I was.* I slept in squats, in the park, in abandoned cars and on rooftops. I got food from begging, stealing, going through garbage, and later, doing a few hours of work for restaurants in exchange for a meal. Two gay men who ran a cafe helped me (and a bunch of other kids) get off the streets just before I turned eighteen. I worked in restaurants and took a proficiency test to get into college, on state funding (I sucked at math). I met with my mother again when I was 20, and she was still doing and dealing, and "borrowed" the money I had saved for books, and disappeared (thank the gods). I hunted down and met my father when I was 23, but when I found him in person, he told me to leave and never come back. I was really glad I met him as an adult, and not as a young girl. The gay couple who helped me off the streets were my family, as were the other kids. SRL is my family, and not only have we been through death-defying (and arrest-risking) situations together, they're so proud of me it's sometimes embarrassing. So I'm still trying to figure it out, and it's especially confusing after this weekend. Is that how family is? If so, I'm happy to keep my holidays to myself. * Contrary to stereotypes about people in the sex biz, I was never molested or abused. My Very Own Darwin Award (9/2) Am I a candidate for a Darwin Award? I wouldn't be at all surprised if I am. Cruising around ErosBlog, I stumbled across a link to "Autoerotic Fatalities With Power Hydraulics," and immediately had to send it to my SRL pals. I received an instant reply: "...says the girl covered in "motor oil" posed next to the running machine. ;) I'm pretty sure our little calendar has raised a few eyebrows in academia across the country. I can only imagine the pools regarding the next Darwin Award." To my delight, AdultFriendFinder reviewed my Ultimate Guide to Adult Videos. Hooray! I was approached a while back by a British TV Network for an interview -- it seems they're working on a new reality-TV comedy show about sex, and when they told me what it is, and what I would do in it, I was thrilled. Especially because I would go to London for the gig -- but to my dismay, I introduced them to too many exciting people here in SF, and now they're coming here. So next Thursday I get to be on a cool comedy show -- now *that's* the kind of stuff I want to be doing. But no London, boo-hoo. I really wanted to meet a few people I've connected with through this blog; maybe airfares will plummet and I'll escape for a weekend. At any rate, I set the UK TV folks up with the PornOrchestra misfits, and while I somehow ended up on their mailing list, I discovered that I am now in the orchestra. I do not play an instrument, unless you count the skin flute. Okay, I confess to sometimes putting on my favorite Theremin albums really loud and playing air Theremin in my underwear. But I think someone in PornOrchestra is having fun. I got the email and scanned the list of musicians/performers, and down at the very bottom was "Violet Blue: Color Commentary." Sweet. I'm just glad no one saw my Theremin/Risky Business routine. So many people ask me about sweetening or improving the taste of male ejaculate -- and yes, you really can sweeten a man's come. Check out my recipe for a Super Spunk Smoothie. Free Eddie (9/1) Oh, Fleshbot, how I love you for giving me the Olympic Bulge Awards, the only thing that made me wish I'd watched the Olympics. Ahhh! Random bits: Today I got this great email: That rocks. But meanwhile, where have I been? Prepping for the Sex Ed FF? Making a fort in my living room out of plank-like Paris Hilton Love Dolls? No, actually, I've been working my buns off, writing like a fiend on a few secret projects. That's one of things I hate most about big-deal writing projects -- they consume chunks of my life that I'd love to ponder blogistically but I can't even mention them to my friends, because people make us writers sign all these legal non-disclosure agreements. Which I understand, but still... Let's just say that after being sick, I returned to the fray to write for an average of 10 hours a day. Not possible you say? Indeed it is. I have a pseudonym I write under, too. How do I stay fresh and interesting? A) Bergamot bath gel, and B) I never duplicate projects so I don’t get bored writing about the same topic over and over. I know other erotica writers who are even more insane than I am with creative drive and workload -- Thomas Roche, Alison Tyler, M. Christian, Sage Vivant. These authors write unbelievable amounts, and it's good stuff, too. Yes, they have pseudonyms too, and no, I'm not telling. We're in the crazy sex writers club together. But after two weeks of 80+ hour workweeks, my arms hurt like hell, as if I had been tossing a heavy medicine ball around all day. So last weekend I took a break from the com-pooter, and organized my hall closet. Oh, and I went to a sex party. A sex party! Yes. And it was good. No, I didn’t have sex at it -- bok bok, I'm still a big chicken, though this sex machine almost got me off the couch for a spin. I'm still to timid to have sex in front of people, but hopefully someday I'll change that. I *did* skip wearing panties and wore a short BeBe fringe dress and super-stacked fetish heels, so I felt naughty underneath it all. I even spread my legs on the couch a few times after a few glasses of wine, but I don’t know if anyone noticed. The party itself was really awesome, a very low-key house party affair where I actually knew no one except my date -- and I liked that very much. Lots of bisexuality, kinky couples gay and straight, and overall lots of people my age with similar sensibilities, so we're talking 25-35 range, young-ish, whimsical, slightly bent folks. Lots of rubber outfits, much spanking and whipping, spontaneous public fucking and oral sex, sexy girls aplenty. Hornboy and I took a prime seat on a couch, drank wine, and just watched the rich pageant float by. I did, however, object to the elf. Yes, there was a guy there dressed as an adult, longhaired elf. In tight olive green Lycra, with a little loincloth and fake pointy ears. He looked like that Peter Pan dude (but with a mullet). He found a victim, er, I mean a girl that was alone at the party, and gave her one of those icky-guy, massage-turns-into-grope-session, then they spanked each other. Hornboy and I decided that nothing turned us off more than elf spanks. Bleah. On other fronts I'm miffed at a certain porn magazine. They asked me to write an article about teledildonics (computer-interfaced sex toys), and I did. I wrote a huge piece about the history of cybersex and teledildonics up to the present, interviewed inventors and mechanics from all over the US, researched patents and interviewed patent holders and licensees, and wrote a darn fine piece. Then I turned it in. And never heard back. At all. Nothing. Not a peep. Which is sadly typical of the porn industry, to be flaky and unprofessional, that is. Maybe the piece sucked, maybe they ran out of budget -- but they could have told me something. The piece is still mine, and I might develop it into a presentation for Dorkbot SF, much like my Sex and Electricity lecture, which was a hell of a lot of fun. I plan on returning to a regular blog posting schedule now, with less of that icky work stuff getting in the way. That is, while I work on the books I have due soon. Ducky Doolittle says I can do it -- I say I want to use her boobies as an oxygen mask.
Casting will begin immediately -- actually, there will be no casting, there will be a mandatory draft. If you wrote a book telling people what to do with human genitals, your participation in the show is required to continue your "sexpert" status. Uncut. Live. Gory stunts. Tales of fear. Novelty shopping will never be the same -- for anyone. * Eat handfuls of gooey gummy boobs and gummy peckers out of a fish tank filled with Strawberry Astroglide until everyone else barfs or faints Okay, I've been spending too much time writing about sex toys. I've been writing for 8-10 hours a day trying to catch up on work after the evil flu. Immersed in sex writing, I've even been taking research books to bed at night and getting even less sleep than usual. But I'm making progress... I even managed to squeeze in reading a non-sex book, Stormy Weather, right as the hurricane hit Florida, which gave me a funny perspective on the disaster. Highly recommended, it's a great pulp novel. I played hooky from my mountain of writing last night to go see one of my favorite films of all time, Fellini's La Dolce Vita. It was the last night playing at the old SF theater, The Castro, which is absolutely beautiful all on its own, in gilt and gold, complete with a working pipe organ that is played by a real human up until the movie begins. La Dolce Vita is one of the most beautiful films of all time; I smiled throughout the entire film, almost cried at the beauty of each scene, and went home wishing someone, anyone, would make a film like that these days. Okay, back to work! Entertain yourself with this personal ad, complete with flow chart, and this great video hot off the SRL wires (mega geeks only).
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Two links of particular note: 
